CHEQUERED KOREA

US President Donald Trump has pre-emptively cancelled a historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, citing “anger and hostility” in recent correspondence.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports that, in a stunning letter to Jong-un released by the White House via Twitter, Trump has chosen to cancel the meeting after North Korea released a statement calling Vice-President Mike Pence a “political dummy”. Both US and North Korea statements also reference each country’s nuclear capabilities. 

Coinciding with the letter, North Korea claims to have demolished its nuclear test site, carrying out a series of explosions in front of foreign journalists in what the government says is a measure “to ensure the transparency of discontinuance of nuclear test”. 

COP SHOCK

Lawyers have argued that a Victorian police officer was caught on camera punching a teenager, before the officer’s partner demanded the footage be deleted and then, after arresting the teens, attempted to erase the footage himself.

The ABC reports that Simon Mareangareu and Dennis Gundrill are currently facing charges of unlawful imprisonment, attempting to pervert the course of justice, and perjury over the incident, with Mareangareu also charged with intentionally causing injury for allegedly punching 17-year-old Kyan Foster in Melbourne’s east on Christmas Day 2014. Jury members watched footage of the alleged assault captured by 16-year-old Stuart Laird. Laird’s phone had been taken and returned to him with the footage deleted, but Laird’s father paid experts to recover the video.

TRIGGER UNHAPPY

Hundreds of South Australian gun owners have faced warnings and confiscations under new laws designating stronger storage protocols, as police audits prepare owners for stricter penalties come June.

The Adelaide Advertiser ($) reports that while police have found relatively few problems among the state’s 65,000 licensed owners of 300,000 registered firearms, audits based on tougher storage legislation that was introduced in July last year have resulted in confiscations, warnings and unregistered guns located. Owners across the state have until next month until more serious penalties apply, under rules abolishing wooden and flimsy steel gun cabinets and ensuring stricter locking and hiding of guns during transportation.

[free_worm]

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

PW: “It’s your advice mate.”

[Did you just call him mate?]

PW: “Yeah sorry, it’s your advice.”

[Senator …]

PW: “It’s a colloquial thing!”

[Yeah but not in–]

PW: “I’m not–all right, all right sorry! I withdraw ‘mate’… very un-Australian of you.”

[It sort of seems a bit disrespectful of you]

Penny Wong, a room full of dorks

In grilling Australian Electoral Commissioner Tom Rogers over an outwardly suspicious byelection timeframe, the Labor Senator gets roasted by estimates colleagues for adding in an unparliamentary, distinctly Australian-aggressive “mate”.

CRIKEY QUICKIE: THE BEST OF YESTERDAY

As government ramps up Howard-style attack on the ABC, where’s Milne?Bernard Keane

“We’ve been here before with the government’s attacks on Emma Alberici and the ABC. It’s a replay of the Howard government’s assault on the ABC over its Iraq war coverage in 2003/04. There’s one key difference: the absence of the ABC chair from the debate.”

The ‘new’ scheme to prevent Indigenous deaths in custodyJack Latimore

“Police in Western Australia will now be required to notify Aboriginal legal service solicitors whenever an Indigenous person is detained after the state government finally committed to a new program this week that is designed to stop deaths in custody.”

Who is offering cash to be a News Corp source?Emily Watkins

“Someone claiming to be a ‘News Limited’ journalist is fishing for a case-study on a crowd sourcing website, and they’re even paying for it. A post on Source Bottle — a website that lets journalists and writers call-out for sources — was tweeted out by the site’s account on Tuesday. It asked for anyone who’d been sacked by Newcastle Permanent Building Society. That in itself wasn’t particularly unusual — posts apparently from Nine’s 60 Minutes and Fairfax Media are also currently calling out for sources related to Newcastle Permanent.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Sydney woman Maria Exposto sentenced to death in Malaysia for drug trafficking

Labor may postpone national conference after ‘disgraceful’ byelection decision

Out-of-control bushfire threatening lives in WA’s South West

$160k for Cyclone Marcus tree survey ($)

Landmark NDIS funding agreement for NSW

One dead, two others fighting for life after gas leak at paper mill

ASIO chief Duncan Lewis sounds fresh alarm over foreign interference threat

Live exports regulator cries while describing conditions that led to 2,400 sheep deaths

MH17: Investigators confirm Russian missile was used to shoot down plane

Zuckerberg set up fraudulent scheme to ‘weaponise’ data, court case alleges

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Canberra

  • Day one of the three-day Australian Medical Association National Conference will feature political and health representatives, panels, awards and scholarship announcements, and the election of a new AMA President. Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt, Labor Shadow Health Minister Catherine King and Greens Leader Senator Richard Di Natale are expected to help open the event.

  • Day one of a new round of estimates will feature portfolio representatives for Indigenous Affairs (Department of Prime Minister & Cabinet, Department of Health and agencies including land corporations, businesses, hostels, studies and township leasing) and the Murray Darling Basin (Department of Agriculture and Water Resource, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority, the Department of Environment And Energy).

Melbourne

  • State and territory treasurers will meet, without Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison, as the “Board of Treasurers”. Today will be the second time they have met since the board was set up in 2017.

  • A banking royal commission small business public hearing will examine a case involving Westpac’s Bank of Melbourne, before hearing about a family affected by various debts to Suncorp following the father’s death.

  • A vigil and protest will be held outside state parliament for a Rohingyan refugee who died by suicide on Manus Island earlier this week. The vigil is organised by the Refugee Action Collective with speakers including Greens Senator Janet Rice and Sudanese refugee Abdul Aziz Adam live from Manus.

    Lifeline: 13 11 14

  • Chairman of Airlines for Australia and New Zealand, Professor Graeme Samuel, will address airport privatisation, parking fees and other concerns at the Melbourne Press Club.

  • Union members will rally outside Liberal MP Julia Banks’ office after she claimed she could live on the $40-a-day Newstart allowance.

  • Port Melbourne Primary School students will premiere By the Light of the Moon, an act commissioned by Opera Australia for the 2018 Victorian Schools Tour, in front of Creative Industries Minister Martin Foley.

  • ARIA award winner Kate Ceberano will unveil a cast of 36 children, aged between nine and 13, for the upcoming School of Rock musical.

  • About 1000 runners to take to the Mornington Peninsula coastline to raise funds for The Fred Hollows Foundation.

  • Over 100 workers from Note Printing Australia, a wholly owned subsidiary of the RBA, will strike for 24 hours from 6am this morning over a pay dispute.

Perth

  • WA Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan is expected to make an announcement on a possible summer ban for live exports, after a week investigating state legal powers under WA’s Animal Welfare Act.

  • Day five of a search for Ian Collett, a missing 65-year-old grandfather with dementia last seen walking away from Perth’s metropolitan area into rugged countryside in Mount Cooke, near Jarrahdale, around midnight last Saturday.

  • WA Labor MP Matt Keogh and candidates Patrick Gormann and Josh Wilson will hold a press conference on rumours that Liberal Minister for Aged Care and Indigenous Health Ken Wyatt will retire, which Mr Wyatt has called “bollocks”.

  • Cystic Fibrosis WA will aim to sell 15,000 roses this year on “65 Roses Day” to provide care to children and adults living with CF and to fund research.

  • Day one of the three day Ningaloo Whale Shark Festival, to celebrate WA’s whale shark migration in Exmouth.

Sydney

  • The UNSW Australian Human Rights Institute’s event “Gathering the facts about Myanmar rights abuses” will hear from Australian human rights expert Chris Sidoti on his experience with The United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission to Myanmar, which has found overwhelming evidence of human rights violations by military forces in Rakhine State.

  • Masterchef winner Julie Goodwin is scheduled to be in court on drink-driving charges.

Brisbane

  • Rick Thorburn will be sentenced for the murder of his foster daughter, 12 year-old Tialeigh Palmer.

  • Another pre-inquest conference will commence before the long-awaited inquest hearings into the deaths of four people killed in the Dreamworld ride disaster begins.

Darwin

  • The NT Writers’ Festival will run until Sunday, after an opening ceremony last night.

Adelaide

  • Ahead of National Sorry Day tomorrow, a commemorative event in support of the Stolen Generations will be held in Victoria Square / Tarntanyangga and feature a Welcome to Country, educational events, guest speakers, food, drink and music entertainment.

Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea

  • Day one of a two-day APEC meeting for trade ministers.

Auckland, New Zealand

  • Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei will mark the 40th anniversary of the stand-off between protesters and police at Bastion Point, which followed a more-than 500-day occupation over a development dispute and ended with 222 arrests.

THE COMMENTARIAT

Grattan on Friday: ‘Super Saturday’ is not so super in Labor’s eyes — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): “It’s not much good Labor playing the blame game about the July 28 date of the five Super Saturday byelections. In fair part, it has been the architect of its own troubles. If Bill Shorten had agreed last year to dealing with any Labor MPs who had questionable citizenship status when they nominated, this would be over. But he insisted the ALP members were all okay. They weren’t. It was a case of hubris and short-term tactics.”

Pacific Solution has become a mess for Coalition and a point of division for Labor — Roman Quaedvlieg (Sydney Morning Herald): “It’s more than passingly ironic that the newly elected Member for Batman, Ged Kearney, espouses the principle of solidarity in her maiden speech to parliament. It’s no surprise that the accomplished former trade unionist would echo the rallying call of the Labor movement in her first formal utterances in the house, however she would do well to heed her own call in Labor’s approach to the vexed issue of border protection.”

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