Morning mail: Labor factional brawl, renewables surge, mentrification

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/may/29/morning-mail-labor-factional-brawl-renewables-surge-mentrification

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Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday 29 May.

Top stories

A factional brawl is set to erupt within the Labor party over concerns the party’s right faction may block Kristina Keneally’s elevation to the frontbench. New leader Anthony Albanese, who has indicated he wants to see more women in senior roles, is understood to have prevailed upon the party’s right faction to include Keneally in the group of MPs it wants in the shadow ministry. But the NSW right, of which Keneally is a member, is blocking her elevation, leading to pressure on South Australian factional powerbroker Don Farrell to make way for the former NSW premier by sacrificing his own position as deputy Senate leader. The brawl is set to come to a head on Thursday, when the party’s factions put forward the names of MPs that will make up Albanese’s new frontbench.

Australia is on track to achieve 50% renewable electricity by 2030 even without new federal energy policies, according to modelling by the energy analysts RepuTex. The analysis, to be released on Wednesday, suggests that a surge in renewable energy driven by state schemes and rooftop solar installations will reduce wholesale prices from $85 per MWh to $70 over the next three years. Lower prices will make gas- and coal-fired power less competitive, even without a market mechanism to make fossil fuels reflect the cost of pollution or a direct constraint on emissions, although a lack of federal policy could lead to longer-term price rises, RepuTex found.

House prices should stop falling later this year and could even rise a little in 2020, according to HSBC chief economist Paul Bloxham, who says there are now some signs the housing market is starting to stabilise. He pointed to rising auction clearance rates in the major cities and consumer sentiment surveys suggesting households think it’s an increasingly good time to buy a dwelling. “The housing market is also expected to be supported by cash rate cuts over the coming months, which should see mortgage rates fall, and a recent loosening of prudential settings by the authorities, both of which should support the flow of finance,” he said. HSBC expects house prices to stop falling in the second half of 2019 and pick up in 2020, also supported by first-homebuyer subsidies and rising household incomes. National housing prices have fallen by 8% over the past 18 months, with HSBC forecasting a peak-to-trough decline of about 10%.

World

Theresa May has blamed the failure to deliver Brexit for the Conservative party’s disastrous European election results in her first public appearance since announcing her resignation as prime minister, but cautioned against leaving the EU without a deal.

Robert Mueller drew up a three-count obstruction of justice indictment against Donald Trump before deciding to shelve it, according to a new book by Fire and Fury author Michael Wolff – an explosive claim which a spokesman for Mueller flatly denied.

Saudi Arabia has been accused of launching a sophisticated hacking attack against a prominent dissident in London who is allegedly living under police protection, according to a letter of claim that has been sent to the kingdom and seen by the Guardian.

MacKenzie Bezos has promised to give away at least half her $36.6bn (AU$52.9) fortune. The 49-year-old novelist recently became the world’s fourth-richest woman after her divorce from Jeff Bezos, the founder and chief executive of Amazon.

Exploding stars led to humans walking on two legs, a radical new study suggests. Scientists say a surge of radiation led to lightning causing forest fires, making adaptation vital.

Opinion and analysis

In its first acclaimed season, ABC comedy The Letdown broke new ground, exploring the exhausting reality crisis of parenthood. In its second season, which premieres tonight, star and co-creator Alison Bell explains they took the darkness even further – with scenes she says she was nervous to write and act in. “Why just tread water, why just repeat stuff we’ve seen a thousand times?” Bell says. “The scene that I’m most proud of is probably the darkest in the show. And to me, it’s also the funniest.”

This month, a new term was coined on Tumblr: “Mentrification”. With roots in “gentrification”, the phenomenon describes when a cultural moment shaped by women – from Star Trek to beer; from computers to the Beatles – gets taken over by men instead. “Once you know the female history of computer development in particular,” writes Van Badham, “you can’t unsee the giant cock-and-balls that’s been scribbled all over it.”

Sport

Naomi Osaka has recovered from a terrible start to beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova at the French Open. “Osaka has handed out enough bagels in her career to open a bakery,” writes Kevin Mitchell. “But the world No 1 experienced the humiliation herself before recovering to beat Anna Karolina Schmiedlova 0-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1 – one of the oddest scores at this French Open.

World Rugby estimates that up to 70% of head injuries in the game are sustained by the tackler, rather than the tackled player. It’s a growing problem the game is facing and one which may require a radical law change to solve.

Thinking time: ‘Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups.’

The death toll on Mount Everest has grown to 11 in the past day after an American doctor was killed while descending from the peak. It emerged also that an Australian climber was discovered unconscious but had survived after being transported downhill on the back of a yak. Elia Saikaly, a film-maker, reached Hillary Step, the final stage before the summit, on the morning of 23 May, where he said the sunrise revealed the lifeless body of another climber. With little choice at that altitude but to keep moving, his team – including Joyce Azzam, the first Lebanese woman to climb the world’s “Seven Summits” – made it to the peak a short time later.

“I cannot believe what I saw up there,” Saikaly said of the last hours of his climb in a post on Instagram. “Death. Carnage. Chaos. Lineups. Dead bodies on the route and in tents at camp 4. People who I tried to turn back who ended up dying. People being dragged down. Walking over bodies. Everything you read in the sensational headlines all played out on our summit night.” This year’s Everest climbing season is so far the fourth deadliest on record, with mountaineers blaming poor weather, inexperienced climbers and a record number of permits issued by the Nepalese government, which, along with a rule that every climber has to be accompanied by a sherpa, led to there being more than 820 people trying to reach the summit.

“There were 200-plus climbers making their way to the summit,” Saikaly told the Guardian of his ascent. “I came across a deceased climber … that person’s body was fixed to an anchor point between two safety lines and every single person that was climbing towards the summit had to step over that human being.

Media roundup

Australian military aircraft have been targeted by lasers in the South China Sea and Chinese maritime militia vessels are believed to be behind the series of attacks, the ABC reveals. The Sydney Morning Herald reports that Sydney’s lockout laws are set to be relaxed. The Australian reports that “Energy companies will be compelled to cut wholesale prices and guarantee supply as the re-elected Morrison government prepares to revive [its] “big stick” divestment laws”. Also in the Oz, Janet Albrechtsen writes – under the headline Women’s libbers clueless after rational vote accompanied by an illustration of the ABC logo as a burning bra – that, “On the morning after the federal election, the banality of modern feminism was confirmed by our public broadcaster.” Ivan Milat appears on the front page of the Daily Telegraph today, following his transfer to Long Bay Jail, “to prepare for a painful lingering death from cancer”.

Coming up

Scott Morrison’s new cabinet meets for the first time since the 18 May federal election. The cabinet meeting is expected to follow the swearing in.

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