The Morning Edition SMH & The Age

Our country has just received this year's first economics report card and the news is not good. The last time the Australian economy was this slow - outside of the pandemic - was the very early 1990s, when then treasurer Paul Keating famously announced that Australia had entered a recession.

Are we now teetering on the edge of another one? Many news reports suggest as much. And just last week, treasurer Jim Chalmers acknowledged that many Australians are suffering through "uncertain times”.

Today, senior economics correspondent Shane Wright on what’s causing our economy to grind to a near halt. And whether this might soon lead to another interest rate hike.
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Last month, Tuvalu and Australia confirmed a landmark climate and security pact, which would allow 280 Tuvaluans to migrate to Australia every year.

The Falepili Union marks the first time Australia has offered resettlement rights due to the threat posed by climate change.

But the new migration pathway will leave many Tuvaluans facing difficult questions: stay or go? How does the diaspora preserve their culture and language in the face of a disappearing homeland? And what happens to a country without land?Today, social affairs editor Jewel Topsfield and regional editor Ben Preiss read their feature titled ‘Tuvalu is being swallowed by the ocean. Its people face a difficult choice.’
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Amid the national debate about immigration levels, it was reported this week that yoga instructors, martial artists and dog handlers have been put above some construction trades on the nation’s draft priority skills list for migrants. 

This is despite a desperate need for tradies to build more homes to address the nation’s housing crisis. 

Plus, a look at another important skills shortage - in our armed forces.

Joining Jacqueline Maley to discuss all this is chief political correspondent David Crowe and national affairs editor Matthew Knott.

Cut through the noise of federal politics with news, views and expert analysis from Jacqueline Maley. Subscribers can sign up to our weekly Inside Politics newsletter here.
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When far-right populist-turned TV presenter Nigel Farage made the bombshell announcement, on Monday, that he’d be vying for a seat in the British parliament in the upcoming election, the media had a field day.Hadn’t Farage, one of the architects of Brexit, announced, just weeks before, that he wouldn’t be running? And this, after a total seven previous tilts at a seat in the House of Commons over the last 30 years. All unsuccessful.And this was before Farage was splattered with a milkshake, thrown by a protester, on his first day of campaigning.Today, international and political editor Peter Hartcher on why Nigel Farage, though on the fringe of politics, still poses a threat to British society. And the rise of the far-right across the globe.
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When rumours began swirling over the weekend that former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg might be poised to return to politics, fiery commentary broke out on both sides of the political spectrum.

Did Frydenberg - or those loyal to him - want to muscle out of contention a young, Oxford-educated woman who had already won pre-selection to contest the Victorian seat of Kooyong, in the next election?

As one woman put it, “Women are not collateral damage for Josh Frydenberg’s regrets”.  

Today, columnist Jacqueline Maley on Frydenberg’s spot in the sunshine after a two year-retreat from public life. And whether this latest political powerplay has benefited, or harmed, the former treasurer and the Liberal party.
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Two weeks ago, news broke that Darren Wick, the former head of Channel Nine’s news and current affairs division, had been the subject of a complaint from a female staff member, who alleged that the news boss had behaved inappropriately towards her.

Since then, the number of allegations has grown. Around a dozen former and current staffers at the Nine network, which owns this masthead, have alleged verbal or physical misconduct by Wick. 

Today, chief reporter Jordan Baker, on the impact that Wick’s alleged behaviour has had on the female staffers at the organisation. And the so-called “culture of silence” that enables sexual harassment to occur.
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