Ed Husic’s push for Labor to recognise claims of a genocide against Israel has failed amid resistance from factional powerbrokers, prompting the backbencher to criticise the party’s culture under Anthony Albanese.

On Saturday, the former industry minister said he doesn’t “give a shit” if senior colleagues freeze him out for constantly breaking ranks, and vowed to keep speaking about contentious issues.

Two hours later, the party’s 50th national conference wrapped up without any major fights after a potential row over Israel and Palestine never materialised.

Instead, there was a staged moment of unity for Labor, with MPs Josh Burns, who is Jewish, and Basem Abdo, the son of Palestinian refugees, to jointly support an update to the party’s foreign platform to reflect the government’s position on Israel, Palestine and Hamas.

An international team of researchers, including experts from Monash University, has developed a world-first, commercially sized tandem solar cell that eliminates the need for a scarce and expensive metal.

The breakthrough… replaces costly indium-based oxide with abundant tin oxide. The new material costs just one per cent of the price of indium, achieving this dramatic cost reduction without sacrificing the solar cell’s performance.

(Tandem cells capture more of the solar spectrum by stacking multiple layers with different bandgaps.)

Streaming services, where more than half of Australians now watch sport, will be allowed to run unlimited gambling ads during every break, any time of day. Television keeps the current rules. Streaming doesn’t. It also does nothing about sign-up bonuses like “bet $10, get $50 in bonus bets,” which researchers say are among the most effective ways to hook people into compulsive gambling.

Three years ago, an all-party parliamentary inquiry recommended something much simpler: phase out gambling advertising altogether. That recommendation was unanimous. This bill [the current govt introduced] doesn’t deliver it.

The Greens and the Coalition, who agree on almost nothing, have sent the bill to a Senate inquiry rather than wave it through. That inquiry is taking public submissions right now.

We’re building a GetUp submission made up of members’ names and comments, calling on the inquiry to recommend the full ban Murphy proposed. Add your name, and if you want to say why this matters to you, there’s space for that too.

On Tuesday, the managing director of publishing, Tory Maguire, told staff the company was looking to cut “around 30” positions, made up of voluntary and targeted redundancies. Maguire said the exercise was not simply a matter of cutting costs, but was an “evolution” to adapt to structural change.

“In the last 12 months, as we have discussed many, many times at the publishing town halls, we are in an extreme state of disruption because of AI,” she said.

The company has plans to retrain and to hire people for “digital-first, reader-savvy, data-informed roles”…

The announcement came two years after Nine Entertainment cut 200 jobs, including 90 positions from the legacy mastheads and the AFR.

The environment minister Murray Watt’s approval of the project last year was met with fury from conservationists and the Greens.

The approval, allowing Woodside’s Karratha gas processing plant to operate until 2070, has been described as a “carbon bomb” and according to ACF would see about 4bn tonnes of CO2 released into the atmosphere – equivalent to about 10 years of Australia’s annual emissions.

The gas plant operates beside the Murujuga indigenous rock art complex – a landscape of more than a million petroglyphs dating back 50,000 years, including the oldest known image of a human face.

The article gives a summary of various alternative fuels being developed in Australia.

While Australia’s rapid electrification is critical for net-zero targets and resilience across Australia’s energy system, it cannot solve the entire equation.

Hard-to-abate sectors – including aviation, heavy industry, agriculture and mining – face challenges relating to the use of electricity at the scales and temperatures required. Major fuel users require scalable and affordable alternative fuels to lower emissions while safeguarding operational continuity.

According to CSIRO’s research director – energy technologies Dr Daniel Roberts, who presented on a panel at the recent SAF APAC (Sustainable Aviation Fuel) Summit in Melbourne, supporting and enabling the alternative fuel transition requires a shift in mindset.

“There is no such thing as a single solution approach for a challenge of this magnitude,” Dr Roberts said. “Ultimately we will rely on a balanced portfolio of feedstocks and technologies, with each being evaluated on a case-by-case basis from the perspectives of scale, deployment time, feedstock availability, and cost.”

https://www.energymagazine.com.au/from-canola-to-ammonia-mapping-australias-alternative-fuel-pathways/

“We’ve got a bunch of hollows and stuff that we’re going to put inside there and create them some really cool little dens so that they feel as safe as they possibly can inside the enclosures.”

Dr Cummings said another part of the preparatory work was making sure the sanctuary had food for the quolls if the poultry industry was affected by bird flu.

“We’re building up a little stockpile of chickens and rabbits and kangaroo meat and things like that so … we’ve got some food on hand to feed these critters while we’ve got them,” he said.

Scott Reef, off the Kimberley Coast of WA, is one of the wildest places left in Australian waters.

Woodside’s Browse gas project threatens this underwater marvel—proposing to drill for gas just 3km from the Reef.

But that’s not all. Thousands of kilometers away, the Great Barrier Reef faces an extra 29.35 million dead coral colonies during every future bleaching event due to the climate pollution caused by the Browse project, which is estimated to emit a staggering 1.6 billion tonnes of emissions over the lifetime of the project.

The government has agreed to accept public submissions on whether it should consider the impacts of climate pollution from the Woodside gas project on the Great Barrier Reef.

We [Wilderness Society) say it’s a no brainer. The government must take this significant impact on both iconic reefs into consideration. Add your name to our submission today to amplify our voices.

Submissions close 22 July 2026.

On Monday Rubio’s team issued a statement announcing ‘a sweeping campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the International Criminal Court to US sovereignty.’ The campaign ‘will feature a whole-of-government response to systematically disable the ICC’s ability to operate, target American servicemen or officials, or otherwise threaten American sovereignty.’

In other words, if you are in the US government and committing war crimes, aiding Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, or facilitating crimes against humanity, you won’t see a jail cell even if the evidence against you is overwhelming.

If Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping or the smarter-than-Trump Iranian leadership put out a statement such as this, western politicians, media and commentators would be outraged. They would fulminate about universal human rights and that China, Iran and Russia are rogue states. But because this is Washington, the response is muted at best in Paris, London, Berlin and don’t forget Canberra…

In Tehran, Beijing and Moscow they rightly call out the double standards of the west and we take no notice. But we should because the Trump Administration is committed to ensuring that its military can kill civilians, bomb hospitals, abuse women and children and starve the population if that fits the bill.

The Australian Labor Party looks set to include a new tax regime for the export gas industry in their party platform at next week’s ALP National Conference in Adelaide, according to reporting in the Australian Financial Review over the weekend.

The idea of a 25 per cent tax on gas exports, which is already supported by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), has received wide support across the country, uniting politicians from all sides of politics, big business and environmental organisations in a broad and ever-growing coalition.

Disability organisations and housing advocates have also added their voice to calls for a tax on gas exports, arguing the money raised would help properly fund essential services for vulnerable Australians.

https://thepoint.com.au/new/260719_gas_export_tax_labor_policy

I am lucky enough to have red-necked wallabies visit my place and I love the way they stand very still looking at me to make sure I am no threat. I’m not but vehicle drivers on the streets around my place often are. I’ve pulled off a dead wallaby and a friend helped me to get another badly-injured one to the vet where it was put down. Other neighbours have had similar experiences. What a terrible feeling it is to see these and other beautiful native animals dead by the side of the road. If cars weren’t bad enough, wallabies face other threats.

Australia’s larger kangaroos are generally widespread, mobile, able to use a range of open habitats and capable of fending off predators. Our wallabies are far more particular. Some depend on rocky ranges and escarpments. Others need dense woodland or particular patches of arid-country vegetation. Their smaller ranges and more specialised habitats make them especially vulnerable when Country is cleared, fragmented, overgrazed, or affected by climate change and catastrophic bushfires.

Many smaller wallabies also fall within, or close to, Australia’s notorious “critical weight range”: mammals weighing roughly 35 grams to 5.5 kilograms that are particularly devastated by foxes and feral cats.

For more interesting info and great photos of various types have a look at this article: https://www.lyrebirddreaming.com/post/our-other-wallabies?cid=041a981b-853b-4355-a7b0-1182c033c5f6

You might also like this video, Fight to save the endangered [Victorian] southern brush-tailed rock wallaby https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vd3Q0uGKcDc

Climate change has lengthened Australia’s fire season and has already seen an increase in the number of days where the risk of fire is high. It’s a familiar narrative around the world.

EDIT: Australia’s expertise and experience in bushfires has meant its fire services have in recent years regularly shared personnel and equipment with the United States and Canada, and vice versa.

One of Australia’s large air tankers has been on the US west coast helping fight fires in recent weeks, and will be followed by almost 70 personnel next week.

“Around the world we are seeing conditions we haven’t seen before,” says Shepherd. “The more we all learn from each other, the better it is for us all around the globe.”

A study tracked 40 bearded dragons using hand-sewn outfits fitted with sensors that monitored movement, temperature and acceleration.

The study found faster lizards were more likely to die than slower ones.

They’re blooming quick! If for no other reason, have a look in the article at a pretty funny old video of a couple of blokes and a ute trying to catch a wombat. 🤣

I also found out if a wombat is chased by a dingo or a dog, “the wombat will block off the entrance to its burrow with its incredibly hard bum.” 🤣

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/34563634

If you love classical music or would like to know more of what it’s like, you can see these musicians perform at the semifinals in Sydney and Melbourne. It only costs $10 to experience the sounds these brilliant young people make. Details in the article.

cross-posted from: https://aussie.zone/post/33336382

Some tips might be helpful to you.

I was thinking that as it seems times aren’t going to get easier that there should be a section aiming at supporting each other with practical info and also discussing issues to do with family or solo life, children, ageing and health.

Let me know your thoughts and if you like the concept, can you think of alternative names for the community? Let’s see what we can come up with.

Most winter energy advice focuses on heaters and insulation but energy savings often come from places people rarely check. Small and inexpensive changes can reduce heat loss more than many standard upgrades.

Interestingly, most Australian homes lose heat in simple ways. Warm air escapes through tiny gaps, cold surfaces draw heat from the body and open-plan layouts let warmth drift away.