Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 4h

RBA says companies will have to accept lower profits growth. Doesn't quite have the same ring does it.

Greg Jericho @grogsgamut.bsky.social · 7h

How about no.

AFR headline: RBA says Australians will have to accept lower wages growth

Reposted by Tom Swann

Rod Campbell @rodcampbell.bsky.social · 6h

My new report is out - Adani sold coal at mates rates to India, avoiding $400m in royalty payments to Queensland

...and Qld's LNP gov doesn't seem to care.

Thread below on how they did it.

Write up in @australia.theguardian.com
@australiainstitute.org.au
www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Adani denies claims it sold ‘below-market coal’ leading to Queensland missing out on hundreds of millions in royalties

Adani has strongly rejected the Australia Institute’s findings, including that customers paid an average of $102 a tonne in 2022-23

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Polly Hemming @pollyjhemming.bsky.social · 23h

“The Albanese Government is committed to no new extinctions” Environment Minister Murray Watt, reaffirming Labor’s 2022 pledge on Threatened Species Day 2025

2 weeks later Australia’s only shrew is declared extinct.
#auspol #climate @australiainstitute.org.au
minister.dcceew.gov.au/watt/media-r...

screenshot of Minister watt's media release. Text captured says:
Recognising Threatened Species Day
7 September 2025
Today is Threatened Species Day, an opportunity to acknowledge the risks to Australia’s unique species and the work being done across the country to help them recover and thrive.

From tree plantings and weed removal to species specific mapping and monitoring using the latest conservation technology, countless individuals and organisations help every day to support and provide hope for threatened species.

It’s not just the work happening on the ground – research is finding innovative solutions to stay ahead of the game in the fight against key threats like feral cats, invasive weeds and climate change.

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Old White Nepo Hat @kenwhite.bsky.social · 4d

Should the New York Times be sold to Pennysaver and its editors sent to work in Amazon warehouses? It depends on who you ask.

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The Saturday Paper @thesaturdaypaper.com.au · 4d

Warnings about how to avoid a paper trail that might later be accessed by an FOI request are part of the induction kit for new political staffers. Even the acronym has its own crude nickname in the ministerial wing: “FOI. Fuck Off Idiot.” satpa.pe/zPB9QFA

Inside Albanese’s FOI reforms: ‘He hates transparency’

Labor’s reforms to freedom of information laws are opposed by every public submission made to the Senate, with the government’s record on secrecy worse than Scott Morrison’s.

satpa.pe

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Django Wexler @djangowexler.bsky.social · 5d

My boss: so how's our fourth quarter looking?

Me, the sales manager at the company that makes inflatable frog suits: well, you're never going to believe this, but

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 5d

University council meetings should be open to the media and the public by default.

Dr Liz Allen @drdemography.com · 5d

University governance is broken, and it’s breaking people.

University governance and associated regulatory structures assume the most powerful senior office holders will behave in accordance with the high standards benefiting their station.

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Ketan Joshi @ketanjoshi.co · 6d

Please enjoy this executive at one of America's biggest gas companies openly admitting that expanding supply leads to increased demand for fossil fuels

He is not wrong: frantic expansion of fossil fuel supply worsens climate change. Tax it, cut subsidies, wind it down

www.ft.com/content/5ba8...

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https://www.ft.com/content/5ba8caec-61d3-4aa9-a877-9b200ef4b5b0

Will Jordan, chief legal and policy officer at EQT, a leading US gas producer, also thought that any glut would be temporary, and said US demand was also rising on the boom in power-hungry artificial intelligence data centres.

Recommended

Oil & Gas industry
BP’s new chair signals more asset sales and demands faster restructuring

“Supply leads demand — you put the supply on the market and demand gets created.,” he said. “Over the long term we’re very bullish.”

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 14d

Standing alone, uh, excuse me

Reposted by Tom Swann

Travis Jordan @grugstan.bsky.social · 14d

Quite apart from all the talent being promoted for this, in the classic ABC fashion, were influential before I was born, I'm willing to predict this won't touch the role of legacy media darlings like Crabb in creating a political culture that turned voters off paying attention in the first place.

Tim Lyons @picketer.bsky.social · 17d

The asteroid cannot come fast enough. We can't have a long radio news bulletin at 7.45 am in the morning (that had run since 1939) because money but this is cool I guess.

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Cathy Tuttle @cathytuttle.bsky.social · 15d

This is the SMALL bike parking garage next to Utrecht Centraal Station. Free for 24 hours. With a bike repair shop, a few hundred OVfiets rental bikes, and a 24/7 secure, staffed parking lot for 4,200 bikes.

The new lot on the other side of the station holds 11,500 bikes.

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 15d

NT government subsidising Beetaloo fracked gas through a loan guarantee.

Meanwhile there are multiple solar farms in the NT built but not connected to the grid.

Failed state.

www.afr.com/companies/en...

Beetaloo gas to hit market in 2026, thanks to $75m NT guarantee

An unusual loan guarantee granted by the Northern Territory government has underscored how much gas from the project is needed.

www.afr.com

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 18d

Fighting the social evil of tens of thousands of new homes.

I'm all for dunking on developers but this beyond parody.

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 18d

Jeeesus

Reposted by Tom Swann

ceej @ceej.online · 20d

my daughter really captured my essence in this portrait of me “at work”

a bald stick figure in a chair with his arms out in front like he’s typing on a keyboard, and he’s got the biggest angry frown imaginable and eyebrows that express frustrated bemusement

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Gil Durán @gilduran.com · 21d

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it).

But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

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Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 21d

Fox & Friends: "You secure the button if you have the leader of the free world on the escalator ... is it a coincidence? You had the teleprompter go down, you had the escalator stop, Katie Pavlich said in the press room when the president started talking the volume went down significantly ... "

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22d

Trump: "I'm really good at predicting things. During the campaign they had a hat -- a best-selling hat -- 'Trump was right about everything.' And I don't say that in a braggadocios way, but it's true. I've been right about everything."

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 21d

“I’m really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell.”

Trump at the UN.

There will be whole books written about this quote even in decades time.

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 21d

Hundreds of billions of dollars and it is still a struggle to get a selfie

CAMERON WILSON @cameronwilson.bsky.social · 21d

he got his guy ….

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Alex Turnbull @alexbhturnbull.bsky.social · 22d

In case anyone was wondering I too find the bailout of the arch Ayn Rand libertarian government of #Argentina by the America First government doubly funny.

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Purplepingers ☭ @purplepingers.bsky.social · 23d

An update on that insane lease term where the landlord owns everything you create during the tenancy:

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 22d

Trump to the UN: "I'm really good at this stuff. Your countries are going to hell."

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Tom Swann @tomswann.bsky.social · 22d

Since Sophie died, and before, I have read widely about grief, some non fiction but mostly memoirs. (It seems uniquely difficult to write honestly about deep loss without the loss being real.)

The best I think is the classic, A Grief Observed by C S Lewis. Cause to cry in agreement every few pages.

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Reposted by Tom Swann

Our ANU @ouranu.bsky.social · 23d

“Ultimately, the responsibility [for ANU] rests with the chancellor, Julie Bishop. She presided over this continued period of dysfunction, and it was under her watch that catastrophic failures occurred,”

Senator Anthony Sheldon

www.afr.com/politics/fed...

ANU’s ‘catastrophic failures’ happened on Bishop’s watch: Sheldon

If ANU is serious about rebuilding trust, it cannot do so while Julie Bishop is chancellor, says Tony Sheldon, the man behind the Senate report into university governance.

www.afr.com

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