The scale of the government’s ambition heightens the stakes for all sides of politics and will probably determine how Albanese’s second term plays out
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Back in January 2021, when Australia was stuck in the warped reality of the pandemic, Anthony Albanese reshuffled Labor’s shadow cabinet in a bid to shore up support for his leadership.
Mark Butler, Albanese’s close ally and left faction heavyweight, had agreed to move out of the climate and energy portfolio, in a bid to stop bloodletting over whether Labor’s emissions policies were too ambitious and turning off voters. Albanese moved Chris Bowen into the role, charging the senior right faction member with reframing the debate from an environmental issue to one of economic reform.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/19/2025 - 10:00
09/19/2025 - 07:00
Researchers mapping how red squirrels would fare under climate breakdown scenarios found ‘a natural ability to adapt’
Red squirrels are thriving on the Isle of Wight where they have enough food and a suitable habitat to support a population that could almost double, a study has found.
Using climate models, the researchers mapped how the red squirrel population would fare under different climate breakdown scenarios such as temperature changes and low levels of rainfall, finding no direct impact on their survivability and “a natural ability to adapt to a range of climatic conditions”.
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09/19/2025 - 05:30
Exclusive: Officials say they have been told to do as little as legally possible to prevent approvals for housebuilding
The Environment Agency has been told by ministers to wave through planning applications with minimal resistance as part of a regulatory shakeup designed to increase economic growth and plug the government’s financial hole.
Officials at the agency say they have been told to do as little as legally possible to prevent housing applications from being approved and the government has drafted in senior advisers from the housing department to speed up the process.
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09/19/2025 - 04:21
Research which began with conversations round a campfire and went on to examine 7m gene variants shows how people survive with little water and a meat-rich diet
A collaboration between African and American researchers and a community living in one of the most hostile landscapes of northern Kenya has uncovered key genetic adaptations that explain how pastoralist people have been able to thrive in the region.
Underlying the population’s abilities to live in Turkana, a place defined by extreme heat, water scarcity and limited vegetation, has been hundreds of years of natural selection, according to a study published in Science.
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09/19/2025 - 02:28
Liberal leader later clarifies she doesn’t support setting targets while in opposition
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The Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, has indicated the Coalition won’t set a 2030 or 2035 climate target unless they return to government, saying her colleagues didn’t back locking in an emissions goal while they remained in opposition.
It came as Ley had to clean up her own error, claiming she “misspoke” after initially saying her party “don’t believe in setting targets at all from opposition or from government”. She later clarified she only meant in opposition, prompting ridicule from Anthony Albanese who claimed the opposition “changes its policies from hour to hour”.
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09/19/2025 - 00:00
London assembly committee says move will increase cleanliness of waterways and offer more access to outdoors
Ten new wild swimming locations should be created in London, a report from the London assembly has said, to boost cleanliness of the capital’s waterways and increase access to the outdoors.
Other cities are cleaning up their rivers for swimming: Paris has opened a swimming site in the Seine in the city centre and Chicago is running its first river swim in almost a century.
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09/19/2025 - 00:00
The best of this week’s wildlife photographs from around the world
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09/19/2025 - 00:00
Exclusive: Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at recent ICAO meeting, thinktank says
The UN aviation organisation has been captured by the industry, a report has concluded, leading to the urgent action required to tackle the sector’s high carbon emissions being blocked.
Industry delegates outnumbered climate experts by 14 to one at the recent “environmental protection” meeting of the UN International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), the report found. The ICAO is the forum where nations agree the rules governing international aviation.
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09/18/2025 - 23:01
Transport body promises to crack down on the small minority of people with four or more penalty notices
Transport for London is promising to crack down on drivers who flout its ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) after revealing that 94% of the £790m owed in fines has been racked up by persistent offenders.
Non-payers have been fined up to £17,000 this year, including one driver whose car was seized and sold at auction after he ignored 130 warning letters and 14 visits by enforcement officers.
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09/18/2025 - 10:00
The magnificent apex predator of the night, forced out of forests into urban landscapes, now confronts yet another silent killer: rat poison
Australian bird of the year 2025: nominate your favourite now
The air was crisp and the grass still wet with dew when I came upon what looked like a crime scene at my local park. The victim’s entrails were laid out in a neat line: a tiny intact kidney at one end and a small, bloodied mandible at the other, linked by a long string of intestines. Bandicoot remains? No, the fur looked more like possum.
I had found leftovers from the previous night’s dinner, and the diner was one of Australia’s apex predators, the powerful owl. Like some kind of bush bandit, it hunts at night, swooping silently before returning to the treetops to dismember and devour its hapless prey.
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