RESPONDING TO RECESSION

With Australia officially entering its first recession in almost three decades, The Sydney Morning Herald and the AFR ($) report that the Morrison government is considering bringing forward $158 billion worth of personal income tax cuts and business investment incentives in the October budget, as well as the flagged changes to ­industrial relations and “red tape”.

As the ABC explains, Bureau of Statistics figures show GDP fell 7% for the June quarter — the worst on record — and followed a 0.3% fall in the March quarter; fewer places to spend money also saw household expenditure dropping 12.1% and the household saving rate jumped from 6 to 19.8%.

But despite the economic benefit of financially supporting low-income spenders — and the fact ABS notes the record 2.5% plunge in total wages would have been much worse without JobKeeper — The Guardian reports that the Coalition is holding firm on plans to reduce both the wage subsidy scheme and COVID-19 JobSeeker supplement this month; the Senate also voted against a motion by Greens Senator Rachel Siewert to maintain the current supplement rate of $550 a week.

PS: In the government’s latest turn at shaming the states, the ABC reports that the government has today used modelling predicting a $55 billion tourism hit to slam "disproportionate” approaches to state borders.

PUTIN CRITIC 'WITHOUT DOUBT' POISONED

According to the ABC, the German government has announced that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was “without doubt” poisoned by the nerve agent Novichok, a toxin the British government has previously accused Russian agents of using to poison former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in 2018.

As the long-time critic of Vladimir Putin remains in an induced coma in Berlin, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has declared that Russia must answer “difficult questions” over “the attempted murder through poisoning against a leading Russian opposition figure”.

PS: As the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project unpacked last month, Navalny not only worked in politics up until the government banned him from it in 2018, but has a long history of anti-corruption video journalism that included revealing then-prime minister Dmitri Medvedev’s retail empire.

INCITE INSIGHT

In another one of those big red warning signs, The Guardian reports that Ballarat resident Zoe Buhler has become the fourth person charged with “incitement” to protest this week as Victoria Police crackdown on so-called “freedom day” anti-lockdown protests.

Buhler, who had created a now-deleted Facebook event to coincide with a Melbourne protest, was arrested in her house. Victoria Police later put out a statement reading, “any gathering of this nature is in blatant breach of the chief health officer’s directions and puts Victorian lives at risk”.

Further north, the ABC reports that the committal hearing into Alice Springs officer Zachary Rolfe has heard he shot Yuendumu teenager Kumanjayi Walker at “very close” range. Another officer gave evidence that both his and Rolfe’s body cameras fell off during the incident.

PS: In the latest from US cops, NPR reports that a man charged with running a drug syndicate was offered a plea deal in July if he named Breonna Taylor — the 26-year-old Black woman who killed by police four months earlier in a home raid — as a member of his alleged gang.