Good morning, this is Graham Russell bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 1 September.

Top stories

The New Zealand Labour party has continued its extraordinary surge under the month-old leadership of Jacinda Ardern, with a new poll putting its support at a 10-year high, and for the first time in front of the governing National party in the run-up to this month’s general election. Labour’s projected share of the vote has risen from 26% to 43% since Ardern, 37, became the party’s youngest leader. Ardern and the prime minister, Bill English, met in a leaders’ debate on Thursday in which English was asked in the opening question: “Bill, why are you losing?”

Political pundits were divided on who won the debate, but the political editor of the New Zealand Herald, Audrey Young, said Ardern’s fluent style had put the prime minister under presssure. “It was Bill English but not as we know him. He sounded as though he has been in a debating bootcamp for the past week, learning about gesticulation, intonation, brevity and how good it is to smile.”

Liberals in Western Australia have tabled a motion to force the prime minister to look again at repealing section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, but one of their senior colleagues has poured cold water on the whole idea. WA Liberal MP Ian Goodenough, who chaired the joint parliamentary committee that developed options to reform the Australian Human Rights Commission’s complaints handling procedures for 18C cases, says though it is an “ideological goal” of conservatives in the party, those pushing for urgent reform should wait until the recommendations work their way through the system. motion will be debated and voted on in the presence of Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop this weekend.

Scott Morrison has surprisingly held up the heavily unionised construction industry as a model for pay rises following growth in profits. During an interview on the ABC’s 7.30 program last night, Morrison dropped his party’s previous demonisation of the CFMEU and mentioned construction and IT security as two sectors where profit growth had generated wage rises. He said he expected that pattern to be replicated now the economy was turning around. Before the election Malcolm Turnbull promised the Coalition would stop excessive pay demands from the construction union because the revived Australian Building and Construction Commission would prevent industrial coercion.

The US has ordered Russia to close diplomatic offices in San Francisco, New York and Washington by Saturday in the latest round of punitive measures between the two countries. The state department said it had cuts its mission in Russia from 1,200 to 455 as requested and had then ordered Thursday night’s reprisal “in the spirit of parity invoked by the Russians”. Experts predict the mutual expulsions won’t stop there. Meanwhile, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has published drone footage showing what he claims is Vladimir Putin’s secret holiday mansion on the Finnish border.

In London, play was dramatically suspended in the cricket county championship match between Surrey and Middlesex at the Oval, when a crossbow bolt was fired onto the field from outside the ground. No one was hurt, but the bolt landed within metres of players and “could very easily have killed someone”, Surrey’s chief executive, Richard Gould, said.

Sport

Pain for Matthew Leckie and Australia as Yosuke Ideguchi (2) celebrates scoring Japan’s second goal Photograph: Shuji Kajiyama/AP

Australia’s hopes of automatically qualifying for next year’s World Cup in Russia are hanging in the balance after a sobering 2-0 defeat to Japan in Saitama last night, which highlighted the selection challenges facing coach Ange Postecoglou. Now the Socceroos need to beat Thailand in Tuesday night’s final group game, and even that may not be enough if Saudi Arabia also win against Japan.

At the US Open, Australia’s John Millman has won through to the third round, defeating Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri in straight sets. The conqueror of Nick Kyrgios went through 6-1, 7-6, 6-1. Daria Gavrilova, the 25th seed, narrowly lost a thriller against unseeded American Shelby Rogers. Garvrilova went down in three sets, 6-7, 6-4, 6-7. Follow the day’s action including Roger Federer against Mikhail Youzny on our liveblog.





Thinking time

Want to fight conspiracy theories flourishing on the internet? You’ll have to find them first, writes Brigid Delaney, who has spent a lot of time with elusive social media subcultures devoted to “wellness”. And then you will have to counter the fact that arguments based on orthodox science, government-sanctioned medical opinion or mainstream media reports serve only to reinforce the belief that big corporations are conspiring to quash the knowledge and practices the group holds dear. It’s a problem with serious ramifications, and doctors are particularly worried.

What is vaginal mesh, and why is it suddenly in the headlines all around the world? Science and health writers Melissa Davey and Hannah Devlin explain how urogynaecological mesh is supposed to work, how it came to be used in new ways about a dozen years ago and how thousands of women have taken the manufacturers to court, alleging the product has caused vaginal scarring, fistula formation, painful sex, and pelvic, back and leg pains.

How does a theatre critic enter a theatre unbiased, when they have seen a play so many times, in so many ways? Jane Howard explains why she doesn’t like Macbeth but will never stop coming back for more. What will the Scottish play have to do to change her mind?

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has been quiet on Twitter for nearly 20 hours, but he did find time to end the “Dreamer” immigration program, according to reports. The scheme protects about 800,000 young undocumented immigrants from deportation. The US president has been weighing the 2012 Obama-era policy for some time. As a candidate, Trump vowed to overturn the Daca (deferred action for childhood arrivals) policy on day one of his presidency. On taking office, he signalled a potential change of heart



Media roundup

Photograph: Fairfax Media

The ABC runs with Queensland’s farmers denouncing the Murray Darling Basin plan as a failure. They say cotton irrigators are replacing water sold back into the system with floodwaters they are capturing and holding off the plains, meaning millions of dollars are achieving nothing. The Fairfax papers give plenty of prominence to six-year-old Evie Weir, who is spearheading an awareness and donations drive to tackle childhood cancers. And disappointing news from the NT News and the Courier Mail: both fall back on the “plane crazy” splash headline in their print editions for two different stories. One is about Darwin’s air traffic control and other the granting of bail to an unruly passenger accused of threatening to bomb police.

Coming up



Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen will be speaking on housing affordability in Sydney.

As winter officially comes to an end, shark nets will be redeployed across New South Wales in a return of the controversial policy.

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