Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 2 March.

Top stories

One of Australia’s largest cotton companies reaped a $52m windfall in the sale of water rights to federal government. Documents released to the Senate show Eastern Australia Agriculture sold its overland water rights to the federal government in July last year for $79m, and then booked a $52m gain on the sale. The deal, which was done without tender, will raise questions about whether the government paid over the odds for the water in southern Queensland. Details of the water buyback were released to the Senate after an NXT senator for South Australia, Rex Patrick, sought production of documents associated with this and other water deals during Barnaby Joyce’s time as agriculture minister.

The documents included valuations by Colliers International, which were used by the Department of Agriculture to price the water from EAA. But unlike an earlier release of documents, the valuations were heavily redacted. In one unredacted comment, Colliers warned “there is no true market” for overland flows – the type of water rights the federal government was proposing to purchase – and that “trading was limited to sales only to the commonwealth”.

Vladimir Putin has announced that Russia has developed and is testing a new line of strategic nuclear-capable weapons that would be able to outmanoeuvre US defences, in a possible signal of a new arms race between Moscow and the west. Putin showed video and animations of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), nuclear-powered cruise missiles, underwater drones and other weapons that he said Russia had developed as a result of the US pulling out of the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty signed with the Soviet Union. “You didn’t listen to our country then,” Putin said during the speech on Thursday, weeks before the presidential election. “Listen to us now.” The existence of several of the weapons systems is well-known. What is new is Putin’s portrayal of Russia’s modernising arsenal as an adversarial response to US policy since 2001.

An Israeli private investigator has shared videos with the Guardian he says show alleged child sex abuser Malka Leifer living a “normal, healthy” life, despite being declared unfit to be extradited to Australia. Tsafrir Tsahi collected more than 200 hours of footage of the former school principal who is living in Israel but wanted in Australia on 74 counts of suspected sexual assault and rape at a Jewish ultra-Orthodox girls school in Melbourne. Tsahi’s material has now been handed over the police, who subsequently conducted their own investigation and have since rearrested Leifer on suspicion of “obstruction of justice”.

Australia’s first week on the UN human rights council has been undermined by a scathing report on its immigration policies, criticising them as part of a global “escalating cycle of repression and deterrence” that has caused “massive abuse” of migrants. Australia, which campaigned for three years for a seat on the council, has been a global promoter of its hardline policies designed to deter irregular migration, including boat pushbacks, mandatory and indefinite detention, and offshore processing. The 20-page report to the human rights council, from the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Nils Melzer, said the major reason migrants were exploited and abused was the policies of states that sought to deter people from migrating and punish those who did.

Gareth Hutchens and Greg Jericho continue the Guardian’s special report into Australia’s wage problem, and ask who is to blame for the stalling of salaries? After three decades of labour market “reforms” the workforce has fractured and wage inequality has deepened. Part-time and casual jobs have increased , along with the number of people who say they want to work more hours, and household income is lower in real terms than it was in 2011. Labor says it is examining ways to encourage industry-level bargaining for low-paid workers, which it believes might enable better pay deals. The move would signal a shift away from negotiating pay deals workplace by workplace.

Sport

Australia finished on 225-5 at the end of a tough and absorbing first day of their Test series against South Africa, finishing 225-5 at stumps in Durban. The dismissals of Steve Smith and David Warner, for 56 and 51 respectively, swung momentum the Proteas’ way during the post-lunch session on Thursday, but the Marsh brothers and Tim Paine rallied.

International Association of Athletics’ Sebastian Coe has told Russia his organisation will still play hardball, despite the International Olympics Committee’s decision to welcome the country back into the sporting fold. Russia has been banned from track and field since November 2015.

Thinking time

The warehouse smells of sawdust and glue. Dance music echoes throughout the building, pierced every few minutes by the rasp of drills and circular saws. It’s peak time for the workshop in Sydney’s inner-city suburb of Alexandria,

preparing for this year’s even-more-than-usually momentous Mardi Gras parade. Stephanie Convery takes a peek backstage at where the Mardi Gras magic happens – and tries to make it out without being covered in glitter.

The second album by Camp Cope, How to Socialise & Make Friends, sounds like a baton being passed to a new generation, writes Andrew Stafford in his four-star review. With raw rock songs about sexual assault, death and sexism in the music industry, the all-women Melbourne three-piece who called out the organisers of the Falls festival for the lack of female artists in top billing slots, have stamped themselves as the Australian band of the moment and the #MeToo generation. “Everything about this endearing band and record is unvarnished,” Stafford writes.

As an amputee, Kath Duncan hid her differences and had been ashamed of them all her life. When she came into contact with people calling themselves devotees who were attracted to her because of her stumps, she was intrigued. “Cautiously I got closer to some devotees and found my explorations fascinating. I started to see myself and my body differently, and I discovered the amazing potentials in my sensual expression to use my stumps, where previously I had felt uncomfortable about their place in my sexual experiences.”

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has tweeted that “gun free zones” are a target for killers, and the second amendment must be respected – hours after Florida students returned to their school that has become a mass crime scene. “Many ideas, some good & some not so good, emerged from our bipartisan meeting on school safety yesterday at the White House. Background Checks a big part of conversation. Gun free zones are proven targets of killers. After many years, a Bill should emerge. Respect 2nd Amendment!”

Media roundup

Malcolm Turnbull’s “bonk ban” for ministers is not practical for business, says KPMG’s chair Alison Kitchen in the Australian Financial Review. “We are humans, not robots and you have to remember the average age of our 7,000 staff is 27, so they don’t all tidily come into our organisations happily partnered up for life,” Kitchen said. Michelle Grattan at the Conversation offers her take on Michaelia Cash, her attack on Shorten’s office and the bizarre scenes in Parliament House yesterday. The ABC reports that the Pacific Oyster Mortality Syndrome has been discovered in “feral” oysters in Adelaide’s Port River.

Coming up

The New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern and Malcolm Turnbull will hold talks at the Australia-New Zealand leadership forum in Sydney.

It’s the final hours of campaigning in the Tasmanian election with polls opening on Saturday morning.

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