Good morning, this is Helen Sullivan bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Wednesday May 22.

Top stories

Regulation of political advertising during elections is “a mess”, a former Australian Election Commission official has warned, after the electoral watchdog was inundated with complaints. The AEC found 87 cases of unlawful political advertising during the federal election but took no punitive action, saying it was able to more effectively and quickly resolve the breaches by issuing direct warnings. The campaign was littered with examples of unsourced or anonymous political advertising that breached electoral laws, with particularly acute problems on social media. “It’s very, very difficult to suppress these Facebook accounts, which circulate some shit and then go away again,” the former official, Michael Maley, said. “You can’t do much short of shutting the internet down at election time.”

Almost one in seven young Australians believe a man would be justified in raping a woman if she initiated sex but changed her mind, while almost one-quarter of young men think women find it flattering to be persistently pursued, even if they are not interested. The findings from the national survey on attitudes towards women reveal that while young people increasingly believe in equality in the workplace and in leadership, they are less likely to recognise sexism, coercion or other problematic behaviours in their own relationships. Of 1,761 people aged between 16 and 24 surveyed, 43% supported the statement: “I think it’s natural for a man to want to appear in control of his partner in front of his male friends.”

Chris Bowen says he can reconnect Labor with suburban voters better than Anthony Albanese. In an interview with Guardian Australia after confirming his intention to run for Labor leader, Bowen said he wanted the top job “so we reconnect with the suburbs and the regions, and I think I can do that slightly better than Albo can”. As Labor licks its wounds from Saturday’s election defeat, Scott Morrison turns his attention back to the punishing task of governing. He may have snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, but to keep his election promises he’ll need a second miracle, writes Katherine Murphy.

World

Don McGahn is a central figure in the Mueller report. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

Democrats faced another brazen attempt by Donald Trump to stonewall their investigations on Tuesday, this time with former White House counsel Don McGahn defying a subpoena to appear before Congress on orders from the White House.

Theresa May has offered British MPs votes on a second referendum and a temporary customs union in her last attempt to get a Brexit deal through parliament, amid widespread expectation that the withdrawal agreement bill will be heavily defeated and reports of serious rows in cabinet.

Boeing played down the possibility that a bird strike caused the first fatal crash of its 737 Max jet, but now investigators are exploring whether such a situation led to the plane’s second deadly crash in March.



McDonald’s is being investigated over racism and harassment claims in Brazil. More than two dozen allegations of racism and sexual harassment have sparked an investigation by federal labour prosecutors.

San Francisco has the highest salaries of any city in the world, according to a new survey.

Opinion and analysis

Scott Morrison on the campaign trail in Tasmania. Photograph: Mick Tsikas/AAP

Eight charts can help explain why the Coalition won the 2019 Australian election. Electorates that swung harder to the Liberal and National parties are more likely to have higher unemployment, lower income, lower levels of education and fewer migrants, according to a Guardian Australia analysis. Conversely, electorates that swung to Labor were more likely to have higher levels of education, more young people, more people in work or study, and more people over the age of 80. And, perhaps surprisingly, electorates with larger numbers of people receiving franking credit refunds or making use of negative gearing on properties were less likely to swing to the Coalition.

The Australian healthcare system has been described as fragmented and too complex for patients to navigate – and the problem is getting worse in an ageing population groaning under the burden of multiple chronic diseases, writes Ranjana Srivastava: “What modern patients need is management of the whole person rather than a small part of the body. Unfortunately, these patient experiences are more common than we’d like.” What could doctors and hospitals do better?

Sport

“My friend Niki Lauda was a street-fighter and a shining talent in F1,” writes John Watson. “He and I raced both alongside and against one another and remained friends until his death. His qualities, abilities and achievements are rightly admired, as were the clarity of his thinking and pragmatism.”

One of the former skating partners of two-time US pairs champion John Coughlin has accused him of sexually assaulting her over a two-year period. Bridget Namiotka said on Facebook that Coughlin, who killed himself in January, hurt “at least 10 people including me”.

Thinking time: the freedom of being alone

Fear of attending the opera alone is the number one reason people do not go at all, an Opera Australia survey found. Photograph: lolostock/Getty Images/iStockphoto

Going to the theatre by yourself is a freedom unlike any other, writes arts critic Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore. Social anxiety stops many people taking in great art, but the experience of going to see a show alone can be transformative, she argues. One play she saw alone, at the Brisbane festival, “left me reeling”, she recalls. “I desperately wanted to talk to someone. Instead, I spilled out into the hot sticky Brisbane night, into the garish bright lights of the South Bank fairground, and into the onslaught of bodies and children and noise. Armed with a cider, I sat and processed everything I had seen – processed a play that wrapped up so much horror in poetry – and let it tingle across every inch of my body. Suddenly it felt deeply personal. Something that I now did not want to share straight away, selfishly perhaps.

“I’ve had similar – near visceral – experiences when I eat alone in a foreign city, or when I hike alone. There’s freedom in not having to worry about or make conversation with someone else; freedom in submitting, fully and completely, to what is in front of you.”

Media roundup

“Bill Shorten has stunned colleagues by actively involving himself in the selection of his successor and attempting to hinder the run of leftwing powerbroker Anthony Albanese,” the Sydney Morning Herald reports, under the convoluted print headline “No love labour lost: Shorten back and sides against Albanese”. The RBA is likely to cut interest rates next month and has “placed pressure on the Morrison government” to join in the heavy lifting by introducing structural reform and more spending on infrastructure,” according to the Australian Financial Review. The Daily Telegraph‘s front page displays “The arrogant image that spelt ALP doom” – a shot of Bill Shorten and his leadership team posted on social media on the eve of the election campaign.

Coming up

Nominations open today for the Labor leadership in New South Wales. Jodi McKay is expected to challenge Chris Minns for the post, replacing Michael Daley, who stepped down after election defeat in March.

A hearing will be held today over the ACCC’s claim a deal made by the NSW government to privatise Port Botany and Port Kembla was illegal.

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