Good morning, this is Stephen Smiley bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 21 October.

Top stories

A popular Australian gun blog, Ozzie Reviews, which is frequently critical of firearms laws and posts far-right political content, is run by a serving Queensland police officer with formal permission from his superiors, Guardian Australia can reveal. Corrie Dixon has run the blog and online business – which has a presence on Facebook, YouTube and Patreon – since 2012, and claims online to have made income from contract shooting, content subscriptions and selling merchandise. Police confirmed on Friday that Dixon was a serving officer, and in a statement said he had “completed the relevant submission to undertake outside employment”. Gun control advocates say the situation is “disturbing”.

It’s not often you hear 2GB campaigning for alleged law breakers. Usually the Sydney radio station is calling for harsher penalties for paedophiles, protesters and others who transgress. But for more than six months, Ben Fordham ran an on-air campaign in support of farmers in the north-west of New South Wales who are facing prosecution for land clearing. A Guardian Australia investigation has found that while Fordham painted the farmers as the victims of heartless bureaucrats, there has been little attempt to hear from scientists, ecologists or the NSW environment department about why land clearing needs to be regulated.

Boris Johnson’s attempts to pass his Brexit deal are still on a knife-edge, despite senior ministers claiming he has the numbers to get it through, according to Guardian analysis of likely voting intentions. The British prime minister will again seek to hold a “meaningful vote” in the Commons on his deal on Monday, after the EU said it would wait until the deal comes in front of MPs before making decisions on the terms of a further extension. EU ambassadors have agreed that the withdrawal agreement could be sent to the European parliament so MEPs could vote on it by Thursday.

Australia

Home affairs departmental officials have been left scrambling on how to answer a question about a “strategic review” outlined in the government’s own budget papers, with senior staff admitting to being unaware one had been ordered, or what became of it.

The ABC’s annual report reveals the broadcaster has set aside $23m in compensation for 2,500 casual staff it may have underpaid owing to the practice of putting casuals on “loaded rates”.

The government has spent just $2.2m of a $3.5bn fund designed to tackle “immediate priorities” in regional infrastructure, with construction yet to begin on 98% of projects. Labor is claiming the delay is part of a pattern of infrastructure underspending.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest ‘We are once more living through a period of political turmoil,’ Lord King says. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters

The world

The world is sleepwalking towards a fresh economic and financial crisis that will have devastating consequences for the democratic market system, according to the former Bank of England governor Mervyn King.

Kurdish officials say their fighters have evacuated Ras al-Ayn, giving Turkey and its allies control of one of the border cities that has borne the brunt of fighting since Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria.

Spain’s deputy prime minister has told the Catalan president to “stop lying” to the region by promising independence, as the country reels from a week of violent protests.

And an 8,000-year-old pearl that archaeologists say is the world’s most ancient is to be displayed in Abu Dhabi, with authorities claiming it as proof that the objects have been traded since neolithic times.

Recommended reads

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Australia’s major media organisations are fighting back against attacks on journalism and whistleblowers. Photograph: David Gray/EPA

One day Australians might come to thank the Australian federal police for their raids on the ABC and the home of a News Corp journalist last June. But for now, Guardian Australia’s editor, Lenore Taylor, writes, any optimism is premature. The raids – combing through the ABC’s computer system and the journalist Annika Smethurst’s kitchen cupboards and underwear drawers – were condemned around the world as outrageous and heavy-handed, she says. But any concessions the government has made in response to the public shock have been nice words rather than concrete action. “You don’t need to be an investigative reporter to see they fall well short of any kind of statutory guarantee.”

There might not be a musical easier to love than Billy Elliot, writes Cassie Tongue: “The story of a young boy who just wants to dance, from a village brought to its knees by the UK miners’ strike of 1984-1985, Billy Elliot is fuelled onstage by its movement. And it moves very well indeed. Based on the 2000 film written by Lee Hall and directed by Stephen Daldry, the musical – also written by Hall and directed by Daldry, with music by Elton John – is back in Australia a decade on with a replica touring production. And it remains a refreshing charmer that refuses to put on airs, but contains many genuine moments of grace.”

Fifty years after Clean Straw for Nothing won the Australian writer George Johnston a second Miles Franklin award, the novel has aged as a rich critique of social change, cultural complacency and the rise of smug nationalism in Menzies-era Australia, writes Paul Daley: “Johnston was excellent at describing place from afar. But he never lost sight of what was in front of him. “Sydney is a city of light and wind more than architecture,” he wrote. “The majesties of nature and the monstrosities of man have a cheek by jowl evidence in Sydney more insistent, I think, than in any other city in the world, but few seem to perceive, or at any rate to be worried about, the enormity of our offences.” Fifty years later, the Sydney Johnston describes in Clean Straw for Nothing “was never more mine. That’s special.”

Listen

Almost a million people have been targeted by the government’s welfare debt collection program. But critics have condemned the program and its treatment of welfare recipients. Can this system ever be fair? On today’s episode of Guardian Australia’s podcast, Full Story, reporter Luke Henriques-Gomes examines the issue through the case of a woman who fought a year-long battle to have her robodebt dropped.

Sport

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Marco Kurz is a quality coach, but needs to get Melbourne Victory clicking sooner rather than later, writes Richard Parkin. Photograph: George Salpigtidis/AAP

Two Sydney teams, two Melbourne teams, and the reigning premiers Perth – after just two rounds it’s already shaping as an A-League top six that many would have predicted pre-season. But, Richard Parkin writes, one club is missing.

Wales has narrowly avoided a France ambush to reach the World Cup semi-finals, after a 20-19 win of which Welsh coach Warren Gatland said “the better team lost”. Wales will now face South Africa in the semi, after its defeat of Japan 26-3 in a match that trampled all over a dream and left many Japan supporters in tears.

Media roundup

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The front pages of Australian newspapers today

All the nation’s major newspapers are carrying front pages advocating greater protection for press freedom and whistleblowers and reform to defamation laws and FOI. The Sydney Morning Herald calls for “significant law reform to stop the suppression of information”, while the Australian points to a “sustained attack on the rights of journalists”, and the Daily Telegraph lists “six key legal changes so Australians can find out about the issues that directly affect their lives”. Elsewhere the ABC reports that Victorian households could be separating rubbish into six or more bins — instead of the usual two or three — to help solve the state’s recycling crisis, while SBS reveals that Sydney has been successful in its bid to host the 2023 WorldPride, an event that’s been dubbed the “gay Olympics”.

Coming up

Home affairs officials will face budget estimates in Canberra.

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