Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 30 January.

Top stories

Is Australia losing the political will to protect its pristine places? In a new series of in-depth reports, Guardian Australia examines the cultural shift that has destroyed bipartisan agreement on protecting the environment and investigates some of the issues that have been neglected amid political point-scoring. Adam Morton reports on Australia’s shrinking environmental protections and changes in the attitudes of policymakers that make it harder for conservationists to campaign and advocate. That investigation leads to the simple question: if the proposal to dam Tasmania’s Franklin river was put today, would it simply go ahead?

Many of today’s burning environmental questions have been with us for decades, writes Lenore Taylor: the Tasmanian “forest wars”, the allocation of water in the Murray-Darling basin and land-clearing in Queensland, to name only three. They keep coming back because the political deals that were meant to resolve them have failed to stick. Australians are as concerned about the environment, as ever, and conservation groups continue to lobby and organise, yet for many the challenges overwhelm their capacity to make headway. That’s why we are turning the spotlight on Australia’s neglected environmental issues, and asking readers to get involved.

Australian voters think cost of living pressures, particularly energy prices, have increased over the past 12 months, and most of those earning below the average weekly wage believe their income is going backwards, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. The poll, which still has Labor in an election-winning position on the two-party-preferred measure (54% to the Coalition’s 46%), will give fresh ammunition to the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, as he gives a scene-setting speech to the National Press Club today, expected to focus on cost of living pressures and economic inequality.

The FBI’s deputy director Andrew McCabe has reportedly stepped down, in a widely anticipated move that nevertheless reflects a further deterioration in relations between the White House and authorities investigating Donald Trump’s alleged ties to Russia. The resignation comes after months of attacks on McCabe by the president, who implied that McCabe had been compromised by a political donation made in 2015 to McCabe’s wife. McCabe’s plan to retire in March was widely known. But his decision to leave immediately comes amid escalating attacks on the FBI by the president, as an investigation by the special counsel Robert Mueller appears to draw closer to the White House.

The attacks against Rohingya that sparked the exodus from Myanmar to the refugee camps in Bangladesh have been described as “textbook ethnic cleansing”. Nagumia, an 82-year-old refugee at one of the camps, says: “I saw them throw the young children, and the old people who could not run, into the fire.” In the camps housing some of the 800,000 Rohingya who have fled across the border, Ben Doherty found strong resistance to any suggestion they should return, despite the desperate conditions in Bangladesh. Yet repatriation remains the primary solution being proposed to the current refugee crisis. “I cannot go back,” Nagumia says. “What am I going to go back to?”

A union representing unemployed people has warned the federal government’s dramatic expansion of the work-for-the-dole program will send more jobseekers into unsafe work environments, and fail to help them into secure and permanent employment. The changes will force welfare recipients on payments such as Newstart to complete 50 hours of work-related activities a fortnight, up from the 30 required now, as well as introducing an activity test for jobseekers over 60. The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union president, Owen Bennett, said the work-for-the-dole program had proved ineffective at getting people into proper work and cited a 2016 report that showed 64% of 200 audited worksites were not fully compliant in risk assessments. But a spokesman for the Department of Jobs and Small Business rejected the union’s claims, saying the injury rate for the work-for-the-dole program since 2015 was far below the general rate.

Sport

The ageless and inimitable Roger Federer continues to outlast and outplay his rivals, and he has said he plans to stay on the Tour as long as his wife is happy. So could the 2020 Olympics be the final farewell?

David Beckham has finally announced the launch of his Miami team in Major League Soccer, after years of hurdles to get the club off the ground. The former England captain paid $25m for rights to the expansion franchise – but will Beckham’s boys be any good?

Thinking time

When the founder of Ikea, Ingvar Kamprad, died at the age of 91, he left behind a legacy of simple, functional and very bleached beech furniture, writes the Guardian’s design critic, Oliver Wainwright. Over the decades there has barely been a home in the western world that hasn’t used the quick and speedy addition of an Ikea piece. But of all the classics (triangle corner table anyone?) what are the top 10 best Ikea furniture staples of all time?



When the IMF upgraded its economic outlook for the US economy last week, Scott Morrison was quick to claim it as proof Australia needed its own company tax cuts. But he failed to mention the upgrade was not down to tax cuts but a temporary allowance for investment, and the IMF warned in its analysis that the long-term consequences of the cuts could lead to greater inequality and slower long-term economic growth. Greg Jericho digs into the truth of what Trump’s tax cuts mean for Australia.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall during the pitch meeting for The Good Place. Who would have thought that ratings gold would be found in a sitcom about the afterlife, with regular references to Immanuel Kant, David Hume and Aristotle? Moral philosophy is the beating heart of the American television series and it has some of the best jokes that Andrew P Street, a one-time postgraduate in moral philosophy, has ever heard.

What’s he done now?

“I don’t care, I don’t care.” As the one-liners from Donald Trump’s first international interview with Piers Morgan continue to roll out, the Guardian crunches the numbers on British viewership. And despite Trump’s assertion that “I’m very popular in your country”, the stats say it isn’t so, with more people tuning into the BBC1 news bulletin than Trump’s tete-a-tete with Morgan.

Media roundup

The Age reports on the “great trek to prep” of some Melbourne schoolchildren, writing that increasing numbers of parents are bypassing their local schools to send children up to 30km away, making some school commutes a slog of up to three hours. With Tasmania at the start of an election campaign, the Hobart Mercury splashes with some unusually good news, reporting that the state’s waiting list for elective surgery is at a record low – 90% of Tasmanians on the public waiting list were seen within 300 days last year, down from 450 days a year earlier, the paper reports. Desperate young artists are paying as much as $2,600 a month to metropolitan galleries in an attempt to get their work displayed, the ABC reports, with some galleries taking an additional 10% to 50% commission on any works sold.



Coming up

The Labor leader, Bill Shorten, will speak at the National Press Club, and is expected to focus on cost of living pressures and economic inequality.



Public hearings resume in Canberra into new laws dealing with foreign influence, interference and espionage.

Supporting the Guardian

We’d like to acknowledge our generous supporters who enable us to keep reporting on the critical stories. If you value what we do and would like to help, please make a contribution or become a supporter today. Thank you.

Sign up

If you would like to receive the Guardian Australia morning mail to your email inbox every weekday, sign up here.