Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Friday 1 February.

Top stories

The Queensland state government has warned that the government’s much vaunted energy market misconduct bill could lead to the unpopular privatisation of state-owned assets. Queensland’s energy minister, Anthony Lynham, has called on the federal government to bring the bill to the next state energy ministers meeting for discussion, saying it provides at least three pathways to force the sale of Queensland-owned assets to the private sector. Other critics of the legislation warn that taxpayers could be exposed to liabilities worth billions of dollars because the government could indemnify projects against the costs of new climate change policies.

With data on last year’s donations to federal political parties due out today, the Greens have urged the major parties to begin disclosing their donations in real time. The unresponsive, sluggish federal disclosure system requires only annual reporting, and lags well behind similar disclosure regimes in some states and territories. The Greens democracy spokeswoman, Larissa Waters, said the weakness of the current system perpetuated secrecy and gave undue influence to vested interests.

The federal government’s peak policy group on fuel emissions and electric cars has met 12 times in its four-year existence, and minutes for five of these meetings cannot be found. The Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick said the confusion and lack of proper record keeping showed the federal coalition was asleep at the wheel on electric cars. “They’ve done nothing. No one has taken this and run with it.” Australia is lagging about 10 years behind some comparable countries in the introduction of electric vehicles and cleaner fuel.

World

Ice surrounds a ship along the shore of Lake Michigan. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Dangerously cold weather has continued to shatter records across the US midwest, as the polar vortex kept schools, businesses and government offices closed, and hospitals busy. At least eight deaths have been linked to the weather system.

The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has been held liable by a US court for the extrajudicial killing of the Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin, and ordered to pay $300m in punitive damages.

Special counsel Robert Mueller has signalled that prosecutors might use bank records and personal communications going back several years in the case against Roger Stone, the longtime adviser to Donald Trump – potential evidence that seems to go well beyond the known charges against Stone.

EU officials fear Theresa May is setting the UK on course for a no-deal Brexit at the end of June, because she will not have the political courage to ask for the longer delay they believe she needs.

The European parliament has recognised Venezuela’s opposition leader Juan Guaidó as de facto head of state, increasing pressure on Nicolás Maduro amid condemnation over the arrest of foreign journalists reporting on the country’s turmoil.

Opinion and analysis

R Kelly: Spotify users may now mute his music, and anyone else’s.

Photograph: Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP

In the wake of the explosive documentary Surviving R Kelly, which detailed decades of allegations of sexual assault (which he denies), calls for the artist’s music to be removed from streaming platforms have intensified. It seems Spotify may have been listening to the #MuteRKelly campaign: the company has introduced a button allowing users to mute artists they never want to hear. But is the new tool a reasonable solution to a complicated problem? Or is it yet another example of a major platform abrogating responsibility, and putting the onus back on the user?

The so-called “stress interview” is on the rise; designed to provoke, embarrass and intimidate interviewees to see how they cope in a crisis. It has evidently come a long way since apocryphal stories of Oxbridge dons greeting nervous sixth-formers by putting their feet up on the desk and ordering them to “impress me” – but what is its relevance in today’s workplace, or is it just another way to make the lives of millennials hell?

Sport

On Saturday night, thousands of fans will fill the stands at Geelong for the opening game of the 2019 AFLW season. It’ll be a first – Geelong’s first AFLW game and the first at the Cattery. With every first, we’re reminded of how far women’s footy has come, writes Kirby Fenwick. But also of how far it’s got to go.

Football’s January transfer deadline arrives today. Follow all the last-minute deals in the Premier League and elsewhere with our live coverage.



Thinking time: can the culture of banking ever be reformed?

Lawyers at the banking royal commission. Photograph: Eddie Jim/AAP

A common thread runs through the world’s modern banking scandals. Greed – unbridled, incentivised, and unchecked by timid regulators – unites them all. You can see it in the worst excesses of the global financial crisis. It’s there in the post-2008 Irish collapse, and more recent revelations about shocking misconduct by Californian banking giant Wells Fargo. Greed was omnipresent as the Australian scandals played out before Kenneth Hayne and his royal commission. Billing customers for no service. Charging the dead. Opening fraudulent Dollarmite accounts in children’s names. Giving executives bonuses of 300%. Lending in a way that crippled the disadvantaged and unemployed. Greed, every time.

As Kenneth Hayne hands his final report to the government today, Chris Knaus asks whether Hayne’s recommendations can really change the culture of banking. “There’s nothing remotely revelatory here. It’s a point made, time and again, by inquiries into banking malfeasance. But it continues to pose the ultimate test to those charged with reform. How best to temper a compulsion that has repeatedly pushed bankers into misconduct?”

Media roundup

Doubts are emerging over the 2015 Melbourne Cup, the Australian reports, with star trainer Darren Weir facing a police investigation. Weir’s long shot Prince of Penzance was a sensational winner, and other trainers are now calling for the race, and others, to be investigated. The ABC reports that Australian planes were involved in an Iraqi airstrike that killed 18 civilians during the battle for Mosul in June 2017. And Scott Morrison says the Australian economy faces “significant consequences” if the banking royal commission triggers a credit crunch, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Coming up

CoreLogic releases figures for January house prices, which are expected to show large falls in the biggest markets of Sydney and Melbourne.

Labor will be talking kindy this morning, with the Productivity Commission due to drop the final aspect of its report into government services. The opposition has promised to fund kindergarten for three-year-olds if it wins the federal election.

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