Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Monday 9 April.

Top stories

The Coalition has notched up its 30th straight Newspoll loss, with the latest survey published by the Australian on Sunday night showing Labor ahead of the Coalition 52% to 48% on the two-party preferred measure. Malcolm Turnbull is now only two points ahead of his opposite number, Bill Shorten, as preferred prime minister, leading 38% to 36%, and the Coalition’s primary vote is on 38%. This week’s Newspoll has loomed as a milestone because Turnbull used Tony Abbott’s sustained poor showing in the survey as one justification for launching his successful leadership coup in 2015.

The poll does not mean Turnbull’s leadership is under immediate threat, writes Katharine Murphy, but nor is there any sign of the Coalition developing a coherent policy platform. Ben Raue dives into the polling history to see what the run of bad polls tells us about the Coalition’s chances at the next election.

Donald Trump has warned there will be a “big price to pay” for the chemical strike in a rebel-held Damascus suburb that killed at least 42 people on Saturday, as the UK and France called an urgent meeting of the United Nations security council. At least 300 people were affected by the gas, amid a barrage by Syrian regime jets, helicopters and artillery on the district of Douma. Trump called the Syrian leader “Animal Assad” in a tweet, as the European Union called for an international response. Ill-equipped and overrun local doctors said they treated patients with symptoms of suffocation, foaming at the mouth, dilated pupils and burned eyes.

Fraud charges are expected to be laid against one of Queensland’s biggest cotton irrigators, John Norman, within a matter of weeks. In an exclusive story as part of Our wide brown land series, Kerry Brewster reports that if the trial of the owner-operator of Norman Farming and former cotton farmer of the year goes ahead, it is likely to draw attention to the links between the irrigator’s family and that of the federal minister for agriculture and water resources, David Littleproud. Any charges would also throw the spotlight on the Queensland government’s failure in administering a key plank of the $13bn Murray-Darling basin plan, how it withheld critical information about the alleged crimes, and whether it lied about its own investigation.

The major parties are close to making a deal on charities and foreigners making political donations. Members of the federal parliament’s joint standing committee on electoral matters meet today in an effort to thrash out a deal on controversial changes that have charities and not-for-profit groups up in arms. The committee is due to produce a report on legislation that would establish public registers for key non-party political actors and require the public reporting of non-financial particulars, such as senior staff and discretionary government benefits. The legislation would also prohibit foreign donations.

A panel of legal experts has released a design for a national integrity commission with far-reaching powers, in a move that will increase pressure on the Turnbull government to declare a position on the proposed anti-corruption body. The Australia Institute’s panel of former judges has called for a body with the power to hold public hearings and broad jurisdiction to investigate all forms of corruption, not just criminal offences. In March, the attorney general, Christian Porter, told Guardian Australia the government was considering “detailed models” for an anti-corruption body, including by combining some existing organisations.

Sport

Cyclist Matthew Glaetzer has bounced back to lead Australia’s golden haul on day four of the Commonwealth games. Stephanie Morton claimed her third gold of the Games in the women’s keirin ahead of compatriot Kaarle McCullough, with Amy Cure also grabbing gold in an epic women’s 10km scratch race.

Sebastian Vettel won the Bahrain Grand Prix after his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen ran over a mechanic. The German driver managed to take hold of Valtteri Bottas despite deteriorating tyres, with Lewis Hamilton third. The injured mechanic was taken to hospital with a leg injury after a dramatic pit-lane collision with Raikkonen’s car.

Thinking time

Indigenous activists at “Camp Freedom” have labelled the Commonwealth games the “Stolenwealth Games”, drawing inspiration from rallies at the games of 2006 and 1982, Jack Latimore reports. “Every protest we have, we hope to make a difference,” says Pat Leavy, the president of the Yallburru community organisation. “Sometimes there are people in the community that might not agree with what we are doing, but at every major event that has come to Australia we have held a protest. It’s not just about us, it’s about the broader community too.”

The Spanish actor Antonio Banderas went from arthouse Almodóvar films to become Hollywood’s favourite Latin lover. Now, he’s playing Picasso. He talks to Lanre Bakare about art, cruelty, Catalonia and surviving after a heart attack. “I was never worried about a career,” Banderas says. “I never thought I had to be very careful about my next choice because I had to preserve the type of actor that people perceive me to be – because then you are not free any more.”

A new documentary and posthumous album about Gurrumul Yunupingu dispels the myths surrounding the beloved Australian Indigenous artist. Gurrumul – unable to see – was given an audio file of each edit to keep track of its progress and maintain control. He gave his approval for the final version just three days before he died. “He would just love hearing all of the voices in there and all the memories from his days in different bands, and what people were saying about him,” says Michael Hohnen, Gurrumul’s longtime friend and musical partner.

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump’s attacks on the press are “out of control” and damaging “the civic life and debate of the country”, the editor of the New York Times said on Sunday. Dean Baquet was responding to a tweet in which the president attacked his main rival, the Washington Post, saying “Story after story is made up garbage” and “more fiction than fact”.

Media roundup

“A mongrel bunch of bastards.” The Canberra Times and other Fairfax papers report on an investigation into the Australian Tax Office, reporting that it is crushing small businesses, and whacking start-ups with huge tax bills that cripple growth and bring many to their knees. The Adelaide Advertiser has spoken to a man who was kidnapped as a child by sex predator Colin Charles Humphrys. The man, who is speaking publicly for the first time in 27 years, says serial paedophiles should never be released from prison. Humphrys is eligible for parole on 14 May. And the ABC reports that one of the world’s leading education experts has a damning view of the Naplan writing test. Retired MIT professor Les Perelman called it “by far the most absurd and the least valid of any test that I’ve seen”.

Coming up

Judgment is due this afternoon in the class action by more than 700 women against companies owned by Johnson & Johnson over the use of transvaginal mesh implants.

A two-week hearing begins in Newcastle into claims that Adelaide Archbishop Philip Wilson concealed a colleague’s sexual abuse of a 10-year-old boy in 1971.

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