Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Tuesday 2 October.

Top stories

The value of Australia’s coal exports is forecast to decline sharply over the next 18 months, as thermal coal prices drop 25% and metallurgical coal prices fall 23%. The combined export value of both products will fall from $60.8bn in 2018-19 to $49.9bn in 2019-20. The figures raise questions about the claim made by the resources minister, Matthew Canavan, in June that “market conditions are right” for Queensland’s Galilee basin to start digging up large amounts of coal.

When the June quarter projections were released, they showed the export value of coal briefly rising above the export value of iron ore in 2018-19, before falling below iron again in 2019-20. Canavan said then: “At current prices we’d be mad not to open up the Galilee basin as soon as possible.” The latest figures confirm iron ore will remain Australia’s biggest export earner in 2019-20.

EU diplomats have rejected Theresa May’s pitch that Brussels must move first to break the deadlock over Brexit negotiations, as Jean-Claude Juncker said British people were only “finding out now” about the scale of the problems caused by their plan to depart the EU. The European commission president said he regretted that British voters had not been properly informed before the Brexit referendum in 2016. He claimed that UK ministers were only now discovering the costs, which included British tourists’ pets facing four days of quarantine, and flights being grounded, despite claims to the contrary emanating from Whitehall.

Labor will legislate to require publicly listed companies to report the ratio of their chief executive’s pay to that of the median worker in an attempt to curb “excessive” CEO pay, if elected. The shadow assistant treasurer, Andrew Leigh, will announce the policy today in a speech on the place of unions in Australia. A Shorten government would improve pay transparency and “ensure Australia gets a pay rise”, his speech says. The average total pay of ASX100 chief executives rose by 9% last year, four times the rate of average wage growth.

The former NSW anti-corruption commissioner David Ipp has warned that any move to override state bans on property developer donations would be a “dreadful step backwards”. Last week Guardian Australia revealed that Coalition changes to federal campaign finance laws could effectively grant political donors immunity from state and territory donation restrictions. Ipp said: “Why is it in the benefit of the country to actually make it easier for lobbyists to pay large sums of money so that decisions are made in their favour? Shouldn’t the decisions be made in accordance with what the politicians genuinely believe the merits are?”

A senior Italian scientist has been suspended after saying physics was “invented and built by men, it’s not by invitation” during a presentation at Cern, the European nuclear research centre in Geneva. Prof Alessandro Strumia of Pisa University claimed during a seminar on gender issues in physics that male scientists were being discriminated against. Cern issued a statement on Monday suspending Strumia pending an investigation for his “unacceptable” presentation, which was “contrary to the Cern code of conduct”. Strumia told the audience, mostly comprising female physicists, that female researchers in Italy tended to benefit from either “free or cheaper university” education, while Oxford University “extends exam times for women’s benefit”.

Sport

At 30, Lucy Kennedy is both a veteran and a debutant of world cycling. But after a fairytale week at the world road championships in Innsbruck, helping her teammate Amanda Spratt to silver, the former traffic modeller has the Tokyo Olympics firmly in her sights, writes Kieran Pender.

Guardian writers select their standout moments of the 2018 Ryder Cup, a tournament steeped in surprises and drama. Francesco Molinari was the standout performer while Justin Thomas, Tommy Fleetwood and Ian Poulter were among those who also had a memorable outing.

Thinking time



In the first of a new Guardian Australia series, we feature 20 unmissable new Australian songs for October. They include Paul Kelly’s A Bastard Like Me, which details the life of the Aboriginal activist Charles Perkins.This song shines with the best of Kelly’s output – a remarkably rich and darkly strung tune. Other addictive new hits include songs by Clare Bowen, Holy Holy and Kira Puru.

Macho pranks based on a delight in humiliation reveal the depth of the damage done by the emotional repression demanded by rigid codes of masculinity, writes Clementine Ford in an extract from her book Boys Will Be Boys. “We are conditioning young boys to view their sexuality as a weapon that empowers them but is also outside their control. We are reinforcing to boys that the vibrancy of their masculine identities is dependent on how forcefully they not only express their sexuality but perform it for other men to admire.”

Late on Friday, under cover of the release of the interim report from the banking royal commission and before a weekend of AFL and NRL grand finals, the government released the latest quarterly data showing greenhouse gas emissions had risen once again. Greg Jericho writes: “You can call this government many things – a bunch of dolts deluded into believing climate change is a global conspiracy, a bunch of feckless cowards lacking the intellectual ability or political acumen to stand up to those climate change-denying fools occupying positions on the backbench and in cabinet – but you can’t call them subtle.”

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has mused on his own history with alcohol when questioned about Brett Kavanaugh’s university drinking. “I’m not a drinker, I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life,” Trump said in the Rose Garden press briefing. “It’s one of my only good traits … Can you imagine if I had [been a drinker], what a mess I’d be? I’d be the world’s worst.”

Media roundup

Sydney house prices have dropped by 6.1%, the biggest monthly fall since the global financial crisis, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The NT News front page reads “Shameful jail fail” above a report that the territory’s new corrections commissioner is promising to crack down on lax security standards after three serious offenders escaped from prison. And the Hobart Mercury reports that the Tasmanian government is moving to make it mandatory for religious leaders to report cases of child sexual abuse.

Coming up

Airport workers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth will take part in a global day of protests over pay and conditions.

The Council of Australian Governments national summit meets in Adelaide to discuss the final part of the national plan to reduce violence against women and children.

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