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

Top stories

The average Australian household has less disposable income now than when the Liberal/National Coalition took power in 2013. For the past four years workers across Australia have for the first time outside of a recession seen their living standards stagnate. As the cost of energy and health cover skyrockets, workers’ wages growth is at record low levels considered implausible just five years ago. In the first part of a new series, Greg Jericho and Gareth Hutchens take an in-depth look at an issue that now colours all debate – whether it be over the worth of a company tax cut, or the level of immigration. It is an issue that sees households, despite living in a country now in its 26th year without a recession, with a living standard no better than seven years ago.

Adani asked the Australian government to help secure funding for its controversial Carmichael coalmine, according to documents obtained under freedom of information legislation. Two government ministers subsequently wrote to a Chinese government agency vouching for the proposed coalmine. One email sent to Chinese and Indian embassy staff had a subject line reading “update on project financing request”, while another talked about how Adani needed support with financing talks in China. All this despite the secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade telling parliament last year that: “It has not been Dfat’s role to seek finance for the project.” The documents were obtained by the Australia Institute, whose researcher Tom Swann said: “Here we have internal documents from Dfat showing that they knew the purpose of the letter was to secure Chinese financing”.

Political experts are warning that the senior White House adviser Jared Kushner cannot be ‘effective’ in his position now his security clearance has been severely downgraded, with the president’s son-in-law now having access equivalent to that of an intern. Kushner, who previously enjoyed unfettered access to the country’s most classified information, has been viewed as a possible target for manipulation by four countries, owing to his financial conflicts of interest and lack of experience in policy and politics. The downgrade raises key questions over how Kushner can continue in a role that boasts a wide-ranging portfolio spanning Middle East negotiations, steering US relations with China and reforming federal bureaucracy.

The foreign minister, Julie Bishop, will today announce plans to divert well-meaning Australian volunteers from foreign orphanages that exploit fake orphans for profit. A government campaign involving states, territories, schools and universities will attempt to curb Australian involvement in so-called orphanage tourism in developing nations. Ministers are also still considering whether to follow an inquiry’s recommendation to divert government aid funding away from foreign orphanages.

Astronomers have detected a signal from the first stars as they appeared and illuminated the universe, in observations that have been hailed as “revolutionary”. The faint radio signals suggest the universe was lifted out of total darkness 180m years after the big bang in a momentous transition known as the cosmic dawn. The faint imprint left by the glow of the earliest stars also appears to contain new and unexpected evidence about the existence and nature of dark matter. “Finding this minuscule signal has opened a new window on the early universe,” Judd Bowman of Arizona State University said. “It’s unlikely we’ll be able to see any earlier into the history of stars in our lifetime.”

Sport

Wins on tour in Test cricket are rare, but not when South Africa and Australia are involved. Australia have visited seven times since the Proteas’ readmission to the cricketing fold in 1991 and have never lost. Taking the same XI that featured in the Ashes, however, Australian players are at risk of fatigue (although many have rested, with the exception of David Warner).

Our resident cartoonist David Squires takes a look at how football haters everywhere should be given the opportunity to discuss the flare plague that reared its ugly head at the Sydney A-League derby.

Thinking time

The rock-star photographer Bobby Klein has shot most of the greats, including Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. Influenced by Man Ray and Henri Cartier-Bresson, Klein had no formal training and a fear of colour film. “Give up on technique and just shoot,” Klein tells Thomas Hobbs in this freewheeling interview. “I wish I had taken more shots. You never realise how important people will become.”

Brigid Delaney considers the report into hazing at Sydney University, a disturbing checklist of initiation experiences that contrast violently with the silly, mostly innocent rituals of her first O-week in Melbourne. Between then and now, Delaney writes in her weekly diary, something has changed for the worse. “The big end of town has (at least in theory) strict standards about behaviour and are heavily invested in their reputation. Colleges with their hazing rituals are doing the students a disservice by instilling in them values and behaviour that are likely to get them fired or arrested once they enter the ‘real world’.”

A national collective of 11 multidisciplinary Muslim Australian artists reflect on migration, exile, Islamophobia and spiritual epiphanies in their first major exhibition, showing at Adelaide’s ACE Open gallery as part of the Adelaide festival. The collective was started by the refugee artist and former hip-hop performer Khaled Sabsabi, who wanted to include members of what he calls “marginalised and isolated” communities, to address pre- and post-9/11 representations of Islam.

What’s he done now?

Donald Trump has done that weird thing again where he refers to himself in the third person when quoting lavish praise from questionable sources (usually Fox News). “The Heritage Foundation has just stated that 64% of the Trump Agenda is already done, faster than even Ronald Reagan. ‘We’re blown away,’ said Thomas Binion of Heritage, President Trump ‘is very active, very conservative and very effective. Huge volume & spectrum of issues.’ Modesty is a virtue, Mr President.

Media roundup

The Age has an arresting front page, featuring Tony Abbot with red eyes. The paper reports that Abbott’s office helped a billionaire donate to the Liberal party, despite warnings from Asio that the man had links to the Chinese Communist party. The NT News reports that some child protection workers in the NT believed Indigenous cultural practices “should be given unmoderated priority over child protection concerns”, according to an internal report by a social anthropologist. And the ABC has an in-depth report on the “silent epidemic” of women who suffer prolapses, revealing that more than half of women over the age of 50 have suffered the painful ordeal.

Coming up

The Salvation Army releases new Roy Morgan research showing that millions of Australians believe the dream of owning their own home is over.

The man who supplied the gun to Curtis Cheng’s killer will be sentenced in Sydney today.

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