Good morning, this is Eleanor Ainge Roy bringing you the main stories and must-reads on Thursday 7 March.

Top stories

The multinational mining giant Glencore spent millions bankrolling a secret, globally coordinated campaign to prop up coal demand by undermining environmental activists, influencing politicians and spreading sophisticated pro-coal messaging on social media. Glencore hired the C|T Group, the firm founded by Sir Lynton Crosby and Mark Textor, to conduct the covert campaign, a Guardian Australia investigation has revealed. Dubbed Project Caesar, with an annual warchest of between $7m and $13m, the campaign aimed to engage key politicians and shift public sentiment towards coal. A Facebook group and website designed to look like grassroots campaigns – a strategy known as astroturfing – were also reportedly part of the campaign, posting stories that blamed renewables for blackouts in South Australia and Victoria, linked renewable subsidies to “Saudi billionaires” and stressed a link between solar, wind and rising power prices.

Six Queensland National MPs have urged their party leader, Michael McCormack, and the energy minister, Angus Taylor, to build new power stations in Queensland and pass the Coalition’s “big stick” energy policy. The MPs have written a letter demanding the legislation must be passed in the final sitting week of parliament because they are under pressure from their electorates about power prices. The package is contentious with Liberals because it includes a power to break up big energy companies.

Australia risks “national dysfunction” without truth telling on the history of Indigenous massacres, campaigners and MPs have said, in response to the Guardian’s Killing Times project. Kal Ellwood is descended from both sides of Queensland’s bloody events: the native police and the survivors. “In the 21st century morality that we have today, I can’t put judgment on them back there,” Ellwood says. And in the small South Australian town of Elliston, where it took 169 years for a local massacre to be acknowledged, a memorial has at last eased some of the pain for the Wirangu people. The former mayor describes it as being like “a big dark cloud” lifting.

World

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Refugees and migrants approach the Greek island of Lesbos at the height of the migrant crisis in 2015. Photograph: Santi Palacios/AP

The European commission has declared the migration crisis over, as it sharpened its attack on “fake news” and “misinformation” about the issue. In 2018, 116,647 people were counted by the UN refugee agency as crossing the Mediterranean, an 89% reduction on those who made the journey in 2015, at the height of the crisis.

Brazil’s far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, has sparked outrage, disgust and ridicule after tweeting a pornographic video, in an apparent attempt to hit back at criticism of his administration during this year’s carnival.

Nicolás Maduro’s embattled government has declared the German ambassador persona non grata and ordered him to leave the country, as Venezuela’s political crisis intensified on Wednesday. The government said the expulsion was due to the ambassador’s “repeated acts of interference in the country’s internal affairs”.

Endangered species face a “disaster” under the Trump administration, researchers have warned, as the president’s push to expand oil and gas drilling is eroding protections for some of America’s most at-risk wildlife.

A group of male Republican lawmakers in New Hampshire have come under criticism for a stunt that gun control advocates say was demeaning to victims of gun violence: donning pearl necklaces to apparently mock those testifying in front of them.

Opinion and analysis

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Nijole Naujoka in Adelaide. Photograph: Kelly Barnes/The Guardian

Centrelink’s misleading term “mutual obligation” is a system of humiliation, Nijole Naujokas writes in her final article for the Life on the Breadline series, saying it forces recipients to jump through hoops or risk having payments cut off. “You might think it’s easy to jump through hoops, but the hoops keep growing and moving around and you can still lose your payments. The system we are forced to use is not a mutual obligation, but a system of relentless bowing and humiliation.”

The latest GDP figures have revealed a sharply slowing economy compounded by weak wages growth flowing through to stagnant household incomes. It is increasingly difficult for the government to argue that the economy is doing well, writes Greg Jericho. “Just two months out from an election the Coalition’s economic narrative is pretty much in tatters. They can point to low unemployment, and some solid employment growth, but overall the story of their time in government is that any good news has failed utterly to translate into better standards of living.”

Sport

Three games played, three games won. From whatever angle you look at it, it’s hard to conclude anything other than that the Cup of Nations has been an unmitigated success for the Matildas, after the worst possible ructions over the preceding month.

Former tennis world No 1 Andy Murray is pain-free five weeks after hip operation, but remains cautious about his future playing prospects. “I want to play. The issue is I don’t know whether it’s possible,” he said. The Scot’s chances of making a comeback in July at Wimbledon look marginal at best.

Thinking time: Queensland sex workers – legal or safe?

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Sex workers have spoken out about the dangerous conditions they are forced to put up with because of Queensland law. Photograph: Michael Wickham/The Guardian

In Queensland it is legal for undercover police to pose as clients, to pressure sex workers into offering blacklisted services, then arrest them under the state’s “puritanical” prostitution laws. While police on sting operations always work in pairs, private sex workers in Queensland are not allowed to work with anyone else. They cannot text another sex worker, for safety, before and after a booking. They cannot hire someone to help them with a website. They cannot employ a receptionist. The industry says these restrictions – particularly the inability for sex workers to contact a colleague – mean many are vulnerable because they have to work in isolation and without support.

Kayla Rose, a Brisbane sex worker, says the law forces workers into invidious choices. “Sex workers have to choose between working legally or working safely,” Rose says. “Our basic safety strategies are illegal. If we’re implementing these safety strategies ... then sex workers are charged.” Erica Magenta from Scarlet Alliance, the Australian Sex Workers’ Association, says the sex industry is framed as a problem to be monitored and restricted. “These laws have been informed by a legacy of fear and moral arguments against sex work rather than being based on evidence, best practice and prioritising sex workers’ safety and right to work.”

Media roundup

Taxpayers stumped up $2,000 a minute for what the Sydney Morning Herald calls Scott Morrison’s “absurd” press conference on Christmas Island. The 30-minute event revealed “nothing new”, the Herald says, and was a cynical waste of money. The prime minister has told the West Australian in an exclusive interview why the most important federal election in decades will be decided in the west. And the ABC reports that Alice Springs KFC has said it will close two hours early each night to ensure staff safety, as the fast-food restaurant has come to be used as a default safe house.

Coming up

The Climate Council will launch a report today called Australia’s Angriest Summer, detailing how the country sweltered through its hottest summer on record, with more than 200 extreme weather records broken.

The St George player Jack de Belin will appear in a federal court today to challenge the ARL commission’s decision to stand him down from playing after he was charged with sexual assault.

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