Morning Mail

Morning mail: Joyce dissolves water advisory body, Zelenskiy to address MPs, Bruce Willis retires

Thursday: Deputy PM disbands group established to scrutinise major projects. Plus: action star's aphasia diagnosis
Barnaby Joyce
Deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce has dissolved the national advisory body established less than two years ago to scrutinise major water projects. Photograph: Phat Nguyen/AAP

Tamara Howie

Good morning. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address Australia's parliament tonight, followed soon after by Anthony Albanese's budget reply. A senior Zelenskiy aide has claimed the leader could meet "soon" with Vladimir Putin, even as the Kremlin downplayed hopes of an early breakthrough in peace talks.

Barnaby Joyce has dissolved the national advisory body established less than two years ago to scrutinise major water projects. This came after an expert member of the body, Stuart Khan, expressed concern in letters to other members that the government's funding announcements to build dams had been made for "brazenly political purposes" and without the body having been given an opportunity to consider the proposals.

Lismore residents' stoicism has given way to a "splintering of confidence and will" after the town was once again inundated by flood waters, according to locals. There is frustration, too, at emergency communication when an evacuation order was rescinded at 5pm on Tuesday and then reinstated at 3am yesterday. "I have been at the evacuation centre and some of the same people who were there four weeks ago are back again," a former mayor says. "The look on their faces is shock, trauma: 'I can't do this again, it's too hard.' The weather system has been responsible for a deluge of rain across the region, and which has seen Byron Bay residents caught off-guard by floods, continues its march south, with tens of thousands of people being evacuated.

Russia has been accused of intensifying its bombardment of the besieged Ukrainian city of Chernihiv and continuing to attack Kyiv despite claims the Kremlin would draw back out of respect for peace talks. Vladyslav Atroshenko, Chernihiv's mayor, said the Russians had lied and that they were continuing to heavily hit his city. "They're saying reducing intensity, they actually have increased the intensity of strikes," he told CNN. Vladimir Putin has told Emmanuel Macron that shelling of Mariupol will end only when Ukrainian troops surrender.

Australia
A hospitality worker
ACTU secretary Sally McManus says a minimum wage increase is 'what is needed for Australian workers to keep their heads above water'. Photograph: Daniel Pockett/Getty Images

Australia's minimum wage should be raised by 5%, or $2,000 a year, to counter inflation and living costs, unions say. The Australian Council of Trade Unions has called for the minimum wage to increase from $20.33 an hour to $21.35.

Epidemiologists are calling for QR code tracking of rapid antigen tests and random community testing to gauge Australia's true Covid numbers, with estimates that case numbers could be much higher than is officially reported.

Global melanoma cases are set to rise by 50% by 2040, with a 68% increase in deaths, according to research. In Australia, the skin cancer rate is rising in over-50s but "declining quite steeply" among younger age groups.

The arts sector is facing a significant drop in federal government funding as pandemic support measures come to an abrupt end despite some industries struggling to recover.

The world
Bruce Willis
Bruce Willis. Photograph: Will Oliver/EPA

Bruce Willis will retire from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, "which is impacting his cognitive abilities", his family said.

Donald Trump used an official White House phone to place at least one call during the Capitol attack that was not on the official call log, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The former national security adviser John Bolton has revealed that he heard Trump use the term "burner phones" several times and that they discussed how the devices were used as a way of avoiding scrutiny.

Germany and Austria have moved a step closer to gas rationing after activating an emergency plan designed to help them cope with any disruption in supplies from Russia.

Recommended reads

Comedian Zoë Coombs Marr has resurrected her hit character Dave, who has been in a coma since 2016, for her new show Dave: The Opener, which is on at the Melbourne comedy festival. With a character like Dave there is a fine line, Coombs Marr says, between making fun of Dave's offensiveness, and the show itself being offensive. She's constantly asking, "Is it worth doing it and making people feel uncomfortable?" she says. "Comedy is often about taboos and walking fine lines and catharsis and satire … But you have a duty of care to your audience as well." When comics complain "you can't say anything any more", Coombs Marr says, "no, you're just not working hard enough. Or you're out of tune with what your job actually is."

This week British musical comedians Flo & Joan share what makes them laugh, including a strange number of videos involving tiny hands and Debbie Reynolds pretending to be a football. "Watching icon Debbie Reynolds dressed as a football being fwipped around is a corner of cinema that we are blessed to know," they say.

From catastrophic east coast floods to Mardi Gras celebrations, the sudden death of Shane Warne to coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, you can see the images that defined a tumultuous month here.

Listen

Krystyna Glowacki can name the hottest and coldest temperatures recorded in every country in the world, along with the location and date they were set. A memory like hers is highly prized and rare but there are both benefits and drawbacks of having a truly "photographic memory", which reporter Gary Nunn discusses with Laura Murphy-Oates in today's Full Story.

Full Story is Guardian Australia's daily news podcast. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other podcasting app.

Sport
The Melbourne Cricket Ground during the state memorial service for Shane Warne
The Melbourne Cricket Ground during the state memorial service for Shane Warne. Photograph: William West/AFP/Getty Images

Shane Warne has been remembered as an irreplaceable cricket giant, an Aussie larrikin and a doting father, during a star-studded state memorial service. "He was a person who made everybody feel very special," said the cricketer's father, Keith Warne. "He was always about putting smiles on other people's faces. Kids loved him and he loved kids."

Nick Kyrgios once again lost his cool as he succumbed to defeat in an extraordinary match at the Miami Open on Tuesday. Kyrgios went down to a 7-6, 6-3 loss to Jannik Sinner in their fourth-round match and clashed with the chair umpire, Carlos Bernardes, slammubg his racket into the ground as he fell behind in the tiebreak.

Media roundup

IVF technology aiming to prevent mitochondrial disease has been approved, after a late-night conscience vote enacted new laws enabling the controversial procedure to be carried out in Australia, the Age reports. Northern Territory police are investigating alleged animal cruelty after 15 pigs were shot and left for dead on a rural property, the NT News reports.

Coming up

Defence minister Peter Dutton will hold a press conference, and a candlelight vigil for flood victims will be held outside Kirribilli House.

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