Australia news live: Surge in EV demand and fuel diplomacy push send trade surplus to nine-year low

Jump in imports narrowed Australia’s goods trade surplus to $1.1bn in June quarter. Follow today’s news liveFormer ABC executive says Race Around the World clip about Rinehart not a breach, but worthy of apologyAlan Sunderland, a former editorial director at the ABC, has said he was not surprised the broadcaster’s ombudsman found an episode of its Race Around the World program did not breach its editorial standards related to harm and offence.It is not per se a breach of standards to depict violence where nobody would reasonably in good faith think that it was an actual direct threat of violence.I think the ABC needs to take account of public tastes on this. Public tastes move and shift over questions of what is and isn’t offensive, but I think there was a pretty common acceptance, even from the film-maker herself, that it was inappropriate. And I think they did the right thing to make that call, regardless of whether it breached editorial standards or not. Continue reading...