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10 things you need to know this morning in Australia

Morning, team. Before we turn to the stuff that's actually happening in Australia, a lot happened in the United States over the weekend – from riots and civil unrest on the ground, to rockets shooting into space. Let's unpack that.

1. The big news over the weekend is the ongoing protests around America, following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Police across the country have drawn criticism for heavy-handed treatment of protestors and media, after violent clashes broke out in numerous cities. Multiple states, including Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Missouri, and Minnesota, have declared states of emergency over the protests.

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2. Donald Trump, while acknowledging Floyd's killing "should never have happened", has vowed to "stop mob violence". On Friday our time, Twitter slapped an unprecedented warning on one of Trump's tweets about the protests, alleging it incited violence.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704

3. American business is weighing in on the erupting protests – generally on the side of the protesters, to varying degrees of enthusiasm. For example, Amazon put out a fairly extraordinary statement saying the "inequitable and brutal treatment of Black people in our country must stop." (Perhaps empty words, given Amazon has sold facial recognition tech to US police departments.) On Sunday, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced that the rideshare company is donating $US1 million to two criminal justice reform groups.

4. Amid all this, Elon Musk's SpaceX saw a major success. The company's new 'Endeavour' spaceship successfully docked to the International Space Station with two NASA astronauts inside. The docking is the first time a crewed private spaceship has linked up to the $US150 billion orbiting laboratory. The successful launch was the first crewed space launch from American soil since 2011.

5. Musk said he was “overcome with emotion” after the launch on Saturday “I’m really quite overcome with emotion on this day. It’s kind of hard to talk, frankly,” Musk told reporters in a call after the launch. “I’ve spent 18 years working toward this goal, so it’s hard to believe that it’s happened.” But he's still a little nervous about actually getting the astronauts back. “The return is more dangerous in some ways than the ascent, so we don’t want to declare victory yet,” he said.

6. Okay, coming back to Australia. This morning, Scott Morrison told 2GB that his government is considering giving homeowners cash grants for renovations under a coronavirus recovery plan. He said it would be focused on jobs tradies would do, rather than larger construction companies. "This is not building school halls and all those sorts of things done through big contractors, and small contractors not getting the work," he said. Morrison also flagged some kind of targeted support for the Australian entertainment industry.

7. On Friday, the government announced it would refund $721 million which it claimed as part of its controversial ‘robodebt’ scheme. Robodebt was the (now shown to be unlawful) program by which the government tried to reclaim what it said were "overpayments" to welfare recipients. The system of income averaging they used to raise these debts was often wildly inaccurate, leading to people being sent letters demanding sums, which were either inflated or totally invalid. Many in the government are standing by responsible minister Stuart Robert, but it makes you wonder: would you keep your job after being responsible for a devastating and deliberate $721 million problem?

8. Mining titan Rio Tinto has issued an apology after blowing up a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site in Western Australia. The company caused global outrage when it destroyed the Juukan Gorge site, despite knowing that it contained numerous priceless cultural artefacts. It says it will review its plans for other nearby sites, and its approach to dealing with heritage matters more generally.

9. New analysis from strategy advisor AlphaBeta alleges that nearly 40% of those who withdrew super last month either did not see a significant income loss or had it offset by government support. Their research also suggests a good chunk of the money was spent on "clothing, furniture, restaurants and alcohol". At the end of the day, you can't really blame anything but the design of the program. Consumers are going to consume.

10. Another day, another creative reason from buy-now-pay-later company Afterpay as to why it shouldn't be subject to regulation. Co-founder and CEO Anthony Eisen said the company “rejects” the notion of credit checks in its submission to a Senate Committee on fintech regulation. His thinking? The younger customers who the company targets often don't have detailed credit histories.

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https://twitter.com/gbaroth/status/1266945681618419713