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    Your Monday Briefing: Australia’s New Leader

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    Plus President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Good morning. We’re covering a change of power in Australia, President Biden’s trip to Asia and catastrophic floods in India and Bangladesh.Anthony Albanese, the next prime minister of Australia.Jaimi Joy/ReutersAustralia’s incoming Labor leaderPrime Minister Scott Morrison conceded defeat to Anthony Albanese, the incoming Labor prime minister, ending nine years of conservative leadership.The opposition Labor party made the election a referendum on Morrison’s conduct. Albanese, whose campaign was gaffe-prone and light on policy, promised a more decent form of politics, running as a modest Mr. Fix-It who promised to seek “renewal, not revolution.”Voters were most focused on cost-of-living issues, but the election was also about climate change, Damien Cave, our bureau chief in Sydney, writes in an analysis. Australians rejected Morrison’s deny-and-delay approach, which has made the country a global laggard on emission cuts, for Albanese’s vision of a future built on renewable energy.Details: In Australia, where mandatory voting means unusually high turnout, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who demanded more action on climate change — a shift away from major party dominance.Food: Elections in Australia come with a side of “democracy sausage” hot off the barbecue, a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local groups and makes the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel less like a chore and more like a block party.President Biden being greeted by Park Jin, South Korea’s foreign minister.Doug Mills/The New York TimesPresident Biden visits Asian alliesOn his first trip to Asia as president, Joe Biden attempted to strengthen ties with allies rattled by Donald Trump’s erratic diplomacy and wary of Beijing’s growing influence.In Seoul on Saturday, he met with President Yoon Suk-yeol, who was inaugurated 11 days prior, and criticized Trump’s attempts to cozy up to Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s dictator. Biden and Yoon will explore ways to expand joint military exercises that Trump sought to curtail in a concession to Kim. Today in Tokyo, Biden will unveil an updated trade agreement that seeks to coordinate policies but without the market access or tariff reductions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump abandoned five years ago. The less sweeping framework has some in the region skeptical about its value.Context: Russia’s war in Ukraine snarled Biden’s original strategy of pivoting foreign policy attention to Asia. The trip is an effort to reaffirm that commitment and demonstrate a focus on countering China.Heavy rainfall flooded streets in Bangalore, India, on Friday.Jagadeesh Nv/EPA, via ShutterstockHeavy floods in India, BangladeshMore than 60 people were killed, and millions more were rendered homeless as heavy pre-monsoon rains washed away train stations, towns and villages.Extreme weather is growing more common across South Asia, which has recently suffered devastating heat waves, as the effects of climate change intensify.This year, parts of northern and central India recorded their highest average temperatures for April. Last year, extreme rainfall and landslides washed away sprawling Rohingya refugee camps overnight in Bangladesh, and in 2020, torrential rains submerged at least a quarter of the country.Context: India and Bangladesh are particularly vulnerable to climate change because of their proximity to the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. The tropical waters are increasingly experiencing heat waves, which have led to dry conditions in some places and “a significant increase in rainfall” in others, according to a recent study.Details: The Brahmaputra, one of the world’s largest rivers, has inundated vast areas of agricultural land, villages and towns in India’s remote, hard-hit northeast.THE LATEST NEWSAsiaThe Taliban have also urged women to stay home unless they have a compelling reason to go out.Kiana Hayeri for The New York TimesThe Taliban are aggressively pushing women to wear burqas and crushing rare public protests against the order.Protests continue in Sri Lanka, as citizens demonstrate against a president they blame for crashing the economy.The U.N.’s top human rights official will visit Xinjiang, where Beijing has cracked down on the Uyghur minority, and other parts of China this week. Activists say the trip holds significant risks for the credibility of her office.Some Chinese people are looking to emigrate as pandemic controls drag into their third year.The WarRussian forces attempted to breach Sievierodonetsk’s defenses from four directions but were repelled, a Ukrainian official said.Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesHere are live updates.Russia renewed its attack on Sievierodonetsk, one of Ukraine’s main strongholds in the Donbas region. Its forces are also trying to cross a river in the region despite having suffered a major blow there this month.In a rare acknowledgment, a Kremlin minister said that sanctions have “practically broken” the country’s logistics.Profile: The Russian Orthodox leader Patriarch Kirill I has provided spiritual cover for the invasion.Atrocities: The Times is documenting evidence of potential war crimes, like killings in Bucha, some carried out by a notorious Russian brigade. A Times visual investigation shows how Russian soldiers executed people there.World NewsThe U.S. has surpassed one million Covid deaths, according to The Times’s database.The coalition that replaced Benjamin Netanyahu is crumbling — potentially leading to new Israeli elections that could return him to power.Iran is cracking down on its filmmakers, arresting leading artists in what analysts see as a warning to the general population amid mounting discontent.Kate McKinnon, Pete Davidson and Aidy Bryant are leaving “Saturday Night Live.”Tornadoes in western Germany killed one person and injured dozens more, while an unusual heat wave struck parts of Spain and France.A Morning ReadResty Zilmar recently had to return to a more urban area for work.Hannah Reyes Morales for The New York TimesFor decades, young Filipinos have left rural areas in pursuit of economic success, leading to overcrowded cities. The pandemic temporarily reversed that pattern, and many enjoy rural life. If the government makes good on stated efforts to reinvigorate the hinterlands, the shift may stick.Russia-Ukraine War: Key DevelopmentsCard 1 of 4On the ground. More

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      Anthony Albanese to Become Australian Prime Minister

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      Like Biden before him, Anthony Albanese enters office more on the back of disgust at the conservative incumbent than enthusiasm for his leadership.SYDNEY, Australia — The incumbent prime minister, Scott Morrison, pushed Australia to the right and called himself “a bit of a bulldozer.” His Labor challenger, Anthony Albanese, ran as a modest Mr. Fix-It, promising to seek “renewal, not revolution.”In the end, moderation triumphed. Mr. Albanese won Saturday’s election with a campaign that was gaffe-prone and light on policy but promised a more decent form of politics, delivering a stark rejection of Mr. Morrison after nearly a decade of conservative leadership in Australia.It was a combination that carried powerful echoes of President Biden’s victory a year and a half ago. Both Mr. Albanese and Mr. Biden are political lifers, working-class battlers with decades of experience in government and reputations for pragmatic compromise.But they also both face the problem of how they won. Disgust with an incumbent put them into office. Governing, and staying in power, requires rallying enthusiasm from a fickle public.“It’s a question of whether he can be a galvanizing leader,” said Paul Strangio, a politics professor at Monash University in Melbourne. “Whether he can learn on the job.”In a reflection of Australia’s broader mood of discontent, voters did not just grant Labor a clear victory. They delivered a larger share of their support to minor parties and independents who ran against the political status quo, with a surge of grass-roots enthusiasm for candidates demanding more action on climate change and greater accountability in government.Prime Minister Scott Morrison conceding defeat on Saturday in Sydney.Loren Elliott/ReutersIn Sydney, Allegra Spender, an independent, was projected to defeat Dave Sharma, a moderate from the conservative Liberal Party. In Melbourne, the current treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, who has often been mentioned as a future prime minister, was projected to lose to another independent, Monique Ryan, a pediatrician, while Zoe Daniel, an independent and a former journalist, also won in the city’s bayside suburbs.“What this says is that community can make a difference,” Ms. Daniel said at a victory party on Saturday night.“Climate, integrity, equality,” she added. “We now have a chance to actually make a difference.”In addition to the victories by independents, minor parties — from the Greens on the left to the United Australia Party on the right — also made gains, delivering what analysts described as a “tipping point” in a country that has been gradually moving away from major party dominance.“Voters have sent the major parties the message that their support can’t be guaranteed,” said Jill Sheppard, a politics professor at the Australian National University.“It’s really a massive shift,” she added. “And it’s one we don’t really have our heads around yet.”Australian voters have called for more action on climate change after severe flooding and bush fires.Matthew Abbott for The New York TimesFor Mr. Albanese, who has spent his entire career in Labor Party politics, including 23 years in Parliament, this sea change presents an unexpected challenge.Contrasting his approach with the pugnacious style of Mr. Morrison — who led a government that passed little memorable legislation but successfully managed the early months of the pandemic — Mr. Albanese ran a “small target” campaign.He proposed incremental reforms, including a promise to increase the minimum wage and provide more support for health care, nursing homes and child care. Mostly, though, he focused on altering the tone and style of leadership.“I want to change politics,” he said after voting on Saturday in the Sydney neighborhood where he grew up. “I want to change the way it operates.”Without a grand and well-defined vision already sold to the electorate, some analysts said it would be more difficult for Mr. Albanese to make rapid progress on his agenda.“It doesn’t make it impossible, but governments need momentum,” said Tim Soutphommasane, a politics professor at the University of Sydney.Some of the issues voters want addressed are unsurprising. The cost of living is rising. Businesses are struggling with labor shortages and wondering when the usual flows of skilled migrant workers will return. The pandemic has revealed gaps in health care and nursing homes.A Covid-19 ward in Melbourne. Gaps in health care, laid bare by the pandemic, were of concern to voters.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York TimesBigger questions — about how to bring light to a political system awash in dark money, or how to build a less racist, more equal society, or how to counter a more ambitious and belligerent China — were largely sidestepped by both Labor and its opponents in the campaign.“It’s been a very mundane election campaign, but that doesn’t deny the fact that there is still a global pandemic and a war and shifting global power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific,” said Professor Sheppard, of the Australian National University.Mr. Albanese, 59, does arrive with a reputation for building consensus, and for nodding toward colleagues in his cabinet on issues in which they have greater expertise. During the campaign, Penny Wong, who will serve as foreign minister, announced Labor’s plans to expand aid and diplomatic ties to Southeast Asia in an effort to counter Chinese influence.“He’s got an experienced and pretty talented frontbench, so I expect he will govern in a very collegial way,” said Professor Strangio, of Monash University.“The general view is he’s workmanlike,” he added. “He’s not exceptional. But maybe that’s the sort of leader we need — workmanlike, incremental change, dogged, doesn’t think he’s the smartest man in the room at all times. Maybe it’s the kind of government that would suit Australia’s circumstances.”In the best of times, Australians tend to see their government as a service provider more than a battleground for ideology. Now, with the pressures from the pandemic and the geopolitical fallout of the Ukraine war, they are even more eager to see policies that produce tangible results, and they are less convinced that traditional party politics can do the job.A polling station at Bondi Beach in Sydney on Saturday. Many voters threw their support to minor parties and independents who ran against the political status quo. Steven Saphore/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“We have these antiquated parties that are male-dominated,” said Roslyn Lunsford, 74, a voter in Western Sydney on Saturday. “It’s the same old, same old — we need a broom to go through.”As if he could sense the need for a bolder policy statement, Mr. Albanese opened his acceptance speech Saturday night with a promise to support the Uluru Statement From the Heart, a call from Indigenous Australians to establish a formal role for Australia’s First Nations people in the Constitution. It was issued in 2017 — and rejected by the conservative coalition.Similarly, Mr. Albanese pledged to make equal opportunity for women a national priority, to end Australia’s “climate wars,” which have held back pledges for emissions cuts, and to make the country a renewable energy superpower.Recognizing increased concern about integrity in government and oversight of public spending, Mr. Albanese also promised to quickly pass legislation to create a federal anticorruption commission, following through on an unfulfilled promise from Mr. Morrison in the last election.“Tomorrow we begin the work of building a better future,” he said. “A better future for all Australians.”Supporters of Mr. Albanese reacting to polling updates in Sydney on Saturday. Jaimi Joy/ReutersTo get it done, he now has to persuade a more fractured and more demanding country to believe in him and stick with him, at a time when it is cautiously emerging from two years of Covid isolation, with a surge of coronavirus cases, rising inflation and growing government debt all fueling anxiety.At the same time, China’s regional ambitions have become more threatening, with a new security agreement in the Solomon Islands. And the raging bush fires of 2020 have given way to extreme flooding — a relentless reminder of the country’s vulnerability to climate change, even as it remains the world’s largest exporter of coal.The challenges are colossal. The opposition from a more conservative Liberal Party promises to be fierce. And many analysts note that Mr. Albanese lacks the charisma of prior Labor leaders who won elections and moved the country in a new direction.“It usually takes excitement and a bit of dazzle in a Labor leader to change the government,” said James Curran, a historian at the University of Sydney. “Albanese upsets that historic apple cart.”Victoria Kim contributed reporting from Sydney, Natasha Frost from Melbourne and Yan Zhuang from Cessnock, Australia. More

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      Australian Democracy Comes With a Side of Grilled Onions

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      Grill sausages and onions until they are nicely browned. Take a slice of white bread, place sausage diagonally and top with onions. Fold. Garnish to taste.Now if only the business of democracy were that simple.Every Election Day in Australia, the smoky aroma of sizzling sausages permeates the air near polling stations, as barbecue stands serve up a beloved tradition that acts as a fund-raiser for local schools, churches or community groups.“Democracy sausages,” as they’ve come to be known, make the compulsory trip to the voting booth feel like less of a chore and more like a block party.Election Day barbecues have been around for longer than most can remember, but “democracy sausages” as a phrase first emerged in 2012, and took off during the federal election in 2016, according to the Australian National Dictionary Center.The center says the term’s popularity that year was boosted in part by an infamous faux pas — when the opposition leader, Bill Shorten of the Labor Party, bit into one from the side, like he was eating corn on the cob. (“Sausage gaffe a snag for Labor,” The Guardian wrote. “Voters across Australia were largely astounded,” The Sydney Morning Herald observed.)“That was definitely wrong,” said Annette Tyler, a co-creator of the site democracysausage.org, which has been mapping sausage availability at thousands of polling places since 2012. “We’re very inclusive, however you like your sausage, with onions or without onions, but eating a sausage like that, from the middle of the bun, is one of the strangest things I’ve seen.”Lest there’s any confusion, the right way is to bite into either end, Ms. Tyler said.“It’s not a complex art,” she added. “You’re not having dinner with the queen.”Ms. Tyler, 38, said she enjoyed the spirit of community engagement the barbecue brought out. During one by-election in her home state of Western Australia, she and other volunteers behind the website sampled five sausages in four hours, she recalled.As the electorate has diversified, so have the offerings, with more stands providing vegetarian or halal options, even fancy ones commanding prices of up to 8 Australian dollars. (Inflation stands to be a key issue on voters’ minds this election.) More

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      Will Australia’s Election Be a Reckoning for Morrison on Climate?

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      Australia is a land of portent for the many dangers posed by climate change. The fires, storms, heat waves and other catastrophes that climatologists predict for the planet are already routine here. They also loom over national elections on May 21.Not for the first time. Two of the country’s last three elections hinged in some measure on the climate-versus-jobs debate, with Mother Nature losing out. But recently the political temperature has changed. The rising toll exacted by extreme weather — particularly mega-fires in 2019 and 2020 — is resonating with the public.That’s bad news for Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Climate inaction helped to propel Mr. Morrison to the leadership of the conservative Liberal-National coalition in 2018, but he’s in a tough fight now. Polls this week showed the opposition Labor Party with 51 percent of votes, to 49 percent for the coalition. If that bears out, Australia may serve not merely as a preview of climate peril, but of the risks faced by politicians who shrug it off.Ignoring climate concerns wasn’t always a weak point for Mr. Morrison. The coalition government that he now leads was first elected in 2013 in part on a promise to rescind attempts at carbon pricing by the previous Labor government. This policy won support from the mining lobby and voters who were fed fearful rhetoric about environmentalism’s relentless creep on local industry and jobs. It was an effective strategy in a country that is a major exporter of fossil fuels and home of the world’s largest coal port. A belt of parliamentary seats runs through communities where well-paid jobs in mines represent rare and precious economic opportunity and carry enough weight to influence elections.Mr. Morrison became prime minister in an internal party coup. The moderate policy ambitions of his more liberal colleague and predecessor Malcolm Turnbull, which included action on climate, fatally alienated him from caucus allies to his right, especially those with links to the fossil fuel lobby. Mr. Morrison stared down pro-climate caucus rivals and vaulted into office.Australians didn’t know much about Mr. Morrison when he contested his first election as prime minister in May 2019. He’d only been in office nine months. But he had provided ample clues, scolding students who protested his government’s climate inaction to leave it to the grown-ups, suggesting electric vehicles posed a threat to fun weekends, and brandishing a lump of coal in Parliament like a beloved pet rock in 2017 when he was treasurer.Lagging behind Labor for most of that campaign, Mr. Morrison was saved when an ill-conceived convoy of well-funded environmentalists traveled to mining towns already struggling with high unemployment to campaign against a major coal project. Mr. Morrison reframed anti-climate politics as pro-jobs, won the mining towns and held onto power by one seat.Politically rewarded, he has relentlessly maintained his anti-climate brand, balking at defining a path toward net-zero targets, and embracing coal mines.But the great fires that swept across Australia soon after Mr. Morrison’s victory changed the country. From July 2019, dry conditions and high heat — local symptoms of climate change — kindled mega-fires across the island continent. Bone-dry pastures, riverbeds and forests offered no resistance.Landscapes disappeared under red skies, yellow smoke and a stench of ash that clung to everything. At least 60 million acres — about the size of the United Kingdom — were torched, nearly three billion animals perished or were displaced, and 34 people were killed. Smoke pollution was linked to hundreds more deaths. Damage was estimated at $100 billion. More

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      How a Group of Female Independents Aims to Revive Australian Democracy

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      A community-driven movement has recruited around 25 candidates, most of them successful women preaching pragmatic reform. They could shape the balance of power after Saturday’s election.SYDNEY, Australia — On a cool morning at 5:50 a.m., Allegra Spender prepared to dive into the surf alongside dozens of ocean swimmers at Bondi Beach. She was there not just for exercise. She was there to meet voters.Her name was all over volunteers’ teal T-shirts and swim caps, identifying her as an independent candidate for the Australian federal Parliament.“Takes a lot of courage, what you’re doing,” said Jason Carr, 50, a security consultant, who came over to pledge his vote. “Good luck shaking things up.”Ms. Spender, 44, looked down and laughed.A first-time candidate, she said she still found the attention that comes with politics embarrassing. But that has not stopped her from shaking the political establishment — she is part of a movement of around 25 independents, nearly all of them women with successful careers, who are aiming to do nothing less than rejuvenate Australian democracy by saving it from the creep of corruption, right-wing populism and misogyny.The so-called teal independents, who tend to share the campaign colors of a Pacific wave, offer a sharp rebuke to Australia’s rigid party system. Recruited by energetic community groups that have formed only in the past few years, they are the public face of a fresh approach to politics that hopes to pull Australia back to the middle with a focus on climate change solutions, integrity and values like kindness.The “teals” could have a profound impact on Saturday’s election. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the leader of the conservative Liberal Party, has warned of a “cavalcade of chaos” should too many independents win. But if the vote is close, as expected, and if neither the Liberal coalition nor the opposition Labor Party wins a majority, this group of loosely organized women who share common goals of making government more responsive and productive could decide who leads the next Australian Parliament.Ms. Spender, center in black, during a swim to meet voters at Bondi Beach in Sydney.Stephanie Simcox for The New York TimesThe gray-haired men fighting for power in the world’s third-largest exporter of fossil fuels — where sexual harassment in politics has long been ignored, where money pours in and out of government without oversight, where conservatives promoting populism make bans on transgender athletes a campaign plank — could soon find themselves forced to negotiate with independent working mothers demanding change, backed by mobilized constituents.“It’s a rebellion from the sensible center,” said Ms. Spender, who is challenging a Liberal incumbent in a district her father once represented in Parliament as a Liberal, in the days when the party was more center-right.“No, rebellion is the wrong word,” she added. “It’s a move by people who feel that they are not represented, and have had enough, and are hoping things will change.”The Indie From IndiAustralia’s major parties are gatekeepers with old operating systems. There are no primaries, and dark money pays a lot of the bills. The parties decide who runs, and those who win rarely break ranks, because a single breach can end a political career.In many districts, there has long been a sense that political ambition and party loyalty matter more than local interests. And while some of that discontent has flowed to minor parties like the Greens on the left and One Nation on the far right, what’s happening now with independents is more focused on how to improve representation rather than channeling frustration into one partisan wing or another.It began far from the cities, with a no-nonsense leader. Her name is Cathy McGowan.A sheep farmer and former president of Australian Women in Agriculture, she reached Parliament in 2013 as an independent from Indi, a rural area northwest of Melbourne. She defeated the Liberal incumbent. And the way she got there was even more groundbreaking than the victory itself.The process started before her candidacy with a group of local residents — Voices for Indi — gathering to discuss what they loved about their community and what they wanted to see changed. More than 400 people participated in 55 conversations around kitchen tables, over coffee or a beer, after a class or while camping.Those casual chats led to a thoughtful report that listed concerns from poor mobile phone reception to climate change. It also sought to define good political representation with phrases pulled from the conversations like “walk the talk” and “asks the community what it needs and is willing to listen.”Voices for Indi was the catalyst for Ms. McGowan’s campaign. When she won, Australians around the country started calling and emailing.“I was quite surprised by the response,” Ms. McGowan said. “There was huge interest.”Cathy McGowan in Parliament in 2019. Her campaign sprang from a local grass-roots movement.Tracey Nearmy/Getty ImagesTo share what she had learned, she hosted small events in 2014 and 2017.After another voices group in Sydney helped an independent candidate, Zali Steggall, unseat former Prime Minister Tony Abbott in 2019, the movement suddenly went viral.Ms. McGowan, who left Parliament that year, passing the seat to another independent, Helen Haines, wrote a book in 2020 that told her personal story. She also started leading conferences over Zoom during the pandemic, connecting hundreds of people with similar inclinations.Each voices group that emerged embarked on a listening tour and ended up with its own list of concerns. The groups also hosted virtual events with policy experts.“Political parties have become disconnected from any kind of local membership,” said John Daley, a professor at the University of Melbourne Law School who wrote a major report about disengagement and gridlock last year. “The independent playbook goes precisely in the other direction — it goes back to the original idea of representative democracy.”The strongest efforts seem to have sprung up in areas with conservative roots, professional families and intense frustration with the tilt away from the political middle by the Liberal-led governing coalition.Most of the contenders are pro-business, pro-innovation (especially on energy) and proudly pro-equality (on both race and gender).Their campaigns have been bolstered by money from a group called Climate 200, which has collected more than 12 million Australian dollars, or about $8.5 million, from 12,000 donors to go to 22 independent candidates.That has led critics to claim they are not really independent. But Ms. McGowan and others, including Simon Holmes à Court, a founder of Climate 200, say the traditional major parties just don’t get that they’ve been disrupted.The independents and their supporters describe what’s happening as a 21st-century movement, organized on Slack and Zoom, crowd-funded, decentralized and committed to pragmatism.“Whatever the issue may be,” Ms. McGowan said, “what they want is action.”Fun … and Climate ChangeFor first-timers like Ms. Spender, who has worked in education and renewable energy and for the fashion company founded by her mother, Carla Zampatti, campaigning with new community groups often feels like her swim toward a distant buoy with energetic neighbors — exhausting, a little scary, but also rewarding.After her ocean jaunt in Bondi, she walked to a nearby cafe with all the others. Waiting in line for coffee, Ms. Spender warmed up near other swimmers and a few dogs wearing Allegra scarves. For the next hour, she did less talking than her volunteers.“This is the alternative to a career politician,” said Jonathan Potts, 51, who said he spends five hours a day volunteering to get Ms. Spender elected. “It’s a different philosophy — we want to look after long-term interests rather than party interests.”In interviews, many of the independents said they were initially reluctant to run, but had been surprised by how fun it had been to work with an ideas-first, community-driven approach.Zoe Daniel, a former foreign correspondent for Australia’s national broadcaster who is an independent candidate in Melbourne’s bayside suburbs, said she had been amazed to see young schoolgirls stopping outside her campaign office, taking selfies. There is even a choir that sings songs with “Zoe-ified lyrics.”An independent candidate, Zoe Daniel, center, greeting constituents in the suburbs of Melbourne earlier this month.Asanka Brendon Ratnayake for The New York Times“All of us feel that we’ve made lifelong friends with like-minded people through this,” she said.Dr. Monique Ryan, a pediatric neurologist who is challenging Josh Frydenberg, the national treasurer, said the local support pointed to the power of “small ‘l’ liberal values.”In her district, 2,000 volunteers have come out, including several hundred with Voices of Kooyong, who signed up before she was their candidate. They’ve knocked on around 50,000 doors — almost every single household in the electorate.“We offer something that’s not the normal partisan politics,” she said. “We also offer something that’s very values based. For me, it’s about integrity and transparency and action on climate, which a lot of people feel deep anxiety about. It’s about gender equity, it’s about a more cohesive society.”Polls show close contests for Ms. Daniel, Ms. Spender and Dr. Ryan. Incumbent independents, including Andrew Wilkie in Tasmania and Ms. Steggall in Sydney, also appear to be in strong positions. The fortunes of some other independents are harder to gauge, but the momentum has clearly set conservative politicians on edge.Mr. Frydenberg, who has been talked about as a potential prime minister, recently admitted he was facing “the fight of my political life.”Ms. Spender, at a recent climate event with two other independents — Georgia Steele, a lawyer, and Kylea Tink, a businesswoman — said they were trying to fill a national void.“I’m angry, I mean, really angry that the moderates of the coalition and even the Labor Party are not taking enough action right now and that other people have to stand up in their stead,” Ms. Spender said.“This is a national transformation,” she added. “It’s not one business, it’s not one community. It’s all.”Yan Zhuang contributed reporting. More

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      How the Long Recovery From Bush Fires Could Decide Australia’s Election

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      COBARGO, Australia — On a recent sunny day in the hills behind Cobargo, a village in southeastern Australia, local volunteers were hard at work installing a bathroom for the Jee family, which had waited more than two years for a proper one.Tammie and Brett Jee and their five sons lost their home on New Year’s Eve 2019 when a ferocious fire swept through the area. It was one of the most damaging of the record-setting “black summer” bush fires in Australia that killed 34 people, destroyed 3,500 homes and burned more than 60 million acres over two months.For the Jees and many others, the recovery from their devastating loss has been painfully slow. Barely one in 10 families in the affected region have finished rebuilding, local government data shows. Most have not even started. Planning delays, skilled labor shortages, supply chain problems brought on by the pandemic and a lack of government support are among the causes of delay.The suffering has left its mark not just on the families living in sheds or battling bureaucracy. It has also shifted the political firmament: If the opposition Labor Party wins the Australian election on Saturday, it could be in part because these once-conservative rural towns south of Sydney have shifted their allegiance out of frustration and anger.“It’s a perfect storm of factors,” said Kristy McBain, the area’s member of Parliament. Among them is a recovery effort complicated by overlapping involvement from national, state and local governments.“It seems that every time we have a disaster, we have a government that wants to try to reinvent the wheel for how recovery should work,” added Ms. McBain, who was mayor of the local council during the fires. “And we’ve never settled on a model, which is pretty crazy.”Tammie Jee and her son Mason preparing dinner in a temporary kitchen inside a shed on their property.Because Mason has muscular dystrophy, he needed a portable disabled bathroom installed, which took more than two years.Other communities were also devastated by the summer blazes. Other towns have also struggled to rebuild and recover, hampered by a pandemic; by flooding and storms; and by a glacial approval process from government agencies.But Cobargo, where Prime Minister Scott Morrison was loudly heckled while visiting the town in the fires’ immediate aftermath, has come to stand as an emblem for the devastation and the politically divisive aftermath.Just inland from Australia’s southeast coast, 240 miles from Sydney, Cobargo is in the electorate of Eden-Monaro, a bellwether seat that, until 2016, had been won by the party forming the government in Australia’s parliamentary system for four decades. It is currently held by Ms. McBain, for the opposition Labor Party, who won a by-election in July 2020 with a margin of less than 1 percentage point.The electorate to the north, Gilmore, also hard hit by the fires, is held by another Labor representative, Fiona Phillips. It was previously in conservative hands for two decades.With the ruling conservative Liberal-National coalition expected to lose urban seats in other states, the conventional wisdom is that the current government’s route to re-election goes through the country — in this case, bush-fire-ravaged country.Bushland on the outskirts of Cobargo that has been irrevocably altered by the fires that tore through the region in December 2019.Buildings in Cobargo destroyed by fire, January 2020.Mr. Morrison currently governs with a one-seat majority in Parliament. A failure to win back those seats could cost his coalition re-election.The Jee family has more immediate concerns. They initially lived in a rental property before returning to their fire-scarred rural acreage in Wandella, near Cobargo, where they built a small shed and supplemented it with a disaster accommodation “pod” — a self-contained shipping container 23 feet long and eight feet wide — provided by an Australian charity.Life in their tiny temporary accommodation has been hard, even before an unseasonably wet year that now has them fighting mold. Because the Jees’ third son, Mason, 16, has muscular dystrophy, he cannot use the cramped, camp-style shower in the pod. Before the new bathroom was installed in a newly constructed shed, every time he wanted to shower, he had to go to his grandmother’s house, a few miles away.When the Jees set about rebuilding, they hit a wall of planning paperwork. Legacy planning issues with their previous home, and changes to development law, meant that at one stage it looked as if they might never be permitted to rebuild.While those roadblocks have been largely overcome, the Jees are still awaiting final approval to start construction. They are unlikely to have a new home built by the fourth anniversary of the bush fires. “It’s been a nightmare,” Ms. Jee said.Nearby in Cobargo, Vic Grantham has been trying to get answers about the latest delays in his own planning process. When Mr. Grantham and his partner, Janice Holdsworth, moved to a 26-acre property in the area in 2005, they found community and contentment.Early in the morning on New Year’s Day in 2020, their house was destroyed by fire.Janice Holdsworth and Vic Grantham in front of the shed where they currently live. Because they moved after the fire, they no longer qualified as “bush-fire-affected” for planning prioritization.Emergency accommodation pods that have been returned or are about to be sent to families in need on the outskirts of Cobargo.They sold their property and bought a block in the Cobargo township, intending to live in an existing shed on that site while they built their new dream home.But because they had moved, they subsequently learned, they no longer qualified as bush fire survivors for planning prioritization by the local government.“We’re not prioritized,” Mr. Grantham said, “because we’re not ‘bush-fire-affected.’ It’s George Orwell-speak. Tell me again I’m not bush-fire-affected.”There are signs that such anger at the disaster response could hurt the Liberal-National government’s chances of regaining Gilmore and Eden-Monaro. A poster depicting Mr. Morrison in a Hawaiian shirt and floral headpiece was prominent recently on Cobargo’s main street, pointedly reminding voters that the prime minister vacationed in Hawaii while the fires were raging.In February, there was a regional government by-election for the seat of Bega, which takes in parts of the two federal electorates and is home to many communities hit by the fires. For the first time, a Labor candidate won the seat.“I do think there was anger about the bush fires,” said the election’s winner, Dr. Michael Holland.A poster depicting Prime Minister Scott Morrison in a Hawaiian shirt at a coffee shop in Cobargo, reminding voters that he vacationed in Hawaii while the fires were raging.The area around Wandella Creek was ravaged by the 2019-20 fires. Now it has been flooding after months of torrential rainfall in the area.In an interview at his clinic in the coastal town of Moruya, Dr. Holland, an obstetrician, recalled sheltering from the fires in his office. “I slept for five nights on the floor here,” he said.His home was spared, but many of his constituents were not so fortunate. “People still haven’t rebuilt,” he says. “There are really a lot of people out there struggling, and they’re a lot of the time struggling in silence.”With Australia acutely vulnerable to the impact of climate change, effective disaster recovery is going to become only more critical in the years ahead.“Climate change makes a difference,” said Ms. McBain, the member of Parliament. “These events are occurring more frequently; they are more intense. They are having an impact on the lives and livelihoods of so many people now. It is incumbent upon governments to get the process right.”Whatever happens during Australia’s election, the people of Cobargo will continue their slow road to recovery.“You heal with the land,” said Philippe Ravenel, a Swiss Australian blacksmith who, with his wife, Marie, lost his home in Wandella during the fires.Iain Hamilton, a blacksmith, showing his family how to prepare the steel used to forge leaves, part of a memorial sculpture project for the communities that survived the bush fires.“We use fire to create something, instead of all the destruction that the fire left behind,” said Philippe Ravenel, another blacksmith working on the project, showing some of the leaves made by local residents.“We cannot complain,” he said, noting that some lost their lives. The fire in the area was so intense that Mr. Ravenel’s cast-iron pots melted.For much of the past two years, the Ravenels have been living in a shed attached to the blacksmith workshop, which survived the fires. They will soon begin rebuilding.In the meantime, Mr. Ravenel has been part of a project to help the community heal. Together with another local blacksmith, Iain Hamilton, he has opened up his workshop to residents from the area to forge a leaf inscribed with their name. Once 3,000 or so leaves have been forged, the blacksmiths intend to use them to create a memorial.“The idea is that you have a tree that you can sit under and reflect,” he said.The memorial, on Cobargo’s main street, will be a lasting reminder of the bush fire that devastated this hamlet, the turbulent rebuilding process that followed and Cobargo’s central role in a wider national debate in Australia.“We use fire to create something,” Mr. Ravenel said of the project, “instead of all the destruction that the fire left behind.”Bushland destroyed by the fires in 2019. With Australia acutely vulnerable to the impact of climate change, effective disaster recovery is going to become only more critical in the years ahead.Matthew Abbott for The New York Times More

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      An American Moment in an Australian Campaign

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      To some analysts, a spat over transition surgery looks like something from an overseas culture war.The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. Perhaps the ugliest part of Australia’s election campaign has been the debate around the rights of transgender people. Katherine Deves, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s handpicked candidate for the seat of Warringah, courted controversy this week when she walked back a previous apology for calling transition surgery “mutilation.”Mr. Morrison has resisted calls — including from within his own Liberal Party — to drop Ms. Deves since tweets that had been deleted from her account resurfaced, including the original comment about transition surgery. In another tweet, she compared her campaign to ban trans women from women’s sports to standing up against the Holocaust.Mr. Morrison has dismissed the reaction to Ms. Deves’s comments as cancel culture, and in an election season that’s been light on policy and heavy on spectacle, the issue has spawned furious commentary and countless headlines. For many, the tone and the arguments feel very, well, American. It seems as though a conservative conversation in the United States has been exported to Australia. Or is this something that reflects Australia’s own political urges or unresolved divides?It’s not the first time that culture war and identity issues have formed part of an Australian election campaign. But this time feels particularly ugly, both because of the topics being debated and the vitriolic language being used.“I think it’s more personal, intrusive, and I think hurtful for those who are caught up in it,” said John Warhurst, an emeritus professor of politics at the Australian National University. He said it seemed to be an example of overlap with American culture. “We’ve had earlier political debates about political correctness and wokeness,” Professor Warhurst said. “Those generally arise in the U.S. and are picked up in Australia by those who use them for their advantage.”Political analysts say Mr. Morrison seems to be hoping that Ms. Deves’s views will resonate with religious voters in rural areas, in districts that the coalition needs to win on May 21, even if some moderate Liberal seats have to be sacrificed.But will it work? According to Paul Williams, a political analyst and associate professor at Griffith University, the issue of transgender rights doesn’t resonate in Australia the way it does in the United States.“You can see culture wars is at the heart of American politics,” he said. “I don’t think we’re at that point in Australia.”“Middle Australia seems to be a fairly reasonable electorate,” he added. With economic concerns at the forefront of people’s minds, issues like trans women’s participation in sports are hardly a priority.That doesn’t mean there aren’t voters who view politics through the prism of pro- and anti-political correctness. But do they amount to a critical mass? No, Professor Williams said. And would the trans rights issue decide their votes? Probably not, he added.But he’s concerned about the future. This campaign has been particularly “presidential,” he said — driven by leaders’ personalities, not parties’ policies. It has also been marked by the “atomization” of news coverage, with different outlets constructing different realities for different constituencies, and by the weaponization of issues like trans rights, he said. He fears that “Australia will become not just polarized but as irrational as post-Obama America, where the old adage that you’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not entitled to your own facts has been completely thrown out the window.”“This idea of win at all costs, win on ethos and pathos, feeling and character — or at least perception of character — but not on facts, is a terribly slippery road to go down,” Professor Williams said.Now here are our stories of the week. Australia and New ZealandPrime Minister Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand in Parliament in March, announcing the easing of some of the country’s pandemic restrictions. Pool photo by Mark MitchellJacinda Ardern, whose restrictions buffered New Zealand from the worst of the pandemic, tests positive. The prime minister’s rules kept transmission at bay for two years, and by the time the highly infectious Omicron variant hit, the vast majority of New Zealand’s population had been vaccinated.There’s an election in Australia. Here’s how climate fits in. The country has been hit hard by wildfires and other climate disasters, but it’s also making tons of money from fossil fuels.U.S. Picked as Host of Rugby World Cup. Eager to establish a foothold in a coveted market, world rugby officials awarded the 2031 men’s World Cup and 2033 women’s event to the United States.New Zealand will fully reopen its borders at the end of July. The move comes two months ahead of schedule, in an attempt to speed up economic recovery.Around The TimesChang W. Lee/The New York Times Tattoos, Still Illegal in South Korea, Thrive Underground. Tattoo artists, long treated as criminals for their work, say that it is time to end the stigma against their business.Butt Lifts Are Booming. Healing Is No Joke. Beauty, pain, race and money play out in Miami’s post-surgical recovery houses.Life in a Ukrainian Unit: Diving for Cover, Waiting for Western Weapons. Analysts say the outcome of fighting now is riding on the accuracy, quantity and the striking power of long-range weapons. Ukraine is pleading for more.The Mundane Thrill of ‘Romanticizing Your Life.’ A trend that took off early in the pandemic encourages people to appreciate life’s simple pleasures, a philosophy that resonates just as strongly two years later.Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group. More

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      Quiz Time on the Campaign Trail

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      Several “gotcha” questions for candidates, including one that Anthony Albanese got wrong, raise deeper questions about the quality of the nation’s political discourse.The Australia Letter is a weekly newsletter from our Australia bureau. Sign up to get it by email. During the first week of the federal election campaign, politicians have been asked about: the price of bread, milk and petrol; the JobSeeker rate; the wage price index; the cash rate; the unemployment rate, and more.We still have five weeks to go, and I’m already exhausted.When the opposition leader, Anthony Albanese failed to correctly name the cash rate and unemployment rate on the first day of the campaign, it prompted widespread media coverage, and Prime Minister Scott Morrison seized on the opportunity to label his opponent as weak on the economy. Other politicians received pop quizzes on various other prices and statistics over the next two days, before it all screeched to a halt on Wednesday, when the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, excoriated the news media after being asked for the wage price index.“Google it,” he responded, adding: “Politics should be about reaching for the stars and offering a better society. And instead, there’s these questions that are asked about — can you tell us this particular stat or can you tell us that particular stat.”In an election campaign that so far seems lacking in big-picture vision, the episode has fueled debate about the value of so-called gotcha questions. Should any aspiring prime minister be able to recite these figures to show they have a good understanding of the country they want to lead, or do such questions just get in the way of better, higher-level political debate?Speaking about Albanese’s blunder on Monday, Andrea Carson, a political scientist at La Trobe University and the creator of the Below the Line election podcast, put it in a different category than a gotcha question devised to catch a politician out. Instead, it spoke to a lack of preparedness on the part of Labor to anticipate attacks from an opposition eager to paint it as weak on the economy, she said.“It wasn’t so much about the gotcha moment, it was the lack of pre-emption,” she said. “In one moment Albanese undid any good work they could have done in that space by feeding into the narrative that Labor can’t be trusted on the economy.”Elections have been lost in the past because of such own-goal blunders before, she added. In 1993, when Liberal opposition leader John Hewson wasn’t able to explain whether his proposed goods and services tax policy would increase or decrease the price of a birthday cake, it “made it look like he didn’t understand the policy he was campaigning on — and that was his election to lose.”More recently, the Labor opposition leader Mark Latham’s infamous handshake in 2004 turned voters off with its aggression, she added.Those were both “a seminal moment in the campaign that sort of sums up how that election campaign went,” said Carson, the political scientist. It’s yet to be seen whether Albanese’s moment will have the same impact.“Every election, there’s at least one gotcha fail,” said Paul Williams, an associate professor and political expert at Griffith University. Though they usually have quite a short life, he added, Bill Shorten’s gaffe during the 2019 election campaign, when he mistakenly ruled out introducing new taxes on superannuation, in contradiction to his party’s policy, “did tend to frame his campaign. It did injure his campaign quite significantly.”While it was understandable that swing voters would be critical of Albanese’s blunder, he said, they should also know that “this doesn’t define the party or his potential to be a prime minister, because prime ministers are chairs of cabinets and are responsible for policy. Prime ministers have become big-picture guardians.”And as much as the episode shows that Labor should have been better prepared, he said, there’s also something to be said for the idea that we should aspire to a better quality of political debate.We all contribute to it, he says: the journalists who ask the gotcha questions, because they’re short on time or know that’s what will attract clicks and views; the politicians and their spin doctors who protect “themselves so carefully with garrisons of PR that journalists have to ask those sorts of questions to break through”; and voters who respond to gotcha questions and horse-race framing and see the election as a personality contest rather than a contest between two parties’ policies.“We’re all to blame,” Williams said. “We all need to lift the political debate.”Now for this week’s stories.Australia and New ZealandHannah Gadsby in 2018.Molly Matalon for The New York TimesIn “10 Steps to Nanette,” Hannah Gadsby Moves From Stage to Page. The Australian comedian brings distinctive flair to the structure and tone of her memoir.New Zealand Welcomes Vaccinated Tourists From Australia and Relaxes More Policies. The latest steps toward reopening are being taken in a country that has maintained some of the strictest coronavirus precautions in the world.No Reusable Cup? In Australia, It’s at Your Own Risk. On a visit to Melbourne, a Times reporter got a lesson in cafe etiquette, and the challenges facing the sustainability movement.These Photographers Chase New Zealand’s Glowing Waves. Capturing bioluminescence, a phenomenon in which glowing algae give crashing waves an electric-blue glow, requires technical skill and a bit of luck.An Australia Homecoming, Mixed with Yearning and Trepidation. When “Fortress Australia” sealed its borders, thousands of citizens were stuck abroad. When allowed to return home, a reporter wondered how she would find the country — and how it would find her.Around The TimesA new simulation gives a detailed look at a shockwave that circled the planet for days.‘It’s Super Spectacular.’ See How the Tonga Volcano Unleashed a Once-in-a-Century Shockwave. A new simulation gives a detailed look at a shockwave that circled the planet for days.Elon Musk, After Toying With Twitter, Now Wants It All. The billionaire executive recently became one of the company’s largest shareholders. Now he says he wants to buy the whole thing and change how it handles speech.Even the Cactus May Not Be Safe From Climate Change. More than half of species could face greater extinction risk by midcentury, a new study found, as rising heat and dryness test the prickly plants’ limits.Tensions Over the Ukraine War Deepen the Chill Near the North Pole. The war and the comments of a Russian diplomat have strained relations on an archipelago in Norway where Russians, Ukrainians and Norwegians have lived peacefully for decades.Enjoying the Australia Letter? Sign up here or forward to a friend.For more Australia coverage and discussion, start your day with your local Morning Briefing and join us in our Facebook group. More