Morning Mail: Coalition backs One Nation policy, Bashar al-Assad sentenced to death, and what the RBA really believes

Want to get this in your inbox every weekday? Sign up for the Morning Mail here, and finish your day with our Afternoon Update newsletterGood morning. Despite pledging to fight Pauline Hanson’s insurgent rightwing movement, the Coalition is now backing One Nation’s policy of barring overseas Australians with terror links from returning home.Overseas, a Syrian court has sentenced its former president, Bashar al-Assad, to death in absentia for war crimes.Analysis | Parents make threats to get their kids to behave – and hope they won’t have to follow through. There’s more than a whiff of this in the RBA’s messaging, Patrick Commins writes.‘We’ll work with them’ | The Coalition will back a plan by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation to prevent Australian citizens with links to overseas terror groups from returning home.‘Industry-wide safety net’ | Delivery drivers in Australia will be paid a minimum rate of $31.30 an hour and insured for injuries on the job under a landmark agreement approved by the industrial umpire.Icac hearings | A lobbyist under investigation by the NSW corruption watchdog has admitted to commissioning a “shit sheet” on a former Liberal MP with a view to using it to discredit them.Melon gaffe | Amid accusations of sexual innuendo, Anthony Albanese has rejected calls to apologise to Japan’s prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, over a joke he made about her gift of melons. Continue reading...