Breaking: One month has passed since Marriage Equality became law — enough time for couples to give their notice to marry. This means today is the first day LGBTI couples can marry (unless they received a waiver on the 30-day waiting period).

”Love wins!”

Midnight weddings as Australia celebrates first official day of marriage equality.

Seven News reports that same-sex couples have tied the knot at midnight across Australia on the first official day of marriage equality, celebrating the result of a hard-fought campaign. One of the first ceremonies that took place overnight was near Tweed Heads it is reported, where athletes Craig Burns and Luke Sullivan timed their proceedings so the marriage would become official minutes after midnight.

"It's a very surreal feeling," Craig commented in the lead-up to the event.

Seven News reports that the same-sex marriage legislation passed in parliament on December 7, nearly a month after it was revealed 61.6 per cent of participants in a voluntary postal survey backed the change. It is reported that amid scenes of celebration same-sex couples were quick to lodge formal intentions to wed and while some were granted exemptions to the four-week waiting period, today is the first official day ceremonies can take place.

The jig’s up for Coalition’s negative gearing lies – and apologists in the media.

The New Daily reports that when the Australian people are being lied to, you’d hope that the bulk of the mainstream media would swing into action to expose the liars. However, they report that did not happen during the Coalition’s phoney defence of negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts before the last election. They write that Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Treasurer Scott Morrison encountered a mild push-back from journalists at best as they ran a scare campaign against making any change to two of the most unjust, and unjustified, tax lurks going. The New Daily reports that the PM said winding back those two tax write-offs would “take a sledgehammer” to property prices because “a third of demand” would disappear from the market if reforms proposed by ALP came to pass. Well this week, the New Daily writes that the deceitfulness of those claims is being fully exposed via a freedom of information request by the ABC. Not only were Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison contradicting eminent economists such as Saul Eslake and John Daley on the matter writes the New Daily; not only were they contradicting the Liberal NSW planning minister Rob Stokes; but they were also contradicting their own advice, prepared by the Department of Treasury. That advice writes the New Daily, now posted online for all to see, explains why ALP’s proposal for a non-retrospective ban on negative gearing of established dwellings, plus a halving of the capital gains tax discount, would have no effect on share prices, no effect on commercial property prices, and “in the long term … could have a relatively modest downward impact on [residential] property prices”. So much for one-third of buyers fleeing the property market writes the New Daily. The two questions that need answering, is why were Mr Turnbull and Mr Morrison making such obviously false claims, and why were those claims not torn apart by the Canberra press gallery?

Australia's emissions are rising. It's time for this government to quit pretending.

The Guardian reports that in the week before Christmas the government yet again released its latest data on greenhouse gas emissions in the hope they would be missed amid other news and the nearing festivities. It is reported that 2017 will be the second warmest year on record and easily the warmest ever for a year not affected by El Nino. It is reported that this means that 2017 will be first time in six years that the calendar year has not been warmer than the one which preceded it. However writes the Guardian, that is small comfort, given it is warmer than every single year that did precede it but one. The Guardian writes that the news is a bit old – in 2016, the government released its emissions data on the Thursday before Christmas Day. In 2017 they were a bit better – they did it on the Tuesday before Christmas reports the Guardian. Rather coincidentally they write, it was also the day Malcolm Turnbull announced the reshuffle of his ministry and the government released its energy policy review. In the 12 months to September 2016 reports the Guardian, Australia’s annual greenhouse gas emissions rose to a record level of 550.2 Mt CO2-e if you include the rather dodgy emissions from land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sectors.

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