Morning Mail: threats of escalation from US and Tehran; outrage over Legal Aid appointee; outsourced workers treated ‘like battery hens’

Want to get this in your inbox every weekday? Sign up for the Morning Mail here, and finish your day with our Afternoon Update newsletter Good morning. As missile strikes continue, Tehran is warning that it will deem energy and desalination infrastructure across the Middle East a legitimate target if Donald Trump follows through on threats to bomb Iran’s power plants. Meanwhile, there has been disbelief as a former police detective is appointed to Queensland’s Legal Aid board – despite having been described in federal court documents as a “principal antagonist” in events surrounding the Palm Island riots in 2004. Elsewhere, former staff at the ATO’s outsourced debt collector Recoveriescorp claim they were treated “like battery hens”. And we take stock after the Matildas’ stinging defeat by Japan in the Women’s Asian Cup final. Exclusive | Queensland’s government has been accused of “opening old wounds” by appointing a former police detective who was heavily criticised for his role in events before and after the 2004 death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee and subsequent rioting in the Palm Island community to the state’s Legal Aid board. ‘Like battery h