November 22, 2018 Edition.
Well it has been amazing week with the Trump testifying to the Mueller Inquiry while has VP wanders around stirring up trouble in Asia and Europe gets over the most recent Trump visit. Also California appears to be self-immolating with horrible loss of life. Just awful....
As far as Brexit goes it is a minute by minute situation..
In OZ we have all sorts of blowback from the Embassy move suggestion and now China and the US seem to be slipping into real antipathy with OZ and Japan on the sidelines. What a mess!
And for light relief the FS Royal Commission is holding hearings!
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Major Issues.
- Nov 11 2018 at 2:08 PM
Sydney clearances head toward historic low as credit bites
Preliminary clearance rate hit 41.3 per cent in Sydney and could go lower. Fairfax Media
Sydney's auction clearance rate is heading toward a 30-year low after hitting 41 per cent on preliminary figures over the past week.
The situation of the Sydney market where prices are already falling and discounting is increasing prompted a warning from veteran analyst SQ Research's Louis Christopher.
"This is getting almost unprecedented. It's certainly unprecedented in the last 20 years," he said
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- Updated Nov 12 2018 at 7:46 AM
Rocket Lab's launch in New Zealand brings quick space access, undercuts SpaceX
by Ashlee Vance
San Francisco | Cheap, quick access to space has officially arrived - and in some serious style.
Dozens of employees gathered at the company's headquarters in Auckland clad in Rocket Lab's black-and-red colours and let out a series of primordial screams as the rocket took off, flew into space and dropped its satellite payload into orbit.
Issues had delayed this launch for months, but Sunday's event went off without a hitch.
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- Updated Nov 11 2018 at 7:00 PM
Politics and the art of the ordinary
The real election race is how long ordinary bloke Scott Morrison can keep juggling these extraordinary and contradictory forces in the Coalition.
Another political leader gone, although this time courtesy of self-immolation rather than assassination. Another leader taking his place and talking up his "ordinary bloke" credentials. Another frantic attempt to dispel community cynicism about politics in the countdown to an election.
The new NSW Opposition Leader, Michael Daley, is replacing Luke Foley – a name that registered with few people in NSW until the scandal of his drunken harassment of a journalist during Christmas drinks in 2016 belatedly surfaced. Foley is now being escorted from the premises of the NSW parliament and Labor as fast as possible and in permanent disgrace.
Instead of his hopes of becoming Premier next March, Foley's time in politics – like Malcolm Turnbull's – is gone. And just like Scott Morrison, Daley is determined to show he has different values and priorities to his predecessor.
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'They looked to be amiable', says Cosgrove of Trump and Putin in Paris
By Nick Miller
12 November 2018 — 9:47am
Paris: The presidents of the US and Russia had a “lively and lengthy” conversation at lunch on Sunday and seemed relaxed in each other’s company, Australia’s governor-general says.
Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump had been expected to hold a significant meeting on Sunday in Paris, the first since their astonishing talks in Helsinki earlier this year.
Australia’s governor-general Peter Cosgrove found himself sitting next to Russia’s Vladimir Putin for the Armistice commemorations in Paris.
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How spies and police decide who needs watching - and who doesn't
By David Wroe
11 November 2018 — 11:01am
If Bourke Street murderer Hassan Khalif Shire Ali had his passport cancelled because he wanted to fight with the so-called Islamic State in Syria, why was he assessed by intelligence authorities as not being a violent threat at home?
It was the obvious question out of a police press conference on Saturday.
“Was that a mistake?” a journalist asked the Australian Federal Police’s assistant commissioner for terrorism, Ian McCartney.
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Scott Morrison's best chance at winning the next election
By Sean Kelly
12 November 2018 — 12:10am
Right, I’m making you prime minister for nine months. What do you want to do with it?
If you said get on a bus with your face on the side of it and do a bunch of FM radio interviews, then congratulations: you’re thinking like a modern politician.
That is the equation facing Scott Morrison. Doubt me? There are three ways he can get a longer stint. He could buy himself a few extra months by splitting next year’s elections into a Senate election in May and a House election later in the year, an option he pretty much ruled out this week. (Rightly so – it would have looked desperate and tricky.)
Another is returning as prime minister after first losing government. But in the past hundred years only one person has become prime minister again after a stint in opposition: Robert Menzies. Possible, but you’d bet against it.
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Why Australia is a world champion at home price rises
- 9:39AM November 12, 2018
We need to talk about this chart.
It is a truly astonishing thing, this chart – it’s one of those graphics that you look at and think: “Wow. Surely there’s some mistake.”
To put into words what you can see: Australian house prices, relative to income, have increased almost two and a half times over the past four decades while in the rest of the world, on average, houses have become cheaper.
Houses getting more and more expensive all the time — the stone that Australians have dragged behind them these past 40 years — is not what usually happens.
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Labor well ahead in latest Newspoll
Labor is well ahead in the latest Newspoll, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison says he has a “very steep” mountain to climb.
Australian Associated Press November 12, 201810:40am
Scott Morrison knows he has a "mountain to climb" to win the next election but polls are showing voters keep making that mountain even steeper.
The coalition has sunk further below Labor to 45-55 on a two-party preferred basis - sitting just one point higher than it did in the days following the August leadership spill.
The Newspoll published in The Australian shows the Liberal-National primary vote is similarly in trouble at 35 per cent, down one point since the last poll and two points above the record low set in late August.
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- Nov 13 2018 at 9:25 AM
Eviation Aircraft's electric plane needs $US200 million for final push
by Mathew Carr and Christopher Jasper
London | A passenger plane in the running to become the aviation industry's first fully commercial battery-powered model needs about $US200 million ($278 million) to bring it to market, according to developer Eviation Aircraft.
The Israeli company plans to fly a prototype of the "Alice" design at the Paris Air Show in June and to begin building the first production version in the next 2 1/2 years, chief executive officer Omer Bar-Yohay said in an interview.
It should sell for $US3 million to $US5 million.
The plane is one of several electric models at the design stage, but its nine-passenger capacity and 650-mile range from a single charge could give it an edge in the commuter market now served by a variety of light aircraft.
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- Updated Nov 12 2018 at 11:00 PM
Timing of stalled Aust-Indo FTA 'up to them': Scott Morrison
Singapore/Gold Coast | Scott Morrison has confirmed plans to sign the free trade agreement with Indonesia this week have been shelved and he said there was now "no burning timetable" to get it done.
After Indonesia reportedly demanded last week that Australia dump its consideration of relocating its Israeli embassy to Jerusalem before it signs the deal, the Prime Minister told the The Australian Financial Review it was not his government that tied the FTA to the embassy move.
"We've never conflated these issues, that's up to them," Mr Morrision said of the Indonesians.
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- Nov 13 2018 at 9:26 AM
Anti-Brexit forces rally as Theresa May fights on all fronts
London | Britain's anti-Brexit forces have rallied against Prime Minister Theresa May and her imminent EU exit agreement with Brussels, seeking to exploit the huge uncertainty that has opened up over whether she can get the numbers in parliament to support her deal.
Former Labour prime minister Gordon Brown led the charge on Monday, saying he wanted a second referendum on Brexit or at least a chance to find an alternative to Mrs May's proposed exit deal.
And both Labour's Brexit spokesman and a former Conservative cabinet minister said there would have to be a new way forward, as parliament was on track to reject both Mrs May's deal and a no-deal outcome.
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- Updated Nov 13 2018 at 11:45 PM
Franking change will hit ordinary super funds too
As many as 2.6 million people in large superannuation funds will be affected by Labor's franking credit changes, the Financial Services Council says.
If elected, Labor will make excess franking credits non-refundable, denying some retirees a cash refund at tax time.
While anger over the policy has emanated largely from those with self-managed super funds and some observers have claimed that non-SMSFs will not suffer, the FSC claims more people in large regular funds will be affected than any other group.
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As politicians resist a federal ICAC, Australia becomes more corrupt
By David Harper
14 November 2018 — 12:10am
General propositions – for example, that public office is a public trust – can sometimes encapsulate profound truths. It is a measure of the malaise of Western democracies that for many in public life the notion that they hold positions of trust has never penetrated their conception of what their over-riding purpose should be.
Australia has not escaped the malaise. In 2012 we ranked 7th in Transparency International’s global corruption index. We are now 13th. The lack of a federal anti-corruption agency remains a reason why we have never come close to being corruption-free. In the absence of effective countervailing mechanisms, corruption feeds upon itself. In much of the world it has become a monster consuming society as a whole.
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Our new submarines: Undecided and underwater
By Nicholas Stuart
14 November 2018 — 12:00am
The Submarine Institute of Australia doesn't sound like a particularly subversive organisation. Nor is it – usually. But (and perhaps unfortunately for government) it isn’t just a group of old sea dogs and former submariners getting together every couple of years to meet, talk, and shoot the breeze.
What makes this group significant is it wants to contribute to the defence debate. What makes it different is the submariners also know something – particularly when it comes to our massively expensive, technologically challenging, and politically fraught $50 billion project to buy and build 12 new vessels.
Couple this with the old sea dogs’ tendency to be (a bit) crotchety and refuse to go away when told and patted on the head, and you can see why there was always the prospect of fireworks at the Institute’s biennial conference last week.
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'Lazy' advisers push Australians to invest overseas
By Marcus Padley
14 November 2018 — 12:00am
I remember going to New York in 2006 and John, my Wall Street broker host, asked me all about the Australian resources stocks. He could talk about Fortescue Metals in detail and knew who Andrew "Twiggy" Forrest was. I went back to New York last year and stayed with John again. But this time when I asked him what Australian stocks he was following his reply was, “None, Australia is so 2007”. The Australian market had its international moment of relevance during the resources boom, but it has gone, it was a moment.
Since the end of 2009 the All Ordinaries index has dramatically underperformed the S&P 500, a large part of that underperformance can be put down to the unwinding of the resources boom. But more relevant has been the boom in the US technology sector, with no developed technology sector of our own that really left us behind. During the resources boom from 2001 to 2008-2009 the Australian market outperformed the US by 230 per cent. Since then we have underperformed by 63 per cent.
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'Surprisingly strong': Consumer mood recovers from rate hike shock
By Wayne Cole
14 November 2018 — 11:07am
A measure of Australian consumer confidence improved for a second month in November, with survey respondents more upbeat on their finances and the long-run economic outlook.
Wednesday's figures showed the Melbourne Institute and Westpac Bank index of consumer sentiment rose 2.8 per cent in November, from October when it gained 1 per cent.
The index has now fully recovered from the sharp drop suffered in September as political instability and hikes in home loan rates by most of the big banks soured the public mood.
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Divide between government and Islamic leaders deepens over Bourke Street attacker
By Erin Pearson & Liam Mannix
13 November 2018 — 5:05pm
One of Victoria’s largest Islamic youth centres has rejected suggestions it is linked to terrorism after it was revealed the Bourke Street attacker was a regular visitor.
Hume Islamic Youth Centre spokesman Mustafa Abu Yusuf told The Age the centre’s open-door policy meant everyone was welcome and it was working with police as part of what they “have to do”.
“We open the doors to everyone and we do our community duty and services to benefit all Australians and Muslims in particular, especially those kids who have been marginalised for two generations and made to feel like they don’t belong in this great country of ours," he said.
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Coalition’s $2bn pitch to small and medium sized businesses is too little, too late
- November 14, 2018
The Coalition’s $2 billion pitch to small and medium sized businesses via a lending fund is what might best be described as a necessary evil.
Evil because it represents yet more government intervention by a political party which is supposed to philosophically oppose such activism. Necessary because in the wake of the banking Royal Commission businesses, especially small businesses, find it very hard to raise money.
That is one of the unintended consequences of making it harder for the banks to lend.
But either way, the idea being spruiked today by the new treasurer had already been planned, designed and agreed to by Malcolm Turnbull’s administration. Not that the minister responsible for small and medium sized businesses at the time, Craig Laundy, knew anything about it.
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Crisis of leadership in the West, and we can’t help
- 12:12AM November 14, 2018
Across the Western world, a crisis of leadership is deepening. Sure, Donald Trump runs rampant in the US and presents us with one version of leadership. He has convinced the dispossessed and the disgruntled that he will “make America great again”.
The bewildered Democrats seem to have no idea of how to take him on. The recent mid-term elections did give them control of the House of Representatives, but serious Republican gains in the Senate make it hard to see how Trump’s critics can claim victory.
The really worrying sign for the Democrats was obvious observing who attended the party’s rallies. Barack Obama and his vice-president, Joe Biden, did much of the spruiking. Biden is in his mid-seventies and Nancy Pelosi, almost 80, is again seeking the Speaker’s gavel. No younger man or woman has stood up to claim the right to carry the Democrat dream. Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are fading memories. No matter how he behaves, Trump has it sewn up.
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Research reveals cognitive advantages of ageing
- By Alison Gopnik
- The Wall Street Journal
- 12:00AM November 14, 2018
If, like me, you’re on the wrong side of 60, you’ve probably noticed those increasingly frequent and sinister “senior moments”.
What was I looking for when I came into the kitchen? Did I already take out the trash? What’s old what’s-his-name’s name again?
One possible reaction to ageing is resignation: you’re just past your expiration date.
You may have heard that centuries ago the average life expectancy was only about 40 years. So you may think that modern medicine and nutrition are keeping us going past our evolutionary limit. No wonder the machine starts to break down.
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NBN users increasingly signing up for faster broadband
- 2:13PM November 13, 2018
NBN end users are increasingly signing up to faster broadband plans, with over two million homes now on speeds of 50 megabits per second (Mbps) or more, according to the latest wholesale market report released by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission.
With almost 4.5 million homes now connected to the NBN, the competition regulator’s report for the three months to September 30 shows how effective NBN Co’s decision to temporarily cut its wholesale prices have been in getting retail telcos to buy more capacity.
This in turn has made it more affordable for the telcos to push higher speed plans to end users, with 2.2 million homes now on high-speed plans, an increase of 20 per cent on the previous quarter.
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'We are under assault': Major universities go to war with Morrison government over research cuts
By Michael Koziol
12 November 2018 — 11:45pm
The country's biggest universities say they are "under assault" and have launched an extraordinary attack on the Morrison government over a fresh round of cuts to academic research.
Vice-chancellors are furious about a $134 million raid on research funding to pay for student places at regional universities - as well as other Coalition measures in the works including a free speech blitz, a "national interest test" for research grants and a new tax on enrolments.
"We are under assault on a number of different fronts – on teaching and learning, on research and on funding," the head of the Group of Eight major universities, Vicki Thomson, told Fairfax Media.
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- Updated Nov 15 2018 at 7:50 AM
Joseph Stiglitz warns US will lose from trade war, fears domination of tech giants
Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says there is a greater than 50 per cent chance that the United States enters into a trade war with China, and he is certain American workers will lose.
In an interview with The Australian Financial Review, the acclaimed Columbia University professor outlined why he is fearful American democracy is heading into a "dangerous" phase under the Trump administration while monopolistic technology companies are undermining "the market economy".
"Like all wars, at first you say – oh it won't happen, it is so stupid, who is going to win?" he said.
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No, the gender pay gap is not a myth, and here's why it matters
By Jessica Irvine
15 November 2018 — 12:00am
Matt, Andrew, Shayne and Brian. The CEOs of Australia’s biggest four banks will submit to a comprehensive grilling before the royal commission into finance sector misconduct next week. How different might things have been under Melanie, Andrea, Sharyn and Bree?
It’s not a flippant question.
Already in the spotlight for the misdemeanours being exposed by the royal commission, Australia’s finance and insurance industry this week added another dubious claim to fame. For five years running now, it has topped the Workplace Gender Equality Agency’s list of the biggest gender pay gap by industry.
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‘Deep recession’: House prices could fall more than 30 per cent in UBS doomsday scenario
HOUSE prices could fall more than 30 per cent as the country plunges into a “deep recession” in this doomsday scenario outlined by UBS.
Frank Chung and Sam Clench
news.com.au November 15, 20181:54pm
HOUSE prices could fall more than 30 per cent as the country plunges into a “deep recession” if disgruntled borrowers launch class actions against the major banks for breaching responsible lending laws, new analysis suggests.
The worst-case scenario is one of five outlined by UBS analyst Jonathan Mott in a client note this week, “Catching a falling knife”, in which he warned the outlook for the banking sector had “not been as challenged since at least 2008”.
“The recently completed bank reporting season suggests the outlook for the banks remains challenging,” Mr Mott said. “However, we believe the rapidly deteriorating housing market is a signal of even tougher times ahead.”
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US Fed sees threats from global slowdown
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell has outlined potential risks for the US economy including a global slowdown and fading impact from tax cuts.
Agencies
Associated Press November 15, 201812:06pm
US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell says the American economy is performing well but he's eyeing potential risks ahead.
Those include a slowdown in global growth, the fading impact from tax cuts and the cumulative weight of the Fed's own interest rate hikes.
Speaking to an audience at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Powell said the Fed is managing interest rates in an effort to prolong the current economic recover.
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Lending crackdown could overshoot, spark protracted downturn: RBA
- November 15, 2018
A move by major banks to pull back from lending to residential property developers amid tumbling apartment prices could overshoot and spark a “protracted” downturn in the housing market, Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle has warned.
It came alongside a warning from the new deputy chair of the banking regulator, John Lonsdale, who said the watchdog is preparing to help the Australian financial system weather any potential “unseasonable cold snap” that might follow 27 years of economic expansion.
The cautious addresses, from two of Australia’s most important financial regulators, come as businesses grow more nervous ahead of the federal election, and as sliding house prices continue to dampen consumer and business sentiment.
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Warnings renewed of troubles ahead
- November 15, 2018
The Australian nation at the end of last month received its first clear warning from the share market that there were dangerous times ahead.
You will remember that in documenting the share price falls I passed on the warning via the comment titled Market turmoil gives us a warning. Now this week we have received a second warning but, like the first warning, the covering of excess short positions can trigger a major turnaround at any time that obscures the deeper warnings. We saw that on Wall Street last night, but the market still closed markedly lower.
This second warning is different from the first and also more dangerous for Australia. The second warning duplicated the overseas signals but locally we are now starting to see the vicious downward cycle stemming from the unprecedented credit squeeze being imposed on the nation by APRA, the royal commission and the other regulators.
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In rocky financial times you need an oasis of stability
- By Elizabeth Moran
- 12:00AM November 13, 2018
You could be forgiven for thinking markets just keep going up given the long bull market we’ve experienced since the global financial crisis, but last month’s rocky sharemarket should set us straight.
Escalating trade tensions between the US and China, along with the US Fed increasing interest rates, saw markets contract last month. Some sharemarkets were into official correction territory, down 10 per cent-plus, Sydney and Melbourne residential property continued to slide and prices of other risk assets were also down.
How did that make you feel? Were you glued to your screen watching, wondering where the rot would stop? Perhaps recalculating your capital balance and revising your expectations?
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Boomers, your privileged, tax-deducted time is up: Millennials have arrived
By Kim Johnstone
16 November 2018 — 8:24am
Here’s some breaking news for Baby Boomers. You’ve had a very good run and you’re just about done.
The luckiest generation in history, at least in the developed economies, entered the world from the end of World War II through to the mid-1960s. They’ve never known global catastrophes like the world wars or the Great Depression, when millions went hungry, including in Australia.
Many experienced the advent of sewered homes, clean town water and free medical care and universities – massive public investments. As they matured they rose to positions of power in business and government. For decades, they’ve called the shots and in Australia arranged things into an edifice of self-interest.
Now they and the policy settings they put in place are on the endangered list. We live in a democracy with compulsory voting. Generationally, the biggest voting bloc is now the Millennials, born from the mid-80s to the turn of the century – and it is growing by 30,000 every year.
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Australia to buy armed Reaper drones in shift towards pilotless future
By David Wroe
15 November 2018 — 11:00pm
Australia will buy at least a dozen armed Reaper drones in a major step towards a future in which air strikes are increasingly carried out remotely.
The aircraft, made by US company General Atomics, will be used mainly to provide cover to Australian soldiers on operations, flying overhead while looking for threats and striking them with bombs or missiles.
The massive, long-range surveillance drones will dramatically expand Australia’s ability to spot military ships on the seas of Asia.
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Australians' risky debt could magnify a downturn, RBA's Debelle warns
By Michael Heath
15 November 2018 — 2:19pm
The Reserve Bank's second-in-command Guy Debelle says risky borrowing is more likely to accelerate an economic downturn, rather than become its trigger.
"If a negative shock were to hit the Australian economy, particularly one that caused a sizeable rise in unemployment, then the risk on the household balance sheet would magnify the adverse affect of that shock," deputy governor Mr Debelle said in a speech discussing the impact of lending restrictions on Thursday.
"This would have first order consequences for the economy and hence also for monetary policy."
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Reserve Bank’s Guy Debelle sees no signs of credit crunch
- 12:00AM November 16, 2018
RBA deputy governor Guy Debelle has underlined the resilience of the Australian economy, even amid the sharp fall in property prices, noting credit growth at 5 per cent suggests a credit crunch is not coming any time soon.
His comments yesterday, backing earlier reports by the RBA, come ahead of next week’s final round hearings in the financial services royal commission and amid concerns increased regulatory controls would spark a credit crunch.
Debelle told a FINSIA regulators luncheon in Melbourne that “borrowing in the housing market won’t collapse under its own weight but may exacerbate falls elsewhere in the economy”.
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- Updated Nov 16 2018 at 4:45 PM
Economy could further complicate election timing
by Laura Tingle
Scott Morrison may have cause to think that he and prime ministerial travel don't seem to mix very well.
Last week, there was the whole unfortunate "taking the bus but catching a plane" thing around Queensland.
This week in Singapore the Prime Minister's attempts to look statesmanlike by ramping up our interest in the Pacific was overshadowed by an ever-growing debacle over his announcement in the final days of the Wentworth byelection of the possible move of our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
The Indonesians – and the Malaysians – aren't happy. And the Indonesians made clear this bit of political smarty-pantsness is now holding up the signing of a free trade deal with Australia.
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- Updated Nov 16 2018 at 4:21 PM
Living with Islamist terror on the streets of Melbourne
by Andrew Clark
When Sisto Malaspina, a man who represented the soul of Melbourne, lay dying from a terrorist's stab wounds in the heart of the city, his final breaths were witnessed by people in China watching WeChat on iPhones.
The feeds originated from Chinese students attending nearby RMIT. They filmed the shocking attack late on Friday afternoon, November 9, as 30-year-old Hassan Khalif Shire Ali, an Islamist terrorist, set fire to his four-wheel-drive in Bourke Street, then stabbed three men, including the universally respected 74-year-old restaurateur, Malaspina, who died at the scene.
Minutes later Shire Ali was shot in the chest by police and later died in hospital.
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So much for the clever country, we're squibbing it
By Peter Hartcher
16 November 2018 — 5:34pm
Bob Hawke wanted Australia to be “the clever country”. Malcolm Turnbull's variation on the theme was for Australia to be the “innovation nation”.
In his first, brief remarks after wresting the prime ministership from Tony Abbott, Turnbull memorably told us “there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian”.
“The pace of change, which is being amplified by the internet, is extraordinary.” The big dividing line in Australian politics, he said, was not Labor versus Liberal but between those who were “afeared” of the future, and those who embraced it.
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Morrison calls for US leadership on free trade, warns of breakdown of rules
By David Wroe
17 November 2018 — 12:01am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use a speech at the high-powered APEC summit on Saturday to deliver a coded appeal for greater leadership by the Trump administration on free trade, warning that its barrage of tariff reprisals risk shredding global trade rules.
Mr Morrison, who faces the delicate task of delivering his summit message to world leaders at a time of rising tensions between the United States and China, will call on countries to remind their own people of the benefits of free trade in a clear repudiation of US President Donald Trump’s populist “America First” message.
“Tit-for-tat protectionism and threats of trade wars are in no-one’s interests economically and undermine the authority of the global and regional trading rules that benefit us all,” Mr Morrison will say in his speech, according to excerpts provided by his office.
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100 years after WWI, a glaring lack of leadership on difficult issues
By Crispin Hull
17 November 2018 — 12:00am
When US President Woodrow Wilson tried to belittle Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes at the 1919 Versailles peace conference by asking who he represented, Hughes replied: “I speak for 60,000 Australian war dead.”
Hughes may have been bellicose, belligerent and vengeful, but at least he was there, unlike the present Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
After four years of having to put up with the jingoism, glorification of war and exaggerated nationalism of the Anzac legend during the centenary of World War I, the one time the real horror and futility of war is marked with quiet dignity, our Prime Minister was missing in inaction. He was on a bus eating pies and drinking beer in Queensland.
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Global everything boom drawing to a close
- 12:00AM November 17, 2018
From markets for art, vintage cars, coins and wine, to private equity firms funding loss-making start-ups in the sharing economy and finally to shares, bonds and the property market, low interest rates fuelled by quantitative easing has fuelled a global everything boom — the GEB.
When interest rates were so low that holding cash became a liability, investors speculated on the appreciation of anything including synthetic currencies like bitcoin and ethereum. It was our own Tulip mania. Actually it was even bigger than Tulip mania.
In June this year, the Bank for International Settlements reflected on the boom, noting global economies had a “vintage year” in 2017 with highly synchronised global economic growth roughly on a par with pre-crisis levels. But there was a warning in its report. Cheap and abundant money has resulted in interest rates on cash plunging, and borrowings soaring as investors migrated out of cash and speculated on everything else.
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Financial Services Royal Commission Issues.
From Netflix to nannies: banks on warpath over every dollar you spend
By Elizabeth Knight
13 November 2018 — 12:05am
Welcome to the post-royal commission era of borrowing. Heightened scrutiny by banks of the financial position of borrowers will be the new order and responsible lending will get a whole lot more responsible.
ANZ was the latest of the banks to really dip its toe in the water. This week it told staff and mortgage brokers, who are responsible for selling its mortgage products, that enhanced verification will be introduced later in the month.
Those applying for a mortgage will need to outline what they spend on everything from Netflix to nannies and from cigarettes to chardonnay.
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Banking armageddon if class actions and stricter regulation accompany property plunge: UBS
- November 13, 2018
Australia is at risk of a doomsday scenario of a deep recession, a flood of class actions against the major banks by borrowers sold into unaffordable mortgages and house prices sinking 30 per cent, according to a bearish assessment of the deteriorating outlook for the financial system by investment bank UBS.
UBS analyst Jonathan Mott, who has warned for the past two years of deep structural problems in the $1.6 trillion housing market, paints a picture of a potential “hard landing” as worst of his five possible scenarios for the major banks.
“The outlook for the banks has not been as challenged since at least 2008,” Mr Mott told clients in a research note on Tuesday.
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- Updated Nov 14 2018 at 6:30 AM
Morrison government fund offers $2b boost for SME loans
by John Kehoe
The Morrison government will inject $2 billion into the small business loan market in an unprecedented effort to boost lending to cash-starved firms which have complained of a worsening credit squeeze.
The creation of a taxpayer-backed securitisation fund to invest in small and medium enterprise (SME) credit will also potentially expand an asset class for institutional investors such as superannuation funds to invest in.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash will announce the small business funding policy on Wednesday, promoting the soon-to-be-established Australian Business Securitisation Fund as a way to overcome banks typically only lending to the self-employed when they pledge their personal home as collateral.
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- Updated Nov 13 2018 at 11:45 PM
Punishing banks is neither safe nor wise
by The AFR View
The Federal Court yesterday threw out a $35 million fine that Westpac had agreed to accept for using automatic lending systems – rather than more labour-intensive and costly case-by-case examinations – to check if mortgage borrowers would have enough money left at the end of each month to service their home loans.
Justice Nye Perram says that neither Westpac nor the Australian Securities and Investments Commission had given him enough information to decide how serious Westpac's supposed breach of responsible lending laws really is, so he will not rubber-stamp the settlement.
This courtroom debacle is a sobering reminder of the hazards in pressing the banking royal commission to require regulators to resort to hard-edged litigation more often. For there is no compelling evidence to suggest that Australia's big banks have irresponsibly or systematically lent to down-and-out borrowers who have little prospect of repaying their loans.
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'Bankers need to look in the mirror': Sims slams bankers' ethics
By Sarah Danckert
15 November 2018 — 12:05am
Competition tsar Rod Sims has slammed the lack of morals in the banking industry and a mentality that drives a race to the bottom in terms of conduct, saying bankers need to have "good look in the mirror about their ethics".
Two months after the banking royal commission called out the sector for being driven by greed, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman told Fairfax Media he was shocked by the testimony by some of the bankers appearing at the inquiry who claimed they could not do away with ethically dubious practices because they would lose market share.
"We have heard just stunning comments from current and former senior bankers saying we realise it’s inappropriate but we won’t meet our profit targets, we’ll fall behind if we don’t do it."
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Not one rotten apple, it's the whole barrel: Crunchtime for banks
By Ross Gittins
17 November 2018 — 12:00am
Where to now for the big four banks, AMP and some other big businesses? They’ve abused the trust of their customers and the public, and it will be a long time before any side of politics wants to be seen as going easy on them.
Of course, the banking royal commission isn’t over. We’ve yet to see what punishments it recommends be imposed and what tightening of regulation, and then what the next government decides to do in response.
But if the nation’s chief executives have any gumption, they won’t wait for all that before turning their minds to why their customers’ trust was lost, and how they can go about getting it back.
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Sins of general insurers exposed
By John Collett
14 November 2018 — 12:00am
While the royal commission into misconduct in financial services focuses on the most egregious cases of misconduct, some smaller players with less serious rap sheets escaped scrutiny.
Earlier in the year, financial services companies were asked by the royal commission to confess their misconduct going back 10 years. The confessions helped inform the commission where its time could be best spent.
While life insurance misdeeds were well covered by the royal commission, less time was spent on general insurance, which covers everything from travel insurance to building and home contents insurance to motor vehicle insurance.
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- Updated Nov 16 2018 at 2:45 PM
Hayne banking commission: Big four CEOs have everything to lose in witness box
by James Frost
More than 100 bank, insurance and superannuation employees have appeared at the Hayne commission since hearings began in March. Few have come out looking better than they went in.
As the CEOs of ANZ Banking Group, Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Group, Macquarie and Westpac prepare to take their turn in the witness box from Monday they will be trying to strike the right balance of respect, sincerity and confidence.
They will also be trying to survive.
Sixteen executives and board have lost their jobs as a direct result of appearances or developments flowing from the hearings.
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National Budget Issues.
- Updated Nov 14 2018 at 12:08 PM
Wage price index rises 2.3pc, fastest since 2015
by Vesna Poljak
The economy experienced wage growth of 0.6 per cent in the September quarter, taking the annual rate to 2.3 per cent and the fastest in three years on a jump in public sector incomes.
The result was in line with market expectations, accelerating from 2.1 per cent in the June quarter. The seasonally adjusted data, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, pushed the Australian dollar only slightly lower to US72.32¢.
Public sector income rose 2.5 per cent and private sector 2.1 per cent.
Weak wages growth is a major challenge for the Reserve Bank of Australia, which wants to see incomes rising faster.
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Frydenberg's $2b plan is a solution searching for a problem
By Stephen Bartholomeusz
14 November 2018 — 7:30pm
Is Josh Frydenberg’s proposed $2 billion securitisation fund for loans to small and medium-sized business a solution to a problem or a solution in search of a problem?
And is it conceivable that the "solution" - a government fund that would buy packages of securitised SME loans – might actually create problems?
The proposed Australian Business Securitisation Fund would invest the $2 billion in the "warehouse" facilities which fund the special purpose vehicles in which loans are collected and pooled for securitisation before being on-sold, as portfolios rather than as individual risks, to investors. It will also invest in the asset-backed securities themselves.
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Health Issues.
New cholesterol management guidelines call for personalized risk assessments
Leading heart experts released cholesterol management guidelines Saturday that call on doctors to tailor treatment to more personalized risk assessments of each patient and recommend the use of two new kinds of drugs for those at the greatest danger of disease.
The recommendations build on and address criticism of guidelines issued in 2013 that fundamentally altered the way health-care providers determine a patient’s risk of heart attack and cardiovascular disease. In that watershed document, the experts told doctors to stop trying to lower patients’ cholesterol numbers to specific targets and instead follow an overall matrix that attempts to predict their future risk of problems.
The latest guidelines give clinicians a better idea of how to do that via treatment categories that vary depending on cholesterol scores and, if necessary, other tests. The 121-page document was unveiled Saturday at the American Heart Association’s 2018 Scientific Sessions in Chicago and published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and the heart association’s journal, Circulation.
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Doctors' outrage after NRA tells them 'to stay in their lane'
By Frances Stead Sellers
12 November 2018 — 11:32am
Washington: At first, Judy Melinek didn't know how to respond when she learned about an NRA tweet last week telling doctors who dared enter the gun debate to stay "in their own lane."
But two days later, when the forensic pathologist was on her way to the morgue to examine the body of one of the country's many forgotten gunshot victims, the words came to her.
"Do you have any idea how many bullets I pull out of corpses weekly? This isn't just my lane," she tweeted on Friday. "It's my [expletive] highway."
Joseph Sakran, a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, who suffers from a paralysed vocal cord after taking a stray bullet in the neck almost 25 years ago, refused to stay silent as the country's latest mass shooting hit the news.
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Pregnancy not covered by one in four travel insurance policies
By Maani Truu
11 November 2018 — 8:04pm
Meghan Markle made it look easy, but for the mere commoner finding travel insurance to cover you while pregnant is not as simple as just clicking on the first option, new data shows.
Analysis of 271 travel insurance policies by insurance and banking comparison website Mozo has found that pregnancy is excluded from one in four policies.
The research, conducted for the 2018 Mozo Experts Choice Travel Insurance awards, also found that policies which do cover pregnancies often do so with additional conditions - like not travelling if you're over a certain number of weeks pregnant.
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Insurers reject cost-cutting to curb premiums
- 12:00AM November 12, 2018
Health insurers have argued reductions in their overhead costs will not move the dial on lowering premium increases as they push for sector-wide reforms to address the rising cost of healthcare.
Private Healthcare Australia, which represents both for-profit and not-for-profit funds, has suggested that one way for health funds to bridge the gap between premium growth and healthcare inflation was to reduce their management, administration and marketing costs.
But it stressed that on average, about 90 per cent of a fund’s historical cost increases had been the result of benefit outlays.
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How Australia's health system could help fight terrorism
By Clive Williams
12 November 2018 — 3:12pm
Following the latest Melbourne terror attack, one senior AFP officer was quoted as saying: "The event yesterday for us is a reality check, even with the fall of the [Islamic State] caliphate ... the threat continues to be real."
This comment was somewhat surprising given that such attacks are the new normal, and the fall of the caliphate was never likely to lead to a reduced terrorism threat in Australia.
Indeed, Islamic State has been encouraging revenge against the countries that were part of the US-led coalition that caused it to lose its physical caliphate in Syria and Iraq - and Australia is well-known to have been a key player.
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Surge in using superannuation to pay doctors’ bills
- 12:00AM November 14, 2018
The amount of superannuation released early to pay for medical bills has increased by almost a third, to $278 million last year, as Australians find new ways to cover rising health costs.
The surge came as the federal government grappled with whether to rewrite the compassionate-access rules for super to prevent small drawdowns becoming a larger long-term reduction in retirement savings.
The Australian has previously revealed a fivefold increase in the number of applications for early access to super, partly driven by an increase in obesity rates and health industry marketing.
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'Orphan' rare diseases focus of new federal government support plan
By Kate Aubusson
16 November 2018 — 12:00am
The federal government will establish Australia’s first National Rare Diseases Framework and Action Plan to support people with rare conditions such as Batten disease, muscular dystrophy and mitochondrial disease.
Advocacy group Rare Voices Australia (RVA) will receive $170,000 to develop the action plan, Health Minister Greg Hunt will announce at the 2018 Rare Diseases Summit in Melbourne on Friday.
"Our government recognises the fact that these diseases are statistically rare – with an estimated prevalence of five in 10,000 – therefore special and concerted efforts are needed to address them," Mr Hunt said.
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Rising private health fees force out customers
- 12:00AM November 16, 2018
Private hospital coverage has fallen to its lowest level since 2009 and those who remain insured are more likely to have exclusions on their policies, a shift expected to add pressure on public hospitals.
The unprecedented surge in members taking out exclusions to save on premiums has raised the possibility that they, too, may be forced to go public for treatment.
While Health Minister Greg Hunt has sought to contain premium increases, and improve transparency, coverage has fallen every quarter since mid-2015. Meanwhile, there have been more admissions to public hospitals than private ones.
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Private health insurers may be forced to hold higher capital levels
- 2:00PM November 16, 2018
Private health insurers are under pressure from rising claims costs and waning membership and could be forced to hold higher levels of capital to ensure they can continue to honour their commitments to members, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has warned.
APRA said it has started a review of the capital standards for private health insurers to ensure they remain sufficient to protect policyholders.
APRA board member Geoff Summerhayes said the review will consider whether to bring capital standards for the private health insurance industry into line with those used for life and general insurers.
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No body bags, running out of vital drugs: Sydney's newest hospital is a 'shambles'
By Kate Aubusson
17 November 2018 — 12:00am
A brand new Sydney hospital boasts ocean views but can't keep its wards stocked with basic medical supplies.
The $600 million Northern Beaches Hospital is a "shambles", according to hospital staff working to care for patients on the "chronically understaffed" units.
Wards have repeatedly exhausted their stocks of vital drugs and treatments including insulin, adrenaline, antibiotics, drugs for heart failure and hypotension, dialysis fluids and central intravenous nutrition, staff told the Herald on condition of anonymity.
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So what are PHNs doing for general practice?
For one, they commission a range of critical services to which GPs refer their patients
Dr Tim Smyth
14th November 2018
There was a typically robust debate on Medical Observer sister website Australian Doctor recently, sparked by an article with the headline: “What do primary health networks do? They channel billions of health dollars, that's what.”
As chair of a PHN, I welcome constructive debate and discussion on whether PHNs are adding value to general practice, to patients and to the Australian healthcare system. It is an important debate to have.
Hopefully, I can offer some answers.
It is not surprising that GPs question what PHNs are doing and how the money is being spent, given the numerous reorganisations in Commonwealth-funded primary care support over the years. We have moved from Divisions of General Practice to Medicare Locals and now to Primary Health Networks.
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Doctors threaten to withhold treatment at Northern Beaches Hospital
By Esther Han & Pallavi Singhal
18 November 2018 — 12:00am
Doctors at the embattled new Northern Beaches Hospital threatened to withhold treatment from private patients in a desperate move to force the state government to act on their concerns about the under-resourced facility.
Amid claims of a lack of staff and supplies, NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard said on Saturday that he had ordered hospital operator Healthscope to "get it fixed fast".
He said Healthscope had "miscalculated" the number of people it needed to serve at the $660 million hospital, which opened less than three weeks ago. Nearly 2700 patients had visited the emergency department in its first 16 days, far more than was expected.
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Poor value sees younger people dropping private health insurance
By John Collett
18 November 2018 — 12:00am
Younger people are ditching private health cover or not taking up cover in the first place, finding it poor value for money.
The official figures, released by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) last week for the September quarter, show a continuing trend of younger people opting out of private health cover.
The number of Australians with hospital cover or higher has declined overall between 2015 and 2016, with the biggest falls coming from those under the age of 35.
Meanwhile, a survey of about 50,000 people by Roy Morgan Research released last week shows an increase in those who don't think private cover is worth the money.
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Counting down the days in God's waiting room
An 82-year-old writer spends his final years in a retirement home surrounded by the sick and the sorry – and finds it hard to hold back the tears.
By Richard Roe*
Updated17 November 2018 — 12:57amfirst published at 12:12am
We sit in our allotted places for breakfast. For every meal. Alfredo* is to my right, Alice eyeballing me from across the table, Theresa on my left. My mother's stricture, "A place for everything and everything in its place", comes to mind. The table's not much larger than a card table, so finding a space for all our plates, jugs, cutlery, cups and glasses, containers for butter, salt, jams and spreads provokes a silent battle of shifty placement.
Before I can sit down, Alice moans, "There's not enough milk." She clutches the plastic jug to her breast and repeats her protest several times. She does this every meal. The jug holds about a litre of milk. Alice only uses it in her coffee, a couple of thimblefuls. She seems to have a lactose problem. After a month of calling the place my home, I realise she would demand more milk if none of us used it. It's a psychological imperative. She'd be hollering for milk if a mob of Jersey cows with overflowing udders filled the dining room.
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Caesarean sections on rise in NSW
NSW women are more likely to have caesarean sections and less likely to smoke during pregnancy or be teen mothers, a new report shows.
Heather McNab
Australian Associated Press November 18, 20189:52am
NSW women are more likely to give birth by caesarean section and less likely to smoke during pregnancy or have children in their teens, a new report has shown.
The 2017 Mothers and Babies report, released by the NSW Department of Health, found that women are having children slightly later, with the average age rising from 30.3 in 2013 to 30.7 in 2017.
The age of first-time mothers rose from 28.9 to 29.4 years, the report found.
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International Issues.
- Nov 11 2018 at 4:33 PM
California fires death toll rises to 25, as 200,000 flee
California | The wildfires scorching California in the past few days have been vast, bringing their destruction and lethality to numerous communities across large swaths of the state
The Camp Fire, in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento, is now the most-destructive individual wildfire in California's history. As of Saturday, it had destroyed nearly 7000 structures in and around the mountain town of Paradise and has been blamed for 25 deaths, though more could come. Sheriff's deputies are looking into 35 reports of missing people.
"This event was the worst-case scenario," Butte County Sheriff Kory Honea said. "It's the event that we have feared for a long time."
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- Updated Nov 11 2018 at 2:16 PM
Brexit tensions ratchet up as London awaits May's EU deal
London | Britain and the European Union head into a crunch week for Brexit negotiations with an outcome tantalisingly within reach yet as uncertain as ever, as British politics melts down over the concessions Prime Minister Theresa May will likely make to land a deal.
London and Brussels have honed their disagreement to a niggling, technical – yet highly symbolic – obstacle concerning Northern Ireland's future status. This has fuelled expectations that Britain's cabinet will consider, and potentially sign off, the withdrawal agreement some time this week.
But for Mrs May to bridge that last negotiating gap, she will almost certainly have to make further concessions to the powerful and implacable EU bloc. At the end of last week this had already prompted maverick Brexiteer Boris Johnson's brother Jo Johnson to resign his post as a junior transport minister, and sparked an escalation in brinkmanship from the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), whose 10 MPs are critical to getting the deal through parliament.
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- Updated Nov 11 2018 at 1:53 PM
US strategists turn cautious: will there be a melt-up or a melt-down?
As the latest US corporate earnings season winds down, it's getting more difficult to dismiss the clouds on the horizon in the US and Europe as transitory.
Expectations that a return of gridlock to Washington could be a positive for US equities were up-ended even before the last votes could be counted. And it now appears that several recounts will take place, deepening the widening gap between Democrats and Republicans.
First, President Donald Trump said he was prepared to adopt a "warlike" posture with Democrats if they target him or his businesses, dimming the prospects of an infrastructure spending spree.
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Nationalism is a betrayal of patriotism: France's president lectures the powerful
By Nick Miller
11 November 2018 — 11:32pm
Paris: By the grave of an unknown soldier, under Napoleon’s grand arch, at the centenary of the end of a great, terrible war, France’s president lectured the powerful.
The first world war’s lesson and legacy were clear, he said. Peace is hard won and is fragile.
French President Emmanuel Macron denounced nationalism as a betrayal at the Armistice commemorations in Paris on November 11.
A century ago, after such loss, the world took a path of humiliation and revenge and it fuelled the rise of nationalism and totalitarianism.
His audience, metres away, included presidents Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan.
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'Trump is not a bad dream': How Australia can deal with Trump's America
By Peter Hartcher
13 November 2018 — 12:10am
Donald Trump is not a bad dream. The world has to accept that he's a waking reality. Remember all the talk of impeachment? It's been two years now. Far from being impeached, he's entrenched himself.
After an ineffectual first year in the presidency, he has worked out how to exert power. He now has a solid record of getting his way. At the end of two full terms, Barack Obama had kept 48 per cent of his election promises, according to the non-partisan Politifact. After just half of one term, Trump has either delivered or is working towards 53 per cent of his. He's broken just 8 per cent.
He's accomplished most of his topline pledges. Among them, stopping immigration from terror-prone countries (the so-called Muslim ban), income tax cuts, company tax cuts, tearing up trade deals, putting taxes on China, pulling out of the Paris accord, impaling the Iran one. He has delivered a majority of the US Supreme Court to conservatives. And the midterm elections last week his party increased its dominance of the Senate.
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Britain and EU Agree on a Brexit plan
By Nick Miller
Updated 14 November 2018 — 7:01am first published at 5:52am
London: British and European negotiators have agreed on a Brexit ‘divorce’ deal that will extract the UK from the European Union. But prime minister Theresa May now faces a tough fight to sell its merits to her Cabinet and to parliament.
May is holding a series of one-on-one talks in Downing Street with key ministers, trying to convince them of the deal’s merits before a crucial cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The deal reportedly includes a “backstop” clause that will lock the UK into a customs union with the EU until a new trade and customs deal can be reached that will ensure no new patrols or checks on the Northern Ireland border – a key sticking point in negotiations until now.
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Brexit is the 'worst deal in history' and the one with the best chance
By Nick Miller
15 November 2018 — 10:14am
London: “The worst deal in history,” was Nigel Farage’s assessment.
“Profoundly undemocratic,” added Jacob Rees-Mogg.
The Brexiters now hate Brexit – or at least, the one they’re most likely to get, with the revelation that a deal has been struck between the EU and UK.
“A terrible mistake,” said ex-transport minister Jo Johnson.
“Atrocious for Britain,” said Labour’s David Lammy.
The Remainers still dislike Brexit – in all its potential forms, but certainly including this one.
So who does that leave? Anyone?
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Theresa May unites Remainers and Brexiteers — against her
- 12:00AM November 16, 2018
Theresa May has pulled off a miraculous achievement — she has united ardent Brexiteers and devoted Remainers into a single unity ticket. They all hate her deal with the EU, and think it the worst you could possibly imagine, much worse than the membership of the EU that the British people voted in 2016 to repudiate, in the biggest democratic exercise in the nation’s history.
The Prime Minister’s exquisite negative genius here — in producing the very worst possible deal imaginable — may make her both the most incompetent and potentially the most destructive political leader Britain has had, at least since World War II.
The absurdity of what May has agreed to is almost beyond parody. In order, allegedly, to avoid erecting a proper border between the Republic of Ireland, an independent nation, and Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, May has agreed that the whole of Britain will stay in the customs union for the time being.
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- Updated Nov 16 2018 at 8:00 AM
Traders say Theresa May's Brexit deal is 'dead in the water'
by Lisa Pham, Justina Lee and Kit Rees
European stocks sank on Thursday after a number of UK ministers including Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab resigned amid a growing revolt against UK Prime Minister Theresa May's Brexit deal. The Stoxx Europe 600 was down 1.3 per cent in afternoon trading, while the FTSE 100 was down 0.5 per cent, as a sharp drop in the pound helped limit the damage for multinational companies. Domestically focused UK sectors including banks, home builders and retailers tumbled.
Speaking to reporters outside No. 10 Downing Street, though, May said: "I believe with every fibre in my being that the course I've set out is the right one for our country and for all our people."
"Am I going to see this through? Yes."
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Previously unthinkable idea of second Brexit referendum suddenly gains traction
With Britain in the middle of a total meltdown, a previously unthinkable option is suddenly back on the table.
news.com.au November 16, 2018 11:36am
May on Brexit: I am going to see this through
WITH British Prime Minister Theresa May’s job under threat and her deal with the European Union in serious doubt, a previously unthinkable option is on the table — a second Brexit referendum.
Britain chose to leave the European Union in June of 2016 by a margin of 1.3 million votes, or 52-48 per cent.
And that was that. The issue was settled. Prime Minister David Cameron resigned, having campaigned for the losing side. His replacement, Ms May, promised to deliver on the will of the people.
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- Updated Nov 16 2018 at 8:54 PM
Australia and Japan join forces as China-US tensions escalate ahead of APEC
Darwin | Australia and Japan have agreed to jointly fund infrastructure projects in the Pacific in yet another move by regional allies to try to contain the influence of China on the eve of what promises to be a hostile APEC summit in Papua New Guinea.
In a highly symbolic and historic meeting on Friday, Scott Morrison and Shinzo Abe, the first Japanese prime minister to visit Darwin since World War II, signed a series of MoUs and advanced talks on a more substantive agreement, which would facilitate larger and more regular joint military exercises.
Following a week of posturing and increased tensions at the East Asia and ASEAN summits in Singapore, 21 regional leaders will descend on Port Moresby this weekend for an APEC summit, which will be dominated by the rival superpowers and their allies jockeying for influence with Pacific nations.
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'It's a disaster': Brexit voters despair at the mess they're in
By Nick Miller
16 November 2018 — 3:20pm
London: You don’t get much more English than this scene. Full English, you could call it.
Over his morning baked beans and sausages at Betty’s Cafe, Geoffrey Garroway, 75, is complaining about Brexit.
“It’s a disaster to be honest,” he says. “And I did vote for it. For all the reasons most people did.”
We’re in Hillingdon, an unremarkable outer-London commuter town best known as, if anything, somewhere you go when you’re going somewhere else. It’s on the M40 from London to Birmingham via Oxford, at the overground end of the Underground.
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Saudi crown prince ordered Khashoggi's assassination: CIA
By Shane Harris & Greg Miller
17 November 2018 — 11:11am
Washington: The CIA has concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul last month, contradicting the Saudi government's claims that he was not involved.
The CIA's assessment, in which officials have said they have high confidence, is the most definitive to date linking Mohammed to the operation and complicates the Trump administration's efforts to preserve its relationship with a close ally.
A team of 15 Saudi agents flew to Istanbul on government aircraft in October and killed Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate, where he had come to pick up documents that he needed for his planned marriage to a Turkish woman.
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Brexit explainer: What it means for Australia
By Liam Phelan
16 November 2018 — 7:29pm
British Prime Minister Theresa May this week agreed to a draft separation agreement between her country and the European Union.
After heated talks her cabinet initially backed the deal on Wednesday - but now there have since been a series of resignations of her MPs, including her Brexit Minister.
British Cabinet ministers have resigned in opposition to the divorce deal struck by Prime Minister Theresa May with the EU.
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Mike Pence announces US-Australia military pact to expand Manus Island naval base
By Nicole Hasham
17 November 2018 — 4:16pm
United States Vice-President Mike Pence has declared his nation will partner with Australia and Papua New Guinea to boost operations at a Manus Island naval base amid rising tensions over China’s growing influence in the Pacific.
The federal government had been working with PNG to develop the strategically important base at Lombrum, announcing in September a $5 million contract to upgrade wharf and shore-based infrastructure.
Vice President Mike Pence announced the US will join Australia and Papua New Guinea to develop a naval base on Manus Island.
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Xi warns of dangers of conflict while Pence lets fly
By Kirsty Needham
17 November 2018 — 4:35pm
Beijing: Tensions between China and the United States were on full display at the APEC CEO summit in Port Moresby, with Chinese President Xi Jinping warning of the need to uphold the global institutions pivotal to peace shortly before US Vice-President Mike Pence launched a blistering attack on China to the same audience.
Warning of the painful lessons of World War II, Xi said: "History has shown that confrontation, whether in the form of a cold war, a hot war, or a trade war, will produce no winners."
Speaking shortly afterwards, Pence bluntly told the audience of Asian and Pacific leaders: "Do not accept foreign debt that could compromise your sovereignty ... Know that the United States offers a better option.
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Trump administration backflips on CIA claims that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered Jamal Khashoggi hit
The Trump administration has backflipped on claims made by the CIA about the involvement of the Saudi Crown Prince in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
New York Post
News Corp Australia Network November 18, 201810:17am
The Trump administration has said it had not reached a final conclusion on who was involved in the death of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi despite a US Central Intelligence Agency assessment that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.
“Recent reports indicating that the US government has made a final conclusion are inaccurate,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement.
“There remain numerous unanswered questions with respect to the murder of Mr Khashoggi.” Nauert said the State Department will continue to seek facts and work with other countries to hold those involved in the journalist’s killing accountable “while maintaining the important strategic relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia.”
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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