April 18, 2019 Edition.
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The big news is that we are entering the 2nd week of the election campaign and this far – other than a load of nonsense on electric cars things are rolling on. Only 4 and a bit weeks to go. The battle-lines of Tax vs Health are now pretty clear!
Brexit is on hold as the Parliament takes a short Easter break. The outcome is pretty unclear as seems to be the health of the world economy – with the IMF suggesting all is not well, Brexit aside.
Trump seems to have had a quiet week and nothing really grabbed my attention. In late breaking news is seems the North Koreans have just launched a new tactical missile! So much for all this winning!
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Major Issues.
https://www.afr.com/real-estate/residential/under-stress-one-in-five-auctions-pulled-20190407-p51bnq
'Under stress': One in five auctions pulled
Apr 7, 2019 — 1.50pm
Sydney homeowners are increasingly pulling their homes from auction before the big day while some Melbourne properties are now selling for less than their council valuations.
Melbourne recorded a preliminary clearance rate of 56 per cent over the weekend from 775 scheduled auctions compared to a slightly higher success rate in Sydney of 58 per cent, albeit it from a smaller pool of 621 scheduled auctions, according to Domain Group data.
But with more auction results going unreported in an unfavourable market, the final clearance rate is expected to fall to about 49 per cent in Sydney and about 52 per cent in Melbourne, according to AMP Capital's chief economist Shane Oliver.
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'Delicate': IMF warns on property slide
Apr 7, 2019 — 11.44pm
Washington | Australia's housing market contraction is worse than first thought, says a top IMF analyst, leaving the economy in what he called a "delicate situation" that boosts the need for faster infrastructure spending and even potential interest rate cuts.
In an exclusive interview, the International Monetary Fund's lead economist for Australia, Thomas Helbling, endorsed last week's federal budget forecasts for recognising the "weaker outlook" and its use of sober commodity price forecasts.
However, Dr Helbling warned the negative fallout from what the IMF will this week admit is a greater-than-anticipated property market downturn in Australia requires more effort by governments to deliver new sources of growth to make up for a worsening shortfall.
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Here's why Australia's tech sector keeps getting rolled in Canberra
By John McDuling
April 8, 2019 — 12.05am
"Uniformly horrendous." "Completely ineffectual". "They are so bad at this."
These are some of the descriptions current and former high level political staffers give you when you ask them about the influence and standing of tech lobbyists in Canberra.
The question was worth asking last week after new laws proposed in the wake of the Christchurch massacre that could see social media executives jailed and tech companies hit with multi-billion dollar fines if they fail to prevent the spread of abhorrent content online were rushed through Parliament.
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I hear you, I just don’t care: cats know their names, they don’t know respect
- By Tom Whipple
- The Times
- 2:07PM April 5, 2019
If your cat does not respond when you call, it is not because it does not recognise its name. It is because it does not respect you and instead views your life with, at best, cold indifference.
That is one conclusion of a paper that has found that cats, like dogs, are perfectly capable of understanding their names.
The finding comes from an experiment in Japan involving 78 cats, which were measured for their reaction when both strangers and their owners read out their name. To ensure that the cats were not just responding to sound, the participants first read out a list of random nouns, before slipping in the cats’ names. Then the scientists watched to see if their ears pricked up, their heads moved or they displayed signs of excitement such as tail movement.
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Apple TV+ targets potential Australian market of over 17m: report
- 08 April 2019
- Written by Peter Dinham
Apple’s new streaming TV service, to be known as Apple TV+, and set to debut later this year, has a potential Australian market of over 17 million, according to a newly published report.
Roy Morgan Research says Apple TV+ will debut into a crowded and growing streaming TV market in Australia, with over 17 million (83.4% of Australians 14+) currently accessing streaming video services or owning Apple-branded devices capable of accessing streaming video devices.
Roy Morgan says the market of over 17 million includes over 14.7 million (71.8%) Australians who already use streaming video services such as Netflix, Stan, ABC iView and others who would be interested in a new Apple TV+ streaming service. As well, this number includes nearly 11.7 million (57%) Australians who own Apple iPhones, iPad, Apple Mac running Apple iOS operating systems and who use Apple services and apps capable of accessing the new Apple TV+ streaming TV service.
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Blowout in time needed to sell property
Apr 9, 2019 — 9.00am
Key Statistics
- 69 days Median time on the market in Sydney.
- 54 days Median time on the market in Melbourne.
- Close to 80 days Median time on the market in Perth and Darwin.
- $1500-$5000 How much it costs to get your property up to the top of online sales for your postcode.
Property owners are taking four times as long to sell their Sydney dwellings than at the peak of the market, forcing many into expensive bridging finance and costly extended sales campaigns.
For Melbourne it is twice as long and for other capitals, such as Perth and Darwin, it has blown out to nearly 80 days, shows analysis by CoreLogic, which monitors sales and prices.
National median times have increased from 43 to 60 days, says CoreLogic.
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'A gift of time': Children who start school later fare better, study finds
By Jordan Baker
April 9, 2019 — 3.10am
A quarter of NSW children are starting school a year later than they are eligible, and the delay is helping them fare better in kindergarten than their younger peers, a landmark study has found.
Affluent parents are more likely than disadvantaged or migrant parents to keep their child home for an extra year, with rates of school delay varying from 25 per cent to 35 per cent in wealthy suburbs to less than 15 per cent in low-income areas of Sydney.
Education experts say the study provides further proof that the high cost of child care is forcing many parents to send children to school before they are ready, and have called for investment in free, universal early childhood education.
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S&P concerned banks may lose support in a crisis
Apr 9, 2019 — 3.03pm
S&P Global Ratings says there's a one-in-three chance it will cut its assessment of government support of the major banks in a financial crisis, a move that would trigger a downgrade to their credit ratings and push up the cost of funding.
But for now, the international ratings agency says it believes both major political parties will "continue to hold a pragmatic view" that a taxpayer-funded bailout of any major banks would be more likely to maintain financial system and economic stability than forcing losses onto bond holders.
After the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority said in November the major banks would need to lift capital buffers by up to 5 percentage points, forcing them to raise $75 billion of additional capital, S&P said on Tuesday its "base case" remains that the Australian government "will remain highly supportive" of any major bank despite this new "loss absorbing" regime being put into place.
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House values are expected to fall sharply
Apr 9, 2019 — 12.56pm
House values are expected to fall a sharp 11.4 per cent in Melbourne and 9.3 per cent in Sydney across 2019 before a slow recovery in 2020, but the current downturn could be exacerbated by changes to negative gearing and further tightening in lending restrictions, according to Moody's Analytics.
Sydney's apartment values are tipped to decline at a slower pace than houses, dropping 5.9 per cent in 2019, followed by a moderate turnaround in 2020.
In Melbourne, apartments are forecast for milder but more prolonged price falls compared to houses with a 5 per cent decrease this year and another 1.4 per cent in 2020.
Labor policy adds risk
National property values are expected to bottom out by the third quarter of this year after falling for the 17th consecutive month in March, but Moody's economist Katrina Ell warned Labor's proposed changes to negative gearing posed a downside risk to the market in the event the opposition were to win the next federal election.
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Australia's growth rate slowing at twice the speed of peers, says IMF
Apr 9, 2019 — 11.00pm
Washington | Australia's economic growth will slow at almost twice the speed of other advanced nations this year, according to the International Monetary Fund's latest outlook, which also includes a substantial downgrade to global expansion because of Donald Trump's tariff wars.
Australia's gross domestic product growth will cool from 2.8 per cent last year to 2.1 per cent in 2019, according to the IMF report. Its forecast is 0.7 percentage point lower than the forecast last October.
Across advanced economies, growth will be 1.8 per cent, or 0.2 percentage point lower than the fund predicted six months ago, and 0.4 percentage point below last year's 2.2 per cent pace.
While Australia's growth rate is expected to rebound next year to its robust 2018 pace, the IMF's outlook suggests the coming months will throw up difficult decisions for policy makers, including whether their budget and interest rate settings are doing enough as global uncertainties intensify.
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Einstein couldn't believe his own black hole theory
Faye Flam
Apr 11, 2019 — 9.45am
Albert Einstein would have been pleased, but maybe also a bit surprised, by today's announcement of the first ever close-up image of a supermassive black hole. Early speculation about black holes fell straight from Einstein's 1915 theory of general relativity, but the great scientist himself thought the idea was a little too weird to manifest itself in the actual universe.
He assumed it was an artifact of the mathematics, said physicist Daniel Kennefick, co-author of An Einstein Encyclopedia and the upcoming No Shadow of Doubt.
In correspondence with French physicists in the 1920s, Einstein dismissed the idea that something could collapse forever, reaching a point of infinite density and trapping even light. (They didn't use the term black hole, which didn't catch on until the 1960s.)
There are still dangerous loopholes in financial advice rules
LICs do not have enough institutional support to work well for mum and dad investors
Paul Heath
Apr 10, 2019 — 12.00am
It would have been very hard for anyone involved in the financial services industry not to have felt some sense of shame as example after example of poor behaviour was methodically uncovered by the royal commission. It is no wonder there has been a breakdown of trust between the provider and consumer of financial advice.
The shockwaves of those explosive revelations are still reverberating through the industry, with all four major banks announcing an exit from wealth management and major players such as AMP and IOOF facing a multitude of challenges to their vertically integrated business models.
And yet for some parts of the industry, it is as if the Royal Commission never happened.
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RBA watching negative equity, arrears
Matthew Cranston and Simon Evans
Apr 10, 2019 — 2.14pm
The Reserve Bank of Australia is closely monitoring rising levels of arrears and negative equity in households but does not expect to cut interest rates over the next few months.
Deputy governor Guy Debelle said the bank expected ''decent'' economic growth over the next few months would be enough to prevent the bank from having to cut official rates.
Dr Debelle said the bank had enough firepower if required to lower official rates further, but the expectation was that it wouldn't be required.
"Our expectation is that we will see decent growth in the economy,'' he said in a question and answer session at an American Chamber of Commerce lunch in Adelaide.
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Housing boom 'well and truly over'
Apr 11, 2019 — 12.00am
Housing construction will fall 30 per cent from peak to trough as Australia's dwelling construction retreats to an annual level of 161,000 in a correction that will last two years, BIS Oxford Economics says.
The pullback in new home starts will be greater than the average 25 per cent decline seen across the past nine construction downturns since the mid-1970s, but will still leave home-building above previous troughs, reflecting a higher base in housing construction that has resulted from strong population growth, the consultancy says in a report.
"It’s a big decline, but the trough is so much higher due to the higher underlying demand," BIS managing director Robert Mellor said.
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Reserve Bank says households under mounting financial stress
- By James Glynn
- Dow Jones
- April 12, 2019
Australian households are under mounting financial pressure as house prices tumble led by Sydney and Melbourne, prompting concern about a deepening economic slowdown, and the potential for a wave of mortgage defaults.
“Risks to the household sector have increased over the past six months given weak housing market conditions,” the Reserve Bank of Australia said in its latest report card on the stability of the banking sector.
“If there were further large house price falls, the share of borrowers in negative equity (when the value of a mortgage exceeds the market value of a house) would increase significantly,” it added.
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Apartment glut sows seeds of house price falls
Apr 12, 2019 — 11.58am
The pending increase in the supply of Sydney apartments is “sowing the seeds” of further property price declines, the Reserve Bank has warned in its semi-annual health check of the financial system.
In the 76-page Financial Stability Review, the central bank said it expected households to prove resilient to what it described as “large” price declines in Sydney and Melbourne, so long as interest rates and unemployment remained low.
But it did cite concerns about the construction of “large volumes” of new apartments in Sydney and Melbourne, would “weigh on prices for some time” and could “amplify price declines”
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Phil Lowe's big call on housing slump
The RBA is pinning its hopes on low unemployment and low interest rates as home owners equity goes backwards.
Apr 12, 2019 — 4.30pm
It's a case of deja vu for Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe who is once again facing a concerted campaign from market economists urging him to slash interest rates to stave off the damage from the housing market slump.
But Lowe has demonstrated in the past that he's not a man inclined to take hasty measures.
Lowe's patience was vindicated two years ago, when market commentators were calling for rate cuts to boost the country's flagging inflation rate.
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There's more at play than domestic squabbles
The great peril discussed at Canberra dinner parties attended by the nation's great and good should be part of the public debate.
Apr 12, 2019 — 2.29pm
We're buffeted by a nasty trade war between the world's two economic heavies and there are ominous tensions in our relations with China. Add a chaotic Donald Trump presidency and the UK's Brexit meltdown and Australia is in a world of pain.
How we deal with this bonfire of the certainties makes foreign policy a significant issue in the current election campaign, right?
Well, er, no.
As Allan Gyngell, the godfather of Australian foreign policy making, puts it: "You would like to think that everything would [bring] this important issue to the forefront of the election campaign, but I doubt very much that that will happen."
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Radical climate action 'critical' to Great Barrier Reef's survival, government body says
By Nicole Hasham
April 13, 2019 — 11.00pm
Australia’s top Great Barrier Reef officials warn the natural wonder will virtually collapse if the planet becomes 1.5 degrees hotter – a threshold that scientists say requires shutting down coal within three decades.
This federal election campaign is a potential tipping point for Australia’s direction on climate action, as the major parties pledge distinctly different ambitions for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
However neither party has rejected the proposed Adani mine outright or promised to phase out coal, an export on which Australia is heavily reliant.
Climate change has already wrought devastating effects on the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef, including two consecutive years of mass coral bleaching in 2016 and 2017.
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Federal Election.
Facts urgently needed on the cost of climate change
- 7:26AM April 8, 2019
The biggest failure out of the past 20 years of argument and paralysis on energy policy is not the absence of emissions trading, but the lack of any clear understanding of what climate change actually means for Australia.
One thing the deniers and “don’t-carers” are right about is that nothing Australia does can directly prevent the planet from warming; our role is to do our bit as part of the international effort to keep the temperature increase to less than 2 degrees, preferably 1.5.
Most of the temperature increase is already baked in, as it were, and since we can’t directly affect it anyway, the most important thing for Australia to do, apart from our bit, is to understand the impact of climate change on this country.
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Only politicians think Australians will change their opinion of a government in return for money
By Peter Hartcher
April 7, 2019 — 11.45pm
Scott Morrison paid off the electoral executioner last week and hoped he might get a reprieve from his political death sentence, but Monday's poll shows he is still on track for oblivion.
The Prime Minister promised voters $302 billion in tax cuts over the next decade and $100 billion in "congestion busting" infrastructure in last week's budget. And the voters seem reasonably happy with it overall, according to the new Ipsos poll.
9News has confirmed the Prime Minister will wait at least another next week to call a date for the federal election.
But it's made no difference to the elctorate's intention. By a margin of 53 per cent to 47, Australia still intends to throw the government out at next month's election.
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Ipsos poll offers only a rough guide to the Liberal Party's uncertain fate
By David Crowe
April 7, 2019 — 11.45pm
The electoral cycle is at a point when a national poll can only offer the broadest hint of an election outcome.
The last two state elections proved that local contests can be the decisive factors in a government’s fate, given the extraordinary gains for Labor in Victoria in November and the narrow victory for the Liberals in NSW in March.
Both elections showed huge variations in the swings in electorates. The coming federal election will be the same.
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Coalition spends millions on electric vehicles despite claiming Labor push will 'end the weekend'
By Nicole Hasham
April 8, 2019 — 3.30pm
The Morrison government’s derision of Labor’s electric cars policy has been undermined after it emerged that the Coalition has spent millions of dollars encouraging Australians to use the vehicles and its MPs routinely spruik the technology.
The government has aggressively criticised Labor’s election pledge that half of all new cars sold in 2030 would be electric, claiming it would "end the weekend" by forcing Australians to stop driving petrol-guzzling 4WDs.
A Liberal Party advertisement running on Twitter, shared by Energy Minister Angus Taylor on Friday, derides Labor leader Bill Shorten’s statement that electric vehicles could be charged in eight to 10 minutes.
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Trust deficit will hang heavily over the election campaign
By Tony Walker
April 7, 2019 — 11.00pm
Prime Minister Scott Morrison finds himself astride a particularly toxic moment in Australian history, and one whose entrails will be exposed in an election campaign.
Political journalists like to predict that each election will be more divisive, and, yes, more toxic than others that have gone before. These forecasts should be regarded sceptically.
However, it is the case the country is more “confused’’, as the historian Stuart Macintyre puts it, than at other contentious moments in its history.
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Shorten promises $500m public hospital cancer treatment boost
Apr 9, 2019 — 12.01am
Bill Shorten will need to strike a deal with the states to deliver a key element of his showpiece $2.3 billion cancer treatment plan, with the opposition leader to promise on Tuesday to pour $500 million into reducing public hospital waiting lists.
Mr Shorten will claim that Labor's "cancer blitz" will see more people receive free cancer care in public hospitals, a reduction in public waiting times will force fewer patients to turn to the private system, and the increased competition from the public hospitals will put downwards pressure on private sector out-of-pocket costs.
The focus on public hospital patients comes after the Morrison government tried to play down the significance of Labor's cancer pledge by arguing that many cancer treatments were already provided free of charge in public hospitals.
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Power grid not ready for spike in electric vehicles
By Cole Latimer and Michael Koziol
April 9, 2019 — 12.00am
The nation's power grid requires swift upgrades to avoid energy shortages from a predicted spike in the uptake of electric vehicles over the next decade.
As Prime Minister Scott Morrison sharpened his attack on Labor's pledge to massively boost sales of electric vehicles, a new report led by the Australian Renewable Energy Agency has warned that preparations must be made now to avoid grid instability in the future.
Ford will launch 50 new vehicles in China by 2025, including 15 electrified vehicles, as it looks to rev up sales growth in the market.
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Labor’s cash franking credits policy a recipe for retirement chaos
- 7:26AM April 9, 2019
Bill Shorten, the prime-minister-in-waiting according to the opinion polls, has declared that the nation cannot afford cash franking credits and that their removal is an intergenerational issue.
But in making that declaration in his budget reply, Bill Shorten set out a clear policy that was very different to the policy that his treasurer Chris Bowen plans to implement.
That’s a recipe for retirement chaos for millions of Australians and represents the first major mistake the ALP has made in the campaign.
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Insurers doubt bulk-bill pledges under ALP cancer package
- 1:00AM April 9, 2019
The private health insurance sector has warned of potential cost shifting and compliance issues in Labor’s $2.3 billion cancer package, highlighting past experiences that show some specialists fail to comply with bulk-billing pledges.
Rachel David, head of peak industry body Private Healthcare Australia, said the opposition would need to introduce a compliance mechanism to ensure that specialists who said they were going to bulk bill cancer patients under Labor’s offer actually did.
“If Labor are able to implement the program in the way they say they can, it will make it a better value proposition for people with private health insurance and we would strongly support it,” Dr David said.
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Negative gearing savings overstated by up to $8b
Matthew Cranston
Updated Apr 10, 2019 — 12.00am, first published at Apr 9, 2019 — 6.02pm
Key Points
- If investors make up 30 per cent of new home purchases per year then savings from Labor's policy would be reduced by $7.6b over 10 years.
- If investors make up 14 per cent of new home purchases instead of 4 per cent that would reduce Labor's savings by $2.5b over 10 years.
- Moody's Analytics warned negative gearing changes could exacerbate price falls.
Labor's expected savings from its crackdown on negative gearing could be overstated by between $2.5 billion to $8 billion due to inaccurate assumptions on the level of investment in new housing stock.
The disputed savings first detailed by The Australian Financial Review on Tuesday come as ratings agency Moody's Analytics said the house price collapse – prices are down 14 per cent since their 2017 peak in Sydney – could be further exacerbated by the changes to negative gearing.
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Toyota scuppers claim Labor's electric vehicle policy would leave HiLux drivers stranded
By Nicole Hasham
April 9, 2019 — 11.45pm
Official analysis by the Department of the Environment and Energy has suggested electric vehicle uptake in Australia could be identical under the policies of both Labor and the Coalition.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor, however, insists Labor’s strategy is unsound despite the government's policy potentially achieving the same result.
The government's claim that drivers of Australia's most popular car, the Toyota HiLux, would be left stranded under Labor has also been undermined after the company confirmed it was on track to offer an electric version of all its models within six years.
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It's narrow but there is a path to a Coalition victory
By Chris Uhlmann
April 10, 2019 — 12.00am
As winter fell in Canberra last year some in Labor were so convinced that an election was imminent departing MPs were told to deliver their valedictories before the house rose in late June.
When Parliament returned in August, and Malcolm Turnbull fell, election speculation shifted to the certainty that the new Prime Minister would rush to the polls before the Victorians went in November.
Spring came and went without joy but hope lingered in the new conviction that a federal reckoning must come before the NSW government’s date with the people in March. It persisted despite Scott Morrison publicly stating that the election would have to be held by May 18 and it was his intention to govern until then.
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IMF and ratings agencies warn of more financial pain for Australian economy
By Shane Wright and Eryk Bagshaw
April 10, 2019 — 12.01am
Tumbling house prices, a slowing economy and cash-strapped households crying out for a pay increase will confront who ever wins next month's election with warnings more financial pain is facing the country.
Reports from the International Monetary Fund, Moody's Analytics and S&P Global point to a growing problem for Prime Minister Scott Morrison or Labor leader Bill Shorten that also puts at risk the Coalition's week-old budget.
Overnight, the IMF reduced its latest outlook for the global economy which contained a steep downgrade to growth forecasts across most of the developed world, including Australia.
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The fear campaign about electric cars has hit a new level of utter shamelessness
By David Crowe
April 9, 2019 — 5.29pm
The phoney election campaign reached a new peak of phoney political rhetoric on Tuesday when a government minister stood with voters and vowed to defend them when Bill Shorten came to take their cars away.
“We are going to stand by our tradies and we are going to save their utes,” said Small Business Minister Michaelia Cash.
The absurd fear campaign about electric cars hit a new level of utter shamelessness.
Scott Morrison is now at risk of a Joe Hockey moment. The Prime Minister seems to have a visceral reaction against electric vehicles, much like how the former Treasurer hated the sight of wind turbines.
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Don’t buy the scare against electric vehicles
By Behyad Jafari
April 10, 2019 — 12.00am
Charging infrastructure that allows you to power up an electric car in under 10 minutes is not some laughable futurist vision. It’s existing tech.
A network of charging stations that will deliver this result is already on track in Australia to link major capital cities as Energy Minister Angus Taylor should know. Afterall, his agency helped to finance it.
These charging stations can fully charge a vehicle in 15 minutes. In eight minutes, you can get around 200 kilometres. As vehicle efficiency increases, as it does constantly, a full charge will take between eight to 10 minutes - the figure Bill Shorten cited in his supposed "gaffe" on FM radio.
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Why politicians only pretend to care about low income earners
By Ross Gittins
April 10, 2019 — 12.00am
It must be the Salvo still hidden inside me that makes my blood boil when Treasurer Josh Frydenberg claims to be delivering a tax cut worth $1080 a year to “low and middle income earners” and his claim is mindlessly repeated by journalists as though it’s a fact that doesn’t need checking.
I was brought up to care about people at the bottom. So, since we’re bound to spend most of the election campaign debating the complaints of the whingeing well-off, let’s spend just a moment thinking about “those less fortunate than ourselves”.
The $1080 – which Labor has promised to match should it win the election – will go to people earning between $48,000 and $90,000 a year, or about $920 to $1730 a week.
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Tackle biggest killer, cardiologists tell Labor
- 12:00AM April 10, 2019
Cardiologists have questioned Labor’s “unusual” plan to target just one disease in its biggest election healthcare investment, amid growing calls for Bill Shorten to release more details of his cornerstone $2.3 billion cancer package.
Mental health advocates and public health campaigners have also privately queried Labor’s priorities, as some cancer specialists cast doubt on its ability to lift bulk-billing rates.
Christian Hamilton-Craig, a Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand member, said the professional body for cardiologists “really welcomed” Labor’s major spend on healthcare, but urged the major parties to consider the leading causes of death when forming policies.
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April 11, 2019 6:31 am AEST
AMA calls for big investment across health system
The AMA today released Key Health Issues for the 2019 Federal Election – a summary of the major health issues that the AMA considers must be addressed by the major parties during the election campaign and into the next term of Government, whichever party wins.
AMA President, Dr Tony Bartone, said today that health policy will be a vital factor in the outcome of the 2019 Federal Election, which is expected to be soon called for May.
“Health policy influences votes at every election, and doctors are very good judges of health policy,” Dr Bartone said.
“Doctors witness the best and worst of health policy every minute of every day across the country.
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That's a courageous call about the economy, Prime Minister
By Shane Wright
April 11, 2019 — 10.27am
A public servant might call it "courageous".
Scott Morrison used his opening election pitch to argue that even though there are global headwinds, the Australian economy is strong and will get even stronger under the Coalition's agenda.
But just a week ago, the government's budget contained a string of downgrades to key economic indicators.
GDP, dwelling investment and most importantly wages are now expected to do worse than what Treasury was forecasting just back in December. Future tax revenues were written down by $15 billion on account of the slow down.
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ALP cancer plan ‘divisive, inequitable’
- 12:00AM April 11, 2019
Labor’s decision to prioritise fee relief for cancer patients is a departure from its previous policies on out-of-pocket expenses, with a former adviser to Julia Gillard expressing concern the policy will open up a “can of worms with lots of unintended consequences”.
A Shorten government would direct $433 million into Medicare incentives for cancer specialists to bulk-bill more patients in follow-up consultations. It has confidentially given the broad policy parameters to the Parliamentary Budget Office for costing, and proposes the details be worked out by a Medicare review taskforce and cancer groups once in government.
While the PBO advice will not be released until the end of the campaign, Labor has said it expects the bulk-billing rate for surgeons to increase from 36 per cent to 80 per cent for cancer surgeons and from 43 per cent to 85 per cent for oncologists.
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Why the next five weeks will pull Morrison in all directions
Apr 11, 2019 — 3.44pm
Right from the get-go, the differentiation was stark.
Scott Morrison, as convention dictated, opened the election campaign standing in Parliament's Prime Ministerial courtyard where he spruiked economic management as his signature strength.
Opposition leader Bill Shorten, unburdened by such convention, began defiantly in a family home in the gettable Melbourne Liberal seat of Deakin talking about the cost of living, wages, climate change, unity and fairness.
He actually sat at a kitchen table, cracked hardy with the family and patted the dog before holding his press conference in the backyard, veggie patch in the background.
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Scott Morrison uses fresh Treasury costings to launch $387 billion tax assault on Bill Shorten
By David Crowe
April 11, 2019 — 10.30pm
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use new Treasury costings to warn Australians of a $387 billion burden from Labor tax hikes and revenue increases in an incendiary attack after launching the May 18 federal election campaign.
Mr Morrison will use the figures to outline the full impact of Labor's plan to oppose $230 billion in personal income tax cuts and extract another $157 billion in higher revenue from negative gearing, dividend changes and other measures.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has mimicked an election slogan from John Howard in 2004.
The government estimate puts personal tax cuts and budget management at the heart of the political debate on the second day of the campaign, as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten steps up his pledge to voters to restore health funding and cut the cost of cancer treatment.
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Not since the war have the conservatives faced such a tough election
By Judith Brett
April 12, 2019 — 12.00am
Much about the contest to come is standard fare for Australian federal elections. The Coalition will warn us that a Labor government will be a tax-and-spend catastrophe with no hope of reigning in the deficit. Labor will accuse the Coalition of looking after business and the big end of town, and of lacking deep commitment to Medicare and public education. But some things about this election are different.
Not since 1943 has the non-Labor side of our national politics entered an election campaign in such poor shape. Back then, non-Labor had splintered, and its main party, the United Australia Party, won only 12 seats. This was the low point from which Robert Menzies rallied non-Labor to form the new Liberal Party of Australia.
It could well be heading for another low point. The inability of the moderates and the conservatives to work together is manifest in the chaos of three prime ministers in six years and as many treasurers.
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Doctors lobby for further GP funding
- 12:00AM April 12, 2019
Doctors are demanding a significant funding injection for general practice, outting the poll-leading Labor Party under pressure to put a multi-billion dollar figure on its commitment to “save” Medicare.
After a long-running freeze on Medicare rebates, which started under Labor but was extended by the Coalition after the failure of its GP co-payment policy, the major parties have committed to reindexation but are being urged to also reinvest.
In formal campaign launches yesterday, the Australian Medical Association and Royal Australian College of General Practitioners made Medicare a priority, and said they would run advertisements, erect posters and lobby candidates about election wishlists.
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They’re coming for your utes? Oh please. Enough with the limp scares
By Tony Wright
April 13, 2019 — 12.00am
Prime Minister Scott Morrison assumed his serious, sober face as he announced the May 18 election this week and asked for voters to trust the Coalition.
“We live in the best country in the world,” he began.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison announces Australians will go to the polls on May 18, his speech making it clear the coalition will focus on the economy in their campaign.
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Health sector sick of scare campaigns
- 12:00AM April 13, 2019
Australia’s healthcare sector is warning both major political parties to put the country’s international competitiveness at the centre of policy debate in the lead-up to the federal election and to not fuel scare campaigns at the expense of the industry.
Healthcare is a key battleground for the May 18 election and Labor leader Bill Shorten is banking on winning votes with promises of increased funding while the Liberal Party is fighting back with its own multi-billion-dollar commitments.
Industry leaders from across Australia’s healthcare industry have said they are already engaged with both major parties and are ready to push policy agendas on to whoever wins government.
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How much does it cost to have cancer?
Out-of-pocket costs are brutal sucker punches for cancer patients. Where do the costs come from? How steep are they? And how are the Coalition and Labor aiming to help reduce "bill shock"?
By Kate Aubusson and Melissa Cunningham
April 14, 2019
Labor leader Bill Shorten has pledged $2.3 billion to slash the cost of cancer treatment by offering millions of free scans and consultations.
It's a policy that plays to the heart and the hip-pocket. An estimated 145,000 people will be diagnosed with cancer in 2019. One in two is diagnosed by their 85th birthday.
Hefty out-of-pocket costs are a brutal sucker punch for cancer patients already dealing with the physical and emotional anguish of their diagnosis as they navigate a complex entanglement of public and private providers across several – often unintegrated – healthcare sectors.
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'We have seen what we thought was unseeable': the black hole hunters
By Dennis Overbye
April 14, 2019 — 12.00am
Astronomers this week at last captured an image of the unobservable: a black hole, a cosmic abyss so deep and dense that not even light can escape it.
For years, and for all the mounting scientific evidence, black holes have remained marooned in the imaginations of artists and the algorithms of splashy computer models of the kind used in Christopher Nolan's outer-space epic Interstellar. Now they are more real than ever.
Every image of a black hole you have seen before has been a computer or artist simulation. This super massive black hole at the centre of galaxy M87 is 6.5 billion times more massive than our sun. Video: Australian Academy of Science.
"We have seen what we thought was unseeable," said Shep Doeleman, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics, and director of the effort to capture the image, during a Wednesday news conference in Washington.
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Global finance chiefs prepared to 'act promptly' to spur growth
April 14, 2019 — 8.52am
Global finance ministers and central bankers are prepared to "act promptly" to shore up growth in a world economy that faces downside risks including trade tensions, according to a statement issued on Saturday.
While growth is projected to firm up in 2020, "risks remain tilted to the downside", according to a communique by the International Monetary and Financial Committee, the main advisory panel of the IMF's 189 member countries.
Risks included "trade tensions, policy uncertainty, geopolitical risks, and a sudden sharp tightening of financial conditions against a backdrop of limited policy space, historically high debt levels, and heightened financial vulnerabilities", the committee said.
"To protect the expansion, we will continue to mitigate risks, enhance resilience, and, if necessary, act promptly to shore up growth for the benefit of all," officials said.
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Independence of central banks under threat from politics
- By The Economist
- 12:00AM April 13, 2019
Critics of economics like to say that its abstract theories lack real-world pay-offs.
There is a glaring counter-example: the global rise of central-bank independence in the past 25 years. In the 1970s it was normal for politicians to manipulate interest rates to boost their own popularity. That led to a plague of inflation. And so rich countries and many poorer ones shifted to a system in which politicians set a broad goal — steady prices — and left independent central bankers to realise it.
In a single generation billions of people around the world have grown used to low and stable inflation and to the idea that the interest rates on their bank deposits and mortgages are under control.
Today this success is threatened by a confluence of populism, nationalism and economic forces that are making monetary policy political again.
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Royal Commissions And Similar.
New aged care assessment forms sweep away red tape
By Rachel Lane
April 10, 2019 — 12.00am
Last year, thousands and thousands of aged-care means test assessments were completed unnecessarily or incorrectly.
This is really frustrating and confusing for the people completing them, not to mention a waste of taxpayer money.
In July 2018, the Aged Care Forms Taskforce was established.
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Thousands affected by at-home care delay
- April 10, 2019
More than 16,000 Australians have been forced into nursing homes while waiting for aged-care support in their own homes, with new data revealing the average delay between approval and receiving help has blown out to almost two years.
The Department of Health has revealed for the first time the number of people unable to take advantage of the home-care system — 16,362 in less than two years — as the government grapples with a waiting list that has reached almost 130,000 people since 2017.
Home care is cheaper than residential aged care for taxpayers and consumers, but this month’s federal budget included no new funding.
Department of Health assistant secretary Fiona Buffington told the aged-care royal commission in March that it would cost an extra $2.5 billion every year to bring the average wait time down from one year to three months.
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National Budget Issues.
What Australia's 'economic miracle' is teaching the rest of the world
By Neil Irwin
Updated April 8, 2019 — 8.36amfirst published at 8.18am
One Saturday in March, in the suburbs north of Sydney, around three dozen people gathered on a lawn outside a smallish two-bedroom apartment.
They were taking part in an idiosyncrasy of the Australian economic system. Here, selling a home tends to be an almost festive gathering, in which potential buyers show up for an auction and neighbours stop by to watch the spectacle — and quietly calibrate how much their own home might be worth.
On this muggy day, almost all of the assembled crowd turned out to be gawkers; only four people actually raised their bidding paddles at any point. After bidding opened at $750,000, the action started slowly. Twice, it seemed to be petering out as the auctioneer, Andrew Robinson, nearly banged his final gavel, only to be extended with one more bid. Finally a young couple whose agent lobbed in a $930,000 offer won the day.
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Stretched Australians unable to reduce debt
Matthew Cranston
Apr 8, 2019 — 6.00pm
Key Points
- Less than a third of Australians expect to reduce their debt load this year down from 60 per cent last year.
- Recent tax cuts announced in the federal budget could be used to help reduce debt.
- The RBA noted that there was "very little debt related to nonhousing loans such as credit cards or car loans."
- In 2018, 73 per cent of high income earners ($150,000 or more) said they expected to pay down debt. That’s now fallen to 37 per cent.
Less than a third of Australians expect to reduce their debt load this year – down from 60 per cent last year – and not because they don't want to but because they can't, a survey by EY shows.
Australia's household debt-to-income ratio is 190 per cent, and the Reserve Bank of Australia says it remains one of the biggest vulnerabilities in the economy.
The heightened level of debt is unlikely to change even with interest rates expected to fall over the coming year, and the introduction of income tax cuts helping some to reduce debt rather than increase spending.
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Health Issues.
7 of the most dangerous things that put you at risk of a heart attack
Hilary Brueck
Apr 8, 2019 — 8.31am
Key Points
- Heart disease is the number one killer in the US.
- But many heart attacks are preventable, and they’re becoming less deadly and less common than they used to be in the US.
- Some of the most straightforward things that raise your risk of an attack include being overweight, not getting enough sleep, and smoking.
Heart diseases – chiefly heart attacks – are the number one killer in the US. In 2016, they killed 635,260 people.
The heart is the body’s most critical life pump, and a heart attack (or myochardial infarction, by its more scientific name) is what happens when a person’s heart can’t get enough blood.
When this happens, people often start to feel dizzy, get chest pains that might shoot through the left arm, and become short of breath.
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Parents who fail to vaccinate allow the return of measles
By Peter Curson
April 8, 2019 — 12.00am
Once thought to be disappearing from our industrialised world, measles is now re-emerging and revealing itself to be one of the most persistent of human viruses. There is little doubt that failure to vaccinate is taking a huge toll around our world.
It's back. Measles, a disease long thought conquered in Australia, is re-emerging.
Despite more than 50 years of having a specific vaccine, measles has persisted and the reason simply lies in the vagaries of people’s behaviour.
In developed countries such as Australia, measles – once thought to have almost disappeared – has re-emerged largely because of what is called "vaccination hesitancy". Parents opt out of vaccination for their children or simply let it slide.
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Bulk-billing focus to shift to regions
- 1:00AM April 9, 2019
Bulk-billing incentives will be stripped from 7000 doctors working in major cities, while 2100 doctors in regional areas will gain access to the payments, under a federal government move to prioritise Medicare spending to communities most in need.
The changes have been informed by a new mapping system — it was also responsible for the tougher visa restrictions announced in the budget — and will also save the government $128.5 million over four years.
Implementation has been delayed until next January.
Under a broader workforce rebalance, the government has sought to improve rural medical training, improve some rural doctors’ skills, and make it harder for city medical practices to import overseas-trained GPs if they are not needed. Australia’s doctor shortage has largely become a problem of workforce distribution, with many communities still reliant on overseas-trained doctors even as an increasing number of local medical graduates face limited employment prospects.
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Doctoring the system is so easy
DAN HOBBS
- 12:00AM April 10, 2019
Stephanie has booked into her general practitioner because she has had trouble sleeping lately. It doesn’t take long in the consulting room for her to break down in tears and recount her stresses at work, a recent relationship break-up, and how it would seem easier if she weren’t alive. A quiet pause suggests the GP understands.
Suddenly the printer interrupts, churning out a prescription for an antidepressant and sleeping tablet, and Stephanie is chased out the door, still in tears.
Shoddy care? For sure, yet it really does happen. I’ve seen GP colleagues do it and had patients recount it while expressing gratitude for the care and time I took. Quickfire GPs earn more in a morning offering a professional fob-off service than I do in a day. I fix chronic pain; withdraw unnecessary medications; optimise care by offering time and genuine engagement to patients; and I arrive at work earlier than others and leave later.
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Four in ten Australians have a $26 billion-a-year problem, and it's also killing us
By Dana McCauley
April 11, 2019 — 12.00am
Four in ten Australians are not getting enough sleep and a new government report has put the financial cost of this nation-wide exhaustion at $26.2 billion a year.
The Morrison government's sleep health awareness inquiry called for the issue to be made a national priority and sleep recognised as the "third pillar" of a healthy lifestyle alongside diet and exercise, demanding extra funding for research and treatment to help sufferers.
The report said Australians were risking their health - and even their lives - by failing to get the recommended nightly seven-to-nine hours of "good-quality sleep", warning that just five bad nights could disrupt hormones and put the body into a pre-diabetic state.
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After a year in space, astronaut's body not quite the same
By Tom Avril
April 12, 2019 — 12.59pm
Philadelphia: For decades, scientists have studied twins and triplets to measure how human characteristics are influenced by heredity and to what degree they can be altered by the surrounding environment.
But never have they tested an environment so unusual as the one described in a new study published on Thursday: 340 days aboard the International Space Station.
Spending 340 days aboard the International Space Station between 2015 and 2016 caused changes in astronaut Scott Kelly's body, from his weight down to his genes,
Astronaut Scott Kelly was subjected to a battery of biological tests before, during, and after his voyage while his identical twin, Mark, a retired astronaut, underwent the same tests on Earth.
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International Issues.
Theresa May still playing a Brexit tune nobody wants to hear
Apr 7, 2019 — 12.43pm
London | At the start of every week in Britain, the same Brexit song is always playing. It just gets louder each week, and more cacophonous. But the crescendo, of this movement at least, is finally coming.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is the conductor whose orchestra of MPs simply won't play her tune. They won't agree to her deal, and she won't produce another one.
So May is yet again looking for a way to kick the Brexit can down the road. All that kicking has pretty much beaten the thing entirely out of recognisable shape, yet on it goes.
But now the road leads straight to the evening of Wednesday, April 10 (Thursday AEST), when EU leaders gather for an emergency Brexit summit.
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'Can lead to bloodshed': NYT boss criticises Trump's press aggression
By John McDuling and Jennifer Duke
April 8, 2019 — 12.00am
The chief executive of The New York Times has expressed concerns the incendiary rhetoric being employed by US President Donald Trump to attack the American press could result in "bloodshed."
Mark Thompson, a former BBC executive who has run the commercial arm of the most famous newspaper in America since 2012, said the media should not be exempt from criticism but the language being used by Mr Trump could have disastrous consequences.
"My colleague and boss, A.G. Sulzberger [the publisher of NYT] has been public in making it clear, face-to-face with the president, that phrases like "the enemies of the people" and exaggerated aggressive language about journalists is totally unwarranted and also potentially dangerous," he told the Herald and The Age ahead of a visit to Australia this week.
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China invests less as FIRB toughens up
- 1:00AM April 8, 2019
China’s new investment in Australia has fallen sharply as a result of tighter foreign investment scrutiny in Australia and overseas investment policies in China favouring Belt and Road projects, according to a survey to be released today by KPMG and the University of Sydney.
The survey shows that new investment from China was down by more than 36 per cent last year to $8.3 billion, with a big fall in investments by Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), which face tougher scrutiny from the Foreign Investment Review Board and regulators.
“This annual result brings (new) Chinese direct investment in Australia back to the second lowest level since the mining and gas-driven investment peak of 2008,” KPMG’s head of Asia and International Markets, Doug Ferguson, told The Australian.
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'The American dream is lost': Billionaire takes aim at Trump
By Mark Niquette
April 8, 2019 — 10.09am
While President Donald Trump is focused on the national emergency he's declared to secure the southern US border, the billionaire founder of the world's biggest hedge fund is more worried about losing the American dream.
Capitalism must be reformed because it's not producing enough opportunities for most Americans, creating an income gap that threatens to spark conflict, Ray Dalio, the Bridgewater Associates co-chairman, said in an interview that aired on Sunday on CBS' 60 Minutes.
"If I was the president of the United States," Dalio said, "what I would do is recognise that this is a national emergency." It has to come from the top, he said: "If you look at history, if you have a group of people who have very different economic conditions, and you have an economic downturn, you have conflict."
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Right-wing nationalists are learning from the UK's pointless ugliness
By Peter Hartcher
April 9, 2019 — 12.00am
Now that Brexit is indisputably established as one of the most monumentally stupid pieces of self-inflicted injury by a developed nation this century, other nations are learning key lessons from its mistakes.
The concept behind Britain's decision to leave the European Union was that it would recover its sovereignty. On the day that Britons voted by 52 per cent to 48 in favour, its main cheerleader, Nigel Farage, declared it "independence day". That was nearly three years ago.
Theresa May says cross-party talks integral to delivering Brexit.
Today the country is a global laughing stock. It's in an interminable dead-end, neither able to move forwards nor back. It's lost investment and jobs, political stability, national credibility and, perhaps worst of all, it's inflicted new anger and division within British society.
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Unpredictable Britain? This is just the start
Gideon Rachman
Apr 9, 2019 — 10.51am
Whatever happened to the Brits? Across Europe, indeed across the world, there is bewilderment that a country known for stability and moderation seems intent on tearing itself apart.
Many people assume that, at some point, British pragmatism will reassert itself. But I have bad news. Whatever happens at this week’s emergency EU summit on Brexit, the probability is that the UK will become more unstable and unpredictable over the next couple of years. That instability will have alarming implications for the rest of Europe, for the western alliance and for the liberal international order.
Whatever her limitations as prime minister, Theresa May is no revolutionary. She has tried to negotiate a Brexit that is compatible with the existing international order and that preserves most of the essentials of British foreign policy.
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Trump's message to the world: My trade wars aren't over yet
By Shawn Donnan
April 10, 2019 — 9.33am
President Donald Trump is sending a clear message to the economic policy makers gathering in Washington for the IMF and World Bank's spring meetings: My trade wars aren't finished yet and a weakening global economy will just have to deal with it.
With his latest threat to impose tariffs on $US11 billion ($15.4 billion) in imports from the European Union -- from helicopters to Roquefort cheese -- the US president offered a vivid reminder that, even as he moves toward a deal with China to end their tariff wars, he has other relationships he's eager to rewrite.
That's not encouraging for global growth, with the International Monetary Fund and others pointing to the uncertainty over Trump's assault on the global trading system as a damper on business investment and sentiment.
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Fed minutes show some rate flexibility during year of patience
Apr 11, 2019 — 5.58am
Federal Reserve policy makers last month grappled with "significant uncertainties" and persistently low inflation as they scrapped forecasts for interest-rate hikes in 2019 even while voicing the need to maintain policy flexibility.
"Several participants noted that their views of the appropriate target range for the federal funds rate could shift in either direction based on incoming data and other developments,'' according to minutes of the March 19-20 Fed meeting, released Thursday 4am AEST.
The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq inched higher overnight, as investors largely shrugged off benign US inflation data and the unsurprising minutes.
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EU leaders offer six-month lifeline to beleaguered Britain
Updated Apr 11, 2019 — 9.03am, first published at 6.24am
London | The European Union's 27 leaders have given Britain until Halloween to find a way out of its intractable Brexit impasse, following a six-hour summit in Brussels on Thursday (AEST).
British Prime Minister Theresa May will now return to London to sell the plan to an infuriated Conservative Party, a sceptical Labour Party and a despairing public, who will be asked to vote in European Parliament elections on May 23.
"The EU27 and UK have agreed a flexible extension until 31 October. This means [an] additional six months for the UK to find the best possible solution," European Council President Donald Tusk said on Twitter.
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Twelve days of chaos: Inside the Trump White House's growing panic over border crisis
By David Nakamura, Josh Dawsey and Seung Min Kim
April 11, 2019 — 4.17am
Washington: He had threatened to close the southern border and ordered a halt to foreign aid for three Central American nations. But as President Donald Trump weighed his next move to respond to a mounting immigration crisis, he had another problem: His homeland security chief was in Europe on a weeklong business trip.
The location of Kirstjen Nielsen, the embattled leader of the Department of Homeland Security, on April 1 was like a bad joke for a president who vowed to curb unauthorised immigration but was now showing signs of panic as border crossings spiked to the highest levels in more than a decade.
US Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen will be leaving her post, President Donald Trump tweeted on Sunday, with a follow-up tweet that said Kevin McAleenan would become acting secretary.
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In signal to Beijing, US sends jet-carrying warship to South China Sea
By Ditas Lopez
April 11, 2019 — 6.45am
The US sent a fighter-jet-carrying warship to join drills near the disputed Scarborough Shoal for the first time, sending a pointed message to China as tensions simmer over territorial claims in the region.
The USS Wasp -- an amphibious assault ship outfitted last year with F-35B jets -- joined the annual Exercise Balikatan with the Philippines this month. A ship matching the USS Wasp's description was spotted in waters "near the Scarborough Shoal," a feature occupied by China since a tense standoff in seven years ago, the Philippines' ABS-CBN News reported Tuesday.
The USS Wasp didn't pass within 25 nautical miles of the shoal, according to a US defense official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. The figure suggests that the ship wasn't conducting a so-called freedom of navigation operation, a practice criticised by China that the US uses to assert international sailing rights within 12 nautical miles of disputed features.
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Bibi starts building government for a fifth term
- AFP
- 12:00AM April 12, 2019
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to form a right-wing governing coalition yesterday after securing victory in a high-stakes Israeli election despite a strong challenge from a centrist alliance.
The results from Tuesday’s vote came despite corruption allegations against the 69-year-old premier and kept him on course to become Israel’s longest-serving prime minister later this year.
US President Donald Trump, who has swung American policy sharply in Israel’s favour and openly backed Mr Netanyahu, said yesterday the incumbent’s victory for a fifth mandate gave the White House’s long-awaited peace plan a “better chance”.
“The fact that Bibi won, I think we’ll see some pretty good action in terms of peace,” Mr Trump said, using Mr Netanyahu’s nickname.
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Brussels gives UK time for a rethink on Brexit
- 12:00AM April 12, 2019
Remainers have been cheered that Britain may have just enough time to squeeze in a second referendum on leaving the EU after the Brexit deadline was yesterday pushed back to Halloween, October 31.
European leaders were swayed by French President Emmanuel Macron, who tore up British Prime Minister Theresa May’s request for an extension to June 30, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s plans to allow at least a year longer.
“It’s true that the majority was more in favour of a very long extension,’’ said Mr Macron, who is positioning himself as the leader of a federalist Europe.
“But it was not logical in my view and, above all, it was neither good for us, nor for the UK. I take responsibility for this position, I think it’s for the collective good.”
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Betting odds put 50pc chance of no Brexit in 2019
The latest delay in negotiations has done nothing to change the potential range of outcomes priced into betting and currency markets.
Apr 12, 2019 — 12.29pm
This week's last-minute extension of Brexit negotiations to October 31 provided plenty of symbolism but did little to change the range of probable outcomes priced into currency and betting markets.
On Thursday morning, Australian time, the heads of the 27 European Union nations rejected Prime Minister Theresa May's request for a two-month delay, eventually settling on a Halloween deadline.
"Brexit is now, officially, a horror story," JP Morgan economist Malcolm Barr joked.
The agreement meant the UK avoided crashing out of the EU on Friday without an agreement to facilitate its exit – what most agree would be a worst-case scenario.
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Chill in global economy prompts G20 call for trade truce
By David Lawder, David Milliken and Leika Kihara
April 13, 2019 — 10.35am
The risk that global economic growth could slow more than expected spurred a call on Friday from top finance officials for countries to overcome trade differences and opt for multilateral co-operation and "timely policy action".
Policy makers from the Group of 20 industrialised countries are worried that the weakness evident in key economies could spread, especially if elevated trade tensions, such as those between the United States and China, escalate further.
"The balance of risks remains skewed to the downside," Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso said at a news conference following a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers. "We recognise the risk that growth prospects might deteriorate if weakening in key economies feed into each other."
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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