November 21, 2019 Edition.
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In Trumpland the main issue has been the beginning of the Public Impeachment Hearings that have gone pretty badly for Trump and has seriously exposed the mess that is the internals of the current White House. Rudy Giuliani seems very likely to be in pretty bad trouble and may wind up in jail I reckon.
The Brexit election rumbles on – outcome unclear.
Bushfires are consuming the polity and the level of common sense from them all is sadly terribly low. I suspect we are basically doomed with the current lot of pollies on both sides and I have no idea what will cause any real change. Pity about that!
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Major Issues.
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'Catastrophic' fire warnings as NSW, Queensland burn takes toll
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and corporate Australia have offered support for bushfire victims as authorities warn the worst is to come.
Nov 10, 2019 — 6.57pm
Firefighters are bracing for "catastrophic" conditions on Tuesday around Sydney and the Hunter Valley, with hot temperatures and strong winds threatening to fan the flames of bushfires that have already killed three people and destroyed more than 150 homes in NSW and Queensland.
Intense blazes are also at risk of breaking out on the other side of the continent, with similarly hellish conditions forecast for Western Australia.
Meeting firefighters and evacuated residents on the NSW north coast on Sunday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison warned a grim few days were ahead.
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First home buyer risk riles banks
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.00am
Big banks are seeking the flexibility to charge higher interest rates under the Morrison government's scheme to help first home buyers because of the increased risk of lending to first-time borrowers with as little as 5 per cent deposit.
Banks also query whether the government's promised first home loan deposit scheme can be up and running by its scheduled January 1 start date.
Bankers are concerned that home buyers with deposits as little as 5 per cent of a property's value will be riskier than other first-time borrowers who usually are required to have saved a minimum deposit of at least 10 per cent, and sometimes as high as 20 per cent.
Some banks want to be able to charge higher interest rates to low-deposit users of the taxpayer-guaranteed mortgages, to reflect the greater risk of default.
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Noble intentions put Australia at subprime risk
Government should help unclog red tape blockages preventing banks making loans, but it should be wary of pressuring reluctant banks to join taxpayer-backed schemes that weaken capital standards.
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.00am
Government meddling in the housing and small business banking markets is a messy cocktail that risks Australia repeating the mistakes of the US subprime lending crisis.
Political pressure has led reluctant big banks to participate in, and the prudential regulator to soften bank capital standards for, new government-underwritten schemes to help first home buyers and small business.
Inevitably, this means greater financial risks for taxpayers and bank depositors, even if the concessions so far are small in Australia's $5 trillion financial system.
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Australian Christian Lobby rallies against conversion therapy bans
The head of the Australian Christian Lobby has posted a video rallying against legislation that would see conversion therapy processed banned in Australia.
Quoting the same biblical passage that was famously paraphrased by rugby player Israel Folau, Illes said soon it may become illegal in Australia to deliver a sermon on that section of the bible.
Iles said moves to ban conversion therapy is Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory were worrying and were responding to a phrase that was made up by activists.
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Labor review 'suppressed Murdoch complaints'
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.00am
The Labor Party review into its federal election loss suppressed internal complaints about the Murdoch press because they were seen as political dynamite, senior Labor sources say.
The party didn't want to get into another fight with the media group, which owns about 60 per cent of Australian newspapers by circulation.
Party candidates raised concerns with report authors Craig Emerson and Jay Weatherill about what they felt was a campaign by News Corp publications to re-elect the Coalition government.
While the report to Labor's national executive has been praised by many commentators as a rare example of a defeated party being frank about what went wrong, sources said it had avoided problems too sensitive to discuss publicly.
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Deputy PM slams people raising climate change in relation to NSW bushfires
By David Crowe
November 11, 2019 — 8.33am
Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack has slammed the climate change concerns of "raving inner city lunatics" at a time when rural Australians are dealing with catastrophic bushfires, venting his frustration at questions about climate.
"We've had fires in Australia since time began, and what people need now is a little bit of sympathy, understanding and real assistance - they need help, they need shelter," Mr McCormack told ABC Radio National on Monday after a series of questions about climate change.
Nationals leader Michael McCormack has unleashed on the Greens when asked about climate change concerns, amid catastrophic bushfires in New South Wales and Queensland.
"They don't need the ravings of some pure, enlightened and woke capital city greenies at this time, when they're trying to save their homes, when in fact they're going out in many cases saving other peoples' homes and leaving their own homes at risk."
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This is not normal: what's different about the NSW mega fires
By Greg Mullins
November 11, 2019 — 12.05am
I write this piece reluctantly, because there are still possible fire victims unaccounted for; people have lost loved ones; and hundreds of families have lost their homes. My heart goes out to them. I don’t want to detract in any way from the vital safety messages that our fire commissioners and Premier will be making about Tuesday’s fire potential.
Everyone needs to heed the fire service warnings to prepare, to have a plan, and to leave early if you’re not properly prepared. Know that the best firefighters in the world – volunteer and paid – will be out in force from NSW agencies and interstate to do battle with the worst that an angry Mother Nature can throw at us. But as we saw on Friday, the sheer scale and ferocity of mega fires can defy even the best efforts.
In the past I’ve have heard some federal politicians dodge the question of the influence of climate change on extreme weather and fires by saying, “It’s terrible that this matter is being raised while the fires are still burning.” But if not now, then when?
“Unprecedented” is a word that we are hearing a lot: from fire chiefs, politicians, and the weather bureau. I have just returned from California where I spoke to fire chiefs still battling unseasonal fires. The same word, “unprecedented”, came up.
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Loose language spares the RBA from real assessment
The wording of the official statement on monetary policy allows our central bank to shift the goal posts in its own favour.
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.42pm
Last week, the Treasurer effectively endorsed the Reserve Bank of Australia’s evasion of transparency and accountability.
Contrary to its stated claims, the bank's Statement on the Conduct on Monetary Policy fails to provide a clearly identifiable performance benchmark. For this reason, the Australian public cannot hold RBA decision making to account. The statement should be amended.
The RBA can count almost any inflation result as a success.
The statement documents that the RBA must achieve 2 to 3 per cent inflation, on average, over time. According to this performance benchmark, almost any inflation outcomes constitute success.
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Markets ignore soft economy
Equity markets look like running hot into the end of the calendar year as the weight of money in index funds is deployed. But not all strategists are bullish.
Nov 12, 2019 — 12.00am
Weak consumer sentiment, poor retail sales growth and calls for a federal economic stimulus to kick start growth look slightly contradictory in the context of local equity markets surging toward record levels.
On Monday, investors returned to the local market with gusto pushing large cap stocks such as CSL, Wesfarmers, Qantas, James Hardie and Origin Energy to levels not seen for a year.
Trading in blood products company CSL was representative of the upbeat mood. Its shares rose by 3.5 per cent to a record $270.56 even though it is trading at a stunning 40 times forward earnings. The jump was helped by a UBS analyst's note putting the stock on a "buy" with a share price target of $295.
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Tackling climate risk will put out bushfires
Heated claims of 'climate emergency' will not reduce the risk of devastating bushfires; it will only repeat the futile climate wars of the past decade.
Nov 12, 2019 — 12.00am
Much heat can be generated by arguing over whether the current drought and the associated bushfires are part of the long-established natural cycle of life in Australia or part of a structural trend associated with climate change.
According to the Deputy Prime Minister and National Party leader, Michael McCormack, only “raving inner city lunatics” are concerned about the possible links between climate change and the catastrophic bushfires raging around the nation. By lashing out against against “woke capital city greenies”, Mr McCormack took the greenies bait and poured fuel on the climate wars. Greens’ leader Richard Di Natale has opportunistically exploited the bushfires to promote their anti-coal climate agenda and justify claims of a ‘climate emergency’.
The Prime Minister’s response – that the focus should be on helping victims and supporting firefighters – was a more measured way to try to deflect the climate issue. However, like the drought, the role that climate change may be playing in stoking more extreme bushfires must be part of a rational discussion of how the nation manages climate risks.
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https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/is-the-world-entering-the-age-of-forgetting-20191111-p539em.html
Is the world entering the age of forgetting?
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
November 12, 2019 — 12.00am
On Remembrance Day we're supposed to remember the monstrous atrocity that was World War One, one of humanity's absolute low points, vast carnage from political failure. In Australia and New Zealand we concentrate our memories of World War One on the murderously disastrous Gallipoli campaign led by Britian's First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill.
But, beyond the searing lesson of betrayal of the two infant nations' trust in the great and powerful Motherland, have we remembered the most important lessons? Pat Cox, an Irish politician who went on to become president of the European Parliament, is well versed in the miseries of Gallipoli. One of his grandfathers fought and was wounded in that campaign, a member of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers.
Cox developed "an affinity" for the Australian experience on the peninsula, he says this week during his first visit to Australia. He's toured the Gallipoli battlefields, read Les Carlyon's epic history, and absorbed "all of the shocking awfulness of war". Yet Cox fears that the world is losing its memory.
Not just the memory of human suffering on an unimaginable scale, but the memory of how to keep peace. Peace is not a natural condition or an automatic one. It's a political construct.
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Frydenberg signals reforms amid 'mega-trends' of rising debt, ageing population
By Shane Wright
November 11, 2019 — 10.30pm
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will use a major address on a string of mega-trends challenging the global economy as a call to arms for Australia to remain committed to open markets and take on major structural reforms to make the country more competitive.
Mr Frydenberg will use a speech at the Australian National University on Tuesday to argue that while Australia has benefited from the transformation of the global economy over recent years, it will have to prepare for new changes in areas from ageing demographics to rising debt levels.
The government has been under pressure internally and from institutions such as the Reserve Bank to embark on structural reforms to help boost productivity, increase growth and lift wages.
The Treasurer's speech will touch on how the economy grew on the back of significant international institutions set up in the immediate wake of World War II but substantial domestic reforms will now be needed to deal with new challenges.
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Australians are smarter than this
It is not impossible to fight fires and be sensitive towards the victims while at the same time being able to discuss an underlying cause.
Nov 12, 2019 — 4.21pm
Just over a decade ago, when Australia was in the grip of a supposed one-in-100-year-drought that was so severe even John Howard scratched together an emissions trading policy, our climate scientists made a couple of key predictions.
First, such droughts would be more commonplace and more severe, occurring every 10 years or so. Tick that box.
Second, bushfire seasons would become longer, more frequent and more severe. Tick.
So why today, when bushfires have become so commonplace that, unless affected, we are almost inured towards them, is it outrageous to talk about climate change? It should not be.
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Raging fires spark political risks for Morrison
Nov 12, 2019 — 4.12pm
The Morrison government is determined to avoid being dragged into a political argument about the impact of climate change on the disastrous fires in NSW and Queensland but it won’t have much choice. Perhaps not this week, certainly by next week.
It’s not just because deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack can’t get his lines right in his clumsy reaction to “raving inner-city lunatics” represented by Adam Bandt, or Barnaby Joyce describing two of those killed as Greens voters.
Most of Morrison’s quiet Australians will certainly react with disdain if not disgust to the Greens’ attempt to leverage the human grief and property devastation into political points. The country is far more preoccupied with willing on the extraordinary bravery of firefighters and empathising with reeling residents of bushfire affected areas.
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The burning issue
The Prime Minister doesn't want to talk about climate change in the middle of a catastrophe, but the experts agree that bushfire risk is made worse by hotter temperatures, writes Tom Mcllroy.
Nov 12, 2019 — 6.05pm
By any measure, Scott Morrison had a big agenda. It was the beginning of an election year and just six months into the job the Prime Minister wanted to start 2019 talking about border security, defence spending, tensions with China, protecting children from cyber-bullying and stopping the scourge of domestic violence.
As Australians pieced their lives back together amid summer bushfires and major flooding in four states, Morrison was asked about how climate change was contributing and making the damage worse.
"I acknowledge it’s a factor, of course it is," he said in response to a question after a speech in February to the National Press Club.
"Australians do, the vast majority of Australians."
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Lessons from the quant king
Nov 13, 2019 — 9.32am
Thanks to Gregory Zuckerman’s The Man Who Solved the Market, the story of arguably the most successful sharemarket investor of all time is finally being told.
The book reveals that mathematician Jim Simons' Medallion fund has delivered annualised returns over 30 years of 39.1 per cent, and that's after taking into account his high fees.
That comfortably beats the 32 per cent return of George Soros, the 30 per cent return of Steven Cohen, Warren Buffett's 20.5 per cent and Ray Dalio's 12 per cent.
Before the '5 and 44' fee structure, which includes management and performance fees, the Medallion fund has delivered an astounding 66.1 per cent annualised return.
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Wages growth slows further through September
By Shane Wright
November 13, 2019 — 11.58am
Annual wage growth has slipped to its slowest level in more than a year, falling well short of Reserve Bank and federal Treasury expectations and pointing to a sluggish jobs market.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday reported the wage price index rose by 0.5 per cent in the September quarter, taking annual growth to 2.2 per cent.
It was a step down from the 2.3 per cent annual growth reported to the end of June, and is now the slowest annual rate since the middle of last year.
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Australia facing most significant global changes since WWII, DFAT warns ministers
By Eryk Bagshaw
November 12, 2019 — 11.30pm
Australia is facing "the most consequential changes in the global environment since WWII", confidential ministerial briefing papers have warned, with the prosperity and stability of states in the Indo-Pacific at risk from "increasing illiberalism" and "democratic backsliding".
The internal briefing documents, prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) for Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne and Trade Minister Simon Birmingham, reveal increasing concern within the department about Australia's place in the region amid the rise of China. DFAT identifies the deployment of high-quality assistance in the Indo-Pacific as a top priority.
The briefing for Senator Payne said "populism, nationalism and authoritarianism" would continue to put pressure on the international system. "We need to work hard to respond to the challenges, enhancing global co-operation and limiting coercive power," it said.
The 125-page documents known as "blue books", delivered to the Morrison government after it won the May election, were released to The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age under Freedom of Information laws on Tuesday.
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How big business saw the climate turning point coming
Climate change is suddenly at the heart of the political narrative but the country's leaders are playing catch-up with business, finance and investment institutions.
Nov 14, 2019 — 12.00am
The catastrophic bushfires that have killed three people and damaged more than 300 homes have put a tragic marker in the ground for a possible transformation in community thinking about the societal consequences of climate change.
Over the past few weeks politicians, community leaders, emergency services and the volunteers fighting the flames have been reminded we are facing a new paradigm in fire management in Australia.
It is gradually dawning on the country's collective consciousness that Australia's east coast will experience more fires, a longer fire season, more high intensity fires, increased fuel consumption and more areas burned.
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'No room for complacency': Frydenberg urges states to embrace productivity reforms
By Shane Wright
November 14, 2019 — 12.45am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will on Thursday urge the states and territories to embrace a new wave of productivity reforms which could boost the economy by almost $100 billion a year while warning of a hit to the budget from tumbling business and consumer confidence.
In his second major address on the direction of the economy this week, the Treasurer will use the Downer Oration in Adelaide to argue complacency is one of the biggest risks to the economy and advocate undertaking nationwide reforms.
All governments are under pressure from the Reserve Bank, which has cut official interest rates to record lows in a bid to drive down unemployment and lift wages, to undertake structural reforms to help lift overall economic growth.
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Scientists ‘careful’ in attributing fire weather signals
Scientists are reluctant to claim a definitive climate change signal in bushfires ravaging eastern Australia because of the complex factors involved.
Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick of the University of NSW said the detection of a climate change signal in bushfires was still a work in progress.
“With temperature we can absolutely detect a human signature behind it, but it gets more complex to get this climate signal when we include more variables,” Dr Perkins-Kirkpatrick said.
Climate models weren’t always as good for humidity and wind speed as they were for temperature. “We have to be careful how we attribute fire weather. We can’t say one specific fire or all the ingredients that go into fire weather are due to climate change, but we can certainly tear out that climate change has this signal in some of those ingredients.”
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How Labor was outsmarted on tax
Josh Frydenberg defined the battle lines early, making tax central to the election campaign. It would prove Labor's undoing.
Nov 15, 2019 — 12.00am
Josh Frydenberg, the grandson and son of stateless Jewish refugees, had dreamed of becoming the minister for foreign affairs. As a graduate student at Harvard University, he had studied under famed presidential counsellor David Gergen. As a political adviser, he had worked on national security matters for prime minister John Howard. As a backbencher, he had focused on Australia’s international relations.
When he was finally given the almost unique opportunity to choose his portfolio – a privilege bestowed on the deputy leader of the Liberal and Labor parties – he chose power over pleasure. As Scott Morrison’s Treasurer, Frydenberg applied his innate talent for clear communication, political opportunism and self-promotion to destroying Labor’s policy platform. He would be central to the Coalition’s 2019 victory, demonstrating that a skilled politician can lead a negative campaign and emerge looking virtuous.
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How the Coalition became a lightning rod for climate rage
Because the Coalition spent a decade denying and failing to act on global warming, it has become the whipping boy as the drought continues and bushfires rage.
Nov 14, 2019 — 8.12pm
In just over a fortnight, on December 1, it will be 10 years since Tony Abbott rolled Malcolm Turnbull for the leadership of the Liberal Party.
Abbott's ascension was not preordained. The night before the party room ballot, Abbott and a gaggle of others were in Joe Hockey's office urging him to run.
Hockey had the numbers. All he had to do was disavow Kevin Rudd's Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme that Turnbull had negotiated with the Labor government but which had divided the Coalition and become the catalyst for the spill.
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'Turn neglect into action': Mayors issue climate warning
'Everybody who’s involved with the bushfires is talking about climate change, the only people who aren’t talking about it are the politicians and their media supporters.'
Nov 15, 2019 — 12.00am
Mayors from communities hit by catastrophic bushfires in Queensland and NSW have issued a joint declaration to the Morrison government, calling for action to limit the contribution of climate change.
As MPs fight over the contribution carbon emissions are making to weather-related events in federal Parliament this week, 12 mayors from fire affected local government areas including Noosa, Bellingen, the Blue Mountains and Ryde have signed on to a joint statement.
It calls on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Coalition to recognise spiralling costs to local communities from catastrophic fires, and for more funding and resources to be provided for frontline services.
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Burning new tracks on Australia's political map
A new, incessant political drumbeat surrounds the fires still raging in eastern Australia, and that is climate change.
Nov 15, 2019 — 11.14am
After the 1939 Black Friday bushfires, the Ash Wednesday fires in 1983, the 2009 Black Saturday fires and this week’s blazes, extraordinary stories of heroism, sacrifice and the will to rebuild emerged. However, a new, incessant political drumbeat surrounds the fires still raging in eastern Australia, and that is climate change.
A decade ago, senior figures in the Australian Conservation Foundation debated whether they should mention how they believed the impact of climate change was increasing the frequency and intensity of bushfires bringing death, terror and misery to Australia after more than 170 perished during the Black Saturday fires in Victoria. This week the issue was front and centre.
This week's fires have increased public recognition of the gravity of climate change.
Attempts by federal politicians from Prime Minister Scott Morrison to Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack and ALP frontbencher Joel Fitzgibbon to shut down climate change discussion as the fires raged were last week incinerating in walls of flame. The current bushfires have “lit a match under the climate change issue” is the way Sydney University political scientist Stewart Jackson puts it.
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Firestorm's other side is a political catastrophe
We must question the state of politics when the culture wars take over from saving lives and property.
Nov 15, 2019 — 2.42pm
It has been a week of catastrophe in Australia. For so many people, and so many communities, there have been days and nights of sleepless, exhausting anxiety, and fear of monstrous firestorms; and for some, the destruction they have caused.
It has also been a week of catastrophic failure of our political dialogue. It’s easy to just express exasperation at the sniping of some of the statements made by politicians this week as they have tried to fight a culture war about climate change in the midst of such disastrous scenes.
But there is actually something much more alarming going on here. If our political conversation really is at a point when these cultural weapons can’t be downed in the face of a crisis, we really are in a lot of trouble.
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Climate crazies are torching the fire debate
We need practical measures to mitigate bushfire risk, not a repeat of the culture wars.
Nov 16, 2019 — 12.00am
Raging bushfires were not the only things out of control this week. So was the unedifying political exploitation of the fire crisis by climate war extremists. The inflammatory rhetoric on both sides is simply distracting attention from the practical measures needed to mitigate the potential risk that climate change will lead to more and more devastating fires.
The spark was lit by Greens MP Adam Bandt, who blamed fire deaths on government inaction in relation to the "climate emergency". And the petrol was poured by his Greens colleague senator Jordon Steele-John, who labelled the major parties as “no better than arsonists”.
Meanwhile, when Barnaby Joyce wasn’t musing about the political leanings of fire victims, Nationals leader Michael McCormack was out there denouncing “raving inner-city lunatics” and claiming that only “woke capital city greenies” give a fig about the possible links between climate change and more extreme bushfires.
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A bonfire engulfs politics
As flames threatened the doors of suburban Sydney and destroyed homes across NSW and Queensland this week, there seemed to be a change in the relationship between bushfires and politics.
Nov 15, 2019 — 3.11pm
Before flames shot above the treeline, choking smoke blotted out the sun and the sirens of emergency vehicles filled Field of Mars Avenue, Douglas Greening heard the crackling.
Like a natural accelerant, a layer of dead pine needles that carpeted the forest floor spread the fire through the overgrown underbrush opposite Greening's solid brown-brick home in suburban northern Sydney around 4pm on Tuesday afternoon.
Three months into retirement from the Master Plumbers Association, Greening recognised the sound of bush fire. He placed some precious family art works in his car, along with photos and jewellery, and called his wife and told her to stay at her mother's in the next suburb.
When the police arrived and asked if he planned to evacuate, the 65-year-old said he was going to defend his Turramurra South home with three hoses, a pink cotton shirt, and the fortitude of a former volunteer firefighter.
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'Shabby' and 'mediocre': Four Morrison government policies slammed
By Jessica Irvine
November 15, 2019 — 6.00pm
Four of the Morrison government's signature policies, including recent tax cuts and laws to remove abhorrent images online, have been labelled as policy "on the run" in an annual review of public policy making.
Without passing judgment on the merits of policies, the joint research project by two usually opposing think tanks - Per Capita, on the left, and The Institute of Public Affairs, on the right - has condemned as "unacceptable" the processes used to design eight out of 20 policy case studies at the state and federal level.
Of eight federal policies reviewed, four were deemed to have followed an "unacceptable" process, by failing to adhere to the basics of good public policy making, including: comparing the costs and benefits of alternative options, explaining how a decision would be rolled out and issuing a green and white paper for public consideration.
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Our leaders fiddle while the country burns
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
November 16, 2019 — 12.00am
The invading army of a traditional enemy appears on the horizon, bigger and better armed than ever, and starts to attack. Your forces defend valiantly but the enemy is winning. Your people are dying.
You are a politician. Do you: 1. Scream abuse at another politician in your own country? 2. Tell everyone to tend the wounded but not mention the war? 3. Search for a way to bring your country together to defeat a common enemy?
In contemporary Australian political responses to the bushfires that have been burning with increasing range and intensity since August, it depends on which party you're in.
If you're in one of the two lesser mainstream parties – the Nationals and the Greens – you are more likely to choose option one.
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As Australia faces more extreme weather, the nation's politics continue to fail
By David Crowe
November 15, 2019 — 11.51am
Australians saw the power of nature to shape a political debate more than a decade ago when the rivers ran dry, the bushfire season came early and the country's politicians argued over climate change. With the 2007 federal election in sight, the nation waited to see whether the immediate threat of drought and fire would bring about a lasting shift in the electorate and a long-term response from governments.
There was a palpable sense voters were changing their minds on climate change. Prime minister John Howard agreed to an emissions trading scheme. His challenger Kevin Rudd pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and meet hard targets on climate action. Observers spoke of Australians changing their attitudes "once and for all" because of the extreme conditions.
One visitor to Australia that year, The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, saw the way the changed weather changed politics. "Politics gets interesting when it stops raining," he wrote. It was a cautious way for an outsider to judge the debate at the time. Australians found later that "interesting" did not mean "better" - it meant "worse".
Rudd won, the drought broke, the conservatives split and opinions about the best form of climate action changed with the season. Tony Abbott rose to the leadership of the Liberal Party by a single vote and scuttled a compromise on climate. The Greens used their power in the Senate to veto an emissions trading scheme. Those last two events, 10 years ago next month, reverberate down the years.
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Banks' margin squeeze doesn't worry RBA's Debelle
By Clancy Yeates and Sarah Danckert
November 15, 2019 — 4.55pm
Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle has hit back at bank complaints over the squeeze on profitability from ultra-low interest rates, as he declared it was too early to claim rate cuts were not working to boost the economy.
With banks recently highlighting the crunch on profit margins from falling interest rates, Dr Debelle said this pressure did not concern him, and it also needed to be seen against the benefit banks received from fewer loans going sour.
The drop in official interest rates to record lows is narrowing banks' net interest margins (NIMs) - the difference between funding costs and what banks charge for loans. All four major banks highlighted the decline in their recent profit results. The squeeze occurs because banks struggle to cut deposits by the same amount as loans,
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Climate rises as the No. 1 voter concern
Phillip Coorey Political Editor
Nov 15, 2019 — 7.00pm
Climate change and the environment have become key issues of concern among voters, rivalling health and the economy and sounding an early warning to the Morrison government ahead of the next federal election should the current crisis not abate.
The latest True Issues survey by JWS Research also shows that six months after Scott Morrison's self-described "miracle" victory over Labor on May 18, the post-election boost in optimism has faded and anxiety levels over the economy are are high.
The True Issues research is a periodic, nationwide survey which comprehensively canvasses the questions that voters want their government to tackle and gauges how it is handling these issues.
The latest survey, conducted from November 6-11, shows a significant shift in concerns and priorities since the last survey in June, which reflected a general buoyancy after the Coalition election win.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Almost 200 aged-care homes on the brink
Almost 200 nursing homes with about 50,000 residents across Australia are operating at an unacceptably high risk of insolvency, analysis by a leading aged-care advocacy group reveals, bolstering its case for a $1.3bn pre-Christmas cash injection by the government.
Leading Age Services Australia says an accounting study of all residential aged-care centres shows the assets of 197 providers would fall short of enabling them to pay their current liabilities, excluding refundable accommodation deposits.
LASA chief executive Sean Rooney said the scale of the risk was “alarming for residents, their families, staff, providers and the government”. “These new figures reveal the dire situation facing many services, and LASA is calling for a $1.3bn government injection,” Mr Rooney said.
He said the “costs to deliver high-quality care continues to grow, while the subsidy from government has stagnated’’.
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Have APRA and ASIC stripped the gearbox of the economy?
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
November 13, 2019 — 2.43pm
The core objective of bank regulators is to ensure the stability of the institutions and financial systems they regulate. Given the experience of the financial crisis, few would argue with that, but the question of whether you can have too much of a good thing remains.
This week, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority published a paper which reiterated its prudential objective is the financial safety of institutions and the stability of the financial system.
Efficiency and competition were relegated to "supplementary considerations", although APRA chairman Wayne Byres noted in a speech this week that the authority wasn't tasked with creating a zero-risk system.
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Bupa cost-save plan ‘too risky’
A Bupa “save a shift” policy directing nursing homes not to replace care staff on sick leave could only worsen existing problems with care quality at its South Hobart nursing home, one of the company’s former executives has conceded.
But an even more radical proposal from Bupa’s commercial finance team to cut staff costs month-on-month until financial sustainability was reached was considered too controversial to be implemented, the executive told the aged-care royal commission in Hobart on Thursday.
Stephanie Hechenberger, a former regional manager with responsibility for at least 10 residential aged-care homes, conceded that reducing care staff at South Hobart, which had a previous history of issues surrounding its quality of care, was a misguided strategy.
Counsel assisting the commission, Peter Rozen QC, asked Ms Hechenberger if in 2017 there was a “clear directive that was being passed on to facility managers from the executive level … that staff members who went off sick would not be replaced as a way of saving costs.”
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Elderly deserve safe care in homes
Nursing home residents deserve providers that regard high-quality and safe care as a daily practice and not just a stated vision, the aged-care royal commission has heard.
Counsel assisting the commission Peter Rozen QC also warned on Friday about the risks older Australians face when aged-care providers put profits before people.
Closing a week of evidence into governance in aged care, Mr Rozen said increasing the obligation of boards to ensure quality and safe care should be considered as part of the commission’s final recommendations.
“This week we’ve heard about the risks to the frail and vulnerable residents that may arise when governing bodies of approved providers prioritise financial and funding considerations over quality and safe care,” Mr Rozen said.
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In the path of disaster: The big causes of bushfires that most of us are missing
By Liam Mannix, Joshua Whittaker and Katharine Haynes
November 17, 2019 — 12.00am
A decade after the deadly Black Saturday bushfires devastated Kinglake, razing entire streets of the rural township north-east of Melbourne, population density in some of the worst-hit areas is now much higher than before the firestorm hit.
Despite the royal commission into the 2009 fires - which claimed the lives of 173 people - recommending against rebuilding in some of the most fire-prone areas, many more residents now live there.
Kinglake's population fell after the fires, as people left. But new housing estates in the tree-covered mountains are drawing newcomers. Half the town's population are newcomers, real estate agents estimate. There are now almost as many people as the town's 2008 peak - and about 20 per cent more houses.
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National Budget Issues.
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No longer the 12th man ... Australia's economic standing slips
Shane Wright
Senior economics correspondent
November 11, 2019 — 4.00pm
In late 2012, then-treasurer Wayne Swan noted how well Australia had done since the global financial crisis.
His measure was a global ranking of countries by their economic size (in US dollar terms). Australia had moved up to 12th on the global ladder after being 15th in 2007. Over the preceding five years, Australia had overtaken Spain, South Korea and Mexico.
"Inhabiting a place among the top dozen largest economies on the planet is particularly impressive when you consider that we rank 51st in terms of population," Swan said.
Sorry to report, but Australia has since moved back down the global rankings. South Korea got back in front of Australia in 2014 while last year Spain - where the economy contracted for five consecutive years - moved ahead of us.
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Reserve Bank gets the money printers ready
Nov 12, 2019 — 1.43pm
The Reserve Bank of Australia is edging closer towards deploying unorthodox monetary stimulus such as buying government bonds, and the bank has announced that governor Philip Lowe will dedicate a speech to the topic.
Dr Lowe will speak on “Unconventional monetary policy: some lessons from overseas” at the Australian Business Economists dinner in Sydney on November 26, the RBA has said.
The RBA is close to exhausting its traditional interest rate ammunition and is considering quantitative easing, a form of central bank money printing.
The cash rate is at a record low of 0.75 per cent and the bank conceded on Friday that it was more than two years away from lifting inflation back into its 2-3 per cent target and hitting its informal unemployment goal of 4.5 per cent.
The chances of another rate cut in March have been priced in about 50 per cent by financial markets.
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Surprise drop in employment puts focus back on RBA rate settings
By Shane Wright
November 14, 2019 — 11.59am
The biggest monthly fall in the number of Australians with a job in three years has re-kindled expectations the Reserve Bank will have to cut official interest rates.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics on Thursday reported total employment fell by 19,000 in October. It was the largest drop in employment since September 2016 and only the second monthly drop since then.
Full time employment fell by 10,300 while part-time dropped by 8700. The decline pushed the jobless rate up to 5.3 per cent from 5.2 per cent.
The total number of people looking for work lifted by 17,100. There are now 726,000 people looking for work, the largest number since March 2017.
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Economy sheds jobs as unemployment rate ticks up to 5.3pc
A shock loss of 19,000 jobs in October has lifted the unemployment rate to 5.3 per cent, a disappointing result which will likely amplify calls for the government to provide further fiscal stimulus.
Economists had expected the key jobless measure to hold at 5.2 per cent and for 15,000 jobs to be added, according to Bloomberg consensus forecasts. In September the economy added a downwardly revised 12,500 jobs.
The unemployment rate might have been higher had the participation rate not ticked lower to 66 per cent, from 66.1 per cent.
Following the data the Aussie dollar dipped US0.4 cents to US68.08 cents and stocks swung from losses to firm gains as traders moved quickly to price in a higher chance of monetary easing. The market-implied chance of a Reserve Bank rate cut as soon as next month jumped to 26 per cent from 14 per cent, while the probability of a February cut climbed to 56 per cent from 44 per cent, on Bloomberg numbers.
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Government looks at ways to cut taxes as jobs market stumbles
By Shane Wright
November 15, 2019 — 12.00am
The Morrison government is looking at ways to deliver tax relief to middle income earners as a much-needed boost to the economy after the nation suffered its biggest one-month fall in jobs in more than three years.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government was "always looking" at ways to cut taxes as the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported total employment fell by 19,000 in October. It was the largest drop in employment since August 2016 and only the second monthly drop since then.
The jobless rate pushed up to 5.3 per cent after 10,300 full time and 8700 part time jobs disappeared through the month. It is now well above the 4.5 per cent rate the Reserve Bank believes is necessary for wages growth to pick up.
The total number of people looking for work lifted by 17,100. There are now 726,000 people looking for work, the largest number since March 2017.
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Evel Knievel would fail to jump the gap between economic rhetoric and reality
By Shane Wright
November 14, 2019 — 4.38pm
The day of reckoning for the Morrison government is rapidly approaching.
The latest jobs figures, showing unemployment and under-employment on the increase, on top of this week's poor wage report mean the reckoning will be reached when Treasurer Josh Frydenberg releases the mid-year budget update next month.
It was only in May, safely after the election, that RBA governor Philip Lowe said Australia should be doing better when it came to unemployment.
At the time the jobless rate was 5.2 per cent.
The rate cuts that came in June, July and October, which have taken the official cost of money in this country to an all-time low of 0.75 per cent, were done in a bid to drive the unemployment rate down to at least 4.5 per cent if not lower.
Such a low unemployment rate, in theory, would tighten the jobs market to so much wages growth would pick-up.
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Health Issues.
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The health insurance crisis is being driven by political prejudice
Private healthcare cannot be scaled up and made more viable because politicians have an unwarranted fear of creating a two-tier health system.
Mark Fitzgibbon
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.00am
The current spotlight on the future of Australia’s healthcare system is entirely warranted. Suggested fixes such as tax breaks to encourage companies to offer private health insurance, which some may think are too radical or partisan, shouldn’t be dismissed outright; indeed the more the better as there is no doubt things must change sometime soon.
The present-day restrictions facing private health insurers are because of a policy logic born out of a tired ideology that the end-to-end delivery and funding of healthcare should be monopolised by the government – the showcase being Britain’s National Health Service.
For the ideologues, any medical coverage by private health insurers beyond the gates of their despised, yet tolerated, private hospital system risks creating a “two-tiered” healthcare system in which wealthier folk enjoy better access to healthcare and higher-quality treatment.
The idea of less well-off people being stranded with an inferior second-tier system is, somewhat ironically, a damning assessment of what is generally a high-quality public system. Under Medicare, access to GPs, specialists and public hospitals – as well as clinical quality – is very good by world standards.
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Australia overestimating risks of cancer
Nov 11, 2019 — 12.01am
Australia's peak agency for information and statistics on health is overestimating the lifetime risks of diagnosis and death from cancer, according to a study published on Monday.
The study questioned the methodology used by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare to estimate these risks between 1982 and 2013.
As these estimates are often cited in public health campaigns, they play a role in shaping public perception of cancer risks.
The study, in the Medical Journal of Australia, analysed five major cancers and said the overestimation applies to them all, but especially for men.
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Lifetime risk of cancer has been overstated, research claims
By Stuart Layt
November 11, 2019 — 8.31am
The method used to estimate a person's lifetime risk of developing cancer has been overestimating that risk, especially for men, research suggests.
The key, according to research published in the Medical Journal of Australia, was that the method used by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) only takes into account a person’s risk of dying from cancer, not any other causes.
This means the risk of dying from cancer may be overstated in official figures from the AIHW, which are used by many different governments and organisations for awareness campaigns and to guide policy.
Research co-author Dr Anthea Bach from West Moreton Hospital and Health Service said in some instances, the overstatement was relatively large.
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'Everyone should be concerned' about south-east QLD measles outbreak
By Stuart Layt
November 11, 2019 — 6.17pm
Queensland Health authorities admit a major measles outbreak in the greater Brisbane area has now taken hold, with their focus now on containing its spread.
There are currently 23 confirmed cases across Brisbane’s south, in Logan and Redlands traced primarily to two family groups who contracted the disease while in New Zealand recently.
Queensland’s chief health officer, Dr Jeannette Young, said on Monday that as the number of cases grew, authorities were moving away from trying to contain the current cases to a more general response.
“[Metro South Health] is having to do a lot of work, they’re very good at it, but when you start getting those significant numbers, it’s important to come out with a very general message,” Dr Young said.
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Burned-out junior doctors fear they'll accidentally harm patients
By Kate Aubusson
November 13, 2019 — 12.00am
Two-thirds of junior doctors working in NSW hospitals are so exhausted they’re worried they’ll make a medical mistake that could potentially harm their patients, or come to harm themselves.
More than 61 per cent of doctors in training were concerned they would make a clinical error due to fatigue caused by the hours they worked, reports the 2019 Hospital Health Check Survey of 1,958 junior doctors.
More than 56 per cent of junior doctors were concerned about their own health or safety because of the hours they work. The survey was conducted by the Australian Medical Association NSW (AMA NSW) and Australian Salaried Medical Officers' Federation NSW (ASMOF NSW) Alliance.
AMA Council of Doctors in Training Chair Dr Tessa Kennedy said she had “not infrequently” seen fatigued junior doctors writing in the wrong patient’s chart, incorrectly calculating medication doses and missing early signs of patient deterioration.
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Building better kids in just a SNP
Debate about using science to create “bespoke” human beings of one sort or another usually revolves around the ideas of genetic engineering and cloning. People worry about these for two reasons. One is practical. The tinkering involved could end up harming the resulting individual. The other is a more visceral dislike of interfering with the process of reproduction, perhaps best encapsulated in the phrase “playing God”.
There is, however, a third way that the genetic dice which are thrown at the beginning of human life might be loaded — and it does not involve any risky tinkering. It is a twist on the well-established procedure of in vitro fertilisation. The twist would be to decide, on the basis of their DNA, which of a group of available embryos should be implanted and brought to term.
The result would be a child optimised with the best-available genetic profile for a long and healthy life.
And this is not science fiction. Two US firms have been working on the idea for some time, and one of them is implementing it.
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Granting end-of-life wishes in ICU helps families cope
Wishes included going outdoors, renewing wedding vows and tasting a favourite meal, study finds
13th November 2019
Granting terminally-ill intensive care patients and their families simple wishes, such as tasting a favorite meal or using a blanket from home, helps families cope with the end-of-life situation, a small US study suggests.
The findings come from research into a scheme called the '3 Wishes Project' that aims to create meaningful patient and family-centered memories as part of compassionate end-of-life care.
The study looked at how feasible it would be to implement the program at multiple facilities, how much families and clinicians appreciated the experiences, and how much it might cost to grant wishes to dying patients and their families on a regular basis.
The researchers interviewed families and caregivers of 730 terminally ill patients about their experiences of the project at four hospital ICUs.
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Health cover is bleeding to death
No other form of insurance adds rather than cuts upfront costs for its users. That must be the starting point for change.
Nov 14, 2019 — 12.00am
Last week’s shock announcement from Medibank that its costs are increasing faster than expected is but the latest symptom of the underlying private health malaise. The litany of problems in the past few months suggests that current policies won’t stop the industry’s death spiral.
The touted 10 per cent discount on premiums now offered to young people has not stopped the youth exodus. The reform of the prostheses schedule did not stop prosthesis cost growth.
The rationalisation of products into Gold, Silver, Bronze and Basic, designed to simplify people’s choices, actually left consumers confused – and then led to scams with "Silver +" policies that cost more than Gold products but came with fewer benefits.
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Private health too costly, sector too complex
Nov 14, 2019 — 12.01am
Australia's private healthcare system is too difficult for patients to navigate, leading to price gouging, time-wasting inefficiencies and differential health outcomes and costs based on where a person lives.
Healthcare sector experts will present these views on Thursday at a Melbourne Economic Forum event examining the "death spiral" in private health insurance membership levels and the growing perception that out-of-pocket costs are too high for consumers.
According to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's latest figures, the proportion of people with private health insurance at the end of 2018 fell by 1 per cent.
The burden is still always on the consumer in an area where they are vulnerable and can be taken advantage of.
— Professor Anthony Scott, Melbourne Institute
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'Don't give them an excuse to look down on you': why female doctors don't claim overtime
By Kate Aubusson
November 14, 2019 — 12.00am
In numbers
- 19% - Female junior doctors who claimed all of their unrostered overtime
Female junior doctors are significantly less likely to claim - and get paid for - unrostered overtime in public hospitals.
The findings released this week prompted Health Minister Brad Hazzard to chair a committee convened by the Australian Medical Association NSW to redress systemic and cultural sexism in the profession.
"Some of the views that still pervade one of our most noble professions were better suited in 1819, not 2019," Mr Hazzard said.
"At a time when more than half of our medical graduates are women, bringing together some of the best minds to address these gender equity issues that just seem to be intractable is in my view very necessary."
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Health funds pressure Canberra over $700m medical devices 'failure'
By Patrick Hatch
November 14, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia's health insurers are putting pressure on the federal government to overhaul how much they pay for knee and hip replacements and other devices in private hospitals, after saying attempts to rein in those costs have failed.
The peak health insurance lobby group, Private Healthcare Australia (PHA), says the amount its members pay for common prostheses is often two or three times higher than in comparable countries, and they could save at least $700 million a year if prices here were brought into line with an international benchmark.
The dispute comes as the private health insurance industry faces what has been called a "death spiral", with funds paying rising hospital costs and members leaving the system due to the resulting above-inflation increases in membership fees.
Health insurers will submit their proposed annual premium increases to Health Minister Greg Hunt this week for approval, and have warned a failure to deal with high prostheses costs will lead to higher member fees.
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Bupa ignored warnings, cut back South Hobart nursing staff
Aged-care provider Bupa continued to reduce nursing staff at its South Hobart home as part of a cost-cutting drive even after a whistleblower doctor warned superiors the cuts were leading to “premature deaths and hugely increased morbidity”, the aged-care royal commission has heard.
Elizabeth Monks, a GP employed at Bupa South Hobart, raised numerous concerns with management about “medication mishaps, inadequate wound care and preventable life-threatening falls” because of low staff levels, concerns backed by a series of internal audits identifying ongoing deficiencies in clinical care, counsel assisting the commission, Peter Rozen QC, said on Wednesday.
Despite the warnings, the overseas-owned organisation “implemented a policy of significant cuts to its nursing staff as part of a Bupa-wide policy of staff cuts to save money because the business was facing financial difficulties,” Mr Rozen said.
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'Incredible over regulation' blamed for private health woes
Nov 14, 2019 — 5.25pm
Too much regulation has been blamed by the private health sector for limiting innovation in the industry, slowing the pace of change and preventing hospitals and insurers from providing more home-based care options for chronic conditions.
Addressing the Melbourne Economic Forum on Thursday, Private Healthcare Australia director of policy and research, Ben Harris, said regulations on costs, quality and what insurers can and can't do "knocks down innovation".
"It's prohibiting a lot of work in primary care and ... a fair bit of prevention work and these are things that for chronic health care we need to be doing a lot more of," he said.
"There's a heap of things insurers can't do, including knowing what's going on with patients. For example, a lot of times the first time an insurer knows someone has a problem with their knee is when they're paying the bill.
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Medibank CEO calls for quick fix to prostheses price pain
By Yan Zhuang
November 14, 2019 — 5.44pm
The nation's largest health insurer has urged the government to speed up changes to cut the cost of knee and hip replacements and other devices for patients in private hospitals.
Medibank chief executive Craig Drummond said urgent reform was needed to deal with spiking prostheses costs, calling for the creation of a national body to manage the procurement of prostheses and for costs for private patients to be brought in line with those for public patients.
At the company's annual general meeting on Thursday, he renewed his attack on the high costs of prostheses arguing it was part of the reasons Medibank's hospital claims bill for the past year was $21 million higher than originally disclosed.
"These higher claims have been driven predominantly by higher private hospital payments, which reflects an increase in the average benefit size, along with the continuation of elevated prostheses costs," Mr Drummond told shareholders.
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'Misleading': Doctors warned to be on alert after anti-vaxxer demands removal of posters at clinic
By Simone Fox Koob
November 15, 2019 — 8.22pm
Footage has emerged of an anti-vaxxer demanding staff at a Melbourne medical clinic take down immunisation posters - prompting warnings for doctors to be on guard for people impersonating medical officials.
A video was uploaded on Sunday to social media by activist group We Are Change, which supports anti-vaxxers. It showed a man entering a Melbourne doctor's clinic and demanding posters that promote vaccinations be taken down.
"My name's Jeff, I'm here to inform you that this surgery is in breach of the TGA [Therapeutic Goods Administration] guidelines," the man says to a woman at the front desk.
He then produces the guidelines, and asks to speak to a doctor.
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Bad doctors to lose their anonymity under reforms
Doctors who pose an “imminent risk’’ to their patients would be publicly named by health regulators under new laws aimed at creating greater transparency in the health system by lifting existing confidentiality restrictions.
The changes to the Health Practitioner National Law have been agreed on by state and federal health ministers, who have promised to pursue further legal changes that would make public protection “the paramount guiding principle’’ of health regulation.
“This would ensure that all regulatory authorities keep pace with community expectations about safety and public protection, and clearly understand that public protection prevails over regulatory process and any other policy considerations,” federal Health Minister Greg Hunt told The Weekend Australian.
Consumer advocates have been lobbying for years for changes to the health reporting regime to allow patients greater access to information about the performance of doctors and the level of adverse events at individual hospitals.
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From opioid crisis to chronic pain epidemic
By Claire Ashton-James and Paul Glare
November 16, 2019 — 12.49pm
Chronic pain has been a silent epidemic in Australia for decades. One in five Australians live with chronic pain and, until recently, many of these people relied on opioid medications – such as oxycodone, codeine and tramadol – just to get through the day.
But in recent years there has been a major shift in the medical establishment's perspective on the use of prescription opioids for chronic pain, with a recognition that they offer little long-term benefit and come with significant risks. In addition to being potentially addictive, opioid medications have a number of side effects that undermine quality of life. Further, drug overdoses are now the main cause of accidental death in Australia – surpassing road accidents – and prescription opioids contribute to more of those deaths than heroin or alcohol.
A multi-million dollar program to support Australians struggling with chronic pain is underway.
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International Issues.
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Universities must stand up to Chinese pressure
Operating in a global marketplace does not mean selling out your principles. As China tries to push censorship beyond its own borders, the free world must push back, writes Camilla Cavendish in the FT.
Updated Nov 10, 2019 — 12.08pm, first published at 12.04pm
Imagine you are running a midsize university, and you get a call from the Chinese embassy expressing concern that one of your professors has an annoying habit of speaking out against the Communist party.
A senior politician is visiting your country next week, says the caller. It would be embarrassing if your professor made any media appearances during that time. There would be consequences.
This is ridiculous, you think. But you are rather reliant on fee income from Chinese students. So you send a message to the professor concerned. You ask him, as a personal favour, to refrain from publishing or speaking that week.
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Debt bombs lurking: The banking mess that has China on edge
By Alexandra Stevenson and Cao Li
November 8, 2019 — 10.37am
One bank failed. A second and third were bailed out. Worried depositors of two more banks then rushed to pull out their savings for fear of losing them in a spectacular failure.
These stumbles, which have occurred in quick succession since May, would stir fears of a financial meltdown had they happened in the United States. But this is China, where the government is trying to suppress any potential panic while the country's banking system goes through a painful but much needed cleanup.
The latest in China's series of banking woes came this week when a city in the country's northeast urged depositors in a local bank to "avoid unnecessary losses by withdrawing cash blindly," according to a government statement.
More than a hundred police officers were dispatched to six bank branches, according to the local police. They arrested four people for what people described as "publicly spreading rumours on the internet."
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Remembrance Day lesson: ambitious states, new technologies were ingredients for world war
By Sir Nick Carter
November 11, 2019 — 9.47am
The more distant the personal experiences of war, the more Remembrance matters.
As the Byzantine Emperor Maurice said, "the nation that forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten".
These days fewer people know their history. And this also matters because the current strategic and political context is markedly less stable than at any time since World War Two.
The threats are diversifying, proliferating and intensifying rapidly. The global playing field is characterised by constant confrontation, with a return to a former era of great power competition.
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A good time for Bloomberg to dip into the race
· The Wall Street Journal
The news that Michael Bloomberg might compete for the Democratic presidential nomination is causing consternation on the political left. But that’s all the more reason to welcome his candidacy to challenge a vulnerable President Donald Trump next year.
“Memo to Bloomberg: Democratic Voters Don’t Want More Candidates” blared a headline on Friday on the left-wing Huffington Post urging the former New York mayor to stay out. The piece was the first we saw of what will be many lecturing Democratic voters that they should be happy with their field and don’t need a billionaire. But if that’s true, then the party’s progressives have nothing to worry about.
The truth they don’t want to admit is that the Democrats leading in the primary polls have major vulnerabilities. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren want to blow up American capitalism and replace it with their top-down, socialist designs. Their agenda might scare suburban voters more than four more years of Mr Trump does. Former vice-president Joe Biden often stumbles with his words on the stump and can’t escape the Ukraine imbroglio if impeachment goes to a Senate trial. He’s also low on money. Pete Buttigieg is a glib and clever 37-year-old, but his only political experience is as the mediocre mayor of a small and struggling city. Kamala Harris has been exposed as unprepared for the national stage and is running on her identity far more than ideas. Others such as senator Amy Klobuchar have appeal as potential presidents, but they haven’t shown they can attract a large primary following.
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Boris Johnson gets a boost from Nigel Farage's election retreat
Nov 12, 2019 — 1.08am
London | Brexit Party leader Nigel Farage has delivered a major campaign boost to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, pulling candidates out of the December 12 election in all 317 seats that the Conservative Party won in 2017.
Mr Farage's surprise move reduces the number of rearguard actions Mr Johnson will need to mount in seats he already holds, allowing him to focus on chipping away at the several dozen Labour marginals he needs to win if he's to have any chance of securing a majority.
Mr Johnson will also have been relieved that the British economy was shown not to have slipped into recession in the third quarter, although the growth rate of 0.3 per cent suggests the economy is still anaemic.
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Xi Jinping comes to Greece bearing gifts, lands significant new deals
By Nick Miller and Irene Lioumi
November 12, 2019 — 10.22am
China has announced plans to dramatically increase its stake in Greece, which it sees as an economic gateway to Europe, with a suite of 16 new investment and trade agreements signed on a visit by president Xi Jinping to Athens on Monday.
The agreements include an extradition treaty – in contrast to Australia, which put a freeze on plans for its own such treaty with China over human rights concerns.
They also open up more of Greece’s economy to Chinese investment, at a time when the European Union has been expressing concern over the political and economic implications of China’s ‘Belt and Road’ initiative building new trade routes to the West.
Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who recently visited Shanghai, declared “the road we are opening will soon become a highway” and the two countries were “inaugurating a new era in our relations”.
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It's time to burst the billionaire bubble
Billionaires in the bubble find themselves in an environment where concerns about soaring inequality, finally seem to be getting political traction. And they're not handling it well.
Nov 12, 2019 — 11.37am
Immense wealth isn't good for your reality sense.
Billionaires aren't necessarily bad people, and most of them probably aren't.
However, some are, and my unscientific sense is that billionaires are more likely than the rest of us to exhibit bad judgment warped by runaway egos, especially in the political sphere.
It's not hard to see why: Great wealth attracts people eager to tell an extremely rich man (or woman, but political egotism is mainly a male thing) what he wants to hear.
In the political arena, this means telling billionaires both that their lavish financial rewards are a mere fraction of the vast contribution they have made to society, and that the public is clamouring for them to take their rightful role as leaders.
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How the US should deal with China
With China, the US and its allies need to confront, compete and co-operate across multiple domains. Today, this seems inconceivable, laments the FT's Martin Wolf.
Updated Nov 13, 2019 — 10.27am, first published at 10.21am
"It’s easy to win a race when you’re the only one who knows it has begun. China is thus on the way to supplanting the US as the global hegemon, creating a different world as a result. Yet it doesn’t have to end this way.”
This anxious view comes from by the Hudson Institute’s Michael Pillsbury.
Mr Pillsbury is one of the most influential American thinkers on US-China relations. The book is more than a call to recognise reality: it is a call to arms.
On one central point Mr Pillsbury is certainly right: China’s rise is the great political event of our times. Getting the response right is crucial. It is so easy to get it wrong. Today, I fear, the US is getting it frighteningly wrong.
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China's 'supply chains cracking': Trump says trade deal could 'happen soon'
By Matthew Knott
November 13, 2019 — 6.50am
New York: US President Donald Trump says he is hopeful he will soon strike a trade deal with China, but will happily continue raising tariffs on the rival superpower unless it agrees to friendly terms for the US.
In a major economic speech in New York that was eagerly anticipated by investors, Trump said he would no longer allow China to "cheat" the US on trade as it had for many years.
"A significant trade deal with China could happen soon, but only if it’s good for the United States, our workers and great companies" Trump said.
"If we don't make a deal, we're going to substantially raise those tariffs...America will not be taken advantage of any more."
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Winter is coming, and Trump's China cold war is behind it
The shocks of populist politics have replaced business and interest rate cycles as the harbingers of American recessions.
Nov 14, 2019 — 12.00am
What could trigger a recession in the United States? In the past, a tightening labour market after a period of expansion served as an early warning sign. Workers would become more difficult to find, wages would start climbing, corporate profit margins would tend to shrink, and firms would start raising prices. Fearing inflation, the central bank would then raise interest rates, which in turn would depress corporate investment and spur layoffs.
At this point, aggregate demand would fall as consumers, fearing for their jobs, reduced their spending. Corporate inventories would then rise, and production would be cut further. Growth would slow significantly, signalling the beginning of a recession.
This cycle would then be followed by a recovery. After firms worked down their inventories, they would start producing more goods again; and once inflation had abated, the central bank would cut interest rates to boost demand.
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Sweden dumps Aussie bonds as country 'not known for good climate work'
By Kelsey Johnson
November 14, 2019 — 9.58am
Sweden's central bank has sold off bonds from parts of Australia and the oil-rich Canadian province of Alberta because it felt that greenhouse gas emissions in both countries were too high.
Riksbank Deputy Governor Martin Floden said on Wednesday the bank would no longer invest in assets from issuers with a large climate footprint, even if the yields were high.
"Australia and Canada are countries that are not known for good climate work," Mr Floden said in a speech on "Monetary policy in a changing world" at Orebro University in Sweden.
"Greenhouse gas emissions per capita are among the highest in the world."
"As a result of the new investment policy, we sold our holdings of bonds issued by Alberta in the spring.
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China's Xi Jinping calls for swift end to Hong Kong violence
Nov 15, 2019 — 1.08pm
Shanghai | China's president Xi Jinping has backed the Hong Kong government's handling of the city's six-month long political crisis, calling for a swift end to violence and unrest which he warns threatens the system designed to protect the territory's autonomy.
Mr Xi was quoted in state media warning "continuous radical violent activities in Hong Kong seriously trample rule of law and the social order, seriously disturb Hong Kong's prosperity and stability, and seriously challenge the'one country, two systems'".
The strongest comments from the president on Hong Kong so far followed the worst week of violence in the city since protests started in June. An elderly man died overnight after being hit on the head by a brick during a protest while transport in the city was disrupted for the fifth straight day and schools remained closed.
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Events in Hong Kong reveal the thin veneer of civilisation
If this breakdown can happen in Hong Kong it can happen anywhere. And while a civil society can be torn apart virtually overnight, it almost always takes decades to build it back up.
Jamil Anderlini
Nov 14, 2019 — 9.49am
Lord of the Flies, William Golding’s classic novel of societal breakdown, is part of the standard high school curriculum in Hong Kong.
But today everyone in this most genteel of cities is witnessing a real-life lesson in the fragility of what we call civilisation, as the territory descends into tribalism and scenes of obscene violence.
On Friday, the protest movement that began in early June saw its first fatality when a 22-year-old student protester died after falling from a car park near a police clearance operation.
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China can't silence all of Hong Kong
The territory's local elections this month are a referendum on Beijing's actions and the future of 'one country-two systems'.
Nov 15, 2019 — 12.00am
On Tuesday, Hong Kong authorities barred me from running in district council elections. I was the only candidate barred. Laura Aron, the officer who made the decision, claimed my nomination was invalid largely because of my affiliation with Demosisto, a pro-democracy party that I helped co-found. She said she did not believe I would uphold Hong Kong's Basic Law.
In reality, the decision to target me was clearly politically driven, based on my role championing democratic rights in Hong Kong and engaging with the issue at an international level. This is nothing short of political screening and censorship.
In mid-October, I received two letters from Dorothy Ma, an officer who was screening my candidacy, asking me to "clarify" my political views. Though I had no desire to play along with attempts at censorship, I responded, explaining my position and noting that authorities should not screen candidates. I did not hear back from Ma for a week. Then, when I finally visited Ma's office, I was told she was on leave due to sickness and was being replaced by Aron. The replacement process lacked transparency and did not follow the normal practice of appointing an officer who worked under Ma or was from a neighbouring district. Soon after, Aron announced the decision to bar me.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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