November 28, 2019 Edition.
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The public hearings in the Impeachment Inquiry have finished for now and they really seem to have taken their toll on Trump and his associates with increasing rifts appearing internally. Elsewhere Mike Pompeo is looking more and more like a looser and may be the next to go. The run up to the 2020 election in November will be very interesting indeed!
In the UK we are just waiting for the election on Dec. 12 to see what happens next!
In OZ there is some slight winding down in the bushfires, Robo-debt has been abandoned and the Government is kicking off some fiscal stimulus. Parliament is back so we can expect more news over the next 10 days! Sadly nothing sensible is happening as the fuss with Angus Taylor is all consuming!
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Major Issues.
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As Queensland bushfire threat grows, political attacks continue
Nov 17, 2019 — 1.17pm
The federal government has warned Queensland's bushfire threat will intensify this week, with more than 70 fires burning on Sunday and more severe weather conditions forecast.
After a week of political attacks over the Coalition's handling of climate change policies and their link to the fire threat, Greens MP Adam Bandt repeated his view that Prime Minister Scott Morrison was putting lives and towns at risk.
"Unless the government gets the climate crisis under control and reins in the use of coal, then this generation is going to rise up with a fury matched only by the intensity of the fires," Mr Bandt said on Sunday.
He defended WA senator Jordon Steele-John's moves to label the major party politicians "arsonists" over climate change mitigation.
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Looking for the next CSL? Be vigilant, because bubbles abound
Fuelled by buoyant sentiment, it’s natural for astute investors to search for the next Australian hero, but beware adventures in biotech investing.
Jun Bei Liu
Nov 18, 2019 — 12.01am
By any measure, 2019 has seen an incredible run in the equity market and there’s still one month to go. The ASX 200 has returned 19 per cent for the year to date, a stellar result that no one thought was likely this time last year.
The key change behind this rally was a sharp turn in stance across global central banks, particularly the Federal Reserve, which moved from tightening to loosening within the space of a few months.
Valuations have exceeded any reasonable basis of value.
— Jun Bei Liu
Global asset prices ballooned, global bonds returned 5.6 per cent and the S&P 500 rallied 23 per cent. On the back of strong investor enthusiasm, we have witnessed incredible valuation expansion across numerous sectors, even in Australia.
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'OK Boomer' resentment will grow over intergenerational wealth transfer
Tony Walker
Columnist and award-winning foreign correspondent
November 17, 2019 — 11.37pm
"OK Boomer!" Let me rise on behalf of my own baby boomer generation, not in disapproval of our X, Y and Z children but in their support. The "OK Boomer!" meme, popularised in the United States on social media and amplified across the Tasman by a young New Zealand MP to ridicule an entitled cohort, has sliced through generations to expose a widening disconnect between age brackets.
In Australia, the "OK Boomer" meme might just as easily be applied to growing tax-advantaged wealth disparities. My own Gen Y daughter has been going on about this for years, to which my response has been to accuse her, in jest, of "generational envy". After all, didn’t we Baby Boomers have our own generation gap in the 1960s, more pronounced than the one now, as we fought our battles with our "silent generation" parents? Didn’t we shift the country on its axis – and for the better – in the Vietnam era? And, by the way, didn’t Baby Boomers such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs create the software and hardware for the communications revolution to which Millennials are addicted?
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NSW bushfire devastation 'a huge wake-up call', says Berejiklian
November 18, 2019 — 9.18am
This NSW bushfire season has already burnt through more land than any other in the past 25 years, the Rural Fire Service says, as residents are warned to heed a "wake-up call" for difficult months ahead.
Six lives and 530 homes have been lost since the season hit some weeks ago and the state faces at least two "tough days" this week, with temperatures likely to rise into the 40s and little to no rainfall.
On Sunday, Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Neale Fraser said temperatures were set to reach 32 degrees in central Sydney and 39 in Penrith on Tuesday, as the heat and wind "ramps up".
More than 420 homes have been destroyed in the past fortnight alone.
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Australian foreign policy leaves nation exposed to China rise: Keating
Paul Keating says Australia’s foreign policy lacks “any strategic realism” and is leaving the nation unable to effectively manage the rise of China as Donald Trump vacates the Asia Pacific region.
The former prime minister said the debate on China had “remarkably degenerated” and the “whispered word communism of old is now being replaced by the word China”.
Mr Keating said Australia should channel its focus on helping “divine a new construct” that engages with China but prevents it from dominating the region.
“The reason we have ministers and cabinets is so that a greater, eclectic wisdom can be brought to bear on complex topics and particularly on movements of tectonic importance. This process not working in Australia,” Mr Keating told The Australian’s Strategic Forum in Sydney on Monday.
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Former ASIO boss Dennis Richardson calls for ‘new balance’ with Beijing
A new balance, and a new calm, is needed in the debate about China, according to the elder statesman of Australia’s national security community.
Labelling the debate sometimes “hysterical”, Dennis Richardson said the security, commercial and human sides of the China relationship needed to be considered.
“The job of government is to bring it together in a coherent whole,” he told The Australian in an exclusive interview.
The former head of the Defence and Foreign Affairs departments, ASIO and chief of staff to a prime minister will participate in The Strategic Forum, The Australian’s national security conference focused on the China relationship on Monday.
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Concrete an opportunity for Australia to make a difference on carbon and climate
The burst of shouting and arm-waving over climate change prompted by the NSW and Queensland bushfires has resulted in some pretty unedifying politics. Various Coalition politicians are employing tactics from the NRA’s mass-shooting playbook: “Now is not the right time to talk about carbon control”.
It’s not the right time because when everyone is emotional over the evidence of policy failure you might lose the argument, so best to wait till they’re emotional about something else.
And with the evidence now conclusive that the climate is changing, the fallback denial argument is that with only 1.1 per cent of global emissions, there’s nothing Australia could have done that would have prevented the bushfires or other manifestations of global warming.
Which is quite true, of course, except that this is just the litterer’s abject defence: what’s the problem officer? It’s just one little coffee cup.
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'Their house is on fire’: the pension crisis sweeping the world
The plunge in interest rates since the financial crisis is wreaking havoc on retirement funds - and things will probably get worse, warn FT writers.
Josephine Cumbo and Robin Wigglesworth
Updated Nov 18, 2019 — 1.24pm, first published at 1.16pm
London/Oslo | Jan-Pieter Jansen, a 77-year-old retiree from the Netherlands, had high hopes for a worry-free retirement after having saved diligently into a pension during his working life.
But Mr Jansen, a former manager in the metal industry, has been forced to reappraise his plans after receiving notice from his retirement scheme, one of the Netherland’s biggest industry-sector funds, of plans to cut his pension by up to 10 per cent. Understandably, the news has hit like a sledgehammer.
“This is causing me a lot of stress,” says Mr Jansen, who retired 17 years ago and hoped to use his pension pot to treat his grandchildren and afford good hotels on holidays. “The cuts to my pension will mean thousands of euros less that I can spend on the family, and the holidays we like. I’m very angry that this is happening after I saved for so long.”
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Morrison rejects 'economic panic merchants'
Nov 19, 2019 — 10.30pm
Scott Morrison has all but slammed the door on fast-tracked tax cuts or other ''panicked reactions'' in next month's mid-year budget update, saying the government has already injected $9.5 billion of near-term stimulus into the economy since the May election.
Under external pressure to do more to stimulate the economy than he has already indicated, the Prime Minister will on Wednesday reveal that $3.8 billion of infrastructure spending has been fast-tracked over the next four years.
Of this, $1.8 billion will be spent this financial year and next. Along with the $550 million in extra drought aid already announced, and the $7.2 billion stage one income tax cuts rolled out on July 1, that amounts to $9.5 billion of stimulus in two years, the Prime Minister will say.
In a speech to the Business Council of Australia annual dinner in Sydney, Mr Morrison will make it clear that he considers that level of stimulus to be sufficient for now and that he must also protect the budget returning to surplus.
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Government to fast-track $3.8b in spending on road, rail projects to boost economy
By David Crowe
November 20, 2019 — 12.00am
The Morrison government will accelerate a $3.8 billion splurge on road and rail projects in a bid to boost the economy and defy critics who fear it is putting the budget surplus ahead of an urgent need to lift wages and growth.
The government will bring forward the outlays on major projects by striking agreements with the states to quicken the pace of construction, comparing the impact with Labor's "cash splash" stimulus during the global financial crisis.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison to announce new infrastructure deals with Queensland and WA and foreshadow more for other states and territories.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison will use a major speech on Wednesday night to outline the plans and warn against a "panicked reaction" to economic challenges at a time when Labor is demanding new stimulus.
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Morrison's attack on activists left out one crucial fact
Clancy Yeates
Banking reporter
November 20, 2019 — 12.00am
Earlier this month, Scott Morrison chose a mining lunch in Brisbane to signal plans to crack down on what he called an “insidious” economic threat.
The Prime Minister’s target was a new breed of environmental activist, those more likely to ask questions at a bank’s annual shareholder meeting than they are to chain themselves to a coal loading terminal.
These protesters pressure businesses that sell goods and services to firms "they don't like", Morrison said, especially mining companies. He suggested this behaviour could be a new form of "secondary boycott" – something that's illegal in other contexts.
Such boycotts were "a potentially more insidious threat" to the resources state's economy than a street protest, the Prime Minister warned, and "even more worrying" than protests that turned into outright vandalism.
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No trivial matter: Our soul at stake if we stay silent on China
Chris Uhlmann
Nine News Political Editor
November 20, 2019 — 12.00am
One of the defining features of Mark’s Gospel is how thick the Apostles are. From the outset of the short text, Jesus is on the road to the Cross. He bluntly tells his disciples that he is going to die and, if they choose to follow him, they will too. They don’t get it. Or, rather, they wilfully refuse to get it because this is not the glorious mission they imagined they had joined.
Canadian theologian Bernard Lonergan coined a term for it: "scotosis" – an inability to learn through painful insights.
Everyone can be guilty of it; when pet theories or hopes collide with harsh reality, change can be almost physically painful. Happily, the 21st century provides myriad ways to ignore uncomfortable facts by curating your own truth.
Want to believe that Barack Obama was really born in Kenya? There are whole networks dedicated to cultivating your ignorance. Suspect that blood-drinking, flesh-eating, shape-shifting extraterrestrial reptilian humanoids walk among us with the sole aim of enslaving the human race? Then stuff The Biggest Secret in your Christmas stocking and start surfing the outer reaches of the Internet.
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Australian aluminium is over
Nov 21, 2019 — 12.00am
The future of Australia’s ailing aluminium industry is being decided right now: not by the Morrison or Andrews governments, but by global business climate risk management strategies, consumer mega trends, the fallout from China’s economic growth and even the threat of carbon trade wars.
How this plays out will directly affect hundreds of smelter workers in regional towns such as Portland, Newcastle, Launceston and Gladstone. It will also accelerate the already chaotic disruption of domestic electricity markets.
Through the 20th century aluminium and electricity were symbiotically linked, both in production and consumption. Aluminium production is electricity intensive and its growth dependent on increased electricity supply.
Australia’s first smelter was commissioned in 1955 at Bell Bay, north of Launceston, motivated by aluminium shortages during World War II and reliant on an oversupply of cheap hydro-electricity.
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A new study offers a glimpse of the unrepentant Australian terrorist
By Nick O'Malley
November 21, 2019 — 12.00am
New research has painted a chilling portrait of the “average" Australian Islamist terrorist by creating a database about 173 citizens or residents who have been charged with terrorist offences or joined terrorist organisations.
An Australian terrorist is likely to share several characteristics. He is likely to be in his mid-20s from Sydney, born in Australia to overseas-born parents who are still married (with one or both from Lebanon). He is likely to be employed in a blue-collar job and not to have mental health issues.
The study found 84 per cent of Australian jihadis were men.
He is likely to have little contrition for his crimes and poor prospects for rehabilitation.
The Lowy Institute study published on Thursday found the popular perception of an Australian jihadi was wrong, and there were clear differences between Australian Islamist terrorists and those who came from Western Europe.
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Morrison is right about one thing – we're sick of the drama
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
November 20, 2019 — 11.56pm
Amid the melee of modern Australian public discourse, it is possible to discern two fundamental, albeit seemingly conflicting, themes. The first was touched upon this week at a conference of government economists by the new Treasury Secretary, Steven Kennedy.
Whether tackling inequality or delivering better outcomes for consumers in markets such as electricity and financial services, "There is a sense in which governments are being asked repeatedly to intervene in markets to help solve problems," he said.
The impulse has, in recent years, led to some distinctly il-Liberal direct government interventions across a range of policy areas, including climate change and energy markets. But even as Australians expect more from government than ever, we've also never had less faith in its ability to deliver desired outcomes.
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OECD tips better economic growth for Australia
Australia's economic growth has been upgraded by the Paris-based organisation, but says "a more expansionary fiscal stance may be warranted".
Updated Nov 22, 2019 — 6.52am, first published at Nov 21, 2019 — 9.00pm
Australia's economic growth is expected improve next year, but may warrant more fiscal stimulus and a potential re-tightening of lending standards if the surge in house prices continues, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development says.
The mix between monetary and fiscal policies around the world has become "unbalanced", according to the OECD's latest biannual global economic outlook, and global growth is also expected to remain at the weakest annual growth rates since the financial crisis.
In Australia, the OECD said "a more expansionary fiscal stance may be warranted given that the economy is growing well below its potential".
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We say we want climate action, but we still won't vote for it
Waleed Aly
Columnist, co-host of Ten's The Project and academic
November 21, 2019 — 11.30pm
What now, after two scorching weeks that have set the nation ablaze and delivered warnings of catastrophe so regular they have begun to seem monotonous? Could it be a turning point in Australia’s political logic on climate change; the episode that turned climate denialism (or at least agnosticism) from a political asset into a liability? The moment when those debates about the cost of action seemed rather less urgent in the searing face of the cost of inaction?
That people are now prepared to talk climate change in the midst of a fire emergency tells you that some kind of threshold has been reached. At least something is up when politicians – from both major parties – spend considerable energy telling you not to discuss something, and the public debate carries on anyway. At that point, such pleas sound more like desperation than authority.
But there’s a long way to go here, because the problem in Australia is that climate politics is no longer a simple contest between believers and deniers. It’s not even a contest between those who want action and those who don’t. Perhaps the greatest trick of all this has been pulled by those who support the idea of climate action but oppose every particular version of it.
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'Insidious': Former ASIO boss warns on Chinese interference in Australia
By Peter Hartcher
November 22, 2019 — 12.00am
Former ASIO boss Duncan Lewis has said the Chinese government is seeking to "take over" Australia's political system through its "insidious" foreign interference operations.
Any person in political office was a potential target, he said, with the full impact perhaps not apparent for decades.
In the only interview Mr Lewis has given since retiring in September, he also urged Australia's Chinese community to help security agencies in the same way local Muslim communities identified threats of terrorist activity.
Asked what the Chinese government wanted from Australia, Mr Lewis said: "They are trying to place themselves in a position of advantage."
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'Prudence and mutual obligation' to underpin Labor budget policy: Albanese
By Shane Wright
November 22, 2019 — 12.01am
Anthony Albanese will promise a Labor government would underpin its budget management with "prudence and mutual obligation" in a speech on Friday that will commit to reforms to get the economy growing faster.
The Opposition Leader will use an address in Brisbane to map out a broad economic blueprint for Labor, ditching Bill Shorten's "top end of town" rhetoric for a consensus-based approach backing "wealth creation as well as its fair distribution".
In comments also targeted at Labor frontbenchers keen to spend their way back into office, Mr Albanese will argue business confidence needs to be restored with a tax system that encourages firms to invest in their operations and their workers.
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Morrison’s way the fastest path to renewables: energy chief Kerry Schott
Energy Security Board chair Kerry Schott has urged states and industry to move on from demands for a national energy strategy and higher emissions targets and instead adapt to the Morrison government’s policy platform as a practical way to transition the power grid to renewable energy.
Ahead of the Council of Australian Governments meeting between state and federal energy ministers in Perth on Friday, Ms Schott said it was time to move on from a decade-long debate and work with practical fixes to stabilise prices and supply.
“Everybody is sick of it and we’ve got to move on. If we can’t push that dead horse any further, then let’s get on with what we’re doing, which is quite a lot,” Ms Schott told The Australian.
Many of the major electricity players are still agitating for both a national energy policy and carbon price signal to give them more certainty over making major investment decisions in gas and hydro plants, which can help back up intermittent renewables.
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The old problem of facing up to new challenges
Australia's future is one of older people, and a new digital economy. Yet when politicians try talking about either the reaction is unhinged.
Nov 21, 2019 — 7.00pm
When Josh Frydenberg spoke this week about the economic challenges of managing an ageing population, it really was a case of new Treasurer and old problem.
More notable this time, however, was the unhinged nature of the response from some to the concept that an ageing population presented an economic problem that needs to be managed.
Peter Costello first drew a bead on the long-term budgetary challenges posed by a longer-living and increasingly ageing population with the release in 2002 of the first Intergenerational Report.
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Australia's strategy: share the China burden
As debate rages about how to manage the China threat-cum-challenge, Australia is looking to develop a common front with regional heavyweights like Japan, India, Indonesia and South Korea.
Nov 22, 2019 — 12.33pm
Like the bushfires visiting death and destruction and Westpac’s alleged money laundering breaches, the China threat-cum-challenge has gripped Australia in the past week.
Demonstrations and riots in Hong Kong, sabre rattling in the South China Sea, the US-China trade war, and even the bizarre Chinese demand for two China-critical Liberal Party backbenchers to “repent,” have exploded as news items.
Less noticed is the stronger emergence of a three-year-old strategy for how Australia should deal with the spreading China panic. It’s where we form a sort of common front with regional heavyweights like Japan, India, Indonesia and South Korea in dealing with China.
Lack of widespread understanding of this emerging Australian consensus may arise from some proponents over-egging their views, or variously framing these views as responses to an emerging China “crisis” or a China-generated “challenge.”
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Top investors call end to 'free money'
Nov 22, 2019 — 7.10pm
The world’s top investors say ‘‘free money’’ policies have reached their limits and they fear central banks and governments could resort to printing money to finance spending, triggering currency instability across the developed world.
“We are coming into an environment where the return of money is becoming more important than the return on money,” Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of $235 billion US hedge fund Bridgewater told some of Australia's wealthiest and most powerful investors at a charity conference in Sydney.
Mr Dalio said the world was entering a "risky environment" as "mature, developed world" currencies, such as the US dollar, yen and euro, were at risk of devaluation while growing tensions between major economies raised the additional threat of capital being trapped.
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Sohn's focus on Australia, China and gold
This year's Sohn was more interesting than usual because of the decision to fly in seasoned global investment experts with extraordinary track records.
Nov 23, 2019 — 12.00am
The majority of investors who attend the Sohn Hearts & Minds conferences in Australia are there to learn about the dozen or so stock tips from leading fund managers as well as make very large donations to a range of medical research institutes.
Those listening for stock picks are following one of the tried and true strategies of successful investors - copy what the best active fund managers do and enjoy the fruits of their research.
This strategy has worked well in the past. If you had backed all the stock picks announced at Sohn events in Australia over the past four years you would have enjoyed returns in excess of 35 per cent.
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Modern monetary theory has plenty of grey areas for Oaktree's Marks
Nov 22, 2019 — 3.02pm
Oaktree Capital Management co-founder Howard Marks presents a cool evaluation of modern monetary theory or MMT: he declines to ridicule it but admits he struggles to understand how it doesn't cause devastating currency responses.
MMT "holds that governmental deficits and debt don’t matter and 'for nations that are in control of their currencies' you can spend as much as you want," Mr Marks told the Sohn Hearts and Minds investment conference on Friday. He was interviewed by Caledonia's Mark Nelson.
"But it doesn’t seem to me that you can really run deficits of any size for any period of time ... without having some effect on the desirability of your currency," the fund manager remarked. "To me, that doesn't make sense."
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Computer says no: robodebt leaves a trail of wreckage
The welfare reform scheme has been a political and financial failure for a government obsessed with its credentials on the surplus.
Nov 22, 2019 — 5.02pm
It sounded so reassuring at the time: “The Coalition’s plan for better management of the social welfare system”. It emerged in the maelstrom of the 2016 election campaign.
“Better management of Australia’s social services will support continued record investment in social welfare and other assistance,” it said soothingly, going on to list a range of spending on the disabled and women’s safety and the like, and mentioning lots of huge figures for spending on social welfare.
“Through the smarter use of technology, we can better manage our social welfare system to ensure that every dollar goes to those who need it most,” the Coalition said.
And there, in a nutshell, was the beginning of what has become known as robodebt: the ham-fisted, computerised matching of Centrelink and Tax Office records, with little recourse to actually talking to anyone if the computer suggested you were ripping off the government.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/voters-don-t-want-drama-but-they-do-want-action-20191122-p53da1
Voters don't want drama but they do want action
Scott Morrison is right to hose down panicky talk. But staying calm is not the same as doing nothing.
Nov 23, 2019 — 12.00am
The Prime Minister is right to put down panic talk about the economy, as if it was constantly at a DEFCON 1 crisis level. Immature demands for instant action are a Labor kind of thing, he suggested in his speech to the Business Council of Australia on Wednesday night. Australia’s economic growth continues to be sub-par.
That’s hardly a reason to blaze away the ammunition needed for a real emergency that might throw away the hard-won budget surplus. The May election was a vote for “stability and certainty in uncertain times’’, Scott Morrison said. The people want stable government that deals with issues practically and soberly. They’ve “had enough of all the drama”.
But not panicking is not the same thing as avoiding the hard choices. Mr Morrison’s BCA speech was long in delivery and on detail. It included worthwhile initiatives such as promoting the digital economy, as much for "quiet Australians" such as the local plumber or a small manufacturer as for “a tech start-up at a warehouse somewhere”.
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Defecting Chinese spy offers information trove to Australian government
By Nick McKenzie, Paul Sakkal and Grace Tobin
November 23, 2019 — 5.00am
A Chinese spy has risked his life to defect to Australia and is now offering a trove of unprecedented inside intelligence on how China conducts its interference operations abroad.
Wang “William” Liqiang is the first Chinese operative to ever blow his cover. He has revealed the identities of China’s senior military intelligence officers in Hong Kong, as well as providing details of how they fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
Mr Wang has taken his material to Australia's counter-espionage agency, ASIO, and is seeking political asylum – potentially opening another front in Australia’s challenging bilateral relationship with China.
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China's got tougher, but Keating's gone soft
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
November 23, 2019 — 12.00am
Paul Keating was one of the hardest men in Australian politics of the last half-century. So it's touching to see him go so soft on the Chinese government.
In office, he did great things for this country. In partnership with Bob Hawke, Keating bore great political pain and personal unpopularity to deliver the wrenching economic reforms that set Australia up for the unprecedented 28 years of continuous economic growth that we enjoy to this day. So we owe Keating recognition for the sustained determination he showed, an almost reckless political bravery that today's class of legislators would find hard to even imagine, much less imitate.
But it doesn't make him infallible. He's due recognition but not unthinking reverence. Let's be plain. His speech this week was a remarkable apologia for the Chinese government. Probably the most headline-grabbing line was his attack on the Australian media for its reporting on China. It was also one of the most telling. With trademark Keating colour, he disdained the "nominally pious belchings of ‘do-gooder’ journalists".
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Keating rides roughshod over reality of China’s aims
12:00AM November 23, 2019
At The Australian Strategic Forum in Sydney on Monday, the keynote was struck by Paul Keating. The position he took was very much in character. It very much needs to be challenged. Much of his address consisted of statements of the bleeding obvious. But he mingled these commonsense observations with a litany of others that were seriously in error.
The obvious statements were that China had grown rapidly; our trade had become deeply dependent on it; the US-based international liberal trading order was in trouble; Donald Trump’s America increasingly was fed up with liberal internationalism and inclined to greater isolationism; we should all “want a region that gives China the space to participate but not dominate”; and “it is in all of Asia’s interests, including ours, that the US remains engaged with traditional partners and allies”.
But Keating’s address was littered with dubious and even shocking statements. He declared, for openers, that “China’s historical view is not rooted in ideological aspiration, universal or otherwise. It sees its legitimacy arising from its ethnic oneness and bulk and its geopolitical pre-eminence on the Asian mainland.”
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Top-earning retirees get bigger tax breaks
The government's consultation paper for its planned retirement income review shows Australia's top-earning retirees get the lion's share of tax breaks.
Finbar O'Mallon
Australian Associated PressNovember 22, 20195:01pm
The highest-earning 10 per cent of retirees receive nearly double the available tax concessions compared to the lowest 90 per cent and the government wants to know if that's fair.
The government released its retirement income review consultation paper on Friday which includes Treasury analysis showing higher income earners got more tax breaks over their lifetime.
The review into Australians' retirement savings was recommended earlier this year by the Productivity Commission.
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A numbers game: how the Westpac crisis will play out
Elizabeth Knight
Business columnist
November 22, 2019 — 7.30pm
Eleven. That’s the number of days between AUSTRAC’s 2017 bombshell allegations that Commonwealth Bank breached anti-money laundering laws and the announcement its then chief executive, Ian Narev, would relinquish his job.
Seven. That’s the number of days from Kenneth Hayne's devastating assessment of National Australia Bank’s chief executive Andrew Thorburn and chairman Ken Henry and the announcement of the duo’s departure.
The clock is now ticking for Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer and the bank's chairman, Lindsay Maxsted.
It’s two days since AUSTRAC went nuclear on Westpac, alleging systemic failures that prevented the reporting of crimes including the financing of child pornography.
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Distorted incentives and excessive remuneration lead to bankers behaving badly
The banks are both too big to fail and too big to succeed, and those leading them are wrongly motivated.
Over the past six years, the 12 top executives at Westpac were paid $240m, or an average of $20m each, some of it in shares. CEO Brian Hartzer got $38m, which was 39 times the average Westpac salary.
Peak CEO salary was back in 2006, when David Morgan got $8.4m, 94 times the average Westpac employee. Across the big four that year, it was an average 96.2 times, according to Citi Research. In 2018, it was 34 times, which Citi is calling the nadir of CEO pay.
For most Westpac executives, the cash that drops into the bank account each month — that is, the base salary — is roughly equal to the average Australian annual wage. For the CEO it’s about 2.5 times that.
Westpac is not wildly out of line with the other banks, of course, or for that matter the rest of big corporate Australia.
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Spy defector inflames China tensions
Nov 24, 2019 — 9.52am
The Morrison government is scrambling to respond to revelations that a Chinese spy, believed to be the first operative from the country to blow his cover, is seeking urgent protection.
Wang "William" Liqiang is seeking asylum in Australia, where he has offered a trove of secrets about Chinese political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
Mr Wang's political asylum bid is likely to inflame existing tensions between Australia and China over Canberra's assertions that its most important trading partner is meddling in domestic affairs.
The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, in a joint investigation with 60 Minutes, reported on Saturday, that Wang "William" Liqiang has provided Australia's counter-espionage agency ASIO details of how China's senior military intelligence officers fund and conduct political interference operations in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Australia.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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More GPs, more drugs and more falls in aged care
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report shows residents see GP twice a month on average
15th November 2019
By Jo Hartley
People living in aged care facilties see GPs more often and are more likely to be prescribed an antipsychotic than those receiving care at home, new data reveals.
The findings, published in an Australian Institute of Health and Welfare report, come just a week after GPs came under fire from the aged care royal commission.
The report shows that those in permanent aged care see a GP on average every fortnight - or 25 times a year.
This compares with an average of 17 GP attendances per year for those with home support and 16 for those with home care, shows the data for 2016-2017.
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'Hurt money' would fix executive pay
America's early 20th century industrial giants hold more answers to the pay problem than APRA does
Nov 18, 2019 — 12.00pm
Executive pay at Australia’s largest public companies has come under even more scrutiny than it usually does at this time of year.
And against the backdrop of the Hayne royal commission the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has proposed a series of changes to remuneration practices for the entities it regulates.
On the plus side, APRA has suggested that bonuses should be deferred for seven years, and it has recognised that explicit financial targets — so-called key performance indicators — can be gamed.
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The 3500-strong army cleaning up in wake of the banking royal commission
By Shane Wright and Clancy Yeates
November 19, 2019 — 12.00am
An army of 3500 people are working through paper work and old files in Australia's four biggest banks to identify and pay compensation to the victims of issues highlighted by the financial services royal commission.
More than 2 million people, including at least one bank chief executive, have received cheques worth a combined $1.5 billion to cover past shortcomings, with the major financial institutions planning to shell out another $5 billion "as quickly as possible".
While the four major lenders have sought to keep a lid on total staffing numbers, they have been forced to broaden their "remediation" teams because of the sheer scale of work involved. That has included going through old files to identify possible problems and in some cases track down victims who may no longer be customers. Accounts are being forensically "re-built" to ensure interest has been properly paid or appropriate advice given.
In two days of evidence to the House of Representative's economics committee, the chief executives of the four big banks have revealed the ongoing cost of the behaviour uncovered by the banking royal commission.
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Where would I go if I wasn't here? Aged-care costs hit home as providers at bankruptcy risk
Elsie Vicary is part of the garden committee at Gunther Village, her nursing home in Gayndah, a couple of hours west of Bundaberg. The 82-year-old loves it when the preschoolers come to visit, and she sees a physio every morning to help her along after a stroke. Vicary’s daughter, one of her four children, lives in the small Queensland town and visits her every day. They walk and talk about her 14 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren.
“I like the outings we have, and the ladies who come in and play us music,” Vicary says. “I love the pots outside my window that I water. They’re pretty and they make the view wonderful.”
An idyllic story of aged care — except that Gunther Village has lost $345,000 a year for each of the past two years, its facilities manager, Vicki Boyd, tells Inquirer, and unless management can turn the finances around by April, they will be forced to “explore their options”. Of which there are effectively two: sell to a bigger provider if one is prepared to take on a loss-making enterprise, or shut down altogether.
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National Budget Issues.
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Ageing population is 'economic time bomb': Frydenberg
Nov 18, 2019 — 10.30pm
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says the need to keep the budget in surplus is not only important to cope with current demands but also the long-term challenges, especially the "economic time bomb" of an ageing population.
Setting the scene for both next month's mid-year budget update and next year's Intergenerational Report (IGR), which forecasts the budget cost of essential services 40 years in advance, Mr Frydenberg indicates there will be no largesse in coming months.
And over the long term, people will have to work longer, productivity must improve and migration must continue to play a key role in lowering the median age of the population.
"As we implement our economic plan to repair the budget, grow the economy and guarantee spending on essential services, we do face some significant domestic and global economic headwinds,'' he says.
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Government too timid to tax Baby Boomers
The government’s form to date does not instil confidence they it will make tough fiscal decisions on the ageing population.
Nov 19, 2019 — 9.08am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has rightly warned the cost of supporting an ageing population is a ticking "time bomb" for taxpayers.
Yet, paradoxically, for political purposes the Morrison government has expediently ruled out a host of tax and welfare changes that could help make the retiring Baby Boomer generation sustainable for the federal budget.
A consultation paper due this month from the government's retirement income review, led by former senior Treasury official Mike Callaghan, will hopefully lay out the consequences of this timidity.
The government has declined to include the principal place of residence in the age pension means test, leaving taxpayers to pay $6 billion a year to pensioners who live in homes worth more than $1 million.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-must-prepare-for-an-ageing-population-20191118-p53bm6
Australia must prepare for an ageing population
Productivity will have to lift if fewer working people are to support more Australians blessed with longer lives.
Nov 19, 2019 — 12.00am
With the budget back in balance for the first time in 11 years and on track to return to surplus, it’s important that we focus not just on the "what" but the "why".
At $19 billion per annum, our interest bill is more than double what we invest in childcare and nearly as much as we spend on schools.
Our debt burden represents not just a cost to the budget and therefore every taxpayer, but also an opportunity cost as it constrains the government’s ability to invest in other areas.
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Cloudy outlook stifles consumer confidence
· Australian Associated Press
Consumer confidence slipped during the weekend according to an ANZ survey that suggests inflation expectations are at a three-month low amid concerns about the outlook for the Australian economy.
The ANZ-Roy Morgan Australian Consumer Confidence index fell 1.1 per cent from the previous week, with respondents' views of the economy over the next 12 months sliding 2.6 per cent and sentiment about conditions during the next five years dropping 4.9 per cent.
Perceptions about the economy over the forthcoming year were at the lowest levels since April 2017 and optimism about the five-year period sank to depths last recorded in October 2017.
The weekly measure of consumer mood, which is based on about 1,000 face-to-face interviews conducted on Saturdays and Sundays, also registered a 0.3 per cent increase in people who said they felt better off now compared with a year ago.
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Defusing fiscal time-bomb will be an age-old question
Josh Frydenberg will flag Australia’s ageing population as an economic time-bomb that must be addressed while arguing that the fruits of the government’s fiscal discipline will be enjoyed by future generations.
The Treasurer will use a speech at CEDA’s annual dinner on Tuesday night to again defend the government’s determination to achieve a budget surplus at the cost of further short-term fiscal stimulus.
He will link spending restraint with reducing the national debt burden, with Treasury’s budget papers showing net government debt in 2019-20 is expected to be $361bn, or 18 per cent of GDP.
“With the budget back in balance for the first time in 11 years and on track to return to surplus, it’s important that we focus not just on the ‘what’ but the ‘why’,” Mr Frydenberg will say.
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Health Issues.
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Study finds stents no better than drugs for many heart patients
Julie Steenhuysen
Nov 17, 2019 — 4.39pm
Chicago | Many patients with severe but stable heart disease who routinely undergo invasive procedures to clear and prop open clogged arteries would do as well by just taking medications and making lifestyle changes, according to US researchers.
If adopted into practice, the findings could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year in healthcare costs, researchers said.
The $US100 million ($147 million) government-backed study, presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Philadelphia, is the largest yet to look at whether procedures to restore normal blood flow in patients with stable heart disease offers an added benefit over more conservative treatment with aspirin, cholesterol-lowering drugs and other measures.
At least two previous studies determined that artery-clearing and stenting or bypass surgery in addition to medical treatment does not significantly lower the risk of heart attacks or death compared with non-invasive medical approaches alone.
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Surgery items under review after insurer rort claims
By Patrick Hatch
November 17, 2019 — 11.55pm
The Health Department will review how common surgical products like glues and sponges are used and paid for in private hospitals, after health insurers accused device manufacturers of deliberately driving up their use to inflate their own profits.
The review will examine the "general miscellaneous" category of the federal government's "prostheses list", which sets how much health funds must pay for more than 10,000 medical devices ranging from adhesives to replacement hips.
Health minister Greg Hunt struck a deal with device manufacturers in 2017 to bring down the costs of their products, following years of complaints from health funds that prices on the list are significantly higher than what is paid in the public sector and in comparable countries.
The agreement was to save health funds $250 million this year, and $1.1 billion by 2021, and in return insurers agreed this year to the smallest increase to their membership fees in 17 years.
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Clear link between genetics and depressive symptoms uncovered
By Stuart Layt
November 18, 2019 — 12.00am
In 2011 at the age of 19 as the next phase of her life should have been taking off, Elissa Collett instead felt like she was falling apart.
She had struggled through high school with feelings of anxiety and depression, however the structure of institutional schooling had kept her grounded.
But once she left and went to TAFE, she said she felt lost and sought help from medical professionals.
"First I was told I had generalised anxiety, then I talked to a psychologist and they said that I have borderline personality disorder," she said.
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No link between statins and memory loss, major Australian study finds
By Kate Aubusson
November 19, 2019 — 6.00am
The most comprehensive study of its kind has found no link between statins and cognitive decline. In fact it has found the opposite: the widely prescribed medication could help protect at-risk patients from dementia.
Australian scientists tracked the effects of the cholesterol-lowering drugs among 1037 elderly Australians over six years. They hoped their analysis would be reassuring for doctors and patients concerned by anecdotal reports suggesting that the medication could trigger memory loss.
“As a statins prescriber, I shared these concerns,” said study lead Professor Katherine Samaras at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research. “But we looked at it in every possible way and we couldn’t find an effect on memory from statins.”
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If you're taking vitamin D and calcium routinely, maybe don't bother
By Sarah Berry
November 18, 2019 — 7.01pm
It’s routine advice: ensure you get enough calcium and vitamin D as you age, particularly as women approach menopause, to prevent osteoporosis.
New research, however, suggests calcium supplements have “very little place” in modern medical practice, and vitamin D supplements are generally useless as well.
The review, published in the Medical Journal of Australia on Monday, found that while the nutrients in themselves are important, the evidence for their benefit in supplement form was lacking and may increase the risk of adverse health outcomes.
“The major trials in community-dwelling individuals have not demonstrated fracture prevention with either calcium, vitamin D or their combination,” said the authors, Professor Ian Reid, and Associate Professor Mark Bolland from the University of Auckland.
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Private health premiums tipped to soar as more young people drop cover
By Dana McCauley
November 19, 2019 — 10.00pm
Health Minister Greg Hunt's effort to slow the increase in the cost of health insurance has hit a roadblock, with new data showing young Australians are continuing to drop their cover while insurers grapple with the rising cost of funding services for their ageing members.
The number of people aged between 25 and 29 with hospital cover fell by more than 7000 in the three months to September, data from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority revealed.
During the same period, the cost of paying for members' hospital treatment – mostly for older Australians – increased by 2.9 per cent to hit more than $4 billion.
Members paid an average $304 out of pocket for a hospital episode and $183 for other medical services where a gap was payable.
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Climate change a health priority: Labor
· Australian Associated Press
The effects of climate change must be treated as a health priority alongside cancer and diabetes, Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen says.
In a speech to be delivered in Sydney on Wednesday night, Mr Bowen will point to estimates that 250,000 people a year will die as a direct result of global warming by 2030.
"Natural disasters are already occurring more regularly," he says.
"Vector borne diseases will become more prevalent and widespread. Heat waves, which already claim many lives in Australia will be more common and more severe."
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Medical devices pushing private health expenses
Reforms to the cost of medical devices have failed to deliver a promised $250m in savings to private health insurers, with new figures revealing a massive increase in the volume of items billed by device companies to health funds.
The latest statistics on the private health insurance industry, published on Tuesday by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, showed the growth in claims for medical devices increased more than 8 per cent during the past year, despite the number of hospital claims only climbing by 0.6 per cent.
The biggest growth in medical device claims was in the “general miscellaneous category”, indicating device companies were billing insurers for larger volumes of items such as bone glues and sponges.
The blowout in the volume of medical device claims means the total savings to insurers from the federal government’s reforms to medical device costs is expected to be $13m this year, rather than the projected $250m.
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BUPA wants more incentives for under 40s to insure
Updated Nov 20, 2019 — 5.50pm, first published at 4.43pm
BUPA Australia boss Hisham El-Ansary wants the federal government to increase incentives for under 40s to take out private health insurance to help stem a steady exodus of younger members and keep premium increases at bay.
Mr El-Ansary called for greater price transparency from medical device manufacturers, saying BUPA has seen a similar increase in prostheses costs to those outlined recently by rival Medibank despite the government wresting price reductions from reluctant global manufacturers.
BUPA, the nation's largest health insurer covering 3.6 million Australians, has suffered the most among rivals in the past year, losing nearly 80,000 customers from its hospital cover policies as younger customers decided they were not getting value for money.
Mr El-Ansary said potential options for keeping under 40s in private health insurance could include increasing the Medicare levy surcharge on upper income earners who choose not to insure themselves, and more incentives for employers to insure their workers.
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'It's taken my womanhood': pelvic mesh win bittersweet for injured women
By Rachel Clun
November 22, 2019 — 5.00am
It’s been 10 years since Diane Dawson had a mesh device surgically implanted and she's been in pain having suffered complications ever since.
“I had a lot of pain, like a knife inside of me, I [felt like] I was sitting on a board and I had a prickle in my backside,” she told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Just months after it was implanted, she had her first corrective surgery to remove a piece of mesh that had eroded. A total of five corrective surgeries later, and she still lives with pain.
She became one of three women, including Ann Sanders and Kathryn Gill, to lead a class action involving more than 1300 women against the companies that produced the mesh devices and sold them in Australia Johnson & Johnson and its affiliated companies Ethicon Sarl and Ethicon Inc.
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Serious health and medical mistake rate highest in three years
By Rachel Clun
Eleven patients had medical instruments left inside them after surgery in NSW hospitals, the 2018-2019 Auditor-General's health report shows.
The surgical mistakes were among 22 grave and preventable medical errors - the highest rate of "sentinel events" in three years.
The report also found more than one third of health staff didn’t take enough annual leave, and 12.6 per cent took none.
Sentinel events are serious and preventable medical errors that result in the death or harm of patients, and can include operations removing the wrong body part, operating on the wrong person, and performing the wrong procedure.
In 2018-2019, half of all sentinel events (11) were for medical instruments or materials left in a patient after surgery, and four were the result of a patient’s suicide in a unit.
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Calls for inquiry into medical watchdog as complaints back up
By Kate Aubusson
November 22, 2019 — 5.27pm
The state's healthcare watchdog is taking almost a year to fully investigate serious allegations including malpractice and sexual misconduct amid rising numbers of complaints and dysfunction within the organisation.
The Health Care Complaints Commission’s latest annual report shows over 40 per cent of investigations dragged on for more than a year, up from 34 per cent in 2017-2018.
The results follow months of reports of bullying and mismanagement within the commission, prompting opposition health minister Ryan Park to call for an independent probe of HCCC’s culture and performance.
“This is something I feel strongly about given the critical role [the HCCC] plays in providing people with confidence in the health system and in light of recent revelations,” he said.
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Health bureaucrats hit the road with 'transformative' new plan to tackle obesity
By Dana McCauley
November 24, 2019 — 12.00am
Junk food would come with warning labels, supermarkets could be banned from discounting chips and lollies and advertisements for unhealthy snacks removed from buses under a draft plan to tackle Australia's $12 billion-a-year obesity epidemic.
Manufacturers could also be forced to slash the amount of sugar, fat and salt in processed foods and advertisers forced to stop promotions during children's television viewing hours when health ministers roll out their 10-year National Obesity Strategy.
State and federal health ministers will soon roll out a 10-year strategy to combat the obesity crisis.
The Council of Australian Governments' health council has released a consultation paper looking at ways to intercept the country's trend of expanding waistlines. On current track, three quarters of the country's population will be overweight or obese by 2030.
"Research shows our environments promote obesity," the consultation paper said.
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International Issues.
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Trump's Ukraine phone call was 'unusual and inappropriate'
Jan Wolfe and Nandita Bose
Nov 17, 2019 — 11.25am
Washington | The phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Ukrainian counterpart at the centre of Congress' impeachment investigation was "inappropriate," a foreign policy aide to Vice President Mike Pence told lawmakers, according to a transcript released on Saturday.
Jennifer Williams, who was listening to the call on July 25, testified that Mr Trump's insistence that Ukraine carry out politically sensitive investigations "struck me as unusual and inappropriate."
The House of Representatives on Saturday also released a transcript of an earlier closed-door deposition by Tim Morrison, a White House aide with the National Security Council focusing on Europe and Russia policy.
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Riot police storm Hong Kong Polytechnic University after all-night siege
By Kirsty Needham
November 18, 2019 — 9.11am
Hong Kong: Riot police stormed a fortified university campus before dawn rushing behind protester lines and firing tear gas and rubber bullets from rifles.
Police snipers fired tear gas down from the museum building opposite of Polytechnic University as riot police ran in from a side street catching protesters by surprise after an all-night siege of the campus.
Booms and cracks filled the air as Molotov cocktails and gas canisters exploded and set fire to trees.
Police ran along the university perimeter and into its entrance and dragged some protesters out along the ground.
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How seriously can we take the Trump impeachment?
Nicole Hemmer
Columnist and visiting research associate at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
November 17, 2019 — 11.09pm
Public impeachment hearings are under way in the United States, with former ambassador Marie Yovanovitch testifying on Friday to the administration's efforts to discredit her anti-corruption work in Ukraine before removing her from office.
Yovanovitch's testimony was compelling and shocking, detailing threats made against her by administration officials, including the president's personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and efforts to construct a shadow foreign policy aimed at concocting evidence to discredit former Vice President Joe Biden, a potential 2020 rival.
That testimony followed Wednesday's bombshell that an aide had overheard Trump saying the manufactured Biden scandal was his top priority in Ukraine.
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Trump holds unscheduled physical checkup
· AP
President Donald Trump spent more than two hours at Walter Reed National Medical Centre on Sunday for what the White House said were medical tests as part of his annual physical.
The appointment wasn’t on Mr Trump’s weekend public schedule, and his last physical was in February.
Press secretary Stephanie Grisham said on Sunday the 73-year-old President was “anticipating a very busy 2020” and wanted to take advantage of “a free weekend” in Washington to begin portions of his routine check-up.
She did not specify which tests he’d received or explain why the visit had not been disclosed in advance.
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China's power has hardened beyond recognition from the Keating era
Former PM calls the public debate over China hysteria whipped up by media and the phobias of the security agencies. Others call it catching up with reality.
Nov 18, 2019 — 4.30pm
Scott Morrison sounds a touch exasperated as he insists his job is not to be a commentator but to manage Australia’s relationships with a range of countries, including China. And he claims his government is delivering on that task pretty well.
But he knows the relationship with China is not only increasingly hard to navigate but now drives community concern as well as the health of the Australian economy.
Fears about the impact of the broader China US trade war is just one part of that.
Very different but difficult China challenges keep on coming in Canberra, from the brutal unravelling in Hong Kong to The New York Times’ revelation of official details of the internment of a million Uighur Muslims to the rejection of visas for “unrepentant” Liberal MPs.
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Hong Kong chaos is Xi Jinping’s failure
China has gone backwards politically. It is hardly surprising if Hong Kong now regards the prospect of full integration with the mainland with horror, writes the FT's Gideon Rachman.
Nov 19, 2019 — 9.59am
The situation in Hong Kong is a nightmare for Xi Jinping. China’s president has made the restoration of his country’s power and dignity the central theme of his presidency. But part of China’s sovereign territory has descended into violent anarchy.
Universities have turned into battlegrounds. Protesters are hurling Molotov cocktails at the police, but they appear to retain a strong measure of support from the population. Chinese troops have appeared on the streets — but so far only to help clear the roads. Deploying them against the demonstrators could plunge Hong Kong into a long-term insurrection, similar to Belfast in the 1970s or Algiers in the 1950s.
Mr Xi could plausibly argue that the immediate crisis is not his fault. The spark for the first demonstrations in June was the introduction of a bill allowing extradition of criminal suspects from Hong Kong to mainland China.
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Think twice before you comment on Hong Kong
Abetting violence and radicalism will not bring freedom and democracy, let alone stability and prosperity, to the Chinese territory.
Wang Xining
Nov 19, 2019 — 12.00am
Television news has lately been awash with violent scenes in Hong Kong. Public utilities and shops are vandalised. Public transport and streets are blocked. Train carriages are set on fire. Passengers are assaulted by masked black-shirts without reason. University campuses are ransacked. Women are brutalised. A 70-year-old street cleaner lost his life after being hit by a randomly thrown brick. A man who opposed violence in the street was badly burnt after the mob soaked him with combustible liquid.
However, Western reporters and commentators never label the perpetrators as criminals.
The Hong Kong police exercised maximum restraint under a rain of stones and sticks, Molotov cocktails, shots from catapults and arrows fired by archers, blinding laser beams, and in a number of cases, attempted lethal slashes at their bodies. Information on their families is exposed, and their safety threatened.
Someone claimed that they would throw out of a window the 10-year-old daughter of a police officer who shot someone attempting to steal his gun. The performance of the Hong Kong police was highly praised by professional police forces around the world including in Australia, where police recently handled the Extinction Rebellion demonstrations with similar skill and discipline. But they are constantly questioned and berated by Western media and politicians.
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US reverses four decades of policy on Israeli settlements
Josef Federman and Ben Zion
Nov 19, 2019 — 9.39am
Washington/Jerusalem | The Trump administration on Monday softened the US position on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, reversing four decades of American policy and further undermining the effort to gain Palestinian statehood.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the US is repudiating the 1978 State Department legal opinion that held that civilian settlements in the occupied territories are "inconsistent with international law." Israeli leaders welcomed the decision while Palestinians and other nations warned that it undercut any chance of a broader peace deal.
Pompeo told reporters at the State Department that the Trump administration believes any legal questions about settlements should be resolved by Israeli courts and that declaring them a violation of international law distracts from larger efforts to negotiate a peace deal.
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Why China has won the trade war
UBS banker Edmund Koh suggests there will be a benign outcome for the world economy from the fight over tariffs.
Nov 19, 2019 — 12.00am
Gather a group of experts on China and the United States, put them in one room and ask them to paint a picture of what is really happening in the world's two largest economies and you are bound to be left slightly confused.
And so it was on Monday when experts attending the annual UBS Australasia conference in Sydney covered topics ranging from capital flows to the US/China trade war to the weird political machinations around passive equity investing in emerging markets.
One expert, Edmund Koh, who is president of UBS Asia Pacific, boldly declared China had already won the US/China trade war. The UBS conference is attended by about 1500 people including 800 institutional investors.
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Impeachment sends Trump's bid for moderates up in smoke
By Matthew Knott
November 19, 2019 — 10.39am
New York: Donald Trump's campaign team regularly points out that the Democrats' push to impeach him has galvanised support for the President among his base.
After the first day of public impeachment hearings last week, Trump's 2020 campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted that the campaign enjoyed one of its best fundraising days.
"Dems just don’t get it," he wrote. "They are filling our bank and improving our turnout every day!"
The impeachment process has deepened America's already cavernous political divide, with Democrats more convinced than ever that Trump is unfit for office and Republicans certain he is the victim of a "deep state coup".
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Trump is threatening to blow up the WTO - and potentially cause anarchy
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
November 20, 2019 — 12.00am
The Trump administration’s visceral aversion to multilateral institutions and its fixation with trade issues means that in three weeks’ time the World Trade Organisation may, at a practical level, cease to function.
On December 10 the terms of two members of the WTO’s Appellate Body, the ultimate adjudicator of trade disputes, will expire.
That body is supposed to have seven members but since Trump became president the US has been blocking appointments to the panel.
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Hong Kong: ‘You either have the rule of law or you don’t’
Critics say the protection that the system once offered to Hong Kong’s citizens is being stripped away and instead being used as a weapon to crack down on the largest pro-democracy uprising on Chinese soil since the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.
Sue-Lin Wong and Nicolle Liu
Nov 20, 2019 — 11.08am
Hong Kong | University campuses are the new frontline of the Hong Kong protests. Images of defiant students clashing with armed police in centres of learning have stunned the world.
Yet perhaps the most shocking and potentially significant incident in five months of ever more violent scenes — and one of the main triggers for the campus protests — came when a police officer last week was caught on video firing his gun at point-blank range into the abdomen of a protester moving towards him. The black-clad figure slumped to the ground before trying to escape and being chased down.
The protester was later charged, while lying in an intensive care bed, with unlawful assembly. Eight days on, the traffic cop has not been disciplined — like virtually all police officers involved in recent clashes — but is off duty to recuperate from his injuries. It was the third such close-range shooting of a protester since early October.
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Impeachment fight far from just another Washington circus
Australians, too, have a stake in the battle to impeach Donald Trump, even if it doesn’t seem immediately apparent, argues Jacob Greber in Washington.
Updated Nov 20, 2019 — 3.21pm, first published at 3.13pm
Washington | Much as it looks and feels like just another crazy Washington circus with a preordained ending, the impeachment of Donald Trump has reached a critical phase.
After a marathon day of testimony on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) involving no fewer than four Trump administration officials with first-hand knowledge, the evidence increasingly points to a president who brazenly sought to heavy his Ukrainian counterpart for personal political gain.
As an abuse of power - a “political crime” - it’s pretty cut and dry.
Whether the American public cares or believes it warrants impeachment is a different question, and one that will become clear in the coming days and weeks as they come to terms with the bewildering detail of this case.
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'Everyone was in the loop': Ambassador confirms quid pro quo in bombshell testimony
By Matthew Knott
November 21, 2019 — 1.30am
New York: In explosive testimony to the impeachment inquiry into US President Donald Trump, the US ambassador to the European Union confirmed there was an explicit "quid pro quo" linking a White House visit to politically motivated investigations.
Gordon Sondland, a Trump appointee and donor, said the highest levels of the White House and State Department were involved in the push for Ukraine to announce investigations into the family of potential 2020 rival Joe Biden and debunked conspiracy theories about the 2016 election.
A senior US diplomat told lawmakers that President Donald Trump expressly ordered him and others to help pressure Ukraine into investigating a political rival of the president, providing some of the most significant testimony to date in the House of
This included Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence and former national security adviser John Bolton.
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Pompeo future uncertain after testimony
· Reuters
Testimony that US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo played a more central role than previously known in President Donald Trump's Ukraine dealings has fuelled uncertainty within the administration about the top diplomat's future.
Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union and a key figure in the Democratic-led impeachment inquiry against Trump, depicted Pompeo as a participant in the president's efforts to get Ukraine to carry out investigations that could help him politically.
While Trump is not expected to oust one of his staunchest supporters over the testimony, Pompeo has been widely reported to be mulling his exit to run for the US Senate from his home state of Kansas next year.
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Fiona Hill warns of GOP's 'fictional narrative' on Ukraine
Greg Miller
Nov 22, 2019 — 4.13am
Washington | Fiona Hill, the former White House adviser on Russia, opened her testimony before the impeachment inquiry Thursday (Friday AEDT) with withering criticism of Republican attempts to sow doubt that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election.
"This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services," Hill said in her opening statement.
The statement amounted to a rebuke of President Donald Trump; Representative Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee; and others who have advanced claims that it was Ukraine - and not Russia - that waged information warfare against the United States in 2016.
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Do Americans care about what looks like White House corruption?
After five days of shattering evidence of apparent presidential wrongdoing, it is time for Americans to decide.
Nov 22, 2019 — 1.54pm
After five days of shattering evidence of alleged presidential wrongdoing in Ukraine - the testimony of each witness before Congress this week building on the last - there is little question this nation will soon face a watershed moment.
The decision point will hinge on a key group of about two dozen Republican senators. Regardless of which way they go, their call will divide and cast a long shadow over political life here for decades to come.
They will, in effect, set a precedent over whether a president can use his office to subvert foreign policy for domestic personal political advantage. Their judgement is being driven by their view of whether the American people care.
Within weeks, President Donald Trump will stand accused in a Senate trial of seeking to manipulate a vulnerable east European ally trapped in a bloody war with Russia in order to manufacture an inquiry against a potential 2020 Democrat rival on a widely discredited conspiracy theory.
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Dalio warns investors face a 'risky environment'
Nov 22, 2019 — 11.37am
Hedge fund legend Ray Dalio says we are entering "a risky environment" in which investors will need to find a safe store of value as major economies draw closer to printing money to finance government spending.
Mr Dalio, who founded $US160 billion ($235 billion) macro hedge fund Bridgewater, said low or negative interest rates on the US dollar, yen and euro suggested they were drawing closer to a third phase of monetary policy where government spending is financed with printed money.
"We'll have large deficits and then there will be more monetisation of that," he said at the Sohn Hearts & Minds investment conference in Sydney on Friday.
"There will be a limit to pushing that and then there will be the politics. Of course, as investors that will have a big impact on returns of asset classes."
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In praise of Washington's insiders
David Brooks
Nov 23, 2019 — 12.00am
Let me tell you a secret. The public buildings of Washington are filled with very good people working hard for low pay and the public good. There are thousands of them and they are very much like the foreign service officers that we've seen testifying at the impeachment hearings: William Taylor, George Kent, Marie Yovanovitch and Fiona Hill.
These public servants tend to be self-effacing and deeply knowledgeable about some small realm of public policy. They're generally not all that interested in partisan politics but are deeply committed to the process and substance of good government. Whenever I get to sit in on off-the-record meetings at this or that federal agency, I'm impressed by the quality, professionalism and basic goodness of the people there.
We don't celebrate these people. Trumpian conservatives say that Washington insiders are unelected bureaucrats, denizens of the swamp, the cesspool or a snake pit. Some progressives call Washington insiders the establishment, the power elite, the privileged structures of the status quo.
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Hong Kongers grieve for their home, on an island of despair
By Kirsty Needham
November 24, 2019 — 4.00am
“Go back to Satan,” screamed the cleaner, a man in his 60s wearing rubber gloves. He was carrying two sacks nowhere near large enough to neatly carry away the mounting rubble of a city in political and physical crisis.
Students from Hong Kong University stared silently as he strode down Pok Fu Lam Road, barricaded with bricks since a police raid on a student dormitory.
Another cleaner, 70 years old, had earlier in November become the first fatality directly attributable to the five months of increasingly violent protests. He was caught in the crossfire as Beijing supporters and democracy activists hurled bricks at one another.
For many in this city of 7 million, emotions are at breaking point as life is disrupted by now daily clashes between riot police and protesters.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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