December 26, 2019 Edition.
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Well, as predicted Trump has been impeached, and will presumably have a Senate trial in January, 2020. He is furious and is lashing out all over. Little good will come of any of this.
Brexit, after parliamentary approval, is now going to happen Jan 31, 2020. This will be followed by negotiations on trade etc until the end of 2020.
ScoMo is back in OZ from a holiday in Hawaii. He has managed to annoy almost everyone by sloping off and is apologising to anyone who will listen! Will be interesting to see if the fires cause any policy change over the next few months.
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Major Issues.
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How value investors have to tough out the good times
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.00am
London | Nick Kirrage and his team of eight look after £12 billion ($23 billion) invested in global value strategies. He's glad to have those comrades in arms, he says, because value investing is not something you can safely do on your own: it might send you off the deep end.
“There’s an element of mental safety in numbers, being able to not totally lose your mind,” he says. “We’re all right, I don’t think we’re losing our minds, but I do often ask all the members of my team, ‘how are you coping, how’s it going?’”
Value tends to attract die-hards.
“If you’re the kind of person who’s drawn to doing something that is going to be that uncomfortable, which is very different, then you’ve probably been making those choices your whole life. You’ve been doing the slightly incendiary, conflicting thing because you want to go a different way,” he says. “It’s not for everyone."
Value investing means paying 70¢ for something worth $1. But some stocks are more accurately value traps, and it takes a shrewd investor to know the difference.
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ASX creates the Aussie Nasdaq
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.00am
Australian investors will be able to track and back the ASX's booming tech stocks with greater clarity from next year, with the launch of a new S&P technology index that will highlight the winners and losers in a sector that is growing rapidly with IPOs of companies from around the world.
The new index, which will officially launch on February 21, will be known as the S&P All Technology Index or the S&P AllTech for short, and will be a smaller version of the US's Nasdaq composite index.
Whereas the Nasdaq attracts tech companies with a valuation of $1 billion-plus, the local version will typically attract IPOs in the tens of millions to hundreds of millions valuation range.
Investors and other market watchers will be able to keep an eye on how the fastest-growing segment of the market is performing, without having to individually analyse numerous relatively small-cap stocks.
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How rentier capitalism is changing politics
Shadow treasurer Jim Chalmers believes there are lessons in the UK election result for the Australian Labor Party. Oh yes, indeed there are, but if he thinks, as he apparently does, that it’s a matter of populism versus policy, he should think again.
Jeremy Corbyn had plenty of policies, as did Bill Shorten in Australia earlier this year; they were just the wrong ones.
Obviously the main issue in the UK was and is Brexit, but there was a lot more to last week’s election than that. In the most working-class seats, Labour’s vote fell by 11 per cent and in the most middle-class seats it fell by 7 per cent.
The British Conservative Party has managed to become the party of the working classes, as well as disaffected middle classes, while hanging on to a large part of its rich urban base.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/populism-matters-to-markets-says-michael-hintze-20191215-p53k1r
Populism matters to markets, says Michael Hintze
Populist parties and protest can shape policies and drive market volatility, warns the billionaire investor.
Dec 16, 2019 — 11.45am
London | Investors ignore populism at their peril, warns Michael Hintze, the Australian billionaire at the helm of London-based fund manager CQS.
"Populism matters. It is driving politically inspired market volatility, and therefore economic as well as political change," he says in his latest note to clients.
Hintze reckons the rise of street protests across the world – whose angry participants share "a deep dissatisfaction with inequitable distribution in society" – is setting the tone of public policy, and creating new political parties or reinvigorating old ones.
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Fire chief loses house in Blue Mountains blaze
Dec 16, 2019 — 7.05pm
As many communities in and around the fire-besieged Blue Mountains west of Sydney remain in emergency mode, tempers are flaring among exhausted residents, law enforcers and firefighting volunteers – many of whom are now doing consecutive 12-hour overnight shifts.
The situation won't be helped by soaring temperatures, with Richmond at the foot of the Blue Mountains expected to hit 45 degrees on Thursday.
Up to 20 buildings, including homes, burned down between Sunday afternoon and the early hours of Monday morning after backburning and fire hazard reduction being conducted near Mount Wilson breached containment lines.
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Come with me to the mega-blaze, Scott Morrison, and see what we're up against
Greg Mullins
Former Fire and Rescue NSW commissioner
December 17, 2019 — 12.00am
On Sunday, volunteers from my own Rural Fire Service brigade faced off against 70 metre flames in the Blue Mountains. Properties were consumed by fire but thankfully no life was lost. This mega-blaze at Gospers Mountain, where I have spent several 16-hour shifts, has been raging for weeks and burned more than 380,000 hectares. There are 117 bushfires blazing in NSW alone and we face extreme heat by the end of the week.
The Prime Minister has urged everyone to calm down about bushfires raging through NSW, Queensland, and now WA. He has said that he can recall as a boy seeing Sydney surrounded by bushfire smoke haze, and that for children, or anyone who hadn’t experienced it before, it was “deeply troubling”.
Fire crews are battling a ‘mega fire’ burning in the NSW Blue Mountains.
But the experiences I describe here are nothing like the Prime Minister’s recollections of yesteryear. The fires we are battling today started earlier, burn more intensely, have destroyed more homes and covered more ground than anything we’ve seen before in NSW. Fact, not opinion. Seasoned firefighters have felt overwhelmed by what they’ve seen, and exhaustion has become a way of life. Fear and anxiety among the population grows daily as fires advance.
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'Worst possible circumstances' for fires are coming
Dec 17, 2019 — 4.24pm
The "worst possible circumstances" for bushfire danger are coming to NSW this week, threatening to exacerbate the loss, grief, and frustrations of an already devastating fire season.
State emergency emergency services were battling 115 fires on Tuesday, including the 400,000-hectare Gospers Mountain blaze that has destroyed large parts of the Wollemi National Park.
Rural Fire Service deputy commissioner Rob Rogers confirmed that a dozen homes were destroyed by a backburn in the nearby Mount Wilson, and warned that conditions in the past few days were "relatively benign" compared to the rest of the week.
The heatwave that fuelled emergency-level fires to the north of Perth, which had been downgraded on Tuesday, was travelling eastward and set to arrive in NSW by Thursday, sending temperatures into the mid-40s.
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Tories, Coalition and Trump have better feel for public mood
The British election was dominated by two elements absent from Australia — the Brexit imperative and the widely loathed socialist Jeremy Corbyn — yet it is vital to discern the lessons and traps for Australian politics in this Tory triumph.
The similarities linking the US, Britain and Australia should not be exaggerated but there are two common trends.
The parties of the right have triumphed in better reading the public mood and recasting their policies, even their identity to win.
The parties of the left have blown their brains out by squandering the public anger towards financial elites, compressed living standards and the alienation of working people who feel frustrated or betrayed — an ideal framing for left election victories. The left misread the times. Its world-historic failures have created the current opening for radical conservatives. Hillary Clinton and Bill Shorten expected to win; many of Corbyn’s backers believed he might pull off victory.
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Political paralysis rules for now but there is time for a cure
Dec 17, 2019 — 3.58pm
This being December, my natural inclination is to review the past year’s economic and financial developments to help policymakers and investors anticipate what might be coming in 2020. This year is ending on a relatively positive note, especially when compared to the same time last year. There is hope of a global growth pick-up, trade tensions have lessened and central banks have reaffirmed that they will maintain ultra-low interest rates and continue to provide ample liquidity. Financial volatility is subdued, and there are reasonable expectations of solid investor returns across many asset classes.
As tempting as it is to dwell on current financial and macroeconomic conditions, doing so risks obfuscating a key element in the economic outlook. There is a curious contrast between the relative clarity of expectations for the near term and the murkiness and uncertainty that comes when one extends the horizon further – say, to the next five years.
Many countries face structural uncertainties that could have far-reaching, systemic implications for markets and the global economy. For example, over the next five years, the European Union will seek to establish a new working relationship with the United Kingdom, while also dealing with the harmful social and political effects of slow, insufficiently inclusive growth. The EU will have to navigate the perils of a prolonged period of negative interest rates, while also shoring up its economic and financial core. As long as the eurozone’s architecture is incomplete, consistent risks of instability will remain.
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PM's vacation leaves egg on minders' faces
The Financial Review’s take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories.
Dec 19, 2019 — 12.00am
It’s the cover-up that has backfired, whipping Scott Morrison’s well-earned pre-Christmas break into a controversy.
Over the weekend, the Prime Minister’s minders ordered the media not to report that he had taken leave. This bizarre overreach was designed to protect Mr Morrison from churlish criticism for leaving his post while the bushfires raged.
To perform their jobs well, everyone needs to take time out to recharge and reconnect with family. This includes Australia’s hard-working Prime Minister, whose holiday period will be cut short by a visit to India and Japan in early January.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-conversion-our-prime-minister-needs-20191218-p53l2o.html
The conversion our Prime Minister needs
John Hewson
Columnist and former Liberal opposition leader
December 19, 2019 — 12.00am
A Pentecostal Christian such as Scott Morrison would be aware of the significance of the conversion to Christianity of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus. Saul, a Pharisee in Jerusalem after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, had been a hate-filled persecutor of Christians, assisting in murder and the imprisonment of innocent people, indeed committed to wiping out the new Christian Church, clearly one of Jesus’ cruelest enemies. He was en route to Damascus, with the written authority of the high priest to arrest any followers of Jesus in that city.
Saul and his colleagues were struck with a blinding light – he was blind for three days – and was taken to the city where he met an envoy from Jesus, Ananias, who convinced him that Christ had chosen him to deliver the gospel, not only to the people of Israel but to the Gentiles and their kings.
Saul’s sight was restored, he was filled with the holy spirit and baptised into the Christian faith. He changed his name to Paul and became one of the most determined and successful of the apostles, suffering persecution, much physical pain, and finally martyrdom.
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Three species of early humans lived in same era in close proximity
By Liam Mannix
December 19, 2019 — 5.00am
Only a few years ago, scientists believed modern humans evolved in Africa, and then left to colonise a world free of similar species.
Recently, we have learnt this is not quite right. By the time Homo sapiens left Africa, several of our less-evolved ancestors had already travelled to parts of the world.
Macquarie University establishes the time of extinction for Homo erectus or 'upright man', one of our most important ancestors.
But it was not clear if these separate species – including Homo erectus, Homo luzonensis and Homo floresiensis – were alive at the same time, or if they were alive when modern humans left Africa.
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Bushfire crisis: Climate wailing ignores fuel build-ups
Roger Underwood
A group of former “fire chiefs” is blaming the current bushfires across Australia on climate change and demanding that Scott Morrison take urgent action to fix the climate. This, it claims, will fix the bushfire threat.
Even if we could change the climate (cooler summers, saturating winter rains, light breezes, no more droughts), it would not influence the current weather patterns or stop the fierce bushfires coming up the driveway this afternoon.
Even if we knew exactly how to change the climate, anything we did in Australia would have to be replicated globally (especially in China and India) to make any difference; and even if global measures were applied tomorrow, the desired new climate might not cut in for many years.
The “climate change is causing bushfires” position has two killer flaws. It takes no account of fuels. And it prescribes no practical actions that will help with the immediate bushfire threat. Ignoring fuel is an error of astonishing magnitude. In Bushfire 101 we learned about the fire triangle. A bushfire can occur only if three things are present: oxygen (in the air), fuel (to burn) and heat (a source of ignition to get the fire started).
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Change your holiday plans: RFS
Dec 20, 2019 — 10.10am
NSW state emergency services have urged residents to change their holiday travel plans for tomorrow, as the state braced for a "critically dangerous" day and temperatures soared around the country.
Firefighters were mourning the death of two volunteers among their ranks overnight, when a truck hit a tree and rolled off the road near Buxton in Wollondilly Shire. "Dozens" of houses were destroyed on Thursday, and the damages were expected to grow on Friday.
Over 100 fires were raging across NSW on Friday morning, and an emergency warning remained in place for the Green Wattle Creek fire. The 450,000-hectare Gospers Mountain fire and the Kerry Ridge fire remained at watch-and-act levels.
Rural Fire Service Commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said people should avoid travelling down the Princes Highway, which extends from Sydney down through to the South Coast and ultimately to Adelaide.
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This investing cycle still has a way to go
All the talk of being “late cycle” is nonsense – this cycle is set to elongate for some time.
Dec 20, 2019 — 9.22am
Do you remember in 2018 when everyone was selling everything, and the so-called smart money was convinced the US and global economies were heading into recession? It was a wall of worry: there was the trade war, Brexit, North Korea, the impact of the Fed’s interest rate hikes, and frankly anything to do with Donald Trump.
Equities were down 20 per cent at one stage. Aussie house prices were suffering their largest correction in more than 30 years. Credit spreads were blowing sharply wider. Australia and the major banks’ ratings were on watch for a downgrade. And institutional investors were dumping anything that was perceived to carry risk. Even the great Jim Simons of Renaissance Technologies was personally overriding his quant models’ signals.
Well it turns out everyone was wrong. Precisely the right time to be buying everything was when the market was throwing the baby out with the bathwater – at that point when we were hitting peak fear.
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Australians never been richer, while debt burden easing
Dec 19, 2019 — 12.33pm
Australian households have never been wealthier, due to house prices rising and mortgages getting cheaper, but nevertheless, they are spending less.
The latest data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows that the average household wealth increased by $10,698 in the September quarter to an all-time high of $428,573.5 per person.
The increase of $10,698.6 over the quarter is the largest quarterly rise since December 2016.
The crucial household debt to assets ratio, which reflects how heavily geared households are, decreased from 18.9 times to 18.5 times, indicating that households used the two 0.25 percentage point interest rate cuts in the September quarter and the $7 billion in tax cuts to pay down their mortgage and other debts and save.
At the same time, house prices rose 2.2 per cent nationally over those three months and have since continued to rise, pointing to even further wealth creation in the December quarter.
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How much closer to their doors must the fire burn? It's immoral not to connect the dots
By Tim Flannery
December 20, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia never had a "catastrophic" fire danger rating until 2009. It was introduced in the wake of the then unprecedented Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria. Catastrophic conditions were forecast for the first time in Greater Sydney last month – on November 12 to be exact.
On Thursday, a little over a month later, while parts of Australia experienced record heatwaves into the 40s celsius, catastrophic conditions were forecast for Greater Sydney yet again, coupled with extreme heat for the entire state. The NSW Premier declared a state of emergency for the next seven days, including Christmas Day.
This is the second time a catastrophic bushfire danger rating has been declared over such a densely populated area, covering almost 5 million residents across eastern NSW. In catastrophic conditions, fires cannot safely be fought. Homes are not built to withstand fires in these conditions, and lives can be lost.
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Banks, insurers face ‘stress test’ on climate change
Developed by an international group of regulators, chaired by Bank of England governor Mark Carney.
Australia’s biggest banks and insurance companies will be forced to protect themselves against risks caused by climate change, as the Reserve Bank and prudential regulator gear up to test large businesses’ readiness to shift to a low-carbon economy.
As part of a global push, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the central bank are expected to adopt a series of “stress tests” that will take stock of the vulnerability of banks and insurers to changes in asset prices brought on by global warming or policies to limit emissions.
Banks and financial institutions could also be forced to reveal their exposure to climate risks in their financial statements.
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'In denial, in hiding or in Hawaii': Scott Morrison goes MIA
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
December 21, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia has now solved its most mystifying prime ministerial disappearance since Harold Holt's, but what difference will it make? By quietly taking leave this week and passing the prime minister's duties to Michael McCormack without any announcement, Scott Morrison instantly did two things.
First, he created a bit of a mystery, and a mystery always invites scrutiny and speculation and turns a small thing into a bigger one. Second, by doing so, he transformed a routine break into a political vulnerability.
Prime Minister says sorry for being on leave during bushfire emergency.
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'Too emotional, too hot': World's top energy chief laments Australia's climate debate
By Bevan Shields
December 20, 2019 — 11.45pm
Paris: The powerful head of the International Energy Agency has branded Australia's climate and energy debate among the worst in the world, while warning developed countries are "not even close" to achieving the emissions reduction needed to combat global warming.
Fatih Birol also lamented the collapse of the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) during last year's Liberal Party leadership showdown, expressed "pity" that Australia has missed opportunities to mitigate the impact of coal, and backed MPs exploring the feasibility of small-scale nuclear power plants.
"I find the Australian energy debate far too emotional, far too nervous and far too hot. It is hotter than the climate change itself," Dr Birol, the IEA's executive director, told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
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Black shadow over Christmas shopping
Dec 20, 2019 — 4.08pm
Retailers are cutting shifts for Christmas casuals, culling staff and bringing forward Boxing Day discounts in further signs that retail spending has fallen short of expectations after bumper Black Friday sales in November.
Department stores and specialty retailers have reduced hours for casual staff and given full-timers notice only days before Christmas, according to industry sources, after weaker than expected sales growth in December.
The Black Friday promotion on November 29 pulled sales forward, leading to "patchy" demand in December rather than the gradual build-up in spending in past years.
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Australia just survives decade of disruption
The Financial Review’s take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories.
Dec 20, 2019 — 5.34pm
Australians began this decade as optimists, and with good reason. While the rest of the world struggled with the global financial crisis, China’s renewed appetite for our raw materials made Australia more prosperous than ever. Australians were optimistic about technology, quickly taking up the dazzling capabilities of new smartphones, social media and digital entertainment.
We were optimistic about politics, still led by a Labor moderniser in Kevin Rudd, and only the fourth prime minister in almost three decades. We were optimistic about energy, with a new sunrise LNG export industry making us an energy superpower. Australians were optimistic about their big banks which, unlike those abroad, did not greedily pursue the dodgy financial engineering that blew up the global financial system. And we were optimistic about business in general: miners were corporate heroes who delivered the nation’s prosperity.
Nothing has happened in the 10 years since to stop Australians feeling positive about themselves and their nation. But it has also become the decade of disruption, complexity, and sheer unpredictability in its politics, economics and technology.
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How our climate policy aim strayed off the target
The best answer to climate dangers is a rational energy investment policy. But hysteria about bush fires is as unhelpful as head-in-the-sand denialism.
John Kehoe Senior Writer
Dec 20, 2019 — 4.30pm
When Australia experienced the devastating Black Saturday bushfires in 2009 that killed 173 Victorians, sensibly, nobody blamed the then prime minister Kevin Rudd for a climate change-induced tragedy.
Yet a decade later there is a hysterical pile on against Prime Minister Scott Morrison, blaming – or linking – his lack of serious climate change action for the smoke smouldering over Sydney and Canberra.
Blaming Morrison makes as much sense as attributing extreme European weather events on German car manufacturers for cheating on their vehicle emissions standards tests.
To be sure, the Coalition government has presided over a train wreck energy policy for the past six years, dismantling Labor’s more economically rationale and investment certain carbon price.
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The second coming of religious freedom: churches back 'significantly improved' bill
By Michael Koziol
December 22, 2019 — 12.00am
The Morrison government appears to have rescued its religious discrimination bill from disaster with major religious groups declaring they are pleased with revisions made in a second draft that will go to Parliament early next year.
The new bill offers extra concessions to religious charities, expanded powers for religious bodies to hire and fire staff and tighter rules around how courts can adjudicate questions of religion - all of which appeal to churches that had criticised the earlier bill.
Last month, several religious bodies signed a letter to Prime Minister Scott Morrison saying they preferred no action to the "flawed" bill on the table at that point. The coalition included the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney, the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, the Australian National Imams Council and the Greek Orthodox Church.
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‘Outside help vital’ to support firefighters amid crisis
Government leaders and firefighting authorities are putting a brave face on their ability to cope with searing temperatures and bushfires on a potentially “monster” scale over the peak summer season, but admit needing considerable outside help.
NSW Rural Fire Service commissioner Shane Fitzsimmons said he was “extremely confident” his service was equipped with personnel and resources to fight fires over the next few months that risked spreading beyond three main areas of the state currently ablaze.
A catastrophic fire danger warning has been issued for parts of NSW, including greater Sydney and the Illawarra on Saturday, the second such warning this fire season.
Mr Fitzsimmons said, however, that the intensity of the bushfire season already under way had prompted the decision to bring in more than 5000 firefighters from interstate and overseas to bolster the thousands of volunteer and paid workers battling blazes.
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How to export land and replace coal with chemistry
It’s been a tough couple of weeks for the climate change deniers in the government and the media, what with record high temperatures, Sydney being blanketed by smoke and Energy Minister Angus Taylor getting called out in Madrid for cheating.
Australia is now exposed as a key blocker of the next global agreement on emissions reduction, which will no doubt please those in the clubhouse back home but might make it awkward next time Scott Morrison wants to claim that Australia is doing its bit.
The Prime Minister started the year getting publicly shamed on climate change during a tour of the Pacific Islands in January and ended the year getting publicly shamed on the global stage at the UN Climate Change Conference in Madrid (COP25).
It’s a good thing, therefore, that he and the Energy Minister are perfectly shameless, although Taylor did utter one true statement in his speech at COP25, which is that “technology will be a key driver of the global transition to lower emissions”. He would have intended that as a distraction from the ridicule over Australia’s use of carry-over Kyoto credits to meet Paris commitments, but it also happens to be true.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Halcyon days of bank profits are over: RBA
Dec 16, 2019 — 2.56pm
The profitability of Australian banks has fallen by as much as one-third on a key measure since 2006, but technological change, tighter regulations, and climate change mean greater pressures lie ahead, the Reserve Bank said.
The fall in banks' return on equity to around 13 per cent in 2018 was more pronounced than the 20 per cent decline in their return on assets.
RBA head of financial stability Jonathan Kearns said the post-Global Financial Crisis strengthening of a "prudential regime that was already tighter than global minimum standards" had broadly reduced risk-taking.
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'Balanced' Hostplus fund's risky weighting exposed by APRA
Dec 16, 2019 — 6.03pm
There are calls for better consumer protection after Hostplus' "balanced" superannuation fund was exposed by the regulator as being heavily weighted to risky assets.
The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's heat map assesses Hostplus' flagship MySuper product as having a whopping 93 per cent allocation to growth assets.
This enables the $43 billion industry fund for hospitality workers to top the league tables given it is up against funds with growth asset allocations of between 60 to 80 per cent, although Hostplus insists the 93 per cent figure is "misleading".
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National Budget Issues.
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Slowing economy wipes $22b from budget
Dec 16, 2019 — 9.38am
Almost $22 billion has been wiped from the forecast budget surpluses for this and the next three financial years due to revenues plummeting by almost $33 billion on the back of a slowing economy.
The mid-year budget update reveals growth forecasts for wages and the economy have also been drastically downgraded, as has consumption, which creates a major headache for the states.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg put a positive spin on the result saying it still showed the economy was expected to grow faster than any nation in the G7.
"The Australian economy's remarkable resilience has occurred in the face of strong global and domestic economic headwinds," the treasurer said.
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Treasurer Josh Frydenberg cuts budget surplus by $2 billion
By Eryk Bagshaw and Shane Wright
December 16, 2019 — 10.25am
The Morrison government has abandoned its goal of eliminating net debt by the end of the next decade, as growing economic headwinds force it to slice $2 billion off this year's forecast surplus.
Treasury has also cut its employment forecasts, predicting jobs growth would "moderate" over the coming years.
The economy will now not hit Treasury's forecast of the natural rate of unemployment of five per cent until 2021-2022, pushing any predicted return to normal levels of wage growth of above three per cent out until 2022.
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MYEFO: Forecast budget surplus slashed by $2bn
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has revised down the next four years of projected budget surpluses as a slowing economy wipes $22 billion from the government’s May forecast. The
December 16, 2019
Josh Frydenberg’s forecast budget surplus has been slashed by more than $2bn this financial year following a significant revenue writedown of $32.6bn over the next four years.
Wages growth is expected to flatline at 2.5 per cent this year and next financial year, despite forecasts before the election indicating it would reach as high as 3.25 per cent.
The slower wages growth follows a warning from the Reserve Bank that lower wage rises have become the new normal.
The government is on track to remain in the black over the next four years despite a $30 billion dollar drop in revenue since the 2019 post-budget pre-election outlook. The m...
The Treasurer blamed the revenue shortfall on downgrades to superannuation fund taxes, the GST and forecasts to individual and company tax receipts.
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MYEFO: A tiny surplus and some sobering reading
As we approach the end of a long economic expansion, the best the government can forecast is a tiny, shrinking surplus of $5bn – a rounding error given expenditure of around $500bn a year.
After 28 years of economic expansion at home (how could you forget that!) and the longest US economic expansion since the Second World War, you might have thought our government in Canberra might have done better than dribble out a few tiny surpluses – in prospect.
In fact, on a different measure of budget balance – the “headline cash balance” – one that factors in spending on the NBN and other government owned corporations, the government budget will remain in deficit in each of the next four years. That’s why the stock of federal debt, for all the talk of paying it down, is projected to keep rising, from $556bn to $576bn by the end of 2024.
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The budget is better than it looks
The budget update fails to factor in a raft of good news; the US-China trade deal, Boris Johnson’s decisive “Brexit” win, and an iron ore price 50 per cent higher than forecast. And there's a very good reason for that.
Dec 16, 2019 — 11.55am
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s conservative mid-year budget update leaves open future “upside” surprises because it does not factor in very recent positive international economic developments.
That news includes the US-China trade truce, Boris Johnson’s decisive “Brexit” election victory over the brazenly left-wing Jeremy Corbyn and the iron ore price sitting more than 50 per cent above forecast.
On the flip side, the downside risks the government will be sweating on are domestic – sluggish wage growth and soft consumer spending.
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Fiscal discipline is here to stay
Dec 17, 2019 — 12.00am
The mid-year economic and fiscal update (MYEFO) released yesterday demonstrates that Australians can be confident about their economic future.
We have the first current account surplus in 40 years, the lowest welfare dependency in 30 years, the biggest tax cuts in 20 years, and the budget is in balance for the first time in 11 years.
Since the Coalition has been in government, more than 1.4 million new jobs have been created, the majority of which have been full-time.
In the last quarter, household disposable incomes have seen their fastest increase in a decade as a result of tax cuts.
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Don't bank on actually seeing the promised budget surpluses
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
December 20, 2019 — 11.58pm
This week’s mid-year budget update has changed the fiscal outlook markedly. It’s now a lot clearer that neither in this financial year nor those following is a budget surplus assured.
Whether he knows it or not, by staking so much of his political and economic credibility on getting back to surpluses, Scott Morrison has taken an enormous gamble. When the reality of this “courageous decision, minister” finally gets through to him, I won’t be surprised to see him perform a backflip to go down in history.
Since the election of the Coalition in 2013, there’s been a great debate about the causes of our economy’s continuing sub-par performance. While some economists have argued its roots lie mainly in changes to the structure of the economy (and thus lasting), the econocrats have insisted the causes are cyclical and thus temporary.
So, until now, Treasury and the Reserve Bank have gone on, budget update after budget after budget update, predicting that, although the latest indicators show the economy remaining sub-par, it will soon return to the trend growth we were used to before the global financial crisis.
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Health Issues.
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Smoke returns as doctors warn of 'health emergency'
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.10am
Firefighters are bracing for deteriorating conditions this week as a heat wave passes over the country, at the same time as leading medical groups warn Sydney's smoke haze is a "public health emergency".
There were 60 uncontained fires burning across NSW over the weekend, and more than 100 fires are burning across the state.
Soaring temperatures across NSW, which are expected reach the high 40s in western areas and high 30s in Sydney by Thursday, mean there is no relief in sight for fire crews.
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No safe level: pollution labelled a public health emergency
By Jenny Noyes
December 16, 2019 — 12.00am
A joint statement signed by 22 organisations has labelled Sydney's poor air quality a "public health emergency" that requires urgent government action, as NSW braces for more smoke and a looming heatwave.
Released by the Climate and Health Alliance on Monday, with signatures from the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, Australasian College of Emergency Medicine, Public Health Association of Australia and 19 other organisations, the statement said "there is no safe level of air pollution".
Hazardous pollution levels are linked to "premature births, low birth weight babies, impaired lung development in children, asthma, heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer," the statement said.
It urges NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to show leadership and "implement measures to help alleviate the health and climate crisis" – including the development of a national strategy on climate and health.
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Bushfire smoke is changing our way of life
By Dr Bob Vickers
December 10, 2019 — 1.26pm
As our community continues to choke through the smoke that has turned our towns into a sepia-toned dystopia, we are all holding our breath for more dangerous weather to come. We are losing count of the number of smoke-filled days we have endured this year, but one thing is certain: the health costs of our bushfire crisis are adding up.
The biggest threat of all is the fine particulates found in bushfire smoke, known as PM 2.5.
These fine particulates are small enough to enter the deepest parts of our lungs and our bloodstream. In the short term, they can cause burning eyes, throat irritation and other upper airway irritation symptoms.
All fires are ‘advice’ level but dangerous weather forecast today.
Once they enter the blood stream, the long-term effects of fine particle pollution include increases in heart disease, kidney disease, stroke, low birth weight babies, miscarriage, stillbirth, type 2 diabetes, Parkinson's disease, urinary tract infections and sepsis.
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suffrage.
MYEFO: Aged-care package to receive $87m boost
The Morrison government’s aged-care package announced in response to the royal commission’s scathing interim report has received an $87m boost, but a peak lobby group says the risk of emergencies in the sector still “looms large” in 2020.
The mid-year budget update shows the government will provide $623.9m over four years to reform aged care, up from the $537m announced last month, with new funding largely due to administrative costs.
An assessment framework for those who need to access aged-care services will cost $31.5m over three years as it comes online from April 2021, while the operating costs to support the My Aged Care system will be $21.9m in the current financial year.
The Department of Health and Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission will receive $13.6m over two years to respond to requests from the royal commission, which found the system was in a shocking state of neglect that diminished Australia.
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Out-of-pocket specialist costs spike at triple the rate of inflation
By Dana McCauley
December 17, 2019 — 10.00pm
Australians are spending an average $83 to see a medical specialist after out-of-pocket costs increased at more than triple the rate of inflation in six years.
Health department data provided to Senate estimates in response to questions on notice shows the average out-of-pocket fee for non-bulk billed specialist visits increased from $56.80 in 2012-13 to $83.07 in 2018-19 – up 46 per cent, compared with a 14.3 per cent rise in the consumer price index.
Grattan Institute health economist Stephen Duckett said the fact large increases were seen across every electorate – with the smallest increase 35.2 per cent – showed the problem of specialists inflating their fees was not restricted to a few "rogue" doctors.
"It's across the board, so it can't possibly be just a small number," Dr Duckett said.
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How the decade's biggest health breakthrough saved a US president
Little understood only 10 years ago, immunotherapy is having a "penicillin moment" and fundamentally changing the way cancer is managed.
Dec 21, 2019 — 12.15am
In the past decade there has been a seismic shift in the treatment of cancer. Although only relatively few people have benefited so far, it has changed thinking and expectations for the future are high.
Traditionally, cancer has been treated with surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. The new treatment is completely different.
Rather than attacking the cancer, it boosts the body’s natural defence system – the immune system – so it can kill the cancer itself.
It’s called immunotherapy and a decade ago, it had almost no public profile.
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International Issues.
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Boris Johnson’s chance to forge a new role for Britain
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.00am
London |Tony Blair likes to tell a story about his first day as prime minister in 1997. He swept into Downing Street on a wave of cheers, only to be greeted by the head of the civil service, who said brusquely — “Congratulations, Prime Minister. Now what?”
Boris Johnson will face a similar question as he returns to Number 10, after the most sweeping general election victory since Blair’s in 2001. If he wants to go down as a great prime minister, he will have to create a new political settlement for Britain abroad — as well as at home.
Johnson won on the basis of a slogan rather than a program. But “Get Brexit Done” will only get him to the end of January, and Britain’s formal exit from the European Union. Then the real questions about Britain’s role will begin. The country’s international future will hang on whether Johnson and his advisers can come up with plausible answers.
There is a gloomy version of how this story unfolds. In this telling, “Get Brexit Done” will be swiftly revealed as an empty phrase. In reality, it will take many years to negotiate a trade deal — during which Britain’s economy will suffer from uncertainty and lack of investment.
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The Tories won because progressives fail pub test
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.00am
It’s a relief, to say the least, that Jeremy Corbyn and his brand of far-left socialism has been rejected by the British public. British Labour’s program was redolent of the populist programs so favoured by the South American left: huge un-costed splurges of public money on anything and everything the public wants: free health, free tertiary education, free broadband, cheaper government run trains, cheaper state run water, cheaper this and that. And so the list went on.
Labour only fell slightly short of offering free holidays to Spain or Greece but they came close to it: they promised to reduce the working week to four days. The bill for all this? About $150 billion a year.
They’re exactly the policies which destroyed Argentina in the 1950s and from which it has never fully recovered. The trouble with political parties promising to pay for everything is it can’t be done. Eventually a government can’t tax and borrow any more. It’s happened in South America but it also happened in recent years in Greece. And then everyone suffers.
In Australia we don’t need to worry about these sorts of policies. Only the Greens think they make any sense and they seem doomed to remain a minor party.
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What Trump's opponents should learn from Johnson's victory
US Democrats should take heed of Boris Johnson's UK election victory. Donald Trump is a formidable incumbent and to oppose him with socialist candidates and progressive primal screams is to ensure his reelection.
Dec 16, 2019 — 12.00am
When Britain flummoxed and flabbergasted the world by voting in 2016 to leave the European Union, it seemed like a one-off: An unexpected gamble by a normally prudent country, but nothing that signified a profound shift beyond the United Kingdom and Europe.
Donald Trump's election a few months later proved otherwise. Brexit was a portent, not a fluke. The British electorate may have been incautious, but it was ahead of the trend.
The desire, however misplaced or ugly, to "take back" control of a country from supercilious political elites was a global phenomenon, not a local event.
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Four implications of Boris Johnson’s victory
Boris Johnson can claim to have broken a vicious cycle, but his reshaped Conservative Party will have its work cut out to hold the UK together.
Dec 15, 2019 — 3.13pm
London | The significance of the Conservative Party’s triumph in the UK’s general election is fourfold.
First, the UK will have to find a new place on the international stage outside the EU, which it will leave by the end of next month at the latest. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s task will be complicated by increasing tensions in the US-European security and economic relationship, rising Great Power rivalries around the globe and an eroding post-1945 world order.
Second, pressures on the UK’s unity will pile up. Scottish Nationalists, buoyed by their overwhelming victory in Scotland, will redouble their efforts to gain independence.
Already precarious power-sharing arrangements in Northern Ireland will come under more strain because of the advance of nationalist political forces in this election at the expense of unionism.
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Police fire tear gas as protests continue over Indian citizenship law
By Adnan Abidi and Devjyot Ghoshal
New Delhi: Indian police fired tear gas and resorted to baton charges to disperse thousands of demonstrators who torched vehicles in New Delhi on Sunday.
A new citizenship law enacted on December 11 has stirred protests across India, with violent demonstrations ongoing in the capital since Friday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government says the new law will save religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians from persecution in neighbouring Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan by offering them a path to Indian citizenship. But critics say the law, which does not make the same provision for Muslims, weakens India's secular foundations.
On Sunday, protesters in South Delhi, including locals and some students, torched buses and cars.
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A new kind of conservatism
Boris Johnson and Donald Trump’s populist policies have swept
away the Thatcher-Reagan model.
away the Thatcher-Reagan model.
By Stephen Fidler, Gerald F. Seib
· From The Wall Street Journal
December 15, 2019
Boris Johnson’s big election victory last week drove another nail into the coffin of the brand of conservative politics Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher first rode to power four decades ago.
As Johnson’s decisive win in a hotly contested British general election illustrates, the conservative movement in the West now has become markedly more populist and nationalist, and appeals to a distinctly more working-class constituency.
Fiscal restraint, once a cardinal tenet of conservatism, matters less than it did; rewriting the rules that have governed the global economy matters more.
For now, that approach is working similarly on both sides of the Atlantic. Johnson prevailed by using a playbook similar to the one that delivered the White House to US President Donald Trump three years ago.
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Climate talks end with few commitments and ‘lost’ opportunity
Somini Sengupta
Dec 16, 2019 — 11.58am
Madrid | In what was widely denounced as one of the worst outcomes in a quarter century of climate negotiations, United Nations talks ended early Sunday morning (Monday AEDT) with the United States and other big polluters blocking even a non-binding measure encouraging countries to enhance their climate targets next year.
Because the US is withdrawing from the Paris climate agreement, it was the last chance, at least for some time, for American delegates to sit at the negotiating table at the annual talks. They also used that chance to push back against a compensation mechanism, long-sought by developing nations, for the economic losses poor countries suffer from droughts, storms and slow-moving climate effects like sea level rise.
The annual negotiations, held in Madrid this year, demonstrated the vast gaps between what scientists say the world needs and what the world's most powerful leaders are prepared to even discuss, let alone do.
"Most of the large emitters were missing in action or obstructive," said Helen Mountford, a vice president at World Resources Institute. "This reflects how disconnected many national leaders are from the urgency of the science and the demands of their citizens."
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Donald Trump has changed the way the world operates
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
December 16, 2019 — 12.40pm
A tentative trade deal between the US and China, Brexit, the signing of new US trade deals with Canada and Mexico and the neutering of the World Trade Organisation by the US have effectively ended the post-war era of multilateralism in global trade.
On Friday the US and China announced a "Phase One" deal on trade that will see proposed tariffs on $US160 billion ($233 billion) of China’s exports to the US abandoned and the rate of the tariffs on another $US120 billion halved in exchange mainly for a commitment from China to buy a lot of US agricultural products.
At the weekend, Boris Johnson’s triumph in the UK elections means Brexit is almost certain to occur in January. A new trade agreement will need to be negotiated with the European Union, along with bi-lateral deals with the US, Australia, India and others.
Last week, after two years where the US vetoed new appointments to the World Trade Organisation, the WTO’s Appellate Body, which judges appeals of WTO decisions, is down to only one judge and therefore no longer has a quorum to make decisions on trade disputes. The WTO is now toothless and irrelevant.
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Impeachment probe leads to explosion of false claims from Trump
Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly
Dec 17, 2019 — 4.39am
Washington | In 2017, President Donald Trump made nearly 1999 false or misleading claims. In 2018, he added another 5689, for a total of 7688.
Now, with a few weeks still left in 2019, the President already has more than doubled the total number of false or misleading claims in just a single year.
As of December 10, his 1055th day in office, Trump had made 15,413 false or misleading claims, according to the Fact Checker's database that analyses, categorises and tracks every suspect statement he has uttered. That's an average of more than 32 claims a day since our last update 62 days ago.
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Right-wing populists look poised to keep winning
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
December 17, 2019 — 12.00am
Donald Trump invited widespread ridicule during his 2016 election campaign when he promised not only victory, but something more – winning to the point of nausea. "We’re going to win so much, you’re going to be so sick and tired of winning, you’re going to come to me and go, ‘Please, please, we can’t win any more'," he told a rally.
They're not laughing at him now. The right-wing populists are indeed winning. They are reshaping the Anglo-American world in their own image. They're not sick with their own success. But they are developing a taste for it.
The Conservative Party have won the UK election 326 seats out of 650 in the House of Commons.
The leaders of the new Anglo-American political reality, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson, were not right-wing populists to begin with. They are both shrewd opportunists who have found a popular wave and ridden it to high office. It so happens to be the same wave in the US and Britain.
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It’s simple: Conservatives gave the people what they wanted
Boris Johnson’s sweeping victory was a win for democratic principles, fulfilling the historic referendum where the British people voted emphatically to leave the EU. But it was a loss for economic principles, reflecting the demise of the dismal science in political platforms.
In the 1980s, free-market icon Margaret Thatcher famously threw down on the table Friedrich Hayek’s mammoth homage to individualism, The Constitution of Liberty, declaring to cowed journalists “this is what we believe”. Across the Atlantic, president Ronald Reagan echoed the same ideas, in a more homespun fashion. In Australia and New Zealand Paul Keating and Roger Douglas, treasurers of centre-left administrations, espoused deregulation and a smaller state as a way out of the Keynesian economics that had left the West mired in inflation and unemployment.
“It’s the economy, stupid,” became the mantra of political strategists the world over, but it is increasingly values, not “the economy”, that determine elections.
Mainstream economics had triumphed across the political spectrum; its influence is dying, humiliated by the global financial crisis and repeated failures since to forecast, explain and remedy wage stagnation amid soaring house prices that have priced a generation out of home ownership.
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China's Xi vows support for HK leader
· Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping has met Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam in Beijing, saying he recognises her courage to govern the Asian financial hub in these "most difficult" times.
"The situation in Hong Kong in 2019 was the most complex and difficult since its return to the motherland," Xi told local media in brief comments before the closed door session on Monday.
Lam's meetings come after Hong Kong police fired tear gas in late night street clashes with anti-government protesters on Sunday, as the former British colony's worst political crisis in decades drags on into a seventh month.
Hong Kong media have speculated that Lam's talks with Xi could yield fresh directives on the city's political crisis, including a possible cabinet reshuffle.
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Why Xi Jinping has had a very good year
China's leader has shrugged off a trade war and an uprising in Hong Kong, and confounded Australia's establishment security hawks.
Dec 17, 2019 — 3.36pm
In one of the most turbulent years in recent times, President Xi Jinping will reflect with some satisfaction on a year of adroit statecraft. At a time of stuttering global economic performance, trade wars, political turbulence in Western democracies, strains on alliances, and violent international protests, including in Hong Kong, China ends the year more prosperous, confident, and secure than when 2019 began.
While China’s rate of economic growth is slowing with the impact of the US trade war and debt deleveraging, it is still in the order of 6 per cent per annum. In a slowing world economy, it remains one of the fastest growing major economies and well above India’s.
China’s official growth numbers may be far from forensically accurate, but it is China’s economic growth that is underpinning continued strong commodity prices from which Australia’s own rate of growth and fiscal consolidation are being supported. This is particularly so with iron ore, notwithstanding the benefit from Vale’s tailings dam disasters.
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Trump unleashes impeachment-eve tirade, takes 'zero' responsibility
Dec 18, 2019 — 8.09am
Washington | President Donald Trump has sent an enraged six-page letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemning his looming impeachment as worse than the Salem witch trials, a "perversion of justice" and an assault on democracy.
"You are the ones interfering in America's elections. You are the ones subverting America's Democracy ... you are the ones bringing pain and suffering to our Republic for your own selfish personal, political, and partisan gain," Mr Trump wrote.
Sent on the eve of becoming only the third President in US history to be impeached, Mr Trump said he wrote the letter "for the purpose of history". "One hundred years from now, when people look back at this affair, I want them to understand it and learn from it, so that it can never happen to another President again."
The letter has no hope of changing tomorrow's impeachment vote – which is expected to run along, or close to, party lines. But it sets the scene for how Mr Trump will use the political humiliation of impeachment for his own political gain.
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The people who lost the election for British Labour hate the working class
Chris Uhlmann
Nine News Political Editor
December 18, 2019 — 12.10am
Whatever happened to “Bregret”? Obsessive followers of the saga of Britain's attempt to extract itself from the European Union will recall this term was coined to describe the feelings of those poor dumb, mostly working-class, sods who had naively voted Leave and were now wracked with remorse.
There were, we were assured, droves of them who would swing decisively behind Remain at a second referendum, if just given the chance to repent.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised to make a trade deal with Australia one of his top priorities.
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China's new aircraft carrier in service
· Reuters
China has commissioned its first domestically built aircraft carrier into service at a key base on the shores of the disputed South China Sea, in another big step in the country's ambitious military modernisation.
Little is known about China's aircraft carrier program, which is a state secret.
But the government has said the new carrier's design draws on experiences from the country's first carrier, the Liaoning, which was bought second-hand from Ukraine in 1998 and refitted in China.
President Xi Jinping is overseeing a sweeping plan to refurbish the armed forces by developing everything from stealth jets to anti-satellite missiles, as China ramps up its presence in the South China Sea and around self-ruled Taiwan.
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Trump hits back as impeachment ensures bitter 2020 campaign
Dec 19, 2019 — 8.05am
Washington | An enraged and defiant Donald Trump lashed out at his Democratic tormentors after they made him the third President in US history to be be impeached –setting the scene for a bitterly rancorous 2020 election that will determine the limits of White House power and accountability.
Sentenced by the House of Representatives to stand trial in the Senate on two articles of impeachment – one for abusing the powers of his office and one for obstructing Congress – Mr Trump's historic rebuke reinforced a deep political chasm that runs through America.
Weighed down by history, Democrats struck a sombre tone of determination to throw Mr Trump from office for attempting to bribe a foreign leader into acting against a leading Democratic presidential candidate, while Republicans slammed impeachment as an unfounded coup to remove a democratically elected President from office.
Even as the final votes were being tallied late on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) on Capitol Hill, Mr Trump took to a Make America Great stage in a battleground state to unleash an extraordinary two-hour tirade against his enemies.
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In search of liberal nationalism
UK prime minister Boris Johnson has a chance to demonstrate that liberal nationalism need not be an oxymoron.
Dec 20, 2019 — 12.00am
Last summer, I had a thought-provoking conversation in Moscow with Fyodor Lukyanov, the editor of the journal Russia In Global Affairs. He mentioned that Boris Johnson, the UK prime minister, had argued for a “liberal Brexit”, then laughed loudly.
Viewed from Russia, the idea that Brexit is anything other than a savage blow to the liberal cause evidently seemed absurd.
The question of whether Johnson and the Brexiters can, in any way, claim to be “liberal” is of more than academic interest. As Mr Lukyanov’s reaction suggested, it has international significance.
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The world's oldest central bank says enough is enough on negative rates
By Mohamed A. El-Erian
December 20, 2019 — 10.11am
Most economists and market participants don't usually spend much time looking at Swedish monetary policy. Today should be different given the decision by the Riksbank - the country's central bank and the world's oldest - to part ways with its peers in advanced countries by raising interest rates because of worries about the collateral damage and unintended consequences of an ultra-low regime.
By raising its main repo rate 25 basis points, Sweden exited a negative rate paradigm that had been in place for five years. The action came after officials there publicly expressed concerns that persistent negative yields distort the behavior of households and companies adversely.
This is a big policy move for Sweden, especially so because it faces what economists call "small country" conditions - that is, it's too small to directly impact other economies or to resist spillovers from the actions of larger economies.
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Boris Johnson eyes Australia in biggest overhaul of foreign policy 'since the Cold War'
By Bevan Shields
December 20, 2019 — 12.23am
London: The United Kingdom could copy elements of Australia's foreign interference and espionage laws as it moves to counter covert operations by an increasingly aggressive Russia and China.
Pledging to embark on the most "radical reassessment of our place in the world since the end of the Cold War", Prime Minister Boris Johnson used the ceremonial opening of parliament to announce he will lead a major review of British foreign policy, and foreshadow a crackdown on foreign agents and covert meddling.
The Queen formally reopens Britain's parliament, setting out the government's legislative agenda with Brexit and the NHS the top priorities.
The government has commissioned a review of the Official Secrets Act and will also consider updating treason laws to criminalise "harmful activity conducted by and on behalf of other states".
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Boris Johnson's Brexit bill sails through key Westminster vote
By Bevan Shields
December 21, 2019 — 1.44am
London: Prime Minister Boris Johnson insists he can seal a major new trade and security deal with the European Union in less than a year after the United Kingdom started the final countdown to Brexit.
The new-look British parliament passed Johnson's Brexit withdrawal bill on Friday, which guarantees the country's formal departure from the EU by the end of January.
Boris Johnson is preparing to put forward new legislation to strengthen his Brexit deal.
The existing economic, customs and migration relationship between the UK and EU will remain in place for one more year while both parties thrash out a new trading and security pact.
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Narendra Modi citizenship reforms jolted by protesters
· AFP
Fresh clashes between Indian police and demonstrators erupted on Friday after more than a week of deadly unrest triggered by a citizenship law seen as anti-Muslim.
Three protesters were shot dead on Thursday, taking the death toll to nine in the wave of anger that is emerging as a major challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The law making it easier for persecuted minorities from three neighbouring countries to get citizenship but not if they are Muslims has stoked fears that Mr Modi wants to remould India as a Hindu nation, which he denies.
Tens of thousands on Thursday hit the streets nationwide, with violence erupting in several places including Lucknow in the north, Mangalore in the south and Mr Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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