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We are now that 8 weeks out from the US election so we are really getting into the period of decision and anxiety. This is rising a huge fires burn the west of the country and the COVID epidemic rages on while the US goes deeper into recession / depression and deeper into all sorts of divisions.
It is a sad and very worrying time!
In the UK we see the progress of Brexit being chaotic (and possibly illegal) while the Government seems to be slowly loosing control of the pandemic.
In Australia the Victorian pandemic is coming very slowly under control while the political controversy on what is happening is fomenting division, controversy and anger. The national Budget is due in the next month – amid the greatest uncertainty in living memory. The Australian / Chinese relationship continues to spiral down in an uncontrolled fashion to the worry of most. We are living in ‘interesting’ times!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/beware-the-illiberalism-marching-back-into-history-20200903-p55s7n
Beware the illiberalism marching back into history
Unless Western societies hold their ground against intolerance, populism and authoritarianism, the COVID-19 crisis could mark a pivotal turning point away from liberal democracy.
Alexander Downer Columnist
Sep 6, 2020 – 1.48pm
If you want to understand the current turmoil in the world, it pays to understand history. The best politicians are people who understand and have a sense of history. So are the best business leaders.
So the question is this: are we at one of those pivotal points in history when the status quo is dramatically changing, or is this just a bumpy ride along a well-worn path? It is at least arguable that this is indeed a pivotal point in history.
Let me explain why.
The last great pivotal point in history was the end of the Cold War 30 years ago. This was, in effect, the triumph of Western liberalism over the alternative communist model. It was assumed that the notions of liberalism would as a result spread throughout the world.
Concepts such as liberal democracy, the Western understanding of civil liberties and human rights, competitive markets, relatively free trade, and governance both domestically and internationally through the rule of law, were expected to be applied not just throughout the developed world and the former communist states of eastern Europe, but well beyond.
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Lingering scars of virus generation may haunt world economy
Anyone with a parent or grandparent who lived through the Great Depression knows the frugal habits such an experience can leave behind.
Kenneth Rogoff Columnist
Sep 7, 2020 – 12.42pm
The next few months will tell us a lot about the shape of the coming global recovery. Despite ebullient sharemarkets, uncertainty about COVID-19 remains pervasive. Regardless of the pandemic’s course, therefore, the world’s struggle with the virus so far is likely to affect growth, employment, and politics for a very long time.
Let’s start with the possible good news. In an optimistic scenario, regulators will have approved at least two leading first-generation COVID-19 vaccines by the end of this year. Thanks to extraordinary government regulatory and financial support, these vaccines are going into production even before the conclusion of human clinical trials.
Assuming they are effective, biotech firms will already have some 200 million doses on hand by the end of 2020, and will be on track to produce billions more. Distributing them will be a huge undertaking in itself, in part because the public will need to be convinced that a fast-tracked vaccine is safe.
With luck, rich-country citizens who want the vaccine will have received it by the end of 2021. In China, virtually everyone will have been vaccinated by then. A couple of years after that, so will the bulk of the world’s population, including those living in emerging and developing economies.
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How total return can help with retirement income
As significantly reduced dividends hit SMSF bank accounts, there is a sense of nervousness as to how members will meet their minimum pension payments without dipping into their capital.
Ben Smythe Contributor
Sep 7, 2020 – 12.00am
For a long time it was argued that a “blue chip” Australian shares portfolio supported by some term deposits was all a self-managed superannuation fund member needed when drawing an income stream.
The dividend stream from the shares was reasonably consistent and predictable each year, and generally matched the minimum annual pension drawdown in the years after retirement when factoring in the value of the franking credits. Diversification was also covered by including some companies that derived a reasonable portion of their revenue offshore.
Lower-yielding bonds and international shares, as well as Australian shares with low or no dividend yields, can add meaningful diversification. Simon Letch
As significantly reduced dividends now hit SMSF bank accounts, there is a sense of nervousness as to how members will meet their minimum pension payments this year without dipping into their capital. How did we end up in this position of focusing on income returns in isolation rather than the total return of an investment portfolio?
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/geelong-refinery-doomed-without-govt-aid-20200907-p55szo
Geelong refinery 'doomed without handout'
Angela Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Sep 7, 2020 – 8.58am
The threatened shutdown of Geelong oil refinery would mean a critical loss of fuel security for the country and trigger a domino-style collapse of Victorian manufacturing, said Viva Energy chief executive Scott Wyatt, advising that only a government support package can now save the loss-making plant.
Mr Wyatt said the shutdown of one of Australia's four remaining oil refineries, which have all been hit by fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, would have serious implications, both nationally and for the state.
"This is not just a national crisis, it's a state crisis that needs to be addressed," he told The Australian Financial Review. after Viva flagged a possible shutdown of the 120,000 barrels-a-day plant due to "extreme pressures" on refining worsened by Victoria's lockdown restrictions.
The federal government is already considering aid measures for the plant, which supports 700 jobs. But Mr Wyatt said action was also needed from the Victorian government, which has been slow to address shipping and energy cost disadvantages that left the Geelong plant uncompetitive even against domestic peers.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/closer-to-midnight-peter-morgan-s-market-warning-20200908-p55th2
‘Closer to midnight’: Peter Morgan’s market warning
Veteran stock picker Peter Morgan says US markets are running on news rather than fundamentals. In Australia, it's the unwinding of stimulus that most worries him.
Updated Sep 8, 2020 – 2.16pm, first published at 11.20am
Legendary value investor Peter Morgan says the unwinding of pandemic stimulus measures in Australia and across the world is yet to play itself out, and has warned that the US sharemarket has entered a danger period of trading more on bits of news than fundamentals.
Morgan, who helped transform Perpetual from a $70 million minnow to a $7 billion giant during the 1990s before going on to establish the $9 billion fund manager 452 Capital, told a podcast hosted by Louise Walsh, CEO of listed investment company manager Future Generation, that big jumps in individual stocks on US markets underscored the volatility.
Watching stocks such as Apple, Tesla and even Walmart leap by tens of billions of dollars in single sessions in the last few months has only heightened Morgan’s caution on US shares.
“A lot of the market seems to be trading on news and not fundamentals. Which is a dangerous sign,” he says.
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Victorian modeller pushed elimination strategy
Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent
Sep 8, 2020 – 3.13pm
Tony Blakely is having a good pandemic.
The professorial fellow at Melbourne University's School of Population and Global Health has become one of the go-to epidemiologists for the media trying to explain the complex interactions between disease, health economics and civil liberties.
As a co-author of the modelling used by the Victorian government to prolong the lockdown of Melbourne, he has made an important behind-the-scenes contribution too.
But the tough conditions set by Premier Daniel Andrews to end restrictions, which require no detected cases in the state for 28 days, raise questions about whether Blakely is behind an undeclared strategy to wipe out COVID-19 in the state, which other scientists don't believe is possible and federal government officials say is too disruptive.
While the Victorian government describes its approach as "aggressive suppression", Blakely is one of the state's leading advocates for elimination.
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University exodus ‘will strip critical research areas’
Group of Eight universities have warned that nearly 10,000 of their elite researchers in national priority areas are likely to leave for overseas, decimating Australia’s high-level research capacity, unless the federal government refocuses its limited research spending on high-quality projects.
In a paper due to be released on Wednesday, the Go8 urges the government to respond to the research funding crisis in the coming federal budget by “supporting excellent research at scale to maximise benefit to the nation”.
The Go8 universities say they expect to suffer a $2.2bn revenue reduction this year due to the COVID-19 travel ban keeping out international students, and this money is no longer available for its main intended use of supporting high-quality research projects.
The paper, Enabling Australia’s Economic Recovery, also says fixed-term employment contracts for more than 4000 researchers in Go8 universities will expire between December and March, and universities have very little ability to re-employ them.
It proposes a new government fund “to support and concentrate investment in research excellence as a way to drive the best value for the nation from a taxpayer contribution and boost sovereign capability”.
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There's no spark of economic revival in this energy policy
Talk of a gas-led recovery or a renewables-led recovery is just likely to compound the existing energy mess.
Tony Wood Contributor
Sep 9, 2020 – 12.25pm
Last week, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the national cabinet's energy reform committee would progress critical reform of the energy system as a key component of Australia's economic recovery.
There is little doubt that governments, working across the economy need to drive such a recovery. In the same week, The AFR View described Australia’s energy system as a costly mess. Yet the immediate actions identified for the committee provide scant comfort they will effectively or efficiently contribute to either an economic recovery, or a fix of the wider energy mess.
The plan's first action is to develop “immediate measures to ensure reliability and security of the electricity grid ahead of the 2020-21 summer”.
Yet, the electricity energy market operator AEMO, in its latest outlook of supply adequacy, sees no impending reliability problem for the coming summer. This conclusion holds even with the more stringent interim reliability standard recently imposed by energy ministers.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/who-can-win-the-politics-of-humiliation-20200909-p55tzl
Who can win the politics of humiliation?
Loss of dignity is the most powerful unrecognised force in politics and international relations.
Thomas Friedman Contributor
Sep 9, 2020 – 5.12pm
About four years ago, without asking anybody, I changed my job description. It used to be "New York Times foreign affairs columnist". Instead, I started calling myself the "New York Times humiliation and dignity columnist". I even included it on my business card.
It had become so obvious to me that so much of what I'd been doing since I became a journalist in 1978 was reporting or opining about people, leaders, refugees, terrorists and nation-states acting out on their feelings of humiliation and questing for dignity — the two most powerful human emotions.
I raise this now because the success of Joe Biden's campaign against Donald Trump may ride on his ability to speak to the sense of humiliation and quest for dignity of many Trump supporters, which Hillary Clinton failed to do.
It has been obvious ever since Trump first ran for president that many of his core supporters actually hate the people who hate Trump, more than they care about Trump or any particular action he takes, no matter how awful.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/china-crisis-is-situation-normal-20200909-p55tyx
China crisis is situation normal
Chinese media say Australian outrage at interrogation of correspondents is hypocritical after ASIO did the same to Chinese journalists in Australia. It's just the latest chapter in a diplomatic horror story.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Sep 9, 2020 – 4.35pm
Australian businesses can only hope the Morrison government has not kicked another own goal in its management of an icy diplomatic relationship with China. Official silence from Canberra does not inspire confidence.
China’s response to Australian outrage about its journalists being threatened was immediate – and, in public relations terms at least, effective.
News stories in China’s media report ASIO conducted dawn raids on the homes of Chinese journalists in Sydney in late June, including seizing computers and holding protracted interrogations. Under the ASIO act, this could not have occurred without ministerial approval.
It won’t just be China’s hyper-nationalist publication, Global Times, using this example to denounce Australia's hypocrisy in upholding so-called "freedom of the press”. Nor can there be much relief in the usual Canberra rationale that Chinese journalists, unlike Australian media, can never be considered independent of government.
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A tit for tat with no end point
A get-tough policy on China with no apparent goal has left Australia as the only developed country with no media representation in the country.
Geoff Raby Columnist
Sep 9, 2020 – 5.34pm
As Australia descends further into a costly and increasingly futile tit-for-tat fight with China, one is reminded of the Black Knight in the 1975 Arthurian spoof Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Having lost all his limbs in a sword fight and with blood spurting from his wounds, the torso of the Black Knight shouts to the departing King Arthur: "Chicken! ... Come back here and take what's coming to you."
The slapstick, Keystone Cops-like episode of the withdrawal of two Australian journalists is the latest round. What appears to be co-ordinated, deliberately clumsy appearances by police at the journalists’ respective apartments in Beijing and Shanghai bear no resemblance to the stealthy, well-honed skills of the security agencies that "disappeared" Australian news anchor Cheng Lei.
In Cheng’s case it was at least 48 hours before friends began noticing that she had dropped out of WeChat. It was sometime later that the Australian embassy, which had begun making inquiries, was advised of her detention. The seriousness of her situation is underlined by the secrecy of how authorities have and continue to deal with her case. But more on Cheng Lei later.
Turning up uninvited at midnight at a farewell party for one of the journalists is hardly the way politically sensitive arrests are made in China, especially when an audience of potential witnesses is present. Nor is requesting the "person of interest" to provide the police with a telephone number, or permitting them to escape to an Australian diplomatic mission. China is a surveillance state.
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Foreign policy white paper needs an update, says lead author
It's time for a clear-eyed appraisal of Canberra's relationship with Washington and the challenges of dealing with a more ideological and nationalist China.
Richard Maude
Sep 10, 2020 – 6.21am
Australia is grappling with a toxic mix of foreign policy challenges that were either absent or still distant objects on the horizon when the Turnbull government’s 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper was drafted.
In a competitive field, four such challenges stand out. First, a smashed global economy from the wrecking ball that is COVID-19. Second, deteriorating Australia-China ties marked by a sharp clash of interests and values.
Third, faster change in global order, driven by China’s power and assertiveness and the unilateralism and nationalism of “America First”. And, fourth, the collapse of US-China relations.
The Morrison government is blunt in its appraisal. The “contested and competitive” world described in the White Paper has given way to a grimmer outlook: “poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly”.
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Billionaire investor says market in 'raging mania,' inflation a threat
By Katherine Burton
September 10, 2020 — 10.24am
Financial markets are in a "raging mania" and rising inflation is a big threat, star investor Stan Druckenmiller said.
Inflation could eventually rise by as much as 10 per cent, Druckenmiller said on Wednesday in a CNBC interview, adding that the Federal Reserve has created conditions that have sent valuations soaring.
"Everyone loves a party but inevitably after a big party there is a hangover," he said. "We are in a raging mania."
It's been a rollercoaster week on Wall Street where stocks had been sold off for three straight sessions before halting their rout overnight. The losses were driven by a drop in technology shares as investors fled the big names that fuelled a historic five-month rally and traders sought safety in haven assets, pushing Treasury yields lower and strengthening the US dollar. However, markets rebounded overnight as dip buyers poured into beaten-down tech shares to send the Nasdaq 100 to its best day since April. The S&P 500 Index rose the most since June.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/mining/rio-tinto-boss-js-jacques-step-down-20200911-p55ulf
Rio Tinto boss JS Jacques steps down
Peter Ker Resources reporter
Sep 11, 2020 – 9.44am
Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sebastien Jacques will exit the company along with two of the senior executives deemed to be partially responsible for the destruction of prized indigenous heritage in Western Australia's Juukan Gorge.
Rio said the departure was by "mutual agreement", meaning Mr Jacques, iron ore boss Chris Salisbury and corporate affairs boss Simone Niven will all leave the company within the next year.
Confirmation of the three executives' departures comes after The Australian Financial Review reported on Tuesday that harsher punishments would be handed out within days because the Rio board had determined to escalate its response to the Juukan Gorge scandal.
The Rio board determined on August 24 that Mr Jacques, Ms Niven and Mr Salisbury were "partially responsible" for the incident, noting that theirs were sins of omission rather than commission.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/the-cost-of-jacques-success-laid-bare-at-rio-20200911-p55upn
The cost of Jacques 'success' laid bare at Rio
JS Jacques' departure has left Rio with a mountain of problems to solve. But that's not why Australians should be furious with him.
Sep 11, 2020 – 12.04pm
Forget for a moment the damage that JS Jacques has done to Rio Tinto.
Forget what he’s done to the company’s culture. Forget the executive and board clean-out that will now need to take place, and the lack of succession options apparent at one of Australia’s biggest companies.
Put aside the shattering of the trust between Rio and Indigenous traditional owners, and with its investors. Forget the fact that Rio’s reputation as the world’s best iron ore miner has been lost in the space of 18 months.
Forget all of that, because there’s a very simple reason why every Australian should be furious with this company and happy to see the back of Jacques, who finally agreed to step down on Friday.
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Five dangerous myths in Australia's relations with China
This is not just a problem of over-heated rhetoric or a cycle of tit-for-tat. China is playing a different game from us.
Rory Medcalf Contributor
Sep 11, 2020 – 3.29pm
This week brought yet more grim news for relations between Australia and China.
But it is vital to understand these latest ugly moments in a larger frame of strategic power play and enduring national interest.
The immediate story is well-known. An Australian citizen, Cheng Lai, is in indefinite detention in China amid claims of imperilling Chinese national security.
The last two China-based journalists for Australian media outlets, Bill Birtles from the ABC and Michael Smith from this newspaper, were flown home amid concerns for their safety following visits and exit bans from Chinese state security.
Then there came revelations that back in June, the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation had interviewed Australian-based reporters for Chinese state media organisations as part of the foreign interference investigation surrounding an NSW Labor politician and his adviser.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/dispatched-a-bittersweet-farewell-to-china-20200911-p55uqy
Dispatched: A bittersweet farewell to China
China correspondent Michael Smith was caught up in dramatic diplomatic games that forced him to leave the country - and says the rules for foreign journalists have changed.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Sep 12, 2020 – 12.00am
The first inkling I had that my life in China was about to come to an abrupt end came on Monday afternoon last week. I had just landed in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, where I was planning to write a story on China’s steel demand and the infamous “ghost cities” where thousands of apartments sit empty. I was running out of the hotel door for a meeting with a property analyst when my mobile rang.
Two of my senior editors were on the phone. When more than one of your bosses calls at the same time, you know something is up.
They had received a call from an official at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade advising them to consider pulling me out of China. This warning coincided with news that Cheng Lei, an Australian television anchor working for Chinese state media, had been detained in Beijing.
This was a lot to digest as I sat in the hotel lobby. I got off the phone, cancelled my interviews for the next two days, and headed to Beijing, which was conveniently only a half-hour train ride away. The feeling was I would be safer near the Australian embassy, where I might be able to get more information about the situation.
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Australia weighed the risks of Chinese journalist raids and went ahead
By Anthony Galloway
September 11, 2020 — 2.03pm
Australia knew what it was doing when it raided four Chinese journalists, and the government was aware there could be consequences for Australian journalists based in Beijing.
The raids went ahead anyway.
Two Australian journalists, The Australian Financial Review's Mike Smith and the ABC's Bill Birtles, were this week forced out of China after being questioned by authorities.
Days later, it was revealed ASIO questioned the four Chinese journalists in Australia, and the visas of two Chinese academics were cancelled.
This immediately sparked a few questions from commentators. First, was it justified?
We don't know everything about the activities of the four Chinese journalists who caught the attention of ASIO.
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Climate Policy
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No articles this week.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/daniel-andrews-plan-to-eradicate-business-20200906-p55sus
Daniel Andrews' plan to eliminate business
Daniel Andrews' non-plan is designed to demonstrate that the only way to kill off the virus in the state is to kill Victoria's economy for the rest of the year.
Jennifer Hewett
Sep 6, 2020 – 4.04pm
Dan Andrews is an all-or-nothing style politician. The result for Victoria – and especially for Victorian businesses – is pretty much nothing.
The Premier’s major announcement on easing COVID-19 restrictions in the state offered little more than further pain for months to come.
That translates into no concessions to the economic devastation caused by Victoria’s hard lockdown, and a determined trampling of any hopes the worst might soon be over.
So Andrews’ original commitment to a September 14 end to six weeks of the toughest stage four restrictions is now officially defunct.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/victorian-crisis-no-one-s-in-charge-again-20200903-p55s7o
Victorian crisis: no one's in charge - again
As if the Black Saturday bushfires and the royal commission had not happened, governance problems and lack of accountability have marred Victoria’s management of the second COVID-19 outbreak.
Michael Angwin Contributor
Sep 6, 2020 – 12.34pm
As Victoria heads into longer and harder lockdown to squash its second wave, it may still be too early to get a handle on what's gone wrong. But if history isn't to repeat itself, some early parallels need to be drawn with the Victorian government's Black Saturday failures 10 years ago.
Trying to understand how Victoria mismanaged its COVID-19 crisis, I returned to the report of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission. The commission had investigated and assessed accountability for managing the bushfires.
It said that the state’s emergency management arrangements faltered because of confusion about responsibilities and accountabilities, and leadership failings.
The royal commission observed that the roles of the most senior personnel were not clear on the most disastrous day of the bushfires, and that there was no single agency or individual in charge of the emergency. It highlighted serious deficiencies in top-level leadership as a result of divided and unclear responsibilities. Sound familiar?
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Modelling built to support virus elimination
Tom Burton Government editor
Sep 6, 2020 – 7.19pm
The modelling used by the Andrews government to justify Victoria's extended lockdown restrictions uses very cautious assumptions and was originally built to support the elimination of COVID-19.
Experts have also questioned the modelling particularly as nearly half the state's active cases have come from aged-care homes, and broader transmission was down to low levels. Victoria reported 63 new cases on Sunday and five deaths.
The modelling done by researchers from Melbourne University and the University of New England found that Victoria was unlikely to have aggressively suppressed the virus by September 13, when stage four restrictions were meant to expire.
Elimination was possible, and if achieved would have been optimal for health and for the economy in the long term.
— Extract from the academic paper supporting Victoria's virus modelling.
The modelling suggested that if restrictions were eased next week when average daily cases are expected to be 25, there would be a 60 per cent chance of having to lock down again before Christmas.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/government-locks-in-85m-vaccines-worth-1-7b-20200906-p55svp
Government locks in 85m vaccines worth $1.7b
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Sep 6, 2020 – 10.30pm
The Morrison government has locked in 84.8 million COVID-19 vaccines at a cost of $1.7 billion if and when they become available, as confidence grows medical approval and production could be achieved as early as January.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Health Minister Greg Hunt and Minister for Industry, Science and Technology Karen Andrews on Monday will announce the updated vaccines deals with the University of Oxford-AstraZeneca and the University of Queensland-CSL.
“There are no guarantees that these vaccines will prove successful, however the agreement puts Australia at the top of the queue if our medical experts give the vaccines the green light,” Mr Morrison will say.
The government said the speed and success of trials had resulted in growing confidence that production of a vaccine could begin as early as January or February.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/melbourne-s-longer-lockdown-explained-20200906-p55ssz
Melbourne's longer lockdown explained
Hannah Wootton Reporter
Sep 6, 2020 – 4.11pm
Most of Melbourne's businesses will not return to normal operations until late October, under a strict reopening plan that will see the city's tough stage four restrictions extended by at least a fortnight.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said on Sunday that most shops and offices will remain closed until late October, with any reopening tied to sustained reductions in coronavirus case numbers.
Under the roadmap for reopening, the first industries to resume from September 28 will be in construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade, warehousing, and postal distribution.
They will still need to limit the number of people onsite where possible, however, and create workplace bubbles across sites.
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ANZ Bank prepares for 'second wave' of distress in 2021
By Clancy Yeates
September 8, 2020 — 12.00am
ANZ Bank chief executive Shayne Elliott says the lender is preparing to deal with a much larger number of financially distressed customers next year as government support fades, though ultra-low interest rates will give struggling borrowers more time.
The bank also indicated it would be more cautious in lending to property markets most affected by the pandemic, which could include parts of Melbourne's housing market.
Mr Elliott on Monday said the bank was conducting planning, that included increasing staff numbers in some teams and training people, so that it could deal with customers in financial stress "at scale".
"Sadly, we know that there will be difficult situations where we need to help customers wind up their debt. And when this happens, we will be ethical and sensitive in our actions," he said in a market briefing on environmental, social and governance issues.
While there were currently low numbers of companies being wound up, or individuals facing financial strife, he said this was because government support and banks' temporary loan deferrals had bought time.
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Victoria overhauls contact tracing system
Sep 8, 2020 – 6.43pm
Victoria is overhauling its contact tracing, decentralising to a regional system, rolling out a new cloud-based technology platform and integrating deep analytics to ensure it is ready to quickly limit infection spread as the state reopens.
Announcing the changes, Premier Daniel Andrews said a team of Victorian Health and Defence advisers were meeting NSW contact tracers in Sydney this week to "double and triple check whether there is anything that is different between our response and the response in NSW".
The overhaul comes after prolonged criticism by federal authorities of the current system which Commonwealth Ministers argue was overwhelmed as cases exploded in July.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has in recent days pushed the Victorian government to reach the "gold standard" of NSW as a means to have less stringent lockdowns and live with higher case levels.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/victoria-s-cure-for-virus-is-as-bad-as-the-disease-20200908-p55tdz
Dan's plan is a roadblock, not a road map out of lockdown
Daniel Andrews must switch strategies from elimination to managing infections to prevent the Victorian lockdown inflicting more harm on health, education, and the economy.
Sep 8, 2020 – 5.11pm
On Sunday, Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews announced his roadmap to recovery. It was not convincing, more of a pathway to misery.
We are all hoping that an effective vaccine will be available sooner rather than later. The Commonwealth, with CSL’s help, has given us the best chance if either our own University of Queensland candidate or the Oxford University vaccine are proven. Even so, there are risks and we face many months without one. Andrews’ chosen path has to be seen in that context.
His staged reductions in lockdown are triggered by state-wide infection rates that look at best, too conservative, at worst unachievable.
We would urge Andrews to widen his pool of advice. Not just to adopt a different model to calculate a different target, but to understand that strategies based on management rather than elimination are likely to be better for us all.
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Dan's plan is mostly right ... and partly wrong
Stephen Duckett
September 8, 2020 — 4.01pm
American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross famously described five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. We see all of these in responses to Premier Dan Andrews' COVID-19 road map announced on Sunday.
Some people are in denial – this road map cannot be right; the modelling must be wrong.
The main dos and dont's as Melbourne struggles toward the end of COVID lockdown. And remember this is all dependent on the case numbers being right...
Prime Minister Scott Morrison is in the anger stage. The Premier, he rails, is going too slowly.
Others have entered the bargaining stage – why can't we have a different arrangement for northern Victoria, where the number of cases is so low that it would already meet the step three criteria?
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Lockdowns beyond two months do more harm than good
John Kehoe Senior writer
Sep 9, 2020 – 4.24pm
Lockdowns beyond two months impose massive economic costs without any real health benefits because they only delay an inevitable second wave of the virus, according to a new international COVID-19 study by former Reserve Bank of Australia economist Greg Kaplan.
His co-authored virus research also finds the economic consequences of the virus before any lockdowns disproportionately hurt people working in socially exposed occupations, such as waiters and hairdressers, who are typically more financially vulnerable.
The detailed academic study of the United States' experience of the virus finds short-term lockdowns are effective at ensuring hospitals are not overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients and buy time to adopt best-practice behaviour to avoid the virus.
The University of Chicago economics professor, currently holed up in his native Sydney as the virus sweeps across the US, said the analysis was highly relevant to the debate over whether Melbourne should persist with its stage four lockdown beyond the initial six weeks.
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Aggressive suppression is now Victoria's best option
Victoria is not chasing elimination. The time for that has passed, and the road map announced on Sunday is more nuanced.
Antony Blakely Contributor
Sep 9, 2020 – 5.02pm
The Victorian government released its road map out of the second wave on Sunday. It sets a number of targets to achieve before restrictions are loosened. Targets, not dates, determine actions – the only option with a virus that does not listen to our proposed timelines.
The Victorian government deserves applause for this transparency. The road map is also stringent in its targets, especially at the back end for release from stage two to stage one (no new cases for 14 days) – unless November 23 occurs first, in which case release.
I was part of a team, led by other colleagues from the University of Melbourne and University of New England, that provided modelling outputs to the Victorian government for them to use as one input into their decision making.
The government provided us with scenarios, we then advised on how to convert them into modelling parameters or "modelling speak", we ran the models, we provided the outputs, and they assessed the results and fed it into their planning as they saw fit.
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Inner Melbourne economy tipped to suffer $110b hit over five years
By Bianca Hall
September 9, 2020 — 11.45pm
Inner Melbourne is projected to lose 79,000 jobs annually and bleed more than $110 billion in revenue over the next five years as the COVID-19 recession savages the central city.
New modelling predicts the Andrews government's decision last month to move from stage three to stage four restrictions will cost the city's economy $61 billion over five years – although the modelling did not take into account the economic or health impacts of a worsening pandemic.
Job losses across Victoria have already far eclipsed the height of the 1990s recession and are projected to hit almost 400,000 annually over five years.
Accounting giant PwC conducted modelling for the City of Melbourne and the Victorian government, showing the economic effects of the pandemic on inner Melbourne will be far worse than the 1990s recession – equivalent to the combined impacts on the city of World War I and the Spanish Flu pandemic.
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'Heartbreaking devastation': Business leaders lament for Melbourne
By Darren Gray, Cara Waters and Dominic Powell
September 12, 2020 — 12.00am
"Heartbreaking" pretty much sums up the state of affairs in Melbourne as far as influential local businessman Graeme Samuel is concerned.
The ex-banker and former chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is under no illusions about the tough slog ahead for the city, reeling not just from a health crisis but also hamstrung by the efforts of the state government to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.
And he isn’t alone, as prominent business voices across Melbourne lament for a city in distress, both emotional and economic.
The damage, according to Samuel, doesn’t need the validation of economists or complicated graphs and tables. You just need to step out onto the streets, albeit within the current limits on outdoor activities set by the Victorian government.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Aged care: little transparency as nursing home companies rake in profits
The nation’s largest nursing home operators are making significantly higher profits than similar businesses in Europe and North America, with independent analysis finding there was little evidence of a connection between how much money they spend and how much care they provide.
A new audit of the $25bn-a-year largely taxpayer-funded aged-care sector found the Health Department’s limited financial reporting rules meant aged-care providers with opaque corporate structures made it difficult to establish a link between money spent and care provided.
The audit, conducted by accountancy firm BDO for the aged-care royal commission, warned of “a lack of governance and transparency” within large aged-care companies, which make it difficult to understand their real profits.
“The current model favours more sophisticated providers who have the necessary financial acumen to manage diverse portfolios and capital structures,” the report concludes.
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National Budget Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/insolvency-relief-extended-until-new-year-20200904-p55slo
Insolvency relief extended until new year
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Sep 6, 2020 – 10.30pm
The Morrison government has extended insolvent trading relief out to 2021 in a bid to prevent further job losses and avoid another massive hit to the economy.
As foreshadowed by The Australian Financial Review in July, the move will see the increased thresholds at which creditors can issue a demand on a company and or initiate bankruptcy proceedings extended until December 31.
Relief for directors from personal liability when a company is trading while insolvent will also be maintained until that date.
The government said it took the decision to extend the temporary rules, which were due to expire on September 30, to give viable businesses an opportunity to recover from the health crisis instead of failing.
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Banks prepare for mass customer call-outs on deferred loans
By Clancy Yeates
September 7, 2020 — 12.00am
A relatively small but growing number of struggling borrowers who put their mortgages or business loans on hold in response the coronavirus crisis are resuming repayments, new industry figures show.
As part of the banking industry’s response to the crisis, Australian lenders since March have allowed $274 billion in home loans and small business loans to be deferred for up to six months, with the possibility of further loan extensions.
From late this month, as some customers start to approach the six month mark, banks are contacting borrowers to determine if they will be able to resume repayments in part or in full.
Figures released on Sunday night by the Australian Banking Association showed that at the end of July, about 13 per cent of customers with deferred loans had resumed repayments, and the banks estimated a further 100,000 people began resuming payments in August.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/banks-to-fund-government-stimulus-bill-20200907-p55t0f
Banks to fund government stimulus bill
John Kehoe Senior writer
Sep 8, 2020 – 12.00am
Banks will be directed by financial regulators to buy up to $240 billion of additional federal and state government debt to normalise emergency bank liquidity, in a regulatory move that will lower government borrowing costs and encourage stimulus spending on infrastructure and other programs.
The primary objective of the yet-to-be-announced shift by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and Reserve Bank of Australia will be to enhance bank stability in line with international rules so banks continue to withstand periods of financial stress.
But a consequence and second-order goal of the financial policy shake-up will be lower Commonwealth and state government interest rates as banks buy more government bonds instead of holding private sector bank bonds and residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS).
The adjustment would help governments, particularly states, fulfil RBA governor Philip Lowe's pleas to seize on ultra-low interest rates to fund job-creating programs such as infrastructure projects.
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Fast-tracking infrastructure and cutting taxes the wrong way to go
Infrastructure projects and tax cuts are the wrong things to focus government spending on as we come out of the pandemic.
The government is under great pressure from economists, business people and bureaucrats, not to mention their own political instincts and the polls, to have a growth strategy in next month’s federal budget based on those two sets of “announceables” — projects and tax cuts.
But they are all generals fighting the last war. This is not a normal downturn, and the situation calls for different thinking, especially since Treasury and the RBA don’t seem to think much of Modern Monetary Theory, which means there is an arbitrary limit on the amount of money available for government spending. So priorities matter.
The Stage 2 and 3 tax cuts were going to cost $35.7bn in 2024. What they would cost if brought forward to 2021 and 2022 is anybody’s guess, but they’re expensive and presumably that will be money that can’t be spent on other things, since money doesn’t grow on trees you know.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/late-payments-spike-zombies-on-the-rise-20200909-p55tsr
Late payments spike, zombies on the rise
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Sep 9, 2020 – 10.49am
Late payment periods between businesses have lengthened to 43 days and the number of companies entering voluntary administration has fallen almost 60 per cent, both signs of a rising number of "zombie" companies being propped up by government handouts.
CreditorWatch says late payment times nationally grew in August to an average of 43 days, up from 41 days in July. That means businesses are waiting 2.9 times longer to be paid than they did in 2019.
Finance and insurance are being hardest hit by late payments, up 657 per cent from August, 2019, to 53 days. Transport postal and warehousing late payments were up 500 per cent to 90 days, while administrative and support services were up 543 per cent to 90 days.
Rental hiring and real estate services were up 392 per cent from August, 2019, or 59 days. But payments in mining are now 13 days ahead of schedule.
CreditorWatch also reported that business administrations fell 37.1 per cent in the month of August and are now 59 per cent lower than the average across 2019.
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Health Issues.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/dozens-citycentre-gp-practices-brink-collapse
Dozens of city-centre GP practices on the 'brink of collapse'
Lockdowns and uncertainty over the future of telehealth is fueling fears of the future, says David Dahm, an accountant specialising in medical practices
10th September 2020
Inner-city GP practices have gone into "hibernation" and are relying on telehealth for their survival because of the collapse in patient numbers due to the lockdown.
According to David Dahm, an accountant specialising in medical practices, up to 10% of practices in the centres of Melbourne and Sydney are in imminent danger of closing as a result of “a 20-30% downward movement in foot-traffic revenue”.
With office workers continuing to work from home, he claimed many practices had entered "hibernation mode" with staff placed on indefinite leave.
The anxiety over financial viability is also being fuelled by ongoing uncertainty over the future of the temporary MBS telehealth items, which are due to expire on 30 September.
The Federal Minister for Health Greg Hunt has pledged funding will continue in some form but the government has so far been silent on its detailed plan.
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Tired junior doctors fear making mistakes, harassment by patients
By Kate Aubusson
September 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Junior doctors are so overworked and exhausted they fear making a mistake that could harm their patients or themselves, with the trainee medicos delivering a withering assessment of some of Sydney's biggest hospitals for failing to protect them from bullying and discrimination.
The latest Hospital Health Check survey of NSW doctors-in-training raises serious concerns for the welfare of both the junior clinicians and the people they treat.
When it comes to intimidation, patients are the most likely aggressors – a troubling dynamic that has only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic, doctor-in-training leaders say.
Roughly 30 per cent of trainee doctors felt unsafe at work due to verbal or physical intimidation, according to the survey of 1332 junior doctors in NSW compiled by the Australian Medical Association NSW’s Doctors in Training Committee.
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Baby's death leads to 'extraordinary' discovery of 2000 unchecked results at hospital
By Carrie Fellner
September 12, 2020 — 12.00am
Thousands of test results were never followed up at a major NSW hospital last year leading to the prescription of wrong medications, missed broken bones and the death of a baby girl, a doctor who worked there has alleged.
When the doctor tried to raise the alarm after discovering the unchecked results at Dubbo Base Hospital, he was accused of being "unsupportive" of colleagues and sacked, the Herald can reveal.
"During that week I had personally gone through perhaps 2000 unchecked results," the doctor said in an email to management, which was leaked to the Herald. "This is an absolutely extraordinary number."
The revelations put Dubbo Base Hospital back in the spotlight after a Herald investigation in May uncovered a death and a series of troubling near misses at the flagship facility and a second hospital within the Western NSW Local Health District.
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International Issues.
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Financial Review, ABC journalists forced out of China
Angus Grigg National affairs correspondent
Sep 8, 2020 – 9.15am
Two Australian journalists working in China arrived in Sydney on Tuesday morning following a diplomatic stand off where they were banned from leaving the country until they answered questions about detained television anchor Cheng Lei.
The China correspondents for The Australian Financial Review and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation spent five days under protection in Australian diplomatic missions after state security officers visited their homes after midnight on Wednesday last week.
The Financial Review’s Michael Smith and the ABC’s Bill Birtles were allowed to leave China on Monday night after agreeing to submit to an interview by China’s Ministry of State Security.
The interviews followed high-level negotiations between Australia and China in which Canberra was assured both journalists would not be detained.
“It’s great to be back home safely after a difficult five days," said Mr Smith.
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'Do not travel to China': Payne warns of arbitrary detention
Angus Grigg and Andrew Tillett
Sep 8, 2020 – 6.20pm
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said Australians should not travel to China as they face the risk of arbitrary detention, after two Australian journalists were rushed out of Shanghai on Monday night in a secretive operation following a tense five-day stand-off with authorities.
Speaking after Michael Smith, the China correspondent for The Australian Financial Review, and his ABC counterpart Bill Birtles landed in Sydney on Tuesday morning, Senator Payne ruled out any retaliation against journalists from China.
"That is not how Australia works," she said. But the Foreign Minister was blunt in warning of the dangers of travelling to China, where her department has said foreigners could be detained for "endangering national security".
"Smartraveller says do not travel," she said in reference to the government's travel advice.
‘‘On the 7th of July we changed our advice in relation to China to refer to the risk of arbitrary detention based on national security grounds.’’
Mr Smith and Mr Birtles were banned from leaving China's mainland last week, until they answered questions about their relationship with detained Australian television anchor Cheng Lei. Both journalists were told they had become persons of interest in the investigation into Ms Cheng, a prominent state-media broadcaster in China, who was detained last month.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/inside-my-escape-from-china-20200908-p55ti7
'I feared being disappeared': Inside my escape from China
Welcome to life in Xi Jinping’s China. Where the authorities can enter your home in the middle of the night to intimidate and harass you when you are not even suspected of a crime.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Sep 8, 2020 – 7.00pm
Sydney | It was well after midnight when officers from China's intelligence, security and secret police agency came knocking at my door.
The heavy pounding woke me from a deep sleep and I raced downstairs thinking it must be a friend or neighbour in trouble.
Instead, six uniformed officers from the Ministry of State Security and a translator were squeezed on my front porch. The man at the front showed me his badge, asked my name and demanded to come inside.
They ushered me into my lounge room where I sat on the couch dressed in my boxer shorts surrounded by these unwelcome visitors. One officer filmed me on a large camera that would have looked more at home in a television studio. A spotlight shone in my eyes.
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Trump tells Woodward he deliberately played down COVID dangers
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Updated Sep 10, 2020 – 8.05am, first published at 5.00am
Washington | Donald Trump deliberately concealed and downplayed the severity of COVID-19 in the early days of the pandemic, according to an explosive new book by Bob Woodward that includes no fewer than 18-on-the-record interviews with the President.
"This is deadly stuff," Mr Trump told Mr Woodward on February 7, noting that "you just breathe the air and that's how it's passed".
"It's also more deadly than even your strenuous flu," he told the journalist, according to an account published on Wednesday (Thursday AEST) in The Washington Post of his forthcoming book Rage.
America reported the world's second biggest increase in COVID-19 cases over the most recent 24-hour period tracked by Johns Hopkins University.
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Massive smoke clouds create eerie orange glow in western US skies
By Daisy Nguyen
September 10, 2020 — 7.01am
San Francisco: People from San Francisco to Seattle woke on Wednesday to hazy clouds of smoke lingering in the air, darkening the sky to an eerie orange glow that kept street lights illuminated into midday, all thanks to dozens of wildfires throughout the West.
“It's after 9am and there's still no sign of the sun,” the California Highway Patrol's Golden Gate division tweeted, urging drivers to turn on their headlights and slow down.
Social media was filled with photos of the unusual sky and many people complained their mobile phone cameras weren’t accurately capturing the golden hues.
Despite the foreboding skies, there was little scent of smoke and the air quality index did not reach unhealthy levels. That’s because fog drifting from the Pacific Ocean was sandwiched between the smoke and surface.
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Coronavirus: Jakarta to go back into lockdown from Monday
By Amanda Hodge and Chandni Vasandani
1:12AM September 10, 2020
Jakarta is to reinstate widespread social restrictions from Monday after the city’s governor warned the hospital system was on the verge of collapse and that the Indonesian capital was facing a COVID-19 “emergency”.
Anies Baswedan made the announcement on Wednesday night, urging Jakarta’s 11 million residents to stay home and “don’t leave Jakarta unless it’s very necessary”.
Coronavirus infections have been soaring for weeks with doctors across the city’s 67 COVID referral hospitals warning almost a fortnight ago they were close to capacity and already turning away patients for lack of beds.
“If there is no emergency brake by September 17, Jakarta’s isolation wards will be full. For ICU, the situation is not much better. We have 528 beds. If the trends continue and even if we increase it to 636 beds, they will fill up by September 25,” Mr Baswedan said in a livestreamed press conference.
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Were we caught up in a Sino-Australian tit-for-tat row?
The Australian Financial Review's China correspondent wonders if ASIO's raids on the homes of Chinese journalists in Australia endangered three Australians working in China.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Sep 11, 2020 – 12.00am
During those long days sheltering in Australian diplomatic missions in China last week, the ABC’s China correspondent Bill Birtles and myself would hypothesise about what might have triggered Beijing’s decision to send security police to our homes in the middle of the night.
One theory tossed around was that the Morrison government had, or was planning to, take action against Chinese journalists in Australia. The idea made sense as China notoriously engages in tit-for-tat action when sparring with foreign powers.
At the time we were unaware of the ASIO raids on Australian-based Chinese journalists being investigated for foreign interference.
The incident was not made public until a state-controlled Chinese newspaper published the story this week in what looked like a carefully pre-prepared article which would have had to be cleared by the highest authorities in Beijing.
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https://www.afr.com/world/europe/europe-faces-up-to-pandemic-s-second-wave-20200910-p55ujh
Europe faces up to pandemic's second wave
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Sep 11, 2020 – 2.37am
London | After a summer of sunny optimism, Europe is reluctantly coming to terms with the unavoidable arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic's second wave.
But the continent still has its collective face set against any return to Victoria-style lockdowns; leaders are relying on a mix of targeted restrictions, based on test-and-trace information, to hold the rising tide at bay.
The Europeans' expectation, or perhaps hope, is that the numbers will not return to the dark days of March-April, partly because the growing caseload reflects increased testing as much as heightened transmission.
They are also banking on a combination of greater hospital capacity and more sophisticated treatments to keep fatality rates in check.
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China, India agree to disengage troops on contested border
Sanjeev Miglani
Sep 11, 2020 – 4.13pm
Beijing/New Delhi | China and India have agreed to de-escalate renewed tensions on their contested Himalayan border and take steps to restore "peace and tranquillity" following a high-level diplomatic meeting in Moscow.
Chinese State Councillor Wang Yi and Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar met in Moscow on Thursday and reached a five-point consensus, including agreements the current border situation is not in their interests and that troops from both sides should quickly disengage and ease tensions, the two countries said in a joint statement.
The consensus, struck on the sidelines of a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, came after a clash in the border area in the western Himalayas earlier this week.
China and India accused each other of firing into the air during the confrontation, a violation of long-held protocol not to use firearms on the sensitive frontier.
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China turns into wolf warrior at the world’s door under Xi Jinping
What is China trying to achieve by its sudden lurch to a bullying, “wolf warrior” global stance? For all the billions of dollars of intelligence hardware and software pointed at Beijing right now, the reality is that Xi Jinping’s strategic thinking is a black box.
The leadership intent of the Communist Party must be glimpsed through opaque speeches, the coded signals of coercive behaviour and the increasingly unhinged statements of China’s diplomats and party-controlled media.
Whatever Xi thinks he is doing, the outcome is, on the face of it, disastrous for China’s long-term strategic interests. China has never had many, or indeed any, close friends internationally, but in less than a year the wolf warriors have irretrievably trashed whatever trust Beijing might have had as a trading, investment and research partner around the world.
This is a remarkable achievement. In a divided America, opposition to China is the one policy uniting Republicans and Democrats. Beijing’s bad behaviour has produced a consensus in the European Union and Britain to push back, given ASEAN a stronger common purpose and has ignited in Australia a determination to “step up” in the Pacific and spend more on defence.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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