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With the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg the US election has been dramatically increased in importance and division. Given the election is now less than six weeks away the intensity of the political contest will be intense.
In the UK it seems that the epidemic is entering a second wave – an the same is happening in Europe! It looks like this might go very badly at this point.
In Australia we are to have a Gas led recovery while the Budget in just 12 days of so is going to be just a sea of red and will be a Budget for the ages in terms of deficits and new debt.
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Major Issues.
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Australia's race against China's 'rare earths weapon'
By Eryk Bagshaw
September 13, 2020 — 11.30pm
If you have a phone, camera or an electric car, chances are each of these devices are wholly dependent on key minerals that, at the moment, are processed only in China.
For much of the past two decades, this has been fine. A status quo that rewarded low-cost production in China with exports around the world. The global economy was growing, more smartphones were being sold than there were people and the electric vehicle market was burgeoning.
Now, as supply lines shrink, geopolitical tensions rise and the world's dependence on these minerals for everyday use surges, policymakers are coming to terms with a gaping hole in the world's development of rare earths that threatens to hit militaries as much as it does consumers.
There are 0.15 grams of palladium in an iPhone, 472 kilograms of combined rare earths in an F35 fighter jet and four tonnes in a Virginia-class submarine.
"Some of these things the government stockpile levels are very, very small in terms of weight," says federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt. "They are kilos compared to tonnes. That is how rare the element is."
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/refiners-give-no-early-guarantees-on-plants-20200914-p55vbe
Refiners give no early guarantees on plants
Angela Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Sep 14, 2020 – 11.30am
Australia's oil refiners are holding off giving any early guarantees about the future of their struggling plants as they await details of the federal government's welcome $2.5 billion support package, which stands as a potential lifeline for the sector.
The package, which includes competitive grants to increase diesel storage tank capacity and a direct payment for locally produced petrol and diesel, is intended to head off the risk that any of Australia's four remaining refineries will join the four that have closed since 2003.
Viva Energy chief executive Scott Wyatt, who advised last week the company's Geelong refinery would be closed in the absence of government rescue measures, welcomed the suite of reforms, which he said could provide "important long-term support" for the sector.
But he signalled the threat of closure remained for the Geelong plant, which supports about 700 jobs. He said last week that measures would also be required from the Victorian government to address cost disadvantages on shipping and energy prices.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/navy-s-new-45b-warships-face-two-year-delay-20200915-p55vpq
Navy's new $45b warships face two-year delay
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Sep 16, 2020 – 12.00am
Australia's $45 billion frigate program could be delayed for up to two years, with top-level naval shipbuilding experts advising the Morrison government there has been schedule "slippage" with the project.
The delay risks triggering another so-called "valley of death" for Adelaide's shipbuilding workforce because of a gap between projects, according to defence sources.
The frigate project is already unofficially lagging by 12 months, with key parts of the design unfinished and a "lack of integration" with Australian subcontractors to supply components, one source said.
The frigate's designer and builder, British defence giant BAE Systems, has blamed a lack of engineers in Australia as one of the major reasons for the hold-up.
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Australians' support for US plunges to record lows under Trump
September 16, 2020 — 12.15am
Washington: Australians' perceptions of the United States have plummeted over the past year, with three in four Australians saying they have no confidence President Donald Trump will do the right thing for the world.
The findings are contained in a new study by the Pew Research Centre, to be released on Wednesday (AEST), that compares attitudes towards the US in 13 countries across Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific.
A major reason for the plunge in support for the US and its President appears to be the country's failure to contain the coronavirus, which has killed more than 194,000 Americans according to Johns Hopkins University.
The survey, conducted in June and July this year, found that just 33 per cent of Australians have a favourable view of the US, down from 50 per cent a year ago. This is the lowest favourability rating since Pew first polled Australians in 2003.
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Australia needs to end its dependence on China: Liveris
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Updated Sep 16, 2020 – 4.59pm, first published at 4.36pm
Australia must wean itself off its economic dependence on China, but until it does it should tone down its public criticism of Beijing's attempts to undermine national security and sovereignty, Andrew Liveris says.
Mr Liveris, one of Australia's leading global executives who is also advising the Prime Minister on gas and manufacturing policy, told the National Press Club the coronavirus pandemic showed Australia had to become less reliant on global supply chains.
"Australia cannot become more resilient if we are a one-trick-pony in trade," he said.
"We cannot be singly reliant as an economy on selling commodities to China."
Building on comments he made this month in an interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Liveris said China was going to exert itself both militarily and economically for many decades to come.
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World's super-rich cash in after global prices surge
By Ben Stupples and Yoojung Lee
September 18, 2020 — 9.50am
Some of the world's wealthiest people have sold more than $US3 billion ($4.1 billion) of stakes in their major holdings since August, diversifying their fortunes as stockmarkets rebounded.
Heinz Hermann Thiele offloaded about $US1.2 billion in shares of Knorr-Bremse AG, the German brake manufacturer that underpins his fortune. Pieter van der Does and Arnout Schuijff, co-founders of Adyen NV, were part of a group of executives that sold stock in the Dutch payment firm worth $US821 million, while Steven and Mitchell Rales pocketed almost $US1 billion through Fortive.
Volatility has picked up in recent weeks, with stocks halting a rebound that added as much as $US30 trillion in global market value since the turmoil brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. That's prompted many investors to reassess the concentration of their wealth and take some money off the table. In the week ended September 11, insiders disclosed selling $US473 million of shares, while buying only about $US9.5 million.
"It's the first time most people have lived through something as real, sharp and sudden as this," said Claire Madden, managing partner of Connection Capital, a London-based private-equity firm whose investors include high-net-worth individuals. "It does make you re-evaluate."
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Calls for a death tax on Baby Boomers to pay off aged care costs
Australians are hoarding huge sums of money until they die to pass onto their kids. But a controversial death tax cold change that.
September 18, 202011:40am
Australians are hoarding huge sums in superannuation and investments until they die to pass on a big inheritance to their children sparking fresh calls for a death tax to pay for aged care.
Despite the option of using a reverse mortgage to pay for aged care costs, experts warn there is little incentive in the current system to do so, with the rich paying a fraction of the cost of aged care.
Instead, wealthy Australians are desperate to simply protect their nest eggs to pass on huge sums to their children.
Experts giving evidence at the Royal Commission into Aged Care this week urged Prime Minister Scott Morison to consider changing the incentives to encourage more Australians to actually use their superannuation and assets including the family home to pay for their care.
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Death taxes should not be allowed to return
After lying dormant for many years, death taxes are suddenly re-entering the speculative arena. And so to treasurer Josh Frydenberg I say: Don’t be tempted!
Former prime minister Paul Keating started the latest speculation by advocating a HECS style loan to older people needing specialised aged care. It would be repaid out of their estate – a disguised death tax.
Treasury followed with some speculative “kite-flying” advocacy of death taxes. As I will explain below, historically, Australians - particularly those with wealth - have shown that they are very skilled at manipulating family financial affairs to avoid death levies.
But it is paradoxical that the latest death tax speculation comes when, after years of decline, first home buyers are returning to the dwelling market. First home buyers have been declining in numbers for over 10 years partly because couples have been afraid that they would never be able pay off the loans. There’s no doubt that low interest-rates are a significant force now driving young couples to stop renting or living with mum and dad. But also part of that attitude turnaround is the comfort that their parents have the savings, led by the family home to enable their children’s debts to be repaid when they reach retirement. That sudden change in attitude by first home buyers has been isolated by my friend Charlie Nelson – one of Australia’s top retail trend analysts.
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Exports under threat as China looks elsewhere
1:12PM September 19, 2020
The former chairman of Huawei Australia, John Lord, has warned that this country’s $150bn-a-year export trade with China is vulnerable to a long-term shift by Beijing away from Australian exports, including iron ore, if political relations continued to deteriorate.
“What concerns me is the trend by China to look for alternate sources of supply,” Mr Lord told The Weekend Australian.
“The Chinese government always thinks long-term.
“We are all working on the assumption that iron ore will be untouchable and that they will have to buy our iron ore forever. But that may not be the case.”
Mr Lord, a former rear admiral in the Royal Australian Navy who stepped down as Huawei Australia chair in March after nine years in the role, noted moves by China to build some berths at its ports that would be better able to receive more iron ore from Brazil in the longer term.
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Climate Policy
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New gas age is coming, but it will need hard work
State agreements and LNG exports from the United States have transformed the potential for gas as both fuel and as an industrial input. But there is still some irrational opposition.
Angus Taylor Contributor
Sep 14, 2020 – 11.56am
In life, business and politics there are few opportunities which tick most of the boxes.
Increasing the use of gas in Australian east coast electricity generation and industry, balanced with other energy sources, is one of those opportunities.
Australian gas now offers enormous potential for affordable, reliable and sustainable energy for Australian customers alongside its world beating exports. We need to jump on this opportunity.
In recent years, the Australian east coast gas market has faced two major challenges.
First, it gave birth to the largest liquefied natural gas export industry in the world in a few short years. This was an extraordinary success story, but it also put pressure on Australian energy intensive manufacturing and other domestic customers who had to compete with offshore customers for supply.
Second, gas faced a fearsome coalition of greens and land owners opposed to new developments. The industry suffered from weak incentives for land owners (initially at least), a vicious anti-gas lobby and some companies lacking experience in building local community support.
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PM to use 'energy week' to reset focus on the recovery
If there is one common denominator this week, it is the need for self-sufficiency that has been reinforced by the coronavirus.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Sep 14, 2020 – 10.30pm
In his year-opening address to the National Press Club in January, Scott Morrison decreed gas to be the transition fuel as the nation moved towards clean energy.
It was a significant moment for a conservative leader to effectively announce a shift away from coal-fired energy in Australia towards renewable energy, with gas to do the heavy lifting until renewables are sufficiently reliable.
"Sweating our existing coal-fired power generation assets will only take us so far,'' Morrison said.
"Gas can help us bridge the gap while our investments in batteries, hydrogen and pumped-hydro energy storage bring these technologies to economic parity with traditional energy sources."
The moment was largely missed because the sports rorts affair was raging at the time.
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Satellites, sensors and drones could put out bushfires within an hour
By Peter Hannam
September 15, 2020 — 12.00am
Existing and emerging technology should enable fire agencies to extinguish dangerous fires within an hour by 2025, reducing impacts on communities and wildlife alike, according to research backed by billionaire couple Andrew and Nicola Forrest.
The program – dubbed the "Fire Shield" and supported by a $70 million grant from the Forrests' Minderoo Foundation – is already working with agencies across Australia to improve the identification of ignition points and to predict which have the potential to become disasters.
The plan, to be unveiled at the National Press Club in Canberra on Tuesday, will aim to use satellites and sensors to automate detection of fires. At present, about 95 per cent of fires are reported through triple-zero phone calls, with people also staffing fire towers looking for smoke.
Data networks developed overseas can detect fire within three minutes but have not been tested in Australia, the Minderoo Foundation said in a "blueprint" report on the scheme.
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Intervention fears grow as power deadline queried
Angela Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Sep 15, 2020 – 1.39pm
AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia are pencilling in decisions to build gas-fired power stations by early next year but the federal government's new target of 1000 megawatts committed in NSW by April looks set to be missed, with no evidence in any case that so much capacity is needed.
The interventionist approach in energy outlined by the Morrison government on Tuesday also risks being counter-productive, deterring companies from investing in new generation given the overriding threat of taxpayer-funded power plants, industry sources said.
AGL chief executive Brett Redman said the company is expecting to give the go-ahead "by early 2021" on a gas-fired power station near Newcastle that will help replace coal-fired generating capacity in Liddell to be closed down in 2022 and 2023.
The $400 million project involves a 250MW gas and diesel-fired generator at Tomago.
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https://www.energycouncil.com.au/news/federal-intervention-risks-private-investment/
Federal intervention risks private investment
by AEC 15th September, 2020
- Energy policy
- National Energy
The Federal Government’s plan to develop a gas-fired power station in NSW if alternative private investments are not made risks deterring the very investments the Government is attempting to encourage, the Australian Energy Council said today.
The Australian Energy Council, which represents major investors in generation and the majority of Australian electricity generators, said the Federal Government’s approach may end up being counter-productive.
“The sector is struggling to make final investment decisions in an environment of ongoing policy uncertainty,” said the AEC’s Chief Executive, Sarah McNamara.
As noted by the Government’s own energy advisers, the Energy Security Board, government interventions or “even discussions and ‘threats’ of intervention” act as a deterrent.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/batteries-could-overtake-gas-plan-20200915-p55vt9
Batteries could overtake gas plan
Angus Taylor's gas plan could easily become redundant if technology, such as battery power, and consumer-driven demand take us down a different path.
Sep 15, 2020 – 7.06pm
Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor deserves credit for formulating a long-term plan for the delivery of a reliable, cheaper gas supply for Australian manufacturers.
This is the sort of plan that should have been endorsed by the Council of Australia Governments about a decade ago when the Australian Energy Market Operator was founded to manage the National Electricity Market.
AEMO has proven its worth through leading the co-ordination of the longer-term planning required to meet the country's electricity needs and manage the transition to 100 per cent renewables.
Its clarion calls for action have not always been acted upon by federal and state governments. But that is slowly changing.
Of course, a startling feature of the history of AEMO was its failure to anticipate the speed of the uptake of renewable technologies and the dramatic decline in the cost of solar.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/a-dialogue-of-the-deaf-as-the-noisy-hawks-circle-20200916-p55w1y
A dialogue of the deaf as the noisy hawks circle
The rock bottom in relations with Beijing is a chance for a rethink. First, the government needs to control its own messaging on China.
James Curran Contributor
Sep 16, 2020 – 1.50pm
Now that the Australia-China relationship has hit a new low, the timing is right for charting a way out of the current impasse.
Australia’s post-pandemic economic recovery over the next generation – not just coming weeks or months – depends on it.
To do so requires a dialling down of the ferocious noise on both sides. But that’s hard given the now structural factors in the relationship, namely the unstoppable momentum of mutual suspicion and acrimony among the bureaucracies and media in both Canberra and Beijing.
A lower temperature is unlikely while a more ideological anti-China policy taps deeper roots in American soil. The Trump-Biden contest over who is the toughest on Beijing underlines deepening consensus in Washington over what is now routinely cast as China’s existential threat to American prosperity and security. And the shouting there makes Australia’s real differences with the United States on China policy barely audible.
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The wrong answer for an energy crisis that does not exist
Scott Morrison and Angus Taylor have swooped in with plans that have managed to scare the power industry and the environmentalists at the same time.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Sep 18, 2020 – 4.34pm
On Wednesday afternoon this week, a government-commissioned report – which had been completed on April 24 – quietly appeared on the website of the federal Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources.
The Liddell Taskforce had been announced in August last year by federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who said it would look at all potential impacts of Liddell's closure, options for extensions or like-for-like replacement, and ensure affordable and reliable energy for NSW families and businesses.
"Liddell" is the Liddell Power Station: a (very big) coal-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley owned by AGL.
AGL announced in 2015 it was going to close the ageing power station in 2022, just at the height of alarms about power shortages and vulnerabilities in Australia’s electricity grid.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/why-morrison-is-stepping-on-the-gas-20200918-p55ww0
Why Morrison is stepping on the gas
Scott Morrison is betting on gas to move past the climate wars and revive the economy but his plans so far may come up short.
Mark Ludlow and Angela Macdonald-Smith
Sep 19, 2020 – 12.00am
It was the question energy experts were asking themselves all week after the Morrison government threatened to build a 1000 megawatt gas-fired power station in the Hunter Valley in NSW if the private sector didn't step in to secure energy supply – why?
After a decade of political infighting over energy and climate policy, the smart money should have been on Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor avoiding more intervention in the National Electricity Market.
"They have invented their own crisis. It is all political smoke and mirrors," a former energy executive, who did not want to be named, tells AFR Weekend.
"It used to be the Australian Energy Market Operator's responsibility to help find a shortfall in supply, now it's theirs. The government has bought themselves a problem."
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Pandemic rebel Sweden plots its economic recovery
By Russell Lynch
Updated September 14, 2020 — 9.48amfirst published at 9.45am
In the minds of many motorists, the Volvo is synonymous with reliability, but even Sweden's totemic national marque briefly succumbed to COVID-19 in the spring.
Almost 280,000 cars rolled off the production line of its vast Torslanda plant near Gothenburg last year before the pandemic struck, forcing the company to send home 6000 workers in the first unplanned stoppage in the 56-year history of the factory.
No longer though. While Britain and other countries were languishing in lockdowns, workers were back on shift by the end of April after 15 days off. Now the plant is churning out virtually a car a minute, and, according to the country's biggest company, production is now "roughly the same" as before the outbreak.
The revived fortunes of the emblematic brand are reflected across Sweden's wider manufacturing sector, which has grown for two months running and in August expanded at its fastest pace since November 2018.
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Sweden’s COVID-19 experiment holds a worldwide warning
One great pandemic fallacy is the idea that you can compare the infection rate of one country with that of another and draw policy conclusions in real time.
Wolfgang Münchau Columnist
Sep 14, 2020 – 9.31am
Only a fool would draw strong conclusions from sketchy data. The biggest fools this year were those who prematurely declared the spike in Swedish infections from April until June as evidence that the Swedish decision not to lock down their economy was wrong.
I recall many armchair epidemiologists hyperventilating about Sweden’s obstinate refusal to follow the rest of the world.
Over the summer, Sweden took other steps to control the virus, including local lockdowns, and cases started to rise again in other parts of Europe. Now, Sweden’s new infection statistics look better than much of the EU. But we shouldn’t draw any conclusions yet. It was wrong two months ago to condemn the Swedish strategy based on that data, and it would be equally wrong to draw the opposite conclusion now.
It took many years for epidemiologists and biostatisticians to understand the infection rate and progression of the 2003 SARS outbreak. It will not be different this time.
Experts are most at risk of error when they go beyond their narrow field of expertise — and particularly when they venture into the world of statistics. In some cases, they get the maths wrong. But often they fail to see subtleties.
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One in five borrowers have ghosted their bank
It's estimated that around one in five customers who opted to defer their home loan repayments are now ghosting their bankers.
Karen Maley Columnist
Sep 14, 2020 – 6.02pm
The coronavirus pandemic has of course thrown up lots of problems for business leaders, but senior bankers face a novel challenge in working out how to manage the tens of thousands of home loan borrowers who have decided to ghost them.
It's estimated that around one in five customers who opted to defer their home loan repayments are now ghosting their bankers: they are simply refusing to respond to phone calls, texts, letters and emails from the banks.
Now, this is not an insignificant number of would-be ghosters.
According to figures provided to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, the banks still had about 414,430 deferred home loans – with a total value of $167 billion – on their books as at the end of July.
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Treasurer wins support to use debt to build Australia out of recession
By Shane Wright
September 16, 2020 — 12.01am
Australians have given Treasurer Josh Frydenberg the green light to borrow big in next month's federal budget to pull the country out of recession and help the nation's unemployed while businesses want a higher GST to pay down government debt.
With Mr Frydenberg expected to reveal a record budget deficit of more than $200 billion in the October 6 budget, the long-running tax survey by progressive think tank Per Capita shows almost half of all respondents back the use of government debt to rebuild the economy.
The government will outline a major infrastructure program in the budget as well as other measures to lift productivity. With the budget expected to be in deficit for several years, any extra spending will have to be financed by borrowing.
The Reserve Bank, in the minutes of its September meeting released on Tuesday, argued all levels of government could increase their borrowing levels to boost the economy.
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COVID-19 has hammered home some uncomfortable truths about us as a people
Chris Uhlmann
Nine News Political Editor
September 16, 2020 — 12.03am
Soon enough there will be a global reckoning on whether the coronavirus defences did more damage than the disease.
It will be driven by the swingeing economic destruction imposed by governments that will deliver millions into poverty, driving internal and external conflicts. Beggared states will turn inward, the world will become more polarised, angrier, more dangerous.
In time it's a fair bet the cure will be seen by many as the real curse, as people whose lives have been destroyed seek retribution.
Though it will be a small wave in the storm, here the Victorian solution and internal border closures should be counted among those judged as doing much more harm than good. That's because there was abundant evidence by mid-year that pointed to more road maps to recovery than the "only way" decreed by the Victorian Premier or the self-interested, colonial-era border wars led by his peers.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/there-are-six-silver-linings-in-this-pandemic-20200916-p55w1w
There are six silver linings in this pandemic
The virus is driving a boom in medical innovation, and global private-sector collaboration on knowledge and data.
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
Sep 16, 2020 – 11.46am
The human tragedies and massive economic disruptions caused by COVID-19 have rightly commanded the attention of the public and policymakers for more than six months, and should continue to do so. But in managing the immediate crisis, we must not lose sight of the opportunities. The oft-quoted line about not letting a crisis go to waste has rarely been more relevant.
For companies, governments, households, and multilateral institutions navigating this unsettling period, the basic task is the same: to overcome pandemic-induced disruptions in ways that also emphasise the silver linings of the crisis.
Now is the time to look to lock in trends and conditions that will reshape our society and economy for the better over the long term. With this overarching objective in mind, here are the top six silver linings that I see.
The first is that we are living through one of the most exciting and promising periods of medical invention and innovation in history. While the immediate focus is rightly on COVID-19 vaccines and therapies, we should expect the research currently underway to produce a host of other discoveries, many of which will yield significant, durable benefits. Moreover, the crisis is forcing us to confront a battery of complex issues concerning drug pricing and distribution, both domestically and globally, as well as the range of social and other inequalities that we have allowed to worsen.
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Thursday, 17 September 2020 18:04
Fears over ‘permanent’ loss of research talent from university sector with job cuts
Australia’s peak body for science and technology, Science & Technolgy Australia (STA), fears the permanent loss of talent from the country’s research system and has called on the Federal Government to staunch the "hemorrhaging" of talent in the wake of thousands more job cuts just announced by universitities.
Science & Technolgy backed up its concerns by renewing a call for the Government to extend JobKeeper to university staff across the country, citing the news that more major universities in recent weeks, have evaluated the ongoing impact of the pandemic on their economic viability and announced plans for further major job losses.
Including casual, contract and permanent jobs, the scale of the job losses across the Australian university sector is profound,” Science & Technology said in a statement issued on Thursday, adding that “it is estimated RMIT may lose more than 1,000 jobs, the University of NSW is expected to cut 749, Monash University has announced losses of 277 jobs, and the Australian National University over 460.”
“On ABC AM radio this morning, higher education policy expert Professor Andrew Norton noted in the current conditions, tomorrow’s researchers may never enter the sector, and today’s researchers may never return if they lose their job now.
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Melbourne Uni chief says Victoria must address difficult ethical questions
By Chip Le Grand
September 19, 2020 — 11.30pm
University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor Duncan Maskell says Victoria needs to address a question that has hung uneasily over our COVID-19 response: what is our tolerance for death in this global pandemic?
Professor Maskell doesn’t profess to know the answer. Though his research expertise is in infectious diseases and microbiology, he says that ultimately, it is a question that can only be addressed by our political leaders, taking into account public sentiment.
Yet, as Melbourne inches towards a loosening of COVID restrictions, Professor Maskell says we shouldn’t be afraid to ask the question, nor to apply scientific rigour to it.
“The question everyone is skirting around here is what is the appetite in any country for disease and mortality associated with this virus,’’ he told The Sunday Age.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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HECS for aged care: seniors groups cautiously welcome Keating's plan
Updated September 14, 2020 — 5.08pmfirst published at 1.00pm
Former prime minister Paul Keating says the ballooning cost of aged care should be met by a HECS-style funding model, where every Australian is extended a loan to pay for their care and the costs are recovered from their estate.
The model, which has been cautiously welcomed by peak seniors groups, would reduce the fiscal burden on a younger generation already carrying the costs of the coronavirus pandemic.
Each person's assets would help to maintain them in later life and it would be more difficult for family members to call on those assets.
"We're not forcing anyone out of their home, we're not obliging aged persons to negatively mortgage their home, you're not asking families to chip in and pay for their relatives in their accommodation or their care, and so I think such a system has a lot of advantages," Mr Keating said.
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https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=487208c3-77e8-4a79-9ccb-e7ca4379fde5
Keeping pace with the rapid developments in aged care during a COVID-19 pandemic
The public health emergency created by the COVID-19 pandemic has had a particularly devastating impact on elderly Australians and those living in residential aged care. Government policy and regulation in this area continues to evolve, particularly in Victoria.
The residential aged care sector has been at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 in Australia. Providers must stay informed of key sector developments and be proactive to ensure that they are equipped to respond swiftly to evolving circumstances and regulation.
Recent changes to the Public Health Orders
The 'second wave' of COVID-19 outbreaks has led to a number of states and territories once again tightening the restrictions that are placed on aged care facilities. As at 1 September 2020, all states and territories had in place directions for aged care providers, pursuant to public health legislation (Directions).
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National Budget Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/china-s-investment-in-australia-is-collapsing-20200911-p55uth
China's investment in Australia is collapsing
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Sep 13, 2020 – 8.00pm
Chinese commercial investment in Australia fell more than 47 per cent to just $2.5 billion in 2019, and is expected to fall further amid tensions between the two countries, according to the Australian National University’s latest Chinese Investment in Australia database.
The database is arguably the most accurate source of Chinese investment in Australia because it records actual transactions, as opposed to approved or contracted deals, as is the case with other databases such as that of the Foreign Investment Review Board.
The federal government's approval of the $1.5 billion sale of Bellamy's was the largest Chinese investment deal to proceed in 2019, and was largely seen as a positive for Beijing’s frosty relationship with Canberra.
However, overall the level of Chinese investment in Australia has now fallen for three consecutive years since it peaked at $15.8 billion in 2016, according to the CHIIA.
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Coronavirus Australia: Imminent reduction in JobSeeker payment will cost the economy billions and trigger 145,000 job losses, experts warn
An imminent cut to cash support for workers who lost their jobs due to coronavirus shutdowns will have catastrophic consequences for the economy, experts warn.
Samantha Maiden@samanthamaiden
September 15, 202010:16am
Slashing welfare payments to workers who lost their jobs as a result of government mandated shutdowns is set to drain the economy of billions of dollars and cost an estimated 145,000 jobs.
Respected analysts Deloitte Access Economics have crunched the numbers on the Morrison Government‘s plans to cut welfare payments to the unemployed this month by $300 a fortnight.
And what they‘ve found is that the sharp reduction in spending that will follow, as one million families are forced to do more with less, will reduce spending so much that it will force thousands of more workers on to the dole queue.
“Every dollar that the government invests in JobSeeker is generating a significant economic return, helping to pave the road out of recession,” Deloitte Access Economics Lead Ally Nicki Hutley said.
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Figures shock as 111,000 jobs added
17 September, 2020
Australia’s unemployment rate has plunged to 6.8 per cent in August from 7.5 per cent in the month before as the economy added another 111,000 jobs in the month despite the drag from Victoria’s second wave.
There was a 36,200 increase in the number of full-time workers, and a 74,800 rise in part-time jobs, the seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
In Victoria, the jobless rate lifted to 7.1 per cent in August, from 6.8 per cent, alongside a 42,400 fall in the number of unemployed. But this drop was more than offset by gains across the rest of the country, the ABS said.
The number of employed Australians by 366,700 in June and July – and despite the August rise is still shy of the 872,000 plunge in employment triggered by the shutdowns in April and May.
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Tax cuts in the budget as job figures show strength of gig economy
By Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke
September 17, 2020 — 5.05pm
Personal income tax cuts will be a key feature of Josh Frydenberg's recession-busting federal budget as signs emerge the recovery in the jobs market is increasingly reliant on the gig economy.
Mr Frydenberg on Thursday made it clear that pulling forward previously legislated tax cuts as well as incentives for businesses to expand their operations would underpin the government's recovery plan to be revealed in the October 6 budget.
Tax relief worth $158 billion, much of which will go to high income earners, is due to start in mid-2022 and mid-2024.
Thursday, September 17: An extra 35,000 jobs will come from a new $1.9 technologies boost announced by the Morrison government.
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Pragmatism is good but goes only so far
The unemployment rate fell dramatically this week, catching analysts off guard. Of course when JobKeeper gets withdrawn next year that is likely to see the rate head north once again, as Treasury has forecast. JobSeeker payments also are coming down, moving back towards the paltry rate Newstart was set at before the coronavirus crisis caused this recession.
Next month Josh Frydenberg will hand down a budget that was supposed to be in surplus. We were told we were already “back in black”, remember? Instead the budget will be in deficit, the largest in the history of this nation. That will see national debt, which has already doubled since the Coalition came to office in 2013, continue to balloon.
We know unemployment usually rises far more quickly than it comes down, history has taught us that. The Treasurer made that exact point when moving to legislate the JobKeeper payments to keep people in work.
But there is only so much a government can do.
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Some food for thought on the restaurant rout: 150,000 jobs in doubt
Don’t, for a moment, think the labour market is picking up, or in anything approaching good shape: August’s 111,000 lift in jobs and fall in unemployment from 7.5 to 6.8 per cent revealed by the ABS on Thursday were, to put it mildly, horse manure for the garden.
That employment increase was seasonally adjusted, as it always is. The original, non-seasonally adjusted number was 44,500. The increase in “non-employees” — that is, business owner-managers with no employees — was 50,200.
So there was actually a fall in the number of jobs and an increase only in the number of people working for themselves. Who are they? That’s not revealed, but they’re food deliverers of course — UberEats, Deliveroo, Providore etc.
There’s a lot more food delivery going on at the moment, but it’s terrible work and they’re doing it out of desperation, not choice.
It explains why hours worked in August only rose 0.1 per cent when employment rose 0.9 per cent. Not only do they work fewer hours than employees, they get paid less for the hours they do drive, or pedal.
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'Astounding' expenditure looms in recession-busting federal budget
By Shane Wright
September 20, 2020 — 12.01am
The Morrison government is preparing to unleash an "astounding" amount of spending in next month's budget to drag the country out of its first recession in 29 years with the nation unable to rely on ultra-low interest rates to boost the economy.
Longer-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the country's finances are also crystallising, with the government's Centre for Population forecasting the fertility rate to drop well below the level used in budget assumptions.
As the government announces an extra $305.6 million to primarily help families and childcare providers across Victoria, The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age can reveal senior ministers are preparing an avalanche of spending that will push the budget deficit to an unprecedented level.
A deficit well beyond $200 billion is now expected, dwarfing the previous record of $54.5 billion set by the Rudd government during the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009-10.
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Health Issues.
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Take a breath before giving asthma patients steroids, experts say
By Stuart Layt
September 15, 2020 — 12.01am
Asthma patients are being given too many steroid tablets, a group of researchers say, potentially exposing long-term sufferers to serious side-effects.
Steroid tablets are commonly prescribed to people who have recently had a serious asthma attack to prevent another attack.
But the researchers, led by University of Queensland Professor John Upham, found that while there is significant benefit in the short term from the treatment, the long-term effects may outweigh any benefit gained.
"Doctors used to think that if you just have a short course of these tablets for a few days it didn’t really matter and you would only suffer side-effects if you took them day after day for a long period," Professor Upham said.
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Coronavirus mortality rates in ICUs here lower than other countries
The mortality rate of patients admitted to public hospital intensive care units with COVID-19 in the first wave of the pandemic in Australia was lower than in other parts of the world, with four of out of five patients placed on a ventilator surviving the disease.
A study published in the Medical Journal of Australia that documented 90 per cent of COVID-19 ICU admissions up to July 5 found that the death rate for COVID-19 patients who required ventilation in ICU was 22 per cent, while the mortality rate was 5 per cent for those in ICU who did not require ventilation.
The study also revealed that public hospitals in Australia came nowhere near being overwhelmed by the pandemic. The median peak ICU bed occupancy for the 77 intensive care units that participated in the study was calculated at 14 per cent.
The study, known as SPRINT-SARI, was co-ordinated by the Australian and New Zealand Intensive Care Research Centre (ANZIC-RC) at Monash University. It found that invasively ventilated COVID-19 patients had a median length stay in ICU of 16 days, compared with three days for those who were not ventilated.
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International Issues.
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Merkel, Xi to hold talks as Europe ponders China relationship
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Updated Sep 13, 2020 – 2.21pm, first published at 2.20pm
London | German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union's top officials will hold a videoconference with Chinese President Xi Jinping late on Monday (AEST), as both sides look to reposition their relationship amid the deepening US-China rift.
European countries are increasingly recognising a strategic threat from China, with Brussels last year describing the country as "a systemic rival" and this year ramping up efforts to reduce dependence on Chinese goods and raw materials.
But while most European countries are shifting inch by inch away from the previous business-first, economics-driven approach, they are trying to keep some distance from the Trump administration's heightened pre-election pugilism.
"We are all dependent on an improvement in the trade relations between the US and China, but we have no interest nor any reason to play a go-between [role] between China and America," former European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker said last week.
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Echoes of Pearl Harbour in latest US moves on China
By Dimitri Burshtein
September 14, 2020 — 12.12am
In November 2019, former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger warned that “the US and China were in the ‘foothills of a cold war’ and could be headed toward a conflict worse than World War I”. Since then, trade tensions between the US and China have only intensified.
As of today, following a US government directive, Taiwan-based TSMC, the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturer will cease supplying China-based Huawei, the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker.
Semi-conductors are the brains of mobile and telecommunication systems and this US action exposes China’s vulnerabilities.
Cash is almost non-existent in China. Consumer payments for taxis, takeaway noodles or electricity accounts are made with mobile devices. Even Chinese street beggars take mobile payments with QR codes.
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Biden policies mean US election won’t end China trade war
On Wednesday the US Democrat presidential candidate, Joe Biden, will relaunch his economic policies with a speech in Michigan that could have important implications for Australia.
According to a Bloomberg story over the weekend, Biden will impose a 10 per cent tax penalty on companies that move operations overseas, and give a 10 per cent tax credit for those that create jobs in the United States.
In other words, two years after Donald Trump signalled that the era of free trade is over by launching a trade war against China, the alternative US president is joining in, making “Made in America” the centrepiece of his economic policy and abandoning the pro-globalisation stance that has been a core Democrat position since the 1990s.
So any hope among Australian businesses that the defeat of Donald Trump would get things back to normal with China will be dispelled by the end of this week.
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China's global investment game plan has hit a wall
Rhetoric about open investment does not add up to much when the objectives are strategic rather than commercial.
Adrian Blundell-Wignall Columnist
Sep 14, 2020 – 7.01pm
“Based on the aspiration of promoting the silkroad spirit centering on peace, cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and mutual benefits and aspiration to further enrich such spirit in keeping with the new era; welcoming and supporting China’s initiative to jointly promote the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road (hereafter the Belt and Road Initiative); willing to enhance practical cooperation within the framework of jointly building the Belt and Road, the parties decide … ”
So opens Victoria’s memorandum of understanding with China, signed by Premier Dan Andrews. Peace, co-operation and openness? Australian journalists fleeing from China after being heavied by police in their homes at night may have a view on that.
It true that the Port of Darwin, owned by China, is now a part of the BRI – an uncomfortable truth. But the 20 per cent of the Port of Melbourne owned by China does not yet qualify it for being on the Maritime Silk Road. And Victoria is certainly on the other side of the world to China’s six economic belts.
Yet Victoria apparently understands that it is going to help build something that is not in Australia’s interest, and welcome and support it, ushering in a “new era”. What is the nature of this “new era”? Recently in these pages I looked at China’s imports as part of that “new era”. What about the international investment side?
China’s state-linked companies buy enterprises in the West where there is technology transfer that they seek, or where owning a company helps to vertically integrate goods and services into Chinese industrial supply chains.
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Climate change hits 2020 race as US west coast burns
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Sep 15, 2020 – 7.05am
Washington | Joe Biden is determined to succeed where Malcolm Turnbull, Bill Shorten, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Jeremy Corbyn and a host of others have stumbled: win by promising dramatic climate change action.
Emboldened by apocalyptic scenes across America's west coast - where almost 100 fires across a dozen states are ablaze - and a progressive Democrat base demanding action, Mr Biden on Monday (Tuesday AEST) blasted Donald Trump as a "climate arsonist" and warned another four years of his administration would see even more dramatic events unfold.
Portraying Mr Trump as a climate-science luddite, Mr Biden emphasised the real-world impacts on ordinary households of increased fires and hurricanes rather than tightly framing the issue as an environmental concern.
"Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused the record fires, record floods, and record hurricanes," Mr Biden said. "But if he gets a second term, these hellish events will become more common, more devastating, and more deadly."
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/we-log-ourselves-on-to-division-20200915-p55vo0
We don't need China to polarise ourselves
China hardly needs to mine our data to help sow social discord. Western countries are doing a fine job of polarising themselves on social media.
Parnell Palme McGuinness Columnist
Updated Sep 15, 2020 – 1.08pm, first published at 11.28am
The ultimate act of bastardry in modern politics would be to publish a memoir and leave off the index. This is notoriously the most popular chapter of any non-fiction book as the important and self-important eagerly flick through in search of their own names.
It might therefore have been more appropriate to launch the Zhenhua dossier in a big city law firm, catered with canapes and white wine, instead of leaking it to a media consortium. Had the dossier been for sale at the launch, it would undoubtedly have been an instant bestseller.
Using information on personal interests and foibles to influence the actions of the rich, influential or powerful – or their relatives – is hardly a new endeavour. William Makepeace Thackeray's enormously entertaining 19th-century novel, Vanity Fair, captures universally acknowledged truths when it pokes fun at just how susceptible these supposed tastemakers are to the flattery and wiles of the young Becky Sharp.
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US, Israel, UAE, Bahrain sign Middle East peace accord
· Dow Jones
Donald Trump said the world was watching “the dawn of a new Middle East’’ as Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed an historic deal to establish formal ties in a lavish White House ceremony.
Mr Trump used the ceremony, with Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the foreign ministers of UAE, to cast himself as an international statesman in the midst of a hard fought presidential election campaign.
The signing of the so-called Abraham Accord is one of the president’s most important foreign policy victories of his first term in office and comes after decades of hostility between the Arab world and Israel.
“We’re here this afternoon to change the course of history. After decades of division and conflict, we mark the dawn of a new Middle East,” Mr Trump said in an address to a crowd on the South Lawn of the White House. “Thanks to the courage of the leaders present, we take a major stride toward a future in which people of all faiths and backgrounds can live together in peace and prosperity.”
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The love triangle that spawned Trump’s Mideast peace deal
In the convoluted world of Middle East politics, US President Donald Trump may have unwittingly achieved the near-impossible in ending the stalemate between Israel and its neighbours.
Thomas L. Friedman
Sep 16, 2020 – 3.05pm
Having covered Arab-Israel diplomacy for more than 40 years, I have to say that the normalisation agreements signed on Tuesday between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Israel and Bahrain came about in a most unusual – but incredibly revealing – fashion.
I can best explain it with a soap opera analogy. It is as if Jared Kushner was a lawyer who set out to arrange a divorce between a couple, Mrs Israel and Mr Palestine.
In the process, though, Kushner discovered that Mrs Israel and Mr Palestine were so incompatible that they couldn't even sit in a room together, let alone agree on his plan for separation.
But along the way, Kushner discovered something intriguing: Mrs Israel was having an affair with Mr Emirates, who was fleeing an abusive relationship with Ms Iran.
So, Kushner stopped trying to arrange a divorce between Mr Palestine and Mrs Israel and seized instead on the mutual interest of Mrs Israel and Mr Emirates to marry – not to mention the self-interest of President Donald Trump to serve as the "justice of the peace" who would officiate on the White House lawn in the midst of a presidential campaign.
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Fed signals rates will stay near zero for at least three years
Catarina Saraiva
Sep 17, 2020 – 4.06am
The Federal Reserve left interest rates near zero and signalled it would hold them there through at least 2023 to help the US economy recover from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Federal Open Market Committee "expects to maintain an accommodative stance of monetary policy" until it achieves inflation averaging 2 per cent over time and longer-term inflation expectations remain well anchored at 2 per cent, the central bank said in a statement Wednesday (Thursday AEST) following a two-day policy meeting.
The statement reflects the central bank's new long-term policy framework in which officials will allow inflation to overshoot their 2 per cent target after periods of under-performance. That shift was announced by Powell last month at the central bank's annual Jackson Hole policy conference.
The vote, in the FOMC's final scheduled meeting before the US presidential election on November 3, was 8-2.
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The US-China battle for tech supremacy has just intensified
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
September 15, 2020 — 3.15pm
The collision between the US and China over the Trump administration’s attempts to frustrate or corral China’s technology ambitions may have a new front, even as an existing battle over competing national interests is nearing its conclusion.
Donald Trump’s ultimatum to TikTok owner ByteDance last month that its US operation would be banned if it weren’t sold to US interests was countered by China imposing restrictions on the export of artificial intelligence technologies – which power the wildly-popular short video app.
Now, US tech giant Nvidia plans to acquire the UK-based chip and software design company, Arm Holdings – a company whose technology is at the centre of an estimated 90 per cent of smartphones, including those made by Chinese companies – from Japan’s SoftBank in a $US40 billion ($55 billion) deal.
Chips using Arm’s designs are also used in 5G networks, the "internet-of-things," home electronics, laptops, cloud services servers and manufacturing plants. Arm operates an "open licensing" model that treats all licensees equally.
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New Zealand economy shrinks by record 12.2%
· Dow Jones
New Zealand’s economy suffered a record contraction in the second quarter as a lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus kept people at home and shuttered most businesses.
Gross domestic product shrank by 12.2 per cent in the April-June quarter from the previous quarter, Statistics New Zealand said. The economy was 12.4 per cent smaller compared with a year earlier.
The New Zealand decline was worse than an estimated 9.8 per cent drop in combined GDP for OECD developed nations in the same period and a 7.0 per cent fall for Australia, which imposed a less strict lockdown.
More up-to-date indicators show that the New Zealand economy has quickly rebounded from lockdown in the third quarter.
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Coronavirus: OECD gloomy on economic rebound
The OECD has slashed its forecast for Australian GDP growth in 2021, saying shutdowns associated with Victoria’s second wave of COVID-19 will drive a much weaker than expected rebound.
In its latest economic outlook, the OECD upgraded its growth forecast for Australia in 2020, saying real GDP would contract by 4.1 per cent, or by 0.9 per cent less than it forecast in June.
The international body sharply downgraded Australia’s projected growth for 2021, saying it now expected real GDP to grow by 2.5 per cent, versus a previous estimate of 4.1 per cent.
The more pessimistic prediction from the Paris-based organisation leaves growth below trend in 2021, and well below the 4 per cent forecast from the Reserve Bank of Australia’s August economic outlook.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-at-87-20200919-p55x7a
Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87
Mark Sherman
Sep 19, 2020 – 10.01am
Washington | Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a diminutive yet towering women’s rights champion who became the court’s second female justice, died Friday at her home in Washington. She was 87.
Ginsburg died of complications from metastatic pancreatic cancer, the court said.
Ginsberg’s death just over six weeks before Election Day is likely to set off a heated battle over whether President Donald Trump should nominate, and the Republican-led Senate should confirm, her replacement, or if the seat should remain vacant until the outcome of his race against Democrat Joe Biden is known.
Ginsburg announced in July that she was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for lesions on her liver, the latest of her several battles with cancer.
Ginsburg spent her final years on the bench as the unquestioned leader of the court’s liberal wing and became something of a rock star to her admirers. Young women especially seemed to embrace the court’s Jewish grandmother, affectionately calling her the Notorious RBG, for her defence of the rights of women and minorities, and the strength and resilience she displayed in the face of personal loss and health crises.
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China puts up a great economic wall
Eryk Bagshaw
China correspondent
September 18, 2020 — 11.59am
The first ruler of Beijing’s Forbidden City was different from the rest. Emperor Yongle was brutal like his predecessors and dictatorial like his descendants, but he was more worldly than any of them. For a brief period between 1405 and 1433, China would embark on a massive maritime campaign to legitimise their own prestige by engaging with foreign nations, reaching the African south and possibly as far as the west coast of Australia.
Trade boomed, Chinese spices found new ports and giraffes and rhinoceroses would follow the armada of treasure ships back home, but eventually suspicion of collusion with foreign powers took hold and Emperor Yongle’s successors imposed a ban on sea trading.
“Our Celestial Empire possesses all things in prolific abundance and has no need to import the manufacturers of outside barbarians,” Emperor Qianlong wrote in a letter to Britain’s King George III in 1793.
The European Union's Chamber of Commerce in China recounted the more than two-century old message from Beijing this week.
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US to sell Taipei drones in $10bn weapons deal
· The Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration is poised to make a $US7bn ($9.6bn) arms deal with Taiwan, part of an effort to draw closer to Taipei as the administration ratchets up the political and military pressure against China.
The complement of US weaponry to be sold to Taiwan includes cruise missiles, mines and other hardware, two officials said, in one of the largest arms deals to the island country. The sale also includes $US400m worth of MQ-9B Reaper drones along with related sensors, logistics, ground control stations, training and other equipment, they said.
The Trump administration has inched closer to Taipei than previous administrations. The $US7bn deal would be on top of the $US15bn in arms sold to the country during the Trump administration. Arms sales to Taiwan totalled roughly $US14bn over the course of the Obama administration’s eight years in office.
Earlier sales to Taiwan, including tanks, reflected Taipei’s requests but were seen as largely symbolic, since the island nation isn’t likely to engage in a land war with China. But drones and cruise missiles are viewed by experts as much more relevant to a US effort to apply more pressure on Beijing, which considers Taiwan a rebel territory and hasn’t ruled out military efforts to bring it under its control.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/get-ready-for-the-great-american-court-war-20200919-p55x7x
Get ready for the great American court war
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death will tear America even further apart at a time when it may be least able to cope, testing the very foundations of its most important institutions.
Jacob Greber United States correspondent
Updated Sep 19, 2020 – 2.52pm, first published at 12.54pm
Ann Arbor, Michigan | Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death is either a national tragedy or timely opportunity - depending on whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican. If you're simply someone who loves America watching from abroad, you're probably aghast at what’s about to unfold.
Donald Trump and Senate Leader Mitch McConnell will work to jam through a replacement that will tip the Supreme Court’s balance inexorably and for the foreseeable future towards pro-life conservatism.
That was one of the long-tail consequences of the 2016 election.
McConnell will almost certainly have the simple Senate majority to do what he and Trump have always promised their loyal followers, particularly evangelicals. This is non-negotiable for both men.
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Lockdown looms in Britain as Johnson admits to second wave
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Sep 20, 2020 – 9.43am
London | Prime Minister Boris Johnson looks set to plunge Britain into a renewed lockdown, as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to escalate out of the government's control.
One in five British people are now under localised lockdowns - including curfews, and a ban on socialising with other households - and the hospitalisation rate is picking up pace.
Mr Johnson late on Friday (early Saturday AEST) conceded Britain was "seeing a second wave coming in", as he announced new fines of up to £10,000 ($17,725) for breaches of self-isolation rules and warned of more lockdown measures to come.
"When you look at what is happening, you have got to wonder whether we need to go further ... [we will be] looking at what we can to to intensify things."
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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