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The US seems to be in turmoil with Trump hiding out in the White House, some large protests and little sign of a resolution. Even worse is that the COVID19 pandemic is now starting to damage social coherence and people are looking to migrate to OZ apparently!
In the UK both Brexit and the COVID19 issue a both out of control and the outcomes are by no means clear.
In OZ we seem to have a rest from Parliament but the issues around the Indigenous Voice To Parliament in Naidoc Week and the treatment of women working at Parliament House are festering. Otherwise we are seeing a Victorian Economic Recovery after control of the virus has been achieved. So some hope out there!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/larry-fink-sees-a-seismic-reallocation-of-capital-20201109-p56csh
Larry Fink sees ‘a seismic reallocation of capital’
BlackRock boss Larry Fink says the firm is already winning fund flow thanks to the push by clients to invest with a climate risk overlay.
Nov 9, 2020 – 11.00am
In an upside down year like 2020, it doesn’t take much to get Larry Fink excited. The chief executive and co-founder of the $US10 trillion ($13.7 trillion) fund manager BlackRock has returned to the office two or three days a week, and is thrilled to have that human contact again.
“I find it exhilarating,” he said in a video interview for the Financial Services Council’s inaugural investment conference that started on Monday morning.
Like many business leaders, Fink can’t shake the lingering questions about whether working from home in a time of pandemic might hurt corporate culture and innovation. But at the same time, he says BlackRock hasn’t missed a beat, both in terms of how employees have managed the transition to working from home, and its performance.
“We’ve never had more alpha generation for our clients,” Fink says.
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How Sky News quietly became Australia’s biggest news channel on social media
By Cam Wilson
Updated November 8, 2020 — 9.28pmfirst published at 4.51pm
When veteran broadcaster Alan Jones signed on to exclusively broadcast on Sky News Australia, the network celebrated bringing on one of the biggest names in Australian media.
The titan of Australian breakfast radio had just retired at the top of the ratings in Australia’s toughest market — ostensibly because his workload was "detrimental" to his health — and was already a regular fixture of the News Corporation-owned television station.
The announcement of a new weekday evening prime time television show for the controversial media figure was a coup for a network that was trying to emulate the success of Fox News with its own highly partisan talk show line-up of Australian commentators.
It was hoped that Jones would bring his massive radio audience with him.
He didn’t. Only a week into his tenure, Alan Jones had fewer than 60,000 viewers. By comparison, the ABC’s flagship news program 7.30 gets more than ten times that and both Seven and Nine’s evening news bulletins regularly reach more than a million viewers.
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Former staffer alleges affair with Population Minister Alan Tudge
Tom McIlroy Political reporter
Nov 9, 2020 – 9.50pm
A former federal government staffer has alleged she had a consensual affair with Population Minister Alan Tudge, a likely breach of ministerial rules.
The revelation — included in an ABC TV investigation of the conduct of senior ministers in Canberra — coincided with allegations of drunken behaviour by Attorney-General Christian Porter. The report also alleged Mr Porter had a relationship with another staffer.
Liberal Party member and former Coalition media adviser Rachelle Miller told Four Corners that Mr Tudge, then human services minister, put pressure on her, asking to "war game" denials to journalists about their affair, before she moved to work for another government minister.
The Liberal Party member said she felt powerless to act.
Ms Miller said her relationship with Mr Tudge, now acting Immigration Minister, coincided with former Nationals' leader Barnaby Joyce's affair with staffer Vicki Campion came to light, prompting then prime minister Malcolm Turnbull to institute a rule blocking sexual relationships between ministers and staff, the so-called "bonk ban".
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/sex-scandals-inflame-coalition-s-women-problem-20201105-p56bqq
Sex scandals inflame Coalition's women problem
Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent
Nov 10, 2020 – 9.38am
From the best of intentions often come unintended outcomes, especially in matters of sex.
Now, thanks to a rule designed to protect young, female political advisers from their male ministers, the public has been taken into Canberra's bedrooms of power by the ABC's Four Corners.
Attorney-General Christian Porter and Immigration Minister Alan Tudge were the headline acts of Monday's program: Tudge for an extra-marital affair with his press secretary, and Porter for what the ABC journalist Louise Milligan alleged was a pattern of sleazy behaviour dating back to university.
The rare foray into the private behaviour of public figures was facilitated by Malcolm Turnbull, who lent the allegations his imprimatur by appearing on the show as a prosecution witness.
There was more to Turnbull's involvement than the interview. His 2018 prime ministerial decision to ban romantic relationships between ministers and their personal staff appears to have brought about the end of the long-standing (and not always followed) convention against reporting politicians' sex lives.
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Surveying too many Labor voters led to election polling 'fail'
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Nov 11, 2020 – 12.00am
Australia's political opinion pollsters experienced a "polling failure" after they badly got the results of last year's federal election wrong and failed to pick Scott Morrison's "miracle" victory, according to an industry post mortem.
The Association of Market and Social Research Organisations' final report, released on Wednesday, found polls were skewed towards gauging the thoughts of more politically engaged voters and were hence over-represented by Labor supporters.
The report says there is no consensus from polling companies about what went wrong but warns the credibility of opinion polling with Australians seems to be at an all-time low.
The report makes 10 recommendations, including that pollsters give greater weight to education as a criteria when sampling, not rely on previous election results to determine preference flows and develop a code of conduct for the industry.
The review also takes a swipe at how the media reports the polls, finding they are often not reported in line with Press Council guidelines for disclosure.
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Report into disgraced ex-cardinal shows failings by popes, top clerics
By Philip Pullella
November 11, 2020 — 1.10am
Vatican City: A Vatican report into disgraced ex-US cardinal Theodore McCarrick points to failings by popes, Vatican officials and senior US clerics who let him rise through the Catholic ranks despite repeated allegations of sexual misconduct.
McCarrick, a highly influential figure in the American Roman Catholic Church, was expelled from the priesthood last year after a Vatican investigation found him guilty of sexual crimes against minors and adults and abuse of power.
With testimony from 90 witnesses and dozens of documents, letters and transcripts from Vatican and US church archives, the 460-page document offers a remarkable reckoning by an institution known for its secrecy, portraying a man long able to convince superiors of his innocence.
The report said that "credible evidence" that the former archbishop of Washington DC had abused minors when he was a priest in the 1970s did not surface until 2017.
But it said the US church hierarchy was aware of consistent rumours that after McCarrick became a bishop in the early 1980s he preyed on adult male seminarians.
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The 'known unknowns' in markets are no longer as obvious as they seemed
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
November 11, 2020 — 11.57am
For most of this year the "known unknowns" in the markets were quite obvious. Now, suddenly, they aren’t.
Since March, when the investing world abruptly woke up to the severity of the implications of the pandemic, the two big influences on the markets, and the key US markets in particular, were the pandemic and the US election.
The degree to which the pandemic damaged real economies, the severity of the impacts on sectors within them, the relative success of countries’ containment of the virus and the prospect of a vaccine that would eventually end it were the key influences on the markets.
The US election appeared a more straightforward issue.
A Trump win meant more of the same – more deregulation, perhaps more corporate tax cuts, more trade conflicts and an escalation of the confrontation with China.
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'Unviable': La Trobe proposes cutting humanities and education courses
By Adam Carey
November 11, 2020 — 7.11pm
La Trobe University has proposed scrapping or reducing about a dozen disciplines in the arts and education, telling staff on Wednesday that it is no longer financially viable to teach these subjects.
The proposal comes as the university confronts a revenue downturn in the hundreds of millions of dollars due to the COVID-19 pandemic, forcing it to shed hundreds of positions.
Staff at La Trobe, who have also agreed to take a 10 per cent pay cut to avoid deeper job cuts, were told that unprofitable disciplines from the schools of humanities and education could not continue in their current state.
Those that face being discontinued include creative arts, Hindi, Indonesian and modern Greek studies. Planning and community development and philosophy would be scaled back.
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‘Debate stifled by Chinese university students’
The overwhelming number of Chinese students in many Australian university classrooms has stymied free debate and made it difficult to encourage academic integrity, according to a new report prepared for the Business Council and Asia Society.
The paper, authored by the University of Sydney Business School’s international academic director John Shields, calls for higher entry standards for international students — including in the minimum level of English-language proficiency.
“Far from serving to diversity the student cohort, the dependence on Chinese students has instituted a form of classroom monoculturalism in which encouraging students to embrace the values of academic integrity and free debate, and facilitating the development of core capabilities in critical thinking, effective English communication and cross-cultural competence, have become increasingly difficult,” Professor Shields writes.
But Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson defended academic and language standards and said if the sector was seen as low quality, “international students would have stopped coming here a long time ago”.
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APRA compromises on draft remuneration standard
The prudential regulator has compromised on some key aspects of its long-awaited, draft standard on remuneration, proposing shorter deferral periods and a more flexible, approach to the 50 per cent cap on financial measures for variable pay.
Australian Prudential Regulation Authority deputy chairman John Lonsdale said the new framework, which addressed the relevant recommendations from the financial services royal commission, was more principles-based but required greater transparency.
“(It) is deliberately principles-based to provide boards with flexibility to tailor remuneration frameworks to their entities,” he said.
“However, with this flexibility comes an obligation that boards actively oversee remuneration policies for employees and ensure that there are appropriate consequences when people fail to meet expectations.
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No small thing: Cost of rearing children on the rise
By Nina Hendy
November 10, 2020 — 10.30pm
It’s a sobering thought when so many people are suffering from financial hardship and have lost their jobs because of the COVID-19 pandemic that it now costs more than $1100 a week for a couple to raise two children.
Research conducted by the UNSW Social Research Centre shows that, including housing, the combined living costs of a couple raising a six-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy has ballooned to $1174 per week.
And despite regular assumptions, it not much cheaper if you have only one child, with your weekly budget likely to be about $969, the study found.
Housing remains the largest single expense, at more than $450 per week. Other costs tracked include clothing, food, transport, health, personal care, recreation, education and household goods. The cost of mobile phones was also included.
Another study by Finder suggests that the number of children in a family affects the cost per child. Expenses can be reduced by re-using baby clothes and toys, while taking advantage of the lessons learned the first time around.
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Hillbilly Ellegy movie review: Trump’s people writ large
Glenn Close and Amy Adams have 13 Oscar nominations between them. They each should add to that for their superb performances as mother and daughter in Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy, based on the 2016 memoir by JD Vance.
With a bit of luck, on top of a lifetime of hard work, Close, now 73, should no longer have a record she doesn’t deserve: seven nominations without a win.
As her character, Mamaw Vance, tells her young grandson, JD, at one point, “Where we come from is who we are, but we choose every day who we become.”
That homespun wisdom goes to the heart of this story. The book, published a few months before the 2016 US election, is the best one I have read on the socio-economic shifts that Donald Trump rode into the White House.
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We need to talk about Kevin and Malcolm and their Murdoch obsession
Tom Switzer
Columnist
November 13, 2020 — 7.21pm
In the modern era, Australian prime ministers can be broadly divided into two groups: those who've been dedicated to real, substantial policy achievement, and those who've focused on political theatrics.
Within the first group fall Bob Hawke and John Howard. Whatever one's view of the long-serving Labor and Liberal icons, there is no question that both left an imprint on history. PMs from the second group tend to be attention-seeking narcissists.
So it is with Kevin Rudd and Malcolm Turnbull, regular guests across ABC outlets, proving Gareth Evans' observation that many former political leaders suffer from "relevance deprivation syndrome". In the space of just 36 hours earlier this week, Turnbull – who once berated Rudd for being a "miserable ghost" – was on Insiders, RN Breakfast, Four Corners and Q&A.
Calling for a royal commission into media diversity, Rudd and Turnbull have been channelling George Orwell, claiming the Murdoch media (The Australian and its metro tabloids) stifle a diversity of views and pose a threat to our democracy.
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Mega free-trade deal a lifeline for Australia-China relations
By Eryk Bagshaw
November 15, 2020 — 12.01am
Australian businesses, universities and healthcare providers will be given access to 14 countries in the largest free-trade deal ever signed, as the federal government attempts to turn the new trading bloc into a circuit-breaker in its spiralling trade dispute with China.
Following eight years of highly secretive negotiations, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership will be signed on Sunday after agreements were reached across the $30-trillion market by Australia, China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand and 10 members of the Association of South-East Asian Nations including Indonesia and Vietnam.
The Australian government will use the European Union-style trade bloc in the Indo-Pacific to pull China back into multilateral negotiations and end trade disputes that have hit a dozen Australian industries and threatened $20 billion of exports.
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5 things big energy retailers don't want you to know about your bills
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
November 14, 2020 — 11.00pm
One of my most joyous moments so far of 2020 has been discovering the communal laundry in my apartment block has a clothes dryer we can use.
Look, in a year of slim pickings, I’ll take my kicks where I can find them, OK?
Unfortunately, the dryer is individually metered to each unit, meaning my electricity bill has since exploded. So, this week I took a deep dive down the dark rabbit hole that is electricity pricing.
Turns out, the electricity retailer I am with still sits on top of the government’s energymadeeasy.gov.au price comparison website for my area. The site only covers NSW, QLD, ACT and SA. Victorian power users need to go to compare.energy.vic.gov.au.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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'Incredibly exciting' vaccine news puts Australia on track for 2021 rollout
By Rachel Clun
November 10, 2020 — 12.53pm
Australia is on track to have a COVID-19 vaccination available for those who want it by the end of 2021, Health Minister Greg Hunt says, after preliminary data showed one of the four vaccine candidates was highly effective.
Immunology and infectious diseases experts said the news was promising but more information on its safety and ability to stop the spread of the virus was needed.
In the first results released from a late-stage COVID-19 vaccine trial, Pfizer and BioNTech said their mRNA-based vaccine was 90 per cent effective. So far, there had been no serious safety concerns with the vaccine among the roughly 40,000 trial participants, they said.
Last week, the federal government announced it had secured 10 million doses of that vaccine as well as 40 million doses of a Noravax candidate, which would both require two doses. The government also has agreements to purchase the University of Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine and a University of Queensland/CSL Ltd candidate.
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What Pfizer's vaccine means for Big Pharma
By Julia Bradshaw
November 10, 2020 — 9.00am
For months now, the world has been waiting, desperately, for ways to fight back against COVID-19.
But the overwhelmingly positive data on Pfizer's experimental vaccine still surprised even the most jaded market watchers.
"We were knocked off our seats, on this data we could genuinely see people vaccinated before Christmas," one analyst said.
The vaccine may well prove to be one of the most significant advances in decades, on par with Neil Armstrong's moon landing.
Albert Bourla, Pfizer chief executive, said it was "a great day for science and humanity" when he announced interim data suggesting the jab is more than 90 per cent effective in preventing people from contracting COVID-19. But this excitement must be tempered with a dose of realism. Drugs that reach phase three trials like this one have about an 80 per cent chance of success, so there is still scope for failure.
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Victoria virus recovery lifts business and consumer mood
Businesses are the most confident they have been since mid-2019 and consumer sentiment lifted to its highest level since the pandemic began, as Victorian firms and households cheered the end of Melbourne’s lockdown.
NAB’s monthly business survey showed the confidence index lifted 9 points to 5 points in October – the highest in over a year and above the zero “neutral” level, indicating more optimists than pessimists.
The business survey is the latest evidence that Australia’s post-COVID recovery has taken hold, although in an environment of incredible uncertainty as the world continues to struggle to suppress the pandemic.
NAB chief economist Alan Oster said “the improvement in confidence is encouraging but remains fragile, and it will likely remain that way until a vaccine is available”.
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Wings clipped: Overseas student applications 'nosedive'
By Adam Carey
November 9, 2020 — 11.30pm
Applications by foreign citizens to study in Australia have collapsed by more than 80 per cent since March, with the number of international students expected to be half its pre-pandemic total by mid next year.
There are already about 210,000 fewer international students in Australia than would have been expected before Australia shut its borders on March 20 in response to spiralling COVID-19 case numbers, Department of Home Affairs data shows.
This includes 135,000 students who are still enrolled but not in the country, and a 75,000 drop in onshore student numbers.
The drop in enrolments and visa applications could cost the Australian economy up to $20 billion in lost spending.
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Sydney COVID-19 infections triple the number diagnosed
Aaron Patrick Senior correspondent
Nov 11, 2020 – 10.27am
Some 7450 Sydneysiders were probably infected with COVID-19 in the first wave that swept through the city in March and April, which was three-and-a-half times the diagnosed number, according to a study for the NSW Health department.
Testing of biological samples known as a serological survey found that Sydney's real infection rate was likely to be much lower than some foreign cities, but higher than appeared based on COVID-19 testing.
Among pregnant women, 0.79 per cent were found to have antibodies that indicated they had been infected with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
For people who had a pathology test for any reason, other than a COVID-19 test, the result was 0.15 per cent.
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I took the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. It's a miracle for genetic medicine
The great news about RNA vaccines is that they can easily be reprogrammed. Even after we defeat COVID-19, new viruses will come along.
Walter Isaacson Contributor
Nov 10, 2020 – 10.37am
"Look me in the eyes," the doctor ordered, staring at me from behind her plastic face guard. Her eyes were blue, almost as blue as her hospital mask.
Yet, after a moment, I started to turn and face the doctor on my left, who was jabbing a long needle deep into the muscle of my upper arm. "No!" the first doctor snapped. "Look at me!"
Then she explained.
Pfizer's early data says its vaccine is 90pc effective. Bloomberg
Because I was part of a double-blind clinical trial of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine, they had to make sure that I didn't get any clues about whether I was being injected with a real dose or merely a placebo made of saline solution.
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'Freedom Movement': Why people are still protesting despite the easing of lockdown rules
By Chloe Booker and Bianca Hall
November 13, 2020 — 3.10pm
With a young woman twirling a hula hoop as her floral-clad friend beats on a drum, people could have been mistaken for thinking they were entering a climate change rally in the city on Melbourne Cup day.
But if they walked a little further into the crowd, they would have seen men throwing Nazi salutes and people holding signs denying the existence of COVID-19. In the thick of the scrum, a middle-aged woman, wearing a fascinator and dress, bellowed her protest.
It is hard to define in simple terms who the people protesting against lockdowns in Melbourne are, simply because they have come from so many walks of life. Deakin University researcher Josh Roose believes they hail from an amorphous cross-section of society and are united by only one thing: their anger at, and distrust of, government.
And they are not stopping. In online groups littered with references to the QAnon "deep state" paedophile conspiracy theory, they are urging their followers to keep going.
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Block on foreign students a body blow for accommodation providers
Australia’s $40bn foreign education sector is “devastated” by Scott Morrison’s refusal to let it begin quarantining thousands of international students in time for classes in 2021.
Leading figures from the sector have warned that Australia’s quarantine regime must be broadened beyond hotels to include other forms of accommodation.
The nation’s two biggest student accommodation providers, Scape and UniLodge, say they have dozens of empty apartment blocks and up to 10,000 ensuite rooms ready to house students.
But on Friday, the Prime Minister said the national cabinet was not convinced there was an alternative to hotel quarantine and that existing caps on international arrivals would stall plans to bring in thousands of foreigners with student visas. “Sadly that will delay any ability to be bringing international students to Australia soon because we must use every available place to get Australians home,” Mr Morrison said.
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Climate Change
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Editorial
NSW road map offers a way out of energy uncertainty
The Herald's View
November 9, 2020 — 6.27pm
The election of Joe Biden as the next president of the US has fundamentally changed the politics of fighting climate change and NSW is well placed to take advantage of this shift.
Under what it calls an Electricity Infrastructure Road Map, the state government says it will guarantee minimum prices for the electricity generated by new renewable power and underwrite electricity storage such as batteries and pumped hydro, which can provide back-up power for the brief periods when renewables are not sufficient.
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Climate change is already here: major scientific report
By Miki Perkins
November 13, 2020 — 12.06am
Australia is already experiencing climate change and the future holds more extreme fire seasons and“big weather” events such as major flooding, severe cyclones and long-lasting droughts.
That is made clear by the sobering State of the Climate report from the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, released every two years.
It draws on the latest climate data and projections to provide scientifically rigorous analysis of climate change in Australia.
While COVID-19 lockdowns and economic downturns helped reduce global emissions in 2020, this has not been enough to make a discernible impact on carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, it finds.
“[It's like] you have been eating junk food for 10 years and you jump on the scales for one day ... this is about a very long change,” said Dr Jaci Brown, director of the climate science centre at CSIRO Oceans and Atmosphere. “The big challenge for our children and grandchildren is how to flatten this curve.”
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Floods, fires and cyclones: summer of extremes ahead
A joint CSIRO and Bureau of Meteorology report warns of a disturbing increase in extreme fires and more coral bleaching.
By KIERAN GAIR
· From Science
November 12, 2020
Extreme flooding could swamp NSW by Christmas and cyclones could pulverise parts of tourism-dependent Queensland in January as the impacts of climate change intensify, the latest State of the Climate report has warned.
A supercharged La Nina climatic cycle — a cooling of surface water along the equatorial Pacific — is poised to whip up a stormier summer in NSW while delivering a cyclone to northern Australia in early 2021 that could rival the damage wrought by Yasi a decade ago.
The State of the Climate 2020 report, released on Friday by the Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO, also predicts a disturbing increase in extreme fire weather, a significant decline in rainfall across southeast Australia, and almost guarantees more coral bleaching.
“Our science clearly shows that, due to increasing greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, in the atmosphere, Australia’s climate is continuing to warm,” said Jaci Brown, the CSIRO’s director of climate science. “The frequency of extreme events, such as bushfires, droughts and marine heatwaves is growing.”
The two-yearly environmental dossier found Australia’s climate had warmed by 1.44C since 1910, fuelling more extreme fire events and leading to prolonged and more intense droughts.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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There are no entries this week.
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National Budget Issues.
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Tax cuts to kick in and boost the economy
By Shane Wright
November 8, 2020 — 11.30pm
Millions of Australians will be up to $47 a week better off as the Morrison government's early tax cuts kick in over the next week, with economists expecting the money to deliver a vital boost to the economy as it reopens from coronavirus shutdown.
From November 16, all employers have to ensure the cuts - worth $7 billion this financial year and which were brought forward in last month's budget - are passed on to their staff.
While the tax cuts, which had been planned to start in mid-2022, were fast-tracked through Parliament, it has taken closer to a month for businesses to update their payroll systems that will see extra take-home pay for workers.
Under the changes, the top threshold for the 32.5 per cent tax rate will increase to $120,000 from $90,000 while the top threshold for the 19 per cent rate will climb to $45,000 from $37,000.
For a person on $100,000 a year, the tax cuts will deliver an additional $29 a week while for those on $120,000 they will see an extra $47 in their weekly pay packet.
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Reserve Bank struggles to stay relevant in a post-inflation world
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
November 9, 2020 — 12.00am
I’m sorry to say it, and it’s certainly not the done thing to say, but the Reserve Bank looks to me like that emperor with a serious wardrobe deficiency.
Apart from the nation’s allegedly “self-funded” retirees – whose angry letters to Reserve governor Dr Philip Lowe must by now be absolutely blistering – no one wants to question last week’s decision to make what must surely be the smallest-ever cut in the official interest rate, and engage in a bit more of what central bankers prefer to call “quantitative easing” or “balance-sheet expansion” rather than use those verboten words Printing Money.
I guess there’s no reason any borrower would object to paying lower interest rates, no matter how microscopic the reduction. Nor are the nation’s treasuries and governments likely to object to having their own interest bills cut a fraction.
As for the experts in the financial markets, their vested interest lies in having the central bank stay as busy as possible, organising events where they can lay bets. An inactive Reserve is a central bank that’s not helping them justify their lucrative but unproductive existence. “Negative interest rates? Might be a fun day out. Bring it on.”
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Goyder warns China breakdown threatens oil, gas and iron ore
Michael Smith, Brad Thompson and Patrick Durkin
Nov 12, 2020 – 1.54pm
Sydney/Perth | The chairmen of two of the nation's biggest companies have warned the breakdown in relations with China is a "tinderbox" which threatens Australia's most valuable exports, including oil and gas and iron ore.
Woodside Petroleum chairman Richard Goyder said he was deeply worried about the withdrawal of Chinese investors out of Woodside's process to sell a stake in its $16 billion Scarborough gas project in Western Australia and warned the $100 billion iron ore export sector was not immune to the trade spat.
“I’m very worried about it but let me hasten to add it is not an easy one to fix,” Mr Goyder, who is also chairman of Qantas, told a business event in Perth on Thursday. “Woodside has got significant customers (in China) and we were hoping potential investors, and it is more challenging. And it is a big issue for this country."
Wesfarmers chairman Michael Chaney said the government had to balance trade and political considerations in what was a "very difficult" situation with China.
"The sooner we can get back to a situation where ministers are talking to each other and we are not being threatened with import barriers and so on the better we will all be. I think it is a bit of a tinderbox that needs to be addressed pretty smartly," Mr Chaney said.
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Health Issues.
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Nursing report goes unanswered a year after it was handed down
Robert Bolton Education editor
Nov 9, 2020 – 12.01am
A review of nursing education, which recommends that student nurses should pass an exam at university before being allowed to qualify – contrary to current practice – has been sitting on a shelf in Canberra since it was submitted to government 14 months ago.
Independent policy consultant, Scott Prasser, who was involved in commissioning the report when he worked for government in January 2019, said the findings revealed serious shortcomings in nurse education.
Among recommendations it said students should demonstrate they have "literacy and numeracy skills required to practise safely" and that university nursing degrees be increased to four years from the current three because so much knowledge was required.
It said placements in real-life situations be increased from 850 hours to 1000 hours, which is still well down on the 2500 required in countries such as the UK.
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/news/icu-doctor-angst-following-advance-care-directives
An ICU doctor on the 'angst' of following advance care directives
'A lot of these plans are rather nonspecific'
11th November 2020
Last week, Australian Doctor reported on the case of Kylie Breen who was intubated despite her request documented in her advance care directive not to be given life-prolonging care.
The school teacher, diagnosed with MS 20 years earlier, had been taken to hospital after an overdose. She had left a note saying that she had "chosen euthanasia".
However, while a copy of her advance directive — written one year earlier with the support of her GP — had been given to the hospital for inclusion in her medical records, her treating doctor never saw it.
With doctors in ICU reluctant to withdraw care, Ms Breen's mother had to intervene, alerting him to the existence of the care directive.
Ms Breen was finally extubated and died a few hours later.
Below we speak to intensive care specialist Dr Charlie Corke about the challenges of following advance care directives in times of intense crisis and emotion.
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Medibank warns 'pressure on premiums' here to stay
By Emma Koehn
November 12, 2020 — 10.55am
Private health insurer Medibank Private has managed to grow policyholders by more than two per cent in the first months of 2021 but has warned rising healthcare costs will continue to put pressure on premiums post-pandemic.
Boss of the $7.7 billion fund Craig Drummond used his speech at the company's annual general meeting on Thursday to reinforce that coronavirus had not delivered profits to insurers, and instead had slowed reforms to the sector.
Medibank says it has spent $185 million delivering financial assistance to customers and the community to help them through the peak of COVID-19 in Australia. The business also added a $297 million balance sheet liability for the 2020 financial year in anticipation of funding claims that had been deferred due to virus shutdowns.
The company also deferred premium increases by six months but Mr Drummond said despite working hard to keep premiums reasonable, the sector was continuing to face significant cost pressure.
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'Long term effects of the pandemic, bushfires will be severe. The recovery will take years'
By Kate Aubusson
November 13, 2020 — 12.00am
Australia's GPs warn the mental and physical health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and bushfires will be severe and demand radical reforms to cope with the long years of recovery ahead.
The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners' (RACGP) has detailed grave concerns about the mental and physical toll of 2020 on their patients amid already rising rates of psychological and chronic health problems.
The RACGP's Health of A Nation Report, released on Friday, showed that for the fourth year in a row, psychological issues, including anxiety, depression and poor sleep, were the most common reasons patients saw their GPs.
More than half of the 1782 GPs surveyed across the country reported the pandemic had a negative impact on their own wellbeing, with 27 per cent saying their mental state had deteriorated.
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Victoria to build Australian Institute of Infectious Disease in Melbourne
- By Jack Paynter
- NCA NewsWire
· 8:35AM November 13, 2020
The Victorian government will invest $155 million to establish an Australian Institute of Infectious Disease in Melbourne.
Premier Daniel Andrews made the funding announcement – which will form part of this month’s state budget – on Friday morning.
The total cost of the institute will be $550 million.
The University of Melbourne and its partners will invest a further $150 million in the project, while Mr Andrews said he would present a case to the federal government to try to secure a further $250 million in funding.
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International Issues.
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How Donald Trump could unleash bedlam in his final days as president
Justin Sink
Nov 9, 2020 – 7.05am
US President Donald Trump may have lost his bid for re-election, but his presidency and capacity for disruption are far from over.
Mr Trump's final two months in office could bring a whirlwind of recrimination, executive action and efforts to make governing more difficult for President-elect Joe Biden.
And while nearly every president has sought to maximise his influence during his final hours in the Oval Office, few have had the disregard and disdain Mr Trump has shown for the institutions of the presidency and federal government, opening new fronts for possible bedlam.
Before he leaves office at noon on January 20, Mr Trump could fire or target perceived enemies or pardon allies, all as novel rule-making efforts strain the traditional legal boundaries of presidential power.
"Once a president is a lame duck, there are fewer checks on his ability to exercise the power of the executive branch," said Emily Sydnor, a political science professor at Southwestern University.
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Mary Trump on the end of Uncle Donald: all he has now is breaking things
The president will be having ‘meltdowns upon meltdowns’, according to his niece, who sees poetic justice in the lies and cheating now coming back to bite him
Mary Trump, as told to Jude Rogers
Sun 8 Nov 2020 18.20 AEDT Last modified on Mon 9 Nov 2020 02.50 AEDT
This is how the most colossal and fragile ego on the planet deals with losing the US election: he does not deal with it at all.
My uncle’s speech late on election night wasn’t just entirely mendacious from beginning to end. It was also deeply dangerous. It’s one thing for random Republicans to call a legitimate election into question, but this was the head of the government. The consequences of that action should not be underestimated.
This is what Donald’s going to do: he’s not going to concede, although who cares. What’s worse is he’s not going to engage in the normal activities that guarantee a peaceful transition. All he’s got now is breaking stuff, and he’s going to do that with a vengeance. I’ve always known how cruel he can be. Shortly after the 2016 election, when I’d see him being particularly cruel, I would think about how he treated my father [Fred Trump Jr, Donald’s older brother, who died of alcoholism at 43]. He took away our family health insurance after his father, my grandfather, died – this was when my nephew needed round-the-clock nursing care, which we then couldn’t afford. That is the kind of man he is.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-may-not-formally-concede-20201109-p56cp8
Trump may not formally concede
Jill Colvin, Zeke Miller and Jonathan Lemire
Nov 9, 2020 – 7.40am
Washington | US President Donald Trump never admits defeat. But he faces a stark choice now that Democrat Joe Biden has won the White House: Concede graciously for the sake of the nation or don’t – and get evicted anyway.
After nearly four tortured days of counting yielded a victory for Mr Biden, Mr Trump was still insisting the race was not over. He threw out baseless allegations that the election wasn't fair and “illegal” votes were counted, promised a flurry of legal action and fired off all-caps tweets falsely insisting he'd “WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT".
While some in his circle were nudging Mr Trump to concede graciously, many of his Republican allies, including on Capitol Hill, were egging him on or giving him space to process his loss – at least for the time being.
“Trump has not lost,” said South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham in an appearance on Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures, rejecting the reality of the situation. “Do not concede, Mr. President. Fight hard," he urged.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/no-return-to-the-america-of-old-20201108-p56chi
No return to the America of old
In a society rent by deep domestic cleavages, it is wishful thinking to expect a Biden presidency to restore America's historic leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region.
James Curran Columnist
Nov 8, 2020 – 1.31pm
Joe Biden won more of the popular vote than any previous presidential candidate. An adult will return to the Oval Office.
But the grievances that propelled Trump to power, the forces that almost delivered him a second term, will still scorch America’s political landscape, poisoning its wellsprings. Biden now looks into this abyss. If he cannot win the Senate, it will stymie and stall him.
What it means for US foreign policy is less clear. Polls consistently show Americans support global engagement. It is hard to abandon providential visions of manifest destiny, to relinquish the idea of America as the shining city on a hill. But Biden will prioritise arresting the pandemic and trying, however awesome the task, to heal a riven society. Foreign policy tones towards allies and multilateralism will be warmer, but there will be no recrudescence of the America of old.
Writing in 1943, and faced with a different kind of challenge – of America finding an accepted and settled foreign policy – the great American journalist Walter Lippmann wrote that "the spectacle of this great nation which does not know its own mind is as humiliating as it is dangerous. It casts doubt upon the capacity of the people to govern themselves’.
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Biden will have one hand tied behind his back from the start
Trump is unlikely to be helpful during the 10-week transition between now and inauguration day. After that, Biden's known capacity for working with Republicans will really be tested.
Edward Luce Columnist
Updated Nov 8, 2020 – 12.39pm, first published at 12.25pm
In the throes of the Democratic primary debates last year, Joe Biden was attacked for his Senate history of working across the aisle with Republicans. Biden had befriended racist former segregationists – and even attended their funerals, said his critic.
His nostalgic calls for bipartisan civility made him a relic of a bygone era, she implied.
The rival in question was Kamala Harris, a competitor for the nomination whom he went on to pick almost a year later as his running mate. Today, with the Biden-Harris ticket having won the 2020 election, that vinegary clash is suddenly relevant again.
When Biden is inaugurated on January 20, he will almost certainly have to grapple with a hostile Republican-controlled Senate. Nobody was planning on that. The focus in the Democratic debates was on the great plans the party would pursue after it had swept the Republicans out of town.
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Reality TV presidency cancelled after four-year run
After Donald Trump's victory in 2016, Republicans said he would pivot to being presidential. But the naivety of that view was exposed on inauguration day. Things just got weirder after that.
Demetri Sevastopulo
Nov 9, 2020 – 10.33am
Washington | As soon as US media called the election for Joe Biden, Democrats started promoting “Adiós Trump” T-shirts, in what was a fitting way to mark the end of a presidency that was launched with racist attacks on Mexicans.
Following four years of chaos and tens of thousands of tweets from the President, the former reality TV star will depart the White House after a record number of Americans gave him a taste of his own medicine: "You’re fired!"
Trump had long toyed with running for president. But when he came down the elevator in Trump Tower in June 2015 to declare his candidacy, he stunned the political establishment by saying he would build a wall on the southern border to keep out Mexican “rapists” and “murderers”.
The Republican establishment saw the real estate mogul, who became a household name with The Apprentice reality TV show, as a joke. A year later, the joke was on them.
After an unorthodox primary he won the Republican nomination. Running a nativist “America First” campaign, he defeated 16 seasoned Republicans who never worked out how to respond to someone who would demean them with names like “Low energy Jeb Bush” and “Lyin’ Ted Cruz”.
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Q&A: New York Times columnist Ben Smith on Trump, tech and the 2020 race
By Zoe Samios
November 9, 2020 — 12.00am
The 2020 US presidential campaign has been one of the biggest stories of an incredibly news-heavy year. And almost as big a story as the election campaign itself was how the media (both traditional outlets and social media platforms) handled it.
This continued after voting ended as traditional TV networks ABC, CBS and NBC cut away during a White House speech in which President Donald Trump made unfounded accusations that the election was being stolen from him. Internet platforms have also issued warnings over misleading commentary about illegal vote counts and election fraud.
The New York Times columnist Ben Smith has emerged as a leading media observer and critic in the US. He previously ran the news website of viral content site BuzzFeed, which broke some highly significant stories about Trump during his tenure. In this Q&A, Smith gives us some insights into the world he covers every day.
Misinformation on social media has been one of the biggest media stories of the Trump era. Do you think the social media platforms have done a good job dealing with this? And what about traditional media? Which handled it better?
Both social media and traditional media have grown more sophisticated about their roles in spreading misinformation, and have reacted very aggressively - sometimes too aggressively - during this period. The mainstream media - including Fox - has been mostly just ignoring the wildest claims aimed at undermining the election, rather than giving them a platform. The platforms have been aggressively blocking them. The result has been that this hasn't really been a major story in this election period - though I think social media from the Trump family and allies will persuade some of his supporters this election wasn't legitimate. That's a long tradition though.
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The left can't ignore the help it gave Donald Trump
America's poor want jobs, not welfare or patronising socialism. Trump got this, but the progressives do not.
Janet Daley Contributor
Nov 9, 2020 – 12.38pm
There was only one possible reflection on that extraordinary broadcast from the Trump bunker last Thursday night. How did this ludicrous, dangerously ignorant man ever become President of the United States? That is not a rhetorical question. We need to know how and why this was possible, not only for the sake of America's political future but for ours, too.
Before the whole hideous chapter is written off as a historical aberration, it is important to understand the sense in which it was not surprising at all. There was, in fact, a kind of inevitability about it: a vacancy that was waiting to be filled by some demagogic figure who would offer what mainstream politics was refusing to provide. And make no mistake, the policies – and even the attitudes – that he embodied directly addressed the frustrations of a huge proportion of the population, as evidenced by the first election victory and the remarkably narrow result of the second.
Yes, somebody was needed to carry out this task but why did it have to be a man like this? An obnoxious ignoramus who appears to know nothing about the constitution – even though every American schoolchild learns to recite its basic provisions like a catechism?
The answer is quite simple. If you make certain views unspeakable, then only the unspeakable will be prepared to express them. A clue lies in that infamously damaging remark made by Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign in which she described Trump supporters as a "basket of deplorables".
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/populists-worldwide-have-lost-their-leader-20201110-p56d3a
Populists worldwide have lost their leader
The US presidential election result is not only a big blow to Trump, but also to his fan club of international leaders. The more hardcore will dig in, hoping their hero can make an unlikely comeback in 2024.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Nov 10, 2020 – 9.31am
As the US election results trickled out, Janez Jansa, Prime Minister of Slovenia, took to Twitter to proclaim: “It’s pretty clear that the American people have elected Donald Trump and Mike Pence for four more years . . . [The] more delay and facts denying . . . [the] bigger the final triumph.”
The Slovenian leader’s tweet was more than a comic miscalculation. It also underlined an important point. There are leaders and governments all over the world who were deeply invested in a second Trump term.
The outgoing US President is the informal leader of the populist international. Its most important outposts are the governments of Brazil, Poland and Hungary. There are also significant populist-right parties, in countries such as Italy and Germany, that look to Trump for inspiration and validation.
As well as the pure populists, there is a sizeable group of governments that, for a mixture of strategic and ideological reasons, will be uneasy about Trump’s defeat. They include Israel, Saudi Arabia, Britain and India.
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Trading blows: China's punitive strategy against Australia is failing
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor
November 10, 2020 — 12.10am
First Beijing imposed a political ban, a ban on top-level contacts with Australia, accompanied by salvos of bluster from Chinese Communist Party mouthpieces. The usual abuse. That was more than a year ago.
When that failed to frighten Australia into submission, last year it imposed a go-slow on imports of Australian thermal coal, with $1 billion worth piling up on China's docks.
When that didn't work, China's ambassador announced in April that his government would impose strategic trade sanctions. He listed four industries: beef, wine, tourism and universities. Altogether, it was a threat to some $25 billion in Australian export revenue. The abuse machine cranked up again.
When that prospect failed to inspire sufficient fear, China's government ministries added another layer of penalties. In recent months, they've started punitive measures against barley, cotton, thermal coal and coking coal exports. That's another potential impost on Australian export earnings worth about $16 billion.
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US braces for turbulent handover as Trump fires defence secretary
By Matthew Knott
November 10, 2020 — 11.23am
Washington: Senior US government officials are bracing for a potential purge during the lame duck period of Donald Trump's presidency after the President fired defence secretary Mark Esper in a tweet.
Trump's firing of Esper came as a key federal government agency refused to sign the paperwork permitting President-elect Joe Biden's transition team to formally begin their work, setting the stage for one of the most turbulent presidential handovers in American history.
The Trump campaign and many senior Republicans show no sign of conceding defeat any time soon, despite Biden's lead in several battleground states growing larger as the final votes are counted.
"Mark Esper has been terminated," Trump tweeted on Tuesday (AEST). "I would like to thank him for his service."
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Trump lost politicising COVID; let's not repeat the mistake
Pfizer's vaccine breakthrough is a classic public-private partnership between big government and big pharma. Turning the drug into a red versus blue state controversy will only discourage people from taking it.
Max Boot
Nov 10, 2020 – 11.44am
On Monday (Tuesday AEDT), pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said its new COVID-19 vaccine was proving 90 per cent effective in trials. This was spectacularly good news, if it holds up, far exceeding the expectations of many epidemiologists and sending the stock market soaring. But almost immediately, this development – like everything else that seems to happen in modern America – became subsumed in a political fight.
Republicans rushed to claim credit. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, R–Texas, tweeted (and Donald Trump Jr. retweeted): "Great work by the administration pushing the historic and unprecedented vaccine development under Operation Warp Speed, even as cynical Democrats attempted to undermine its credibility. Joe Biden's only plan for the virus is Trump's plan. Always has been."
Progressives replied that the Pfizer vaccine had nothing to do with Operation Warp Speed, because Pfizer refused to take government money during its development. "We were never part of the Warp Speed," one of Pfizer's senior executives said. "We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone."
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Russia brokers a Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire
Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed on Tuesday on a deal with Russia to end weeks of fierce clashes over Nagorno-Karabakh, after a string of Azerbaijani victories in its fight to retake the disputed region.
The announcement of a full ceasefire from 1am on Tuesday (8am AEDT) sparked outrage in Armenia, with protesters storming the government headquarters in Yerevan where they ransacked offices and broke windows.
Crowds also seized control of parliament, calling from inside the chamber for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after he announced the “painful” deal to the end the fighting. “I have signed a statement with the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan on the termination of the Karabakh war,” Mr Pashinyan said, calling the move “unspeakably painful for me personally and for our people”.
“I have taken this decision as a result of an in-depth analysis of the military situation,” he added.
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Biden offers just a glimmer of hope for liberal democracy
The right response to Biden’s election is hope without naivety. Trump has tested to destruction the idea that a solipsistic superpower determined to disrupt the global order will do much more than destroy its reputation.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Nov 11, 2020 – 10.48am
The election of Joe Biden as US president is the first good news for embattled believers in liberal democracy and the postwar multilateral order since 2016. He is a decent man with an instinctive grasp of the values America has, at its best, stood for.
On the assumption that Donald Trump’s attack on the electoral process fails, Biden will be president. That will be a huge relief. But it is folly to imagine that Trumpist division is defeated.
More broadly, liberal democracy will remain embattled, in the US and elsewhere. The evidence on this reality is, alas, clear. Research at the Centre for the Future of Democracy at Cambridge University shows a rise in global dissatisfaction with democracy since shortly before the 2008 financial crisis.
The rise in dissatisfaction in the English-speaking democracies, led by the US, is striking. Frighteningly, in 2020, the respected US-based think tank Freedom House, ranked the quality of US democracy 33rd in the world among countries larger than 1 million people, between Slovakia and Argentina. Given Trump’s record, that is hardly surprising.
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How Australia and China can begin the great defrost
Multilateral work together on virus relief, trade and regional debt could be a circuit-breaker for a diplomatic chill.
Peter Drysdale and Yongjun Zhang
Nov 11, 2020 – 3.49pm
During the pandemic, the trade relationship between China and Australia has got bigger, not smaller. Strong commodity prices have cushioned the economic downturn in Australia during the COVID-19 lockdown.
Australia’s resource exports will help fuel a strong economic recovery in China with low-cost, high-quality inputs into global supply chains. The Australia-China economic relationship is important for the recovery of both countries and all of Asia.
Economic interdependence is enormously beneficial but stands in marked contrast to the deterioration of the bilateral political relationship that has coincided with increased uncertainty in the international political environment. Foreign investment and trade in services – education, tourism and other areas – will not automatically revert to pre-pandemic levels without work that repairs the fracture of trust in the relationship.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, Australia and China share strong interests in ensuring public health and safety, financial stability and an open, rules-based trade in the region. Both governments can contribute towards these goals most effectively by working actively together in multilateral settings such as the ASEAN + 6 group, the East Asia Summit, APEC and the G20.
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Centrist Joe is precisely the president America needs
The economic security that Americans want to regain was built by postwar centrists, not radicals of left or right.
Emma Dawson Contributor
Nov 11, 2020 – 2.35pm
Within hours of his declaration of victory in the US election on Sunday, "socialist left" magazine Jacobin published an article titled "No honeymoon for Joe Biden" with the tag line: “It’s good that Donald Trump lost. But the left now needs to pivot immediately to opposition to the Joe Biden administration.”
As if Biden doesn’t have enough to deal with from the radical right that has taken over the Republican Party under Donald Trump, here comes the lunatic left.
Of course, there is a vocal movement of so-called democratic socialists in the US who supported Bernie Sanders for the presidency and will never accept that their man wouldn’t have smashed Trump in the polls, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Despite Sanders’ declaration that he believes Biden could be “the most progressive president since FDR”, his army of supporters, many of whom speak to a working-class American only when one turns up to clean their kitchen, stands ready to tear down Biden’s attempt to heal the nation. They scorn his promise to govern for all Americans, and denounce him with their most beloved insult: that he is a centrist.
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Hong Kong pro-democracy politicians resign from parliament en masse
Michael Smith China correspondent
Nov 12, 2020 – 9.55am
Sydney | Hong Kong's future as an Asian financial hub has been further eroded after the city's pro-democracy opposition politicians quit parliament en masse following China's expulsion of four lawmakers for not showing clear loyalty to Beijing.
Hong Kong's rubber stamp Legislative Council is now made up almost entirely of pro-Beijing politicians after 15 pro-democracy lawmakers resigned in protest on Wednesday. Earlier, four moderate lawmakers from the pro-democracy camp were dismissed by China.
China adopted a resolution on Wednesday giving Hong Kong chief executive Carrie Lam the power to disqualify local politicians deemed to be a threat to national security by advocating for independence or colluding with foreign forces. The new rule meant the decision would not need to go through Hong Kong's western-style courts.
The four politicians, Alvin Yeung, Dennis Kwok, Kwok Ka-ki and Kenneth Leung. were seen as moderates and had not been charged with offences directly linked to last year's mass protests which triggered China's crackdown on Hong Kong. The Legislative Council's remaining 15 pro-democracy lawmakers resigned shortly after their dismissal in protest.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-accuses-australia-of-gross-interference-20201113-p56ea2
China accuses Australia of 'gross interference'
Michael Smith China correspondent
Nov 13, 2020 – 9.08am
Sydney | China says the onus is on Australia to repair deteriorating bilateral relations after accusing Canberra of "grossly interfering" in its internal affairs by criticising Beijing's actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan.
"Over a period of time, the Australian side has repeatedly spoken and acted out of turn on issues concerning China's core interests like Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Taiwan and grossly interfered in China's internal affairs in blatant violation of the basic norms governing international relations," Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China's Foreign Ministry said.
Not our fault: Beijing says it's up to Canberra to fix the relationship.
At a daily press conference late Thursday, the Foreign Ministry launched one of its most stinging attacks on Australia so far after another turbulent week for the relationship that saw China ban timber imports from Victoria.
Mr Wang said some people in Australia "slandered" and accused China of engaging in infiltration. "These practices have seriously damaged the mutual trust between the two countries, poisoned the atmosphere of bilateral relations, and clipped the developing momentum of China-Australia relations," he said.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-is-trashing-the-republican-brand-20201112-p56dwv
Trump is trashing the Republican brand
The more Republican leaders coddle Donald Trump's stolen victory delusions, the less likely he is to act as a normal president - and accept the election result for the good of his country and party.
John Bolton Contributor
Nov 12, 2020 – 11.59am
The Republican Party has not yet suffered permanent damage to its integrity and reputation because of President Donald Trump's post-election rampaging. This will not be true much longer.
It is simply a truism that Trump has a legal right to pursue all appropriate election-law remedies to ensure an accurate, lawful vote count. To be credible, however, any aggrieved candidate must at some point produce valid legal arguments and persuasive evidence.
Trump has so far failed to do so, and there is no indication he can. If he can't, his "right" to contest the election is beside the point. The real issue is the grievous harm he is causing to public trust in America's constitutional system. Trump's time is running out, even as his rhetoric continues escalating.
And time is running out for Republicans who hope to maintain the party's credibility, starting with Georgia's two Senate runoffs in January. Here is the cold political reality: Trump is enhancing his own brand (in his mind) while harming the Republican brand.
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Even the pretence of a democratic Hong Kong is now dead
The demise of democracy in Hong Kong has been a long time coming. It was never going to survive the reach of China's iron fist, but few thought it would be crushed this quickly once Beijing moved.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Nov 12, 2020 – 4.58pm
Sydney | Any pretence that Hong Kong still operates under some kind of partial democracy with a shred of autonomy from China is now gone.
China this week implemented new rules that allow it to remove any politicians from the city's rubber stamp parliament who are critical of Beijing. It struck swiftly, removing four pro-democracy legislators considered "moderates" from the Legislative Council.
The remaining 15 pro-democracy protesters quit en masse in protests. Hong Kong's half-empty parliamentary chamber was a sorry sight on Thursday morning. The remaining legislators are all pro-Beijing appointees.
Hong Kong's slow march towards absolute Communist Party rule started in 1984, when Britain and China agreed to implement a mini-constitution called the Basic Law. It was supposed to protect the city's autonomy for 50 years after the 1997 handover.
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Trump’s legal strategy may be to block certification in key states
- By Rebecca Ballhaus
- 3:10PM November 12, 2020
President Trump’s campaign is pursuing a patchwork of legal attacks in key states that have been called for President-elect Joe Biden to mount a long-shot effort to try to prevent officials from certifying the results, advisers and lawyers involved said.
Trump advisers have grown more vocal in conversations with Mr. Trump in recent days that they don’t see a path to victory, even if his legal efforts meet some success, a White House official said, though some advisers have continued to tell the president he still has a shot. An official said Mr. Trump understands that the fight isn’t winnable but characterised his feelings as: “Let me have the fight.”
One potential strategy discussed by Mr. Trump’s legal team would be attempting to get court orders to delay vote certification in critical states, potentially positioning Republican-controlled state legislatures to appoint pro-Trump electors who would swing the Electoral College in his favour, according to people familiar with the discussions.
It isn’t known how seriously the campaign has considered this idea, one of the people said.
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It's time to make political lies a stigma again
Donald Trump made lying normal. Now its up to news organisations to pull the plug if politicians are telling flat-out lies.
Thomas Friedman Contributor
Nov 13, 2020 – 3.51pm
Lying has been normalised in American politics at a scale we've never seen before.
I am not sure how we reverse it, but we'd better — and fast.
People who do not share truths can't defeat a pandemic, can't defend the Constitution and can't turn the page after a bad leader. The war for truth is now the war to preserve our democracy.
Trump and Fox: networks have to set new rules for interviews. Fox News
It is impossible to maintain a free society when leaders and news purveyors feel at liberty to spread lies without sanction. Without truth there is no agreed-upon path forward, and without trust there is no way to go down that path together.
But our hole now is so deep, because the only commandment President Donald Trump did believe in was the 11th: "Thou shalt not get caught."
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https://www.afr.com/companies/media-and-marketing/rupert-murdoch-s-trump-two-step-20201112-p56dw3
Rupert Murdoch's Trump two-step
As Trump rages on Twitter about Fox News treachery and threatens to set up his own shop, the Murdochs appear to be more focused on repairing relations with his successor.
Neil Chenoweth Senior writer
Nov 13, 2020 – 12.57pm
New York media circles are buzzing over the new chill between Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and President Donald Trump, but post-election the more intriguing issue must be Murdoch family relations.
Fox News controversially called Arizona for Biden on election night, the first network to do so, and has pushed back against those spouting election fraud claims, cutting off a press conference by Trump’s spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany mid-sentence on Monday.
"Unless she has more details to back that up, I can't in good countenance continue showing you this," Fox's Neil Cavuto said after cutting the feed, which is hardly the way Fox News has been used to treat Trump messaging.
Last week the New York Post’s coverage was typified by two headlines: "Downcast Trump makes baseless election fraud claims in White House address" and "Panic-stricken Donald Trump Jr. calls for ‘total war’ in clueless tweet".
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Trump law firm steps down as Republicans suffer more court setbacks
By Maryclaire Dale and Mark Scolforo
November 14, 2020 — 11.37am
Philadelphia: Republicans suffered setbacks to court challenges over the US presidential election in three battleground states on Friday (Saturday AEDT) while a law firm that came under fire for its work for President Donald Trump’s campaign withdrew from a major Pennsylvania case.
The legal blows began when a federal appeals court rejected a Republican effort to block about 9300 mail-in ballots that arrived after election day in Pennsylvania. The judges noted the “vast disruption” and “unprecedented challenges” facing the nation during the COVID-19 pandemic as they upheld the three-day extension.
Chief US Circuit Judge Brooks Smith said the three-judge panel kept in mind "a proposition indisputable in our democratic process: that the lawfully cast vote of every citizen must count".
The ruling involves a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to accept mail-in ballots through to Friday, November 6, citing the pandemic and concerns about postal service delays.
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Ethiopian refugees flee looming war
· The Times
The first of an expected exodus of 200,000 refugees fleeing a conflict in Ethiopia have begun to arrive in Sudan, threatening the stability of the fragile Horn of Africa.
The unfolding crisis has quickly transformed the international standing of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his diplomatic talents. The neighbouring states, such as Sudan and Eritrea, where he was credited for helping to create peace are being drawn into a conflict between the central government and one of Ethiopia’s regions that threatens civil war.
His government has said that it is “at war” with the ruling party of the northern Tigray region — the Tigray People’s Liberation Front — which has been blamed for a “massacre” in the area on Monday.
Mr Abiy, 44, Africa’s youngest leader, has rejected international pleas for negotiation, saying that the “clique” leading Tigray’s offensive must first be arrested. Many regional experts believe that this is unachievable. Tigray had enjoyed privileged status because many national leaders came from the area. Mr Abiy challenged this hegemony when he came to power.
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Trump greets supporters gathered in Washington as he pushes false election claims
November 15, 2020 — 4.40am
Washington: President Trump's motorcade drove past and waved at hundreds of excited protesters as they gathered for the “Million MAGA March” in Washington on Saturday.
Hundreds of supporters were gathered in the plaza to back Trump's unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.
Flag-waving supporters chanted "USA!" and "Four more years!" as Trump smiled and waved from a car window.
US President Donald Trump says ‘time will tell’ as to who will lead America in his first public address since he was defeated by Joe Biden.
Trump has made little headway in the courts with his lawsuits and for the first time on Friday he began to sound doubtful about his prospects, telling reporters "time will tell" who occupies the White House from January 20.
The pro-Trump demonstrations in Washington and other cities will feature a mix of the president's backers, including far-right personalities and members of the Oath Keepers militia and Proud Boys group in a public display of support for his effort to stay in power.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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