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The big news this week from the US were the 2 days of talks between the US and China to see just where the relationship was and what could be done to improve things. The outcome was that the 2 sides are very far apart and totally lack any trust of each other. We are in for a pretty testy 4 years I would suggest with the issues around Hong Kong, the re-education camps and Taiwan being right up there as causes of conflict. Otherwise it seems Asian Americans seem to be in a bad place with abuse etc. based on their race and blame for COVID-19 and an apparent major pick up in the US economy. Vaccination proceeds apace.
In the UK 50% of the population has had some vaccine and they plan to focus more on the Indo-Pacific.
Australia is trying to sort out how to treat the larger half of the population rather better than in the past. This is going to be a real challenge for the ScoMos of the world!
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Major Issues.
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Will the substance match the ‘spirit’ of the Quad?
The forum’s extraordinary rise from the ashes is animated by shared regional anxiety. But the real test is whether the security dialogue establishes binding commitments that impose costs on China.
James Curran Columnist
Mar 14, 2021 – 2.35pm
When historians grapple with this era in strategic affairs, they will surely scrutinise the Quadrilateral security dialogue’s extraordinary revival.
A forum virtually cremated in 2008 has since been revived by officials, then elevated to foreign minister level. Over the weekend, the Quad convened its first leaders’ meeting.
Some in Washington see it as the capstone to America’s Asia policy.
The leaders’ decision to concentrate on vaccine diplomacy in south-East Asia, where they are playing catch-up to China, indicates the Quad’s capacity to transcend a zero-sum security lens.
Still, China’s aggression is as much the driver of new Quad dynamism as is the collective impulse of its four member countries.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/quad-forces-to-join-french-warship-drills-20210314-p57ak3
Quad forces to join French warship drills
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Mar 15, 2021 – 12.00am
Australia, the United States, Japan and India are poised to build on their historic first leaders-level meeting of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue by joining French warships in naval exercises in the Bay of Bengal next month.
The exercises, the first time the five nations’ navies have banded together, would be the latest iteration of countries building military interoperability amid growing regional alarm over China’s rising assertiveness.
In a warning to China to pull back following their early Saturday morning talks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to foster an Indo-Pacific region “unconstrained by coercion”.
During their talks, the four leaders emphasised the “strategic trust” they had with each other and committed to highlighting more to countries in the region how liberal democracies can help them, setting up a contrast to China with its more authoritarian model.
Given each of the Quad members have had different flashpoints with China, such as economic coercion from Australia’s perspective, geopolitical competition (the US) and territorial disputes (Japan and India), the four leaders also promised to reinforce each other’s position.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/how-the-west-was-won-and-lost-20210311-p579yd
How the West was won and lost
With federal Labor hoping the McGowan magic boosts its chance, Scott Morrison will have to take a leaf out of John Howard’s book to shore up WA’s 11 Liberal seats
Peter Kennedy Contributor
Mar 14, 2021 – 3.50pm
West Australian Labor Premier Mark McGowan’s second landslide election victory in four years is a stunning result with serious implications for Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the federal Coalition government.
In the most one-sided election in WA’s history, Labor rode on McGowan’s extraordinary popularity to win a record 52 seats – and possibly more – in the 59-seat Legislative Assembly.
The Liberals have not only seen their representation cut from 13 to possibly two seats (three at best); they suffer the ignominy of fighting with the Nationals as to which party will form the official opposition. They will also have to find a new leader, their fifth in four years, after 34-year-old Zak Kirkup lost his marginal seat of Dawesville, south of Perth.
The result was a ringing endorsement of McGowan’s leadership throughout the COVID-19 health crisis – including his controversial move of implementing hard borders with other states – and sound financial management boosted by the resources sector, which has barely missed a beat over the past year.
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Christian Porter launches defamation action against the ABC
By Michaela Whitbourn
March 15, 2021 — 10.37am
Attorney-General Christian Porter has launched Federal Court defamation proceedings against the ABC over an online article that he alleges portrays him as the perpetrator of a “brutal” rape that contributed to a woman taking her own life.
The lawsuit is expected to put an end to calls for a public inquiry into his fitness to remain in office because a trial would ventilate many of the same issues before a judge, and involve the same witnesses.
In a statement of claim filed on Monday, lawyers for Mr Porter, who is on medical leave, seek damages, including aggravated damages, for a February 26 article published on the ABC’s website, headlined “Scott Morrison, senators and AFP told of historical rape allegation against Cabinet Minister”.
ABC journalist Louise Milligan, who broke the story, is also named as a party to the lawsuit.
Mr Porter, who is not named in the ABC article, has retained a trio of high-powered lawyers, including Sydney barristers Bret Walker, SC, and Sue Chrysanthou, SC, and solicitor Rebekah Giles.
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Defiant Porter sues ABC, dares it to argue truth as a defence
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Mar 15, 2021 – 11.34am
Attorney-General Christian Porter has begun legal action against the ABC and its reporter who first aired the historic rape allegation against him, daring them to plead truth in their defence.
In a statement issued through his lawyer, Mr Porter indicated that the defamation proceedings against the ABC and journalist Louise Milligan should substitute for the independent inquiry that Labor, some commentators and friends of the alleged rape victim, who is deceased, have been demanding.
“Over the last few weeks, the Attorney-General has been subjected to trial by media without regard to the presumption of innocence or the rules of evidence and without any proper disclosure of the material said to support the untrue allegations,” the statement says.
“The trial by media should now end with the commencement of these proceedings.
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Scott Morrison should stop being condescending to women and start listening
Julia Banks
Businesswoman, lawyer and former MP
March 15, 2021 — 5.30am
When the Prime Minister turned his back on a female journalist at a press conference in Sydney earlier this month, abruptly ending the conference and delivering the parting shot: “I am the Prime Minister”, I had a flashback.
He said the same to me, once, when I challenged him. “I. Am. The. Prime. Minister.” It was just days after the coup when he took over the leadership from Malcolm Turnbull. Did he think I missed the news cycle? Condescension dripped from every word he uttered during the phone call with me – a woman who was speaking her mind about a decision she felt was the right way, not his way.
To speak or not to speak. That question has entered the racing minds of millions of women who have experienced or witnessed sexism, bullying, harassment and abuse – particularly in workplaces across Australia. Should I say something? Should I speak up?
Today I am speaking up at the March 4 Justice in Melbourne, for the millions of women who couldn’t speak or can’t speak, for the women who have been silenced for too long.
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The Quad has seen off the sceptics and it’s here to stay
An agenda of climate, vaccines and technology is hardly hawk talk. This time is it is China’s diplomacy that looks off-balance.
Rory Medcalf Contributor
Mar 15, 2021 – 3.35pm
Around midnight AEDT on March 12, Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined a virtual dialogue with three other leaders to reframe international strategic competition.
Suddenly, if only for the moment, democracies have the initiative and China finds its diplomacy off balance.
On the surface, the first summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was just 90 minutes of trusted conversation among Morrison, US President Joe Biden, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga.
But this was more than a trans-Indo-Pacific talkfest.
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Attorney-General Christian Porter intends to return to job but delegate parts of it
By David Crowe
March 15, 2021 — 7.49pm
Attorney-General Christian Porter will delegate key parts of his job to others when he returns from leave on March 31 under a plan to keep his cabinet position while he wages a defamation battle against the ABC.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has backed the plan to retain Mr Porter in his cabinet ministry and structure the portfolio so another minister could oversee the courts.
The government plan is to stand by Mr Porter and challenge the ABC to meet Mr Porter’s lawyer’s call to “argue the truth” of allegations that he raped a woman in January 1988, forcing the claims to go to a civil trial before a judge.
Mr Porter launched the defamation action on Monday against the ABC and its reporter, Louise Milligan, claiming they damaged his reputation and should present any evidence they believe would justify their action.
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We are having the wrong debate about responsible lending
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
March 16, 2021 — 12.00pm
The debate about the Morrison government’s proposed repeal of responsible lending laws is being framed in a context that no longer exists.
Those opposed to the bill now before federal parliament characterise it as a weakening of consumer protections that will leave borrowers exposed to rapacious lenders. The government, and the lenders, argue that it will free up credit for borrowers, make it easier and faster to get access to credit and generate efficiencies for the lenders.
What appears to be missed by the consumer advocates, however, is that as it stands, the bill will do little to weaken consumer protections because they are effectively advocating an interpretation of the law that is no longer the law, if it ever was.
The National Consumer Credit Protection Act obliges lenders to assess whether a proposed loan or increased credit limit is unsuitable for the borrower. It also requires the lender to make reasonable inquiries about the consumer’s needs and objectives and their financial situation and take reasonable steps to verify the information gathered.
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‘Narrow path ahead’: Morrison warns MPs on tough challenges
By David Crowe
March 16, 2021 — 1.37pm
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has warned his colleagues to stick together in a tough time for the government amid internal debates on the treatment of women, the economy and the vaccine rollout.
Mr Morrison told Coalition MPs to stay focused despite pressure that could knock them off course, likening the future to a wilderness trek in which any slip could bring them undone.
Coalition MPs said the remarks acknowledged a series of challenges that could knock the government off course, including setbacks in two opinion polls this week and the attacks on Mr Morrison over his response to Monday’s protests about the treatment of women.
Mr Morrison compared the government’s position to previous times when it had walked a narrow track to victory – an apparent reference to the May 2019 election.
“We’ve been on narrow paths before, colleagues, and we’ve walked them together,” he told the gathering of Liberal and Nationals MPs.
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Money doing ‘stupid things’: Bubbles galore as investment mania takes over
By Erin Griffith
March 16, 2021 — 8.20am
This past week, a trading card featuring quarterback Tom Brady sold for a record $US1.3 million ($1.7 million). The total value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin hit $US1 trillion. And Christie’s sold a digital artwork by an artist known as Beeple for $US69.3 million after bids started at just $US100.
These seemingly singular events were all connected, part of a series of manias that have gripped the financial world. For months, professional and everyday investors have pushed up the prices of stocks and real estate. Now the frenzy has spilled over into the riskiest — and in some cases, wackiest — assets, including digital ephemera and media, cryptocurrencies, collectibles like trading cards and even sneakers.
The surges have been driven by a unique set of conditions. Even as millions were laid off in the pandemic, many people’s bank accounts flourished, flush from relief checks and government cash infusions into the economy. But while people accumulated more money, traditional investments like stocks and bonds became less attractive.
So many got creative and, bored in the pandemic, took on more risk. Often, they were egged on by online communities on Reddit and Discord, where the next big investments were hotly debated. They also turned to tech tools like the trading app Robinhood and the cryptocurrency platform Coinbase, which allowed them to buy and trade different items with the click of a button.
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12 of the best quotes from Ray Dalio’s new bubble warning
Harry Robertson
Mar 17, 2021 – 9.11am
Key Points
- Bridgewater boss Ray Dalio said in a recent blog post that there are “classic bubble dynamics” across the market.
- He said the economics of bond investing in particular were “stupid” and warned a sell-off could be coming.
- Mr Dalio recommended “a well-diversified portfolio of non-debt and non-dollar assets”.
Bridgewater Associates boss Ray Dalio does not like what he sees when he looks out across the market.
In a big blog post on Monday, he said there are “classic bubble dynamics in so many different assets”.
Mr Dalio, ranked by LCH Investments as the best-performing hedge fund manager of all time, said a long-term debt cycle that has caused investors to gorge on bonds may be about to end, which could be “traumatic for most everyone”.
The founder of $US150 billion ($194 billion) fund Bridgewater spoke for many investors who are concerned about the recent jitters in the bond market continuing and becoming destabilising.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/17-reasons-to-expect-roaring-growth-20210317-p57bdt
17 reasons growth is about to soar
The past year has been terrible on nearly every level, but it’s easy to see the potential for the economy to burst out of the gate like an Olympic sprinter.
Neil Irwin
Mar 17, 2021 – 8.38am
The 21st-century economy has been a two-decade series of punches in the gut.
The century began in economic triumphalism in the US, with a sense that business cycles had been vanquished and prosperity secured for a blindingly bright future. Instead, a mild recession was followed by a weak recovery followed by a financial crisis followed by another weak recovery followed by a pandemic-induced collapse. A couple of good years right before the pandemic aside, it has been two decades of overwhelming inequality and underwhelming growth – an economy in which a persistently weak job market has left vast human potential untapped, helping fuel social and political dysfunction.
Those two decades coincide almost precisely with my career as an economics writer. It is the reason, among my colleagues, I have a reputation for writing stories that run the gamut from ominous to gloomy to terrifying.
But strange as it may seem in this time of pandemic, I’m starting to get optimistic. It’s an odd feeling, because so many people are suffering – and because for so much of my career, a gloomy outlook has been the correct one.
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Why central banks have changed their thinking about inflation
As global economic activity rebounds from the pandemic, investors are increasingly frustrated with the sangfroid central bankers are showing over inflation risks.
Karen Maley Columnist
Mar 16, 2021 – 6.28pm
A few decades ago, it was relatively easy for financial markets to understand the philosophy of central banks: the job of a vigilant central banker was to keep a close watch on inflationary pressures, and to turn down the heat as soon as they began to bubble up.
But the world’s leading central bankers have altered their modus operandi in response to persistently feeble inflation.
They’re now happy to let inflation bubble away for a bit. After years of undershooting their targets, they want to see evidence of rising cost pressures before they even begin to think about tightening monetary policy to cool the economy.
Last August, the US central bank announced that to compensate for below-target inflation, it would seek to push inflation above its target rate, so that over time, inflation averaged 2 per cent.
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Super funds notch up positive February return despite tech wreck
Super funds notched up another positive month in February, with the median growth fund returning 0.9 per cent and pushing the cumulative return for the past 12 months close to 20 per cent, according to Chant West.
February’s return was dampened by the global tech wreck that hit equity markets in the second half of the month, with the 0.9 per cent final figure well below the 2.5 per cent gain the research house estimated funds had achieved midway through the month.
“While there’s great optimism around the rollout of vaccines and a return to some economic normality, there were some fears that a stronger-than-expected economic recovery may result in increased inflation and fast-tracked tightening of monetary policy,” Chant West senior investment research manager Mano Mohankumar said.
“That caused investors to drive up bond yields in late February and that in turn had the effect of pulling back share markets.”
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https://www.afr.com/markets/equity-markets/economies-can-survive-a-sharemarket-crash-20210318-p57bse
Economies can survive a sharemarket crash
If a correction is due to higher rates and stronger growth, it would not matter much – except to investors.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Mar 18, 2021 – 10.00am
“The long, long bull market since 2009 has finally matured into a fully-fledged epic bubble. Featuring extreme overvaluation, explosive price increases, frenzied issuance, and hysterically speculative investor behaviour, I believe this event will be recorded as one of the great bubbles of financial history, right along with the South Sea bubble, 1929, and 2000.”
Thus did Jeremy Grantham, legendary investor and co-founder of GMO asset management, greet the new year. Is he right and how much would it matter to the world if he were?
We can indeed, as Grantham told the Financial Times, observe classic symptoms of mania: the rise of amateur traders, frenzied interest in once obscure companies, soaring prices of speculative assets such as bitcoin and hot businesses like Tesla, and the emergence of special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs.
These are vehicles for the acquisition of unlisted companies and so a way around initial public offering rules. They are modern versions on a vastly bigger scale of the company allegedly created during the early 18th century’s South Sea bubble, “for carrying on an undertaking of great advantage, but nobody to know what it is”. That bubble ended badly. Will this time be different?
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/why-investors-need-direct-asian-exposure-20210318-p57buq
Why investors need direct exposure to Asia
As the world (and the internet) increasingly splinters between the US and China, equities investors need to own companies in both camps.
James Wright Contributor
Mar 18, 2021 – 12.38pm
Australian investors more than any other group appreciate the importance that the rise of the Asian economies has had for our living standards and opportunities. Yet they remain massively underexposed to this growing region in their portfolios.
Individual investors have always feared directly going to the region because of operational difficulties and a lack of trust and understanding of these markets, but that is starting to change as the avenues for access improve.
Over the past 20 years Asia has become a powerhouse of global growth, with favourable demographics and huge investments in digitisation driving significant economic and business expansion.
The idea that “Asia is the place you fly over on your way to Europe” is well and truly gone.
In 2000, Asia accounted for just under a third of global GDP. This year that number is closer to 50 per cent. China has clearly played a significant role in the growth of the region.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rising-spirits-sector-weighed-down-by-tax-take-20210314-p57am2
Rising spirits sector weighed down by tax take
All those gin and whisky distilleries springing up all over Australia have one big problem – the high tax rates on spirits. The industry argues that’s stopping what could become a major export industry.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Mar 19, 2021 – 12.00am
Pick any town in regional Australia and there’s a good chance of finding a small new distillery or independent brewery using local ingredients to make gin, rum, vodka, whisky, beer or cider.
And although the growth in boutique breweries and craft beer is remarkable enough, there’s been an even more dramatic shift in the popularity of domestic spirits in a country whose alcohol palate developed on beer – supplemented later by wine.
Even a decade ago, many Australians’ notion of a locally produced spirit was limited to the odd Bundy and Coke – despite a handful of domestic gins on the market. These days there are more than 300 mostly small distilleries in Australia, two-thirds of them outside major cities.
Gin has become all about native botanicals. Gin makers boast happily of products infused with everything from finger lime to lemon-scented gum to pepperberry to passionfruit husk. Millennials flock to cocktails and fancy bars featuring specialised concoctions from “mixologists”. Four Pillars Gin in Victoria’s Yarra Valley became the region’s most-visited tourist attraction pre-COVID-19. Major liquor chains advertise their range of locally produced spirits with almost as much enthusiasm as their prices.
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Christian Porter’s fight highlights flaws in Australian defamation law
March 19, 2021 — 9.14am
Attorney-General Christian Porter and his legal team have sought to position his defamation case against the ABC as a fight over the truth of grave allegations levelled against him.
The national broadcaster is free to come to court, his solicitor said on Monday, and argue that it is true he raped a 16-year-old girl in 1988, when he was 17. It is a claim he vehemently denies.
But did the ABC assert in the online story at the centre of the case that he did do it? It is far from clear.
One of the quirks of Australian defamation law is that the question of what an allegedly defamatory publication says about a person is not decided in most cases until after the trial concludes.
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Newsmaker: Australia’s ‘mate in Washington’ Kurt Campbell
By Matthew Knott
March 19, 2021 — 11.35am
Washington: During the US election campaign, Donald Trump and his Republican allies tried to paint Joe Biden as soft on China, nicknaming the Democratic nominee “Beijing Biden”.
But since coming into office, Biden and his top foreign affairs officials have made it clear they will take a hard-nosed, sceptical approach to Beijing - while leaving room for co-operation on issues such as climate change.
A central player in the Biden administration’s China strategy will be Kurt Campbell, who has been nicknamed the administration’s “Asia policy tsar”. It just so happens he is an especially close friend of Australia.
Who is he?
The 63-year-old’s official title is Biden’s Indo-Pacific Co-ordinator. Campbell’s specially created role, which sits within the National Security Council, is the culmination of decades of foreign policy experience in the US capital.
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‘A watershed moment’: Women push for lasting change
Anger over sexual harassment, discrimination and assault in Australia has reached a boiling point. This time, it just might lead to meaningful change.
Hannah Wootton Reporter
Mar 20, 2021 – 12.00am
The placards said it all.
“I can’t believe I still have to protest this shit,” read one carried by a protester in Brisbane. “Still fighting for equality,” read another in Sydney, held by an elderly woman. “Same shit, different century,” declared another, held high above a woman dressed in black outside Canberra’s Parliament House.
The frustration was on display as tens of thousands of women, and some male supporters, took to the streets for Monday’s March 4 Justice. How was it that in 2021 – 50 years since the women’s liberation movement got off the ground – women were still protesting against sexual harassment, assault and discrimination?
They were marching in response not to a single event, but a whole series of events. Some protesters were focused on workplace harassment and the culture at Parliament House after former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins went public with her allegation she was raped by a colleague in Linda Reynolds’ ministerial office.
Mothers and students in the crowd were there to protest against the sexual assault and harassment of teenagers, including in Australia’s most prestigious private schools, as highlighted this year through a collection of public testimonies.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/morrison-bamboozled-by-his-own-spin-20210318-p57btu
Morrison bamboozled by his own spin
It has been a bad week for the government’s messaging, but it has been a shocker for government accountability.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Mar 19, 2021 – 3.12pm
For a while there, people seemed to forget that the Prime Minister’s nickname, “Scotty from Marketing”, had been an ironic one, created by the satirical team at The Betoota Advocate.
On the back of stratospheric approval ratings flowing from success in dealing with COVID-19, some commentators would gush at the PM’s marketing and political genius, rather than recall that Scotty from Marketing was a reflection of the view that Scott Morrison was all political spin and no substance.
This week has not been a good one for either version of Scotty from Marketing. His refusal to front thousands of people outside Parliament House looked cowardly – consider John Howard fronting pro-gun demonstrators for a comparison.
Reminding everyone, from inside the safety of Parliament House, how lucky they were to be able to protest without getting shot, also probably didn’t really pass the marketing message test.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-the-house-price-boom-is-just-getting-started-20210319-p57c9c
Why the house price boom is just getting started
Property prices will rise 20 to 30 per cent from pre-pandemic levels as superior income growth and much cheaper mortgage rates dramatically expand our net purchasing power.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Mar 19, 2021 – 12.44pm
It is amusing reading all the current hysteria about Aussie housing, often from the same folks who were absolutely convinced home values would plummet 10 to 20 per cent (if not more) only nine months ago.
We were shouted down back then for predicting modest house price declines of 0 to 5 per cent over just six months (in practice, prices fell 2 per cent nationally across metro and non-metro markets), which we suggested would be followed by strong capital gains of 10 to 20 per cent.
I don’t know anyone who shared that view at the time.
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Spy threat to overtake terrorism, says ASIO
Australia’s domestic spy agency has warned the federal government the threat of nation-state espionage and foreign interference due to escalating regional tensions is set to supplant terrorism as the greatest threat to Australian security by 2025.
In a stark assessment of global strategic conflict, primarily competition between the US and China, ASIO has informed the government it believes “pre-placement” of sleeper software to sabotage Australia’s critical commercial, industrial and military infrastructure is emerging as a major threat to our “way of life”.
“We think, as you look out to 2025, espionage and foreign interference will supplant terrorism as this country’s principal security concern,” ASIO director-general Mike Burgess said in an interview with The Weekend Australian.
“That is something that has not yet been reported publicly … it’s got to be put in context.
“Threat to life is a priority. And the current ‘probable’ threat level of terrorism means people would lose their lives. Despite that, we think espionage and foreign interference will supplant terrorism … the level of activity coming at us and against us will be relentless.”
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Now’s not the time to mess with superannuation
This week’s delay in the government’s superannuation reforms highlights the tortuous process of change. The industry is expecting a two-stage process for changing the super guarantee, which is legislated to increase to 12 per cent in 2025.
The government’s retirement income review said the present 9.5 per cent rate is enough to meet the scheme’s purpose and instead more focus should be on the income side of the scheme.
The betting is the government will let the proposed increase to 10 per cent on June 30 proceed but will change policy on the remaining 2 per cent, with one possible change being to give people a choice between taking the income as regular wages or as super.
This could be announced as policy in the May budget but not legislated until after the next election, which means if the government is returned it can claim a mandate for the change.
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Nothing will change for women while Morrison is PM
Scott Morrison “is actively hostile to women”; if those who organised the March 4 Justice can build on that rally, his government could be in serious trouble.
Anne Summers Columnist
Mar 19, 2021 – 1.00pm
In June 1975 the Whitlam government approved a funding package for Australia’s 11 women’s refuges. We at Elsie were grateful of course, but we were also outraged it had taken so long.
Elsie was the first feminist refuge for women and children escaping domestic violence that a small group of us had opened in March the previous year by squatting in two vacant houses owned by the Church of England in Sydney’s Glebe.
Elsie initially got by on donations and various creative forms of self-funding but by early 1975 our survival was in doubt.
We’d had no luck getting help from Canberra, despite the nearby women’s health centre in Leichhardt receiving funding almost as soon as they applied. Then, 11 months after we’d opened our doors, social security minister Bill Hayden agreed to help us, thanks to a personal connection. We’d naively expected a cheque the next week.
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Coalition down by two million votes since 2013
Jamie Walker DAVID TANNER Sarah Elks
The Coalition has lost more than two million primary votes in the 19 federal and state elections held since Tony Abbott returned the conservative parties to power in 2013, an analysis of the returns shows.
The haemorrhaging of support is a sobering reminder to Scott Morrison of the challenge he will face when he goes to the polls later this year or in the first half of 2022, seeking to extend the Coalition’s run to a fourth consecutive term.
Adjusted for population growth over the life of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, the Liberal and National parties shed a cumulative 2,105,001 votes at federal and state elections, numbers crunched by The Weekend Australian reveal.
Taking in Queensland’s merged Liberal National Party and the Country Liberal Party in the Northern Territory, the Coalition had swings against it at 16 of the past 17 elections, including last Saturday’s rout in Western Australia where the state Liberals were reduced to a rump of only two MPs in the main chamber of state parliament.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Team Australia tops the virus ranking. So why isn’t business investing?
Our world-leading health and economic performance has reduced the risks. But investment hurdle rates remain unnecessarily high.
Mar 14, 2021 – 12.37pm
Australia’s economic, health and political institutions have come together like never before and executed a response to the pandemic that is among the best in the world. It means that while many challenges remain to be solved, relatively speaking, Australia is in a great position to recover quickly and outperform global peers, not just in the short term but for years to come.
While a number of studies have looked at comparisons between health outcomes and gross domestic product, EY’s new research looks at a key differentiator: combined balance sheet strength going into the crisis, across household, government, central banks, non-financial corporates and financial institutions.
Academic literature points to the health of a country’s balance sheets as being an important determinant of sustained economic recovery, so using publicly available data, our analysis has captured the current state of each balance sheet as well as a country’s economic activity (using GDP and employment markers) and compared that with COVID-19 mortality rates per capita.
While risk appetite remains low now, we should start to see improved business confidence and increased certainty about the future.
The resulting EY Global COVID-19 Economic Index of 25 countries, provides a more nuanced assessment of the success of a nation’s policies with respect to the economy. What we found is that Australia is in great shape when viewed against many comparable developed economies.
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Doctors complain of ‘gag’ over AstraZeneca vaccine
Patrick Durkin BOSS Deputy editor
Mar 16, 2021 – 7.00pm
High-profile doctors have complained they are being gagged from speaking out about their concerns on the AstraZeneca vaccine, amid claims the federal government has bet heavily on it to protect Australians.
But the regulator, the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA), denied the claims on Tuesday in a statement to The Australian Financial Review, saying “medical practitioners can discuss the respective merits of different vaccines”.
“However, the Medical Board of Australia’s code of conduct requires practitioners to ensure that personal views do not adversely affect their patients’ care.”
The controversy was sparked after directives last week from both AHPRA and the Therapeutics Goods Administration (TGA), which included emphasising the rules against any “advertising” of one vaccine over another and warnings over the use of social media.
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The zero-risk mentality stifling Europe is now killing its people
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
March 17, 2021 — 11.00am
If European countries are going to suspend the use of the AstraZeneca vaccine every time there is a random stochastic death, it would be better if they handed their stocks immediately to Africa and poorer regions of Asia.
The vaccine saga has degenerated into the most abject spectacle of European misgovernment. It is what happens when you push the precautionary principle to the point of absurdity. Once zero-risk thinking becomes reflexive - and institutionalised in law - it leads you into a cul-de-sac of systemic self-harm.
We have extensive epidemiological data in the UK’s weekly “yellow card” summary of vaccines. As of February 28, there had been 227 deaths shortly after the Pfizer-BioNTech jab and 275 after the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab. It is a statistical miracle that there had not been more. AstraZeneca reported 15 cases of deep vein thrombosis and 22 cases of pulmonary embolism following the jab out of 17 million doses in the UK and Europe.
“This is much lower than would be expected to occur naturally in a general population of this size and is similar across other licensed COVID-19 vaccines,” it said.
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Coronavirus vaccine misinformation drive will develop no traction
If a couple of lonely and contrarian backbenchers dispossessed of medical insight can panic Australians out of vaccination, the collective sanity of the nation is deeply imperilled.
Hopefully, and so far evidently, it is not the case.
Yet Scott Morrison and Health Minister Greg Hunt need to tread carefully in dealing with Nationals senator Matt Canavan and former Liberal MP Craig Kelly’s latest missives on vaccine efficacy.
The government’s entire economic agenda, freedom of movement for Australians, the health and wellbeing of the country and indeed the Prime Minister’s own political position are at risk if the vaccine program shows any sign of faltering.
Morrison learned quickly from his first encounter with Kelly that the fringes matter.
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Vaccine challenges another chapter in the same story
Australia’s struggle to secure COVID-19 vaccine is no surprise given we import 90 per cent of our medicines. Experts want a new approach for the next crisis.
James Thomson Columnist
Mar 19, 2021 – 11.30am
It’s rapidly becoming clear that one of the biggest hurdles facing Australia’s vaccine rollout is simply getting our hands on enough of the stuff.
But while confirmation we’ll miss our original target of vaccinating all adult Australians by the end of October has brought disappointment and criticism of the government, it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Australia’s scramble for vaccines is a symptom of our near-total reliance on imported medicine.
With only CSL manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine locally, Australia has no choice but to enter a global arm-wrestle to fill the gap. And as Italy’s decision to block a shipment of AstraZeneca vaccine to Australia two weeks ago makes clear, sitting at the end of a long and complex global supply chain isn’t a great place to be.
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EU’s drug regulator backs AstraZeneca vaccine after safety investigation
By Bevan Shields
Updated March 19, 2021 — 8.19amfirst published at 4.47am
London: Coronavirus-ravaged countries will resume their rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine after Europe’s drug regulator conducted a review that detected no link between the jab and a higher risk of developing blood clots.
In a highly anticipated verdict delivered in Amsterdam, the European Medicines Agency said the benefits of the vaccine in combating COVID-19 far outweighed the risk of side effects.
“This is a safe and effective vaccine,” said Emer Cooke, the regulator’s chief executive.
However, the EMA conceded it could not rule out a link between the vaccine and 25 combined cases of two very rare blood disorders and vowed to keep investigating.
France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, Bulgaria, Latvia and Lithuania announced on Thursday night that they would start handing out AstraZenca doses again over the coming days.
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‘We are in the crisis of the century’: Europe threatens to seize AstraZeneca factories
By Bevan Shields
March 18, 2021 — 3.45am
London: Europe has threatened to seize AstraZeneca factories and strip the pharmaceutical giant of its intellectual property rights in a fresh escalation of the bitter row over coronavirus vaccine exports.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen refused to rule out the dramatic interventions on Wednesday, warning “all options are on the table” to boost the number of doses available to the continent’s 450 million citizens.
“We are in the crisis of the century,” she said.
“I’m not ruling out anything for now because we have to make sure that Europeans are vaccinated as soon as possible.
“Human lives, civil liberties and also the prosperity of our economy are dependent on the speed of vaccinations.”
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One year later, we still have no plan to prevent the next pandemic
By Thomas L. Friedman
March 18, 2021 — 12.08pm
Imagine that in December 2019 country X had a nuclear accident — a missile test gone awry. It resulted in a small nuclear explosion that sent a cloud of radioactivity around the world, causing 2.66 million deaths, plus trillions of dollars in health care costs and lost commerce that nearly triggered a global depression.
What do you think we’d be talking about today?
We’d be discussing a new global regime of nuclear weapons safety protocols to try to make sure it never happened again.
Well, we just had the natural world equivalent of such a nuclear accident. It is widely suspected that a pathogen in a bat jumped to another animal to a human in China and then hopped onto the globalisation express, causing extraordinary suffering and trillions of dollars in damage. And this happened after several decades of other pandemics set off by unhealthy human interactions with wildlife — with bats or civets in the case of Ebola and SARS-CoV-1 and most likely chimps in the case of HIV.
As we have just hit the one-year mark since the World Health Organisation declared SARS-CoV-2 — the pathogen that causes COVID-19 — a pandemic, it’s appropriate to ask what smart collective action are we pursuing to prevent this from ever happening again.
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Climate Change.
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Sorry no entries in this section.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Neglect of aged care more proof of Morrison’s blokey blind spot
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
March 14, 2021 — 7.55pm
Everywhere you look, Scott Morrison and his ministers have a women problem. You see it even as he uses the media focus on allegations of sexual assault as cover for his efforts to convey the aged care royal commission’s damning report to the too-hard basket.
When you think about it, aged care is the ultimate women’s issue. Of those receiving aged care, women outnumber men two to one. Who does most of the worrying about how mum or dad are being treated – and probably most of the visiting? More likely to be daughters than sons.
The commission’s report found that the root cause of the common ill-treatment of people in aged care is the insufficient number, inadequate training and low pay of aged care workers. And who are these overworked, undertrained and woefully paid age care workers? Almost all of them are women.
Now do you see why aged care conditions have been low on the priorities of successive governments? Not enough rich white men jumping up and down.
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Aged-care reform is great but where will the money come from?
Noel Whittaker
Money columnist
March 13, 2021 — 10.30pm
For more than two decades, aged care has been the elephant in the room.
Politicians of every persuasion in multiple governments are well aware that the population is ageing, and that increasing life expectancies are putting pressure on residential aged-care resources.
However, any real solutions to the problem have always ended up in the “too-hard” basket.
Suddenly, the elephant is trumpeting loudly again and it can no longer be ignored – the Royal Commission into Aged Care has released its final report, almost three years in the making.
The report provides a clear message that without a major overhaul of the aged-care system – at least to the tune of $10 billion a year in federal government funding – our senior citizens would continue to receive sub-standard care.
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‘Diabolical state’: Aged care providers heading for loss of $12 per bed per day
By Rachel Clun
March 17, 2021 — 5.00am
Aged care homes will lose up to $12 per bed per day by the end of the year, causing a catastrophe in the already failing system, if the government does not make immediate funding changes that operators and the opposition say are necessary to keep the sector afloat.
Year-on-year funding for the sector has almost doubled in the past eight years, but the amount of funding per bed per day has been in steady decline as more people enter aged care facilities with higher levels of need and costs increase.
Former NSW premier and new chief executive of not-for-profit provider HammondCare, Mike Baird, said anyone who spent a night at an aged care home could see the pressure they were under.
“As I stood there, late one night, there’s no doubt that an additional staff member, an additional number of staff, could have been helpful,” he said. “The demands are significant. The pressures on staff, huge.”
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https://www.ausdoc.com.au/opinion/what-planet-are-aged-care-commissioners-its-not-earth
What planet are the aged care commissioners on? It's not Earth ...
Dr Norrie is a GP from Sydney, NSW.
19th March 2021
Australian Doctor's article earlier in March on GPs possibly being banned from prescribing antipsychotics in aged care really struck a chord with me.
Under the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety's final recommendations only psychiatrists and geriatricians will be allowed to prescribe the drugs, with GPs limited to writing repeats within 12 months of the initial script.
I have been a GP visiting nursing homes (what we call aged care facilities now) for 42 years now — so I think I am qualified to make a response to this 'BS'.
What planet are these people on?
Back here on Earth you cannot get a psychiatrist to visit an aged care facility — no way! And there are very few geriatricians — certainly not enough to go around as the Royal Commission would want.
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National Budget Issues.
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Saving markets from a pandemic meltdown comes with a cost
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
March 15, 2021 — 11.59am
Just over a year ago, when a spreading virus was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organisation, it appeared an 11-year bull market was finally over and a new and destructive financial crisis was about to overwhelm financial markets.
In fact the US sharemarket had peaked nearly a month earlier, on February 19, as it became clearer the virus was novel, contagious and deadly. From that peak to the market’s trough on March 20 last year the market lost nearly a third of its value.
Bond yields halved, the prices of gold and industrial commodities such as copper sank. The US dollar surged (and the Australian dollar tanked) as capital flowed towards the world’s traditional safe haven.
The market response to the pandemic appeared perfectly rational. It was destructive. It led to rolling and prolonged lockdowns in the key economic regions, some of which are continuing. It violently disrupted global supply chains that were already being adversely impacted by the Trump administration’s trade policies. It led to a previously almost unimaginable death toll.
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Reserve Bank eyes housing market risks
Surging Australian house prices are back on the radar of the Reserve Bank of Australia, but for the moment the central bank says it sees no reason to step in to quash the frenzy in the property market, arguing that record low interest rates are currently bolstering the stability of the financial system, not working to erode it.
“The board concluded that there were greater benefits for financial stability from a stronger economy, while acknowledging the importance of closely monitoring risks in asset markets,” the RBA said in minutes of its March 2 policy meetings.
The comments come as house prices have returned to record levels in Australia. Property research group CoreLogic said house prices jumped by their biggest monthly amount in 17 years through February.
The heating up of the property market has fuelled speculation among economists that financial regulators will take steps, potentially before the end of the year, to put clamps on mortgage lending with a goal of taking some steam out of the housing market.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-assures-bond-owners-about-target-rate-20210316-p57b37
RBA assures bond owners of target rate
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Mar 16, 2021 – 12.50pm
The Reserve Bank board has reconfirmed its commitment to maintaining record low interest rates by assuring investors it will maintain its targets on certain benchmark three-year bonds.
The bank has also insisted that sustainable wages growth will need to be much higher for longer to see inflation return.
The bank has been fighting financial markets on expectations about interest rates. Markets expect inflation will return and have started to price in a higher chance of interest rates rising.
However, the bank has been buying three-year bonds, among others, which keeps the rate of borrowing tied at a record low 0.1 per cent.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-rba-s-bond-splurge-has-a-big-sting-20210314-p57amk
The RBA’s bond splurge has a big sting
The central bank is fixated on creating jobs, but its strategy is not enough to do that, and there could be a nasty end.
Andrew Mohl Contributor
Mar 15, 2021 – 3.58pm
We have never seen such a combination of expansionary monetary and fiscal policy as today.
Cash rates are being set by the RBA at 0.1 per cent and the federal budget deficit is in the order of 10 per cent of GDP in 2020-21.
In car-racing terms, the driver has the foot on the accelerator flat to the floor.
An economic boom is likely to follow through 2021 if the economic textbooks we read at school and university mean anything.
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Heavily indebted home borrowers double in two years
James Frost Financial services writer
Mar 16, 2021 – 1.02pm
The number of heavily indebted property buyers has almost doubled in less than two years, putting pressure on the prudential regulator to intervene in the red-hot Australian property market.
Data for the December quarter from the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority showed the number of property buyers with a debt to income ratio of greater than six times has risen by 89 per cent from 11,397 in March 2019 to 21,551 December 2020.
Rhizome risk consultant and former APRA credit risk specialist Will Peterson said the data showed an increase in the proportion of heavily indebted borrowing from a two-year low of 14.3 per cent to 16.9 per cent.
“It’s getting to a point where almost one in five new loans will have a debt-to-income ratio greater than six times,” Mr Peterson said.
The rising number of home buyers up to their ears in debt has occurred as property prices delivered their fastest monthly price growth in 17 years, with national house prices rising 2.1 per cent in February alone.
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Lowe’s toughest task is dear to us all - how do we get a pay rise?
Clancy Yeates
Banking reporter
March 19, 2021 — 8.20am
This time last year, a common catchphrase used in economic commentary was “uncharted territory”. And fair enough too, given the global lockdowns, the mass experiment of millions of people working from home and the frightening images of field hospitals being erected overseas.
Fast forward 12 months, and the Australian economy is in far better shape than feared, with Prime Minister Scott Morrison keen to point out all the jobs lost to COVID-19 have been regained.
But there are still many parts of the economic outlook that are highly uncertain, and perhaps the most important of these is what’s happening with wage growth.
How wages evolve will be perhaps the most important influence on the RBA’s policies of priming the economy with ultra-cheap debt, and the potential that creates for asset bubbles.
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Yes, the economy is back but what are we recovering to?
By Alex Joiner
March 16, 2021 — 10.00pm
There is no denying it, so far the Australian economy has rebounded from the COVID-19 pandemic-induced recession remarkably well.
The recently released national accounts show that real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) expanded a world-beating 3.1 per cent from the previous quarter in the period ended in December.
The economy has significant tailwinds, with the re-opening of the Victorian economy from major lockdowns and the agricultural sector reporting a bumper harvest – its best quarter in history since numbers were first reported.
The economic rebound was always going to happen once public health restrictions on activity were lifted. However, it is happening far quicker than economists expected and that is a good thing.
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Australian jobless rate falls to 5.8 per cent
The jobless rate has fallen to 5.8 per cent, with more than 89,000 Australians picking up work between January and February.
Melissa Iaria and Jade Gailberger
NCA NewsWire
March 18, 20211:59pm
Australia’s unemployment rate has fallen to 5.8 per cent, according to latest figures.
The number of Australians employed jumped by almost 89,000 between January and February, to reach just over 13 million.
The unemployment rate has declined by 0.5 percentage points to 5.8 per cent, with unemployment decreasing by 70,000 people, Australian Bureau of Statistics labour force data released on Wednesday shows.
The jobless rate is still 0.6 percentage points higher than March 2020 — with about 89,000 more jobless — which was when Australia began lockdown measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
ABS labour statistics head Bjorn Jarvis said the latest data showed continued recovery in the labour market into February, particularly for women.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-economy-is-hotter-than-we-think-20210318-p57c25
The economy is hotter than we think
The Reserve Bank of Australia, economists and the federal government keep underestimating the strength of the economic recovery.
John Kehoe Economics editor
Mar 19, 2021 – 1.06pm
The jobs market is rapidly recovering and the stimulus-fuelled economy is blazing.
The federal government, Reserve Bank of Australia and market economists continue to underestimate the strength of the economic recovery.
Since COVID-19 hit 12 months ago, we have been conditioned to expect gloom and be cautious about the future. But as Australia further suppresses COVID-19, businesses reopen and people return to work, the overwhelming evidence is the economy is on track to continue to surprise to the upside.
The economy created almost 89,000 jobs in February, pushing the jobless rate down to 5.8 per cent, a result that stunned economists.
Despite fears about the end of the JobKeeper program at the end of this month, the 1 million people rolling off the wage subsidy could end up being a blip for the macroeconomy.
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Health Issues.
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‘No one cared’: Junior doctors sue hospitals over unpaid hours
By Aisha Dow
March 16, 2021 — 1.00am
Lawyers are preparing a string of class actions against Victorian hospitals over the “systemic and widespread” underpayment of junior doctors.
The early-career medics they represent say they are pressured to work huge amounts of overtime, then accused of being incompetent if they try to claim it.
It has been estimated junior doctors routinely work around 16 hours of overtime a week, most of it unpaid. Exhausted and stressed, about 60 per cent of trainees then admitted to making a clinical error due to the excessive workload, according to one survey.
Most junior doctors choose not to record their unscheduled overtime, fearful it will negatively affect their career, but others who have tried to claim unpaid hours have had their timesheets altered after they submitted them, said Dr Roderick McRae.
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Pandemic offers chance to reduce ‘unnecessary care’ researchers say
By Stuart Layt
March 17, 2021 — 6.00am
The coronavirus pandemic offers an opportunity for hospitals to reduce the number of “unnecessary presentations” at emergency departments in the future, researchers argue.
Bond University’s Institute for Evidence-Based Healthcare conducted a review of more than 80 scientific studies from around the world on access to healthcare during the pandemic.
The lead author of the review, assistant professor Ray Moynihan, said all the studies found a significant dip in the use of healthcare facilities for non-COVID purposes during the pandemic, which was not surprising.
But he said they were interested by how presentations for certain complaints and ailments dropped more than others.
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Scientists have created embryos. What does that mean? And what comes next?
By Liam Mannix
March 18, 2021 — 3.00am
Every cell in your body comes from a single cell: an egg, fertilised by a sperm. Each contains the exact same genetic blueprint for your life: your DNA.
Yet cells in your brain look and behave nothing like those in your muscle or skin.
Why? Because while each cell has the same instructions, each cell only reads certain sections – certain genes. A layer of what are called epigenetic instructions sit on top of your DNA, telling each cell which parts to read and which parts to ignore.
Find a way of controlling those instructions and you can control the cell – or even reprogram it into an entirely different type of cell.
This is exactly how – in a major breakthrough – Professor Jose Polo’s Monash University team was able to turn skin cells into what he calls “model” embryos, essentially resetting the cell’s blueprint back to the earliest stages of life.
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International Issues.
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Boris Johnson ‘tilts’ to Indo-Pacific in post-Brexit strategy
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Mar 16, 2021 – 9.30am
London | British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to “tilt” his country’s post-Brexit foreign policy towards the Indo-Pacific and make climate change his “number one international priority”, in a major strategy to be released late on Tuesday (AEDT).
Mr Johnson will pledge Britain to a program of “increased international activism”, as the country faces a more competitive world where “new powers” are disrupting the status quo.
In a press statement previewing the strategy, he did not name China but said new powers were “using all the tools at their disposal to redefine the international order and – in some cases – undermine the open and liberal international system”.
He will tell MPs on Tuesday that as Britain tries to project its values and interests into “an increasingly outdated international system”, the country’s strategy will “tilt to the Indo-Pacific, increasingly the geopolitical centre of the world”.
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Biden recalibrates Trump’s approach to east Asia
The US President has emphasised that Washington must ‘build a united front’ against ‘China’s abusive behaviours and human rights violations’.
Paul Heer
Mar 14, 2021 – 2.13pm
US President Joe Biden has much repair and restoration work to do in east Asia. Donald Trump seriously degraded the United States’ role in the region, helping Beijing to escalate the most hostile and confrontational US-China relationship in 50 years. Simultaneously, Trump undermined US credibility with the allies and partners that Biden will rely on to confront the strategic challenge of China.
Even before the Trump era, east Asian nations had started reassessing their policies in the wake of historic shifts in the regional balance of power and growing doubts about the substance and sustainability of Washington’s commitment to the region. Trump exacerbated this with his confrontational approach to Beijing and his inconsistent and reckless approach towards US allies.
Biden will revive a more pragmatic and attentive posture towards the Asia Pacific. Many members of his foreign policy team – especially Secretary of State Antony Blinken, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Indo-Pacific policy co-ordinator Kurt Campbell – have ample experience in the region from working in the Obama administration and earlier. But they know they cannot simply revert to Obama-era policies – the world has changed dramatically in the past four years. Washington needs new strategies and tactics, and some reassessment of its goals and aspirations in east Asia.
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Four-sided friendship is history in the making
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor
March 16, 2021 — 5.30am
The meeting that US President Joe Biden hosted for Australia, India and Japan on the weekend might eventually go down in history as a foundational moment, an alliance of democracies rallying against China’s relentless striving for hegemony.
Joe Biden told the first leaders-level meeting of the Quad group of nations that they were meeting “for a purpose that I think we all are concerned about: a free and open Indo-Pacific is essential to each of our futures, our countries”.
Japan’s Yoshihide Suga said “I do feel emotional about the development”. India’s Narendra Modi said the Quad would be “a force for global good”. Scott Morrison called it a “new dawn”.
Already, a former US national security adviser, Robert O’Brien, the top security aide to Donald Trump, has described the Quad group as the “most important relationship we’ve established since NATO at a high level”.
NATO bound the US together with Western Europe in a powerful military alliance that resisted the Soviet Union and won the Cold War. Could the Quad, which involves no military guarantees to anyone, possibly be in the same league?
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‘Just not going to happen’: US warns China over Australian trade stoush
By Peter Hartcher
March 16, 2021 — 2.09pm
The US will not grant China any improvement in relations until Beijing stops its economic coercion of Australia, a senior White House official said.
The administration of President Joe Biden has told the Chinese government that “we are not going to leave Australia alone on the field”, according to the President’s Indo-Pacific Coordinator, Kurt Campbell.
“We have made clear that the US is not prepared to improve relations in a bilateral and separate context at the same time that a close and dear ally is being subjected to a form of economic coercion,” he told The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age in in the first interview a senior Biden official has given to any Australian media.
Dr Campbell often is called President Biden’s “Asia tsar”. His appointment was hailed as supercharging the US effort to gather allies to confront an increasingly aggressive China. He served as the top Asia official for Hillary Clinton when she was Barack Obama’s Secretary of State. He crafted the Obama administration’s pivot to Asia and served in the Pentagon under President Bill Clinton.
He said that Mr Biden had given his commitment personally to Australia’s leader, Scott Morrison, during the video-link summit of the Quad countries last Saturday (AEDT).
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Beijing blames Australia’s ‘wrong words and deeds’ for trade war after US rebuke
By Eryk Bagshaw
March 17, 2021 — 9.39am
China has laid the blame back on Australia for the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, dismissing the concerns of the US Indo-Pacific chief ahead of the first meeting between the two superpowers in Alaska.
Responding to comments by President Joe Biden’s top aide in the region, Kurt Campbell, China’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on Monday said that it was not responsible for the breakdown in communication between the two countries after more than a year of trade strikes on $20 billion worth of exports.
“The root cause of the current difficulties in bilateral relations is Australia’s wrong words and deeds on issues concerning China’s sovereignty, security and development interests, which have undermined the foundation of mutual trust and cooperation between the two countries,” said foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian.
“The Australian side knows the ins and outs better than anyone else.”
The comments from China’s Foreign Ministry on Monday night are an early sign that Beijing will attempt to separate the dispute with Australia from the foreign affairs and national security dialogue with the United States in Anchorage on Thursday.
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Israeli experts announce discovery of more Dead Sea scrolls
By Ilan Ben Zion
March 17, 2021 — 2.41am
Jerusalem: Israeli archaeologists have announced the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments bearing a biblical text found in a desert cave and believed hidden during a Jewish revolt against Rome nearly 1900 years ago.
The fragments of parchment bear lines of Greek text from the books of Zechariah and Nahum and have been dated around the first century based on the writing style, according to the Israel Antiquities Authority. They are the first new scrolls found in archaeological excavations in the desert south of Jerusalem in 60 years.
The Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts found in desert caves in the West Bank near Qumran in the 1940s and 1950s, date from the third century BC to the first century AD. They include the earliest known copies of biblical texts and documents outlining the beliefs of a little understood Jewish sect.
The roughly 80 new pieces are believed to belong to a set of parchment fragments found in a site in southern Israel known as the “Cave of Horror” – named for the 40 human skeletons found there during excavations in the 1960s – that also bear a Greek rendition of the Twelve Minor Prophets, a book in the Hebrew Bible. The cave is located in a remote canyon around 40 kilometres south of Jerusalem.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/biden-s-reversing-the-reagan-revolution-20210316-p57b3v
Biden’s reversing the Reagan revolution
David Brooks
Mar 16, 2021 – 2.35pm
This has been one of the most quietly consequential weeks in recent American politics.
The COVID-19 relief law that was just enacted is one of the most important pieces of legislation of our lifetimes.
As Eric Levitz writes in New York magazine, the income of the poorest fifth of households will rise by 20 per cent; a family of four with one working and one unemployed parent will receive $US12,460 (about $16,000) in benefits. Child poverty will be cut in half.
The law stretches far beyond COVID-19 relief. There’s $US1 billion for national service programs. Black farmers will receive more than $US4 billion in what looks like a step toward reparations. There’s a huge expansion of health insurance subsidies. Many of these changes, like the child tax credit, may well become permanent.
As Michael Hendrix of the Manhattan Institute notes, America spent $US4.8 trillion in today’s dollars fighting World War II. Over the past year, America has spent more than $US5.5 trillion fighting the pandemic.
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https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/how-ray-dalio-plans-to-beat-funny-money-crisis-20210317-p57bhb
How Ray Dalio plans to beat ‘funny money’ crisis
Where Warren Buffet says bet on America, Ray Dalio is turning away. His fears about a bad end to what he describes as a ‘Big Debt Cycle’ have only grown with the pandemic response.
Mar 17, 2021 – 11.34am
It’s fascinating how the thinking of two of the world’s most respected investors can be so similar and yet so different.
Just weeks after Warren Buffett declared that “fixed-income investors worldwide – whether pension funds, insurance companies or retirees – face a bleak future”, legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates has kicked even more sand in the face of the bond market.
“The economics of investing in bonds (and most financial assets) has become stupid,” Dalio writes in a LinkedIn post, arguing that 30-year bond rates are so low that an investor who buys $100 of US, European, Japanese and Chinese bonds today has to wait roughly “42 years, 450 years, 150 years, and 25 years respectively to get one’s money back and then one gets low or nil nominal returns”.
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US brings strategic weight to Quad as China airs contempt
Scott Morrison may be forecasting “a new dawn in the Indo-Pacific” with the arrival of the Quadrilateral meeting of Australian, Japanese, Indian and US leaders, but we would do well to remember the village folklore that “the darkest hour is just before the dawn”.
The Quad has a strategic mountain to climb to bolster faltering democracies in our region, COVID-19 scything through countries ill-equipped to respond and, above all, to push back against the predatory wolf warriors of Beijing.
While Morrison was rightly putting a positive cast on the meeting, his Quad opening comments compared our current situation to a century ago when, after the last global pandemic, the world “soon found a Great Depression and another global conflict”.
The risk of a slide into conflict is clearly playing on the Prime Minister’s mind. Releasing a Defence “Strategic Update” in July last year, Morrison said: “That period of the 1930s has been something I have been revisiting on a very regular basis, and when you connect both the economic challenges and the global uncertainty, it can be very haunting.”
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Investors are deserting Europe, put off by its bizarre handling of the pandemic
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
March 19, 2021 — 11.09am
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has invoked the nuclear option of the Lisbon Treaty. By threatening to activate emergency powers under Article 122 she has told the world that Europe is no longer a safe place for private capital or inward investment.
The clause allows Brussels to seize factories, take direct control over the production process, and redirect vaccine flows. It enables war-time occupation of companies.
A regime that behaves like this is liable to impose capital controls without compunction, or block energy flows through the interconnectors, as has been threatened three times already (I keep count). And as we have seen, anything can be politicised, even random stochastic blood clots. Will global pharma ever build a plant again on EU territory after this episode?
“We want to see reciprocity and proportionality in exports,” said Mrs Von der Leyen. Delicious. The EU is currently refusing to reciprocate temporary UK waivers to smooth post-Brexit trade flows or to reciprocate on bare-bond equivalence in financial services.
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New world order born in a shabby Anchorage hotel meeting room
Jacob Greber AFR correspondent
Mar 19, 2021 – 5.22pm
The only thing missing was Nikita Khrushchev’s shoe, pounded on a table.
For more than 15 minutes – in a dowdy conference room of the Hotel Captain Cook in Anchorage, Alaska – Chinese Communist Party foreign affairs boss Yang Jiechi railed against US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan sitting stony-faced across the conference table.
In full “Wolf Warrior” pose, Yang demanded America stop promoting its version of democracy over “Chinese-style democracy”, accused Washington of plunging relations between the two countries into “unprecedented difficulty”, and warned “there is no way to strangle China.”
“Many people within the United States actually have little confidence in the democracy of the United States,” Yang said. “According to opinion polls, the leaders of China have the wide support of the Chinese people.”
After listening to the tirade, which broke with agreed protocol that opening remarks to the media would be brief, Blinken motioned for reporters and photographers to stay in the room as they were being ushered away by aides.
“Hold on one second,” he said before delivering his own retort.
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Fed to end relaxed capital requirements for large banks
Mar 20, 2021 – 1.28am
Washington DC | The Federal Reserve says it will restore capital requirements for large banks that were relaxed as part of the Fed’s efforts to shore up the financial system during the early days of the pandemic.
The Fed said it will not extend the relief from what is called the supplementary leverage ratio past March 31. The easing of the regulation had been intended to give banks flexibility in what assets they could hold to meet regulatory’ requirements during the turmoil of the pandemic, when banks were having to suddenly write down billions of dollars of loans.
The banking industry had lobbied for an extension of the relief but on Thursday the Fed said that since the requirements were relaxed last year “the Treasury market has stabilised.”
The supplementary leverage ratio requires large banks to hold capital equal to about 3 per cent of their assets. The required ratio is higher — 5 per cent — for banks that are deemed most important to the overall financial system The rule was adopted as part of regulatory reforms after the 2007-2008 global financial crisis and recession. The idea was to ensure that banks kept enough capital on hand to survive market meltdowns.
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‘Don’t underestimate us’: US-China ‘fundamentally at odds’
By Matthew Knott
March 20, 2021 — 10.00am
Washington: President Joe Biden has declared he is proud of his top diplomat for standing up to Chinese officials during a heated meeting in Alaska, as China’s foreign minister issued a blunt warning to the US not to underestimate China’s willingness to defend its territory.
The first in-person US-China talks since Biden’s inauguration concluded in Alaska on Saturday (AEDT) with less public acrimony than the previous day, when top officials from the rival superpowers verbally jousted on camera.
But there was no sign the two sides had moved any closer to resolving the deep differences between them - including China’s economic pressure campaign against Australia.
“We certainly know and knew going in that there are a number of areas where we are fundamentally at odds, including China’s actions in Xinjinag, with regard to Hong Kong, Tibet, increasingly Taiwan, as well as actions it is taking in cyberspace,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said after the talks concluded.
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Playing the bully has not worked out for China
Beijing’s rule-breaking has only unified others against it, when it hoped to divide them.
Mar 19, 2021 – 7.03pm
Alaska is not a promising place for an international thaw. Even before the opening barbs in Anchorage, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan had made it clear to their Chinese counterparts, Wang Yi and Yang Jiechi, that there would be no easing of the Trump-era tariffs and sanctions on China without getting something in return.
That includes an end to the bullying of America’s friends. Washington’s Asia chief Kurt Campbell said this week that the US will not be improving relations with Beijing while a “close and dear ally” in Canberra is being subjected to economic coercion.
That strength was also on show at the Quad video summit between Scott Morrison, Joe Biden, Narendra Modi and Yoshihide Suga last weekend.
The Quad has been rapidly accelerated from a meeting of officials in 2017 to the heads of government, a big win for Mr Morrison. For the first time, members are putting their collective interest ahead of individual relations with China.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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