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The India catastrophe continues with no clear end just yet.
Calm remains in the US as vaccination continues and economic growth appears to be accelerating.
In the UK we see the Scottish election results causing an increase in demand for independence which will really cause ructions over coming years.
In Asia there are still many countries having a very bad and sad time with the pandemic.
In Australia it is Budget Week – more news as the week rolls on!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/lessons-for-libs-in-gutwein-s-triumph-20210429-p57nl6
The lessons for the Liberals in Gutwein’s triumph
Although the Liberals have achieved their aim of preserving their one-seat majority, it wasn’t a particularly good result for them.
Saul Eslake Contributor
May 2, 2021 – 3.21pm
Saturday’s Tasmanian state election turned out to be a personal triumph for Premier Peter Gutwein.
He received more than 48 per cent of the vote in his electorate of Bass – a figure only exceeded once before in Tasmanian electoral history.
And he appears likely to have led the Liberal Party to an unprecedented third consecutive electoral victory, winning 13 of the 25 seats in Tasmania’s Lower House (assuming that the Liberals pick up the fifth seat in the Hobart-based electorate of Clark). His decision to call the election 10 months ahead of schedule has thus been vindicated.
But although the Liberals now look likely to achieve their aim of preserving their one-seat majority, it wasn’t a particularly good result for them. With about 86 per cent of the votes counted, their share of the total state-wide vote dropped by 1.5 percentage points – in contrast to the 4 per cent and 18 per cent increases in the share of the primary vote obtained by incumbent governments in Queensland and Western Australia at their most recent state elections.
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Scotty from the suburbs: PM harnesses national identity
Sean Kelly
Columnist and former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
May 2, 2021 — 11.55pm
It has never been very clear, in political terms, what Scott Morrison believes. And so it was fascinating to watch him, in the early days of his prime ministership, work overtime to define himself. He did so not by stating beliefs, but by stressing certain traits: mostly, by talking about the Shire, where he lived, and about rugby league.
Politicians have always emphasised their hobbies in an effort to appear likeable. But this was a different technique entirely. Morrison was not telling us about his identity as a humanising addition to his beliefs and policies. He was telling us about his identity as a substitute for beliefs and policies. We knew he was a footy-loving bloke from the Shire, and that was enough.
Many recent weeks in Australian politics have been focused on a single issue – sexism, or vaccines. Last week was different because it seemed diffuse. But curiously, these various events, apparently disconnected, told a similar story about our national identity.
Most prominent was the government’s decision to ban flights from India. This seemed briefly shocking. Our government decided that Australian citizens had to fend for themselves – a dramatic cleavage of citizens from what we had always thought of as the rights of citizenship. On Saturday, the government announced a further step: those who tried to get back from India anyway could face prison.
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National curriculum must ditch politics for evidence
Glenn Fahey
Contributor
May 3, 2021 — 4.25am
As the dust settles on proposed changes to the national curriculum, gears must shift from debating the political to a focus on advancing educational practice.
Public consultation opened last week on the long-awaited Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) draft review of the national curriculum – just its second since the authority was launched over a decade ago.
Much ink has already been spilled, with heated reactions to its surprisingly radical proposed changes. Detractors have taken aim at a perceived snubbing of elements of Western civilisation, some (arguably) provocative language concerning Australian history, and an elevation of sensitive content to the national remit.
Federal Education Minister Alan Tudge has sounded disapproval while state and territory ministers – who also must sign off on the proposal – are believed to share misgivings. ACARA itself has been divided over key changes, with its board reportedly rejecting preliminary drafts. The controversy has even resulted in calls for ACARA to be disbanded.
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Shut out from the country, this is how the Australian media covers China
Eryk Bagshaw
North Asia correspondent
May 3, 2021 — 10.05am
Mike Smith was talking to the Irish Times China correspondent Peter Goff on their way back from Xinjiang, north-west China in 2019.
The Australian Financial Review’s China correspondent and Goff had been invited by China’s State Council to view for themselves what conditions were like in the detention centres that had been built by the dozen across the region.
Instead of perimeter walls, armed guards and torture cells, there were “airy classrooms, cookie-making classes, dancing performances and courtyards filled with daffodils”.
“The seven-day trip was an elaborate propaganda exercise on a scale that was impressive even for China. It often bordered on the surreal,” Smith wrote.
“There was a fashion parade by Uighur women set to pumping dance music in a village laneway; horses on treadmills at a special-effects-laden ‘ethnic singing and dancing show’; and a team of young Uighur girls in hot-pink dresses and earpieces assigned to guide us around Kashgar’s Old City.”
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Complacency an enemy as reality of conflict sets in
Behind the loud calls of climate, gender and cancel-culture activists, many are finally beginning to hear the sound of war drums. Around Anzac Day, when we reflect on our military heritage, it is ironic that national dialogue rarely turns to our duty to veterans (past, present and future) to prepare for and prevent coming wars.
Having advocated over the past decade for greater preparation to face war in our region, finally having others hear the drums provides satisfaction, but no gratification.
Our new Defence Minister, a powerful departmental secretary and the Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command have publicly acknowledged this in recent days. Many ordinary Australians, not just those who have personally experienced global conflict, are awakening to the sombre reality that war is not just possible in our region, but likely. I have made this case for years. Armed to the teeth, adversaries are manoeuvring ships and planes around each other, intimidating and threatening, loaded with real weapons of war, forging alliances. The second-most powerful nation (China) wants to overtake the most powerful nation (the US). This has happened 16 times in the past 500 years and war has resulted on 12 of those occasions. These odds are poor enough for us to at least start planning.
So, having recognised this probability, what should we do? Action must be shaped not by the mere existence of a threat, but by the nature of that threat.
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The West must learn to match China’s weaponised economics
China is using economic heft to create the dependency and appeasement that the empires of old achieved through war. But Beijing is also sensitive to collective push-back.
Ted O'Brien
May 4, 2021 – 12.00am
Combating communist China’s economic coercion through collective security and mutual assistance should become a priority of liberal democracies.
The days of treating security and economics as separate domains are behind us. In China, the two are steered by the one hand, the Chinese Communist Party, and it is exporting its model internationally.
China is weaponising trade and investment to pursue geostrategic outcomes for which earlier nations and empires would have used armed conflict, and it’s getting away with it.
There’s logic to its strategy. Why tempt war when economics can do the job for you? As Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu said, “the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting”.
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Conflict with China a ‘high likelihood’, says top Australian general
By Nick McKenzie and Anthony Galloway
May 4, 2021 — 5.00am
One of the nation’s top military commanders told his troops that Beijing is already engaged in “grey zone” warfare against Australia and they must plan for the high likelihood this may spill over into actual conflict in the future.
The candid and confidential briefing by Major-General Adam Findlay to Australia’s special forces soldiers last year gives the most detailed insight yet made public into how the nation’s top military planners view the threat of China.
The then-special forces commander, who has since stepped down but who still advises the Australian Defence Force, highlighted the steps Australia’s military was taking to prevent war but also described a “high likelihood” that actual conflict could break out due to the unpredictable nature of foreign affairs.
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Military commander tells dark story about the threat from China
May 4, 2021 — 5.00am
Major-General Adam Findlay has provided more detail on the threats facing the nation than has previously been publicly revealed.
Firstly, the secret briefing by the special forces commander, revealed by The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald, shows just how concerned Australia’s senior military planners are about the escalating threat of China’s “grey zone” tactics.
The grey zone – which includes cyber attacks and disinformation campaigns – refers to aggressions that fall somewhere between the traditional conceptions of war and peace. Authoritarian states such as China, Russia, Iran and North Korea are very good at competing in this space, while democracies are just learning.
According to Findlay, China has learnt to stay within the grey zone because it knows from history that Western democracies tend to still think in the old binary fashion, and when states cross the line “we start bombing people and we start getting angry”.
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The US dollar is on the nose again and that spells trouble for the RBA
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
May 4, 2021 — 11.58am
After briefly showing signs of life in March the US dollar is on the nose again. While that says something positive about the outlook for the rest of the world it isn’t such good news for the US, or the Reserve Bank.
The dollar fell heavily – plunged really – last year. By the start of this year it had lost about 13 per cent of its value against its major trading partners from its levels before the severity of the threat of the pandemic was recognised last March.
It had a brief positive moment in March this year, as US bond yields climbed against the backdrop of a rapid resurgence in US economic activity and expectations of increasing inflationary pressures.
That recovery was doused by the Federal Reserve’s restatement of its plan to wait until inflation is entrenched before starting to unwind its very aggressive monetary policies.
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Australians don’t want a war with China. It’s time to raise voices against it
David Brophy
Senior lecturer in Modern Chinese History
May 5, 2021 — 5.30am
For a long time now, Australia’s discussion of China has been replete with the language of war: political warfare, hybrid warfare, even the campus as a “battlefield”. In the last 10 days, though, the metaphors have given way to something more concrete. Home Affairs boss Mike Pezzullo set the drums beating with his Anzac Day warnings, and Peter Dutton and Jim Molan have kept up the rhythm since. This week has seen reports of an April 2020 speech by Major-General Adam Findlay talking up the “high likelihood” of war with China.
This flurry of war talk has been met with anxiety, but also bemusement. Australia obviously can’t pick a fight with China by itself, so what’s it all about? Some claim that Scott Morrison is shaping up for a khaki election. It’s certainly easy to see the ALP getting wedged on China, given the pride it takes in a “bipartisan compact on national security”.
There’s also the wider international messaging to consider. Bravado towards Beijing can be a way for Australia to signal to Washington that it is willing to step up and “share the burden” of confronting China. That being the case, today’s rhetoric might be an indication that Australia’s defence wonks are unhappy with President Biden’s positioning on China and want to see a more confrontational stance from him.
Still, the cat is out of the bag now, and there’s no point allowing speculation about motives to obscure the basic question here: should Australians countenance war with the People’s Republic of China? Even if war isn’t immediately on the cards, talk of it is becoming normalised in a dangerous way, and everyone recognises the potential for a mishap in somewhere like the South China Sea to spiral into conflict.
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Scott Morrison’s faith in power to rally quiet Australians
Sooner or later it was bound to happen. Scott Morrison in two recent speeches not only has explained his religious faith but also has drawn the battlelines for the contest of values that will shape the election next year.
Progressives in the media and politics are obsessed about the Prime Minister’s faith as a Pentecostal Christian and convinced this is his vulnerability. But the evidence is against them. In these speeches Morrison, contrary to media commentary, enshrined his faith as a catalyst for the good society, then targeted progressives at their weakest point — their ideological pursuit of identity politics.
The 2019 election revealed that attacking Morrison’s faith was a failed tactic. Encouraged by a social media pile-on, Bill Shorten tried by daring Morrison to declare “gay people will not go to hell” — a ploy ALP colleagues warned Shorten against. Labor knows it blundered, but whether it has the discipline to avoid a repetition is debatable.
While an element of progressivism has a religious base, the legions of the progressive movement are hostile to religion and conspicuously hostile to Christianity. The great political event of our age is the schism in the left across Western societies triggered by the rise of a progressivism that repudiates classical liberalism and its view of human nature. This view was informed by Judaeo-Christian tradition, the honouring of each individual made equal in God’s image, such that all people can live together regardless of race or creed.
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China ‘not hell-bent on global rule’, says Gareth Evans
Former Labor foreign minister Gareth Evans says “things could go very badly wrong over Taiwan” but cautions that China is not “hell-bent on some kind of global domination”.
Amid strident rhetoric on China from senior Morrison government figures, including warnings of the threat of war, Professor Evans urged Australian policymakers to avoid “excessive zeal” in their comments on China.
“Partly it’s a matter of not digging any further holes when you’re in one and being very, very cautious about adding to the pile of things that, you know, Beijing has found it difficult to live with,” he told an Asialink podcast.
He said tensions with China over Taiwan could spiral out of control “because that’s something where China manifestly has a huge degree of emotional engagement”.
“It’s an issue where the West will find it difficult not to be drawn into defence of Taiwan if there is a physical assault made upon it,” he said. “I don’t think anyone thinks there’s advantage to be derived from this thing, including on the Chinese side.
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Group of Eight universities take a swipe at think tanks
7:18PM May 4, 2021
Australia’s elite research universities have taken a swipe at the nation’s independent foreign policy think tanks, warning the Morrison government not to let non-university research have a “outsized impact” on diplomacy.
In a submission to a senate inquiry into foreign policy research, Group of Eight chief executive Vicki Thomson calls on the government to boost funding for foreign policy research — including at the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne — after serious cuts over the past two years led to foreign policy courses being culled at universities.
Think tanks like the Australian Strategic Policy Institute have been among the leading critics of the university sector’s close relationship with China, ASPI executive director Peter Jennings saying the Go8 needed to catch up in the “competition” of foreign policy ideas.
Ms Thomson in her submission says the non-university foreign policy sector did not face the same academic rigour as the Go8 and that the Morrison government should prevent “low-quality” research from non-university analysts influencing global strategy too much.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/investment-could-be-the-post-virus-surprise-20210504-p57oue
Investment could be the post-virus surprise
The best investment conditions in 15 years means that corporate spending could pick up where stimulus leaves off.
Richard Yetsenga Contributor
May 5, 2021 – 2.10pm
The second 10 years of the century became a lost decade for business investment in the advanced economies. It took six years for investment to return to pre-GFC levels, and it never returned to the pre-crisis trend. The 2020s are set to be much improved, with the recent strength of equity markets playing an important role.
The robust foundations of this cycle are being laid early, most notably with fiscal support for the economy, rather than austerity, to prioritise pre-set notions of sustainability. Over the coming year, fiscal support in many economies is likely to shift from income and cash-flow support towards investment, particularly infrastructure and climate change mitigation. Any firm push back to budget austerity seems a long way off.
Banks are also supporting this cycle in a way that typically has not occurred in recoveries. The post-GFC period was an extended time of balance sheet repair for many banks following the losses incurred in the crisis. There was also sustained regulatory reform, and banks had to adjust to much higher levels of capital and regulatory oversight.
Conversely, the COVID-19 crisis has in many cases resulted in eased regulatory requirements, for instance through loan forbearance and deferrals. Banks in many countries have finished the crisis not with excess non-performing loans but with excess capital. The result is that lending appetite is strong.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/taiwan-shores-up-allies-as-china-threat-looms-20210504-p57ot5
Taiwan shores up allies as China threat looms
Taiwan’s Foreign Minister has backed a hardening of the Morrison government’s rhetoric towards China and says it is preparing for a ‘final assault’ by Beijing.
Michael Smith China correspondent
May 6, 2021 – 12.00am
Taiwan has warned it is preparing for a “final assault” by China as the disputed island territory called on Australia to help defend it against President Xi Jinping’s “expansionism”, which it says threatens democracies around the world.
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Joseph Wu backed the Morrison government’s hawkish rhetoric towards China, welcoming comments over the past fortnight by senior Australian government and defence officials who have raised the prospect of a military conflict with China over Taiwan.
In an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review, Mr Wu called on Australia to pursue “broader relations” with Taipei but stopped short of calling on Canberra to provide military support for now.
He said an invasion of Taiwan was “not imminent” but a military confrontation with China was a genuine threat that Canberra understood.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/defence-spending-highest-since-cold-war-20210505-p57p3o
Defence spending highest since Cold War
May 5, 2021 – 5.54pm
Australia’s defence spending has hit a post-Cold War high, as the government bolsters the nation’s security in response to China’s growing military power in the region.
New analysis shows spending on defence was worth 2.45 per cent of the economy by late last year, the highest since the early 1990s at the end of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.
The government allocated $34 billion for defence spending for 2020-21 in last year’s budget, rising to $39 billion by 2023-24. Next Tuesday’s federal budget is expected to further increase defence outlays.
Defence sources have confirmed to The Australian Financial Review the government is expected to make a decision by June on extending the life of the ageing Collins class submarines.
Last year’s defence strategic update put the cost between $3.5 billion and $6 billion but this has increased, with suggestions it may cost $9 billion now. One proposal is for the designer of the Collins class, Swedish shipbuilder Saab Kockums, to assist submarine builders ASC with the upgrade.
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Faithful Morrison says one thing but does another
Columnist and former Liberal opposition leader
May 5, 2021 — 9.20pm
It is important our politicians have and operate with principles, values and beliefs, but consistency of words and deeds is fundamental if they are to be believed and trusted. Australians have become wary of politicians who spruik morals, principles and religion but then fail conspicuously to live what they claim to believe.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has made a couple of speeches in the past month in which he has focused on his faith and beliefs – to a conference of Christian Churches and to the United Israel Appeal Dinner last week - but his declarations on human dignity at those events sit at odds with his own behaviour.
At the United Israel dinner in Randwick he described human dignity as “foundational to our freedom” and “the essence of morality”. He declared that “acting to morally enhance the freedom of others ultimately serves to enhance our own freedom” and that we must protect against “the growing tendency to commodify human beings through identity politics”.
Yet compare this with his scathing attack on Australia Post boss Christine Holgate, his inadequate response to the Brittany Higgins rape allegations and other reports of bad behaviour in parliament, his efforts to take the Brereton report into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan off the radar and delay a formal response to it, and his government’s decision to ban Australians returning from India and threaten them with jail and fines if they tried to come home.
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Why Lex Greensill should have read Machiavelli on the Medici
The failed prince of supply-chain financing and his credulous creditors should have heeded the cautionary lessons of medieval banking about the dangers of mixing finance with politics.
Harold James
May 6, 2021 – 1.25pm
The collapse of Greensill Capital, a London-based financial services firm, offers a timely but costly warning about a number of contemporary trends.
Clearly, we should be wary of the hype around financial innovation. But we also need to shine a brighter spotlight on the shady world of corporate lobbying, the regulation of risk, and other issues at the intersection of capitalism and government.
Greensill reportedly tried to use former British prime minister David Cameron to entice the Saudi government to press investors to contribute more funds to SoftBank so that SoftBank could increase its backing of Greensill. Then, following the start of the pandemic, Cameron reportedly lobbied for Greensill to secure access to an emergency loan scheme, and pressed the National Health Service to adopt an app owned by Greensill to pay NHS staff daily instead of monthly.
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Morrison government has ripped up a treasured contract between nation and citizen
Associate editor and special writer
May 6, 2021 — 3.29pm
With the world in stupor at the tragedy caused by a tsunami that rolled at 700km/h across the Indian Ocean on Boxing Day, 2004, I boarded a Qantas flight at Sydney’s international airport.
On board were teams of Australian doctors specialising in primary and acute care and infectious diseases, plus piles of tents, water containers, tools of all sorts and medical supplies.
We flew through the day and the night, landing at Colombo in Sri Lanka and at Malé, the capital of the usually blissful Maldives, disgorging doctors and their supplies at both traumatised places.
At each of these stops, just four days after the tsunami had killed about 225,000 people in a dozen countries, bedraggled Australian citizens filed aboard, desperate to get home.
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Can’t beat the border populists, so the PM has joined them
The India travel ban shows the government has given in to the hardline approach of state premiers. Not because it is necessarily right, but because it is political popular.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
May 6, 2021 – 8.00pm
Just because something is politically popular does not necessarily make it right.
Time and again over the past year we have witnessed hardline actions by governments and law enforcers that have infringed on basic liberties and rights, all in the name of keeping us safe.
In all cases, it has led to political reward while at times raising questions as to the necessity of it all.
Hundreds of stories of hardship and sadness inflicted by the application of emergency powers and border closures have marked Australia’s battle with the coronavirus.
Queensland’s Annastacia Palaszczuk, who once infamously declared her hospitals were for Queenslanders only, stopped a young girl from the ACT – which had no coronavirus cases – from travelling north to bury her father.
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China’s latest move a mere formality as Xi and Morrison speak the dialogue of the deaf
May 6, 2021 — 7.03pm
Beijing’s decision to suspend a high-level economic dialogue with Australia has no practical effect. But it conveys important information nonetheless.
It has no practical effect because it’s like getting the news that your big trip to Bali scheduled for next month has been cancelled.
You’ve known that for quite a while already. The border is shut. No one is going anywhere. The new email in your inbox is just a formality.
Likewise, President Xi Jinping imposed a total ban on any visits with Australia’s prime minister - and other ministers - more than three years ago.
So the announcement that he’s now suspending the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue is a formality. An Australian cabinet minister shrugged off the news on Thursday afternoon as meaningless; his Chinese counterpart hasn’t even been answering the phone or mail for over a year.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/australians-need-clarity-on-war-or-peace-20210506-p57pg1
Australians need clarity on war or peace
A formal annual threat assessment from the government is better than the shapeless war talk voters are getting at the moment.
Ben Scott Contributor
May 7, 2021 – 11.15am
The sudden increase in war talk is alarming.
It’s not just because the damage from a conflict between China, the United States and possibly its allies would be catastrophic. It is because of the narrow frame that this level of conversation puts on our national security and the choices in front of us.
China’s rise dominates our increasingly complex national security environment, but far from exclusively.
The climate crisis is starting to get the global attention it needs, but the implications for Australia are far from clear.
The Biden administration is normalising Washington, but there is no guarantee that Donald Trump, or someone like him, won’t return.
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Voters driven to distraction by Morrison’s short-term splurge
Political and international editor
May 8, 2021 — 5.00am
Labor leader Anthony Albanese uses a bus metaphor to describe the Morrison government’s approach to the economy.
“I think Australians are entitled to be very sceptical as to how the government is going to get there on unemployment,” he told my colleague David Crowe this week. “I mean, this is a government that is like a bus driver who tells you the itinerary but never turns on the engine.”
I think he has it the wrong way around. The engine already is running pretty hot, and it’s about to get a lot hotter, as we’ll hear in next week’s federal budget.
That’s not in question any more. And that’s a problem for Labor. But does the driver know where he’s taking us? That could be a problem for everyone.
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The three issues to decide NSW byelection – and next federal poll too
Columnist and communications adviser
May 8, 2021 — 5.00am
It is distant, beautiful, prosperous, and subject to much vague, uninformed romanticisation. It has a reputation for being a source of exceptionally pure and high-quality agricultural produce, while also standing accused of being a source of global pollution. It is a key producer of a resource the world is still heavily reliant on, but is seeking to replace. While some fret about the effect of its exports, most realise demand is not going to flag any time soon. It is an increasingly popular destination for migration, which is putting pressure on its infrastructure. It could be Australia, seen from a global perspective, but it’s just a small fragment: the Upper Hunter electorate of NSW.
The parallels between the Upper Hunter byelection to be held in a fortnight and the next federal election, due whenever the government can carve out a moment’s respite, invite reflection. For city-centric voters, they can provide a glimpse of issues that will swing the broader electorate. Under-represented on Twitter, these issues regularly top the lists of concerns in representative polling. They are the cost of living, jobs, and access to health services and hospitals.
The two competitive parties in the Upper Hunter - the Nationals and Labor - have installed candidates with strong pro-coal credentials, reflecting the focus on coal jobs in the region. This has put the area at the centre of the Labor Party’s internal culture wars, as federal Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese seeks to balance traditional working-class support for Labor with the progressive wing anxious about losing votes to the Greens.
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Ill-disciplined chest-thumping has put war at centre of what’s left of the Australia-China relationship
Kevin Rudd
Former Australian prime minister
May 8, 2021 — 5.34am
The Morrison government’s recent indisciplined commentary on the possibility of Australian military engagement in a future US-China war over Taiwan is both politically juvenile and potentially damaging to our core national security interests.
For 50 years, successive Australian governments have not speculated publicly on what Australia would do in the event of a military crisis or conflict over Taiwan. Scott Morrison, Defence Minister Peter Dutton and aspiring defence secretary Michael Pezzullo have spectacularly breached that bipartisan convention over the past fortnight. Classified military briefings have also been leaked. These three have sought to deflect criticism over the precise parsing of their language, but the net effect has been to elevate the idea of a looming war – and Australia’s probable involvement in it – as the focus of the already dysfunctional Australia-China relationship.
Previous Australian governments have been tight-lipped about potential Taiwan military scenarios for good reason. Such a conflict would involve the world’s two biggest militaries and likely become the most violent and destructive war in Asia since 1945. Given the horrendous choices that would present the government of the day, Australia should not at this stage compromise the independence and flexibility of our national decision-making. And nobody can predict with any certainty which scenarios might arise between cyberattack, maritime blockade, territorial invasion or something else entirely.
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‘Outstandingly stupid act’: can Australia actually defend itself?
Our military could fight other middle powers and win, but there are gaps in our capabilities that must be filled immediately if we are to hold our own in a major battle.
· From Inquirer
May 8, 2021
Australia has a highly capable, professional military equipped with small numbers of very complex, extremely expensive aircraft, ships, submarines and land vehicles. Australia could fight other middle powers and win, but Australia should only ever plan to be in a major conflict against a great power if we are in very good company.
The idea that Australia should have a military able to fight alone against China is deeply flawed. Fortunately, the prospects of a neatly bilateral conflict between China and Australia are remote. Australia deciding to fight alone would be an outstandingly stupid act of unilateral disarmament that discounted the value of powerful partners, notably the US.
While our military has an impressive force, it has large vulnerabilities in being able to sustain itself in combat. It’s been slow to take up the power that comes from low-cost semi-autonomous systems like armed drones and unmanned systems such as sensors, whether in the air, under the sea or on the ground. And Australia is not taking advantage of our “strategic geography” to support how our military and partner militaries can operate in times of conflict.
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Major US pipeline shut by ransomware attack
· AFP
The largest fuel pipeline system in the United States was forced to shut down its entire network after a ransomware attack, the operating company said in a statement Saturday.
Colonial, based in the southern state of Georgia, is the largest pipeline operator in the United States by volume, transporting 2.5 million barrels of gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel and other refined petroleum products per day.
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Shipping price surge hitting economy, RBA says
Strained global supply chains and the worldwide shortage of shipping containers has caused logistical headaches for Australian companies and injected higher costs into the economy, according to the Reserve Bank’s latest statement on monetary policy.
In the central bank’s quarterly update it warned Australia was not immune to the effects of very large shifts in patterns of demand which have generated supply chain bottlenecks as well as driving up prices for transport and shipping containers, although for the majority of local firms it hasn’t impacted their ability to operate.
This showed itself in product delays, initially, and now higher shipping prices are creeping into the system and could threaten some inflationary pressure.
“When China entered into lockdown in early 2020, Australian firms across many industries reported delays in deliveries of up to a few weeks and, in some cases, difficulties sourcing products, as factories overseas were either shut down or operating at significantly reduced capacity,” the RBA said.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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How to get Australia’s borders open again
Australia will have to drop the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to quarantine if it wants to take advantage of rising immunity rates and allow travellers into the country again.
Nathan Grills and Tony Blakely
May 4, 2021 – 12.00am
As many countries continue to struggle with COVID-19 and the disastrous realities of variant-driven third and fourth waves, Australia enjoys an enviable place with (usually) zero community transmission. The flip side to our situation is “how do we plan to open up again to the rest of the world?”
Our success up to now is, in large part, due to mandatory 14-day, hotel-based quarantine for all travellers coming into the country.
But the one-size-fits-all approach to borders is over. With vaccines, improved understanding of transmission and rapid testing we can afford to be more nuanced and sophisticated in our approach to borders.
Australia should be considering a country-specific quarantine regimen ranging from supervised 14-day isolation in purpose-built Howard Springs-type facilities for arrivals from countries with high infection rates, through to short home isolation or even no quarantine for near-zero risk arrivals from low-prevalence countries, such as students from China.
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The world is watching. And it is wondering what this draconian decision says about Australia’s character
Europe correspondent
May 4, 2021 — 10.58am
London: I was lucky to attend a small but beautiful Anzac Day service in Westminster Abbey last month. The choir sung Advance Australia Fair and the Dean of Westminster, David Hoyle, described how a young Australia displayed a “sustained commitment to the wider world, a turning outwards...a national coming of age” at Gallipoli.
The commemoration couldn’t have been a better-timed reminder of how events in foreign countries can help define a nation’s character. Some short prayers were read aloud towards the end but one - which called for Australians to remember “the responsibilities we bear today as citizens” - made me shift uncomfortably in my seat.
Responsibilities matter but what about the rights afforded by citizenship? Those are apparently dispensable now.
One of the most basic expectations - the right to re-enter your own country freely - has been attacked by politicians using little-known laws to threaten jail or fines for citizens desperate to escape coronavirus-ravaged India.
There are at least 9000 Australians there who want to come home - about one quarter of all stranded Australians globally. Even special Qantas repatriation flights for some of the 600 Australians classified as vulnerable have been cancelled.
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Top epidemiologist says virus outbreak is ‘absolutely inevitable’
By Aisha Dow
May 8, 2021 — 5.00am
The risk of a disastrous coronavirus outbreak in Australia is now at its highest level since the pandemic began and continued escapes from quarantine can be expected at least every month.
James McCaw, an epidemiologist and mathematical biologist with the University of Melbourne who is leading a research team providing modelling on the pandemic to the federal government, said it was “absolutely inevitable” that the virus would spread within Australia.
Professor McCaw said while a spate of outbreaks from the hotel quarantine system over the past six months had been managed incredibly well, the nation had also been lucky.
It is, he said, just a matter of time before one of the outbreaks would avoid the best efforts of contact tracers and widespread vaccination of the young and old remains the only way to prevent hospitals being overwhelmed.
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The unexpected stimulus: How the closed border helped save the economy
By Shane Wright
May 8, 2021 — 12.01am
It’s the stimulus no one was expecting.
Scott Morrison stood in the Prime Minister’s parliamentary courtyard on March 24 last year to outline the restrictions to be put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19. It was his 2685th word that revealed Australians would be banned from leaving their own country.
At the time, it attracted scant attention. There was just one question from the assembled media about the ban, and that was about its timing.
But the ban – the only one of its type imposed by a democratic country – has turned into an unpredicted stimulus helping to save the economy from the deepest recession since the 1930s.
And that stimulus will be a key but unrecognised feature in the fiscal recovery Treasurer Josh Frydenberg unveils in his post-pandemic budget on Tuesday evening.
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Our closed borders have turbo-charged the economy’s recovery
Economics Editor
May 7, 2021 — 11.10am
The economy’s rebound from the lockdowns of last year has been truly remarkable – far better than anyone dared to hope. Even so, it’s not quite as miraculous as it looks.
As Tuesday’s budget leads us to focus on the outlook for the economy in the coming financial year, it’s important to remember that the coronacession hasn’t been like a normal recession. And the recovery from it won’t be like a normal recovery either.
The coronacession is unique for several reasons. The first is that the blow to economic activity – real gross domestic product - was much greater than we’ve experienced in any recession since World War II and almost wholly contained within a single quarter.
The reason for that is simple: it happened because our federal and state governments decided that the best way to stop the spread of the virus was to lock down the economy for a few weeks. But because this was a government-ordered recession, the governments were in no doubt about their obligation to counter the cost to workers and businesses with monetary assistance.
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Budget buzz can’t hide a deficit of morality
No Coalition budget handed down should avoid mention of the elephant in the room. That is, the build-up of debt. Ahead of the 2019 budget, the government bragged about the budget being “back in black”, which it wasn’t and, courtesy of events, probably never will be on its watch.
Prior to that the Coalition had a long track record of whingeing about debt being built up during Labor’s time in power. John Howard’s opposition did it in the lead-up to the 1996 election, continuing the attacks in the aftermath of that victory as a warning to voters not to risk a return to Labor.
When Tony Abbott was opposition leader the talk emanating from his team was of a “debt-and-deficit disaster” courtesy of Labor spending. What Australia would give now for the low debt levels back then.
During the global financial crisis the then Coalition opposition lampooned Labor for overspending, including attacking specific schemes for waste or poor design. That appears extra hypocritical now, in the context of pandemic spending and, for example, the design principles behind the JobKeeper scheme, which didn’t even require profitable businesses to pay the money back if their fortunes turned around.
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Climate Change.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/market-can-generate-power-fix-20210503-p57ok2
Market can generate power fix
Energy Australia’s Tallawara B gas plant proves the private sector can deliver cost-effective, low-emissions electricity, and why the government should step back from big stick interventions.
Tony Wood Contributor
May 4, 2021 – 4.53pm
Energy Australia yesterday announced it will build a 316 megawatt, open-cycle gas turbine – gas peaking plant – in the Illawarra region of NSW.
This decision is an all-round win for industry, governments, and consumers – an unusual outcome in a sector more often beset by uncertainty and animosity.
In 2015, AGL announced it planned to close the Liddell coal-fired plant in the Hunter region of NSW, and subsequently confirmed that this would happen across 2022 and 2023.
This announcement triggered a war of words between the company and the Turnbull federal government over the closure of the plant and what would replace it.
The tension was not relieved by a change of prime minister. The Morrison government took a very strong stance in which it demanded that 1000MW of new gas-fired investment be committed by April this year.
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Electricity companies’ ‘short sighted’ behaviour passes ‘soaring’ costs to consumers: report
Australia’s electricity companies have prioritised profits over upkeep and passed the ‘soaring’ costs onto consumers, a new report has found.
Anton Nilsson
NCA NewsWire
May 5, 202112:00am
Australia’s electricity systems are poorly maintained, dangerous and at risk of failing, a damning new report has revealed.
The power network is a piece of critical infrastructure and should be treated as such, according to researchers from left-wing think tank Australia Institute.
But the providers have their priorities all wrong, prioritising profits over upkeep and passing the “soaring” costs onto consumers, the researchers claimed.
The research found companies spent too much money on office managers and not enough on maintaining and operating the grid, with a 36 per cent rise in managers in the same period where there was a 1.2 per cent decrease in actual electricians.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No entry in this section
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National Budget Issues.
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Abbott-Hockey sized savings needed to balance the budget
Fiscal repair isn’t as simple as just repairing the economy. Repaying the bill from the estimated bill of $40 billion a year from the pandemic will be a huge political challenge.
Chris Richardson Contributor
May 3, 2021 – 12.00am
It’s been clear for some time that if our economy gets better, our budget will too.
So it’s no surprise that our red-hot recovery is helping the budget get better.
And yes, it is a red-hot recovery: global growth is recovering fast, Australia’s world-class defence against the virus has us near the front of that pack, Australian living standards grew faster than their decade average through 2020, we’re the first (and so far only) advanced nation to have more jobs now than before the pandemic, and job momentum is set to be only temporarily disrupted by the end to JobKeeper.
That’s a pretty good backdrop for the upcoming budget. How good? Three things stand out:
First, jobs have returned much faster than Treasury assumed. That’s even more central to the outlook than usual, because the pandemic’s economic pain has centred on jobs.
Second, the world is giving us a much larger pay rise than Treasury forecast – iron ore prices are as high as Nimbin on a sunny Sunday, and other export prices are healthier too.
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Now we’re trying Plan C to end wage stagnation
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
May 3, 2021 — 5.00am
Be clear on this: Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are dead right to make getting the rate of unemployment down to 4.5 per cent or lower their chief objective, with the further goal of inducing some decent growth in wages. But this approach to economic recovery is very different to our econocrats’ former and more conventional advice.
That the econocrats have changed their tune so markedly is an admission that the way the economy works has changed – in ways they don’t understand, for reasons they don’t understand.
What’s changed most is the behaviour of wages. As Treasury puts it in a new research paper, “structural factors may have altered the wage and price-setting dynamics in advanced economies. These include increased competition in goods markets, increases in services being provided internationally, advances in technology and changes in the supply of labour and labour market regulation”.
That’s an econocrat’s way of saying: who knows what’s going on.
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Boom times: We may be having another commodity supercycle
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
May 3, 2021 — 12.00pm
Anyone having a quick squiz at commodity prices could easily think we’re in the middle of the kind of commodities supercycle last seen in the China-driven boom in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.
While iron ore is the flag carrier for the boom in resource commodities – prices are at record levels – but oil, copper, nickel, cobalt, lithium and even coal have rebounded quite dramatically from their pandemic lows. Copper is back at 2011 levels.
There’s also a boom occurring in agricultural commodities. Wheat, corn, other grains and soy prices are at six-year highs and cotton and live cattle prices have bounced back strongly from their pandemic lows.
The sheer strength of the price movements raises the question of whether there been a structural change in commodity prices – a new supercycle – or something more cyclical. The answer probably lies in a mixture of the two.
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Sign of cooling in home frenzy as price growth slows
Housing prices rose 1.8 per cent in April but the pace of gains slowed by a full percentage point, as signs begin to point to the end of rapid rises and a possible rebalance in the market power between buyers and sellers, according to CoreLogic
Despite hints of a slowdown, national property prices continued to be bullish, the property researcher’s monthly index showed, with the 1.8 per cent rise significantly above the five-year monthly growth average of 0.3 per cent, highlighting the continuing strength of the current market.
Sydney
and Melbourne reported respective gains of 2.4 per cent and 1.3 per cent over
the month of April. In the smaller markets, Darwin led the rise, up 2.7 per
cent, followed by Adelaide (up 2 per cent), Canberra (up 1.9 per cent),
Brisbane (up 1.7 per cent), Hobart (up 1 per cent) and Perth (0.8 per cent)
CoreLogic’s executive of research Tim Lawless is not anticipating a drop in
prices any time soon. Market figures shows properties in capital cities are
taking just 26 days on average to sell while discounting rates are at 2.7 per
cent – both record lows. However, the economist expects capital gains to move
higher at more sustainable, slower rates over the coming months and into 2022,
particularly across the larger cities.
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On budget night, here’s how we’ll know if Scott Morrison really cares about women
Economics Editor
May 4, 2021 — 11.30am
Sometimes I think the smartest thing a nation can do to improve its economic fortunes is elect a leader who’s lucky. The miracle-working Scott Morrison, for instance.
This may be a controversial idea in these days of heightened political tribalism, when one tribe is tempted to hope the other tribe really stuffs up the economy and so gets thrown out. What does a wrecked economy matter if your tribe’s back in power?
Morrison was not only lucky to win the 2019 election, there’s been as much luck as good management in his success in suppressing the virus and the way the economy’s bounced back from the coronacession. (Of course, it may be blasphemous of me to attribute his success to luck if, in truth, he’s getting preferential treatment from above.)
Anyway, it’s “providential” – as my sainted mother preferred to say – that the politics and the economics are almost perfectly aligned for Treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s budget next week.
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https://www.rba.gov.au/media-releases/2021/mr-21-06.html
Statement by Philip Lowe, Governor: Monetary Policy Decision
Number 2021-06
Date 4 May 2021
At its meeting today, the Board decided to maintain the current policy settings, including the targets of 10 basis points for the cash rate and the yield on the 3-year Australian Government bond, as well as the parameters of the Term Funding Facility and the government bond purchase program.
The global economy is continuing to recover from the pandemic and the outlook is for strong growth this year and next. The recovery remains uneven, though, and some countries are yet to contain the virus. Global trade in goods has picked up strongly and commodity prices are mostly higher than at the start of the year. However, inflation remains low and below central bank targets.
Sovereign bond yields have been steady recently after increasing earlier in the year due to the positive news on vaccines and the additional fiscal stimulus in the United States. Inflation expectations have lifted from near record lows to be closer to central banks' targets. The 3-year government bond yield in Australia is at the Board's target of 10 basis points and lending rates for most borrowers are at record lows. The Australian dollar remains in the upper end of the range of recent years.
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Big-picture response needed to address financial inequality
Ahead of the federal budget and the women’s summit, experts are concerned the government is taking too much of a piecemeal approach to tackling the gender divide.
Bianca Hartge-Hazelman Contributor
May 5, 2021 – 12.00am
The Morrison government increasingly looks as if it would be right at home in an episode of The Handmaid’s Tale with its piecemeal approach to tackling women’s pain points in favour of the broader male-focused economic agenda.
There are many similarities between the government and the unsettling TV series that returned to Australian screens last week: gender inequality, abuse, male-dominated power plays and metaphoric references to women, from fertility containers to milkshakes – all of which are cringeworthy.
However, now and then, there’s an element of hope that keeps us believing things will get better for women.
On the horizon is next Tuesday’s federal budget, which is promising to spend $1.7 billion on measures to support female workforce participation and income by targeting childcare reform, such as removing caps on childcare subsidies for higher-income earners and slashing costs for families with two or more children.
A national women’s safety summit is slated for July with the promise of delivering a blueprint for tackling domestic violence against women, which has worsened during the pandemic.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/invest-in-growth-to-tame-budget-economists-20210504-p57oms
Invest in growth to tame budget: economists
Ronald Mizen Reporter
May 5, 2021 – 12.00am
Australia should become a world leader in mRNA vaccine production, boost R&D tax incentives, introduce a $3000 standard tax deduction, cut corporate and income taxes and introduce universal kindy for ages 3 to 5.
Those are just a handful of recommendations being pitched the Blueprint Institute to “spark, ignite, power and nurture” the next decade of economic growth, and bolster Australia’s medium-term budget position.
“This decade could go one of two ways. It could be like the last one – marred by political instability, a few epic policy failures, and a stagnant economy,” Blueprint said in its pre-budget report.
“Or it could be like the last twenties in much of Western society – a decade of economic prosperity with a distinct cultural edge.”
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Why Phil Lowe is sticking with ultra-low rates
The strong rebound in economic activity has so far failed to ignite wages growth or inflation. That means that the Reserve Bank will refrain from raising rates.
Karen Maley Columnist
May 4, 2021 – 7.30pm
The extraordinary vigour of Australia’s economic rebound is putting Reserve Bank boss Philip Lowe in a somewhat awkward position.
He’s being forced to justify why the central bank is keeping its official interest rate at a record low of 0.1 per cent – which is fuelling a surge in house prices across the country – when the broader economy is rapidly returning to ruddy health.
As Lowe noted in his statement released after Tuesday’s Reserve Bank board meeting, the country’s economic performance has been better than expected, and this is likely to continue.
As a result, the RBA has lifted its growth forecast, and now expects 4.75 per cent growth this year, and 3.5 per cent over 2022.
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Budget cash splash on care? Expect to be disappointed
The Coalition now has a chance to make a real difference to care services. But they will not take it.
Danielle Wood Contributor
May 5, 2021 – 4.05pm
It is rare for a treasurer that the economic and political stars align so neatly in the lead-up to a budget. With most economists pushing for a more active role for fiscal policy to support the recovery, and pre-election budgets generally known more for generosity than austerity, it’s a recipe for good news all round.
But while this happy confluence gives Josh Frydenberg a wider path to walk, unfortunately he’s unlikely to heed calls for a major overhaul of key services.
First to the economics. The Treasurer was clearly taking some good advice from Treasury when he signalled last week a change to fiscal strategy to drive unemployment down “where it was prior to the pandemic and then even lower”. Economists support this goal: in a recent poll of leading Australian economists, more than 60 per considered that the government should shoot for an unemployment rate below 5 per cent.
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The real budget reforms that could make women’s lives better in retirement
By Christina Hobbs
May 6, 2021 — 11.30am
Australian women over the age of 55 are the fastest growing cohort of homeless Australians and women across every age group have significantly less retirement savings than men. The Morrison government can turn that trend around on budget night, but not if it leaves the burden of closing the super gap on the shoulders of women.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has pledged that the upcoming budget will take issues affecting women seriously, and it appears that women’s retirement outcomes are back on the agenda –with the expenditure review committee reportedly exploring options to enable women to make further top-ups to their super.
After years of reports highlighting the 35 per cent super gap between men and women, and with many of the recommendations of the November 2020 Retirement Income Review gathering dust, the government’s interest couldn’t come soon enough.
However, attempting to address the gender
inequality inherent in our retirement system primarily by encouraging women to
save more into their super, and benefiting those who can, is problematic in
many ways – especially when Australian women already top-up their super
balances at comparatively higher rates of their
salaries compared to men .
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‘Minimal help, maximum hype’: Single parents housing package criticised for helping only a ‘handful’
May 8, 2021 — 4.48pm
A federal budget measure designed to help 10,000 single parents get into the property market will help just one in 100 families and does not go far enough, according to social services groups, Labor and a leading economist.
The Morrison government has announced a three-pronged housing affordability strategy that will expand the First Home Super Saver to allow up to $50,000 in contributions to that account for a first home deposit.
It will also expand the New Home Guarantee to allow 10,000 first home buyers to purchase a new home with a deposit of just 5 per cent, while over the next four years the Family Home Guarantee will let 10,000 single parent families put down a deposit of only 2 per cent. The government will guarantee the other 18 per cent of the deposit.
This third measure is expected to cost the federal budget just $300,000 and the government is understood to be open to expanding the program in the future.
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Health Issues.
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Researchers urge caution over use of unproven, costly IVF ‘add-ons’
By Wendy Tuohy
May 4, 2021 — 12.01am
Most women undergoing IVF are using add-on therapies for which there is no proof they will work, and researchers have warned couples the money would be better spent on more cycles of IVF.
National research to be published in the journal, Human Reproduction, on Tuesday found 82 per cent of women had used one or more add-ons with IVF in the past four years.
Most add-ons (72 per cent) cost extra, some up to $700 per cycle.
Monash University researcher Dr Karin Hammarberg said given there was no evidence to show any add-ons worked, nor that they were free of harm, it was difficult to justify them.
“Considering the price tag of the more expensive ones, if you think of cost-benefit you know there’s not enough evidence to say one way or another [that they may work],” she said. “On the other side, you know having an additional cycle of IVF will always give you an extra chance.”
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Biden is making a mistake on vaccine patents
An act of apparent generosity could damage the IP system that created these miracle drugs in the first place.
Richard Holden Contributor
May 7, 2021 – 3.47pm
The Biden administration’s announcement that it supports waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines is either a cunning move or a huge mistake.
The backdrop, of course, is terrible human suffering in India, parts of South America, and other developing nations.
Neither Brazil nor India, for example, seem able to contain their coronavirus outbreaks. It is a pressing humanitarian crisis that no one can deny, and which the world can no longer ignore.
United States trade representative Katherine Tai acknowledged this fact, saying: “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures.”
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Federal Budget 2021 to reduce costs of medical devices
· News Corp Australia Network
Exclusive: The federal government is expected to outline plans to slash the costs of medical devices like hip replacements, stents and pacemakers in Tuesday’s budget to bring down health fund premiums.
And major reforms to mental health are also expected.
It comes as News Corp can reveal Aussies are paying up to 210 per cent more than French patients for medical devices, including those made by Australian companies.
A Members Health Fund Alliance investigation has found Australians are paying up to $4200 more for the same medical devices as patients in France.
Hip replacements were found to be 148 to 210 per cent more expensive in Australia than in France.
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International Issues.
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China is wrong to think the US faces inevitable decline
Provided the US remains democratic, free and open, it has a good chance of staying the world’s most influential country far into the future.
Martin Wolf Columnist
May 2, 2021 – 4.03pm
The Chinese elite are convinced that the US is in irreversible decline. So reports Jude Blanchette of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a respected Washington-based think-tank.
What has been happening in the US in recent years, particularly in politics, supports this perspective. A stable liberal democracy would not elect Donald Trump – a man lacking all necessary qualities and abilities – to national leadership. Nevertheless, the notion of US decline is exaggerated. The US retains big assets, notably in economics.
For one and half centuries, the US has been the world’s most innovative economy. That has been the basis of its global power and influence. So how does its innovative power look today? The answer is: rather good, despite competition from China.
Sharemarkets are imperfect. But the value investors put on companies is at least a relatively impartial assessment of their prospects. As of last week, seven of the 10 most valuable companies in the world and 14 of the top 20 were headquartered in the US.
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https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/05/01/viktor-orban-seizes-control-of-hungarys-universities
Viktor Orban seizes control of Hungary’s universities
And makes it hard for a future government to loosen his grip
May 1st 2021
A GOOD UNIVERSITY prizes original thought. And Viktor Orban, Hungary’s prime minister, is certainly an original thinker. Since 2010, when his Fidesz party won two-thirds of the seats in parliament, he has been dreaming up innovative ways to turn Hungary back into an autocracy, while maintaining a democratic façade. On April 27th his government passed a law transferring control of the country’s 11 main state universities to a series of foundations that are likely to be run by his allies. The party has already asserted its grip over institutions such as the electoral system, the media, the courts and much of the economy. Now it wants total power over the ivory towers.
Like most of Mr Orban’s illiberal reforms, the plan is complicated, brilliant and likely to be copied by aspiring strongmen in other countries. The universities have been placed under the control of public foundations, along with billions of euros-worth of assets (including a palace, a harbour and shares in state-owned companies) which are supposed to help finance them. The foundations’ boards are initially appointed by Mr Orban’s government, and those appointed so far consist mainly of Fidesz members or sympathisers. Subsequent vacancies will be filled by candidates chosen by the boards themselves.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/new-zealand-s-engagement-with-china-is-clear-eyed-20210502-p57o5o
New Zealand’s engagement with China is clear-eyed
The Ardern government has every right to pursue New Zealand’s national interest in engaging with China. Its stance on Five Eyes is smart and principled, and not merely self-serving.
Grant Wilson Contributor
May 2, 2021 – 2.22pm
It takes some doing for a democratically elected government in the West to be praised by the Global Times, Beijing’s populist mouthpiece, in the current climate.
Yet the Ardern government has managed to do just that, and on several occasions this year.
This started in mid-January, following New Zealand’s decision not to join its Five Eyes alliance partners in jointly criticising the arrest of pro-democracy activists under the new National Security Law in Hong Kong. Instead, Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta tweeted her concern, accompanying a formal statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Later that month, New Zealand inked a major upgrade to its Free Trade Agreement with China that will largely dispense with remaining tariffs by 2024 and reduce compliance for exporters. For reference, New Zealand was the first OECD country to sign a free trade deal with China, in 2008. This latest iteration also represents a significant modernisation, in areas such as e-commerce, government procurement and the environment.
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Jacinda Ardern says NZ’s differences with China becoming harder to reconcile
By Praveen Menon
May 3, 2021 — 11.23am
Wellington: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said that differences between New Zealand and China are becoming harder to reconcile as Beijing’s role in the world grows and changes.
In a speech at the China Business Summit in Auckland on Monday, Ardern said there are things on which China and New Zealand “do not, cannot, and will not agree”, but added these differences need not define their relationship.
“Managing the relationship is not always going to be easy and there can be no guarantees,” Ardern said.
“It will not have escaped the attention of anyone here that as China’s role in the world grows and changes, the differences between our systems – and the interests and values that shape those systems – are becoming harder to reconcile.
“This is a challenge that we, and many other countries across the Indo Pacific region, but also in Europe and other regions, are also grappling with,” she added.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/modi-s-day-of-reckoning-20210502-p57o4d
Modi’s day of reckoning
India’s second wave of COVID-19, which has hit a global high of 400,000 daily infections, is shaking the power base of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Jeffrey Gettleman, Hari Kumar, Karan Deep Singh and Sameer Yasir
May 2, 2021 – 2.42pm
His COVID-19 taskforce didn’t meet for months. His health minister assured the public in March that India had reached the pandemic’s “endgame”. A few weeks before that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi boasted to global leaders that his nation had triumphed over the coronavirus.
India “saved humanity from a big disaster by containing corona effectively”, Modi told a virtual gathering at the World Economic Forum in late January, three tricolour Indian flags displayed in the background.
Now, a second wave has made India the worst-hit country in the world.
New infections have reached about 400,000 a day. Vaccines are running short. Hospitals are swamped. Lifesaving oxygen is running out. Each day, cremation grounds burn thousands of bodies, sending up never-ending plumes of ash that are turning the skies gray over some of India’s biggest cities.
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US top diplomat Antony Blinken says China must obey world rules but is acting more ‘repressively, aggressively’
· AFP
Standing up to China is necessary to defend a rules-based order, and is not about containment, America’s top diplomat Antony Blinken says.
An increasingly powerful China is challenging the world order, acting “more repressively” and “more aggressively” as it flexes its influence, Mr Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said.
“What we’ve witnessed over the last several years is China acting more repressively at home and more aggressively abroad. That is a fact,” Mr Blinken said in an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes on Sunday US time.
His comments came after President Joe Biden, in his first address to Congress on Wednesday, underscored that he was not seeking conflict with Beijing.
Mr Biden said he had told Chinese President Xi Jinping that in the competition to be the dominant power of the 21st century, “we welcome the competition — and that we are not looking for conflict.”
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Henry Kissinger warns of ‘colossal danger of Sino Cold War’
· The Times
Henry Kissinger has warned that the entire world could be drawn into a US-China confrontation on a scale greater than the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union.
Kissinger, 97, a former US secretary of state, said that the threat of nuclear war was compounded by China’s economic strength and technological capabilities.
President Biden has described China as the greatest challenge facing the US and framed their rivalry as one of autocracy against the world’s democracies, amid signs of greater co-operation between Beijing and Moscow.
Biden is seeking to use the threat of China’s economic expansion as a key argument for his $4 trillion domestic infrastructure and social support spending plans. He is also seeking to boost solidarity between US allies in the Pacific, notably Japan and South Korea, as tensions rise over Beijing’s aggressive actions in the South China Sea and towards Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Tensions with China were “the biggest problem for America, the biggest problem for the world”, Kissinger told the McCain Institute’s Sedona Forum on global issues.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/fed-framework-holds-central-bank-hostage-20210504-p57onr
Investors risk losses if Fed doesn’t taper
For quite a while now, the Fed has worried about a balance of risk tilted towards deflation. That balance of risk has flipped.
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
May 4, 2021 – 9.24am
According to an old saw, the difference between lawyers and many other professions is that the former can argue with 100 per cent conviction even when the foundation for their view is uncertain or low.
The US Federal Reserve these days seems to be acting more like a lawyer than an economist. Once again, it has set aside accumulating evidence about the strong economic recovery, dismissed financial stability concerns, and reiterated that the rise in inflation would be transitory.
By contrast, many economists are either unsure, or outright worried about inflation being persistent. Indications of market froth are multiplying in an “everything rally.” More companies are warning about rising input costs, with some signalling that this will be passed on to prices.
The contrast between the Fed stance and all this is why policy risk has climbed up the ranks to be one of the major challenges that investors will be navigating this year. The argument for keeping an open mind towards the nature of rising inflation is not one that dismisses the structural disinflationary effects of technology.
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‘Second Steele dossier’ on Donald Trump’s sexual exploits produced for FBI
By Robert Mendick
May 4, 2021 — 8.09am
London: The former MI6 spy Christopher Steele produced a second dossier for the FBI on Donald Trump while he was in the White House, sources told The Telegraph of London.
Steele filed a series of intelligence reports to US authorities during the Trump presidency, including information concerning alleged sexual exploits.
Steele’s continued involvement supplying intelligence to the FBI appears to give credibility to his original dossier, which sparked a Special Counsel investigation by prosecutor Robert Mueller into Russian interference into the 2016 US presidential elections.
Steele’s original leaked dossier detailed allegations of misconduct, conspiracy and cooperation between Trump’s presidential campaign team and Vladimir Putin’s government.
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Island building rises as opportunity for China in the Pacific
Hillary Mansour and Anthony Bergin
The Pacific islands contribute the least to climate change. But they’re the most vulnerable to its impacts. The issue of maritime boundaries and sea level rise is current and critical for our Pacific Island neighbours, whose combined maritime areas are 44 times greater than their combined land areas.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea gives each island a 200-mile exclusive economic zone, normally measured from the low water line of its coast. Straight baselines connecting points on the coast or offshore features may also be used in certain circumstances.
The rights associated with their maritime zones, including rights over fisheries, are key to their continued economic development. But rising sea levels threaten to reduce the extent of coastal states’ maritime zones as coastlines retreat, or offshore features, such as islands, rocks and reefs, used as part of the baseline, are eroded or submerged.
The problem gets trickier because UNCLOS states that islands that can’t sustain human habitation or economic life of their own are “rocks” and don’t qualify for an EEZ. The surrounding ocean area becomes high seas and is available for distant water fishing nations to exploit marine resources at will. The central western Pacific accounts for over half of the world’s total global tuna catch.
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‘Absolutely enthused’: Trump gives strongest sign of 2024 run
Updated May 5, 2021 — 9.20amfirst published at 9.04am
Washington: Former US president Donald Trump has given the strongest indication yet that he will run for the White House in 2024, telling a conservative radio host that he is “absolutely enthused” by the prospect.
The interview came hours after Trump launched a new website designed to allow him to communicate directly with his followers following his ban from Twitter and Facebook in the wake of the January 6 Capitol insurrection.
“I think people are going to be very, very happy when I make a certain announcement,” Trump told conservative activist and radio host Candace Owens.
“The answer is I’m absolutely enthused. I look forward to doing an announcement at the right time.”
Trump said he was prohibited from announcing a presidential run too early because he would then be required to comply with campaign finance rules.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/lousy-demographics-will-not-stop-china-s-rise-20210505-p57p1y
Lousy demographics will not stop China’s rise
Demography will continue to shape world politics. But the historic connection between a growing and youthful population and increasing national power is giving way to something more complex.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Updated May 5, 2021 – 1.43pm, first published at 11.09am
“China will grow old, before it grows rich” is one of those things people like to say at conferences – usually followed by a dramatic pause. The implication is that China’s rise to global dominance will soon hit a giant barrier: demographics.
China’s low fertility rate means that its population will shrink and age over the coming decades. Last week the FT reported that China’s population had already begun to fall – a few years earlier than the UN had predicted.
A large, expanding and youthful population has driven the rise of nations for much of human history. Great powers needed warm bodies to put on a battlefield and citizens to tax. Napoleon’s conquests were preceded by a population boom in France in the 18th century.
By the 20th century, France’s population had fallen behind Germany and Britain; a source of justified anxiety for the French elite.
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‘Monumental moment’: US backs push for patent-free COVID vaccines
May 6, 2021 — 6.01am
Washington: The Biden administration has announced it supports the waiving of intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines, a move that would make it easy for developing countries to manufacture their own vaccines
India and South Africa have led a push at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) for a suspension on patent protections for COVID-19 vaccines and diagnostics, a stance backed by over 100 members of the US Congress.
United States Trade Representative Katherine Tai, Biden’s top trade official, announced that the US will actively participate in WTO negotiations to secure a waiver for COVID-19 patents.
“This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for emergency measures,” Tai said in a statement.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-suspends-a-key-agreement-with-australia-20210506-p57phq
China suspends a key agreement with Australia
Mark Mulligan and Michael Smith
Updated May 6, 2021 – 2.13pm, first published at 1.24pm
China has suspended a key agreement with Australia for regular dialogue between leaders on economic issues, as bilateral relations deteriorate further.
China’s top economic planner said on Thursday that it had “indefinitely suspended” its participation in the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, amid escalating tensions between the two nations.
Although activity under the agreement has waned in recent years as the relationship soured, Thursday’s announcement from Beijing is a further strike in China’s intensifying trade and propaganda campaign against Australia.
This campaign has included over the past 18 months punitive tariffs and other commercial blocks on Australian exports including barley, wine, lobsters, timber and coal.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/killing-hong-kong-s-free-press-will-harm-its-economy-20210504-p57oum
Killing Hong Kong’s free press will harm its economy
Beijing is betting expats will flock to the city despite China’s media crackdown - but business and markets thrive on news.
Suzanne Nossel
May 6, 2021 – 6.39am
The Chinese government is making a high-stakes bid to force Hong Kong –long an outpost of freedom – into abject political and civic submission while sustaining the territory’s status as a global hub for finance and a gateway to the mainland’s vast markets.
But key features of Hong Kong’s cosmopolitanism – its free press, provisions for access to government data, and international media presence – are facing dire pressure and constraints, interrupting the flow of news and information that commerce and culture depend on.
Beijing has concluded Hong Kong’s traditionally diverse, free-wheeling and professional media sector threatens the drive to bring the territory’s venerable legal, political, and educational institutions – and its restive population – to heel.
As corporations weigh their responsibilities in relation to social justice and democracy, banks and businesses contemplating a future in Hong Kong should consider the moral and practical implications of remaining in a city where press freedom and professional journalism are being systematically snuffed out to enable a determined clampdown on democracy and freedom.
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China suspends China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue indefinitely
By Eryk Bagshaw
Updated May 6, 2021 — 2.00pmfirst published at 1.08pm
Singapore: Beijing has cut off all diplomatic contact with the Australian government under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, once a key channel of communication between the two countries.
The move, announced by China’s National Development and Reform Commission on Thursday morning, will make the task of repairing already strained diplomatic relations even more difficult as it will block contact between key trade and economic officials at and below the ministerial level.
The decision is the first major Chinese government response to the Morrison government’s cancellation of Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement in April.
The dialogue was established in 2014 in Beijing as a forum for the Australian treasurer, trade minister and the chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission to discuss investment and trade deals.
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China sub rescue ‘a worry for the West’
6:59PM May 6, 2021
The Chinese navy has begun an unprecedented salvage operation to help recover for free the Indonesian submarine Nanggala — a soft power win for Beijing that also offers an opportunity to map one of the region’s most important straits linking the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, analysts say.
Indonesia has accepted the PLA Navy’s offer to send three vessels, including its most advanced hydrographic survey ship the Tansuo 2, to help lift the 44-year-old submarine, which sank in waters north of Bali during torpedo drills near the Lombok Strait with 53 crew members on board last month.
An Indonesian navy spokesman said the defence ministry had received offers from Australia, the US, Japan, Russia and China to help recover the 1395 tonne naval vessel — in three pieces on the seabed at a depth of 838m — but had accepted Beijing’s offer “because their ships were already close to Indonesia … and it’s completely free”.
The spokesman confirmed that all three Chinese vessels, and 48 specialist People’s Liberation Army deep-sea divers, had begun the salvage operation after the Tansuo arrived in port late on Wednesday, but the Indonesian cable-laying vessel, Timas 1201 — which will help lift the wreck — was still on route.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/us-economy-adds-266-000-in-april-20210508-p57q2o
US economy adds 266,000 in April
Lucia Mutikani
May 8, 2021 – 4.35am
Washington | US job growth unexpectedly slowed in April, likely restrained by shortages of workers and raw materials as an economic recovery bolstered by rapidly improving public health and massive government aid fuelled a boom in demand.
The Labor Department’s closely watched employment report on Friday, which showed a plunge in temporary help jobs - a harbinger for future hiring - as well as decreases in manufacturing, retail and courier services employment, could heat up the debate on generous unemployment benefits.
The enhanced jobless benefits, including a government-funded $US300 ($382) weekly supplement, pay more than most minimum wage jobs.
The unemployment benefits were extended as part of a $US1.9 trillion COVID-19 pandemic relief package approved in March. Montana and South Carolina are ending government-funded pandemic unemployment benefits for residents next month.
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‘Divided down the middle’: Scottish independence suffers an election setback
May 9, 2021 — 6.17am
London: The push for Scottish independence has suffered a setback after its chief proponents fell just short of securing a parliamentary majority that might have triggered a fresh referendum.
While the Scottish National Party has been returned for a fourth term at Holyrood elections this week, it did not snare a majority in its own right and will struggle to make the case to Prime Minister Boris Johnson that it has a mandate for a fresh ballot on the country’s future.
Voters rejected independence at the last referendum in 2014 but Brexit has fuelled momentum for another. Just 38 per cent of Scots supported Brexit and many now want to split from the United Kingdom and rejoin the European Union.
Westminster would need to green light any new referendum and Johnson is resisting.
The Prime Minister this weekend described another poll as “irresponsible and reckless”.
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‘No one can beat us down and choke us,’ Xi tells party cadres
China’s powerful leader Xi Jinping has told communist party cadres that he has a plan to make their regime resilient to economic attacks from the US so “nobody can beat us down or choke us”.
Communist party general secretary Xi — who is also China’s president and the country’s most controlling leader since Mao Zedong — made the comments in a recently published speech that revealed the mixture of confidence and paranoia among Beijing’s leadership at the end of the Trump era.
Instructing officials at Beijing’s Central Party School in January days after supporters of Donald Trump attacked the US Capitol building on January 6, Mr Xi said they were living in a time of great upheaval.
“The most conspicuous feature of the world today can be summarised in one word — ‘turmoil’ — and this trend looks like it will continue,” he said in a speech published by the party’s leading ideological journal Qiushi.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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