July 08, 2021 Edition
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In the US we see relative calm on the surface with the deep partisan divide just below the surface and not improving at all. The competition between autocracy and democracy is becoming more and more real and fraught after the CCP Centenary celebrations and clear demonstration of global ambitions.
In the UK the delta variant continues to rampage but the level of death and severe illness has been really modified by vaccinations. Frankly a scientific triumph!
In OZ ScoMo is back out in public and sadly we still all seem to be in a COVID mess and feeling somewhat battle fatigued!
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Major Issues.
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Chinese defector issues warning on eve of Communist Party anniversary
Michael Smith China correspondent
Jun 27, 2021 – 3.22pm
A former Chinese diplomat who defected to Australia has warned that China’s Communist Party is intent on bolstering its influence in Australia and around the world and that Xi Jinping’s next move will be to take over Taiwan.
Chen Yonglin, who sought asylum in Australia in 2005 and now lives in Sydney, said China had retained a strong network of informants in the country despite the introduction of foreign interference laws and the Morrison government’s pushback against Beijing.
“Right now I believe there are still 1000 [informants] on the payroll. Several thousand maybe. Many of these are casual … they can be recruited any time,” Mr Chen told The Australian Financial Review.
“Chinese descendants [living in Australia] are the main targets. Australia should be aware of this. Their connection with China, their families, can be used as pressure.”
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The future of money might be closer than we think
Senior business columnist
June 28, 2021 — 12.01pm
While there’s been a lot of focus on the language the Bank for International Settlements used to describe cryptocurrencies and stablecoins in a pre-released chapter of its annual report last week the more substantial take away from its paper lies not in that language but in the overall tone of its discussion of central bank-issued digital currencies.
The major central banks have generally adopted an ultra-cautious and quite leisurely approach to their investigations of the potential of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and have been dismissive of the implications of cryptocurrencies and other private-sector digital currency initiatives.
The BIS paper underscores how rapidly that stance is evolving as the Basel institution, sometimes dubbed the central bank for central bankers, takes stock of the acceleration in the real-world development of digital currencies.
While it remains dismissive of their potential threat to conventional monetary systems – cryptocurrencies are purely speculative assets used for nefarious purposes and stablecoins are just “an appendage to the conventional monetary system and not a game-changer” – the BIS has shifted from analyst to promoter of CBDCs.
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Why the disruptive super reforms will leave members better off
The crackdown on superfluous accounts and underperforming funds and products is already producing tangible improvements.
Deborah Ralston
Jun 28, 2021 – 1.34pm
Compulsory superannuation has been a key pillar of our retirement system. It allows people to achieve a retirement income that reflects their pre-retirement income, and as the system matures, people will increasingly fund more of their own retirement to the benefit of both individuals and Australian taxpayers.
The current system has two main problems, however. First, the focus of superannuation has often been on building larger balances through increased contributions without sufficient regard for lower fees and higher investment returns. And second, while compulsory contributions ensure a better retirement outcome, members are often disengaged and don’t make the right choices to maximise retirement savings.
Making better use of compulsory savings is a key thrust of the super reforms – the Your Future, Your Super bill which passed through Parliament this month. The bill proposes amendments to the regulation of superannuation in line with key recommendations from the 2018 Productivity Commission superannuation review and the 2019 Hayne royal commission.
While this legislation is not without flaws, it will have very direct and significant benefits for Australian workers.
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Freed from quarantine, PM enters the zombie apocalypse
Amid Barnaby Joyce’s rising from grave and the state premiers’ takeover of the country, Scott Morrison’s return is like one of those movies in which the coma victim awakes.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Jul 1, 2021 – 8.00pm
When Scott Morrison is released from quarantine at 12.01am on Friday, it will be like one of those movies in which a coma victim awakens to a zombie apocalypse.
The world the Prime Minister knew when he returned from Europe two weeks ago and was locked in The Lodge is no more.
Barnaby Joyce has risen from the ranks of the undead to resume control of the Nationals and, in the process, instil fear and trepidation among the Liberals who still can’t work out whether, on a net basis, his return will be good or bad for the Coalition electorally.
Just when we thought decades of political division over climate change were behind us, given the Coalition was no longer questioning the science and had begun embracing clean energy, the Nationals, right at the end of the movie, reached out like a hand from the grave.
All the while, of course, the state leaders pretty much took over running the country to the extent the vaccine rollout has become a bare-knuckle political fight.
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Sharemarkets face a big shock if the Fed is wrong on inflation
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
July 2, 2021 — 8.00am
The global reflation trade is alive and well. House prices in the US are rising faster than at the peak of the subprime bubble 15 years ago.
Bond markets interpreted the first rhetorical tap on the brakes by the Federal Reserve in June as if it were actual monetary tightening. Yields on 30-year US treasuries have dropped almost 40 basis points in short order. Perennial doves are already accusing the Fed of a “policy mistake” for signalling any change at all.
Yet, by any historical or scientific measure, monetary policy remains shockingly loose, and untenable for much longer. Interest rates are still zero and the Fed is still soaking up $US120 billion ($161 billion) of bonds each month, even though the Biden administration is running a $US3 trillion wartime deficit (15.5 per cent of GDP), and even though the output gap has already closed and firms cannot find workers. The budgetary expansion is an order of magnitude greater as a share of GDP than Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society in the 1960s.
The US housing index (FHFA) is rising at a record pace of 15.7 per cent. This will feed through into the “shelter” component of consumer price inflation with a lag of several months. Housing makes up 42 per cent of the CPI index. “Inflation panic, is, you know, so last week,” says Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. It depends what you mean by inflation and what you mean by “transitory”, the motif of the New Keynesian establishment.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Stop this human sacrifice: the case against lockdowns
Contributor
June 28, 2021 — 5.00am
Sydney has now plunged into the darkness that Victoria has known on and off for months. The word “lockdown” seems to have gone out of favour, perhaps a signal that counter-narratives are gaining traction, but the policies enacted by NSW’s political leadership quack and walk just like the shelter-in-place orders colloquially termed “lockdowns” that have been issued around the world for over a year.
These policies have enormous human costs, and NSW has had more than a year to realise that fact and factor it into decision-making.
Last August, I produced a draft cost-benefit analysis for the Victorian Parliament as a demonstration of how such an exercise should be conducted. Costs of locking down must be weighed against the projected benefits, with nothing ever known for certain but best guesses made in the wide range of areas directly affected by lockdown policies.
These costs include the loss of happiness due to loneliness from social isolation, the crowded-out healthcare for problems other than COVID, the long-term costs to our children and university students of disrupting their education, and the economic losses that have shuttered businesses, damaged whole sectors, increased inequality, and will depress our spending on everything from roads to hospitals for years to come. Deaths from causes other than COVID may well result.
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Singapore’s COVID plan offers pathway out of lockdowns
Senior fellow at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
June 28, 2021 — 11.30am
With more than a million people in Sydney’s central and eastern suburbs locked down, other states implementing new restrictions, and Melburnians battle-weary after their fourth lockdown, people are asking when their lives will get back to normal.
Many understand that COVID-19 will likely never go away but simply mutate and live on in a different form, much as the flu does from year to year. Most people recover from the flu without needing to be hospitalised. Some sadly die. Our society accepts this risk and people carry on with their lives during the flu season.
What we need now is a national understanding of the COVID-19 risks and a national plan that outlines the risks, educates the public and unites communities across the country. It should resist politics and scope creep. Our endeavours at the start of the pandemic were focused on a low death rate. This has now transformed to an elimination strategy rather than simple containment and mitigation of risk: suppression at a low level should be the new normal.
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The JobKeeper cliff we never fell off: How the experts misjudged the recovery
June 28, 2021 — 5.00am
For the first three months of the year, the nation braced for a calamity. Treasury, academics and a grab bag of top economists had been warning that up to 250,000 workers would lose their jobs after March 28.
The historic $90 billion JobKeeper wage subsidy scheme was scheduled to end but the international border remained shut, the world was (and continues to be) in the midst of a pandemic, and coronavirus outbreaks threaten to force communities into lockdowns at any moment. About 1 million workers were relying on these federal government payments and some industries had been ringing the alarm bell about how stripping away the subsidy would mean mass closures in their sector, such as tourism or events.
University of Melbourne Professor Jeff Borland estimated as many as 250,000 people might lose work. Treasury predicted 100,000 to 150,000 people would have their jobs cut and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg warned it would be “bumpy” as JobKeeper came to an end. Those who were on zero hours or limited work while receiving the payment were considered most at risk.
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ and Westpac all estimated job losses in the range of 100,000 to 150,000. But April and May have come and gone without huge queues outside Centrelink offices, so where was this employment cliff we were all warned about? It simply never happened.
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Delta variant adds urgency to nations’ vaccination programs
The health consequences of the delta variant in advanced countries appear less severe so far. This is due in part to a better understanding of COVID-19 some 18 months into the pandemic. But most important is vaccination.
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
Jun 28, 2021 – 12.44pm
Over the weekend, Sydney was put under a mandatory stay-at-home order for two weeks in response to the risk posed by the delta variant of COVID-19. This came as a surprise to many, especially those who rightly view Australia as having been among the best in managing COVID-19, with its very low infections, hospitalisations and deaths.
Australia was not the only recent COVID-19 surprise in advanced countries. Israel, long a vaccination leader, reimposed an indoor-mask requirement last Friday. Once again, the catalyst was the delta variant.
Then there was the UK, which, other than India, has been battling longest against delta. According to government reports, the number of delta infections rose 46 per cent in just one week.
Indeed, whether it is the evidence from there or the reactions of Australia and Israel, four issues should be front and centre for many more countries, including the US, which need to realise that new COVID-19 risks are likely and do not respect borders.
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It’s time to be honest about the AstraZeneca vaccine
Uncertainties need to be openly acknowledged because lack of communication creates a vacuum where misinformation can flourish.
Jill Margo Health editor
Jun 28, 2021 – 12.16pm
Messages urging older Australians to have AstraZeneca vaccines have become muddy.
In effect, older Australians are being asked to have vaccines that are good, but not as good as the Pfizer vaccines, so that younger generations can have them instead.
There’s nothing wrong with this, except that it’s not being frankly acknowledged and the messaging has missed the mark.
First, most older Australians would be willing to step back to give their children, grandchildren or young relatives an advantage. It’s a natural impulse.
So, why not appeal to this instinct and ask older people, in the national interest, to step up and have their AstraZeneca shots which are in abundant supply, rather than waiting for Pfizer which is in short supply and saves younger people the risk of rare blood clots.
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The truth about what vaccines are achieving, from a country getting it right
June 29, 2021 — 8.37am
London: By now you’ve probably heard Scott Morrison’s argument, which goes something like this: Australia can’t yet talk about a post-pandemic future because we still don’t know whether vaccines guarantee a return to normality.
To illustrate the point, the Prime Minister regularly notes COVID-19 cases are climbing in Britain even though 85 per cent of all adults have been given one dose of a vaccine and 62 per cent the full two.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called on Australians to ‘hang in there’ amid the frustrations of the latest coronavirus outbreak across the country.
It is true cases are rising: the 23,000 new infections reported on Monday make up the highest figure in four months. Nearly all new cases are the same highly transmissible Delta variant causing panic in Australia.
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Vaccine mix study suggests combinations safe and effective
Used vaccine vials that contained (L-R) Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccines at the Skane University Hospital vaccination centre in Malmo, Sweden.
By Jenny Strasburg and Denise Roland
Dow Jones
6:44AM June 29, 2021
Alternating a dose of Covid-19 vaccine made by Pfizer Inc. with one from AstraZeneca PLC is safe and provides a strong immune response against the disease, a new study shows.
Researchers said the findings support the practice of mixing vaccines in certain circumstances. The U.K.-funded study found that mixing the Pfizer and AstraZeneca doses improved on the immune response provided by a two-dose regimen of the AstraZeneca shot. Alternating the shots provided less of a key immune response, however, than that provided by two doses of the Pfizer shot.
The interim findings, led by the University of Oxford but not yet reviewed by independent scientists, support the practice under way in several countries, including Canada and parts of Europe, of mixing vaccine types, researchers said. In some cases, health officials have supplemented one kind of shot with a different one because of supply issues.
In other instances, revised health advice related to vaccine side effects has called for a different second shot. For instance, in parts of Europe, health officials have recommended against younger adults getting the AstraZeneca shot because of very rare but sometimes deadly blood clotting linked to the vaccine. That guidance came out after many younger adults had already gotten a first injection of the AstraZeneca shot. They are now being offered a Pfizer shot or one by Moderna Inc.
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PM Morrison unveils Covid-19 pathway, confirms international arrivals will be cut by half temporarily
NCA NewsWire
July 2, 2021
Lockdowns will only be implemented as a “last resort” from now on after the Prime Minister unveiled Australia’s path out of Covid-19.
Scott Morrison on Friday confirmed national cabinet had agreed to a four-phase reopening plan, to take Australia from its current approach to a complete return to normality, with details to be finalised by the end of July.
But stranded Australians have been dealt another blow, after Mr Morrison warned a 50 per cent reduction in international arrivals also agreed to could extend into next year.
Australia was in phase one, focused on suppressing the virus and upping vaccination rates, during which home quarantine for fully vaccinated travellers would be trialled.
Progression from each phase will be triggered by reaching new vaccination thresholds.
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National cabinet goes backward to go forward
There are no magic numbers, and no plan to ‘get to the next level’. Only spectacular lack of transparency on vaccine supply.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Jul 2, 2021 – 5.07pm
Finally freed from quarantine at The Lodge and heading off for a (virtual) meeting of national cabinet, Scott Morrison told The Australian on Friday morning it was important to consider the “magic numbers” at which vaccine thresholds could be set.
In the prime ministerial pandemic lexicon – which has included “proportionate measures”, “escalating threats”, “flattening the curve”, “targeted, measured and scalable plans”, “the other side” , “the road out”, “uncharted territory”, “fighting the virus and winning”, “getting Australians home by Christmas” and, of course, “national vaccination allocation horizons” – the idea of “magic numbers” did seem to reflect the zeitgeist of where the Prime Minister, if not the rest of us, finds himself now.
The PM went on to tell the public via his favourite mouthpiece that it was important to sketch out the benefits of having a vaccinated population: “what does it mean and what can people expect in terms of restrictions and movement,” he was quoted as saying.
“Australians have been patient and that has helped us achieve what we have achieved to protect lives and livelihoods. We now need to get to the next level. The package the public deserves needs a consolidated agreement from all of us.”
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When 47 car parks, $660 million and one election collide
A battle to provide suburban railway station car parks has left taxpayers with a $660 million bill and precious little extra parking.
By Shane Wright
July 3, 2021
On Monday morning, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg used the new intergenerational report to warn of the spending pressures facing the country over the next 40 years.
Deficits over the next four decades, increasing government debt and an older, smaller Australia meant his key message was the need for ongoing expenditure control and making sure every taxpayer dollar is put to good use.
A few hours later, the Auditor-General’s office released its report into the administration of commuter car park projects within the Urban Congestion Fund, revealing huge problems in the $660 million program.
A nationwide program to reduce “congestion” across suburban Australia managed to channel most of its cash into a handful of Liberal Party seats that were more at risk of being won by Labor than overwhelmed by parked cars.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-the-premiers-have-pm-pincered-on-covid-20210701-p5863f.html
Why the premiers have PM pincered on COVID
Columnist
July 3, 2021 — 5.00am
There is a power shift under way in Australia, from the Commonwealth to the states. No matter how hard Scott Morrison tries to resist it, the pandemic keeps forcing him to collaborate with the premiers – on their increasingly assertive terms.
On Friday we saw the clearest expression yet of this dynamic as the Labor states, led by Victoria, pulled rank on the Prime Minister and his most prominent state ally, NSW, to slash the number of international travellers to Australia.
The irony of the states deciding who comes to this country, and the circumstances in which they come, would not have been lost on the Prime Minister. They have had this right in a theoretical sense since March 2020, when the hotel quarantine system was first improvised in haste. But they only sought to exercise it on a national level this week, and only after they had lost control of the new, more infectious Delta strain of the coronavirus.
This is an important point to bear in mind before considering the Prime Minister’s own failures this week. The virus stalks us now because NSW and Queensland – two of the most successful states in managing the pandemic last year – let it out into the community, not because the PM has bungled the vaccination rollout.
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Climate Change.
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Failure to model costs of climate change to coal, gas ‘beggars belief’
By Mike Foley and Nick Toscano
June 29, 2021 — 5.00am
Australia’s 40-year economic outlook is forecasting dwindling demand for some of the nation’s most valuable exports including coal and natural gas after China, Japan and South Korea unveiled targets to achieve net-zero emissions.
But prominent think tank the Grattan Institute on Monday said it “beggars belief” that the Morrison government’s modelling failed to make projections about the scale of loss of export earnings or the impacts from global warming such as drought and natural disasters.
Australia’s mining and energy exports are expected to have hit a record-high of $310 billion this financial year. The nation’s top export, iron ore, accounted for an all-time-high $149 billion, while fossil fuel exports of coal and liquefied natural gas (LNG) together accounted for $71 billion, helping to underpin the economy amid a worsening trade spat with China and a global pandemic.
However, the Treasury’s 2021 Intergenerational Report on Monday warned the emissions-intensive commodities’ export earnings would fall as global efforts to combat climate change accelerated. It noted that countries had committed to net-zero emissions by 2050 including key trading partners Japan and South Korea, while China has committed to carbon neutrality by 2060.
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Climate could clip 1.75pc off economy by 2060
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Jun 30, 2021 – 7.00pm
Climate change will clip less than 1 per cent off the size of the Australian economy over this decade and up to 1.75 per by 2060, according to leading economist Warwick McKibbin and researchers from the Australian National University.
The widespread global adoption of carbon taxes could also slice more than 2 per cent off Australia’s gross domestic product by the early 2030s, though this could be offset by investing in green infrastructure and technologies.
“The worldwide commitment and action on decarbonisation will significantly change the global economy in many ways,” the researchers from the ANU’s Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis said.
The report, which assesses the economic cost from physical climate risks as well as transition risks to net zero by 2050, was released ahead of Treasurer Josh Frydenberg long-awaited five-yearly Intergenerational Report.
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Thousands enter Australia for ‘holidays and business’ as wait drags for stranded locals
By Carrie Fellner and Nigel Gladstone
July 1, 2021 — 5.00am
More than 10,000 travellers entered Australia to visit friends, go on holiday or for business trips in April, putting pressure on the country’s hotel quarantine system while 34,000 citizens remain stranded overseas wanting to come home.
As hostilities between the states and the federal government over pandemic border closures escalated on Wednesday, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age obtained arrivals data from the Department of Home Affairs, revealing thousands of people are entering the country each month for non-essential purposes.
The data does not include travellers entering under the travel bubble with New Zealand.
The Queensland and Western Australia premiers sheeted home blame for the outbreaks to the federal government for its border policy.
“The borders are not genuinely closed and these travellers are displacing Australians who are genuinely stranded overseas,” Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles said.
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Falling cost of renewables creates coal test for federal government
By Mike Foley and Nick Toscano
July 2, 2021 — 12.00am
Output of wind and solar power is at record levels as renewables continue to squeeze fossil fuels from the energy market, new figures reveal, setting up a test for the federal government as re-elected Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce continues to push to prolong coal use.
More than 3700 megawatts of new wind and solar farms and 2500 megawatts of rooftop solar entered the main electricity grid in 2020, according to the Australian Energy Regulator, boosting wind and solar’s combined output to record levels now surpassing 19 per cent of the mix.
The regulator’s latest figures, to be released on Friday, reveal the flood of renewables and accelerating clean energy revolution have contributed to wholesale power price falls of up to 58 per cent, with the average prices falling below $70 a megawatt-hour for the first time since 2015.
These price falls will add to the financial pain facing coal generators, which are more expensive to run than new wind and solar plants, and raise the risk of more coal-fired generators bringing forward their closure dates due to falling profitability.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No Entries This Week.
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National Budget Issues.
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Intergenerational report to show Australia older, smaller and more in debt
June 27, 2021 10.30pm AEST
Author
Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Australia will be smaller and older than previously expected in 40 years time after the first downward revision of official projections in an intergenerational report in 20 years.
The much lower projections in Monday’s fifth five-yearly intergenerational report will mean indefinite budget deficits with no surplus projected for 40 years, only 2.7 Australians of traditional working age for each Australian over 65 (down from four) and average annual economic growth of 2.6%, down from 3%.
“Intergenerational reports always deliver sobering news, that is their role,” Treasurer Josh Frydenberg will say launching the report Monday morning. “The economic impact of COVID-19 is not short lived.”
The report says the pandemic has slowed both Australia’s birth rate and inflow of migrants.
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The 2015 intergenerational report projected an Australian population of almost 40 million by 2054-55. The 2021 update projects 38.8 million by 2060-61.
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Intergenerational Report tips Australia to be smaller, older as deficits predicted for 40 years
A 40-year projection unveiled by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has provided a grim view of what post-Covid Australia could look like.
Finn McHugh
NCA NewsWire
June 28, 202112:14pm
Australia will be smaller and older than previously predicted, and the aftershocks of Covid-19 will reverberate through the economy into the 2060s, the Treasurer predicts.
Unveiling Australia’s Intergenerational Report (IGR) on Monday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg predicted budget deficits for at least the next 40 years and warned the impacts of the pandemic would not be short-lived.
Mr Frydenberg argued “hard and contested” economic reform was necessary to mitigate the effects of the crisis, which he described as the “most severe global economic shock since the Great Depression”.
“(It) means that the economy will be smaller and Australia’s population will be older than it otherwise would have been, with flow-on implications for our economic and fiscal outcomes,” Mr Frydenberg told the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia.
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Australia’s population to shrink over next 40 years, budget deficit for decades
10:30PM June 27, 2021
Australia’s fertility rate is expected to fall dramatically over the next 40 years leading to a long-term population problem without a return to strong migration, while the nation’s finances are expected to remain in the red for decades to come as the country struggles to recover from the “profound” and long-term impacts of Covid-19.
The fifth Intergenerational Report paints a bleak and deteriorating picture of Australia into the second half of the century with the legacy of the pandemic delivering a fiscal crunch courtesy of a smaller and older population that will undercut the size of the economy amid ballooning health and aged-care costs.
The Australian can confirm that new forecasts predict a falling birthrate that will remain well below the replacement rate required to keep the population stable into the second half of the century when a generational clash is set to hit the economy.
The report forecasts declining fertility will be driven by women having children later in life and “having fewer children than women before them at the same age”. The long-term fertility rate is expected to decline to 1.62 babies per woman by 2031, where it will remain until 2060-61, a fall from the 2015 forecast of 1.9 babies over a 35-year average.
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Productivity, population crucial
12:00AM June 28, 2021
On Monday we are releasing the fifth Intergenerational Report, a document that comes out every five years and that projects 40 years forward. It’s not a guarantee of what will be but an insight into what could be.
The report highlights economic and demographic trends: the age and size of our population, the long-term impact on the budget of our revenue and expenditure settings. Coming in the wake of the Covid-19 recession, our first recession in nearly 30 years, it foreshadows the longer-term consequences the pandemic will have on our economy. In this sense the report provides a guide for future policy decisions.
There are three key insights from this year’s IGR:
● Our population is growing slower and ageing faster than expected. This affects economic growth and workforce participation. In the past, IGRs have underestimated population growth. In 2002 it was forecast Australia would reach 25 million people in 2040. We got there 20 years earlier. However, this is the first IGR in which population size is being revised downward, a result of Covid.
Closed borders have seen more peopleleave than have come to our shores during the past 12 months. Population growth is 0.1 per cent, the lowest in 100 years. Migration levels are forecast to get back to where they were by 2024-25 but do not recover ground lost during Covid. As a result, Australia’s population is expected to reach 38.8 million in 2060-61. This is six years later than forecast in the previous IGR.
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Big bang reforms are the only answer to IGR challenge
The true picture is worse than the Intergenerational Report has revealed. That’s why the Treasurer is wrong to rule out ambitious attempts to change course now.
Craig Emerson Columnist
Jun 28, 2021 – 3.23pm
Now that the intergenerational report is out, painting a landscape of Australia’s economic future for the next four decades featuring a sea of red ink, we are entitled to ask of the major political parties: “What’s the plan?”
Using optimistic assumptions about productivity growth, the intergenerational report envisages persistent government deficits over the coming four decades.
But the true story is even worse.
The intergenerational report assumes labour productivity will converge to its 30-year average of 1.5 per cent per annum. That 30-year period includes the productivity boom years of the 1990s, built on the Hawke-Keating economic reform program and the dawning of the digital age.
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Frydenberg’s account of the future is a whitewash
With an election around the corner, nobody in government wants a genuine debate about difficult things.
Jacob Greber Senior correspondent
Jun 28, 2021 – 5.14pm
The Intergenerational Report (IGR) – delayed more than a year by the pandemic and a low ambition policy reform government – reads like a horror movie script devoid of anything actually scary.
Like replacing The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’s weapon with a butterknife, Josh Frydenberg’s account of the future challenges facing Australia as it climbs out of the pandemic is numbing in its flatness. What’s the point, you might ask.
Which is exactly the kind of response the Coalition seems to be looking for.
If this year’s report vanishes without trace – with none of the Sturm and Drang of Joe Hockey’s 2015 version, which was attacked as a political hatchet job against the recently departed Labor government – it will have achieved its purpose: indifference.
Almost eight years in office, the Coalition owns this document. And it wants to make it go away. Which makes sense: an election is around the corner and nobody in government wants a genuine debate about difficult things such as spending priorities, who should pay the necessary taxes, or structural reform.
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Submarines or NDIS? No choice - whole budget needs to change
By Shane Wright
June 28, 2021 — 5.19pm
Budgets reflect a government’s choices – what they think is important for the country, for their constituencies, and what might get them re-elected at the next poll.
Intergenerational reports magnify those choices over 40 years.
Peer into the latest intergenerational report from Josh Frydenberg and two distinct areas of spending give you an insight into this government’s priorities.
For weeks, the government has been quietly raising doubts about the “sustainability” of the National Disability Insurance Scheme. The scheme, created by the Gillard government but under the control of the Abbott, Turnbull and now Morrison governments for the past seven years, aims to support those with permanent and significant disabilities under the age of 65.
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Intergenerational Report warns of economic disaster if we don’t act
11:40PM June 28, 2021
Australians’ average incomes will be $32,000 lower than projected and the federal deficit twice as large by 2061 if the country fails to reverse a decade of slumping productivity growth, the latest Intergenerational Report warns.
Josh Frydenberg has used the report to call on business leaders and all sides of politics to work together and respond to the challenges posed in the IGR.
The Treasurer on Monday said Australia had “received an urgent message: we need to pursue microeconomic reform, and it’s best done when it’s bipartisan”.
But business groups warned that tackling the task of lifting national productivity was impossible when borders were closed, industries were suffering severe labour shortages and the country was being hit by rolling lockdowns.
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Intergenerational Report: Australia sleeping through its alarm
6:27AM June 29, 2021
Don’t be fooled by Australia’s startling V-shaped economic recovery. There is another bigger story coming – the grim and mounting long-run trends pointing to a nation of slower economic growth, higher spending, chronic deficits and debt, slower population growth and a political system almost certainly incapable of meeting the national challenge.
The fifth Intergenerational Report (IGR) released on Monday by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg – looking at the trends in demography, productivity and spending – suggests Australia will stay a caring society but experience a declining social and economic trajectory in its future compared with its past.
The rate of increase in our living standards will fall, perhaps sharply. The anti-reform gridlock in our political system, now more than a decade old with no sign of respite, is going to punish this country and its people on a mammoth scale. That’s obvious from the IGR.
For those who see Australia as a young, growing, dynamic, competitive country, this IGR report should arrive with a thunderclap. In his cautious but frank assessment on Monday Frydenberg recalled Peter Costello telling him last month that IGRs “always deliver sober news”. The Treasurer said the 2021 version “is no exception.”
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Intergenerational Report’s rosy crystal ball portends budget carnage
It would take a reform miracle like in the 1990s, or another bout of luck like the mining boom, to achieve the optimistic productivity assumptions the report is banking on to prevent a future fiscal mess.
Steven Hamilton Contributor
Jun 29, 2021 – 2.21pm
Intergenerational reports – released every five years to offer a glimpse into the long-run health of the economy and budget – are very strange beasts. Predicting anything 40 years out is a challenge. But predicting what will happen to something as unpredictable as our economy, and the budget settings it generates, requires the most adept of crystal balls.
Contrary to most media reporting, the only reasonable way to view an intergenerational report is as a hypothetical “what if” modelling exercise. And as with any such exercise, the predictions are completely meaningless without understanding the assumptions upon which they are based.
And the 2021 report, delayed a year by the pandemic but finally released on Monday, doesn’t make that easy. In some instances, things aren’t assumed when they probably should be. And in others, they are assumed when they probably shouldn’t be. That makes it hard to form a clear view about the implications of current policy for our future, and about how emergent risks might threaten it.
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Why fixing childcare is important for future economic growth
To encourage the trend towards stronger female workforce participation, governments need to work on improving the cost, and availability, of good-quality childcare.
Karen Maley Columnist
Jun 29, 2021 – 5.03pm
One doesn’t generally pick up the Intergenerational Report looking for a declaration of feminist public policy.
So it came as something of a surprise to find that Treasury’s latest five-yearly Intergenerational Report provides a compelling argument both for improved access to high-quality childcare – for pre-schoolers and after-hours care for school-age children – and increasing government subsidies to help working parents cover the cost.
improving the availability and affordability of high-quality childcare would likely encourage even more women to join the workforce.
The issue appears when Treasury discusses one of the key determinants of long-term economic growth – the share of the population that is either working or actively looking for work (what economists call the participation rate).
Now, economists were astounded when they realised that after pandemic lockdowns were lifted the participation rate climbed to a record 66.3 per cent in March this year.
But, as Treasury notes, what was interesting was that this increase was “driven by a significant increase in participation by women aged 24 to 54, and older Australians”.
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New report’s big news on population will worry pollies and business but not me
Economics Editor
June 30, 2021 — 5.30am
If ever there was an exercise that, since its inception, has overpromised and under-delivered, it’s the alleged Intergenerational Report. A report on relations between the generations, on the legacy the present generation is leaving for the coming generation?
No, not really. If it was, it would be mainly about the need for us and the other rich countries to be acting a lot more seriously and urgently to limit climate change. The document Treasurer Josh Frydenberg unveiled on Monday is our fifth five-yearly Intergenerational Report.
Initially, the report made no mention of climate change. These days, following the obvious criticism, it always includes a brief chapter on the topic, before moving on to matters considered more pertinent.
This year the chapter runs to nine of the report’s almost 200 pages, in which the seriousness of the problem is acknowledged, along with the assurance “but don’t worry, I’m on it”. On every admitted dimension of the issue, we’re assured that reports have been commissioned, committees established and the government is spending $100 million on this and $67 million on that.
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Inflation and the problem with supply and demand
By Alex Joiner
June 29, 2021 — 10.00pm
Australian inflation figures for the June quarter – due in late July – are likely to show something they have not done in more than a decade – overshoot the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2-3 per cent annual target.
Is this really something to worry about? Will it prompt the RBA to raise official interest rates any time soon? Unlikely.
Our inflation pressures are largely being driven by short-term transitory factors.
For the RBA, this time horizon is short enough to “look through” these phenomena. However, it is worth considering the root cause of this inflation scare.
First, there is volatility in the inflation data that dissipates over time. Secondly, strong global demand, largely from fiscal stimulus, has outstripped pandemic-interrupted global supply. So, goods and inputs for producing goods are difficult to obtain and more expensive than usual.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-s-great-debt-gamble-20210625-p5847d
Australia’s great debt gamble
The Intergenerational Report shows the scale of Australia’s post-pandemic debt challenge as big reforms remain a difficult and distant proposition.
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Jul 2, 2021 – 2.02pm
Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey’s infamous 2014 budget became so toxic it ultimately destroyed its makers; the task facing Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is orders of magnitude bigger.
Abbott and Hockey won an election on a platform of fixing Labor’s “debt and deficit disaster”, but in the end, the job of selling fiscal repair was overwhelming for the former prime minister and his treasurer.
Not even the release of the 2015 Intergenerational Report (IGR) that outlined an economic renaissance over the four decades hence if people embraced the duo’s policies, helped and the fall from grace was swift.
Throw forward a little more than half a decade, and Morrison and Frydenberg face a more complex set of challenges.
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International Issues.
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Trump’s return to the political stage has Republicans jostling
The former president is set to play an important role in a party that is divided in response to the Biden administration.
Lauren Fedor
Jun 28, 2021 – 10.24am
Cleveland, Ohio | Donald Trump made his return to the national political stage on Saturday night (Sunday AEST) at a county fairground in the small town of Wellington in Ohio, where residents had lined the streets and decorated their homes in red, white and blue to celebrate the former US president’s arrival.
“Lorain county is absolutely in Donald Trump’s wheelhouse. That is a place where they love him,” said Doug Deeken, chair of the Republican party in nearby Wayne county. “Whether they are historical Dems or historical Republicans or historical people that did not give a crap and never voted hardly before, they like him.”
Political operatives said Trump’s decision to hold his first post-White House rally in Lorain county — a region west of Cleveland that includes both old steel mill towns and vast expanses of rural farmland — was an obvious choice given local white working class voters’ affinity for the former president.
Despite losing the national election, Trump won the Midwestern state of Ohio in November by eight points over Joe Biden; he was the first Republican to win Lorain county since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
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US conducts air strikes in Syria and Iraq against Iranian-backed militias
By Michael R Gordon
Dow Jones
June 28, 2021
The U.S. conducted air strikes Sunday in Syria and Iraq against two Iranian-backed militias that the Pentagon said were mounting drone attacks against U.S. troops.
The Pentagon said operational and weapons storage facilities had been struck near the Syria-Iraq border at three locations that it said had been used by the Kataib Hezbollah and Kata’ib Sayyid al-Shuhada militia groups.
“The United States took necessary, appropriate, and deliberate action designed to limit the risk of escalation — but also to send a clear and unambiguous deterrent message,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
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Fed digital dollar poses risks with unclear benefit
Craig Torres
Jun 29, 2021 – 5.29am
US Federal Reserve vice chairman of supervision Randal Quarles expressed caution about rushing to issue a central bank digital currency, saying the benefits are “unclear” while the risks could be high.
“Federal Reserve CBDC could pose significant and concrete risks,” Quarles told the Utah Bankers Association on Monday (Tuesday AEST), according to his prepared remarks.
“An arrangement where the Federal Reserve replaces commercial banks as the dominant provider of money to the general public could constrict the availability of credit, fundamentally alter the economy, and expose the public to a host of unanticipated, and undesirable, consequences.”
Central banks around the world are testing digital currencies as a parallel payment system, while private cryptocurrencies grow in popularity.
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As CCP gears up, it’s Xi’s party now
Much of the world is in Covid agony. But China’s Communist Party is celebrating as never before.
June 26, 2021
Much of the world is in Covid agony. But China’s Communist Party is celebrating as never before. Next Thursday, July 1, its regimented version of ecstasy will hit a new high as it vaunts its centenary from a position of unchallengeable power within China and of growing global influence that it intends to underline with a meticulously organised Winter Olympics in six months.
At the CCP’s secretive birth in Shanghai in 1921, its 13 inaugural members aimed for a second revolution, following the dethroning of the last emperor a decade earlier, by establishing “a militant and disciplined party of the proletariat”. Today, more of the party’s 92 million members are managers, professionals and officials than are proletariat, half now holding degrees.
Urban workers, farmers and fishermen comprise a third. Only a quarter are women, and no woman has ever reached the top echelon, the Politburo Standing Committee.
Revolutionary thoughts are dangerous today. The CCP instead aims to tighten control over every detail of the Chinese world – the thoughts and the behaviour of individuals and families, and the leadership and plans of every organisation, firm and club, each required to host a party branch.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/why-china-s-communist-party-is-stronger-than-ever-20210629-p5859w
Why China’s Communist Party is stronger than ever
The contrast between how China’s Communist Party is perceived inside China compared with the rest of the world has never been greater.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Jun 29, 2021 – 4.13pm
The perception of China’s Communist Party on the eve of its 100th anniversary varies dramatically depending on where you are sitting.
Inside China, the flames of nationalist fervour that emerged from the coronavirus pandemic are being stoked even higher by the historic birthday of what is now arguably the most powerful organisation on the planet.
Images of hundreds of school children enthusiastically waving red party flags outside the Great Hall of the People were beamed onto television screens around the country on Tuesday as the Chinese government’s propaganda apparatus went into overdrive.
China’s new “heroes” – or their relatives if deceased – were paraded up the red carpet one by one to receive the July 1 Medal from president Xi Jinping for their absolute loyalty to the party and the country.
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Universities ignore Beijing’s threats to Chinese students
Julie Hare Education editor
Jun 30, 2021 – 9.11am
Beijing’s increasingly bold attempts to shape global perceptions has seen Chinese students and staff on university campuses frequently targeted, harassed and intimidated for holding pro-democracy views, a new report says.
At the same time, with their eye firmly on their bottom lines, Australian universities have failed to protect those who are intimidated or harassed victims of such attacks, with Chinese students making up for 10 per cent of all university enrolments, the report from Human Rights Watch says.
“In 2020, nearly 160,000 students from China were enrolled in Australian universities. Despite the Chinese government in Beijing being thousands of kilometres away, many Chinese pro-democracy students in Australia say they alter their behaviour and self-censor to avoid threats and harassment from fellow classmates and being ‘reported on’ by them to authorities back home,” the report says.
Students and academics whose research interests are on China told the report’s authors that the atmosphere of intimidation has worsened in recent years.
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If the US went to war with China, who would win? It depends how it starts
China and the United States are the great rivals in the competition to win the 21st century. But which one would have military superiority in outright conflict?
By Chris Zappone and Eryk Bagshaw
June 30, 2021
If China chooses to attack the island of Taiwan, the United States could be helpless to stop it.
By the time the People’s Liberation Army launches its third volley of missiles at the island Beijing considers a breakaway province, the US could be just learning of the attack.
In a matter of minutes, Beijing’s Rocket Force could cripple Taiwan’s military, infrastructure and ports.
Yet if China wanted to conquer Taiwan, the outcome could be different. Possibly completely different.
China would have to launch an amphibious invasion, deploying troops along its beaches as the first step in a march towards the capital Taipei. Despite its 1.9 million-strong army, compared to Taiwan’s cohort of 150,000, the task of taking its island neighbour and holding it is a mammoth military challenge.
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100 years on, Communist Party must explain China’s role in the world
The world has opened up to China and helped it grow rich. Xi Jinping now owes the world an explanation of the terms of Beijing’s future engagement with the global system.
Jun 30, 2021 – 7.33pm
A decade before Gough Whitlam’s groundbreaking July 1971 visit to what was then called Peking, the Menzies government began selling wheat to communist China. The country desperately needed to relieve the famine wrought by the disastrous forced collectivisation of peasant farming in the Great Leap Forward.
The account in the features section by this newspaper’s former Canberra bureau chief John Short, of a remarkable and little-known trade and foreign policy initiative which saved millions, underlines Australia’s long history of independent involvement with China.
Setting aside the domestic politics and international tensions of the Cold War, the Menzies government’s wheat sales were at odds with official US policy not to allow trade with Maoist China. As the diplomatic cables show, they generated unease inside the Kennedy administration.
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US and Japan conduct war games amid rising China-Taiwan tensions
Demetri Sevastopulo and Kathrin Hille
Updated Jul 1, 2021 – 9.44am, first published at 9.24am
Washington/Taipei | The US and Japan have been conducting war games and joint military exercises in the event of a conflict with China over Taiwan, amid escalating concerns over the Chinese military’s assertive activity.
US and Japanese military officials began serious planning for a possible conflict in the final year of the Trump administration, according to six people who requested anonymity. The activity includes top-secret tabletop war games and joint exercises in the South China and East China seas.
Shinzo Abe, then Japanese prime minister, in 2019 decided to significantly expand military planning because of the Chinese threat to Taiwan and the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. This work has continued under the administrations of Joe Biden and Japanese prime minister Yoshihide Suga, according to three of the people with knowledge of the matter.
The US and Japan have become alarmed as China has flown more fighter jets and bombers into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, including a record 28 fighters on June 15. The Chinese navy, air force and coast guard have also become increasingly active around the Senkaku, which are administered by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-is-building-more-than-100-new-missile-silos-20210701-p585s0
China is building more than 100 new missile silos
Joby Warrick
Jul 1, 2021 – 6.36am
China has begun construction of what independent experts say are more than 100 new silos for intercontinental ballistic missiles in a desert near the northwestern city of Yumen, a building spree that could a signal a major expansion of Beijing’s nuclear capabilities.
Commercial satellite images obtained by researchers at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California, show work underway at scores of sites across a grid covering hundreds of square miles of arid terrain in China’s Gansu province.
The 119 nearly identical construction sites contain features that mirror those seen at existing launch facilities for China’s arsenal of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.
The acquisition of more than 100 new missile silos, if completed, would represent a historic shift for China, a country that is believed to possess a relatively modest stockpile of between 250 and 350 nuclear weapons. The actual number of new missiles intended for those silos is unknown but could be much smaller. China has deployed decoy silos in the past.
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Robots, electric cars and face-scanners: China and the US vie to build the future
July 1, 2021
When Chinese Premier Li Keqiang unveiled the “Made in China 2025” 10-year strategic plan in 2015, he laid the foundations for an escalating competition between China and the US to dominate the fourth industrial revolution.
The announcement of China’s plans triggered alarm in the US because it confirmed publicly, for the first time, the scope of its ambitions and the detail of its strategies for achieving them.
Friction between the US and China that started as an attempt by Donald Trump to reduce America’s trade deficit with China has since morphed into an attempt to stymie those technology-driven ambitions.
US president Donald Trump signing a memorandum targeting China’s economic aggression, on Thursday, March 22, 2018.
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Communist Party has altered the world: Xi Jinping
By Eryk Bagshaw
Updated July 1, 2021 — 11.20amfirst published at 10.47am
Singapore: China’s President Xi Jinping has told thousands gathered in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square that the Chinese Communist Party has altered the development of the world.
Celebrating 100 years since the founding of the CCP, Xi on Thursday said the Chinese people had stood up under the leadership of the Party.
“This great transformation of China from a poor and backwards country laid down the fundamental conditions necessary for realising national rejuvenation,” he said.
“Only socialism could save China and only socialism with Chinese characteristics could develop China.”
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Xi hails 'irreversible' rise of China at 100th birthday of Communist Party
AFP
July 1, 2021
President Xi Jinping hailed China's "irreversible" course from humiliated colony to great power at the centenary celebrations for the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday, in a speech reaching deep into history to remind patriots at home and rivals abroad of his nation's -- and his own -- ascendancy.
Speaking above the giant portrait of Mao Zedong, which dominates Tiananmen Square, from the podium where the famous chairman proclaimed the People's Republic of China in 1949, Xi said the "era of China being bullied is gone forever" praising the party for uplifting incomes and restoring national pride.
Xi, wearing a 'Mao-style' jacket, added the "great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation has entered an irreversible historical course" and vowed to continue to build a "world-class" military to defend national interests.
It now counts around 95 million members, garnered over a century of war, famine and turmoil, and more recently a surge to superpower status butting up against western rivals, led by the US.
A fly-by of helicopters in formation spelling '100' -- a giant hammer and sickle flag trailing -- and a 100-gun salute followed, while young communists in unison pledged allegiance to the party.
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‘Resolute action’: Xi warns Taiwan on independence
Michael Smith China correspondent
Updated Jul 1, 2021 – 12.48pm, first published at 11.23am
Xi Jinping has warned China will take “resolute action” to defeat any push for Taiwan’s independence, and warned that foreign countries seeking to bully Beijing will find themselves on a “collision course” with the country’s 1.4 billion people.
In a hardline speech to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on Thursday, Mr Xi also said China must step up the modernisation of its defence forces and said the country would not tolerate criticism from other countries.
“Through tenacious struggle, the party and the people showed the world that the Chinese people had stood up and the time when the Chinese nation could be bullied and abused by others was gone forever,” Mr Xi said at a ceremony televised from Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
“We will never allow any foreign force to bully or subjugate. Anyone who intends to do will find themselves on a collision course with a wall of steel forged by 1.4 billion people.”
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No signs of softening in Xi’s strident anniversary speech
Xi Jinping has made it clear that China is in no mood to tolerate Western criticism or relax its position on Taiwan.
Michael Smith China correspondent
Jul 1, 2021 – 4.57pm
Addressing thousands of Communist Party faithful from a podium in Tiananmen Square on Thursday, Xi Jinping made it clear where he stood on criticism from Australia and other foreign countries.
“The Chinese people will absolutely not allow any foreign force to bully, oppress or enslave us, and anyone who attempts to do so will face broken heads and bloodshed in front of the iron Great Wall of the 1.4 billion Chinese people,” the 68-year-old leader said to thunderous applause.
Xi’s rousing speech to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party was designed primarily for a domestic audience. It accompanied an impressive display of pageantry, propaganda and pomp, all broadcast online and on television screens around the country.
However, Xi’s one-hour sermon also delivered a chilling message to the rest of the world. Strident and unforgiving, Xi signalled there was no room for compromise with the United States and its allies, including Australia, and no tolerance for criticism.
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Why it’s hard to be pragmatic about relations with Beijing
The Chinese Communist Party has lasted for a 100 years by shaping the world to its own survival. That makes it hard to deal with it on the basis of reason and compromise.
John Lee Contributor
Jun 30, 2021 – 2.16pm
The Chinese Communist Party’s celebrations are not just about marking 100 years of existence as an organisation. It’s a none-too-subtle way of telling the world that longevity grants it not only political and moral legitimacy, but superiority.
The message to the world is that it is wiser to work with this fact, and make the best of it.
This is the kind of reasoning that many outsiders find compelling, even if they remain uncomfortable with Xi Jinping’s ruthlessness. In this view, the world is filled with political parties we don’t agree with, and the CCP happens to rule over a country that is far too important.
It’s best to be pragmatic, and Australia is behind the rest of the world in this regard.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/don-t-blame-central-banks-for-wealth-inequality-20210630-p585ht
Don’t blame central banks for wealth inequality
The BIS is right that monetary policy cannot solve inequality. It can only aim at broad macroeconomic stability. It’s also correct to call for radical structural reforms.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Jun 30, 2021 – 10.47am
Should central banks do something about inequality and, if so, what? This has become a hot topic, which has persuaded the Bank for International Settlements to focus on it in its latest annual report. Its conclusions are what one would expect: monetary policy is neither the main cause of inequality nor a cure for it. Broadly speaking, this is correct. But in a world in which central bankers have become such aggressive actors, it may not be enough.
A striking fact noted by the BIS is that since what it calls the “Great Financial Crisis”, the proportion of speeches by central bankers mentioning inequality has soared. This partly reflects rising political concern about inequality.
But it also reflects a specific critique. This is, in the report’s words, that “central banks have deployed policies featuring exceptionally low interest rates and extensive use of balance sheets to support economic activity and lower unemployment. Such measures have fuelled concerns that central banks’ actions, by boosting asset prices, have benefited mostly the rich”. That critique is popular among conservatives who detest activist central banks.
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‘Collision course’: Xi’s big speech at China’s party puts world on notice
By Eryk Bagshaw
July 1, 2021 — 4.41pm
Singapore: There were only two times in Xi Jinping’s hour-long speech on Thursday when the crowd interrupted the Chinese President’s address to the nation.
Willed on by the rising rhetoric of their leader, the thousands assembled in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square to mark the centenary of the Chinese Communist Party swapped their choreographed clapping for loud cheers.
“Chinese people will never allow any foreign force to bully, oppress, or subjugate us,” Xi said to roars of assembled soldiers, teachers, students, nurses and cadres.
“Anyone who would attempt to do so will find themselves on a collision course with a great wall of steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
The message was clear. Nationalism is becoming the de facto ideology of Xi’s China. Having wiped out any opposition at home over a century of building power, the great struggle of his party is no longer against counter-revolutionaries; it is against those outside China’s borders who would seek to contain its rise.
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What fraud? Trump’s hopes of a return to White House very much alive
July 2, 2021 — 11.39am
Washington: It’s never a good day when the company that bears your name and one of its most senior executives are indicted on charges of conspiracy, tax fraud and falsifying business records.
Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organisation’s veteran chief financial officer, has a lot to worry about after New York prosecutors charged him with a string of financial offences including grand larceny on Friday (AEST).
Being convicted of that charge alone could lead to more than 15 years in prison for the 73-year-old who has been one of Donald Trump’s most trusted advisers for decades.
But Trump himself does not appear to be in imminent legal jeopardy.
While Weisselberg was being led into a Manhattan courtroom in handcuffs, Trump was safely ensconced in his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Neither Trump nor any of his family members have been charged with wrongdoing and it’s unclear whether they ever will be.
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Xi Jinping’s deity-like role in China makes him an actor to be feared
12:00AM July 1, 2021
The Chinese Communist Party turns 100 on Thursday. It is the most powerful, and successful, political party in the world. It has something like more than 90 million members and has ruled China since it won the civil war in 1949.
Many millions more Chinese would join the party if they could, not necessarily from ideological conviction but because Communist Party membership is such a career boost. Yet we shouldn’t discount the power of communist ideology.
I had a spell as a Visiting Fellow at Kings College London in 2019. One night I attended a dinner party where everyone was an author or academic or journalist. They weren’t China specialists, but wanted to hear an Australian view of China.
When I discussed communist ideology, the reaction was bafflement. Wasn’t modern China capitalist, and any communist gobbledegook merely an excuse to justify authoritarianism?
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Chinese President Xi Jinping strikes new tone of truculence, confrontation
9:11AM July 2, 2021
Xi Jinping’s speech is as historic as it is disturbing, as memorable as it is menacing, as epoch-marking as it is grandiloquent.
This is a new tone for the Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party general secretary in an international context — a tone of truculence and confrontation.
In content, the speech is a contemporary mix of communist ideology and nationalist paranoia.
“Through tenacious struggle, the party and the people showed the world that the Chinese people had stood up and the time when the Chinese nation could be bullied and abused by others is gone forever.”
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China’s communists and a century of revolution
As the Chinese Communist Party turns 100, its leaders are still struggling to find the balance between growth and stability, repression and reform.
James Kynge
Jun 30, 2021 – 8.00am
In 35 years of reporting on China and its emergence as a global power, perhaps the most perceptive and certainly the most genial person I met was Cao Siyuan. He was by no means grand. His face looked as if it had been moulded by laughter. He laughed frequently, often at his own jokes and sometimes at himself. He had once, before a dramatic fall from grace, been an adviser to China’s top leader. But when asked about his time among the ruling elite, he would demur, describing himself as no more than a “seventh-grade, sesame seed-sized official”.
Cao died in 2014 at the age of 68. But his turbulent career trying to coax reform out of China’s single-party state reflected a much bigger historical struggle that has characterised the rule of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) that marks its 100th anniversary on July 1. His experiences also put into human context the knot of tensions that still reside at the heart of CCP rule and govern many aspects of China’s increasingly fractious relationship with the outside world.
Cao was known in China simply as “Mr Bankruptcy”. The name came because he was the architect in the 1980s of the country’s first bankruptcy law. This may not sound like much but at that time bankruptcy was at the ideological frontier of China’s transition from Maoist communism to the hybrid system of market authoritarianism that it adheres to today.
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The history China wants you to forget
By Didi Tang
The Times
5:19PM July 2, 2021
In a speech about history it was the omissions that were most memorable. Chinese President Xi Jingping chose to mark a century of the Chinese Communist Party by glossing over some of the country’s most painful moments.
“We must learn from history to build the future,” he said several times as he exhorted his audience on Thursday to follow the party into a new century and assemble a world-class army. Missing from his reflections were any lessons from the party’s purges, the Tiananmen Square massacre or the Great Famine. Instead, Mr Xi invoked a history of international humiliation, poverty and struggle to rouse the Chinese people and bolster party support.
“The victory of the new democratic revolution put an end to China’s history as a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society, to the state of total disunity that existed in old China, and to all the unequal treaties imposed on our country by foreign powers and all the privileges that imperialist powers enjoyed in China,” he said in an hour-long speech.
No political party in the world puts as much emphasis on history as the Communist Party of China, which derives its legitimacy from the past. The party keeps tight control over accounts of its rule, airbrushing out episodes of brutality in an effort to keep them secret. Any attempt to deviate from the official narrative is described as “historical nihilism” and considered an attack on the party.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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