September 23, 2021 Edition
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The big news in the US, UK and OZ is rhe new AUKUS alliance and its implications – along with the fury that has been provoked with France.
Just how this will all play out is hard to work out and I suspect it will take many years to become clear – given the change in the way OZ is planning to be in the world!
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Major Issues.
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Nursing crisis in Australia can no longer be ignored
By Kylie Ward
September 12, 2021 — 11.55pm
Nursing, already under pressure, is reaching breaking point due to the pressures of COVID-19 and a disjointed healthcare system, including the acute, primary and aged care sectors. We must act now to protect our nurses and healthcare; the time has come for a national reckoning on nursing in Australia.
Australian nurses cannot continue to work under the extreme pressure they are currently operating under – the impacts are mounting.
The almost 400,000 Australian nurses are a constant presence in every one of our major life milestones, national emergencies and global crises.
The nurse of today holds a science degree, possesses highly technical training, valuable medical opinions, front-row expertise, is an effective trainer, and is skilled in population and systemic thinking. But the pandemic is inflicting a major emotional and physical toll on nurses.
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Why the payments system is a national security concern
Because foreign tech giants now control an ever-increasing share of the country’s $650-billion-a-day sector, the Treasurer had no choice but to get involved.
Karen Maley Columnist
Sep 14, 2021 – 5.00am
One of the most arresting statistics in the final report of Scott Farrell’s excellent payments system review is that the Chinese mobile payment app, WeChat Pay, boasts some 690,000 users in Australia.
Of course, WeChat Pay is a minnow compared with the market penetration that tech giants – such as Apple Pay and Google Pay – have with their digital wallets and apps that allow people to use smartphones to make tap-and-go payments, instead of plastic cards.
As Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn pointed out to a parliamentary inquiry back in July, Apple controls an 80 per cent market share of the tap-and-go payments made by its customers using their smartphones – earning the US tech giant lucrative fees.
(Apple was quick to counter, pointing out that its market share of all debit and payment cards in Australia – which is much larger than the digital wallet segment – was less than 10 per cent.)
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/options-for-ageing-smsf-trustees-20210908-p58pv5
Options for ageing SMSF trustees
Five strategies to help those wanting less responsibility in their DIY super fund.
Michael Hutton Contributor
Sep 14, 2021 – 5.00am
Self-managed super funds have been around in their current form for more than 20 years and have proven to be a popular option for people to manage their retirement savings and investments.
However, with many SMSFs established during the 1990s and early 2000s, a number of trustees are ageing and now need to look at their options for how to manage the fund.
Running an SMSF can be complex and time-consuming, requiring understanding of compliance and regulatory requirements, financial markets and tax issues, and more. On top of this, there are constant changes and adjustments to the rules governing SMSFs that need to be considered.
Trustees who are getting older may want to reduce their responsibilities. Some may become incapable of running the fund due to declining health and energy or ongoing ailments – particularly loss of mental capacity.
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Why the crackdown on journalism in Asia matters to Australia
From Myanmar to China, the media faces authoritarian challenges that will have a material impact on our understanding of the region shaping the future of the world.
Bonnie Bley
Sep 15, 2021 – 5.00am
According to BBC presenter John Lloyd, the purpose of journalism is to “make a sketch that makes sense of the world”.
It follows that where we get our news from determines how we see the world. And ours is a world that is increasingly shaped by Asia. Asia is home to half the world’s population, it is the engine of the global economy, a driver of technological innovation, and it is the key battleground of 21st-century global geopolitical competition.
But news in Asia is under pressure like never before.
Australia’s future is inextricably linked to the future of Asia. And we have an interest – you could almost say an obligation – to better understand the information ecosystem of the region, including all the challenges it currently faces.
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Bankcards and $1 notes the norm last time RBA was reviewed
By Shane Wright
September 15, 2021 — 5.00am
Sometimes you need an outsider to make a point that should be bleedingly obvious to a local.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the Paris-based think tank for rich countries, has used its latest survey of the Australian economy to do just that in relation to the Reserve Bank.
By recommending a far-reaching review of monetary policy, the OECD is telling the federal government and this country’s economic policy hardheads it’s time for a bit of self-reflection.
While the treasurer and government of the day like to claim credit for the nation’s economic outcomes, much of the weight is actually borne by the RBA, its board and its governor.
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The world’s shippers are earning the most money since 2008
By Alex Longley
September 14, 2021 — 6.45am
The global shipping industry is getting its biggest payday since 2008 as the combination of booming demand for goods and a global supply chain that’s collapsing under the weight of COVID-19 drives freight prices ever higher.
Whether its giant container ships stacked high with 40-foot steel boxes, bulk carriers whose cavernous holds house thousands of tonness of coal, or specialised vessels designed to pack in cars and trucks, earnings are soaring for ships of almost every type.
With the merchant fleet hauling about 80 per cent of world trade, the surge reaches into every corner of the economy. The boom back in 2008 brought with it a huge wave of new vessel orders, but the rally was quickly undone by a demand collapse when a financial crisis triggered the deepest global recession in decades.
This boom’s causes are twofold - an economic reopening after COVID that has spurred surging demand for goods and raw materials. Alongside that, the virus continues to cause disruption in global supply chains, choking up ports and delaying vessels, all of which is limiting how many are available to haul goods across oceans. That’s left the majority of the shipping sector with bumper earnings in recent months.
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Supply chain issues add to stagflationary winds
The dominant structural theme post the financial crisis — that of deficient aggregate demand — has given way to frustrating supply rigidities. They are not going away any time soon.
Mohamed El-Erian Contributor
Updated Sep 15, 2021 – 1.44pm, first published at 1.32pm
Hearing that I was flying to the UK, a friend of mine sent me a picture of a partially empty supermarket shelf with a simple message: “You’ll be coming back to Soviet-era shelves.”
Unlike that era, however, this is not happening in a closed economy with inefficient state-run production protected by high tariff and quota walls. Nor is it UK-specific.
It is due to supply disruptions faced by many countries. They will be with us for a while, complicating corporate and policy plans, and could undermine investments based on the ample liquidity injections from central banks that have pushed many markets ever higher.
The phenomenon in play is evident in macroeconomic data and corporate signals. Producer price inflation is soaring around the world.
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Australia, UK, US announce defence pact to counter China
Matthew Cranston and Andrew Tillett
Updated Sep 16, 2021 – 7.38am, first published at 7.00am
Washington | Australia will obtain nuclear submarines for the first time under a new alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom called AUKUS, which has been set up to strengthen the military presence and operability of allies in the Indo-Pacific.
US President Joe Biden, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the new partnership at 7am AEST.
Speaking at the joint announcement, Mr Morrison said the new submarines would be built in Adelaide. He said Australia was not acquiring nuclear weapons or establishing a civil nuclear industry.
“The future of the Indo-Pacific will impact all our futures. To meet these challenges, to help deliver the security and stability our region needs, we must now take our partnership to a new level,” Mr Morrison said.
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In AUKUS pact, Australia grasps central role in great geopolitical struggle of the era
September 16, 2021 — 9.25am
Washington: How remarkable to think that just a few weeks ago Australians were feeling slighted by a lack of attention from the Biden administration.
As the 20-year war in Afghanistan came to its ignominious end last month, President Joe Biden did not pick up the phone to call Prime Minister Scott Morrison until after the final US troops had left Kabul. It seemed a shoddy way to treat a close ally that had sacrificed 41 lives in the war effort.
And it stung that America did not send any spare vials from its abundant supply of Pfizer vaccines down under, forcing the Morrison government to cut a deal with Poland to access its soon-to-expire doses.
Now a country that takes inordinate pride in “punching above its weight” on the global stage is very much doing so again.
The new AUKUS partnership represents a dramatic strengthening of ties between three already close allies: the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. The fact the partnership was announced at a rare virtual joint press conference between the three leaders - rather than an anodyne media release - underscored its importance.
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AUKUS our most dramatic strategic decision in a generation
September 16, 2021
The decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines and scrap the $90 billion French deal is Australia’s most dramatic and far reaching strategic decision in a generation.
It was made possible by a perfect storm of concurrent events – the rise of a belligerent China, growing frustration with the French submarine project and a desire by the Morrison government to strengthen the alliance with the US and Britain and entwine them more closely to the Indo-Pacific.
The deal to acquire nuclear-powered submarines, made under a new pact to be known as AUKUS, was previously considered unthinkable, both politically and practically.
Both Coalition and Labor governments never held out any realistic hope that the US or the UK would share their most prized nuclear technology to make it happen. Australia did not have a civil nuclear industry and Canberra feared Australians were not ready for the debate about the issue.
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A profound move for both Canberra and Washington
Both Australia and the US see the balance of power shifting away from allied democracies. Both are willing to take steps, even dramatic ones, to shift it back.
Richard Fontaine Contributor
Sep 16, 2021 – 11.31am
Diplomacy’s acronym-laden parlance now has a brand new entrant. Three anglophone leaders – Joe Biden, Boris Johnson and, in Biden’s appellation, “that fella Down Under” – have teamed up to launch AUKUS.
A co-operative security partnership, AUKUS reflects Washington’s emphasis on Indo-Pacific allies, London’s desire to tilt eastwards and Canberra’s aim of strengthening its defence partnerships.
Without meat on the new bones, however, the AUKUS rollout might have marked a well-meaning but fairly inconsequential prelude to this week’s similarly named AUSMIN ministerial talks. In their joint announcement, the leaders committed themselves to working together across broad areas such as technology, supply chains, and industrial bases.
So far, so ho-hum. But then came the centrepiece: the United States would, for the first time in seven decades, assist another country in fielding a nuclear-powered submarine fleet. That country would be Australia.
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The French thought the subs deal was too big to fail. They were wrong
Under the AUKUS deal, the Australian government is now further away from receiving new submarines. But China’s actions forced Australia’s hand.
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Sep 16, 2021 – 3.17pm
Right now is probably not the best time to try to wrap up the European free trade agreement.
But the petulant reaction from France’s Foreign and Defence ministers to the cancellation of the $90 billion future submarine program typifies why the French no longer made sense to be Australia’s partner of choice.
Right from when the submarine deal was signed with DCNS (Naval Group’s former name), cracks emerged.
The government wanted all 12 submarines to be built in Adelaide but then French president Francois Hollande claimed it was worth 4000 jobs in France. By comparison, just 2800 jobs were forecast to be created in Australia.
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Overseas international student return plan stalls
Julie Hare Education editor
Sep 16, 2021 – 2.10pm
South Australia’s plan to bring international students back into the state has missed another deadline, with universities unwilling to move forward due to high ancillary costs.
The plan, approved by the federal government in June, was for up to 160 students a fortnight to arrive on chartered flights and quarantine at the Parafield airport.
However, cost estimations climbed and universities were unwilling to stump up for security, nursing and other associated costs.
Premier Steven Marshall’s original arrival date of August has passed. Others in the sector say September would be the most likely time.
Karyn Kent, chief executive of StudyAdelaide, said she could not confirm or comment on delays but that she hoped students would return “in the second half of the year”.
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A Rolls-Royce fleet, when what we need is a crowd of Corollas
If the US decides not to pay the price of competing with China, Australia’s nuclear-powered submarines could ultimately leave our home defences exposed.
Sam Roggeveen Contributor
Sep 16, 2021 – 3.50pm
Many defence watchers felt a sense of relief when news broke in The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday night that the Morrison government was about to announce the cancellation of the troubled $90 billion project to build 12 French submarines.
But the accompanying news that Australia would instead join a trilateral initiative to build nuclear-powered submarines with the US and Britain should fill Australians with trepidation that we are abandoning one folly only to embark on another.
The challenges of building and maintaining nuclear-powered submarines are well known, including inside the government. When she was defence minister, Marise Payne said Australia lacked the personnel, experience, infrastructure, training and regulatory systems for a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. Creating them, she said, would take much longer than getting non-nuclear boats.
Former defence minister Christopher Pyne argued in March that “there’s more chance of me winning the 100 metres sprint at the Tokyo Olympics” than Australia developing a nuclear industry to support such a fleet.
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Australia to build missile defences while waiting on nuclear-powered submarines
Updated September 16, 2021 — 7.16pmfirst published at 11.49am
Australia will pursue long-range hypersonic missile technology and undersea drones while it builds a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines as part of a new military pact with the United States and Britain, a partnership China has labelled an “extremely irresponsible” threat to regional stability.
The announcement of the partnership, to be known as AUKUS, has sent shockwaves around the world as the three countries look to provide a more assertive military posture in the face of Beijing’s rapidly escalating militarisation of the South China Sea.
China’s foreign ministry said the agreement “seriously undermines regional peace and stability and intensifies the arms race”.
In a major development, US President Joe Biden said on Thursday his nation would lend its nuclear technology to Australia for the first time to help its ally build an advanced fleet of submarines. The US has previously offered the technology only to Britain and the deal with Australia has been described as a “one-off”.
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Nuclear family: Setting a new course in submarine policy
The acquisition of nuclear-powered submarines promises to transform the Australian navy, but there are some uncomfortable realities Australia must also confront.
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Sep 17, 2021 – 2.48pm
For some involved in Australia’s now-axed submarine project with the French, there was literally a lightbulb moment that crushed hope for an enduring partnership.
The relationship between the Defence Department and French shipbuilder Naval Group had become so dysfunctional that even LED lightbulbs were a battleground.
The new submarines based on US tech will not be in operation for years.
Naval Group told the Australians it would cost more than $1 million to change design drawings to swap out incandescent bulbs for LED. The response infuriated Defence, and it was described it as a “beautiful example of how Naval Group was milking Australia for cash”.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/australia-signs-up-to-the-anglosphere-20210916-p58s3x
Australia signs up to the Anglosphere
AUKUS will help us with none of the other tools for dealing with Beijing: persuasion, shaping, multilateral advocacy, and coalition building.
Allan Gyngell Honorary Professor at the College of Asia and the Pacific
Sep 17, 2021 – 2.20pm
Much is still uncertain about the new AUKUS “enhanced trilateral security partnership”. The deal for at least eight nuclear submarines to be built in Australia is described as a “first initiative” but the partnership’s aims, and whether there will be a governing treaty, is not yet clear.
Nor is the practical form that engagement in other foreshadowed areas will take. For Australian defence officials wrestling with the search for an “optimal pathway” to get the submarine project under way, it will be a busy 18 months as a massive list of regulatory, technological, security and workforce issues present themselves.
Boris Johnson, Joe Biden and Scott Morrison each had something to prove with this agreement. Johnson was looking for a way of demonstrating that Britain had a global future after Brexit while taking over handy trade prospects from the French.
Joe Biden wanted to put the Afghanistan withdrawal behind him and to show he was adding substance to his pledge to refocus America’s strategic energy on its competition with China and Russia. And Morrison was able to execute a Houdini-like escape from his government’s troubled French attack-class submarine project which looked likely to deliver him only political pain.
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Australia becomes the unsinkable US aircraft carrier in Asia
As Scott Morrison casts his French friends aside, he should wonder about handing over sovereign control in defence matters to populist-prone Washington.
Laura Tingle Columnist
Sep 17, 2021 – 4.27pm
Emmanuel Macron should perhaps have been on his guard when he greeted Scott Morrison in the courtyard of the Élysée Palace in June, complete with ceremonial pomp. Our Prime Minister seems to have a bit of form in courtyards.
Just over three years ago, on August 22, 2018, the then treasurer was asked at a press conference in the prime minister’s courtyard at Parliament House whether he had ambitions for Malcolm Turnbull’s job.
He responded
by throwing a reassuring arm around his prime minister’s shoulder and declared:
“This is my leader, and I’m ambitious for him!”
“Thanks ScoMo”, Turnbull responded, perhaps just a little uncertainly.
Two days later Morrison had replaced him as PM.
Throw forward to June 15 this year, and Macron was welcoming Morrison to the presidential palace in Paris after the G7’s meeting in Cornwall.
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No one’s talking snub now as grand alliance surfaces
Boris Johnson’s gatecrashing of Scott Morrison’s and Joe Biden’s G7 meeting has turned out to be probably the most important trilateral gathering for Australia in 70 years.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Sep 16, 2021 – 5.00pm
When British Prime Minister Boris Johnson “gatecrashed” a planned one-on-one meeting between Scott Morrison and US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Cornwall in June, there was a pile-on from Labor and Morrison’s many other detractors.
The optics of Johnson being added at the last minute to what was expected to be the first bilateral meeting between Morrison and Biden was widely interpreted as a Biden snub because Morrison had been too close to Donald Trump and because Australia was a laggard on climate change.
“Mr Morrison’s stubborn refusal to sign up to net zero emissions [by 2050] has left him isolated and left Australia isolated,” Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman Penny Wong said. Former Liberal leader John Hewson suggested Biden might “not be prepared to extend Morrison the privilege [of a one-on-one] given his indefensible irresponsibility and stubbornness on climate”.
Such sentiment, motivated more by wishful thinking than fact, ignored the precedent of leaders always putting the alliance first – no matter how strained the personal relationship at any given time, or whatever other issues may be involved.
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Australia ‘regrets’ French ambassador recall but makes no apology for new subs deal
By James Massola and Bevan Shields
September 18, 2021 — 10.27am
The federal government has hit back at criticism from France over the decision to tear up a contract to buy 12 French submarines, defending the move as in Australia’s “clear and communicated national security interests”.
As the diplomatic row between Canberra, Paris and Washington escalates, the Morrison government has also “noted with regret” the French government’s disappointment over the move, emphasising that France is an important partner it hopes to work with again.
Paris’ decision overnight to take the extraordinary step of withdrawing its ambassadors to Australia and the United States has underscored French President Emmanuel Macron’s fury over the move.
Australia now plans to buy at least eight nuclear-powered submarines that will use tecnology from the United States and United Kingdom, rather than following through on the $90 billion deal to buy 12 diesel-electric French submarines.
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What the submarine deal means for Morrison’s future
By David Crowe
September 18, 2021
All tactics, no strategy. The complaint about Scott Morrison has framed his leadership among a legion of critics who see the Prime Minister as a marketing man with a black hole in his political soul because he lacks the conviction to put his fate on the line to change the nation.
Labor has a tag for Morrison and wants it to stick: he is the “ad man” who can spin a story without building a stronger Australia or leaving a legacy when he is gone.
But the easy attack lines do not fit so neatly with a new defence pact that is meant to guarantee Australian security for another generation. Morrison has made sweeping decisions in the coronavirus pandemic, shutting borders and spending billions, but none is like the move to bolt Australia to the United States and the United Kingdom and build a new fleet of nuclear submarines.
This is not just a big call. It is a hard call. In one decision, Morrison has antagonised China, opened a rift with France, scrapped years of effort on conventional submarines, increased costs and exposed Australia to a longer capability gap by pushing back the arrival of the future fleet.
This decision is about a strategy that lasts for decades. Morrison’s pledge is to spend more on defence and have nuclear submarines in the water in the 2030s, even though defence experts think the timing is heroic after years of delay and a troubled deal with the French that has been abruptly scrapped at a cost of at least $2.4 billion.
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Australia’s submarine program has truly lost its rudder
Political and international editor
September 16, 2021 — 4.32pm
China is well on its way to achieving its goal of complete military modernisation by 2027 and already has more warships and submarines than the US. China’s shipyards launch a new sub every year or so.
Australia is well on its way to achieving world champion status in faffing about with submarine acquisition. As of Thursday, Australia has no agreement with anyone to build any new submarines whatsoever.
China has 66 submarines. It’s expected to have 10 more by 2030, six of those nuclear powered, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence.
By that time, Australia will have exactly as many subs as it has today, which is the same number it had a quarter-century earlier, according to the Morrison government’s statements on Thursday.
That is, Australia will have the same six Collins-class, diesel-powered subs that were first commissioned by the Hawke government, assuming they’re still functional. Their retirement has been postponed repeatedly as successive governments – Labor and Liberal – have fumbled their replacements.
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Morrison’s China ‘strategy’ makes us less, not more, secure
Former Australian prime minister
September 18, 2021 — 5.00am
Every now and then, it’s useful to stop and ask the basic questions. Questions like: How do submarines actually contribute to our national security? And now, it seems, nuclear-powered submarines at that.
The fundamental national security responsibilities of any government are to maintain our territorial integrity, political sovereignty and economic prosperity from external aggression. In Australia’s case, submarines form a critical part of a Defence Force designed to deter, disrupt or defeat military threats to our country.
When the Labor government I led prepared the 2009 Defence White Paper, we applied these disciplines to the challenges we saw for our national security to 2030. It was the first time since the 1960s that a white paper had named China as an emerging strategic challenge, for which the Liberals attacked me as an old “Cold War Warrior”. I made no apology despite Beijing’s deep objections.
Based on Defence advice, we agreed to double the conventional submarine fleet to 12 boats, increase the surface fleet by a third, and proceed with the acquisition of up to 100 Joint Strike Fighters.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/morrison-the-third-amigo-speaks-loudly-to-xi-20210916-p58sfk.html
Morrison, the third amigo, speaks loudly to Xi
Political and international editor
September 18, 2021 — 5.00am
Beijing decided to break Australia’s will. It imposed trade bans on more than $20 billion worth of exports last year and published a list of 14 demands on Australia’s sovereignty. Australia’s reply was delivered this week. In co-ordinated appearances by Scott Morrison, Joe Biden and Boris Johnson, Australia elevated its relationships with the US and Britain to pool their efforts on the most important next-generation warfighting technologies. This so-called “trilateral security partnership” is to be known as AUKUS.
In some ways this was mildly comical. The Dad’s Army Anglophone allies who fought together in World War II getting back together for one more fight, led by an American President who forgot Scott Morrison’s name at the critical moment – “that fella down under”, he improvised, “I appreciate you, pal” – in their joint video appearance on Thursday.
The three amigos – an Aussie marketing huckster, an English buffoon and an American senior citizen. Fresh from being chased out of Afghanistan and humiliated by barbarian terrorists they’d set out to defeat 20 years earlier. Their marquee initiative – for Washington and London to supply nuclear propulsion technology for Australian submarines – is serious. But Canberra has no ability to make use of it in a deployable submarine for at least another 20 years. What’s the point of giving an engine to someone without a car?
In embracing AUKUS, Australia tore up its $90 billion deal with France for the supply of 12 conventionally powered submarines. Meaning that, from Thursday, Australia has no arrangements with anyone to supply any new submarines whatsoever.
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Secret talks and a hidden agenda: Behind the AUKUS deal
David E. Sanger
Sep 18, 2021 – 11.33am
The United States and Australia went to extraordinary lengths to keep Paris in the dark as they secretly negotiated a plan to build nuclear submarines, scuttling France’s largest defence contract and so enraging President Emmanuel Macron that on Friday he ordered the withdrawal of France’s ambassadors to both nations.
Macron’s decision was a stunning and unexpected escalation of the breach between Washington and Paris, on a day that the two countries had planned to celebrate an alliance that goes back to the defeat of Britain in the Revolutionary War.
Yet it was driven by France’s realisation that two of its closest allies have been negotiating secretly for months. According to interviews with US and British officials, the Biden administration had been in talks since soon after President Joe Biden’s inauguration about arming the Australian navy with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines that could patrol areas of the South China Sea and beyond that Beijing is trying to dominate with its military forces.
But one thing was standing in their way: a $60 billion agreement that called for Australia to buy a dozen far less sophisticated, and far noisier, conventionally powered submarines from France.
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‘Do not forget Australia’: Morrison must hope an old friendship holds
Associate editor and special writer
September 19, 2021 — 5.00am
In the quadrangle of the primary school in Villers-Bretonneux, northern France, soars a famous sign, painted green and gold.
“Do not forget Australia”, it says, reminding visitors that here exists one of Australia’s most enduring and solemn international friendships.
The sign recalls the 2400 Australian soldiers who lost their lives on the night of April 24, 1918, while recapturing the village from the forces of Germany and in so doing, turning the tide of World War I. It also honours the schoolchildren of Victoria who later donated their pennies to rebuild the village school.
There are reminders all over northern France of Australian blood in French soil from both World War I and World War II. On a hill above Villers-Bretonneux is the Australian National Memorial, its walls listing 11,000 names of Australian WWI soldiers still missing, each with no known grave.
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‘Engaging the systems’: The secret only a handful of people were trusted to keep
By Rob Harris
September 16, 2021 — 6.41pm
Scott Morrison’s first meeting with Joe Biden in the Cornish seaside resort of Carbis Bay had some bad press. The much anticipated bilateral between the pair at the G7 in June was dubbed a snub by Morrison’s detractors and political opponents at home because British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had joined them.
The narrative was, at the time, that Morrison’s “inability” and “failure” to secure a one-on-one meeting with Biden was because of his “stubborn refusal” to commit to net zero emissions by 2050.
Unlike other meetings at the summit, television cameras were not allowed to film the encounter between Morrison, Biden and Johnson, and journalists were not permitted to observe it. It helped fuel the narrative to those who wanted to believe it.
Morrison said afterwards it was a meeting of “friends and allies, who share a view on the world,” and the trio had a “very easy understanding” between them.
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Defence pact kept under the radar
By Larisa Brown
The Times
11:34PM September 18, 2021
When the first sea lord was invited to a meeting at the Australian high commission in March this year, he had no idea of the magnitude of what was about to unfold.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin was asked by Vice-Admiral Michael Noonan, the Australian chief of navy, whether the British and Americans could help them to build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines.
The 12 Barracuda diesel-electric submarines that Australia had agreed to buy from France five years earlier in a $90 billion contract were no longer enough to ward off the threat from China, which was building the largest navy and fortifying islands outside its territorial waters. They wanted faster, stealthier craft with almost limitless endurance. Sources said that the key was “surveillance”.
A defence insider said: “They had carried out a review and the ones they were getting were not fit for purpose. China has a lot of money but is not developed in some areas of capability.”
The Australians wanted nuclear-powered submarines to “move quietly, sit outside a port, track movements, keep an eye on undersea cables and follow submarines in a move to curb Chinese reach in the region”, they added.
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Snubbing the French is a foolish mistake
The Times
5:06PM September 18, 2021
On May 4 1982, near the start of the Falklands war, Argentina’s air force fired two French-made Exocet missiles from a French Super-Etendard aircraft, wrecking HMS Sheffield, which sank after the loss of 20 lives. Secret diplomacy between Britain and France went into overdrive.
The defence secretary was Sir John Nott. “In so many ways,” he writes in his memoir, “Mitterrand and the French were our greatest allies . . . They lent the RAF a Super-Etendard and Mirage aircraft . . . so our Harrier pilots could train against them . . . [They] supplied us with detailed technical information on the Exocet, showing us how to tamper with the missiles.” Exocets [he writes] were trading on the international arms market, [white] South Africans and the Israelis were “making strenuous efforts to help Argentina” but, armed with the secret French codes, Britain could now identify these deadly missiles for sale, and disable them.
Nott’s job was not made easier by the United States. At first disposed to be neutral in the conflict, Washington ordered its military base on [British] Ascension Island to refuse permission for RAF Vulcan bombers to refuel there en route to the Falklands. We did persuade our purported allies to change their minds. But it was France that came fastest and most readily to Britain’s support.
Nearly 30 years later there’s a growing hole in British foreign policy, and it’s France-shaped. It appears this week that while negotiating the three-sided AUKUS (Australia, UK, US) military pact to contain Chinese expansionism, we have utterly failed to keep the French on board. Anger in Paris at what appears a stinging insult to France is huge. And it comes after many weeks of self-defeating anti-French posturing from Britain’s publicity-seeking home secretary, Priti Patel. Our prime minister, I’d guess, just laughs it off. To these serious discourtesies I shall return.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/onwards-and-upwards-on-covid-20210912-p58qz6
Morrison moves the country on from COVID-19
Scott Morrison says Australia has made up the ground on vaccine supply, and it will be time to move on once people have had the opportunity to be vaccinated.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Updated Sep 12, 2021 – 5.59pm, first published at 5.00pm
Scott Morrison’s relief is obvious – as much for political reasons as health ones. He desperately needs all the good news he can get.
An additional 1 million doses of Moderna vaccine from Europe “will fill the gap” in September, he says, accelerating the pace towards the 70 per cent and 80 per cent double vaccination rates that are key to getting out of lockdowns.
Sunday, September 12: Prime Minister Scott Morrison has announced one million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine will arrive in the coming weeks, available for those aged 12-59.
They should also help soothe Victorian Premier Dan Andrews’ displays of anger at a disproportionate share of Pfizer provided to NSW in July and August to help the Berejiklian government cope with such high numbers of new delta cases every day.
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State warned of ‘huge risk’ to vulnerable people
By Lucy Cormack
September 13, 2021 — 5.00am
NSW risks setting a national reopening precedent that leaves vulnerable people behind, with social services groups warning the double vaccination target of 70 per cent could mask inequity in low-income communities.
Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) said it has been unable to access an income bracket breakdown highlighting vaccination rates of the poorest groups, despite multiple requests to the state government and national cabinet.
The claim comes as COVID-19 case numbers rise in inner Sydney suburbs like Glebe, Camperdown, Redfern and Waterloo, including among vulnerable groups and in public housing.
While a vaccination breakdown by suburb is published by NSW Health, ACOSS says that does not provide a full picture of inoculation rates by income.
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How outrage over vaccine mandates became a mainstream Republican stance
By Sheryl Gay Stolberg
September 13, 2021 — 9.49am
Washington: Like other Republican governors around the country, Tate Reeves of Mississippi reacted angrily to the coronavirus vaccine mandates President Joe Biden imposed on private businesses. Declaring the move “terrifying,” he wrote on Twitter, “This is still America, and we still believe in freedom from tyrants.”
There is a deep inconsistency in that argument. The state of Mississippi has some of the strictest vaccine mandates in the nation, which have not drawn opposition from most of its elected officials. Not only does it require children to be vaccinated against measles, mumps and seven other diseases to attend school, but it goes a step further than most states by barring parents from claiming “religious, philosophical or conscientious” exemptions.
Resistance to vaccine mandates was once a fringe position in both parties, more the realm of misinformed celebrities than mainstream political thought. But the fury over Biden’s mandates shows how a once-extreme stance has moved to the centre of the Republican Party. The governors’ opposition reflects the anger and fear about the COVID-19 vaccines among constituents now central to their base, while ignoring long-standing policy and legal precedent in favour of similar vaccination requirements.
“Republicans care about getting beyond this pandemic every bit as much as Democrats do,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. But, he added, “politicians are certainly happy to exploit this issue for political gain, which is why I think the Republican governors are up in arms.”
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Health systems must be primed as nation opens up
Editorial
12:00AM September 13, 2021
Crunch time has arrived for Australians who have resisted Covid vaccinations to date. Scott Morrison’s announcement on Sunday that a million doses of Moderna will arrive by next weekend should hasten the nation’s reopening. Even before this welcome boost, vaccinations are proceeding apace, with more than 22.6 million doses administered. More than two -thirds of Australians aged 16 and over — 67.4 per cent — have had their first jab, and 42.3 per cent are fully vaccinated. That is encouraging news for individuals’ personal and economic wellbeing. It holds the promise of longed-for family reunions, including with loved ones living overseas. It is also vital for businesses and their staff, especially those in industries hardest hit by the pandemic, including travel and hospitality.
Ahead of reopening and lifting lockdowns, it is vital that health systems are well prepared in advance. Among many figures released on Sunday, one set revealed a telling story. Of 2793 active cases in Victoria, 147 people are in hospital. Of those, 34 are in intensive care and 28 are receiving ventilation. Of those in hospital, only one was fully vaccinated, Premier Daniel Andrews said at his press conference. And that person, Mr Andrews understood, was not receiving ventilation. With NSW on track to be the first state to reach 70 and 80 per cent levels of full vaccination, Premier Gladys Berejiklian has spelt out the looming challenges. The state has capacity to treat a total of 1550 ICU patients, she said last week. The number of people in intensive care without Covid-19 was usually about 400. According to modelling based on analysis by the Burnet Institute, about 560 people will be in intensive care units with Covid by the beginning of November. As Dr Nhi Nguyen, clinical director of the Intensive Care Network NSW, says: “I can’t emphasise enough how difficult and exhausting this is going to be for our staff.’’ As early as October 9, the modelling says, the surge in Covid-19 cases is expected to have a “severe” impact on ICU operations. “Overall demand for critical care (will be) exceeding ICU operational capacity,” the modelling predicts. By the final week of October, ICU operations will experience an “overwhelming” impact, and demand for critical care services will “significantly” exceed capacity. That pressure will persist until the second week of November, when demand will ease.
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When will I need my COVID vaccine booster shot? And can I switch to a different brand?
Authored by Nicholas Wood
AUSTRALIA’s vaccine rollout is really starting to gain pace, especially in New South Wales and Victoria.
We need to get two doses of vaccine into as many adults as possible — firstly because that helps reduce severity of illness and infection, but also because reaching vaccination targets is likely to bring some new freedoms.
The COVID-19 vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna and Astra Zeneca) continue to be highly effective in reducing risk of severe disease, hospitalisation and death, even against the Delta variant.
But as soon as we finish one vaccine rollout we may need to begin the next rollout of booster doses.
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Here’s what the next six months of the pandemic will bring
Almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated before the pandemic ends, experts agree. Maybe both.
Michelle Cortez
Sep 13, 2021 – 11.09am
For anyone hoping to see the end of the pandemic over the next three to six months, scientists have some bad news. It won’t be over in six months.
Almost everyone will be either infected or vaccinated before the pandemic ends, experts agree. Maybe both. An unlucky few will contract the virus more than once.
The race between the waves of transmission that lead to new variants and the battle to get the globe inoculated won’t be over until the coronavirus has touched all of us.
“I see these continued surges occurring throughout the world,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and an adviser to US President Joe Biden.
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Is the great Australian housing dream finally dying?
We are in danger of losing a generation of homeowners. The political and economic consequences will be profound.
Jason Falinski Contributor
Sep 13, 2021 – 2.08pm
On January 1, 1901, Australia’s six colonies (OK, Western Australia was late to the party) came together to form the Australian Commonwealth. There were many reasons driving disparate parts of this continent together. One was the promise of an Australian Dream centred on homeownership.
The significance of homeownership in 1901 is not fully appreciated today. Back then, the class divide was about whether you owned land. Ensuring everyone had an opportunity to own their own home was about creating a classless society.
On Tuesday, the Tax and Revenue Committee of the House of Representatives will convene to inquire into whether this dream should be condemned as an ideal of another century.
It is on the back of middle class home owners that liberal democracies were built. They are the bulwark against political extremism.
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Australian Banking Association hardship figures ring alarm bells as borrowers struggle
12:00AM September 15, 2021
Hardship cases are rocketing as businesses and homeowners struggle through lengthy lockdowns, setting alarm bells ringing for the nation’s economic recovery.
Hardship assistance to under-pressure borrowers almost tripled over the past month, with 57,000 customers now having reached out to their lender for help, up from 20,000 the month prior, according to the Australian Banking Association.
Home-loan deferrals close to doubled over the same period, jumping from 14,500 to more than 27,000, while deferred business loans surged from 600 in August to more than 3500 by mid-September.
The bulk of hardship and deferral cases are still coming from NSW, where residents of greater Sydney have been locked down since June.
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Kids’ Covid-19 risk less than we feared, says study
8:00AM September 17, 2021
Researchers have debunked a theory that a significant proportion of children infected with coronavirus develop long Covid, while confirming that children are extremely unlikely to become seriously ill from the disease.
A headline-grabbing study into the long-term effects of Covid-19 in children had claimed that as many as one in six would experience ongoing debilitating symptoms.
But a study by researchers from the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute found that the risk of long Covid in children had been exaggerated.
The MCRI study, published in the Paediatric Infectious Disease Journal, analysed the results of 14 studies involving 19,426 children and found that existing studies all had major limitations and more research was necessary to establish the long-term risks to children posed by Covid-19.
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Death is the price of freedom in the UK - and they are OK with it
It’s not just that vaccinations work - they seem to be changing how people feel about the pandemic and its risks.
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Updated Sep 17, 2021 – 12.06pm, first published at 11.13am
London | Almost exactly a year ago, Britain’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance fronted a press conference with a scary warning: The summer lull in coronavirus cases was ending, and without new restrictions the COVID-19 epidemic could be claiming more than 200 lives a day by mid-November.
It was a fearful fatality forecast that sparked widespread public alarm. Ultimately, it forced Britain into another painful lockdown as the pandemic’s second wave crashed over the country.
Fast-forward a year. Vallance was in front of the press again this past week, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty. There was no talk of lockdowns, no prospect of social distancing. The number of COVID-19-related deaths the next day? 201.
The tempting next sentence is: what a difference a year makes. The more accurate one: what a difference vaccination makes.
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Climate Change.
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Why Australia is a bigger carbon pariah than we think
Counting carbon-based exports burned and smelted by others makes Australia the world’s third largest emitter. We can’t disown them as easily as all that.
Adrian Blundell-Wignall Columnist
Sep 13, 2021 – 1.51pm
The Glasgow summit on climate change is looming, and we continue to see Australia pretending to be a small emitter of carbon dioxide on the global stage.
It is not by any means. It’s all about Scope III emissions. A subject that Australian governments don’t want to hear about. Both sides of politics are no better than the other, they both put their electoral interests ahead of any vision for the future.
As other countries begin to reduce demand for our mining products, Australia will need that vision to replace wishful thinking that promotes statements such as: Technology will fix things; If we don’t sell carbon-intensive products someone else will; We’re only responsible for 1.5 per cent of the total carbon dioxide emissions; It’s China and India that need to change, not us.
I find myself wondering what future Australian generations will come to think of our current decision-makers.
But let’s get to the heart of the matter, Scope III emissions. Australia puts out data on Scope I and Scope II emissions, covering what we burn here, fugitive emissions, and purchased electricity and other energy.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/oecd-slams-australia-for-its-net-zero-headway-20210914-p58rl8
OECD slams Australia for its net zero headway
Jacob Greber Senior correspondent
Sep 15, 2021 – 5.00am
The OECD has delivered a scathing assessment of the Morrison government’s climate change policies, warning it needs to massively accelerate the pace of Australia’s decarbonisation efforts if it is to meet even its baseline targets, and saying there is no way to avoid hitting harder the nation’s biggest polluters in energy, transport and agriculture.
Prepared by OECD staff overseen by Secretary-General Mathias Cormann, the report repeatedly laments the lack of a nationwide carbon price and raises questions about whether the government’s current technology-based approach will be sufficient to put the economy on a net zero by 2050 trajectory.
It calls on Energy and Emissions Reduction Minister Angus Taylor to use the upcoming long-term emissions reduction strategy to lift the country’s game by ramping up an existing safeguard mechanism – effectively driving up the cost of carbon emissions – and further encourage the use of land-based carbon capture, and introduce fuel quality and emissions standards for vehicles and trucks.
The report comes as the world prepares to meet in Glasgow for November’s UN climate summit, where Australia is increasingly being targeted by activists and other nations as a laggard on climate emissions.
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UN declares world is out of time on emissions
By Ben Webster
The Times
3:08PM September 17, 2021
The world is “out of time” to act on climate change and the consequences will be catastrophic unless there are immediate large-scale reductions in greenhouse gases, the UN secretary-general has warned.
Antonio Guterres was speaking at the launch of a UN report warning that emissions have bounced back after the decline last year from the pandemic.
He said the Cop26 UN climate conference in Glasgow must be the “turning point” at which all countries present more ambitious targets that cut global emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, compared with 2010 levels.
The United in Science report, co-ordinated by the World Meteorological Organisation with input from the UK Met Office, says that the reduction in carbon emissions caused by the pandemic has not slowed warming.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No entries in this category.
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National Budget Issues.
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Bankers nervous about the post-pandemic bounceback
Bankers warn that a shortage of stock, or staff, could leave many businesses sidelined when the expected post-lockdown spending spree gets under way.
Karen Maley Columnist
Sep 12, 2021 – 7.00pm
Reserve Bank boss Phil Lowe may be sanguine that the Australian economy will bounce back when lockdowns end, but bankers are anxious that many businesses will find themselves excluded from the recovery.
Certainly, bankers expect a surge in spending, as households which have spent months stuck at home are finally given an opportunity to satisfy their pent-up demand for travel, entertainment and restaurant meals.
What’s more, households have the financial ability to satisfy their long-frustrated spending plans, with their savings expected to hit at least $200 billion this year.
But bankers warn that not all companies will feel the benefit of this spending spree.
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Unis short-changed by $1.1bn in job-ready graduates scheme
12:00AM September 13, 2021
The federal government’s new higher education funding scheme will leave universities $1.1bn short of the money needed to pay for the extra 54,000 student places it promised by 2024, according to an analysis by a former senior Education Department public servant.
Using new government data, Mark Warburton found that the funding allocations to universities over the next three years were not sufficient to provide the extra student places promised by former education minister Dan Tehan when he announced the government’s new funding plan – the job-ready graduates scheme – last year.
“The government would need to provide in the order of $1.1bn more in subsidy from 2021 to 2024 to honour the claims it made to the public and the parliament,” Mr Warburton said in a paper, The rhetoric and the reality of Job-ready Graduates, published by the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne.
Mr Warburton’s paper fills in many details that were not clear when Mr Tehan announced the major overhaul of university last year, which reduced the overall government subsidy for university and raised fees on some courses such as humanities, law and business while reducing them on others.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/rba-s-lowe-challenges-early-rate-hikes-20210914-p58rfz
RBA’s Lowe challenges early rate hikes
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Sep 14, 2021 – 1.20pm
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe challenged market expectations for interest rate hikes before 2024, and pushed back against suggestions hikes and tougher lending standards could be used to quell rocketing house prices, saying changes to tax, social security and planning regulations would be better.
Dr Lowe also said small- and medium-sized businesses were facing extremely difficult conditions during the current lockdowns and the longer they had to wait before reopening, the greater the damage would be.
“Many are in ‘wait, survive and see’ mode, having experienced a large drop in revenue,” the RBA governor said in a speech to the Anika Foundation in Sydney on Tuesday. “For some businesses, there is a limit to how long they can wait. So, the sooner we can open safely, the better.”
While the central bank remains confident of a strong economic recovery in 2022 after vaccination targets are met and restrictions ease, the latest delta lockdowns will cause an economic contraction of 2 per cent “and possibly significantly larger” in the September quarter, and living with the virus will present a fresh layer of uncertainty for the recovery.
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Small business braces as ‘major setback’ looms: RBA’s Philip Lowe
September 14, 2021
Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe says the many small businesses bearing the brunt of Delta lockdowns are in “wait, survive and see mode”, warning “there is a limit to how long they can wait” for restrictions to ease before they fold.
In his annual address to the Anika Foundation on Tuesday, Dr Lowe said the economy will “contract significantly” over the three months to September, and “it would not be surprising to see (unemployment) in the high fives for a short period of time”, versus the most recent reading of 4.6 per cent in July.
More positively, Dr Lowe said vaccinations provide “a clear path out of the current difficulties” and that the nation “will return to a stronger economy next year”.
“The exact magnitude of the economic contraction in the September quarter remains to be determined but it is likely to be at least 2 per cent, and possibly significantly larger than this. This is a major setback, but it is likely to be only temporary,” he said.
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Unemployment rate surprises with fall to 4.5pc in August
September 16, 2021
The unemployment rate fell to 4.5 per cent in August from 4.6 per cent the month before, in a second straight gravity-defying result which the ABS said did not reflect labour market conditions amid lockdowns in the nation’s two largest cities.
The drop in the key jobless figure was despite a 146,300 drop in employment, with the number of full-time jobs falling by 68,000 in the month, while part-time employment dropped 78,200, the seasonally adjusted figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics showed.
The key to the second counterintuitive jobs report was another sharp fall in the participation rate, which dropped from 66 per cent in July to 65.2 per cent. In NSW, the participation rate plunged by 2.5 percentage points.
ABS head of labour statistics Bjorn Jervis said “the fall in the unemployment rate reflects a large fall in participation during the recent lockdowns, rather than a strengthening in labour market conditions”.
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Health Issues.
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‘Hard to get a patient to come in’: Vital screening drops 30 per cent
By Lucy Carroll and Mary Ward
September 16, 2021 — 5.00am
Doctors are warning that Sydneysiders are delaying crucial screenings and blood tests that detect heart disease and cancers as the city’s lockdown keeps people away from regular checkups and medical appointments.
The peak body representing pathologists say screening in Sydney for abnormal cholesterol levels, heart conditions and certain types of cancers, including cervical and prostate, has fallen 30 per cent overall from August 2019 to the same period this year.
Dr Debra Graves, CEO of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia, said the drop in pathology testing had “serious implications”.
“All these pathology tests are vital to diagnose diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease,” she said, noting the tests, particularly cancer screening, were designed to pick up diseases in their early stages to give patients a much better prognosis.
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International Issues.
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After Afghanistan, Americans seek a realist strategy to contain China
The foreign policy thinkers who predicted the failure of intervention in the Middle East are now split between doves and hawks on Washington confronting Beijing over Taiwan.
Ross Douthat
Sep 12, 2021 – 12.32pm
When I moved to Washington, DC, in 2002 we all lived in the shadow of September 11, 2001. We waited for bombs in the metro, for more anthrax envelopes, for a sequel to the previous autumn’s terror. We watched planes headed for Reagan airport fly low over the Potomac, always half-expecting them to veer.
Everything in my profession revolved around the war on terror. And everyone I knew who was even the least bit conservative (a category that included many Democrats) was ready to invade Iraq – and probably Syria and Iran for good measure.
Everyone except one college friend, Elbridge Colby, then newly planted at the State Department. His politics in those days were “severely conservative” (to borrow a phrase from the political taxonomist Mitt Romney), but he expected George W. Bush’s strategy to end in disaster. Nightly in our unkempt apartments he argued with the hawks – which is to say with all of us – channelling the realist foreign policy thinkers he admired, predicting quagmire, destabilisation and defeat.
In almost every way, the rest of the post-9/11 era vindicated his arguments – not just in the Iraq war but also in our chaos-sowing Libya intervention and our failed attempt at nation-building in Afghanistan.
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September 11 took Washington’s eye off the Beijing ball
America was diverted from thinking seriously about China’s rise by the 9/11 attacks. And Australia luxuriated in the belief it might never have to choose between the two.
James Curran Columnist
Sep 12, 2021 – 12.53pm
It is a matter of record that America’s travails in the Middle East after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks diverted the attention of two presidents, George W Bush and Barack Obama, from China’s rise at a critical time.
Washington must now lay down a coherent, realistic China policy against a vastly different backdrop to that at the turn of the century. Where back then it was an undisputed fact, America now scrambles to shore up its belief, and that of others, in its preparedness to stay in Asia for the long haul.
When the twin towers fell, the US was still in its unipolar moment, and though anxieties over China’s growing economic power and military spending were becoming more acute, America then looked ready to effectively compete with China.
It’s important to reflect on this particular legacy of 9/11: Australia believed the premium it was paying on the alliance via its unstinting support in Iraq and Afghanistan would ultimately pay off by US resolve in Asia.
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https://www.afr.com/world/europe/stagflation-fears-stalk-britain-s-slowing-recovery-20210911-p58qqp
Stagflation fears stalk Britain’s slowing recovery
Hans van Leeuwen Europe correspondent
Sep 13, 2021 – 9.06am
London | Britain has been revelling in the return to some semblance of freedom this summer, as people head back to pubs, restaurants, music festivals, the London Underground and European beaches.
But joy hasn’t been entirely unbounded: two national pastimes, namely going for a burger at McDonald’s and doing a spot of home decor shopping at Ikea, have both fallen victim to the COVID-19 pandemic’s Great Supply Disruption.
Ikea told Bloomberg this week that as many as one in 10 of its products are unavailable. It has been chartering its own ships and running trains from China to Europe to skirt the bottlenecks. Maccas had to cull milkshakes from its menus, while Nando’s and KFC have struggled even with chicken supplies, as a truck driver shortage kicked in.
It has become more common to encounter empty shelves in British supermarkets. In my neighbourhood, we have taken to swapping intel about when the nearest Sainsbury’s has taken a milk delivery.
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North Korea tests a new long-range cruise missile
September 13, 2021 — 7.21am
North Korea carried out successful long-range cruise missile tests over the weekend, its state media, KCNA, said on Monday, amid a protracted standoff with the United States over denuclearisation.
The missiles flew 1500 km before hitting their targets and falling into the country’s territorial waters during the tests held on Saturday and Sunday, KCNA said.
The development of the missiles provides “strategic significance of possessing another effective deterrence means for more reliably guaranteeing the security of our state and strongly containing the military manoeuvres of the hostile forces,” KCNA said.
The reclusive North has long accused the United States and South Korea of “hostile policy” toward Pyongyang.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/september-11-lies-just-won-t-go-away-20210913-p58r8x
September 11 lies just won’t go away
Large numbers of Americans believe the US government was behind 9/11. But the conspiracy theories also ebb and flow with party-political trends.
David Byler and Kate Woodsome
Sep 13, 2021 – 2.22pm
The facts of September 11, 2001, are uncontested: Terrorists hijacked four jetliners, flew two into the World Trade Centre and one into the Pentagon, while passengers on the fourth plane helped crash it in Pennsylvania.
After the attacks, conspiracy theories spread quickly. By the middle of George W. Bush’s presidency, a third of the public either believed that the US government assisted in the attacks or took no action to stop them.
Today, 9/11 conspiracy theories remain widespread: one in six Americans think Bush administration officials knew about the attacks and intentionally let them happen so they could wage war in the Middle East. Others go further, arguing that the government planned and executed the attacks.
These groundless theories – commonly known as “Trutherism” – raise important questions. How does a conspiracy theory take hold? And why, 20 years after the attack, does it endure?
Trutherism emerged almost immediately after the attacks. By late 2001, some anti-Bush protesters were carrying signs saying “Bush Knew” at rallies. In 2002, Democratic representative Cynthia McKinney of Georgia called for an investigation into “What did this administration know, and when did they know it?,” asking “What do they have to hide?”
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The US needs to make homes more affordable – and available
A decade after the subprime meltdown, housing is still at the centre of economic bifurcation. That’s because homes are as much a tradable asset as shelter.
Rana Foroohar Contributor
Sep 13, 2021 – 1.26pm
Yet another summer has been spent within driving distance of home. I passed the last six weeks in rural Sullivan County, a beautiful place in the Catskill Mountains about two hours from New York City.
Poverty levels are about 25 per cent higher than in the rest of the state, according to the latest census figures. Per-capita income is just under $US31,000, $US5000 below the national average.
And yet property prices in Sullivan County were up 32.8 per cent year-on-year in July. Modest wood cabins that might have gone for $US200,000 ($272,000) or less before the pandemic were being dolled up and flipped for double that (or rented out at boutique hotel prices). All-cash offers and sight unseen buys have become common.
The Borscht Belt, as it was once known thanks to hotels catering to Jewish vacationers from roughly the 1920s to the 1970s, hasn’t been this hot since Eddie Fisher and Liz Taylor hung out there.
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Why Xi Jinping is crushing private lives - and wealth
Political and international editor
September 14, 2021 — 5.00am
Why would China’s government bother to ban effeminate men from TV, as it did in a new regulation a couple of weeks ago? Broadcasters must “resolutely put an end to sissy men and other abnormal aesthetics”, said the TV regulator, employing an insulting vernacular which literally translates to “girlie guns”.
There is a new intolerance for gay men and homosexuality generally, too. China’s big video gaming companies were summoned to a meeting with Beijing regulators last week and issued with instructions that included a ban on “wrong values” in their game content. This included a ban on “gay love”.
China’s internet increasingly is scrubbed of anything related to sexual minorities. Overtly LGBT accounts on the pervasive WeChat social media service are deleted without explanation. Among many specific examples of the crackdown, authorities recently asked Shanghai University to supply lists of their LGBT students and report on their private lives.
Officials told the TV broadcasters to instead “vigorously promote excellent Chinese traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture”. Odd, because traditional Chinese culture is replete with effeminate men and homosexuality.
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Riding the Chinese dragon proving to be a dangerous game for investors
By Louis Ashworth
September 14, 2021 — 8.15am
George Soros didn’t mince his words as he summed up current tensions between the world’s two superpowers. “A life and death conflict”, he said of the US and China.
The 91-year-old billionaire investor has no qualms with taking on big targets, having risen to global prominence when he “broke” the Bank of England by betting against sterling.
Last week he turned to taking on the world’s biggest asset manager, and its second biggest economy. Soros - whose philanthropic efforts have focused on countering authoritarianism - let rip at BlackRock, labelling the Wall Street titan’s plans to plough billions of dollars into China a “tragic mistake”.
“It is likely to lose money for BlackRock’s clients and, more importantly, will damage the national security interests of the US and other democracies,” he wrote in The Wall Street Journal.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/the-xi-personality-cult-is-a-danger-to-china-20210914-p58rfj
The Xi personality cult is a danger to China
A one-party state, combined with ritual veneration of the leader, is a recipe for misrule.
Gideon RachmanColumnist
Sep 14, 2021 – 11.21am
Chinese children as young as 10 will soon be required to take lessons in Xi Jinping thought. Before they reach their teenage years, pupils will be expected to learn stories about the Chinese leader’s life and to understand that “Grandpa Xi Jinping has always cared for us”.
This should be an alarm bell for modern China. The state-led veneration of Xi has echoes of the personality cult around Mao Zedong – and with it, of the famines and terror unleashed by Mao during the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. From Stalin’s Russia to Ceausescu’s Romania to Kim’s North Korea and Castro’s Cuba, the combination of a personality cult and Communist Party rule is usually a recipe for poverty and brutality.
These comparisons may seem far-fetched, given the wealth and sophistication of modern China. The country’s economic transformation in recent decades has been remarkable – leading Beijing to promote a “China model” from which the world can learn.
But it is important to make a distinction between the “China model” and the “Xi model”. The China model of reform and opening, put in place by Deng Xiaoping, was based on a rejection of the cult of personality. Deng urged officials to “seek truth from facts”. Policy should be guided by a pragmatic observation of what works, rather than the grandiose statements of Chairman Mao.
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Lowe spells out the Reserve Bank’s China watchlist
As the Chinese property giant Evergrande lurches closer to default, the Reserve Bank boss says it is keenly monitoring various developments in that economy.
Karen Maley Columnist
Sep 14, 2021 – 5.37pm
Reserve Bank of Australia governor Philip Lowe has conceded that he is keeping a close watch on the fate of the giant Chinese real estate developer Evergrande Group, which has the dubious distinction of being the world’s most heavily indebted property developer.
Lowe’s comments came as Evergrande, which is saddled with a massive $US300 billion ($408 billion) in debts, issued a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange on Tuesday, in which it conceded it was unable to sell assets fast enough to meet its debt servicing obligations, and that its cash flow was under “tremendous pressure”.
The sprawling property giant has hired financial advisers for what could turn out to be one of China’s largest-ever debt restructurings. The sharp decline in the price of Evergrande’s bonds and shares suggest that investors are bracing for the company to default.
Evergrande’s liquidity problems have intensified in the past few days, after several subsidiaries of the property giant failed to repay wealth management products, a key source of its short-term funding. This sparked a wave of protests, with angry homebuyers and investors demanding their money back.
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China’s nightmare Evergrande scenario is an uncontrolled crash
Shen Hong, Enda Curran and Sofia Horta e Costa
Sep 17, 2021 – 11.19am
Shanghai/Hong Kong | Protests at offices of property giant Evergrande Group have intensified across China as the developer falls further behind on promises to more than 70,000 investors.
Construction of unfinished properties with enough floor space to cover three-quarters of Manhattan has ground to a halt, leaving more than a million homebuyers in limbo.
Fire sales are pummelling an already shaky real estate market, squeezing other developers and rippling through a supply chain that accounts for more than a quarter of Chinese economic output.
Credit-market stress has spread from lower-rated property companies to stronger peers and banks, and global investors who bought $US527 billion ($722 billion) of Chinese stocks and bonds in the 15 months through to June have begun to sell.
-----I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
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