March 15, 2018 Edition.
Well it has been Trump and more Trump in recent times. What with tariffs, resignations, trade-wars and rapprochement with little ‘Rocket Man’. Not sure one can handle so much news in one week. I suspect all this is going to somehow blow up! Issues include that most republicans hate tariffs and no one trusts Kim John-Un – so this can play out in all sorts of ways. As for staff changes - losing a Chief Financial Adviser and a Sec. of State in one week is just amazing and worrying. This Whitehouse will soon be totally filled with yes-men.
Also what on earth is going on with poisoned ex-spies in the UK. The Russians?? The UK sure seems to think so.
Barnabygate seems finally resolved and it seems we have been excused from the tariffs – so unless China is hit we may be alright – but nothing is at all sure. Shorten's franking hit will really change things. There still may be an almighty blow up between the EU and the US and we could be collateral damage!
-----
Here are a few other things I have noticed.
-----
Major Issues.
Meet the MP who actually wants to know what works
By Peter Martin
3 March 2018 — 12:19pm
A house in the Canberra suburb of Narrabundah had suffered multiple burglaries. For the sixth time someone had broken in through a window and taken things from the bedroom of a nine-year-old boy.
This time the offender was caught red-handed, with a pillowslip full of the Lego – he was the nine-year-old boy from next door.
When police officer Rudi Lammers arrived, he decided not to follow the usual procedure. Instead, he sat down with the two nine-year-olds and asked the victim, “What do you think we should do?”
-----
Trade war would slash growth, business leaders warn
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 5, 2018
Matt Chambers
Eli Greenblat
The business sector has sounded the alarm over potential trade wars in the wake of Donald Trump’s steel and aluminium import tariffs, warning potential global retaliation would derail growth and increase poverty, and that Australia may need to defend itself with its own protective measures.
Peak industry groups yesterday backed statements from federal Trade Minister Steven Ciobo that the impact of the tariffs would not be confined to the steel and aluminium sectors.
Mr Ciobo said they could distort trade around the world, leading to job losses and possibly resulting in a US-China trade war that would slow global growth.
-----
- Updated Mar 4 2018 at 9:30 PM
Trump administration's trade war claims first Australian victim
Donald Trump's fast-escalating protectionist trade war has claimed its first Australian scalp with Perth silicon metal exporter Simcoa slammed by a bruising 51 per cent US government tariff that threatens to muddy Canberra's push to be excluded from steep steel and aluminium levies.
As governments around the world led by the European Union, China and Canada ramp up retaliatory threats – including potential tariffs on Harley-Davidsons, bourbon and blue jeans – the Turnbull government admitted it still has no clarity on whether the steel tariffs would hit Australian exporters.
In a warning of how a full-blown global trade war would confound Mr Trump's tweet over the weekend that "trade wars are good, and easy to win", modelling obtained by The Australian Financial Review by Deloitte Access Economics shows it would cost 20,000 jobs, wipe $5 billion off national income within a year, and derail a much-needed upswing in business investment.
-----
ABC should rise above the rancour
By Tom Switzer
5 March 2018 — 5:00am
The other day a general member of the public – let’s call him Darren -- forwarded me a group email from Q&A staff. Headlined “Tony Jones wants your questions!”, the message was a laundry list of topics for the studio audience to consider before they ask questions at tonight’s episode in Ultimo, which Darren will attend.
Darren was incredulous. Here was one of the ABC’s most popular shows, he complained, taking for granted a set of left-liberal assumptions and setting political debates within a set of suggested boundaries.
To which I replied: why the surprise? Conservatives, like some social democrats, have long believed that the public broadcaster all too often flouts the statutory guidelines that insist on impartiality.
-----
Trump administration trying to destroy global trading system, Craig Emerson says
By Fergus Hunter
4 March 2018 — 6:01pm
The United States is attacking the world's trading system on multiple fronts, former trade minister Craig Emerson has declared, warning that the benefits of the Turnbull government's efforts to establish a close relationship with the administration are limited when even President Donald Trump's inner circle are uncertain about his intentions.
As Trade Minister Steve Ciobo conceded a conversation with the President's top trade official had produced no clarity on whether newly announced steel and aluminium tariffs would apply to Australia, Dr Emerson and prominent business leader Tony Shepherd said the Australian government would have to "wait and see" how the situation pans out.
The announcement of the taxes on imports to the US – 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium – has shaken political leaders and markets around the world, quickly triggering threats of retaliatory tariffs and the President claiming "trade wars are good, and easy to win".
-----
Housing risks 'catastrophic': Grattan Institute
By Peter Martin
4 March 2018 — 7:55pm
Australia’s eight-year house price boom has savaged the living standards of poorer Australians while so far leaving the wealthy untouched, a new Grattan Institute analysis finds.
But the report, to be released on Monday, warns of a “catastrophic” impact on all income groups should mortgage rates rise by more than a few percentage points.
The institute’s chief executive, John Daley, said Australians who already owned their houses had been little affected by soaring prices to date because they had been “hedged”. If they moved, they could buy again for about the price they got when they sold. Property investors had done well out of the explosion in Sydney and Melbourne prices because they had always been planning to sell.
But new buyers had been locked out.
-----
- Updated Mar 5 2018 at 6:00 PM
How countries should respond to Donald Trump's trade war
Republican lawmakers warn Trump on tariffs
by Warwick McKibbin
President Donald Trump has promised to raise tariffs again. This is not an isolated threat, but a continuation of a commitment he made during the election campaign to solve the US trade deficit.
Before considering how countries might respond to these volleys of protectionism on solar panels, aluminum, steel and other products, it is instructive to go through the basic economics of what determines the trade position of a country.
The current account of a country is, by definition, the difference between a country's national savings and national investment.
A country that invests more than it saves has relatively high interest rates and rates of return which drag financial capital from overseas.
-----
- Updated Mar 5 2018 at 6:34 PM
Economic growth outlook: it's the scientists vs the economists
Most economic forecasters have largely shrugged off recent advances in artificial intelligence (for example, the quantum leap demonstrated by DeepMind's self-learning chess program last December), seeing little impact on longer-term trend growth. Such pessimism is surely one of the reasons why real interest rates remain extremely low, even if the bellwether US 10-year bond rate has ticked up half a percentage point in the past few months. If supply-side pessimism is appropriate, the recent massive tax and spending packages in the United States will likely do much more to raise inflation than to boost investment.
There are plenty of reasons to object to recent US fiscal policy, even if lowering the corporate tax rate made sense (albeit not by the amount enacted). Above all, we live in an era of rising inequality and falling income shares for labour relative to capital. Governments need to do more, not less, to redistribute income and wealth.
It is hard to know what President Donald Trump is thinking when he boasts that his policies will deliver up to 6 per cent growth (unless he is talking about prices, not output!). But if inflationary pressures do indeed materialise, current growth might last significantly longer than forecasters and markets believe.
-----
'Shocking' levels of sexual harassment at work, study reveals
By Jessica Irvine
5 March 2018 — 8:15pm
Less than a third of young Australian working women believe they are treated equally to men, according to a landmark new survey.
Ahead of International Womens Day on Thursday, an inter-disciplinary team of researchers from the University of Sydney will on Tuesday release the findings of the first ever survey of attitudes to work by Australian women aged 16 to 40.
The survey has unearthed 'shocking' levels of sexual harassment at work and an ‘alarming’ trend for women to delay childbirth, or give up on having kids altogether, to safeguard their careers.
-----
Trump's steel tariffs a ‘black day for the world’, says BHP chief
By Cole Latimer
Updated 6 March 2018 — 10:14am first published at 9:54am
BHP chief executive Andrew Mackenzie has said US President Donald Trump’s plans for steel tariffs will harm the global economy.
Speaking at the AFR Business Summit on Tuesday, Mr Mackenzie called Mr Trump’s steel tariffs "a black day for the world and business".
US President Donald Trump says "we're not backing down" on his push to impose tariffs on imported steel and aluminum despite criticism from fellow Republicans.
-----
Ardern's social laboratory for the world
By Peter Hartcher
6 March 2018 — 12:31am
Jacinda Ardern has a list of promises for improving the lives of lower-income people. This is pretty standard stuff for a fresh centre-left government. But one of her approaches for achieving it is not. The new Prime Minister is planning a world first that could once more make New Zealand a social laboratory for the world.
"We are establishing a living standard framework," she tells me. "We are looking beyond economic markers." Her government is not junking the traditional economic measures - debt and budget targets, for instance, will remain. But, Ardern says: "If we are increasing GDP and increasingly seeing environmental degradation and social suffering, it's hard to say we've succeeded", referring to gross domestic product, the conventional measure of the monetary value of an economy's output. "We have given Treasury to fiscal 2019 to have a framework ready" for measuring national progress on all three fronts - raising income, yes, but also improving environmental and social goods.
-----
- Updated Mar 6 2018 at 10:29 AM
Markets need progress on these five fronts for balance
by Mohamed El-Erian
Having experienced a sudden air pocket, US stocks have entered a period of higher and, for some, unsettling volatility.
The particular sequence of the last month — abrupt correction followed by a rapid bounce back and then last week's pull back — raises interesting questions as to whether markets are in the initial phase of a prolonged sell-off or, instead, being placed on a stronger medium-term footing. The answer to that question will be determined by five factors.
After returning 22 per cent in 2017, the ninth year of an impressive rally, and an additional 7 per cent in just the first four trading weeks of 2018, the S&P 500 suffered a correction of 10 per cent. It then retraced some 70 per cent before experiencing another leg down.
-----
The gig economy is endangering wages, economists say
By Peter Martin
6 March 2018 — 8:04pm
Uber, Airtasker and other parts of the so called gig economy are driving down wages and will keep doing it until the government intervenes, nine of Australia’s most eminent economists have warned.
The responses in the latest poll conducted by Monash University and the Economic Society of Australia express concern at a shift in the bargaining power of workers in industries, such as driving and home maintenance, affected by the arrival of online platforms.
Of the 30 economists surveyed, nine expressed concern, 13 were unconcerned, and eight were uncertain.
-----
RBA sees 'stronger' growth, but 'no strong case' for rate hikes soon
By Swati Pandey
7 March 2018 — 9:01am
The head of the Reserve Bank bank said on Wednesday Australia's economy is expected to grow "stronger" in 2018 than in the past year, in a speech hours before official data that is expected to show growth slowed last quarter.
With the economy "moving in the right direction and interest rates still quite low, it is likely that the next move in interest rates in Australia will be up, not down," RBA Governor Philip Lowe said.
However, with only gradual progress in reducing unemployment and inflation, "the board does not see a strong case for a near-term adjustment of monetary policy," Lowe said in Sydney.
-----
- Updated Mar 7 2018 at 11:00 PM
Purpose, trust and fake news front of public's mind
Trust in the country’s key institutions – government, business, NGOs and media – has fallen across all sectors for the second year in a row, according to the closely watched Edelman Trust Barometer.
Trust in business slid from 48 to 45 per cent, government fell from 37 to 35 per cent, media from 32 to 31 per cent and NGOs from 52 to 48 per cent. Australia rates just four percentage points above Russia, the world’s least-trusting nation, and our trust index score places us in the bottom-third of nations.
“Australian institutions last year were in absolute turmoil, we had huge, dramatic falls and this year we have seen further slides,” Steven Spurr, CEO of Edelman Australia, says. “We had a fearful, distrusting nation last year. What is changing is the Australian public are starting to adjust to this institutional distrust and finding different things to trust.”
-----
GDP shows Australians no better off than a year ago
By Eryk Bagshaw
7 March 2018 — 11:51am
Australians are no better off per person than they were at this time last year as weakening offshore trade robbed the economy of momentum, the latest national accounts results reveal.
In figures that are set to heighten the national debate over inequality, the Australian Bureau of Statistics' most accurate measure of living standards - real net national disposable income per capita - barely moved in the 12 months to December and actually went backwards in two quarters in 2017.
The indicator of economic growth after population increases are taken into account - gross domestic product per capita -also grew by nothing in the December quarter and just 0.8 per cent in seasonally adjusted terms over the year.
-----
Apartment boom refuses to die
- The Australian
- 3:57PM March 6, 2018
James Kirby
A surge in apartment tower approvals coupled with fresh signs banks have recommenced promoting interest-only loans suggest the residential property market is showing surprising resilience.
New figures suggest the high rise tower boom across major metropolitan centres is far from over with a jump of 42 per cent in approvals over January — this followed a slump of almost equal measure (40 per cent) in December.
January numbers invariably show a seasonal lift after the holidays at Christmas, but the lift in approvals was higher than expectations and means the overall trend in approvals continues to grow. Moreover, the apartment boom continues to underpin the wider lift in overall dwelling approvals which saw the biggest lift in four years at 17 per cent over the term.
-----
Online shopping shifts into second gear as retailers up their game
By Patrick Hatch
Updated 9 March 2018 — 1:16am first published at 12:15am
Australian's online shopping last year grew at nearly twice the rate it did in 2016, new figures show, with e-commerce now providing major support to an otherwise anemic growth in Australia's $300 billion retail sector.
New research by Australia Post based on parcel delivery volumes estimates that total e-commerce spending on physical goods grew 19.2 per cent in 2017 to $21.3 billion.
That rate of growth had accelerated from 2016, when it ticked up by 11.5 per cent.
-----
- Mar 9 2018 at 7:34 AM
JPMorgan's Daniel Pinto sees 'deep correction' for equities
by Gavin Finch and Francine Lacqua
JPMorgan Chase executive Daniel Pinto warned equity markets could fall as much as 40 per cent in the next two to three years.
His comments come as investors worry over the effect of central banks raising interest rates and rising inflation. "It could be a deep correction," said Pinto, the bank's co-president, in an interview. "It could be between 20 per cent to 40 per cent depending on the valuation."
The benchmark S&P 500 Index has gained about 47 per cent since February 2016.
-----
Exemptions will help, but Trump's tariffs could still hurt Australia in a big way
Mar 9, 2018, 9:54 AM
- It looks like Australia will get exemptions from Donald Trump’s tariffs on steel and aluminium, which is good news — but hang on.
- The main target of the tariffs is China, Australia’s biggest trading partner and largest source of demand for iron ore and coal, which are Australia’s biggest exports.
- Global high prices for iron ore are helping to improve Australia’s federal budget bottom line, and prices have been rolling over this week, possibly in response to Trump’s tariffs which could depress demand.
“We have a trade surplus with Australia, great country, long term partner, we’ll be doing something with them,” said US President Donald Trump overnight, signalling Australia is likely to gain exemptions from his punishing new import tariffs on steel and aluminium.
-----
Politicians should rely more on science, less on populist gut feelings
By Crispin Hull
10 March 2018 — 12:15am
Here is a hypothetical example about a small jurisdiction – Tasmania – which can be used to illustrate a point.
Just say Tasmania's GDP grows by 1.5 per cent one year to $30 billion and the Tasmanian Government says, "Wow, we are obviously getting it right."
This is what typically happens on a national scale. GDP is up. We have growth. We are doing well.
-----
Turnbull Liberals doomed while conservatism in crisis
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 10, 2018
Paul Kelly
Conservatives in the Anglo democracies are confused, divided and mainly in retreat. The meaning of conservatism is now riddled with disputation. Conservatives fight over whether Donald Trump is saviour or demon, whether Brexit is a calamity or a liberation and whether the Turnbull government deserves to be saved or denounced.
In Australia there is not a single leader among the six premiers and Prime Minister who is a self-declared conservative. The triumph conservatives enjoyed with Tony Abbott’s 2013 victory has surrendered to frustration under Malcolm Turnbull, who is not a conservative and shuns the label.
President Trump brings the conservative dilemma to a peak. Many applaud him for defeating Hillary Clinton and are seduced by his success — yet Trump champions ideas that violate traditional conservatism. Witness his blowing the US budget deficit by $US1.5 trillion in his tax cut package and this week’s protectionist lurch, with his tariff policy denounced across the world, including by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe as “highly regrettable and bad”.
-----
Artificial intelligence is accelerating — investors need to keep up
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 10, 2018
Roger Montgomery
It is impossible to understate the impact looming from the rate of acceleration in machine learning. I believe almost everyone is oblivious to, or blissfully unaware of the implications for the entire human race.
Before I continue, let me set up a framework for investors thinking about all of this keep in mind four phases.
• Phase 1) Super smart humans wish to build something because it is an intellectual Everest they wish to conquer. There are reputations to establish or at stake;
• Phase 2) Perceived societal or corporate benefits provide the impetus to fund the aforementioned expedition to the summit;
•Phase 3) Warnings emerge that “dark forces” could up-end and usurp the benevolent intentions; and
•Phase 4) Arguments that we are still “a long way off” ensure progress continues leaving the debate about legislation and control for a belated time. The summit attempt continues, returning the human race to the consequences of Phase 1 of the framework.
-----
National Budget Issues.
Cutting company tax would line our pockets
- Chris Richardson
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 5, 2018
Australians are sick to death of the company tax debate.
And I would be too, if it weren’t for the fact that we’d messed this up.
Messed up so badly, in fact, now that One Nation has declared that it won’t support company tax cuts, that Australia is about to leave $20 billion a year — one of the largest reform dividends on offer in many years — lying abandoned on the floor of parliament.
That’s not something we should be doing lightly.
-----
Labor's tax agenda not finished: Bowen
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen says the budget remains riddled with generous tax concessions left over from the Howard era which must be reined in.
Updated March 6, 2018
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen has pledged Labor will scale back the overly-generous tax concessions of the Howard government era.
Labor has already put forward numerous proposals, including restricting negative gearing and halving the capital gains tax discount, while opposing the Turnbull government's $65 billion business tax cuts.
But Mr Bowen told a conference in Melbourne on Monday the tax base remains full of holes and tax concessions and other loopholes go unreformed.
-----
Scepticism grows over PM’s piecemeal tax cuts
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 7, 2018
Adam Creighton
Top Australian fund manager Hamish Douglass has joined a growing bunch of sceptics, including professors Peter Swan and John Freebairn, who doubt the benefits of the Turnbull government’s reform to boost wages and attract more foreign investment by gradually trimming the corporate tax rate.
“I don’t want to be unpopular here but frankly I don’t think it’s going to make any difference at all,” Mr Douglass said, before a room full of people who could afford $1495 + GST to attend The Australian Financial Review’s latest business “summit”.
“A 5 per cent change is very hard to win the argument that it’s not just a handout for business,” he added, calling for “much more radical” tax reform that would, for instance, slash the company tax rate to 15 per cent right away for firms that agreed to give up dividend imputation — which wouldn’t cost the budget anything.
-----
Treasurer Scott Morrison set to extend $20,000 asset write-off for small businesses
Shane Wright | The West Australian Thursday, 8 March 2018 9:50AM
Small businesses are poised to get a boost in the Federal Budget, with Treasurer Scott Morrison expected to extend the Government’s instant asset write-off.
In a move that would also dent critics’ arguments against the coalition Government’s proposed tax cuts for large companies, it is understood the $20,000 write-off will be extended and the amount could be increased.
The write-off, introduced in 2015 by then-treasurer Joe Hockey, enables firms with a turnover of up to $10 million a year to instantly claim tax deductions on all equipment purchases worth less than $20,000.
-----
Health Budget Issues.
Minister celebrates record bulk-billing
8:57am Mar 6, 2018
Bulk-billing rates for GP visits rose to their highest level on record in the first half of this financial year.
Health Minister Greg Hunt on Tuesday revealed Medicare data showing the rate of 85.8 per cent for July to December 2017, the highest recorded result for that period.
-----
It's no wonder we're questioning the value of private healthcare
By Catherine King and Andrew Leigh
5 March 2018 — 10:00pm
In 1976, the Fraser government created Medibank Private to provide competition to private health insurers. As Malcolm Fraser himself put it: ''Full and open competition between Medibank and the private funds … will do much to cut down the total cost of healthcare.''
Thirty-eight years later, Fraser’s Liberal successors took a very different view. In 2014, the Abbott government sold off Medibank for $5.7 billion. At the time, it comprised 29 per cent of the market.
The result was what standard monopoly economics would lead you to expect. Since privatisation, Medibank has raised prices and increased gap fees. Prior to privatisation, Medibank had agreements with pathology and radiology providers so that Medibank paid the gap if those providers charged above the Medicare Benefit Schedule fee. Starting in 2014, Medibank ended those agreements, and members have had to pay these gap fees out of pocket.
-----
Insurers move to curb doctors’ ‘day surgery’
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 6, 2018
Sarah-Jane Tasker
Health insurance giant Bupa’s move to shake up the system with changes such as limiting gap cover to contracted facilities is tipped to put a spotlight on doctors converting rooms to “day surgeries” to chase extra fees.
Matthew Koce, chief executive of the peak body Members Health Fund Alliance, said consumers were demanding access to a greater range of information and health funds were responding to that pressure.
“Consumers are demanding transparency and the cost of insurance is increasingly an issue, so this is the marketplace responding,” he said.
-----
Health insurance: Public hospitals to cut back on billing private funds
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 6, 2018
Sean Parnell
Public hospitals will be allowed to continue billing patients’ health insurers for treatment costs but the practice is likely to be restricted through political reforms and new rules imposed by insurers.
Under a heads of agreement put forward by the federal government last month, and so far signed by NSW and Western Australia, governments are asked to note the long-diminished Medicare principle that only public patients treated free of charge are prioritised according to clinical need.
There are concerns public hospitals are fast-tracking private patients for financial reasons.
-----
Health Minister orders investigation into health insurer Bupa after alarming announcements
By Esther Han
6 March 2018 — 7:13pm
In numbers
· Bupa members affected by the changes to minimum benefits. 35%
· The date Bupa will make changes to its Medical Gap Scheme. August 1
· Private health insurers will lift their premiums on April 1. 3.95%
Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt has ordered the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman to investigate health fund Bupa for its decision to overhaul its medical gap scheme, which doctors have blasted as "one big leap towards US-style managed care".
-----
Record 30 per cent increase in complaints about health insurance
By Esther Han
5 March 2018 — 5:58pm
In numbers
· Number of members Medibank lost in 2016-17 24,200
· Increase in the number of complaints to the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman 30%
· Total number of complaints to the ombudsman in 2016-17 5750
A startling 30 per cent increase has seen the total number of complaints to the Private Health Insurance Ombudsman hit a record high.
The Ombudsman has revealed complaints rose by 30 per cent to 5750 in 2016-17, and while issues ranged from incorrect direct debits to hospital exclusions, much of it was driven by Medibank.
-----
Hospitals to have funding cut when they make mistakes
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 7, 2018
Sean Parnell
Public hospitals will have their funding docked if patients suffer complications — up to 21.3 per cent in cases of kidney failure — in an effort to give clinicians and administrators another reason to provide quality care.
The commonwealth agency charged with deciding the highly complex hospital funding formulas, the Independent Hospital Pricing Authority, has given notice that it will embark on the next phase of its quality initiative from July.
Already, from this financial year, public hospitals receive no funding for patients who suffer the worst of mistakes, known as sentinel events. The results of the strategy will not be known for some time, however most states, except Queensland, had improved their performance.
-----
Greens want Labor's help to tackle 'unfair' private health insurance
Exclusive: Di Natale calls for redirection of ‘wasteful and ineffective’ private rebate to Medicare-funded dental care
Wed 7 Mar 2018 09.39 AEDT Last modified on Wed 7 Mar 2018 11.06 AEDT
Labor should work with the Greens to tackle an “unfair, ineffective and inefficient” private health insurance industry, the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, has said in a letter to the opposition leader, Bill Shorten.
“I believe that we should address these issues together and redirect part of the wasteful and ineffective private health insurance rebate to expand Medicare-funded dental care,” the letter, sent on Tuesday evening and seen by Guardian Australia, says. “A cooperative approach on this significant reform will increase the likelihood of its passage through the Senate.”
-----
Bupa tweaks controversial gap cover plan following public outcry
By Esther Han
Updated7 March 2018 — 7:40pm first published at 4:36pm
In numbers
· Number of Bupa hospital policies that will be downgraded in July 720,000
· Bupa's share of the market in 2007 9.8%
· Bupa's market share in 2017 26.9%
Health fund Bupa has admitted it went a step too far amid anger over changes to its gap cover scheme and will now wind-back elements of its controversial plan.
Bupa had informed doctors that from August insured patients would only qualify for gap cover if they were treated at a Bupa-contracted hospital or day-stay facility, causing the Australian Medical Association (AMA) to warn of "US-style managed care" and policyholders threatening to leave.
-----
Bupa backs down on public hospitals after outcry
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 8, 2018
Sean Parnell
Australia’s largest health fund, Bupa, has backed down in its bid to put the squeeze on public hospitals after an outcry from doctors and patients.
But Bupa will still limit the benefits it pays for services in uncontracted private facilities and is pushing ahead with unrelated plans to downgrade the cover of more than a third of its members.
Doctors participating in Bupa’s Medical Gap Scheme and their insured patients currently have choice of hospital, not only in the private sector but also the public sector where many specialists have the right to private practice. Such schemes allow health funds to insure against all or a set amount of the patient’s out-of-pocket costs.
-----
Public hospital funding is in crisis: AMA
- Australian Associated Press
- 7:56AM March 9, 2018
Australia's governments need to go back to the drawing board on a funding agreement for the public hospital system, the Australian Medical Association says.
The doctor's representative group on Friday released its Public Hospital Report Card for 2018.
It says the Council of Australian Government's current funding agreement for the five years between 2020 to 2025 isn't enough to meet community needs, describing it as a "formula for failure."
-----
Doctors say Bupa's revised gap cover plan is 'completely inadequate'
By Esther Han
9 March 2018 — 9:30am
Doctors have criticised changes to the gap cover scheme of health insurer Bupa, saying it remains "completely inadequate" and should be scotched.
Amid a public backlash, Bupa said it had listened to feedback and tweaked the planned changes to its Medical Gap Scheme so that doctors whose insured patients were admitted into a public hospital for an elective, pre-booked procedure could still access the scheme. Earlier, no public hospital doctor would've been able to use it.
But the NSW branch of the Australian Medical Association said it remained "frankly outraged" by Bupa's response because the vast majority of procedures in public hospitals were emergency, unplanned ones.
-----
'Unprecedented': Health costs the Australian economy $40 billion per quarter
By Eryk Bagshaw
9 March 2018 — 3:52pm
Health has become a $164 billion drag on the economy in the past year alone, dwarfing the potential benefits from the Turnbull government's proposed company tax cuts.
For the first time, the cost to the Australian economy of obesity and mental health propelled the total cost of declining health outcomes to $40 billion per quarter, according to the latest Lateral Economics wellbeing index commissioned by Fairfax Media.
Treasurer Scott Morrison's $65 billion company tax cuts, which remain trapped in the Senate, would provide an annual boost of $20 billion to the economy by 2026, modelling by former Treasury official Chris Richardson at Deloitte Access Economics shows.
-----
International Issues.
Seven myths about China
- Paul Monk
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 3, 2018
We are on the cusp of serious debates about the implications for Australia and the whole Asia-Pacific world of the vast increase in Chinese wealth and power this century, not least with the repudiation of political reforms by Xi Jinping and his assumption of indefinite and all but absolute power. For those debates to be conducted intelligently and productively, it is vital that we think about China in a clear-headed manner.
Unfortunately, the field is cluttered with myths about China, sedulously propagated by the Chinese Communist Party, which hamper debate. Here are seven that need dismantling to clear the field.
Myth 1: China is simply resuming its “natural” position as the world’s greatest power after an anomalous 200-year “blip” of Western industrial and technological primacy.
-----
China’s strongman Xi Jinping plots long march
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 3, 2018
Greg Sheridan
Xi Jinping, the formidable President of the Chinese nation, changed history this week. He had a few presidential competitors in the history stakes. America’s Donald Trump used provisions from the Cold War that enable a president to take protectionist measures for national security reasons to announce new tariffs on steel and aluminium, in what he indicated was a sign of things to come.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin announced a new array of nuclear missiles which, he said, could evade any missile defence the US could deploy. He illustrated this with a visual package seeming to show Russian nuclear missiles striking Florida. Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, kept up a relentless campaign of bombing civilians in rebel-held eastern Ghouta, in just the latest iteration of one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of modern times, the Syrian war now stretching towards its eighth year.
North Korea’s Kim Jong-un had a quiet week.
-----
arrangements at the top of the Chinese state, are a pivotal moment in global history.
Why you should care about Trump's trade war
By Jessica Irvine
3 March 2018 — 1:11pm
Talking points
- The immediate effect of the tariff will be to force any company importing steel and aluminium products into the US to have to pay a new tax of 20 per cent at the border.
- American steel makers will be able to charge more for their products, enjoying higher margins and employing more workers.
- Beijing is considering a retaliatory strike against US agricultural products.
- Europe is considering retaliatory tariffs on US goods including whiskey and orange juice.
It’s a funny sort of world we live in when the major preoccupation of our Employment Minister this week was not, as one might have assumed, jobs, but instead spreading innuendo and rumour about the bedroom antics of her political opponent.
-----
Trump praises China's Xi Jinping for power grab as trade row escalates
By David Shepardson
4 March 2018 — 1:26pm
Washington: US President Donald Trump has praised his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for his recent move to consolidate his grip on power.
"He's now President for life. President for life. And he's great," Trump said in a speech to Republican donors in Florida on Saturday, according to broadcaster CNN.
The US broadcaster said it had obtained a recording of the closed-door remarks made at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
"And look, he was able to do that. I think it's great. Maybe we'll give that a shot some day."
-----
- Mar 4 2018 at 5:25 PM
Investors sweat on trade war risk
by Vesna Poljak
Markets are willing to bet the rumblings of a global trade war are the intended aim of Donald Trump's blustering negotiating tactics, and it will take provocation from Europe or China for tensions to escalate and rock equities.
After Thursday's crunch on Wall Street, shares were mixed on Friday when the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.29 per cent and the S&P 500 added 0.51 per cent. Futures point to Australian stocks rising at the open.
Since promising to impose tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium, Mr Trump threatened Europe's car industry with tariffs if they challenge him with retaliatory policies. European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told German television Europe would be willing to hit imports of Harley-Davidsons, bourbon and Levi's jeans.
-----
US aircraft carrier sailing to Vietnam with message for China
By Hannah Beech
5 March 2018 — 6:15am
Bangkok: For the first time since the end of the Vietnam War, a US aircraft carrier is scheduled to make a port call in Vietnam on Monday, signalling how China's rise is bringing together former foes in a significant shift in the region's geopolitical landscape.
The vessel, the Carl Vinson, will anchor off Danang, the central Vietnam port city that served as a major staging post for the US war effort in the country.
"It's a pretty big and historic step, since a carrier has not been here for 40 years," said Rear Admiral John V. Fuller, the commander of the Carl Vinson strike group, whose father served in Vietnam.
-----
No exemptions: Trump rules out steel and aluminium tariff concessions
5 March 2018 — 1:33am
Washington: US President Donald Trump has spoken to world leaders about his planned tariff hikes on steel and aluminum and is not considering any exemptions, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on Sunday.
On Thursday, Trump said the United States would apply duties of 25 per cent on imported steel and 10 per cent on aluminum to protect domestic producers, drawing a fire storm of criticism from trading partners and triggering a slide in stock markets.
Republicans are warning US President Donald Trump his threats to tax imports of steel, aluminium, and possibly European carmakers would harm US consumers and manufacturers.
-----
China edges further away from democracy
- Peter Van Onselen
- The Australian
- 12:00AM March 3, 2018
China’s drift towards greater authoritarianism — with the announcement that President Xi Jinping has freed himself of term limits, meaning he can rule indefinitely — should be a concern for Chinese citizens as well as the rest of the world.
The primary risk centres on possible disruption to growth, global economic stability and, in time, if checks and balances fade, confidence in Chinese institutions.
A single unfettered ruler is a significant burden for any state to manage. For all the concerns and criticisms levelled at Donald Trump’s presidency, he operates in a multilayered democratic system that minimises the damage his antics may cause.
-----
- Mar 5 2018 at 11:00 AM
Time to rethink liberal assumptions on trade, democracy and inflation
by John Authers
This is not a good time for the Whig view of history. In the 19th century, Whig historians presented history as an inevitable progress to liberty and democracy.
As Macaulay put it, Britain's history had been "the history of physical, of moral, and of intellectual improvement and enlightenment".
This is hard to swallow when we form our impressions of that era largely from the works of Charles Dickens, but positive narratives can take hold.
-----
- Updated Mar 5 2018 at 11:00 PM
Dictatorship Inc's Axis of Evil - North Korea, Iran, Syria and Russia - is back
by Bret Stephens
It really is an axis of evil.
It is now reported that United Nations investigators have compiled a more-than-200-page dossier containing extensive evidence of North Korea's supply of potential chemical weapons components and ballistic missile parts to Bashar Assad's regime in Syria. Pyongyang had previously tried to furnish Assad with a nuclear reactor, until the Israelis destroyed it in a 2007 airstrike.
Pyongyang isn't Damascus' only helper. Last November, Moscow – which supplies Assad with an air force to bombard his own people – wielded its 10th and 11th vetoes in defence of the Syrian government at the UN Security Council to scupper a separate panel of experts charged with investigating the use of chemical weapons in Syria. Beijing has used its own veto to help Assad on six occasions.
Then there's Iran, which has been invested in Assad's survival from the beginning of the uprising against him in 2011. Through Hezbollah, its Lebanese proxy, Tehran has provided Assad with his most effective and merciless ground troops.
-----
No confidence: Italy votes against the political establishment
By Jason Horowitz
5 March 2018 — 4:09pm
Rome: Italians registered their dismay with the European political establishment on Sunday, handing a majority of votes in a national election to hard-right and populist forces that ran a campaign fuelled by anti-immigrant anger, early results showed.
The election, the first in five years, was widely seen as a bellwether of the strength of populists on the continent and how far they might advance into the mainstream. The answer was far, very far.
The results were not just a disconcerting measure of Italy's mood, but also a harbinger of the troubles that may yet lay ahead for Europe. Far-right and populist forces appeared to gain more than 50 per cent of the vote in Italy, where the economy has lagged, migration has surged and many are seething at those in power.
-----
China to cut millions in steel capacity, warns of rising protectionism
By KIRSTY NEEDHAM
5 March 2018 — 5:39pm
Beijing: China has cut 170 million tonnes of steel making capacity and 800 million tonnes of coal production, at the cost of 1.1 million local jobs in five years, Chinese premier Li Keqiang said on Monday, while noting a "sharp rise in protectionism globally".
China's steel production capacity would be cut by a further 30 million tonnes this year, and coal by another 150 million, he told China's annual sitting of parliament.
China is cutting its steel and coal production partly for environmental reasons, and partly because it produces more than it can use.
-----
North Korea agrees to discuss giving up nuclear arsenal for US deal
By Kirsty Needham
7 March 2018 — 1:33am
Beijing: In a major breakthrough for a nuclear crisis that has created global anxiety for over a year, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has agreed to discuss giving up his nuclear arsenal if talks are held with the United States.
North Korea has also agreed to freeze missile tests during negotiations, another key US demand. But the rogue nation has asked for a security guarantee from the US in return.
North Korea is willing to hold talks with the United States saying it's open to getting rid of it's nuclear program if there's no military threat against it.
-----
Top White House adviser Gary Cohn quits over Donald Trump tariffs
- AAP
- 9:52AM March 7, 2018
Donald Trump’s top economic adviser Gary Cohn is leaving the White House after breaking with the president on trade policy.
Mr Cohn, the director of the National Economic Council, has been the leading internal opponent to Mr Trump’s planned tariffs on imports of steel and aluminium. He has tried to orchestrate an eleventh-hour effort to push Mr Trump to reverse course.
But Mr Trump reiterated on Tuesday he will be imposing the tariffs in the coming days.
-----
- Mar 7 2018 at 9:55 AM
Donald Trump’s trade follies presage more protectionism
by Martin Wolf
Donald Trump really is a protectionist. It is more than mere rhetoric. This is the lesson from last week's announcement that he would sign an order this week imposing global tariffs of 25 per cent on steel and 10 per cent on aluminium.
These tariffs are not that important in themselves. But the rationale used to justify them, their proposed level and duration, the willingness to target close allies and the president's statement that "trade wars are good and easy to win" must alarm all informed observers.
This action is unlikely to be the end; it is more likely to be the beginning of the end of the rules-governed multilateral trading order that the US itself created.
-----
Spy attack touted as 'act of war' leaves Britain with few options
By Nick Miller
9 March 2018 — 10:03am
London: “If Russia is behind this, this is a brazen act of war. Of humiliating our country."
Anger is growing at the highest levels in the UK, as it becomes harder to imagine that the poisoning of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter last weekend was anything other than a Kremlin-authorised hit.
And attention is turning to what the UK could possibly do to retaliate if evidence is uncovered linking Russia to the attack.
-----
Opioid abuse now a US national emergency
- Boer Deng
- The Times
- 12:00AM March 9, 2018
Overdoses from opioids have increased by 30 per cent across the US in 18 months, prompting experts to warn the addiction epidemic that has killed tens of thousands is worsening.
Emergency admissions to hospital for opioid overdoses rose in every part of the country from March 2016 to September last year, according to figures released by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
The data is the latest sign that the “fast-moving opioid overdose epidemic continues and is accelerating”, acting CDC director Anne Schuchat said.
-----
Updated Mar 8 2018 at 11:00 PM
Amy Chua's Political Tribes tells of democracy's descent into zero-sum tribalism
by Amy Chua
The United States is in a perilous new situation: with few standing against identity politics or for an American identity that transcends the identities of its many subgroups. In this extract from her acclaimed new book Political Tribes, Amy Chua diagnoses the cause of such deep division: tribalism.
A mericans tend to think of democracy as a unifying force. But under certain conditions, including inequality that tracks racial, ethnic, or sectarian divides, democracy can actually ignite group conflict. In 2009, in a speech in the Grand Hall of Cairo University, President Barack Obama said, "[I] have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things: the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice; government that is transparent and doesn't steal from the people; the freedom to live as you choose. Those are not just American ideas, they are human rights, and that is why we will support them everywhere."
These stirring words – echoing similar declarations by presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as by many leading figures of the US foreign policy establishment – express the fundamental hope that freedom will speak to people's deepest yearnings. Unfortunately, people have other yearnings as well.
-----
Is Trump falling into Kim's trap?
By Peter Hartcher
9 March 2018 — 9:10pm
Donald Trump is not the cause of America's most serious problems. But could he be part of some solutions? The news that he'd agreed to meet North Korea's dictator is something new in dealing with an old problem.
No US president has ever met his North Korean counterpart while in office. Till now, the US has always set preconditions too onerous for the North Koreas to accept. It's not entirely clear, but it doesn't seem that Trump put any preconditions on the May summit with Kim Jong-un. Will this break the 30-year cycle of nuclear escalation? Or is it just an opportunity for two men with a taste for theatrics to pose for the cameras?
"I don't really see any harm in having direct discussions," says a former US negotiator with Pyongyang, David Asher, who led the North Korea Activities Group within the National Security Council in the George W. Bush White House. "I never favoured not talking to them. I talked to them. I just don't believe them," he tells me.
-----
Three potential calamities for Trump - aside from Mueller
By Jennifer Rubin
9 March 2018 — 8:02am
Washington: In the past week, three critical stories gained steam, any one of which could pose a threat to President Donald Trump's tenure. In the same week, we've seen Gary Cohn's resignation over the tariff decision; a slew of Jared Kushner scandals; and the Stormy Daniels lawsuit concerning $US130,000 to hush up a purported affair.
Trump's decision to press forward on tariffs has created a firestorm on the right and driven a wedge like no other issue has between Trump and the GOP-led Congress.
Why is this such a big deal? Republicans think, understandably, that their only chance of survival is a healthy economy, and getting credit for it by virtue of the tax bill. If, as we've seen hints of in the run-up to a formal enactment, the markets take a nosedive, so will Trump's bragging rights on that score and a whole lot of his rich donors/supporters will lose a whole lot of money.
-----
Stakes are high but Pyongyang holds trump card
By Mark Kenny
10 March 2018 — 4:02pm
It’s global-level diplomacy where the stakes could not be higher, but the schoolyard taunt “takes one to know one” is disturbingly apt.
Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un “know” a belligerent adolescent when they see one and probably read each more accurately than phalanxes of high-minded strategic experts ever could.
Still, there’s a hundred ways this historic meeting could go sideways for the West, not least because any post agreement backsliding would feel more personal, especially in Washington.
-----
Hindu nationalists rewrite history as they assert dominance over India
By Rupam Jain & Tom Lasseter
9 March 2018 — 1:13pm
Delhi: During the first week of January last year, a group of Indian scholars gathered in a white bungalow on a leafy boulevard in central Delhi. The focus of their discussion: how to rewrite the history of the nation.
The government of Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi had quietly appointed the committee of scholars about six months earlier. Details of its existence are reported here for the first time.
Minutes of the meeting and interviews with committee members set out its aims: to use evidence such as archaeological finds and DNA to prove that today's Hindus are directly descended from the land's first inhabitants many thousands of years ago, and make the case that ancient Hindu scriptures are fact not myth.
-----
I look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
