April 11, 2019 Edition.
-----
Trump is being his appalling worst trying to heavy pretty much everyone while claiming vast victories. This week we are all more persuaded he is not a reliable ally and I reckon that should worry us a lot.
Brexit is now destroying a once great nation and I fear it will not recover sadly. The once great and really quite worthwhile nation that gave us the Enlightenment and the Industrial Age has really fallen low indeed. Just today the whole process has been extended to Oct 31 - Halloween! What a total fiasco.
The General Election has been announced for the 18th of May. With the odds being $1.17 to $4.50 for the Coalition I suspect we know what will happen!
-----
Major Issues.
Melbourne price falls eclipse early '90s recession
Apr 1, 2019 — 10.26am
Melbourne's property downturn has now eclipsed the house price falls recorded during the 1989 to 1991 recession when dwelling values fell 10 per cent, as prices continued to fall across the country in March.
Sydney led the falls over the month with dwelling values dropping 0.9 per cent, followed by Melbourne where prices decreased by 0.8 per cent.
Sydney prices have now fallen 13.9 per cent since their peak in July 2017 and Melbourne's property market is down 10.7 per cent since its peak a few months later in November 2017. Nationally, prices have fallen 7.4 per cent.
-----
Sydney prices head for 10pc fall
Mar 31, 2019 — 4.40pm
Auction clearance rates remain weak and Sydney prices are tracking to be down more than 10 per cent in the year to March while Melbourne is down 9 per cent.
Corelogic reported a preliminary rate of 66 per cent for Sydney and 53 per cent for Melbourne but experts said these rates were misleading due to a high number of unreported auctions and withdrawals of auctions.
Adjusting for these anomalies using a methodology suggested by Westpac, auction clearance rates for Sydney and Melbourne would more likely to be around mid 50 per cent, and under 50 per cent respectively.
-----
Economists now see rates on hold this year
Apr 1, 2019 — 12.00am
Market economists have trimmed their rate forecasts and are expecting a stable cash rate for 2019 but do not expect a cut, The Australian Financial Review's quarterly economist survey has revealed.
The March survey showed that economists were decidedly more downbeat on growth compared to just three months ago, when they expected GDP to reach 2.70 per cent by the end of June – by the end of March that forecast had fallen to 2.20 per cent.
Economists trimmed back interest rate forecasts, with the median reading from survey respondents now expecting the cash rate to stay on hold at 1.5 per cent though 2019. In January, economists had expected the cash rate to rise to 1.75 per cent by the end of December.
-----
The budget's getting better, but the economy's getting worse
By Ross Gittins
April 1, 2019 — 12.00am
Why would a government that boasts of its superior economic management be entering an election campaign with a budget warning of harder economic times ahead? Because it has no choice.
It will turn this admission of a bleaker economic outlook – with a slowdown in the global economy and, domestically, the risk that falling house prices could further weaken consumer spending – into a warning that now is just the wrong time to turn the economy over to those bunglers in the Labor Party, but this will be making the best of a bad deal.
There’s nothing new about a big give-away pre-election budget, but the budget we’ll see on Tuesday night will be different in several respects. For one thing, it’s not often you get a full budget that’s timed to be the kick-off of a six-week election campaign.
-----
US ambassador issues reminder on Australia's 'most important economic partner'
By Nathan Hondros
March 29, 2019 — 5.12pm
The United States' newly appointed ambassador to Australia has used a speech in Perth to issue a reminder that the US remains our "most important economic partner".
In his first major speech since taking up the post earlier this month, Arthur 'A.B.' Culvahouse said the strength of the economic relationship between the two nations was at times taken for granted.
But the two-way investment relationship between Australia and the United States totalled $1.6 trillion, almost as much as the total of Australia's Gross Domestic Profit.
-----
What does an ALP government mean for individual investors?
Crestone Wealth Management
Australia heads to the polls this year for a federal election, most likely on 11 or 18 May. While voting intentions tend to narrow and tilt toward the incumbent as polling day draws closer, current voting intentions suggest there will be a change in government this year from the Liberal National Coalition (LNP) to the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
The ALP’s proposals are expected to result in considerable superannuation and tax changes which would have a wide-ranging impact on some clients. Due to the complex nature of these proposals and the considerable level of changes, coupled with the timing of the election, it is unlikely they would come into effect before mid-2020.
While there is no single or obvious strategy that would deal with the changes being proposed by the ALP, investors are advised to use this as an opportunity to review their current strategy with their investment adviser.
-----
How a Labor win would affect sharemarket investments
Stewart Oldfield
Apr 2, 2019 — 8.57am
Listed companies are toning down comments about their profit outlooks in an election year, adding a fresh challenge to investors considering a reset of their portfolios for a likely change of government in Canberra.
Reece Birtles, chief investment officer at Martin Currie Australia, says the recent reporting season was clouded by the negative sentiment coming from politics and other factors.
“With all the insecurity in the lead up to the election, companies are very wary of sticking their necks out and say anything positive,’’ he says.
-----
Labor's emissions policy does not have to be a carbon tax to have a cost
By David Crowe
April 2, 2019 — 12.00am
Bill Shorten’s new climate change policy asks Australian companies to make a huge effort to cut their greenhouse gas emissions in a way that is certain to come at a cost.
Industrial polluters will have to pay to bring down their emissions or buy permits to meet Labor’s ambition to reduce emissions by 45 per cent by 2030, and some of them will have to pass these costs on to customers.
This does not make it a carbon tax. The semantic debate over a "tax" has poisoned Australian debate on energy and climate for too long. It is about time the policies were examined without resort to stale political soundbites.
-----
Retail woes spread to online sales: NAB
- April 2, 2019
Retail weakness appears to be flowing through to online sales, with an index falling 3.4 per cent in February to its lowest level on record.
Overall, transaction volumes are growing but the average spend per transaction is falling, according to the latest NAB Online Retail Sales Index, which in year-on-year terms was up just 0.5 per cent.
“With the effect of the November sales events now passed, it appears that broader weakness in retail is flowing through to online,” NAB chief economist Alan Oster said.
-----
8 investing myths that could cost you money
Tom Stevenson
Apr 2, 2019 — 11.43am
Sixty-two years ago on April 1, the BBC's Panorama program aired one of the great April Fool's jokes. The report showed farmers apparently picking spaghetti from trees, and laying it out to dry. It allegedly fooled even the BBC's director-general and prompted a bout of hand-wringing in the papers.
There are plenty of myths peddled as truths in the investing world. AP
We like to think we're a bit more worldly-wise today, but fake news has not disappeared. Even when they are not presented as a wilful deception, there are plenty of myths peddled as truth.
-----
$US3.3 trillion of global debt starts to tip the scale
Robert Burgess
Apr 3, 2019 — 11.47am
Of all the reasons given for the slowdown in the global economy, it seems the world's ballooning debt load has fallen to near the bottom of the list. Perhaps it's because interest rates haven't shot higher as many expected, but high debt has other negative implications that may now be coming to light.
In 2012, Carmen Reinhart, Vincent Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff wrote in a paper published on the US National Bureau of Economic Research's website that economies with high debt could face "massive" losses of output lasting more than a decade, even if interest rates remained low.
Could that be happening now? A US Commerce Department report showed on Tuesday that the three-month annualised rate of change in new orders for non-defence capital goods, excluding aircraft – a series that gives insight into capital spending without undue volatility from aircraft orders – declined for the fourth consecutive month.
-----
Feeble defence is still our nation’s shame
- 12:00AM April 4, 2019
Once again we have embarked on a federal budget and an election campaign without the single most important issue — the defence of Australia — playing the slightest role. Speaking technically, that’s completely nuts.
Let me digress. I owe my nodding acquaintance with the works of Anton Chekhov to Bob Carr.
Perhaps nothing could be quite so salutary for Australians at this moment as reading these beautiful plays and short stories.
They deal predominantly with the Russian gentry — not the aristocracy and not the peasants. In other words, as near as Russia had to a middle class.
-----
Australia isn't becoming more tolerant
The popularity of the populist right points to an uncomfortable truth that both major political parties will have to confront in next month's federal poll.
Apr 5, 2019 — 10.30am
The first topic David Leyonhjelm wanted to talk about after concluding last week that his gambit to switch from the Senate to the NSW upper house had succeeded was the worst crime in modern Australian history.
Port Arthur, where 35 people were murdered in 1996, is a tragedy the 67-year-old libertarian wonders about: was it carried out by just Martin Bryant?
"All I know is there are questions about how could a guy with an IQ of 66, with a limited number of shots, be so accurate," Leyonhjelm tells AFR Weekend. "An inquiry would put that one to bed."
-----
It's going to be a bare knuckle fight to the finish
Stability at the top has encourage Labor to take risks on policy but has left it open to attack.
Apr 4, 2019 — 9.31pm
The sight of Finance Minister Mathias Cormann standing alongside Treasurer Josh Frydenberg at this week's budget lock-up press conference was a sobering reminder of the upheaval that has plagued the Coalition since it won power almost six years ago.
For Cormann, it was his sixth budget. For Frydenberg, it was his first.
As the Coalition nears the end of its second term in office, Cormann is an aberration. He is just one of two members of the 30-strong executive who has held the same job for the duration of this government. The other is Indigenous Affairs Minister Nigel Scullion, who is retiring at the election.
-----
Franking credit removal 'inequitable': inquiry
Matthew Cranston
Apr 4, 2019 — 7.43pm
Labor's policy to remove refundable franking credits for individuals and self managed super funds is "inequitable and deeply flawed" a parliamentary inquiry has found.
The inquiry, set up by the Coalition government and chaired by Liberal MP Tim Wilson, received 1777 submissions and has now delivered its final report recommending against the removal of refundable franking credits.
"The committee has considered the case for removing refundable franking credits for individuals and SMSFs and is of the view the policy is inequitable and deeply flawed," Mr Wilson said.
-----
Labor's negative gearing plan could deter investors
Apr 4, 2019 — 3.13pm
Sudath Arumapperuma says he will switch from investing in property to shares if a future Labor government scraps negative gearing for existing dwellings.
Sudath, an academic with three investment properties, claims losing generous tax concessions would no longer make it worth the effort, risk and expense of renting out properties.
“You never hear property investors talking about the downside of owning property,” the finance and economics lecturer says. “But if you cannot find a good tenant, it is a big headache.”
-----
Farewell to what was a truly weird Parliament
By Tony Wright
April 4, 2019 — 7.45pm
It might have seemed the weirdest end to a parliamentary period ... but these last years in Australia’s political circus have been so littered with crazy that the abnormal has become normal.
Duncan Spender - you have no real need to remember the name, unless you are addicted to obscure trivia - rose in the Senate on Wednesday evening to deliver his first speech.
It was his first day physically occupying a bench in the Senate.
His first speech, however, doubled as his valedictory, the fancy parliamentary word for see-you-later.
-----
How the election will affect your hip pocket
With the federal election just around the corner, this budget is more of a re-election pitch for the Coalition. But households can still expect windfalls as a result of the cash splash.
Apr 5, 2019 — 8.00pm
This year's federal budget should be read as an election pitch for the Coalition, and closer attention should be paid to Labor's "shadow reply" for any immediate impact on individual finances given big expectations of a change of government.
So says Cameron Harrison partner Anne-Marie Tassoni. "Unlike prior years' budget, there's no expectation this budget will come into effect," she adds. "It's a pre-election budget, meaning it's a budget that's going to be voted on by the people."
Households can expect small, quick sweeteners such as a tax offset for low to middle income earners and a one-off energy payment, but high-income households are likely to miss out on the windfalls from the proposed income tax cuts unless the Coalition wins the election.
-----
Cloud hangs over markets ahead of election
Apr 6, 2019 — 12.00am
Uncertainty around what a new government will mean for markets is leaving investors cautious ahead of the election. While both parties are relatively aligned on healthcare, infrastructure and tax cuts, they differ markedly on changes to excess franking credits, negative gearing and climate policy.
"What's different in this election is the Opposition has a much better sense of formed policies as opposed to being just ideas," says Crestone Wealth Management chief investment officer Scott Haslem.
"The laundry list of policies for the Opposition is longer and more significant than we've seen in the past. But elections do bring uncertainty for investors."
-----
A stark election choice
The battle lines on which this looming election will be fought by the Morrison government and Shorten opposition are patently clear.
Apr 6, 2019 — 12.00am
Key Points
- Labor is for more redistribution to fund public education, health and action on climate change, as well as increased government intervention and union power in the labour market to assist the lower paid.
- Scott Morrison says the election is fundmentally a philosophical contest between the Coalition backing "effort and enterprise"
With a federal election imminent, Australians face one of the starkest choices in political leadership and policies since Gough Whitlam dramatically expanded the social welfare net in the early 1970s.
Bill Shorten is offering a switch to a higher-taxing, higher-spending Labor government, promising to change Australia’s social fabric to deliver a more equitable and progressive society.
The alternative vision from a wounded Coalition government seeking a third term is less redistribution than Labor and empowering individuals to deliver prosperity.
-----
Ray Dalio sounds alarm on capitalism's flaws
Erik Schatzker
Apr 6, 2019 — 6.54am
New York | Ray Dalio, the billionaire founder of the world's biggest hedge fund, said he believes flaws in American capitalism have created destructive and self-reinforcing gaps in education, social mobility, assets and income - and the result could be another revolution.
Writing in a new essay, the Bridgewater Associates co-chairman points to statistics showing the bottom 60 per cent of income-earners in the US keep falling further behind the top 40 per cent.
One example: Those in the upper group have on average 10 times more wealth than the rest, up from six times in 1980. Another: Health among the poor is declining overall and American men earning the least probably will die 10 years earlier than those making the most.
-----
Morrison has had one miracle – and now he needs another
By Peter Hartcher
April 6, 2019 — 12.00am
The Coalition government spent the past three years shut away in a room in a non-stop branch meeting with its right wing. Now, with an election imminent, it has emerged blinking into the daylight in a last-minute rush to find Australia's political centre.
It's discovering, to its alarm, that the Labor Party was already there. It's been three years since the Coalition has been ahead in the polls. Preoccupied with its so-called "base", it forgot that it cannot win an election without a much bigger structure.
Mistaking Murdoch for the mainstream and Alan Jones for the man in the street, it narrowcast and forgot to broadcast. Enjoying the ease of talking to the minority that already agreed with it, the government neglected the millions that did not.
To win a general election, it's not enough to impress a clique. You need to win over a country.
-----
Labor’s budget platform worries economists
12:00AM April 6, 2019
Bill Shorten laid out a “vastly different” economic agenda to the Morrison government in his budget reply, according to senior economists, who have warned that uncertainty about the passage of key tax measures through the Senate could prolong housing market weakness.
The Opposition Leader promised to redirect up to $2000 in Coalition tax cuts from workers earning more than $120,000 and funnel the money to people earning less than $48,000.
Me Shorten also promised to restore $1 billion in TAFE funding to address critical skills shortages, while revealing he would match the Coalition’s tax cuts for 10 million people and provide bigger tax refunds for a further 3.6 million workers on low incomes.
-----
Coalition sounds bugle for a dignified retreat
- 12:00AM April 6, 2019
The government has obviously given up. Good idea.
In his National Press Club speech this week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said: “We are delivering a surplus. In 2019-20, the surplus is $7.1 billion. Over the forward estimates, surpluses will be $45bn.”
Yeah, right. Over the past 10 years, the average difference between the budget forecast and the final budget outcome, published three months after the end of each fiscal year, has been $12.76bn.
That’s the average miss over the past 10 years, and it’s almost half the average budget balance. That might help explain why we’ve had five prime ministers during that period, although there is never anything made of the outcome versus budget forecast as each year closes, and a 50 per cent budget miss doesn’t seem a sackable offence in politics, as it would be in corporate land.
-----
Not even trying to remember passwords is the best strategy there is
By Richard Castles
April 6, 2019 — 11.40pm
When we were kids, my siblings and I had a secret hideout in a hollow in a bush. We had a password to get in. Forty years later, I can still remember the password: “slot machine”. Simple, memorable, effective. I wish the same could be said for my online passwords today.
Of course, the password was just something we said to enter and discover there wasn’t much to do inside a bush. And not a single person who wasn’t privy to the code ever even came to the entrance.
Yet there was a certain Famous Five romance to having a password, a clubhouse secrecy that fed our love of codes and invisible ink and maps and buried treasure, and eventually Dan Brown books.
-----
What is Australian culture now?
- The Weekend Australian Magazine
- 12:00AM April 6, 2019
There was a time when we Australians knew who we were and how we fitted into the broader scheme of things. We were a British colony, a remote part of a great empire. But following the disasters of Gallipoli and the Somme, and having naively placed our faith in the protective bulwark of Singapore in 1942, we shifted our allegiance from Britain to America. Within a generation our language had morphed to reflect the idiosyncrasies of our new protectors, so that guys replaced blokes and embarrassing terms like sheila simply disappeared from common usage. I cannot recall anyone in my lifetime using the term bonza in anything other than an ironic or comedic context.
We have readily absorbed other cultural influences as well. The Greeks and Italians shifted our palates from tea to coffee and introduced us to the kiss on the cheek as a form of social greeting. (I wonder whether this century’s immigrants from India and China will shift our preferences back to tea?)
It’s as if Australian culture is soft and malleable; we’re a mightily suggestable people. Americans are unimpressed by anything outside America. We Australians are impressed by everything outside Australia. We’re ever ready to absorb other cultures, especially where we think a behavioural trait might reflect material success or cultural sophistication. We’re kinda needy, that way.
-----
Royal Commissions And Similar.
Cost of ageing population soars, now to surpass Medicare by 2028
By Eryk Bagshaw
April 1, 2019 — 5.28pm
The cost of Australia's ageing population will eclipse Medicare three years earlier than expected, as baby-boomers retire and the cost of the aged pension, aged care and health balloons to more than $36 billion a year.
In a warning the day before Treasurer Josh Frydenberg officially cuts Australia's migration cap by 30,000 a year in Tuesday's budget, one of the government's top independent advisors found migrants have softened the costs of the ageing population and had a "profound influence on Australia’s population structure".
"Changes during the next couple of decades will be particularly significant," the Parliamentary Budget Office found, as Australians born between 1946 and 1964 move from retirement, to aged care and then die out.
"The ageing of the baby boomer generation will affect the budget in waves."
-----
How can we heal aged care when funding relies on us staying sick?
By Chris Mamarelis
April 4, 2019 — 12.00am
Today we’re able to live our senior years healthier and more active than ever previously thought possible, and as such society’s outlook and expectations of quality of life post-retirement has evolved significantly. So, the idea that the role of the aged care provider is to sustain life through basic clinical care and accommodation is an outdated one.
Tuesday night’s federal budget included an announcement of $724.8 million over five years for measures to improve access to care and quality of care and, with the recent announcement of a $662 million aged care funding boost committed, has brought much needed hope – and overdue attention – to the aged care industry.
We have an aged-care conundrum when funding relies on being sick rather than well.
-----
Off to an election with a royal commission that's 'above politics'
By Tony Wright
April 6, 2019 — 12.15am
Even at the very end of this desolate 45th parliament, with an election about to burst upon the nation, Prime Minister Scott Morrison took to his courtyard to announce with a tear in his eye another of those big moments he had appeared to resist until it was forced upon him.
In the dying days of last year’s cheerless parliamentary sessions, on December 4, Morrison’s Coalition senators were instructed to vote against a proposal for a royal commission into the abuse and neglect of the disabled.
In the first week of Parliament this year, on February 14, they got exactly the same direction
-----
National Budget Issues.
Why cash handouts are bad policy
Mar 31, 2019 — 1.44pm
Cash handouts for power bills expose the swelling cost of the Coalition’s botched energy policies and a government losing fiscal discipline entering the election.
The cash splash on low income earners, flagged by The Australian Financial Review in January, may be good politics but it is poor economies.
The best way to fix sky high electricity prices and to deliver sustained household income increases is a coherent energy and tax reform agenda.
-----
Reserve Bank will be acting too late to stop an Australian recession
Matthew Haupt
Apr 1, 2019 — 10.28am
Key Statistics
- 30% Mortgage repayment increases when interest-only loans mature.
- 189% Households’ debt-to-income ratio, an all-time high.
After 27 years, the Australian economy is finally facing a recession. Neither monetary nor fiscal policy look set to save it and yet again we appear highly dependent on a Chinese surprise.
The outlook for the Australian economy is bleak. Gross domestic product and consumption growth are expected to fall. The recent decline in house prices will almost certainly continue alongside the six year-long stagnation in real wage growth.
Against this backdrop, the bond market’s expectations of more than one interest rate cut in 2019 are now echoed by economists, corporates and equity investors, while the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has remained tellingly silent until last month, when it opened the door to speculation.
-----
Federal Budget 2019: Josh Frydenberg's $302b election cash splash
Updated Apr 2, 2019 — 9.48pm, first published at 7.30pm
The Morrison government has pinned its re-election hopes on a $302 billion package of tax cuts to be rolled out over the next decade, unveiled in a budget that forecasts a surplus for the first time in 12 years and proposes paying off net debt by the end of next decade.
The budget, handed down just days before Prime Minister Scott Morrison calls an election for mid-May, also squirrels away $3.2 billion in spending for the election campaign under the heading "decisions taken but not yet announced', matches Labor's tax cut pledge for 10 million people on low and middle incomes, and seeks to neutralise other key strengths of the Opposition
These are health, skills and business tax write-offs. The budget also tries to help the Nationals with a sizeable proportion of the $100 billion infrastructure spend dedicated to the regions.
-----
Federal budget 2019: Winners and losers
Updated Apr 2, 2019 — 7.40pm, first published at 7.30pm
WINNERS
Future generations - The budget forecasts a return to surplus of $7.1 billion by 2019-20, after more than a decade of deficits since the global financal crisis.
Individual taxpayers - The budget promises a $302 billion package of personal tax cuts to be rolled out over the next decade.
The Australian Financial Review's Boss editor Sally Patten weighs in on tax and superannuation in the government's 'good for consumers' budget.
Middle and low-income earners - Middle and low-income tax earners will get a tax offset of up to $1080 for single earners or up to $2160 for dual income families.
-----
Federal Budget 2019: Josh Frydenberg's play for the federal election - more spending and more tax cuts
By Ross Gittins
Updated April 2, 2019 — 8.30pmfirst published at 7.30pm
Set aside the politics, focus on the economy's immediate needs, and this is a good budget – though, with less politics and more economics, it could have been better.
Viewed through a political lens, this is the classic budget of a government that knows it has only a slim chance of winning the looming election but also knows it has little to lose by abandoning its stated policies and promising more government spending and yet more tax cuts.
Josh Frydenberg has given a taste of what we can expect in tonight's federal budget - his first as Treasurer.
-----
Federal Budget 2019: Josh Frydenberg's $7.1 billion surplus has to be seen to be believed
By Peter Hartcher
Updated April 2, 2019 — 9.46pm first published at 7.30pm
There's an underlying political panic in this election-eve budget, like a scrabbling rodent running around inside, but it's caged in by just enough economic responsibility to keep it presentable.
It's not a blueprint for an ambitious reforming government but more like a lotto results sheet where favoured constituencies can find their winning numbers.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's first budget is more than just a budget - it's the start of an election campaign.
-----
Labor vows to restore 'temporary' deficit levy
Apr 3, 2019 — 4.12pm
Key Points
- Workers earning more than $180,000 would pay extra 2 per cent tax under Labor
- Temporary deficit would be imposed until at least 2023
- Stays in place until budget surplus reaches 1 per cent of GDP
Shadow treasurer Chris Bowen is persisting with plans to slug high income earners by reimposing the "temporary" deficit levy despite the budget heading back into the black in 2019-20.
Despite Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announcing a $7.1 billion surplus for next financial year - the first in 12 years - Mr Bowen defended Labor's policy, saying reviving the 2 per cent levy was necessary to continue the task of budget repair.
He said Labor would reinstate the levy on people earning more than $180,000 a year and would remain until the surplus equalled 1 per cent of gross domestic product, which he anticipated would be 2023 under Labor.
-----
https://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/good-budget-leaves-desperate-mps-downcast-20190403-p51a73
Good budget leaves desperate MPs downcast
Apr 3, 2019 — 7.00pm
Typically, good budgets disappear quickly while bad ones linger like a bad smell.
Tuesday's offering started to disappear by mid-afternoon Wednesday, evidenced by Labor moving to other topics half-way through Question Time.
Scott Morrison spent one radio interview talking in unflattering terms about Labor's climate change policy rather than spruiking his budget.
But it was unclear whether a rapidly fading budget was a good thing, maybe because its key features - tax cuts, a surplus and infrastructure - had been so extensively telegraphed. All that was new on Tuesday were the numbers.
-----
Shorten gets the last word on the budget
What Labor is offering will be attractive to many and one suspects the budget reply was just a down payment on more to come.
Phillip CooreyPolitical Editor
Apr 4, 2019 — 7.52pm
It was always risky bringing the budget forward to act as an election springboard because that would hand Bill Shorten the last word before formal hostilities began.
As expected – and as he did last year when everyone thought that was the pre-election budget – Shorten dipped into the revenue war chest Labor anticipates it will have from its various tax promises, which include changes to negative gearing, franking credits, capital gains tax and an increased top marginal tax rate.
These measures are forecast to raise about $200 billion over a decade and more than $30 billion over the forward estimates.
By rejecting stages two and three of the tax cuts announced in the budget, Shorten can add another $150 billion - at least - to the 10-year figure.
-----
Health Issues.
Insurers fork out $30m to help sell consumers on private health reforms
- 12:00AM April 1, 2019
Australia’s private health insurance industry is spending more than $30 million to implement Morrison government reforms aimed at improving transparency for consumers and addressing affordability concerns.
A key reform to come into effect today is the introduction of gold, silver, bronze and basic tiers, which were designed to make it easier to understand and compare private health insurance.
Australia’s largest health insurer, Medibank, had previously flagged that it would book a one-off cost of about $20 million to implement the reforms, which include a discount of up to 10 per cent for younger Australians, greater access for mental health services and travel and accommodation benefits for people in regional and rural areas.
Medibank chief customer officer David Koczkar said the changes — billed as the biggest shake-up of the industry in almost two decades — involved a lot of planning.
-----
Pregnant women warned about potentially devastating virus that harms babies
By Kate Aubusson
Updated April 1, 2019 — 12.37am first published March 31, 2019 — 2.00pm
All pregnant women and women trying to conceive should be warned about cytomegalovirus (CMV) and taught how to protect their babies from its potentially devastating effects, Australia’s peak body for obstetricians and gynaecologists said.
For the first time, the Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG) have released official recommendations for the prevention of CMV infection.
The herpes-like virus is transmitted through bodily fluids such as saliva, tears, urine and breast milk is typically harmless in healthy people, with 85 per cent of the population contracting CMV at some point in their lifetime.
-----
Cover rises as rebate shrinks
- 12:00AM April 1, 2019
Health fund members who are eligible for the insurance rebate are receiving less of a subsidy each year, and fewer members are qualifying for the maximum assistance available, as government restrictions continue to exacerbate rising premiums.
The ongoing squeeze on members, particularly working families, comes as health funds start to roll out reforms meant to add value and provide greater transparency over their policies.
Premiums will rise today by an industry-weighted average of 3.25 per cent, while the base rebate will again erode under restrictions introduced by the former Labor government and maintained by the Coalition.
The base rebate will fall to 25.06 per cent for under-65s earning $90,000 or less on a single policy or $180,000 or less on a couples policy.
-----
Ageing a $36b hit to the budget within the next decade
Matthew Cranston
Apr 1, 2019 — 6.07pm
Key Statistics
- $20bn$20 billion in reduced revenue as a result of fewer people participating in the workforce.
- $16bn$16 billion in increased spending mainly through welfare and aged care.
- 0.4ppts Ageing population is projected to subtract 0.4 percentage points from the annual real growth in revenue.
A warning has been issued to politicians drawing up federal budgets that within the next decade Australia's ageing population is projected to reduce the budget balance by around $36 billion.
Newly released figures by the Parliamentary Budget Office show that revenue is projected to fall by around $20 billion as a result of fewer people participating in the workforce and paying tax, while spending is expected to increase by around $16 billion mainly through welfare and aged care.
The figures released a day before the federal budget are another stark warning about the need for fiscal discipline now to avoid serious issues for future generations.
-----
Clampdown looms to halt opioid ‘epidemic’
- 12:00AM April 2, 2019
Health authorities will decide within months whether Australia should clamp down on powerful painkillers to avoid a US-style opioid-addiction crisis.
A year after restricting access to codeine, the Therapeutic Goods Administration is considering its options in relation to stronger drugs such as oxycodone, fentanyl and pethidine.
In the US, oxycodone, also known as “hillbilly heroin”, and, more recently, fentanyl, have been blamed for an increase in addiction and overdose. The TGA is concerned Australia is “trending down a similar path”.
Prescriptions of opioids are increasing and, according to the latest official data, annual deaths involving opioids nearly doubled, to 1119, in the decade to 2016.
-----
Federal Budget 2019: Medicare freeze end just what the doctor ordered
Updated Apr 2, 2019 — 7.41pm, first published at 7.30pm
Health Minister Greg Hunt has moved to neutralise one of Labor's key promises on health and make peace with the powerful doctors' lobby by bringing forward the end of a freeze on Medicare rebates.
Beginning on July 1, the indexation of rebates for the remaining 119 general practitioner item numbers on the Medical Benefits Schedule will be reintroduced, costing the budget $187.2 million over four years.
And as part of easing the burden on patients and to rein in health insurance premiums, specialists face being named and shamed and have their fees and out-of-pocket costs publicly revealed.
-----
2019 Federal Budget — what’s in it for us?
Wednesday, 03 April, 2019
The 2019 Federal Budget has been released with billions of dollars committed to the health- and aged-care sectors. The following summarises the key budgetary offerings in these sectors and some reactions from industry leaders.
Tackling the cost of care
The government has committed to:
- Create a $1.1 billion Strengthening Primary Care package, including $448 million for high needs patients, and $187 million to increase the patient rebate for a further 119 GP items on the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) from 1 July 2019.
- Reduce the cost of MRIs for over 14,000 breast cancer patients with a further $32.6 million and invest $152 million in new MRI licences, bringing total funding since 2018 to $379 million for 53 new MRI licences nationally.
- Increase in funding for public hospitals, including $100 million for a Comprehensive Children’s Cancer Centre in Sydney, $80 million to establish a Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy in Victoria and $30 million for the construction of a new Brain and Spinal Ward in South Australia.
-----
Targeted investment to make impact on chronic illness
- 12:00AM April 3, 2019
Doctors will get more funding to help older Australians manage chronic illness, mental healthcare providers will be able to reach more people in need, and researchers will benefit from a 10-year grants program.
In its $104 billion health budget, the Morrison government has made targeted investments in Medicare, but also brought forward the restoration of indexation for 176 GP items to July 1. Thawing that aspect of the Medicare freeze six months early will cost $187.2 million, but comes as the Coalition faces calls from health groups for higher rebates and the prospect of another Labor “Mediscare” campaign.
While the government has yet to decide the fate of the healthcare homes initiative, or respond to primary care proposals from its Medicare review, it has allocated $201.5m more for practice incentive payments.
-----
Lesson learned: landmines left for next administration
- 12:00AM April 3, 2019
This isn’t just an election budget, it is a budget that anticipates an election loss. Taking a leaf out of the Labor playbook, the Coalition is preparing for opposition with a series of challenges in health, hoping for an early return to government.
For five years, the Shorten opposition has punished the Coalition for retreating from Labor’s proposed public hospital funding formula and meddling with Medicare.
Politically, the Coalition appears to have learned its lesson. Gone are the health cuts of 2014 — still contributing $2 billion a year to the Medical Research Future Fund — and here are some wound-soothing investments. Growth in Medicare expenditure will increase more after the election.
-----
Budget gives booster shot for listed healthcare companies, say analysts
- 1:39PM April 3, 2019
Australia’s listed healthcare companies are set to enjoy a lift in profit thanks to the Morrison government’s budget delivering extra funding to the sector.
Industry analysts highlighted that a boost for domestic health providers was the $1.1 billion lift in primary care funding and a $309 million commitment to imaging.
Analysts all outlined that primary healthcare provider Healius (HLS) and imaging and diagnostic provider Sonic Healthcare (SHL) should be clear beneficiaries of these funding initiatives.
Shares in Sonic are up just over one per cent at $24.78, while Healius is enjoying a small lift at $2.72.
-----
'Full as soon as they open': Experts warn new adult Headspace centres not enough
By Dana McCauley
April 3, 2019 — 11.45pm
The Morrison government's plan to roll out eight Headspace-style centres for adults will simply create another "access point" to a mental health system that lacks appropriate services, experts have warned, calling for structural reform to prevent thousands of suicides each year.
"You can't just have more and more open doors when there's nothing behind the door," psychiatrist Ian Hickie from Sydney University's Brain and Mind Centre said.
Professor Hickie said the eight adult mental health centres announced in Tuesday's Federal Budget would be "full as soon as they open their doors" - but questioned whether they would help reverse Australia's escalating suicide rate, which hit 3128 deaths in 2017.
"What's lacking are sophisticated services that are easily accessible and organised," he said.
-----
Details tricky in foreign GP clampdown
- 12:00AM April 4, 2019
Doubts have been raised within the federal bureaucracy about the nature of a clampdown on the use of overseas-trained GPs in city clinics and whether there might be unforeseen consequences.
In the last budget, the government announced plans to reduce the number of visas given to overseas-trained, city-bound GPs by 200 a year, as part of a broader workforce rebalancing effort that also involved more rural training and career incentives.
The explanation given for the visa clampdown was the need to provide local medical graduates with more job opportunities, reduce reliance on imported GPs and address overservicing in metropolitan areas, saving $415.5 million in Medicare billing.
-----
Australia under pressure to ban textured breast implants over cancer concerns
By Kate Aubusson
April 5, 2019 — 9.16am
Australia is under pressure to ban textured breast implants as France, Canada and the Netherlands move to outlaw the popular implants linked to a rare form of cancer.
The Australian regulatory body for therapeutic goods, the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), will convene an urgent meeting next week after French medical regulator - National Agency for the Safety of Medicine and Health Products (ANSM) - banned seven brands of macro-textured and polyurethane implants to reduce the risk of anaplastic large cell lymphoma (ALCL).
Canada and the Netherlands are poised to enact similar bans.
On Thursday, a TGA spokesperson said an expert panel advised there was insufficient evidence to warrant regulatory action.
-----
No serious reform
- 6:45AM April 5, 2019
It is one thing to help cancer patients with the high and often confusing cost of treatment. But it is another thing to spend your way out of having to implement real reform — and presenting it as the biggest thing since Medicare.
Three years ago, it was Malcolm Turnbull who claimed to be delivering one of the biggest reforms since Medicare, the Health Care Homes initiative that is now withering on the vine. Labor has rightly scoffed every time the initiative suffered a setback.
Tonight, it is Labor promising one of the biggest reforms since Medicare, through a cancer package that involved almost less reform than Health Care Homes, but a lot more public funding.
Both sides had already promised to restore indexation on Medicare rebates for diagnostic imaging, so much so that the lobbyists in the sector appeared willing to cease their long-running political campaign for more money. Labor is now offering a bonus, hopefully for patients, through the promise of bulk-billed cancer scans.
-----
Health sector winners no matter who takes the election
Apr 5, 2019 — 3.42pm
Prime Minister hopeful Bill Shorten used his budget reply speech on Thursday night to slash out-of-pocket costs for patients, promising a $2.5 billion funding injection into a Medicare cancer program.
Shorten – who said "all too often treating cancer is impoverishing" – has made a virtue of spending up, while raising taxes. Over the next four years he would guarantee free or low-cost treatment for all cancer sufferers.
The Opposition leader dubbed the cash splash on the cancer plan the most "important investment in Medicare since Bob Hawke created it".
Shorten pledged that if Labor wins the election, six million cancer scans over four years, including MRIs, will be paid for. Further, three million appointments with specialists, like oncologists, will also be covered.
-----
Doctors forced to bulk bill to get Labor's Medicare cancer rebate
Apr 5, 2019 — 4.08pm
Labor will stop specialists from gouging taxpayers over its promise to provide 3 million free cancer consultations by forcing them to bulk bill patients.
The opposition is dismissing fears doctors will raise their fees with impunity in the knowledge Canberra will cover the bill, causing a cost blow-out.
Under the $2.3 billion cancer plan, unveiled as the centrepiece of Bill Shorten's budget reply, $433 million will be spent providing 3 million consultations by oncologists and surgeons.
A new Medicare item will be created, with the rebate worth about $150, but to claim it, specialists will need to bulk bill their patient so they are not saddled with out-of-pocket costs.
-----
Concern about 'missing' 10,000 aged care places
Apr 6, 2019 — 12.05am
The federal government made a late decision to withdraw 10,000 extra home care places from Tuesday's federal budget, prompting warnings from the aged care sector that this would only increase costs for the taxpayer.
Sources have told The Australian Financial Review that Tuesday's budget was expected to contain funding for another 10,000 places, on top of the 10,000 that were announced in February this year.
Instead, only the February packages, which cost $282 million, were "announced" in the budget.
The office of Health Minister Greg Hunt disputed the claim, which was verified by separate sources, that extra places were culled in the final days when the budget was prepared.
-----
Bill Shorten's $1 billion cancer-fighting election fund
By Dana McCauley
April 5, 2019 — 7.30pm
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten has carved out almost $1 billion of yet-to-be-announced cancer funding, setting up a health bidding war with the Coalition government.
With the federal election expected to be announced in the coming days, Mr Shorten has signalled a new approach for Labor as it shifts away from the previous "scare tactics" that drew criticism of its 2016 campaign.
It will allow Mr Shorten to push his message that Labor is "the party of Medicare", while giving candidates in key electorates the ability to unveil vote-winning commitments, as the opposition seeks to win as many seats from the government as possible.
-----
Self-harm 'contagion effect' among children and teens
By Kate Aubusson
April 7, 2019 — 12.00am
More than 4000 children and young people were hospitalised for self-harm in NSW over 12 months, it has been revealed, as school counsellors and psychologists grow increasingly concerned a "contagion effect" is driving an alarming trend.
Primary and secondary school students were among the 4074 young people who deliberately injured themselves so severely they needed to be admitted for treatment, according to hospitalisation data of 10-24 year-olds from July 2016 to June 2017.
The NSW Healthstats data includes a very small number of children younger than 10 years old. The data captures the most severe cases; the pointy end of a more pervasive problem.
-----
Labor’s $37.7m boost for kids with cancer
- April 7, 2019
Labor has unveiled a $37.7 million package for programs to support young Australians with cancer if it wins the election.
A Shorten government would give $24 million to continue CanTeen’s Youth Cancer Services program and would also create a $20 million Children’s Cancer Endowment Fund to support research, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and shadow health minister Catherine King said in a joint statement on Sunday. The endowment fund would include $10 million from the government and $10 million from the Children’s Cancer Foundation, and would fund research projects in children’s cancer.
“At least 1700 Australian children and young people are diagnosed with cancer each year. And tragically, cancer kills more children than any other disease,” the statement said.
-----
Anti-vaccination talk sways parents
- 12:00AM April 5, 2019
Parents may be susceptible to the anti-vaccination rhetoric of politicians, says Elissa Zhang from UNSW Medicine, lead author of a paper published in the journal BMJ Medicine last week. It followed a study on the views people had after watching vaccine messages from medical and political leaders.
“For this study, we showed over 400 Australian parents of children under five years negative vaccine-related messages from the United States President, Donald Trump, and Australian senator Pauline Hanson,” Zhang says.
“A positive vaccine message was shown from former Australian Medical Association president Dr Michael Gannon.”
-----
International Issues.
British cabinet close to collapse
- By Tim Shipman and Caroline Wheeler
- The Times
- March 31, 2019
Theresa May will be warned today that her government faces total collapse unless she passes her Brexit deal — as the Prime Minister’s aides were at loggerheads over whether to accept a soft Brexit or call a general election this week.
In an emergency conference call overnight Brexiteer cabinet ministers agreed they would resign if May accepted a customs union or got Tory MPs to vote for the UK to take part in European elections in May. They will deliver their threat when the Prime Minister consults her cabinet later today. More than half her Commons party, 170 MPs and ministers, have signed a letter telling May to pursue a no-deal departure from the EU rather than accept a soft Brexit. It also demands that she resign by May 22.
But May will face resignations from at least six cabinet ministers on the party’s remain wing if she backs no-deal. In a leaked email, the immigration minister Caroline Nokes, who attends cabinet, told a constituent May’s “deal is dead” and said she would prefer “no Brexit rather than crashing out”.
-----
Another critical week as Britain reaches last-chance saloon
Mar 31, 2019 — 2.44pm
London | Britain’s parliament will on Monday kick off the country’s last roll of the Brexit dice, capping a weekend of frantic negotiation and horse-trading by holding a second round of votes on a short-list of options for leaving the European Union, after no alternative won a majority last week.
But the votes may converge on one or more options that Prime Minister Theresa May can’t stomach: a softer Brexit – probably keeping the EU in a customs union, ruling out a comprehensive free-trade agreement with Australia – or a second referendum.
And another round of voting may well be needed on Wednesday, as many MPs are still too entrenched to compromise. But some lawmakers are holding out hope a consensus can be hammered out.
-----
The bond market shadow over Donald Trump’s re-election
Sam Fleming and Courtney Weaver
Apr 1, 2019 — 10.29am
Key Statistics
- 2.1%The US Federal Reserve’s GDP growth forecast for 2019
- 41.9% Donald Trump’s approval rating according to a poll tracker from FiveThirtyEight.com
- 98.4March Consumer Sentiment index, largest monthly improvement since October 2017
Washington | The Russia hoax is finally dead,” Donald Trump told an ecstatic rally on Thursday night (Friday AEDT) in Michigan. “The collusion delusion is over.”
The US president and his supporters believe he now has the wind at his back after the conclusion of Robert Mueller’s investigation. The fact that the special counsel did not press charges of a criminal conspiracy between Mr Trump’s 2016 campaign and Russia removes a serious obstacle to his 2020 re-election run.
Diehard advocates of the president were on the streets of New York last weekend marking “no collusion day”, while those Democrats who had raised the prospect of impeachment were forced to shelve those ambitions.
-----
The Tories need to believe in Britain again
Boris Johnson
Apr 1, 2019 — 9.22am
I reckon I speak for millions of people on all sides of the debate when I say that after almost three years of Brexit I am fit to burst with impatience. We cannot go on like this. We need to get on with it and to get it done.
We should really come out with no deal - now looking by far the best option; but if we cannot achieve that, then we need to get out, now, with an interim solution that most closely resembles what the people voted for, in the knowledge that - following the Prime Minister's decision to step down - we have at least the chance to fix it in the second phase of the negotiations.
Yes, it will be tough, and yes, it will mean we will need a very different approach. But it is absolutely essential now that we in the UK recover our courage and self-belief. We need to get Brexit done, because we have so much more to do, and so much more that unites the Conservative Party than divides us.
-----
Another day another blackout. Welcome to Venezuela
By Christopher Torchia
April 1, 2019 — 10.44am
Caracas: Another day, another blackout.
Power went out across Venezuela on Sunday, just as it did on Saturday, and the day before that.
But while some electricity had returned by Sunday afternoon, jittery Venezuelans weren't so much celebrating the lights coming on as wondering when the next outages would flick them off.
"No one can put up with this. We spend almost all day without electricity," said Karina Camacho, a 56-year-old housewife who was about to buy a chicken when electronic payment machines stopped working.
"There's been no water since (last) Monday, you can't call by phone, we can't pay with cards or even eat."
-----
How a TV comedian could have the last laugh in Ukraine
By Iuliia Mendel and Neil MacFarquhar
April 1, 2019 — 2.25pm
Kiev: A Ukrainian comedian who plays an accidental president on television delivered a walloping rebuke to the country's political class in the presidential election Sunday by emerging first in a crowded field of candidates, exit polls indicated.
The comedian, Volodymyr Zelensky, 41, captured more than 30 per cent of the vote, according to two authoritative exit polls. It was a strong showing by a maverick with no political experience, though far below the 50 per cent needed to win the first round outright.
If exit polls translate into real votes, Zelensky will face President Petro O Poroshenko, who emerged second with around 18 per cent, in a runoff in three weeks, on April 21. Yulia Tymoshenko, a former prime minister making her third bid for the presidency, was third with about 13 per cent.
-----
There's good news, bad news and worse news about Donald Trump
By Peter Hartcher
April 2, 2019 — 12.00am
The longer Donald Trump is in office, the longer it seems he’ll be staying in office. So we can stand down from impeachment watch. And instead look at how Trump’s changing the foundations that Australia relies on, and the alliance in particular.
"The important thing that people in Australia, for example, need to now realise is that we can’t safely assume that all this will pass," says Bruce Stokes, formerly at the Washington pollsters Pew Research, now an associate with Chatham House, a British think tank.
On the day that their talks in Hanoi collapsed last month, US President Donald Trump handed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a piece of paper that included a blunt call for the transfer of Pyongyang's nuclear weapons and bomb fuel to the United States
-----
Of redlines and Russians: How Venezuela could be Donald Trump's Syria
By David Sanger
April 2, 2019 — 6.51am
Washington: During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump often complained about how President Barack Obama drew red lines that he never enforced, and how a diminished America let Russia walk into Syria unchallenged, something he said would not happen if the Russian leader respected the US president.
Now, in Venezuela, Trump is facing his own redline moment — again, with Vladimir Putin of Russia.
For the past week, the Trump administration has escalated its warnings about Russian intervention in the country, claiming that Moscow is helping to prop up President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela and undermining the hopes of US officials that the Venezuelan military will oust him.
-----
Trump's trade war will backfire, IMF says
Updated Apr 4, 2019 — 8.28am, first published at 1.00am
Washington | The IMF has delivered a blunt rebuttal of Donald Trump's logic for starting a trade war with China, warning that if he retains or increases tariffs further it will hurt the US economy while doing little to narrow the trade deficit he fears.
An analysis by the Washington-based International Monetary Fund shows a 25 percentage point tariff increase on all US-China trade would ultimately be self-defeating.
Not only would it reduce GDP growth in the US and China by 0.6 and 1.5 percentage points, respectively, the US's total global trade balance would be little changed.
-----
Trump is unravelling before our eyes
By Jennifer Rubin
April 4, 2019 — 6.07am
Washington: Far too much media time has been devoted to mulling whether former Vice President Joe Biden, as svelte and vigorous as he has ever been and showing no sign of mental deterioration, is too old to run for president and not nearly enough considering whether President Donald Trump is.
In the past 24 hours, Trump - who will be 74 in November 2020 and is "tired," according to aides - has:
- Falsely declared multiple times that his father was born in Germany. (Fred Trump was born in New York.)
- Declared that wind turbines cause cancer.
- Confused "origins" and "oranges" in asking reporters to look into the "oranges of the Mueller report."
- Told Republicans to be more "paranoid" about vote-counting.
He is increasingly incoherent. The Washington Post quotes him at a Republican event on Tuesday: "We're going into the war with some socialist. It looks like the only non, sort of, heavy socialist is being taken care of pretty well by the socialists, they got to him, our former vice president. I was going to call him, I don't know him well, I was going to say 'Welcome to the world Joe, you having a good time?'"
-----
US economy adds 196,000 jobs in March
Lucia Mutikani
Apr 6, 2019 — 5.51am
Washington | US employment growth accelerated from a 17-month low in March, assuaging fears of an abrupt slowdown in economic activity, but a moderation in wage gains supported the Federal Reserve's decision to suspend further interest rate increases this year.
Milder weather boosted hiring in sectors like construction, but worsening worker shortages and lingering effects of tighter financial market conditions at the turn of the year left job growth below 2018's brisk pace.
The Labor Department's closely watched employment report also showed a small upward revision to February's modest job gains.
"This was a Goldilocks report, with a rebound in job growth to calm fears of an imminent recession, and wage growth that was solid enough without triggering inflationary concerns," said Curt Long, chief economist at the National Association of Federally-Insured Credit Unions. "The Fed will be pleased, as it supports their present stance of holding firm on rates."
-----
'Immediate displeasure': New political rift opens over the Russia report
By Ashley Parker and Ellen Nakashima
April 6, 2019 — 5.32am
Revelations that special counsel Robert Mueller's still-confidential report may contain damaging information about President Donald Trump ignited a fresh round of political fighting on Thursday, ushering in a new phase of the nearly two-year-old battle over the Russia probe.
Members of Mueller's team have told associates they are frustrated with the limited information that Attorney-General William Barr has provided about their investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and whether Trump sought to obstruct justice, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
US House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler said he hopes Attorney General William Barr will reveal the entire Mueller report with no redactions.
-----
British PM 'unexpectedly' writes to EU requesting another Brexit delay
By Nick Miller
April 5, 2019 — 9.31pm
London: Prime Minister Theresa May has written to the European Union asking for another Brexit delay to June 30.
The letter, released unexpectedly on Friday morning, may be a tactic to push back at the EU’s reported desire for a longer extension, of a year or more, as the UK continues to struggle to find a version of a Brexit divorce deal that its Parliament is willing to ratify.
In the letter to European Council president Donald Tusk, May said the UK parliament had “continued to express its opposition to leaving the EU without a deal [and] the government agrees that leaving with a deal is the best outcome”.
She reiterated her current plan: to try to hammer out a unified approach to Brexit with the Labour opposition, and if that failed, to put a “small number of clear options” to parliament.
-----
Trump wants Fed to juice US economy
Margaret Talev, Craig Torres and Liz Capo McCormick
Apr 6, 2019 — 7.21am
Washington | President Donald Trump called on the Federal Reserve to open the monetary floodgates to turn the world's largest economy into a "rocket ship".
"I personally think the Fed should drop rates. I think they really slowed us down. There's no inflation. I would say in terms of quantitative tightening, it should actually now be quantitative easing," he told reporters as he departed the White House on Friday. "You would see a rocket ship. Despite that, we're doing very well."
The request for Fed assistance to boost growth came just after a Labor Department report showed another healthy sign for the durability of an expansion that may become the longest on record by midyear. The jobless rate held near a 49-year low and employers added more workers than economists forecast in March. The report showed little sign of wage inflation.
-----
UK PM May says delays risk a no Brexit
- By Costas Pitas
- Reuters
- April 7, 2019
British Prime Minister Theresa May says the longer it takes to find a comprise with the opposition Labour Party to secure a parliamentary majority for a Brexit deal, the less likely it is that Britain will leave the European Union.
May has so far failed to secure backing for her negotiated agreement with Brussels as some Conservative MPs and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, which props up her minority government, have voted it down.
She has since turned to the opposition Labour Party in a bid to secure a majority for an orderly Brexit although its leader Jeremy Corbyn said on Saturday he was waiting for May to move her Brexit red lines.
-----
Theresa May’s government ‘open to Brexit compromise with Labour’
- By Agencies
- AFP
- April 7, 2019
Britain has begun issuing passports with the words “European Union” removed from the front cover — despite Brexit being delayed and its political leaders deadlocked over how to extricate the country from the bloc.
Meanwhile, Labour opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn says Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to move the “red lines” that have blocked a deal for Britain to leave the EU.
May’s decision to seek an agreement with Corbyn is an astounding reversal after months of saying her plan for Brexit was the only possible course.
-----
I look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.
