June 6, 2019 Edition.
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Trump has now officially lost it I believe and is becoming a menace to global well-being with his tariff madness. This attack on Mexico for utterly spurious reasons is total policy overreach.
In the UK there seems to be a large competition for the most poison of poisoned chalices to try and lead Brexit to some sensible conclusion now Mrs May has stood down. Just absurd!
In OZ we seem to have recovered and we now have the race between ScoMo and Albo beginning. Will be an interesting contest indeed!
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Major Issues.
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‘This is no way to win a war’
The wrong weapons, ridiculous ships, unnecessary aircraft: the West is clueless about conflict, says provocative US strategist in the case for a controversial alternative.
By Max Hastings
- From The Times
In the early 1990s, on an exercise, a gung-ho young American lieutenant in the 82nd Airborne met his much-admired colonel, with whom he held an unexpected conversation. Leave the army, urged the senior officer, go get a PhD. The crestfallen young man demanded why. David Petraeus, for the colonel was that famous warrior, replied: “Because counterinsurgency is the future, and the military isn’t ready for it.”
The next generation’s wars, said the sage, will not be conventional: “We’re not going to be fighting states, or people who fight like us.” Who, then? “Guerrillas, drug thugs, and others who want to depose lawful governments.”
Sean McFate took his colonel’s advice, got his PhD, became a military contractor (frankly, a mercenary), then returned to academe and is today a professor of strategy at Washington’s National Defence University. His iconoclastic book is being hailed by radicals as a wake-up call to governments and armed forces everywhere, to stop doing all the wrong things; to start doing a few right ones.
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Now the hard part begins for PM
Scott Morrison is now seen as a political genius, but the previous government wasn't a good one. The only thing that should be on his agenda for the next three years is being a better one.
May 24, 2019 — 3.35pm
It was John Howard who brought perpetual campaigning to Australian politics: the regime where a government and prime minister spend their entire terms campaigning, rather than just leaving it to the actual election campaign, or a few key annual events like the budget.
It changed the political landscape and, of course, raised the question of when did anybody ever have time to, you know, govern? Along with a disdain for actually coming to, or living in, the seat of government (Canberra, even before the bubble) it has had all sorts of implications for our sense of what politics is about.
The decline in the apparent importance of Parliament is one outcome, and the rise of government merely as a more effective platform from which to campaign is another. The need for politicians to perpetually look like Bob the Builder as a way of razzing up imagery in the news is a further result.
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Shocked by the rise of the right? Then you weren’t paying attention
The seeds of Trump, Brexit and Modi’s success were sown by endemic racism and unfairness. Tackling that is the answer
Fri 24 May 2019 15.00 AEST
The morning after both Donald Trump’s victory and the Brexit referendum, when a mood of paralysing shock and grief overcame progressives and liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, the two most common refrains I heard were: “I don’t recognise my country any more,” and “I feel like I’ve woken up in a different country.” This period of collective disorientation was promptly joined by oppositional activity, if not activism. People who had never marched before took to the streets; those who had not donated before gave; people who had not been paying attention became engaged. Many continue.
Almost three years later the Brexit party, led by Nigel Farage, is predicted to top the poll in European parliament elections in which the far right will make significant advances across the continent; Theresa May’s imminent downfall could hand the premiership to Boris Johnson; Trump’s re-election in 2020 is a distinct possibility, with Democratic strategists this week predicting only a narrow electoral college victory against him. “Democrats do not walk into the 2020 election with the same enthusiasm advantage they had in the 2018 election,” said Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities USA, the largest Democratic political action committee.
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10 tech predictions Steve Jobs got right (and 2 he got totally wrong)
Caroline Frost
May 27, 2019 — 8.27am
Key Points
- Apple cofounder Steve Jobs made several predictions about the future of tech throughout his life.
- Jobs foresaw iPhones in the 1980s, the ubiquity of the internet, and the computer mouse, among other advances.
- Many of Jobs’ predictions came true, although a couple were off the mark.
Eight years after Steve Jobs' death, his name continues to dominate discussions about how the evolution of technology and where it’s going next.
From 1976, when he cofounded Apple, Jobs presided over a revolution in micro-computing, as his vision extended to phones, tablets, music distribution, apps, and everything else we’ve come to take for granted in our 21st-century user experience.
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'Not interested,' James Murdoch tells Rupert
Christopher Williams
May 27, 2019 — 7.50am
London | James Murdoch has signalled plans to have "precisely zero" involvement in his family's remaining businesses following the sales of 21st Century Fox and Sky, in a historic split of the world's best-known media dynasty.
The comments to friends inform a new book, The Battle for Sky, which chronicles the rise of Britain's dominant pay-TV operator and the struggles of the Murdoch family to gain full control over it.
The book describes how James, 46, and his father, Rupert Murdoch, now 88, quashed opposition from his elder brother Lachlan, 47, to break up and cash in a global entertainment empire built over three decades.
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Beers and good faith: How a little-known senator will broker our future
By Max Koslowski
May 27, 2019 — 12.04am
In the new-look Parliament, the most important senator isn't likely to be Mathias Cormann or Penny Wong, but a little-known Centre Alliance member wielding the balance of power.
As a clear picture of the post-election Senate firms up, it looks as though Rex Patrick, a former businessman, submariner and one-time adviser to Nick Xenophon will have a deciding vote - along with colleague Stirling Griff - on every piece of contentious government legislation.
For the first time, Patrick has detailed how he will negotiate with the government - with a play book developed from watching one of the Senate's most effective crossbenchers.
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Sinodinos the steadiest pair of hands for these unsteadiest of times
By David Wroe
May 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Arthur Sinodinos is the ultimate steady pair of hands.
He'll need to be. The Trump administration's upheaval of American politics, the United States' sharpening rivalry with China and fears about the reliability of the American presence in Asia raise the diplomatic stakes to an all-time high.
Never has it been more important for Australia's voice to be clearly heard in the clamorous US capital, where the whole world is striving for the attention of the superpower's decision-makers.
Sinodinos has a number of qualities to recommend him. He is deeply experienced, connected and respected.
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Spending slowdown gives RBA more reasons to get on with interest rate cut
By Shane Wright
May 27, 2019 — 12.00am
A slowdown in GST revenue as shoppers shut their wallets is giving fresh impetus to the Reserve Bank to drive ahead with cuts to official interest rates while forcing the Morrison government to rely on workers and their superannuation to repair the budget.
A breakdown of Finance Department budget figures reveals GST revenue, a barometer for the health of consumers, is running behind the government's most recent forecasts in a development that will also hit the bottom line of every state and territory.
GST collections are now falling behind forecasts, a sign shoppers are closing their wallets.
To the end of April, the Commonwealth had collected $56.8 billion in GST. Annual growth in GST is now at 0.9 per cent, the lowest rate in almost four years and well short of inflation.
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Recognition to bridge the gulf of respect
By Peter Hartcher
May 27, 2019 — 12.01am
Australia has made great strides in recognising its disadvantaged and its minorities, but it cannot be a complete commonwealth until it recognises the most disadvantaged and overlooked of all.
Our first peoples are humanity's longest continuing civilisation and confer a unique status on our country, and also a unique responsibility.
Yet they are excluded from Australia's success. They live in a parallel land of Third World conditions, when they could be included as the completing third part of our unique nation.
The three parts as Noel Pearson of Cape York brilliantly explains them: "There is our ancient heritage, written on the continent and the original culture painted on its land and seascapes.
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$A on hold as bond yields hit historic low
- By Wayne Cole
- Reuters
- 39 minutes ago May 27, 2019
The Australian dollar is holding steady as markets waited on the next developments in the Sino-US trade dispute, while bond yields reached record lows as investors wagered heavily on rate cuts at home.
The Aussie dollar was parked at 69.31 US cents on Monday and above its recent five-month low of 68.65 US cents - a level that has turned into strong chart support after surviving several tests.
The dollar had been pressured, and bonds buoyed, by mounting expectations of falling interest rates.
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Rate cut to end house price slide
May 27, 2019 — 11.45pm
Interest rate cuts starting next Tuesday will be an immediate remedy for falling house prices and the second largest correction in the country's history will now stabilise or turnaround in the second half of this year, economists said.
AMP Capital economist Shane Oliver said the optimistic outlook was based on a “quadruple whammy”, being the Reserve Bank of Australia's earlier than expected move towards rate cuts, the prudential regulator's likely removal of a 7 per cent interest serviceability test on home loans, the defeat of Labor's negative gearing and capital gains tax changes at the federal election and the pending stimulus of a First Home Loan Deposit Scheme.
"We have brought forward the expected low in home prices from 2020 to within the next six months," Dr Oliver said, although he warned a quick return to boom time conditions was "most unlikely" and unemployment was a big risk.
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https://www.afr.com/news/politics/national/small-steps-designed-to-attract-attention-20190527-p51rou
PM's power move in the Pacific
Scott Morrison's trip to Honiara is another example of Australia's Pacific "step up". But China is doing its own step up in the region and will regard Australia as trying to limit its influence.
May 27, 2019 — 5.53pm
After the relentlessly domestic focus of the election campaign, Scott Morrison’s political lens is immediately broadening out to include Australia’s most pressing regional concerns.
Making a trip to the Solomon Islands his first stop as elected Prime Minister is designed to attract attention to Australia’s belated attempt to make the Pacific “front and centre of our strategic outlook”. According to Morrison, the Solomon Islands is a “key member of our Pacific family” – just one that has not had an Australian prime ministerial visit for over a decade.
Yet the diplomatic delicacy comes from trying to soften the impression Australia’s more recent interest is all about trying to ward off – or at least limit – China’s warm embrace of Pacific nations over the past few years. Even so, Australia, in an area where it can claim to exercise influence as a relatively big power, will be simultaneously attempting to have just that impact on China’s spreading authority.
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Could Voda fail if ACCC wins the TPG merger case?
By Stephen Bartholomeusz
May 28, 2019 — 12.00am
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, in opposing the proposed merger of Vodafone and TPG Telecom, has focused on the implications for competition if TPG doesn’t build the fourth mobile network. Perhaps it should have paid more attention on the implications for Vodafone if it did.
As it happens, TPG, after the federal government banned the use of Huawei’s equipment in 5G networks, ditched its plans and wrote off $228 million it had already invested.
It has essentially said that, without access to the cheapest technology for its original small-cell based 4G network and an upgrade path to 5G that only Huawei could have provided, there is no credible business case for it to realise its initial ambition.
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Why it's time to get out of Aussie equities
May 28, 2019 — 1.55pm
The post-election Morrison miracle market rally could come crashing down and analysts are encouraging investors to look outside Australian equities, where they see high valuations at risk of a pullback, particularly if the trade war intensifies.
The Australian sharemarket rallied to an 11-year high of 6510.7 last Wednesday following the federal election but pared some of those gains at the end of last week after concerns about the United States-China trade war resurfaced.
The post-election rally has led brokerage firm Evans and Partners to downgrade its recommendation on Australian equities to underweight, believing the market is at the top of the cycle.
"We recommend investors consider lightening holdings in Australian equities and continue to see alternative assets as the preferred option to place these funds," chief investment officer Tim Rocks noted last week.
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Tax cuts test for Labor’s pledge to working people
- 12:00AM May 29, 2019
Anthony Albanese’s pledge to reach out to working people, to “those who didn’t support Labor” at the election, will face an early test as the party decides whether to support or reject Scott Morrison’s three-stage $158 billion income tax cut package.
This will test whether Albanese is serious about changing Labor’s mindset. It constitutes the first hard evidence of whether the party is capable of the tough decisions it needs after its election defeat. It will determine whether Labor’s talk of reassessment is serious or phony. And it will reveal whether Albanese is a leader with any judgment and authority. Labor is about to learn that losing elections you expected to win is filled with prolonged political pain.
There are many lessons it must absorb and two of the most important are on tax and climate change. Each is a stellar example of Labor’s dilemma inherent in the conflict between its dedicated progressive loyalists on the one hand and the “quiet Australians” on the other who denied it government.
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Health a headache for PM but Albo must tread carefully on tax
- 12:40AM May 29, 2019
As our population ages, we all have to work out how to stay healthy.
Part of that equation is figuring how much we will have to pay to stay healthy. Health costs go up; they never go down. Every new drug costs a fortune to put on the PBS and, with inflation practically non-existent, we are still seeing health costs overall running at an 8 per cent increase and more every year.
There is no way that in a first-world country the government could deny to Australians drugs that save lives or make living bearable because they cost too much.
It is a big ask to put to the medical profession to ease up on writing prescriptions for the most expensive drugs. Medicos are charged with the responsibility of making life more comfortable and will use any tool available to them.
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Morrison's new economic worry: Reserve Bank running out of bullets
By Ross Gittins
May 28, 2019 — 3.22pm
Scott Morrison got the government re-elected on the back of a budget built on an illusion: that the economy was growing strongly and would go on doing so for a decade. The illusion allowed Morrison to boast about getting the budget back into surplus and keeping it there, despite promising the most expensive tax cuts we’ve seen.
The illusion began falling apart even while the election campaign progressed. The Reserve Bank board responded to the deterioration in the economic outlook at its meeting 11 days before the election.
It’s now clear to me that it decided to bolster the economy by lowering interest rates, but not to start cutting until its next meeting, which would be after the election – next Tuesday.
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Labor clears decks for policy refit
Updated May 29, 2019 — 6.37pm, first published at 12.57pm
Labor is clearing the decks for a policy overhaul with a frontbench shake-up that will gut its economics team and install Jim Chalmers as the new shadow treasurer.
As Scott Morrison confirmed Parliament would return in the first week of July to debate the $158 billion in tax cuts he took to the election, sentiment was building inside the ALP for it to pass the whole package and put an end to the "big end of town'' rhetoric that cost Labor votes at the election.
There was also a growing view that if the economy falters, the government may have to cut spending ahead of the next election to fund the cuts and keep the budget in surplus, and that would play well for Labor politically.
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'Folau's law': Coalition MPs push for bolder action in a 'new dawn' for religious freedom
By Michael Koziol
May 29, 2019 — 11.55pm
Conservative Coalition MPs emboldened by strong support from religious voters at the election are pushing the Morrison government for more radical and far-reaching religious freedom provisions in forthcoming laws.
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce wants laws to exempt religious beliefs from employment contracts - in effect giving legal protection to views such as those expressed on social media by rugby star Israel Folau that gay people and fornicators will go to hell.
"You can't bring people's faith beliefs into a contract," Mr Joyce said. "Your own views on who god is, where god is or whether there's a god should remain your own personal views and not part of any contractual obligation."
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Wealth is a thing you share: an Indigenous view to make us all richer
Jessica Irvine
Senior Writer
May 30, 2019 — 12.00am
Money might not make the world go around, but it sure does lie at the heart of many of life’s biggest decisions, such as what job to get, when to buy a home and when to retire.
Attitudes to money develop over time, shaped by our own values, those of our parents and the broader society we live in.
To understand how someone thinks about money, then, is to get a glimpse not only of their bank account, but a deeper understanding of who they are as a person.
And so to a fascinating study released this week on Indigenous attitudes to money.
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'We might be biased': More diverse views needed at ABC, says Buttrose
By Nick Bonyhady
May 29, 2019 — 8.04pm
ABC chairwoman Ita Buttrose has said some staff at the broadcaster unconsciously let their biases show through, as she revealed she had no plans to cut jobs despite the almost $84 million budget reduction facing the organisation.
"Sometimes I think we might be biased. I think sometimes we could do with more diversity of views," Ms Buttrose told ABC Radio on Wednesday. "Sometimes I think, people without really knowing it, let a bias show through."
"I haven't got a problem with anybody's view but I think we need to make sure ours is as diverse as it can be ... The more diverse views we can represent, the better it will be for us," Ms Buttrose said in remarks that dovetail with the demands of some of the ABC's conservative critics.
Ms Buttrose, a publishing veteran, was appointed to run the ABC this year after a period of turmoil in which it was revealed former chairman Justin Milne appeared to demand senior journalists Emma Alberici and Andrew Probyn be fired for criticising the Coalition.
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Housing closer to the bottom, but the boom's not back
By Clancy Yeates
May 29, 2019 — 12.00am
A three-pronged boost to the mortgage market over the last 10 days has sparked predictions the housing downturn in Sydney and Melbourne could reach its low point later this year.
If that ends up being the case, many home owners would not doubt breathe a sigh of relief. For prospective buyers, however, the message remains one of caution. After the sharp fall in prices recently, don't expect a return to the old days of quickly rising prices, even if things do start to stabilise soon.
To recap: last week we learnt that interest rates will almost certainly fall next month; banks will likely allow customers to borrow larger amounts; and negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions will remain untouched due to the election result.
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Gaps exposed in super, franking credits structure
- 8:31AM May 30, 2019
Chris Bowen’s foolish plan to bash struggling retirees has highlighted significant gaps in our superannuation and franking credits structure.
Now is a very good time to tackle those issues for the benefit of all Australians.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is examining superannuation and I invite him to consider the issues highlighted by the Bowen mistake.
The first issue is the poor disclosure from most publicly-available funds. And the risks of class actions like that being mounted against the AMP would be lowered with better disclosure by all funds.
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Waiting for the Miracle Man to lift productivity
- 11:36PM May 29, 2019
Australian 10-year bond yields traded below the cash rate on Wednesday for only the first time since 2012, which tells you the market thinks the Reserve Bank will cut rates and the economy is soft.
The theory used to be that an inverse yield curve means the economy will fall into a recession but we haven’t had one of those for 27 years, and while no one is expecting one any time soon the reality is, recent hype aside, the Morrison government has presided over a weakening in the Australian economy.
CBA boss Matt Comyn was talking up the housing market earlier this week, Mirvac’s Susan Lloyd-Hurwitz did likewise on Wednesday, and hopefully they will both be right, but a bank boss and a property chief talking up home loans and property is a bit like this column talking up newspaper sales. Everyone has some self-interest in the outcome.
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Business caught out by Morrison's shock win
Stakeholders are now trying to pivot to handle a Morrison government.
John KehoeSenior Writer
May 30, 2019 — 1.21pm
Business lobbyist David Gazard was talking on his mobile telephone in Canberra on Wednesday, pacing inside Parliament House just a few metres away from the blue carpets of the powerful ministerial wing.
Gazard, a former Liberal adviser and confidant of Prime Minister Scott Morrison, will be in demand from corporate clients who want advice about and access to Coalition government ministers. His professional stocks have risen significantly since the election upset.
But the surprise re-election of Morrison is now forcing other stakeholders to abruptly adjust their post-election political engagement strategies.
Companies, business groups, lobbyists, political advisers and media spinners were banking on a Labor election victory – just as opinion polls, betting agencies and media commentators had predicted.
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Why we should be nervous about the bond markets
Neil Irwin
May 30, 2019 — 12.16pm
You know the moment in a horror movie when the characters are going about their business and nothing bad has happened to them yet, but there seem to be ominous signs everywhere that only you, the viewer, notice?
That's what watching global financial markets the last couple of weeks has felt like.
In a lot of ways, nothing looks particularly wrong. The S&P 500 was down 0.7 per cent on Wednesday (Thursday AEST), tumbling for a second consecutive session, but overall is down only about 5.5 per cent from its early May high. The United States unemployment rate is at a five-decade low. With most major companies having released their first-quarter results, 76 per cent had results above expectations.
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Surprise victory faces its real test
Scott Morrison has won government but he now has to win the economic and political challenge of governing.
May 30, 2019 — 5.58pm
The election may be over but the sense of shock at the result still permeates Parliament House – and not just in a devastated Labor Party.
As politicians returned briefly to Canberra this week, the mood was every bit as startled among Coalition ranks as it was in a Labor Party adjusting to the misery of yet more long years of opposition.
“What an amazing election!” was the common reaction whenever delighted Liberal supporters and staffers clustered.
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Australians don't want a Dickensian retirement
Australians want to have a high standard of living in retirement, and they are prepared to pay for it via a 12 per cent super guarantee.
Martin Fahy
May 30, 2019 — 11.45pm
The Grattan Institute is making the same mistake unsuccessful pundits made with respect to the federal election, by making assumptions about what Australians want.
Grattan’s modelling of our retirement is selling Australia short. More specifically, it is using misleading fiscal projections and costings to decide public policy rather than listening to people.
Based on a flawed interpretation of the data, its modelling envisages an austere future that stymies aspiration and refuses to redefine retirement to meet the changing expectations of Baby Boomers and working Australians.
Superannuation is about lifting living standards in retirement and it does this on a cost-effective basis.
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Labor failed to understand the 'aspirational' voter
By David Crowe
May 30, 2019 — 11.34pm
The Australian electorate has shifted in a way that has galvanised a rescued government and has forced the losing side into a painful rethink of what it stands for – with tax and climate change the two priorities.
The scale of the shift is already being exaggerated. One claim, aired on Sky News on Wednesday night, is that 1.5 million voters have deserted Labor since Kevin Rudd won power in 2007. This is wrong, but the shift is no illusion.
About 5.4 million voters gave their first preference to Labor in the lower house when Rudd claimed the political centre and drove John Howard out of power. About 4.5 million voters did the same on May 18 when Bill Shorten asked them to back him against the "top end of town".
It is too soon to be sure of the scale of the decline because votes are still being counted, but the shock to Labor is immense. There is no question it has gone backwards not only since the last election but, more dangerously, over several election cycles.
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Labor's loss is not just the fault of its economic team
By Eryk Bagshaw
May 30, 2019 — 7.30pm
There is a temptation within Labor to blame the party's crushing election defeat on its economic team.
Led by Bill Shorten, shadow treasurer Chris Bowen and his deputies Jim Chalmers and Andrew Leigh, the team spent years telling voters a Labor government would end franking credit tax refunds, limit negative gearing and go after “the top end of town”.
In truth, much of the fault for the May 18 disaster also rests with those shadow ministers who pushed for an extra $32 billion to fund an array of spending programs and failed to sell them properly.
Amanda Rishworth wanted $4 billion to make childcare more affordable. Catherine King wanted $2.4 billion for a pensioner dental scheme and $2 billion for a Medicare cancer package. Tanya Plibersek wanted an extra $3.5 billion for schools, TAFE and universities. And that was just over the forward estimates.
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Bill Shorten blames 'corporate leviathans' and the media for Labor's shock election loss
By Bevan Shields
May 30, 2019 — 1.19pm
Bill Shorten has broken his silence following Labor's shock election loss, blasting corporate Australia for "telling lies and spreading fear" while also pledging his loyalty to Anthony Albanese.
In an emotional address to colleagues in Canberra moments before Mr Albanese was formally endorsed as the new opposition leader, Mr Shorten sought to blame others for Labor's defeat on May 18.
"Rather than commentators' snap judgements, or hindsight marsquerading as insight, it is important that we take our time to reflect," he said.
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'Be very careful about cashing out': AustralianSuper
May 31, 2019 — 4.07pm
The chairman of Australia's largest super fund said the economy is likely to be soft for a couple of years but warned her 2.2 million members against directing the fund to move their savings to cash, as trade tensions weigh on the global market.
AustralianSuper's Heather Ridout said she had seen an unprecedented level of political interference in the global market.
"Generally I worry that world politics has intruded in the investment landscape over the last 12 months – more than it ever has in my experience," Ms Ridout told the Australia-Israel Chamber of Commerce business lunch on Friday.
She said the economy could be "pretty soft" and the United States' market was late in the cycle after a bull run, and these factors would be reflected in members' returns.
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Albanese tries to change the game
Opposition leader Anthony Albanese is trying to shift the media's attention to the government and its major policy challenges.
May 31, 2019 — 4.31pm
Even before he was officially installed as the new Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese went north this week to perform a ritual mea culpa to Queenslanders in the wake of the federal election campaign.
“We need to acknowledge, firstly, that we lost the election,” he said.
“We need to talk to people who have worked hard for us for the cause of Labor. But we also need to talk to people who wanted to vote Labor but who chose not to; particularly those who were thinking very closely of doing it and all the opinion polls showed that people were thinking of voting Labor.
“But of course we know that in the end we simply didn't get enough support. So I'm here, It's no accident I'm here in Queensland as my first stop.”
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KKR hires Turnbull as global senior advisor
Kane Wu and Byron Kaye
Jun 1, 2019 — 7.05am
Hong Kong | KKR & Co has appointed former Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull as a global senior advisor, the global investment firm told Reuters on Friday.
The appointment is effective from June 1, KKR said in a statement.
Turnbull, 64, served as Australia's 29th prime minister from September 2015 to August 2018, when he was ousted in a leadership battle.
The appointment marks a return to the world of finance for Turnbull, a former lawyer who held a host of high-profile corporate roles before entering politics as a local member of parliament in 2004.
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Global risks are rising, threatening to overwhelm RBA's rate move
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
May 30, 2019 — 7.30pm
The foreshadowed cut to the Reserve Bank’s rate cut next Tuesday isn’t occurring in isolation. Around the world bond yields are tumbling and stock markets sliding.
The RBA governor Philip Lowe gave a clear signal last week that the cash rate would be cut from 1.5 per cent to 1.25 per cent, setting another historic low.
In the local bond market, however, the yields on two and five-year securities are already lower, at 1.14 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively. Both have fallen more than a percentage point in the past 12 months, as has the 10-year rate, down 116 basis points to 1.52 per cent.
While the RBA’s much-anticipated cut reflects, to a degree, domestic circumstances – a slowing economy, the edging up in the unemployment rate, the sharp fall in house prices – it is also driven by what’s happening overseas. External developments are threatening to overwhelm the domestic settings.
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'Strange situation': Why Australia must strike a treaty
By Henry Reynolds
June 1, 2019 — 12.10am
In ringing tones the Uluru Statement declares the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander tribes were the first sovereign nations of the Australian continent and possessed it under their own laws and customs. Sovereignty has never been ceded or extinguished, and co-exists with the sovereignty of the Crown. There is, as well, demand for a Voice to Parliament and national commitment to truth telling. But the question of sovereignty overshadows every other consideration.
The statement’s intellectual confidence stands in notable contrast to the confusion about sovereignty in mainstream Australia. I published a book on the subject more than 20 years ago and discussed it with audiences all over the country. The ignorance and misunderstanding I encountered at the time is still with us.
Cook’s declaration of sovereignty over Eastern Australia at Possession Island in 1770 is a major source of the confusion. There is a widespread belief that it was a defining moment and after that the legal situation was settled, that discovery had, in effect, won half a continent for the British crown. Two serious misconceptions are involved. In a legal sense Cook did not discover eastern Australia. The great 17th century Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius declared that it was shameless to "claim for oneself by right of discovery what is held by another ... for discovery applies to those things which belong to no one".
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Coalition must manage an economy with signs of wear
- 12:00AM June 1, 2019
It’s the economy, stupid. Yes, it is, and this coming week will reveal just how sick it is. On Tuesday the Reserve Bank is expected to reduce the cash rate by 25 basis points. It’s already at a historic low of 1.5 per cent. Worse still, economists expect further rate cuts to follow this year.
Pulling the monetary policy lever is all about trying to stimulate a weakening economy. Inflation is below the target band of 2 per cent to 3 per cent. In the past quarter it was zero.
Also on Tuesday, the current account figures are released. Then on Wednesday the gross domestic product update comes out. These numbers are sure to show a slowdown in economic growth. Anaemic growth puts significant pressure on the budget. All of this follows a recent spike in the unemployment rate, up from 5 per cent to 5.2 per cent. But the real story is underemployment, which is much closer to double digits.
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Albo's mission: find 1,350,000 voters in three years
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor for The Sydney Morning Herald
June 1, 2019 — 12.00am
A political party that has just suffered a shattering loss has many problems. The good news for Labor is that some of its problems were solved automatically in defeat. Others loom stark and large.
Most obvious among the self-solving problems is that an unloved leader was lost. Where Bill Shorten succeeded, it was in spite of his personal appeal, not because of it.
And Shorten was removed in the cleanest way possible – by the voters, not by the caucus. That leaves the minimum internal rancour, unlike the poisons that seethed in the caucus long after the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd cycle of hate had exhausted itself.
The moment the new leader, Anthony Albanese, was anointed on Thursday, in his very first press conference, he emphasised his loyalty to Shorten and asked for the same: "I can't remember the last time that a shadow cabinet meeting leaked. I can't remember it. That hasn't always been the case."
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Federal Election.
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New cabinet, machinery of government changes: Second Morrison Ministry
By Harley Dennett • 26/05/2019 Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference. (AAP Image/Lukas Coch)
Agriculture, Communications, Environment, Human Services, Indigenous Affairs and Social Services portfolios will have new federal ministers sworn in on Wednesday, May 29, after Australia’s Morrison government was re-elected to power.
Meanwhile, public servants in Energy, Environment, Home Affairs, Human Services, Indigenous Affairs, Industrial Relations all appear to be set for machinery of government changes, including new portfolio agencies.
Australia will have its first Indigenous cabinet minister when Ken Wyatt takes up the role of Minister for Indigenous Australians this week.
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PM displays his authority in cabinet reshuffle
May 26, 2019 — 9.00pm
Scott Morrison has stamped his authority on the government with a ministerial reshuffle that remarries climate change and energy, rewards his backers, and places a premium on stability by leaving key positions unchanged.
The Prime Minister has also made a big statement that he intends to fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme by removing it from under the welfare umbrella and making it a separate Cabinet ministry.
Less than a year after he separated climate change and energy to appease the conservatives who used the National Energy Guarantee to move against Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Morrison added Emissions Reduction to the responsibilities of Energy Minister Angus Taylor.
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How might Labor win in 2022? The answers can all be found in the lessons of 2019
May 27, 2019 5.33am AEST
If Anthony Albanese wants to lead Labor to victory in 2022, he’ll need to grasp the full suite of lessons from 2019’s shock loss. AAP/Joel Carrett
Author
ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian National University
The high tide of analysis concerning the Australian Labor Party’s shock 2019 federal election loss has been reached. It looks like so much flotsam and jetsam with the odd big log – leadership popularity, Queensland – prominent among the debris. Sorting through it, making sense of it, and weighting the factors driving the result really matters. It matters because decisions influencing the outcome of the next federal election will flow from it.
The learner’s error is to grasp onto a couple of factors without considering the full suite, weighting them and seeing the connections between them. What does the full suite look like?
1. Leadership popularity
Labor’s Bill Shorten was an unpopular leader, neither liked nor trusted by voters. The shift from Shorten in private to Shorten in leadership mode in the media was comparable to the shift in Julia Gillard when she moved from the deputy prime ministership to prime minister: the charm and wit went missing, replaced by woodenness and lack of relatability.
Shorten accepted advice to appear “leader-like”, creating a barrier Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who sought to directly connect with voters, was not hampered by. “It is often said of democratic politics,” historian David Runciman has said, “that the question voters ask of any leader is: ‘Do I like this person?’ But it seems more likely that the question at the back of their minds is: ‘Would this person like me?’” Morrison passed and Shorten flunked that test.
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PM displays his authority in cabinet reshuffle
May 26, 2019 — 9.00pm
Scott Morrison has stamped his authority on the government with a ministerial reshuffle that remarries climate change and energy, rewards his backers, and places a premium on stability by leaving key positions unchanged.
The Prime Minister has also made a big statement that he intends to fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme by removing it from under the welfare umbrella and making it a separate Cabinet ministry.
Less than a year after he separated climate change and energy to appease the conservatives who used the National Energy Guarantee to move against Malcolm Turnbull, Mr Morrison added Emissions Reduction to the responsibilities of Energy Minister Angus Taylor.
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The risks for Labor in adopting a 'small target' strategy
By Ross Gittins
May 27, 2019 — 12.05am
The main reason so many voters have given up on politics and politicians is their belief that modern pollies care more about advancing their careers than advancing the wellbeing of the nation.
So, were Labor to decide that it lost the election – which dodgy polling encouraged it and everyone else to believe it was sure to win - because it made itself a "big target" by having lots of policies to fix things, rather than "small target" with few policies of any consequence, it would risk confirming voters’ suspicions that it cared more about getting back to power than improving voters’ lives.
Not a great way to garner votes. Particularly because, for reasons I’ll get to, the small-target strategy works better for the party of the business establishment and the status quo than for the party representing those who think the status quo needs reforming.
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Palmer and Hanson hand Queensland to Coalition
May 20, 2019 — 5.08pm
Queensland has been transformed into a stronghold state for the Coalition, with preferences from Clive Palmer and Pauline Hanson helping the Liberal National Party secure a string of seats.
Labor's first preference vote was at a record low of 27.33 per cent after Saturday's federal election, coming as the LNP's share increased by just 0.27 per cent, to a total of 43.46 per cent, as of Monday afternoon.
Labor's drop in support boosted the Coalition through preferences from One Nation, Mr Palmer's United Australia Party and Bob Katter, with the opposition failing to win any marginal seats despite a strong push from Bill Shorten.
Key seats including Herbert and Longman were lost by Labor, a result ALP president Wayne Swan said should prompt thorough examination of policies and campaign strategies.
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How Palmer's $60 million 'epic fail' worked wonders for the Coalition
May 20, 2019 — 12.05am
In mid-2018, nestled on the corner of Norton St and Marion St in Leichhardt – in one of the safest Labor seats in the country, held by Anthony Albanese – passersby were subjected to a giant-sized billboard of Clive Palmer backed by the now infamously associated colour yellow and somewhat lifted slogan Make Australia Great.
It didn't take long for the residents of what was once known as Little Italy in Sydney's inner west to express their feelings for the controversial businessman. The super-sized Clive was half torn off, hanging down onto the footpath not long after.
The ad – part of more than $60 million Palmer spent trying to get himself back into Parliament – served as an omen for the eccentric billionaire's election campaign. It failed, but cast a long shadow.
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Nation's most influential pollster can't explain election disaster
By Peter Hartcher
May 28, 2019 — 12.15am
You've probably never heard of David Briggs. But you've very likely heard of Newspoll. That's the opinion poll that Malcolm Turnbull formalised as the benchmark of prime ministerial performance.
Remember? Tony Abbott had to go when he "lost" 30 in a row. Then, eventually, Turnbull himself had to go after he "lost" 38 of them.
Briggs is the man behind the poll. So that made him, in effect, the arbiter of whether Australia's leaders were seen to be succeeding or failing. He was the spokesman for the jury, as well as the judge, in the courtroom of Australian politics. All it took to finish the process was the executioners in the party caucuses to deliver the punishment.
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Bill Shorten got hit by a double decker karma bus
- 44 minutes ago May 28, 2019
Like many I was surprised by the election result two Saturday’s ago. While for many the double of Scott Morrison winning the prime ministership and Tony Abbott losing his seat was the perfect double, I only expected one of those events to unfold.
Bill Shorten’s loss must be personally devastating for him. I’ve heard that his house was half packed up, ready for the move into The Lodge. I know shadow ministers were organising post election briefings with heads of department, as well as lining up new names to take on such roles after the election. Shorten had already planned the timing and agenda of his first cabinet meeting before counting even started.
Never before has the phrase “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” been more appropriate.
While plenty of Labor die hards are angry at the scare campaign the government mounted, the simple fact is what goes around comes around. And, being frank, if politicians can’t sell their way past a scare campaign, they lack the necessary political skills to succeed.
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The downfall of Bill Shorten
After a disastrous loss, the Labor Party is trying to work out what went wrong and what to do with its failed leader.
May 28, 2019 — 11.00pm
In politics, the fall is toughest when you are convinced you have already won. The Labor Party expected Bill Shorten's new government to be sworn in last Sunday, only the third time the party of the working man had seized power from the Tories since World War II.
Some Labor MPs harboured doubts. The reaction from early voters wasn't warm, and in some marginal seats north of the Murray River a little-noticed campaign over access to abortion seemed to be gaining traction.
The concerns were dispelled by the leadership team, including Treasury spokesman Chris Bowen, who assured them, on the eve of defeat, that a glorious victory was imminent.
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Political gulf dividing anywheres and somewheres is going nowhere
- 12:00AM May 29, 2019
The recent election in Australia highlighted the yawning gap between the voting inclinations of the inner-city elite class and attitudes in the outer suburbs and regional Australia.
The Australian’s Simon Benson has observed that in the Liberal Party a new generation is in control that has transferred power from the party’s inner-city elite to the outer suburbs and regions. And we have witnessed a Labor Party that totally underestimated the reaction in regional Australia to the basic contradiction between coalmining and climate change. Bob Brown and the Greens caravan did untold damage to Labor’s cause in Queensland.
This is a trend that we have seen in the US and Britain, where there is a growing tendency to view democracy as being run by educated elites for their own benefit. Significant parts of the working class see representative democracy as unresponsive and remote.
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Labor guts economic team in faction shake-out
May 29, 2019 — 12.57pm
Labor's economic team is be gutted in a post-election shake-out that shifts Chris Bowen to a non-financial portfolio and dumps shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh from the frontbench altogether because he lacks factional support.
Shadow finance minister Jim Chalmers is the firm favourite to replace Mr Bowen as shadow treasurer.
Mr Bowen, who carried some of the blame for Labor's election loss because of the franking credits policy, is tipped to take another senior portfolio such as infrastructure, industry and innovation, or even resources.
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Democracy and sausages not enough for voters
By Shane Wright and Max Koslowski
June 1, 2019 — 12.00am
In the midst of World War II, the voters of Australia went to the polls.
It was 1943 and then prime minister John Curtin was again standing for his seat of Fremantle in Western Australia. More than 99 per cent of the almost 70,000 voters on the roll turned up and voted, with about two-thirds backing Curtin.
More than two generations later at the 2019 election, the national turnout is on track to be at one of the lowest levels since compulsory voting began in 1924. Up to 1.5 million people on the roll failed to vote on May 18. In some seats, once informal votes were taken into account, less than three-quarters of those entitled to vote cast a legitimate ballot.
Signs of a downturn in voter turnout have been growing. But it was most evident at last year's "super Saturday" byelections largely held because several MPs had fallen foul of citizenship provisions of Section 44 of the Constitution.
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Voter turnout at record low after young people disengage
By Shane Wright and Max Koslowski
May 31, 2019 — 4.00pm
Scott Morrison's government has been elected with one of the lowest voter turnouts since the advent of compulsory voting as the nation's young turned their back on democracy after enrolling in droves for the same-sex marriage postal survey.
A special breakdown of voting figures from the May 18 poll suggests less than 91 per cent of people cast a ballot, formal or informal.
It is on track to be lower than the 2016 election and the worst result since the mid-1920s (excluding some years when up to a dozen seats had just one candidate) when compulsory voting was introduced after just 55 per cent of Australians voted at the 1922 general election.
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With one click, the Liberals inadvertently unleashed the ultimate election scare campaign
What started as a press release soon became a wildfire. By election eve, for every person typing “retiree tax” into Google there 30 were searching the term “death tax”.
June 1, 2019
On January 24 in Proserpine, a small Queensland town midway between Mackay and Townsville, two words were uttered that would have a profound impact on the federal election just four months later.
“This government is running a needless scare campaign,” Bill Shorten told a journalist who had asked about Labor’s plans to clamp down on negative gearing. “I mean, I don’t know what they are going to dream up next. I wouldn’t put it past this government this year, because they are so desperate, to say that Labor wants to introduce death taxes.”
Two-and-a-half thousand kilometres away in Treasurer’s Josh Frydenberg’s Melbourne electorate office, a staff member started typing one of the election campaign’s most potent press releases.
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The factions deliver for Labor ... everything but electoral victory
Jacqueline Maley
Columnist and senior journalist
June 2, 2019 — 12.00am
In 2015 Malcolm Turnbull stood before the NSW Liberal State Council and blithely declared that “we are not run by factions”.
As a freshly minted Liberal prime minister from the moderates, who had just knocked off a first-term prime minister from the conservative wing, it was a cute assertion. It made his audience guffaw, and not in a good way.
“Well, ah, you may dispute that,” Turnbull continued manfully, over the snorts of derision that filled the room. “But I have to tell you from experience, we are not run by factions.”
More scornful laughter.
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Gotta have faith? Religion was the sleeper issue we didn't see coming
By Julie Szego
June 1, 2019 — 11.40pm
The unveiling of the new Coalition cabinet was a soul-destroying spectacle for true believers and for non-believers.
After his “miracle” election win, Scott Morrison’s ministers were beaming in their resurrection. Gone was the weary and depleted crew who had limped to the polls with the smell of death hanging over them.
In the aftermath of Malcolm Turnbull’s knifing, some were predicting a civil war in Australian conservatism to rival the 1955 Labor split. Last Christmas, people were jeering the party of stale, white, angry men.
Now Morrison’s cabinet boasts a record-breaking seven female ministers. Bill Shorten thought he’d be appointing Pat Dodson as the first Indigenous minister for Indigenous affairs. The biblical twist of fate saw the Liberals’ Ken Wyatt sworn in, kangaroo skins draped around his shoulders.
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Royal Commissions And Similar.
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Aged care: outrage pointless if not backed by action
Authored by Sue Ieraci
A RECENT sequence of letters to the MJA has been particularly relevant in the light of recent revelations from the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
The issues highlighted include the so-called “triple jeopardy” for patients in residential aged care: advanced age, cognitive decline and mental illness. As highlighted in the exchange of letters (here, here and here), residents whose behaviour places them in the “too hard basket” for residential facilities can find themselves exported to emergency departments with a one-way ticket and a refusal to return after hospital discharge.
Quite apart from violating both contractual and civil rights, this phenomenon tells us a lot about the way risks are managed in the residential aged care world.
We have heard heartbreaking stories from the Royal Commission about patients being restrained in chairs, often soiled, and being sedated to the point of unresponsiveness. We have heard from aged care experts about alternatives to restraint, and also from facility staff about the acts of violence committed towards them and other residents.
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RBNZ offers banks an olive branch on capital plans
May 27, 2019 — 12.01am
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand has offered an unexpected olive branch to the major banks, with deputy governor Geoff Bascand saying it is “open minded” to modifying the detail of its proposals to force the big four to substantially lift their capital levels.
To date, there had been little sign that the RBNZ was considering softening its stance on the plans originally announced in December, which Mr Bascand estimated would lift the amount of capital in the New Zealand banks by about $NZ20 billion ($18.9 billion).
But in an exclusive interview with The Australian Financial Review in Sydney on Friday, he indicated the central bank would remain flexible on timing, reconsider whether bank hybrid debt could be included in the measurements, and subject its own analysis to independent cost-benefit analysis.
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'Appalling treatment': Bank customers making 5900 complaints a month
By Eryk Bagshaw
June 1, 2019 — 12.00am
The chair of the government's new financial dispute authority, Helen Coonan, has accused banks of "arrogant indifference" to risk and "appalling" treatment of customers after being inundated with 5900 complaints a month.
Ms Coonan also put financial institutions on notice that the Australian Financial Complaints Authority (AFCA) would not look kindly on attempts to resolve disputes by mounting arguments that were technically legal, but not in the best interests of customers.
AFCA received 35,000 complaints in its first six months, awarded customers $83 million in compensation and identified 85 cases of "systemic" risk, where an issue is likely to affect a class of people beyond the original complainants.
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AustralianSuper's Ian Silk 'staggered' at $16b inflows
By Clancy Yeates
June 1, 2019 — 12.30am
Retirement savings giant AustralianSuper says there is no sign of a slowdown in the flood of cash flowing in via new members who were previously with a super fund owned by a big bank or AMP.
Thanks in part to the royal commission's damage to for-profit retail funds, the $155 billion AustralianSuper is forecasting $16 billion in cash inflows for the financial year about to end, a sharp increase on last year.
Chief executive Ian Silk on Friday said the trend was showing no signs of dropping off, as he also explained the fund would be putting more of its assets overseas over the longer-term.
“It’s not waning — frankly we’re staggered that it’s continuing. We thought there’d be a short-term blip during the currency of the royal commission when the publicity was at its keenest," he said.
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National Budget Issues.
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Rates to fall to 0.5pc in 12 months: JP Morgan
May 29, 2019 — 10.17am
The official cash rate will touch 0.5 per cent midway through next year because the Reserve Bank will have to capitulate to a much more severe global economic downturn, according to JP Morgan economists.
With financial markets already pricing in a 0.25 percentage point rate cut on Tuesday and another two 0.25 percentage point rate cuts by the start of next year, JP Morgan suggests the RBA will have to go even harder.
"We think the call for a terminal cash rate of 0.5 per cent makes sense given the cyclical and structural backdrop for the Australian economy," JP Morgan's Sally Auld said.
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Rates could fall as low as 0.5% amid warnings of GFC-like slowdown
By Shane Wright and Lucy Battersby
May 29, 2019 — 3.54pm
Official interest rates could be slashed to just 0.5 per cent to deal with an economy growing at its slowest since the depths of the Global Financial Crisis, markets and economists have warned as investors bet the economy needs more financial support.
Economists at JP Morgan on Wednesday became the first to predict the Reserve Bank of Australia will eventually take the cash rate to 0.5 per cent in a bid to protect the national jobs market and drive growth.
The RBA board meets on Tuesday with markets and economists all predicting it will slice the cash rate to a fresh record-low of 1.25 per cent. Most focus is on whether the board will signal further cuts and their timing.
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Fair Work ruling: Minimum wage to rise by $21.60 a week for 2.2m workers
- May 30, 2019
The Fair Work Commission has granted a $21.60 a week increase in the minimum wage that will flow through to 2.2 million workers from July 1.
The national minimum wage will rise by 3 per cent from $719.20 a week to $740.80 a week.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions had called for a 6 per cent, $43 a week rise while most business groups wanted a pay rise of about two per cent, limited to $13 to $14.40 a week in line with inflation rate.
The ACTU claim was significantly higher than the above-inflation $24.30-a-week rise granted by the commission last year.
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As you were: getting back to budget surplus no longer urgent
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
June 1, 2019 — 12.00am
Sometimes, changes in fashion are shocking. In economics, the fashion leaders are top American economists. Their latest fashion call is highly relevant to Australia’s circumstances, but will shock a lot of people: stop worrying so much about debt and deficit.
Among the various big-name economists advocating this change of view, the one who made the biggest splash was Professor Olivier Blanchard, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in his presidential lecture for the American Economic Association early this year.
Blanchard was formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, and had a big influence on the advanced economies’ response to the global financial crisis. He offered a simpler version of his lecture in a paper for the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington.
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Question marks over whether compulsory super will reach 12 per cent
By John Collett
June 2, 2019 — 2.04am
The re-election of the Coalition government raises some renewed questions over the planned rise in the compulsory superannuation guarantee rate from 9.5 per cent to 12 per cent.
While Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said the government had "no plans" to change the rise by July 1, 2025, he has signalled the government would review the retirement income system, which will inevitably include questions about the rate.
Under a schedule already enacted as law, the 9.5 per cent superannuation guarantee will rise to 10 per cent on July 1, 2021, and then increase by 0.5 percentage points in each 12 months until reaching 12 per cent by July 1, 2025.
Superannuation industry bodies, such as the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA), say that increasing the rate is crucial for retirement income adequacy.
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Health Issues.
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Treatment removes cancer without removing the prostate
May 28, 2019 — 9.18am
A promising treatment is emerging for a small group of men with prostate cancer. About 15 per cent of them could have their tumour cleared with minimal threat to potency or continence.
An Australian study has just shown this treatment is effective in eradicating the cancer 90 to 97 per cent of men in the short term.
Should the cancer return after a few years, this treatment can be repeated, said senior author, Professor Phillip Stricker, chairman of Urology at St Vincent’s Campus in Sydney. If it returned a second time, the man would then progress to traditional surgery or radiation.
Known as focal therapy, it is to prostate cancer what a lumpectomy is to breast cancer. Many years ago, women with a lump automatically had the entire breast removed. Now many have the tumour removed and the breast is otherwise preserved.
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Do you know how and when to use an EpiPen? New campaign gives answers
By Stuart Layt
May 28, 2019 — 12.00am
You’re out for your morning walk when you come across a person sprawled across the path, gasping for air. With trembling hands, they reach into their pocket and pull out a colourful tube, but then lose consciousness.
What do you do?
A new campaign from Queensland Health being launched today hopes to answer that question for people, and empower them to come to the aid of someone suffering from anaphylactic shock.
More than 6700 people were admitted to hospital in Queensland in 2018 for treatment for an allergy-related condition, with about one in 10 people having some sort of food allergy which was serious enough to warrant the use of an EpiPen.
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'Best outcomes in the world': NSW takes big steps to cut cancer deaths
By Kate Aubusson
May 28, 2019 — 12.00am
Growing numbers of people are being diagnosed with cancer, but the good news is your chances of survival are getting significantly better, the latest Cancer Institute NSW report shows.
As our ageing population swells, so do absolute numbers of cancer diagnoses and deaths across the state, the Cancer Control in NSW report shows.
When it comes to health, Sydney is a tale of two cities. Your postcode says a lot about your risk factors, what ails you, and even what you are more likely to die from.
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Charlie Teo: cancer specialist questions $120k bills for surgeon-of-choice
- 12:00AM May 28, 2019
A prominent Sydney cancer specialist has questioned the “really disturbing” trend of people fundraising tens of thousands of dollars to pay controversial brain surgeon Charlie Teo to attempt to save a life.
Professor Henry Woo from the University of Sydney and Chris O’Brien Lifehouse has taken to Twitter to highlight the number of GoFundMe campaigns — 113 on his count — in which people are seeking donations to help cover Dr Teo’s bills.
Professor Woo commented on the amount being sought in one campaign for surgery by Dr Teo and associated pre-operative and post-operative care. “I find this really disturbing,” Professor Woo tweeted, referring to one case where $120,000 had been raised for treatment, including $60,000 to $80,000 for Dr Teo. “Something is seriously wrong if a terminally ill girl with a brain tumour has to raise $120k to have surgery.”
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Overburdened psychiatrists abandon 'broken' public system
By Kate Aubusson
May 29, 2019 — 12.00am
Australia’s public psychiatric system is in slow and painful decline, with “profoundly disillusioned” psychiatrists leaving for private practice, senior specialists warn.
The “psychiatric breakdown of the public system” is driving away overburdened psychiatrists who were dedicated to treating some of the most vulnerable mentally ill patients, UNSW Scientia Professor Gordon Parker says.
The veteran public hospital psychiatrist and founder of the Black Dog Institute will call for urgent reforms to arrest “the slow death in quality” in public psychiatric care at the launch of the 2019 Australian Mental Health Prize at UNSW on Wednesday.
“The tipping point has been passed,” Professor Parker said. “The system has been under threat of deterioration in quality and sophistication of care for several years.
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'There's no acceptable loss': Hunt vows to 'obsessively' pursue youth suicide target
By Dana McCauley
June 1, 2019 — 12.00am
Health Minister Greg Hunt has promised to "obsessively" seek to eliminate youth suicide, while revealing how personal tragedy shaped his passion for mental health at a young age.
Mr Hunt, who met with Prime Minister Scott Morrison and senior advisers on Thursday to discuss the crisis afflicting young Australians, told the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age the loss of a family friend had stayed with him for decades.
"As a young adult, I was touched by someone very close to our family who took their own life," Mr Hunt said.
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International Issues.
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Trumpism is taking over the world, and the left is to blame
By Bret Stephens
May 26, 2019 — 11.05am
More than 600 million Indians cast their ballots over the past six weeks in the largest democratic election in the world. Donald Trump won.
A week ago, several million Australians went to the polls in another touchstone election.
Citizens of European Union member states are voting in elections for the mostly toothless, but symbolically significant, European Parliament. Here, too, Trumpism will mark its territory.
Legislative elections in the Philippines this month, which further cemented the rule of Rodrigo Duterte, were another win for Trumpism. Ditto for Benjamin Netanyahu's re-election in Israel last month, the election of Jair Bolsonaro as president of Brazil in October, and Italy's elevation of Matteo Salvini several months before that.
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PNG PM resigns amid pressure over role in UBS loan affair
May 26, 2019 — 5.50pm
Papua New Guinea's Prime Minister Peter O'Neill bowed to pressure on Sunday and resigned, following months of unrest over his role in the UBS loan affair and the handling of a $16 billion gas deal.
In a bid to save his government, Mr O'Neill has sought to install the 79-year-old Sir Julius Chan as Prime Minister, setting the Pacific Island nation up for weeks of political uncertainty.
Mr O'Neill, who has held power for seven years, suffered a string of defections in recent days, leaving the opposition claiming majority support by Friday.
"O'Neill's resignation is all part of the political game," said Shane McLeod, a Pacific-focused researcher at the Lowy Institute.
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Trump's bid to isolate Huawei doomed to fail
David Sanger
May 28, 2019 — 10.37am
New York | President Donald Trump has finally succeeded in building his wall: not the one he keeps demanding on the southwestern border, but a far more complex barrier meant to block China's national telecommunications champion, Huawei, from operating in the United States and starve it of US technology as it builds networks around the globe.
After a flurry of new government edicts, Huawei, the world's second-largest mobile phone maker after it edged out Apple in 2018, will soon be entirely cut off from US-made technology. By the end of summer, new Huawei phones will come without Google apps. And US computer chip companies are cutting off supplies that Huawei depends on for building fifth-generation, or 5G, wireless networks.
But the fight is about far more than merely crippling one Chinese telecom giant. Trump and his aides want to force nations to make an agonising choice: Which side of a new Berlin Wall do they want to live on?
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Europe divided: populist surge meets liberal response in EU Parliament election
By Nick Miller
May 27, 2019 — 5.46pm
London: This was one of the highest-turnout European Parliament elections in years, with around half the EU feeling the urge to vote: a level not seen for decades, driven both by nationalist passions and a liberal, pro-Europe response to them.
This is important, at least to Brussels which had mounted an unusual get-out-the-vote campaign. Instead of dry “where is my polling station” instructions, they asked an award-winning French film director to make a three-minute video designed to tug fiercely at the heartstrings.
Titled “Choose Your Future”, it told the story of heavily pregnant women across the continent, who gave birth to helpless infants that demanded a vote to determine their future.
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Trump’s bible belt dilemma over Supreme Court appointments
- 12:00AM May 28, 2019
One of the keys to Donald Trump’s election win in the 2016 US presidential election was his ability to court white evangelical voters.
For many it seemed a strange contradiction that conservative Christians would support the thrice-married Trump, who was accused of extramarital affairs and caught on tape talking disparagingly about women.
Yet Trump offered these voters something they saw as far more important than any personal foibles. He promised to give them a more conservative US Supreme Court that would deliver rulings more in keeping with their beliefs on a raft of subjects from religious freedoms to abortion.
Exit polls after the 2016 ballot showed that white evangelicals voted 80 per cent to 16 per cent for Trump, the highest margin recorded for a Republican candidate.
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Trump throws another grenade in trade wars. This time everyone is a target
By Stephen Bartholomeusz
May 28, 2019 — 3.30pm
Late last week the US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross, issued a press release foreshadowing the release of new rules that would allow the US to impose "countervailing duties" on countries that artificially lower the value of their currencies. That’s odd, given the US already has a long-established process for identifying currency manipulators.
Countervailing duties are effectively tariffs designed to neutralise the impact of export subsidies, so Ross is essentially threatening to add another layer to the Trump administration’s tariff-led trade wars.
"This change puts foreign exporters on notice that the Department of Commerce can countervail currency subsidies that harm US industries," Ross said.
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Apple's profit could plunge by a quarter in trade war, analyst warns
By Ryan Vlastelica
May 29, 2019 — 10.54am
Apple's earnings could fall 26 per cent in its 2020 fiscal year if China bans sales of the iPhone, according to Cowen, the latest firm to paint a dramatic picture of the tech giant's risk in the event that trade tensions between the US and China deteriorate further.
While Wall Street has fretted over Chinese demand prospects for the iPhone for months, the issue has gained urgency after the Trump administration blacklisted Huawei Technologies, raising the prospect of reprisals.
Earlier this month, Wedbush called the Huawei ban a "Fort Sumter moment," with Apple the "poster child" for trade uncertainty.
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Trump's lies about treason and coups must be called out
By James Comey
May 29, 2019 — 8.39am
It is tempting for normal people to ignore our President when he starts ranting about treason and corruption at the FBI. I understand the temptation. I'm the object of many of his rants, and even I try to ignore him.
But we shouldn't, because millions of good people believe what a president of the United States says. In normal times, that's healthy. But not now, when the President is a liar who doesn't care what damage he does to vital institutions. We must call out his lies that the FBI was corrupt and committed treason, that we spied on the Trump campaign, and tried to defeat Donald Trump. We must constantly return to the stubborn facts.
Russia engaged in a massive effort to interfere in the 2016 presidential election. Near as I can tell, there is only one US leader who still denies that fact. The FBI saw the attack starting in mid-June 2016, with the first dumping of stolen emails. In late July, when we were hard at work trying to understand the scope of the effort, we learnt that one of Trump's foreign policy advisers knew about the Russian effort seven weeks before we did.
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Populist surge is over in unsettled landscape
THE ECONOMIST
- 12:00AM May 28, 2019
That right-wing populism has gained ground in Europe in recent years is a well-established fact. A glance at the continent’s recent electoral history shows that much: the Lega dominates Italy’s politics, Marine Le Pen made it to the run-off of the French presidential election in 2017, Law and Justice (PiS) runs Poland and elsewhere smaller parties from Alternative for Germany to the Danish People’s Party and Vox in Spain are shaping their countries’ politics.
All of which is a far cry from the settled European party landscape of 15 or 20 years ago. But that much is known. The question now is: in what direction is European politics moving and at what pace?
The results of the weekend’s European elections provides some answers to that, and caveat the more excitable commentaries about the rise of nationalists in Europe. Turnout is up for the first time, and at 51 per cent it is higher than in any European election since 1994. And yes, the right-wing populists have done well again.
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Charging Trump 'not an option': Mueller
May 30, 2019 — 3.31am
Washington | Pressure is growing on Democrats in Congress to open an impeachment hearing into Donald Trump after special counsel Robert Mueller said charging the president was "not an option" for him because of US Department of Justice rules.
In his explosive first public statements before media cameras on the two-year probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, Mr Mueller pointedly avoided clearing Mr Trump of obstruction in the probe.
"If we had had confidence that the president clearly did not commit a crime we would have said so," Mr Mueller told reporters in Washington on Wednesday (Thursday AEST).
"We did not, however, make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime."
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Donald Trump is damaging Australia's reputation, we shouldn't be so relaxed
David Wroe
Defence and national security correspondent
May 29, 2019 — 11.50pm
Why is everyone pretending this is OK?
Australia's chief ally, the United States, on the direction of Donald Trump, will investigate whether Australia helped kickstart what Trump has called a coup attempt against his administration - the perfectly appropriate FBI and Robert Mueller inquiry into his campaign's links to Russia.
The Australian government's pushback has been underwhelming. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, asked whether Australia was part of a conspiracy to launch the probe, refused to dismiss the suggestion, saying he wouldn't comment on ongoing investigations - as if this were even a legitimate subject of inquiry.
Foreign Minister Marise Payne said if Australia were asked to co-operate with the new investigation, it "would, of course, consider such a request".
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Trump's 'gonna hurt himself' with trade war: Scaramucci
May 30, 2019 — 11.45pm
Washington | Donald Trump's handling of the China trade dispute could end up costing him his presidency as financial markets and the economy falter under the strain, says the president's former short-lived spokesman and high-profile Wall Street fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci.
"I'd like to see the president do well. I'd like to see him get re-elected, but he's gonna hurt himself doing this," said Mr Scaramucci in an interview with The Australian Financial Review.
Mr Scaramucci, who will be keynote speaker at the ADC Forum on the Gold Coast this weekend, warned the trade dispute with China was driving up costs for countless goods that couldn't be easily substituted by American businesses.
"If this goes into a protracted situation and you have a very hot hand that you turn into a cold hand due to negotiating overreach, that's not going to be a great thing for him come the re-election," he said.
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Analysis of the US tax cut shows it's done virtually no economic good
Michael Hiltzik
May 31, 2019 — 7.50am
Los Angeles | You may remember all the glowing predictions made for the December 2017 tax cuts by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration: Wages would soar for the rank-and-file, corporate investments would surge, and the cuts would pay for themselves.
The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service has just published a deep dive into the economic impact of the cuts in their first year, and emerges from the water with a different picture. The CRS finds that the cuts have had virtually no effect on wages, haven't contributed to a surge in investment, and haven't come close to paying for themselves. Nor have they delivered a cut to the average taxpayer.
The negligible (at best) economic impact of the cuts shouldn't surprise anyone, the CRS says. "Much of the tax cut was directed at businesses and higher-income individuals who are less likely to spend," its analysts write. "Fiscal stimulus is limited in an economy that is at or near full employment."
The CRS findings aren't all that novel. The service, which is an arm of the Library of Congress, reports that the tax cuts contributed to a record-breaking surge in corporate stock buybacks, which has been documented by many other analyses. The continued stagnation of rank-and-file wages is visible in monthly data computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Kim Jong-un executes top negotiator, punishes others, over collapse of talks with Trump
By Joyce Lee
Updated May 31, 2019 — 10.38amfirst published at 9.43am
Seoul: North Korea has executed its special envoy to the United States as well as four Foreign Ministry officials who carried out negotiations for the Hanoi summit with Donald Trump in February, holding them responsible for its collapse, South Korean reports say.
The special envoy, Kim Hyok-chol, has reportedly been executed, and Kim Yong-chol, a senior official who had been US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's counterpart in the run-up to the summit, has also been subjected to forced labour and ideological education, newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported. It is unclear whether Kim Yong-chol was among officials executed.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is believed to be carrying out a massive purge to divert attention from internal turmoil and discontent, the newspaper said.
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Donald Trump slaps tariffs on Mexico to stop illegal immigration
By Matthew Knott
Updated May 31, 2019 — 10.33amfirst published at 8.33am
New York: US President Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 5 per cent tariff on Mexican imports in a bid to to get the country to crack down on the huge numbers of migrants attempting to cross the US-Mexico border.
On Thursday evening, local time, Trump tweeted: "On June 10th, the United States will impose a 5% Tariff on all goods coming into our Country from Mexico, until such time as illegal migrants coming through Mexico, and into our Country, STOP.
"The Tariff will gradually increase until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied ... at which time the Tariffs will be removed. Details from the White House to follow."
He has threatened to raise the tariffs to 10 per cent on July 1 unless Mexico takes action to stop the immigration crisis at the border.
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'Things may have to get worse first': Recession clouds are gathering over Europe
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
May 31, 2019 — 10.11am
German bond yields have plunged to historic lows and inflation expectations are collapsing across the eurozone, prompting fears of a gathering recessionary storm.
The benchmark 10-year bund yield dropped to minus 0.18 per cent yesterday and is testing the all-time lows seen during the brief rush to safety after the Brexit referendum. Spanish and Portuguese yields have dropped to record lows.
A closely watched gauge of inflation expectations - five-year/five-year swap contracts - have collapsed this year and raise concerns that the European Central Bank is losing control. It is signalling a slide into a deflationary quagmire.
Ralf Preusser, global credit chief for Bank of America, said the bond markets are increasingly worried that the ECB can no longer halt the slide under the constraints of its policy mandate.
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Recession now looms for Mexico
David Biller and Eric Martin
Jun 1, 2019 — 7.22am
A surprise tariff threat couldn't have come at a worse time for Mexico's already shrinking economy.
The move could tip Mexico into recession, and at the same time force the central bank to boost interest rates to rein in inflation.
In a country highly dependent on exports, it's no surprise that US President Donald Trump's plans to slap tariffs as high as 25 per cent on all imports by October sent shockwaves through Mexican business and political circles.
"Tariffs on Mexican goods increase the possibility of a recession in Mexico," said Bloomberg's economist Felipe Hernandez. "The economy, on the heels of a first-quarter contraction, has high exposure to trade with the US, and high inflation and fiscal constraints limit the room for counter-cyclical policy."
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China to blacklist 'unreliable' companies, force them to choose sides
By Gerry Shih
June 1, 2019 — 3.36pm
Beijing: China announced on Friday that it would establish a blacklist of "unreliable" foreign companies and organisations, effectively forcing companies around the world to choose whether they would side with Beijing or Washington.
Chinese state media reported that the new "unreliable entities list" would punish organisations and individuals that harm the interests of Chinese companies, without detailing which companies would be named in the list or what the punishments would include.
But the implications are far-reaching.
Chinese reports suggest that the Commerce Ministry will directly target foreign companies and groups that abandoned Huawei after the Trump administration levelled sanctions this month that prohibited firms from doing business with the Chinese technology giant.
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Trump’s behaviour is in a dangerous new phase
Away from the pomp there’s a momentous argument brewing over what Donald Trump is doing to an alliance system that was forged 75 years ago.
Jacob Greber United States Correspondent
May 31, 2019 — 3.23pm
Washington | In a few days Donald Trump will stand in Portsmouth, England, alongside leaders of some of America’s closest allies. They will include Scott Morrison and Theresa May.
Above them, in what is being billed as a made-for-TV extravaganza, will be a flypast of World War II aircraft. Beneath them a flotilla of Royal Navy vessels.
But away from the pomp there’s a momentous argument brewing over what Trump is doing to an alliance system that was forged in the flames of experiences like D-Day, 75 years ago.
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Trump's tariff threat: magical thinking dressed up as policy-making
Matthew Knott
US Correspondent
June 1, 2019 — 12.41pm
New York: Donald Trump's threat to impose a new tariff on Mexican imports is the US President's most impulsive, incoherent and reckless decision since he forced the federal government into a shutdown just before Christmas.
As with the 35-day shutdown, which was designed to force Democrats to support a border wall, Trump has unleashed chaos by fusing together two totally unrelated issues. And he has again started a war without first devising a strategy for victory.
On Thursday night, local time, Trump announced on Twitter that he would implement a 5 per cent tariff on all goods coming into the US from Mexico from June 10 and maintain it "until the Illegal Immigration problem is remedied".
The tariff rate will rise steadily, reaching 25 per cent in October, unless Trump is satisfied that Mexico has taken appropriate steps to stop migrants crossing into the US.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
