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The most interesting thing I saw this week was that while Trump getting kicked out of office is pretty unlikely, if just 4 of the 53 GOP Senators decide to cast Trump adrift the Senate Impeachment Trial could suddenly become very real and cause him a lot of damage. Would make it very interesting indeed for effect on 2020 election.
In the UK there is a month till they leave the EU and 11 months to sort out a trade deal. A big ask I suspect.
In OZ the fires rage on with the weather seemingly getting hotter, but at least ScoMo is going to try and help the firefighters financially if they need it!
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Major Issues.
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Five key themes to watch out for in 2020
18 Dec, 2019
A few of the dynamics that played out around the globe in 2019 give us strong indications of what 2020 might look like. Here are five of the themes that I think will dominate the economic and investment landscape over the next twelve months:
1. Global growth
First, global growth is set to improve. Central banks around the world have embraced monetary easing over the past year, a strategy which seems to finally be gaining traction, with a number of business surveys showing recent signs of improvement. Along with the possibility of a de-escalation in the trade war between the U.S. and China should, this should fire up global growth again after the slowdown we've seen over the last couple of years.
2. Profit growth
Second, profit growth will follow. Stronger global economic conditions should underpin a pickup in company profits, which should ultimately flow through to investment markets.
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'Not much left' in NSW town after fires
Heather McNab and Julian Drape
Dec 22, 2019 — 2.59pm
The small village of Balmoral southwest of Sydney has been all but wiped out by the Green Wattle Creek firestorm that roared through the area twice in three days.
The community was already reeling after being hit on Thursday when the flames returned on Saturday as the state faced catastrophic fire danger.
"We've got the devastating news there's not much left in the town of Balmoral," Premier Gladys Berejiklian said in nearby Picton on Sunday. "Very sad to hear that. Many residents have had that news in the last little while. Communities like Buxton and others have also been very hard hit."
The premier said some residents would be allowed to return to their properties "today or tomorrow" but others could have to wait longer. Assessment teams are going in to determine when it will be safe for people to go home.
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Top Jewish body wants more power for religious hospitals, aged care homes in discrimination bill
By Michael Koziol
December 22, 2019 — 6.10pm
The country's top Jewish body has warned draft religious freedom laws could restrict the power of religious hospitals, aged care facilities and housing providers to give preference to people of their own faith when admitting patients or choosing board members.
In the latest call for the laws to give more power to religious bodies, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry's head, Peter Wertheim, said hospitals, aged care homes and accommodation providers should maintain the same rights as schools to decide exactly who can benefit from their services.
This stands in contrast to comments from the federal Attorney-General Christian Porter, who last month said that in reality religious hospitals and aged care homes "do not appear" to discriminate in service delivery and did not want to.
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Scott Morrison's Hawaiian sojourn won't be the PR disaster his critics hope
Sean Kelly
Columnist and former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
Updated December 23, 2019 — 9.16amfirst published at 12.10am
It seems odd, in hindsight. In 2007, Al Gore’s cinematic debut, a dense British report written by a knight, and what was deemed a once-in-a-century drought somehow combined with the excitement of a new, young Labor leader to make action on climate change seem both exciting and inevitable.
Three years later, Labor’s plans to act had been shelved. The new young leader was gone. And the party only just held on to government against Tony Abbott, a man who believed climate change was “absolute crap”.
Prime Minister says sorry for being on leave during bushfire emergency.
There’s been speculation over the past week that bushfires, and Scott Morrison’s holiday, mark some sort of turning point in the climate debate. Well, perhaps. But remember how much changed between 2007 and 2010. Events that happen at the beginning of a political term – like these bushfires and the smoke blanketing Sydney – struggle to remain long in public consciousness.
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Australia's struggle with smoke and fire should put nuclear power on the agenda
By Dr Mark Ho
December 23, 2019 — 12.10am
Australia’s quest to decarbonise stepped forward this month with the release of a federal inquiry report looking to bin our ban on nuclear power introduced in the 1990s.
The report recognised nuclear energy as a source of clean, low-carbon electricity, and the potential of new and emerging nuclear technologies in Australia if they are delivered alongside community consent and meet the needs of our country and industry.
Such sensible recommendations cannot come soon enough as Australia struggles with the worst bushfires and air pollution in living memory, alongside ongoing debate about our energy mix.
We all know coal has reliably powered NSW for decades, but it is the most carbon intensive of all energy options, most of our state’s five coal-fired power plants are coming to the end of their life, and their social license to continue to operate is diminishing.
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Big hardware won’t always keep us secure
The 9/11 Commission Report’s best-known line, that the failure to disrupt al-Qa’ida’s terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon was one of imagination, remains as relevant today as it did then when it comes to the debate on the future of Australia’s national security.
We are locked into third-generational warfare where the enemy’s centre of gravity is interpreted as big pieces of military hardware. It’s certainly not diesel-powered submarines. In fact, the future of warfare is more likely to be the way of the knife, not the hammer. That is, inflicting the most lethal amount of damage through the least amount of effort. And it may be political. More Sun Tzu than Clausewitz.
Guerilla warfare has been the dominant form of conflict throughout human history. Irrespective of battleships and tanks and nuclear weapons, this will continue. President John F. Kennedy recognised this when he launched the Green Berets in 1961 – a form of warfare new in its intensity and ancient in its origin.
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'Out of control': Volunteer firefighters demand income support, equipment
By Eryk Bagshaw
December 23, 2019 — 11.30pm
The president of the body representing thousands of volunteer firefighters is demanding immediate income support and masks for firefighters, warning the situation is now "out of control".
Mick Holton, the president of the Volunteer Fire Firefighters Association, accused Prime Minister Scott Morrison and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian of ignoring rising public concerns. The leaders maintain they have not had any special requests made of them by fire chiefs who are "very comfortable with the arrangements".
The intervention follows days of rising fears about the sustainability of NSW's firefighting operations as personal bills mount for exhausted volunteers grappling with months of fires down the east coast.
Frustrated by the lack of action and arguing now is the time for change, Mr Holton said after weeks on the front, volunteers had racked up expenses, crowd-funded smoke masks and foregone thousands of dollars in income to defend homes.
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Church leaders use Christmas message to call for climate action
By Dana McCauley, Caitlin Fitzsimmons and Melissa Cunningham
December 24, 2019 — 12.00am
Church leaders are using their annual Christmas messages and sermons to intensify pressure on Prime Minister Scott Morrison to take greater action on climate change, backing striking school students and fire-affected citizens in calling for increased efforts to tackle global warming.
In a video message to be streamed for the church's thousands of parishioners on Christmas Day, Uniting Church Australia president Deidre Palmer said the church stood with its Pacific counterparts "in seeking to address the threat of climate change".
The president of the Uniting Church in Australia has used her annual Christmas address to back school children and farmers' calls for action to tackle global warming.
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The best year financial markets have ever had?
By Marc Jones
December 24, 2019 — 10.33am
For all the angst about trade wars, geopolitics and a sputtering and overly indebted global economy, 2019 might just be the best year investors have ever had.
The numbers are staggering. Global stocks have piled on more than $US10 trillion ($14.4 trillion), bonds have been on fire, oil has surged almost 25 per cent, former crisis spots Greece and Ukraine have top-performed, and even gold has sparkled.
Wall Street and MSCI's near 50-country world index have both stormed to record highs after 30 per cent and 24 per cent leaps. The Australian sharemarket is up around 20 per cent. Europe, Japan, China and Brazil are all up at least 20 per cent in dollar terms too. Not exactly shoddy.
A mirror image of 2018, when almost everything fell? Perhaps. But there have been a couple of important drivers.
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We gladly volunteer to fight fires, but our sacrifice should not be financial
By Mick Holton
December 24, 2019 — 12.00am
Volunteer firefighters in NSW have be working around the clock in the hope that we will make it through this terrible fire season. The principles and culture of the volunteer firefighter began as a simple handshake over a fence line, neighbour helping neighbour. Over time it has developed into a state-coordinated group of dedicated people who will keep doing their thing even if it becomes costly.
But it does become costly. There has been much discussion about payment or financial support for our volunteer firefighters during this long fire season.
While they rock up to "put the wet stuff on the red stuff" – and while they put their duty to protect human life ahead of their jobs or businesses – the banks still expect them to make their mortgage repayments. The power company will flick off the switch if their bills go unpaid.
Many volunteer firefighters say that paying them a wage would damage the volunteer ethos, but others are saying we simply cannot sustain this commitment without financial assistance.
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Bushfire insurance claims put added pressure on premiums
By Charlotte Grieve
December 24, 2019 — 11.04am
As the number of bushfire-related insurance claims climbs as more than 100 blazes burn across NSW and South Australia, pressure is mounting on Australia's major home insurers to hike premiums.
The Insurance Council of Australia said the number of claims in November and December was more than 2300 for destroyed homes, cars, farm machinery and fencing – worth more than $182.6 million.
Although that is less than a quarter of the claims lodged after Victoria's Black Saturday blaze, with the bushfire season still in its early stages and many people yet to reach their homes after the recent fires, the number of claims is sure to grow.
According to the Rural Fire Service, 724 homes have been confirmed lost and 2.7 million hectares burnt in NSW alone since late August.
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We’ve waited long enough for proper bill of rights
Australia has spent years mired in debates about freedom of speech and religion. These have spanned the entire period of Coalition government from 2013 and have absorbed enormous energy from our politicians and the community. Despite this, reform has proved elusive. Years of effort have been wasted on polarising and ultimately pointless discussions. It is time to try a new approach.
Things went wrong immediately after the election of the Coalition government with the heated but inconclusive debate over freedom of speech and section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act. A new front then opened on religious freedom. Further inquiries and reports culminated in the religious discrimination bill. The bill was widely criticised and has been redrafted and re-released. Its fate is uncertain.
Another flashpoint has been freedom of the press. Successive national security laws have built a regime that permits the ready identification and jailing of whistleblowers, and the prosecution of journalists for reporting matters in the public interest.
Concern has been mounting for years and came to a head with the raids of a News Corp journalist and the ABC. The government has yet to show much sensitivity on this issue, let alone to announce a solution.
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Public servants given extra leave to fight bushfires
By Nick Bonyhady
December 24, 2019 — 2.55pm
The federal government has ordered public service heads to give their staff extra time off to fight bushfires as it moves to address calls to do more to support exhausted volunteer firefighters.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Commonwealth public servants who volunteer with state rural fire services would get four weeks of paid leave to work on the front lines on top of their regular annual and sick leave arrangements.
"We're helping get more boots on the ground and giving people who've been out there for weeks some relief," Mr Morrison said.
The Prime Minister said he had spoken to firefighters as he toured South Australia's fire fields who were "tired, really tired" and said the extra leave for government employees was designed to give those on the front lines some respite.
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Good riddance to the worst economic experiment ever
By Matthew Lynn
December 24, 2019 — 11.28am
There have been some terrible economic ideas over the past century. Central planning condemned Russia to poverty. Nationalisation created hopelessly inefficient industries. Punitive taxes destroyed incentives, monetary meddling sparked rampant inflation and the EU managed to create a single currency so dysfunctional it has crippled a whole continent. It is hard to match those. Even so, in their own way negative interest rates were up there with the most dangerous - which is why we should all be grateful to Sweden for quietly calling time on them.
At the close of last week, Sweden's central bank, the Riksbank, which happens to be the world's oldest, ended its five-year experiment with negative rates. The reason? It wasn't that the economy was too strong. It was that negative rates were not helping - and may well have been making matters worse. In truth, the Swedes have done the world a huge favour. We may need new ways of stimulating the economy. But interest rates below zero risked doing substantial damage to the economy, and the sooner central banks give up the whole misguided experiment the better.
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Josh Frydenberg and Gladys Liu's election win cleared
By Sumeyya Ilanbey
December 24, 2019 — 2.24pm
Two sitting federal MPs have been exonerated by a trio of Federal Court judges over election signage that mimicked posters from Australia's independent election body.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Liberal MP Gladys Liu's election wins in May were challenged by failed candidate Oliver Yates, who ran against Mr Frydenberg in Kooyong, and climate campaigner Vanessa Garbett.
Former Victorian Liberal Party director Simon Frost, however, could be prosecuted for breaching the Electoral Act, with the Federal Court finding that the corflutes were “plainly misleading or deceptive”.
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How risky ETFs won the decade
David Randall
Dec 24, 2019 — 7.38pm
New York | Exchange-traded funds that use leverage to offer double or triple the daily return of benchmark US stock indexes rank among the 10 top-performing funds of the decade, with returns that in some cases neared 2000 per cent, despite warnings that they are not suitable for most investors.
The huge gains for leveraged ETFs reflect the benefits of betting on growth during the longest bull market in history. But they also highlight the subtle ways in which record-low volatility bolstered investors.
High volatility hurts leveraged ETFs by adding costs to the daily rebalancing trades necessary to maintain leverage.
Fund experts and analysts caution that the outsized returns for leveraged funds may not be repeated in the decade ahead.
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The PM's time out underscores the summer storms of politics
Voters often change their view of politics during their long days off. That's made the optics of Scott Morrison's early break even more tricky.
Updated Dec 19, 2019 — 4.08pm, first published at 4.00pm
Here's a bit of free advice. The next time the Prime Minister decides to take a holiday, don't try and hide it. People find out.
And when they do, they assume you are doing the wrong thing because you tried to cover it up.
During his time as South Australian premier, Jay Weatherill once observed, while defending a pay increase for MPs, that "if the public had their way, they wouldn't pay us''.
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How to lose friends and influence the security of your nation
By Clive Hamilton
December 24, 2019 — 12.00am
It’s uncomfortable when a belief you have long held is contradicted by new facts. Even more so if an entire worldview comes under pressure from the evidence. Psychologists call it "cognitive dissonance" and it explains why it is so hard to change our minds even though we flatter ourselves that we base our opinions on the evidence.
In the political domain, perhaps the most powerful source of discomfort is the fear that if we change our views and express a new opinion then we will be cast out of the community of those who share and reinforce our beliefs. When worldviews are at stake, this community can actually give us our identity. They are "my people".
It’s not surprising that most people most of the time find ways to explain away or ignore evidence that contradicts their beliefs. So we talk to those who agree with us, limit ourselves to media that confirms our biases, and attack those presenting contradictory evidence as somehow disreputable or purveyors of fake news.
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'Political stunt': Federal government launches bushfire inquiry to probe state policy
By Mike Foley
December 26, 2019 — 12.00am
The Morrison government has called its second inquiry in two years into land-clearing and controlled burn-offs, with some experts calling for the federal government to play a bigger role in combating natural disasters after the current bushfire crisis.
Natural Disaster and Emergency Management Minister David Littleproud has instructed the House of Representatives Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy to investigate the effect of past and current vegetation and land management practices on bushfires.
Experts said the Morrison government inquiry should also focus on whether the federal role should be increased in response to natural disasters.
A former chief executive of Victoria's Country Fire Authority, Neil Bibby, said the federal government needed to co-ordinate the use of firefighting aircraft between the states to get the most effective utilisation.
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Cattle have stopped breeding, koalas die of thirst: A vet's hellish diary of climate change
By Gundi Rhoades
December 26, 2019 — 12.00am
Bulls cannot breed at Inverell. They are becoming infertile from their testicles overheating. Mares are not falling pregnant, and through the heat, piglets and calves are aborting.
My work as a veterinarian has changed so much. While I would normally test bulls for fertility, or herds of cattle for pregnancy, I no longer do, because the livestock has been sold. A client’s stud stock in Inverell has reduced from 2000 breeders to zero.
Gundi Rhoades is a member of Veterinarians for Climate Action based in Inverell.
I once assisted farmers who have spent their lives developing breeding programs, with historic bloodlines that go back 80 years. These stud farmers are now left with a handful of breeders that they can’t bear to part with, spending thousands keeping them fed, and going broke doing it.
Cattle that sold for thousands are now in the sale yards at $70 a head. Those classed as too skinny for sale are costing the farmer $130 to be destroyed.
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Oasis restored, but anger over government failures, climate change debate still burns
On December 29, 2005, when our home and the homes of two of our neighbours were destroyed by a fire that began in adjoining bush controlled by the ACT government, it was not the worst thing to happen in my life.
Still, it was pretty devastating. And too many Australians know how it feels. Thankfully none of us was home. I say thankfully because we didn’t witness the destruction of things we held dear, except on the news when we watched the flames of the devil in concert erupting from the roof. We didn’t have to hear the terrifying roar, never had to make that agonising decision about how long to fight or when to run.
That only three houses were destroyed and another damaged was thanks to the fast action of the fire brigade, and a wind change. The whole suburb could have gone up, which would have been a different story, like in 2003 when Canberra was devastated by fires that killed four people and destroyed 470 homes.
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Amended religious freedom bill ‘deeply flawed’, says Law Council
The nation’s peak legal body has condemned the Morrison government’s revised religious discrimination bill, declaring it remains “a deeply flawed piece of legislation” that puts freedom of religious expression ahead of other human rights.
Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses SC said Attorney-General Christian Porter should not take “any comfort” from some religious bodies expressing support for recent changes to the draft legislation.
“The important question is whether it is in the best interests of all Australians and harmony in Australian society,” Mr Moses said. “It remains a deeply flawed piece of legislation. Our strength as a nation is our belief in the rights and freedoms of all Australians. Laws which favour one right over another, as the proposed religious discrimination bill does, weaken the rights of everybody, and should be a major concern for all Australians.”
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Growing concerns as markets set to surge in 2020
Dec 26, 2019 — 8.25am
Home values in Australia's biggest cities are on course to record up to 14 per cent growth in 2020 as low mortgage rates and easier lending standards unleash buyer demand. But analysts warn worsening housing affordability and more homes on the market could cut the bull run short.
The largest, and longest, market decline since CoreLogic started tracking the indices in the early 1980s led to capital city dwelling values falling 10.2 per cent over 21 months. But the property market analyst expects the rapid turnaround in the second half of 2019 to persist, with an 8 per cent nationwide increase by the end of next year.
While the usual suspects will lead the charge – CoreLogic sees home prices in Sydney rising as much as 12 per cent, and in Melbourne by up to 14 per cent – other capitals are expected to grow strongly, too. Adelaide (5 per cent) and Hobart (6 per cent) are on track to extend recent gains. Even perennial laggards Perth (6 per cent) and Brisbane (10 per cent) are expected to come out of the doldrums. If Brisbane lives up to these expectations it would post its strongest performance since 2007.
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Rise of the zombies on the ASX
Almost 15 per cent of all ASX stocks are companies so laden with debt that they couldn't survive without record low interest rates.
Dec 26, 2019 — 2.52pm
Our thesis is simple: capitalism is dying and the myopic public policy statism replacing it is breeding a new wave of zombie companies that cannot survive in a normalised interest rate world. These zombies have loaded up on debt they can only just service at the lowest recorded interest rates in modern human history.
When I first published this zombie research, I was somewhat surprised by the attention it garnered. I roll out different elements of our quant analysis every so often, and ordinarily this stuff flies through to the keeper. But it was evident that there was a visceral interest in who the zombies actually are – I got numerous requests to reveal the names.
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Half a million NSW residents face high to extreme bushfire risk
By Megan Gorrey and Matt Wade
December 26, 2019 — 12.00am
More than 300,000 residents of greater Sydney are exposed to high risk of bushfires, new analysis shows, prompting warnings that more pre-emptive action is needed to curb growing threats posed by natural disasters.
The analysis from consultancy SGS Economics and Planning maps insurance data and natural peril risk levels across local government areas in NSW, Victoria and Queensland. It shows millions of residents across these states are living with risk from floods, storms, bushfires and earthquakes.
Smoke from the New South Wales bushfires has covered Melbourne.
As worsening bushfires in NSW continue to claim lives, destroy homes and blanket parts of the state in thick smoke, the analysis has revealed more than half a million residents across the state live in local council areas facing high or extreme risk of bushfires this summer.
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Extreme heat and flames to close out 2019
Dec 26, 2019 — 3.41pm
A severe to extreme heatwave is expected to worsen bushfire conditions in Australia's south-east in the last days of 2019, while the national debate on disaster policy and preparedness continues.
The weather bureau said extreme heat, which smashed record high temperatures earlier this month, would re-emerge in South Australia on Friday, and travel across to NSW and Victoria over the weekend.
"Some areas are forecast to reach extreme heatwave conditions," a Bureau of Meteorology spokeswoman said, adding that "severe" heatwaves could reach southern NSW first.
"With the increasing heat and winds, the fire danger will worsen into the new week, with Monday and Tuesday most likely to be the most significant fire weather days."
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The Guardian view on the rise of Christian-nativist populists: a troubling sign of things to come
Over the holiday period the Guardian’s leader column examines the challenges of the future by fathoming out the present. Today we look at the struggle for the soul of Christianity
Thu 26 Dec 2019 03.00 AEDT
“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” These words, written by Saint Paul 2,000 years ago, are central to the Christian faith. They speak of a vocation for the universal and point to an ethic of social justice and solidarity. The Christian tradition’s account of the humble circumstances of the birth of Jesus, represented in the nativity scene, is in the same spirit, identifying Christ with the marginal, the maligned and the poor.
It has therefore, for many Christians, been depressing to witness the faith of their churches being used to justify the abandonment of such principles in Europe, Donald Trump’s America and beyond. For liberally minded Christians, 2019 was the latest in a succession of anni horribili, during which a cultural appropriation of their religion did service for aggressive nationalism, xenophobia, homophobia and anti-environmentalism.
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How to get the great wealth transfer right
The finance industry doesn't want to talk to younger Australians about money. The looming handover of wealth is the $3.5 trillion reason you should.
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
When US bank robber Willie Sutton was asked why he had taken to his particular brand of crime, he responded quite logically: "Because that's where the money is."
Influential American investment adviser and blogger Michael Kitces says the global finance industry is guilty of the same narrow focus.
While all adults across the age and income spectrum need good advice about personal finances, the business model of professional wealth advisers – and the high levels of regulation often imposed on them – has led many to specialise in servicing Baby Boomers and those approaching or already in retirement, who can make a greater contribution to the overall pool of assets under management.
"The pendulum is swinging too far to retirees, and it’s time to start doing more financial planning for next-generation clients as well," says Kitces, who founded the XY Planning Network to help the industry do precisely that.
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The decade that will decide Australia's 21st century fate
The Financial Review’s take on the principles at stake in major domestic and global stories.
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Despite the nation’s problems, Australia begins the new decade in an enviable position compared with its global peers. Public finances are finally in order after a decade of "temporary" deficits. A solid immigration program retains public approval behind secure borders, and free trade enjoys widespread bipartisan support. And while the economy is sub-par, the enduring strength of the resources sector means the low-growth, low-interest-rate, low-investment environment of recent years has been navigated without a recession.
Fiscal responsibility, openness to the world, and continued, if weaker, growth means Australia has weathered the disruptive forces unleashed in the 2010s in better shape than most. Economic prosperity has underwritten the nation’s political stability, notwithstanding the revolving door of six prime ministers since 2010. The average American, Brit or European would most likely trade their nation’s circumstances for Australia’s in a heartbeat. This is despite the notable policy failures of the past 10 years such as in energy, education and productivity; despite the rise in anti-big-business sentiment triggered by repeated bank scandals; and despite the polarisation of public life by hyper-partisan social media.
However, the populist reactions against globalisation and rule by transnational metropolitan elites that have upended the established political orders in the US, Britain and across much of Europe have been contained in Australia. The tepid local version merely saw the unexpected re-election of the Morrison government by the so-called quiet Australians concerned about the impact of Labor’s big-taxing, big-spending agenda on the nation’s nearly three decades of unbroken economic growth.
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Ancient Indigenous burning practices could help fight bushfires
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.13am
As authorities around Australia seek new ways to fight unrelenting bushfires threatening homes and lives, a growing Indigenous movement says methods dating back thousands of years might hold the answers.
The Firesticks Alliance is an Indigenous-led community project that aims to reinvigorate the use of cultural burning practices, widely used long before European settlement in Australia.
Coordinator Oliver Costello said cultural burning could help improve fire and land management methods used by government, and better respond to entrenched dry conditions and large fuel loads from drought and changing climate.
"Many communities haven't been able to practise their cultural fire because of the impacts of colonisation, restrictions on access to land and prohibition, because burning is seen as a threat or something that will damage other people's interests," he said.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/nsw/nsw-water-agencies-working-around-the-clock-20191223-p53mhc.html
Bushfires threaten Sydney's drinking water supply
By Lisa Visentin, Rachel Clun and Julie Power
December 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Firefighters are working to contain the spread of fires that have burnt everything but a "small portion" of land surrounding Sydney’s major water catchment ahead of another heatwave next week.
On Boxing Day, more than 1400 firefighters took advantage of milder conditions by back-burning to slow the spread of the 70 fires still burning across the state.
Conditions are set to deteriorate over the weekend with temperatures forecast to soar to the mid-40s in parts of western Sydney by Tuesday.
The fire preparation comes as an analysis showed more than half a million people in NSW are exposed to a high or extreme risk of bushfire.
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‘Falling apart at the seams’: Four words that spell disaster for Australia
Our way of life is falling apart at the seams. Most of those under democracy’s rule no longer trust it. And Australia is among the most disaffected.
Jamie Seidel
COMMENT
Our way of life is falling apart at the seams. Most of those under democracy’s rule no longer trust its effectiveness. And Australia is among the most disaffected.
A loud, raucous democracy is supposed to be a healthy democracy.
It’s the rough-and-tumble alternative to molotov cocktails and guillotines.
But society sorting itself out on the floors of parliament is being seen as a sign of weakness. Much ado is made of the one or two bills that fail to pass. But little attention is paid to the multitude pushed through before the Question Time spectacle.
Is democracy bogged down in a political quagmire?
Are elected representatives truly totally beholden to big business and lobby groups?
Is there an alternative to name-calling, spin and rubbery figures?
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Economists see a moderate recovery in 2020
Australians enter the new decade less fearful of a recession with economists hopeful the economy will enjoy a “moderate” recovery in 2020 as easing US-China trade tensions and the thumping Tory victory in Britain bring a modicum of calm after a tumultuous year in geopolitics.
An analysis of Google trends data shows interest in the search term “recession” peaked in August to its highest since the global financial crisis, but it has since sharply retracted to more normal levels, suggesting a worst-case economic scenario has disappeared off the radar of most households and experts.
ANZ economist Felicity Emmett said “Australia’s economic growth is set to improve gradually through 2020 and 2021’’.
Similarly, a widely followed measure of global economic policy uncertainty streaked higher through 2019 to reach in August its most extreme reading going back as far as 1997. But this measure, too, has retracted, driven in large part by easing US-China trade tensions, although it remains at high levels. US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he and Chinese President Xi Jinping would hold a signing ceremony in early January to formalise the “phase 1” trade deal agreement reached this month.
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The coming of a dangerous decade
Looming ahead is the spectre of an AI-induced war of man vs machine, major power conflicts, inflation and the end of capitalism as we know it.
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
After being evacuated from Sydney’s south coast because of the bushfires, we’ve relocated to Palm Beach for a family reunion of sorts. I pity the poor residents because no less than six different Joye family units have descended on this enclave for the break.
As a fund manager, I’ve naturally been doing my bit to save humanity, whipping the search and rescue drone up and down the coast hunting for sharks zeroing in on surfers and swimmers. During one recent flight I received a call from an individual known simply as the “waterboarder”, a mentor who chairs a multibillion-dollar hedge fund, among other things.
He had been alerted to my arrival by his wife after the drone asked her where her husband was through its emergency speaker system, which can be heard 500 metres away. “Bro, you’re gonna find more sharks on land than in the water in these parts,” he said in his thick, Lebanese-Australian accent.
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The Financial Times has published a brutal editorial about Australia
James Hennessy
Dec 27, 2019 — 9.57am
Key Points
- London's Financial Times has joined a number of international publications in condemning Australia’s political inaction on climate change, as bushfires rage around the country.
- In an editorial, the FT criticised Australia’s “lamentable response” and “inaction” on climate change.
- It comes amid a firestorm of criticism for Scott Morrison, as he defends his government’s climate policy following his much-criticised family holiday in Hawaii.
The world is always watching, it seems.
As Australia faces down one of its worst bushfire seasons on record and Prime Minister Scott Morrison tries to navigate criticism of his holiday jaunt to Hawaii, London's Financial Times has published an editorial on the situation, condemning Australia’s “lamentable response” to climate change.
“The scale of the country’s wildfire emergency has few precedents,” the financial newspaper’s editorial board writes.
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Big increase in inheritance feuds among blended families
Duncan Hughes Reporter
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Family disputes about wills and estates soared by about 80 per cent in the past decade as the number of "blended families" rose sharply, prompting warnings from lawyers about the need for new strategies to meet changing relationships.
The potential for problems is highlighted by the bitter row over former prime minister Bob Hawke’s estate between his second wife Blanche d’Alpuget, her estranged step-daughter Rosslyn Hawke and other children from Hawke's marriage to first wife Hazel.
Blended family disputes are on the increase as more relationships dissolve and new families are formed.
The death of a parent can be a deeply cathartic event for many families – revealing deep rifts, exposing secrets, jealousies or releasing "ghosts" that can take years and sizeable chunks of any inheritance to exorcise.
Olivia Mead, the "secret daughter" of Perth mining billionaire Michael Wright, is another recent example of where deep schisms in families can be exposed when the terms of a will are revealed.
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2:04pm, Dec 24, 2019 Updated: 4:55pm, Dec 24
Richard Flanagan: Aloha, little Scotty from Marketing, is it resurrection you’re looking for?
The return of Nero was scripted by Scotty from Marketing and embellished and blown up by his colleagues in Publicity over at News Corp.
Admittedly, as some may have whispered at his office’s Xmas drinks, Scott really only had one line in copywriting, but it had in the past worked well – or well enough.
These days though all his old lines were becoming national jokes so well known even Lara Bingle was in on them.
And no matter how many cuddles would be splashed in coming days over every News Corp paper as our Prime Minister would be photographed with the bereaved and the exhausted, the soot smeared and the tear stained, none of it seemed to quite paper over the growing sense of moral failure at our nation’s centre.
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Government officials say 30 percent of koalas may have been killed in Australia's massive bushfires
Massive bushfires raging in Australia's New South Wales area may have killed up to 30 percent of the region's koalas, according to government officials.
Australia's Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley made the shocking revelation on ABC's AM Radio program on Friday.
Australia's Federal Environment Minister Sussan Ley made the shocking revelation on ABC's AM Radio program on Friday.
"Up to 30% of the koalas in the region may have been killed, because up to 30% of their habitat has been destroyed," Ley said in the interview. "We'll know more when the fires are calmed down and a proper assessment can be made."
Ley also said that koala experts are working on a plan to establish a new area to release koalas that were saved and treated in hospitals due to the fires.
As of December 21, nine people had been confirmed dead from the fires, one confirmed missing and nearly 800 homes had been destroyed. Two volunteer firefighters died fighting the flames on Dec. 19.
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Household wealth rising at fastest rate in two years
Australian households will begin the new decade with surging levels of wealth as rebounding property prices and a buoyant sharemarket drive the fastest rise in prosperity in almost two years.
Household net worth on a per capita basis jumped over the three months to September by $10,699, or 2.6 per cent, to a record $428,574 — the largest quarterly increase since December 2016, Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows.
Rises in national housing prices of almost 3 per cent and the sharemarket of almost 2 per cent over October and November mean the financial position of households is almost certain to improve again in the December quarter.
The figures are fuelling hopes that consumers may open their wallets in the new year, delivering a boost to growth after a year of sluggish spending.
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Politics in the 2020s: the economy, the planet and trust
As politics enters a new year and a new decade, the leadership instability that marrred the past 10 years seems over. And a high-stakes battle for the centre has begun.
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Other than an obvious affinity for politics, federal Labor's deputy leader Richard Marles and British Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson don't have a great amount in common.
In recent times, however, both men have identified a new attribute that has emerged in the wake of their respective elections – the hover factor.
The British and Australian elections were similar insofar as Labour/Labor oppositions failed to unseat conservative governments which, on paper, deserved to be tossed given both had behaved appallingly and bowled up three prime ministers in four years.
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Fuel deal between Trump and Australia secures crucial backing
By Bevan Shields
December 27, 2019 — 11.45pm
Paris: A bid by the Morrison government to avoid spending billions of dollars on a vast stockpile of emergency fuel has won crucial support from the world's peak energy agency ahead of a possible deal with United States President Donald Trump.
But a complementary plan to shore up dangerously low domestic storages – by rewriting an international treaty – is struggling to gain momentum, leaving Australia exposed to price hikes and rationing should war or disaster strike the Middle East or South China Sea.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age revealed in August that the Morrison government was negotiating with the Trump administration to buy millions of barrels of oil from America's tightly guarded fuel reserve under a new strategy to limit Australia's exposure to a major crisis.
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The year of living feebly: how did we all become so pathetic?
Sean Kelly
Columnist and former adviser to Labor prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
December 28, 2019 — 12.00am
And so a new year is about to begin. Scandals will come. Public figures will lose their jobs. Policy debates will flare and disappear. At the end, will anything be very different?
Let’s backtrack first. The week before Christmas was a busy time for political observers. The American President was impeached. Boris Johnson passed his Brexit bill. Scott Morrison returned from Hawaii. So it took a lot to turn my head.
And yet still I found my head turned, and my eyes widened, at one comparatively minor item. The Business Council of Australia was about to lodge its submission ahead of next year’s federal budget, and had decided to call, again, for cuts to the company tax rate.
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Will this decade see the end of the US dollar's reign?
Dec 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Some saw it as a last, desperate throw of the dice by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg as he tried to rescue the social media giant's plans for a global digital currency.
For others, his comments simply highlighted the obvious risk that Beijing could take the lead in global financial innovation as it gears up for the imminent launch of a state-run Chinese digital currency.
"China is moving quickly with the launch of a similar idea in the coming months," Zuckerberg stressed to US lawmakers back in October.
"Libra is going to be backed mostly by dollars and I believe that it will extend America's financial leadership around the world, as well as our democratic values and oversight."
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Defence experts deployed to boost bushfire effort in NSW
By Mike Foley
The Defence Force is deploying specialist personnel to assist the NSW Rural Fire Service at the 14 fire control centres located across the state.
NSW government requested Defence Liaison Officers be embedded in their control centres, to help co-ordinate the use of support and equipment which can be utilised by state authorities, including troops, bulk water carriers and bulldozers.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison said his government was in "constant contact" with state and territory governments and fire chiefs, and is ready to deliver "whatever extra help they ask of us".
"We'll continue to do everything in our power to ensure our firies have the resources and support they need," Mr Morrison said.
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Morrison government to compensate NSW volunteer firefighters up to $6000
By Mike Foley
December 29, 2019 — 12.01am
Volunteer firefighters in NSW who work for private businesses will be eligible for up to $6000 in compensation under a new Commonwealth-funded scheme, following weeks of debate about paying those on the front lines.
The federal government has invited other states and territories to enter similar programs to compensate volunteers who have spent weeks or months at various fire fronts over summer.
However, Prime Minister Scott Morrison has cautioned the new initiative, a joint undertaking with the NSW government, should not set a precedent for permanent payments.
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How Nomura plans to deal with the next decade's megatrends
Takaya Yamaguchi and Takashi Umekawa
The comments from Koji Nagai, Nomura's longest-serving CEO in three decades, underscore the deepening sense of crisis for Japan's top brokerage and investment bank amid a shrinking fee pool from trading that threatens financial services in the world's third-largest economy.
Mr Nagai is due to become Nomura's chairman in April and will be replaced by Kentaro Okuda, now co-chief operating officer, to lead a turnaround at the firm, which last year posted its first annual loss in a decade, has cut costs and also announced plans to shut 20 per cent of its domestic retail branches.
The headwinds from the "megatrends" will stay for another decade, Mr Nagai said, indicating Nomura needs to focus on its primary business that include underwriting and deal advising.
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2010s: Decade of the great global shift
We are wealthier and smarter but also worried after a turbulent 10 years.
December 27, 2019
Malcolm Turnbull declared them “the most exciting times to be alive”. But for many it has been a decade of anxiety, despite an unexpected jobs boom and steady, albeit slower, improvement in living standards for most of us.
The marvel of having the world’s knowledge in our pocket — Britannica, after 246 years, disbanded its print encyclopaedia in 2012 — and the ability to interact with 2.4 billion people via Facebook haven’t assuaged concerns, however, that the economic system that powered the West to prosperity is breaking down.
While the fall of the Berlin Wall defined the 1990s and the September 11 terrorist attack distinguished the 2000s, two factors share that distinction for the 2010s: the long shadow of the financial crisis — which shunted economies on to a path of wage stagnation, soaring house prices and zero interest rates — and a revolution in communication technology that was unimaginable a generation ago.
If the first was unambiguously bad, the second was a mixed blessing. Decline of trust in institutions — politics, churches, banks, big business, media, trade unions — is the single biggest change across the decade, alongside wage stagnation and social fragmentation, for veteran social observer Hugh Mackay.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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More than 100,000 still waiting for home care packages this Christmas
By Dana McCauley
December 23, 2019 — 6.21pm
The peak body for older Australians has blasted the federal government over official data showing 112,237 people still waiting for a home care package.
In figures released just 32 hours before Christmas, the Health Department's latest quarterly report showed the waiting list for an assessed home care package had shrunk by just 7287 people, with applicants still waiting more than a year for levels two and above.
National Seniors chief executive Ian Henschke said the figures showed that the Morrison government's response to the aged care crisis was "inadequate".
"It shouldn't be a drip feed," Mr Henschke said.
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Criminal liability call for aged care
Managers and management of aged-care providers should be made criminally liable for serious incidents of physical abuse of residents at their facilities, the royal commission has heard.
In a new submission to the aged-care commission, advocacy group National Seniors warned that regulation in the industry had been “captured by providers and their owners” and said criminal sanctions were required to effect real change in behaviour of staff in their handling of older Australians in their care.
“Our evidence indicates that people are frustrated with the continuing reports of abuse and neglect occurring in the care sector and lack of serious penalties. It appears that the regulatory game has been captured by providers and their owners,” the submission said.
National Seniors chief executive John McCallum told The Australian that strong deterrent action was required in the wake of evidence at the commission, which had included “cases of outright murder, by neglect or by action, as well as assault and battery, serious cases of physical abuse and chemical abuse”.
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National Budget Issues.
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Scott Morrison rejects 'reckless' climate action
Dec 23, 2019 — 7.03am
Scott Morrison has defended his government's response to the bushfire crisis and stressed the need for climate change action, but claims "reckless" moves like ending coal exports and setting a stricter emissions target will have no "meaningful impact" on the global climate.
In an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph, the prime minister lauded the efforts of the various authorities at the state and federal levels, from the various fire services to the Emergency Management Agency and defence forces, in fighting the bushfires.
He also listed current policies around preventing bushfires, such as hazard reduction and land clearing laws as well as " how we can best sustain our extensive volunteer fire fighting effort", saying they will be reviewed after the present emergency ends.
Mr Morrison conceded there was need for "real action on climate change" across all levels.
"There is no disagreement and there has not been any denial of this critical factor, either by the federal government or any state or territory government.
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Empty stockings for retailers as Australians shift away from physical gifts
By Dominic Powell and Eryk Bagshaw
December 22, 2019 — 11.30pm
Australian retailers look set to be battered by one of their worst Christmas seasons since the global financial crisis, as consumers shift away from traditional gifts to experiences and donations.
Plunging consumer confidence and $25 billion worth of tax cuts have done little to send people back to the shops, but bricks and mortar retailers are being hit on two fronts as the slow economic growth combines with a fundamental shift in consumer preferences.
An increasing number of Australians are searching for generous gifts with modest price tags.
Pre-Christmas consumer confidence is now at its lowest since 2008, according to the latest ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence survey. GST revenue is down by more than $550 million on what was expected in the federal budget.
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Living in the post-inflation era turns out to be no fun
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
December 23, 2019 — 12.00am
It’s Christmas shopping time, when the bills mount up and your money never goes far enough. So how come people are saying the inflation rate should be higher? I thought inflation was meant to be a bad thing?
It’s a good question when one of those people is Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe. He keeps saying we need to get unemployment lower and inflation back up into the 2 to 3 per cent target range. (At last count the annual rate of increase in consumer prices was "only" 1.7 per cent. I can remember when, for a brief period in the 1970s, it was 17 per cent.)
The short answer is that Lowe doesn’t see higher prices as a good thing in themselves. Rather, he sees them as a means to an end. Or better, as a symptom or by-product of something that is a good thing.
Why do prices rise? Because the demand for goods and services – the desire to purchase them – is growing faster than the supply of them – our businesses’ ability to produce them. So the rate of price inflation is a symptom or sign of strong demand.
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Bushfires: GDP poised to take hit
Business leaders are warning that Australia’s brutal bushfire season could stall economic growth in the December quarter, with major impacts on tourism, retail spending and productivity.
Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox called for governments to develop “holistic, co-ordinated and appropriately resourced measures” to deal with the threat of more severe bushfire seasons.
He said the fires had led to people cancelling their holidays to Australia while shops and restaurants were being hit as smoke choked Sydney.
“These fires have the potential to knock GDP lower, but we cannot quantify exactly how much of a drop is likely,” Mr Willox writes in The Australian on Monday.
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Private sector credit growth weakest since 2010: RBA
Credit to the private sector has slowed to its weakest annual growth rate in almost a decade.
Lending to businesses and property buyers for November grew by just 0.1 per cent month-on-month and 2.3 per cent on year – the lowest annual rate since April 2010, according to the latest data from the Reserve Bank.
Credit slowed from 2.5 per cent in October and was below the consensus estimate of 2.4 per cent.
From a post-financial crisis high of 6.7 per cent in early 2016 amid a record boom in the residential property market, the annual pace of credit growth has now fallen for 13 consecutive months. It comes as tighter lending standards and the biggest fall in property prices in four decades exacerbate concerns about household debt, which in the June quarter peaked at a record 188 per cent of disposable income.
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Treasury closes its eyes and ears as Middle Earth marches on
Shane Wright
Senior economics correspondent
December 23, 2019 — 4.00pm
In early 2008, when the Rudd government was riding high in the polls and the names Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers had yet to pass into general conversation, then-shadow treasurer Malcolm Turnbull had a little fun in federal Parliament.
He asked then-treasurer Wayne Swan about the concept known in economic circles as NAIRU – the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment.
Caught on the hop, Swan ducked and wove around the question without a true answer. That gave Turnbull the chance to use morning radio to complain that the treasurer did not understand the concept of NAIRU.
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Health Issues.
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Hospital accused of training staff to sign private patient forms to boost revenue
By Dana McCauley
December 26, 2019 — 10.00pm
A Sydney hospital embroiled in a fraud scandal has been accused of offering a $500 incentive to boost private patient "conversions" in the public emergency room and training staff to sign consent forms on behalf of patients too sick to pick up a pen.
According to a person with knowledge of the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity, Northern Beaches Hospital management trained staff in the patient liaison team to "sign or initial for patients who were too unwell to do it themselves".
"Our target rate was to get 45 per cent conversion to private," the person said.
"If we succeed in this goal per quarter term we would be given as a gift, a $500 Visa card voucher."
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Five applications to die lodged each week under state's euthanasia laws
By Melissa Cunningham
December 26, 2019 — 11.37pm
More than 140 applications to die have been made by terminally ill Victorians since voluntary assisted dying laws came into force on June 19.
Figures seen by The Age show there have been about five applications a week in the first six months of the landmark euthanasia laws, with the scheme looking poised to far surpass preliminary estimates for the first year.
While the actual number of people who have died using the new laws is not yet known, it is estimated at least a dozen people have taken their own lives using government-endorsed medication. A person can make more than one application if they are initially rejected.
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'We need help': will this summer break regional populations?
By Amanda Jefferys
December 27, 2019 — 12.00am
Earlier this month the people of Uralla, near Armidale in north western NSW, were told they shouldn’t drink the water. Not even after it has been boiled, because water levels in the local dam have led to concentrations of arsenic that make the water unsafe.
It is just one more hardship in a community that has had significant knocks this year, as have so many across NSW. What lies beneath, however, is the mental stress that is ongoing across the state as people living in rural areas take hit after hit.
In 2018 there was a report in the Medical Journal of Australia highlighting the increased incidence of personal drought-related stress and community drought-related stress in people living in regional, remote and very remote areas of the state.
Poor water quality, drought, fires, and a barren landscape when Armidale was once known for being home to parkland and greenery - all in the lead up to Christmas which is a fraught time at the best of times - has led to increased distress in the community.
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DNA testing is about to come to GP clinics. How will it work?
With a simple test, you will soon be able to know your genetic risk factors for a range of diseases. How will the test work? Who will benefit – and who will profit – from this new frontier in health care?
By Liam Mannix
December 27, 2019
In 2003, humanity completed perhaps its most ambitious voyage of exploration when scientists mapped the human genome – the three-billion-plus pairs of DNA that make us human.
The project was supposed to unlock enormous benefits to health. We would finally be able to read our own blueprints and see how our lives were likely to run. It has taken another 15 years but genomics is about to make good on that promise.
Within the next few years, experts believe, a visit to the doctor might include a quick, cheek-swab DNA test.
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Neighbour nurse plan ‘a big boon to elderly’
A new “neighbourhood nursing” scheme could keep older Australians in their own homes longer and save the economy $4.5bn a year, the aged-care royal commission has been told.
In a new submission to the commission, the Nurses Professional Association of Queensland has called for a radical in-home aged-care approach based on the Dutch “Buurtzorg”, or “neighbourhood care” model, in which teams of up to 12 nurses look after a community of about 60 older people, with middle management costs stripped out of the system.
The NPAQ has also called on the commission to include a specific “right” for older Australians to remain in their own home and receive qualified nursing support in that home as part of the aged-care charter of rights that came into effect in July 2019.
It cautioned against the push for blanket nurse staffing ratios, a consistent theme during the commission’s hearings.
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