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The US assassination of a very senior Iranian general and the aftermath have been all consuming internationally. We have seen a missile response and Trump seems to have stood down for now. What this week will bring is hard to guess – but calm may break out for a few months, but it seems unlikely to last. Good to see the Phase 1 Trade Deal between the USA and China has finally been signed. It won't make a huge actual difference but Trump needed a win optically!
In Australia it has been all about the bushfires and its consequences. As of Sunday it does seem that ScoMo is gradually shifting and is now at least talking about revised targets for emission reduction and various adaption and mitigation strategies for the inevitable problems. He still has a long way to go but it is at least a tiny start, on a holistic strategy – which is what is needed. A nice corruption scandal seems to be brewing to cause ScoMo more heartburn. The minister looks pretty corrupt on the facts disclosed by the Audit Office!
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Major Issues.
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In the line of fire it's about survival, not politics
Jan 5, 2020 — 4.21pm
Never again shall I take a working petrol bowser for granted.
That was the thought in my head and in the heads of the dozens of others in cars that were queued behind me on the forecourt of the Narooma Shell petrol station in the wee hours of Friday morning.
The other dominant sentiment was "where's the army?".
Because when you are in the midst of an emergency, fuelled on a diet of sleeplessness and constant anxiety, you don't give a toss about which level of government is responsible for what.
You just want things to work as best they can because your life may depend on it.
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Two-year recovery looms for burnt nation
Jan 5, 2020 — 2.14pm
Former federal police commissioner Andrew Colvin will head up a new agency to oversee reconstruction and recovery efforts after the deadly bushfire season, as the nation braces for a repair bill running into billions of dollars.
Following weeks of stinging accusations of not doing enough to respond to the fire crisis, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Mr Colvin's appointment on Sunday.
Mr Colvin will oversee support payments to families and businesses that have been left with nothing, as well as work with state and local governments to repair infrastructure.
Mr Morrison said he would announce with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg on Monday details of how Mr Colvin's authority would be funded, but ruled out imposing the sort of levy imposed after the 2011 Queensland floods.
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Fire crisis has also burned the nation's strategic interests
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
Never panic in a crisis. But this is what Scott Morrison has now done – at a cost to Australia’s long-term national interests – as he tries to recover from the political crisis that has engulfed the federal government’s response to the bushfire emergency. The Prime Minister has been on the back foot ever since the bungled attempt by his minders to pressure the media not to report his pre-Christmas holiday.
Since his early return from holidays, Mr Morrison has also received partisan, vitriolic, and at times irrational criticism over his supposed lack of leadership in the context of firefighting efforts, which are a state responsibility. The result is that the Prime Minister's actions are being driven by the political crisis, rather than the practicalities of the fire crisis.
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The real reason businesses aren't investing
It's easy to blame business for the slump in investment spending, but the failure of our politicians to formulate coherent policies is a major factor.
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
Why has business investment shrunk to less than 12 per cent of GDP - its lowest level since the early 1990s - even though interest rates are at record lows?
It's a question that's perplexing the country's top officials as they worry that weak investment spending is not only contributing to sluggish economic growth, but also weighing on productivity growth. And, in turn, feeble productivity growth is contributing to anaemic wages growth.
The big temptation, of course, is to blame an overly cautious corporate sector for its failure to take advantage of low borrowing costs to boost investment.
Last week, competition watchdog chairman Rod Sims added his voice to the chorus of official voices urging Australian companies to lower their hurdle rates - to reflect their lower cost of capital.
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Wealthy clients are no longer sophisticated investors
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
Financial advisers will no longer be able to treat some wealthy clients as sophisticated investors, limiting the types of products they can sell and advice they can provide under a crackdown by the Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority.
A tougher test on assessing financial literacy means that even if an investor has $250,000 in annual income or $2.5 million of net assets – such as the family home – advisers cannot automatically designate the client as a sophisticated wholesale investor.
The strict new rules are causing major disruption to financial advice firms.
FASEA chief executive Stephen Glenfield told The Australian Financial Review that the new Code of Ethics for financial advisers that started on January 1 meant that “where someone is clearly not financially literate, you should be treating them as a retail client”.
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Corporate regulator investigates Dixon Advisory
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission is investigating listed wealth manager Evans Dixon over the advice provided to some of its clients after the corporate watchdog received several complaints over 2019.
ASIC is investigating the Dixon Advisory arm, which merged with boutique firm Evans & Partners in February 2015, according to sources that have complained or provided information to the regulator.
The Australian Financial Review has spoken to several of Dixon's 4800 clients, and viewed the portfolios of several former clients.
In each case they had been steered by their advisers to invest more than half their savings in funds managed by Dixon. The funds charged above-market fees, yet delivered below-market returns.
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Morrison is right about one thing - the only solution is global action
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
January 6, 2020 — 12.00am
This is the summer from hell. I can’t imagine anyone is enjoying their break – not with the quadruple whammy of drought, heatwaves, bushfires and smoke haze we’re experiencing. If it happens again next summer – or the one after – as it very well could, can you imagine the political doghouse Scott Morrison and his Coalition parties will be in?
Morrison is already bearing most of the ire of people displaced by the fires. So much so that he’s learned not to show up to offer his commiserations. But is it really his fault? No. Just one of the six prime ministers we’ve had over the past two decades can hardly take all the blame. In any case, Morrison is right to protest that nothing Australia could have done by itself could have stopped the deterioration in climate we’re seeing. The only solution is global, so all the big, rich economies – particularly the Americans, less so the Europeans – must share the blame for the continuing rise in average temperatures.
Responding to a question about The Greens party back burning policies, Prime Minister Scott Morrison urges communities to unite, and concedes he has received a lot of criticism in the crisis.
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'Adapting to the new normal': NSW to review land management
By Alexandra Smith and David Crowe
January 6, 2020 — 12.05am
NSW Environment Minister Matt Kean says there needs to be more hazard reduction as part of an inquiry into bushfire management in nationals parks in order to respond to climate change.
Mr Kean said once the bushfire crisis was over there would be an extensive review to consider all issues around fire management, including changes to hazard reduction.
"This season's unprecedented fire conditions show we need to do more hazard reduction burns," Mr Kean said.
"While National Parks completed more than 75 per cent of the hazard reduction burning in NSW over the past four years, climate change is increasing the risk and we need to respond to that."
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The damning document that sparked political battle between Prime Minister and NSW RFS
12:02pm Jan 5, 2020
Australian Bushfires: PM addresses nation
It's the damning document that has sparked a political firefight between Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS), as deadly bushfires continue to ravage the country.
9News has obtained an original summary document of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre's (NAFC) business case requesting a substantial funding boost from the Commonwealth Government. Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the full document.
The bid, which starkly outlines an ever-worsening shortfall in Federal funding over the past decade, was ignored for 18 months, according to the RFS.
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Climate cloud has silver lining for Australia
Growing anxiety about global warming has become a catalyst for renewed interest in geoengineering, also known as climate intervention, with Australia potentially poised to play a big role in developing solutions.
Climate intervention involves number of techniques — from carbon capture and storage to using chemical clouds to reflect sunlight back out to space — to tinker with the climate and bring down global warming.
Derided by environmentalists, the trend is nevertheless finding favour in influential circles, propelled by the dire headlines about the planet’s future. Microsoft founder Bill Gates recently put a portion of his immense wealth into solar engineering trials, where thousands of planes spray millions of tonnes of particles at high altitude to create a chemical cloud and mimic the effect of a volcanic eruption.
Other engineering techniques involve increasing the reflectivity of the Earth’s surface through the use of reflective roofs, installing mirrors to change the oceans’ brightness and brightening clouds by spraying aerosols or seawater to allow condensation to occur.
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Why markets aren't as scared of oil price spike
Jan 5, 2020 — 10.56am
Markets hate black swans and always will. Ever since Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book of 2007, any extreme but very unlikely event has been labelled a "black swan" in a reference to the philosophy of knowledge. Just as Europeans were justified in believing that all swans were white, until they discovered Australia and realised that some swans are black, so markets have difficulty dealing with events for which there is little precedent.
With the decade only three days old, its first bona fide geopolitical shock has already shown us the problem. The news that the US had killed Qassem Soleimani, leader of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds force, is a significant escalation of a conflict that has simmered for decades. All-out war between the US and Iran is now more likely than it was before. And it is wise to assume that Iran will follow through on its promise of "severe retaliation" for an act that it describes as an act of war.
The situation is unmistakably grave. It happened when liquidity in international markets was low, with many traders still finishing off their Christmas season vacation, and when optimism was rife. The main US share indexes closed last year at record levels, with valuations that looked dangerously stretched, while risk assets around the world had enjoyed a rally on the back of easing tensions in the American trade conflict with China.
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Game-changer needed to unpick tough carbon chemistry
The big players in steel, cement, aluminium and chemicals may aspire to become ''carbon neutral'' or reduce emissions, but they are battling the laws of chemistry.
Jan 6, 2020 — 11.23am
The steel, cement, aluminium and chemicals industries combined generate about 30 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions.
They are the ''bad boys'' as the world wrestles with the complexities and fraught politics of how to combat climate change, which have been thrown into sharp and urgent relief by the bushfire disaster gripping south-eastern Australia.
Despite lofty goals by many of the big companies at the centre of those industries, mostly using 2030 as a target date to either become ''carbon neutral'' or make a serious dent in emissions, they are battling the laws of chemistry.
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Bushfires crisis unlikely to hit economic growth: JP Morgan
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.29pm
Death, destruction, loss of trading and big insurance claims from the devastating bushfire crisis won't necessarily hit gross domestic product.
Without being complacent, JP Morgan's chief economist Sally Auld has downplayed the wider effects of the bushfires on the economy.
She noted that the negative, direct effects of such disasters on GDP operate mostly through production lost from disruption to infrastructure and productive capital. However, at this point most of the fires have not been in areas that are significant production contributors to GDP.
"Significant bushfires, almost by tautology, occur mostly in non-productive, non-residential, and non-cleared land," Ms Auld noted.
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Fires to knock 0.3pc off GDP: Goldman Sachs
Jan 7, 2020 — 10.42am
Economic growth will take a 0.3 percentage point hit over the December and January quarters due to the fires, according to the latest analysis from Goldman Sachs.
At the same time the fires have been raging, financial markets have priced in a higher chance of another 0.25 percentage point interest rate cut next month, up from 45 per cent before Christmas to 53 per cent.
But Goldman Sachs said they did not expect the Reserve Bank of Australia will incorporate any material effect to economic forecasts from the fires.
"We also expect the RBA to flag downside risks to the outlook from the bushfires in its February Statement on Monetary Policy, but don’t expect the fires to materially impact its central forecasts or policy decision at this stage," Goldman Sachs chief economist Andrew Boak said.
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Job ads plummet as fires torch confidence
Jan 7, 2020 — 1.55pm
A leading employment indicator suffered its biggest fall since the 2019 federal election and consumer confidence slumped to its lowest level in four years, underlining the mounting toll of the bushfire emergency on economic activity.
ANZ's monthly Australian job ads survey fell 6.7 per cent in December in seasonally adjusted terms, extending the year-on-year decline in the series to 18.8 per cent. Based on the number of jobs advertised a week, the survey is back at April 2016 levels.
Job ads were down 1.9 per cent for the month in trend terms, and 14.4 per cent year on year. The severity of the fall undermines November's upbeat official jobs number, which showed the unemployment rate falling to 5.2 per cent from 5.3 per cent.
ANZ and Roy Morgan's weekly consumer confidence survey declined 1.7 per cent last week to the lowest level since 2016 based on respondents' assessments of current and future economic conditions. Those fell 12.9 and 8.1 per cent respectively, despite financial conditions improving slightly.
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Fund fire recovery with climate tax
Jan 7, 2020 — 12.00am
If Australia and other countries meet their current emissions reduction targets, bushfires are still going to get much, much worse. Over the past century, humans have caused the world to warm by 1 degree, but if Australia and the rest of the world stay their current course, we’ll heat the world by 3 degrees. This year’s record-breaking fires in the Amazon, Russia and Australia barely provide a glimpse of what a world 3 degrees warmer looks like.
Last April, Bill Shorten was pilloried by conservatives for not providing precise estimates of the economic cost of climate policies. Presumably those same voices will now ask the Prime Minister to precisely estimate the costs of these bushfires, including the "cost" of the 24 lives and more than 1,500 homes lost, the cost of tens of thousands of people evacuating their homes, the cost of millions of people enduring hazardous levels of smoke and the cost of half a billion native animals burned to death.
Every Australian’s home and business insurance is about to get a lot more expensive. The federal government is about to spend billions extra on income support and reconstruction. Spending on emergency services will surge. Tourism numbers will decline. Smoke has made many workplaces unfit for work, imposing costs on workers, businesses and, via lower tax collections, on the Commonwealth budget. Farmers have lost livestock, crops and infrastructure. An enormous number of people — from firefighters and farmers to the families of those who have lost everything — will need long-term mental health support.
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The Puzzling Economic Impact of Transformative Technologies
By Irving Wladawsky-Berger
Jan 3, 2020 12:18 pm ET
As we’ve learned over the past two centuries, there’s generally been a significant lag between the broad acceptance of a major new transformative technology and its impact on companies, governments and other institutions. It can take decades for new technologies and business models to be embraced across economies and societies and for their full benefits to be realized.
"The Productivity J-Curve," a working paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research, seeks to explain the lag affecting so-called general-purpose technologies—think the steam engine, electricity, or the internet—capable of rewriting the global economy.
“These are the defining technologies of their times and can radically change the economic environment,” write authors Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock and Chad Syverson. “They have great potential from the outset, but realizing that potential requires larger intangible and often unmeasured investments and a fundamental rethinking of the organization of production itself.”
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Is Amazon hitting Australia's GDP?
The deflationary effect of technology is going to distort readings on productivity and economic growth well into the future.
Jan 7, 2020 — 12.00am
Uber instead of buying a car, Netflix instead of going to the cinema, WhatsApp instead of Telstra text messages and Airbnb instead of a hotel. Then there is Amazon or Gumtree for everything else.
It is little wonder that inflation globally has stayed so stubbornly low. But just how much does this deflationary effect distort readings on productivity and economic growth?
The Australian Financial Review's latest economist survey shows this is one of the most contentious questions facing the economic fraternity. Unlike the predictable responses to whether the federal government should stimulate consumption, the issue of technological diffusion on a mass scale invited a highly variable range of responses.
AMP Capital chief economist Shane Oliver is in the camp that believes it is changing growth.
"It's hard to believe that the rapid diffusion of new technology around information flows, multiple apps and media streaming that has led to huge benefits in terms of everything from health to tracking deliveries to how we watch movies has not led to a more discernible impact in boosting productivity, GDP growth and hence material living standards."
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Economists warn tech is disrupting economic data, too
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
Economists are worried the rapid rate of technological change is hurting the quality of key measurements of national economic growth and productivity.
The concern is that tech's deepening reach and the ongoing growth of the services sector may mean quarterly gross domestic product (GDP) numbers are being distorted.
"This is probably one of the most important yet least discussed topics in markets," said Yarra Capital Management economist Tim Toohey.
"It’s clear that as economies evolved ... towards a digital economic structure that defies national borders, the basic methods we have used to measure and assess economic growth have not kept pace."
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Why 2020 should deliver some good news for traditional media
Jan 7, 2020 — 12.03pm
This year is shaping up as another of formative change for the media and advertisers, with digital platforms looking to grow further and traditional players adapting and looking to claw back ad spend.
Influential media buyers believe 2020 will be a better year for the majority of media platforms after one of the worst advertising markets since the global financial crisis.
Consumer confidence lagged and property prices slumped in 2019, while state and federal elections and the aftermath of the banking royal commission saw many advertisers reduce spending.
GroupM chief investment officer Nicola Lewis said most of the total advertising market growth in Australia in 2020 will be in the major digital platforms, such as Facebook and Google. The agency is forecasting around 5 per cent growth compared with 4 per cent in 2019.
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Morrison must reconcile the extremists
It will not be enough to announce a prudent pragmatic approach to climate change. The Prime Minister will also have to find a way to satisfy the fanatics on both sides of the climate wars.
Jan 7, 2020 — 3.34pm
The bushfires have brought out the best in Australians. And the bushfires have also shown us the worst: hysterical, inflexible, identity-obsessed and vengeful.
“This will be Exhibit A in the coming climate trials,” Greens MP Adam Bandt tweeted, above a photo of Liberals celebrating the passing of the Carbon Tax Repeal Bills. Assuming his goal is consensus on the need for climate action, he just set the cause back significantly.
Historically, the formulation is chilling. And there were plenty of long memories around to remind Bandt of the retributive Stalinist show trials at which dissidents were forced to confess to fabricated crimes, and to call up echoes of the George Orwell’s 1984: “We do not destroy the heretic ... we convert him, we capture his inner mind, we shape him.”
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Fires to raise insurance costs
Jan 7, 2020 — 4.58pm
Insurance premiums are set to rise due to extreme fires, but price increases can be limited by reducing bush fuel loads near homes and broader climate change adaptation, the industry has warned after meeting the Treasurer.
Insurers have received about 8500 claims totalling $700 million of losses since the bushfires began in September and are devoting extra staff to progress claims as quickly as possible, the country's leading insurance executives told Josh Frydenberg in Canberra on Tuesday.
Insurance Australia Group chief executive Peter Harmer said the immediate focus was on settling claims, getting government help to remove debris from torched communities and fast-tracking of building approvals.
"Mitigation is something that will need to be done in the long run," Mr Harmer said.
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Getting past a lost decade on energy policy
Jan 7, 2020 — 3.35pm
For Australia’s electricity sector, the 20-teens was largely a decade of lost opportunity. As we enter the 2020s, the opportunity to plot a clear pathway to a new energy future is there to be taken. Yet energy policy decisions must now be framed against the inescapable savagery of this summer’s fires.
In December 2009, wholesale prices in the national electricity market were around $44 per megawatt hour although network prices were rising, electricity sector emissions peaked at 212 million tonnes of CO2-e per annum and the reliability of the power system was unquestioned. Kevin Rudd’s prime ministership had yet to unravel although climate change policy was faltering domestically and internationally.
Ten years later much has changed. Network electricity prices have stabilised, some relief is in sight from two years of wholesale prices above $90 per megawatt hour and sector emissions have fallen by around 15 per cent. More intense Australian summers bring wildfires and widespread fear of blackouts. Our political battleground is littered with the bodies of leaders who have fallen over climate change policy and international climate change negotiations remain stalled.
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Why regulators think it's OK to treat businesses like morons
Regulators are infantilising business, telling companies to cut their investment hurdle rates and issuing banks with primers on responsible lending.
Jan 7, 2020 — 6.46pm
It's official: the tacit acknowledgement in regulatory circles is that Australian businesses are run by such incompetents that they need guidance on managing even the most rudimentary aspects of their operations.
How else to explain the helpful intervention of competition watchdog Rod Sims to point out to local firms that they risked missing out on profitable investment opportunities unless they were prepared to lower their hurdle rates to reflect the lower interest rate environment?
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) boss clearly has major doubts as to whether local businesses have the wit to adjust their basic calculations – upon which their future survival depends – to reflect the low interest rate environment.
This prompted him to express the hope that companies were "reducing cost of capital calculations and not sticking to some benchmark that is no longer justified."
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Earth posts second-hottest year on record in 2019
Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow
Jan 9, 2020 — 6.53am
The planet registered its second-hottest year on record in 2019, capping off a five-year period that ranks as the warmest such span in recorded history.
In addition, the 2010s will go down in history as the planet's hottest decade, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), a science initiative of the Europe Union.
The service, which monitors global surface temperatures, determined Earth last year was a full degree warmer (0.6 Celsius) than the 1981-2010 average. This data provides the first comprehensive global look at the state of the climate in 2019, with US agencies such as NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) expected to announce similar results next week.
"2019 has been another exceptionally warm year, in fact the second warmest globally in our data set, with many of the individual months breaking records," said Carlo Buontempo, head of C3S, in a news release.
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Insurers can bear cost of bushfires, say analysts
Jan 9, 2020 — 12.00am
Analysts say the insurance industry's failure to set aside adequate funds to cover the cost of the catastrophic bushfires is not cause for alarm, saying reinsurance contracts will protect against major earnings erosion.
However, they say the catastrophic bushfires, which have so far resulted in $700 million worth of insurance losses, are likely to have a modest impact on earnings, and may result in higher premiums for property owners.
Last week, ASX-listed insurer IAG revealed it was on track to blow its perils allowance for the six months to December by $80 million, continuing a dismal track record that has seen the insurer exceed its "natural perils" allowance in 12 out of the past 15 years.
But the repeated failure has not worried analysts, who consider IAG to be well protected against the risk of blowing the allowance for the full year.
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Berejiklian government to spend $1b rebuilding fire-ravaged NSW
By Alexandra Smith
Updated January 9, 2020 — 10.57amfirst published at 9.44am
The Berejiklian government will spend $1 billion over the next two years rebuilding roads, rail lines, schools and bridges in towns that have been devastated by the bushfires.
Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said the new allocation of money would ensure the recovery process could start without delay.
"The money will provide an immediate source of funding to ensure key infrastructure is restored so that communities can get back on their feet as soon as possible," Ms Berejiklian said.
"The bushfire season is far from over but we know how important it is for communities to start the recovery process where possible."
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The top 10 phrases you'll need to understand the economy in 2020
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
January 9, 2020 — 12.00am
It’s that time of year when those of us with a professional interest in grabbing headlines stare into our crystal balls and make bold predictions about what lies ahead in 2020. The trick for those of us seeking both fame and longevity is to keep things a bit vague.
So, in that vein, here is my one big prediction for the economy in 2020: there is a higher than usual chance things are about to get very weird. Like, deeply weird.
If the economic concepts that arise this year don’t make much sense to you, congratulations: you’re within a hair's breadth of grasping the gravity of the situation.
But to give you a fighting chance at keeping up, I’ve once again assembled my top 10 list of economic jargon words or phrases you’ll need to avoid looking silly at dinner parties this year. You’re quite welcome.
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Hazard reduction burn benefits undercut by weather, costs
By Mike Foley
January 8, 2020 — 7.30pm
Changing weather patterns, a warming climate and more people living in high-fire danger areas have experts warning simply doing more hazard reduction burns cannot prevent catastrophic bushfires from claiming lives and property.
They argue that while hazard reduction burns can help reduce the intensity of bushfires and protect houses, the dominant factor in creating extreme fires is the sort of weather that fanned fires devastating coastal Victoria and NSW in recent weeks.
"The biggest risk factor we have is the weather, and we’ve got to realise that because of climate change we will get extreme weather events more often, and when they occur there is very little we can do to stop catastrophic fires - except keep houses a long way from the bush," said Professor Ross Bradstock, the director of Wollongong University's Centre for Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires.
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Australians believe there’s a climate emergency and want the country mobilised like it was during the wars
Almost two thirds of Aussies believe there’s a climate emergency and want the country mobilised like it was during the world wars, a poll shows.
Heatwaves are a hallmark of an Australian summer. But they're getting hotter, becoming more frequent, and lasting longer.
EXCLUSIVE
Almost two thirds of Australians believe the country is facing a climate emergency and governments should mobilise all of society to tackle the issue as it did during the world wars, a new survey has found.
Significantly, the research from The Australia Institute was conducted in November before some of the worst bushfires raged across the country ahead of Christmas and on New Year’s Eve.
Australia’s bushfire season began early this year and there have been major blazes since October. The fires have claimed 26 lives, burned more than 10 million hectares of land and obscured and paralysed Australian cities for days by smoke haze.
“This polling was conducted in November before the worst aspects of the current bushfire disaster had hit, but the results are still very clear,” The Australia Institute deputy director Ebony Bennett said. “It will be interesting to see if the current crisis shifts opinions.”
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World Bank trims 2020 growth forecast
· Reuters
The World Bank has trimmed its global growth forecasts slightly for 2019 and 2020 due to a slower-than-expected recovery in trade and investment despite cooler trade tensions between the United States and China.
The multilateral development bank said 2019 marked the weakest economic expansion since the global financial crisis a decade ago.
While 2020 should see a slight improvement, growth remains vulnerable to uncertainties over trade and geopolitical tensions.
In its latest Global Economic Prospects report, the World Bank shaved 0.2 of a percentage point off of growth for both years, with the 2019 global economic growth forecast at 2.4 per cent and 2020 at 2.5 per cent.
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Australia’s 2019 warmest, driest climate on record
Australia experienced both its warmest and driest year on record last year led by key weather influences in the Indian Ocean and over the Antarctic.
The 2019 climate statement from the Bureau of Meteorology said Australia’s average mean temperature in 2019 was 1.52°C above average, making it the warmest on record since consistent national temperature records began in 1910 and surpassing the previous record in 2013 of 1.33°C above average.
Meanwhile, the national average rainfall total in 2019 was 277mm, the lowest since consistent national records began in 1900. The previous record low was 314mm set during the Federation drought in 1902.
Bureau of Meteorology head of climate monitoring Dr Karl Braganza said in a statement the record warm and dry year was one of the key factors influencing recent and current fire conditions in large parts of the country.
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The national scandal that is financial planning
The country's financial planning industry is woefully ill-equipped to handle the $3 trillion in superannuation savings that Australians have amassed.
Jan 10, 2020 — 12.01am
If Treasurer Josh Frydenberg wants to set himself a challenge this year, he should have a crack at setting up a new framework for the country's financial planning industry – one in which consumers can access affordable, quality advice, and industry players can earn a satisfactory return.
All through summer we've seen a steady stream of reports of financial planners being barred from the industry through the summer months. But that shouldn't make us complacent that misconduct in the financial advice industry is anywhere close to being eradicated.
Particularly since the alleged misconduct of the banned financial advisors is depressingly similar to the misbehaviour that caused such outrage when it was aired at the Hayne royal commission.
This week alone, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has banned two financial advisers from providing financial services.
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Morrison is now counting the cost of climate denialism
Jan 9, 2020 — 8.00pm
In May last year, in the run-up to the election, the government refused to countenance the economic cost of climate change. Instead, it was parading highly contentious economic modelling by Brian Fisher claiming all manner of financial doom should Labor win the election and enact its emissions reduction policies.
Fisher did not address the economic effects of not acting, and the government did not consider that to be a shortcoming when it was pointed out.
Yet, for more than a decade now we have been warned that the longer you wait to mitigate climate change, the greater the cost.
That, like every other warning the scientists and economists issued, has now come to pass, illustrated by the government abandoning its "non-negotiable'' promise to deliver a budget surplus this financial year.
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Bushfire states face $451m disaster funding cut
Jan 10, 2020 — 12.00am
The Commonwealth Grants Commission plans to cut $451 million in disaster recovery funding for bushfire-ravaged states New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, to help pay for earlier extreme weather events in disaster-prone Queensland.
In unfortunate timing, the independent commission's annual review of the federal government's GST distribution to the states proposed stripping natural disaster funding by $207 million for Victoria, $170 million for NSW and $74 million for South Australia due to a change on how expenses are assessed.
A Victorian government spokesman said: "This proposal clearly falls well short of community expectations and we assume the federal government will sensibly dismiss it out of hand."
States inflicted by bushfire this summer will eventually be able to receive more funding through the natural disaster component of the $68 billion GST distribution, but they will be forced to wait two to five years for the extra money to flow through.
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Extreme conditions created a ‘perfect storm’ for catastrophic fires
Publicly released: Thu 9 Jan 2020 at 1236 AEDT | 1436 NZDT
A Western Sydney University Research Fellow says analyses of bushlands around Sydney in the final months of 2019 indicated that the landscape was primed for these catastrophic fires – but it was series of other conditions, all happening concurrently, that ultimately led to the disaster.
Organisation/s: Western Sydney University
Funder: NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub
Media Release
From: Western Sydney University
A Western Sydney University Research Fellow has described the specific set of environmental conditions that led to Australia’s bushfire emergency.
Dr Rachael Nolan is a member of the Fire Research Group within the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at Western Sydney University.
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Retail sales smash expectations
Jan 10, 2020 — 11.39am
Seasonally adjusted retail sales surged 0.9 per cent in November - the strongest growth in two years and well ahead of economist's expections for just 0.4 per cent growth.
Economists had expected a bounceback in November with events such as Black Friday having become more statistically significant in boosting retail sales in recent years.
"We have seen strong growth in Black Friday sales, both in areas such as electrical goods and online sales, but also in areas such as clothing and furniture," ABS Director of Quarterly Economy Wide Surveys Ben James said.
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10 steps to test your home insurance
Worried about whether your insurance will deliver after a fire? We outline what to watch out for.
Jan 10, 2020 — 3.40pm
Bushfire losses across the nation are a reminder to review building and contents insurance and ensure adequate cover if the worst happens.
These 10 questions, developed with the assistance of the Insurance Council of Australia, should help property owners assess whether their cover is adequate and what they should do if it's not.
Check your insurance cover to make sure you're not caught short in a bushfire claim.
What is the rebuild cost to replace your property?
More than 80 per cent of households are unable to resume their old standard of living after a major disaster, usually because of underinsurance but also because of small-print conditions and exemptions.
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Morrison can't stop the shockwaves from bushfires
The bushfires haven't just impacted nearly every aspect of our lives – they're also changing Australia's political conversation on everything from the environment to the role of government.
Jan 10, 2020 — 5.43pm
The Eyre Highway reopened on Friday after being closed for 12 days because of bushfires. You might not have driven on the Eyre Highway. But unless you want to take the long route north via Kununurra, it is the only sealed highway linking eastern Australia with Western Australia.
The Kings Highway is expected to be closed for most of January. That’s the highway that links Canberra with the south coast. Parts of the highway are said to have just melted down the steep sides of Clyde Mountain in fires that have burnt virtually all the bush from Braidwood to Batemans Bay.
Many communities across the country have been told to boil their drinking water because of contamination linked to bushfires – either by ash, such as at Tenterfield, or by the mixing of water supplies during firefighting, as has happened on the NSW South Coast.
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Government buried climate risk action plan
Jan 11, 2020 — 12.00am
A federal government plan to prepare for the dire effects of climate change-related natural disasters was left to gather dust in the Department of Home Affairs for 1½ years before catastrophic bushfires hit last month.
The National Disaster Risk Reduction Framework warned the changing climate was exposing the country to natural disasters on ‘‘unimagined scales, in unprecedented combinations and in unexpected locations’’.
It warned more and more people and assets would be exposed to these disasters, with essential services – including power, water, telecommunications and financial services – particularly vulnerable.
‘‘As a result, the cost of disasters is increasing for all sectors of society – governments, industry, business, not-for-profits, communities and individuals,’’ the report warned.
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Global shares beat the pack again
There is no shortage of international fund managers offering their services to investors. But be careful because many fail to beat the index and in the year just ended a third had negative returns.
Jan 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Any investor not convinced of the merits of investing a decent proportion of their superannuation savings overseas should know international equities were the best performing out of 12 asset classes over the past 12 months, three years, five years and 10 years.
The net returns for international equities, as measured by the MSCI World ex-Australia index were: one year 28 per cent, three years 13.8 per cent per annum, five years 12.2 per cent per annum and 10 years 12.3 per cent per annum.
Over the four periods mentioned, international shares beat the benchmark returns achieved by Australian equities, small caps, Australian real estate investment trusts (REITs), global REITs, international fixed interest, cash, emerging markets, infrastructure, commodities and hedge funds.
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Morrison, the political animal who missed the political opportunity to lead
The Prime Minister's actions during the bushfire crisis jar with what we’ve come to expect from our politicians in moments of national peril and collective grief.
January 11, 2020
In the euphoric week after last May’s election "miracle", one of the more experienced members of Scott Morrison’s government likened the result to Paul Keating’s victory for the true believers in 1993. “It reminded some of us of Fightback,” he said. An unpopular government had been returned against expectations because voters feared the opposition’s radical alternative.
The senior Liberal shared his insights with colleagues to deliver a quiet warning. Don’t confuse an electoral reprieve for a mandate to govern as you please. Keating had alienated voters immediately after his win with a horror budget and then a policy lurch to the left, which prepared the ground for a landslide defeat in 1996. John Howard, the beneficiary of Keating’s hubris, is likely to have reinforced the message for Morrison. Remain humble and don’t take re-election for granted.
The fascinating part of these internal discussions was the expectation that the Prime Minister would use his authority to bring the government back to the middle ground. One policy area stood out – the environment. There was a strong view that the Coalition could not risk another campaign without a credible climate change policy. In fact, more Liberal seats might have fallen in Sydney and Melbourne in 2019 if Labor had not left itself so open to a scare campaign on its taxation and spending programs. Many Coalition MPs believe otherwise: that the government’s success at the ballot box last year meant a majority of Australians had rejected the global-warming hoax for all time.
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Can we fire-proof the nation?
By Mike Foley
January 11, 2020 — 12.00am
Managing Australia's worsening bushfire risk to lives and homes will depend on how much the public is willing to spend and what environmental impacts it is prepared to tolerate.
Australians already accept a significant number of deaths on the road each year as a cost of car ownership despite massive spending on safety. Experts say dealing with fires will come down to a similar equation.
There are about 130 million hectares of native forest across the country and virtually all of it is dangerously combustible under the right conditions. To put that in context, this summer's fires have burnt more than 6 million hectares.
Scientists predict global warming will make dangerous bushfire events more likely, meaning it will be harder than ever to protect people, property, and wildlife.
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Caution required when gauging economic impact of fires
Jessica Irvine
Economics writer
January 10, 2020 — 12.21pm
When natural disasters strike, it's only a matter of time before some worried soul begins to wring their hands and inquire about the "economic impact" it will have.
Confession: it's usually a journalist.
The nation's economists are then subjected to intense interrogation about precisely how much lower economic output will be as a result of the devastation.
Economists, being a precision-loving bunch, dutifully punch numbers into their models and concede that the disruption will probably result in lower tourism, agricultural output and consumer spending numbers.
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New rules for an old war
Donald Trump puts a dollar value on everything, even conflict with Iran.
January 10, 2020
When I served in Iraq in 2006, and again in 2007, there were clear (albeit unwritten) rules of the game.
Even though we knew operatives of the Quds Force — the external covert action arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps — were inside Iraq mentoring and sponsoring terrorist and militia groups, and even though our troops were being killed regularly by Iranian-manufactured rockets and improvised explosive devices, we never directly attacked the Iranian operatives themselves.
Coalition forces aggressively killed and captured Iranian proxies, including militias such as the Badr Organisation and terrorist networks such as the so-called Special Groups. But we never deliberately targeted the Iranians themselves. On the contrary, Western and Iranian diplomats negotiated with each other and our forces periodically co-operated on common interests, such as the defeat of Sunni extremists like al-Qa’ida.
For their part, Iranian covert operators used their proxies to kill US troops and launch rockets and mortars against allied bases, but rarely if ever took up arms themselves against American or coalition personnel. The only time I can personally recall them doing so was in early 2007, when a Quds Force team kidnapped and killed American advisers in the town of Karbala in southern Iraq, in retaliation for a Special Forces raid targeting an unofficial Iranian consulate in the Kurdish city of Irbil. On another occasion, we captured several Iranians (almost certainly Quds Force members) during an operation against Shia militia, only to release them as soon as their identities emerged.
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In this new normal for bushfires, business as usual will no longer cut it
In the context of the catastrophic fires that have now been raging for months across our country, it is true that historically Australia burns and that fires have long been part of Australia’s ecology.
In fact, southeastern Australia, California and the Mediterranean are the three most fireprone regions on the planet.
Our country burns because our dominant weather patterns are primarily dry and hot.
It hasn’t always been this way: as of 50,000 years ago, Australia was a much wetter place, dominated by a massive freshwater inland sea.
But 50,000 years ago the great drying began. That led to the end of the megafauna, the drying of the inland lakes, the retreat of our tall forests to the coastal fringes and our more ancient rainforest types to the wet gullies and peaks of our high-rainfall mountain ranges.
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Cool heads needed to craft response to bushfire crisis
The 2019-20 bushfire season has been catastrophic and it is not yet over. There is grief, fear and recrimination. These are inevitable human reactions to be worked through as we shift to the challenging task of crafting an effective long-term response to the crisis. That will require open debate, factual reporting and robust commentary. Our political class has to do its job of weighing all sensible options, relying on sound policymaking, lowest-cost technical solutions and can-do realism. This will be impossible without unfettered, credible journalism digging out the facts and bringing to light a wide range of informed viewpoints.
Right now, social media is driving a campaign of outrage in which an alleged right-wing conspiracy of climate denialism is framed as the key obstacle on the path to a better future. For all the clicks, this represents few people and no constructive ideas. We should not allow noise to deafen us to this opportunity for a serious conversation. In evacuation centres, in cafes and kitchens, mainstream Australia is ready to talk about how to protect life, natural heritage and property in future bushfire seasons.
The evidence of global warming since the Industrial Revolution is clear. More intense fires are an observed reality consistent with the predictions of climate change science. In these pages in September, John Ferguson reported the outlook statement from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards Co-Operative Research Centre: “Its chief executive, Richard Thornton, warns there is significant research worldwide that fire seasons are starting earlier and generally getting longer (and the centre says) Australia is staring at a difficult fire season following above-average temperatures and the severe drought that is gripping large parts of the country.”
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Australian’s affected by bushfires will be able to access their medicines in an emergency
The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia
A temporary expansion of PBS Continued Dispensing to cover nearly all PBS medicines will mean Australians affected by the bushfire crisis will be able to access their vital medicines at regular PBS prices if they find themselves without a prescription, following a move strongly welcomed by the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia (PSA).
Under the temporary change announced this afternoon by Health Minister Hon Greg Hunt, from Monday 13 January 2020, pharmacists will be able to offer standard quantities of ongoing PBS medicines for the standard co-payment– being $6.60 for concession card holders, and up to a maximum of $41.00 for general patients – where PBS medicines are supplied without a prescription in an emergency situation.
This move supports the recent issue of temporary authorities to legally supply full-supplies of these medicines in an emergency in New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT.
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Businesses urged government to prepare for disaster. Then nothing
Jan 10, 2020 — 4.32pm
In 2012 six Australian businesses and NGOs – Westpac, IAG, Optus, Investa, Munich Re and the Red Cross – joined forces to lobby governments for a more deliberate, nationwide approach to disaster resilience.
In 2017 the group, which calls itself the Australian Business Roundtable for Diaster Resilience and Safe Communities, commissioned Deloitte Access Economics to draw together a comprehensive list of recommendations for how the nation should prepare for increasing natural disasters.
The report found that even before considering climate change, the cost of natural disasters recovery would more than double in real terms between 2016 and 2050, going from $18 billion to $39 billion. Events in Queensland represented about half that cost and NSW accounted for a quarter.
Alongside physical damage from storms, floods and fires, the report warned of long-term social impacts on communities, such as effects on health and wellbeing, employment and community networks.
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The fires dividing the nation
Scott Morrison will face pressure in the party room to address climate change as the fires and prolonged drought become an incendiary public issue.
Jan 10, 2020 — 3.35pm
As he surveyed smouldering Kangaroo Island on Wednesday, the idyllic South Australian holiday haven, Scott Morrison issued a simple plea.
"Australia is open, Australia is still a wonderful place to come and bring your family and enjoy your holidays. Even here on Kangaroo Island, where a third of the island has obviously been decimated – two-thirds of it is open and ready for business."
While the sentiment may have been noble, the irony was that the Prime Minister was urging Aussies to holiday at home after he had been heavily criticised for vacationing in Hawaii as the nation's summer of inferno intensified.
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Leaked report lays bare environmental devastation of Victorian fires
By Bianca Hall and Peter Hannam
January 10, 2020 — 11.50pm
The ecological devastation of the Victorian bushfires has been laid bare in a leaked report which warns some species are likely to already be extinct – even as authorities brace for many more weeks of fires.
"Almost all" eastern ground parrots' Victorian habitat has already been destroyed, according to a draft report on the bushfire emergency delivered to government earlier this week.
It says more than 40 per cent of the Victorian habitats of the sooty owl, diamond python, long-footed potoroo, long-nosed bandicoot and brush-tailed rock-wallaby have already been wiped out.
An estimated 25 per cent of the sooty owl population has been killed.
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Christian right groups say PM Scott Morrison stole their thunder
By Royce Millar and Farrah Tomazin
January 12, 2020 — 12.00am
Some of Australia’s most extreme Christian-right parties have withdrawn from politics, claiming the election of Prime Minister Scott Morrison had rendered them redundant.
The Victorian-based Rise Up Australia leader said the political party was deregistered after the May election because Mr Morrison’s Christian values “mirrored” many of its own.
Controversial Rise Up leader Danny Nalliah - who once claimed the Black Saturday bushfires were the consequence of Victoria decriminalising abortion - said Rise Up was formed almost a decade ago because of a “vacuum” in Christian-conservative politics, which had now been filled.
“There is no need for us to continue because Scott Morrison was elected,” the evangelist pastor said.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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Aged care residents reveal which centres are the worst to live in
By Dana McCauley
January 8, 2020 — 5.13pm
Aged care residents in large centres in major cities are unhappier with their care than those in smaller, regional facilities and satisfaction levels are lower in those that operate for a profit.
New figures also show for-profit aged care providers get more non-compliance notices than not-for-profit centres.
Actuary Richard Cumpston crunched the numbers on resident surveys conducted by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission at 1844 homes, and found that those in not-for-profit centres were about 17 per cent likelier to give a positive answer when asked about their experience.
Those living in regional aged care centres were about 36 per cent happier than those in cities, while those in large facilities were 34 per cent unhappier than those in smaller ones, Dr Cumpston said in a submission to the federal government's aged care royal commission, seen by the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.
Dr Cumpston, 78, obtained the raw data through freedom of information and is self-funding the research along with two colleagues who share his concerns about the aged care sector.
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Aged care is broken. Unlocking housing wealth can fix it
It's the billions of dollars locked up in family homes, not taxpayers' money, that can ensure older Australians are comfortable and happy in their final years.
Pat Garcia
Jan 10, 2020 — 3.07pm
If we want to get serious about actually fixing our broken aged care system, we'll need to start by confronting some hard truths. So here’s one: the aged care funding crisis is now so deep the government can’t realistically fix it with taxpayers’ money.
To understand what I mean, take a quick look down the abyss. Let's start with the soaring need for home-care packages. These packages are designed to help seniors who want to stay in their own homes, but need some assistance to get by. They might have mobility issues or they might be looking after a spouse with, say, dementia.
The waiting list for home-care packages now has 120,000 names on it. As the aged care royal commission noted, many seniors are now dying in discomfort well before they win the lottery for a package. The federal government, recognising the problem, last month announced a fresh $500 million for home-care packages – enough to provide an extra 10,000 places. A welcome step, but not nearly enough.
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APRA’s new secret bank rankings imminent
Jan 11, 2020 — 12.01am
The prudential regulator is in the final stages of testing a more dynamic replacement for its secret probability of failure and supervision ratings. The legacy system – which in 2018 placed IOOF one step away from forced restructure – has been operating for 15 years.
The new analytical system for triggering financial institution restructurings has been dubbed the Supervisory Risk and Intensity model (SRI). It will replace the dual rating system known as the Probability and Impact Rating System (PAIRS) and the Supervisory Oversight and Response System (SOARS) by mid-year.
The decision to junk the old system followed criticism from the International Monetary Fund and the regulator’s capability review led by Graeme Samuel. They found that the frameworks put in place following the collapse of HIH Insurance in 2001 were no longer suitable for its mandate.
Under the new system, institutions will be divided into four tiers according to size and then five stages of supervision according to their risk rating.
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National Budget Issues.
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Ai Group calls for stimulus amid manufacturing slump
· AAP
Australian manufacturing activity has contracted in back-to-back months for the first time since 2015, sparking fresh calls for further economic stimulus.
The Australian Industry Group Performance of Manufacturing Index increased slightly by 0.2 points to 48.3 in December, but remains below the 50-point mark that separates expansion and contraction in activity, following a 3.1 point drop in October and a 3.5 point decline in November.
Ai Group Chief Executive Innes Willox said the year-ending downturn was a clear warning of the growing risk of a more broadbased slackening of an economy already in the slow lane.
“It adds weight to the view that serious consideration should be given to further fiscal stimulus,” Mr Willox said.
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Livestock losses another blow to milk industry in decline
By Patrick Hatch
January 7, 2020 — 12.00am
Farm groups say devastating fires that have torn through two of Australia's key dairy production areas will cause a further decline in the country's already decades-low milk production levels.
Shaughn Morgan, CEO of the industry group Dairy Connect, said about 30 to 40 farmers on the NSW South Coast had been affected, with some reporting they had lost the bulk of their livestock.
He said the fires were another stress for an industry already under "enormous pressure" from drought, high feed prices, "unfair" milk supply agreements and, in many instances, farm-gate milk prices that did not cover their costs of production.
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Risks facing Australian economy in 2020
The Australian economy posted its worst performance since the global financial crisis during 2019, but what is ahead in 2020?
Colin Brinsden
Australian Associated Press January 8, 20208:00am
KEY RISKS FOR THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY IN 2020
* ECONOMY
The Australian economy posted its worst performance since the global financial crisis during 2019, hit by drought, weak consumer spending, sluggish business investment and a slowing global economy. As of the September quarter, annual growth was running at 1.7 per cent, well below the long-term trend at 2.75 per cent. Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was forced to cut his 2019/20 growth forecast to 2.25 per cent. While economists are expecting a gradual grind higher during 2020, the recovery may not be fast enough to prevent unemployment rising.
* LABOUR MARKET
After dipping to a nine-year low of 4.9 per cent early in 2019, the jobless rate has gradually increased to 5.3 per cent. Treasurer Frydenberg now expects the unemployment rate will be 5.5 per cent this financial year and next. The Reserve Bank wants to see it closer to 4.5 per cent to help lift sluggish wages growth. But a slump in job advertising over the past year and slow economic growth suggest the unemployment rate could go even higher.
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Construction index hits lowest since 2013
· Australian Associated Press
Australia's construction sector ended 2019 on a low note with deteriorating activity, new orders and supplier deliveries pushing a key industry index to its lowest mark since May 2013.
December heralded the 16th consecutive month of contraction for the Australian Industry Group and Housing Industry Association Performance of Construction Index, which dropped 1.1 per cent to 38.9 - well below the 50 point mark that separates growth and decline.
Wednesday's data comes ahead of the Australian Bureau of Statistics' November building approvals figures, which most economists predict will have bounced back somewhat from a dismal October showing.
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Iron ore exports drive trade surplus
A surprise jump in the trade surplus in November has raised hopes net exports will continue to drive economic growth through the final months of 2019 and bolster the federal budget surplus at a time when the government is intent on doing “whatever it costs” to support those affected by bushfires.
A lift in iron ore exports and a plunge in car imports helped drive a surprisingly large $5.8bn trade surplus for November.
High commodity prices and surging mining export volumes have underpinned a historic trade boom.
Australia’s surplus on a 12-month rolling basis has reached an unprecedented $67.1bn, on track to smash Australian Bureau of Statistics records going back to the early 1970s.
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Health Issues.
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Federal government opens mask stockpiles
6:32pm Jan 5, 2020
National medical stockpiles of particulate-filter masks will be opened up to help authorities on bushfire front lines in Victoria and NSW.
The federal government will also send 100,000 P2 masks to the ACT to help vulnerable people in the capital, Chief Minister Andrew Barr says.
The smoke in Canberra has caused shops, institutions and public facilities to close, with the CBD shopping centre the latest to shut shop on Sunday.
All Qantas flights out of Canberra Airport were cancelled on Sunday, with other airlines still operating.
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'Knowledge is power': first would-be parents tested for 700 genetic diseases
By Kate Aubusson
January 6, 2020 — 5.06am
A handful of Sydney couples are among the first of thousands to access free genetic testing for more than 700 severe and deadly diseases they could potentially pass onto their children.
The pilot phase of the Mackenzie’s Mission is underway. The landmark trial could pave the way for population-wide preconception carrier screening.
The research team of geneticists, genetic counsellors, clinicians and lab scientists have begun guiding 20 to 40 couples through the process - a test-run for the full-scale trial.
The project will ultimately recruit roughly 10,000 couples considering having a baby or in early pregnancy.
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Health impacts of bushfires won't be known for years, experts say
By Dana McCauley
January 6, 2020 — 4.53pm
Australians breathing toxic bushfire smoke will have to wait years to know what long-term health impacts they may suffer, as experts say there is no precedent for the ongoing crisis.
University of NSW professor Bin Jalaludin, a chief investigator with the Centre for Air Pollution, Energy and Health Policy Research, said previous bushfire events had subjected civilians to smoke pollution for "a couple of days, a week at most".
"I've been working in air pollution research since the early 1990s and we've not had any fires so prolonged or so extreme," Professor Jalaludin said.
While this means little research has been done on the lasting effects of bushfire smoke exposure over weeks or months, he said studies showed residents of highly polluted cities had an increased risk of heart attack, stroke and diabetes over time.
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Breathing problems rise in bushfire smoke
· Australian Associated Press
Paramedics in fire-ravaged Victoria are dealing with a spike in Triple-0 calls from people suffering breathing problems.
Ambulance Victoria says hospitals are coping but the bushfire crisis has resulted in heavier workloads for emergency crews.
"Yesterday we saw a 51 per cent increase in the number of people reporting breathing problems, and we think that's largely due to smoke," Emergency Management acting director Justin Dunlop said on Tuesday.
"Breathing problems calls increased from an average of 187 per day to 282 yesterday, with a spike in the evening."
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The race for the 'holy grail' vaccine
British experts are taking a revolutionary approach to the urgent quest to help prevent a global pandemic.
Ellie Zolfagharifard
Jan 8, 2020 — 12.00am
Pale, sweaty and nauseous, Beth Emhoff embraces her son after returning home from a business trip in Hong Kong. Days later they are both dead. Within weeks, thousands in Emhoff's town succumb to the same mystery illness. After months, the death toll reaches 2.5 million.
That is the chilling plot of Contagion, a film offering a depiction of a global pandemic that experts claim is as realistic as it is terrifying.
"It is a worst-case scenario," says Professor John Edmunds of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. "But it's not completely impossible ... One day we'll probably get a flu virus that does something similar."
That day may come within our lifetimes, according to Bill Gates. The Microsoft founder is so concerned that he is investing $22 million, alongside Google co-founder Larry Page, to help find a "holy grail" flu vaccine that can protect against every strain of the virus.
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Medibank trials heart attack rehab in health care, costs push
By Patrick Hatch
January 8, 2020 — 12.00am
Medibank is enrolling heart attack patients in a personalised rehabilitation program designed to ward off secondary cardiac events, as part of a push to take a more hands-on approach to managing its members' health and reduce its hospital claims bill.
It is the latest sign of Australia's health funds being more proactive in keeping their members out of hospital, in an effort to both improve customers' well-being while avoiding having to pay out costly medical claims.
Insurers' claims bills have been rising faster than premiums in recent years, putting them under financial pressure at a time when Australians are dropping out of the private system at a record rate.
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Public hospital system being stretched to the limit
The nation’s public hospitals are “stretched to the max” and are beginning to buckle under the strain of an ageing population that is living longer, having more operations and experiencing greater prevalence of chronic disease.
Emergency departments are seeing more patients than ever, with almost a third of patients waiting longer than the targeted time for treatment, and hospitals are being swamped with increasing numbers of patients requiring elective surgery, blowing out waiting lists.
The Australian Medical Association has issued a fresh warning that a lack of investment in primary care and planning for an ageing population is putting extra pressure on an already overburdened public health system.
At the same time, advancements in technology that have enhanced disease diagnosis and treatment is adding to the strain on health budgets.
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Cancer death rate is in steady decline among Americans
By Knvul Sheikh
January 9, 2020 — 7.05am
The cancer death rate in the United States fell 2.2 per cent from 2016 to 2017 — the largest single-year decline in cancer mortality ever reported, the American Cancer Society reported on Wednesday.
Since 1991 the rate has dropped 29 per cent, which translates to approximately 2.9 million fewer cancer deaths than would have occurred if the mortality rate had remained constant.
"Every year that we see a decline in cancer mortality rate, it's very good news," said Rebecca Siegel, director of surveillance research at the American Cancer Society and lead author of the organisation's report, which was published online in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians.
Experts attributed the decline to the reduced smoking rates and to advances in lung cancer treatment. New therapies for melanoma of the skin have also helped extend life for many people with metastatic disease, or cancer that has spread to other parts of the body.
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Hospital overload ‘fuelled by GP rebate’
The Medicare rebate for GP consultations is too low, prompting tens of thousands of people each year to flood emergency departments and discouraging young doctors from training in general practice.
That’s the view of NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard, who says health systems around the nation need a “complete restructure”, starting with adjustments to Medicare. “Every state and territory jurisdiction is facing increased pressure on emergency departments,” he said. “Obviously one of the major contributing factors is the lack of a reasonable increase in Medicare rebates for general practitioners. There is inadequate recompense for GPs.
“Many of them are now charging a gap fee, which for an average consultation can range from $30 to $100. That is contributing to a substantial increase in people presenting to emergency departments with issues that clearly aren’t emergencies.”
The Medicare rebate for standard GP consultations lasting less than 20 minutes is $38.20. For longer consultations up to 40 minutes, the rebate is $73.95.
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Cancer survival in Australia among the best in the world
Jan 10, 2020 — 12.00am
While the fall in cancer death rates in the US is making headlines across the world, Australia has quietly been doing just as well and, in some cancers, doing even better because of its universal health care system.
Professor Sanchia Aranda, CEO of Cancer Council Australia, says the comparison between the two countries is not exact because the way cancer data is collected in the US leaves gaps in lower socio-economic groups.
“But international cancer benchmarking shows cancer survival in Australia is among the best in the world, “she says.
“We have world best survival in breast and prostate cancer. In the last benchmarking we were number one for pancreas, oesophageal and lung cancer [for one and five-year survival], we were second in ovarian and pretty good in colorectal cancer as well.”
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Failing mental and dental health resources driving hospital congestion
A critical shortage of mental health beds and unaffordable dental services are prompting increasing numbers of patients to flood emergency departments and be admitted for preventable surgery, as evidence grows that public hospitals are under unsustainable strain.
The Australasian College of Emergency Medicine says some mental health patients wait as long as three days in emergency for a bed to become available in a ward.
“Greater than 24-hour stays would be daily occurrences in many emergency departments around the country,” said ACEM president John Bonning. “Some of these patients can spend two or three days waiting for a bed.
“It’s getting worse — it’s unjust. These patients are being discriminated against, not actively, but they get manifestly worse care than other patients without mental illness.”
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Smart drugs target prostate tumours
Prostate cancer is entering the era of 'precision medicine', bringing a new approach and a new class of highly-focused drugs that have begun helping men with a particular genetic defect.
Jan 11, 2020 — 12.00am
A new form of treatment is emerging for prostate cancer. Rather than the traditional “one-size fits all” approach developed for the average man; this new approach is tailored to the individual man.
Using sophisticated technology and smart drugs, it targets the particular genetic make-up of his prostate tumour.
This treatment is part of the 21st century domain of “precision medicine” which aims to assist doctors in selecting therapies most likely to help patients based on a genetic understanding of their disease.
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Bushfires creating health crisis: doctors
An influential medical organisation has warned of the 'unprecedented public health crisis' brewing during Australia's nationwide bushfire disaster.
Steven Trask
Australian Associated Press January 11, 2020 10:59am
Australia faces a new crisis as pressure mounts on the public health system during the nationwide bushfire crisis, an influential medical organisation says.
The Royal Australasian College of Physicians, which represents more than 17,000 doctors, says Australia is in uncharted territory when it comes to assessing the long-term health effects of the current bushfire season.
Respiratory expert and RACP president-elect Professor John Wilson said a comprehensive and coordinated public health response was needed.
"This is an unprecedented public health crisis and we don't yet know the impact this prolonged exposure to bushfire smoke is going to have," he said in a statement.
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International Issues.
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Trump has done Iran a favour by killing its most overrated warrior
Qassem Soleimani pushed his country to build an empire, but drove it into the ground instead.
Jan 6, 2020 — 12.00am
One day they may name a street after Donald Trump in Tehran. Why? Because Trump just ordered the assassination of possibly the dumbest man in Iran and the most overrated strategist in the Middle East: Major General Qassem Soleimani.
Think of the miscalculations this guy made. In 2015, the United States and the major European powers agreed to lift virtually all their sanctions on Iran, many dating back to 1979, in return for Iran halting its nuclear weapons program for a mere 15 years, but still maintaining the right to have a peaceful nuclear program. It was a great deal for Iran. Its economy grew by over 12 per cent the next year. And what did Soleimani do with that windfall?
He and Iran’s Supreme Leader launched an aggressive regional imperial project that made Iran and its proxies the de facto controlling power in Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Sanaa. This freaked out US allies in the Sunni Arab world and Israel — and they pressed the Trump administration to respond. Trump was eager to tear up any treaty forged by Barack Obama, so he exited the nuclear deal and imposed oil sanctions on Iran that have now shrunk the Iranian economy by almost 10 per cent and pushed unemployment to more than 16 per cent.
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Democracies are ill-suited to deal with climate change
Harrowing images of Australian bushfires and Californian wildfires should be blowing a hole in complacency around global warming. But the disasters also crystallise how hard it is for democracies to mobilise public action.
Jan 6, 2020 — 8.53am
Around my parents’ home on England’s south coast, global warming is proceeding so benignly that French champagne houses are buying up tracts of local hillsides. Trends like this have helped to temper the global north’s response to climate change over the last 30 years.
“Global warming is a terrible thing,” we tell ourselves. “But its main victims will tragically be in the poorer countries. Canadian mangoes anyone?”
Harrowing images of Australian bushfires and Californian wildfires should be blowing a hole in such complacency. But they also crystallise how hard it is for democracies to mobilise public action.
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Soleimani assassination risks all-out war between US and Iran
The US operation at Baghdad airport is something the Islamic republic is near certain to respond to with multi-barrelled fury.
Jan 5, 2020 — 2.04pm
The US air strike on Baghdad airport that killed General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, the elite expeditionary arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, is a dramatic escalation in the shadowy war between Tehran and Washington and its allies raging across the Middle East.
It will be extremely difficult to prevent the cycle of reprisals and counter-attacks that will now almost certainly ensue from sliding into direct confrontation — and with it the risk of all-out war.
Even if contained, this escalating conflict will scatter more sparks across a region deeply scarred by war and turmoil, and add a risk premium to international oil prices that have already jumped 3 per cent a barrel on news of Soleimani’s assassination.
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Trump vows to hit 52 targets if Iran retaliates
Ahmed Aboulenein, Maha El Dahan and David Shepardson
Jan 5, 2020 — 5.22pm
Key Points
- Iraqi mourners shout 'Death to America' and 'No No Israel'
- Trump shows no sign of trying to reduce tensions
- Iranian general refers to 35 US retaliatory targets
- Democrats criticise Trump; one accuses him of war crime
Baghdad/Washington | US President Donald Trump on Sunday (AEDT) threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites "very hard" if Iran attacks Americans or US assets after a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, as tens of thousands of people marched in Iraq to mourn their deaths.
Showing no signs of seeking to ease tensions raised by the strike he ordered that killed Soleimani and Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport on Friday, Trump issued a threat to Iran on Twitter. The strike has raised the spectre of wider conflict in the Middle East.
Iran, Trump wrote, "is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets" in revenge for Soleimani's death. Trump said the United States had "targeted 52 Iranian sites" and that some were "at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD".
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China replaces key Hong Kong official with Xi loyalist
By Keith Zhai
January 5, 2020 — 4.12pm
Singapore: China has replaced the head of its Hong Kong Liaison Office, the most senior mainland political official based in the Chinese-controlled territory, following more than six months of often-violent anti-government protests in the city.
Wang Zhimin, who had held the post since 2017, had been replaced by 65-year-old Luo Huining, the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security announced on its website. Until November, Luo was the top official of China's ruling Communist Party in the northern province of Shanxi.
Reuters reported exclusively in November that Beijing was considering potential replacements for Wang, in a sign of dissatisfaction with the Liaison Office's handling of the crisis, the worst since the city reverted from British to Chinese rule in 1997.
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It's Taiwan's election. But this time, it's all about China
By Julie Szego
January 5, 2020 — 2.58pm
One morning last month, I found myself in a dimly-lit lecture theatre in Taipei. The building, housing the Institute for National Defence and Security Research, a think tank that briefs Taiwan’s government, sits in a military compound. Facing the audience was a long table of eight experts - seven men in ties and dark suits and one woman.
The mood was sombre. Winter was setting in. And in this besieged democracy of 23 million, it’s also election season.
In the lead-up to presidential elections on January 11, Beijing is cranking up the pressure on Taiwan’s voters to unseat President Tsai Ing-wen and the Democratic Progressive Party, whose campaign pitch emphasises the island’s sovereignty.
One of the institute’s panellists, Dr Che-Chuan Lee, reflected on Chinese President Xi Jinping’s more overt bullying measures: excluding the island from multilateral forums and turning seven of Taipei’s diplomatic allies to Beijing, so that now only 15 states formally recognise Taiwan.
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Soleimani: For once the virtuous have not been meek
In one of the most consequential decisions of the Trump presidency, the airstrike killing Iran’s Major General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad on Friday chops the head from a very dangerous snake who has targeted Western interests for almost 20 years. But it does not mean a new war in the Middle East, no matter how much the US establishment might want one.
There has already been one predictable response: the world’s frenzied left all of a sudden reveres Soleimani as the late leader of its resistance. In other words, the Trump resistance.
The more important response will be Iran’s next move. It’s global terrorist network is well placed to exact revenge on the West, including Australia.
Soleimani, the Iran Revolutionary Guard-Quds Force commander, was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of US soldiers and thousands of civilians across Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Afghanistan.
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Trump is dragging us into war with lots of arrogance, little strategy
If we have learned anything from the past 17 years, it is that killing a bad guy doesn't necessarily make the situation any better.
Max Boot
Jan 7, 2020 — 7.01am
"We took a bad guy off the battlefield. We made the right decision." That is the sophomoric justification that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo provided for President Donald Trump's risky gambit of killing Major General Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force.
If we have learned anything from the past 17 years, it is that killing a bad guy doesn't necessarily make the situation any better. Saddam Hussein was as bad as a guy can get, but his ouster and execution only unleashed chaos.
That's why I regret my support for the Iraq War; Pompeo clearly does not. He and Trump (who supported the Iraq invasion before he opposed it) seem to have learned nothing from that fiasco. They are sucking the United States into another Middle East conflict with a surfeit of arrogance and a deficit of strategy.
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Trump's dysfunctional foreign policy meets its biggest crisis
For three years, a popular refrain in Washington has been that although President Donald Trump's foreign policy is chaotic and dysfunctional, at least the erratic president hasn't gotten us into a war.
Josh Rogin
Jan 7, 2020 — 6.38am
For three years, a popular refrain in Washington has been that although President Donald Trump's foreign policy is chaotic and dysfunctional, at least the erratic president hasn't gotten us into a war.
Trump's instinct for non-intervention and his focus on domestic politics, the reasoning went, had resulted in a relatively peaceful - if not coherent - foreign policy approach.
That theory has now been overtaken by events as Trump and his team stumble through what is undoubtedly the biggest and most dangerous foreign policy crisis of his presidency.
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America should drop the ‘Dr Evil fallacy’ on assassination
Taking out a famous bad guy almost never yields lasting gains in US security or influence, which are the usual measures of foreign-policy success.
Updated Jan 7, 2020 — 10.37am, first published at 10.34am
“Ladies and gentlemen, we got him”: I can still remember the exultant tone of Paul Bremer, the American governor of post-invasion Iraq, as he announced the capture of Saddam Hussein.
Mr Bremer’s exhilaration was understandable. But it also pointed to a persistent fallacy that has undermined US foreign policy for decades. You could call it the “Dr Evil syndrome”.
This is the idea, popular in Hollywood, that killing or capturing a “bad guy” is the key to solving a complex foreign policy problem. It did not work out like that with Saddam. And it is unlikely that the Dr Evil theory will fare any better after the killing last week of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most feared military commander.
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Iran Confrontation Could Draw in U.S.—or Push It Away
Trump is sending thousands more troops to the Mideast. But in the long run, the reduction of an American presence in the region could continue
By Gerald F. Seib
Updated Jan. 6, 2020 6:08 pm ET
The great question hanging over the dangerous new confrontation between the U.S. and Iran is as simple as it is profound: Is this clash going to deepen America’s long entanglement in the Middle East—or is it the kind of watershed event that actually will begin drawing it to a close?
President Trump’s critics, and a good number of his allies, worry that the airstrike he ordered to kill Iran’s top military leader, Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, will merely set off another of those “endless wars” that Mr. Trump opposes.
Certainly in the short term, the risk of Iranian retaliation is compelling the president to send thousands more American troops into the region. A running confrontation that compels the U.S. to dig in across the Middle East is possible.
Yet in the long run, the forces now on the loose could have the opposite effect: They could hasten a reduction of American presence in the region that already has begun.
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Trump is facing the greatest test of his presidency
History makes clear that wars too often are caused by failed leadership.
Leon E. Panetta
Jan 8, 2020 — 9.25am
As the US begins a new year, the drums of war are beating louder than ever. Yet we too easily forget, with memories of past wars fading, how they begin.
History makes clear that, too often, the cause is failed leadership - struggling to exercise good judgment, miscalculating what others will do, sending mixed messages to adversaries, ignoring intelligence and relying on the false belief that power alone is enough to quickly prevail in any war.
The 21st century in particular has been defined by wars that are easy to get into but difficult to get out of. Terrorism and hybrid wars have made it much more challenging to play by the old rules and achieve victory.
All those factors of failed leadership are now at play in the relationship between the United States and Iran. Both sides had mistakenly assumed they could bully the other into doing what they wanted.
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Missiles fired at Iraqi air base housing US troops
Glen Carey
Updated Jan 8, 2020 — 2.53pm, first published at 10.56am
Washington | Iran fired a series of rockets at two US-Iraqi air bases early on Wednesday Baghdad time, the Pentagon said, in what appeared to be the first Iranian response to the killing of General Qassem Soleimani by American forces last week.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps earlier claimed responsibility for the barrage, which the Pentagon said was launched from Iran and targeted the Ayn al-Asad base in western Iraq and another facility in Erbil. It wasn't immediately clear whether there was major damage or casualties from the attacks.
An Iraqi security source told Reuters that at least seven rockets fell inside Ayn al-Asad air base in Anbar province.
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Five takeaways from President Trump's deranged speech on Iran
Not for the first time, Trump's tendency to beat his chest fiercely and then back down may put a limit on how much damage he does.
Paul Waldman
Jan 9, 2020 — 6.20am
Having prepared carefully to deliver inspiring words that would bring all Americans together as they worry about the possibility of another war in the Middle East, President Donald Trump stepped to the lectern Wednesday morning (Thursday AEDT) and instead gave a brief speech that was vintage Trump: lacking in even the barest eloquence, replete with lies, delivered with garbled pronunciation and weirdly somnolent affect, and unintentionally revealing.
Let's examine what we learned from Trump's speech and how it illuminated the events of the past few days:
- Trump's Iran policy has been a catastrophic failure. "The civilised world must send a clear and unified message to the Iranian regime: Your campaign of terror, murder, mayhem will not be tolerated any longer," Trump said. But that in itself is an acknowledgment of his own failure.
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The paradox of America First
Donald Trump sincerely aspires to a lighter global workload for the US. But his very nationalism makes him amazingly easy to provoke into conflict.
Jan 9, 2020 — 9.35am
Donald Trump is a deceptively conventional US president of the 21st century. Elected to unpick his nation’s entanglements in the Middle East, he has served to deepen and extend them.
What most separates him from his immediate predecessors is his lack of an alibi. George W Bush had terrorist atrocities to avenge, even if he avenged them with a fiasco or two. As for Barack Obama, the Arab spring dawned and then darkened over the course of his tenure. It required an answer.
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Trudeau points to missile strike as cause of Iran jet crash
Jennifer Jacobs and Alan Levin
Updated Jan 10, 2020 — 8.02am, first published at 6.16am
Washington | Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said evidence suggests that a Ukrainian jet was hit by an Iranian missile before it crashed in Tehran and called for an international probe of the disaster.
"We have intelligence from multiple sources, including our allies and our own intelligence. The evidence indicates that the plane was shot down by an Iranian surface-to-air missile," Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa. "This may well have been unintentional."
Iran is being blamed for shooting down a Ukrainian passenger plane which killed 176 people.
More than a third of the 176 people aboard Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 were from Canada when it plunged from the sky about two minutes after a pre-dawn takeoff. The Boeing 737-800 was on fire, according to witnesses on the ground and in other aircraft, cited in a preliminary Iranian report on the crash.
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Mystery illness in southern China identified as a new coronavirus
· AP
A preliminary investigation into viral pneumonia illnesses sickening dozens of people in and around China has identified the possible cause as a new type of coronavirus, state broadcaster CCTV said on Thursday.
Coronaviruses are spread through coughing or sneezing or by touching an infected person. Some cause the common cold and others can lead to more severe respiratory diseases, such as SARS and MERS.
Such viruses are common in people but more exotic versions from bats, camels and other animals have caused severe illness.
The novel coronavirus is different from those that have previously been identified, CCTV said.
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Iran admits 'unintentionally' shooting down Ukrainian plane
By Nasser Karimi
Updated January 11, 2020 — 5.02pmfirst published at 2.54pm
Tehran: Iran announced on Saturday that its military 'unintentionally' shot down a Ukrainian jetliner, killing all 176 aboard.
The statement blamed "human error" for the strike.
The jetliner, a Boeing 737 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, went down on the outskirts of Tehran during take-off just hours after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at US forces in retaliation for the killing of Iranian Major-General Qassem Soleimani in an American air strike in Baghdad. No one was wounded in the attack on the bases.
Iran had denied for several days that a missile downed the aircraft. But then the US and Canada, citing intelligence, said they believed Iran shot down the aircraft.
A military statement carried by state media on Saturday said the plane was mistaken for a "hostile target" after it turned toward a "sensitive military centre" of the Revolutionary Guard. The military was at its "highest level of readiness", it said, amid the heightened tensions with the United States.
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Taiwan president wins landslide victory
· Deutsche Presse Agentur
Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has been re-elected in a landslide in a stern rebuke to China that could fuel further tension.
Anti-government unrest in Chinese-ruled Hong Kong took centre stage during a campaign in which Tsai held up Taiwan as a beacon of hope for protesters in the former British colony and rejected Beijing's offer of a "one country, two systems" model.
China claims Taiwan as its sacred territory, to be taken by force if needed, a threat President Xi Jinping reiterated a year ago while saying he preferred a peaceful solution.
"We hope that the Beijing authorities can understand that a democratic Taiwan with a government chosen by the people will not give in to threats and intimidation," Tsai told reporters on Saturday.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
