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In the US a COVID19 catastrophe is happening with 200,000 + new cases per day and 2000+ deaths per day. This really is just beyond belief and the spectacular incompetence at a Federal level is truly incredible. We are also now starting to see the beginnings of a decline of the US economy again as the pandemic bites for a second time.
In the UK and Europe we are seeing small signs of improvement in the COVID19 issue while last ditch Brexit discussions are underway.
In OZ the Parliamentary Year has wrapped up and the pollies have gone home! It will be interesting to see what real changes have been made over the year. We are also due a new assessment of where the economy is quite soon which will set our mood for the Christmas period.
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Major Issues.
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Government finally calls out China's behaviour for what it really is
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Nov 27, 2020 – 4.58pm
Until now, the Morrison government has maintained the facade that each trade ban or threat imposed by China should be treated as an individual incident and fought out as such.
The approach was underpinned by a doctrine of "strategic patience and consistency". The idea was to never acknowledged what both sides knew – that the threats, bans and trumped-up claims underpinning them were part of a campaign of payback by Beijing for measures Australia has taken to safeguard her sovereignty and security.
China had no qualms admitting what it was up to.
Its ambassador to Australia, Cheng Jingye, said as much to The Australian Financial Review in August. Last week, the embassy handed the media a list of 14 reasons why Beijing was punishing Australia.
And when it imposed crippling duties on Australian wine on Friday, as it had threatened, it even gave preferential treatment to one winery which was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Wei Li and of which former ambassador to China and sometimes Morrison government critic Geoff Raby is a brand ambassador.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/china-is-calling-time-on-australia-20201129-p56iwq
China is calling time on Australia
Businesses are finding it hard to be reassured by the PM's insistence Australians' resilience will help manage the economic shock of suddenly losing their largest market.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Nov 29, 2020 – 5.45pm
Scott Morrison talks proudly of the “amazing” resilience of Australians, particularly those who work in the agriculture sector, when faced with huge economic shocks.
So he compares tensions with China with the massive disruption of losing a major export market when Britain joined the European Common Market in the 1970s.
The message is that such Australian resilience means exporters will adapt and succeed yet again despite the massive economic shock of a previously booming market suddenly becoming unreliable due to circumstances beyond their control.
Morrison also wants to persuade Australians the government has no choice but to continue its approach despite the mounting level of trade retaliation from Beijing.
“You can't control everything in this world but one thing you can control is who you are and your values and the things that you know are important and it's important to remain steadfast with that,” he told ABC on Sunday.
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The limits of central bank activism may finally be sight
Grant Wilson Contributor
Nov 29, 2020 – 3.32pm
A fortnight ago we explained how the RBNZ had shredded its credibility through the course of mid-year, and how house prices would emerge as a de facto constraint on monetary policy.
We did not expect a response beyond the market, as the RBNZ’s leadership has shown itself to be completely inured to public criticism.
A shout out is due therefore to Grant Robertson, New Zealand’s Finance Minister, who not only took our comments on board, but did something about it.
His (highly unusual) public letter on Tuesday, requesting the RBNZ change the operational objectives in its Monetary Policy Remit to include house prices, was effectively a censure.
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Warning lights are flashing for big tech as they did for banks
My 30 years as a banker required me to look into the future and anticipate risks. I can confidently say that for tech companies the warning signs are showing, and we must act now.
John Flint
Nov 30, 2020 – 9.27am
When bankers got too clever and our businesses too complex, we all suffered the consequences. The 2008 financial crisis touched so many of us because the banks were woven into all our lives. Society was exposed to risks it didn’t understand, and we all paid the price via government-backed bailouts.
Today, warning signs are flashing again. Some of the elements are familiar: huge, growing companies relied on by the rest of society that will do grave damage if they fail, or deliver poor outcomes for their customers. But this time it is the technology sector rather than the financial that is leaving us all exposed.
The risk for consumers if tech companies deliver bad outcomes – what is called “conduct risk” in the jargon of my trade – is now just as grave as that from financial services. But we are not organised to deal with it. The digital economy is consuming the old economy and the governance structures we have in place to deal with this transition are inadequate.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/why-everyone-needs-a-will-20201125-p56hpr
Why everyone needs a will
A will is the only way to be confident about where assets go. Everyone over 18 should have one.
Peter Townsend Contributor
Nov 30, 2020 – 10.22am
Everyone over 18 should have a will. If you don’t have one, get one. Having a will is the only way you can be confident about who gets your assets after you’ve gone.
No matter how little you think you have (so you don’t need a will) there’s always the unexpected – inheritance, life insurance in super, even a lottery win.
But having a will is not the only thing you need to do to make it easier for your loved ones to deal with your estate. To avoid delay and what might become massive inconvenience and expense, you must help your executor by ensuring they have ready access to everything they need when the time comes.
There are some key things that you can do for your executor to help them carry out their role efficiently.
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China posts attack on Australian soldiers after war crime report
Australia’s relationship with Beijing has deteriorated even further after a Chinese official tweeted a “disgusting” attack on Australian soldiers.
Finn McHugh
NCA NewsWire
November 30, 20201:29pm
China’s foreign ministry has posted a “repugnant” attack on Australian soldiers in the wake of the Afghan war crimes report.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian tweeted a graphic, fake photograph of an Australian soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat.
The provocative image is a reference to the Afghan war crimes report, which found evidence of elite Australian soldiers murdering 39 Afghan civilians.
“Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers,” Mr Zhao tweeted.
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Top China official tweets Australian Army must be ‘accountable’ for Brereton findings
· News Corp Australia Network
China has sought to discredit Australia’s military presence in the Middle East, with a Government official tweeting an appalling mocked-up picture of an Australian soldier about to murder a child holding a lamb.
Seizing on the Brereton inquiry into war crimes alleged to have been committed by a small number of Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan, Zhao Lijian, Beijing’s foreign ministry spokesman, posted the photograph on social media platform Twitter.
The tweet comes as Australia’s trade war with China escalates, with Beijing slapping tariffs on Australian wine, and blocking imports of coal.
“Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts & call for holding them accountable,’’ Mr Zhao tweeted, in English.
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China Foreign Ministry spokesman tweets graphic fake photo of Australian soldier
November 30, 2020
China’s Foreign Ministry has attacked Australia over the revelations of the Brereton war crimes inquiry, tweeting out an offensive fake photo.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian – a regular critic of Australian foreign policy - said he was shocked by allegations Australian soldiers were linked to 39 unlawful killings of Afghan nationals during the War in Afghanistan.
Mr Zhao tweeted a fake, provocative, photo of an Australian soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat on top of the Afghan flag.
“Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers,” Mr Zhao tweeted.
“We strongly condemn such acts, and call for holding them accountable.”
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The perils and pitfalls of building multiracial democracies
They're not perfect, but Canada, Australia and the UK show that multiculturalism can work. So what's gone so wrong in the US, India and Brazil?
Gideon Rachman Columnist
Dec 1, 2020 – 12.21pm
Amid the plethora of book interviews conducted by former US president Barack Obama, two sentences jumped out at me: “America is the first real experiment in building a large, multi-ethnic, multicultural democracy. And we don’t know yet if that can hold.”
That is a startlingly bleak view. When white leaders of apartheid South Africa suggested democracy would not work in a multiracial society, they were denounced as racists. But that is the possibility Obama seemed to be raising.
He was not wrong to pose the question. His successor Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election were built around the false claim there had been voter fraud, especially in heavily black cities such as Detroit and Philadelphia.
A recent poll shows that a majority of Trump’s voters believe fraud took place. Although Trump’s efforts look likely to fail, racial tensions were central to his attempt to subvert democracy.
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The nations are loading up on debt, but how much is too much?
Nobody would be arguing for austerity right now. But public spending cannot be based on magical monetary thinking.
Raghuram Rajan Contributor
Dec 1, 2020 – 2.35pm
As the COVID-19 pandemic rages, governments in advanced economies have opened their coffers to support households and small businesses, spending on the order of 15 per cent-20 per cent of GDP in many cases. Cumulative debt levels now exceed GDP in many developed countries; and, on average, debt as a share of GDP is approaching post-World War II highs.
Nonetheless, according to Olivier Blanchard and other economists, advanced economies can afford to take on much more debt, given the low level of interest rates.
Calculations using International Monetary Fund data show that in the two decades before the pandemic, sovereign interest payments in these countries fell from over 3 per cent of GDP to about 2 per cent, even though debt-to-GDP ratios increased by more than 20 percentage points.
Moreover, with much of the newly issued sovereign debt now paying negative interest rates, additional borrowing stands to reduce interest expenses even more.
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Beijing trolls towards uncertain end game
The only reason Beijing's chief Twitter troll, Lijian Zhao, knew about the alleged SAS war crimes is because they were exposed initially by a free media – something Beijing opposes.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Nov 30, 2020 – 6.32pm
Beijing's chief Twitter troll isLijian Zhao, the deputy director of the general information department in China's foreign ministry.
He is the same person who got a rise out of Donald Trump back in March by claiming a US soldier introduced the coronavirus to Wuhan.
Some China watchers, who asked on this occasion not to be identified, were wondering whether Scott Morrison over-reacted to the offensive tweet circulated by Zhao that depicted an Australian soldier about to slit the throat of a boy.
The doctored photo was a reference to an allegation referenced in the Brereton report about members of the SAS cutting the throats of two 14-year-old boys walking along the roadside and throwing their bodies into a river.
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China's aggressive diplomacy-by-tweet against Australia
Tensions have now turned into a bare-knuckle brawl between China and Australia. How much worse can it get? Or will China's insulting tweet end up making its approach even less acceptable to other countries?
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Nov 30, 2020 – 6.14pm
Clearly power politics by tweet won’t end with Donald Trump’s exit from the White House. It may even become more brutal judging from China’s latest move.
The Morrison government is understandably outraged by the latest extraordinary development in the vicious rupture between China and Australia. Having a senior foreign affairs spokesman posting a fake image of an Australian soldier supposedly holding a knife to the throat of an Afghan child is “repugnant”, “offensive”, “appalling” and “deplorable ”, according to the Prime Minister. He insists – presumably without any real expectation – Beijing must issue an immediate apology and take down the post.
“The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this post,” Scott Morrison thundered in a special press conference called while in isolation at the Lodge. “It diminishes them in the world’s eyes.”
It also makes it even more obvious just how poisoned a volatile bilateral relationship has become despite Australia’s argument it seeks “happy co-existence” in line with China and Australia’s comprehensive strategic partnership.
By now any notion of the partnership negotiated by the Abbott government six years ago looks more like a fairytale from a distant era of happy endings.
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Critics of Australia's China policy don't have much to offer
Rebuild 'trust'. Appease Beijing. Spurn our allies. There is some pretty poor advice being given on how the Morrison government should deal with an assertive China.
Tom Switzer Columnist
Nov 30, 2020 – 4.48pm
American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald once remarked: “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.”
By that standard, several prominent journalists, former diplomats and business figures are intellectual geniuses. On several China-policy matters, they make contradictory statements at the same time. Here are three of them.
First, we are told that Australia’s political leaders must try to “rebuild trust” with Beijing, while not kowtowing as the Chinese Communist Party clearly wants us to do. But how does this strategy work?
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/australia-to-help-develop-hypersonic-missiles-20201130-p56j75
Australia to help develop hypersonic missiles
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Dec 1, 2020 – 12.00am
The Australian and US militaries will develop a new hypersonic missile capable of flying the distance between Sydney and Melbourne in seven minutes, amid an arms race with China and Russia.
The two governments will sign an agreement on Tuesday to collaborate on research, build and test hypersonic cruise missiles that can fly at five times the speed of sound and are able to sink an aircraft carrier.
Missiles the Royal Australian Air Force is helping to develop under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE) could one day be fitted to the RAAF's strike aircraft including the F/A-18F Super Hornet and F-35 joint strike fighter. They could also be fitted to the P-8A Poseidon surveillance plane.
Local defence companies, particularly in the small and medium enterprises field, will be tapped to contribute to the project, which is expected to take between five and 10 years to bring a precision-guided missile to fruition.
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Twitter post garbage the clearest sign yet of desperation in Beijing
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor
December 1, 2020 — 12.09am
Australia is the country that's supposed to be feeling the pressure. But a look at the evidence reveals that the supposedly mighty regime of strongman Xi Jinping is the one feeling the strain. We now have three clear points of proof.
When China's ambassador to Australia openly threatened trade boycotts against Australian products in April, he revealed how worried the regime was. It was the moment that Xi removed the mask. For years his regime had been undermining Australia – through cyberattacks, political interference, demands that Chinese Australians support Beijing's political agenda – but always kept the smiling mask of friendship in place. Remember that Xi told Australia's Parliament in 2014 that the two countries should "be harmonious neighbours who stick together in both good times and bad times".
The Chinese Communist Party's functionaries always delivered their threats and pressure tactics in private. Xi imposed a freeze on top-level contacts with Australia two years ago. He ordered a go-slow on Australian thermal coal imports last year. But coercion had never been declared openly.
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Afghanistan accused must not be sacrificed to bureaucracy
The Prime Minister and Chief of the Defence Force were too quick to assume guilt and ignore the circumstances of the Afghan conflict.
Dec 2, 2020 – 12.00am
We were junior officers, non-commissioned officers or diggers in Vietnam. We served in combat roles with 2RAR/NZ (Anzac) Battalion from May 1970 to June 1971, experiencing the horrors and triumphs of armed conflict. We understand the ongoing effects on ourselves and our comrades.
We wish to record our disappointment and distress on how the allegations of atrocities in Afghanistan have been addressed by the Prime Minister, and in particular the Chief of the Defence Forces.
The Brereton Report referred 19 special forces soldiers to the Australian Federal Police to be prosecuted for alleged war crimes.
Before the release of the report, Scott Morrison created an expectation of horror, with at least an impression that the contents were proof of criminal conduct by members of SAS Regiment. His anger on releasing the report supported the impression he had given the week before. To confirm that impression he advised he had formally apologised to the government of Afghanistan. It is not unreasonable to conclude that the various addresses adopted a presumption of guilt.
Chief of the Defence Force Angus Campbell essentially echoed the words of the Prime Minister. He compounded the issue by not only adopting the presumption of guilt, but by announcing the initial retributions that would be imposed. General Campbell then offended many veterans and current service members by restating the unfortunate observation in the report that "no officers were involved" in the various activities.
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Chinese threats to Australian warships 'should be taken seriously'
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Dec 1, 2020 – 5.41pm
Analysts say Chinese state media's warnings against Australian warships sailing through the South China Sea should not be dismissed, as the navy undertakes a growing number of high-profile deployments to the region.
Australian warships are regularly trailed by the Chinese navy when sailing through the South China Sea but so far confrontations have been limited to verbal challenges rather than physical clashes.
Defence did not confirm whether any Australian ships were currently deployed in the South China Sea.
However, the navy historically scales back its overseas deployments this time of year because of summer holidays and the need to be available for disaster relief operations in Australia and the Pacific.
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China is humiliating Australia as an example to others - but the bullying won't last
Anne-Marie Brady
Specialist on Chinese domestic and foreign policy
December 2, 2020 — 12.10am
China-Australian relations reached a new low this week when a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson posted a fake image on Twitter of an Australian special forces soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan child with its head wrapped in an Australian flag as it cradled a lamb. It was a swipe at Australia's investigation into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan. Prime Minister Scott Morrison demanded an apology from the Chinese government and asked Twitter to take down the image. More than 24 hours later the image was still up, the Chinese media piled on with further insults against the Australian government, and the tweet had garnered 36,000 likes.
China is engaging in a "tongue war" against Australia, singling out and humiliating Australia as an example to other states. It has imposed punitive tariffs on Australia's barley and wine exports, while threatening further sanctions. In the past Norway and Denmark were subject to this type of bullying, currently Sweden and Canada are also being targeted by China.
The Chinese government's bullying of Australia did not begin this year. The fact is China has been freezing Australia out for a number of years, and has done so on previous occasions. Each time the thaw has broken when it suited China's interests to do so, and usually when Australia has been required to make some sort of a diplomatic kowtow.
Australia has tried to establish an equal relationship with China, but the Chinese Communist Party, especially the CCP under the leadership of Xi Jinping, does not appear to welcome this. In 2008, prime minister Kevin Rudd outlined what he thought a more mature relationship with China might look like, one where it was possible to "engage in direct, frank and ongoing dialogue about our fundamental interests and future vision". This is the sort of loyal opposition relationship Australia has with other like-minded states. Yet the Chinese government did not respond well to that speech and the Rudd government was forced to back down.
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The bottom line with super: you risk being poorer today so you can live like a king tomorrow
Economics Editor
December 1, 2020 — 12.00pm
For a columnist, the trouble with taking leave is that something really interesting or important is likely to happen while you’re away from the keyboard. It’s now more than a week since the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg released the long-awaited review of retirement income by former Treasury heavy Mike Callaghan. But not to worry. I suspect we’ll still be furiously debating the report’s findings come the next election.
For most people, superannuation is an incomprehensible subject they prefer not to think about – just as they’ve never really understood the “dividend franking credits” that figured so prominently in last year’s election.
As a former accountant, however, I’ve always been fascinated by the ins and outs of super. And being a boring accountant has an odd benefit: paying attention to super all these years has left me with hugely more than I'm likely to need for a comfortable retirement.
Scott Morrison has been dreading the release of this report because he knew it would incite his hard-line backbenchers to demand that he cancel the long-legislated increase in employers’ compulsory contributions to their workers’ super from 9.5 per cent of wages to 12 per cent by 2025.
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How Australia can respond to China's aggression
Senior business columnist
December 1, 2020 — 11.54am
Why has China suddenly gone feral in its attitude, and actions, towards Australia?
The spate of destructive measures against Australian exports, the ugly Twitter assault and the associated commentary from Chinese officials speak to something much larger than offence at Australia’s calls for an investigation of the origins of the coronavirus, or criticisms of China’s actions in Hong Kong or treatment of the Uighurs.
The obvious answer is that the Chinese are fearful that Australia’s stance will lead to a wider coalition of like-minded countries finally acting together on the common complaints they have about China and its increasingly aggressive behaviours. It fears a decoupling of its economy from the West.
The Trump administration discouraged international consensus by waging trade wars on friends and foes alike. It disdained multilateral institutions. As a result, China’s relationships with other nations have been bilateral and uneven ones.
Joe Biden has pledged to revive America’s relationships with its traditional allies and rejoin multilateral organisations and agreements like the World Health Organisation, the World Trade Organisation and the Paris Accord on climate change. China’s "divide and conquer” strategy is threatened by the incoming administration.
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The real class war is between those at the top
A new theory blames the political turmoil in the west on ‘elite overproduction’ as snubbed insiders form alliances with the more legitimately aggrieved masses.
Janan Ganesh Contributor
Dec 3, 2020 – 11.10am
Americans are living through the restoration of their deposed oligarchy. President-elect Joe Biden has nominated a Treasury secretary who used to chair the Federal Reserve. His choice for secretary of state is another Ivy Leaguer and fixture of Washington. His top economic adviser is an executive at BlackRock.
At each stage of their lives, these individuals saw off an unknown number of also-rans. Most MBAs never shine on Wall Street, just as most Washington lifers never land a West Wing desk. Not quite elite, yet too successful for sympathy: imagine their pique.
Peter Turchin, the academic of the moment, does more than that. He quantifies, cross-refers with other variables and arrives at a theory. Of all the reasons adduced for the political strife of our time, few are as novel as his stress on “elite overproduction”. Graduates have multiplied faster than the room at the top, he says, with the “lawyer glut” being especially gross. The result is a stock of nearly-men and women whose relationship with their own class sours from peripheral membership to vicious resentment. If this coincides with a bad time for the general standard of living, there is an alliance to be formed between these snubbed insiders and the more legitimately aggrieved masses.
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Porter narrows national emergency powers in peace deal with backbench
By Rob Harris and David Crowe
December 3, 2020 — 12.00am
Sweeping new laws to declare a national state of emergency will go to Federal Parliament within days after Coalition MPs negotiated last-minute changes to narrow the grounds for triggering the extraordinary powers.
Attorney-General Christian Porter was forced to make a number of concessions to colleagues after several pushed back against the legislation – the central recommendation from the bushfire royal commission – in a party room meeting on Tuesday.
At least five Liberal MPs, including Scott Ryan, Katie Allen, Paul Scarr and Trent Zimmerman, challenged the new laws on the grounds the definition of an emergency was "too broad" and the proposal did not have a sunset clause or the ability to be disallowed by Parliament.
After negotiations this week, the government finalised the draft laws on Wednesday night. The bill provides for the Governor-General to declare a national emergency, on the advice of the Prime Minister, for emergencies that are "of national significance".
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Beijing controls Chinese-language media agencies in Australia, says intel agency
By Nick McKenzie, Kate Wong and Charlotte Grieve
December 2, 2020 — 11.30pm
Australia's peak intelligence agency has warned the federal government that the Chinese Communist Party covertly controls sections of Chinese-language media in Australia as part of its foreign interference and influence operation.
The Office of National Intelligence has confidentially briefed the government that many of Australia's most popular Chinese-language news outlets have been co-opted by Beijing to advance China's strategic interests.
The briefings also highlight that hugely popular WeChat news sites in Australia are subject to complete control and censorship by Beijing, with some accounts directly managed by the Communist Party.
The revelations came as relations between China and Australia plunged to new lows after Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian shared a fabricated image of an Australian soldier holding a knife to an Afghan child's throat. The post followed months of escalating trade sanctions.
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Iron ore is Australia's silver lining to its darkening China cloud
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
December 3, 2020 — 11.58am
In the midst of a bitter, escalating and rather one-sided trade confrontation, the price of our biggest export China has just hit its highest price for more than seven years.
The iron ore price, while it was knocked around by the initial impact of the pandemic in March, has been climbing strongly ever since and has now reached $US136.29 a tonne, its highest level since September 2013 and nearly 50 per cent higher than it traded at the start of this year.
The miners have, ironically, China to thank for that. More than 80 per cent of Australia’s iron ore exports go to China, accounting for 60 per cent of China’s supply.
While China has been happily slapping tariffs and other trade barriers on Australian products like coal, barley, lobsters and wine it has left iron ore untouched, largely because it has no alternative either now or in the medium term or perhaps even longer.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/alarm-sounded-on-gas-market-intervention-20201203-p56kaf
Alarm sounded on gas market intervention
Angela Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
Dec 4, 2020 – 12.01am
Evidence from overseas shows that government intervention through domestic gas reservation systems and price setting does not guarantee lower prices, according to research commissioned by the oil and gas industry.
The industry is fighting the Morrison government's proposal for gas reservation on the east coast.
The findings from consultancy EnergyQuest, which was commissioned by oil and gas lobby group APPEA, show that such government steps into the free market result in capital investment drying up in exploration and production.
It points to examples in Thailand, Malaysia, Argentina, Mexico, India and China where under-investment in new supply led to gas shortages and sometimes the need to import more expensive gas to boost domestic supply.
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On China, Australia is left counting the cost
The Australian government’s approach to its biggest foreign policy challenge is not working. There needs to be less conflict and more statecraft.
Richard McGregor Columnist
Dec 4, 2020 – 12.00am
The Scott Morrison of foreign policy set pieces has largely been calm and statesmanlike, delivering in office a consistent set of messages about Australia’s diplomatic priorities.
Read back through his speeches, and the same themes recur, of the centrality of the US alliance, the importance of the Pacific, a constructive partnership with China and so on, laced with a pragmatic commitment to democratic values.
The one aberrant theme, Morrison’s complaint in a speech in late 2019 that “negative globalism” was crimping sovereign nations, has not been heard of since the arrival of COVID-19.
In between times, though, a less-measured Prime Minister emerges, no more so than this week as he denounced from a patchwork studio at The Lodge a Chinese government tweet depicting an Australian soldier threatening to slit the throat of an Afghan child.
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China kicks Australia - and scores a global own goal
By galvanising world opinion, the doctored wolf warrior tweet is forging the international alliance that Scott Morrison hopes can help to manage Beijing.
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Dec 3, 2020 – 8.00pm
China's extraordinary behaviour this week has crystallised what was a rapidly forming view inside the Morrison government that this has been a wasted year for Beijing.
Instead of exploiting the moral and power vacuums created by Donald Trump's narcissism and callous indifference, China chose to ape the outgoing US president in style.
The tweet by China's foreign ministry spokesman shows "they have allowed their system of political communication to degenerate to this type of tactic'', said one senior official.
Consequently, it squandered opportunities to generate goodwill and emerge as a respected and leading global player.
There are three key opportunities this year the government believes China has missed.
First, upon the outbreak of the coronavirus in Wuhan and its subsequent global spread, China, instead of fronting up, owning the problem and showing leadership, went on the offensive by deploying its wolf warrior diplomacy of attack and denial.
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All-government support needed for effective national security strategy
Anthony Bergin
Contributor
December 4, 2020 — 11.53am
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews has slammed the image of an Australian soldier slitting a child's throat saying the image was "just beyond the pale". But the Premier's minister who played a key role in Victoria's Belt and Road negotiations refused to condemn the doctored photo.
Danny Pearson, who travelled to China twice last year to secure the deal, said he had "no responsibilities for those matters". Andrews stated he wouldn't waste his time counselling Pearson over his comments because this was a trivial matter.
Next week federal government laws are set to be passed that will give it the power to scrap agreements struck with foreign governments by states, local councils and universities. Premier Andrews has said these laws will allow the federal government to stick their nose into agreements like sister-city relationships. "If this is the biggest and most important thing for them to be doing at the moment, well, I look forward to them explaining that to everybody," he observed.
Such remarks from Victorian Premier and his minister fail to appreciate the uncertain world in which Australians now live. Threats or hazards may come from unexpected sources.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/has-china-given-up-on-australia-20201203-p56kfn
Has China given up on Australia?
As far back as eight years ago, Australia’s top diplomats were aware that a tendency to get ahead of the pack in ‘pushing back’ against China would get under Beijing’s skin.
James Curran Columnist
Dec 4, 2020 – 11.49am
The government response to this week’s tensions with China was understandable, and while it marks a new low in relations, it also confirms what was an existing trend.
Hawks in both capitals, already in full flight, will now soar higher on these gusty thermals of outrage. An aggressive Chinese nationalism will continue to blaze its ugly trail across the globe.
Australian sensitivities have been pricked at a delicate time for its military, with its slouch-hat nationalism badly bruised from the revelations of the Brereton inquiry.
The Australia-China relationship now finds itself where Beijing and Washington were at the onset of COVID-19, trading in tit-for-tat barbs that only reinforce negative stereotypes each has of the other.
As former Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Dennis Richardson said recently, Australia will probably be in China’s “dog house” for at least two more years, a judgment already solidifying.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/we-need-a-china-circuit-breaker-20201203-p56kiz
We need a China circuit breaker
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Dec 5, 2020 – 12.00am
Standing up to bullies might be good advice for the playground but doesn't quite cut it when your tormentor is your biggest trading partner, as Australia is learning to its peril.
Exports of Australian wine and lobster, which surged thanks largely to China's rapidly growing middle-class, are now on life support. The barley and beef trade has been hit. Even coal, thought to be critical to China's economic machine, is suddenly dispensable. Only iron ore seems safe, for now.
While China has wielded trade as a weapon to punish Australia, frayed relations hit a new low. A Chinese foreign ministry official shared a fabricated image of an Australian soldier slitting the throat of an Afghan boy, seizing on the release of the Brereton report into alleged war crimes with the aim of blunting Canberra's criticism of Beijing over human rights.
Scott Morrison branded the image "repugnant" and demanded an apology, which Chinese officials brushed off and state-run media mocked. Opinion is mixed on the wisdom of Morrison's move. Some felt the PM had no choice but to make clear a line had been crossed. Others, however, believed he unnecessarily elevated a mid-level Communist bureaucrat by taking the bait and should have left the response to Foreign Minister Marise Payne and diplomats.
With relations seemingly at rock-bottom – although you'd be brave to rule out the possibility of them getting worse – AFR Weekend spoke to a cross-section of business figures and policy specialists about what comes next.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/biggest-overhaul-of-spy-powers-for-40-years-20201204-p56kny
Biggest overhaul of spy powers for 40 years
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Dec 4, 2020 – 5.36pm
ASIO will be given powers to spy on Australians who are working on behalf of a foreign power, under a comprehensive rewriting of intelligence laws that also overhauls how agencies can intercept telecommunications.
Attorney-General Christian Porter said former senior mandarin Dennis Richardson had identified a "gap" in ASIO's surveillance powers. At present ASIO can spy on Australians when they pose a threat to security or engage in foreign interference or espionage activities.
However, the Richardson review found there are times when an Australian citizen, often a dual national, could be working on behalf of a foreign government in a way counter to Australia's broader economic interests but not breaking the law.
The new powers would allow ASIO to covertly gather foreign intelligence from an Australian citizen engaged, for example, in commercial negotiations on behalf of a foreign government.
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Lack of population growth a $117bn hit to nation
Australia’s population growth is set to suffer a post-COVID crash as a once-in-a-century slowdown in migration leads to 1.1 million fewer people populating the nation at the end of the 2020s than originally forecast.
Scott Morrison’s first annual Population Statement shows the slowest population growth figures in Australia since World War One and the first period of negative net migration — in 2020-21 and 2021-22 — since World War Two.
While population growth is expected to rebound significantly in 2023-24, there are fears among economists that the current trajectory could cost the Australian economy $117bn.
Cities Minister Alan Tudge said on Friday that the slower population growth would hit the economy and underpinned the need for the government’s coronavirus support packages and its record investment in infrastructure to prepare larger cities for a post-COVID future.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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Signs Sweden has lost faith with COVID expert Anders Tegnell as deaths rise
By Richard Orange
November 29, 2020 — 12.09pm
Malmo: The high-profile epidemiologist who led Sweden's no-lockdown strategy in the spring appears to be being sidelined by the government after his prediction that greater immunity would mean a lighter second wave proved badly wrong.
On Thursday Anders Tegnell's biweekly press conference was pushed into the shade by an overlapping press conference fronted by Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven at which scenarios prepared by the Public Health Agency were announced.
"There's certainly a split, and I'm pretty sure that many in the government have rather lost faith in the Public Health Agency," said Nicholas Aylott, an associate politics professor at Stockholm's Södertörn University.
"By some counts, we've now got exactly the same level of spread of the virus that we had in the spring, and that's about as clear a refutation of Tegnell's strategy as you could wish for."
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Experts warn of risk of 'long COVID' after Victoria records first death in a month
By Melissa Cunningham
November 30, 2020 — 11.55am
People who become severely ill with coronavirus remain at heightened risk of death from complications linked to the virus even months after being cleared of the pathogen.
The warning from infectious diseases physicians comes as the state's Department of Health and Human Services confirmed a Victorian had died from coronavirus complications, despite having been cleared of the virus.
Health authorities reported the death on Monday morning and Premier Daniel Andrews later told a press conference that the woman who died was in her 70s and is believed to have died from coronavirus induced damage to her lungs.
Mr Andrews said the woman was subsequently cleared as being COVID-free and reclassified as recovered.
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Pandemic sharpens new war over role of the state
China is the clear winner from the pandemic, which is pretty ironic considering the disease apparently started there and Australia is now being punished for having the temerity to suggest an inquiry into whether it did or not, and if so how.
China, population 1.4 billion, has more or less eliminated COVID-19 through authoritarian control. As a result its currency is the strongest in 2020, year to date, and its stockmarket is second only to Nasdaq.
But the Morrison government’s nasty accidental trade war with China, as significant as it could end up being for Australia’s export industries, is the symbol of a much bigger, more profound, story to come out of the pandemic of 2020: a shift from liberal, free-market politics and economics to much greater state control.
China is using its economic power to demand obeisance from a conservative anti-communist Australian government. Appealing to the World Trade Organisation is worth a try perhaps, but this is between supplier and customer, and the customer will win.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/a-light-shines-in-the-gloom-cast-by-covid-19-20201202-p56js5
A light shines in the gloom cast by COVID-19
The latest from the OECD is less gloomy about the immediate economic impact of COVID-19 than it was in June. We must now take the measures needed to restore confidence and bring economies back to life.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Dec 2, 2020 – 10.16am
COVID-19 has been a devastating global shock. But the news on vaccines is really encouraging. The economic impact has also not been quite as bad as feared about half a year ago.
Moreover, a sane and decent man is soon going to take over as president of the US. Just maybe, the world will emerge from the nightmare sooner and in better shape than many feared.
The latest from the OECD is less gloomy about the immediate economic impact of COVID-19 than it was in June. At that time, the Paris-based international organisation was so uncertain that it provided not one forecast but two, neither of which was preferred.
The more optimistic one assumed a “single hit” from coronavirus; the more pessimistic one a double hit. In the event, large parts of the world, notably the US and western Europe, experienced such a double hit. Yet the economic outcomes this year are now expected to be better than had been feared in the case of a single-hit pandemic.
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The recovery has arrived but plenty could still go wrong
The government is delighted with the economic rebound but it wants to boost that with reforms to stimulate credit growth and business investment. The Senate may disagree.
Jennifer HewettColumnist
Dec 2, 2020 – 4.52pm
The Morrison government can't quite contain its delight at confirmation the economy is rebounding far more quickly than anticipated just a few months ago.
The 3.3 per cent jump in GDP growth over the September quarter – the biggest quarterly increase in GDP since 1976 – is another boost for all the optimists touting the resilience of the Australian economy.
That result was despite the second largest state – responsible for about one quarter of the national economy – being closed for business and further contracting over that period. Victoria’s reopening since will at least boost the December quarter figures.
Roll on the opening of all domestic borders this month and a likely vaccine available by next year. Business and consumer confidence are coming back, along with economic recovery. Recession over, technically speaking.
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Coronavirus: US faces worst health crisis in its history: CDC director
- December 3, 2020
The United States faces the most difficult public health crisis in its history in the coming months as the coronavirus surges uncontrolled across the nation, America’s top health expert has warned.
In a stunning and sobering prediction, Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said total deaths in the US could jump from 273,000 to 450,000 by February.
“The reality is, December and January and February are going to be rough times,” Dr Redfield said. “I actually believe they’re going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”
“We’re in that range potentially now, starting to see 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 deaths a day from this virus,” he said. “The mortality concerns are real, and I do think, unfortunately, before we see February, we could be close to 450,000 Americans” dead from the virus.
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'This is not a hoax': Fauci pleads as Biden calls for 100 days in masks
By Matthew Knott
Updated December 4, 2020 — 10.00amfirst published at 8.15am
Washington: Anthony Fauci, America's top infectious disease expert, has warned that the US faces a "crisis situation" over the coming months as COVID-19 hospitalisations and deaths surge beyond already record levels.
The US recorded a single-day high of 2800 coronavirus deaths on Thursday (AEDT) according to Johns Hopkins University as well as 200,000 new cases - the second highest number on record.
President-elect Joe Biden has confirmed on CNN that he will keep Fauci on as a chief medical adviser and a member of his COVID-19 advisory team.
Biden said it was also his "inclination" that, on his inauguration, he would ask the public to wear masks for the first 100 days of his term to help drive down the spread of the virus, following Fauci's grim warning.
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US obliterates record as coronavirus deaths top 2800 in a single day
By Sam Metz
Updated December 4, 2020 — 7.42amfirst published at 2.26am
The US has recorded more than 2800 COVID-19 deaths in a single day, obliterating the record set at the start of the pandemic, while the number of Americans hospitalised with the virus has eclipsed 100,000 for the first time and new cases are topping 200,000 a day, according to new figures.
The three benchmarks altogether showed a country slipping deeper into crisis, with perhaps the worst yet to come, in part because of the delayed effects from Thanksgiving, when millions of Americans disregarded warnings to stay home and celebrate only with members of their household.
Across the US, the surge has swamped hospitals with patients and left nurses and other health care workers shorthanded and burned out.
"The reality is December and January and February are going to be rough times. I actually believe they are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation," Dr Robert Redfield, head of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, said on Wednesday.
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Don't pop the champagne just yet on Australia's economic recovery
Ross Gittins
Economics Editor
December 4, 2020 — 11.35am
Does the economy’s strong growth last quarter mean the recession is over? Only to those silly enough to believe in "technical" recessions. Since few economists are that silly, it’s probably more accurate to call it a "journalists’ recession". Makes for great headlines; doesn’t make sense.
It’s probably true – though not guaranteed - we’ll suffer no more quarters where the economy gets smaller rather than bigger. But people fear recessions not because they deliver growth rates with a minus sign in from of them, but because they destroy businesses and jobs.
You’ll know from walking down the main street that some businesses have closed and not been replaced. You’ll probably also know of family or friends who’ve lost their jobs or now aren’t getting as much casual work as they need and were used to.
By any sensible measure, this recession won’t be over until the rates of unemployment and underemployment are at least back down to where they were at the end of last year, before the virus struck. And Reserve Bank governor Dr Philip Lowe said this week that wasn’t likely for more than two years.
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Pandemic legacy: wage earners have never collected a smaller share of the economy
Matt Wade
Senior economics writer
December 5, 2020 — 11.30pm
If you’re hoping for a post-pandemic pay rise, don’t hold your breath. Even though the economy has returned to growth after the slump triggered by COVID-19, the outlook for wages is lousy.
Wages growth was feeble long before the pandemic and has now flatlined for much of 2020 thanks to the recession. Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe warned last week wages would “remain subdued” for years.
More than 17 per cent of Australia’s labour force is either unemployed or underemployed and that means there's little pressure on employers to pay workers more.
Australia is not alone. A report released by the International Labour Organisation on Thursday showed the pandemic had sapped wages growth across the world. It found monthly wages fell, or grew more slowly, in two-thirds of countries for which official data was available for the first half of this year. Even in nations where wages did appear to increase, the study found it was largely due to lower-paid workers losing their jobs and therefore skewing the average, since they were no longer included in the data for wage-earners.
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Climate Change
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World awaits action by 'suicidal' Australia, says former climate chief
December 1, 2020 — 11.59pm
The world is waiting for a "suicidal" Australia to reverse its stance on climate change, says one of the world's most senior diplomats.
Christiana Figueres, who was executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change through the Paris Agreement talks, said the world expected more from Australia in the lead-up to the so-called COP26 climate talks to be held in Glasgow next November.
"The climate wars that have been going on in Australia for over a decade now are just – honestly they are such a suicidal situation because Australia... holds such promise with renewable energy," she told John Connor, chief executive of the Carbon Market Institute, in a conversation recorded for the Australasian Emissions Reductions Summit, which begins online on Wednesday.
"There is no other country that has as much sun potential as Australia," said Ms Figueres, who is now the director of the global climate movement Mission 2020.
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UN report rightfully shames Australia over fossil fuel plans
By Fergus Green, Richard Denniss and Richie Merzian
December 3, 2020 — 12.01am
Australia is the world's third largest exporter of fossil fuels. According to a new report released today by the United Nations Environment Program and leading international research organisations, Australia's contribution to the world's production of coal, oil and gas is only growing.
Rather than focus on the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced within a country's borders, the new UN report focuses on the amount of fossil fuels produced by each country in the form of coal, oil and gas. The UN analysis – which highlights the Australian government's plans to increase fossil fuel production, mostly for export – makes for sober reading.
The gap between a country's planned production of coal, oil and gas and the amount of production that would be consistent with meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement is called the "production gap". To constrain global warming to within the Paris goal of 1.5 degrees, global fossil fuel production will need to fall by roughly 6 per cent a year over the next decade. Coal, oil and gas production will need to fall by 11 per cent, 4 per cent and 3 per cent a year respectively. The UN report finds countries are instead planning an increase in production of 2 per cent a year, on average.
The global warming carbon budget sets a limit on the amount of fossil fuels the world can produce if we are to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees. But by 2030, if Australia and other major fossil fuel producers realise their plans, we will produce more than double that amount.
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Australia lagging behind in tackling health impacts of climate change: report
By Mary Ward
December 3, 2020 — 10.30am
Medical organisations say Australia is lagging behind other countries when it comes to tackling the health impacts of climate change and warn inaction is putting lives at risk.
According to the MJA-Lancet Countdown report, an annual assessment of the country's progress on health outcomes related to climate change, Australians' exposure to the health effects of events such as bushfires and heatwaves is increasing.
In January, the Bureau of Meteorology determined 2019 – punctuated by the Black Summer bushfire season – was Australia's hottest and driest year on record.
While air pollution levels in Australia are typically low compared to other developed nations, the report found dangerous PM 2.5 concentrations during the bushfires led to annual levels in NSW and the ACT that "far exceeded" levels recorded over the past 20 years.
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Great Barrier Reef outlook downgraded to critical by UN report
A United Nations report has downgraded the outlook for the Great Barrier Reef to “critical” as climate change replaces invasive species as the biggest threat to World Heritage sites around the world.
Images of the reef were used to highlight the tri-annual report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature which gives a stocktake on World Heritage properties.
The report acknowledged Australian government efforts to safeguard the reef through the Reef 2050 plan but said the trend remained bleak.
A critical status was applied to only a handful of properties, mostly in Africa.
Others areas included East Rennell in the Solomon Islands, Tropical rainforests in Sumatra and the Everglades National Park in Florida.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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There are no entries for this week
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National Budget Issues.
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The two issues policymakers have to grapple with on JobSeeker
Economics correspondent
November 30, 2020 — 12.00am
There are few who would envy the situation Social Services Minister Anne Ruston finds herself facing this year. Amid the worst recession since the Great Depression, a high unemployment rate and a substantial welfare bill, there is a growing group of businesses and Coalition MPs warning that employers can't fill vacant jobs.
At the same time, social services groups are getting more vocal about the suffering of unemployed Australians on the base rate of JobSeeker worth $565.70 a fortnight for singles. The government effectively doubled this payment at the height of the pandemic, with a $550 a fortnight supplement, and has since extended this additional payment but at lower amounts. Currently, those out of work are being paid an extra $250-a-fortnight on top of the base rate, with the supplement to drop to $150 in January. There has not yet been a decision about what will happen after March 2021.
Making any policy decision on the future of the dole has always been fraught. Both sides of this debate have heavily used evocative anecdotes. These personal stories are useful for drawing attention to the issue, including making the brutality of too low a payment and the plight of employers facing labour shortages understandable. But right now, with more than one million people relying on the payments, hard data is particularly critical.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said it is 'encouraging' the number of workers on JobKeeper is falling and is a promising sign the economy is bouncing back faster than expected.
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Just like Trump's tariffs, China's trade attack will backfire
Stephen Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
November 30, 2020 — 12.21pm
China’s effective bans on a widening range of Australian products in retaliation for the effrontery of Australian politicians in calling for an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, among other opinions it has taken exception to, are China’s version of Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Trump’s pretext for his initial burst of tariffs was “national security,” although they were imposed even on imports from some of America’s longest-standing allies. Were Canadian steel and aluminium imports really a threat to America’s national security?
China is more creative, using everything from investigations of contamination in our lobsters, to environmental standards that have hurt coal exports, to the dumping allegations against our wine exporters or the combination of dumping and subsidisation charges against Australian barley producers.
Chinese diplomats in Canberra, of course, made it very clear that China’s war on Australian exports is due to the Morrison government’s commentaries on the virus, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea. As well as China’s spying and influence programs in Australia and its banning of Huawei from the 5G rollouts and blocking proposed acquisitions of Australian companies and agricultural assets.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/economic-rebound-tipped-for-next-year-20201201-p56jef
Economic rebound tipped for next year
Matthew Cranston Economics correspondent
Dec 1, 2020 – 9.00pm
Record government and central bank stimulus into a rapidly reopening economy has triggered upgrades to Australia's growth outlook on the eve of official GDP figures expected to show the nation bouncing out of recession.
The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said the economic recovery would be further supported by genuine reforms such as replacing stamp duty but that risks around company liquidations and Chinese trade tensions would weigh on the outlook in the new year.
The OECD said Australia's recovery from recession meant the economy would contract by 3.8 per cent this year, less severe than its June forecast of 5 per cent. The economy was then expected to rebound 3.2 per cent next year, up from earlier projections of 2.6 per cent, but below the Reserve Bank's forecast of 5 per cent growth.
After a 7 per cent plunge in economic growth in the June quarter, local economists have upgraded their September quarter forecasts. UBS expects 3 per cent growth, up from its previous 1.8 per cent estimate, Citi 2.3 per cent from 1.7 per cent and Commonwealth Bank at 2.5 per cent from 2 per cent.
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China dispute threatens Australia's economic recovery: OECD
By Shane Wright
December 1, 2020 — 9.00pm
Australia's growing diplomatic row with China could delay the nation's recovery from the pandemic recession, the OECD has warned as early signs emerge exporters are already paying the price for the dispute.
The Paris-based think tank said in its global economic outlook that while Australia had done well compared to the rest of the developed world in handling the pandemic and emerging from the recession, there were key risks including political tensions with the nation's largest trading partner and the early removal of government support.
Ahead of Wednesday's national accounts, which should show the economy growing by at least 2.5 per cent through the September quarter, the OECD forecast Australian GDP to contract by 3.8 per cent this year before rebounding by 3.2 per cent in 2021.
Both are an improvement on the organisation's September interim report when it forecast the Australian economy to contract by 4.1 per cent in 2020 before growing by 2.5 per cent next year.
Despite the better forecast, the Australian economy is still not tracking to return to its pre-pandemic level until 2022.
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‘We have now turned a corner,’ says Reserve Bank of Australia boss Phillip Lowe
Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Philip Lowe, while testifying in parliament this morning, has declared the nation has “now turned the corner and a recovery is underway”.
Delivering his opening statement, Mr Lowe said, “this year has been an extremely difficult one for many people and businesses. But we have now turned the corner and a recovery is underway”.
Lowe pointed to a bunch of good economic news, including that “over recent months, the number of people with a job has risen significantly”. That means the unemployment rate will peak between 7 per cent and 8 per cent, rather than close to 10 per cent as earlier forecast.
“We’ve got to get back to unemployment at 4-point-something to get the type of wage pressure that will deliver inflation outcomes consistent with 2.5 per cent,” he said.
Remembering he just said the jobless measure will still be at 6 per cent in two years’ time, in Lowe’s words: “That still seems a long way away, doesn’t it?”.
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Economy bounces, GDP up 3.3pc in quarter
The economy is bouncing back strongly from recession, posting the fastest growth since the late 1970s on the back of a surge in consumer spending as coronavirus restrictions unwind.
The economy grew 3.3 per cent over the three months to the end of September – better than the 2.5 per cent most economists had expected – the ABS said on Wednesday, partly reversing the 7 per cent drop in the second quarter.
“Australia experienced a partial recovery in the September quarter. As a result, economic activity fell 3.8 per cent through the year to September quarter,” said the ABS’s head of national accounts Michael Smedes.
The improvement signals the end of “recession”, which is informally defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction.
Household spending, which plunged almost 13 per cent in the second quarter, rose almost 8 per cent, driven by spending on hotels, restaurants and cafes, which began to resume more normal trading in the quarter.
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Why the ‘recession’ isn’t really over
Goodbye certified recession, hello mutant recovery.
While the biggest slump in activity since the Great Depression is over on the scoreboard, the rebound will be in fits and starts, and brutal in its sorting processes.
A 7.9 per cent jump in consumer spending, as restrictions on trading and movement were eased, drove a 3.3 per cent rise in gross domestic product in the September quarter.
The Reserve Bank says it will take us until the end of next year to claw our way back to the level of national output we attained before the COVID-19 invasion.
But with the wider world a more forbidding marketplace, export volumes were weak, especially in the high-earning tourism and education sectors, as well as for mining commodities, while imports rose as demand for consumer goods improved.
It meant that “net trade”, as the Australian Bureau of Statistics called it, detracted 1.9 percentage points from GDP, the largest subtraction in 40 years.
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Plan for $10,000 cash ban 'dead, dead and dead'
By Shane Wright
December 3, 2020 — 4.34pm
A plan to ban cash payments of $10,000 or more that threatened to split the Liberal Party has been dumped, with the move now "dead, dead and dead".
In a motion moved by One Nation, the Senate on Thursday officially dumped debate on the proposal that emerged from the government's own black economy taskforce in 2017 as a way to crack down on organised criminals and those seeking to avoid tax.
Under the proposal, businesses would face jail terms of up to two years and fines of up to $25,200 per offence if they made or accepted cash payments greater than $10,000.
The laws were supposed to start this year but had been delayed in part due to anger within the general Liberal Party membership at the move.
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Health Issues.
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The Moderna way to profit from CSL's vaccine challengers
Luke Housego Reporter
Nov 30, 2020 – 12.00am
Australia's largest health company CSL should boost its R&D spending or risk losing market share in the vaccine business to the technology behind one of the world’s leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates, according to Platinum Asset Management's Bianca Ogden.
The portfolio manager leads Platinum’s international health care fund and boasts a science and industry background that spans a doctoral degree in virology and time in drug research with healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson.
Among the portfolio's recent successes is Moderna, which Platinum has held since Ogden ran the ruler over its mRNA (messenger ribonucleic acid) vaccine technology in 2018.
The emerging mRNA vaccines trigger an immune response by teaching cells how to make a certain protein, rather than the conventional approach of inserting a non-threatening sample of the bacteria that causes a disease, such as COVID-19.
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International Issues.
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Why China's trade aggression has Sun Tzu spinning in his grave
Alexander Downer Columnist
Nov 29, 2020 – 1.04pm
The Chinese are famous for playing the long game; for demonstrating patience and caution in the pursuit of their objectives. Importantly, they are said to have long-term objectives and will put the long-term plan ahead of short-term, superficial gains. Chinese policy makers are, we are told, inspired by Sun Tzu’s classic book The Art of War. It is worth reading because it is full of wise advice on managing conflicts with flexibility and caution.
By contrast, Western societies are often criticised for seeking quick returns, lacking long-term vision, acting impulsively and often with ill-considered aggression.
The current trade war declared by China on Australia turns these perceptions on their head. China is acting with impulsive, ill-considered aggression towards Australia, not just to punish Australia for its recalcitrant behaviour but to send a message to the rest of the Indo-Pacific region – and beyond – that unless governments accommodate the broad direction of China’s policy, they will be severely punished.
Banning Australian exports of wine, barley and lobsters as well as disrupting coal exports is an act of real aggression. It needs to be understood for what it is. This is a totally inappropriate way for a sophisticated modern nation to behave. Governments are expected to discuss differences and negotiate outcomes, not engage in brutal aggression of the kind we have seen from China towards Australia over the past few months.
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Fantasy and failure: Inside Trump's 20-day quest to overturn the US election
With his denial of the outcome, Trump has endangered America’s democracy and duped supporters into believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately.
By Philip Rucker, Ashley Parker, Josh Dawsey and Amy Gardner
November 30, 2020
Washington: The facts were indisputable: US President Donald Trump had lost. But Trump refused to see it that way. Sequestered in the White House and brooding out of public view after his election defeat, rageful and at times delirious in a torrent of private conversations, Trump was, in the telling of one close adviser, like "Mad King George, muttering, 'I won. I won. I won.'"
However clear-eyed Trump's aides may have been about his loss to Democract Joe Biden, many of them nonetheless indulged their boss and encouraged him to keep fighting with legal appeals. They were "happy to scratch his itch," this adviser said. "If he thinks he won, it's like, 'Shh ... we won't tell him.'"
Trump campaign pollster John McLaughlin, for instance, discussed with Trump a poll he had conducted after the election that showed Trump with a positive approval rating, a plurality of the country who thought the media had been "unfair and biased against him" and a majority of voters who believed their lives were better than four years earlier. According to two people familiar with the conversation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Trump – as expected – lapped it up.
The result was an election aftermath without precedent in US history. With his denial of the outcome, despite a string of courtroom defeats, Trump endangered America's democracy, threatened to undermine national security and public health, and duped millions of his supporters into believing, perhaps permanently, that Biden was elected illegitimately.
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US retail bloodshed has echoes of the Great Depression
By Stephen Mihm
December 1, 2020 — 9.31am
Since January, upward of more than 12,000 retailers in the US have shuttered their doors – a record rate of decline. Yet shares in Macy's and its counterparts are surging in anticipation of the world after COVID-19, thanks to recent vaccine breakthroughs. How can smaller players get wiped out while the larger chains thrive?
The bloodletting that's taking place right now is eerily reminiscent of what happened during the Great Depression.
In the early 20th century, independent stores dominated retail storefronts in cities and towns across the nation. Most Americans bought everything from books to meats to gardening supplies from businesses owned and operated by folks who lived in the community.
Such stores worked much differently than modern retail. Shoppers would enter the premises and ask a clerk for certain items. The idea of simply browsing the store? Unthinkable.
That changed, though, with the advent of the first chain stores. These included general-merchandise stores like Woolworths, which sold cheap factory-made goods, and the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company, better known as A&P. These and other early chains pioneered new methods of retailing that eventually became the norm.
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Chinese media threatens 'evil' Australia's warships in South China Sea
Andrew Tillett Political correspondent
Dec 1, 2020 – 10.55am
One of the Communist Party's chief mouthpieces has branded Australia "evil" and warned warships carrying out patrols in the South China Sea are at risk of being attacked.
An editorial published by the jingoistic Global Times tabloid newspaper said Prime Minister Scott Morrison had "lost his diplomatic manner" after China's Foreign Ministry had published a fake image slurring Australian soldiers over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.
But Five Eyes ally New Zealand rallied to Australia's support, while the Afghan government urged calm.
The newspaper's editorial said Mr Morrison's demand for an apology had been "ruthlessly rejected" by the ministry and "ridiculed" by the Chinese people.
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US Election: No evidence of voter fraud, says US Attorney-General William Barr
US Attorney-General William Barr has directly rebuffed Donald Trump on election fraud, saying the Justice Department had not uncovered any wrongdoing which would have changed the poll result.
Mr Barr’s comments are the most senior repudiation yet of the president’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen from him by mass fraud orchestrated by the Democrats.
“To date, we have not seen fraud on a scale that could have effected a different outcome in the election,” Mr Barr said.
“There’s been one assertion that would be systemic fraud and that would be the claim that machines were programmed essentially to skew the election results. And the DHS and DOJ have looked into that, and so far, we haven’t seen anything to substantiate that,” Mr Barr said, referring to the departments of Homeland Security and Justice.
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Hong Kong protest leader Joshua Wong sentenced to jail on two charges
By Jessie Pang and Clare Jim
Updated December 3, 2020 — 3.18amfirst published December 2, 2020 — 6.47pm
Hong Kong: Joshua Wong, 24, one of Hong Kong's most prominent democracy activists, has been jailed for more than 13 months over an unlawful anti-government rally in 2019, the toughest and most high-profile sentence for an opposition figure this year.
Wong's sentence on Wednesday comes as critics say the Beijing-backed government is intensifying a crackdown on Hong Kong's opposition and chipping away at wide-ranging freedoms guaranteed after the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, a charge authorities in Beijing and Hong Kong reject.
Reacting to the court ruling, Britain's foreign minister Dominic Raab urged Hong Kong and Beijing authorities to stop their campaigns to stifle the opposition.
Wong had pleaded guilty to organising and inciting an unlawful assembly near the city's police headquarters during the height of the sometimes violent demonstrations in June last year. He faced a maximum of three years in jail.
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'It's real': New Zealand votes to declare climate emergency
By Nick Perry
December 2, 2020 — 3.08pm
Wellington: Joining more than 30 countries, New Zealand on Wednesday took the symbolic step of declaring a climate emergency.
MPs voted 76-43 in favour of the motion, in a split that followed party lines.
The government also launched a new initiative requiring many public agencies to become carbon neutral by 2025, in part by getting rid of coal boilers and buying electric cars.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said the government usually declared emergencies only for things like natural disasters, but that if it didn't address climate change, such disasters would continue to happen.
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US spy chief calls China greatest threat since World War II
Chris Strohm
Dec 4, 2020 – 7.30am
Washington | China poses the greatest threat to the US and democracy around the world since Nazi Germany, and policymakers must be prepared for a prolonged period of confrontation with Beijing, according to US director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe.
The top US spy chief said he was already shifting resources inside the $US85 billion ($1114 billion) intelligence budget to place more emphasis on China and to ensure America's intelligence community has "the resources it needs to give policy makers unvarnished insights into China's intentions and activities".
"The People's Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War Two," Mr Ratcliffe wrote in an opinion article published on Thursday (Friday AEDT) by The Wall Street Journal.
"The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically," he said.
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China is national security threat No. 1
John Ratcliffe
The Wall Street Journal
7:32AM December 4, 2020
As Director of National Intelligence, I am entrusted with access to more intelligence than any member of the US government other than the president. I oversee the intelligence agencies, and my office produces the President’s Daily Brief detailing the threats facing the country. If I could communicate one thing to the American people from this unique vantage point, it is that the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II. The intelligence is clear: Beijing intends to dominate the US and the rest of the planet economically, militarily and technologically. Many of China’s major public initiatives and prominent companies offer only a layer of camouflage to the activities of the Chinese Communist Party.
I call its approach of economic espionage “rob, replicate and replace.” China robs US companies of their intellectual property, replicates the technology, and then replaces the US firms in the global marketplace.
Take Sinovel. In 2018 a federal jury found the Chinese wind-turbine manufacturer guilty of stealing trade secrets from American Superconductor. Penalties were imposed but the damage was done. The theft resulted in the U.S. company losing more than $US1 billion in shareholder value and cutting 700 jobs. Today Sinovel sells wind turbines worldwide as if it built a legitimate business through ingenuity and hard work rather than theft.
The FBI frequently arrests Chinese nationals for stealing research-and-development secrets. Until the head of Harvard’s Chemistry Department was arrested earlier this year, China was allegedly paying him $US50,000 a month as part of a plan to attract top scientists and reward them for stealing information. The professor has pleaded not guilty to making false statements to US authorities. Three scientists were ousted in 2019 from MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston over concerns about China’s theft of cancer research. The US government estimates that China’s intellectual-property theft costs America as much as $US500 billion a year, or between $US4,000 and $US6,000 per U.S. household.
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https://www.afr.com/wealth/investing/president-xi-the-key-to-china-s-destiny-20201202-p56jzz
President Xi is the key to China's destiny
All of Scott Morrison's proven pragmatism will be required to salvage a new accord with Australia's most important trading partner and avoid outright kinetic conflict.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Dec 4, 2020 – 1.48pm
The sharp deterioration in relations between Australia and China is regrettable but also entirely expected.
For the best part of a decade this column has asserted that China and the Western world are on a collision course for conflict. This was not a fashionable view back in 2013 when the Asian Century paradigm was in full-flight.
The probabilities of economic and military conflict have escalated under the current regime, which cannot be judged according to a rational, profit-maximising Western calculus. Rather, China’s actions can only be understood through the prism of President Xi Jinping’s Marxist-Leninist framework, which he describes as “socialism with Chinese characteristics”.
Xi believes conflict between capitalism and Chinese socialism is inescapable, and he has been preparing for this contingency since he came to power. To properly divine our destiny, one must come to grips with the essence of the man who will exert enormous influence over the distribution of possible outcomes.
Xi is a brilliant yet fatalistic princeling-politician, who was arrested alongside his father, the Communist Party’s former vice chairman and propaganda chief, as a teen during the Cultural Revolution, and whose sister was tragically murdered by revolutionaries at the time.
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Biden: ‘We’re going to fight like hell by investing in America first’
The President-elect sets out his priorities for his first months in office.
Thomas Friedman Contributor
Dec 4, 2020 – 12.12am
President-elect Joe Biden is in a good mood as we talk on the phone on Tuesday evening for an hour – he in Delaware and me in Bethesda, Maryland. He apologises, though, for being late. He has been following the breaking news that US Attorney General William Barr has just announced that the Justice Department has not uncovered any significant fraud that could have affected the results of the presidential election. It's all over.
Biden jokes that Barr has just called him, "Asking if I can get him in the witness protection program for endorsing me."
Considering the Trump team's hurricane of dishonest claims about the election results, the president-elect is entitled to a little laugh at their expense. Otherwise, he is all business.
Biden has a lot to say about how he intends to approach the current Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and his Republican colleagues in order to get his cabinet nominees – and as much of his agenda as possible – through the Senate; how he intends to reshape US-China strategy; and why he is ready to return to the Iran nuclear deal, if Iran does, and end President Donald Trump's sanctions on Iran.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/the-maga-revolution-devours-its-own-20201205-p56kvh
The MAGA revolution devours its own
Even a lifetime of ideological service is no defence when you've displeased Dear Leader.
Michelle Goldberg
Dec 5, 2020 – 10.38am
Gabriel Sterling, a Georgia election official and longtime Republican, held a news conference this week in which, with barely contained rage, he excoriated Donald Trump's lies about voter fraud and the threats of violence those lies inspired.
He railed against Trump's campaign lawyer, Joseph diGenova, who called for the shooting of Christopher Krebs, a federal cybersecurity official fired by Trump for saying that the election wasn't rigged. (DiGenova later claimed he was joking.) Sterling described a "20-something tech" involved in the vote tabulation who was getting death threats.
"It has to stop!" he said, visibly seething. "Mr President, you have not condemned these actions or this language. Senators, you have not condemned this language or these actions. This has to stop."
The next day, Georgia's secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, expressed his support for Sterling. "It's about time that more people were out there speaking with truth," he said. His office had asked Trump to "try and quell the violent rhetoric being born out of his continuing claims of winning the states where he obviously lost". he said, to no avail.
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Beijing set a trap for Scott Morrison and he walked right in
Peter Hartcher
Political and international editor
December 5, 2020 — 12.10am
The most immediate thing that Xi Jinping's regime achieved this week was to establish what the Chinese Communist Party calls "discourse control" over Australia. It couldn't have done it by itself.
When it published its inflammatory propaganda – the old Soviet communist party term "agitprop" best describes it, a combination of agitation and propaganda – it set a trap for Scott Morrison. He obligingly walked into it.
The Prime Minister's strident personal response might have been genuine outrage, but it gave Beijing an easy win: We spent the week talking about it. On the party's terms. Mostly it was a domestic Australian debate of self-examination and self-criticism.
This is a win for Beijing because while we were busy with internal agonising we weren't talking about China's appalling violations in Hong Kong, Xinjiang or the South China Sea. A piece of juvenile garbage from a lowly spokesman was rewarded out of all proportion by being taken very seriously at the highest possible level of Australian leadership.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
