November 04 2021 Edition
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The big news this week is the outcome of the G20 meeting in Rome and the initial outcomes from the COPS26 meeting in Glasgow.
The G20 has
been rather overshadowed by the Morrison / Macron relationship and how
Australia has treated France rather poorly to say the least. As the week draws to a close this issue is getting more and more serious!
On COPS26
optimism is waning and it is clear that the final outcomes will be less
than was hoped a even a few months ago, but some progress will be made it seems. Good that!
Domestically it is now clear that this current Government has no interest in actually doing something on the Climate that might make a difference Sad that.
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Major Issues.
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Markets begin reacting to powerful inflation signals
Richard Henderson Markets reporter
Oct 24, 2021 – 3.31pm
Growing worries about quickly rising prices across the global economy weakened tech stocks and triggered an exodus from US and Australian government bonds ahead of a busy week of economic announcements around the world.
The yield on the 10-year Australian government bond edged 18 basis points higher to 1.8 per cent last week, in line with its highest level since COVID-19 first struck and mirroring a similar move in US bond yields, which also edged towards pandemic highs this week.
US tech stocks, which are among the most vulnerable to inflation, fell. The Nasdaq benchmark dropped 1 per cent while the broader market was largely flat. Australian tech shares also eased lower last week, declining 1 per cent while blue chips posted a modest gain.
The movements across stock and bond markets reflect a turn in inflation expectations as investors begin to position portfolios for a sustained burst in consumer prices that has brought forward interest rate forecasts.
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Mixed messages dismay $40b international education market
Confusion reigns as Australian domestic politics trumps any sensible approach to bringing international students back to Australia.
Phil Honeywood
Oct 24, 2021 – 12.15pm
What is the purpose of a national cabinet if everyone decides to do their own thing? In equal measure, what is the point of a national plan if it is suddenly given the status of a guide only? This is the conundrum faced by the beleaguered $40 billion international education industry in Australia.
For the past year, our industry has been told that, as per the national cabinet agreement, it is the state and territory governments that have primary responsibility for signing off on their separate jurisdictions’ international student return plans.
It is on this basis that vice-chancellors, TAFE directors, independent college CEOs and high school principals have come together and lobbied premiers and chief ministers to ensure that small pilot programs can be implemented. In most cases, our advocacy has been to ensure that medical, dental, PhD and final-year high school students, who have already invested years of study and tuition fees in their futures – and our nation – can at least complete their qualifications. This is far more than a financial benefit issue, it is an equity one.
We took heart when some months ago, South Australian Premier Steven Marshall and then NSW premier Gladys Berejiklian, signed off on the first comprehensive return plans. Happily, these were quickly endorsed by the federal education minister, Alan Tudge.
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‘Playing politics with Australian children’: Historians take Tudge to task on curriculum
By Lisa Visentin and Katina Curtis
October 22, 2021 — 5.58pm
Historians have criticised federal Education Minister Alan Tudge for “playing politics with Australian children”, warning that his push to make the national curriculum more positive about the nation would not give students a full account of the past.
Mr Tudge maintained he wanted school children to be taught an “accurate” account of Australian history, as he redoubled his criticism of the draft national curriculum on Friday, saying it presented a “negative, miserable view of Australia”.
Professor Melanie Oppenheimer, president of the Australian Historical Association, the peak national body for historians, said there was a “very strong belief” among historians that Mr Tudge’s comments were not helping the debate.
“He is playing politics with Australian children. It is unhelpful what he is doing,” Professor Oppenheimer, the chair of history at Flinders University, said.
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Markets ‘have gone too far’ on tipping early rate hikes
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Oct 24, 2021 – 5.21pm
Markets tipping interest rate rises as early as mid-2022 have got it wrong, say economists, after the Reserve Bank of Australia doubled down on its guidance for the cash rate to stay at record lows until 2024.
Top economists from Westpac and the Commonwealth Bank, along with a growing cohort of their peers, still tip rates will rise in early- to mid-2023, a year ahead of the RBA, while ANZ and the NAB back the 2024 guidance.
A sell-off in the bond market following strong inflation figures in New Zealand forced the yield on the April 2024 treasury bond to drift as high as 0.2 per cent last week, well above the RBA’s 0.1 per cent target.
The April 2024 bond is the line targeted by the central bank for yield curve control in an effort to keep borrowing costs low.
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Overseas students seethe as national plan goes to waste
Julie Hare Education editor
Oct 24, 2021 – 3.23pm
Australia’s private education colleges have a far more benevolent attitude towards federal and state governments’ handling of the international education sector than the many thousands of students who are hoping to study here.
A survey of around 400 private education providers found that nearly 80 per cent supported their state or territory government’s handling of the pandemic.
However, that stands in stark contrast to research conducted by Angela Lehmann who studies social media responses to policy changes among potential international students.
“International students waiting to get back to Australia have never been so engaged with Australian policy. Each government announcement, each ministerial speech is instantly seen, translated, retweeted and discussed on social media,” said Dr Lehmann, who is head of research for international education consultancy The Lygon Group.
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Digicel deal a totemic shift for a Western government
The government decided it could not take the risk of the largest telco operator in the Pacific - headquartered in Australia’s closest geographical neighbour in PNG - falling into hostile hands.
John Kehoe Economics editor
Oct 25, 2021 – 2.49pm
Injecting $1.8 billion of taxpayer money to help Telstra buy Digicel Pacific is a totemic shift for a Western government to weaponise corporate power and fight back against the creeping influence of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Australia and its allies have watched for years Chinese state-owned enterprises buy and build strategic infrastructure assets such as telecommunications systems and ports in the Indo-Pacific to boost Beijing’s strategic influence, soft diplomacy and espionage powers.
Now, Australian foreign policy has a new innovative element; corporate capital and expertise.
Canberra was not certain whether or not there was a genuine Chinese bidder for Digicel Pacific, or if its Irish billionaire owner, Denis O’Brien, was talking up the threat to maximise an exit price and get agitated bondholders off his back.
But security agencies were anxious. The government decided it could not take the risk of the largest telco operator in the Pacific, headquartered in Australia’s closest geographical neighbour in Papua New Guinea, falling into hostile hands.
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Specialist ETFs can spice up your index fund portfolio
If you have a strong belief in a sector, investing via a fund removes the problem of having to decide on which companies will win or lose.
Tim Mackay Contributor
Oct 26, 2021 – 8.39am
Over the past two decades, self-managed super fund investors have been early and enthusiastic adopters of exchange traded funds (ETFs). Today, more than $US9.1 trillion ($A12.1 trillion) is invested in ETFs worldwide. Cheap to trade on the ASX, ETFs are an easy way to create a well-diversified portfolio.
However, their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness – ETFs can be seen as boring. Once you buy an ETF with exposure to the top 200 Australian stocks or the top 500 US stocks, what do you do in future years? Rotate in and out? Hold it forever?
ETFs don’t give the same excitement of activity and constant buzz of corporate actions and news that individual shares or funds run by famous fund managers offer. The financial media machine struggles to write anything consistently exciting about ETFs.
For long-term returns, a lack of excitement isn’t a bad thing. In fact, boring is a beautiful thing. Study after study has shown that most funds and stock pickers don’t beat the index over the long term.
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Investing in companies with strong brands is crucial after the virus
Consumer attitudes and spending patterns are expected to be very different after COVID-19 and competition will be intense.
James Wright Contributor
Oct 26, 2021 – 8.20am
Now more than ever, investors need to pay particular attention to a company’s brand and its client segmentation as we emerge from the pandemic recession. While the recovery should provide some uplift to most company profits, consumer attitudes and spending patterns are expected to be very different after the pandemic and competition will be intense.
Initially, consumers will look to make up for lost time and splurge on experiences, leisure, and hospitality. But COVID-19 has also led many to rethink their priorities, the way they work and engage with community and purpose. Surveys suggest that consumers are likely to be bolder and far more experimental in this recovery and be attracted to brands that reflect their positivity.
Investing in companies that have created strong brand recognition has always been an important element in stock analysis. While financial metrics and the quality of management normally attract the first wave of attention of investors, understanding the intangible element of a brand in helping to create an economic moat around a company that shields it from the full uncompromising force of competition has always been critical.
At its heart, a strong brand is what attracts and retains customers. A brand that is distinctive and relevant will not only attract a greater share of the market but will also be able to charge a premium for its products or services. Brands become a shortcut for decision-making.
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Tumbling bonds push market to worst year in decades
Richard Henderson Markets reporter
Updated Oct 26, 2021 – 1.52pm, first published at 12.44pm
The Australian bond market is facing its worst year of returns in a quarter of a century as growing worries about inflation crush the value of government and corporate debt, and trigger an investor exodus from bond funds.
The Bloomberg AusBonds Composite index, one of the broadest measures of the Australian debt market, has fallen 3.1 per cent this year, placing the benchmark on track for the poorest showing since 1994 – a year marked by a painful bond sell-off known as the “great bond massacre”.
The rapid decline in the price of debt reflects a rise in bond yields as investors begin to prepare for a prolonged bout of inflation that will pressure central banks to increase interest rates.
Rising consumer prices have emerged as one of the biggest risks facing financial markets as the global economy digests record levels of ultra-easy monetary support, supply chain bottlenecks gum up international trade, and roaring demand boosts commodity prices.
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Australia lacks the diplomacy to win friends and influence
Allan Gyngell and John McCarthy
Oct 26, 2021 – 1.30pm
As the Prime Minister heads off to meetings of the G20 and the Glasgow climate change conference there seems to be universal agreement that Australia faces, in Scott Morrison’s words, “multiple challenges and radical uncertainty” in a permanently changed world. As observers of Australian foreign policy for more than half a century each, we agree. Those challenges do not necessarily bring greater danger (the Cold War was perilous, too) but in their number and complexity they are unprecedented.
China’s growing power has generated sharp geopolitical competition with the United States. International bodies such as the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation have failed to rise to new challenges. Climate change is reshaping the biosphere. New technologies are disrupting industries and changing behaviour. Australia’s principal ally, the United States, is grappling with political and social dysfunction. And the long tail of the COVID-19 pandemic will reshape the global economy and individual societies in ways we cannot foresee.
The question facing Australians is how we can prosper and remain secure in such a world. The government’s principal response so far has been on the defence side. The 2020 Defence Update promised $270 billion in defence expenditure over the next decade. The AUKUS announcement in September added new elements, including a possible nuclear submarine project worth more than $100 billion, to the mix.
Australia needs a strong defence force, and policies that work in partnership with allies and friends. But who can doubt that Australia’s principal policy objective has to be to find ways of advancing our interests, protecting our values and prospering in a world where wars are avoided?
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Congressman urges Australian rethink on US missiles
Matthew Cranston United States correspondent
Updated Oct 27, 2021 – 9.54am, first published at 9.50am
Washington | A US Congressman and chair of the 92-member Friends of Australia Caucus has urged the Morrison government to approve American missile launches on Australian soil. Republican Mike Gallagher also wants to include Australia in a special Pacific joint task force to defend Taiwan from Chinese military attack.
Mr Gallagher, who is a member of the House Armed Forces Committee, told at an event hosted by think tank Project 2049 on Tuesday (Wednesday AEDT) that the US would probably lose a fight on Taiwan given its current level of preparedness, and that Australia needed to lift its readiness.
His comments follow the launch of a hypersonic missile from China last week, as well as a renewed commitment from President Joe Biden that the US would defend Taiwan if China attacked it.
“It’s clear to me that if we went to war in the Taiwan Straits tomorrow, we probably lose. And it’s also clear to me that the threat horizon for the Taiwan scenario is growing more near by the day,” Mr Gallagher said.
“There is a need to build a more dispersed regional posture, especially with ground launch missiles. Japan and Australia both play key roles there. Since we got out of the now-expired Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, both of them have seemed very tepid at best when it comes to playing host to US missiles.”
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Why the world is focused on hypersonic missiles
The US still attracts the world’s best minds, but China’s latest test of military hardware shows it is very much in the nuclear arms race.
Jeremy Cliffe
Oct 27, 2021 – 8.00am
On October 16, the Financial Times reported that China had on July 27 and August 13 this year successfully tested two nuclear-capable hypersonic missiles. This development, the newspaper reported, “stunned” US officials and “caught US intelligence by surprise” (China officially denies the tests took place).
The shock was compounded by the news, on October 21, that the US had delayed its own latest hypersonic missile test due to rocket failure. Though the booster rocket in question did not involve the hypersonic technology, it added to the sense of Beijing having stolen a march on Washington in this decisive new field of competition.
The race for hypersonic missile technology is significant in itself. The US, China and Russia have in recent years all been locked in a competition to master it. The term “hypersonic” implies speeds between Mach 5 and Mach 10 (so five to 10 times the speed of sound).
But the three traits that set such technology apart from conventional intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) are not about speed but direction: they glide, travel in a low orbit and are more manoeuvrable than ICBMs, all of which makes them harder to track and destroy. If China masters such missiles, that gives it capabilities that the US lacks.
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Four reasons not to be too worried about stagflation
Recent declines in some commodity prices and surging savings rates provide hope that the exceptional events that have created supply pressures will ease.
Scott Haslem Contributor
Oct 26, 2021 – 5.00am
Stagflation has become the crisis word of the moment. In many respects, the sense of urgency is justified. Inflation has proved stickier and failed to recede as quickly as many expected. Economic growth – here and overseas – has slowed much more than anticipated.
Slowing growth and elevated inflation certainly meets the definition of a more stagflationary environment. Indeed, Credit Suisse’s Stagflation Surprise Index just moved into extreme territory. Nor is stagflation a typically positive backdrop for markets, either equity or bond markets, as evidenced in the late 1970s and 1980s when central banks increased rates in the face of booming inflation and the world went into a deep recession.
At the centre of the crisis are both supply chain gridlock and a spike in energy prices. What started as a semi-conductor chip shortage has extended to a broader range of components, also affecting supplies to Australia. The uneven recovery in global trade – with some countries seeing strong imports but weak exports – has led to shipping container mismatch and port chaos. This has been hampered by new COVID-19 practices slowing ship turnarounds (in the US and Australia) or outright port closures due to virus outbreaks (in China). The cost of transporting goods has surged.
The situation has been worsened by labour shortages, particularly in the US, where another virus wave has dented the willingness to return to work, driving up wages and constraining activity. In the third quarter, US growth looks to have stalled and gone backwards in much of emerging Asia, Japan and Australia where renewed virus-induced lockdowns have also dented output.
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Coalition’s plan is to cut emissions the Australian way
11:00PM October 27, 2021
Protecting regional Australia, our industries and the jobs of hardworking Australians is at the heart of the Coalition government’s emission reduction policies.
The government’s Long-Term Emissions Reduction Plan, announced by the Prime Minister on Tuesday, sets out the responsible, practical steps we will take over the next 30 years to reduce Australia’s emissions and secure our economic future.
Our plan has been designed for Australia. By investing in new technologies such as hydrogen, ultra-low-cost solar, carbon capture and storage, and improved soil carbon measurement, our plan will strengthen our agriculture, mining and manufacturing sectors and see Australia’s emissions reduce to net zero by 2050.
It imposes no new costs on households or businesses. It doesn’t raise the price of energy, or reduce the competitiveness of our export industries. Australia will remain a trusted commodity producer, including of coal and gas, to those who want to buy it. Not one job will be lost as a result of the government’s actions or policies under the plan.
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Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead warns on nuclear submarine deadline
11:04PM October 27, 2021
Australia may not have an operational nuclear submarine until after 2040 despite assurances one would be “in the water” by the end of the next decade, the head of the government’s Nuclear Submarine Taskforce has conceded.
Vice Admiral Jonathan Mead, who is leading an 18-month-long study to put the government’s nuclear submarine pledge into action, said he was working to achieve “early delivery” of the first boat, with a “worst-case scenario” of just one completed by 2040. “We have provided advice that a submarine would be delivered to the commonwealth and in the water by the next decade,” he told a Defence estimates hearing on Wednesday.
But Vice Admiral Mead agreed that “in the water” did not mean operational, and the submarine would then have to undertake a commissioning process that could take years.
“That would need to be worked through,” Vice Admiral Mead said, when quizzed on the likely commissioning timeline by Labor Senator Tim Ayres.
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Inflation’s first casualties brace for worse to come
6:11PM October 27, 2021
For shoppers higher inflation means higher prices, for workers it means weaker purchasing power, but the first casualties of inflation are going to be bond market investors.
The latest inflation uptick will be felt most keenly among a new generation of first-time investors who have recently entered the market through exchange traded funds.
It has been a long time since the bond markets let investors down, in fact the last time that bonds were a loss-making proposition was so long ago that few investors would remember.
During what may soon look like the golden age for bond returns, yields fell from more than 15 per cent to zero. With every major step down in that 40-year sloping graph of yields came a lift in prices and a pick up in total returns for investors.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/sex-lies-and-icac-phone-taps-20211028-p593y7
Sex, lies and ICAC phone taps
The #MeToo era has changed the rules since Monica Lewinsky’s sexual relationship with Bill Clinton, but the combustible combination of sex and politics is still scorching Gladys Berejiklian.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Oct 28, 2021 – 5.19pm
Bill Clinton’s tormentor, Kenneth Starr, believes the #MeToo era would not allow the same vilification of women who gave evidence about the former president’s various sexual encounters.
This is probably one of the few judgments by Starr with which a majority of Americans would agree. The relentless pursuit of Bill Clinton by the special independent counsel culminated in the lurid Starr report landing in Congress 23 years ago, resulting in Clinton’s impeachment amid loud calls for his resignation.
But being declared guilty by Congress for lying under oath was very different to the court of public opinion. Voters increasingly disapproved of Starr’s accumulation of salacious details of Clinton’s sexual behaviour – most spectacularly with a young White House intern called Monica Lewinsky.
Clinton eventually left office two years later with personal approval ratings higher than any president since Truman.
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ResMed takes extraordinary steps to overcome supply chain woes
Natasha Gillezeau Reporter
Updated Oct 29, 2021 – 1.07pm, first published at 12.21pm
ResMed has been chartering passenger planes to fly in components from Asia to the United States as the company goes to extraordinary lengths to overcome supply chain issues and meet increased demand for its sleep apnoea devices.
ResMed’s unaudited financial results for the first quarter of the financial year ending in 2022 showed revenue up 20 per cent on the previous corresponding period to $US904 million ($1.2 billion), with net income up 14 per cent to $US204 million.
Investors responded warmly to the result, pushing the shares up 5.9 per cent to $37.76.
The sleep apnoea diagnostics, devices and wearables company’s gross margins were squeezed by higher manufacturing and freights costs and lower average selling prices.
“It’s going to be very difficult here in the December quarter with component shortages and in the March quarter with component shortages,” ResMed chief executive Mick Farrell said.
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Red October: behind the bond market’s war with the RBA
Jonathan Shapiro Senior reporter
Oct 29, 2021 – 12.31pm
The morning of Monday, October 18 was a dead zone, with no major market awake yet.
Then New Zealand’s Stats NZ released its quarterly consumer price index data, and with it, unleashed a shockwave that is still reverberating through fixed income trading floors 10 days later.
It has all but cost the Reserve Bank of Australia one of its policy weapons, known as yield curve control, and paved the way for the RBA to make a reassessment of the core forecasts that underpin its forward guidance next week.
The bond market has won. It no longer appears credible for the RBA to promise the cash rate won't rise before 2024.
Across the Tasman, petrol, council rates and skyrocketing vegetable prices because of a lack of seasonal harvest pickers translated to the fastest increase in the consumer price index (CPI) in a decade.
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Bond markets rage after RBA skips intervention
Cecile Lefort Markets reporter
Oct 29, 2021 – 11.41am
The Reserve Bank skipped another chance to suppress runaway bond yields in Friday’s session, reinforcing market speculation it will drop its standing guidance of no rate increases until 2024, prompted by rising inflation and a global scramble to tighten monetary settings.
Markets are betting strong consumer price growth will persuade the RBA to raise interest rates sooner and faster than its 2024 forward guidance, and are pricing in close to five rate increases next year with a lift-off as soon as February.
“Markets are now assuming that the yield curve control is finished and that the RBA will raise rates around February or March next year,” said Martin Whetton, Commonwealth Bank’s head of bond strategy.
The pressure on the Reserve Bank, often viewed as among the most dovish central banks, comes amid a global debate over whether price increases related to COVID-19 supply-chain disruption are temporary, or becoming embedded in both higher actual inflation and inflation expectations.
European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde acknowledged on Thursday that inflation will be elevated for longer than initially thought, but concluded price growth was still temporary and a policy response would be premature. The ECB left its policy unchanged, as expected.
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Don’t panic on inflation, insists Josh Frydenberg
Ronald Mizen and Cecile Lefort
Oct 29, 2021 – 6.56pm
The inflation genie is not out of the bottle, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg insists, as the Morrison government tries to calm investors and households spooked by the global inflation-led bond sell-off that stormed Australia’s shores this week.
Mr Frydenberg said inflation had risen globally and was expected to persist longer than first thought, but current elevated prices were being driven by supply side constraints and increased demand as health restrictions ease.
His comments followed a rout in bond markets as investors bet higher inflation would force rates to rise much faster and further than the government and the central bank forecast, putting upward pressure on mortgage repayments and downward pressure on asset prices.
Investors are betting rates could begin lifting as soon as February next year, while most economists are tipping late 2022 or the first half of 2023, with the potential for the cash rate to hit 2 per cent by late 2024.
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House prices could fall as much as 20pc after rate increases
Even 100 basis points of increases would have profound consequences for asset pricing, and house prices could correct about 15 to 25 per cent.
Christopher Joye Columnist
Updated Oct 29, 2021 – 11.45am, first published at 10.55am
The normalisation of Australian inflation, and the Reserve Bank of Australia’s cash rate with it, is a game changer for everything – equities, bonds, house prices and portfolio construction.
Everyone needs to go back to first principles and re-evaluate their decisioning juxtaposed against a world in which short- and long-term interest rates could be a lot higher.
While it looks like the bond market has bullied the RBA into dropping its 0.1 per cent 2024 yield curve target, the truth is that the central bank has always been data-dependent.
Sure, Martin Place was not expecting core inflation to trip into its target 2-3 per cent band in September. But, equally, governor Phil Lowe will be delighted that he is much closer to meeting his goals apropos employment, price stability and the prosperity of the nation. Before the inflation print this week, I was asked by an offshore participant whether the RBA would “buckle” to the bond bandits, who were betting that the yield curve target would be jettisoned. I responded that we “expected the RBA to drop its 2024 forward guidance, with the yield curve target expiring thereafter at the November or December meetings”.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/the-week-inflation-started-to-get-very-real-20211028-p593xn
The week inflation started to get very real
Ronald Mizen Economics correspondent
Oct 30, 2021 – 5.00am
For the first time in years, a swift rise in prices could become a reality for everyone.
Prices are increasing at petrol stations, on construction sites, at supermarket checkouts and throughout supply chains. This week, law firm Gilbert + Tobin gave all its lawyers a 10 per cent pay rise to keep them around, signalling the potential for widespread pay pressure on employers.
Reports of significant wage rises of between 10 per cent and 40 per cent are becoming more prevalent, particularly in white-collar workplaces. Even the RBA has admitted it is struggling to stop staff from being poached.
The lockdown restrictions are still easing in Australia’s two largest cities, yet economists are already looking forward to a roaring recovery in 2022. Freshly freed consumers are champing at the bit to unleash almost $200 billion in additional savings stashed away during the COVID-19 crisis.
That could all add up to one giant headache for businesses and consumers facing higher costs and, now, interest rate increases as well.
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Investors get ready for reality shock
6:34PM October 29, 2021
Reality and the investment markets can spend long periods of time away from each other: Then suddenly they reconnect and investors need to be awake to what that means for their portfolios.
We are now getting loud signals that the price of money is about to rise and – in tandem – the level of inflation. These two fundamental factors determine the outcome of just about every investment, from the price of your home to shares, bonds, gold and the value of your super.
The money markets are now pricing in official rate rises by next May and bank lending rates will move higher long before the Reserve Bank finally makes its official move.
We have also just had an inflation reading of above 2 per cent and even the RBA did not see that coming.
Perhaps the most misleading factor for everyday investors has been the most influential figures in the market telling us straight-faced that rates will not rise until 2024 and inflation is very unlikely to happen. Both those “call” have now been proved wrong.
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Workers flee dud super funds after failing performance test
By John Collett
October 26, 2021 — 11.00pm
All but one of the 13 superannuation funds with MySuper investment options that failed the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) inaugural performance test have seen a fall in their number of members, as workers bailed out and switched to better-performing funds.
Margaret Cole, APRA executive board member, told an industry conference last week that, by contrast, some of the nation’s largest funds are signing up as many as 1000 new members a day.
Each of the 13 MySuper options, which have more than one million members combined and include funds managed by some of the super industry’s biggest names, including the Commonwealth Bank and Westpac’s BT, were required to send a letter to members by September 28, informing them that their fund is underperforming and had failed the test.
The letter points members to the ATO’s YourSuper comparison tool to check their fund’s performance against other like-for-like funds.
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Australia’s dumping of French subs contract ‘clumsy’: Biden
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Oct 30, 2021 – 5.31pm
Rome | US President Joe Biden has implicitly rebuked Scott Morrison and some members of his administration by telling French President Emmanuel Macron that Australia’s dumping of the $90 billion submarine contract with French company Naval Group was “clumsy” and “not done with a lot of grace”.
The comments have caused some frustration within the Australian government which believes it was White House officials who failed to keep Mr Biden sufficiently informed of the process.
France was angry with both Australia, the UK and the US when, last month, the trio announced the AUKUS regional security partnership which included Australia abandoning the French submarine for nuclear submarines based on US technology.
In a meeting with Mr Macron in Rome on the sidelines of the G20 leaders’ summit, Mr Biden apologised to the French leader over the handling of the situation, implicating his own officials as well as Australia.
“I think what happened was, to use an English phrase, what we did was clumsy,” Mr Biden said.
“It was not done with a lot of grace. I was under the impression certain things had happened that hadn’t happened.
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Two-thirds of voters back federal corruption watchdog with stronger powers
October 31, 2021 — 5.00am
More than two-thirds of Australians support the creation of a powerful federal anti-corruption watchdog, with Coalition voters slightly more in favour than those who support other parties.
Changes designed to bolster the proposed watchdog’s powers look increasingly likely after criticism from legal experts and lobbying from Liberal MPs, with Attorney-General Michaelia Cash expected to bring a revised bill to cabinet within weeks.
Overall, 70 per cent of voters agreed with the need for a national integrity commission, while just 5 per cent disagreed and 25 per cent of voters were neutral or undecided.
Significantly, close to 70 per cent of voters also support a commission being able to independently decide when to investigate potential corruption and hold public hearings.
The results of the Resolve Political Monitor, conducted for The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age by research company Resolve Strategic, will increase pressure on the federal government to deliver a watchdog with stronger powers just as Senator Cash finalises details of the draft legislation, which was a 2019 election promise from Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
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Coronavirus And Impacts.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/australia-catches-pandemic-inflation-20211027-p593l8
Australia catches pandemic inflation
Australia has taken one step towards the inflation shock that is much more overt overseas in New Zealand, the United States and United Kingdom.
John Kehoe Economics editor
Oct 27, 2021 – 6.13pm
A solid inflation rise has thrust Australia into the midst of the most crucial global economic question facing investors, homeowners and businesses.
Are price pressures a temporary consequence of COVID-19-induced supply chain bottlenecks that are pushing up the cost of home building and petrol?
Or will inflation prove more persistent and force the Reserve Bank of Australia to raise interest rates before its 2024 forward guidance?
Globally, record equity values and house prices are predicated on ultra-cheap money.
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‘Immunity wanes’: Study finds vaccinated people easily transmit Delta in households
October 29, 2021 — 8.45am
London: The Delta coronavirus variant can transmit easily from vaccinated people to their household contacts, a British study found on Friday AEDT, although contacts were less likely to get infected if they were vaccinated themselves.
The Imperial College London study illustrates how the highly transmissible Delta variant can spread even in a vaccinated population.
The researchers underlined that did not weaken the argument for vaccination as the best way of reducing serious illness from COVID-19 and said booster shots were required.
They found infections in the vaccinated cleared more quickly, but the peak viral load remained similar to the unvaccinated.
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How Italy fought its way back from COVID chaos
Adjunct professor at the University of Bologna
October 27, 2021 — 12.59pm
For our free coronavirus pandemic coverage, learn more here.
At 9pm on March 9 last year, the Italian Prime Minister announced an unprecedented measure: immediate lockdown for the entire country. A population of 60 million was thrown into the worst emergency since World War II. Convoys of the Italian army began to transport coffins out of Bergamo in the country’s north and nobody knew what was coming next.
But come summer 2021, all activities, excluding discos and crowded concerts, returned. Tourism was back to normal and national and international travel was allowed.
As of Monday, the number of new infections per week in Italy is 39 cases per 100,000 v 58 in Australia and a striking 478 in Britain. There are still severe cases, hospitalisations and deaths (the average for last week was 41 deaths a day in Italy v 136 a day in Britain), but the health system is under control.
Italy, the first Western country hit by COVID-19, has shown how to fight its way back. Although frequently criticised for its efficiency gaps, Italy conceived and implemented major public health measures against COVID-19 that were later implemented in Europe – such as mandatory masks, closed “red areas”, curfews and, above all, national lockdown. Isolated from all neighbouring countries, which initially closed their borders, Italy continued to develop its strategy in different ways through the crisis. Its experience could be instructive for Australia.
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New Delta variant spotted in Australia for first time
By Liam Mannix
October 30, 2021 — 5.00am
The first case of a new COVID-19 variant that is now the fastest-growing coronavirus strain in the UK has been detected in Australia, but virologists say there is no reason to slow reopening plans.
The variant, known as AY.4.2., was uncovered in hotel quarantine in NSW and is so far the only case detected. But experts expect more to follow as Australia prepares to open its international borders.
AY.4.2. is a new lineage of the dominant Delta variant. Scientific attention has focused on it in recent weeks, as evidence emerges it is growing faster than Delta in the UK. It is not yet clear if the variant is more infectious, nor if it can cut the effectiveness of vaccines.
But virologists said the emergence of the variant was no reason to slow Australia’s reopening plans.
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Climate Change.
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Australia can no longer afford to kick carbon adjustment down the road
As the world heads towards net zero at Glasgow, Australia’s fossil fuel-based economy has a lot to lose if the government misses the chance to get the transition policies right.
Warwick McKibbin and Frank Jotzo
Oct 25, 2021 – 12.38pm
With the COP26 UN climate conference in Glasgow starting next week, the Australian government faces a decision that can no longer be kicked down the road.
The world is moving towards net zero carbon emissions. As a fossil fuel-based economy, one of Australia’s traditional sources of national income is under threat. But there is no place to hide. And with sensible policies emissions, Australia can achieve large cuts in emissions and position itself for economic success in a low-carbon world economy.
The Australian government is correct in arguing that Australia’s emissions have fallen since 2005. However, this fall in emissions has primarily been due to lower accounted emissions from land-use, land-use change, and forestry in earlier years.
All other emissions sources combined have increased since 2005. There is much international pressure on Australia to take on a stronger 2030 target.
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World ‘way off track’ in halting warming, UN warns ahead of COP26
Emma Farge and Gerry Mey
Oct 26, 2021 – 9.49am
Geneva/Glasgow | Greenhouse gas concentrations hit a record last year and the world is “way off track” in capping rising temperatures, the United Nations said on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) in a stark illustration of the tasks facing UN climate talks in Scotland.
A report by the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) showed carbon dioxide levels surged to 413.2 parts per million in 2020, rising more than the average rate over the last decade despite a temporary dip in emissions during COVID-19 lockdowns.
WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said the current rate of increase in heat-trapping gases would result in temperature rises “far in excess” of the 2015 Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial average this century.
“We are way off track,” he said. “We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life,” he added, calling for a “dramatic increase” in commitments at the COP26 conference beginning on Sunday.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/a-prayer-not-a-plan-for-net-zero-20211026-p5939u
A prayer, not a plan, for net zero
Steven Hamilton Contributor
Oct 26, 2021 – 3.12pm
After weeks of internal machinations, the government has finally committed to net zero by 2050, and presented its plan to get there. But given this plan – if you can even call it that – involves not a single new policy decision, one wonders what exactly has been going on behind closed doors in Canberra. If it was permissible simply to assume the answer, what took so long?
Sixteen years in to a 45-year journey from 2005 to 2050, we’ve so far achieved 20 per cent of our emissions-reduction task. It’s worth noting, of course, that almost all of that occurred under Labor, including under the carbon tax. Just remember that when the government crows about delivering real outcomes, not just promises.
The government now expects this to rise to 30 to 35 per cent by 2030 (which itself indicates as clearly as anything the radical slowdown in our emissions reduction over the last decade). It’s important to note, as NSW Treasurer Matt Kean has been right to point out, that you get to that 35 per cent purely by piggybacking on the existing plans and commitments made by the states.
Imagine not even having the courage to set a target you are expecting to beat in a canter, relying entirely on the hard work of others, not requiring you even to lift a finger to meet? But even that most minimal of efforts would significantly under-achieve relative to our international peers – even the states of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. Instead, we’ve chosen to do literally nothing.
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PM pins net zero hopes on technology, updates 2030 projections
Phillip Coorey Political editor
Oct 26, 2021 – 2.06pm
The Morrison government has outlined a technological road map towards net zero emissions by 2050 that will require a contribution by every sector of the economy – including agriculture – and which relies in part on technologies that are not yet developed.
The government said its economic modelling, which it has not released, shows individuals will be $2000 better off, that gross national income will be 1.6 per cent higher and that a net 62,000 jobs will be created in regional mining and heavy industry.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor also upgraded Australia’s emissions reduction projections for 2030 from the original 26 to 28 per cent over 2005 levels to 30 to 35 per cent.
Mr Taylor said the 30 per cent was based on improvements to energy efficiency and land use, as well as increased solar uptake. The 35 per cent is based on the technology road map going to plan.
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Morrison’s ‘magic pudding’ climate plan plays bluff with Labor
Scott Morrison believes he now has the plan he needs to sell to the electorate on climate change, trusting in his own political instincts to find the Opposition’s jugular.
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
Oct 26, 2021 – 5.25pm
Scott Morrison wants to be known as the Man with a Plan. He couldn’t repeat the word often enough in his announcement of Australia’s formal commitment to zero net emissions by 2050. He will now use this “uniquely Australian” plan as his political shield everywhere from Glasgow to Gladstone.
His key election task is to persuade enough voters that his government is delivering on climate action and the economic opportunities this presents – without sacrificing the country’s traditional strengths and industries. That also requires reassuring the doubters that new industries such as hydrogen – backed by rapid advances in technology – won’t somehow come at their expense.
The Prime Minister’s confident assertion the plan “is 100 per cent supported by our government” could not conceal the absence of Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce from the big-deal press conference on Tuesday.
The Liberals clearly can’t count on much assistance in selling their plan from the Nationals leadership team beyond Agriculture Minister David Littleproud.
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Taxes, rabbits and blank pages – no costed plan to net zero yet
By Shane Wright
October 26, 2021 — 5.20pm
No matter how often government ministers repeat their path to net zero emissions is paved with “technology not taxes”, it is simply not true.
The heavily qualified long-term emissions reduction plan announced by Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Tuesday ranks that mantra as the first of its five guiding principles. But for it to be true, the whole way the federal government is financed must change.
This year, the government expects to collect $446 billion in tax. Some of that will go towards the aged pension, some to the unemployed, some to families, some to French (for now) submarine contractors, some to yet-to-be-built railway station car parks. And some will go to businesses and individuals lining up to take the cash on offer to deal with climate change.
All that money comes from your taxes. That includes $228 billion in personal income tax, $93.3 billion in tax paid by companies, $11.7 billion in tax paid by superannuation funds and almost $70 billion in GST.
The government’s plan is littered with taxpayers’ money.
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Morrison delivered the pledge voters wanted but not the plan they needed
By David Crowe
October 26, 2021 — 2.04pm
One key chart in Scott Morrison’s new climate policy shows the Prime Minister is wishing and hoping Australia can get to net zero rather than making absolutely sure it does.
The new statement reveals that half the work of reaching the net zero deadline in 2050 will come from things nobody can be sure about – such as an assumption about global trends outside anyone’s control.
That means a lot of the policy is about what the government wants to happen, not so much what it will make happen.
To be precise, 15 per cent of the work in reducing emissions comes from “global technology trends” and another 15 per cent from “further technology breakthroughs” as well as up to 20 per cent from trading in carbon offsets.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/energy-and-climate/what-is-the-least-we-need-from-cop26-20211027-p593jx
What is the least we need from COP26?
The technologists have done a wonderful job in showing that we can decarbonise our economies quickly enough. Now leaders must show they understand the implications.
Martin Wolf Columnist
Oct 27, 2021 – 11.30am
What pledges must be made by the parties meeting at COP26 in Glasgow if there is to be a good chance of keeping the increase in temperatures above pre-industrial levels to less than 1.5°C, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends?
The answer, as I argued last week, is that they must be much more ambitious: above all, they need to cut emissions far faster.
It is not enough to offer St Augustine’s vow of “chastity, but not yet”. Pledges of “net zero” thirty years from now are too easy. It is necessary to cut emissions by close to 40 per cent by 2030, instead.
The curve of emissions must be bent downwards now. That is economically and technologically feasible, albeit hard. Ten years hence, it will be too late to avoid irreversible damage without resort to the risky geoengineering recently discussed by Gernot Wagner.
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UN warns world set for 2.7-degree rise on today’s emissions pledges
By Nina Chestney
October 27, 2021 — 3.34am
London: Current commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions put the planet on track for an average 2.7 degrees celsius temperature rise this century, a United Nations report said on Tuesday, in another stark warning ahead of crunch climate talks
Governments will be in the spotlight at the COP26 conference next week to meet a deadline of this year to commit to more ambitious cut pledges, in what could be the last chance to put the world on track to limiting warming to below 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels and ideally to 1.5 degrees.
As extreme weather events from bushfires to floods have hit countries around the world, a UN report in August warned that global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions could breach 1.5 degrees in the next two decades.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Monday it was “touch and go” whether the most important round of UN talks since the Paris Agreement in 2015 will secure the agreements needed to tackle climate change.
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Team Australia needs an all-in net zero plan
The decarbonisation challenge is so great that the political taboo needs to be axed from the carbon tax.
Oct 27, 2021 – 7.54pm
It’s a truism, as Scott Morrison suggests, that technologies yet to be invented or proven will ultimately deliver the technical solutions required to cut the level of carbon released into the atmosphere.
It’s reasonable to expect that technological advancement will dramatically accelerate over the next 30 years in a world focused on getting to net zero. Yet the government’s “plan” for achieving net zero by 2050 is little more than a list of more-or-less developed technologies that could be expected to contribute much more over the next few decades.
The padded-out glossy document released by Scott Morrison and Energy Minister Angus Taylor on Tuesday – not much more than a string of PowerPoint slides – is a weak policy foundation on which to attempt what will be one of Australia’s defining economic transformations, comparable to the shift from riding on the sheep’s back and shipping wool to the UK in the 1950s, to exporting iron ore, coal, and gas to the resources-hungry developing economies of north-east Asia.
Rural pork for peace in the Coalition
Mr Morrison deserves credit for ending the climate civil war inside the Coalition over the net zero by 2050 target, albeit at the price of striking a deal with the Nationals that includes plenty of rural pork.
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Australia needs to talk about nuclear: Finkel
Jacob Greber Senior correspondent
Oct 27, 2021 – 5.20pm
The Australian government’s low-emissions technology adviser and former chief scientist Alan Finkel has backed calls for a national debate about nuclear power, which he described as “stunningly good” for emissions-free energy generation.
“From a pure greenhouse gas emissions point of view, nuclear power is excellent,” Dr Finkel told The Australian Financial Review on Wednesday as he predicted new technologies led by hydrogen would help deliver net zero emissions.
Dr Finkel also defended his support for gas as a transition fuel, saying critics mistakenly assume he believes it should be used to replace outgoing coal generation.
“Realistically, on all the projections, it’s hard to see any coal-fired electricity being used in Australia after the 2040s unless new stations are built, because they’re all getting to end of life,” he said.
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Morrison’s climate plan is a tale of bland ambition
Weak on detail, analysis and explanation, Morrison’s climate plan is ultimately designed to be forgotten.
Jacob Greber Senior correspondent
Oct 29, 2021 – 4.58pm
Good policy makes for good politics.
Many still genuinely believe in the power of this increasingly quaint notion. They are often among the first to bring up the legacies of Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard.
And while all had their faults, to be sure, each prime minister was guided by the lodestar that doing things in the national interest would ultimately produce wins at the ballot box. A cycle of political and policy virtue.
That often meant doing difficult and threatening things, often directly impacting those whose votes mattered. Yet by harnessing leadership and demonstrating the long-term benefits, all three produced fundamental and profound structural change. They also worked to soften the blow for vulnerable constituencies and built new ones.
Yet, this week – on climate policy – today’s political class and the hard electoral maths that will dictate the next election provide a stark example of how such virtues no longer cut the mustard.
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Royal Commissions And The Like.
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No entries in this section.
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National Budget Issues.
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Inflation data could reshape household finances
By Shane Wright
October 25, 2021 — 5.00am
It may be the most important inflation report in a decade – and the finances of millions of Australian mortgage holders rest on what it reveals and how the Reserve Bank reacts.
This week’s September quarter consumer price index will get closer than usual analysis due to concerns prices are being pushed up much more quickly than expected, forcing the RBA into the ultimate monetary policy reverse ferret.
The official cash rate sits at 0.1 per cent, where it has been since November last year. The bank has fed out $188 billion in cheap cash to banks while it has bought $277 billion in government bonds to keep interest rates on these at rock-bottom levels.
Its aim has been to support the economy through the deepest downturn since the 1930s. But 22 months after the world first heard about the coronavirus, the recovery out of recession has been much faster and stronger than anyone – including the RBA – had expected.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/inflation-edges-into-rba-target-range-20211027-p593ha
Inflation edges into RBA target range
Oct 27, 2021 – 11.46am
The Reserve Bank of Australia’s preferred measure of inflation rose a higher than anticipated 0.7 per cent in the September quarter, lifting annual underlying inflation to 2.1 per cent to edge inside the bank’s target range.
It is the highest annual print in almost six years for core inflation, which strips out large, one-off price impacts.
Price pressures for petrol and home building were major contributors to the jump in the consumer price index, as global oil producers and local home builders struggled to keep up with rebounding consumer demand and supply bottlenecks linked to COVID-19.
High levels of construction activity, shortages of building materials and supply disruptions underpinned the biggest price jump for new built homes since 2000 when the GST was introduced.
Headline inflation rose 0.8 per cent in the September quarter, in line with market expectations and taking the annual consumer price index to 3 per cent over the year to September 30.
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Bond markets push the RBA close to capitulation
Cecile Lefort and Ronald Mizen
Oct 28, 2021 – 6.00pm
The Reserve Bank appears on the cusp of capitulating to the bond market after the key three-year bond rate exploded to five times the 0.1 per cent target necessary to defend the central bank’s pledge that the cash rate will not rise before 2024.
Markets are betting rising inflation will persuade the central bank to raise interest rates sooner and faster than its forward guidance, and are now pricing in a 75 per cent chance of a rate hike in February 2022, and wagering close to five hikes next year alone.
That would mean households with variable mortgages could find their mortgage costs rising even as the economy is still recovering from the COVID-19 crisis, while the cost of fixed rate borrowing is already going up.
Reserve Bank deputy governor Guy Debelle sounded a bullish note for the economy while appearing before a Senate committee on Thursday.
“The signs we are seeing in the economy at least as NSW and Victoria come out of their lockdowns” reflects “strong underlying momentum”, Dr Debelle said, adding that the bank would publish revised forecasts in next week’s statement on monetary policy.
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Health Issues.
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No entries in this section.
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International Issues.
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China is revving up in the opposite direction to the West
Hopes of China adopting more “Western values” have been systematically dashed. After the rise of Xi Jinping, China’s divergence has become more pronounced.
Jack Wright
Oct 25, 2021 – 5.00am
When China’s National Bureau of Statistics reported quarterly GDP expanded by 18 per cent in April – the strongest growth rate since it began publishing the statistic in 1993 – Wall Street traders’ screens were illuminated in green. The main board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, on the other hand, was soaked in red.
Both markets were up. After all, the world’s two largest economies are deeply co-dependent. It’s just that the Communist Party insists positive moves in the value of Chinese stocks be displayed in the party’s iconic red standard. When stock prices decline in China, they flash in green.
This visual contradiction demonstrates an important point: while China has integrated into the global economy to a point where it is a primary driver of market expectations for the world, the country has never integrated politically into the Western “order”.
Instead, China and the West’s interests have diverged. Lately, and perhaps by design, that divergence has accelerated.
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Wall Street thinks China will never invade Taiwan - but don’t bet on it
By Jeremy Warner
October 26, 2021 — 8.24am
How seriously should financial markets be taking the risk of the devastating geopolitical rupture and very likely worldwide slump that would arise if China’s Xi Jinping was to go through with threats to take back control of Taiwan, by invasive force if necessary?
Not very, to judge by the actions of some of the US’s leading investment banks and asset managers. From Goldman Sachs to JP Morgan Chase, and from BlackRock to Vanguard, they’ve all been aggressively upping their presence in China, apparently oblivious to allegations of human rights abuse and the evident contempt with which Beijing holds the one country two systems treaties that are supposed to govern Hong Kong and Macau.
Already enthusiastic appetite for China’s $US45 trillion ($60 trillion) financial services market has been further bolstered by a loosening of the rules on foreign ownership, allowing the likes of Goldman Sachs to take full control of what hitherto has been an enforced partnership with local interests.
UK-based banks, insurers and asset managers seem equally hot to trot. Neither HSBC nor Standard Chartered show any sign of giving into political pressure to curb their presence. Schroders, Prudential and abrdn (formerly Standard Life Aberdeen) are all meanwhile said to be intent on further expansion. If “decoupling” is meant to be the new buzzword when it comes to economic relations with China, it’s plainly having zero impact on Wall Street and the City.
These are not stupid people. The consequences of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, or even the occupation of one of its uninhabited islands, would be off the scale, and they know it. All these investments would go up in a puff of smoke were it to happen.
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Top US general calls Chinese weapon test ‘very concerning’
Robert Burns
Oct 28, 2021 – 5.53am
Washington | China recently conducted a “very concerning” test of a hypersonic weapon system as part of its aggressive advance in space and military technologies, the top US military officer says.
Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the first Pentagon official to confirm on the record the nature of a test this year by the Chinese military that the Financial Times had reported was a nuclear-capable hypersonic weapon that was launched into space and orbited the Earth before re-entering the atmosphere and gliding toward its target in China.
Milley said he could not discuss details because aspects involved classified intelligence. He said the United States also is working on hypersonic weapons, whose key features include flight trajectory, speed and manoeuvrability that make them capable of evading early warning systems that are part of US missile defences.
The US has not conducted a hypersonic weapon test of the sort Milley said China had achieved.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/cowards-not-crazies-are-destroying-america-20211030-p594j4
Cowards, not crazies, are destroying America
When we talk about the GOP’s moral descent, we tend to focus on the obvious extremists but look no further than the party’s entire elected wing.
Paul Krugman
Oct 30, 2021 – 9.06am
Back in July, Kay Ivey, governor of Alabama, had some strong and sensible things to say about COVID-19 vaccines. “I want folks to get vaccinated,” she declared. “That’s the cure. That prevents everything.” She went on to say that the unvaccinated are “letting us down”.
Three months later Ivey directed state agencies not to cooperate with federal COVID-19 vaccination mandates.
Ivey’s swift journey from common sense and respect for science to destructive partisan nonsense — nonsense that is killing tens of thousands of Americans — wasn’t unique. On the contrary, it was a recapitulation of the journey the whole Republican Party has taken on issue after issue, from tax cuts to the Big Lie about the 2020 election.
When we talk about the GOP’s moral descent, we tend to focus on the obvious extremists, like the conspiracy theorists who claim that climate change is a hoax and January 6 was a false-flag operation.
But the crazies wouldn’t be driving the Republican agenda so completely if it weren’t for the cowards, Republicans who clearly know better but reliably swallow their misgivings and go along with the party line. And at this point crazies and cowards essentially make up the party’s entire elected wing.
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I look forward to comments on all this!
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David.
