May 27, 2021 Edition.
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In India, while the is spread in the
countryside, we are seeing the COVID picture slowly improve.
In the US there seems to have been some
success in the Israel / Palestine war with a cease fire in place while
domestically we see Biden’s popularity at about 60%. So far so good you would
think.
In the UK we have the lock-down’s relaxing as
we worry about some variant strains that seem to be emerging.
In OZ the vaccination roll out is slowly
picking up and the buzz re The Budget passes. Stupid move of the week is
planning to build a gas fired power station in the Hunter while amazement is
rife on the National win in the Upper Hunter bye-election!
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Major Issues.
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https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/the-new-inflation-paradigm-for-investors-20210516-p57scx
The new inflation paradigm for
investors
Colby Smith and Tommy Stubbington
May
16, 2021 – 1.14pm
After three decades as a bond
investor, Jim Leaviss has witnessed plenty of false alarms over the return of
one of the biggest debt market nemeses: inflation. But as his screen flashed
with Wednesday’s US consumer price index figures – showing a 4.2 per cent annual rise – he felt the stirrings of a new
era in financial markets.
“It’s always been right to be
sceptical when someone says ‘this is the year that inflation comes back’. But
for the first time you can say this time is different,” says Leaviss. “The
pandemic might be the systemic earthquake that changes the inflation outlook we
have been used to for the past 30 years.”
A burst of inflation in the
northern hemisphere summer was always inevitable once lockdown measures began
to ease. A year ago the spread of COVID-19 had crushed economies around the
world, sending commodity prices plummeting and even pushing the cost of a barrel
of oil in the US below zero.
Central bankers – particularly at
the US Federal Reserve – have been at pains to insist the current bout of price
rises is temporary, and will not push them to an early unwinding of the massive
monetary stimulus actions they launched last year to combat the fallout from
the pandemic.
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https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/western-pressure-on-iran-best-strategy-for-middle-east-peace-20210513-p57rl7
Western pressure on Iran best
strategy for Middle East peace
Instead of the so-called
nuclear deal, the Biden administration should maintain the sanctions on
the autocratic theocracy to make it clear that promoting conflict throughout
the region is unacceptable.
Alexander Downer Columnist
May 16, 2021 – 12.38pm
All international conflicts have one thing in
common: politics. So let’s have a look at what is now happening between the
Israelis and the Palestinians.
Many observers and governments are simply
partisans on this issue: no matter what the Palestinians do, they are victims,
and so it is justified. But it helps to understand the politics behind this
crisis. After all, the Israelis and the Palestinians are not two football teams competing in a benign
contest.
In Israel there have been four elections over
the past two years, the most recent of which was in March. None of these elections has produced a
conclusive result.
That Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has
held on at all is a miracle of political acrobatics, but until last week it looked as if his run might be coming to an
end. So obviously the
internal political situation in Israel is unstable.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/what-s-on-the-other-side-of-the-economic-boom-20210513-p57rrt
What’s on the other side of the
economic boom?
As the stimulus fades and vaccines are rolled
out, Australia faces the prospect of subdued growth.
John
Kehoe Economics editor
May 14, 2021 – 3.09pm
The stimulus-fuelled economy is poised to
boom this year, propelled by strong jobs growth and consumer spending, this
week’s federal budget outlines.
The Reserve Bank of Australia and market
economists broadly agree on a rosy economic outlook for the next 12 months.
Indeed, the latest monthly employment report
from job website Seek this week showed new job ads increased 12 per cent in
April – the second consecutive record-breaking month of job ads in Seek’s 23-year
history.
The “miracle” recovery will likely roll on
until at least the next federal election.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/how-australia-got-badly-out-in-front-on-china-20210428-p57n8x
How Australia got badly out in
front on China
Since
2016, Australia has embarked on a policy U-turn, adopting a strategy to push
back, call out and be out in front in needling and confronting China.
Max Suich
May
17, 2021 – 12.01am
Seventy years ago when The
Australian Financial Review launched, Australian armed forces were
embroiled in the Korean War and were still, in a minor way, part of the armed
forces that occupied Japan.
Australia, deeply traumatised by
the Pacific war, was painfully negotiating an unsatisfyingly limited security
assurance to protect us from Japanese resurgence. That became the ANZUS treaty.
The paper’s modest voice reflected those uneasy times.
Sixteen years later, in 1967, when
I arrived in Tokyo, as the AFR correspondent, the paper, now a daily, was ahead
of its time: a confident advocate of an economic and cultural transformation in
Australia that welcomed the end of White Australia and Japan as a vital new
trading partner, and urged profound changes in Australian attitudes to race and
the Asian neighbourhood.
Nevertheless, the paper was
apprehensive of China.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/in-asia-our-diplomatic-failures-risk-repeating-themselves-20210512-p57rcq
In Asia, our diplomatic failures
risk repeating themselves
Max Suich
May
16, 2021 – 10.30pm
It was in Tokyo in the 1970s that
I saw the stubborn, visceral hostility of the Australian policy machine to
responding to a powerful new Asian power.
In this case it was about providing
even a totally disarmed Japan with certainty for its resources stream from
Australia.
Towards the end of my four years
in Japan, I filed to The Australian Financial Review a series on Japan’s
“resources diplomacy” that caused an absurd consternation in Canberra’s Trade
and Foreign Affairs departments: the shocking news was that Japan was
conducting, in co-ordination with its big business leaders, a multi-ministry
and carefully implemented “smile” diplomacy towards Australia, seeking to
dramatically expand official, personal, trade, investment and cultural ties to
underpin the contractual arrangements for the import of iron ore, coal, wool
and agricultural products.
This diplomacy of Japan might
reasonably be compared with the overt accommodating diplomacy of China, at
least until 2016, although according to our intelligence services, it provided
cover for the attempted penetration of our politics and intimidation of
students and the Australian Chinese community.
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https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/refineries-get-2b-handout-to-stay-open-20210516-p57sf3
Refineries get $2b handout to stay
open
Phillip Coorey
Political editor
May 16, 2021 – 10.30pm
Gladstone | The taxpayer will pay the
country’s two remaining oil refineries up to $2.3 billion to stop them closing
down, a move that would have cost 1250 jobs, increased the cost of petrol, and
left Australia entirely reliant on imported petrol and diesel at a time of
growing regional tension.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has made
Queensland the first stop on his post-budget tour, will announce the payments
at Ampol’s Lytton refinery in Brisbane on Monday, saying it was a matter of
economic and national security.
The money, to be shared between the two
refiners, consists of a $2 billion subsidy to manufacture petrol and diesel
over the course of this decade and $302 million to help upgrade their
facilities. It comes after the refiners rejected an initial proposal by Energy
Minister Angus Taylor for a 1c-per-litre subsidy.
Mr Morrison said the decision was effectively
a choice between paying the money or losing the 1250 jobs and paying another 1c
per litre for fuel.
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https://www.afr.com/world/asia/why-business-blames-canberra-for-the-china-mess-20210514-p57rus
Why business blames Canberra for
the China mess
Australians
doing business with China are frustrated with Beijing’s trade coercion and
terrified at the prospect of war, but many blame Scott Morrison and not Xi
Jinping for the disintegration in relations.
Michael Smith China
correspondent
Updated
May 16, 2021 – 5.34pm, first published at 5.19pm
Business leaders are frustrated
about the disintegration of Australia’s
relationship with China.
They hope things will miraculously return to normal soon even though the evidence
points to relations getting worse before they will get better.
Significantly, many executives
doing business with China privately blame Prime Minister Scott Morrison rather
than an increasingly assertive Beijing for the collapse of diplomacy, which has
now moved on from trade tariffs to talk of war.
I was invited last week to speak
to a group of Australians running companies doing business in China. The
breadth and scope of their experience was impressive.
Some had been travelling to China since
the 1980s and had stories of dining with senior leaders, bugged hotel rooms and
a close encounter with President Xi Jinping.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/telecommunications/the-big-disconnect-my-telco-trauma-20210517-p57smq
The big disconnect: My telco
trauma
Moving
house translates into a telco ordeal, courtesy of Telstra and NBN Co. No end in
sight. How is this still happening?
Jennifer Hewett Columnist
May
17, 2021 – 6.05pm
To my surprise, I am almost beyond
anger. Call it exhaustion by Telstra. By Monday, my SMS messages to the Telstra
team have a vaguely pathetic tone. “Please call. I no longer have NBN or Foxtel
service.” I feel rejected, dejected, defeated.
I have regularly heard Andy Penn’s
rationale for this syndrome. It’s the same as generations of Telstra chief
executives before him. He explains that Telstra has so many millions of
customers that although only a small percentage have problems, it still adds up
to a lot of individuals.
So why does almost every person I
know have a similar Telstra story of frustration? Maybe I have a weird circle
of acquaintances but that common level of complaint doesn’t seem to add up to
only a small percentage of irritated customers. They seem to be the rule rather
than the exception.
Then add in the general confusion
over the lines of responsibility between NBN Co and Telstra over customer
service.
I am clearly not alone in becoming lost in the telco disconnect.
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https://www.smh.com.au/national/australian-universities-are-dying-and-no-one-is-coming-to-save-them-20210517-p57snv.html
Australian universities are dying
and no one is coming to save them
Jenna
Price
Columnist and academic
May 18, 2021 — 5.30am
The university system in this country is
dying. The government used the pandemic to destroy the places for critical
conversations; and university management mostly rolled over. Mass redundancies,
both voluntary and forced across the sector, have left big gaps in teaching
staff. In some places that led to decisions to close down subjects, courses,
departments. Right now, nearly every university is considering merging
faculties.
It is hard to pin down exactly why this
government decided to sacrifice public universities (all excluded from JobKeeper unlike private
universities). I can only
guess, it must be because the concept of critical thinking is anathema to the
Coalition, which resents criticism of any kind. But it became clear in last
Tuesday’s budget that universities were not going to be saved, not by this
government, not any time soon and maybe never.
The National Tertiary Education Union’s
president Alison Barnes says funding for the sector in the budget was reduced
by nearly 10 per cent; and of course that sugar hit of a billion dollars to
save research, the pandemic panacea issued last year, will not be extended. No
hope either of the return of international students. Borders still clamped
shut. We won’t let Indian students in and it’s unlikely Chinese students will
be encouraged to return to disrespectful Australia.
Barnes says the sector is devastated. The
Centre for Future Work’s Dan Nahum calculates 35,000 jobs lost in education to November 2020 and
estimates most were in the tertiary sector. And ANU’s professor in the practice
of higher education policy Andrew Norton says the impacts of the lack of
international students will only multiply: the ones who never came as well as
the ones completing who will never be replaced.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/senator-jim-molan-backs-tank-plan-as-deterrent/news-story/62119adc6e23f08473a44fc6266f2793
Senator Jim Molan backs tank plan
as deterrent
Ben
Packham
·
1:00AM May 18, 2021
Liberal
senator and former army commander Jim Molan has emphatically backed Defence’s
purchase of 75 new Abrams tanks, hitting back at The Australian’s foreign
editor Greg Sheridan who branded the procurement “sheer idiocy”.
The
tanks are part of a $2.17bn armoured vehicle purchase recently approved by the
US government, which includes a further 53 Abrams tanks fitted out as
bulldozers, assault bridges and recovery vehicles.
In
an opinion article for The Australian today, Senator Molan said tanks “not only
win the battles and save lives, but they deter enemies”.
The
retired major-general and former head of operations in Iraq said he argued —
unsuccessfully — for Australia to deploy tanks in Afghanistan.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/tank-talk-is-all-about-real-warfare-not-vague-ideas/news-story/83438244b295df0e676f13018ba953c6
Tank
talk is all about real warfare, not vague ideas
Jim
Molan
·
1:00AM May 18, 2021
It
was disappointing to turn to my favourite journalist and good friend, Greg
Sheridan, and see an attack on the recent announcement that Australia will
purchase US tanks (“Thanks but no tanks for our defence, please”, 13/5). I had
privately predicted that after the attacks on the F-35 and the Attack-class
submarines, popular criticism would soon turn to armoured vehicles, unless we
as a government and the leadership of the ADF started publicly justifying them.
Sheridan’s
criticism is misplaced. He says Australia has not used tanks in anger since the
Vietnam War. Quite true, but perhaps that reflects the nature of our warfare
since Vietnam, not the utility of tanks. Let’s face it, we have not committed
to any serious land combat since Vietnam, and that has meant we did not have to
deploy artillery or tanks.
In
Afghanistan, where we engaged in the heaviest combat since Vietnam, the
fighting was done almost entirely by the special forces. The question is still
being avoided as to whether that was the right force to deploy — and overuse.
I
argued at the time for a larger, balanced force involving tanks, if we were to
be serious about our commitment.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/near-term-global-inflationary-uptick-temporary-rba-20210518-p57swq
Rise in global inflation is
temporary: RBA
Ronald Mizen Reporter
May
18, 2021 – 3.30pm
The Reserve Bank says strong
demand for steel in China and supply chain disruptions will increase global
inflation in the near term, but the central bank expects domestic price growth
to remain subdued.
Minutes from the RBA’s board
meeting in May show the bank believes high commodity prices will put temporary
upward pressure on inflation, and supply chain disruptions caused by COVID-19
could linger.
“The upswing in commodity prices
would boost inflation readings in the near term, and that it was possible that
supply bottlenecks for some goods would be more persistent than generally
assumed,” the minutes state.
“In some cases, the rebound in
global goods trade had outstripped the ability of global supply chains to cope,
which had contributed to delays and upward price pressures for key components.”
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https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/chinese-students-told-to-avoid-australia-20210518-p57ss3
Chinese students told to avoid
Australia
Julie Hare Education editor
May
19, 2021 – 12.01am
The Australian international
student market is losing its historical advantage in China with education
agents advising clients that the combination of closed borders, xenophobia and
safety concerns make it an unwise choice, a report says.
Australia’s handling of the
pandemic did not unduly influence agents’ attitudes to Australia, with it being
rated alongside the United States as an attractive study destination due to its
public health response.
The report from Navitas found that while students from China were still interested in
studying in Australia, some agents were “insisting” that students apply to
another country. Many agents had done away with their Australia-only desks and
departments.
The report follows anecdotal
evidence in February that agents outside the major cities had been instructed
by the government to direct
students away from Australia.
The survey of 900 agents in 73 countries was conducted in March before China
announced the suspension of the Australia-China
Strategic Economic Dialogue.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/pm-encouraging-anxiety-over-potential-for-china-conflict-alp-20210518-p57t00
PM encouraging anxiety over
potential for China conflict: ALP
Andrew Tillett Political
correspondent
May
19, 2021 – 12.00am
The Morrison government is
“deliberately encouraging anxiety” about war with China for domestic political gain, Opposition foreign affairs
spokeswoman Penny Wong will claim in a stinging denunciation of the Prime
Minister’s handling of foreign policy.
Senator Wong will also accuse
Defence Minister Peter Dutton and Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo of
playing into the Chinese Communist Party’s narrative and providing Beijing with
leverage by creating a sense of inevitability of conflict.
“The first job of national leaders
is the safety of their citizens. Our leaders do not make us safe by beating the
drums of war with China,” Senator Wong will say, according to speech notes for
the launch of journalist Peter Hartcher’s book on China on Wednesday.
Senator Wong will say the Morrison
government is “sprinting ahead” of the Biden administration over America’s
long-standing position of “strategic ambiguity” of defending Taiwan.
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https://www.afr.com/companies/financial-services/how-the-smart-phone-has-changed-everything-20210514-p57s4w
How the smart phone has changed
everything
The use of mobile phone apps has surged in
recent years, and helped a new generation into investing; desktop computers,
though, remain a favourite of traders.
James
Dunn
May
19, 2021 – 12.01am
Australia has rarely seen a
phenomenon like the smartphone, which launched in this country in 2007 with
Telstra’s offer of the Nokia N95. But with all due respect to the Finnish
group, it was the advent of Apple’s iPhone 3G in 2008 that changed everything –
essentially defining the capability that Australians expected from their
mobile.
The smartphone certainly changed
online stockbroking.
Stockbroking had already been revolutionised
by the internet, which had democratised access to the sharemarket and made
mincemeat of “traditional” cost and middleman structures.
But with the smartphone, people
held in their hands the trading capability that only an institution would have had
20 years earlier. They could look at the buy and sell orders in a stock, place
their order, and instantly see what it went for, while sitting on a bus.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/us-australia-alliance-on-china-shows-it-s-best-to-go-early-go-hard-20210429-p57nju
US-Australia alliance on China
shows it’s best to go early, go hard
Not
since the Pacific war has Australia been so completely in the hands of
Washington, particularly on the issue of how far to confront China.
Max Suich
May
19, 2021 – 12.01am
In November last year as the
presidential race in the United States entered its final weeks, there was a
tremor of nerves in the more hawkish of the foreign policy, defence and
intelligence community in Canberra. Slight it has to be admitted.
There was sympathy for Donald
Trump whose last two years had seen a palpable hardening of American military,
technology, investment and trade policy towards China. This included at the end
of 2017 a decision to name China a “strategic competitor”.
Australia had thrown the dice in
2017-18, publicly preceding the Trump administration’s confrontation with China
by almost a year. Sympathy for Trump’s approach was shared by senior cabinet
ministers including Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Minister for Home Affairs
Peter Dutton, ministerial advisers, Coalition backbench members as well as the
intelligence agencies.
Yet Trump’s contempt for allies
prompted concerns. The greater concern, however, was a possible Biden
administration that might appoint “Obama doves”
on China. The fear of an Obama reversion underlines the gamble we have taken.
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https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/china-confrontation-what-were-we-thinking-20210429-p57njs
China confrontation: what were we
thinking?
Australia’s
policy U-turn on China came after the intelligence community identified
alarming Chinese designs on corrupting our political system. But were they the
right responses?
Max Suich
May
18, 2021 – 12.01am
Australia did not come to its
U-turn on relations with China in 2017-20 by the traditional path, as the first article in this series explained on Monday. Our new approach did not define
some new relationship to pursue with China or any new strategy – other than
bureaucratic shorthand phrases that became transformed into slogans: “push
back”, “call out” and “out in front”.
This U-turn came in response to
our intelligence community identifying alarming Chinese objectives: they were
aiming to corrupt and capture our politicians and political system and damage
our defence relationship with the US, hack secret private and public databases
and displace the US in east Asia.
In late 2016 and through 2017 the
Turnbull government at the urging of our intelligence agencies and their
supporters in the ministry, the parliamentary backbench and the bureaucracy,
began to “push back” against and then “call out” China’s authoritarianism at
home and its expansive claims in the South China Sea, and its intrusions in
Australia.
In late 2017 Malcolm Turnbull
increased the momentum when he went out in front – without any co-ordinated regional
or even allied supporting chorus: he explicitly referred to China as the target
for his planned anti- subversion legislation and in 2018 offered a public
example to other democracies in banning Huawei from our telecommunications
system – decisions we hoped would show the Chinese we could not be intimidated
and which we later urged the rest of the world to emulate.
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https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/migration-slump-to-make-australia-older-and-the-economy-smaller-treasury-boss-20210518-p57t0b.html
Migration slump to make Australia
older and the economy smaller: Treasury boss
May 18, 2021 — 10.30pm
The slump in migration caused by
pandemic border closures will leave the economy smaller and the population
older than would otherwise have been the case, the federal government’s top
economic adviser says.
Treasury secretary Steven Kennedy
said Australia had experienced “one of the largest changes” compared to other
advanced economies due to lower net overseas migration caused by COVID-19
disruptions.
“It will leave us smaller and
demographically slightly older,” he said during a briefing on last week’s
federal budget in Sydney on Tuesday. Although he added slower population growth
will not necessarily reduce economic output when measured on a per capita
basis.
Dr Kennedy’s remarks add to debate
about the economic and social damage caused by Australia’s international
isolation after the budget assumed borders will remain closed until the middle
of next year.
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https://www.theage.com.au/business/markets/the-two-extremes-of-the-inflation-debate-have-markets-on-edge-20210519-p57t74.html
The two extremes of the inflation
debate have markets on edge
Stephen
Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
May 19, 2021 — 11.57am
The two extremes of the debate about the
outlook for inflation and interest rates have been on show over the past week,
highlighting how polarised and uncertain the economic outlook is as the
developed world economies bounce back strongly from last year’s pandemic-induced recessions.
That uncertainty is reflected in financial
markets, which have been trading nervously sideways in the past fortnight as
investors try to digest some contradictory and disturbing economic data.
In the US, and elsewhere, unemployment
remains above pre-pandemic levels but employers are reporting a shortage of
labour. In the US, and elsewhere, inflation has spiked well beyond forecasts that had taken into
account the “base” effects caused by comparisons with the COVID-depressed data
a year ago.
Are these influences “transitory,” as the US
Federal Reserve Board has argued, or could the aggressive monetary policies
embraced by central banks to respond to the pandemic be combining with real
economy changes, driven by the experiences of the past year, to create a new
post-pandemic normal?
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/modern-takes-on-ancient-memories/news-story/d112c5201946c1657c6b8ef0f52575de
Modern takes on ancient memories
Jill
Rowbotham
·
3:00AM May 19, 2021
An
ancient Aboriginal technique for memorisation might help optimise recall of a
large volume of facts, figures and lists required in occupations such as
medicine.
In
a 2018 study led by Monash University School of Rural Health’s David Reser and
Tyson Yunkaporta, from Deakin University’s NIKERI Institute and just published
in PLOS One, 76 first-year medical students attempted to memorise 20 common
butterfly names.
After
an initial test in which they read the names and then wrote down as many as
they could recall, they were divided into three groups.
One
group received no memory training, one was taught the famous “memory palace”
technique of imagining their childhood home and mentally assigning names to
various rooms and a third was introduced to the Aboriginal technique by Dr
Yunkaporta, walking through a large, footprint-shaped rock garden while weaving
the names into a story.
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https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/overseas-student-spending-tumbles/news-story/eb69870de8735b994ac705c868eacc1a
Overseas student spending tumbles
Tim Dodd
·
1:00AM May 19, 2021
Australia
has lost nearly 100,000 international students since March last year and, of
those still enrolled, more than 110,000 are studying from outside Australia.
New
federal government figures show 450,000 students were enrolled in March this
year, 17 per cent fewer than in March last year.
The
plunge in student numbers has cut international student spending in Australia
dramatically. New data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows spending
fell to $29.9bn in the 12 months to March, 26 per cent less than the $40.3bn
spent by foreign students in 2019.
However,
the ABS revealed that the economic damage was eased by $3.3bn in tuition fees
paid to educational institutions in Australia last year by the growing number
of international students studying offshore.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/there-are-reasons-to-worry-about-us-inflation-20210519-p57t51
There are reasons to worry about
US inflation
The
FT’s Martin Wolf says expansionary fiscal and monetary conditions, pent-up
savings and pandemic politics could work together to drive up prices over the
longer term.
Martin Wolf Columnist
May
19, 2021 – 9.40am
The jump in US annual consumer price inflation to 4.2 per cent reported last week was a shock.
But was it a good reason to panic? Not obviously, since special factors can
explain it.
It was ever thus: when inflation
starts to rise, special factors can always explain it. But in truth the big
reasons for concern are not what is happening right now, but rather the
political forces at work.
Naturally, economic forces shape
those political choices. And these forces are currently rather confusing. The
unexpectedly big jump in consumer prices followed an unexpectedly weak
employment report: last month, the US added just 266,000 jobs, while the
unemployment rate edged up to 6.1 per cent.
The obvious explanation is that
this is a recovery from an unprecedented recession, driven not by tightening
demand but by shutdown of supply.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/why-the-government-is-unwilling-to-support-universities-20210519-p57t9z.html
Why the government is unwilling to
support universities
By Katy Barnett
May 20, 2021 — 5.10am
In my first year of university, I took a
class where it swiftly became evident the lecturer followed a particular brand
of left-wing thought. If anyone expressed a conflicting view, he’d sneer, and
sarcastically demolish the student in front of the whole class. I barely spoke
and learned little. I did not do well in the essay for that class, partly
because I was inexperienced, but also because I didn’t adhere to his views.
He was the exception, not the rule, but the
stereotype embodied by that lecturer has put all our universities at risk, with
the federal Coalition government clearly reluctant to help universities out of the financial difficulty brought
about by COVID-19.
I want my students to learn to think for
themselves: this is what “critical thinking” means. I’m happy for them to
disagree with me on every point, as long as they provide reasoning and evidence
for their views. Most academics are like me, but some disciplines must beware
of being taken over by people like my old lecturer. Intolerance of different
viewpoints is the opposite of critical thinking, regardless of the politics
involved.
I have a wide circle of friends, of various
political stripes. When I asked those on the right of politics what they
thought of academia, they did not hold back: ‘intolerant ideologues’, they
declared, ‘unscientific nonsense’, ‘biased’, ‘engaged in elite overproduction’.
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https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-big-threat-to-the-budget-inflation-20210519-p57t6p.html
The big threat to the budget -
inflation
Columnist and former Liberal opposition leader
May 20, 2021 — 5.00am
The greatest economic uncertainty
facing Australia and the world is price inflation. A blowout in inflation
forecasts is a principal risk to the Morrison government’s budget outlook,
especially if it spurs the Reserve Bank of Australia to raise interest rates much
earlier than anticipated. That would have significant consequences for
confidence and for household, business and national debt – thereby seriously
threatening the economic recovery.
To confound the matter, some of
our old assumptions about inflation are outdated.
The budget forecasts a sizeable
turnaround in inflation – from 0.3 per cent in 2019-20 to 3.5 per cent in
2021-22, then dropping back to 1.75 per cent and 2.25 per cent over the
following two years. Treasury explains the 3+ per cent in the June quarter as
due to “higher oil prices and the unwinding of policy measures in areas such as
childcare compared to the depths of the pandemic”.
Recent data and inflation
forecasts in the US, Europe and China – as here – also see a pick-up in the
near term, although there is some debate as to whether this is transitory. That
is, to what extent is it a blip that will work its way through the system as
economies “normalise” post-COVID? This seems to be the forecast of our
Treasury.
Whether it is transitory is a very
important question. Bond and stock markets have reacted adversely a couple of
times in recent months, reflecting concern about the possibility of mounting
inflationary pressures.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/more-strategy-less-politics-on-china-20210519-p57tb7.html
More strategy, less politics on
China
Senator
May 19, 2021 — 6.45pm
There have been years of
breathless headlines about China – first hopeful, then panicked. But all the
blazing heat has produced only the dimmest light. Too much of the discussion on
China is frenzied, afraid and lacking context.
It’s strange to me to watch all
this as an Australian born in Asia, and as someone schooled in Labor’s
tradition of engagement with Asia. Asia is in Labor’s DNA – in my case,
literally.
The fact is, the China the world
is experiencing under Xi Jinping is demonstrably different from that which we
have all seen in our lifetimes. In pressing its interests, China is more
assertive. All great powers will come to assert their interests. But assertion
has often transmuted into aggression:
- The militarisation of disputed
features of the South China Sea, flouting international law and the
“cabbage leaf” and “swarming” actions there that sought to intimidate
Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam – all part of Beijing’s grey zone
tactics.
- The imposition of national
security laws undermining the One Country, Two Systems arrangement for
Hong Kong, to which Beijing had committed itself by treaty.
- Economic coercion – a tactic
before Xi’s leadership but escalating since – against France, Japan,
Norway, the Philippines, the UK, Taiwan, Mongolia, South Korea, Palau,
Canada and, of course, Australia.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/defence-spending-were-flying-headlong-towards-disaster/news-story/15cb3c9f53605e63f8aa5dd7ee213bee
Unreality:
Australia’s dangerous new home
Greg Sheridan
·
1:00AM May 20, 2021
How
are we going to make a living? How will we provide for our own security? Three
things make me worry about those questions. One is the cultural transformation
of all Western electoral politics. Another is the way this has been exacerbated
by COVID. And the third is the budget.
Over
the past decade, political parties in Western societies have changed places.
The centre right parties now represent low-income earners, tradies, manual
workers, those without a university degree. The centre left parties represent
high income earners, graduates and those who sit atop the services sector.
You
may have missed the astonishing by-election victory of Boris Johnson’s
Conservative Party in Hartlepool in the UK. This seat, in England’s north, has
never before been Conservative. For a government to win a seat from the
opposition at a by-election is extraordinary. Here is the greatest argument to
demonstrate the intellectual corruption of contemporary university education.
If just the votes of university graduates had been counted, the far-left Jeremy
Corbyn would now be prime minister of Britain.
Similarly,
the poorest states now always vote Republican in US presidential elections. In
Australia, Scott Morrison is Prime Minister because low-income Queensland
electorates preferred coalmines to “green gestures” and working-class
Tasmanians didn’t trust Labor.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/outrage-nation-the-rapid-decay-of-discourse-20210520-p57thj.html
Outrage nation: The rapid decay of
discourse
Waleed Aly
Columnist, co-host of Ten's The Project and
academic
May 21, 2021 — 5.30am
Have you ever found yourself reading the
outrage-inducing news story of the day, fully expecting to have the offending
details hit you in the face, only to reach the end and wonder what all the fuss
is meant to be about?
That’s exactly what happened to me this week
as I read the now infamous comments of Virgin
CEO Jayne Hrdlicka. So
bemused was I when I was done that it made me worry either for my own sanity,
or for the state of our public conversation. I hope the problem is with me,
because the alternative is much more concerning.
The headlines have Hrdlicka urging us to
accelerate opening our international border, even though that would mean “some
people may die”. To follow the reaction, you’d think that was all she said. “No
one wants to die to save Virgin” roared one headline. The Prime Minister found
it “very difficult to have any truck with what was said”.
Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John deemed Hrdlicka’s remarks
“extraordinarily offensive”
because of disabled people’s unique vulnerability to COVID-19, demanding
Hrdlicka declare “how many disabled people she believes is acceptable to have
die”. #BoycottVirgin began trending on Twitter.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/china-could-have-ordered-huawei-to-shut-down-australia-s-5g-20210520-p57trn.html
China could have ordered Huawei to
shut down Australia’s 5G
By Peter
Hartcher
May 21, 2021 — 5.00am
The federal government’s cyber spies advised
Australia would have had to put 300 separate security measures on Huawei’s
equipment to make it safe for the nation’s 5G system but the network could
still have been shut down on Beijing’s orders.
The Australian Signals Directorate spent more
than eight months trying to find a way to make the Chinese company’s
telecommunications equipment acceptably safe but ultimately told the Turnbull
government the risk could not be contained satisfactorily.
Australia was the first country to ban Huawei from its 5G system in 2018, a decision many
more have followed. The government of Chinese President Xi Jinping continues to
demand that Canberra reverse the veto. It is number two on a list of 14 demands released by the Chinese embassy in Canberra
in November as a prerequisite to improving relations. Number one on the list
calls for China’s foreign investment to be unrestricted.
A senior Australian spy said the main risk
was not Chinese spying but that Beijing could order Huawei to disconnect the
Australian 5G network altogether.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/revealed-china-s-plan-to-wean-itself-off-australian-iron-ore-20210520-p57tir
Revealed: China’s plan to wean
itself off Australian iron ore
For a
China determined to punish Australia, the windfall gains delivered to Canberra
from surging iron ore prices are intolerable.
Richard McGregor and Peter Cai
May
22, 2021 – 12.00am
To call it ironic doesn’t quite
capture the moment. Just as Beijing is punishing Australia with trade
sanctions, sales of the one commodity the Chinese can’t target, iron ore, are delivering billions in windfall gains to miners, their shareholders and
the government in Canberra.
Iron ore exports have broken records for volumes and prices in recent months, largely because
of the strong rebound in the Chinese economy and the lack of alternative
suppliers for the country’s steel makers.
The Treasury based its budget
forecasts on a price of $US55 a tonne, for this financial year and the next. In
recent weeks, prices have topped $US230 a tonne. This has turbocharged mining
profits, which flow straight to the budget bottom line through company taxes
and to the states in royalties.
“Every $US10 a tonne above $US55
is worth over $2 billion a year in federal taxes,” says Chris Richardson, of Deloitte
Access Economics.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/china-s-five-year-plan-to-slash-australian-iron-ore-imports-20210520-p57tq9
China’s five-year plan to slash
Australian iron ore imports
Michael Smith
China correspondent
May 22, 2021 – 12.00am
The Chinese government has drafted a
five-year plan to slash its reliance on iron ore from Australia and other countries by almost half by
investing in new mines offshore and seeking alternative supplies from Russia,
Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Mongolia.
Documents discovered by the Lowy Institute
have revealed a detailed proposal by China’s Ministry of Industry and
Information Technology (MIIT), which also focuses on boosting domestic iron ore
production.
The 15-page plan set a target of 45 per cent
iron ore “self-sufficiency” by 2025. It says this would be achieved by greater
use of scrap metal, more efficient mines, and by investing Chinese equity into
iron ore mining operations overseas.
The plan, which was published early this year
but went unnoticed in the media until now, will add to rising concerns for
Australian miners about China’s long-term goal to wean itself off Australia’s top export.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/the-high-cost-of-life-in-our-gilded-cage-australia-20210521-p57u3c.html
The high cost of life in our
gilded cage, Australia
Peter
Hartcher
Political and international editor
May 22, 2021 — 5.30am
It’s how you have an emergency without much
urgency. The national border is shut for all but the most extraordinary cases.
More than 30,000 Australians who have asked to come home are still stuck
abroad. Some of them are dying of COVID-19 while they wait. Witness the news
from India. Many more Australians have family overseas who they cannot visit
and who cannot visit here.
Pre-pandemic, the No.1 complaint of
Australian businesses was that they couldn’t find enough skilled workers. Now,
after a pandemic-driven pause of a year or so, it is again their biggest
complaint. But this time, the border is shut and there is no ready recourse to
find workers in the outside world. Like foreign tourists and students, trips
overseas are a fading memory.
But Scott Morrison doesn’t seem too worried.
“Australia is in no hurry to open those borders, I can assure you,” he said
last month. In fact, he must be enjoying it. The federal budget is based on the
assumption that the border remains closed till the middle of next year.
And the government seems to be moving in no
haste at all on the two obvious solutions. For Australia to live safely with a
COVID-infested world – and the multiple viral variants to follow – the
solutions are an established system of rapid vaccinations and a rigorous
quarantine system.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/risk-v-reward-why-morrison-may-go-to-the-polls-early-20210521-p57tzx.html
Risk v reward: Why Morrison may go
to the polls early
By David
Crowe
May 22, 2021
National anxiety over the next phase of the
pandemic has reached a point where some Australians believe an early election
is the best way to settle the politics, give federal leaders a mandate and
steer the nation out of crisis.
“We would love to see an early election,”
says one business leader who is frustrated at the way populism rules the debate
over the policies needed this year and beyond.
Fear of the coronavirus seems stronger than
ever despite the country’s extraordinary success against COVID-19. That fear
has the power to decide the next election. So much power, in fact, that no
political leader will take the risk of swimming against the tide.
Those who have to deal with political leaders
have to be careful about what they say, but they know they will be forced to
wait until after the election before they find out when the federal government
will open the international border. The sooner the election, the sooner
everyone knows the answer.
------
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-s-in-a-race-to-get-re-elected-before-he-has-to-do-the-one-thing-he-s-stubbornly-avoided-20210520-p57ts4.html
Scott Morrison’s in a race to get
re-elected before he has to do the one thing he’s stubbornly avoided
George
Megalogenis
Columnist
May 22, 2021 — 5.30am
Scott Morrison is racing against the future.
He’s trying to thread the needle of re-election before Australia is forced to
do the one thing his government has been studiously, stubbornly, avoiding since
the pandemic reset the global order: take climate change seriously.
The Prime Minister understands that American
President Joe Biden and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson are growing weary
of his domestic excuses. But he is gambling that our allies won’t want to make
an example of him, either at the G7 meeting in Cornwall next month or at the
United Nations climate change summit in Glasgow in November.
No Australian leader since Billy Hughes at
Versailles has been this brazen before, demanding special treatment for our
privileged people while the US and Britain try to build a new international
order. Johnson was on the phone again on Friday, May
15, to press the case for an active Australian contribution at the G7 next
month. According to Downing
Street’s version of the conversation, Johnson “emphasised the importance of all
countries setting ambitious targets to cut carbon emissions, and encouraged
Australia to commit to reaching net zero by 2050 which will deliver clean jobs
and economic growth”.
A good-faith ally would not have quibbled
with these words. But Morrison’s office wanted Australians to believe that the
call proceeded on his ambivalent terms: “They discussed efforts to address
climate change and pathways towards net zero, including reducing emissions
through technology.”
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/struggling-universities-hit-out-at-payroll-tax-blow-20210521-p57u1t.html
Struggling universities hit out at
payroll tax blow
By Adam Carey, Cara
Waters and Sumeyya
Ilanbey
May 21, 2021 — 8.17pm
Victoria’s universities have asked the state
government to urgently explain why they are being asked to contribute to a $2.9
billion payroll tax increase to fund mental health services.
University of Melbourne Vice-Chancellor
Duncan Maskell said the sector, which is still reeling from the loss of
hundreds of millions of dollars in international student
fees, was blindsided by the
announcement in Thursday’s budget.
“Victorian vice-chancellors were surprised to
learn that the payroll tax levy will apply to local universities given our
charitable status and given we already spend a great deal of money doing so
much work in mental health,” said Professor Maskell, who chairs the state’s
vice-chancellors’ committee.
“We are seeking an urgent conversation with
government to understand the rationale for this and to ensure that all relevant
information is with the government prior to this policy being put before
Parliament.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/commodities/g7-agrees-to-stop-international-funding-for-coal-20210522-p57u5x
G7 agrees to stop international
funding for coal
Markus Wacket and Elizabeth Piper
May
22, 2021 – 5.00am
Berlin | The world’s seven largest
advanced economies agreed on Friday (Saturday AEST) to stop international
financing of coal projects that emit carbon by the end of this year, and phase
out such support for all fossil fuels, to meet globally agreed climate change
targets.
Stopping fossil fuel funding is
seen as a major step the world can make to limit the rise in global
temperatures to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, which
scientists say would avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change.
Getting Japan on board to end
international financing of coal projects in such a short timeframe means those
countries, such as China, which still back coal are increasingly isolated and
could face more pressure to stop.
In a communique, which Reuters saw
and reported on earlier, the Group of Seven nations - the United States,
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan - plus the European Union
said “international investments in unabated coal must stop now”.
-----
https://www.afr.com/chanticleer/culture-splits-good-stocks-from-bad-20210521-p57tzb
Culture splits good stocks from
bad
Culture
is regarded by many investors as a nebulous concept less important than
hard-core financial analysis. But a leading fund manager says understanding
culture is the key to investment success.
May
21, 2021 – 7.22pm
Corporate disasters of mammoth
proportions at Swiss investment bank Credit Suisse and jet aircraft maker Boeing over the past year have cost
shareholders in these companies $US7.4 billion ($9.5 billion).
There were clear failures in risk
management. But if you scratch below the surface, it is apparent there were
flaws in the cultures of both companies.
Credit Suisse incurred a $US4.9
billion charge in the first quarter after the US hedge fund it was funding, Archegos, failed to meet margin calls on
stock held as collateral by the bank. Credit Suisse also incurred losses on its
exposure to Greensill Capital.
Boeing incurred a $US2.5 billion
charge in January to resolve a US Department of Justice investigation into
Boeing’s conduct regarding the evaluation of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft by the Federal Aviation
Administration.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/defence/daily-update-to-warn-of-surprise-attacks/news-story/40e9cd56be3f619602ac3d809327c6ec
Daily update ‘to warn of surprise
attacks’
Brendan
Nicholson
·
8:57PM May 21, 2021
With
strategic threats likely to escalate rapidly, Australia needs a senior
intelligence officer to assess daily the possibility of a surprise attack, two
of the nation’s most highly respected military thinkers have warned.
Paul
Dibb and Richard Brabin-Smith, both former senior Defence officials, say
possible threats range from coercion and “grey zone” unconventional attacks
with little or no warning through to a sustained, high-intensity military
conflict testing Australia’s sovereignty and security, for which there should
be some warning indicators.
They
say there may little or no warning of cyberattacks able to disable key elements
of society, such as the internet, electricity generation, water supply, air
transport and the financial sector.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/woke-is-a-genius-brand-and-a-threat-to-our-way-of-life/news-story/9a34e5da0990eb4547acebc894389562
Woke
is a genius brand, and a threat to our way of life
Sean
Masters
·
May 21, 2021
I’ve
been building brands for 20 years and I’ve never seen anything like woke. It’s
a mistake to think of this dangerous ideology as just a bunch of disorganised
radical students virtue signalling wherever the woke wind takes them. It’s
better to think of it as a highly sophisticated lifestyle brand.
Let’s
run through the elements needed to create a brand. First, you need to know your
market. A strong, loyal and plentiful customer base is essential. The 2008
financial crisis gave birth to a generation with no faith in capitalist ideals,
nor any hope of owning a home. That along with the death of religion,
particularly on the left, saw swathes of the population simultaneously want to
violently rail against the system and find something to believe in.
You
need a brand promise. Customers of woke are offered a sense of moral
superiority, a group identity, and are freed from personal responsibility,
thanks to a victim mentality. Sounds good.
You
need a brand personality that people can identify with. Woke is ostensibly
empathetic and virtuous. Even better.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/asia/japan-australia-to-hold-2-plus-2-talks-20210522-p57u6e
Japan, Australia to hold 2-plus-2
talks
May
22, 2021 – 9.29am
Tokyo | The Japanese and Australian
governments have decided to hold a virtual 2-plus-2 meeting between their foreign
and defence ministers as early as the end of the month, according to government
sources.
The two governments are expected
to discuss how best to realise a “free and open Indo-Pacific” while keeping in
mind China’s increasingly hegemonic actions.
Tokyo and Canberra have been
conducting negotiations to finalise a pact to facilitate joint exercises
between Japan’s Self-Defence Forces and the Australian military. AP
The 2-plus-2 meeting will be
attended by Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and Defence Minister Nobuo
Kishi, and their Australian counterparts Marise Payne and Peter Dutton.
-----
Coronavirus And Impacts.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/we-must-use-caution-to-break-out-of-fortress-australia-20210516-p57sd8.html
We must use caution to break out
of Fortress Australia
By Brendan
Crabb and Mike
Toole
May 16, 2021 — 1.32pm
COVID Zero is precious. We are now
experiencing a quality of life that approximates pre-pandemic days and most
Australians want to keep it that way. But while the objective of zero COVID-19
community transmission will be with us for some time, it should not mean Fortress Australia.
Reopening our international borders will have
enormous benefits. Not only will Australians be able to reunite with overseas
family and friends but we will again welcome skilled migrants, international
students and tourists – all essential for full economic recovery.
We need to be ambitious about opening a
pathway that lets people move freely into and out of Australia. But for the
foreseeable future – most likely years – we can’t think of our borders as steel
doors that are either shut or open. A reopening of the border should be
cautious and based on evolving circumstances, evidence and an agreed public
health strategy.
Australia faces three substantial
uncertainties when it comes to this endeavour: how much of our population has
to be vaccinated to protect against severe disease and widespread circulation
of the virus; how effective vaccines will be against emerging variants; and how
long vaccine protection lasts.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/singapore-looks-to-tear-up-its-vaccine-playbook-amid-new-virus-surge-20210516-p57sgm.html
Singapore looks to tear up its
vaccine playbook amid new virus surge
By Chris
Barrett
May 17, 2021 — 12.44am
Singapore: In near lockdown less than three
weeks after being named the best place in the world to be during COVID-19,
Singapore is considering a significant shake-up of its vaccine strategy,
including increasing the time between shots.
The city state, which is home to more than
20,000 Australians, recorded 38 new cases of community transmission on Sunday,
its highest number in more than a year. Eighteen of those cases were unlinked.
It swiftly announced further tightening of
restrictions, including the closure of most schools.
Singapore’s Health Minister Ong Ye Kung also
revealed the fresh outbreak had convinced the government to weigh up a
significant change in its approach to vaccination.
A quarter of the country’s 5.5 million people
have been fully vaccinated and one-third have received at least one dose, he
said. That makes the rollout in Singapore comfortably the fastest in south-east
Asia in terms of an average of the population.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/entire-families-wiped-out-by-covid-as-virus-races-through-rural-india-20210518-p57t0t.html
Entire families wiped out by COVID
as virus races through rural India
By Sudhi
Ranjan Sen, Bibhudatta Pradhan, Shruti Srivastava and Ruth Pollard
May 18, 2021 — 6.50pm
After devastating India’s biggest
cities, the latest COVID wave is now ravaging rural areas across the world’s
second-most populous country. And most villages have no way to fight the virus.
In Basi, about ninety minutes from
the capital New Delhi, about three-quarters of the village’s 5,400 people are
sick and more than 30 have died in the past three weeks. It has no health-care
facilities, no doctors and no oxygen canisters. And unlike India’s social-media
literate urban population, residents can’t appeal on Twitter to an army of
strangers willing to help.
“Most deaths in the village have
been caused because there was no oxygen available,” said Sanjeev Kumar, the
newly elected head of the farming community. “The sick are being rushed to the
district headquarters and those extremely sick patients have to travel about
four hours,” he said, adding that many don’t make it in time.
It’s a scenario playing out all
over India. In interviews with representatives from more than 18 towns and
villages in different parts of the country, officials outlined the scale of the
carnage — from entire families wiped out to bloated bodies floating down the
Ganges River to farmland left untended due to a lack of workers.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/as-official-toll-mounts-true-covid-death-figure-elusive/news-story/a0370b5b4297d820ce72191bded55d0a
As official toll mounts, true
Covid death figure elusive
·
AFP
·
1:47AM May 22, 2021
While
the official number of deaths from Covid-19 has topped 3.4 million globally,
experts say this is undoubtedly an underestimate.
But
by how much? And how can we know the true death toll of the pandemic?
The
World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that an estimated 6-8 million
people were likely to have died due to Covid-19.
The
IHME calculated that the United States had seen 912,000 Covid-19 deaths, as
opposed to the official toll of around 578,000.
According
to the study, Mexico had seen 621,000 Covid-19 deaths, Brazil 616,000, and
Russia 600,000 -- a toll far higher than the official figure of 111,000 deaths.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/the-government-has-developed-strategy-hesitancy-20210520-p57tlp
The government has developed
strategy hesitancy
The government went on the front foot in the
early days of the pandemic but if the public has vaccine hesitancy, Scott
Morrison has strategy hesitancy.
Laura Tingle Columnist
May
21, 2021 – 1.38pm
The Coalition government has never
been shy to spend a bit of taxpayer dosh on advertising campaigns promoting
what it is doing and how good it is. And, of course, the government is led by a
Prime Minister, who is sometimes – unkindly – referred to as “Scotty from
Marketing”.
So it is a little odd that the
week ends with a hot debate about the quality of the government’s advertising
campaign for the national vaccination rollout.
And it is more than just
depressing that the said advertising campaign is being asked to at least partly
reverse the damage done to the vaccination message by the government.
The Prime Minister told us this
week that there was $40 million allocated to the advertising campaign for the
year ending June 30 and that, apparently, “the program rolls with the
sequencing of who’s getting vaccinated right now”.
-----
Climate Change.
-----
https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/refining-hubs-primed-for-greener-future-20210517-p57sk8
Refining hubs primed for greener
future
Ampol’s
Lytton site in Brisbane and Viva’s Geelong venture look to have secured an
opportunity to move with the times.
Angela
Macdonald-Smith Senior resources writer
May
17, 2021 – 5.54pm
The federal government’s $2.4
billion support package for the oil refining sector heralds a new age of
co-operation between oil refiners and government for the management of their
ageing plants and for future investments in clean energy.
It certainly goes far beyond
shoring up the immediate future of the country’s two remaining refineries and
addressing Canberra’s heightened awareness about the need to preserve critical
manufacturing.
Viva has been working for at least
12 months on a planned low-carbon energy “hub” at its refinery site at
Geelong.
The approach for refining has
parallels with the trend in coal power generation where governments – most
recently Victoria’s deal with
EnergyAustralia for Yallourn
– are teaming with generators in deals that secure a limited future of
declining plants. That allows them to be smoothly and safely managed into
history, leaving plenty of opportunity and notice for replacement investment in
cleaner supplies.
The “co-investment” with the
refiners in upgrades to plants to meet stricter fuel standards also recalls
EnergyAustralia’s new gas power plant in NSW where governments are tipping in
amounts to equip it with the ability to burn hydrogen,
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/taxpayers-cop-600m-gas-power-plant-in-hunter-valley-20210518-p57syo
Taxpayers cop $600m gas power
plant in Hunter Valley
Phillip Coorey Political editor
May
18, 2021 – 10.30pm
The Morrison government dismissed energy industry protests
and
will build a 660MW gas-fired power station in the NSW Hunter Valley.
Energy Minister Angus Taylor, who
will give the go-ahead for the $600 million project on Wednesday, said the
extra generation capacity was required to force down prices.
The move comes after the federal
government promised on Monday to give $2.3 billion in subsidies to Ampol and Viva
Energy to keep their oil refineries open for another six years to manufacture
petrol and diesel.
As revealed by The
Australian Financial Review, the federal budget contained
provision
for the power station to be built at Kurri Kurri by government-owned
corporation Snowy Hydro Limited. The project will be in addition to plans by
Energy Australia to build a 316-megawatt, $300 million Tallawarra B project in
the Illawarra.
Both projects will fill what the
government says will be a 1000MW gap in generation capacity when the Liddell
coal-fired power station closes in April 2023.
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/international-energy-agency-calls-last-drinks-on-fossil-fuels-20210518-p57sxl.html
International Energy Agency calls
last drinks on fossil fuels
By Nick
O'Malley
May 18, 2021 — 3.00pm
In its newest report the International Energy
Agency, a body specifically created to ensure the world’s supply of fossil
fuels remained copious and cheap, has in effect called last drinks on fossil
fuels.
Should the world meet the Paris target of
keeping warming as close to 1.5 degrees as possible, renewable energy uptake
would continue to surge so quickly that vast swathes of Australia’s energy
infrastructure would be rendered obsolete in the immediate future.
Under this scenario, comprehensively modelled
and outlined in detail by the world’s leading energy authority, no new mines
are needed and no new coal plants would be built from the end of the year. Gas
and oil would follow.
“No new natural gas fields are needed in the
[net zero by 2050 scenario] beyond those already under development. Also not
needed are many of the liquefied natural gas liquefaction facilities currently
under construction or at the planning stage,” said the report, commissioned by
Boris Johnson’s conservative UK government as it prepares to host United
Nations climate talks in Glasgow in November.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/energy-the-coalition-prefers-communist-style-state-control-to-markets-20210519-p57t4n
Coalition’s energy policy rooted
in communist-style state control
Australia’s
calamitous energy and climate policy is going from bad to worse with the
government decision to build a $600m gas-fired power plant that will deter
private investment.
John Kehoe Economics editor
May
19, 2021 – 1.09pm
For a Morrison government so
alarmed about the Chinese Communist Party, it is deeply ironic that its energy
policy is rooted in communist state-controlled values.
The decision to build a 660-megawatt gas-fired
power station in the NSW Hunter Valley is more evidence this government prefers state control than
markets to address challenges in energy and climate change.
Australia’s calamitous energy and
climate policy is going from bad to worse.
The $600 million government
project to be built at Kurri Kurri by government-owned corporation Snowy Hydro
Limited will further deter much-needed private sector investment in the energy
grid.
EnergyAustralia has already
committed to building a large gas plant in NSW – the 316-megawatt, $300 million
Tallawarra B project in the Illawarra, albeit with a $5 million of federal
government support.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/taxpayers-fund-another-angus-taylor-pet-project/news-story/b4ca09d65bc41c6d4eb589d2b899f1b4
Angus
Taylor out on a limb with by-election pork-barrelling
John Durie
·
1:45PM May 19, 2021
Federal
Energy Minister Angus Taylor has clearly lost the plot, taking centre stage to
claim credit for spending $600m on a 660MW gas peaking plant in the Hunter
Valley which according to his industry regulator is surplus to capacity.
Snowy
Hydro boss Paul Broad has played Taylor for a sucker almost as well as he did
Malcolm Turnbull when he as prime minister agreed to spend untold billions
under the Snowy 2.0 project.
A
smart politician would have left it to Broad to talk about his Hunter Valley
plans, except of course there is a by-election in the area this weekend.
The
timing of his announcement on the eve of a NSW by-election tells you all you
need to know about the cynicism on display from a minister who is frankly
intellectually better than that.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/the-bell-has-tolled-for-the-fossil-age-why-net-zero-makes-us-all-richer-20210520-p57tn6.html
The bell has tolled for the fossil
age: Why net zero makes us all richer
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
May 21, 2021 — 5.40am
The International Energy Agency has switched
sides. It has carpet-bombed the fossil incumbency that it once defended so doggedly. The
shibboleths of the last decade suddenly fall away. The economics of climate
change turns upside down. The future headache becomes the risk of failed
petro-states with collapsing revenue streams.
Slashing CO2 emissions and switching to
renewable energy is not a “cost” or a constraint on rising affluence: it lifts
global GDP growth by 0.4 per cent a year over the course of this decade. World
output is 4 per cent bigger in real terms by 2030.
That is the verdict of the IEA (with the
International Monetary Fund) in its roadmap on global energy on the way to a
1.5 degree world. Net Zero by 2050 is the closest thing we have to catechism.
The report is the bell that tolls for the fossil age. Not even natural gas
escapes the cull.
“We have never seen anything like this before
in the history of the IEA. There’s been a universal thumbs up from the climate
community,” said Dave Jones from the anti-coal group Ember.
Net zero does not cost jobs: it replaces 5
million lost in oil, gas and coal with eight times as many jobs for engineers,
electrical experts, offshore operators, solar technicians or lithium miners,
whether directly or indirectly.
-----
Royal Commissions And The Like.
-----
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=55ecb17f-7739-4478-90a8-222ee22a0974
Federal Budget 2021-22: aged care
Corrs
Chambers Westgarth - Jonathan
Farrer and Anna Ross
Australia May 14 2021
Aged care was one of the
centrepieces of the 2020-21 Federal Budget, with the Federal Government
promising that the Budget would be ’responding in full’ to the findings of the
Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety.
The Royal Commission’s final
report was released in March 2021 and contained 148 recommendations to overhaul
Australia’s aged care system. The Royal Commission found that a ’profound shift
is required in which the people receiving care are placed at the centre of a
new aged care system’ and that our current aged care system ’does not need
renovations, it needs a rebuild’.
While the Budget stated that the
government will deploy a record $17.7 billion to address a number of systemic
problems identified by the Royal Commission, there will be debate about whether
the government’s plans will be an expensive renovation to the existing system
or whether it will be the complete rebuild that the Royal Commission had been
looking for.
As part of its budget
announcements, the government also released details about the extent to which
the government’s announced reforms addressed each of the specific
recommendations in the Royal Commission’s final report.
-----
National Budget Issues.
-----
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/dry-advice-on-deficit-and-debt-needed-again-like-back-in-1982-20210516-p57sc7
‘Dry’ advice on deficit, debt
needed again
It’s
not quite the same situation as in the 1980s, says one of the original economic
Dries. But once again, backbench MPs need to stick their necks out against the
big-spending political budget.
John Hyde
May
16, 2021 – 2.06pm
There are similarities and some
differences today with the situation in 1983 when the timid and weak Fraser
government lost to the Hawke Labor Party. From these, lessons might be drawn.
The most obvious similarity is
concentration on re-election to the exclusion of attention to the immediate and
more distant future. Some, but not all, elements of the need to look to the
future are also similar.
Like Malcolm Fraser in 1982, Scott
Morrison has allowed the coming election to influence the budget. To what
extent is not an easy judgment for one who does not have access to Treasury and
Reserve Bank advice.
Nevertheless, I am confident that
the opportunity to reduce government debt and forestall inflation has been to
some extent squandered on short-term popularity – a circumstance seen before.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/budget-shock-morrison-government-hit-over-the-head-by-a-paradigm-20210515-p57s7s.html
Budget shock: Morrison government
hit over the head by a paradigm
Ross
Gittins
Economics Editor
May 16, 2021 — 8.42pm
The media missed the big story in last week’s
budget. They were present to observe a rare event – a shift in the economic
management paradigm – but all they saw was just another big-spending,
vote-buying pre-election budget.
Since the post-World War II Golden Age ended
in the ignominy of stagflation in the mid-1970s, the first rule of politics has
been that most of it’s economics. Economies don’t run themselves, and managing
them is the chief job of national governments. Bad economic management is the
chief reason governments get thrown out.
(This is the story of my career as a
journalist. I arrived as a dissatisfied chartered accountant looking for a
career change just as the nation’s editors were getting that message. When the
editor asked me what I wanted to do in journalism, I said “write about
politics”. He told me that if I wanted to get ahead, I should pretend to be an
economist. Advice taken.)
But that message seems to have been lost.
Today’s political journalists can see the politics in everything, but not the
economics. It doesn’t help that, after decades of media management, they never
get to speak to the Canberra econocrats.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/budget-guard-rails-must-eventually-return-ken-henry-20210517-p57sn3
Budget ‘guard rails’ must
eventually return: Ken Henry
John Kehoe Economics editor
May
17, 2021 – 4.36pm
Future governments face a “hell of
a challenge” to repair the nation’s finances and will eventually need to return
to “guard rails” that target a balanced budget, former federal Treasury boss
Ken Henry says.
Following almost $300 billion in
fiscal stimulus in response to COVID-19 and more big permanent spending in
last week’s federal budget,
Dr Henry said the traditional medium-term goal of balancing the budget over the
economic cycle had been “suspended”.
“I think the times demand
something different – the medium-term fiscal framework is not appropriate in
the present circumstances,” he said at an Institute of Public Administration
Australia event in Canberra on Monday.
Dr Henry said it made “short-term
sense” for the government to do more heavy lifting to help the Reserve Bank of
Australia reduce unemployment, generate wages growth and lift inflation,
because the official interest rate was constrained at 0.1 per cent.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/don-t-believe-what-lightweights-tell-you-about-josh-frydenberg-s-spending-spree-20210518-p57ssy.html
Don’t believe what lightweights
tell you about Josh Frydenberg’s spending spree
Ross
Gittins
Economics Editor
May 19, 2021 — 5.30am
If you’ve gained the impression that in their
pre-election budget Scott Morrison and Josh Frydenberg have gone on a wild,
vote-buying cash splash spending spree, leaving us – not to mention our grandchildren
– with a string of bigger budget deficits and much increased government debt,
you’ve been misled.
Some of it’s simply not true, much of it’s
exaggerated and the rest has been misunderstood by people who didn’t do
economics at high school. They’re people who are led by their emotions and,
when they hear frightening words like “deficit” and “debt”, don’t need to be
told we’re all in deep doodoo. They don’t stop to read the details.
Let me give you some of those details, with
help from the independent economist Saul Eslake and his first-rate budget analysis.
What would you think if you asked me my
salary and I gave you a figure I’d first multiplied by four? You’d think I was
big-noting. The politicians do this every budget time to make them sound more
generous than they are.
-----
https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/unemployment-falls-02-per-cent-in-april-to-55-per-cent/news-story/a21729747b975489e7a2e498ab8de48d
Unemployment falls 0.2 per cent in
April to 5.5 per cent
Australia’s
unemployment rate has dipped again despite the end of the business-saving
JobKeeper wage subsidy.
James
Hall and Jade Gailberger
NCA NewsWire
May
20, 202111:52am
The end of the federal
government’s JobKeeper wage subsidy in March was expected to create a cliff
that would plunge thousands of workers onto welfare.
But the number of Australians in
work fell only marginally by almost 30,600 between March and April, to remain
just over 13 million.
The jobless rate fell by 0.2
percentage points to 5.5 per cent, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics
(ABS) data released on Thursday.
The figures are 0.9 percentage
points lower than April last year, when the rate was 6.4 per cent and Australia
was at the peak of lockdown restrictions to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.
-----
Health Issues.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/healthcare/people-are-dying-in-ambulances-health-ministers-say-nation-gripped-by-health-crisis-call-for-ndis-fix-20210514-p57rx7.html
‘People are dying in ambulances’:
Health ministers say nation gripped by health crisis, call for NDIS fix
By Paul
Sakkal
May 16, 2021 — 12.01am
State health ministers say their systems are
being overrun due to unforeseen ill health arising from the pandemic, as the
Australian Medical Association warns patients are dying in clogged emergency
departments and ambulances spending hours ramped outside hospitals.
The ministers, united across the political
divide, say Canberra must step in as a matter of urgency to increase funding to
public hospitals and fix the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) and
aged care systems, where assessment delays are locking up hundreds of hospital
beds.
In interviews with The Sunday Age and
Sun-Herald, ministers from the five mainland states called for more cash to
deal with record demand that they admit they did not expect post-2020 when GP
visits dropped 10 per cent and screenings were missed.
The ministers detailed how hundreds of beds
in each of their states were occupied by patients who no longer needed hospital
care staying for up to four months because NDIS and aged care assessment delays
meant they had nowhere to go. They said these lags, in the federal government’s
domain, were a key factor in overcrowding.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/inflammation-linked-to-depression-study-infers/news-story/4d5335a1792ee6cbbaafff3466627fff
Inflammation linked to depression,
study infers
·
By Rhys Blakely
·
The Times
·
12:56AM May 17, 2021
Low-grade
inflammation plays a “core role” in depression and reducing it through drugs,
diet and exercise could potentially help people for whom antidepressants do not
work, the largest study of its kind has suggested.
Researchers
from King’s College London analysed data from more than 86,000 people. They
looked at information on mental health and a compound in the blood that signals
inflammation, as well as lifestyle, behaviour, physical health and genetic
links to specific diseases.
They
found people with depression had higher levels of inflammation than those without
depression, regardless of socioeconomic background, health or habits. The
effect was reduced but remained significant when factors known to be related to
inflammation such as smoking and high body mass index were taken into account.
From this and other analysis, the researchers contend that low-grade
inflammation is often a “core biological feature of depression”.
The
findings suggest inflammation “underpins the (development) of depression”, said
Carmine Pariante, KCL biological psychiatry professor and study author.
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/syphilis-epidemic-in-melbourne-suburbs-scientists-use-genomic-sequencing-to-track-std-20210511-p57qqv.html
Syphilis epidemic in Melbourne
suburbs: scientists use genomic sequencing to track STD
By Melissa
Cunningham
May 17, 2021 — 5.30am
Scientists will use genomic sequencing for
the first time to track fast-moving syphilis outbreaks infiltrating Melbourne’s
outer suburbs, as doctors warn immediate intervention is needed to contain an
evolving epidemic of the sexually transmitted disease.
Doctors at the Royal Victorian Eye and Ear
Hospital are also reporting a 20-fold increase in people presenting with
syphilis-related eye infections.
There has been a rise in syphilis cases in
Victoria.
A rising number of Victorians are also being
admitted to the hospital with delayed diagnosis of ocular syphilis and some are
being left with permanent vision loss.
Worrying clusters of the disease are
spreading unchecked in Melbourne’s outer western and south-eastern suburbs,
with hotspots emerging in the local government areas of Brimbank, Melton and
Casey.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/western-australia/cascade-of-mistakes-laid-bare-as-full-report-on-aishwarya-s-death-revealed-20210517-p57smn.html
‘Cascade’ of mistakes laid bare as
full report on Aishwarya’s death revealed
By Gary
Adshead
May 17, 2021 — 2.14pm
A litany of mistakes from staff treating
seven-year-old Aishwarya Aswath at Perth Children’s Hospital on Easter Saturday
have been laid bare in a comprehensive report into her death.
The state government gave Aishwarya’s parents
the internal hospital report after tabling its recommendations in Parliament.
Nine News Perth and WAtoday have now obtained a copy of the full report.
Within 20 minutes of arriving at emergency,
Aishwarya’s temperature had climbed to 38.8 degrees. Her eyes were
“discoloured”. Her respiratory rate was too high at 44 breaths per minute and
her heart was racing at 150 beats per minute.
She had a blood pressure reading of 114/103,
indicating hypertension stage two.
The seven-year-old became “quiet”, “clingy”,
“floppy” and was “grunting in pain”.
About 5.45pm her father, Aswath Chavittupara,
asked a clerk “how much longer it would be before a doctor could see his child
because she was getting worse.”
-----
https://www.health.gov.au/news/the-science-of-immunisation-your-questions-answered
The science of immunisation: your
questions answered
The
Science of Immunisation: Questions and Answers guide has been updated. The
guide looks at the benefits and safety of vaccines, what is in vaccines and
what the future holds for vaccination.
Date
published: 19 May 2021
Type: News
Intended
audience: General public
The Australian Government has
partnered with the Australian Academy of Science to update The Science of Immunisation:
Questions and Answers guide.
The guide reflects the most up-to-date evidence and science behind immunisation. A new video about the benefits
of COVID-19 vaccines supports the guide.
A working group of leading
scientists, doctors, science communicators and experts in language and social
sciences oversaw the update of the guide.
The publication and a series
of short videos and in-depth articles answer 5 key questions:
- What is immunisation?
- What is in a vaccine?
- Who benefits from vaccines?
- Are vaccines safe?
- What does the future hold for
vaccination?
The Science of Immunisation:
Questions and Answers publication, videos and articles are available from the Australian
Academy of Science.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/horrifying-stories-from-regional-hospitals-reveal-system-s-failure-20210521-p57u55.html
Horrifying stories from regional
hospitals reveal system’s failure
May 23, 2021 — 4.52am
It is hard to imagine a Sydney
hospital where the cooks have to care for the
patients,
the tea ladies check on the newborns and critically ill people are left to die without a single
doctor
on site. Yet this is the standard of care that people in rural and regional NSW
have to put up with.
The stories told at the NSW
parliamentary inquiry into rural and regional health last week paint a picture
of a health system that is failing both patients and the medical workers who
care for them in our country towns.
The inquiry, which held its first
hearings in March, was brought about as a result of investigations by the Herald’s
Carrie Fellner into the deaths of three residents in western NSW, including a baby whose test results went
unchecked.
Witness after witness has spoken
of hospitals struggling with not enough staff, not enough supplies, excessively
long wait times for transfers to larger hospitals, and dysfunctional
administration.
-----
International Issues.
-----
https://www.theage.com.au/business/markets/china-s-not-winning-its-trade-war-with-australia-20210517-p57sjd.html
China’s not winning its trade war
with Australia
Stephen
Bartholomeusz
Senior business columnist
May 17, 2021 — 11.55am
It must be a source of increasing frustration
for China’s bureaucrats that its own economic successes are overwhelming their
efforts to sanction Australia for our less than diplomatic commentary on the
origins of the pandemic and China’s treatment of the Uighurs in the
Xinjiang region.
While the sanctions on barley, wine,
lobsters, coal and other products have bitten, they have been far more than
offset by China’s insatiable demand for iron ore and LNG and the spiking prices
– in iron ore’s case, soaring prices – of both.
If this is a trade war, Australia is winning
its first phase quite handsomely.
The iron ore price is above $US200 a tonne and LNG prices have rebounded from the
pandemic to levels last seen two years ago.
In coal, the Australian producers have
responded to China’s bans by shifting their exports elsewhere, particularly to
India. While the producers might not be getting the same prices as before,
China is being forced to buy lower quality coal at higher prices while its
competitors benefit from the windfall of high quality Australian coal at lower
prices.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/netanyahu-s-master-plan-for-israel-and-palestine-has-failed-20210518-p57ssi
Netanyahu’s master plan for Israel
and Palestine has failed
A
successful effort to cling on to power would demonstrate that the Israeli PM
remains a master political tactician. But the upsurge of violence this week has
undermined his claim to be a statesman.
Gideon Rachman Columnist
May
18, 2021 – 9.07am
Until about a week ago, it looked
like Benjamin Netanyahu had a good chance of disproving the adage that “all
political careers end in failure”. His grip on power in Israel was weakening.
But even if he lost office, Netanyahu would still leave politics as Israel’s
longest serving prime minister ever — and one of its most consequential.
Last year, Netanyahu secured a
historic breakthrough in the Jewish state’s relations with the Arab world. The
Abraham Accords normalised relations between Israel and the United Arab
Emirates and Bahrain.
Israel under Netanyahu was at
peace, prosperous and breaking out of its international isolation. The long and
often bloody struggle with the Palestinians was out of the headlines.
A world-beating COVID-19 vaccination
program had
further burnished the country’s image. There was just the small matter of
avoiding conviction in a corruption trial and a possible jail sentence — and
his legacy would be secure.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/china-could-be-the-first-country-to-get-old-before-it-gets-rich-and-the-implications-are-profound-20210517-p57sj6.html
China could be the first country to get old
before it gets rich and the implications are profound
Peter
Hartcher
Political and international editor
May 18, 2021 — 5.30am
Demography, it’s said, is destiny. Now that
China has published its first national census in a
decade, what’s its destiny
to be? It’s a bit awkward, actually, for President Xi Jinping’s vaunted “China
Dream”. Because he has promised “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”
when the official statistics show it is on the way to becoming one of the
fastest ageing countries on earth.
We already knew that China was heading for a
population collapse. That’s why Xi dumped the One Child Policy in 2015. The
advent of the Two Child Policy did have the desired effect. The number of
births surged. But only for one year.
The number of babies born in China then went
into steep decline. Last year, there were only 12 million newborns. That’s the
fewest recorded in any year since the shocking famine of the so-called Great
Leap Forward of 1958-1962.
It’s now down by 33 per cent compared with
the number born in 2016. Abandoning the One Child Policy evidently was too
little, too late. “Too many people” ran the popular saying in support of the
government’s One Child Policy. Remarkably, the country is now gripped by the
opposite problem: “Too few people.” Time elapsed between the two – just 36
years.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/trump-organisation-now-under-criminal-investigation-20210519-p57t9x
Trump Organisation now under New
York state criminal investigation
Michael Sisak
May
19, 2021 – 1.52pm
New York | The New York attorney-general’s
office said on Tuesday (Wednesday AEST) that it was conducting a criminal
investigation into former president Donald Trump’s business empire, expanding
what had previously been a civil probe.
“We have informed the Trump
Organisation that our investigation into the company is no longer purely civil
in nature,” Fabien Levy, a spokesman for Attorney-General Letitia James, said
in a statement.
“We are now actively investigating
the Trump Organisation in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Mr
Levy said.
Ms James’ investigators are
working with the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has been conducting a criminal investigation into Trump and his
company for two years.
Ms James and District Attorney Cyrus Vance jnr are both Democrats.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/europe/can-blair-s-medicine-revive-the-labour-zombie-20210518-p57srr
Can Tony Blair’s medicine revive
the progressive left?
Keir
Starmer and Anthony Albanese must somehow restitch the coalition of white and
blue collars, lest their parties become ‘too weak to win, too strong to die’.
Hans van Leeuwen Europe
correspondent
May
19, 2021 – 1.00pm
The first time I came across Tony
Blair was in late 1993. A young Labour activist I was a bit keen on told me the
shadow home secretary, as Blair then was, would be speaking at my Oxford
college that evening. He was the future, she told me excitedly – did I want to come
along and see?
I was a bit sceptical. Labour
leader Neil Kinnock’s unexpected and shattering 1992 election defeat had left
many people wondering if the party had any future at all. As an Australian, I
couldn’t see what stopped Labour from emulating the decisive revamp of the left
engineered by Bob Hawke and Paul Keating, which had yielded five straight
election victories.
But I went along. I remember not a
word of what Blair said but he oozed charisma and radiated confidence. The
general consensus among the students emerging from the room afterwards? Yes,
this guy was the real deal.
Less than a year later, he was
Labour leader. And in 1997 he became one of only two Labour leaders to have won
a British election in my five-decade lifetime, with the biggest majority that
either side of politics has scored since the Second World War. In poaching two
more elections and presiding over a decade-long economic boom, he can
justifiably claim to be the most successful helmsman in the party’s 121-year
history.
-----
https://www.smh.com.au/world/middle-east/crisis-in-israel-ends-joe-biden-s-white-house-honeymoon-20210520-p57tjk.html
Crisis in Israel ends Joe Biden’s
White House honeymoon
By Matthew
Knott
May 20, 2021 — 11.49am
The Biden White House is being forced to
confront its first major foreign policy crisis with the week-long violence in
Israel and Palestine. The conflict has cost over 230 lives, the vast majority in Palestine.
Biden came into office without any grand
plans to reshape the Middle East. His main focus has been on strategic competition with China, rebuilding America’s alliances in Europe
and mobilising international action on climate change.
The consensus in Washington is that - with
Hamas dominant in Gaza and Benjamin Netanyahu struggling to hold on to power in
Israel - there is next to no hope of achieving meaningful progress towards a
two-state solution anytime soon and it would be foolish to waste political
capital on the issue.
But presidents do not get to choose which
events they must respond to.
During his career as a centrist Democrat in
the Senate, Biden was a fierce defender of Israel.
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/middle-east/israel-and-hamas-agree-gaza-truce-to-be-monitored-by-egypt-20210521-p57tuj
Israel and Hamas agree Gaza truce
Nidal al-Mughrabi and Dan Williams
May
21, 2021 – 7.02am
Israel and Hamas have ceased fire
across the Gaza Strip border as of Friday, bringing a potentially tenuous halt
to the fiercest fighting in years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu’s office said his security cabinet had voted unanimously in favour of
a “mutual and unconditional” Gaza truce proposed by Egypt, but added that the
hour of implementation had yet to be agreed.
Hamas and Egypt said the truce
would begin at 2am (9am AEST on Friday), after 11 days of Israeli-Palestinian
hostilities.
Earlier, in a televised address,
US President Joe Biden said both sides agreed the truce would begin “in less
than two hours”.
-----
https://www.afr.com/markets/currencies/federal-reserve-will-issue-report-on-us-digital-currency-20210521-p57tu0
Federal Reserve will issue report
on US digital currency
Craig Torres
May
21, 2021 – 5.32am
Federal Reserve chairman Jerome
Powell said the central bank will launch a centrepiece research paper this
[Northern Hemisphere] summer on digital currency and seek public input, as he
and his colleagues weigh how to proceed in this area.
“We are committed at the Federal
Reserve to hearing a wide range of voices on this important issue before making
any decision on whether and how to move forward with a US CBDC,” he said in a
statement on Thursday (Friday AEST), referring to central bank digital
currencies.
The announcement, during a week of
intense volatility in cryptocurrencies, marks a shift in momentum on the CBDC
topic at the Fed, which until now has mostly been a technological research
project at its regional branch in Boston.
Powell said he wants the Fed to
play “a leading role” in the development of international standards. Central
banks around the world -- most notably the People’s Bank of China -- are moving
ahead with digital currencies which could give them a head-start in how
standards develop.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/the-times/no-explanation-for-those-ufo-sightings-obama/news-story/270ee6b5e81e84f69cc6a794db24f4b1
No explanation for those UFO
sightings: Obama
·
By David Charter
·
The Times
·
5:46PM May 20, 2021
Barack
Obama has said there is no explanation for some recent UFO sightings as America
waits for the release of a declassified report on the matter by the Pentagon.
The
former president, 59, said officials were still trying to “figure out” the
movements of unidentified aircraft captured on film by the US military.
Referred to as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena, several videos have been made
public by the military. It has been given until June 25 by the Senate
intelligence committee to publish a report on the phenomenon.
“When
it comes to aliens, there are some things I just can’t tell you on air,” Obama
joked when asked on The Late Late Showwith James Corden, on CBS, if he had a
theory about UFOs. “But what is true — and I’m actually being serious here — is
that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know
exactly what they are. We can’t explain how they moved, their trajectory. They
did not have an easily explainable pattern.
“So
I think that people still take seriously trying to investigate and figure out
what that is. But I have nothing to report to you today.”
-----
https://www.afr.com/world/north-america/this-is-how-wokeness-will-end-20210521-p57tvw
This is how wokeness will end
Woke jargon has become a passport to the top
of society. But it is also being turned from protest to product.
David Brooks Contributor
May 21, 2021 – 10.45am
My friend Rod Dreher recently had a blog post
for The American Conservative called “Why Are Conservatives in Despair?” He
explained that conservatives are in despair because a hostile ideology –
wokeness or social justice or critical race theory – is sweeping across America
the way Bolshevism swept across the Russian Empire before the October
Revolution in 1917.
This ideology is creating a “soft
totalitarianism” across wide swaths of American society, he writes. In the view
of not just Dreher but also many others, it divides the world into good and
evil based on crude racial categories. It has no faith in persuasion or open
discourse, but it shames and cancels anybody who challenges the official
catechism.
It produces fringe absurdities like
“ethnomathematics”, which proponents say seeks to challenge the ways that, as
one guide for teachers puts it, “math is used to uphold capitalist, imperialist
and racist views” by dismissing old standards like “getting the ‘right’
answer”.
I’m less alarmed by all of this because I
have more confidence than Dreher and many other conservatives in the American
establishment’s ability to co-opt and water down every radical progressive
ideology. In the 1960s, left-wing radicals wanted to overthrow capitalism. We
ended up with Whole Foods. The co-option of wokeness seems to be happening
right now.
-----
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/world/cycle-of-violence-doesnt-stop-here/news-story/85221716f880272a5f26677dd03eefb8
Cycle of violence doesn’t stop
here
·
By The Economist
·
6:19PM May 21, 2021
The
fighting lasted less than two weeks, but there was no shortage of explosions.
By
the end, Palestinian militant group Hamas had fired 4000 rockets at Israel.
Most were intercepted by Israel’s missile defences. Israel responded with
hundreds of airstrikes on Gaza, which had no shield. More than 200 people were
killed, all but 12 of them Palestinian.
The
battle began to wind down on Thursday; after nightfall Israel and Hamas agreed
to a ceasefire. Assuming that calm returns, who knows how long it will last?
Fighting
between Israel and Hamas has become almost routine. Since the Islamist group
grabbed control of Gaza in 2007, the two sides have fought four wars and
several smaller battles, costing thousands of lives (again, mostly
Palestinian). The spark for the latest outbreak came in Jerusalem — but were it
not Jerusalem, it would have been some other cause. Israel and Hamas are stuck
in a perpetual crisis, trapped by the logic of war, which dictates that they
keep going through the same motions.
Start
with Hamas, which sees fighting “the Zionist invaders” as its raison d’etre.
Its campaign of suicide-bombings in the 1990s and 2000s bears much
responsibility for destroying the Oslo peace accords. Because of its incessant
attacks, Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The group expelled Fatah, its
Palestinian rival, two years later.
-----
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/why-you-must-learn-to-live-with-low-population-growth-20210518-p57t0o
Why you must learn to live with
low population growth
You
need to think about policy differently in a flat-population economy than you
did in the days when maturing Baby Boomers were rapidly swelling the workforce.
Paul Krugman
May
19, 2021 – 6.07am
Last week the US Bureau of Labour
Statistics reported much higher inflation than almost anyone predicted, and
inflationistas – people who always predict runaway price rises, and have always
been wrong – seized on the news as proof that this time the wolf is real.
Financial markets, however, took
it in stride. Stocks fell on the report, but they soon made up most of the
losses.
US population growth is the lowest
since the 1930s, while Japan’s working-age population has been declining since
the mid-’90s and the euro area has been on the downslide since 2009.
Bond yields rose only slightly on
the news, then ended the week right where they started – namely, extremely low.
Why so little reaction to the
inflation news? Part of the answer, presumably, was that once investors had
time to digest the details they realised there was little sign of a rise in
underlying inflation; this was a blip reflecting what were probably one-time
rises in the prices of used cars and hotel rooms.
-----
I
look forward to comments on all this!
-----
David.