Australian Politics

Amusingly empty, at the AFR: Scott Morrison says the government’s income tax cuts could pass both houses of Parliament by as early as Thursday but it will be just the start of what is “a chocked program” of legislation between now and the end of the year.

On Transparency International’s Corruption Index, Mozambique ranks 158 out 180.

Somehow I missed this during the week, at the ABC: Secret planning has begun for a new port facility just outside Darwin which could eventually help US Marines operate more readily in the Indo-Pacific.

Previously from Gottiboff: My business friends tell me that when they talk to top government people in China, they are alarmed to discover that China is very unhappy with Australia.

Via Domain comes some “exclusive” fake news: More than two thirds of the final stage of the Coalition’s $158 billion income tax cut package will flow to workers earning under $180,000, new figures show, as the Morrison government moves within striking distance of its first policy victory since the election.

From Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Immigration, at Inside Story: Morrison government’s $158 billion tax cuts.

Bravo Geg Sheridan who deconstructs ScoMo’s official view of China: Mistake No 1: The PM says China has the “biggest economy in the world in terms of parity purchasing power”.

Via the AFR: Senate crossbench powerbroker Rex Patrick is demanding Queensland’s LNG export “cartel” provides enough gas into the east coast market to ensure a surplus of supply amid other measures under discussion as the price for the Centre Alliance’s support for the Coalition’s proposed tax cuts.

Lol, this is so Borgesian that I simply do not know where to look.

Via The Australian: Centre Alliance has signalled it could support the Morrison government’s full personal income tax cuts package as soon as Friday without a deal on gas being locked in, as Labor also leaves open the possibility of backing the flagship $158 billion tax plan in full.

It’s the great Aussie foreign policy tradition.

This is the amusing joke, the idiot cousin if you will, that every Australian strategic analyst overlooks red faced, via Peter Hartcher: The leadership in Tehran repeatedly has said that if Iran is not allowed to export oil through the Persian Gulf, no one will.

Overreach.

Via Peter Jennings at ASPI: The United States is rapidly restructuring its military presence in Asia and rethinking how it could fight a major conventional war in the area which the Pentagon has identified as the ‘single most consequential region for America’s future’.

The always evil AFR editorial is at it again: Encouraging indications that the Narrabri gas project will go ahead by the end of the year despite the obstacles stacked against it shows the right way to fix Australia’s energy crisis.

Via The Australian: Australian energy producers have slammed a move by the Coalition to consider domestic gas reservation, arguing the interventionist measure wouldn’t lower prices for local users but would significantly increase the nation’s sovereign risk profile.

Via John Hewson today: Our positions on China virtually blow in the wind.

Via Chris Uhlmann comes a rare voice of sanity: What is it that terrifies the people of Hong Kong about the Chinese Communist Party that eludes so many pliant Australian academics, business leaders and ex-politicians?

Witness the businomics ideology go to work.

Ross Gittins wants to see Keynesian stimulus: … any fiscal stimulus is very short run, so as to support the economy before monetary stimulus fully kicks in, thereby minimising the harm done.

What a pack of treasonous arseholes Labor are.