Idiot: Maybe the 23 fire experts that have been trying to meet with #LiarFromTheShire need to set a sports team to get a meeting and media #ClimateEmergency https://t.co/mw17agoYHT — 💧🌱 wentworth falls (@tilly64) November 20, 2019
The Grattan Institute has released analysis on which groups hold the most influence over Australian policy making. And not surprisingly, the business lobby dominates: As Figure 2 shows, the financial and professional services industries together represented 57 per cent of the 400 submissions to the Tax White Paper from organisations, despite collectively representing only 18
Via Domain: Attorney-General Christian Porter appears close to winning crossbench support for the government’s industrial relations bill and determined to secure its passage when Parliament resumes next week. Mr Porter has agreed to additional amendments proposed by One Nation Leader Pauline Hanson and the government has listed the union-busting Ensuring Integrity bill on the Senate’s
Given the old bullyboy’s unhealthy hold over the national imagination regarding the future of Chinese ties, let’s explore where his vision would take us. Paul Keating would like to see Australia’s commitment to ANZUS modulated versus Chinese interests. That will mean a much more insecure commitment by the US to Australia so the first implication
Via John Fitzgerald at Crikey: The education tours arranged by Australian interest group China Matters were bound to end in tears. All it was ever going to take to scuttle the efforts of the organisers to improve bilateral understanding through parliamentary visits was for Australian politicians to speak their minds and shine a light on issues that
For a day supposedly dominated by “realism”, the obvious didn’t get a look in at The Australian’s Cowards of Canberra Conference yesterday. While the PBOC was forced to cut interest rates to combat a structural slowdown in the Chinese economy, and Hong Kong degenerated into near open war, all the Canberra cowards could discuss was
From Paul Xeating just now: Paul Keating says Australia’s foreign policy lacks “any strategic realism” and is leaving the nation unable to effectively manage the rise of China as Donald Trump vacates the Asia Pacific region. …Mr Keating said Australia should channel its focus on helping “design a new construct” that engages with China but
Welcome to the new era of partisanship run amok, via the AFR: Federal Energy Minister Angus Taylor will seek to cut deals with “collaborative” states to shore up the destabilised national electricity grid, potentially isolating Victoria over energy and climate policy. …It is understood the bilateral agreements will involve funding or other arrangements to achieve
Via News: It’s undeniable that China’s influence around the world is increasing at a rapid rate and now countries just a stone’s throw away from our own are being taken over. When you think about Australia’s island neighbours in the South Pacific, the first thing that come to mind are probably the relaxed atmosphere and
Via Bloomie: Hong Kong police and protesters hardened their battle lines over the weekend as violent clashes showed no signs of abating, leaving the city bracing for a second week of upheaval that risks disrupting pending elections. The weekend saw pitched battles with demonstrators launching bricks, molotov cocktails and steel balls at police, who in
Scummo went up in flames on the weekend. The liberal press applied the blowtorch. Laura Tingle captures the essence of it: It has been a week of catastrophe in Australia. For so many people, and so many communities, there have been days and nights of sleeplessness, exhausting anxiety, and fear of monstrous firestorms; and for
Wowsers, check this out from the AFR: Malcolm Turnbull was advised in a confidential memo in the aftermath of the 2016 election that the property boom was costing the Coalition support in the outer suburbs, regional cities and towns and the government needed to shift political strategy to avoid losing power. The analysis, by current
So says the FT: Demonstrators and police officers are experiencing a kind of epiphany when they realise there are no repercussions for smashing the thin veneer of civility. As a consequence, the range of acceptable behaviour has widened dramatically and the most brazen and outrageous actions are becoming normalised. This is fed by social media
Via News, this does not read well for anybody: A group of 23 former fire and emergency chiefs tried repeatedly for several months to warn Scott Morrison and senior government ministers of a looming bushfire crisis. Had they been successful in their requests for a meeting, the group would’ve urged authorities to immediately lease aerial
Not me, that’s for sure. The ABC investigates: Claiming victory on election night six months ago, Scott Morrison said it was “the Quiet Australians who have won a great victory tonight”. “It has been those Australians who have worked hard every day, they have their dreams, they have their aspirations; to get a job, to
Via the AFR: Under sweeping new rules, universities will have to fully disclose who they’re working with on research projects and all financial dealings with other countries and donors, as the federal government demands action against “corrupting” foreign interference. Amid concern about China’s influence in universities that have become heavily financially dependent on foreign students, research projects
It’s unprecendented, at News: New South Wales still has “a long way to go” before the bushfire threat is over, with one particularly dangerous fire still covering 150,000 hectares on its own, and another wave of bad weather on the horizon. Today the focus also shifts to Queensland, where increasingly windy conditions and temperatures in
Via The Australian: The Coalition and Labor are on an equal electoral footing for the first time since the May election, with a turnaround in Anthony ÂAlbanese’s personal standing and a slide in popular support for the government. An exclusive Newspoll conducted for The Australian has the major parties tied with a 50-50 share of
The Canberra bubble and Paul Kelly is determined to end Labor: The Labor Party now resembles two rival constituencies fighting each other — their origins embedded in the party’s past and its Âfuture — a conflict that extinguished Labor’s hopes at the May election and a chasm that nobody knows how to bridge. This week
When Quartz decided to ask whether WeChat should be banned in democracies there was no better place to look than Straya: Like other social media platforms, WeChat is being used more and more by political parties around the world to appeal to potential voters. Its reach is considerable. It’s the world’s fifth largest social media
Here’s the summary of Labor’s electoral loss tome Labor lost the election because of a weak strategy that could not adapt to the change in Liberal leadership, a cluttered policy agenda that looked risky and an unpopular leader. No one of these shortcomings was decisive but in combination they explain the result. Indeed, Bill Shorten
Via The Guardian [my emphasis]: Labor needs to fire up on behalf of working people to punch through the “pandemic of populism” locking progressive parties out of government, and it needs to pitch an “Australian new deal” grounded in the Hawke/Keating principles of economic reform with a social dividend, according to Chris Bowen. …As Labor absorbs
Via the ABC: A senior Victorian Liberal Party figure has admitted in court that Chinese-language signs used in May’s federal election in two Melbourne seats were designed to convey the appearance of official electoral commission material. The Court of Disputed Returns — sitting in the Federal Court in Melbourne for the next three days —
Today, Australia’s great mind, Paul Kelly finally catches on: The Australian economy is not in crisis but is facing a combination of poor investment, weak consumption and stagnant wages growth. The malaise is cyclic and structural — but more structural. …The government has a policy framework for an economy that no longer exists and a
Via the Hartford Courant: Two hedge fund founders on Tuesday called for the reform of capitalism to combat economic inequality and stem political upheaval. Before a crowd of about 200 at the Greenwich Economic Forum, a two-day alternative investment industry conference, Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates, and Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor Investment
Her own cash says The Australian: Embattled Liberal MP Gladys Liu personally poured at least $100,000 into her campaign at the last minute to win the marginal Melbourne seat of Chisholm after being told she didn’t qualify for a significant cash injection from the party. Ms Liu donated a “six-figure’’ sum to her own campaign
There’s no stopping it now: Breaking out and now targeting record highs. The timing of this is pretty funny: Vale iron ore is rushing back; there’s some 60mt tonnes of new and resumed iron ore capacity coming next year; Chinese growth is slowing steadily and the steel PMI is warning loud and clear; Chinese iron
Every modern nation needs good billionaires to fight evil ones. I have my issues with Mike Cannon-Brookes and the Atlassian cheap labour arbitrage model but on climate change he’s excellent, via David Crowe: “The people protesting over climate change are not quiet Australians. They are being loud because the government is quiet on the climate,”
Some nice examples of belting sheilas around the face so that they can no longer terrosise billion dollar miner conglomerates, via Crikey: Attempts by protesters to blockade the International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Melbourne have been met by a… let’s call it a heavy-handed police response. Videos of cops shoving, hitting and unleashing
Via Domain: Asian immigration is transforming Australia and the country will soon become “more Asian than European”, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has predicted. Dr Mahathir, the 94-year-old political elder statesman of south-east Asia, made the comments during an exclusive interview with The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. He will meet with Australian Prime
