I won’t be going to Kevin Rudd to confess my sins but the White House’s Asia doyen, Kurt Campbell, has done so and it makes for fascinating viewing:
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The full Kurt Campbell confession
Primary Section
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Matt Canavan blames states for quarantine failures
True to Morrison Government form, National Party MP Matt Canavan has today blamed the state’s failures on hotel quarantine for halving international arrival numbers: Senator Canavan said Australia wouldn’t have had to half international arrivals if hotel quarantine was managed better. “I think it’s really unfortunate the state governments haven’t been able to manage their
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Bill Bishop: Xi’s speech a clarion call for China “decoupling”
For those you living under a rock, Bill Bishop is the China export that runs Sinocism, the best daily China news and analysis source on the web. Bishop has deep knowledge, is very balanced in his views and access to the best of the best material and people. Today he pulls no punches following last
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Morrison polling slide worsens
The most recent Newspoll had the Morrison Government trailing Labor again at 49/50 on two-party preferred. That result appears to be a forming trend across a variety of polling houses. Pollbludger’s aggregated measure tells the tale for TPP: In terms of qualitative polling, two issues continue to stand out for driving the Morrison slide. The
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Should Australia keep building Xi’s tyrannical “wall of steel”?
From Xi Jinping last week: China’s strongman leader Xi Jinping has threatened a “wall of steel” will confront any country that tries to bully his rising power. Thousands of comrades cheered President Xi as he struck an aggressively nationalistic tone during a major speech on Thursday to mark the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist
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Weak Albanese dips baby toe in immigration debate
Anybody hoping that Labor leader Anthony Albanese would take a lower immigration platform to the upcoming federal election will be disappointed by his upcoming speech today to the National Press Club: Anthony Albanese will launch a Bob Hawke-style jobs summit if he becomes prime minister… [Albanese will] voice his concerns about the Intergenerational Report’s prediction that
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Xi’s useful idiots must declare which freedoms they’ll crush
As the CCP makes a song and dance about one hundred years of persecuting Chinese peoples, Xi Jinping’s local cohort of useful idiots are hard at it again. The frame of reference is always the same: Chinese greatness is inevitable. Australia must engage China. Whitlam is the template. For samples of this today you can
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Everybody except Labor dislikes China
Via Pew: Across advanced economies in Europe, North America and the Asia-Pacific region, few people think the Chinese government respects the personal freedoms of its people. In 15 of the 17 publics surveyed by Pew Research Center, eight-in-ten or more hold this view. This sense is also at or near historic highs in nearly every
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NSW struggles to contain Delta outbreak
New COVID data from NSW: NSW recorded 24 new locally acquired cases of COVID-19 in the 24 hours to 8pm last night, of which 17 are linked to previously confirmed cases. Four new overseas-acquired cases were recorded in the same period- pic.twitter.com/5bcw8QBoy3 — NSW Health (@NSWHealth) July 1, 2021 There have been 195 locally acquired
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Penny Wong is an extraordinary national security risk
Labor and its foreign affairs spokesperson, Penny Wong, are on the hustings today celebrating a century of the Chinese Communist Party: As much of the world’s attention is consumed by the implications of Xi Jinping’s more assertive China, there is a valuable lesson offered by an anniversary we commemorate this month. …Whitlam held that it
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Human Rights Watch condemns Aussie unis for Beijing bullying
This is how sick our tertiary sector is. Via Human Rights Watch: Australian universities have failed to protect the academic freedom of students from China and of academics who criticize the Chinese Communist Party, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Pro-Beijing supporters and the Chinese government have also harassed and intimidated those who express
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Did The Idiot accidently restore use of AZ vaccine?
There is evidence in the affirmative, at The Monthly, daily, whatevery: Many people were blindsided by the prime minister’s late-night announcement that the AstraZeneca vaccine can now be administered to those under 40. Speaking after a national cabinet meeting, Scott Morrison revealed that GPs would receive increased vaccine indemnity, and that Australians of all ages
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Raise your glass and toast The Idiot. Ching!
While 12 million locked down Australians wish they were denizens of Melbourne today, Australia’s least liveable city, it is high time that we take stock of the benefits of The Idiot. When one considers the upsides of how systematically The Idiot is destroying his own agenda, I think you’ll agree that losing your liberty for
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Will the Deltra strain crash it all?
Goldman with the note. A marginal negative for EUR and therefore AUD. Although economic activity is rebounding strongly across Europe in light of the ongoing reopening, there are rising concerns around the spread of the more transmissive ‘delta’ variant of COVID-19. While new infections continue to decline in the Euro area as a whole, a
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Auditor blasts Morrison’s car park ‘rorts’
The Auditor-General has issued a damning report on the federal government’s administration of the $660 million Commuter Car Park Projects fund. Set up in 2018 as part of the Urban Congestion Fund, the project was intended to construct car parks near urban railway stations. However, the Auditor-General found that none of the 47 car park
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72 more hours in the life of The Idiot
72 more hours in the life of a disordered idiot and it does not get better. After flip-flopping over everything and blaming everybody else for it yesterday, today we go all-in on back-flips, reversals, obfuscation and distractions. Late last week we got this from The Idiot: The federal government is projecting there will be little
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72 hours in the life of a disordered idiot
Thursday morning, idiot gets up and blames the NSW Government for its own complete failure: “When talking about large numbers of people, hundreds of thousands of people coming through the system, the virus is insidious and will find those points of weakness, but I know the government will continue to double down on their processes,”
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Labor celebrates a half century of China corruption
Some terrific material was offered over the weekend by The Australian on the fiftieth anniversary of Gough Whitlam’s historic visit to China which began an opening-up process for a hermit kingdom that was to become a superpower. The Australian reran a bunch of pieces authored by Gough at the time. They are marvelous reading. It
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Former “stooge of China” gives nod to Darwin Port seizure
Australia’s number one patriot, the former trade minister that negotiated the China FTA and the leasing of Darwin Port to Chinese interests before going to work for the new owner shortly afterwards, has declared it’s fine to seize it back: Landbridge says if it happens then it’ll spike sovereign risk. For all not investors not
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ALP maintains narrow poll lead over Coalition
Roy Morgan has released polling, taken over the weekends of June 12/13 & June 19/20, showing that Labor remains ahead 50.5% to 49.5% on a two-party preferred basis: ALP support is now 50.5% (down 0.5% points since early June) cf. L-NP on 49.5% (up 0.5% points) on a two-party preferred basis following Prime Minister Scott
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How a deranged Scott Morrison destroyed China
You have probably seen retiring DFAT head Frances Adamson’s speech at the Press Club yesterday. It’s the usual guff about not wanting to contain China etc. It was in the Q&A that she really lit up: In her final speech before stepping down as secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Frances Adamson
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Brace for the China election
Brace for the China election. An election that the Australian Labor Party cannot win. Beetrooter Joyce returned to the Party Room yesterday. He immediately went on the attack. Not over coal and climate change. Nor closed borders or vaccines. Nor loss of Chinese markets for the bush. He gave us this: Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce
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Beetrooter to Labor’s rescue
It is most unfortunate that I have to write this post. There’s only so much a person can care about in Australian politics and Barnaby Joyce is at the very bottom of a very long list. Still, he’s made his play to return as leader of the National Part so I will have to point
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Last hurrah for NSW stamp duty boom
The New South Wales Government will deliver its 2021 Budget tomorrow. The Government had forecast in its half-yearly Budget review in February that stamp duty revenue for 2020-21 would total $8.372 billion. However, the government now expects such revenue to total $9.379 billion, due to Sydney’s soaring residential property market – delivering a financial windfall
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Politician’s/lobbyist’s revolving door must be closed
There are calls for former government ministers to be banned from lobbying for companies for at least three years. Former Law Council of Australia president Arthur Moses says a three-year ban would bring MPs into line with similar restrictions on senior business executives, whereas Centre for Public Integrity chairman Anthony Whealy says there should be
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Greens seek to kill responsible lending reforms
Yesterday, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg defended the Coalition’s proposed wind back of responsible lending laws, telling reporters they are essential to helping the economy recover from COVID: “Ensuring consumers and small businesses can get timely access to credit as the economy continues to recover from the COVID crisis”. “The reforms are intended to improve efficiency, reducing
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Another “potentially corrupt” land deal emerges
Recently the federal government attracted widespread scrutiny over its controversial Leppington Triangle land deal. The 2018 purchase of the 12.3 hectare block of land, which was part of the construction of the new Western Sydney Airport, led to an investigation by the Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) after the land was valued at just $3
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China has lost Australia
Anyone wondering why the Liberal-National Federal Government did a U-turn on Australia’s relations with China over recent years? Wonder why Australians still aren’t enamoured with the ALP opposition, despite a government coming across as misogynist, incompetent, and prone to pandering to the whims of corporate Australia and the 1%? Ironically, the barely concealed CCP propagandist
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Berejilklian Government’s fascistic FriendlyJordies “overreach”
The fascistic Berejilklian Government is sinking into deeper hot water over its ridiculous arrest of a FriendlyJordies employee: Nicholas Cowdery, the former NSW DPP, said the “fixated persons” legislation was not designed for arresting comedians but for lone-wolf terrorists that pose a “risk of serious violence”. “On its face this does not seem to be
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Wolf warrior endorses Labor grovelling as Aussies recoil
How exactly is this supposed to get Labor elected? China’s chief wolf warrior, Zhao Lijian, has fully endorsed WA premier Mark McGowan: “The Australian government should heed these constructive opinions.” “Face up to and reflect on the crux of the setback in bilateral relations, abandon the Cold War mentality and ideological bias, earnestly uphold the