Via The Australian: Centre Alliance senator Rex Patrick wanted the government’s intention on gas in writing before he offered his party’s support for the full tax cut plan. Senator Patrick told The Australian the document detailed the measures of the government’s gas plan and the timetable in which they would be rolled out “over the next few
Cry infrastructure! Via Domain: NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet says the federal government should follow the state’s lead and provide “equitable funding” for critical projects such as Sydney’s Metro West to boost the economy. Mr Perrottet said comments by Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe that Australia should not “rely on monetary policy alone” were an endorsement
Via The Australian: Senator Griff said discussions with the government on measures to reduce gas prices, which the minor party had called for in order to support the entire tax cuts package, were “progressing very well”. An east coast gas reserve is one policy being considered, as well as a modification to the Australian Domestic
Via the AFR: Senior EY officers held secret talks over the weekend about the controversy around the hiring of former defence minister Christopher Pyne, while on Monday Labor and key crossbench senators moved to offer support for a parliamentary inquiry into the role. The Australian Financial Review has been told that the big four consulting
Pansy Albo has no idea what he is doing. Via the New Daily: Anthony Albanese has been urged to “regain the faith” with tradies and workers earning six-figure salaries by backing tax cuts as fears grow the Prime Minister Scott Morrison will “name and shame” MPs if they block tax relief. The New Daily has
Via The Saturday Paper comes perhaps the the guy who most embodies why Labor lost the unlosable election: John Howard once called himself the Liberal Party’s most conservative leader. His successors, however, have outdone him. Scott Morrison and Tony Abbott are easily more conservative than Howard, who has now slipped to bronze on the ranking
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. Speaking to The Australian Financial Review on the
On Transparency International’s Corruption Index, Mozambique ranks 158 out 180. Australia ranks 13. Yet this: Africa is taking the lead in the next phase of global LNG mega-projects. 2019 will shatter previous records for the industry. Rystad Energy forecasts that LNG greenfield investment in 2019 will reach nearly $103 billion, the biggest investment year for the
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. Precise details remain tightly guarded but senior defence and federal government figures concede the proposal may risk angering China even though
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. China has decided, without fuss, and on a step-by-step basis, to punish us for our bad behaviour. They have chosen to target our soft underbellies
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. The Coalition has refused to hand over costings
From Abul Rizvi, former Deputy Secretary in the Department of Immigration, at Inside Story: Morrison government’s $158 billion tax cuts. A lot has been said since the election about the politics of the cuts, with Labor under intense pressure from sections of the media to pass the necessary legislation, but less about what they reveal
A taste of the future for those so enthusiastic about embracing China as Australia’s new hegemon: Ha!!! Watch this chinese Foreign Ministry fool explain what happened in Hong Kong (with chinese characteristics). This revisionist version is a bit too soon for everyone to forget what really happened. #HKexit #lies #NoExtraditionToChina pic.twitter.com/0pxLMY1fgW — Kyle Bass (@Jkylebass)
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”. This nonsense statement reflects the weird attachment the bureaucracy has to making these absurd claims about the Chinese economy. Let’s be clear: the US economy
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. Under the proposal put forward to Resources Minister Matt
Lol, this is so Borgesian that I simply do not know where to look. Via Jennifer Duke of Domain who traveled to Shanghai as a guest of Huawei: Shanghai: Huawei will push for a meeting between the Chinese behemoth’s top Australian executives and newly appointed Communications Minister Paul Fletcher to heap pressure on the government
A protest of three, via the ABC: Three of the nation’s media bosses are demanding greater protections for whistleblowers and journalists, in a rare show of public unity prompted by recent police raids. Last month, the Australian Federal Police (AFP) searched the home of News Corp political journalist Annika Smethurst and the ABC’s Sydney headquarters,
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. Stirling Griff, who with Centre Alliance colleague
It’s the great Aussie foreign policy tradition. When we come to a fork in road between the US and China we take it. In his first major speech today comes ScoMo: “Trade tensions have escalated. The collateral damage is spreading. The global trading system is under real pressure,” the Prime Minister will say in a
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. “Either everyone will export, or no one,” as Supreme Leader
Overreach. It’s always fun to watch. Via the AFR: Prime Minister Scott Morrison has vowed to slash government red tape to unlock investment and opened the door to industrial relations reform, challenging business to make the case for change and to deliver “shared gains” for workers and employers. In his first major domestic policy speech
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’. This will have important strategic consequences for Australia. The Indo-Pacific strategy report released this
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. Santos is spending $3 billion developing 850 coal seam gas wells in north-western NSW, and
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. …Cooper Energy, which is building the Sole gas project off the Victorian coast, said a reservation policy would
Via John Hewson today: Our positions on China virtually blow in the wind. It seems we simply hope to muddle through, rather than to develop and respond in terms of a well thought out and defined longer-term strategy on our relations with China. This, in itself, undermines our credibility in Chinese eyes, a nation that
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? In the same breath, some local cognoscenti lament the Australian government’s weakness in barely mentioning the troubles in the Chinese
Not that you’d know it from the LNP cheer squad: The government is piling pressure on Anthony Albanese to pass its full tax cut agenda when parliament resumes in July, with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann declaring the Opposition Leader would be holding on to “the politics of envy’’ rejected at the election by not backing
Witness the businomics ideology go to work. At The Australian: Debt across Australia’s states will explode by more than $100 billion, as governments boost spending on infrastructure and public servants at the same time their budgets are being sideswiped by weak GST revenue, slowing economic growth and plunging stamp duty revenue. An analysis of this
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. Remind you of anything? The package of budgetary measures – the cash splashes and shovel-ready capital works – designed mainly by Treasury’s Dr
Last week I finally got around to watching Pine Gap, the ABC’s excellent geopolitical drama series. It is a terrific primer on the facility, as well as Australia’s position in the melting down relationship between the US and China. But it is also a terrible failure. After six episodes (spoiler alert), it culminates in a
