Australia’s war with the CCP deepens today, at The Australian: A Chinese company says it wants to build a new $39bn city with a major seaport, industrial area and free-trade zone on Papua New Guinea’s south coast, just kilometres from Australian territory. The “New Daru City” proposal will escalate concerns within Australian security agencies over
Sir Fomo McSpruikerson is an expatriate billionaire and proud proprietor of The Strayan, a vanity media project designed to boost his assets. Tanya Plibersek says the decision to hire full-time camera crew unrelated to ALP leadership aspirations Deputy ALP leader Tanya Plibersek has denied allegations that her recent decision to hire a full-time camera crew
I know our good PM has no empathy gene but this is just an effin disgrace. Why can’t we organise to bring home stranded Australians? 2,720 skilled migrants arrived in December. We flew in tennis players and international students. How hard is it to charter a few aircraft for Australians?
Via the always good for a laugh Global Times: Clouded by a deteriorating China-Australia relationship, Australian trade has gone through a year of ebb and flow, which needs objective and rational analysis instead of jumping to conclusions based on one final numerical trade balance. Held up by resilient iron ore export and its surging prices,
The rise and rise of Australian cowardice may seem like a strange topic for a macroeconomics website but it’s not. It is a very important social phenomenon with all kinds of implications. Back in the late 1990s, Professor Allan Patience wrote a seminal critique of Australiana: Cultural influences shape every facet of our daily lives:
Yesterday Captain Phil of the RBA declared about JobSeeker: “I’ve said on previous occasions that I would join that consensus. Whether the government decides to do that, it’s entirely up to them. It’s a government and fiscal policy issue. For me, it’s not really a macroeconomic management issue. It’s kind of a fairness issue on
Courtesy of an academic of course. At the AFR comes Percy Allan, economist and a visiting professor at the Institute of Public Policy and Governance, University of Technology, Sydney: …we must not forget that Australia targeted China before it targeted us. Blocked more than 100 Chinese imports using a dumping duty approach inconsistent with World
The Guardian is positive on vaccines: Voters think the Morrison government will be able to manage the rollout of Covid vaccines safely and effectively despite the obvious downside risks, and a majority believes an early election would be an act of opportunism, according to the latest Guardian Essential poll. The data also suggests that Labor has
I put it to you that this is the major reason that Scotty from Marketing is level pegging with a hapless and treasonous Labor today. Via The Australian: Scott Morrison says his goal is to reach net zero carbon emissions as soon as possible, preferably by 2050, but has declared his government will not “tax
I have noted many times how, strangely, it is often Beijing that acts in the Australian national interest versus Canberra. Prominent examples of this include cutting off the flow of Chinese capital into runaway house prices in 2016, overplaying it’s hand with bribery scandals in 2017 and the recent trade divorce based upon incompatible political
The cavalcade of China apologists continues to grow today. At Domain we have this: Australia’s former top diplomat says the government needs to approach China with “more nuance” and be wary of being drawn into a United States policy of confrontation with Beijing. Philip Flood, secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade between
A couple of charts from News: Good news for a besieged Albo. I’ve long held the view that, contrary to popular belief, hard times make opposition difficult and recovery brings opportunity. If the latter holds this year and ScoMo goes to an early election who knows what contest may emerge?
This is what happens when the Game of Mates takes precedence of public policy. Previously from Ronisalt: Goodness. The Director of Government Affairs at Scott Morrison’s suddenly favourite new drug company AstraZeneca is former federal govt lobbyist Kieran Schneemann. He’s also a former Chief of Staff in the Liberal party. Not that there’s anything wrong
At least he has a sense of humour. Albo has a new team, same as the old team. Via The Guardian: Reshuffles are always a window into the psychologies of leaders and the parties they preside over, and Thursday’s Labor reshuffle tells us Anthony Albanese knows he has a fight on his hands, and not just against
Sir Fomo McSpruikerson is an expatriate billionaire and proud proprietor of The Strayan, a vanity media project designed to boost his assets. Australian government unveils COVID exemption for rich wankers The Morrison government has unveiled a new “COVID passport” designed to fast-track wealthy people through the proletarian hassle of hotel quarantine. With over 30,000 Australian
The post-truth world is a strange place: This week, a strange little coterie calling themselves the ‘Australia Day Foundation UK’ dusted off an old Word template and created a nice certificate for Rupert Murdoch in time for today’s Australia/#InvasionDay controversies. But what is the Aust Day UK Foundation you ask? pic.twitter.com/DOUlrMQeIL — RonniSalt (@RonniSalt) January
Via Crikey: According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Labor leader Anthony Albanese is set to drop long-time climate and energy spokesperson Mark Butler for health spokesperson and Labor Right member Chris Bowen. Butler, who served as Australia’s last climate change minister after that portfolio was abolished by Tony Abbott, would then take on the health portfolio. However it is unclear what will
The blunders just keep piling up for the dictator. Having already spiked higher Australia’s terms of trade with his trade war on himself, now the problem is food. Via the anti-Australian rabble at SCMP: Despite warnings that Chinese authorities might block Australian wheat amid an escalating political row, wheat exports to China surged last month,
From Albo last week: ALBANESE: I wrote to the Prime Minister last week suggesting that he engage with former Prime Ministers Rudd and Howard, both of whom have significant relationships with China and as well, of course, Kevin Rudd has significant relationships with the incoming Biden Administration as well. It’s very clear that when Australian jobs
Via Crikey: This weekend brought a lot of heated bluster from old media (and its political representatives) about Google’s supposed threat to democracy. In Senate hearings on Friday, Google Australia head Mel Silva confirmed the company would pull the search engine from Australia if the federal government hurried ahead with its mandatory news bargaining code
More desperate kowtowing from Labor today: Labor leader Anthony Albanese has urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to enlist former prime ministers John Howard and Kevin Rudd to help end the economically damaging stand-off with China. With no end in sight to Beijing’s deliberate targeting of Australian imports, and the government seemingly bereft of solutions, Mr
Let’s get the cards on the table. I am a progressive, small “l” liberal who believes in free markets, free trade, firm regulation where it makes sense such as finance, strong public funding where it makes sense such as education, infrastructure and health and free people plus the freedom of speech. It’s not complex, is
Via ITNews: The federal government has expanded the scope of Australia’s fledgling permanent migration scheme for highly-skilled technologists after tripling the program’s intake for this financial year. The change is contained in new direction for the two feeder visas used for the ‘Global Talent Independent’ (GTI) program – subclass 858 and subclass 124 – quietly
Don’t listen to what they say, watch what they do, at AFR: Andrew Forrest contracted the potentially deadly COVID-19 virus while globe-hopping in pursuit of renewable energy projects for his Fortescue Metals Group and spent several days in a Swiss hospital receiving high-level care. Why is Australia’s richest man risking life and limb flying around
So says Bloomie: Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE built the case that their Covid-19 vaccine will protect against the new variant of the coronavirus that emerged in the U.K. with results of another lab trial. Like previous work out of the University of Texas Medical Branch, the results published on Wednesday showed that antibodies in
Via The Australian comes another useless sop to the gas export cartel: Scott Morrison has struck a two-year deal with large east-coast LNG exporters to offer uncontracted gas first to Australian companies, in a bid to keep prices down and lower costs for manufacturers as part of the government’s COVID-19 recovery plan. But the deal,
As China delivered Australia a list of 14 demands to end our democracy, Albo had this to say: Labor leader Anthony Albanese has sharpened criticism of Scott Morrison’s handling of the China relationship, suggesting he is unnecessarily causing offence, as the US and British governments both condemned Beijing over its smear of Australian soldiers. With
I wanted to write about this one last week but lost the time. At SMH: The Premier was also probed about incentives to encourage Australians to get the COVID-19 vaccination, with the rollout to begin as early as next month. One of those incentives includes refusing anti-vaxxers entry to certain high-risk venues such as pubs
Via Gottiboff: First, Australia needs to recognise that it is not all China’s fault. In past years we have behaved badly and contributed to the current situation. At the same time China is now a different country and is ruled by a strongarmed dictator plus the Communist Party. Not surprisingly “The Art of War” offers
Via The Australian: A union-commissioned poll showing the ALP faces the loss of two seats in its political heartland at the next election has prompted a senior CFMEU official to call on Labor to dump Anthony Albanese as party leader. With speculation increasing that an election could be held in the second half of the
