From The Australian: West Australian Premier Colin Barnett is facing his first leadership challenge after eight years in power after former transport minister Dean Nalder said today he would nominate if a spill motion is put forward at a Liberal Party meeting on Tuesday. It is expected that one of Mr Nalder’s colleagues — some
The corruption of Australia rolls on at The Guardian: A former South Sudanese army general has been thrown into the spotlight after it was revealed he paid $1.5m for a home in Melbourne’s south-east despite earning just A$60,000 a year. The revelation comes in the first report released by The Sentry, an investigative organisation founded
From The Australian: In a statement to The Australian, a spokesman for China’s embassy in Canberra said his country was surprised and disappointed with “some US senior official’s comments on China” and that such “unfounded allegations” were echoed through the media. “We noted that some people always love to give lectures like a preacher about
It makes for horrible reading at The Australian as Pauline Hanson’s pure racism wrecks the population debate: Malcolm Turnbull and Islamic leaders have united to reject Pauline Hanson’s call for a ban on immigration and her claim in the Senate last night that Australia was being “swamped” by Muslims and could soon be ruled by
From Laura Tingle today: In an interview with The Australian Financial Review to mark his first year in office, Mr Turnbull said the government’s singular focus from now until the next election would be on the budget and economic reform and that he would not be distracted by such issues as same-sex marriage. …”Important issue
From Pauline today: The second first Pauline Hanson speech is on tonight. This morning, she was doorstopped in the press gallery. If we keep heading down the path of selling our land and our houses and everything, we will be swamped by the Chinese. They talk about there is a smaller amount than other interests,
From Paul Kelly: In an exclusive interview, the departing US ambassador to Australia, John Berry, said foreign donations were illegal in America, and the US had been “surprised” by Chinese money power in this country and wanted Australia to resolve the issue. “It is an entirely different matter when the government of China is able
From The Guardian: South Australia’s premier, Jay Weatherill, has hit back at criticism from prominent businessmen of the federal government’s decision to build French-designed submarines in Adelaide. A group of businessman, including Dick Smith and John Singleton, took out a full-page advertisement in the Australian on Tuesday describing the decision as “astonishing” and potentially a
As I noted last week at The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves. The US-listed, Washington-based
From the AFR comes Reg Howard-Smith, chief executive, Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia: It is Grylls’ plan to skyrocket the cost of operating in Western Australia for BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto by slugging them with an additional tax of $5 per tonne of iron ore on top of all the fees,
From The National Interest comes Richard Fontaine, president of the Center for a New American Security and recently served as the inaugural Alliance 21 Fellow at the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre: A senior U.S. Army officer recently generated headlines on both sides of the Pacific by highlighting the strategic and economic challenges facing Australia
As I noted last week at The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves. The US-listed, Washington-based
From The Australian today comes Newspoll with two party preferred unchanged at 50/50: But the PM’s satisfaction rating is still sliding: Though he’s still up on preferred PM: There’ll be no real pressure until TPP slides. And given he has no policy agenda to drive it lower that may take a while, from Domainfax: The
From the AFR: The Business Council of Australia is in talks to engage Liberal powerbroker and husband of Peta Credlin, Brian Loughnane to make its business agenda more relevant, following stinging criticism over the role of the premier business group in the federal election and the push for a corporate tax cut. Former Liberal Party
Bob Carr made a fist of defending himself at The Australian over the weekend: Some of the commentary unleashed in the past week has been a defamation of this successful Chinese diaspora. …None of us knows the character China will assume domestically — it could be a transition like Singapore’s (or Taiwan’s, or South Korea’s)
As I noted last week at The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves. The US-listed, Washington-based
The Pascometer has wandered onto new territory today in tackling international relations and Australia’s relationship with China: The fallout from Sam Dastyari’s entitlement and stupidity is considerably greater than his unimportant political career. The immediately obvious stuff is the embarrassment for Labor, the gift for the government, the impetus for a federal ICAC (if either major party had
Prime Minister Tony Abbott is out with a sweeping policy reform package to donations, from Domainfax: Former prime minister Tony Abbott has outlined a sweeping plan for reform of Australia’s political donations system that would ban payments from unions, companies and overseas donors. …While opposition leader in May 2013, Mr Abbott backed out on a donation
From Domainfax: The committee Malcolm Turnbull insists is the best way to reform Australia’s political donations system has not been formed, has not been asked to examine the issue and routinely had its past recommendations ignored. …Independent MP Andrew Wilkie said on Thursday he would introduce a private members’ bill to ban all foreign donations
The FT has given Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull top billing in its G20 wrap: As befits a gathering deservedly known for having a high ratio of words to actions, the G20 wrapped up its meeting last weekend with a strong but ill-defined call to make globalisation and capitalism work for the good of all. Malcolm
As I noted earlier this week at The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves. The US-listed,
From Sam Dastyari viaDomainfax: Senator Sam Dastyari has stood down from the Labor frontbench amid a political storm over personal payments he received from Beijing-linked donors and comments he reportedly made supporting China’s position on the South China Sea. He said while he disclosed the two payments on parliamentary registers, he was stepping down as
From Treasurer Morrison The Turnbull Government today released Australia’s first report from the Agricultural Land Register, delivering on our commitment to increase scrutiny and transparency in Australian agriculture. The Land Register shows foreign investors hold just 13.6 per cent of all Australian agricultural land. The United Kingdom is Australia’s principal source of investment in agriculture
I like Sam Dastyari. He has more balls than most. But he’s put them in a Chinese sling and he has to go, from The Australian: Labor senator Sam Dastyari has apologised for accepting money from Chinese companies amid fresh revelations the Yuhu group, which paid a $40,000 legal bill for the frontbencher, has formal
Being a blogging skeptic and policy critic I am always amused when I read rating agencies assessments of political economy like that offered recently by Moody’s: Very strong institutional and policy framework. Australia’s monetary policy and banking regulation and supervision are vigilant and responsive to economic and financial conditions. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has
As I noted yesterday, from The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to giving the green light or blocking key foreign investment moves. The US-listed, Washington-based
This morning I defended the second track diplomacy activities of Bob Carr’s Yuhu Group funded think tank but the AFR is not so kind: Research from a Beijing-linked University of Technology, Sydney think tank was used to justify the decision to sign the free-trade agreement with China and join the Asian Infrastructure Bank in parliamentary debates.
In the land of policy rent-seeking it’s not easy to find new lows but today we have one, from The Australian: Foreign Investment Review Board chairman Brian Wilson has accepted a role as adviser to the $180 billion private equity giant, the Carlyle Group, potentially putting the former investment banker in conflict when it comes to
In a case of true Kafkaesque synchronicity, the Turnbull Government has moved to strengthen its regime against foreign bribery, everywhere except Australia, from Domainfax: The federal government will hire a new team of specialist anti-corruption investigators in Perth after a series of revelations in Fairfax Media about high-level foreign bribery, including at WA mining company Sundance Resources.
From the AFR: Labor Senator Sam Dastyari pledged to respect China’s position on the South China Sea at an election campaign press conference he held with a Chinese political donor who had previously paid his legal bills. …The Coalition has accused the senator of destabilising Australian foreign policy in making the comments as they contravene
