Tuesday, November 26, 2019
Fears for safety of Chinese defector
Wang Liqiang, the alleged Chinese spy who defected to Australia, is in significant danger, warn experts. Wang, who the Chinese government say is being investigated for fraud, has made a claim for asylum and is staying at an undisclosed location in Sydney. John Blaxland, a security and intelligence expert at the Australian National University, told The Guardian “If I was his minders, I would be looking to double up on protection duties.” The concerns come after the death of Bo “Nick” Zhao in a Melbourne hotel room in March, after a Chinese espionage ring reportedly approached him to run for federal parliament. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age report that suspected senior Chinese intelligence operative Brian Chen, who is understood to have approached Zhao, also allegedly tried to infiltrate the CSIRO. The news comes as district council elections in Hong Kong delivered an unexpectedly heavy defeat to pro-Beijing candidates, with pro-democracy representatives sweeping nearly 90% of 452 district council seats.
Westpac scandal: Embattled Westpac chief executive Brian Hartzer has privately told the bank’s senior leadership that mainstream Australia did not care about the paedophile money scandal, and there was no need to “overcook” their response. The Australian ($) reports that in a closed-door meeting on Monday, Hartzner told executives that allegations Westpac facilitated millions of transactions connected with paedophilia, money laundering, and terrorism was “not an Enron or Lehman Brothers” level of scandal. He reportedly apologised for cancelling Christmas parties, explaining it would not “look good if we have our staff whooping it up with alcohol”. Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton on Monday said Westpac’s leaders had given “a free pass to paedophiles”. Westpac shares are under pressure, and the company is potentially facing more than $1 billion in fines, lost government contracts, as well as potential class actions.
Government blocks Labor FOI: The federal environment department has blocked a Labor freedom of information request to access emails regarding Angus Taylor’s use of false figures to critique the City of Sydney’s travel expenditure, reports Guardian Australia. The department claimed exemption from a freedom of information request lodged by Labor because they relate to an unspecified “ongoing process”. The emails were sent the day after the revelation of the controversy.
Assange supporters speak out: Former prime minister Kevin Rudd has said Julian Assange would pay an "unacceptable" price if extradited from the United Kingdom to the United States, where he faced decades in prison on charges of leaking classified diplomatic cables. Rudd joins a disparate group of Australian politicians to come out in defence of the Wikileaks founder, with actor and Assange supporter Pamela Anderson also in Australia to lobby politicians. More than 60 doctors on Monday put their names to an open letter saying they feared Assange's health was so poor he could die inside a British prison while awaiting extradition hearings.
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This week
What led to Victoria’s extraordinary shutdown
The Andrews government cannot identify any legislation it needed to override, but experts say that is the point.When Daniel Andrews signed a declaration for a state of disaster in Victoria at 1.43pm on Sunday, it was a part of a final salvo in a battle to control a resurgent and invisible enemy.
Super funds transformed by Liberal ideology
The Morrison government’s superannuation changes risk turning the scheme into ‘privately funded unemployment insurance’.
Opening the Ghislaine Maxwell files
New files ordered released in the Ghislaine Maxwell case reveal the depth of her involvement in child sex-trafficking offences that implicate Prince Andrew, the former leader of the US senate and others.
Murray–Darling could need Reserve Bank-style regulator
As the ACCC hands down its interim report on the Murray–Darling water markets, one architect of the current system says a Reserve Bank-like body is needed to manage the rights.
Wiradyuri conceptual artist Amala Groom
For Amala Groom, making art is a collaboration between herself and her Wiradyuri ancestors. Drawing on her history and culture, as well as her legal training, she seeks to subvert the colonial project. “Colonialism affects all of us … To be change agents we have to be inclusive, and Aboriginal culture is inclusive.”
Policing as part of the national psyche
There are two striking aspects of Australia’s response to coronavirus: the first is that it’s being increasingly led as a police issue, and the second is that this is happening while the rest of the world works to reform and curtail police powers. As other democracies talk about abolition, we’re sending armed officers into housing blocks and calling it public health.
Morrison backtracks on WA border closure
Scott Morrison keeps misreading the mood of a nation gripped by fear. Nowhere is this more obvious than his now-abandoned legal case against state border closures – or, to be more precise, against the lockouts in the Labor-governed states of Western Australia and Queensland. The Liberal-governed states of Tasmania and South Australia escaped his censure.
It was quite something to tune in to the first episode of Bunter and Georgina Downer’s geopolitical podcast, where they discussed the recent AUSMIN meeting, the upcoming United States presidential election and the future of war. Father and daughter get along famously as they take us on a wide sweep through the trickiest global thickets, with memos about Condoleezza Rice’s determination to play golf, China’s dominance in the rare earth market, Joe Biden’s “flaky” interviews, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, fishing quotas in British waters and Russia’s anti-satellite rocket program.
Andrew Bolt has made a career finding vulnerable people and devising new ways of punishing them. When you consider this, his views on the elderly are not surprising, just inhumane. Bolt doesn’t want the old to die, but he believes we overstate the tragedy of their deaths. “Note: 40 per cent of aged-care home residents die within nine months. The average stay is just under three years,” he writes. “So Victoria’s bans are doing huge damage to – essentially – save aged-care residents from dying a few months earlier.” Quixotically, the column is titled “How to save Victoria from the coronavirus”.
Could Adani drop its Qld mine and head to NSW?
As fossil fuel prices collapse, there is growing speculation that Adani might throw in its Carmichael operation to buy BHP’s massive Mount Arthur thermal coalmine instead.
Pandemic and inequality keys to November poll
Presidential candidates adjust convention plans due to Covid-19. US death toll passes 158,000. Democrat Joe Biden has lead in latest polls.
As a dark comedy about self-absorbed millennial killers, Search Party focuses heavily on the lies that bind. In doing so, it also tells a lot of insightful truths.
Bill watches Joyce gather the kids for a photo. He’s seated on the front lawn, next to the overgrown bougainvillea, an oxygen tank by his side, tubes to his nose. He watches Joyce arrange the children – their adult daughters who both turned up in striped jumpers and jeans. The two of them are laughing about the coincidence. Ratty sneakers too, which can apparently be edited out on the computer. Would a dress have killed them? But he should be kind. Mel and Jennifer kissed him fondly, and Jennifer even slipped him a half-pouch of Drum. Luke, always the youngest child, is doing that funny thing where he picks up one of the small children and plays them like a guitar. It may be their last photo, although nobody is saying that.
The beverage director for Andrew McConnell’s restaurants recommends her current favourite drops.
In August 1981, MTV began its very first broadcast with which song?
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