Monday, November 09, 2020
Biden victory divides Republicans
US President-elect Joe Biden has vowed to unify America in his election victory speech, despite President Donald Trump and top Republicans refusing to concede defeat. To a chorus of cheers and car horns at a drive-in rally in Wilmington, Delaware, Biden declared he would be “a president who seeks not to divide, but to unify.” As Trump continued to make baseless claims of election fraud, top Republicans including Senator Lindsey Graham and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy urged him to continue the fight. Senator Mitt Romney and former President George W. Bush are among the Republicans to congratulate Biden on his victory. Biden did not mention Trump in his speech. Instead he made a direct appeal to Republican voters, urging both sides of politics to stop treating each other as “enemies”. His arrival on stage was preceded by a speech from Kamala Harris, the first woman, Black American and South Asian American to be elected vice president, who paid tribute to the women and particularly women of colour who paved the way.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison joined a raft of world leaders in congratulating Biden on his election win. Morrison also thanked Trump for his “commitment to this part of the world”. The ABC reports Morrison intended to send an invitation to Biden to visit Australia for the 70th anniversary of the US-Australia alliance next year. Morrison rejected calls from Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese to contact Trump and urge him to concede, describing such an idea as “divisive”. Morrison said it was a time for America’s democratic institution to finalise the process “and for us to move on with the important work, because there are so many challenges whether here in the Indo-Pacific when it comes to world trade, or dealing with the global pandemic and the global recession."
Australians visiting Centrelink offices waited 30 per cent longer on average in the past financial year compared with 2015-16, reports Guardian Australia. Although the figures include the first half of 2020, in which the unemployment rate spiked due to the coronavirus pandemic, almost all Centrelink offices had fewer people through the doors in 2019-20 compared with four years earlier, when waiting times were lower. Services Australia’s past annual reports show the number of Centrelink offices had fallen to 326 in 2019-20, a reduction of 24 since 2015-16.
The increasing rate of Covid-19 cases overseas will strain Australia's hotel quarantine system and increase the chance of “leakage” into the community, according to leading epidemiologists. The number of positive cases in New South Wales hotel quarantine has doubled in the past two weeks. University of NSW epidemiologist MaryLouise McLaws urged a transition away from hotel quarantine to national quarantine facilities set up outside city centres. “We really need to start getting returning Australian residents into spaces away from centrally populated cities such as Sydney and Melbourne,” she said. “If the numbers of positive return travellers become so high, without a purpose-built environment, without really good airflow change, without high-level trained staff, there will be a spillover and it will go into the community.” The federal government recently indicated it intended to scale up Darwin's Howard Springs Facility to process about 1000 international travellers a month.
|
This week
How Australia’s leaders are preparing for climate change
While the Biden presidency pushes forward international climate action, both the Morrison government and its Labor opposition are fractured over emissions policy.After a hiatus caused by coronavirus, the twin issues of climate change and energy have resumed their place, secured over two decades, as the most intractable and dangerous in Australian politics.
Andrews budget wedges Morrison on aged care
After Victoria was ravaged by a second wave of Covid-19, Premier Daniel Andrews has targeted his state’s budget to address the crisis’s key drivers: insecure work and aged care.
The Woodville Pizza Bar incident
As South Australian Premier Steven Marshall promises to ‘throw the book’ at a student who allegedly misled contact tracers, epidemiologists fear a punitive response could undermine efforts to trace and contain future outbreaks.
Doubts raised over ADF reports
Amid the Brereton report’s findings that military reports have been ‘routinely embellished’, the IGADF is reassessing concerns raised by David Savage, a civilian who sustained serious injuries during a suicide bombing in Afghanistan in 2012.
At 31, Kendall Feaver continues her brilliant career with her new adaptation of Miles Franklin for Belvoir. “I’m wary of black-and-white thinking … I’m interested in the ‘why’. Why is this fracture happening? Why is this so divisive, so deeply felt and fought over?”
Why we need a feminist foreign policy
Seventy-five years ago, Australia committed to a rules-based international order. Our continuing commitment to that order is based both on pragmatism – the peace and prosperity it has provided; and on principle – the ‘fair go’ that the rules-based order promises. The problem with continuing to champion that order, however, is that it may not offer a ‘fair go’, but rather entrench privilege.
Can Australia’s relationship with China be healed?
China’s ‘Wolf Warrior diplomacy’ is proving more than a menacing howl for Australia, and what to do about it seems beyond the gumption of the Morrison government. It is one thing for the prime minister to dismiss a list of grievances from the Chinese embassy in Canberra as ‘unofficial’, but it is an entirely painful reality when they are accompanied by unofficial trade bans and restrictions on about $6 billion of Australia’s yearly exports.
Citizens have been kicking up a dreadful fuss about Mathias Cormann spinning around Europe in an RAAF jet while lobbying to land his well-padded backside on the top chair at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in not-so-gay Paree. The Belgian Waffle (hat tip, Mike Carlton) has been clocking up $4300 an hour for taxpayers as part of this global pocket-moistening tour. The Europeans have been warned that Cormann may not be all he seems – despite what passes for an Australian charm exercise.
Scott Morrison’s response to climate change is to take off his pants. It is not yet summer and his office has released pictures of him dressed for press conferences from the waist up. Below his jacket are a pair of shorts and rubber thongs.
Population decline and the economy
Australia’s fertility rate is the lowest it has been in history. While successive governments have paid scant attention to this, Covid-19 has made the issue more urgent than ever.
Kylie Moore-Gilbert released after 804 days in Iranian prison
Key White House appointments announced by Joe Biden. Solomon Islands leader looks to ban Facebook. Benjamin Netanyahu flies to Saudi Arabia for meeting on normalisation.
Behind the dad jokes, Queensland Theatre’s The Holidays is an ambitious play about family connection through dark times.
The moments of delightful surprise in The Crown are smothered by its refusal to permit uncertainty.
The president wanted to make the call herself, but as a committee we felt this was risky. She saw her place in history, the first human to make direct contact with an alien civilisation; we saw a diplomatic catastrophe. Even if she managed the conversation without incident, it would be seen as an unforgivable insult by China, a declaration of war by the Americans. In the end, she was only convinced by our doubt. We insisted that it could all turn out to be a hoax, that her name might become synonymous with failure, a shame that would endure for generations. Eventually, she saw our point.
The pharmaceutical supply chain – from raw ingredients to the bathroom cabinet – is a complicated science in itself. The onset of Covid-19 has also highlighted how fragile it can be.
Bats are mammals of what order beginning with ‘C’?
Test your general knowledge with our weekly quiz.
Take a stand
while sitting down.
Subscribe to The Saturday Paper
for less than $2 a week.
