Australian taxpayers paid almost $20 million to sell the Port of Darwin to Chinese. By Anthony Galloway May 12, 2022 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...-sell-the-port-of-darwin-20220511-p5akc8.html Australian taxpayers forked out almost $20 million as an incentive for the Northern Territory to sell the Port of Darwin to a Chinese company, sparking Labor to claim that Prime Minister Scott Morrison actively encouraged the deal when he was treasurer. Chinese company Landbridge secured a 99-year lease of the port in a $506 million deal with the NT government in 2015. The move unsettled national security figures and led to then-United States president Barack Obama expressing concern about the outcome later that year. The Port of Darwin’s 99-year lease with Chinese company Landbridge attracted criticism since 2015.Credit:Glenn Campbell In Sunday night’s elections debate, Morrison said the federal government in 2015 did not have any authority to reject or approve the deal. “The federal government had absolutely no authority over that sale whatsoever,” he said. However, the federal government’s asset-recycling scheme offered millions of dollars to the NT government to sell the port. Under the scheme, states and territories were meant to receive 15 per cent of the price as an encouragement to privatise economically productive government assets. The final schedule for payment, signed by federal Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and then-NT Treasurer Nicole Manison in 2019, shows the Commonwealth agreed to pay the territory $18.56 million for the sale. The Foreign Investment Review Board in 2015 determined that it had no authority to examine the lease, but these laws were later changed to ensure a similar deal in the future could be reviewed. Morrison was treasurer at the time the port was sold to Landbridge, which is owned by Chinese billionaire Ye Cheng. Labor’s defence spokesman Brendan O’Connor said Morrison had “actively encouraged” the deal. “Scott Morrison likes to say it wasn’t his job to stop the Port of Darwin being flogged to a company with ties to the Chinese Communist Party,” O’Connor said. “His government had over a year to fix the foreign investment framework to deal with the sale. He also could have urged his Country Liberal Party colleagues in the Territory not to proceed. “But not only did he not stop it, he actually encouraged it. He gave the Country Liberal Party government nearly $20 million in incentives to privatise the asset.” The Coalition has been contacted for comment about the claim. O’Connor said: “Even our American allies chided Australia for the decision”. Michael Shoebridge, director of the defence program at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said both major parties should end the “war about what should have happened at the time” and instead focus on what to do about it now. “If both the major parties admit the port in Chinese hands is a bad idea, which is going to be the first to change that?” he said. “We’ve got bipartisanship that it’s a problem, and bipartisanship that they’re not going to do anything about it. And while it persists, we have a national security own goal. “Leaving that invaluable piece of harbour real estate in Chinese control means we can’t make the best use of it for ourselves, partners and allies at a time when that is a critical need.” Shoebridge said a $1.5 billion plan to build new port facilities in Darwin, backed by both the Coalition and Labor, was a “work-around” and would not address the core problem.
Bit of a bulldozer’: Morrison concedes he has to change approach By Angus Thompson Updated May 13 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/fed...e-has-to-change-approach-20220513-p5al1s.html Prime Minister Scott Morrison has conceded he will have to change his approach to governing if he wins the election after acknowledging he can be “a bit of a bulldozer”. The personal admission at a campaign event in the marginal Melbourne seat of Chisholm made way for Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese to position himself as a “builder” in direct contrast to the Prime Minister as someone who “knocks things down”........ ..................................... Say what you have to say Morrison, to stay in power with your rich cronies who don't give a shit about young people, just don't do anything other than protect your phony christian ass. BTW, Morrison, you are no bulldozer, bulldozers actually do something.
Cost of living forces record number of Australians into second jobs to stay afloat By National Regional Reporter Eliza Borrello Posted 7 hours ago Avoca couple Donna and Jarrod Hawker both work two jobs to support their family.(Supplied: Donna Hawker) A record number of Australians are working in multiple jobs to make ends meet as the rising cost of living bites into already stretched household budgets, according to job figures. Key points: An estimated 867,000 Australians were working multiple jobs in the December quarter The Australian Bureau of Statistics says it was the highest number of people working more than one job since it began keeping such records in 1994 Economist Angela Jackson says it suggests more people are likely in insecure jobs and trying to make ends meet Victorian mother-of-two Donna Hawker says she realised about five months ago that her family wasn't "getting anywhere" financially and that she would need to take on a second job. "I thought it's better to try and have another job and try and get ahead and save some sort of money," she said. The latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show the Hawkers are among a growing number of people juggling multiple jobs to keep up with the cost of living. An estimated 867,000 Australians were working in more than one job in the December quarter — more than at any other time since the bureau started keeping such records in 1994. Ms Hawker, who lives in Avoca, a small town just over two hours' drive north-west of Melbourne, works a couple of days a week as a disability support worker and recently took on extra work at an after-school care program. Mr Hawker also has two jobs, as a relief teacher and a casual farm hand........ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05...s-more-australians-into-second-jobs/101059996
This is what's so amazing... Australia would rank as one of the richest resource countries in the world, yet, like no better from a 3rd world corruptly governed country, so many people on struggle street, we have the big divide between rich and poor.
Yeah that's a problem in all resource countries. It's too easy to rest on exporting natural resources and not really develop any other industry. I think even Canada has that problem to an extent. What is the largest sector after natural resources in Australia? I think US was like that before the 1929 crash but the depression changed the old agriculture economy to an industrial one which explains the rise of industrial unions in the 1930s onward. That's why the employment report here is still referred to as non-farm payroll -- which is strange since there really aren't that many family run farms anymore. In the previous depression after the bubble of the gay '90s the US economy was primarily Agriculture & Steel (mainly Carnegie Steel).
Parasitic banks I believe, selling mortgages to investors and cash strapped homeowners, fleecing nigh on the whole Australian population with the backing of gummint. God!
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-...rison-hurts-partys-election-hopes-2022-05-13/ May 13, 2022 GMT+8Last Updated 4 hours ago Analysis: Hero to hindrance: Australia PM Morrison hurts party's election hopes By Kirsty Needham Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison attends the third leaders' debate at the Seven Network Studios during the 2022 federal election campaign, in Sydney, Australia May 11, 2022. Mick Tsikas/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo SYDNEY, May 13 (Reuters) - Three years ago, Scott Morrison's ebullient personality as the little known and newly installed leader of Australia's Liberal Party was a big factor in its unexpected election victory. Now Prime Minister Morrison's personality is a liability, with public attacks from members of his own party and polls showing his government on track to lose to the Labor Party in a general election next week. Confronting his unpopularity on Friday, he acknowledged being a "bulldozer" but said he would change after the May 21 vote. Morrison's standing has plummeted since mid-2020, when voters' satisfaction with him was 40 percentage points above dissatisfaction, to minus 14 points now, according to a Newspoll survey published by The Australian newspaper this week. "Voters know Morrison extremely well now, and they don't like him," said University of Canberra political historian Chris Wallace, who wrote a book about Morrison's 2019 win. "Voters now see him as a leader who dodges responsibility in times of national crisis and whose word cannot be relied on." Wallace said the unfavourable view was "reinforced by a series of damning character assessments by his own coalition colleagues" as well as leaked texts. In one text, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce called Morrison "a hypocrite and a liar", a comment for which Joyce later apologised. read more Wallace noted that French President Emmanuel Macron had said in November that Morrison lied to him about a submarine-building contract. Morrison responded at the time that he had never lied in his career as an elected official. read more Voter sentiment first fell in response to Morrison's handling of bushfires that killed 24 people and left thousands homeless. He took a family holiday to Hawaii in December 2019 during the crisis, for which he apologised. His popularity recovered briefly as COVID-19 hit but resumed its slide from mid-2020, Newspoll shows. Concetta Fiarravanti-Wells, a long-serving Liberal senator from New South Wales, Australia's most populous state, told parliament, "In my public life I have met ruthless people - Morrison tops the list." 'THINGS ARE GOING TO HAVE TO CHANGE' Morrison will not repeat his "miracle win", said John Warhurst, a professor of political science at Australia's National University. "In 2019 he was more fresh-faced as prime minister. Now the scars of the debate about integrity are there." Responding on Friday, Morrison said Australians had needed strength from him during the pandemic and this meant they had not seen other aspects of how he worked. "Australians know that I can be a bit of a bulldozer," he told reporters. "On the other side of the election, I know there are things that are going to have to change with the way I do things." In the final election debate on Wednesday, Labor leader Anthony Albanese echoed the most damning criticism from members of Morrison's own party and attacked his response to shortages of COVID vaccines and then rapid antigen tests. Morrison responded that he did not get everything right but that Australia's pandemic death rate was lower than that of other countries. He called Albanese a "loose unit" with no experience running the economy. The prime minister has been energetic in the campaign, said Warhurst, but he has stayed away from Liberal electorates in the biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne, where government MPs risk losing centre-right voters to a wave of mostly female independent candidates. In one such seat, Morrison did not attend Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's campaign launch. Morrison's office did not respond to Reuters questions on whether he has avoided campaigning in seats contested by such independents. Historian Wallace said Morrison had constructed an everyman image in 2019 that appealed to ordinary people when the opposition leader was disliked. But she said it will not work this time, when he is up against "a little known but benign opposition leader". Albanese told voters on Friday that Morrison "is saying vote for me and I will change. Well if you want change, change the government." Reporting by Kirsty Needham; Editing by William Mallard
When one is a christian, religously attending church regularly, where they fervently preach there is no end salvation for non christians, that their destiny is eternal hell, what that actually does is breed psychopath and sociopath personalities. I'm not surprised Morrison our prime minister is an apparent idiot incapable of leading, with a head stuffed full of nonsense.