Albanese lauds ‘successful’ China visit, Coalition calls it ‘indulgent’
ALBO NOT INTERESTED IN CHINA TRIP COMPLAINTS
Six days is a long time if you’re a prime minister making an international trip — or a morning newsletter writer and the same story leads the news each day.
Next week federal politicians are finally getting around to turning up at Parliament House for the first sitting since the May election. The new faces, the striking size of Labor’s majority visible in the House of Reps, the government’s new bills, the actions of the Coalition, Greens and everyone else, and the endless gossip will no doubt dominate each day. So while we brace for all that, let’s check in on Anthony Albanese and his trip to China one last time, shall we?
The prime minister leaves China today after visiting Beijing, Shanghai and Chengdu, meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Qiang, holding endless lunches aimed at increasing trade and cooperation, while also batting away questions over topics like Taiwan and what the Trump administration thinks of the visit. As always, my colleague Bernard Keane’s latest piece (see below) on the folly of the obsession with America by the media and defence establishment is worth your time.
Yesterday, opposition finance minister James Paterson told Sky News he thought the prime minister including trips to the Great Wall of China, a panda sanctuary, and a tennis complex was “starting to look a little bit indulgent”. “The appropriate time to do a nostalgic history tour of Labor Party mythology is after you retire, in your own time, at your own expense, not on the taxpayer dime,” Paterson added.
As Guardian Australia highlights, Albanese didn’t have a lot of time for such remarks. “Those pictures go to 27 million people potentially in Australia, they go to over a billion people in China,” the prime minister said. “And those billion people represent people who increasingly are rising up the income ladder and are potential tourists and therefore job creators in Australia. If James Paterson doesn’t understand that, then he doesn’t understand much. And quite frankly, I think the latter applies.”
The site also flags Coalition leader Sussan Ley said she wished the prime minister well on his six-day trip to Australia’s biggest trading partner, but was “disappointed” Albanese didn’t receive assurances over live-fire exercises by the Chinese military.
The Nine papers also decided to run with the Coalition complaining the trip had not delivered tangible benefits, flagging Nationals Senator Bridget McKenzie had “expressed disappointment about a lack of progress on the Port of Darwin sale, release of Australians in Chinese prisons, and the presence of Chinese navy forces off Australian shores earlier in the year”.
Undeterred, Albanese was very keen to tell everyone exactly what he thought of the Coalition complaints as they came in yesterday, stating: “If you compare the difference of this visit with the failure of the Coalition during the last term, during the term in which I was opposition leader, they didn’t have a phone conversation between a single minister in Australia and our major trading partner.”
SBS News reports Albanese reckons he’s had “a very successful visit” and that it has presented “an opportunity to have constructive discussions across the range of issues, security, our relationship, including people-to-people, and importantly, our trade”. The prime minister said President Xi had been “warm and engaging”, adding: “We have had four bilateral meetings, but have also engaged at other times as well on an informal basis. That’s a positive thing.”
The Australian Financial Review flags Albanese was asked if he could trust President Xi, to which he replied: “I have no reason [not to trust him]. Nothing that he has said to me has he not fulfilled.” The Australian reports the prime minister summed up the relationship between the two countries as: “Will there be a circumstance when there is no disagreements? No, because we have different political systems, we have different cultures, we have different values. What I’d like to see is to be able to talk about those issues regularly, get as much agreement as possible, but [also] understanding of where our nations are coming from. Out of understanding can come greater cooperation.”
Meanwhile, the ABC points out Albanese wore a Hawthorn Football Club shirt on the final day of his China visit. His Rabbitohs hat had been generating a fair bit of attention before then, as my colleague Charlie Lewis documents here.
PARLIAMENT RETURNING, FINALLY
The Nine papers and the ABC include within their China trip coverage previews of what we can expect when federal parliament finally returns next week.
The former reckons the government’s relationship with the erratic Trump administration will be a main theme of next week, as well as the plans for free childcare and cutting university fees.
The Conversation (see The Commentariat below) points out that as well as the bill to cut student debt by 20%, the government will also be introducing measures to strip funding from childcare centres that do not meet safety standards, following the recent allegations from the Victorian childcare sector.
No doubt the economy will also be referenced by all sides, with the government’s productivity roundtable just around the corner and the Treasury FOI blunder that saw the ABC reveal the government has been told it won’t hit its housing target and will have to raise taxes.
There has been plenty of commentary on that Treasury advice this week, with some suggesting Treasurer Jim Chalmers won’t actually mind that information being out in the public domain as he tries to push through reforms. The 47-year-old said he was “relaxed” about it all.
Yesterday, we discovered Australia’s unemployment rate rose to 4.3% last month, up from 4.1% in May. As the ABC points out, the data comes hot on the heels of the Reserve Bank’s controversial decision to hold interest rates last week.
Abhijit Surya, senior Asia-Pacific economist at Capital Economics, is quoted by the national broadcaster as saying: “The sharp rise in unemployment in June makes the RBA’s decision to leave rates on hold earlier this month look like a policy error.”
And Callam Pickering, Asia-Pacific economist at job site Indeed, quipped: “The RBA’s decision to leave rates unchanged felt misguided in the moment and has aged like milk.”
ON A LIGHTER NOTE…
How would you like to own a 12ft by 11ft knitted map of Ireland? If your answer is “hell yeah”, then you’re in luck — a knitting group in County Wicklow is looking for someone to take their enormous creation.
The only caveat is that they would like it to be put on public display, the Press Association reports. “We don’t really mind, whoever wants it is welcome to have it, but we would love to see it in a public place, somewhere that it can be viewed and give everybody an opportunity to see it. We’re open to whoever wants to take it,” group member Mary Blake said.
“I’m so excited to see it finished and would like others to see it too. It would look great in one of the airports.”
The news agency reports the group of up to 18 women met every Wednesday at Carnew Community Care Centre, where they would come up with historical sites and landmarks across Ireland they could sew and knit together.
“Some people sewed, some people crocheted, and some people sewed things together. One of our ladies is going to be 90 next year and I’d say the youngest person we have is over 65,” Blake added.
“It gives people a purpose. We also knit blankets for local hospitals. We were all really excited to take part in this project and seeing it finished was amazing.”
Say What?
A great ambassador for China and a great friend of Australia.
Anthony Albanese
The prime minister was referring to a panda named Fu Ni.
CRIKEY RECAP
Australia’s defence establishment and media have a bad case of Trump Derangement Syndrome over China
What’s really changed is in Washington — and how Donald Trump has made life increasingly uncomfortable for the adherents in Australia of an ever-closer alliance with the United States. And that describes the bulk of our defence and security establishment, which is in turn relied on by our commercial media as their key source for guidance on geopolitical issues. Not that this isn’t coloured by other issues, of course: News Corp’s relentlessly pro-US line reflects the fact that it is a US company and its local outlets are activists for US interests, while its deep hatred of Malcolm Turnbull means it reflexively attacks any commentary from the former prime minister on an issue like AUKUS, even when News Corp’s own foreign policy editors know that the military pact is a debacle.
But it is our pro-American defence establishment that dictates what constitutes bien pensant thinking around Australia’s strategic policies in the media. Unfortunately for them, Trump is busy wrecking the entire image of the United States carefully crafted over generations by its advocates here: that of a benign force for democracy, stability, free markets and shared values.
Google ends fact-checking funding in Australia after letting AAP FactCheck deal expire
Google will no longer fund fact-checking in Australia, with the tech company choosing not to renew its partnership with Australian Associated Press (AAP)’s fact-checking team.
Google joins Meta in retreating from funding fact-checking in Australia, with the Mark Zuckerberg-founded social media company expected to let its contracts with publishers expire early next year.
These decisions come amid a US-led political backlash against fact-checking, and Google signing new deals with publishers under the threat of the Australian government’s proposal for a news bargaining incentive.
Minns’ meat, Climate 200 bowls for Boele, and Crikey places a hex on the Irwin family
For more than a quarter century, Crikey has been so uniquely Crikey. But it’s been drawn to our attention that there is another: Crikey!, a quarterly publication from Australia Zoo — owned by Terri Irwin, the widow of Steve Irwin — that has credited itself as “the world’s WILDEST magazine”.
Presumably named after the family patriarch’s globally known catchphrase, Crikey! appears to have functioned as the propaganda arm of the Irwin industrial complex. It’s filled with glossy photos and fawning coverage of Robert and Bindi, and includes nary a word examining the governance of Australia Zoo nor scrutinising its opaque expenditure.
We sent Crikey!’s editor Luke Reavley a list of questions about what kind of operation he’s running there, but have yet to hear back. But rest assured, Crikey — the real Crikey — will not rest until we expose this pretender. There can be only one.
READ ALL ABOUT IT
Trump, 79, had emergency heart tests because of swollen legs (Daily Beast)
Man who won $600m from Albanese for PNG rugby league embroiled in corruption scandal (The Age)
How the NSW Liberals have become snared in the Mark Latham scandal (The Sydney Morning Herald)
UK plans to lower voting age to 16 in landmark electoral reform (CNN)
ChatGPT is changing the words we use in conversation (Scientific American)
THE COMMENTARIAT
The jobless rate is up. Over to you governor Bullock — John Kehoe (AFR): The surprise rise in the unemployment rate to 4.3% will naturally put scrutiny on the Reserve Bank of Australia’s shock decision not to cut interest rates this month.
With the benefit of hindsight, the RBA monetary policy board probably would have cut rates immediately had it known hiring was slowing down and the jobless rate had risen from the 4.1% recorded in May.
The jobs market, which has been tight and making it challenging for employers to secure workers, now appears to be gradually loosening.
New parliament presents traps for Albanese and Ley — Michelle Grattan (The Conversation): The government has a mix of legislation to introduce in this initial fortnight. Albanese promised during the campaign that Labor’s first cab off the rank would be its commitment to cut student debt by 20%. It also foreshadowed early action to cement penalty rates.
It didn’t anticipate having to rush in a bill to strip funding from childcare centres that do not meet safety standards. This follows the recent revelations of abuse.
The first parliamentary fortnight comes in the run-up to the government’s August 19–21 productivity roundtable (named by Chalmers the “economic reform roundtable”). With expectations inevitably exploding, observers will be watching closely the dynamics between the treasurer and the prime minister in parliament.
