The China syndrome

WAR OF WORDS

In developments that in no way eerily recall the pre-credit sequence of a dystopian thriller, the meeting of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with his counterparts in the United States and Britain — to make further announcements about the AUKUS military treaty, explicitly as a deterrence to an increasingly assertive China — has been the occasion for some extremely bellicose talk from all sides.

Hours before meeting with Albanese, The Australian ($) reports British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gave a speech saying China was a country with “fundamentally different values to ours” that had become “increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive abroad” and posed an “epoch-defining systemic challenge”. The UK needs to be “ready to stand our ground” in a world where “competition ­between states becomes more ­intense”, he added.

Meanwhile, China’s President Xi Jinping gave a speech setting out his country’s “national humiliation” by Western colonial powers and promised to build the People’s Liberation Army into a “great wall of steel” to protect China’s “national sovereignty” while promoting “reunification of the motherland”. This is fine, probably, right? Notably, The Australian Financial Review ($) reports that Australian politicians have been on “a huge diplomatic offensive to calm regional concerns” about AUKUS, set to continue with Albanese’s planned visit to Fiji on his way home from the US.

Still, Albanese’s moves to “scale up” his government’s AUKUS commitment compared with the government he inherited it from is getting predictably positive coverage in the Nine papers ($) that spent last week week getting very amped up about the “red alert” sounded by China’s posture in the region. Albanese is merely following Australian Defence Force advice, “that the nation must have a more powerful submarine fleet, and this means nuclear propulsion”.

[free_worm]

TO THE VICTOR NO SPOILS

Senior (and departing) NSW Liberal minister Victor Dominello has told Four Corners about how gambling lobby group ClubsNSW forced him out of the portfolio regulating gaming: “[There should be] an inquiry or some other examination to make sure that MPs are not cowed into moving a certain way because of this powerful industry. For the sake of our democracy, I really believe that this is an issue that the next term of government should address.”

Last night’s episode also aired footage of Troy Stoltz, a terminally ill whistleblower, recorded while he was both unsure of how long he had left and under a court-mandated gag order preventing him from criticising ClubsNSW. Three years ago, Stolz had leaked a confidential board paper revealing that up to 95% of clubs were failing to comply with anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing rules. The case has since been settled, but the treatment of Stolz by his former employer was enough to prompt Delna Dugdale, a former corporate governance trainer for the lobby group, to come forward with her own revelations. “It was common knowledge that clubs didn’t comply [with anti-money laundering rules],” she said. “We heard first-hand from people in the gaming rooms that this stuff did happen. And when they did report it, a lot of times no action was taken because the person concerned could be one of their top gamers.” The coming NSW election and the debate around gaming in the state has loosed a veritable avalanche of horror stories around gambling — including the harrowing story of Richard Moananu, whose gambling addiction lead to the deaths of an expectant mother and her unborn twins.

FIRE AND BRIMSTONE

United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres has addressed the international experts and officials who have gathered for a week-long meeting in Switzerland to finalise the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, saying the work “could not come at a more pivotal time”. He said: “Our world is at a crossroads — and our planet is in the crosshairs. We are nearing the point of no return, of overshooting the internationally agreed limit of 1.5 degrees Celsius of global warming.”

World leaders are set to meet at the annual world climate conference in Dubai at the end of the year, and Guterres urged that they be provided with “solid, frank, detailed scientific guidance to make the right decisions for people and planet”. Australia’s record on responding to climate science is… mixed, so let’s see how it goes under the new government.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

In words that will no doubt one day spring from the mouth of a character in a heart-warming and unbearably twee British comedy about an underdog eccentric, a shockingly prolific manuscript thief has told a court he did so because he “wanted to keep them closely to my chest and be one of the fewest to cherish them before anyone else, before they ended up in bookshops”.

Filippo Bernardini was arrested at JFK airport in January 2022, and pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud in New York a year later after the theft of more than 1000 manuscripts, including work by Margaret Atwood, Sally Rooney and Ian McEwan. During his time working as a rights coordinator in London for Simon & Schuster (not implicated in any of his crimes), Bernardini would impersonate agents and publishers over email to get his hands on unpublished works from writers and their representatives.

In his statement, published last week in The Bookseller, he “felt a special and unique connection with the author, almost like I was the editor of that book” and never intended to leak them. He will be sentenced in Manhattan Federal Court on April 5. He has agreed to pay a fine and his lawyers are asking that he be sentenced to time served.

SAY WHAT?

SVB is what happens when you push a leftist/woke ideology and have that take precedent over common sense business practices. This won’t be the last failure of this nature so long as people are rewarded for pushing this bs.

Donald Trump Jr

Reinforcing his reputation as the dumb man’s Donald Trump Sr, Donald Trump Jr extols the theory that Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse — the most significant US bank collapse since the global financial crisis — is down to the company having an LGBTQIA+ policy.

CRIKEY RECAP

Inside China’s LGBTQIA+ re-education camps: survivors claim shock treatment and beatings

Tom Canetti

Mar 13, 2023

46

“Members of China’s LGBTQIA+ community claim they have been sent to government-sanctioned re-education camps. Some say they spent years in the camps and experienced forced conversion therapy, a controversial process of attempting to coerce queer people to become heterosexual.

“Survivors tell Crikey conversion therapy was carried out in ‘militarised camps’ where they claim they suffered forced electric shock treatment, beatings and other abuse. Some say they were kidnapped and brought to the camps; others escaped, only to be shunned by their families to live in fear and solitude.”

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What does ‘Waltzing Matilda’ tell us about robodebt and modern Australia?

Maeve McGregor

Mar 13, 2023

80

“Any long gaze in the mirror … reflects a nation that is predisposed to despise most welfare recipients, preferring to see their condition in life as somehow born of choice rather than unfairness, misfortune or the lottery of birth. It’s for this reason it’s neither the ‘welfare crackdown’ itself nor its targets which now inspires some to retrospectively stare at their shoes; it’s purely the unlawful manner in which it was executed.

“All of which suggests a thorny question: how did we, as a nation, arrive at a juncture where the underlying failure of robodebt is considered more official — in the sense of bureaucratic incompetence, lies and malfeasance — rather than morally reprehensible?”

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‘No factual basis’: fake anti-trans letter published by Katherine Deves’ ex-campaign manager

Cam Wilson

Mar 13, 2023

“A Tasmanian council has debunked claims made in an inflammatory anti-trans letter published by an editor who was formerly controversial Liberal candidate Katherine Deves’ campaign manager.

“Last Tuesday, Launceston newspaper The Examiner published a letter to the editor that claimed a trans woman undressed in front of children in a women’s changing room at a local aquatic centre. When parents complained to the council staff running the centre, the author said, they were told there was nothing they could do and were given a life ban.

“The City of Launceston immediately disputed the claim.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Lauren Cranston, daughter of ex-ATO deputy commissioner, found guilty over role in $105m tax fraud (ABC)

BBC backs down and reinstates presenter Gary Lineker (The Sydney Morning Herald)

Michelle Yeoh wins best actress award, making Oscar history (Associated Press)

ASIC pursues ‘several’ super funds for greenwashing, expects court action (AFR)

Ukraine war: heavy losses reported as battle for Bakhmut rages (BBC)

Former Liberal leader Bill Hassell blasts plans for party to host Ken Wyatt at a pro-Voice event (The West Australian)

Monash University study: scale of sex assaults in domestic violence relationships unknown (Herald Sun)

Federal Greens will keep $76,501 in donations from fossil fuel investors (The Sydney Morning Herald)

THE COMMENTARIAT

The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank reveals cracks in a system that leans on government bonds — Ian Verrender (ABC): “The irony of it all. Unlike the debacle surrounding the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto kingdom FTX late last year, the sudden demise of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) last weekend has its origins at the other end of the financial spectrum.

“This wasn’t down to the unruly behaviour of a gang of undisciplined and inexperienced tech geeks who had deluded the world, and themselves, into believing in the fantasy of a new financial paradigm. Instead, the sudden implosion of SVB has its roots in a desire to be uber cautious, by investing in the ‘safest’ of all investments: US government treasuries.”

Famous Five sensitivity cuts take our kids for fools — Claire Harvey (The Australian): “Why do Dick, Julian and ‘tomboy’ George get to rappel into disused mine shafts and confront robbers who’ve hidden stolen jewels in a tree hollow while Anne stays back at the campsite and launders everyone’s pullovers? Well, we all know why. It’s because Anne was created as a character in 1942, back when little ladies were expected to be helpmeets and handmaidens, neat and tidy, compliant and competent.

“So do we stop listening? Do I tweet my outrage at this and demand that publisher Hachette change the books? No. No! Instead, I make much of my outrage. I groan and fix the kids in my rear-vision mirror gaze, and I say: ‘You know what I’d say if I were Anne? Get stuffed, Dick. Wash up your own dishes!’ “

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Nationwide

• The annual NAPLAN assessment begins tomorrow, with 1.3 million students set to take the test across the country.

Eora Nation (also known as Sydney)

• Author Saul Griffith and innovator Veena Sahajwalla to deliver keynotes at Schneider Electric’s Innovation Summit in Sydney.

• Ukrainian ambassador to Australia and New Zealand Vasyl Myroshnychenko is scheduled to give the keynote speech at the Customer XLR8 cyber security conference.

• Destination NSW chair Sally Loane and Vivid Sydney Festival director Gill Minervini will unveil the Vivid Sydney 2023 program.

• The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) NSW branch will be joined by an alliance of peak bodies to launch their new report that sheds light on the crumbling state of NSW’s mental health system.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• A public hearing of the Select Committee on Australia’s Disaster Resilience.

Kulin Nation Country (also known as Melbourne)

• A public hearing of the Workforce Australia Committee investigation into the employment services system.