The too hard basket

Panda Baby

It would seem that in the West , we are fascinated by Chinese demand for what we can supply in the way of raw materials and energy. It helps our economy and our wealth.
China however has long term goals in mind as it tries too ensure that its insatiable appetite for energy and raw materials are met for the foreseeable future.
In her relations with the West, China has been maintaining and keeping up appearances. Low key, that is. So it's all tickety-boo as far as we are concerned. Loverly.

Our attention sadly is focused only on what we see and what interest us.

In South Easy Asia however, it;s a different story. There are a huge number of disputed areas which are causing some alarm among those countries confronting China over territorial and maritime disputed areas. China is beginning to flex its muscle more and more and reacting more aggressively in its response to disputed areas.

According to Wikipedia these are some of the following the following disputes involving China inter alia:-

1. Maritime boundary along the Vietnamese coast between Vietnam, China, and Taiwan
2. Maritime boundary in the waters north of the Natuna Islands between Indonesia, China, and Taiwan 
3. Maritime boundary north of Borneo between Vietnam, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, and Brunei
4. Islands in the southern reaches of the South China Sea, including the Spratly Islands between Vietnam, Malaysia, The Philippines, Brunei, Taiwan, and China
5. Maritime boundary off the coast of Palawan and Luzon between the Philippines, China, and Taiwan
6. Islands in the northern reaches of the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands between Vietnam, China, and Taiwan
7. Maritime boundary in the Luzon Strait between the Philippines and Taiwan, including islands.
8. The nine-dash line area claimed by China which covers most of the South China sea and overlaps Exclusive Economic Zone claims of Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Western defence experts are also becoming increasingly aware of China's growing maritime prowess. 

One of the troubles in becoming dependent on Chinese trade and wealth is that eventually we might be faced with a situation where we will be worse off in any argument with the rising power of the economic Mandarins. 

Hope we have the stomach for it when the time comes.

Bye,bye carbon tax

Clive's titanic bluff

It was rather a bizarre day yesterday where Clive Palmer seemed to take on a green mantle, greener, in fact,  than broccoli. Standing next to Al Gore, a dyed in the wool climate change advocate, Clive calmly outlined his proposals for the abolition of our existing carbon tax.

Thanks to Clive it would seem that any savings made by this abolition would be passed on to the consumer. (You wish!)  

Bruce Baird of NSW also seems to think that power cost reductions can be achieved by selling off electricity assets. Seem to recall the same being said of CTP insurance, many moons ago when it was privatised. Call me a skeptic but I've found that while costs may be cut for a nano second in the grand scheme of things, they rapidly increase once promises made become hazy in the mists of time. Costs are usually replaced by fees.

Of course Mr. Abbott is over the Abbey steeple with joy at Clive's willingness to join in the fray. Cheshire cat doesn't even come close! Morris West once described this state of euphoria as someone "on cloud nine talking jabberwocky".

Jabberwocky all of the above may be but there's no denying Clive has got what he wanted and come out of this looking squeaky clean, a white knight, firmly on the side of the struggling consumer.

Does this not raise questions about Al Gore's credibility. What the hell was he thinking?

One weighty critic called Clive a "prankster". In  days of yore he would have been considered to be a larrikin. Funny how things change.

Promises

Storing up trouble

 Acknowledgement for Alexsander  to Darren Walsh at Passion Pictures

You can fool some of the people all of the time, andall of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)

The current federal government appears to be heading for difficult times ahead. While it's true  that unpopular measures are passed in its early days hoping for a rebound prior to the next election, the current majority in Canberra seem determined to undermine public trust and confidence.

Cuts to education and welfare arts and broadcasting,  new /old tax increases and new costs as well as attempts to grab back listed heritage areas,  are all in the offing. The government has yet to get many of theses measures  through. While the  apparent success of halting asylum seekers or boat people seems to have been well accepted , there is a lingering sense of "something not quite right" in the state of Australia, particularly when compared to other civilised democracies.The current strategy of including Cambodia to our list of havens for "unwanted" people is a bit chilling. Cynicism abounds. To add to the mix our Attorney General  sees nothing wrong with rednecks being bigots.

In the past, our sights and goals were fixed firmly on betterment of living standards, the practice of democracy ,in deeds not just words,  and the  improvement in living conditions for the poorer, less fortunate countries of the world. Through globalisation of economies and trade agreements etc we were hopefully going to lift each other by the bootstraps and reach a sort of economic Nirvana. 

What appears to have been achieved, trying to achieve this, is an ever  increasing population,  thanks to higher medical standards, better economic conditions: with all of this  however we are faced with the problems of how to deal with the new reality. It appears that we set our targets without envisaging the consequences and then try to fix the problems by applying methods that are outmoded and hard to enforce.

One can’t help but get the impression that our current Prime Minister promised everything and kept his cards very close to his chest when electioneering. Cuts to welfare programs as well as  increased taxation and costs in other areas are being introduced and mooted on a regular basis. 

This in itself is not a problem, apart from the pain it imposes, but it leads to cynicism and disbelief in our current leaders. We continually  hear the argument that  “ we can’t have this with that” , when in fact the proponents of such an argument are really saying “ we can’t have that, only our way of thinking”.These are rather specious statements and are designed to justify a position.This is  a statement of belief; if you say something long enough and loud enough it becomes axiomatic.

It would be welcome to have, for a change, a forward looking bunch of parliamentarians who are willing to try to tackle our current problems in a way that benefits the majority not just the privileged, not only domestically but also overseas. That's where leadership lies. Probably too much to wish for.

                 

Semitic Semantics

Free-lance Attorney General (the very model of )

Catching cabinet as well as the Prime Minister, Tony Abbott who was in the U.S. at the time, George Brandis a  proponent of the Israeli lobby in Australia, took it upon himself to reclassify the occupied territories as disputed territories.
Arab and Muslim states are in an uproar over the reclassification while the government already under pressure  from within its ranks over certain budget measures,  is hunkering down trying hard

to present a united front and hoping the furore will die down.
George is fast becoming a  booby prize for the Libs, a loose cannon whose opinions seem rather unusual, if not strange,  in this day and age.

The Fairer (?) sex

No sex please, we're politicians.......

Clinton wasn't afraid to level criticism at the treatment of Julia Gillard during her term as Prime Minister. Her comments were cleverly phrased .It is obvious she is a diplomat and without mentioning names or being drawn into Australian politics was able to single out those who were guilty of unnecessary sexism.

Today it should be inconceivable that gender should continue to play such a discriminating role in our public as well as private lives.

Hubby Bill had a bit of bother keeping sex out of politics but in the end he seems to have been forgiven. Whether Ms Clinton can make it to the top remains too be seen but despite the  prejudice exercised in some quarters, Australia has had a female leader .