Britain Has Delusions of Grandeur, Says Former Australian PM Paul Keating

Ben Wallace and Liz Truss visited Australia over the weekend to discuss China’s influence over the Indo-Pacific region | BIANCA DE MARCHI/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
THE TIMES: A former Australian prime minister has mounted a scathing attack on Britain, saying Australia’s oldest ally suffers from “delusions of grandeur and relevance deprivation”.

Paul Keating, who left office in 1996, said the UK was led by a “disreputable government” and labelled Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, as “demented”.

Keating, 78, who succeeded Bob Hawke as Labor prime minister in 1991, released his statement on Sunday after Scott Morrison’s government hosted Truss and Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, in Sydney as the allies work to counter China’s influence in the region.

Keating’s attack was prompted by an interview Truss gave to the Sydney Morning Herald in which she said China could replicate a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine through aggression in the Indo-Pacific region. » | Bernard Lagan, Sydney | Monday, January 24, 2022 [£] *

The Times currently has a special offer for new subscribers. New subscribers can gain full access to the newspaper for the first month free.

What have I been saying all along? Exactly this! Thank you, Mr. Keating. Thank you for saying the truth. – © Mark

'Alone Out Here' : A Gay Farmer on Love, Isolation, and Disrupting the Meat Industry in Australia | The New Yorker | Re-upload

Jun 9, 2021 • In “Alone Out Here,” by Philip Busfield and Luke Cornish, an Australian rancher who is openly gay in a conservative industry fights to reduce carbon emissions through his cattle farming.

Australian Republicans Claim Majority Now Want to Abolish the Monarchy

The Duke of Edinburgh and the Queen in Perth in 2011, her last trip to Australia. Her long reign is thought to be increasing support for the monarchy | LINCOLN BAKER/POOL/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
THE TIMES: Australian republicans say that the majority of the public support ditching the British monarchy and have proposed a new system to elect a head of state.

In the proposal, called “the Australian Choice”, each of the country’s nine parliaments would nominate a candidate who would then be put forward to a national vote.

The Australian Republican Movement said that the system was designed to produce a list of distinguished Australians from whom the public would choose a replacement for the British monarch. “People don’t want a Trump-like figure and they don’t want Shane Warne [the cricketer]. They want an eminent person,” Peter FitzSimons, a former rugby player who is chairman of the movement, said on Wednesday. » | Bernard Lagan, Sydney | Wednesday, January 12, 2022 [£]

Australia's 2021 Sydney New Year Celebrations

First Fires, Then Floods: Climate Extremes Batter Australia

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Many of the same areas that suffered through horrific bush fires in 2019 and 2020 are now dealing with prodigious rainfall that could leave some people stranded for weeks.

WEE WAA, Australia — Two years ago, the fields outside Christina Southwell’s family home near the cotton capital of Australia looked like a dusty, brown desert as drought-fueled wildfires burned to the north and south.

Last week, after record-breaking rains, muddy floodwaters surrounded her, along with the stench of rotting crops. She had been trapped for days with just her cat, and still didn’t know when the sludge would recede.

“It seems to take for bloody ever to go away,” she said, watching a boat carry food into the town of Wee Waa. “All it leaves behind is this stink, and it’s just going to get worse.”

Life on the land has always been hard in Australia, but the past few years have delivered one extreme after another, demanding new levels of resilience and pointing to the rising costs of a warming planet. For many Australians, moderate weather — a pleasant summer, a year without a state of emergency — increasingly feels like a luxury. » | Damien Cave Photographs and Video by Matthew Abbott | Saturday, December 11, 2021

Black Market Tobacco Floods Australian Market

Mar 3, 2016 • As cigarette prices have risen, illegal tobacco or chop-chop is being imported into the country in increasing amounts. The Feed went undercover with Customs to see how hard it was to buy.

Australia: LGBTQ Advocates Blast Religious Discrimination Bill

BBC: Australia has introduced a new controversial bill aimed at protecting religious people from "cancel culture".

Among other things, it would allow Catholic schools the right to fire teachers or expel gay students in the name of "religious ethos".

Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the Religious Discrimination Bill, if passed, would ensure protection for religious people and organisations, like churches, to express beliefs.

Critics say it is "deeply unbalanced".

Introducing the bill on Thursday, Mr Morrison said it aimed to protect people's "statements of belief" as long as it was not "harassment, vilification or intimation of anyone."

But Australia's Human Rights Law Centre said the bill fails to "fairly balance the right to equality with the freedom of religion".

Human rights and LGBT groups have also warned the law would instead grant licence for people to express bigoted views.

The law also authorises people to express derogatory or harmful comments in a workplace, school and health setting, the human rights group said. » | BBC | Thursday, November 25, 2021

In Full: Paul Keating Addresses National Press Club of Australia

Nov 10, 2021 • Former prime minister Paul Keating addresses the National Press Club discussing Australia's strategic framework and its role in the Indo-Pacific.

In his address, Mr Keating gave a scathing assessment of Australia's defence decisions regarding the Indo-Pacific region.

His remarks come after Australia scrapped a $90 billion French Naval Group submarine contract in favour of nuclear submarines in alliance with the United Kingdom and United States.

French Officials Vent Fury over Australian Leak of Macron Text Message

THE GUARDIAN: Confidence shattered by ‘crude’ leak of president’s message to prime minister Scott Morrison, says adviser

Emmanuel Macron, the French president, had texted Australia’s prime minister to ask whether he could expect good or bad news on their submarine deal. Photograph: John Thys/AP
Elysée officials have expressed fury at the decision of Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, to leak a private text message from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as the diplomatic rift between the two countries deepened.

“Confidence has been completely shattered,” a close adviser to Macron told French media on Tuesday. “Disclosing a text message exchange between heads of state or government is a pretty crude and unconventional tactic.”

The adviser told Le Parisien that it “would never even enter the head” of the French president to disclose communications of this kind. “It is not the kind of thing that is likely to improve relations between France and Australia,” they said.

In the text, two days before the announcement of the Aukus security partnership and the cancellation of a major French contract to supply submarines to Australia, Macron asked Morrison whether he could expect good or bad news on the submarines.

Its publication came after Macron told reporters he “knew” that Morrison had lied to him over plans with the US and the UK to acquire nuclear-propelled submarines. Morrison rejected the claim and said he was “not going to cop sledging of Australia”. » | Jon Henley in Paris | Tuesday, November 2, 2021

Crise des sous-marins : l'entourage de Macron en colère après la fuite d'un SMS au premier ministre australien : Le chef de l'État aurait envoyé : «Dois-je m'attendre à de bonnes ou de mauvaises nouvelles pour notre ambition conjointe sur les sous-marins ?» à Scott Morrison. »

Macron Accuses Australian PM of Lying over Submarine Deal

THE GUARDIAN: French president criticises Scott Morrison and expresses scepticism that Aukus pact will deliver on schedule

Emmanuel Macron at a press conference during the G20 summit in Rome. Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images
Emmanuel Macron has accused the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, of lying to him over an abandoned $90bn submarine contract, in a significant escalation of tensions between Paris and Canberra.

The French president levelled the accusation in impromptu comments to Australian journalists on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Rome. He said he had a lot of “respect and friendship” for Australia and Australians, but respect between nations needed to be reciprocated.

“I just say when we have respect, you have to be true and you have to behave in line and consistent with this value,” he said.

When asked whether he thought Morrison had lied to him by not revealing Australia’s secret dialogue with the UK and US over the acquisition of nuclear submarines – a dialogue that ultimately became the Aukus pact – Macron was direct in his response. “I don’t think, I know,” he said. » | Katharine Murphy in Rome | Sunday, October 31, 2021

Emmanuel Macron estime que le premier ministre australien lui a «menti» sur les sous-marins : Interrogé par un journaliste australien en marge du G20, le président de la République a redit son sentiment d'avoir été trahi dans ce dossier. »

Shocking Practices Exposed in Australia’s Cosmetic Surgery Industry | Four Corners

Oct 25, 2021 • A joint investigation between Four Corners, The Age and Sydney Morning Herald reveals alarming surgical practices at some of Australia’s most popular cosmetic surgery clinics.

Those clinics are owned by dermatologist-turned-cosmetic surgeon, Dr Daniel Lanzer. With millions of followers on social media, he is one of the most popular cosmetic surgeons in the world.

But some patients say that behind the hype, there’s a very different story to be told: one of physical and mental scarring after surgery at Lanzer clinics.

The investigation also reveals how the regulatory system in Australia is failing to protect patients from the devastating consequences of cosmetic surgery gone wrong – all while the industry continues to flourish.


Viewer discretion is strongly advised. This very disturbing report is not suitable for children or for the squeamish. – Mark

Escaping Jehovah's Witnesses: Inside the Dangerous World of a Brutal Religion | Four Corners

Sep 13, 2021 • Former Jehovah's Witnesses are fighting back against a religion that failed them. They know they'll lose their loved ones for doing so.

Few know the extreme nature of the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses, a religious group which boasts eight million followers in multiple nations.

They take a strict interpretation of the Bible and predicted the world would meet its ‘wicked end’ in 1914, 1925 and 1975.

A US-based Governing Body of eight men sits at the pinnacle of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organisation. Witnesses believe these men are anointed as the voice of God on Earth.

Former members reveal the secretive practices used to instil fear and maintain discipline among followers.

With strict rules governing every aspect of their lives, these former Witnesses say the organisation is controlling and dangerous.

They say it's time to hold the Jehovah's Witnesses to account.

How the Final Days of Trump's Presidency Brought America to the Brink of War | 60 Minutes Australia

It’s hard to believe but former president Donald Trump is eyeing off the 2024 presidential election. Many thought his return to the White House was dead in the water after the criminal and chaotic Capitol riots, which killed five people after the Trump mob bought his false claims that the election was rigged - but that was a blip and it looks like it’s just the start of a resurgence. Bob Woodward is the legendary journalist whose Watergate reporting brought down former President Richard Nixon. In his latest book Peril with the Washington Post’s Robert Costa, he reveals in the dying days of the Trump presidency the US stood on the brink of democratic collapse.Trump’s behaviour was so dangerous that there were concerns he would drag the world’s foremost superpower into a war with China. But just how close did it come to that? It was closer than you think...

Australian MP Proposes to Partner during Same-sex Marriage Debate in Parliament

Dec 4, 2017 • Tim Wilson proposes to his partner during his speech on marriage equality in the House of Representatives. The Liberal MP's voice breaks with emotion as he says: 'There's only one thing left to do: Ryan Patrick Bolger, will you marry me?' Bolger, seated in the gallery, beams and says yes and his answer is marked in the Hansard

‘Someone Lied’: French Foreign Minister Accuses Australia of Submarine Betrayal in Latest Broadside

THE GUARDIAN: Jean-Yves Le Drian says Australia reassured France everything was fine right up to the day the Aukus pact was announced

Jean-Yves Le Drian has told a French parliamentary hearing that Australia never expressed doubts about the submarine deal before breaking the contract. Photograph: Reuters
France has accused Australia of lying shortly before Canberra cancelled a major submarine contract, with the French foreign minister declaring “someone lied”.

With no sign of any imminent easing of tensions between the two countries, Jean-Yves Le Drian told a parliamentary hearing that Australia had never expressed doubts about the €56bn (A$90bn) submarine contract or the strategic Indo-Pacific pact before breaking the contract.

“Everything I have told you is confirmed by the letter I received on 15 September from the Australian ministry of defence that said everything is OK let’s continue,” Le Drian said.

The French foreign minister said this suggested “someone lied”. He added: “Something doesn’t add up and we don’t know what.” » | Kim Willsher in Paris and Daniel Hurst in Canberra | Thursday, September 30, 2021

Furious French Defence Contractor to Seek Compensation over Aukus Deal

THE GUARDIAN: Head of Naval Group attacks Australia’s ‘political’ decision to cancel €56bn contract with his firm

Australia has signed up to an empty promise by agreeing to a US nuclear powered submarine deal for which there is no clear delivery date or technology transfer agreement, the furious head of the French defence contractor Naval Group has warned.

Pierre Eric Pommellet also said his firm will be seeking compensation for Australia’s cancellation of a €56bn (£48bn) contract for 12 new Attack-class submarines, which he described as a purely political decision which came without warning.

His comments to Le Figaro were the latest allegations that Australia’s decision to replace the French contract with the Aukus deal with the UK and US was political rather than defence-based. Australia has implied that the contract cancellation followed a new assessment of the security threat posed by China.

Pommellet said the only tangible point of the proposed new contract “is the decision to acquire nuclear powered boats. When, how, with which partners, which technological transfer? No one knows. Australia, on the other hand, knows what it is losing and what we were committed to building.”

He added: “At Naval Group … we had no warning sign or the slightest information that we were becoming a plan B in favour of a plan A with the United States and the United Kingdom.

“Discussions between these two countries and Australia have undoubtedly been conducted in a very small circle at the highest political level for several months.

“This decision was announced to us without any notice, with incredible brutality.” » | Patrick Wintour | Thursday, September 23, 2021

Crise des sous-marins : le président de Naval Group rompt le silence »

Earthquake in Australia Forces Hospitals and Residents to Evacuate

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The 5.9-magnitude quake damaged buildings in Melbourne, but there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths.

Damaged buildings along Chapel Street in Melbourne after an earthquake on Wednesday. | Asanka Ratnayake/Getty Images
THE NEW YORK TIMES: The 5.9-magnitude quake damaged buildings in Melbourne, but there were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths.

MELBOURNE, Australia — A magnitude 5.9 earthquake hit southeast Australia on Wednesday morning, damaging buildings and forcing hospitals to evacuate staff members and patients. It was an unusually large quake in a country less susceptible to major temblors than neighboring countries.

There were no immediate reports of serious injuries or deaths, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said at a news conference from New York, where he was attending the U.N. General Assembly.

It was the largest onshore earthquake in the state of Victoria in recorded history, according to Adam Pascale, chief scientist at the Seismology Research Center. And it was the largest land earthquake in the country since 2016, when a 6.1-magnitude temblor hit the Northern Territory, according to Geoscience Australia.

The quake on Wednesday collapsed the walls of buildings in Melbourne, Australia’s second-largest city and the capital of Victoria. It forced residents to flee apartments, shattered windows, left cracks in roads and led to power outages.

Photos and videos shared widely on social media show a damaged building in Melbourne, with bricks spewed across the street. » | Yan Zhuang | Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Australia Is Making a Risky Bet on the U.S.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, center, with, by video link, President Biden, right, and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain, in Canberra, Australia, last week. | Mick Tsikas/EPA, via Shutterstock
OPINION: GUEST ESSAY
THE NEW YORK TIMES: The United States did not directly mention China in announcing its historic new security partnership with Australia and Britain last week, but it didn’t have to. The defense deal is a clear escalation and indication that Washington views Beijing as an adversary.

It also has thrust Australia into a central role in America’s rivalry with China. After hinting at a more self-reliant defense posture for the past several years, Australia’s government is now instead betting big on the future of its alliance with the United States with the new pact. Australia seems to be assuming that America will remain engaged in Asia for the long haul and will be prepared to face down China if necessary — but it shouldn’t.

The crux of the partnership, called AUKUS, is an agreement for the United States and Britain to share their technology to help Australia deploy nuclear-powered submarines. But this is no ordinary arms agreement, nothing like exporting fighter jets or howitzers. Only a handful of nations have nuclear-powered submarines, and Australia will be just the second country, after Britain, to benefit from the top-secret U.S. technology.

Why is Australia worthy of such favorable treatment? It’s not just that it is one of America’s oldest and closest allies. It’s that for many American observers of China’s increasingly aggressive behavior, Australia is also the canary in the coal mine for great power competition with China. » | Sam Roggeveen | Monday, September 20, 2021

Aukus: France’s Ambassador Recall Is ‘Tip of the Iceberg’, Say Analysts

THE GUARDIAN: Aukus pact announcement ‘puts a big rift in Nato alliance’ for France, says former UK ambassador

The French foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, has described the Aukus security pact as a ‘stab in the back’.Photograph: Jens Schlueter/AP
France’s historic decision to recall its ambassadors to the US and Australia is far more than a diplomatic spat, analysts have warned.

The move, in protest at Canberra’s surprise decision to cancel an order for French-built submarines and its security pact with Washington and London, will affect France and Europe’s role in Nato and already strained relations with the UK.

French officials have accused Australia, the US and the UK of behaving in an underhand, duplicitous manner that has betrayed and humiliated France.

“This is far more than just a diplomatic spat, the withdrawal of ambassadors is the tip of the iceberg,” Peter Ricketts, a former permanent undersecretary at the Foreign Office and former UK ambassador to France, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“There is a deep sense of betrayal in France because this wasn’t just an arms contract, this was France setting up a strategic partnership with Australia and the Australians have now thrown that away and negotiated behind the backs of France with two Nato allies, the US and UK, to replace it with a completely different contract.

“For the French this looks like a complete failure of trust between allies and calls into doubt what is Nato for. This puts a big rift down the middle of the Nato alliance … Britain needs a functioning Nato alliance.”

Ricketts added: “I think people underestimated the impact that this would have in France and how this would seem as a humiliation and betrayal in a year President Macron is running for election in a very tight race with the far right.” » | Kim Willsher | Saturday, September 18, 2021

The nuclear option: why has Australia ditched the French submarine plan for the Aukus pact? : Just two weeks before the bombshell, senior ministers from both countries met and declared they were ‘committed to cooperation’. How did it all go so wrong? »

A Gay Farmer on Love, Isolation, and Disrupting the Meat Industry in Australia | The New Yorker

Jun 9, 2021 • In “Alone Out Here,” by Philip Busfield and Luke Cornish, an Australian rancher who is openly gay in a conservative industry fights to reduce carbon emissions through his cattle farming.