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      Trump 'penned political suicide note' at every Covid press conference, former Australian PM says

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      The former Australian prime minister John Howard has said Donald Trump penned a lengthy “political suicide note” with his “terrible” handling of the coronavirus pandemic, without which the Republican would have prevailed against Joe Biden.Howard, who led a conservative Coalition government for nearly 12 years, made the remarks on Wednesday night during a question and answer session at the Menzies Research Centre at the conclusion of a lecture delivered by the former National party leader John Anderson.“If Donald Trump had handled the pandemic half-decently he would have won the election,” Howard said.“He was headed towards a victory until the pandemic hit. It was his mishandling of that because, in the end, the public, when threatened, want their leaders to defend them against the threat.”Howard said competent public health responses had increased the popularity of political leaders across Australia.“That’s why Scott Morrison has very high approvals, Gladys Berejiklian has, our friend [Mark McGowan] in Western Australia has, and even our friend in Victoria [Daniel Andrews] is surviving – he’s more than surviving, politically, he is quite perpendicular at the present time,” the former Liberal leader said. “Now part of that is a perception that difficult as it all was, and so forth, he got the show through.”Howard noted that Andrews, the Labor premier in Victoria, had been “open to a lot of political attack”.“I know this is not a political occasion so I shouldn’t join in that attack,” he said.“But I think there’s something to be said for the proposition – and this is an optimistic thing in a way – that the side of politics in America that embraced identity politics far more, namely the Democratic party side, sure Biden won, but given how appallingly Trump handled the pandemic how could he not win?“Every time [Trump] had a news conference he was penning a political suicide note.”Howard, Australia’s prime minister from 1996 to 2007, said Trump’s handling of the pandemic was “terrible” but still the Republicans did “far better than many people expected” in Congress.Anderson’s lecture to the Liberal-aligned thinktank on Wednesday night railed against “wokeness” and identity politics.Despite Biden’s resounding victory both in the electoral college and the popular vote, Howard said he detected a backlash in “middle America” which prevented the Democrats from gaining control of the legislature.“I draw a little bit of encouragement from that, not in a partisan sense – I am more sympathetic to the Republicans than I am to the Democrats – but I think probably there was a middle America rejection to be found in that election outcome, notwithstanding the fact that [Biden] won and I think you are starting to see it reflected in Biden’s choice of people who will serve in his administration – they are not as leftwing and embracing of political correctness as you might expect.”Anderson agreed with Howard’s thesis and declared the media in Australia and the US were preoccupied with characterising Trump as a “terrible person” rather than analysing his policies.The former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister did not reflect on Trump’s habitual lying while in office or the scandals that ultimately defined his presidency.Anderson noted that an “astonishing” number of Americans voted for Trump despite the mismanagement of Covid-19. Howard said in response to that observation: “He did have a number of flaws.”And Anderson said the looming runoff election in the state of Georgia was “a very important runoff for the globe – I mean what happens in American politics at this point in history is probably as important to us as what happens here”.“I’m so motivated by what I see as the real potential for us to lose our freedoms,” Anderson said. “I’m so despairing at our lack of, am I allowed to say, manning up.”After deciding he should instead say “humanising up” – “there’s a touch of wokeism in everyone” – Anderson concluded by stating that when it came to the defence of freedom “it’s all hands to the wheel”. More

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      Scott Morrison congratulates Joe Biden on US election win and flags Australian visit in 2021

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      Scott Morrison has signalled he would invite Joe Biden to visit Australia for the 70th anniversary of the Anzus treaty in 2021 as he congratulated the Democrat for winning the US presidential election.
      Morrison told reporters that Canberra would continue to deal with the Trump administration during the transition period but looked forward to working with Biden from January.
      The Australian prime minister described the former vice-president in the Obama administration as possessing a “deep understanding” of national security issues, including the importance of the post-war alliance to ensuring peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific. The Anzus treaty between Australia, New Zealand and the United States was signed in September 1951.
      “I look forward to inviting the president-elect to join us next year … and for us to be able to celebrate 70 years of peace and stability and security that has been established by this incredible relationship,” Morrison told reporters on Sunday.
      “This is a profound time, not just for the United States, but for our partnership and the world more broadly and I look forward to forging a great partnership in the spirit of the relationships that has always existed between prime ministers of Australia and presidents of the United States.”
      Biden’s election will increase diplomatic pressure on Australia to step up its commitments on climate change.
      The incoming president has promised that America will rejoin the Paris agreement and will reach net zero emissions by 2050. Biden has also signalled he will take steps to reinvigorate global efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
      Morrison has been emphasising that Australia will take a technological approach to emissions reduction, and the Coalition is thus far resisting pressure to sign up to a net zero commitment by mid-century despite being a signatory to the Paris agreement.
      While some in the Liberal party feel the Coalition needs to turn the page on the climate wars the National party will resist moves to increase ambition around abatement.
      Asked about Biden’s commitment to net zero, Morrison said Australia was a signatory to the Paris agreement “and that is something we hold fast to”.
      “We have a strong story to tell about our achievement when it comes to commitments on the global stage,” he told reporters.
      “I also particularly welcome the comments that were made during the campaign by vice president Biden, at the time, when he showed a lot of similarity to Australia’s views on how technology can be used to address the lower emissions challenge.
      “We want to see global emissions fall and it’s not enough for us to meet our commitments – we need to have the transformational technologies that are scalable and affordable for the developing world as well because that is where all the emissions increases are coming from in the decade ahead in the next 20 years.”
      Trump, who was on the golf course when the news broke that he was to be a one-term president, has not yet conceded defeat and is continuing to make unsubstantiated claims casting doubt over the legitimacy of the process.
      But world leaders have lined up to congratulate the president-elect and his running mate, Kamala Harris.
      In a statement issued ahead of his remarks in Sydney, the Australian prime minister said: “Today, the world faces many challenges, including managing the Covid-19 pandemic, on both a health and economic front, ensuring a free and open Indo-Pacific region, and peace and stability.”
      “American leadership is indispensable to meeting these challenges and upholding the rules, norms and standards of our international community,” Morrison said.
      “We also look forward to working with president-elect Biden and his administration to continue to fight the Covid-19 global pandemic and recession, to develop a vaccine, drive a global economic recovery, and develop new technologies to reduce global emissions as we practically confront the challenge of climate change.
      “We welcome the president-elect’s commitment to multilateral institutions and strengthening democracies.”

      Scott Morrison
      (@ScottMorrisonMP)
      Congratulations to @joebiden and @kamalaharris – Australia wishes you every success in office. The Australia-US Alliance is deep and enduring, and built on shared values. I look forward to working with you closely as we face the world’s many challenges together.

      November 7, 2020

      With Biden’s victory projected, Malcolm Turnbull, the former Australian prime minister who famously tussled with Trump early in his presidency about the US refugee swap deal, kept his reaction on Twitter succinct.

      Malcolm Turnbull
      (@TurnbullMalcolm)
      Congratulations Joe Biden and Kamala Harris! What a relief that you won. 🙏🙏🙏

      November 7, 2020

      He later told ABC TV that Biden’s win would mean a return to “normal transmission” with the US administration no longer making decisions by “wild tweets” in the early hours of the morning.
      Morrison, who forged a constructive relationship with Trump, on Sunday morning noted Australia had enjoyed “a strong working relationship with the current administration, one that has seen the strength of our alliance continue to grow and deepen”.
      [embedded content]
      He said Australia would “continue to work closely with president Trump and his administration in the transition period between now and 20 January”.
      The projected result overnight was also welcomed by the Labor opposition leader Anthony Albanese.

      Anthony Albanese
      (@AlboMP)
      Congratulations to @JoeBiden and @KamalaHarris on a victory delivered with record support with a progressive agenda based on decency, honest government, creating opportunity and dealing with the pandemic and the challenge of climate change

      November 7, 2020

      Albanese said: “The US alliance has been our most important partnership since WW2 and your commitment to leadership will see this strengthened into the future.”
      The Labor leader later told reporters that Biden was “a friend of Australia” and he welcomed America’s imminent return to the Paris accord and multilateral institutions.
      After Trump last week falsely claimed victory in the presidential election and flagged supreme court action to truncate the count, Labor declared American voters deserved to have their voices heard. The shadow foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, said the democratic process needed to be respected “even when it takes time”.
      On Sunday morning Australian time, Trump was still claiming without evidence that Republican observers were blocked from scrutineering in counting rooms. In a capitalised tweet he said: “I won the election”. Twitter flagged the statement with a note that: “This claim about election fraud is disputed.”
      Albanese said on Sunday it was critical that the outgoing administration respected democratic principles. “The other thing that needs to happen – and this is the context here – is that Scott Morrison needs to dissociate himself … from government members who are questioning the democratic process and continue to do so.”
      “The fact is that these conspiracy theories do nothing to advance our common interest of standing up for democratic values,” Albanese said. More

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      Former Republican congressman says Murdoch's media outlets fuelling 'climate rejectionism'

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      A former Republican congressman has blamed Rupert Murdoch’s media outlets for fuelling “climate rejectionism” among conservatives, suggesting they could be part of the reason why the United States is failing to lead the world to tackle global heating.Bob Inglis, a former South Carolina congressman who has renounced his previous climate denialism and now leads a group seeking to rally conservatives to act, questioned the role of News Corp and Fox Corporation during an event hosted by the Australia Institute.Inglis told the progressive thinktank that Australia and the US shared a form of “climate rejectionism that comes in conservative clothing”.He said both countries also shared “a particular news organisation that has a great deal to do with that” – and pointed the finger at Murdoch’s Fox News and the Wall Street Journal in particular.“If you look at Fox viewers in America – that’s where you find the climate disputation,” Inglis said.Inglis said his group, RepublicEn, which campaigns for conservative leadership on climate action, believed that a change in the way the issue was covered by those outlets would be “the holy grail” in unlocking greater ambition in US policy.“If Fox would just change or if the Wall Street Journal editorial page would just change – either one of those and this would be finished, we’d be done with climate, we’d be acting,” he said. “It really is that important – so if anybody can get to the Murdochs please let me know.”Business leader and former Sydney lord mayor Lucy Turnbull also sheeted home some responsibility to large media businesses such as News Corp during the same webinar event on Wednesday.Turnbull’s husband, the former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, was ousted as leader of the centre-right Liberal party in 2009, and again in 2018, in part because of internal battles over climate policy.“There are a lot of people who have a huge level of conviction about the fact that climate change is with us, that we have to act,” she said. “The problem is that the polarisation makes it hard to do that because you have the people [who believe] that it isn’t a problem despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that it is.”In a clear reference to News Corp, Turnbull added: “They have a very loud voice in a lot of political debate aided by very large media organisations, especially one which crosses both the US and Australia and other countries besides.”She said this had resulted in a “fragmented, deeply polarised conversation”, which could be a symptom of the fragmentation of politics around the world.The comments come as another former prime minister, Kevin Rudd, campaigns for a royal commission to be launched into the Murdoch empire in Australia.The petition, launched on the Australian parliament’s website on Saturday, has so far attracted more than 236,000 signatures.The focus on the company comes after Rupert Murdoch’s youngest son, James Murdoch, said one of the reasons he had stepped away from his father’s media empire was because it legitimised disinformation and sowed doubts about facts.He told the New York Times climate change and coronavirus were both public health crises and “political spin” should not get “in the way of delivering crucial public health information”.James Murdoch and his wife, Kathryn, also issued a joint statement in January – midway through Australia’s summer bushfire crisis – to say they were “particularly disappointed with the ongoing denial among the news outlets in Australia given obvious evidence to the contrary”.Last year, however, Rupert Murdoch told shareholders “there are no climate change deniers” around his company and said his business was early to commit to “science-based targets to limit climate change” and was working to reduce its climate emissions.Inglis and Turnbull discussed media coverage as part of the wide-ranging webinar on Wednesday, which also canvassed the forthcoming US presidential election.Inglis contended that Republicans would undergo a “reappraisal” of their position on climate policy in coming years, although that reassessment would come faster if Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump for the presidency. Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the Paris climate accord is due to take effect the day after the November election.Inglis, who previously visited Australia in 2017 as a guest of the Australia Institute, recounted how he had once insisted that climate change was “nonsense”.“I didn’t know anything about it except that Al Gore was for it and, in as much as I represented probably one of the most conservative districts in America, that was the end of the inquiry,” he said.But Inglis said he had a “three-step metamorphosis”, based on his children pressing him to take environmental issues seriously, his own visit to Antarctica to see ice core drilling evidence and his snorkelling trip to the Great Barrier Reef.He spoke of the importance of bridging divides, saying he was grateful to have been “extended grace by people who knew it was real before I did”.Inglis urged people on the left of politics to accept new entrants to the conversation “without saying you’re the dumb kid in the class, the last one to get it” because “if you welcome them in we can solve this thing”. 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      Joe Biden if president will push allies like Australia to do more on climate, adviser says

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      Joe Biden will not pull any punches with allies including Australia in seeking to build international momentum for stronger action on the climate crisis, an adviser to the US presidential candidate has said.If elected in November, Biden will hold heavy emitters such as China accountable for doing more “but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well”, according to Jake Sullivan, who was the national security adviser to Biden when he was vice-president and is now in the candidate’s inner circle.In a wide-ranging podcast interview with the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, Sullivan also signalled that Biden would work closely with Australia and other regional allies in responding to the challenges posed by the rise of China.While Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is likely to welcome the pledge of US coordination with allies on regional security issues, there may be unease in government ranks about the potential for tough conversations about Australia’s climate policies.The Coalition government has resisted calls to embrace a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and it proposes to use Kyoto carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reductions pledge. Some Coalition backbenchers still openly dispute climate science.Sullivan said climate change would be a big priority for Biden, both in domestic policy – with climate and clean energy issues placed at the heart of his economic recovery visions – and in foreign policy, where he would do more than just reverse Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris agreement.“He has said right out of the gate, we’re not just rejoining Paris – we are going to rally the nations of the world to get everyone to up their game, to elevate their ambition, to do more,” Sullivan told the Lowy Institute.“And in that regard he will hold countries like China accountable for doing more but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well and to step up and fulfil their responsibilities to what is fundamentally a global problem, that every country needs to be participating in and contributing to.”Sullivan said there was “no reason it has to get awkward” for countries like Australia.“The vice-president is not going to come to play games around that issue if he’s fortunate enough to be elected. He’ll lay it out in the way only Joe Biden can do – just plain and straight, down the line, respectful – but he’s not going to pull any punches on it.”Sullivan made the remarks in an interview with Michael Fullilove, the executive director of the Lowy Institute, who told Guardian Australia last month that climate was likely to “come roaring back as an issue in US foreign policy under a Biden administration” and that it “may be harder to say no to a Biden administration”.Biden has vowed to put the US on “an irreversible path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide” by 2050, and to rally the rest of the world to meet the climate threat – indicating that he would “fully integrate climate change” into US foreign policy and national security strategies, as well as its approach to trade.The economist Ross Garnaut has also speculated that a Biden win could lead to Australia being placed “in the naughty corner” on climate policy.More broadly, Sullivan said Biden would be “eager to develop a really strong relationship” with Morrison – who has formed close working ties with Trump, even though the Australian government has emphasised points of difference from time to time.Sullivan said Biden had a deep respect for Australia and its contributions to US security and the history of the alliance between the two countries.Biden and Morrison were likely to “get off to a strong start” because the former vice-president saw Australia as the kind of partner that was central to a finding successful strategies when faced with a range of issues in a fast-changing world.Sullivan said Biden put like-minded democratic allies at the heart of his foreign policy, because he believed that was the platform upon which the US could most effectively deal with great power competition and transnational challenges.“Allies are going to have pride of place in the hierarchy of priorities in a Biden administration foreign policy,” Sullivan said. He said allies including Australia, Japan, South Korea and Nato were important not just on regional issues but more broadly.“And yes, the rise of China is at or near the top of the list of big global challenges that we all have to be working effectively together on.” More

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      As our former lives dissolve into uncertainty, facts are something solid to cling to | Lenore Taylor

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      I have always worked with facts. I have sifted them for relevance, assembled them to make sense of things, and used them to construct an argument or to disagree with another point of view. Facts are, for journalists, the essential ingredient, like flour for bakers or clay for sculptors. So I recall very clearly how disconcerted I felt when I first sensed they were turning to liquid and sliding through my hands.It was during Tony Abbott’s campaign against the Labor government’s carbon pricing scheme – the policy he dubbed a “great big tax on everything”. There were, for sure, some factual arguments that could have been deployed against that policy, or alternative ideas that could have been raised. The then opposition leader opted for neither of these methods. Instead, he travelled the country saying things that were patently nonsensical. But most news outlets reported them uncritically, and this firehose of nonsense proved impossible to mop up. More

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      The Murdoch media’s China coronavirus conspiracy has one aim: get Trump re-elected | Kevin Rudd

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      News Corporation The Murdoch media’s China coronavirus conspiracy has one aim: get Trump re-elected Kevin Rudd News Corp is campaigning full-bore for the US president, with reports of a Wuhan lab ‘intelligence’ dossier being seeded across its empire On the China coronavirus lab conspiracy, ‘let’s be clear: Murdoch is campaigning full-bore for Trump,’ the former […] More

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      Malcolm Turnbull on Donald Trump: 'You don't suck up to bullies'

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      Malcolm Turnbull on Donald Trump: ‘You don’t suck up to bullies’ Donald Trump and Malcolm Turnbull meet for the first time onboard the USS Intrepid in New York in May 2017. Photograph: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images In this extract from his memoir, the former Australian prime minister recounts his deals and negotiations with the US president […] More