Australian Politics
New Omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is detected in Australia
An Omicron subvariant that has been tearing through parts of the United States was detected in Australia just before Christmas, health authorities have confirmed.
The highly transmissible XBB. 1.5 subvariant, which has been dubbed “The Kraken”, was detected in small numbers in the two weeks to December 24, NSW Health said on Thursday.
There is no evidence the subvariant causes more severe symptoms than the original Omicron Covid strain, but it is reportedly behind more than 40 per cent of new Covid cases in the US.
Data from NSW Health’s two-week Covid summary released on Thursday showed Covid cases had decreased 40 per cent in the week to December 31. Positive cases amounted to 22,281 compared to 37,371 in the previous week to December 24.
The BR. 2 Omicron subvariant was the most common source of infection, but XBB. 1.5 had been detected, a statement said.
Infectious diseases expert Professor Robert Booy told Sky News existing vaccination levels and natural immunity meant the subvariant would not be a major risk to the community.
“Our vaccines probably do protect against it and we shouldn’t be overly concerned although I’ve called it ‘extra bad boy’ - it’s just a way of remembering the name XBB.1.5,” he said.
“It’s more transmissible, it’s more active, young and able to get around but it’s not more severe it’s not more virulent, it’s not more likely to put you in hospital.”
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Major investors telling Rio to ‘not go so hard’ on carbon but focus on returns, says chairman
Rio Tinto faces a growing shareholder push to soften its focus on decarbonising its operations in favour of returns, according to its chairman, Dominic Barton.
Mr Barton became the Rio chairman in May, and told a KPMG podcast before Christmas he had already noticed a shift in focus from some of Rio’s institutional shareholders, with even previously strong supporters of the company’s push to cut its carbon emissions shifting their focus to cash returns to shareholders.
Rio accelerated its decarbonisation plans in October 2021, announcing it planned to spend $US7.5bn ($11bn) on renewable energy and other projects to try to halve its scope 1 and 2 emissions by the end of the decade, while maintaining its goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2050.
The company fleshed out those intentions at its annual investor day in November, laying out plans to spend up to an extra $US600m by 2026 to build solar, wind and battery generation to power its Pilbara iron ore operations, on top of a previous $US2.1bn decarbonisation spend in the division, and to buy renewable energy plans for those of its assets connected to the grid.
But Mr Barton told KPMG’s UK chair, Bina Mehta, that major investors were asking how Rio could maintain its shareholder returns in light of that spending, saying even some strong supporters of its decarbonisation plans were asking questions about Rio’s spending priorities.
“Rio Tinto wants to be net zero by 2050, and we’re going to cut our carbon emissions by 50 per cent in 2030. That takes a lot of capital,” he said. “So investors are saying we want you to do that. But we also want the returns.”
Geopolitical uncertainty has thrown a shadow over a broader post-pandemic recovery, and rising inflation has hit major economies across the world. With central banks lifting interest rates to combat inflation, investment returns are likely to be lower in the coming year after a long period of strong stock performances.
Amid the wreckage of technology stocks and poor returns elsewhere on the market, resource companies made up eight of the top 10 performing stocks on the ASX 200 in 2022, on a total return basis, led by coal miners Whitehaven Coal and New Hope Corporation. But with doubt hanging over China’s short-term economic recovery due to the spread of Covid-19, analysts are divided over whether strong commodity pricing will continue into 2023.
“One thing I’m finding interesting – even though I think I’ve been in this role for about five months now, at the beginning it was all ‘That’s great, focus on decarbonising’,” Mr Barton said.
“Now there’s a little more, ‘You know what, maybe you don’t need to go as hard on that one’, and the (shareholder) return side is picking up even from some investors who’ve been talking about being strong proponents of the other side.”
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Problems ahead for Australia
As 2023 gets underway, Australia is at last shaking off its pandemic derangement syndrome, yet it is considerably weaker than before it descended into Covid mania. In 2019, former treasurer Josh Frydenberg finally managed to bring government spending more or less in line with revenue for the first time since the Global Financial Crisis and net debt was less than 20 per cent. And former energy minister Angus Taylor had also wrangled the government into keeping its emissions reductions target in line with what could be achieved with existing technology.
Yet what a difference three years make. Net debt is now 23 per cent of GDP and on track to pass 28 per cent in three years. Additionally, the former federal government abandoned its principled position of not committing to emissions reductions that it did not have the technological capacity to deliver. Now, the new Labor government will drive up government spending further and has embarked on a recklessly rapid and ruinous reduction in emissions that cannot be achieved in either the short or long term, will drive up energy costs, and send businesses broke or offshore, without reducing global emissions. It is this sort of quixotic tilting at wind turbines that has brought the UK and Europe to their knees, but Prime Minister Albanese and Energy Minister Bowen are determined to follow in that continent’s ill-fated footsteps, egged on by the Greens, the Teal independents, and half the Liberal party. China and the rest of the developing world will laugh all the way to the bank at our greenhouse gas follies.
Yet that’s not the end of the economic pain. China’s abandonment of its delusional zero Covid policy spells uncertainty for Australia with further disruptions to supply chains and an unwelcome prolongation of the inflationary spiral that is that price we are forced to pay for our profligate spending over the last three years.
Perhaps, with Covid creating illness and economic hardship at home, China may be less likely to launch an attack on Taiwan, unless President Xi wants to distract from domestic discontent. Australians had better hope that 2023 does not usher in a war in the Taiwan Strait because this nation and its allies are woefully unprepared.
By presenting a picture of abject weakness in its shambolic departure from Afghanistan, the US encouraged President Putin’s ill-judged military invasion of Ukraine. That Putin now finds himself in quagmire does not alter the fact that the US and UK governments are depleting their military supplies doing the lion’s share of arming the Ukraine. Yet neither has the capacity to fight a war in Europe as well as a war in the Pacific. This alone might tempt President Xi to launch an attack on Taiwan sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, our ageing submarines are not fit for service and their nuclear replacements are decades away. The notion that meeting our urgent national security needs can be delayed until we have the wherewithal to build our own nuclear submarines is a dangerous joke, but nobody should be laughing. With the Middle Kingdom more bellicose than at any time in its history, we need the capacity to credibly deter war and contribute to the protection of vital sea lanes now, not in several decades. Put simply, the federal government needs to bite the bullet and commit to buying nuclear submarines off the peg. Instead of building nuclear submarines, we would be far better off building a nuclear industry with not just the capacity to service subs, but to build small modular reactors so that we can guarantee that we have the unlimited low-emissions energy on demand that we will need to ensure we maintain the high standard of living that Australians have every right to expect. While we are at it, we should also develop the safe nuclear waste storage industry that Australian scientists pioneered nearly half a century ago with the development of Synroc.
Critically, two-faced Janus should prod us to take an unflinching look back at the blunders we committed over the last three years and learn the lessons. We not only abandoned our pandemic preparedness plans with their emphasis on focused protection of the vulnerable, while allowing the strong to work and the economy to function, we abandoned the scientific method, imposing censorship and propaganda in place of rational debate. We must never let this happen again. Yet the threat that history will repeat itself is real. The same charlatans who cheered on the imposition of tyranny justified by Covid pseudo-science now plan to convert their strictures into a permanent abrogation of our freedoms in the name of climate-change alarmism. This ideology poses an intolerable threat to our prosperity and freedom and unless we defeat it there will be no happy new year.
https://spectator.com.au/2023/01/happy-new-year-2/
****************************************************Tax office vows to crack down on glam ‘influencers’ and their ‘gifts’
The ATO is coming for Australia’s multimillion-dollar “influencer” industry, with a promise to tax glammed-up social media stars on gifts they receive from companies, make them pay GST, and stamp out bogus deductions.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal Australian Taxation Office staff have an arsenal of “data-matching” technologies to help them compare tax returns of “Insta-famous” people with the lifestyle and valuables on display in their online posts.
An ATO spokesman confirmed the fresh crackdown, saying: “If you are paid in-kind, such as with goods or other benefits (for example, being able to keep an item or outfit used in a post, or being ‘gifted’ something) … you are subject to the same income tax and GST treatment as normal cash or credit payments.
“We have sophisticated data-matching and analytical tools that enable us to identify people that may be under-reporting their income from a range of activities.”
Influencers who make an income from their posts are required to pay tax, even if it’s just a hobby, and if they make more than $75,000 they also have to register for GST.
The value of all “gifts” given to influencers in exchange for promotional posts must be declared as income. It is Australian law that influencers disclose publicly when they are promoting “non-cash benefits” by using the hashtags “ad”, “gifted” and “sponsored”.
Gifting is an increasingly common practice for businesses and public relations executives instead of cash payments. “Cash is really simple, but if you are gifted product in return for a service, it is much harder to police,” said one high-profile accounting executive, who did not want to be named.
“It is a grey area … the tax office will say, take the recommended retail price, then you must pay tax on that, but the key question will always be: what is the benefit for the recipient if they have to pay tax on something that they don’t technically pay money for?
“It is well and good to walk around with a $5000 handbag, but if you can’t afford the tax, what is the point?
“It is a game-changer that will have influencers rethinking the situation.”
One celebrity agent, who also did not want to be named, was thrilled to learn of the crackdown, saying “the gravy train is over for influencers”. “A crackdown will take a much-needed weed whacker to the infestations of wannabe Kardashians of late,” the agent said.
Sydney influencer Suzan Mutesi said she was not surprised the ATO was clamping down. “You have to adjust to the rules,” she said. “If you classify yourself as a sole trader, report how much you earn. “I think just do it right because then it doesn’t bite you in the back later.”
However, when it came to reporting the value of gifts, Ms Mutesi said the process was quite complicated because it could be hard to know their true value.
“It’s hard. There are certain things they (companies) would give you that are samples and they’re not for sale. How do you value that,” she said.
“Let’s say, if Gucci sends you a bag it can be different. It’s not going to be what the consumer will buy, because they are buying it so theirs will probably be bigger and have more details.
“Sometimes they personalise your gifts, like sometimes I get perfumes with my name on them or they’ll put on a personal message, so it’s different.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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