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@Tim said in Aussie Politics:
Chinese government uses state media to confirm export suspensions as trade stoush continues
China's government has used its own media to confirm suspensions on seven types of Australian exports including wine and coal, in a multi-billion-dollar blow.
Earlier this week Chinese wine and lobster importers were summoned to a series of meetings organised by the Foreign Trade Department of China's Ministry of Commerce to be told imports of Australian wine, lobsters, sugar, coal, copper ore and concentrate, barley and timber would no longer be allowed after Friday.
But China's Commerce Ministry has publicly refused to confirm the reports and China Customs, as well as two major ports, have told the ABC they have not yet received instructions, plunging exporters into a state of uncertainty.
The suspension threatens to cut the value of Australian exports to China by $5-6 billion dollars annually if maintained.
you'll note the lack of ban to iron ore...
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
So the High Court continues to water down our Constitution. s92 now means fuck all too if you're interested in going from one State to another.
Labor governments have always been very strong on border protection.
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@rotated nup. The way things are, it'll probably stir up some genuine shit and get their budgets slashed even further.
However they're getting a lot of pressure as it is, so might as well set fire to the joint on the way out.
I note Tudge has offered an apology, but Porter is threatening defamation. đ¤Ł
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@rotated said in Aussie Politics:
I'm not sure that story does the ABC a lot of favours.
Good. Hopefully it hastens their demise sucking from the public teat.
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@antipodean aren't you in Canberra? Surely you'd value their commitment to rural towns in that light
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@NTA said in Aussie Politics:
@rotated nup. The way things are, it'll probably stir up some genuine shit and get their budgets slashed even further.
However they're getting a lot of pressure as it is, so might as well set fire to the joint on the way out.
I note Tudge has offered an apology, but Porter is threatening defamation. đ¤Ł
It is a self fulfilling prophecy with the ABC news department - pretty dubious public interest IMO.
The question is the ABC of all places breaking with all convention and do a tabloid hit job on Porter and why wait until late 2020? I may be too cynical but I think the answer is obvious.
It will be interesting if other media outlets now drop their standards after showing restraint in the past decade with senior ALP figures. I would hope not as the whole thing just came off as grubby.
That isn't to say if the ABC (or anyone) want to expose a "toxic culture" they shouldn't. But if you are going to take that tact you'll need to show a more wide ranging evidence across different parties, backbench/frontbench, journos/pollies etc. In this case it is a bit of a fig leaf to say it is a Canberra Bubble expose when their reporting seems to indicate Porter was the same way in Perth decades earlier?
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@rotated asked. The University stuff showed be was a young dickhead. I think anything from his working life onward is useful to display the fact he never stopped and that Canberra want they only factor in him being like this.
They only gave one line to the "Hey it's not just these two guys or this party" but if that was the case then they should have named names.
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Pretty full on poke by the Chinese here.
China really being spiteful towards Australia in the last 2-4 weeks. Crippled the wine industry, timber threatened and now a more blatant public relations offence against another country I can scarcely imagine.Can't think what set them off but Oz are in a tough position here
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@Siam said in Aussie Politics:
I guess that this is a response to the five eyes response to Hong Kong, Oz woudl make the easiest to hit and hit hard, given their reliance on China:
The foreign ministers of United States, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement on November 18 expressing their concern about increasing Chinese curbs on Hong Kongâs autonomy, and Beijingâs imposition of rules that would disqualify elected legislators in particular. The statement notes: âFollowing the imposition of the National Security Law and postponement of Septemberâs Legislative Council elections, this decision further undermines Hong Kongâs high degree of autonomy and rights and freedoms.â
Of course, this display of tact from the five countries hasnât prevented China from lashing out at the joint statement. Referring to it as a statement from the âFive Eyes alliance,â Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian noted at the November 19 press briefing: âNo matter if they have âfive eyesâ or âten eyesâ, as soon as they dare to harm Chinaâs sovereignty, security, or development interests, they should be careful lest their eyes be poked blind.â (Interestingly, as my colleague Shannon Tiezzi pointed out to me, Zhaoâs original statement in Chinese and the English translation posted on the Chinese Foreign Ministry website vary somewhat, with the latter relatively toned down.)
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@Siam said in Aussie Politics:
Pretty full on poke by the Chinese here.
China really being spiteful towards Australia in the last 2-4 weeks. Crippled the wine industry, timber threatened and now a more blatant public relations offence against another country I can scarcely imagine.Can't think what set them off but Oz are in a tough position here
ScoMo going off half-cocked again. No one cares if you find imagery offensive. Now that you've demanded an apology, how are you going to back that demand up?
Surely Australia can do better than this happy clapping clown from marketing?
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
@Siam said in Aussie Politics:
Pretty full on poke by the Chinese here.
China really being spiteful towards Australia in the last 2-4 weeks. Crippled the wine industry, timber threatened and now a more blatant public relations offence against another country I can scarcely imagine.Can't think what set them off but Oz are in a tough position here
ScoMo going off half-cocked again. No one cares if you find imagery offensive. Now that you've demanded an apology, how are you going to back that demand up?
Surely Australia can do better than this happy clapping clown from marketing?
no, they can't.
Even as someone whose livelihood is very closely linked with China, something has to be done about those fuckers.
We've sold them our economies, and become beholden to them so that they will buy our shit, and send us cheaply priced consumer goods. They fucking know it, and they are starting to take the absolute piss. The amount of fucks they have to give about Australia is pretty fucking low, especially because the shit they really want off us they know the shareholders of Rio and BHP will be more than willing to sell them.
They won't play by the "rules" either. I heard over the weekend about Australia taking them to WTO. Fucking LOL, like they will give even a solitary fuck about what the WTO will say to them.
In the end the Aus Govt are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Say nothing, and they will be accused of being weak. Say something, and exporters will jump up and down about the Gov't ruining their industries.
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
@Siam said in Aussie Politics:
Pretty full on poke by the Chinese here.
China really being spiteful towards Australia in the last 2-4 weeks. Crippled the wine industry, timber threatened and now a more blatant public relations offence against another country I can scarcely imagine.Can't think what set them off but Oz are in a tough position here
ScoMo going off half-cocked again. No one cares if you find imagery offensive. Now that you've demanded an apology, how are you going to back that demand up?
Surely Australia can do better than this happy clapping clown from marketing?
Asking for an apology is a bit stupid, but what do you think he should have done? You can't just ignore that sort of shit. A statement of some kind had to be made (but not a useless demand/threat, agreed on that)
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@mariner4life said in Aussie Politics:
@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
@Siam said in Aussie Politics:
Pretty full on poke by the Chinese here.
China really being spiteful towards Australia in the last 2-4 weeks. Crippled the wine industry, timber threatened and now a more blatant public relations offence against another country I can scarcely imagine.Can't think what set them off but Oz are in a tough position here
ScoMo going off half-cocked again. No one cares if you find imagery offensive. Now that you've demanded an apology, how are you going to back that demand up?
Surely Australia can do better than this happy clapping clown from marketing?
no, they can't.
Even as someone whose livelihood is very closely linked with China, something has to be done about those fuckers.
We've sold them our economies, and become beholden to them so that they will buy our shit, and send us cheaply priced consumer goods. They fucking know it, and they are starting to take the absolute piss. The amount of fucks they have to give about Australia is pretty fucking low, especially because the shit they really want off us they know the shareholders of Rio and BHP will be more than willing to sell them.
It's a market of 1.4 billion people going through a period of record development, so small wonder that last year China accounted for 27.5% of our total two-way trade and 34.3% of exports (https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/defau...oods_and_services_by_top_15_partners_2019.pdf). The problem is our economy is still largely dependent on exporting shit dug out of the ground. Instead of developing an educational sector, we've devalued it with no benefit to R&D.
They won't play by the "rules" either. I heard over the weekend about Australia taking them to WTO. Fucking LOL, like they will give even a solitary fuck about what the WTO will say to them.
In the end the Aus Govt are damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Say nothing, and they will be accused of being weak. Say something, and exporters will jump up and down about the Gov't ruining their industries.
The problem is we haven't constrained ourselves to addressing China's meddling in our political institutions, nor geo-political issues in the South China Sea. We've assisted by ill-advised commentary on how and where a pandemic started, human rights etc. Small wonder those "rat fuckers" have leapt onto an opportunity to square the ledger.
If the Prime Minister was more statesmanlike, he'd have pointed out we're above getting our knickers in a twist about fake pictures. We don't get hysterical unlike some. That it's a rather pathetic attempt at old propaganda. And that unlike some jurisdications, we've at least instituted an investigation into our own. That both nations benefit from constructive dialogue and trade and this from some politician seeking notoriety doesn't help and he'd be seeking an explanation from the Chinese ambassador.
Instead it's still blowing up, given air.
I'd also point out in the environment of Rudd's petition and the News Media Bargaining Code, Twitter's hypocrisy and selectiveness is on the nose.
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@antipodean i don't disagree with any of that
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@antipodean said in Aussie Politics:
If the Prime Minister was more statesmanlike, he'd have pointed out we're above getting our knickers in a twist about fake pictures. We don't get hysterical unlike some. That it's a rather pathetic attempt at old propaganda. And that unlike some jurisdications, we've at least instituted an investigation into our own. That both nations benefit from constructive dialogue and trade and this from some politician seeking notoriety doesn't help and he'd be seeking an explanation from the Chinese ambassador.
Instead it's still blowing up, given air.
I'd also point out in the environment of Rudd's petition and the News Media Bargaining Code, Twitter's hypocrisy and selectiveness is on the nose.
But we've tried statesmanlike. We've tried constructive dialogue. We've tried seeking an explanation from the ambassador.
It has gotten us precisely nowhere. I don't mind the reaction to this as it may well be the circuit breaker that is needed to get people around a table. Or not, who knows. China is just going to do what it does.
Aussie Politics