Will there be cake?

Thursday marked the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party and what a celebration that was – minus balloons. A few other things were also missing in action in Beijing – kites, drones and homing pigeons. The Times reports people living in neighbourhoods near Tiananmen Square were also to close their windows and draw their curtains. Dissidents and pro-democracy activists were asked to leave the city or were put under close surveillance; no one likes a gatecrasher. Police checkpoints were also set up at airports, train stations and highways. “We must implement all security measures and crack down with precision on all sorts of activities to infiltrate, to subvert, to cause trouble and to destroy by hostile forces both at home and from abroad,” Wang Xiaohong, a deputy public security minister, said. Strewth thinks that’s like a teenager posting the party on Facebook and hoping no troublemakers come. One thing is certain – they wouldn’t be sharing any cake with people protesting the 24th anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong to China.

China has celebrated the 100th anniversary of the CCP. Picture: AFP

Training wheels off

Paul Raffaele was the first Australian journalist to be posted in then-Peking for the ABC in 1973, and one change between then and now stands stark in his mind. “At the time I was there, there were something like 7000 bikes for every car in Peking,” he told Strewth. “It was reversed long ago and now there are at lease 7000 cars for every bike. It’s a fairly good illustration in the way China’s changed.” His other summation of China is a quote by Napoleon: “Let China sleep; when she wakes she will shake the world.” During his time as a correspondent in China, Raffaele said he felt something was going to happen but didn’t know when. Now though: “I kind of fear what’s going to happen in the next 20 or 30 years with China.” Chinese President Xi Jinping didn’t hold back in his speech: “Long live the great, glorious and heroic Chinese people!”

Yes, Minister

Kristina Keneally seemed to get ahead of herself on Thursday, or maybe she was just really gunning for Peter Dutton. Her office issued a press release about Aussies being pushed to the back of the queue when it comes to being let into the country and enduring hotel quarantine based on recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. The letterhead identified Keneally not only as Shadow Minister for Government Accountability but also Minister for Home Affairs (no shadow there). Given the history of the Morrison government – sports rorts, commuter carparks, Brittany Higgins, et cetera, maybe she should abandon her ministerial home affairs duties and focus on government accountability.

Tick for accountability

Enjoying the Queensland sunshine is Member for Ballarat and Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development Catherine King. In an interview with 4CA’s Murray Jones, she didn’t even let him get a question off before stating she was visiting the north with her family on a self-funded holiday. The holiday also took in supporting Labor’s candidate for Leichardt Elida Faith. King must have faith she will be able to return to Ballarat without isolating, but otherwise North Queensland is not a bad place to be when Ballarat is recording minimum temperatures of 2C over the weekend.

Get the hint?

Also on northern airwaves, Opposition Leader Anthony Albanese was plainspoken in knocking back Greens leader Adam Bandt’sself-promoting offer of coalition. ABC Capricornia Breakfast host Paul Gulliver first raised Bandt’s proposed parliamentary pairing with Albanese.

CULLIVER: Would you go for it?

ALBANESE: No.

Hmm, get the message.

CULLIVER: Would you ever form a minority government with support with the Greens in the lower house?

ALBANESE: No.

After that Albanese drove a stake through the heart of the proposition.

ALBANESE: We’re a party of government. And we’re not a party of a Coalition with Bob Katter or with Helen Haines or with Zali Steggall or any of the other single people who are there in the parliament. I saw this as an attempt, really, to just get some attention from Adam Bandt, which is fair enough, that is his objective to get attention, but I didn’t see it as being particularly relevant.

Girl Power

A male colleague noticed a theme in past Intergenerational Reports – all the models are named after women. Read into it what you will but women are shining a light on Australia’s economy. OLGA (OverLapping Generations model of the Australian economy) is a life cycle dynamic general equilibrium model that has been calibrated to Australian data. FIONA (Fiscal Impact of New Australians model) is a demographic cohort model designed to estimate the fiscal impact of permanent migrants to Australia over their remaining lifetimes. MARIA (Treasury’s Model of Australian Retirement Incomes and Assets) is a long-term, population-level, dynamic microsimulation model of Australia’s retirement income system. And of course there’s HILDA, run by the Melbourne Institute. The Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey is a household-based panel study that collects valuable information about economic and personal wellbeing, labour market dynamics and family life.

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