Free Republic

Two years ago today I used poet Stuart Piggott's image, "..... new from old treasure / is this year's miraculous / rebirth in the harvest." as a prompt to make this appeal to conservative Church going Australian Prime Minister of the time, Scott Morrison: "Now, as the society I live in is destroying its own humanity with lockdowns of itself, I look to a deeply Christian Prime Minister to stand up strong against ignorant tyranny for freedom's sake." ScoMo was no Trump, DeSantis or Greg Abbott but he tried to hold back the anti-freedom excesses of state governments which gave...

The Reserve Bank’s role in shoring up Australia’s economy during the Covid pandemic has seen it post an accounting loss for the 2021-22 year of almost $37bn, leaving it with negative equity, the bank’s deputy governor, Michele Bullock, has revealed. At a speech in Sydney on Wednesday, Bullock said accounting methods used by the central bank had to adjust for the reduced value of billions of dollars of government debt the RBA had bought to support economic activity during the lockdowns. For the 2021-22 year, that left valuation losses of $44.9bn which, after deducting for $8.2bn in underlying earnings, left...

SYDNEY, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Australia's former prime minister Scott Morrison said on Wednesday he decided to be secretly sworn in to five key ministries during the coronavirus pandemic because he felt responsibility for the nation was his alone. Morrison, who stepped down as leader of the Liberal Party after losing a general election in May, addressed a news conference to answer a barrage of criticism from the Labor government and his own party over the unprecedented assumption of powers.

Australians today ejected the rightwing coalition government that has held power for almost a decade. As counting continued after yesterday’s general election, Labor leader Anthony Albanese was expected to form a minority government. Scott Morrison, the prime minister, conceded defeat in a televised address to party supporters late on Saturday and said he would be resigning as leader of his defeated Liberal Party. He said: “I’ve always believed in Australians and their judgement, and I’ve always been prepared to accept their verdicts. And tonight they have delivered their verdict and I congratulate Anthony Albanese in the Labor Party.”

For the 151 House seats Labor leading or elected 71, the Liberal-National Coalition 49 and Others 9- 740 am Eastern US Time The Labor Party is projected to win a majority in the House of Representatives and Anthony Albanese is projected to be Australia's next Prime Minister.

"We have to take each step together, and that starts with walking in the door of that vaccine clinic and seeing that GP, that pharmacist, the state hub, and getting that vaccine" Each step you take towards that is a step that Australia takes to where you all want to get to." Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morrison Pushes COVID Shots-July 30, 2021 This Saturday May 21st is Election Day in Australia with results pouring out Saturday morning Eastern US Time. There are many issues to consider in the Australian election like the ones the politicians and the media usually bring...

Roza Ganser now lives in Australia because she married an Australian man who came to her rescue when she was being stalked by a middle eastern man in a middle eastern country. She is very critical of Australia's lack of freedom.of speech and the poor treatment of men in modern societies. Scott Morrison is a supposedly conservative Prime Minister whose government has done a very poor job most of the time in addressing the concerns of men especially libertarian men. God bless Roza.

New Zealand’s leader voiced concern Monday over a draft security agreement between China and the Solomon Islands that, if approved, could see Beijing establish a military base in the South Pacific. In addition, Australia’s prime minister reiterated his nation’s concern about the planned agreement that was leaked online last week. The security pact would allow Beijing to set up military bases and deploy troops in the Pacific island nation, “marking the start of a much sharper military competition than anything we’ve seen in the region for decades,” said David Capie, director of the Centre for Strategic Studies at the Victoria...

An extraordinary week has passed for the Indian government’s dalliance with the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Call it a defining moment, a turning point or even an inflection point, it has elements of all three. The past week saw a two-day visit to Delhi by Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, a virtual summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, and foreign-ministry-level consultations with the visiting US undersecretary for political affairs, Victoria Nuland. The leitmotif was the situation around Ukraine. US President Joe Biden has since taken a jab at India for a “somewhat shaky” stance on...

India will station maritime patrol aircraft in Australia amid ongoing concerns of hostility in the Indo-Pacific region, a move that comes as part of a larger package that will see the Australian government commit around AU$200 million (US$147 million) into developing the relationship.Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met virtually on March 21, where they discussed closer ties across sectors such as trade, clean technology, space, culture, defence, and the Indo-Pacific.While the Australian prime minister did not express the need for both nations to hold “Russia to account” for the invasion of Ukraine—according to a...

China has doubled down on its response to accusations from the Morrison government over its military conduct, delivering a stern warning to Australia. On Monday, Beijing rejected claims from Canberra it had acted in a dangerous manner by shining a laser at an Australian aircraft in waters off the Northern Territory and instead flipped the accusations, saying it was Australia who was in fact the aggressor towards its naval vessel. And on Tuesday, in response to Prime Minister Scott Morrison insisting Australia's air force had every right to be in close proximity to the vessel, China's foreign ministry spokesperson Wang...

The Latest News At The Bottom Of The Post "an insult to memory and truth" Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Characterizes Ottawa COVID policy protest-1/31/2022 Canadian Prime Minister appeared today continuing the steady stream of government and media disparagement of the trucker led protest that has engulfed Canada's capital city and led to a blockade at a US border crossing in Alberta. Trudeau wanted to put the message out... The Protests In Germany Continue On Monday Night Tens Of Thousands Involved... News Alert: Second Day Of Protest In Canberra, Australia Its 1115 am in Canberra Tuesday morning, 715 pm Monday...

The fire occurred as protests for indigenous rights ramped up in the capital city of Canberra Australia's former parliament building in the capital Canberra was briefly set alight on Thursday by protesters during a demonstration for Aboriginal sovereignty, police said. No-one was injured in the fire, which engulfed the Old Parliament House's front doors before it was put out. It follows a fortnight of protest activity at the site, police said. Protest violence on this scale is rare in Australia, but flare-ups have become more common during the pandemic. Some of the protesters had identified themselves as part of anti-government...

Its a very rainy Saturday in New Zealand and highway vehicle convoy protests were the order of the day nationwide protests sponsored by The Freedoms And Rights Coalition. Today's protests entitled "The Great Gridlock". Yesterday ahead of the protests the TFRC issued a series of demands to the New Zealand government of Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern including the revocation of workplace vaccination mandates and and end to the segregated system of treating vaccinating and unvaccinated people differently. The statement said that "The Great Gridlock protests would continue indefinitely until those four demands are met. A Monday deadline looms for many...

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that he respects people’s choices, and those who refuse to get a COVID-19 vaccine should not be demonised in the country.“We don’t have a mandatory vaccine policy as a Federal Government. That’s not something that we have done. We respect people’s choices,” Morrison told the Seven Network on Thursday.“We live in a country where we are not going to go around demonising those who want to make their own choices.”The Prime Minister also attributed the country’s high vaccination rate to the people.“New South Wales (NSW) is now 90 percent double-dose. Victoria will soon be...

French President Emmanuel Macron’s accusation, on the sidelines of the G20 meeting, that Scott Morrison is a liar is of course ridiculous. Nonetheless there is substance in the French leader’s charge that Australia may not get a nuclear submarine in any relevant time frame. And there is also substance in the charge that there is a certain reputational cost to the way the conventional submarine issue has been decided in Australia. The real villain from Australia’s point of view, however, is not the tiny foot stamping, cheek puffing episode of Macron, but the really disappointing and much more damaging betrayal...

Australia will commit to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050 but will not increase its goal for 2030 at an upcoming U.N. climate summit in Scotland, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Tuesday. Morrison’s conservative Liberal Party-led government was narrowly re-elected in 2019 with a climate policy that opposed the 2050 net zero target adopted by the opposition center-left Labor Party. Morrison wrote in an opinion piece published Tuesday in Australian News Corp newspapers that his government will indeed commit to the 2050 net zero goal, but will not up its election pledge to reduce emissions between 26%...

Facemasks will be scrapped indoors from December and unvaccinated people have been warned they face another two months in lockdown under NSW's latest roadmap to COVID normal. The blueprint, unveiled by Premier Gladys Berejiklian on Monday, outlines what life will look like when 80 percent of people aged 16 and older are fully inoculated against the virus. Ms. Berejiklian

An Australian reporter covering President Biden’s address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday was “startled” by how aggressively the press pool was treated by the White House communications team. The designated pooler, France24’s Washington correspondent Kethevane Gorjestani, reported that she “was asked by a very startled Australian reporter whether WH wranglers were always so strict about ushering the pool out without questions,” after a press conference held by Biden and Australian prime minister Scott Morrison. Biden and his press team have been criticized for a reclusive, question-averse approach. His first press conference as president did not come until...

Maintaining unity between Western allies will "require a lot of effort" in light of an unfolding rift between France and members of a new security partnership, Germany's ambassador to the UK has said. French President Emmanuel Macron has so far not commented directly, but on Friday a top French diplomat spoke anonymously of a "crisis" in relations with the US. He said that for Paris "this is a strategic question concerning the very nature of the relationship between Europe and the United States about the Indo-Pacific strategy". He added that Australia never mentioned to France its wish to shift to...