Contemporary politics,local and international current affairs, science, music and extracts from the Queensland Newspaper "THE WORKER" documenting the proud history of the Labour Movement.
MAHATMA GANDHI ~ Truth never damages a cause that is just.
The Cocklebiddy Roadhouse is about 1,200 kilometres east of Perth. (ABC Esperance: Emily Smith)
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Laree and Kelvyn Bastin were looking for an adventure after their four kids flew the nest.
So
when they saw an advertisement for managers' roles at an outback
roadhouse, about 1,200 kilometres from their Perth home, it felt like an
opportunity to challenge themselves.
"If we're going to do something silly, we might as well do it now," Ms Bastin, a retail manager, thought at the time.
"We had to actually look Cocklebiddy up on the map. We had no idea."
About halfway between Norseman and Eucla, Cocklebiddy is one of several outposts dotted along the iconic Nullarbor Plain.
The roadhouse and adjoining motel are frequented by truck drivers and interstate travellers.
Some overnight guests might venture to the nearby Eyre Bird Observatory or Cocklebiddy Cave, but most are content with a hot meal and a shower.
Talking about roadhouse life.
The remoteness came as a shock when the Bastins arrived to take up their new posts in late 2023.
"What have we done?" Ms Bastin said to her husband.
"It took us a month or two to get settled … but [now] we just love it here."
Run off their feet
Cocklebiddy life has been busier than the new managers were expecting.
A team of about 10 staff, many of whom are working holiday-makers, is needed to run the servo, kitchen, bar, and housekeeping.
The Cocklebiddy Roadhouse is home to a pair of wedge-tailed eagles. (ABC Esperance: Emily Smith)
There is also a pair of resident wedge-tailed eagles who survive on a diet of locally sourced kangaroo hearts.
"Hubby's fallen in love with them," Ms Bastin said.
Electric
utes, vans and sports cars from a wide range of automakers will roll
into Australia over the next 12 months in what is expected to become a
milestone year for low-emission vehicles.
Automotive
industry experts say the race will be triggered by laws that set a
pollution cap on new vehicles in Australia for the first time, catching
up to regulations in other countries.
But
they warn a late start for their enforcement and tough economic
conditions could slow Australia’s progress towards electric car targets.
The New Vehicle Efficiency Standard
will come into effect from 1 January, setting a pollution limit for
fleets of passenger vehicles and another for light commercial vehicles
such as utes and large four-wheel drives.
The
limits will apply to new cars and are designed to encourage automakers
to balance sales of high-polluting vehicles with low-emission electric
and hybrid models.
But the standard has
affected the local vehicle market before its official arrival,
Australian Electric Vehicle Association national president Chris Jones
said, as many emerging and established brands had announced plans to
import electric and plug-in hybrid electric cars.
“It’s going to be an exciting year and there will be lots more makes and models hitting our shores,” Jones said.
“We’ve always been a very diverse, competitive passenger vehicle market.”
Reaction
to the launch of BYD’s Shark 6 plug-in hybrid ute, which attracted
almost 4,000 pre-orders, showed Australian motorists were eager to adopt
low-polluting vehicles, Jones said, but were waiting for options that
suited them.
Australians
should expect to see a lot more electric challengers arrive in 2025,
Swinburne University future urban mobility professor Hussein Dia said,
including some with competitive prices.
“There will be an influx of cheaper vehicles and models from China,” Dia said.
“They are challenging many of the established brands and we’ve already started to see their impact in Australia.”
Lesser
known brands such as Zeekr, Smart and LDV planned to bring electric
cars to Australia during the year to compete with launches from European
companies like Polestar and Volkswagen, and well-known Asian brands
such as Hyundai and Kia.
New electric and
plug-in hybrid vehicles expected to arrive in Austyralia in 2025 include
Volkswagen’s minivan ID.Buzz, Zeekr’s sleek X SUV, Hyundai’s compact
Inster and Kia’s EV3 SUV.
Newer brands could
set price records for electric cars that fell during 2024, Dia said, and
could boost sales for entry-level and luxury vehicles.
“Some
of the models we’re expecting from China, for $50,000 or $60,000 you
can get what is comparable to a luxury brand,” he said.
“That could take off.”
Penalties
for exceeding pollution limits will not be enforced under Australia’s
vehicle efficiency standard until July, however, and some light
commercial vehicles weighing between 3.5 and 4.5 tonnes will not
immediately be required to go through carbon testing.
The “loophole” should be closed quickly to prevent misuse, Jones said.
The
collapse of that regime came after decades of barbarity — a regime
which had used chemical weapons against its own people during a civil
war that led to an estimated 500,000 people disappearing or being killed
and a refugee crisis across Europe.
In
that one political earthquake, the influence that Iran and Russia had
over Syria was banished and new kingmakers arrived in the heart of the
Middle East — Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Türkiye, and Hayat
Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Sunni rebel army that Erdogan backed.
Syria looks to reshape following the collapse of Assad regime
In
the US, Donald Trump defied the expectations of many — including many
of his fellow Republicans when he lost office in 2020 — and was
re-elected president. Trump delivered an emphatic victory — the grand
slam of the White House, the House of Representatives and the Senate.
While
the Democrats ran a campaign heavy on identity politics, Trump's
campaign was relentlessly focused on two issues: border security and
cost of living.
Democracy's shaky year
It
was a year in which the fragility of democracy was shown — even in
France and South Korea, two countries normally regarded as stable.
French prime minister Michel Barnier was forced from office
after he used his executive powers to try to reduce France's chronic
budget deficit. After three months in office he was gone — but France's
increasingly unsustainable reliance on paying for its lifestyle by
taking money from future generations remained in tact.
South Korean president impeached over botched martial law
In
South Korea, President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law without
telling either his own parliament or the country's security backer, the
United States. Even members of his own party joined a successful motion
to impeach him. Yoon argued that the declaration of martial law was
necessary to try to counter covert efforts by North Korean agents to
undermine South Korea.
The
self-inflicted political chaos added to growing instability on the
Korean Peninsula. Earlier in the year, North Korea sent an estimated
10,000 soldiers to Russia — the first foreign deployment ever of North
Korean troops — at the urging of Russia's Vladimir Putin to try to help
Russia re-claim from Ukrainian soldiers the Kursk region.
Gaza and Ukraine wars dominated
Through
2024, two major wars raged — one in Ukraine and one in Gaza. Donald
Trump, set to return to the White House on January 20, 2025, declared
that he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours and that Israel
should be allowed to "finish the job" in Gaza.
When
the year began, Iran and Russia were major influences in the Middle
East. At year's end — after the lightning raid of HTS — both had lost
influence.
Iran had an
appalling year. Its "arc of resistance" — Iran's network of Shia militia
groups from Iran, through parts of Iraq, Syria and Lebanon — was
disrupted with the fall of the Syrian government. Assad's Alawite-Shia
regime was replaced by HTS — a Sunni enemy of Iran and its Shia
militias.
On top of this, Iran's major proxy, Hezbollah, was dealt repeated blows.
The
defeats for Hezbollah began when it was hit by a hostile covert
operation under which its communications system was disabled by exploding pagers.
While Israel did not claim responsibility, it's widely believed in
intelligence circles that Israel's secret service, Mossad, managed to
take control of a huge shipment of pagers and install in them explosives
which detonated when Mossad activated the explosives.
That set off a horror stretch for Hezbollah — including the killing of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the man who built "The Party of God" into one of the most powerful non-state armies in the world.
The
day after Hamas' attack on southern Israel, in which they killed 1,200
people and kidnapped 250 others, Hezbollah began firing missiles into
Israel. On September 30 Israel launched a ground invasion of southern
Lebanon.
Heavy bombing of
southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley and Beirut over several weeks further
weakened Hezbollah and, by extension, Iran.
How are other countries with an interest in Syria reacting to Assad's fall?
Can Trump end a war in 24 hours?
So what might 2025 bring? At this point it appears that many roads will lead to Donald Trump.
Few
presidents have had such an impact before they walk (back) into the
White House. The anticipatory effect of Donald Trump is remarkable. The
Trump Factor will dominate many key international events and
relationships during 2025.
This
is most pertinent to Ukraine. If there's one prediction that on the
basis of publicly-available material it's reasonably safe to make for
2025 is that the Ukraine war will come to an end — or change its form —
one way or another.
Trump is unlikely to be able to end the war within in 24 hours — but he may well bring it to a speedy end.
That's
not to say that either side will be pleased with the outcome, but Trump
has huge leverage over Ukraine and its leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy. That
leverage comes from the money that the US contributes to Ukraine's war
effort and Washington's influence in NATO.
Although
Ukraine is not a member of NATO, the organisation is effectively
bankrolling Ukraine's war into a third year. The reality is that Ukraine
would not be able to fend off Russia without funding from the US and
European Union, which comes via NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin holds four-hour televised Q&A session
Volodymyr
Zelenskyy knows that without external help he cannot indefinitely keep
fending off Russia — Putin is clearly content to keep pouring young men
and women onto the front line as cannon fodder. While Europe may try to
make up any reduction if the US winds back funding, Europe also does not
want to inherit a fight against Russia without US money and arms.
If Trump forces an end to the Ukraine war, Ukrainians are likely to be angry with the outcome.
But
while Trump can strong-arm Ukraine, the only way he can convince
Vladimir Putin that Russia should put down its weapons is to agree that
it can keep whatever land it currently has and that Ukraine will not be
admitted to NATO.
Which would
mean, in turn, that Russia keeps the 20 per cent or so that it has taken
since the full-scale invasion of February 2022. Aggression would have
been rewarded — richly. The map of Europe would have been re-drawn.
The
reason the war in Ukraine has escalated in recent weeks is that both
sides are expecting Trump to demand that the war ends: so both sides are
jostling to capture — or hold — as much land as possible.
This
was the strategic reason behind Ukraine's audacious effort to enter
Russia and capture Kursk, and the reason Russia has flown the 10,000
soldiers from North Korea as part of the Kursk effort.
A
forced deal under which Russia keeps what it has taken with violence
would be a cruel and unfair outcome for Ukraine. It would mean rewarding
Russia with one-fifth of a sovereign country which it has illegally
invaded.
But based on all available indications, that's real politic in the age of Trump and Putin.
Donald Trump named Time Magazine's Person of the Year
Xi and Trump jostling to be winner
China
will — yet again — be a key player in 2025. If Trump does what he has
said he would do, he will use tariffs both as punishments and as trade
levers. He's already made clear to Canada and Mexico that he will hit
them with 10 per cent tariffs to punish them for not being more
effective in restricting the flow of fentanyl into the US.
Trump has raised the prospect of imposing tariffs of up to 60 per cent on China. Which in turn would spark a trade war.
The
US-China relationship will depend largely on the personal relationship
between Trump and China's President Xi Jinping — the two most powerful
men in the world and two men clearly versed in power and mind games.
Both of these men are used to winning. Neither wants to be runner-up in anything.
Trump and Xi Jinping in 2019. (AP: Susan Walsh)
It's
impossible to predict how that relationship will go, but an early act
of the drama came when Trump extended a personal invitation to Xi to
attend his inauguration. It would be unusual for a Chinese leader to
attend, as it was unusual for a US president to extend a personal
invitation.
Xi declined, instead opting to send China's Ambassador to Washington — which fits with usual protocols.
As
with many things Trump does, it can be interpreted in more than one
way. Was the invitation a genuine olive branch suggesting that Trump
wants a warm relationship with his biggest competitor?
Or was it an act of narcissism, Trump wanting Xi to sit as one of thousands looking on at what will be a Festival of Trump?
CNN
saw it through the latter lens. "Getting Xi to fly across the world
would be an enormous coup for the president-elect — a fact that would
make it politically unfeasible for the Chinese leader," CNN reported.
"Such
a visit would put the Chinese president in the position of paying
homage to Trump and American might — which would conflict with his
vision for China's assumption of a rightful role as a pre-eminent global
power. At the inaugural ceremony, Xi would be forced to sit and listen
to Trump without having any control over what the new president might
say while lacking a right of reply. Xi's presence would also be seen as
endorsing a democratic transfer of power — anathema for an autocrat in a
one-party state obsessed with crushing individual expression."
Once
he sits behind his desk in the Oval Office, Trump will not be able to
avoid the Israel-Hamas war. Trump has made clear his support for Israel.
He stated during his election campaign that Israel should be allowed to
"finish the job", although it's not clear what that means.
One of the biggest challenges for 2025 will be to try to stabilise and then bring peace to the Middle East.
Gaza,
for one, will need to be rebuilt. As Slovenia's Ambassador to the
United Nations said recently: "Gaza doesn't exist anymore. It is
destroyed."
Gaza's destruction
is extraordinary. Israel has banned foreign media from entering Gaza
since the war began, but international agencies are painting an
increasingly catastrophic picture.
The Norwegian Refugee Council's secretary general Jan Egeland recently toured Gaza and reported:
"This is in no way a lawful response, a targeted operation of 'self
defence' to dismantle armed groups or warfare consistent with
humanitarian law. What Israel is doing here, with western-supplied arms,
is rendering a densely populated area uninhabitable for almost two
million civilians.
"The families, widows and children I have spoken to are enduring suffering almost unparalleled anywhere in recent history."
(In
response to this the Israeli Defense Forces told me they are targeting
military targets exclusively and that such strikes are subject to
relevant international law, including the taking of "feasible
precautions to mitigate civilian casualties".)
Israeli newspaper Haaretz recently spoke to Israeli soldiers
who served in Gaza who alleged that in Gaza anyone who crosses an
imaginary line in the Neztarim corridor is shot to death, "with every
Palestinian casualty counting as a terrorist — even if they were just a
child".
The paper quoted an
IDF commander saying: "The forces in the field call it 'the line of dead
bodies'. After shootings, bodies are not collected, attracting packs of
dogs who come to eat them. In Gaza, people know that wherever you see
these dogs, that's where you must not go."
(The
IDF told the ABC all activities conducted by the IDF in Gaza, including
in the Netzarim corridor, were carried out in accordance with
"structured combat procedures, plans and operational orders approved by
the highest ranks in the IDF".)
And Amnesty International, in a report Israel's genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,
said since October 7, 2023, Israel had carried out "relentless aerial
and ground attacks, many of them with large explosive weapons, which
have caused massive damage and flattened entire neighbourhoods and
cities across Gaza, along with their life-supporting infrastructure,
agricultural land and cultural and religious sites and symbols deeply
ingrained in Palestinians' collective memory."
Amnesty
concluded that "there is sufficient evidence to believe that Israel's
conduct in Gaza following October 7, 2023, amounts to genocide."
(The
IDF said the report's allegations of genocide and intentional harm were
"not only unfounded but also ignore Hamas's violations of international
law, including its use of civilians as human shields and its deliberate
targeting of Israeli civilians.")
While
Israel disputes Amnesty's allegations, what is not in dispute is that
the physical re-building of Gaza will be a major international
challenge.
The enclave's 2.3 million people cannot live in rubble and squalor permanently.
Apart from the humanitarian consequence of that, that would create one of the world's largest incubators of would-be terrorists.
As Ami Ayalon, a former head of Israel's security service Shin Bet told me in Israel for Four Corners
in March: "You cannot deter a person or a group of people if they
believe that they have nothing to lose. We Israelis, we shall have
security only when they (Palestinians) will have hope."
A challenge at home
The rebuilding of Gaza and the search for peace in the Middle East will present real challenges for Australia.
Few conflicts evoke such emotional responses in Australia as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Given these emotions, it's worth re-visiting some of Australia's basic tenets of foreign policy.
While
the Coalition and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have tried to suggest
that Australia's renewed support for a two-state solution at the United
Nations is a change of position, Australia has been a leading supporter
of a two-state solution since the Chifley Labor government led the push
for such a solution at the United Nations in 1947.
As
Liberal Party prime minister, John Howard saw the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict as the "root cause" for conflicts in the Middle East. In 2006, he said:
"Australians want the fighting to stop and Australia also wants
everybody to address the root cause of the problem, and the root cause
of the problem is still, in the whole of the Middle East, is still the
settlement of the Palestinian issue."
Howard's
long-time support for a two-state solution was echoed in 2023 by six
former prime ministers — Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull, Scott
Morrison, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard.
They
signed a letter condemning Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel,
urged sustained humanitarian access for Gaza, called for the
unconditional release of the hostages in Gaza and re-affirmed "the
Australian government's enduring support for a two-state solution".
Few conflicts have the potential to lead to such death and destruction as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
'No man is an island'
The world has many conflicts, many of which are getting worse.
If 2024 has taught the world anything, it's that more efforts need to go into political rather than military solutions.
Rarely
has John Donne's famous 1624 poem For Whom the Bell Tolls, stressing
human connectedness, been more relevant than today: "No man is an
island, entire of itself. Each is a piece of the continent, a part of
the main."
When Hamas killed
1,200 people in southern Israel on October 7 and kidnapped 250 others it
was a devastating event for humanity. When Israel subsequently killed
tens of thousands of children and women, that too was a devastating
event for humanity.
Unless
there is a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, many
more thousands of civilians will likely die, both Israeli and
Palestinian.
Amid all the
problems facing the world in 2025, the world's most intractable conflict
can be solved. It simply requires the political will of all key players
to choose a political solution over a military one.
Money and power often go hand in glove. (AAP: Patrick Hamilton)
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"Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
Those
words, penned by the English aristocrat, politician and academic Lord
Acton in the 19th century have never been more salient.
Since
he famously wrote the phrase in a letter to an Anglican bishop in 1887,
it has been frequently employed to illustrate the consequences of
unfettered power in politics, matters of state or the military and its
role in global conflicts.
In
more modern times, it has been used to highlight the inequities caused
by power imbalances across society, including everything from gender
relations to wealth disparities.
Money and power often go hand in glove.
And throughout history, individuals have strived to build business empires over which they exert absolute control.
Think
Elon Musk, and to a lesser extent the other great tech entrepreneurs,
all of whom wield enormous individual influence over the structures they
have created.
Elon Musk speaks at a Trump campaign rally at Madison Square Garden in New York. (AP: Evan Vucci)
Occasionally, they are hugely successful — at least for a couple of generations.
But,
just like a modern nation state, businesses ultimately are overtaken by
a push for democracy and the limitation of individual power.
For
the past 30 years, there has been a push to limit individual power,
particularly when it comes to public companies — often family or
individual enterprises that have raised money from investors.
Running a business a founder owns outright is one thing.
But when other people's money is involved, the balance of power shifts, leading to internal conflict.
Occasionally, as we saw in 2024, the wheels fall off in spectacular style.
WiseTech,
Mineral Resources and even what once was the most powerful media
company in the world, Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation all encountered
trouble.
The 800 pound gorilla
Kerry Packer figured it out early in his career.
You
didn't need to own anything outright, you didn't even need to have
majority control — you just needed to be the biggest shareholder.
But times have changed and the Packer family, while still exceedingly wealthy, are no longer captains of industry. (Reuters)
It was a strategy he employed throughout his life even with his core media business.
He made the decisions and, if you didn't like it, he was more than happy for you to leave via the nearest exit.
But
times have changed and the Packer family, while still exceedingly
wealthy, no longer are captains of industry. A new generation of
entrepreneurs has taken their place.
And
while corporate laws are stronger now, disclosure requirements much
more stringent and stricter governance rules are in place, the misuse of
power remains the same.
Richard White's transgressions appeared largely to loom over his personal life.
The
focus quickly shifted to investigations over whether there had been any
inappropriate use of company funds once it was discovered White had
been romantically linked to former employees.
As the sideshow gathered pace, and big shareholders expressed their anger, White was forced to step down as chief executive.
White moved sideways, giving up the role of chief executive and instead taking on management of the group's key division.
But
given he remains the company's biggest shareholder with almost half the
company, he remains the most powerful voice in the organisation.
Who's really running this show?
During
the great 1980s stock market boom, often called the Decade of Greed,
the rising band of entrepreneurs often liked to confer the title of
executive chairman upon themselves.
But
their demise at the end of the decade heralded in a new philosophy. The
chairman should be independent of management and the board should
oversee management.
While it
delivers more accountability, It is far from a perfect system, and as
the WiseTech experience illustrates, when you own most of the company,
you can be called the doorman and still call the shots.
Similar problems emerged within Mineral Resources, the company brought to life by mining entrepreneur Chris Ellison.
In 2024, problems emerged at Mineral Resources, the company brought to life by mining entrepreneur Chris Ellison. (Supplied: Mineral Resources / Composite image)
A series of damning revelations in the Australian Financial Review rocked the company in late 2024.
At 93, Rupert Murdoch remains as controversial as ever.
The
newly remarried News Corp founder remains at war with his family —
having just failed to change a family trust to install eldest son
Lachlan as the legal heir apparent — and has again fought off rebel
shareholders opposing his voting gerrymander that delivers vice like
control over the company.
Rupert Murdoch remains a controversial figure decades on. (Reuters: Fred Greaves)
Three
decades ago, News shareholders approved a voting system that deems
Murdoch shares in News carry more weight than most other shares.
The family trust controls 41 per cent of the company, even though it only owns 14 per cent of the stock.
At the time, it seemed a good idea to ordinary punters.
Rupert
had the smarts and News was a dynamic organisation that was feted
globally by kings and queens, presidents and prime ministers.
That influence is now waning with the advent of social media, although Fox News still packs a punch in the US.
According
to the New York Times, which has seen the judgement, probate
commissioner Edmund Gorman delivered a scathing assessment of Murdoch's
bid to alter the trust, describing it as "a carefully constructed
charade".
The problem for
shareholders is that the absolute power they delivered to Murdoch all
those years ago may backfire once Murdoch senior shuffles off this
mortal coil.
Where once
shareholders consolidated power in a strong and singular leader
dedicated to maximising profits, News shareholders could soon bear
witness to a civil war at the top of their company.
Unless
Rupert and Lachlan raise the cash to buy out James, Elizabeth and
Prudence beforehand, the entire power structure could come to an
inglorious end.
