By Denis Bright
In the absence of a stronger leftwing tradition in Australian politics, a loose coalition between the Labor, the Greens and a range of progressive independents may still be possible on economic policy. As in the recent National Assembly Elections in France, co-operation within the New Popular Front delivered a surprise result. This was no absolute majority for the French Left. The political game plan ended the threat from Jordan Bardella emerging as French Prime Minister on a National Front (RN) challenge.
The results of the first and second rounds of the French elections were as alike as chalk and cheese. This suggests that the hasty game plan worked wonders on the second-round results.
Difficult negotiating between the Popular Front and Macron’s France En March Bloc should achieve a working majority for a new French government as in the initial post-1945 years during the transition to the Fourth Republic after the Nazi occupation (1940-44). In those far-off days, the French left was much stronger from the challenges of the Resistance years. The Communist Party formed the largest bloc in the National Assembly but still well short of an absolute majority. The Popular Front Government of Leon Blum in 1936 faced a similar problem.
Politico-Poll of the Polls has projected the state of the political parties in the new French National Assembly:
Here in Australia, the federal LNP forged a strong Blue Coalition (1949-72) by harvesting votes from centre-right parties for an entire generation until Gough Whitlam became Prime Minister.
In Australia, Jim Chalmers correctly identifies storm clouds in the global economy. A threatening neoliberal challenge comes from Peter Dutton of the LNP with the traditional support of preferences from minor far-right parties. Economic nationalism severely hurts prospects for the Australian economy as China is our major trading partner as noted by DFAT in a recent statement:
China is Australia’s largest two-way trading partner, accounting for 27 per cent of our goods and services trade with the world in 2023. Two-way trade with China increased 9.2 per cent in 2023, totalling $326.9 billion.
Increased engagement between Australia and China has led to positive developments in the trade relationship, including the removal of many Chinese trade impediments that had affected Australian exports since 2020.
The continued reduced investment profile of China in the global economy should be a bipartisan concern. It was indeed the LNP which negotiated our successful free-trade agreement with China: (DFAT Statement):
The China–Australia Free Trade Agreement (ChAFTA) entered into force on 20 December 2015. ChAFTA is an historic agreement that is delivering enormous benefits to Australia, enhancing our competitive position in the Chinese market, boosting economic growth and creating jobs. Businesses have taken advantage of lower tariffs under the agreement, with a utilisation rate of over 90 per cent in both directions. Australia and China are also both parties to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP).
Australia’s foreign investment review framework is open, transparent and non-discriminatory. Chinese investment in Australia is a highly valued part of the bilateral relationship. China is the fifth-largest foreign direct investor in Australia (investment stock worth $46,6 billion in 2023), accounting for 4.0 per cent of total foreign direct investment (FDI). In recent years, Chinese investment has broadened from mining to other sectors including infrastructure and healthcare. Australian FDI in China totalled $2.2 billion in 2023.
In the absence of stronger consensus-building between the progressive parties and independents in both houses of parliament, the Labor Government has been unable to forge a greater commitment to national sovereignty on the crucial areas of strategic policy and the continued hegemony of neoliberal economic in the financial systems of most developed countries.
KPMG issued a report to deconstruct Chinese investment in Australia and the extent of its decline.
The latest World Investment Report 2024 from UN Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva also shows the storm clouds in the future directions of the global economy:
Global foreign direct investment (FDI) fell by 2% to $1.3 trillion in 2023 amid an economic slowdown and rising geopolitical tensions, according to the World Investment Report 2024.
Readers can play around with the interactive graphs from UNCTAD which are still only current to 2022. The graphs show the drying up of global investment inflows (FDI Inflows) in favour of more speculative capital flows:
Foreign Investment Inflows to 2022
The KPMG Report offers more details on the alarming trendlines in Chinese investment in Australia:
Foreign investment is only part of the picture of capital flows into Australia which also cover portfolio investment in stocks, bonds, financing of loans and movement in foreign currency reserves. Capital inflows into Australia were running at quite extraordinary levels in the year to the March Quarter of 2024 as shown by recent ABS data:
Australian Capital Inflows to the March Quarter 2024
As a learning exercise for myself, I hope to attend the UQ Business Faculty Alumni Roundtable Luncheon on trends in Global Capital Flows in Brisbane on 2 August 2024. Readers at AIM Network will be kept informed of my own changing perceptions on the above-mentioned financial storm clouds on the global horizons.
The mainstream problem is surely the extent to which Australians are locked into a neoliberal world order under the shadows of a robust and more assertive corporate military industrial complexes of Britain and the USA within the US Global Alliance.
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Sadly, History shows, Australian Labor can never trust the Greens.
Good to have the welcome distraction of a diversionary trip to France through the enthusiasm of Denis’ article.
This article links two distant countries in their respective approaches to common problems. in the global economy.
Yes, the French have warded off the National Front for the moment!
BREXIT afflicted both sides of the English Channel. Boris Johnson was not world statesman and should have been born into British Royalty to gain the freedoms that he sought during the COVID-epidemic back home during those Party Gate Games.at 10 Downing Street while selling defence hardware to gullible Australian leaders.
The Australian economy is more than half the size of the French economy: Luckily, we have Asian neighbours who buy our products, come as students and tourists and invest in our industries. With 27 million people here, Australians are not doing too badly.
@ Denis Bright: You are indeed an optimist!! The Greens continue their long standing philosophy of game-playing to embarrass rather than compose policies to be properly considered. The Greens are too busy looking up their own backsides to form any coalition of progressives!!
The Greens under Furrehr Brandt expect to displace LABOR as the ”left wing” of Australian politics. Mad Max Mather lacks any credibility rabbiting on about housing policy that he might vaguely understand. The rest of them are in it for the money (just like the LIARBRAL$).
tut tut, Cocky, Labor SHOULD be embarrassed with their weak kneed hypocrisy they leave the door wide open for the Greens to stroll through,after all Labor now occupy the space that the old Liberals used to.And I think looking up your own arse is called introspection.If we’re ever going to get out of the shit we’re in,we’ll be adopting most of the Greens policies sooner or later.I used to be a Labor supporter,but the current mob have lost me.
The Greens represent left-flavoured political fundamentalism: Some Greens have delusions about forming a majority government. However, Labor should be much more inclusive on issues such as AUKUS and recognition of Palestine or even rampant tax avoidance. Some Labor insiders are a disgrace with their links to the AUKUS Forum and worse-straight lobbyists and commercial consultants who cannot represent the needs of the electorate.
Aussies are prejudiced against Aboriginal people just as our three phase owners.
When the pomms were tops we were poms, when the septics took over we became yanks soon we will be chinese.
Agree, Sully:but we used to be able to love them.
The Brown and Mundy were the most important influences till bobby went with the rabbott at the end of 2009. Eventually he left and Diludbansimkims released the scheming bandit the sinle most damaging element in the demise of the labor party.
The Greens have delusions about attaining a majority government. The real choice is between Labor and the LNP. Labor’s game plan should be to acknowledge its internal diversity. This is not a sign of internal weakness. On major issues like Palestine, it should be quite acceptable for Senator Payman to dissent when Labor is out of phase with Labor values. Tolerance of Netanyahu is immoral to most Moslem Australians.
Check our the complex voting patterns across France and its dependencies overseas from Le Monde: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/les-decodeurs/article/2024/07/07/2024-french-election-results-chart-and-map-of-second-round-winners_6676976_8.html
Every community in France is covered. There were are some surprise results which are repeated in other newspapers like Le Figaro.
With some exceptions the Mediterranean sunbelt opted for the Political Right while a swathe from Biarritz along the Pyrenees to Toulouse and Haute-Garonne supported the Popular Front. but this support did not extend to the Mediterranean coast.
Charles Trenet’s birthplace in Narbonne supported the National Front.
Electoral districts in Paris were divided between support for Macron’s Ensemble and the Popular Front Districts in the eastern sectors.
The map distributions show the passionate divides within France which make it difficult to stereotype just what happened in the Second Round of Voting.
In Marseille, the Popular Front precincts in the 7th and 11th Districts of Bouche du Rhone are completely encircled by National Front (RN) territories.
Living standards across France are locked into a stagnant economy which is well covered by the varied indicators offered by Trading Economics: https://tradingeconomics.com/france/indicators
Jim Chalmers is fighting to keep these storm clouds away from our Australian horizons as the financial burdens of AUKUS and strategic controls against China take their toll.
“Jim Chalmers is fighting to keep these storm clouds away from our Australian horizons as the financial burdens of AUKUS and strategic controls against China take their toll.”
This is becoming an ever greater problem.
Governments are allocating scarce finances to geo-political games instead of national welfare.
It’s not only France, Germany as well is in economic strife, so this affects the whole of Europe.
This will continue until the need to mind one’s own business becomes universally recognised.
This urge to interfere is a feature of the former colonial empires who are struggling to come to terms with the gradual erosion of their power to dominate. They were successful for a while by using financial domination through the IMF, the World Bank, and dodgy free trade agreements, but that too is now on the wane.
So,at the NATO summit,where those erstwhile powers struggle to maintain the status quo,such as it is now,the soon to be replaced President continues to exhibit cognitive decline at an ever increasing rate.(See Guardian reports.)It remains to be seen who the replacement will be(depends on the big money men).Regardless of the ultimate Presidential result,we’re all going to shit in a hurry.That cave in the hills is looking more inviting by the day,although it’s likely to be standing room only.
The Roman Emperor Caligula’s nag, Incitatus, was proposed to be elevated to the level of Consul; sadly never ratified. Image how he may have responded following the mad emperor’s assassination!
Bill Hayden, on being replaced as ALP leader by Bob Hawke in early 1983, suggested a drover’s dog could win the upcoming election.
I’m all for a bit of novelty in politics. What chance America could nominate something other than a Biden clone: a Floridian ‘gator perhaps, a grizzly bear, or perhaps a skunk… given how on the nose their political systems are? A rattlesnake maybe, or a scorpion? Something appropriate to their general approach to the world at large.
Canguro, Incitatus would be a vast improvement on some of the galahs we have now masquerading as politicians,and we’re already familiar with horse shit.
Didn’t Hayden also say that the food at the Parliament cafeteria of the time would kill a brown dog?
Really I think one has Buckley’s of divining likelihoods at present. Even gut instinct has been polluted by the dross we’re fed.
The pollies are so beguiled by paranoia, they have become obsessed with theoretical vote counting to decide which way to swing to maintain their sinecure. And just in case, spend the rest of the time trying to stay ahead of the game, to gird their investments and their escape route, whilst disabling all the allegedly non-aligned institutional guard dogs, and greasing every revolving door in sight. Their obsessions are not just limited to the Oz theatre, they’re global busybodies.
Whilst they’re at it, they’re trying to juggle what they think they can get away with as far as blue sky ‘deals’ that will quieten the madding crowd. No wonder they’ve got sore necks, affected brains and jabbering gobs.
Then there’s the haze of the advertising industry, the mainstream media owners and their battered amanuenses, and the precious gazillionaires and their infantilized mathematicions and coders of social media, AI and the various ‘Silicon Valleys’.
It seems not to matter whether one has an inkling, because it seems rounding up the revolutionary masses, or clearing a path for escape is pointless as even the bush telegraph has been busted by Arthur C. Clarke’s stratospheric panopticon.
Look out for the loaded dog and Hanrahan.
Recent update from France through Poll Bludger’s estmates in Australia:
10:37am Tuesday The composition of the 182 NFP members are 74 from the far-left LFI, 59 from the centre-left Socialists, 28 Greens, nine Communists and 12 others. Adding Ensemble’s 168 to NFP, but subtracting LFI and the Communists gives 267 seats, still 22 short of a majority.
A broad coalition will still control the National Assembly with Macron as President but without support from the far-right National Front (RN)
Co-operation between Progressives is essential on major economic issues. This does not mean that the Greens and the TEALS should abandon their principles. However, real criticisms should be directed at the LNP which stands for a Neoliberal Australia with close times to the Military Industrial Complexes of Britain and the USA. Commitment to military exports is basic economic diplomacy and has little to do with patriotism and more to do with maximizing war profits as in Iraq, Vietnam and now Tomahawk Missiles in Germany to produce more profits for the Raytheon Corporation. Raytheon operates here in Australia too at Exmouth:
“Invested in Exmouth
Over the past decade, our world class team of 120 experts, based at the Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station in Exmouth, Western Australia, has supported ground station operations, construction, heavy engineering and maintenance to provide critical space and naval capabilities ”
The broader Labor Movement here should be critical of these links to Military Industrial Complexes which take over one trillion in US and British Government resources devoted to militarism.
Perhaps the Left Unions will speak up through the ETU and CFMEU at Labor Forums.
JD@SH. The CFMEU is, by their prior record, far more likely to speak out in favour of expanded native logging quotas and additional fossil fuel mining, but thanks for the optimistic thought.