Re: Australia and Oceania news and discussions
Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2021 8:18 am
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The article also discusses the AUKUS security pact.(Counterpunch) It was startling and even shocking. Away from the thrust and cut of domestic politics, not to mention noisy discord within his government’s ranks, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison could breathe a sign of relief. Perhaps no one would notice in Washington that Australia remains prehistoric in approaching climate change relative to its counterparts. Being known in his own country as “Scotty from Marketing”, he just might pull it off.
Besides, a security compact with the United States and the United Kingdom had just been cemented, one promising Canberra eight submarines with nuclear propulsion. That these promised to be eye-wateringly expensive and available sometime in the 2040s, were they to ever make it to water, was a point not even worth considering.
In the US press, Morrison was careful to toe the line of the partner made supplicant. On CBS’s Face the Nation, he was asked whether the US and its allies were moving towards conflict with Beijing. “I don’t think it’s inevitable at all,” he chirped, claiming that it was “in everybody’s interest” that we all co-exist. But this “happy co-existence” was premised on keeping China in the box or, as he preferred to put it, a committed role of “free nations like Australia” and others in the Indo-Pacific region to stay vigilant.
On climate change, he was also pressed on having not “given a timeline” on placing Australia on the path to net zero emissions. He admitted this to be the case and vacillated. Slipping back into advertising mode, Morrison said that “performance matters” for Australia. The net zero target was being pursued, and would be achieved “preferably by 2050.” The usual half-baked assurances followed: Australia’s record was “strong”. “We’ve already reduced emissions in Australia by over 20 percent since 2005. We committed to Kyoto. We met that target and beat that target.” As for the Paris target? Not an issue: Australia would romp it.
At that point, CBS’s Margaret Brennan could only observe that no country had actually delivered on such targets.
(Agence France-Presse via The Guardian) New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern has ordered police and troops to join an international peacekeeping mission in the crisis-hit Solomon Islands following deadly anti-government riots.
Ardern said on Wednesday the deployment of 65 peacekeepers followed a request from the Solomons government, which was almost toppled during the unrest that claimed at least three lives and reduced much of downtown Honiara – the country’s capital – to smouldering rubble.
She said an initial force of 15 New Zealand personnel would set off on Thursday and another 50 would join them over the weekend.
The New Zealand leader said they would work with Solomons police and about 200 peacekeepers already on the ground in Honiara from Australia, Fiji and Papua New Guinea.
“We are deeply concerned by the recent civil unrest and rioting in Honiara, and ... we have moved quickly to provide urgent assistance to help restore sustained peace and security,” Ardern said in a statement.