Gentlefolk,
This post describes our activities in June 2023.
The contents of this post are in the following sequence:
Photos of our activities during June 2023.
News items which caught my eye in June 2023.
Herewith photos of some of our activities during June.
The highlight of our month was spending 10 days in Brisbane and surrounds - good to get out of Canberra's winter.
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| We went to a concert "Russell Crowe's Indoor Garden Party" at the Playhouse Theatre. Russell is best known for his acting (Oscar winner) but he obviously loves performing live on stage; he was onstage for over 2 hours, singing, playing the guitar, and chatting. |
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| Russell Crowe (59, and carrying a lot of weight) chatted about his life/career during the concert. Perhaps the funniest story was about the time he was 'fucked' by a huge tarantula spider. PM Albo was in the audience (he and Russell are both passionate South Sydney Rabbitohs supporters). |
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| Saying goodbye to Marjana Sadu, who has been a good manager of RMC Golf Club. I've been playing socially twice a week, enjoy the game, but my lower back suffers. |
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| One of the big stories this month was Ben Roberts-Smith losing his defamation case against three newspapers. Talk about an own-goal!! Despite all the adverse findings, the War Memorial has decided, for the moment, to keep keep the display of Ben and the Victoria Cross he was awarded for bravery in Afghanistan. |
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| I went to this event (really a book launch). Professor John Blaxland is an expert presenter. |
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| Co-author Clare Birgin discussing the book. |
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| We attended the Annual Ball weekend of our dance club. Dances and lessons were held on four consecutive days/nights, New Vogue, also called Sequence Dancing (eg Swing Waltz). |
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| COTDC Vice President Ken Hopkins does the "welcome to country" |
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| Former President Duncan Souter cut the cake. |
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| Vera & I enjoyed the Ball. We normally dance twice a week, on Tuesday nights at the German Club and on Thursday nights with the Canberra Old Time Dance Club at St Benedict's hall. |
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| ACT pool competition finals held at the German Club. Impressive skills. |
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| Leo Joseph playing Blues piano and singing. We are fans! |
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| Author's talk at the Asia Bookroom. |
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| Author Michael Laffan (Princeton U) was interviewd by Greg Fealy from the ANU. |
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| We watched the semi-final of the Super Rugby Pacific competition which was played between the Hamilton Chiefs and the Canberra Brumbies. We put up a good fight, but lost to a better team. Only one try was scored, by the Chiefs, with 5 minutes to go. From left: Paul Nicoll, Nick White (Brumbies half-back who is joining the Force next year), David Evans, and me. In the Final a week later, the Crusaders beat the Chiefs. |
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| Visited the Portrait Gallery. Actor Hugh Jackman. |
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| Author Tim Winton. |
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| We have a soft spot for painter Tom Roberts as our son-in-law has the same name. |
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| Our nephew Moritz completed the Cairns Ironman in 12 hours 26 minutes: 3.8km ocean swim; 180 km bike ride, 42 km run. What a champion!!! Moritz came from Germany about 5 years ago; he is now the Service Manager for Tesla in Melbourne; he took up Ironman as a hobby during Covid. |
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| Our U3A Australian History group visited Mulligan's Flat eco sanctuary. The Canberra Govt set aside 140 hectares on our northern border with NSW, to be kept in its natural state. Impressive. |
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| Part of Mulligan's Flat eco sanctuary which we saw on our tour. |
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| We were delighted to receive a photo of Trade/Commercial Counselor colleagues we met in Singapore nearly 30 years ago: Steve & Donna Craven (USA Embassy) and Ildiko & Denes Hunkar (Hungarian Embassy). They caught up in Budapest., at the elegant New York Cafe. |
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| Vera & I spent 10 days in Brisbane, house-and-dog sitting while the family went camping. I played golf with the three boys, Kurt, Nate and Sid before they left. |
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| Nate did golf for PE at school last term - he has really improved. |
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Bulcock's Beach, Caloundra (Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane). As you can see the river mouth is silted up at the moment. We were researching the property market - looking to escape winter in Canberra - everything is pretty expensive! The Sunshine Coast is a pleasant area: King's Beach, Moffat's Beach and up the coast to Mooloolaba and Maroochydore.
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| View from Mary Cairncorss lookout at Maleny of the Glasshouse mountains. |
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| A tangle of vines and branches near the beach at Mooloolaba. |
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| We spent a couple of days at the Gold Coast researching the property market. Popped in to see Hugo Hofgartner at Gaven. Indefatigable - Hugo was in the middle of his next project, building a big shed at the front of his yard. |
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News items which caught my eye during June 2023.
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Global
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Top 4 on Bloomberg’s 2023 Billionaire’s
List: Elon Musk (192B); Bernard Arnault ($187B); Jeff Bezos; Bill Gates. India: train crash 288+ died and hundreds
injured; Indian airline IndiGo placed an order for 500 Airbus A320s for an
estimated $55B. PM Narendra Modi’s official visit to USA. France: passed a new law protecting consumers from misleading information from online “influencers”. Widespread anti-police demonstrations following the shooting of 17 year old Nahel at a traffic checkpoint. OPEC+ decided to cut oil
production to stabilize prices; but remained soft. UK: Prince Harry sued Mirror
Newspapers for unlawful information gathering. Former PM Boris Johnson resigned, anticipating that the House of
Commons Privileges Committee would find that he had deliberately misled Parliament. Actress and politician Glenda Jackson died
aged 87 (Women in Love; A Touch of Class). The courts decided that the Govt's plan to send illegal immigrants to Rwanda was unlawful as Rwanda was not considered a safe destination. World snooker: match-fixing
scandal - some Chinese players banned. World golf: The PGA, DP World Tour, and LIV Golf agreed
on a partnership, ending months of turmoil in golf. Football/Soccer: Lionel Messi will join Inter Miami in the
MLS League. Swedish soccer star, Zlatan Ibraminovic, retired aged 41. After
success leading Celtic in the Scottish League, Aussie Ange Postecoglou was named
new Manager of Tottenham Hotspur. Manchester City beat Inter Milan to win the
Champions League (Man City had already won the FA Cup and the Premier League,
got the trifecta!). Tennis: Novak Djokovic beat Casper
Ruud to win the French Open – his 23rd Grand Slam. Top 4 GS
winners: Djoko 23; Nadal 22; Federer 20; Sampras 14. Italy: entrepreneur and 4x PM,
Silvio Berlusconi, died aged 86. Indonesia: next Presidential
election will be held in February 2024, frontrunners: Anies Baswedan; Ganjar
Pranowo; Prabowo Subianto. New Zealand: officially in
recession after two consecutive quarters of negative GDP (-0.7% and -0.1%). A boat full of migrants (mostly
from Egypt, Syria and Pakistan) sank off Greece; 104 rescued but 100s
drowned. Remains of the submersible ‘Titan’
found near the Titanic wreck; 5 occupants died in the implosion; remains
salvaged to assess cause. Canada: passed the “Online News
Act” to force platforms such as Meta and Google to pay for news content. Widespread
wildfires in Canada have burnt an estimated 7.7m hectares which affected air
quality across a large area including parts of the USA. Turkey: The new Finance Minister
doubled interest rates to 15% in an effort to control inflation (running at
40%pa). Brazil: Trial of former President
Jair Bolsonaro commenced; he is accused of abuse of power and spreading false
information. Islam: about 2M Muslims participated in the hajj in Mecca.
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Russian invasion of Ukraine |
Belgorod (inside Russia) attacked
again – dissident Russians or Ukrainians? Heavy fighting around Bakhmut. Ukraine’s anticipated counter-offensive
began. The big Nova Kakhovka Dam on the
Dnipro River collapsed, causing widespread flooding and damage. Ukraine blamed Russia and visa-versa (but why would Russia destroy a major water supply for
SE Ukraine and Crimea?). Russia deployed some tactical
nuclear weapons to Belarus. Following disagreements with the
Russian Military Command, the Wagner mercenary army (estimated around 25K
strong, funded by Russia) led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, “mutinied”; extraordinary
scenes as they marched from the conflict in Ukraine towards Moscow. An
agreement was brokered: Prigozhin was given safe haven in Belarus and the mercenaries
were given the option of joining the Russian Army or disbanding.
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USA
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Congress (Senate 63-36, House
314-117) passed the Debt Ceiling Bill, to avoid defaulting on govt debt of $31.4T
(valid until January 2025). Congress blocked a Biden
initiative to forgive some student loans – Biden will veto. Mike Pence announced his
candidature for the Republican Party candidate for the 2024 Presidential
election. Former New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, also nominated. Trump was indicted for mishandling
classified documents – pleaded “not guilty”; claimed a witch hunt; increased his
popularity amongst Republicans. Purdue Pharma (Sackler Family
owned) settled for $6B to avoid litigation related to America’s opioid crisis. NBA: Denver Nuggets beat Miami
Heat to win their first Championship. MVP Nikola Jokic. Economy: Inflation rate in May 4%
(down from 4.9% in April); US unemployment rate rose from 3.4% to 3.7%. Fed
Reserve did not change interest rates in June. Jim Hines, who broke 10 seconds when he won the 100m sprint in
9.95sec at the 1968 Olympics, died aged 76. His record stood for 15 years, finally beaten by Calvin Smith in 1983. A prolonged ‘heat dome’ brought very high temperatures to Texas and neighbouring States; several deaths. President Biden announced $42B to expand
high-speed internet access; will benefit an estimated 8.5m families and
businesses. The US Supreme Court ruled that colleges and universities can no longer take race into consideration in their admissions policies - end of 'affirmative action'!
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Australia |
Parliament passed the Bill to hold
a referendum later this year on the constitutional inclusion of an Indigenous
Voice. In the Senate the Greens sided with the Coalition to delay a vote on
the Government’s A$10B Housing Bill. Victoria Cross winner,
Ben Roberts-Smith, lost his defamation case against 3 newspapers which
published articles implying his guilt of bullying and killing civilians in Afghanistan.
Federal Court Judge, Anthony Besanko, described Smith as “an unreliable
witness”. South Australia adopted increased
penalty to A$50K or 3 months jail for “obstructing a public place”. Central Coast Mariners (CCM) beat
Melbourne City 6-1 to win the A League championship (first title since 2013).
Jason Cummins scored a hat trick. Kathleen Folbigg was pardoned
because of doubts about her conviction (she served 20 years for killing 4
babies). Economics: GDP rose 0.2% in Q1
2023. Reserve Bank raised interest rates 0.25% to 4.1%; 12th rise.
Super Rugby: The Brumbies beat the
Hurricanes in the Quarter Finals, but were beaten by the Chiefs in the Semis.
In the Final in Hamilton, the Crusaders beat the Chiefs 25-20. First time the majority of recipients of the King’s Birthday
honours (total of 1,100 Awards) were female. Bus accident near Maitland: 10
dead, 11 injured. Govt established the High Speed
Rail Authority to (again) assess feasibility. Several women accused Senator David
Van (Lib, Vic) of sexual harassment; he resigned from the Liberal Party and
will sit on the cross-benches. Lowy Institute’s “SE Asia Aid Map”
showed the region received about $28B in development finance. Major donors:
ADB & World Bank, followed by China ($5.5B), Japan ($3B), Korea ($3B), EU
($3B). Australia ($0.9B). Queensland won Rugby League’s 2023
‘State of Origin’ series, beating NSW in the first two games. Kylie Minogue had her first Top-10
hit in 13 years with “Padam Padam”. Former leader of the Aust Labor
Party (2001-3), Simon Crean, died aged 74. Under fire PwC sold its govt
Advisory Division to private equity Allegro Funds for $1.
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China |
US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken visited Beijing; met his counterpart and also the Chinese President. Beijing had its hottest June day
in 60 years (41.1C). New Zealand PM Chris Hipkins made
an official visit to Beijing; China is NZ’s biggest export market (mainly
lamb, dairy, and timber products). China’s Central Bank shaved official
interest rates to boost economy.
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INTERNATIONAL TRADE
My 30 year career as an Australian Trade Commissioner gave me an interest in matters related to international trade. I subscribe to Bloomberg's excellent daily newsletter "Supply Lines - tracking Covid-19's impact on trade" (former title 'Trade Matters').
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A bit of humour
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That's it for this post.
We are enjoying our time in Brisbane, where their minimums are Canberra's maximums!!!
Best wishes, stay healthy and keep smiling.
Vera & Alex Olah
Brisbane, Australia
Friday 30 June 2023
