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G20 Preview: All eyes on Albanese’s potential meeting President Xi

Katharine Murphy

Good morning from Phnom Penh. Anthony Albanese is on his way to the airport after two days in the Cambodian capital for the Asean and East Asia Summits.

We fly today to the G20 in Bail. All eyes today will be on the critical bilateral meeting between Joe Biden and Xi Jinping. This will be Biden’s first face to face meeting with his Chinese counterpart since winning the presidency.

On Sunday, Biden met Albanese for about 40 minutes on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit. As we reported overnight, and senior US official Jake Sullivan confirmed with US reporters afterwards, yesterday’s conversation between the US and Australia was about comparing notes ahead of today’s bilateral in Bali.

Sullivan said Biden wanted to be “well coordinated with his closest allies”. Albanese will meet the summit host Joko Widodo shortly after we land this evening, before pushing on to a business event on the sidelines of the G20.

From the Australian perspective, all eyes will be on whether Albanese gets his own conversation with Xi during the G20 summit after breaking the ice with the Chinese premier at a gala dinner in Phnom Penh on Saturday night.

Paul Karp

Resource sector concedes threat from corporate “gorillas” was unfortunate

The Australian Resources & Energy Employer Association head of policy and public affairs, Tom Reid, has appeared at the Senate inquiry into Labor’s IR bill.

Labor’s Karen Grogan asked about comments from the AREEA chief executive Steve Knott that “corporate gorillas in the mining, oil and gas sector have said this is not on” and are threatening a multi million dollar campaign “like the mining tax on steroids”.

Reid said the use of the term “gorilla was “unfortunate”:

[Knott] likes to speak freely, he is quite colourful and open when talking to stakeholders about issues that have got him animated and concerned. That media comment was in the immediate aftermath of the bill coming in – Steve [Knott] was very shocked by the size of the bill, the inclusion of things with no evidence base. It was a bit unfortunate.

But as for the campaign? Reid said:

We have the full support of AREEA’s board and broad support of the membership. We are very actively and very publicly trying to explain to the general community and parliament just how damaging parts of the bill could be. We don’t apologise [for] going ahead with that, given the enormous contribution to employment and economy from our sector.

Grogan then tried to cross examine him on the revenue and tax paid by some of AREEA’s larger members, but Reid said he had “limited insights” to offer.

Reid said part of the industry’s campaign would highlight that the parts of the bill aiming to lift low paid workers’ pay is completely different to broader changes to greenfields agreements and the single-interest multi-employer bargaining stream, warning that the bill risks “pulling the highest paid and most productive sectors of the economy” into increased complexity.

Labor’s chair, Tony Sheldon, then attacked the “highly profitable” and influential miners, questioning whether AREEA were “a bunch of extremists” and labelling them the “monkey grinder of corporate gorilla munsters”. There was a question in there – are they the “overpaid gorillas of the Australian economy, telling everyone else to get out of their way”?

Reid again thanked Knott for the “unfortunate use of the term gorillas in the press” and pivoted to a very gracious answer about AREEA’s concerns about the bill, refusing to take the bait.

Adelaide to host first Australian LIV Golf tournament

Mike Hytner

Adelaide has been chosen to host the first LIV Golf tournament on Australian soil with the controversial rebel tour to be held at the Grange Golf Club next year.

Greg Norman, LIV Golf’s figurehead, announced the venue as one of 14 on the tour’s calendar on Monday and said his home country was “deserving of the world’s top competition”.

The likes of former world No 1 Cameron Smith, and other major winners Dustin Johnson, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Phil Mickelson and Sergio Garcia, will head to Australia for the event running from 21 to 23 April.

Many of the world’s top golfers have eschewed playing in the hugely lucrative league, but those who have made the switch to the Saudi-backed competition have been indefinitely barred from playing on the PGA Tour.

British Open winner Smith and Marc Leishman are the two most high profile Australians to have jumped ship and both are expected to return home for the event in Adelaide. Norman said:

This is an opportunity to grow the game with generations of Australians while connecting them with star players like Cameron Smith who are building a new platform for golf around the globe.

There is massive potential for Australia to play a bigger role in this great sport, and I couldn’t be more excited to showcase Adelaide for our league’s debut year.

Smith, who is expected to be able to defend his Open crown next year given his victory gave him a five-year exemption, told the Sydney Morning Herald this morning he wanted the warring tours to “rise above politics and let us play” at the majors.

Paul Karp

‘All efforts on stability’: Jim Chalmers on China relationship

The Australian treasurer, Jim Chalmers, has been asked on Bloomberg TV about the thawing of relations with China.

He said:

All of our efforts are into making this relationship between Australia and China more stable. The prime minister’s schedule hasn’t been finalised for the next couple of days, but we’ve made it very clear we think engaging in a calm, considered, respectful and meaningful way would make a contribution to stabilising the relationship. I think it’s in everyone’s interest for our region to be peaceful, prosperous, stable and secure. To the extent we can engage to help ensure that, we’re obviously very interested in doing that. To the extent we need to stand up for our national interest when it comes to trade interests, we’ll do that too.

Asked about China’s easing of Covid zero policies, Chalmers said:

One of the reasons why the Chinese economy is slowing is these Covid restrictions, and that has big implications for Australia … We don’t pretend to take domestic decisions about Covid management on behalf of other countries. But the Chinese slowdown has big implications for us. We’d like to see as part of the stabilising of out relationship some of those trade restrictions lifted – that’s important for us, it’s important for our economy.

Chalmers said the Albanese government is responding to the invasion of Ukraine, high prices of fuel and food, and the China slowdown by “rebuilding our buffers” with a “more responsibly budget”.

Police have opened a critical incident investigation after a car crash in Sydney’s north left five teenagers in hospital.

NSW police says the single-vehicle crash occurred about 4.40pm yesterday in Cammeray shortly after police had terminated a pursuit of the car:

Police had initiated, then terminated, a pursuit involving a Holden Commodore shortly before it left the road and struck a tree.

A 16-year-old girl, who was allegedly driving the sedan, suffered head and spinal injuries, while a second 16-year-old girl suffered head and facial injuries.

Back-seat passengers included an 18-year-old man, who has suffered head and chest injuries, and two male youths, both aged 17. They are suffering spinal injuries, with one also being treated for abdominal injuries.

All are reported to be in a critical condition in Royal North Shore hospital.

A critical incident team from Blue Mountains police area command is now investigating the circumstances surrounding the incident under Strike Force Mulvany.

The investigation will be subject to independent review.

Police are appealing for anyone with dashcam vision or who witnessed the crash to come forward.

Peter Hannam

Wages, jobs and a bit of energy to stir debate this week

It’s one of the quirks about the Australian Bureau of Statistics that it releases numbers on consumer prices for each quarter about three weeks before it gets around to giving us the lowdown on wages.

So, back on 26 October, we learned consumer price inflation had increased to 7.3% – its highest level since 1990 – but it’s only this Wednesday that we find out how far wages have been lagging in “real” terms.

The ABS now releases monthly CPI numbers (though, without a lot of coverage as they’re not quite as thorough as quarterly figures). We asked why they don’t give us monthly wage price index (WPI) figures too but were told it would be too costly to do so.

Anyway, back to this week. Economists are estimating the WPI will come in at about 3% or just above, accelerating from 2.6% in the June quarter (itself the highest since the September quarter of 2014).

A real wage decline of 4%-plus doesn’t look good for workers. (Even against the Reserve Bank’s (RBA) preferred inflation gauge, the gap would be about three percentage points.)

We’ll get a reminder of how tight the labour market is on Thursday when the ABS releases its jobless data for October. This figure is subject to various winds, such as whether the participation rate ebbs or flows.

But economists think the unemployment rate will tick up to 3.6% (from 3.5%) – still not far off its lowest in half a century despite seven interest rate rises by the RBA in as many months.

Speaking of which, recent comments by bank officials (and easing inflation numbers abroad) have seen expectations about how much more the central bank will need to move. A pre-Christmas cash rate rise is now just over an even bet:

Another issue to watch this week will be tomorrow’s AGL Energy’s annual general meeting in Melbourne. There is quite a lot on the line, and not just who’s on the board of Australia’s biggest electricity generator.

We previewed the action at Melbourne’s Recital Hall (while noting the meeting of shareholders is jostling on this month’s billing with acts called: big fiddle little fiddle and big thief).

Benita Kolovos

Victorian Liberals don’t rule out deal with independents

As early voting opens in Victoria, the state’s opposition leader, Matthew Guy, joined 3AW’s Neil Mitchell for a lengthy interview.

Mitchell asks why the Coalition has preferenced the Greens above Labor. Guy says:

We’re talking about who’s last and second last, so I’d hardly say we’re referencing one of the two – one’s last, one’s second last. But Neil, I don’t intend to do any political deals with the Australian Greens and I don’t intend to do any with the Australian Labor party either.

Mitchell:

And what about independents if you have to?

Guy:

Well whatever the contents of the parliament, we have to work with it. The public would expect us to do what is right for them and that is make a parliament work.

Mitchell:

So if you’re in a position to form government, which does seem unlikely, doesn’t it? It’s more likely to be a Labor minority government?

Guy:

The media says that – you were writing me off two months ago and now every poll says is our primary votes are the same or better than the government … I’ve been written off but everyone but we are in a position where they were absolutely winnable, I’ve been saying that all along.