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Trump’s tariffs and the Middle East are looming challenges for Albanese

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Grattan on Friday: Trump, tariffs and the Middle East are looming challenges for Albanese

Michelle Grattan, University of Canberra

Australia these days receives invitations to big-league international conferences. And so Anthony Albanese will be off soon to the G7 meeting in Alberta, Canada, on June 15-17.

For the prime minister, what’s most important about this trip is not so much the conference itself, but his expected first meeting with US President Donald Trump, either on the sidelines of the G7 or in a visit to Washington while he’s in North America.

Nothing is locked in. But it’s impossible to think such a meeting won’t take place. The Australian PM certainly needs to have his first face-to-face talks with the US president sooner rather than later.

During the election, there was much argument over whether Albanese or Peter Dutton would be better at dealing with the difficult and unpredictable Trump, in particular, in trying to extract some concessions on his tariffs

Australia has been hit by Trump’s 25% tariff on aluminium and steel, as well as by his general 10% tariff.

The Trump tariff regime has been a chaotic story of decisions, pauses and changes of mind. In the latest drama, the United States Court of International Trade on Wednesday blocked Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs (as far as Australia goes, this relates to the 10% general tariff but not that on aluminium and steel). The court found the president had exceeded his powers. The administration immediately appealed the decision.

We can’t know how this imbroglio will play out. But given Australia will still be confronting some tariffs, Albanese’s pitch for special treatment will be made around what we can do for the Americans with our large deposits of critical minerals and rare earths. These are vital for the production of a huge range of items, including for defence purposes.

Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, speaking at a conference in Detroit this week, pointed out that the two countries already had a draft accord on these minerals.

“What we need to work out […] is how do we collaborate both on the mining, the extraction, the transportation and the processing and the stockpiling to make our economies resilient, including what you’ll need for future battery manufacture,” Rudd said.

When Albanese does get together with Trump, he will have the advantage of meeting him as the big winner of the recent election. Trump said of him post-election, “He’s been very, very nice to me, very respectful to me”.

But that’s no iron-clad guarantee of success. With the US president, there are always multiple “known unknowns”.

For Albanese, the outcome on the tariff front would be important, but not, of course, as important politically as it would have been pre-election.

A range of other issues will also be on the agenda when the two meet: including progress on AUKUS.

The president would no doubt be pleased the government is in the process of booting the Chinese lessee out of the Port of Darwin (with American investment firm Cerberus expressing an interest in taking over, although the government’s preference is for the port to be in Australian hands).

Trump might not think, however, that the government’s commitment to defence spending, due to reach 2.3% of gross domestic product by 2033-34, is enough. The Americans would prefer a level of 3% of GDP.

No doubt the Middle East would also be canvassed in such talks. While Middle East policy is not a frontline issue in the Australian-American relationship, the Albanese government struggles at home to strike the right stance.

Since the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, Australia has seen a deterioration in local social cohesion. Antisemitism spiked to a degree not anticipated; pro-Palestinian demonstrations became a regular and controversial feature. The government found itself under political fire from the Jewish community and pro-Palestinian critics alike.

With the Israeli government disregarding international criticism, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza growing more dire, Albanese this week toughened his rhetoric.

On Monday he said: “It is outrageous that there be a blockade of food and supplies to people who are in need in Gaza. We have made that very clear by signing up to international statements”. He described Israel’s actions as “completely unacceptable”.

Within Labor, the pressure to go further has been mounting. It is on two fronts. Some want sanctions against Israel (beyond the existing sanctions in relation to settlers on the West Bank). There is also the issue of whether Australia should recognise a Palestinian state ahead of a two-state solution.

Ed Husic, a Muslim, was relatively outspoken even while he was in cabinet. Since being dumped from the ministry, he is much freer to put forth his view.

This week, he was calling for imposing sanctions if other nations were to do so. “I think we should be actively considering […] drawing up a list of targeted sanctions where we can join with others”.

Significantly, former Labor Foreign Minister Gareth Evans was another advocate, saying sanctions “would send a powerful message”.

But when the question of sanctions was put to Albanese, he was dismissive, raising the issue of substantive outcomes.

At the Labor party’s grassroots level, there is strong pressure for a more pro-Palestinian approach.

It is not unreasonable to think that would strike a sympathetic chord with both Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong, but they are very cognisant of the politics – both international and local.

Wong a year ago raised the possibility of recognising Palestine statehood as a step along a peace process, ahead of a two-state solution.

Australia’s ambassador to the United Nations, James Larson, last week delivered an Australian statement to a preparatory meeting for a June conference in New York on “the question of Palestine and the implementation of the two-state solution”.

Echoing Wong’s earlier position, he said: “A two-state solution – a Palestinian state alongside the state of Israel – is the only hope of breaking the endless cycle of violence, and the only hope of a just and enduring peace, for Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

“Like other partners, Australia no longer sees recognition of a Palestinian state as only occurring at the end of negotiations, but rather as a way of building momentum towards a two-state solution.”

Evans, in an article for Pearls and Irritations this week, says the “strongest and most constructive contribution” Australia could make on the issue would be to announce at the conference “that we are immediately recognising Palestinian statehood: not just as the final outcome of a political settlement but as a way of kickstarting it”.

The government is tight-lipped about what stand it will take for the June 17-20 conference, saying it doesn’t have details yet and is unable to say who will attend for Australia. It says it is not being framed as a conference where countries are expected to make pledges.

Nevertheless, many within Labor will be watching closely whether the coming weeks will see any change in Australia’s Middle East policy. But that, in turn, would depend on whether others make any moves, because Australia wants to have company from like-minded countries.

Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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What will happen to the Louvre jewellery after the heist? There are two likely scenarios

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Andreas Schloenhardt, The University of Queensland

The spectacular heist of jewellery from the Louvre museum in Paris has many people wondering how a theft like this could occur in broad daylight and what might happen to the items that were stolen from the museum.

In a matter of minutes, four thieves were able to enter through a first-floor window, break into secure glass displays, and take nine items of jewellery of immeasurable value.

Although an alarm was set off and museum guards were nearby, the thieves were able to escape quickly, using motor bikes to get away. They dropped one stolen item, a diamond and emerald-encrusted royal crown that had belonged to Empress Eugénie, Napoleon III’s wife.

Their loot include jewellery from French imperial times – brooches, necklaces, earrings and a tiara. The French prosecutor’s office said the jewels were worth some 88 million euros (A$157 million), not including their historical value.

The speed and professionalism of the heist shows this was a well-planned crime, carried out by highly skilled perpetrators. That suggests they are linked to organised criminal groups.

Several media outlets reported a number of smaller thefts from French museums in recent weeks, including gold nuggets from the Paris Natural History Museum. There is no suggestion these thefts were linked to the Louvre heist.

What might happen to the loot?

The stolen jewellery includes well-known pieces that are easily recognisable. This will make it difficult, if not impossible, to sell them on the black market, even to well-heeled collectors and buyers.

This problem is well-known from other museum heists – such as the theft of the Canadian “Big Maple Leaf” giant gold coin from Berlin’s Bode Museum in 2017 or the famous heist of 13 masterpieces by Degas, Manet and Rembrandt from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Those paintings have never been recovered.

An empty frame in the Boston museum where Rembrandt's 'The Storm on the Sea of Galilee' used to hang.
Two visitors to the Gardner Museum, Boston, observe where a Rembrandt painting used to hang, before it was stolen.
John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Instead, most experts believe one of two scenarios are more likely.

In the first, the jewellery would be broken down into smaller pieces. Diamonds and other gemstones may be taken out, altered and then offered for sale. Silver and gold may be used to manufacture other pieces or may be sold separately.

This scenario would make it easy to conceal the origin of the pieces and sell them openly or online. The combined value, however, would be significantly lower compared to leaving the pieces intact. It is thus doubtful the thieves targeted the specific jewellery for this purpose.

Scenario two would involve the thieves, or more likely the masterminds behind them, trying to sell the pieces back to the Louvre or trying to extort money from the French government for their return.

This may be done through brokers or other middlemen and may not happen for a while, until there is less public and media attention and the perpetrators feel sufficiently safe to contact – directly or indirectly – museum or state authorities.

Given the historical significance of the pieces coupled with the embarrassment caused by the heist, the Louvre and the French government would be keen to have the pieces returned as swiftly as possible and might be willing to negotiate, albeit secretively.

Much of this remains, however, speculation. Only a few days have passed since the heist occurred and many questions about the events, perpetrators and their motives remain unanswered. And just who may be behind this spectacular heist from France’s largest museum has everyone guessing.

Similarities with a Dresden museum heist

The Louvre theft brings to mind the jewellery heist at the Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, Germany, in 2019.

In this case, the perpetrators had closely examined the museum’s security system for many days and were able to enter the building without being caught on camera. They entered through a window on the first floor and within minutes stole 21 pieces of jewellery from several displays.

Unlike the Paris heist, the Dresden thieves entered at night and used brute force to damage the displays to take their loot.

An employee stands in the Jewel Room of the Historical Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden
The Jewel Room of the historical Green Vault at the Zwinger Palace in Dresden, which was robbed in 2019.
Sebastian Kahnert/picture alliance via Getty Images

Some years after the robbery, German authorities were able to identify and arrest the thieves involved in the heist – all five were members of a notorious Berlin-based crime family.

The perpetrators have since been tried and convicted and are serving long jail times. Most of the jewellery was retrieved and returned – unaltered – to its famous home.

It is hoped the French authorities will soon be similarly successful.The Conversation

Andreas Schloenhardt, Professor of Criminal Law, The University of Queensland

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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An Amazon outage has rattled the internet. A computer scientist explains why the ‘cloud’ needs to change

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Jongkil Jay Jeong, The University of Melbourne

The world’s largest cloud computing platform, Amazon Web Services (AWS), has experienced a major outage that has impacted thousands of organisations, including banks, financial software platforms such as Xero, and social media platforms such as Snapchat.

The outage began at roughly 6pm AEDT on Monday. It was caused by a malfunction at one of AWS’ data centres located in Northern Virginia in the United States. AWS says it has fixed the underlying issue but some internet users are still reporting service disruptions.

This incident highlights the vulnerabilities of relying so much on cloud computing – or “the cloud” as it’s often called. But there are ways to mitigate some of the risks.

Renting IT infrastructure

Cloud computing is the on-demand delivery of diverse IT resources such as computing power, database storage, and applications over the internet. In simple terms, it’s renting (not owning) your own IT infrastructure.

Cloud computing came into prevalence with the dot com boom in the late 1990s, wherein digital tech companies started to deliver software over the internet. As companies such as Amazon matured in their own ability to offer what’s known as “software as a service” over the web, they started to offer others the ability to rent their virtual servers for a cost as well.

This was a lucrative value proposition. Cloud computing enables a pay-as-you-go model similar to a utility bill, rather than the huge upfront investment required to purchase, operate and manage your own data centre.

As a result, the latest statistics suggest more than 94% of all enterprises use cloud-based services in some form.

A market dominated by three companies

The global cloud market is dominated by three companies. AWS holds the largest share (roughly 30%). It’s followed by Microsoft Azure (about 20%) and Google Cloud Platform (about 13%).

All three service providers have had recent outages, significantly impacting digital service platforms. For example, in 2024, an issue with third-party software severely impacted Microsoft Azure, causing extensive operational failures for businesses globally.

Google Cloud Platform also experienced a major outage this year due to an internal misconfiguration.

Profound risks

The heavy reliance of the global internet on just a few major providers — AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud — creates profound risks for both businesses and everyday users.

First, this concentration forms a single point of failure. As seen in the latest AWS event, a simple configuration error in one central system can trigger a domino effect that instantly paralyses vast segments of the internet.

Second, these providers often impose vendor lock-in. Companies find it prohibitively difficult and expensive to switch platforms due to complex data architectures and excessively high fees charged for moving large volumes of data out of the cloud (data egress costs). This effectively traps customers, leaving them hostage to a single vendor’s terms.

Finally, the dominance of US-based cloud service providers introduces geopolitical and regulatory risks. Data stored in these massive systems is subject to US laws and government demands, which can complicate compliance with international data sovereignty regulations such as Australia’s Privacy Act.

Furthermore, these companies hold the power to censor or restrict access to services, giving them control over how firms operate.

The current best practice to mitigate these risks is to adopt a multi-cloud approach that enables you to decentralise. This involves running critical applications across multiple vendors to eliminate the single point of failure.

This approach can be complemented by what’s known as “edge computing”, wherein data storage and processing is moved away from large, central data centres, toward smaller, distributed nodes (such as local servers) that firms can control directly.

The combination of edge computing and a multi-cloud approach enhances resilience, improves speed, and helps companies meet strict data regulatory requirements while avoiding dependence on any single entity.

As the old saying goes, don’t put all of your eggs in one basket.The Conversation

Jongkil Jay Jeong, Senior Fellow, School of Computing and Information System, The University of Melbourne

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Australia’s tech lobby wants deregulated ‘digital embassies’ for offshore clients

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Angus Dowell, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

When Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets US President Donald Trump on Monday, the visit is expected to seal major big tech investment deals on artificial intelligence (AI) and data centres.

In the lead-up, Atlassian cofounder Scott Farquhar (in his role as chair of the Tech Council of Australia) has been pitching a plan to make Australia a “regional AI hub”.

In July, Farquhar unveiled his vision in a speech at the National Press Club of Australia in which he held up Singapore and Estonia as proof that nimble regulation to attract foreign capital can turn nations into digital powerhouses.

But based on my research on the geopolitics of data-centre markets, these examples don’t quite hold up – and following them risks narrowing the debate about Australia’s tech future at a crucial moment.

However, as Australia advances its AI agenda, these examples can offer important lessons if read more carefully.

The Estonian data embassy

Farquhar proposes Australia should host “digital embassies”. These would be datacentres on Australian soil owned by foreign companies and exempt from Australian law. He cites as a precedent Estonia’s data embassy in Luxembourg.

Estonia’s case, though, is quite different from what Farquhar proposes. After a series of Russian cyberattacks in 2007, Estonia sought to guarantee the continuity of government if its domestic systems were ever disabled.

The result was a bilateral treaty with Luxembourg. The treaty allows encrypted copies of critical state registries – citizenship, land and business records – to be stored under Estonian jurisdiction abroad.

It was an act of defensive statecraft built on the Vienna Convention. This agreement grants diplomatic immunity to state functions but explicitly excludes commercial activity.

By contrast, the digital embassies proposed by Farquhar would cater both to states and to foreign corporates. It would allow them to operate under their own law but draw on Australian resources.

Farquhar himself concedes this would necessitate revising the Vienna Convention. But this would undermine six decades of established diplomatic practice and further destabilise an already fragile international system.

Without the diplomatic costume, Farquhar’s digital embassies look more like special economic zones. These are areas designed to attract investment through the strategic loosening of laws.

What really transformed Singapore

Farquhar’s reading of Singapore’s example similarly overlooks its deeper economic and political foundations.

Singapore is often romanticised by neoliberal thinkers as a haven of free enterprise. But Singapore’s success in using its natural strengths and foreign direct investment has rested on massive state-led investment and equity in infrastructure and firms.

Through its sovereign wealth funds, Temasek and GIC, Singapore retains dominant stakes in its airlines, banks, ports and telecoms. That same strategic state investment produced Changi Airport and the Jurong Industrial Estate, cornerstones of Singapore’s regional hub status.

Australia has taken a different path.

For example, recent Australian Tax Office data shows major technology firms – such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft and Google – have secured billions in government contracts while contributing relatively little in tax.

In 2024, Microsoft reported $8.63 billion in Australian revenue, but only $118 million – about 1.4% – was payable in tax. Amazon Web Services earned $3.4 billion locally yet paid just $61 million after deductions reduced its taxable income to $204 million.

Much of this is explained by profit-shifting arrangements. Most revenue is booked in tax havens such as Ireland through inter-company “service fees”.

US tech companies have undoubtedly captured significant domestic value. However, local benefits, such as jobs, exportable digital industries and global competitiveness, remain largely hypothetical.

A cloudy memory

Australia has chased the dream of jurisdictional deregulation before.

More than a decade ago, Google and Microsoft told then prime minister Julia Gillard they could build a “Silicon Beach” here. This echoed Ireland’s “Silicon Docks” – a digital growth strategy of creating a deregulated haven for big tech.

Farquhar’s AI-hub vision appeals to the same logic. However, it has even thinner appreciation for the statecraft and public investment required.

Without it, Australia is unlikely to achieve AI hub status.

Some will argue Australia’s minerals and favorable relations with the US make it an inevitable frontier of data-centre expansion. Yet that position also gives Australia leverage to define sovereign growth on its own terms.

As economist Alison Pennington has asked, “is a shift from foreign-owned mining to foreign-owned data mining with even less control the best we can do?”

If Australia wants to build a resilient and credible AI sector, it won’t find its edge by joining the global race to the bottom – puncturing its territory with legal carve-outs and filling them with foreign-owned and unfettered direct investment.

Instead, Australia could build a model of sovereign control by investing in public infrastructure, skills and governance frameworks that secure national forms of ownership and accountability.The Conversation

Angus Dowell, PhD Candidate, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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