Trade

2 November 2017

Later this week President Donald Trump embarks on a 12-day tour of Asia – the longest trip to the region by a US president for 25 years, taking in Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines. The President’s time in Asia will be dominated by the threat posed by North Korean nuclear missiles, uncertainty about his administration’s trade policies

7 October 2017

Britain is at a political fork in the road. Brexit provides an extraordinary opportunity to chart a new course in trade, regulation and immigration policy. One place Britain can learn from is an old friend and partner, a country that has achieved over 25 years of economic growth, and has higher incomes and where people have longer lives. A beacon

17 August 2017

This week the government released a new paper calling for the “freest and most frictionless trade possible” with the EU. Ideally, Britain wants no customs border, which, the paper admits, would be “unprecedented” and “could be challenging to implement”. In just hours, the European Parliament’s Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt dismissively labelled “invisible borders” a “fantasy”. The good news is that

1 April 2017

Divorce is never easy. And a divorce after 44 years of unhappy marriage is harder still. Navigating the settlement, splitting the assets, untangling lives while remaining on speaking terms takes the moral fortitude most of us are not blessed with. But that is what will be required of British Prime Minister Theresa May and her European Union counterpart, Donald Tusk,

30 March 2017

If June 23, 2016, marked the beginning of the end of Britain’s membership of the EU, today marks the end of that beginning. Now the two-year negotiating period for Britain to leave the EU begins. Over the next two years, Britain will focus on the size of its divorce settlement with the EU, as well as on a UK-EU free

30 January 2017

Theresa May confirmed in her landmark speech at Lancaster House earlier in the month that Brexit really does mean Brexit. Britain will be leaving the economically strangling common market protectionist racket and seeking opportunities across the world. This, however, was not welcomed by all. Green MP and co-leader Caroline Lucas has complained that May is “hoping for far flung countries

16 January 2017

It is doubtful many Australians realise what a consequential leader Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has been for Australia. During Abe’s first, truncated term as prime minister he and his Australian counterpart, John Howard, signed a bilateral Joint Declaration on Security Cooperation, paving the way for closer defence and security cooperation and a genuine strategic partnership. The two countries’ relationship

9 December 2016

Parallel Import Restrictions on books are an effective tariff on international trade, similar to the archaic tariffs that were abolished under the Hawke-Keating government. “Labor’s decision to oppose the abolition of Parallel Import Restrictions on books reads like illiterate protectionism. This is an area where we know as a fact that prices of books will be lower as a result

12 October 2016

Australia’s cultural, social and political history is entwined with Britain’s. We share a language, the Westminster democratic system, the common law and a respect for diversity, individualism and freedom. Australia’s modern incarnation was defined by British colonisation. As former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott put it last week, during a discussion of Anglo-Australian trade relations at the UK Conservative Party

10 July 2016

The political news right now is Malcolm Turnbull’s tenuous hold on government. But tight elections aren’t unusual. The real significance of the 2016 election is how it reveals the growing dissatisfaction with the political class and mainstream parties. This is a thread that links the support for Nick Xenophon and Pauline Hanson in Australia with the support for Donald Trump