Xi Jinping pats Albanese on the back with high praise

LOOK WHO’S TALKING

Chinese language President Xi Jinping has instructed Prime Minister Anthony Albanese he attaches “nice significance to your opinion” and that their relationship is value “cherishing”, as The Australian ($) experiences. The pair met for 32 minutes on the sidelines of Bali’s G20 — Xi continued that we’re each “necessary international locations” within the Asia-Pacific and thus ought to work on our relationship to assist foster peace within the area and past. However Albo introduced up some sticking factors too: the $20-billion-a-year export commerce bans that rocked our wine, coal and lobster industries, amongst others; the detained Chinese language-Australian journalist Cheng Lei and blogger Yang Hengjun; rumours Russia might be eyeing the nuclear button. The SMH provides local weather change, human rights in Xinjiang, and Taiwan had been additionally spoken about (hell of quite a bit to cowl in a half-hour chat).

Albo says there have been no breakthroughs on both aspect, as Guardian Australia says, nevertheless it was a great chat — “constructive”, he stated. It’s an enormous deal contemplating Beijing ghosted us three years in the past, breaking off all high-level contact and even screening calls from Australian counterparts after we known as for a COVID-19 origin probe. Opposition international affairs spokesman Simon Birmingham, who was barred by his Chinese language counterpart as commerce minister within the earlier authorities, counseled Albanese’s chat with Xi, though he defended the Coalition’s hard-line stance in barring Huawei. So what else went down on the G20 on its first day? ABC has a great wrap this morning — AP (by way of ABC) says Russia’s steely Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov went to hospital, although a spokesperson denied it. Indonesian President Joko Widodo known as for the tip to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, saying the world can’t transfer ahead till it does — have a look at meals safety, at power, at funds, Widodo says. All are in peril, and it’s affecting poor international locations the worst.

TO PROTECT AND SERVE

Australia might be about to raised defend its whistleblowers with a invoice to be launched within the remaining sitting fortnight of the federal Parliament, Guardian Australia experiences. Legal professional-Common Mark Dreyfus goes to announce it at this time — the draft laws was authorized by cupboard on Monday. So what’s it? The invoice comes from suggestions within the 2016 Moss assessment of the Public Curiosity Disclosure Act — we don’t know precisely which of the assessment’s 33 suggestions the invoice implements, however amongst them was giving witnesses the identical protections that disclosers get, whether or not or not it’s from reprisal, civil, prison and/or administrative legal responsibility. The assessment additionally known as for attorneys to get entry to safety labeled info. We’ll discover out extra subsequent week when it passes caucus. It could come into power concurrently the Nationwide Anti-Corruption Fee — mid-2023.