PAUL RAFTERY

INTRODUCTION Today we are challenged by community concern and confusion in many countries. Whilst environmental issues are important community unrest in many countries has causes of much more immediate significance. In Australia not only do we have universal suffrage at age 18 for citizens. We also have compulsory voting - and enforced democracy if you would like. May this year saw the election of a Liberal / National Party coalition led by now Prime Minister Scott Morrison. What Morrison promised was recognition for middle Australia the so-called hard-working decent family orientated middle of Australia. AUSTRALIA’s LESSON The recent election of the Morrison led Liberal/National Party coalition government came as a surprise even to our own political commentators. In the wash to the May election it would seem Morrison’s message was pretty simple “I want to govern the people in middle Australia”. Australia, like so many democracies, traditionally has had a blu

Day two of the One Belt and One Road Summit (OBOR), also described as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), exceeded expectations. This is the day for projects and their spruikers to strut their stuff. Unsurprisingly, my focus is on clean energy projects which came from as close as Sarawak in Malaysia and as far as from Provence in France.  We now have more than four years of experience on what OBOR means and what can and has been delivered. What OBOR means is becoming clearer, and it is clearly changed. OBOR impacts 66% of the world’s population that they have only 30% of the world’s GDP. There is a clear backdrop that large-volume and low-cost production which was the backbone of China’s growth for the last 40 years is now considered history. The destiny of China is seen to be higher in the value chain. This means China needs to recognise that it’s a high cost producer for many items and that its manufacturing infrastructure is old and costly, and as a result of this the

Today marks the opening of the fourth annual One Belt and One Road (OBOR) summit held in Hong Kong to update participants in the amazing world of OBOR. Nearly 5000 delegates attended the opening of the summit. Hong Kong continues to be the highly favoured commercial centre for OBOR. Much was said by all officials, delegates and speakers of its pivotal role as a centre of legal technical and financial expertise in the OBOR process. There was a thoroughly amazing list of speakers from Beijing, each reinforcing that Hong Kong remains the gateway for China to the world and for the world into China.  A recurring theme was that Chinese investment now also has “Chinese characteristics”. These characteristics are about social and environmental responsibility, but it also needy to be good business. It is clear that China has learned from some of his experience in Africa, and now wishes to focus on sustainable investment which can be paid for by newly created exports or acc