May 16, 2019

Australian election: Splits over taxes, climate change and China

Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios

The opposition Labor Party's lead over the ruling center-right coalition has narrowed to just 3 percentage points ahead of Saturday's general election, according to a new poll from the Guardian.

What to watch: Labor's Bill Shorten, a former union leader, is likely to be Australia's next prime minister despite being quite unpopular. He's much more dovish on China and far more concerned about climate change than Prime Minister Scott Morrison.

Labor is "laying out a suite of policies including controversial tax reforms targeting the 'top end of town,' which it says will reduce inequality and fund health, education and environmental programs," per the Guardian.
Morrison, who has only had the job for 9 months, is warning against "an experiment that puts our economy under unnecessary pressure" at a time when the U.S.-China trade war and other factors have Australia's long economic winning streak in jeopardy.
Morrison's Liberal Party has been riven by infighting, shuffling through 3 prime ministers in as many years.

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Ben Geman, author of Generate

2 mins ago - Energy & Environment

Tallying Trump's climate changes

Reproduced from Rhodium Climate Service; Chart: Axios Visuals

The Trump administration's scuttling or weakening of key Obama-era climate policies could together add 1.8 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent to the atmosphere by 2035, a Rhodium Group analysis concludes.

Why it matters: The 1.8 gigatons is "more than the combined energy emissions of Germany, Britain and Canada in one year," per the New York Times, which first reported on the study.

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Courtenay Brown

48 mins ago - Economy & Business

Boeing's one-two punch

Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios

The grounding of Boeing’s 737 MAX was the worst crisis in the plane-maker’s century-long history. At least until the global pandemic hit.

Why it matters: Wall Street expects it will be cleared to fly again before year-end. Orders for what was once the company’s biggest moneymaker were expected to rebound after the ungrounding, but now the unprecedented slump in travel will dash airlines’ appetite for the MAX and any other new planes, analysts say — putting more pressure on the hard-hit company.

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Ursula Perano

1 hour ago - Politics & Policy

New downloads of TikTok, WeChat to be blocked in U.S. on Sunday

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Commerce Department issued Friday an order blocking new downloads of WeChat and TikTok in the U.S. as of Sept. 20.

The state of play: President Trump has been in a standoff with TikTok, threatening to ban the app if its Chinese owner, ByteDance, does not relinquish control to a U.S. company. A deal is in the works with the American tech company Oracle, but would need to go through before Sunday to prevent TikTok from being ousted from app stores.