When I first heard about the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, my thoughts drifted to what country supports the move and what countries oppose the military action and what possible ramifications will manifest. We are yet to find out, I am suggesting international law has been breached, there will be an emergency meeting of the United Nations, but what can they do?

The United States is pretty good at invasion planning and execution, they have less than a stellar record in running countries though. With Russia and China both seeking imperialistic expansion themselves, there is some concern that the Trump Administration is seeking to divide up world spheres with the United States taking the western hemisphere, Russia taking Europe and China left to the Asia Pacific and Africa.

So I expected neighbouring South American countries would condemn the military action, that goes without saying. Cuba has been importing Venezuelan oil, with the US blockade has pretty much shut down Cuba, that has already hit them hard. As Cuba is a long-standing enemy of the United States, they should have plenty of concerns. With this new adventurism in the United States, Cuba could well be the next target. We are learning the kidnapping was pretty surgical, Delta are a highly professional force, 150 aircraft took place in the raid to take out air defences, bomb military installations and provide the distraction so Delta Force could slip in and out reasonably undetected.

With the Chinese envoy meeting with Maduro only hours before, this poses a significant problem. Beijing has a financial interest in Venezuela, with $105 billion between 2007 and 2016 as part of theBelt and Road Initiative in Latin America. With a reported $19 billion in outstanding loans, an oil-for-loans programme running through the China Development Bank is now in jeopardy. With Donald Trump announcing the United States will now run Venezuela, it is unclear if China will purchase oil from the United States or Venezuela. What about the people who lost their lives? The death count is still unknown, what about the people who lost their homes, what will become of them?

I am no fan of President Nicolás Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, that is for sure. The people of Venezuela have been leaving in droves, despite the huge oil reserves, Maduro has left his nation impoverished. But then again, if you are an American citizen, will you be better off after The Big Beautiful Bill where your health insurance premiums rise to unsustainable levels? It is all relative I guess.

The question I ask? Is it legal for the President of the United States to order a military raid on a sovereign country, capture their leader and bring them back to the United States for trial under US law? It would be fair to determine that Congress did not authorise this operation. Therefore, Donald Trump acted without Congressional approval, has Donald Trump exceeded the executive powers of the presidency? We all know Donald Trump is an authoritarian president, he does not respect or follow the Constitution of the United States, this is just another example of his appalling contempt for the American people and judicial processes.

Just a little over a week ago, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in Mar-a-Lago meeting with President Trump to negotiate an end to the war. This is when President Putin phoned Trump and complained that Ukraine had conducted a drone attack on Putin’s residence in the Novgorod region. Donald Trump, not waiting for a CIA assessment, immediately called a press conference and remarked “I don’t like it. It’s not good” describing himself as “very angry.” Every military analyst knows Putin’s residences are heavily protected with missile defences, somewhat ironic as the rest of the country is left exposed. This is actually great for Ukraine as they can target gaps in Russian air defences and avoid his heavily protected residences.

Whilst Trump conceded that it was possible it was a false flag attack, Trump replied “But President Putin told me this morning it did.” The Russians provided no evidence of a drone attack, Putin asked Trump to trust him on this one. Trump was angry that Putin’s private residence had been [allegedly] attacked, but his anger quickly died down when Maduro’s private residence was attacked by US forces and the President of a sovereign nation and his wife were taken prisoner and brought to the United States for trial under US law. Am I the only person seeing the hypocrisy here?

As a nation, Australia has ridden the Chinese economic boom, the Chinese demand for our resources and products has benefited the nation immensely. These very same raw resources have also benefited the Chinese. We had beneficial trade between the two nations, this all collapsed during covid, but this was a really shaky relationship well before that.

We have a free trade agreement with China, the ChAFTA entered into force on the 15th of December 2015. This was supposed to provide significant opportunities for Australian companies marketing goods and services in China. Well, China hasn’t honoured their end of the agreement, they have been remiss, they have targeted the imports that won’t hurt them. Australia has taken China to the World Trade Organisation to get this sorted.

This isn’t entirely true, the CCP targeted coal imports from Australia, what a disaster, a real failure of leadership. Yet Australian coal is making its way into China via India, good luck to Indian businessmen jacking up prices, that’s smart business. They have found a niche, they can now exploit this Chinese need for Australian coal and the Chinese desire to pay inflated prices.

There are two basic types of coal, there is coking coal used for steelmaking and thermal coal used for steam and electricity generation. With climate change, countries are looking for ways to reduce their reliance on thermal coal, the use of renewables will increase in the future as technology improves.

Australia relied on China, but they were not our only market. We needed greater diversification, that has been coming. Whilst we may never go back to the relationship we previously claimed, there is no way we could accept the Chinese demand, it would have changed Australian democracy forever. The Chinese political interference is unheralded, they may not like being told by a country of 25 million what to do, but they are finding out our resolve is strong and we are not backing down.

I typically bypass Orchard Road when I am in Singapore as I am not much of a shopping person. This is where all the major shopping malls are located in Singapore, so we needed to dedicate some time to the area.

We changed hotels so moved a whole bunch closer to the famed shopping precinct, it was a bit of a walk, so I thought no worries. How wrong I was, this was not a fun day – for the best part. She is used to big shopping malls, I know that but I thought she might like to see a place she has never been. OK, it was a warm day, but everyday is warm in Singapore.

The day before her phone pedometer recorded just short of 30,000 steps, I would have been over 30,000 steps easily. I directed her to some escalators whilst I took the stairs, I might be 56 but still love the challenge of jogging up stairs in tropical humidity. Whilst I have downloaded a pedometer to my Samsung phone, it won’t record steps unless the app is open and I did not open the app. By the end of the day, my legs were shot so when she said she wanted to take the MRT back, I was not complaining. She was tired. I have to keep moving at a brisk pace as the tendons behind my knee are damaged and get fatigued standing around or moving slowly.

Forget about a gold credit card, if platinum is too ordinary and passe then there is always the titanium credit card. I must admit, I would love a platinum Patek Philippe, A. Lange & Söhne or Rolex. But I can’t say I’m too excited by the prospect of being invited to be a titanium credit card holder. So I guess many would be happy to hold such a card as they love the exclusiveness of the product.

I started to do some research starting with the American Express platinum card and was astonished to find a $1200 AUD annual fee but this was offset by 100,000 membership points if membership is approved by a certain date a $1500 was charged to the card in the first three months. American Express was the first to offer metal credit cards, these were invitation only and offers a high level of prestige fr cardholders.

Looking to Mastercard, an annual fee of $195 is all that is needed providing a concierge service. The card itself is pretty trick too, instead of the usual plastic we are looking at a composite stainless steel/carbon fibre with Mastercard holding US patents D677,330 and 8,640,948. Westpac has a Black Mastercard offering Altitude or Qantas frequent flyer points, lifestyle and entertainment offers and two lounge vists per year for a fee of $195.

Qantas has a titanium Mastercard with a $1200 annual fee that offers 10% discount on Qantas flights booked, 1.25 points per dollar spent, 20% bonus status credits and two Qantas First Lounge invitations. ANZ has a Black Frequent Flyer card offering Qantas points for purchases, some lounge visits at selected airports, a return domestic flight with a card fee of $425.

We knew a week before, the long range forecast was in and Perth will have a hot one for Christmas day. Ok, so it is summer and it is Perth, so you would expect a summer’s day to be hot, so this is really no surprise.

Since I have been alive, I have never been involved in a rainy Christmas day, although I recall my grandmother when she was alive talking about the day it rained on Christmas. I have missed a number of Christmas days when I was working away. I have heard some people say there was some slight rain in 1991 in some parts of Perth. I was away that day so I do not recall, it was not much rain. So the forecast in the week before Christmas day would be 42°C, that is fine as we will have plenty of white wine on ice. It will be a good day, Christmas is summer, of course it is.

How good is Ahmed al-Ahmed? The whole of Australia has embraced this guy, the Syrian immigrant who saw the gunman and took action. This guy is a genuine hero here, he was shot for his efforts, the statement he made was ordinary people will stand up for what is right.

So what we know about Ahmed is he was originally from Al Nayrab in North West Syria, he packed up his family and moved to Australia in the mid 2000s before finding work. What we know about Ahmed is, he has a strong sense of duty, he is willing to take action, his father understandably hailed him as a hero and said “he saw the victims and took action.” Ahmed was in Bondi meeting friends for coffee when the attack unfolded in front of him, so he leapt into action and disarmed the gunman.

Ahmed used parked vehicles to hide behind to move closer to one of the shooters and then pounced. Ahmed grabbed the shooter, wrestled him before disarming him, he had the chance to shoot him, but he did not. I find that understandable, he wanted to stop this murderer and he did exactly that. For his efforts, he was shot in the arm where he was taken to hospital and rushed in for emergency surgery. He is also very humble, taking it all in his stride, yet he requires multiple surgeries after multiple gunshot wounds and is concerned he may lose his arm. What we saw was the worst of humans, we also saw the best of humanity.

Leadership is an integral component of the manager/superintendent/supervisor key competencies in any business structure. Yet I hear this overused term frequently cited, especially by those with no leadership knowledge or achievement and I ask myself, what is the answer you are actually looking for?

Mostly, they are seeking a simplistic answer as they have no clue themselves. I am a big believer in leadership. However, despite the confusion and misrepresentation, the term leadership is so overused and misconstrued as so many people subscribe to the trait theories of leadership, that is a totally outdated and disproved concept.

A requirement of leadership is to motivate team members. Ok, so how is this motivation achieved? I believe the process of team building creates a motivating factor through goal-setting and challenging team members to improve performance. The difference between a supervisor, superintendent, and manager is the size of the team they lead. Each level can provide layers of team leadership with a slightly different focus.

Firstly, the team leader has to be visible, the team members have to know who you are. This is no joke, the Executive Director I have dealt with once tried to question me on leadership, my response was “at least they know who I am!” Naturally, this did not go down well, but was the correct answer at the time.

There has to be an element of trust, they might not like you personally, but they need to know you will not screw them over. Whilst reference material tells us leaders need to be less technically oriented, I tend to disagree. Leadership is based on trust and mutual respect, if the leader does not understand the constraints the team faces, they tend to be dismissive of the issues the team faces.

Then comes goal-setting, the leader needs to set achievable goals in conjunction with team members, they need input so there is consultation and buy-in, there is no point setting goals where team members have no control. Yes, the manager needs to provide role model behaviour, in government organisations, this is typically lacking.

I am a proponent of the path-goal leadership theory, technically, this is a difficult model when used in its entirety. So, I tend to mix leadership models a bit. What I like about path-goal theory is the objective to remove obstacles for team members. This allows them to reach their potential, this motivates team members, they feel their work has purpose.

The path-goal theory is a motivational model of leadership, as I am employed in training and development, the Hersey-Blanchard situational model is a development model. This has all the aspects of matching leadership to team member development, however I disagree with the train tracks in the matrix moving through levels. Some team members just require briefing, they are competent and motivated whilst others have low motivation and low competence, they don’t always progress.

The Bondi Beach terror attack is the worst terror attack in Australia and the worst terrorist attack against Jews since the Hamas October 7 terror attacks in 2023. The problem is, we all pretty much saw the signs, the Albanese Government did nothing to prevent the antisemitism building in the community.

We saw the attacks on the synagogues, the spraypainting left on walls, the “gas the Jews” chants at the Sydney Opera House, the pro-Palestinian March across the Sydney Harbour Bridge. There were the threats and abuse of Jewish students on university campuses, graffiti attacks and protests across cities. Former Liberal Treasurer Josh Frydenburg didn’t hold back he let rip at the Albanese Government, former Prime Minister John Howard, the architect of Australia’s strong gun laws [that have since been eroded] was clear in highlighting the failures of the Albanese Government.

When Albo and Penny Wong endorsed Hamas by recognising Palestine when Hamas were still governing in Gaza, they sent a clear message to the terrorists. So when Australia was rocked by the Bondi Beach terrorist attack, how did Hamas respond? Well, Hamas portrayed this as an act of solidarity with its terrorist ideals to use as justification for the murder of Jews worldwide. Let that sink in for Anthony Albanese and Penny Wong, Hamas are celebrating this terror attack and endorse the Albanese Government policy as they straight saying they are antisematic.