OPINION: One of the most important, and scathing, critiques of Jacinda Ardern’s Government was published this week by senior political journalist Andrea Vance. She reveals how the current administration has become adept and determined…

A short, low-energy volcanic tremor was detected at Whakaari/White Island at 4am on Tuesday, June 1. GNS Science’s on-duty volcanologist said the signals recorded quickly returned to normal low levels. Web cameras observed water…

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called on world leaders to demonstrate that "liberal democracies work" in a speech ahead of the G7 summit.

Mr Morrison will travel to the summit in the UK tomorrow but used a keynote speech today to call for the international community to counter economic coercion.

"There is a lot at stake, for Australia, for our region, and indeed for the world," he said at the Perth USAsia Centre.

READ MORE: 'They need us': Why China needs Australia's export lifeline

"We are living in a time of great uncertainty not seen, I believe, since the 1930s, outside of wartime."

He warned Australia's security environment had changed "significantly" in recent years.

"Accelerating trends are working against our interests," he said.

"The Indo-Pacific region, our region, is the epicentre of a new strategic competition.

"The risk of miscalculation and conflict are very present and growing."

Although he steered clear of direct references to China's actions in the South China Sea, Mr Morrison noted US President Joe Biden's strategic focus on the region.

On China specifically, Mr Morrison only said that all nations should participate in the global system.

READ MORE: Warning China could target Australia's multi-billion-dollar education sector

"Australia stands ready to engage in dialogue with all countries, on shared challenges, including China, when they are ready to do so with us," he said.

Mr Morrison stressed that while strategic competition between the US and China brought risks, it did not mean inevitable conflict.

"The task is to manage that competition. Competition does not have to lead to conflict. Nor does competition justify coercion," he said.

Mr Morrison will seek agreement from western allies to toughen institutions such as the World Trade Organisation at the summit.

He said the G7 summit would provide an opportunity to begin WTO reforms, including establishing an appellate body which could impose penalties for "bad behaviour".

"In my discussions with many leaders, I have taken great encouragement from the support shown for Australia's preparedness to withstand economic coercion in recent times," he said.

"Where there are no consequences for coercive behaviour, there is little incentive for restraint."

Relations between Beijing and Canberra plummeted last year after Australia called for an international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic and introduced foreign interference legislation.

It triggered trade reprisals from China targeting Australian exports such as coal, barley, timber and seafood.

Souring relations between Canberra and Beijing have continued in recent months.

Last month the Chinese government announced it was suspending all activities under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue.

After his speech, Mr Morrison will head to Singapore and on to the UK for the "G7 plus" summit with leaders from the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Japan, South Korea and South Africa.

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Here's a good one. Jeff Bezos, Michael Bloomberg, Warren Buffett and Elon Musk all walk into the IRS.

But none of them, in various years, seem to have paid federal income taxes.

Or how about this one: The rich get richer … because they don't always pay their fair share into the community chest.

READ MORE: How you compare to Australia's average salary

This is US tax law.

And now we have a map of how the wealthiest people exploit it thanks to a bombshell report from ProPublica, the investigative journalism nonprofit, which claims to have obtained years of tax returns for the wealthiest people in the country from an anonymous source.

Its first report (it promises more to come) is on the richest of the rich, who in certain years claim losses that can wipe out their income tax bills.

This should sound familiar; former US President Donald Trump did the same thing.

But that doesn't mean it shouldn't be a scandal that Mr Bezos, the richest person on Earth – who has used his vast wealth to start a spaceship company that will take him into space, where he will also be the richest person – has in multiple recent years told the federal government he owed no income taxes, according to ProPublica.

ProPublica also reports that Mr Musk, the second wealthiest human on Earth, whose wealth has grown many billions in recent years and who also has a passion project space company, told the government he owed no income tax in 2018.

The scandal is that these actions are perfectly legal.

Mr Bloomberg and Mr Buffett, who have both supported raising tax rates for the wealthy, have both had $0 income tax bills. (Mr Buffett, at least, has long acknowledged this, infamously saying he paid a lower tax rate than his secretary.)

Mr Bloomberg, during his run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, tangled with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts over whether the government should tax extreme wealth in addition to income.

How is this possible?

The report analyses how this is possible, and the reasons are many.

First, US tax law is focused on income and much of the superwealth is tied up in company stock or other investments that have real value but aren't taxable year to year.

Wealth vs income

ProPublica cites guesstimates from Forbes, but it's an imperfect assessment.

It lists Mr Bezos as gaining US$99 billion in wealth between 2014 and 2018.

But his income was much lower – he reported US$4.22 billion and paid US$973 million in income tax in those years.

So he paid more than 20 per cent on his reported income.

The issue is that his wealth skyrocketed at the same time.

READ MORE: Bezos to win billionaire space race

This is something that plays out on a smaller scale for your average American homeowner or 401(k) holder, whose wealth grows without being taxed by the federal government every year.

The difference is in scale.

Also, everyday Americans likely pay property taxes and utilised mortgages to buy their homes.

Tax avoidance strategies

The report does show how the wealthy finance their lifestyles with loans taken against assets, like real estate or stocks, rather than realising the value of an asset.

They'll pay less to the bank in interest than they would to the government in income tax.

Carl Icahn, the investor, gave an interview to ProPublica about his tax returns and it printed this illuminating response:

"There's a reason it's called income tax," he said.

"The reason is if, if you're a poor person, a rich person, if you are Apple — if you have no income, you don't pay taxes."

He added: "Do you think a rich person should pay taxes no matter what? I don't think it's germane. How can you ask me that question?"

But in these cases, the loans do act as the income.

Other forms of tax

It's also true that with so much of their wealth tied up in stock, they effectively pay tax through their companies; however, the corporate tax rate of 21 per cent is far lower than the top rate of 37 per cent on income over US$523,000 for individuals.

Notably, Mr Bezos has endorsed raising the corporate rate (Mr Trump and Republicans slashed it back in 2017), but as CNN has reported, it's still unlikely his Amazon would pay anything close to either rate.

Even on the income the superwealthy do claim, often in the form of capital gains, they often pay a lower rate than Americans who make far less money.

Taxes are very much in the policy conversation at the moment

President Joe Biden wants to raise both corporate tax rates and income taxes on the wealthy, although it faces a tough path forward in the US Senate, where the minority Republicans can block it.

Globally, and separate from this individual income tax conversation, Mr Biden and his treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, are pushing for a global corporate minimum tax and other industrialised nations in the G-7 agreed to an outline this week.

The idea is that if everyone had at least a 15 per cent corporate tax rate, it would keep companies from avoiding taxes.

All of this feeds into the growing frustration with extreme inequality and what governments should do to make sure everyone pays their fair share, which is increasingly complicated when so much wealth is locked away from the tax man and more and more people think the government should be doing more to improve people's everyday lives.

'Why did they print this? Is it illegal?'

Less interesting to the larger world but really interesting to journalists like me was ProPublica's separate story about how it got the tax documents and why it decided to selectively print them.

It is technically against the law to publish an individual's tax information, although ProPublica argues the public interest in an informed tax debate justifies the risk.

A spokesperson for at least one of the people whose taxes it dissects – that's Mr Bloomberg – is quoted as promising some kind of legal action, although against whoever or whatever leaked the documents, rather than ProPublica.

ProPublica doesn't seem to know who the source of the documents is and even suggests it could have been a foreign actor, like China or Russia, that has shown an interest in stoking class resentment in the US.

That means the reporting needs to be considered against the backdrop of the mystery of its provenance.

It's notable that none of the billionaires mentioned in the story deny the accuracy of the tax returns and some argue they were simply following the rules.

Others did not respond, according to ProPublica.

When asked about the ProPublica report on Tuesday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters, "Any unauthorised disclosure of confidential government information by a person of access is illegal and we take this very seriously."

She said the IRS commissioner has referred the matter to investigators.

Sunlight > secrets

Given the status these men have in society, the deference their wealth affords them and the fact many of them have publicised their opinions on tax policy – either endorsing or opposing higher income taxes, corporate taxes and wealth taxes, I respect ProPublica's decision.

– Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf, CNN

The impact of the Australian-led police sting has disrupted crime networks across the world and will continue for years, a top police commander says.

Operation Ironside was part of a global policing operation and involved the use of a secret encrypted app to catch criminals.

Australian Federal Police Assistant Commissioner Nigel Ryan told Today further arrests can be expected after Operation Ironside including leading underworld figures.

READ MORE: 'There will be reprisals': Police warning after global crime ring smashed

"There's be work that comes out of this for next number of years. We've locked up over 800 people over the world, 250 of them have been locked up here in Australia with the help of domestic law enforcement partners," Mr Ryan said.

"But I think you'll see over the years to come there will be many more arrests to come out of this."

Operation Ironside was part of the anti-crime offensive and involved the use of a secret encrypted app to catch criminals.

The AFP and FBI secretly used an encrypted platform known as AN0M during the operation.

The encrypted communications – which allegedly included plots to kill, mass drug trafficking and gun distribution – were decrypted from a platform covertly run by the FBI.

Operation Ironside -known as Operation Trojan Shield in the US and Europe – led to the arrest of 224 offenders on 526 charges in every mainland Australian state.

But its disruption to crime networks has also been felt across the world, with international police forces arresting hundreds of alleged criminals.

The FBI said across the globe, 800 suspects were arrested and more than 32 tonnes of drugs seized, including cocaine, cannabis, amphetamines and methamphetamines. Police also confiscated 250 guns, 55 luxury cars and more than $190 million in cash and cryptocurrencies.

https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1402296182488043524?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Swedish police prevented a dozen planned killings and believe they arrested several "leading actors in criminal networks," according to Sweden's national criminal intelligence unit.

Finnish police said that nearly 100 people have been detained and more than 500kg of drugs confiscated, along with dozens of guns and cash worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

In Germany, the general prosecutor's office in Frankfurt said that more than 70 people were arrested and drugs, cash and weapons were also seized.

The ANOM app was passed on to alleged criminals by Australian drug kingpin Hakan Ayik.

Mr Ryan said Ayik, who has been living in Turkey, was a marked man and should turn himself into authorities.

"I'd just suggest he hands himself into the authorities. He can come back here and be dealt with through judicial processes."

– With AP