There’s not much point in me posting scientific information at the moment. Let’s face it, the political situation Down-under has reached new peaks of grand maladroitness and irascible incompetence, and most of the comments will want to unpack that.
Julia Gillard. Source Herald Sun. Photo: Lyndon Mechielsen
Bolt is forecasting that Gillard will be gone by the end of September. Today 500 people protested outside Albanese’s office, incensed that he called the Convoy inconsequential. (He created a lot of enemies with that one comment.)
For those of you overseas, sorry if it’s all so Australian-politics dominated, but really, there haven’t been that many democratic governments who have bollocksed up so many things, for so many people, in so short a time. This is history in the making. The cattle trade, insulation installers, building groups, asylum seekers (shutting down a working system, announcing East Timor , then Malaysia), Green loans, and cash for clunkers. And now of course, just in case there is a single business group left undamaged, they want to tax-the-rest to change the weather.
When the Rudd government took over in 2007 there was a chunky$20 billion dollar surplus, now there is $82 billion in debt and $200 billion in liabilities (see also $200 b in securities on offer); there were 150 asylum seekers in detention in 2007 (or something like that) now there are 6,000. They had a landslide type win getting in, then the thinnest marginal “win” with the aid of lies, and now they’re reduced to the lowest polling figures ever recorded. All in just three years and nine months. Impressive.
It’s an interesting case-study in just how much damage a modern democratic party can do.
A local Liberal Party branch president recently confided to me. When he asked his long term Laborite friend if Gillard was as bad as Whitlam, the Labor friend indignantly exclaimed they weren’t in the same class, and then he defended Whitlam.
I know you non-Australians are all proud of your Worst Ever Governments, and some of them have been doozies. But go on, try to think of ways as to how this government could have botched up more things in a lesser span of time.
In 2007, Kevin-07 was given a messiah-like kind of status. People talked about them being in power for a decade. (O’Yes, Obama eclipsed that.)
But the modern Labor Party is so soulless and driven by the primary philosophy that no-backflip-lie-action-or-omission is unthinkable if it comes between them and power. Ask not what she will stand for, but what she won’t stand for.
At what point does she say, I want to be PM, but I won’t do that.
A person of principle has a point where the price is too high — a point where the power of being in charge is not worth the price.
What price is the Gillard Government not willing to pay? At what point does she say, I want to be PM, but I won’t do that.
Would Julia Gillard not protest if thousands of dollars were fraudulently nicked from workers, and demand that the misuse be pursued to the end of the Earth? Well, how about a million? Sure she didn’t know about the embezzlement at the time, but she’s had years to make sure it was pursued and the money, such as it could be, returned to the union.
Would she not object if highly-paid union leaders used union dues to pay for prostitutes (theoretically, hypothetically of course, with the presumption of innocence and all).
The problem with having poorly chosen principles is that sooner or later it catches up with you.
If the Labor Party held as it’s first principle that it wanted to help the people, it could have had the power and used it wisely. But if the first principle is “power over the people”, and at any cost, the crash is inevitable. There’s a world of difference. Character is destiny, as they say.
Ron Paul in the US has a long history of voting only according to his principles. He turned down pork barreling exercises even in his own voting district. He voted against every tax increase there was. You may not agree with everything he says but you know he has principles.
What can Julia Gillard say she has ever done that tested her principles and she took the hard choice? Why didn’t she pursue the Union leaders who wasted workers funds? Anything to do with union leaders holding pre-selection power over ALP members perhaps?
If Julia Gillard won’t resign after this level of incompetence and immorality, what level of incompetence and immorality would she resign over? If the Australian people admired her principles she would have nothing to fear from an election.
The Herald Sun is running a poll: Should Gillard resign? 90% of 13,000 votes say “Yes”.
This is the 600th post on joannenova.com.au
Well said, Jo. I watch the soap opera with interest.
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Aw, c’mon Jo.
Stop pulling your punches, tell us what you really think. 🙂
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No difference of opinion about Gillard and her lack of principles and utter incompetence. However she is not alone as not one of her current ministers shows any more ability than she does to successfully implement their half baked policies.
This government, which has so many ex-union officials, is trying to run Australia much like they ran the apparently corrupt unions that once employed them. Not one of them is any more fit to be the PM of this country than the incredibly dumb Gillard who, it is becoming increasingly evident in the formulation of policy, is not only without principle but is way out of her intellectual depth.
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Labor party slogans for the next election:
1) Kevin ’11
2) Your money is our money
3) Stick with us, we can protect you from the law
4) Just try and question us, you’ll see
5) A million here, a billion there, you are sooo petty!
6) We may have wrecked the economy, but at least we’re Professional Politicians
7) Its all abbotts fault!
8) Goldman sacs is with us!
9) Your card, my card, we’re all comrades
10) Yes we can… organise a screw in a brothel
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The good news for Gillard is, they literally have no where to go but up. After the high court shut down the Malaysia deal, things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Labor.
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Don’t apologise for not posting the scientific stuff Jo. Gillard’s penchant for everything she is touching turning to manure, will ensure that the Carbon tax debacle will get another run before too much longer.
And congrats on the 600thpost. Long time lurker….recent poster.
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I for one, am pleased the high court decided that Australia should not be in the people trafficking business.
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Speaking as a non-Australian, I visit this blog pretty well every day and have a great deal to learn from the present Australian political situation – as do we all.
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Albanese ridiculed the Convoy of No Confidence because they were considerate and didn’t cause any disruption. Then when he got a bit of rough treatment from the crowd today, he complained. He can’t have it both ways.
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Also a great deal of grim satisfaction seeing Oily Albanese today getting a lot of stick. Easy for him to mock his own constituents from the safety of Coward’s Castle as “The Convoy of No Consequence”. But listen to him squeal when the same show up at his door to inform him what an odious prick he really is.
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Jaymez, you just pipped me. 🙂
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This last few weeks is very reminiscent of the NSW situation before the March election.
We all were waiting very very patently for 3 years to vote, and vote we did.
I really don’t want to have to wait another 2 years to vote out AN EVEN WORSE GOVERNMENT! I’m amazed I just wrote that, I wouldn’t have believed then that there could be any government worse than NSW Labor. Shows you should be open minded about everything, how wrong was I.
Sorry, got that out of my system. Really do prefer debating science.
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Madjak @7,
I agree.
Maybe they should have done their homework?
Here is the latest ABC spin on this issue:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-01/gillard-says-ruling-puts-offshore-processing-in-doubt/2866956
As Jo so eloquently says:
The cattle trade, insulation installers, building groups, asylum seekers (shutting down a working system, announcing East Timor , then Malaysia), Green loans, and cash for clunkers. And now of course, just in case there is a single business group left undamaged, they want to tax-the-rest to change the weather.
Some homework and some proper attention to the law would be highly appreciated.
They seem to mistakenly believe they can summarily dismiss the law if they come up with what they think is a good idea?
The legal system was there before they tried this ‘people trafficking’ legislation.
Where was the due diligence?
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If Andrew Bolt is right, then we still need one more event.
The replacement for Gillard must immediately announce that the Carbon (dioxide) Tax will be shelved at least until after the next election.
Alexander Downer suggests that she will be gone before the end of the year, but this may be too late to stop the CO2 Tax.
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Hey all you my glass is only half full guys- think of the positive- this Govt has redefinded the meaning of incompetence. Never have so few , stuffed up so much for so many in such little time! There has to be a guinness book record there somewhere !
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I notice tonight that Julia Gillard is lashing out at the Chief Justice of the High Court
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/labors-asylum-solution-all-at-sea-after-high-court-vetoes-malaysia-solution/story-fn9hm1gu-1226127340185
I must say as someone who is legally trained and appreciates the separation of the powers Ms Gillard’s comments embarrass me; the PM is also legally trained I understand but her comments are not the comments of someone who appreciates the separation of the judicial, executive and administrative powers
It’s embarrassing to me that the PM of this country does not accept the judgment of Australia’s superior Court
The Chief Justice of the High Court can’t answer back and in the light of Ms Gillard’s alleged phone calls to the CEO of the The Australian it’s not a good look, in fact it’s an extremely bad look; the look of someone who is looking to blame anyone even someone who is meant to be beyond blame so far as the executive is concerned
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Jo,
You couldn’t really believe that an ex-partner in Slater and Gordon, a lawyer no less, could be so legally ignorant and also so lacking in attention to detail as our PM clearly is. It is staggering to contemplate the level of incompetence in one who is so quick witted in debate (even if her patronising techniques are fairly transparent to astute observers) and on the floor of the House, yet so docile and unimaginative in policy and in pragmatic application of these said policies. There is a major disconnect between these extremes that is so puzzling. Is it her union background, her overweaning university Trotskiite fantasies that have not been tempered by maturity, or is it that she grasped for power through such a tangled web of compromise and deceit that she merely is caught up in the politics of the situation that she can no longer see the bleeding obvious? Strange times indeed.
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Terry – and tomorrow this government will still be ugly…
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there haven’t been that many democratic governments who have bollocksed up so many things, for so many people, in so short a time.
That’s very Churchillian !!
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Consider for a moment.
If we sceptics were not so diligent and principled with the truth then we would never have succeeded in educating a critical number of coalition politicians on the AGW scam. Those pollies then would not have mutinied against Turnbull under Abbott’s leadership. Rudd would have been able to bring in an ETS and Abbott would not have had the opportunity to destroy him. Gillard may never have become PM and been subsequently destroyed by Abbott as well.
It seems all about to fall over, but only because we had a concentration of sceptics in the coalition ranks! We have pulled the rug out. Little old us. A ridiculed fringe group has catalyzed history. The damage to the ALP may see them out of power for at least two electoral cycles, and Bob Brown – Christine Milne will go down with them. Everyone take a bow.
[And it was only by one vote… JN]
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I’m warming to this political theme. The wine helps…
I’ve long been of the opinion that western democracy’s problem is that it’s been suckered in by a long line of incompetent charismatics (Whitlam, Rudd, Gillard, Blair, Cameron, Obama, Bush – ok maybe that one not so much, but you get the drift.) Political leaders shouldn’t be so much leaders as boring, very competent managers, a la Switzerland, and leave us to get on with our lives as we see fit. The Swiss may not be the most exciting people on earth, but apparently they are the most content. Or so I once heard.
Discuss…
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The fact that we have an Atheist Prime Minister who is in her own mind not accountable to a higher authority – who is in her own mind her own moral authority; and as power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely,we have the makings of a tyrant.
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I suppose gen Y have now got their Whitlam.
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Gillard’s number is truly up – the last 2 weeks most definitely have drawn political blood and the sharks in the ALP and Unions are looking for a chance to make a killing and a grab for power. If you thought the job done on Rudd was cold.. Gillard is in for one big shock. Bolt’s estimate has a good chance of coming true. Everyone keep the pressure on.
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Can any voters be legitimately supporting her now?
“That Gillard lady, shes a top PM, I like the sound of her jib. Shes got my vote and support.”
Seriously. . . I cant believe she hasnt blown it with everyone. I mean her two party preferred is at like 25%. How can people still be supporting her!? Are they just really oblivious to whats going on?
Do they not hear, read or see the news?
Do they just see a picture of her and think “Yeah, I like her hair colour. Shes got my vote.”
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LevelGaze @22
This whole idea of politicians with a “vision” strikes me as one of the main stumbling blocks to effective governance. Too many narcissistic, ego-driven Utopians who have to change everything whether it’s good, bad or ugly just to be seen to be doing something, anything. Change for change’s sake. Bureaucracy, also, that only “thinks” in terms of complicating processes with endless streams of paper, an overwhelming bombardment of forms and documents which no one ever reads but are filled out to be seen to be rendering “efficiency”. Whatever happened to simplicity and pragmatic thought and planning. Perhaps we have so overloaded our processes of government that no one can make sense of it any more. Just once, I’d like to see a government minister come to those working at the “coal face” of such enterprises as medicine, small business, agriculture, mining… rather than representatives of these groups, often being those who were unable to cut it doing the job and skulked off into administrative positions as the last bastion of incompetence. And then for said minister to actually LISTEN to what is needed in that area to make the working life of the troops more efficient and more purposeful. Alas, I doubt it is within their capabilities to do so.
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The media likes politicians with “vision” because mindless activity sells advertising space. The vast majority of voters prefer politicians who adopt a “steady as she goes” approach and avoid radical policy. Somehow the backroom handle-crankers at the ALP headquarters either don’t understand, or just don’t care. It’s a lot easier to piss people off than it is to make them happy.
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Bruce:
People may think I’m weird but for Julia Gillard to back down and call a federal election would actually good both for the Australian Labor Party and for the unions that the ALP represents. Of course, Tony Abbott would win, but more importantly than that, the ALP would be able to hold up their heads with some remaining sense of honour.
What happened in NSW was fixed government terms forced the rotten government to sit for far longer than they were worth, and built up a charge of resentment amongst the citizens. Once that starts to happen, a government simply cannot make a comeback, every little thing becomes another reason to
hate the bastards.
Gillard should start planning for losing. The unions will still be there when she is gone, and the Craig Thomson affair doesn’t just reflect badly on him personally, it reflects badly on all union reps who jump into politics (and that’s a decent number). Once the seething resentment starts to slosh around, the corporate types will take their chance and hammer those unions. The union members are a bit conflicted… they no longer trust that their payments are going into the hands of someone who can be trusted… they no longer believe that the system as it stands can clean out the bad eggs.
My point is that freedom loving people (such as myself) should not regard an economy dominated by corporates as better than an economy dominated by unions. Yes, the corporations are more productive, but they are completely uninterested in playing fair when it comes to a competitive market. The only way for individuals and small business to get ahead is when the unions and the corporates waste all their time and effort bashing the hell out of each other.
We need a balance of power… something to hold back vested interests from running riot.
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GILLARD “government” NOW ATTACKS CHRISTIANITY !!!
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/correct_words_taken_out_of_our_mouths
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When the public is prepared to settle for moderation and sanity in government, leaders with those qualities can be found. But you have to want them. After Mussolini and Hitler, came De Gasperi and Adenauer.
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I shouldn’t be too concerned Jo about beating the political drum on this site. Everyone who has been following the CAGW debate over the years should have worked out a long time back that it had little to do with the science and much to do with politics. Here in the UK it took a long time to get rid of Gordon Brown, during which time he carried on screwing up the country. It may take a while to lose this Duly-a Dullard woman, just make sure you don’t jump out of the frying pan into the fire.
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PS I love my photo. How did you know I was an old square?
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And the beauty is she is going to talk about Emily’s List.
hahahahahahaahahhaahahahahahahhahahhhahhhahahhahhhhahaaaaaaaaaa.
go you wranger you…hahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA….
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Interesting doing the rounds of the blogs this arvo. Lots of the knockers hanging out salivating over the HC’s decision on asylum seekers, and many of the chattering classes competing to see who can predict the most woe and disaster for the Govt.
But really, take a step back, put the prejudice on the shelf, and look at things.
The economy is trundling along quite nicely over all. Unemployment at 5/1% and debt is still only at 7% GDP. Interest rates are low and stable. Business investment is booming.
There are some issues is some sectors and structure is a concern, but overall, pretty good. There are jobs around and that’s the main thing for real people on the ground.
Parliament has been working. No legislation that the Govt has put forward has been blocked in the HoR. Major policy has been agreed with the states, even the Liberal governed ones. Apart from the hysterical few, major programs have like BER and the Home Insulation Scheme were successful. Kevin Rudd’s big mistake was on rolling over for the press and not defending there.
The largest infrastructure project in our history, the NBN, is rolling out. MRRT and Carbon Price will get legislated this year.
The Govt have had their setbacks. All Govt’s do. The decision by the HS is a blow but maybe it’ll mean we can get past this obsession with offshore processing and actually start putting the appropriate resources into looking after the small numbers of refugees we actually get as unauthorized arrivals here?
Next session of parliament starts on the 12th. The numbers for the Govt are still there. They have a block of votes organised to pass the legislation on Carbon Price through to the Senate and have actually negotiated the proposal with the parliament, rather than imposing one parties view. MRRT to follow before years end.
So once you get past the media hype and the manufactured “incompetence meme” the govt’s actually working pretty well.
Apart from the speaker of the house. He’s too soft on the on some of the more ridiculous opposition antics and should throw them out more often. They turn Question Time into a joke.
For demonstrable incompetence, economic illiteracy, and failure to perform you really need to look at the “alternative” govt led by the shuddering speechless one, Abbott.
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The feelings at the moment are , never in our history has much been screwed up for so many by so few.
Apologies to mister Churchill.
It is an unfortunate period in our history that was bound to happen given the propaganda in our education system. It would appear however that their ineptitude has cancelled the brainwashing of our youth and the younger generations with internet savvy are going the opposite direction. Information and truth are now uncontrolled for the first time in our history,on the net.
Union methods of intimidation and corruption may work in the sheltered workshop of the unions, but in government spin and BS has a use by date and thuggery is not an option.
This government have used all the tactics and wonder why they are going backwards. If by chance they had the odd policy that actually worked and was beneficial may have helped. Alas nothing has worked or been useful, death and destruction be thy name. This mob is like one of the four horses of the apocalypse.
I feel better now.
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@Catamon 35
What? You cant be serious?
Youre serious? Really?
Wow.
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I wasn’t going to post here simply because AU politics isn’t my business. Then I read Catamon @ 35……One of the new trolls. I can’t recall if he she has use the climate “D” word but the post at 35 sure sounds like political denial to me.
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Sorry, Catamon.
Your weak post just illustrates our current gov drifting aimlessly, buoyed by an economy that they didn’t create and are doing their best, in ignorance and arrogance, to dismantle.
Don’t think you’ll get many takers here for your view. We’re people who actually work for a living and who understand what Australia is.
Bottom line is: the Greens see Gillard, quite rightly, as just their malleable Executive.
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So, I’m wrong and we’ll all be roooooned!! 🙂
People, take off the blinkers, and actually LOOK at how the parliament has operated over the last year. Not perfect, had their problems, but overall are getting the job done with a legislative and policy program that actually looks to the countries interests. Or of course you can allow yourselves to be led around by the rent seekers who
Interesting perspective i found here:
http://andrewelder.blogspot.com/2011/09/no-refuge.html
Worth a read of stuff outside the echo chamber people.
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“The good news for Gillard is, they literally have no where to go but up. After the high court shut down the Malaysia deal, things couldn’t possibly get any worse for Labor.”
Wouldn’t bet on it.
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catamon@40
Umm. Don’t really see how your link has anything to do with what we are discussing here.
Enlighten us?
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Labor is more responsible for Australia’s economy than the Coalition.
I’ll give the Coalition the GST, which was a significant reform (including introducing a tax that will raise almost $49 billion) this year, you can also throw in APRA, which is an important REGULATORY BODY that has ensured Australia’s financial system isn’t run by jerks and charlatans like the U.S. system.
But other than that, if you want to talk about decentralising wages, floating the dollar, cutting tariffs, introducing competition to banking, privatising things like Qantas, introducing compulsory super, universal health care, you are discussing Labor reforms.
The Coalition had the chance to modernise the economy between 1975 – 1983, and even commissioned reports to figure out what to do. But the Governments that actually did it were the Hawke and Keating governments.
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Do non-Australians understand the word “doozies”?
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Post 36:
Why does the truth need to be controlled?
That doesn’t sound particularly liberal or democratic.
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Catamon @ 35 and 40
Speaking of echo chambers, have you ever wondered why every person outside the party faithful that one talks to, in all walks of life, whether professional or trade, shopkeepers or salespeople, taxi drivers or grave diggers, etc, etc, all to a man think that Labor are doing a lousy job? It’s possibly because you are doing a lousy job. Lurching as you are from one scandal and policy disaster to another, feverishly expressing how wonderful a job you are doing, while treating the electorate with utter contempt ( eg. Albanese’s ” no consequence” quote). You are dictating but not listening, arrogant but lack authority, reactive but not thoughtful ( eg. Live cattle trade ban). Keep telling yourself your doing a great job, every things sweet and all will come right in the end. Don’t take a hard look at yourselves, don’t weed out corruption and graft in your ranks, keep the pork barreling and jobs for the boys and favors to the faithful going, by all means, and see just exactly where that gets you. You’re not just headed for an ignominious defeat, your headed for total oblivion, but by all means keep rushing headlong for the cliff chanting “what a set of beautiful numbers” over and over again- the mantra of the deluded!
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adam smith@43
I’m talking about this labor government, not past ones. You’re deliberately obfuscating. There’s no comparison, different animals.
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Labor is usually in opposition at the federal level. I believe that have been in government just 35 years out of 110.
Whenever a Labor government is elected they just push through some major reforms that the Coalition is too gutless to do, knowing that most likely they’ll be back in Opposition after a couple of terms.
The Hawke / Keating years are an exception, because that was a moderate centrist government at a time that the Coalition was a pack of wacko extremists.
Who knows what the current Opposition stands for, Abbott will do and say anything to get elected. I don’t think he actually gives a crap about any policy. He just wants power for the sake of having power.
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Catamon,
Nice try, but once you are seen as a bunch of clowns a bunch of clowns you are…. Ask Gough…
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LevelGaze:
The swiss are content because they live in the land of calendar pictures (it truly has scenery like nowhere else on earth) and most importantly they are rich. They import poor from neigbouring countries to do work that swiss do not like. The populace has control of its government. They have cheap nuclear power. All in all pretty good, except the place is run like a bank.
I agree with your point about leaders and our beloved leader is an excellent example of how spin conquers substance in modern politics.
The issue I have with your statement is that I think all of the people you mentioned would violently object to being categorized with gillard.
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LG@42
“I read both kinds of mainstream media articles about it: gloaty pieces from those who dislike everything this government does balanced with gloaty pieces from those who disapprove of inhumane treatment of asylum-seekers in particular. Hooray and whoop-de-do for balanced reportage: at least I paid for them as much as they were worth.”
Interesting take on the reportage at the moment, which ties in with the “meme” thats been running in the media for some time.
“So: anything the government does – a program to build school facilities with a 97% success rate – is incompetent. Old-fashioned journalists used to chase stories: new-fashioned ones chase memes.”
Yup the article is all about AS, but that’s probably the policy that their opponents are running most strongly on. Vile, silly and pure FUD, but as long as the media are so focused on their circuses its a big factor in play for the spurious “incompetence” argument. To post at the top seems to me to be pretty much all about that argument.
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Important economic reforms of this government:
National occupational health and safety rules
National Awards
National trucking regulations
National education curriculum
Building the Education Revolution – massive infrastructure investment in schools which has been lacking for decades.
Computers in Schools
Negotiated paid parental leave scheme (far superior to the Opposition’s proposal of taxing companies that pay $5 million in tax another 1.5%)
Ending WorkChoices (which ripped off the poor and those with few skills)
Structural separation of Telstra
The NBN
The Clean Energy Bills (which are a much cheaper way of cutting emissions than the tax and spend socialist scheme proposed by the opposition)
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In the UK, the worst ever PM, no contest, was Gordon Brown. One of his worst “decisions” was to sell most of our gold reserves, having first signalled his intent to the markets, thus suppressing the price to $275/oz (it’s now approx £1900).
Has your muppet, sorry PM, done this yet? She seems to be following GB in awfulness, so you might expect such lunacy.
(The only good to come from Gillard is that the rest of the world may wake up, when they see the suicidal economic disaster her climate policies are causing, thus avoiding repeating them.)
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Name 2 policies of the Whitlam government that the Fraser government got rid of.
Oh, and why did the Fraser government leave spending as a proportion of GDP at the same level as the Whitlam government?
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Of course, Nazi plunder and the collective wealth of Jewish businessmen and women murdered in concentration camps didn’t hurt their collective net worth either. Pardon my cynicism. I agree with Orson Welles’ quote in The Third Man “……….. 5000 years of peace, love and harmony, uand what have they got to show for it……the cuckoo clock”
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“Who knows what the current Opposition stands for, Abbott will do and say anything to get elected. I don’t think he actually gives a crap about any policy. He just wants power for the sake of having power.”
Thinking about it, they pretty much stand for whatever the last Liberal Govt stood for. Intellectually they are in a bit of a time warp and frankly haven’t shown any signs of getting any better. They are doing to well in the polls by having hysterics and shouting No!
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Um, even worse than Neville Camberlain who ‘gave’ the Nazis the Sudetenland?
It’s important to keep things in perspective.
The Australian Prime Minister has no role determining the Reserve Bank of Australia’s gold reserves. That is purely a decision made by the RBA board.
The Treasurer in the last Coalition government did lose a lazy billion on dud currency swaps.
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This is just sick. The reason Welles’ character makes that comment is because he is a sociopath who couldn’t care less about anyone except himself, hence in the film he sells dodgy ‘medicines’ that have the effect of killing innocent children.
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“Has your muppet, sorry PM, done this yet? She seems to be following GB in awfulness, so you might expect such lunacy.”
No, ours were sold off by the muppet like, hammock dwelling Treasurer of our last Tory Govt under Howard.
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I agree. I mean the Howard government basically did bugger all in its first year and a half (well other than Howard having to sack 5 ministers because they rorted their travel allowances).
Basically Howard went for the GST because he needed a policy to give his government some direction. When he tried the same thing after the 2004 election things blew up in his face, because the policy he went for was WorkChoices which most people hated (hence the 2007 election result).
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Not quite in context, but light comic relief.
This is far too odd for words.
Commenting on swirling rumours that one P. Beattie (Teflon Pete)may be terribly interested in the position of PM, come on now a jokes a joke fellas but thats a ripper, the incumbent (but very temporary)Australian PM said:
“”I’ve got a lot of important things to do and I don’t much worry about newspaper idle gossip and speculation,”
Huh?….Now that will come as a relief to NEWS Ltd and Hartigan. Seems that series of calls from the Lodge about Glenns rehash of a four year old piece were from the Twilight Zone.
Oooooohweeee! Oooooohweee! (cue spooky music here)
Time to call in Scully it seems.
hxxp://www.couriermail.com.au/news/breaking-news/prime-minister-julia-gillard-laughs-off-claims-that-peter-beattie-wants-her-job/story-e6freonf-1226127417532
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Incoherentrambler@50
“They import poor from neigbouring countries to do work that swiss do not like.” Just like we do, a pity about that.
“They have cheap nuclear power.” I wish we did, everytime I look at my electricity bill and wonder how much of it is paying for these bloody solar panels and windmills.
“The issue I have with your statement is that I think all of the people you mentioned would violently object to being categorized with gillard.” YES! She is totally a new unimagined unthinking horror, they must worship/detest her.
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warcroft # 26
It’s actually primary vote. Which means that despite what the ALP press secretary (AS) says, this means that 75% of voters will not (now or ever) vote for the ALP whilst the Gillardesque odour pervades the parliament.
The thing I find most interesting is that 3 of the names posted as her replacement (smith,swan,shorten) will (probably) lose their seats at a general election. The nightmare for the ALP is that her replacement needs to come from a small group of 20-25 who will hold their seats at the next election.
The irony is that it appears the majority of the voting public have sussed out the Goebellian media style.
PS
I think the ABC may be jumping ship from the ALP.
10
Whew. Imagine being a GetUp! drudge right now. It would have to be like working for the Romanian Government Information Service through the late 80s.
Citizens! A record harvest on the kolkhozes!
10
What? “now or ever”? How the hell can you draw that conclusion? Polls are measures of the reason past (when the poll data was collated) they don’t predict what will happen into the future. 50.1% of voters supported Labor either directly or indirectly at the last election. The fact the polls now say the Coalition is on about 56% of the vote demonstrates that SOME voters have shifted their opinion in the mean time.
How could that be possible if voters never change their minds?
Smith and Swan maybe (Swan previously lost his seat in 1996 before winning it back in 1998), but Shorten? You’ve got to be kidding. He won the seat on first preferences at the last election, including a swing to him of 1.5%, and he won the 2pp vote by a 2:1 ratio.
10
Hey, we have a couple of new trolls!
Adam Smith (shame on you for that name) and catamon. Let’s give them a big hand and welcome them, see if they’re any good.
10
The fact you revert to name calling demonstrates that you don’t have any confidence in your opinions.
We live in a free country so no one is under any obligation to simply post messages that you agree with. In fact, if you engage with people who have different views to your own you may benefit by refining your own ideas and figuring out why you believe what you believe, and perhaps occasionally even modifying your views when this is warranted.
If everyone just agrees with you all the time, then you don’t really have to rationalise your views, which can lead to lazy thinking.
10
Adam
Welles’ quote was a criticism of Lime’s world view but also a criticism of the Swiss as well. And I do believe the Swiss banks have a lot to answer for in profiting from the theft of art, jewels and cash by the Nazis, as well as from the misery of the Jewish people whose wealth was squirrelled away in Swiss banks for years and years after the war ended as unclaimed booty. By all means correct me if you believe I am wrong in that assertion.
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WTF? Welles was acting has Harry Lime. He made up the quote to portray the sociopathic aspects of Lime’s character.
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Sorry LG, from my reading of the comments on other postings on this blog, Adam Smith is anything but new.
Me a troll? Nah mate. I’ll own up to having somewhat of a different political leaning than some who frequent this particular site and i’m not shy about putting my views forward. I like to cruise politics blogs and have conversations rather than be part of a circle jerk echo chamber. Its always interesting to how many chat and discuss, considering other points of view, and how many harrumph, froth and spit the dummy.
10
Similarly, it is a bit strange that some here lament the end of democracy, when a hung parliament is inherently more democratic than majority government. As it stands the federal government has to negotiate every bill it puts to parliament with 3 independents and a Green. Isn’t that MORE democratic than the usual scenario in majority government where the Government can shove anything it likes through the House, and only has to start dealing in the Senate?
But no, apparently the current hung parliament is the end of democracy.
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Adam
It was Welles’ quote he had used for years before The Third Man was even cast with Welles in the role of Harry Lime. He appropriated it for the film by suggesting it to the director, Carol Reed, because it fit the situation and the character’s motivation and sociopathic tendencies. He was making a more general observation about how human ingenuity is often sparked by social upheaval, because he also cites how “in 30 years under the Borgia’s they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.”
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Adam Smith @ 66
Well, I find your nom de plume amusing since Smith was a free marketeer (within reason) and you are an obvious socialist (as I am, within reason). Maybe you didn’t know that. You should have chosen another name. Be careful wading in these waters here, they will find you out.
10
Let me guess,after you rid yourselves of Gillard,she will be entitled to a fully funded retirement package including cost of living increases for the rest of her natural life…nice…and i see the thought police are running rampant,several articles about gillard and a union boss tryst has been removed from news articles and radio shows…time to stop listening to the elites in Canberra…listen to the rural folks and elect accordingly
10
‘But no, apparently the current hung parliament is the end of democracy.”
Adam, I have to admit to reservations about how it would work back after the election. I suspect we have been pretty lucky in the actual makeup of the parliament:
1) that the ALP leader has the skills and temperament to negotiate achievable outcomes.
2) that there were enough indies with a reasonable and pragmatic approach across a range of issues.
The current parliament has actually been a pretty good advert for the political stability that Australia is known for and trades on. Get a few single / few issue Tea Baggers in parliament (as have been surfacing in the US) and things could have been grim.
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Mr Smith
What’s your background?
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I was a socialist for a few months when I was about 12, but that affliction soon passed.
Try again.
I can choose whatever name I like (provided I don’t break any forum rules) and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Try again.
10
All Prime Ministers are entitled a pension beyond that of a regular MP.
I assume you mean The Australian apoligising for spreading lies.
If we listened to rural folk, Australia would still have a heavily regulated economy. The reason it took the Hawke / Keating rather than Fraser government to deregulate the economy is because the Liberals were vetoed at every turn by the Country Party.
10
“listen to the rural folks and elect accordingly”
An unfair comment including sheep-shaggers and lack of genetic diversity comes to mind. 🙂
10
At the moment there’s a bookcase behind me.
10
AS, if you are not currently in the ALP employ, you should be.
You seem to be the only ALP supporter who is undisturbed by the primary vote shift from the high 30s to the low to mid 20s (I am assured that ALP private polls have the number at 23-24%).
Of course this shift in voting patterns has nothing to do with our beloved leader. It is all due to the negativity of those who live in this echo chamber.
Maybe you would like to comment on the fact that the number of ALP primary voters now approximates the number of smokers in the AU population.
10
Australia would get better policies if governments were always forced to negotiate bills through the House.
But no, apparently for some here negotiation is considered undemocratic or a form of weakness.
01
Indulging in anonymity is fine.
10
“If we listened to rural folk, Australia would still have a heavily regulated economy”
Hah, yes the Nationals whole agrarian socialist utopia.
Its funny you know, in W.A. when you actually look at Nationals policy they have seemed a lot more aligned with the ALP on a lot of rural issues.
10
Why thank you. But you should debate the issues rather than the person.
There’s no point worrying about polls when the election is a couple of years away. The time now is to get policies implemented.
Like most things, there’s probably a lot of reasons for the polls. Some people are still bitter about the way Gillard knocked Rudd off. Other people are bitter than Gillard is PM because they have absolutely no understanding of how our political system works.
Maybe you would like to comment on the fact that when you wake up tomorrow, Julia Gillard will still be PM?
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Adam, i think the current parliament shows that minority govt CAN work in Australia.
The biggest problem that i see is that the media haven’t gotten their heads away from the cult of the strong leader thing.
That said, i wouldn’t like to see our parliament and body fragment to the extent of somewhere like Italy or Israel.
Balance in all things i reckon.
10
Well have a look at the whole New Zealand apples issue. The Nats were going to put a bill to parliament to block them being allowed in, which would’ve had us kicked out of the WTO, and would’ve resulted in retaliation around the world.
Abbott got this one right and told the Nats to screw themselves.
The Nats seem to like free trade when it works to the advantage of Australia, but when we have to compete, then they turn to protectionists again.
10
My dream system would be one where voters directly elect the PM, and then the House is determined by proportional representation. The PM then appoints ministers who don’t sit in parliament. They can initially be MPs, but if they become ministers they resign their seat (which can then be filled on a count back).
That means the PM can just pick a business leader if they like.
Proportional representation would probably produce a hung house, so the majority party would have to negotiate to implement the PM’s policies.
But yeah, It won’t happen.
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Happy 600th Jo.
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“My dream system would be one where voters directly elect the PM, and then the House is determined by proportional representation.”
Have to give that one some thought mate. Not dissing, but I personally have an instinctive aversion to separating the executive from parliament that way. I know what your proposing isnt the US system, but it seems to be somewhere in between our system and the American one.
Hah, i have been on other sites where mention of proportional rep would guarantee a long and vigorous multi sided exchange that i’m not up for tonight. 🙂
anyhow, night all.
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Adam
To further illustrate why you are incorrect and only superficially analytical re TheThird Man. Lime’s character is a profiteer who steadfastly remains neutral through the war looking after number 1 and not taking a stand. This is emphasized in the film in his dialogue. The Swiss quote links him to Switzerland itself, who also remained neutral in the war and profited by it. Could it be that a British director and an American star were being openly critical of the morality of the Swiss in not taking sides against the Nazi’s and profiting from it? I believe this to be the case and this was my point in making the quote, not in praising Harry Lime for a witty comment.
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Adam Smith @66
Yes, comrade, I do have opinions. I have come to them by pondering on the facts then making up my mind. So I can explain why I hold these opinions and, importantly, what it would take to change them. In my experience there are not too many people around who can do that. Are you one of them?
It’s late, goodnight.
10
The ALP has some problems for sure. One of their problems is Tony Abbott, he’s a good campaigner. It remains to be seen how long his incompetence meme will hold the public in sway, 2 years is a long time.
The ALP’s response to the asylum seeker/people smuggling situation has been shambolic. Beazley got things off to a bad start and things haven’t improved. I struggle to comprehend how Bowen could have been given his ministry.
Gillard doesn’t know how to sell her successes or strategies and gets caught up in clumsily defending herself.
10
At this stage of the game, I think Labor will just settle with stopping the bleeding. They’re going to eviscerated at the next election if they don’t dump Gillard and a couple of her off-siders and get some appealing, pleasant face in her place. My guess is that after the ETS legislation gets through, the baggage will be dumped on her and she’ll get the boot in the fervent hope that Labor’s reputation can be resurrected in time for the next election (or at least not tarnished too much).
As I’ve mentioned before though…what’s offered with the opposition gives me no solace. The National Party need to make a break for it.
10
It is fair to say that confidence in the Gillard government has collapsed in the same way that concern over the catastrophic man-made global warming scare has collapsed.
At least with the collapse of the global warming scare, it is based on real world observational data on climate that has been proving the IPCC’s model-based predictions wrong. The collapse of confidence in the Gillard government, however, is based not so much on errors as it is on just plain stupidity and utter incompetence.
10
Gillard won’t get dumped. The public won’t accept another leader assassination. ALP will only win if the public feel she has atoned for her errors. Pursuing this offshore processing plan seems like a total misplay…
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(For over-seas visitors who might not know)
The Australian Labour Govt came up with a sensible idea of building school halls and improving education as part of an economic stimulus package. My son was at Bilpin Primary School which had a perfectly adequate demountable library removed and a permanent hall built. A friend of mine who I’d rate as one of the best builders around, priced the project from the plan at $400,000. This included a healthy supervision fee for himself. It was a simple design on an easy building site but the company who did the job quoted $700,000 and over-ran to a million with a couple of extras. None of the many local tradesmen were employed and the job took a long time to complete.
For comparison, a wealthy Sydneyite bought the old orchard next door to me and built a rammed-earth week-ender with irrigated gardens and I built him a fishing hut on the dam and cubby-house big enough for a family of refugees. The double garage alone, with its upstairs guest accommodation is bigger than the new Bilpin school hall. My neighbour says that all-up he spent less than $700,000.
The Bilpin tale has been repeated across Australia. This is not incompetence, -it is corruption on a big scale.
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If we’re talking ratio of botched efforts to total number of efforts, I suppose Down-Under could claim the title this year, but for aggressively sustained waste & incompetence, Britain surely takes the crown this decade, followed closely by us yanks.
Mind you, we’re speaking of botches per capita, not absolute numbers; if that were the case, the USA would be the wastrel of all time. Why, in just the last two years we’re printed $1.7 trillion dollars (give or take a hundred-billion) in worthless currency – a loan from our great-great-great-great grandchildren. That’s more than 10% of the planetary GDP!
Good thing I’m not from Texas, or I’d be tempted to brag.
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Don’t apologise. Everything that happens in this world is interconnected – and that especially applies to politics. A meltdown on this issue in Australia will reverberate through the corridors of power in most capitals in the western world.
What other nations choose to do about it, is another matter, but it only needs a few drops of rain to start a flood.
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Alan Jones 2GB this morning asked listeners to Google “Felton Mapping Blunder” and vote accordingly.
This is about Federal and State Labour governments working together to betray Australian’s by turning Prime agricultural land into a quarry.
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“One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money”. – Indira Gandhi
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Adam Smith @82
Adam, you fail on so many points. If the opponent is say, always pushing Communism and you are say (Like me) always against Communism, what point is there to negotiate? There is no happy middle ground and every concession yields ever nearer to something I’d detest.
It is that simple. When two or more disagree so deeply on principle there need be NO negotiation except that done at the end of a spear, knife, arrow, barrel etc. In democracy you have first to agree on the notion that you even have a democracy before you can stand on it.
I marvel at how your gray is more black and white than my black and white!
10
We would get the American system where bills have arbitrary pork bolted onto them in order to buy up votes. Then the congressmen come to expect this, and when deciding how to vote they just skim through looking for how much pork they get, and don’t bother reading all that difficult legislative stuff.
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The “politically correct” GILLARD “government” kills off Jesus Christ !!
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/the_pc_brigade_kills_off_jesus_christ/
gillard is a COMMUNIST !!
ELECTION NOW !
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I am thankful that I live in Canada right now. We recently re-elected a mostly rational conservative government with a decent majority so we are in pretty good shape for the next few years. They have basically told the AGW fraudsters to jump in a lake. I feel for the rest of you.
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“For those of you overseas, sorry if it’s all so Australian-politics dominated, but really, there haven’t been that many democratic governments who have bollocksed up so many things, for so many people, in so short a time.”
Don’t apologize! You Australians are so close to making a difference, casting out your own mendacious government and sending a message about the “climate change” ideology to the whole world. I think Canada may now be heading in the direction of sanity. The Obama administration, so ideologically driven, will never voluntarily see reason on this subject (or any other, I suspect).
Here in Britain, PM Cameron signed up to the green agenda, purely in order to steal votes from the Liberal Democrats (the third party, best characterized as “not remotely liberal and not at all democratic”). Now, in coalition with the same LibDems, Cameron is stuck with the position he adopted years ago, pre-ClimateGate. He must know that ClimateGate – with all the other unintentional revelations from the supposedly scientific side – renders his adopted standpoint idiotic.
Unfortunately, David Cameron would sooner bankrupt his country than concede that he has ever been in error.
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That’s strange, I seem to remember that OH&S existed years ago.
Wasn’t there awards under Hawke?
I’m sure the truckers will enjoy filling out yet another logbook. Let me guess, keeps the independent contractors too busy with paperwork to be able to get time to do any driving? But anyhow, it’s been a highly regulated industry since as long as I can remember.
Uniformity in education is quite frankly a bad thing for a modern Western nation. Diversity and intellectual output are our main advantages. Having a national curriculum is not even remotely a new idea, but it’s bloody sad that people think it is even remotely a good idea.
They spent a lot and delivered a little, none of the kids are any better educated than they were. It was a sap for the building industry to keep them occupied during a downturn.
Let’s see government deliver an itemised list of what was purchased, where, for how much, who built it, who signed off on it.
Hardly a new thing, and many people think it would have been better to leave it to the schools themselves.
I’ll skip this one, not having taken much interest in the topic of parental leave.
I must say that Fair Work Australia are doing such an excellent job of keeping the unions under scrutiny. You won’t see those ALP guys ripping off the poor *gag*.
Hasn’t happened yet. A nice idea in theory but plenty of scope for stuffing that one up.
Oh yeah, just answer me one question. Which is more expensive? The Exetel OT-100 plan (ADSL2) or the Exetel NBN-A-100 plan (cheapest NBN with equivalent speed and monthly data quota)?
And the billions of dollars we are going to be paying the European Mafia to buy their worthless paper?
Good value to some I guess. Can’t see how it benefits Australia.
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Damian Allen @ 104
“Was Marx a Satanist?”
“Richard Wurmbrand’s book about Karl Marx (1818 – 1883), a German “revolutionary socialist,” begins with a rebuttal to this misconception: that Marx himself was a compassionate visionary who truly cared for the poor. In reality, both Marx and Engels grew up in wealthy families, far removed from the life of poverty. Together they pursued an anti-Christian utopia that — from the beginning — focused on political power, not on meeting the needs of the poor. Like today’s seductive vision of change, their socialist/communist transformation required a “crisis” and a “purpose” that would capture public attention and provide the needed momentum.”
10
As much as people like to call Catamon and Adam Smith trolls you have to admit theyre pretty brave for posting here with a 10 to 1 opposition to their opinions.
And they still maintain a constructive argument.
Theyre a far cry from trolls on, say, a gaming forum.
As much as I disagree with their opinion we wouldnt have these long discussions here without them.
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Does anyone here have a clear sense of what it is that the Fabians seek to achieve in this country?
10
An economic stimulus package is only economic if it returns the same of greater ammount in revenue as the capital cost of the program. If the program doesn’t generate a return for the taxpayers funds invested equal to or greater than the opportunity cost of the program it is neither economic nor stimulus. If it doesn’t return the capital cost of the investment it can only be classed as in the national interest if it provides tangible benefits in the terms of outcomes for the sector in which the investment is made. The vast majority of the BER money produces no increase in the educational outcomes for the students, which is after all the primary role of the school.
The BER was nothing more than a union slush fund pimped as economic stimulus and the primary beneficiaries were the CFMEU officials and members who rorted the taxpayers funds to enrich themselves. If the BER monies had been spent on resources that would address the funding shortfalls of the state governments it would have been worthwhile as it produced better outcomes for the students and would have provided stimulus to the economy, just not in the building and construction sector.
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There is now ONE system for the entire country, so businesses that operate in several states don’t have to adhere to different sets of laws depending on where their employees are. That’s economic reform.
There is now ONE set of national awards so businesses only have to follow one set of rules irrespective of where they operate. It is being phased in over the next 5 years.
Um no, that’s the whole point about having national laws. There is one set of regulations instead of having a different set for each state, and in some instances different regulations in different parts of the same state!
Well that’s convenient of you. When Tony Abbott puts forward a policy that is basically reverse socialism, you ignore it.
That’s economic reform.
10
Well I’m not sure what you’re going on about now.
The fact is in real life, Orson Welles was a liberal New Deal Democrat who knew that the character he was playing in The Third Man was a sociopathic nutter.
10
If your friend could’ve built it for $400K, why didn’t he put in a bid? All of the projects were put to individual tenders to get the lowest price!
Also the price had to include complete fit out of the interior, including furniture.
When the BER projects were in full swing, it was that government investment that accounted for ALL of the growth in construction. Not something you want the government to do all the time, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
10
This statement is nonsensical for a very simple reason. How do you quantify all of the negative economic effects of having few hundred thousand extra people unemployed?
Of course you can make a rough calculation of tax revenue lost, and extra welfare monies the government would have to pay out. But there is also A SOCIAL COST to unemployment, especially if the person is long term unemployed and are already over 45.
I am not saying that the stimulus package wasn’t based on debt. But over time, governments can pay debt back when the economy grows. What governments are bloody hopeless at doing is patching up people’s lives when they have been unemployed for a year or more. In other words, there can be a significant social debt caused by having a heap of people who could be working but aren’t. This is of course what is currently crippling the U.S. and U.K., but fortunately not Australia.
10
No, it would be in the interests of the Labor and Liberal members to stop the National Party’s porkbarrel projects.
The National Party, and before that the Country Party, are the biggest porkbarrellers in our nation’s history. Unfortunately sometimes the Liberals go along with it, such as the Rural Rorts program, which included the federal government paying to build a cheese factory which closed down after 3 months.
10
To grasp the awfulness of something, sometimes a single detail is best. The failed attempt to impose three-hour minimum shift requirement shows such a divorce from the normal currents of life that the public could know, with great certainty, that GetUp/Green Labor is more interested in the Fairfax-perusing classes than the working classes. (And they are certainly not interested in those vulgar aspirationals, who like their cappuccino with a big head of stiff froth, as if they’d never an SMH supplement on Saturday!)
The perfectly calculated three hours were a huge signal. This government meant damage.
What would be a huge counter-signal? What would be a clear indication that a government was determined to bring freedom to the labour market? What would be hard, complicated, and requiring heavy negotiations with and compensation for the states? What would be an achievement on a level with GST.
Yep. Our next truly effective leadership will attack payroll tax. If it’s Labor, I’ll give them credit.
How is it possible that states can tax people not only for employing, but tax them MORE for employing MORE?
10
Let’s just ignore what opportunity cost is then..idiot.
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Adam @113
You really can’t just admit that your analysis is deficient or one-dimensional can you? Ever heard of a dual meaning? That was the subtext of the whole movie. Now you could have the good grace to admit that you only caught the obvious character implication, and that you may have missed the subtext intended by the film maker and the actor. Easy enough to do I admit, but the fact you can’t admit it says alot for your mindset and the selective cherrypicking of facts to suit yourself that is pathognomonic of Labor thinking. I’ve noticed you are very selective in your responses on a large range of subjects when posting here. Very clever but also very transparent.
10
Whenever you revert to abuse it means the person you are debating against has won the argument. If you had more confidence in your position you wouldn’t have to revert to childish name calling.
10
No, that would be frustration at a pathetic individual who cherry picks a single sentence out of a post, rather than making a substantial argument based on the totality of the post, thus displaying their intellectual poverty and lack of desire or ability to actually debate an issue.
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PaulM @ 121, Very well said!
10
I am old enough to remember when you could choose the politician that you liked the most. Now we are stuck with choosing the politian that we hate the least.
As much as I think that Julia Gillard and the Greens lack anything that resembles intellectual or political integrity, I have to say that Tony Abbot is not filling me with loads of confidence …
10
That photo says it all … she probably regrets her life choices right now. Live with it “lady”.
It only takes one Labor or Indie to see the writing on the wall. Just how much are those Indies being paid to commit political suicide?
10
Why, what about Tony Abbott doesn’t give you confidence? What part of his attitudes do you disagree with and why? What are your alternative policies?
Being a person who regularly corresponds with elected representatives of all parties I can tell you that whilst I don’t agree with some of his opinions, his responses have always been thoughtfull, respectfull, polite and well argued. Battlelines is also a good read and gives a good insight into what drives him and the calibre of the man. When I compare the responses I have received from Tony Abbott as against the responses I have reveived from my local Labor member on a wide range of issues Tony Abbott wins hands down.
10
Abbott’s lack of charisma and awkward body language deters many people, but I believe his qualities far outweigh his persona. Clearly, his personality drives the Labor faithful totally potty, but he is one of the few politicians who has a modicum of humility. He worked in volunteer firefighter and surf lifesaver roles gladly and willingly, was happy to clean toilets uncomplainingly and didn’t pull rank in that regard as a Rudd or a Turnbull would have no doubt done. Whatever his faults, he wears them openly, and the people who are his most ardent supporters are those who know him best, in complete opposition to a Kevin Rudd type personality, well liked by those who barely know him, but secretly loathed by those who work with him and know him best.
10
Winston, you have just about summed it up. And it would be unwise to listen to the GetUp/Green luvvies as to who would be a good choice of coalition leader. Whoever most infuriates those elites or most provokes their condescension is the best choice. (By my own reasoning, that could mean Barnaby over Abbott…but you get my meaning.)
10
Well, the government borrowed another $3B last week.
http://www.aofm.gov.au/default.asp?NavID=22
Take a look at the issues. They have been extending near 50% of the debt for the next generation to deal with. Economic treason!
This equates to a structural deficit of over $10B a year. This is how Europe weaved their economic basket. Say goodbye to Medibank Private, Australia Post and hopefully, the ABC. But that will only cover the interest for a few years.
I have a cunning plan…invite all the Greens and progressives over to Tasmania then sell it, lock stock and inhabitants to China as they will need a cough, cough workforce. Put Brown in charge of the first project, manager of the Franklin Dam Hydro Scheme.
10
I think we should all take notice of what is happening in America.
One thing with the yanks they won’t lay down quietly. Their government is bringing litigation against 12 big banks. One is Goldman Sachs. They are blaming them for the housing bubble that brought down their economy and misleading the country over this.
As Goldman Sachs is one if not the biggest traders in carbon and clean energy it would be a good idea to sell any carbon credits or investment now, before they go broke if forced to pay back any money.
The CERN report will I feel have reprocussions now on the AGW. They
are like rats leaving a sinking ship with apologists now admitting their report counteracts any the IPCC et al have said about climate change forcings by CO2. Well we all knew this.
Gillard will either be replaced by another, but unless they revert
the carbon tax they will be knobbled either way. There is a good
skit cartoon from Taiwan about Craig Thomson? I bet the Chinese aren’t amused. $200 billion owed so far. $600 million promised to the UN Climate change fund? I think charity begins at home Jo.
10
Hey People,
I hope you don’t mind if I pretend to be Antony Green for a while.
Labor is in such dire straits now, it just has to hold out for as long as it possibly can, and hope that they make it full term.
That’s the only way that they can crawl off the bottom, well, how many times have we thought that, only to see them sink even further.
So then, it’s a given that going now, they’ll be obliterated, so they need to lessen the damage by hanging on by their fingernails.
The minority support (independents and Bandt) in the lower house are certain that they will all lose their seats no matter what, so, to retain the power they (think that they) wield at the moment, they too have to hold on, because even if by some miracle and things do turn around, there will most definitely not be a Minority Govt next time.
Hence they say nice things about Labor, and Labor says nice things about them.
So, that being said, whenever that next election is held, Labor will not have recovered enough to retain power, so their perceived power base will probably become the Senate.
Hence there is less than zero chance of a double dissolution election, either soon, or at full term.
The last (half) Senate election saw a majority of Coalition senators elected, (16 Coalition, 13 Labor, 6 Greens and one DLP) Add to that 0ne from each of the 2 Territories.
So, at the upcoming Half Senate, we see 38 Senators up for re-election. (6 per State and one each for ACT and NT)
Let’s consider the position will still be wipeout territory.
So with a total of 76 Senators, that means the Coalition would need to get to 39 in total to have a majority there, and as much of a wipeout as you think it may be, even the largest wipeout would not see them gaining the required 23 Senators to add to the existing 16 to hold sway in their own right.
Xenophon will get back in in SA, and I think all 3 Greens will retain, leaving 34, and I seriously doubt the mix will extend to 4-1 in those 6 states, no matter how low the Labor primary is.
So, lets Ballpark with current lows.
Coalition first, Labor second, Greens third
NSW 4-2
Qld 4-2
Vic 4-2
WA 4-1-1
SA 3-1-1 and Xenophon
Tas 3-2-1
ACT 1-0
NT 1-0
That’s 24 Coalition 10 Labor, 3 Greens and Xenophon.
Not enough, even with the most florid of Coalition support
So, now we still have a cleft stick.
The only thing in the Coalition’s favour is that they would hold such a large sway in the Reps that any perception of Obstruction in the Senate would work counter to whoever is doing the obstructing, and that would only be the Greens, because Labor would not want to lose even more of its power base, so while they may rumble and grumble, they’ll stay mostly shtum, and allow the Greens to ‘parrot on’ the loudest.
By doing this, those Greens would be doing do do’s in their own nest if they didn’t at least perceive the will of the people.
If they did obstruct, then that would backfire on them at the next Senate election and they would lose the large gains they had with their existing 6 Senators at the next half senate election after this election.
Notwithstanding the 2 triggers required, a further double dissolution would again not be forthcoming, in my opinion.
If the Greens obstruct so much that DD does eventuate, my perception is that the Greens would have their representation actually diminish, even though at that DD, they only need 8% instead of 16% for one quota.
Why the figures I ballparked above do not include more Greens in those non Green States is that I also sense a depth of feeling against the Greens. They also require Labor preferences in the Senate, counted from losers up first, so any preference that might get them elected would be coming from Labor if they finish lower, and Labor will be hard pressed to get their own guys up, so there won’t be as many prefs to distribute to the Greens.
I know it’s complex, but I just can’t see the Coalition gaining control in the Senate, the biggest thing here being what I mentioned about the perception of voter will.
Long comment I know, but the situation now is that Labor MUST ‘try’ and hold on for all its worth.
Bob and Christine probably think that with Labor so low, there’s the possibility they may actually increase their representation at any Half Senate election, but they won’t do as well as most think, because they are perceived as inexorably linked to Labor.
Interesting times indeed.
(I can see Adam Smith right now, as Tony thinks to self …. hmm! Let’s guess eight quotes, and say, three or four further comments, mainly along the lines that I have lost the argument because I am negative or something or other like that)
Tony.
10
The principles and standrads we walk past and ignore are the principles and standards we ourselves aspire to.
This government is rotten to the core.
10
TonyfromOz
Sorry Tony but you are an abdject failure as Anthony Green,
1) You admitted that there was problem.
2) You failed to say that once the Clean Energy bill was in force we would all see just how wrong Tony Abbott is.
3) You failed to say that the overwhelming majority of the population supports Gillard and the Clean Energy Bill.
4) You failed to mention in every second sentence Tony Abbotts relentless negativity.
5) You failed to mention that planet saving reforms are hard but are the right thing to do.
6) You failed to say the Malclom Turnbull is the Essential Media/GetUp prefered Opposition Leader.
7) You failed to say the John Howard went to the 2007 election proposing an ETS, and lastly,
8) You failed to say that prior to Abbotts usurpation of the position of Opposition Leader, the Coalition fully supported an ETS.
Other than that, you did a reasonable job of imitiating Green.
10
Luckily, I caught this before a supporter from the other side came in and whomped me for dud Math.
If you add the 24 I ballparked to the existing 16, then that does in fact give them 40 Senators, which is in fact more than the requisite majority of 39.
Looking at that again, it does actually ‘seem’ to be an attractive result, but again, be assured that this would be a ‘florid’ Coalition wishlist.
I’d perhaps go one less in the ACT which might fall Labor’s way, mainly on Green prefs, and SA might also have one less Coalition, again going on Green prefs.
But having worked this out prior to posting the Comment, (and still missing that error) I still cannot see the Coalition gaining the Senate as well.
It’s a nice thought though!
Tony.
10
Hey, I found that little quirky thing as well.
Use the number 8 and then bracket it, and any computer always defaults to the smiley face.
[8] square brackets.
(8) round brackets at either end.
8) half round brackets, bracket at the end.
Tony.
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ninemsn Poll – Should the labor Party replace Julia Gillard?
Currently YES 30,228; NO 7387
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TonyfromOz @ 134
Noticed that myself, but too many years doing DCL makes it a more than instinctive aversion to using square brackets in normal corespondence or blogging. Some habits are just too hard to break.
10
If there were a gold medal for government incompetence, Gillard’s Gang would win it quite easily.
ELECTION NOW
10
Funny,
I used an older version of WordPerfect for donkey’s ages prior to upgrading to a more recent version, and the old version, whenever you had the number 8 with round brackets, it always reverted to a default of the small round copyright symbol.
I still think WordPerfect is the State Of The Art word processor.
Anything else is virtually just a copy of what WordPefect has had for years.
It’s a hangover from my time in the Air Force.
They always used WordPerfect, and I just followed that, starting in the early 80’s.
Tony.
10
TonyfromOz, considering the fate of Labor in the Vic and NSW State elections, don’t you think that the greens numbers in the Senate after a DD would be irrelevant due to the number of Labor members that would, if the trend was to hold, loose their place in the Senate? There is also the possibility that the few Labor members that remain would feel obliged to support Coalition bills due to the overwhelming rout in the House of Reps and their fear of future retribution if the opposed the coalition in the Senate in face of the expressed will of the people.
10
Damien #104
It doesn’t bother me either way, there seem to be advantages to both options.
10
Tony @ 134
Another quirky thing about the number 8. If you take a diameter in inches and multiply it by 8,you get the circumference in centimetres.
10
Now Tony, please remember that I am a RAAF brat and accept the following in the light hearted respect it is meant.
OMG, a Bulebell, a Menzies Mannequin, Oh well it could be worse, you could have said you’re an ex-pusser, now where did I leave my entrenching tool?????
WordPerfect, boy oh boy, that brings back memories, my progression went WordStar, WordPerfect, Framework3, MS Office and now OpenOffice, damn I feel old…….
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Kevin @ 141
Not exactly but pretty close.
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Bush bunny @ 129
I’m not sure that those who support the AGW hypothesis are running scared.
10
Another chapter in the Thomson saga.
http://www.2ue.com.au/blogs/2ue-blog/smithy-with-more-thomson-claims/20110902-1jpf5.html
Gets a bail out by the party to pay his legals then applies to the council to build $100K of extentions to his house?
10
PaulM
10
Doesn’t realy matter if they’re running scared or not, the only certainty is that the CERN experiment reveals yet another possible contributing aspect of a complex chaotic system and introduces another layer of uncertainty into their argument that anthropogenic emissions drive climate change.
If the science was truly settled there would be no more “first steps” being found.
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PaulM
I always get Air Force jokes, so I’m quite inured to them by now.
My brother was a ‘pusser’, an ABCD in the Navy and served one stretch as ‘Ships Diver’ on HMAS Melbourne, and he took me on a long guided tour around the Carrier at one time, which made me exceedingly glad I was in the Air Force let me tell you. Talk about primitive.
He told me of a time when, after one of Melbourne’s mishaps, er, sailing into Honolulu Harbour for RIMPAC 75 with a list, after being smashed into by a whale en route, buckling some plates and letting in ‘a lot’ of water.
The old jokes again came to the fore about Voyager, Frank E Evans etc, jokes about Melbourne being a ‘boat’ (and if he reads this he’ll slug me for calling it a ‘boat’, because only Subs are boats) with a history.
Evidently the Captain at the time got the whole crew together for a chat, and opened with the line.
‘Don’t let me hear any of you referring to the this jinx as a ship’ in a classic case of misplacing words.
He also mentioned to me the horror of USN pilots seeing the tiny deck, with what was at the time, the smallest ‘jet chucker’ (steam catapult) on the Planet.
My brother mentioned that they were moored in Honolulu alongside Enterprise, and he told me that you could effectively place 3 Melbourne’s end for end alongside Enterprise and still have room left at each end.
For all you non Military persons, the term ‘pusser’ is pronounced not as the cat, but the same as for what oozes from an open sore. Terrible term.
As to the ABCD alphabet term. At the time he was an Able Bodied Seaman, one rank up from the bottom, and he was in the Clearance Diver branch, hence ABCD.
And yes, that is Clearance Diver, Australia’s answer to the USN Navy Seals, only our guys are better, and that’s no idle comment there.
Tony.
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TonyfromOz, the Melbourne, the old boy did a stint as an advisor when they were rolling out the avionics and targeting system upgrades on the A4’s, having done time in the US learning about force intergration with different C & C systems he said he copped a bit when he said compared to Enterprise, Melbourne was like a tinny with an ironing board stapped to the deck. Probably a good thing we spent the next few years in Malaya. As for the CD’s, nutjobs, the lot of them, almost as bad as Pioneers and Supergrunts. Just another group of our ADF folk that alway punch well above their weight and have time and again earned the respect and aprobation of both allies and enemies, unassuming and unsung like so many that went before them and have follwed in their footsteps, or for the CD’s their wetspots.. :)..couldn’t resist that one… another habit that’s hard to break.
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PaulM,
Man! Military guys are known for their wont to always ‘have a yarn’, and tell tales.
Not CD’s.
Getting stories out of them about their time as a CD is something akin to getting blood from a stone.
They just will not ‘tell’.
Tony.
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TonyfromOz,
Oh so true, but on the other hand some of the best probing questions I ever had to answer came from CD’s and SAS troopers when conducting briefings on exercises and training phases, sure as hell changed the way I prepared briefing notes after I had my head handed back to me following first appointment and what they considered a less than stirling effort (now that’s being polite) that showed I spent too much time with books and puzzles when I should have being beaten around the head with my F1. Joint training exercises were just so much fun for a newbie.
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Paul M at 125
I should have known better than to rely on the MSM for impressions of Tony Abbott and will defer to your more direct experience of the man. You have let me hope that the light at the end of the tunnel is not an on-coming train …
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Truthseeker:
No probs, I would suggest that you use the links at http://www.aph.gov.au to actively participate and interact with your elected representatives, it is vitally important that you make the effort to let you elected representatives know your concerns, give them the opportunity to answer your questions and be clear on your will as a constituent. Be polite, be clear and ensure that your corespondence includes your full name and address.
Do a search on the net for formal letters, My Will letters etc, there is an abundance of resources and information about active participation in our democratic processes available for those who truly want to contribute to effective governance.
I would also suggest if you have the financial resources or a Library card that you read some of the excellent books written by past and current politicians (of all sides).
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For someone who says he is acting like Antony Green, this isn’t a very Antony Green statement. Antony Green would tell you that ALL of the territory Senators are up for re-election whenever the House of Representatives is dissolved. That’s 2 from the NT and 2 from the ACT.
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Self selecting non-randomised webpolls are not an accurate measure of the Australian populace’s opinions on issues.
If you want to reference polls, at least use polls that are weighted and randomised.
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LMAO Jo, Blair followed by Brown (He who sold of ALL the UK’s Gold reserves!) make “Gillygillyossenfeffer” and Rudd look like school kids!
Mind you, the government in Cyprus are really trying hard! Captured a ship carrying explosives to Palestine and took the containers off and parked them next to the biggest of 3 power stations on the island. They then allowed the brush to grow until a brush fire exploded the lot killing a number of people.
Now, as they follow the instructions of the E.U. dictators and install more useless windmills (the E.U. will fine them if they do not install them) they do 2 things. Tell the electrical board customers that electricity prices will be rising by 45% to replace the damaged generating equipment and secondly, ask for 2 a billion Euro bail out as the banking system collapses!
We truly live in an insane left wing world!
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Who are “the E.U. dictators” and what is the European Parliament for?
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Adam Smith:
Without getting into a long debate, I profess to being a long time Labor voter and still to date never voted conservative, but can’t see this current government in the same glowing light as yourself. Could you please direct me to where you bought your rose coloured glasses.
To ever vote for them again I need to see them in a new light. Please help.
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Adam Smith at Comment 154.
I stand corrected.
Well done that man!
Hmm!
Maybe there is a chance.
Nahh!
It’ll be one all after prefs.
One full quota for the Coalition after primaries, and a part quota for the ALP, and the Greens, and I can’t see The Greens polling more than Labor, so their prefs, will see one Labor getting the other Senate seat, hence one all, both Territories.
Tony.
10
I have never claimed that the current government is perfect. No government is perfect. I simply believe that the current Government is a far better option than the alternative, which let’s face it is Tony Abbott who doesn’t really believe in anything.
Beyond that, the rest of your post is just the sly form of abuse that is so common on this forum whenever someone presents an alternate view.
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Adam Smith.
No part of my post was ever meant to be either sly or abusive. I even support the intent of the stymulus, waste and imcompetence on the other hand should never be accepted or excused.
On another front I have held a national heavy vehicle licence for more than ten years, national road rules are nothing new, this does not mean that states don’t still hold onto different laws when it comes to heavy vehicles, different max lengths and gross weights. The placement of number plates acceptable in one state bringing fines and demerits in another. Still a long way to go there.
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Just a P.S. Off to watch the Knight v Rabbitohs, so no posting from me to later.
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Adam Smith @ 155
You mean polls that reflect your opinion, yeah?
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Before I leave what Adam perceived as sly abuse in my post at 158 might have just my poor attempt at humour.
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Paul M @ 142.
Whoa there my boy! Menzies Mannequins? As one of the 1951 originals in the first Nasho intake into the RAAF, (6oth Anniversary July this year)I’ve never heard that one before. We were very proud to be the first of Menzies Blue Orchids! Though the Korean War was in full flight, the prospect of being sent overseas during our initial six months was probably too much of a political hot potato for governments to contemplate at that time. However, part of being accepted into either the RAAF or RAN was a requirement to volunteer to be available for overseas deployment anytime over the next six-year period as a member of the respective Reserves.
The good thing was that National service was universal at that time and not the result of a ballot.
It’s a real shame we no longer have some form of that same universal National Service with various forms of community or volunteer options available for anyone conscientiously objecting to combat roles.
IMO it would go a long way to re-instilling national pride, purpose and self-esteem in our youth of today, elements sadly not in evidence in a considerable proportion of our young people.
Apologies for being wildly OT- back to business!
Ninemsn poll now YES 43,565; NO 10,442
Interesting one at leftie stronghold The Age- “Is Julia Gillard the right person to turn Labor’s fortunes around?”
Currently 9434 votes: NO 83%; YES 17%
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Of course some of the stimulus money was wasted. Whenever governments spend lots of money some of it will be wasted.
But if the Government didn’t put through that stimulus, you would’ve had 200,000 – 300,000 more people on the dole queues. Which means less tax revenue and more government hand outs as Newsstart payments. Plus on top of that you have a kind of social debt that is created when people are unemployed, especially for long periods.
So this wasn’t a zero sum game. You either had a dollars debt or a social debt. Governments can pay back debt when the economy starts growing again, but what they are hopeless at doing is putting people’s lives back together when they have been unemployed for 6 months or a year.
The current government is unifying these different laws into one set of national laws, read for yourself here:
http://www.coag.gov.au/coag_meeting_outcomes/2011-08-19/docs/NHVR%20IGA-19August%202011.pdf
These sorts of micro economic reforms may not get big publicity, but they are important measures of cutting red tape so that our country has a single national economy instead of too many inconsistent state laws.
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No.
I am simply making the basic observation that any poll that simply relies on people self selecting, and has absolutely no weighting can’t be relied on as an accurate measure of public opinion. The only way such polls can produce an ‘accurate’ result is by shear luck, rather than by design.
You may as well rely on astrology.
10
TonyfromOz, the best possible outcome has to be a double dissolution as that is the only circumstances under which all senators face election at the same time. As far as I have been able to determine the only proviso is that the DD must be called no less than 6 months prior to the expiration of the Term of The House of Representatives, which to my reading says if a DD was to occur it would need to happen prior to 30 March 2013.
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KeithH
All cool, dad calls me napalm accelerant and my nephew (the dirty pusser and water taxi attendant) calls me green chum. It’s all good fun.
10
On the subject of likely alternatives to the current “legend in her own lunchtime” Prime Minister, what an intriguing dilemma for those plotters who encouraged Gillard to knife Rudd in the back, whilst temporarily putting their own long-term prime-ministerial ambitions on the back-burner.
With Labor’s brand now so trashed and downright toxic, the possibility of Australian voters electing a Labor PM in the next 3 to 4 elections is growing more remote every day. Do they move to knife Gillard now and seize what is likely to be their only chance of ever being PM with their photo on the Parliament PM wall plus all the accompanying life-time perks of huge pensions, Gold card and many other goodies, or do they sit back and pray for a miracle?
Bill Shorten and others with the prime ministerial baton in their kitbags will be running up big phone bills and burning a lot of midnight oil over the next few weeks!
10
I don’t see how this could be a good outcome for the Coalition. A Double Dissolution means the quota for a Senator drops from 14.28% of the vote to 7.69%. So if the Greens were to win 15.38% of the vote in every state, they’d end up with 10 Senators, i.e. 1 more than they have now.
There won’t be a D.D. in the current parliament. The Parliament hasn’t blocked any legislation once, let alone twice with three months in between.
The Government is negotiating the hung parliament well.
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KeithH
Another intriguing thing is the opinion that Bill Shorten could replace Gillard, now that is an interesting Constitutional Quandry when the GG is the new PM’s Mother in Law. Does Bryce resign or do the Opposition move a substantive motion of no confidence on the inherent conflict of interest.
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[With Labor’s brand now so trashed and downright toxic, the possibility of Australian voters electing a Labor PM in the next 3 to 4 elections is growing more remote every day. ]
Polls are measures of public opinion in the recent past (i.e. when the poll data was collated), they don’t predict the future.
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[Another intriguing thing is the opinion that Bill Shorten could replace Gillard, now that is an interesting Constitutional Quandry when the GG is the new PM’s Mother in Law. Does Bryce resign or do the Opposition move a substantive motion of no confidence on the inherent conflict of interest.]
I think it would be proper for Bryce to resign in those circumstances.
But as to the Opposition moving a motion of no confidence. Well they can do that as many times as they like, but the only one that can dismiss the Governor General is the Queen acting on the advice of the Prime Minister, or as you noted, the Governor General could simply resign. Which is what Peter Hollingworth did.
The Labor opposition at the time had expressed publicly that it no longer had confidence in Hollingworth, which was a form of political pressure, but not legal pressure.
10
Now that is an assumption that can only be classed as pure fantacy.
That isn’t the only way a DD could come about, no real surprise you fail to see this.
The government is hostage to Wilkie, Whinger, Bigshot and Bendt, no real surprise you think this is a good thing that unrepresentative minority members hold a government hostage to their whims.
10
You know very little about the calibre of Quentin Bryce then. She should have resigned when she started promoting government policy and when she went touring Africa as the KRudd cheersquad/bagperson for a temporary seat on the UN Security council, that is if she was interested in doing the proper thing.
The Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition has the right, as do the general public, to petiton the Queen through Her Majestys’ Secretary on any substantive issue. The opposition and the people would also have the right to petition the High Court for a constitutional ruling if Bryce remained GG with Shorten as PM. Nothing in the attitudes, over a long time, of either Bryce of Shorten points to them having much regard for democratic process or the integrity of the government as an institution.
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Adam Smith @ 167
I don’t follow your logic. How can any well-conducted poll with a straight-forward question not reflect the opinion of those interested enough to take part?
Public opinion on the proposed Carbon (Dioxide) Tax was well and truly expressed in the last election when voters elected the vast majority of MHR’s from parties which had specifically ruled out bringing in such a tax!
Why do you think Julia Gillard lied so specifically not once, but twice on this matter on and before election eve? Just to get elected, because internal Labor polling had told her a carbon tax was so on the nose she and her government had no hope of being returned without such a denial!
As she he has refused to allow the public another vote on the tax, knowing the tax would be overwhelminly rejected, voters have had to express their views in the only polls available to them.
She will learn the hard way that such opposition does not go away simply because her inflated ego, hubris and arrogance makes her ignore it and refuse to listen!
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Go the Nights.
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Truthseeker:
Tony Abbott is 100% genuine.
Apart from his community volunteering and knowledge(eg Bach Economics etc)he actually has a heart and isn’t ashamed of it
The Labor Party in MHO, has nobody of his stature, or fit to stand alongside him, and I’d give him a go in a heartbeat
They say of him” Don’t meet him if on the opposite side of an argument, as you will like him”
It isn’t public knowledge that when Health Minister he was flown in
and out of a West Vic area to a large farm
He spent the afternoon playing footie, talking,exploring a huge garden and eating cakes with a group of disabled teens — including some from the intellectually disabled school here.
I’m sure there were tears in some eyes that day
He did it without a blaze of publicity so the youngsters did not have their identities used.
That’s a feeling ,warm ,human being.
I know he is a man of trust from that day.
If anything, I think he is almost too honest to be a politician but I’m praying he gets a good long go to see what he can do for the people he obviously loves a great deal.
Cheers
10
It wasn’t an assumption, simply a proposition. They won 13.11% of the Senate PRIMARY vote at the last election. So if they repeated and then got another few percent in preferences, that would enable them to win 2 Senate seats in each state.
This is completely wrong. There CAN NOT be a Double Dissolution election without a D.D. trigger bill presented to the Governor General. If the G.G. called a D.D. election without the appropriate trigger, the High Court would rule the entire election invalid.
So let’s get this straight. You think a parliament where the government can shove anything it likes through the House of Representatives is more democratic than a parliament where the government must negotiate bills through the house?
That’s a very strange idea of democracy.
10
No, we completely disagree on this one. I think that was fine for the G.G. to promote Australia in that way.
And the Queen will tell such petitioners to petition the Australian Government instead.
The High Court doesn’t give “constitutional rulings”, it makes judgements. It is very doubtful that anyone would have standing to claim that the G.G. is ineligible to hold office.
What an absurd and baseless accusation. Quentin Bryce has discharged her duties as G.G. very competently. And frankly she has proven that we should’ve had a female G.G. decades ago. It is absurd that it took over 100 years for us to have a female G.G.
10
That’s simply not useful information. Useful information is “what does a representative sample of the Australian populace think about a particular issue?”
But you don’t get a representative sample by leaving things up to self selection. And not making the sample reflect the demographics of the populace at large, e.g. a proper city / regions split, a proper split by income level, and education level, and age and gender.
This is untrue Labor and the Coalition both won 72 seats each. Adam Bandt, Rob Oakeshott, Tony Windsor and Andrew Wilkie all support pricing carbon too. So there you have it, a majority of the current parliament are MPs that support pricing carbon. I’d also point out that Labor won the 2pp vote, so at the last election, a small majority of voters supported the party that supports pricing carbon.
Of course there’s also 15 COALITION Senators in the parliament that were elected in 2007 on a platform of pricing carbon, so of course I look forward to you holding them to account by ensuring that they vote to support the Clean Energy Future bills.
Well Gillard said she would support a policy of pricing carbon in the current parliament, and that’s what she is doing:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/julia-gillards-carbon-price-promise/story-fn59niix-1225907522983
Sure voters can express their views anyway they like. But it doesn’t mean Governments should be run by opinion polls. If we did that then Australia would still have a protected economy with high tariffs, high unemployment, low growth, high inflation and low investment.
No, it won’t go away quickly, but it will tend to peter out after the bills for the ETS have passed the parliament.
People will just move on with their lives. That’s what happened with the dollar was floated, banks were deregulated, the GST was introduced, Medicare was enacted, compulsory super was adopted, the Native Title Act was instituted.
All of these policies were controversial, and all of them were criticised by people saying the sky would fall in. But everyone just got on with their lives and the policies turned out to be on the whole beneficial for our nation.
10
Abbott has a good history of losing arguments in parliament and the cabinet room.
He lost the debate on the RU486 abortion drug bill by a 2:1 margin. He also lost the debate on embryonic stem cell research.
He was also one of the least interested in the Howard government adopting WorkChoices, but he got rolled there. He also claimed before the 2004 election that the Medicare Safety Net thresholds wouldn’t be changed, but then lost that debate a couple of months after the election (which resulted in increased health costs for about 40,000 people).
Abbott has some wins (like the Republic referendum in 1999), but he also has some significant loses.
10
Fair enough, but you assume that that will be repeated now that the electorate has seen what it truly means to enable minority government and independents to dictate the terms of governance.
True, but that ignores the fact that there is no guarantee that the Gillard Government may be forced to step aside.
Well I sure as hell think that a government where 146 members of the House of Representatives were elected on a no carbon tax platform being forced by 1 green, 1 Wilkie, and two Independents who in no way represent the will of their electorate, isn’t democratic.
There was no mention in the Kevin07 campaign that he would be seeking a temporary seat on the UN security council, so there is no way of saying Rudd had any form of mandate to enter such an expensive exercise, let alone there being any National interest in Australia participating in such a corrupt morally comprimised role on the international stage.
That very much depends on the reason behind and the content of the petition.
Pure semantics, such a clear conflict of interest and failure to rectify it would bring on a constitutional crisis that the High Court could be asked to pass judgement on.
That is nothing more than your opinion, my opinion is that that would certainly be something the High Court has the power to judge. But not being a constitutional lawyer, I may well be mistaken, non the less a legal precedence only becomes one when a case is lodged and ruled on by the court.
1) The Heiner Affair.
2) Membership of Emily’s List, a Labor movement.
3) Her performance as Governor of Qld.
What an absurd statement, I much prefer appointment on merit rather than gender based quotas.
10
24 hours later and nothing much has happened. “Best Person For The Job Julia” has rebranded herself today as Best Person, but that’s not unexpected given the history of ‘spiritual’ leaders worldwide.
I recall M Fraser undergoing a similar self-administerd apotheosis. Dammit, he even became to look like God, whatever God may look like. Just before The Terrible Fall From Grace, tears and all. Sniff sniff.
It’s inevitable. Same thing about to happen again. Let’s make sure there’s plenty beer in the fridge, popcorn on the table.
10
Yes, it means 180 bills pass the parliament, and none get blocked.
More bills were blocked in the previous parliament than the current one.
What on earth are you talking about. There’s no constitutional provision for a government to be “forced to step aside”.
Are you referring to the G.G. sacking the PM?
Completely wrong. Labor’s policy at the election was to support pricing carbon.
But what about those 15 Coalition Senators elected in 2007 on a platform of supporting an Emissions Trading Scheme (which is what the Government’s policy actually is). Why aren’t you demanding they support the Government’s policy?
Oh, and what about the fact that exactly ZERO Members of the House of Reps were elected in 2004 on a policy of introducing WorkChoices, but that’s exactly what the Government implemented (in fact it rammed the policy through both houses of parliament in just 1 month!).
Was that an undemocratic thing to do?
There’s no onus on politicians to say everything they will do when in government. Times change and circumstances change. Good politicians react to changing circumstances. Bad politicians are the ones that are hell bent on implementing ideology ahead of what makes sense at the time.
We are a REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY, we elect politicians to make decisions for us that they see as being in the national interest. We then judge them at the following election. A system where politicians could only do things they were explicitly elected to do would ultimately just result in nothing getting done.
Completely wrong. The Queen has absolutely no role in the day to day political affairs of Australia. Any petition directed to the Queen would at best be replied with a letter from one of the Queen’s secretaries encouraging the petitioners to petition the Australian government.
You seem to have no idea about how our system of government works.
It is probably something the High Court CAN”T pass a judgement on (non justicible). The constitution sets out absolutely no criteria for who can and can’t be G.G. In fact, it took Labor to establish the convention that the G.G. should be an Australian. Before that G.G.’s were British.
I made no proposal for a quota. But it is astonishing that you think that there wasn’t a woman of significant merit in 107 years!
That reflects poorly on you, rather than me.
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Paul M @ 142
Had to comment re the “ex-pusser”
PROUD to admit I am one AND I also don’t NEVER forget I was part of the “Senior Service” 🙂 I don’t find the term insulting – has a certain ring to it and familiarity (and connotation to it) that a lot of people wouldn’t understand ( I too have been to Singapore’s Bugis Street many times over the years teh heh)
Never spent any time on Melbourne (my brother in law did 2 years) – I was on REAL SHIPS (Brisbane/Perth/Hobart) – destroyers with teeth.
I did give you a green tick though.
Good to banter with like minded people though – the paid trolls here (particulary AS and Catatonic) are initially amusing but become very tiresome and boring quite quickly. I reckon they’re from Getdown or Labor HQ AND sit opposite each other – their responses are timed so perfectly 🙂
Cheers,
10
Post 187 by me
Sorry – double negative (don’t NEVER) – forgot to blow the “don’t” away.
Cheers,
10
I suspiciously wonder if they haven’t been, er, recruited by MattB who’s been quiet of late.
Tony.
10
It’s astonishing that you simply revert to an abusive conspiracy theory to deal with people presenting ideas that differ from your own.
I thought this forum was interested in evidence, and ideas, and reclaiming Australian democracy? Well, you can’t say you support democracy on the one hand but then assert that anyone that disagrees with you is somehow being simply paid to present those ideas.
Everyone should accept the right of everyone to express a range of views without simply saying they are being paid to do so. That simply lowers the tone of the debate, and would turn the forum into an echo chamber of everyone agreeing with everyone else.
10
And since you are someone who believes in rational discussion and evidence, you will now present all the evidence you have that people who disagree with yourself only do so because they are being paid.
Or not.
10
Ah Adam,
It’s not so much that I dislike hearing other opinions – more, that some opinions are COMPLETELY DIVORCED from reality.
No matter how long before the knives come out OR the next election (even if not till 2013) I will be breaking out the champers and smally eats and watch with delight as the “bogan queen” is creamed.
Get a dose of reality will you – listen to your head (and heart), stop the BS from spinning in your parallel universe and admit that my night of celebration WILL eventually come.
JG – “‘I’m not going anywhere’: Gillard steadfast as leadership speculation swirls
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/im-not-going-anywhere-gillard-steadfast-as-leadership-speculation-swirls-20110902-1jouq.html#ixzz1Wn34JMVF”
Ah – how ironic!!
Cheers,
10
Maybe so, but my night of celebration when the Clean Energy Future Bills are passed by the Australian parliament will come much sooner; probably by mid-October or early November.
And one those bills are passed and given Royal Assent, they are the law of the land, and nothing can be done about it unless the parliament passes another bill to repeal the scheme.
Abbott knows he is sitting on top of a ticking time bomb that he has to diffuse, but time is running out, and he still hasn’t convinced either Oakeshot, Windsor, Wilkie or Bandt to support the Opposition’s position.
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“Adam Smith”,
You must have been born on Planet Stupid !
Take off your Rose Coloured Glasses!
The alp (Australian LIARS party) is finished for at least a generation if not forever in Australia!
Too bad no more snout in the taxpayers trough for you.
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Adam Smith,
Just repeat your self etc
And since you are someone who believes in rational discussion and evidence, you will now present all the evidence you have that people who disagree with yourself only do so because they are being paid.
Slither, Boring, Repeatedly silly!
10
Thank you for confirming that I have won the argument.
This saves me some time.
10
I have never made such an accusation.
I accept that people may hold views that differ from mine, yet they can do so in good conscience.
It is also considered a very poor debating maneuver to simply claim things that I haven’t stated.
10
Man!
Why do we bother.
It seems that we just lose ….. all the time.
Clean Energy Future.
Are you that damned gullible!
Tony.
10
Was this directed at me?
Both Labor and the Coalition are proposing that Australia should reduce its emissions by 5% on 2000 levels by 2020.
The Government is proposing to use a market mechanism to acheive this so that market transactions shift investment to the most efficient abatement methods and away from those that are less efficient or turn out to not work at all.
The Coalition is proposing a socialist tax and spend scheme based upon the idea that politicians and bureaucrats in Canberra are better at allocating money (the taxes you and I pay) than the function of the market.
They are the only two credible policies on the table. Given those choices, I choose the government scheme because it is likely to waste a lot less money. In fact going by past abatement projects the Coalition’s scheme could cost as much as $111 billion. That’s about 3.5 years worth of the entire federal health budget.
If you vote for the Coalition at the next election you are voting for an inevitable set of tax increases, or even new taxes, to fund the socialist tax and spend carbon abatement scheme that will just wasted billions of dollars and probably won’t even reach the policies target objectives.
10
Adam,
You say:
And since you are someone who believes in rational discussion and evidence, you will now present all the evidence you have that people who disagree with yourself only do so because they are being paid.
But you did make the exact accusation in 191 – and now an outright lie? Why do you do this to yourself Adam – too much pent up anger or stimulus maybe – I have a solution if you are willing to seek the true hand of help!
Slither, boring, madness?
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@Dave
Ach! Stop debating them. They’re probably being paid per posting of shallow sophistry.
10
I haven’t made any accusation that anyone is being paid to comment here. I have in fact argued against such a proposition.
Now you are simply reverting to lies, which means I have won this debate and am under no obligation to respond to such untruths.
When you are willing to debate in a rational manner I will respond to your posts, but until then you’ll be ignored.
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This sort of conspiratorial thinking demonstrates that you have absolutely no confidence in your positions.
Stick to the issues instead of attacking the person.
10
hmmm there are no semantics on the position of the high court with regards to the constitution. It is all very clear.
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I try one more time.
AS get outside,leave the PC, go and speak to some party unaffiliated people, ask them for their opinions (rather than tell them yours).
An overwhelming majority reject the deceptions (please do not ask for examples) of the current government. Believing that they (the average voter) have been deceived, any amount of govt spin counts for nought because very few are listening. This is founded on the basic logic that liars and cheats are not prone to change their habits.
Ironically, regurgitation of government spin (examples on this blog) has the effect of alienating all but the most dedicated of party hacks.
Credibility is like virginity, once you have lost it, you do not get it back.
JG v6.23 and the govt. have lost credibility, it is not coming back (the credibility).
If you wish to assist the cause of what you obviously consider to be a wonderful govt and glorious leader, then the best thing you can do for them is be silent.
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If Gillard thinks she is the best person for the job she is either delusional or the rest of the ALP are monkeys.
See what I did there? Huh? Huh?
Monkeys? Red head? Ranga?
Orangutans are apes? Apes are smarter than monkeys?
Anyone? Anyone?
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” the paid trolls here (particulary AS and Catatonic)”
Popeye mate, evidence?? Put up or shut up as they say.
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Why do you assume that I have affiliations to a political party? Why can’t you accept that some Australians hold different political views to you without being affiliated with a political party?
Maybe so, but that doesn’t mean there should be an election.
I guess so. One example of this is John Howard who lied for 11.5 years.
I guess so. I also feel the same way about Opposition spin and lies.
Interesting, this sounds a lot like you wanting to censor views that you don’t agree with. While I thank you for this advice, I’ve decided that I’ll express my opinions when and where I like.
10
Anyone can call politicians names, it takes more intellectual effort to explain what they should do differently.
10
Oh, and if Gillard says shes not going anywhere. . . in political terms that means she is pretty much out the door.
Its the old “Everything is fine, nothing to worry about” spin, right before the sh*t hits the fan.
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The Senate admits that government in Australia is an elected dictatorship.
http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/pubs/hamer/chap11.htm
“Can Responsible Government Survive In Australia?
What is wrong with an elective dictatorship?
The executive government has always been seen as the primary source of tyranny, and in Britain the Parliament was developed to control its power. After centuries of struggle, this control was finally achieved in the nineteenth century by making the executive government responsible to the Parliament. The growth of disciplined political parties in the twentieth century has reversed this responsibility, and the executive government can now often control the parliament, resulting in a form of elective dictatorship.”
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AS@203
Your issues are just too slippery for anyone to stick to, I’ve met juvenile law students before. I now absent myself from this discussion, it’s stale. Feel free to parlay your empty rhetoric, no-one is listening.
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I loved the reference to Menzies Mannequins up thread. Am i right in thinking that this was a terms used to refer to RAAF Nashos personnel back in the days of Pig Iron Bob?
For all the accusations of trollishnes and paid posters on this thread, i thought i may have been some kind of reference to bloggers or poll loading script kiddies from that pit of incoherence and general ranting silliness Menzies House.
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@209
Hey, politicians are well versed and name calling. You ever watched parliament time?
And what they should do differently?
Pretty much the opposite of everything they have done so far. Doesnt take much intellectual effort to explain that.
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Unbelievable statement!
This statement demonstrates a completely lack of understanding of Australian history, Australia’s constitution, Australia’s system of government, the UK parliament, the UK system of government, UK history, and the Monarchy.
Being ill-informed is not a reasonable excuse for believing in such conspiracy theories.
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What the fellow said…
OT I know, but please allow me to comment on the discussion between “Winston” and “Adam Smith” about one of my all time favourite films The Third Man, centering on the most famous piece of dialogue in that film (and indeed one of the great pieces of dialogue in all film history): the “cuckoo clock” scene.
You need to view the clip here because the speech is often quoted in a truncated form, missing the context provided by the speech’s initial phrase.
Harry Lime is a shady, corrupt and disreputable character, a profiteer trading in human lives in the ruins of war-ravaged Vienna, even a sociopath. But he also has, as described in the script by Graham Greene, a “cheerful rascality”. “Nutter” is not a term I would apply to him, though. He is not a one-dimensional cartoon character.
Harry tells his old buddy, Holly Martins:
The character Harry Lime is quoting an unnamed writer/historian/whomever on the difference between the Italians and the Swiss. This is also obvious from Welles’ delivery: his character is quoting his source pretty much verbatim. (The historical accuracy of this famous statement is debatable but that’s not the point. It’s a movie.)
Graham Greene wrote the script for The Third Man but Welles himself contributed this piece of dialogue. Welles claims he got the lines from an old Hungarian play but, Welles being Welles, I think we can take that with a grain of salt. Other sources have been suggested. I wouldn’t be suprised if a) Welles made it up holus bolus himself or, b) that he ripped it off from someone else!
Welles was a larger-than-life figure and I think Harry Lime is a larger-than-life character. Not surprisingly,like Welles himself, Harry Lime is a literate man of the world, and like Welles a charming rogue to boot, so it is just the sort of statement that Welles would write and that Harry would spruik. Maybe Harry is Orson’s evil twin, but I digress.
The point is the statement in the film is not Harry Lime’s but some unidentied other’s.
“Adam Smith” is right that it illuminates Harry’s utilitarian worldview and amoral character. But then “Winston” agrees with this assessment. So what’s the problem? Unfortunately Adam goes ballistic in his insistence that that is ALL it is about.
Winston posits that:
Adam describes Winston’s views’s thus:
He then unnecessarily brings in Welles’ real-life “progressive” politics in order to buttress his view. Why unnecessary? Because it is a grave disservice to the artistry of Welles, reducing him to merely playing politics – never the goal of a great artist.
Adam, I suggest that your assertion that this magnificent piece of dialogue suggests nothing more than the “nuttiness” of the character, is indeed a rather limiting comment on the theme and context of the whole film. The very fact that the cuckoo dialogue has grown a life of its own, divorced even from the film, shows it resonates with many, many people. That resonation has nothing to do with sociopathy. As I’m sure Welles also understood.
a longer clip here.
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Anyone? Anyone?
Lame Warcroft. Lame. 🙂
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Wrong on two counts. I’m not a juvenile and I’m not a law student.
Oh, and you lost the debate because you simply reverted to attacking the person rather than dealing with the issues.
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What’s your point? This isn’t question time and we aren’t politicians. We should be able to discuss issues using evidence and logic and rationality, rather than just name calling.
Oh OK, so that means you are opposed to Labor’s cuts to income taxes. You are opposed to their pension increases. You are opposed to all the new medicines they have put on the PBS. You are opposed to the abolition of WorkChoices, you are opposed to the biggest upgrade of school infrastructure of all time. You are opposed to the structural separation of Telstra. You are opposed to the national school curriculum, and the national rules on road freight. You are opposed to the 850,000 computers in schools, and the increased payments to carers. You are opposed to the $11 billion increase in hospital funding, and the doubling of university scholarships. You are opposed to the education tax rebate, and Medicare payments for dental work for seniors and adolescent children. You are opposed to infrastructure Australia evaluating infrastructure projects instead of it being left to politicians who just pork barrel money away.
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@AS
Im not going to get suckered into an argument with you because youre all Mr Serious and devoid of any humour.
As lame as it was at least Catamon gave me a smiley face.
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I quite enjoy laughing at jokes that are funny.
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[ — JN]It seems most on this blog have a very insular opinion on Australian Government , I on the other hand have a different opinion ,1) Howard Government IN 2007 wants a ETS (Carbon tax)
2) Rudd gets voted in , Without the premise ( Or Lack of Agenda for an ETS)
3) Rudd campaigns to introduce an ETS .
4) Rudd gets Knifed in the back , As the ETS Agenda
has no support from the Australian public .
5) Gillard government manages to scramble a minority Government only after announcing . There will be no Carbon Tax ( ETS ) under the Government I Lead .
6) So called Independents ,Go with a Carbon Tax ( ETS )
This is not a minor policy change , This is Australian Government from all sides of Politics ,By stealth forcing an Carbon Tax (ETS) Agenda on Australians .
I feel our Australian Governments .
Beat to a Different Drum .
Australia from Convicts to Prosperity , Our Heritage is our greatest asset , We will always Question why , Its in our blood its in our heart its in our History
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This statement is inaccurate. At the 2007, Labor and the Coalition BOTH had policies of implementing an ETS if elected.
In fact, if Howard won the 2007 election, and he kept his promise, the ETS would’ve started on July 1st of this year, whereas the current Government’s ETS will start on July 1st of next year.
A carbon tax and an ETS are different. The Government’s policy is an ETS that starts with a fixed price then moves to a semi-floating price from July 1, 2015.
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“I quite enjoy laughing at jokes that are funny.”
I on the other hand will even laugh at fart jokes.
Hey, i have an 8 year old ok. Its a stage of life thing.
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@AS
Then you should be finding Gillards antics hilarious!
ZING!
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Warcroft, in some way’s the PM is boring.
Regardless of all the media theater, hype, screeching and various hissy fits, she is just getting on with governing. I mean how dull is it that they have managed to pass every bill they have put up?? Where is the cut and thrust of significant debate?? The brave advances and hangdog defeats??
They have only, really, had the Asylum Seeker non-issue go pear shaped so far. Spoilsports.
I mean how fair is it to the public who legitimately demand that politics be their blood sport, that they negotiate and just get legislation passed? The passage of the Carbon Price bills could be a real anti-climax.
I mean, they have the numbers in the HoR and Senate, and even before they started drafting they had pretty much completed negotiations with all the members of the house who were interested in doing so and the Senate as well. Boredom!!
Now little Johnny passed his Workchoices legislation through both houses in a month (he had a majority in both). Anyone want to bet on how long it will take this “paralyzed” minority Govt to get it into law and on to the GG’s desk??
Still, at least getting this done and dusted will free them up to get the MRRT bills through.
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tertius @216
Thank you so much for your erudite post in confirmation re my interpretation of The Third Man, a film I have personally seen 15 or 16 times. Why be so pedantic about this that I had 4 posts about it directed at AS, you might ask? Because I think it illuminates Adam Smith’s style of argument and rigid mindset, gleefully omitting facts he doesn’t like or which contradict his opinion, willfully misinterpreting what was said in the various posts, oversimplifying his assessment of the meaning of the quote, and then failing to acknowledge a cogent argument when he was shown to be lacking in his interpretation. Welles, and Reed were, IMO, being critical of the immorality of Swiss neutrality, no matter what Adam says, as were many Britons who suffered horribly through the war and its many privations, at times feeling that they alone stood between the Nazis and their European conquest.
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Well, St George got up.
That’s a good GetUp.
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Catamon @ 226
“They have only, really, had the Asylum Seeker non-issue go pear shaped so far.”
I can only say you have a strange definition of pear shaped. Don’t know how many more of their “successes” Australia can afford!
1. Carbon Tax – “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead.”
2. NBN – $50 billion but no cost-benefit analysis
3. Building the Education Revolution – The school halls fiasco with huge waste of money
4. Home Insulation Plan (Pink Batts) – Dumped at huge cost after deaths, fires and faulty work
5. Citizens Assembly – Dumped
6. Cash for Clunkers – Dumped
7. Hospital Reform – Nothing
8. Digital set-top boxes – Cheaper at Harvey Norman
9. Emissions Trading Scheme – Abandoned but apparently being resurrected at who knows what cost
10. Mining Tax – Continuing uncertainty for our miners
11. Livestock export ban to Indonesia – Over-reaction causing severe losses
12. Detention Centres – Riots & cost blow-outs
13. East Timor ‘solution’ – Announced before agreed
14. Malaysia ‘solution’ – ruled illegal
15. Manus Island ‘solution’ – On the backburner
16. Computers in Schools – $1.4 billion blow out; less than half delivered and no provision for service and maintenance
17. Cutting Red Tape – 12,835 new regulations, only 58 repealed
18. Asia Pacific Community – Another expensive Rudd frolic. Going nowhere
19. Green Loans Program – Abandoned. Only 3.5% of promised loans delivered
20. Solar Homes & Communities plan – Shut down after $534 million blow out
21. Green Car Innovation Fund – Abandoned
22. Solar Credits Scheme – Scaled back
23. Green Start Program – Scrapped
24. Retooling for Climate Change Program – Abolished
25. Childcare Centres – Abandoned. 260 promised, only 38 delivered
26. Take a “meat axe”’ to the Public Service – 24,000 more public servants
27. Murray Darling Basin Plan – back to the drawing board
28. 2020 Summit – Meaningless talkfest
29. Tax Summit – Deferred and downgraded
30. Population Policy – Sets no targets
31. Fuel Watch – Abandoned
32. Grocery Choice – Abandoned
33. Stimulus cheques – Sent to dead people and overseas residents
34. Foreign Policy – In turmoil with Rudd running riot
35. National Schools Solar Program – Closing two years early
36. Solar Hot Water Rebate – Abandoned
37. Oceanic Viking – Caved in
38. GP Super Clinics – 64 promised, only 11 operational
39. Defence Family Healthcare Clinics – 12 promised, none delivered
40. Trade Training Centres – 2650 promised, 70 operational
41. Bid for UN Security Council seat – An expensive Rudd frolic
42. MySchool Website – Revamped but problems continue
43. National Curriculum – States in uproar
44. Small Business Superannuation Clearing House – 99% of small businesses reject it
45. Indigenous Housing Program – way behind schedule
46. Rudd Bank – Went nowhere
47. Using cheap Chinese fabrics for ADF uniforms – Ditched
48. Innovation Ambassadors Program – junked
49. Six Submarines – none operational
50. Debt limit to be increased to $250 billion – to pay for all of this and much more
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Adam Smith,
I’d like to ask if you would do us all here a really big favour.
You’ve mentioned that you can’t wait for the ‘Clean Energy Future’ legislation to be passed into the law of the land.
I’d like to point you in the direction of just one large scale power plant, and I’ll use the example I always have, that of Bayswater.
Now Bayswater has a Nameplate Capacity of 2640MW, and it generates 17,500GWH of power each year for use by all consumers.
With the advent of your ‘Clean Energy Future’ and remember, that is what the legislation is called, you will be looking to replace CO2 emitting plants like that.
So, as a relatively simple exercise, could you direct us to just one ‘Clean Energy’ plant on the whole of Planet Earth, (one that’s acceptable to Labor, and The Greens anyway) that can provide its power on the same basis.
Just the one plant Adam, I’m not asking much!
Tell us the Nameplate Capacity.
Tell us then how much power it actually generates for consumption in GWH per year.
Tell us the time basis it will be delivering its power for.
Tell us the cost, not ballpark, but actual.
Tell us the life span of that Plant.
Tell us then the unit cost of electricity that consumers will be paying for the power the plant generates.
Tell us how long it will be before that plant will be delivering its power.
Tell us as part of that cost, just how much the Government will be ‘chucking in’.
Adam, this is where you fall down.
You have a political answer.
You don’t have an actual answer.
The legislation will be passed, (to your orgasmic delight) and hallelujah, it all just magically happens.
Go looking Adam.
Go look hard.
This isn’t bloody politics mate.
This is the future of Australia you’re trashing, because Adam, you don’t have any ‘Clean Energy Future’ Power plants.
All you have is political fall back, and mindless baiting arguments.
Adam, you won’t change opinion here, so for the life of me, I can’t figure why you even bother to come here.
I know, I know.
I lost the argument because of a spelling mistake.
Just one plant Adam. Just one.
Tony.
P.S. Don’t bother. There isn’t one!
10
Keith well said. I’m sure we can add one. The Educational stimulus.
Now they gave 950 dollars to anyone who signed up for TAFE or any accredited education course. The problem was many signed up but never even attended one lesson. Then they offered a second $950
it was great for me, as I am a mature aged student.
But no one has queried so far the 600 million a year that Combet signed up for to give to the UNCCF. He has never admitted this in parliament. Be interested in what happens at The UN Durban conference in November when many countries intend not to renew the Kyoto agreement to 2012. It’s a waste of money always has been and never should have been agreed to. Now the CERN report is catching out the liars regarding AGW see what happens to the AGW apologists.
They are like rats leaving a sinking ship and the only one standing is HMS Australia.
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well KH:
1. Carbon Tax – “There will be no carbon tax under the Government I lead.”
Its and ETS not a tax, is a needed reform, and will be legislated after the 12th.
2. NBN – $50 billion but no cost-benefit analysis
Damn good idea i reckon. But feel free not to use it if you like.
3. Building the Education Revolution – The school halls fiasco with huge waste of money
Worked very well for my offsprings school, and over all only had a 3% complaint rate.
4. Home Insulation Plan (Pink Batts) – Dumped at huge cost after deaths, fires and faulty work
That would be the program that actually decreased the rate of fires / installation then?
5. Citizens Assembly – Dumped
And so it should have been. They have the votes, its rational, just do it.
6. Cash for Clunkers – Dumped
Ambivalent to this one.
7. Hospital Reform – Nothing
Actually, agreement with states done.
8. Digital set-top boxes – Cheaper at Harvey Norman
But the easy to use ones for oldies they were providing weren’t.
9. Emissions Trading Scheme – Abandoned but apparently being resurrected at who knows what cost
See 1. Its and ETS with an initial fixed price.
10. Mining Tax – Continuing uncertainty for our miners
To be legislated this year. Uncertainty over, no prob.
11. Livestock export ban to Indonesia – Over-reaction causing severe losses
Could have done better on this one.
12. Detention Centres – Riots & cost blow-outs
Easy, just do the processing onshore in a timely manner.
13. East Timor ‘solution’ – Announced before agreed
So what?
14. Malaysia ‘solution’ – ruled illegal
Who cares. Boat arrivals are a 10th order issue in this country and the numbers are minute.
15. Manus Island ‘solution’ – On the backburner
So what?
16. Computers in Schools – $1.4 billion blow out; less than half delivered and no provision for service and maintenance
Could have been done better.
17. Cutting Red Tape – 12,835 new regulations, only 58 repealed
Yah, Governments do that, but i dont really give a toss.
18. Asia Pacific Community – Another expensive Rudd frolic. Going nowhere
Worth a try though.
19. Green Loans Program – Abandoned. Only 3.5% of promised loans delivered
Yup, can it and just bring in the ETS makes more sense. Oh, thats what they are doing!
20. Solar Homes & Communities plan – Shut down after $534 million blow out
My mum did pretty well out of it though!
21. Green Car Innovation Fund – Abandoned
Be interesting if they brought that back actually.
22. Solar Credits Scheme – Scaled back
Yeah, just do the ETS i reckon.
23. Green Start Program – Scrapped
Dont know much about it.
24. Retooling for Climate Change Program – Abolished
Again, just get the ETS and use some of the revenue to fun renewables.
25. Childcare Centres – Abandoned. 260 promised, only 38 delivered
Again, not really a prob as far as i can see.
26. Take a “meat axe”’ to the Public Service – 24,000 more public servants
As against what in population growth??
27. Murray Darling Basin Plan – back to the drawing board
Yup, they should have just told the bookburning farmers to stick it. Everyone know the problem is overallocation and the only way to stop the Murray becoming a toxic drain thats useless for agriculture is to get environmental flows back up.
28. 2020 Summit – Meaningless talkfest
Whatever.
29. Tax Summit – Deferred and downgraded
Henry review. long term plan actually being implemented.
30. Population Policy – Sets no targets
Cause they arent stupid.
31. Fuel Watch – Abandoned
Works ok in W.A.
32. Grocery Choice – Abandoned
Oh My Dog!!! REally!! And that is Soooooo important!
33. Stimulus cheques – Sent to dead people and overseas residents
Like any program its not perfect, but that issue was really minor.
34. Foreign Policy – In turmoil with Rudd running riot
Really?? Evidence??
35. National Schools Solar Program – Closing two years early
Yeah, just get the ETS in place i reckon.
36. Solar Hot Water Rebate – Abandoned
So?
37. Oceanic Viking – Caved in
Badly handles by Rudd. Shuld have kicked them off and oh yeah, totally screwed relations with Indonesia??
38. GP Super Clinics – 64 promised, only 11 operational
Whatever.
39. Defence Family Healthcare Clinics – 12 promised, none delivered
So write the minister.
40. Trade Training Centres – 2650 promised, 70 operational
Dont know anything about that one. I’ll take your word for it.
41. Bid for UN Security Council seat – An expensive Rudd frolic
You see no benefit to being on that? Bit parochial huh?
42. MySchool Website – Revamped but problems continue
Good idea i reckon.
43. National Curriculum – States in uproar
So? Should get rid of that level of govt anyway, useless parasites.
44. Small Business Superannuation Clearing House – 99% of small businesses reject it
More fool them.
45. Indigenous Housing Program – way behind schedule
Would like to see them do better on that.
46. Rudd Bank – Went nowhere
??
47. Using cheap Chinese fabrics for ADF uniforms – Ditched
So?
48. Innovation Ambassadors Program – junked
Dont care.
49. Six Submarines – none operational
Dont by French gensets next time i think.
50. Debt limit to be increased to $250 billion – to pay for all of this and much more
With debt at 7% GDP, we got nothing to complain about in that respect. Besides we can screw it out of the braying brazillionares like Gina, Twiggy, and big Clive.
oH, and Bush Bunny, from what i have read about the CERN CLOUD experiment, is suspect the global warming, no its an ice age fraternity are over-egging and misinterpreting again. It appears to be interesting science though.
night all. 🙂
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“Democracy is the road to Socialism.” Karl Marx.
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Adam Smith @ 199
Labour is efficient?
“…..Cap-and-trade is going to happen. Or, if it doesn’t, something like it will. The moral is the same as for all the other bubbles that Goldman helped create, from 1929 to 2009. In almost every case, the very same bank that behaved recklessly for years, weighing down the system with toxic loans and predatory debt, and accomplishing nothing but massive bonuses for a few bosses, has been rewarded with mountains of virtually free money and government guarantees — while the actual victims in this mess, ordinary taxpayers, are the ones paying for it.
It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a thriving first-world democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.
But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from homework till the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It’s a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can’t be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in every buck you pay. And maybe we can’t stop it, but we should at least know where it’s all going.”
From: The Great American Bubble Machine, Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone magazine.
10
“I know you non-Australians are all proud of your Worst Ever Governments, and some of them have been doozies. But go on, try to think of ways as to how this government could have botched up more things in a lesser span of time.”
OK, that IS a challenge.
How about they could have invaded the local Islamist countries to fight terrorism and protect their live animal exports from mistreatment during shipping and slaughter. 8>)
10
Half truth Adam, the plan was to attempt to convince the people of the need for an ETS through a committee of scientist and a citizens assembly during this term and take it to the poles in 2013.
From ABC News, June 2010.
10
Adam Smith
Deliberately distorting and misrepresenting what I said to imply baser motivations is not debating, it is a dog act. That you need to stoop to such a low tactic shows that your arguments are hollow, of little substance and less worth. Those who use such tactics are uncivil and beneath contempt and I for one, will no longer lend credence to, nor give legitimacy to your arguments or opinions by continuing to debate with you. There are no insights to share or anything of substance to be gained by interacting with an individual so bereft of intellectual morality or rigor.
10
Please don’t go giving anyone any ideas.
10
And that is why no one goes in and fixes up North Korea, or Zimbabwe.
10
Tel @ 239
“To see what is in front of ones nose needs a constant struggle.” George Orwell
10
Hmm!
Are Catamon and Adam Smith working in concert?
If so will they be off(GetUP or ALP headquarters) duty for the w/e?
I HOPE!
Boring!
10
catamon at comment 232
You have no idea why we laugh at you, do you.
You say here in reply:
Ho ho ho!
SOME of the revenue to fund renewables.
You have no concept at all, have you?
The Government could keep ALL of the revenue raised from the imposition of this new Tax on CO2. Give none of it whatsoever back to SOME of the people, just keep the lot.
They could then use all of that money to fund renewables.
It still would not even come close to replacing the electrical power already being provided by traditional sources.
And tell me, how soon do you think these renewables will be up and running.
As I mentioned, you people have a political answer, or at least you think you do.
What you don’t have is an actual answer.
Tony.
10
Catamon @ 232.
Gee, thanks Cat. There’s obviously no worries that four years of profligate waste, mismanagement, missed opportunities, unwanted unworkable rortable policies based on thought bubbles, etc.,etc., will all be fixed by an ETS brought in because of an increasingly discredited hypothesis of AGW based on a series of “what if scary projections” from alarmist UNIPCC gravy train “scientists” using dodgy interpretations derived from inadequate unvalidated computer models.
An ETS allowed by the monies brought in selling some of our vast reserves of “evil”(as seen by the Greens and fellow travellers) mineral and fossil fuel resources, mainly to China and designed to achieve what? A miserable fractional reduction in our emissions of atmospherically miniscule but vital, harmless, beneficial CO2 essential to all life on the planet which may have at best an insignificant, immeasurable effect on either weather, climate, temperature or the environment!
Yes, if nothing happens to China’s economy the whole ETS house of cards may conform to the great Australian traditional outlook of “she’ll be right” as obviously espoused by you. And we could also continue to give them grants as we are doing now, so they can lend us the money back.
Anyway, as another great thinker in a previous post said, debt can always be repaid but I’m not sure that our children/grandchildren are going be all that thrilled about being the ones to pay.
Still, perhaps I’m gettng old and churlish ’cause after all, the conmen, rorters and purveyors of the all the horrendously expensive taxpayer subsidised “renewable energy” industries will do very well and Julia and her cohorts will have “saved the planet”! Yes Cat, you’ve really reassured me!
.
10
Just in case the catatonic catamon missed this on another thread.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100102917/green-jobs-wot-green-jobs-pt-242/
How’s Spain going lately, you idiot?
Hundreds of thousands of productive jobs sacrificed on the “renewables” altar. 20% national unemployment, much worse for the young – 40%.
Way to go, NOT!
There is absolutely nothing stopping these morons reducing themselves to a stone age existence. But typical of all socialists, they insist on everybody sharing the misery.
10
Adam Smith,
If you get bored try your hand at completing the:-
“Dialectical Materialism Exam — Final Paper 2010”
http://www.anti-dialectics.co.uk/Essay_666_The_Final_Exam.htm
10
It seems that you don’t understand the purpose of the clean energy future bills. What the bills do is set up a [mess] ed
If I could make one suggestion. [no you can’t limit yourself to just one] ed
10
When you cast aspersions on people who just happen to post different ideas to your own you [blah blah] .
Thank you very much for reverting [the same old rag about (fill in the blank)]
[Stop with the better than thou would you?] ED
10
Damn!
Another bloody spelling mistake!
Tony.
00
Spelling mistakes are understandable. [snip] ed
00
In another development in the subversion of our democracy and freedoms Glen Milne has been sacked from ABC Insider over the Gillard/Wilson issue where the only false assertion was the Gillard was living with Wilson in the house which AWU members funds had been used to renovate. Everything else in the article is a matter of public record and not disputed by Gillard.
Considering that so far this year there have been 144 upheld complaints against ABC journalists and presenter for breaches of the ABC Charter of ABC Editorial Policies, none of which have resulted in a sacking, Glen Milne shoud drag the ABC through Fair Work Australia for unfair dismissal.
There will be those who argue that it is a matter of degrees, to you I say “what utter twaddle”, there is no mention in either the ABC Charter or Editorial Policy that defines any degrees of breach, and just like you can’t be a little bit pregnant, you can’t be a little bit in breach of the Charter or Editorial Policies. You have either breached them or you haven’t, and if the price for Milne is to be sacked, that is the same penalty that must be metred out to all those who have had complaints upheld who currently work at the ABC.
Mark Scott should also be required to front the Senate to justify this blatant double standard and answer questions about what political pressure was applied by The Prime Minister, her Office, The Communications Minister, his Office or any other member of The House of Representative or The Senate, to bring about this action against Glen Milne.
If Glen Milne can be sacked for this, yet the ABC employs Catherine Deveny (after being sacked from The Age for her Bindy Irwin Tweet) and Graham Readfern (who allowed commenters on his Green Blog to call Viscount Monckton a terrorist for his stance against the hypothesis of AGW and allowed comments justifying blowing up power stations), Malcolm Farr and his pontification on Insiders “I think Scott Morrison is a racist, not that I have any proof of that”, let alone the quality of commentary from such intellectual giants like Clive Hamilton, Mariek Hardy, Deborah Cameron and so many others on The Drum and the ABC in general, then it is well past time that we had an inquiry into the standards at the ABC and whether the continuation of public monies being spen on it are justified and provide the balance required by its’ charter.
00
So you don’t think journalists should be under an obligation to check their facts before publishing such accusations, something The Australian admitted was not done in this instance?
00
With some helpful hints from Crakar24.
Think of Jimmy Page, Led Zep etc…
Cheers,
Speedy
If the ABC was Relevant (Part 45)
(The Chair at the UN)
There’s this lady who’s told, that the climate’s not cold –
And she’s buying a chair at the UN.
With her tax on the nose, you’d be right to suppose,
The voter’s next word won’t be welcome –
And so she’s buying a chair at the UN…
It is writ on the wall, that her future’s unsure
For she knows that she won’t get re-elected.
But by hook or by crook, if the right song she sings,
“Her friends” will all see she’s selected.
And oh, there’s lots of plunder
Yes, there’s lots of plunder.
Because the loot that they get, when they rob from the west
Comes without crying or pleading
It’s by laws and decree, they just take it from thee,
And the stealing’s all done by just scheming.
And oh, they love to plunder.
They really love to plunder.
And it ends up the same, as they all play the game,
Then the pollies will do acts of treason
When she’s spent all our gold, and the people are sold
As her slaves for her own private reasons.
If there’s a hassle with your cashflow, don’t be alarmed now,
(It’s) A concession for the green queen –
Science is settled, so don’t you doubt now,
It’s a one-way road you’re on – don’t you wonder
Don’t you ever wonder…
Australia will implode, as all you should know –
Because she’s just made thrift illegal.
So won’t you please tell that jerk that her windmills don’t work,
She’s a turkey, she’s not an eagle…
And as we spiral down the hole,
As (it appears) to be her goal,
There is a lady we all know
Who to the UN wants to go
And as you watch her play her card
Truth will come to you real hard
You gotta brain, so use it now
Don’t let the UN tell you how…
‘Cos she’s promised a seat – at the UN.
00
Adam Smith @ 251
Refer back to my response @ 237, that will quite clearly answer any current or future question you have for me.
00
Adam Smith at Comment 246,
You’re full of political rhetoric.
In comment 230, I asked you to find a replacement for Bayswater.
Okay, I can understand how you have no idea about how to go about answering the question, so I’ll make it easier for you, since you specifically mentioned closing Hazelwood.
Now, using your legislation, which you tell us has the answer, because after all, it is the ‘Clean Energy Future’ Bill, do the same task for Hazelwood, and find us a replacement for that.
Remember, answer the question now, no political rhetoric, and direct us to the place in the legislation that does have this answer.
Tony.
00
Here’s a link to the now famous Stat dec…
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26761740/Robert%20Kernohan%20Stat%20Dec.pdf
00
To the editor
I understand that you may not like AS’s points of view, but if you’re going to edit his posts for better than thou comments and repeating himself, shouldn’t you do the same for his opponents? As much as both sides like to play the ‘we’re rational and you’re not’ card, both regularly resort to identical tactics.
00
LOL! You’re talking to someone who thinks that Australia should have a domestic nuclear power program. Bayswater is 2 large nuclear reactors, or 3 medium sized reactors.
In fact, if you shut down all the brown coal power stations in the country and replaced them with 5 nuclear reactors, we would cut our carbon emissions by about 15%.
The Clean Energy bills will make brown coal power stations uneconmic, and will make gas more attractive than coal. So that’s where a lot of investment will go. Hazelwood and Loy Yang are too old to be retrofitted, so they will eventually have to be shut down and replaced with gas, but if I had my way nuclear power would be an option too.
Stop with the better than thou would you?
[has he bested you? after all you seem to be attacking the person] ed
00
If I were to acknowledge that AGW was fact, I’d not be a supporter of CSG. I would however be a supporter of nuclear power.
[have you ever acknowledged that AGW was not a fact?] ed
00
You should support it anyway. Australia has about 40% of the world’s uranium reserves, this is an industry where we have significant comparative advantages over other countries.
Even if you don’t think CO2 emissions are a problem, doesn’t it make sense to have nuclear power as an option so that the coal industry has to compete so that their processes are as efficient as possible? Australia has some of the least efficient coal power stations in the world because the coal industry hasn’t faced serious competition.
00
But but but…Adam?
Isn’t nuclear power off the table?
It doesn’t fall under the defintion of ‘renewable energy’.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not knocking nuclear power, but you didn’t answer Tony’s question.
You answered another question that was nearly like Tony’s question.
I would suspect Tony is ‘au fait’ with nuclear power?
Also….remember we have to pay out those contracts…that was also part of the question.
The question definitely asked about ‘renewable energy’ and the ‘clean energy bill’. Neither of those are contemplating nuclear energy…nor do they properly recognise the cost benefit analysis.
Another great and proven power source is hydro power….that one’s not allowed either 🙂
00
A poster was asking about the $600,000,000 impost Combet signed Australia up to in Cancun. Sorry I couldn’t spare the time to wade through all the endless AS and Catamon posts which seem to have swamped this blog to find you, but the following may help explain the situation.
Quote 1:
“Billions of dollars raised by Australia’s carbon tax will end up overseas, helping poor countries battle climate change.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s new tax will be used to allow Australia to meet its share of a $100 billion-a-year United Nations fund to transfer wealth from rich countries to help undeveloped nations adapt to global warming.
The Gillard Government is party to a UN agreement which Climate Change Minister Greg Combet entered into in December at a meeting in Cancun, Mexico, under which about 10 per cent of carbon taxes in developed nations will go into a Green Climate Fund.
Even when Ms Gillard was denying there would be a carbon tax last August, her government had committed to spend $599 million on climate change handouts over the current three-year Budget period, mainly in the Pacific and South-East Asia. About $470 million has already been allocated.
The scale of the potential overseas carbon tax payments dwarfs the $500 million in educational foreign aid to Indonesia which provoked recent bickering between the Government and the Opposition.”
Google – Australia contributions to Green Climate Funds for further details.
Quote 2:
“German economist Ottmar Edenhofer was co-chair of the IPCC’s Working Group III, and was a lead author of the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report released in 2007 which controversially concluded, “Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”
Following are excerpts from a November 2010 interview of Edenhofer with NZZ Online.
(EDENHOFER): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War.
One must say clearly that we redistribute de facto the world’s wealth by climate policy. One has to free oneself from the illusion that international climate policy is environmental policy. This has almost nothing to do with environmental policy anymore.
If this happens, on a per capita basis, then Africa will be the big winner, and huge amounts of money will flow there. This will have enormous implications for development policy. And it will raise the question if these countries can deal responsibly with so much money at all.”
Edenhofer continues to be a leading light of the UNIPCC as evidenced by the following.
On May 9, 2011 the IPCC released a “Special Report on Renewable Energy Sources and Climate Change Mitigation.” Actually, it only released its summary because, as is always the case with these IPCC products, the “Summary for Policymakers” is produced before the actual work it purportedly summarizes.
Right up front are the paper’s four “coordinating lead authors.” Representative of the world of global warming schemes, these include two Germans, an African, and a Cuban, as no economic plan is complete without an expert from Cuba.
First among them, however, just happens to be IPCC official Ottmar Edenhofer.
00
So let’s get this straight. I’m attacked for just repeating government lines, but when I express a view that clearly diverges from the Government line I am attacked for not simply sticking to the government line.
How does that make sense?
[Attacked? a good debater doesn’t accuse the opponent, instead defend your position.] ED
00
Speedy @252
Funny and a coincidence that It was on the radio yesterday.
Great piece of verse.
00
The mining sector did not stop Australia going into recession during the GFC. The Services and Agricultural sectors both contributed three times as much to growth as the mining sector:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-had-minor-role-in-growth-20110902-1jq6r.html#ixzz1WraUu2wt
00
Hey Adam!
LOL yourself.
I’ve been saying that for the last three years, in detail, and in probably what amounts to nearly a hundred Posts, and another 500 Plus on related electrical power generating subjects.
However, as I mentioned way way back in comment 230, I specifically said:
Both sides have said NO to that, and if you think nuclear power has even the slimmest of chances to actually start delivering power before 2030, then you are more deluded than I thought.
Of course Nuclear power is the way to go, but I’m pragmatic enough to believe there is zero to little chance of a ‘discussion’ even starting in the near future, let alone attempting any legislation prior to even beginning down that path.
You say that this legislation will make brown coal uneconomic, so, answer the questions. Find me a replacement for Hazelwood.
But hey, there’s no need to even attempt to answer the questions is there, because, again, I lose the argument because of a spelling error.
If you have no idea, just say it.
Tony.
00
No Adam,
So let’s get this straight. I’m attacked for just repeating government lines, but when I express a view that clearly diverges from the Government line I am attacked for not simply sticking to the government line.
How does that make sense?
You didn’t answer the question.
Good for you for supporting nuclear power….such a pity that it isn’t getting a run don’t you think?
00
The maximum capacity of Hazelwood is 1600 MW. That’s the same as two medium sized nuclear reactors at one nuclear power plant. There’s currently 64,724 MW of nuclear power capacity under construction worldwide, see here:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/reactors.html
Australia could easily replace Hazelwood with a couple of large nuclear reactors which would produce 2000 MW of electricity, but dramatically reduce carbon emissions. Apparently Hazelwood is the least efficient power station (most CO2 produced for least electricity) in the entire OECD.
I don’t care what both sides have said no to. I am proposing that Australia should use nuclear power. Australia could have a reactor up and running within 10 years if we wanted to.
And remember, Tony Abbott has said in the past that he does support nuclear power, he just just too gutless to actually advocate it because ultimately he doesn’t believe in anything.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/bishop-contradicts-abbott-stance/story-fn59niix-1226021388027
This is kind of hilarious. First you call me delusional, and then in the following paragraph you say you agree with me!
Yes, brown coal will become an uneconomic way of generating electricity, perhaps not immediately, but certainly within a decade or so as the price of pollution permits increases.
I’ve already answered your question. If we have to shut down Hazelwood, I would replace it with electricity generated form nuclear power. Frankly I am not one of those people that thinks we can get by using wind farms and solar power.
Also why are you going on about spelling errors? I haven’t claimed you have made any spelling errors. I just felt your posts would be more readable if you didn’t start a new paragraph after every sentence. I expressed this opinion in a polite manner that didn’t involve me attacking you personally.
00
Tony,
As an additional piece of edification for people who are looking for smart alternative energy solutions…please can you post that AWESOME link re the hydro scheme in China?
Maybe that’s not a bad idea either Adam?
Pity, along with nuclear, current mindset and policies will not give either of them a chance.
We have to keep flogging solar and wind technology that at this stage just cannot replace or supply current power needs in a remotely cost effective manner.
00
I have answered the question repeatedly. I would replace Hazelwood with a nuclear power plant with two large (1000 MW) reactors.
Yes I do think it is sad that nuclear power isn’t being discussed and debated. I certainly blame Labor for that because they have historically been against it. However Tony Abbott’s position is perhaps even worse, he has gone on record in the past as advocating nuclear power, but now that he is opposition leader he doesn’t have the guts to actually get out there and advocate it. Labor is consistent but wrong, Abbott is right but inconsistent for not actually advocating the issue.
00
All the major viable hydro projects in Australia have already been exploited.
Sure we could have those micro hydro projects, but that doesn’t solve the problem of replacing baseload generation. For that we need nuclear.
00
Adam, is nuclear even on the table? I mean does “she” have a plan for implementing nuclear? And you do know that it takes many years for a plant to go online. Why are you so fond of a carbon tax when you know that the solution (nuclear) is many years off?
00
I don’t know who you are referring to.
Australians aren’t mugs. We could get a reactor up and running by 2020 if we wanted to. In fact if Tony Abbott was a visionary thinker, he would take such a policy to the next election. But of course Abbott won’t advocate anything even remotely controversial. He will promise everything to everybody and if he ever becomes PM will deliver nothing.
It isn’t commonly known that nuclear is only slightly more expensive than the most efficient coal power stations (I don’t mean power stations including carbon capture and storage which are unproven and will cost a fortune). By introducing even a low carbon price nuclear immediately becomes cheaper than all forms of generation from coal.
That’s why I want a carbon price, because it actually makes nuclear even more attractive, so eventually politicians will have to face up to that fact and do something about it.
00
Adam @ 272
How coy you pretend to be. The title of this thread is ” Ask What she won’t stand For” Then there is the picture of “her”.
Why don’t you stop being precocious? It doesn’t do your cause any good.
You know that worldwide Australia is a minor co2 generator. Your efforts would be much better spent getting that nuclear plant up and running without hamstringing your economy as a carbon tax is certain to do.
00
Adam,
All the major viable hydro projects in Australia have already been exploited.
Says who?
Oh… let me guess…the same people who won’t give nuclear a chance? 🙂
That is so not the case….have a little think about that one.
Just for a start there are numerous dam walls that have not been exploited, let alone the amazing bang for our back we could get if we upgraded the Snowy System 🙂
Despite the assertion otherwise, there are also many other places that can be ‘exploited’.
You’re right though, nuclear makes good sense when we consider available resources.
Between them, hydro and nuclear could easily reduce our reliance on coal.
It would ultimately cost us way way less than the track we are being herded along at the moment.
Seems the missing ingredient is political will? Unfortunately it is not just one side of politics.
However…there is no chance of it happening with our current crop 🙂
00
Adam Smith says
You seem to attempt to smear me with the claim that Austrailians are “mugs”.
I did no such thing and said no such thing. You should not falsely smear your debater it does nothing for your side and is beneath your abilities.
00
Mary @ 263
“It was on the radio yesterday” ??? Led Zeps version or the Crakar/Speedy rendition?
Cheers,
Speedy
PS: All this talk about nuclear is pretty moot at the moment. If Julia is installing a carbon (dioxide) tax to keep the Greens happy do you think nuclear will be on the government agenda? Me either.
00
Speedy, good one with Zep!
How about something like:
There is a house in Canberra
they call the sinking one
it’s been the ruin of many a po boy……..
00
Wow, the all powerful ED seems out in force today? Have we landed on the Forbidden Planet??
I should be beating up on AS as he’s advocating nuclear power, but every now and again i find myself thinking about it as a maybe good thing. Just not uranium fuel fission. Have been doing a bit of reading on thorium fueled Accelerator Driven Systems. Lots more thorium than uranium available (and Australia has bucket of it), inherently safer, less intractable waste, and harder to use for weapons manufacture.
Will be interesting to see what kind of mix we end up with from Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Geothermal and maybe Nuc?
00
Anyone know if Slipper has resigned from the LNP as yet?
The Slipper / Brough thing strikes me as a massive own goal for the Coalition, particularly NOW when the Clean Energy Bills are going into parliament on the 12th. Incompetence writ large in Tony Abbott’s distinctive crayon i think. Wonder how the Coalitions backers will feel about this latest stuff up??
00
Lets see Adam Smith starts out
Gets strong debate,
Tristan tries to bail him out
fails
Catamon shows up for the third tag team
00
Mark,
At least two of those people mentioned are just a mouthpiece of catchy spin lines.
With the myopic stance at least one of them has regarding the great command economics move of taxing carbon – my eyes roll when they start spruiking nuclear. Its the same ploy manbearpig makes to sound a bit more centre than trotsky.
00
Howard was a big advocate for nuclear.
Its a sensible option, but highly against public approval.
The way I see it. . .
Large companies like General Electric are the ones pushing the climate change and renewable energy agenda. They are also forcing the shut down of coal fire stations all across the US and soon here.
When the coal fire plants are shut down we will have to rely on solar, wind or some other crap.
Demand will be far too high, rolling blackouts, public outrage.
GE will come in like some saviour and declare that nuclear is the only way to go.
The general public will go along with nuclear because they are desperate for reliable power.
00
Mr. Madjak @ 281, well said. The next thing they’ll say is something about “groupthink” or “echo chamber”.
00
Catamon,
You are just simply not paying attention.
Will be interesting to see what kind of mix we end up with from Solar PV, Solar Thermal, Geothermal and maybe Nuc?
????????
You’re half trying to defend Adam and he’s at least smart enough to not go there.
Which part of Solar PV, Solar Thermal and Geothermal CAN’T CUT IT did you miss?
Please do your sums.
You know….add up what it can deliver….add up how much we will have to supplement….add up how we’ll pay out those iron clad contracts…add up the ‘flow on effect’ from the Carbon Tax and then come back here and explain how this scheme can possibly work in a competetive and cost effective manner.
WARNING….I am not interested in hollow political and emotional rhetoric.
You need to supply the basic, factual, realistic sums.
If you’re having trouble, I think even Adam may be able to help you 🙂
00
Almost forgot the subject of the thread. Why am I so easily distracted on this forum?
Back on the PM:
It’s a naughty world. I’m not too fussed if politicians backtrack or change their minds. I’m hoping Abbott does that over a few issues.
Julia Gillard fibs and fudges, probably more than the average. She manipulates more than most people, but that may well come with the job.
The problem is that Julia Gillard is only comfortable when fibbing, fudging and manipulating. When she is in a position to come clean about her past or call the bluff of the Greens and Independents, instead she vacillates her way into problems, and, like most weak people, resorts either to self-pity or bullying when the manipulation fails.
When it comes to covering up her messes, when she is plotting, juggling and spinning her way back out of trouble, she displays great boldness and inventiveness. Juan Peron comes to mind.
I once knew a very capable man who could never tell the truth, even if you asked him the time, because he saw truth as a loss of control, something that was out of his hands. The problem was not that he fibbed, but that he preferred fibbing. I wonder if Gillard is one of those people. She’s an interesting case.
And, very obviously, this interesting case has to go.
00
Not in these threads.
I support the use of breeder reactors running on depleted uranium. I’m undecided on reactors requiring natural or enriched uranium.
An interesting take on matters. If AS, Catamon and I represent a tag team of three, what does that make all the people who refute the claims made by us*?
*I haven’t made any claims that support the AGW hypothesis.
00
Happy “Birthday” Jo!
00
Madjak, If you’re talking about me, please let me know 🙂
00
The stand-out feature about the Rudd/Gillard government is the fascination with being seen to be taking action. Too bad if the facts to support the action aren’t there. “Just do it. We can fix the details on the way.”
A few examples of not letting facts/details get in the way of poor policy:
Overkill on the GFC stimulation policy to the point where Gerry Harvey is whinging about a sales decline because KRudd’s handout money is no longer flowing
Pink batts and tragic deaths of untrained young Aussies
School halls being knocked down to make way for the new “Julia Gillard” signature school hall
Photovoltaic panels being installed in suburbia when the best bang for the buck for this technology is in areas which are expensive to serve via the electricity supply grid
Carbon dioxide emission abatement schemes being devised when the relevant science (physics) says CO2 is not guilty and when common sense says that misguided “do-gooder” action by 1/350th of the planet’s population is not going to sway the other 349/350ths to act other than to exploit the commercial advantages presented by our inability to grasp facts and reality.
So it is no wonder that lack of attention to legal detail has led to another layer of mess engulfing this government.
00
Popeye @ 187
Sorry I didn’t respond to you earlier, I missed it and only picked it up on a full runthrough of the thread again. I find it somewhat of a shock to realise that my time in service is now half a lifetime past. It brings great comfort to see that much of the core of what sets the ADF apart from many other forces remains the same despite the upgraded tech and the full shift to a low level conflict stance. But not all of the changes have occured for the better. We have seen a succession of Defence Ministers who have discracefully politicised the ADF with their appointments and their reactions to noteable issues within defence culminating in the farce witnessed where SAS troopers were hung out to dry and now that the case against them has fallen apart we see no apology from the government for the abhorent treatment of these fine young men.
In the past there has never been an issue around the jibes and ribbing between service members from the three arms, at least amongst the older hands, yet when dealing in online forums with a number in the current generation there is some angst and accusations of bullying and lack of respect with the exchanges between a number of us, so I tend to be a little circumspect and less free with the banter than I once was. My nephews (1 Army, 1 AirForce and 2 Navy the first in our family to choose the senior service) tell me that what I see online is extending into the forces as a whole being driven by vocal elements in the ranks ably supported and facilitated from on high. A sad day and although I am loathe to say it, not something those who haven’t served would understand. One of my early CO’s noted at his retirement dinner that though he had forsaken many opportunities in the private sector in his 30+ years of service, the Defence Forces was the lifestyle he chose and he lamented the fact that much of the current agenda was promoting defence service as a career choice rather than a life choice. This was some years before 9/11 and he wondered what this trend would do when it came time for our young men and women to enact the will of the Parliament in a hot war. Much has been good, but some has been simply wrong and unacceptable. With certain elements in the media and various politicians and their constant cant that “The vast majority of the population want the boys brought home” I see the real risk of demonisation and denigration of our servicemen and women in the post Vietnam fashion beginning to rear its’ ugly head again, I sincerely hope I am being overly sensitive and am proven wrong.
It has been good to talk with Tony and Keith as many of my friends these days aren’t servicemen or women, and have difficulty understanding how that shapes a person and their attitudes, yet so many of them picked me for ex-military without having talked with them about my past.
As for the GetUp/Troll comment, I.M.O, perfect examples where National Service in Defence or Emergency Services would be of massive benefit and would quickly remove the cloying layers of smug that oozes from their every utterance and add perspective to their worldview. It brings a sadistic smirk to the dial to imagine the likes of Simon Sheik being handed into the loving care and gentle ministrations of the JTC instructors, oh well, in a perfect world….
Anyway folks, it’s been good to chat but it’s time to get back to monitoring backup queues…sigh…
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Speedy – I remember Rolf Harris doing a version of Stairway To Heaven. I wonder how he would go with this! 🙂
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Ian Hill
He’d be perfect but I’d have to include a wobble board and a few sound effects he could include!
Cheers,
Speedy.
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Catamon and Adam Smith,
It’s about time you two … (SNIPPED) CTS
(You should stop writing this type of comment.They do not address the topic or any comment in the thread.) CTS
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Out of touch; divorced from reality; captive to their own ego; slogans more important substance; incapable of answering a direct question; poor judgement; unable to evaluate a rational argument; primary form of argument is the “straw man”; needs a dictionary; deceptive;
The above list represents a character, who is it?
Poll :
1) JG v6.23
2) AS
3) other
If AS gets more votes than JG, then I think he is a possible desperately sought after replacement.
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“As for the GetUp/Troll comment, I.M.O, perfect examples where National Service in Defence or Emergency Services would be of massive benefit and would quickly remove the cloying layers of smug that oozes from their every utterance and add perspective to their worldview. ”
Ahh, initiate them into the finest traditions. Hope things have changed since Churchill’s times as what he had to say about naval tradition doesn’t fill me with confidence. Something along the lines of Rum, Sodomy and the Lash wasn’t it??
Most service and ex service people i’ve met have been good people, with strong commitments to public service.
Some are complete tossers, same as any group. The worst of them are grumpy old fascists that have this smug, arrogant and completely unfounded attitude that because of their service their views are somehow worth more than anyone else’s and carry around an inflated sense of entitlement.
” I see the real risk of demonisation and denigration of our servicemen and women in the post Vietnam fashion beginning to rear its’ ugly head again, I sincerely hope I am being overly sensitive and am proven wrong.”
I think you are wrong on this one. If there is flak to be taken for Australia’s involvement in war it should, and i think will be borne by the people who make the political decisions to go, stay or withdraw. The denigration of troops who are there, following orders, was a dark and vile thing that hopefully came and went with the Vietnam era.
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I think you are wrong on this one.
I hope I am wrong, but with the ever increasing number of tossers on blogs and comments refering to the depolyment to Afghanistan as an illegal war, and the increasing number of journalist spouting “the majority of Australians” in their purile rants against our continued participation and constant failure of most in the media to pull Wilkie up on his stance considering what he said about WMD’s before he turned “whistleblower”, all I see is the development of a narrative using methods that bear too much in common with disinformation and psychological warfare tactics.
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SOME COMMON PURPOSE SCAMS
NEW: Common Purpose and Media Control.
1. Make sure the global warming fraud goes to plan. More here.
2. Perfect the art of insider dealing. More here.
3. Corrupt public servants – they then do what their friends in the Common Purpose network tell them instead of working for the public good. Make them happy to breach the Seven Principles of Public Life as set out by the Committee on Standards in Public Life and act ultra vires – beyond their powers. More here.
4. Conspire with corrupt public officials to abuse public funds. More here.
5. Silence the media – recruit media editors as Common Purpose members so the corrupt activities of Common Purpose will not be discussed in the mainstream media.
6. Censor your opponents: cpexposed.com, tpuc.org and eutruth.org.uk have all been subjected to censorship by Common Purpose.
7. Abuse due process – take council decisions outside democratic process. Councils such as Sheffield City Council have been cesspits of Common Purpose corruption for years.
8. False pretences – pretend to be
“Stop Common Purpose”
http://www.stopcp.com/
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I have read that Julia is allegedly a member of the Fabian Society.
‘The Fabian Society, Communitarianism and the New World Order’ video: [4.7]
Fabians
Cui bono?
Lucius Cassius Longinus Ravilla, whom the Romans regarded as a very honest and wise judge, was in the habit of asking, time and again, “To whose benefit?”
Some people have gone to a lot of trouble to set Common Purpose up and keep its real agenda and activities secret. Cui bono?
The benefits are a mixture of both political and financial and the people who benefit are the leaders and members of the Common Purpose network who want power and money.
1. The key to understanding Common Purpose is to realise that they are Fabians.
2. The final objective of the Fabians is to create a One World communitarian (‘Third Way’) government. This ties in with the New World Order project. [4.8]
3. Common Purpose is the management mechanism being used to carry out the true and hidden agenda of the Fabians.
“The Fabians have been, throughout their history, political and social chameleons who have, through stealth and deception, changed their outer skin to infiltrate every political, social and educational institution around the world, particularly in Great Britain and the United States. Speaking of chameleons, the primary symbol of the Fabians is a ‘wolf wrapped in a sheep’s skin’.” [4.9]
So what motivates the Common Purpose leaders?
1. The Fabian/Communitarian New World Order political agenda. These people despise individuals and people who seek free choice but instead wish to make everybody from the same mould and they despise nations and wish to see the destruction of the nation state – in this case, the UK.
2. The chance to get their hands on and abuse loads of free ‘government’ or rather, tax-payers’, money.
And what motivates those who support Common Purpose, go on courses and do what the Common Purpose network tells them to do in their work?
How about fat salaries and nice pensions? That’ll do to start with.
“Stop Common Purpose”
http://www.stopcp.com/cpmindmap.php
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From Sky News 11:54, Sunday September 4, 2011:
“The federal government’s top legal adviser has confirmed it may be impossible to resurrect the Howard government’s asylum seeker detention centres in Papua New Guinea and Nauru under current laws.”
Would this “top legal adviser” be the same one who advised the Gillard government that Malaysia was a good place to send refugees?
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No. The solicitor general gives considered legal advice.
The courts interpret legislation and the constitutions. Sometimes considered legal advice of the S.G. turns out to be wrong.
That’s how our system works, the High Court doesn’t make provisional judgements, so the Government uses a team of lawyers, led by the S.G., to make the best guess about what the High Court would rule. The Government can even ask for outside legal advice which is then given as written advice, usually from a QC or SC.
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So Adam, if I understand your reply, then the “top legal adviser” that gave the advice to Gillard that Malaysia was a good place to send the refugees, is not the same “top legal adviser” that now suggests that “it may be impossible to resurrect the Howard government’s…” solution?
Do you know who the advisers were in each case?
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No, all of this is wrong because you are misunderstanding what the Solicitor General’s office does. The Government asks the S.G. for legal advice. It doesn’t say “where should we send refugees”, that’s a question of policy.
You can read the S.G.’s advice here:
http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/media-releases/_pdf/SG21-implications-of-migration-decision.pdf
And with relation to minors here:
http://www.minister.immi.gov.au/media/media-releases/_pdf/SG22-implications-for-unaccompanied-minors.pdf
It is pretty eye opening. It seems that the minister for immigration doesn’t have any power to detain and expel minors from Australia. So when children aboard the Tampa were sent to Naru, the Howard government actually acted unlawfully because the Migration Act doesn’t grant the minister for immigration such power.
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Stop Common Porpoise!
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I think you’ve misunderstood my question.
The Gillard government claimed it was under solid legal advice that the Malaysian solution was lawful.
My question is, are they taking advice from the same source?
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I dunno Adam,
According to these reports it all looks like it’s going completely pear shaped to me.
I truly think that there was a lack of due diligence before this Govt tried to legislate the ‘Malaysian solution’.
They seem to believe that they have a mandate to over ride the law of our land if they think they have lucked on a good idea?
I know that sounds harsh but that is the way it certainly appears.
If it was only this particular incident I would be happy to give them the benefit of the doubt because this issue is fraught with many differing legal and moral opinions.
However, it is not the only example as this post clearly highlights.
It is incumbent on government to do their homework and their due diligence before they rush into the legislative arena. The most important reason for that is they must exercise a ‘duty of care’ and make sure that they are not creating unintended third party impacts and, most importantly, they must do everything in their power to: DO NO HARM.
This lot keep coming up with what they think are ‘good ideas’ and are neglecting to do proper due diligence.
Then, very churlishly, they attempt to blame everyone else (in this case even the high court of Australia) for making them pay more attention to the consequences of their actions.
I will also add that this problem is not unique to the current Green/Labor alliance but they’re certainly giving us some great examples of it lately.
Similar examples of this churlish behaviour can be found in the previous administration, particularly in relation to this issue.
They did not however do it as often or as churlishly or as expensively.
Labor should perhaps learn something from that?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/nauru-still-a-possibility-says-opposition/story-e6frf7jx-1226129128295
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5iJgRQPKe-eZ6wNS9EQduUkLPHF5Q?docId=CNG.7b82007b13c7ee6d7bdca7086e099fd0.61
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-09-04/asylum-deal-bowen/2869666
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“I truly think that there was a lack of due diligence before this Govt tried to legislate the ‘Malaysian solution’.”
Nope, they took advice from the SG and acted on it as they are entitled to do as the Govt. Then the HC ruled in a way that from my reading of the commentary, no-one expected. Sometimes courts do that, and testing these kind of matters is their function.
“Then, very churlishly, they attempt to blame everyone else (in this case even the high court of Australia) for making them pay more attention to the consequences of their actions.”
Every Govt that has ever lost a case in the HC does that. Then, they either change the legislation if the matter is important enough, or get on with things working within the existing legislation as it has been interpreted.
“Similar examples of this churlish behaviour can be found in the previous administration, particularly in relation to this issue.”
Certainly. Still, i am heartened that the latest advice from the SG, taking into account the HC’s judgement, is that offshore processing is pretty much dead. Maybe we can finally get some perspective and compassion into how asylum seekers are treated here and people will stop the hyperventilation over what is really, a minor issue.
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debbie,
way way off topic, but you mentioned way up this list of Comments about Hydro Power.
Rest assured, I haven’t forgotten, and in fact, it’s caused me to again revisit Snowy Hydro, for another look at something that might turn into quite an interesting exercise.
As most of you know, the Snowy Scheme is unparallelled in Engineering history, and in fact is listed as one of the World’s greatest civil engineering feats.
Politicians are apt these days to mention how a new project is ‘our new Snowy Mountains scheme’, and one of those is the NBN.
Comparing the NBN with The Snowy Scheme is like comparing a billy cart to a Rolls Royce.
People know (well, some anyway) about the 16 Dams and the 7 Power Stations, but the real engineering is the 145 KM of tunnels, carved through Mountains, keeping in mind this was back in the 50’s and 60’s, 12 tunnels in all, two of them 24 Kilometres in length.
What piqued my interest was perhaps instead of spending Billions on Solar and Wind Power, perhaps we could upgrade the generators and Francis Turbines to generate larger amounts of power than what comes now from Generators up to 40 and 50 years old.
It’s a lot more than that, Heads etc, but something like this would be a huge Jobs generator.
It was mentioned that the Snowys is a dinosaur from the past, because we all know from being told so often that we’ll never again get snow up there, but gee, we’ve had a wonderful season this year, and last year as well.
Again, sorry to deviate so far from the topic, but I wanted to mention that I wasn’t ignoring what was mentioned earlier.
For those of you who do have an interest, try and get hold of the Book by Brad Collis, titled ‘Snowy. The Making Of Modern Australia’, an absolutely fascinating read.
This whole Snowy Scheme in fact shows multiculturalism at its absolute zenith.
Tony.
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Can you provide a link to said list?
[…perhaps we could upgrade the generators and Francis Turbines to generate larger amounts of power than what comes now from Generators up to 40 and 50 years old.]
But even if we did this, would it produce more power than from one large nuclear reactor?
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Oh Adam, have you finished with my question? May I refer you to 304 above?
If you agree that it is the same source, then the answer you gave to me in 300 should have been: Yes. The solicitor general gives considered legal advice.
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Just to add to that Tony
Have a look at the Brazilian Hydro Scheme currently
underway , They are diverting the river and also tunneling through mountains , There is a total transformation in Brazil , Mainly leading to Energy self sufficiency,
Turkey is also undertaking a massive Hydro scheme .
It would be excellent if you could give us the details .
I know Hydro is not overly suitable for Australia as our energy assets are not in water but our Coal, Gas, Uranium .
The point I am trying to make is these Country`s are
generating power from their Assets not importing solar panels and Wind Power.
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Tony @307
Thanks for reminding us that we once had Government in Australia.
It all seems so distant now.
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Adam,
just so you don’t think I’m ignoring you.
Snowy Hydro, currently from its Seven power stations has a Nameplate Capacity of 3800MW.
So then let’s do the exercise you so clamour for, but seriously, it’s a wasted argument, because I feel sure there will be a spelling mistake, necessitating my losing of the argument. (annoying, isn’t it?)
So let’s see.
3rd Gen 4th Gen, keep in mind I’m going for current already existing technology, and not fast breeders, Thorium, or Pebble beds.
So hmm! BWR or PWR. You pick, but let’s go maybe AWBR, or SBWR, or perhaps ESBWR, or some of the more recent PWR’s perhaps.
2 large plants with 2 reactors at each plant, each reactor driving a 1000MW+ turbo alternator, hence 2000MW+ at each plant hence 4000MW+ at the two plants.
Let’s work back from the delivery of power stage, completely finished and up and running.
So, best case scenario of seven years from the turning of the first sod.
3 years of admin and finance gathering and going through all the hoops and Government requirements.
Prior to that we need a processing plant up and running for the 5 processes to convert the ore from the ground (enrichment level 0.7% to the finished rods (enrichment level 3 to 5%)and then into the rod assemblies, (different for BWR and PWR)
So let’s say best case scenario on the enrichment plant 5 to 7 years plus again financing and hoops and paper.
If an enrichment plant, then why not a reprocessing plant as part of that for recovery of spent rods, and in Gen 3/4 plants, those expired rods can be kept on site (at an enrichment level less that the raw ore from the ground) for the life of the plant, covered for the first 2 years and then dry storage for the rest of the life of the plant. Don’t think Gen 1 BWR’s like Fukushima, as Gen4/5 are infinitely safer than they are, infinitely.
If no reprocessing plant, then dry storage facility, again requiring legislation.
Again, for the processing and reprocessing we need PASSED legislation, and see The Greens in The Senate until at least 2016 before they lose power through soiling their own nest, otherwise Buckleys of getting this passed into legislation.
We need a political process before we even get to that point, and prior to that, a public conversation to make it all okay enough for the public to accept it in the first place.
So now we’re looking at at least 20 years prior to delivery of power, and that’s at the absolute soonest if everything gets an immediate acceptance.
You’re probably in all reality looking at even longer than that again.
I just love the way some Nuclear proponents say we can have plants up and running in 7 to 10 years, you know, we’re not mugs!!!!
So, while I wholeheartedly support nuclear electrical power generation, which probably will eventuate, it’s an awful long way off.
I know I know.
I lost the damned debate.
But, but, this is for all the other readers Adam Smith.
You mate, well you can believe whatever you want.
Upgrading existing Snowy Hydro with new Hydro could be achieved a lot quicker than waiting for Nuclear power to be approved.
Good enough for you.
I doubt it.
Tony.
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Those who wish to close Hazelwood and replace it with nuclear may wish to specify if their desired closure of Hazelwood will come before or after bringing the nukes on line. If the answer is an immediate closure of Hazelwood, is gas the interim replacement? Is the gas to be brought on line before or after the closure of Hazelwood?
TonyfromOz may have some good info to offer on the time required to bring either gas or nukes on line.
I presume that solar and wind are not being proffered as alternatives to major coal plants, regardless of timelines, costs etc. Those are delicious little antique technologies, and to criticise them would be like making fun of grandpa’s Pat Boone LPs. It’s nice that they are having something of a revival among certain fashion-minded people, but perhaps they should be left out of the national energy equation until promised advances mean that they are merely too expensive, rather than too expensive and hopelessly inadequate.
Or so it will seem, until GetUp or Julia Gillard throw up their walls of words, statistics and factoids to obscure any uncomfortable glare of reality.
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I see that Kathy Jackson is suffering, presumably as a result of politics-induced stress.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/union-boss-in-thomson-probe-has-breakdown-20110903-1jrq3.html
I would like to thank her for the courage she has shown, and the sacrifice she has made.
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Thanks. Tony. You answered part of my question while I was typing it. What do you know about gas as replacement and/or interim? (As a ditzy conservationist, I already don’t like the CSG scramble, but we’ll leave the water and land damage issue to one side for the moment.) Also, what would be the effects of an immediate closure of Hazelwood? I am presuming, perhaps wrongly, that there are participants in this forum who favour immediate closure. If so, I wonder if they have made any projections as to the effects of such action.
If Hazelwood is to be put out of commission not immediately but rapidly by that new Big Lever of the intellectuals, the Market, should that other Big Lever, Compensation, come into effect to keep the brown coal burning? If not, should brown coal power be allowed to come to a halt regardless of efficacy and readiness of alternatives? What’s the plan?
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[If Hazelwood is to be put out of commission not immediately but rapidly by that new Big Lever of the intellectuals, the Market, should that other Big Lever, Compensation, come into effect to keep the brown coal burning? If not, should brown coal power be allowed to come to a halt regardless of efficacy and readiness of alternatives? What’s the plan?]
I’m not sure what you are getting at. Both the Government and the Coalition have policies to shut down one large brown coal power station. The Government will put to gender to shut down 1600 MW of capacity, while the Coalition says it will pay to replace brown coal with gas INCLUDING an extra fee beyond the market price to ensure that the cost of electricity doesn’t increase (estimated by those in the industry as a one off payment of $500 million).
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Adam Smith.
I see no reason for your rudeness. May I now refer you to 309?
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I haven’t been rude to anyone. Just stick to the issues mate, rather than making baseless accusations.
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So, Adam, your answer to my question in 304 is?
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Obviously, I’m asking about how the transition is to be managed in terms of TIME. I thought my text which you quoted was clear, but I’ll rephrase. Does one turn off any capacity before fully replacing that capacity? If you have no thoughts or information on the issue, that’s fine.
God help us, I believe that is so. But, once again, I’m asking about how that transition is to be managed in terms of TIME. Sorry about the shouty capitals, but I’d like people to be sure what I’m getting at.
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[Obviously, I’m asking about how the transition is to be managed in terms of TIME. I thought my text which you quoted was clear, but I’ll rephrase. Does one turn off any capacity before fully replacing that capacity? If you have no thoughts or information on the issue, that’s fine.]
No, just let the ETS do its thing and shift investment to cleaner generation capacity. The market will figure things out more efficiently than Tony Abbott’s system of bureaucrats and politicians sitting around a table in Canberra trying to outguess the market.
Even if someone doesn’t believe that we should cut carbon emissions, shouldn’t they at least want us to make sure that our power stations are as efficient as possible so we get the most energy out of the resources that we do use? Shouldn’t we leave the most resources available for future generations, which means burning fossil fuels as efficiently as possible?
The best way to create an incentive for that is with a carbon price.
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Never mind Adam, I knew the answer before I posed the question in 299.
I guess I should have stated somewhere that it was a rhetorical question.
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No, I’m aware of the arguments put forth for an ETS. No, a market of manipulation and compulsion is not an effective market. No, you could even end up blowing cash on medieval heaps of junk like wind-turbines…possibly manufactured by burning our coal in another country.
No, Abbott has to offer all kinds of sops to Turnbull and the Doctors’ Wives, but he will ruthlessly cut all sorts of spending in power, and fudge and delay all green programs if his political position is strong enough. No, we both know that.
No, I’m still interested if anyone has any comment on the possibility of closure of brown coal power before full replacement of its capacity is available. No, just a few hours of power failure is a huge deal.
No, I AM being satirical by pointlessly appending the word “no” to my comments.
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Ruthlessly cut spending when in power? You’re in dreamland.
Here’s a case study of how ruthless Abbott is with spending. This financial year the federal government will spend about $350 billion. On budget night Abbott criticised the government freezing the family payment thresholds for families that have combined incomes over $150,000. Abbott called this freeze, which would save $2 billion over 4 years “class warfare”.
But then a funny thing happened when the parliament had to vote on this policy. Abbott let it pass without even calling for a division! Why did Abbott let this ‘class warfare’ cuts through? Well the shadow minister explains the backflip:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/tony-abbott-helps-pass-class-warfare-family-payment-cuts/story-fn59niix-1226080053635
So there you have it. Abbott is supposedly going to savagely cut spending if / when he becomes PM. But he can’t even find $500 million a year worth of savings in order to stop a policy that he thinks is “class warfare”. (Which begs the question, if class warfare is so bad, why didn’t Abbott at least call a division so that he could put the Coalition explicitly on the record as being against it?)
If that’s the calibre of person you think should be PM, then you’ll get exactly what you deserve if and when that eventuates.
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We are living at a particularly momentous time in history. In order to understand what is happening in Australia in the 2011s, you need to know about four things:
1. The New World Order;
2. The United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development Plan;
3. A political philosophy called ‘communitarianism’;
4. A fake charity named Common Purpose.
These four things are linked together. This website will help you join the dots.
http://www.stopcp.com/cpmindmap.php
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyDxzbt8bTY
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Abbott just seems to drive ’em wild, doesn’t he? Living in Lyne, not only do I get to vote for the coalition but I get to vote against Oakeshott. Ugly, but it’s going to be beautiful in its ugliness!
So, any views on the timing of coal closures? To me, it seems important to establish whether or not capacity could be closed off before full alternative capacity is available.
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Now this is an interesting twist.
I wonder if the offer will be accepted?
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/gillard-adrift-as-asylum-plan-torpedoed/story-e6freooo-1226129324904
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News Ltd. just can’t get anything right these days:
Surely they mean “…culled hopes for a quick solution…”. As far as I can tell “cruelled” isn’t even a real word.
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“JULIA Gillard will be forced to choose between negotiating with Tony Abbott or giving ground to people-smugglers after new legal advice cruelled hopes for a quick solution to the ongoing saga.”
Such is the quality of reporting and “analysis” these days. Sad.
If the ALP were to negotiate some change to the migration act through Parliament it would have to be with the Coalition as that’s the only way it will get through the Senate.
But the Coalition will want something that allows asylum seekers to get sent to Nauru and the ALP will want something that allows them to be sent to Malaysia or any other country we strike and agreement with in the region. Except if the Malaysian proposal goes ahead, and the Coalition have facilitated this, they look like tossers (ok, like bigger tossers) that have bent over for the ALP.
Anything bipartisan will be a functional ALP win, and with the doctrine of NO so firmly in place it wont happen. Coalition are not interested in “solving” this non-problem. Its their best dog whistle to the fearful and ignorant and they make too much political mileage out of it.
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mosomoso,
sorry to take so long to get back to your comments at 313 and 315.
Therein lies the root of the problem.
Time.
And on more than one front.
There is positively no way known that Hazelwood will be closed prior to equivalent power delivery coming on line.
No Government in its right mind, (be it a State Government or a Federal Government, and no matter of what political persuasion) will take that amount of electrical power out of the Victorian grid without there being a replacement already delivering power.
Wind and Solar are totally out of the question, no matter what anyone tries to tell you, as the best they can do is boutique amounts of tiny power at best for barely 6 hours a day at horrendous cost, and ten years away at the soonest.
Nuclear, and again, no matter what anyone tells you, is decades away as I explained above.
That only leaves gas fired power, still emitting CO2, albeit at only one third of the rate Watt for watt as coal fired power.
Luckily, gas fired power is the quickest to deliver power from the turning of the first sod, and that can be as little as 18/24 months.
Prior to that there needs to be all the Impact statements, government approvals, financing etc, so there’s three years back from that.
Then there needs to be some sort of actual plan put up before that even starts, and as far as I am aware, there is no mooted proposal for a Hazelwood replacement other than airy fairy ‘we’re gunna close it down, that derdy polluder’ statement.
So, now we see that even for the quickest plant to come on line, we’re looking at perhaps 7 years if every duck lines up right first time out.
Then, gas fired plants, and here we’re probably looking at Cogeneration, eg, the turbine driving the generator, and the waste heat from the turbine driving a second smaller turbine/generator complex for greater power delivery and more efficiency using the two processes.
Gas fired turbines are best suited to Peaking Power delivery, eg running for a few hours a day to top up the grid, because they in fact can run up to speed and deliver their power quickly.
However, using them as 24/7/365 deliverers of power considerably shortens the effective long term life span of a plant of this nature.
Coal fired plants, (and Nuclear) are the most robust and best suited for that 24/7/365 delivery of power basis, so replacing them with gas fired power is in fact a backward step with respect to life of plant time.
So, replacing Hazelwood is not something that happens five minutes after the ETS Bill is rammed down our throats passed into legislation, and we most fervently hope that the ETS will not be passed at all, and please, don’t believe that the ETS will somehow provide a ‘market mechansim’ to drive operators away from coal fired power. That’s again, just blind rhetoric..
Notice that those who desire the immediate closure of Hazelwood just have no respect for contracts that are legally in place to supply power out until the 30’s, hence the idea of any form of compensation is repugnant to them, and that everything should be done to to kill off what is perceived not as a supplier of a necessity of life, but as an evil money grubbing venture by Capitalist thieves, and I wonder now if you can see why State Labor Governments sold off the power plants in Victoria and NSW. Can’t have that perception too close to Labor now can we.
Also, don’t put any faith in what Adam Smith says on the subject. We can all see he just wants to make his leftist political point, and one thing I would like to know is if he writes about closing Hazelwood from within the area supplied by Hazelwood, because closing it now, immediately will mean blackouts and power rationing for all Victorians, so you can safely bet he’s not inside that area. Note again how it’s always the way to have ‘other people’ suffer so you can seem somehow greener than them. Achieved by sly innuendo.
No, Hazelwood will be open for a long while yet, and even if it does close down as early as 2020, there will need to be a lot of compensation paid to achieve that.
And Federal Labor know that well. If they close Hazelwood without constant reliable power already in place delivering power, it will be akin to political suicide, and they will lose ALL of Victoria.
They know this, so what they say is just rhetoric and spin.
Tony.
00
Gee whiz Tony, can’t you just see Christine & Bob spruiking the health benefits of walking ( around the trams stalled in the intersections ), climbing stairs in high rises & knocking out a few plate glass windows to really enjoy the newly freshened air?
Of course SA will not be topping up their Air Con power in summer either.
Perhaps they can pump some eco friendly wood bio-mass generated power from across the Bass Strait to help them out like good neighbours. After all they will have to use up that pesky fire-risky cellulose accumulation now that Gunns & the paper mills will not be “fooling around with di-oxin ” & shipping chips to Asia.
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More CRAP from this WITCH gillard !!!!!!!!!!!!
The teaching of tribalism
http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/the_teaching_of_tribalism/
The PC brigade kills off Jesus Christ
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/the_pc_brigade_kills_off_jesus_christ/
The not very multicultural council
http://blogs.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/mirandadevine/index.php/dailytelegraph/comments/the_not_very_multicultural_council/
ELECTION NOW !!!!!!!!!!!
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Didn’t read all the comments. So many!
‘woever – a’worse’government?
From the UK, we consider th Blair/Brown admnistration to be pretty close to the nadir.
[If Gillard realy is worse – wheeeeeuuuooow!]
Do see – http://www.bestfilthyjokes.co.uk/politics_2.htm #390 – for example.
Brown, of course, was the [socialist] financial genius [his term, I believe] who announced that he was about to be selling the UK’s gold rserves; he duly recieved about $285/ounce. The current price is $1800 plus.
Other wxamples abund. Why tire you with them all.
Emigration, education, planing, defence [and Blair’s wars], Agriculture, fisheries an food [EU, partly due to peredcessor governments]
BRTGDS
Gh09510
REPLY: Yes, the Brown Gold Sale at almost the lowest gold price possible says it all. Selling out the people’s real assets for a pittance. I’ll have more to say on this topic soon.There was a reason to sell the UK gold reserves so cheaply, but not one in the long term interests of the UK… JN
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Fabians – “War Upon The Mind”
“The British Fabian socialists,like their Continental comrades,in their warfare upon the existing institutions fought on many fronts. But they recognised the fundamental importance of steeping the minds of the masses and particularly of the growing generation in the philosophy of socialism….And this war consisted in taking over as far as possible,the instruments of communication and of opinion in the nation.”
http://mises.org/books/roadahead.pdf
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Of course it will. Over time it will make coal far more expensive than gas and nuclear.
Once the ETS comes in, it is very unlikely that another coal power station will be built, because the long term projections that companies rely on to invest in such projects will show enormous liabilities for carbon permits simply because of the amount of pollution coal power stations create.
That’s how a market mechanism works.
00
Very enlightening post, TonyfromOz – though I wish you’d be more careful with your English.
Now, what do you think of this interesting proposal?
00
As Curly might say:
Nyuk nyuk nyuk!
Tony.
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Is this the real Julia?
By not telling the Australian people where she really stands, is she not lying again?
A traitor is a betrayer – one who is your enemy while professing friendship.The Australian people would not vote for a Fabian Socialist to be their Prime Minister.
Communism, Marxism and Fascism, are ‘all birds of the same feather.’ They all worship the same deities, have the same socialist beliefs, the same goals, but have different ways in getting there.
Of all types of socialism, Fabian Socialism is by far the most insidious of all. Fabian Socialism is a subtle mixture of both communism and fascism, but unlike communism and fascism, which are directly confrontational and revolutionary, Fabianism deceptively aims to achieve the same objectives “gradually” through consensus with the “will” of the people, and use force only as a last resort. Because of this “gradual” approach it is much more insidious as it is often difficult to recognize in its early stages.”
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Let us not forget… the original culprit responsible for creating this mess for Julia Gillard is non other than Kevin Rudd. He decided he could no longer stand an Howard Policy “Pacific Solution” that was so effective and which would have been better left alone. But no… he couldn’t resist dumping the Pacific Solution. Rudd had to show how compassionate he was. And now it has all come back to haunt the Gillard government like a devil’s worst nightmare.
Gillard, right now, is feeling so bitter towards the Australian people, because they have given up on her, that she is now determined to introduce the carbon tax bills into Parliament next week and punish us with her carbon tax as a parting gesture before her political career is soon terminated.
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Gee Catamon,
Do you work in their PR department?
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/julia-gillard-lays-down-rules-for-tony-abbotts-asylum-cooperation/story-fn7x8me2-1226129262328
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You actually use the name Adam Smith to hide your get down identity and then get social engineering confused with market mechanisms, priceless.
On the bright side everything will make perfect sense to you in our Orwellian future while people who lived and worked in the real world will struggle.
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Adam,
You obviously have no idea how a proper market mechanism works!
The ETS concept is based on pricing a product that has no value by people who do not produce and who will also get to decide the price, the amount and the destination of the completely valueless product. It has already been branded as a pollutant!(even though it technically isn’t)
The whole thing is to be underpinned by tax payer dollars!
SHEEESH…give me a break.
That is so far removed from how a market is supposed to work.
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debbie #343
You are wasting your time attempting to discuss anything with AS. It’s time you will never get back.
00
Well I do actually, and it doesn’t involve taxing and spending, which is the socialist Coalition / Abbott position that is based on the assumption that politicians can outguess the allocation of resources by a market price.
This is wrong in so many different ways that it is hard to know where to start. The atmospheric carbon pollution is what economists call a negative externality as it is a side effect of an economic exchange that can make everyone worse off. By pricing it there is an incentive created to reduce its production.
No, this is a better description of the Coalition’s scheme which is based on the idea that polluters pollute as much as they like, then the cost of abatement is passed on to tax payers.
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“Gee Catamon,
Do you work in their PR department?”
Nah, just thinking about what makes sense, although with Tony Abbott involved sense is a bit of a redundant concept.
Hopefully, the outcome of this will be that we just go with onshore processing as the fastest, cheapest, and most humane option. I say hopefully because i think the Coalition will try and keep their best dogwhistle going for a while yet. The kind of FUD they have shown they can generate among the fearful and ignorant with this issue means they wont let it go without a fight.
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So, Tony, if you are still here:
Could it be true that no alternatives to Hazelwood, which supplies 25% of Victoria’s baseload power, can come into existence for many years? And no government would dare to allow reduction let alone shutdown in that period? And no project to provide an alternative supply is currently underway? And all this while 75% of Australian coal is burnt offshore? Into the exact same atmosphere as the one we’re saving by a domestic phase-out…the phase-out which can’t happen anyway, but has to be paid for?
Come on, Tony, stop kidding me. That’s like me putting my house and savings on the Gold Coast to win this year’s NRL…while the Titans are all drunk for Mad Monday.
Something is surely on the way to save us. Secret Tesla inventions? Maybe those market mechanism thinggies? Increased eco-tourism? Green jobs? Ethical investments?…Panzers?
00
mosomoso,
It’s not just 25% of Victoria’s base load power, but 25% of ALL Victoria’s power.
For them to be closing Hazelwood in the near term, then in all reality, they need to be turning the sods starting the project now, and frankly, that’s years away.
If they do shut it down as soon as the greens hope, then removing 25% of Victoria’s power with nothing to replace it would see rioting in the streets, literally.
(As an aside, it might in fact be an attractive option, because it would totally finish The Greens off for good.)
However, I reckon that there’s readers out there who read the comments here but don’t leave comments of their own, and with my saying that a market mechanism won’t work, and someone else saying it will, it looks like a case of he said, he said, so some readers may actually think that this market mechanism might actually work, and I’m just saying it because I don’t agree with him politically, so maybe that ‘market mechanism’ in this case of electrical power generation, sale and consumption should be explained so readers can decide for themselves, so bear with me for a while.
Currently Electrical power is generated from numerous sources. That electricity is sold by the generator operators at a wholesale price to the grid. That wholesale price covers every contingency, the cost of the fuel, maintenance, wages, financing arrangements for repayment of capital cost of the plant, and other costs, and also profit.
Providers buy their power from the grid and then sell it to consumers at retail. That retail price is around 20 cents per KWH for the Residential Sector (38% of all power being consumed) as well as to the other 2 sectors as well, Commerce (37%) and Industrial (24%) Those usually contracted prices for those other 2 sectors are incrementally lower than the residential retail price, and are usually ‘in confidence’, but it’s not unreasonable to suggest Commerce pays around 17 cents per KWH and Industrial down around 14/15 cents per KWH, and that’s conservative, as there is every cahnce they are lower than that even.
(As an aside here notice how the residential householder is slugged the most.)
Now the provider who is on selling the power at retail to consumers wants to buy his power at the cheapest price possible, and that is currently coal fired power, and while that wholesale price for that coal fired power is also ‘in confidence’, it’s a reasonable thing to say it’s around 3 to 3.5 cents per KWH.
Now wind and solar, to recover their costs have to sell their electricity at a price to actually recover those costs, extrapolated out over the life of the plant. Because they only produce their power for a quarter of the time, have considerably smaller Nameplate Capacities, and considerably shorter life spans, their costs for the electricity they produce for consumption is considerably higher.
For Solar it’s around ten to twelve times more expensive, and for wind, it’s around seven to ten times more expensive, again, conservative figures there, as, in some cases it is even higher than that again.
So realistically, the cost of the electricity they do provide is more than the price that providers on sell electricity for consumption, and if it’s higher than the residential retail price, then the overall mix, adding in commerce and industrial, it is considerably more expensive.
To that end, those renewable plant operators have, as part of the original deal, an ‘arrangement’ with Government that they subsidise (and here it’s anything up to half the cost of the power being generated) the wholesale cost by paying the operator half the KWH price. That way, the electricity they then sell to the grid is cheaper than the total cost, which is way more than retail. So now, being slightly less than retail, providers ‘might’ actually purchase it. It is still being sold at wholesale for around 15 to 18 cents per KWH, and anyway, it’s such a small amount that most providers can in a way absorb some of those costs, because they just bump up the retail price to that Residential sector.
So now, enter the CO2 Tax, and later, the ETS. This in fact generates a wonderful thing called a market mechanism. (Tut tut Tony, be nice)
This price on those CO2 emissions now adds around 1.6 to 2 cents per KWH to the wholesale price of coal fired power, bumping it up to a now huge 4.6 to 5 cents per KWH.
With half Government subsidised wind and solar still at 15 to 18 cents per KWH, you can see now how providers are going to find those renewables attractive because that 4.6 to 5 cents is now so much more expensive than Wind and solar’s 15 to 18 Cents, right. (Tut tut Tony, sarc off now)
So providers will move away from coal fired power in their droves, because now, that 5 cents per KWH is way more expensive than Wind and Solar’s 15 to 18 cents per KWH. (Huh!)
So now that coal fired power is rapidly going broke because their power is still only one third the cost of wind and solar, those coal fired plants will diversify into wind and solar.
They’ll scout up the necessary $1.5 Billion for a boutique level renewable plant, wait ten years at the soonest before it delivers power and then wait a further 25 years to recover half their costs, keeping in mind the
taxpayerGovernment will be chucking in the other half.That’s how the ‘market mechanism’ following the introduction of a CO2 Tax cum ETS will drive the move away from coal fired power. (You have to laugh, don’t you?)
All the Government has to do is convince the people that 5 cents is more expensive than 15 cents, and that shouldn’t be too hard. I mean they’ve already convinced some people that a ‘market mechanism’ will lower CO2 emissions.
Keep in mind that this 15 to 18 cents is the subsidised cost for wind and solar power, because if it was the full cost, no provider in his right mind would be buying power for 30 cents per KWH, knowing the best price he can sell it for is 20 cents per KWH.
So, see how you are being conned by clever political speak that has been swallowed, hook line and sinker by gullible people who then try and convince you that something like this can actually work, because they support the side of politics who says it to them, and at the same time deflect away from their own standpoint by attacking the opposite side of politics to distract you, as if that somehow strengthens their case.
‘Market Mechanism’, my foot.
I know I’ve taken up a huge amount of space, and Joanne, I apologise for that, but sometimes I think there’s people who may just think it might work. Well, it won’t.
Tony.
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Mark @ 344
You’re right….he truly doesn’t understand the difference between a true market and an artificially created market does he?
Nor does he understand the difference between a true market and social engineering.
OK….one last try and then I will stop wasting my time.
Adam….just a question….if the ETS is not going to be underpinned by taxpayers money….why would the government be putting a price on carbon(O2) which will be collected via a carbon (O2) tax? (Yes I know they say it’s only the big polluters but I suspect you know that is quite untrue and just a piece of clever political rhetoric)
How do you think the ETS can possibly even get off the ground without being underpinned by taxpayers’ money? It requires goverments to put a value on an essentially valueless product (as far as the real market is concerned)…they then want to hand it over to Govt appointed buraucracies (paid by taxpayers) to administer via government appointed bankers and brokers (chasing the bottomless well of taxpayers’ money)via an artificially created ‘carbon credits’ paper trade.
Have you looked at how this scheme is failing OS and studied why that may be the case?
Wouldn’t have anything to do with a lack of true market interest and a lack of taxpayer funding would it?
Then….look at Tony’s post and consider the impossible logistics involved with being able to quickly replace our base load power which is supposedly the ‘goal’ of introducing an ETS.
Then….do a sensible ‘cost benefit analysis’.
As romantic and moral as your theories sound they have precious litle to do with ‘market mechanisms’!
00
All markets based on money are artificial because the federal government is the only body allowed to mint currency, and the RBA sets the price of credit.
Can you give me an example of a market that is a “true market” that doesn’t involve bartering?
Can’t you see the contradiction in this single sentence? On the one hand you say the ETS is a tax, but on the other hand you say it will be underpinned by tax payer’s money. Only one of those statements could be true, but in fact both are wrong. The Government’s policy isn’t a tax it is an ETS. Companies don’t pay a fee based on a set amount of pollution they generate, they buy permits from the government to cover their pollution liabilities each year. If it turns out they produce less pollution than estimated, they can sell their permits back to the government or after July 1, 2015, to other businesses that need them.
Um, well, because it RAISES money for the government through the sale of pollution permits. The Government will then take that money and give half of it back to consumers as income tax cuts (Including increasing the effective tax free threshold to almost $21,000 by 2015) and increases to pensions and family payments, and then take the other half and give it to the clean energy fund which will invest it in renewable energy projects.
Let me ask you a question. Without the revenue form carbon permits, how on earth would a future Coalition government be able to keep the $4 billion a year worth of income tax cuts and family payments? If you support the Coalition, get ready to pay higher income taxes.
Statements of this sort just demonstrate a failure to understand basic economics. If there is demand for something, then it is easy to create a market. The Government is effectively creating a market for carbon abatement which there will be demand for because avoiding abatement will require the purchase of permits initially at $23 each.
You simply don’t know what you are talking about. Over the first 3 years companies that require permits will pay about $24 billion to the government.
When you assert that tax payers will pay you are actually summarising the Coalition’s climate change policy. They are going to allow polluters to pollute as much as they like, then shift the cost of carbon abatement onto the government, which ultimately means taxpayers paying higher taxes to fund all the abatement projects. On top of that, all those projects will ultimately be chosen by politicians who don’t have a chance in hell of outguessing the market pricing of carbon abatement.
I’ve already explained my preference. We should replace Hazelwood with a nuclear power plant that has 2 large 1000 MW reactors.
But anyway, if you think shutting down Hazelwood is a bad idea, then you are criticising the Opposition too because they have a similar policy to shut down 1 large brown coal power station and replace it with gas.
An objective comparison of the government’s plan and the opposition’s plan will find that the government is proposing a market mechanism while the opposition is proposing a socialist tax and spend piece of nonsense that could cost tax payers as much as $11 billion a year, every year from 2014 to 2020. That’s why no credible economist has come out in support of the Coalition’s scheme, because it is basically a replica version of the failed industry policies of the 1960s. You know, hand companies a bucket of cash derived from the pockets’ of taxpayers and pray that they spend it well. Peter Martin provides a nice comparison here:
http://www.smh.com.au/business/abbotts-climate-plan-fails-the-test-20110712-1hc6z.html
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If you want to read how Adam Smith’s shell game regarding his description of a ‘market mechanism’ works, this Australian legislation is based ‘loosely’ around the now comprehensively failed U.S. legislation, so laughable it wasn’t even voted on in Congress, artfully titled ‘The American Power Act’, their classic diversionary title in much the same manner as the Australian legislation is called ‘The Clean Energy Future’, disguising the real intent, creating ‘paper’ credits to move money around.
Read the Post at the following link to see how Adam’s ‘shell game’ really works.
Kerry Lieberman American Power Act – The Great Big April Fools Day Tax Grab
Scoff if you will, but it’s exactly the same principle here.
Adam, if you fell for this, then mate, you really are deluded.
Tony
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Adam,
you are mistakenly assuming I am in support of the Coalition’s policy in preference to the Labor policy.
Neither of them are based on reality and neither of them bode well for Australia’s economy or indeed Australian tax payers.
As for the one currently on the table: I have read it… have you?
This is not my personal summation but I completely agree with it:
“I recently took the time to read and study the 349 pages of the so called carbon tax legislation. It is called an “An Act For the Promotion of Clean Energy, and For Other Purposes.” I can assure those that have not read it, that this act has a lot more to do with “other purposes” than it does with clean energy. This bill essentially puts all decision making power over what gets produced in Australia, who produces it, and how much they will get paid for it, into the hands of a small group of bureaucrats and investment bankers. This horrific mistake is despite all evidence of human history that centralized control over economies is a very bad idea. This act changes the basic structure of our economic system, and this is a democracy. The people deserve a fair vote on this issue, and were denied one at the last election. Therefore, we need an election now.”
You can find the rest of this piece here:
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2011/09/the-bush-is-bleeding
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Adam Smith, here’s what Deb said, which you cut and pasted:
Here’s what you said, immediately below the quote:
Who was talking about the specific nature of the replacement? Why quote someone then say something unrelated as a response? Is it to give the impression of analytical thought, without going to the trouble of any analysis? Many of us would like to see some nice new nukes, but that has nothing to do with the logistical TIME problem repeatedly raised in this thread, and which was the SOLE point of Deb’s quoted text. You should know: you did the quoting!
I’ll try one final time. Since you appear to be in favour of closing down Hazelwood – not an impossible undertaking over time – tell us whether full replacement power should be available WHEN closure occurs. If there is to be a reduction of Hazelwood’s output before total closure, tell us whether full replacement of that output should be available WHEN that reduction occurs. And please be clear that I’m not asking you about anything else.
I certainly won’t plague this forum with another rephrasing of my question. Last attempt. If I have committed any errors of spelling or English expression, please overlook them and proceed to your response. Though I read maybe a dozen languages with good fluency, that ability only makes me less pedantic about my casual internet communications – though very sensitive to spin.
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Correction: It passed the U.S. House but not the Senate.
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They’re the only two options on the table, so ultimately come election time you’ll have to pick one or the other. You should support the market mechanism because it will waste far less money. Perhaps 10 times less.
Yes I have read it. Obviously you haven’t, but you can read it by going here:
http://www.cleanenergyfuture.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Consolidated-Final.pdf
Well that means you agree with nonsense because that text is an incoherent ramble that doesn’t make any sense.
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The coalition’s policy is, of course, an absurdity.
Like all leaders in the developed world, Abbott finds himself pledged to waste billions on Green cant.
In power, however, he will merely waste millions. And he’ll know he’s wasting.
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One of the ploys of disruption is to make a swathe of comments that do not address what is being asked. In that manner, some readers might miss some of the earlier comments or might see the plethora of these new comments and just not bother. Hence the real thing worth looking at gets lost in the morass of ‘stay on message’ comments, in the same manner as Labor ‘stay on message’ distraction tactics, where they never answer the question.
People just end up giving up, and not bothering.
So, where Adam ‘sidesteps’, by simply quoting his ‘Replace with Nuclear Plants’ mantra, this is a distraction because, while he thinks he is answering the question succinctly, even he knows that Nuclear Power has little chance of implementation in the near term.
So, thinking he has addressed the question, he moves on to his attack on the opposite political side, again classic, Labor tactics. Don’t answer the question, just attack the other side at every opportunity.
So Adam, here’s your chance.
Answer comment 331.
And while you think you may have addressed Comment 351 by posting comments so it gets shuffled off the page early so people may miss it, and er, dare I say it, ‘losing the debate’ for some reason or other, hence no need to address it at all, here again is the link to the shell game you refer to as your market mechanism, in case other readers may have missed it.
Kerry Lieberman American Power Act – The Great Big April Fools Day Tax Grab
It’s a shell game Adam, and has nothing whatsoever to do with lowering the emissions of CO2, but is just a mechanism to shuffle money around and siphon off some of it (well, quite a lot of it) in the shuffling, and please, don’t say it is to go to clean energy fund for investment in renewables, because Adam, even you know that they don’t work.
Then you have the unmitigated gall to say this:
If there is no ETS, then we are where we are now. There are no benefits so there is no need to increase taxes to fund something that is not in place in the first place. And gee, it’s not like they were giving us anything. The intent was to implement this to pay for the increases in electricity costs.
I’m sure you’ll use semantics again to say I have somehow lost the debate, but Adam, we’re aware of what you’re doing here.
You need to move on Adam, your work here has proved to be a failure.
Tony.
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Adam,
A bad policy is a bad policy and it really doesn’t matter which side of politics it has come from.
Both of those policies are based on a false assumption and are planning to create a market out of a valueless product. There is no advantage for the ‘end user’ other than the promise of nefarious ‘tax cuts’ and ‘Government Grants’ and a type of ‘negative gearing’ arrangement.
If you are looking for some ‘incoherent nonsense’ they’re great documents to find some.
Thanks for the link but I’ll just stick to my hard copies which I have most definitely read BTW.
You may also want to check your definition of ‘incoherent ramble’
The grammar, spelling and sentencing are all perfectly acceptable and the message is very clearly stated.
There is a difference between ‘incoherence’ and ‘disagreement’.
You obviously disagree with the piece, but it is far from incoherent.
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Tony @ 357, I have said before that I don’t feel comfortable with arguing about Australian politics. Your post at 357 is so well said that I want to commend you.
Debbie, you too have done a nice job of defending sanity. Thank you!
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Completely wrong. The income tax cuts will be legislated along with the ETS, so they need to be ‘funded’ in the sense there will be lower revenue from income taxes than would’ve otherwise have been the case if the scales had been left as they were. If the coalition repeals the ETS (by 2015 at the earliest), they would either have to simultaneously put the income tax scales back to where they were (i.e. a massive tax increase for everyone that pays income tax) or they will have to find other ways to keep funding those tax cuts by raising other taxes or cutting spending in other areas.
If you support the Coalition, get ready for more debt and deficit because they won’t have the revenue from ETS permits or even the mining tax to fund their spending promises.
I have just as much a right to post here as you do. It seems you just can’t handle people presenting ideas that different from your own. It seems you would prefer if this forum was simply an echo chamber where everyone agrees with everyone else. That would be both incredibly boring and undemocratic.
00
No, the Coalition’s policy wouldn’t create a market at all. It is tax and spend socialism in a pretty pure form. Polluters keep polluting while the cost of abatement is shifted to tax payers.
Correction: It is the Opposition’s scheme that is based on an endless pipeline of government grants funded by tax payers. The Government’s policy avoids this by relying on a market pricing of permits.
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So let me see if I have this right.
Your ETS shell game is inexorably linked to a bribe.
Is that right?
Hmm!
Money in your pocket or to pay for increased costs of electricity.
Into one hand and out of the other.
So, repealing the ETS does not mean tax increases because the intent was that it was to pay for the increase in the cost of electricity from the instigation of the
shell gameETS, or that’s what they told us it was for.Hence, square One if the ETS is repealed.
There was an error in my last comment referring you to the incorrect Comment I wanted you to address.
That should have read Comment 348
Would you care to address that?
I see you avoided the answer again, and stayed on message.
Post away mate, because with every Comment you make, you show yourself for exactly what you are.
Someone who does not know the subject, and avoids the answer with artful misdirection.
Tony.
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“”You need to move on Adam, your work here has proved to be a failure.””
The little faces are a good idea.
Every time I see a bright green one I jump it.
00
That’s the market mechanism at work. If people reduce their electricity consumption they get to use the compensation payments for something else.
I’m pretty surprised I have to explain such a basic economic principle. Ross Gittins explains it further here:
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/give-and-take-this-new-tax-is-a-piece-of-cake-20110712-1hc2k.html
Well I guess the government could make up the lost permit revenue by borrowing more money, so debt will go up. But most likely it will just cut other spending and / or raise other taxes.
So yes, ending the ETS would result in a net tax increase.
You’d also have to increase income taxes and cut family payments, which no government will do.
00
Ho ho ho mate,
You really do have no idea about electricity consumption do you, just babble on with the party political line.
As I have mentioned in numerous other places, Residential consumption is pretty static, and any, let me repeat that word, ANY, reduction is household consumption is so minimal as to be almost inconsequential.
Only 38% of electricity consumption is at the residential level, where your
bribecompensation is aimed at, so that tiny reduction is a (low) single figure percentage of 38%.Consumption in the other 2 sectors (Commerce 37% and Industrial 24%) where there is no compensation will be the same as it was because that again is set at the minimum usage to remain in operation.
The tiniest fractional reduction in residential consumption will not even be noticed on the overall grid, so there will be no reduction in emissions of CO2 overall.
So, the Tax is not paid by the Polluting electrical power generators. It’s neutral for them, as they just pass the cost on to the providers who then pass it on to the consumers, all consumers in all 3 sectors, and if the residential householder is the only one receiving the
bribecompensation, all areas in those other two sectors pass on their increased costs to consumers.The middleman power generator pass the money to the government, who keep their huge wad, and pass some of it back to the residential householder consumers to pay for the increased costs.
Blink.
There is no change in electricity generation, because the minute percentage of 38% is not even noticed.
It’s a money go round with Government skimming a wad for themselves.
Believe what you want to believe.
It’s just a shell game mate.
Tony.
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I understand basic economics which you seem to struggle with. If people reduce their electricity consumption they get to pocket the compensation payments. That’s how price signals work.
It can be significantly consequential for a household to cut their bills.
That’s not the major challenge for the first decade. The big challenge is slowing the rate of increase in emissions out to 2020.
No, polluters can’t just pass the cost on indefinitely because their competitors will figure out ways to lower their pollution liabilities. But more to the point, the economics of electricity sources changes. Coal becomes uneconomic, relative to gas and other alternatives like nuclear.
This is completely wrong. The Government doesn’t keep any of the moment. In fact in the first year it actually costs the budget money because the increased payments start being distributed in May and June of next year before the government has received all the revenue from the permits.
Such erroneous statements of this sort demonstrate that you haven’t even read the government policy document, which is a strange place to start from when you are trying to contribute to a well reasoned debate.
Of course there is a change in electricity generation. Methods of generation that don’t require the purchasing of emissions permits become relatively cheaper compared to methods that require the purchase of more permits.
The Government doesn’t skim anything. This is simply an erroneous statement that could only be made by someone who doesn’t understand the policy they are criticising. All you have to do is download the document to see how much money the government will raise and where it will be spent.
But no, it seems you don’t want to let any facts get in the way of your position.
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Adam,
I think I owe you an apology.
Now I see why you didn’t (and won’t) address Comment 348.
You understand politics and rhetoric and staying on message, but you have no concept whatsoever about the generation of electrical power and from that, the consumption of electrical power.
What part of a tiny percentage of 38% don’t you get?
2% (at the absolute maximum) of 38% comes in at around 0.75%, reduction in overall consumption, so small that it’s not even noticed.
An average residential household CAN NOT reduce their electrical consumption by ANY significant amount, so your ‘economic’ rhetoric is utterly baseless.
As an example, household lighting is 8.8% of the average residential consumption. If you replace every existing old style incandescent globes for the new CFL’s the savings on the average electricity bill amount to around $16 a year tops, and after paying for all those new globes those savings don’t kick in for around two to three years, and that’s pretty basic economics right there. As it is most households have already changed bulbs, so in effect, there’s no savings to be made on that front.
There are no significant areas where residential consumption can be lowered significantly enough to make savings from the
bribecompensation.Competitors for coal fired power …… competitors.
There are no competitors.
Read comment 348, and tell me where those competitors are cheaper.
And please don’t rabbit on about Nuclear. Of course it’s cheaper, but there’s zero chance of that being introduced by 2015 when the ETS comes into power. Nuclear is decades off, so all there will be is what I have quoted in Comment 348.
You’ll read what you want to see, and anything that goes against that somehow just, er, loses the debate.
You really do have no idea and I understand that. That was why I was so careful with the explanation which still went over your head ….. at altitude.
It IS just a shell game, which you attempt to justify with politics and rhetoric.
Keep going mate, we love it.
We need guys like you at this Blog. There’s readers out there who read and don’t leave comments.
All you’re doing is showing them that you don’t really care, other than for politics.
Tony.
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None of this explains why it is wrong to say that consumption is guided by relatively cost. If the cost of electricity generated from coal becomes relatively more expensive than the cost of generation using gas, then there will be more generation using gas and relatively less using coal.
The companies that build power stations will factor in the cost of emissions permits, and thus opt for gas instead of coal, which over time means more electricity generated but at a lower emissions intensity.
That’s how the market mechanism will work. No one has explained how that simple proposition based on fundamental economic principles is wrong.
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I think I understand. It’s a Zen thing about non-being and stuff.
The government via the market mechanism – or something like that – makes coal power more and more expensive till it gets to a point where we switch over to gas-fired plants which don’t exist yet, and that gas becomes more expensive till we switch over to nuclear plants which DEFINITELY don’t exist yet. There is no urgency to bring these things into existence since the market mechanism thing will somehow make them appear in response to our quarterly screams. So chill.
I’d like to refer you to the pioneers of carbon trading for more refined explanations of the market process but the, er, principals of Lehman Brothers have been detained for a while.
The general theory is called Reverse Field of Dreams: Don’t Build It And They Will Come. Goldman Sachs and other non-detainees of ’08 use money which kind of exists to trade in a fraction of thin air. The end result is many nuclear power plants which do not exist.
On the other hand, there will be lots of enormous whirlygigs littered across the landscape. They will actually exist, but we will wish they didn’t.
At this point, the sleeper is meant to awake.
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Coal puts out roughly double the pollution per unit of energy created than gas, so a coal generator will need roughly twice the permits for the same amount of electricity they sell.
It’s pretty obvious to me that that will very quickly shift investment to gas. In fact, I doubt another coal power station will be built once the ETS bills pass late this year. (They’re being introduced to the House next Tuesday!)
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Roughly double the C02, rather than double the pollution, right? By some measures gas is just as ‘toxic’
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Call it whatever you want, there will be a market for its abatement that will start on July 1st next year.
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Adam,
again you show how little you really do know when it comes to electrical power generation.
A coal fired power plant has a life span of approximately 50 years and can be extended to 60 years and then out to 75 years.
The average emission of CO2 is 2.86 tons of CO2 per one ton of coal being burned.
A Natural gas fired plant emits 122 pounds of CO2 per mcf, (thousand cubic feet of NG)
So this effectively means on a Watt for Watt comparison basis Coal fired power emits three times as much CO2.
Also be advised that new technology coal fired power, like the ones being constructed in China are almost as efficient as NG Plants with considerably lower emissions again.
However, the life span of a NG fired plant when run on a constant 24/7/365 basis is around 25 years because it is nowhere near as sturdy as a large scale coal fired plant designed to operate best on that 24/7/365 basis.
An equivalent gas fired plant to coal fired is more costly up front as well, so the idea of a ‘paper’ market mechanism for the credits driving the move from coal fired power to gas is almost laughable, and yet you say it so seriously.
So effectively, now to produce the same lifetime power equivalent as that coal fired power plant, you now need three of them, hence three times the cost, so economics tell us that this type of plant is not economic at all, so again, the idea of a paper market mechanism driving the move to NG power plants is again shot to shreds. I find it hard to believe that something 3 to 5 times more expensive, and emitting the same CO2 is the direction ‘sane’ people will be moving. driven there by a market mechanism you so eloquently describe here.
See how knowing so little can get you into a whole mess of problems, running off and spouting the party line without even bothering to even attempt to find out the facts.
And don’t you just love the way they don’t ever refer to it as Carbon Dioxide. The Party line calls for it to be referred to as ‘pollution’.
Face it mate, it’s a shell game and has nothing whatsoever to do with the environment. It’s just about the money.
You guys are just so precious!!!
Tony.
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Here is what I said, which you cut and pasted:
Here is your response, immediately below the quote:
Why go to the trouble of cutting and pasting to quote if you have no intention of responding to the point of the person quoted? Why do it continually? Do you even read text which you cut and paste? Paid by the inch?
Zero response on the time factor, after numerous prompts.
No gas for a long time. No nukes for a very, very long time. Just tax, (since we are now calling things what we want).
Tony nailed it. Shell game.
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Hazelwood was finished in 1964, and Loy Yang in 1970, so they are nearly the end of their useful lives. They are so old and inefficient that they can’t be retrofitted cost effectively to work for longer.
Even with a low carbon price these plants are significantly more expensive than nuclear.
You’re just dealing in semantics now. As I pointed out above, it doesn’t matter what you call it, it will be regulated using a market mechanism starting next year, and frankly there’s nothing you can do about it. The time’s have passed you by on this issue.
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What nuclear? Where? When? How?
Tony and I love nuclear. We can see the tax. Show us the nukes.
Then again, don’t bother.
Shell game, right?
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[What nuclear? Where? When? How?
Tony and I love nuclear. We can see the tax. Show us the nukes. ]
You don’t see that the ‘tax’ (its actually an ETS but no one seems to care about accuracy around here) makes nuclear more likely, because it makes the major competitors – coal and gas – significantly more expensive?
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Adam
I think you may have misunderstood. There are several ‘greenhouse gases’ of which C02 is one. CSG puts out less C02 than coal but I’d heard that it has a similar forcing impact due to the release of other pollutants(I have no citations).
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CO2 isn’t the only gas that the ETS will regulate. For example methane is counted as well. It is just that everything is measured in terms of CO2 equivalent for accounting purposes.
These accounting measures where set up by the Howard government when Turnbull was minister for the environment. Of course I realise it is hard for many around here to accept that the Howard cabinet adopted this policy and had it legislated with the support of the Labor Opposition.
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We get the bit about increasing the likelihood of anything by making its competitors more expensive. You’d be surprised how bright we can be.
Now, about those nukes you like. When, where and how?
Please don’t just cut and paste some more quotes and give non-responses. We really like our nukes around here.
Rise above that shell game!
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Oh Adam, again mate, you’re shown up.
When the legislation first came out, I spent a couple of days going over it with a fine toothed comb, and mate, because you are so late on the scene, you didn’t bother to go back through the Posts at this site to see the commentary about it.
With respect to CO2 equivalence, mate that wasn’t set up by Howard, you ninny.
It was based on the UNFCCC, UNIPCC list of GHGs and their CO2 equivalence, and again, is also legislated, er, and recently updated as well by Labor, in fact just days prior to this legislation being released to the Public.
Keep going mate, we’re lovin’ this.
Every time you open your mouth, it’s only to change feet.
Tony.
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Oh, by the way,
Comment 348????
Any response yet, or do you need a few more years.
Nuclear power plants.
You really are a dreamer.
Tony.
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Wow, stellar argumentation there! Can’t explain your argument, so just call your interlocutor a “ninny” them move on.
That’s about as good as it gets in terms of a sophisticated discussion around here.
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Ahh interesting.
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Adam,
While I can see you have a very tender ego and you are incredibly ‘over sensitive’, Tony explained quite clearly why he was compelled to say ‘you ninny’.
Did you just not read the rest of his explanation because his use of the word ‘ninny’ offended you?
Please let me do your trick and cut and paste the actual point of his post and let’s just get over the fact that he did indeed call you a ‘ninny’ (I apologise I do not know how people make their cut and paste stand out as a boxed & highlighted comment)
‘When the legislation first came out, I spent a couple of days going over it with a fine toothed comb, and mate, because you are so late on the scene, you didn’t bother to go back through the Posts at this site to see the commentary about it.’
And even more importantly……
‘It was based on the UNFCCC, UNIPCC list of GHGs and their CO2 equivalence, and again, is also legislated, er, and recently updated as well by Labor, in fact just days prior to this legislation being released to the Public.’
So Adam, even though I understand why you may have been offended by the word ‘ninny’ Tony most definitely explained his argument….you must have just missed the point???????
Also Adam…you need to check the definition of words like ‘abatement’ and ‘equivalence’ and ‘market mechanism’ and indeed even ‘ETS’ in relation to what is being highlighted at this thread.
They are just pretty words and concepts that disguise the fact that we are in the process of watching the Federal Government muscling in on the resource sector under the banner of ‘climate change’ and ‘the environment’.
It isn’t just Power and CO2 (and other trace gases) BTW….it is also the manufacturing industry, the food production industry and water management.
We have seen this tried before in many places around the world. Centralising market power in the hands of a bureaucracy and attendant sharks(bankers and brokers) HAS NEVER BEEN SUCCESSFUL!!!!!!!
Please check your history and please understand that we should learn from our past mistakes and do everything we possibly can to NOT REPEAT THEM!
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debbie,
Some sites have the facility to cut and paste sections from other people’s comments and some don’t.
Some people even use it as a ploy so they can pad their own comment out so the original comment gets moved off the screen. Then, do it a lot, and people miss the original point that the person using the ploy doesn’t want you to see. Some readers see this ploy where a comment has so many highlighted block quotes, and just don’t bother to read any further, and in this manner, the person using the ploy has achieved what he wanted to do, shuffle the original comment so far back it gets lost.
If you wish to try it for yourself, then highlight the text in someone else’s comment that you want to use, copy and paste it into the text box here that you are currently writing in.
Once pasted into this text box here, highlight it again, and then see that tool bar just under the three required address boxes at the top.
One of those tabs says b-quoute. (Block Quote)
Click on that and then the highlighted text is placed into its own highlighted box, and is also automatically placed into italics.
Then, before you submit the comment, just hit the Preview button to see your full comment as it will be Posted here.
Then hit the Submit Comment button.
Quite a few sites don’t have the facility to do this with comments.
Tony.
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We’re getting a site upgrade soon, with nested comments. That will help the flow of replies…
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Sorry…just seeing if it’s working.
Thanks for helping me figure it out Tony 🙂
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sure will Jo
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(snip)
[You must identify who you are addressing your COMMENT to. (Notice the spelling of the word comment).
I’m guessing you’re new to commenting on blogs. I suggest you read the GUIDE FOR COMMENTS first (click on the red words). Or else all your comments may be snipped never to be seen again.]
[mod oggi]
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Well said I don’t usuly read all of a blog post!The only thing I didn’t read was the coments.
[You must have something positive to contribute, or else you’ll be in the sin bin and unable to comment, THEN ALL YOU CAN DO IS READ THE COMMENTS.
Oh! and learn how to spell comment before commenting.] [mod oggi]
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