The government running the renewables crash-test-dummy state has lost
In South Australia, Jay Weatherill is gone. Resigned. Tally so far: Libs win 24 seats, Labor 18. Though according to commenters SA voters were choosing between Lite-Left and Hopeless-Left. The new premier will likely be less-bad. Xenophon (small alternate non-establishment player) was crushed. He didn’t side with either Labor or Libs, so voters probably felt they couldn’t afford to sit on the fence and risk more years of Weatherill’s reckless industry-destroying state government.
The Greens are down from 8.7% to 6.6%, a fall of 25% in their popularity. (Not that I could find any news headlines to that effect).
The message for the soft left:
Chris Kenny: [A Lib win] … will flash a warning to Labor in Victoria, Queensland and Canberra about the perils of ambitious renewable energy targets prioritising climate gestures over electricity affordability and reliability.
The Libs appear to have made the most of hi-tech analytic campaigning. The Kochs and others in the US have set up i360:
Through i360 the SA Liberals believe they have progressed to a new level of targeted campaigning… the MP called up a marginal seat, much like finding a suburb on Google Maps, then zoomed in to a street where pins identified addresses deemed to house swinging voters. Deeper dives on households contained genders, ages, voting intentions or lack thereof as well as policy interests. The information is collated from the party’s existing Feedback system, updates from doorknocking and calls, responses to surveys conducted via email, online or phone calls plus census data and the harvesting of social media data. This is Big Brother meets grassroots campaigning. Neither the data nor the technology is much use without quality information fed in and strong analysis leading to the right strategies, along with diligent personalised attention in follow-up visits and communications.
Billionaire US Republican sponsors Charles and David Koch are major investors in the firm, which openly canvasses only for “free-market” candidates. The SA Liberals purchased a product licence and have worked with i360 to modify systems for compulsory and preferential voting. Motivated by the frustration of 2014 where, despite a huge popular vote win, just a few hundred votes in the right seats would have made all the difference,…
–The Australian
Commenter RickWill on SA
The Libs are offering only 40,000 household batteries compared with Labor 50,000. They are also planning a stronger link to NSW. That will enable the good people of NSW to share the pain of high power prices experienced first in SA and now in Victoria due to the way intermittent generators destroy grid economics.
An interconnector to NSW will “spread the misery” – as both RickWill and Graeme No 3 point out. SA will be able to milk the national RET subsidies longer, and avoid paying for its own stable base. In NSW, increasing the access to subsidized solar and wind power will hurt the cheap providers there, destroying the profits of the cheapest generators.
In Victoria, in one seat, Greens lose to Labor, blame internal bickering
In Victoria a byelection was held in the inner-latte seat of Batman. Conservatives (Liberals) didn’t run. Labor won, though the Greens started out as favourites.
John Ferguson: “The Batman result is a disaster for the Greens and a significant campaigning achievement for Labor.”
As usual, the Greens search anywhere but their hypocritical policies. They could try having principles like caring about the environment instead of supporting big-banks, big business, and giant supernational unaccountable institutions. They could have an interest in science instead of doing their best to destroy it through namecalling to silence debate. If they had even one principle above “being elected” they would have some foundation instead of being the third leg, fashionable extra for people seeking vanity points.
Greens leader “blames internal ‘sabotage’ for loss”
The Greens are in soul-searching mode as tally room data from Saturday’s by-election shows the Greens squandered an initial lead to end the race 45 to 54 behind Labor in two party terms.
In a short statement to media, Senator Di Natale said he believed that the party had fallen prey to persistent leaks from insiders which had turned voters off.
“It is absolutely clear that we have to get our own house in order if we’re going to win back traditional Greens voters who were turned off by the leaking and sabotage from a few individuals with a destructive agenda,” he said.
Map: adapted from Wikimedia Christopher j hogg
If anyone really wants to see why the Green vote is down, they need only look up Bob Brown Green oration, which is still holding pride of place on the official Australian Greens website. Given on the Hobart Town hall steps on the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Australian Greens, both ABC and SBS filmed the event, which set out The Greens agenda for the next 40 years. After the opening “Fellow Earthians”, what followed was pure Agenda 21, with extra fairies . Please download it and give copies to friends who vote green, as , for some unfathomable reason, nether the ABC or SBS have ever broadcast it, apart from the opening two words……
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Former Greens Leader Bob Brown who addressed the National Press Club in Canberra shortly before he retired.
His address included reference to his dream about a world with no borders and controlled by a world parliament.
Labor Deputy Leader Tanya Plibersek made reference to a world with no borders as her preference a couple of years later and not long ago.
241
For a woman with a proven drug dealer for a husband, Tanya sure has a lot to say.
I wonder how many lives he assisted in ruining.
211
Husband was appointed NSW Director General For Education by NSW Labor just before the “Building The Education Revolution” squandering of taxpayer’s monies on public school amenities, needed or not.
At the same time Labor NSW were plotting to sell public school properties.
And today the NSW Coalition Government is struggling to find locations for increasing demand for public schools.
And Labor claims the NSW Coalition has let public education down.
191
One would have to wonder just how many of our politicians, union & business leaders have bought into, sold into or been sucked into the Rockefeller/ Trilateral Commission version of Technocracy.
Its a fair bet, that there are a few in power who think they have either earned or bought their place on the committee that believes they have a right to run the world the way it should be run [ for their benefit] & we the proletariat should be grateful little compliant slaves.
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH
& Fondle Slabs* are my FAVOURITE way to get my fix of propaganda/ paranoia endorphins. [ & you too can buy non voting shares in Big Bro Inc.]
Complaining to & about the system seems to have little effect.
At least with our paper ballots [ non machine], we still have of sovereign power for the odd day every few years.
* James Corbett
70
Careful Jo, you referred to Conservatives (Liberals) in your post. I called the Liberals a right of center party in a comment last week and got a lot of people around here questioning my sanity and political knowledge or both!
Only good I can see from these elections is that we may have finally seen the last of the Xenophon show. Unfortunately he will no doubt turn up on the Foxtel Sky News channel as an expert political commentator or even with his own show. Might even get that job at the ABC he’s been after for so long.
New Liberal government in SA will keep to 50% renewables target and as you say want (someone else) to spend 20-30 million dollars on an extension cord to NSW. I can not see much changing there, they seem determined to continue living a lifestyle payed for by the rest of the country.
Labour won the Batman by-election, so what? Labour have held the seat for 90 years and the Greens were never going to win it unless the Liberals ran a candidate and directed their preferences to the Greens.
So all in all I woke up in a country still on the same path to social and economic ruin as it had been 24 hours before. Hurrah!
252
The suggestion I heard from a reasonably well informed insider was that they predicted Xenophon would fail to win his seat, but then pull rank as a MLC in the upper house, ‘politely’ asking whatever SA-Best member who won the spot to step aside.
As much as I hate to say it – for I am no fan of the man or his style of politics – I feel the only way Australia is going to see the political back of Nick X is old age and failing health.
90
Thay depends….assume Lib , Lab and green parties are actually the same. If this holds true, we should see Libs being right wing for the post election honeymoon period, then back to imposing Socialism by inventive methods. If im right, SA will see no change…..and prove all SA pollies need to be sacked and replaced by actual candidates….
40
I am hopeful that the Green Vote has peaked and is beginning to recede.
I was at the Perry St Primary School polling place (Batman) on Saturday handing out voting cards for Kevin Bailey (Australian Conservatives). Kevin got 6.8% which I found disappointing. I was expecting the Liberal Party vote to go to Kevin (since the Liberal Party did not field a candidate). In 2016 the Liberal candidate got 20%.
I think that Ged Kearney (Labor) would have won on her own. but just to make sure Kevin’s votes and other minor parties mostly went to Labor.
Australian Conservatives need to work out why we are not getting any traction with voters.
250
Too small, under resourced, unable to compete with the major party machines, preferential voting trickle down favours the candidates who attract the most primary votes and therefore major party candidates and, last but not only last, voter apathy.
The only way to get change is to back the real Liberal Party MPs in their struggle to regain control.
91
Cory Bernardi and the Australian Conservatives have done nothing to create a public profile. Very few people know anything about this party or its policies. Zany people like Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer have done better at the polling booth than the Australian Conservatives for no other reason than they had a public profile and the public had an awareness.
261
They have been the problem, not a solution.
26
I agree with Dennis (1) and partly with skeptical (2).
I think that Cory Bernardi has tried very hard to create a public profile. It seems to me that the MSM has tried equally to portray him as some sort of goulish monster so his effort has been stymied by the MSM. However I would agree that very few voters seemed to know about the party or its policies.
Perhaps follow the POTUS;
https://thepointman.wordpress.com/2018/01/20/twitter-is-fundamentally-corrupt/
90
‘Perhaps follow the POTUS’
It would be pretty difficult to follow the POTUS. His use of Twitter is masterful. (See Scott Adams on Periscope if you don’t believe me).
I cannot understand why the minor parties are not flooding You Tube with interviews, discussions, videoed speeches, the whole box and dice, so that they can create a persona. They will never get MSM backing, in part because they will be drowned out by the noise of the big parties, and, of course because of the inclinations of Fairfax, the ABC, and SBS.
There is something slightly Darwinian about this failure by the small parties. If small parties cannot be agile, innovative, experimental, but instead just keep doing what the dinosaurs do, are they really equipped to win the race?
51
Don’t put too much faith in Trump. He’s been in office for more than a year now and little is getting done with the exception of significant changes in the US EPA. He’s found the right person for that department, but seems yet to find the right people for other significant, important roles. Some may argue that the withdrawal from the Paris Accord and blocking Hillary’s power grab is sufficient enough, but US residents are getting tired of the Twitter rants and the anticipation of something radical (in a good way) occurring in the White House. The swamp alligators are circling and waiting for him to tire.
113
I was at the local polling station for the first few hours and was interested in the reactions to the AC vote flyers. Only one adverse character who after voting came back and apologised – personal dislike of the AC Candidate. There was certainly no enthusiasm for the Conservatives but not many intended voting for us, but a reluctance to treat us as other than a distraction. The organisation was a bit slack, I only got the paraphernalia on Friday afternoon, and no-one else was advailable to man or relieve. Gave up when the rain and wind became a nuisance. They need to revamp their banners etc.
The Liberals were keen, well organised and optimistic, unlike the last Federal election when they had trouble maning the booth. I spoke to their booth captain and he was confident of them getting an outright majority and governing in their own right. Labor didn’t have anyone there, just a box of How to Vote cards and doing little business (OK, a strongly Liberal booth, this time). Indeed the Lib booth captain at one stage was handing out Labor How to Vote cards because they nominated the Liberals ahead of SABest on preferences but gave up and said they would win the booth. The Green supporter lasted about 2 hours then disappeared, probably disheartened by the lack of support, and some obvious dislike. The SABest gradually became downheartened in what should have been their strongest booth in the electorate. People had obviously made up their mind before they came, and the number who strode past ignoring all How to Vote people was quite noticeable, and in my experience rather higher than usual. (The same was evident in the previous Federal election when they ignored the Liberal cards and went and voted against Jamie Briggs. I handed out Liberal cards for about 30 minutes why the lone Liberal took a break as I have known her for years).
My impression was that people had made up their mind months ago and wanted Labor out. As for the Greens I have always thought that half their vote came from those who disliked the 2 major parties, and with SABest and The Conservatives as alternatives didn’t need to vote for them.
100
Union GetUp Labor are far better organised, and far more ruthless.
71
Congrats on manning a booth, Graeme. As I said to Peter, it is a long tiring day with very little reward. I was asked personally several times if I could Booth Captain for the Libs in Adelaide but declined. I have done booths for 10 years and a mixture of apathy and political burn out made me very happily sit this one out.
(as compared to 2016 when being a proud DelCon made me happy to sit that one out… and let my membership lapse…)
I voted in the CBD mid afternoon. Strong feet on ground from Greens, Reds, a Nick X and the Liberals. Don’t remember seeing a Dignity supporter despite the fact they were running someone in Adelaide. Basically I turned up, was probably ruder than I needed to be to the other parties, said hello to the few people I knew and went in and voted.
Job done I had a bit of a chat to one of the Libs on how he was reading the vibe and agreed that both of us were a bit surprised by the direction the Libs had taken when campaigning, esp in regards to the continuing farce that is the new Royal Adelaide.
We also agreed that How to Vote cards are becoming increasingly pointless. Stuck to the wall of each booth was a little cheat sheet for each party, just in case the task of matching the party name listed under each candidate to your party name of preference was proving too hard. Seriously, if you want to vote Labor (or whoever) you go down the list until you see the words LABOR PARTY (or whoever)and put a big number 1 in the box closest. Not. That. Hard.
Manning a booth these days to my mind is a case of feet on ground and showing the brand colours. You are proving that your party has enough friends, supporters and organising power to be taken seriously.
Still, while I am not excited nor believe there is a grand new way forward for the state, I am pleased that Labor have finally been booted.
140
Peter,
making sense of By Election results is a bit more complex than normal.
First thing to consider is if the major parties are taking it seriously or not (in Batman? No.)
Second is that attendance is likely to be much lower than normal. In a proper election attendance is normally in the high 90s, while By Elections can hover in the 60% range sometimes. This can make a huge and meaningless mess of the normal Percentage Swing method of judging success.
Example of the point I am making, if your party received 30,000 votes out of the 100,000 who turn up for a normal election then you would claim to have 30% of the vote. Simple maths. So far so good.
However if you get 30,000 votes in a By Election that only has an attendance of say 80,000, have you had a swing of 7.5% towards you? Or do you still only have 30,000 supporters?
So when looking at By Election results the more practical method is to ignore the percentage swings and instead try and make sense of where the voters – included those who couldn’t be bothered – ended up going.
My guess, without looking at the figures myself, is most of the normal Liberal voters simply couldn’t be bothered and anyone who wasn’t a hard core Green or Laborite stayed home. Still, 6% for the AC does seem a little bit of an under perform.
Credit to you for manning a booth. Did it myself from 2006 till Turnbull got in and I decided my Saturday was better spent NOT standing in the sun all day for a cause I didn’t believe in.
Credit. It’s a long, tiring and largely thankless day. Well done for putting your physical day where your political mouth is.
60
Did that for approximately 20 years of my life
21
Thanks Mudcrab and others,
At my booth there was very little interest in Australian Conservatives but the other minor parties seemed to do much worse (Rise Up Australia, Animal Justice, Save the Earth, etc).
Very big presence by both Greens and Labor (8-10 each and multiple change overs during the day). Almost intimidating to voters and the other parties’ reps.
I talked to some from the Greens and Labor. Quite nice people on the whole but I was unsure how well they understood their own party platform or any likely sequelae of their policies.
Voters seemed generally unwilling to engage at all.
The results of my booth:
Total 1493, Informal 100, Labor 609, Greens 573, Aus Cons 76 (56 went to Labor and 16 to Greens).
After prefs; Labor 728, Greens 665. Therefore the largest group after the major parties was informal (100), Kevin Bailey (Aus Cons) got 76 and a further 135 votes were split between 7 other candidates. The preferences went 119 to Labor and 92 to the Greens.
30
Boothing is a tough call. 90% of people do NOT want to be there and a lot of the time even the people who vote for your party don’t want to deal with you.
Anyway, had a look at the numbers quickly. Using AEC for 2018 and WikiP for 2016 and rounded to the nearest 50 out of laziness.
So…… 2016 / 2018
Total… 97700 / 79300
Greens.. 32650 / 30500
Labor… 31800 / 31400
Libs…. 17900 / NA
AC…… na / 4800
total is total voters who got out of bed, including informal
So what can we see? The Green vote, despite the major push that this was a very important seat and issues and stuff, actually dropped. Labor vote was nearly exactly the same.
AC clearly did not pick up the Lib votes but with some 18400 less people voting it does seem apparent that the vast majority of the 2016 Liberal voters simply stayed home.
Also of possible interest is the fact that informal votes were lower. 7600 to 5000 (rounded). Not sure if we can draw too much from that. I personally feel the majority of informals are really ‘sod you all’ rather than errors so the drop in informal votes is probably with margin of error for the drop in overall voters.
MY take on the whole thing is that both Labor and Greens have in real terms reached peak support. This election was flagged as a vital Greens vs Labor choice so I think it is reasonable to suggest that everyone who really supported those two parties made an effort to turn up. Neither of those parties managed to make much of an inroad into the ‘Non Leftie’ voter base.
Labor will probably secretly be pleased they didn’t lose voters to the Greens and the Green very disappointed they didn’t manage to convert any. Turnbull will fail to impress. The decision not to run a Lib was probably not his, but he will still be seen as male bovine mammary by the ‘Non Leftie’ demographic.
AC? Hmmm… dunno. Refusing to cower before the wall to wall Lefties and making a stand out of principle? Or failure to impress? Valid alt to the Libs or just the only non unionised hippy group there on the day? I dunno. Open to discussion on that one.
20
Apart from commentary on this blog I have not seen one solitary sign that they even exist. Proof of life may be the first step to gaining traction.
30
6.8% would get you (the party) a permanent seat on ABC’s Q&A if your party was extreme left.
10
I would call the SA election as good signs of future progress if the trend continues in future elections.
30
I wonder. If electricity prices do not become lower fairly quickly the effect on voters’ intentions at the forthcoming federal election may be stern—and at the expense of the ruling party.
Alternatively Marshall and Co. could begin a process that would, in a few years, result in a HELE coal-fired power station to replace the vandalised Port Augusta power station. It’s unlikely, for the reasons given by others above—private interests profiting at public expense.
Secondly, he should begin negotiating with the Russians to hire a nuclear-powered ice-beaker to provide electricity during the cool months.
Thirdly, the cabinet should find and hire a hospital ship to serve Adelaide during the same cool months; failing that, hire and quickly convert a cruise ship to hospital conditions. Hospitals are already full and daylight saving is still with us.
This election should not only have resulted in a change of government, but a landslide—and it didn’t.
There is one other matter: compulsory voting. That would have public support—and rightly so.
30
As I posted in Weekend Unthreaded the so called renewable energy industry is a wealth creation scheme many well known Australian individuals, companies they are major shareholders in, union industry super funds and others invest in including family of our prime minister, father and son previously employed by Goldman Sachs.
The more we learn the more obvious it is that Australia the nation and its citizens are being robbed by people via RET and subsidies, secret carbon tax destined to become an emissions trading scheme, electricity pricing arrangements, running down the long established and reliable power station supplied electricity grid and now world’s highest electricity pricing continuing to rise with pathetic politicians claiming they are working to get electricity prices down.
I cannot believe that our nation and system of government have been taken over by self serving manipulators.
251
Sorry, I posted the information in the Australia’s Secret Carbon Market story, here is one of the links;
https://stopthesethings.com/2017/03/13/born-lucky-stars-align-perfectly-for-pms-son-with-mammoth-bet-on-wind-power-outfit-infigen/
31
Should we be running a sweep on the number of days before Weatherdill pops up on the board of some renewables subsidy/grant farming org?
110
When will Weatherill face the music for deliberately destroying hundreds of millions dollars of public property involved in the two coal fired power stations he either blew up or tore down?
This power now needs to be replaced to stabilise SA’s base load and grid reliability.
If anybody else had done this mindless destruction he and his cohorts would be behind bars for a very long time.
Why not Weatherill????? .
81
Bit emotive I think. The public elect people run things for them, this includes deciding what to do with public assets and infrastructure. They may have made a bad decisions, even vandalistic depending where you sit on the spectrum of debate, but criminal?
11
Agreed, generally. However, if an elected representative puts the safety and security of the population as a whole at risk knowingly, then they should face criminal charges, no exceptions. Otherwise there is no incentive to actually use thier brains.
20
Sure but you would be pushing the proverbial uphill on that one based on whats available today.
00
The Greens candidate was unpopular with the rank and file and hierarchy, its the leader’s fault for not intervening earlier.
‘Ms Bhathal’s campaign was dogged by a series of internal leaks, including the release of a 101-page dossier of complaints levelled against her by nearly 20 branch members who wanted her sacked over bullying and branch stacking complaints.
‘Historic tensions between Ms Bhathal and the party hierarchy were also revealed by the ABC.’
30
101 page “dossier” good grief you would think it’s the 9/11 investigation, not just a pathetic bun fight in some [snip] sideline political group in Victoria. They seriously need to get a grip.
10
Funny but Alex was quite a nice and reasonable person at school. I keep wondering when she lost her mind.
10
Power corrupts, can’t give up the ring, and now the leader is going after the unseemly whistle blowers.
‘The Greens will hunt down and kick out the saboteurs who leaked and plotted against the party’s campaign in Saturday’s Batman byelection, leader Richard Di Natale said on Monday.’
SMH
10
Vacuum at the top.
“Indeed with more intense storms predicted to strike more frequently as a consequence of climate change and the Weatherill Government’s plans to increase urban density in Adelaide’s inner and middle ring suburbs it’s critical the stormwater system is drastically improved.”
Steven Marshall 2016
20
Ever listened to the National Road Traffic report in the morning? for years the stalwart announcer referred to Adelaide as “the burst water main capital of Australia”. Virtually every day there are burst water mains reported, even on the evening TV news, especially when it is the same suburb for the third time in a month. That didn’t help Labor either.
50
With population growth trending down rapidly, de-industrialisation and interstate emigration its surprising they are worried increased density in what is a small place anyway.
20
As long as the RET scheme continues, the misery will spread. No political party is offering to get rid of it. No political party acknowledges the billions it is ripping off everyone, without exception. This is the cancer eating away at our quality of life. So the Liberals will continue it, because it is a core Federal policy.
Weatherill was just an opportunist with a degree in economics who saw the rest of the country was paying for his windmills in his state. He is probably as surprised as anyone that they did not work. Like Flannery, he has no idea of technology.
The only certainty is that the windmills will spread. They are the invention which ate Australia’s power supply. No one could justify building one without the RET
Consider the Hepburn Springs cooperative wIndmill Annual report.
Operating Revenue
Electricity 417,863
Large-scale Generation Certificates 743,673
Consolidated profit (loss) for the year 306,215
The profit came entirely from the RET, from the electricity bills of other Victorians and marked up x2 by the electricity retailers.
“The market price for renewable energy certificates stabilised during the financial year and the renewable energy certificate price has subsequently increased to an all time high to be back in line with the original forecasts prepared by the Group”
Why would a responsible government not know what every windmill operator in the country knows. You can make a profit operating windmills at a huge loss. Then you own the windmmill, not the people who paid for it. It’s a get rich quick scheme where strangers pay the rent.
Save the planet? That does not make sense and is quite irrelevant. 20,000 people have fled South Australia. 200,000 have fled Zimbabwe. Basket cases. Bad governments run by uncaring politicians. Like Turnbull.
300
An RET scheme expose could easily become an LNP election winning platform, but only after a complete reformation of the parties members and policies and even then with Dutton Abbott or anyone left over that is close to a conservative the public still wouldn’t vote for them as the tainting of certain members via the MSM will stick forever in the psyche of an already fragile thinking public.
80
I talked with a member of the Liberal party at the booth on Saturday. He came to help out the Australian Conservatives because the Liberals were not running a candidate. His view was that a split of the Liberal Party is likely because the gap between the Turnbull lefties and the right thing conservatives is just too large to bridge.
The interesting thing was his view that the membership of the Liberal Party is quite conservative but the parliamentarians are quite to the left. He could not fathom how the parliamentary party could have drifted so far from their own support base.
120
Sounds a lot like the path the US republican party went down after Reagan, unless there’s a patriotic Australian billionaire out there we’ll have to do it the hard way, problem is the MSM I just cannot believe how many Aussies actually listen to these pariahs but with digital media a permanent appendage for everyone and political apathy the status quo the market is cornered.
70
Was reading something today about Unis dividing into STEM based and the rest of the xyz studies streams. Sounded a bit like UTS/Uni NSW vs Sydney in olden times.
00
So the Croweaters have gone from the fire to the frying pan. The “analysts” of Murdoch’s flagship will see this as a triumph for Turnbull, with some grumbling allowed by Bolt, for balance. The luvvie media will purse its lips at ten thousand fewer batteries but will natter on sustainably.
The crony capitalists will merely shrug at this victory by their blue team over their red team. Every team is pink and green where it counts. Who cares if it’s more monorails and fewer whirlygigs? Life goes on. It’s all about adaptation and resilience, right?
120
One certainly shouldnt expect Trumpian levels of changes in SA
50
Unfortunately, politicians who win elections believe that those that voted them in wish them to implement all of their stated policies.
The truth is probably closer to ‘we voted for you because you are the best of a poor choice and we have to vote for someone’.
The Liberal renewable Nirvana plan is just as bad as Labor’s but, overall, they are possibly a better bet in other areas.
80
That’s our problem, Union Labor would be far worse.
But that is not our solution.
21
Sitting here in the US and not really knowing a thing about Aussie politics, it seems to me that the people had nothing but bad choices to pick from. It also seems the people of SA are still in for black outs and economic decline. Really, how much will change due to these election results? How long will the people of SA put up with this?
110
Well summarised. They probably have enough machinery in place now to avoid blackouts depending on how they use it. That will come at unecessary cost of course , but it is what it is.
20
Tony Abbott is not the solution, but together with his like minded true Liberals they could be the solution.
71
Turnbull refers to himself as “Satan”, a recent report of an old report tells of him strangling a girlfriend’s cat in revenge for her dumping him, and writing to the dead cat.
stopturnbull.com
And more recent references.
Wake up voters.
21
Its the most plausible short term solution Dennis, but they’d have to be careful of not drawing attention to Abbott’s party position if at all, not because he’s incapable or decent but for the amount of unwarranted abhorrence he attracts from many voters, a few close acquaintances who are fairly conservative have launched into amazing anti-Abbott diatribes that were easy to refute after they calmed down, I’d say character assassination is one of the lefts fortes.
80
The SA result was decided by the electoral redistribution which eliminated the massive bias to Labor.
The reduction in the SA green vote is a welcome change, really the only positive to draw from the election.
The federal by-election defeat of the greens is a relief as victory, in doubling their representation in the house of reps, could have presaged an avalanche of greens at the forthcoming federal election.
My thanks to TdeF and RickWill whose regular contributions detailing the deep chicanery of our iniquitous RET legislation have wised me up considerably as to the necessarily lamentable future guaranteed the Australian population given that no major political party has any focus whatsoever on the RET.
100
But The Conversation said that Labor achieved about a two-point swing in its favour and it only lost because the redistributions were hostile to them (data via The Poll Bludger)
Their summary is that
and
20
I really hoped that ah Labour would win, preferably with a really strong Green backing.
Then we could all have sat round with beers , chips, peanuts etc & watched the whole Labour/ Green nightmare becoming reality as unemployment soared, industry fled to any where that rejected renewables & socialism!
That is the only way we’re going to rid this country of the leftist disease. Let’s hope that first on the Liberal agenda will be a new clean coal fired power station……guess not as Turnbull will veto that in favour of more renewable targets & pushing BS uphill to generate at least less BS on the downhill! There is still a lot of work ahead for conservatives.
60
Well, Graham,
lots of
turtles
all the
way down
.
.
.
Bottom line learn yer lesson Naychur’s way.( Can’t disagree with that.)
Be wary of analogies. Once industries have fled\, once institutions
have under-gone Gramsci-homo-genization, will those industries evah
come back? … History shows rise and fall of nations. Clean-slate
never bode well, trial ‘n error arrow of time -> is Naychur’s way. We
need to gird our loins and say to those guvuhmints, acting out Sheriff
of Nottingham robbery of the fruits of innovative entrepreneurs and
sweat of workers, ENUFF is ENUFF. Put out yr specific policies as
a contract, walk the walk or pith forks for you.
40
I had to talk myself out of the same rather reprehensible inclination. Always fun to watch a power station being blown up, along with a state. My take-home from the election is that the ALP vote increased!!!!!! Wonders, and pop corn material, will never cease.
00
How do you work that out? they had a negative 1.9% swing statewide.
10
The information is collated from the party’s existing Feedback system, updates from doorknocking and calls, responses to surveys conducted via email, online or phone calls plus census data and the harvesting of social media data.
Yup. Been there. Done that, and truth be told it is actually incredibly easy.
When doorknocking you are actually expected to take notes on the houses you visit. If the door isn’t slammed in your face you make notes of what the person said to you and if they expressed any strong views on an issue.
(If the door is slammed in your face you flag them as a Labor/Green which is still worth knowing.)
The other thing you do is have a quick casual look at their front garden and driveway while walking to their door. Toys on front lawn? Baby seat in cars? Shoes (number and size) by front doormat? Pushbikes? Sporting equipment? 10 seconds walking to the door, 30 seconds waiting and 10 seconds walking back to the footpath and you can deduce a LOT of useful campaigning information about a household.
Simple and hard truth – political parties data mine.
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Importantly, the election result brings the National Energy Guarantee one step closer. Once that gets passed it’s unlikely there will be any new industrial wind complexes being built in South Australia.
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Where will they be built?
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They’ll be built in other states that currently have a smaller percentage of their electricity coming from wind farms. The NEG will be applied on a state by state basis.
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Are there no populists or deplorables in Australia?
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No, in the main we’re ignorant slaves.
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I am more deplorable than you could ever imagine.
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Depends on what you think those definitions mean. Voting is roughly split 50/50 left and right with marginal parties filling any gaps depending which way the wind is blowing. The parties here are really not that far apart although they portray themselves as left and right, its nothing like a choice between Obama and an insipid Romney , than Obama vs Trump.
There is little passion for politics in the general population. Life has been pretty easy in Australia, relative to most places, for a very long time. Something like wide scale blackouts might stir things up.
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” its nothing like a choice between Obama and an insipid Romney , than Obama vs Trump.”
its more like ……………..
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Mainly in QLD. Something in the water up there. 🙂
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Tony Abbot, statesman …
https://quadrant.org.au/opinion/qed/2018/02/81308/
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This is the problem with the national electricity market, and with AEMO having binding powers on generators. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a (presently) sane state like QLD, your coal generators will suffer just as much as a similar generator would in SA of VIC, because when the wind blows that energy gets fed into the national grid at an artificially low price and destroys your profit margins as well.
So, in the short-term, the NEM saves SA from the criminal negligence of its government, by providing reliable baseload when the wind doesn’t blow. However at the same time it damages the baseload providers in other states when the wind does blow.
QLD doesn’t even have to have a single turbine – the NEM ensures that SA and VIC turbines damage the northern generators and push up the average price charged to QLD customers. Pure insanity.
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Anto:
Part of the price rise in Qld. is due to the State Govt. dumping $700 million of State Debt into the 2 state owned electricity suppliers. You can safely bet that they got told NOT to cut their dividends to the State either. They are not being disrupted by wind further south because they are running close to flat out, so they are gaining from the disruption in Vic. & SA – SA in 2016/17 got 20.9% of its electricity from Victoria which meant Vic had to draw from NSW (&TAS & the Snowy). With their record of shutting down coal fired power stations NSW had to draw from QLD. and the price went up.
It remains to be seen if the increased profits for the coal fired plants (before the extra debt repayments) make the QLD. government switch to talking about renewables but doing nothing to help them (as that would cut their income).
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The Queensland/NSW power links give the Queensland generators the opportunity for higher load and higher wholesale prices in the Queensland network. That means Queenslanders consumers can share the pain of higher wholesale prices with the southern States.
Less obvious is the payment for LGCs at the retail level. On rough numbers, the income from excess generation in Queensland through the NEM wholesale market almost covers the $345M cost of the LGCs that consumers in Queensland send south to buy excess LGCs created in SA and Tassie to make up for the Queensland shortfall in LGCs..
So the NEM in conjunction with the RET is helping to share SA’s pain Australia wide. With the already planned wind generators in SA there is scope for SA to destroy the economics of the entire NEM. A bigger cord between NSW and SA will open the door for the SA intermittency disease to spread more rapidly into NSW and Queensland.
There are State border controls to lower the risk of fruit fly infection in southern states but Queensland has no effective control for the intermittency disease spreading north from SA. It would be smart for Queensland to cut the interconnections to NSW and stop paying for LGCs.
Here I note that ERM Power takes the fine ($123M in 2016) rather than paying for LGCs. That is one way to discourage more wind generators. It also makes economic sense as the fine is less than the LGCs at the present price.
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A significant decrease in the Green vote is a long awaited step in the right direction for Australia.
The Green ABC staff must be very distraught.
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curse those deplorables north of Bell St!!
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Congratulations on sane election results.
Sadly, it would seem that no real progress toward rational energy policy will occur until the media starts reporting truth instead of promoting the Green agenda.
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[…] Now the South Australians have voted overwhelmingly to oust the politicians promoting the government climate hysteria.See here. […]
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Tough to get excited about the poll results. Under Labor, the very publlc realisation that wind and solar power are doomed as a significant alternative electricity source was foreseeable with a potential economic implosion within a decade. Under Liberal, the fascination, fiddling, tweaking, subsidies, money transfers, backroom handshakes and political acquiescence will be renewed. If I were in the wind/solar/green industries and looking on from a worldwide perspective, I would see this as a good result in extending the ride of the gravy train for another few years, if not decades. What this has done is keep the voters’ hopes in Green solutions alive. It’s a shame Labor isn’t still in power. The world’s rational opinion needs a Green body to bury. I guess it won’t be South Australia just yet.
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Greens are, in effect, the new religious party in countries where religious issues no longer dominate majority party-politics, even though they offer nothing above nihilistic anti-industrialism and anti-capitalism. Unlike some religions though, the after-life is often only promised or held against your children/grandchildren. But then, bizarrely, humans are labelled as evil for reproducing or even existing/working/living in the first place. They claim to want to save the planet for humans, but don’t actually want humans to be there to enjoy it.
That they regularly get more than 5% of the vote really ought to trouble sensible politicians. Unfortunately, many politicians have pandered to them, inflating their general importance, especially in tight elections. So they get success…and more votes. If the green-party vote could be returned to ~0% we would all benefit. People can still vote on important real local and national environmental/pollution issues without going along with all the other existential angst of late-teenage thinking.
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Michael:
There are always some loonies but at a low level they are ignored. I have always thought that half the Green vote came from people who didn’t want the 2 major parties.
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” religious issues no longer dominate majority party-politics” you think?
I think religion is still front and centre with many major Libs. Labor who knows, apart from the kumbaya diversity mantra right up to and including cultural suicide.
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Glad to see Nick Xenofon’s expectations fail. He is such a clown and a Greeny in sheep’s clothes – just about the worst combination one could imagine. Bernardi’s party didn’t do so great but that’s to be expected given the vast majority of Australians are still asleep waiting to be smacked from behind big time in due course. Perhaps then they will wake up.
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X still has a future as a mentor to build his fledgling party, but I have no faith in Cory’s mob.
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theirABC simply ignore Left-Greens loss in SA. Fran Kelly, who said just prior to the election that South Australians love renewable energy, simply carries on as if nothing has changed.
19 Mar: ABC Breakfast with Fran Kelly: Do we need the National Energy Guarantee?
The Liberals win in the South Australian election on the weekend has brought energy policy back into the spotlight with incoming Premier Steven Marshall vowing to abandon Labor’s promise to lift the state’s renewable energy target to 75 per cent…
The NEG, which will be brought to next month’s COAG meeting, scraps subsidies and incentives for renewables and instead puts the onus on power companies to source energy from a range of sources including coal, gas and pumped hydro.
But now, new modelling by the energy advisory firm RepuTex shows Australia is set to beat its emisisons targets under what it calls a “do nothing” scenario, suggesting the NEG could be redundant.
Reputex says unless the emissions target is ***more ambitious, there’s little need for what it calls the “complexity” of the NEG.
Guest:
Bret Harper, Associate Director, RepuTex
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/do-we-need-the-neg/9561806
following segment. as soon as Cormann brings up “energy policy”, Fran interrupts; insists she’ll come to that later and insists he talk about minor parties and other such rubbish. Cormann carries on with energy talk. Fran says Weatherill criticised the NEG for ***not being ambitious enough; Fran brings up RepuTex’s modelling to claim again NEG is ***not ambitious enough on renewable energy; will Govt be more ambitious with the NEG? get the picture?
AUDIO: 19 Mar: ABC Breakfast: ‘A new opportunity’: SA Liberal election win to push NEG ahead
Guest: Mathias Cormann,Finance Minister and Government Leader in the Senate
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/breakfast/sa-liberal-election-win-to-push-neg-ahead/9561952
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Read an article in the last few days where Russia was accused of funding green groups and NGOs opposed to gas drilling in Britain. The result is Britain is reliant on importing it’s gas supplies from Russia. I wonder if the local lock the gate folk also get help from that great bastion of democracy. Here the LTG crowd are ably supported by Jeremy Buckingham, a Green member of the NSW parliament. There is so much false information spouted that one has to assume it is well orchestrated but by whom?
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Correlation doesn’t necessarily prove causation, the ‘lock the gate’ crowd has a pseudo marxist bent, but not funded by Moscow.
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[…] into darkness, hamstrung industry and driven electricity prices to stratospheric highs. Jo Nova reports: In South Australia, Jay Weatherill is gone. Resigned. Tally so far: Libs win 24 seats, Labor […]
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