Newspoll shows Labor maintaining its 55-45 two-party lead from last fortnight. Kevin Rudd has gained a point and Brendan Nelson lost one on the question of preferred leader, Rudd now leading 65 per cent to 14 per cent.
UPDATE: The Australian has not published a graphic this time, but you can read all about it at the Newspoll site. The paper also reports on an Essential Research survey on emissions trading, but we are told only that “58 per cent of Coalition voters believe Australia should take action even if other countries do not”, while “only 25 per cent of the 1700 voters polled believed Australia should act only when other major economies agreed to do so”. The West Australian has also published results on the subject from last week’s Westpoll survey of 400 respondents in WA, showing “two-thirds of the poll’s respondents agree that a carbon trading regime should be introduced according to the Prime Minister’s timetable”. However, 69 per cent believe the US, China and India “would need to adopt their own trading schemes if Kevin Rudd’s plan for an Australian ETS by 2010 was to be effective”, and “47 per cent of respondents were not prepared to pay more for petrol”.
UPDATE 2: Full report from Essential Research here. It includes a 59-41 result on federal voting intention based on two weeks of data, with a 3 per cent shift denoting that the week past was quite a lot better for the Coalition than a fortnight ago. There were also questions on the Catholic Church’s response to child abuse by priests and religious affiliation in general. Results were obtained from a targeted online panel of 1013 respondents.
844 Comments
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Crikey Whitey @ 641 – It appears there is just no spare water to be had. There is some hundreds of gigalitres in the Menindie Lakes, but that is being held in reserve for Adelaide in case the drought across the Vic/NSW catchment continues. Unfortunately, the BoM is predicting below average rains for the remainder of the year.
It would appear that the lower Murray is stuffed for the foreseeable future. Which is a real bugger for those of us living on the eastern side of the ranges who get our water direct from the Mannum pipeline. It bloody awful at the best of times but apparently it’ll soon be even worse, acidic and laden with heavy metals including arsenic.
I figure it’s time to start organising a bolt hole, perhaps in western Tasmania or NZ.
Maybe its time to bite the bullet and evacuate Adelaide as part of a forward thinking response to climate change.
The Coorong is probably [just] OK in the [very] short term, but Lake Alexandrina is totally screwed unless about 400,000,000,000 litres is released from upstream and allowed to flow unhindered past lots of greedy irrigators in all states who act like the seagulls in ‘Finding Nemo”..’Mine! Mime! Mine!’ to arrive at the Lake before this summer, and it takes one to two months to travel the distance.
If that does not happen then for the first time in 8,000 years the Lake will be dry and it will have to be killed to be saved by letting it drown in seawater, which, for most of the lake, is unnatural.
I wouldn’t want to be responsible, and go down in history as such, for such an action of environmental barbarity.
Simple arithmetic.
Less water flows into than the river can supply to all who want it.
Someone has to cut their use.
Irrigators, most irrigating crops for export in semi-desert conditions with very high evaporation rates, use about 3 times the water, at no cost for the water itself, compaed to all other users get for a tiny fraction of comparative economic gain and to support a fraction of the population.
That has got to change.
For an analogy consider the past times when fisheries were over fished.
People eventually realized, and fishers were included in that, that the rate of exploitation could not continue or all would suffer.
So quotas and licences were made to reduce exploitation to a level that meant the fisheries could be sustainable. [At least ostensibly.]
Thats what needs to happen with the M-D basin.
A decade ago.
No thank you. Plus it isn’t necessary, thanks to a forward thinking government, the entire Adelaide metro area will have a secure water supply for human use via desal in 6 years.
The problem is water for farming…
A little initiative ShowsOn would not go astray, it would drastically reduce the rate of weird South Australian murders too.
fred @ 653 -
I was in Goolwa a few days ago and the locals were claiming that the water there and in both lakes is already about 70% as saline as sea water so I suspect most of the damage has already been done.
Speaking of Goolwa, it occurs to me that the problems in the lower Murray really began piling up about the time they built the Hindmarsh Island bridge. Maybe the predictions of disaster befalling the area made by local Aboriginal women to stop the bridge being built weren’t B.S. after all. I didn’t have time to look, but I assume that the reason for the bridge, the H.I. marina, is as dry as much of the nearby river.
“People Skills” has a new way of avoiding answering a difficult question, one that usually begins with “What is the coalition’s policy on …” by saying “‘we are not the government.” How weak is that?
MayoFeral
Thanks for that solar data The plan would supply 35 % of US energy needs by 2050 however it requires a 40 year infrastructure project to complete from 2010 to 2050 As a long term stratagy its fine but it may be too late for the 2020 tipping point This type of stratagy is what i’ve been alluding to as missing from ETS which is dry economics (questionable outcomes & flaws ) but importantly missing the replacement energy tangible elements , as i’ve got the minority view that ETS is not the whole ‘cure’
The project is theoretical ambitious , huge tracts of the US south west used to erect photovoltaic cells Excess daytime energy would be stored as compressed air in underground caverns to be tapped during nighttime hours , plus larg solar concentrator power plants also need building Then they’d construct adirect-current power transmission backbone to deliver solar electricity throughtout the US , at 420 billion cost Why didn’t they start it 30 years ago Still could hav a go integrated as part of a whole picture
and 69% of there electricaty at 2050 levels
Thought it was strange that our favorite cotton grower has now turned to wheat grower, but I haven’t hear of them releasing more water for those downstream even when they are growing a crop using less water.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollbludger/852?cp=1#comment-150882
Yep, zoom.
Crikey
re that lack of water problem Pity Feds are not electd for 5 year terms so get some longterm planning Mentioned a solar power vision in #658 for ‘oz’ rather than Rudd’s pawltry 20% renewables target by 2020 We cann’t solve global warming globaly , but we sure can do someting in ‘oz’ Now Water , it needs capital infrastructure investment long term as we do not have enough water & rain will be less in the future Would like toseee a model on far more desalination plants , emmissions FREE ex say solar-powered desal Seems alot of massive problems , but small scale solutions because its politicaly ’safe’
I would like Ruddy to be bolder even that woolongong alleged economic iliterate Rex Connor had a big energy vision in the 70’s at 4 billion to get cheap gas from the NW to Sydney & melbourne wonder if people still think big Rex was foolish or at least ideas bold
I have to go to sleep. See you soon.
The Emissions Trading Scheme creates a ‘price’ via a false availability cap.
This could work? However one of the reasons I’m incredible sus on the whole plan is its evolution. Howard went on and on about how the Market was all powerful and all knowing. Have rooted the planet some right wing think tank comes up with this emmisions trading scheme. The Media tells the Greens and the conservationist/environmentalists etc to go and stand in the box called “We support an unpopular unknown tax because we believe in the free market”. Meanwhile all the capitalist make money out of the scheme, set up a futures trading scheme,(Ironic when they have contributed to us not having much of a future) and their friends in the Fibs run around and get press for not supporting a tax on petrol.
Wake up people, who said that thinking people concerned with the collapse of our environment must run of the cliff of ETS lemming like.
Again I say, there are many more whys of approaching the real issue, CARBON emmisions,. If we did have a War situation we would throw our Surplus of $20 Billion at the problem for a start. The realitiy is that $20B would go a long way., A lot further than this rather bizarre discussion.
As for those of you who are going on about doing the right thing, go and join the Greens they have been doing it for 20 years, will continue to do it and will never govern. This is a political areana we are in not Sunday School.
And in one of this week’s most monumental statements of the bleedin’ obvious, today’s Weekend Australian reports:
Gee willickers! Is that right? Not having any crude oil to refine as the stuff runs out might have something to do with it, too? Nyah… there’s plenty of oil. Got it?
Well, just in case we didn’t get the point, the next bit delivers the punchline:
OK, so now we got it. Oil’s running out, and therefore the price is going to have to go up, making even more billions of dollars for them as they hoard and then sell off a vital natural asset, but it’ll be the Rudd government’s fault if the refiners go belly-up.
No wonder I’m not an oil man. I don’t have the cheek to look people straight in the eye and lie.
*********
… and in answer to some of my critics…
No, I have not swallowed the MSM’s line in calling for Rudd to get out there and damn-well lead the nation. The MSM don’t want Rudd to lead. They want him to fail.
I want him, and his government to succeed.
But what he needs to do is to sort out whether relying on ancient polls that show the voters were once behind him leaves him with enough political capital to win through on GW.
The goal has never been outlined. Oh sure, we can all log on and download Garnaut’s report, or the Green Paper, and wade through a thousand pages odd of PS jargon, but then out heads would be so full of detail and mind-numbing figures that they’d stand a chance of exploding.
Rudd and his government are hiding behind these bureaucratic firewalls. They need to come out and level with the voters on just what the ETS involves. We already know that some people will be worse off and that some jobs will need to be recycled, and so on. That snippet of information is the downside. It’s coming from the whingers and carpers, those who have a political agenda that ends in Rudd’s being a one-term government.
We need the other side enunciated clearly and comprehensively, no “ifs” or “buts”. After all, the aim of the anti-GW exercise, whatever the details, is to restore our planet to the state it was in during the halcyon days of growth and prosperity. Then, presumably, we can get on with it, just like old times, only better, because we in Australia will in a position to lead the world, if not geopolitically, at least by per capita.
The Rudd government seems to be schizo in regards to its political message. On the one hand you have the “steady as she goes”, “let’s get it right” types at the top (Rudd, Wong et al), and at the bottom of the pond you have the scrappers and the Sussex St. mob appealing to the lowest common denominator.
Rudd is the leader, but he is not leading. He gives the impression of occupying a position of weakness within his own party. Every time it looks like something decent and good is going to come out of a policy shift, the hacks wreck it with a populist measure, or even just a leak, that takes us back where we were before we started.
If this is a result of Rudd’s leadership, then it is reminiscent of the panic on the Titanic shortly before she went to the bottom: “Every man for himself!” It seems that every man has his two-bob’s worth to put into the equation, because Rudd is not controlling the situation. He is not leading.
I am no shill for the Opposition. I am not some kind of mole on these blog pages, sent in by MSM HQ to white-ant the lefties. My record here shows that. But I’m concerned that Rudd is allowing a political vacuum to develop, which is sucking in every kind of moron and whinger, and that this vacuum is growing unchecked. And at the bottom line, what I am increasingly worried about is whether Rudd is capable of leading us out of that vacuum.
We face what the scientists tell us is an existential threat. If that is true, then matching political bayonet charge for political bayonet charge in the traditional trench warfare of what is laughingly called “the National Discourse” is not enough. We need to be told the truth and soon, and we need to be informed (or reminded if you like) why it is a good thing for us to try to fix GW… in words of three syllables or less. Surely that is not impossible?
FTP my recommendation would be that, instead of joining the Greens, they join one of the majors and get involved. The real environmental changes have not been forced by the Greens (as a party) but by members of the major parties putting pressure on their elected representatives.
Under Keating, the Greens had the balance of power and used this to wring concessions out of the Government. What ongoing environmental benefits resulted from this?
At present, the Greens in the Upper House in Victoria have the balance of power. What ongoing environmental benefits have they won so far?
And if anyone would care to expand on how the Greens used their coalitions with the Labor party and then the Liberal party in government in Tas to achieve ongoing environmental benefits, that would also be interesting to hear.
Jen says the Greens have been advocating for climate change from the moment they evolved into sentient beings and that, retrospectively, any environmental gains since the dawn of time therefore should be credited to them (yes, I’m exaggerating what she actually said but really, there’s not much of a logical jump there). If this is so, I would expect that the Greens under Keating and in government in Tasmania would have used their power to advance the cause of climate change.
My impression – I don’t KNOW – is that very few if any real environmental change has resulted from the Greens themselves, either directly when they had the BOP in various situations or indirectly through pressure on governments. I am happy to be enlightened.
Ron @ 658 – While the authors used a 40year time frame there would be no insurmountable reasons why it couldn’t be done sooner. Remember they went from V2 based rockets that exploded on the launch pad more often than not to landing on the Moon within 6 years at a cost that was considerably higher in real terms than the relative paltry $420bill. Unlike Apollo there are no great engineering hurdles to be surmounted, everything can already be bought off the shelf.
As an indication, an Australian company has just opened a solar thermal collector plant in the US – usual story no one here was interested in providing the money. They used to make one collector per worker a day, the new fully automated plant churns out a collector every 8 minutes 24 hours a day. Much of the solar industry is still operating as a cottage industry. Apply modern manufacturing techniques and you can make PV panels and collectors in huge quantities in no time flat.
It only requires the will, and sadly that is the one thing that seems to be lacking in US politics. While both presidential candidates make the right noises I don’t detect any urgency.
You can forget about a 2020 tipping point. I can’t see there being a huge reduction in emissions by then. Anyway, I’m not sure the science is there to be that precise. It could just as easily happen tomorrow, or 2050.
As for the ETS, that, and particularly the Green Paper, weren’t designed as the be and end all. It’s only about upping the price of carbon to provide the financial underpinning for the more expensive replacement technologies and by capping its quantity increasing the incentive to look at the alternatives. The Paper itself is just the nuts and bolts of how you do that.
Whatever plans the government has on renewables etc is still be revealed, or, if you’re a cynic, ignored.
Rudd’s communication style is an enigma to me.
At times when he gets it right (think pretty much all of 2007) he can be very good indeed. But at other times he talks in bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo. Right at the moment he probably needs to be more direct and just say what he thinks, I suspect.
I also have this sense that, at times, he does what all of us do when the going us hard – ie retreats to his comfort zone. In Rudd’s case that’s overseas diplomacy. It’s a lot easier, if you’re Rudd, to talk about an Asian grouping that might get started in 2015 or 2020, than it is to face down people whingeing about the price of petrol at home. But the latter issue is more important, politically at least.
Al Gore gave the speech that Rudd should have, and could still: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-challenge-for-americas-leaders-20080718-3hgx.html
zoom 666
If you haven’t noticed The Greens are shaking the foundations of the nepotistic/incestous “2PP CLUB”, then you have not been paying attention.
The Greens have lead the way on the environment, and other issues, for 20 years, 10% plus support from latest opinion polls says it all.
BB we have seen this style of governing before up here from Jim Soorley when he was Lord Mayor of Brisbane.The way it is done is that any contentious issue or part of an issue is announced with the most conservative, right wing position possible to be adopted.
What will happen is they will wait for the kick in the shins with most of their supporters outraged that the ETS is actually proposing that polluters be rewarded with free permits that they can convert to cash later.
They will then back down under public pressure, nasty submissions in response to the Greenpaper etc. They will say they have listened to the public and reponding accordingly.
BB it is actually a warped ‘Time Warp’ just a jump to the right and a step to the left.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zdu7xoHU9DA
Zoom , FIP & Mayo
FIP , you started off being on my side of the track that ETS is not ‘the whole cure’ & then ended up saying go to the Greens The ETS is ‘right’ wing dry economic ratiionalism which relies on the ‘free market’ to somehow provide the baby birth of solar & renewables by ‘market forces’
Sorry MayoFeral mate , I think this financial engineeering faith in markets philosophy IS reely what we are being sold as the answwer (and its a worldwide ‘market play’) You hav faith the other 1/2 will follow , i’m a cynic I’m suggesting bluntly IF the plan was for example we will replace fossil fuels with a massive solar grid by…then it would be presented as the vision now as integral to the CC energy replacement overall plan There is none , just a pthetic 20% renewalables “target” by 2020 Sure the cost of carbon goes up under ETS , has to as the permits are “reduced”
Who will be able to afford to pay the higher priced permits ? well big Oil , big coal , the big players in each Industry anyway As for smaller Companies who reduce emmissions , there is the free enterprise mechanism called predatory pricing to kill them off And before the dry economic rationists hav a go , ask your wife about 80% of all foods coming out of the Coles or woollies & high the food bill goes up weekly out of “competition” , or where have most of the petrol independdents gone its mainly Shell & cltex Esso petrol stations now , how many hardware independents have gone by the Bunnings asault , Amcor & Visy control 85% carboardetc packagng Let the ‘market’ “play” with our CC future when there interest is self interst profit
CARBON GOES UP , the big ‘players’ afford to buy the permits to keep polluting Suposedly also making renewables more cost effective , so these ‘new’ business’s will theoretically appear , and ho do we think will buy them out an “wharehouse” them like the motor Industry has don for decades with ‘alternatives’ YES i want a ’solar’ grid orhte lik and i do not want it funded by that economic rationaist voodoo methofd of PPP funding either
correction / i want a ’solar’ grid or the like (mix of renewables)
The OO at its best. Look at the headline and read the article. Just how does this article on Costello support the headline given that we are talking about different times, under different circumstances and with no figures being mentioned ie Costello vs Rudd?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/
Mark Vaile announces his retirement from politics.
ruawake isn’t he due to release a report on the last election recommending that the Pineapple Party become a National institution.
steve
That is Anderson – another Nat fossil.
I am waiting to see Bruce Scott retire and see whether Springborg is tempted to go Federal. This was always going to be a problem with not running an ALP candidate in Mayo, it has sent a signal that all fossils can retire and renew their party using by-elections.
Labor’s decision not to contest Mayo is disappointing. To run the risk of electoral embarrassment while spending some $250,000 on a seat that the ALP has never won and is unlikely ever to win on present boundaries clearly was too much for the Labor hardheads.
On the other hand, the 27,957 Mayo electors who voted Labor at the general election have been left in the lurch. Now is the time for some Labor stalwart to step up and fly the flag for the faithful, even if on a shoestring budget.
Certainly the Liberals deserve a caning in Mayo. Many people are angry that the premature resignation of Alexander Downer has landed the taxpayer with such a costly, unwanted by-election. Apart from the ALP, all the usual suspects will be out in force – and there could be a few surprise candidates as well. I know of two Adelaide Hills people, a former very senior public officer and a noted artist, who are thinking of throwing their hats into the ring.
Phil,what sort of artist? Singer or painter?
I am hoping that Iain Evans wins. He is a hopeless joke who only lasted as S.A. opposition leader for a fraction over 1 year, and in that time was completely invisible.
If he makes it to Canberra he will only be a back bencher. Which will clog up a safe Liberal seat, thus making it unavailable for someone with talent.
680 Phil
I was in Adelaide a little while back. I thought a certain person from a certain oil and gas exploration company had recently rearranged his ducks for a tilt, but I was assured not, though other employees were considering.
While that same company doesn’t generally sit on the ALP side of the fence, they found their recent dealings with Penny Wong very impressive. The business end of the debate is a whole lot more pragmatic and scientific than the public one we’re seeing.
669 Bushfire Bill – No matter how many metaphors you use, how many times and ways you say how you’re disappointed in Rudd on the issue of ETS I would bet you’ve still yet to change one mind.
BB – I GET IT. You are disappointed in Rudd and for reasons stated much earlier I disagree with you but, unlike you, I won’t bother rehashing my reasons. Time to move on I think.
Believe me I’m not a BB basher. I agree with most of what you say on other issues. Let’s not get bogged down on this.
Who is Christine Jackman and why should we care?
Laurie Oakes couldn’t find anything in the green paper to criticise the government over so he looked at the delivery process. A good sign.
Christine Jackman was some sort of a gossip columnist with unreadable nonsense every week in a weekend version of the Courious Snail, GB.
GB, I’ve been here for about thirty years have have never had a conversation with anybody based on what Christine Jackman has written so I doubt whether too many people will care about a book she has written. It is sure to be a big hit among Newscorp journalists but outside of that the appeal would be limited.
Steve, apparently Rudd launched the book. The content can’t be very detrimental. From what I’ve seen that is the case. The journos are making a mountain out of a molehill with the “revelations” I’ve read. It will pass very quickly.
I suspect Labor would love to see Costello as Lib leader.
I don’t think Labor really have to worry about who is Liberal Leader, the beauty of the jump to the right then step left theory is that all of the proponents of this moving target strategy have retired at a date of their own choosing.The Libs only ever jump right and then get dragged further right.
I think so too, because he has a past history of gutlessness that is likely to be a good predictor of his future behavior.
682
ShowsOn @ 682 –
I am hoping that Iain Evans wins. He is a hopeless joke who only lasted as S.A. opposition leader for a fraction over 1 year, and in that time was completely invisible.
If he makes it to Canberra he will only be a back bencher. Which will clog up a safe Liberal seat, thus making it unavailable for someone with talent.
You’ve just described the former Member for Mayo! Except, that for some reason I’ve never been able to fathom, he did get a ministerial guernsey. It certainly wasn’t because of talent. Indeed, I’d argue Evans has Lord Lunchalot beat on that score, but then so has next door’s cat.
Which probably means that if Evans is elected he’ll be the next Lib treasurer. ;(
Which probably means that if Evans is elected he’ll be the next Lib treasurer. ;(
Or more likely Shadow Treasurer for a long time because the current Rudd tactics which we have seen in Queensland perfected to a fine art absolutely demolishes oppositions.
I don’t think Evans will even make it onto the front bench.
I don’t think Evans will even get preselected.
Probably right. But it seems that there are people out to get Briggs, who is probably most likely.
Will the Libs contest Lyne?
Woefully OT but this seems as good a place as any to raise it: does anybody know what happened to Mr Speaker’s upperhouse.info site?
zoom -
“Jen says the Greens have been advocating for climate change from the moment they evolved into sentient beings and that, retrospectively, any environmental gains since the dawn of time therefore should be credited to them (yes, I’m exaggerating what she actually said but really, there’s not much of a logical jump there).”
Thanks for the last bit. I didn’t say that, but I think it is fair to say that The Greens as a party (and their supporters and founders before they had party status) did raise environmental issues on a political level.
But frankly I’m not really intersted in that argument at the moment.
I completely agree with your analysis of the critical water issue, and it’s time we as a community – forget the party politics for now- acted and supported whatever it takes to try and improve the looming ecological disator we are facing. I don’t really give a rats who proposes the solutions, as long as they work.
And for that to happen the community firstly has to understand what they are and then see that they will be worth the effort.( as Bushfire Bill is saying).
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