It looked for a while as if Roy Morgan had returned to its weekly polling schedule, but that may have just been a short-term response to the stimulus package kerfuffle. In any event, there was no poll today. That being so, this week’s news nuggets will have to survive on their own:
• Alicia Bowie of the Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser reports on Labor aspirants for Macarthur, whose Liberal member Pat Farmer has long since stopped behaving like a man who cares if he gets re-elected. The narrowly unsuccessful candidate from 2007, local carpenter Nick Bleasdale, is again in the running, but faces competition from Camden councillor Greg Warren. However, “the ALP will wait until the new boundaries are decided late this year before selecting its candidates for local electorates”.
• Col Allison of the Hills News reports that David Elliott, former Australian Hotels Association deputy chief executive and staffer to John Howard – or as Allison would have it, “the ambitious Liberal Party stalwart lusting for a parliamentary career”, – has denied he will stand for preselection in Brendan Nelson’s seat of Bradfield. However, “insiders say he will try to win preselection for a State Liberal seat in the North-West at the May 2011 elections, upsetting the ambitions of other card-carrying right-wing conservatives, or even a sitting MP”. The seats mentioned are Riverstone, which is reasonably safe for Labor, and “even Baulkham Hills, in the unlikely event Wayne Merton, decides to step down”. Allison reports that Elliott “has the support of MLC David Clarke, controversial leader of the so-called Christian Right of the party and a back-room wheeler-dealer”, which is odd because he was put forward as the moderate candidate against Clarke protege Alex Hawke in Mitchell before the 2007 federal election.
• Peter Tucker at Tasmanian Politics reports that Michael Ferguson, defeated in Bass at the 2007 federal election, will run for the state seat at the March 2010 election.
• Matthew Franklin of The Australian reports that “Kevin Rudd has renewed his backing for four-year, fixed parliamentary terms but refused to criticise Queensland Premier Anna Bligh’s decision to call a state election six months before it was due”.
• Alex Mitchell in Crikey tells us we should “forget the nonsense written in The Australian about an early election being impossible”, because “the advance of Costello has spooked Labor which is now quietly preparing for an early election later this year”. We’ll see.
• There is a Queensland state election campaign in progress.
1,256 Comments
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Where does that leave mensa ??
Gusface, you got it all wrong. it was Diog. we dont eat Tuna, we eat Anchovies
Bob: Ah. Quite so.
Fredex: How is that an “intelligence” question? It is a general knowledge question. It is perfectly possible to be intelligent and not know what a carpenter does, or even that carpenters exist.
Retrieval failure, hmm OK, I will work on my storage!
The economic crisis is being handled “okay” by Rudd Government- what ever that means.
The mistakes being made involve a lack of government hiring of staff, instead their seems to be some retrenchments. A bad mistake, the government should instead be hiring staff and creating more government run businesses. In the end government ownership will be the only way out of the crisis, and not this proping up of poorly run companies view.
Undoubtedly the crisis has got a long way to go yet. Soon housing will be hit hard as yet housing prices have not reduced significantly.
Debt got us into the crisis, the believe by government that people borrowing to start up businesses or to borrow funds to invest more in a business to create employment and economic growth has been a significant problem over the last twenty years and it is now created a massive economic crisis. Therefore governments must get away from the believe that private profit will get us out of this crisis because it will not.
It is possible that the world may never get out of economic crisis at it becomes replaced by the crisis’s caused by climate change. Already Victoria is starting to experience a beginning of such… a long drought, heatwaves, bushfires and now days of extreme wind.. Already two terrible days in less than a year and another poss tomorrow and Wednesday. I cannot remember in my lifetime days where winds averaged up to 100 km an hour for prolonged periods. Nature is telling us all something.
That’s why there is a lot of debate among psychologists concerning what exactly IQ tests test. It doesn’t mean they’re useless.
But what would these businesses do that couldn’t be done better by giving grants to the private sector?
Ok,that explains diogenes.
BTW did you notice telstra quietly offloaded kaz .
cost 337M in 2004 sold 200M 2009
IQ tests rest on the assumption that there is an innate quality called “intelligence” and that one is born with a certain “quota” of it. If that is true, then it has nothing to do with knowledge, although it may affect one’s ability to acquire certain kinds of knowledge – higher mathematics, ancient Greek, playing the cello. But if an innately highly intelligent person is deprived of all knowledge, they would still be highly intelligent. No?
I agree that an IQ test still doesn’t explain if intelligence is actually being tested, You get this result, but you still don’t know exactly what it means. But that relates to the fact there is no agreed definition of intelligence.
But it is useful, because IQ has some astonishing properties. If a person in their late teens does an IQ test, and that same person does it in middle age, providing the person hasn’t suffered some kind of dementia or brain injury in the interim, the results are extremely consistent. People don’t seem to change IQ after their late teenage years, irrespective of how much they study or experience 20 or 30 years later.
That consistency must mean something, psychologists just disagree on what it means, because they don’t know exactly what IQ tests are testing in the first place.
Shows
I think if we adopt a “war’ mentatlity the gvt could quite legitimately create industries
Some eg: Solar from manufacturing thru to sales (much like the old gas/elec)
Housing from developer to builder (like the old NCDC ,defence service homes corp)
Transport from contractor thru to bulk haulage (expand aus post and reactivate Fed dept of transport)
I think there is merit in the idea of the Gvt aggressively entering the mktplace.
and if the doomsayers of CC are correct we can kill two birds with one stone
The mindshift would be the hardest part IMHO
I think real intelligence is the ability to identify the cause of and solve problems. Also to distinguish between what is logical and illogical. If I went on those quiz shows, I’d get slaughtered. I’m not interested in real broad general knowledge.
Gus, Telstra has been trying to offload Kaz for yonk and nobody wanted it, including Mr. Kaz himself. The only part of Kaz that was making money was the custodian business and that was sold long time ago. The consulting business was left dangling.
I’m not convinced that the government could SELL solar cells more efficiently than private companies.
Gee, I’m not. I think the Government should do only the things the private sector can’t do, or doesn’t do well.
Yep give some grants to the car industry or to Pacific Brands and look what happens?
Yep great policy that. Seem to have forgotten the pacific brands fiasco already.
I will state it again, from the 1945 to the mid 70’s their was no major economic crisises in the world but since their have been four or five, and you count the dot com bubble, asia crisis.. Now why? Less government regulation and government ownership.
And Pacific Brands they are going overseas because of tariff cuts. Do not believe in grants but tariffs yes.
What areas does the pvt sector excel v Gvt.
What do you use as KPI’s and do you factor in the ’social cost’.
IQ tests prove you can solve little puzzles, they are good fun, I suspect if your a programmer you need to be good at them, but as a general measure of usefulness, well life isn’t about little puzzles is it.
This sums up the private sector, they provide no information regarding bushfire updates at all in Victoria- none. We have to leave it to the Government owned network to tell us what is happening and what residents should do. Maybe we should privatise the ABC and the communication lines would be much much better.
Why do we have to discuss a boring topic like “Intelligence”. Why cant we discuss something more exciting like SEX as per Lateline NOW!!
Yep another right wing loony on lateline, every night now it is right wing loonies. Don’t begrudge the topic but Bettina Arndt yes.
mm,
Are there any right wingers who are not loonies in your view?
Well, I’ll put it this way. When the government owned QANTAS, airline tickets were ON AVERAGE 30% more expensive than they are now in real terms.
A Government has finite resources, so if a government has a choice to a) build more hospitals or b) spend millions of dollars on airplanes, I choose the former.
I don’t dispute that some things the private sector is hopeless at, but I also don’t think now is time to get carried away saying the government should own shops.
I think social cost is the Government’s job. That’s why I believe in a strong social safety net including universal health care, compulsory savings, and welfare payments. I think these are things that the private sector wouldn’t provide, so they are things the government should do.
I love it, SEX is like the GULF War. What about the Iraq War then? Maybe the Bushie War?
Centre,
I agree it’ll be interesting to see what the international process generates in regard to corporate pay etc.
What? Not a fan of GUM?
Finns, I have got the solution about not gettin” enough, more than one wife mate
Perhaps i was to stating a generalisation , but the lateline lot of late seem to be all loonies. And i thought the show was about educating the public and about being objective.
Full of Libs, right wing rationalist economists and right wing commentators who believe a womens place is the home having babies..
Centre, off to Mecca next year.
Bob Brown was on last week, I don’t exactly consider him a Lib or a right wing rationalist economist.
The historian they had on last week said that Obama should nationalise Citibank, so I don’t see how that makes him right wing, let along an economist.
It already does own “shops”.
Specifically
Qantas is actually a bad example as it was intrinsic to many other areas eg being the sole carrier on many inland routes.
Duminy gone!
Never said Governments’ should own shops, i believe the private sector can do this.
But i do think it is necessary that governments should own a bank, a insurance company and own essential infrastructure and healthcare and schools. Weather and science labs such as Csiro and Csl should be in government hands.
Do not dispute that airline prices have dropped, but at what cost to jobs and conditions.
Competition no doubt has helped the industry.
Problem with it is the golden handshakes that executives recieve from the privatised industries.
Communications i think has been a disaster in regards to competition, broadband is a mess and digital age has been slow to occur.
Like what? Major post offices I guess, but most local post offices are franchises. And most big news agencies also do postal services.
And QANTAS is better privatised, because it flies more routes, and offers cheaper prices.
The Aussies are safe from Robben island for 27 years of exile!!
Most state governments own insurance companies for compulsory third party. I think that’s fair enough.
Most state banks went bankrupt, so I don’t see why they should run banks all the time. Though I support them temporarily taking over major banks if they are about to fail.
Yeah that’s fair enough, because private companies just wouldn’t bother running a comprehensive weather company, i.e. collecting data in the middle of the desert. CSIRO is fine with me too, but I also think governments should invest more in pure research at unis.
Yes, Telstra should’ve been split from its retail and infrastructure. Then sell the retail bit, but keep the network in public hands, after all, the network was built using the taxes of every Australian.
privatising Telstra worked really well. sacked how many staff over the years?
LOL! Peter Dutton saying the government shouldn’t of allowed the private health insurance increases! Was there one occasion when the Liberal government opposed them?
I believe 10,000 sacked over the last 5 years.
Yep Bob Brown was on but that was one night out of last 10 and it was half a segment, and of course we had to have a Liberal giving a contrary opinion.
I can remember Lateline once getting people who provided you with something to think about such as Robert Fisk, Noam Chomsky, and John Simpson. Also John Pilger.
These people i have not seen for at least two years. Now i am not suggesting every night but at least one night a week instead of right wing opinionists every night. That is being biased.
I don’t think Lateline is biased.
Shows
So what, all it shows is that there is a lot of scope for Gvt to enter the market.
Tell that to country people.
So what would these government shops sell? And why couldn’t the same things be sold by private retailers?
No 1232
So your saying, keep the price of travel so abominably high for the sake of saving a few hundred jobs. Give me a break. The low price of travel has been one of the central contributors to the outstanding growth of the global economy.
No 1239
Jesus, you lefties carp more about bias than even my most stringent conservative friends. Get the hell over it. The ABC is not biased. It is balanced.
Evidence it flies more routes after being privatised?
Lateline not biased? No perhaps not, but it is biased when it comes to getting commentators who offer an alternative opinion and why because it is to scared to do anything contrary to the boards whacko thinking.
Communications should never have been opened up to competition by that dud Beazley.
It has been a mess from day one.
Some state banks were managed poorly ie South Australia and Victoria. But the rest were okay and the Commonwealth was doing well.
No 1243
“So your saying” should be “So you’re saying”
As has already been pointed out, this has virtually nothing to do with privatisation on it’s own but increased competition.
No 1245
Communications competition is the reason why call prices are much lower and why there are several new and innovative products and services on offer.
Markets work. They may be imperfect but they work better than centrally planned bureaucracies.
As per the telstra example
In nsw the ahem ruckus re privatisation of electricicity involved a Retail side as well.
These shops provide a range of services from appliances thru to service/repair
I believe that Gvt acting as the ‘industry standard” could re-enter many areas it has privatised previously.
I am not sure that it shouldnt be in ALL sectors, but I do believe it should be more active in a hell of a lot more
Marky’s list earlier is certainly not exhaustive and provides a reasonable platform to start with
A typical liberal view, jobs do not matter but cheap flights and greed does. No wonder the world economy is stuffed we have to cut everything to the bone so that only a handful of skeltons can work.
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