The latest Newspoll confirms the trend of recent Morgan and Essential Research results in showing an easing in Labor’s lead, from 58-42 in the previous two fortnightly surveys to 55-45. Labor’s primary vote has dropped five points to 42 per cent, its lowest level since November, but the Coalition’s is up only one point to 38 per cent. The Greens’ account for two points of the difference, up from 9 to 11 per cent. Malcolm Turnbull’s approval rating has dropped a further point to a new low of 36 per cent. Kevin Rudd’s preferred prime minister rating is down three points to 64 per cent, while Malcolm Turnbull is steady on 19 per cent.
UPDATE: Graphic here (how long have they been waiting to use that photo of Kevin Rudd?). Interesting supplementary question on what the government should have done with the stimulus package money – 78 per cent say they would have preferred it be spent on infrastructure, which is the kind of opinion poll response political operatives hesitate to believe. Opinion is divided on whether promised tax cuts should go ahead as planned.
Other news:
• Essential Research has Labor’s two-party lead nudging downwards for the fourth week in a row. It’s now at 57-43, compared with 63-37 on April 6. The survey also reveals slightly more optimism on the economy than was recorded in mid-March, mixed messages on what should be done in the budget, a persistence of illiberal attitudes towards asylum seekers, and a widespread belief that Pacific nations such as Fiji should be “left to sort out their own affairs”.
• An anonymous business figure tells Glenn Milne of The Australian that “major business donors” have a hit list of 14 MPs who must make way for new blood if the Liberal Party is to get their donations. These are Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar) and Philip Ruddock (Berowra), Kevin Andrews (Menzies), Alby Schultz (Hume), Joanna Gash (Gilmore), Judi Moylan (Pearce), Wilson Tuckey (O’Connor), Margaret May (McPherson), Andrew Laming (Bowman), Michael Johnson (Ryan) and Alex Somlyay (Fairfax), along with Nationals John Forrest (Mallee) and Bruce Scott (Maranoa) plus one lone Senator, former Howard numbers man Bill Heffernan. Some of these point to the Coalition’s undoubted surplus of MPs past their use-by date, as noted in detail recently by Peter van Onselen in The Australian. Others on the list fall well below van Onselen’s nominated cut-off point of 60 years of age, the most striking examples being Johnson (39) and Laming (42). Milne’s source also reckons Barnaby Joyce is “divisive and not a team player or a regional centre vote winner” – the latter judgement at least seems a very big call. While Milne describes the list as “non-factional”, Liberal sources are evidently putting it to Andrew Bolt that responsibility for the article ultimately lies with party treasurer and Turnbull ally Michael Yabsley, who scores an indirect compliment from Milne’s source.
• Submissions for the redistribution of New South Wales federal elections have been published, compelling the major parties to suggest which electorate they think should be eliminated. The Liberals have excitingly decided the axe should be wielded on their own turf, suggesting Kay Hull’s seat of Riverina and Alby Schultz’s seat of Hume be merged into a new seat called Bradman. Schultz has reacted by calling for a return to rural malapportionment. Ben Raue notes that the Liberals want territory transferred from Wentworth to Sydney, which would at once make Malcolm Turnbull safer while leaving Tanya Plibersek more vulnerable to the Greens. Labor’s submission calls for the abolition of Pat Farmer’s seat of Macarthur further to the north, where the Liberals propose to strengthen their position by adding territory from Hume.
• Swoon over the new-look Crikey. Now no longer featuring my goofy 2004 vintage mug on the front page, praise the Lord.
1,434 Comments
55-45: A more realistic poll number, although I guess Shanahan and the conservatives in the media will try and talk up a supposed swing back to the Libs.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25430179-601,00.html
Somlyay the Somnolent is member for Fairfax, not Hume.
Bull butter.
Has anyone seen the details of how the ETS Mark II has made allowances for reductions in household emissions, like the GreenPower alternative? The press release of Adam’s at 371 talks about it and it looks like they will partly subsidise GreenPower and they will also take into consideration the number of people taking up GreenPower when working out the yearly caps.
It looks pretty good to me and answers a lot of the criticisms but I don’t know the figures well enough to work out if it’s a fudge. Strangely, none of the MSM have picked up on this part of the new package.
Aye aye Cap’n. All my future factless derision of posts that assert opinion backed by no facts will now be padded to appear as though they assert an opinion but will still contain no facts.
Cheers Ev. Sadly the boss wants more meat in the sandwich…
Interesting that Newspoll has Labor’s primary below its election primary with the greens apparently on the receiving end, the libs are really in a hole. Methinks that leaking to Glen Milne might not get them out of it, nor attempting to set up three-cornered contests for their own seats.
Where’s the political genius? (snigger)
Somnolent’s next-door neighbour, Peter Sleeper, should be on the list too.
Hmm, I wonder if she is being targetted because of her moderate views on Asylum Seekers ? And I wonder if the Libs will draft City of Swan Mayor Charlie Zannino into the seat ? or will it be Rod Henderson ? who stood in West Swan for te Libs at the last State election ?
William, there’s no link to the Essential Research poll.
Obama now more popular than the Ruddster(a 70% approval rating in one poll).
Ruddock is going to contest Berowra(where I live) again, because otherwise the seat will fall into the hands of the religious right, and Ruddock is supposedly on the left of the Liberal Party.
The Narrowing! The Narrowing!
The MalcoPops single policy of NO is showing signs of NO WE CAN.
That Oz article seems to have been written by an anti-Shanahan. These are classic Shanahan lines but the writer has the wrong party.
Andrew
SO NOW WHAT? Turnball looks like a dill, the Libs were asking for an ETS to be postponed a year, now they still say ‘no’! The Greens want something which will actually stop run-away climate change, but is something totally unacceptable to the ALP. Plus if they try going down the cross benches route then there is still FF and Mr X to contend with. So are we all in agreance this will be voted down? If so, THEN WHAT? WHAT NEXT?
We political tragics love the idea of a DD, its bloomin’ exciting. I remember it being mentioned during ‘the howard years’ (not as in the ABC) in government when he got triggers and nothing happened. Circumstances are very different now but are we exagerating the chance of a DD coz its fun?
A DD wouldn’t even make the passage of the ETS definate. Even with the Greens monopolizing the balance of power, they and the Libs would still block it. So it would have to be passed during a joint sitting of both chambers. This means the ALP has to win 114 of the 226 seats. Thats likely but not VERY likely. It also means that the Alco-pops bill cant be used as the trigger for a DD, it needs to be the ETS or there will be no joint sitting for it. Is an ETS triggered DD possible this year or is there no time?
I’d be interested to see the figures from New South Wales, no wonder Rudd is distancing himself from Nathan Rees.
Errors corrected (posted this in a bit of a rush).
Oh dear, another notch down for Malcolm, not a good look with the party room due to meet next week.
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/files/2009/04/opsat.png
What’s happened in the last 2 weeks to warrant a fall of 5% in Labor’s vote? I don’t get it.
Penny Wong said this on February 20, two months ago.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/wong-undeterred-on-emissions-trading-scheme-20090219-8cnt.html
Seems nothing has changed with Turnbull’s approval [64 per cent of voters against 19 per cent for Mr Turnbull] but as the polls have come down it must be the dog whistle that worked to some degree. So I guess there will be more of the call to xenophobia unless Rudd nips it in the bud with some pseudo or otherwise action that seems tough.
The lesson in this for Rudd is to not quietly deal with those old Howard wedge issues as they will have some effect on public perception. He needs to learn the Howard double face technique but put it to a good cause. Saying how tough and nasty and inhumane they will be to this and that issue whilst their actions are somewhat the opposite.
Rudd of course would have preferred the polls to stay high leading into the budget, putting more pressure on the Senate players to let it through.
Labor peaked a few weeks ago. So now it is the hard slog into the election. But there is the little problem of an acceptable opposition leader and I am also guessing the narrowing/widening if it occurs close to the election would be toward the incumbent govt.
I suspect the last 58-42 poll was a bit roguish. You’ll recall we were expecting Labor to be off a bit because of the asylum seeker issue and it didn’t happen, despite evidence it’s a dangerous area for Labor.
Why wouldn’t the dog whistle send people back to the coalition? The coalition’s vote has hardly moved.
Unless the rise in the Green Vote is the result of Rudd mentioning that People smugglers are Scum and should Rot in Hell upset a few of the more leftish labor supporters.
While it looks like the leaky boat dogwhistling would be the main influence on the drop in primary vote, the surprising thing is that it only put the Liberal primary up one point. It seems to work but not quite in the same way it once did.
Another stroke-victim’s performance from Andrew Robb on Lateline. How this guy gets a portfolio boggles the mind.
Bill @ 21
Similar to the rouge result during APEC, up one poll down the next.
I guess we’ll see in the next Newspoll which poll is the rogue. IMHO a drop of 5% in two weeks is a tad over the top. Two or even three but five?
More feverish over-analysis of every poll. Polls move around. Labor is ahead, Labor has always been ahead, Labor will always be ahead. It’s late, go to bed.
*phut*
Hardly.
It has not caused me the slightest heartache, its very easy to adjust. Only problem is that some places (a nursery I got a shrub from for one) have started using thicker, bigger bags because a loop-hole in the legislation says that makes them re-useable so thats slightly counter-productive but isnt very widespread. The rest of Australia should also adopt our 10c for a can or bottle policy, it has both environmental and social benifits.
Dio 4
If that is true I agree it is a significant improvement – at least it means individual action does not give a perverse reward to power companies. Structurally this ETS is not bad now, targets and free permits for big polluters aside.
Both Andrew Robb and Penny Wong always sound so boring, scripted and lifeless. Limited vocabluary, just stock phrases. Is it the subject matter or are they both just awful speakers?
Q. Thinking about the Government budget set to be announced soon, which of the following is the most important thing the Government needs to
do?
Cut spending so we don’t go further into debt 24%
do these idiots want us to go into a deep recession instead?
how will we get revenue back to normal if the recession is deep and long?
A grade idiots!
The only thing I’ve seen is that they’ll create something called a “Carbon Trust” that will allow households to work out where they make savings.
The Greens press releases on the issue seem as though there’s still no recognition for voluntary abatement. But they could be as confused as us.
I’d also throw in the absence of the agricultural and transport sectors.
Andrew Robb was a joke on Lateline. He’s part of the reason Labor can be comfortable with such a strategy. You compare him to Brown and you realise not only does Brown have a harder case to prosecute from a much smaller position but he does way better than Robb ever could.
Here we go on the Carbon Trust:
“Households would be able to calculate their energy use and then make donations to fund which would then buy and cancel carbon permits.”
Yeah but the economic situation has severely declined since two months ago, Diogenes.
Get with the program.
Perhaps it would be in the best interest of the coalition for them to just cut their losses and support the ETS. If it gets knocked back and a DD ensues they could lose alot of seats.
However, by some miracle the Libs could win and as Bob Brown (what a champ!) just pointed out on Lateline, Bob Hawke’s ALP did less well at his DD than the earlier polls would indicate. So the Libs could then be in office. So what do they do? There would be tremendous pressure on them to bring in a CPRS but also tremendous pressure on them to make it piss weak. So we would end up with the same “lame” ETS. I doubt very much that the Libs would win though.
16 April 2009
http://www.pm.gov.au/media/Speech/2009/speech_0914.cfm
Sorry for the millions of posts, but everyone else has a life it appears.
The ABC was reporting on private Labor polling which suggested that despite the recession there’s still significant community support for acting on climate change. This could be a factor in their decision to increase their efforts to try and get it through (even though it doesn’t look to have worked). They also talked about the Liberal polling suggesting they would be hammered at an election called over the ETS.
Does anyone know who the Labor Senator is who threatened to resign? Is it because the new scheme is too weak or they think it is too strong?
Ack sorry, one more!
More info from Newspoll.
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25430758-5007133,00.html
Next polls really need some ETS questions.
Given that the ’source’ was Graham Morris, I doubt even he knows…
Just watching Lateline two hours later than the rest of you (Laterline). Bob Brown boasts about his long political memory before recalling that Bob Hawke got stung when he pulled a double dissolution in 1984. But he’s wrong! The DD was a year earlier under Fraser – 1984 was a normal House and half-Senate (well, not quite normal – the “half”-Senate was for seven seats per state to facilitate the increase from 10 seats per state to 12). Where do I collect my prize?
Graphic here (how long have they been waiting to use that photo of Kevin Rudd?). Interesting supplementary question on what the government should have done with the stimulus package money – 78 per cent say they would have preferred it be spent on infrastructure, which is the kind of opinion poll response political operatives hesitate to believe. Opinion is divided on whether promised tax cuts should go ahead as planned.
I’m confused as to why it’s called “War in Gaza Interactive”…
It’ll be interesting to see what the general response from the media and the Liberal Party would be should Turnbull’s dissatisfaction rating hit 50%. The chances of that happening, though, seem to be somewhat slim, in the short term at least.
No 43
That 78% number is quite sobering to all those herewith who chastised me for having the temerity to suggest the handouts were an egregious waste of money.
As for Rudd’s backdown on the CPRS – I have to say that this was to be expected. The GFC gives him the perfect excuse to delay the timeframe for introduction and he wasted no time in taking advantage of it.
That said, given his statements prior to today on the supposed damage that a delayed introduction would have, his backdown is somewhat humiliating. Wong looked idiotic on the 7.30 report and Kerry was absolutely right.
BUT, my main concern is the fact that Turnbull has simply opposed the scheme, even with the Government’s concessions. What on earth is he thinking? Rudd’s given him what he wanted, except a spare room in the lodge. Whoever is the mastermind of this strategy in Turnbull’s office should be sent out the back and shot.
Bronwyn Bishop, in a bout of sense and reason, asks quite rightly: What does the Liberal Party stand for?
http://www.livenews.com.au/news/turnbull-fails-to-push-what-oppn-stands-for-bishop/2009/5/4/205184
I’m pretty sure the following song is about events leading up to, and including the Dismissal in 1975.
I’ve emailed this to William, but for those who remember the first year of Countdown back in 1975, here is the only song which is about our Nation’s capital and it may well be The Poll Bludger’s theme song
Note that the title of the thread goes to an external link to download the mp3.
http://ozziemusicman.blogspot.com/2009/02/post-76-dalvanius-fascinations-canberra.html
Here is the text:
and here is the direct link
http://www.megaupload.com/?d=N7GNWBUU
Was at dinner on Saturday night with some old friends. He lost his job when his contract ran out and hasn’t been able to get another one. Or hasn’t tried too hard, in any case. She has had to get a low paying job to accommodate the mortgage they’ve just taken on. Times are tight.
She received her $900 and put it to the mortgage. But she doesn’t believe in payouts like that. Says the money should be spent on Big Infrastructure. When I told her there were no plans ready to go due to the previous government’s lack of foresight she was incredulous. Surely there should be something they could do. I replied, yes, keep retail alive in the meantime and do a lot of small infrastructure jobs that don’t require batteries of structural engineers and years of planning… like they are doing (and the big stuff to come along later, when it’s properly designed). I pointed out that the $900 is only a part, and a relatively small part of the overall plan, but I got that look from her like she didn’t believe me.
He just said (not particularly helpfully), “Bloody politicians. They’re all out for themselves.”
Both have voted Labor in the past (did so last time, especially her and reluctantly him).
These are the people the latest Newspoll is picking up on.
They deserve the money, but nobody else does.
As a post script to my post #49: the dinner cost $120 a head. I didn’t have the gall to point out that they were probably spending their $900 anyway.
BB@49: Self referencing leads to paradox. Paradox leads to self referencing.
Its a weird old world when the likes of Gerard Henderson are praising Rudds Defence white paper and other such as michelle grattan move away from balanced reporting.
At least turnbull is still say No to virtually everything.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-prudent-approach-on-china-20090504-asn1.html?page=-1
I’m not sure the definition of ‘balanced reporting’ means agreeing with the Government on everything.
No 52
You wouldn’t think so by reading this blog – which basically expects every mainstream media outlet to praise the Government. Otherwise, they must be biased if, heaven forbid, they actually agree with what Turnbull says (little though there is with which to agree).
Quo Vadis Malcolm? You certainly can’t hide.
Lenore Taylor in today’s OO, “MALCOLM Turnbull must now decide: will he negotiate over an emissions trading scheme supported by business and conservation groups, or will he reject it and risk a double dissolution election at a time when the Coalition trails the Government by 10 percentage points in the latest Newspoll.
It is an ironic, and probably galling, position for the Opposition Leader to find himself in, since the revised ETS unveiled by the Rudd Government yesterday was very similar to the one that he, as environment minister, took to the last election.”
Galling too, since several of the changes are pretty similar to a series of amendments he had been foreshadowing.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25430246-5017906,00.html
What a p*ss weak leader Turnbull has turned out to be. Leading a rabble of an Opposition that has become the “Party of No”.
A question for the political historians on PB : Is this the most hopeless Opposition in our political history? Maybe the lot of them should be on the “Hit List”.
23 Frank,
Might have upset a few, but not all of us get off of the Labor train
[tempted for about 5 seconds though 
[
39 Oz,
Yeah, we do
…. but consider also the time of day (12:20am) on the east coast, heck it was bedtime for me even here in Perth and the topic. Climate change is a topic that gets specific regulars on PB posting about it but otherwise, the majority avoid that topic.
This is a GREAT result for Labor. It means Turnbull stays and the opposition doesnt change course. Sweet
BTW Hunt is a fool- was on ABC saying how fantastic a job Turnbull is doing, yes Mr 19% and 10-20% behind in his 2PP polling. Great job indeed
The announcement re more troops to Afghanistan could be a factor – those committed to an anti-war stance on any front would not be impressed.
48 Frank,
Was that staying up late or getting up early
? Remembering the blogs times are east coast time 
In either case, I’m impressed 
No 54
Labor was certainly no better. It wasn’t even credible until Rudd stepped up to the plate.
No 57
Hunt is useless. He doesn’t stand for anything, much like Turnbull.
Love them or hate them, at least we know where the likes of Abbott and Costello stand on issues.
GP,
Yesterday’s Heroes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=siqrnVnTSUY
No 32
Penny Wong has the patience of an ox and I admire her zen-like composure. What a god-awful portfolio she has with having to deal with the likes of the head of Woodside (it does stick in my craw that an ex-pat American with republican leanings – born out by his claiming the ETS plan was like ‘a pig with lipstick’ on AM this morning – gets to so heavily influence the climate debate here). But my money is on Pen and she’ll have bragging rights if she pulls this one off.
GP 60
I happen to agree. I think one reason why Labor was in opposition so long was that it couldn’t admit that Beasley was weak defending policy, and Latham crazy. Simon Crean raisd the real problem (influence of unions in cnoferences due to 60/40 rule) and was doomed for it immediately.
I think one major reason why Labor is doing better now is that none of the key leadership team come from the poisionous NSW right – Rudd and Swan (Qld), Tanner (Vic) and Gillard (NSW left) are all at least sane and can be seen to identifiably stand up for traditional Labor supporters against legislation like Workchoices.
As much as I disliked Howard, if you voted for him, you certainly did get the conservative you expected. As GP said, he stood for something. I didn’t feel the same was true with Beasley. If Labor under Rudd does nothing more than give people what they expect, plus better than anticipated economic management skills, they will romp home in the next election.
Regarding this poll, I think the coalition would be deceived if they were pleased with it. The 2PP result has returned to believable historical norms, yet Turnbull’s personal popularity is still flat. Most people just don’t believe he should be leader.
Has Penny Wong ever considered that instead of having a revolving door of mining lobbyists through her office that she could actually visit a few of her parliamentary colleagues and get their input? Her approach clearly isn’t impressing her colleagues.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25425113-5006301,00.html
#63, She’s a Malaysian born, Chinese Hakka woman. the Hakka women are the toughest in the world.
Diogs,
Andrew Landeryou asks a legitimate question:
“Three key environmental groups – key parts of the political and financial base of the Greens – not only supported the change of policy but apparently also played a role in devising it.
Despite the strong support from leading Greens groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation, the World Wildlife Fund and the Climate Institute, the Greens political party will be voting the proposal down”.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/4023/ouch-greens-groups-split-from-greens-political-party-on-carbon-emissions-plan/
The Greens want a stronger scheme. Fielding wants a weaker scheme. There’s no real way to negotiate the scheme through the Senate without the support of the Opposition, even if that were a good option. You would imagine that with such a large change the best situation would be to have both major parties supporting it in order to provide business certainty into the future.
GG
Funny you should say that coz I was just reading exactly that. I was wondering why on earth they would support it. It’s an old tactic to neutralise your opponents by making them feel important by getting them in and coddling them and telling them how valuable their input is. It gives them ownership. Wong should be using the same tactic with her colleagues.
I suppose the counter-question is that it was also supported by the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry so why didn’t Turnbull support it?
No 65
Turnbull also has the misfortune of looking physically moribund on television. It also strikes me that a man with so much money never seems to be well coiffed or dressed.
No 64
Well said. Australians prefer their politicians to have a solid position on issues. The current opposition lacks a sufficient policy framework and its values and principles are ambiguously proffered by the leadership.
Diog,
Or, it’s the correct policy at this time!
GP,
Looks can be deceiving.
There’s that famous situation where Marilyn Munroe sat on George Bernard Shaw’s lap and opined that wouldn’t it be wonderful if they had a child that looked like her and had his brains.
GBS said he was more concerned that it would look like him and have her brains.
GG
That looked so dodgy that I went to the WWF website (to see if it was true and them give them a blast). The WWF do not support it. This was posted on the 2 May 2009. I’ll check the other two to see if they are BS as well.
http://www.wwf.org.au/news/stronger-cprs-must-start-in-2010-wwf/
Well the ox is slow but the earth is patient.
Not sure how patient the earth is though on this issue…
Diogs,
Um, read your own quote.
“Despite these issues, delaying this Scheme would cost Australia dearly, Mr Toni told Senators at the Committee meeting in Canberra”.
Means support or no support for the legislation?
So, if they introduce the legislation in May/June what will happen?
Referred to committee and then back in the Senate for a vote by October?
(The minors and coalition may prefer it to go to committee and waste time if they think a DD may be in the offing over this??)
Knocked back and then they have to wait at least three months to re-introduce it So another vote by February?
Knocked back again, and only then it becomes a POSSIBLE DD trigger.
Can’t have a DD less than 6 months before you would normally have an election (i think), so they would have to have one by May 2010 rather than November 2010?
So really, May 2010 is about the practical earliest they COULD have a DD election on this issue?? Not sure if they would bother given that, but if there is anyone out there with a better appreciation of the possible timings I’d be keen to hear from them.
What really stands out with grattens recent reporting IS its departure from her previous balanced approach. Prehaps she has been talking too much to that moron fran kelly.
Hendersons article summarises the point pretty well :-
” Last Saturday, journalist Michelle Grattan commenced a column by opining that “those with long memories will recognise in this white paper a modern, sophisticated version of that old Australian fear – the yellow peril”. This is mere hyperbole. ”
Indeed.
Don’t let facts get in the way of your argument Dio. The changes made to the plan were essentially an Opposition wish list. Try again.
GG
The quote came out before Mark II of the ETS. They want 25% by 2020 and to start in 2010 according to their press release. I struggled with the “despite these issues” line but included it for fairness.
This depends on whether the Opps+Greens want the bill to be referred after the committee has already considered the exposure draft. In any case I doubt the bills would be referred to report in October. August would be the deadline.
Don’t know where you got this impression from.
Gp
I think another problem Turnbull suffers from in the current environment is his background as a merchant banker. Up till recently many of these banker/financier types were feted by the media as creative geniuses. Now it looks increasingly like the only creativity involved was in their hiding how much of our money they lost. They are like emporers exposed for being naked. So now we look at Turnbull and others like him and wonder – what has he really done? what skills does he really have? This isn’t entirely Turnbull’s fault (though I don’t think its a marker of virtue to have run a merchant bank in the boom years) but it is unfortunate timing for our perception of his character. I usually think it was good for a politician to have had a real job before politics, but not if its a job that brings baggage.
As for his appearance, he looks like a man under pressure to me. Some people respond better to that than others.
Diogs,
“The policy shift split the environmental movement. The Australian Conservation Foundation, the Climate Institute and the WWF put aside reservations to back the changes, but Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth said it did not go far enough”.
Garnaut’s onside too.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/garnaut-backs-revised-target-20090504-aso5.html
Dario
The facts are that she didn’t consult with the Liberals and it’s basically Liberal Party policy.
If she really wanted it to pass, she would have spoken to them to try and get their support but she’s just playing political games with it. She doesn’t want them to get even a sniff of credit for it and have Turnbull say it was bi-partisan. She’s more interested in scoring political points than having a climate change bill pass.
And yet she didn’t meet the Opposition to draft it but did meet the Business Council and AIG.
Ouch, facts in the way again.
Diogenes, if you’re still wondering how the carbon trust will work I can tell you.
What happens is, if a household wants to reduce it’s emissions it buys a solar hot water system or something. It then goes to the website and the website tells it how much money it is saving. You then give that money to the Trust and it buys carbon permits on your behalf and sits on them.
So while the big polluters get massive exemptions, thus shifting the burden onto smaller business and households, households will have to pay twice. First, to actually reduce their emissions and secondly to get their emission cuts recognised.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/how-emissions-plan-will-work-for-households-20090504-aso9.html
I think that the Greens have to start making hard decisions if they want to get above 10% of the vote. Pragmatism and middle-ground politics is a reality if you want to get a significant section of the Aussie vote. With environmental becoming a main-stream issue, the Green’s can no longer afford to be seen as radical. The German Greens, the ACF and the WWF have understood this but the Green Party is falling behind. The ETS issue is where they can really stand up and establish their credentials as a responsible alternative. It think there are a lot more urban voters who would flock to them if they espoused less radical policies
What really stands out with grattens recent reporting IS its departure from her previous balanced approach. Prehaps she has been talking too much to fran kelly.
Hendersons article summarises the point pretty well :-
” Last Saturday, journalist Michelle Grattan commenced a column by opining that “those with long memories will recognise in this white paper a modern, sophisticated version of that old Australian fear – the yellow peril”. This is mere hyperbole. ”
Indeed.
This isn’t surprising. She is a politician.
The so called “split” between The Greens and conservation groups is interesting but not really relevant.
They were never a single cohesive unit. One is a political party and the others are non-partisan advocacy group. There are no links between the two further than the fact that some members of the ACF and WWF are members of The Greens. I’m sure some are members of Labor and Liberal as well.
Also the support from the green groups is hardly equivocal.
http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=2241
The policy is less radical than that of the UK Labour and much closer to the policies of the conservative governments in France, Italy and Germany than Australian Labor’s.
This makes your post, but the entire of the debate on the topic in Australia, hilarious.
Oz
This is from Adam’s 371 press release. Dunno how effectively it works. Looks a bit messy.
ltep
She’s also meant to be spearheading Oz’s approach to CC. Her priorities seem to be politics first and CC second.
GG
The ACF and the Climate Institute have quotes that they are support ETS II, but I can’t find one for the WWF and given what’s on their website, they would have to have a bigger backflip than Rudd if they do support it.
Victorian budget today. “Biggest capital works ever” etc. etc.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/05/2560838.htm
I still don’t understand. She is not a lobbyist. She needs to manage the politics of the issue in a way to implement the Government’s policy. Are you arguing she should just ignore political realities altogether?
Can’t see it happening any time soon. The bigger issue for the Greens in my opinion is working out what to do once Bob Brown exits the stage…
GG,
What can I say. It’s in The Age and on Landeryou’s site. Therefore, it must be true!
Oz,
You are saying the Greens have factions. Heaven forbid! I know it’s only a flesh wound, but it looks like a couple of limbs have been hacked off. But, you can denounce them as being the running dogs of the polluters or other such rubbish. Afterall, that’s what you usually do to anyone who disagrees with you.
Oz,
I agree that it would be good to have bigger targets and to lead the world. But this is my point, Australia is different to the UK, France, Italy and Germany. What’s conservative policy there will never be considered conservative here because we rely so much on emissions-intensive industry. The Greens have to understand this.
I concede I mentioned the German Greens as a model, but I was thinking more that historically they have been less radical regarding the environment. I don’t think you should look at the European’s experience in terms of reduction percentages but more in terms of how the policies will play out in their own electorate. If the German Greens stood up today and touted 95% reduction they would not get as many votes as they do now.
All I’m saying is that, likewise, the Australian Greens standing up and saying 40% means they will never attain a significant vote increase and I they backed the position of the more cautious environmental groups they would.
Greensborough Growler’s constant self-righteous indignation is one of the funniest things this site has to offer.
Socrates @ 64
Gillard is from Victoria.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25431654-12377,00.html
Gee thanks for the advice Malcolm.
The Greens policy is not based on what will simply get them the best votes. If The Greens capitulate on their policy, which they’ve had and maintained for longer than the major parties then why would anyone trust them? The fact that 25-40% is what we need to avoid dangerous climate change is not politically negotiable.
The Greens may get 10 senators (for example) if they weaken their policy but then I wouldn’t see the point in having those 10 senators.
The suggestion here has always been that the community doesn’t want anything stronger. This comes from some delusion that the electorate = Woodside. Both Labor and Liberal polling shows that this apparently is a still a very strong issue.
The discussion about whether The Greens should compromise their policies for further representation and then have a better chance getting their other policies in is a long and boring one.
There’s a large number of public suggestions to the New South Wales redistribution complaining that the ALP is proposing to abolish Riverina. The ALP is not; the Liberals are. I hope all those people find out they were wrong.
ltep
My point is that her first priority is NOT trying to implement the Government’s policy. She is more interested in point-scoring. If she wanted to implement Government policy, she would have spoken to Turnbull.
Oz,
Who’s being self righteous now?
But, at leat you’ve added sanctimony, hypocrisy and fundamental lack of political nous to the mix of your hysterical diatribes.
You da man!
Bob Brown getting the softest interview of his life on Channel 10.
JD 97
Thanks that was my error. It only underscores the point though doesn’t it – all of Labor’s best performers are coming from outside NSW at present, and away from the bitter factional politics that has ruined it. I don’t pretend there is no factionalism elsewhere, but at least the other states can bury it when they are working as a govt.
Alan Kohler thinks the new legislation has been designed for the specific purpose of creating a DD trigger.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Smoking-out-the-Coalition-pd20090505-RQS27?OpenDocument
I think Alan’s right and who would blame the government for doing that given the track record of the Senate since Rudd came to power.
Kohler may be right. One of the critics of the first draft is now happier. This is John Quiggan’s blog on it.
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/05/04/25-per-cent-by-2020/
He seems not so worried about the one year slip and much happier with the 25% upper limit. He has done a lot of analysis of this so that makes me somewhat happier too.
GB
Regardless of my other concerns, if Turnbull opposes this ETS then a DD would be justified. I think the government needs ot much more forecefully communicate the improvements over the first scheme though (25% instead of 15%; allowance for private action).
As for the Senate, it would be hard to have much sympathy for them.
I disagree with Alan. Changing the scheme’s timelines to be more palatable to the opposition is not the way you’d go if you wanted a trigger. And the recent experience in WA, NT and Qld state elections suggests that governments are at risk of being punished if they go earlier. Imagine the field day the MSM would have with it.
Socrates,
The killer quote from that Quiggin article:
“The scheme may not be perfect, but, on the face of it, the changes are sufficient for me to conclude that the Greens ought to be backing it, and seeking some further improvements, rather than holding out in the name of purity”.
Another splitter, Oz?
I agree with Kohler because if Rudd delays the ETS a year and the coalition still won’t vote for it then, basically they never will vote for an ETS. In that case some people might prefer Greens to Labor, but I can’t see anyone who cares about CC changing their vote back to the coalition. Hence Labor would get control of the Senate back, or at least only have to deal with the Greens and not Fielding as well. They better get used to Mr X because he won’t lose.
WA, NT and QLD had no reason to go early. None of them were first-time governments either.
Two very big differences.
GG
Yes that comment made me think too. It seems from the maths modelling that from a CC POV a years delay may be tollerable – the GFC has also slowed down the rate of growth in carbon emissions. The new 25% limit is far more acceptable too. I am coming around to accepting this compromise, much as I hate the buying off of heavy polluters with my tax dollars.
Yeah, Greensborough Growler, because everyone was with The Greens before (lol) and now that some have changed this means they should too. Another dose of hilarity.
The only way the ETS is going to pass after a DD is through a joint sitting. If the Libs won’t vote for this now then they won’t vote for it after the next election. The Greens won’t vote for this either now or after and Labor is not going to negotiate with The Greens.
Oz at 112 your points are true and very valid, but since when would truth intrude on a MSM anti-Rudd campaign??
Oz,
As always, the Monty Python crew have anticipated your predicament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
I don’t see how we can even get 25% by 2020 in the proposed framework if the biggest polluters only have a 4 year window where it actually costs them not to change.
I thought the EU example showed that if flood the market with permits the price crashes and you’re system fails. Well not only are we doing that (now with more flooding!) were doing it with cheaper permits! Just because the legislation says 25% by 2020 is no guarantee we’ll get there and this structure looks like a very dodgy way of going about it.
What utter waffle. Please name the last piece of legislation BY EITHER ALP OR LIBERAL which was written in close consultation with the opposition party prior to being read in Parliament. By your flunky reasoning, every minister who ever wrote a bill is as ‘bad’ as Wong. FMD.
This was a failure in the grandfathering provisions and it was due to the faulty benchmarking of past emission profiles and it applied to all laible entities. This is not even close to the same issue as Australia has with its free permits.
Remeber, alos that a 25% reduction is not a real reduction but a 25% reduction of Austrli’a contribution to global emissions. As the Kyoto mechanisms also allow, countries can buy their way into compliance.
You mean using the 1990 standard that didn’t make sense for Europe? But why would this have mattered given it was a Europe wide scheme?
Oz
I too was concerned about permits from an equity POV. However after the permits are gone (four years) the ETS really will bite. This scheme will effectively give all our brown coal stations four years to restructure/sell out and start another business, because they will not be viable in the market that will be in place headed for a -25% cap by 2020.
Socrates, the point I’m trying to make is whether or not it’s possible to restructure these industries in 4 years. Everyone here was saying it would be almost impossible over 10 years. I don’t think it’s impossible if we start now but I do think that if we wait then we aren’t going get 25% by 2020 even if that’s our stated cut.
Oz
I agree that it is important not to flood an ETS market with permits as the European fiasco shows. However I don’t think that will be the case here. The permits are time limited for the four years. They are effectively compensating existing heavy polluters to buy another line of business. Both the former and current governments have been doing fairly detailed tracking of actual CO2 emissions for several years now. We are in a good position to accurately assign permits here.
Dario
The GST and border protection were two that spring to mind immediately. Adam would know the details of more. Howard and Beasley would often meet about upcoming bills.
I predict in 4 years time we will get the coal industry crying to the government about how they can’t do anything and need an extension. The Opposition will scream about job losses etc. and the Government will cave in.
Oz
I don
‘t think we can restructure the whole industry in four or ten years. However you can bite off a chunk ata time. The first to go will be brown coal, which is much less cost competitive than black coal. So in the -25% regime, it won’t be economically possible for brown coal plants to remain viable, givne there is a national electricity grid and market for power supply. They will have to shut down. In the mean time other supplies will start building new supply sources, whether they be gas, wind, super heated gas/solar, geothermal (if it can be gotten to work) or nuclear if the policy changes can occurr. So we will see the start of a real change (for better) by 2020 – our brown coal plants (the worst per unit emitters) will be gone. I presume that is why Quiggan supports this.
LTEP
Then that is why we need a DD to ensure that the Greens hold the balance of power in the Senate, and not the Liberals or Fielding.
The real answer is to establish some of the new alternatives in areas like the La Trobe, so that they gain some jobs in return.
ltep
I predicted the same last night, esp if we get a target more than 5%.
Dario
I should add that Beasley didn’t often work with Howard on the bill but at least he was offered the chance.
Oz,
You are irritated today
It mattered because the benchmarks overestimated the businesses’ emission and reductions were done very easily. All the businesses sold their permits rather than acquit them and there was consequently an oversupply of permits.
In Australia’s case the free permits can be sold, which will reduce the cost of permits for others, but given that the free permits are not for all liable entities and they are confined to businesses which would unlikely be able to reduce emissions more cheaply than the price of a permit, this is not an issue. Further, the CPRS will be based on GHG data of actual emissions from the greenhouse reporting scheme rather than some dodgy benchmarking.
Border protection? Are you kidding me? That bill was thrown together and forced through the parliament in order to wedge Beasley for goodness sake… it was ALL about politics. You really are living in a dreamland.
Diogenes,
If you look carefully at yesterday’s changes, the promise of 5 years of certainty in relation to emission targets is also delayed by a year. Therefore, the real target that will be legislated, does not, in reality, need to be announced now until mid 2010.
5% and 25% are still negotiable.
There are not going to be massive job losses in the coal industry in four year’s time. The “coal industry” is mostly coal mining and not overly dependent on domestic consumption. It will take decades for other countries to switch off their coal power stations and replace them (even with a strong international cap system to push them along).
If you mean the local coal-powered electricity generating industry then that has got to be dreaming if it thinks it can create enough of a fuss to resist the pressures to gradually close down.
But I think the closing down will be painfully slow for most of us. One big problem is the that the grid needs to be carefully managed (as it has a need to balance input with output) and not suffer many big changes at once. This is especially true if there are increasing numbers of novel power sources being included. We don’t really know how many of them will work on a day to day basis.
This is why it is a pity that we look like having a much slower start to the ETS.
Dario
Howard got Beasley into his office and discussed it. Beasley considered supporting it with a few changes but decided not to in the end. It’s all in “Dark Victory”.
#96 OZ, GG is an Amigo, that is why he is “the funniest things”. You can also aspire to be an Amigo, like Diog, if you are willing to spend sometime under the Knowledge Tree to rectify your “sanctimony, hypocrisy and fundamental lack of political nous to the mix of your hysterical diatribes.”
Just close your eyes and I will transport you to the KT:
http://users.tpg.com.au/tjhpnq98//ktree2.jpg
I know what happened. The REASON why it happened is what I am talking about.
Apologies if your comments have been stuck in moderation. I’m back at the wheel now.
Dario
What can I say? You just asked for an example where it happened and I gave you one.
I have to agree that the REASON behind the Border Security offer was pure evil.
I’m glad Beasley said no.
I think the GST offer was more genuine.
William, thanks for releasing me from moderation.
Dear Bludgers, I’m sad to advise that Adam in Canberra is no more. He has asked me to fill in for him.
Except your reasoning was that Wong was playing politics by not consulting with the Opposition, and yet the Border Protection bill was a prime example of a Government playing politics! Your logic has more holes in it than Swiss cheese.
The GST I might agree with. That’s ONE.
Those of you starved for QT excitement can listen to Vic QT here, now.
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/hansard/live/
There will invariably be political considerations in both a decision to consult and not to consult. A decision to ‘consult’ the Opposition could be as political a move as a decision not to.
In the end, what would the Opposition have offered up if they’d been consulted? Probably not a whole lot, as they perceive they have more to gain by opposing the scheme outright than assisting the Government to implement one.
Wong is now officially consulting with Turnbull. I doubt much will come of this but it will make Turnbull clarify his position.
Wong: I also yesterday wrote to Mr Turnbull inviting him to have discussions with the Government in relation to passage of the legislation and I welcome Mr Turnbull’s change of heart and his indicated response in which he indicates a willingness to have a dialogue with the Government. We are willing to have a discussion with Mr Turnbull.
But I would say this: if Mr Turnbull is going to walk into a room seeking to negotiate with the Government about the passage of this legislation, if Mr Turnbull is going to walk into the room wanting to have a discussion about climate change, he’s going to have to walk in with a position. He’s going to have to walk in with a position. So before he walks into that room it seems that he’s going to have to take this issue to his party room. Because it’s quite clear from the comments over the last 24 hours that the Coalition remained hopelessly divided, hopelessly divided on this issue which has such importance for the nation. And it’s time for Mr Turnbull to show leadership, to not take a weak position of sending it off to another discussion in the Productivity Commission, but having the strength to stand up to the sceptics in his own party room.
And I just remind people of some the differences in opinion that have been expressed from the Coalition in the last 24 hours. Mr Robb said: “We will not let this thing go through”. Mr Hunt said: “We will negotiate in good faith”. And Mr Bernardi said – Senator Bernardi said: “The Coalition’s position is that we will be opposing”. So, who is speaking for the Liberal Party? We’re willing to discuss this issue with Mr Turnbull, as with all other parties in the Senate. But if Mr Turnbull is going to have a negotiation, he’s going to have to have a position.
What? No more Herr Doktor. Life will never be the same again.
And who is this Psephos? bring back Herr Doktor!!
I believe that under the royal seal of Icarus lies the good doctor himself
Psephos
Very good move by Wong.
But isn’t your gravatar a ‘psi’ rather than a ‘pseph’?
Psephos began with a psi when I studied Greek.
Herr Zobra?
I reckon its time to revisit an article which puts Penny Wong’s role and the problems she faces into perspective.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23781070-5013404,00.html
“Penny Wong in clash with carbon emitters……One of these meetings in Melbourne last Tuesday completely broke down, with Senator Wong reportedly furious at the way she was being treated by the eight business leaders present …. International Power …., Alumina Limited ………Exxon Mobil, CSR and BHP Billiton. ”
There is more, its worth a read.
As a side note I wonder what the executive salaries of the 8 men present would be worth? Somewhere in the vicinity of $50 plus million a year?
Dhen gnorizo “Zobra”.
Psephos
I’ll take your word for it. Your symbol is used as medical shorthand for “psychiatric”…
That’s because “psyche” (mind or spirit) also starts with a psi.
I agree with the Greens that the proposed pledge fund for individual action
is nothing to get excited about as a step forward in the CPRS revision,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/05/2561307.htm?section=justin
(It was my understanding that the ability for individuals to make big contributions
by sitting on permits was there all along)
However, Milne seems to be now raising some new criticism that the scheme does not encourage energy efficiency.
Ha Ha this IS a good one :
Turnbull soft on boat people: Bishop
Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has gone soft on the asylum seeker issue, according to Liberal backbencher Bronwyn Bishop.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/turnbull-soft-on-boat-people-bishop-20090505-atkr.html
Onya Bronnie
Ahh, I remember when we all waited with itchy trigger fingers to post about RBA interest rate announcements
Oz 108,
Kevin and Julia are very, very smart; this author is well onto something here
Yes, the Italian job continues:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/an-everyday-italian-soap-the-bold-and-the-berlusconis-20090505-atgt.html
What a boring PM Kevin Rudd is and Who needs “Home and Away” when you can have La Dolce Vita. Arriverdeci Veronica.
Re 115,
you are probably right on all of these. that having been said, I can see the logic on going early for QLD and WA. Not having a “valid” reason to go early but yet understanding why they did so. QLD; suspect Bligh wanted it out of the way before the economy could get worse and Carpenter chucking all of his chips onto the table in 2-up with what should have been a winning hand (in his mind, mine and most others) but the other side changed players too late for him to do anything about it …..
http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/hansard/live/
Vic budget speech now on
The Vic Treasurer, John Lenders, is in the upper house. They pass a resolution admitting him to the Assembly chamber to deliver the budget speech. I didn’t realise that was possible.
I think to be fair and accurate you need to compare apples with apples. Compare DD’s with past DD’s not state and territory elections.
Sky News are taking the Vic budget live. They are just waiting for Lenders to speak.
How early can Rudd go without a DD?
Vic budget speech is also live on Skynooooos now
Senators terms expire 30 June 2011. A half-Senate election can be held from 1 July 2010.
Lenders says Vic will not have a single quarter of negative growth. Heroic!
Swannie’s live: “The temporary deficits will be for longer period”. Oh dear, how many generations to pay off? My great great great great great children?
My great great great great great children? = My great great great great grand children?
Ti egine o Adam?
I hope my daughters schoolis in the refurb/upgrade
O Adam einai en to rehab.
Don’t worry Finnigans, Howard and Costello paid off a whole bunch of debt and it didn’t even touch the sides. In fact we got tax cuts as well. Paying off debt is not tha much of a drama – many of us doi it everyday in our mortgages.
Don’t forget that that debt is providing much need infrastructure that will benefit your grandchildren and beyond.
and Kit the nation will end up with a stack of infrastructure that will help the nation for generations.
Great minds GB ….
Snap Dave.
Many of us live in debt for much of our lives. Some live in debt all their lives. The secret is keeping it manageable.
The real question is why these projects were not completed when we had the cash to do so.
We know the answer here but why arn’t the msm doing their job and asking such questions ?
giati palavose i pini poli?
where do we find which schools get the money?
oh oh, there has been an alien invasion and all the poll bludgers have been taken over by lazy liberal creatures so they are not blogging anymore
centaur009
We’re all conserving CO2 so Australia can meet Rudd’s 5% ETS cut without anyone losing their job. It’s our best chance now.
hmm good point Diog. Well I’ve decided to photosynthesize to offset my CO2 emissions
I think we should all do the same. It’s our last hope!
The Libs sent Kevin Andrews who looked and sounded like an undertaker to try to sell Workchoice. The rest is history.
Now they send Andrew Robb who is an undertaker to try to sell their something. The rest will be history.
When will they ever learn.
You can be certain of one thing, if Rudd is given the DD trigger he will use it whenever the next election is held.
How do the greenies explain the green organisations support for the latest proposed ETS?
Badly…
He can’t have a DD within six months of the date the term of the Reps would expire, which is on 11 February 2011. So the “window” for a DD closes on 11 August 2010.
yes fumbling bumbling robb should do the trick
My Gravatar has gone walkabout
191 – Fair enough. I wasn’t aware of that I must admit.
Turnbull is quoted as follows in nearly every ABC report on ETS today:
“When we say this is flawed, these are not little details. These are huge omissions and failures in the scheme”.
Does anyone ever ask him what, in his opinion, the flaws are?
Psehos, you having an identity crisis? What happened to AiC?
Your brain uses a lot of energy in thinking, and that causes your body to produce more CO2. Thus it is better for the earth for us to be mindlessly posting comments on pollbludger rather thinking about anything.
So Saturday 7 Aug 2010 is the last possible date for a DD? Or must it only be called before 11/7/10?
I gather he still thinks it’s too hard on big polluters…
JOURNALIST: You’re also loading the gun, aren’t you, for a double dissolution election in the Senate – knocks it back twice and you can’t get your bill through – you can then go to the Governor-General and say we need this legislation, let’s have an election on it.
WONG: Well the person who has his finger on the trigger on that is Mr Turnbull. And let’s remember Mr Turnbull took leadership off Mr Nelson by campaigning on climate change and now he’s in the top job he’s converted to the biggest sceptic of all because he wants to save his job and that’s a surprisingly weak position for Malcolm Turnbull to take. He’s refusing to take on the sceptics in his own party room because he’s worried about his leadership position. Our view is that climate change is too important an issue to play those sorts of political games with.
scroll up, Grog
Hockey speaks:
But that isn’t $80b all in one year is it??
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/05/2561544.htm
The green movement has always had a weak critique of capitalism, and in particular neoliberalism. As market economics became the dominant paradigm of social policy, this weakness has meant that the green movement has found it difficult to critique policies that rely on market forces to meet social (or environmental in this case) goals.
Yea I saw that pseh, just wondering whither AiC and why.
191,
I’ll mark this on my calendar as a red letter date, thanks for the info
Thanks for the Q&A transcript, Psephos.
I particularly like this:
The Opposition is clearly playing games in the Senate and only a double dissolution election will end them.
I see that earlier you highlight that the latest the government could call an early election is August next year, and iterate my earlier comment that to wait until after Copenhagen would be irresponsible.
Regardless of whether or not the government needs to go to Denmark with legislation in hand, if this legislation fails then certainly the government will go to Denmark unable to make any commitments and purport to be able to enact them. The evidence of this Bill will show that the government’s hands have been tied by the Greens and Coalition.
If Australia is to have any negotiating credibility whatsoever, assuming that the Opposition continues to obstruct the legislation, there must be an election this year. The Bill should be fast-tracked in order to allow Australia to pass its verdict on Green lunacy and Opposition obstruction.
As a hypothetical, just imagine we don’t have the legislation in place in time for Copenhagen. At Copenhagen, there will be some sort of agreement anywhere between 5% and 25% for developed countries most probably 10% or 15% by 2020.
Can you imagine Rudd and Wong coming back and trying to get Turnbull or Fielding (plus Green/X) to pass an ETS with a 15% target? Absolutely no hope. They are bleating about the lowest of all lowbar targets of 5% at the moment. They will meltdown at 15%.
This has to pass before Copenhagen. (Even if it’s a dud)
Off topic but a tip for saving money in these tough times, hope that’s Ok william
not bad aye bludgers?
I used a shopper docket from Coles to have my car seviced at the local Toyota dealer where I usually go anyway and it cost $129 whereas if I’d paid the normal cost for a 60k service it would have been $245. So I saved myself $116
Bule, are you OK?
Just warming up, The Finnigans, for a fiery September/October election.
6 years to return to surplus.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/deficit-shock-its-6-years-20090505-atrp.html
Can’t wait.
Indeed, Oz, what a welcome opportunity to focus on the common enemy!
No 211
I’ll believe that when I see it.
No 210
An opposition slaughter would be excellent I think. Time for renewal.
The talk of the government going down this path to produce a DD completely blows the idea that they really wanted to take stronger action all along out of the water.
If they’re willing to go to a DD over it then why wouldn’t they propose a stronger ETS, which would be blocked, and then pass it after the election.
No 216
The action you want Oz will destroy our economy.
Oz, perhaps the Government isn’t too concerned to have a ’stronger’ ETS. Perhaps they want what they’re proposing?
If the Greens want something stronger then they can try and win government and implement it.
217
We’ve been through this. All the modelling demonstrates the opposite of what you’re saying so hush and play with your toy trucks.
DUH, this is precisely my point.
However, everytime I raise it, the Labor diehards attempt to convince me that Labor really does want to do more but it’s the Senate’s fault they can’t.
No worries GP, the next election is not too far away
No 219
Tell me where a million “green” jobs will be created? It can’t be done.
No 221
I’m completely fed up with Turnbull at the moment.
Oz #216
This is a complete misreading of tactics and of a likely electorate response to such tactics. To have pursued the course you propose would have enabled the Opposition to argue that they would not have obstructed moderate legislation, but that the Government was more interested in playing politics to gain a double dissolution trigger. As it is, the Government can effectively, and rightly, highlight that no matter what the compromise the Opposition would obstruct it.
Alternatively, the Opposition can do the right thing and jump on board. They just better have their replacement for Turnbull ready if they do.
GP when the ALP primary can fall 5% but Turnbull’s satisfaction doesn’t move you know he ain’t ever going to lead them to victory.
GP, what makes you think an opposition slaughter will help? They have learnt nothing from Howard being thrown out, including in his own seat
And re: the budget- very very smart of the govt to do further projections to show the recovery from recession and deficit
Ok Oz, you’ve ‘proven’ that the Government wants what it is proposing (mindblowing I know)… now what? What’s your point?
I agree. I understand Oz’s frustration; yesterday’s announcmeent was all about politics: Lenore Taylor shows how it was worked out:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25430246-30538,00.html
No 226
It will help by erasing the dead wood.
GP surely the opposition should slaughter themselves first? I’m sure you were in full agreement with the names on the dead wood list?
I heard Robb on RN this morning. His position is quite blunt. No ETS of any description unless there is an international agreement. He actually used the fatal phrase “wait and see,” despite the damage it did Bishop in relation to the GFC. He’s a powerful figure in the Liberal Party. I can’t see Turnbull persuading the current Shadow Cabinet to support Rudd’s CPRS. The Liberals are the party of “wait and see,” and they will wear that into the next election campaign.
Most of the dead wood have safe seats, as is the nature of dead wood in all parties. If the Libs have a heavy defeat the casualties won’t be Tuckey, Bronwyn Bishop and Ruddock. It will be Dutton, Keenan, Pyne and maybe Turnbull himself.
No 231
Psephos, the Government’s own approach is not that different. It only guarantees 5%, with higher targets only invoked in the case of a strong global agreement.
My peeve is that Turnbull automatically opposed what was a considerable concession by the Government. The business groups support it, so I really can’t see the point in Turnbull’s opposition.
So you STILL believe that Labor really does want more but is scared of the Liberals response? What a joke.
The sheer number of political games that are being played on this issue by Labor and Liberal for their own gain is making my head spin.
I’m going with Kohler. Labor wants a DD, it knew that the Coalition was a complete shambles on the issue and wouldn’t vote for anything and that The Greens wouldn’t support a browning down, so they did exactly that and it’s most likely going to work out for them. Labor supporters wetting themselves with excitement.
*checks underpants* Ewwww
The Leader of the Republican Party, Joe the Plumber, shows why he deserved everything he copped from the Dems during the election.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/04/joe-the-plumber-queer-mea_n_196116.html
Agreed – he should have quickly assumed the role of co-author of the plan and made it sound like the Govt had finally come round to the opposition’s way of thinking. By opposing it straight out, he is once again left in a dumb political positions.
But then it doesn’t help when Truss came out even before Turnbull and said the ETS should be scraped.
Great team work.
Gee, that’s big of him.
More from Joe:
well he inspires many to want to vomit, so I guess that’s mission accomplished then.
Oz
Looks like Clive Hamilton agrees with you.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/05/clive-hamilton-its-a-long-way-from-bali-to-copenhagen/
One issue touched on earlier today was a half Senate election only in the second half of 09. Given that it is the Libs that would lose out from a half election this time around, because they will be giving up a number of their Senators from the landslide in 2004. According to Adam’s analysis earlier, Labor can pick up 3-5 seats from the Libs and FF. The Greens will probably have the balance of power. However a cocktail of Nats, Mr X and disaffected Libs may also be able to do the balancing act as well.
The new Senators won’t sit until July 10. Which would make the interim buggery. However, given that the HOR does not have to go to an election before Feb 2011 then there could be a period of Labor ascendancy.
Any thoughts anyone?
Oz
Certainly I believe that many people in Labor would like to achieve more, and hope to do so over the course of future governments.
My point is simply that if Labor is to make the case that an early election is warranted because of Opposition obstruction and Green economic lunacy on this issue, it is the electorate, not the Greens or the Opposition, that the government must convince of this necessity. By giving the Opposition an opportunity to hang themselves, an opportunity grasped with gusto by Turnbull, they have added yet further evidence that a clear indication of support for the Government from the electorate is required.
Absolute crap. Two words – Meg Lees and we know what that did for her and her party.
Oz
You can’t continue to claim that Labor is proposing what it really wants in terms of 2020 targets. Does it really want 5-15% targets or does it really want 25% targets for Australia? The government has to take some account of what is best in terms of short term politics in order to get us closer to the long term goals.
Constitution 101
Half Senate election can only occur in the year preceding the expiry of a half-Senate term. The next half-Senate expiry is the 30th of June 2011. No half-Senate election before the 30th of June 2010.
Bernard Keane is quite upset. Don’t know when he’s been this fired up.
Some choice examples -
Article worth reading.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/05/rudds-ets-backflip-is-all-about-controlling-the-debate/
Bule, i think i need a Bex and a good lie down. are we on the same side now?
GG you misread my earlier post. There can’t be a half-Senate before July 2010 (two thousand TEN), and the new Senators won’t take their seats until July 2011 (ELEVEN). The only election options Rudd has this year are (a) a Reps only election, which he can hold any time he likes, and (b) a DD, which he can only do with he has a trigger.
Just to repeat a question I asked earlier – How do the greenies explain the green organisations support for the latest proposed ETS?
Just to repeat a question I asked earlier – How do the greenies explain the green organisations support for the latest proposed ETS?
Psephos and anyone else that might know,
I seem to remember that Whitlam’s intended advice to Kerr on Nov 11, 1975 was that a half Senate election be called. However, he was not given the opprtunity to present this option before he was sacked.
Given that the DD was in May 1974, how come this option is closed off to Rudd?
No 243
Rubbish. The concessions by Howard-Costello were nowhere near as generous as those proferred by Rudd. The GST got through relatively unscathed whereas the CPRS is but a shadow of its former self.
Whilst Turnbull has hardly been a bastion of principle, policy and consistency in all of this, it would seem that Rudd’s palpable arrogance in refusing to negotiate with its political opponents is leading him astray.
I would have thought that 6 years to pay off a big debt is not really a long time.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/deficit-shock-its-6-years-20090505-atrp.html
Bullshit. GST was just replacing a poor Wholesale Sales Tax with a more efficient sales tax. Give out some income tax cuts and bingo bango.
The GST was just about broadening the tax base and getting rid of the dumb WST.
It hardly changed the country in any way.
The Finnegans, I fear I may have put a spanner in the works when I mentioned ‘Green economic lunacy’.
Support seems to be going to the Greens. The economy has not really changed in the last couple of weeks. What has changed is what is happening on the climate front.
You haven’t heard the latest news have you? Penny offered Malcolm the olive branch as long as he makes his position/policy clear before hand.
Constitution 101
May 74 DD = Senate terms starting 1st July 73
1st July 73 + 3 years is 1st July 76
11th November is less than a year before 1st July 76
Bule, i might need to apologize. I think i have mixed you up with Bree.
Malcolm’s problem is that he probably supports the legislation personally but won’t be able to carry his party with him. He’s completely snookered.
No 254
Not according to Rudd, who labelled 30 June 1999, the day on which the GST legislation was passed, “fundamental injustice day”. He went further: “It will be recorded as the day when the social compact that has governed this nation for the last 100 years was torn up.”
GG, if I understand your question correctly, when a DD is held the start of the Senate term is backdated to the previous mid-year point. In the case of May 1974, this meant going all the way back to mid-1973, which meant the next half-Senate election had to be held by mid-1976 at a time no earlier than mid-1975. So even without the 1975 crisis, a half-Senate election was looming. The cycle we are in at the moment has the next half-Senate term expiring in mid-2011, so no election can be held before mid-2010. In 2007, Howard had to wait until mid-year before he call the election for the Senators whose terms expired in mid-2008.
People (eg Keane) just don’t seem to get it with solar panels etc.
If your aim is to reduce the world’s GHG pollution with a certain amount of dosh, then buying a solar panel for your roof is almost certainly not the way to go.
Instead the most efficient use of your funds in terms of the main aim, is probably some complex combination of contributing towards paying power generators to switch to use wind, paying for a few trees to be grown, paying for an industry to change their production process to be a bit greener etc.
It would be hard to work out exactly what to do now.
Fortunately, under an ETS this is all worked out for you. You just buy as many permits as you can afford and sit on them. The effect will be pretty much exactly the best way of getting GHG’s out of the air for your investment.
As I’ve said invest $100 per year in that way and you will take out roughly 4 tonnes
which is as much as a $10000 solar panel will do.
I haven’t been around here long, but from what I’ve seen and understand this would appear to be one of the greatest insults to be hurled on PB.
I await your compensation offer.
GP – Howard once said the GST was dead. Your point is?
Re 234,
The date quoted earlier today of August 11, 2010 as the NLT for a DD election is actually mid-week. Find following the URL to a countdown clock for the previous Saturday at midnight
……
http://countdown.onlineclock.net/
Same here.
The government will keep issuing free permits regardless of how many individuals buy, at least until 2016.
6 years is not when the debt is being paid off but when we return to surplus.
It was going to take Germany 50 years, from memory, to pay for World War I. They got out of this debt by starting World War II and deliberately losing it so everyone wold feel sorry for them.
Much more interesting discussion about voluntary actions etc. at LP.
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2009/05/05/carbon-trust-has-the-government-earned-it/
I hardly think recognising voluntary action is the be all and end all of the ETS, even though I think it’s something that should be in there.
There was talk it would be 20 years. Six years is still not that long. I bet you can remember 2003 fairly clearly still, I can.
I’m not criticising the 6 year figure, just clarifying.
Well he was wrong. I was in favour of the GST back when Hewson tried it – I did an essay on Fightback for 2nd year politics. Went into it prepared to tear it to shreds, came out thinking a GST was pretty sensible.
My one disappointment with the GST is that Hawke blocked PJK from bringing it in back in the 80s.
Oz
It depends on how many free permits are allowed. If it is a limited/fixed
number then individual wasting of permits still has the claimed effect.
Have you got a link to where the details are spelled out?
Bule, OK. A song for you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ywg-PdeGVL0
And as a bonus, a trip to the Knowledge Tree of Macchu Picchu. It will do good for your sanity, just ask Diog:
http://users.tpg.com.au/tjhpnq98//ktree2.jpg
No 269
Yes, which is of course, something Swan neglected to mention.
The Fins
I guess living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see…
No 265
My point was that the assertion that the GST did hardly anything is clearly refuted by Rudd’s own statements.
No 270
I’m not whose sympathy they were soliciting when they exterminated 6 million Jews.
I’m not whose = I’m not sure whose
Grog, that should be Turnbull’s theme song for the moment.
279 no it doesn’t – Rudd was wrong. So was the ALP.
What are your claims of the greateness of the GST other than it broadened the tax base?
It just replaced an inefficient sales tax with a (somewhat) more efficient one.
If Howard really had the balls he would have defied the Democrats and kept food in.
He caved because he needed the numbers to get it through the senate; just as Rudd is doing with delaying the ETS.
Psephos AKA Adam in Canberra, did I just see you on the SBS news? Your Lookin’ Alright.
280 it was a joke, Joyce.
Herr Something, should we start a war with New Zealand then and lose. In fact, we can start this Friday by losing the Rugby League Test with NZ, again.
GP,
Living in the past still I see. Howard’s gone and he isn’t coming back. The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.
So just how likely is a DD now? 45%?
I just think the coalition are very dumb to oppose the ETS. It couldn’t get much weaker and by opposing it they’ll get obliterated at a DD. At that point the legislation will be passed anyway at the joint sitting. Gosh!
We tried that strategy at the World Cup, and look where it’s got us…!
I doubt you saw me on the SBS news. What was “I” doing? Conducting a war in Africa?
Who pays any attention to rubgy? Not me.
In ‘The Mouse that Rored” starring Woody Alen (I think) a tiny European principality very similar to Andora declaires war on the USA so they can get post-war financial recovery help. However they end up actually stealing a nuke from the US, and blackmail the US. They win the war but still get some $.
After watching the Crows pahtetic performance against Port last weekend, I’m looking for another sport
Try Peter Sellers. One of his best films, he plays all the characters.
Anyone here speak Spanish?
THM,
Peter Sellers.
Adam, my mistake. If you watch the replay see if you can spot who i mistook you for.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/adidas-net-profit-sinks-97-in-first-quarter-20090505-atv0.html
That profit is only 0.19% of the total revenue. It’s not good. So we really should, for Adidas’ sake:
“keep on running……”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAdottB7UU8
Woops Peter Sellers. Well I shore am having some problems identifying people today.
How’s this for a tasteful piece of advertising from one of Rupert’s subsidiaries?
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/buy-one-get-two-free/
No 293
Perhaps something more manly: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dBhcFcPB-Q
It might be neccesary for the Libs to change their line on debt repayment. Maybe they could try “your children’s hamster’s children’s children will not see the debt paid off”
err I’m sure you all know how to spell it and it’s not necessary for me to correct it
296, I’m sure you mistook me for some farsighted world statesperson, yes?
Nah GP prefer this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhfuA2c88BY&feature=related
Could never become a league fan – lived for 11 years in QLD and still couldn’t give a damn about the state of origin.
HAHA Xenophon.
“The government has made a dud deal and the banks are laughing all the way to… themselves”.
Okay DD senate prediction time:
NSW:
ALP 5
Coal 5-6
Gre 2-1
OTH 0-1 (getting lucky from preference harvesting)
VIC
ALP 5
Coal 5-6
Gre 1-2
OTH 0-1 (getting lucky from preference harvesting)
QLD
ALP 5
Coal 5-6
Gre 1
OTH 0-1 (getting lucky from preference harvesting, either redneck or happy-clappy)
WA
ALP 5
Coal 6 (plausibly including a NAT)
Gre 1 (less than they have right now)
SA is a tricky one. Too many players and unknowns
ALP 5
Coal 4-5
Gre 0-1
OTH 1-3
TAS
ALP 5
Coal 4-5
Gre 2-3
ACT
ALP 1-2
Coal 1-0
Gre 0-1
NT
ALP 1
COAL 1
Very Vague but anything can happen. Overall my guess at this stage is:
ALP 32
COAL 34
GRE 8
OTH 2
How does the coalition work out where the Nationals are on the joint ticket during a DD? If they get a raw deal could they be down to just 3? 2 in QLD and 1 in NSW? plus the 1 CLP. Would the NATS have a safe spot in VIC?
Gary
If the Greens support this ETS, the same thing will happen to them that happened to the Democrats when Lees supported the GST. They will become irrelevant sell-outs.
We don’t need more of them. We’ve got a Liberal Party that is irrelevant and a Labor Party that has sold-out.
Diogs,
What is more irrelevant than a political party that is not interested in politics?
The United Nations?
It;s not the same analogy Dio.
The Democrats supporters did not want a GST at all – Lees gave them one.
The Greens supporters want an ETS – sure they want a better one, but supporting this ETS is not going totally against what their voters wanted.
They need to get in their and make their position count.
Though to be honest, I think the ALP isn’t too worried about what the Greens do on this.
Grog,
Yeah, it would really confound the whole political landscape if the Greens were to show some responsibilty and do something sensible.
The important part is quite similar because if The Greens simply shelve the policy they took the election and have been vocally promoting the electorate can rightly say “So why the hell should we vote for you?”.
Because whatever Rudd says is by definition sensible.
Yes, welcome to minor party politics, indeed, major party politics for that matter.
What Grog actually suggested was compromise, not shelving altogether.
What would happen if the Greens actually held the balance of power? Does this rationale mean that on any election policy they might have a government would have to essentially adopt Greens policy in order to legislate in that field?
GP @ 252:
Malcolm Turnbull is NOT the co-Prime Minister of Australia. The sooner he, the Libs and their supporters realise this, the better.
Rudd may have said we’re in a “war economy”. But I remind youse all that when we were in a real war economy – 1941 onwards – Curtin steadfastly refused Menzies’ generous offer of a de facto co-Prime Ministership.And rightly so.
There is only one person in charge: that’s the PM, not the Opposition Leader.
Oz,
The Greens have consigned themselves to the outskirts of political discourse with their bizarre tactics. They keep themselves busy like Don Quixote tilting at windmills convinced they are winning.
Meanwhile the adults are at the sharp edge of the current debate, looking to achieve an outcome acceptable to most sentient Australians.
Have you been following federal politics for the last year? The government has passed a number of key legislation thanks to The Greens and independents. There’s other legislation The Greens and Labor have worked on but been blocked by the independents and Coalition.
The ETS is not “any election policy” for either The Greens or Labor, a point I’ve made several times.
I thought that was a pretty negative story on the banks on the 7.30 Report. 8 banks in the world with a AA rating are our big 4 are part of that group. If Mr. X was Grand Ayotola, who thinks he knows everything about finance (and pokies for that matter), people could have been in a position to lose their life savings. Or would Mr X be OK with that?
Yep, The Greens think Federal Parliament is like a Socialist Alliance/Greens Branch meeting.
I still find it funny that Greensborough Growler says The Greens are irrelevant ferals but takes every opportunity to fire up and cut them down nonetheless.
Oz,
A man’s got to have a hobby!
GG
Actually a Party that ceased to exist because it deserted it’s supporter base would be more irrelevant.
Grog
Greens supporters don’t necessarily want a ETS, they want effective action on Climate Change. If it was a tax or RE investment or anything that worked, they would go for it. In the end, the main thing that matters is how much we reduce our emissions by.
The Greens supporters want a policy that will ensure we play our part in preventing runaway climate change. the difference between no ETS and an ETS that won’t make any difference is very minimal indeed. I support the Greens more than any other parliamentary political party and can tell you i’d become disallusioned if they sold out on this.
How do supporters of the ETS live with the fact that if similar sentiment is taken globally then irreversable climate change will occur? This will obviously bugger up your precious economy.
A political party with no principles and is only interested in power. No point getting the votes if you’ve lost any reason for existence.
Hypothetical DD Senate outcome
If we take the quotas achieved in 2007 and double them, we get:
NSW
ALP 5.89 6
LNP 5.51 5
Green 1.18 1
Vic
ALP 5.84 6
LNP 5.51 5
Green 1.41 1
Qld
ALP 5.49 5
LNP 5.66 6
Grn 1.02 1
WA
ALP 5.04 5
LNP 6.68 6
Green 1.30 1
SA
ALP 4.99 5
LNP 4.98 5
Green 0.91 -
Xeno 2.07 2
Tas
ALP 5.61 5
LNP 5.23 5
Green 2.54 2
I’d be fairly confident about most of those, except that I think Qld could go 6 ALP / 5 LNP if Rudd’s home-state advantage continues, and I’m dubious about Xenophon getting two quotas in SA – I think the Greens would sneak the last seat. If I’m right about those two things, we would get
ALP 34
LNP 34
Grn 7
Xen 1
Ta Bule.
If the Greens can’t seel this to their supporters that they are doing the damndest to get the best possible Bill past then they might as well go the way of ther Democrats.
Do you really think people voted for the Greens so they would vote against an ETS?
If they vote against this, people will be wondering what the hell they voted for them in the first place.
Though luckily for Brown and Co, Xenaphon and Fielding have made them redundent on this issue.
I’ll take that.
There is absolute bucklies of a DD on the ETS. The government has got better things to do than to strategically align itself for a DD.
If the Greens reject this CPRS, as far as I’m concerned, they have lost all credibility and have shown themselves to be completely economically irresponsible and are irrelevant.
An ETS that won’t make any difference… to what?
You could argue any Australian ETS won’t make any difference.
For mine, the tough part is to get the fricken ball rolling.
FFIW, I think eventually the Greens and Xenophon will hold their noses and vote for Rudd’s CPRS. The Coalition will oppose it, because the denialist right have Turnbull’s goolies in a vise, and it will all come down to Fielding. His instincts are against it (I think privately he’s a denialist like most fundies), but he’s basically a weaky and I don’t think he’ll dare oppose it. In a way I hope he does, because I’d like a DD, but I think eventually, after Rudd has given him a few bribes for his precious families, he’ll cave.
Psephos
Mr X would definitely get two quotas in a DD because his personal votes would flow on to his partner. He almost got two in the last election, let alone in a DD.
Diogenes,
As a doctor, you sometimes make a good goldfish.
Go back and read the earlier posts (some of which you posted) about the move by Green supporting groups like WWF to support this modified version of the ETS.
So which group are the purer than pure political leadership now representing?
Themselves?
Adam (as ive decided to keep calling you)
I havent closely scrutinized your maths but you do realise that the quota doesnt exactly halve at a DD?
normal election 1 quota is: 14.286%
DD election 1 quota is: 7.692% and 2 quotas is 15.385%
Did you take that into account?
They voted for them because they want strong cuts, not a messy scheme that is, amongst other things, a proxy for transferring wealth from individuals and small business to big polluters. The Greens have long called for an adherence to the principle of “polluter pays”. This scheme says “Little polluters pay, big ones don’t”. There’s plenty reason to not vote for it.
A really big reason is that passing a scheme removes the political impetus to act on climate change. You say that it’s better to “get the ball rolling”. This is based on the assumption we’ve covered many times that Labor wants to, at some stage, strengthen their scheme. A lot of people now believe that that is not the case. So instead of letting Labor get away with a Howard-esque capitulation to industry they’re saying “No thanks, let’s start again”.
The Greens never represented WWF or ACF. I tried to point this out yesterday. To no avail, apparently.
THM,
If Psephos wants to be called Psephos then it would be courteous of you to call him, her or them by their chosen moniker.
There was passing reference to this earlier, but I was gobsmacked to see Gerard Henderson in today’s SMH heaping praise on Rudd, with his article “A prudent approach on China”.
And his stinger at the end, more in sorrow than in anger, essentially saying he was disappointed in Malcolm Turnbull.
I will read Henderson with more interest in future, now that he has shown the ability to praise someone from the left, and heap opprobrium on the right, based purely on the evidence.
Rudd and Fitzgibbon’s white paper could easily have come from the rodent, apart from the dismissal of the long term effectiveness of the US.
Well that’s a nice in theory. Problem is if the Greens block it, then we won’t get anything till after the next eleciton. So 2011 will be the earliest either way. And what result from the election would make the ALP believe the public wants a stronger ETS?
If the ALP gets re-elected, it’ll take it as vindication, and put up the same Bill again. If the LNP wins they’ll take that as menaing no ETS forever.
That doesn’t follow. Harradine polled nearly 2 quotas at the 1983 and 1987 DDs but his preferences drifted and he couldn’t get his No 2 elected.
No, Heysen, I didn’t bother with that, but I doubt it would make much difference. Feel free to redo the sums.
GG:
I agree, but please, Psephos, can you find a less jolting colour than red for your gravatar?
It really grates.
Australia has been able to withstand the effects of the GFC just about better than any other economy in the world. Why is that? Because of the benefits to our mining coys from the resources boom and the strength of our finance sector. If the Greens were in govt instead, we would be spending each day wandering around the parks smoking dope by now .
Adam says
I think Mr X could get 2 but on the figures you’ve shown all four are in the ballpark of a quota. It could be ALP 5, LIB 4, Mr X 2, Gre 1 or another possibility would be ALP 4, LIB 5, Mr X 2, Gre 1 (but I doubt it). Its just too close. Mr X’s other No Pokies people have been a bit of a disapointment in the SA parliament. Maybe some people will vote for someone else or just for him below the line rather than risk a repeat.
#339
“lilacwombat” just doesn’t do it for me
And causing more Greenhouse Gas Emissions from eating a diet of Lentils
GG
That argument is as dumb as saying Labor has to do what every union says and that all the unions have to agree with Labor and each other or there is a fundamental problem.
That Climate Institute group looked a bit wacky. They had a “faith” section which said this;
This psi has a less “grating background”
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Psi2.png
The supporters of Mr X could also get complacent. “Oh, with a lower quota, he’ll get elected whether I vote for him or not, so i’d just be helping his running mate. I don’t really know what a quota is but I think TodayTonight said it would allow in Commies. I’d better just vote ALP/Liberal”
I don’t mind what you call me.
I like my psi, thanks all the same.
That’s alright Frank @ 343. I’m sure they could find a way to make further cuts to say 70% in emmisions to compensate. The fact that it would be making no difference whatsoever to the planet because other countries are not making anywhere near the same cuts – is irrelevant.
No worries pseph.
The only prob I have with your new name is I know I’m going to constantly misspell it.
(case in point – I originally wrote “no worries pesph”)
GG
The Climate Institute is affiliated with this group “Australian Religious Response to Climate Change”, which has lots of good stuff on CC from a religious POV. Perhaps they could invite Rudd along for a meeting. The moral and ethical side of CC doesn’t get much of a run.
http://www.arrcc.org.au/
Actually I would like to bet that there is no way the major polluters are going to agree in Copenhagen to cuts in emissions of more than 15%.
So the Greens should have supported Rudd’s initial CPRS. They already would have saved a year from delay LOL.
Well yes, the ALP is the government and The Greens are a minor party. The ball has always been in the ALP’s park. If they wanted they could’ve have strengthened the scheme and combined with The Greens if Xenophon and/or Fielding blocked it they could have sought a fresh mandate via a DD. This is what I wanted to happen. But I lack political nous and stuff.
The effect of the decisions for these type of people have never been the point, how they looks and act is the important thing. They need to maintain the charade of acting like the expert on all things, even at the expense of the lives of others.
While sympathetic to the Greens, I’ve gotta say, they should support this ETS because it’s the best offer they will ever get, from either major party. Idealism meets economic crisis meets the politically-achievable.
It’s slightly more dumb because whilst the unions are affiliated with Labor, the ACF and WWF have no affiliation with The Greens.
I think a lot of people, here and in the MSM, are underestimating the potential for strong-ish outcome at Copenhagen. I’ve been doing a lot of research into the positions of various governments and political parties lately (which I hope to put into a blog!) and there’s more convergence than you’d initially expect. The sticking point is going to be what role developing countries play and how they’re defined.
Related news -
http://www.rttnews.com/ArticleView.aspx?Id=934476&SMap=1
This is interesting because Japan, up until now, has not given any indication on what they’re short-medium term targets would be. Although they have legislated 60-80% by 2050. There’s also a Japanese election sometime this year (before September) and the opposition which is in a good chance of winning has a policy of 25% unconditional cuts.
Six countries – the US, China, Russia, India, Japan and Germany – produce 75% of all the world’s CO2 emissions. The main game, therefore, is locking these countries into significant emissions reduction targets at Copenhagen (at least 20% by 2020, preferably higher). The point about Australia’s CPRS is not really whether it will or won’t reduce our emissions (which are trivial at 1.2% of world CO2, though higher of methane), but that it puts us in the “good guys” camp at Copenhagen so we can exercise some influence on our friends to come to the party. I think that’s the point of Rudd upping the target to 25% yesterday.
The counter to that is that there’s no point in a “half-way” ETS because there’s no “half-way” when it comes to the environment. If the climate recognised political nuance then yeah, it’d make sense. But unfortunately, it doesn’t.
357 Oz – So it’s all or nothing.
I guess it comes down to whether you think a non-perfect ETS is better than no ETS. I think anything is better than nothing, because at least there is something to build on and improve. And if the world does get all strong at Copenhagen, well then 25% here we go.
Nothing comes of nothing.
This whole debate over whether Australia can make any difference always reminds me of ‘the Prisoners Dilemma’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner’s_dilemma
1: The Best possible situation would be Australia does nothing to lower CO2 emmissions but the rest of the world does and so irreversable CC is averted.
2: The next best situation is that we all do our bit, including Australia, and CC is averted.
3: The second worst situation would be that nobody does anything
4: And the worst situation would be if we commit to lowering CO2 emmissions but no one else does so irreversable CC happens anyway.
Optimally we’d like number 1 but so does everyone else. If we all hoped for that we’d get number 3. People are scared of number 4 but its a risk we have to take because number 2 is the best we can realistically hope for (and is the only ethical option presented). If we are recalcitrant on the other hand, others will be so also.
Again I must ask, what is the point of an ETS that won’t do our part? Coz at the moment it looks like we’re hoping for number 1 or 3. Number 1 will never happen though so we’ll be stuck with number 3.
Oz:
What is Gough Whitlam’s maxim about “purity” and “impotence” ?
And Billy Preston agrees
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ5-BTdcqjk
Jet Brunette @ 361. I think it’s “only the impotent are pure” and it’s spot on
Adam says:
Maybe so, but that includes CO2 emmissions created by production of goods destined for other countries too. Our clothes etc are made in Chinese sweat shops so they don’t cost too much and to a lesser extent also due to lower inforced environmental regulation there. I think we importers of such goods also hold some responsibility for that CO2.
I hope this sounds sensible.
Of course the reverse occurs too. When we export coal its partly our “fault” and partly theirs.
ooops, prematurely hit post @ 363.
was going to say maybe Oz would like to elaborate on that.
http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9867020
I can’t log in to read the whole thing.
In environmental studies, the PD is evident in crises such as global climate change. All countries will benefit from a stable climate, but any single country is often hesitant to curb CO2 emissions. The benefit to an individual country to maintain current behavior is greater than the benefit to all countries if behavior was changed, therefore explaining the current impasse concerning climate change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner’s_dilemma#cite_note-10
GG, once Herr Doktor, always Herr doktor.
THM
Personally, I don’t think you can extrapolate CO2 emission reductions to a Prisoner’s Dilemma as CC negotiations are not really an iterative game but there are a few really good articles on doing just that. Here’s one:
http://opim.wharton.upenn.edu/~clemons/blogs/prisonersblog.pdf
I should add that the best base strategy for PD is “tit-for-tat”, so (using the PD analogy) whatever they come up with at Copenhagen we should follow. (Unless you prefer the “forgiving tit-for-tat” style which is almost as good.
and his Greek is terrible
What I would find interesting is; what is the soon to be opposition leader Hockey’s position on CC? Or even the most likely leader Cossie’s position? I wouldn’t worry about Turnbull, he’ll be gone in 6 months.
Heyson
This guy runs climate change through the game theory matrix:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
if they call a dd likety split, they’ll have to go in with Turnbull- and you know what that means ” It’s clobbering time”
Costello would be opposed; he was one of the group that kept Nelson in line on ETS.
Hockey I suspect would be in thrall to the hard right also, being quite far to the right himself.
And he has also updated it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zORv8wwiadQ
To clarify at 371. – most likely leader at the next election Cossie’s position?
must learn to check post before submit and go the distance
Cuppa, the liberals are so divided on this, they don’t know what to do. I’d imagine you would have Turnbull, Hunt and Pyne on the left and Joyce, Cossie and the Nationals on the right, with Hockey not knowing which way to go in the middle. They are a shambles. It’s good fun!
Night guys.
Hockey will get plenty of press with budget reply speech. Soon after they will switch to him as leader.
Turnbull and Hockey will be fun to watch in their budget speeches. They are against deficit spending, and against increasing taxes. Given that government revenue has collapsed, we would be in deficit even without Rudd’s stimulus spending. They are also opposed to scrapping middle-class welfare such as the private health insurance rebate and funding for private schools. So they will have to argue for scrapping all of Rudd’s spending (schools, broadband, submarines, pensions, the lot), and then argue for still more spending cuts to produce a balanced budget. I doubt they will have the nerve to do this, so all we will bet will be a lot of hot air and no substance at all.
You mean like this ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=luQhAc6RNqI
Centre says:
So what do you suggest? That the government passes no legislation concerning global warming? CC is clearly the most important political area, even for those that don’t want to take the actions to stop it, such as the ALP.
I would say that if the Greens SUPPORT this CPRS, as far as I’m concerned, they would have lost all credibility and have shown themselves to be completely economically irresponsible. Something the ALP and Coalition have already done.
Johnny Cash should not attempt to be funny.
But he didn’t write it though
so psephos are you adam’s alter ego, like ziggy stardust
“funny” should not be used in the same paragraph, let alone same ballpark, with any name or word(s) associated with country music
Psephos @ 338
Harradine was a Senator for Tasmania.
Tasmania has Hare-Clark House of Assembly elections which cause a higher vote for bellow the line votes (a multiple of the highest mainland state).
Senator X may well get his running mate elected even without an above the line vote.
I’d say Tasmania’s high below the line rate has more to do with there being less candidates running. It would takes yonks to fill out the ballot in NSW, not too long in Tassie though.
Ann Coulter comic relief:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DCEw82Os5E&feature=related
I know online polls are not real and someone might have already discussed this but:
PerthNow poll:
“A recent poll shows Labor’s popularity has slipped. If an election was held this weekend who would you vote for?”
Labor – 31%
Coalition – 53%
Greens – 4%
Anybody but Rudd or Turnbull – 10%
I’m dissappointed that the “Anybody but Rudd or Turnbull” only got 10%.
http://www.nationals.org.au/news/default.asp?action=article&ID=5843
Warren Truss MP
I’d hardly say the government had a “jihad on the coal industry”, quite the opposite.
http://www.stevefielding.com.au/news/details/government_confusion_over_climate_change_a_risk_for_australians/
Idiot. How is the ALP “placating the Greens”? They’re placating the carbon lobby!
http://www.liberal.org.au/news.php?Id=3062
I feel dirty just visiting this site.
Bree, I don’t think anyones mentioned that poll. Probably because its absurd. A waste of time. The ALP will be ahead in 2 hours time, once the hacks have got busy rorting it but then it will be the Coal. again.
For shame. What about A Boy Named Sue? Maybe he shouldn’t attempt (have attempted) to be political.
1140 votes were cast in that PerthNow poll. Would they all be Liberal hacks?
I have this theory that a man (I can’t think of any unisex analogies) think with his Brain, his Heart and his Balls in all areas of life.
*Those that accept the science of global warming acknowledge this dire situation with their brain.
*Those that accept that global warming will permanently ruin the economy, cause a massive humanitarian disaster, irreversible ecological disturbance and widespread biodiversity loss and see action therefore as an ETHICAL necessity acknowledge this dire situation with their heart.
*And those that accept that something has to actually be done to avert it acknowledge this dire situation with their balls.
*Mr. X, The Greens and a big slab of the population are thinking with their Brain, Heart and Balls.
*The Government is only thinking with its Brain. It is not thinking with its Heart much or Balls at all.
* The COALition doesn’t know what to think but pretty much isn’t thinking at all!!!
The Coalition has a clearly spelled out policy to sell off the planet for some short-term profit for the fat cats. At least its consistent.
The Greens and likeminded groups and parties act like Captain Planet. There is a consistent ideology here too.
It is the ALP however that is looking rather schizophrenic on this. They acknowledge that some serious shit is about to go down yet coz it will piss off some big players they refuse to do anything meaningful about it.
Its been a long time coming but I know a change is going to come. Oh Yes it Will!
And the sands will roll
Out a carpet of gold
For your weary toes to be a’touchin’
And the ship’s wise men
Will remind you once again
That the whole wide world is watchin’
Oh the foe will rise
With the sleep still in their eyes
And they’ll jerk from their beds and think they’re dreamin’
And they’ll pinch themselves and squeal
And they’ll know that it’s for real
The hour when the ship comes in
And they’ll raise their hands
Sayin’ “We’ll meet all your demands”
And we’ll shout from the bow “Your days are numbered”
And like the pharoah’s triumph
They’ll be drownded in the tide
Like Goliath they’ll be conquered
Bree
No, of course not. If that was the case they’d have 100% support. Lots would be general members of the public but a significant percentage of the votes would be cast again and again by “computer hacks” that are also “party hacks” (AKA “hacks with a diverse array of interests”). These votes are also skewed towards demographics that look at PerthNow and those that are most dedicated to these silly votes. In another poll on another site or even the same sight you’d get ALP 50% COAL 30% Greens 20%. Its just a waste of time.
An alternative thought (though perhaps only for sake of arguing);
Perhaps the public in balancing the tradeoffs, although it believes in climate change and something needs to be done, also believes accepting some consequences of climate change is “worth it” compared to the compromises the have to make otherwise. It’s a matter of degree
That is not denialism, that is a decision made on what amount of trade off in climate change is “worth it”.
Sorry to harp on about this.
It might seem like I take a simplistic line on global warming but it really is quite simple. It’s an either/or situation. We stop it or we don’t. Irreversible climate change is permanent. It is forever. Industrial relation reforms can be postponed a year or compromised, the worst that can happen is civil unrest or capital flight. But this is the end of civilization as we know it and none can deny that. So the elites of one generation can grow fat we destroy the earth forever. People are going to become increasingly radicalised. Copenhagen will be just about the most important conference ever and the demos around the world will go off! It’s now or never.
What I just can’t get my head around is how thinking people can acknowledge the science but ignore it. I’m starting to think we’re all totally toast! How do the likes of Wong respond when questioned on the gap between the cuts she wants and what is needed? “Don’t you accept the science Penny? Or do you want irreversible Climate Change?” People are just too stuck in their old ways. They hope this will all just go away. Sometimes I think the politicians and business leaders realise what they are doing is totally wrong however “preselection is coming up and if I don’t get back up……”
We are standing on the edge of the abyss. It is as clear as the nose on my face that the current mode of industrial capitalism will destroy itself and take the planet down with it! Do I feel this way because of a political ideological drive? NO! It is the science. There is an inherit subjectivity in politics but not in science. Science is objective. Science has shown to a very high degree that without change, this world is screwed. In the old days the West was beholden to superstition. For a brief stage we replaced that with science as our guide. Today we have a new master: “The Almighty Dollar” and he does less for us then any fictitious deity!
Now more than ever, and in more than one way, Dylan’s immortal words ring true:
YOU DON’T NEED A WEATHERMAN TO KNOW WHICH WAY THE WIND BLOWS.
Sertse:
Sertse
I’m no scientist and I haven’t looked back over things i’ve read before writting this post but my understanding of it is that a point is reached of critical mass at which point there is no turning back. Positive feedback loops will just make the crisis worse and worse, spanning over a century untill it eventually stabilises(ish) at a higher temperature. These positive feedback loops include but are not limited to: As more permifrost melts, more soil is exposed. This does two things – microorganisms in the soil may ommit greenhouse gases and since the ground is now brown and not white less heat bounces off it into space. The oceans become more acidic and this means less organisms that convert CO2 can live in it. Bushfires become more frequent which not only means fewer trees to soak up CO2 but also as they burn CO2 is released. This will happen in the Amazon lots. These things cannot be undone at all.
The reason we humans had such a large gap between coming into existance and the begining of descent civilization (pyramids, writting, etc.) is that before that period the weather was too unpredictable for agriculture. There is no guarantee this wouldn’t happen again a few centuries after global warming kicks in, although the science isnt very certain on this I think.
So to address your post. I don’t think any trade off would be “worth it” once that point of no return is crossed. However, some climate change can occur before that point is reached, we are experiencing it right now. Even if we have massive cuts now it will still get hotter for a little while. This limited and reversable climate change sucks but its too late to avoid and things could be much worse. So we have already made the compromise that you speak of.
I hope this helps.
The Heysen Molotov says:
This process of climate change messing with agriculture won’t start in a few centuries, how silly of me! This country is experiencing it right now. Already farmers can predict the precipitation with less certainty today that they could in the past.
Keelty announces retirement in September:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/06/2561943.htm
Sure to please a few people.
Dio 369
I strongly agree on adopting a tit-for-tat strategy on climate change. As soon as a few more EU countries realise they should do the same we face considerable downside economic risk ourselves if we don’t put an ETS or change strategy (with legislated restrictions) in place. It is regrettable that so many economists are so poorly trained in game theory that they think every problem is a prisoners dilemna and that there is no solution to any problem but a market based one. Both views are false.
You would know …..
ltep
Yes its hard to miss Keelty after the Haneef affair, for which he never apologised. SMH article on the same story:
http://www.smh.com.au/national/afp-commissioner-mick-keelty-to-step-down-20090506-aub4.html
In the end I think Keelty will be recognised as having achieved a lot for himself.
Ross Gittins with a good peice on the problem passing the ETS and he identifies precisely where the proble lies – in the Senate. It is not flattering to anyone though:
http://business.smh.com.au/business/its-gamesmanship-and-we-all-lose-20090505-atwg.html
Gittins is upset with everyone.
ltep
Haneef was just one of Keelty’s disgraceful efforts.
1. Federal police allowing the bikie to be bashed to death in their airport.
2. Letting Australians leave our shores carrying drugs and telling overseas police to arrest them (and execute them)
3. Backing down on statements about terrorism when Howie told him to change his mind
Dio
I agree on Keelty; I was not suggesting Haneef was his only failure.
As Xanthipe said, “thats is only the ones [abuses of power] we know about.” given the powers acquired by the AFP after Bali, who knows what else happened that journalists weren’t even allowed to print?
Diogs,
1. Nature keeping a balance in the parks.
2. It was terrible how Mick Keelty personally taped all those narcotics to those drug runners and encouraged them to chance it in Indonesia.
3. The denial statement only proved that the Howard Governments actions had increased the liklihood of a terrorist attack on Australia. This was widely reported at the time and the photograph of the two men shaking hands demonstrated the statement was a crock.
Can agree the Haneef matter was a cock up.
Re http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/files/5may-newspoll.html
Interesting to see that the question is very evenly split on the issue of Labor’s upcoming tax cuts. 47% want them to be cancelled to keep more money in govt coffers to assist with the budget, 44% want the tax cuts to go ahead.
And I’m sure GP will support LABOR’S tax cuts, won’t he? Otherwise he’ll be hypocritical. But then again, that’s nothing new.
Parties usually ignore polling that tells them people don’t want extra money.
It’s even more fascinating that of coalition voters, 50% want the tax cuts cancelled, as opposed to only 44% for Labor voters. 47% of Labor voters want them to go ahead as opposed to 45% for coalition voters.
GG
The merits of the lives of our bikies are not a reason to allow them to be bashed to death in a public airport where we are meant to be ready to respond to a terrorist threat in 30 seconds. The AFP have become Keystone Cops and our complete lack of effective security was shown up.
The argument about the drug runners is more complex but I don’t think we should have allowed them to leave and inform the country which we knew would execute them. We could have arrested them when they returned.
On Howard and terrorism, is he couldn’t stand up to the PM and provide “frank and fearless” advice, he shouldn’t have been in the job.
It’s also a pity that Newspoll was so black and white with it’s stimulus question. It asked if people prefer a tax bonus, or infrastructure investment. That’s not a fair question. A well designed stimpac, such as Labor’s, includes $12b in tax bonii and $30b in infrastructure spending, and this was on top of Labor’s tax cuts promised at the election for 2008-09, 2009-10, and 2010-11.
This is best, a blend of all three. Not just advocating one, like Newspoll, or GP.
Anyone who saw the Four Corners program on the AFP and Keelty’s role within it a few weeks ago would have little sympathy. He had very much a kiss up/kick down management style. Regardless of political sympathies in the end you have to ask – is the agency more or less credible than when he took it over? I think the answer is less.
Diogs,
Occaissionally, gang violence breaks out of the cosy enclave of stylised viloence of TV shows like Underbelly. It’s perhaps bracing for us all to see it in all its gory glory to remind us that we need to support law and order efforts to eradicate same. You probably also believe that the Australian Navy can defend millions of square miles of sea from rickety boats. Our alleged readiness to deal with terrorism is largely a myth.
If I recall, the drug runners were intending to bring their booty back to Australia to spread the misery and evil of drug addiction. Have no sympathy for them whatsoever. Maybe you enjoy picking up the wreckage in your day to day duties.
I think the frank and fearless advice was conveyed to all that were listening. Communication is not solely by words used. The situation was contrived and Keelty did more to send an “up you” to Howard in the way he dealt with the matter.
Fake document scandal hurts SA Liberals’ poll chances – http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25435652-2682,00.html
bob
I think the fake documents basically cancelled out Kouts’ stuff-up. The Libs had some good momentum there coz something really got people going about Kouts. The documents stopped them dead in their tracks and I’ve heard a few Libs are absolutely livid with MHS.
This is a pretty comprehensive article on changes to the CPRS and the position of the ACF/WWF.
http://newmatilda.com/2009/05/05/sweethearts
I don’t think so – almost but not quite. Simply because the average joe hates speeding fines and government whinging over speeding when they’re looking for the money grab, but then they appoint someone with his record as the roads minister. As damaging as this fake documents thing is, it’s still rather esoteric and a bit detached.
Oz,
At least you won’t be lonely out there on the tree branch of irrelevance.
Grattan on ABC radio this morning was pro-Liberal again.
We see all this stupid stuff from The liberals about “temporary deficits” and the claim that the Government should ‘come clean”.
From my understanding “temporary” means “not permanent”. So its seems fine to describe something that lasts 6 years and then stops, as temporary. It is the Liberals and Grattan who agreed with them who need to check the meaning of the word.
And “coming clean”? Well, the Government seems to be giving us more details than we usually get about plans and models for finance for the coming years. That is “coming clean”. Only last week the Liberals were complaining that the budget was going to have longer terms projections.
Grattan is not pro-Liberal.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25436972-5006301,00.html
How do you rate Mick Keelty’s performance as AFP chief?
—
Interesting to see that the majority disapprove of him – coming from a News Ltd site where poll results are always skewed toward the right.
You could define any length of deficit as ‘temporary’ by stating it will return to surplus at some stage in future. For instance you could say “Well we will be in surplus in the next 50 years’ and then call it ‘temporary’.
I somehow suspect that when it gets to that 6-year point we could very well have the government coming up with some reason why the deficit will last ‘another 6 years’ and then some lame attempt to justify it.
I think this is the point that some are trying to make with spin about ‘temporary’ deficits. Why not just say ‘we will have a deficit extending at least 6 years into the future on current projections’?
Dr Good
As you say “temporary” means “not permanent”. Nothing is permanent so using the term “temporary” is just spin.
Oz
I had a quick look at that article by Spratt that you linked to and it seems wrong.
I heard a US authority on the radio this morning saying that out new 25% target will be important in the Copenhagen negotiations. In fact, I think that you had been arguing exactly that for months against me and a few others. I still believe that any current 2020 target by an individual nation is so provisional that it is almost meaningless, and it will be changed by international agreement, politics, voters, science, … etc before it ever comes into effect. However, everyone kept telling me that it is important for Rudd to take some impressive number along with him this year to show off. Spratt now suddenly thinks that the ACF etc can’t really believe that argument.
I would accept your arguments about spin and the idea that “temporary” does not mean much, if it wasn’t for the facts that the projections say deficit for 6 years and then surplus and 2) Swan is being up front with the 6 years number (ie he is not just saying temporary (and leaving it at that) or indefinitely temporary and 3) the government is making a point that it would normally want (and expect to be able to deliver) a surplus if it wasn’t for exceptional circumstances.
Those three reasons, I claim, give a reasonable meaning to the term temporary here.
413 bob1234 – That’s spot on Bob. If I was answering their question I would have opted for infrastructure too but had there been that third choice of ‘both’ then I would have opted for that.
Yes but you can provide projections into surplus at some point in the future at any stage. Meanwhile within that period of time anything could happen to change the period of time it will take to return to surplus.
No 409
They are the Liberal tax cuts promised in 2007, reincarnated as Labor tax cuts.
GP,
How do you tell the difference?
It’s like the difference between a tax cut, a tax rebate or a handout. Absolutely nothing.
No 403
Gittins is absolutely correct.
The other issue that is starting to come out in that article by Spratt (but looked at in the wrong way by him) is that when we do eventually have an international pollution permit trading system, even a good one that works, then it might well be the case that Australia’s GHG emissions are allowed to be quite high, possibly nothing like a 25% cut by 2020, and even significantly above 1990 levels.
This is because our industries will eventually be able to buy permits from overseas and use them to allow emissions in Australia.
And this is fair enough too. A lot of our activity is on behalf of other people in the world and so it might well be best for the GHGs from building things for them are released in Australia. Eg, say from mining iron ore.
But this is not a problem as long as global emissions are capped effectively. One extra tonne here being cancelled out by one less from Switzerland is no nett extra pollution.
However, people like Spratt are going to get a lot of mileage for a long time to come from spinning this as something dreadful.
The difference between tax cuts and one-off payments is that tax cuts knock a permanent hole in the revenue base while one-offs don’t. We can see the consequences of past tax cuts in the neglect of long-term infrastructure spending and other things government was able to do before their revenue base was undermined. They are also class-biased in that since the wealthy pay more tax (as they should), they benefit the most from tax cuts. The one-offs were deliberately targetted at the less well-off, because they spend most of what they get. I’d be quite happy if Rudd scrapped these tax cuts, but he apparently feels that election promises ought to be kept when possible. And tax cuts do have some stimulatory effect, I don’t deny that.
So the cash splash wouldn’t work hey?
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-business/consumers-spend-193-billion-in-march-20090506-auo8.html
Also
JOURNALIST: What about a very broad criticism from environmental advocates which is that this is largely a fictitious exercise? Australia is the biggest emitter of carbon pollution at the moment, as you prepare this legislation Queensland is putting in expanded port facilities for more coal exports, the Hunter Valley in New South Wales is expanding mining, everyone is selling every ounce of coal they can. This is just window dressing on a very darkly stained carbon reality.
WONG: Well look, what this scheme is, is a scheme which will reduce Australia’s carbon pollution over the decades to come and that will enable us to reform our economy. That’s not window dressing, that’s real economic reform.
“Australia is the biggest emitter of carbon pollution at the moment.” Hello? Marius Benson? What planet are we talking about here?
Just one more claim by the conservatives shot down in flames.
Psephos,
In the context of the latest tax rebates, the actual effect of the payments was to bring forward the tax cuts commencing July 1 (although the money was spread wider than those gazetted to receive the looming tax cuts).
http://business.theage.com.au/business/retail-sales-pick-up-20090506-aumg.html
All of a sudden it’s looking good for the government.
“Record consumer spending may avert recession in March quarter”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25437615-601,00.html
Per capita – but that seems to have been forgotten by the journo…
I can’t see it averting a recession, but it’s still good news
Gary
That is a great outcome but it shows that it is BS that the GFC is much more serious than thought four months ago. Rudd didn’t need to delay the ETS for economic reason; he delayed it for political reasons and incidentally broke an election promise.
But that isn’t true either. Qatar is #1 and we are #13.
No, it’s a Labor tax cut. Labor promised them, Labor won government, and Labor is delivering them.
Still sour grapes hey?
It doesn’t show that at all Dio, but I would love it for you to explain to us how you think it does…
Even that’s not true. We are about tenth. Of “proper countries” the US, Canada and Norway are ahead of us.
Dario
Those figures are better than expected.
Those figures are a measure of how severe the GFC has affected Australia.
Therefore those figures indicate that GFC is not worse than expected.
Dario & Dio
Have you got a link on those per capita figures? That per capita claim has been oft-repeated in recent times. I guess if you repeat something enough…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita
Agree
Disagree. Retail is not the only impact on this country. The government has already seen a massive write down of budgeted revenues through Company tax in other sectors etc.
Disagree, due to the above.
Talk about spin. What does GFC stand for again? Oh yeah, the first word is GLOBAL. Go through the figures for the rest of the world Dio and say “that it is BS that the GFC is much more serious than thought four months ago.” Australia may or may not JUST miss out on the recession but the rest of the world IS in recession. Honestly Dio what a crock.
Is anyone watching Malcolm at the Press Club? I’m not 5 seconds of him was enough.
Dodgygate – Rann demands public apology from Hamilton-Smith
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25435652-5006301,00.html
449 – Dio, if it wasn’t for the stimpacs, particularly the cash handouts things would be far worse.
Dario
They are a measure but they are not the only measure. GDP is probably the best measure and even the suggestion that we might avoid a recession with a positive GDP for March is something almost no-one thought possible three months ago. That strongly indicates that we are doing better than expected.
We’ll see what Rudd and Swan say about how they think we are travelling based on those figures. I’m betting they’re pretty happy.
Gary
The reason Rudd gave for delaying the ETS was the GFC’s effect on the Australian economy. Rudd’s policies look like they are working. But you can’t have it both ways. You should be happy.
I think he meant we’re the biggest *exporter* of carbon emissions. We are the biggest exporter of coal, but I would imagine that Saudi Arabia exports more carbon than us.
When does the March quarter growth figure come out?
The stimpacs seem to be working but we’re still in a precarious position. The global recession is still going and many countries are in far worse positions than we are.
This doesn’t mean we are on clover all of a sudden but it does mean the government’s actions are showing positive results, something the opposition said wouldn’t happen. So, yes, I am happy.
Turnbulls performance at the press club today explains his low standing in the polls.
He comes across as a repulsive know all smartass. Just confirms it. He is just not electable as PM.
Palin and Romney are at it already – it’s goingto be a loooong road to 2012.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/05/palin-backers-mock-romney_n_196884.html
That’s very offensive to know all smartasses. We actually *know* stuff. Turnbull just pretends to.
I noticed in the wiki page on emissions, it acknowledged that this didn’t include emodied energy in imported goods. Perhaps if you take this into account this puts us near the top?
Also, I’d suggest we are the biggest emitter per capita of GREENHOUSE gases in the DEVELOPED world….
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita
Turnbull ducks question from Malcolm Farr at press club – why didn’t libs increase the pension
Good to see you out of denial
turnbull asked to nominate a level of debt that would be acceptable. Answer just waffle.
Gary
If we avoid a technical recession, Rudd will just about be made permanent PM on economic grounds. The odds were about 10:1 on avoiding a technical recession. Yes, we are still in a precarious position but I’d argue that we are looking the same or better than expected from four months ago.
Surely the second half of this year will see two quarters of no growth. There will be no stimpacs, the impact of the infrastructure development will not have flowed through yet….maybe xmas would save it?
I’d put the odds more like 100 to 1
I’m sure if you held all countries responsible for the GhGs embedded in their exports, Australia would be near the top, but probably not *at* the top. But you can’t do it that way. On that basis, Japan would have close to zero emissions, since it imports nearly all the carbon it burns. Importing countries have to held accountable for *how* they use imported carbon. Australia can’t be held responsible for how Japanese blast furnaces burn our coal.
mark riley asking turnbull about bronnie B’s comments re turnbull etc.
Again – waffle no answer to the question.
This is the bloke who is supposed to be a powerful orator ?
Struth
mark kenny asking if turnbull is prepared to go to a DD on ETS and who will be the libs candidate for higgins.
God awful blather on ETS – no reply on candidate for higgins either
Waffle, no answer to the question sounds pretty much what Kevin Rudd does.
The term “exporter of carbon emissions” is not clear enough to be useful.
It could mean a country which imports a lot of goods after they have been processed so that the emissions are done in the other countries. Eg, rich countries like Luxembourg and Denmark might be the biggest exporters because they import goods (or energy) after the GHGs have been emitted elsewhere.
Just because we export coal also does not mean we are “exporters of emissions”. As Psephos says, it depends on what is done with the coal at its destination. If it is just buried deeply in the ground at its destination country, or goes into some (currently hypothetical) totally sequestering power station then that coal causes no emissions.
david crowe from afr asking if the libs borrowing figure of $177B is wrong what figure is correct.
Again turnbull ducks the question.
turnbull now only has another 9 minutes to avoid answering a question
Xmas won’t save it coz it’s seasonally adjusted but I gather a few of the schools are pretty close to starting buiding so it might be a nice smooth stimulus which takes up the slack once the stimulus from the current round of “shameless handouts” has worn off. Possum had a nice graph showing that it looked like a good mix of short and medium term boosts without any lulls.
ltep wrote “Waffle, no answer to the question sounds pretty much what Kevin Rudd does.”
The voters have made their position on Rudd known – many times. They are also indicating in polls where they stand on turnbull
The truth is probably that at the moment we get reasonably high up the per capita polluters list (but not at the top) because of three very different reasons. 1) we are a reasonably rich country so our people buy lots of things and use lots of energy (but we are not the richest). 2) our energy production for industry and domestic use is pretty dirty with Victorians (I think) using a lot of dirty coal (but we are not the dirtiest). 3) we produce a lot of stuff and things for export that have been (and may still have to be) made by fairly dirty processes.
All well and good Dio but you assume Rudd KNEW everything would be as it is now, that his stimpacs would definitely work and that he KNOWS that it’s all up from here. How many times have you heard him say “there is no silver bullet”? I’m happy that the stimpacs seem to be working and not just a waste of money as the opposition and the press seem to want to portay them as. Where it goes from here is really anyone’s guess though.
You’re probably right Dr Good.
I wonder where this ‘biggest polluters’ comment is being derived from then….
I don’t know how I did it but I sat through the entire Turnbull Press Club session. His continuous non-answereng with bombast and talking down attitude did not appear to impress the journos judging by their faces.
Let’s see what appears in the media.
2% increase in retail sales (on prev month). If this could mean a roughly 2% increase in retail employment then that would be about 30,000 people employed. (I have seen figures that the retail workforce is about 1.4 million).
He did it. not a single question given an on topic reply. turnbull looked very uncomfortable during the Q&A part and his responses all over the place.
His inexperience as a pollie showing up big time.
What is encouraging is that the journalists are asking Turnbull the hard questions. About bloody time. We know politicians avoid the hard questions but we do expect them to be asked in the first place.
This is completely irrelevant to how a person answers questions. I personally find Rudd infuriating to the extreme but would still preference Labor over Liberal/National.
Psephos 460: When does the March quarter growth figure come out?
The March quarter GDP figures are due on June 3. (If you want to know something, find out for yourself, Psephos.)
487 – Rudd does avoid some questions but I think you’re over dramatising it. For most part he answers questions well. The “can you guarantee..” questions deserve to be avoided to be honest as with other “gotcha” questions.
It’s derived from Marius Benson’s complete and utter ignorance, apparently. A pity Wong’s too well-trained to pick him up on it. (Ministerial lesson 1: never argue with journalists.)
You’re guaranteed a sane and accurate answer that way Psephos.
No it’s not irrelevant, because Turnbull is playing catch-up. If he wants to damage Rudd’s standaing with the voters, he has to be seen to be *better* – more honest and open, for starters. Rudd does avoid questions, all politicians do. But I doubt he’s ever avoided every single question the way Turnbull just did. And it matters less for Rudd, firstly because he’s the guy in front, and secondly because he can actually do things, whereas Turnbull can only talk.
Indeed. “When I want to read a novel, I write one myself.” (Disraeli)
As if most voters are watching Turnbull’s press club performance. Turnbull is a lost cause, however. He just doesn’t have the media skills required at all. He’s essentially a Clayton’s Costello.
The media were watching – old media (journalists present) and new media (us). It works like this:
Politician >>>> media >>>> voters
It seems that we (Australians) are recognized as having the dirtiest power generating sector in the world on a per capita basis.
http://www.cgdev.org/content/article/detail/16578/
We emit 10 tonnes GHG per person per year in producing electricity.
I guess that is because of all three reasons I gave above: we are rich (and use a lot of electricity each), we have dirty generators and we also produce stuff (eg Aluminium) here which is really the responsibility of consumers overseas.
Rudd sounds like he waffles (like a bureaucrat) because he’s very careful about what he says but he normally answers the question, kind of.
Turnbull is a lawyer and knows that his words can sink him. He’s got nothing to say because he knows he’ll have to defend the indefensible or take a stance on something (God forbid) if he says something, so he never says anything.
Someone should ask Truffles about our trade surplus which was a record $2.5B. If everyone spent their $10B stimpac on imported goods that didn’t help our economy (like plasma TVs etc), how come we have a record trade surplus
Gary (and others),
You may be interested in these perspectives on retail spending:
http://westernpatriot.com.au/?p=1143
and the trade surplus:
http://westernpatriot.com.au/?p=1137
Also this on housing construction approvals:
http://westernpatriot.com.au/?p=1107#comment-212
No 498
Diogenes, export prices for our minerals have collapsed so the trade surplus you mention is not at all surprising or indeed a relevant measure of the success or otherwise of the stimulus packages.
“History became legend, legend became myth …”
* Are we the biggest emitter of GhGs absolutely? No.
* Are we the biggest emitter of GhGs per capita? No (but we’re up there).
* Are we the biggest exporter of oil, coal and gas in aggregate? I don’t know but I don’t think so.
Are we the biggest emitter of GhGs per capita for making our electricity? Yes
are we the world’s biggest coal exporters? Yes, by a long way
http://www.intracen.org/tradstat/sitc3-3d/ep321.htm
Dr Good, yes those things are both true. But they are not what Marius Benson said. I think in the context of the question he was trying to say we are the biggest coal exporter. But he didn’t say that.
GP
If the value of our mining exports has collapsed doesn’t that mean we are earning less in exports than usual so we should go into a trade deficit rather than a trade surplus?
At the moment it seems like a cricket broadcast when we are breatlessly told that this is the biggest ninth wicket partnership at the MCG versus Pakistan on a Sunday.
I know it must be a disaster. But, what does it mean?
Making a rough estimation from the figures for coal, oil and gas added together it looks like Canada may the country who exports the most carbon (for burning) in dollar terms.
http://www.intracen.org/tradstat/sitc3-3d/ep343.htm
I was thinking that too – but it seemed so obvious, I was sure i’d missed something.
I think GP wanted to argue that if the prices of our minerals went down then maybe we would export more, and maybe so much more that it made up for the price fall. But, GP, we need more data from you to believe that.
My apologies I grossly misinterpreted what was said. I withdraw my statement at 500.
The actual ABS trade figures are here:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/5368.0?OpenDocument
They are quite good – exports have fallen but imports have fallen faster. This is a common pattern. We tend to buy more luxuries when times are good, and they are often imported. The basics tend to be made locally.
One more thing on balance of trade – our actual imports vs exports position has been better than our balance of payments figure for a long time. Banks going off to New York to borrow a few billion to loan people buying houses is one of the main reasons our BOP figures have been bad. If banks stop doing this it won’t be an entirely bad thing.
And you should withdraw your comments that the stimulus package wouldn’t increase spending. Retail spending set a new record in March:
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25437506-661,00.html
Hope they are right!
“AUSTRALIA’S Reserve Bank sees good times just around the corner and will this week publish forecasts pointing to a recovery before the end of this year”.
http://petermartin.blogspot.com/
Now, now, GP has acknowledged his error, so let’s be gracious. I would certainly acknowledge my errors if I ever made any.
Even if the economy grows again for the final two quarters of the year, Turnbull will STILL say that the Government has mismanaged the economy.
Wow, GP acknowledged he made an error?
This reminds me of Family Guy, where Peter sets off the “Peter’s right” banner and confetti, and the dead skeleton drops down, and said he’s been waiting years to use that.
Looks like the upcoming results of the “stress tests” will be crucial to the outlook of the GFC for the US. I saw Taleb describe the stress tests as being akin to stressing the Brooklyn Bridge by driving a small truck over it so I’m not sure how robust they will be but it looks like some people are setting great store in them.
Holy crap! How many climate change denial pieces can one paper print! The Oz seems to be trying to break a record. This one is a real doozy though, it asserts (with no evidence whatsoever) the the entire process of peer reviewing scientific publications is corrupt:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25434631-5013479,00.html
Psephos i’m still baffled by the abscence of adam, your relationship, are you the same person, if not what happened to Adam, is he indisposed and why, can you speak Greek or just Spanish and why?
I have never before seen a pollbludger being asked to justify why they only speak Spanish and not Greek as well.
This is it. The wogs take over of Australia is complete.
Coles Supermarket at Chatswood, NSW, is selling the Durian Fruits. must be hundreds of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durian
I am migrating.
SO
The author of that comes from the Australian Climate Science Coalition which is a spin-off of the IPA. Plimer is on their Advisory Committee. So his funding is from;
Major mining companies – BHP-Billiton and Western Mining Corporation;
Tobacco companies – Philip Morris (Nahan) and British American Tobacco [5]
Oil and gas companies: Caltex, Esso Australia and Shell and Woodside Petroleum; and fifteen major companies in the electricity industry
O Adam ehei evgene ton ktirion.
Two denialist pieces in The Australian today, ShowsOn.
It was weird though because you don’t often seen the sentiment in the letters section of The Australian and Sydney Morning Herald line up. Usually they’re diametrically opposed. Today they were both in agreement about Labor’s backdown and appeasement to the carbon lobby. Oh, except The Australian published a few letters about how climate change isn’t real as well.
That Australian piece on CC is just rubbish as usual. If anything the opposite is true. All the IPCC reports have to get signed off by government delegates including those from Saudi Arabia and the US who until recently were sceptics trying to find any hole in the evidence. The Australian is not even pretending to be an independant paper on this issue.
It is by John McLean who is described as :
“John McLean is a climate data analyst and a member of the Australian Climate Science Coalition.”
Sourcewatch says this about the coalition:
“The Australian Climate Science Coalition (ACSC) is a climate change skeptics website created by the the Australian Environment Foundation (AEF), a spin-off group created by the the corporate funded think tank, the Institute of Public Affairs. ”
Like most of the people on the ACSC website, McLean has no formal qualifications in any science relevant to climate modelling. His background is in IT.
Tony Jones ripped him to pieces last week and forced Plimer to start cracking lame jokes he was that bereft of ability to argue his case, not that he really ever had one.
Phsephos have you read my post @386 about your post @338?
then katalava psephos?? Finns the wog comment is a bit much. I was merely asking about the spanish
Oz’ take on Turnbull at the press club:
Malcolm Turnbull says next election will be fought over economy – http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25438015-601,00.html
Hardly an important distinction – he’s going to lose on both.
PM’s website needs to be updated.
http://www.pm.gov.au/topics/climate.cfm
Agree Oz. Turnbull must look forward to defending that remark that we should just “wait and see” rather than do anything about the non-recession he later said not only existed but was also Rudd’s fault.
ti dhen katalaveneis, kentavro?
Did Turnbull’s Press Club speech give any clues about his CC policy or did he waffle there as well and in the Q&A session. Had to go so missed it altogether.
But I did hear Pyne on Agenda and Hockey with 2UE this a.m. Yep I’m still a glutton for punishment.
They were truly woeful and both said that the 2001 Asian crisis was as bad as the GFC and that the Howard Govt. handled it beautifully. Are they still in disillusionment land.
diladi, ton vgalane apo to ktirio, palavose, pige sto trelokomio, i pini poli? pio apo afta ?
Waffle waffle waffle.
Apparently he’ll have a policy after the budget.
English please.
Just wait for the budget reply. The Libs will be big on theatrics and little on substance. The sky will have fallen in.
Thanks Oz just as I expected. He has to wait until Andrew Robb tells him what they are to do about it I suppose.
Vera – loved your great car service deal. I’m going to look on the back of those dockets more often now.
Anything we ‘enjoying our retirement mob’ can save on something can be spent on something else to help out the wage earners. Thanks for the tip.
Well, Centaur, that’s for Adam to know and you to find out. Agapaei na einai mysteriodis.
(Also I don’t think I’ve ever said I know any Spanish. Ligo Ellinika, ligo Gallika, ligo Germanika.)
Diogs,
You were having conniptions about the use of the word “temporary” earlier. Here’s someone,who should know, that thinks you are tangling yourself in a web of contextual self deception.
http://economics.com.au/?p=3344
Adam is a truly nice person to talk with
a @ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ for him
I recently asked myself which Gossip Girl actor he would be – my choice is – http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3262483200/nm1015262
#530
Durian fruits “the King of Fruits” have been known to start a war
Finns,
So has their music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsiBhQ60rJE
Psephos it is all very well that you can speak 3 Languages but have you read my post @386 about your post @338?
Tom, no I hadn’t, but I have now. Yes the fact that Harradine was in Tasmania made it harder for him to direct his preferences to his running mate, because Tasmanians are used to Hare-Clark and don’t like following party tickets. But the similarity between Harradine and Xenophon – that they are/were both elected almost entirely on their personal standing – I think outweighs this. Xenophon will get more above-the-line votes, but he has shown no ability in state politics to transfer his personal standing to anyone else, just as Harradine couldn’t, even when he picked running mates like Kath Venn who themselves had some personal following. In a bigger state Xenophon will find it harder than it was in Tasmania.
Twitter as political attack dog has great potential which Mike Rann has been quick to see
Australian is a net gold exporter. Bloomberg manages to report the facts
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601081&sid=atvQZLSZqVg4&refer=australia
And this is what we get in the Australian
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,25437609-643,00.html
They really have moved from bad reporting into incompetent territory.
That’s because it’s not a newspaper, as I get tired of pointing out. It’s a Murdoch vanity sheet, which he has handed over to a gang of extreme rightwing nutjobs, led by Chris Mitchell, the man who called Manning Clark a Soviet spy and has never apologised for doing so.
And the godfather of Rudd’s children.
The ACF is split on the ETS changes. Apparently Don Henry went solo and only discussed the decision with President. The board and the council, made up of elected representatives weren’t informed of the decision. The council is actually going to harden its position against the scheme rather than back it.
Don Henry’s got some explaining to do.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/support-splits-green-group-20090505-atzg.html
I think you got it arse about Oz Rudd is the Godfather of one of Mitchell’s kids
BH some of those shopper dockets are good value, there are a few buy one get one free deals
My bad!
It’s weird that they’re so close but The Australian is such a piece of crap that wears its anti-left (and more specifically, anti-Labor) bias on its sleeve.
Just when I thought I was out…
Yep weird bedfellows there Oz
… horses heads lol
Yep, it’s Compare Kevin, with Comare Therese
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bsg73N0eUZk
Right at the end of that article Oz we have this –
Oh dear.
Not new? They said that on Monday.
I find it telling that the government went into negotiation with them, when they have no parliamentary representation, as opposed to The Greens. Further demonstrating it was about perception rather than reality.
Oz,
The Government is clearly dealing with those who have an interest in a sensible outcome.
The negotiations with parties in the senate come when the proposed law is put before the senate. Until then it is important to get the appropriate understandings by the people, media and lobby groups. Then the Liberals and FF will have plenty of time to negotiate. As we know, the Greens are not really relevant for the passage of this bill at the moment.
That still doesn’t explain their support. They don’t have to support it just because they were in on the discussions. I’m not sure what you are insinuating.
The ETS can’t be all bad if you have such groups supporting it.
In the Greens case it’s All or Nothing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bbwgKH2SqoY
I wasn’t aware I had to “explain” their support. I’m not a member of either the ACF or the WWF. Every group is entitled to their own views on the CPRS whether they support, like the ACF and WWF, or oppose it like Greenpeace, FotE and the Wilderness Society. However it looks like the ACF is split between its leadership and its membership.
Speaking of Youtube clips, don’t know if anyone has put this one up in the last few days. It’s been kind of busy at my house so apologies if this link has already been posted.
Warning – this is of special interest to Glen, GP and our other reliable Lib bludgers so don’t miss it.
…..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8D51qQN9Xrc&feature=player_embedded
Whoa … Arnie is getting progressive
…
Gary
The ETS is not all bad. It’s just not good.
The bright side is that at least it will annoy the heck out of the climate change denialists if we have an ETS. There’s no way anyone could get rid of it once it starts. They will be in apoplectic fits. It’s almost worth supporting to see that, esp if we get a reasonable target at Copenhagen. I’m looking forward to seeing what Turnbull comes up with. He can’t hide forever.
Juliem i dont disagree that the Republicans shouldnt moderate their stance on various issues.
So you think the Republicans shouldn’t moderate their stance on various issues.
Bule the Republicans are too far right to be any sort of 50 State political organisation over there.
If I were a yank id be a moderate Republican (a dying breed).
The government is discussing this with environmental groups rather than the greens. If the subject is the environment isn’t the environmental groups that put the environment before a political afenda? As good as you seem to think the Greens are – the Greens are first and foremost a political party and they have a political agenda above the environmental agenda..
Tom
Then why don’t you just say that rather than trying and failing to use tricky double negatives. Your post means that you’re opposed to Republican moderacy.
means that you agree that they shouldn’t.
Ehck, half the time they lack political skills and are too “pure” on the environment and the other half they put politics before the environment.
Sorry for my Ruddspeak.
An hilarious day in the second stage of the Sour Grapes case over the Chatsworth Queensland election result.
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/qld-news/fee-bungle-threatens-electoral-fraud-action-20090506-aul9.html
572,
Glen, I’m well aware of that
….. I just thought you would be pleased to know that at least in some quarters they are talking about it. I don’t think that the equivelent mob here in Australia are even thinking about it atm 
……
Glen,
As moderate as Specter? Arnie? Or somewhere in between? I recall you’ve been singing Jindal’s praises in the past
Juliem
‘Bullbutter’
I originally supported Giuliani in 2008.
Look at the Democrats, Harry Reid is actually quite anti-abortion, yet he is the Senate Majority Leader!
The Republicans will only improve their position when they STOP setting certain litmus test issues for their congressional leaders.
Freakin’ hell. The Howard government wasted $7.5 million trying to frame up Dr Haneef.
Greg Combet shows why he’s just a parliamentary sec. He gets killed by Greg Hunt here.
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/05/06/combet-fudging-the-carbon-tax-question/
Would this man be considered a terrorist?
http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/people/damir-dokic-threatens-to-blow-up-embassy-over-daughters-interview-20090506-auwj.html?sssdmh=dm16.375150
the Murray getting a bit of water
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/water-for-parched-murraydarling-areas-20090506-av8h.html
thanks Glen, Guilani is hardly a darling of the Religious right is he now?
I watched Julia G speaking at Randwick Primary School today with Nathan Reed & Verity Firth.
Julia is one cool dude – smiling, calm, clear and not a bit perturbed by some of the silly questions from the press. Of course, they will still probably write up that the spending on schools is a waste of money – or Turnbull will write the story for them to cut and paste.
And then Kev’s smiling face at a factory and saying that he welcomes a debate on debt and deficits. Good on ya Kev – let’s have a bit of sense about it.
My grandkids are doing better by their parents having their jobs stimulated now with a bit of debt. I trust Tanner to look after it better than I would trust a merchant banker.
My alma mater!
They sounded pretty happy Oz. Apparently they didn’t have a Hall big enough for School Assemblies so they have been held in 4 different groups.
What actually did Howard and Costello do with the money they cut from the States for School funding.
Now I remember – we got it back in tax cuts. Liberal ideology.
On todays news:
1. Keelty has announced his retirement. – About time! Good riddance!
2. Retail sales have boomed 1.5% above forecast for the March quarter. – An outstanding and surprising result. I’d still expect a negative quarter of growth but it is now OBVIOUS that Rudd’s stimulus packages are working.
3. Israel have been resolutely condemned by the UN for their dispicable offensive on Palestine. – So, according to the Israelies we are all supposed to believe that the UN is biased BUT they are not. Oh that is RICH, that REALLY is!
4. Turnbull has challenged Rudd to call an election. – The only challenge we will be seeing soon is for Turnbull’s leadership, LIGHTWEIGHT!
Glen,
Glad Arocca told Wayne Jackson where to get off, bet Stynes will do the same thing very soon if in fact he hasn’t already
592 Centre,
Did he actually really say this? Geeeezzzz. …….. URL please and thanks
….. MT is an idiot 
Lightweight with Red Kerry very soon.
Red Kerry interview with turnbull coming up in a few minutes.
It must be the chemistry.
Red Kerry is ripping up Turnbull, again.
Won’t be watching here in Perth; 7:30 time slot is blocked out in this house on Wednesdays’ for Thank God You’re Here
….. will have to settle for news stories after the fact then ….
MT is a m a s o c h i s t {sorry, thought that word might cause William’s spam filter to spit chips} – from dictionary.com
vera at #587
‘There’s a rare piece of good news for the parched Murray-Darling Basin – billions of litres of water are to flow into dry areas in the coming months.
“There’s a rare piece of good news for the parched Murray-Darling Basin -……The federal government says seven billion litres of water,…….is heading through the system.”
That’s…nice.
But to put it into context, its about equal to 1 day’s worth of irrigation at normal rates and a couple of days at severely restricted quota rates.
It needs to be multiplied permanently by a 100 times [at the very least] to have any real impact.
“Can I speak now? That’s very kind of you”.
Oh dear.
Looks like the Chatsworth challenge in the court of Disputed returns is going to go on. It will be a fun case to follow.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25438444-952,00.html
Juliem – watch ABc News tonight. Turnbull said it here in nsw so I guess you will get it. Then Kev backed up.
BH, no worries
… turning on the ABC at 7pm local is not a problem, thanks 
Juliem,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/06/2562667.htm
Turnbull looked like he was about to cry.
Can I use condescending and patronising in the same sentence re Turnbull.
What an arrogant piece – and Kerry had the last word thank goodness.
Where does he get 30% of GDP from. Hockey and Pyne were spouting huge figures this a.m. and now Turnbull is at it – do they just make it up.
Has anyone noticed that the Libs are now saying Keating’s debt was $100 bill. and not $96bill.
Can anyone point me to what that debt was made up of. Did it include Govt. bonds.
I have forgotten and can’t find it anywhere.
Yes, will be on the ABC Julie.
Turnbull is dellusional. He is going to try to convince all of us that the deficit is the result of Rudd’s spending. We are all not that stupid Malcolm! What an interview, How did this bloke get into politics?
turnbull just always has be the smartarse. The self satisfied smirk cannot be
helping his electoral appeal either.
Hope he keeps it up.
turnbull and hockey keep saying swan will never deliver a balanced buget. I seriously doubt if either of them will be in the next coalition government to bring down any budget.
For those with Fox, just been watching the NSW question time on A-pac (CH 607). Absolutely fascinating to watch people be passionate about something I have absolutlely no interest in.
Re inforces why Opposition is a tough gig. The Government does all the talking and gives out all the lollies.
Focus was on the Northern coastal areas. Must be a lot of votes up for grabs.
I would not write Labor off in NSW.
604 Oz,
[ thanks
}
What does he expect that we should have done? All countries, at least all of the major ones, got together and everyone stimulated their citizens with money to keep the problems from getting much worse. Economists said all along that this was the right approach. He’s saying that if we have a budget that is in surplus but we are all on the dole that this is a better thing? And this comes from a man who said at points in the last 12 to 18 months that we do not have a GFC and that it has been made up. I repeat from 2 earlier posts this evening – MT is (1) an idiot and a (2) m a s o c h i s t
Sounds a little too like he’s had a little bit of spill over from Tony Abbot with more and more frequent occurences of foot in mouth disease
Good to see Turnbull cares about the nation – that is why he is so happy the governments policies are working.
Seriously, like a lot of wealthy business leaders, Turnbull forgets that running a country isn’t the same as running a business. If you have trouble with business cash flow, cutting staff saves you money. If you have trouble with government cash flow, people losing jobs makes it worse, because you lose tax revenue and have to pay more unemployment benefits.
Turnbull’s crap about debt isn’t fooling anyone with a three digit IQ either. Worst case, Australia winds up with a debt equal to about 20% of GDP – very low by OECD standards; the USA had three times that % debt level BEFORE the GFC started.
Regardless of how the next Newspoll comes out, I’d love to see the figures for policy leadership on economic management for the coalition. They have no chance of regaining the lead.
err kerry, kerry, kerry, K e r r y
I thought he was nearly about to lose it. Latham was never as out of control.
I wouldn’t either GG – as much as I think they have been in long enough the other mob is still pretty pitiful.
They need someone other than Barry O’Farrell.
The roadblock for Turnbull was that Glen Stevens is basically supporting the Government’s strategy. Impossible for Turnbull to make any headway when the unbiased umpire says you are talking bulldust.
Everytime Turnbull pops up on the tellie his ratings go lower so how bad will the next ones be as he’s spent half the day on the ABC? ( well half a day anyway, the Press Club and 7.30 report
)
BH,
Yeah, from memory, $65b of it was the standard Govt Bond issue.
Wonder if the Liberals still see the sale of Telstra as a smart move given what was promised and the little lasting benefit achieved from the sale. Most of the proceeds were squandered from what I can see.
http://www.johnquiggin.com/archives/002015.html
Just listenign to Turnbull in Adelaide now – ROTFL! There goes the Catholic and Irish votes with a Turnbull jibe about clerics named O’Brien.
OK, so Turnbull’s solution is the G.P. solution – spend money to stimulate the economy on things that can not provide a short term stimulus to the economy.
GG
Good point. I have said before that, regardless of views on Turnbull or Rudd, Glen Stevens and Dr Ken Henry are doing an excelent job. They got it right on bank management (we didn’t let them get into too much trouble), interest rates (put them up early and had room to drop them to cushion the blow now) and they got it right on spending (stimulus is working). If any pulic servants deserve OAs they do.
Howard could evade Kerry much better than Turnbull who looks like a bumbling fool when he tries to avoid answering the question.
“Kerry, now Kerry, Kerry, now Kerry look Kerry” – why would someone vote for this other than a rusted on such as myself?
Juliem, if Melbourne merged with another club i would no longer go to the football as sad as it may be.
H! I love that part when Turnbull accessed O’Brien of not reading a speech that he read!
If anyone thought that an election win could save the WA Libs from themselves, think again:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/06/2562815.htm
Glen
Good on you for sticking to Melbourne. I have followed the Brisbane from the beginning (for two decades) and there were some painful years but they made the good ones all the sweeter.
BTW i have recently got my 900 dollars from Mr Swan now I have to think about how to spend it.
Thanks Scorpio.
Steven Mayne always says that Costello left $50bill. debt in Govt. bonds in 2007. Why doesn’t Labor bring that up if Keating’s debt is supposed to have been so bad.
Turnbull was again saying tonight that they left no debt. If Mayne is right how do they get away with saying that.
What was the cleric joke. I missed that bit.
HAHAHAH! We are being run by socialists!
Glen
Have you decided against that Howard Years DVD?
Glen I am now hearing how accurate your quote of Turnbul was:
“Kerry, well Kerry, the problem with socialists…”
You are only allowed to spend 20% of it, Malcolm Turnbull says so.
If you spend any more of that, then Turnbull must be a deceptive liar.
I bought that before i got my cheque LOL!
Seeing Mr Howard makes me feel so rotton about the state we’re in now and how desperately we need a real leader.
#625
$300 TAB, $300 Fosters and $300 Daily Planet
BH,
At least $70 billion of the debt that Costello paid off was achieved by selling assets like Telstra, the various airports and even the Defence Department buildings. (You reckon the seppos would sell the Pentagon). These were all revenue generating assets.
It is the old sell your house to get rid of the debt, then rent it back forever. Are you any better off?
This is why the debt argument is rubbish.
Glen
If you live near the Mornington the last case of Montalto Pinot Noir I got was superb.
BH
Kerry opened up with a question to Turnbull that used the phrase “sins of omission” and Turnbull straight away made a few sarcastic remarks about attitudes to sin, people named O’Brien, and clerics. I can’t remember the exact words, but it was incredibly tactless, and set the tone for a stupid combative interview where he attacked the interviewer with every answer and then looked offended when he got asked harder questions.
You’ve got one to turn to Glen – his name is Kevin Rudd
Glen at least when your lot are in govt you have a chance of getting the numbers in the Senate so you can implement your policies. that’s one thing I envy you for
Julie who are Melbourne talked about merging with?
At the end of the interview Turnbull was half way saying “good to be with you” before he realised that’s what Rudd says, and it was too late for him to withdraw lol.
No wonder Kerry had a big smile on his face through that interview with Turnbull – he got him from the start.
Thanks GG – why on earth has Labor let them get away with that $96bill for so long.
Stick with Melbourne Glen – we went through the same thing with Sth Melb/Swannies and it has turned out to be fantastic.
We get the Syd crowd up here and the Sth Melb supporters turning up down there and they are terrific.
I forget how Bredan Nelson handled Kerry but probably better than Malcolm.
Here is a list of cuntries ranked by % public debt. Australia at 15% is one of the lowest in the world, except for a few oil states. USA, UK, France, germany, Japan, even Switzerland are more than double this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt
Also note this is total public debt; our net debt is lower, due to assets held in Future Fund etc.
Yes BH, and that’s why I think a second Sydney team should be one relocated from Melbourne. I would imagine either Nth Melb or Western B???
Another good question is why did they let the Coalition demonise them with the “balance of payments” debt truck sham which was not only a major reason for Howard’s 1996 victory, but was used effectively for years afterwards in conjunction with the constant Beasley Black Hole” smears?
BH,
By the way, it’s now $100b. Allowing for inflation of course!!! lol
BH,
It’s an ideological thing . Many Australians repudiate debt as simply a bad thing. They don’t realise they live the bad thing
Most businesses have debt (commonly called gearing ratio), most people have debt (housing mortgages and credit cards) and many people borrow to invest in shares or opportunities.
However, apparently, it is a bad thing for Governments to borrow despite the fact that they will pay back money quicker than any of the the pre mentioned entities.
Debt is only an issue if you can’t make the repayments. Apparently, Australia will be in debt to about 5% of GDP with this budget. Say you earn $100,000 a year, can you affored $5,000 of debt? Personal choice.
The Liberal spin doktors must be tearing their hair out with Turnbull.
“Mr. Turnbull, what is it about Red Kerry that makes you look like a jelly fish?”
here’s Brendan’s first interveiw as lib leader with Kerry
http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2007/11/30/2105839.htm?site=elections/federal/2007
Well, I’m glad it wasn’t just me who thought it.
Turnbull was AWFUL.
So it just means that Labor will have to work hard to have a better explanation than Turnbull’s mantra.
And I don’t want Labor to let the Libs get away with it again the way they have about Keating.
Centre – I don’t really want another team in NSW. I think they should make Sydney extremely strong instead and just keep on playing matches both sides of the City as they do now.
I love going to the SCG and I love going to Homebush.
Grandson plays in Newcastle and he and his mates go down on the train to the matches. The trains from Newcastle are full of red and white
Thanks BH at number 626 for the heads-up about Stephen Mayne writing about Costello’s government bonds debt. I didn’t know he had written about that.
Why isn’t Labor aggressively setting the record straight on the Liberals false claims?
Stephen Mayne:
http://www.maynereport.com/articles/2008/07/14-1419-320.html
Thanks Cuppa – I read about it in Crikey before the election (2007) but couldn’t find it.
So it means that Costello and the Libs are better at spinning the lies than Labor are at defending their position.
That has got to change. Turnbull raving on about a 30% deficit was ridiculous as Kerry pointed out. Didn’t stop him tho and that will be everywhere, every day from now on unless Kev & Co. put a stop to it.
I think Kev and Co should follow this one very aggressively indeed. Time is of the essence. The Liberals will be looking to make debt an issue – again; they must be exposed as a bunch of, well, Fiberals.
Imagine them having to explain how they managed to leave the government in debt despite enjoying one of the biggest revenue booms in Australia’s history.
Cuppa
In fairness NET borrowings under the libs were nil. They could have had Nil debt by closing down the bond market, which would have had negative flow on effects etc.
The biggest hole in the libs claim to economic management was and is that when they had HEAPS of loot, little johnnie gave it away in bribes and costello gave it away with tax cuts. Now that $400 Billion or so from the resources boom was really was a cash splash – the mother of all cash splashes.
But they did bugger all nation building etc during the good times. For that they stand damned.
I laugh at the libs everytime they try to score points – they OWN the book on cash splashes !
Turnball lost me when he said this was a socialist government. literally LOL. After seeing this interview I now feel more than ever that turnball won’t hold on forever. Kerry comanded the interview. Turnball looked the goose and I don’t think he actually believed the arguments he was making. He might hold onto the leadership long enough for a DD at the end of the year but I think if the government lasts a full term then he will be rolled before election day. So it is either Hockey from Sydney or Costello from Melbourne then?
The problem with refuting a myth/fallacy/lie is that you have to have the compliance of the media who will run with your in-depth critical refutation in a 10 second sound bite for the camera. Frequently, ad nauseum, until it sinks into the public psyche.
And a compliant, even neutral, media is one thing the ALP just don’t have.
fredex
On cue, from the Oz
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25439327-601,00.html
We shouldnt have dumped Brendo when we did.
No 619
Even the IMF agrees:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2009/s2551198.htm
Yep you are right Fredex. It keeps coming back to that.
PM Agenda today had Spiers almost wetting himself with delight about Turnbull’s “strong performance” at the Press Club.
Steve Lewis tried to agree but couldn’t quite make it sound truthful. The other bloke from The Age thought Turnbull was good too.
Spiers thinks Turnbull is on to a good thing with the debt stuff and will plug it (with Spiers help, of course) until the next election.
Kev & Co. will just have to do it themselves every time they are in front of a camera.
Brenda was disappointing but I was the first on here to my knowledge to declare that Turnbull would be worse. Glen, Labor went through 4 different leaders in 4 elections. You guys are about to go through 4 different leaders in 1. Nelson, Turnbull, Hockey then when his poll numbers are no better, Costello.
Btw, who are Melbourne possibly merging with?
Unprovable nonsense.
Will the media people do their job and point out that this is an impossible claim to prove, and therefore an absurd and dishonest claim? The Liberals seem to get away with too much unchallenged dishonesty and mythology.
The debt thing is a disaster in an election campaign:
“which taxes will you raise to reduce debt Mr Turnbull?”
“which government jobs will you cut o reduce debt Mr Turnbull?”
“which social security payments will you cancel to reduce debt Mr Turnbull?”
Reducing debt isn’t a strategy, its just a sound bite.
David Uren from the Oz seems to back Rudd on the Stimpacs. There’s a nice graph which should be used in the election campaign.
How much of the recovery and increased spending is due to the Stimpacs and how much is the huge cuts in interest rates
http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/currentaccount/index.php/theaustralian/comments/the_value_of_government_stimulus/
“Interest rates will always be lower under a Liberal government”
No 662
And the replies to that are even simpler Socrates:
“which taxes will you increase to fund the $300 debt binge Mr Rudd”
“how many billions of dollars will the interest bill encompass Mr Rudd”
“how many businesses will go broke and jobs will be lost as a result of your increased taxes, Mr Rudd”
No 661
The real myth is that Swan will ever return the budget to balance.
Are you guys all talking about the same interview I just saw?
the interview I saw Red Kerry looked like a socialist debt junkie..
the only time Red made any sense was when quoting Glen Stevens and you know what???
the more he threw the quote and Malcolm the more obvious it became that he was quoting guv’nor’s comments from before Wayne Swandive announced we would be in debt to half way through the next decade…
wake up folks, try and have a little balance in your political thinking, you might stay in power longer
Turnbull’s all over the shop.
He says he can’t say what the debt situation would be if he was PM ‘because that involves all sorts of assumptions”.
But he can say that if he was PM there wouldn’t be as much debt and more people would be employed.
Apparently that doesn’t involve any assumptions at all, it’s just fact.
So Turnbull thinks that he will return the budget to surplus quicker than Rudd?
So where are his costings? Where are his projections? Which taxes will he raise? Which expenditure will he cut? The MSM and the liberals should realise that people are no longer fools.
Mr Squiggle, when did they allow you to escape from ABC1. Should we demand our 8c back?
http://ten.com.au/media/MTP0802.doc
Meet The Press, 8 February 2009
No 669
Centre, Rudd will have to cut expenditure and increase taxes. In fact he’s made no mistake about his position that the rich have to pay more and the razor gang are still looking for savings.
Rudd has cut jobs at the Australian Bureau of Meterology, the Bureau of Statistics, the CSIRO. But of course, don’t let facts get in the way of a good anti-Liberal beat up.
Squiggle,
I’m sure that Kerry mentioned “yesterday” in relation to quotes from Stevens.
Oh well, you are the king of wishful thinking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ry4iwzS4Na0
No 671
In that segment, I think Dennis Jensen put it rather….colourfully:
No 669
Turnbull was saying that if he had been PM he would not have accrued as much debt, which by definition, takes less time to pay off.
665 Generic Person – But they apply to Turnbull as well. He is the one claiming the deficit is unnecessarily large and can bring us into surplus quicker. It’s either cut services and/or lift taxes.
GP,
The weather happens despite bureaucrats, the Libs have never had any proper use for stats and the Libs tried to sell CSIRO.
Your point?
Intriguing to see the stat in Newspoll –
How would you prefer to see the stimulus package money spent?
Cash payments = 17%
Clearly most of that 17% contribute to this blog….
No 669
Also, Rudd increased taxes in the last budget. Alcopops, FBT deductions tightened, Luxury car tax up to 33% etc etc.
No 677
That is not an argument. Merely obfuscation.
I thought the commodity export and prices have completely tanked. I also read and heard a number of commentators are now openly saying the March Quarter could positive. I have predicted this a couple months ago, so let see.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/world-business/chinese-iron-ore-imports-hit-new-record-20090506-av6q.html
GP 679
Strange that the Libs opposed those revenue measures in the past budget if they were so concerned about debt wasn’t it GP?
SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
678 Mr Squiggle – There wasn’t a third option ie both options in the one stimpac. It gave the impression that the whole up coming stimpac would either be all handouts or all infrastructure. I wouldn’t agree to all handouts.
GP, a) Could you describe how you arrived at a $300 debt binge at 665? b) Could you explain how Turnbull will deliver a budget surplus quicker than Rudd? c) What are your alternatives at 672?
Make no mistake, Turnbull will try to con people into believing this deficit was caused by Rudd.
Based on what evidence?
No 682
They weren’t concerned about debt at the time because THERE WAS NO NET DEBT. The budget was tens of billions in surplus (mostly padded by increased taxes).
Why are the WA Liberals stupidly wanting to bring in FPP anyway?
Notwithstanding it’s sheer level of crapness, wouldn’t it hurt them more than anyone else? Or does the loss of Greens preferences to Labor outweigh the loss of National preference to the Liberals?
No 686
Dario, a $100,000 mortgage takes less time to pay off than a $300,000 mortgage. It’s basic mathematics.
All the retail figures for December, January, February and now March show us that the stimulus packages have worked. Now the work on all schools in Australia is underway and also the stimulus to local Council for infrastructure work is in progress and some already completed, notice politicians appearing in you local news with the Coalition members hanging around in the background hoping some of the good news will stick on them too, even though they voted against it.
No 683
Again, that is not an argument. More obfuscation.
GP @ 680,
That is not obfuscation, merely argument
No 690
Muskiemp, if the aim was to pump prime Westfield Shopping Town and Harvey Norman, why not simply pay them direct? At least there would have been a spending ratio of 1:1, unlike the two packages which may have caused spikes of a few hundred million which is VERY POOR value for money after a $23 billion handout spend.
GP.
Bulls butter. If it is taken out for the same period of time according to the mortgagee’s income, it takes the same time to pay.
SNIP: Unconstructive comment deleted – The Management.
If the Ruddster was trying to buy a hooker’s attentions with his cash splash, then Howard and Costello were trying to buy the whole bloody Kings Cross with their’s. As Dave put it an an earlier post, the mother of all cash splashes …
Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald, 21 March 2009
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/rudds-challenge-how-to-resist-the-big-swoon-20090320-94dj.html?page=-1
Where is the evidence that Malcolm would have a $100k mortgage vs a $300k one?
No 694
Of course you can engineer it that way, but the reality is that assuming your income was the same, you would have a capacity to retire a $100,000 mortgage more quickly than a $300,000 mortgage.
Oz,
It is for Council Elections, who are not elected on a Party Political basis.
No 696
Cuppa, of course Peter Hartcher is under the delusion that Governments should hoard money instead of giving surpluses back to the people. Of course, he neglects to mention the $60 billion Future Fund, the $5 billion education fund, etc etc etc.
Because then they would just pocket the money and lay off staff. If the money is given to people to buy things in their stores then they will still need to keep the staff on in order to sell the things.
Mortgages, mortgages, mortgages. Silly argument GP
Governments are not householders. When the mob (business and people) can’t go into debt due to credit squeeze and downturn then Govt. has to step in a fill the breach – hence a deficit.
Govts. can always repay when the upswing comes. Remember Libs had NO SURPLUS BUDGET before the Keating Govt.
The last few years of a mining bonanza were wasted in giving out huge cash splashes.
The recession that we thought we had is slip sliding away:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25437615-601,00.html
Malcolm’s Lament:
sliding away,
slip sliding away
You know the nearer your destination
the more you slip sliding away
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKxyoud_c-E
No 701
That reasoning doesn’t make sense, otherwise the Government would not be spending $96,000 per worker to subsidise the auto industry.
GP, the Rudd stimulus is working. You can’t possibly deny that after the release of todays figures.
Howard wasted billions in tax cuts on the assumption that the good times would last forever. Those tax cuts are now possitively unsustainable.
Feel free to reply to my 685.
No 702
BH, as I recall, Keating produced a single budget surplus in 1987.
Costello produced 10.
They should manage the economy in such a way that it is sustainable for most economic circumstances (not withstanding freak events like this recession). Not act as though the mining boom was going to go on forever, which they did by increasing wasteful spending and decreasing the tax base.
Ah k. Still a terrible idea.
GP,
Have Liberal central office got a random statistic generator?
Don’t know what it means (we haven’t got a clue). But maybe we’ll get a headline or at least a reaction on PB.
Give a monkey global growth and the biggest resources boom the country will ever see and he’ll give you budget surpluses.
Oz,
As long as it wasn’t a Greens monkey.
And the only reason he had surplus budgets GP was because he did not spend anything on infrastructure.
Hockey loves to cite the Adelaide/Darwin railway as wonderful spending by the Howard Govt. In fact they only contributed $1.5 bill. The SA & NT Govts and private enterprise handed over heaps more.
Where did all the money go GP – it went into making out how wonderful an economic manager Costello was by having a surplus.
But there should have been billions more in hand in 2007 instead it went on cash splashes to all of us.
No 705
So, they spent $23 billion in handouts for retail sales spike of $700 million or thereabouts. Wouldn’t you have preferred $23 billion building new roads, ports, rail lines etc?
No 709
Oz, the resources boom really only kicked into gear in the last few years of the Howard Government. The surpluses prior were due to tough decisions to reign in spending.
It makes perfect sense GP. The auto industry supports many other industries, hence it being supported by successive governments as a special case.
#706, Keating floated the AUD, open up the Banks, reduced tariffs, centralised wage fixing, introduced enterprise bargaining, setup compulsory super contribution, privatised publicly owned companies and proposed the first intro of GST.
tell me again what did costello do?
GP,
The money hasn’t arrived in those figures. Consumers may lead us out of this near recession fueled with the hadnout.
I know it will be terribly disappointing to you and the brethren if the Government’s strategy actually works.
But, try to think you are a patriot too.
Why not both?
No 711
Tens of billions were spent on Austlink I & II, which produced great roads like the Westlink M7 in Sydney which has trebled economic growth in that area of Western Sydney ever since. There was also Roads to Recovery. I don’t have the full catalogue of projects in front of me but to say that “nothing” was spent on infrastructure is sheer lunacy.
What did Costello do? Blew 94% of the mining boom windfall in his last couple of years, trying to buy another term in office.
#706, one more – Keating managed a rock band
Yep – GP. Auslink spent the money in mostly rural/Nat/Lib marginals. Crikey had an excellent piece on that the other day. It was an absolute rort.
Rudd & Co. will not repeat the rubbish that was Auslink.
GP @712.
The government is already investing a considerable amount in infrastructure. The bonus payments were directed at stimulating the economy as soon as possible. The money already spent will increase in time where there is liquidity of an extra $23 billion in the economy.
Tax cuts would have been more costly to the budget over time and would not have been as well targeted. Your mob are screwed.
How will Turnbull get us out of debt again when there’s nothing left to sell after Howard flogged off all our assets?
No 715
Actually introduced the GST unlike Keating, dramatically cut income taxes, cut tariffs even further, reduced company taxes from 36% to 30%, privatised Telstra, paid off $96 billion of government debt, most stable industrial period ever in terms of days lost per 1000 workers, trebled defence spending, $60 billion future fund, $5 billion HEEF etc.
But unfortunately their 2 singles weren’t Top 40 hits
Now if Glenn A Baker would reissue the 12″ EP he released of The Ramrods that Raven issued in the 80’s to cash in on the Keating link on CD
Gp @ 665
Those aren’t replies, they’re more questions.
GP,
I agree, to say nothing was spent on infrastructure during he howard years is sheer lunacy.
Another example of lunacy is to spend mountains of money on School Halls and blackboards and call it ‘infrastructure’.
Since when does “education” = infrastructure?
If eductation is “infrastructure” then why not “health”, hell, why not “national parks” – is there anything that isn’t infrastructre for a socialist?
If the ALP hadnt have had a 10b budget hole and 96b of accumulated Cwealth debt then we could have done even more than what we were able to achieve in 11 years.
No 721
The true rort is Rudd’s $43 billion broadband network being announced without a shred of economic analysis, modelling or costings.
I believe Keating ran 4 budget surpluses in a row actually
The Howard/Costello Government promised roads all over Queensland but couldn’t find the money to fund them. The Cooroy- Curra Road, the Toowoomba By-pass, the Ipswich motorway all urgently needed infrastructure reduced to nothing by a lack of Howard/Costello funding. No wonder they had no debt, they did nothing constructive.
No 728
Exactly, they all hide the fact that Keating lied about the state of the budget in 1996 which necessitated across the board spending cuts when Howard and Costello assumed office.
Actually one of the Ramrods tracks HAS been reissued on CD.
Details here.
http://pub44.bravenet.com/forum/static/show.php?usernum=3725630012&frmid=8&msgid=1026069&cmd=show
GP, they also discounted CGT of 50% for assets held over 1 year. You blokes should have discounted it to 100%. CGT is the worst and most unfair tax ever introduced. That’s proven by this GFC but you blokes still haven’t got the brains to make it a policy, which would be a justified vote winner.
Selling Telstra was a disaster. Replaced a government monopoly with a private monopoly which has had no compunction about extracting monopoly rents without investing in a 21st Century communications infrastructure.
We sold a dividend producing entity into a privatised piece of crap to make Costello appear like a virtue of debt reduction.
What a shallow reason for public policy decisons.
Centre we introduced the GST so the States would cut taxes and they didnt and the vast majority of them were held by the ALP!
Keating left the budget in poor shape and didnt even tell the public we were already 10b in the hole let alone the 96 of Cwealth debt.
While Rudd and Co have been able to play Santa with the money they were left by Howard. Howard was left bugger all by Keating.
Ha ha ha ha ha, sorry Your Honour, M’Lord, the Members of the Jury, I rest my case.
Hahahahaha…….this is what happens when your customers don’t qualify for the “CASH SPlASHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”
Department store sales jumped 13.2 per cent in March, while clothing and soft goods sales climbed 6.4 per cent.
David Jones missed out on some of that sales leap, though, reporting today a 9.2 per cent fall in year-on-year third quarter sales. The upmarket retailer said, however, that it was on track to post flat to 5 per cent after-tax profit growth in the year to June.
Only just saw Turnbull’s interview… I don’t think awful even begins to describe it. What an absolute shocker. Kerry must have been laughing his head off after Malcolm left the studio. What a dunce.
Squiggle at 727:
“If eductation is “infrastructure” then why not “health”, hell, why not “national parks” – is there anything that isn’t infrastructre for a socialist?”
Those bloody socialists eh, with their tricksy word games? Actually, all your examples infrastructure. Education and health buildings produce beneficial economic and social outcomes. Up my way, the local national parks infrastructure generates a lot of tourist revenue that keeps a lot of locals employed.
You do better in the arguments if you get the terms BTW.
Glen I’m talking about Capital Gains Tax!
Who are Melbourne merging with? Tell me. We don’t get any AFL news in NSW
You mean like Howard did in 83?
No 735
GG that is rubbish. Telstra built, without taxpayer funds, a $1.1 billion nationwide HSPA wireless network covering 99% of the population. It is currently the largest and fastest of its type in the world. If that isn’t 21st century infastructure investment, I don’t know what is.
No you didn’t. It replaced sales taxes when the whole thing should have been set up to replace income taxes. Another Tory mistake.
North but it wont happen i hope.
Dario that was ‘ No Pants’ ‘ fault.
I don’t know why people are picking on socialists. Socialism has never brought the downfall of the global economy…
No 742
Oh, so that excuses Keating’s dishonesty does it? Remember, Costello also introduced the Charter of Budget Honesty meaning no more black holes and secret deficits.
GP has got you there Dario 747 LOL!
No 744
Part of the GST package included income tax cuts anyway. Philosophically I agree that income taxes should be replaced in favour of consumption taxes, but it will be a gradual step.
The most surprising thing of all is that Howard won an election on the platform of tax reform.
SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
#715 – one more thing – Costello has no balls.
Alan Ramsey, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-devil-of-a-time-if-you-look-closely/2007/06/08/1181089330756.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1
Fast forward to 2007 and the Coalition had spent $314 billion in their last term, again “trying to buy another win”.
Who was Treasurer?
No 746
Big government was part of the problem Cuppa, especially in the US where laws forced banks to lend to people who had no capacity to repay debt.
No 750
GG, that is further rubbish. For the price they’re paying they could renationalise Telstra.
I mean, it is surprising that the people criticise Austlink as a rort refuse to criticise Rudd for releasing a policy that proposes to spend $43 billion without a shred of evidence that it could ever work.
If you’re against big government you should be against Howardism.
Kat Bloke at 740
I take infrastructure to refer typically to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, power grids, telecommunications, and so on
In other words, physical networks that support society are infrastructure. Essential services that are provided to more or less degrees by all governments (eg Health, education etc) are from a different classification.
I think what the ALP did in the 42bn stimpack was try to spin their propensity to overspend in eduction as some form of nation building, which it isn’t.
No 752
I love how Alan Ramsey’s selective memory neglects the egregious $10 billion black hole left by Keating in 1996, when he was telling the whole electorate that the budget was balanced, or in surplus.
In fact, it was that black hole that prevented material investment in other areas for many years.
No 756
Howard was a big spender, I agree. But he didn’t spend what he didn’t have.
Because the article was about the PM of the day, Howard, and his earlier shiftiness.
No 759
howard was also a big returner….rather than spend large parts of the last few surpluses he returned it to the people he took it from – ie the taxpayer
No 760
Cuppa, if Ramsey was under any pretence of journalistic balance, he would have written that Keating returned the favour in 1996.
GP,
The problem is that Telstra on its own can’t or won’t do the national infrastructure thingy.
Your coalition friends will tell you that people living outback demand the same level of service from Government (and business) as those living in metrpolitan areas. The reality is this is very expensive.
Private companies always concentrate on where they can make a quid. Government has to provide services everywhere. In Australia, big infrastructure is going to be driven by Government. It is just the Libs run away from the responsibility, while Labor takes it on.
With a huge bias towards giving more tothe more well off.
No 761
Except, you’ll have the Labor supporters proclaiming that the people don’t deserve tax cuts. If we’d been listening to Labor for the 12 years prior to their ascension to government, the top tax rate would still cut in at $50,001.
The whining of ALP and Liberal hacks that they would have done a better job is tedious. If the COALition were in government they would have made the same reforms Keating made, or at least reforms of a similar nature, it would have been like Reagan or Thatcher. It was the way history was flowing everywhere. If the ALP were in government during the mining boom they too would have had budget surpluses, perhaps only slightly smaller ones. The global economy was booming (towards the end of the Howard years it was a bubble actually) and so surpluses were always going to be a sign of the times for Australia. Treasury bureaucrats have similar ideas under LIB or LAB (only one vowel difference anyway).
I am not one of those that argue that pollies are all the same. Far from it, I cannot deny that conditions in this country have improved considerably since the ALP came to office. Nevertheless history tends to follow a certain, almost predetermined, trajectory. Deregulation, boom and then “oops that’s a bubble”. Next we’ll have depression or something approaching it, authoritarianism and political polarization that will ultimately lead to a new world order based on the principles of ecology, political decentralization and grassroots democracy, international solidarity, social progressivism, workers and minority rights, Gross National Happiness and above all a Steady-State economy! Well, maybe not, but one can always hope.
The article wasn’t about black holes, so he didn’t have to list every budget black hole there had ever been. It was about Howard’s “trickiness” catching up with him.
No 763
GG, the previous government set up a $2 billion fund in the wake of the Telstra privatisation to ensure a perpetual reinvestment in regional/rural telecommunications.
If it had any sense then it would only be spending money in rural areas and providing the investment incentives for private companies to do the rest in the cities.
I think i have had enough comedy and good laugh tonight from Turnbull, GP and Mr. SQ and Glen. TQ and sweet dream.
No 767
I don’t think there’s anything tricky about the Charter of Budget Honesty, another thing that Ramsey neglected to mention.
In fact, like Philip Adams, Ramsey is a partisan hack unworthy of anyone’s time.
Just got around to wathcing Turnbull on Red Kerry.
Oh. My God.!!
and this bit of gold
Swan and Rudd are socialists?? rotflmao.
Geez I guess he decided to stop using Whitlamite, and has now gone even further back in time.
A joke leader. My dream is to see Turnbull and Latham go head to head in a debate.
I don’t care what it’s about, just to see who would self-destruct first would be worth the rpice of admission.
Tens of thousands of jobs have been lost, yet conditions have improved? Dear oh dear.
711 BH, the Howard government put 191 million into the Darwin railway not 1.5 billion
GP,
Governments of all persuasions are in to nation building. Allowing cherry picking by private industry is never a feasible option.
$2 billion is not enough and you know it. A fig leaf covering not much.
Well GP, the regional/rural telecommunications scam hasn’t touched the sides of rural and regional Queensland, the mobile phone coverage is pitiful. You only have to go as far as Sommerset Dam (which supplies water to Brisbane City) and coverage is zero.
Rudd isn’t quite sure himself. In 2003 he was a Christian Socialist, in 2007 he was an economic conservative, in May 2008 he was a fiscal conservative, now he’s a full blown big-spending, big-government socialist. Mabye next year he will revert to economic conservatism. Who knows?
He was writing about Howard’s flaky economic performance as treasurer, so why would he meander off onto Keating’s black hole, the charter of budget honesty, and other diversions you raise? They’re only excuses and distractions that you’ve inserted to whitewash Howard’s blemishes. It’s not an encyclopedia that Ramsey wrote, just an article about Howard’s flakiness catching up with him.
No 775
Well, you should send your inquiry to Stephen Conroy, who destroyed the regional telecommunications fund in favour of his pie-in-the-sky broadband project which has zero economic modelling or analysis to support it.
No 777
Then clearly Ramsey is writing an ahistorical treatise, filled with his own selective, partisan memories and devoid of context.
$191.4 million to be exact
http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/transport/programs/rail/alice.aspx
776 oh come on GP – Turnbull is trying to claim Rudd is some old fashioned socialist. Get off the grass.
You don’t even believe it yourself.
I’d like Turnbull to state what he himself is, because all I see is an empty suit.
The Libs tonight are out to prove their Green credentials. It’s all recycled issues.
Living in the pissed past is all I can say.
No 774
GG, Telstra and others are quite prepared to invest in the big population centres where there is a likelihood of profitability. Thus, it makes no sense for the government to invest where the private sector otherwise would.
If the Government’s investment was limited to rural/regional areas, then I would unquestionably support it. But the fact is that Labor doesn’t have enough votes in the bush to limit the spend to that domain.
The Nats 30 pieces of silver for selling off telstra? Best thing Conroy did was put down that dog.
No 764
Rubbish steve. Regardless of where tax cuts are focussed, the rich will always end up with more back because they pay more tax. It’s really as simple as that, a mathematical certainty in fact.
Secondly, if taxes were not cut at all, the top tax rate of 47.5% would cut in at $50,001.
GP, so why after twelve years of Tory superior economic management is the bush still so far behind technologically?
No 784
Rubbish. There was a guaranteed, perpetual reinvestment in rural telecommunications.
and could this be their Campaign Song ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsCyC1dZiN8
It’s a factual article, no lies that I can discern, and there is all the context necessary to make his point: that Howard was stitched up by his own tricky past.
As well as some suburban areas as well.
yep perpetual reinvestment of poor technology, so that people in small country town could have dial-up broadband.
You must be so proud.
No 786
The bush is hardly that far behind. It has the fastest wireless network in the world at its fingertips. Of course, coverage isn’t perfect, but the fact is that there is technology if you want it.
The reality is that no-one forces people to live in the bush and there can never be a parity of services between city and bush by virtue of the exorbitant cost involved. Even Ruddband is only going to 90% of homes, leaving many people in the bush out of its footprint.
Andrew Landeryou has the architect of the FTTH pegged well.
http://www.vexnews.com/news/3777/conroy-fibre-to-the-home-will-be-his-legacy-to-the-nation/
SNIP: Please don’t cut and paste entire articles. Just the link will do – The Management.
From previous governments we got a new Parliament House, an Opera House, the Ord and Snowy Schemes, the Harbour Bridge, heck, even an Overland Telegraph. What did Australia’s second-longest serving PM leave that will be remembered in decades to come?
No 791
People in a small country town did not have to have dial-up. There were subsidies for satellite installations. That they were not heeded by those on dial-up connections is hardly the government’s problem.
Cuppa, surrendered to Maxine will be the highlight of his illustrious career.
Yeah, Bree runs that department
GP,
All this selective inside knowledge you throw about Telstra. Not sure if it is covered by privilege or you are just a loud mouthed telephonist. If only you could channel your energies for good and not evil.
No 794
Cuppa, the new parliament house was only built because they ran out of room in the old one.
No 798
GG, I challenge you to find anything in which I have said that is “inside knowledge” and not publically available.
and Sattellite is useless when there is heavy rain- you lose the signal, though you still needed dial up to SEND data.
?? Your logic being?
For mine that is the reason you do invest – things are old, and need updating -heck otherwise we’d still be on dirt roads..
it’s just like the NBN – the old copper system has run out of room. Time to build a new system.
SNIP: Unconstructive comment deleted – The Management.
For all and sundry …….
Don’t know how many Thank God You’re Here devotees read this blog besides myself but you will have to check this out as soon as they post the links to tonights skits. At the end of the show, they have an “all in group challenge” where all 4 people get together and they run the skit on all 4 of them at the same time. Tonight, the skit involved a political news show and the guys played various parts. The actor playing of the “staff” roles asks Hamish Blake a question which ended with them wanting to know what a psephologist (sp?) does. Hamish has no bloody idea and bluffed his answer, it was a classic. I was laughing so hard I can’t even remember what he did say in reality
….. TGYH homepage is hosted off of Yahoo (you can find it by googling for “Thank God You’re Here”) and I’m not sure how quickly the links are posted for reviewing the skit. The all in group challenge is the one you want 
…
Well I guess in GP’s mind if they want decent broadband they should move to where they can get broadband – you know let the market work.
So we got a new piece of handsome, bigger, improved, necessary national infrastructure in the new Parliament House. So no problem. The question remains. What is there to show for the Howard era that will be remembered in decades to come? What will he be remembered for?
It’s likely he’ll go down as a comparative footnote to history. A goods and services tax and serfchoices. A big-spender, who his supporters claimed as an economic supremo, who happened to fall into office as the global economy was taking off, followed by the biggest mining boom in a generation.
GP, that’s like saying the Snowy river scheme was only built because we ran out of electricity
Generic Person
In 2003 he wasn’t leader of the ALP and so could get away with using the ‘S’ word if it was preceeded by Christian coz that tends to sound conservative (it really shouldn’t though because Jesus was a raging pinko: money changers bad, alms to the poor, from each according to his ability to each according to his need). In 2007 he had an election to win so would say what was needed. Even in may 2008 the sheep thought fiscal conservativism sounded like the right approach to the economy. Today he is not anything like a socialist. Bush stimulated the economy and Obama stimulated the economy too. It was of a different size but not a different kind. If the COALition were in government, they too would be acting like “socialists”. Keynes is back, deal with it! If the Liberals tryed doing nothing as I think the Canadian conservatives tried to do (?) then God help us. God by the way is a watermelon that doesn’t exist, but I hold nothing against you if you disagree on this point.
Rudd is a pragmatist, he has no backbone, he has no strong beliefs. He’ll do what his advises say will get him re-elected and support the economy of the powerful. These words are perhaps a little more harsh than they need be but i’m just hi-lighting that his beliefs can be flexible. I find it even harder to get my head around Peron or de Gaulle.
I dont know who had to pay to fix the shonky railway line which shook carriages so much the cargos ended up smashed but would like to think it was the private investor Kellog Root Brown/Halliburton
It’s the problem conservative governments face if they want to leave their mark on history. And let’s face it, that’s what all governments want to do. The conservative steps back from the economy, steps away from infrastructure (and/or actively offloads it), steps back from public investment, from building or maintaining stuff. The true conservative enters the history books as a do-nothing, no-legacy waste of time. Howard’s sad story.
SNIP: Unconstructive comment deleted – The Management.
That’s not a rebuttal. Just three words without any substation or argument. It’s a mere footnote, like the wasted Howard Decade.
One can only hope that the media will report the facts as they are and reveal the porkies from both sides. The Govt has so far been successful in its economic management and has received support from all quarters.
The Stimpac has obviously worked with likely more of that money still to flow through the economy. The Govts deficit will be of the same order as Turnbull’s proposed deficit though they try not to talk about it.
Cash handouts have a much higher multiplier than tax cuts according to Krugman’s site, which Turnbull wanted to rely on I think. The Govt’s package is the more likely to keep people in jobs whilst waiting for infrastructure money starts flowing.
Turnbull’s packaged was the cheaper but less effective and would end up paying out more in unemployment. The Gov’ts packages keep more people in work and enables revenues to be created much faster as the world economy starts to pick up, thus a higher rate of deficit reduction. The net result is less people’s lives unnecessarily ruined which is what the Govts responsibility is.
If Turnbull is saying that govt is creating a 30% of GDP deficit then he should be pulled up by the media for being dishonest. Will the media do its job?
It is very relevant in the context of today’s GFC that the Howard govt blew $300+ billion dollars on nothing of any lasting value except to try and buy votes and feed the wealthy even more wealth. And reduced spending on education and health.
Who wants to make up a list of the things we could do with $300bn if we had that now?
$314 billion would have bought more than seven $43 billion broadband networks.
Cuppa
I actually LOLed
No 814
I think you’ll find that the $300 billion to which you refer mostly consists of tax cuts. Obviously you think people shouldn’t keep what they earn.
314 billion he blew between the 2004-2005 budget and the 2007 election. What did he leave to show for it but “tax cuts”? For that money he could have built seven broadband networks, and still had a 13 billion surplus left over. What a tragic waste of opportunity. The necrotic decade.
ok, the FPTP Legislation was finally passed after a Re-Vote.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/07/2562908.htm
Tanner says interest bill will be $3 billion a year:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/06/2562861.htm
Absolutely incredible. An election should be called now.
You say some funny things sometimes, GP.
Yes GP, Bring on the DD!
GP, the master of hilarity
William,
What’s your take on the First Past The Post legislation for WA Local Govt Elections being passed, considering we don’t have party style councillors ?
To be honest Frank, I haven’t given it any thought. I don’t think I’ve ever voted in a WA council election, though I plan to correct this at the Fremantle mayoral election later this year. However, today’s episode has piqued my interest, and I now plan to look into it. As a matter of general principle, optional preferential > compulsory preferential > first-past-the-post. The greater the degree of choice offered to the voter to either direct or not direct their vote as they wish, the better.
No 820
I’m glad I could be of humour to you.
Indeed, GP the whole Howard era was a joke in the same way that the joke of the Bjelke-Peterson era was shown at the Fitzgerald Inquiry to be based on “the joke”. It would be funny if it wasn’t so serious.
This is funny GP. Barnaby Joyce has decided not to get himself a job in the lower house afterall which is exactly what we all thought would happen the day he announced his insane decision. Why would a do-nothing Senator want to move to where the work is done anyway?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25440835-5006786,00.html
I think it will be a “nice old mess”. I know one person who will be thoroughly entertained and amused the whole election watching the Liberals fighting the Nationals in a no holds barred bunfight for the senate while trying to get House of Representative candidates up under the united LNP banner. It will be enough to makes circuses obsolete.
The good thing is that the voters of Queensland actually despise all this Tory infighting no matter how much entertainment I see in it personally. No wonder Queenslanders have never been keen on an upper house when they are fed this nonsense from the Tories on a regular basis.
I wouldn’t say Barnaby Joyce is a ‘do-nothing’ senator. He’s quite active in committee work and chamber activity as well as press-related matter.
I also reject your assertion that the House of Representatives is ‘where the work is done’. There’s nothing to back that up at all.
This reeks of the nats of old, Steve.
All Joyce and the Nats wanted was for Trood to “pretend” to be a National fro one hour a week when parliament sat, why?
Was it because the nats may have lost party status in the senate if Joyce moved to the lower house, loss of party status means loss of extra staff and other little nice rorts. Having Trood as an “honoury” nat for one hour a week may have meant they retained that status.
But maybe I’m being too cynical of Joyce and his motives?
Does look like Joyce did have a reps seat lined up or was he just being goaded by Howard and others, you walk the walk but can you talk the talk. He is like Costello, they haven’t dropped yet, be hilarious if Cossie got in as lib leader and Joyce took over as nat leader. The dream team “nutless and nutless”.
GP
Please don’t try and talk about telecommunications infrastructure and country towns, a subject which you clearly know nothing about.
Satellite (subsidised) is only available if you can’t get wireless, so in most country towns it isn’t on offer.
Mobile phone services in country towns are variable to say the least. In my closest town, 45 mins from the nearest major regional centre, there’s a mobile tower. It covers about 50% of the town, with people living just below it (and in clear sight of it) unable to access mobile. Needless to say, within 10 minutes drive of town there’s no coverage at all.
On the road to the nearest major regional centre (a BIG one), mobile coverage drops out 5 minutes out of town and comes back in 5 minutes from the regional centre.
From my house (10 minutes south of the mobile tower, 5 minutes from any mobile coverage) you can drive an hour and a half south and never have mobile coverage. In that drive, you’ll travel through at least four villages.
GP choking on his own sound bites again.
or to run businesses there, particularly agricultural ones. don’t need services either, why bother providing them with roads and hospitals, after all, they chose to live there. Not as if they contribute anything to the national economy, is it?
I’ve always said that economic rationalism in the bush would have all farmers living in regional centres and dropped off at the farm by bus every morning – clearly a far more economic proposition than the present living on the farm, miles from nowhere scenario!
I’m pretty sure The Nationals have a special arrangement that allows them to keep ‘party status’ in the Senate regardless of their numbers.
Defence suspicious about Fitzgibbon Liu ‘obligations’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25441829-29277,00.html
I find this story really quite outrageous. I just can’t see how it is appropriate for Defence ‘officials’ to be running such an investigation, whether they do it during work hours or out of work hours. Even if it was deemed appropriate, I can’t imagine that providing commentary on the investigation to the media would be.
From the Daily Telegraph today, a story entitled ‘Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald spends $12,000 dining out’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25441729-421,00.html
Which is a bit strange as they also reveal in the article that Nationals leader Andrew Stoner spend $17,000 over the same period. Why is that not the headline instead?
Correction on my 834, I’ve checked the determination and no such arrangement exists. I’d imagine there’s a good chance that if Joyce had moved to the House that The Nationals Senate representation could’ve fallen below 5, certainly not something they’d want.
Farming 9 to 5, what a way to make a living!
If we could just get the cows and ewes to cooperate.
GP at 819, I take it you are referring to your earlier post that the opposition needs a wipeout to get rid of the dead wood. It is the only reason I can see for you wanting an election now. Which of the poll numbers from 37 to 45% 2PP would you be aiming for??
Polyquats
they could always work in shifts.
Get with the program!!
Zoomster, have you any idea how far some farm gates are from regional centres? (but given the commute that Howard used to do each day, maybe we could put on choppers for the farmers.) Maybe we can provide choppers for the bore runs too, cos they can’t always be done in a single shift. And they don’t need decent communication during the working shift. And of course the farm could support multiple shift working families.
Re 835,
Up with breakfast now here in Perth and The Age is always the first place I go to for news. Ugh, saw the headline and not clicking beyond that ….. Must be that the Coalition didn’t get the response they were after with the immigration issues nor the polite request yesterday from MT for an early election. So they’ve let loose the media dogs again, not realizing that it didn’t work before.
Was watching an old Black Adder series about a week ago which reminded me of their current illogic. (We rented a series BA#4 dvd to introduce the kids {8&11} to BA humor). General Melchert is sitting behind his desk explaining the battle plans to Black Adder and the reason they are going “over the top and into the trenches” is because the fact that it is the same plan that they used the previous 15 or 16 times (despite the fact that it didn’t work) is exactly the reason they use it again – the plan the enemy least expects. “Oh, no, they won’t expect we will use the same plan over again…….” Clueless morons
GP316
The $300billion extra Howard spent was by no means all tax cuts. There were also all those bonus payments and subsidies for people with babies, farms, mines, investment properties, diesel trucks and four wheel drives. Government spending itself in a number of departments including health, education and defence also reched record levels. Howard started out by cutting the public service but in the end he presided over the biggest spending government in Australian history. Only the boom in mining revenue hid this fact.
The trouble is we got a poor return for the spend. The extra money in education went to private schools to build air conditioned gymnasiums rather than public schools or universities. The health money went to private health insurers, not public hospitals. Defence blew billions on Seasprites that never got finished, “super” hornets and faulty second hand US ships.
Transport was stagnant in real terms, and what was spent was focused on rural roads and freight (i.e. pork) rather than fixing urban congestion.
So overall, the money is gone except for the future fund (that was a good idea) and we still have a lot of systems that need fixing.
Something that i think should be mentioned more in reguards to these stiumulus is the similarities between the government policy and findings i’ve seen shown of a report by the japanese Institute for Local Government in 1998 during japan’s lost decade:
“A 1998 report by the Japan Institute for Local Government, a nonprofit policy research group, found that every 1 trillion yen, or about $11.2 billion, spent on social services like care for the elderly and monthly pension payments added 1.64 trillion yen in growth. Financing for schools and education delivered an even bigger boost of 1.74 trillion yen, the report found. ”
“But every 1 trillion yen spent on infrastructure projects in the 1990s increased Japan’s gross domestic product, a measure of its overall economic size, by only 1.37 trillion yen, mainly by creating jobs and other improvements like reducing travel times.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/06/world/asia/06japan.html?pagewanted=2
Sorry the above referred to GPs comment at 816, not 316.
Scotty J
Yes Japan illustrates the problem – infrastructure is usually a good investment provided it is on things that are needed. Japan, like Howard, tended to spend $ on infrastructure to buy votes in rural electorates, rather than in growing cities where it was needed. I analysed several national highway projects earlier this decade that had benefit-cost ratios below one, but were still built. Unsurprisingly, they were in coalition electorates in rural Victoria and NSW. The rail line to Darwin was similar.
Overall though, education is arguably the best long term investment, provided it is focused on quality not quantity, and starts from primary school. Finland has the best performing education system in the world, but is not the highest spender on education. Their system is almost 100% public too.
To further illustrate how Howard changed govt spending, here is a graph on the proportion of government spending on private education institutions (by country). Australia is one of the highest – 22.3% of education spending went to private schools.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_pub_spe_on_pri_ins-education-public-spending-private-institutions
When you consider that for many countries these figures include public funding of private universities, you see how comparatively large the private school sector is here.
Socrates, Lets not forget also the waste of $170million spent on WC and the extra costs to businesses to become compliant. Also the $1billion advertising bill spent over the 11.5yrs Howard was in government, which I think Crikey covered a story in which they didn’t have a tender process which is the rules, but gave it to Liberal favoured advertising agencies.
Polyquats – please activate sarcasm meter.
I LIVE on a small country property. I have satellite broadband (after Telstra f**ed me around trying to get wireless to work when they clearly knew it wouldn’t). I have no mobile phone access (and doubt I ever will have). I have no public transport whatsoever.
I was parodying the GP ‘they choose to live in the country’ line and suggesting that’s the ultimate solution for economic rationalists.
But Zoomster, I’m trying to get with the program!
Activate your own sarcasm meter.
ltep wrote …..
“Defence suspicious about Fitzgibbon Liu ‘obligations’
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25441829-29277,00.html
I find this story really quite outrageous. I just can’t see how it is appropriate for Defence ‘officials’ to be running such an investigation, whether they do it during work hours or out of work hours. Even if it was deemed appropriate, I can’t imagine that providing commentary on the investigation to the media would be.”
————————————————————
Indeed it is totally outrageous. Where are the boundaries ? Who are they going to investigate next because they “think” or “believe” whatever ?
Why are fairfax press publishing this stuff without evidence of breaches of the law.
fairfax need to put up or shut up.
Ltep 829: having worked in both Greenland and Redland, my view is that a backbencher who is content to remain (or resigned to remaining) a backbencher can do more useful work in the Senate than they can in the Reps, particularly if their party is in government, and particularly if (as is usually the case) no one party has a Senate majority. The opinions and actions of individual Senators matter more than the opinions and actions of individual MHRs, and they can devote more time to Canberra work because they don’t have to worry about constituency work. If you are a lazy timeserver, you will be noticed less in the Reps (provided you hold your seat) than in the Senate, because there are twice as many members and they have less work to do per head. Senators get to speak more often, they have more committee work, and they have better access to (Senate) ministers then MHRs have to (Reps) ministers. Also the Senate works in a more collegiate way, and usually gets its work done by negotiation rather than by force of numbers. This gives individual Senators more scope for real influence.
Anyone for a new spiffy toy: Infographic Electoral Demography
http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/05/07/spiffy-toys-infographic-electoral-demography/
That’s the trouble with being sarcastic in print, it just gets confusing.
So I’m going for genetically engineered sheep and cattle, who only lamb/calve during working hours. We could microchip them in such a way that emergency signals could be sent out to a specialised strike team after hours.
Potential benefits: no need for country towns smaller than 30,000, as farmers will live there and service all their needs (solves doctor shortage!!). Hundreds of acres presently under houses & shops opened up for development. Rationalisation of country road system, as only need to service routes between farms and major centre. Solves all the problems related to isolation at one stroke. Minimise human losses from natural disasters such as fire/flood etc as there aren’t lots of houses which need protection.
There you are, Malcolm – a policy!!
Something for political people to chase – when Albanese announced the new infrastructure funding in April, Warren Truss made some statement that it was actually less than what the coalition promised in AusLink II, and saw $6bn of projects dropped:
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,25388633-2682,00.html
I find Truss’s statement odd. The major urban projects I am aware of in SA are being advanced not delayed. The only projects dropped were more rural pork that wasn’t needed. So is Truss’s statement true?
Here is the former govt announcement of AusLink II – it was to run from 2009/10 to
2013/14 and total $22.3 Bn
http://www.budget.gov.au/2007-08/search.asp?search-string=providing%20and%20security&submit=true
nuh, needs communication, like satellite or something. Suggest just locking them in padded cells overnight. Solves problems with rustling, dingoes etc. as well.
When do we start our jobs on Mal’s policy team?
Must be some left over from the Pacific solution.
Mal wouldn’t have us, we’re over qualified.
I’m getting moist again Possum!
Nevertheless, Zoomster, it is a fact that the pattern of settlement in rural Australia dates from the days when travel was done by horse and buggy, so we have many more small country towns than we need, many of them no longer serving any real economic purpose and being kept alive by subsidies from urban taxpayers. I agree you can’t order people to move to regional centres (though many are in fact doing so), nor can you just cut off their services (although Kennett thought you could). But there has to be a limit to how much urban taxpayers can be expected to fork out to sustain unviable communities. (Climate change may be about to solve this problem for us by rendering whole inland regions of Australia economically unviable.)
Zoomster, just listening to Public Spheres seminar hosted by Kate Lundy (http://dld.anu.edu.au/public-sphere) on high bandwidth for Australia. Interesting talk on internet access for rural areas. Unfortunately, you need broadband to watch.
A minor human tragedy I once encountered:
30+ farmer living with mum on isolated (80 k from nearest majorish centre, 30 k from nearest hamlet) sheep farm. Mum dies. Son left in big house by self, can’t afford to go to ‘town’, only social contacts therefore neighbours (infrequent) and sheep sales.
Not the sort who gets featured on ‘The Farmer Gets a Wife’ type programs, I’m sure there’s hundreds of them out there.
I think Newsradio just said the unemployment rate has fallen to 5.4%
zoomster
I was born in the country and have spent half my career in regional areas, yet I agree with Psephos. There are many examples of the human tragedy you list, but the solution is not to leave them in the bush. Most of the rural production comes from a small number of areas. But the solution is not to continue to subsidise unviable low grade grazing land. Rather we should help those people leave. There are also many human tragedies in high unemployment areas of cities, and we don’t spend much on them.
It woudl be cheaper to buy them a house on teh coast and turn the land back into national park. They would be better off too. People have warned since the 1950s that some soldier resettlement land in particualr was not viable, yet we prefer to imagine otherwise.
I have done some planning studies on some remote rural areas where it was cheaper to acquire every rural property than to provide them with a sealed road. Some areas we define as grazing land would be called desert in other countries.
Zoomster, the Fourth Rudd Government will use its $200bn budget surplus to buy up all those properties, put your lonely batchelor farmer in a condo on the Gold Coast, and use his land for reafforestation.
863 – Correct. Unemployment down, yesterday retail figures up. The stimpacs at work it seems.
Confirmed:
http://www.news.com.au/business/story/0,27753,25442483-31037,00.html
LOL! You just wait, Turnbull will spin this around and say it is a bad sign for the economy.
The government should say that it is 1) thanks to the stimulus packages 2) the resilience and enterprise of the Australian people, and should PLEAD with Malcolm Turnbull for him to stop talking down the economy.
Impossible! Everyone is SAVING the money, because they are CERTAIN that unemployment is going to go up EVERY month.
Malcolm Turnbull told me so last night on The 7:30 Report.
Retail up, jobless down, another quarter of growth likely. The Liberal Party is sure having a shocker week.
Socrates, true up to a point. But services still tend to run out far to early. We do still have to farm some of the country. We can’t import all our food. And since we’ve buried our best fruit and veg growing land under ever-expanding suburbs and regional centres, we will just have to learn to grow our own or live on wheat & lamb from increasingly marginal farming/grazing land.
I was watching Sky Noos when the unemployment figures came through. Their analyst had just been talking about a figure of 5.9% and about some bloke who was predicting 15% by mid next year. Then this 5.4 figure cropped up on his computer screen. He was literally stunned into silence.
Even if growth is NEUTRAL 0% they will be complaining, because it means the government can argue that we never went into recession.
Now watch the budget be only half as bad as expected.
Malcolm now has a problem. Will he now ask the government to point to the jobs being created by the stimpacs?
Socrates et al
agree (almost) completely.
Came up with a policy which basically said take the opportunity the drought offers to enable farmers to move off land which is no longer viable (and in some cases never was).
This may mean amalgamating farms to make larger, more viable properties, or simply walking away from certain regions altogether.
The alternative is farmers struggling to make a living on land that never will, getting further and further into debt, and raping the land in a desperate attempt to try and earn their way out. Needless to say, they won’t be able to sell, so their only alternative is to go bankrupt and walk away with nothing.
Surely far kinder to let them leave with some dignity and some chance of making a new life.
I was told that such a policy would lead to farmer suicides and to leave it all to market forces!!
Still managed to sneak it into Labor platform and Tony Burke announced something along these lines a few months ago.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25442509-601,00.html
Couldn’t this really be a ‘correction’, because the rate last month was over-predicted?
Anyone know what the margin of error is on the unemployment rate?
Nice to imagine, but it will be a stinker anyway I predict.
I wonder if Malcolm will argue that that this shows the stimpacs were not needed in the first place? Would he be that stupid?
Here’s the unemployment stats, straight from the ABS’s mouth:
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/6202.0?OpenDocument
”Defying expectations the Aussie economy added jobs in April and the unemployment rate went down,” said Moody’s economy Economists Matt Robinson.
”It’s a damn good result.”
”This is going to leave a lot of people gobsmacked.”
Mr Robinson said it was possible that employers with long memories of a tight labour market only a year ago had been ”trying desperately hard not to lay off staff because those quality people will be the most productive in an upturn.”
”You’ve got to take your hats off to policymakers both government and the central bank that have taken aggressive actions that look as if they’re working,” he said.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/surprise-jobs-boost-20090507-avyz.html
Yeah I can hear it now. Turnbull:
I agree with GP last night. Lets have an election right now!
on 7 news just now they had Malcolm saying if he were PM unemployment would be lower then the unemployment figures were announced lol
he can’t take a trick poor bugger.
Turnbull’s new catch phrase was going to be “unemployment will always be lower under a liberal govt”
Sadly an election right now could be for the Reps only, leaving the necessity for a half-Senate election next year, which would be untidy and expensive. Also the experience of the period 1964-74, when the two houses were out of sinc, was that people used half-Senate elections as excuses to cast protest votes. That’s why the DLP did so well in that period.
Is there any other country where unemployment is falling right now?
No sympathy for him at all!
Hear hear!!
The problem for Malcolm is that he can’t prove that everything would be much better under a coalition government. He can say it but what else is he going to say? You can’t expect him to say that it is going to be worse or just the same but where is the proof?
He should sing “Anything he can do I can do better”.
I wish he would stop those stupid hypothetical statements.
Remember what happened to the Liberals when they promised that interest rates would be lower under them than Labor?
Has anyone asked Turnbull *why* unemployment is falling?
I think the margin of error is 0.2%.
http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/meisubs.nsf/0/A1B9129785C01A08CA2575AE00273950/$File/62020_apr%202009.pdf
A bloke on Sky Business channel said they were checking to see if a mistake had been made in the reporting of the numbers lol
All Ords up 2% and the $AUS jumped half a cent after the release of unemployment numbers , now 75.5.
You can just see it now, Malcolm, Joe et al screwing up their prepared scripts, head in hands and shouting, “What do we say now?”
Psephos,
Malcolm’s response to falling unemployment,
“When the moon is in the seventh house and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then Peace will guide the Planets and Love will steer the stars”.
Will serve just as well as anything else he can say.
If you go by the figures, PART of the reason is that the participation rate went down 0.1%. So some people have given up looking, so they are no longer considered part of the Labor market.
The participation rate amongst 18 – 21 year olds went down by 2%, which means a lot of young people have just given up looking.
I expect the Liberals to play up this line “people have given up looking because the economy is so bad”.
But that doesn’t help them counteract the headline number that unemployment has fallen!
Juliem – love your 835 re Black Adder. All day yesterday I was thinking that the Libs were rehashing stuff that lost them the election.
Hope your kids get a liking for BA as ours did.
ABC World at Noon is not letting us enjoy the good unemployment figures for long.
They have already found some gloom to talk about with more mining losses in Qld. LibABC can’t find a feel good story with someone who has got a job recently can they. That’s against the rules of their game. We must only hear about the losses.
Go away.
vera,
It is interesting they aren’t bothering to check whether their forecasts of doom and gloom were wrong.
Mike Rann takes all the credit. Gotta love state politicians, they are shameless.
Did they report the unemployment rate going down? Isn’t THAT a story about job losses?
GG the looks on their faces has made my day
There they were all happy and ready to get stuck in to the govt and SPLAT LOWER unemployment! ABC bloke was near tears lol Seven jumped the gun having Turnbull on just before the numbers were due for release so instead of going to script it made him look even more stupid.
Can’t wait for QT, Juliem it’s gunna be fun
Ahhh NSW.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25440819-5006009,00.html
Julia is doing a press conference at 1.30 according to The Age, which has a live link to it.
http://www.theage.com.au/
http://media.theage.com.au/live-deputy-pm-on-employment-508018.html
Vera – I can’t get free to air.
What was the reaction of the Ch 7 bloke to Turnbull’s ‘my no. would be better than Rudds’ or was it just a quick line from Turnbull with no press questions.
ANZ economist:
Amigo Vera, you should have heard Stephen Long of ABC on ABC At Noon. He tried everything under the sun to find holes in the numbers, barring throwing his own grandmother. The trouble with these “experts” is that they cannot handle good news.
If it has been 5.7 to 5.9, the headline will be “Unemployment plunge” “Unemployment collapse” “Unemployment surge”. Now it is 5.7 to 5.4, and they are effing speechless.
The same Stephen Long that did not have to courage to ask Leigh Sales for a date.
It’s the Stimpacs!!!! Go Swannie, go.
Tune in to Lateline this Friday to find out if he asks her out in this week’s episode!
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/200905/s2563262.htm
We’ll send those numbers back to the ABS till they get them right! I am not going to be embarrassed by mere facts.
http://business.theage.com.au/business/fairy-tale-jobless-figures-20090507-aw2g.html
BH it was just a clip from last night’s 7.30 report