Unpredictable Roy Morgan has unloaded two very different sets of poll results: one using its usual face-to-face methodology, but based on one week’s sample rather than the recently more usual two, and the other a phone poll in which respondents were also asked about leadership preference, contrary to normal Morgan practice. The face-to-face poll is from 999 respondents, and shows Labor’s lead narrowing from 60-40 to 58-42. Labor’s primary vote is down 0.5 per cent to 49.5 per cent, while the Coalition is up a quite healthy 3.5 per cent to a still not-healthy 37.5 per cent. The Greens are down a point to 8 per cent.
However, the phone poll has Labor’s two-party lead at a more modest 54.5-45.5, from primary votes of 45 per cent Labor, 40.5 per cent Coalition and 7.5 per cent Greens. At present, a dedicated page for the phone poll result tells us only that Kevin Rudd leads Malcolm Turnbull as preferred prime minister 60.5 per cent to 26.5 per cent; that Rudd’s approval rating is 57.5 per cent; and that Turnbull’s approval rating is 43 per cent. Perhaps it will be fleshed out with more information at a later time.
Two other pieces of news:
• It seems Andrew Wilkie will run as an independent candidate for Denison at next year’s Tasmanian state election. Wilkie is the former Office of National Assessments analyst who quit over the Howard government’s actions before the Iraq war, and subsequently ran as a Greens candidate against John Howard in Bennelong in 2004 and as Bob Brown’s Tasmanian Senate running mate in 2007.
• A beleagured British Labour Party is considering sweeping electoral reforms, including an elected upper house. House of Commons reforms might presumably include some kind of preferential voting, which Britain’s three-plus party system badly needs, or more radically proportional representation, with which Britons have become familiar through elections for the Scottish and Welsh parliaments, its members of European Parliament, and local government.
1,320 Comments
I would rate the chances of an elected upper house in the UK as extremely slim. But it’d certainly be an exciting development!
Of course the Lords itself would likely reject any attempt to reform the house. Given that the Lords can delay a bill by a year it looks highly unlikely the reform would get through before Labour are turfed out.
OMG, I need Bex and a good lie down. I agree with Andrew Bolt.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25518788-5000117,00.html
If Brown has got any guts (or even a sense of self-preservation) he’ll go for PR, which would produce a hung parliament unless there is a total Tory landslide, and enable him to cut a deal with the Lib Dems. Of course Labour is so much on the nose that he might finish up the junior partner in a LibDem government! Anything would better than letting the lightweight phony Cameron in.
#3: But why is he saying all this to Neil?
William, because Neil aint got no manner.
It means Glen’s favourite polling organisation is now Neilsen, he will conveniently forget how out it was the day before the last election.
Are you sure? State government legislation is struck down for being unconstitutional all the time. That’s how all the old tobacco, alcohol and petrol excises were found to be unconstitutional, hence the need for federal legislation to collect the taxes on behalf of the states.
I think Mr Bolt is referring to Neil Mitchell, who like Howard Sattler has been running a campaign defending the woman in question, but poor Howard has discovered that his listeners aren’t behind him – which is strange considering Mr Sattler normal attidude to Law & Order
Not necessarily. The majority of the Lords are life peers, not hereditaries, and many of them would support reform. Given that life peers are usually appointed fairly late in their lives, a large chunk of the current members are Labour appointees, such as retired union bosses etc. They won’t just do what Brown tells them, but they are probably not hostile to the idea.
Couldn’t they just use the Parliament Act to FORCE reform through even if the Lords vote it down?
Psephos I’d have to check but from memory there have been a number of votes on Lords reform proposals (just general motions, not legislation) in the Lords and they’ve all been rejected.
From memory 1 or 2 of them were successful in the Commons.
ShowsOn @ 7
Because the Federal Constitution specifically prohibits the States from imposing excises. It doesn’t say anything about the power of the States to make laws in relation to religion.
One part of one of the referendum questions in 1988 was to extend the ‘freedom of religion’ provisions of the Federal Constitution to apply to the States. This wouldn’t be necessary if they already applied. (The proposal sank with the others.)
The Federal Constitution only restricts state legislation insofar as valid Commonwealth legislation exists. Each of the state constitutions basically grants plenary legislative powers to the state.
Re religious freedom: s116 is not binding on the states, and an attempt to make it so was rejected at referendum in 1988.
My vague recollection is that whole case came down to whether imposts on petrol, alcohol, and tobacco were taxes or excises.
I didn’t know this. I do know that it would’ve also extended the Section 116 clause to clarify it also implies a right to NOT practice a religion.
Wilkie link – http://www.themercury.com.au/article/2009/03/20/62275_tasmania-news.html
I think that your link leads to the wrong article Will, though I have seen an ABC one too.
No, that was the article I meant to link to – there’s an incidental reference to Wilkie as Denison candidate in it. Yours is better though.
Indonesian Vice Presidential candidate owns 27 companies and 90 horses:
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25521832-23109,00.html
Does Morgan know whether he is coming or going? Why two polls released at once and such disparate results?? Not helping his beleagured credibility
Dear Glen, is Morgan still bull butter when it shows 54.5/45.5??
Morgan is to polls what the pre-season comp is the the AFL season.
BH 342 previous thread, I’ve done the same although I have no confidence. I might note though, for what it is worth, we are about .50 the favorite in the betting line the last I checked. The only upset I’ve picked is the Tigers.
“No, that was the article I meant to link to – there’s an incidental reference to Wilkie as Denison candidate in it.”
So it does. My mistake.
Re: Morgan.
Very odd. I can’t fathom why they would release two polls at once with different results. It’s almost an admission that polling isn’t accurate.
If Morgan is so committed to face to face polls, believing them to being a superior measurement stick, why would he even consider phone polls?
ltep previous thread,
BRING it on
……
Over the past couple of weeks msm have been pushing the $300bil Govt debt. This would worry some and others would believe the Lib lies that it is all Labors fault (don’t mention the GFC) and that labor always gets the country into debt. This could account for the 3.5 increase to Coalition and the drop of the Greens.
SA has two schools shut now. I’m not sure why. We don’t shut schools when we get the common flu in one and there doesn’t seem to be much difference between common flu and swine flu. I’m going to have to find out what this “contain” level means.
That’s a fairly bizarre set of quotes from Wilkie – the Greens in particular seem to have awful luck with “star” candidates coming in from outside. I knew he’d quit, but I didn’t realise he’d gone quite so wacky.
If someone is pro-pulp mill, pro-dam, and pro-canal development, what in the heck were they doing ever joining the Greens in the first place?
The Greens need to learn to vet their damn candidates.
Full details from the Morgan phone poll.
Garnaut has joined the growing chorus of reluctant supporters of the ETS.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25521805-601,00.html
Rebecca, Wilkie is not pro mill nor pro dam and I don’t know what the canal development is.
http://www.andrewwilkie.org for what his stances are.
I’d vote for him.
Garnaut can see the political realities of the situation. It’s this ETS or the highway.
Such a pity the Greens lost Wilkie, he would’ve made a great senator, but it was probably inevitable once he moved to forestland.
Regarding the UK, it’s worth remembering that the Labour Party has always been theoretically more pro-reform there. The 1997 manifesto promised to introduce PR, and a commission in 1998 proposed a system of top-up seats with single-member seats adopting preference voting, but it got buried and the 2001 and 2005 manifestos were weakened, but still advocated a referendum on PR. Now that pretty much every element of the British political system is up for grabs, I think the pro-reform elements in the party are pushing forward. None of this will happen before the next election, but I could see a referendum getting on the 2010 ballot and a possible yes vote forcing PM Cameron to move on the issue.
I think Obama’s 17% ETS (which looks like getting up) has shifted the debate a bit. It certainly makes it much more likely that the mandatory 5% target will be increased to 17-25% after Copenhagen which has made people like me a lot happier with the ETS II.
If Rudd reneges on increasing to at least 17% if the US, UK and EU all are at 17%-25%, there will be hell to pay.
In regards to Denison, the Greens will easily get one MP elected, and if current trends hold up you would think they would have a shot of getting a second. If Wilkie can garner progressive votes lost to the Greens, a preference swap between Green #2 and Wilkie could see one of them get up. If the Greens then can win a seat in Bass, you’ll see a much strengthened progressive block in the Parliament.
Gary
“Garnaut can see the political realities of the situation. It’s this ETS or the highway.”
I disagree, I think this is what the Labor Party wants people to believe. Politically I think the Labor Party could lose quite a bit of support over this. I would think most punters would prefer the Government to err on the side of doing too much than too little.
35 Astrobleme – and what evidence is out there to suggest that?
People will see a Labor Party voting FOR an ETS and the Greens and the Liberals voting AGAINST an ETS. How that makes Labor the bad guys is beyond me and will be beyond many I would suggest.
Following on from the Catholic Church discussion in the old thread:
1. Priests should be allowed to get married. Principles like no sex before marriage would of course still apply.
2. The misogyny needs to end such that women can attain higher positions in the Church.
Unless the Catholic Church enacts these reforms, it will be dead within a couple of decades. It has to move with the times. I can hardly fathom how a married priest would be less devoted to God, and nor can I fathom why men are the only sex suitable to serve God in a higher capacity.
It will hurt the Liberal Party, but I think the message that the ALP’s scheme has been shredded and won’t do anything is getting through amongst the left and that will mean it won’t hurt the Greens to oppose it.
Gary
Evidence for which particular opinion? Yours or mine?
Gary, I agree and if Morgan’s poll is on the money IMO the more the GFC bites the more the Lib vote increases at the Greens expense. Food on the table and keeping a job will be more on the minds of people.
Ben Raue #32
I’m putting the champagne on ice now in the hope it will happen – even if it’s just a referendum, because a UK debate would generate more interest and awareness here. And if it were adopted, it will make us look even more pre-historic if we stick with our tired exclusivist system. I wish there were something we could do from here to support the UK push towards PR reform.
I think Wilkie is more likely to have problems from being too similar to the Greens than from being too different to them. Then again, Greens can be rather black-and-white in their attitudes to those who don’t quite fit the bill, and they don’t much care for splitters. Tasmania saw especially bitter fights between Greens and Democrats in the nineties and I think Wilkie will appeal to the same demographic who formed the rump of Democrat support here after the Greens had won that battle.
I had a look at what percentage of the vote Wilkie might need to get elected (http://tasmaniantimes.com/index.php?/weblog/article/what-chance-andrew-wilkie/) and suggested that half a quota could well do it; Denison is an outside shot for a high enough profile independent because of the amount of preferential slop left over by the Greens and Liberals (assuming the Libs don’t win two) for an independent to surf across the line on. However at this stage I have not seen anything that convinces me that he will get that much. He did poll 2433 primaries as Bob Brown’s #2, which was significant since no other Green #2 in a Tasmanian Senate race has ever polled more than a few hundred.
Astrobleme
Did you hear about the Minerals Industry report that 23,000 jobs would be lost? BoH Barnaby saying NO.
When will it get into the pure heads, of some, that an ETS with 1% cuts is incredibly difficult to get up?
Every one who wants a mechanism for reducing CO2 emissions should back the Govt. Not because it is perfect, it has major flaws. But the alternative is zilch.
Gary
“People will see a Labor Party voting FOR an ETS and the Greens and the Liberals voting AGAINST an ETS. How that makes Labor the bad guys is beyond me and will be beyond many I would suggest.”
I disagree, people aren’t so simple-minded as you think. The Greens have made it pretty clear the current ETS is no good, and why they would vote against it. If the Govt just plows ahead without negotiating they will be just as responsible for it failing. With the current Upper House split they need to negotiate.
I don’t understand how you can insist on the latter principle but not the ‘no marriage’ principle, that seems to me to be inconsistent.
Good point! If the government does intervene to make the Catholic Church more democratic, more people will stay in it, which in the long run would be bad.
So keeping these stupid antiquated rules will most likely continue the trend of declining membership and observation.
I’ve just re-read our posts and wonder why you need to ask such a question. The answer is obvious.
Ben (#34) – that was what I had in mind as to how he would do it but preference swaps are impossible here as how-to-vote cards are illegal. Wilkie would have to hope that Greens supporters decided to give him their preferences. A minor nuisance for him would be that a portion of the Green vote exhausts once there are no Greens left in the count, although it is not as large as for the major parties.
All the polling suggests people want a strong ETS but when given an option between a stronger ETS with a small number of jobs lost, compared with a weak ETS and minimal job losses I think the latter would win.
It’s always easy to say you support a good issue as an isolated outcome (eg CO2 reduction, saving forests, more hospital beds) but when put in an economic context the answer is often quite different.
(Shakes head) I’m sounding like a Labor hack myself now!
Garnaut tells Senate Comittee that the Senate should pass the CPRS in its amended form:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25521805-601,00.html
What a pointless comparison. Since December???
Ruawake
Did you believe the Minerals Industry report? Seriously?
“When will it get into the pure heads, of some, that an ETS with 1% cuts is incredibly difficult to get up? ”
So because it’s hard we avoid making the hard choice?
“Every one who wants a mechanism for reducing CO2 emissions should back the Govt. Not because it is perfect, it has major flaws. But the alternative is zilch.”
Err no. If the govt negotiated with the Greens and X they could get one through.
The Govt want us to think the alternative is zilch, but that’s simply not true.
And tell me what compromise can you see happening that will see the Greens and the Libs agreeing on the same ETS? The government has already been seen as “caving in” to the Libs remember. So the Libs will look real bad and the Greens to most I’m sure look extreme.
Provided that the job being lost doesn’t belong to the people being interviewed!
If there was a survey done using the question “Do you support an ETS, even if it increases the chance of YOU losing YOUR job?” I’d be shocked if 50% of people said YES.
Negotiate! Greens want 40% target and Milne was on TV 2 weeks ago saying they would not budge.
Amazing that Bob Brown is one of Obama’s biggest fans and hasn’t said anything about his 17% target but slagged off Rudd for his 5-15% and not satisfied with a now possible 25%.
Gary
“And tell me what compromise can you see happening that will see the Greens and the Libs agreeing on the same ETS? ”
why would the libs and the Greens have to agree? You don’t need both.
I can’t say what the Greens would agree to, I don’t have any inside info.
The evidence question was rhetorical, you provided no ‘evidence’ for your opinion.
Don’t despair Dio when reality hits it can be brutal.
Vera and Gary
So Labor won’t negotiate? I don’t think that will sell well.
But doesn’t the U.S. bill propose a cut of 17% from 2005 levels, whereas our ETS is proposing a cut of 5 – 25 from 2000 levels? So it is hard to directly compare them?
Astrobleme
The Govt started the process in Opposition (Garnaut) they had a green paper, a white paper and now policy.
If it does not pass the Senate it will be blamed on The Greens (if they do not support it) even if the Rabble also vote against it.
Of course they will negotiate, but they won’t agree to wrecking amendments that will turn it into a complete different scheme.
Come on this isn’t very fair considering all 5 Greens could vote against it, and it could STILL be blocked.
I find it very hard to believe the Greens will get blamed if they vote for it! More likely the Liberals will be blamed, we already know the Nationals are voting against it.
56 Astrobleme – Take a look at the latest opinion polls Astro and tell me where the ETS is affecting Labor. People are aware of the ETS.
Labor may not need the Libs AND the Greens but if they go down the path of the Greens they will lose Fielding for sure and X is an unknown quantity.
Astrobleme
It was Milne on PM Agenda a couple of weeks ago refusing to budge from the Greens 40% target. How are Labor supposed to negotiate with a stubborn attitude like that?
I meant all Greens could vote FOR it.
SHowsOn
“Of course they will negotiate, but they won’t agree to wrecking amendments that will turn it into a complete different scheme.”
I agree with you about the compromise position, remeber this discussion started because Gary Bruce said
“It’s this ETS or the highway”
I disagreed, If the Labor party don’t negotiate on this they will suffer more than the Greens.
X isn’t an unknown quantity at all. He opposes trading schemes and instead supports a Carbon tax that slowly increases every year.
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25096826-5018312,00.html
Labor DOES need the Libs or Greens to get this passed.
I would say it is more than fair for the government to PRETEND that they won’t support amendments. The Government has a right to use as much pressure at first to get Senators to agree to their position. Of course we know the real horse trading starts when the bills go to the Senate.
Vera
“It was Milne on PM Agenda a couple of weeks ago refusing to budge from the Greens 40% target. How are Labor supposed to negotiate with a stubborn attitude like that?”
How is this any different from the Labor Party attitude? You have Gary Bruce saying that “It’s this ETS or the highway”
The Labor Party want us to think that it is this ETS or the Highway, but it isn’t. That’s the point I am trying to make,.
ShowsOn
“I would say it is more than fair for the government to PRETEND that they won’t support amendments. The Government has a right to use as much pressure at first to get Senators to agree to their position. Of course we know the real horse trading starts when the bills go to the Senate.”
Yes, for sure.
Let’s hope it’s a Labor-Green-X compromise rather than a Labor-Lib-Nat-Fielding compromise!
I thought the Greens had agreed to drop the mandatory cut from 40% to 25%, which was at least a step in the right direction although there’s no way Labor will go that far IMHO.
Ok, then Labor doesn’t need the Greens, they need the Libs. If X is going to vote against the ETS for being “the wrong system” then only having the Greens and Fielding onside will not give them the numbers required. The Nationals will vote against it no matter what.
Gary
Wouldn’t it be more likely for a Labor-Greens arrangement to be accepted by X? If Labor and the Greens came to an arrangement, there would be huge pressure for X (or even Fielding) to pass it.
Gary Bruce & Diogenes # 57
You are talking there about the short-term economic context. That is what suits the government, which is driven by short-term political considerations (the next election), which is why they’ve put the whole plan off until then.
But the proper approach is not to put climate change into a short-term economic context – but the long-term one. The Stern Report made clear that the future economy depends on the right emissions decisions being made NOW. Not when the current ‘temporary’ economic problems abate. They may abate much for a long time.
As reported recently recently about Tony Blair’s comments on it:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/03/tony-blair-climate-change-obama
This is a scientific reality that must be addressed. That’s where you start – not with short-term political considerations and then work backwards. If you do that you are in danger of becoming another “Minister For Not Yet” like Penny W.
Astro
Look how the mining industry are carrying on about job losses at 5%. labor is trying to negotiate with all involved, business, green groups alike. 40% is just not credible IMO
It should be IMHO. The Labor Party has gone a long way towards the Libs view. Why should they have to go further? They certainly won’t get anywhere going down the Green’s path.
74
“They may abate much for a long time” should of course read: “They may NOT abate much for a long time “
Diogenes, if the Greens target is now 25% I’ll be happy with them just this once
Sorry but it is. OK Senate you reject our legislation – Greens, X, Rabble sort it out yourselves. We have our position.
Next election – ALP we have our position on an ETS. Rabble – well we kind of support it but not until 2025. Greens our position is even scarier than wot the Rabble said against the ALP.
ALP win election – Greens seen a spoilers and yet again fail to win a Senate spot in NSW,Vic,Qld .
Gary,
“It should be IMHO. The Labor Party has gone a long way towards the Libs view. Why should they have to go further? They certainly won’t get anywhere going down the Green’s path.”
They need to negotiate, they can’t avoid it. If they had won control in the Senate they could do what they like, but they didn’t.
The Nats have already voted internally and have since stated that they won’t be supporting an ETS in any way shape or form. Senator Barnaby Joyce stated the same in the Senate last Thursday:
Senate Hansard, 14/5/09, Page 23
http://aph.gov.au/hansard/senate/dailys/ds140509.pdf
74 jaundiced – reality hasn’t struck yet in this neck of the woods obviously.
Ruawake
Well, that may be the gamble the Govt takes…
However, the current govt split is that the Govt needs to negotiate to pass bills. I feel like I am just stating the obvious here.
I think 15% is a distinct possibility given that the U.S. will be on 17% and most European countries at least that, if not more.
But remember, we need a system in place to enforce a target! If we have no ETS, then you can have all the targets you want, but we won’t have a way of achieving them.
ShowsOn
A Labor-Lib-Nat-Fielding compromise would have been the WORST option by a mile.
80 Astrobleme – Gee that sounds easy. “They must negotiate.” Negotiate what? How do you string together an ETS that won’t upset one side or the other when the gaps between them are gaping canyons?
If the Libs vote for it, the Nats and Fielding aren’t required…
But it would be a peculiar NO coalition, the Greens, Nats and Xenophon.
Gary
It would seem the target is the biggest stumbling block.
Of course it will be hard, but hey that’s what they’re paid to do!
Let’s just not be fooled by the ‘our way or the highway’ rhetoric.
ShowsOn
I wonder what the Greens would do if the Libs say yes… That would be interesting…
For me that would be the worst option, as I think we need strong targets.
My ideal compromise would be for the Government to agree to removing the ban on domestic nuclear power, provided the Opposition agrees to a mandatory 15% cut.
If that happened then I’d be SURE the Government and Opposition were both serious about this problem.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/obamas-new-electorate-pol_n_206249.html
Never know Malcolm might decide to pass a 5% target to keep business onside and make himself relevent into the bargain. Business are always banging on about needing a decicion made so they have certainty.
Astrobleme
You think the Govt. is doing this for fun? Politics is hardball stuff. They have put forward their proposal, which is the only one likely to be adopted.
They will continue trying to get the legislation passed. It will dawn on voters that it is the others who are the spoilers.
That would be the WORST outcome for the Greens, because they would instantly become COMPLETELY irrelevant!
At the moment they have a moderate bargaining position PROVIDED they bias themselves in favour of supporting the scheme. If they rock up to the Senate all militant and REFUSE to vote for the scheme without the 25% mandatory cut, then they will just deal themselves out of the negotiations.
If you believe Paul Kelly, Turnbull is under enormous pressure from the business community who want the government’s modified scheme enacted before the next election. Big business is paranoid that a Labor-Green compromise passed after an election would be much harsher.
Arthur Sinodinus’ (who is in a pre-selection battle for Brendan Nelson’s seat) op ed in The Australian a couple of weeks ago said the same thing. He wrote that the Liberals will be completely handicapped if they have to fight the next election on the ETS or climate change more broadly. His opinion is the Liberals should pass the government’s scheme in the Senate, but then reserve the right to change it if they win the election.
ShowsOn
It would be a nightmare… But it might always smash the Libs… Probably the best thing for Labor…
I would be very disappointed with the Greens and the Govt if they can’t get this together.
Vera
Do you not think the Libs would suffer if they passed the bill?
All of this quibbling about the angst and difficulty of the local politics on climate change is missing the larger point.
Blair is spot (in the article linked at 74 above) on about what is required from governments like Rudd’s, but which is not forthcoming – I think he must have read some of my posts from a while back
:
Should be enough to make Kevin and Penny blush.
I think I can guess what is going to happen. If it looks like Fielding and Xenophon are going to support it, the Greens will oppose it due to the compromises required to get Xenofielding’s support. If only one half of Xenofielding will support it, the Greens will vote for it so they can point out that they were constructive and didn’t block it.
The Greens don’t want to look obstructionist, but I don’t think they like the scheme at all.
When push comes to shove, I think the Liberals will oppose it, which would mean it will become a huge issue at the next election – does the populace want a carbon trading scheme when the economy is only just starting to recover?
No offence but the Wilkie thing is quite old news. i am pretty sure at some point i have mentioned it a while ago. Not that i can bleame anyone for not noticing with the wolrd the way it is these days and so much going on.
Shows on
Can’t they get it through like they got the anti-workchoices legislation through? When they only had Fielding and the Greens? Or did I misunderstand that process?
Sorry Xenophon and the Greens.
Fielding gives Head job (hat tip: Michael Gorey).
Shows
The Libs will fudge it, they will say they support an ETS but not until… insert appropriate date. Yes we agree there should be an ETS but not until China commits… OK now India… now … Nauru?
They will not support an ETS for at least a decade.
They could only do that if for some reason a Senator proposes an amendment, but later changes their mind and votes against their own amendment. In that scenario you are right that a tied vote would lead to rejection of the amendment, and passage of the bills.
But seriously that is like a really long shot. I don’t think the Government will want to rely on that happening.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
It’s going to be difficult…
jv
All I was saying was that the short-term economic/political benefits was with a weak ETS despite having seemingly robust support among the public.
Astro I don’t think it would hurt the Libs if they passed the bill, if anything they might gain support and Malcolm would look like he was willing to negotiate and not just say no to everything so I’d think his personal rating might also go up.
Maybe the best result would be a DD election over this and then an increased Green/Labor senate vote to get it through next time…
Gary, maybe you are right… Perhaps it is this way or no way (until after the DD election whereupon it all get’s re-worked according to who gets elected).
vera
From the Greens website. They have moved down to an unconditional 25%. I’m counting you as a Greenie now as well as GG.
I think the government will get a boost in the polls if the ETS in its current form is passed. People perceive Kyoto as symbolic, having the ETS through will be considered concrete action. People don’t care if it doesn’t go far enough, they will know it is a START, and they will understand that companies FINALLY have to pay for CO2-e emissions for the first time in Australia’s history.
Vera,
I think that is the Greens worst nightmare… Hush now.
Diogenes, any club that amigo GG belongs to is OK with me
I mentioned this on the previous thread, but I’ll do so again. The Clerk of the Senate Harry Evans is retiring in December. His job will be advertised in major papers this weekend, I believe the salary is currently $117,920 p.a.
You can email him here: clerk.sen@aph.gov.au to thank him for his service to the nation, and for putting up with Barnaby Joyce’s speeches.
SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.
William where has the love gone on your blog since you went capitalist?
All this talk of paedos and “morals legislation” from ShowsOn and others. Seems like many contributors have a little of the Salem Prosecutor general in them.
Peace to all men of goodwill.
Article 2 of comment moderation guidelines:
Strong swearing is not allowed (note the word “strong” – you do not have to dance around my filters with “d*mn” and “bl**dy”, or even “sh!t”). This is not because I’m puritanical about such things, as anyone who knows me will attest. I just find it jarringly inappropriate in the context of political discussion. The ban extends to switching letters around to avoid the moderation filters, or otherwise invoking the words without spelling them out. Something like “f**k” is permissible if you’re quoting something, but not if it forms part of your own expression.
Please get that into your heads, everybody.
Point out the flaws in my argument. At the moment you are saying “we shouldn’t do what I don’t think we should do.”
Astro, if it isn’t passed before the election something might come out of Copenhagen, like what rest of the world targets are set at and hasn’t Malcolm always said he wanted to see what the world does first? He wants to follow not lead so then he’d have no excuse to oppose the targets or the bill.
Glen do you really think the Libs would wedge the Greens and Labor?
Astro, I was unaware that you were unaware of the numbers situation in the Senate. It is a nightmare. As you have concluded now yourself the government just has to make a stand and go for it. I hope they do.
In all this debate about the ETS, no one has mentioned two of the most important recent developments?
China is demanding 40% emissions cuts by developed countries:
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-GreenBusiness/idUSTRE54K0X320090521
And the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change has published the first negotiating text for the upcoming Copenhagen negotiations.
From LP:
http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/2009/awglca6/eng/08.pdf
Australia’s position doesn’t actually register anywhere and is the lowest out of all the developed countries who have announced their positions. Which is all of them, I think, except Canada and the US.
This is despite the overwhelming evidence that the best way to reduce emissions is to replace carbon intensive energy sources with renewable ones, something Australia is best placed to exploit. This negates the faux indignation over job losses in the mining industry, especially since the government’s own modelling suggests that more jobs will be created than lost.
Three separate articles in today’s Crikey demolish the Mineral Council’s absurd claim of 23,000 job losses.
If the Government gets the legislation passed, then more than likely they will go to the next election proposing an increase in the target in order to wedge the Liberals.
If the Liberals oppose such an increase, then the Government will say they are weak and not serious on climate change. That will be especially potent if the Liberals voted against the scheme.
Vera
Don’t you think they’d use it for a DD election?
Glen
“Astro, I was unaware that you were unaware of the numbers situation in the Senate. It is a nightmare. As you have concluded now yourself the government just has to make a stand and go for it. I hope they do.”
I had figured they could do it how they’d done the anti-workchoices legislation… My bad.
I think if they can’t get X and Fielding with the Greens they should go DD.
Astro I don’t think a DD would have time to be held before Copenhagen, it’s this December i think.
If developed countries agree to a 40% cut, what is China offering?
I can’t believe how much coverage that blog post of Tim Andrews is getting. Talk about blowing things out of proportion.
Too late for that, unfortunately. This ETS is likely to be the strongest that’s passed.
Yes, theoretically, Labor and Greens could have a Senate majority after the next election, but moving towards The Greens would require a complete rewrite of the ALP’s policy – presumably the one they took to that very same election. It’s unlikely they’d reverse their policy immediately after the election.
Now that it’s a capitalist blog, the GST is attached. We’ve been asked to make our posts 10% more controversial.
I’ve been given a list of topics to bring up when it gets a bit slow.
No 126
I wouldn’t believe anything China says given their atrocious environmental record. It’s one thing to have laws, it’s another thing to enforce them.
I reckon. Shame he’s completely destroyed his chances of getting pre-selection anywhere. I liked his attempt to portray it as a “social media experiment”.
The problem is X wants a carbon tax, not an ETS.
Fielding will want even MORE compensation for low and middle income families, even though under the government’s plan they are already OVER compensated for price increases.
I worry that Fielding and Xenophon are going to try to pull the government in opposite directions so that neither of them will be pleased.
Why go to a DD? The ETS will not operate till after the next election.
Julian McGauran (is he really a Lib? ) has said he will not vote for an ETS. Is a Lib-Nat split emerging?
So, it seems the ONLY way this ETS will get passed is with Turnbulls help.
We can’t come up with a climate change solution without them. Some times in international relations you have to deal with what you’re given G.P.
No 131
I was a little shocked to open the Daily Telegraph over lunch to find pictures of all my good friends splashed over the paper.
This talk of “what comes out of Copenhagen” represents a lack of comprehension on how the UN negotiations have/will take place.
Australia is the chair of the arguably the most important and powerful party grouping within the UNFCC, the Umbrella Group – representing the biggest developed non-EU economies and emitters.
http://unfccc.int/parties_and_observers/parties/negotiating_groups/items/2714.php
No 135
China’s very cash rich, even in this recession, so there’s no reason why it can’t do more. As an authoritarian communist dictatorship, getting things done shouldn’t be a problem.
I don’t think a D.D. makes sense either. But the argument goes that it means the Senate changes over immediately after the election, AND it kind of shows the electorate how serious the Government is about the issue that they are electorally putting everything on the line.
Yes. And Turnbull needs to ask himself if he really wants to go to an election with CLIMATE CHANGE being the other big issue along side the economy. It didn’t work out well for them when it was an important issue in 2007, even though Turnbull’s personal position was much closer to Labor’s than Howard’s.
Astrobleme went:
That’s always been the political reality – it’s why the CPRS targets are what they are.
While I would like China and India to commit to binding cuts on pre-2010 baseline I think it’s highly unlikely. But that doesn’t mean that the negotiations are already dead in the water, or the environment is rooted.
Getting everyone to an equitable position is the preferable position, but more important is stabilising CO2 at 350ppm (though in reality, close to 450ppm). So if this means the developed countries, who do have more money and a better capability, have to take 25-40% cuts on a 1990 baseline whereas China and India only have to peak or make business as usual cuts – a scenario consistent with stabilising CO2 at acceptable levels, so be it.
Astrobleme went away…
Gary, seems you were right. Doesn’t matter what the Greens say.
The only way the Greens would really affect this legislation is to somehow do some sneaky trick in cahoots with the Govt and do it the way they did the anti-workchoices legislation… Not likely.
Sure, but there argument is that developed countries polluted for nearly a hundred years, and thus need to set the pace on emissions reductions.
I don’t think that is a perfect argument (for a long part of that time scientists didn’t KNOW the damage that rising CO2 levels could cause), but if all it takes is for developed countries to lead the way for half a dozen years before China comes aboard, then it will be worth it.
The Greens are unlikely to affect the outcome of this legislation but the passing or failing of the legislation is not going to signal the end of climate policy debate in the country.
Ahhh, Chris Uhlman spouting the already discredited Minerals Council report into jobs.
Realpolitik from ShowsON, LOL.
ESJ
How did the “Nixonland” book go apart from the disappointing ending?
ShowsOn, you often tout the fact that the government is about the price carbon for the first time in history. I have attempted to argue that unless the cost is substantial enough to force behavioural change, it is a pointless. The market, it appears, agrees.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/The-two-faces-of-carbon-critics-pd20090522-SA3U3?OpenDocument&src=sph&alerts&loc=center
Books Diogenes,
I have developed a real interest in Islamic studies particularly Af/Pak issues since last we spoke. Also Russia under Putin.
Did you know the Russians give $10,000 US for the birth of a second child?
No 145
Crikey is not an authority for anything but bull and bluster.
The CPRS will not be passed until after the next election. Turnbull cannot support it without tearing his party apart. The Greens will have an issue to fight the election on, Feilding will disappear and X will become irrelevant.
In July after the election, the Govt. and Greens will compromise. Some Greens will think they have sold out.
At the next election, the Greens will have been been “democrat-ised” the ALP will have other “crises” to steer us through.
Then without Bob Brown the Greens will have rotating leaders as each faction fights to dominate.
Then a new “minority party” of inner city teachers and acadmics will emerge and politics will continue as usual.
Wouldn’t it be such a relief if they buried themselves in hole out in the Simpson Desert?
Any specifics on the criticisms (not actually by Crikey journo’s)?
No 153
It’s Friday, I can’t be bothered.
Take it on notice then.
Diogs, I have just read your post at 49. All that time spent under the knowledge tree has not gone to waste
Does it stop at the second child?
On Af/Pak I’ve been assured by the Amigos that Hillary will have that part of the world under control by the end of Obama’s first term. Israel/Palestine will be at the end of the second term.
That Pak province being allowed to bring in Sharia law looked very, very concerning to me but very little has been said about it.
Hey Prime Hefalump I agree
Dio the real fight against ‘Terror’ is in Pakistan, we really need to pressure the Government to crack down on them after all it is for their own good at re-establishing their authority.
William apologies for my language before.
All I can say is that the poll trends have the ALP losing support and the Tories gaining support. That is at least a positive trend.
So much for your endless depiction of Morgan as “Bullbutter”
Hmm, Dennis Jensen is being challenged for Preselection again.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/22/2578750.htm
What? That it’s Friday?
Really? Other than Nielsen, which polls are they Glen?
Frank it is about time!
Tangney is a prime blue ribbon seat and we have someone quite undeserving of such a seat. The person who takes that seat off him ought to be pushing for a role on the front bench IMHO.
If all the people who voted Greens 1 at the last election were given the sole choice of deciding an ETS based on either (a) Greens policy or (b) Labor’s economic and environmental realities, the split would be (a) 30% & (b) 70% tops.
According to the polls the movement has shifted slightly down for Labor based on deficit and debt fear mongering from the opposition. We are still to face the full impacts of the global recession and rising unemployment. And the Greens still want to push through an economically irresponsible ETS. Thank the universe Rudd is real popular otherwise the Liberals would be back in government in 2013 with Cossie as PM.
You see, the problem with the Greens, is that they have got to learn how to win if they want to be treated as a serious party.
Possum’s Pollytrend has the ALP trending down since April, but since that was from a high of 60 2PP it’s going to take a lot more trending for the Libs to get in a comfortable position.
Explain how or why my position is wrong.
Ok, we’re crossing the bankruptcy bridge at GM
Could you clarify what this means?
Do you have any evidence as to why a stronger scheme is “economically irresponsible”? GP says it is all the time but fails to provide any support. The most comprehensive analysis done suggests the complete opposite but I don’t really expect you to accept that.
Cos you are Hackle?
Centre
Your figures might be right for the 40% minimum reduction (even I wouldn’t have voted for that) but I think their new 25% target would be very popular amongst Green voters compared with the 5% maybe 25% Rudd target.
GP
Looks like Obama is giving up on the car makers and now it’s time for some tough love. About time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/21/AR2009052104467.html?nav=rss_email/components
Jensen being challenged again isn’t particularly surprising; I presume it’s Matt Brown again.
ruawake: Hah. The Greens aren’t the Democrats. If it isn’t a good enough deal, they’ll block it in the Senate. If it is, they’ll pass it, and they’re hardly likely to be having problems with their base.
And without Bob Brown? They’ll be just fine. The Greens have a plentiful depth of talent, and aren’t really prone to ongoing wars over leadership. Look at Tasmania – after Brown, Labor and the Libs still had to alter the size of parliament to try and wipe out the Greens, then Putt rebuilt the party anyway, and McKim has lifted the Greens vote even higher.
Thanks for at least offering an explanation, it is far better than what ESJ does. He loves the big statement that he follows up with nothing.
Quite so. How you ameliorate the effects on is one matter, but the three dinosaur car makers can’t all survive in their current form.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/22/2578735.htm?section=justin
Stabilise economy then ease intervention: Brough
Brough still in the news he may well be looking for a seat next year
Oooh. I didn’t notice this bit. The US auto industry (well GM and Chrysler) is being nationalised. No wonder the conservatives are going nuts over there.
They’re also annoyed that the deal with the Auto Workers Union will cut the wages and conditions of the car makers, but in return hand the union an equity stake in ownership of the company.
You’re the only person who listens to that guy. The only reason people listened to him before the last election was because he was a minister who was constantly saying things that people couldn’t avoid hearing.
Well, firstly, of course they haven’t had wars over leadership, they’ve only had one leader. I’m sure the Libs were pretty quiet under Menzies.
I did like the speculation that Michael Organ should become leader of the party when he won Cunningham, on the basis that he was in the Reps. As if BB was ever going to let that happen!
BTW, can I have a definitive answer on the ‘Greens don’t indulge in party warfare’ question? I’ve been told: that the WA Greens weren’t ‘real’ Greens when they help bop in the Senate; that they were real Greens and that there has always been harmony amongst the various Green state divisions; that there were severe divisions between the State parties until very recently, and BB only genuinely represented the Tasmanians for that reason.
Which is correct? Or is it one of those ‘the answer depends on the circumstances’ ones, and I’m being mean asking for a definitive answer?
Hi Rebecca I am a big fan of the Greens too!!
I cant wait to see more inner City Labor seats fall to the Greens. Classic!
I’ll be voting for my local Greens candidate in Balmain in 2011 to go with the Green Leichardt Council. I’ll probably have to wait until 2013 to see big daddy go by the wayside.
Shows and Dio,
the unions are getting this (figure I remember quoted from the w.post article was something along the order of 1/3, in the 30% range) because of the obligations they are being asked to absolve the company of vis a vis health care costs for the retirees, the biggest albatross around GM’s neck as it was the largest of the 3 companies. Ford is going it alone without outside intervention, they are the #2 company in size. Chrysler was/is #3. this is why i am following the situation as regards GM closely as my parents are directly affected. Dad is a GM retiree ……
Oz I am saying that when push comes to shove, the majority of Green voters would side with Rudds ETS against the Greens’ ETS by a proportion of around 7 to 3.
ESJ
play nicely with the little Green girl.
As a Green, she’s got enough delusions to deal with without you attempting to lure her into the bushes with false promises.
The Greens @ 25% are going to look a bit unrealistic if the rest of the world ends up @ 20%, or even @ 17%.
The 30% are the hard-core Feral dope smoking hairy armpit ones they keep behind closed doors like certain relatives who aren’t spoken about
But then again, when the consequences of global warming @ 17% continue to arrive, maybe the rest of the world is going to look a bit unrealistic.
ESJ, does ‘big daddy’ mean Albanese? If so, maybe 2010’s a shot, and the Greens and Labor could come to an arrangement: the Greens focus mainly on Grayndler in NSW, and Labor give Canning a red hot go. A Green in parliament and A MacTiernan for federal transport minister… hey, everybody wins. Except the Liberals, obviously.
Not only did you fail to support your argument, you just reiterated your gut feeling?
And she’d be too busy pedalling her bicycle-powered generator which powers her Computer.
Oh yeah Birdie, I am not sure Big Daddy would be so altruistic though.
Frank @ 184
Interesting. Why would any Greens prefer an ETS which is a dud to their own?
If the rest of the world locks in 17%, there will be bigger things to worry about than the nature of The Greens position.
Oz see 185
“McKim has lifted the Greens vote even higher.” (#173) – now, I have a lot of time for Nick McKim on a personal level, unlike his predecessor, but (a) Nick hasn’t faced an election yet and (b) the Greens are actually struggling in the state polls here at the moment – the graph at =http://tasmanianpolitics.blogspot.com/2009/05/may-emrs-poll-voters-hold-line.html shows them at their lowest level since 2005. So I’m just not sure what the basis for the claim is.
Oh, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask, but I’ve been too embarrassed – how the blazes does one do quoting on this thing?
Square brackets.
The first thing they need to agree on in Copenhagen is a comparable starting point to avoid spin and complexities. Cuts in emissions should be based on 2000 levels. The Greens want 25% unconditional cuts on 1990 levels. 20 years ago. It’s lunacy. Frank @ 184 LOL
More precisely (I’ve only just mastered it, so it’s form of boasting)
1. Highlight and copy the thing you want to quote
2. In the comment box, insert [ then copy then ]
3. Until you hit submit, it will look like this: [ comment ]
4. But then, magically: [comment]
Bugger didn’t work how I wanted. But you’ve already mastered it.
I will just ignore myself.
Quotes have to start on a new line.
Gee, Labor supporters don’t like Turnbull. Checking out the Morgan phone poll beauty contest head-to-heads, Rudd/Costello among Labor supporters is 85/8, Rudd/Hockey is 89/4 and Rudd/Turnbull is 93/1.
L-NP supporters like Costello slightly more than Turnbull but realise Hockey’s out of his league. Greens supporters have a similar view (Rudd/Turnbull 67.5-7.5, Rudd/Costello 71-19, Rudd/Hockey 77-0).
All quite predictively meaningless but I found it pretty funny all the same.
I wonder if that’s because, like Hewson, Turnbull comes across as a banker who shoe horned his way into parliament?
The Murray Darling Basin Authority is kicking off a fish awareness week on 25 May.
http://www.mdba.gov.au/
I hope that it works for them. The fish illustration they have chosen is of an eel (not enough to tell whether short-finned or long-finned).
There are no naturally occurring eels in the Murray Darling Basin. My choice would have been (1) Murray Cod.
Or, if you want to depict the most common fish in the Basin, (2) European Carp.
Centre
The problem with everyone having the same starting time is that it will favour some countries. CO2 emissions haven’t been slowly increasing.There have been peaks and troughs. We have a peak due to land clearing in 1990 or something like that, and then it drops for a while when land clearing stops.
Anyone know what he is actually doing for a crust?
I like Malcolm and feel that in another ten or so years he would be good as a junior shadow
Ooops
I forgot he is currently the opp leader, I thought that was Jovial Joe
President of the Queensland division of the Liberal Party of Australia.
OK, so we know what he is doing for the Krusties. What is he doing for a feed?
He has pitched a sequel to Family Feud to Channel 7, that features a battle between the Liberal and National factions of the LNP to see which team can come up with the most coherent policies that reflect the views of the majority of Queenslanders.
It appears to me there is an unholy alliance happening here at PB and elsewhere between the Greens and Liberals.
Just like the unholy alliance between the Nazi and the Soviet Union in 1939 as shown by the excellent doco on SBS right now. In particular the carving of Poland.
Finns
Now, if only Labor could get real about global warming Poland could be saved.
Finnigans,
You won’t see me participating in said alliance, if in fact it is happening. I might as well be a fence sitter for as far left in Labor as I am so I feel qualified to comment on a “Greens” alliance. As I’ve noted on Possum’s blog earlier today, I put Libs dead last behind everyone and I mean everyone. If there was a ‘legalize cocaine party’ it would go ahead of the Libs in preferences
Finns
Are you sure that Eight Women Tea doesn’t contain psychotropic drugs?
Boy, some of you lot have taken that Green by-election win in Fremantle badly.
Diogs,
That is totally unfair.
But, what have the Greens done for Fremantle lately.
The aqueduct?
Next week, the unholy alliance between the British and the Soviet Union.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend, as long as my enemy does not want to be my friend before the enemy of my enemy
Diog, the “Eight Women Tea” is a GREENS tea
GG
How should I know what the Greens have done in Fremantle and, more to the point, why would I care? It was just a silly by-election in state politics in another state which was totally skewed by the Libs not standing.
There’s been more complaining, wailing and gnashing of teeth about the Fremantle by-election result than when Labor lost the whole bloody State.
and the roads…
219,
John Butler (started his career busking on the streets of Fremantle)
BH
A draw! We don’t have to come to fisticuffs now
That useless ref robbed us of a final shot at field goal though grrrr
and saved the South Beach…
(PS I had to look that one up)
Diogs surely that is knit picking that some countries would be slightly more or less better off if a particular decade is used as a starting point. We can’t even agree in Australia. Labor says 2000, the Greens say 1990.
GG
It’s worse than I thought!!! According to Adele Carle;
OMG!! They are LITERALLY under siege in Fremantle. We’re being invaded. I hope the Greens can protect our national security in Fremantle because Labor seems to have surrendered part of our country without a peep!
Finns
My favourite is white tea. Dunno what Party that makes me but it’s got jasmine in it so it’s going to be wimpy.
“and saved the South Beach…”
Since when?? Annoys me all the ho-ha that went on about that. In the end the old foundry site was cleared in 3-4 days, no contamination off-site, no issue.
Vera and BH, it was a draw because you said the same number of Mary Magdelan’s. LOL.
That ref blew the last 9 seconds of the game. He should be sacked for next week.
Centre
Damn useless ref, as if gang rapes and dope taking aren’t bad enough!
William said we cant swear otherwise the air would be blue in here right now
imacca
Probably just after they repelled the siege. It came from the same website.
Centre
It can make quite a big difference. I think there was a 5% drop after that peak year. Given that the target was only a 5% drop by 2020, you could achieve your whole reduction policy by just cherry-picking the year (BTW Labor didn’t do that. They chose a fairly normal year).
Haven’t seen any example of Greens agreeing with Liberals here. Quite a few topics where Liberal and Labor people are in furious agreement though.
And quite a few where Labor people and Labor people have been in furious disagreement, and a few where Greens have agreed with Labor, and some where….
Enough with the labelling already!! I’m getting tired of my sincere, honest opinion being interpreted as if I’m getting missives from Head Office (which I wouldn’t follow, even if I did receive them).
Diogs I think it’s all silly. The planet must reduce emissions by x for 2020 and y for 2050. Each country should reduce their emissions by the same proportion to achieve those targets.
The mining boom has positioned Australia strongly over the last decade and I would be against us making more cuts in proportion to others where those cuts would basically make no difference anyway.
I understand the economic potential of CC. But it’s the initial transitional period to an ETS that could have consequences to our economy.
There isn’t that many. Nuclear power? Some aspects of border protection? And that is only SOME people from those sides, not all of them.
We are more like the U.S. Senate than the Australian House of Representatives when it comes to discipline.
jeez. good thing that CO2 doesn’t turn into balloons!
Centre
Why should Australia be allowed to continue to emit 10 times as much CO2 per person than Thailand? Why should China/India/Africa be forced to cut their emissions by as much as the developed countries that caused the problem?
More importantly, will Stephen Long summon up the courage tonight to ask Leigh Sayle for a date?
Tonight is the night!!!!
I’ll ask her for him Finns
All very well, Diog, but I’d be interested to know how many changes you’d have to make to your lifestyle (of which I admit I know nothing, so am not making judgements) in order to ensure that you were responsible for the same level of emissions as a person from Thailand?
How many of these would you be prepared to make?
I could almost manage it. We grow a few vegies; I could grow more. We could replace the horses with crops (I’m beginning to feel that they’re an indulgence, anyway). We would have to find a way to not drive (OK, keep the horses, have them retrained!). Could possibly use solar to power the house and computer.
As it is, we live in a house which requires NO artificial cooling, only requires heating half a dozen nights of the year, the cars are on LPG, we dress exclusively at the local op shop.
I’m wondering what sacrifices other PBs would need to make to their current lifestyles to reduce their carbon reliance to developing country levels.
If none of us are prepared to do it personally, then no politician is going to put in the legistlation to do it for us.
Diogs Australia is Australia and Thailand is Thailand. My personal view is that population is irrelevant. This country will contribute if your country contributes. The population of a country should not be a factor.
China/India/Africa should cut their emissions by as much BECAUSE while we were emitting nobody was aware of the scientific evidence. Surely we can’t be blamed for what we did not know in the past. But as the consequences of CC have come to light, we all should contribute proportionately. Hell, we never prevented those countries from developing themselves.
ETS wont amount to a hill of beans, like most things technology will make the issue redundant.
Of course some weak minded people will be comforted by a bunch of bureacrats and politicians flying first class and sleeping five star weighing these important issues on our behalf in Copenhagen. There may even be a joint communique and a joint photo with Prince Frederik and our Mary.
You are really hanging for an argument about nuclear, aren’t you??
But how will the ETS make these new technologies redundant?
If you understood the ETS, you would realise that the ETS will motivate investment in these technologies that you speak of so they are brought to market faster.
Not really. If you want to do something about climate change, you’d support nuclear power as a bringing technology between what we currently have that works, and the future technologies that haven’t yet been invented that ESJ referred to above.
The only topics the Labor and Liberal types have been in complete agreement about recently have been the dismal performance of MT and Hockey.
I hope the Greenies aren’t going to distance themselves from that love in!
What about us non-aligned folk? Can we laugh at Hockey too?
Yo ho ho
OK, but don’t take too many liberties.
You don’t need a reason to laugh at Hockey
Personally i’m a fan of classic ‘workchoices’ Hockey.
Although, the new ‘debt will eat your children’ is worth a spin too.
I thought Hockey had gone into partnership with GP when I saw (Prime Elephant of Australia) alongside his name
And with those, Yo ho ho, you have pretty much exhausted the ‘great Hockey moments of our time’ list….
what about the time he put the shrek ears on? he was showing how jovial and friendly he was. brilliant politics.
When exactly did this open division on partisan line begin? For most of the time I’ve been here the discussion has been based on individual peoples’ opinions and arguments. Lately it’s been hard to get past deriding someone’s post because they have previously supported party A, B or C.
NO FAT JOKES!:
http://www.antiprejudicead.net/landing.asp
OK, Yo ho – and the time he waved around the cut out Kevin Rudd in Parliament, that’s got to earn him some points for faux outrage…
Oz, as gusface would say, name names. Who HAS been doing this?
The International Pine Bark Beetle Collective supports ESJ and the Labor ETS and the Liberal Party and Mr Fielding but it does not like new technology.
That artificial bark beetle pheromene stuff is a low blow.
Who hasn’t.
Has GP (Prime elephant of Austalia) been exposed to the rudiments of elephant ecology?
Matriarchs rule.
I don’t believe (for example) that I’ve ever singled out a poster and dismissed their comments with “Of course you’d say that, you’re a Lib” or whatever. Certainly have copped it the other way, but regard that simply as a line of weak argument (and it bores me).
Ok, everyone but Zoomster.
It certainly isn’t everyone (that was a joke, woosh), but the level of partisan hostility has definitely stepped up.
Not really worth arguing over though.
Most of us actually Oz
the freo thingo caused a temporary distortion in the space time continuim
( It even allowed ESJ to escape stasis, after he had failed the jump to PB)
Normal transmission has been resumed
HAH Michael Kroger on Lateline “The polls for Labor since the budget have been poor”.
He wishes.
Goodo.
Cheney is one very sick person.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/21/cheneys-speech-obama-dese_n_206165.html
Costello criticised Costello
Oz
OK, will accept that it’s everyone except you and me and all the others aren’t going to do it any more.
And how many times do I have to say I don’t give a **** about Freo??
What’s upset my equilibrium is a bad head cold, enforced inactivity (can’t even read a book, requires too much concentration) and thus an overload of Possum-type snark.
Diog’s aspirin thing meant I could go to work today but I probably shouldn’t have (but the children like eating so….)
Honestly, Kroger should give it away. He just spouts utter rubbish.
I didn’t say anything about Fremantle!
Speaking of books, I subscribed to Crikey when they were running a deal to give away two free books – Peter Hartcher’s “To the Bitter End” about the 2007 election and Bob Ellis’ “And So it Went” about… something.
Looking forward to Hartcher, going to read it on a trip to our nation’s fine capital tomorrow morning. Might use Ellis’ as a paperweight.
I just made the mistake of following TP’s link to the Huffington Post.
“Unwise”? “Phony”? “Feigned outrage”? Ooh, dearie me. Are there any depths to which the right won’t sink.
I doubt Stephen Long will bother asking Leigh Sales, she dressed down instead of utilising those great emerald earrings.
He just rocks up to Lateline and campaigns as if he is a sitting M.P., he doesn’t analyse what is happening. Why doesn’t Lateline just get an actual Liberal M.P. on, instead of a guy too gutless to ever run?
Come-on Stephen, yes, you will go there.
HAHA Stephen Long’s birthday on a Friday night and he spends it with Leigh. How sweet.
Was he trying to imply that he deserves a special present from her?
Leigh raised it! He should have asked what she got him.
Maybe cheney thinks he is a chance in 2012 and is trying to defend his and W’s legacy?
I’m sure he thought sitting opposite Leigh was a wonderful present
A chance of what? A heart attack?
He might be a chance of surviving until 2012, but that’s about it.
These are the hot young Liberal babes?
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/gallery/0,22056,5053923-5010140,00.html
No wonder they’re behind the polls.
Zoomster
I find the old ‘personal action first’ line rather lacking in appreciation of the situation we are in. This is not a time to be blaming individuals for the predicament of the world, in order to excuse government inaction. (Akin to the old reliable – “So if you’re a communist, why aren’t you sharing your wealth with everyone else? Eh? Eh?”)
This impending catastrophe is a world-wide scientific reality, for C’s sake. It is the Australian government that has failed in leadership here, not individuals who haven’t yet given up their soda syphons.
Have you read the, quite conservative, update of Nicholas Stern “The Economics of Climate Change”, updating his original report, which apart from establishing the fact that the economy will be the first to go with CC, discusses what should be done and the degrees of catastrophe with varied levels of success? It’s quite long but worth the read – it will lift a normal person beyond bickering about who does what first. For brief example:
So clearly it’s not an issue that allows the Rudd/Wong approach of “Let’s play safe politically. We’ll wait and see what the others are doing after the next election.” As Stern says:
http://www.atypon-link.com/AEAP/doi/pdf/10.1257/aer.98.2.1?cookieSet=1
I say it’s has been (under Howard, who failed totally), and still is imperative for government to stridently lead the charge to action and try everything to bring the population here and gevernments everywhere, to actionas well.
So when do you say we should start to consider the possibility of setting up an inter-disciplinary committee to examine a plan for a range of tentative, theoretical and contingent targets, and to construct the framework for discussion with a view to prioritising government policy initiatives for submission to the ministerial advisory group, followed by focus group feedback and subsequent refinement prior to cabinet decision, going forward, after the next election?
No, wait, sorry that’s already under way as we speak. Thank God for our courageous government!
So, um, doesn’t Cheney realise that the Presidential election was LAST year. Why is he still campaigning?
Don’t you find it fascinating how ex-leaders do this all the time. Howard and Keating both did it. It’s almost like they’re completely unaware that regardless of the merit of what they say, it will be received by a public grown weary of their message.
This is not his first outburst and as i said he is either trying to defend the legacy and/or line up for 2012 ( Im sure he still has gravitas among the neocons)
Of course he’s trying to defend the legacy; of course he isn’t going to run for president.
zoomster
I’m very lucky because I happen to earn more money than I ever intend to spend. I just buy a few books a week. So it’s easy for me to pay extra for my power bills as Greenpower and buy carbon credits for travel. I realise most people don’t have that luxury. That probably hasn’t helped advance the argument much.
But if he felt so strongly about the legacy Cheney should’ve run. Even the Republican candidates last year spent a heap of time distancing themselves from Bush and Cheney. The time for him to make all these arguments was last year during the campaign when voters could’ve passed a judgement on it.
Michael Kroger, just like Geoff Cousins, makes the argument that the government should spend surpluses increasing government hand outs that increases long term budget outlays.
The Liberals have completely given up on their ethos of a minimal state, and personal initiative. According to Kroger, they are now big state conservatives.
William
Did you see the stats on what Republican insiders thought of Cheney’s obsession with running a parallel Government?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/15/cheney-is-hurting-the-par_n_203872.html
I think this quote says it best. If the previous leader makes himself visible, all he does is strengthen the position of those who took over. It’s particularly clear with Cheney, but applies for many other ex leaders.
Diogs,
I have enough children to ensure they spend far more than I ever earn.
And those quotes are from people on his own team! What a legacy that man has left.
As one person said, he never gave a sh!t about what anyone thought of him when he was VP and I can’t understand why he’s fussed all of a sudden when it’s too late. Remember his comment about what Americans thought of the War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SypeZjeOrY4
Diogs, I’m not silly enough to spend more than 10 seconds reading HuffPo, or to interpret the delivery of a few Press Club speeches as an “obsession with running a parallel Government”.
Use contraception.
http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/05/21/john-cornyn-sees-opportunity-in-2010-says-cheney-could-be-useful/
Rush L. on cheney
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_052109/content/01125106.guest.html
They are already here!
It was at The Enterprise Institute, seemingly an organisation where Republicans figure out new ways to stuff up enterprises.
I’m sorry, Gusface, was that intended as a rebuttal of the idea that he’s not going to run for president? If so, I don’t see how.
Cheney’s not running for president in 2012. He’s like 175 and associated with arguable the worst administration in history. He’d get blamed for Iraq, Afghanisation, the GFC. He’d have no appeal to the middle ground.
Quite so.
Diogs,
Cheney had the cover of the Presidency while he was VP. Now that veneer has been removed and W has basically wandered off stage it is him that is left to defend the legacy.
That he is doing it poorly is probably a reflection on the good judgement of those who did not allow him to run for the big job in the first place.
William
I guess that means you also didn’t read the Crikey front-page link “The Obama-Cheney Face-Off” to the Mother Jones article.
Sort of like the Emperor and his Clothes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlPCl6aF5VA
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22666.html
Basically this story does
Anyway, I thought the deal was that he didn’t want to be president, and preferred to let his front-man take care of the photo ops while he got on with running the world.
William,
My wife and I have the same arrangement.
William,
Now, come on
….. the HP is the first place I go for US news, Google America is the second place and then whatever sites I happen to link through from those two options.
HP isn’t that bad
That quote should have prefaced @302
cheers
William
He was told by the Party that his heart problems meant that he couldn’t really run for POTUS as everyone would be too concerned about his health.
What results???
More importantly
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/genital-warts-rule-shoaib-out-of-world-twenty20-1689472.html
Gold. Complete and total gold.
LOL! Sports coverage and a community service announcement all in one!
Yo ho ho @ 309
What a shame Shoaib didn’t have an opportunity, in time, to participate in the Aussie team’s anti-wart workshop announced today:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/sport/cricket/not-out-cricketers-to-visit-relationship-workshop/2009/05/22/1242498921100.html
I emailed this through to Roy & H.G., hopefully they talk about it next week.
Looks like the 5c piece is not long for this world…
http://www.smh.com.au/national/get-your-5c-worth-before-it-goes-out-of-circulation-20090523-bihk.html
Bloody Labor governments. Fraser: no change. Hawke: dollar coin, two dollar coin, one cent piece gone, two cent piece gone. Howard: no change. Rudd: five cent piece gone, more no doubt to follow. Must be all those inflationary deficit budgets.
Brace yourselves for the five dollar coin.
I’ve got one of those, it is a special one that was issued with the new and permanent parliament house was opened. It has an picture of the parliament on one side and the wench on the other.
My old man’s got a 200 dollar coin – commemorative edition of something or other. I’ve been looking for a Space Invaders machine to put it in.
Speaking of Space Invaders, Russell Dunlop, who was one the people behind the Player 1 hit Space Invaders passed away earlier this week
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0dup-9wvQc
Back to the 5c piece, will this mean that we will have no more $9.95 specials etc ?
Very sad to hear that, Frank. A song that will echo through the ages. Friday night quiz time: what was the name of their album?
Player 1 ?
Game Over.
Actually I found the Answer here
Label from 6.19
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7cvqvFI_9A
Speaking of Classic singles, this channel features a lot of US pressings of various oldies, including this US Bastardised edit of this Animals Classic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zQit993D5I
Has anyone notice that David Penberthy, erstwhile editor of The Daily Telegraph and current political columnist with The australian seems to be taking Serious Pills?
Some of his articles recently have been actually readable, with a proper beginning, middle and end… just like a proper journalist.
Including this one, on how trying to spin an innocuous travel costs report can get a government into trouble it really didn’t have to get into: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25523659-5015664,00.html
The fact that he comes across as a Professor from Evil Medical School is of no concern?
jv
You misunderstand my point.
I understand the issues more than most people out there. I work with a team of climate scientists – albeit on an extremely casual basis, but it means I’m in regular contact with them and get to ask lots of questions.
I’m also politically active on the issue, writing and activating for policy initiatives on tackling climate change. The Victorian Govt’s black balloon campaign (for example) came from an idea of mine. I’ve arranged for cc scientists to talk to Ministers in the Vic Govt on an ongoing basis. I’ve been advocating within the Vic Labor party for the replacement of coal fired power stations since about 2004.
When I first became a local councillor, their concept of environmental issues extended to tip management. When I left, they had an environmental officer working full time, were actively managing their energy use, and involved in several climate change initiatives.
I started building houses utilising passive energy techniques in the early 80s.
What I’m saying is that I’m across the issues.
My point is that serious tackling of climate change, the kind that not only compensates for our present use but doesn’t penalise developing countries (which I took to be Diog’s point) has personal consequences as well as political ones.
The pollies know the political consequences. One of the reasons they don’t go for the higher end of emission cuts is that they don’t think the general public understand the personal consequences and wouldn’t support the cuts if they did.
I personally don’t think most Australians would accept a lifestyle which meant that their emissions were the equivalent of a Thai citizens. I’m not asking people on this site to adopt that lifestyle (as I keep saying, I’m a realist). I’m asking you to work out what you would have to change in your life to achieve that goal and whether you’d be comfortable with those changes.
It’s an attempt to put some reality into the debate. If you, personally, look at the lifestyle you’d need to live to attain that and think that you couldn’t live like that, you can’t expect governments to legislate to do it. They tend to like remaining governments.
If you – like me – look at those adjustments and think, ‘no, that’s manageable’, then yes, you can not only pressure governments to do it but you can advocate to those less understanding of the issues and make sure they understand and accept the consequences.
If everyone was out there saying, “I’m willing to go without air conditioning, heating, walk or cycle everywhere, grow my own vegetables, cut back on impored exotic food items in my diet, wear second hand clothing or make my own, ditch the dishwasher and clothes drier and use solar power for the rest and am prepared to face the possibility that I may have to give up my present occupation and take up something a bit more manual” then the government would realise that it could proceed with dramatic targets without a political backlash.
The thing is, jv, I think people like you are coping out, not governments. I think people like you are being unrealistic in your expectations – you’re not prepared to make the cuts in your lifestyle that a dramatic reduction in emissions requires, but it’s easier to shift the blame onto governments than to do something real.
So prove me wrong. List the changes you’d have to make to your lifestyle – including considering, seriously, whether your line of work would still exist in a low carbon regime – and then consider whether you’re willing to make them.
Great cartoon by spooner in the age today. cant find it on line. The people who cannot day $58b (Rudd and Swan) and The man who cant say $600b (Costello). PS. Net foreign debt went up by $400b under Costello.
What?? The opposition has been banging on about debt hasnt it?? Should the public not know this figure
Waiting for Costello(t) Part 513 (With apologies to Samuel Beckett)
Shaun Carney in today’s AGE “The High Ground”
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/the-high-ground-20090522-bibs.html?page=-1
Shaun Carney in today’s AGE “The High Ground” portrays PC as another leadership choice the Liberals will have to make by end of this year. Costello has no credibility left either as a leadership contender or any expertise “on economic and political strategy”. The MM lead by Bolt & Milne (and now Carney) are touting for Costello the neocon candidate. Well if Costello becomes Opposition Leader standby for the Mother of all Mothers Debt scare campaign which will backfire badly on the Liberals in 2010.
Frankly Costello, judging by his track record, doesn’t have the b@lls to fight for the leadership. As far as his so called ”expertise” on economic and political strategy, well he has completely undermined himself on that by proclaiming the emissions trading scheme as a social issue.
BB
I know a couple who went through Adelaide Uni with Penberthy and are good friends of his. Both are active Labor members (one was a chief of staff to a few state ministers). They tell me Penberthy was a good Labor man, a nice guy and highly intelligent. And then he became editor of the DT. They claim his editor persona is all a fake due to the role he’s playing and he’s still the same underneath.
I never read the DT in any form so I have no opinion on the matter.
Diogs, BB,
Laurie Oakes calls bullshit on Penberthy’s claim that the Government tried to sneak it in on budget day which demonstrates the whole beat up is nothing more than tawdry anti Government muck raking by the Oz (as usual).
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,25523189-5000117,00.html
zoomster
The US, UK and EU politicians don’t seem to have the same concerns about their populace being able to adjust to a much larger cut in emissions than Oz.
There are 3 possible reasons for that fact that I can think of
1. Politicians think Aussies are more selfish and reluctant to make any changes
2. There is something specific to our economy that would make our emission cuts more painful
3. Either the US/UK/EU or the Australian politicians are mistaken
Our economy is more coal intensive than others but we are lucky about all the possible alternative sources of energy we have like solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and NUCLEAR, which the Labor Party should at least consider and have a discussion about.
Sorry, to follow on from my 326:
The assumption behind a lot of discourse is that we can cut our emissions to acceptable levels and still live much the same kind of lifestyle.
Yes, this is probably possible but that’s not what we should be talking about.
I cannot see that it is at all moral, in any meaningful sense of the world, to remain at the status quo (with some fiddling at the edges).
What that is doing is saying that it’s OK for us to live the way we do but that Third World and developing countries aren’t allowed to aspire to our lifestyle because the world can’t sustain this.
If we expect the populations of India, China, Asia etc etc to ‘freeze’ their lifestyles in the name of saving the world (which, btw, will actually do very nicely without us, thank you, so we’re actually just talking about ‘not inconveniencing our species too much’, a much less exciting concept) then we have to take our own living standards back a few notches.
The only way these populations will accept that they can’t aspire to our present standard of living (and they can’t, and live in a habitable world) is for us not to have it.
Saying ’sorry guys, but noone can afford to live like that’ is far more moral than “we can live like this because we got here first and we can pay to offset it. We can’t afford you to live like this, however, and you can’t afford the payments required to offset it, so just forget about it. We’ll keep sending you movies and magazines showing you how terrific our lifestyle is, however.’
I will also (whilst I’ve wrested the computer from my 15 year old and thus have the soapbox for a moment) point out that blaming everything on the polluting companies and expecting them to bear all the costs is a very shallow argument.
Yes, we need to put pressure on them (legislative, commercial, etc) to reduce their emissions, just as we need to put pressure on everybody to do that.
But they don’t exist in a vaccuum. Firstly, any pressure put on them will result in higher costs to consumers. Secondly, we need to recognise that these companies don’t exist in a vaccuum.
Whatever it is that they’ve been churning out all these years which has resulted in atmospheric pollution has been to produce services or products that we’ve demanded.
Again, one of the moral choices you can make, in the interests of reducing gg gases, is to stop using these products and seek out more environmental friendly alternatives.
When you’re doing this, btw, have a look at some of the real costs. I’m starting to do that with coffee (purely as a mental exercise at present). I hope you find the ramifications as perplexing as I do:
Coffee is produced mainly in Third World countries, so my drinking of the beverage directly sustains TW communities. Cool.
However, these communities are generally a long way a way from Australia. Thus the coffee I use does some serious miles, which has an impact (small per cup, I admit) on ggg emissions.
I could source coffee from Qld. It’s more expensive, still does quite a few miles, and the profits don’t support a TW community but a modern farmer who probably uses a lot of ggg emitting machinery in its production.
So, if everyone in Australia made a moral choice to cut down their food miles and source their coffee from QLD, it would undoubtedly put the livelihoods of struggling TW communities in danger.
And a lot of choices which we should be making to tackle cc have exactly these sorts of consequences.
Diog, my comment at 332 has been put into moderation. When it comes out, this is going to sound repetitive:
your point earlier, as I understood it, was that we couldn’t live the way we are and deny these opportunities to people in developing nations.
My point is that REALLY tackling cc either demands that we do exactly that (not a moral position) or that we cut back our lifestyles considerably – we can justify their not aspiring to our present lifestyles only if we are not living them.
No government has faced this. We are all operating on a ‘we can continue living the way we are, with minor adjustments’ level and NOT looking at the impacts on the lifestyles and aspirations of other human beings.
I don’t think that’s a moral position.
zoomster
We can continue with our current standard of living but would have to pay more for it, either at a Government level or a personal level (which I realise becomes the same thing in the long-term). But a lot of people, and the country, probably can’t afford the extra costs so there will be some drop in standard of living.
But the alternative is a much worse drop in standard of living if we don’t cut emissions.
And Rudd had a great opportunity with the Stimpacs to address our shortcomings in preparedness for CC. The pink batts will help but were hardly a strategic vision for the future. There was about $2B for renewables which will help but isn’t much. Obama put a huge amount into RE with his Stimpac. South Korea put 81% of its Stimpac into environmental issues. We missed a bit opportunity to ameliorate the effect on the economy of cutting our emissions.
We can continue at our current standard of living ONLY if we deny that standard of living to others.
Good article by Peter hartcher regarding the dilemmas facing Turnbull and the Libs. Seems as if Turnbull is “a thin man caught inside a fat man”.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/toey-liberals-spoiling-for-an-election-fight-are-just-plain-batty-20090522-bi82.html
zoomster
We’re already denying some people a standard of living the same as others. Some people are more wealthy than others.
Bad news for the ETS. Looks like it might be delayed until after Copenhagen. The Libs, Greens and Fielding want to delay it. Only Mr X wants to sort it out now. Personally I think that’s a disaster. If Copenhagen comes up with say a 20% cut by 2020, the Coal lobby will go berserk with forecasts of Chernobyl-like coal towns and the Libs and FF won’t back it.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25524934-11949,00.html
In some good news my least favourite companies Phillip Morris, RJR and BAT have been on the pointy end of a legal case, in which they lost the appeal. I’m sure that our political parties will refuse their donations now, given they have been found guilty of racketeering and fraud.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/22/AR2009052201334.html
Diogenes
you’re being disingenious here.
There’s a big difference between people knowing that, if they’re lucky, work hard, are clever and educated, they can aspire to a certain standard of living and telling populations of whole countries that it doesn’t matter what they do, they can’t.
We’re basically saying it’s ok for us to live environmentally destructive lifestyles simply because we got here first.
Serious saving-the-planet wiping-out-all emissions stuff would involve us all returning to something approaching a peasant village lifestyle (but with the internet etc).
It is simply a fact that the planet cannot support us continue to live our present lifestyles, let alone us + the Indians + Chinese + Asians.
I find it interesting that you’re skirting around recognising this. Did you think that green offsets for your flying miles was all it took?
BTW the reason Australia is probably more selfish about emissions reduction is the simple one of greater dependency. Victorians are the greatest emitters per head of population in the world, due to brown coal dependence. Yes, renewables will solve the problem long term, but we’ve predicated an awful lot of what we do in this country on the basis of very very very cheap (by world standards) energy.
It’s not simply a case of replacing this cheap but unsustainable energy with slightly more expensive sustainable energy, because even a slight increase in energy prices will – through the multiplier effect – have dramatic impacts on our costs.
We’re the most urbanised country in the world, with our major cities reliant on commuters who rely on cheap petrol and cheap transport for their workforce. Paying what we should – no more, no less – for petrol or transport would make most of our outer metropolitan areas unviable.
Diogs,
There’ll be plenty of political brinkmanship about the ETS. Expect the bills to be rejected first time around and set up a double dissolution trigger re-introduction in September.
zoomster
I misunderstood your point. I thought you were referring to some people in Oz being able to afford higher power bills, and others not being able to so having to drop their consumption and hence standard of living.
I’m not as pessimistic about the effect a drop in our emissions will have on our lifestyles. France seems to manage pretty well with 1/3 of our emissions because they have made good choices.
GG
That would be a great outcome IMO. Then the Labor-Greens will pass it and we can go to Copenhagen with a 5-25% and up it to 15-20% when an agreement is reached.
Diog,
My favourite DD trigger said it best,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOORypV8HKY
William @ 314
To be fair the Libs were the ones that brought in the Australian Dollar* (would it be called the Dollar if Labor had made the change?) which abolished the penny which was worth 5/6 of a cent.
*Australia used to be a devotee of British foreign policy and we had a Pound. Then Australia became a devotee of American foreign policy and adopted a Dollar. Australia is getting closer to China when do we get a Yuan?
Psephos @ 4
Why do you think that PR in the lower house is a good idea in the UK but not here?
I support PR for all lower houses.
GG
Whoops. I worded that badly. The ETS will pass after a DD and Labor-Green will vote for subsequent rises from the 5% minimum. I’m assuming that Parliament has to approve any change from the mandatory 5%.
Diogs,
There’ll probably be some sort of International Treaty which Australia will sign up to which will drive future modifications.
That’ll send the Nats Nuts, Not?
I actually believe that the Libs, under protest, will allow the ETS to pass.
A few amendments for the base but otherwise the libs know they will be dealt out of the equation.
Tom,
How do you explain the adoption of the metric system for weights and measures, which was invented by the French?
Not 5/6th of a cent.
One dollar was equal to 10 shillings. here being 120 pence in 10 shillings, one cent would be worth 120/100= 1.2 pennies. This was the whole point of the decimalization exercise: there was an exact equivalence between $2 and 1 pound, an exact equivalent between 5c and sixpence, and an approximate equivalence between 1 cent and 1 penny.
None of this impressed my Aunty Mary, who was still converting from dollars to pounds then (and this was where her system failed completely) incorrectly back to sort-of dollars-and-pounds, completely confusing herself and any hapless shop assistant she came across for the next 20 years, until her death.
“25c for an ice cream? That’s two-and-fivepence, times two makes it five-and-tenpence! If you think I’m paying 5-and-ten for a Cornetto you’re dreaming, darling!”
The metric systems was and still is becoming the universal measurement system. My currency/super power comment is just a joke with a slight basis in reality. I do not actually think that we will adopt an Australian Yuan.
Gusface
My guess is Turnbull is going to want to include agriculture in the ETS and talk up biochar. The Wongster might make some concessions there. What would be really courageous would be if Turnbull wants nuclear included, but he won’t do that.
BB,
They also put the prices up. So anything that was a shilling became 12 cents. A twenty percent increase in Phantom comics was a major budget setback to some one living on a bike round income.
Bushfire Bill @ 350
Last time I checked my maths, 1 was 5/6 of 1.2.
I was making the point that the Libs got rid of coins bellow a certain value.
Zoomster @ 326
I am pleased zoomster that you are comfortable with your understanding of the climate change issues, and that you clarified to an extent your 326 post in subsequent posts.
I think you were moving into territory in a more moralistic about inequality in the world.
Even with differential contributions between developed and under-developed nations such dramatic personal action as you listed to reduce the standard of living is totally unnecessary to meet the standard range of emissions targets of 450-550 ppm stabilised by 2050. This is the range used in the Treasury modelling, and no such ruination at the personal level is anywhere on the radar (the ‘reference scenario’ mentioned is ‘business as usual’ – do nothing – which would result in 750ppm or more by 2050):
http://www.treasury.gov.au/lowpollutionfuture/report/html/06_Chapter6.asp
So I don’t know why you’re blaming me and letting our dithering government off the hook
The problem will be, and the Stern update I linked last night canvasses this in detail, delays caused by government dithering will exponentially increase the cost to nations’ GDPs to the extent the commencement is put back, because we simply must reach the necessary stabilised target range. So of course I will criticise governments including our own, when they act to delay the unavoidable action – and we won’t have to live in a yert to achieve it. And that is the case with differential action by developing nations – see Stern.
355 –
line should read – “in a more moralistic VEIN about inequality”
Never snark about another’s spelling, for you will surely misspell the very word you are accusing the other of misspelling.
Likewise, never snark at another’s arithmetic, for you will be exposed as an innumerate, pompous ass.
I yield the inaugural PB Mathematics Chair back to your good self, TTF&B.
Conservative discovers that simulated drowning really is torture.
Now Dick, wanna try it yourself?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/mancow-waterboarded-video_n_206906.html
What that guy did is nothing to compared to real thing and he only lasted a few seconds.
There seems to be a pattern. Whenever someone voluntarily has themselves water-boarded, they come a way thinking it is torture.
And that is even considering that they have by definition GIVEN PERMISSION for it to occur! When a prisoner is water boarded, they DON’T give permission, and they CAN’T stop it half way through if they become overwhelmed. So someone who has agreed to it as a ‘demonstration’ is in far more control than a prisoner, and even in a different mental state, because they know they have the power to stop it.
jv (and Diog)
interesting evasion of the issues here.
We can adopt all the emissions standards we want (and I’m advocating that we should, and have ‘fessed up previously to not being happy with the govt’s proposals, so I’m not making any excuses for anybody) but cc will continue to be a problem and will impact on our lifestyles regardless of how much we’re doing.
Partly this is because the world has already brought into a certain level of climate change, which is impacting on us now (drought, bushfire, erratic weather patterns) and will impact on us in greater severity in the future. Emissions reduction, whatever its scale, will simply mean that this plateaus in about twenty years time, rather than continuing to get worse. So, even if every single one of us stopped carbon emitting tomorrow, we would still face major ongoing problems.
Also partly because, no matter what we do, India, China and the rest of Asia are going to continue to develop. Their development will mean increasing pressure on resources and increasing cc emissions. To limit their development is to deny their populations the same standard of living our populations have achieved. To let them develop is going to lead to increased cc.
So, yes, we can go for a slightly reduced lifestyle and sit back and think we’re doing our bit for cc, but whilst we continue to live a lifestyle other populations haven’t yet achieved, they’re going to want to have it too.
It isn’t moralising, it’s practical, common sense. At present, living about the most frugal lifestyle you can imagine and with only my LPG mileage to feel guilty about, if everyone lived like me, we’d need 2 planets. So obviously, if I’m to achieve ggg e purity, I need to cut back more. I don’t know if I’m prepared to. I certainly don’t think, from the responses on this blog so far, that those who are using more resources than I am are prepared to either.
If the populations of India, China and Asia do not accept that they have no right to aspire to our lifestyles, then it’s not going to be long before each of their inhabitants are using up the resources of two earths, either.
It’s the real elephant in the room with climate change. Our way of living is not sustainable. I would argue that even the Australian with the lowest standard of living in this country (possible exception, genuine tribal aborigines) is also not sustainable.
Meanwhile population increases continue, both here and globally, which means that all of us need to reduce our standard of living even further to maintain equilibrium, let alone reverse the problem.
j.v, as a very minor politician, I’ve been in countless situations where I know more about a particular issue than any person in the room. Yet most people talking to me about whatever the issue is run on this kind of thinking pattern:
1. Governments can do anything they want to.
2. It is obvious to me that to solve this problem the government needs to do x.
3. The government isn’t doing x, therefore they must be weak, lazy or corrupt.
Whereas the reality is:
1. Governments are severely restricted in many ways as to what they can do. If they get to do 10% of what they want to, they’re sitting pretty. (And there’s absolutely no point being big and tough and brave about an issue if it results in being kicked out at the next election and the next lot reversing it).
2. Obvious solutions, in my experience, are almost always wrong. Life isn’t simple. True solutions to problems are complex and multi facetted, or they don’t work.
3. Everyone likes blaming governments. Everyone likes believing that they personally are courageous, hard working and are incredibly moral. Everyone is a hypocrite (me too).
The problem which confronts most pollies in the situation where they’re the person in the room who knows the most about the issue is that they are constantly talking to people operating on the first three perameters, whereas the pollie is aware of the others. The person opeating on the first three isn’t interested in the other three and doesn’t acknowledge their validity.
Every pollie is faced with the difficulty of either telling the person they’re talking to why their position is ill informed/impractical (and losing their support) or smiling politely, nodding a lot and uttering platitudes.
Anyway, jv, take the challenge. Do it as a simple mental exercise. IF (hypothetically) stopping climate change meant you had to reduce your emissions (I don’t accept off setting them, that’s buck passing) to that of a Thai villager, what changes would you have to make to your lifestyle? Would you be willing to make these changes? Then get back to me.
Well if Cheney is conveniently hanging around the Democrats should make the most of it. What better thing to have than Satan running around and criticising you?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090521/pl_mcclatchy/3237981
Jon Stewart…hahahaha
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/daily-show-duel-dick-chen_n_206683.html
In the interests of clarity: not what they say they want to, or what they commit to doing, or the legislation they bring to the House – what they would do if governments really could do whatever they wanted to.
So 10% is probably excessive.
zoomster
I will take one for the team, learn French and move to France where my emissions will be 1/3 of what they are here.
Diog
but still more than a Thai villager?
I suppose I’m after ‘what is a reasonable global average lifestyle’ template – one that a slum dweller in India knows that they can aspire to, even if they can’t achieve it.
There’d still be rich and poor, obviously, but we should be able to come up with a ‘lifestyle’ which the average person on the planet can expect.
Oh, and cutting my emissions by 1/3 means I’m only using up 1.2 earths, so I’ve still got a way to go.
Another hypothetical…
Coal fired power is the major cause of emissions for Australians. Many people advocate that we should abolish coal fired power immediately.
Labor takes its flawed emissions policy to the Senate twice and it is rejected, triggering a DD. The Greens run a brilliant policy on the need for urgent action on climate change, convincing all right (sorry, I mean left) minded Australians that urgent action is needed.
They win a sweeping victory, gaining power in both the HoR and the Senate (possibly impossible given present numbers but play along with me).
Their first act is to close down all c-p power stations as of January 1st 2010 and to raise the price of petrol by $1 a litre, thus giving us parity with Europe.
How would you have to change your life under this new regime?
(I make it clear here and now that I am not indulging in spinach defilement – that is, Green bashing. I’m interested in how far ordinary people are prepared to go in order to tackle climate change, assuming that they are genuine in their belief that it is THE major issue facing us in our lifetime).
I would buy a gun, in preparation for the breakdown of law and order that would follow the cutting off of electricity supplies.
You still get some, psephos, from hydro and the limited renewables around.
And you have a couple of months to prepare.
zoomster
If Oz reduced it’s emissions to France’s levels, that would be a 60% reduction. France is dropping a further 20%. If we (and the US) matched France, the Thai villager could keep increasing his emissions to our level.
OK, so living in Australia (I like having you around Diog, don’t make me weep and cling to you at the airport…) what changes would you have to make to achieve those reductions personally?
I would sell up and go to Byron Bay. You could spend your life on dope, booze and adult games. Who needs electricity. Hell, maybe the Greens are onto something here
I’ll assume you’re joking, Zoomster.
Well, partially, Psephos, but the question underneath is serious.
Do we recognise we can’t keep living the way we’re living and tackle climate change? By the responses on this blog (few in number, I admit, but I’m sure there are lurkers out there as well) I’d say no.
Do we recognise that achieving the kind of levels we should be aiming for will mean the kind of political pain governments don’t like inflicting?
Again, I’d say no.
So why do we expect governments to be big and tough and brave and impose something on us we don’t accept as necessary?
I think I’m demonstrating here that the government’s wimpiness on climate change is a reflection of a greater wimpiness out there in the community…and am surprised at how wimpy some of you are (not you, Diog, you made an effort..)
zoomster
Wow – fully sick. But I’m wondering if you count every time you post as another of those countless situations?
I’m not evading anything. I am discussing the issue raised last night about from the issue of curbing atmospheric emissions in relation to the government policy on that leading up to the Copenhagen conference. I am saying the government should not have shelved its action plan until after the next election. I’m saying the government should be providing greater leadership among nations, and to the electorate. I have referred to Nicholas Stern and Treasury modelling to justify that opinion.
You seem to be saying that Rudd knows more than I do about the realpolitic, and therefore the criticism of his sellout is unfair. Well, if I am an ignoramus as you suggest, at least Tony Blair is very much with me on what government should be doing (link posted last night) and he knows enough about the competing interests and political difficulties to comment. Or is he also an ill-informed hypocrite on this?
As to your ‘challenge’, I’m afraid I don’t follow your ‘logic’ in this context. As the Treasury modelling and Stern show, the atmospheric targets can be stabilised at 450-550 ppm under the proposed world emissions plan with very lttle impact on world economic growth. That’s right – growth. So no-one would have to reduce their standard of living because of the plan. Either in Australia or in Thailand.
That may alter if action continues to be delayed. If we act now, there will still be more wealth across the globe year after year. This means we won’t have to live like a Thai villager. What a relief.
If you want to discuss your general desire for equalisation of wealth levels around the world, then feel free to do so with whomever you like. What a shame you will yet again be:
Centre
Now you’ve got it! Welcome to Autralia’s best address. Has been my regular stamping ground for years and soon to be permanent one. Wouldn’t be stamping too hard up there today though, as it would spray mud all up one’s tie-dyed kaftan.
C’mon JV, you can’t quote Tony Blair, the UK is a basket case. If the UK had experienced the benefits of a mining boom and was as strongly placed as we are in these times, he would be singing a totally different tune.
Quite the opposite, jv. One of the reasons I post is so I can have my mistakes, misunderstandings etc corrected.
Look, I do realise I sound a bit pretentious moi, but how about accepting what I say at face value? As a local councillor, for example, I would read the all the expert advice, every single submission and do my own research into an issue. Of course I knew more about it than the majority of ratepayers, I had to, that was my duty.
As a policy writer, it’s much the same. Take water policy for example – I’ve been briefed by scientists, political advisers, the regional water authorities and read lots of the relevant research etc. I’ve travelled across the whole of Victoria to look at issues on the ground and consulted widely with diverse communities. If I walk into a room of local farmers, it’s only common sense that I understand the totality of the issues better than they do. It doesn’t mean I dismiss their opinion as worthless.
j.v, I say you’re evading the issues because you are. I’m not into equalisation of wealth. I’ve asked you a very simple question. You can answer it without believing it’s real.
Have you done one of the ‘how many earth’ quizzes there are on the net? If so, what was your result? The average person in the Western world requires something like the resources of three earths to maintain their lifestyle (so my 2 looks pretty good).
Cutting back emissions by 40% must have real impacts on living standards and lifestyle or it simply won’t work. I’m trying to get people to consider what that means in practical terms for them. I’m interested in how little people want to do this.
Centre
I can in the context of pointing out an ex-prime minister’s view as to the excuses being trotted out by the likes of our governemt. He has a roving global role at present on climate change leading up to Copenhagen:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/03/tony-blair-climate-change-obama
j.v, I’ve repeatedly said here that I don’t approve of the government’s ETS, I want higher levels, and I recognise the need for immediate action.
But, as I’m also saying, you can’t expect governments to be braver than you are. They rely on you (that is, the average voter) for support. If the average voter isn’t willing to wear something, then why should the government?
What the government does will have real impacts on everybody – if it doesn’t, it’s useless. So I’m asking people to consider those impacts, and what they’re prepared to accept. They can’t expect that the government will be prepared to impose something on them that they’re not willing to accept themselves.
So, for example, if you’re willing to accept returning to Thai villager standards, then you can legitimately demand that the Government go for higher, faster targets and then hope that things turn out better than expected. If you want business as usual, then a 25% ETS is about all you can demand.
So, j.v, the simple question is:
Given that climate change is real, that it is the most important issue facing us in our lifetimes, what changes would you accept to your present lifestyle in order to prevent further catastrophic climate change?
(I outlined mine in the original post, so I’m not asking you to do something I wouldn’t myself).
I think William should have a weekly “ETS pissing contest” thread, for those who want to continue this dull argument week in, week out. Then the rest of us could get on with discussing, y’know, elections and polling and stuff.
Which, of course, have nothing to do with climate change.
Your turn, Rebecca – change the subject.
Ian Verrender provides a no holds barred performance assessment for the previous management at Telstra.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/adios-amigo-to-the-man-who-enfeebled-telstra-20090522-bib0.html
Where do you stand on it all Rebecca. Although you could be right. Kerry Packer once referred to an inquiry as an intelligent wankfest. This could be heading the same way.
Getting rid of the 5c coin, introducing a $5 note and … yes… a $500 note. Got to be good for the environment.
Another aspect of the problem of decarbonising the world.
I am reading a biography of Fritz Haber, the German chemist who in 1909 discovered how to make ammonium (NH3) by superheating air under pressure in the presence of a catalyst such as osmium. This process is how nitrate fertilsers are made. Without the extra productivity gained by the use of these fertilisers, one third of the world’s population (2 billion people) would starve. The manufacture of fertiliser, however, uses prodigious quantities of electricity, which in most places is generated by burning carbon (coal in China, natural gas in the US). Also, the use of these fertilsers releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, and the use of fertiliser to grow feed for cattle increases the release of methane from cattle excretions. How would the panel untangle this problem?
(Fritz Haber also invented the use of poison gas as a weapon during World War I. He also invented the insecticide Zyklon B, which was later used to gas many of his relatives. Ironies of history.)
[Jon Stewart…hahahaha
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/22/daily-show-duel-dick-chen_n_206683.html
As usual, Stewart nailed Cheney’s lame argument (has Cheney been reading G.P.’s posts?)
If Obama criticising the Bush administration’s policies is perceived by terrorists as weakness, then why isn’t Cheney’s criticism of the Obama administration’s policies also perceived by terrorists as weakness?
As usual, a silly conservative politician isn’t willing to subject their views to the same criticisms that they apply to the policies of their opponents.
Here’s a pretty boring call to arms for the Libs. The only noteworty comment by Kemp is:
“We need many more of these Liberal voters to join us in defeating the army of paid, Labor officials.”
The Libs routinely pay people to do their HTVs. To say otherwise is total crap.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/23/2578993.htm
This problem is easily solved by using nuclear power.
[Also, the use of these fertilsers releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, and the use of fertiliser to grow feed for cattle increases the release of methane from cattle excretions. How would the panel untangle this problem?
I don’t understand how using the fertiliser releases notrous oxide, I thought the whole point of the fertiliser is that the nitrogen gets used by the plan to build proteins.
I was ‘paid’ with a t-shirt for 6 hours of work.
I still have several of those T shirts, paid for out of my own money, which I bought to give away to workers like ShowsOn.
Rebecca
Sorry if it bores you, but you have to admit it’s better than discussion ad neuseum about the various institutions and kiddie fiddling.
AND climate change/ economic crisis is the biggest issue of government currently, therefore is rather integral to “elections and polling and stuff”
But how about if we keep it a bit shorter then?
zoomster – No, apart from the fact that Rebecca is bored, I’m not going play your game of vicarious impoverishment, which I say is irrelevant.
This is not a situation in which the government should wait to be pushed by an avalanche of public opinion as reflected in polls (Hey Rebecca, see – “poll”!). It is one in which those who know the true meaning of the science just have to do what is necessary while helping those voters who don’t get it to catch up.
Your assumption about the basis for government action being where public opinion is, rather than where it should be, and will be after a period of persuasive strong leadership is precisely the problem of modern poll-driven government (again, Rebecca).
I’ve got several years of gym shirts out of such ‘paid’ work!
Even when nitrogen fertilisers are used correctly, only a third of the nitrogen actually goes into the plant. The rest goes into the atmosphere or washes into rivers – depending on what form the fertiliser is being used in. But in many places the fertiliser is not used correctly, it is over-applied, increasing the wastage.
And when nitrogen fertilisers are used to grow plants to feed animals for humans to eat, the wastage is even greater. Only 4% of the nitrogen that leaves the fertiliser plant finishes up entering the human body. The rest is wasted.
And rightly or wrongly this will remain so while your backside points to the ground. That’s the way politics works and there is not one party out there that would operate differently in government.
OK Shows, we all know your hanging for an argument on nuke.
What’s going to happen in 40 years if we find that toxic waste becomes more severe and makes large areas inhabitable. Maybe we could dump it all on New Zealand, we can beat them in fight.
You can’t say technology will find a way to deal with it because the same argument can be used with carbon.
*Gusface will be joining in very soon*
Huh, what, moi
Has one of the irradiated ones started on about Nukeleer
If people like yourself aren’t even willing to consider a change in lifestyle in order to combat climate change, who will?
For governments to act on this, they have to have at least some people battering on their door, saying that they understand that tackling cc involves some sacrifices and that they’re prepared to make them. A government can – and I applaud them when they do it – make strong changes, but there has to be some evidence that people will be willing to accept them in the long term, or the government knows that it is doomed and that its courageous action is destined to be wound back after the next election.
The problem you and I are having here is quite a common one in cc discussions (and the real scientists attest to it, too, and say it is one of their problems in getting people to understand the problem). People seem to think that mitigation is all they have to do. Cut back on our emissions, commit to a figure, and then next morning we wake up, life continues as normal, and the climate’s back to how it was.
Point out that, even if we all stopped emitting carbon tomorrow (see the ’shutting the coal fired power stations and adding $1 to every litre of petrol’ post before), climate change will continue to happen, and people act as if you’re a cc denier.
Try and talk about the wider consequences – the impact on countries with big populations, all of whom aspire to live exactly as we do; the continual growth of world populations and the lack of action on this, which will lead not only to further inevitable cc but also to further depletion of an already overstressed environment etc etc – and people really start avoiding you.
I am really interested that noone seems to be willing to nominate ANY significant changes to their lifestyle in exchange for saving the world, and find it immensely disappointing.
My spouse is vehemently anti Rudd (well, the whole ALP, really – on the basis that I haven’t been offered a safe seat or anything, despite years and years of hard work. Doesn’t matter that I don’t want one), so I’m not allowed even to wear one in the garden.
Still, they’ll be in mint condition when the children come to sell them.
Gotta love their ABC
All other media announced the lifting of the Swine flu alert level and that was it but not ABC, this is their headline
talking of fertilizers! Defends! what a load of crap,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/05/23/2579007.htm
And the free piss up afterwardss.
j.v, forgive me (and correct me) if I’m verballing you, but your position seems to be:
1. Climate change is real and involves immediate and drastic action.
2. The government needs to commit to an ETS of 40%.
3. This will not make any real difference to anybody’s lifestyle.
If it were that simple, the government would do it tomorrow – and I can see why you would think they were cowardly not to. It would be a totally win -win situation.
If it were that simple, there’d also be no political problem, either. Not just the Greens, but the Libs, the Nats, Fielding and Xenophon, would all get on board. It would get through both Houses of Parliament with ringing acclamation, with pollies from all sides shouting with joy and embracing.
So what am I missing here?
aargh, ‘requires’ not ‘involves’
Psephos
Very, very good question about nitrogen. You’re ahead of the curve.
The problem has been solvered by “nitrification inhibitors”. They are big in NZ because of their huge agriculture emissions. Expect to hear a lot about them from Turnbull in his agriculture push, along with biochar.
http://www.lincoln.ac.nz/story21437.html
Which reminds me of something, maybe we could value add and sell it to them..
http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/MineralResources/RadioactiveMinerals/2/ENZ-Resources/Standard/6/en
I’m with Rebecca on this. How many times must the same old climate change arguments be rehashed? Get back to elections and polling!
I wonder if yourself and Rebecca are against this topic is because your pure of heart Greens are so out of touch on this issue ?
The Greens are not out of touch with the reality of what needs doing for a fair and climate change stopping solution.
Diogenes, thanks for that interesting link. Such a technology would certainly help with GhG emissions from the use of fertilisers. What it *doesn’t* do is address the huge use of carbon-generated electricity to make the fertiliser in the first place.
The man who gave us, the Amigos, a bad name.
http://business.smh.com.au/business/adios-amigo-to-the-man-who-enfeebled-telstra-20090522-bib0.html?page=-1
And he has the nerve few days ago to question the Rudd Govt capability to execute the NBN.
He reminded me of George Trumble who took AMP, the best brand in Australia, almost to the brink. Both of them walked away with millions and laughing all the way to their banks. we are the stupid one to want to have businessman like that to screw us and say thank you.
Well they are with their my way or the highway attitude.
But what we have doesn’t even constitute a real debate. The people who want bigger up front targets refuse to accept that having an ETS with small initial targets is better than having no ETS. They also refuse to accept that under the government’s sceme, the cost of carbon INHERENTLY increases every year as fewer permits are auctioned.
They also refuse to accept the benefits of domestic energy consumption such as via the installation of insulation or solar voltaic cells, because they don’t understand how the Government’s scheme will work. It is hard to have a rational discussion with people so obsessed over the early targets.
Then of course on the other end there are people like G.P. and ESJ last night who have absolutely no idea the benefit of a trading scheme. They seem to think that some people will magically invent ThingsTM to make climate change an easy problem to solve, without understanding that an ETS is designed to speed up this process by shifting investment to low pollution technologies.
zoomster, people are not going to support a government that advocates a lower standard of living for the purposes of reducing carbon emissions. Hence, any reforms will have to be focussed on making the status quo sustainable.
Psephos
I hope the Labor team is all over the arguments about including agriculture in the CPRS. Garnaut, and Wong, didn’t include it because it’s hard to measure accurately and so hard to include in carbon trading.
Turnbull is close to Flannery who is heavily into agriculture emissions reduction.
I can just see Turnbull standing up and saying that it makes no sense in a huge country like Oz with enormous farms that we aren’t looking at farm emissions. There is some logic to it and it could really throw a spanner in the works if he insists on it being in the ETS for him to vote for it.
IF we can’t measure it accurately, then it has the potential to become a rort that will completely undermine the rest of the system.
If Turnbull tries to get agriculture included it could be enough to break the coalition. We know the Nats aren’t supporting any trading scheme, but there are also a lot of rural Liberals who could end up crossing the floor. That would end Turnbull’s leadership.
I’ve said it before and i’ll say it again, so stop getting on your pretentious high-horse. The environment doesn’t rank that highly on my list of important issues. I support the Greens because they have Senators who have more of a social conscience than Labor. I supported the Democrats prior to the Greens. I’ll always support Labor over Liberal.
Criticise the Greens all you want, but it reflects badly on you, not I.
Diogenes, he will buy a huge fight with the Nats if he does that. The political reason agriculture isn’t in the CPRS is because of the fear that the farmers will go troppo if it is. Actually there is a lot of potential benefits for farmers in a CPRS, since they can make lots of money turning their land into carbon sinks (see Rob de Fegely’s testimony at the recent Senate hearings.)
Zoomster, are you asking us to put up our hands and nominate what we have or would give up? Because I think we’ve had that debate before. I live in a rented house, so have some limits, but the car is gone, the heater is gone, we have an ‘off at the wall’ rule, a low water washing machine that runs its wastewater out onto the banana patch, we grow fruit and veg on our 1/2 size urban block, we haveno dishwasher or airconditioning etc.
I doubt there is much in my lifestyle that couldn’t be maintained on renewable energy. But might be difficult for the family down the road with two 4WDs, boat, caravan, 3 airconditioners etc. Personally, I think my standard of living is better than theirs (I have no debt except HECS), but they might not agree.
Someone should define lifestyle and standard of living before the debate goes much further.
Finns @ 409. I wouldn’t have paid them the dole. At least those on the dole help keep inflation under control to a degree. Those blokes were a total waste.
I think rural Liberals would be a bigger problem. We already know the Nats won’t vote for any trading scheme.
417
Yes – if there was an earlier debate along those lines, I missed it and apologise for boring the pants off Rebecca (although, if cc is the most important issue around, surely one should be passionately debating it all the time?)
I’m not necessarily asking if people are doing these things now, but simply what they’re prepared to sacrifice in the name of preventing run away global warming.
So far, the overwhelming impression I’m getting is that nobody’s prepared to give up anything, even hypothetically, which means (in the political real world) that the government should do even less than they are at present because people really don’t want them to do anything at all.
A CPRS target which doesn’t involve real sacrifices on somebody’s part isn’t going to achieve anything.
Ah well, looks like another environmental problem we’ll export to poorer countries because the debate’s too hard to have at home.
whomever wanted North to get up besides myself – “I’m the only one in the family tipping comp whose picked them”, glad that they got up for you
……
what is happening at AAMI? Sheeeessshh ……..
Psephos
Exactly. I heard “the bush” is split on the it. Half want business as usual, and half are worried about climate change (let’s face it, it’s worse for them than anyone) and see that they could make a huge amount of money from managing their land.
Frank 406 et. al.,
No, they are the only ones, to date, brave enough to speak up about it. Some of us like myself are gracious and just ignore the posts we aren’t interested in but that doesn’t mean we like them, follow them, pay attention to them or anything like that.
Climate change and related issues are good but not on the top of my agenda that I want to see pollies involve themselves in so I don’t worry about any of the details. Do something, anything, I don’t care BUT please fix the issues I want fixed first. (And that isn’t going to happen anytime soon
SO meanwhile I just suffer ETS backchat quietly)
No 417
You can’t do that without people throwing their hands up in despair. People have different understandings as to what constitutes a good standard of living. Some prefer materialism as the barometer of lifestyle, others prefer frugal, low-debt lifestyles.
If you solve the issue of power generation and cars, most of the problem is gone.
IT would be ridiculous to include agriculture before all the science is in on that. The entire ETS could get turned into a massive scam.
An ETS is designed to shift money towards investment to solve these problems.
GP(PEoA) @ 424
Yes if you resolve power (solar, geothermal, tidal, wind) and transport (renewable electricity, rail, walking, cycling, more localisation) a significant part of the problem is solved but waste (reduce, reuse, recycle) and resource distribution (difficult) still need solving as well.
Zoomster,
I still think people haven’t got a handle of the risks involved in climate change – particularly the risk of catastrophic climate change. The same people who won’t give up anything to prevent climate change give us grief over a 1 in a million cancer risk from a chemical in water. SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management. They think climate change isn’t going to effect them? They think 2 degrees warmer is going to be a picnic? They think the Government will fix it for them?
They remind me of the white South Africans after apartheid ended, arguing that they earned their wealth fair and square and they wouldn’t give it up. No acknowledgment at all of the system that allowed them to accumulate their wealth in a protected environment at someone else’s expense. No-one is going to admit that their lifestyle was built on the back of a ruined environment and third world poverty. It is something stolen, not earned, and we have no right to keep it while denying it to others.
SO
The NFF has an interesting position. They are pro-ETS but they didn’t want agriculture included. They do however want to be able to be paid to reduce their emissions (biochar etc) and have the company paying them to use that as a carbon credit. This would be a win-win situation for them.
My understanding is that you can’t do that under the Wong scheme. Maybe Turnbull will go with something like that.
http://www.nff.org.au/read/2438462646.html?hilite=emission
Polyquats, please read article 2 of comment moderation guidelines.
bob1234
For those who think like bob1234, and perhaps that 2050 is a long way out:
If you don’t agree with the science on climate change I’d suggest you read the Intergoverrnmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report.
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/assessments-reports.htm
If you don’t believe the environmental and economic impacts being faced if we don’t act NOW, then I’d suggest, for example:
RICHARD T. ELY LECTURE
The Economics of Climate Change
By Nicholas Stern
If you don’t believe the economic impact in Australia, then perhaps check out the Treasury modelling:
http://www.treasury.gov.au/lowpollutionfuture/report/html/06_Chapter6.asp
If after reading these you still think the environment is somewhere down the list of priorities for government aciton, then I’d suggest:
http://medical-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Denial+(psychology)
Sorry William.
ETS is a rort to create public servants and to justify paid trips for public servants to nice places like Copenhagen and Oslo. Silly weak minded people believe in this sort of tripe – it gives them an inner glow of self-righteousness, they dont even realise how they are being ripped off.
The ETS proposed would nudge some of the market some of the way with the investment needed but there are more effective means of reducing greenhouse gasses.
For example with electricity if the government(s) still owned the power systems then they could simply build renewable energy generators and close the fossil fuel power stations.
With transport the solution is to start spending 95% of the transport budget on rail, tram and bus, start demolishing excess road space in cities and developing for more useful purposes, ban cars from larger and large areas of cities, make petrol, diesel, lpg, natural gas, etc more expensive by several times and a few others.
The government clearly intends to include agriculture in the scheme in the medium term, but not immediately. This is a completely common sense approach to take, it would be irresponsible to include it immediately.
Aren’t there other forums where you can post your conspiracy theories?
Why would it make a difference if the energy generators are owned by the government or owned by private industries? We need more non-CO2 polluting sources of electricity, irrespective of who builds and owns them.
Because if the government owned them they could much more easily direct that the resources of the electricity organisations be directed towards renewable energy and none of the money would be wasted on pointless private profit.
jv 431,
while I can’t speak for bob1234, I’m in the same general boat myself. I believe in climate change very much but I happen to fly the flag quite a bit higher for social issues first. Just because I don’t put the issue de jour on the top of my personal agenda though doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it or care about it. I’m happy that the government is doing more about it but I would be HAPPIER
if they fixed refugees, immigration and the Republic at the same or earlier time.
Oh that it was as simple as that. Can you show us a renewable energy generator that generates as much power as Loy Yang?
This is completely back to front. We need to make it EASIER for energy companies to make MORE profits from non-CO2 polluting energy sources than from CO2 polluting energy sources.
Once energy companies see that they can make more money being clean and green than they can polluting, they will stop polluting! Currently it is easier and more profitable for them to make profits by polluting a lot, which is unsustainable.
An individual renewable power generator the size of Loy Yang is not needed but the same amount of generating capacity. There are solar thermal plants of a size big enough to be reasonably efficient and simple enough that they could be produced on a vast scale. Make Austalia a sun powered country.
Tom
* Where is the largest solar power plant in the world?
* How much did it cost to build?
* How many of them would it take to generate as much power as Loy Yang?
* How does it generate power at night? Alternatively, how does it store the power it generates during the day for use at night?
* How much less power would it generate during a Victorian winter than it would in summer?
If the power generation systems were by the government then the profit of shareholder would not come into it. The government could just start building renewable generators and when there was enough power from them to replace the coal and gas power stations then they would be turned off. No need for private profit. No electricity companies to kick and scream. Bring on the nationalisations.
History shows “behaviour correction” schemes from bureaucrats like ETS always fail.
431
jv
did a climate change talk at Melb Uni a couple of weeks ago (press ‘pretentious moi’ button) which was exactly on the effects of cc now.
Singled out one small community (3000 people) who in the last 12 years have experienced: 2 major floods, both of which exceeded the previous highs; 3 major fires, one of which was identified as the longest lasting peace time emergency experienced by our country, all of which burnt more area than 1939; drought; mini tornados.
The floods came after sixty years of no major flooding, the fires after twenty years of no major fire incidents.
These are major impacts on a small community.
I was asked at the end of the talk if I could prove that there was a connection between these events and climate change, and simply asked for a better theory to explain the facts.
441
Tom
how long would they take to come on line? (assuming we could start tomorrow?)
Here is an example of a 20MW solar power tower in Spain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS20_solar_power_tower
I don`t know but they would take a fraction of the time of nuclear because they are much simpler. Same for clean coal but with the added bonus of most of the technology being there already.
Tom this is silly.
I am not sure where you live but you seem to omit a large sector of road users. Tradesmen, Delivery, Service, need roads. They cannot carry the equipment needed on a bus or tram.
Can you imagine calling a plumber and getting “sorry there is no road – I can’t carry my eel that far” or the corner shop closing because it can’t get stuff delivered. Or the poor pensioner having to eat discarded bus tickets because meals on wheels can’t deliver?
Loy Yang has six generators each of which generates 525mw, a total of 3150mw. So we would need 158 of those. That’s assuming that Victoria gets as much sunshine per year as Seville, which I doubt.
Beat me to that, Psephos, although the figure I got for Loy Yang was 2200, so need 110.
I note that the Spanish one is 3 x more expensive than conventional power (and they’d have cheaper base load power than ours anyway) and they expect it will take until 2015 to ramp it up to 300 MW.
So if it takes them 6 years to get another 280 MW, the aim of even 2200 is at least a few decades away.
I am not saying that roads that are needed should be closed but that the surplus roads should be got rid of. Getting food to people would be a top priority of this system. Moving general goods would also be a priority. There would be more walking and cycling so there would be less obesity.
Gary Bruce
Spoken like a true polling slave. Well, my bum was pointing to the ground when PJK was showing glimpses of political leadership – in the sense of moving public opinion in the direction he proposed – on the republic (despite the messy referendum and outcome), economic policy before that, and closer ties with Asia, recognition of historical wrongs to indigenous Australians (Eg Redfern speech). These all had lasting impact that would not have occurred without his leadership skills – taking something that is correct and convincing the uninformed to support his proposed direction. None of these was as imperative as stabilising emissions, so on CC we sure need ministers who lead from the front, rather than from focus groups in the back room.
Here’s an indication of Keating’s opinion of Rudd:
Bring back PJK!
Tom Australia doesnt need you for public policy, but the inner city definitely needs more individuals like you to help cleanse the Labor Left machine from power in Sydney, Melbourne etc.
That of course assumes that Victoria goes on using the same amount of electricity as it does now, and I agree it could use a lot less if it tried. Anyone know how much the Portland aluminium smelter uses?
The intensity of the sun increases the closer you are to the equator.
Seville 37 degrees north
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seville
Melbourne 37 degrees South
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melbourne
ESJ, do you actually have anything intelligent or useful to contribute to this discussion? Or are you just here to remind us what an idiot you are?
(You’ll find by the way that the Labor right is in power in both Sydney and Melbourne.)
I think there is general consensus that we have a CC problem, I think there is a general consensus what some of the solutions are.
The tricky bit is how do we get from where we are now, to where we need to be. A “free market” will not do it, an elected Govt. can not do it. So we need a mix, Govt. sticks and carrots so the market evolves – at this point in time I can only see one party who seem to have grasped this truth.
If enough resources are put into renewables then they will be sped up and the cost will come down because of efficiencies of scale.
454
Loy Yang is, of course, only part of the picture.
Victoria’s BASELOAD use is 6000 MW.
Oh OK, so you must be one of those people that think increasing taxes increases consumption. You know, like Malcolm Turnbull BEFORE he proposed increasing taxes on tobacco products.
Toodles to you too Adam.
The reality is you cant solve climate change through a bureacratic scheme to correct behaviour. These have a nasty habit of failure.
Climate Change will be addressed by technological change. Like fridges with CFC’s being redesigned if you remember.
ETS good for lots of lefty type jobs etc with lots of people monitoring behaviour correction bit like Gosplan.
The Greens are OK, more power to them they’ll cleanse the inner cities of the Australia of the Labor Left. Bit like lsrael created Hamas to do over the PLO. Let the bonfires burn I say.
I for one wont shed a tear at the demise of Albanese, Tanner, Plibersek etc etc.
Governments can’t afford to do all the investing on their own. We also need private industries to invest both in R&D and in actually applications of that research.
The best way to encourage private investment, is for the government to design a system that will ensure it is profitable for companies to become green.
Well put ESJ – Your second statement is the perfect response to your first.
Tom
Some people (like me) can’t walk too far or ride a bike.
This is just absurd! Taxes on tobacco and alcohol have for years been used as a method to regulate consumption.
Environmental Protection Agencies for years have handed out fines to limit the environmental impact of industry.
And this was done because CFC based refrigerants like Freon were BANNED at an international level!
Please go back to making unsubstantiated barbs about something else, you have absolutely no idea how carbon trading will work.
The government can raise taxes to do things like this. It is approaching a stage where a world wide war footing economy is needed. It would even fix the world economy of the problems of the GFC/GEC like WWII did but with a lot lot lot less human rights abuses.
Or are confined to a wheelchair like myself.
That’s partly what carbon trading is! In the first proper year of the scheme (when there is no restriction of price, and there is a limitation on the number of permits) it will raise over $12 billion, that the government then can redistributed to households and to fund renewables.
Poeple who cant walk very far or ride a bike or trike should get the transport solutions they need (priority housing close to PT, electric scooters, wheelchairs).
An ETS is not a bureaucratic scheme, anyway. It’s a market mechanism – by putting a price on carbon it sends a price signal to which business and consumers will respond in their own economic self-interest. If it’s properly targetted it doesn’t need any bureaucrats at all.
ESJ
I’ve got a message to you from the Director of Information and Internal Security. Your behaviour correction electric necklace doesn’t seem to be working very well. Could you please return to the re-education camp.
ruawake
Have a look at charts 6.6 and 6.7 in the Treasury modelling/report and the process by sector of the reductions is set out. The summary at the top is quite reassuring too.
http://www.treasury.gov.au/lowpollutionfuture/report/html/06_Chapter6.asp
The ETS in overly complicated and speculative market mechanism. A carbon tax would be simpler and more efficient.
ESJ is implicitly defending the a completely free market solution and is suggesting that it will solve the problem on its own.
If that is the case, why hasn’t it already done so? Oh, I guess ESJ just thinks we need to sit and wait a few more decades for these magical technological solutions to come along.
Nah sorry Tom, I will drive my SLK 320 and live where I choose, thanks very much.
No it wouldn’t. A tax is a device to raise revenue and is a very blunt instrument when the real purpose is to change behaviour. What if businesses pay the tax, jack up their prices and go on emitting? An ETS places a cap on how much carbon can be emitted. As the cap is tightened, carbon becomes more expensive and less profitable to use, so businesses stop using it.
I told you the Greens and the Tories are forming an unholy alliance.
The tax should be at a level where the prices passed on to the consumer cause behaviour change. If the emmissions start rising again then up goes the tax simple and effective.
Anyone who sees a second “m” in emissions in 478 is delusional.
ShowsOn, when do the greatest technological spikes occur – Wartime!
Necessity breeds invention. Same with climate change, ever heard of a Better Place?
Tell me what level of price charging will make people stop using air conditioners in summer? 10%, 50%, 100%, 250%? Of course essential services like govermment departments would be exempted from any price rise.
The Behaviour Correction Unit of the ETS department will need to be staffed with a army division of SES down to the phone line people to set these prices.
On Ciggies – lots of people still smoke and die from them – despite massive ciggie taxes.
Human beings they really are a bugger to correct. If it was possible Gosplan would have worked.
Aaarrrgghhh….
You talk as if monitoring greenhouse gases is like looking at an electricity bill to see if your power usage has increased since last month.
Please, please, please understand: there is already enough ggg in the atmosphere to cause irreversible climate change.
IF we can cut back now, then in twenty years time we’ll have an effect on the rate of climate change.
In the meantime, climate change is affecting our lives right NOW.
The consumer will pay the tax and polluting industries will continue to pollute…
I give up.
There in lies the problem with the oh so pure Greens solution – Dictating people where people live reinforces the GENERAL public’s attitude that the Greens arte a bunch of Latte Sipping, Feral Pinko Commies.
You may hate it, but until you learn that the big stick approach that you advocate for an ETS will do more harm to your cause than any percieved benefit.
Human beings respond to self-interest. That’s why socialism fails. That’s also why an ETS is a market mechanism. It doesn’t try to correct people. It encourages them to pursue profitable behaviour, by creating an environment in which carbon is more expensive than the alternatives.
Yes, and capitalism too.
Frank C,
Still hurting after Freo?
No Adam,
We are not self-interested economically rational man or woman.
If we were self-interested we wouldnt drink or smoke, be overweight, divorce and marry, have kids and a host of other things.
Capitalism is the most successful system for generating wealth ever invented. It’s not so good at distributing wealth equitably, which is why it requires proper regulation by social democratic governments to work at its best.
Then I’m a better conservative than you are, ESJ.
No, Telling the Oh So Pures a few home truths.
ESJ,
Aren’t you a Libertarian this year?
Live free or die GG!
The literature to support this statement is so conclusive that several Nobel Prizes for Economics have been won for demonstrating it.
Yep, that was a beauty, the post of the thread. We should have a carbon tax. The more we pollute, the higher the tax.
2013 Cossie the First since Howard, and the Best.
Just received a fax from liberal party headquarters. Slogan for 2013 – You can keep your car under Cossie
So I pay the tax, I put up my prices to compensate, and I go on emitting. My competitors do the same, so no commercial advantage has been lost. What has been achieved?
LOL! Oh, so you are proposing a war in order to speed clean energy technologies?
Try this, think of some ways to promote development of clean energy technologies that DON’T require war.
And Government’s have a role to create conditions where such inventions can occur.
Tell me why you propose this moronic hypothetical?
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/4831.0.55.001
Cigarette smoking is decline. The increased cost of cigarettes, greater awareness of the health risks, and old smokers dying are all factors. Your proposition that the consumption of all goods and services is completely inelastic is absurd. If that was true, everyone would drive around in Ferraris.
In fact, carbon trading is DESIGNED to make energy consumption MORE sensitive to price fluctuations!
This is absurd, if this was true, most people would still use asbestos, with the CFC refrigerant based air conditioners, while smoking 3 packs of cigarettes a day, practice unsafe sex, and refuse to vaccinate their children.
Governments have changed human behavior sometimes for bad, often for good. Your proposition otherwise suggests you are part of the same narrow minded ideology cult that G.P. belongs to.
WHAT ON earth are you talking about! The price of carbon is SET based on the size of the target, size of the cap, and the number of permits auctioned!
Before you criticise the proposed ETS further, take some time to read how it is designed to work.
A lot Psephos@ 496. Labor spend a couple of generations in opposition and the Greens join the Democrats at the Cemetry.
Do you really think the electorate is going to buy what’s being said by some, you guys are kiddin’ right?
There’s a whole can of untruths in this one statement. People marry because they enjoy companionship, people have kids because humans generally have an urge to father and mother children, people are overweight because most people completely under-estimate how efficient our bodies are at extracting energy from food.
Most people don’t smoke, but as with drinking, most people do it because they find it pleasurable. Which is another human urge.
You’re essentially proposing that humans are robots, that they can EITHER do things out of self interest or because of devotion to others. Humans can and do both things, and lots of other things. There is absolutely no contradiction between these things.
ShowsOn
You are assuming the Singe Gun, cares. Eddie must have lost his gig with Murdoch.
Psephos
But you’ve already pointed out that the socialist concept of economic equity fails because of self-interest. Why isn’t ‘proper regulation’ by government to achieve economic equity also socialism – and destined to failure for the same reason you propounded?
No idea what 498 means.
jv
A social democratic government does not imply socialism. We have a socialist govt. they are not in favour of socialism.
The government has got it right with the CPRS as opposed to a carbon tax.
The suppliers will pass on the tax to consumers. The cost of living goes up. All faced with the full impacts of a recession and rising unemployment. We would lose the following election easily. The liberals are already gaining with debt/deficit scare mongering.
I can’t find a copy of the Oakes-Turnbull interview from last Sunday anywhere. Anyone anyone?
Transcript is available on http://news.ninemsn.com.au/newsroom/oakes/814902/the-oakes-interview-malcolm-turnbull
Little help?
centre
I think that’s what everyone thinks isn’t it? Someone made a little joke up the thread about a carbon tax I thought, that’s all.
Something that our oh so pure friends on the far left fail to appreciate. Oh and expect the sob stories on A CurrentAffair/Today Tonight of people being forced to go without and the reporter pointing the Finger sternly at Rudd/Wong.
Yes, this WILL happen if the oh so pure get their way.
Climate change is huge problem for libertarians, because it demonstrates that free economic exchanges that seem to be beneficial in the short term, can in the long term make BOTH people worse off.
e.g. A person who makes electricity by burning coal sells that electricity to someone who uses it to run their air conditioner. The power producer benefits because they make a profit selling the electricity. The purchaser benefits because they place a higher value of the comfort provided by the air conditioner, rather than the money paid for the electricity to run it.
But the problem is, both in the long run are WORSE off, because the pollution created during generation of the power has the potential to harm the planet, and thus the livelihoods of both the power producer and the power buyer.
I can see how ESJ can’t handle the fact that both people in this example of a free economic exchange, unencumbered by government intervention, are only superficially better off in the short term. Once the pollution is taken into account, both are in fact worse off from this free transaction. This completely contradicts the libertarian view that free economic exchanges can only make people better off, because people only choose to trade for things that are more valuable than what they give up.
ruawake
I’m not grasping that – can you eleborate on on it a bit?
That has yet to be established.
ruawake
I agree with you on that, it certainly does not imply any such thing. But I was referring to Psephos’ additional factor of a government using ‘proper regulation’ to bring about the equitable distribution of wealth. I’m just wondering why that isn’t worthy of the name ’socialism’ too, when the objective is the same, and therefore destined to failure due to human nature.
By the way, I am in no way opposed to the concept of socialism in principle.
The ALP is a member of socialist international.
http://www.socialistinternational.org/index.cfm
Fair enough JV.
GB. I think they have gained. There has been a shift in the last three polls, not that they would raise any real concerns.
ShowsOn, exactly so. That’s why the state, on behalf of the public interest both present and future, must continue to regulate the operations of the great wealth-producing machine that is the capitalist mode of production. This is not socialism, which is replacing capitalism with state or communal ownership. It is social democracy. (politics 101).
Try turnbull’s website
A curious case of a former President from a curious country. Economically very successful but politically always in a muddle, wedged between USA, China, Japan and North Korea.
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/05/117_45528.html
Because socialism proposes equality of OUT COME, i.e. everyone on the collective farm gets paid the same.
Social democracy proposes equality of OPPORTUNITY. Everyone should have access to education resources, health care, and social security. But people still have to work hard to make the most of their abilities AND opportunities.
Socialism tries to deny human nature by forcing the same outcomes on people, whereas social democracy accepts that people are born with different abilities and interests, that they should be allowed to exploit they way they choose by receiving access to opportunities like education and training.
ruawake
Good one! By gee the SI is a broad church, isn’t it? Looking at the list of members I can see plenty of others like the ALP that would dissolve before attempting the equitable redistribution of wealth.
]That’s why the state, on behalf of the public interest both present and future, must continue to regulate the operations of the great wealth-producing machine that is the capitalist mode of production.]
I think ESJ’s quite illinformed reactions against the CPRS are a side effect of his unwillingness to accept that free economic exchange can make people worse off.
He won’t accept that fact, so he refuses to accept that some government intervention CAN ensure that otherwise free exchanges produce environmental benefits, i.e. by encouraging the power producer to build a solar power station, or convert his coal station to gas.
ShowsOn #517
That’s a fair enough set of definitions in theory, although, awkwardly, hybrids abound. Of course, many in the US would make no distinction whatsoever between the two. Look at the labelling Obama has had to put up with.
If you look at the SI website, you will see a statement of objectives, which includes the full agenda of contemporary progressive politics. Some I agree with, some I don’t. None of them have anything to do with “socialism” as traditionally understood. The last elected government to try to implement the traditional socialist agenda of nationalisation and state enterprise was Mitterand’s government in France in 1981, and that ended in tears a few years later. Since then all the “democratic socialist” parties have abandoned socialism and adopted a broad liberal-progressive-social democratic agenda.
Well, strictly speaking, I think you will find JV right on this one.
Capitalism is free enterprise with NO government.
Socialism is free enterprise with SOME government intervention. The greater the government intervention the greater the socialism.
Communism is more market organisation.
Capitalism = no government intervention.
The problem with the word socialist is that so much mud has been thrown at it by the far right that it is more associated with communism now.
What you do is replace Socialist with Liberal.
Centre
Possibly an overly narrow definition. If you took that definition, then capitalism has never existed.
That would present us with an interesting situation of arguing about something that has never existed. And that would make us all a little sad.
Sure, on some issues issues we are all socialists. Even Libertarians think police officers should be employees of the state!
On some issues were are all socialists in the sense we think the state should ban things, i.e. most people don’t think there should be a legal market for heroin. Most people accept that the law making it compulsory to wear seat belts is fair. But that doesn’t mean they think all industries should be government owned.
The debate over whether the federal ALP should be an “equality of opportunity” party, or an “equality of outcome” party was the big ideological debate it spent most of the 1960s going through. “equality of opportunity” won, we would have an open and internationally competitive market economy, but with strong public health and education systems.
Kim Beazley referred to this in his last speech in parliament:
http://parlinfo.aph.gov.au/parlInfo/search/display/display.w3p;query=Id%3A%22chamber%2Fhansardr%2F2007-09-20%2F0074%22
@Grog 515
Thanks
Kudos to Turnbull for putting the interview up on his site. It wasn’t a good one for him by any stretch but hje put it up anyhow.
I thought this was interesting “broader base but lower rate” Sounds like code for GST on food to me but anyhoo, what would I know.
Good work MT
Haha. Good post Yo ho ho. From what I can recall in my student days – Capitalism (in its pure form) is Free Enterprise with no government intervention. You could be right, maybe in its pure form, it may never have existed.
*got to go*
You’d fail politics 101 with that lot.
* “Capitalism is free enterprise with NO government.” Can you name a capitalist country, past or present, which has had no government?
*”Socialism is free enterprise with SOME government intervention.” No, socialism is state ownership of the means of production. State regulation of private enterprise is social democracy.
*”Communism is more market organisation.” No idea what that means. Communism is complete state ownership of the economy, plus the dictatorship of the proletariat (rule by the Communist Party), leading eventually (in theory) to the withering away of the state and the abolition of classes.
I think a better term for this is Laissez-faire, or minimalist state libertarianism.
I don’t think any country has been stupid enough to try it.
Yo ho ho @ 525
Never been a problem for us before yhh – how many arguments have there been about religion?
Anyway, I’m not so sure about Centre’s definition pure capitalism never existing either. Some of the emerging states from the old USSR seem to be to have arrived at quintissential capitalism – a laissez-faire law of the jungle market without even attempted regulation. Pretty to watch too wasn’t it? All those gangster billionaires with gold chains. Although I suppose at least they didn’t pretend to be upstanding members of the establishment on Wall st or Collins Street as we have to put up with in the West.
Psephos
Not a full-fee paying overseas student, never.
Overseas students work hard and rarely fail.
Did anyone watch this live on OneHD this morning?
White team (Cleveland Cavaliers) has the ball, and need to inbound it. They are down by 2 points with ONE SECOND (from the time the ball is caught) remaining. Then this happens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSKR2T-PK-Q
The ones that turn up to class, yes.
I did. Loved it.
In fact most of the Labor Government policies can be seen as job creation schemes for public servants. Fair Work Australia is another classic example.
Bit too quiet for you, ESJ?
When I was tutoring the overseas students always showed up, and always worked very hard. Not that Australian history attracted many of them.
Communism is not based on state ownership of means of production or dictatorship of proletariat/one party rule. Communism is more about community based grass roots democracy without much government. Marx Lenin etc saw state ownership as a means of shifting away fro capitalism to a much freer society. One party rule never came to USSR for quite a few year. The realities of one party rule leading to corruption and inefficiency has destroyed most of its appeal (except to dictator types) and most socialists and communists today are supporters of multi party electoral systems. Effectively 1 party states such as Cuba China Vietnam Laos are shifting ground to deal with one party problems. Less said about DPR Korea the better.
@Yo ho ho
Not taking anything away from the dude who made the shot but,
A million ball games means a billion shots
sooner or later…
When did Edward St John get back here?
Welcome back if it is indeed the same chap who posted on here before the last election.
Adam yes we did kind of need to be invaded or have a civil war to spice up the history of Australia.
Teaching British or American History must be far more interesting for young people.
BTW all this talk about Turnbull being given the pink slip have been way off.
I dont think Turnbull will lose his job until after the next election.
Glen
only because nobody else wants it.
SNIP: Abusive comment deleted – The Management.
I suggest you read some Lenin.
I suggest you read some Soviet history.
Party true of Marx, who never actually held power. Totally untrue of Lenin.
Soviet Russia was a one-party state by 1920 at the latest.
True.
They say that until they gain power. Then we’ll see.
No they’re not. There has been economic liberalisation, but no weakening of one -party rule.
Greetings Glen,
I have returned. I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.
Communism is Dr Bollard coming back too? Goody!!
I just call it as I see it Yo Ho Ho, without fear or partisan favour!
You do realise that the number of federal public servants increased by about 30,000 during the Howard government, most of which occurred in the last two terms? If you are concerned about there being too many federal public servants, write some hate mail to the Liberal Party.
Fair Work Australia will most likely employ fewer people, because there doesn’t have to be rooms full of bureaucrats scrutinising every single AWA that businesses want to force onto their employees.
This isn’t communism, this is communitarianism.
If this happened we would’ve federated as a Republic.
This is a perfect summary of what most people think about his future prospects.
So why don’t you get your facts regarding federal public service numbers straight?
Such positions declined in the mid 1980s, flat lined for most of the 1990s, UNTIL the GST was introduced, when the government had to massively increase the size of the ATO to handle processing of Business Activity Statements. It also increased the size of the ACCC so that it was able to monitor that businesses were passing on GST related savings, instead of profiteering.
If you were less partisan, you would accept that implementing the GST and WorkChoices required a net increase in the size of the federal bureaucracy.
I dont think Turnbull will lose his job until after the next election.
This is a perfect summary of what most people think about his future prospects.
MARKING COMMENT: More critical analysis required less regurgitation of playground opinion.
Glen, “happy is the country that has no history.”
Who says I have to blindly support the Liberal Party of Australia and the actions of the Howard Government?
Of course taxation is theft.
Kampuchea Year Zero?
Psephos
I don’t doubt that’s generally the case. FFPOSs have also been given a re-mark guaranteed to pass them when required. Happened several times to my personal knowledge in NSW (including a high profile local) at one particular institution, plus this plagiarism disgrace at another:
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/08/23/1061529381771.html
I think there was a scandal at Wollongong Uni along those lines too, but can’t remember the details. It’s the funding problem and competition I guess, but it is unforgiveable – both for the uni staf doing it and successive government policy. Both have trashed our reputation as a high standard tertiary study destination.
ESJ, such hypocrisy. You have done nothing this evening but regurgitate Young Liberal talking points.
I WRITE the talking points for others Adam.
Yay! You can now play with Generic Pearson! You’ve said the magic passwords!
When I was in China I met some Americans who were teaching in a Chinese provincial university. At the start of the year the director gives them a list of students and says “It is very important that these students receive good grades, even if they do not attend classes.” They were of course the offspring of local party officials. This is why Chinese buildings fall down and Chinese planes crash – the country is full of unqualified people in responsible positions.
Well they’re not very good. Mine are much better, but I don’t trot them out here. This forum tries to maintain standards.
Apparently you get put in moderation now if you criticise China. William has been nobbled by the Celestials.
lol Adam.
What was that old quote of Kerry Packers about the ACB?
Shouldn’t you apply this criticism to your own posts?
Hi-5 aint exactly the fount of wisdom ESJ
Japan could have at least tried to invade us but noooo, we had to fight the Battle of Australia in PNG. It would have made for a much more interesting War but probably many more deaths on our part so probably not a good thing to wish for.
Can anybody image what our history/culture would be like had we not had Gallipoli (ie Britain stayed out of WW1)…that event seems to dominate our national identity for better or worse nowadays…
Dont be silly ShowsON,
Government kills economic activity, the debate is about how much economic activity we allow it to kill.
Clearly after being on the outside for 12 years there are a lot of itchy social engineers in the ALP. Sadly a weak treasurer has allowed this to pass. There’s more Frank Crean than St Paul to this Labor treasurer.
18 months in this is getting to be apparent to most. I hate to say it but Julia Gillard would be a much better bet, maybe Wayne can get foreign affairs after the election.
Adam there is some truth to that statement.
We would have someone to heroically fail to invade, Glen.
We would have kept Andrew Fisher as Labor leader and PM, we wouldn’t have had Labor split on conscription, and Billy Hughes wouldn’t have split Labor.
In other words, Labor would have continued their domination of politics in Australia.
bob, yes that’s true. Hughes did more damage to Australian politics than anyone before or since, with the possible exception of John Kerr.
566
I used to love having speakers from the wine industry at our forums. They would begin by reminiscing that, prior to the ’70s, Australian wine was seen as low grade plonk and that they, as children of winegrowers, would pretend their fathers were just farmers.
Then the government intervened, whacked on a levy and used the money for research and promotion.
I don’t have to tell you where our wine industry is now, once the government awakened economic activity.
Do my eyes decieve me, or is young Mr St John a sock puppet of GP, or vice versa ?
Adam arent you and Bob forgetting Hughes started off as an ALP man?
Funny how many ALPers defect to the Tories and yet no Tories defect to the ALP.
Hughes and Co
Lyons and Co
They’ve been attending the same Young Liberal training camp in the Blue Mountains.
If you bother to read other people’s posts, you’d notice that transactions unencumbered by government intervention MAY kill future economic activity if externalities such as pollution aren’t accounted for.
You are essentially proposing that we should ignore the last thirty years of developments in economics, which resulted in a few guys winning the Nobel prize for pointing out that sometimes free markets provide short term benefits for some, while shifting long term costs onto others.
These people invented these ideas on their own, simply with a salary provided by the universities they work for. I’m sure you appreciate their ability to generate new knowledge and ideas unencumbered by government intervention.
It is reasonable for Governments to find ways to force people to account for the external costs of their transactions.
So when John Howard put a tax on books for the first time in Australian history, why wasn’t that social engineering? When Peter Costello setup the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, a brand new big fat government bureaucracy, why wasn’t that social engineering? When the Howard government put a tax on unflavoured milk for the first time ever, where did you campaign to have this punitive market intervention reversed?
(Incidentally, this tax was used to fund industry deregulation! But of course you won’t accept that sometimes taxes can be used as a temporary measure to promote greater competition)
If you want to start criticising Labor for being full of social engineers, you should do exactly the same for the Liberals. If not, then you’ll continue to come across as a hack who ascribes to political ideology as if it is a religious death cult. Like G.P., “taxation is theft” seems to be the cult’s mantra.
IMPOSSIBLE! ESJ said it with CONVICTION, Government’s only ever kill economic activity. The Reserve Bank for example? It always KILLS economic activity. Having a justice system? That KILLS economic activity, because it means parties must have claims tested against the law by a non-partisan arbiter.
These things will KILL use, we are all ROONED!
They are slightly different species of the same genus. ESJ makes well informed howlers, G.P. writes ill-informed nonsense.
571-575
Come and live in New South Wales if you doubt me.
Sadly I was one of those who used to joke about Victoria being Mexico.
Isn’t it also social engineering to insist that every school has a flag pole and that a poster displaying ‘Australian values’ be displayed in all schools?
No Adam I’ve been off with the people’s militia worrying about how we bring down the black UN choppers which are surveilling us as we write.
Once again Psephos @ 4
Why do you support PR for the House of Commons in Britain and not the House of Reps here? I support PR for all lower houses. Do you support it for Labour advantage reasons? Leaving you open to accusations of supporting Gerrymandering like the accusations made by Jack Lang (evil abolisher of PR in the NSW Legislative Assembly) when the Chifley government introduced PR in the Senate for the 1949 election.
Yes of course – there are social engineers in the Liberal party too! I guess the Labor variety are scarier and more ambitious.
You know cruisers off the coast of Cairns as a base to inspect the indigenes from. Very proper and socialist.
So it’s only NSW governments that kill of economic activity?
Does that mean that taxation is theft only applies in NSW as well?
What is it about the boundaries of that state which causes the above effect?
And that the marriage act should be amended to define marriage as heterosexual.
Tom
I know pseph is a self confessed hack but imputing people’s beliefs to their party affiliation is getting boring.
Take psephos’ opinion as his own, individual, honestly arrived at belief and let him identify it if he does have any Machiavellian motives.
Zoom – the person who is paid $100,000 and is taxed $30,000 say, that $30,000 is taken from his or her lawful economic activity by the force of the State.
We all as citizens accept some level of economic activity for goods, services etc By definition government activity in net terms still kills off economic activity, the individual will spend their $30K better than the government will.
sorry should read government economic activity in second para.
ESJ
we’ve had this argument on this thread a couple of zillion times at last counting.
But I’m touched you remember my ‘real’ name – I had to change it when BilB changed sites.
Going by the record of the Howard government, you are wrong.
I also notice you refuse to accept that free markets can sometimes make everyone worse off over time.
Your big problem seems to be your inability to engage with complicated issues. It’s easy to make big claims in one line posts rather than actually putting forth coherent ideas.
No I don’t support PR in lower houses anywhere. I wasn’t being altogether serious in that post. What I meant was that PR in the UK right now would be to Labour’s advantage, because it would probably produce a hung parliament rather than a large Tory majority. What the Commons really needs is preferential voting, to stop the Tories winning the large numbers of seats where the vote is Tory 40 LibDem 30 Labour 30, since most Labour and LibDem voters would preference each other rather than the Tories. I would favour PR for a reformed UK upper house. In other words, the Australian system!
I think it’s more a condemnation of your side of politics. Alfred Deakin was sympathetic to the Labor platform, Billy Hughes was Labor. Your side’s first arguably successful PM was Stanley Bruce – but he lost his seat at an election dominated by his regressive IR reform. After that you have to wait until Menzies, who was an arch anti-communist, but a keynesian who ran budget deficits.
As far as history goes, you have no leg to stand on.
Yes, the Tories accept our rejects, but we don’t want theirs.
Exactly. Funny how third parties tend to favour the centre-left over the centre-right parties these days when it used to be the opposite. People like Glen and GP would have supported preferential back when the Country Party hit the scene, but they demonise it now because it doesn’t advantage them. Back in the old days oz politics was very much Labor vs anti-Labor, with Labor not picking up much in prefs. Now it seems Liberal vs anti-Liberal, with the Liberals not picking up much in prefs. I think it represents that these days Labor is the more moderate of the two parties and as such as been more successful than the Liberals electorally.
You seem to imply that said person comes away completely empty handed.
They get schools, universities, hospitals, roads to drive their cars on, infrastructure so they can watch TV or listen to radio. Emergency services and law and order so they can have their rights respected. Libraries, museums, and art galleries.
Explain to me how things would be so much better if no one paid any tax? Or are you suggesting that some people would donate money to a government voluntarily, and thus we would have a minimal state with a justice system and courts and not much else?
If government activity kills off some private activity, that means SOME private activity kills off OTHER potential private activity.
All you are doing here is assuming that government activity is bad, because it stops other private activity, without applying that same “substitution” or “crowding out” standard to other private sector activity.
In sum, you are proposing what monetarist economists were talking about in the late 1970s. You need to upgrade your economic theories to a newer model, preferably one from this century.
You honestly think people will voluntarily spend their money on a library, or a hospital, or a school, or a road? You’re in fairy land. There are some things that people wouldn’t ever voluntarily spend their money on, so instead government does it, but make sit PUBLIC so other people can use the same thing too.
I do, provided the executive and the legislature are separated.
Psephos
*queitly and from side of mouth* But why on philosophical principle or grounds of practical fairness shouldn’t political views as expresed through political parties be represented proportionally to their support directly in the “people’s assemblies”, as they are in the vast majority of leading western democracies?
591 Zoom
Yours all come from about 8 Labor families dont they?
ESJ – less lies, more content please.
Our rejects?
No, we’re a wide church. We reject anybody, really, regardless of their skin colour or race.
We do it on a merit system.
LOl zoomster your casting criteria are not unlike Hollywood casting criteria.
But your ‘rejects’ most of which became either Ministers or Prime Ministers so so much for the theory they had nothing to offer.
Oh, and BTW, if you would like Michael Costa or Mark Latham, I will arranged to have them gift wrapped and sent to Liberal HQ in the morning.
In Costa’s case, possibly in small unidentifiable pieces.
A functioning democracy needs a balance between majority rule, and consideration of minority views.
a non-PR lower house ensures the formation of a stable government. A PR upper house ensures greater consideration of minority views in that chamber.
A pr-lower house would mean an increased possibility of unstable and constantly fracturing coalition governments that don’t get anything done, that could just end up in an early election anyway.
But as I wrote, if you remove the executive from the legislature, then you wouldn’t have this problem.
JV. Legislatures have two functions. One is to represent the views of the people, the other is to provide stable and effective government. These two functions are often in tension. (See Belgium, Italy, Israel). I favour a system that allows the party polling a plurality of votes to form a stable government. A single-member constituency system does that. Preferential voting gives minor parties influence over the outcome but not so as to create an unstable legislature and a weak and ineffective government. To balance that, I favour a PR-elected upper house, which gives minor parties represention but not the power to determine who will govern. I think that arrangement strikes a fair balance between the two functions of the legislature.
573,
Hmmmm …… I would count at least one amongst this category but they would be there in spirit and not in fact as they couldn’t note publically that they’ve done so
ESJ and Glen–
‘the fish John West rejects is what makes John West the best’.
In Tory 40, LibDem 30, Labour 30, situation If Labour got passed the Tories then the Tories would probably win win. If the LibDems got passed Labour then they would probably win. This also depends on the number of those seats. The LibDems are in winning positions in more Tory seats than Labor seats.
Labour may well introduce preferential voting but is more likely to introduce Supplementary Voting where each voter gets two votes, a primary and a supplementary vote. If there is no majority on primary votes then all but the two highest primary vote getting candidates are eliminated and the supplementary votes from the eliminated candidates (that are for the non-eliminated candidates) are counted and added to the totals for the non-eliminated candidate and the one with the most votes wins.
Your sentence doesn’t make sense.
But the people that left Labor to go to the dark side did it more out of their own issues with Labor than any change in their or Labor’s ideology.
Yeah Zoom since Costa left the NSW government has got sooo much better!
If you want a good reason to not have PR in the lower house of Parliament look no further than the Weimar Republic, nuff said.
I thought that part was good, it was what came after that was the problem.
If there had not been PR in the Weimar Republic the NSDAP wouldnt have won any seats in Parliament and probably have disbanded. PR gave the Nazis an avenue to get into the system and destroy it from the inside.
Glen
I must say I don’t find your gravatar as offensive as I once would have, years ago. Menzies and his ministers now really seems to have been much less harmful chaps than they did once, when we hadn’t seen the likes of Howard, Reith, Abbott, Ruddock, Andrews, Costello, Bishop, Tuckey, Mi(I’ll cease the list there due to nausea overcoming me).
When they had Menzies’ state funeral on TV, I said to someone (to whom I shouldn’t have said it): “They should have just put him in a hessian sack and thrown him in the ocean” but I’ve softened, so I’d say a cotton sack now.
Holt of course took me literally.
Glen, and the bizarre thing is that the Weimar electoral system, which ended in tears as we all know, was later copied by, of all people, the Israelis. This is because the government of Israel was largely set up by German Jews who still, despite everything, admired all things German. It seemed natural to them to copy their electoral system from the Germans, although they would have done much better to copy the current West German system, with its 5% threshhold to keep the nutters out. This is particularly true because Jewish political culture is traditionally disputatious and there were always going to be many many parties in a Jewish state.
But didn’t they also get 30% in the following election. Wasn’t it that huge vote that gave them so much power?
Yeah, just look at the Newspoll 2pp trend
What actually happened was that Dame Pattie refused to allow him to be buried, and he sat in an urn on her mantelpiece for 20 years until she died, then they were both buried.
Something you learn from typing in these threads is that it may be wise to use precise descriptions of terminology and treat comments in a blog like a business report as your level of intelligence may be judged accordingly by those with their own some-sort-of-hang-ups. The fact you participate in these blogs for fun really may not appear to be an issue.
Firstly post 528 is CORRECT. I had never heard of the term Laissez-faire. Well until I googled it. Ah yes, good ol’ Wikipaedia. What an insight to discover the amount information contained in Wikipaedia used by the few on this site as their own. I have never used information in Wikipaedia or any Google as my own.
Secondly if you want to get fair dinkum I am prepared to debate that Socialism consists of a form of government intervention in an economy, and Communism is an organised or controlled market. I remember being accused of being wrong with short-selling in a similar way, until I had to elaborate my explanations further, remember you have got to explain yourself like preparing a business report, not a blog.
And Thirdly, Adam I have no idea what you are talking about regarding students. For your information, I have NEVER failed at anything, PAL. Not that it’s any of your business.
Adam but The Left Party has got over the 5% margin and hold 2 constituency seats and yet 50/60 odd party list seats and they are left wing nut jobs that cost stable government and they are as bad as the right wing nut jobs in Germany who can only get 2% of the vote.
They got 30% in 1930.
They got about 4% and 6% in the 1920s and less than 20 odd seats.
Had a very strange mental image there for a moment, psephos…and then I realised it was his ashes…
What gave the Nazis their real break was the Turnbullian policies followed by Dr Bruning when the Depression hit Germany in 1930. “Balancing the budget” entailed cuts to wages, pensions and unemployment benefits, and drove more than 50% of voters into the arms of either the Nazis or the Communists. The Nazis polled 2% in 1928 and 37% in 1932, and the Communists went from 10% to 15%.
I presume it was xxxl urn and the mantle piece was reinforced.
or were you refering to menzies cremation?
Israel has people with different opinions who generally live in different areas to people with different opinions. It would still be unstable under single member seats and atleast with PR the groups are represented in proportion to their population. The strongly Arab areas would elect Arab candidates, the “settlements” would elect pro-settlements candidates and the other areas would elect people with views similar to them and the would be no majority.
Belgium is divided between 2 language groups who live in areas with people who speak the same language so the language divide would still be there meaning atleast 4 major parties under single member electorates.
Italy has that various regional parties and has been a political mess for a long time.
Adam the Nazis wouldnt have had any Reichstag deputies in the 1920s had FPTP or Preferential voting been in place and they’d have been irrelevant as a political force.
Adam the cutting measures did actually help considering Hitler took the credit for the German economic recovery.
It doesnt escape from the fact that PR systems often make political parties more radical as they dont have to moderate their views to win seats on a broad scale. Hence you got Communists and Nazis winning large amounts of seats at the expense of pro-Weimar political parties (SPD, Centre German Democratic Party).
Also Adam if the Communists had joined forces with the SPD they could have blocked Hitler from governing effectively.
Speaking of the UK Parliament, here is a musical memory of the Late Screaming Lord Sutch, who for many years until his death, led the Monster Raving Loony Party.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yhOCQ-ONOw
I think I was the person that introduced Laissez-faire into the discussion, but I didn’t copypasta any content from wikipedia. It was a term already in my brain, that essentially means an almost completely minimalist state with hardly any government intervention whatsoever, and in fact, other than a police force and judiciary, hardly any government at all.
They are actually related. In orthodox Marixst-Lennism, a socialist economy is one where the state owns the means of production, distribution and exchange. When such an economic system is fully working, the result is MEANT to result in communism, which is the utopian classless society that (magically?) arises once socialism has been fully embraced.
Of course, this utopianism never actually eventuates, because forcing socialism onto people betrays human behaviour, different people like different things, people don’t like being treated all the same, and they don’t like being told all the time what they must do for the country. Sometimes people like to do things for themselves.
Why did they go to the Nazis instead of the Communists? Either way it sounds like pure poison but was it simply because the Nazis already had their propaganda machine working, you know victimising Jews and Gypsies etc?
Glen, I’m shocked to see you say something so sensible and accurate. Now that I know you can do it I will be much more critical in future when you talk your usual nonsense.
That is also true. Stalin certainly deserves a share of the blame for Hitler’s rise. But Bruning and his obsession with balancing the budget must take most of the blame, because it was that disastrous policy which destroyed German faith in democracy and led the middle class to turn to Hitler.
The working class generally stayed loyal to the SPD. The middle classes weren’t going to support a paryy that wanted to destroy private property. The swing of the middle classes to the NSDAP had nothing to do with anti-Semitism, which the Nazis rarely mentioned during this period. It had everything to do with economic despair and fear of “bolshevism.”
Fair go, wasn’t Hilter rounding up Communist party members? Didn’t he stop them from attending the Reichstag for important votes? Weren’t the Communists one of the only parties to have the guts to vote against the Nazis on some votes?
At least the trains ran on time under the Nazis.
I am suprised no one has mentioned the ‘beer hall putsch’
That is no concession whatsoever. Totalitarian governments have no moral authority to make any decisions whatsoever on behalf of a population, whether the outcome proves to be good or bad.
I spent most of election day 2007 standing next to Liberal hacks who were trying to explain why Mussolini should be considered a better political leader than Morris Iemma. And their explanation, he made trains run on time.
The fact he was a nut case dictator didn’t seem to bother them.
Possibly because it’s not relevent to the topic under discussion?
German trains have always run on time, no matter who is in power.
lol, someone always takes
seriously rather than tongue-in-cheek. Always amusing.
Oops silly me, I thought that the subsequent events both created his “profile” and also introduced him to his “backers”, therefore creating the matrix that allowed him to ultimately become both leader and party founder
I defer to your superior personage
I didn’t take it seriously, I wanted to point out that some people do, hence my anecdote regarding the Young Liberals.
Bruning yes his actions gave the Nazis a platform from which to criticise the Government and the system.
But more importantly Hitler and the Nazis never joined a pre-1933 government. Most of the time the pro-Weimar parties had to form a Coalition together (Centre-SPD) hence the Nazis essentially formed an opposition and all the pro-Weimar parties got tarred with the same brush when the economy tanked in 1929 when the US stopped handing out loans to prop up the country.
Also the Communists didnt really get into the game (trying for seats in the Reichstag) until late when they gave up their idea about overthrowing the sytem through revolution and this cost votes from the SPD.
Yes and Hitler got the Centre Party and conservative parties to back his Enabling Act which destroyed the authority of the Reichstag. They voted themselves out of existence but essentially by that stage just about all of the Communist deputies were in Concentration camps and those that werent yes were not allowed in to the Berlin Opera house.
The sad tale of Weimar Germany is a tale that shows why PR should only be used in the Upper House of Parliament so that stable government can exist in the Lower House. If we had a law that you couldnt win a Senate seat without getting 5% of the vote Steve Fielding wouldnt have got his Senate spot.
Ah yes the Weimar Republic the other example of the “PR=ends in misery” brigade. Under the Westminster System the Nazis could have got a majority in there own right and passed the laws that got them into real power without the cooperation of any other parties. In July 1932 the Nazis got 37.8% of the vote and in May 2005 Labour got 35.3%.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_election,_July_1932
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_general_election,_2005
The Weimar system also had large changes in the number of members (Ithink they had a fixed number of votes across their 35 electorates which meant that turnout effected the number) (if anyone has a link to further information on that in english please provide it). The astonishing thing is that a foreigner convicted of assault and treason was not only not deported but allowed to become a citizen (and was evading taxes on his book at the time too).
I agree that Israel should have a 5% barrier (rather than the current 2%) to keep the really small parties out.
I don’t think we should have such a law, given that we are assured of stable government in the lower house. The Senate deserves to be more representative as a fair trade off.
Why is ESJ being taken seriously tonight?.
He wasn’t then, why now?
Sarcasm is no substitute for knowledge. The failure of the 1923 putsch led to the disintegration of the NSDAP and Hitler disappeared from public view for the next five years. As I noted above, the NSDAP barely existed as a political force until 1930. If it hadn’t been for the Depression and the Bruning government’s disastrous policies, no-one today would remember who Hitler was.
I thought we should give him a fair go upon his return. You are right though, he has come back exactly the same. The same incoherent libertarian posturing ’supported’ by first year political philosophy howlers. He has, however, added University of Chicago, circa 1976 economic theories to his arsenal, packaged in his trademarked one line ‘cri de coeur’ posting style.
Or Adam if the Judge who tried Hitler for High Treason had sentenced him to hang like you normally would for such a crime, he’d have been dead in 1923.
Adam:
You are right – from looking at the archives you also supported the morality of the Dresden bombing – I would agree that there are sometimes necessary casualties in war
Other contributing problems with the Weimar Republic included the power for the president to make laws by decree and the presidential appointment of the chancellor (gone in the modern FRG).
Hitler was not in the Reichtag until 1932 (because he was no a citizen until 31 or 32) so “they would not have had the voice in the second half of the 20`s” does not cut it as an anti-PR excuse. The Nazis still had the SA with their paramilitarism, marching and uniforms which should have been banned.
Psephos & ShowsOn
(blahs added)
Before we get on to the usual tiresome furphy the big party supporters raise on PR, I note with pleasure once again at this point that you do not answer the invitation to provide any philosophical or fairness issue as a basis for rejecting PR. Thanks at least for that. Very difficult to attack the fairness of it in representing the communities’ views best.
Otherwise I’m gobsmacked. How can you possibly run that empty ‘stability’ line yet again after the last discussion at Easter? Does too much chocolate affect your memories? Is this because there might be some new people here who didn’t see the earlier discussion or read the links?
So, the UK is discussing seriously a referendum on PR, South Africa has chosen a form of PR, all the new Eastern European states chose it, the Scandinavian countries have it, and you revert again to the cases of Italy and Israel. You know and I know that in Israel and Italy there are social, cultural or circumstances and idiosyncrasies that bring about the political landscape. It has nothing to do with PR. It would happen with whatever system they had. India, Pakistan and Algeria are examples of unstable democracies too and they have our system of residual ex-colonial single member district systems. Again the instability is due to for cultural, religious or ethnic reasons – not the voting system.
Belgium is a new one though. Not sure what the nature of the problem is there. I suspect any problems are because of historical ethnic and language factors, which has caused tension in the past, and not PR at all, but I ’ll have a look.
Of course the single member district type voting system we inherited completely excludes smaller groups from the House and from government, and has become devalued into a two party domination. Senate PR is great except for the big party distortion in ticket voting, but it doesn’t substitute for the opportunity to form part of government, which comes from theReps.
Of course Psephos you would gloss over that and say as a self-admitted big party mill horse:
In the meantime suffice it to quote:
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/polit/damy/BeginnningReading/PRsystems.htm
Glen, he didn’t have to be hanged. He should’ve have been deported back to Austria where he would have been jailed for draft evasion. That would have been the end of him. The trial was a total disgrace.
Olivia, yes I did, though I’m not sure how that’s relevant.
I don’t think democracy is necessarily FAIR all the time. I said it features a TRADE OFF between stability of government on the one hand, and consideration of minority views on the other. If you think democracy should SIMPLY be about fairness, then no government would be able to do anything, because they would run the risk of doing something unfair to someone.
It isn’t fully PR. I’d consider having half of the Australian lower house PR, but to me that isn’t actually PR.
psephos
apols for sarcasm
I meant that the putsch was the “first step” and he should have been ruled ineligible to ever stand
Weimar Germany guillotined its executees.
If he had had a judge who was not a conservative had not previously given him a lenient sentence for a politically/hatredly motivated assault then he might have been given a longer sentence (he should still have been in gaol in 1945), served his sentence as hard labour instead of having lots of visitors and might have served his full sentence.
Films getting sound also helped Hitler I saw on some documentary (because apparently he was considered a good orator).
The lobby groups for and against the ETS are out in force. Firstly we had the mining lobby and now from the otherside this -
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/carbon-scheme-may-generate-6bn-a-year-20090523-bize.html
I wonder when and how Labor would have got back in to power without Hitler Menzies and Curtin.
Thanks to all for entertaining arguments as always.
Glen there is hope for you yet.
*er geht schlafen*
Psephos #616
A bit of a standoff, eh? The sack would have been a good compromise then, and saved 20 years of post-marital tension. I’m now sorry I didn’t broadcast the suggestion more widely at the time.
637 & 643
Interesting grouping and structure
More to come
646
See my demolition of the Belgium and Israel argument @ 622
647
I thought that the Austro-Hungarian Army rejected him because of not meeting health requirements (but the German Army was the better army) but this might have been because of evasion or lower heath standards because of war.
How sad. Channel 10 keeps cutting away to show young Richmond fans crying. Whenever Richmond loses, another child dies a little bit more inside.
Think not of Richmond losing, but of the ALP losing Richmond (next year at the state election).
TTFAB
Gassed I think in WW1
re your film reference
leni reifienstahl (spelling?) the original spin doctor
For anyone who missed it last night, the ‘cricket related public health story’ of the year:
http://tinyurl.com/qpedgq
PS
A great book on WW1 is “the good soldier schweik” (spelling?)
at least from the austro-hungarian perspective
ShowsOn
I’d consider having half of the Australian lower house PR, but to me that isn’t actually PR.]
Well, Mixed member PR – they took that option in New Zealand, and in Germany – also in Venezuela and Bolivia. bit half-cocked I’d agree, but an improvement nevertheless.
But when the evidence is that PR doesn’t cause instability it’s a no-brainer, is it not? Did you look at the list of countries?
By the way I apologise for any humourless stridency in my delivery earlier. I innocently went out to get another beer and to wash up and came back to … Instability Day (the one after the groundhog movie).
Tom that is quite true as they did to the poor fellow mixed up in the Reichstag Fire a Mr Van der Lubbe…
Indeed – the propaganda triumph….”The Triumph of the Will” (1935) probably one of the greatest propaganda films ever made.
I still can’t understand the Liberal Party and it’s voters supporting and voting for the Greens in Fremantle. Where is their conviction? They slam any position of any slight deviation of their right-wing beliefs, yet they’d elect a party that believes in economic socialism rather than a party that believes in economic liberalism?
It really is incredible.
I completely disapprove of the New Zealand system. I don’t think that ANYONE should be appointed to parliament without being elected.
I don’t want any system where a government needs to wrangle together 3 or 4 parties, potentially with disparate views to survive.
I don’t want a system that increases the chance of a government being forced to the polls because they can’t guarantee the G.G. confidence of the lower house.
I don’t want a system that makes our politicians think even MORE about the short term (keeping fractuous coalitions together) instead of LONG TERM planning for the nation.
That’s we feel strongly about our views, that’s preferable IMO to complete apathy.
The one Reifenstal made of the Berlin Olympics is actually a nice film. Lots of great shots of the diving where they start the dive, then rewind the film half way through.
I saw that years ago in stockholm during some film festival that my bro took me to
(the bonus was having a live orchestra playing leni’s original score]
I showed parts of it to students last year who freaked out. They couldn’t believe that something so overt, so over the top that portrays Hitler as being God-like could be taken seriously.
I think it just made them think how gullible the Germans were. Hard to put oneself in the mindset of a German in the 1930s though.
shows
the theatre I was in had shown it in 36/7 (freaky eh)
I was actually “swept up” by the imagery ,music and majesty of the surroundings
I can see how a people impoverished in spirit could so easliy be overwhelmed by a “dream”
That said “i have a dream” by MLK has the same potency in terms of polarisation of the masses
Tom T etc.
I thought I posted this comment, but it’s gone. I missed your 622 before – spot on! – and I had thought Belgium had something like that lurking.
The price of the protection of the only fair voting system – PR – would appear to be eternal vigilance.
Yeah certainly, and it probably has more impact when you directly understand what Hitler is saying, rather than reading it off subtitles.
And as you said watching it in a cinema on a big screen may be more powerful as well.
being a child of “drive ins’ the visual didnt impact as much as the aural (that said I had been around bands for 6 yrs+ and had a fair appreciation of musical genres)
But the combining of visual aural and architectural is really potent when delivered as a “whole’
If you have ever seen ‘mephisto’ some of the grandeur and operatic effect comes through
No 646
JV there is nothing you can say that will convince me on PR.
No 644
The answer is simple: the Liberals would not have won the seat had they run a candidate. So in such a circumstance, it is better for the victor to be non-Labor than Labor.
This.
That’s not an answer. What you have done is confirmed that it is better for the Greens, an economically socialist party, to win a seat, rather than Labor, an economically liberal party, to win a seat.
The Liberals have no coherent ideology, just anti-Labor rabble.
SNIP: Abusive comment deleted – The Management.
Bob,
I see you are still barking at the moon.
It is a tactical, rather than ideological, decision. In WA, the single lower house Greens candidate will not have that much clout. From the Liberal perspective, anything that weakens Labor is ultimately a good thing in a two-party system.
GP,
The Liberal strategy as a one off is probably reasonable.
However, not competing in political contests may come with a longer term price.
Firstly, you disenfranchise your supporters and allow them to get out of the habit of voting for your Party. There is no guarantee that once they switch they will come back. Each time you don’t run then a generation of new voters also miss that first opportunity to vote for your Party.
Secondly, there is something perversely ironic about a political party that doesn’t want to fight elections. That’s what they are there to do. It indicates a lack of confidence and bottle to fight for the cause etc. Sending mixed messages can be deadly in a
Thirdly, it could lead your party down the path of withdrawing to a “Winnable seat” strategy because of financial reasons or a feeling that it is not worth running in hopeless seats. This would create an impression that the Libs are not a Party for all constituents, just the ones who vote for you. It would also allow Labor to start picking off some of the less secure Liberal held seats.
The Greens voters are traditionally Labor preferencers 75/25 (approx). If the Libs start giving away support then they may influence the Greens to become more credible and ultimately endanger the wider Liberal vote.
And thus is the Liberal Party. Anti-Labor for the point of being Anti-Labor.l
No 678
Of course the strategy is a one-off. Fremantle has been a Labor seat for 85 years and shows no signs of being pro-Liberal.
The ALP did it with Mayo. Basically, there are seats that are simply not worth the time, money and heartache for a guaranteed loss.
Bob, you see it differently because you’re in party that runs in seats in which it has no chance of winning all the time.
The big two have the luxury of not having to bother with virtual unwinnables.
I still support Labor generally, I just vote Green as a protest at Labor being too socially conservative.
My point wasn’t not running, my point was preferencing a party who is much further away on the spectrum.
When was the last time Labor did that with the Liberals?
GP,
Bob thinks the Greens are not worthy of Liberal support under any circumstances. Please tell him he’s right.
Yes, it seems silly, but it’s purely a tactical decision. In WA, the Liberal Government has a knife-edge majority held together with the help of the Nationals and Independents. Any scenario which results in more Labor seats is bad.
No 683
How can I when I’ve just spent the last few posts saying that support for the Greens may be appropriate for tactical purposes?
GP,
Bob is a purist. He feels somehow dirty that Lib supporters voted Green at the Fremantle by election.
Why would I feel dirty? I vote Green as a protest against Labor’s social conservatism. This doesn’t mean that when it comes down to it, I support the Greens over Labor, despite voting Greens 1 as a protest.
Bob,
So it is alright for you to vote “tactically” but not the Libs?
Giving someone your vote is probably the definition of support in an election.
No 687
Bob, there is clearly a double standard. In practical terms, what the Liberals are doing is not very divorced from your protest vote.
I would prefer to elect a socially progressive Senator over one that isn’t. I would prefer to elect a Labor house MP. But I know I can protest and vote Green in both houses knowing that a Green house MP won’t be elected.
I can vote Green as a protest despite supporting Labor, i’m a voter. I’m not a major political party recommending my supporters vote for a party further away on the political spectrum than the alternative.
I’m closer to the Greens than Labor on social issues, which I regard as most important.
And again, i’m a voter, not a major party.
Meanwhile back at the CPRS debate, an NAB sposored poll says:
“But an Auspoll survey of 1120 people has found 77 per cent believe the Liberals should back the legislation now. Only 23 per cent think they should oppose it.”
That should send a chill through the CC denialists in the Coalition.
http://www.theage.com.au/environment/carbon-scheme-may-generate-6bn-a-year-20090523-bize.html
Bob,
What GP said @ 689.
Whether you’re a voter or a major party is neither here nor there. The reality is that tactics play a big part in preferential systems and politics in general. These are the scenarios for the Liberal Party in Fremantle:
1. Run a candidate in a three-way contest. Labor will likely win on the back of green preferences.
2. Don’t run a candidate and Labor potentially loses its seat to the Greens.
When you’re leading a minority Government, option 2 is a very reasonable strategy to avoid instability and retain Government. It’s not a question of being ideologically pure, because neither major party is.
No 692
GG whilst the denialists aren’t helpful, neither are these polls. I’d like to see the questioning, before I give them any validity.
GP
And, of course, if the candidate gets even the slightest swing away from them, the headlines are something like: “Libs Honeymoon over in WA”.
That said, I’m an advocate for contesting elections – disappointed the ALP didn’t run in Mayo, but understand why.
That’s certainly the impression of the Liberals I’ve had for quite a while.
Something pollbludgers may be interested in.
Barry Cassidy this morning on insiders did some reasonable poll analysis and concluded that Rudd is as popular as he has ever been, and one poll can’t change that. It was in his opening to the show so if you want to watch online, you will not have to sit through the whole show.
he did thewetmale. It was a very nice resoned analysis. And point sout bugger has changed.
My big question over the analysis of the newspoll was that it showed Turnbll was in a worse position in terms of satisfaction than he was in March, and yet siupposedly this was him getting back in the game.
Odd.
bob1234,
I’ve gathered from reading all of the overnight posts that you and I are really very much alike in our views. The only difference being that I’ve not, to date, crossed that bridge and still vote Labor #1. That having been said, the reason I’m posting here now is to agree with a few of the other blokes about protest voting. We all do it and they are right, you’ve a bit of a double standard yourself. I think if anything, you can blame it on compulsory voting. If not for cv, the side who doesn’t have a candidate running would stay home. Seeing as how I freely always vote Libs last on my ticket no matter what or whose running or not running, if I lived in Mayo I wouldn’t have voted any different.
Back in the US in primary elections (at least in Michigan where I’m from – rules vary from state to state), you need to have a registered party affiliation to vote in primary elections (as opposed to general elections, which are “open”). They do this to avoid the other guys “gate crashing” their primary election to adversely affect results. As voting isn’t compulsory, it is quite common to see (in other states) the Rep. and Dems. voting in the opposite primary to try to put the incumbent DOWN.
We do have another option in Australia. The only thing compulsory about compulsory voting is that you turn up and get your name crossed off. Once you do that you have the option of voting for someone or not.
[Will the Nuclear Power "Renaissance" Ever Reach Critical Mass?
But the price of new nuclear power has "escalated dramatically," according to the report, jumping by 15 percent a year to reach as much as $4,000 per kilowatt compared with $2,300 for coal-fired generation and just $850 for natural gas. And the industry is asking for at least $100 billion in federal tax subsidies and loan guarantees for the 26 reactors currently planned.
Nor has there been a solution to the issue of nuclear waste. In the U.S., the plan to use Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a repository for spent nuclear fuel rods is in limbo, opposed by the Obama administration. Reprocessing nuclear fuel, currently underway only in France, has proved prohibitively expensive, and it raises concerns about the proliferation of plutonium for nuclear weapons.
Adds Thomas: "It seems to me highly unlikely that [investing in nuclear power] is the most cost-effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Put that money in other sources, such as energy efficiency and renewables, and get a much better return on your money.”
]
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=will-nuclear-power-reach-critical-mass
GB, if I had bothered to go all the way to the polls (if I lived in Mayo), my extreme feelings against the Libs would have overrode any notion of simply getting my name crossed off and leaving
………
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=skeptic-agenticity
This is closed to the heart of my Amigo GG, namely Village Idiot. I think he got one.
This reminded me of a French Govt Minister who visited Australia few years ago, who said: “Australia is like the village idiot who keeps on winning the lottery”.
Lately, the lottery was the resources boom and the village idiot was Peter Costello.
If Costello was the village idiot what does that make Swannie? The village priest?
Looking ahead to 2010 (assuming no DD election), Rudd can not go the full length of the time allowed him as VIC goes to the polls in early November don’t they? Rudd wouldn’t want to go so close to the state election and in fact, would probably want to go before VIC anyways as he wouldn’t want any state vibes affecting Federal results. That goes the other way as well so he wouldn’t have it in October for probably the same reason. You can’t have a polling date the same day/weekend as the GF of either code ( the masses would revolt
). I reckon he has Federal election (again assuming no DD) with a date NLT mid to late September 2010.
TP,
WE had a discussion here a few weks ago re Integrated Fast Reactors visi a vis traditional nuclear power.
” How was the IFR idea different from the concepts underlying traditional nuclear-power fuel cycles?”
All of those fuel cycles were derived from technologies developed to meet special military needs: naval propulsion, uranium enrichment, weapons-plutonium production, and plutonium separation. Waste disposal has been approached as “someone else’s problem.” The IFR concept is directed strictly to meeting the needs of civilian power generation. It is an integrated, weapons-incompatible, proliferation-resistant cycle that is “closed” – it encompasses the entire fuel cycle, including fuel production and fabrication, power generation, reprocessing and waste management.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/NPA378.html
Apparently, these fourth generation reactors are available now. If so, they go a long way to addressing all the concerns usually associated with nuclear power generation for energy.
ESJ,
Swan always looks worried and overworked. I’d be more concerned if he looked smug and told lame jokes.
Me too !
The resources boom was the only thing saving him from running the budget in deficit in the latter years. He ran in deficit in 2001-2002, and, as George Megalogenis has commented (supported by Treasury observation), his massive expenditure and middle class welfare commitments have left a structural deficit in the years ahead.
Coalition faces a ruinous record
The Australian, 16 May 2009
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25489387-7583,00.html
The latest Rudd can go is 16 April 2011. If I was a Labor campaign adviser I’d be pushing for a Kevin11 election.
Why would KR go early? Surely he is going to win comfortably, he is after all in his first term. Even EGW got 2 terms.
ESJ @712 And each month more of the deep blue end of generation blue drop off the perch.
Cuppa – Stutchbury from, of course, the Oz seemed to be blaming Treasury on Insiders for the structural deficit we enjoy today.
He said Treasury overestimated the boom and its length and the tax cuts and handouts were too generous during the Howard Govt. Treasury’s bad – Costello/Howard only taking advice presumably. lol.
Of course, he didn’t mention Costello’s own words that Howard spent like a crazy bull. Custardy Pete seemed to scared to say no but it doesn’t matter because Stutchbury can blame the Treasury.
Musrum 712 lots of politicians have wrongly believed that “the future will be mine line” throughout history.
BH,
Stutchbury would seem to be defying Tony Abbott’s admission about the Liberals’ belief in Magic Pudding Economics and the never-ending boom…
http://business.smh.com.au/business/libs-magic-pudding-years-20090403-9qjm.html
ESJ, Swannie is the village’s ugly duckling who turns into a swan
Exactly Cuppa – still what else could you expect from Stutchbury. His analysis of the structural deficit was spot on but couldn’t quite bring himself to say where it had come from. He is not a Megalogenis.
David Marr is still full of vitriol for Rudd – is it because he is not for gay marriage or just a lefty who is becoming old nastily.
Good one Juliem – your Roos gave me an extra tipping point.
Finns
The village idiot was Howard, couldn’t believe his luck when the money kept pouring in for him to give away as welfare and tax cuts to the wealthy. Unfunded tax cuts as others call it.
Costello’s job as treasurer was to rein in Howards giveaways, but he did not have the strength to stand up to Howard. A good government needs a visionary leader with a strong treasurer who is a realist. Whitlam had that in the final year with Hayden as treasurer and Hawke had Keating.
By the way like your post on Wong and her grandmother, very moving.
Speaking of which, last week we were told none had made their way to Australia, now we find they did.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/sexabuse-priest-took-secrets-to-grave-20090523-biw5.html
How many more of these foul creatures are amongst us.
castle – orkopolous, wright, darcy etc etc
Lol Finnigans – this swan has a short life expectancy post election.
BH,
I’m (atm) batting 2r / 3w ……. Collingwood, Adelaide and Essendon all won; a triple screw-over
Glad my team could give you a hand
GG @708
Had a look at the Argonne National Lab site:
http://www.ne.anl.gov/
As the link from 2001 you put up mentioned them as one of the movers behind IFR’s.
Seems that their program is looking at having IFR type technology available too be deployed by 2030. Whether that means its available now i’m not so sure??
Although the concepts look interesting I think they really need to build one somewhere remote, in a pit they can fill in on top of it quickly, beat the crap out of it with Homer Simpson type operators and maybe explosives, and see what happens before i’ll believe its safe.
I’m hoping these printable solar cells coupled with ammonia cycling for storage is the way to go,
Costello is a religious crank; if either he or Swan qualify for title of Village Priest, it’s likely to be him.
Crikey, 22 January 2009
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/01/22/costello-continues-to-catch-the-fire/
And how many lived and died throughout history without facing justice?
ESJ
The more that are identified and caught the better for our future.
It is the ones that stay hidden and are glossed over that is the concern.
I’ll be doing Centre’s Mary Magdalens today, Vera and I’m sure I will be swearing at the ump as much as usual. The ref was great on Friday night. lol
I’m just trying to catch up on all the comments from yesterday. Gee you guys were busy.
imacca,
Here’s something more up to date. Following the links re Blees is very informative.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/30/rethinking-nuclear-power/
GG
The cost of IFRs still is an issue. We’ve put a cost on CO2 which has levelled the field a bit but we need a cost on long term radioactive waste (cf the short term waste IFRs create) to close the gap.
I’m supposed to be getting the Blees book tomorrow for my birthday. I’ll send it on to you when I finish if you want.
Diogs,
Thanks for the offer. Perhaps we communicate off line.?
Cheers.
Its food for thought GG. Its kind of back to the old theories of vested interests deliberately holding back technologies we need. Not that there may not be some truth to some of those theories.
From what i’ve read i think that these tech’s may have a place, particularly in disposing of the waste that already exists, and in countries that dont have our other options like solar and wind and geothermal.
What i’d like to see is these actually built in countries that need them. Once the engineering is a known quantity then we have a proper debate here. Hopefully by then renewables will be entrenched and we wont need nukes and wont need to dig up vast amounts of uranium.
Zoomster 326 – really enjoyed reading this. You’ve encouraged me to keep on trying to cut down. Won’t make much difference but until renewables are running strongly every little bit helps.
I’m still hoping the CPRS will get through. If Labor retains power they can ramp it up – if the Libs get in they will still have too many sceptics around to do that.
Better to get something going than nothing.
Once again this myth re-emerges. The Electoral Act says that it is the duty of every elector to *vote*, not just to get their name crossed off. If you get your name crossed off, then take the ballot paper and put it in the bin, you will be marked as having not voted if the AEC staff notice. If you don’t want to vote for any of the candidates, your only legal option is to cast an informal ballot.
Castle, tq for that and Herr Doktor thought i was being racist and patronising.
So was Lenore Taylor in yesterday Weekend Australian in her piece on Penny Wong:
“Hakka” literally means guest people. they are the Gypsies of China. They came from North-western part of China. Between China and Mongolia/Central Asia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakka_people
The French and many bludgers are hardly the first to think/realise our past leaders are village idiots. Anyone remember Donald Horne’s “The Lucky Country”?
Yes socrates its more a case of which one isnt the village idiot.
(BTW Its so nice to post without being sniped by ShowsOn every 2 minutes)
Dio 730
One of the great advantages of IFRs is that they effectvely burn the waste of other reactors as fuel. So overall they reduce the waste problem. The cost of waste is an issue but not insurmountable. The Finns are building a large waste storage facility with Olkiluoto III and its nowhere near as much as the reactor cost.
ESJ,
Does that make us a nation of Village People?
I’m the worker in the hard hat!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CS9OO0S5w2k
ESJ to be fair I grew up in Joh-era Queensland and, as corrupt as he was, he only stayed in because Qld Labour then was run by stupid old men who turned a blind eye to a few of those you mention at 722 for far too long. Their “bad behaviour” was widely known. Whether it was stupidity or the arrogance of certain power via factional pre-selections, the leaders who didn’t run them out of the party were worse than village idiots. Village thugs would be a more accurate description.
Having a bit of a poke around on the discussion in the UK about electoral reform (from the top of thread topic) and found this site – Make My Vote Count. A good site for those interested in the UK electoral reform debate, and as a resource for explanations, definitions and not least, myth-busting. It seems the same myths on PR have spread like swine-flu from one big party duopoly in the UK to another here in Aus.
This is the myth page, but the rest of the site is interesting too:
http://www.makemyvotecount.org.uk/blog/archives/myths/index.html
GG
Mrs D has let me down!
I’m having to order “Prescription for the Planet” by Blees from Amazon. I’ll get a second PB copy.
There is another one “Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Energy Will Lead the Green Revolution and End America’s Energy Odyssey” by William Tucker which CC activists are very keen on. I’ll grab that one too and let you know how I go.
Dio
I haven’t heard of that second book. Interested in your views on it when you have had a read. For what its worth engineers I know who have looked at nuclear all agree that its dearer than current (dirty) coal. However its dearer by a factor of two or less, not orders of magnitude, with higher capital cost and lower operating costs. Once you add in any kind of realistic carbon price nuclear power is cheaper than brown coal, and 50/50 with black coal.
Diogs,
I came across a copy of ESJ’s autobiography from the sixties. As a politician he made a very fine Sydney barrister.
BH
Did you see Centre’s post where he said we must have said the same Mary Magdalens and that’s why there was a dwaw
I reckon the Swannies are home if pool our MMs today
missed out the “we” should be “if we pool our MMs’
Psephos @ 735
There should be 2 boxes on the electoral roll to have marked off.
One for the ballot paper being handed out (as now) and the other for it being put in the ballot box which would be next to the official with the roll.
People who do not put ballot papers, they have received, into ballot boxes should get big fines as it opens up opportunity for electoral fraud.
Don’t know if this has been mentioned (I skipped over a few posts from yesterday)
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/australians-support-ets-poll-20090524-bj9b.html
Vera – I said just that a few posts back. You and me on our knees for our beloved Swannies – sound great. I’m about to go and do it . I can’t see the teev from the computer so have to leave now.
Happy birthday Dio – hope the missus and the kids are spoiling you today.
Tom,
There are usually only a handful of ballots unaccounted for per polling booth. Returning Officers are very vigilant to ensure that ballots are placed in the box. Hardly, the stuff of a major fraud.
There are real problems in this world without having to manufacture them.
Hey Diogenes,
I have picked up a copy of “Gomorrah: Italy’s Other Mafia” by Roberto Saviano
Apparently he is so accurate that he now has a contract on him. It might be a useful insight into the operation of political parties too!
GG
I saw that Alan Jones rated ESJ’s maiden speech in Parliament as the best he ever heard. ESJ attacked his own Government for their handling of a naval disaster.
ESJ
Excellent Cadavers by Stille is also fantastic. My gravatar is Giovanni Falcone so I’m always looking out for good books on the Mafia. I think your last paragraph explains why there aren’t very many.
Edward, didn’t you predict some time ago that Qld, ACT and other state and territory Labor governments would be gone by next year or so or do I have that wrong?
That’s me Diogenes without fear or favour!
Also reading Stradivarius Genius by Toby Faber (he did a later book on the Faberge Eggs which is v.good too)
LOL Gary,
I think I said the WA Election was the beginning of the national orgasm. It’s obviously been somewhat premature.
I now think (incredibly) even the NSW Government may survive.
A brave call that one. Even I don’t believe they will be returned.
I think Gary the NSW Government may have achieved the Venezuelan paradox.
A v.bad goverment which by its mismanagement has managed to get large numbers of its opponents to emigrate AND stack the public payroll with large numbers of people dependent on it for survival.
Increasing taxes to support its public sector base only increases the rate of exit from the state to the general benefit of the ALP state government.
Hence the worse the economy/ general situation gets in NSW the stronger the NSW government gets.
Tom. I’d agree with that.
The late Ted St John QC was a genuine liberal, a leading Sydney QC who aroused the anger of the extreme right in the NSW Liberal Party through his role in the South African Defence and Aid Fund, a group of anti-apartheid lawyers. He was opposed in Warringah in 1966 by a right-wing independent who polled 15% of the vote. In his maiden speech he attacked the Holt government over the HMAS Voyager royal commission. His attack on Gorton over his drinking and womanising was a bit wowserish, but arose from his high principles. He ran as an independent Liberal in 1969 and was defeated, and died in 1994. In the current NSW Liberal Party he wouldn’t even be considered for preselection.
And according to Edward Gough Whitlam he wouldnt be considered for preselection in the current NSW Labor Party.
Soc, Horne addressed the lottery bit, but it was Howie/Costello who dressed up as the village idiot bit. Especially Howie, as the idiot of Wollstonecraft:
http://www.crikey.com.au/Media/images/080118-Howard-sitar1-08552728-ae1d-4bf7-989f-acd01c7b15f4.jpg
I agree, I think it could survive. NSW is a glaring advertisement for a change proportional representation and fair representation in lower houses. Both major parties in NSW remain as unelectable as they were last time, but one of them has to win by default. There was, and will be next election too, an increase in third party and independent primary votes, but these end up wasted, exhausting to the two big duds of the cruel duopoly.
No they don’t. It’s entirely possible that the next election will give neither party a majority, with exactly the same outcome as you’d get under PR.
The Swannie is on steroid, 49-6 1st Q Vs Port.
Except William the Greens would more likely come to an arrangement with the ALP?
Also in NSW the Liberals have an exquisite dilemma.
Rees is on the way out (obviously) with Tebbutt most likely to replace him.
Do you stick with Barry (who has been underwhelming but not stupid) or do you go for a leadership change (which they have always managed to spectacularly stuff up). Barry seems to be the drovers dog option.
Yes, just like they would under PR.
This is hilarious considering that NSW is 1/3 of the Australian economy, but only collects 25% of state taxes. Other states collect a larger proportion due to huge mining royalties.
ESJ – While talented, he is TOO OLD!
Fair enough, but PR makes such scenarios more likely.
e.g. I can handle there being a Mike Rann-Nat-3 Independent coalition government once every every few decades, but I wouldn’t want that to happen after every second election.
Labor began stupidities with cynically calling the early election straight after the Liberal leadership change, then ran an awful campaign. Then the Libs got over the line only with the Nats and independents, they still won 4 less seats than Labor. They only just scraped in. WA is naturally Liberal leaning anyway, just look at federal results in that state in recent history.
Polling continues to well and truly favour Labor in all other states sans NSW. After all, who, then or now, would prefer the truly ghastly alternative that is a state Liberal Party?
William
Yes, indeed, and a great outcome it would be. But you’d have to agree William a rarity under the single member preferential system – last seen briefly in NSW inthe early 90s under Fahey when 3 independents had the balance of power (as we discussed a while back).
With PR – while still quite possible for one party to win government in its own right with a strong vote – it would be usual for coalitions to have to be formed. And small parties could get represented, instead of the odd independent from a disaffected single member electorate with a popular mayor, or big party defector.
Pfft, won’t happen. MHS Liberals are just too shocking. Malcolm Mackerras predicts Labor to lose 3 seats to still hold majority government comfortably.
SO
I bet a lot of great politicians of the past would struggle to get a job now. Don Dunstan would never get a run in SA Labor, and I agree with Ed that Gough would struggle to get a guernsey in NSW Labor.
That’s one way to look at it, the other way is if they went to the election with the chair sniffer still as leader, they probably would’ve won on the grounds that he was unelectable.
Which means Labor will pick up a couple of seats in W.A. at the next federal election, because their vote was relatively low there at the last one.
A Green-Labor coalition government? I think that would be a nightmare. There would have to be another election within a year.
It’s a silly argument really. MANY pre-1970 Liberal politicians would be more at home in the modern Labor party. Many pre-1960 Labor politicians would now be better suited to the One Nation party.
Diogenes
But he wouldn’t have to wear the same clothes now would he?
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.history.sa.gov.au/history/images/historytrustpic.3.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.history.sa.gov.au/history/object%2520of%2520the%2520month.htm.html&usg=__KEA0JkhbKto8g9Qowqjvm_bAa0k=&h=330&w=226&sz=48&hl=en&start=3&um=1&tbnid=oM8XonKM2LscWM:&tbnh=119&tbnw=81&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddon%2Bdunstan%2Bshorts%26hl%3Den%26cr%3DcountryAU%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1
At the risk of being called silly by William and starting off an unseemly gloating free-for-all by the Amigos, plus Adam, I’ll link this HuffPo article.
Good on Hillary. I always liked her.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/05/23/gay-us-diplomats-to-recei_n_207116.html
When we had PR in New South Wales (from 1920 to 1927) we still had the same alternation between Labor and Coalition Governments. And Tasmania has the same alternation between Labor and Liberal Governments with PR.
J-D
And that’s not a problem. The issue is having all parties with a minimum level of support being represented in parliaments in proportion to their support in the community. Sometimes this does not mean a coalition to form the executive, but it does mean the smaller parties are in the parliament with votes on legislation according to their support. That’s the principle.
I don’t know what parties PR would generate or what their support would be in NSW these days, but I suspect coalitions would be more likely, and small parties better supported than in the olden days.
777 – Why do you think that was Hilliary’s decision alone? Don’t you think she would have OK’d it with Obama first?
Question to Greens bloggers: If the Greens were to win lower house seats in NSW and find themselves sharing the balance of power with the independents, what would their conditions be to support a minority Labor government?
This happens in the upper houses.
Do we really need the problems we’re having with the Senate occurring in the HoR as well? I don’t think so.
Excellent point! Who would be in government if the current Senate was the House of Reps?
ShowsOn
Yes, and a good thing it is too, but it is the lower houses in which the power rests – and where governments are formed. Why shouldn’t all parties (above a minimum %) get a proportionate guernsey in first grade?
I think there is a difference between governments forming and where power rests.
If we had a PR lower house we wouldn’t NEED an upper house.
We have a PR upper house, because it provides a balance between generally creating stable governments, while the upper house emphasises consideration of minority views and checks and balances on the stable government.
The lower house prioritises stability, while the upper house prioritises deliberation.
If the current Senate was the House of Representatives, the we would have no idea who was governing the country. There would be no certainty whatsoever.
They can, they just need to adopt policies that more people want to vote for.
Excellent question to answer JD and don’t say its hypothetical. There would be different poeple but such a situation could very likely occur. Another X and another Fielding, Greens and of course the majors.
The reasons that the Senate is not the House of government are, in order,
Its red and an upper house
It is not all up every (non-by-)election
It has equal representation for the states instead of the people.
PR is not one of them.
Why not? Such ‘problems’ are the only element of real democratic processes working in Australia currently. The big party supporters and the MSM were the same about the time NSW (mentioned up the thread) had a hung parliament in the early 90s and 3 independents had the balance. It was far and away the best period of government in NSW in my lifetime in terms of the open debate about issues, and the inability of decisons to be pre-determined by the executive to be rubber-stamped by parliament – which is the current norm. that gives far too much control to the successive executives of the duopoly. What are you frightened of? PR would be much more engaging than the exclusionary system we have.
ShowsOn
Not hard to achieve – same as the process in the Reps. Coalitions would form and an executive would be appointed. Some changes mgiht have to take place, because the structure of the Senate is all about state representation.
The proposition was what IF the current numbers in the Senate determined the government. It’s nonsense to dismiss a hypothetical on the grounds that it isn’t an actual scenario.
People are elected to the Senate using a proportional representation voting method, it is disingenuous to say that PR isn’t one factor in the operation of that chamber.
LOL – just look at the harmony in the Senate.
So what if the Greens sided with Labor, Xenophon sides with Labor, Fielding and the Nationals side with the Liberals? Then you have 38 all, and no government.
If BOTH the independents voted with Labor or the Liberals, then you have government decided by ONE M.P., a scenario that will most likely end up with a new election a year later, especially considering that someone like Fielding is constantly changing his mind about everything (remember during the Fair Work Bill, he stood up and said he would vote against amendments that 15 minutes later he supported!)
ShowsOn
No we wouldn’t. Harder to abolish them (refendum needed) though, than to bring in PR (no referendum needed).
No, you know they can’t get proportional representation in the lower houses in our voting system now. Why say they can?
Probabilities for requirements include
more spending on PT
more renewable energy
tighter political donation laws (e.g. no donations from developers and gambling interests)
less spending on roads (e.g. no new freeways)
possibly PR in the Assembly
But if there are enough independents and Greens for a cabinet then they may try going a pox on both your houses and try form a minority government.
I’m not convinced making government harder is making government better.
It would make government more open and accountable because they would have to be honest to the parliament ministers who mess up could be sacked by the Legislative Assembly without regard to their factional situation in the governing party.
ShowsOn
Most of what you are talking about arises from the lack of a minimum vote threshold, usually 5%, and which we’d adopt like the Euro PR countries. That keeps the Fieldings and other weirdos out. Have a closer look at the way it works in the advanced democracies.
Gary Bruce
Comfortable big party supporters do say that. Why wouldn’t they when they have the spoils. “Let’s not rock the boat”
(repeat) Have a closer look at the way it works in the advanced democracies.
Doesn’t seem too hard there. PR doesn’t make it any harder at all – like any system particular issues make the political process difficult from time to time.
Even if PR did make it a bit ‘harder’, isn’t that better than excluding a significant proportion of opinion from parliament altogether? That point about exclusion is continually glossed over in these empty mythical arguments about ’stability’ that are just not borne out in practice around the world. PR isn’t a new concept so there is plenty of operating examples to examine – it’s by far the most common system in the advanced democracies.
Tom, that’s a fairly modest bill of demands. I expect Labor would accept all of them, except the last. I think Labor would go out of office rather then accept PR in the lower house.
You say nothing about the actual composition of the government. If I was the Greens in that position I would demand a Sartor-led cabinet of Labor reformers, Greens and independents.
Tom if you want the CDP, FF, Shooters party, Greens, One Nation to all win seats in the NSW Lower House you’ve got to be in la la land mate if you think that will create stable government.
Gary
I’m sure she ran it by Obama but she would have driven it. Obama has been a bit slow out of the blocks on overturning “Don’t ask. don’t tell”.
Dumb question
Has a Federal Government ever given a cross-bencher a position on the front bench. It’s happened in SA but what about Federally.
The Greens hold that position in the ACT, so far, so far they appear to have not made any demands.
Their strength is more in initiating inquiries with the libs to keep the ALP on their toes, keeping the bastards honest?.
In the Tas parliament didn’t the libs and labor combine to stop this sort of undemocratic accountability?
You could get the nuttier fringe green who would want parking fees increased to “force” more commuters onto public transport, these tree huggers forget the reality of “working families” not being able to rely on public transport to drop off and pick up their kids from schools and other activities.
Glen
How do they get in with the standard of 5% minimum vote threshold in PR systems? The only one that makes it is The Greens from what I can tell from curent polling. A few cpuntries have a 10% minimum threshold but I think that is too high.
803 cpuntries = countries (whoops – nearly got into moderation)
I would have a Tasmania type system but with 7-member electorates (probably 15 of them). Is there anywhere in NSW where those other parties would get a 12.5% quota?
The Greens would improve Public Transport so that it was useful for most trips in urban areas. The Greens would also encourage walking school buses and riding school buses and make PT and the streets safe enough that parents would let there secondary school children go by themselves so parents would not drive their children to school and there would be less childhood and adult obesity.
Castle
You could, and the good thing about voting systems that result in the smaller parties being part of a coalition government, or very close to it, is that they are right up there exposed to intense public scrutiny on every decision and tend to be made accountable. Silly decisions in power will affect the vote next time around thsn just silly policies- so this encourages responsible behaviour more than having no chance of actually being part of government.
The list I made was not very comprehensive. There probably would be a few more. So Lang style dislike of PR survives in the NSW ALP does it?
My ideal system would be First Past the Post and Non-complusory voting….ahhh sweet
Especially in outer and semi-rural areas with little or no Public Transport – something the oh so pures fail to recognise when Public Transport Authorities cut services due to lack of patronage.
Well your good pal Colin has just achieved that with Local Government Elections.
Tom, after the experience of the Field government in Tas, there is strong dislike of PR in the ALP, yes.
The only person to hold office in federal Labor government who wasn’t an ALP member was H B Higgins, who was Attorney-General in the Watson government of 1904 because Labor didn’t have a suitably qualified person. (Although there’s no law that says the AG has to be a lawyer.) I can’t think of a conservative federal government including anyone outside their own ranks.
I see Dumb Glen is back. Please ask Sensible Glen who was here last night to come back.
Would the ALP support TPP PR Psephos?
Not that the Greens would ever support TPP PR.
what is TPP PR?
As you would be aware Psephos, at the moment in the ACT, the Shadow Attorney General is Vicki Dunne, who is not a lawyer.
Where the share of seats is determined by the TPP vote.
Andrew McCutcheon, an architect, was AG in the Cain government. The lawyers complained but it’s only a tradition, not a rule.
Um, that’s a contradiction in terms. If you have PR there is no TPP vote.
It’s not like the Defence minister needs to be ex-army, etc etc. Although I guess the A-G can give Cabinet legal advice, but presumably this would be based on advice given to him/her by the Department.
Yes, that is the best thing, more accountable government, the best governments are labor in the minority Carr, Rann, the bloke in Vic before Brumby
Am I missing something here? Is this the MO of the Youtube generation?
Tell a lie, now she’s a celebrity and has an Agent. Sigh, sigh, sigh.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,25528401-5001021,00.html
I think the Solicitor-General tenders formal legal advice to the Cabinet, but I’m not certain about that.
It is possible to have a TPP vote with PR. All it needs is preferences and elimination. With TPP PR voters would vote preferentially for parties and then the party`s vote would be treated like a candidates vote except that the seats would be distributed among the top 2 parties according to their TPP vote.
Finns,
She gets the job because she is a lying, insensitive scumbag.
Politics beckons?
OK I see. I’ve never seen that idea before. It would have meant that Arthur Calwell would have been PM in 1961, Gough Whitlam in 1969, Andrew Peacock in 1990 and Kim Beazley in 1998. A mixed bag there! Nothing in it for the Greens though.
15 minutes of fame has arrived, the film with De Niro? showed how.
Gough in 69 would have been good.
Five years before the oil shock hit his idealism, Hayden would have reined him in before that.
It would also mean 150 MPs with nothing to do, since they wouldn’t have electorates to be accountable too. One of my main objections to PR is that it takes away people’s local MPs, and makes all MPs dependent solely on their place on the party list for their careers. This gives even more power to anonymous preselectors.
Not to mention Evatt in1954 (maybe). The lack of the ability for smaller parties is why the Greens will never support it.
Yes, studies have found many people in the ACT and TAs suffer a variety of stress related disorders because they do not know who their local MP is.
Anonymous preselectors? the faceless men?
I think if both parties had contested every seat in 1954 Labor would not have won 50% of the 2PP.
The ACT and Tas are both very small places. For the national Parliament to consist solely of 150 MPs elected from party lists would cause a significant loss of contact between MPs and voters. One of the few effective brakes on modern governments is MPs for marginal seats getting up in the party room and complaining about policies which they think will cost them their seats. They have a direct personal interest in knowing what voters are thinking, and ministers listen to them. Having worked for a marginal-seat MP I can testify to this fact.
An ALP insider who dislikes power given to anonymous preselectors. (insert noise of slight surprise here)
I do not support party list PR anyway. I support Hare-Clark which does have electorates with local members. There is some competition between them and Seats with Ministers can have a back bencher from the same party (unless that party does not get more that one seat in that electorate) to look after the voters more equally.
True
I remember when last in canberra , noticing groups of people wandering aimlessly looking for electorate offices.
Also I understand there is a thriving industry helping people with dysfunctional members long established in the ACT
True, I’ll grant you that.
In a multi PR electorate a lazy MP may be carried by others, though one down the list may be elected above one above due to their hard work.
I agree that multi-member electorates is better than list PR. If we divided Australia into 30 five-member electorates, a quota for election would be 16.7%. The Greens might get one or two members that way. If we divided Australia into 15 ten-member electorates (ignoring the problem of state boundaries for the moment), the quota would be 9.1%, and the Greens would certainly get some members. But those seats would be very large.
I think Coles in 1940 was an independent who supported Menzies (and then didnt) but not sure if he had a ministry.
I think it is a law in the U.S. constitution. The AG must “be schooled in the law”.
Several misconceptions here, Tom.
Firstly ALP preselections are 50% local vote, 50% preselection panel. In the vast majority of cases, the local vote prevails (in Victoria, prior to the last Federal election, only two cases I know of went to the preselection committee. The rest were decided on the local vote).
The local vote consists of members who are registered on the electoral roll as living in the nominated seat (unlike the Libs, where you can live anywhere but register as a member of any branch you like). Members must have had party membership for a determined period to vote.
Preselectors are far from anonymous. They are elected by State conference and their names are freely available to anyone within the ALP who wants to lobby them regarding candidates standing for preselection.
Coles did not have a ministry, and in 1941 he and Wilson voted to put the Fadden government out.
By the standard of most other democratic nations under 100 million we have a small parliament.
The UK has 60+ million and 646 MPs (increasing to 650 next election), Canada has 30 million and 308 MPs, France 60+ million and 577 and Ireland has 166 TDs for 4.4 million.
The first federal Labor government gave the Attorney-General position to a non-Labor person. Labor didn’t have any lawyer MPs back then.
Oops, I see someone has already noted that.
Tom our Parliament should be pushing maybe 200.
Canada has 30m people and a 300 seat Parliament.
We have 21m and a 150 seat Parliament.
H B Higgins might as well have been a Labor member. The only reason he wasn’t was that he disliked the pledge requirement. So it was easy for Watson to make him AG.
Yes Zoomster all very true, just like the CPSU (for both the Soviet and Australian public sector version) extremely democratic centralist in orientation.
ESJ
and far more democratic and less centralist than the Liberal process.
Neither are our mental asylums packed with lost souls tortured by the lack of PR in lower houses, at least that I’m aware of. In any case, members in these places aren’t elected from party lists, and I expect their name recognition would be quite high.
Glen,
As has been discussed many times previously, the number of members in the HOR is decided by the number of Senators. Specifically, the Nexus Clause.
Labor has proposed referendums to alter this a number of times. However, the combined outrage of Libs and Nats and a hysteria campaign about States’ Rights has seen it is defeated.
Consequently, Libs like yourself arguing about “someone should do something” leaves me shaking my head.
As, I see, was later discussed.
This has never happened.
You sure William, I thought this had happened in the ACT?
I agree with you Glen in theory . (doest happen often)
14 senators per state would give us state 84 senators so around 168 state commonwealth MPs
16 per state would give us 96 so 192.
Add territory Senators and MPs and there will be a good size for Hare-Clarke.
The UK doesn’t have state governments.
There’s no “list” in the ACT – they have Robson rotation.
The UK has devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The candidates from each party are grouped together though.
My footy teams better than yours zoomster?
The only problem is footy teams are all businesses first nowadays.
If there was 16 per state then the half Senate quota would be 11.11% and the DD quota would be 5.88%
So what legislative reforms are you proposing to stop football teams from being businesses?
That would end any future prospects of a D.D. There is no way the majors would risk a D.D. with the quota being that low. They could come back with a senate half full of wackaloons.
ESJ,
What business are Cronulla in?
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/sport/nrl/story/0,26799,25527210-5006066,00.html
Tasmania, SA and WA should not have 12 Senators, why give them 16 ?
The point was that an MP “one down the list” can’t “be elected above one above due to their hard work”.
But had Obama knocked it back it wouldn’t have happened.
Yes they should!
Gary,
In these types of situations the boss always prevails. So, Hillary would have got her way.
Not if you beleive in proportional representation.
The only time scrapping the Nexus has been put to a referendum was in 1967 under Holt. It only got a majority in NSW. I believe the DLP were the major opponents of that referendum (for obvious reasons) as would be the Democrats and Greens (who`s existence as parliamentary parties has put nexus abolition of the agenda).
ESJ may be able to confirm that Liberal Party members can vote in preselections in seats they don’t live in (hence the busloads of Lebanese who foisted Michael Towke on the Liberals in Cook), and even if they don’t live in Australia (hence the votes from Hong Kong that preselected Michael Johnson). Since the Dreyfus reforms the Vic ALP (at any rate) has done a lot to stamp out branch-stacking, although it still occurs, whereas I don’t believe the Libs have done anything, since the dominant right-wing faction benefits from the current rules.
Out of interest would more seats be likely to favour ALP or LNP?
Changes of this sort demonstrate the relentless movement towards ending discrimination. This is another step similar to our government’s steps to remove similar discrimination last eyar.
If you look at polls on same sex marriage, they clearly show that people under about 30 generally have no problem with it. So that too will become legal, perhaps not within 10 years, but most certainly within 20.
The Dreyfus reforms? Geez I didn’t realise Emile Zola had such an influence on Australian politics
The Senate should be reduced to 10 Senators per State and 4 for the territories. The number of HOR seats should approximate 3 times the Senate.
I think FEDERATION was more important. That wouldn’t of happened without giving the smaller states equal representation in the upper house.
Lol Adam, from the State that produced the stellar crew of Brimbank Council.
To get rid of the malaportionment in the Senate would require a majority of votes in each of the states and as such is unlikely to happen, especially since the Democrats gave the Senate a new identity. Nexus removal would also probably increase the dominance of the majors in the Senate.
ESJ,
Remind us how Turnbull got his pre selection. Now that’s a stack!
It will never happen. Why would people in W.A., S.A. and Tas vote to reduce their level of representation?
And how Peter King got his pre selection.
We know how Hewson got it, he used a shoe horn.
Labor and the Coalition (admittedly not “wackaloon”* free) usually get over 80% and then the Greens get their share too of the vote so not many micro-parties would get in.
* great word
I note that there don’t actually seem to be any purist PR supporters here. Once you accept that it’s OK to have some minimum threshold, including by having a Hare-Clark system, you’ve conceded that there’s more to an electoral system than a simple translation of party votes into party seats. You’ve conceded that stability arguments, local representation arguments or keep-out-minorities arguments have some merit. Once you’ve done that, it’s all a matter of degree.
It also doesn’t surprise me that the thresholds people are proposing are high enough to keep out parties they don’t care about but low enough to give the parties they do like a good shot. I think just about everyone who thinks about these things views the electoral system at least partially through the prism of their party preferences, consciously or subconsciously. As long as certain basic democratic principles are respected, there’s nothing really wrong with that. Or at least, you can’t expect anything different.