A new Open Thread is up. I haven’t been able to provide a direct link to Open Thread XVI as there are problems with linking, so I have placed it in the Archived page.
There’s a revolving door outside state and federal government offices that has been spinning for decades.
Entering the door are former ministers, MPs, senior advisers and public servants with years of experience behind them on the intestine-like inner workings of governments, politics and policy making.
As they exit the door, many become part of the opaque and mostly unreported world of corporate and industry lobbying.
There’s a revolving door outside state and federal government offices that has been spinning for decades.
Entering the door are former ministers, MPs, senior advisers and public servants with years of experience behind them on the intestine-like inner workings of governments, politics and policy making.
As they exit the door, many become part of the opaque and mostly unreported world of corporate and industry lobbying.
Whenever the spotlight turns to lobbying or any kind, the cry that comes back in defence is that it’s a legitimate and healthy part of any democracy. This might be so, but in my view this can only be the case when that lobbying is transparent.
But what happens when super-rich companies are able to buy the knowledge and expertise of former ministers or civil servants? Does it actually matter?
Could not believe what I was hearing, when the ABC news radio quoted that Mr. Albanese was casting a slur on Mr. Abbott, by connecting Mr. Abbott’s words to what occurred in America.
Then I turned the TV onto ABC 24 to witness and interview that involved Mr. Richard Alston and Mr. Barry Jones.
Mr. Alston said that it is shocking the way the government is criticising the three miners in particularly Mr. Palmer. We should be not be concerned that he said that the CIA was involved but should focus on the fact, the Greens wanted to closed down the coal industry. (that is a lie in itself). It is wrong to criticise people who make wealth for the country.
Mr. Jones disagree strongly with Mr. Alston, saying that these people were putting their own interest before the community.
It is OK, according to Mr. Alston to say the PM suffers from a clinical disorder, in the thrust of politics.
Mr. Jones asked him why the PM was not entitled to common decency.
Mr. Alston raved on about how good the Opposition was doing.
So have I got it correct,
The Opposition can say whatever they want.
The government has no right to criticise the Opposition.
It is wrong for Mr. Albanese to interpret what Mr. Abbott says. The meaning must be ignored, if Mr. Abbott says it.
It is OK for the Opposition leader to continually call the PM an habitual liar and having a new clinical disorder and worse.
It is not OK for Mr. Albanese to say,. “you know in your guts, he is nuts” or “they are hypocrites”.
It is clear now that there is one rule for the Opposition.
There is another for the government.
I am really amazed that Mr. Alston sees nothing wrong with the language of the coalition but everything wrong with the government’s.
“But what happens when super-rich companies are able to buy the knowledge and expertise of former ministers or civil servants? Does it actually matter?”
Mr. Alston seems to think it does not matter.
Pip, i agree lobbying is a legitimate and healthy part of democracy and it occurs in everyday life constantly.
However, as is pointed out, when it becomes covert is where and when the problem starts. As shareholders in our democracies, we have a right to know who is trying to influence government and asking for what favours.
Super rich companies, individuals and their lobbyists would rarely lobby in the public interest, imo. And that is their right, but it should be open for all to see. What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander.
Mr Alston is a super sleazy,super slippery case in point who was given the task of wrecking the ABC by that super sleaze, the Rodent. We are witness to their handiwork every day on the public broadcaster. I, for one, do not like what I see and hear!
CU, Pip, Migs and everyone do you think that if ALP wins the next election, we might see a shift back to neutral reporting by Aunty? That’s all I want. I would hate to see the same sort of craven biased, mendacious, dishonest and distorted rubbish favouring the ALP.
JUST GIVE ME THE FACTS, AUNTY!!!!!
For Adelaide Whisperers who may comment or lurk at TPS, Ad astra will be at the Junction Cafe upstairs on the escalator at the Casino tomorrow between 1pm & 3pm. You enter from North Terrace.
Jane, I don’t think Howard was the conviction politician he purported to be. A staunch climate change denialist, he changed his tune on the 2007 election to swing along with public opinion. He was only convicted to drawing votes.
Roswell, I believe that Mr. Howard was ideological driven. You have to go back to his early days to identify what his ideology was,
After being defeated at his first attempt, he kept his convictions well hidden. A must admit he did learn from experiences. He did not change his beliefs but made sure he kept them to himself.
The waterside dispute, hatred of unions and user pay was the basis of his belief. He hatred the word union, and if it had the word in its title, it went. That included the uni unions that had nothing to do with industrial disputes. He did attend uni, but studied his degree away from the campus. I should add his first action as PM was to weaken the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
He went on to dismantle the CES, replacing it by NGO and private employment agencies that never have been assessed as to their worth.
We know the Rudd family did well out of this action. I wonder how many more millionaires arose out of that action.
Following this we had work for the dole and similar tightening of welfare.
His father was a small garage owner in the suburb of Earlwood. This gave Mr. Howard the belief he was above his peers.
One has to wait until he was re-elected with control of the Senate for his ideology once more to come to the surface.
When Mr. Howard came to power, not one thing he did surprised me.
It did not surprise me that he prevented the country to become a Republic.
I have hardy touched the surface of examples of his ideology. He profess not to have am ideology.
Jane, I have reach the stage where the interviewers just have some ability in the craft. I am past caring what their political leanings are.
Margaret Whitlam’s funeral is occurring. Many old faces among the congregation.
Many of the old men from both sides of politics have tears in their eyes.
That must mean something. Even Mr. Ruddock looked upset.
Roswell, I’m certain the Rodent wasn’t the much touted conviction politician he was spruiked as in the msm. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely correct. He should have had any number of convictions against his name, but his one and only conviction was that he had to hold onto power at any cost.
CU @3.59pm, spot on, again. And @4.01pm, I couldn’t give a hoot about their political allegiances, I just want honest neutral reporting of the truth!
Here’s another trick, Nas. When you’re typing, double tap on a word and it’ll bring up suggest replacement words and an arrow that takes you to a dictionary.
Min and El Gordo, I dont supose you know if there is some beachside property in Toowoomba available, preferably near a railway stn.
Another worrying sideline to CC and CO2… http://www.disinfo.com/2012/03/carbon-dioxide-makes-you-fat/
….put a new spin on carb’s…..
“A DAMNING report that predicted the scale of last year’s riots by asylum seekers on Christmas Island but was never shown to the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, or his department head
It would be interesting to know a little bit more about this official.
How long was he with the Imigration dept?
Was he investigated before retirement?
Did he break any of the rules to Public servants employment?
Did he “chose” to retire and thus gain access to his superannuation?
What level was this official?
Did he work with the department under the Howard government and if so in what capacity?
Maybe Labor does have a chance in the next election. Doing, not talking might just bring it off.
Maybe the MSM see the process is confused and chaotic, because the are too busy telling everyone what they believe the government is doing, instead of actually looking at what the PM is doing and achieving every day
The PM has successfully put in place 99% of the things that she was accused of by the media of shooting herself in the foot.
There is nothing chaotic about how the PM works. The PM consults, plans and delivers. Nothing chaotic about that.
PAUL KELLY, EDITOR-AT-LARGE From: The Australian March 24, 2012 12:00AM
Increase Text Size
Decrease Text Size
Print
THIS week has seen an aggressive assertion of Labor values, trade union powers, special deals to save jobs and Labor’s commitment to redistribution via the tax system revealed in Julia Gillard’s carrying the mining tax through parliament.
The Gillard government, off the back of its alliance with the Greens and support from independents, is changing Australia decisively. Unswayed by poor poll ratings, Gillard is doing what she promised – getting her agenda through the parliament. The process is confused and chaotic, but Labor is on a roll. In the process, Gillard strives to redefine the political contest.
“Did he work with the department under the Howard government and if so in what capacity?”
This is the most important question in my eyes.
I believe that many would have had trouble switching from the Howard regime to Labor’s.
Mr. Rudd was amiss when he did not put the broom thought the PS when he first came to power.
We have a politicalise PS and to say otherwise is stupid.
Once employment of PS, especially heads of departments, became for short tenure or on contracts, the PS lost it’s independence.
It would be interesting to know a little bit more about this official.
Did he work with the department under the Howard government and if so in what capacity?
It would be interesting to know a lot more about this official. and whether he worshipped at the altar of the Rodent.
CU @3.48pm, I think that once again you’ve nailed it.Sweeping the PS clean of the poison of the Rodentochracy is imperative, imo.
We already have that the majority of taxpayer subsidised child care places are taken up by the upper income bracket rather than the supposed targetted group, women who via necessity must work. Now Tony wants to those who can afford nannies provided with subsidies as well. This fits neatly in with current Liberal party philosphy that those who earn the most are by definition the most worthy.
TONY Abbott is considering taxpayer-funded subsidies for nannies, in a new commitment to woo families – particularly women – at the next election.
Despite criticism over his proposed $3.5 billion parental leave scheme – and with childcare subsidies already costing taxpayers $3 billion a year – the Opposition Leader said an incoming Coalition would seek advice on making childcare assistance more flexible.
Has been around for years but sensibly pushed aside.
Another brain fart that will further divide the party. I assume that Ms. Bronwyn has been in his ear.
Mr. Abbott has a habit of dismissing advice from experts.
This is I believe is because he cannot get them to agree with him.
I dread what he will come up with next while he sits on that bike for this week.
Cu, hopefully hemorrhoids…
Min
ROFL
Campbell Newman standing for Premier of Queensland as Leader of the Parliamentary Liberal National Party outside of parliament is not unique, as has been reported.
This situation occurred in colonial Queensland on 9 December 1887 when Sir Thomas McIlwraith announced that he was standing for the seat of Brisbane North. At the same time he assumed the leadership of his Parliamentary Party.
McIlwraith had previously been Premier and Leader of the Opposition but resigned from the Legislative Assembly in 1886 for business reasons.
Min, I do hope so. He might then have some sympathy for those who suffer from abdominal pains. They can be very painful.
If Michelle is correct, it will be the people that suffer.
Saturday’s devastating result suggests that when Queenslanders take a set against a government, that’s that. And they are harsh judges.
They never forgave premier Anna Bligh for ambushing them over selling state assets. They are unlikely to forgive Gillard for her breaches of trust.
and this is the answer
All federal Labor can do — whether it is considering Queensland or the rest of the country — is to keep delivering (and Gillard has been doing that recently by getting major pieces of legislation through parliament) and attempt to avoid more stuff ups.
Michelle, stuff ups are in the eyes of the beholder.
One stuff I seem to remember, was the PM going ahead with the Clean Energy Bill, another the MRRT.
It is true that everything this PM has set out to do, has been seen as a stuff up by the media and the Opposition.
The media is now reluctantly recognising the PM has been successful but little credit is being given.
Apologies do not appear to be forthcoming.
That is PK, the proof will be in the success this lady will continue to have.
The doer beats the talker everyday.
Several days ago Catching Up began talking about the Howard Ideology. Obviously mindreading me! I was looking for the roots of the Howard Family Values. I posted the results last night http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/john-howard-and-family-values/
I know this is redundant to some but a blogger’s gotta pimp his blog 🙂
Hi archie, I’ve pumped up your article on Cu’s post, plus giving it a push on Facebook.
Your great post needs to be read by as many people as possible and I love the networking aspects of social media. It has reach.
All I can say to Tony is..bring it on. Australians have a way of punishing people at the polls should they get too uppity. Abbott is having an ego trip in thinking that he can win both houses via manipulating a DD..
Mr Abbott has promised to abolish the mining tax and all the measures it will fund, except the super increases. He ignored internal advice to abolish the super increase as well but continues to rail against it in public.
Yesterday, he renewed his threat to hold a double dissolution election to abolish the carbon tax should he be elected and the Senate blocks him.
The blog was written at the time of the HYPE of the convoy of no consequence,a flop, just like Abbott and his quest to stop the carbon tax.
Sue, when Tony Abbott makes these sort of Grand Announcements which he does on a fairly regular basis, often defying all logic plus practical application, the thing which comes to mind is: I’ve Got The Power…
that is, trying to convince one and sundry that he has far more power than he does in reality.
IF Abbott does eventually become PM, there are going to be one hell of a lot of disappointed people out there thinking to themselves, “But Tony..you said……”.
And where were the journalists when he said the DD. The msm is as useful as the convoy on no consequence was relevant.
“…making it nearly impossible to have a double dissolution election until 2015”
What if enough Labor senators crossed the floor, there would be no need for a double D election?
Interesting stuff…anyhoo…
‘But a Labor historian and former minister in the Wran government, Rodney Cavalier, thinks Labor is deluding itself if it thinks that this is just a cyclical swing: “The Labor project is at an end. We’re watching a prolonged death rattle. There is an absolute crisis of confidence and belief.
”Labor has died from below. There are no Labor branches left in most of the towns of Australia.”
Labor won in 2007, both sides of the campaign took a carbon tax to the electorate. Turnbull had agreed to Rudd’s legislation and guess what the Senate voted no.
Senators from states that voted for change still voted no.
so forget the BS elgordo that Labor senators, post an “abbott win” would do the right thing by the electorate and cross the floor.
Just like they did in 2007!!!!!hehehehehehehhahahhhahaha
So An Abbott government would have at least 12 months of frustration and slashing of budgets before he could go back to the electorate.
Sue @8.17am..
“If the current Labor government stays in office until 2013, any new Coalition government could not begin the process of developing a double dissolution trigger until after 1 July 2014, making it nearly impossible to have a double dissolution election until 2015″.
And we’ll be definitely be keeping that one in mind when Abbott ramps up his call for a DD election: I want it and I want it NOW!!!
THE Australian Government is “gutsy” to follow through on its pledge to introduce a carbon tax, the world’s top industrial conglomerate says.
GE vice chairman John Rice said the $23 a tonne tax applying from July 1 would prompt the company to allocate more resources to carbon-reducing technologies.
Mr Rice said GE, which made the nuclear power plant reactors at Fukushima and was heavily involved in renewable energy, had long believed in a trading mechanism to reduce carbon emissions and encourage the development of new technologies.
It was courageous for the Federal Government to move before the rest of the world in introducing a price on carbon emissions, he said.
“I applaud the Australian Government for having the courage to go through with it because I think over the long run, the world is going to be better served if there is a cost associated with the production of carbon,” Mr Rice told ABC Television.
NATIONALS Senate Leader Barnaby Joyce will challenge party veteran Bruce Scott for his lower-house seat of Maranoa with the aim of becoming deputy prime minister.
In pressing his case to contest the sprawling western Queensland seat, Senator Joyce is expected to argue that his seniority within Coalition ranks means he could represent the constituency in a future Coalition cabinet.
If this is true, how is the tax going to bring the country to ruin.
Mr. Abbott and his cohorts cannot have it both ways.
THE Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott, has confirmed claims by his colleagues that the big miners are saying in private they do not expect to pay much mining tax, if any at all.
Following similar public claims last week by the shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey, and the Opposition’s resources spokesman, Ian Macfarlane, Mr Abbott said yesterday the mining tax would raise nowhere near the revenue needed to fund all its associated measures and would leave a black hole in the budget.
JOHN MCDULING
The federal government-owned NBN Co internally endorsed controversial Chinese equipment maker Huawei Technologies as a major supplier to the $36 billion national broadband network, but was blocked by the Gillard government on the advice of intelligence agency ASIO.
The Australian Financial Review reported at the weekend that Huawei, which counts former foreign minister Alexander Downer and former Victorian premier John Brumby as Australian board members, was told by the Attorney-General’s Department late last year that it was banned from tendering for lucrative NBN contracts because of concerns over cyber attacks originating in China.
It is believed that in 2010, Huawei was endorsed internally by NBN Co’s technology department following a visit by NBN staff to its headquarters in Shenzhen, China.
We need a new party to run against The Australian Party at next years’ election…to win senate seats.
Federal labor needs to reduce the carbon price.
And get down on the land with the voters.
N’
Cu,
Joyce is a very smart politician and ACTOR…who knows the people on the land…
He’s more connected to bigwigs and vested interests than he sometimes makes out…and I reckon if the small landowners and farmers and townspeople knew he was really working for the bigwigs he’d have a backlash against him.
But our media won’t do the legwork.
Cubby station connection for one.
N’
CU @ 12.13
Good to read that Barnaby is going to challenge one of his own for a lower house seat. And his chances of being elected are a whole lot better than if he challenged Tony Windsor.
Bruce Scott got 65.5% of the primary vote last election. i wonder how popular Barnaby is within the Nats, afterall he will be effectively taking on 2 opponents Bruce Scott, Maranoa and Warren Truss, leader of the Nats and possible future Deputy Prime Minister.
Read about Barnaby Joyce here…and see why he’s so popular…look at the stuff related to small business:
However,
His assisting to sell Telstra should be remembered…and I’d like to know how the rural assistance package panned out:
On 17 August 2005 the Government announced a package of $3 billion to improve telecommunications services in regional and rural areas. On the basis of this, the National Party, including Joyce, agreed to support the sale of Telstra. This led the Labor Party to label Joyce “Backdown Barney” and “Barnaby Rubble” in an acrimonious parliamentary debate. Joyce voted with the Government in the Senate on 14 September 2005, to sell the Government’s remaining share of Telstra. As the Telstra Sale Legislation had been pursued by the lower house in prior parliamentary sessions with no assistance package for regional Australia it is Joyce who is credited for negotiating and holding out till the multi billion dollar assistance package was delivered so as to attain his vote in the Senate.
(Wikipedia)
Furthermore
In May 2006 Joyce promoted mining of Antarctica (mining is banned under the Antarctic Treaty). Joyce justified his proposal by saying:
There’s minerals there, there’s gold, there’s iron ore, there’s coal, there’s huge fish resources and what you have to ask is: ‘Do I turn my head and allow another country to exploit my resource … or do I position myself in such a way as I’m going to exploit it myself before they get there’.
(Wikipedia)
He’s Gina and the miners and big stations’ boy all the way.
N’
If the below is true, why do the voters then vote in a government that takes the belief in markets force further.
Yes there has been a massive shift of income of earnings from the workers to the boss. The voter’s solution is to support a government further to the right, increasing the gap between the workers and the boss.
Sorry, I do not get it.
IMO that there is something else going on, and it will be found in how the voters expectations and interest in politics has changed over the last two decades.
The reasons for the defeat seem fairly simple – Labor’s neoliberalism, the right wing idea that the market cures all.
So for example two months after being re-elected in 2009 and promising in the run up to the election not to privatise state assets, Bligh began a privatisation program.
and
In Australia one of the the major achievements of the Labor Party from 1983 onwards has been an historic shift in the share of national income going to capital at the expense of labour. The other historic achievement has been to do this with the collaboration of the trade union movement, laying the groundwork for the dire situation of unions today.
and
In the immediate future, Queensland workers are faced with a choice. Capitulate to the LNP’s attacks on wages, jobs, health, education, transport or fight for better pay, for jobs and for better social services.
Sue..am just catching up on the reading..surely the good folk of New England wouldn’t want to swap Tony Windsor for the likes of Barnaby.
As you say, interesting is the other choice of Maranoa in that Barnaby would have to oust a fellow National. If Barnaby goes for that one, I would be definitely waving goodbye to Warren Truss as leader of the Nats.
nasking, coming from the land, unless things have changed over the last few decades, they have a well developed bullshit radar.
They also know better than most, where their own self interest lies.
What is the difference between changing ones mind and lying. According to modern day definitions, the words have become interchangeable.
What respect would one give a leader that went ahead with a election promise if it is no longer viable or the situation has changed. Apparently in the modern world this does not happen.
Some must believe that politicians have crystal balls that they can see into the when they outline their plans for the future during an election campaign.
I have problems with those who say no government enterprises should be sold off. Yes, there are some that should not be. There are others that do not make must difference, and little is gained by the government holding onto them.
Each case should be judged on it’s merited.
If you has asked me five years ago whether Australian Post should be sold off, I would have said no. Today I am not so sure. Because of the rise in the use of the web, mail now plays a small part in every day communications. It is just not as important any more. There is nothing wrong with selling something, to use the money to build something else.
What I object to, is selling off assets to balance the books. It should be spent on new infrastructure.
I still believe that Medibank Private should be kept in Government hands.
I do not believe the Telstra’s copper wire should have privatise. That has now been reverse. I believe we should have held onto the Commonwealth Bank and GIO.
Whether we like it or not, we now have to operate in a global economy. The trick is to take full advantage of it, not fight against the tide. We seem to be doing OK up to now.
We have to keep renewing our economy to just keep our head above water.
“Joyce is a very smart politician and ACTOR…who knows the people on the land…”
Yes Joyce is a cunning politician, that I agree with.
The fact that he is not going after Windsor, tells it all.
Is not that the area he was reared in.
I would say that Windsor is quite safe if he chooses to run again,
CU,
Many good points. I also lived on the land for a few years…and my Wife’s parents own a small cattle farm.
Selling the copper wires was a disgrace.
The NBN should be useful.
There should be a government bank to help drive down competition…the big banks are disgraceful.
Agree Medicare.
——–
coming from the land, unless things have changed over the last few decades, they have a well developed bullshit radar.
———
Agree.
And that’s Labor’s prob unfortunately…you should hear my father-in-law get stuck into them, particularly Gillard.
He can’t stand weathervane, arrogant, big-mouthed Abbott either. Mr. Cocky.
Okay,
Cheers N’
nasking, I am sure they unlike others, will make the decision that benefits them most. I do not see Mr. Abbott being the one.
Calling him a cocky is a insult to my wheat and sheep cocky father.
I know it is not the same but..
Yes nasking, when we criticise government enterprises that have been sold off, we should not put them all in the same basket. Some should have gone.
The same with overseas investment in out farming land. I believe the percentage is low, but the that does not count, if what we are losing control of is prime land. I heard on, I thing it might have been NCP, that farmers are moving towards what was described family corporations, that are more that father and son farms. I think it meant that extended families were joining together.
It appears that those on the land are modernising the way they operate to meet the challenges of the economy today.
This is an interesting perspective on Barny’s political future.
‘In fact, Joyce is a member of the Liberal Party who chooses to identify with the National Party in parliament. Joyce’s direct party membership is with the LNP.
‘The LNP is defined by its constitution as being a branch of the Liberal Party. But as it is in fact a sort of compromise party it allows its parliamentary members to choose who they sit with in federal parliament.
‘The biggest impediment to Joyce being Liberal leader is not his party membership, but the fact he is in the senate. That, and the fact that very few Australians would like to see him in the job.’
And this is worth watching, couple of good catlicks running the country.
‘However, it is understood the Opposition Leader and Senator Joyce are close allies, with Mr Abbott relying heavily on his Queensland colleague on policy formulation.
‘In recent months, Liberal backbenchers have complained that Mr Abbott gives Senator Joyce and other Nationals greater freedom to talk about policy than he does his Liberal colleagues.’
El gordo, did those quotes come from anywhere.. 😉
Calling him a cocky is a insult to my wheat and sheep cocky father.
I know it is not the same but..
———
LOL CU…
More like cockhead then? 🙂
That’s how many see Tony.
But he’s caged…and the minders have him calmer during elections.
Mr. Sincere.
His boxing and marathon rituals and religious seminary habits have taught him most of the time to control his feral side.
This won’t last if in power…under attack alot…more of his governing style and policies, mistakes.
He’ll wobble…like a Pope in heat.
Ya know I do like Julia…I just wish she’d relax a bit more…have more fun with the people.
My wife reckons the primary school teachers and kids across the road from her school thought Julia was “beaut”…real kind and down-to-earth during a visit.
Let that hair flow too. And a few flat shoes with flowing skirts…she looks nice like that. Like Zoe Deschanel on the sitcom The New Girl.
I think Julia is a pretty woman who sometimes confines herself like stern old Thatcher.
I’d wear a skirt if I could…let the goolies swing free in hot weather..lucky Scotts and Islanders.
I think people would love Julia if she got out there more drinking, larfing…reducing the carbon price a bit. Listening to the concerns. Talking about DentiCare…and the NBN.
Hug a few bearded blokes. 🙂
She has so much potential.
Invite Crikey reporters and Global Mail writers on the trips…and those from The Drum.
Refer to their media companies constantly.
They’ll give her a fairer go than some.
Make a DVD of the trips…outback, farms etc.
Put segments with laid-back messages and narrative on YouTube and Facebook. Add music.
Thnk bloggers for their interest.
ENGAGE…
N ‘
Are things as bad as they seem. The question I ask, should there be a rethink of optional preferential voting.
I think it’s a mistake to change from a compulsory system. It appears that the Green vote did not collapse, but the number of seats lost, gives the opposite opinion. Our system is fast becoming winner takes all, instead of representing the wishes of the whole population.
A large part of the explanation as to why Labor was hit so hard can be found in the high vote for minor parties. The Greens and Katter’s Australian Party together polled over 19%, with an additional 4% for other parties and independents.
When large minor parties take a large part of the vote and fail to win many seats, the result is that the dominant major party can win a super-majority with about half of the vote. This is particularly the case when most of those minor-party voters choose not to preference, as they did in Queensland.
A single-member system can become much more severely disproportionate and produce more lopsided results when a large number of voters cast their ballots for minor parties, and then choose to exhaust, effectively taking their votes out of the race. Katter’s party polled 13% and the Greens polled 7%. While there was a small number of seats where these parties were in the top two, most of these votes ended up exhausting, taking a fifth of Queensland’s voters out of the game.
As long as there are two large minor parties, a large proportion of voters will be taken out of play, and as long as those two parties take a large chunk of Labor’s vote away, the party will find it hard to compete. Even if the party can win back many of its seats in 2015, it will find it very hard to return to a majority without working more closely with either of those minor parties.
If Queenslanders continue to vote in such large numbers (over 23%) for candidates outside the major parties, the issue of proportional representation isn’t going to go away. We will continue to see around a quarter of the voters barely represented in that Parliament, and if the voters that Katter’s party and the Greens have taken from Labor don’t go back to Labor as preferences, it becomes very hard for the ALP to build the numbers needed to win government. This is going to be a long-term structural problem for Labor in both New South Wales and Queensland.
I believe he did not have many boxing skills, just the ability to be a slugger. Nothing much has changed.
On the link that I put up this morning about ANZAC Day and supposed multicultural tensions..surprise, surprise it is a non-story..
Major General McLachlan said he had great successes working in tandem with the Turkish community to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I.
“From my experience in dealing with the Turkish community and also dealing with the multicultural representatives on one of the working groups that I’m on for this, it’s a very positive outcome,” Major General David McLachlan told 3AW Breakfast.
“N’, that is the way I see the PM, as a very warm and down to earth person. What I find unusual, the PM does not seem to have an overgrown ego, if anything she is a little shy when it comes to the personal.
It is funny that everyone who meets hers one to one or in a small crowd say how warm and caring she is.
I am sure she would have a wicked sense of humour. What she does not appear to have, is the need for revenge.
I believe she will dump them jackets soon, and as “N’ suggests wear some pretty dresses. I believe she has either loss weigh or is exercising. She has thinned down in the face and is indeed quire pretty.
‘…did those quotes come from anywhere.. ‘
Ah…yeah, but as a practicing citizen journalist I refer to them as ‘unidentified sources’.
You may want to think of them as whispers overheard in a cafe.
Good stuff Min.
More blowhard hyperbolic multicultural Australia bashing from the Murdoch empire it seems…
However, they’ve got the RSL and some VETS stirred up…
And put the message of waste out there again related to the cost of the report.
Bloody irritating.
We need more offense…less being put on the back foot.
———–
On America’s meet the press today the wonderful doris kearns goodwin reminded us of the tragic Emmett Till case…
How it motivated the African-American Civil Right’s movement…
The death of any young person is tragic…it was the deaths and wounding of so many kids in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Congo…and as asylum seekers that drove me to blog…
And the waste of moneys by Howard, Blair and Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld that could’ve been used for education, hospitals, cancer, disability care, dental care…that so pissed me.
N’
Cu, I’m with you..there are quite enough corporate types doing the power dressing thing. I’m thinking of one cocktail dress which Julia wore prior to becoming PM..she looked absolutely stunning.
Nas’, it seems that all news.com have succeeded in doing is annoying the b’jesus out of the RSL…
Now for this:
What Campbell can’t do
But then reality will set in and the new premier will be faced with the same contradictions in his rhetoric that await the followers of Hockeynomics.
No, you actually can’t wave a magic wand that cuts debt, builds infrastructure and creates sharply rising employment all at the same time, particularly when you’ve effectively ruled out any further privatisations and insisted that regaining the top credit rating is a priority.
You can manage the likes of allowing booze back in to dry aboriginal communities and fire the token department head, but the big picture stuff is out of Newman’s reach.
Oh and every time the Federal government spends or builds infrastructure in Qld, I would make sure that the press conference is run by theFederal Government and at its timing. Likewise everytime the Qld premier wants to defer or cut its share in the project tell the public, as is the case with barrel O’lies in NSW and the pacfic highway duplication.
Good article Sue.
on March 26, 2012 at 4:20 pmMin
Nas’, it seems that all news.com have succeeded in doing is annoying the b’jesus out of the RSL…
Min, doesn’t take much. 🙂
Ya know, I really miss my Grandpops…both fought in the wars…brave old fellas…the things they would have seen eh? It’s hard to imagine…I don’t think film gets close.
The stories told by one of the trench warfare in WW1…the other of an artillery gun blowing up and maiming & killing most around it…the illnesses…and trench foot…the bully beef and rations…the night sky filled with sputtering missiles…like planes then suddenly dropping…KABOOM…the ground and homes and offices shaking…
We gotta make sure these boys and gals who come home aren’t treated like some from Vietnam.
I’m very proud of their brave work in such hostile areas…6 million young ladies been educated now out of ten million.
Brings tears to yer eyes.
N’
This from the Michael Pascoe article linked handily by Sue:
If Campbell Newman and Co have really caught the “debt is evil” bug, the electorate will soon enough discover the limits of LNP rhetoric.
You might also wonder what south-east Queensland unemployment might be like if the big infrastructure projects had not been undertaken.
The Bligh administration was far from lily-white – the debt wasn’t all about infrastructure given that public service cost explosion and the dead hand of in-bred Labor dynasties and patronage could still be felt – but in some key areas there were signs of courage to do what had to be done even when the electorate didn’t like it.
I would like to say here that I did think Anna Bligh courageous…
I loved her smile…and laid back good humor.
And my wife and I thank her for all the effort she put into education…and motivating female teachers and students…including in science.
And her amazing work during the floods…informing and calming us.
My father-in-law said same to me at a BBQ recently.
I was blown away by Qvueenslanders’ outright rejection of her this last election…certainly it had much more to do with issues…
But I do wonder if some will regret their overly-aggressive vote if Newman falls into dictator mode…and the ocker take the piss out of Abos, Homos, latte set, intellectuals and Sheilas types in the LNP are let out of their cages?
I’m miss Anna.
My wife looked thunderstruck the other night…I saw her eyes well up with tears as one point when she realized the extent of the defeat…
She saw it as an insult to Anna.
“too many greedy boofheads here” she said.
I almost agreed…then remembered all the other issues…the dredging…the hospital pay debacle…the water prices going up…the privatisations…the fracking…
And then Anna’s sweet laid back smile…
And nodded anyway.
N’
iPad…anyone know how to turn that blasted word changer off?
Grrr…apologies for all the mistakes above.
N’
A comment from The Drum:
And I am sick of Righties telling me that everything should be left to Private Enterprise. If you think the USA is heaven on Earth, …
SLEEPYKARLY
Indeed.
N’
Nas’ re the iPad..the short answer is no, I don’t know. However, you are among friends who are fully aware of obstacles encountered by the dreaded word changer thingy.
I’ll check it out for you, Nas.
Anna’s calm demeanour was a decided contrast to the gloating coming from Abbott/Palmer camp. The extent of the defeat is not a good thing for democratic governance in my opinion.
iPad…anyone know how to turn that blasted word changer off?
Sell it on Gumtree and buy a Samsung Galaxy … all your prolems will be solved … 😀
I think that I might have found it. Go to Settings – General – Keyboard. There is a title Auto-Correction. Slide this to Off.
Nas, you can turn the spellchecker off by going to Settings > General > Keyboard.
Beaten by 60 seconds. 😦
😀
👿
Thnx all.
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
Now expect lots of spelling errors. 🙂
N’
TB, isn’t that the poor man’s iPad?
BTW, with your ‘prolems’ I see their spellchecker is very effective. 😉
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
That was quick – how much for?
Min: However, you are among friends who are fully aware of obstacles encountered by the dreaded word changer thingy.
—-
LOL Min…it was like bloody Pacman…gobble gobble…
on March 26, 2012 at 6:40 pmMiglo
Beaten by 60 seconds.
—–
ROFL…
Migs,
Those faces…hilarious.
N’
on March 26, 2012 at 6:51 pmTB Queensland
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
That was quick – how much for?
————
One grilled wabbott and a bottle of Palmer’s eau de stench.
N’
Of course this is honest. To tell lies to distract attention from his boy.
Of course dirty pokitics is only bad if you are Anna Bligh.
Clive Palmer has hinted that his claims the green movement was linked to the CIA were a ploy to keep negative attention away from now-Premier Campbell Newman in the lead up to the Queensland poll.
I say court action is required. He has admitted he defame to gain political advantage for Mr. Newman.
He now says he would not repeat the claims, but that he does not regret making the statement.
“Without you (media), without Julia Gillard, without the Treasurer, without the Greens raising these things in the Senate, who knows where the attention might have been in the last weeks coming up to the election,” he said.
“So it’s wonderful that all of you could play a small role in having Campbell Newman elected as Premier of Queensland.
“So well done, you all deserve a round of applause.”
He says he does not regret making the comments.
“Well that’s something I wouldn’t say at this stage. As I said, a mistake doesn’t become an error until you refuse to correct it so I’m still thinking about that one,” he said.
“But let me say this. Let me say I don’t regret having made that statement, ok.”
Last week, Mr Palmer accused the US government of funding environmental group Greenpeace via the CIA to undermine Australia’s coal mining sector.
Mr Palmer made the extraordinary claim over Greenpeace’s leaked plan to use the court system to tie up coal mining applications.
He claimed funding was coming from US environmental charity the Rockefeller Foundation, and said Greenpeace should be under far greater scrutiny.
He picked out veteran Greens campaigner Drew Hutton, claiming he was a “tool of the US government and Rockefeller, and so are the Greens”.
Migsy, its my friggin’ typing – I did think it was the keyboard and changed but no … human error all the way …
I don’t have a tablet (I have a Fujitsu netbook that doubles as a tablet with a swivel/touchscreen but its a bit thick and heavy – like its owner! Getting a new motherboard fitted as I type!) …
My eldest g/son had one given by a client … his 8 yo brother loves it for games …
Cu re Palmer and:
“So it’s wonderful that all of you could play a small role in having Campbell Newman elected as Premier of Queensland.
“So well done, you all deserve a round of applause.”
The first thing which came to mind is, sarcastic pr*ck!!
Please welcome Queensland’s new Premiere :
Campbell Palmer
Min, what came to my mind that they are willing to do anything to win, including destroying one’s reputation. What is more shocking, they can see no wrong.
How can one trust a anything that they utter.
If Palmer and his mates had joined the other big miners, as asked, they would have less to complain about.’
It was not that they were not invited.
The three of them went of fin a huff, therefore they are reaping what they sowed.
Newman one year…Abbott the next…
Clive Palmer and Abbott intend to rule Australia…
Then the world:
Campbell Palmer
I enjoyed that.
An excellent and well-timed piece from Ben Eltham:
Size of government: big is not so bad
One criticism of Sinclair Davidson’s moral crusade against government spending is that, once you move past the just-so morality tale (“Big government bad, private enterprise good”), the reality is that governments can be better at providing critical services than private industry. In one major and growing industry in particular – health care – private enterprise tends to be far more costly at providing basic medical care. Anyone who’s tried to see a doctor in the US will know what I’m talking about. The vast apparatus of US health insurance siphons off huge profits that don’t, on the whole, get reinvested in better productivity. Instead, medical providers are able to leverage the almost complete information asymmetry between doctors and patients to routinely over-charge. In contrast, in public systems like Australia’s PBS, the Government uses its monopsony in buying power to dictate what prices it will pay for life-saving drugs. Doctors get paid far more in the US than they do in Australia or Japan. There’s no evidence they’re any better doctors.
Education has similar characteristics. Highly privatised education systems do not necessarily produce better outcomes than public systems. Indeed, the world’s leading education system is Norway’s, a country where there is essentially no private schooling. Similarly, public universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and the University of California are every bit as good as the top Ivy League institutions like Harvard. In America, for profit-private institutions have far worse four-year graduation rates than either private, non-profit or public institutions.
But the main reason to be suspicious of small government is, appropriately, a moral argument. This is that government remains the agency best capable of evening up life’s perils and uncertainties. As Mike Beggs writes in a fine recent feature for Overland:
“in a capitalist society, inequality is not a policy setting but the outcome of market processes.”
The foundation of the post-war consensus of social democracy was that governments can play a role in addressing that inequality, and in providing basic services that the market cannot or will not provide, especially for the poorest. This is an idea you will hear advanced in many of Robert Menzies’ speeches.
Let me put it this way: in our country, we recognise that the Government has a role in providing for the elderly in their retirement, in healing the sick and teaching the young, and in providing a subsistence income for those who have lost their jobs.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Do you?
Ben Eltham is a writer, journalist, researcher and creative producer from Melbourne, Australia.
Now this cannot be correct. It would mean that el gordo might be wrong. That cannot be, can it?
A new study suggests climate scientists may have underestimated the effect of greenhouse gases, with global temperatures now predicted to rise by between 1.4 and 3 degrees Celsius by 2050.
The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience by a team of international scientists who ran 10,000 computer simulations of climate models in an attempt to explore the range of global warming predictions made by climate scientists.
The researchers found that while their results matched the predictions made by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) at the lower end, they were higher than earlier predictions at the higher end.
Cu, one of my English grandmother’s sayings also came to mind: Pride goeth before the fall.
‘….global temperatures now predicted to rise by between 1.4 and 3 degrees Celsius by 2050.’
Yeah…but they are using models.
Remember the one that went with it. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
That is something I am looking forwarded to.
I am a great believer, in what goes up, comes down.
I do not believe we will grow much older while we wait,
Tony Abbott’s nanny state:
el gordo, I imagine they are using collected data to make those models. I would find it hard to believe they just make figures up.
The reserch appears to be indepth and far reaching. It is also up to date.
The paper comes just three days after the World Meteorological Organisation published its latest Status of the Global Climate Report, which found that 2011 was a year of climate extremes and the 11th warmest year on record.
The journal has also published a paper which states that extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by man-made global warming.
‘…extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by man-made global warming.’
Saying ‘very likely’ is about 90 percent certain, doesn’t hold water in my book.
El gordo, how else should things be measured except by using models…
They say Mr. Abbott is a fighter. I say he is a thug and a bully. Is this what we want in a PM. One who meets every challenge with aggression.
So what did he do? He reverted to what he knows best – pugilism. For some he may appear like a threatened animal trapped in the hunter’s spotlight, and that his ‘fight to the death’ approach is merely reactionary, merely a strategy for survival. That may be partly true, but it seems more likely that fighting is his natural response to any challenge.
Min at 7:56. I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I read that. 😆
el gordo, I would be worried if I was told there was a 90% chance of dying in the next week. I would not hold out much hope.
I think you might have misread. Are they saying there is a 90% chance happening. The way I read it, is that they are only 90% sure of the timeline and how it will happen.
CU @ 7.02
Could that statement by Palmer that he defamed Hutton as a political ploy be enough for a good case for defamation?
He,Palmer, did set about attacking/ defaming Hutton and the Greens and I never heard a public apology.
from your link
“Mr Hutton says he is reconsidering defamation action against Mr Palmer.
“I was seriously considering dropping any idea about taking him to court, but it’s re-kindled my desire to do so,” Mr Hutton said.
The federal opposition has linked the defeat to Ms Gillard’s ‘lie’ about the carbon tax, which she promised in 2010 would not become policy under her government.
‘When I said those words during the 2010 election campaign I meant every one of them,’ she said.
‘Then, in the circumstances of this parliament, I needed to make a choice as to whether our nation would seize a clean energy future or let the opportunity go by.’
Ms Gillard argued Queensland stood to prosper from the Labor minority government’s so-called clean energy legislation – which includes the $23-a-tonne carbon tax on big emitters.
‘I have acted in the national interest to get a benefit for the nation through a clean energy future, and also to deliver practical benefits for families today, in the form of tax cuts and family payment increases, and increases in the pension.’
Frontbencher Craig Emerson, whose Brisbane seat would fall if the state result was reflected in the next federal election, said Ms Gillard would benefit from spending more time in Queensland.
‘One thing that is clear with people’s views of the PM, when they meet her, is that she really is a terrific person, and very charming, and people are going to get the opportunity to meet Julia Gillard,’ Dr Emerson said.
NSW Labor Opposition Leader John Robertson, whose party lost office in 2011 in a coalition landslide, had some advice for his northern colleagues.
‘Pick yourselves up, go out, start talking to people, start implementing reforms, and start getting on with the job of rebuilding Labor,’ Mr Robertson told reporters in Sydney.
‘Labor’s been written off in its 120-year history on a number of occasions and we’ve come back.’
Anna’s calm demeanour was a decided contrast to the gloating coming from Abbott/Palmer camp. The extent of the defeat is not a good thing for democratic governance in my opinion.
Let ’em gloat, Min. It won’t be too long and they’ll be sobbing into their beer, because every tiny mistake will be theirs. Nobody to hide behind, and no avoiding the harsh spotlight on their faces; they’ll have to own them.
And people will be very impatient for their hero to fix everything he’s promised to fix in the five minutes he said it would take.
And they’ll get very narky when all he delivers is Liars Party bullshit.
Newman will also have have a big fat albatross in the form of the ghastly Palmer around his neck from now on and if he thinks Palmer won’t be there with the knife and scales for his pound of flesh, he’s very much mistaken.
Palmer’s fat paw will be pulling Newman’s strings; not the power behind the throne, he’ll be front and centre.
Yesterday on the Qld election thread we were discussing how the Federal govt will need to get its message out about federal funding over and above the states claiming it as their own. An example of this is in todays SMH. It is a good story of additional funding for teachers and schools for children with disabilities. The problem is you cannot grasp who is providing the funding.
By the end of the story I think it is from additional funds from the Federal govt, however there is plenty of references of what the state is doing.
From the middle and end of article:
“NSW will use a $48 million funding boost from the federal government to improve specialist training for teachers to better support children with a range of disabilities, learning disorders and mental health problems.
The federal parliamentary secretary for school education, Senator Jacinta Collins, said $63 million would be spent on NSW schools, including those from the independent and Catholic sectors.”
But this is how it started, so start and middle:
“NAPLAN test results and school assessment will be among a range of measures the state government will use to help it distribute funding for the rapidly growing number of children with disabilities and special needs in public schools across the state.
Mr Piccoli said the $48 million in federal funding was on top of $1.18 billion in recurrent state government funding to support students with disabilities
Now it is the mixed message that is the worry, would the state govt of NSW be able to offer the extras without the money from the Gillard govt and the useful Naplan information another Gillard iniative?
Fights on
“The veteran federal Nationals MP Bruce Scott is not keen on stepping aside so Barnaby Joyce can take his seat, setting the scene for a brawl as the senator makes his move to the lower house.
Party sources said Senator Joyce would most likely prevail in a head-to-head contest but one official said ”it will be ugly”.
”It’s a bit silly. Bruce most likely would have quit but if you put him under public pressure, his nature is to dig in and fight.”
The fact Senator Joyce had been shopping for a seat showed he did not care about any area in particular.
On am this morning they were discussing, guess what, a newspoll. alp collapse but gillard ahead of abbott.
now last night on abc radio, a guest from the australian was discussing a poll, but not newspoll, essential polling. in that poll according to the guest the underlying tracking showed that the gillard govt was on the way up.
Yeah…but they are using models.
Maybe you can comprehend it when we substitute one word for others.
For Businesses susbtitue the word “models” for Business Plans.
For Economists substitute the word “models” for Projections.
For Investors substitute the word “models” for Forward Estimates.
For Bankers substitute the word “models” for Cash Flow Projections.
For Shareholders substitute the word “models” for Dividend Forecasts.
How amazing that all of those areas base their strategies on forward projecting “models” and would not act without them. Big business would demand these reports regularly.
Yet the denailati refuse to accept forward projections by climate science experts and demand no action.
Undbelievable hypocrisy from the elite, wealthy and greed ridden to refuse to accept the one set of models that could effect their profit.
Climate is chaos and the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
Models are biased towards a particular outcome from the start.
the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
gonna need a link for that
It was my understanding that models rely on raw data as a starting point.
Models are biased towards a particular outcome from the start.
So why on earth do all of the areas I mentioned rely on them, if they, according to your comment, are aware of the bias outcome ?
Climate is chaos and the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
Utter rubbish, models need to start with actual facts and then build in assumptions based on those facts. They never started with an assumption that CO2 is causing global warming. The assumptions based on facts to date have provided the evidence to the scientific experts that CO2 causes global warming.
Can’t rely on the models, there is a flawed assunption built in, we would be wiser to start with a discussion on black body radiation, which determines the temperature of the inner planets.
Just how do you know there is a flawed assumption. ? or is that your own flawed assumption ?
You have more assumptions in all of your comments to date than any models I know of.
we would be wiser to start with a discussion on black body radiation, which determines the temperature of the inner planets.
Why ?
We cannot do anything about it.
We can do things about our huamn contribution to our atmosphere.
How do we know the “models” in regards to black body radiation are not littered with flawed and biased assumptions ?
there is a flawed assunption built in,
gonna need a link for that
😯
Tom’s making me laugh again. Such a fine wit.
Roswell, was that a typo? Didn’t you mean fine twit?
el gordo is looking forward to a sceptic’s heavenly future for all of us:
nasking
thanks for the other on ipa, engrossing isn’t it
the abc should have to identify the ipa as what it is and not the convenient “independent think tank”. also the ipa panelists should identify funding it receives. for example last night on the drum Tim was in full command with his ideas on taxation and alcohol, all i could think was
does the ipa receive funding from
clubs
aha, australian hotels assoc
brewers
The ABC is doing a disservice it could just be distributing political propoganda or worse trying to influence the Legislative process.
El gordo and Can’t rely on the models, there is a flawed assunption built in..
Certainly you can start with a hypothesis and then collect data to attempt to prove the hypothesis. And this is why work is peer reviewed, so as to ensure that the data has not been manipulated to prove a point.
If 97% of scientists accept that AGW is causing global warming…very likely to be true….I think the assumption is imbedded.
El gordo, there is nothing to be gained for scientists if all that they do is to agree with each other. You don’t get the grants, the status from just repeating something which somebody else has already done – originality wins the Big Accolades.
….I think the assumption is imbedded.
Should be corrected to ‘I think the evidence points to all logical conclusions that AGW is in fact causing global warming’
‘…the evidence points to all logical conclusions that AGW is in fact causing global warming’
Perhaps the ALP and msm should be pointing out the “faceless” and not so faceless men and women behind the Liberals and Nats?
Tim Wilson usually owns up to things funding-wise…but the funding should definitely be scrutinised further…and made clear to the public by The Drum, Q&A, Agenda hosts etc…
Now the QLD election is over the FOCUS wil go on the ABBOTT OPPOSITION big time.
Here comes the flood. 🙂
BTW, Ad astra @ The political Sword has put up a brilliant piece describing Abbott:
Referring to Abbott’s obligation to comment on Margaret Whitlam’s death, Andrew Elder said on Politically Homeless: “It’s clear he doesn’t want to do it but he can’t get over himself enough to throw himself into the task. He manifestly doesn’t care that people are mourning her loss, and cares even less about her patronage of the arts…Taking a swipe at Gough Whitlam and his government on the way through may have been minor, but it reveals a character fundamentally too weak to become Prime Minister.”
Is this the PM you Abbott supporters want? Driven by fear into insensitive outbursts, and when the occasion beckons, paroxysms of personal invective? Would this PM make you proud? Would he be different when he had the keys to The Lodge? Or would this entrenched behaviour continue? To borrow from Abbott’s own phraseology, he seems to be ‘an insensitive, nasty leader, getting worse’. Has Abbott’s decline become irreversible? Has his atrophy reached the point of no return?
That Abbott’s aggressive behaviour is a product of his ‘visceral fear’ is a plausible hypothesis. We know that, like most politicians, he desperately wants to win, and even more so hates to lose, especially to the woman who is now the PM, a position he believes she occupies illegitimately. He has never overcome the anger and frustration he felt when Julia Gillard won the negotiating battle with the Independents to form minority government, and since that day in September 2011 has used every device at his disposal to bring down her Government. His anger at losing an election is not new; it goes back to his student days at university when he kicked in a door after a narrow loss.
——-
Spot on.
N’
Real time data suggests that is not the case.
Did you read the last paragraph of your link ?
Here it is for you
The Bering Sea stands in stark contrast to the rest of the Arctic ice cap, where sea ice extent was below average in both January and February. Ice cover was down drastically on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Arctic, including the Kara, Barents, and Laptev Seas, where air temperatures were 4 to 8 degrees Celsius (7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm
Nas’ from Ad astra’s article..
He has never overcome the anger and frustration he felt when Julia Gillard won the negotiating battle with the Independents to form minority government, and since that day in September 2011 has used every device at his disposal to bring down her Government. His anger at losing an election is not new; it goes back to his student days at university when he kicked in a door after a narrow loss.
That is something that we have speculated on here at the Café, being Tony Abbott’s personality traits. The above comes under the heading of Abbott’s sense of entitlement, that “all” should be his and for no other reason than he wants it.
I think the assumption is imbedded.
How did this ‘assumption’ get there though, considering that around 40 years ago it was considered a rather fringe theory?
Scientists tend to be swayed by facts, not selective interpretation. That is the field best left to the denialati
Indeed Min. We have some useful comments and posts here related to Tony Abbott.
N’
What is forgotten, the most that Mr. Abbott can hope for in the near future, is an election for the lower house.
If this occurred, the houses would be out of sinc. That means that elections can only be hled for one house or the other.
This happened in the days of Menzies. It was like one was having elections all the time, but going nowhere. Mr. Menzies has to call a unnecessary lower house election to bring them back in sinc.
What Mr. Abbott is promising is years of instability.
Does he really believe that business can or will be willing to put their plans on hold, indefinitely for many years. I believe not.
Not a very pretty future in my humble opinion. With the rapid restructuring going on in the global economy, it is future we cannot afford.
Not that I believe the voters will give much thought to. They are only interested in their own well-being. They obviously do not see Mr. Abbott a threat to that.
It is el gordo’s flawed perceptions that are the problem.
Cu, my instinct tells me that Tony Abbott is doing nothing more than grandstanding..and grandstanding is effectively all that there is left for him to do.
Shane, you are spot on. The literature is very clear in saying the effects will not be uniform. They go onto say, it is still not clear what all the effects will be. That is where figures like 96% come from.
It is this type of statement that the likes of el gordo, to launch their arguments.
I believe the science is settled on whether there is human induced climate change, cause by releasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
What is unclear is what the full effect will be on the earth.
“Abbott’s sense of entitlement, that “all” should be his and for no other reason than he wants it.”
Maybe more that that. He feels let down because this is what his parents promised him. His sisters where taught to treat him as the future leader.
What was not clear at the time, whether he would be pope or PM.
I think he might have found out at that seminary, that it was easier to become PM, worse luck for us.
I have a feeling that Mr. Abbott believe that woman are there to assist in him getting what he wants, not being the competitor.
He has humoured the PM for years, believing that the job was his when he reached for it.
Mr. Abbott did not, but is beginning to do so, in seeing her as serious competition. The fact is unhinging him.
Maybe the public will wake up and then those polls will change.
The PM needs to get some good runs on the board before that occurs.
Yes Shane, that’s precisely my point, in a global warming world (due to CO2 increase) there should be a moderation in temperatures across the northern hemisphere.
At the end of last century even the sceptics thought the AGW theory appeared sound, there was a definite warming at night, while the daytime highs were flat or slightly below average.
This is what you would expect if you put CO2 in dry air, there is a warming.
Then they discovered the winters were warming, all perfectly accurate long term trends…solid data…which suggested a greenhouse effect.
Siberian pines experienced their greatest growth from WW2 to 1968, according to one tree ring study going back 500 years. So it sure looked like positive feedback.
Still the scientific sceptics persisted…half of 20th century warming happened before CO2 levels began to increase, which is exactly what you see in ice cores going back over millenia. CO2 follows an increase in temperature.
Greenhouse physics also tells us that CO2 in a wet environment does not increase temperature, which must have put a damper on the theory.
.
Greenhouse physics also tells us that CO2 in a wet environment does not increase temperature in a simple, straight line which must have put a damper on the denialist theory.
😉
Is not this the PM’s tact’s. I notice that the morning shows are picking up on Mr. Abbott’s poll figures. They appear to be asking why> Maybe that is a start.
This is worth reading in full.
His great political flaw is like that of his boxing, when he defeated his opponents with his whirling dervish attacks on them. If his opponents had had better defence, they would have avoided his initial attacks, let him become exhausted and then picked him off, slowly and relentlessly. Abbott places everything on attack and as such leaves himself wide open to dying a death of a thousand cuts. In all likelihood his term as leader will end in either tears or farce. His value may lie in the way he defines the Liberals as a true conservative party.
“in a global warming world (due to CO2 increase) there should be a moderation in temperatures across the northern hemisphere.”
You say that carbon emission does caused temperature change.
Why then it so hard to believe, if man ups the level of emission, by his actions, this would have no additional effect.
Siberian pines experienced their greatest growth from WW2 to 1968, according to one tree ring study going back 500 years. So it sure looked like positive feedback.
What has happened to the pines since 1968.?
The Queensland result on Saturday was worse than NSW in terms of seats lost, but not on the primary vote – the latest count has Labor at 26.9 per cent.
and
The only state on the eastern seaboard that didn’t split its vote to the same extent was Victoria. There, Labor claimed a majority of federal seats at the same time as it secured state landslides under Steve Bracks.
It didn’t help Kim Beazley or Mark Latham.
Labor won 22 state elections in a row between June 1998 (Queensland) and August 2008.
The Howard government had a near miss at the start of that cycle, in October 1998, but increased its majority in the federal elections of November 2001 and October 2004.
It may be a long shot for the Gillard government, but history suggests the next federal election is still winnable.
Opposition spokesman Andrew Robb said the Gillard government had been ”clumsy, offensive and unprofessional” in handling Huawei.
There was a sharp reaction within the opposition last night to Mr Robb’s intervention. Sources said Mr Robb had issued his defence of the company without consulting his seniors – and that he had accepted a trip from the company.
Now this could not possibly be true. Is it possible that the boat trade goes up and down, regardless of what governments do.
Could it?
The number of asylum seekers coming to Australia has dropped, according to a report from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
The UNHCR says the number of asylum seekers arriving in Australia fell by 9 per cent last year.
The agency says the reduction is largely due to a decrease in the number of people coming to Australia by boat, and says Australia’s current number of arrivals is “modest and manageable”.
Yes she can become unhinged, or the PM can continue as she is doing, governing for the benefit of all Australia.
“I could wake up every morning and worry about the polling or I could wake up every morning thinking about the future of the nation. I choose to do the latter,” Ms Gillard told reporters at a nuclear safety summit in Seoul, South Korea.
But she again conceded that the ALP needs to change its approach after its thumping loss in Queensland.
“This is a very difficult defeat for Labor, a very severe defeat for Labor, and that means that as a Labor Party in Queensland, and more generally, we need to listen,” she said.
“But my job is to both listen and lead, and that’s what I’ll be doing as Prime Minister.”
Ms Gillard said she would continue to to work on selling the Federal Government’s policies.
The sinks are under stress from humans, but there is no need for concern.
Maybe Mr. Hunt will lower himself to tell us how this works. It appears that the Lib feel free to say anything that sounds OK. Fact are of no importance.
Like Labor, the Coalition has committed to reduce carbon emissions 5 per cent by 2020. But the Libs’ ‘Direct Action’ plan has been dubbed ‘soil magic’ because over 60 per cent of reductions – 85 million tonnes of CO2 per year – are to be taken up by soil.
A scant page in their 30-page policy tells us this will be achieved for the amazingly low price of $10/tonne but offers no more detail. Greg Hunt does mention, in a media release, that it will be acquired by ‘reverse auction’; farmers will tender carbon uptake for sale and the government will buy it at the lowest price.
There is a simple reason why the Libs won’t tell us more. The cheap soil carbon ‘offsets’ they plan to create will be not be measured and neither will they be permanent. In short, the Direct Action plan is constructed on the premise of bogus soil carbon offsets.
and
The Libs make the questionable and misleading statement that “any new global emissions reduction agreement is expected to include soil carbons.” The fact is that if soil carbon abatement is ever included, there will be compliance rules. These requirements simply cannot be met for $10/ tonne CO2; any soil offsets created for this price will be non-compliant and will never be an acceptable means of reducing a nation’s carbon emissions.
First and foremost carbon abatement must be measured before it can be claimed and guaranteed permanent for 100 years, which requires a 100 year covenant on the land. It must also be additional (not already common practice) and verified (an accredited practice is proved to be happening). All of these rules are part of the existing Kyoto rules and the Liberals’ now defunct Greenhouse Friendly standards (which, paradoxically they say they will reinstate).
The grain of truth in the Liberals’ fiction is that ‘CCX Soil Offsets’ were once sold for several dollars per tonne in a now defunct private scheme run by the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). These offsets only required the improved management practice to continue for five years and there was no measurement of soil carbon but instead possible future carbon sequestration was estimated. Investors soon realised that since they were not measured, not permanent and not Kyoto compliant. They were in fact a sham.
The price dropped from several dollars to a few cents per tonne CO2 and they have not been traded since 2010. Another private scheme based on the CCX Soil Offsets – ‘Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme’ (ASCAS) – has been initiated here. Could the Coalition have played a part in this? Not surprisingly, ASCAS is still conceptual and is not generating real carbon offsets.
How much does it cost to create compliant soil carbon offsets?
To produce compliant soil carbon offsets, the carbon price would have to be of $25 – $200 per tonne CO2,depending on the soil management practice used. The costs of accreditation, a 100 year covenant ($7,000-$10,000) and baseline carbon measurement must be met ‘up front’. Then verification, reporting ($5,000-$10,000) and carbon measurement are incurred each time carbon is sold (about 10 yearly). Measurement is the biggest cost, averaging about $3.50/ ha / year. Statistically significant soil sampling entails at least one sample to at least 30cm depth per 2 ha. These must then be analysed in a laboratory (cost $60/sample).
Add to this the annual costs of implementing the carbon farming practice, which range from about $20/ha for pasture management to $600/ha for mulch crops or bio-char. Farmers must spend this money before they can claim any carbon; they must take the risk that the amount of carbon they will be able to sell will cover costs.
For example, take a typical high rainfall beef farmer. He has estimated that rotational grazing of perennial pastures will cost him $20/ha/year and it will enable him to sell 1.6 t CO2/ ha/yr. The practice will not increase net beef income otherwise he would already be doing it. To make a reasonable margin and allow for risks, he needs to cover costs plus 50 per cent i.e. he will need to make 1.5*(20+4+3.50) = $41/ha per year. To make this, the carbon price has to exceed $26/tonne.
McKenzie et al, 2010 estimate that for carbon trading to be economically attractive for Australian dairy farmers, the carbon price would have to be at least $200 per tonne CO2 due to the high feed value of pasture that would have to be left to decompose in the soil.
How many tonnes of CO2 could be sequestered with compliant soil carbon offsets?
I have used an inventory approach to estimate the maximum CO2 sequestration that would be achievable in Australian soils without major changes to land use and at what cost. Land use figures were taken from Australian Resource Atlas and rate of carbon uptake under various soil management practices from CSIRO Land and Water.
My estimates for annual CO2 sequestration in Australian soils are:
— Up to 22 million tonnes of Kyoto compliant soil carbon offsets at prices of $25 – $200 per tonne may be generated from cleared agricultural land. In other words up to a quarter of the 85 million tonnes claimed by the Liberal Party, 95 per cent of which would cost 2.5-20 times more than they claim.
What about non-compliant offsets?
— Up to 100 million t CO2 /year might be sequestered by destocking 200 million ha (more than half) of the rangelands to less than 20 per cent of current levels, using non-compliant ‘stewardship agreements’. There is huge temporal and spatial variation in rangeland soil carbon; it is quickly lost in wildfire, drought and erosion events. A research and measurement program over at least two decades would be required to determine if any carbon has been sequestered or whether rangeland carbon levels are continuing to decline (6). For this reason, not enough is known to even estimate sequestration rates and create con-compliant offsets. In any case these could not be counted towards national carbon reduction targets.
— Stewardship agreements may be effective but only if government were to buy up pastoral leases to ensure permanence. This would be a positive action in terms of conserving biodiversity, reducing methane emissions and perhaps increasing soil carbon.
Note that the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency (DCCEE) estimate that less than one million tonnes of non-compliant CO2 offsets will be achievable from soil sequestration under the current Carbon Farming Initiative at a price of $33/tonne. These will not be counted towards Labor’s carbon reduction target.
The Coalition’s ‘Direct Action’ is a ‘do nothing’ carbon policy. It is impossible that bogus soil carbon offsets created for $10 per tonne CO2will ever be an acceptable way of fulfilling legally binding reduction commitments. Furthermore their incredible claim that a few thousand farmers are ready to step forward and take on the responsibility of reducing 60 per cent of the nation’s CO2 burden for $10 per tonne is preposterous. http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/greg-hunt-s-carbon-illusion?utm_source=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Climate%2BSpectator%2Bdaily
The American way has come to Australia. We at the cafe have had articles on how in America the private prison operators use cheap prison labor to undermine jobs in the workforce. Look what Colin Barnet is introducing in WA, must be part of the 2 speed economy
“The West Australian government has denied violent prisoners will work at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital under an agreement with multinational company Serco.
Serco not only has a government contract to provide services at the hospital when it opens next year, but also runs the Rangeview adolescent remand centre next door, in Perth’s southern suburb of Murdoch.
“Health care union United Voice said Serco already used prison labour to cut costs at some of its UK facilities.
“There have been rumours and pretty clear indication now for months that Serco was planning to use prisoners at the Fiona Stanley Hospital as working staff,” assistant secretary Carolyn Smith said.
“Those rumours, we believe, were confirmed this week.”
Ms Smith said the government had already been dishonest in not revealing its plans to privatise hospitals before it was elected, and did not believe it now.
Opposition corrective services spokesman Frank Logan accused the government of backflipping.
“We’ve got Serco … who will be operating a prison for 18 to 24-year-old adult men right next to the Fiona Stanley Hospital, which will also be run by Serco,” he said.
I am surprised at the results. I can only surmise that it is because Mr. Abbott knows what is best for us.
Poll: Who do you trust to manage the economy in the interests of working people?
Labor
18%
Coalition
62%
Greens
3%
None of the above
17%
Total votes: 2584.Poll closes in 18 hours.
Vote now: 100 hours
Disclaimer: These polls are not scientific and
‘Queensland’s Land Court has recommended the state government approve Xstrata Coal’s massive new thermal coal mine at Wandoan, in the Surat Basin, and deemed objections based on the mine’s likely contribution to climate change as ‘‘irrelevant’’.
Shane, it is only a matter of time before we run out of sinks.
Maybe I should reword that. The number and size of the sinks are fast disappearing, which adds to the problem of increased production.
We have cut down the trees across the world especially in the jungles across the world. We have decimated our rain forests.
No, Shane I do not believe the sinks can cope. Sinks do not grow as we the increase emissions.
No, there is no easy answer.
Can we trust Abbott. No I am not joking.
IMHO, we cannot., he is telling lies when he says he is going to roll everything back.
The man is stupid, up himself or lying when he says so.
Meanwhile, Abbott is still preoccupied with his own issue of trust. Some in a cynical public, as well as even more cynical political observers, doubt whether he really would scrap that carbon tax. It would be so hard to unravel; the process of its abolition would create fresh business uncertainty; if the Senate played up, it could lead a relatively new prime minister into a double dissolution.
Abbott’s message is that he would do whatever it took. Yesterday he said ”every fibre of my political being” was directed to getting rid of it. He has insisted he would run a second election if necessary, although he believes Labor would not push its opposition to that extent in the Senate (assuming the 2013 election did not produce a Senate more friendly to Abbott – an outside chance).
Should Abbott be believed when he says he would keep this promise? Yes, because he sees the dire consequences of breaching faith, as does every other political leader.
Climate Sceptic donor, Michael Hintze, gets to dine privatley with UK Prime Minister Cameron
“On Monday, Downing Street was forced to reveal that Hintze was among the leading Tory donors who were invited to privately dine with David Cameron at a “thank you” dinner following the general election in 2010. The revelation that Hintze, who has also donated £1.5m to the Tory party, is connected with climate change scepticism will be an embarassment for David Cameron, who has pledged to lead the “greenest government ever”.
“in 2010 The Hintze Family Charitable Foundation also gave £100,000 to the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-leaning, free-market thinktank, where Hintze is also a trustee. The IEA has promoted the work of Lord Lawson and other climate sceptics, including a book claiming global warming is not caused by humans but is instead part of a natural cycle. Professor David Henderson, a member of the IEA’s advisory council, is the chairman of GWPF’s academic advisory council.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/27/tory-donor-climate-sceptic-thinktank
Really, Sue. What organs are he donating?
The Opposition isn’t going to be happy about this one..
AUSTRALIA defied a global trend and recorded a 9 per cent drop in asylum seeker claims last year, supporting the United Nations refugee agency’s assertion that the numbers coming to this country are modest and ”manageable” when compared with other industrialised countries.
The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said the fall from 12,640 arrivals in 2010 to 11,510 last year was in sharp contrast to an increase in claims in all other industrialised regions – including an 87 per cent jump in southern Europe.
The number of Afghans seeking asylum in the industrialised world was up 34 per cent – with most applications lodged in Europe – but Australia recorded a 45 per cent drop in Afghan applications.
they can spin that, on capital hill last night jamie briggs said that europe doesn’t have refugees come by boat but by land . it is easier by land.
and that dill, lyndal curtis, let him get away with it.
More on carbon sinks….
‘In a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Wolfgang Knorr, a German scientist at the University of Bristol, writes that the percentage of man-made CO2 emissions reaching the atmosphere has more or less remained constant for the last 150 years.
‘Even as the total amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere has risen dramatically, the amount that is trapped in the atmosphere has remained at a steady 40 percent.
‘In other words, the more CO2 emitted by human activity, the more, in absolute terms, the natural world can absorb.’
“The implicit assumption that government funded research is unbiased is nonsense.
“On the contrary, it virtually guarantees the manufacture of problems to be studied in that researchers have learned that suggesting a link to a possible problem greatly improves the probability of funding approval. This has become so dominant in the environmental sciences that basic research has almost ceased to exist and nearly all effort is now directed at investigating purported problems.
“Worse yet, the dominance of problem-oriented research has created an environment wherein the normal scientific process of rigorous critical examination of claims has been suppressed in environmental matters.
Now even the most poorly founded, and often even absurd claims, regularly pass peer review and are published in leading journal. Then, if challenged by anyone, the critic is denigrated while the substance of the criticism is ignored.”
Walter Starck (Biologist) March 27, 2012
So here is an interview in which I ask Dr Knorr specifically whether his research backs up climate sceptics. (He says no, if you can’t listen to it)
The Heartland Institute is a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois which advocates free market policies. The Institute is designated as a 501(c) non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and advised by a 15 member board of directors, which meets quarterly. As of 2011, it has a full-time staff of 40, including editors and senior fellows.
The Institute was founded in 1984 and conducts research and advocacy work on issues including government spending, taxation, healthcare, tobacco policy, global warming, information technology and free-market environmentalism.
In the 1990s, the group worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking secondhand smoke to health risks, and to lobby against government public health reforms.
More recently, the Institute has focused on questioning the science of climate change, has sponsored meetings of climate change skeptics, and is now alleged to be promoting public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
In 2012 documents leaked to the public disclosed some sources of the organizations funding, and include a “Climate Strategy Memo” whose authenticity has been challenged.
(wikipedia)
N’
Yeah…Knorr would say that in the face of academic extinction.
Knorr would say that in the face of academic extinction.</i
or simply to stop his research being abused.
tin-foil hat time for grodo
One wonders why grodo failed to mention this little titbit then
For Knorr himself, his research changes nothing when it comes to the dangers that climate change presents. “So far, nothing has changed, but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future,” he says.
funny, for someone who complained about certain participants being only interested in ‘muddying’ the debate.
This is the difficulty with problem oriented research.
yes, problems should be ignored 😯
As I said earlier grodo, this only became a problem, because the weight of scientific evidence raised it to that level.
If you really want to make money, present evidence to the contrary. Short of that, hitch yaself to a rich benefactor, and get gisshin’
Who’s your Daddy?
It beggars belief…
‘A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe.
‘In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions.’
Nasking the IEA in the UK is also trying to promote public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
And there we have one of the funders Hintze having a private dinner with Prime Minister Cameron.
And then we have in Australia the IPA, who needs dinner with a PM when we have free access to the ABC, all platforms
I am wondering does the ABC pay for the IPA content?
With radio, tv and online the value of its “free think tank” dispersion would be worth a considerable amount if the IPA had to pay the ABC but if the ABC pays the IPA , how wonderful for the conservatives in Australia.
In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica
It appears that the ‘story’ in the daily mail is using extrapolation to read into the results what they want to see.
Unless you can point me to the relevant section that confirms their story from the actual source grodo. the closest it comes is this.
“We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,”
The two statements are not the same. Not by a long shot.
Its behind a academic paywall, I’ll read yer stuff instead.
it will be interesting how this one goes. Andrew Bartlett is running for Brisbane Lord Mayor.
So I’ve stepped into by putting myself forward as a candidate for Lord Mayor for the City of Brisbane with the Greens – not only the most people of any local government area in the country, but for the position which is voted on by the entire population of that city, making it the most populous single member electoral contest in the country. On this occasion, 673 827 people get to vote for the single position of Mayor (which is roughly the size of seven federal House of Representatives seats). I don’t have much chance of connecting with every single one of those people over the month left until polling day, but we’re certainly aiming to run a campaign which will raise valuable ideas and connect with the many people who are wanting to take a direct interest in what options are being put forward for the future of their city.
I usually try not to use this blog to spruik myself, but on this occasion I’m happy to encourage anyone who is interested in helping to send an email to Lord.Mayor@qld.greens.org.au indicating ways you might be able to help (including donating) or just start by popping over to my Facebook page and clicking on the Like button.
“We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,” Lu says. “More importantly, we are extremely happy to figure out how to get a climate signal out of this peculiar mineral. A new proxy is always welcome when studying past climate changes.”
el gordo, don;t you ever get sick of the subject.
As far as I am concerned, and i believe many others the matter has been dealt with and it is time to move on to more current concerns.
Why don’t you take it somewhere else for a while and give us a break.
I am more concerned about the attack on the rights of low paid workers being attacked.
In the past week we have been treated to leading Liberal-National donor and supporter Clive Palmer accusing the CIA of bankrolling the Rockefeller Foundation to donate to Greenpeace’s legal challenges against his coal mining operations.
Just days later, apparently sensing that “crazy” is the new black, former Federal Liberal MP Ross Cameron waded back into the public debate, to label the minimum wage as a “virus” designed and cultivated to keep people out of work.
However, although it’s easy to giggle at Messrs Palmer and Cameron the fact remains that these are leading figures on the Australian Right, and if we allow the crazy to go unanswered we risk it gaining momentum.
So, let us take Cameron’s conspiracy theory as a starting point and go to the origins of a minimum wage.
The central belief guiding the introduction of a minimum wage across the globe is that “wages ought not to be insufficient to support a frugal and well-behaved wage-earner.”
and
In fact, it was Pope Leo XIII’s seminal encyclical Rerum Novarum. Penned in 1891, it is widely credited with creating momentum internationally for the realisation of this basic right.
Australia was an early adaptor of this moral practice, with the beginnings of a national minimum wage arriving in 1907 off the back of the Harvester Judgment, which ruled that one of Australia’s largest employers at the time had to pay his workers a wage that guaranteed them a basic standard of living.
This went on to become a fundamental right under Australian law.
Is this what we want. It is what the Opposition is offering.
If you pick up an old Introduction to Economics textbook it may explain that by mandating a minimum wage, and not letting the market find its own equilibrium (i.e. not allowing bosses to pay the very least they can get away with), you create unemployment.
Theoretically this sounds plausible, however like so much of pure economic theory, it doesn’t seem to work out in the real world.
In fact, study after study of similar jurisdictions with differing minimum wages has shown that minimum wage increases do not create job losses.
One of the most famous was the Card and Krueger Study in the United States, which Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman said “found no evidence that minimum wage increases in the range that the United States has experienced led to job losses. Their work has been attacked because it seems to contradict Econ 101 and because it was ideologically disturbing to many. Yet it has stood up very well to repeated challenges, and new cases confirming its results keep coming in.”
So let’s call a spade a spade and spell out what Ross Cameron’s proposal would actually mean.
Australia’s current minimum wage is $589.30 for a full time job per week. If you are sustaining one person on this wage, in modern Australia, it’s tough. It’s near-impossible, if you’re trying to provide for a family with it.
Cameron’s proposal would be to create a new underclass of Australians working for less than $589.30 per week.
Do conservatives really believe this is the sort of country we want to live in?
CU…Tom and I are having an amiable discussion about CC, we enjoy the banter.
For the lurkers not interested in the science, the debate is now about whether Spiegel and the Daily Mail make shit up.
When the scientists spoke to the media they were excited and happy with their discoveries, but once the Klimatariat get wind of it the scientists are forced into an unenviable position.
The earlier quote from Starck illuminates the problem.
on March 28, 2012 at 9:59 amSue
Nasking the IEA in the UK is also trying to promote public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
And there we have one of the funders Hintze having a private dinner with Prime Minister Cameron.
And then we have in Australia the IPA, who needs dinner with a PM when we have free access to the ABC, all platforms
———-
Sue,
PM Cameron is going to have to be very careful…he’s got some troubling contacts…
And his past relationship with the Murdoch empire could create real problems for him. Same goes for some of his ministers.
There are many people suffering in the UK now under his “big society”…”big sh*t” as Rev on the TV show refers to it…many falling thru the cracks as community support is withdrawn…
if he looks like a bullsh*tter on clean energy…and other issues…this will add to the public cynicism…
they don’t trust Murdoch…nor the big bankers…many politicians…Russian oligarchs living there…corporate heads running alot of the sports…
football and olympics are a distraction right now…and the pubs…and the EU, Scottish issues…
but if I know the poms (was born there)…they will take so much…and then with a push by a few respected papers and news hosts they will turn on a leader…
even Maggie fenlt their wrath.
They’re used to BS from leaders…
and flag wearing nationalism…
and immigrants/asylum seekers being used to try and score political points…
but if they see too many bigwigs getting away with things whilst their families are burdened and scapegoated…
they’ll find a way to savage and take the piss out of them gradually, incrementally…until they learn. Or piss off. Or die.
Murdoch’s hell has just begun I reckon…
Cameron needs to be careful. Same goes for Osborne.
The rich will get eaten.
Slowly.
Ask the aristocracy. Now just figureheads and charity-driven…
Or figures of ridicule…larfed at.
N’
even Maggie fenlt their wrath.
Should be:
even Maggie felt their wrath
N’
BROKEN PROMISES. THE THROW AWAY WORDS TO DESCRIBE LABOR LEADERS. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE WOMAN.
HOW CAN ONE BREAK A PROMISE THEY DID NOT MAKE.
What about all the promises that are kept?
Could the truth be that this PM has kept more promises than most previous PM has.
Maybe a list of promises kept should be put out by Labor listing this. Also the list of promises broken and those the PM has been unable to keep.
There is a difference in breaking promises and not keeping them owing to the situations changing.
Amid the wreckage of the Queensland state elections, popular commentary and political analysts alike have settled on Anna Bligh’s ‘broken promises’ as an explanation for Labor’s defeat. Barrie Cassidy for example has asserted that Labor’s election loss had nothing to do with federal issues, but rather with Bligh’s ‘broken promises’. Similarly, according to Laurie Oakes, Bligh scored an own goal with her ‘broken promise’ on selling state assets. Oakes’ analysis needed to deal with the fact that Bligh had not actually made any promise in this case, given that she had said nothing about selling the assets during the 2009 election campaign. He quickly corrected himselfthat it was all the same thing really: ‘Voters viewed it as a breach of trust – in effect, a broken promise.’
As an explanation for political defeats, ‘broken promises’ is short and snappy and media-bite size. The problem is that it explains very little, and is often not even accurate.
and sometimes keeping promises can ne more dangerous that breaking them
Some response to the puzzle is provided by Tracy Sulkin in her 2011 analysis The Legislative Legacy of Congressional Campaigns. Sulkin notes, ‘Individuals’ opinions about whether levels of promise keeping are high or low have been shown to be more a function of general factors like their trust in and knowledge about government than the particular policy actions of their elected representatives.’ Sulkin cites the 2006 Congressional Elections Study, which found that those citizens who followed the doings of Congress and its members carefully were more likely to agree that their candidate did well in keeping his or her promises, and that those citizens who had knowledge of such elementary things as the party of their representative were much more likely to assess positively the rate of promise-keeping.
The hard lesson here is that those who have recourse to the narrative of ‘broken promises’ are more likely to be ignorant of politics and of the actual record of politicians and their parties. The popularity of this narrative is itself an indication of a troubling wide ignorance about democracy and its workings.
There is also a salutary lesson here for voters, given the finding that what candidates promise in elections is what they will probably deliver, or at least will try very hard to deliver. If candidates say in the electoral campaign that they are going to do something, then that is very very likely what they will try to do.So the lesson is: listen carefully to what candidates say, and don’t just dismiss it as smoke and mirrors for election purposes only. Those politicians who will do anything to keep their promises can sometimes turn out to be more dangerous than those who do not. Those who are prepared to work with others to draw a ‘good enough’ result out of deliberation might be preferable to dogmatic promise-keepers, at least in the public life of a democracy.
“Black carbon, aka fine soot, is an atmospheric pollutant that has been implicated in warming when it lands on snow. However, despite many claims to the contrary, atmospheric black carbon cools the surface rather than warming it.”
Willis Eschenbach March 27, 2012
CU
one promise to be on the kept list, looking after your superannuation investment.
Last week the government passed new laws for the financial planning industry, the opposition opposed the laws.
thank goodness the independents voted with the government, because as ASIC found
Morning one and all..My name is Mark and I’m a new starter here.I think i’ve got a case of new liberalism at my and the missus’ workplace going on, can I get an opinion please? We work at a small farm, fruit picking strawberries. Have been there 7 yrs, loyal locals and all that. About 3 yrs ago the boss put us all on contracts, Fair enough, work hard = good pay. Recently we romp up for early season work, planting and that, only to find two new disturbing developments. One: the boss has put on an overall sub-contracting mob with little room for locals, or indeed Aussies.. the new mob are all asians on 457 visas. The boss built a shanty town for them on site. There all people so we talk here n there, it turns out they are Nth Koreans! I know the boss is entitled to cut costs where he can, which brings up point two : When we’re in the fields, theres a port-a-potty at each end of the field, for obvious reasons.. well there is no more port-a-pottys this year! It costs too much- about $80 a day! So its a walk back to the central sheds, sometimes 2 km! In our time! Now some may say go pee in the bushes.. thats ok for guys kinda, but not for my Missus. Sexual descrimination? Guys are a bit lazy so its go in the rows.. Workplace Health n Saftey? The boss doesnt care – if the works not getting done on time, just put more Nth Koreans on! Is this the new liberal way that we have to get used to? Or should the Missus and I just put up with it? Mark from the Sunshine coast Qld.
Is this what the voters expect when one votes for the Coalition. Did they promise to do away with the promise to cut emissions.
A PLAN to cut Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next decade is set to be dumped by the Baillieu government on the basis that it would merely lighten the load imposed on other states.
An independent review of the state’s key climate change laws, to be released today, has found ‘‘no compelling case’’ to keep the target following the introduction of the Commonwealth’s minimum target to cut emissions by 5 per cent, to be mainly achieved through Labor’s carbon tax.
I am sure we will not hear that he lied. No that is saved for Labor female politicians.
A PLAN to cut Victoria’s greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the next decade is set to be dumped by the Baillieu government on the basis that it would merely lighten the load imposed on other states…
The former Brumby government introduced legislation to cut emissions 20 per cent below 2000 levels by 2020 after the failure of the Rudd government’s carbon trading scheme to pass Parliament.
In opposition, the state Coalition said it supported the 20 per cent target. After taking power in 2010, senior ministers started describing it as “aspirational”.
Does the Herald Sun commence a “Bailliar” campaign? Does it call him on his broken promise and question his very authority?
Cu, and then in the alternative reality to Victoria’s…
Australia will have to increase its greenhouse gas reduction target from the current 5 per cent by 2020, to at least 15 per cent within two years under the policies of both the ALP and the Coalition.
el gordo, I do not consider myself a lurker, what ever that means.
I am very interested in science, that is not what you are discussing.
I find it hard how one can enjoy going over the same ground, day in and day out.
I suppose it comes down to what makes one happy.
What do you hope to achieve by keeping on with your belief that carbon emissions do not cause man made climate change?
I have not noticed one person changing their opinion because of what you say.
Yes Sue, there is a lot we have to protect. The Opposition were against legalisation to give low income earners better super conditions.
Something to do with the taxation break. As it stands now, the low income earner gets no benefit from it, as their tax rate is the same.
The CC energy money will go towards the money the government will not receive because of the tax breaks super gives.
Taking it from 12% to 15 means lower receipts for the government.
Min from your link.
The Opposition has signed up to both the 5 per cent and 15 per cent targets, although it hasn’t mentioned the second one for a while.
It’s clear that science is beginning to reassert itself on this subject after a few years on the sidelines following the debacle in Copenhagen in 2009.
Current advanced country pledges already suggest a 10-20 per cent reduction from 1990 levels by 2020. China has imposed quotas on carbon emissions and is likely to have an emissions trading scheme in place by 2015; it already has them in nine provinces. The action being taken by other developing countries is already sufficient for a 15 per cent reduction in Australia.
The idea that Australia is leading the world on climate change is quickly becoming untrue. Moreover the delays caused by the 2009/10 political convulsions, which saw both the opposition leader and the prime minister sacked over climate change, will mean Australia ends up paying a much higher price than it would have.
Some can keep on attempting to change the facts, but all this does is make everything dearer in the long run.
Are the Opposition going to come out with the truth, or are they going to proceed as the States are doing now.
I wonder if this supreme court judge is trying to screw over Obama…and the people’s healthcare?:
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia was nominated by President Ronald Reagan as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Scalia took oath of office September 26, 1986, and in 2000 was the centerpiece of the U.S. Presidential Selection.
In January 2004, Scalia spent time duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney at a private camp (guests of Wallace Carline, owner of Diamond Services in Amelia, St. Mary Parish) in southern Louisiana (reportedly travelling on Air Force 2 just three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president’s appeal in lawsuits over his handling of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force.
While Scalia and Cheney are avid hunters and longtime friends, several experts in legal ethics questioned the timing of their trip and said it raised doubts about Scalia’s ability to judge the case impartially.
But Scalia rejected that concern, saying, “I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned.”
In April 2004, “Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ordered U.S. Marshals to seize the tapes of reporters who recorded his speeches before two religious schools in Mississippi. Ironic in that the man who fancies himself the sole authority on the Constitution would believe that reporters should not be able to talk about what he says.”
If it wasn’t for Julia I wouldn’t be here discussing CC.
Antonin Scalia on Crime
Government is not responsible for abuses in private prisons. (Jul 2009)
Scientific testing requires live testimony in criminal cases. (Jun 2011)
International Court not grounds for stay of execution. (Jul 2011)
Fleeing the police is reasonable grounds for a search. (Jan 2000)
Shorten time between sentencing and executions. (Apr 2000)
OK to lengthen prison sentences retroactively. (Mar 2000)
Life-sentence alternative doesn’t affect death sentence. (Jun 2000)
CU
she would be lonely noone else is bothered to talk
For those who lurk and don’t comment, the science is not settled, nevertheless the Denialati are convinced global cooling has begun.
Post Modernism brings mass delusion through sophisticated propaganda….wake up.
The bear enters the cubby house….
El gordo, this is one bear you won’t want to mess with. Like me, he is intolerant of fools. I suggest you don’t act like one.
Nas, be gentle on her. Sometimes she speaks without thinking.
Tom and I are having an amiable discussion about CC, we enjoy the banter.
amiable??
I think, when it comes to AGW, that I have called you a TROLL and voiced my opinion of your grubby tactics enough times to indicate to even the most thick-headed, ignorant troglodyte that there is nothing ‘amiable’ about it.
When it comes to AGW and your continual LIES, I simply repudiate them (when I am about), and then call you out for what you are; a pathetic, lowlife fool who would rather play word games than consider the implications for our future.
El gordo,
The tactics you used at the now defunct other blog won’t work here. Cute terms that you’ve garnished from elsewhere such as ‘the cubby house’, leave ’em.
No probs Migs…
el gordo probably has post-traumatic stress disorder after so many debate car crashes…nothing worst than espousing ideas that keep hitting scientific and logical walls.
N’
“asians on 457 visas. The boss built a shanty town for them on site. There all people so we talk here n there, it turns out they are Nth Koreans! ”
Mark welcome to the new world. Nasking is giving some examples of where we may be heading, if we are not careful, with his words on Antonin Scalia in the USA.
Mark I was under the belief they tightened up on the 457. They are turning up everywhere. One will now find them do the shut downs in the power houses. The workers who for decades that endured the uncertainty of work, have now been pushed aside.
What I do not understand why we have so many Koreans. I thought that theor standard of living was no longer low, and their workforce must more than lowly, low paid workers.
We still have the Opposition calling for more workplace flexibility. It is time they are asked what they mean.
“he tactics you used at the now defunct other blog”
What blog do you mean?
I see you said North Koreans, I wonder how that could be.
I did not know that the country was open enough to provide guest workers.
I am interested in finding out, how they would get to this country.
Are they refugees.
Mark, been there and certainly done that. I used to pick strawberries for the Chapman bros. out at Wandin, Victoria.
I think that I know the SE Qld people who you are talking about as they sell at the Byron Bay and Gold Coast markets and so I got to know quite a few of these people.
Are you sure that they’re North Koreans? I thought that the Singh bros did most of the work, they’re 3rd generation Australians.
A must read for everyone:
MARCH 27, 2012
The Smear is On
The Second Killing of Trayvon Martin
by JOHN ESKOW
The cowardly police in Sanford, Florida, who sanctioned the murder of an unarmed black teenager by a racist vigilante named George Zimmerman, have now assassinated Trayvon Martin a second time, by leaking scurrilous and irrelevant “news” about him.
This age-old dirty-trick of cops—compounded by a blitzkrieg of propaganda from Zimmerman’s lawyer, The Orlando Sentinel, and one apparently unhinged black “friend”–has been, so far, fairly successful in muddying the narrative on the public airwaves. So let’s take a moment to sift through the cops’ slurs and innuendoes and see where, if anyplace, they take us.
About the salient facts there is no dispute. Zimmerman, a cop wanna-be who was also probably a small-time informant, a pathetic, chubby, Chaz-Bono-lookalike who’d twice been arrested for hitting a woman; Zimmerman, son of a judge, safe from reprisals; George Zimmerman, who calls black kids “coons” and “assholes,” who was strictly warned not to pursue Trayvon Martin, refused this direct order over the phone and instead grabbed his 9-millimeter gun and waddled off to blow a hole in the chest of a kid who had committed no wrong.
From the start, I was edgy about certain elements of the outrage. Too much emphasis on the presumed childishness and vulnerability of Trayvon Martin, about the Skittles and ski-vacations and his undeniable cuteness. My own son is only six months younger than Trayvon, and he is of mixed racial background, with a tawny complexion; he always wears a hoodie with the hood up, along with other clothes some would perceive as “ghetto”; he is 6’1” and very well-muscled; and he loves Skittles. He is also, by objective account, adorable and kind-hearted. But if some oafish vigilante were to challenge his right to walk down the street, he might well become angry, and he might defend himself with a punch.
Thus today’s biggest, police-leaked “reveleation”: that, gee, perhaps Trayvon Martin was not Mahatma Ghandi with a sweet-tooth. According to the cops—parroting Zimmerman’s own account, since of course they did absolutely no forensic work of their own (CSI Sanford would be the worst and shortest program on TV)—Martin punched Zimmerman in the face, breaking his nose…thus, of course, provoking his own murder.
Let’s take this face-punching story at face value, though few of the details ring true (Zimmerman refused medical attention at the scene, which will confuse anyone who’s ever suffered a broken nose). Though it is not noble or Christian of me to admit it, I hope Trayvon got a few good shots in. The big irony here is the much-cited “Stand Your Ground Law,” quoted as a defense for Zimmerman’s actions; but if the phrase and the concept have any meaning at all, they would, rather, go to justify Trayvon Martin’s punches!
So let’s assume a scenario where George Zimmerman, with the “fucking coon” still fresh out of his mouth, stomps off to play tough-guy with the “asshole” in the hoodie, and winds up getting punked in a fight he picked but can’t finish. Any man who lived through public high school knows George Zimmerman, and may well have had occasion to kick his ass. But, until fairly recently, the George Zimmermans of the world did not carry nine-millimeter guns.
And so hateful, dopey, clumsy George Zimmerman pulled his trump card, his one and only answer to a world that scares and overwhelms him, and shot a hole in Trayvon Martin’s chest.
The other piece of the cop/Zimmerman leak-strategy today was to drop the supposedly Perry Mason revelation that…this supposedly “good” kid, Trayvon Martin…had been suspended from high school…for possessing an empty bag that had once held marijuana!
Yeah…so, America, how do you like your Trayvon Martin now? He may have smoked weed!
The assumption being, in Sanford, Florida, that possession of an empty bag that once held marijuana is reasonable grounds for murder.
Let us not impose a false and un-necessary innocence on Trayvon Martin in order to pump up our outrage. Let’s allow Trayvon Martin to be a real young man—my son, your son–with anger as well as innocence, perhaps even with marijuana as well as Skittles.
George Zimmerman did not murder some idealized vision of Innocent Black Childhood, or any other idealized vision. No, worse—much worse. He murdered a real 17-year-old. And now, with the help of the local newspaper and a shyster lawyer, the cops are killing that 17-year-old a second time.
John Eskow is a writer and musician. He wrote or co-wrote the movies Air America, The Mask of Zorro, and Pink Cadillac, as well as the novel Smokestack Lightning. He can be reached at: johneskow@yahoo.com
I can think of a few Aborigines and other youngsters who’ve also been hunted down, provoked, killed…or wounded…and the excuse was partially to do with “defending ourselves”.
Are your children safe?
In an ever-expanding police and security system…
colour of skin, and what you wear…can make a big difference.
——–
Thinking of the UK these days…
of course…police and media and politicians don’t provoke young people…they don’t help create riots…so they can benefit from LIVE SHOTS, controversy, fear- mongering.
Their corporations don’t push violent and demeaning and misogynistic films, games, music, posters that teach youngsters to hate and distrust governments and authorities…
Certainly no media barons and political figures and corporate CEOs and top police figures would play games like that…
Surely.
Manipulating the public…it just doesn’t happen these days…does it?
N’
“‘Legend has it that Murdoch was incandescent with rage when he saw the first bare breasts to grace his title. But the subsequent rise in paper sales – 1.5 million to 2.1 million in a year – rather soothed him.’ – BBC
Hmmm…
N’
I began using the word cubby house before Ratty picked up on it and I am ‘considering the implications for our future’….which is not much different to yours.
Senator Conroy has been named Intelligent Community Visionary of the year for 2012.
Can’t wait to see that splashed all over the front pages 🙂
Quality journalism courtesy of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun…
for the times when you allow yerself to be distracted and dumbed down…
because you have your dick where your brains should be:
because you have your dick where your brains should be
Should be:
because you have your dicks where your brains should be
Or
because you have your dick where your brain should be
N’
Hi Min, yes I am sure thereNth Koreans. Talking with one of the girls I remarked how well she spoke english and I said ” I’d know chinese by the end of the season” and she said “well actually Korean”. I said “South Korea , I have a car from there!”. She said “well actually Nth Korea, we have a visa.” . I didn’t know what to say to that! She went on to say “I work here in Australia for three months, then I have to go home, then work in another country.” Eventually I said “it must be a nice country ” and she replied “No, very dangerous!”
Hello boys, look at your woman and now look at me. Sadly she isn’t me.
Because your willy is really really small and you prefer to have a woman whose IQ hovers around room temperature.
😯
Mark, either which way the people have to be paid at the going rate due to the reforms to 457 Visas. This used to be rorted, a method to undercut Australian workers, but the Rudd government changed that. But, on the other hand, tell me a time when fruit pickers and other seasonal workers haven’t been rorted either via rates or accommodation.
The strawberry season is twice per year in SE Qld, so you are no doubt doing something else during the other months.
Whoops, the first part of my post should have been in quotation marks.. 😳
Nas’ and:
because you have your dick where your brains should be
Should be:
because you have your dicks where your brains should be
Or
because you have your dick where your brain should be
N’
Have you made up your mind yet… 😀
And the second part?
Min wrote: Have you made up your mind yet?
Long ago Min,
I keep my dick in the proper place…and use my brain when reading.
That’s why when in the UK I didn’t buy The Sun…tho it did make a useful chip wrapper. 😉
N’
Roswell, well that’s the advert as per Nas’s link. If you keep reading Page 3, here are my coconuts..so it says.
There are just some times when you either have to laugh or cry, to think that this is how women are portrayed. I’ve had my fair share of denigration due to the fact that I happen to be a female, that I’ve been fair game..that people could say what they like knowing that I can’t retaliate. Can’t stand the heat girlie, then get out of the kitchen.
Their ringer yells in Korean all day at the poor buggers and takes 10% of their earnings… Our boss charges $110 p/w for a bed and shared everything else! No shops for 4km, (Beerwah). Only one season of strawberries in this district- winter. Yes we are looking as of now, not much going on around here.
Mark, this is the Gowinta property..then perhaps you should report them.
Min,
Journalists are worried they won’t have a nice paying job if Rubert pulls out…boohoo…
Can’t these people get over their DEPENDENCY?
Put their money together…get a loan…find some rich allies who promise not to interfere…and create a top online news site or twelve?
These journos fart on about “wealth creators”…not relying on “entitlements”…”pulling yerselves up by the bootstraps”…creating a “competitive market” …
Yet they act like a bunch of mollycoddled old Stalinists.
el gordo, it we are wrong, there will not be much harm done, and the planet will be cleaner.
If you are wrong, there will be no future for those who come after us.
Did not Mr. Murdoch say, give the planet the benefit of the doubt.
That is what most of us are doing.
Saving a little money is too dear a price to pay for the protection of the planet for future generations.
If you are wrong
There is little doubt of that
Let go back and try and add up on one hand how often hesheits been right?
They are fine sentiments CU, but from the Denialati’s point of view the planet has already passed the tipping point.
Temperatures have stabilised as CO2 continues to rise, there are only two possible futures and global warming is nowhere to be seen. Natural variabilty rules for at least the next couple of decades, but no fear we have technical experts trying to work out what’s wrong.
Julia will bring in her tax against pollution and Yabbott will dismantle it, because CO2 is not a pollutant.
I see Newman’s going to kill the green schemes.
I used to pick strawberries when living in Wishart…way back in 82…
Was hardwork but fun…and tasty. 🙂
Stuff all pay…stuffs yer back too…but not as bad as cutting asparagus in Dubbo.
Plenty of poor migrants looking for enuff money to live…and send home. Usually bloody good workers.
Some keep to themselves. Strangers trying to adapt. Language can be a barrier. Migrant education centres are handy.
I guess some are illegals…farmers need the workers. All the world over. Stuff all locals want the jobs anyway. Bugger all pay. Good food sometimes tho.
I doubt there would be North Koreans unless they ‘d escaped…more likely they’d stay in Sth Korea…life or death stuff.
I knew a Nth Korean boy who’d got out…taught him at a secondary school…he was almost hostile and real guarded at first…but over time I earnt his trust…got him speaking up in class…learning jokes…playing baseball (i was coach)…
Ya gotta treat people with respect…try to get small conversations going…find out their interests…use sign language jokes etc…discover common themes.
Break down those barriers.
N’
Nas, I’m always using sign language.
“Julia will bring in her tax against pollution and Yabbott will dismantle it, because CO2 is not a pollution.”
el gordo you even have that wrong. Tony will replaced it with a more expensive and less efficient solution, called direct action. Tony will pick winners and losers. Tony will let the polluters off scot free.
It will be the ordinary person that pays under his scheme. Up to $1200 per year. I believe.
Of course Tony could be lying, as he is prone to.
.
I forgot, Tony is also lying when he says he will be dismantling it.
This cannot occur for two or three elections down the track.
By the time, if ever, Tony can do as he threatens to, he will be dealing with a scheme that is well and truly established.
For that matter I doubt whether he will still be around, at least in parliament.
I doubt he will last much past the budget session.
el gordo, you are thrashing a dead horse.
This is a worry, but I am afraid PM Gillard’s so called tax is not the biggest contributor. Mucking around, not bringing it in earlier has contribute to the problem.
There are other ways of keeping warm, than turning a electric heater on. Much healthier as well.
In a report prepared for Council of Australian Governments energy ministers last year, AEMC had a stab at predicting residential electricity prices for 2012-13 and 2013-14.
Australia-wide, it said, householders could expect to pay 30.75 cents per kilowatt hour in 2013-14, up more than 37 per cent from 2010-11.
Where the rubber hits the voting road for Labor in these projections is in three states – Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria – containing 87 per cent of households and voters.
On the AEMC numbers, Queensland residential prices will be 29.28c per kWh in 2013-14, up from 20.69c in 2010-11, while Victorians will be paying 30.32c (up 32.6 per cent) and, worst of all perhaps because it can be argued that Gillard is prime minister thanks to NSW voters not hammering her as hard in 2010 as they did Kristina Keneally in 2011, NSW power users will be paying 32.24c, up 41.7 per cent from 2010-11.
Tony Abbott may be relied upon to make much of the impact of the carbon price on these costs, and it is a contributor – but not a large one.
The AEMC’s projections indicate that, across Australia, household prices in 2013-14 will be 1.74c per kWh higher than they would be without the carbon charge.
Nationwide, that is 1.74c out of a total rise of 6.6c.
When one looks at the power price stack as envisaged by the AEMC, other environmental schemes, including the renewable electricity target and solar feed-in tariffs and so forth, will be contributing 1.91c to the 30.75c total national charge in 2013-14.
In NSW, where the price rises will be highest, the impact of green schemes (other than the carbon tax) will be only 1.57c per kWh.
The four largest impacts on NSW prices, travelling along the supply chain, will be 11.16c per kWh for wholesale energy (what the power stations get in the competitive market plus the carbon price), 2.35c for high voltage transmission, 14.19c for delivery along the distribution networks and 3.12c for retail charges.
Your average householder, of course, does not sit at the kitchen table staring at the new power bill and focussing on price stacks.
He or she sees only the bottom line in black type.
On these numbers, for a NSW home using 8,000 kilowatt hours a year, and many do, especially in the outlying areas of Sydney where the weather is hot and humid for four months of the year and pretty cold for at least another three months, the annual cost of electricity will be around $2,580 – plus the GST. It was around $1,820 in 2010-11.
Many of these suburbs are the areas where voters stuck to Labor federally in 2010 and where they turned viciously against it in the 2011 state election.
Barry O’Farrell did not also make himself minister for Western Sydney when he took on the premiership without good reason.
Campbell Newman claims that freezing the standard tariff in Queensland will save his constituency about $120 a year. On the AEMC arithmetic, Gillard’s carbon price will add $154.
The federal government will be quick to point out that it is offering various forms of compensation for the carbon price, but it remains to be seen how far householders factor this in when looking at a power bill that is much higher than it used to be, with Abbott yipping in their ears that it is all Gillard’s fault – and she lied to them about doing it before the last federal election.
Something else the prime minister may care to bear in mind is that, if she sticks to her assertion that federal parliament will run full term, she will be going to the polls around the time the latest power bill for winter is arriving. This is the one that always hurts the most because of high electricity and gas use if the weather has been cold, exacerbated by it being the first one to carry the new, increased tariffs – they take effect on 1 July each year.
el gordo, if you were not so obsessed with the fake science, you would have noticed we have been talking about this as well as what is occurring in Victoria.
Does not make it right.
In Victoria, it is a broken promise, but as it is a man and Liberal, I believe that will be forgiven.
Whether or not there is any objective basis on which to analyse the veracity of the latter claim is unclear, but there is plenty of law and fact on which one can analyse the constitutionality of the carbon pricing scheme, whether or not Palmer goes through with his challenge.
Let’s start with some basics:
In contrast to the sometimes hysterical media coverage yesterday of a minor Fitch report claiming that Australian home loan delinquencies had risen over the second half of 2011, the Reserve Bank’s Financial Stability Review, released today, corrects this error and finds quite the opposite.
The difference between the two reports is explained by what they cover. The Reserve Bank’s analysis includes all home loans on bank balance sheets plus ‘securitised’ loans: over $1.2 trillion worth in total. In contrast, Fitch’s research only covers securitised loans, which amount to less than $100 billion. To be clear, these loans are included in the RBA’s sample, but represent less than 10 per cent of the total.
The Reserve Bank concludes that total home loan arrears in Australia declined – not increased (as Fitch argued) – in the second-half of 2011. Specifically, the bank comments:
Am I a bit too early, or a bit too late..knowing me, a bit of both..
It beggars belief, that grodo/karen/sunspot can so often be so wrong, and yet still pretend to be concerned about having any sort of ‘amiable’ ‘debate’. It is trolling, pure and simple. I also think that it is important that this is put out as often as possible.
Zunli Lu:
“It is unfortunate that my research, “An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula,” recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets.
Several of these media articles assert that our study claims the entire Earth heated up during medieval times without human CO2 emissions. We clearly state in our paper that we studied one site at the Antarctic Peninsula. The results should not be extrapolated to make assumptions about climate conditions across the entire globe. Other statements, such as the study “throws doubt on orthodoxies around global warming,” completely misrepresent our conclusions. Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend.”
How often do these Scientists have to step out into the limelight to correct fairly straight forward statements from a press intent on pushing a view, rather than a fact
‘Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heatwaves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists says in a new report.’
‘HOME owners in the NSW town of Lake Cathie appear likely to escape an eviction order recommended by a consultant’s report that calls for a “planned retreat” from a predicted rise in sea levels, as the O’Farrell government is expected to discard the alarmist climate change predictions of its Labor predecessor.’
Those Miners they know how to treat risk, sovereign or otherwise, go straight to the top,and bugger the people
“CLAIMS that mining companies held a meeting this week with coup leaders in the West African nation of Mali have been met with silence by Australian miners with projects in the country.
The nation is one of several in West Africa that have recently attracted large numbers of Australian miners in search of large deposits, particularly gold.
But one of those companies, Oklo Resources, claimed yesterday that seven foreign mining companies had talks with coup members on Monday at which the importance of the mining industry to Mali’s economy was acknowledged
the coup leaders asked the companies to continue with their operations, and agreed to allow fuel and other mine supplies into the country despite the nation’s borders being otherwise closed at present.”
‘What Gillard should have done after the Queensland debacle was to convene the cabinet and announce that the carbon tax, fixed at $23 a tonne, would be immediately cut and set at a level that applies in comparable countries – say $10, as in Europe. She should have cancelled the monstrous spending on “clean energy” schemes throwing taxpayers’ money after uneconomic proposals that will only ever increase costs for business and consumers. She should have announced reforms to help industry create jobs.’
….about cutting the tax, Gillard should scrap it to save the party from oblivion.
Thanks Sue, that puts a whole new twist on “risk”. It seems the citizens of a country are at far more risk from miners than the other way around.
‘Wonder who’ll be to blame when/if that happens?’
Blame me and I strongly advice my comrades here to buy property on the seafront….it has been undervalued for some time.
el gordo, I suggest you buy at Norah Head. The cliff face falling away, opening up the view to the decreasing backyards is a sight to see.
Yes, there is little danger of flooding. It is many metres above the beach.
This must be the most tastless comment at the time a family has a child missing. How dare this arsehole promote the election of Tony Abbott.
“Chris Branson QC represented Saxon Bird’s family at last year’s coronial inquest
But Mr Branson says there should be an inquiry.
“It is a scandal of monumental proportions, and I can tell you that Tony Abbott if he’s elected will give serious consideration to having a Royal Commission, and Saxon Bird is a member of the same surf club as Tony, namely Queenscliff in Sydney. It’s totally out of hand.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-29/search-resumes-for-missing-surf-lifesaver/3919130
Is it time, that we take a step back and re-examine out values.
In country after country, the prevailing public opinion is that something needs to be done. People everywhere are asking how we can stop climate change and turn back the clock on environmental destruction. But to answer the question of how we can stop global warming, we first need to ask why the crisis exists in the first place.
Capitalism and the environment
There are two key characteristics of capitalism. The first is that a tiny minority of people control the economy. The second is the fact that these people are locked in fierce competition with one another. This creates a society where everything is produced not in order to satisfy some human need, but rather to be sold to make a profit. This profit motive is the basis of all production. The rest of us have no say in how the economy is run. All human interests, the environment included, is subordinated to this insatiable drive to profit. It makes capitalism a system that is, in the last instance, blind to everything except the bottom line.
and
This same story has played out time and time again. Almost all of the environmental disasters of the last 100 years or so have their roots in the blind profit motive of capitalism. But this short-sighted pursuit of profit by the ruling class doesn’t just underlie these would be “accidental” tragedies. It’s also the reason why capitalism is incapable providing solutions for any longer term environmental issues, like climate change.
and
Capitalism, then, is both the cause of the crisis and the barrier to all solutions that don’t seek to abolish it. If we want to stop environmental destruction and live in a truly sustainable society, we have to abolish capitalism. The choice, to put it bluntly, is between capitalism and a habitable planet.
I do not believe the last statesman,. In a democracy, we should be able to harness the power of capitalism to serve man, not the other way about.
I heard that on the radio this morning Sue, and had a little double-take to see if I had actually heard it correctly.
No bar is too low it seems. Thanks tabot for removing all obstacles in its descent
It is hard to believe with so many lifesavers present one could lose their life.
As for Mr. Abbott he has one obsession that guides him completely.
He appears not to be able to comprehend anything outside his quest to take his rightful place as PM. Nothing is sacrosanct to this man.
Tom R
I heard it first on the radio, ABC, disgusting. Pretty quick with that. It sickens me that they would allow the statement going to air but then the ABC compounds it by print.
An apology should be forwarded to the family immediately, the story taken down and someone should be resigning.
Tom R
I have sent a complaint to media watch
‘…a truly sustainable society…’ is a Cultural Marxist ideal in Postmodern Society.
All scientists are supposed to be sceptical. But when there’s compelling evidence like this, a theory is a fact. Like gravity.
Reason number 1 people stopped taking climate change seriously is because alarmist “predictions” like those depicted in The Day After Tomorrow didn’t eventuate. But reason number 2 is because not enough of us understand how science works.
If there really was a credible, scientific, sceptic case, then the scientific community would take the sceptics seriously. Their findings would be accepted after peer review.
Even if some scientists were perpetuating an “evil conspiracy” as those on the fringes suggest – credible climatologists would take such a case seriously.
The problem is that Australians are disengaged with science as whole. And the rot in our scientific understanding starts, and is getting worse, in high school. Only a little over 50 per cent of year 12 students took at least one science subject in 2010. The number of Year 12 students taking physics, chemistry and biology fell dramatically (31 per cent, 23 per cent and 32 per cent respectively) between 1992 and 2009.
You at least need a chance to get your Bunsen Burner licence to get what climate change is all about.
I mean, ask the operators of the Hindenburg if they’d wish they’d learnt in school that hydrogen blows up when lit on fire.
Costello is on ABC24 with the new treasurer I believe.
They are really managing the media.
Tony Abbott’s supporters are low. Any opportunity to try and score a point for their Messiah.
—-
If Abbott wins and cuts the mining tax…and revenue continues to decrease…and rebates are handed back to the upper middle class…and the GST goes up…and bracket creep is permitted to happen…and the NBN is screwed with…and some well-off people take time off via the Rolls Royce Paid Parental Leave Scheme…and others have nannies pushing babies prams along city sidewalks and thru parks…
well, everytime people have problems with their internet…everytime they feel service delivery has slowed, say in public hospitals…everytime they see their prescription drug costs go up…and get stuck in traffic because someone failed to build the appropriate congestion alleviating infrastructure…and hear that their child’s school cannot afford new computers…nor essential maintenance…
they are going to blame Tony Abbott. Alongside the premiers.
The man who defended the mega-rich miners.
Everytime they suffer…have to make sacrifices…cutback…fork out more on medicine…get to work late due to traffic…wait forever for cancer-related services…feel their internet could be better…
They will think of Tony Abbott.
Santa Claus for the upper middle class…and rich.
N’
Media conference, PM on NBN.
CU the Denialati believe the social sciences peer review system is biased towards warming.
The Day After Tomorrow is science fiction, in fact it would take 100,000 years to reach glacial max from here.
Thnx for the heads up CU.
Strange noise during PMs speech…more media sabotage? Or just media incompetence?
Exciting stuff.
N’
They will tell you it’s the old weather patterns returning…part of a cycle…some say it’s due to the sun…or less volcanic eruptions…they’ll tell you it’s just from population growth…more people drinking, more businesses using more water…flooding just due to bad development planning…
Sure, all of the above could be contributing…
But the excuses go on & on…to do stuff all…
the justifications for continued excessive oil and coal exploration and digging goes on…
just like the tobacco wars…the vested interests keep the BS flowing…attempting to instill doubts in the public…
But the climate gets odder and odder…the damage costing billions and billions…
but we’re told to hold off on significant changes…
take THE RISK…
by people who support parties that use the markets to diminish THE RISK for them.
I’m not listening:
Hmmm…
Crazy:
Nothing’s changed…we can explain this…we always have an excuse…
What me worry?…
I’ve got my head up my arse…I listen to the shock jocks and sceptics…
I’m prepared…I have insurance, copies of The Australian wrapped in gladwrap…a windup radio…
and Plimer, Jones and Monkton blowup dolls that float.
Natural variability is at times overwhelming and because there are so many humans living in odd places…. there will be collatoral (sic) damage.
Logging trees above a village in a wet zone is foolhardy.
I’ve got my head up my arse…I listen to the shock jocks and sceptics…
I’m prepared…I have insurance, copies of The Australian wrapped in gladwrap…a windup radio…
and Plimer, Jones and Monkton blowup dolls that float.
OMG
grodo has possessed Nas 😯
Out damn troll, OUT!
on March 29, 2012 at 1:36 pmel gordo
Logging trees above a village in a wet zone is foolhardy.
Agree.
Logging forest carbon sinks is pretty dopey too.
N’
Is anyone out there able to explain to me the difference between a ‘nanny’ and ‘in-home care’.
Secondly, our government has recently massively increased the number of in-home care places on offer.
Is tabot actually arguing for something that is already supplied?
Specifically this clause from the “Interim Standards for In Home Care
Funding Agreement Requirements” document:
Housework – The carer must only undertake work that is critical for the welfare of the child and is considered to be part of the IHC being provided (such as preparing the child’s lunch, cleaning up afterwards, putting toys away). Other work (such as preparing the dinner for the family, doing the shopping for the family or washing the dishes from the night before) is not considered child care)
Looking at one nanny agency site Tom:
“The nanny can undertake additional duties to be negotiated between the parent ,the Agency and the Nanny….
NANNIES HOUSE KEEPERS
It is expected that all nannies will make sure that the house is tidy and everything is completed for the children. Should you require additional cleaning or housekeeping then we provide a service to help you find a cleaner or a house manager. Nannies/ Housekeepers are paid on an hourly rate between $20-$25 per hour. The minimum call out for this domestic help is 4 hours.
It seems things are gradually changing for the better in parts of China for workers…at least technology related ones:
MARCH 28, 2012
China Beyond the Stereotypes
Transition From the Sweatshop of the World
by BEHZAD YAGHMAIAN
Counterpunch
The demand for timely and fast delivery is more acute for those supplying major brands like Apple. The maddening race to meet delivery deadlines for iPhones, iPads, and similar products puts Foxconn workers under insufferable stress. The spate of workers’ suicides in the past couple of years is revealing. Foxconn responded by installing safety nets in some of its establishments in Shenzhen.
It recently increased the wage of some of
its workers to $400 a month, more than $100 above the government-set minimum in Shenzhen.
The nets prevent death, but do not remove the underlying causes of the suicide attempts. Higher wages matter a lot, but they don’t change the militaristic management style that has been pushing workers to the edge.
“A factory needs discipline. It would seize to exist otherwise,” the owner of the chemical company told me. For this, he relied on factory guards. They maintained order, and gave a “good beating” to those workers who stole from others and caused problems. I told him that the thieves are handed over to the police in the United States.” In China, we beat them up first, and then give them to the police,” he said laughing.
These practices are also changing, most visibly in large export-processing enterprises.
The rising confidence of the Chinese workers and sporadic job actions has put Beijing on alert. Eager to avoid social instability, and hoping to transform the international image of China as the sweatshop of the world, the government has been supporting legislation to improve labor conditions.
Low-wage export-processing industrialization is slowly giving way to higher value added exports, and the development of an expanding domestic market and a middle class society. Improving workplace practices and labor standards is integral to this process.
Seems Bob Carr is right…better to be in there than not.
We can help each other grow.
Sane. Fair. For the future.
Provided we always stay alert and prepared…and cautious. Better safe than sorry.
No relationship should be so over-the-top, carefree and negligent it ends up in the junk pile.
Countries ARE people…too.
People can be unpredictable and have hidden motives.
N ‘
Got it Bacchus
So, the libs new policy in a nutshell
“CU the Denialati believe the social sciences peer review system is biased towards warming.”
Was not aware that social science was peer reviewed. Well not the same way as other sciences are.
I wonder how one does this. It is not exactly an exact science.
Yes, it is open to review and critique
I am a little complexed as to what social science has to do with warming.
The only thing I can think of is what is the best method of changing behaviour.
No I do not agree with communism. I do not believe that communism has much to do with Karl Marx.
Karl Marx,, along with Adam Smith have a good understanding how the economy interacts with society.
I do not believe that capitalism has all the answers. There is much amiss with both systems.
I also know, those sceptical of climate change, are not talking about the economy. They are challenging the science, or maybe I should say, cherry picking the science,
Why do you always end up by slinging labels at people. Labels that mean little and have nothing to do with what you are asserting.
Tom R,
ROFL.
Good song but.
N’
LOL Tom..
Yay! Good news – NBN to start here within 3 years, probably in the range Feb 2013 => Sep 2014, with completion 12 months later…
I would not want one of them either. What was the government doing. Maybe they have to take, whoever Mr. Abbott nominates.
Gee the interactive NBN map is fun
The crap journos wanted to know which suburbs will be connected in the next year ( well probably next 18 months) because they wanted to know if they personally would get the benefits of high speed broadband before their hero Abbott was elected.
They were told look for now look at the 3 year map. they were also told that the nbn would only happen if ALP were kept in government.
Stuff off journos serve you right for writing so many negative articles and supporting the liars party.
How ridiculous is this Opposition. I wonder what the children thought.
It is actually an insult to them, not if that would enter Abbott and Co. heads.
Convention was held in Old Parliament House last week. This event for 125 year 12 students from across the country is sponsored by the Department of Education , Employment and Workplace Relations. This year’s discussion was on federalism. Politicians from all sides of Parliament have addressed the students at past conventions.
But this year all efforts to involve parliamentarians proved fruitless despite the fact that one from each side of the House of Representatives was being invited. The usual reply was, ”I’ll never get a pair”. Ultimately, the member for Fraser, Andrew Leigh, was formally refused a pair on the day before the convention began.
The matter of pairs raises the wider question of the whole approach to voting in the chamber. Parliamentary life is governed by the warning bells that call MPs to a vote. To miss a division is a cardinal sin whatever the reason, especially so at the moment.
Last week on QandA fashion plate Ms Greer screeched
“What I want her to do is get rid of those bloody jackets!” Ms Greer said on Monday night’s program.
“They don’t fit. Every time she turns around, you’ve got that strange horizontal crease which means they’re cut too narrow in the hips. You’ve got a big arse, Julia, just get on with it.”
and this from the Ironman,
In footage from a community forum in Victoria this week, Mr Abbott agreed with Ms Greer’s remarks.
“I know, I know, I know. Germaine Greer was right on that subject,” the Opposition Leader said.
He was responding to a woman who urged him to, “Get some of those jackets off her”.
Classy!
el grodo, still name-calling I see.
I don’t suppose you could tell readers who funds Ms Marohasy?
Abbott’s Nanny policy is just a bit of kite flying for the media. The Libs have no intention of doing anything hence the weasel words about sending to the productivity commission:
He is too clever for the MSM though as they slavishly report every word as gospel.
Nasking @ 12.11
Just do not describe HOW you inflate those blow up dolls.
My mother and ex-wife will be happy as their NBN rollout starts soon…or has begun…
Bacchus lucky you.
Here in Waterford West we have no commencement date.
Oh well…guess I can wait:
LOL Sue and lunalava. So apt.
N’
Pip,
I think as the years go by and the gob gets opened…there are more and more women who would prefer Abbott takes nothing off.
Like you said, “classy”…
cocky unpredictable impulsive grandiose weathervane Tony
———–
Good to see you Pip.
Where is the hardworking Min today?
N’
Nasking while you wait play this game.
Look up an electoral map for one of your favorite Liars party member, then go to the NBN map and compare.
Check out members residing in sydney , you will see that for example, in 2, I checked out only part of the electorate gets the nbn in the next 3 years. Oh fun, the constituents can take all their complaints to their elected member and he can explain why they will never be connected.
Abbott, Hockey
🙂 Sue
Anyway, if Abbott gets in he’ll provide them with quality…like Howard looked after us:
Pip, I’m a Cultural Marxist just like Julia, we fall out over CC.
And you can see where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.
The broad electorate is unconcerned about gay marriage, pokie reform, etc.and they would have been worthwhile achievements.
But trying to stop climate from changing was a no brainer from the start.
El gordo, and “where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.”
Now, for one brief moment slide the carbon tax to the other side of the table, tell me precisely how Julia made herself unpopular.
Her red hair, her empty fruit bowl, her boobs, her nose, her Aussie/Welsh accent..
Abbott’s Nanny policy is just a bit of kite flying for the media.
Yes, and don’t they love flyng that kite. Repeating the old class warfare line. Why do not any of them highlight the fact that, for all intents and purposes, this is available now. All tabots idea does is add maid into the equation (cos, we all need a maid)
Sure, it’d be nice, but taxes are not their to be used for luxuries. As Tanya P said, what are you going to cut out, and who is going to miss out, so that someone else gets their dishes cleaned for them?
where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.
By allowing a feral media, who were in the midst of their great unhinging, to hang a lie about her kneck with a massive lie of their own.
That’s a predictable answer young Tom.
That’s a predictable answer young Tom
No more predictable than 99% of your comments on Global Warming or Carbon Tax.
No, what’s predictable el gordo is you ignoring the NBN, the essential funding of hospitals and schools, the mining tax etc. etc.
Convenient.
Yer on a train heading for only one station…in a straightline…you refuse to look outside and see what else is going on…it’s a train to Nowhere station…the driver is Abbott…the train makes an odd and irritating noise…NO NO NO NO…some of the passengers look worried…the station is getting closer by the day…
NONONONONONONONONONONONO……
Yer heart begins to beat too rapidly…yer sweating profusely…the panic creeps thru you…
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONO…..
Yer in another episode of the Twilight Zone…
N’
That’s a predictable answer young Tom.
Predictable it may be. Facts often are. Do you disagree? If so, why?
Btw,
Any government who broadens the GST to fresh food will pay a huge political price.
It would undermine any effort to help people with chronic illnesses…and to assist the obese…including children…
and would look partially like a concession to the worst of fast food, takeaway joints.
To do this instead of broadening or increasing the tax on big miners would come across as grotesque…
and piss weak.
N’
GST is a Liberal tax and the revenue is returned to the states.
Therefore this Labor govt will not raise it or broaden the base in the budget.
If the states want to raise and broaden the GST all the states all have to vote in favour of it and then get the Federal govt to agree.
“On the social sciences question, go to Jennifer Marohasy and there is a guest post by Starck…biologist.”
That is one site I would not waste my time on. The lady is a FAKE.
As for watermelons, I quite like them.
Pip has anyone noticed how Hillary Quinton dresses. Our PM beside her is a fashion plate.,
MR. Abbott should realise there are many women, including myself has a big bum. We all know now what he thinks of us.
I find very unsettling his his gait, that reminds me of a ape or gorilla.
“Abbott’s Nanny policy is just a bit of kite flying for the media. The Libs have no intention of doing anything hence the weasel words about sending to the productivity commission:”
You know what is worse. It goes back decades when Bronwyn was a minister. It was quickly dumped then. This man is incapable of coming up with anything new.
“Pip, I’m a Cultural Marxist”
What in the hell is that?
Hiya Nasking, re your comment @ 4.41pm, I can easily do without any more views of the ironman and his tiny budgy!
😳 I meant to say budgie smugglers 😆
I have to say I was impressed by the maturity and thoughtfulness of the discussion and participants on The Nation tonite.
Nice to sit back and watch, later reflect on, a discussion of important topics where the participants aren’t going for each others’ throats…recognise the importance of ASIO briefings…
and the inappropriateness of the criticisms directed towards the PM related to her clothing.
All participants I reckon will have a huge impact on this country’s future.
I believe that things in this country have changed for the better when it comes to progress for women…
Incremental shifts over time that add up to big things…far more influence..
Still a long way to go yet tho…
And they sure don’t need nudge nudge wink wink unpredictable weathervane Abbott to make it more complex for them…
I reckon I saw the man tonite who will replace Hockey…potentially be a PM down the road.
Well after a Gillard win tho. 🙂
N’
Pip,
the biggest problem for me is Abbott’s unpredictable, capricious, impulsive behaviour…
the occasional aggressivity…and ranting in parliament…wasting precious time in our democracy…
his negative approach to policies offered up by the democratically elected government of the day…attempting to hinder progress…never compromising…not disimilar to the Tea Party…
his lack of negotiating skills (not a positive sign for future dealings with overseas leaders)…
the way empathy seems to drop out of his character on many occasions…
his catering to extremist types and the lowest common denominator to get attention and attempt to score political points, wedge the government…
his overly combative style…
his opportunistic use of religious language…
I could go on & on…but my wife beckons.
Cheers
N’
The Moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis giganteus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about 3.6 m (12 ft) in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about 230 kg (510 lb). They were the dominant herbivores in New Zealand’s forest, shrubland and sub-alpine ecosystems for thousands of years, until the arrival of the Māori.
Moa were so stupid they did not have enough sense to get out of the way of a bush fire, they sat there and burned to death, or according to the Maori, became a cooked dinner, (most of the fires being started by the Maori).
El Gordo, I sometimes think of you as a Moa, but surely the Federal Labor party must be another species of Moa.
Federal Labor, like the Moa, sit while a fire approaches, in other words they are toast. Well given the stupidity of most voters, extinction of the whole species can not be that far away.
I will not be posting any more, as I have a large library of very good books and these show that humans have been clever a few times in their short history.
The stagnate state of NSW
PREMIER Barry O’Farrell has categorically ruled out a second airport for Sydney while he is Premier in a rebuff to The Daily Telegraph’s People’s Plan and a call to action from NSW voters.
“Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese’s office confirmed yesterday that without Mr O’Farrell’s co-operation, no second airport could be built.
“Sydney needs a vision that anticipates and shapes the future,” Mr Albanese said. “Without a second airport Sydney’s economy will stagnate, threatening not only its position as Australia’s number one global city but also the nation’s future economic opportunities.
Well at least Barrel will save the federal government budget, as Barrel isn’t interested in infrastruture.
“I meant to say budgie smugglers”
Sure you did Pip – I’ll believe you 😉
many women, including myself has a big bum.
CU, of course you do – you’re female – you’re supposed to be built differently to a young boy! Surprise, surprise – most red-blooded heterosexual men prefer it that way 🙄
get ready for some positive stories on the NBN
A new $4.9 million initiative, called Remote Hearing and Vision Services for Children and sponsored by Federal disability reform minister Jenny Macklin, will over the next three years explore ways the NBN can be used to deliver speech therapy and other services to hundreds of children in remote parts of the country.
Another three-year initiative, earmarked for a $5.1m investment and sponsored by front-bench Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, will support the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) with online English classes delivered over the NBN for new migrants.
Even telemedicine, dismissed by some critics as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, is gaining ground thanks to a government incentive for GPs to explore methods of service delivery. The Townsville Cancer Centre, for example, has found that 78 percent of patients travelling from Mt Isa for specialist consultations would prefer to run their sessions via videoconferencing rather than enduring the 1800km return trip.
“the biggest problem for me is Abbott’s unpredictable, capricious, impulsive behaviour…”
What is of more concern is his constant lying, saying anything to attract attention.
What is unforgivable is his campaign to talk the economy down.
His glee when anything goes wrong. He is happy when say, more boats come of the unemployment goes up.
Sadly his behaviour is not unpredictable, he behaves in a way that we have all come to expect.
He is a man that knows he has to destroy all before him to have any chance to win.
He knows this, because he has not the imagination or skills to win any other way.
If he was in a race, he would use every dirty and illegal trick to win.
Bullying is all he knows.
Sorry, this man is not fit to lead this great country of outs.
If needs a builder, not a demolisher.
What will Mr. Abbott have when the penny drops that there will be no massive rises in the cost of living.
Tony Abbott and his team are treading the very same dangerous populist territory. Sooner or later the electorate are going to realise, just as they did with the GST, that the scare campaign around the carbon price is a con. Yes, retail electricity prices will rise, by about 10 per cent. But considering how badly the electorate have been scared by Abbott and the tabloid media, they may actually find such a price rise surprisingly small relative to what they had come to expect. Also, petrol has been left out of the scheme yet I suspect a large number of householders don’t realise this. Again they may be pleasantly surprised come July.
But where I think Abbott is most likely to get exposed is grocery prices. He has run extremely hard on the carbon price increasing food prices, I suspect too hard. I have been shocked by how anxious some family friends have been about what the carbon price is likely to do to food prices. Yet the carbon price will have a negligible effect on food prices now that agricultural emissions are out for good.
The table below, based on data prepared by Tim Grant, Australia’s leading life-cycle analysis practitioner, illustrate the amount of CO2 embodied within a range of staple food products. This takes into account emissions along the entire supply-chain from farm to supermarket shelf, including energy intensive inputs such as fertiliser and freight. It then multiplies this by a carbon price of $24.16, which will be the peak of the carbon price (in real terms) before it is likely to plummet once permit trading commences. These numbers most likely overstate the amount of CO2 embodied in production of these goods.
Agree completely. Also I believe the media will also have a problem.
I suspect that, post July, the tabloids’ sensationalist claims surrounding the carbon price will begin to wear thin with readers and will quietly disappear from the front pages. At this point Tony Abbott’s job will become a whole lot harder because he will have to work with what is, rather than what is imagined.
Another apology from Mr. Abbott. Maybe he should think before he speaks in the first place.
Personally I believe it shows what he really thinks.
The apology is false, like everything else about the man.
All the PM needs to say is, yes I know, lets get on with what really matters, running the country.
It is said that PM has made herself unpopular,
From where I sit, every leader makes themselves unpopular, when they have audacity to do what they were elected to do, govern.
When one does what is right for the nation, can mean that some are missed out, and scream very loud.
What is important, not whether what a PM does is popular, but whether it needed doing.
We have Mr. Abbott whining yesterday that Mr. Swan is setting himself up to take from the middle and upper earners.
Mr. Abbott does not say where he intends to find the money.
We know that he will be protecting the miners and high income women.
That only leaves, us at the bottom, if high income earners are out bounds.
Spending money on those who cannot care for themselves must be the waste he is always spruiks about.
Boo Hoo
Liberal Premier whinges at Federal govt as his state needs more broadband.
Tony Abbott who says NO to NBN was not sought for comment
“VICTORIA has been dudded by the Gillard government’s schedule for rolling out the National Broadband Network over the next three years, according to the Baillieu government.
For something that is a waste of money and not needed, they sure are screaming.
Ms Pitcher said the company, which runs 14 businesses across film and television, digital effects and animation, would be put at a ”severe disadvantage” to local and international competitors with broadband access. ”We are going to have to cover the increased costs to purchase higher bandwidth just so we can try and compete.”
Ms Gillard, announcing the first three-year rollout schedule in Sydney, said voters faced a ”stark” choice on broadband at the next election.
With the opposition promising to ditch the network in favour of a lower-priced alternative, Ms Gillard said: ”It’s a choice between embracing the future or standing still.”
Murdoch has a conservative agenda and the shock jocks are also biased, but the media must remain independent otherwise democracy will be in danger.
I have no problem with the media remaining independent.
I have a problem with them telling lies and manipulating reporting and election outcomes and government policy.
If they want to claim to be a newspaper then print news not pages and pages of biased opions seeking an agenda.
If they want to be the media then print both sides of a story. Not this 99 versions against and 1 for an issue when it is a proposal they disagree with.
The media has a responsibility to inform the population honestly and without bias and let the electorate make up their own mind.
The media should not be manipulating and influencing the decision of an election to achieve their own and their bosses aims.
If they are they should be closed down as this is not being independent but rather being deceitful, manipulative and downright dishonest for an oganisation claiming to be independent.
For example, this should not be discussed.
of course it should be discussed but just like the media I wish you would give the tax cuts and compensation measures just as much coverage and discussion.
Or is that not suitable to your politcial agenda.
Your own bias is just as evident as the media.
Where are the daily stories showing the tax cuts and compensation measures to offset these types of increases.
Be fair, or is that too much to ask.
Shane and The media has a responsibility to inform the population honestly and without bias and let the electorate make up their own mind
And this is precisely what is wrong with a biased media – it denies people the opportunity to form their own opinion – denies people freedom of choice.
‘Be fair, or is that too much to ask.’
I have no problem with talking about the tax cuts, but we also need to discuss the need for the tax in the first place.
The incoming conservative governments are going to dismantle the green schemes and when Abbott wins federally he will dumped the tax, along with the whole Klimatariat.
This is predictable and perhaps needs to be considered in relation to tax cuts.
Shane @ 9am,
Couldn’t agree more.
Independent for some these days means to be Coalition supporters.
Interestingly, there is one so called libertarian media mogul who will even back a Labor government it seems provided it gives him some of what he wants:
In Britain, in the 1980s, Murdoch formed a close alliance with Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher, and The Sun credited itself with helping her successor John Major to win an unexpected election victory in the 1992 general election, which had been expected to end in a hung parliament or a narrow win for Neil Kinnock’s Labour.
In the general elections of 1997, 2001 and 2005, Murdoch’s papers were either neutral or supported Labour under Tony Blair. This has led some critics to argue that Murdoch simply supports the incumbent parties (or those who seem most likely to win an upcoming election) in the hope of influencing government decisions that may affect his businesses.
The Labour Party, from when Tony Blair became leader in 1994, had moved from the Left to a more central position on many economic issues prior to 1997. Murdoch identifies himself as a libertarian, saying “What does libertarian mean? As much individual responsibility as possible, as little government as possible, as few rules as possible. But I’m not saying it should be taken to the absolute limit.”
(wikipedia)
Seems to me that Fox News support for the Tea Party the last couple of years has been:
TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT…ONE MORE TIME
N ‘
It’s also worth remembering that the Third Estate is naturally biased, always has been.
What Is the Third Estate? (French: Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état?) is a pamphlet written by French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
The pamphlet was Sieyès’ response to Jacques Necker’s invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized.
In the pamphlet, Sieyès argued that the Third Estate – the common people of France – constituted a complete nation, and would be better off without the “dead weight” of the privileged orders, the First and Second Estates of the clergy and aristocracy.
Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates-General, representatives equal to the other two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders. These ideas came to have an immense influence on the course of the Revolution.
(wikipedia)
And now we have a CORPORATE ARISTOCRACY
N’
And send the country broke in the process.
Roswell, I was thinking the same thing myself re el gordo’s comment..
The incoming conservative governments are going to dismantle the green schemes..
Imagine what it’s going to cost the country to get out of all those contracts. There will be no nation building, just revenue lost and for no reason whatsoever. I personally think that Abbott is telling porkies about all of his wind backs – basically, he won’t be able to afford to do it. Hockey will be tearing his hair out trying to balance Abbott’s budget.
It will be cheaper to dismantle than carry on with the whole box and dice, its also a big vote winner.
Doing nothing until the year 2014 is a vote winner? Yes, everyone is going to be thrilled about not getting the NBN. 🙄
Rupert should give up tweeting.
“Proof you can’t trust anything in Australian Fairfax papers, unless you are just another crazy,” he tweetorialised this morning.
el gordo. I fail to see how dismantling anything that is well and truly on it’s way is false economy.
Where do you get the evidence that this would be a vote winner. Just because you disagree, does’n not mean that everyone else does.
In fact I would be surprised if what you say is true.
Most do believe that CC needs to be addressed. Many are sick of hearing about it. Many are happy to just see the matter settled.
Many like NBN. Many do believe in CC.
el gordo, I believe your wish list would bankrupt the country and take us back decades, to the dark ages.
The states will come on board. You know why? The federal government has what the States want, money.
Mr. Howard had no problems dealing with Labor States across the Nation. I expect this PM whose major skill is negotiation to do much better.
Mr. Swan is giving a good interview on ABC Local radio. He is dealing with the interviewer who is only interested in talking Labor down. He is strongly challenging what she is saying, and is I believe is getting the message across. They can gang up, but they cannot bully the PM into doing their bidding.
First caller. If Mr. Swan wants to cut down on middle class welfare, I cannot wait. When ask what middle class welfare, the caller gave a good list. Baby bonus, negative gearing.. the list goes on and on.
The PM will tell them to rethink, and come back when they are in a better mood.
Mr. Swan said that there is no truth today, in the Australian story. No facts, indeed he came closed to saying it was made up.
This is predictable and perhaps needs to be considered in relation to tax cuts.
What utter garbage. Governments propose cost increases and tax cuts on their own policies, not on the presumed policy of what the opposition will do if it is elected at the next election.
Did John Howard take notice of the opposition when he imposed the wrost tax on earth the GST.
The opposition in QLD will reintroduce cabon policies, so should Campbell Newman not wind them down.
How about you look at what is definately legislation as to the proposed events of a may or may not be elected federal coalition.
In addition I have no doubt that the MRRT and Carbon Tax axing will be the first two non core pormises broken by the next coaliton government if it is elected in 2013. If it is not successful in 2013 the two taxes will not be mentioned again by the opposition and will simply become the norm.
It will be cheaper to dismantle than carry on with the whole box and dice
Please provide evidence instead of mouthing coalition statements.
its also a big vote winner
Theres the real reason, win votes, not save the planet for future generations, but rather secure short term votes to become PM. Tony Abbott wouldn’t care if he was PM for only a day. It is the desire to just have his name up there and the retirement benefits and perks that go with the position.
Apologies and correction, momentary brain fade, it was the Fourth Estate…and thanks bear for bringing it to my attention.
‘The Fourth Estate (or fourth estate) is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. “Fourth Estate” most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism or “The Press”.
“he incoming conservative governments are going to dismantle the green schemes and when Abbott wins federally he will dumped the tax, along with the whole Klimatariat.”
He sure is. Cannot have the polluters paying.
He will be replacing what he intends to dismantle his Direct Action Scheme, that lets the polluters off the hook, and transfers the cost to the community.
Maybe $1200 or more a year add to the family budget, is a figure not be sneezed at.
Of course he will not be doing this for many years, as he WILL NOT have the power to do it.
What will be the cost of business decisions being suspended during this time, due to the uncertainty of what government is doing.
We are already have to deal with the rising cost of power, because of investment put on hold for years, because of the delay in dealing with carbon emission.
All Mr. Abbott is offering, is years of instability. Nothing more, nothing less.
The problem is not politicians lying but knowingly making problems they know they cannot keep.
A question I would like answering. Why one cannot buy these products on line, at the prices in the country of origin.
Late October 2011, Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan had indicated that the report from the Productivity Commission due in November would detail the extent to which price hikes on imported technology goods and services were hurting Australian consumers.
While Adobe and Microsoft stated that pricing was set by the local distribution channel, some international suppliers used the argument that consumers in some regions could tolerate higher prices than others, and still others defended the price hike by attributing it to the cost of supplying to ‘a remote and relatively small market like Australia.’ Many in the industry, however, believe that these arguments could not hold, as music, software and videos had a much smaller delivery cost in the online environment compared with legacy distribution through physical retailers.
Cu @11.03am..I’ll believe that the media are truthful and honest when we start to see headlines stating that Tony Abbott’s policies will add X amount to the average family budget.
It was worth the read, however I would dispute the wording “Lets States Dump Climate Action”.
The Conservative State Government have “Chosen” to Dump Climate Action.
There is a marked difference. They could have “Chosen” to keep the Climate Action Initiatives going irrespective of targets or goals or unforseen flaws.
They “Chose” to dump them and I believe the future will judge them harshly indeed.
Bacchus, thank you for that link. I have added my own small voice..which reads something along the lines of:
Marriage inequality remains the last piece of discrimination in Australia. To deny people the right to marry based solely on their gender is discriminatory.
I believe that churches should have the option to choose. I understand how some might believe same sex marriage “wrong” in their eyes. That’s their choice.
Bacchus thanks for the link have added my own support as well.
Lots of “small voices” add up to a roar Min 😉
Thank you Bacchus. Huggs.
Mr. Newman has told his first lie.
He said he has not been briefed yet on Julia Gillard’a Carbon Tax.
He did not leave it there. He went onto say that if the tax was not there, electricity cost would go down. DOWN. How could this be so?
I believe there are many more reasons for electricity costs going up at this time, regardless of the Clean Energy Future.
Non of them have any connection to a so called carbon tax.
What else is Murray noted for, except for being appointed by his mate to the future fund. I say his anger is more caused by his mate not getting his job.
Mr. Abbott says he regrets what he said, with a smirk on his face. Mr. Abbott would have been better to leave the matter alone, if he is not willing to say he is sorry.
I also voted in the affirmative…bugger the catlicks.
El gordo, well done. It’s all a matter of fairness isn’t it. I have yet to read a reasonable argument against marriage equality..always people fall back on quotes such as “it’s against nature”, “it’s against God’s will”..as if anyone really knows what God’s will is. If He/She had been against gay love, then gays wouldn’t have been invented!
Getting rid of targets does not get rid of the problem. Ignoring the problem inly means greater expense down the track. The mess electricity is in across the nation proves this.
Despite their past acceptance of the 20 per cent carbon reduction target, the Baillieu Government has gone further than the review in several areas for essentially political and presentational reasons. It is effectively endorsing the federal carbon price arrangements by arguing they are all that is needed to address the climate change problem and separate state action is not required.
This turns a blind eye to the many major areas of activity that fall under state jurisdiction – including forestry, mining, transport and planning, local government and the major state government activities in health, education and other portfolios.
The $104 million set aside in the Climate Communities fund for climate action in areas of state responsibility has been scrapped and redirected to waste management companies through the unsubtle device of renaming the fund and changing the funding criteria.
The review is actually quite sanguine about the impact of the carbon price, reporting that it is “expected to have a relatively modest impact on gross domestic product, but some sectors of the economy will face adjustment pressures.”
The biggest energy and economic challenge is how to phase out the ageing and inefficient brown coal power stations like Hazelwood. The federal government is still tendering for a planned phase out package but Victoria has washed its hands of the issue, not mentioning it at all in its response – despite the review highlighting that the closure of Hazelwood by 2020 is inevitable.
Parts of the Act that survive the axe include: its “guiding principles”, the carbon sequestration provisions, the obligations on decision makers to consider climate impacts and the requirements to report on the science of climate change and the actions being taken to adapt to its impact. All have sensibly been saved by the review.
Not so fortunate is the requirement to report on progress in reducing emissions or the power of the EPA to set emissions caps for new power stations (although the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse emissions as waste is to be retained and clarified).
The move to scrap reporting progress on emissions reduction has little to do with abolishing the 20 per cent target. The motive is to get out of the spotlight and shift the issue to Canberra.
However the Victorian government is effectively endorsing the national carbon price and what it calls the “bipartisan 5 per cent national target”, perhaps without understanding what it is signing up for.
The national target actually has three parts to it. Australia has committed at the United Nations that it will reduce its emissions:
— Unconditionally by 5 per cent compared with 2000 levels by 2020;
— By 25 per cent by 2020 if the world agrees to an ambitious global deal capable of stabilising levels of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere at 450 parts per million or lower;
— By up to 15 per cent by 2020 if there is a weaker global agreement under which advanced economies take on commitments comparable to Australia’s.
At the recent UN treaty discussions in Durban the major nations committed to arriving at a fixed set of commitments by 2015. Depending on this outcome, Australia could end up adopting a target as high as 25 per cent – more than the Victorian target that is to be scrapped.
In that event Victoria will be left scrambling to catch up because the current emissions reduction programs are to be scrapped as a result of this week’s decision.
A telltale sign of the Coalition’s underlying climate scepticism is the government refusal to accept the review’s recommendation that the Preamble and Purpose of the Act should remain. They are “considering the need” for the Preamble and will doctor the Purpose clause.
The reason is simple. The Preamble states that Parliament recognises “the overwhelming scientific consensus that human activity is causing climate change” and calls for urgent action. It records for posterity a broken promise and that makes the Coalition very uncomfortable.
On the same day, the progress report required by the Climate Change Act was quietly slipped onto a government website. It records some progress in that growth in emissions since 2000 has been held to just 1 per cent. However, the rest of the document has some grim warnings for Victoria reporting the latest estimates for increased temperatures, sea level rises, number of days above 35 degrees, reduced snow cover, increased drought and the frequency of extreme weather events.
The government is still counting the cost of the latest round of flooding and storm damage, the impact of unseasonal weather on farm production, the difficulty of meeting burn off targets before the coming summer and anger over coastal planning disputes.
With a tough budget approaching, ministers might like to contemplate that you can get rid of a climate target but you can’t easily get rid of the problem of climate change.
And so it begins, but the Govt has a big stick now in the ACCC
“An advertising campaign showing a carbon tax collector demanding money from a frail pensioner has been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Total Environment Centre director Jeff Angel says a complaint has been lodged against the New South Wales company Energy Watch, a group that acts as an energy broker for consumers and business.
And Getup has a new campaign. An intersting idea right in the tradition of the Miners who discovered the value of winning over public opinion. Good timing in the lead up to the budget.
“”But over the next three years the minerals resources rent tax will bring in $10.6 billion while subsidies to the same hugely profitable industry will hand back to them $8.5 billion over the same period.”
The ad calls for mining magnates and big industry to stop receiving concessions from the federal government.
The new GetUp ad, which has been in production for several weeks, features a nurse, a schoolteacher and an aged care worker talking about the impact funding pressures are having on their lives.”
John-Paul Langbroek’s the new QLD minister for Education, Training and Employment eh?
That’s not so bad. He seems like nice fella…
Went to Sunnybank SHS so at least understands the pressures public school teachers are under. Hopefully he had some good ones. 🙂
Just hope he doesn’t bring misogynists into the department…or overly-religious ones…
all we need is the balance stuffed up.
Regardless of what some conservatives might think, QLD education has heaps of conservative and centrist teachers…and other staff.
Compared to Canada I found it extremely backward…and lacking in progressive thought…nice enuff people…some…but certainly most were not exactly radical…or about to man/woman the barricades. 🙂
Thing I disliked about the conservatives in last time was how they treated staff like children…let the maintenance of schools go compared to rural areas…and the dobby thing….kind of like McCarthyism…
Plus the transfer system was a joke…run by amateur youngsters sometimes…with no compassion or empathy for teachers’s situations alot of the time…
many good educators were posted to places that did not suit their family or personality circumstances…caused a great deal of suffering. Excellent, capable teachers were rundown…or lost to the system. Dumb stuff.
N’
Oh, and the pay was crap.
N’
Make that:
Plus the transfer system was a joke…run by amateur youngsters sometimes…with no compassion or empathy for teachers’ situations alot of the time…
N’
Ad Astra is correct. It was one vote that stopped us from having a price on carbon emission earlier. That one vote that was only arrived at because one MP was too sick to travel.
Friday, 30 March 2012 12:32 by Ad astra
toxic adj: 1. containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing death or serious debilitation
2. extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful.
Tony Abbott, the second definition fits you to a tee.
and
And to think that had Malcolm Turnbull won the party ballot in 2009, this country would already have an ETS, supported by all parties. There would be no talk of a ‘toxic tax’, and everyone – commerce, industry, unions and the people – would have accepted an ETS as necessary, and would be already adapting to the changes needed. Your influence has been harmful, dangerously toxic
This is something I agree with. The Coalition is quick to accuse the PM and Labor of having dubious motives on everything.
I have felt for a long time, they judge others by what they do themselves, generally getting it wrong.
It appears others agree, but are able to explain it better.
They live in their own universe, that has little connection the the rest of us, or at least to my word.
It’s a curious phenomenon that individuals see in others an attribute that characterizes their own behaviour, yet remain oblivious to it. That is you. You insist that others are toxic, but you remain unaware that you are toxic; the Abbott brand is toxic.
While you make little attempt to explain why you insist that the Labor brand is toxic, presumably assuming that merely articulating your assertion often enough will make it true, I will not leave you wondering why your brand, the Abbott brand, is toxic.
Good stuff CU,
You beat me to it…Ad’s post is well worth reading.
Okay, i’m off for a couple of weeks…S will be ensuring we watch and deal little with politics and news the next f/t…might pop in if something big happens…but that’s unlikely. Hopefully.
Keep up the great work…many informative and enlightening posts, comments and links…
It’s been fun chatting to some of you again…
And others I didn’t know previously.
Keep the bastard’s honest…and the light of scrutiny on the corrupt, crims and bully rich types.
Til later.
Keep well.
N’
Catching up, that’s the story. Tony Abbott doesn’t have to explain himself because he is never required to.
The toxicity has spread. No sooner had Campbell Newman taken office in Queensland than he directed Greg Withers, Director of the Office of Climate Change, to dismantle all of the eight carbon reduction schemes that he set up, including the $430 million Queensland Climate Change Fund, the $50 million Renewable Energy Fund, the $50 million Smart Energy Savings Program and the Future Growth Fund that spent $405 million last year on clean-coal technology, climate change programs, and transport and water infrastructure, and the 20 per cent Renewable Energy Target, thereby saving the Government an estimated $270 million.
Ted Baillieu in Victoria has abandoned Victoria’s target of 20% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, established by John Brumby because Victoria is a heavily polluting state, so as to save the $2 billion needed to purchase international offsets. The State Labor Opposition’s climate spokeswoman Lisa Neville asks: “Are they at all committed to addressing the concerns of climate change? Are they at all committed to ensuring that Victoria, which is a large emitter in the country, is well placed to try and tackle that into the future?” The answer seems to be NO.
EMILY BOURKE: The legendary Queensland corruption fighter Tony Fitzgerald has delivered a withering assessment of the incoming Liberal National Government, saying its ambitions exceed its talents.
The prominent QC changed the course of Queensland politics with the revelations that came from the Fitzgerald Inquiry in the 1980s.
He’s been highly critical of the Labor Government in the past but now he’s turned his sights on the LNP, particularly over its appointment of people with links to the LNP to senior positions.
Thnx Roswell…
Yep Pip,
Fitzgerald is on the case.
See ya.
N’
Well, it appears that Mr. O”Farrell has killed off the first home owners market, up to nearly 50% by cutting the first home owners stamp duty rebate.
Not a bad effort. That means he is getting less in receipts with his action.
One must keep highlighting the lies.
Continued touting of a soil carbon solution is at best irresponsible and at worst wantonly deceitful. It appears that the Coalition is taking the cynical view that when soil carbon sequestration is rejected or restricted in international negotiations, they will blame the UN or other countries. Meanwhile, they will have achieved their goal of deferring action for a few more years. They are gambling that enough voters will be convinced by ‘anti -global warming science’ campaigns in the conservative press, as has happened in the US.
Deniers of global warming don’t care if climate policy is ineffectual. The Coalition is probably right in betting that most swinging voters would not know enough about soil carbon sequestration to challenge their claims. But there is time to raise awareness of this attempted swindle before the next election. The Coalition’s big gamble may not pay off.
Ben Rose (BSc (environmental); Grad. Dip Ed) has five years of professional rangeland management experience in the Pilbara region of WA and several years in carbon sequestration consulting, including soil sampling and testing. He researched and wrote Chapter 20, “The Biochar
here are a lot of very confused feminists out there right now. Tony Abbott, long seen by the sisterhood as Australia’s foremost manifestation that we’re all just monkeys in clothing – some more hirsute, and scantily-clad, than others- now wants to help women get back to work after childbirth.
After fumbling in the dark for what he admits was a very long time, Abbott has figured out a way to unclasp his way into women’s hearts: childcare.
and
Yeah Tony is also Santa Claus, the good fairy, the tooth fairy and the seven dwarfs all in one… He’ll say anything to get into your pants. Come crunch-time, there would not be any money in the kitty, unless he raided your own loot by making you pay exhorbitant fees for something else. There are also many other issues… Should one of the nannies abduct or hurt your child, should the whole program be slammed the way Tony has poopooed the home insulation program? Just joking…
Trusting Tony is like trusting a brat with a box of matches…
‘Deniers of global warming don’t care if climate policy is ineffectual.’
Dead right!
‘Think for a moment about the Greens’ preference for ‘research for the public good’. I am not sure what exactly they mean by the term, but it’s a good bet that it would be something built around environmental science.
‘Which seems reasonable at face value, except that environmental science has become the exemplar of what is known as ‘post normal science’ – that is, a science where ‘facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent’. In short, it is an ill-defined mix of science and politics.
‘It is then but a short step into the realm of ‘post modern science’, where research results are valid only in the context of society’s beliefs, and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied. One can imagine this as a sort of political nirvana in which scientific theory and results are manipulated to suit the policies of the government of the day.
‘A fanciful state of affairs you say, and surely not one that is likely to happen?’
Garth Paltridge March 29, 2012
el gordo,
Are you that ashamed of your sources that you never post links? Is it not reasonable that readers be allowed to judge the context for themselves? Or is it part of a pattern aimed to mislea….. 💡 Oh hang on – now I get it 🙄
Would have to be I suppose, as it would get in the way of many of your wacky thought process.
As one who has always had an interest in agriculture science and want at one time to do veterinary science, not pets nut farm animals I could not imagine a much more practical and straight forward science.
Something either improve or destroys the environment. It would not take much to establish which.
If one cuts down all the trees, the water tables which is salty, rises, leading to making the ground barren, unable to support any crop.
All your fancy words do not change simple facts, I am afraid.
If you laid the fertiliser on heavy, u\ir washes out to sea, killing ever everything in it’s wake. Nothing difficult about that.
I have know idea what you mean about ‘post normal science. Have not heard about that.
I would say that only the likes of you that rejects science when it conflicts with your belief, would go down this path.
Tell me one example of environmental science that you disagree with.
“‘It is then but a short step into the realm of ‘post modern science’, where research results are valid only in the context of society’s beliefs, and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied.”
This is exactly what you do.
Bacchus, I think that el gordo has scored a home goal.
Bacchus, I have a sneaking suspicion that someone might need blog lessons.
What you do is highlight the link – press copy and then paste on the Post Comment box. Bob’s yer uncle, there is the link.
As one who watch my father tried to run a dairy farm on the Central Coast. on land cleared of rain forest, I do have some idea of what environmental science.
The land was worthless as farming land. My father who came from the Central West, could not believe that such pasture were valueless.
Once cleared that land was soon leached of any value it had, A hundred years of growing corn and maize did not help.
Perhaps we should point her to the “How To” tab Min?
Bacchus, indeed and the How To tab is interesting given the number failed attempts from you, Migs and self. 😉
I was experimenting. It fits in with what el gordo is trying to say. That site makes little sense to me. It seems dedicated to under valuing science.
It was aimed at the Greens but the little I did understand,describes the denialists better.
Not that I put much effort into understanding.
The language in the article leaves me cold.
‘I would say that only the likes of you that rejects science when it conflicts with your belief, would go down this path.’
Hmmm….
Min. I have a feeling I might have insulted some.
The science is settled.
True, there are comedians that cuss a lot, but you got to earn that right before you do that.
But you can’t just stand there grinning like an idiot until they
finish laughing. Do some research and find out as much
as you can about each open mic – try to find the one that is most positively reviewed, gets the
biggest crowd and that is attended by the most
comedians.
How many flying by air on any airline would have noticed three or four dollars extra on their ticket. That would have been the amount Qantas would have had to charge to recoup any money paid out in carbon tax.
Have we not had over the years, many levys on ticket price when it comes to airfares, Was there one connect with the Ansett collapse.
Would a surcharge of that e magnitude stopped anyone from flying Qantas.
I suggest that Qnatas came to the conclusion, that the amateurs not of a size, that they considered worth worrying about.
Café Whispers 
A new Open Thread is up. I haven’t been able to provide a direct link to Open Thread XVI as there are problems with linking, so I have placed it in the Archived page.
Get to know your lobby groups
Graham Readfearn
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3906036.html
There’s a revolving door outside state and federal government offices that has been spinning for decades.
Entering the door are former ministers, MPs, senior advisers and public servants with years of experience behind them on the intestine-like inner workings of governments, politics and policy making.
As they exit the door, many become part of the opaque and mostly unreported world of corporate and industry lobbying.
There’s a revolving door outside state and federal government offices that has been spinning for decades.
Entering the door are former ministers, MPs, senior advisers and public servants with years of experience behind them on the intestine-like inner workings of governments, politics and policy making.
As they exit the door, many become part of the opaque and mostly unreported world of corporate and industry lobbying.
Could not believe what I was hearing, when the ABC news radio quoted that Mr. Albanese was casting a slur on Mr. Abbott, by connecting Mr. Abbott’s words to what occurred in America.
Then I turned the TV onto ABC 24 to witness and interview that involved Mr. Richard Alston and Mr. Barry Jones.
Mr. Alston said that it is shocking the way the government is criticising the three miners in particularly Mr. Palmer. We should be not be concerned that he said that the CIA was involved but should focus on the fact, the Greens wanted to closed down the coal industry. (that is a lie in itself). It is wrong to criticise people who make wealth for the country.
Mr. Jones disagree strongly with Mr. Alston, saying that these people were putting their own interest before the community.
It is OK, according to Mr. Alston to say the PM suffers from a clinical disorder, in the thrust of politics.
Mr. Jones asked him why the PM was not entitled to common decency.
Mr. Alston raved on about how good the Opposition was doing.
So have I got it correct,
The Opposition can say whatever they want.
The government has no right to criticise the Opposition.
It is wrong for Mr. Albanese to interpret what Mr. Abbott says. The meaning must be ignored, if Mr. Abbott says it.
It is OK for the Opposition leader to continually call the PM an habitual liar and having a new clinical disorder and worse.
It is not OK for Mr. Albanese to say,. “you know in your guts, he is nuts” or “they are hypocrites”.
It is clear now that there is one rule for the Opposition.
There is another for the government.
I am really amazed that Mr. Alston sees nothing wrong with the language of the coalition but everything wrong with the government’s.
“But what happens when super-rich companies are able to buy the knowledge and expertise of former ministers or civil servants? Does it actually matter?”
Mr. Alston seems to think it does not matter.
Pip, i agree lobbying is a legitimate and healthy part of democracy and it occurs in everyday life constantly.
However, as is pointed out, when it becomes covert is where and when the problem starts. As shareholders in our democracies, we have a right to know who is trying to influence government and asking for what favours.
Super rich companies, individuals and their lobbyists would rarely lobby in the public interest, imo. And that is their right, but it should be open for all to see. What’s good for the goose isn’t always good for the gander.
Mr Alston is a super sleazy,super slippery case in point who was given the task of wrecking the ABC by that super sleaze, the Rodent. We are witness to their handiwork every day on the public broadcaster. I, for one, do not like what I see and hear!
CU, Pip, Migs and everyone do you think that if ALP wins the next election, we might see a shift back to neutral reporting by Aunty? That’s all I want. I would hate to see the same sort of craven biased, mendacious, dishonest and distorted rubbish favouring the ALP.
JUST GIVE ME THE FACTS, AUNTY!!!!!
For Adelaide Whisperers who may comment or lurk at TPS, Ad astra will be at the Junction Cafe upstairs on the escalator at the Casino tomorrow between 1pm & 3pm. You enter from North Terrace.
Jane, I don’t think Howard was the conviction politician he purported to be. A staunch climate change denialist, he changed his tune on the 2007 election to swing along with public opinion. He was only convicted to drawing votes.
Roswell, I believe that Mr. Howard was ideological driven. You have to go back to his early days to identify what his ideology was,
After being defeated at his first attempt, he kept his convictions well hidden. A must admit he did learn from experiences. He did not change his beliefs but made sure he kept them to himself.
The waterside dispute, hatred of unions and user pay was the basis of his belief. He hatred the word union, and if it had the word in its title, it went. That included the uni unions that had nothing to do with industrial disputes. He did attend uni, but studied his degree away from the campus. I should add his first action as PM was to weaken the Aboriginal Land Rights Act.
He went on to dismantle the CES, replacing it by NGO and private employment agencies that never have been assessed as to their worth.
We know the Rudd family did well out of this action. I wonder how many more millionaires arose out of that action.
Following this we had work for the dole and similar tightening of welfare.
His father was a small garage owner in the suburb of Earlwood. This gave Mr. Howard the belief he was above his peers.
One has to wait until he was re-elected with control of the Senate for his ideology once more to come to the surface.
When Mr. Howard came to power, not one thing he did surprised me.
It did not surprise me that he prevented the country to become a Republic.
I have hardy touched the surface of examples of his ideology. He profess not to have am ideology.
Jane, I have reach the stage where the interviewers just have some ability in the craft. I am past caring what their political leanings are.
Margaret Whitlam’s funeral is occurring. Many old faces among the congregation.
Many of the old men from both sides of politics have tears in their eyes.
That must mean something. Even Mr. Ruddock looked upset.
Roswell, I’m certain the Rodent wasn’t the much touted conviction politician he was spruiked as in the msm. Well, I suppose that’s not entirely correct. He should have had any number of convictions against his name, but his one and only conviction was that he had to hold onto power at any cost.
CU @3.59pm, spot on, again. And @4.01pm, I couldn’t give a hoot about their political allegiances, I just want honest neutral reporting of the truth!
Here’s another trick, Nas. When you’re typing, double tap on a word and it’ll bring up suggest replacement words and an arrow that takes you to a dictionary.
Min and El Gordo, I dont supose you know if there is some beachside property in Toowoomba available, preferably near a railway stn.
Another worrying sideline to CC and CO2…
http://www.disinfo.com/2012/03/carbon-dioxide-makes-you-fat/
….put a new spin on carb’s…..
“A DAMNING report that predicted the scale of last year’s riots by asylum seekers on Christmas Island but was never shown to the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, or his department head
“It is understood that the official who failed to brief Mr Metcalfe or Mr Bowen on the report has since retired.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/buried-the-report-that-warned-of-asylum-riot-20120323-1vpbr.html#ixzz1pyPGtAuj
It would be interesting to know a little bit more about this official.
How long was he with the Imigration dept?
Was he investigated before retirement?
Did he break any of the rules to Public servants employment?
Did he “chose” to retire and thus gain access to his superannuation?
What level was this official?
Did he work with the department under the Howard government and if so in what capacity?
Maybe Labor does have a chance in the next election. Doing, not talking might just bring it off.
Maybe the MSM see the process is confused and chaotic, because the are too busy telling everyone what they believe the government is doing, instead of actually looking at what the PM is doing and achieving every day
The PM has successfully put in place 99% of the things that she was accused of by the media of shooting herself in the foot.
There is nothing chaotic about how the PM works. The PM consults, plans and delivers. Nothing chaotic about that.
“Did he work with the department under the Howard government and if so in what capacity?”
This is the most important question in my eyes.
I believe that many would have had trouble switching from the Howard regime to Labor’s.
Mr. Rudd was amiss when he did not put the broom thought the PS when he first came to power.
We have a politicalise PS and to say otherwise is stupid.
Once employment of PS, especially heads of departments, became for short tenure or on contracts, the PS lost it’s independence.
It would be interesting to know a lot more about this official. and whether he worshipped at the altar of the Rodent.
CU @3.48pm, I think that once again you’ve nailed it.Sweeping the PS clean of the poison of the Rodentochracy is imperative, imo.
We already have that the majority of taxpayer subsidised child care places are taken up by the upper income bracket rather than the supposed targetted group, women who via necessity must work. Now Tony wants to those who can afford nannies provided with subsidies as well. This fits neatly in with current Liberal party philosphy that those who earn the most are by definition the most worthy.
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbotts-nanny-state-20120324-1vre0.html
Nanny=housekeeper.
Has been around for years but sensibly pushed aside.
Another brain fart that will further divide the party. I assume that Ms. Bronwyn has been in his ear.
Mr. Abbott has a habit of dismissing advice from experts.
This is I believe is because he cannot get them to agree with him.
I dread what he will come up with next while he sits on that bike for this week.
Cu, hopefully hemorrhoids…
Min
ROFL
Min, I do hope so. He might then have some sympathy for those who suffer from abdominal pains. They can be very painful.
If Michelle is correct, it will be the people that suffer.
Michelle, stuff ups are in the eyes of the beholder.
One stuff I seem to remember, was the PM going ahead with the Clean Energy Bill, another the MRRT.
It is true that everything this PM has set out to do, has been seen as a stuff up by the media and the Opposition.
The media is now reluctantly recognising the PM has been successful but little credit is being given.
Apologies do not appear to be forthcoming.
That is PK, the proof will be in the success this lady will continue to have.
The doer beats the talker everyday.
Several days ago Catching Up began talking about the Howard Ideology. Obviously mindreading me! I was looking for the roots of the Howard Family Values. I posted the results last night
http://archiearchive.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/john-howard-and-family-values/
I know this is redundant to some but a blogger’s gotta pimp his blog 🙂
Hi archie, I’ve pumped up your article on Cu’s post, plus giving it a push on Facebook.
Your great post needs to be read by as many people as possible and I love the networking aspects of social media. It has reach.
All I can say to Tony is..bring it on. Australians have a way of punishing people at the polls should they get too uppity. Abbott is having an ego trip in thinking that he can win both houses via manipulating a DD..
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/big-miners-say-they-wont-pay-new-tax–abbott-20120325-1vsmq.html#ixzz1qAGe6HHR
Min
Some advice for Tony, the Carbon tax will run for at least 3 years. Not much chance of it stopped, so give up the BS.
And how did I work out 3 years, well Tony, read Antony Green
“If the current Labor government stays in office until 2013, any new Coalition government could not begin the process of developing a double dissolution trigger until after 1 July 2014, making it nearly impossible to have a double dissolution election until 2015”
http://blogs.abc.net.au/antonygreen/2011/08/calls-for-a-double-dissolution-are-just-ridiculous.html
The blog was written at the time of the HYPE of the convoy of no consequence,a flop, just like Abbott and his quest to stop the carbon tax.
Sue, when Tony Abbott makes these sort of Grand Announcements which he does on a fairly regular basis, often defying all logic plus practical application, the thing which comes to mind is: I’ve Got The Power…
that is, trying to convince one and sundry that he has far more power than he does in reality.
IF Abbott does eventually become PM, there are going to be one hell of a lot of disappointed people out there thinking to themselves, “But Tony..you said……”.
And where were the journalists when he said the DD. The msm is as useful as the convoy on no consequence was relevant.
“…making it nearly impossible to have a double dissolution election until 2015”
What if enough Labor senators crossed the floor, there would be no need for a double D election?
Interesting stuff…anyhoo…
‘But a Labor historian and former minister in the Wran government, Rodney Cavalier, thinks Labor is deluding itself if it thinks that this is just a cyclical swing: “The Labor project is at an end. We’re watching a prolonged death rattle. There is an absolute crisis of confidence and belief.
”Labor has died from below. There are no Labor branches left in most of the towns of Australia.”
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/federal-alp-needs-to-stand-for-something-20120325-1vsnu.html#ixzz1qARPSqgo
EG
Labor won in 2007, both sides of the campaign took a carbon tax to the electorate. Turnbull had agreed to Rudd’s legislation and guess what the Senate voted no.
Senators from states that voted for change still voted no.
so forget the BS elgordo that Labor senators, post an “abbott win” would do the right thing by the electorate and cross the floor.
Just like they did in 2007!!!!!hehehehehehehhahahhhahaha
So An Abbott government would have at least 12 months of frustration and slashing of budgets before he could go back to the electorate.
Sue @8.17am..
And we’ll be definitely be keeping that one in mind when Abbott ramps up his call for a DD election: I want it and I want it NOW!!!
If this is true, how is the tax going to bring the country to ruin.
Mr. Abbott and his cohorts cannot have it both ways.
I wonder what this story means.
The poll at the bottom of this article is a disaster for Gillard’s Labor:
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/politics/gillard-has-plenty-to-fear-from-wipeout-20120325-1vsio.html#poll
We need a new party to run against The Australian Party at next years’ election…to win senate seats.
Federal labor needs to reduce the carbon price.
And get down on the land with the voters.
N’
Cu,
Joyce is a very smart politician and ACTOR…who knows the people on the land…
He’s more connected to bigwigs and vested interests than he sometimes makes out…and I reckon if the small landowners and farmers and townspeople knew he was really working for the bigwigs he’d have a backlash against him.
But our media won’t do the legwork.
Cubby station connection for one.
N’
CU @ 12.13
Good to read that Barnaby is going to challenge one of his own for a lower house seat. And his chances of being elected are a whole lot better than if he challenged Tony Windsor.
Bruce Scott got 65.5% of the primary vote last election. i wonder how popular Barnaby is within the Nats, afterall he will be effectively taking on 2 opponents Bruce Scott, Maranoa and Warren Truss, leader of the Nats and possible future Deputy Prime Minister.
Read about Barnaby Joyce here…and see why he’s so popular…look at the stuff related to small business:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnaby_Joyce
However,
His assisting to sell Telstra should be remembered…and I’d like to know how the rural assistance package panned out:
On 17 August 2005 the Government announced a package of $3 billion to improve telecommunications services in regional and rural areas. On the basis of this, the National Party, including Joyce, agreed to support the sale of Telstra. This led the Labor Party to label Joyce “Backdown Barney” and “Barnaby Rubble” in an acrimonious parliamentary debate. Joyce voted with the Government in the Senate on 14 September 2005, to sell the Government’s remaining share of Telstra. As the Telstra Sale Legislation had been pursued by the lower house in prior parliamentary sessions with no assistance package for regional Australia it is Joyce who is credited for negotiating and holding out till the multi billion dollar assistance package was delivered so as to attain his vote in the Senate.
(Wikipedia)
Furthermore
In May 2006 Joyce promoted mining of Antarctica (mining is banned under the Antarctic Treaty). Joyce justified his proposal by saying:
There’s minerals there, there’s gold, there’s iron ore, there’s coal, there’s huge fish resources and what you have to ask is: ‘Do I turn my head and allow another country to exploit my resource … or do I position myself in such a way as I’m going to exploit it myself before they get there’.
(Wikipedia)
He’s Gina and the miners and big stations’ boy all the way.
N’
If the below is true, why do the voters then vote in a government that takes the belief in markets force further.
Yes there has been a massive shift of income of earnings from the workers to the boss. The voter’s solution is to support a government further to the right, increasing the gap between the workers and the boss.
Sorry, I do not get it.
IMO that there is something else going on, and it will be found in how the voters expectations and interest in politics has changed over the last two decades.
Sue..am just catching up on the reading..surely the good folk of New England wouldn’t want to swap Tony Windsor for the likes of Barnaby.
As you say, interesting is the other choice of Maranoa in that Barnaby would have to oust a fellow National. If Barnaby goes for that one, I would be definitely waving goodbye to Warren Truss as leader of the Nats.
nasking, coming from the land, unless things have changed over the last few decades, they have a well developed bullshit radar.
They also know better than most, where their own self interest lies.
What is the difference between changing ones mind and lying. According to modern day definitions, the words have become interchangeable.
What respect would one give a leader that went ahead with a election promise if it is no longer viable or the situation has changed. Apparently in the modern world this does not happen.
Some must believe that politicians have crystal balls that they can see into the when they outline their plans for the future during an election campaign.
I have problems with those who say no government enterprises should be sold off. Yes, there are some that should not be. There are others that do not make must difference, and little is gained by the government holding onto them.
Each case should be judged on it’s merited.
If you has asked me five years ago whether Australian Post should be sold off, I would have said no. Today I am not so sure. Because of the rise in the use of the web, mail now plays a small part in every day communications. It is just not as important any more. There is nothing wrong with selling something, to use the money to build something else.
What I object to, is selling off assets to balance the books. It should be spent on new infrastructure.
I still believe that Medibank Private should be kept in Government hands.
I do not believe the Telstra’s copper wire should have privatise. That has now been reverse. I believe we should have held onto the Commonwealth Bank and GIO.
Whether we like it or not, we now have to operate in a global economy. The trick is to take full advantage of it, not fight against the tide. We seem to be doing OK up to now.
We have to keep renewing our economy to just keep our head above water.
“Joyce is a very smart politician and ACTOR…who knows the people on the land…”
Yes Joyce is a cunning politician, that I agree with.
The fact that he is not going after Windsor, tells it all.
Is not that the area he was reared in.
I would say that Windsor is quite safe if he chooses to run again,
CU,
Many good points. I also lived on the land for a few years…and my Wife’s parents own a small cattle farm.
Selling the copper wires was a disgrace.
The NBN should be useful.
There should be a government bank to help drive down competition…the big banks are disgraceful.
Agree Medicare.
——–
coming from the land, unless things have changed over the last few decades, they have a well developed bullshit radar.
———
Agree.
And that’s Labor’s prob unfortunately…you should hear my father-in-law get stuck into them, particularly Gillard.
He can’t stand weathervane, arrogant, big-mouthed Abbott either. Mr. Cocky.
Okay,
Cheers N’
nasking, I am sure they unlike others, will make the decision that benefits them most. I do not see Mr. Abbott being the one.
Calling him a cocky is a insult to my wheat and sheep cocky father.
I know it is not the same but..
Yes nasking, when we criticise government enterprises that have been sold off, we should not put them all in the same basket. Some should have gone.
The same with overseas investment in out farming land. I believe the percentage is low, but the that does not count, if what we are losing control of is prime land. I heard on, I thing it might have been NCP, that farmers are moving towards what was described family corporations, that are more that father and son farms. I think it meant that extended families were joining together.
It appears that those on the land are modernising the way they operate to meet the challenges of the economy today.
This is an interesting perspective on Barny’s political future.
‘In fact, Joyce is a member of the Liberal Party who chooses to identify with the National Party in parliament. Joyce’s direct party membership is with the LNP.
‘The LNP is defined by its constitution as being a branch of the Liberal Party. But as it is in fact a sort of compromise party it allows its parliamentary members to choose who they sit with in federal parliament.
‘The biggest impediment to Joyce being Liberal leader is not his party membership, but the fact he is in the senate. That, and the fact that very few Australians would like to see him in the job.’
And this is worth watching, couple of good catlicks running the country.
‘However, it is understood the Opposition Leader and Senator Joyce are close allies, with Mr Abbott relying heavily on his Queensland colleague on policy formulation.
‘In recent months, Liberal backbenchers have complained that Mr Abbott gives Senator Joyce and other Nationals greater freedom to talk about policy than he does his Liberal colleagues.’
El gordo, did those quotes come from anywhere.. 😉
Calling him a cocky is a insult to my wheat and sheep cocky father.
I know it is not the same but..
———
LOL CU…
More like cockhead then? 🙂
That’s how many see Tony.
But he’s caged…and the minders have him calmer during elections.
Mr. Sincere.
His boxing and marathon rituals and religious seminary habits have taught him most of the time to control his feral side.
This won’t last if in power…under attack alot…more of his governing style and policies, mistakes.
He’ll wobble…like a Pope in heat.
Ya know I do like Julia…I just wish she’d relax a bit more…have more fun with the people.
My wife reckons the primary school teachers and kids across the road from her school thought Julia was “beaut”…real kind and down-to-earth during a visit.
Let that hair flow too. And a few flat shoes with flowing skirts…she looks nice like that. Like Zoe Deschanel on the sitcom The New Girl.
I think Julia is a pretty woman who sometimes confines herself like stern old Thatcher.
I’d wear a skirt if I could…let the goolies swing free in hot weather..lucky Scotts and Islanders.
I think people would love Julia if she got out there more drinking, larfing…reducing the carbon price a bit. Listening to the concerns. Talking about DentiCare…and the NBN.
Hug a few bearded blokes. 🙂
She has so much potential.
Invite Crikey reporters and Global Mail writers on the trips…and those from The Drum.
Refer to their media companies constantly.
They’ll give her a fairer go than some.
Make a DVD of the trips…outback, farms etc.
Put segments with laid-back messages and narrative on YouTube and Facebook. Add music.
Thnk bloggers for their interest.
ENGAGE…
N ‘
Are things as bad as they seem. The question I ask, should there be a rethink of optional preferential voting.
I think it’s a mistake to change from a compulsory system. It appears that the Green vote did not collapse, but the number of seats lost, gives the opposite opinion. Our system is fast becoming winner takes all, instead of representing the wishes of the whole population.
“His boxing and marathon”
I believe he did not have many boxing skills, just the ability to be a slugger. Nothing much has changed.
On the link that I put up this morning about ANZAC Day and supposed multicultural tensions..surprise, surprise it is a non-story..
http://www.3aw.com.au/blogs/3aw-breakfast-blog/rsl-dismisses-anzac-day-multicultural-tensions/20120326-1vtg8.html
“N’, that is the way I see the PM, as a very warm and down to earth person. What I find unusual, the PM does not seem to have an overgrown ego, if anything she is a little shy when it comes to the personal.
It is funny that everyone who meets hers one to one or in a small crowd say how warm and caring she is.
I am sure she would have a wicked sense of humour. What she does not appear to have, is the need for revenge.
I believe she will dump them jackets soon, and as “N’ suggests wear some pretty dresses. I believe she has either loss weigh or is exercising. She has thinned down in the face and is indeed quire pretty.
‘…did those quotes come from anywhere.. ‘
Ah…yeah, but as a practicing citizen journalist I refer to them as ‘unidentified sources’.
You may want to think of them as whispers overheard in a cafe.
Good stuff Min.
More blowhard hyperbolic multicultural Australia bashing from the Murdoch empire it seems…
However, they’ve got the RSL and some VETS stirred up…
And put the message of waste out there again related to the cost of the report.
Bloody irritating.
We need more offense…less being put on the back foot.
———–
On America’s meet the press today the wonderful doris kearns goodwin reminded us of the tragic Emmett Till case…
How it motivated the African-American Civil Right’s movement…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emmett_Till
Some see similarities with the Florida tragedy:
Obama On Trayvon Martin Case: ‘If I Had A Son, He’d Look Like Trayvon’
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/23/obama-trayvon-martin_n_1375083.html?ref=mostpopular
The death of any young person is tragic…it was the deaths and wounding of so many kids in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Congo…and as asylum seekers that drove me to blog…
And the waste of moneys by Howard, Blair and Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld that could’ve been used for education, hospitals, cancer, disability care, dental care…that so pissed me.
N’
Cu, I’m with you..there are quite enough corporate types doing the power dressing thing. I’m thinking of one cocktail dress which Julia wore prior to becoming PM..she looked absolutely stunning.
Nas’, it seems that all news.com have succeeded in doing is annoying the b’jesus out of the RSL…
Now for this:
What Campbell can’t do
But then reality will set in and the new premier will be faced with the same contradictions in his rhetoric that await the followers of Hockeynomics.
No, you actually can’t wave a magic wand that cuts debt, builds infrastructure and creates sharply rising employment all at the same time, particularly when you’ve effectively ruled out any further privatisations and insisted that regaining the top credit rating is a priority.
You can manage the likes of allowing booze back in to dry aboriginal communities and fire the token department head, but the big picture stuff is out of Newman’s reach.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/what-campbell-cant-do-20120326-1vtq9.html#ixzz1qCIDxRld
Oh and every time the Federal government spends or builds infrastructure in Qld, I would make sure that the press conference is run by theFederal Government and at its timing. Likewise everytime the Qld premier wants to defer or cut its share in the project tell the public, as is the case with barrel O’lies in NSW and the pacfic highway duplication.
Good article Sue.
on March 26, 2012 at 4:20 pmMin
Nas’, it seems that all news.com have succeeded in doing is annoying the b’jesus out of the RSL…
Min, doesn’t take much. 🙂
Ya know, I really miss my Grandpops…both fought in the wars…brave old fellas…the things they would have seen eh? It’s hard to imagine…I don’t think film gets close.
The stories told by one of the trench warfare in WW1…the other of an artillery gun blowing up and maiming & killing most around it…the illnesses…and trench foot…the bully beef and rations…the night sky filled with sputtering missiles…like planes then suddenly dropping…KABOOM…the ground and homes and offices shaking…
We gotta make sure these boys and gals who come home aren’t treated like some from Vietnam.
I’m very proud of their brave work in such hostile areas…6 million young ladies been educated now out of ten million.
Brings tears to yer eyes.
N’
This from the Michael Pascoe article linked handily by Sue:
If Campbell Newman and Co have really caught the “debt is evil” bug, the electorate will soon enough discover the limits of LNP rhetoric.
You might also wonder what south-east Queensland unemployment might be like if the big infrastructure projects had not been undertaken.
The Bligh administration was far from lily-white – the debt wasn’t all about infrastructure given that public service cost explosion and the dead hand of in-bred Labor dynasties and patronage could still be felt – but in some key areas there were signs of courage to do what had to be done even when the electorate didn’t like it.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/what-campbell-cant-do-20120326-1vtq9.html#ixzz1qCN2H3yh
I would like to say here that I did think Anna Bligh courageous…
I loved her smile…and laid back good humor.
And my wife and I thank her for all the effort she put into education…and motivating female teachers and students…including in science.
And her amazing work during the floods…informing and calming us.
My father-in-law said same to me at a BBQ recently.
I was blown away by Qvueenslanders’ outright rejection of her this last election…certainly it had much more to do with issues…
But I do wonder if some will regret their overly-aggressive vote if Newman falls into dictator mode…and the ocker take the piss out of Abos, Homos, latte set, intellectuals and Sheilas types in the LNP are let out of their cages?
I’m miss Anna.
My wife looked thunderstruck the other night…I saw her eyes well up with tears as one point when she realized the extent of the defeat…
She saw it as an insult to Anna.
“too many greedy boofheads here” she said.
I almost agreed…then remembered all the other issues…the dredging…the hospital pay debacle…the water prices going up…the privatisations…the fracking…
And then Anna’s sweet laid back smile…
And nodded anyway.
N’
iPad…anyone know how to turn that blasted word changer off?
Grrr…apologies for all the mistakes above.
N’
A comment from The Drum:
And I am sick of Righties telling me that everything should be left to Private Enterprise. If you think the USA is heaven on Earth, …
SLEEPYKARLY
Indeed.
N’
Nas’ re the iPad..the short answer is no, I don’t know. However, you are among friends who are fully aware of obstacles encountered by the dreaded word changer thingy.
I’ll check it out for you, Nas.
Anna’s calm demeanour was a decided contrast to the gloating coming from Abbott/Palmer camp. The extent of the defeat is not a good thing for democratic governance in my opinion.
iPad…anyone know how to turn that blasted word changer off?
Sell it on Gumtree and buy a Samsung Galaxy … all your prolems will be solved … 😀
I think that I might have found it. Go to Settings – General – Keyboard. There is a title Auto-Correction. Slide this to Off.
Nas, you can turn the spellchecker off by going to Settings > General > Keyboard.
Beaten by 60 seconds. 😦
😀
👿
Thnx all.
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
Now expect lots of spelling errors. 🙂
N’
TB, isn’t that the poor man’s iPad?
BTW, with your ‘prolems’ I see their spellchecker is very effective. 😉
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
That was quick – how much for?
Min: However, you are among friends who are fully aware of obstacles encountered by the dreaded word changer thingy.
—-
LOL Min…it was like bloody Pacman…gobble gobble…
http://www.google.com/pacman/
N’
on March 26, 2012 at 6:40 pmMiglo
Beaten by 60 seconds.
—–
ROFL…
Migs,
Those faces…hilarious.
N’
on March 26, 2012 at 6:51 pmTB Queensland
Got rid of that dastardly thing…
That was quick – how much for?
————
One grilled wabbott and a bottle of Palmer’s eau de stench.
N’
Of course this is honest. To tell lies to distract attention from his boy.
Of course dirty pokitics is only bad if you are Anna Bligh.
I say court action is required. He has admitted he defame to gain political advantage for Mr. Newman.
Migsy, its my friggin’ typing – I did think it was the keyboard and changed but no … human error all the way …
I don’t have a tablet (I have a Fujitsu netbook that doubles as a tablet with a swivel/touchscreen but its a bit thick and heavy – like its owner! Getting a new motherboard fitted as I type!) …
My eldest g/son had one given by a client … his 8 yo brother loves it for games …
Cu re Palmer and:
The first thing which came to mind is, sarcastic pr*ck!!
Please welcome Queensland’s new Premiere :
Campbell Palmer
Min, what came to my mind that they are willing to do anything to win, including destroying one’s reputation. What is more shocking, they can see no wrong.
How can one trust a anything that they utter.
If Palmer and his mates had joined the other big miners, as asked, they would have less to complain about.’
It was not that they were not invited.
The three of them went of fin a huff, therefore they are reaping what they sowed.
Newman one year…Abbott the next…
Clive Palmer and Abbott intend to rule Australia…
Then the world:
I enjoyed that.
An excellent and well-timed piece from Ben Eltham:
Size of government: big is not so bad
One criticism of Sinclair Davidson’s moral crusade against government spending is that, once you move past the just-so morality tale (“Big government bad, private enterprise good”), the reality is that governments can be better at providing critical services than private industry. In one major and growing industry in particular – health care – private enterprise tends to be far more costly at providing basic medical care. Anyone who’s tried to see a doctor in the US will know what I’m talking about. The vast apparatus of US health insurance siphons off huge profits that don’t, on the whole, get reinvested in better productivity. Instead, medical providers are able to leverage the almost complete information asymmetry between doctors and patients to routinely over-charge. In contrast, in public systems like Australia’s PBS, the Government uses its monopsony in buying power to dictate what prices it will pay for life-saving drugs. Doctors get paid far more in the US than they do in Australia or Japan. There’s no evidence they’re any better doctors.
Education has similar characteristics. Highly privatised education systems do not necessarily produce better outcomes than public systems. Indeed, the world’s leading education system is Norway’s, a country where there is essentially no private schooling. Similarly, public universities such as Oxford, Cambridge and the University of California are every bit as good as the top Ivy League institutions like Harvard. In America, for profit-private institutions have far worse four-year graduation rates than either private, non-profit or public institutions.
But the main reason to be suspicious of small government is, appropriately, a moral argument. This is that government remains the agency best capable of evening up life’s perils and uncertainties. As Mike Beggs writes in a fine recent feature for Overland:
“in a capitalist society, inequality is not a policy setting but the outcome of market processes.”
The foundation of the post-war consensus of social democracy was that governments can play a role in addressing that inequality, and in providing basic services that the market cannot or will not provide, especially for the poorest. This is an idea you will hear advanced in many of Robert Menzies’ speeches.
Let me put it this way: in our country, we recognise that the Government has a role in providing for the elderly in their retirement, in healing the sick and teaching the young, and in providing a subsistence income for those who have lost their jobs.
I don’t think that’s a bad thing. Do you?
Ben Eltham is a writer, journalist, researcher and creative producer from Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3912918.html
Yep.
N’
Now this cannot be correct. It would mean that el gordo might be wrong. That cannot be, can it?
Cu, one of my English grandmother’s sayings also came to mind: Pride goeth before the fall.
‘….global temperatures now predicted to rise by between 1.4 and 3 degrees Celsius by 2050.’
Yeah…but they are using models.
Remember the one that went with it. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
That is something I am looking forwarded to.
I am a great believer, in what goes up, comes down.
I do not believe we will grow much older while we wait,
Tony Abbott’s nanny state:
el gordo, I imagine they are using collected data to make those models. I would find it hard to believe they just make figures up.
The reserch appears to be indepth and far reaching. It is also up to date.
‘…extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by man-made global warming.’
Saying ‘very likely’ is about 90 percent certain, doesn’t hold water in my book.
El gordo, how else should things be measured except by using models…
They say Mr. Abbott is a fighter. I say he is a thug and a bully. Is this what we want in a PM. One who meets every challenge with aggression.
Min at 7:56. I’m glad I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I read that. 😆
el gordo, I would be worried if I was told there was a 90% chance of dying in the next week. I would not hold out much hope.
I think you might have misread. Are they saying there is a 90% chance happening. The way I read it, is that they are only 90% sure of the timeline and how it will happen.
CU @ 7.02
Could that statement by Palmer that he defamed Hutton as a political ploy be enough for a good case for defamation?
He,Palmer, did set about attacking/ defaming Hutton and the Greens and I never heard a public apology.
from your link
“Mr Hutton says he is reconsidering defamation action against Mr Palmer.
“I was seriously considering dropping any idea about taking him to court, but it’s re-kindled my desire to do so,” Mr Hutton said.
“I’m certainly getting back in touch with my lawyers about sending a letter of intent to Clive as soon as possible.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-26/palmer-hints-cia-claims-were-a-ploy/3913574
That what happens when people gloat, they are not careful of what they say.
What the PM has to say.
I believe that Mr. Fraser has put his finger on an alternate reason for the rout. My emphasis.
Let ’em gloat, Min. It won’t be too long and they’ll be sobbing into their beer, because every tiny mistake will be theirs. Nobody to hide behind, and no avoiding the harsh spotlight on their faces; they’ll have to own them.
And people will be very impatient for their hero to fix everything he’s promised to fix in the five minutes he said it would take.
And they’ll get very narky when all he delivers is Liars Party bullshit.
Newman will also have have a big fat albatross in the form of the ghastly Palmer around his neck from now on and if he thinks Palmer won’t be there with the knife and scales for his pound of flesh, he’s very much mistaken.
Palmer’s fat paw will be pulling Newman’s strings; not the power behind the throne, he’ll be front and centre.
Yesterday on the Qld election thread we were discussing how the Federal govt will need to get its message out about federal funding over and above the states claiming it as their own. An example of this is in todays SMH. It is a good story of additional funding for teachers and schools for children with disabilities. The problem is you cannot grasp who is providing the funding.
By the end of the story I think it is from additional funds from the Federal govt, however there is plenty of references of what the state is doing.
From the middle and end of article:
“NSW will use a $48 million funding boost from the federal government to improve specialist training for teachers to better support children with a range of disabilities, learning disorders and mental health problems.
The federal parliamentary secretary for school education, Senator Jacinta Collins, said $63 million would be spent on NSW schools, including those from the independent and Catholic sectors.”
But this is how it started, so start and middle:
“NAPLAN test results and school assessment will be among a range of measures the state government will use to help it distribute funding for the rapidly growing number of children with disabilities and special needs in public schools across the state.
Mr Piccoli said the $48 million in federal funding was on top of $1.18 billion in recurrent state government funding to support students with disabilities
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/new-funding-system-for-disabled-pupils-welcomed-20120326-1vunn.html#ixzz1qG5e5ybQ
Now it is the mixed message that is the worry, would the state govt of NSW be able to offer the extras without the money from the Gillard govt and the useful Naplan information another Gillard iniative?
Fights on
“The veteran federal Nationals MP Bruce Scott is not keen on stepping aside so Barnaby Joyce can take his seat, setting the scene for a brawl as the senator makes his move to the lower house.
Party sources said Senator Joyce would most likely prevail in a head-to-head contest but one official said ”it will be ugly”.
”It’s a bit silly. Bruce most likely would have quit but if you put him under public pressure, his nature is to dig in and fight.”
The fact Senator Joyce had been shopping for a seat showed he did not care about any area in particular.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/joyce-causes-a-stir-while-shopping-for-seat-20120326-1vupn.html#ixzz1qG8XiQow
On am this morning they were discussing, guess what, a newspoll. alp collapse but gillard ahead of abbott.
now last night on abc radio, a guest from the australian was discussing a poll, but not newspoll, essential polling. in that poll according to the guest the underlying tracking showed that the gillard govt was on the way up.
Yeah…but they are using models.
Maybe you can comprehend it when we substitute one word for others.
For Businesses susbtitue the word “models” for Business Plans.
For Economists substitute the word “models” for Projections.
For Investors substitute the word “models” for Forward Estimates.
For Bankers substitute the word “models” for Cash Flow Projections.
For Shareholders substitute the word “models” for Dividend Forecasts.
How amazing that all of those areas base their strategies on forward projecting “models” and would not act without them. Big business would demand these reports regularly.
Yet the denailati refuse to accept forward projections by climate science experts and demand no action.
Undbelievable hypocrisy from the elite, wealthy and greed ridden to refuse to accept the one set of models that could effect their profit.
Climate is chaos and the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
Models are biased towards a particular outcome from the start.
the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
gonna need a link for that
It was my understanding that models rely on raw data as a starting point.
Models are biased towards a particular outcome from the start.
So why on earth do all of the areas I mentioned rely on them, if they, according to your comment, are aware of the bias outcome ?
Climate is chaos and the models always start with the assumption that CO2 is causing global warming.
Utter rubbish, models need to start with actual facts and then build in assumptions based on those facts. They never started with an assumption that CO2 is causing global warming. The assumptions based on facts to date have provided the evidence to the scientific experts that CO2 causes global warming.
Can’t rely on the models, there is a flawed assunption built in, we would be wiser to start with a discussion on black body radiation, which determines the temperature of the inner planets.
Just how do you know there is a flawed assumption. ? or is that your own flawed assumption ?
You have more assumptions in all of your comments to date than any models I know of.
we would be wiser to start with a discussion on black body radiation, which determines the temperature of the inner planets.
Why ?
We cannot do anything about it.
We can do things about our huamn contribution to our atmosphere.
How do we know the “models” in regards to black body radiation are not littered with flawed and biased assumptions ?
there is a flawed assunption built in,
gonna need a link for that
😯
Tom’s making me laugh again. Such a fine wit.
Roswell, was that a typo? Didn’t you mean fine twit?
el gordo is looking forward to a sceptic’s heavenly future for all of us:
nasking
thanks for the other on ipa, engrossing isn’t it
the abc should have to identify the ipa as what it is and not the convenient “independent think tank”. also the ipa panelists should identify funding it receives. for example last night on the drum Tim was in full command with his ideas on taxation and alcohol, all i could think was
does the ipa receive funding from
clubs
aha, australian hotels assoc
brewers
The ABC is doing a disservice it could just be distributing political propoganda or worse trying to influence the Legislative process.
El gordo and Can’t rely on the models, there is a flawed assunption built in..
Certainly you can start with a hypothesis and then collect data to attempt to prove the hypothesis. And this is why work is peer reviewed, so as to ensure that the data has not been manipulated to prove a point.
If 97% of scientists accept that AGW is causing global warming…very likely to be true….I think the assumption is imbedded.
El gordo, there is nothing to be gained for scientists if all that they do is to agree with each other. You don’t get the grants, the status from just repeating something which somebody else has already done – originality wins the Big Accolades.
….I think the assumption is imbedded.
Should be corrected to ‘I think the evidence points to all logical conclusions that AGW is in fact causing global warming’
‘…the evidence points to all logical conclusions that AGW is in fact causing global warming’
Real time data suggests that is not the case.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=77461
is there any links between eg and ipa?
Sue,
Agree.
Perhaps the ALP and msm should be pointing out the “faceless” and not so faceless men and women behind the Liberals and Nats?
Tim Wilson usually owns up to things funding-wise…but the funding should definitely be scrutinised further…and made clear to the public by The Drum, Q&A, Agenda hosts etc…
Now the QLD election is over the FOCUS wil go on the ABBOTT OPPOSITION big time.
Here comes the flood. 🙂
BTW, Ad astra @ The political Sword has put up a brilliant piece describing Abbott:
http://www.thepoliticalsword.com/post/2012/03/26/Abbott’s-atrophy.aspx
Some of the article:
Referring to Abbott’s obligation to comment on Margaret Whitlam’s death, Andrew Elder said on Politically Homeless: “It’s clear he doesn’t want to do it but he can’t get over himself enough to throw himself into the task. He manifestly doesn’t care that people are mourning her loss, and cares even less about her patronage of the arts…Taking a swipe at Gough Whitlam and his government on the way through may have been minor, but it reveals a character fundamentally too weak to become Prime Minister.”
Is this the PM you Abbott supporters want? Driven by fear into insensitive outbursts, and when the occasion beckons, paroxysms of personal invective? Would this PM make you proud? Would he be different when he had the keys to The Lodge? Or would this entrenched behaviour continue? To borrow from Abbott’s own phraseology, he seems to be ‘an insensitive, nasty leader, getting worse’. Has Abbott’s decline become irreversible? Has his atrophy reached the point of no return?
That Abbott’s aggressive behaviour is a product of his ‘visceral fear’ is a plausible hypothesis. We know that, like most politicians, he desperately wants to win, and even more so hates to lose, especially to the woman who is now the PM, a position he believes she occupies illegitimately. He has never overcome the anger and frustration he felt when Julia Gillard won the negotiating battle with the Independents to form minority government, and since that day in September 2011 has used every device at his disposal to bring down her Government. His anger at losing an election is not new; it goes back to his student days at university when he kicked in a door after a narrow loss.
——-
Spot on.
N’
Real time data suggests that is not the case.
Did you read the last paragraph of your link ?
Here it is for you
The Bering Sea stands in stark contrast to the rest of the Arctic ice cap, where sea ice extent was below average in both January and February. Ice cover was down drastically on the Atlantic Ocean side of the Arctic, including the Kara, Barents, and Laptev Seas, where air temperatures were 4 to 8 degrees Celsius (7 to 14 degrees Fahrenheit) above the norm
Nas’ from Ad astra’s article..
That is something that we have speculated on here at the Café, being Tony Abbott’s personality traits. The above comes under the heading of Abbott’s sense of entitlement, that “all” should be his and for no other reason than he wants it.
I think the assumption is imbedded.
How did this ‘assumption’ get there though, considering that around 40 years ago it was considered a rather fringe theory?
Scientists tend to be swayed by facts, not selective interpretation. That is the field best left to the denialati
Indeed Min. We have some useful comments and posts here related to Tony Abbott.
N’
What is forgotten, the most that Mr. Abbott can hope for in the near future, is an election for the lower house.
If this occurred, the houses would be out of sinc. That means that elections can only be hled for one house or the other.
This happened in the days of Menzies. It was like one was having elections all the time, but going nowhere. Mr. Menzies has to call a unnecessary lower house election to bring them back in sinc.
What Mr. Abbott is promising is years of instability.
Does he really believe that business can or will be willing to put their plans on hold, indefinitely for many years. I believe not.
Not a very pretty future in my humble opinion. With the rapid restructuring going on in the global economy, it is future we cannot afford.
Not that I believe the voters will give much thought to. They are only interested in their own well-being. They obviously do not see Mr. Abbott a threat to that.
It is el gordo’s flawed perceptions that are the problem.
Cu, my instinct tells me that Tony Abbott is doing nothing more than grandstanding..and grandstanding is effectively all that there is left for him to do.
Shane, you are spot on. The literature is very clear in saying the effects will not be uniform. They go onto say, it is still not clear what all the effects will be. That is where figures like 96% come from.
It is this type of statement that the likes of el gordo, to launch their arguments.
I believe the science is settled on whether there is human induced climate change, cause by releasing carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
What is unclear is what the full effect will be on the earth.
“Abbott’s sense of entitlement, that “all” should be his and for no other reason than he wants it.”
Maybe more that that. He feels let down because this is what his parents promised him. His sisters where taught to treat him as the future leader.
What was not clear at the time, whether he would be pope or PM.
I think he might have found out at that seminary, that it was easier to become PM, worse luck for us.
I have a feeling that Mr. Abbott believe that woman are there to assist in him getting what he wants, not being the competitor.
He has humoured the PM for years, believing that the job was his when he reached for it.
Mr. Abbott did not, but is beginning to do so, in seeing her as serious competition. The fact is unhinging him.
Maybe the public will wake up and then those polls will change.
The PM needs to get some good runs on the board before that occurs.
Yes Shane, that’s precisely my point, in a global warming world (due to CO2 increase) there should be a moderation in temperatures across the northern hemisphere.
At the end of last century even the sceptics thought the AGW theory appeared sound, there was a definite warming at night, while the daytime highs were flat or slightly below average.
This is what you would expect if you put CO2 in dry air, there is a warming.
Then they discovered the winters were warming, all perfectly accurate long term trends…solid data…which suggested a greenhouse effect.
Siberian pines experienced their greatest growth from WW2 to 1968, according to one tree ring study going back 500 years. So it sure looked like positive feedback.
Still the scientific sceptics persisted…half of 20th century warming happened before CO2 levels began to increase, which is exactly what you see in ice cores going back over millenia. CO2 follows an increase in temperature.
Greenhouse physics also tells us that CO2 in a wet environment does not increase temperature, which must have put a damper on the theory.
.
Greenhouse physics also tells us that CO2 in a wet environment does not increase temperature in a simple, straight line which must have put a damper on the denialist theory.
😉
Is not this the PM’s tact’s. I notice that the morning shows are picking up on Mr. Abbott’s poll figures. They appear to be asking why> Maybe that is a start.
This is worth reading in full.
“in a global warming world (due to CO2 increase) there should be a moderation in temperatures across the northern hemisphere.”
You say that carbon emission does caused temperature change.
Why then it so hard to believe, if man ups the level of emission, by his actions, this would have no additional effect.
Siberian pines experienced their greatest growth from WW2 to 1968, according to one tree ring study going back 500 years. So it sure looked like positive feedback.
What has happened to the pines since 1968.?
Once again, division within the party.
Now this could not possibly be true. Is it possible that the boat trade goes up and down, regardless of what governments do.
Could it?
Yes she can become unhinged, or the PM can continue as she is doing, governing for the benefit of all Australia.
Maybe Mr. Abbott should reserve some of that thinking to ponder on why his own figures are so bad.
The Siberian pines are still doing well, but it should be remembered that the treeline has not reached the extent of the period 800-1300 AD.
CU there is good reason to believe the increasing CO2 is being taken up by the Siberian pines, it’s a very large sink.
Carbon emissions only appeared to be causing climate change and I refer you to the image of the Bering Strait covered in thin ice.
This is not new, its part of a cycle and CO2 is of no consequence.
Cu and Ms Gillard said she would continue to to work on selling the Federal Government’s policies.
So now all that we need is for the media to likewise concentrate on policies instead of on personalities.
CU there is good reason to believe the increasing CO2 is being taken up by the Siberian pines, it’s a very large sink.
For how long ? Just like the amazon, here is a page with links in relation to the siberian pines and the disappearing forests.
Sorry here is the link
http://www.rjkoehler.com/2010/02/14/siberian-timbering-economic-salvation-extinction-and-enslavement/
Polls.
http://andrewcatsaras.blogspot.com.au/
The sinks are under stress from humans, but there is no need for concern.
Maybe Mr. Hunt will lower himself to tell us how this works. It appears that the Lib feel free to say anything that sounds OK. Fact are of no importance.
The American way has come to Australia. We at the cafe have had articles on how in America the private prison operators use cheap prison labor to undermine jobs in the workforce. Look what Colin Barnet is introducing in WA, must be part of the 2 speed economy
“The West Australian government has denied violent prisoners will work at the new Fiona Stanley Hospital under an agreement with multinational company Serco.
Serco not only has a government contract to provide services at the hospital when it opens next year, but also runs the Rangeview adolescent remand centre next door, in Perth’s southern suburb of Murdoch.
“Health care union United Voice said Serco already used prison labour to cut costs at some of its UK facilities.
“There have been rumours and pretty clear indication now for months that Serco was planning to use prisoners at the Fiona Stanley Hospital as working staff,” assistant secretary Carolyn Smith said.
“Those rumours, we believe, were confirmed this week.”
Ms Smith said the government had already been dishonest in not revealing its plans to privatise hospitals before it was elected, and did not believe it now.
Opposition corrective services spokesman Frank Logan accused the government of backflipping.
“We’ve got Serco … who will be operating a prison for 18 to 24-year-old adult men right next to the Fiona Stanley Hospital, which will also be run by Serco,” he said.
“Minister Redman said on radio today he had no problem with prisoners being used in that hospital.”
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-national/wa-denies-prisoners-will-work-at-hospital-20120327-1vw8y.html
I am surprised at the results. I can only surmise that it is because Mr. Abbott knows what is best for us.
‘Queensland’s Land Court has recommended the state government approve Xstrata Coal’s massive new thermal coal mine at Wandoan, in the Surat Basin, and deemed objections based on the mine’s likely contribution to climate change as ‘‘irrelevant’’.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/climate-change-irrelevant-in-coal-mine-decision-20120327-1vw77.html#ixzz1qIpK3w9R
Shane, it is only a matter of time before we run out of sinks.
Maybe I should reword that. The number and size of the sinks are fast disappearing, which adds to the problem of increased production.
We have cut down the trees across the world especially in the jungles across the world. We have decimated our rain forests.
No, Shane I do not believe the sinks can cope. Sinks do not grow as we the increase emissions.
No, there is no easy answer.
Can we trust Abbott. No I am not joking.
IMHO, we cannot., he is telling lies when he says he is going to roll everything back.
The man is stupid, up himself or lying when he says so.
Climate Sceptic donor, Michael Hintze, gets to dine privatley with UK Prime Minister Cameron
“On Monday, Downing Street was forced to reveal that Hintze was among the leading Tory donors who were invited to privately dine with David Cameron at a “thank you” dinner following the general election in 2010. The revelation that Hintze, who has also donated £1.5m to the Tory party, is connected with climate change scepticism will be an embarassment for David Cameron, who has pledged to lead the “greenest government ever”.
“in 2010 The Hintze Family Charitable Foundation also gave £100,000 to the Institute of Economic Affairs, a right-leaning, free-market thinktank, where Hintze is also a trustee. The IEA has promoted the work of Lord Lawson and other climate sceptics, including a book claiming global warming is not caused by humans but is instead part of a natural cycle. Professor David Henderson, a member of the IEA’s advisory council, is the chairman of GWPF’s academic advisory council.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/27/tory-donor-climate-sceptic-thinktank
Really, Sue. What organs are he donating?
The Opposition isn’t going to be happy about this one..
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/asylum-claims-in-australia-fall-despite-global-increase-20120327-1vwnj.html#ixzz1qM57skMR
Min
they can spin that, on capital hill last night jamie briggs said that europe doesn’t have refugees come by boat but by land . it is easier by land.
and that dill, lyndal curtis, let him get away with it.
More on carbon sinks….
‘In a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, Wolfgang Knorr, a German scientist at the University of Bristol, writes that the percentage of man-made CO2 emissions reaching the atmosphere has more or less remained constant for the last 150 years.
‘Even as the total amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere has risen dramatically, the amount that is trapped in the atmosphere has remained at a steady 40 percent.
‘In other words, the more CO2 emitted by human activity, the more, in absolute terms, the natural world can absorb.’
“The implicit assumption that government funded research is unbiased is nonsense.
“On the contrary, it virtually guarantees the manufacture of problems to be studied in that researchers have learned that suggesting a link to a possible problem greatly improves the probability of funding approval. This has become so dominant in the environmental sciences that basic research has almost ceased to exist and nearly all effort is now directed at investigating purported problems.
“Worse yet, the dominance of problem-oriented research has created an environment wherein the normal scientific process of rigorous critical examination of claims has been suppressed in environmental matters.
Now even the most poorly founded, and often even absurd claims, regularly pass peer review and are published in leading journal. Then, if challenged by anyone, the critic is denigrated while the substance of the criticism is ignored.”
Walter Starck (Biologist) March 27, 2012
So here is an interview in which I ask Dr Knorr specifically whether his research backs up climate sceptics. (He says no, if you can’t listen to it)
http://jonesthenews.wordpress.com/2009/11/10/bristol-research-does-not-support-climate-change-denial/
The Heartland Institute
The Heartland Institute is a conservative and libertarian public policy think tank based in Chicago, Illinois which advocates free market policies. The Institute is designated as a 501(c) non-profit by the Internal Revenue Service and advised by a 15 member board of directors, which meets quarterly. As of 2011, it has a full-time staff of 40, including editors and senior fellows.
The Institute was founded in 1984 and conducts research and advocacy work on issues including government spending, taxation, healthcare, tobacco policy, global warming, information technology and free-market environmentalism.
In the 1990s, the group worked with the tobacco company Philip Morris to question the science linking secondhand smoke to health risks, and to lobby against government public health reforms.
More recently, the Institute has focused on questioning the science of climate change, has sponsored meetings of climate change skeptics, and is now alleged to be promoting public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
In 2012 documents leaked to the public disclosed some sources of the organizations funding, and include a “Climate Strategy Memo” whose authenticity has been challenged.
(wikipedia)
N’
Yeah…Knorr would say that in the face of academic extinction.
Here’s the original yarn.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/0,1518,660902,00.html
Knorr would say that in the face of academic extinction.</i
or simply to stop his research being abused.
tin-foil hat time for grodo
One wonders why grodo failed to mention this little titbit then
For Knorr himself, his research changes nothing when it comes to the dangers that climate change presents. “So far, nothing has changed, but that doesn’t mean it won’t in the future,” he says.
funny, for someone who complained about certain participants being only interested in ‘muddying’ the debate.
This is the difficulty with problem oriented research.
yes, problems should be ignored 😯
As I said earlier grodo, this only became a problem, because the weight of scientific evidence raised it to that level.
If you really want to make money, present evidence to the contrary. Short of that, hitch yaself to a rich benefactor, and get gisshin’
Who’s your Daddy?
It beggars belief…
‘A team of scientists led by geochemist Zunli Lu from Syracuse University in New York state, has found that contrary to the ‘consensus’, the ‘Medieval Warm Period’ approximately 500 to 1,000 years ago wasn’t just confined to Europe.
‘In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica – which means that the Earth has already experience global warming without the aid of human CO2 emissions.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2120512/Global-warming-Earth-heated-medieval-times-human-CO2-emissions.html#ixzz1qMQKTq6C
Nasking the IEA in the UK is also trying to promote public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
And there we have one of the funders Hintze having a private dinner with Prime Minister Cameron.
And then we have in Australia the IPA, who needs dinner with a PM when we have free access to the ABC, all platforms
I am wondering does the ABC pay for the IPA content?
With radio, tv and online the value of its “free think tank” dispersion would be worth a considerable amount if the IPA had to pay the ABC but if the ABC pays the IPA , how wonderful for the conservatives in Australia.
In fact, it extended all the way down to Antarctica
It appears that the ‘story’ in the daily mail is using extrapolation to read into the results what they want to see.
Unless you can point me to the relevant section that confirms their story from the actual source grodo. the closest it comes is this.
“We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,”
The two statements are not the same. Not by a long shot.
http://www.syr.edu/news/articles/2012/ikaite-03-12.html
for further reading
http://climatecrocks.com/2012/03/27/birth-of-a-climate-crock-scientist-disavows-daily-mail-story-on-mwp/
Its behind a academic paywall, I’ll read yer stuff instead.
it will be interesting how this one goes. Andrew Bartlett is running for Brisbane Lord Mayor.
“We showed that the Northern European climate events influenced climate conditions in Antarctica,” Lu says. “More importantly, we are extremely happy to figure out how to get a climate signal out of this peculiar mineral. A new proxy is always welcome when studying past climate changes.”
el gordo, don;t you ever get sick of the subject.
As far as I am concerned, and i believe many others the matter has been dealt with and it is time to move on to more current concerns.
Why don’t you take it somewhere else for a while and give us a break.
I am more concerned about the attack on the rights of low paid workers being attacked.
Is this what we want. It is what the Opposition is offering.
Cu, Andrew Bartlett is also very active on Facebook and has this link up on his page, to his blog.
http://networkedblogs.com/vGpyC
CU…Tom and I are having an amiable discussion about CC, we enjoy the banter.
For the lurkers not interested in the science, the debate is now about whether Spiegel and the Daily Mail make shit up.
When the scientists spoke to the media they were excited and happy with their discoveries, but once the Klimatariat get wind of it the scientists are forced into an unenviable position.
The earlier quote from Starck illuminates the problem.
on March 28, 2012 at 9:59 amSue
Nasking the IEA in the UK is also trying to promote public school curricula challenging the scientific consensus on climate change.
And there we have one of the funders Hintze having a private dinner with Prime Minister Cameron.
And then we have in Australia the IPA, who needs dinner with a PM when we have free access to the ABC, all platforms
———-
Sue,
PM Cameron is going to have to be very careful…he’s got some troubling contacts…
And his past relationship with the Murdoch empire could create real problems for him. Same goes for some of his ministers.
There are many people suffering in the UK now under his “big society”…”big sh*t” as Rev on the TV show refers to it…many falling thru the cracks as community support is withdrawn…
if he looks like a bullsh*tter on clean energy…and other issues…this will add to the public cynicism…
they don’t trust Murdoch…nor the big bankers…many politicians…Russian oligarchs living there…corporate heads running alot of the sports…
football and olympics are a distraction right now…and the pubs…and the EU, Scottish issues…
but if I know the poms (was born there)…they will take so much…and then with a push by a few respected papers and news hosts they will turn on a leader…
even Maggie fenlt their wrath.
They’re used to BS from leaders…
and flag wearing nationalism…
and immigrants/asylum seekers being used to try and score political points…
but if they see too many bigwigs getting away with things whilst their families are burdened and scapegoated…
they’ll find a way to savage and take the piss out of them gradually, incrementally…until they learn. Or piss off. Or die.
Murdoch’s hell has just begun I reckon…
Cameron needs to be careful. Same goes for Osborne.
The rich will get eaten.
Slowly.
Ask the aristocracy. Now just figureheads and charity-driven…
Or figures of ridicule…larfed at.
N’
even Maggie fenlt their wrath.
Should be:
even Maggie felt their wrath
N’
BROKEN PROMISES. THE THROW AWAY WORDS TO DESCRIBE LABOR LEADERS. ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE WOMAN.
HOW CAN ONE BREAK A PROMISE THEY DID NOT MAKE.
What about all the promises that are kept?
Could the truth be that this PM has kept more promises than most previous PM has.
Maybe a list of promises kept should be put out by Labor listing this. Also the list of promises broken and those the PM has been unable to keep.
There is a difference in breaking promises and not keeping them owing to the situations changing.
and sometimes keeping promises can ne more dangerous that breaking them
“Black carbon, aka fine soot, is an atmospheric pollutant that has been implicated in warming when it lands on snow. However, despite many claims to the contrary, atmospheric black carbon cools the surface rather than warming it.”
Willis Eschenbach March 27, 2012
CU
one promise to be on the kept list, looking after your superannuation investment.
Last week the government passed new laws for the financial planning industry, the opposition opposed the laws.
thank goodness the independents voted with the government, because as ASIC found
“Financial planners stumble in ASIC advice test”
The corporate regulator has found that too many financial advisers are providing poor advice to baby boomers about their financial future.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-28/asic-raps-financial-planners-over-advice/3917290
Morning one and all..My name is Mark and I’m a new starter here.I think i’ve got a case of new liberalism at my and the missus’ workplace going on, can I get an opinion please? We work at a small farm, fruit picking strawberries. Have been there 7 yrs, loyal locals and all that. About 3 yrs ago the boss put us all on contracts, Fair enough, work hard = good pay. Recently we romp up for early season work, planting and that, only to find two new disturbing developments. One: the boss has put on an overall sub-contracting mob with little room for locals, or indeed Aussies.. the new mob are all asians on 457 visas. The boss built a shanty town for them on site. There all people so we talk here n there, it turns out they are Nth Koreans! I know the boss is entitled to cut costs where he can, which brings up point two : When we’re in the fields, theres a port-a-potty at each end of the field, for obvious reasons.. well there is no more port-a-pottys this year! It costs too much- about $80 a day! So its a walk back to the central sheds, sometimes 2 km! In our time! Now some may say go pee in the bushes.. thats ok for guys kinda, but not for my Missus. Sexual descrimination? Guys are a bit lazy so its go in the rows.. Workplace Health n Saftey? The boss doesnt care – if the works not getting done on time, just put more Nth Koreans on! Is this the new liberal way that we have to get used to? Or should the Missus and I just put up with it? Mark from the Sunshine coast Qld.
Is this what the voters expect when one votes for the Coalition. Did they promise to do away with the promise to cut emissions.
I am sure we will not hear that he lied. No that is saved for Labor female politicians.
Cu, and then in the alternative reality to Victoria’s…
**my bold.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-28/kohler-emissions-targets-increase-ahead/3916840?WT.svl=theDrum
el gordo, I do not consider myself a lurker, what ever that means.
I am very interested in science, that is not what you are discussing.
I find it hard how one can enjoy going over the same ground, day in and day out.
I suppose it comes down to what makes one happy.
What do you hope to achieve by keeping on with your belief that carbon emissions do not cause man made climate change?
I have not noticed one person changing their opinion because of what you say.
Yes Sue, there is a lot we have to protect. The Opposition were against legalisation to give low income earners better super conditions.
Something to do with the taxation break. As it stands now, the low income earner gets no benefit from it, as their tax rate is the same.
The CC energy money will go towards the money the government will not receive because of the tax breaks super gives.
Taking it from 12% to 15 means lower receipts for the government.
Min from your link.
Some can keep on attempting to change the facts, but all this does is make everything dearer in the long run.
Are the Opposition going to come out with the truth, or are they going to proceed as the States are doing now.
I wonder if this supreme court judge is trying to screw over Obama…and the people’s healthcare?:
Antonin Scalia
Antonin Scalia was nominated by President Ronald Reagan as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. Scalia took oath of office September 26, 1986, and in 2000 was the centerpiece of the U.S. Presidential Selection.
In January 2004, Scalia spent time duck hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney at a private camp (guests of Wallace Carline, owner of Diamond Services in Amelia, St. Mary Parish) in southern Louisiana (reportedly travelling on Air Force 2 just three weeks after the court agreed to take up the vice president’s appeal in lawsuits over his handling of Vice President Cheney’s Energy Task Force.
While Scalia and Cheney are avid hunters and longtime friends, several experts in legal ethics questioned the timing of their trip and said it raised doubts about Scalia’s ability to judge the case impartially.
But Scalia rejected that concern, saying, “I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned.”
In April 2004, “Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia ordered U.S. Marshals to seize the tapes of reporters who recorded his speeches before two religious schools in Mississippi. Ironic in that the man who fancies himself the sole authority on the Constitution would believe that reporters should not be able to talk about what he says.”
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Antonin_Scalia
N’
If it wasn’t for Julia I wouldn’t be here discussing CC.
Antonin Scalia on Crime
Government is not responsible for abuses in private prisons. (Jul 2009)
Scientific testing requires live testimony in criminal cases. (Jun 2011)
International Court not grounds for stay of execution. (Jul 2011)
Fleeing the police is reasonable grounds for a search. (Jan 2000)
Shorten time between sentencing and executions. (Apr 2000)
OK to lengthen prison sentences retroactively. (Mar 2000)
Life-sentence alternative doesn’t affect death sentence. (Jun 2000)
http://www.ontheissues.org/Antonin_Scalia.htm
Nice guy. Sounds like a Republican.
Like a Floridian, Ohio and Texan one these days.
N’
el gordo, is that the only reason you are here.
What has Julia done to cause you to be here discussing it.
Surely there is somewhere else you can go for a while.
Big times…during hard times:
Supreme Court Health Reform Law: Obama Administration Finds Optimism
Posted: 03/27/2012
Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/…obama_n_1384055.html
N’
CU
she would be lonely noone else is bothered to talk
For those who lurk and don’t comment, the science is not settled, nevertheless the Denialati are convinced global cooling has begun.
Post Modernism brings mass delusion through sophisticated propaganda….wake up.
The bear enters the cubby house….
El gordo, this is one bear you won’t want to mess with. Like me, he is intolerant of fools. I suggest you don’t act like one.
Nas, be gentle on her. Sometimes she speaks without thinking.
Tom and I are having an amiable discussion about CC, we enjoy the banter.
amiable??
I think, when it comes to AGW, that I have called you a TROLL and voiced my opinion of your grubby tactics enough times to indicate to even the most thick-headed, ignorant troglodyte that there is nothing ‘amiable’ about it.
When it comes to AGW and your continual LIES, I simply repudiate them (when I am about), and then call you out for what you are; a pathetic, lowlife fool who would rather play word games than consider the implications for our future.
El gordo,
The tactics you used at the now defunct other blog won’t work here. Cute terms that you’ve garnished from elsewhere such as ‘the cubby house’, leave ’em.
No probs Migs…
el gordo probably has post-traumatic stress disorder after so many debate car crashes…nothing worst than espousing ideas that keep hitting scientific and logical walls.
N’
Mark welcome to the new world. Nasking is giving some examples of where we may be heading, if we are not careful, with his words on Antonin Scalia in the USA.
Mark I was under the belief they tightened up on the 457. They are turning up everywhere. One will now find them do the shut downs in the power houses. The workers who for decades that endured the uncertainty of work, have now been pushed aside.
What I do not understand why we have so many Koreans. I thought that theor standard of living was no longer low, and their workforce must more than lowly, low paid workers.
We still have the Opposition calling for more workplace flexibility. It is time they are asked what they mean.
What blog do you mean?
I see you said North Koreans, I wonder how that could be.
I did not know that the country was open enough to provide guest workers.
I am interested in finding out, how they would get to this country.
Are they refugees.
Mark, been there and certainly done that. I used to pick strawberries for the Chapman bros. out at Wandin, Victoria.
I think that I know the SE Qld people who you are talking about as they sell at the Byron Bay and Gold Coast markets and so I got to know quite a few of these people.
Are you sure that they’re North Koreans? I thought that the Singh bros did most of the work, they’re 3rd generation Australians.
A must read for everyone:
MARCH 27, 2012
The Smear is On
The Second Killing of Trayvon Martin
by JOHN ESKOW
The cowardly police in Sanford, Florida, who sanctioned the murder of an unarmed black teenager by a racist vigilante named George Zimmerman, have now assassinated Trayvon Martin a second time, by leaking scurrilous and irrelevant “news” about him.
This age-old dirty-trick of cops—compounded by a blitzkrieg of propaganda from Zimmerman’s lawyer, The Orlando Sentinel, and one apparently unhinged black “friend”–has been, so far, fairly successful in muddying the narrative on the public airwaves. So let’s take a moment to sift through the cops’ slurs and innuendoes and see where, if anyplace, they take us.
About the salient facts there is no dispute. Zimmerman, a cop wanna-be who was also probably a small-time informant, a pathetic, chubby, Chaz-Bono-lookalike who’d twice been arrested for hitting a woman; Zimmerman, son of a judge, safe from reprisals; George Zimmerman, who calls black kids “coons” and “assholes,” who was strictly warned not to pursue Trayvon Martin, refused this direct order over the phone and instead grabbed his 9-millimeter gun and waddled off to blow a hole in the chest of a kid who had committed no wrong.
From the start, I was edgy about certain elements of the outrage. Too much emphasis on the presumed childishness and vulnerability of Trayvon Martin, about the Skittles and ski-vacations and his undeniable cuteness. My own son is only six months younger than Trayvon, and he is of mixed racial background, with a tawny complexion; he always wears a hoodie with the hood up, along with other clothes some would perceive as “ghetto”; he is 6’1” and very well-muscled; and he loves Skittles. He is also, by objective account, adorable and kind-hearted. But if some oafish vigilante were to challenge his right to walk down the street, he might well become angry, and he might defend himself with a punch.
Thus today’s biggest, police-leaked “reveleation”: that, gee, perhaps Trayvon Martin was not Mahatma Ghandi with a sweet-tooth. According to the cops—parroting Zimmerman’s own account, since of course they did absolutely no forensic work of their own (CSI Sanford would be the worst and shortest program on TV)—Martin punched Zimmerman in the face, breaking his nose…thus, of course, provoking his own murder.
Let’s take this face-punching story at face value, though few of the details ring true (Zimmerman refused medical attention at the scene, which will confuse anyone who’s ever suffered a broken nose). Though it is not noble or Christian of me to admit it, I hope Trayvon got a few good shots in. The big irony here is the much-cited “Stand Your Ground Law,” quoted as a defense for Zimmerman’s actions; but if the phrase and the concept have any meaning at all, they would, rather, go to justify Trayvon Martin’s punches!
So let’s assume a scenario where George Zimmerman, with the “fucking coon” still fresh out of his mouth, stomps off to play tough-guy with the “asshole” in the hoodie, and winds up getting punked in a fight he picked but can’t finish. Any man who lived through public high school knows George Zimmerman, and may well have had occasion to kick his ass. But, until fairly recently, the George Zimmermans of the world did not carry nine-millimeter guns.
And so hateful, dopey, clumsy George Zimmerman pulled his trump card, his one and only answer to a world that scares and overwhelms him, and shot a hole in Trayvon Martin’s chest.
The other piece of the cop/Zimmerman leak-strategy today was to drop the supposedly Perry Mason revelation that…this supposedly “good” kid, Trayvon Martin…had been suspended from high school…for possessing an empty bag that had once held marijuana!
Yeah…so, America, how do you like your Trayvon Martin now? He may have smoked weed!
The assumption being, in Sanford, Florida, that possession of an empty bag that once held marijuana is reasonable grounds for murder.
Let us not impose a false and un-necessary innocence on Trayvon Martin in order to pump up our outrage. Let’s allow Trayvon Martin to be a real young man—my son, your son–with anger as well as innocence, perhaps even with marijuana as well as Skittles.
George Zimmerman did not murder some idealized vision of Innocent Black Childhood, or any other idealized vision. No, worse—much worse. He murdered a real 17-year-old. And now, with the help of the local newspaper and a shyster lawyer, the cops are killing that 17-year-old a second time.
John Eskow is a writer and musician. He wrote or co-wrote the movies Air America, The Mask of Zorro, and Pink Cadillac, as well as the novel Smokestack Lightning. He can be reached at: johneskow@yahoo.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/27/the-second-killing-of-trayvon-martin/
I can think of a few Aborigines and other youngsters who’ve also been hunted down, provoked, killed…or wounded…and the excuse was partially to do with “defending ourselves”.
Are your children safe?
In an ever-expanding police and security system…
colour of skin, and what you wear…can make a big difference.
——–
Thinking of the UK these days…
of course…police and media and politicians don’t provoke young people…they don’t help create riots…so they can benefit from LIVE SHOTS, controversy, fear- mongering.
Their corporations don’t push violent and demeaning and misogynistic films, games, music, posters that teach youngsters to hate and distrust governments and authorities…
Certainly no media barons and political figures and corporate CEOs and top police figures would play games like that…
Surely.
Manipulating the public…it just doesn’t happen these days…does it?
N’
“‘Legend has it that Murdoch was incandescent with rage when he saw the first bare breasts to grace his title. But the subsequent rise in paper sales – 1.5 million to 2.1 million in a year – rather soothed him.’ – BBC
Hmmm…
N’
I began using the word cubby house before Ratty picked up on it and I am ‘considering the implications for our future’….which is not much different to yours.
Senator Conroy has been named Intelligent Community Visionary of the year for 2012.
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/conroy-named-a-community-visionary-20120327-1vw6p.html
Can’t wait to see that splashed all over the front pages 🙂
Quality journalism courtesy of Rupert Murdoch’s Sun…
for the times when you allow yerself to be distracted and dumbed down…
because you have your dick where your brains should be:
because you have your dick where your brains should be
Should be:
because you have your dicks where your brains should be
Or
because you have your dick where your brain should be
N’
Hi Min, yes I am sure thereNth Koreans. Talking with one of the girls I remarked how well she spoke english and I said ” I’d know chinese by the end of the season” and she said “well actually Korean”. I said “South Korea , I have a car from there!”. She said “well actually Nth Korea, we have a visa.” . I didn’t know what to say to that! She went on to say “I work here in Australia for three months, then I have to go home, then work in another country.” Eventually I said “it must be a nice country ” and she replied “No, very dangerous!”
Hello boys, look at your woman and now look at me. Sadly she isn’t me.
Because your willy is really really small and you prefer to have a woman whose IQ hovers around room temperature.
😯
Mark, either which way the people have to be paid at the going rate due to the reforms to 457 Visas. This used to be rorted, a method to undercut Australian workers, but the Rudd government changed that. But, on the other hand, tell me a time when fruit pickers and other seasonal workers haven’t been rorted either via rates or accommodation.
The strawberry season is twice per year in SE Qld, so you are no doubt doing something else during the other months.
Whoops, the first part of my post should have been in quotation marks.. 😳
Nas’ and:
because you have your dick where your brains should be
Should be:
because you have your dicks where your brains should be
Or
because you have your dick where your brain should be
N’
Have you made up your mind yet… 😀
And the second part?
Min wrote: Have you made up your mind yet?
Long ago Min,
I keep my dick in the proper place…and use my brain when reading.
That’s why when in the UK I didn’t buy The Sun…tho it did make a useful chip wrapper. 😉
N’
Roswell, well that’s the advert as per Nas’s link. If you keep reading Page 3, here are my coconuts..so it says.
There are just some times when you either have to laugh or cry, to think that this is how women are portrayed. I’ve had my fair share of denigration due to the fact that I happen to be a female, that I’ve been fair game..that people could say what they like knowing that I can’t retaliate. Can’t stand the heat girlie, then get out of the kitchen.
Their ringer yells in Korean all day at the poor buggers and takes 10% of their earnings… Our boss charges $110 p/w for a bed and shared everything else! No shops for 4km, (Beerwah). Only one season of strawberries in this district- winter. Yes we are looking as of now, not much going on around here.
Mark, this is the Gowinta property..then perhaps you should report them.
Min,
Journalists are worried they won’t have a nice paying job if Rubert pulls out…boohoo…
Can’t these people get over their DEPENDENCY?
Put their money together…get a loan…find some rich allies who promise not to interfere…and create a top online news site or twelve?
These journos fart on about “wealth creators”…not relying on “entitlements”…”pulling yerselves up by the bootstraps”…creating a “competitive market” …
Yet they act like a bunch of mollycoddled old Stalinists.
Hilarious.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2012/mar/27/rupert-murdoch-prices-values?newsfeed=true
The Guardian writers shoulda got some awards.
Bloody spoilt whimps the others are.
N’
Rubert should be Rupert…
Not to be confused with Rupert the bear.
Rather Rupert the empire builder.
The Man with the Golden Passports.
N’
el gordo, it we are wrong, there will not be much harm done, and the planet will be cleaner.
If you are wrong, there will be no future for those who come after us.
Did not Mr. Murdoch say, give the planet the benefit of the doubt.
That is what most of us are doing.
Saving a little money is too dear a price to pay for the protection of the planet for future generations.
If you are wrong
There is little doubt of that
Let go back and try and add up on one hand how often hesheits been right?
They are fine sentiments CU, but from the Denialati’s point of view the planet has already passed the tipping point.
Temperatures have stabilised as CO2 continues to rise, there are only two possible futures and global warming is nowhere to be seen. Natural variabilty rules for at least the next couple of decades, but no fear we have technical experts trying to work out what’s wrong.
Julia will bring in her tax against pollution and Yabbott will dismantle it, because CO2 is not a pollutant.
I see Newman’s going to kill the green schemes.
I used to pick strawberries when living in Wishart…way back in 82…
Was hardwork but fun…and tasty. 🙂
Stuff all pay…stuffs yer back too…but not as bad as cutting asparagus in Dubbo.
Plenty of poor migrants looking for enuff money to live…and send home. Usually bloody good workers.
Some keep to themselves. Strangers trying to adapt. Language can be a barrier. Migrant education centres are handy.
I guess some are illegals…farmers need the workers. All the world over. Stuff all locals want the jobs anyway. Bugger all pay. Good food sometimes tho.
I doubt there would be North Koreans unless they ‘d escaped…more likely they’d stay in Sth Korea…life or death stuff.
I knew a Nth Korean boy who’d got out…taught him at a secondary school…he was almost hostile and real guarded at first…but over time I earnt his trust…got him speaking up in class…learning jokes…playing baseball (i was coach)…
Ya gotta treat people with respect…try to get small conversations going…find out their interests…use sign language jokes etc…discover common themes.
Break down those barriers.
N’
Nas, I’m always using sign language.
“Julia will bring in her tax against pollution and Yabbott will dismantle it, because CO2 is not a pollution.”
el gordo you even have that wrong. Tony will replaced it with a more expensive and less efficient solution, called direct action. Tony will pick winners and losers. Tony will let the polluters off scot free.
It will be the ordinary person that pays under his scheme. Up to $1200 per year. I believe.
Of course Tony could be lying, as he is prone to.
.
I forgot, Tony is also lying when he says he will be dismantling it.
This cannot occur for two or three elections down the track.
By the time, if ever, Tony can do as he threatens to, he will be dealing with a scheme that is well and truly established.
For that matter I doubt whether he will still be around, at least in parliament.
I doubt he will last much past the budget session.
el gordo, you are thrashing a dead horse.
This is a worry, but I am afraid PM Gillard’s so called tax is not the biggest contributor. Mucking around, not bringing it in earlier has contribute to the problem.
There are other ways of keeping warm, than turning a electric heater on. Much healthier as well.
” see Newman’s going to kill the green schemes.”
el gordo, if you were not so obsessed with the fake science, you would have noticed we have been talking about this as well as what is occurring in Victoria.
Does not make it right.
In Victoria, it is a broken promise, but as it is a man and Liberal, I believe that will be forgiven.
Military use of children:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_use_of_children
Desperate stuff. Tragic.
Vietnam war?
N’
Min, might be of interest,
Another beat up yesterday.
Am I a bit too early, or a bit too late..knowing me, a bit of both..
It beggars belief, that grodo/karen/sunspot can so often be so wrong, and yet still pretend to be concerned about having any sort of ‘amiable’ ‘debate’. It is trolling, pure and simple. I also think that it is important that this is put out as often as possible.
https://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/open-thread-xvii/#comment-68735
Zunli Lu:
“It is unfortunate that my research, “An ikaite record of late Holocene climate at the Antarctic Peninsula,” recently published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, has been misrepresented by a number of media outlets.
Several of these media articles assert that our study claims the entire Earth heated up during medieval times without human CO2 emissions. We clearly state in our paper that we studied one site at the Antarctic Peninsula. The results should not be extrapolated to make assumptions about climate conditions across the entire globe. Other statements, such as the study “throws doubt on orthodoxies around global warming,” completely misrepresent our conclusions. Our study does not question the well-established anthropogenic warming trend.”
http://asnews.syr.edu/newsevents_2012/releases/ikaite_crystals_climate_STATEMENT.html
How often do these Scientists have to step out into the limelight to correct fairly straight forward statements from a press intent on pushing a view, rather than a fact
‘Global warming is leading to such severe storms, droughts and heatwaves that nations should prepare for an unprecedented onslaught of deadly and costly weather disasters, an international panel of climate scientists says in a new report.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/extreme-weather-its-about-to-get-worse-says-scientists-20120329-1vz7p.html#ixzz1qRogNg4r
From hate media….
‘HOME owners in the NSW town of Lake Cathie appear likely to escape an eviction order recommended by a consultant’s report that calls for a “planned retreat” from a predicted rise in sea levels, as the O’Farrell government is expected to discard the alarmist climate change predictions of its Labor predecessor.’
Now what was it the Liars party were saying about Miners/sovereign Risk and the MRRT.
” Mr Barnett described the minerals resource rent tax (MRRT) as a “sovereign risk” that would scare off foreign investors”
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/breaking-news/wa-premier-blasts-sovereign-risk-mrrt/story-fn3dxity-1226191832240
Those Miners they know how to treat risk, sovereign or otherwise, go straight to the top,and bugger the people
“CLAIMS that mining companies held a meeting this week with coup leaders in the West African nation of Mali have been met with silence by Australian miners with projects in the country.
The nation is one of several in West Africa that have recently attracted large numbers of Australian miners in search of large deposits, particularly gold.
But one of those companies, Oklo Resources, claimed yesterday that seven foreign mining companies had talks with coup members on Monday at which the importance of the mining industry to Mali’s economy was acknowledged
the coup leaders asked the companies to continue with their operations, and agreed to allow fuel and other mine supplies into the country despite the nation’s borders being otherwise closed at present.”
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/miners-met-with-mali-coup-leaders-20120328-1vyp6.html#ixzz1qRttfJ1P
Nice to see the new government in NSW ignoring the scientists, and crossing their fingers that houses don’t slide off the hills to the sea.
Wonder who’ll be to blame when/if that happens?
I also love the way they slip the ‘alarmist’ into it
Is there a reason you are reticent to put a link to where you got that quote from grodo?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/state-politics/seafront-residents-in-nothern-nsw-saved-from-eviction/story-e6frgczx-1226312968466
Peter Costello is wrong…..
‘What Gillard should have done after the Queensland debacle was to convene the cabinet and announce that the carbon tax, fixed at $23 a tonne, would be immediately cut and set at a level that applies in comparable countries – say $10, as in Europe. She should have cancelled the monstrous spending on “clean energy” schemes throwing taxpayers’ money after uneconomic proposals that will only ever increase costs for business and consumers. She should have announced reforms to help industry create jobs.’
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/queensland-tsunami-is-heading-for-federal-alp-20120327-1vwi1.html#ixzz1qRuQzhTs
….about cutting the tax, Gillard should scrap it to save the party from oblivion.
Thanks Sue, that puts a whole new twist on “risk”. It seems the citizens of a country are at far more risk from miners than the other way around.
‘Wonder who’ll be to blame when/if that happens?’
Blame me and I strongly advice my comrades here to buy property on the seafront….it has been undervalued for some time.
el gordo, I suggest you buy at Norah Head. The cliff face falling away, opening up the view to the decreasing backyards is a sight to see.
Yes, there is little danger of flooding. It is many metres above the beach.
This must be the most tastless comment at the time a family has a child missing. How dare this arsehole promote the election of Tony Abbott.
“Chris Branson QC represented Saxon Bird’s family at last year’s coronial inquest
But Mr Branson says there should be an inquiry.
“It is a scandal of monumental proportions, and I can tell you that Tony Abbott if he’s elected will give serious consideration to having a Royal Commission, and Saxon Bird is a member of the same surf club as Tony, namely Queenscliff in Sydney. It’s totally out of hand.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-29/search-resumes-for-missing-surf-lifesaver/3919130
Is it time, that we take a step back and re-examine out values.
I do not believe the last statesman,. In a democracy, we should be able to harness the power of capitalism to serve man, not the other way about.
I heard that on the radio this morning Sue, and had a little double-take to see if I had actually heard it correctly.
No bar is too low it seems. Thanks tabot for removing all obstacles in its descent
It is hard to believe with so many lifesavers present one could lose their life.
As for Mr. Abbott he has one obsession that guides him completely.
He appears not to be able to comprehend anything outside his quest to take his rightful place as PM. Nothing is sacrosanct to this man.
Tom R
I heard it first on the radio, ABC, disgusting. Pretty quick with that. It sickens me that they would allow the statement going to air but then the ABC compounds it by print.
An apology should be forwarded to the family immediately, the story taken down and someone should be resigning.
Tom R
I have sent a complaint to media watch
‘…a truly sustainable society…’ is a Cultural Marxist ideal in Postmodern Society.
Costello is on ABC24 with the new treasurer I believe.
They are really managing the media.
Tony Abbott’s supporters are low. Any opportunity to try and score a point for their Messiah.
—-
If Abbott wins and cuts the mining tax…and revenue continues to decrease…and rebates are handed back to the upper middle class…and the GST goes up…and bracket creep is permitted to happen…and the NBN is screwed with…and some well-off people take time off via the Rolls Royce Paid Parental Leave Scheme…and others have nannies pushing babies prams along city sidewalks and thru parks…
well, everytime people have problems with their internet…everytime they feel service delivery has slowed, say in public hospitals…everytime they see their prescription drug costs go up…and get stuck in traffic because someone failed to build the appropriate congestion alleviating infrastructure…and hear that their child’s school cannot afford new computers…nor essential maintenance…
they are going to blame Tony Abbott. Alongside the premiers.
The man who defended the mega-rich miners.
Everytime they suffer…have to make sacrifices…cutback…fork out more on medicine…get to work late due to traffic…wait forever for cancer-related services…feel their internet could be better…
They will think of Tony Abbott.
Santa Claus for the upper middle class…and rich.
N’
Media conference, PM on NBN.
CU the Denialati believe the social sciences peer review system is biased towards warming.
The Day After Tomorrow is science fiction, in fact it would take 100,000 years to reach glacial max from here.
Thnx for the heads up CU.
Strange noise during PMs speech…more media sabotage? Or just media incompetence?
Exciting stuff.
N’
They will tell you it’s the old weather patterns returning…part of a cycle…some say it’s due to the sun…or less volcanic eruptions…they’ll tell you it’s just from population growth…more people drinking, more businesses using more water…flooding just due to bad development planning…
Sure, all of the above could be contributing…
But the excuses go on & on…to do stuff all…
the justifications for continued excessive oil and coal exploration and digging goes on…
just like the tobacco wars…the vested interests keep the BS flowing…attempting to instill doubts in the public…
But the climate gets odder and odder…the damage costing billions and billions…
but we’re told to hold off on significant changes…
take THE RISK…
by people who support parties that use the markets to diminish THE RISK for them.
I’m not listening:
Hmmm…
Crazy:
Nothing’s changed…we can explain this…we always have an excuse…
What me worry?…
I’ve got my head up my arse…I listen to the shock jocks and sceptics…
I’m prepared…I have insurance, copies of The Australian wrapped in gladwrap…a windup radio…
and Plimer, Jones and Monkton blowup dolls that float.
Natural variability is at times overwhelming and because there are so many humans living in odd places…. there will be collatoral (sic) damage.
Logging trees above a village in a wet zone is foolhardy.
I’ve got my head up my arse…I listen to the shock jocks and sceptics…
I’m prepared…I have insurance, copies of The Australian wrapped in gladwrap…a windup radio…
and Plimer, Jones and Monkton blowup dolls that float.
OMG
grodo has possessed Nas 😯
Out damn troll, OUT!
on March 29, 2012 at 1:36 pmel gordo
Logging trees above a village in a wet zone is foolhardy.
Agree.
Logging forest carbon sinks is pretty dopey too.
N’
Is anyone out there able to explain to me the difference between a ‘nanny’ and ‘in-home care’.
Secondly, our government has recently massively increased the number of in-home care places on offer.
http://www.nationaltimes.com.au/opinion/blogs/the-party-line/should-the-childcare-rebate-be-extended-to-cover-inhome-care-such-as-nannies-20120329-1vzk7.html
This one could be worth checking out – it only takes a couple of seconds to click on the link to ensure you’re not affected…
Link to check that you’re OK – http://www.dns-ok.gov.au/
This site may point you in the right direction Tom:
http://www.deewr.gov.au/Earlychildhood/Programs/ChildCareforServices/SupportforChildCareServices/Pages/InHomeCare.aspx
Cheers Bacchus. Sounds like a Nanny to me.
Or is tabots Nanny more of a Maid?
Is tabot actually arguing for something that is already supplied?
Specifically this clause from the “Interim Standards for In Home Care
Funding Agreement Requirements” document:
Looking at one nanny agency site Tom:
“The nanny can undertake additional duties to be negotiated between the parent ,the Agency and the Nanny….
NANNIES HOUSE KEEPERS
It is expected that all nannies will make sure that the house is tidy and everything is completed for the children. Should you require additional cleaning or housekeeping then we provide a service to help you find a cleaner or a house manager. Nannies/ Housekeepers are paid on an hourly rate between $20-$25 per hour. The minimum call out for this domestic help is 4 hours.
From http://www.sonjasangels.com.au/services.html
Good stuff Bacchus.
It seems things are gradually changing for the better in parts of China for workers…at least technology related ones:
MARCH 28, 2012
China Beyond the Stereotypes
Transition From the Sweatshop of the World
by BEHZAD YAGHMAIAN
Counterpunch
The demand for timely and fast delivery is more acute for those supplying major brands like Apple. The maddening race to meet delivery deadlines for iPhones, iPads, and similar products puts Foxconn workers under insufferable stress. The spate of workers’ suicides in the past couple of years is revealing. Foxconn responded by installing safety nets in some of its establishments in Shenzhen.
It recently increased the wage of some of
its workers to $400 a month, more than $100 above the government-set minimum in Shenzhen.
The nets prevent death, but do not remove the underlying causes of the suicide attempts. Higher wages matter a lot, but they don’t change the militaristic management style that has been pushing workers to the edge.
“A factory needs discipline. It would seize to exist otherwise,” the owner of the chemical company told me. For this, he relied on factory guards. They maintained order, and gave a “good beating” to those workers who stole from others and caused problems. I told him that the thieves are handed over to the police in the United States.” In China, we beat them up first, and then give them to the police,” he said laughing.
These practices are also changing, most visibly in large export-processing enterprises.
The rising confidence of the Chinese workers and sporadic job actions has put Beijing on alert. Eager to avoid social instability, and hoping to transform the international image of China as the sweatshop of the world, the government has been supporting legislation to improve labor conditions.
Low-wage export-processing industrialization is slowly giving way to higher value added exports, and the development of an expanding domestic market and a middle class society. Improving workplace practices and labor standards is integral to this process.
The Chinese economic transition is in transition.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/28/transition-from-the-sweatshop-of-the-world/
Seems Bob Carr is right…better to be in there than not.
We can help each other grow.
Sane. Fair. For the future.
Provided we always stay alert and prepared…and cautious. Better safe than sorry.
No relationship should be so over-the-top, carefree and negligent it ends up in the junk pile.
Countries ARE people…too.
People can be unpredictable and have hidden motives.
N ‘
Got it Bacchus
So, the libs new policy in a nutshell
Was not aware that social science was peer reviewed. Well not the same way as other sciences are.
I wonder how one does this. It is not exactly an exact science.
Yes, it is open to review and critique
I am a little complexed as to what social science has to do with warming.
The only thing I can think of is what is the best method of changing behaviour.
No I do not agree with communism. I do not believe that communism has much to do with Karl Marx.
Karl Marx,, along with Adam Smith have a good understanding how the economy interacts with society.
I do not believe that capitalism has all the answers. There is much amiss with both systems.
I also know, those sceptical of climate change, are not talking about the economy. They are challenging the science, or maybe I should say, cherry picking the science,
Why do you always end up by slinging labels at people. Labels that mean little and have nothing to do with what you are asserting.
Tom R,
ROFL.
Good song but.
N’
LOL Tom..
Yay! Good news – NBN to start here within 3 years, probably in the range Feb 2013 => Sep 2014, with completion 12 months later…
http://nbnco.com.au/rollout/rollout-map.html
I would not want one of them either. What was the government doing. Maybe they have to take, whoever Mr. Abbott nominates.
Gee the interactive NBN map is fun
The crap journos wanted to know which suburbs will be connected in the next year ( well probably next 18 months) because they wanted to know if they personally would get the benefits of high speed broadband before their hero Abbott was elected.
They were told look for now look at the 3 year map. they were also told that the nbn would only happen if ALP were kept in government.
Stuff off journos serve you right for writing so many negative articles and supporting the liars party.
http://www.nbnco.com.au/rollout/
Ours was red Bacchus 😦
Then I put in 4000
4000 West Street, West Haven, UT
lol
How ridiculous is this Opposition. I wonder what the children thought.
It is actually an insult to them, not if that would enter Abbott and Co. heads.
CU the Cultural Marxist tag is valid, gay marriage, pokie reform and the climate change band wagon are much of a muchness.
The Berlin Wall came down roughly around the same time the IPCC came into being and the free radicals eagerly came onboard. Coincidence?
Professional activists are Watermelons.
On the social sciences question, go to Jennifer Marohasy and there is a guest post by Starck…biologist.
Hi Cu, 🙂
Who would ever have imagined Tony Abbott and Germaine Greer agreeing on anything?
They do have one thing in common… they’re both nasty trout-mouths!
Abbott backs Greer on PM’s jackets
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/abbott-backs-greer-on-pms-jackets/story-fn59niix-1226313642924
Last week on QandA fashion plate Ms Greer screeched
and this from the Ironman,
Classy!
el grodo, still name-calling I see.
I don’t suppose you could tell readers who funds Ms Marohasy?
Abbott’s Nanny policy is just a bit of kite flying for the media. The Libs have no intention of doing anything hence the weasel words about sending to the productivity commission:
He is too clever for the MSM though as they slavishly report every word as gospel.
Nasking @ 12.11
Just do not describe HOW you inflate those blow up dolls.
My mother and ex-wife will be happy as their NBN rollout starts soon…or has begun…
Bacchus lucky you.
Here in Waterford West we have no commencement date.
Oh well…guess I can wait:
LOL Sue and lunalava. So apt.
N’
Pip,
I think as the years go by and the gob gets opened…there are more and more women who would prefer Abbott takes nothing off.
Like you said, “classy”…
cocky unpredictable impulsive grandiose weathervane Tony
———–
Good to see you Pip.
Where is the hardworking Min today?
N’
Nasking while you wait play this game.
Look up an electoral map for one of your favorite Liars party member, then go to the NBN map and compare.
Check out members residing in sydney , you will see that for example, in 2, I checked out only part of the electorate gets the nbn in the next 3 years. Oh fun, the constituents can take all their complaints to their elected member and he can explain why they will never be connected.
Abbott, Hockey
🙂 Sue
Anyway, if Abbott gets in he’ll provide them with quality…like Howard looked after us:
Pip, I’m a Cultural Marxist just like Julia, we fall out over CC.
And you can see where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.
The broad electorate is unconcerned about gay marriage, pokie reform, etc.and they would have been worthwhile achievements.
But trying to stop climate from changing was a no brainer from the start.
El gordo, and “where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.”
Now, for one brief moment slide the carbon tax to the other side of the table, tell me precisely how Julia made herself unpopular.
Her red hair, her empty fruit bowl, her boobs, her nose, her Aussie/Welsh accent..
Abbott’s Nanny policy is just a bit of kite flying for the media.
Yes, and don’t they love flyng that kite. Repeating the old class warfare line. Why do not any of them highlight the fact that, for all intents and purposes, this is available now. All tabots idea does is add maid into the equation (cos, we all need a maid)
Sure, it’d be nice, but taxes are not their to be used for luxuries. As Tanya P said, what are you going to cut out, and who is going to miss out, so that someone else gets their dishes cleaned for them?
where Julia went wrong, making herself unpopular.
By allowing a feral media, who were in the midst of their great unhinging, to hang a lie about her kneck with a massive lie of their own.
That’s a predictable answer young Tom.
That’s a predictable answer young Tom
No more predictable than 99% of your comments on Global Warming or Carbon Tax.
No, what’s predictable el gordo is you ignoring the NBN, the essential funding of hospitals and schools, the mining tax etc. etc.
Convenient.
Yer on a train heading for only one station…in a straightline…you refuse to look outside and see what else is going on…it’s a train to Nowhere station…the driver is Abbott…the train makes an odd and irritating noise…NO NO NO NO…some of the passengers look worried…the station is getting closer by the day…
NONONONONONONONONONONONO……
Yer heart begins to beat too rapidly…yer sweating profusely…the panic creeps thru you…
NONONONONONONONONONONONONONO…..
Yer in another episode of the Twilight Zone…
N’
That’s a predictable answer young Tom.
Predictable it may be. Facts often are. Do you disagree? If so, why?
Btw,
Any government who broadens the GST to fresh food will pay a huge political price.
It would undermine any effort to help people with chronic illnesses…and to assist the obese…including children…
and would look partially like a concession to the worst of fast food, takeaway joints.
To do this instead of broadening or increasing the tax on big miners would come across as grotesque…
and piss weak.
N’
GST is a Liberal tax and the revenue is returned to the states.
Therefore this Labor govt will not raise it or broaden the base in the budget.
If the states want to raise and broaden the GST all the states all have to vote in favour of it and then get the Federal govt to agree.
“On the social sciences question, go to Jennifer Marohasy and there is a guest post by Starck…biologist.”
That is one site I would not waste my time on. The lady is a FAKE.
As for watermelons, I quite like them.
Pip has anyone noticed how Hillary Quinton dresses. Our PM beside her is a fashion plate.,
MR. Abbott should realise there are many women, including myself has a big bum. We all know now what he thinks of us.
I find very unsettling his his gait, that reminds me of a ape or gorilla.
You know what is worse. It goes back decades when Bronwyn was a minister. It was quickly dumped then. This man is incapable of coming up with anything new.
“Pip, I’m a Cultural Marxist”
What in the hell is that?
Hiya Nasking, re your comment @ 4.41pm, I can easily do without any more views of the ironman and his tiny budgy!
😳 I meant to say budgie smugglers 😆
I have to say I was impressed by the maturity and thoughtfulness of the discussion and participants on The Nation tonite.
Nice to sit back and watch, later reflect on, a discussion of important topics where the participants aren’t going for each others’ throats…recognise the importance of ASIO briefings…
and the inappropriateness of the criticisms directed towards the PM related to her clothing.
All participants I reckon will have a huge impact on this country’s future.
Btw,
MEMORIES:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2004/s1104019.htm
I believe that things in this country have changed for the better when it comes to progress for women…
Incremental shifts over time that add up to big things…far more influence..
Still a long way to go yet tho…
And they sure don’t need nudge nudge wink wink unpredictable weathervane Abbott to make it more complex for them…
I reckon I saw the man tonite who will replace Hockey…potentially be a PM down the road.
Well after a Gillard win tho. 🙂
N’
Pip,
the biggest problem for me is Abbott’s unpredictable, capricious, impulsive behaviour…
the occasional aggressivity…and ranting in parliament…wasting precious time in our democracy…
his negative approach to policies offered up by the democratically elected government of the day…attempting to hinder progress…never compromising…not disimilar to the Tea Party…
his lack of negotiating skills (not a positive sign for future dealings with overseas leaders)…
the way empathy seems to drop out of his character on many occasions…
his catering to extremist types and the lowest common denominator to get attention and attempt to score political points, wedge the government…
his overly combative style…
his opportunistic use of religious language…
I could go on & on…but my wife beckons.
Cheers
N’
The Moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis giganteus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about 3.6 m (12 ft) in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about 230 kg (510 lb). They were the dominant herbivores in New Zealand’s forest, shrubland and sub-alpine ecosystems for thousands of years, until the arrival of the Māori.
Moa were so stupid they did not have enough sense to get out of the way of a bush fire, they sat there and burned to death, or according to the Maori, became a cooked dinner, (most of the fires being started by the Maori).
El Gordo, I sometimes think of you as a Moa, but surely the Federal Labor party must be another species of Moa.
Federal Labor, like the Moa, sit while a fire approaches, in other words they are toast. Well given the stupidity of most voters, extinction of the whole species can not be that far away.
I will not be posting any more, as I have a large library of very good books and these show that humans have been clever a few times in their short history.
The stagnate state of NSW
PREMIER Barry O’Farrell has categorically ruled out a second airport for Sydney while he is Premier in a rebuff to The Daily Telegraph’s People’s Plan and a call to action from NSW voters.
“Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese’s office confirmed yesterday that without Mr O’Farrell’s co-operation, no second airport could be built.
“Sydney needs a vision that anticipates and shapes the future,” Mr Albanese said. “Without a second airport Sydney’s economy will stagnate, threatening not only its position as Australia’s number one global city but also the nation’s future economic opportunities.
“Sydney is already losing out. Last year the number of international flights going to Melbourne grew four times faster than those coming to Sydney, which translates into fewer local jobs and slower economic growth.”
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/premiers-go-slow-will-strangle-sydney/story-e6freuzi-1226312856108
Well at least Barrel will save the federal government budget, as Barrel isn’t interested in infrastruture.
“I meant to say budgie smugglers”
Sure you did Pip – I’ll believe you 😉
many women, including myself has a big bum.
CU, of course you do – you’re female – you’re supposed to be built differently to a young boy! Surprise, surprise – most red-blooded heterosexual men prefer it that way 🙄
get ready for some positive stories on the NBN
A new $4.9 million initiative, called Remote Hearing and Vision Services for Children and sponsored by Federal disability reform minister Jenny Macklin, will over the next three years explore ways the NBN can be used to deliver speech therapy and other services to hundreds of children in remote parts of the country.
Another three-year initiative, earmarked for a $5.1m investment and sponsored by front-bench Immigration Minister Chris Bowen, will support the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) with online English classes delivered over the NBN for new migrants.
Even telemedicine, dismissed by some critics as a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, is gaining ground thanks to a government incentive for GPs to explore methods of service delivery. The Townsville Cancer Centre, for example, has found that 78 percent of patients travelling from Mt Isa for specialist consultations would prefer to run their sessions via videoconferencing rather than enduring the 1800km return trip.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/hometech/sooner-or-later-the-nbn-will-change-your-life-20120315-1v6e5.html#ixzz1qVZUwdiY
What is of more concern is his constant lying, saying anything to attract attention.
What is unforgivable is his campaign to talk the economy down.
His glee when anything goes wrong. He is happy when say, more boats come of the unemployment goes up.
Sadly his behaviour is not unpredictable, he behaves in a way that we have all come to expect.
He is a man that knows he has to destroy all before him to have any chance to win.
He knows this, because he has not the imagination or skills to win any other way.
If he was in a race, he would use every dirty and illegal trick to win.
Bullying is all he knows.
Sorry, this man is not fit to lead this great country of outs.
If needs a builder, not a demolisher.
What will Mr. Abbott have when the penny drops that there will be no massive rises in the cost of living.
Tony Abbott and his team are treading the very same dangerous populist territory. Sooner or later the electorate are going to realise, just as they did with the GST, that the scare campaign around the carbon price is a con. Yes, retail electricity prices will rise, by about 10 per cent. But considering how badly the electorate have been scared by Abbott and the tabloid media, they may actually find such a price rise surprisingly small relative to what they had come to expect. Also, petrol has been left out of the scheme yet I suspect a large number of householders don’t realise this. Again they may be pleasantly surprised come July.
But where I think Abbott is most likely to get exposed is grocery prices. He has run extremely hard on the carbon price increasing food prices, I suspect too hard. I have been shocked by how anxious some family friends have been about what the carbon price is likely to do to food prices. Yet the carbon price will have a negligible effect on food prices now that agricultural emissions are out for good.
The table below, based on data prepared by Tim Grant, Australia’s leading life-cycle analysis practitioner, illustrate the amount of CO2 embodied within a range of staple food products. This takes into account emissions along the entire supply-chain from farm to supermarket shelf, including energy intensive inputs such as fertiliser and freight. It then multiplies this by a carbon price of $24.16, which will be the peak of the carbon price (in real terms) before it is likely to plummet once permit trading commences. These numbers most likely overstate the amount of CO2 embodied in production of these goods.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Abbott-Gillard-carbon-price-interest-rates-electri-pd20120329-STTHR?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot
Agree completely. Also I believe the media will also have a problem.
I suspect that, post July, the tabloids’ sensationalist claims surrounding the carbon price will begin to wear thin with readers and will quietly disappear from the front pages. At this point Tony Abbott’s job will become a whole lot harder because he will have to work with what is, rather than what is imagined.
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/Abbott-Gillard-carbon-price-interest-rates-electri-pd20120329-STTHR?OpenDocument&src=sph&src=rot
Another apology from Mr. Abbott. Maybe he should think before he speaks in the first place.
Personally I believe it shows what he really thinks.
The apology is false, like everything else about the man.
All the PM needs to say is, yes I know, lets get on with what really matters, running the country.
It is said that PM has made herself unpopular,
From where I sit, every leader makes themselves unpopular, when they have audacity to do what they were elected to do, govern.
When one does what is right for the nation, can mean that some are missed out, and scream very loud.
What is important, not whether what a PM does is popular, but whether it needed doing.
We have Mr. Abbott whining yesterday that Mr. Swan is setting himself up to take from the middle and upper earners.
Mr. Abbott does not say where he intends to find the money.
We know that he will be protecting the miners and high income women.
That only leaves, us at the bottom, if high income earners are out bounds.
Spending money on those who cannot care for themselves must be the waste he is always spruiks about.
Boo Hoo
Liberal Premier whinges at Federal govt as his state needs more broadband.
Tony Abbott who says NO to NBN was not sought for comment
“VICTORIA has been dudded by the Gillard government’s schedule for rolling out the National Broadband Network over the next three years, according to the Baillieu government.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/it-pro/government-it/in-the-cbd-winners-are-grinners-in-prahran-theyre-not-20120329-1w1ii.html#ixzz1qXl2e19K
‘Do you disagree? If so, why?’
Murdoch has a conservative agenda and the shock jocks are also biased, but the media must remain independent otherwise democracy will be in danger.
See how these same media outlets examine the behaviour of conservative governments in the three most populous states.
Are they getting a free ride?
For example, this should not be discussed.
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/sydney-nsw/carbon-tax-to-hit-rates-harder/story-e6freuzi-1226314022763
For something that is a waste of money and not needed, they sure are screaming.
Murdoch has a conservative agenda and the shock jocks are also biased, but the media must remain independent otherwise democracy will be in danger.
I have no problem with the media remaining independent.
I have a problem with them telling lies and manipulating reporting and election outcomes and government policy.
If they want to claim to be a newspaper then print news not pages and pages of biased opions seeking an agenda.
If they want to be the media then print both sides of a story. Not this 99 versions against and 1 for an issue when it is a proposal they disagree with.
The media has a responsibility to inform the population honestly and without bias and let the electorate make up their own mind.
The media should not be manipulating and influencing the decision of an election to achieve their own and their bosses aims.
If they are they should be closed down as this is not being independent but rather being deceitful, manipulative and downright dishonest for an oganisation claiming to be independent.
For example, this should not be discussed.
of course it should be discussed but just like the media I wish you would give the tax cuts and compensation measures just as much coverage and discussion.
Or is that not suitable to your politcial agenda.
Your own bias is just as evident as the media.
Where are the daily stories showing the tax cuts and compensation measures to offset these types of increases.
Be fair, or is that too much to ask.
Shane and The media has a responsibility to inform the population honestly and without bias and let the electorate make up their own mind
And this is precisely what is wrong with a biased media – it denies people the opportunity to form their own opinion – denies people freedom of choice.
‘Be fair, or is that too much to ask.’
I have no problem with talking about the tax cuts, but we also need to discuss the need for the tax in the first place.
The incoming conservative governments are going to dismantle the green schemes and when Abbott wins federally he will dumped the tax, along with the whole Klimatariat.
This is predictable and perhaps needs to be considered in relation to tax cuts.
Shane @ 9am,
Couldn’t agree more.
Independent for some these days means to be Coalition supporters.
Interestingly, there is one so called libertarian media mogul who will even back a Labor government it seems provided it gives him some of what he wants:
(wikipedia)
Seems to me that Fox News support for the Tea Party the last couple of years has been:
TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT…ONE MORE TIME
N ‘
It’s also worth remembering that the Third Estate is naturally biased, always has been.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/third+estate
And
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Estate
N’
What Is the Third Estate? (French: Qu’est-ce que le tiers-état?) is a pamphlet written by French thinker and clergyman Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès in January 1789, shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution.
The pamphlet was Sieyès’ response to Jacques Necker’s invitation for writers to state how they thought the Estates-General should be organized.
In the pamphlet, Sieyès argued that the Third Estate – the common people of France – constituted a complete nation, and would be better off without the “dead weight” of the privileged orders, the First and Second Estates of the clergy and aristocracy.
Sieyès stated that the people wanted genuine representatives in the Estates-General, representatives equal to the other two orders taken together, and votes taken by heads and not by orders. These ideas came to have an immense influence on the course of the Revolution.
(wikipedia)
And now we have a CORPORATE ARISTOCRACY
N’
And send the country broke in the process.
Roswell, I was thinking the same thing myself re el gordo’s comment..
Imagine what it’s going to cost the country to get out of all those contracts. There will be no nation building, just revenue lost and for no reason whatsoever. I personally think that Abbott is telling porkies about all of his wind backs – basically, he won’t be able to afford to do it. Hockey will be tearing his hair out trying to balance Abbott’s budget.
It will be cheaper to dismantle than carry on with the whole box and dice, its also a big vote winner.
Doing nothing until the year 2014 is a vote winner? Yes, everyone is going to be thrilled about not getting the NBN. 🙄
Rupert should give up tweeting.
“Proof you can’t trust anything in Australian Fairfax papers, unless you are just another crazy,” he tweetorialised this morning.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/media-and-marketing/rupert-bears-his-tweets-at-fairfax-crazies-20120330-1w1xi.html#ixzz1qYBWyjgI
La Trobe Valley Power Station will double in size and burn more filthy brown coal, which they seem to have an abundance of.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/tribunal-backs-coal-plants-expansion/story-e6frg6xf-1226313944054
And the Greens are given a good slap.
el gordo. I fail to see how dismantling anything that is well and truly on it’s way is false economy.
Where do you get the evidence that this would be a vote winner. Just because you disagree, does’n not mean that everyone else does.
In fact I would be surprised if what you say is true.
Most do believe that CC needs to be addressed. Many are sick of hearing about it. Many are happy to just see the matter settled.
Many like NBN. Many do believe in CC.
el gordo, I believe your wish list would bankrupt the country and take us back decades, to the dark ages.
The states will come on board. You know why? The federal government has what the States want, money.
Mr. Howard had no problems dealing with Labor States across the Nation. I expect this PM whose major skill is negotiation to do much better.
Mr. Swan is giving a good interview on ABC Local radio. He is dealing with the interviewer who is only interested in talking Labor down. He is strongly challenging what she is saying, and is I believe is getting the message across. They can gang up, but they cannot bully the PM into doing their bidding.
First caller. If Mr. Swan wants to cut down on middle class welfare, I cannot wait. When ask what middle class welfare, the caller gave a good list. Baby bonus, negative gearing.. the list goes on and on.
The PM will tell them to rethink, and come back when they are in a better mood.
Mr. Swan said that there is no truth today, in the Australian story. No facts, indeed he came closed to saying it was made up.
This is predictable and perhaps needs to be considered in relation to tax cuts.
What utter garbage. Governments propose cost increases and tax cuts on their own policies, not on the presumed policy of what the opposition will do if it is elected at the next election.
Did John Howard take notice of the opposition when he imposed the wrost tax on earth the GST.
The opposition in QLD will reintroduce cabon policies, so should Campbell Newman not wind them down.
How about you look at what is definately legislation as to the proposed events of a may or may not be elected federal coalition.
In addition I have no doubt that the MRRT and Carbon Tax axing will be the first two non core pormises broken by the next coaliton government if it is elected in 2013. If it is not successful in 2013 the two taxes will not be mentioned again by the opposition and will simply become the norm.
It will be cheaper to dismantle than carry on with the whole box and dice
Please provide evidence instead of mouthing coalition statements.
its also a big vote winner
Theres the real reason, win votes, not save the planet for future generations, but rather secure short term votes to become PM. Tony Abbott wouldn’t care if he was PM for only a day. It is the desire to just have his name up there and the retirement benefits and perks that go with the position.
Apologies and correction, momentary brain fade, it was the Fourth Estate…and thanks bear for bringing it to my attention.
‘The Fourth Estate (or fourth estate) is a societal or political force or institution whose influence is not consistently or officially recognized. “Fourth Estate” most commonly refers to the news media; especially print journalism or “The Press”.
“he incoming conservative governments are going to dismantle the green schemes and when Abbott wins federally he will dumped the tax, along with the whole Klimatariat.”
He sure is. Cannot have the polluters paying.
He will be replacing what he intends to dismantle his Direct Action Scheme, that lets the polluters off the hook, and transfers the cost to the community.
Maybe $1200 or more a year add to the family budget, is a figure not be sneezed at.
Of course he will not be doing this for many years, as he WILL NOT have the power to do it.
What will be the cost of business decisions being suspended during this time, due to the uncertainty of what government is doing.
We are already have to deal with the rising cost of power, because of investment put on hold for years, because of the delay in dealing with carbon emission.
All Mr. Abbott is offering, is years of instability. Nothing more, nothing less.
The problem is not politicians lying but knowingly making problems they know they cannot keep.
Late October 2011, Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister Wayne Swan had indicated that the report from the Productivity Commission due in November would detail the extent to which price hikes on imported technology goods and services were hurting Australian consumers.
While Adobe and Microsoft stated that pricing was set by the local distribution channel, some international suppliers used the argument that consumers in some regions could tolerate higher prices than others, and still others defended the price hike by attributing it to the cost of supplying to ‘a remote and relatively small market like Australia.’ Many in the industry, however, believe that these arguments could not hold, as music, software and videos had a much smaller delivery cost in the online environment compared with legacy distribution through physical retailers.
http://delimiter.com.au/2012/03/30/husic-asks-conroy-for-it-pricing-inquiry/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Delimiter+%28Delimiter%29
Cu @11.03am..I’ll believe that the media are truthful and honest when we start to see headlines stating that Tony Abbott’s policies will add X amount to the average family budget.
Worth a read.
http://theconversation.edu.au/a-flawed-carbon-pricing-scheme-lets-states-dump-climate-action-6077
Worth a read
It was worth the read, however I would dispute the wording “Lets States Dump Climate Action”.
The Conservative State Government have “Chosen” to Dump Climate Action.
There is a marked difference. They could have “Chosen” to keep the Climate Action Initiatives going irrespective of targets or goals or unforseen flaws.
They “Chose” to dump them and I believe the future will judge them harshly indeed.
SIX Catholic bishops in Victoria will circulate 80,000 letters this weekend asking their parishioners to show the Federal Government their opposition to same sex marriage.
You can let the politicians know what you think here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/House_of_Representatives_Committees?url=spla/bill%20marriage/index.htm
Bacchus, thank you for that link. I have added my own small voice..which reads something along the lines of:
Marriage inequality remains the last piece of discrimination in Australia. To deny people the right to marry based solely on their gender is discriminatory.
I believe that churches should have the option to choose. I understand how some might believe same sex marriage “wrong” in their eyes. That’s their choice.
Bacchus thanks for the link have added my own support as well.
Lots of “small voices” add up to a roar Min 😉
Thank you Bacchus. Huggs.
Mr. Newman has told his first lie.
He said he has not been briefed yet on Julia Gillard’a Carbon Tax.
He did not leave it there. He went onto say that if the tax was not there, electricity cost would go down. DOWN. How could this be so?
I believe there are many more reasons for electricity costs going up at this time, regardless of the Clean Energy Future.
Non of them have any connection to a so called carbon tax.
What else is Murray noted for, except for being appointed by his mate to the future fund. I say his anger is more caused by his mate not getting his job.
Mr. Abbott says he regrets what he said, with a smirk on his face. Mr. Abbott would have been better to leave the matter alone, if he is not willing to say he is sorry.
I also voted in the affirmative…bugger the catlicks.
El gordo, well done. It’s all a matter of fairness isn’t it. I have yet to read a reasonable argument against marriage equality..always people fall back on quotes such as “it’s against nature”, “it’s against God’s will”..as if anyone really knows what God’s will is. If He/She had been against gay love, then gays wouldn’t have been invented!
Getting rid of targets does not get rid of the problem. Ignoring the problem inly means greater expense down the track. The mess electricity is in across the nation proves this.
CU
regret yes, because he ain’t sorry
And so it begins, but the Govt has a big stick now in the ACCC
“An advertising campaign showing a carbon tax collector demanding money from a frail pensioner has been referred to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).
Total Environment Centre director Jeff Angel says a complaint has been lodged against the New South Wales company Energy Watch, a group that acts as an energy broker for consumers and business.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-30/complaint-lodged-against-carbon-tax-ads/3922126
And Getup has a new campaign. An intersting idea right in the tradition of the Miners who discovered the value of winning over public opinion. Good timing in the lead up to the budget.
“”But over the next three years the minerals resources rent tax will bring in $10.6 billion while subsidies to the same hugely profitable industry will hand back to them $8.5 billion over the same period.”
The ad calls for mining magnates and big industry to stop receiving concessions from the federal government.
The new GetUp ad, which has been in production for several weeks, features a nurse, a schoolteacher and an aged care worker talking about the impact funding pressures are having on their lives.”
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/getup-targets-mining-magnates/story-e6frfku0-1226314600962#ixzz1qZRAxzjG
i hope it is called stop Billionaire Welfare.
Hi Sue, Abbott’s only regret would be that he’s been caught out!
The government needs to put the ACCC to work every time O’Farrell or Bailleu try it on.
Joint Select Committee on
Australia’s Immigration Detention Network
Final Report
Click to access SenateReport.pdf
John-Paul Langbroek’s the new QLD minister for Education, Training and Employment eh?
That’s not so bad. He seems like nice fella…
Went to Sunnybank SHS so at least understands the pressures public school teachers are under. Hopefully he had some good ones. 🙂
Just hope he doesn’t bring misogynists into the department…or overly-religious ones…
all we need is the balance stuffed up.
Regardless of what some conservatives might think, QLD education has heaps of conservative and centrist teachers…and other staff.
Compared to Canada I found it extremely backward…and lacking in progressive thought…nice enuff people…some…but certainly most were not exactly radical…or about to man/woman the barricades. 🙂
Thing I disliked about the conservatives in last time was how they treated staff like children…let the maintenance of schools go compared to rural areas…and the dobby thing….kind of like McCarthyism…
Plus the transfer system was a joke…run by amateur youngsters sometimes…with no compassion or empathy for teachers’s situations alot of the time…
many good educators were posted to places that did not suit their family or personality circumstances…caused a great deal of suffering. Excellent, capable teachers were rundown…or lost to the system. Dumb stuff.
N’
Oh, and the pay was crap.
N’
Make that:
Plus the transfer system was a joke…run by amateur youngsters sometimes…with no compassion or empathy for teachers’ situations alot of the time…
N’
Ad Astra is correct. It was one vote that stopped us from having a price on carbon emission earlier. That one vote that was only arrived at because one MP was too sick to travel.
This is something I agree with. The Coalition is quick to accuse the PM and Labor of having dubious motives on everything.
I have felt for a long time, they judge others by what they do themselves, generally getting it wrong.
It appears others agree, but are able to explain it better.
They live in their own universe, that has little connection the the rest of us, or at least to my word.
Good stuff CU,
You beat me to it…Ad’s post is well worth reading.
Okay, i’m off for a couple of weeks…S will be ensuring we watch and deal little with politics and news the next f/t…might pop in if something big happens…but that’s unlikely. Hopefully.
Keep up the great work…many informative and enlightening posts, comments and links…
It’s been fun chatting to some of you again…
And others I didn’t know previously.
Keep the bastard’s honest…and the light of scrutiny on the corrupt, crims and bully rich types.
Til later.
Keep well.
N’
Catching up, that’s the story. Tony Abbott doesn’t have to explain himself because he is never required to.
Nasking, I remember you from when the blog first started. It’s been a pleasure to make your acquaintance again. Enjoy your holidays.
Nasking, you’re not alone…
Corruption fighter blasts LNP Govt
http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2012/s3467299.htm
Thnx Roswell…
Yep Pip,
Fitzgerald is on the case.
See ya.
N’
Well, it appears that Mr. O”Farrell has killed off the first home owners market, up to nearly 50% by cutting the first home owners stamp duty rebate.
Not a bad effort. That means he is getting less in receipts with his action.
One must keep highlighting the lies.
Hope this makes things clearer.
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/abbotts-spoonful-of-sugar-stirs-the-pot-20120329-1w15z.html#ixzz1qXtQLEEm
‘Deniers of global warming don’t care if climate policy is ineffectual.’
Dead right!
‘Think for a moment about the Greens’ preference for ‘research for the public good’. I am not sure what exactly they mean by the term, but it’s a good bet that it would be something built around environmental science.
‘Which seems reasonable at face value, except that environmental science has become the exemplar of what is known as ‘post normal science’ – that is, a science where ‘facts are uncertain, values are in dispute, stakes are high and decisions are urgent’. In short, it is an ill-defined mix of science and politics.
‘It is then but a short step into the realm of ‘post modern science’, where research results are valid only in the context of society’s beliefs, and where the very existence of scientific truth can be denied. One can imagine this as a sort of political nirvana in which scientific theory and results are manipulated to suit the policies of the government of the day.
‘A fanciful state of affairs you say, and surely not one that is likely to happen?’
Garth Paltridge March 29, 2012
el gordo,
Are you that ashamed of your sources that you never post links? Is it not reasonable that readers be allowed to judge the context for themselves? Or is it part of a pattern aimed to mislea….. 💡 Oh hang on – now I get it 🙄
http://www.quadrant.org.au/blogs/doomed-planet/2012/03/greening-science
So environmental science is now on the outer.
Would have to be I suppose, as it would get in the way of many of your wacky thought process.
As one who has always had an interest in agriculture science and want at one time to do veterinary science, not pets nut farm animals I could not imagine a much more practical and straight forward science.
Something either improve or destroys the environment. It would not take much to establish which.
If one cuts down all the trees, the water tables which is salty, rises, leading to making the ground barren, unable to support any crop.
All your fancy words do not change simple facts, I am afraid.
If you laid the fertiliser on heavy, u\ir washes out to sea, killing ever everything in it’s wake. Nothing difficult about that.
I have know idea what you mean about ‘post normal science. Have not heard about that.
I would say that only the likes of you that rejects science when it conflicts with your belief, would go down this path.
Tell me one example of environmental science that you disagree with.
This is exactly what you do.
Bacchus, I think that el gordo has scored a home goal.
Bacchus, I have a sneaking suspicion that someone might need blog lessons.
What you do is highlight the link – press copy and then paste on the Post Comment box. Bob’s yer uncle, there is the link.
As one who watch my father tried to run a dairy farm on the Central Coast. on land cleared of rain forest, I do have some idea of what environmental science.
The land was worthless as farming land. My father who came from the Central West, could not believe that such pasture were valueless.
Once cleared that land was soon leached of any value it had, A hundred years of growing corn and maize did not help.
Perhaps we should point her to the “How To” tab Min?
https://cafewhispers.wordpress.com/how-to/#comment-2035
🙂
Cu, OMG you’ve done a smiley…
Bacchus, indeed and the How To tab is interesting given the number failed attempts from you, Migs and self. 😉
I was experimenting. It fits in with what el gordo is trying to say. That site makes little sense to me. It seems dedicated to under valuing science.
It was aimed at the Greens but the little I did understand,describes the denialists better.
Not that I put much effort into understanding.
The language in the article leaves me cold.
‘I would say that only the likes of you that rejects science when it conflicts with your belief, would go down this path.’
Hmmm….
Min. I have a feeling I might have insulted some.
The science is settled.
True, there are comedians that cuss a lot, but you got to earn that right before you do that.
But you can’t just stand there grinning like an idiot until they
finish laughing. Do some research and find out as much
as you can about each open mic – try to find the one that is most positively reviewed, gets the
biggest crowd and that is attended by the most
comedians.
How many flying by air on any airline would have noticed three or four dollars extra on their ticket. That would have been the amount Qantas would have had to charge to recoup any money paid out in carbon tax.
Have we not had over the years, many levys on ticket price when it comes to airfares, Was there one connect with the Ansett collapse.
Would a surcharge of that e magnitude stopped anyone from flying Qantas.
I suggest that Qnatas came to the conclusion, that the amateurs not of a size, that they considered worth worrying about.
Does one feel we are being conned?