The latest Morgan phone poll has Labor’s two-party lead widening to 63.5-36.5 from 60.5-39.5 last week. I believe this is a record for a Morgan phone poll, while not quite matching face-to-face polls from earlier in the year which put it at 65-35 and 64.5-35.5.
Author: William Bowe
William Bowe is a Perth-based election analyst and occasional teacher of political science. His blog, The Poll Bludger, has existed in one form or another since 2004, and is one of the most heavily trafficked websites on Australian politics.
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Petrol is running out, and the problem in years to come will be inequity regarding who will able to drive automobiles, people with money or in jobs who provide cars or trucks yes but people without money no. Time to face the reality, cars and trucks are destructive to the environment, and arguing about the price of petrol is crazy.
We can keep on holding summits and talking Harry but when do you decide to do something? I did like the ABC summit as it had real people involved and not some media moguls,celebrities and former pollies…
Marky, please see previous post and start taking deep long slow breaths, you’re panicking. A cynic is a disappointed romantic and politics is the art of the possible. If anyone should be panicking, it’s Brendan (don’t you know I’m a doctor, stick ’em all back in loony bins, I’m for it, I’m agin it, and no, no one else in the alternative government/opposition agrees with me, except if I’ve just talked to them and then I’ll agree with them) Nelson.
602
Marky. If you’re a savvy pollie, you make a decision when it’s politically expedient.
The means growing the idea and building the popularity until it’s a no-brainer.
How long did the population take to realise they wanted a government that would sign Kyoto, apologise, and withdraw from Iraq?
And if all of those things weren’t on the table, I shudder to think what might have happened.
Plant the seed; watch it grow; take everyone along for the ride; let everyone else claim it was their idea – it doesn’t matter, so long as the job gets done.
The aim is to win the war; the battle over ear wax is irrelevant.
How do you propose to convince 20 million Australians they should really be paying more for petrol? I’m pretty sure we could find around 1 million who might agree with you, but that’s by no means a working majority.
Marky, I’m most impressed by the engagement of significant numbers of people back into the political process and the feedback into informing future directions for Australia as a whole. While I’m pretty much the sort of person who would gouge out their genitals with a blunt spoon rather that vote for the Libs., nevertheless, we need an effective Opposition, so if the political process is more informed and engaged (maybe Brenda can stop telling everyone he’s a doctor long enough to listen), maybe our society may be enhanced. It’s an experiment. Some of it may work. Some may not. Won’t have immediate effects, but Jeez I like a gov’t that will try and engage the population in the political.
And could Morgan, perhaps even Newspoll, get even more dire? Anyone prepared to have a stab at predictions? Me, I reckon pretty much the same, give or take MoE.
600 – Easy answer to the shortage of oil is to convert coal into oil. It can be done (The Germans did it in WW2 and the South Africans in the 80’s) but it is kind of expensive as it costs about as much as oil costs now. And we aren’t really short of Coal as there is a few hundred years worth of that left. So supply is not as a massive issue as it would appear.
We will be using oil for at least 25 years for majority of transport. It is completely unrealistic to suggest anything else. For one thing, PT is already running at breaking point in most major cities (in peak hour anyway). And the only thing more bicycles are going to do is increase the organ donation rate (if we tripled the number people on bikes, we might decrease traffic by 2%). Plus there are people who need to drive places.
Yes, we need to reduce pollution and therefore decrease the need for fossil fuels, but in the short term Petrol prices are an issue that people are not going to be able to avoid.
B.S- According to leading scientists we only have 4 years left before it is late regarding terrible and world ending climate change, so using coal is just the solution we need… Sorry don’t agree time we woke up and realised we must start making some very hard decisions or it is goodnight nurse. Face the reality.
Reason i say it is that Co2 stays in the atmosphere and can stay their for up to one hundred years, so we will continue to cook unless drastic action is taken to reduce it.
My investment in geodynamics geothermal is looking good because they have so far proved the concept and are well on the way of building a pilot 1MW power plant using hot-rocks.
Geodynamics update report to the ASX.
http://www.asx.com.au/asxpdf/20080325/pdf/3186psnwfgdvqx.pdf
As other power sources get expensive this stuff becomes increasingly viable. Look forward to when I can plug my electric car into the power socket. Hopefully not too old.
While we are on doomsday things like peak oil. An article today has the asteroid Apophis missing us by 32,000km in 2029 and a 1 in 50 chance of hitting us in 2034. It is 200 billion tons of metals.
proven
Kina spot on.. Instead of Rudd government investing in geosequestrian and carbon emissions trading it should be using hot rocks or solar power technology coupled with wind farms… that is the future. And on water, we should all have water tanks and be using recycled water for our gardens… But our governments want to keep making money from water by making us pay for it and by building desalination plants.
608 – So I say it can’t be done. Not in 4 years. Are seriously believing we are going to get a solution that quickly? Has any international agreement been sorted out that quickly? (Well, maybe the Hague Convention of 1898, but things were simply then). So it is time to move on from trying to save the planet as it is and try to work with a damaged atmosphere and we live in the damaged lifeboat and work on technology that will help us survive.
If we stop using petrol in four years, the country would go down the drain very quickly. Hydrogen is a possible solution but not in such a short time frame.
Here we go again, people making silly jokes but here are the very real impacts
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/Impacts/
Marky mark –
What leading scientists say this?
My understanding (and I work in the field, even if it’s only in a very small way, which means I talk to some of the top climate scientists in Australia on a regular basis) is that —
1. If we stopped ALL greenhouse gas emissions TODAY we would still experience massive, irreversible climate change;
2. The point of mitigation measures is not to prevent this happening (we can’t) but to slow it down and perhaps stabilise the situation in the long term;
3. The world ain’t going to end. It’s going to change. We can adapt. Some of it’s going to be good, some of it’s going to be bad.
On water – using water tanks is a very expensive, inefficient and potentially harmful (healthwise) option.
The average water bill in Melbourne – for 190 kL (190,000 litres) of water – was less than $500.
$500 buys you (not installed, without pump) one 330 litre water tank – literally a drop in the ocean when we’re talking household water use.
For $7000 you can get a 45 000 litre tank (again, not installed, without pump) but that’s still not getting near half of your yearly water use.
Healthwise, tanks are far more dangerous than tap water, which is treated and tested. Roofs accumulate rubbish (have a look in your gutters some time) and in cities, this includes pollutants from the air. Tank water thus often has very high lead levels.
Tank water must therefore be tested and treated regularly.
I’m not knocking tanks, or saying don’t use them; I’d argue that any form of water conservation is a good thing.
Governments, however, make decisions taking in mind cost/benefit analyses. Therefore a government would argue that it is more economic, efficient and healthy to deliver extra water via measures such as desalination plants (which do have problems, I know) than by subsidising installation of tanks.
[Healthwise, tanks are far more dangerous than tap water, which is treated and tested. Roofs accumulate rubbish (have a look in your gutters some time) and in cities, this includes pollutants from the air. Tank water thus often has very high lead levels.]
Also the local wildlife also use tanks as their personal toilets as well.
I am not making fun of the consequences of climate change, I am suggesting we are more than likely are going to have have to deal with them as the pollution is not going to stop in time.
For power generation in Australia we need about 12,000 windmill (or the like) and we can do that but it will take time (decades). And if do get around to getting electric cars on the road, we will probably need a few more as well.
Carbon capture makes sense as when it gets working it gives us time. And time is what is needed.
James Lovelock the inventor of the Gaia Theory says this
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=541748&in_page_id=1770
More government speak Zoom, and yes i made a slight error regarding water not for human consumption but for laundries, gardens and toilets would be a much better idea.
The Australian conservation foundation agrees tanks instead of energy guzzling desalination plants http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=1022&c=16324
Moreover your costings put forward one glaring point and that is water consumption costs need to be increased.
Moreover i tend to think that we may be faced with to much water in Victoria when this desalination plant is finally built so it may be a waste of money.
A mistake regarding tank water.
I’ve had the electric car argument with a few people and am still trying to work out whether or not they’ll be of any benefit in terms of mitigation.
As you imply, B.S., introduction of electric cars will increase electricity usage, which will increase the demand for coal (given that there are no practical replacements for coal in the medium term) which will increase greenhouse gas emissions.
I don’t know what the figures are for petrol v coal as far as greenhouse gas emissions, but I would speculate that petrol is a more efficient fuel than coal and thus better environmentally. (Basis for speculation: other countries use far more petrol than we do per head, but Victorians are the world’s highest p.h. emitters because of their reliance on coal; you get an awful lot more energy out of a litre of petrol than you can out of a kilogram of coal and are left with less residue).
618
sorry, marky, we’re crossing here.
The majority of the 190,000 litres – if you analysed it – would be used in laundries, gardens etc.
Agree that gets rid of the health risk (to some extent – do you want high lead readings in your vegies?) but it doesn’t get rid of the efficiency arguments.
None of what I’ve said is government speak, but is a mixture of googling, talking to scientists and common knowledge (my sole water source is tanks).
You can double – indeed quadruple – my costings and tanks are still expensive – and that’s without delivery, installion or maitenance costs factored in.
Tanks also have the same problems as dams – if it doesn’t rain, you don’t have water. (This effect is witnessed regularly by country town water supplies. They hold up wonderfully for a while – then suddenly there’s a jump in consumption as home water tanks dry up. Given that they all fill at the same time, and that water use is fairly constant across households, this can be a discernible spike).
That’s the argument for desalination. It’s not rain dependant. And that’s why the Vic government is favouring it, even if it’s only for emergency situations.
(I recognise that they are taking practical steps to encourage tank use as well, but – as I hope I have made clear – tanks are only a partial solution).
A possible solution to charging electric car is to have them charge on the “off-peak” periods. But instead of our current Off Peak times, a computerised system could communicate when there is excess power at any time. Although I would suggest Hydrogen is more likely than stored charge as a fuel source. But Hydrogen production could be run on an off peak systems as well.
Carbon capture is costly, time consuming and has significant risks and we will also continually pump out pollutants from the coal plants which have pollution costs to all living things. Not forgetting the problems of leaks.
The United States was thinking of starting a carbon capture program but earlier this year abandoned it due to cost. This is what greenpeace says
http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/energy/?p=171
B.S., you’ve set me off googling to try and find some answers.
This site: http://www.siliconchip.com.au/cms/A_109261/printArticle.html suggests that a purely electric fired car would emit 4.6 kg of CO2 per litre compared to the same car on petrol at 2.6 kg.
MM, agree that carbon capture unlikely to be successful and has a lot of potential problems, which is why my IF was such a big one.
Re the article you referred to (Locock) in 618, I would say the author and I are in basic agreement – he says the world won’t be destroyed, humanity will survive, climate change is irreversible and we need to prepare for it. My arguments exactly.
I don’t agree with him entirely but the basic science is the same.
There was an article in an American journal earlier this year which sets out how America could generate about 65% of its total energy needs – including all oil imports – from large solar farms in Nevada, New Mexico etc for about US$420 billion (2007 dollars).
On a per capita basis we should be able to do much the same for about US$28 billion, say $35 billion in our dollars, which is just a bit more than the promised tax cuts. Even if you multiply this by several orders of magnitude its still a small sum when spread out over several decades.
We certainly have enough land, plus untapped wind and geothermal energy.
The authors also have devised a more efficient DC electric system capable of transmitting the power generated over long distances with minimal power loss, which opens up the potential for us to build a far bigger system than we need and selling the excess electricity to our northern neighbours who don’t have enough vacant land or year round clear skies.
It could become the 21 century ‘Snowy Scheme’ (TM)
625 love the (TM)
Water whilst yes water tanks maybe expensive but a desalination plant will be much more expensive. According to estimates it will cost 2000 dollars a megalitre and be operated and run by a private (actually it is public private partnership) operator who will want to recoup its costs and will put clauses into its contract stating no competition nearby its plant.
They are expensive to run also and are energy sapping, adding to greenhouse which is the problem.
Instead we should be making business save water, like households, water tanks could be used, hence according to John Twaities former minister in Victoria our big shopping malls, sporting ovals and hospital use 30 per cent of Melbournes’ water.
Other points to make about tanks is that tanks can be to big for suburban blocks but still should not be ruled out as an option.
More use should be made of stormwater and perhaps households using less energy because energy uses significant amounts of water. Therefore it is best to move to options which don’t require water like solar energy, geothermal and wind farms as coal uses significant amounts. And not forgetting our agriculture businesses which use massive amounts of water- beef, dairy and cotton which use massive amounts.
Then their is the use of bottled water in Australia by Coca Cola and is being exported overseas, who would know of the new bottled facility near Melbourne.
And finally their is the use of big profits gained by water trading by big agribusinesses from the country to the city.
Sorry Desalination plants are dirty,expensive, noisy and polluting and will pump a dangerous chemical brime into the ocean. Put simply their are other options.
http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/environment/solar-is-a-real-option-csiro-report-says-sun-will-soon-match-coal/483163.html
“Solar thermal technology is capable of producing Australia’s entire electricity ……baseload generation for Australia” and will be cost-competitive with coal within seven years. …….The CRC’s report claims a 35sqkm area with high levels of sunlight and low cloud cover “could produce Australia’s entire current power demand” using solar thermal technology…..”
Way to go people!
Mayo Feral i am with you totally. This is real vision and we could export it to the world instead of coal which is doing nothing for health and our futures.
Yeah, we can’t put salt into the ocean. It might get salty. 🙂
That is the world’s worst arguement. The ocean is huge. Any saline brine is going to dilute back into the water very quickly. It is not like the amount of water removed is going to have any effect. You could have several outlets too if you are worried about the isolated effects that might happen their.
on another note, Julie Bishop thinks the heat being put on Nelson by commentators and pollsters is “ludicrous”
so being behind 60/40 with single digit PPM should not result in heat on a leader?? what planet are these guys on???
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23549390-601,00.html
B.S here is something for you
http://cleanocean.org/index_general.asp?menuid=040.090.010
631- The pressure might be on the deputy as the leader. When the leader is cut down, why not cut down the deputy at the same time. It would stunt Bishop’s leadership hopes which would be in the interest of whoever takes over from Nelson.
Torch relay- what a waste of time and money. Just saw a member of the chinese community suggesting that Tibetans are organising terrorist actions, yep meanwhile China does not allow journalists in to monitor what they are doing in Tibet.
632- Your really suggesting that putting the extra salt from a billionth of what is there is actually going to have a great effect?
The Clean Ocean Foundation is a NIMBY organisation if there ever was one.
634- Total Agreement there. It will cause chaos for the public service too.
Plus the greenhouse gases of the flame! 🙂
So B.S you agree with desalination plants.
Not worth talking to you, you are acting like a child.
Yes, I support Desalination. It is part of an overall solution. It can run on green power too.
Electric cars do not need to be charged from the mains. How do we use our cars? Drive to work, park for 8 hours, drive home. While the car is parked it could be capturing solar voltaic energy, meanwhile the carport or garage roof is doing the same thing.
The cars that do the Darwin-Adelaide Solar Challenge drive all day, but most people don’t drive their car all day but commute & park.
Without that huge hunk of metal making up the engine, without the petrol pump, oil pump, carburettor, radiator & water pump etc but using electric motors on each wheel, with power managment software so that braking is effective by enerating electricity to go into the battery, going downhill speed is regulated again by running the wheel motors as generators, i.e. an efficient, lightweight car these electric cars should have acceleration, range etc equivalent to ICE cars.
Public transport should use trolley buses. These can take coal fired power station power and very efficiently convert this into acceleration & motive power/ Congestion charges sould be but won’t be used, so make one lane of freeways etc a bus-only lane in peak hours to nudge people out of their cars to public transport. Trolleybuses are smooooooth in operation and their floors can be 100% flat, easy for disabled, mothers with prams or trolleys of shopping etc.
Yep we use green power what could be used elsewhere.
Yep any group which comes up with a very good argument is a not in my backyard group.
Where do you store the desalinated water B.S, in dams perhaps which evaporate.
Marky, how do you overcome the problem that tanks rely on rain? – as does the rest of Melbourne’s current water supply.
The other strand of thinking behind desalination is the possibility of fires in Melbourne’s catchments, which could contaminate one or more of Melbourne’s dams to the point that the water is unusable for some time.
Stormwater capture is being encouraged – as are most of the options you refer to- but it is incredibly expensive. We don’t have a system whereby all (or even most) of the stormwater drains come to a central point – many of them connect directly into the river. To connect each individual stormwater drain to the water supply in such a way that the water could be used by households is incredibly expensive and would involve major works – digging up streets, etc.
As for agriculture, that’s irrelevant to the desalination argument – Melbourne’s water supply is just that, the water used for agriculture comes from other water supplies. If you didn’t use any water for agriculture, it wouldn’t create more water for Melbourne.
Governments have people who work on these issues (regardless of the political colour of individual governments) full time for all of their working lives. It’s not as if the various options are unknown and uncosted.
Desal (much as I dislike it personally) appears to be the only source of water which is not rain reliant (again, stormwater use implies rainfall) or likely to be affected by a severe bushfire.
marky marky @ 629 – I don’t know how many people are employed in our steaming coal industry, but I’m guessing it less than 10,000.
Germany embraced solar some years ago and is now the biggest supplier of solar cells and related equipment, employing over 58,000. The real kicker is that the solar cell technology on which their industry is built is Australian.
The richest man in China is building his fortune on solar technology he helped develop at Melbourne University which is the world leader in solar cell research.
We could have had all of that if only the previous government had had as much foresight as the German and Chinese governments who bankrolled the initial investment and, in the case of Germany, created the framework that allowed the industry to grow domestically by requiring power companies to buy solar generated electricity at premium prices.
Meanwhile we get a few crumbs in royalties. 🙁
Re #638: no more from you this evening please, Marky.
641- The article you pointed to actually had the solution to the problem in it. You dilute the brine with seawater, which is then diluted with more seawater and more seawater.
Look, I can’t help it that you quote a group from the Mornington Pennisula who’s aim is “closing the Boags Rocks outfall at Gunnamatta Beach”. That is in their backyard. I actually agree with them but it still does make them a NIMBY group.
Anyway, I am off for the night.
Just for those interested.
The Liberal Party has endorsed Rohan Fitzgerald as its candidate for the forthcoming Gippsland by-election.
“Aged 36, Rohan works as a senior manager with the Central Gippsland Health Service in Sale, and also works at its campuses in Maffra and Heyfield. Rohan lives in Traralgon with his wife Kim and their four sons, who are aged between 7 and 15 years. Both he and Kim are active volunteer participants in their local school and parish community, with Rohan coaching an under-16s basketball team in Traralgon.”
So the Libs are going hard for the seat after all. The last thing we need is a young National Party MP to hold the seat for a decade + or the ALP to gain the seat!
Glen, I am keen to see what you have to say about my response – see
580
Steve K
646 [So the Libs are going hard for the seat after all. The last thing we need is a young National Party MP to hold the seat for a decade + or the ALP to gain the seat!]
I still am mystified, Glen as to why that announcement wasn’t made at the Victorian Liberal council meeting last weekend. It is a bit wasted midweek. They really have got a long way to go before one could consider they act in a functional manner.
I see that you have disagreed with my call about Blanchet being a second rate actress, we’ll she’s no Nicole Kidman especially since Blanchet has never won a best actress academy award.
Aside from that she’s an extreme left winger, so it’s no surprise she got picked for the 20:20 summit.
And I bet the candidate is pissed off from being starved of all the attention that a big time announcement would have given him!