This week’s Essential Research survey has Labor’s lead at 60-40, up from 59-41 last week. Also featured are interesting findings on development of nuclear power plants for electricity generation (43 per cent support, 35 per cent oppose) and whether Australia has an obligation to dispose of nuclear waste from countries it exports uranium to (26 per cent agree, 53 per cent disagree), along with perceptions of the Australian-US relationship and a quiz question on Australia Day (which makes me wonder how many answered without recourse to Google). Other news:
• The South Australian Liberals have suffered an embarrassing defeat at the hands of independent Geoff Brock in the Frome by-election following Saturday’s distribution of preferences. Crikey subscribers can read my post-mortem here, and a still lively discussion is raging on my live coverage post. The Advertiser reports that Brock’s success might give other potential independent candidates ideas, including “ALP stalwarts such as Rod Sawford and Murray Delaine”, who were respectively Labor members for the federal seat of Port Adelaide and the state seat of Cheltenham. Liberal leader Martin Hamilton-Smith says he is “ready to make deals with any independent candidate who ran next year in safe Labor seats such as Port Adelaide, Croydon, Lee and Colton”.
• Speculation about an early Queensland election continues to stop and start. Mark Bahnisch of Larvatus Prodeo says the Courier-Mail has damaged its credibility with its repeated wolf-crying on the subject, while The Australian’s D. D. McNicoll contends that “the whisper in Queensland political circles is Premier Anna Bligh will call the state election on February 28, a date that ensures bumper superannuation payouts for all the surviving members of the ALP’s ‘Class of 2001’ who were never expected to serve more than one term in parliament.” “Former Howard government senior adviser” David Moore surveys the landscape in The Australian.
• The NSW Nationals’ plans to select a candidate in a winnable seat for the 2011 state election by holding an open primary has caught the attention of blogger Tim Andrews, who is “unsure why this proposal hasn’t received more attention, as it has the potential to revolutionise Australian politics”. Ben Raue at The Tally Room reckons the idea is “at least a good gimmick”. The Nationals’ briefing paper on the subject can be read here.
• Western Australia’s daylight saving referendum will be held on May 16. Daylight saving was previously voted down in 1975 (53.66 per cent against), 1984 (54.35 per cent) and 1992 (53.14 per cent).
Judith , you ar completely right , However like to remind pro nukers here and other places , that opposition is still strong and prepared to fight , and at any time with sounder argumetns than they hav
The Libs just keep on giving. I could do a whole line of smileys and it still wouldn’t be enough.
[Community corps splits Liberals
KEVIN Rudd’s plan for a volunteer Community Corps has split the Opposition, undermining leader Malcolm Turnbull.
Opposition education spokesman Christopher Pyne slammed the 2020 summit idea to recruit an army of young volunteers who would swap community service for HECS discounts
“Like most of the Rudd Government’s big ideas, it is deeply flawed,” Mr Pyne said.
But Victorian Liberal senator Mitch Fifield claimed credit for the idea.]
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24977374-2862,00.html
Ron, Judith,
Are you anti-nuclear everywhere?
Or just for us because we have so many alternatives?
You’ve got to love the Curious Snail, first with the latest. Only one month and five days late with this story but hell, it’s difficult to cook up news of a February Queensland election and keep an eye on the news as well.
http://www.reuters.com/article/economicNews/idUSPEK31683620081223
[From correspondents in Madrid
January 28, 2009 10:14pm
THE Spanish economy is in recession for the first time since 1993, contracting during the final two quarters of 2008.
Spanish gross domestic product (GDP) had shrunk by 1.1 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2008 compared with the previous three month period, when it contracted 0.2 per cent on a quarterly basis, the bank said.]
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24978016-5003402,00.html
dyno we have 30% of known reserves of uraniums we’re stupid for not having nuclear power really…
Glen, dont patronise me mate, i’ve been proven nothing, talk down to me and you might just bite off more than you can chew, at the present time it’s best i dont answer your jibes, you enjoy your ride to nowhere.
dyno, i said before i’m a NIMBY, we have so many alternatives, so many we havnt explored before, if someone wanted to put a wind farm on the reserve opposite my home i’d grieve a little for losing that space the local children play in but i’d give way for the greater good, obviously some other countries dont have the advantages we have and they must do as they see fit, saying that i dont think we should take their waste, i have great faith that alternatives to nuclear power will be found and soon, look dyno i’m no expert, actually i’m rather thick at times but i’m open to most ideas and if anyone can show me new ideas or even old ones i’m open to them.
Judith just remember your glorious leader Kevin Rudd got Labor to stop its idiotic 3 mines policy whether you like it or not nuclear is coming…
Vera thats a gem, we try to pretend Pyne doesnt come from Adelaide, he’s so full of himself he cant see past his nose. 🙂 i really do love those smileys 🙂
[whether you like it or not nuclear is coming…]
Yes, Glen, reminds of religious zealots telling me that I won’t wear out my current pair of shoes because Jesus is coming soon..it’s a considerable timelapse since that promise was made!
Steve, just what do you expect from Newsltd? next they’ll be telling us obamas running for president.
[dyno we have 30% of known reserves of uraniums we’re stupid for not having nuclear power really…]
Glen, just because we have something in the ground doesn’t mean we have to dig it up. There’s probably a good reason it’s buried underground.
I mean, if there was something underground that had the potential to kill hundreds of thousands of people, and even if used for a beneficial purpose like electricity generation, created harmful waste lasting tens of thousands of years, would you dig it up?
Oh wait.
lol Judith
[he’s so full of himself he cant see past his nose.]
I think it’s a requirement you need to be let into the Liberal Party
Here’s one good reason to do everything possible to stimulate the economy and get the GFC sorted out. It is traumatic for people who have worked hard all their lives to be left destitute at a time when they should be enjoying their retirement.
[THEY are ordinary folk – mostly retirees – wiped out by the $100 million collapse of Queensland-based Storm Financial.
And last night about 750 of them gathered in Townsville in the faint hope of recouping some of their losses.
Among an estimated 14,000 people caught up in the collapse, almost 500 have lost everything, including their homes and life savings. They had been encouraged by Storm to mortgage their homes to invest in the sharemarket. When it collapsed last year, many were ruined.]
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24977052-952,00.html
No 263
Pump priming the economy won’t work. The issue is confidence – you don’t inspire confidence by giving handouts to bludgers.
thats dreadful Steve, i cant even visualise what hell they’d be going through, now i’m thankful that i’ve never had the money to invest, to be left destitute at that time of life would be horrific, some of these companys have a lot to answer for, i have a friend who lost it all with the HIH/FIA disaster, Malcolm was in the drivers seat of Goldman Sachs then, funny we never hear about that when the libs laud his financial prowess.
No 265
Judith, Mr Turnbull cannot be blamed for the HIH/FIA collapse.
g’night folks, this little rubber duckey has had a rotten hot day with more to come so i’ll toddle off to get what rest i can, tomorrows another day. 🙂
GP, he was in charge of Goldman Sachs when they reccomended HIH take over FIA, if he wasnt responsible why was he along with the others trying to arrange a settlement so he didnt have to go to court?
Judith, the HIH Royal Commission cleared Mr Turnbull. Again, you’re clutching at straws looking for someone to blame.
Glen 250, I recently went to a dinner where (retired) Maj Gen Peter Cosgrove was a guest speaker…Quite an interesting chat…In his closing when he projected where Australia would be in 50 years time, he noted that “Australia will be nuclear powered not nucleur armed”…This sort of gave me the warm fuzzies…As an aside which I also found quite interesting, he proposed that our major threat (political stability and militarily) will not come from Indonesia but from PNG/Melanesia…Couldn’t really see it myself but he made a pretty compelling argument
[Pump priming the economy won’t work. The issue is confidence – you don’t inspire confidence by giving handouts to bludgers.]
GP, nobody is talking about giving handouts to bludgers. The bludgers have been high paid, incompetent groups working in financial institutions with little or no understanding of the risks they were exposing people’s hard earned savings to in the derivatives markets.
Once all that collapsed, another group exposed ordinary people to more risk by getting them to mortgage their assets to play the sharemarket. Confidence is not a result of getting petty little rightwingers into jobs where they can advise people how to divest their money. Confidence is all about knowing that financial advice is trustworthy.
Steve 263, whilst I sympathise for the investors caught up in the Storm Financial collapse, I seem to remember two very important pieces of advice…(1) never gamble more than you are prepared to lose and (2) never put all your eggs in the one basket…Mortgaging your house and putting the money + life savings into the share market with one financial brokerage firm might seem like a good idea whe the market is rising, but it is just gambling all the same…I may just add my dear old mum has also lost about 70% of her retirement investments…
Is it just me or is anyone else pi$$ed off that the miserable bunch of doomsayers we call “economic journalists” (followed closely by the even more miserable bunch of deathwatchers we call “political journalists”, out for a quick nasty grab to discredit the government) have, it seems finally done it?
With their endless barrel scraping, mud slinging and bottom dwelling about such things as “are we in a recession yet?”, or “do deficits really matter?”, or “how many thousands of jobs have been lost today?” they’ve finally undermined confidence to such an extent that the IMF had had to reverse its predictions of just a couple of months ago and now says things look worse than they have for 60 years.
If there is one thing that will ensure an economic crisis gets worse, it’s a bunch of losers with nothing better to do than look for bad news (and sometimes manufacture it) and then write it up in a pathetic attempt to trump the other guy, at the next newspaper or TV station, who is just as woeful and will have to catch up in the race to the bottom tomorrow. Sure, many things are wrong and have been unsustainable, but when your average punter reads that house prices might drop by 20% in the next year, who’s going to be the first one to buy a house? Same for electronics prices, jobs and garden gnomes for all I know.
It makes me sick to see how we’ve talked ourselves into the gloom that now seems to be unfolding as a self-fulfilling prophecy, aided and abetted by a gleeful press, eager not ot be outdone in spreading stories of impending catastrophe. Almost every item on the ABC news and current affairs radio these days is about how rotten things are, and how much rottener they’re going to get in every direction. The Australian is full of sickening articles on how Workchoices would have solved all problems. Turnbull never stops blathering on regarding how he would solve the crisis (if only Rudd would turn over management of the economy to him and get out of the way of the World’s Greatest Economic Genius).
Anyway, haven’t posted for a while. I just wanted to get that off my chest.
welcome home BB, i for one have missed you, i think i told you before i found your blogs interesting, amusing and i’ve learnt a lot from them, it’s good to see you back and yes the Australian is chokka with doom and gloom. 🙂
GP. Turnbull was in conference making settlement offers with a couple of other directors to keep themselves out of court just a few months ago, go check, when it comes to spivs and snakeoil salesmen i dont have to clutch at straws mate i can smell them a mile off.
The economic stimulus package was a big boost to the Pokies machine. It created an extra $500 million in turnover of pubs, club and the state governments
Too bad little if any of it will help our economy. It was just a horrible through out plan, if only the government had spend it more wisely
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24977695-5006009,00.html
To all you Liberal supporters who think the NSW Labor Gov does not have a plan for infrastructure. You guys have no idea
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24977396-5001021,00.html
see Rees plan on begging to the Federal government for money, and if that does not work, he will beg to the Victorian Governemnt and then the Qld government. See he had a plan all along
Hadn’t thought much about the media’s role in this recently. Thanks, Bushfire Bill.
275
You must be logged in from a small island in a remote ocean somewhere with the rest of the doubters – it’s a very small island indeed. The stimulus package has been received with approval from almost all serious economists.
The point of the stimulus package was to quickly inject cash into the system. Tax cuts would have been too slow. The bottom line is that it doesn’t really matter whether the money was spent at the pokies, used to make an extra payment on a home loan or to pay off the credit card. I would argue that each of these options would be a better idea than buying a new television – yes, putting the money into the pokies might be better than buying white goods or home entertainment equipment. At least you’d have a chance of winning.
What do you think happens to the money once the pokie machines are emptied? My guess is that it’s collected by an armed security service and taken to a bank where it is deposited into an account. The bankers then provide loans to businesses or individuals who in turn help stimulate the economy elsewhere. It doesn’t matter much how the money is used as eventually it will result in saving jobs which is the name of the game at this time. Goodness, even Bishop and Turnbull understand the importance of that.
Oz, one of the reasons i enjoy BB’s blogs so much is he seems to think outside the square and bring out points that you dont think of until he raises them, dont go away BB we need you.
Great to see you back Bushfire, have missed your contributions around the place
It’s a funny old world we live in these days. Who would have thought that in our lifetime a Russian leader would make statements like these?
“…the crisis was a “perfect storm” that had arisen from a world dominated by one power…”
“…extravagant financial stimulus packages of the kind agreed by Washington and London could lead those countries down a path well-worn by Moscow, while doing little to aid a global recovery.”
“There is a temptation to expand direct interference of state in economy. In the Soviet Union that became an absolute. We paid a very dear price for that…”
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/business/story/0,28124,24978604-36418,00.html
Putin goes on to say some encouraging things about the major powers working together to sort out more than just the GFC. It will be very interesting to see if the US responds directly to these comments. The new Pres is just the man to do it in a positive, conciliatory fashion.
Steve K, being in the old and decrepit set a lot of my pals are in the same age group and i can honestly say i dont know of anyone who blew the money on the pokies, mine went on house repairs so it went into the pockets of a couple of local tradesmen, whilst my war widows pension and part of my husband’s DFRB service super gives me more than the usual pensioner, the bonus was quite welcome and bought forward repairs that eventually had to be done, a pal bought new tyres for her car and had it serviced, another put it towards the ride on shopper he’d had his eye on, my grandie bought a bedroom suite with hers so the little man could move up and leave the cot free for the next addition, while i dont doubt that some small amounts went to the pokies, the mantra being placed forward of us old dears sitting in front of a machine feeding it the government money by constantly pushing a button is erronious, in fact i couldnt visualise anything more boring.
Checking that link at #275 about ‘increased’ spending in pokies I found this in the text, not in the headline of course,
“The December, 2006 turnover was $5.267 billion, more than the December, 2008 figure.”
And what had happened in between?
Read the link for all the info which may cast doubt on the claim it was handouts money.
Judith, I have heard similar stories and I suspected all along that the pokies claim was a beat up. My point was simply that putting it in the pokies wasn’t the same as flushing it down the toilet – so long as it ended up swirling around in the economy and not the sewer the spender had done their job.
Believe me, I am no fan of the pokies. In fact, I agree with these guys (named after my second fav PM)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXywGjDqcAw
GP 269
The HIH commission (have you read it?) cleared Turnbull of any unlawfull conduct. He may still have a case to answer on whether or not he adequately discharged his responsiblities to clients. Conduct can be unethical or unprofessional without being illegal.
At worst, it was unethical. At best, it shows what a terrible financial advisor he was.
275:
500 million extra “turnover” equals 40 million extra dollars ‘lost’, of which a large amount will go straight back to government in gaming taxes as well as pay staff wages.
And the other $10,360,000,000 – didn’t go on pokies.
Steve K at 277
You do not understand the idea of the stimulus package. The idea of the Stimulus package is to stimulate the economy. If someone spend $1000 on a TV, the $1000 goes to pay the wage of someone at Bing Lee/Harvey Norman/Myers. It means there is less likelihood of that person losing his job. These people will also be able to continue spending (else it become an endless spiral and more and more people losses their jobs)
If these money went into the home loan, no new jobs are created and no jobs are saved.
If these money went into the pokies machine, it goes to the state government, and the Clubs, it then sits in the accounts of the clubs until they decided to spend it.
While some commentator agreed with it, a few also said it would have been a better idea to create jobs, which would be a better way to ensure the financial chun continues
[If these money went into the pokies machine, it goes to the state government, and the Clubs, it then sits in the accounts of the clubs until they decided to spend it.]
Which they do almost instantly? I don’t think you grasp how the economy actually works.
[While some commentator agreed with it, a few also said it would have been a better idea to create jobs, which would be a better way to ensure the financial chun continues]
How do you create jobs? The jobs factory? No, you spend.
dovif, have you thought what pays the staff at the hotels, the kitchen people as pokie players usually go for a cheap meal, then theres the bar staff and the gaming room staff and what about the cleaners? all rely on the money coming in for their wages, then you can go one further, what about the food suppliers for those meals and the drink suppliers, then theres the truckies who deliver it all, even further again to the fuel suppliers for those trucks and mechanics to service them, you could go on and on all the way down the chain, the food growers etc, etc, when you look at it that way the money put in the machines still keep a lot of people in jobs.
Every country in the world is going ahead with stimulus packages, It wasn’t SOME economists that agree with it it is MOST and every govt in the world! Seems Talcum and the Fib cheer squad are the only ones that disagree.
Oz, I think dovif believes that money in the accounts of club owners resides in a steel box within the bank’s chamber (with the club’s name engraved on the lid) to be opened only when the owner wants to add to or remove from the box.
Turnbull cant take a trick, his tax cut idea gets the raspberry.
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24978648-5005962,00.html
Dubbs i agree, we should be nuclear powered by 2050 if not long before and we wont need nuclear weapons but still having the option is handy but so long as we can count of America we wouldnt really need an independent deterrent although we nearly did obtain nuclear weapons in the 50s/60s…
PNG and the Solomons have told us that we cannot afford to ignore them and other brittle nation states on the Pacific rim, Australia needs to play a far more active role in the South Pacific…
Vera it doesnt matter what stimulus package Rudd and Co bring out we most likely will go into recession this year and that is something that is just about inevitable…Rudd and Co are bringing out stimulus packages every second quarter to try and stop 2 quarters of negative growth to avoid calling it a recession but if NSW is already in recession and most of the Western World is then i hardly think we can avoid going into it this year.
It’s not all doom and gloom Bushfire Bill.
Interest rates are still going down and if these polls are anything to go by folks are satisfied with how Rudd and co are handling things. Seems like no one’s taking any notice of those so called “political” and “economic genious journalists” They are just peeing in the wind.
[MORTGAGE holders will be about $1000 a month better off in total next week, as the Reserve Bank resumes its most aggressive interest rate-cutting campaign in decades against the most bleak global economic backdrop since World War II.]
While the IMF outlook is gloomy they do expect things to pick up again next year. So there is a silver lining in there somewhere.
[Advanced economies are expected to shrink by 2 per cent this year, the first contraction in more than 60 years. Chinese growth forecasts have also been slashed to 6.7 per cent. But the IMF expects strong action from governments and central banks to help restore global growth to 3 per cent next year, after only 0.5 per cent this year.]
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/an-extra-1000-in-pockets/2009/01/28/1232818532085.html
Wrong again Glen, no recession in NSW. last 2 quarters were positive growth.
Vera havent you understood that that was only achieved through handouts and nothing else? NSW is in recession but the Rudd Government is keeping it and the country barely afloat by handouts just to avoid calling a recession…
I want to know how much they’ve put this country in debt trying to spend their way out of a problem with little regard for future consequences.
Just can’t accept the truth can you Glen. It’s pointless talking to you. Anyway have a nice day 🙂 but do me a favour and pester someone else. I’m all outa Aeroguard!
Vera if you arent even interested debating the issue as to whether Rudd is trying to avoid a recession by giving out handouts at the end of 2 quarters it seems you are avoiding the point 😉
Glen, simply saying NSW is in recession does not make it so