Roy Morgan has published results from a small-sample phone poll showing Labor’s two-party lead at 54.5-45.5, compared with 53-47 at the previous such poll early last month. Morgan’s phone polls consistently give Labor lower ratings than its headline face-to-face polls. The poll was conducted on the back of a survey of 659 respondents to ascertain views on climate change, which found support for the government’s carbon emissions trading scheme down four points to 46 per cent and opposition up five points to 36 per cent.
To demonstrate that those who believe nothing happens over the silly season aren’t looking hard enough:
• The federal government’s much ballyhooed plan to reform regulation of political funding appears to have ended with a whimper. Whereas former Special Minister of State John Faulkner said last year the reforms would “definitely be in place before the next election”, his successor Joe Ludwig is refusing to make any commitments regarding the timing or content of any legislation. It was reported in October that the government and the opposition were close to agreeing on a package including limits on campaign spending and donations, increases in public funding to parties to cover the loss, and restriction of political advertising by third parties including unions and lobby groups. As part of the deal, the Coalition would drop its opposition to slashing the threshold for public disclosure of donations, which it voted down in the Senate last year with the support of Steve Fielding, and Labor would include union affiliation fees in a ban on donations from corporations, third parties and associated entities. The latter measure crucially met opposition from union leaders concerned it would reduce their influence. Furthermore, a leaked memo from Labor MP Michael Danby argued a move from private to public funding would be a bonanza for the Greens which they could use to target Labor-held inner-city seats. The scheme’s opponents have a handy weapon in the grave political difficulty involved in increasing public funding to political parties, which Danby argues would need to increase by a factor of 10 to keep them operating at their current level. In response to the obvious objection that the proposed package included spending caps, Danby argues that such mechanisms are untested and possibly unconstitutional.
• Meanwhile, Brian Robins of the Sydney Morning Herald reports NSW Electoral Commissioner Colin Barry has told a parliamentary committee that state legislation to introduce public funding was “close to unworkable”, making it very unlikely the measure will be introduced before the next election.
• Loretta Johnston of the Launceston Examiner reports that a decision by the Right faction not to challenge the Left over the succession to Duncan Kerr in the federal seat of Denison indicates a deal has been struck which will leave Bass clear for confirmed starter Geoff Lyons, a staffer to Right faction Senator Helen Polley and former manager at Launceston General Hospital. However, it’s also noted that the Prime Minister has been “tipped to take particular interest in the seat”, and will be able to direct the national executive to take action if a candidate he prefers comes forward. The report names state Bass candidate Michelle Cripps as a potential alternative if she does not win a seat in the state election. However, Danielle Blewett of The Examiner surprisingly offers that the Prime Minister has “made it clear he wanted a man to run for Bass after the recent distress experienced by incumbent Bass MHR Jodie Campbell”, according to “Labor sources”.
• Robert Taylor of The West Australian reports the Western Australian ALP is struggling to find a federal candidate for Cowan to replace Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly, who stood aside a month ago because he was too closely linked to Brian Burke, as almost everybody in local politics suffers the same problem. Two names mentioned as possibilities are Karen Brown, former West Australian deputy editor, current chief-of-staff to Opposition Leader Eric Ripper and unsuccessful candidate for Mount Lawley at the 2008 state election, and Sam Roe, an “ALP staffer”.
• Contrary to earlier reports that they were pushed as much as jumped, Paul Toohey of The Daily Telegraph reports Fowler MP Julia Irwin and Throsby MP Jennie George were offered extra terms due to the Prime Minister’s determination to avoid factional conflicts over who would succeed them.
• The Camden Haven Courier reports there are three candidates for Nationals preselection in Lyne, which was won at a 2008 by-election by independent Rob Oakeshott after Mark Vaile’s retirement: Port Macquarie medical specialist David Gillespie, Taree legal practitioner Quentin Schneider and Port Macquarie electrical contractor Jamie Harrison.
• Antony Green lays out possible federal election dates, noting when double dissolution and half-Senate elections are due as well as the complicating factors of school holidays, long weekends and sporting events.
• The Australian Electoral Commission has published the final report for the Queensland federal redistribution, complete with individual maps for the redrawn seats.
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters is conducting an inquiry in the New South Wales automatic enrolment scheme, legislation for which was enacted last month. The closing date for submissions is next Friday; the committee is schedule to report on February 25.
• Business SA has published a wish list of state constitutional and electoral reform. This includes two features the government hoped to put to an all-or-nothing referendum in conjunction with the next election: cutting upper house members’ terms from eight years to four, and introducing a double dissolution mechanism. Also recommended are the introduction of compulsory enrolment, which I actually thought had been done a couple of months ago; optional preferential voting (which has always seemed to me a no-brainer – but then has so has its logical corollary, optional voting); abolition of ticket votes in the upper house with a requirement that voters number only as many candidates as there are vacancies (which raises problems if that number is 22, as it would be if you abandoned eight-year terms); abolition of South Australia’s unusual mechanism to “save” informal lower house votes by deeming partially completed ballots to have followed the relevant party’s registered how-to-vote card (which would be logical, perhaps even necessary, if optional preferential voting was introduced); a strengthened “truth in advertising” clause (a cure worse than the disease, as Democratic Audit has noted – the government got it right when it made misleading advertising grounds for declaring a result void if it may have affected the result); and by-elections when sitting members resign from their party (not entirely sure what I think about this). Among the recommended reforms for parliament is appointing outsiders as Speaker and President.
• Hobart’s Taste food festival turned ugly just before new year, following what Matthew Denholm of The Australian calls a “heated arm-waving confrontation” between Elise Archer and Sue Hickey, respectively current and former state Liberal candidates for Denison. Two witnesses pointed the finger of blame firmly at Archer: festival director and unsuccessful Liberal preselection aspirant Marti Zucco, who subsequently quit the Liberal Party over parliamentary leader Will Hodgman’s failure to act against Archer, and Hobart deputy mayor and Greens candidate Helen Burnet. The latter was allegedly told by Archer’s husband, former state party president Dale Archer, to “f*** off” when she intervened on Hickey’s behalf. Hodgman ordered Archer to apologise to Hickey, which she did by email. At issue was whether there were too many lawyers in parliament: Hickey had argued there was, and Archer – a lawyer and, like Zucco, a Hobart alderman – expressed a strong view to the contrary. Matthew Denholm further notes that Archer is associated with the Right, whereas Hickey is a moderate. Various reports in the aftermath of the incident have focused on a rift in the party between moderates and the Right, with the latter evidently having gained ascendancy. Hickey had withdrawn as a candidate a fortnight previously as she did not wish for her business to forego government contracts, as required of parliamentarians by an onerous provision in the state constitution. She was replaced on the Liberal ticket by Richard Lowrie, a manager with Hobart catamaran manufacturers Incat.
• Further upsetting the previously smooth-travelling Tasmanian Liberal applecart is news that Franklin candidate Jillian Law – described by Sue Neales of The Mercury as “delightful Huon Valley Liberal candidate and grandmother” – received an email purportedly from a party insider which said Right powerbroker Senator Eric Abetz was “very, very angry” with her, and would “be doing what he can to see you are not elected”. The email also informed Law she was “offside” with Will Hodgman, the party’s sole member for Franklin, as she had been “running about the Huon Valley telling everyone he is second to you” in terms of local support.
• Peter van Onselen of The Australian reviews the 2010 electoral landscape.
I acknowledge that you’ve asked this nicely, but unfortunately I have absolutely zero respect for you on account of your beliefs on asylum seekers. And I have a policy of only being nice to humans. Sorry, redneck.
Ron
AGL canned the wind farm because it isn’t economically viable. The renewable energy “subsidy” isn’t enough because the cost of CO2 is too low.
That’s because we have invested so little in RE and there is no prospect of any significant carbon price, the rise in CO2 price from a 5% emissions cut would not do enough to save wind.
Grog, last Newspoll was 5/12/09 and TPP was 56-44.
Talking about racism… heres a racist mob of troublemakers in “multicultural” Melbourne:
http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/croation-mob-mars-first-day-of-australian-open-tennis/story-e6freuy9-1225820852193
TTH, nationalism and racism are not synonymous, though they may be frequently closely related.
Astrobleme
“Seems they (Greens) do LIKE Wind power.”
no you ar a fool not undrstanding business econamics & business plans
Your UNeconamiicly based actons (of rejectin th ETS) killed off th actual plan to build th bigest wind farm on this side of th equators so you ar anti wind in efect AGL’s valid business reason was rejecton of th ETS , its called business certainty , which you clearly do not undrstand
so in reality you ar against wind , as your actons (like rejectin th ETS & so no investmen certainty) prevent damn prevent large scale R E coming onstream
youse Greens ‘like’ things , but hav no business competense to undrstand HOW to get R E !
you tink that seeing ‘youse’ like R E , it gonna happen in a market econamy , no long term investmen desisons ar needed
conversly Libs DO undrstand how to get R E in an econamy as they ar econaamicly sort of literat whereas youse do not know how to get R E onstream , but then th Libs dont beleive in CC so dont think R E is needed
so youse Greens and Libs ar both 1/2 stupid , but on oposite ends of th see saw
so in fact your Greens actons as explaind ar anti R E eg anti wind , whether you happen to ‘like R E /wind or not Greens lack of econamic sense is th problam & popularity oportunism
diogenes , a doctor , read my last post , nothing is econamicly viable to put 800 million into if you do not know long term th business playin field incl caps and th potentisl future cost of carbons
I think we need a newspoll to clear out the dumb wood from this blog.
Sorry, 6/12/09 was last Newspoll. As for predictions, it’s probably going to be around the same, no reason for it to be otherwise.
Ron
Just keep shouting the same message over and over, oh wait, that’s what you are doing.
Paul Llewellyn, a WA Green senator helped initiate the windfarm in Denmark WA (currently being constructed). So, there you are. You are wRONg. Greens Senator, made a windfarm happen.
Your arguments are nonsense because you just make things up and shout them loudly. You do no research and rely on your own personal bias.
If you have a sensible argument back it up with details, not generalisations.
i am innocent. i only carry “gan” not bomb.
Ron
What does that even mean?
Odd time for a newspoll really – Rudd has been on holidays for the last 2 weeks, and before that was Christmas, so what are they polling??
I’m a bit new here, so I am asking this question seriously. I swear it is not meant as a joke.
Is Ron real?
You know what I mean. I can understand that some people are worse at spelling than others – we all get the odd word wrong now and then – but when someone constantly writes the word “the” without the “e” I begin to get suspicious.
Is he playing a joke, or just seriously borderline illiterate?
Also, can someone please tell me how to blockquote? I must say that the commenting feature on this blog could use a bit of modernisation, like some html instructions and a preview window.
Thankyou.
To give Tone a leg up – especially post his “I’m a Greenie, Honest” manifesto.
Thanks, Astro.
The Finniss Firebomb
last time you were here , you made a stupid coment about th 2004 senate electon , which i exposed , you could not cjhlange my actual facts of senate quota figures so yu went away and sulkd , back down to cringe
and you Astrobleme
you can not handle econamics where I showed cause and terrible R E efect of Greens rejctin th ETS
You did not rebut my point , cause you dio not undrstand econamics and buss certainty
Treasury do if you red there papers AND ALL Business Groups in there submisions said an ETS was a PRE Requisite on th VERY grounds i said , investmen certainty
now R E wont happen without business invetmen , you tink business will ditch normal buss pratise for you ignorants
plainly you ar ignmorant of th subject
Ron’s posts are perfectly intelligible and convey nuances that are not present in standard English. I honestly find them the most enjoyable to read of anyones. Think of it as stream-of-consciousness rather than prose.
His content is another matter. 👿
Ron
While I agree that they need a long term price for carbon, I don’t think a 5% reduction would lift the carbon price enough to make wind viable. If they knew the price of carbon would be $60 a ton, they’d be cooking with gas.
Passing the ETS would not have given them enough certainty; a miracle at Flopenhagen would have.
#664
I agree the jury is certainly still out on the authenticity of Ron’s posts.
One of the funniest, nay curious, things with his posts, as you pointed out, is that when he mashes the keyboard he can’t find the time to put an “e” in “the” (ie. th), but yet he can still carefully put an extra space between commas, eg. “diogenes , a doctor , read my last post , nothing is econamicly…”
It could be a code error in one of the many gibberish or typo generators you can use online. Not sure – go figure!
Finniss Firebomb
I am not an expert in such matters but I’m pretty sure Ron has dyslexia. He is highly intelligent and I don’t think criticising his English is appropriate.
Dio
whereas criticising you is entirely appropriate.
😉
at the end
“I don’t think a 5% reduction would lift the carbon price enough ”
but diogenes , you ar not making th desision , a business plan requires est of what th carbon price will alnd at , th relativ market shares , costs , and there projectd selling prises ets etc BEFORE they can make an investment desison But BEFORE they can do tthat they need an ETS so they can use as a base KNOWING what th playing field is for them & competors in th 5% and also knowing then th decreasing permits availabel & forcatstng cap drops relativ to carbon prises etc etc
without an ETS , none of abov can ocur with investing hundreds of milions without a huge comersial risk or a Company forsed to do for othr unforseen comerce reasons
and of couse had copenhaggen deel been done , then there was chanse of even certainty re internatonal competivness
that is why an ETS irespectiv of th target WAS a pre requisit , to get R E investment started , othrwise almost zero will start on econamic grounds (better targets come when World agrees) , ands you almost forgivens
Why does the cynic in me think tomorrows Newspoll result will create a headline? A rogue to the ALP this time? Tony Abbott as preferred PM? 😉
Darren Laver
sycko man , commas giv times for thought You should try it before makin coments
Thanks Gusface. I was thinking maybe it was some sort of secret, like how to do a triforce on 4chan. Not that I visit 4chan of course…
And Ron:
I don’t know what to say to this. I still don’t understand the point you were trying to make. I said that if labor had directed preferences to the greens ahead of family first, then the greens would have won the seat. I have just reviewed details of the count: http://www.abc.net.au/elections/federal/2004/results/sendVIC.htm
and cannot see that I was incorrect to say this.
Ron
Agree an ETS was a prerequisite but, based on the viability figures I’ve seen, you’d need a much higher price for carbon.
FF@664:
I’ve tried, dog knows I’ve tried.
Several times I have asked William, and he just says he will look into it, should call him “mirror” not William. Or he ignores requests completely.
Poss said on this blog that preview at least was coming.
Not a sausage.
There is no preview, there is no selection of emoticons to click on and have them appear, there is no edit function, and there is no blockquote function to click on, and there is nowhere in plain view to find out how to do these things from square one. Every person who posts here for the first time has to learn how to reinvent the wheel.
It is pathetic.
I have never seen such bad board software, and I’ve been on a lot of boards. There’s not even a help page in plain view, surely that’s not too much to ask. There should be a help page link close to the comment box.
But to answer your question:
put ordinary square brackets around something you want to quote, as shown here, but using curly brackets:
{this is a quote, but use square brackets instead}
I’m hoping this will look like the first square bracket:[
Dunno if it will stuff up the rest of this post though.
colon and lol and colon, no spaces, gives a smiley.
colon and evil and colon, no spaces, gives a little red devil.
:doitlikethis:
Oh, and bold is done using left arrow, then the letter b, then the right arrow, then the text, then left arrow, then slash b, then right arrow, on my keyboard they are above the comma and full stop.
so {b}this would be in bold if I had used arrows{/b} but use left and right arrows instead of curly brackets.
Italics are done the same way, using the letter i and left and right arrows around it, then the text, then left arrow, slash i, then right arrow. And there’s no preview function to see whether these instructions are correct.
why is there not a help page at the very least?
It is pathetic.
Diogenes @ # 644
If wood burning was banned, it would decrease our emissions (for eg lets say by say 12M ton a year). That amount of CO2 not emitted would then be freed up for Big Coal to emit. There would be no net reduction in CO2 emissions (in fact it would be counter-productive because industry could delay making any restructuring decisions).
Can’t see the problem here.
The amount of CO2 is still the same.
To add to you example above –
before an ETS emissions would be 12 Mil tonnes from wood burning and say 100 Mil tonnes from industry.
Total of 112 Mil Tonnes
if under the circumstances that applies in your example we then assume that urban wood burning was prohibited we would have zero emissions from wood burning and 112 Mil Tonnes from industry.
Total of 112 Mil tonnes
if urban wood burning is included in an ETS, emission 12 Mil tonnes from uban wood burning and from industry 100 Mil tonnes
total of 112 Mil tonnes
I get this impression for your post and Green’s post in general an animosity to big business. In the case you described forget who emits and concentrate on the numbers and the way I see it there is no difference. The total amount of GHG that have to address by the ETS is (in the example above) 112 Mil tonnes. All you are arguing about is circumstances of the mitigation of GHG.
Also you can often get the emoticon you want by copying it from the post, then pasting it into some plain vanilla text software that doesn’t do anything fancy with graphics, notepad or simpletext or something similar.
I made up my own sheet of emoticons and keep it on google docs, so I have a reference of emoticons, but that is really the only way. And some of the code for the emoticons is wrong on the help page which is somewhere, no idea where.
There should be a link to a good help page right beside the words “post a comment” which is above this text box as I am writing.
It is pathetic.
Ratsars
That’s exactly the point I was making. Banning wood fires would not reduce our CO2 emissions under an ETS.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it, but it does show that it isn’t a reason to do it either.
don @ 679
Thanks for the tips don. I was a bit surprised at how crappy it is, given that it’s a “crikey blog” and crikey are meant to be all professional and on the cutting edge of the new online media industry and whatever. I agree that someone needs to lift their game.
What, about three days ago?
Rua – why does the cynic in me agree but I think the way the OO et al have been pushing Tabbott and finding fault with the Govt. it’s bound to be more positive for the Oppn.
The ABC today had a poll asking whether the PM was spending ‘ too much time tackling CC and not enough on other environmental matters’. 2/3rds said yes.
It beats me – I thought they were trying to tackle both at the same time but have been foiled at every turn by the Oppn.
Seeing Pyne on telly tonight made me realise how much I haven’t missed him.
Ratsars@680:
Aren’t you assuming that the coal and wood will have the same efficiency so far as turning wood into heat, and coal into heat into steam into electricity into heat, not forgetting losses in electricity transmission, and the carbon emitted in maintaining the coal fired station, the electricity grid, the transformers, yada yada?
For an electric radiant or fan heater, or underfloor heating, then I suspect wood would be more efficient. Less middlemen to take their cut, so to speak.
You might be better off with electricity if you used a reverse cycle air conditioner as your heater, they are a lot better than fan or radiant heaters.
Ratsars
I don’t have any animosity towards most big business but I do have animosity towards industries like Big Tobacco and King Coal which are making a product which causes enormous damage to humans and they attempt every trick to avoid doing the right thing.
The Finniss Firebomb @ # 664.
I can relate to Ron’s written word on a personal level. If you see my posts before I clean it up it is just a bad and I make the same mistake over and over just like Ron’s “the”.
Ron unlike me is impatient to get his ideas on the blog and I suppose you have noticed that he is not behind the conservation.
I on the other hand am always miles behind because I have to take time and edit everything I write. I am afraid that my fingers are miles too big and my introduction to typing was way too late.
So give Ron a break he is doing fine.
don. I’m a bit of a computer illiterate but managed to work out (eventually) how to link and how to blockquote.
The square brackets are on my keyboard are between ‘p’ and ‘\’.
Highlight the piece you want to quote.
Copy it.
Paste into the ‘post comment’ box
Put the left square bracket
at the end of the quote.
Enter a couple of time. Then add your comment. The blockquote won’t show in italics until it comes up as your posted comment which was what threw me for quite awhile.
Probably none of that makes sense to you but it works for this old duckling.
Wiliam@684:
William, you said you’d look into it six weeks ago, after I had pointed out the inadequacies of this blog a number of times since I started posting here six months ago.
Every new blogger has to reinvent the wheel. It is pathetic.
I update two websites on a daily basis, making big changes in a few minutes, adding code, putting in extra images and so on.
A link might take all of thirty seconds to put in by a two fingered typist.
It’s not rocket science.
No doubt, but I can only tell you that I’m not the tech guy, I don’t have the facility to change any code, and the guy who does evidently has a lot on his plate. Nonetheless, as Possum said three days ago, previewing is coming.
Bilbo
I luv PB just they way it is
dont let em pave paradise
😉
I promise you you’ll have no cause to lament the arrival of comment previews, Gusface.
I’m with you Gusface. Who wants really ‘high tech’ stuff instead of ‘high human’ stuff. We’ve got enough of the tech stuff everywhere else.
William@691:
They always say that, every techie everywhere says that.
The only method that works is to tell them it is urgent, you want it now, and keep hounding them.
Every day at nine am you ring them and ask how the changes are coming. What have they done since yesterday.
Being nice doesn’t work, believe me. You’ve tried that, and it got you nowhere.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
And if the techie won’t or can’t help, go further up the food chain. The techies priorities are determined by the team leader. Hound the team leader, if the techie won’t help. Then hound his/her superior if you have no joy.
The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
Don @ # 686
Aren’t you assuming that the coal and wood will have the same efficiency so far as turning wood into heat, and coal into heat into steam into electricity into heat, not forgetting losses in electricity transmission, and the carbon emitted in maintaining the coal fired station, the electricity grid, the transformers, yada yada?
I guess I am but does this have a material effect on the total amount of GHG?
If I follow you argument correctly it appears that you are saying that urban wood fires are more efficient than coal generated power.
If this is the case is this not a de facto reduction in GHG imposed by system or in other words an increase in efficiency.
Assume that if industry had to produce more GHG to supply the necessary power that was lost through the prohibition of urban wood fires but those GHS were limited to (in my example above 112 Mil Tonnes) to the total GHG prior to such a restriction then there is a de facto reduction in omissions or in other words an increase in efficiency to produce the necessary power.
I thought that one of the additional reasons for the approach of prohibiting urban wood burning was health reason?
Truthy:
Its caused by Faeries in the ethernet.
No, I am saying they might be. And I said that reverse cycle might just pip wood fires in efficiency, but I don’t know that either.
Sorry, it is not clear to me what you mean by that.
You have baited and switched. We were talking about simple efficiencies of coal to electricity versus wood for heating homes, not politics.
You appear to think that there is a cap on GHG. There is none, that is what all the talkfests are about.
Another bait and switch.
Yes, this is an additional reason. I live in a rural setting outside Armidale in northern NSW, and every winter there are often temperature inversions, since Armidale is set in a valley, and all the cold air drains down to the city.
People who used their wood heaters properly would not shut the dampers down, creating smoke overnight while they are in bed, but they do. They should leave it on full blast and let the fire go out. A modern slow combustion heater only emits smoke for a short time after lighting, if you set the damper correctly.
On a still winter’s night and early morning, there is a fair bit of wood smoke over central Armidale, until the sun melts the frost and destroys the temperature inversion.
Normally air gets colder as you go up the air column. When an inversion occurs, you’ve got a whole lot of cold air with warmer air above it, trapping the cold air and the wood smoke.
Diogenes @ # 682
That’s exactly the point I was making. Banning wood fires would not reduce our CO2 emissions under an ETS.
That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t do it, but it does show that it isn’t a reason to do it either.
My apologies.
It appears that I misunderstood you post.
And
Diogenes @ # 687
I would gladly ban tobacco tomorrow as it has no redeeming features at all.
However, in respect of coal if it was banned tomorrow this country would be sent back to the Stone Age.
I see a big difference here between these two industries
what the hell are “comment previews” anyway, and why do we need it?