The latest edition of the Democratic Audit of Australia’s invaluable newsletter taught me the following things I (mostly) didn’t already know:
• Griffith University commissioned Newspoll to conduct two polls on “constitutional values”, in May 2008 and March 2010, and has handsomely published the full results in a comprehensive report. This finds the most pressing item on the public’s constitutional agenda to be “a referendum to decide which level of government is responsible for doing what”, which 54 per cent rate “very important”, followed by “what levels of government Australia should have” on 47 per cent, indigenous recognition on 43 per cent and a republic on 38 per cent. Support for recognition of local government is very high in Queensland (and, relatedly, among Nationals voters), but shaky everywhere else. However, the 2008 survey found the public would be highly favourable “if changes state there must always be a system of local government, set rules and standards of accountability, and guarantee a reasonable level of funding for local government”.
• The High Court has published its reasons for finding in favour of the GetUp!-backed plaintiffs who challenged the early closure of the electoral rolls introduced by the Howard government in 2006. The ruling restored the old regime under which new enrolments and changed details were accepted during the first week of the campaign, obliging the Australian Electoral Commission to accept over 100,000 applications that would otherwise have been frozen until after the election. There is a summary here and full judgement here. The court was finely poised on the issue, with Chief Justice Robert French and Justices William Gummow, Virginia Bell and Susan Crennan forming the majority, and Kenneth Hayne, Dyson Heydon and Susan Kiefel making dissenting judgements.
• Daniel Kreiss and Philip N. Howard probe the laxity of regulation surrounding political parties in the English-speaking world in “Political Parties and Voter Privacy: Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and United States in Comparative Perspective”, published on the online journal First Monday.
• An Australian Parliamentary Library report tells us that a federal redistribution in South Australia should occur during the current parliament, with the seven-year time limit on the existing boundaries expiring this month. Other than the Victorian redistribution that has just been finalised, this is the only redistribution likely for the current term.
• The Queensland government has produced an 18-page paper entitled Reforming Queensland’s Electoral System, which canvasses “on political donations, caps on expenditure by candidates, parties and third parties, and automatic enrolment of eligible voters”.
• The Democratic Audit’s Joo-Cheong Tham has published a paper on regulation of NSW local government elections.
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has initiated its inquiry into the 2010 election, and will accept submissions until February 16.
here is video of the surge that occurred in Toowoomba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYUpkPTcqPY&feature=youtu.be
victoria
Yes, funny, isn’t it?
Reminds me a bit of the Black Saturday when we had been getting warnings about fire weather for about three days, yet some people were surprised.
Actually, I find the weather predictions almost entirely accurate most weeks.
‘The Australian’ Editorial which was waffling on quite recently about there being no such thing as 100% scientific certainty and declaring, in the same editorial, and with 100% certainty, that recent weather events were different in terms of ‘degree’ not ‘kind’ (ie in no way related to AGW) has weighed into the dam debate.
The rest you can more or less make up for yourself. Utterly Nineteenth Century. But guess what term the editor likes to use? ‘Damphobia’. How creativement.
The editorial naturally does not mention anthropogenic climate change.
Also in the OO, apparently, there was another article by Mike Steketee that I missed, unfortunately. If anyone has a link to it, I would appreciate it.
Rod
They have been doing controlled releases from Wivenhoe for several days to manage the peak. The tricky bit is downstream where the Lockyer valley and Ipswich/Bremner River water joins in. Some flooding will be inevitable.
Someone should ask the oz editor if god is punishing Toowoomba residents? I recall it has one of the largest concentrations of christian fundamentalist groups in Qld.
[They have been doing controlled releases from Wivenhoe for several days to manage the peak. The tricky bit is downstream where the Lockyer valley and Ipswich/Bremner River water joins in. Some flooding will be inevitable.]
Yes, but they have now announced that a substantially larger release is going to be needed today.
lizzie
yes, it certainly is reminiscent of black saturday. I think people are almost conditioned to expect a minute by minute outcome like magic.
Dam? To hold all that water? Surely no fool is still mouthing that nonsense. The water is already in a dam; it’s called Queensland.
Socrates
Headline in Courier-M online: wtte “Biblical Floods”.
Suddenly struck me that no other paper seemed to be taking the religious line.
I am ignorant of how dams can have a normal capacity and a flood capacity.
What I don’t understand is why they don’t just fill the dams to flood capacity all the time so they can use the water for irrigation later in the season?
Is it really that the dam is deliberately kept half empty (or so) deliberately so that there is space for potential flood waters to accumulate?
PTMD
The media and the opposition may still try to politicise this disaster. I would not put it past them at all.
They said that if it wasn’t for the Wivenhoe dam holding back the water and releasing some of the water at a time that the full brunt of it would have hit Brisbane days ago
So maybe big dams aren’t such a wacky idea afterall?
‘Biblical Floods’ eh? So maybe Dog has taken over from Mother Nature and is punishing the Sodomites and the Gommorites for… whatever it is that Sodomites and Gommorites were punished for in Biblical times.
I’m guessing it is all that stuff about gay marriage.
Boerwar
what are the Courier Mail going to print next. That the Govt has been derelict in their duty for not building a huge Ark?!!
people in the west end of Brisbane have been told to move to higher ground
[Is it really that the dam is deliberately kept half empty (or so) deliberately so that there is space for potential flood waters to accumulate?]
last night someone said the dam capacity was actually 240% !
so yes they must leave room for the times of floods
I hope Dee, J6P and others are okay
Sky News now saying authorities are going to close the Pacific Hwy into Qld, and are expecting flooding in Lismore-Kyogle-Mullumbimby areas.
Boerwar
It depends on the purpose of the dam and how it is used. Wivenhoe was intended for flood control, so there was a large overflow capacity kept for floods. Dams designed only for irrigation are usually in dryer areas where flooding is not the issue.
Vera
Like I said earlier, dams can be useful depending on the geography. Wivenhoe works well for Brisbane because most of the water comes from one direction. Many places can’t be easily protected by dams eg Rockhampton. Three rivers upstream drain water towards it. Most of the sensible dam sites in Qld have already been built.
Boerwar
I had read an article by Steketee in the OO recently which accepted climate change, but when I googled him just now, the referenced articles seemed to be “answers to Monckton”, so I can’t find it. sorry.
abc24
qLD MP Ian McFarlane (sp?) is complaining about the government not building dams. He says there has not been major dam built in 20 years. Perhaps he needs to read PB to find out why. He is pointing out that the cotton farmers now have lost two crops, one through drought and now one through floods. He says the government will need to be ready to spend billions in reconstruction. I hope he remembers that statemen the next time the coals cry ‘debt’ or are asked to pas taxes on the mining sector.
Socrates
Ta.
PTMD
Did Chainsaw use the dreaded term ‘Stimulus?’
[hey said that if it wasn’t for the Wivenhoe dam holding back the water and releasing some of the water at a time that the full brunt of it would have hit Brisbane days ago
So maybe big dams aren’t such a wacky idea afterall?]
They can help until they are full, vera, though with substantial costs in other areas. Trouble is Wivenhoe is already way above its normal storage level and approaching its maximum flood mitigation capacity. Once it gets there the water will come down just the same.
That nutter from the Fieldings mob who said the Vic bushfires were because of something ridiculous (can’t remember what now) has he come out with a crackpot reason for the floods yet?
lizzie
thank you
there has been talk about the 1974 floods in Brisbane. Is this a similiar event?
Socrates
Cheers for that 🙂
victoria 111
The media and the opposition may still try to politicise this disaster. I would not put it past them at all.
LOL not that anyone in here are not politicising the disaster…
dovif
in what way is it being politicised here?
If you are referring to me pointing out the blatantly obvious fact that the mining tax well need to be brought in asap, I am not politicising the issue. Both parties need to get their thumbs out of their arsks on this one.
victoria
From what I can tell, emergency planners are using the 1974 floods as a reference point. But someone (the Mayor of Ipswich?) said that a lot of the land had been developed (i.e. concreted over) since then, so that it was hard to predict flood results.
victoria
dovif was possibly referring to Abbott’s rant about ‘dampphobia’, Joyce’s repeated calls for dams to be built everywhere and to MacFarlane’s calls for billions of dollars of city taxpayer funds to cross subsidise rural folk.
The difference between 1974 and now so far has been the Wivenhoe, victoria. They are now having to release more water from Wivenhoe. There is also a highish high tide due in Brisbane today. They normally release the water from Wivenhoe to coincide its arrival with low tide, but this will be harder to manage in the current circumstances.
Boerwar, @133
That would be it.
LOL
I am quite disguested about some of the people in here over the last 2 days
Politician get shot … must be “right wing” hate group …. that is before anything is even known about the person ….. as if a leftie could not possibly be racist …. or left leaning group like the German Socialist workers party, or the Chinese Communist, or the Russian Communist, or the Vietnam Communists could not possibly been involve in any attrocities.
As for death in Qld, quite simply it is the fault of anyone who do not believe 100% about climate change, it is as if disaster had never happened before. It is those people against the minning tax’s fault, it is the WA government’s fault but not the Qld government.
I am out of here
dovif
I can see what you are saying
people practically accusing all Libs of not caring about the floods or victims, instead just taking free pot shots at the govt while they themselves take pot shots at the opposition!
This is ridiculous of course, I bet almost half the donations have been by Libs and Labor folk the other half.
The media have talked to Barnaby and Chainsaw because they live in St George and Toowoomba the flood effected electorates. What are they supposed to do, ignore their electorates?
This is a time of a natural disaster, people dead, homes farms livelihoods destroyed.
Time to pull together no matter your religion or lack of religion or who you vote for.
No time for cheap pointscoring no matter what your politics are
dovif
Your second para is nonsense. No one said that.
Trolling in flood waters is a dangerous occupation.
I did not any time for Bligh before the floods but I acknowledge that she has so far done an excellent leadership job.
Anna has had a tremble in her voice a couple of times but held herself together
A tough cookie, I’d have broken into tears saying some of the stuff she has had to report.
I agree with dovif to some extent.
The assassin in Arizona looks more like a paranoid nutter than a right-wing extremist.
You cannot ascribe any single disaster to AGW with any degree of certainty.
Diog
They keep saying a once in a hundred year flood etc
Apparrently the last time the waters were so high in Gatton was in 1898!
vera
Climate change increases the probability of extreme weather disasters in the same way that smoking increases the chance of lung cancer. What happens in an individual case is speculation but over a large number of samples it becomes mathematical certainty.
Dio
I agree on the first point in the narrow sense but would add that there is a reasonable basis for arguing that the violent nature of political discourse which has become normal in the US may have provided a focus for the nutter’s behaviour. [dovif avoided this aspect of the discussion like the plague and refused utterly to address Palin’s crosshairs.] Unlike dovif, Palin must have something of a view that there might have been a relationship because she took the crosshairs off her website quicksmart once the blood had started to flow.
On your second point, if the disaster is part of a pattern of increasing rate of disasters then the Denier’s demand for 100% certainty for each and every single disaster, is washed away. It is simply not the point any more.
Tweet From :
Meshel_Laurie Meshel Laurie by Colvinius
RT @612brisbane: The flood levels in Strathpine & Caboolture are expected to be greater than 1974. Police advise people to leave immediately
[The flood levels in Strathpine & Caboolture are expected to be greater than 1974. Police advise people to leave immediately]
they just said that on 9 news too
dovif
[Politician get shot … must be “right wing” hate group …. that is before anything is even known about the person ….. as if a leftie could not possibly be racist …. or left leaning group like the German Socialist workers party, or the Chinese Communist, or the Russian Communist, or the Vietnam Communists could not possibly been involve in any attrocities.]
OK I’ll bite. Most of those left wing groups are now defunct, so I think it would be quite difficult for them to be involved. I think we all agree that Gifford’s assassin appears to have been a lone nutter. The point was the people saying things that might provoke nutters like that were ALL right wingers. And they were warned it was unwise at the time they said their bile. Obama may have beena dissappointment in taking action, but he wasn’t the one playing the race hatred card. Right wingers can’t troll for votes by appealing to xenophobic nutters, then complain when they are accused of promoting violence.
Can you find any Democrat posters showing Sarah Palin with a gunsight on her? Any leftists calling for right wing politicians to be “taken out”? Maybe there are a few leftist posters with Palin in a dunce’s cap and suggestions she be returned to school… but not shot.
The fact is, I think a lot of the inflamatory rhetoric has been coming from the right wing for the past ten years, ever since Karl Rove started the tactic. It hasn’t always been right wingers. To be fair, Malcom Fraser, Fred Cheney or James Killen would never have stooped to these tactics.
I think there is a reason for this one way trend in bad political behaviour. Most on the left are interested in social progress and individual freedom. So attacking people to win the argument is anathema to them. Most on the right are interested in conserving values and institutions, and, perversely these days, willing to sacrifice individual freedom to that end. So attacking people to win the argument is acceptable to them.
Boerwar,
Sadly, though trolls are well known to reside under bridges, they seem to be able hold their breath for a dashed long time, to cling to the shakiest of bridge foundations with mythical strength, and emerge from floodwaters unabashed.
Upon further reflection, I think there is another reason why so many of the extremists sit on the right these days: what is called “left” was the middle not so long ago. In the cold war there was left, right, and small L liberals liek me were in the middle. The far left got eliminated with the fall of communism. So now I get called left wing for holding a view that used to be middle of the road. The far right are still far right, just as they were when supporting Pinochet and co. I don’t see the left chasing the racist bigot vote.
Just a personal view; others free to disagree.