Antony Green blogs on three developments in electoral and parliamentary reform so I don’t have to. To cut some long stories short:
• An all-party agreement to revert the Tasmanian Legislative Assembly to 35 members, from which it was cut to 25 in 1998, has fallen through after Opposition Leader Will Hodgman withdrew support in a riposte to government budget cuts.
• After flirting with a self-interested reversion to compulsory preferential voting, which was ditched in favour of the superior optional preferential model in 1992, the Queensland government has confirmed no such change will occur before the next election.
• The Australian Electoral Commission’s submission to the parliamentary inquiry into last year’s election has called for the federal parliament to follow the lead of New South Wales and Queensland in allowing enrolment to be updated automatically using data available from schools, utilities and such, thereby relieving voters of the bureaucratic annoyance that is currently required of them in discharge of their legal obligation. Antony Green also reports “rumours the Federal government plans to legislate on the matter”. Given the standard of discourse from some elements of the media in recent times, this could get interesting.
On a related note, British voters go to the polls on May 5 to decide whether to replace their archaic first-part-the-post electoral system with the manifestly superior “alternative vote”, or optional preferential voting as we know it in Australia. Antony Green has been working overtime lately responding to the avalanche of tosh being disseminated by the “no” campaign in its efforts to deceive the voters into making the wrong decision.
With no Morgan poll this week, here are some reports on Coalition internal polling which you can believe or not believe according to taste.
• The Australian reports a poll conducted for the Nationals in the wake of the carbon tax announcement had 40 per cent of voters in Lyne taking a favourable view of Rob Oakeshott, against 52 per cent unfavourable. This is said to compare with a poll conducted before the 2008 by-election that brought him to federal parliament which had his approval rating at 71 per cent and disapproval at just 8 per cent.
• Simon Benson of the Daily Telegraph reports a Coalition poll conducted for the NSW election shows 62 per cent “firmly against” the government’s carbon tax proposal, with only 18 per cent in favour.
UPDATE (7/3/11): The first Essential Research poll taken almost entirely after the carbon tax announcement has the Coalition opening up a 53-47 lead. Considering Labor went from 51-49 ahead to 52-48 behind on the basis of last week’s polling, half of which constituted the current result, that’s slightly better than they might have feared. The Coalition is up two points on the primary vote to 47 per cent, Labor is down one to 36 per cent and the Greens are steady on 10 per cent. Further questions on the carbon tax aren’t great for Labor, but they’re perhaps at the higher end of market expectations with 35 per cent supporting the government’s announcement and 48 per cent opposed. Fifty-nine per cent agreed the Prime Minister had broken an election promise and should have waited until after the election, while 27 per cent chose the alternative response praising her for showing strong leadership on the issue. Nonetheless, 47 per cent support action on climate change as soon as possible, against only 24 per cent who believe it can wait a few years and 19 per cent who believe action is unnecessary (a figure you should keep in mind the next time someone tries to sell you talk radio as a barometer of public opinion). There is a question on who should and shouldn’t receive compensation, but I’d doubt most respondents were able to make much of it.
Tellingly, a question on Tony Abbott’s performance shows the electorate very evenly divided: 41 per cent are ready to praise him for keeping the government accountable but 43 per cent believe he is merely obstructionist, with Labor-voting and Coalition-voting respondents representing a mirror image of each other. Twenty-seven per cent believe independents and Greens holding the balance of power has been good for Australia against 41 per cent bad, but I have my doubts about the utility of this: partisans of both side would prefer that their own party be in majority government, so it would have been good to have seen how respondents felt about minority government in comparison with majority government by the party they oppose.
[189 joe2
Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 1:55 pm | Permalink
“Just done a News poll , usual question Do you want to pay more for a carbon tax ,…”
I would have told them that their question is a leading one since what is proposed is a price on carbon not a carbon “tax”. This will make a difference to how people will respond to the question.]
will you write to Gret Combet it would be good for him to know this question
wish Julia had QT this week she could mention it.
zoomster @ 194
I thought at the time the ALP was overdoing it’s opposition to the GST. Anyone in business would have known that the GST was replacing the Wholesale Sales Tax which was applied at various rates to different goods but most commonly at 22%.
So GST was not simply the imposition of a new tax, it was the replacement of one tax with another.
The old Wholesale Sales Tax only applied to goods whereas the GST also applied to services, thereby broadening the base while generally lowering the rate. As the balance between goods and services shifts more to services, that is a good thing in the long run.
Outright opposition to the GST was hardly credible given that Keating had at one stage proposed a GST, thereby implicitly accepting the principle.
There was much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth by business people who were do disorganised that they either had no clue of the value of their sales or lacked the ability to compute 1/11 th of that value, deduct the GST they had paid and remit the difference to the ATO. Small business probably emerged with better systems in place and a clearer idea of how they were performing.
The ALP should have focussed on ensuring that those on pensions and fixed incomes were not disadvantaged and trying to constructively improve the details of the GST.
greg.combet.mp@aph.gov.au …
hope this helps
Just read a Tim Dunlop piece which pretty well took apart Annabel Crabb’s silly piece last week.
[As she is admonishing politicians for being touchy, I’m sure Annabel Crabb won’t mind me saying her latest piece is stupid.
Like so much journalism, it simply ignores the role the media plays in the creation of the environment it is allegedly critiquing, and then it draws an equivalency between events that simply isn’t warranted.]
http://tjd.posterous.com/like-hitler-crabb-misses-the-point
[But GetUp! did not inspire me in the election proper. In Sturt it was supposed to be supporting the Labor candidate Rick Sarre against Christopher Pyne.]
I didn’t think they supported any one candidate in elections. I understand that while pursuing progressive change, they are issues based, not party based. People can pick and choose the issues they support, and leave alone the ones they do not. So it is possible to support the ending of asylum seeker detention while not supporting gay marriage, for example, or to support the ALP government on carbon pricing and yet oppose its stance on the banning of cluster bombs.
If an issue does not have enough support, it will not go anywhere.
Where are all the PB tofu eaters I keep reading about? Here is a recipe for a snack to munch on in between hugging trees and picketing the indefatigable Shock Jocks’ Take Back the Streets for the Racists Rally.
http://www.abc.net.au/health/healthyliving/dietrecipes/recipes/stories/2011/02/15/3067789.htm
It even has weird stuff like Soba noodles, so I know it is just up your hemp bandanna-lined alley.
(btw, irony alert)
Greenbank army camp has a Claymore ? mine range along with other rifle/pistol etc etc . They have LOST a claymore Mine ?????????????????? still in box. I think they were stored in a Wooden hut ? as i cannot see any other buildings. It has legs and explodes about head height with lots of ball bearings with a range of 250 yards. The media has been quiet about it. Local paper had a small article. I think its still missing and i live about 400 mts away from the camp fence. they are going to spend $100 Million on upgrades , 30 full time staff and a bomb proof vehicle driving course and buildings for training.Anybody got any bullet-proof jackets ??
Barry,
Bejuzuzz, that is scary!! How the hell can they lose a claymore mine, don’t they count the things?
[Anybody got any bullet-proof jackets ??]
No, but maybe you could check the green bins outside the range on rubbish night?
Barry,
I have heard budgie smugglers are bullet proof.
Guess you’re right on GetUp!, Puff. Still and all, they looked pretty ineffective for all the money spent on pamphlets, signs etc.
The lost Claymore is either an accounting error; or it is now lovingly wrapped up in the house or shed of the soldier who nicked it (or possibly a friend/relative’s house/shed); or it has already been delivered to the bikie gang that ordered it…
Given that the tabloids are aimed at a Grade 6 reading age (and the broadsheets at Yr 10), messages MUST be simple if they are to reach the voting public. To explain dealing with climate change I suggest something along these lines:
“When factories make things they often give out too much carbon. Too much carbon poisons the sea and changes our weather: we have more droughts, more floods, more bushfires.
The Government wants to lessen the amount of carbon that factories give off. To do this it is going to charge them for making too much carbon go into the air.
This will lessen the amount of carbon coming from factories.
Some companies will charge a bit more for what they make because of this: some things will be dearer to buy.
But if you don’t earn much money or are on a pension, the Government will give you extra money so that you are not worse off.”
Too many politicians want to parade their erudition instead of communicating effectively with the Australian public.
And by the way, I know climate is not weather, but does it matter? If it does, make a suggestion.
o Speak of Pebbles
Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 9:52 am | Permalink
They can’t provide the detail until it has been fully nutted out and agreed to by all.
” Why didn’t they do that first, before making the big announcement? Talk to the Greens and indies, then, when a detailed agreement has (at least in spirit) been reached, announced it?
All it has done is create an atmosphere of confusion with no ready answers that the opposition has seized on. If we wait for an agreement, it may be too late.”
Homes a court’s strategy was always to hav a profitable altern exit , which is what Julia/Labor long politcal and polisy startegy is aiming for Taking hits now to flush out Liberals scares isn’t reely part of it , but was pre known was coming
I’m not convinced allowing Labors agenda to be see as being or controlled by a 10% of population greens party helps what is intended dual strategy at all , nor lack of explain of curent market carbon pricing proposal , but hope tht will be amended by Labor in future Seems MSN cannt see timber for th leaves & Abbott’s focus only trigger happy no surprise
My post at 212 was as a result of my latest Labor Connect which spruiks Labor’s case for the “carbon Tax”: all good stuff, but indigestible if presented to a largely unfocused public who are pre-occupied with the business of living and who so readily fall prey to Abbott’s simplistic slogans.
[/shed); or it has already been delivered to the bikie gang that ordered it…
212 A Good Lurk
Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 3:33 pm | Permalink
Given that the tabloids are aimed at a Grade 6 reading age (and the broadsheets at Yr 10), messages MUST be simple if they are to reach the voting public. To explain dealing with climate change I suggest something along these lines:
“When factories make things they often give out too much carbon. Too much carbon poisons the sea and changes our weather: we have more droughts, more floods
]
good lurk i would say this is about the understanding level of 60 percent of the population spot on send it to Mr Combet some times and kevin was the worst one at this they talk above the heads of others, educated people dont understand that educated people dont understand them.
not that i am educated only got to gr 10 and there are people like me who have taken the trouble over the years to find out things and understand but we are not in great numbers
[Where are all the PB tofu eaters I keep reading about?]
Puffy, the best tofu is at Homebush Sydney
Toorak Toff
I do not know about SA ,but in Qld Getup was VERY, VERY effective. They had more people handing out material than the parties (Greens and ALP) and by far the majority of people took their leaflet and READ it while they waiting in the extremely long queues.
Perhaps they were targeting their effort to marginals but it was a powerful effort.
Morning
I was rung by news poll too but they only wanted to talk to me if I was between 18 and 24. Only after I hung up did I think that I could have said I was in that bracket. But I an not a natural liar.
Do they try and get a range of demographics? Perhaps they are trying to make up for the many young people who only have mobile phones?
Something about this makes me want to go there…
http://maps.google.com.au/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&q=-6.681663,71.384673&aq=0&sll=-6.681663,71.384673&sspn=0.002075,0.004128&ie=UTF8&t=h&rq=1&split=0&ev=zi&ll=-6.681663,71.384673&spn=0.002075,0.004128&z=19
Should be…
My phone number must be a polling magnet.
I’ve been polled several times. I’ve been knocked back several times for being in the wrong demographic. My son (16) has now been polled twice (his weren’t political).
I think that this means (statistically speaking) that I’m about 700 years old.
Greg Combet says the carbon (dioxide) tax will not cost any coal jobs:
[Mr Combet says he is confident of a good outcome for the coal industry.
“There’s a lot of details to be discussed yet but as we move to a lower emissions economy, we do that transition over a good period of time and we make sure that we support jobs in important industries,” he said.
“Coal is our largest export industry and we’ve got many others that are operating in international marketplaces that have to be dealt with sensibly as we reduce our pollution in our economy.”]
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/05/3156017.htm?section=justin
I hope Combet is wrong. Export coal is one thing. Local burning of low grade brown coal is different and much less defensible. Jobs in places like the La Trobe Valley do need to go if we are to reduce emissions in a non-tokenistic manner. I see no reason to compensate domestic energy producers; they do not compete with imports. As usual, many of the enemies of nationally important change are within the Labor Party.
bemused – nice attempt to rewrite history, but it just doesn’t wash.
The GST delivered huge tax cuts to the wealthy, which is why the Business
Council and other such bodies are permanently calling for the rate of GST
to be increased further and for other *broad based taxes*.
Some so called *compensation* went to pensioners etc and there were tax
cuts, but these just pale into comparison with the windfall tax cuts to
those of high incomes.
Low income earners and pensioners also spend a greater percentage
of their income on *necessities* even when the exemptions on food
etc are taken into account.
I’m retired, in a reasonable position, but I still curse howard every time
I use toilet paper and the 10% tax on it.
howard and costello then even tried to label the GST a State Tax in
the National accounts, but that was struck down by Treasury etc.
Socrates
[I hope Combet is wrong. Export coal is one thing. Local burning of low grade brown coal is different and much less defensible. Jobs in places like the La Trobe Valley do need to go if we are to reduce emissions in a non-tokenistic manner.]
Any thoughts of sorrow for those people whose lives would be shattered in these job losses?
Most of whom are probably traditional labor voters.
BB—- you could be a Boat Person !
[The christian school offers a good education, good discipline and affordable fees. My children are back to gaining good results but even more importantly they are happy again and interested in education. I have checked out the material and occasionally put forward contradictory views and this has been accepted in good faith by the staff. All in all it has been a positive experience all round.]
Ok, that makes sense. Having taught in a State High School not dissimilar to what you describe, I can certainly understand this. I used to be a firm advocate for education for all in local schools, however, my experience has shown me that a minority of individuals ensure that students in some areas receive almost no education through High School as schools become battle zones. I hate to think it but maybe there are some students who are not deserving of having these rights at the expense of others.
Low fee Christian schools do have that luxury of taking everyone and giving them a chance but booting those who really don’t comply. The State Schools generally don’t, unfortunately..
A few weeks ago I watched a talk on A-Pac called “The Wentworth Talks – Beyond 4000 : Is Australia Tough Enough. A man named Tim Stubbs was giving the facts and the environmental impact about the Murray Darling Basin. He was brilliant and his delivery (and comedy) was presented in a language that even joe blow would understand.
It was held in Sydney on 7 Feb 2011.
Now what we need is for him to present the case for CC and the price on carbon. I reckon he would garner many converts.
Wish I could find the video and/or transcript for all pb’s to see.
Socs – any thoughts on what approach might be taken re
– imposing the carbon tax on imports, where our local industries
end up paying at least some tax on their pollution after their compensation.
– The *big one* already underway ie squaking – how our export industries
compete in places with no pollution taxes?
Yes, thanks BB.
[we do that transition over a good period of time and we make sure that we support jobs in important industries]
Joe6pack
The way I read this piece, Combet was saying that he had always protected workers, and a transition period would be arranged. There would not be wholesale sackings.
dave @ 223
I wasn’t attempting to re-write history and in any post of reasonable length could not delve into every aspect.
What you say may all well be true and I would certainly agree with you that the wealthy need to pay a lot more of their fair share of tax.
dave
To me those are both easy
– I have no problem with imposing a duty equal in value to the carbon tax on goods imported from countries without one. That leads to fairer trade and an environmentally better outcome.
– I also accept that there is no point carbon taxing coal exports till there is an international agreement in place for an ETS. The focus should be on energy consumption if we want to reduce emissions. Exported coal is not consumed here, so I see no reason to tax it.
– as I said, my concern is that large scale energy consumers here want to get away with no tax, or undeserved compensation. That has nothing to do with not taxing imports, or taxing exports. I would tax aluminium
If we set out the principles sensibly, the application won’t be that hard. The principle should be to tax domestic consumption of energy, not exports.
joe6pack
[Any thoughts of sorrow for those people whose lives would be shattered in these job losses?
Most of whom are probably traditional labor voters.]
Yes but I would compensate those people, not the energy companies! Giving handouts to large energy companies does not guarantee that one cent will go to a low income worker in the La Trobe Valley. Hence I think this argument is a red herring. I have never said not to compensate households. Last time Labor tried to give billions to billionaires, not workers. If they try that again, I’ll criticise it again.
Besides, if we follow the principles I suggested in 232, these people will be very few in number, and we can find new jobs for them.
Socrates @ 222
Have you heard about technologies to get the water out of brown coal so that it yields similar results to black coal?
If this were to be done in the Latrobe Valley it would cut emissions from the power stations by about 40% with the same level of electricity production. It may provide a transitional step to a complete shut down as power stations reach end of life and are replaced with other technologies.
Hazelwood be the first to shut down and is the dirtiest.
I don’t know enough to endorse this but it certainly seems to me to be something that should be considered.
lizzie @230,
I think Combet has made a strong point.
I think the 3 to 5 years between fixed price and market determined price is a very important but overlooked part of the announcement by the PM.
Interesting to see what the greens and indies are prepared to accept. Some will start high, some low. Hopefully there will be a compromise in the middle.
Socrates.
What I am hoping he means is that by giving transition people will be moved over to the green jobs that will be created thus no job losses in the sense of becoming unemployed but having a different job.
bemused – Any discussion or assessment of the GST that fails to address its
fairness and the hugely disproportionate benefits to an already privileged
group, is inadequate to say the very least.
Regarding –
It IS true, not *may be true*.
[210 Toorak Toff
Posted Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 3:10 pm | Permalink
Guess you’re right on GetUp!, Puff. Still and all, they looked pretty ineffective for all the money spent on pamphlets, signs etc]
correct me if i am wrong but dont they have a new owner from the when they where set up
BB
[“When factories make things they often give out too much carbon dioxide. Too much carbon dioxide poisons the sea and changes our weather: we have more droughts, more floods, more bushfires.
The Government wants to lessen the amount of carbon dioxide that factories give off. To do this it is going to charge them for making too much carbon dioxide go into the air.]
Your correction here matters little, the premise is basically bollocks
Manufacturing & Industry account for 5.78% of Australia’s emissions:
http://unfccc.int/files/ghg_emissions_data/application/pdf/aus_ghg_profile.pdf
In terms of Proportion of Energy Use Manufacturing accounts for 23% of Australian energy consumption (http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_10/energyAUS2010.pdf)
Energy production accounts for 75% of Australia’s emissions, so:
Emissions due to manufacturing are therefore:
5.78% + (.23*75)= 5.78 + 17.25%= 23.03% of total emissions (of which, metal production and mineral processing accounts for 56%)
Thus, strictly “manufacturing” processes account for 10% of emissions.. far less than domestic consumption of electricity, processes required to fabricate domestic housing materials (brick,tile, gyprock, pine) and support the extensive use of our vehicles.
Our passenger vehicles along account for 64% of fuel consumption (http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_10/energyAUS2010.pdf).p64.
So all in all, manufacturing in terms of the traditional “factories making stuff” does not, on the whole shoulder a significant proportion of the emissions. It is still construction of domestic homes, domestic energy consumption and domestic transport that account for the majority as the reports in this post still show.
[ and we can find new jobs for them.]
natural attrition also, Bartlett was going to sack public servant yes a labor premier.?
well in come our Lara and said no thats not the labor way we will let natural attrition do the job and we hope we dont have to have many redundancies at all.
dave @ 237
In terms of equity the GST was probably no worse than the Wholesale Sales Tax which was of course passed on to consumers.
Income taxes have become less progressive and widely avoided by the wealthy. I think that is where attention needs to be focused.
As we suffer the bias and unprofessional attitude of the majority of journalists in this land, predominantly in the Murdoch organisation, it is nice to read the work of an Irish scribe following the Ireland teams win over England at the World Cup.
Sorry I do not have a link, it isn’t over long, worth reading for its subtle humor and excellent style….
Ireland expected England to hurl abuse in defeat, not throw flowers
After the Battle of Bengaluru, Ireland’s vanquished foes seemed genuinely pleased. To a proud Paddy, this was hard to take
o Barry Glendenning
o The Guardian, Saturday 5 March 2011
Compared to other proud people to have felt the heel of English oppression on their necks, we Irish have never really warmed to cricket. While downtrodden folk around the empire quickly set about embarrassing their colonial overlords by taking on and beating them at their own game, Paddy left them to their sedate pastime, preferring instead to concentrate on writing rabble-rousing ballads about blight, coffin ships and the shortcomings of those who played cricket, while cracking on with his own national sport of hurling.
A lightning-fast, skilful and occasionally violent hurly-burly blur of whirring limbs and flailing, splintering timber in which all 30 players take to the field simultaneously armed with wooden clubs, hurling is not actually as dissimilar to cricket as you’d think. Both sports require ninja-like reflexes and the ability to bludgeon or catch a small leather ball under pressure. But while cricket is genteel, conjuring up images of tea-drinking vicars with pinkies extended on the village green, the organised chaos of hurling is more reminiscent of a couple of gangs of horny-handed rival villagers setting about each other with pitchforks.
While the majority of English people are probably aware of the existence of hurling, they are largely ignorant of the sport’s rules, rivalries and tradition. Until around 4.30pm last Wednesday, it’s probably fair to say more Irish people than not were as poorly informed when it came to cricket. But that was then and this is now, a new dawn in which Ireland are officially better at it than England, ergo Paddy is now an expert on the arcane mysteries of this noble game.
Where until recently the Emerald Isle’s saloons echoed to vociferous debate about economic downturns, the recent general election and mass emigration, the talk now is almost exclusively of right-arm spin, leg-breaks and googlies. Admittedly, few who speak of them know what right-arm spin, leg-breaks or googlies are, but that’s irrelevant. The very fact that men who, as recently as last Wednesday morning, were unaware of the existence of a Cricket World Cup in which Paddy had entered a team are now fluent in such argot is almost certainly a step in the right direction.
Despite recent economic dents to the national ego, such is Ireland’s self-confidence as a nation that by the time we’re put back in our box by the Netherlands, the talk will have been of little else. Reverse-sweeps, maidens, bouncers and bodyline … you name it, Paddy will have been pontificating authoritatively on the subject. Indeed, it’s almost certainly no exaggeration to suggest that some foolhardy bar-stool all-rounder with a few too many stouts on board has already claimed in all sincerity to understand the complexities of the Duckworth-Lewis method.
Already, we are suitably stat-happy, citing record-breaking chases, “knocks” and the fact that Ireland won with more Irishmen in their side than England had Englishmen in theirs as proof of our superiority. If such gloating seems unseemly, rest assured we are aware that England were forced to make do without their finest player – Eoin Morgan, a man as Irish as knobbly sticks, pints of plain and embarrassing global dance spectaculars.
Yes, it was a magnificent victory for Ireland, but it hasn’t gone unnoticed that the air of national euphoria in a country that’s had very little to crow about of late has been somewhat tempered by the unconditional magnanimity with which our win has been greeted by a generous English media. We Irish are a big people, but in so many ways we are a small people. After hurling, our second national sport is begrudgery, so it was with no small disappointment we realised, in the wake of our victory at the Battle of Bengaluru, that rather than rail against the injustice of it all, our vanquished opponents seemed genuinely pleased for us.
This isn’t how we envisaged it, this almost unanimous praise and the conspicuous absence of churlishness. In the Sky commentary box during the game, Bumble Lloyd and Nasser Hussain could scarcely contain their excitement as they audibly willed the Irish over the line. On the radio, even the curmudgeonly Geoffrey Boycott seemed chipper. This isn’t how it was meant to be. At the conclusion of an astonishing turn of events for which Paddy was resolutely unprepared, such grace in defeat was an even more astonishing turn of events for which Paddy was even more resolutely unprepared.
Was it too much to look forward to basking in English bitterness? Was it too much to relish some sour grapes from a jingoistic bunch of cheerleaders who’d just seen their supposedly crack team of highly paid professionals get bludgeoned out the gate by a pink-haired electrician from Dublin? Apparently it was. Such schadenfreude, it seems, just isn’t cricket.
( I had to look up schadenfreude…It describes the feeling of being happy, when someone else experiences something bad.
mischievousness or a kind of malicious pleasure might describe it. Sounds like the Irish 🙂
——————————————————————————–
re the gst
i heard whats his name the shadow finance person, try to say something about extra gst charges because of carbon, i think it was him may have been one of the others.
the thought crossed my mind well yes, when ever something goes up so does the gst.” and you gave us that………. So.
Socs – ta for that, makes sense.
The squawking was always going to be inevitable, but the recent example of
MSRT is still a striking example of what Gillard is up against.
Not that I’m saying that the circumstances are directly comparable.
Socrates
It all sounds good in theory but if going on past experiences in large scale shutdowns the reality will probably quite different.
I know over time most people will find other work, but for some there will be tragedies,Marriage break-ups,having to move away from family &friends etc.
If it is going to happen it will, but i hope some think of the people’s lives they are discussing when they just quote the figures, which is easy to do when it is not your livelihood being discussed.
[just isn’t cricket.
( I had to look up schadenfreude…It describes the feeling of being happy, when someone else experiences something bad.
mischievousness or a kind of malicious pleasure might describe it. Sounds like the Irish]
must admit i felt quite pleased the irish won must be the convict ancetory still in me.
bemused@241
Disagree. You have gone off on a tangent. Again.
The GST is much worse than the Wholesale Sales Tax. There were items not
covered by WST, including services, also so called *luxury* items were
more heavily taxed under WST. Also the biggy –
and
my say, schadenfreude is how I will certainly feel when the insane one gets the knife.
Bemused
[Have you heard about technologies to get the water out of brown coal so that it yields similar results to black coal?
If this were to be done in the Latrobe Valley it would cut emissions from the power stations by about 40% with the same level of electricity production. It may provide a transitional step to a complete shut down as power stations reach end of life and are replaced with other technologies.
Hazelwood be the first to shut down and is the dirtiest.
I don’t know enough to endorse this but it certainly seems to me to be something that should be considered.]
De-watering technologies for brown coal have been around for years. They are a slight improvement to what is still an aweful energy source. What their proponents usually fail to mention is that the dewatering process itself uses energy. I flatly do not believe the 40% emission reduction for this technology as a net figure. Please quote source.
Hazelwood and Yallorn are both already way beyond the end of their economic life. Hazelwood was first put on line in 1971 – it has run for 40 years. Bracks extended its operating permit in 2005. It is listed by WWF as the least carbon efficient power station in the world. Such stations were closed in Europe 20 years ago. Even without climate change, it is an inefficient, high polluting dinosaur that should have been shut. Total employment, including contractors, is less than 1000.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hazelwood_Power_Station
Yallourn W is smaller but little better. It was built in the 1970s How can they not have repaid the investment after 40 years?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yallourn_Power_Station
So we are debating billions in “compensation” to protect jobs at two power station, say 2000 people max. It would be cheaper to give every worker one million dollars each. This isn’t about workers, it is about big business demanding a pay off from the taxpayer.
These power stations are so inefficient that I suspect it is one of the reasons why Victoria has never agreed to building a decent capacity grid interconnector to NSW. Hunter Valley black coal power would make La Trobe coal redundant, and may even be cheaper. Being high quality black coal, it would also produce far less CO2. The transmission loss would be less than 10%.
joe6pack 245
I agree but that can be done right for a lot less money than suggested for the carbon tax, as I suggested at 242. And again – compensating owners does not guarantee workers get anything.
I thought the handling of the closure of the Mitsubishi car plant here was a good example of doing it well. All workers got their entitlements plus compo. Many got jobs in the mining industries as Mitsubishi labor force had a good reputation.