ReachTEL’s monthly federal poll for the Seven Network is unchanged on the previous result in putting Labor ahead 51-49 on two-party preferred, and is similarly stable with respect to the major parties’ primary votes, with the Coalition on 41.6% (up 0.4%) and Labor on 37.4% (up 0.1%). Reflecting other polling over this time, it has the Greens up (by 0.7% to 10.5%) and Palmer United down (by 1.4% to 5.3%). There are also leadership ratings which find a shift from poor to the intermediate result of satisfactory in Tony Abbott’s case, and questions on Iraq which show support for sending military planes but opposition to sending troops. In a separately published release today derived from the same poll, ReachTEL found stronger support than I might have anticipated for parliamentary seats being reserved for indigenous Australians, with 36.7% supportive and 43.1% opposed. As usual, this was an automated phone poll with a big sample of 3470, conducted last night.
caf@45
I am not so sure that is a good analogy.
Power plants in Australia were built by various State owned utilities and the State carried the risk. When some states sold them, guarantees were given to the purchasers.
The dangers of asbestos have been known for a long time, rather like tobacco, but wilfully ignored.
confessions@46
I think the indigenous population is something like 3%. That is a rather different proposition to women who comprise 51%.
52
Compelling a reasonably equal proportion of Senate candidates being male and female is easy. Just legislate that that parties have to alternate candidate gender as they go down their group.
In the HoR, so long a single member electorates are maintained, it is much harder as more flexible targets have to be adopted and are harder to enforce. Australia`s federal structure also makes just having separate male and female single member electorates because that would require an even number of seats in every state or separate calculations for the representation of men and women and that is unlikely to be accepted by the High Court.
Did I hear that right (cooking, with telly on in the background):
Tony Abbott reckons we now face the biggest threat to national security in history?
Bushfire Bill@54
Such a statement should be treated with the derision it deserves.
There would be some complications in allowing separate Aboriginal seats in Parliament.
On the basis of population (about 3%), Indigenous people would be entitled to 5 seats in the Reps and 3 in the Senate. The constitution constrains electorates to respect State boundaries. We could try to change the constitution to, say, have general indigenous electorates across the whole country in parallel to general electorates (as in NZ) but history shows that it won’t pass in the face of any significant opposition (which in this case would be the Right of the Liberals, shock jocks, tabloid columnists and their audiences).
There is the diversity of The indigenous population as indicated by Confessions @46.
There is also the question of determining who is indigenous, although I am sure that’s eminently solveable. We could also give indigenous people the choice if enrolling in an indigenous electorate or their local general one, as in NZ.
Steve777@56
Excellent response with much more detail than my humble post @52.
The usual premise is that the losses should be borne by those who stand to make the gains. This is certainly the case involving private investment. The difference here is that the gains will accrue very widely and the losses will fall particularly on those who have made investments in the past – investments that would continue to be profitable were it not for policy changes made in the general interest.
Consider the case of land that is resumed in order to build a road. Resumption will generate public benefits notwithstanding any private losses accruing to the land-holder. Consequently we are willing to fund buy-outs.
In the case of the Commonwealth, buy-outs have to be conducted on just terms. Though it may not be his main motive, LU’s proposal incorporates this principle too – policy changes which threaten the value of assets should be carried forward on just terms.
I also think we can achieve several aims at once if we adopt an innovative approach to the market.
Tony Abbott reckons we now face the biggest threat to national security in history?
What, bigger than World War 2? The man’s an idiot.
Steve777@59
You are offensive to idiots! 👿
My point was that when they got into the business of mining asbestos, the dangers weren’t known and they presumably thought that they were providing a socially useful product. When the dangers were uncovered, the product was simply banned – we didn’t buy out the producers (as far as I know).
The same is true of things like CFCs, DDT and leaded petrol. If you invest in a technology that later turns out to be harmful, you aren’t necessarily entitled to be bought out.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are about 500k in number or about 2.5%.
We could have a set number of seats and have Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voter registration and voting in a parallel election system, or dedicated seats for each party (although I don’t like that option).
I think it is a very good idea that we end the situation of having parliaments in Australia lacking an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voice ( thankfully this is not one of those parliaments!).
caf@61
I certainly agree with your conclusion but I think the harmful nature of asbestos was at least partly recognised when mining started.
Abbott certainly frightens me.
The largest single cause of the security threat was the war-making in Iraq instigated in 2003, warring that led to the effective dissolution of the state of Iraq and precipitated recurring communal violence.
It follows that the security threat will be magnified and prolonged by further Western blundering.
63
bemused
You’re quite right about blue asbestos. The dangers of this substance had been known since the earliest years of the 2oth century.
It was very much front and centre in my mind, actually!
briefly@65
Which really puts some of the blame back on governments for not preventing its use and mining.
Steve777:
The percentage of the population indigenous Australians represent is largely irrelevant if we’re looking at their meaningful representation in parliament. Of greater relevance is their cultural diversity. Just looking at WA alone, it could be possible to have a Noongar (SW WA) MP ostensibly representing the interests of the NW of the state, and that’s without factoring in the possibility they’d represent other language groups across other states as well. There are many valid reasons why indigenous communities would find this unacceptable and therefore unrepresentative and culturally inappropriate.
As to indigenous identification, it works well enough already in terms of access to govt benefits, and this could simply be used for parliamentary representation. From what I can observe, the only state that it seems to still be a problem with is in Tas.
So does that mean that production of CO2 by electricity producers should be banned?
66
Libertarian Unionist
You and Gough Whitlam. He was always up front about that. 🙂
Why?
That pretty much makes indigenous electorates (along the lines of the New Zealand Maori electorates) impossible without a constitutional alteration, since it would mean about 3 indigenous electorates covering the entire country. Section 29 of the Constitution says that electorates can’t be formed out of parts of more than one State.
…for the same reasons you have mentioned. If the ALP chose one seat (say Lingiari) and then that candidate lost the election, what happens? If the candidate wins, why would they be representative of Aboriginal people in Mt Druitt?
If BOTH the ALP and LNP candidates have to be Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, that is not fair for other populations.
I prefer the idea that all of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people can vote to fill their, perhaps, 5 or 6 seats and 2 or 3 Senators.
But if the major parties were forced to set aside a percentage of their winnable seats for indigenous candidates, then those candidates would be party candidates, preselected to represent the party platform.
Yes they would be indigenous candidates/MPs, but their cultural background wouldn’t necessarily define them, and nor would they be explicitly representing all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in the same way they would be if they were elected to specially set-aside indigenous parliamentary seats.
It’s Time:
No, it means that if that was banned, I don’t think existing producers would be entitled to a buy-out.
Mr Putin not happy with Scotland
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/sep/19/russia-calls-foul-scottish-referendum?CMP=twt_gu
Sydney as expected is in the Grand Final
briefly:
That’s because we recognise property rights over land. On the other hand, I don’t accept the contention that choosing to invest in coal-fired electricity generation gives one some kind of property right in continuing to burn coal in perpetuity.
When a business chooses to invest in a technology, it is taking a risk, and hoping for a pay-off that makes the risk worth it. There are many aspects to that risk (for example, the technology might be obsoleted by a more cost-effective competitor), and the risk that the technology might one day be found to be so harmful that it is punitively taxed or even banned outright by Goverment is no different.
What if the party platform is not in the best interests of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people? ALP MPs would be forced to dump on their party or dump on their people.
If the dedicated seats were for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to represent Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander goals then let them be separate and they could choose with which party, if any, they would caucus.
“@YosefAlbric: This Abbott talk of terrorist chatter is rubbish. A real security agency would keep quiet. Remember “No comment on operational matters?””
Steve777:
[We could try to change the constitution to, say, have general indigenous electorates across the whole country in parallel to general electorates (as in NZ) but history shows that it won’t pass in the face of any significant opposition (which in this case would be the Right of the Liberals, shock jocks, tabloid columnists and their audiences).
You’re probably right, but on cynical political grounds the Liberals ought to be for the idea – Indigenous electorates would tend to lock up a decent chunk of strong Labor voters and end up as a contest between Labor and an Indigenous party. That would strengthen other general electorates for the Liberals.
And one might add, that even if CO2 was not officially regarded as a hazard until 1989 or perhaps the Rio Summit, the other toxics associated with burning coal certainly were. The writing was on the wall from well before then.
A coal plant’s sunk costs ought to be recovered in 40 years. At that point it’s fully amortised. Plants like Hazelwood were commissioned in the mid-1960s.
While I certainly understand why, politically, people are reluctant to take on the FHC lobby, at an ethical level these folk are owed nothing at all by the public. They have been stealing from the commons for decades. Telling them they can no longer poison the atmosphere with substances that even deniers accept are pollutants doesn’t seem that radical. Demanding they not trade insolvent isn’t radical either. Nor is requiring them to make provision for site remediation post-decommission rather than leaving that burden to the public seems fair enough.
Aside from politics, I don’t see why we need hand these parasites one further cent. Now if the polluting capacity is owned by the public, that’s our bad luck. We have to take the loss. In the case of private companies, it’s hard to justify arguing for a golden parachute.
SBS News tonight reported a fire alert at the Parliament, which might have been caused by a fault in the server room.
This would normally have not been reported (and I don’t recall ever a news piece like this on national TV) if not for the terror campaign we’re having now.
It may well be the case starting out. But once you get a core of MPs in the partyroom who can influence policy, then you’d start to see gains.
Look at the current Liberal partyroom. Women are a minority, hence they aren’t represented in Cabinet, and their priorities don’t figure in policy.
A separate indigenous political party would be great, and I’m all for that. But as I’ve said before I’m not sure how that would work practically in a parliamentary sense given the cultural diversity of Australia’s indigenous population.
Greg Barnes on Lateline now
76
I doubt that the count was rigged. However if the observers cannot see what is going on then that is not good. Initial counts at polling places would also be a good measure to introduce.
Expert on Lateline (missed name) slamming media coverage as provided by police. Security risk.
I’d say that we need a far more fundamental reform of our governance processes than indigenous seats. At best, that’s going to be tokenism.
Today I told my Year 9 commerce class that ‘the senate is the states’ house’ but in a purely formal sense. In practice, it’s simply another chamber of parliament where the majors squabble. It would be the same with indigenous seats.
“@Vote_Labor: Op. Sovereign Borders: NO JOURNALISTS NO TRANSPARENCY. Op. Hammerhead: Bring your cameras! I’ll write your headline! #lateline #auspol”
Goodnight
Mad Lib@79
Oh I get it. Indigenous people who wish to be candidates are banned from being members of political parties.
Only a truly Mad Lib could come up with that.
I think giving Senate seats reserved for the indigenous population would be a good idea. It’ll have to be in proportion in size to the population and maybe be a nation-wide seat, so effectively a state on its own. Maybe give Aboriginals and Torres Straits Islander the option of either voting in that or in their respective state / territory seats.
78
caf
We recognise far more than freehold titles and identify economic interests of many kinds. They’re surveyed in the discussion of externalities, as LU mentioned. The point is try to explore the intersection of the private and the public domains and to seek solutions to economic conflicts rather than to accentuate them.
On Lateline, Geg Barnes and Alan Behm,have both slammed the Federal Police,and also thought the whole terrorist story was “over-egged” and Barnes went on to suggest that the Fed Police were used ,and broke their owns rules about disclosure
Obvious to most of us that it’s Abbott’s work
82
Fran Barlow
There’s a far more compelling moral issue involved here – the need to slow down and then reverse the rate of growth of carbon emissions. We don’t have the luxury of time and we should apply the resources we have at our disposal, including the balance sheets of the CF generators.
Isn’t it enough simply to be right and to achieve change?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/04/15/135423586/when-the-u-s-paid-off-the-entire-national-debt-and-why-it-didnt-last
Under Andrew Jackson, the US became debt-free only once in its lifetime. It caused a bubble and a pretty bad depression as a result.
Sure, but I don’t believe we do recognise a property right in any technology investment today being unimpeded by future regulation, and nor should we.
When you decide to invest in some technology, you are taking the risk that it might one day fall foul of restrictive regulation. The public have not agreed to take on the risk that the technology might be found harmful and have to be taken out of use – you have, because it is you that stands to profit from it.
Mad christian pastor in US calls for war of genocide against the world 1.6 million Moslems
only in Americal.a call for Christians to do genocide
http://act.faithfulamerica.org/sign/charisma/?t=1&akid=438.59858.lbkser
It’s not strictly about property rights. It’s about the intersection of the private and public domains and using our ingenuity to resolve conflicts – especially those conflicts that impinge on our collective economic welfare.
As to risk….the higher the risks that are imposed on investments, the greater the discount rates that have to be applied to spending/saving decisions; and as discount rates increase, we are necessarily stipulating that relatively faster returns on our investments will be required.
However, when it comes to computing the costs of damage done and/or benefits derived from the environment, we usually conceive of very long time frames – time-spans of many centuries at least. The implication of this is that we should use very low discount rates when we try to compute the environmental values – either the current capital values of environmental attributes or the discounted value of future income streams/losses we may derive from the environment.
When we elevate the long-term future values of the environment over short-run gains, we are implicitly assigning a lower discount rate to those long run gains than we do to the short-term gains.
If we adopt low discount rates, we are necessarily assuming low risk settings are appropriate; and if this is the assumption, it follows that we need to mitigate some of the risks that arise over the life of investments. This is the logic of a pro-investment stance. And that is what we need. We need to change our technological mix. To achieve it, we need to re-invest. To drive investment at the pace and on the scale we need, we need to be able to work on low discount rates – rates that reflect lowered risks and which will increase the mobility of capital and other resources.
This is the arithmetic/logic of economic responses to climate change. The higher the risks we build in, the slower and the smaller will be our investment outcome.
We can see this at work under the current Government. Their framework increases risks and drives away investment. It is the precise opposite of what is required.
From Macrobusiness…
The decline in the IO market is going to have knock-on effects in the wider economy and both direct and indirect consequences for State and Commonwealth finances.
Joe Hockey is going to find that it’s easy to boast of running a budget surplus, but actually doing it is another thing altogether.