Newspoll records a much improved result for the Coalition, with Labor’s two-party lead cut from 55-45 to 52-48. The Coalition is up three on the primary vote to 37%, Labor is down two to 35%, One Nation are steady on 10%, and the Greens are down one to 9%. Malcolm Turnbull is up one on approval to 30% and down two on disapproval to 57%; Bill Shorten is down one to 29% and up one to 57%; and Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has improved from 40-33 to 43-29. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1819. Report from The Australian.
Interesting question:
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39894-rebecca-solnit-answers-the-mother-of-all-questions-why-are-women-silenced
Lizzie
Just like ants meeting while foraging.
Zoom
Sorry not sure I understand the joke?
Ratsak
Yes, Keating is right, raiding super to prop up the housing bubble is insane. The government seems willing to pull any stunt to avoud reforming negative gearing.
P1
Thanks, and very interesting re: the changes. We have a shared view on the Uhlmann article, though I think it was worse than error riddled – the errors all went one way. In the absence of a smarter grid I share your view on the need for some gas for stability. Even Denmark uses gas power.
$2 billion for 3% of the vote? Not bad a deal for Turnbull, especially when you consider that 87% of it is being paid for by NSW and Vic (through either paying cash, or Turnbull taking a higher fraction of ownership of the Snowy Hydro).
At a guess, the thursday before next Newspoll we will get a(nother) feasability study into high speed rail Syd-Mel.
Great article by Ian Verrender covering the giant gas ripoff. How Australians are paying through the nose for our own gas. It is a ripoff at the tax, availability, and pricing levels. The solution is to give the spivs the finger and set up a public oil company to reverse this market failure.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20/ian-verrender-how-the-free-market-failed-australia/8368032
@ Socrates – P1 doesn’t believe in ‘some gas for stability’. P1 believes in powering the entire market with gas.
Test again. A thousand and twenty two pardons.
❊❊❈ ❄ ❆❅
VE
I do not have an ideological objection to gas use. It emits far less GHGs than coal. As it is a fossil fuel I would prefer its use be minimised. But that is a technical question – what is the least amount of gas use required to maintain a stable network? The answer to that question should determine our policy, if our policy is to be rational. The more we can introduce batteries and pumped hydro to limit gas use the better, but gas use will not be zero.
Germany has dismissed Trump’s claims of a “NATO debt”. They might also have said they need less defence spending because they start fewer wars.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-19/germany-rejects-trumps-claim-it-owes-nato-money-for-defence/8368008
Ratsak
Yep. The rich part of our nutters, despite their whinging about the cost of social security, don’t want us plebs to be empowered by having superannuation when we give up work.
@ Socrates – you and I are in agreement. Ramp renewables as fast as is possible to kill off coal, and ramp storage to kill off gas.
The difference between us and P1 is that P1’s solution is to stop focusing on renewables, and ramp up gas to kill off coal, leaving us with a grid that is nowhere near clean enough, and is expensive to run due to high gas costs.
voice endeavour @ #56 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 8:56 am
No, do pay attention. P1 believes in retiring coal-fired power stations in favor of gas, until renewables become feasible at scale.
voice endeavour @ #61 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:09 am
If you want to argue against my position, at least make sure you get it right. Arguing with strawmen just makes you look like silly.
Socrates
The solution – some people believe – is being offered by the SA government is a good example of a low consumption gas power backup.
It is a gas turbine linked to a battery. This means that the gas is only turned on when needed, while the battery provides an instant response to demand.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/s-government-eyeing-world-first-gas-plus-battery-storage-units-17332/
CTar1
That and the spivs don’t want to have to wait until we retire for a chance to get their hands on our money.
– some people believe – is being offered by the SA government
should read
– some people believe is being offered by the SA government –
Soc
Just pointing out the crushing expense of business cards…
CTar1
I’ve only heard the Vanstone hour a couple of times (‘Counterpoint’ on RN), but Mandy regards Grace as a ‘sensible’ voice, and tells her so, often.
“No, do pay attention. P1 believes in retiring coal-fired power stations in favor of gas, until renewables become feasible at scale.”
So you believe that the market should not be powered by renewables or coal, but you object to my categorisation of your plan as “powering the entire market with gas.”. What power source other than gas do you want to see built?
A friend of mine has just reposted this on facebook, as a reminder of just how seriously we should take the words of political commentators…
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/the-figures-point-to-electoral-wilderness-for-victorian-labor-20101215-18y4a.html
Trog
And I am very happy with the SA solution. It appears to be the lowest GHG solution that still ensures reliable power in a realistic timeframe.
However, the answer to the question “what is the least amount of gas we need for a stable network?”, will also vary from state to state, given our lack of an adequate national grid, or an adequate nationel energy policy!
In SA wind is already economic at large scale. The same is true in SW Victoria if they get serious. But other states do not have equivalent wind resources, and large scale solar thermal is more expensive.
socrates @ #58 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:02 am
I agree entirely.
Morning bludgers
Turnbull is going to get cocky with these improved numbers. Lol!
Zoom
Ah, sorry, I misunderstood 🙂 I was just pointing out the crushing expense of building the wrong infrastructure.
voice endeavour @ #69 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:15 am
If you bothered to actually read my posts, instead of being the latest nominee from the alt-left to reflexively object to anything that you think disagrees with your limited world view, you would know that I am in favor of renewables and I am in favor of an EIS. I do not even particularly object to the RET, although I do believe it is badly targeted and not particularly effective.
What I am against is C02 emissions, and replacing coal with gas is the quickest way to bring such emissions down.
The White House should do what it does best, do nothing.
I think the White House is on dangerous grounds of being sued.
Different topic. This story highlights the appalling diplomatic tricks that go on to avoid admitting Israel is slowly conquering Palestine. Conditions for Palestinians are equivalent to living under apartheid, but even UN officials get sacked for saying it. Rima Khalaf is a well educated Jordanian bureaucrat, not a radical. With censorship of information like this, who gets to decide who is a terrorist?
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/palestinians-honour-rima-khalaf-apartheid-report-170319164356053.html
Y’know, it’s probably a bad sign for your Administration in the long term if a poll that has you in an (albeit slight) Election-Defeating position is GOOD news for you.
socrates @ #71 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:17 am
Did you happen to be monitoring NEM watch for SA yesterday? Wind generation down to trivial amounts for nearly the whole day. Solar generation was also down – it must have been a still, cloudy day in large parts of the state.
Most of their energy in such circumstances comes from gas, of course – but yesterday SA also had to fire up their diesel generators to cope, and they may also have had to import electricity (coal-fired!) from the eastern states as well (NEM Watch doesn’t show that, so I can’t be sure).
This situation seems to happen fairly regularly – it has happened twice in just the last week – and it demonstrates that you would need to deploy many, many times the current amount of wind and solar generation (or batteries on a scale unheard of anywhere in the world) to cope with such shortfalls.
P1
Sorry for past disagreements, at this point we seem to be in agreement. If you are concerned about lowering GHGs, you will share my frustration about Australian transport emissions and policy. We are still building more freeways! Meanwhile even among those who say they care, there is not a technical realisation that we need LRZt and electric buses to reduce the 70% of Australian transport caused GHGs (via urban car usage) not cool looking high speed rail projects that only impact on the 8% of transport GHGs caused by air travel.
I predict he’ll go full Captain Carnival Barker in QT.
PhoenixRed
It is interesting to see the differing reports out there on the Trump imbroglio. Nunes saying nothing to see hear, save one person in WH under surveillance and Schiff saying evidence of collusion.
Hopefully we shall know something from tomorrow’s hearings
Fess
Indeed! I can just picture him too!!
P1
I do not follow NEM or energy usage on a daily basis. My day job is in transport, and that keeps me occupied. I still stick to the principles in my 9.02 post. If that means some regular gas usage so be it. I would like to see a comparison with the cost of a “smart” grid before I signed off on a total shift from coal to gas. Denmark is managing on a similar mix to SA (about 50/50 wind/gas).
The jig is nearly up for ISIL in Mosul. The Saudis are no doubt keen to pressure the US to pressure Iran before the Saudi’s protege state (yes ISIL) collapses.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/troops-close-nuri-mosque-residents-flee-mosul-170319102311931.html
Socrates and BK
Regarding gas powered +1
socrates @ #80 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:31 am
Agreed. We need more rail. As far as I can recall, the only point we disagree on is whether this should be light or heavy rail. But on that subject I am biased – I have lived in the inner west in Sydney, literally a few hundred metres from the light rail line to the city, and found it utterly useless for commuting. We walked further to use the buses instead.
Perhaps you have had a better experience with light rail.
victoria Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:32 am
PhoenixRed
It is interesting to see the differing reports out there on the Trump imbroglio. Nunes saying nothing to see hear, save one person in WH under surveillance and Schiff saying evidence of collusion.
Hopefully we shall know something from tomorrow’s hearings
*************************************
That’s what I saw today too, Victoria – so rather than post a lot of ‘speculative’ material that does not interest many PB’s – I just left it like you – lets wait to see what tomorrows meeting brings
A major part of me wants to see Trump & Co getting turfed out of office – but there is a nagging part saying Teflon Trump will come out of this unscathed ….. years and years of dirty deals, bankruptcies, marriages/affairs etc etc and still coming out smelling of roses tells me he has more lives than a bag of cats …..
Player One
Regarding a proper analysis of the availability of each type of power generation and replacement of coal fired boiler with gas in the INTERIM to reduce GHC emissions until renewables combined with storage (batteries or molten salt or PHES) and an adequate national transmission grid with redundancy in the HV AC or even DC links between the states +1
PhoenixRed
Agree. Lets see what shakes out of the tree tomorrow.
My view is that Trump is more than just a little liability for team USA, therefore his tenure as leader cannot go on for too long
Good morning all,
Senator Nick X. has popped his head up this morning and recanted on his previous support for penalty rate cuts. He admitted his earlier position and statements on the issue were wrong.
Now, full credit to the senator for that and good on him for supporting low paid workers.
However, what is interesting is the senator is the canary in the coal mine when it comes to sniffing the political wind so you can be sure if he is jumping on then the
public mood is firmly in favour of supporting the retention of penalty rates and labor is well placed on the issue.
Cheers.
This should be interesting for its logic and coherent message.
From the Guardian live blog.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2017/mar/20/george-brandis-finally-releases-his-diaries-politics-live
victoria Monday, March 20, 2017 at 9:58 am
PhoenixRed
My view is that Trump is more than just a little liability for team USA, therefore his tenure as leader cannot go on for too long
*******************************************
He beat off a whole field of Republican challengers – he won the election for his party – he is doing all their very nasty policies that they have been trying to achieve for years by getting more for the rich and less for the poor …… its going to take something dramatic to give a majority of Republicans to grow a spine and get him out ….
phoenixred @ #93 Monday, March 20, 2017 at 10:08 am
Yep. I reckon even if irrefutable evidence comes to light about Trump’s commercial links to Russia, and clear-cut evidence that the Russians interceded on Trump’s behalf in the presidential election, the Republicans would still probably try and point out how good all this has turned out to be for US businesses.
P1
Light and heavy rail can both be good when they are done properly. Perth is a good example of heavy rail done well, same with Gold Coast for LRT. It is horses for courses as to which is best in a given spot. On cost grounds, you can afford to cover a lot more of a city with LRT than heavy rail, unless you already have corridors preserved for the heavy rail.
I prefer LRT if planned and built to current good practice, including signal priority and an efficient street running route. It has less capacity than heavy rail, but still ample for the vast majority of Australian city corridors. Only 2 or 3 heavy rail corridors in Australia carry more people per day than the busiest LRTs. From a GHG viewpoint, modern street running LRT with regenerative braking and signal priority is almost unbeatable. Modern heavy rail is still very good, but if your utilisation is low, much better to use a 40 tonne LRV more frequently than a 120+ tonne EMU that is half empty.
Heavy rail can have higher speeds so for outer suburban with longer distances it should be either heavy rail or LRT tram trains. Look up Paris T3A, Saarbrucken or Montpelier as state of the art LRT systems.
I had the pleasure of watching the Pythons last night.
One little gem is the following.
Watchine (reading) the news is a losing proposition.
They ❓ have no idea of, essentially, anything.
My lawn is a quagmire in sections but I will bravely press on with the lawn mower and give myself a gold star for so doing.
The gold star is because I have just got my Windows 10 internet computer part reloaded and have the colours right for Firefox.
❇ ❇ and a fresh cup of coffee just because. ☕
Peace in our time – ☮ ✌
So having learnt nothing from WorkChoices Turnbull’s smart strategy is to bash unions to try and get polls higher. Shameless IR dogwhistling as Andrew Probyn recognised
PhoenixRed
Understand, but, and there is always a “but” lol!
Trump’s business conflicts of interest that are still ongoing, his Kremlin ties, and his personality disorder, are going to be too much to bear.
Senator Cash has just accused Bill Shorten in slimy words of being involved in secret and potentially illegal union payments during his time with the AWU and one of the worst offenders.
Gloves are off. She better hope she can back up her claims.
Cheers.
This is why you need a competent Attorney General, to advise ministers when they are being idiots.
“If a payment is being made into a safety training fund, you would need to show that you actually have a program of basically safety training, you would need to show that that has been undertaken, but you would also need to show that it has been charged out at market rate.”
So this new Union busting bill enshrines the presumption of guilt. There should be a presumption of innocence, unless someone can show (beyond reasonable doubt) that it has, deliberately and significantly been charged out below market rate.
A lot of specific training courses, there is no market, so it is not easy to estimate market rate – this is why the ‘deliberate’ and ‘significant’ terms are required. Presumption of innocence is required because that is the single most important aspect of our legal framework.