NOTE: Nothing new I can report on the comments debacle, sadly. All I can do is reiterate that it’s not supposed to be this way, and the intention is that it will be fixed. If you use Google Chrome, as you should, this plug-in will get the blog looking more like it ought to (with thanks to AR).
UPDATE: We’re all good again. Thank you for your forbearance, where applicable.
Essential Research is now back in line with Newspoll, with the latest reading of its fortnight rolling average recording Labor with a lead of 53-47 after a one point gain for the Coalition. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up two to 37%, Labor is down one to 36%, the Greens are steady on 10% and One Nation is steady on 8%. Also featured:
• Questions on political donations, including from whom political parties should be allowed to accept them, which records a net positive only from “individual Australian voters”, and heavily negative results for unions, companies (especially foreign), property developers and casinos. Forty-one per cent support a ban on foreign donations to activist groups, with only 31% opposed.
• On the government’s proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act, there is an all but perfect split between strongly support, strongly oppose and no strong opinion either way, following a question that explains the finer detail of the change.
• Fifty-one per cent support and 20% oppose “a carbon emissions trading scheme in the electricity sector to provide more incentive for investing in renewable energy and low-carbon electricity”, demonstrating how much difference including the rationale in the question makes when gauging such issues.
• A question on who should have tax deductibility for donations has churches and religious groups ranking second after “groups that campaign on social issues” at the bottom of the list.
• Respondents were asked which interests were represented by Labor, Liberal and the Greens, and received the responses you would expect, with little change recorded since the question was previously posed in September 2015.
confessions @ #2450 Monday, April 10, 2017 at 10:09 pm
Completely ignoring the rights of the voters who unwittingly voted for them to have their votes count.
Very poorly thought out.
Bemused @ 10:04PM: that looks pretty foolproof, although not a few fools run for office, not just on the fringes.
Another question about the ‘office of profit under the Crown’ provision should be easyn enough to draft. A series of questions to which, if to answer to all of them is “no”, you’re OK. to go, maybe including “Do you rent property to a Federal, State or local government department or instrumentality?” If “yes” to any, the would-be candidate needs to seek legal counsel if they want to persue your candidacy.
steve777 @ #2452 Monday, April 10, 2017 at 10:27 pm
I am sure a good lawyer could unnecessarily complicate it. 😀
The AEC could assist parties by providing a standard declaration covering all relevant issues that are matters of law.
Parties, of course, have additional interests such as any skeletons in a candidates closet.
Q&A was pretty good tonight.
Billy Bragg sounded pretty mainstream and got a lot of support from the audience.
The office of profit under the crown thing probably really needs to be adjusted and then written out in clear terms, the intent is to prevent a conflict of interest between the Legislature and another power, many paid offices under the crown don’t really present this if they’d be terminated upon election anyway and they aren’t significant enough in terms of ties to prevent a conflict of interest (a public school teacher is a different kettle of fish to the head of a Government Department).
Day was still right out of line though since he was receiving money from the Executive while serving as a Legislator, which is absolutely out of bounds.
bemused @ #2451 Monday, April 10th, 2017 – 10:14 pm
No, the party did that when they failed to take steps, which you yourself identify as quite simple and easy, to properly vet their candidates prior to an election. And since we’re in Australia, presumably the voters got to indicate their next preference when they voted. So it’s not like their votes disappear, they just flow on to the next valid choice.
And if they didn’t indicate a next choice, then oh well. You can’t have incompetents in office just because they’re mildly popular. 🙂
Bemused @ 2440,
It is not uncommon for gas powered generators to be constructed close to where an existing gas transmission pipeline crosses or passes close to an existing HV transmission line, for example, the Uranquinty Power Station 640MW gas-fired power station near to Wagga Wagga.
Likewise I have seen some renewable generating opportunities proposed/constructed close to where there is an existing HV transmission line, for example, the part solar/part pumped hydro storage Kidston project in Queensland is taking advantage of the existing substation and HV transmission line located adjacent to plant which was originally constructed for the gold mine now closed.
In NSW and Victoria gas powered generators have been constructed on coal fired power station sites. Re-purposing the HV transmission lines often makes for more affordable projects.
[It seems to me that a grid is still useful to move power around but some parts of it may become largely stranded assets where it runs to coal fired power stations and new sections may need to be built to (say) large scale solar farms in rural areas.]
Pretty good summary, actually 🙂
Some of the “stranded” asset value of networks can be recovered by installing flexible AC transmission system network devices at the old generator plant sites, like STATCOMs, or battery farms, or recondition the plants as synchronous condensers if inertia and voltage support are required. It’s all very location specific, however.
a r @ #2456 Monday, April 10, 2017 at 10:38 pm
OK, I am comfortable with that but had read it differently.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-04-10/superannuation-access-for-house-deposits-good-idea-tony-abbott/8432406
Abbott trying to run interference Rudd style over Morrison’s impending budget announcement. But is it really in the federal govt’s interests to allow younger superannuates to drain their reserves in order to purchase a house?
tallebudgeralurker @ #2457 Monday, April 10, 2017 at 10:41 pm
I knew bits of that, like the Uranquinty Power Station (from it being mentioned previously on PB) but I am not aware of any gas powered generators in Victoria being constructed where major coal fired generators are. Newport is close to the site of an old coal powered station, long shut down and not very large IIRC.
Latrobe Valley lies between the Bass Strait gas field and Melbourne so the gas pipeline passes it but I don’t know of any gas powered generators there.
I don’t know much about other states.
Of course, but what happens with micro parties which don’t have the admin infrastructure to manage this aspect diligently or in a way that maintains probity? This is kind of what Graeme Orr is getting at in his article with his proposal that we relax laws around candidates even more so than what we have now.
Allowing prospective home buyers to access their superannuation to purchase a property is “a good idea”
I bet “investors” think that’s a great idea. And home prices will immediately escalate to absirb the increased spending powerbof homeseekers. Transfer yet more income and wealth, including stealing their retirement savings, from young battlers (real ones, not bullshit ‘Howard’ battlers) to the already affluent. It’s a wonder they’re not coming after us with pitchforks.
The Uranquinty gas plant is located on a spur pipeline of the Moomba to Sydney Gas Pipeline.
The pipeline is a good example of what SK was talking about earlier today about governments building and owning major infrastructure. The Fraser Govt then went and sold it off … and also dropped litigation against about 6 pipe suppliers who provided millions of dollars worth of un-weldable sub-standard pipes.
https://www.pipeliner.com.au/2010/05/05/the-first-year-of-the-pipeline-authority/
‘Fess,
Seeing as how you are around, you may like to watch John Oliver’s latest episode:
https://youtu.be/EZpSDJxzePw
confessions @ #2462 Monday, April 10th, 2017 – 11:17 pm
I don’t know. I suppose I don’t accept that “small” and “not having any admin staff” intrinsically mean that a party can’t vet its candidates.
The smallest possible micro-party is a party of one, and if I take myself as an example I can easily determine that I’m not currently a valid candidate (“Are you a dual-national? Yes. Can you prove it? Yes, my U.S. passport is…somewhere around here.”). I’d have to renounce my U.S. citizenship first (always tempting, with Trump in the White House); with instructions for doing that probably existing online somewhere.
Would it be reasonable for a micro party to not be able to do something similar? And couldn’t the AEC publish a pamphlet instructing parties on how to vet their candidates for eligibility (if they don’t already)?
Yep, me too. Paul Keating OTOH did not, and I’m inclined to back his play given he was the architect of superannuation after all.
C@t:
OMG who is that MSNBC dweeb having an orgasm over trump’s Syria strike?!
According to Mark Latham in today’s Telecrap, Turnbull is struggling because he’s a radical leftie. Indeed, judging by the tone of the first half dozen paragraph’s (I didn’t bother reading further), he would probably think that Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones are a bit too far left. He has gone sadly off the rails.
Here’s the link http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/mark-latham-saving-australia-from-the-disease-of-political-correctness/news-story/91e99b33e28c402be434d4139e2589d1
Probably paywalled but the Google trick that jumps “The Australian” paywall apparently works here.
a r:
Except we’re seeing these breaches among micro parties not mainstream parties.
There is any amount of evidence that concessions for first home buyers in the form of grants and stamp duty concessions are not a good idea.
It just gives them more money to spend and the price of entry level homes rises accordingly.
My son and his partner and both in their early 30s and have already accumulated a reasonable superannuation balance between them that would make a handy house deposit.
He thinks being able to access the money would be a good idea, I am trying to convince him it would not.
Many smarter people than me also think it is a bad idea.
“Sporting Nation” is now showing on the ABC, in memory of John Clarke.
He will be sadly missed, a great loss.
On a selfish note, it’s always a bit disturbing when I hear of people about my age slightly older suddenly dropping dead while going about their life. Each day is precious.
Home buyers’ grants are actually home vendors’ grants. Increasing home buyers’ spending power in an inflated and inflating market does more harm than good. Ditto allowing super to be accessed to pay deposits, or reductions or concessions in stamp duty. Tackling the supply side might help, but the basic problem is that the market is plagued by investors seeking tax-preferred capital gains, many from overseas, outbidding people looking for somewhere to live.
Boosting buyers’ nominal spending power will make the coming crash even worse, for buyers, owners and “investors”. The Australian real estate market, at least in our biggest cities, is corrupt, a glorified ponzi scheme.
The state of the housing market practically guarantees a deep recession in the next year or two. When no who doesn’t already live in Sydney can afford to live there, it will collapse in a heap. What can’t continue will stop, one way or another.
I loved being put on your STFU list P1, because it means I can talk to other more sensible people without having to deal with your snark, rudeness and intellectual dishonesty as I used to deal with 🙂 Btw, nyeah nyeah you can’t read this! :-p
The best laugh of my day was P1 telling me to shut up because she can’t read my posts! 🙂
To be honest I find the meta debate about how people discuss things here duller and more annoying than the electricity debate.
Blanket, I find the cricket discussion here utterly mind explodingly boring (and it really does give me scroll wheel finger fatigue). But that’s life..
Ugh, cricket is the worst!
Pretty annoyed right now that Midnight Oil played a secret show about 10 minutes from my house last night and I didn’t hear about it. I used to think I was pretty hip, having worked in the entertainment industry for a few years. Apparently not anymore.
cud chewer @ #2475 Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 12:30 am
blanket criticism @ #2478 Tuesday, April 11, 2017 at 1:02 am
Now you’re just old Blanket Criticism. You are probably in bed before 9 on Saturday nights too. If you have teenage children just ask them, they’ll tell you all about how uncool you are.
I’ve dodged the paternity bullet fortunately Grimace. I was hoping it wasn’t the case as my age still has a two in front of it, but I fear your theory may be correct.
rossmcg:
My cousin is in his early 30s and also laments his inability to use his super as a house deposit. I can see his point, but I just think using super in such a way is incredibly short sighted.
bushfire bill @ #2400 Monday, April 10, 2017 at 8:29 pm
You are a fine one to talk about banning. What about the club over the road, in which you play more than a token role? There are some here who you have banned.
@Confessions
I disagree with using Super to access to buy our first house is because:
1. that it’s a cheap way for the Government to not spend a cent to resolve the issue.
2. They will act like they done something…
3. It’s lazy policy-act to seem to do something but do not.
4. In my new families case we don’t have much Super in the first place.
5. It does not teach young people to save money.
New thread.
A Russian hacker arrested in Spain for hacking US Election.
Spanish police have arrested a Russian programmer for alleged involvement in “hacking” the US election, Spanish press reports have said.
Pyotr Levashov, arrested on 7 April in Barcelona, has now been remanded in custody.
A “legal source” also told the AFP news agency that Mr Levashov was the subject of an extradition request by the US.
The request is due to be examined by Spain’s national criminal court, the agency added.
El Confidencial, a Spanish news website, has said that Mr Levashov’s arrest warrant was issued by US authorities over suspected “hacking” that helped Donald Trump’s campaign.
Mr Levashov’s wife Maria also told Russian broadcaster RT that the arrest was made in connection with such allegations.
Several cybersecurity experts, including Brian Krebs, have also linked Mr Levashov to a Russian spam kingpin, who uses the alias Peter Severa.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-39553250
Tom
The people opposing the use of superannuation to fund the purchase of property.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/everybody-gets-a-house?utm_term=.tqKKvvJzE#.irwBVVRG2