Two more sets of post-voting intention budget numbers, though nothing yet on their regular questions on response to the budget:
• Newspoll moves slightly in favour of Labor, who now lead 53-47 after dropping back to 52-48 in the previous poll three weeks ago. Both parties are on 36% of the primary vote, with the Coalition steady and Labor up a point, with the Greens up one to 10% and One Nation down one to 9%. The report states that Malcolm Turnbull’s net approval has improved from minus 25% to minus 20%, while Bill Shorten’s is down from minus 22% to minus 20%, although approval and disapproval ratings are not provided. Turnbull’s lead as preferred prime minister has widened from 42-33 to 44-31. The poll was conducted Thursday to Sunday from a sample of 1716.
• The post-budget Ipsos poll for the Fairfax papers, conducted Wednesday to Thursday from a sample of 1401, has Labor leading 53-47, down from 55-45 in the previous poll in late March. On the primary vote, the Coalition is up four to 37%, Labor down one to 35%, and the Greens down three from a hard-to-credit result last time to record 13%. Both leaders have improved substantially on person ratings, with Malcolm Turnbull up five on approval to 45% and down four to 44% – the first net positive result we’ve seen for either leader in a long time – and Bill Shorten up seven to 42% and down six to 47%. The preferred prime minister shifts from 45-33 to 47-35. Newspoll hopefully to follow.
P
Paperless is getting there, IMO.
They have either arrived or are not far off in some areas. I have become increasingly reluctant to add paper books to our collection, preferring the digital alternatives. My adult children have very, very few books in their homes. Print is next to being dead meat. Birthday cards and Christmas cards are vanishingly rare.
S
Thanks for fact corrections. I liked Macron’s description: ‘Cuba without the sun’.
barney in go dau @ #1049 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:27 pm
Boerwar is right. You use this bogeyman to avoid any sensible discussion of the issue.
P1 there’s no sensible discussion from you if you cannot accept the fact that renewables (yes including the cost of storage) have been cheaper than nuclear for a long time.
player one @ #1053 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:33 pm
What are these non-weaponry reasons for installing a uneconomical nuclear power plant?
Boerwar
‘Tis Rotto and such activities are called ‘Quokka soccer” 😆
Boerwar
I was talking about the office. Printers and photocopiers go like the clappers still. All of which were meant to have long gone due to the introduction of those new fangled computer thingies. The typing pool took a bit of pounding though.
P
I stand corrected. Quokka soccer. Sounds much more improving than strangling your ex’s cat or pogosticking a rabbit to death.
Incidentally I thought the quackery of the confected uproar about Chloe’s pearls was more of the same.
‘Witless pricks’, I bethought me.
antonbruckner11 @ #654 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:13 am
Some expenses can’t be cleared by bankruptcy. I’m not an expert in the field so I don’t know if this is the case here.
barney in go dau @ #1055 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:36 pm
Ummm … to eliminate C02 emissions? France has shown it can be done even in a sizeable economy in just 15 years.
In 30 years Australia still plans to be burning coal.
P
I thought offices were heading to paperless but, truth to tell, and doG be thanked, it is actually years and years and years since I last was in one.
More interconnectors could make a nuclear power plan economically viable. As could low cost loans (government guarantee). As could skyrocketing gas prices along with a strict long term emissions reduction target.
The problem with judging the viability of nuclear power is its long lead up time. You need figure out its viability in 2030, not now. There are so many factors that need to be projected well into the future – many of which rely on wise and consistent government policy. Good luck with that.
The future of nuclear power in Australia will thus be based on politics (both domestic and international).
Bw
Yes I liked that Macron line too. He doesn’t seem to be an extremist, which is good. Whether he is strong enough, we shall see. There is a useful run down of his new cabinet here.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39920509
cud chewer @ #1054 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:35 pm
And there’s no sense in you joining the discussion if you think it is primarily about economics.
In terms of tax to GDP ratio, I copied the table linked above into a spreadsheet and sorted it. At 25.8%, Australia comes in around the middle of the pack, 75 / 180 sorted highest to lowest, about the same but a bit less than the USA, Taiwan, China, Japan and South Korea, much less than the U.K. and NZ (about 34) and most EU countries. Those with the highest rates (e.g. Nordic countries) have high standards of living, high life expectancies and come near the top of various ‘liveability’ indices. Those with single digit tax rates (e.g. Libya) you wouldn’t want to live in (and probably wouldn’t live that long anyway).
So, Australians are highly taxed? No, although the usual suspects would still be complaining if we matched Ethiopia (11.6%) or Iran (6.1%). Funny, most low tax countries don’t seem to be powerhouses of industry and commerce nor do they have many World Cities or multinational corporate headquarters.
a r @ #998 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 7:18 pm
You may be right about the use alongside CCCP.
I have test posted smiles with Chrome with CCCP and C+ and the smilies will not post – in fact the post disappears.
I will test various combinations tomorrow using a prior thread so as not to bemuse,
amuse or befuddle other posters.
Thanks for your information.
P1
It’s about economics in that the cheapest way to solve a problem will always be preferred to a more expensive way to solve the same problem.
You seem to assume that no one else is taking CO2 emissions into account. They are. That underlies the whole conversation; it doesn’t have to be spelt out in every single post.
“P1 there’s no sensible discussion from you if you cannot accept the fact that renewables (yes including the cost of storage) have been cheaper than nuclear for a long time.”
While this is unquestionably true, and I don’t support building nuclear, I was under the impression that reducing CO2 emissions was critical. Yet all the arguments are that it’s about cost. Unless coal to renewables is twice as quick as gas to renewables then you’re actually advocating for an increase in emissions. Using public money to build gas in order to reduce coal and thus CO2 emissions while we transition to renewables is an argument that carries some weight in the public sphere.
S
Talent and brains seem to be the common denominators.
Boerwar
I am in the lab and I still have to keep trudging to and fro from the printer and there is a large filing cabinet that needs regular stuffing. Teh boss keeps talking about us “going electronic” . I just shake my head and think , ‘You poor deluded soul” . 😆
“You seem to assume that no one else is taking CO2 emissions into account. They are. That underlies the whole conversation; it doesn’t have to be spelt out in every single post.”
It’s not clear to me that it underlines the conversation. Given the fact that everything is repeated ad nauseum it’s passing curious that the single most important element in the whole debate rarely gets a look in.
P
Oh.
Formatting fail! Trying again …
Zoomster
True. And we both support an EIS for just that reason.
Those who are proposing that we continue to burn coal till 2050 are definitely looking for a cheap option, but not one that minimizes C02 emissions.
player one @ #1060 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:47 pm
When are you and the rest of the nuclear spruikers going to accept that nuclear is dead? Nuclear is colossally expensive and unviable without enormous government subsidies so high that neither the coal or renewable sectors would even dream possible for their own industries; changes to legislation to severely limit the operator’s liability for accidents and the consequences of storing/disposing of the waste it generates; all the new nuclear plants currently being built, making the very generous assumption that they’ll be completed, are more than a decade and many billions of dollars over budget; the only answer the industry has for its incredibly dangerous waste is to bury it in a deep hole for hundreds of thousands of years and hope for the best; and, Westinghouse, the world’s largest supplier of nuclear technology is insolvent, leaving a trail of financial destruction and a number of half built plants that will now probably never be finished.
You could provide a 100% subsidy to cover every suitable roof in Australia with solar panels, add a few dozen GW of wind turbines in suitable locations plus an appropriate amount of battery storate (at local distribution sub stations) for much less than a new nuclear power plant would cost.
At least if we went down the solar/wind/battery path we know 100% for sure that we’d be generating carbon free energy from the first dollar spent, wheras it’d be 20 or more years and tens of billions in cost overrunds until the nuclear power plant generated its first kilowatt.
grimace @ #1075 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:07 pm
Let’s just hope the Chinese don’t think so. It’s a vital part of their decarbonization strategy.
dingbat the first @ #1068 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:54 pm
Using some very round approximations.
coal -> renewables = 100% reduction in CO2
coal -> gas = 50% reduction in CO2
So, to get the same rate of reduction with gas as with renewables, conversion to gas has to go at twice the rate as it would with renewables.
BUT coal -> gas if a transition is complete still leaves 50% of original CO2.
coal -> renewables if a transition is complete leaves 0% of original CO2.
If we go coal -> gas and reach 100% gas, then to get any further reduction we have to start replacing our relatively new gas fired plants with renewables.
If the goal is 0% emissions from electricity production, gas just represents just a temporary diversion and a lot of costs that will never be recovered. Other than in limited circumstances such as peaking in the short term, where economics takes second place to security, I cannot see how it makes any sense.
Yes, many simplifications there, but I wanted to focus on the main point.
Steve
Exactly. When I read of an exodus from Geneva, Vienna and Stockholm I might start to believe that the rich are really driven away by high taxes. Now that it is post mining boom, I think our taxes are too low, especially given the many rorts used by the wealthy and large corporations to pay very little.
player one @ #1060 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 8:47 pm
And as I said before they had a nuclear industry already, we don’t.
How long would that take to establish even before you started building?
Renewables also eliminate CO2 emissions and are being implemented now at an increasing rate and a decreasing cost.
Show me a 30 year plan that played out.
(sigh)
I see the energy wars haven’t quite run out of energy yet.
While the usual suspects are continuing their exercise in futility, I propose the rest of us engage in new discussions. Here a few topics for consideration:
Who should be the Democratic Party candidate to run for POTUS, Barack Obama or Kevin Rudd?
Who was the better Prime Minister, Julia Gillard or Hilary Clinton?
Which is better for your health, a gluten free diet or Julian Assange?
Who is more deserving of a Noble Prize for Literature, Bob Dylan or an AFL umpire?
Let the debate(s) commence.
player one @ #1073 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:01 pm
I’ve been to several coal power plants and I can assure you that even the newest coal plant in Australia (Bluewaters power station in WA) will have fallen apart all by itself long before 2050, so stop repeating the stupidly uninformed assertion that Australia will still be burning coal in 2050.
While paper files and filing systems have largely disappeared from the modern office, written communications have increased exponentially via emails and the like. Lots of stuff gets printed (e.g. to take into a meeting), only to be recycled later that day, later that year or stuffed in a draw or filing cabinet where it is lost forever, eventually to be recycled when the filer resigns / retires / is retrenched and in any case before or at the next reorganisation or relocation.
Bemused, my argument in terms of CO2 reductions is coal to replace gas while continuing to move to renewables as quickly as possible. This will cost money but being good Labor folk we all support the use of public money to achieve important ends. It makes sense if the reduction in CO2 is critical and more important than blowing a few billion. If costs is the most important issue then no it doesn’t make sense (not that that’s ever stopped anyone).
steve777 @ #1082 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:15 pm
I print as little as possible.
“Show me a 30 year plan that played out.”
Does that include the 30 year plan to achieve 100% renewables?
Steve777
Paperless will get there. My lol is that it was ‘any minute now’ 35 years ago.
As a records manager by trade the culture and habit of the paper users is a tough nut to crack.
I propose the rest of us engage in new discussions.
Javascript – bad, or just downright terrible?
You guys wanna talk about build nuclear power plants while North Korea building Nuclear Missiles!
grimace @ #1081 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:14 pm
*Gulp* You mean the CSIRO, ENA and Trog are all wrong? The ENA and CSIRO I can understand, but surely not Trog? He seemed so certain!
dingbat the first @ #1085 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:19 pm
Oh, very good! : )
@Ratsak,
JavaScript is fine, I have no problem using it.
Java (you know one that Mincraft needs), needs to go.
Dan
1. I’d say Rudd for Potus candidate. It will be easier to convince the Americans he was born in the USA.
2. Clinton. Alan Jones confirmed Gillard was inferior to all other choices.
3. Both will make you sick.
4. Gina Rinehardt should get the Znobel, for her poetry.
Night all.
dingbat the first @ #1085 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:19 pm
It includes any 30 year plan you want to raise.
Psychohistory is just a plot line in a Isaac Asimov series of novels.
dan gulberry @ #1080 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:13 pm
They never will. I’m off the grid and have gone 100% renewable! : )
player one @ #1076 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:10 pm
Another great idea from P1! Someone else is wasting a colossal amount of money on something that has been repeatedly proven to be uneconomic, therefore we should do it too!! What a good idea.
Is there a single credible example of a nuclear power plant anywhere in the world being delivered within 50% of its original budget or without a blowout of 50% or more?
grimace @ #1096 Tuesday, May 16, 2017 at 9:31 pm
Interesting that you don’t ask “Is there a single credible example of a country using nuclear power to decarbonize its economy”? Because of course there is – France.
Why is it always about money with some people?
Psychohistory
I love that song.
https://youtu.be/34wASuHRuRo
ratsak @ #1089 Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 – 9:21 pm
JavaScript is good.
Its concurrency model (or lack thereof) is bad.
The fact that its most common runtime environment is a web browser, and that the small handful of mainstream browser developers can’t get together and agree upon a consistent implementation of that runtime environment is terrible.
“It includes any 30 year plan you want to raise. Psychohistory is just a plot line in a Isaac Asimov series of novels.”
Which reduces the energy wars to: Something will happen at some stage.
You might be on to something.