There were two polls this week, one a little better for the Coalition than usual (52-48 from ReachTEL), one a little worse (54-46 from Essential Research). These add up to not much change on the BludgerTrack poll aggregate, albeit that the Coalition are up one on the seat aggregates for Victoria and Western Australia. No new numbers this week for the leadership ratings.
Latest developments on the ever-changing face of the Senate:
• South Australian Senator Lucy Gichuhi has subtly improved the government’s position in the Senate by joining the Liberal Party. Gichuhi was the second candidate on the Family First ticket at the 2016 election, which unexpectedly earned her a place in the Senate in April last year in place of Bob Day. The High Court had ruled that Day had been ineligible to run at the election by virtue of a pecuniary interest in an agreement with the Commonwealth, and that the votes should be recounted as if Day were absent from the ballot paper. However, this coincided with Family First’s absorption within Cory Bernardi’s Australian Conservatives start-up, which Gichuhi was not willing to join. She has since sat as an independent, albeit one that has usually voted with the government. Her move to the Liberals neatly brings the South Australian Senate contingent into line with the party configuration that emerged from the election, a situation that was disturbed when Cory Bernardi quit the Liberal Party.
• Kristina Keneally will take Sam Dastyari’s place in the Senate after winning the decisive endorsement of the NSW Right without opposition, seeing off suggestions that she might face a challenge from Transport Workers Union state secretary Tony Sheldon or United Voice official Tara Moriarty. A report in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests Sheldon might have been able to take the position if he had pressed the issue, with the support of the Australian Workers Union, Shop Distributive and Allied Employees Association and Transport Workers Union, but favoured seeking a position at the next election as it would give him a full six-year term.
Miscellaneous miscellany:
• Barrie Cassidy makes a case for a federal election being held later this year.
• The Australian reports that Michael Danby’s potential successors in Melbourne Ports include Josh Burns, a senior adviser to Daniel Andrews, and Mary Delahunty, a Glen Eira councillor and former mayor (not the former state MP). However, it is not yet clear that Danby will retire, or be forced out if he chooses to stay, with a Labor source quoted in an earlier report from The Australian saying Danby had 80% support in local branches. Linfox executive Ari Suss and Labor historian Nick Dyrenfurth, who were mentioned earlier, have apparently ruled themselves out.
• Lyle Shelton, who gained a high profile as managing director of the Australian Christian Lobby during the same-sex marriage referendum, has resigned his position ahead of a run for federal parliament, which will apparently be with the Australian Conservatives in Queensland — presumably as its lead Senate candidate.
• According to Sheradyn Holderhead of The Advertiser, Robert Simms, who held a Senate seat from September 2015 to July 2016, would “likely have the numbers” to take top spot on the Greens’ South Australian Senate ticket if he challenged Sarah Hanson-Young.
• The ABC reports a small sample YouGov Galaxy poll of 350 respondents suggested Nick Xenophon Team member Rebekha Sharkie would retain her seat of Mayo at a by-election if disqualified on grounds of dual British citizenship. The poll had Sharkie with a 59-41 two-party lead over the Liberals, from primary votes of 37% for Sharkie, 33% for the Liberals and 18% for Labor.
• Fairfax reports a ReachTEL poll of 3312 respondents for the Stop Adani Alliance found 65.1% opposed to Adani’s coal mine proposal in Queensland, up from 51.9% in March 2017. It also found 73.5% support for ending the expansion of coal mining and accelerating solar power construction and storage.
lizzie @ #296 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:46 pm
Ugh! I tell you, some people are just like a very bad rash on society that you can never find the medicine to get rid of!
Anyone been called by Newspoll?
While we are having a beach fight…How about Urban beaches? Newcastle City Beach https://imgur.com/FrDZg9f. & https://imgur.com/2AskAd0
Boerwar @ #299 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:47 pm
I’m sure he’s got lots, but only intelligible to fellow tongues speakers.
Boerwar @ #299 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:47 pm
billie @ #300 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:49 pm
on the money, billie
Lizzie
I have to agree with you.
I have always been a bit suspicious of Whish- Wilson. I imagine there was some idea that by having some Teal green candidates the Greens would get Lib preferences and hence win many seats.
I think it is a foolish strategy for the Greens, and could lead them to oblivion as per the Democrats.
Plus Musk heard the bullshit from Turnbull and his motley crew and probably thought ‘what a bunch of wenkers’
bemused
I’d say your guess right.
If people are going to do stuff like this it makes sense to do it so both TV and radio (inc podcast, etc.) are possible.
billie
I agree.
I’m thinking Musk is treating SA as a loss leader/ charity case.
He’s an amazing big thinker. I just read his bio and the amount of ideas he has which he tries to implement are enough for the rest of Silicon Valley combined.
Running out of things to do?
He’s just about to launch his own red Tesla roadster into space, with hopes for all three first stage boosters to be returned for reuse, with the Falcon Heavy. I think the car is payload testing.
Looks like he’ll pretty much have the car market on Mars sewn up when he gets there.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/elon-musk-to-use-falcon-heavy-rocket-to-launch-tesla-car-into-space-20180130-p4yz3b.html
Reading that ABC article it seems that all the installations will be on Housing Trust homes – public housing where Greens would never live.
The total installations will be 25,100 homes producing 250MW of power. i.e. approx 10Kw per home, much larger than most existing solar installations.
So therefore it could provide free power to the households with plenty of surplus going to the grid. I suspect these households would be toward the lower end of domestic power usage. So a power bill reduction of 30% is a bit stingy in these circumstances and it probably could go much lower.
CTar1 @ #309 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:56 pm
Yes, audio is there to be downloaded.
SA has highest power prices in Australia?
More SA propaganda trying to put WA down.
We are often told that ours are the highest in the country.
Diogenes @ #310 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:56 pm
I doubt he will lose on this, or his 100MW battery.
CTar1 @ #272 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 2:26 pm
Try the book: From the edge: Australia’s lost histories, Mark McKenna, The Miegunyah Press, 2016.
This is probably a dumb question but why is Musk wanting to colonise Mars rather than the Moon which about five times as big (in surface area) as Australia? Is it a problem with less gravity?
Dio, if you haven’t seen or heard him, go to the youtube rabbit hole. There’s no end of them. I’ve heard him talk about who he employs, and lateral thinkers are just the beginning of it.
Diogenes @ #321 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 12:03 pm
Why are we entertaining thoughts of colonising any other planet rather than working to retain the one we currently occupy?
rhwombat @ #316 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:01 pm
That book tops the list of books on the website page for the program.
My interest partly derives from having lived for some years at Bega and being familiar with much of the coast.
Ding
I think this article from 4 months ago explains why Mars.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/27/russia-and-us-will-cooperate-to-build-moon-first-space-station
Confessions @ #319 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:05 pm
Confessions just cruelled any prospect of a career working for Musk! 😆
Water for starters. But he’s very much into becoming an interplanetary species.
From Adelaide:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcVpMJp9Th4
It will be the ol’ hip pocket nerve that does Mr Harbourside Mansion and Speaking in Tongues Scomo’s plutocratic regime in.
.
Australians’ living standards are declining for the first time in a generation http://www.news.com.au/finance/life-hacks-project-australians-living-standards-are-declining-for-the-first-time-in-a-generation/news-story/ac98ce43039be7a05d679001402ec1f0 … #ausecon #ausbiz
Why householders are only expected to get a 30% reduction in their power bills needs to be explained I think.
gt
On Tusk doing a scheme quickly in Victoria.
I think he wouldn’t be that keen at the moment. He’ll be using SA now he’s got an ‘in’ there to get the working with the govt and the generator and transmission people right i.e. where he draws the line around it so he can get his part done as a discrete part he has control of and not get bogged down with others part.
SA as an entity of some size but not huge would make the experience transferable -a template – for other markets.
—
‘Living wage’ stuff – this came with my CoL Barbican Estate Management Committee minutes. I thought you might be interested in the very straight forward policy document –
https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business/tenders-and-procurement/Documents/final-external-living-wage-policy-statement.pdf
Diogenes
I am not sure South Australia is a loss leader/charity case
It’s a pilot system where they want to iron out problems, learn better ways of doing the same thing that’s far away from the Silicon Valley and other industrial competitors/spies. Every one knows who is around in remote South Australia.
Quite easy to isolate the SA system and if necessary import energy from Vic & NSW and if all goes well export energy to the national grid and make money
Diogenes
As you say, lack of gravity would be extremely debilitating for colonists..
Also lack of water, lack of ability to terraform by recreating atmosphere , moon dust is toxic like asbestos, cheese problems..
Doyley
As Bemused points out. 30% reduction is rather on the stingy side. I expect revision after implementation or a faster paying off and then revenue going to the recipients when costs are paid.
Either way it beats the “downward pressure” line from Mr Turnbull. An actual figure of reduction is very politically potent. Already has mainstream media attention.
While we are talking electricity and the high spot electricity prices of upto $14000 per Kw, this letter was in The Age today
Now I remember one very hot summer when my friend lost power for 2 days as did her daughter while everyone else’s power remained on. Their electricity generator was AGL and other people used other retailers
I think that the retailer didn’t want to pay a higher spot price so turned customers off the power grid
Tesla battery is already making money.
As a volunteer in the welfare sector I can advise that the housing trust occupants are large users of power as they have inefficient and non insulated homes. There will be a small amount put back into the grid. Most of the people I see have larger power bills than I generate and I have a larger house.
billie @ #330 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:13 pm
This can happen if one of the three 240 volt phases fails or is switched off.
I have seen it in my street where there was a fault and some houses had no power while others did. One phase was down for some reason. It was soon rectified.
Okay the best I could ascertain re the NBN etc. is that Age journo currently investigating link between LIberal party donor, senior Liberal MP and the supply of copper for the NBN network. The whole notion that the NBN was stymied purely to assist Murdoch etc is not the whole story apparently.
If you want to see how Tesla battery is exploiting negative elecricity prices, check out the real time display on the bottom of the page below.
https://hornsdalepowerreserve.com.au
Lizzie
Of course. You, me, us will be paying Lyle around $130,000 (and allowances) while he makes an attempt to go for the $200,000 (plus allowances) next election.
rossmcg @ #314 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:00 pm
Just wait a while! 🙂
CTar1
Well bloody done “the management” at Barbican.
Victoria @ #334 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:18 pm
Do you seriously believe the amount of copper to be used in the NBN is going to have any measurable effect on the world price for copper???
This is just crazy stuff.
A 30 per cent cut in your energy bill when the landlord has paid for the solar panels sounds like a reasonable deal to me.
Vic:
Any idea when this story is going to surface?
Thanks for that Bemused.
Over the course of 2 stinking hot days my friend and the geeky son in law checked their power boards for tripped fuses but as the local hospital was just at the end of the street, we suspect they were browned out to keep the hospital lights on without turning on their generator.
They asked around and found other dwellings had different electrical retailers
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/feb/04/labor-offers-solar-panels-and-tesla-batteries-for-50000-south-australia-homes
With one living wage for London, and another for the rest of the UK.
Fess
No idea. I will try and find out more.
billie – You beat me to it on Tusk by … about 1/2 an hour.
😀
rossmcg @ #340 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:21 pm
I wouldn’t mind, just saying I think it is on the low side of what it could be.
It reads to me that the panel installations are about twice what most homes have.
Testosterone and capitalism?
Bemused
Where P1 is right about more detail is what happens when the cost is paid off.
Do the residents get free electricity and the sale of electricity goes to general revenue?
Or will something else be worked out? After all when its done its installing a power plant for the grid. Not a benefit solely for the low income households.
‘This can happen if one of the three 240 volt phases fails or is switched off.”
A lot of years ago a car crashed into a power pole nearby. Some properties in the street had normal power, some just a brownout & some a total blackout.