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.
ItzaDream
Yeah, there would be a bit of a difference. A “living wage” in Newcastle would be ‘povo destitution’ in London.
I have heard that New Zealand installed a later version of FTTP than was planned for Australia that was cheaper. Critics have claimed that NBN Co still uses the older design and costings when the later version is cheaper.
Those poor unfortunates who are getting copper installations are getting a much lower grade of copper wire than was installed in the Telecom network 50 years ago.
I can well believe someone is getting a cut on the copper cabling installed to support NBN and they would be unwilling to lose their cut
According to the Australian Energy Market Commission (see Exec Summary page iv), WA has now taken over from SA as having the highest cost of wholesale energy.
WTF!! Next they will tell us we have lost the title for highest unemployment rate. 🙁
http://www.aemc.gov.au/getattachment/be91ba47-45df-48ee-9dde-e67d68d2e4d4/2016-Electricity-Price-Trends-Report.aspx
Bemused
Very wary paddling in the energy pond, it is full of crocs, and worse.
But it seems the government needs to sell electricity to fund panels so they can’t pass 100 per cent on to Housing Trust tenant.
They could of course say to the tenants “we own the house, we are putting panels on the roof and we are having all the power”
Tories might do that, they hate people in public housing.
lizzie:
Most likely. The problem I have with searching out other planets to colonise is it feeds into the AGW denialist line of ‘of well, too late to do anything now, so we’ll just find another planet to inhabit.’
It sure is calmer and more relaxed in the PB lounge today. 🙂
lizzie
Given the way homo sapiens sapiens has spread I think there is an innate desire to find out what lies over the horizon.
Billie: ‘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.’
I was told by someone working in the power industry, being near a hospital would guarantee your blackouts were kept to a minimum. The power companies would black other areas first, for obvious reasons.
I don’t think being with different retailers would effect you as they just send you the bills, nothing to do with distributing the power.
I also think it is strange that different houses in the same distribution area could experience different power outputs as they were all drawing power from the same wires.
billie @ #342 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:22 pm
It is not dependent on your retailer, all premises in an area will have the same distributor irrespective of who their retailer is.
The retailers just create confusing retail plans and print your bill!
My house got blacked out a few years ago. There was one almighty ‘BANG’ and everything electrical went off. I went outside and it seemed others had power and I could not see any obvious cause.
So I phoned the number I had for outages and was connected not to the people who billed me at the time, but the distributor, Alinta.
In next to no time a couple of trucks rolled up and the crew had a fair idea of what the problem would be, the fuse where the power connects to the house (n.b. not in the meter box) had blown. It was old as the hills so they replaced the whole installation and the cable across to the power pole on the other side of the street. All done with amazing speed and efficiency and I was up and running again.
Apparently this is a regular occurrence in older areas as equipment ages.
poroti / itza
It’s the City of London Corporation’s policy for all UK based employees rather than just the Estate.
I understand after first doing this some years ago in London they also reviewed the equivalent ‘minimum wage’ employees pay in Hong Kong, Seattle and NY and made adjustments. The Corporation own loads of real estate world wide.
They surprise many of the denizens of the CoL at times by being positively communist!
kevjohnno @ #350 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:29 pm
I don’t understand the brownout unless you mean partial supply and they were like one of my neighbours who has three phase supply connected. I have no idea whey he did that. Maybe heavily into hydroponics. 😛
rossmcg says:
Sunday, February 4, 2018 at 3:21 pm
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.
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True for public housing but they’ll still need a better explanation soon as they plan to extend the scheme the private housing.
Dio
thanks for the confirmation on power prices!
Harking back to last night you will no doubt be pleased to know that when you venture over for a game at Optus Stadium, Atomic Pale Ale will be available.
Gage Roads have come up with a 3.5 per cent alcohol version to meet the decree that plebs can’t be served full strength beer.
Though I suspect you would be in a corporate box or something where the real brew (4.7 per cent) can still be enjoyed.
Bemused the brownout was very brown with only very dim glows from the incandescent lights. Not sure why. Damage to a pole mounted transformer?
Woudn’t be surprised for Weatherill to introduce a battery rebate as well.
Probably wait for the X to put out their policy first – free earnuffs for everyone in 100k radius of a wind farm.
billie @ #352 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:29 pm
billie, the http fibre would be much the same as here, but the difference is in the techniques to get it from the street to the premises.
NBN has talked about a cost of $2600 as if it was a fixed, immutable law of nature, when of course it is not. When cable TV came through the area there were no such outlandish costs quoted!
What the smart Kiwis have done is look for ways to cut the costs of that connection and have been highly successful. The civil works is not an area I have expertise in, but I have read about ‘micro-trenching’ which I take to be a technique to dig a very narrow trench which is much cheaper, causes less disruption and is a newer innovation. Maybe they have other tricks up their sleeves?
One thing that I have wondered about is that all my cables, power, phone, HFC internet, are all aerial and apparently low cost. Why not the same for FTTP? Why does it alone have to go underground at disproportionate expense? It all seems rather artificial and contrived to boost the quoted cost of NBN to me.
poroti:
But we largely know what lies over the horizon. At least here on earth we have air we can breath, water we can drink and we can go outside without needing to wear a space suit for fear our skin will dry up and our brains will shrivel.
If we’re going to take up the challenge of overhauling a planet so we can live there, let’s do that with the one we already inhabit.
rossmcg @ #354 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:30 pm
Good points.
Comfessions
Bad luck if we get hit by an asteroid.
Confessions @ #355 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:32 pm
Yeah right! That is centuries away if ever.
C@tmomma @ #356 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:32 pm
Yes, you and a couple of others are better behaved for some reason.
Junkee has some fun with Lyle Shelton
http://junkee.com/lyle-shelton-cory-bernardi/145141
Confessions
Sorry but the “explore” gene will out. The notion that we should not consider going to Mars and beyond because it means we can trash Earth is a spurious and crap notion.
Following on from this —
Expansion. Extension. Expand the mind and the technology will follow, amongst a lot of other things 😉 Is it too much to say that today’s every day technology is the spin off from a once radical idea?
Listening to Musk, you listen to a hugely open thought system. The way he problem solves itself is fascinating.
This is even getting a bit meta. The one word that is recurrent and definite about the ‘Universe’ is *expanding*. And some say same for ‘God’.
kevjohnno @ #364 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:42 pm
Inexplicable to me. Sounds like maybe the voltage had dropped significantly on one of the phases. It has always been go / no-go in my experience.
In Victoria individual billing addresses can be turned on and off from a central control room as is evident by the fact that some flats had power and others didn’t even though there was one power line to the block of flats
It is but it’s one that still gets made.
I’d much rather see us pull together to fix Earth than cast about for some other planet to live.
Some days you just want to comment on every post.
—
Since no one has gone in to bat for Victorian beaches, I can understand why.
The bay beaches, both Port Philip and Westernport, are miserable beaches. Can only get a decent swim when the tide’s in, otherwise, forget it, to get knees wet have to excurse about a half a mile.
The back beaches, those that face Bass Strait, including Greensborough Growlers Rye beach, are terrible, in terms of rips. Frantic parents watching kids in wet suits.
An anecdote about my sister. After a long hot day on the Rye back beach, frantically watching one of my kids doing the surf thing, and once he was safely ashore, we went for a leisurely stroll, at the end of the day, as the tide was coming in; we approached a rocky outcrop and without missing a beat, she shot her left arm out, just as an enormous wave swamped all of us, and rescued a small boy just about to be sucked into a blowhole-type formation. She shook off the thanks of the grateful parents. The back beaches are quite treacherous, and that includes Harold Holt’s Portsea (back) beach.
I think that the beaches at Wilson’s Prom, Vic, and Cape Tribulation, Qld, are the best in my book (although haven’t been to WA). You can write off Trinity Beach, Qld. quite horrid.
—
RE: BULK-BILLING surgeries.
I have nothing but praise for our local (Trafalgar Medical Clinic) bulk-billing surgery. It’s a training ground for GPs, so a pot pourri of trainee docs is par for the course, and of course they’re not left to their own devices, but overseen by one of the most wonderful young doctors, and his partners, I’ve had the privilege to meet.
When I say young, he’s now about early 50s.
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Jeezus, wasn’t the release of the Nunes stuff an anti-climax. Cripes, what dickheads.
—
Also, had a massive FAIL on the Ice front, the other night – just when I was thinking we were getting on top it. Back to the drawing board.
FTTP is optic fibre – maybe the signal degrades in light. All the FTTP cables and backbone fibre cables are underground
Oh, I forgot
I’m pretty sure Tim Pallas lives in Williamstown, Vic. Just wondering if the “get rid of the trucks on Westgate” is his baby.
And, have to say, it’s the pits getting onto Westgate (from Footscray onramp) and wondering whether you’re going to be wiped out by a truck, or channelled into the wrong space because of the trucks. It’s traumatic. I’d hate to have to do that every day.
kezza2,
What an amazing story about the beach and your friend and their 6th sense about that area!
I was wondering though, what about the ‘world famous’ Bells Beach? Surely that has some decent waves?
Also, sorry to hear about the Ice escapades taking a turn for the worst again. You know, that’s often the worst time for recovering addicts, just when they think they’ve got everything under control and can ‘handle it’. You never can. They need to treat Ice like a vampire treats sunlight. Avoid at all costs!
Hang in there. 🙂
bemused
An occasional cooling drink or sitting on the front veranda while the meat raffles are on at the Tathra* Pub?
(* – speaking of places where there is the odd shark or two around.)
Oh no. Sorry to hear that kezza.
billie @ #376 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:53 pm
There was probably one cable to the block of flats, but if the block was of any size, that cable would contain 2 or 3 ‘phases’ with some flats connected to each phase. You get exactly the same phenomenon in a street of houses.
I think your ‘central control room’ does not exist … yet.
The old meters didn’t allow any remote control to individual customers but there was remote control of substations.
Smart-meters may allow more granular control down to individual premises and there was discussion here recently about the capability to turn appliances such as air-conditioners off for brief periods during periods of high demand, instead of having whole areas experience lengthy blackouts.
Naturally this caused certain contributors here to have conniptions reminiscent of those of 2GB callers when it was discussed there.
guytaur @ #349 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:28 pm
P1 is always right 🙂
Clearly, there will be no “free electricity”. For a start, the batteries are typically guaranteed for only 10 years (which is shorter than the typical paypack time of such a system) and they will need regular replacement. Same with the other components, but on longer time frames. So while there is nothing to stop such a system being maintained in perpetuity, it will never be “free”, and will probably remain in the ownership of the power company – who will continue to charge grid prices for most or the power used by the participant.
TANSTAAFL
Trog
Suggest not throwing ‘end-of-the-world’ scenarios in here.
We’re still coping with the various opportunities provided by ‘Trump is safer than Clinton’ on WWIII at the moment!
😀
kezza2 @ #378 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:54 pm
Good summary of Melbourne beaches. I had a swim at Gunnamatta once and was scared stiff.
The beach Holt disappeared from was Cheviot ‘beach’ try zooming in on Google Maps.
On the Ice front, have you heard of Ibogaine? It works.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21929313-900-mind-altering-drug-could-offer-life-free-of-heroin/
See if you can locate a supportive GP and you will need to import it yourself.
Do your research first.
A friend has had solar panels and Tesla battery installed in suburban Melbourne. When the temperature is over 30 the grid operator will drain the battery if they need to.
But hey there is no central control room! Right?
billie @ #379 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 3:55 pm
The fibre itself is finer than a human hair and very fragile. It is covered in an outer sheath and will have a cable of some sort to give it mechanical strength. No light will get in, and even if it did, would not affect the fibre.
The whole Musk Weatherill enterprise makes that smug Morrison sitting in the house nursing a lump of coal look so much more stupid, if that’s possible.
C@t
Decent waves – all the ocean (back, as we Vics call them) beaches have them. But you have to be crazy brave.
That was my dear departed younger sister who reflexively shot her (netball) arm out to save the kid. It was amazing. She couldn’t explain it, herself. Saw it out of the corner of her eye.
Re the Ice Addict. I was about to post the other night about the successes we’d had, when it suddenly occurred to me that I saw a fleeting, momentary smugness, earlier in the day. And I realised I’d been sucked in, again.
So much for almost 24-hour surveillance. Not.To.Be.Trusted.For.A. Second.
Anyway, am just about to hand off to another member of the family. I’m over it, quite frankly. The Lies. Too much.
Morrison and cronies have to dance to the tune of their paymasters.
steve davis @ #392 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 4:18 pm
That’s the thing with liberal and labor politicians – they are only agents for their paymasters
bemused
“I had a swim at Gunnamatta once and was scared stiff.
The beach Holt disappeared from was Cheviot ‘beach’ try zooming in on Google Maps”
I’d forgotten Gunnamatta (well, I tried to get it out of my mind) wonderful name- terrible beach. No wonder you were scared.
I don’t need to find Cheviot Beach, on Google, have been there. Can’t believe anyone in their right mind would have a snorkle, let alone a swim, there.
CTar1 @ #382 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 4:00 pm
Not when I was there, under age.
Greens pub got a black and white TV and people used to flock there to watch the ghostly signals being received from Wollongong. The road has since been realigned due to wave action necessitating it and I recall in recent years a woman swimming from the beach to the wharf or the other way around was taken by a shark.
Went to lots of good fishing spots up and down the coast from there.
Last time I was there I was interested to read a historical plaque at Tathra recounting how a US cargo ship was sunk off the coast there by a Japanese sub. The sinking was observed from the headland and a RAAF plane despatched from Moruya but without any result.
Also picked up a story that it had been long rumoured locally that Japanese subs used to land their crews at Cuttagee to stretch their legs and possibly other things like getting water. Never heard that when I lived in the area.
CTar1
Well of course, have you seen the sort of Bolshie Colonial ‘riff raff’ they let in ? 🙂
kezza2 @ #394 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 4:21 pm
They’re great for surfing and not much else
kezza
We used to regularly holiday at Dromana when I was a child. I can remember my father taking us for a look at a few of the back beaches. I would have been about 7 and there was no way I was going in there!
‘Nunes’ – the 4 pager a waste of paper. They didn’t even seem to try to connect events with their variuos ‘claims’ in any meaning ful way.
‘Ice’ – You gave it a try anyway. Don’t get embroiled!
bemused
Very interesting. I will look into it. Thank you.
billie @ #388 Sunday, February 4th, 2018 – 4:11 pm
That’s the first I have heard of any such arrangements.
I would be very interested to see any documentation of that.
What I think would happen is that your friend would be exporting all they could generate above what they were using. Whether that would stop their battery from charging or even draw from the battery would depend on how things were set up with the wiring and controller which might include remote control. But this is not what you would have had at the block of flats.