Two brief news items to relate on Australian matters, as well as which we have the latest of Adrian Beaumont’s increasingly regular updates on the constitutional mess that is Brexit.
Sarah Henderson, who held the seat of Corangamite for the Liberals from 2013 until her defeat in May, will return to parliament today after winning preselection to fill Mitch Fifield’s Victorian Senate vacancy. This follows her 234-197 win in a party vote held on Saturday over Greg Mirabella, a Wangaratta farmer and the husband of former Indi MP Sophie Mirabella. After initial expectations that Henderson was all but assured of the spot, Mirabella’s campaign reportedly gathered steam in the lead-up to Saturday’s vote, resulting in a late flurry of public backing for Henderson from Scott Morrison, Josh Frydenberg, Jeff Kennett, Michael Kroger and Michael Sukkar.
Also, The Australian reports Queensland Liberal Senator James McGrath will push for the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters, of which he is the chair, to consider abolishing proportional representation in the Senate and replacing it with a system in which each state is broken down into six provinces, each returning a single member at each half-Senate election – very much like the systems that prevailed in the state upper houses of Victoria, Western Australia and South Australia in the bad old days before the advent of proportional representation.
Ostensibly motivated by a desire to better represent the regions, such a system would result in a Senate dominated as much as the House of Representatives by the major parties, at a time of ongoing erosion in public support for them. The Australian’s report further quotes Nationals Senator Perin Davey advocating the equally appalling idea of rural vote weighting for the House. The kindest thing that can be said about both proposals is that they are not going to happen, although the latter would at least give the High Court an opportunity to take a stand for democracy by striking it down.
mundo is spetsnatz.
(Pass it on)
If Labor can’t knock comrade Liu off they may as well give the game away.
The say sorry to Sam Dastyari for being pissweak nellie legs.
mundo
Yeah. Yeah. Labor is a big girl’s blouse. We get it.
Boerwar @ #300 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:44 pm
Any Mission, Any Time, Any Place
(pass it on)
Boerwar @ #302 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:47 pm
Got it, thanks Borewar.
(pass it on)
The whole point of being in absolute power is to be able to laugh off $40,000 Rolex watches, Grand Theft Water, and Chicom Spies.
taylormade @ #296 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:40 pm
There’s plenty to see. However the Coalition is just going to ignore it. As they do.
taylormade @ #296 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:40 pm
So why did she fail to mention membership of the organisations of Chinese influence when she filled out her Liberal Party nomination form? But she didn’t forget umpty other organisations like the Box Hill Chess Club ?
Only 21 years to go and the Greens will have saved us from global warming.
Pretty nifty, when you think about it.
a r @ #306 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:49 pm
Yep, just like Labor….oh, wait…..
‘Boerwar says:
Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 5:50 pm
Only 21 years to go and the Greens will have saved us from global warming and Ms Liu.
Boerwar @ #305 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:49 pm
Er, you seem to forget there is an opposition.
Oh, wait….Oh yeah I see what you mean.
Well spotted.
(pass it on)
mundo
Good pick up. If Ms Liu is not removed it will be because the Government did not remove Ms Liu. There is nothing that Di Natale can do about that.
Socrates says:
Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 10:58 am
The ABC has put up this refreshingly uncensored factcheck confirming that Renewable power plus storage is now cheaper than new coal. ….. Even if global warming did not exist as an issue, we should be closing down coal power on economic grounds. This highlights how badly energy policy has failed.
The information on renewables is not evidence that energy policy has failed. It is evidence that energy policy has been working. Coal power is being closed down.
A result of this is that demand for coal is falling and this will lead to mine closures. The question is not whether or not extraction will cease. The question is what we will do to plan for and enable economic and social transition for the workers who will lose their jobs. These workers will lose twice from global warming. They will experience the same losses as the rest of the population. In addition, these workers, their families and their communities will carry the burden of adjustment from the loss of their industries.
mundo is a nasty piece of work. Feels free to call me ‘mad as a cut snake’ and he’s been here 5 minutes and has never met me.
Boerwar @ #312 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:53 pm
Agreed. Anyway, Dick has bigger fish to fry.
Liu is in a similar position to Dasher but he was a senator and much less of a problem to quietly replace. Liu won’t be forced out.
Littleproud
“I’m just a poor humble bloke with a Year 12 education but I’m prepared to accept what our scientists are telling us”.
Can’t we get a better standard of person to run Australia?
briefly @ #314 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 5:54 pm
My goodness, you are just unbelievable on this issue. Let’s just look at some facts, shall we?
https://theconversation.com/explaining-the-increase-in-coal-consumption-worldwide-111045
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/business-sites/en/global/corporate/pdfs/energy-economics/energy-outlook/bp-energy-outlook-2019.pdf
The forecast for worldwide demand is actually quite flat. It is not expected to decline at all in the short term – at least not under “business as usual” scenarios. The longer term view is a slightly more optimistic – a 10% decline by 2040.
However, if you can be bothered to read that last link, it points out that the only significant decline in coal will have to be driven by regulation – in particular, the increase in carbon pricing.
It is not going to happen by itself.
Diogenes @ #318 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 6:07 pm
Sounds to me like Liu is in a worse position than anyone in Labor. The amounts of money involved are far greater.
So, Labor picks up Liu’s seat.
Then what?
Boerwar @ #323 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 6:32 pm
Back to a situation similar to before the last election. Labor can tie votes with all Cross Benchers on board.
This is off the top of my head mind you.
In other news…
Clearly the West Coast Eagles have not learnt from the Ben Cousins saga
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/afl/rioli-provisionally-banned-under-anti-doping-code-20190912-p52qr5.html
The AFL are clearly useless…unable to deal with a repeat offender (GWS’s Greene) with a history of utter violence and thuggery on the field…. and now yet another player caught re supplements.
Let’s be honest… most AFL players would be on some ‘enhancement’ program perhaps not the same as the Essendon program (this football club should have been kicked out of the AFL and shut down) but still..
Disgraceful.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/sep/12/scott-morrison-attacks-on-gladys-liu-grubby-undertone
The Liberals did the same projection thing with Josh, claiming that demands for him to prove he wasn’t a dual citizen were somehow anti-semitic.
Liu won’t be forced out because she is a “Liberal”.
Steve777 @ #327 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 6:38 pm
Yes, it’s a broad church. Broad enough to include the Chinese communist party, apparently.
There are around twenty or so potential S44 targets in the Reps and in the Senate.
Singling out the sole Jew for a bit of the old S44 rogering might not be anti-semitic but, by Christ, it LOOKS anti-semitic.
One of the things that crippled the Gillard prime ministership was the lengths she went to to prop up her Government by defending various unsavouries.
Now it is Morrison’s turn.
In 2036 Di Natale will probably be hanging onto to some Greens louche douchebag in order to hang onto his one seat majority in the House.
@Boerwar
Expect Morrison could very well get away with it and make people believe ‘alternative facts’.
A result of this is that demand for coal is falling and this will lead to mine closures.
And yet it is still imperative that governments permit the Galilee basin’s enormous coal reserves to be extracted and put into the atmosphere.
Because somehow extracting and burning this coal makes no difference. Through the virtuous machinations of the energy market, every ton of coal extracted and burned from the Adani mine will somehow cause its own perfect offset, by reducing the amount of coal extracted and burned from some other mine by an identical amount.
Or at least that’s the literal argument one can discern behind all the extraction/combusion demand/supply sophistry.
Boerwar:
You only suspect it? After all these years?
Watermelon @ #333 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 6:50 pm
I think you are missing the nuance of briefly’s argument: Australian Coal is better than other coal, so each tonne of Australian coal extracted means a tonne and a bit* of that dodgy inferior overseas coal doesn’t need to be extracted, thereby saving the planet!
* that’s a metric bit, of course, equivalent to 2.2 times one of the older imperial bits.
I remember when Sam Dastyari “gave a clumsy interview.” He was crucified in the media, mocked and ridiculed.
The most the Liberals can do is expel Liu from the party – they can’t make her resign her seat.
I met John Sidoti when handing out how-to-votes (for Labor, with Vote1Julia organizing) at Concord Public School, Sydney, a thousand years ago.
Sidoti appeared to be just as spivvy then as he does now.
The “unsavouries” defended by Julia Gillard.
– Peter Slipper, who committed his ‘unsavoury’ actions as an LNP member. He had been protected by the LNP for years / decades. Meanwhile, LNP operatives broke into his office and stole documents to gather evidence. His misdeeds were minor and as it turned out were within the rules. Had he not defected, he might still be LNP member for Fisher.
– Craig Thomson, had he been a Liberal and his misdeeds were committed as a company director or executive before entering parliament, would have got away with it. If anything ever got out, it would have been smothered. The Noise Machine would have remained silent.
By the way, all those CBD establishments don’t make their money from office workers ducking in at lunch time and paying cash. It’s corporate credit cards and expense accounts, shareholder funds. Plus the occasional State or Commonwealth Government account, no doubt, likely a few Parliamentary and Ministerial ones.
Bushfire Bill says:
Thursday, September 12, 2019 at 7:10 pm
I met John Sidoti when handing out how-to-votes (for Labor, with Vote1Julia organizing) at Concord Public School, Sydney, a thousand years ago.
He appeared to be just as spivvy then as he does now.
_______________________________
No doubt he was a little “too foreign looking” for your liking.
Nostalgia for the whitebread days of yore, eh?
Wow! Bolt’s really getting stuck into Morrison tonight. The fact is, as far as can be reasonably ascertained, Turnbull was warned by ASIO not to been seen with Lui, her associates. Morrison failed to adhere to ASIO’s advice. He’s dug himself into a sinkhole which will prove very hard to extract himself. He went for the race card, which shows his appalling political judgment. Maybe Murdoch’s not happy with him(?).
John Sidoti – any relation to Christpopher Sidoti?
“The most the Liberals can do is expel Liu from the party – they can’t make her resign her seat.”
They could refuse to accept her “tainted” vote.
‘
Jack the Insider
@JacktheInsider
·
8m
As keeper of Australian political nicknames, sobriquets and monikers, I hereby decree Gladys Liu will henceforth be known as Guangzhou Gladys.’
P1 @ 7.02
Not that it is critical to your spurious argument, but to assert that a metric tonne is 2.2 times that of the old imperial ton is totally wrong. I guess you have confused kips with tons? In any case a metric tonne is pretty close to an imperial ton.
Ie approx 2205: 2240.
an analogy on climate change ……. God gifted man the earth and also gave him stewardship to nurture and protect it for the good of all mankind and which included the stewardship over all flora and fauna which exists on the earth and the sea. He gave him free will to carry out his (God’s) expectations.
We now know the result of this gifting.
Analogy:
Joe Blow gifts his Son Oscar a house on his 21st birthday for which he paid a great deal of money. He told his Son “I will hand you the title deeds and all I expect of you is that you treat the house with respect, maintain it properly and it will last you for a very long time.” After a while Oscar starts having parties in the house with his hooligan mates and the house begins to deteriorate. Dad calls around for a visit every now and then and notices that the house is lacking care and is quickly becoming unliveable from damage and neglect.
Dad is mortified. He said ” Oscar you have let me down. I gave you a beautiful house to live in and and enjoy and which I paid a lot of money for and now it is next to worthless. Why did you let this happen?” Oscar replied “You gave me the house unconditionly and said that it is mine to enjoy. My mates were bringing the grog and stuff around so I let them live here and we partied all the time. I didn’t notice the damage being done.” Anyway the house is in my name so I can do what I like”
Eventually the house is condemned by the local council and is demolished. Oscar is homeless and Joe wont bail him out.
I believe we are heading in the same direction as Oscar except that although things are moving fast it is not too late for us to wake up. We have already destroyed about 25% of the planet including the extinction of a big percentage of flora and fauna, pollution of our rivers and poisoning of the atmosphere. If things keep going the way they are we will not have a planet to live on in the
forseeable future. We have to wake up before it is too late regardless of our religious or other beliefs.
End of story!
Disclaimer- I am not a greenie. I am 75 years old and am bloody concerned about what we are leaving our kids and grand kids by ignoring the laws of nature.
Lars wrote (of my comment on Sidoti):
No doubt he was a little “too foreign looking” for your liking.
Nostalgia for the whitebread days of yore, eh?
What IS wrong with you right wing trolls, that you accuse anyone who disagrees with you of being racists?
The truth is that those of the Right are historically the greatest racists of all. Everyone knows it. Why bother with all the projection and the deflection? Face up to your proud heritage, Lars. Embrace it.
Re. “Days of yore”, I was at school with Lebs, Balts, Yugos, Irish, Aussies, Chinese, Poms and (it being a nominally Catholic school) many, many Italians (including, coincidentally, one “John Sidoti”).
As far as I can recall there was zero racism, ethnic name-calling or anything else nasty. We all just got along. So your allegation that “in days if yore” it was all “white bread” is patently false, and pathetically uninformed.
How old ARE you? 16? You clearly have no idea of what you’re talking about.
The Liu Problem concerns an allegation that the Liberal Party has knowingly allowed an agent of a foreign government to not only join the party, not only obtain preselection, but to be personally and publicly celebrated by the Prime Minister of Australia, despite specific warnings to the contrary.
The response so far has been to feign “offence”, level desperate accusations of “racism” and, most pathetic of all, to invoke poor production values regarding a train wreck interview, where the subject, Ms Liu, said one thing (to a friendly interviewer, at that) and then, the very next day, 180 degrees contradicted herself.
Now THERE’S yer problem, Lars, not fake news, nor totally cynical allegations of racism.
zoomster @ #346 Thursday, September 12th, 2019 – 7:32 pm
I kind of beat him to it. Not that it’s important.