One sort-of-poll, and three items of Liberal preselection news:
• The latest results of the JWS Research True Issues survey records growing concern about the environment and climate change, which is now rated among the top five most important issues by 38% of respondents, compared with 33% in June and 31% a year ago. There is diminishing concern about immigration and border security (26%, down from 30% in June and 34% last November and defence, security and terrorism (18%, down from 20% in June and 29% a year ago). A range of measures of general optimism and perceptions of government performance produced weaker results than the June survey, which appeared to record a post-election spike in positive sentiment.
• Jim Molan will shortly return to the Senate after winning a party vote last weekend to fill the New South Wales Senate vacancy caused by Arthur Sinodinos’s resignation. Molan scored 321 votes to 260 for former state party director Richard Shields, adding a second silver medal to his collection after being shaded by Dave Sharma in Wentworth last year. This was despite Molan’s attempt to retain his seat from number four on the ticket at the May election by beseeching supporters to vote for him below the line, to the displeasure of some in the party (and still more of the Nationals, who would have been the losers if Molan had succeeded). Molan was reportedly able to secure moderate faction support due to the apprehension that he will not seek another term beyond the next election.
• The Victorian Liberal Party is embroiled in a dispute over a plan for preselection proceedings for the next federal election to start as soon as January, which has been endorsed by the party’s administrative committee but is bitterly opposed by affected federal MPs. The committee is determined not to see a repeat of the previous term, when preselections were taken out of the hands of branch members to head off a number of challenges to sitting members. Those challenges might now come to fruition, most notably a threat to Howard government veteran Kevin Andrews, whose seat of Menzies is of interest to Keith Wolahan, a barrister and former army officer. Tim Wilson in Goldstein and Russell Broadbent in Monash (formerly McMillan) have also been mentioned as potential targets. According to Rob Harris of The Age, votes in Liberal-held seats could happen as soon as late February, with marginal seats to unfold from April to August and Labor-held seats to be taken care of in October.
• Matthew Denholm of The Australian ($) reports Eric Abetz and his conservative supporters believe they have seen off a threat to his position at the top of the Liberals’ Tasmanian Senate ticket, following elections for the state party’s preselection committee. Abetz’s opponents believed he should make way for rising star Jonathan Duniam to head the ticket, and for the secure second seat to go to Wendy Askew, one of the Tasmanian Liberals’ limited retinue of women MPs.
Rex Douglas
What job would Shorten land if he left politics?
To be honest Peg I don’t know and I don’t care. He just needs to move on to something else.
__________________
Shorten will never give up on trying to be PM. The desire has infused every action of his since high school.
Greensborough Growler @ #249 Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 – 1:52 pm
This is verging on bullying.
I suggest leave the running of this blog to William.
BTW, I was looking for WB’s guidelines on the blog and I can’t seem to locate it. Any assistance appreciated.
Andrew Earlwood (at the end of the previous thread)..
The rail lines both north and south of Sydney will not support a consistent 160 km/hr. Despite the dreams of many, it just isn’t going to happen on the old alignment. Once you’re resigned to building a new rail line, there isn’t a lot of difference in degree of difficulty or cost between a 160 km/hr alignment and a 350 km/hr alignment. That’s part of the problem I have with people advocating “fast enough but reasonably cheap” trains. When it comes down to the practical engineering, it doesn’t exist.
You don’t want a station out the arse end of Newcastle where it takes you 20-40 minutes to drive there, plus you’re confronted with a car park hundreds of metres across. A better solution for Newcastle is to run the high speed train on the conventional rail line from Cockle Creek to Newcastle exchange. You can’t run it at high speed but at the end of the day its a better solution than a parkway. Think 48 minutes from Newcastle Interchange to the center of the Sydney CBD, 43 minutes from Broadmeadow and 36 minutes from Glendale.
And if you want to get to Parramatta that’s 2 minutes faster.
Everywhere you look overseas you will find high speed rail ventures into the core of regional cities – even if it means using a section of low speed track. This is also the case with HS2 in England where they’ve gone to some lengths to provide direct connectivity into the centres of cities (yes there is one notable parkway).
Since you have a branch into Newcastle, you can then continue the main line north towards the Hexham/Tarro area. In my view the best location for a station to serve the Lower Hunter is Tarro. That means you’re at the confluence of the M1 and New England highways and you have a rail to rail interchange (people can step off a train from Maitland and then get on the high speed train.
Now, with a station at Tarro, the best solution for Newcastle Airport is a direct, express bus. There will never be enough volume out of Newcastle Airport to justify the cost of a fixed link.
Now on the Central Coast there is no one location that will adequately serve the needs of the entire Central Coast and be competitive with car travel. The 2013 Study had a parkway station at Ourimbah. Meaning 20-30 minutes (plus) drive from Gosford and Woy Woy. Longer if you’re using public transport (as most will). The best solution for the Central Coast is a branch line that serves both Gosford and Woy Woy. My colleagues and I put a lot of effort into attempting to reuse the existing rail corridor from Gosford, but it proved too difficult. So instead what I’m proposing is a dedicated branch that runs in its own tunnel from Woy Woy to Gosford. That makes the Gosford spur an expensive option, but when you actually simulate how people will behave and what will get them out of cars, there really is no option but to provide direct access to Gosford. Woy Woy is a zero cost addition and its also a good place for direct (cross platform) interchange between high speed trains and conventional (local) trains.
Having dealt with Gosford, that leaves you with the option of having a parkway station on the main line at Ourimbah, or Morisset or both. There is a lot of development potential associated with both stations (Somersby, Cooranbong etc).
Further south, the main line has stops at Hornsby, an interchange station (east of Parramatta) and Campbelltown. The other main line stations are at Sutton Forest, Goulburn South and then Canberra.
The way it is staged is you first build a fast (160 km/hr) train line between the CBD and Parramatta with only one intermediate stop – the interchange station. You then build the main line from Gosford to Wollongong. And then you extend the network to Newcastle and then Canberra.
And there would be a station at Wilton, but on the Wollongong branch line.
The thing about Wollongong is that once you have the HSR main line as a given, there is less cost and effort in building a spur for Wollongong that begins at Wilton and reuses the Maldon-Dombarton corridor. And if you want to go into upgrades of the coastal corridor I can happily go into that. The point is that most trips from Wollongong to Sydney actually go to places other than the CBD. You want a fast connection to Campbelltown (25 minutes) and Parramatta (43 minutes).
Now if you step back and look at it, what you have is a multi-tiered transport network. You’re relying on tight integration between the medium/high speed lines and the conventional rail lines. You have multiple points of interchange. And again, look overseas and you’ll find plenty of examples of this.
The high speed network is the trunk – it provides the intercity services. The conventional rail line provides a feeder service.
The Commonwealth Bank has just pleaded guilty to 87 criminal charges of “hawking” life insurance through unsolicited phone calls.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/cba-pleads-guilty-to-criminal-breachs-in-hawking-life-insurance/11717630
This really is big news.
Coal-fired power is now the *reliability* problem, not just the environmental problem.
TIME TO BIN IT.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/coal-seen-as-biggest-threat-to-victoria-power-supply-29072/
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-11-19/robodebt-scheme-human-services-department-halts-existing-debts/11717188
When you think about it the spurious practice of averaging was all Robodebt had. It’s dead!
frednk..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNGGuxMEtQU
🙂
The Commonwealth Bank has just pleaded guilty to 87 criminal charges of “hawking” life insurance through unsolicited phone calls.
An ‘Ensuring Integrity’ Bill would go down a treat in the Banking and Finance industry.
Not going to happen. The Coalition are in power.
When news.com.au are running long articles about the uselessness of the government and politics as usual for the potential bushfire crisis yet to come, let alone the one unfolding over recent weeks. Perhaps the govt and any pollies who can’t be bothered to say or do anything could be ruing their own mediocrity down the line.
Good to see Greg Mullins keeping up the honest assessment and anti-BS commentary, in face of the wise monkey approach of the LNP and apparently the ALP as well. See nothing, hear nothing, say nothing, do nothing, #Auspol mediocrity at it’s greatest.
Records show the worst bushfires in NSW could be yet to come
Mr Mullins said most major home losses usually happened in late November to early February when high temperatures hit Sydney, Newcastle, the Lower Hunter and South Coast.
“This is where most homes have been lost in the past and they haven’t even been impacted yet,” he said.
“So we need to brace ourselves. If we don’t get summer storms to wet everything down, we are in dire straits.”
————————–
He also dismissed commentary that it was not the right time to talk about climate change, sledging our political leaders in the process.
“It’s exactly the right time. Parliament is not sitting and politicians have no operational role in responding to fires so what else are they going to do?” he said.
“They are basically on holiday at the moment, which is fair enough, but maybe they could have a think about future generations.”
———————————–
“I don’t want to criticise my colleagues, I know the pressure they are under. That’s why us retired chiefs are speaking out because we know they’ve been gagged.
“They are not allowed to speak about climate change.”
Mr Mullins said he was “absolutely” not allowed to talk about climate change when he was working as the NSW commissioner and this was told to him in “no uncertain terms” after he made comments to The Sydney Morning Herald following bushfires in 2009.
MIMICKING GUN RIGHTS GROUPS
Mr Mullins made the point that if Australia was facing a crisis like the Grenfell Tower fire, people would immediately be wanting to know the causes and to discuss how to prevent it.
“But if it’s about climate change, it’s insensitive,” Mr Mullins said.
He said American firefighters were now describing the shutting down of debate around climate change in the aftermath of serious bushfires, as mimicking the playbook of the National Rifle Association in the US, which shuts down conversation about gun control in the wake of massacres.
“I don’t accept it and my other fire chief colleagues also don’t accept it for a moment,” Mr Mullins said.
Declaring a climate emergency in Australia would provide more focus and co-ordination on how to respond to the new conditions as well as how to transition the economy.
“In times of war or national disaster, they have mobilised the three layers of government and co-ordinated how to tackle an issue,” he said.
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/records-show-the-worst-bushfires-in-nsw-could-be-yet-to-come/news-story/b4e417bde0f6f593118ed1be2d4ade2b
We should start calling the Australian the Minority Report.
Look at its circulation figures.
The irony re IBAC
Victoria’s anti-corruption watchdog IBAC will have fewer public hearings
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-18/fewer-public-hearings-for-victorias-corruption-watchdog-ibac/10818656
The need for secrecy by the Andrews government.
Quoll,
10% of an article only please.
Jeez, The Greens’ fan club just can’t help themselves if there’s an anti-Labor shot to be fired, can they?
I see quoll has caught Peggy’s disease as well. Must be a Greens thing.
I am shocked, shocked I say, to find that the Victorian Labor Minister accused of undeclared donations from the Casey developers under investigation is Martin Pakula of the Right faction.
Perhaps the best punishment for any Labor MP found guilty of corruption from now on should be to be forced to join the Liberal Party.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/victoria/another-councillor-labor-minister-named-as-receiving-donations-from-developer-in-corruption-probe-20191119-p53bww.html
I am not suggesting the Liberals are any better, and they are the Councillors who have allegedly taken most of the cash in this case. Former Liberal Mayor Sam Asiz has fled to Egypt. If Labor wanted to look for interesting development approval decisions in Victoria, I strongly suggest reviewing car parking approvals in the CBD under Matthew Guy, and of course, the former East West Link project. Plus when you flee a country, you generally need a friendly bank manager to get the money out. Money laundering is a crime too.
Cat and GG
I agree about the pasting Quoll May have missed William’s remark to Pegasus.
However the paste being a quote from Greg Mullins is clear. Trust the firefighter. You don’t have to make it a political view.
From the ABC article:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-18/fewer-public-hearings-for-victorias-corruption-watchdog-ibac/10818656
Sounds like a good idea to me. It will prevent, oh, say, The Greens and other bad actors, bringing frivolous claims of corruption to the IBAC in order to get publicity and in an attempt to damage reputations. Call it a Public Interest Test. 🙂
https://www.crikey.com.au/2019/11/18/politicians-spinning-climate-crisis/
($)
Israel Fallou is quite sane compared with this Brexit Party candidate in Scotland. 🙂
Where are these sharp teethed packs of Jezebels? Sounds awesome.
nath
Personally, i prefer headlong into hedonism. Nice alliteration too.
There is no need to introduce new legislation to jail bankers committing crimes. Jail penalties already exist, but they are almost never imposed.
Hawking previously carried a six month jail term. Money laundering is 2 to 10 years (also reported in the RC). In the new legislation some financial crimes carry up to fifteen years. But the last time a CBA executive was convicted in court in 2017, no jail term was imposed!
https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=8b41b4f4-ab52-4c44-92af-25fae4359932
The IPA?
Victoria IBAC model adopting the NSW ICAC model which was fairly condemned on PB when brought in.
NSW ICAC at the moment is like Bob Carr had it in the 1990s – mostly inconsequential
beta males lying on their backs urinating on their own bellies
_____________________
come on. I did that once!! And my mistress made me.
Thanks Cud. I’ll digest your proposals later with google maps handy.
I thought you staid, months ago, that NSW Labour’s policy of upgrading the Illawarra line through the RNP PLUS a tunnel from Sutherland to say Sydenham/Wolli creek would be able to deliver Wollongong to SYDNEY CBD trips to under an hour on existing rolling stock (its only about 80km as the crow flies between those two points).
I agree that the Newcastle interchange can’t be miles out of Newcastle.
I think a Fast Rail Spine from Newcastle to (at least) the southern highlands would truly turn SYDNEY into a megalopolis, so like other megalopolises around the world it would need an array of servicing airports. KSA, Badgerys, Newcastle, even perhaps Canberra and Albion Park. So incorporating Newcastle, Badgerys and Canberra airports on that spine might make more sense than you are presently imagining.
So, maybe the route could be something like Newcastle Airport, Newcastle interchange, Somersby (or wherever is most convenient to tap into the Gosford spur line), Hornsby (?), Homebush Main interchange, Badgerys Creek Airport, Illawarra Interchange, Goulburn, Canberra Airport.
Anyhow, I’ll have another go at reading your comments in empty later on.
shellbell @ #274 Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 – 2:21 pm
I always thought that losing a Premier over a bottle of plonk was over the top. So, maybe it’s a good thing.
Can I suggest that Victor Robert Farrell desperately needs a root?
nath
The Sharp Teethed Jezebels sounds a good name for a band.
swamprat
Another good rock band name “Headlong Into Hedonism.”
Why, in amongst the sexual obsessions, is “voting at aged (sic) 16” a sign of utter decadence?
poroti
says:
Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 2:23 pm
nath
The Sharp Teethed Jezebels sounds a good name for a band.
_________________________
definitely punk rock.
lets not rule out ‘unstaid wantonness’.
Some good news. It appears class actions work.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/nov/19/robodebt-government-abandons-key-part-of-debt-recovery-scheme-in-major-overhaul
Socrates,
My understanding is all of the donations from developers to Victorian pollies so far being reported by “Fairfax” have been declared.
Please point me to where it is reported the donation to the Victorian labor Minister was undeclared.
Thanks in advance.
Victoria Robert Farrell sounds a bit like Ian Goodenough when he said that marriage was not based on romance but a social institution to do with progeny. Terri Butler’s reaction was an absolute classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WnsMFC1mIo
[Some good news. It appears class actions work.]
Too early to tell with this is a win for Peter Gordon.
Class actions, generally, involve overseas capital, looking for big returns, funding small claims for lots of folk which only get smaller once the big returns etc are extracted.
US diplomat in Kiev said he’s ‘never seen anything’ like Trump-Sondland call in restaurant
A diplomat at the US embassy in Ukraine told lawmakers last week he’d “never seen anything” like the call Gordon Sondland placed to President Donald Trump at a restaurant in Kiev, according to a transcript of his deposition released Monday night.
David Holmes, the political adviser at the embassy, said he was taken aback both by the conversation he overheard and the woeful lack of operational security demonstrated by Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union…….. someone calling the President from a mobile phone at a restaurant, and then having a conversation of this level of candor, colorful language. There’s just so much about the call that was so remarkable that I remember it vividly.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/11/18/politics/david-hale-holmes-transcripts-released/index.html
shellbell,
A question if I may ?
Re the class action. Will people who have repaid a “ outstanding debt” be able to join the action and if so could this turnaround today by the government be used by Peter Gordon to strengthen their case against the government ?
I don’t know where the ‘Comment Moderation Guidelines’ are to be found on this site, but when WB published a link to them around a week ago I printed a copy. No. 13 reads:
‘Copyright laws are taken seriously here. Do not repost from other media sources in their entirety’.
While there is no set rule as to what constitutes copyright infringement, it’s generally accepted that circa 10% is within limits, though even this percentage has the potential to infringe…
The Morrison Pash in the MSM and in Bludger (among whom Nath, ad nauseam) have come to a rather self-frightening conclusion.
They have to keep Killing Bill.
Because by now it is becoming crystal clear that Shorten would have made a far superior prime minister: competent, sane, inclusive.
The people who voted for Morrison, McCormack, Hanson, Palmer, Katter and Di Natale got themselves Morrison when they could have had Shorten.
What fools they were!
Gee, the usual suspects are taking the Stephen Conroy approach and are trying to censor the internet. What a surprise.
Is it true that the DC10 fire bomber is being reconfigured to drop thoughts and prayers instead of fire retardant?
Firefox @ #291 Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 – 2:52 pm
So, the Law of the land doesn’t apply to Greens supporters is your position?
OK.
Andrew Earlwood..
As I said, the best route for HSR into Newcastle is to follow the existing rail line from Cockle Creek – so that you stop at Newcastle Interchange, Broadmeadow and Glendale. The actual branch of the HSR main line occurs at Wakefield.
I went down the path of figuring out how fast you could get from Wollongong to the CBD via the coastal route. Presently it takes about 90 minutes.
You can build a Thirroul to Waterfall bypass and that will cut about 23-25 minutes off the trip. You can also build a tunnel from Sutherland to Kogarah and that will cut another 8-10 minutes off the trip. Plus you can crib a few minutes here and there. However, some possible time savings require you to remove freight from the line – and that would mean a Maldon-Dombarton freight bypass.
Bottom line is you can get down to around 55 minutes. But with the Thirroul to Waterfall bypass only, you’re looking at a bit over an hour. The problem with a Thirroul to Waterfall bypass is you’re starting at sea level, and rising to near 400 metres. Plus you have to skirt coal seams. You end up with a 13 km tunnel – and if its your main route it has to be twin tube. The tunnel from Sutherland to Kogarah would be about 10 km. So its a substantial project.
Compare that to what would be involved in building a fast rail branch from Wilton to Woolongong. Much of it is pretty straight forward (it mostly uses the existing Maldon-Dombarton corridor). Then you need a 7 km twin bore tunnel. Getting down from the portal to Unanderra is interesting but you’ve got yourself a shitload of tunnel spoil and that helps.
So again, if you’re assuming a HSR main line as a given, then the least cost way to provide high speed access to Wollongong is via a spur from Wilton. That doesn’t mean however that you don’t want to improve the line north from Wollongong, but there is another path you can take.
From a point just north of Scarborough at an elevation of 95m you build a bypass to Waterfall. The tunnel itself is 7 km long (less rise) and then you follow the edge of the motorway into Waterfall. That will cut 20 minutes off the trip. So you can run a limited stops train from Wollongong to Sutherland in 35 minutes. You instantly go from the situation where its faster to drive to Sutherland to the situation where its better to take the train. Also, this is mostly about trips between Wollongong and the Sutherland Shire. Most people would be headed to their destinations via Campbelltown.
In a perfect world I would extend Metro West south – to Kingsford Smith Airport, then Kogarah, then direct to Sutherland and then it would take over the Cronulla line. That then saves 20 minutes for everyone using the Cronulla line. But the other thing is you get cross platform interchange to the south coast train at Sutherland. What that means is that a lot of people will avoid the slower northern end of the trip past Sutherland. They will cross platform interchange at Sutherland and take a faster metro from there. Of course, there’s a lot more detail lurking in this.
Regarding the Southern Highlands, the are several potential staging points. The first is of course Wilton. So you provide a direct bus service from the Southern Highlands into Wilton. Next logical staging point is Marulan. Which means you can now provide a high speed service into central Goulburn (using the existing tracks from Marulan). That would make the Goulburn to CBD trip 55 minutes.
There’s another trick you can pull. If your high speed rail alignment heads west of Mittagong you can use the former Southern Highlands loop alignment to form a branch (Colo Vale to Mittagong). Now you can run high speed trains from Bowral, Moss Vale and Mittagong (joining the main line at Colo Vale). So 15 minutes from Mittagong to Campbelltown and 35 minutes from Mittagong to the CBD.
I’m not really that fussed about connecting airports. The main reason for that is that you get an order of magnitude more patronage out of getting people out of cars. Having said this I’ll talk about airports.
As I said, the best solution for Newcastle Airport is a direct bus link from Newcastle Airport to Tarro. That’s a 20 minute trip and it connects you with both the Hunter rail line and the high speed line. Its just not economical to run HSR on a path that goes near the airport.
For Kingsford Smith Airport you would take the high speed network to the CBD, then connect to Museum station. The airport isn’t far.
For Western Sydney Airport it depends on where you’re coming from from the north, you interchange at the core station just east of Parramatta and take a fast train to Parramatta. From there you connect to the metro to the airport. Alternately and if the fast train is extended west, you could remain on that and connect at St Marys. From the south, you connect at Campbelltown for a metro service to the airport.
With Canberra my preferred solution is a HSR main line that passes just to the west of the airport and then follows the median of Parkes Way into Canberra Civic. That allows you to (if necessary) to run a separate train service along the same path from the airport to Civic. More likely you’ll end up with a bus or light rail connection.
My Gosford spur line branches at the northern end of the Hawkesbury River HSR bridge – just east of the mouth of Mullet Creek.
Firefox
Gee, when the Greens break the law (as Bandt was practically urging impressionable youf to do when he was delivering a crapulous performance on Insiders) it is not actually breaking the law.
Because the Greens can do no wrong.
For their’s is the kingdom and the glory.
Boerwar @ #292 Tuesday, November 19th, 2019 – 2:55 pm
The people that had their houses saved are complaining about the colour.
“So, the Law of the land doesn’t apply to Greens supporters is your position?”
***
Nah. The law of the land allows it…
https://www.copyright.org.au/ACC_Prod/ACC/Information_Sheets/Fair_Dealing__What_Can_I_Use_Without_Permission.aspx
Reminder to self to consult with Cud Chewer when Mrs Shellbell gives all clear to me to resume my model railway hobby.
The northernmost extent of that gap in the smoke, in the middle between the fires to the south and the fires to the north, is us.
It’s quite spooky here at the moment.
It may help if I post a network map..
The numbers on this map are how long it takes in minutes to get to the Sydney CBD. The deeper blue is the HSR main line. The medium blue is a fast (160 km/hr) rail line from the Sydney CBD to Parramatta and extended to Penrith. The lighter blue sections are where high speed trains are using existing track.