As you can see in the post below this one, the Courier-Mail yesterday had a YouGov Galaxy state poll for Queensland that found both major parties stranded in the mid-thirties on the primary vote. State results from this series are usually followed a day or two later by federal ones, but no sign of that to this point. If it’s Queensland state politics reading you’re after, I can offer my guide to the Currumbin by-election, to be held on March 29. Other than that, there’s the following news on how various parliamentary vacancies around the place will be or might be filled:
• Noel Towell of The Age reports two former state MPs who fell victim to the Greens’ weak showing at the November 2018 state election are “potentially strong contenders” to take Richard Di Natale’s Senate seat when he leaves parliament, which will be determined by a vote of party members. These are Lidia Thorpe, who won the Northcote by-election from Labor in June 2018, and Huong Truong, who filled Colleen Hartland’s vacancy in the Western Metropolitan upper house seat in February 2018. The party’s four current state MPs have all ruled themselves out. Others said to be potential starters include Brian Walters, a barrister and former Liberty Victoria president, and Dinesh Mathew, a television actor who ran in the state seat of Caulfield in 2018.
• Former Tasmanian Premier Will Hodgman’s seat in parliament will be filled by Nic Street, following a preference countback of the votes Hodgman received in the seat of Franklin at the March 2018 election. This essentially amounted to a race between Street and the other Liberal who nominated for the recount, Simon Duffy. Given Street was only very narrowly unsuccessful when he ran as an incumbent at the election, being squeezed out for the last of the five seats by the Greens, it was little surprise that he easily won the countback with 8219 out of 11,863 (70.5%). This is the second time Street has made it to parliament on a countback, the first being in February 2016 on the retirement of Paul Harriss.
• The Age reports Mary Wooldridge’s vacancy in the Victorian Legislative Council is likely to be filled either by Emanuele Cicchiello, former Knox mayor and deputy principal at Lighthouse Christian College, or Asher Judah, who ran unsuccessfully in Bentleigh in 2018. Party sources are quoted expressing surprise that only four people have nominated, with the only woman being Maroondah councillor Nora Lamont, reportedly a long shot. Also in the field is Maxwell Gratton, chief executive of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.
Cud is right, if the lights turn on and the power bill is low then most people wont give the source of power a second thought. The ALP needs to promote the cost savings that come with renewables being cheaper.
Mavis,
If you decide to ‘turn Tory’ based on your experience with one interview, then I can only conclude that you have destroyed too many braincells.
Labor’s opponents, The Greens, have worked very hard here today to colour opinions about the interview. To the extent that you are considering abandoning Labor, not for The Greens,which they will be disappointed about, but to the Coalition, who will never lift a finger in reality to address Climate Change or to stop Coal Mining. How feckless of you.
Yep, markets are full of clever people.. like those at Kodak
World’s first digital camera.. created by none other than Kodak.
Cud Chewer @ #502 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 5:00 pm
Is there nothing the old cassette tape can’t do?
I remember the first PC I used, an Apple, had a cassette memory. 🙂
Not just cost savings. Labor hasn’t been talking enough about what happens when cheaper renewable energy becomes an enabler for a host of new, energy intensive industries – and all the jobs that come with them.
What Labor sometimes does say is that the construction of renewables does directly create jobs. But that doesn’t really impress many people as being a secure, highly paid job. (Probably some tradies get it, I guess). What Labor needs to do is the detailed, exacting research and consultation with experts so it can have a narrative about future jobs. So it can go to town halls and say yes, your town could have a big industry doing X.. or Y.. or Z.
‘Sceptic says:
Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 7:46 pm
Link to PVO 10 piece on another Lib … Lab rought
https://twitter.com/theprojecttv/status/1226417710877331456?s=20‘
It is in the interests of the post shame, post truth Coalition to foment ‘same same’. Ditto, the Greens.
Over the past six months I have asked quite a few peeps who have/have had a long, long history of direct experience in Australian Federal Governance the following question:
‘Have you ever known a Federal government as corrupt a the current Federal government?’
Without fail, the answer is, ‘No.’
The Coalition will not shift from post-shame and post-truth posturing. Its hacks in the MSM will continue to promulgate ‘same old, same old’ and ‘all politicians are the same’.
That the Greens continue to do the same demonstrates, IMHO, a willingness on the part of Greens to white-ant democracy itself for Greens Party partisan political purposes.
Barney that was designed by a 24 year old engineer and yes at the time, a cassette tape was the best way to solve the problem. My first computer pre-dated the apple. It was a RCA COSMAC single board affair with a whopping 4K bytes of RAM (after expansion) and a 1802 processor (these things are still out there in satellites and other rad hardened environments).
And yes, its had a cassette port which you could hack in lots of ways 🙂
E. G. Theodore:
The dichotomy betwixt the prevailing views is politically unfathomable, with half the population of the view that GH is a commo plot; the other half, thinking it’s real. With so much disinformation by the likes of old the old queen Jones, et al, it’ll continue unabated. Actuaries will have the last say.
Sceptic @ #495 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 4:46 pm
There’s no new information in that story.
Hey C@t
Have you figured out how to bring a pebble bed reactor down to $2/Watt?
🙂 (duck)
Mavis I actually think that people who know that climate change is real and caused by humans are in the clear majority and the real climate deniers are a serious minority.
The real problem we have is the idea that taking action on climate change means a serious cost. It means taking a hit to living standards. It means all kinds of scary things. And that’s the idea we should combating (and so should Labor). The way to counter this widely held idea is to point out that all the things we can do to deal with climate change are in fact investments in technological progress. They actually bring forward wealth and prosperity.
The blog was better earlier when people were talking about music.
But now it’s back to teh Greens who can’t do anything cos they are so hopeless with their tiny percentage but yet are the doom of Labor cos they are the Liberals in disguise.
Hope your son gets tickets to FNM Cat. Seen them a couple of times live and they were brilliant. The influence they had on alternative music and metal is huge.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA_1802
Still a thing of beauty.. Implemented in static CMOS (no minimum clock frequency). An elegant, orthogonal instruction set. 16 registers (pisses all over the 8086 and its successors). And yeah because of its design, very radiation tolerant.
*sniff*.. I miss these things..
C@tmomma:
[‘If you decide to ‘turn Tory’ based on your experience with one interview, then I can only conclude that you have destroyed too many braincells.’}
I was being facetious, but Marles’ interview this morning was not his greatest moment. I hope he reflects on same. To lift Labor’s standing, someone else should be Labor’s second-ranking spokesperson. He’s given the Tories a lot of ammunition in the coming weeks. I think he suffers the “Peter Principle”.
Cud Chewer
I still have my ZX Spectrum 64 and not only but also the cassettes for Flight Simulator and The Hobbit. The odd thing is that of all the games the two biggest disappointments for me were the two that survived 🙂
Sigil,
Thanks, I hope he gets to see FNM too. I’d go with him but he is going with his mates. 🙂
I did, however, go to see Fatboy Slim last week with my kids. Awesome!
The Greens’ PB crap, same as it ever was. Like I said, they are true conservatives, they never change.
Mark David
Mavis
My earlier post said that Marles did the best he could given the weaknesses in Labor’s rhetorical positioning. As I said earlier, what Labor should be saying is “we will approve coal fired power if the environmental approval includes carbon capture and storage”. That would have made things a lot easier for Marles.
Even so, he would have been better off simply being straight forward and honest. If he had simply said “Labor’s current policy position is that we will approve of coal fired power if it passes normal environmental approvals. Labor does not oppose coal fired power on principle” and let the interviewer acknowledge that he’s answered the question. And then say “I would also like to point out that under Labor, a coal fired power station will almost certain not happen because it is an unbankable proposition. However under the LNP, there is a real danger of tax payers money being used to fund what will become a stranded asset”. In other words, its a lot easier to get in the stuff you want to say if you actually, honestly answer the question.
Also, it would be a lot easier for Marles if he could have said “We will approve a coal fired power station if it meets environmental standards. Under Labor that will include carbon capture and storage”. So I’m not blaming Marles so much as the decision makers within Labor who just haven’t come up with a better policy and rhetorical position – one that works both practically and politically.
Labor just isn’t taking it to next level. Labor just isn’t being professional enough. And this is one example.
Cud Chewer;
[….I actually think that people who know that climate change is real and caused by humans are in the clear majority and the real climate deniers are a serious minority.’]
You’re no doubt right until it hits them personally; only then will a paradigmatic shift convince them, -and then some.
Mavis the alternative is to show people that dealing with climate change actually helps them personally. That requires some detailed policy work.
And in Trans Tasman polling news Ardern might be up for another term. Content warning, some Greenphobiacs may find the following distressing 😉
—————————————————————
Labour and the Greens would be able to form a Government with 62 seats between them if the latest Newshub Reid Research poll were translated to votes – but it would be a close-run thing.
National and Act would miss out with 58 seats.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12307158
CC
I am happy for you to condescendingly believe I do not understand your point In that you are sorely mistaken.
I rarely comment about the performance of any politician on the basis of a single interview. I was so gobsmacked how weak and unconvincing Marles was I felt compelled to make a few comments.
Amy R’s article in the Guardian, reflects the reality ofwhat he said as far as I am concerned.
Wow!
https://twitter.com/katoomba_gal/status/1226372022957035522
TPOF @ #465 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:58 pm
Ha! That’s a good one! I’ll save that one for future use!
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #486 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 7:33 pm
Oh! Another beauty! I’m saving this one as well!
Player One @ #525 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 5:59 pm
Ah, that’s right!
Renewable technologies just create themselves or maybe Bjork was right.
https://youtu.be/CL0WfH9-23w
Cud Chewer @ #496 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:50 pm
Okay. But in point of fact that has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not there are coal fired power stations. One can talk believably about jobs without invoking the other thing at all.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga
So the faster we mine coal and the more mines we open the quicker we get renewable tech . Now that is a cunning plan 🙂
Confessions
“There’s no new information in that story.”
Just PVO attention seeking as he did when poll dripping.
poroti @ #529 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 9:27 pm
Here are two sites I have found during various searches today …
Site 1: https://www.ga.gov.au/scientific-topics/energy/basics
Site 2: https://electricityandgas.com.au/article/aussies-paying-highest-energy-prices-in-the-world/
So … which to believe … ?
Pegasus
I’ve seen far worse performances.
Your problem is that you really just want Labor to come out with a “no new coal fired power station under any circumstance” policy. And this isn’t going to happen.
So what do you want Pegasus.. a continuation of this band of thugs, spivs and idiots who will given enough time find a way to spend taxpayers money on a coal fired power station.. or a Labor government that won’t and in which case it won’t happen.
Choose…
Player One:
“Ha! That’s a good one! I’ll save that one for future use!’]
You tend to provocative, but I enjoy never-the-less your exchanges with old GG, tending, latterly, to be predictable, a slightly more subtle approach would be more interesting. I think you’re winning if that be your aim?
a r
I basically agree with you there. There are more jobs in renewable energy. The reason for this not the construction process itself, but the fact that renewable energy delivers far cheaper energy for many industrial uses. That’s something Labor should be jamming up journalists butts every day.
There seems to be this masochistic thing with Climate Change acceptors that it’s gonna be hard, it’s gonna be tough, we all need to suffer to save the planet etc.
This is based on the incremental nature of the (currently) available technology, which at best can only do a slow job, taking centuries, in restoring CO2 equilibrium to the Earth.
But what if we had unlimited energy that made even the most inefficient techniques for scrubbing CO2 out of the atmosphere and rendering it inert, viable options in both an economic and an engineering sense?
We’ve already accidentally terraformed the planet into a gaseous greenhouse. It’s taken 200 years or so. What if we could use – even inefficiently, even stupidly by today’s standards of energy management – an energy source so abundant as to be effectively unlimited, to re-terraform our planet back to any desired status we cared to nominate?
Besides “I don’t reckon it’ll ever work” (an answer I received last night when I first put the question) are there any other reasons we should dismiss thermonuclear power generation as a possible source of the energy to fix Climate Change, and to do it quickly once it’s up and running reliably?
https://www.news.com.au/technology/environment/joe-hildebrand-australian-politics-hits-a-new-low/news-story/65bf2139593fb726c35fb969307f88de
The equivalent of children upending their buckets in the sandpit.
poroti @ #528 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:27 pm
That certainly is not the logical projection nor what I was suggesting!
At the moment a large amount of the power which supports manufacturing, including new renewable technology, comes from coal.
If you took that coal away you would not be able to maintain, let alone, increase such manufacturing.
Mavis @ #533 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 9:39 pm
Winning a battle of wits here on PB is not the aim. It is just a bit hard to avoid 🙂
Joe Hildebrand
https://www.abc.net.au/tv/dumbdrunkracist/people/joe-hildebrand.htm
“Joe Hildebrand is a proud member of the hate media, having worked for News Limited’s The Daily Telegraph for the past eight years. During this time he was disappointed to learn the term actually meant that people hated him rather than the other way around. His writing has attracted widespread criticism from all sides of politics, while his countless TV appearances have led to some of the highest complaint-to-viewer ratios in Australian television history. Joe was also recently named one of the 10 most influential Australians on Twitter. Ironically this was reported in The Sydney Morning Herald, as he was unable to influence his own newspaper enough to write a story about it. As noted, Joe is also dumb, drunk and racist, although half the time he is too stupid, sozzled or blinded by prejudice to even notice it. Despite or perhaps because of this, he is a multimedia sensation.”
In the middle register, few have excelled Ponsell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isoGu7utEBI
Cud Chewer @ #511 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:45 pm
And security. Energy independence, plus a distributed generation and storage grid, would also be a big boost in our basic overall security.
And lol in that same article linked to be Confessions it appears Hildebrand was a ‘fan’ of Richard Di Natale but is not a ‘fan’ of Bandt because he is a “marxist”.
“Now I don’t want to be too harsh on Richard Di Natale. I genuinely believe he is a decent man and any politician who decides to put his family first automatically gets my vote – even if by definition they will never be able to receive it.
But the timing of his decision to step down is, at best, unfortunate.
:::
It is hard to imagine how they will increase their base by moving even further to the left under the erstwhile Marxist Bandt. I’m not sure exactly how many votes the Communist Party of Australia tallied at the last federal election but I’m pretty sure it was a fair bit shy of seven per cent.
Moderate leaders, even moderate Greens, are always to be welcomed in politics. It is therefore a shame for the nation that Di Natale has decided to go but, as I said, family must always come first.”
Peg:
[‘As noted, Joe is also dumb, drunk and racist, although half the time he is too stupid, sozzled or blinded by prejudice to even notice it. Despite or perhaps because of this, he is a multimedia sensation.”]
Compared to others, Joe’s not that bad. You do carry on from to time, a problem Greens suffer from.
Reasons to dismiss nuclear energy.
Currently their is only ~200 years of uranium at current usage. Also it only provides 10% of electricity usage. Times that by 10 and you are looking at 20 years of supply.
In other words a lot of new technology that is yet to be demonstrated commercial is needed for nuclear to be a solution.
Then you have a look at the latest western reactor and you find it is way over budget and time.
Just two months ago, the Bureau of Meteorology forecast that the eastern states could expect no significant rain before April. Guess they forgot about Sydney and most of the east coast. And we are suppose to rely on experts about climate change. Who knows what to believe anymore.
Joe Hildebrand had some very thoughtful and considerate things to say about Di Natale and his leadership of the Greens. But if it gives Greens partisans comfort to simply dismiss his views as the ravings of a drunk man, then so be it 😆
michael @ #545 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 10:11 pm
The difference between ‘weather’ and ‘climate’ is profound.
@Michael
What percentage did they give on their prediction?
And to think I called my second born Michael.
Cud Chewer:
[‘Mavis the alternative is to show people that dealing with climate change actually helps them personally. That requires some detailed policy work.’]
All it requires is for insurance to hit the roof.