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.
Maude Lynne………..could not agree more with you about Stokes and his daily propaganda pamphlet – once a modest newspaper but now hides under the title of The West Australian. When this rag, on Saturday was it? had as its headline that a handful of FIFO workers – all on $200k or more, were doing it tough because Rio Tinto had put the price of said beer up by 45%, one wanted to literally cry into one’s own beer……….As it turns out, and not reported by the West, was the fact that Rio provides full strength beer whereas other companies do not. I have often accused the West of being the worst national daily in Oz, but others from places like Adelaide, Darwin and Brisbane say otherwise…………………………..
Speers gave us another round of no action on climate change will occur because we are going to hammer home trivia.
Labor have said industry doesn’t want col fired power stations, Labor is not going to fund them. So what does Speers want a answer to, a hypothetical. The issue is more important than that.
I would have answered, exporting coal mining jobs to other countries does not reduce the amount of carbon unlocked. Other counties reducing there use of carbon is reducing the demand for coal the industry will have to transition. Speers wanted a gotcha on mine approval.
Speers had his Gotcha ready for the sports rort, to Speers disappointment Marles didn’t walk into it.
All in all a pretty uninformative interview because Speers was after gotcha. not information.
BB
I tend to agree with you.
Every great extinction event in the Earth’s history has resulted in more diversity. So from a diversity pov, an extinction event isn’t necessarily A Bad Thing.
We are, however – it’s what got us into this mess, after all – a selfish species (to be fair, they all are). We’re going to try to survive if we can.
And, just as the dinosaurs didn’t totally disappear, we probably won’t either.
I think the title to this thread should be “Empty Heads”.
Green ones.
Like cabbages.
Have no problem with Speers, as long as he interviews the same with Coalition, Greens, Labor.
Not sure there where the same responses last week – it was more how good was it he kept going when the question was not answered by Frydenberg
BB
H. sapiens is highly likely to be a self-solving problem.
The birth rate for Bangladesh in 2019 was 18.038 births per 1000 people, a 1.76% decline from 2018.
http://www.macrotrends.net › countries › BGD › bangladesh › birth-rate
Bangladesh Birth Rate 1950-2020 | MacroTrends
What is the population growth rate in Bangladesh?
1.0% annual change (2017)
Bangladesh/Population growth rate
Bangladesh Population growth rate. Population growth rate: 1.04% (2017 est.) Definition: The average annual percent change in the population, resulting from a surplus (or deficit) of births over deaths and the balance of migrants entering and leaving a country.
I thought Speers did fine. He was the same this week as he was last week, and it got me thinking about interviewers who insist their subject answer their questions.
I’m sure interviewers of old used to do this. Kerry O’Brien for eg. Is it that MPs get shit at performing in interviews because the interviewer just lets them get their sound bites out without any kind of forensic questioning? Perhaps if interviewers went back to basics MPs would get better at handling proper questioning.
Btw I hope Leigh Sales learns a thing or two from Speers while he’s at the ABC.
The more we learn about the sportrorts, pork barrelling, Palmer money, Dutton’s millions, etc, the more obvious it is that Labor was never going to win. I think they should cast off the sackcloth and ashes. Stop being so “bipartisan”. Some of their policies are well worth fighting for.
Population Growth of Western Australia
Looking back last eight years of Western Australia’s population, the grow rate is very consistent ranging from 0.77% to 3.70%, adding around 20,000 to 90,000 people each year to the overall population. Also WA has the fastest growth rate in the country.
Bushfire Bill
“What is so special about us and our world that we wish to stop the clock, indeed rewind it a bit, in order to freeze the Human Moment in time pretty well forever, as being the best that life can ever be”
What is so special about us is our almost unique ability to shit in our own nest. Non-biodegradable shit at that.
On Dutton.
I’ve rabbited on about trading in fear often enough, already. Here’s an interesting essay on the power of fear. There’s some interesting grabs, eg
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/08/real-power-is-fear-donald-trump-machiavelli-boucheron
Delving into fear gets into the meta stuff that BB is alluding too. As I’ve already said, the best message I got as the Fires raged up the road, and our neighbour phoned ‘John, get out, Just get out’ before minutes later banging on the front door to scream the same (and he’s a cool dude) as they drove away – where was I – the best message had come the week before – darling, don’t be afraid .
And BB, I’m not afraid of sapiens, completely misnamed of course, being wiped out from the third rock from the Sun. Nor should anyone be. We are doing this to ourselves, and it is what it is.
(Nota bene: the opposite of fear is love.)
I mean, really
FWIW, Marles should just have spelled it out.
Labor believes coal has a future because coal has a future.
Coal has a future for so long as China, India and the US want coal to have a future.
Coal has a future so long as european countries buy billions of tons of coal-fired embedded CO2 emissions from India and China.
Coal has a future for so long as a million Greens voters in Australia buy tons of coal-fired embedded CO2 emissions in their cars, their clothes, in their imported appliances, in their domstic and overseas flights, in their wine bottles, and in their imported housing materials.
In case you had not noticed it, the Greens are helping to ensure coal has a future.
They could do something about coal emissions right now by taking the Greens New Deal CO2 Emissions Strike Pledge. This would not even get them to the stage of being personal and organizational zero netters but at last it would remove the stigma of being being pro-coal climate wreckers.
This sums up the struggle Labor has :
‘Labor believes coal has a future because coal has a future.’
That is a hard message to sell, while also saying it is time to change.
Insisting that someone answer the question might be a good thing if its a worthy question.
Speers was after a gotcha. I can’t respect that.
Why couldn’t Labor simply say that they will not agree to any government money being spent on new coal mines?
lizzie @ #117 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:12 am
lizzie, Marles made that perfectly clear.
Actually, coal doesn’t have a future. Certainly not Australian export thermal coal.
…. and then he had to remind Speers that 4 mill in a feasibility study into one was public money – spent.
frednk @ #102 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 10:43 am
Forgetting for a minute about the fact that it would seriously impact the global supply of coal, and therefore raise its price (which would reduce its use) let’s just look at how many jobs you are talking about – about 21,000, according to the ABC Fact Check – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-11/fact-check-are-there-54000-jobs-in-thermal-coal-mining/11198150.
This number wouldn’t even half fill a single football stadium.
There are more Uber drivers in Sydney alone than there are thermal coal miners Australia-wide.
Bunnings employs more people. As would most retail chains.
More people have lost jobs because of the bushfires than there are thermal coal miners.
So why is this particular group so important to you?
They don’t even vote Labor.
How long into the future is ‘the future’? Obviously coal is needed tomorrow.
lizzie @ #117 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:12 am
Because if they did that, Coal would not have a future.
So, what do Rachel Maddow, Pete Buttigieg, Naomi Wolf and Tony Abbott have in common.
‘Angus Taylor fake document affair shows how much you can get away with in politics’
Michael Koziol
This oped piece in the SMH should of course read;
Angus Taylor fake document affair shows how much you can get away with in politics
if you’re not the Labor Party.
frednk @ #102 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 10:43 am
Pretty much impossible for Speers to get anything out of a turnip like Marles.
A bumbling, stumbling, panicked blurb of nothingness from Marles. He is the antithesis of a political leader.
Player One @ #123 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:18 am
Pay attention.
ItzaDream @ #124 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 8:18 am
They all enjoyed watching Downton Abbey?
lizzie @ #111 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:12 am
Too simple.
Too direct.
Too comprehensible.
Too forthright.
Too courageous.
Too confident.
Boerwar @ #114 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:02 am
I’m sure they will take your advice … right after you do so.
ItzaDream @ #127 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:20 am
If you removed all the indirect subsidies on coal, coal would not have a future.
Confessions @ #128 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:21 am
lol
( we were cautioned by lizzie, I think, the other day to flood the site with lots of stuff to interrupt the tedious green bitch slapping fest; I’m trying, but its a losing battle)
Confessions @ #103 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 10:59 am
Can’t wait for Speers to have a crack at Conman.
mundo @ #129 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:21 am
Sorry, the only ‘too’ applicable today is ‘too interrupted’.
Itza
Unfortunately Speers was so intent on getting a gotcha from Marles that the message was lost. Marles’ hesitant manner of speaking laid him open.
Pegasus @ #78 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 10:09 am
Why is a piece of string?
Biblical rain.
Loved The Ozcars 😆
ItzaDream @ #128 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:25 am
A hesitant, evasive speaker is too easily interrupted.
I said after that his Sotu speech seemed to be pitched at suburban women and black voters.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/us/politics/trump-reelection-campaign.html
Spray @ #47 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:24 am
Pegasus @ #48 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:24 am
sprocket_ @ #50 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 6:25 am
Hmmm.
Marles had the answer to the right question. Unfortunately, he got the wrong question.
ItzaDream says:
Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 11:18 am
So, what do Rachel Maddow, Pete Buttigieg, Naomi Wolf and Tony Abbott have in common.
____________________________
And Angus Taylor?
Itza:
Oh, I thought it was a genuine question 😆
I actually do think that they all have Downton Abbey in common though.
TPOF @ #143 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:29 am
yep
NE Qld @ #122 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:17 am
Realistically? I’d say no more than 10 years. If we don’t do it ourselves, we will have it done for us.
Confessions @ #144 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:29 am
It was genuine. I learnt something, well quite a few things, from the Maddow/Buttigieg interview C@t posted.
TPOF gets the prize – a framed signed photo of Cecil Rhodes
Danama Papers @ #134 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:29 am
My favourite bit was when Marles really did a job on Speers, saying….’Well Speersy, I’m not sure how far I’ll get into this answer before you interrupt me, but I’ll give it a go…’ completely turned the interview around.
Good to see a confident Labor spokesperson taking charge for a change.
Oh, wait…..
So ‘a future’ is subjective? Do you really think global thermal coal can be completely phased out in 10 years?
mundo @ #148 Sunday, February 9th, 2020 – 11:34 am
Did you watch it? He did several times tell Speers to back off and let him answer.