No Newspoll this week, owing to The Australian’s enthusiasm for unleashing them at the start of parliamentary sitting weeks, requiring a three week break rather than the usual two. However, we do have a extensive new poll on the bushfire crisis from the Australian National University’s Centre for Social Research and Methods and the Social Research Centre. It finds that fully 78.6% of the population reports being affected by the fires in one way or another, 14.4% severely or directly. Half the sample of 3000 respondents was asked how Scott Morrison had handled the bushfires, of whom 64.5% disapproved; for the other half the question was framed in terms of the government, with 59.4% disapproving.
Beyond that, there’s the two state/territory by-election campaigns currently in progress:
• I have posted a guide to next Saturday’s by-election in the Northern Territory seat of Johnston, which has suddenly became of more than marginal interest owing to the Greens decision to put Labor last on their how-to-vote cards (albeit that local electoral laws prevent these being distributed within close proximity of polling booths). This has been done to protest the decision by Michael Gunner’s Labor government to lift a moratorium on gas fracking exploration. The party has not taken such a step in any jurisdiction since the Queensland state election of July 1995, when it sought to punish Wayne Goss’s government in the seat of Springwood over a planned motorway through a koala habitat. This made a minor contribution to its loss of the seat, and hence to its eventual removal from office after a by-election defeat the following February. There’s acres of useful information on all this on Antony Green’s new blog, which he is publishing independently due to the ABC’s cavalier treatment of the invaluable blog he had there in happier times. There will also be a piece by me on the Greens’ decision in Crikey today, God willing.
• The other by-election in progress at the moment is for the Queensland seat of Currumbin on March 28, for which my guide can be found guide can be found here. With the closure of nominations last week, only two candidates emerged additional to Laura Gerber of the Liberal National Party and Kaylee Campradt of Labor: Sally Spain of the Greens, a perennial candidate for the party in federal and state Gold Coast seats; and Nicholas Bettany of One Nation, about whom the only thing I can tell you is that he recently deleted his Twitter account (what’s preserved of it on the Google cache reveals nothing particularly outrageous).
‘Dump it in Williamstown’: Pallas showered with abuse over toxic soil dump plan
https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/dump-it-in-williamstown-pallas-showered-with-abuse-over-toxic-soil-dump-plan-20200220-p542lq.html
Bellwether:
It’s quite something to see the gaggle of vocal posters here – who seem to hold many authoritarian, socially conservative and neoliberal attitudes – claiming to be staunch ALP supporters.
Firefox:
I wonder how that sits with the ‘Julian is a tool of the right who should be kept locked up’ views held by some here?
I’ve written about the recent German political crisis in Thuringia at my personal website, in which the conservative CDU and far-right AfD voted together to give the state presidency to a small pro-business party. This broke the embargo on cooperation with the AfD. It caused the resignation of Merkel’s proposed successor as CDU leader.
Also covered: the left held one region but lost another at Jan 26 Italian regional elections, and the centre-left retained the Taiwan presidency.
http://adrianbeaumont.net/german-political-crisis-in-thuringia-and-italian-regional-elections/
Adrian B
Just finished reading your latest article, interesting as always re international polls.
Bucephalus:
Is there *anything* the Coalition will be held accountable for?
Matt31 @ #1193 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 12:08 pm
Yes, you’re correct, my bad. It was the guy who knows nothing about nobody but thinks he can call people conservative when he obviously doesn’t know what the word means. That is, Bellwether. He also doesn’t mind associating with the other guy. Mr Newbie, who thinks that people here who don’t agree with him are like rats who ‘infest’ this blog.
No matter, his views are simply that, his point of view, and bear no relation to the actual truth.
Mr N
“who seem to hold many authoritarian, socially conservative and neoliberal attitudes”
Jaundiced View, a very disenchanted Labor member iirc who posted here many years ago (my comrade-in-arms in the asylum seeker refugee ‘wars’) used to call them authoritarian submissives. Very apt.
Now and then I dip into his twitter feed….it appears he has gone over to the ‘dark side’ judging by his tweets re “the political duopoly”. He has ‘seen the light’ and moved out and on.
Security experts sound the alarm on Russian interference in the 2020 election: Their campaign is ‘underway’
Cybersecurity experts have been warning that it isn’t a question of whether or not the Russian government under President Vladimir Putin will try to interfere in the United States’ 2020 election — it’s a question of how successful they will be and the ways in which they will make an attempt.
“Ex-KGB officer and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal was never simply to place a Manchurian candidate in the Oval Office, but rather, to permanently destabilize the West, damage U.S. credibility and undermine those very things that make democratic countries special. Putin aimed for chaos, and Donald Trump was the chaos candidate in 2016.”
Putin, the security experts warn, “will continue to attack, namely because his objectives haven’t changed and the United States has not done anything to defend or deter him from this course of action.”
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/02/security-experts-sound-the-alarm-on-russian-interference-in-the-2020-election-their-campaign-is-underway/
C@tmomma:
No, I said that some people (such as yourself) try to intimidate, belittle and discredit anyone who posts things they disagree with, which ultimately stifles the comments section of this blog, and has done ever since the 2019 Federal election. Just as you’re trying to do here again, with me. Yawn.
Unemployment up to 5.3%. Stay tuned for Frydenberg to reassure us just how “resilient” the Australian economy is. 😛
Seems strange that Frost was not cross-examined by or on behalf of the petitioner
The benefits of modern living for ye olde little lady or gentleman.
Newcastle buses rerouted so that often two buses required instead of the old one. Bus shelters removed to enable the toughening up of leaners should those of 70 years or so be needed to fight off children who should be in school. Said children blocking traffic with ridiculous demands for action about summat.
Pause to read email from NRMA advising “We’re coming to Kiama soon” Do tell – I think to myself – have they heard something – am I moving to Kiama.
I have a card from local MP decrying clever move by Federal Government plan to shut down Mayfield and Newcastle Centrelink offices.
Previously referenced oldies often without personal transport or support family to assist will be forced to travel (who knows where) for a regular fuck about by zombified staff hell bent on building up humiliation ability score.
Good work Federal Gummint and bouquets to our old friend Stuart Robert MP man of somebodies dreams.
There may be a really clever plan behind this plan. I dimly perceive a locked room mystery where by the closures are announced together with the location of the new location.
The clever twist – don’t actually open another place.
The oldies then wandering in ever decreasing circles can then be arrested and jailed with trial (strip search optional)thus supporting the fuzz and the Private Prison Industry* – thus supporting wealth redistribution for ordinary tax payer to clever bastards operating prisons.
My local area power failure for an hour or so. The above still in the comment box.
I am about to travel with my daughter for exciting trip to Chemist shop for prescription refills and also a visit to hot bread shop to admire serving ladies. 😍
Over and out.
I think I’ll repost this..
NO C@t. I’m giving you an honest engineer’s assessment of what is technically possible.
Australia can support several hundred million people. And I’m perfectly happy to back that with figures. It does mean doing things in a more efficient manner. It does mean improved technology. It does mean eating less meat for instance.
However, I think I also made it clear that doing so would have negative effects on lifestyle. I also made it clear that a reasonable target is somewhere in the high tens of millions. Which is absolutely sustainable and from the point of view of crowding and its effects, tolerable.
Again, the idea that tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of refugees causing all of us to have to go back to doing our washing in tubs and having black and white TV sets is simply unsubstantiated fear.
There are real issues in our largest cities with availability of land and the failure of infrastructure to keep up with growth. However..
1: This has fuck all to do with refugees.
2. This has more to do with lack of planning and lack of any kind of decent funding for public transport. Even without half the immigration we do have, we would have seen the same effects creeping up on us. We’ve just been lazy and spent more on beer than transport.
This seems like an impossible dream, although I suppose it could be a “long-term goal” in cities working towards sustainability.
https://theconversation.com/people-love-the-idea-of-20-minute-neighbourhoods-so-why-isnt-it-top-of-the-agenda-131193
Or alternately you could subscribe to..
http://www.vhemt.org/
🙂
Cud Chewer,
I’m not going to bite. Suffice to say that, what an engineer calculates is possible, in order to satisfy their whims, does not appeal to other people who have a different concept to them about what makes living in Australia appealing.
And before you try to ascribe xenophobic motivations to what that is, may I say, ‘it has fuck all to do with refugees’. Everything to do with the environment we live in. Plus the realisation that an engineer’s ideal about how our resources should be managed, has zip to do with how it actually plays out in real life in Australia and which really needs to be taken into account.
And that’s all I’m saying about this subject. However, you may discuss it to your heart’s content with the other idealists who refuse to acknowledge reality and how it factors into this subject.
lizzie
Regarding the 20 minute neighbourhood. There’s a light side and a dark side to this.
The light side is that good planning can render more liveable neighbourhoods. Fewer cars, more open space, a better mix of services.
There is also a dark side and at its extreme it becomes like any idea pushed to an ideology. You can find this ideology in the Greater Sydney Commission and its “30 minute city” concept. Which if you break it down is just an attempt to apply marketing spin to an assumed inevitable outcome – more sprawl in the west and southwest of Sydney.
The thing is, it all works fine when you can in fact access everything you need within 30 minutes transport. But this is impossible. What you actually end up with is a lot of people who need to access services and jobs that exist outside that precious 30 minute envelope. And the GSC has no answer to this. Its own figures suggest that you’ll continue to have high value jobs in the east and lower value jobs in the west.
As for the 20 minute neighbourhood. Yes its a great idea – for some things. But it doesn’t work in practice. There just isn’t enough physical space (or indeed population) within a 20 minute circle to have or to justify many kinds of activities.
Some of this is well motivated. Having nurturing physical environments is great. Some of this borders on insanity. Its very often a knee jerk response to the failure to provide fast public transport over reasonable distances. I often find it blocking people from accepting the need for high speed rail. Why should people be enabled to travel further they say. Why not give everyone what they want inside a smaller circle? Yeah well the problem is that this doesn’t and won’t and probably can’t happen.
Mr Newbie @ #1210 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 12:47 pm
You also said the other thing.
Whatever.
Oh and there’s another problem..
All this wonderful planning doesn’t fix what’s already there. And millions of people live in what’s already there.
Sanders and Warren both go after Bloomberg straight off the bat. Klobuchar follows up by joining in the pile on. They’re all going after him lol
Kakuru
Also be on the look out for “Global headwinds”
I’m feeling quite confident about Labor’s chances in Currumbin now that Jann Stuckey has resigned. We have an excellent LOCAL candidate in Kaylee who lives and grew up in the electorate unlike that LNP blow in from across the border. We know the Libs are worried because they’ve made a point of destroying/stealing our signs and they’re petrified of what Stuckey will come out and say closer to polling day in relation to the internal party bullying she experienced. My prediction is that Labor will win this by election narrowly, which will cause a leadership spill, where Mander or Chrisafulli will be crowned the opposition leader.
lizzie @ #1215 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 12:52 pm
lizzie,
I’m actually glad that we don’t have ’20 Minute Neighbourhoods’. I’d hate to see all our land developed with all the infratsructure needed to create 20 Minute Neighbourhoods.
I don’t want ‘Green Trees and Green Spaces’. I want forests and naturally-occurring green areas.
Cud Chewer
How can Australia be home to 75,000,000?
Already Australia is a net food importer with a population of 25,000,000
Climate change is making Australia drier. Towns in inland Australia have to truck in drinking water
“I don’t want ‘Green Trees and Green Spaces’. I want forests and naturally-occurring green areas.”
***
You and me both. That’s why we need to protect them from being burnt down as a result of climate change.
And I don’t want another shopping centre and other local health facilities and services a 20 minute walk away. I’m happy to drive 20 minutes to get to those things, which equals about an hour’s walk.
C@t
Two things.
First of all I’ve made it clear that there are downsides to Australia having a very large population.
Secondly, the entire debate about boat people revolves around presumed answers to two fundamental questions. First, how many would show up? Second, is that a bad thing?
You have to ask yourself this. In a world gone mad, where (due to climate change no doubt, or the ensuing wars) tens of millions of people turn up on our shores. Would you prefer to mass slaughter these people? Or would you prefer it if we rolled up our sleeves and dealt with it as best we can, providing everyone as good a standard of living as possible given copious application of technology?
Think about it C@t. Examine your feelings. Because if you don’t think its ok to mass-slaughter refugees at that scale then you’re also accepting that we do have the means, the capability and the technology to deal with a few tens or hundreds of thousands.
I may be an idealist. But I’m an idealist pointing the finger at gross intellectual laziness. I live in a nation that instead of pulling out pencil and paper and and answering these two practical questions we instead react irrationally, pretend we already know the answer to these questions and collectively accept the responsibility for a policy of deterrence by harm.
We don’t need to do that. And I’m sorry but this is where I part company with the “its all good because its what everyone wants”. No, its immoral and worse, lazy. This is why, C@t I have a fairly dim view of the human condition. We really are a bunch of nasty, fear driven, often quite stupid, hairless monkeys.
billie @ #1225 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 1:13 pm
Because Cud Chewer idealistically believes that everyone will share our resources fairly and equally and therefore, with engineering fixes to maximise resource exploitation, we can support 75 Million in Australia. Not. Going. To. Happen.
Will this include his, “It’s all the childrens fault.” holiday? Somehow I don’t think so.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/scott-morrison-to-announce-royal-commission-into-bushfires-20200220-p542k5.html
billie we export a lot of food. Worse we waste a lot of land and resources on animal agriculture. We are profligate and wasteful users of water. And we have enormous reserves of cheap renewable energy. Adapting to climate change means less meat. It also means moving away from broad acre and towards more intensive “factory” style food production.
Such a depressing outlook. I would prefer to think we will deal with Climate Change sobrely as a whole planet and therefore there won’t be millions of climate change refugees on our doorstep to have to wreck the joint to deal with. Which, if we did take them, would then only make our own country virtually uninhabitable and unable to offer refuge to these people anyway.
C@t
More to the point, there are many things like hospitals and manufacturing where scale means efficiency. Trying to localise stuff simply means you don’t get the best. I had this argument one day with Geoff Roberts one of the Greater Sydney Commissioners (and an arrogant dickhead to boot) and he just couldn’t get it.
Billie
Australia could handle 75 million people but it needs to be planned for over a number of years because it would need the infrastructure to be put in place and there would need to be greater investment in renewable energy and desal plants to limit the impact on the environment. People in the cities seem to think that once you cross the Great Dividing Range that its all desert when that is definitely not the case.
C@t
We are already on a trajectory towards tens of millions of climate change refugees. You’d better hope that that’s all that happens and we don’t also have to deal with the fallout from war.
And no I don’t subscribe to “would make our country uninhabitable”. It definitely would make the place a lot more populous. You’d have Coffs Harbour growing to a couple of million and sport high rise, just for instance. We can cope technologically with even millions of refugees. What has gone wrong is that we just don’t want to honestly think about the alternatives we do have.
Well C@t, we’re headed to 50 million regardless. Even with a barbed wire and machine gun refugee policy. We’re going to have to cope with that.
It scares me too. That we could become a nastier place. But that’s nothing to do with refugees and everything to do with the ideology that underpins the Conservatives.
Bloomberg is terrible. So flat. Uninspiring. Biden has more fight than him lol
I just hope that when the dust settles, Bloomberg is willing to back Sanders with the resources he will need.
Cud Chewer @ #1235 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 1:26 pm
Why just us!?! What about the other 150 countries? Why do we get all the Climate Change refugees and no one else does? What would make them want to come to the driest continent on earth that just about burnt down over summer!?! Where all the fish are dying and the crops are failing…due to Climate Change!?!
Kakuru says:
Thursday, February 20, 2020 at 12:47 pm
And for Anne Ruston to go, “I, uh, think, er, uh, um, uhuh, look over there it’s Labor’s fault.”
Since 1955 Australia’s population has grown by around 177%. add another 177% will take Australia to about 69 million.
Cud Chewer @ #1239 Thursday, February 20th, 2020 – 1:35 pm
You seem to have missed this:
lizzie @ #790 Wednesday, February 19th, 2020 – 2:20 pm
Without them and the demand they create for food, accommodation, and other basic goods and services the unemployment figures would be even worse. 🙂
We don’t get all the refugees. Worst case there will be hundreds of millions. If Australia ends up with tens of millions we can count that as lucky.
Warren is skewering Bloomberg over his misogynistic history. Get him!
Regardless of how big Australia’s population was we will still have an issue with how to manage arrivals.
This debate is turning into a disaster for Bloomberg I reckon. Absolute train wreck. They’re all destroying him.
‘I wonder how that sits with the ‘Julian is a tool of the right who should be kept locked up’ views held by some here?’
Very easily. Surely it shows that Julian was a tool of the right. Like many tools, he’s found he was being used.
C@t & Cud
Good comments. I’ll study in more detail when I get home again. Maybe I’ll even reply 😉