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).
Peg
Labor will be attacked by the Greens and the Coalition whatever it does for the perfectly good electoral reason that both want to take seats off Labor.
This path is perfectly clear for the Coalition. It is working. They keep winning government on the back of their own corruption and on the back of Greens electoral assistance.
Given that the Greens’ plan is to win a BOP by taking seats off Labor, incidentally ensuring that Labor cannot form government, is a less clear pathway to Greens’ political power.
The net result of the above observations is that the Coalition keeps getting to run Australia.
Player One
The consequences are not always obvious to those who want to “give a Party a kick”.
Antony Green:
“Scott Morrison is expected to adopt a technology investment target to avoid Australia signing up to an internationally imposed requirement for net zero emissions by 2050, ”
Utter and Complete Bollocks Bullshit marketing spin from Smoko. How many $ you spend is irrelevant, how much emissions are reduced is. Its a way of frightening people by focusing on the cost of action rather than inaction, while at the same time shoveling $ to you donors and appearing to have an argument that you are doing something.
Problem is a lot of the punters and media are stupid enough to fall for it.
2013
PRIME Minister Tony Abbott has effectively turned the lights out on Holden’s factory – and by default the rest of the automotive manufacturing industry – by declaring there would not be an increase in taxpayer assistance to the struggling car-maker.
As tensions between the Federal Government and Holden reached new heights Mr Abbott said: “There’s not going to be any extra money over and above the generous support the taxpayers have been giving the motor industry for a long time.
“We think there’s more than enough money on the table. It’s available to the motor industry. But there is no more.”
Player One @ #94 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 7:18 am
By possibly electing a Country Liberal.
You would like that.
KayJay
Re wind turbine illness. Those clever Danes discovered a decade back a very exciting ‘cure’ for wind turbine illness……… MONEY. They ran a study and discovered the amazing coincidence that nobody who was being paid to have wind turbines on their land suffered any ill effects. Neighbors not being paid on the other hand 🙂
Socrates….follow the money…political donations
Government introduces laws to extend CityLink tolls until 2045 to fund West Gate Tunnel
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-20/citylink-road-tolls-extended-another-decade-in-parliament/10828440
Maude Lynne @ #76 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 6:56 am
The exact wording on the DSS website with my emphasis:
“Australian Government employees have a duty of care to the public when performing their duties. This extends to any advice given and ANY ACTIONS PERFORMED.”
https://guides.dss.gov.au/guide-social-security-law/1/3/4/10
Sending out robodebt letters is beyond reasonable doubt an “action performed”.
“Funny how God only seems to speak to people like that who dropped too much acid in the 1960s.”
***
If only that were the real cause lol.
I’m friends with a person who would never dream of touching drugs (apart from alcohol), especially not go on a LSD trip, and they’re a fanatically devout Catholic. It’s all due to upbringing (parents are hell old school conservative Catholics). It’s all people like them have ever known. To question their faith involves questioning everything they have spent their lives believing. It involves coming to the realisation that your parents have spent their entire lives living a lie – that they have been brainwashed and in turn have brainwashed you. It’s really sad.
I strongly believe in freedom of thought though, so I have never challenged them over it. I’m sure they look at me, knowing I’m an atheist, and think similar things about me. I’m probably corrupted by the devil or some shit. Ah well. That’s why it’s probably best we keep our feelings to ourselves sometimes. Now where’s the little smiling devil emoji when you need it?!? lol
Yusss!!
‘lizzie says:
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 10:24 am
The consequences are not always obvious to those who want to “give a Party a kick”.
Antony Green:
As I outlined in a recent post on the NT redistribution, the Gunner government is not in as strong a position as people think. Labor will lose most of the seats in Palmerston, Katherine and Alice Springs delivered to it by the decimation of the Country Liberals at the 2016 election.
For Labor to win the 2020 election, it has to hold all its northern Darwin seats, and that means holding Johnston at the by-election in 29 February.’
Indeed, Lizzie. The last CLP Government was the Giles Government which ran the NT while Abbott was running the Federal Government. Between them they slashed government support to remote Indigenous communities in particular, by hundreds of millions of dollars. Morrison’s croc tears on the Coalition’s chronic failure to Close the Gap are a particularly egregious example of why you can’t trust the CLP or the Coalition on Indigenous policies and programs.
Those cuts caused one of the periodic forced geographical shifts of Indigenous people in Australia. In particular they forced large numbers of people out of homeland centres into places like Alice Springs. Commentators AT THE TIME predicted the inevitable consequences which have duly arrived.
To cut a long story short, those cuts displaced whole communities, killed people, ensured more people became sick and stayed sick for longer, and more people ended up in jail. It had a particularly vicious and nasty impact as young people, freed from any of the social restraints found on homeland centres, roamed the streets at all hours of the night with nothing much more in prospect than street crimes and the inevitable introduction to the legal mills.
As Green points out, the Greens are playing around ‘with teaching Labor a lesson’. The people who WILL be taught a lesson if the Greens succeed, will be Indigenous Territorians. We know this with 100% certainty because the default settings for right wing governments in the Territory is always to stick it to Indigenous Territorians.
The Greens hope to ‘teach Labor a lesson’ like Nader taught the Democrats a lesson. We lost Gore. We got the Bush family.
The truly nauseating thing about it all is that the Greens parade themselves as having ethical superiority in all this. As far as I am concerned they are playing around with the premature deaths of more Indigenous Territorians.
DP
Yep.
I see old mate Boering is still posting pretty much the same shit day in day out. *Yawn*
Socrates @ #99 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:24 am
The Peninsula Link arrangement in Victoria works pretty well for all concerned.
BinTB
This is a single by-election, the result of which is relatively inconsequential (despite lizzie’srepeated cut and paste).
Unlike when Labor aided the election of FF Steve Fielding over a Greens to the senate.
A pragmatic political strategy so lauded in other circumstances but the end of the earth when competing parties do it to Labor.
‘Firefox says:
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 10:39 am
I see old mate Boering is still posting pretty much the same shit day in day out. *Yawn*’
Routine Greens approach when faced with commentary that they cannot cope with: a resort to personal abuse.
Firefox
Boerwar understands situation in NT and who suffers under CLP rule.
And is this bullying? No duty of care? I’d say so.
Peg
So, Anthony’s analysis is false?
I’ll spare you all a day of endless back and forth by keeping it simple.
Frack off.
poroti @ #106 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:32 am
A simply variation of “Penis Envy” I guess.
I’m absolutely stuffed. I have been lawn edging in the heat of the morning and chatting with a lady (c/w schnauzer dog). Brain starts to work about half an hour later. I believe my favourite daughter has mentioned this lady and the dog which had been attacked a mauled by another bigger dog.
What has this to do with anything. Not much – would you like a very long piece about the evils of the ……………………political party 😕
Rest and recuperation for me. 😎
Pegasus
“Socrates…. follow the money…political donations
Government introduces laws to extend CityLink tolls until 2045 to fund West Gate Tunnel”
The big one is Transurban. West Gate Tunnel gave them a ten year extension on their concession(!) Several big industry super funds invest in Transurban. Apart from that, groups like CPB and the financiers have cheerfully employed ex-ministers on token jobs in the past for far too much money.
The spirit of Eddie Obeid lives on in public office. Worst of all in Scomo’s government, but not only there.
BW, would you be able to give me a rough schedule for the next 7 days of what times you’ll be logging on and off to PB? Just so I know what times the forum will be flooded with your anti greens trolling, just so I know when to avoid this site. Ta.
BW
Of course not.
How many seats do the NT Greens run in out of the 25 electorates? During the 2016 state election iirc it was 6. To suggest the outcome of one by-election, as yet unknown, will determine the outcome of a full election, as yet unknown, as is being done by you and your fellow travellers is a long bow at this point.
Firefox says:
Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 10:44 am
I’ll spare you all a day of endless back and forth by keeping it simple.
Frack off.
Why don’t you take your own advice. It is not as though you add any insights except letting us know you are annoyed reading other peoples’ posts.
It would be much easier for you, and save yourself some angst, by fracking off yourself for a while.
Pegasus @ #114 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 7:40 am
Ah!
So the Greens are just another political Party.
I thought purity didn’t allow such games?
The sad thing is, they don’t even aspire to form Government.
Their small vision of relevance is a tiny window where Labor almost wins outright and they are difference.
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/energy-laws-have-let-us-down-victoria-pulls-the-plug-20200217-p541nj.html
Dan’s not one to lie idle…
I like the sound of more big batteries.
BW
lol Yet, I spent the first few years on PB from 2009 or so saying the Greens are a political party. Didn’t that assertion receive ongoing derision. The strawman of purity gets bandied about by you and sundry, not me.
Also it’s amusing how the repetitive claims the Greens don’t compromise or are not pragmatic gets a run when it suits despite evidence to the contrary.
In this single, specific instance, in the context of fracking and global heating, the NT Greens’ pragmatism and political strategy to obtain leverage is regarded as just so shocking because the governing Labor party is the target.
Boerwar @ #85 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:11 am
You’re welcome!
I’m off to have my brain zapped in a CT scan.
Perhaps when I get back I’ll have rearranged my opinions. 😆
Big A Adrian @ #121 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:48 am
The likes of the old coot Jim Molan and his grasshopper Boerwar shows how establishment conservatives are getting very uncomfortable with the growing dissatisfaction of society with vested interests dragging everyone down the gurglar with them.
“Why don’t you take your own advice. It is not as though you add any insights except letting us know you are annoyed reading other peoples’ posts.”
***
“Frack off” should not be confused with telling someone to fuck off. If I had wanted to tell Boer to fuck off I would have. Frack off means, wait for it, no fracking!
Pegasus @ #127 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 7:56 am
The important point regarding compromise is when you do and don’t do it.
When you fail to compromise when something is a step for better and follows your stated objectives then you lose your credibility on that issue.
Firefox
But did you appreciate the irony of pee bee’s comment? Only last night s/he popped up to ask wtte why don’t you ask Rex and Peg to fuck off.
Kudos to pb for such worthwhile contributions.
BinBT
Fracking and the existential threat of global heating is the context which you and others continue to conveniently ignore.
[‘Mr Russell provided a magistrate with a post-conviction reference noting Kehoe had served the school for 35 years. He said he did so at the request of Kehoe’s lawyers.’]
So, the head of St Kevin’s College is now tacitly blaming the defendant’s lawyers for his providing a testimonial to the court following Kehoe’s conviction. What joke this man is, a man who was far more worried about the reputation of his school than the sexual abuse of his charges – this after the recommendations of the RC into institutional child sexual abuse. Given his poor judgment – not only for providing a reference for Kehoe but also for not taking complaints seriously – he should, as parents are calling for, resign. And the question must be asked, given Kehoe’s length of service, were there any others who caught his fancy? After all, you don’t suddenly have crushes on boys; at least I don’t think you do.
Rex
“The Peninsula Link arrangement in Victoria works pretty well for all concerned.”
Not the same thing. Peninsula Link was delivered by a PPP, but did not originate as a private proposal. It was first in government infrastructure plans dating back to the 1969 Melbourne Transport Plan.
Millions in government planning investigations were spent in the 2000s to make sure it was a feasible project and impacts were acceptable before the PPP contract was let. So the process was by the book and quite different to WestGate Tunnel.
The establishment’s response to environmental activism…..
Coalition may use government contracts to crack down on environment protests
Attorney general seeks views on whether the federal building code could be used to stifle environmental secondary boycotts
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/18/coalition-may-use-government-contracts-to-crack-down-on-environment-protests
Pegasus @ #134 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 8:06 am
And the other candidates position on it and other policies?
This is what the Greens “conveniently” ignore.
PeeBee @ #123 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:50 am
I see Firefox is unwilling to acknowledge that it is The NT Greens who want the NT to Get Fracked! by supporting the Uber Frackers with their preferences above the Labor Party.
And Pegasus is still trying to spin the party line that it’s just a little ol’ inconsequential by-election, so no biggie supporting the God Squad and the Frack on Indigenous Land Who Cares mob. 🙄
Mavis
Reminds me of a woman I knew who escaped her marriage after years of abuse. She had to leave town, as no one there believed her – ‘he’s such a nice man’.
BinTB
I have no doubt they weighed all factors up and decided no environment, no economy, etc was far more important.
I have no doubt they decided sending a message from the electorate to the Labor state government, a government with a huge majority and, therefore is in a position to reverse its decision to lift the moratorium on fracking, was the most important factor.
As I have already said it’s a risky strategy. The by-election outcome will be interesting. It might well have ramifications and implications about electoral strategies undertaken by all political parties and independents at the full state election. We shall see.
I have missed a few Situation Theatre pages – as their home page seems erratic. Drilling down to “Satire” (there is little else) shows some terse comments.
Liberal Party Banned From Australian Politics For Two Years
“Surprisingly, the Leicester City of our domestic political competition, the Australian Greens, have come from nowhere and their leader, Adam Bandt, is now Prime Minister.”
https://situationtheatre.com/news-fuse/liberal-party-ban
Update from the Aboriginal Fracking Forum
2017: https://nt.seedmob.org.au/aboriginal_fracking_forum_update
“Never before have this many Aboriginal community members been brought together on the issue of fracking.
Over 60 community members from across 13 regions came together on Larrakia country in Darwin, 18-20 November 2017, to yarn about how to stand together and stop fracking from destroying the NT. Stand with them by signing this petition today.
People came together from every corner of the Territory – from Alice Springs, to Borroloola, Mataranka, Minyerri, Maningrida, Marlinja, Tennant Creek, Yuendumu, Jilkminggan and Katherine.
It started with a massive rally at Parliament House on Saturday with hundreds of people fired up about the potential impacts of fracking on water, country, culture and way of life.
Then, all Aboriginal community members came together for the Aboriginal Fracking Forum where connections were made across songlines and huge distances that people were united against fracking in the NT.
Together these elders, young people and community members delivered to the NT government their statement (that you can read here) calling for a ban on fracking. It is powerful and impossible for the NT government to ignore – just yesterday it was read out in Parliament.”
NT traditional owners’ concerns about fracking dominate Origin Energy AGM
2018: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-17/origin-energy-fracking-traditional-owners-indigenous-aboriginal/10387736
“Origin Energy has promised Territory-based Indigenous residents and traditional owners that it will better communicate with them, and will gain their consent before beginning planned gas fracking projects.
Key points:
Origin Energy has committed to improving communication with traditional owners
It came after a group of Indigenous residents from the NT confronted executives at its AGM in Sydney
Traditional owners had hoped to put a resolution to the meeting, but it was not allowed
Traditional owners travelled to the company’s annual general meeting in Sydney, and asked questions to the board about planned fracking in the Territory’s Beetaloo Basin between Mataranka and Daly Waters.
“We don’t want fracking on our land, we don’t want fracking through the water system,” Alawa traditional owner Stephanie Roberts told the meeting.
“It will poison the land, it will impact the local bush food. The fracking will make your kids sick. We are thinking about the future generation of our young children.”
If you have power over somebody, you owe them a duty of care.
The more power you have over them – and governments have effectively unlimited power compared to the individual – the more duty of care you owe them.
It begins – first Bloomberg attack ad against Bernie, or more correctly, against his online army
“Mike Bloomberg Goes After Bernie Sanders In New Campaign Ad | Morning Joe | MSNBC”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=N4JEBIZDaGI&feature=emb_logo
Betrayed’: Aboriginal communities react to decision to allow fracking in half of NT
The Northern Territory government has lifted a ban on fracking despite fierce opposition from climate scientists, traditional owners and Indigenous activists.
https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2018/04/17/betrayed-aboriginal-communities-react-decision-allow-fracking-half-nt
Another “heapin’ helpin’ handful” of corruption by Scummo and the Scumettes –
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/18/coalition-may-use-government-contracts-to-crack-down-on-environment-protests
BW is completely spot on in relation to the impact of CLP governments on Indigenous communities. It is true that the result on Feb 29 by itself won’t change the government of the Northern Territory. But a CLP win in an important seat in an election year will certainly give them a major boost. This is the fire the Greens are prepared to play with, and for what exactly? They say it’s over fracking. So they preference a party who fully supports fracking, and a candidate who believes that human caused climate change is a hoax. This is just yet another example of the Greens strategy to weaken Labor for their own interests, regardless of the cost to people they pretend to support and represent. One can only hope that at least some of the 17 percent who voted Greens in this seat last time see this for what it is and make the Greens pay at the ballot box.
Barney in Tanjung Bunga @ #105 Tuesday, February 18th, 2020 – 10:29 am
Or by possibly electing an anti-fracking candidate?
You would hate that.