Another week of the sillier-than-usual season goes by without a great deal to report, with the only new poll result I’m aware being a Painted Dog Research poll for The West Australian finding 81% out of 1224 WA respondents surveyed around a week ago believed Novak Djokovic should be deported. Lest anyone doubt the international reach of this particular story, a British poll by YouGov found 62% believed Djokovic should not be allowed to play in the open, with only 18% believing he should. (UPDATE: And now a national poll by Resolve Strategic for the Age/Herald finds 71% believe he “should not be allowed to stay and play”.)
The biggest preselection news of the week related to Gladys Berejiklian’s former seat of Willoughby, which I’m holding off on doing a post about until a date is set for state’s looming quartet of by-elections. At federal level, both the Nationals and the Liberals now have candidates for the rural Victorian seat of Nicholls, to be vacated with the retirement of Nationals member Damian Drum. These are, respectively, Sam Birrell, an agronomist and former chief executive of the Committee for Greater Shepparton, and Stephen Brooks, a Cobram high school teacher and farmer. Also in the field as an independent is Greater Shepparton deputy mayor Rob Priestly.
Player One
If you are really concerned about climate change then you should really be out there advocating for economic degrowth. It seems that you are unconcerned with the current mass extinction, the unsustainable degradation of agricultural soils, the unsustainable use of fossil groundwater resources . Our civilisation faces a multiplicity of environmental challenges and they are driven by the mantra of continuing economic growth.
Gee , what tragedy companies couldn’t possibly have been training people to do the jobs they need 🙁 Oh and thank goodness we sold off all the State railway depts etc. who took on bigly numbers of apprentices each year. eh ? 🙁
Naomi gets it.
‘poroti says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 5:23 pm
Mining companies are struggling to find workers to fill specialist roles from engineers to train drivers as COVID-19 travel restrictions between states and a collapse in skilled migration exacerbate the industry’s labour squeeze.
Gee , what tragedy companies couldn’t possibly have been training people to do the jobs they need Oh and thank goodness we sold off all the State railway depts etc. who took on bigly numbers of apprentices each year. eh ? ‘
==================================
Exactemundo. Free riders caught with their pants down.
Osaka should have said, ‘Why should that joke of a man expose me to an increased risk of Covid?’
“Firefox
You appear to be the only one thay posts Facebook CRAP on this forum.
STOP IT!.
It’s the biggest curse on Earth. !”
***
The real curse are deceitful people who share/post blatantly false information, irrespective of the platform it is being done on.
I will continue to call out and correct Labor’s lies when I encounter them.
poroti,
While I can imagine plenty of hypotheses, I’ve no direct no evidence. My concern is really that I’m noticing a sustained and steadily worsening shortage of chicken meat. In terms of panic buying, there’s only so much freezer space in a city. My guess would be it’s not that. In terms of labour shortages, that’s possible. Chickens get driven a long way. And abattoirs employ people. So perhaps that’s the problem. The issue is that even if the main cause is people unable to work due to being sick with covid, once they’re well again it will still take time to restock the farms and produce the meat at levels we’re used to. And if other industries are similarly affected and interconnected then we’re not going to get back to where we were soon.
Has anyone else noticed a developing shortage of chicken meat? Maybe, since I grew up on a chicken farm I’m just overly sensitive to that business, and all I’m seeing is a local hiccup.
D&M and A&E
Best wishes to you and to your families.
Firefox says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 5:28 pm
Copying and pasting – must be boring job.
Troll much?
‘poroti says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 2:45 pm
lizzie at 2:40 pm
What’s Morrison playing at by saying that Djokovic can come back before 3 years?
Because
“When I use a word Immigration law ,‘ Humpty Dumpty SfM said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
=====================
cracker!
zoomster
“A group of Christians are trying to overthrow the World Government by spray-painting the ichthys on fallen leaves.”
——————
I suspect “Christians” in this sentence means that recently developed telemarketing ideology from America. I believe its relationship with the Christian Gospel is very tenuous.
Late Riser,
No shortage of chicken in Launceston but we have a local(ish) producer – Inghams plus Nichols and sundry smaller outfits.
‘Firefox says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 2:04 pm
I just bit the bullet and decided to give myself a haircut using my electric shaver rather than risk going to the barber right now. Having a dodgy haircut is certainly preferable to getting sick, that’s for sure. The shaver ran out of charge half way through lol, so now I’m sitting here with something that looks half mullet half mohawk while I wait for it to recharge. The sides look good at least! ‘
————————————————
Your Greens poster in action:
1. Deprives local barber of custom.
2. Runs out of renewable energy half-way through.
3. Reckons he looks great although he is an aesthetic shambles.
I do the shopping at 7am. Some areas of produce sparse but overall not as bad as 2020.
It was widely reported a week ago that chicken giant Inghams had supply issues.
Fortunately in WA we have these guys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZKOuX0Bdbs
1934pc @ #886 Monday, January 17th, 2022 – 4:39 pm
Firefox is too far gone down the rabbit hole that The Greens and their fellow travellers occupy, to take any notice of you. And facebook appears to have a lot to do with that.
Rossmcg,
In NSW we also have Steggles and various Organic Chicken farm suppliers. 🙂
Boerwars at 5:26 pm
I saw it back in the 80s-90s in Construction after some of Labor’s reforms. Companies had employed tradies directly but suddenly there was a stampede of tradies getting their ABNs and becoming sub contractors to those same companies . The ABN boys pretty much didn’t bother with apprentices any more. Hmmm HSV or apprentice, which to choose? 😆 Surprise surprise before long the construction industry was wailing about a shortage of ‘skilled workers’.and calling for special immigration considerations.
Huge reception for Kokkinakis from the Melbourne Park crowd. Big local Greek community in Melbourne. 🙂
Player One says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 4:56 pm
It’s indeed heartening that you can’t bring yourself to support Labor. The less you approve of Labor the better their chances in the approaching election.
By the by, while you’re pretty much obsessed with climate change politics, most voters are not. Your obsessions will hardly move a single vote in 2PP terms.
Anyway, keep knocking yourself out.
BW,
Greens also campaign against mirrors.
“A group of Christians are trying to overthrow the World Government by spray-painting the ichthys on fallen leaves.”
I have this strange feeling that they are going to be unable to get to the overthrow of the World Government bit of the story as it’s going to take a LONG time to spray paint the icthys on all the fallen leaves of the world. 😀
I have received text messages from two seperate tradies today advising they can’t undertake work because they are sick with Covid.
The first time this has happened in the two years of the plague.
The Libs are high achievers in at least one policy: their let-it-rip-bugger-the-consequences-you’re-on-your-own policy
Geez Labor partisans on here having a crack at nurses for showing their battle scars.
Stay classy.
RP @ #901 Monday, January 17th, 2022 – 5:22 pm
But boy oh boy, Player One has an Eco Resort (capitalist feigning concern for the environment variety), that they really, really want you to visit. 😐
Rakali @ #925 Monday, January 17th, 2022 – 5:42 pm
Yes the freedom warriors aren’t very smart now that the country has ground to a halt with many thousands lying crook at home and some even dying in hospital.
“If you are really concerned about climate change then you should really be out there advocating for economic degrowth.”
Absolute and complete rubbish.
You’ve got to detach two issues.
The first is the current neofeudal late capitalist sh1tsh0w we all live. A lot of the resistance to climate change is driven and funded by those who benefit most from the current order. Dismantling as much of this order as possible as quickly as possible is very important.
The second is a new renewable energy economy. We could build a new energy economy based entirely on renewables now. We can deliver, with public investment massive amounts of super cheap energy. The mortgage belt can have more air-conditioning running more often. It is there ever present threat of the mortgage belt paying a premium for renewable energy, through mortgage belt economic degrowth.
The only economic degrowth we need is in the existing energy markets. Most of that money doesn’t go to the Australian mortage belt most of it goes to Saudi royalty, Putin mates and wall st billionaires. The jobs to be lost can be replaced by better and better paid new energy jobs.
Economic degrowth is the enemy of real large scale action on climate change. It is trying to solve 2020 problems with 1970 hippy baby boomer logic.
TOP REVIEW
2025 The world enslaved by a virus.
“3. Reckons he looks great although he is an aesthetic shambles.”
***
Magnificent is the word I would use! 😛
Not sure the same could be said about my hair though lol
Thanks Taz, Rossmcg.
Good work refuting what was clearly a load of nonsense about Mandy Nolan being an anti-vaxxer, Firefox. I note that the person who made the original comment has deleted it.
Rex Douglas @ #924 Monday, January 17th, 2022 – 5:44 pm
I’d prefer it if you didn’t blackguard my opinion about a photo, that is so obviously faked up, like that, Rex Douglas.
I was going to point out some other things about it that jarred the sensibility of someone who has actually got a pretty good idea of what Nurses wear but I thought it better to not go over the top. However, since you wish to misconstrue the nature of my comment, let me point some more out.
If you have a look at the dramatic red marks around the eyes of the, probably not a, Nurse, and then compare it with the size of the goggles that are on the top of her head, you will notice that the two do not match up.
And speaking of those goggles, they look to me, not like protective eyewear that a Nurse wears but a pair of safety goggles that you can buy at Bunnings for a couple of bucks.
Not to mention that most Nurses wear a Face Shield over an N95 mask.
And I point all this out, not as some sort of sleight against Nurses and the job they are doing under THE most trying circumstances imaginable at the moment, but BECAUSE of my deep respect for the job they are doing and my contempt for The Greens tawdry effort to co-opt them for their publicity stunt.
Western Australia could record up to 60,000 cases of Omicron per day unless tough restrictions are imposed, a senior doctor has warned.
Australian Medical Association president Mark Duncan-Smith told reporters restrictions should include density limits at venues, home visitors capped at 10 people, no singing or dancing at public places except weddings, and working from home if possible.
WA authorities are yet to release the modelling for the state following the impact of Omicron across the country, but Dr Duncan-Smith says his 60,000 figure stems from the South Australian government’s modelling.
“I am calling immediately for the Premier to move towards increased restrictions,” he said on Monday.
“The SA modelling has been described as alarmingly accurate by their Premier.
“Using population-adjusted figures, comparing that to WA, if we don’t increase restrictions now we will be facing somewhere between 50,000 to 60,000 new Omicron cases per day at our peak.
“That will occur sometime in March to April.”
Dr Duncan-Smith said introducing restrictions early could slash the number of cases by 10,000 per day.
https://www.news.com.au/national/western-australia/ama-warns-wa-could-soon-have-up-to-60000-new-covid19-cases-per-day-without-tough-restrictions/news-story/2a414bac4faa1a2d5b7beab8961c3d3d
“Good work refuting what was clearly a load of nonsense about Mandy Nolan being an anti-vaxxer, Firefox. I note that the person who made the original comment has deleted it.”
***
Cheers, WB. Ah that’s good.
I get the idea this bloke really doesn’t like RWNJs or anti vaxers.
https://theshot.net.au/general-news/right-wing-politics-is-cancerous-to-democracy-society-and-human-life/
The jobs to be lost can be replaced by better and better paid new energy jobs.
Except they aren’t. Look up how much the yearly wage of a Solar Panel Installer is.
Roughly about 1/3 of what a person working in the Mining Industry earns. And that’s your problem right there.
I’m not saying that we don’t need to address Climate Change, yada, yada, but what someone needs to figure out is how to untie the Gordian Knot of the wage you can make in the Mining Industry and the wage you can make in the Renewables Industry, so that you can tempt workers away from the Mining Industry.
I’m pretty sure the Miners don’t pay the high wages out of the goodness of their hearts but simply because they know that it’s very hard for the workers to knock it back.
So much of chicken production is disturbing whenever anyone gets a look at it – treatment of the animals welfare-wise, the cleanliness of their handling, poor treatment of workers – so much suffering to go around.
”Mining companies are struggling to find workers to fill specialist roles from engineers to train drivers as COVID-19 travel restrictions between states and a collapse in skilled migration exacerbate the industry’s labour squeeze.”
There is no violin small enough that I could play a tune that adequately expresses my grief at the plight of the mining companies.
Maybe they could invest in training Australians.
Go Albo,
https://twitter.com/i/status/1482920440209502212
RP
Economic degrowth wont prevent climate change and would make it harder to respond to it.
WeWantPaul
I would say that you’re the one engaged in Magical thinking. We can have unlimited renewable energy growth. Really, do you have a viable fusion generator in your back pocket?
88% of energy use in this country is fossil fuel derived. So we need to build 9x times all the renewable power generation that has currently been installed to replace our current usage. Solar cells and wind turbines have a life expectancy of around 20 to 25 years.
There is a 1:1 correlation between resource use and a .95:1 correlation to energy use with economic growth.
3% economic growth gives a doubling time of approximately 25 years. So an economy twice the size as now by 2050 and 8x the size by the end of the century.
Can I suggest that you return to school and learn how to do maths.
Economic growth as we know it has to stop. All of the technologies we have now won’t just cleanly replace the impact that all the people and all the land used to unsustainably grow food for all the people and all the junk that is produced for all the people to consume. Going full renewable energy is necessary, but is not sufficient to prevent the ecological collapse that is coming. We have to cut out fossil fuels AND reduce our footprint substantially on top of that.
“Economic degrowth” is necessary for us to head off calamity – there is no magic wand to fix this problem. Which, given where our politics is, and how it’s only going to get harder, means we’re screwed.
‘Jackol says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 5:59 pm
So much of chicken production is disturbing whenever anyone gets a look at it – treatment of the animals welfare-wise, the cleanliness of their handling, poor treatment of workers – so much suffering to go around.’
===========================
What goes round comes round.
There are somewhere between 20 and 30 billion chickens in the world at any time. They way they are fed, medicated, crowded together, processed, cooked, eaten, and interacted with means that they are sooner or later going to deliver us something like Covid. Or worse.
“I’m pretty sure the Miners don’t pay the high wages out of the goodness of their hearts but simply because they know that it’s very hard for the workers to knock it back.”
Large quantities of very cheap energy can and will if done right spawn many new industries.
But you are right, if you come from remote flyin flyout coal mining, at an individual level, and you are going to find it hard to find a matching 300k job.
But both ending the coal mining, and the flyin flyout is a huge community win, we shouldn’t stop action because there are a few losers when in aggregate it is such a massive win.
What we should do is look after the losers but our neofeudal late capitalist society embraces policies that create an underclass and the fails deliberately to house or feed them. The poor flyin flyout person who just lost their 300k pa is less likely to get proper compensation than the already uneconomic coal mine owners. Which brings me back to the more immediate problem of neofeudal late capitalism.
‘Firefox says:
Monday, January 17, 2022 at 5:47 pm
“3. Reckons he looks great although he is an aesthetic shambles.”
***
Magnificent is the word I would use!
Not sure the same could be said about my hair though lol’
=========================
I was, of course, referring to your hair.
William,
I deleted my original comment because I decided it wasn’t worth the effort arguing with Firefox. (It was only there for about 2 minutes)
Mandy Nolan’s ‘anti-vaxxer’ comments were broadcast on ABC Radio in Sydney around July-August 2021. The comments where on the AM & PM current affairs programs and also broadcast on regular news bulletins.
“Economic growth as we know it has to stop.”
‘As we know it’ is the key, you later refer to ‘footprint’, is this in the BP carbon footprint a throughly dishonest attempt to try and misdirect systemic global problems to the individual for solution, or some other kind of footprint.
RP
We have 4 billion years supply above our heads.
WWP – there needs to be less stuff produced, less stuff consumed, however that happens.
Mandy Nolan is a vaccination advocate of long standing and pre-COVID. See: https://www.echo.net.au/2018/06/mandy-nolans-soapbox-vex-vax/