To allow for a separate thread for the late election counting, which can be found here, here goes my first post-election summary of relevant news to kick off a general discussion thread. Which is naturally less easy to do now that there are no polls or election horse race scuttlebutt to relate. Here’s what I’ve managed:
• Peter Dutton now appears certain to be elected unopposed as the new Liberal leader at the first meeting of the party room after the election winners have been confirmed. There appears to be strong support for the notion that the deputy position should go to a woman, names mentioned including Karen Andrews, Bridget Archer, Sussan Ley, Anne Ruston and Jane Hume. There were some suggestions that Andrews might seek the leadership, together with Dan Tehan, although it always seemed clear Dutton had the numbers.
• The Nationals party room will meet on Tuesday, which could see a challenge to Barnaby Joyce’s leadership from David Littleproud or Michael McCormack. However, the ABC reports it has been put to McCormack that it would be preferable to have a “fresh start”. Mike Foley of the Age/Herald reports Keith Pitt might put his name forward on the “off chance” that Joyce declines to stand, positioning himself as the heir to Joyce’s skepticism on net zero carbon emissions.
• Following her win over Labor’s Kristina Keneally as an independent for Fowler, it has been noted that Dai Le asserted on her Section 44 checklist as part of her nomination for the election that she had never been a citizen or subject of a country other than Australia. Queried by The Australian, constitutional law expert Anne Twomey offered the inuitively obvious point that this seemed unlikely given she was born in Vietnam in 1968 and remained there until her family fled in 1975. However, while a nomination may be rejected if a prospective candidate does not complete the checklist and provide supporting documentation is required, it would not appear a nomination is retrospectively invalidated if the information provided was later shown to be incomplete. The sole point at issue is whether Le does in fact have Vietnamese citizenship, which would appear unlikely based on the account of Sydney barrister Dominic Villa.
• The projections of both the ABC and myself are that Labor will win the final two-party preferred count by 51.8-48.2, from a swing to Labor of 3.3%. This is derived from two-candidate preferred counts between Labor and the Coalition in seats where one is available and estimates of other parties’ preference flows where they are not. I have Labor winning by 51.3-48.7 in New South Wales, a swing of 3.0%; 53.9-46.1 in Victoria, a swing of 0.8%; the Coalition winning 54.3-45.7 in Queensland, a swing to Labor of 4.1%; Labor winning 54.7-45.3 in Western Australia, a swing of 10.2% (their first win in the state since 1987 and best result since 1983); 53.9-46.1 in South Australia, a swing of 3.2%; and 53.8-46.2 in Tasmania, a swing to the Coalition of 2.1%.
Shows how cooked the drip tweeters are that the other mob needs 17-20 seats next time to get close and that they’ve had a win but still go after Dai Le in Fowler, whose win can solely be put down to Labor trying to parachute in Typhoid Mary. It was the only significant mistake Albo made in the whole lead up really.
Not sure what the fuss is about Finland and nuclear power is about. Aquick google and I see the buggers already have 4 nuclear reactors pumping out power and a 5th finishing commissioning ‘as we speak’ .
It may be time for the Liberals and Labor to start thinking about a national preference swap. This would protect each party from the minors.
It would get rid of most of the Greens seats and quite a few of the Teal seats to the benefit of Labor and Liberals.
Pi, do you have any links (educated layman) to Finland’s nuclear waste storage solution? I can only find simple stuff like this, which amounts to “we’ll bury it safely”, but no description of what “safely” means.
https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/finlands-spent-fuel-repository-a-game-changer-for-the-nuclear-industry-director-general-grossi-says
https://www.iaea.org/ru/newscenter/news/stroitelstvo-pervogo-v-mire-obekta-dlya-bezopasnogo-zahoroneniya-otrabotavshego-topliva
I think some of my colleagues might have been involved in the fracture modelling of the rock.
I was also involved in waste storage modelling for potential repositories in Carlsbad, NM. We “proved” it was safe, but the DOE kept changing their definition of safe until we decided the task was impossible, and walked away.
Kristina Keneally = Typhoid Mary very apt
poroti
We are deploying Bandt over to Finland to tell them to stop it now cos SAVE THE PLANET.
Pi @ #197 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:30 am
Nuclear technology exists now, and can be deployed in time, and at known (albeit high) costs.
Or we could adopt Labor and Liberal policies – i.e. continue to rely on fossil fuels (which are literally killing us) and hope their effects can eventually be mitigated by CCS – technology which does not exist now, may never exist at the necessary scale, and could quite literally end up costing the earth.
I know which technology I would rather rely on.
No.
It really wouldn’t.
If the recent election has shown anything it is that the voters will vote the way they want and what the parties print on their HTVs will largely be ignored unless it’s pretty close to what the voters want to do anyway.
The previously Labor voters who decided to put the independents first certainly weren’t following a Labor HTV or ‘preference deal’.
Ultimately trying to coerce your voters into doing something they aren’t inclined to do is not a winning strategy. If the Libs (or individual Lib candidates) are a worthy preference target, suggest preferencing them. Otherwise don’t. For the foreseeable future it would seem to me “don’t” is the correct response.
Nuclear power would no longer be economically viable on the Australian NEM. Existing thermal stations are being economically destroyed because there is a large – and getting larger – supply of power with very cheap short-run marginal cost during the day and windy nights. The distribution networks in Adelaide are frequently net generators at times!
Something is needed to backfill the other times, but pumped hydro and batteries are both cheaper than nuclear-only-needed-sometimes.
On other grids, in other parts of the world, maybe nuclear does have a place. Here however, it appears to have missed the bus.
Finnish waste
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_Finland#:~:text=As%20of%202022%2C%20Finland%20has,reactor%20started%20operation%20in%201977.
I never quite understood the obsession with Tanya Plibersek as being potential Labor leader. Yes, she was deputy but that doesn’t mean that she was heir apparent in the Labor party (nor in the Liberal party as Julie Bishop found out). I have never heard any Labor people suggest her as a genuine leader; almost always it has come from either right-wingers or the occasional green support.
Speaking to the people who have knew her in her student politics days, she seen as an attractive candidate to put out there but not one to get to all the details of an issue and a little too likely to run off at the mouth. So the “Voldemort” comment is really just par for course.
In the end, I doubt it will make any difference and is just a storm in the teacup whilst the media awaits the final results after the campaign where there was hourly “news” to report.
P1: “Nuclear technology exists now, and can be deployed in time, and at known (albeit high) costs. ”
lol. How much experience do you have in building energy infrastructure? Zero. It shows.
You’re showing your liberal stripes flash.
Much of the argument around nuclear power appears to be ideology based. At the end of the day, it’s just too damn expensive. That might change if smaller modular reactors work out*.
* I’m not yet convinced that they’re economic as they still appear to require substantial civil works.
caf
Anything with a lead time of 20 years has missed the bus, IMO. We don’t have that time left.
Australia could do its bit by becoming the repository of choice for the world.
I assume we must have some extremely stable geological formations somewhere on our aged bit of the world’s crust?
Nuclear power? The Greens will just block it in the Senate.
Next idea, please.
What WOULD happen if we apply the votes in the election just past and the Liberals and Labor had each other at 2nd preference in every single seat?
Who would gain more, Liberal or Labor?
Burgey @ #201 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:35 am
The Constitution says what it says. You want to have a government that ignores it, because expediency and optics? Should have brought the Coalition back.
s44 can/should be addressed via a Constitutional amendment. Until then it’s the law of the land and the government must respect it. You can govern with integrity or you can intentionally ignore laws that you deem stupid and inconvenient, but you can’t do both simultaneously.
Much fuss about Plibersek’s “Voldemort” comment, but it’s all just grist for the mill. Exactly who said what will be forgotten within a week. Meanwhile, the post-election Labor attempt to label Dutton with negative connotations is clear (see also McGowan, M). The Voldemort line is a good one, especially coming from TP, a polly with a relatively positive public image, and will be taken on board by anyone who has had kids over the last 20 years. Dutton’s leadership cement is still reasonably wet, and it’s good to see Labor looking to shape impressions while they still can, especially along lines that fit with the Uber-Spud’s existing image.
BW: “Australia could do its bit by becoming the repository of choice for the world.”
That was one of the points that Downer made many years ago. Once we start using nuclear energy, the question is going to be “Why aren’t we storing the waste here too?”
In principle, I don’t see a problem building such facilities and charging for the access. But one of the big risks in nuclear is transport. Ships sink. Trains crash. Or get blown up. The best solution is the solution that has the least exposure to risk.
Historyintime says:
Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 10:45 am
“I can understand why regional Queenslanders (CQ and NQ). don’t vote Labor. When you go there, you can get it viscerally – Federal Labor is just not on their side, economically or culturally. But provided State Labor remains moderate and parochial, it gets a chance.
What is harder to understand is Brisbane. There are suburban seats it should be winning but only did under Rudd. Brisbane itself is a pretty conservative place but Labor can win similar suburban seats in other cities.”
QLDers (outside the south east corner) don’t get federal Labor, they don’t even get the rest of Australia. They don’t relate to Australia in general and go out of their way to be contrarian (I say this as a QLDer). It’s their modus operandi. They take great pleasure in differentiating themselves from the rest of the nation and even the state, even if that means choosing/doing something patently ridiculous. It’s a mindset and it certainly won’t change in my lifetime. They are similar to the Deep South in the USA.
Player One:
I share the scepticism of CCS, particularly in the “we’ll just keep using coal-fired power, but with CCS!” mode, but saying it “does not exist now” is over-egging the argument.
Direct air capture and storage does exist – I’ve paid to have some captured myself. It is currently very expensive.
Am sitting here charging my EV at Sydney Olympic Park and for the past 20mins a police car with flashing lights is taking up the whole lane while investigating the driver.
Just saw the police talk to the driver , who then drovepast. Looked aboriginal.
It depends on your definition of “safe” and how much you charge the world for the storage. We have deep abandoned mines all over the place. But politically it’s a killer.
Anyway, off to the shops…back later.
Pi @ #219 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:50 am
I think a whole lifecycle management solution was proposed in SA some time ago.
Nuclear As A Service. We mine it locally, manufacture the ceramic pellets that are stacked as rods, lease rods to power plants and then handle disposal.
(Transportation definitely being the biggest problem)
By jingoes that Richard Flanagan article in the SMH is a good read. Spot on. Howard was the most dangerous PM we’ve had.
By the way, has Mundo posted much, if at all, since Saturday night?
“Much of the argument around nuclear power appears to be ideology based. At the end of the day, it’s just too damn expensive.”
and…fundamentally poisonous, loooooooooooong lead time, and very expensive.
Wind/Solar…….hydrogen……..convert to ammonia, use that to run a gas turbine. Tech is there already.
I really think that some of the mega wind/solar projects planned for Australia, coupled with east west HVDC lines is where we are headed.
Not that there are NOT issues with getting this stuff built. Fwark…lots of………training, manufacturing, supply chain issues….all huge challenges. Do-able though.
Finland going nuke, ok, their geographical, environmental and resource availability conditions are all very different from here. But, nukes there have nothing to teach us.
But hey, we actually now have a Govt that looks like having an actual energy policy. How long since we have had that???
Late Riser: “We have deep abandoned mines all over the place”
Disused mines are exactly the opposite of what is required for nuclear waste storage. It is the nature of the mine that it is not stable, generally fractured, because that’s what assists in mining. For nuclear waste storage, you need tunneling into materials that are solid, don’t have fractures, and is not likely to ever have fractures in the next hundred thousand years or so.
Australia does, in fact, have many such places. But just because it’s deep in the ground doesn’t make it good. Because if it’s deep in the ground and leaks into the aquifers, we’re back with irradiated wasteland.
Boerwar says:
Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 11:00 am
Cronus
“It would be astonishing if ICAC, women’s equality, pollie dignitas, and climate change were still front of mind at the next election. The base ball bat anger dividend for all those was largely expended in this election.
I reckon it will be back to the hip pocket nerve.
And introducing new taxes for a spot of the old ‘budget repair’.”
Regarding bushfires and floods, in the words of Bachman Turner Overdrive, “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. This is only going to get far worse before it begins to get better and will be front of mind for decades. Women’s equality also because they’re increasingly in position and power to keep it front and centre. FICAC not so much. You keep reverting to the old paradigm which is our natural human tendency but not necessarily the future norm as this election suggests.
imacca @ #226 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:55 am
Green hydrogen + gas turbine = electricity + desalination plant 😉
Pi @ #212 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:45 am
Liberal? Seriously?
I believe in renewables … but … have a look at this graph …
https://www.statista.com/statistics/238610/projected-world-electricity-generation-by-energy-source/
Notice something? Virtually no decline in fossil fuel usage predicted out past 2050. That’s because even with spectacular growth predicted, renewables are only meeting new demand, not existing demand. And no decline in fossil fuel usage means no decline in greenhouse gas emissions.
Under those circumstances, net zero is nothing more than a pipe dream. Both major parties are using the smokescreen of CCS to pretend we can reach it. But CCS technology has so far failed spectacularly at every attempt (e.g. see the Gorgon CCS project).
Dream your lovely green dreams by all means. But don’t take the rest of us down with you.
P1: “Liberal? Seriously? ”
lol.
P1: “Dream your lovely green dreams by all means. ”
lol. Never let it be questioned again which way ya voted in Gilmore.
caf @ #221 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 11:50 am
The key point here is “at the necessary scale”.
Not sure a Lib-Lab preference deal is ever going to work.
They’ve spent decades putting each other last of virtually last yet all of a sudden they are best buddies even above other parties they are closer to policy wise?
The electorate are not stupid and treating them as though they are is the way to not getting elected.
Pi @ #231 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 12:03 pm
Do you agree with all the policies of the party you voted for?
I doubt anyone would, if they bothered to actually look at them in detail.
Zeh: “Green hydrogen + gas turbine = electricity + desalination plant”
Desalination alone will be an excellent use of variable power like renewables.
Cronus says:
Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 11:32 am
Pi says:
Thursday, May 26, 2022 at 9:58 am
“Sometimes people like to change the curtains, because they just like to change the curtains.” https://t.co/yFerbtNdhj
If after all she’s seen and written this is SM’s take on what happened then she’s as deluded as the Coalition and residing on another planet.
********
She’s quoting Morrison quoting Barnaby. Reporting, not commentary.
Solar is not the environmental saviour people make it out to be.
https://reneweconomy.com.au/sun-cable-unveils-staggering-scale-of-worlds-biggest-solar-and-battery-project/
12000 hectares of land must be cleared with nothing ever growing back. I know this country it is not desert. To give you some idea of size Melbourne’s CBD is 640 hectares
If your serious about climate change nuclear must be an option.
Boerwar. Joe Hildebrand same same.
Curtains changed ? I thought it was the wallpaper that got changed. It was too menacing.
If anyone is looking for an example of people thinking “it’s deep in the ground, put the nuclear waste there”, and the cost of cleaning up after doing it, have a review of the ASSE II mine in Germany.
https://gnssn.iaea.org/meetings/wasteconference2016/Shared%20Documents/Session%203b%20-%20VLLW/Oral/Presentations%20PPT/03b-04-137_Dose.pdf
Look at the LNP guys P1 and Steelydan sticking together on the nuclear industry ship of no hopers.
The House Standing Committee on Economics is one of parliament’s most powerful institutions.
Of the five Liberal members it had when the election was called, all bar one were casualties. And the only survivor – the LNP’s Garth Hamilton – had a 7.7 per cent swing against him, eroding what had been an exceedingly safe 70.5 per cent two-party vote at a 2020 by-election.
Not so lucky are the last two chairmen, Wilson and Jason Falinski, both succumbing to teal challenges (from journalist Zoe Daniel and doctor Sophie Scamps respectively). Both men were public critics of the superannuation system, which Paul Keating has gloated was a key factor in their electoral annihilation.
But that doesn’t explain the committee’s other departures, the Coalition’s leading economic advocates and thinkers mostly adding to the (admittedly very short) unemployment queues.
Consider committee member Celia Hammond, a West Australian who fell to another independent. Or keyboard warrior Andrew Laming, who stepped down upon the election’s calling after his party stripped him of preselection.
Also seeking new employment is the lesser-known Julian Simmonds, another Queenslander who lost his inner-city seat in Brisbane’s green wave. Spooky.
https://www.afr.com/rear-window/the-curse-of-the-house-economics-committee-20220525-p5aoes
It probably lessons the power of my vote but I put Labor 2nd and on the odd occasion liberal 2nd, enough with the nutters. We seem a long way off the maturity shown in some of the Northern European countries, 151 independents bloody hell.
Never understood the wish to put nuclear waste underground. Much better to have safe groundlevel storage. Easy to monitor and if something goes wrong chance to fix. Plus also recycling possibilities. Out of site out of mind not so clever.
This made me laugh so hard
———-
Peta Louise Mary Crwtin Unaustralian
Rich white man who crashed his $120k car in 2021 claims Independants are “loud, entitled and rich”. Tim Smith is back on Twitter leading the demise of the Liberals in Victoria. Stay tuned for more.
#springst https://t.co/ALHx86qgh9
caf’s take on nuclear as an option in oz is just about spot on. Renewables are cheaper than any other alternative in Oz, their costs are decreasing, the costs of the alternatives are increasing, and that spread is only going to get larger and larger over time. A trend that I’ve noced amongst the no-hoper “muh nucular” set is their affinity for watching youtube.
To quote my non political wife, “she should not have said that because people can not help their looks. But she is right!”
Bob Hawke floated the idea that Australia would do well financially by taking the worlds nuclear waste.
Excerpt
“Australia is generally regarded as a flat and seismically inert continent that is safe from any serious earthquake hazard.”
As for firing up nuclear reactors in Australia??
Europe has vast water supplies. Australia does not & last time Howard proposed reactors the planned position of reactors were in National Park waterways & high density tourism on the east coast.
Pi @ #235 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 12:05 pm
Indeed, but in this instance I meant as a direct (only) byproduct of burning hydrogen
Pi @ #241 Thursday, May 26th, 2022 – 12:11 pm
I routinely get called everything under the sun here. I even often get called a Green. So if you think you are insulting me, you are not even getting warm.
I guess the reason is that I follow no readily identifiable party line. Instead, I actually think for myself on the particular issues that are of concern to me. People who only think along party lines can’t seem to cope with that.