We’re not likely to see anything on the polling front this week, but there is other electoral news to relate following recent parliamentary vacancies and party defections:
• The Sydney Morning Herald reports preselection nominees to fill the late Jim Molan’s New South Wales Liberal Senate vacancy are likely to include Andrew Constance, former state minister and unsuccessful candidate for Gilmore, and Fiona Scott, who held the lower house seat of Lindsay from 2013 to 2016, together with reported front-runner Dallas McInerney, chief executive of Catholic Schools NSW. Constance and Scott are associated with the moderation faction, while McInerney is a conservative. Mary-Lou Jarvis, lawyer and Woollahra councillor, has also written to senior party figures staking her claim as a qualified woman and the third candidate on the ticket at last year’s election, while also criticising the party’s apparent intention to leave the position vacant until after the state election on March 25.
• The Australian reports the Liberal hierarchy’s hopes of fielding a female candidate for the Aston by-election stand to be complicated by the entry into the field of Emanuele Cicchiello, who is rated a strong chance by sources close to eastern suburbs conservative powerbroker and Deakin MP Michael Sukkar. However, other unidentified sources, “including some with strong Right faction allegiances”, rubbished the notion. Cicchiello is deputy prinicipal of Lighthouse Christian College, a former mayor of Knox and contestant for the seat of Bruce in 2013 and numerous preselections since. All other noted contenders have been women with the exception of Andrew Asten, a former staffer to Alan Tudge, who has since ruled himself out. Anthony Galloway of the Age/Herald reports the matter could be determined by a plebisicite of local members, which have lately proved resistant to female candidates, if the by-election is set for a date that allows sufficient time.
• Victorian Senator Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from the Greens last week marked the first change to party representation in parliament since the election, with the Senate numbers now at Coalition 32, Labor 26, Greens 11, One Nation two, Jacqui Lambie Network two, United Australia Party one and two independents, namely Thorpe and David Pocock. This leaves the government needing two extra votes when the Greens are on board and the Coalition are not, where formerly it needed only one. Thorpe was elected to a six-year term at the election last May, which will extend to the middle of 2028.
BiC – I seem to recall that this ‘waiting on the results of the B sample’ comes up regularly in sports drug detection cases, so I’m pretty sure this is standard practice to act on (and publish) the A sample result while the B sample is analysed.
Why this is the way it is I don’t know, but I would guess that timeliness with respect to competitions is considered more important than procedural fairness.
sprocket_ @ #56 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 9:05 am
Didn’t I warn you about Aramex? 😐
Rossmcgsays:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 1:10 pm
Bol in his statement today clearly indicates the A result was leaked and that matches my recollection.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/peter-bol-says-b-sample-is-negative-clearing-him-of-doping/101970920
Jackol
yep, that’s the way it happens. Although there have been exceptions, for famous tennis players I seem to recall.
Your A sample is positive you are suspended.
And the process starts.
Imagine if somebody with a positive test was allowed to continue competing and the B sample was also positive?
It’s great that Bol is in the clear, as traumatic as it has been for him.
Sadly his denials of drug taking would have fallen on deaf ears in some circles.
That’s what many before him have said.
Boerwar says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 1:08 pm
…an investigation that ultimately resulted in the pilots receiving additional training”, a United spokesperson, Josh Freed, said in a statement to the Guardian about the incident. “Safety remains our highest priority.”
Eye watering statement
Here we go again says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 12:52 pm
And in regards the daily headlines re “mortgage stress”
The eldest of our 4 children across our blended family is now approaching 40 (how did that happen?)
When purchasing their homes, they borrowed to 80% of the purchase price (80% LVR being the maximum borrowing).
Despite not requiring all of the amount borrowed to settle the transaction.
The borrowings were between $425,000- and $550,000- respectively.
I have asked them re any “mortgage stress”.
“Nah, we did what you said and have been servicing the principal plus interest borrowing as if the interest rate was 6%, so we now have a very handy buffer”
A hug and a thumbs up.
My wife and I?
We have been mortgage free since we married, so for over 25 years.
The difference being debt free makes to your life style is dramatic.
We have told our children that also.
No doubt they will tell their children.
The media do not publish stories such as this – just not a headline which sells their rubbish
____________
Consumers can put downwards pressure on housing prices – by making certain choices.
One day, Ms Snappy and I may need to buy in Sydney. We might be able to pay $700k. There are 3 bedroom Sydney properties available for that price. They even appear to be in good condition. Many are apartments, some are townhouses and occasionally there’s a free standing house.
Fortunately, we like the idea of living in a “multicultural” area (an excellent euphemism/dog whistle) and don’t own a boat.
AE,
I read a couple of articles which suggested that the first balloon takedown was actually quite tricky. The US wanted to take out the balloon rather than the payload, so as to preserve as much of the payload as possible for analysis. The balloon itself would actually have a very small radar signature, if any, being made out of a relatively flimsy non metallic material, and being most likely filled with a lighter than air gas like hydrogen or helium, would have basically no heat signature either. then there’s the problem of detonation, as the balloon would not generally trigger either the contact or proximity fuses.
According to these articles the Aim-9x sidewinder used was heavily modified with a special fuse (it didn’t say but presumably timer based or remotely operated detonation), and it sounded like the sidewinder was basically operating like a dumb rocket in this instance. No doubt they used a sidewinder as it’s the smallest and cheapest of the standard US AA missiles, and AFAIK US high altitude fighters such as the F-22 have lacked capacity for FFARs for quite some time.
If the sidewinder was basically unguided, then presumably the F22 would have had to be at or close to the altitude of the Balloon, and approaching it head on or directly from behind so as to minimise the amount of deflection required when taking the shot.
I’d actually be fascinated to hear the full details 🙂
Someone needs to check the numbers on that United article…
Boeing 777-200 had reached an altitude of roughly 2,200ft when it began a steep dive, descending at a rate of about 8,600ft a minute. After dipping below 775ft, the flight recovered altitude
Dive rate eq 143’/sec… 775’ would have taken an additional 5.5 sec! though the levelling off would have started well before the 775’
Sceptic,
“a steep dive”?
More likely a very nasty downdraft.
Scomo said his holding those secret ministries was just a precaution and he wouldn’t use the powers.
Well no.
Morrison’s decision to cancel the gas exploration application has been tossed in the Federal court.
“On Tuesday Justice Darren Jackson quashed Morrison’s decision and remitted the application back to the joint authority to decide according to law.
Justice Jackson said it was “unnecessary” to determine if Morrison was validly appointed, but agreed there was “a proper basis to conclude that the decision was affected by apprehended bias”.
He said:
In this case, Mr Morrison’s public comments might lead a fair-minded observer to reasonably apprehend that when he did come to deliberate on the matter, sometime between 10 and 14 December 2021, his mind might have been closed to persuasion.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2023/feb/14/australia-politics-live-vanuatu-anthony-albanese-peter-dutton-reconstruction-fund-reserve-bank-interest-rates-philip-lowe-cost-of-living-people-smugglers-protection-visas?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-63eaea278f082572e3bba2e2#block-63eaea278f082572e3bba2e2
Hey pageboi (1:23pm): that’s fascinating stuff.
However, it doesn’t seem that either the airframe or any ‘5th generation’ aspect of the F-22 was a required capability per se.
If this becomes a regular threat, then modified versions of either the MQ-9 or its turbo-fan successor – the MQ-20 – would appear to be the appropriate platforms to adapt to ‘ballon warfare’ (let’s party like its 1917 all over again, lol). Or. Maybe some high altitude Sopwith camels with ‘Buckingham’ incendiary shot in their twin Vickers. Tally ho, Biggles …
Brief update on Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut:
“Ukrainian defenders who have held out for months are braced for new ground attacks, Ukrainian military officials have said. The eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is facing heavy artillery fire, according to local officials. “The city, the city’s suburbs, the entire perimeter, and essentially the entire Bakhmut direction and Kostyantynivka are under crazy, chaotic shelling,” said Volodymyr Nazarenko, deputy commander of Ukraine’s Svoboda battalion. The Ukrainian military reported 16 settlements had been bombarded near Bakhmut.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy thanked Ukrainian soldiers for “preventing the occupiers from encircling Bakhmut”. The capture of Bakhmut would give Russia a new foothold in the Donetsk region and constitute a rare victory after months of setbacks.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/14/russia-ukraine-war-at-a-glance-what-we-know-on-day-35-of-the-invasion
Here’s to the brave Ukrainian defenders, trying to keep Russia from making more gains that would have to be reversed in the coming counteroffensive. Good luck to them!
Senate Estimates WhackoWatch ™
1. Liberal Senator Antic spent 15 minutes attempting to get a definition of Aboriginal from the Attorney General’s department
2. Liberal Senator Rennick attempted to get the AFP to investigate the ‘corrupt public servants’ who had approved Covid vaccines, which he had proof had caused multiple deaths.
Peter Bol is about the first athlete in history to get a negative B Sample after the A sample was tested.
Usually the B sample confirms the A…
Antic is special. Expect more of this stuff.
The Shadow Treasurer asks a question of the pm, harking back to the Cash Rate being increased in 2006
What the Shadow Treasurer did not mention is that in that Mining Boom Phase 1 and the transmission of those proceeds to tax cuts for business and high income earners resulting in inflation, the Cash Rate went to 7.25%
Today it is at 3.35%, less than half of where it went to under Howard and Costello
Then came the GFC and the reduction in the Cash Rate to 4%, still above the Cash Rate today
The Shadow Treasurer highlights the decline of the Liberal Party, once the political party of big business
And the decline of those representing it from the days of Chaney, McPhee, Georgiou et al
As Malcolm Fraser said, the Liberal Party is no longer a liberal party
Sky News ramping up some anti-China sentiment with a special ‘Are we Ready for War?’
Boerwar will be watching with biccies.
Honestly question time is a waste of time.
Nath. Do you think they will be iced vovos?
wranslidesays: Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 2:51 pm
Nath. Do you think they will be iced vovos?
***********************************************************************
Nah, Chinese Fortune Cookies
nath at 2:44 pm
The extant ‘Groupers demographic’ will be thrilled and energized with those visions of battling ‘godless commies’.
What’s the bet the answer will be ‘No’ and the solution to spend $Gazillions more on ‘defence’ ? Anyone questioning this solution must of course have questionable loyalties.
wranslide says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 2:51 pm
Nath. Do you think they will be iced vovos?
_______
A good chance. Although a case of Family Assorted is another possibility.
I saw an excerpt of Hastie making the case for an imminent WW3.
Australia is next after Taiwan apparently. And there were images of Australian cities bathed in a red Light.
These could indicate a Communist Menace, a Nuclear attack or Lunar New Years.
Would the Chinese make the Wombat our National Animal immediately on successful invasion?
One thing is for certain: there is no stopping them; the Chinese will soon be here. And I for one welcome our new overlords. I’d like to remind them that as a trusted online personality, I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground lithium mines.
Chinese balloon sensors recovered from ocean, says US
The sensors from a suspected Chinese spy balloon shot down after crossing the US have been recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, the US military says.
Search crews found “significant debris from the site, including all of the priority sensor and electronics pieces identified”, said US Northern Command.
The FBI is examining the items, which the US says were used to spy on sensitive military sites.
Since that first incident, American fighter jets have shot down three more high-altitude objects in as many days – over Alaska, Canada’s Yukon territory, and Lake Huron on the US-Canada border.
In the Lake Huron strike, the first Sidewinder missile fired by the US F-22 jet missed its target and exploded in an unknown location, US media reported, citing military sources. The second missile hit the target, according to reports.
Each Sidewinder missile costs over $400,000
This is excellent news 🙂
poroti: “The extant ‘Groupers demographic’ will be thrilled and energized with those visions of battling ‘godless commies’.”
‘Chicommies’ is the preferred term here … apparently.
Richard Marles lambasts Coalition over defence as Labor set to receive strategic review
The review has met with 150 different experts across academia, thinktanks, defence industry and the defence force itself. It’s received more than 360 submissions from the general public, and I have no doubt that the report that the prime minister and I are about to receive will be one of the most important works in Australia’s defence history, and the government will take some weeks to review before we announce and declassify a version of it along with our response to it.
But none of this happens in a vacuum because the decisions that this government now has to come back off the back of a lost decade of the Coalition government, the worst national security government in history. Time and again those opposite were making decisions based on politics rather than policy, such as their decision to down select the attack-class submarine program to one tenderer before they completed the design just so they could do a single press conference in the lead-up to the 2016 election.
That decision alone cost the Australian taxpayer billions of dollars. It was an epic failure. From a government which, when it left office, had 28 different defence programs running a combined 97 years over time. But the decisions of those opposite aren’t really a surprise because they never took defence seriously. Six, really seven different defence ministers in the course of nine years.
It was for them a revolving door. They could not have treated defence with more contempt because for those opposite becoming a defence minister was simply receiving a trophy. Well, let me say this. The defence strategic review ushers in a new era of defence policy in this country.
Why Commission the bloke who was head of the ADF when alot of
the shit decisions were taken to review it all again and offer tips on the future?
The MPI today, taken by Andrew Hastie, is on the last Labor government’s defence spending cuts.
2013-2021 is a black hole.
Nothing that happened then is relevant.
The Libs really are a sad bunch.
Antic is a good sport. When, today, he afforded Pezzullo the opportunity to humiliate him, which Pezzullo duly did, Antic generously put it up on Facebook.
My goodness that question today from Elizabeth Watson-Brown was ill conceived and just plain silly.
Otherwise from what I saw of Q time Labor absolutely monstered the Tories today.
labor should sack mike pezzullo he is clearly close to dutton i think minns is following a similar stratigy to albanese in nsqw
poroti says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 3:00 pm
nath at 2:44 pm
Sky News ramping up some anti-China sentiment with a special ‘Are we Ready for War?’
The extant ‘Groupers demographic’ will be thrilled and energized with those visions of battling ‘godless commies’.
What’s the bet the answer will be ‘No’ and the solution to spend $Gazillions more on ‘defence’ ? Anyone questioning this solution must of course have questionable loyalties.
________________________________________________________
No sane person wants a war. The good news is that neither China nor the United States want a war either. The slightly not-so-good news is that war may break out if either power pushes the other where they don’t want to go, or can’t back off from a self-declared “line in the sand”.
For an instructive historical lesson on how events can spiral out of control and take countries into a conflict no one wants, read Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.
There is no doubt that China has become more bellicose in recent times, declaring sovereignty over parts of the South China Sea which are in international waters, and muscling up to Taiwan; making more frequent threats to its independence.
The United States and other democratic countries must stand up to China over such excesses and must also do what they can about its appalling human rights situation.
At the same time, all powers must do what they can to avoid this spilling over into outright confrontations. It’s not easy, but such balancing acts are unavoidable until our world reaches a point where all countries appreciate the folly of war.
Now that his attempt to replace Molan has aborted, Abbott’s latest attempt at relevancy:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/tony-abbott-s-scots-college-speech-angers-parents-20230213-p5ck65.html
600,000 murdered Tibetans may not get the funny side of some of the commentary about how harmless the Chicommies are.
7 million Hong Kong people used to enjoy a democracy and the liberal freedoms. Ask them to laugh at your jokes.
While you are at it you might explain to the 25 million Taiwanese that you all propose to laugh your heads off when they get the Xi ‘treatment’ instead of the democracy they prefer.
Or perhaps you might like to have a giggle with the million Uighers who are in concentration camps?
If you want to get really personal you might have a chortle with the 30 million mothers who aborted their female fetuses because the comrades had decided that they were only allowed to have one offspring. Lots of ranting and raving about Pell. But that would have to be the THE gender crime of the past two centuries.
These balloons are a distraction from the actual war taking place in Ukraine. I suspect they have been sent for one purpose: to get the West nervous about their own backyard so they will be less likely to ramp up weapon and ammo deliveries where they are actually desperately needed now. Either Russia has sent them directly, or China is doing it as a relatively cost-free favour to them.
nath says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 3:02 pm
I saw an excerpt of Hastie making the case for an imminent WW3.
nath says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 3:03 pm
Australia is next after Taiwan apparently. And there were images of Australian cities bathed in a red Light.
These could indicate a Communist Menace, a Nuclear attack or Lunar New Years.
____________
Any mention of dominoes?
”
Socratessays:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 1:54 pm
Scomo said his holding those secret ministries was just a precaution and he wouldn’t use the powers.
Well no.
Morrison’s decision to cancel the gas exploration application has been tossed in the Federal court.
“On Tuesday Justice Darren Jackson quashed Morrison’s decision and remitted the application back to the joint authority to decide according to law.
Justice Jackson said it was “unnecessary” to determine if Morrison was validly appointed, but agreed there was “a proper basis to conclude that the decision was affected by apprehended bias”.
He said:
In this case, Mr Morrison’s public comments might lead a fair-minded observer to reasonably apprehend that when he did come to deliberate on the matter, sometime between 10 and 14 December 2021, his mind might have been closed to persuasion.”
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/live/2023/feb/14/australia-politics-live-vanuatu-anthony-albanese-peter-dutton-reconstruction-fund-reserve-bank-interest-rates-philip-lowe-cost-of-living-people-smugglers-protection-visas?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with:block-63eaea278f082572e3bba2e2#block-63eaea278f082572e3bba2e2
”
Based on this ruling Morrison should resign from parliament.
Latest Morgan.
ALP two-party preferred support decreases; ALP 56.5% L-NP 43.5%.
https://roymorganresearch.cmail19.com/t/j-l-ezhjdl-ouhituihd-d/
Weekly update= https://roymorganresearch.cmail19.com/t/j-l-ezhjdl-ouhituihd-r/
It’s interesting to note that the Bill the House is debating today is the Morrison Multiple Ministries Bill. 🙂
“U.S. officials told Ukraine’s representatives at a meeting at the Pentagon that it doesn’t have enough Army Tactical Missile Systems to give any up to Ukraine, according to four people familiar with the matter, Politico reported.
Providing ATACMS to Ukraine would diminish American stockpiles and hinder the U.S. military’s readiness for any future fight, the people told Politico.
“With any package, we always consider our readiness and our own stocks while providing Ukraine what it needs on the battlefield,” a senior Defense Department official told Politico. “There are other ways of providing Ukraine with the capabilities it needs to strike the targets.”
The U.S. has also refused to provide Ukraine with the long-range missiles over fears the missiles could be used to attack deep inside Russian territory.
According to one of the people who spoke to Politico, Ukraine is considering asking for the Biden administration’s approval to buy ATACMS from allied countries that operate the weapons, such as South Korea, Poland, Romania, Greece, Turkey, Qatar, and Bahrain, with U.S. military financing.”
https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/politico-us-says-it-wont-send-ukraine-long-range-missiles-as-it-has-too-few
To be honest, I think GLSDB’s give Ukraine more bang for America’s buck than ATACMS, and are less likely to be intercepted by Russian anti-missile defence into the bargain. I fully get why President Zelenskyy wants ATACMS – he has to respond to protect his people from deadly and destructive missile attacks launched from deep within Russian territory, but for some reason is being told by all and sundry that it would be unacceptable for him to strike those same targets in Russia. However, Ukraine’s military priority is to drive Russian units from Ukrainian soil, and that objective could be much more achievable with (say) 2,500 GLSDB’s than with 100 ATACMS missiles for the same price. So, I don’t think it is necessarily bad news for Ukraine that the US won’t give them ATACMS missiles.
The Silver Bodgie @ #192 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:33 pm
Mortgage interest rate and cost of living increases. 😐
The Silver Bodgie @ #192 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:33 pm
Hollywood Albo losing his shine …?
C@tmomma says:
Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 4:36 pm
The Silver Bodgie @ #192 Tuesday, February 14th, 2023 – 4:33 pm
Latest Morgan.
ALP two-party preferred support decreases; ALP 56.5% L-NP 43.5%.
https://roymorganresearch.cmail19.com/t/j-l-ezhjdl-ouhituihd-d/
Weekly update=https://roymorganresearch.cmail19.com/t/j-l-ezhjdl-ouhituihd-r/
Mortgage interest rate and cost of living increases.
____________
Actually, just statistically insignificant, within-margin-of-error noise.
We can therefore expect full on headlines…”Labor Support Evaporates!”
Alpha Zero : “Peter Bol is about the first athlete in history to get a negative B Sample after the A sample was tested.”
I imagine they just don’t make the news.
…as Closet Tory Rex just demonstrated for us.
Thanks, Rex.
The White House is unimpressed with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including the current renewed offensive:
“The Russian military is still struggling with the same problems that have plagued its year-old full-scale invasion, despite changes in high-level personnel, National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby said at a press briefing on Feb. 13.
Kirby said the Russian army’s troubles include logistics, personnel issues, and unit cohesion. “I could go on and on,” he said.
Russian dictator Vladimir Putin “is not making good decisions,” Kirby told reporters. “Clearly, he hasn’t made sound decisions, nor has his military with respect to their performance on the battlefield.”
https://kyivindependent.com/news-feed/white-house-putin-not-making-good-decisions
I think the evidence of that atrocious attempt at an assault on Vuhledar a few days ago, along with the paltry claimed 2 km of westward advance on the Donetsk front over 4 days with a concerted push, shows that Kirby is correct to be unimpressed with the Russian military and leadership in this genocidal campaign they are waging against the Ukrainian people.