Unpredictable Roy Morgan has violated the laws of nature by publishing a face-to-face poll on a Thursday (which surely makes more sense than its normal practice of placing it in the news cycle dead zone of late Friday). This has Labor’s two-party lead up 1.5 per cent on the rather unusual previous face-to-face poll, which was half conducted before Christmas and half after new year, from 57-43 to 58.5-41.5. The figures show a pretty straightforward exchange between the two parties on the primary vote, with Labor up two points to 45.5 per cent and the Coalition down 1.5 to 35.5 per cent and the Greens steady on 10.
Elsewhere:
• After 22 years in parliament, Bob McMullan has announced he will not contest the next election, opening a vacancy in his safe Labor ACT seat of Fraser. Susanna Dunkerley of AAP reports that McMullan denies having been pushed, “despite recently declaring his intention to stick around for another term”. Furthermore, James Massola of the Canberra Times reports Annette Ellis is under pressure to make way for new blood in the other ACT seat, Canberra. Constitutional lawyer George Williams, who recently moved to Canberra and was reportedly Kevin Rudd’s choice to contest the safe Sydney seat of Blaxland in 2007, was said to be planning a preselection challenge against McMullan last October. However, a number of reports have identified the front-runner as Nick Martin, the party’s assistant national secretary. Other possible starters named by Massola are Andrew Leigh, Australian National University economist and prolific blogger, and Chris Bourke, a dentist of Aboriginal heritage who ran in Ginninderra at the 2008 ACT election. Both are factionally unaligned, which might be an asset as they seek to succeed the similarly placed McMullan. Another Canberra Times report mentions Michael Cooney, chief-of-staff to ACT MP Andrew Barr and former adviser to Mark Latham and Kim Beazley. Those whose names were floated but have since ruled themselves out are ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope, Deputy Chief Minister Katy Gallagher and prime ministerial chief-of-staff Alister Jordan. Jonathan Pearlman of the Sydney Morning Herald reports an ALP national executive meeting on February 12 is likely to decide whether the candidate will be chosen locally or imposed externally.
• Samantha Maiden of The Australian reports Malcolm Turnbull is “being urged by supporters and business leaders to make a run for New South Wales premier in 2011”, firstly by replacing Peter Debnam in Vaucluse, which is located entirely within his existing electorate of Wentworth. Debnam has now confirmed what he describes as an “open secret”, that he won’t be contesting the seat at the next election. It had already been established that University of NSW deputy chancellor Gabrielle Upton would contest preselection, and numerous others have been named in connection with the seat: former John Howard chief-of-staff Arthur Sinodinos, restaurateur Peter Doyle, barrister Mark Speakman, UNSW Deputy Chancellor Gabrielle Upton and barrister Arthur Moses. Also mentioned was Paul Fletcher, before he landed his federal gig in Bradfield. There have also been suggestions, reiterated in Samantha Maiden’s report, that Joe Hockey might assume the seat with Turnbull’s support as an entree to the premiership.
• A couple of Labor national executive preselection determinations that had sliipped through the net. Michelle Rowland, a former Blacktown councillor and member of the Right faction, will contest Greenway, which the redistribution has transformed from 4.5 per cent Liberal to 5.8 per cent Labor (the sitting Liberal member, Louise Markus, will contest Macquarie). Holding Redlich lawyer Laura Smyth, whom Andrew Landeryou at VexNews links to the “Andrew Giles/Alan Griffin sub-faction of the Socialist Left”, will run in the outer eastern Melbourne seat of La Trobe, where Liberal member Jason Wood survived a 5.3 per cent swing in 2007 to hold on by 0.5 per cent. Human Services and Financial Services Minister Chris Bowen will contest McMahon, which is effectively a reincarnation of his existing abolished seat of Prospect.
• Chas Hopkins, 60-year-old former Perth Lord Mayor, has nominated for Labor preselection in the marginal Perth seat of Cowan, where the party has admitted it is struggling to find a replacement for Wanneroo mayor Jon Kelly who doesn’t share his connections with Brian Burke. Other confirmed starters are party state executive member Alex Banzic and political staffer Sam Roe.
ruawake @ # 2600
[There is plenty of water in Australia – and the world. If you did not know it is the most abundant molecule on the earths surface. About 70% is covered by it. ]
Hence the line in our National Anthem “Our Home is Girt By Sea” 🙂
Rua@2600:
[There is plenty of water in Australia – and the world. If you did not know it is the most abundant molecule on the earths surface. About 70% is covered by it. ]
Sure, and it is contaminated by salt.
Rua, that is a dumb comment.
Go into the centre of Australia sometime, walk a few days away from the road, then tell us there is plenty of water in Australia.
If I was a Liberal living in an inner city seat I would certainly vote Green – just as Liberals in the Fremantle by-election did, and for the same reason. Not only does it look bad for Labor to lose seats to the Greens, it forces Labor to divert resources to defend inner city seats that would otherwise be used to fight the Libs in the marginals. Plus it increases the pressure on Labor to move to the left in policy terms, which makes Labor more vulnerable to the Libs and Nats, particularly in regional seats.
I don’t know how many people get expelled from the ALP. Not many I would think.
ru
There’s plenty of water in the top half of Australia on the coast and down in Tassie. Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne might have to move though.
One of the perverse consequences of global warming is that rainfall in northern Australia will increase as tropical weather patterns move south.
Psephos
Do you think many people vote that strategically?
The biggest example I can remember of strategic voting was when Rush told Republican voters to vote for Hillary in primary in a couple of states that allowed that. It might have got her a couple of % but it wasn’t much.
[Rua, that is a dumb comment.
Go into the centre of Australia sometime, walk a few days away from the road, then tell us there is plenty of water in Australia.]
Don, with respect, that is a dumb comment. Potable water is availble in the vast majority of places people live. I have lived in Alice – the Todd was dry – the taps still worked.
Diog
Crud as usual. 😛 When did Perth, Adelaide or Melbourne last run out of water?
Has anyone thought to measure the improvement or deterioration of academic achievent during the period spent at a school by each student?
I have a disabled grandson who, if he was in a regular school, would pull down the average achievement quite obviously. His good luck is to be in an excellent special school, where his tiny little improvements are marked and used.
If we could get a comparison of achievement at the start of the first grade covered by the school to the final year, we would be able to get better information. Even then the mix of students would affect results, specially in smaller schools.
Measuring improvement or deterioration in expected performance should even things out, specially in the country schools.
Employ more public servants and the population will drop.
Then we can handle higher immigration.
[Public Service Association general secretary Jan McMahon said in 1991, the state’s public sector employed almost 19,000 more people than it does today, despite the population growing by 214,000 over that time, she said.]
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-national/sa-govt-to-cut-750m-from-public-service-20100129-n3rp.html
For every public servant job cut the population grew by 15! therefore employ 100,000 public servants and we would be able to handle an extra 1.5 million in immigration due to decrease in population.
Castle
Start with your job perhaps??
[There is plenty of water in Australia – and the world. ]
Potable water for double the current Australian population? Not without damming every viable watercourse in eastern Australia. Of course this will severely impact on much coastal flora and fauna. Should this just be sacrificed because we want more and more people in Australia. And, as Traveston non-Dam shows, suitable sites are very rare and still likely to create difficulties.
Or do we divert tens of billions to desalination plants which require large quantities of energy when we are trying to adopt an energy saving economy?
Or more magic pudding?
[Or do we divert tens of billions to desalination plants which require large quantities of energy when we are trying to adopt an energy saving economy?]
Its Time, Boerwar advocated spending $50-$100 billion in foreign aid per annum.
[Potable water for double the current Australian population? Not without damming every viable watercourse in eastern Australia.]
Hyperbole. 😛
I noticed Kenneally’s claim that the Sydney desal plant runs entirely on renewable energy. Can anyone confirm or refute this? What kind of energy does it use? If it’s possible to build desal plants that don’t increase GHG emissions, then that is obviously the solution to our urban water problems.
Pseph
KK
is referring to an offset program with some renewable project out west.
That’s not what she said on Facebook: “Premier Kristina Keneallyis taking the first sip of Sydney’s desal water from our new state-of-the-art desal plant. It’s completely independent of rainfall and 100% powered by renewable energy.”
Rua@2607:
[Potable water is availble in the vast majority of places people live.]
ROTFLMAO!
If there is no potable water, people die.
Thus, people live where there is potable water.
QED
It Time
#2584
“And how do we reduce our carbon footprint as a nation by 25-50% whilst doubling our population? “
Using CC to suport your anti more migrants views make your poor logical points worse
ist , World calcs on Countrys co2 will be per capita , ‘in time’ , its time , so a plus to oz
2nd migrants do exist and do already live somewhere in th World , now
So what you suggest is potental poor people (migrants) living in poor countrys using less co2 (cause they hav no TV or fridge) should stay there , and still live poor lives
instead of
coming to oz , and getting a TV and a Fridge which causes more World co2
another of your hairbain Greens ideas
Pseph
The desal plant is “matched” with a solar farm out west.
It doesnt directly power the desal plant but provides the “offset” power generation.
[If there is no potable water, people die.
Thus, people live where there is potable water.
QED]
Perfectly reasonable, that is why few people live a few days walk away from it. 🙂
Ron
Write in comprehensible English, until then don’t bother replying to me because I will not pander to someone who can’t be bothered.
So how is the Sydney desal plant powered?
Normal power “offset by the bloody !@##$$%RT%^^&&*&((*&)() renewable source out west”
OK?
Populations and the urbs being debated on 7.30 report again tonight. Some intelligent dicussion happening. Good to see.
Psephos
Unless I have it wrong, it does not really matter how an individual desal plant is powered. The salient point would be that it adds to the total energy requirements per capita.
global population being discussed on 7.30 report at the moment.
[ Some intelligent dicussion happening. Good to see.]
Care to add to it?
KPMG chappie running the RUA line on fortress Austrlia. Must be a pinko.
[So how is the Sydney desal plant powered?]
The desal plant would be connected to the grid. They buy X GWh of renewal source power from their supplier who buys it off the Capital Wind Farm at Bungendore.
ruawake
What strikes me is that we have two differences. They are quite fundamental and they would explain why we are not getting to tintacks.
Unless I am wrong:
1. You appear to believe that Australia is being run on a sustainable basis right now. I don’t.
2. You appear to believe in left/right constructs. I don’t. For the coming climate catastrophe, for the current unsustainability of our way of life, the old left/right construct will simply not address what needs to be done. In fact, my view is that this construct is fossilising stuff. We need new paradigms.
[KPMG chappie running the RUA line on fortress Austrlia. Must be a pinko.]
Magic puddinger?
Alles ist klar.
It’s Time
I believe that the fortress Australia issue is one that needs to be addressed in a serious fashion. One of the difficulties is that Australia is not the only country to be over-populated. The connection between our standard of living, our impact on our own environment, and our willingness to extend a helping hand to overpopulated countries overseas are intertwined. We literally cannot afford to be selfish. Closing our eyes to biophysical realities in Australia and overseas is short term stuff.
Not wanting to build a fortress Australia does not mean taking endless streams of people who merely add to our unsustainability. We need breakthrough stuff that shows that we are dealing fairly and equitabley – not only within our society, but between our society and the environment and between our society and the rest of the world.
We are nowhere near even coming to grips with the problem, let alone moving towards a solution. How difficult is it, really? Well, Copenhagen gave us a fair indication of the degree of difficulty.
Meanwhile, the inexorable biophysical trends reduce our options the longer we delay.
Fiddling while only Rome burns is not in it.
Psephos
I have quite a good link into the power generation industry. He informs me that the numbers are shifted around to suit whatever public pronouncements are made by governments but that there is no net increase in sustainable electricity generation.
don #2602
And yours even dumber! Just because it’s underground doesn’t mean it isn’t there!
1. “it is contaminated by salt” – which can be removed by any of a number of processes (some ancient & still effective); the main large-scale process – desalination.
2a. Buy maps of Australian artesian reserves & earn to sink a bore. The Great Artesian Basin is not the only source of underground water – not by any means!
2b. Learn to locate & recover under-bed river, creek, marsh etc water (see 2c below)
2c. Find an aboriginal expert to teach you the many ways their ancestors used to find water – if Burke & Wills had paid more attention, they’d have survived
2d. Track down The Inventors inventor who invented a way of gathering water in the desert – its use in survival kits is increasing internationally
3. Even our deserts aren’t as dry as many inhabited deserts in other continents
Boer
What say you about Jack Green
Itstime@2620:
[Ron
Write in comprehensible English, until then don’t bother replying to me because I will not pander to someone who can’t be bothered.]
Itstime, with that post you demonstrate that you are not worth replying to by anyone.
[1. You appear to believe that Australia is being run on a sustainable basis right now. I don’t.]
What is a sustainable basis? I hear lots of waffle about it, but no definition. Does a sustainable basis mean “stasis” we do nothing?
Or does it mean, we put our head in the sand and hope the exponential increase in human population goes away. Maybe pestilence or armagedon are your thing?
[2. You appear to believe in left/right constructs. I don’t. For the coming climate catastrophe, for the current unsustainability of our way of life, the old left/right construct will simply not address what needs to be done. In fact, my view is that this construct is fossilising stuff. We need new paradigms.]
We need people to accept facts, global population has been an issue since at least the 60s, what have we done? Nothing. Why not? Because people begat people.
It is not about left-right paradigms, it is about the basics of being a human being. We can solve the problems, bullshit about sustainablilty, biodiversity and what ever else you can fit on a triangular sticker do nothing.
There is one basic human instinct – to reproduce. Until you face that fact everything else is crud.
[One of the difficulties is that Australia is not the only country to be over-populated. ]
Given the difficulty that Australians have in recognising this issue in our own country, much less coming up with strategies to deal with it, how credible will we be in advising other countries of their overpopulation problems?
The most effective techniques for population control are contraception education and improving education and employment opportunities for women in a society.
Don
There are three possible reasons why Ron writes the way he does:
* He has some genuine lexical disability. If so, he should say so, and I for one will lay off criticising him immediately. (I have asked him about this in the past but he hasn’t answered).
* He really doesn’t know how to spell or write grammatically. Since his posts, when you make the effort to read them, indicate that he is a normally intelligent person, I think this is very unlikely. But again, if this is so he should say so.
* He knows how to spell and write grammatical English, but chooses not to – because he thinks it is clever or cool, or because he enjoys annoying people, or for some other reason I can’t guess at. If this is so, he deserves to be criticised, and I will go on doing so when I feel like it, and so will others.
don 2636
I don’t care. Ron is big enough and ugly enough to look after himself.
Pseph
Illness or incapacitation, may require use of a pointer or voice recognition software.
I personally know of someone with CP who,whilst not as erudite as some here,still manages to convey her meaning(s) across.
* but is it anyone’s concern really?*
OPT@2634:
I see you haven’t learned anything much about science since you pronounced a while ago that coal was created by volcanoes.
[1. “it is contaminated by salt” – which can be removed by any of a number of processes (some ancient & still effective); the main large-scale process – desalination.]
And the electricity comes from … ?
[2a. Buy maps of Australian artesian reserves & earn to sink a bore. The Great Artesian Basin is not the only source of underground water – not by any means!]
We were talking, I thought, about cities. If that was a goer, Adelaide would not have any water problems. Bloody whingers. Why don’t they sink a bore as you suggest? They need your expertise. I’m sure Dio will pass on your invaluable advice to the good burghers of Adelaide.
[2b. Learn to locate & recover under-bed river, creek, marsh etc water (see 2c below)]
I hope you are a dab hand at a pick and shovel.
[2c. Find an aboriginal expert to teach you the many ways their ancestors used to find water – if Burke & Wills had paid more attention, they’d have survived]
You’re not real good at history, either, quite apart from your difficulties with science. Burke and Wills had plenty of water, they were on Coopers Creek. Food was the problem.
[2d. Track down The Inventors inventor who invented a way of gathering water in the desert – its use in survival kits is increasing internationally]
Yep, putting plastic bags over branches of wattle will solve Australia’s water problems. Why doesn’t somebody tell them? I can see all the Goulburn people on water restrictions laying in supplies of plastic bags.
[3. Even our deserts aren’t as dry as many inhabited deserts in other continents]
Source for that? Definition of inhabited? Definition of enough water?
I’ve seen some posts by people who haven’t got a clue, but that beats most.
ru
[Crud as usual. 😛 When did Perth, Adelaide or Melbourne last run out of water?]
Umm, we’re talking about the future. Increase the population to 34M and watch it happen.
[Illness or incapacitation, may require use of a pointer or voice recognition software.]
If that’s the case, Ron should say so, instead of giving us nonsense about Shakespeare.
[What is a sustainable basis? I hear lots of waffle about it, but no definition. Does a sustainable basis mean “stasis” we do nothing?]
A sustainable basis is where the rate of extraction of a resource from the environment is matched by its rate of replacement. It’s analogous to living off the interest generated by your capital, not eating into your capital. If your rate of extraction is too high, you will eventually run out of the resource. Look at the worldwide collapse of fisheries.
Phespos
Not quite clear. but close
New thread.