1. Watch out Richard Di Natale!
Lee Lin Chin is coming to get you.
Not sure you can see this so I’ve done a screenshot:
All posts by Brian
Liberal Party shootout brings changing of the guard
Or does it?
- In breaking news out of the nation’s capital, a rich white dude from Sydney has replaced another rich white dude from Sydney as the Prime Minister.
And:
- in even more sensational news, a rich white woman has been replaced by a rich white man for the Deputy Prime Ministership, with Josh Frydenberg taking over from Julie Bishop.
Scott Morrison, the new rich dude, is selling himself as a generational change and it’s all about you, the voter. A 64 year-old and a 62 year-old have been replaced by a 50 year-old and a 47 year-old.
Certainly we dodged a bullet in what may have been Malcolm Turnbull’s finest hour in thwarting Peter Dutton’s rebellion. So where does that leave us, especially in relation to climate change? Continue reading Liberal Party shootout brings changing of the guard
A fight for the soul of the Liberal Party
- “This is a fight for the heart and the soul of the Liberal party,” says one moderate MP. “These people surrounding Dutton – these people are not Liberals, they are not conservatives, they are fucking reactionaries, and I have nothing but contempt for them.”
That comment came from the end of Katherine Murphy’s remarkable article Turnbull shows no mercy as warring Liberals tear out the party’s heart and soul. Continue reading A fight for the soul of the Liberal Party
CEOs recoil in horror at leadership spill
The headline in the AFR was Leadership spill: ‘Someone threw a grenade in the swamp’ – CEOs recoil, raising the spectre of capital flight.
APA Group chief executive Mick McCormack, whose company owns gas pipelines and is building wind and solar farms in Queensland and WA, said it was disappointing after the government secured “broad agreement” on the National Energy Guarantee to see “politics blow it up, destroy it, crush it”.
In fact:
- Ed McManus, chief executive of wind farm operator Kiwi-owned Meridian Energy Australia and its retail arm Powershop, raised the spectre of international capital flight in response to the chaos in Canberra.
The die is cast – Turnbull chooses political power over the future of the planet and humanity
Here are the last four feature articles from Giles Parkinson at RenewEconomy (as of last weekend):
- Coalition votes to kill renewables, encourage new coal generation
- Gupta launches 1GW renewable plan at Cultana solar project
- Gupta: ACCC underwriting idea may help slash solar costs to $20s/MWh
- South Australia will be at 100% renewables by 2025 – market operator
It’s quite likely that politicians don’t read RenewEconomy. Here’s Ben Potter in the last Weekend AFR:
Weekly salon 18/8
1. Fraser Anning pours fuel on the flames
And some would say, vomits on the body politic.
You would have to be living under a rock if you didn’t hear about Fraser Anning’s maiden parliamentary speech, wherein he called for a return the White Australia policy, excluding Muslims and returning to Europe as the main source. The holocaust was evoked by a call for a “final solution”, being a referendum on immigration policy. From his speech:
- We as a nation are entitled to insist that those who are allowed to come here predominantly reflect the historic European Christian composition of Australian society and embrace our language, culture and values as a people.
And:
- The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote. We don’t need a plebiscite to cut immigration numbers; we just need a government that is willing to institute a sustainable population policy, end Australian-job-stealing 457 visas and make student visas conditional on foreign students returning to the country they came from. What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here.
Monsanto pinged in Roundup cancer trial
-
In the first of many pending lawsuits to go to trial, a jury in San Francisco concluded on Aug. 10 that the plaintiff had developed cancer from exposure to Roundup, Monsanto’s widely used herbicide, and ordered the company to pay US$289 million in damages.
The plaintiff, Dewayne Johnson, had used Roundup in his job as groundskeeper in a California school district. He later developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The jury awarded Johnson $39 million in compensatory damages to cover pain, suffering and medical bills due to negligence by Monsanto, plus an additional $250 million in punitive damages.
‘Populate or perish’ still a strategic imperative
Last week we passed the 25 million population mark. (See the ABS media release and fact sheet.) Apparently early this century we were forecast to add an extra million every seven years. Now we are doing it every two and a half years. Earlier this century we were told we’d hit 25 million in 2051. We got there 33 years early, and are told we’ll be at 40 million by 2048.
Some people are uncomfortable with this, but defence specialist Andrew Carr says that few acts would do more to undermine our long-term national security than cutting the number of migrants we take in. ‘Populate or perish’, he says, is still a strategic imperative. Continue reading ‘Populate or perish’ still a strategic imperative
Weekly salon 11/8
1. Preschool funding cut by $500 million
About the same as is going to be spent to save the Great Barrier Reef. No-one noticed until someone from the Mitchell Institute (a think tank at Victoria University) happened to be leafing through the budget papers. The Quality Agreement program for early childhood begun in 2009 is to be wound down and conclude from 30 June 2020.
- Director of the Mitchell Institute, Megan O’Connell, said Australia was already lagging the rest of the world by offering only one year of preschool for most children when two years was regarded as the international standard.
Australia ranks 23rd in the OECD in early childhood education (ECE) spending. Here we are from the NSW study A review of the effects of early childhood education: Continue reading Weekly salon 11/8
26 per cent emissions target means no certainty
The Turnbull government has effectively vacated the field on climate change mitigation. Until it shows that it is serious on the matter, there can be no certainty, no end to the climate wars.
The Energy Security Board working for the Turnbull government has come up with a National Energy Guarantee which does no work on emissions reduction, because the target of 26% will be met almost as soon as the policy becomes operational. From the post NEG becomes a farce, this is what is forecast to happen:
Continue reading 26 per cent emissions target means no certainty
NEG becomes a farce
Malcolm Turnbull specialises in scapegoating and threatening, while Josh Frydenberg sits there looking vacant, as well he might, until it’s his turn.
Danny Price in an article well worth reading, says Politicians have destroyed the trust needed to make the NEG work.
Kane Thornton CEO of the Clean Energy Council says NEG car is worth buying, even if tyres need pumping up, the flat tyre to him being the 26% emissions reduction target, which will be met by work under way before the NEG starts. If you want to use that analogy, the NEG is like a car without an engine, because it does no work.
David Leitch has two compelling articles – Energy (In)security Board and its modelling spreadsheet and Know your NEM: The ESB is becoming a laughing stock. If, however, you want to read just one article, read Simon Holmes à Court’s NEG promises death of wind and solar, and even battery storage. Continue reading NEG becomes a farce
Weekly salon 5/8
1. Australia responsible for ‘preventable’ death of asylum seeker
Sadly, for me this was the story of the week:
- On 23 August, 2014, Kehazaei presented to the Manus Island medical clinic with flu-like symptoms and a small lesion on his leg. The clinic did not have the basic antibiotic to treat his common tropical infection, and, despite treatment, Kehazaei’s condition deteriorated rapidly.
Doctors on the island urged his immediate transfer to Australia but this was first ignored – including by department of immigration bureaucrats who didn’t read their emails for up to 13 hours – and then rejected by the department. Continue reading Weekly salon 5/8