Tag Archives: The Greens

Adani casts a long shadow over Batman

Bill Shorten probably knows Labor can’t win the byelection in the Melbourne seat Batman while supporting the far-away Adani coal mining project at Carmichael in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland. So he looks set to oppose the mine.

However, Queensland LNP senators Matt Canavan and Ian Macdonald and Capricornia MP Michelle Landry have invited Shorten to come to Townsville to explain his position there, and ultimately that is what he must do. Continue reading Adani casts a long shadow over Batman

Saturday salon 15/7

1. Electric shock

The big story in Australian politics this week was the shocking state of the political debate on electricity. Giles Parkinson says, when you thought it couldn’t get any dumber, it did.

‘People will die due to renewables’, said Turnbull government MP Craig Kelly.

Commentators who don’t understand the grid should butt out of the battery debate, said Ketan Joshi, a communications consultant for the renewable energy industry. Continue reading Saturday salon 15/7

Saturday salon 14/1

1. Sussan Ley takes one for the team

Health and sports minister Sussan Ley took one for the team and resigned before inquiries into her expenses had concluded. Apparently while she was there journalists who currently have nothing much else to report on were digging into everyone’s business, like the four ministers attending the PM’s private New Year function.

Earlier Bronwyn Bishop amused everyone by saying that criticism of Ms Ley was socialism on the march. Continue reading Saturday salon 14/1

Whither the Greens?

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Bob Brown said on several occasions “We don’t want to keep the bastards honest, we want to replace them.” It may be a time to reflect whether this is a realistic prospect, or whether the Greens will settle into being a niche party of the left.

I’d suggest the the Greens are no longer primarily a protest party for those disaffected by Labor, and to a lesser extent the LNP. Rather they a party with an ideology in their own right, based on values related to the environment, sustainability, human dignity and social justice. As such they have become an enduring part of the political furniture. But the question now is whether their trajectory to replace Labor as the main party on the left is still on course, or whether it has seriously stalled. Continue reading Whither the Greens?

Climate clippings 31

Hurricane Katrina

Severe weather alert: a busy hurricane season

That’s the forecast for 2011.

The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting a 70 per cent chance of 12 to 18 named storms, six to 10 of which are likely to reach hurricane force – with wind speeds of at least 119 kilometres per hour.

A normal season would have 11 named storms, six of them hurricanes. During 2005, which brought us Katrina, there were 28 named storms. Continue reading Climate clippings 31