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Post by pim on Mar 25, 2021 6:26:39 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on Mar 25, 2021 8:51:17 GMT 10
Murdoch is the rule of Law....Frydyberg is next Liberal leader.
Josho has the ability to remain calm and keep his head...unlike Sco D'oh who falls back on his chief headkicker days when flustered.
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Post by pim on Mar 30, 2021 12:18:15 GMT 10
If the myth is that Scott Morrison PM "leads" Australia, what is the reality? The reality is, and Scott Morrison revealed the inconvenient truth in his presser as he unveiled his new "women-sensitive" ministry, as he addressed the heavily gendered disasters to befall his misogynist government over the past month and exposed it as a protection racket for accused rapists and misogynists by giving the issue the full Scotty from Marketing spin, blather and window dressing. So now we know, because ScoMo told us so, that he does not consider himself to be Prime Minister for half of the Australian population. The female half. And by way of confirmation he has publicly identified the invisible Marise Payne as Prime Minister for Women. As for the rest of them ... Government’s lack of talent on show as Morrison unveils worst ever cabinetCrikey Michaelia Cash as the First Law Officer of the land when she refused to co-operate with a police investigation into alleged illegalities in her office as minister for industrial relations? Give me a break!
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Post by ponto on Mar 30, 2021 13:12:42 GMT 10
As a mug punter I don't know Michaelia Cash as a person, judging by appearances only she seems to be like Maggie Thatcher...smiles but the eyes are as cold as a snake about to strike....look she could be a lovely warm person as well....then Ivan Milat probably had a charming nice side.
See Mal Turnbulls has been appointed chair of the NSW Net-Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board which will see him clash with his old colleagues down in Canbubbles.
Comedy capers.
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Post by pim on Mar 30, 2021 14:16:58 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on Mar 30, 2021 16:32:34 GMT 10
Cash is a nasty piece of work...the coalition are all upper middle class bogans to upper class gronks.
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Post by ponto on Apr 5, 2021 13:33:46 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on Apr 5, 2021 14:55:14 GMT 10
Why are people so gullible with the coalition....
Government grants for community infrastructure going to private schools, golf clubs
By Nigel Gladstone April 4, 2021 — 12.00am A $335 million grants program designed to help not-for-profit organisations build “community infrastructure” is increasingly being given to private schools with the endorsement of local MPs, while also funding private golf course upgrades. The NSW Community Building Partnership (CBP) program allocates $300,000 to each electorate in the state annually to fund “infrastructure projects that deliver positive social, environmental and recreational outcomes, while promoting community participation, inclusion and cohesion”. The prestigious Scots College in Sydney’s Bellevue Hill was a recipient of community infrastructure funding.CREDIT:LOUISE KENNERLEY Sydney’s richest schools are among those receiving the grants, with almost $1 million going to private schools last year, up from $170,000 in 2009 when the scheme launched under Labor as a response to the Global Financial Crisis. A Herald analysis of the CBP grants over the last decade found more money was going to private schools in recent years. Last year, The Scots College got $30,000 for “shade structures”, a Catholic school in the Rockdale electorate got $57,100 for “beautification of our school playground”, the Sydney Catholic Schools Trust received $29,719 for an “electronic school sign” and in 2015, Kincoppal Rose Bay received $25,000 for solar panels. The program is the latest government grants scheme to come under scrutiny following revelations concerning the state’s $252 million Stronger Communities Fund, a $177 million bushfire relief fund and the federal sports rorts saga. Sydney MP-backed community building grants 2019 & 2020 www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/government-grants-for-community-infrastructure-going-to-private-schools-golf-clubs-20210325-p57e5h.html?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR1ThESdqWn2pBOyPi5uvQAeoFlJwtsOqvjq6Iiw3T3SIJ3ludiOiz86tqU#Echobox=1617495925Eligibility for grants under the program is determined by a team within the Department of Premier and Cabinet, with eligible grants then rated by the local MP and two public servants before being signed off by the Premier. Many NSW MPs are members or patrons of the clubs they give money to, for example, Drummoyne MP John Sidoti was a Massey Park golf club member when he approved $53,000 in grants to the club for “practice bays” ($15,000), a “business support safety, rescue utility vehicle” ($13,000) and in 2017 an “electronic sign” ($25,000). Mr Sidoti said he declared his conflict of interest. “I visit the (Massey Park) club a handful of times a year and am not a member of the board or committees nor do I vote in AGMs. There are three golf clubs in the Drummoyne electorate and all have received funding for projects through the program.” Maroubra Labor MP Michael Daley, who was the patron of the Coast Golf Club, endorsed a $10,000 grant for a “men’s public access toilet upgrade” in 2020. He also supported private golf club Bonnie Doon to get $25,000 for an “on-course all-ability toilet facility” last year. Mr Daley said he made a voluntary declaration that he was the honorary (unpaid) patron of the Coast Golf Club and is not a member there. Four private golf clubs - Bonnie Doon, Concord, Oatlands and Bowral - have received about $100,000 in CBP grants to upgrade tee paths, increase golf cart storage, build a new training facility and add a toilet to a course. NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet, an alumnus of Oakhill College, endorsed grants for the private school he attended for a year - $53,000 in total between 2019 and 2020 for new cricket nets and pathways for disabled people to access sports grounds. In 2017 the school received $55,000 for a 25-seat bus from the previous Epping MP. Mr Perrottet’s office said he declared his conflict of interest. Many NSW MPs are members or patrons of the clubs they give money to, for example, Drummoyne MP John Sidoti was a Massey Park golf club member when he approved $53,000 in grants to the club for “practice bays” ($15,000), a “business support safety, rescue utility vehicle” ($13,000) and in 2017 an “electronic sign” ($25,000). There are about 3000 applications submitted each year, 1295 were approved in 2020. Private schools are eligible because they mostly operate as not-for-profit. A 2016 audit of the program found more than 1300 grants had been paid without receipts filed or conflict of interest forms filed by MPs who funded clubs with which they were associated. The scheme was originally weighted by the socio-economic conditions of each electorate, so poorer areas had more funds to help struggling communities. But the weighting was removed in 2017 so all MPs get the same amount. Liberal MP for Mulgoa Tanya Davies supported Thomas Hassall Anglican College to get $92,338 last year for an “athletics precinct” and “refillable water stations”. Ms Davies said every year she tried to provide funding for at least one school in her electorate and “this year Thomas Hassall Anglican College was the only school who applied for funding”. There were eight organisations in Mulgoa that unsuccessfully applied for funding last year; six of those received CBP funding in other years and two other projects had planning issues. Auburn Labor MP Linda Voltz said all government grants programs were “frustrating” but the way they were administered was “most frustrating”, with wealthy schools and clubs getting funding for luxury facilities while places in western Sydney that needed basic equipment weren’t considered. “Very needy causes don’t get funded while Kincoppal at Rose Bay gets funding, it’s ridiculous,” Ms Voltz said. “[The CBP] is the only place MPs actually have any influence to get something directly into their community, but all MPs approach it differently. If you’re determined to get something in, just give it a high rating and it will be funded.” RELATED ARTICLE Gladys Berejiklian Editorial State Parliament Tighter scrutiny needed for NSW community grants The Herald's View The Herald's View Editorial A Department of Premier and Cabinet spokesperson said applications were assessed by MPs and public servants based on how successfully they addressed the criteria compared to other applications. “Public schools are ineligible for CBP funding; however, [parent and citizen] associations are eligible and public school communities are one of the largest recipients of CBP funding each round,” the spokesperson said. “Rankings given by MPs and the Independent Review Panel are confidential.” The department does not disclose applicants who miss out.
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Post by pim on Apr 5, 2021 23:25:58 GMT 10
Values, dear boy. Values! By their franking credits shall ye know them
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Post by ponto on Apr 6, 2021 8:14:18 GMT 10
Well me Ol' son....neo liberalism is corrupt and when Labor announced they are not socialist party we are a Union party....have turned into the Liberal twatism party....not much better than the neo liberal coalition if not for the left faction that gives a ray of hope with policies, as in protection of National Parks and climate change.
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Post by ponto on Apr 6, 2021 10:53:45 GMT 10
Showing the LNP nest shitters are still in climate denial....appalling that they still have the old narrative of wasting time on climate change for which humans and the planet time is running out.... ...time to move forward and people wake up to these dinosaurs. Malcolm Turnbull has been dumped as chair of the NSW Net-Zero Emissions and Clean Economy Board.© Dan Himbrechts/AAP PHOTOS The NSW government says ex-PM Malcolm Turnbull will no longer lead the state's clean economy board.The former Liberal prime minister who was named for the role just last week has ruffled coalition feathers by supporting a moratorium on new coal mines in NSW. State Environment Minister Matt Kean said the purpose of the board was to create jobs in low carbon industries while reducing emissions in ways that grow the economy. "It is important that the focus is on achieving these outcomes, based on facts, technology, science, and economics," he said in a statement on Tuesday. (SPIN FROGSHIT) "The focus should not be on personality," he said. Mr Turnbull had "contributed much to our country ... however, no person's role on the board should distract from achieving results for the NSW people or from the government's work in delivering jobs and opportunities for the people of NSW"....< Spin for dig more coal. "For this reason, I have decided not to proceed with his appointment as chair." The NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer will act in the role until a new chair is named. The announcement comes hours after The Daily Telegraph published a letter Mr Turnbull wrote to the NSW government objecting to the expansion of a coal mine in the Upper Hunter near his family's 2700 acre property. Deputy Premier and Nationals Leader John Barilaro was the first person to declare Mr Turnbull had been axed....< Why is the bloke in parliament "We are not proceeding with the appointment of Malcolm Turnbull as chair," he told Sydney radio 2GB ahead of Mr Kean's statement. "You need someone who brings people together and not divides and unfortunately Malcolm has done the opposite. "Great result for common sense. "He pulled my pants down within 48 of his appointment on an area that I take seriously," he said of Mr Turnbull's recent comments on coal mines. "I'm the deputy premier ... and I chose to be the mining minister because I thought for the last 10 years we have not done enough to support the industry which has been the backbone of our economy and the nation."....< a dying industry and the economy needs to embrace new technology now.....coal has not a future.....its stupid to keep promoting self interest and coal that is not good for the country. Last week, Defence Minister Peter Dutton weighed in on the appointment of Mr Turnbull....<Dutton the bald headed arse clown "All I can say is that Malcolm was very consistent as prime minister, and that is that he supported coal mining, and he said that on the public record on a number of occasions." Conservatives are just dumbing the nation down...to keep fossil mates turning a profit and pay no tax.
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Post by ponto on Apr 11, 2021 7:03:07 GMT 10
Bit of a heads up as to when interest rates rise..
Psst, about that lazy $178 billion the banks have parked at the Reserve Bank … by Michael West | Apr 7, 2021 | Economy & Markets Fat cats running amok The banks have $178 billion sitting on deposit with the Reserve Bank, earning zero interest. It was $155 billion a month ago. This is newly created money. In crude terms, the RBA is “printing” money hand over fist, but why are the banks not lending it? Why is there no nation-building infrastructure program like the US? Michael West investigates. It was two years ago that Josh Frydenberg sallied forth with his maiden Budget. The Treasurer spoke proudly of the coming budget surplus and the Government’s fiscal rectitude. “Back in black”. A balanced budget. They got close that year, just a few hundred million short. The fiscal rectitude came at a price though. Cutting spending cut growth and the Australian economy was deflating. Now, two years down the track, ravaged by the pandemic, Australia now faces a budget deficit of $150 billion. It could be worse. We weathered the pandemic better than most, and commodity exports, principally the booming demand for iron ore from China, has buoyed the whole show.. Yet this is a K-shaped recovery; terrific for those riding the share market or the residential property boom; not nearly so wonderful for the rest, particularly for those on JobSeeker whose payments have been hacked back below the poverty line. The design of the government’s pandemic response has a flaw; privatisation. The proceeds of the money-printing operation are not going to the government but to the banks. The QE program (Quantitative Easing, or creating new money) was designed to create new money for the banks so that they could lend it to business and revive the economy. But the banks are parking it. There is $178 billion sitting on deposit at the RBA in exchange settlement accounts (ESAs), earning nothing. That’s higher than the projected Budget deficit of $150 billion. How to make new money Treasury – the government – issues bonds (debt). The banks buy the bonds. The RBA buys the bonds from the banks, credits their accounts with new money. And they are sitting on it and it’s growing at quite a clip, up $23 billion over the past month alone. Meanwhile over the Pacific ocean, the Biden regime has just announced an ambitious $US2 trillion infrastructure program to reboot the US economy: roads, bridges, aged care, EV incentives, schools, broadband, and other infrastructure – and a hike to the corporate tax rate to fund it all. The corporate tax proposal is problematic. We’ll get to that shortly. But the contrast could not be starker. A colossal nation-building initiative from the Yanks while the Aussies gave $178 billion to the banks and are now waiting for it to trickle down. Why is it not trickling down, why are the banks not lending? They are lending – to big business and to residential property buyers – but they are not lending as the government designed it, to small business. In short, too risky, better to have the funds earning nothing on deposit at the Reserve Bank. Matt Kean, the NSW minister for Energy and Environment, gave a hint or two on ABC Radio this morning when asked about who would decide whether to build or shut down coal plants. The decisions for that sort of thing would be made in Tokyo or Seoul, he said. Much of Australia’s infrastructure was controlled by multinationals and it is up to them whether to pull the plug on a coal plant, or not. Indeed, Energy Australia is controlled in Hong Kong and London, via the British Virgin Islands,, much of the power grid in NSW, Victoria and South Australia is controlled in Singapore and China, as are a large chunk of our gas transmission networks. Our gas cartel of Exxon, BHP, Shell, Santos and Origin is largely foreign-owned, as are a good deal of our thermal coal companies. CharadesThe government and the RBA are playing a little charade at the moment, with the connivance of the financial press. They are pretending there is no money printing going on – as it has effectively been outsourced to the banks, privatised. And so it is that they are all completely ignoring this lazy $178 billion, as if it doesn’t exist. The government could put it to good use, with the cooperation of the banks. They could come up with a nation-building program of their own, something to energise the economy, something more than a pastiche of public hand-outs such as JobKeeper to large companies, assorted airline subsidies, lax lending policies and watered down regulations. Privatisation Fetish and QE: will government surrender the economic rescue to the banks? They could set up an infrastructure fund and invite the banks to invest in it. Although that might require an ideological adjustment to the prevailing neo-liberal wisdom that the market knows best. UBS economist George Tharenou now estimates the Budget deficit at $145 billion, that’s $54 billion better than MYEFO and $33 billion less than the cash parked on deposit. But it’s also pretty much down to luck, the luck of strong demand for iron ore and the billions in tax receipts, largely from BHP, Rio, Fortescue and Hancock Mining. For its part, the RBA keeps prodding the Government; last month openly warning the Australian Council of Financial Regulators (APRA etc) about reining in new bank lending to households. So leveraged are Australian households (so indebted compared with their disposable income) that a tick up in interest rates could be devastating. Consensus is that rates will stay at 0.1% for a year and any movement upwards will be foreshadowed early by the RBA, giving people plenty of warning for higher rates. It has also noted the lack of “animal spirits” in the business community to borrow and invest – and the damage which could be wrought by cutting back stimulus too quickly. So we have a two-speed economy, one of high under and unemployment, of some despair about the future and one for investors enjoying a big increase in paper wealth. It seems the Coalition government is content to allow this “wealth effect” to prevail as policy rather than anything of significant economic vision. The Bank will have to take into account the Government’s objective to support more sustainable house prices, including by dampening investor demand for existing housing stock to help improve affordability for first-home buyers. In New Zealand, the central bank recently had its mandate extended to housing prices for the first time. It followed these remarks from the Finance Minister: “The Bank will have to take into account the Government’s objective to support more sustainable house prices, including by dampening investor demand for existing housing stock to help improve affordability for first-home buyers”. Don’t be surprised to see a move by regulators here to contain the housing bubble. They are likely to have to address it at some point. Meantime, there is the small matter of that lazy and a $178 billion … and just what to do with it. Surely, it is not just a capital buffer for the banks if the housing market gets nasty. The K-Shaped Recovery: financial fortunes fork as JobKeeper, JobSeeker cliff looms
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Post by ponto on Apr 11, 2021 7:08:19 GMT 10
Jacinda Ardern:"Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is not success, it is failure."
And why the Morrison government is in failure mode.
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Post by pim on Apr 11, 2021 9:14:49 GMT 10
Jacinda Ardern:"Economic growth accompanied by worsening social outcomes is not success, it is failure." And why the Morrison government is in failure mode. And on that very point ...
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Post by ponto on Apr 11, 2021 12:58:54 GMT 10
The COALition is to attached to neo liberalism....which like coal is going down with sun.
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Post by pim on Apr 11, 2021 15:49:46 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Apr 12, 2021 12:20:10 GMT 10
I take your "like" to mean that I "say it best when I say nothing at all"? Silence can be golden
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Post by ponto on Apr 14, 2021 7:42:23 GMT 10
I took it as my comment was jaw dropping so good that it left you speechless.. While not ScoMotion it heralds are warning as to where neo liberalism privatisation takes society.. Tories accused of corruption and NHS privatisation by former chief scientist Fiona Harvey Environment correspondent 11 hrs agoBoris Johnson’s government has been accused of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis, by Sir David King, a former government chief scientist. Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis, by Sir David King, a former government chief scientist. “I am extremely worried about the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, about the processes by which public money has been distributed to private sector companies without due process,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “It really smells of corruption.” King contrasted the success of the vaccination programme, carried out by the NHS, with the failure of the government’s test-and-trace operation, which has been contracted out to private companies. “The operation to roll out vaccination has been extremely successful, it was driven through entirely by our truly national health service and GP service – just amazing,” he said. “Yet we have persisted with this money for test and trace, given without competition, without due process … I am really worried about democratic processes being ignored.” He said: “This is a so-called chumocracy, that has been a phrase used, and that is what it looks like I’m afraid: it is a chumocracy.” Boris Johnson’s government has been accused of corruption, privatising the NHS by stealth, operating a “chumocracy” and mishandling the pandemic and climate crisis, by Sir David King, a former government chief scientist. “I am extremely worried about the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, about the processes by which public money has been distributed to private sector companies without due process,” he told the Guardian in an interview. “It really smells of corruption.” King contrasted the success of the vaccination programme, carried out by the NHS, with the failure of the government’s test-and-trace operation, which has been contracted out to private companies. “The operation to roll out vaccination has been extremely successful, it was driven through entirely by our truly national health service and GP service – just amazing,” he said. “Yet we have persisted with this money for test and trace, given without competition, without due process … I am really worried about democratic processes being ignored.” He said: “This is a so-called chumocracy, that has been a phrase used, and that is what it looks like I’m afraid: it is a chumocracy.” King, a former professor of chemistry at Cambridge University, has a long history of working with governments of all stripes. He was appointed chief scientific adviser under Tony Blair in 2000, serving until 2008, and under the Tory-Lib Dem coalition was appointed chair of the Future Cities Catapult, launched in 2013. He also worked under Johnson as foreign secretary during Theresa May’s premiership. King said: “He was my boss – he wrote me a handwritten letter to congratulate me on my climate success.” King rejected the argument that the government had to act quickly to counter the pandemic and had been forced to ignore normal processes in doing so. “People say it’s a crisis – I say the government is using a crisis to privatise sections of the healthcare system in a way that is completely wrong,” he said. “A fraction of this money going to public services would have been far better results.” He accused the government of acting deliberately to carry out ideological aims of privatising the NHS. “It is slipping this through in the name of a pandemic – effectively, to privatise the NHS by stealth,” he said. “I’m quite sure this has not been an accident, I’m quite sure this has been the plan, there has been clarity in this process. The audacity has been amazing.” King, who has made the climate crisis one of his key areas of focus, is also concerned about the police and crime bill, which would give police the powers to shut down protests regarded as a nuisance. He said: “It’s extremely worrying, as we pride ourselves in Britain on having developed a true democracy. Any democracy needs to give voice to dissent. There’s a real danger that we’re going down a pathway that leads away from democracy.” King recently signed a letter calling on the supreme court to reconsider its pursuit of Tim Crosland, a campaigner against the third runway at Heathrow, for contempt of court. “I think he is being set up as an example to others,” said King. “It shows [the government’s] churlish attitude towards people campaigning.” www.msn.com/en-au/news/uknews/tories-accused-of-corruption-and-nhs-privatisation-by-former-chief-scientist/ar-BB1fB0WN?ocid=msedgdhp
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Post by pim on Apr 24, 2021 8:34:19 GMT 10
Global reset on climate action leaves Scott Morrison looking like yesterday’s manAt Joe Biden’s virtual summit, achieving net zero by 2050 was considered a given, not something you might do, possibly, if Matt Canavan lets youNotice how The Smirk has been wiped off Scotty from Marketing's face? Angus Taylor is having an "oh shit!" momentWhile Australians slept on Thursday night, an extraordinary dynamic played out at Joe Biden’s climate crisis summit. Many leaders (Germany’s Angela Merkel most directly) expressed relief that the United States was back in the business of global climate leadership after the wasteland of the Trump era, and countries formed an orderly queue to reward their Washington rescuers with significant emissions reduction pledges in the near term. As we clicked past midnight Australian eastern time on Thursday night, summit watchers witnessed a brisk competition between nations for the most ambitious emissions reduction pledges. Climate policy is a wearying slog, so this felt like momentum. It felt like hope. In bowling up higher targets for the 2030s, countries were committing to take action now, in this decade. At Biden’s event, achieving net zero by 2050 was considered a given, not something you might do, possibly, if Matt Canavan lets you. Obviously saying isn’t doing. Ambitious targets need to be underpinned by policies that deliver the required action, otherwise it’s just politics. But what the summit demonstrated is the world has reset on climate action, and will probably remain in a cycle of ambition while Biden is in the White House. Instead of a competition for who can avoid responsibility most cunningly, what’s under way now is a race to win the transition. Australia needs to be in this race for the following reasons. Runaway global heating imperils human lives. Failing to transition Australia’s carbon-intensive economy to the new energy economy imperils jobs, prosperity and opportunity. Australia, the resources economy, the exporter of carbon emissions, is now trading in a net zero environment. That die is cast. If the Coalition continues to dish up a fast food diet of weaponised climate politics and prolonged policy uncertainty – mobile capital looking to prosper in the transition will shift elsewhere, where the rules are clearer That’s our reality. That’s what the facts tell us. But Scott Morrison turned up at Biden’s summit looking like yesterday’s man, out of step with his peers both in tone and substance. Australia’s prime minister claimed we were doing sensationally at reducing emissions – a claim that was only truth adjacent if you excised the main driver of emissions growth, Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export industry. Seriously. Some bright spark in the government apparently thought it was a good idea for Morrison to step into a virtual room of his global peers, aided by battle-hardened climate policy advisers with deep expertise, and bowl up an alternative fact. Because 36% sounds better than 19%. Like Biden and John Kerry might be idiots. (For the record, two-thirds of Australia’s 19% reduction happened before Tony Abbott won the 2013 election with his “carbon tax” hyperbole, which included a prediction that Whyalla would be wiped off the map.) Morrison also told his peers that Australia’s commitments on targets were “bankable” – the clear inference being the climate ambition set might talk a big game but they don’t always deliver (which is a line the prime minister hammers at home). This would be a reasonable debating point if one was third speaker for the negative at a Rotary debating tournament, but it was diplomatically discordant at an event where the host – Australia’s most important security ally – was hammering the importance of the world rising to the moment. Targets aren’t always what they are cracked up to be presented like churlishness. Australia was so busy being defensive, so intent on puffing out our chest, and correcting the imagined poseurs of climate evangelism, that it failed to read the room. In any case, the summit was just one point in time during a genuinely interesting week. Let’s step through the points of interest quickly. The first thing to say is Morrison faced real pressure about climate action. The nub of the government’s discomfort was this: there was diplomatic pressure bearing down on Australia, and a summit to endure, but the prime minister wasn’t ready to telegraph any more ambition. Morrison has been trying to look less terrible on climate action since Biden won the presidential election. This is pretty obvious. But given the Coalition party room can be lethal, he can’t reposition too quickly. While Morrison couldn’t shift on targets this week, there was a big movement elsewhere. The Smirk's gone. The Scotty from Marketing schtick doesn't workThe prime minister began the week with a speech to the Business Council of Australia. This was a warm-up gig for the summit, and again there was a silly digression. Not a junk stat, like the concocted 36%, but red meat for the base. Morrison declared, in a room full of comfortably remunerated wine bar frequenters, that the transition to net zero would not be won in a wine bar – a penetrating insight if ever I’ve heard one. The whine about the wine bar overshadowed a substantive and significant shift in government storytelling. The Coalition has been telling voters in the regions for more than a decade that climate action will steal their jobs and their four wheel drives and “wipe out” their towns. This is the core of the Coalition’s cynical weaponisation of climate policy, the pitch that helped Morrison hold Queensland, and therefore government, in 2019. But this week, suddenly, without warning, the transition to low emissions wasn’t an apocalypse. It was opportunity, and opportunity in exactly the same places the Coalition sold the apocalypse in 2019. The coming transition was a boon for Whyalla and Gladstone and the Pilbara, and a marginal seat on the Central Coast of New South Wales that may, or may not, depending on a process of grants allocations yet to be determined, become one of Australia’s new “hydrogen valleys” – like Silicon Valley, but with electrolysis. This benign transition, the one that turned up this week, would preserve all jobs, and was “an exciting challenge” Australia would solve. Given that all the technological options the government is currently framing as champions of the “good” transition (hydrogen, carbon capture and storage) existed at the time of the 2019 election – it’s almost like one of the parties of government in Australia has been having a giant lend at our expense. Imagine that. Who knew? Morrison is trying to limber the Coalition up to accept a net zero commitment by Cop26 in Glasgow in November. That’s where he wants to land, and he’s moving in increments. Morrison consciously uncoupled from coal with the “gas led-recovery”. This week, he declared hydrogen “the new gas”. I’m not sure that we’ll ever get to wind or solar being the new gas – at least not before I’m pursuing my second career in floristry – but in any case, you see what he’s doing there: shape shifting, slogan by slogan. Morrison gets lavish amounts of praise for this because the media complex is so used to the Coalition being unconscionable on climate change that anything two degrees south of terrible feels like progress. Some of my colleagues are willing to be stenographers to an epiphany, because God knows, we all want this to be real. Call this hope springs eternal, or possibly, accumulated trauma. I’m a hard marker, and I like to be straight, so here’s my straight talk. I know Morrison is on the move, but I don’t know whether this pivot is real or not, and I’m not intending to be lavish with praise unless there’s proof that it is deserved. There is tangible proof we can look for. Here’s what an actual epiphany would look like: Australia joining much of the rest of the world in adopting science-adjacent medium-term emissions reduction targets, with policies that deliver real abatement. Starting now. Over the past few months, Morrison has succeeded in training the eyes of Australian’s media on the government’s likely 2050 commitment at Cop26 in Glasgow because he backs himself to deliver that in some shape or form later in 2021. But the main game is actually this decade. Governments know it. Central banks know it. Regulators know it. Corporations know it, and, increasingly, their future-focused shareholders. Investors controlling the trillions of dollars sloshing around global markets in search of bankable opportunity know it. Morrison is hinting he’ll adjust the 2030 target, but this is more dangerous territory both internally and with the voters. It’s dangerous internally because emissions reductions now would be real, and history shows the Coalition can lose its mind when confronted by reality. It’s dangerous externally because five minutes ago the government told voters, hands on hearts, that ambitious action this decade would wreck the economy and steal their jobs. That’s quite a ship to turn. Labor, battle-scarred by one apocalypse too many, is also hedging on action for the 2030s, not entirely sure whether or not they have washed up in a more favourable climate change reality post Trump, or whether they will be crushed in a redux of the same old election shit-fight in 2022, with new lies replacing old ones. One thing is entirely clear.
The world isn’t waiting for Australia to get over itself.
The world is moving, and it’s past time we moved with it.
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Post by ponto on Apr 24, 2021 11:18:34 GMT 10
ScoMorong is not going to commit to anything before the election, playing politics he will mumble waffle action while telling he's mate's 'she'll be right boy's ...Trump will win the next US election....rather than kick the party up the bum and tell em to move on with climate change as the times are a changin' and Australia will be punished if it doesn't.
People are placing solar panels on their roofs, industry is reducing emissions...any reductions the government espouses have come about from private investment, none from government that refuses to legislate any climate action policies, while it subsidises the oil and coal industries.
And so energy companies can maintain the their huge profits the government is now allowing companies to increase feed in tariffs for those that have solar panels.... nothing but rorting fraudsters.
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Post by pim on May 2, 2021 0:14:16 GMT 10
Editorial - Hint and miss for climate targetswww.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/editorial/2021/05/01/hint-and-miss-climate-targets/161979120011558There is nothing clever about hinting at a target. Scott Morrison can smile and insinuate, but to the climate it makes no difference. His audio can be muted at a summit and it doesn’t matter because he’s not saying anything. This is how he governs. The best science tells us to match America’s commitment for a 50 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 and to set a goal of net zero by 2050. The solution is so simple that Australia has already done it once: introduce a carbon price and mandated targets for change. Instead, we are pouring money into novel technologies and using grants to prop up failing industries. Our inaction is soon to be punished by carbon tariffs. Huge markets will close to our goods, starting with the European Union. Still, Morrison is unmoved. The prime minister believes in signs from God, but not in the burning bushes of Black Summer or the plague that is coronavirus and the fact such pandemics will be worse and more frequent on a heating planet. He keeps a light grin and promises to meet and beat targets no one else is talking about. Morrison continues to view climate change as an issue of identity. When he talks about the solutions that won’t come from “the cafes, dinner parties and wine bars of our inner cities” he borrows old rhetoric from the Australian Hotels Association about people who “don’t want to sit in a hole and drink chardonnay and read a book”. Somehow, the case for Sydney beer-halls is the same as the case against climate action. It’s a sweaty argument, wholly out of touch, about an Australia where the sun was always hot and dinner was served at six. The real argument, though, is about a country stuck with that vision of itself – a proud outlier in a world that has moved on, whose goods are too dirty to sell and whose government sees this as a point of pride. Kevin Rudd was wrong to frame climate change as a moral problem. It is not about what is good but what is necessary. It is a business and geopolitical problem, a practical problem, a health problem, an environmental problem. In Rudd’s construction are the beginnings of Morrison’s identity argument, and it is here that Australia is stalled. There is pride in the government’s inaction. There is stubbornness in the solutions it pretends to and the industries it supports. Every day without a target is seen as a win rather than as the terrible failure it really is. Avoiding catastrophe is seen as effete, as if it were a bread plate or a French cuff. Australia can hold out only so long. Industry will change to meet a changing world. As wine bars came to Surry Hills, emissions reduction will come to Australia. Morrison could embrace this. He could make a simple, responsible choice. Or he could wait until it is forced on Australia by a world more innovative and aware than this country’s leaders believe us to be.
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Post by pim on May 2, 2021 0:15:56 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on May 2, 2021 7:53:44 GMT 10
"There is pride in the government’s inaction".....and that's the fundamental problem with the Australian government...they refuse to grasp the reality of climate change.
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Post by ponto on May 3, 2021 18:18:42 GMT 10
How dumb are the coalition not to see the future is arriving fast...https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/apr/29/swap-and-go-electric-trucks-to-run-between-sydney-and-brisbane-using-exchangeable-batteries?fbclid=IwAR2SVuyWkPrXq6ZCbQPDxbM8jDPQoGPJ_m5RONbqohkC57f8bjKbgI1lolI
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Post by pim on May 3, 2021 23:42:02 GMT 10
I need to be able to access the link.
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