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Post by ponto on Aug 23, 2021 20:27:59 GMT 10
"Murdoch is upset — the major Australian banks will no longer lend money to the big carbon emitters. His flagship “Australian” newspaper carries this headline front and centre in its weekend finance edition: “Foreign Funding for Fossil Fuels.” The Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac, and National Australia Bank (NAB) are closing their books on fossil fuel financing. In response to shareholder pressure, they are increasing their commitments to sustainable lending and reducing their exposure to climate risk. They have set various timelines to exit direct financing of thermal coal mining."
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Post by ponto on Aug 23, 2021 20:34:03 GMT 10
Nano-diamond battery made from nuclear waste could last up to 28,000 years
BY AMIT MALEWAR DECEMBER 12, 2020 EMERGING TECH Imagine a cell phone that never needs to be recharged or a car battery that has lasted long enough for your grandchildren to use it. This is the apparently surreal goal on which a US-based startup NDB Inc. is working. A solution that on paper would make it possible to obtain indestructible, “circular,” self-rechargeable storage devices but above all with an incredibly long life. The startup wants to use the radioactive waste from nuclear energy to produce endless batteries that will blow any energy density comparison out of the water, lasting anywhere from a decade to 28,000 years without ever needing a charge. The goal is to reinvent electricity, to rid the world of fossil fuels by 2040. The core of the technology is a small piece of recycled nuclear waste. NDB researchers investigated how to reuse parts of graphite nuclear reactors that absorbed radiation from fuel rods and became radioactive. This graphite is rich in the radioisotope carbon-14 (C-14), which undergoes beta decay into nitrogen, releasing an electron in the process. NDB intends to take this graphite, purify it, and create tiny C-14 diamonds at the nanoscale. The crystal lattice would act as a semiconductor and heat sink, collecting the charge and carrying it outside. The radioactive diamond would, in turn, be contained within another artificial, stable, and cheap diamond to prevent radiation leaks and possible tampering. To create a nano-diamond battery cell, several layers of this nano-material must be stacked and stored with a small integrated circuit, adding a small super-capacitor to instantly collect, store, and distribute the charge. For now, the project is still at the proof of concept stage, a design draft with no working prototype. But the company says the final product will be ready and for the mass market in 5 years; and that it will conform to any form or standard, including AA and AAA. The company is claiming that a pair of tests at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Cambridge University shows that the nano-diamond battery is already managing a 40% charge. The principle of the “nano-diamond battery” had already been used in 2016 by a group of physicists and chemists from the University of Bristol, who had created a prototype of a “nuclear-powered battery” using Nickel-63 as a source of radiation. The radioactive core of the battery is protected by multiple layers of synthetic diamonds, among the strongest materials on Earth. Scientists say the battery emits less radioactivity than the human body and is safe for use in cars, planes, phones, and even pacemakers. The advantages? Theoretically, the nano-diamond battery has a much longer life than commercial lithium counterparts and wouldn’t need to be recharged. However, the main problem for this technology, excluding manufacturing costs, remains the low power density. The NDB has not released official numbers, but according to research from the University of Bristol one battery, containing 1g of carbon-14 would deliver 15 Joules per day. This is less than an AA battery.
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Post by ponto on Aug 23, 2021 20:39:42 GMT 10
Fossils is dead ScoMo.MingYang launches the world’s largest offshore Hybrid Drive wind turbine
BY AMIT MALEWAR AUGUST 23, 2021 EMERGING TECH There is fierce competition between the major players in the wind energy market to develop the most efficient wind turbines on the market. MingYang Smart Energy Group is one of the largest private wind turbine manufacturers in China and has established a complete value chain from design and production to sales and maintenance. Now the Chinese company has developed what it claims is the world’s largest offshore wind turbine – even bigger than GE’s most powerful Haliade-X. The new MySE 16.0-242 wind turbine features an exceptional nameplate capacity of 16MW, a 242-meter diameter rotor, 118-meter long blades, and a staggering 46,000 square meters swept area equivalent of more than six soccer fields. This is almost 7% more than Vestas Wind Systems’ 15MW turbine, which was introduced in February 2021 and will be produced in 2024. MingYang thus moves the boundaries of wind energy production even further, and a single MySE 16.0-242 turbine can generate 80,000 MWh of electricity every year, enough to power more than 20,000 households. That is 45% more than the company’s previous wind turbine model, MySE 11.0-203, from just a 19% increase in diameter and swept area. In addition, one MySE 16.0-242 can eliminate more than 1.6 million tonnes of CO2 emissions over the course of its designed 25-year lifespan. This figure shows the importance of every offshore wind turbine in the fight against climate change. According to the company, the nacelle weight of the MySE 16.0-242 is competitively low at less than 37 tonnes per MW. Compared to a heavier nacelle, its modest head mass allows for more efficient use of the tower and foundation construction, resulting in fewer purchased materials and logistics. The new offshore wind turbine can be installed on the seafloor or on a floating base. The turbine has recently been certified by DNV and the China General Certification Center (CGC) for design, and a prototype is expected in 2022. The company expects to install a full-fledged prototype in the first half of 2023 and commercial production in the first half of 2024. The company says the MySE 16.0-242 is the start of MingYang’s new 15MW+ offshore product platform. In the future, it is planned to grow into a portfolio of model variants that can adapt to various offshore settings, ranging from the typhoon-prone South China Sea to the constantly windy North Sea in Europe.
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Post by ponto on Aug 23, 2021 20:54:23 GMT 10
Form Energy’s 100-hour iron-air battery is 10 times cheaper than lithiumBY AMIT MALEWAR JULY 26, 2021 EMERGING TECH Form Energy, Inc., a technology company, announced the battery chemistry of its first commercial product and a $200 million Series D financing round led by ArcelorMittal’s XCarb innovation fund. Solar and wind resources are the lowest marginal cost sources of electricity in most of the world. Solar, wind, and other forms of green energy produce power as and when it’s available. And as the world starts to transition away from cheap, responsive, and heavily polluting energy sources like coal, the electric grid now faces a challenge: how to manage the multi-day variability of renewable energy, even in periods of multi-day weather events, without sacrificing energy reliability or affordability. In 2017, Tesla built and installed the world’s largest lithium-ion battery at Hornsdale in South Australia, which was a huge success. But there are inherent issues with lithium batteries; they are expensive, better suited to quick turnaround than long-term storage. However, Form Energy is focused on developing low-cost energy storage technology to enable a reliable, secure, and fully renewable electric grid year-round. The Massachusetts-based startup recently unveiled a new rechargeable iron-air battery capable of delivering electricity for 100 hours at system costs competitive with conventional power plants and at less than 1/10th the cost of lithium-ion. The active components of the iron-air battery system are some of the safest, cheapest, and most abundant materials on the planet – low-cost iron, water, and air. This front-of-the-meter battery can be used continuously over a multi-day period and will enable a reliable, secure, and fully renewable electric grid year-round. The basic principle of operation of an iron-air battery is reversible rusting. While discharging, the battery breathes in oxygen from the air and converts iron metal to rust and energy. And the charging cycle turns rust into metallic iron, storing energy and releasing oxygen. Each battery module – about the size of a washing machine – is filled with a water-based, non-flammable electrolyte. Inside of the liquid electrolyte is stacks of between 10 and 20 meter-scale cells, which include iron electrodes and air electrodes, the parts of the battery that enable the electrochemical reactions to store and discharge electricity. These battery modules are grouped together in modular megawatt-scale power blocks, delivering up to 3MW of continuous power per acre. In addition, when the system comes at the end of its service life, the materials are highly recyclable. Steel giant ArcelorMittal has invested $25 million in Form Energy and will potentially provide iron for its long-life batteries. According to the company, this new battery technology can make renewable energy available when and where it’s needed, even during multiple days of extreme weather or grid outages.
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Post by ponto on Aug 24, 2021 7:22:39 GMT 10
And here's ScoMo climate crisis...
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Post by pim on Aug 26, 2021 18:57:35 GMT 10
Morrison’s election plan? It’s as easy as A, B or CNiki Savva August 26, 2021 www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/morrison-s-election-plan-it-s-as-easy-as-a-b-or-c-20210825-p58ln6.htmlThis is not how it was supposed to be. If everything had gone according to Plan A, Scott Morrison would have called an election within days, then sailed through the campaign as the Prime Minister who had led the country through a once-in-a-century pandemic with minimal loss of life and only temporary disruption to the economy. That would have carried him to victory with an increased majority, and probably set him up for another. It would have been a proud legacy. Instead, there is a fractured federation, premiers grown accustomed to wielding immense power even at the expense of the national good, a prime minister powerless to stop them, a devaluing in almost every way of what it means to be an Australian, 15 million people locked down, the prospect of a second recession in two years, enough debt to cripple generations and a vaccination rollout Morrison nominated as his priority in February which could even now qualify as the greatest policy failure since Federation. There are other contenders for that most miserable legacy: the fate of Indigenous people generally, Gallipoli, the Vietnam War, later perhaps inaction on climate change, just to name a few. Given its impact on the health and economic wellbeing of almost every Australian over many months, regardless of race, religion, sex, age or class, the botched vaccination program, mishandled at almost every point, is right up there. It’s not just that Morrison did not buy enough vaccines, which is the root cause of all the ensuing problems including the protracted lockdowns, it wasn’t just that he punched holes in confidence in AstraZeneca, the only widely available vaccine, with a breathless, late-night press conference warning young people against its use, it was also the failure during the long lead-up to organise a comprehensive rollout, enlisting every single agency from states to GPs to pharmacists to businesses to community leaders. And if he can’t fix it before the election, not enough people will trust him to fix it after. That at least is the view emerging inside the government. According to one minister, the pathway to victory “is getting narrower and narrower”. With lockdowns leaving marginal seat-holders unable to properly work their electorates he feared another problem: “If the leader gets damaged, and he is what you are running on, you lose.” So, after 18 months of bending to the will of the premiers, conscious of the increasing anxiety in his own ranks, sensing the shift in sentiment against lockdowns which the Resolve poll published exclusively in The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald captured, Morrison pulled the only lever he has. He switched position to demand the states free their prisoners. Or cave dwellers as he calls them. He has spun like a whirlwind on lockdowns. They work, they don’t work, they work when they work, there is no choice but for them to work and now, lockdowns do more harm than good. It was too much for one exasperated government backbencher. “He has got no idea what he is doing,” he said. Maybe, but Morrison has been looking very assured and even more pleased with himself than usual in the past few days. Resolve – the poll – shows why. Morrison’s new sleep-over buddy, Josh Frydenberg, a more consistent opponent of lockdowns who has suffered because of the separation from his family, would have helped stiffen Morrison’s resolve. (A minor digression but is it a little bit weird that even in these strangest of times, the Treasurer has shacked up with the Prime Minister at the Lodge?) Lockdowns have protected people but it is unrealistic to think they can continue indefinitely. The economy will collapse, civil disobedience will explode and the unrest will not be confined to ratbags. As fed up as they are with everything to do with COVID including the political bickering, it is also unrealistic to think parents with unvaccinated children will want to rush to reopen with Delta rampant. Which means a guaranteed supply of vaccinations always was and always will be key. That has been obvious from the very beginning. Even if Morrison didn’t think it was a race, others knew we were in the race of our lives. Despite her mistakes, Gladys Berejiklian has grasped that. Her message of jabs, jabs and more jabs is the right one. Instead of mocking her as other premiers have done or undermining her as Morrison has done, they should copy her drive to vaccinate as many people as possible as quickly as the health system and supply allow. It’s the only way out. Queensland and Western Australia have resisted Morrison’s muscling. But when they pick up the pace on vaccinations as they must, Morrison will ensure voters credit him for engineering it, even though the burden of actually delivering V-Day hopefully by the end of the year rests with the states and territories. Morrison has also sought to mask his failures by saying “we” have saved 30,000 lives since the beginning of the pandemic, a number calculated by averaging the COVID fatality rate in OECD nations. With people dying daily, he needs to stop that. It is crass with a whiff of triumphalism few share. Morrison says there is no freedom day, however if millions of locked-up Australians are liberated by Christmas there could be a more benign environment to implement Plan B, a poll in March. The infrastructure will remain in place to keep administering vaccinations including essential boosters (so long as Morrison ensures supply), COVID is less active in warmer weather and the economy will rebound. Plan C, involving a budget in April and election in May, is problematic. The debt and deficit figures in the budget would be horrendous, winter would be approaching with the prospect of another variant emerging and he could look like he was hanging off a cliff by his fingernails. Whether people will forgive or forget his mistakes by March depends on how much damage has been inflicted by his terrible misjudgments and how easily he is allowed to walk away from them.
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Post by ponto on Aug 26, 2021 21:36:00 GMT 10
Shifty fucknuts rule...
Calculated response’: Coalition moves to protect Future Fund from FOI laws
Christopher Knaus 6 hrs ago
The Coalition is attempting to shield the activities of the Future Fund from freedom of information laws less than a year after revelations it invested in an Adani company criticised for its dealings with the Myanmar military. Simon Birmingham looking at the camera: Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian On Wednesday, the Coalition introduced amendments granting the sovereign wealth fund wide-ranging exemptions from freedom of information law. Any Future Fund document that discusses “past, current or proposed investment strategies” would be kept from public view, as would records that show investing amounts, or mention the fund’s evaluation of potential or current investments and investment managers, according to a document explaining the bill. Simon Birmingham wearing a suit and tie: Finance minister Simon Birmingham says the amendments granting exemptions for the Future Fund from freedom of information laws were first flagged in 2009.© Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian Finance minister Simon Birmingham says the amendments granting exemptions for the Future Fund from freedom of information laws were first flagged in 2009. Related: Coalition ‘unlawfully’ blocking freedom of information requests Last year, FOI laws were used to expose the Future Fund’s $3.2m investment in an Adani company funding a crucial rail link from the controversial Carmichael coalmine to a port on the Great Barrier Reef. The company, Adani Ports and Special Economic Zones, has faced criticism in the United Nations for an arrangement that gave financial support to the Myanmar military. The Myanmar military has been accused of grave war crimes, including genocide. Greens senator Nick McKim described the government’s amendments as a “calculated and cynical response to the fund being caught out investing in Adani”. “They are Australia’s sovereign wealth fund which invests public money on behalf of all Australians, and should be accountable for those investments,” McKim said. The government denies the exemption is intended to hide documents relating to the Future Fund’s actual investments. Finance minister Simon Birmingham says the exemption is only for “documents relating to investment strategies and the evaluation of investments”. “These amendments were first flagged as far back as 2009 by the Rudd Labor government, and will reduce the risk of the disclosure of highly sensitive confidential and commercial material,” he said. “It will simply align the treatment of the Future Fund under the FOI Act with that of other entities that deal regularly with commercial information.” Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning But the bill’s explanatory memorandum says the exemptions will apply to any document detailing investment amounts. “The FOI Act will continue to apply with respect to documents that do not relate to investment activities,” the document says. The Future Fund was set up in 2006 to strengthen the government’s financial position. It currently manages about $225bn in government assets on behalf of the Australian people. The bill’s explanatory memorandum says the changes are needed to protect commercially sensitive, competitive, and confidential information. “The public release, and potential for public release, of such information could compromise the ability of the Future Fund board and the agency to implement investment strategies effectively on behalf of the government,” the document says. The government says the changes would bring the Future Fund into line with FOI arrangements for the NBN and Export Finance Australia. McKim said those comparisons were “facile and do not stack up”. “Australia’s freedom of information laws are already weak and inadequate,” he said. “The government cannot be allowed to make them worse, and we call on Labor and the crossbench to oppose these changes.” Finance minister Simon Birmingham was approached for comment. Following the Adani revelations last year, Future Fund chief executive Raphael Arndt told Senate estimates the investment was a “relatively small holding” and had not violated any investment policy. “It’s one holding, about $3m in a $12bn strategy, so it’s a relatively small holding,” he said. “We have a fairly well defined exclusions policy, which … is limited to exposures that are either illegal in Australia or breach a treaty that the Australian government has signed, or hold tobacco product manufacturing.”
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Post by ponto on Aug 26, 2021 21:49:39 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on Aug 28, 2021 6:50:58 GMT 10
Climate denial how good is that..!
Use tax payers money to fund coal mines and build coal power stations....how good is that..!
The Murray Darling Basin Authority is acting illegally with environmental flows...how good is that..!
Paying land holders millions of $ for flood water over their properties that hasn't arrived as the water buy back scheme...how good is that...!
Destroying the environment and the Great Barrier Reef...how good is that...!
Rorting tax payers money to pork barrel elections...how good is that...!
Giving Murdoch massive tax breaks so the Murdoch media becomes a propaganda machine for the LNP ...how good is that..!
Using Christianity to mask being a liar and acting like a criminal....how good is that..!
Giving tax payers money to the elite while poverty increases and workers wages stagnate...how good is that..!
Stuffing obtaining vaccines for covid...how good is that..!
Etc etc etc ScoMonuts bullshit bananas...how good is that..!
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Post by pim on Aug 28, 2021 9:49:51 GMT 10
That’s the Big Picture Ponto and you’re absolutely right. On any of the above issues Mr Smirk and Mirrors should find himself utterly repudiated at the ballot box by the Australian people. And yet elections are not won or lost on big picture issues. This election will be won or lost on whether or not enough Australians swallow the line that has Scotty from Marketing as the prime minister who saved Christmas. Word is get ready for a November election.
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Post by Gort on Aug 28, 2021 12:34:44 GMT 10
Aww ... it's so cute seeing the two Labor Luvvies stroking each other's ... egos.
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Post by pim on Aug 29, 2021 8:51:20 GMT 10
Just who is being protected here?John Falzon www.canberratimes.com.au/story/7406620/just-who-is-being-protected-here/?cs=14246The Morrison government loves to talk about protection. In fact, the 2019 election was arguably won not by offering policy but by promising protection, especially economic protection. The "protect and defend" trope, as deployed by the Morrison government, is capacious to say the least. You can basically fit anything into it. We have been variously assured we need to be protected from people seeking refuge, from terrorism (often spoken of in the same breath), and from anything or anyone deemed "un-Australian," whatever that means. We apparently also need protection from those wanting to destroy our way of life by, horror of horrors, taking the climate emergency seriously. Shamefully, we've often been told that, because they are reportedly out to rip us off, we need protection from people who are unemployed, people with a disability, sole parents and other carers, and students, which speaks volumes about who the "we" excludes, as well as providing a disgraceful argument for why people should be forced to live below the poverty line. "We've" been told we need to be protected from women (none of whom, according to the government, were "credible") who raise their voices against gendered violence, including all forms of gendered inequality (for there is nothing nonviolent about deliberately structured inequality). Again, that "we" is exponentially shrinking. "We", in this discursive frame, also need to be protected from First Nations peoples who don't realise how good Australia is, and who keep wanting to talk about dispossession, hyper-incarceration and deaths in custody, and who continue to demand action in response to the Uluru Statement from the Heart. The Morrison government has also made it clear, not least of all with its Ensuring Integrity and Industrial Relations Omnibus bills, that "we" need protection from workers who want to be paid decent wages (on the grounds that this is bad for profits and therefore bad for "the economy"). We ostensibly need protection from "double-dippers", from casualised workers entitled to permanent employment, and from workers who want such luxuries as sick leave, annual leave, domestic violence leave, and paid vaccination leave. At regular intervals, the Morrison government therefore tries to tell us we actually need to be protected from unions, which it predictably paints as being despicable. This is quite telling, given that the union movement is simply the working class daring to organise itself collectively. Nothing scares the bejeezus out of the Morrison government, and the interests it represents, more than when the despised get organised. Despite the malleability of the protection discourse, we do want to feel protected. But while the Morrison government is big on talking about protecting our borders, it has nothing constructive to say about protecting our lives or protecting our future. If it cared about protecting our lives, it would not only have been more proactive in regards to our national public health crisis, but would also have ensured that, while profits in some quarters soared, ordinary people did not suffer. Protecting the economy does not mean protection of profits while throwing the rest of us under the bus. It is striking how consistent the Prime Minister is in abrogating responsibility not only for the pandemic but for everything from the climate emergency, the subsequent Black Summer bushfires, gendered violence, First Nations deaths in custody, chronic wage stagnation, and the entrenchment of insecure work, with one in four workers now being classified as casuals. We have all paid the price for his lack of leadership during the current crisis. Despite the mess he has made of protecting the community, we can reasonably anticipate that, come the election, we will be in a much better position as far as vaccination rates are concerned - arguably a position we would already be in had he provided effective national quarantining and the competent provision of vaccines. It is clear, though, that the Prime Minister is more interested in protecting his prime ministership than protecting the people, or - to put it more democratically - in ensuring that the people have the power and the means to protect ourselves and each other. Defending the nation is not just about what happens at our borders. If our national government treated social infrastructure as the means of defence that, in truth, it is, then perhaps it would not be so grudging in the way it is resourced. As with past crises and disasters, members of our armed forces have assisted the community during the bushfire crisis and the current Covid crisis. But the "boots on the ground" we need, not only during a crisis but to avert future crises, are not just the "boots" of the armed forces. We need to similarly value, respect and resource the other workers - paid and unpaid - who offer us a defence against that which can harm us, denude us, or prevent us and those we love from having a fair crack at happiness. The highly gendered work of caring, for a start - much of which is low-paid if not unpaid - is a work of protection and defence. Teachers, nurses and other health workers, social services and community workers, are all similarly engaged in defending our lives, our humanity, our right to happiness. It is hard to live, and impossible to thrive, if we do not have a place to live, a place to work (or income security if we cannot work), a place to learn, and a place to heal. Beyond these obvious areas of community and public service, has Covid not taught us the profound importance to our lives of other essential workers? From transport workers to cleaners, from shelf-stackers to checkout assistants, from food industry workers to the workers who keep the lights on in our homes and the water running from our taps, have we not been given a crash course in how these workers help us protect ourselves? Have we not seen how insecure and low-paid many of these essential jobs are? We know, especially in the light of the pandemic, that secure jobs are worth fighting for. It is hard to understand how a government that says it is on the side of the people should deliberately not join us in this fight. The recent statements by the Prime Minister on "embracing", rather than fearing, the removal of restrictions while COVID-19 is still present in the community, are deeply concerning from a health perspective. What lies beneath this quasi-Trumpist discourse, however, is a political strategy that he thinks will get him over the line at the next election. We know what the Prime Minister is up to right now. He is setting the stage for an election in which he will blame state and territory leaders for whatever is wrong in our lives, having taken no responsibility himself for what was squarely within his remit to do, from providing and securing quarantine facilities and a timely vaccine rollout to ensuring people's jobs and incomes were secure. What he has done consistently is to build and bolster the neoliberal framework that protects and enhances the profits of those who already have much - at the expense of those who have, or are at risk of having, not nearly enough. Morrison is preparing to designate the states and territories where lockdowns continue to be necessary as "zones of chaos", to use the words so loved by his mentor, John Howard, who introduced this phrase in a 2006 speech that served as a prelude to the degrading and disempowering Northern Territory Intervention. The metaphor is both powerful and provocative. It bespeaks the strategic assumption of a national or global order endangered by the exceptions to this order. Morrison intends to paint the states and territory governments as presiding over "zones of chaos" from which only his re-election can save us. Hence his recent references to "the deal" made with the Australian people as the framing for how his government is tackling Covid. At times he has referred to it as a "new deal", but we know there is nothing new about a vague wish and a prayer that "this too shall pass". The bottom line is this: deal or no deal, the Morrison government has not protected us.
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Post by pim on Aug 29, 2021 12:20:07 GMT 10
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Post by ponto on Aug 29, 2021 15:11:21 GMT 10
Aw look funny boy GortMo is being a smart Alec fucknut again...and again and again and again...
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Post by pim on Aug 30, 2021 13:12:59 GMT 10
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Post by pim on Sept 2, 2021 17:28:19 GMT 10
The myth is that Scott Morrison as prime minister "leads" Australia ... It is not obvious that Morrison would win a public relations battle with the statesBy Jack Waterford Sep 1, 2021 johnmenadue.com/it-is-not-obvious-that-morrison-would-win-a-public-relations-battle-with-the-states-over-pandemic-strategies/Given the vaccine rollout debacle, Scott Morrison would struggle to convince voters he has handled the pandemic better than state premiers.Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Commonwealth have lost a lot of cred in recent months over vaccines and vaccination programs. He did not focus sufficient resources in areas that were accepted as primarily Commonwealth vaccination responsibilities such as in aged care, Indigenous Australians and people with disabilities in institutional care. And carers, seemingly subject to particular neglect, even now. The premiers seem to have already persuaded most voters about local responses to local problems, rather than one-size-fits-all solutions on the always minimalist Morrison model. They have never been prepared to go along with consensus decisions, particularly as interpreted from time to time by the prime minister, if they believe them to be inappropriate within their own jurisdictions. All the more so if they think — and they do think — that Morrison has been unfairly indulgent to the political and economic interests of his own state, NSW, at the expense of other states and territories. Morrison, and in particular his Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Health Minister Greg Hunt, excoriated Daniel Andrews over his 2020 management of the pandemic, as did News Corp newspapers. But when similar circumstances arose in NSW, and were managed far less firmly and efficiently by a Liberal premier, these critics have been silent, even supportive of tactics they once described as mad, dictatorial and wild over-reaction. One can expect that even a still mild-mannered federal Labor will be constantly reminding voters of what was said and done. When and how do we decide how many casualties are acceptable?Morrison was leaning primarily on political and economic advice, not health advice, in drawing up his “roadmap” of stages by which the economy would emerge from the depths of the pandemic. It was factored on expert health advice from the Doherty Institute about the range of consequences, in terms of infection rates, hospitalisation rates, and death rates, with particular levels of vaccinations. The calculations were also dependent on assumptions about the continuing effectiveness of case finding and treatment, allowing for a good deal of variation with the various morbidities and mortalities if relative efficiency could not be maintained. By whatever assumptions, it was clear people would continue to get infected and die — indeed probably a lot more than now — and that for some years sharp lockdowns would be needed, though not at whole state level. Preventive strategies such as masking and social separation will continue to be needed. There are continuing uncertainties about the behaviour of the virus, the long-term efficacy of some vaccines, and whether children should be vaccinated. Doherty is a best-guess, but still fraught with these uncertainties. I stress that the decisions about the working “minimal levels of vaccination” were made by politicians and bureaucrats from a menu of possible scenarios of the probable effect at different rates. The Doherty report made no recommendations as such. It ought to be impossible for Morrison (or the premiers) to blame the doctors or the epidemiologists if the outcomes are at the worst ranges. Based on British and American experience of infection, hospitalisation and mortality rates after high levels of vaccination were achieved, the outcomes could be far worse. Morrison received a grudging endorsement of the outlines of his theoretical plan from premiers and chief ministers. But it was adopted as a broad strategy, not as a detailed plan. The deal was not reasonably capable of being described as a “contract” between the National Cabinet and the Australian people. Not one of the premiers, even the hapless and increasingly hopeless Gladys Berejiklian, has any intention of foregoing their own freedoms within their borders. They are the ones who will suffer if the plan fails. This is even if they also, like Berejiklian, are desperate to be in a position to relax lockdowns and to let business operate again. Politically canny premiers have been determined to make the decisions that seemed best in their local circumstances, such as on school closures. There was no way, for example, that Morrison could get Western Australia to change its border arrangements (and I do not expect that he can do so now, at least while the pandemic rages in eastern Australian.) The light touch methods adopted by Berejiklian, in closer conformity to national “agreements” than in the other states are now part of the package dismissed as weak, too little and too late. Premiers are also entitled to tartly insist that many of the plans Morrison has attempted to impose would have had worse results had not premiers followed their own advice and their own instincts. The biggest failure, which Labor is trying to sheet home to Morrison personally, is the debacles of organising the vaccines and the vaccinations, as well as those caused by an ideological attempt to contract out much of the delivery. Those failures were, of course, the more severe for continuing high levels of unvaccinated vulnerable groups, uneven availabilities of vaccines, and the recent NSW-Commonwealth habit of failing to accept responsibility for bad management. Berejiklian has a scolding approach which blames the victims, (mostly conveniently not of Anglo-Saxon background) accusing them of non-compliance, and misbehaviour. NSW Police, with a similar dim view of people of “foreign” background, has continued, at higher amplitude, its usual hectoring, coercive, non-accountable and intrusive approach to Sydney westies. Since the beginning of the pandemic, leaders have had to juggle the relative priorities of either eliminating the disease, or getting it under control on the one hand, and getting the economy going again. The Commonwealth and business lobbies and the ranters from News Corp may be right, up to a point, in thinking that premiers have regarded lasting damage to the economy as the Commonwealth’s problem, while concentrating on eliminating local flare-ups. Be that as it may, it is a brave politician who will talk cheerfully about “acceptable” levels of deaths, particularly when, as now, NSW simply does not have the disease under any sort of control. Berejiklian may have given up and now think one can never eliminate the virus. But other leaders have done a far better job, and without anything like the assistance lavished on the state by the prime minister. Morrison may get plaudits of business interests in pushing for a re-opening of the economy. He can join to that constituency people exhausted and impoverished by lockdowns, and with an increasing tendency to regard public health controls as assaults on their freedom. But he would be wrong to think that the population at large is ready to drop the ball, or ready to casually dismiss fatalities as being in an acceptable range. He need only look at state election results, and, in particular, the results in Western Australia where the Liberals were almost wiped out. I doubt that he could win an election on the treachery of the premiers and chief ministers or a popular view that he, rather than they, have the credentials to carry on the struggle, medical or economic.
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Post by matte on Sept 7, 2021 23:42:43 GMT 10
I supported Scott Morrison when he went to Hawaii during the bushfires. That is largely a state matter and I actually agree the states are best placed to deal with natural disasters like that. I was fine with him going to see the grave of a long lost relative when in the UK. Yes, a bit controversial, but he was there on government business. It didn't change the fact he would quarantine when he returned. But this visit to Sydney has exposed him. Yes, it is within the rules. But those rules are special rules that only apply to a limited number of people. It is reasonable for the Prime Minister to travel around to conduct government business. People would assume that is the purpose of such exemptions. But he used the rules to benefit himself. It had nothing to do with government business. Yes he may have conducted a TV interview, but that didn't need to be face-to-face. The purpose of the trip was to to see his wife and kids and to get a root. Not a good look when everyone else missed out. /
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Post by caskur on Sept 8, 2021 4:03:00 GMT 10
Aw look funny boy GortMo is being a smart Alec fucknut again...and again and again and again... Did the Chinese make the wind turbines using fossil fuels from our coal mines?
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Post by ponto on Sept 8, 2021 8:23:31 GMT 10
You quote my missive about Gortnuts being a fucknut, which he is, and then divert to Chinas wind turbines...and have explained about wind turbines before...and you repeat the same ol' mantra like a broken record...and why because you have a dark ages dinosaur anti renewable pseudo science ideology...coal good...renewables bad climate change is not human induced.
Like it or nuts, renewables are happening and fast...what you say is irrelevant.
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Post by caskur on Sept 8, 2021 18:04:57 GMT 10
You quote my missive about Gortnuts being a fucknut, which he is, and then divert to Chinas wind turbines...and have explained about wind turbines before...and you repeat the same ol' mantra like a broken record...and why because you have a dark ages dinosaur anti renewable pseudo science ideology...coal good...renewables bad climate change is not human induced. Like it or nuts, renewables are happening and fast...what you say is irrelevant. Our Prem has now banned logging in native forests... stick it up your jumper... you are stuck with Gladys... WA rules... youse drool... neener, neener!!!!
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Post by ponto on Sept 8, 2021 21:33:40 GMT 10
Neener...Ay...??
A good move by McGowan on logging...though mining can still rip, tear and clear.
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Post by caskur on Sept 8, 2021 22:01:04 GMT 10
Neener...Ay...?? A good move by McGowan on logging...though mining can still rip, tear and clear. Trust me.... I am working on it. You have no idea my reach...
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Post by matte on Sept 8, 2021 23:04:05 GMT 10
Can we get back on topic as to why Scott Morrison is unfit to lead?
This fathers day thing is the icing on the cake. While families were meeting each other between plastic barricades on the NSW and Qld border, Scott Morrison was meeting his family at home, within the exclusive rules that apply to him and a handful of others.
He misled everyone about it.
I believe he should be challenged for his job.
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Post by ponto on Sept 8, 2021 23:12:44 GMT 10
It was just another poor decision by ScoMonuts then it was a poor decision by people to vote for the coalition, same people that gave us Tony Abbott.....vote for dinosaurs get dinosaurs.
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Post by pim on Sept 9, 2021 0:39:56 GMT 10
The “Leadership” Gospel according to Mr Smirk and Mirrors, the Prime Miniature of Australia, Scotty from Marketing …
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