Australian democracy is a sham
Time and time again Australians have declared they don’t want a Big Australia.
Life won’t be easy under Albanese. What alternative is there ? None
It’s a grand decision between shit and faeces.
Mate get a life, on here daily with your negative views, nothing is good in the world.
Fair dinkum blowin open your eyes FFS. you have it better then most on your coastal hinterland but no no you’re one miserable bloke.
Anything but miserable. Probably one of the happiest people you’ll ever meet. That’s not to say I can’t appreciate an unfolding cock-up when I see one.
Plenty of good in the world and I’m surrounded by beauty and good people. There are forces actively toiling to destroy most that I hold as valuable such as access to untouched environments. If you don’t like me raising this topic then on your bike. It’s that easy.
R U OK?
No mate. I’m fucked. Waiting for the proper rain to start-which I love - went for a walk with friends to a cafe at the beach a couple of hundred metres away. Past kangaroos and koalas. Had a couple of coffees and a naughty bit of warm lemon and coconut bread with cream. Walked back. Minding the old fella upstairs and listening to music, doing exercises whilst commenting on here.
Seems I’m not allowed to hold a few contrasting thoughts in my mind. According to GS , I’m apparently not able to be quite content with my immediate reality whilst simultaneously despairing at the state of politics.
Apologies if this causes confusion. It all seems pretty straight forward to me.
There's some pretty sensible debate surrounding the jobs summit taking place:
"We caused this mess, and now we're telling ourselves that we've got a skills shortage where what we've actually got is a spectacularly unsuccessful vocational education and training sector that's been privatized and deregulated."
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) September 2, 2022
-@RDNS_TAI on @ABCthedrum #auspol pic.twitter.com/ATLY2sHWrw
Climate Minister Bowen today attacking the previous government’s environmental record whilst his comrade Albo proudly announcing millions and millions more humans to be artificially injected into the Aussie ecosystem and consequently fuck it in all ways possible.
Nice work.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:Well Albo has just rejected the wishes of majority of Australians by recommitting us to the Big Australia model.
The Big Australia model is destructive of every quantifiable standard of living and measure of success as a nation and a community. The Big Australia model- minimum starting base of an extra 1.000.000 immigrants every five years - will see wages plummet, access to health and welfare severely curtailed, water security utterly toileted , congestion and human traffick skyrocketed, competition for employment turbocharged.
Big Australia model takes the concept of sustainability and environmental protection and boots it so hard in the goolies that the idea of protecting our planet will taste like testicles forever more. Any ambition towards emissions reductions is likewise a hearty joke that Albo can’t quite understand.
Albo sold us all out. We replaced a lying sociopath Scomo with an empty chair spineless eunuch and the difference in outcome is negligible at best. The environment is still rooted. Australians wil still be much, much worse off than if we’d voted in an inanimate object.
The duopoly major parties collude to ignore the issues essential to maintaining a liveable nation in preference to indulging the whims of the plutocracy.
Without putting too fine or hyperbolic a point on it….democratic representation in Australia is dead and buried. We get a choice between Coke and Pepsi. We decide which set of useless cnts will ignore the people.
spot on! dsds...labour just another bunch of "flogs" for foreign vested interests $$$ and their progeny and mates, all uni degree trained govt beauracrats.
at least bill shorten had the right idea about the excessive mines profit tax, well albo backed down on that ystrday, then again from articles i read looks like the mine sectors gunna flop (?): china slow down and cheaper suppliers of all comodities and politics, so no more big profits??
and now the oil and gas and power company's are makeing mega profits as a consequence of war.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:Time and time again Australians have declared they don’t want a Big Australia.
The question they should ask is..
Do you want a reduced standard of living, do you want higher taxes, do you want to do the shit jobs, do you want your food costs to increase, do you want to pay for DR visits, do you want the health system defunded, do you want to pay more for education?
Australians...NO. Then stfu you idiots because small Australia will deliver all this and more.
The surprising thing is how anyone thought ALBO and a change of govt would be any different.
Get the popcorn ready
Too bad we had decades of far smaller population whilst enjoying a better standard of living, lower taxes, cheaper food costs and free Dr visits. We also had free roads, free education and far superior health systems whilst welfare paid a higher real safety net.
Australia of the 1990s had all of these benefits without the destructive externalities Roadkill elects to overlook such as ruined environment, higher emissions and increased water insecurity. Alongside overwhelmed infrastructure, overcrowded living conditions and species extinction due to endless housing building out former bush land.
He alsofails to mention that all of the bugbears he threatens us with have increased exponentially in lock step with the two decades old mass immigration experiment. The proof is there for all to see. Shouty assertions by proper right-wing small business little kings does not alter the truth which anyone can plainly see for themselves.
Roadkill is just parroting the lies proffered to him by the political class and MSM. As usual he has no genuine idea of reality.
Roadkill thinks Scomo should still be PM….what more do you need to know about the bloke. He couldn’t present as more of a clown if arrived under under a big top tent in an erratically driven mini minor and tumbled out of it with another dozen crew wearing red noses, green wigs and size 30 shoes.
Roadkill wrote:The surprising thing is how anyone thought ALBO and a change of govt would be any different.
What setup would you like to see Roadkill?
roadkill...simple, nationalise all super funds into a sovereign fund like norway has, the profits of which are to create new industries and pay for social neccesities etc.
the current system is a ponzi scheme that employs a huge ammount of waste of spacers who have lost $billions on poor investments and no accountability, eg gfc 2008, adani coal project.
the tv adverts cost $millions per yr (your money) which goes to an advertiseing agency owned and operated by a pollies mate (political donor) ditto the employees.
read an article yrs ago that stated there are $billions/yr taken out of funds for running costs, wages, advertiseing etc...a minimum of 14 $billion+.
super is a fantastic scheme, not the current way of running it imo.
the ppl who lose their "super" jobs should still get pay and the saveings from going to one sovereign fund would still be mega billions...no bull.
does anyone know how many S.F. are out there? not includeing smf's.
The point of this thread is that Australia has the same policies thrust upon them irrespective of which party gets voted in. Years of polling shows that an easy majority of Australians reject the nation-altering Big Australia concept yet our political class steadfastly refuses to grant representation.
Australians know that privatisation is ruinous and unproductive yet both sides refuse to cede an inch in their ambition to reconfigure every possible public service into a profit generating faculty for private industry. Regardless of how else that service may be.
Both sides of politics have handed our energy security, our infrastructure and even our national planning apparatus to big business.
What’s it tell you when someone who considers themselves a hard left voter gets the same policy outcome as someone who considers themselves a Gard right voter? The outcome of elections is 95% immaterial to policy direction in Australia.
Democracy is over bar the shouting.
As the saying goes -“ If voting made a difference it’d be outlawed.”
AndyM wrote:Roadkill wrote:The surprising thing is how anyone thought ALBO and a change of govt would be any different.
What setup would you like to see Roadkill?
I don't really know how to fix the current mess, I will leave that up to, the nobel laureate for economics and every world problem known to man, professor blowhard blowin.
I do agree with professor blowin when he says
"democratic representation in Australia is dead and buried. We get a choice between Coke and Pepsi. We decide which set of useless cnts will ignore the people."
except it is a world wide problem...and our representation is getting worse and further away from what people want than ever before. Also, the quality of govt members is dropping fast.
GuySmiley wrote:Mate get a life, on here daily with your negative views, nothing is good in the world.
Fair dinkum blowin open your eyes FFS. you have it better then most on your coastal hinterland but no no you’re one miserable bloke.
Seconded.
Far out I wish I had that kind of free time to burn. Suffice to say there'd be no way I'd be pouring it into endlessly pushing quite radical opinions and views essentially anonomously on an Australian surf website. Surely just create a Twitter account and get lost in the maelstrom that way?
Twitter?
Twits tittering. Count me out. Surfers are real people with a passion that burns bright enough to get them swimming amongst man eating fish whilst the rest of plebeian humanity slurps fruit loops as Kochie drools Dad bod propaganda spunk in their ears and eyeballs.
Surfers have the answers. Timothy Leary knew. You know. I know. Kochie doesn’t have a fucking clue.
Tom Carroll still has a six pack!
I'm off to buy a 6 pack. Happy Friday.
I was only just posting this article in other thread, but moved it here within the edit window as more relevant to this discussion.
"Albo & Chalmers: a plan for 'Big Australia'
The Albanese Labor government has been in power barely three months and already one can discern the vast gulf between its words and actions.
Listen to the Albanese government’s rhetoric on wages, housing affordability, and the environment – then consider its plan to massively expand immigration.
The Albanese government has signalled that it may increase the permanent immigration intake from 160,000 to up to 200,000 per annum – almost the equivalent of a new city the size of Hobart in a single year. (Edit by Indo: today lifted to 195,000)
An agreement on these higher immigration numbers will reportedly be one of the primary focuses at Labor’s Jobs and Skills Summit.
If Labor does increase the permanent intake to 200,000 a year, it will represent the biggest immigration surge in Australia’s history, surpassing the record set by Kevin Rudd.
Add to this figure the humanitarian intake of around 14,000(Edit Indo, No doubt will also be increased), an uncapped number of temporary overseas workers, and an influx of foreign students with untrammelled working rights.
There are already an astonishing 570,000 temporary visa applications that the Albanese government has pledged to fast-track. It is not fanciful to foresee net overseas migration (NOM) surging toward half a million next year. All of this amounts to a revived Big Australia program on steroids.
In the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, Anthony Albanese and Jim Chalmers made a lot of noise about the lack of real wage growth in Australia.
‘The truth is if you want real, permanent, meaningful help with the cost of living, you need a plan to get wages growing again,’ Albanese said, in March this year.
Confronted last week with dismal wage growth figures, Chalmers claimed that ‘a key focus of the jobs and skills summit will be how do we get wages growing at a sustainable rate again, so that Australians aren’t falling further and further behind’.
Yet Albanese and Chalmers would have us believe that the mass importation of overseas workers has absolutely no effect on the earnings of the people already here.
The Prime Minister and the Treasurer clearly didn’t heed the advice of one of Labor’s favourite economists, Ross Garnaut. In his most recent book, Garnaut writes that the ‘overall effect of the mid-2000s ramp-up in immigration was to integrate much of the Australian labour market into a global labour market for the first time’.
According to Garnaut:
‘Integration into a global labour market held down wages… It contributed to persistent unemployment, rising underemployment, and stagnant real wages during the expansion of total economic activity during the Dog Days [the 2010s]. It contributed to a historic shift in the distribution of incomes from wages to profits. Increased immigration contributed to total GDP growth, but detracted from the living standards of many Australian working families.’
It’s not hard to fathom why allowing employers easy access to cheaper foreign labour abrogates any need to offer higher pay or improve conditions and invest in training. A return to Big Australia mass immigration means continued wage stagnation or worse, a decline for Australian workers. It also means soaring housing costs.
It would be nice if a journalist asked the Albanese government the glaringly obvious question: where are all these extra migrants going to live? With rental vacancy rates already at record lows and rents exploding across the country, the Albanese government is about to unleash the mother of all housing crises, inflicting unnecessary pain on legacy Australians and recent arrivals alike. Perhaps the government can ask new migrants to bring their own tents…
‘Australians who work full time should be able to afford a house or cover the rent,’ tweeted Albanese last year. ‘We need to tackle housing affordability.’ Pity the poor fools who were convinced by Albanese’s crocodile tears.
And what about Labor’s much-vaunted emissions reduction targets?
As a 2016 University of Adelaide-led study observed, Australia’s future greenhouse gas emissions are, in part, tied to the country’s immigration policy.
The study concluded:
‘More population growth driven by immigration will hamper Australia’s ability to meet its future Climate Change mitigation commitments and worsen its already stressed ecosystems, unless a massive technological transformation of Australia’s energy sector is immediately forthcoming.’
Such a technological transformation, the study noted, would require the prompt adoption of nuclear energy – an energy source vehemently opposed by the Albanese government. Again, it would be great if a journalist could ask Albo how he intends to reach ‘Net Zero’ under his non-nuclear, Big Australia scenario.
After a pause in immigration due to the Covid pandemic, business groups are very eager to see a return to Big Australia immigration levels. That’s hardly surprising given that high immigration effectively serves as a big, fat, juicy subsidy to lazy businesses in the form of cheaper labour and more customers. But it is ordinary Australians who bear the costs in a variety of ways, including lower wages, more expensive housing, clogged cities, overloaded infrastructure and services, environmental deterioration, diminished social cohesion, and cultural disruption.
A survey conducted last year by the Australian Population Research Institute found a distinct hardening of attitudes toward immigration during the pandemic, with the vast majority of those polled opposing a return to Big Australia immigration levels.
According to the Australian Population Research Institute’s Katharine Betts and Bob Birrell, these findings show that majority opposition to high immigration is consistent with voters’ awareness of its negative consequences.
Another survey, released last week, found that a clear majority want Labor’s Jobs and Skills Summit to focus on lifting wages rather than bringing in more overseas workers. When asked to select the two best options to address worker shortages, 50 per cent said the solution was to increase wages and conditions or offer incentives for new employees, while 50 per cent also stated increased investment in training.
We have been told for decades that Australia is suffering from chronic skills shortages – and that more immigration is the solution. Despite running the largest (in per capita terms) immigration program of any developed country and importing millions of extra workers since the start of the century, Australia is still said to suffer from chronic skills shortages. And now the usual suspects are saying we need even higher immigration to fix the problem.
Something doesn’t stack up here. Cue the famous quote attributed to Einstein about the definition of insanity.
A smart government would shift the focus of our immigration program away from quantity, i.e. importing lots of people, towards quality i.e. a smaller, better targeted, higher skilled intake. A more moderate, manageable intake would generally make life easier for Australia’s existing citizens and residents.
If Albanese does indeed turbocharge immigration at the behest of special interests, it will be a stark reminder that the modern ALP is completely divorced from Australian labour."
https://spectator.com.au/2022/08/albo-and-chalmers-a-plan-for-big-austra...
Stok wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Mate get a life, on here daily with your negative views, nothing is good in the world.
Fair dinkum blowin open your eyes FFS. you have it better then most on your coastal hinterland but no no you’re one miserable bloke.
Seconded.
Far out I wish I had that kind of free time to burn. Suffice to say there'd be no way I'd be pouring it into endlessly pushing quite radical opinions and views essentially anonomously on an Australian surf website. Surely just create a Twitter account and get lost in the maelstrom that way?
A bit harsh singling blowin out. There's been plenty of political commentators on these threads over the years who seem to have had plenty of time on their hands to lecture us all about what 'opinions' are correct . Just pointing out the bleeding obvious from those who don't always engage in these threads.
Stok wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Mate get a life, on here daily with your negative views, nothing is good in the world.
Fair dinkum blowin open your eyes FFS. you have it better then most on your coastal hinterland but no no you’re one miserable bloke.
Seconded.
Far out I wish I had that kind of free time to burn. Suffice to say there'd be no way I'd be pouring it into endlessly pushing quite radical opinions and views essentially anonomously on an Australian surf website. Surely just create a Twitter account and get lost in the maelstrom that way?
Stok I’m curious as to which opinions you see as radical?
Me too.
You might not like the bloke but...
Don't shoot the messenger and all that.
The parlous state of Australian democracy is definitely worth talking about.
“Unlike western Europe and north-east Asia, Australia as a geographic entity has higher terms of trade when gas and coal prices rise,” he said. “But under current policies, average Australians are poorer.”
“We are kidding ourselves if we think no deep wounds will be left in our polity from high coal and gas, and therefore electricity prices, bringing record profits for companies, and substantially lower living standards to most Australians,” he said.
“The appropriate public policy response is mineral rent taxation and not pressures for higher wages.
“There are many opportunities for raising additional revenue in Australia while enhancing equity and improving or at least not damaging economic efficiency.”
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, on Friday said Garnaut, now a professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne and an author of books on economic reform and clean energy opportunities, had “real standing in the economic community”.
“He made a lot of good points in that speech but I don’t propose to go down that path,” Chalmers told journalists outside the summit conference hall.
Does not really matter what side of politics you generally identify with, but I think most would agree that the amount of money that is siphoned off overseas or to an minority of super wealthy Australians from our mineral wealth is a disgrace.
Just compare the tax revenue of Australia versus Qatar for gas exports for a start. Norwegian sovereign wealth fund, how much tax Chevron pay etc...
As Freeride post pointed out, people are pissed off when they see their power bills and generally expenses increase whilst the power companies post big profits which mainly go overseas. Then Australia having to buy it's own gas back to meet domestic demand, never mind our emergency fuel reserves stored in the USA! Geez Australia the clever country....
freeride76 wrote:“
“He made a lot of good points in that speech but I don’t propose to go down that path,” Chalmers told journalists
Speaks volumes doesn’t it.
bonza wrote:freeride76 wrote:“
“He made a lot of good points in that speech but I don’t propose to go down that path,” Chalmers told journalists
Speaks volumes doesn’t it.
And this.....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/03/albanese-claims-he...
Increased migration
Home affairs minister Clare O’Neil said the government would increase the permanent migration number for 2022-23 to 195,000 people, up from 160,000. She said the government wanted to “move away from the focus on short-term migrants, toward permanency, citizenship and nation building”, adding that 34,000 of the places would be for regional areas.
Where will they house them?
All the second hand cars are already taken by single Mums who can't find/afford rentals.
Nationbuilding?
Nationbuilding??
What a sick cynical joke.
BCF and Anaconda haven’t run out of tents yet and Aus has plenty of desert
tubeshooter wrote:Stok wrote:GuySmiley wrote:Mate get a life, on here daily with your negative views, nothing is good in the world.
Fair dinkum blowin open your eyes FFS. you have it better then most on your coastal hinterland but no no you’re one miserable bloke.
Seconded.
Far out I wish I had that kind of free time to burn. Suffice to say there'd be no way I'd be pouring it into endlessly pushing quite radical opinions and views essentially anonomously on an Australian surf website. Surely just create a Twitter account and get lost in the maelstrom that way?
A bit harsh singling blowin out. There's been plenty of political commentators on these threads over the years who seem to have had plenty of time on their hands to lecture us all about what 'opinions' are correct . Just pointing out the bleeding obvious from those who don't always engage in these threads.
I dont agree with a lot of Blowins views on this, i just think they are a bit idealistic but not realistic, but yeah singling Blowin out is pretty unfair, lets be real Swellnet is a complete whingefest especially when it comes to politics, the thing with Blowin (and Sypkan) is he is critical of both sides of politics and some people clearly dont like that.
indo, whingefest?? that's an innapropiate comment imo.
to point out rampant corruption and incompetence and apathy of our ruleing "elite" and the same as it ever was who ever is in charge is good, not whineing.
andy-mac wrote:bonza wrote:freeride76 wrote:“
“He made a lot of good points in that speech but I don’t propose to go down that path,” Chalmers told journalists
Speaks volumes doesn’t it.
And this.....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/03/albanese-claims-he...
Given recent commentary I’m getting the sense that labor is laying low on this and come the budget preceding the next election will scrap it. It’d be a nice piece of gamesmanship to delay a piss easy decision so as to protect their political capital while they battle out the issues that require balls. But they won’t so it’s not. It’s just what it is. Weak as piss politics to protect power.
Whinging is bloody good for you. What did that hair-bun shit tattoo website call us. A safe place for middle age man. That was pretty funny.
ahh She'll be right.
bonza wrote:andy-mac wrote:bonza wrote:freeride76 wrote:“
“He made a lot of good points in that speech but I don’t propose to go down that path,” Chalmers told journalists
Speaks volumes doesn’t it.
And this.....
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/03/albanese-claims-he...
Given recent commentary I’m getting the sense that labor is laying low on this and come the budget preceding the next election will scrap it. It’d be a nice piece of gamesmanship to delay a piss easy decision so as to protect their political capital while they battle out the issues that require balls. But they won’t so it’s not. It’s just what it is. Weak as piss politics to protect power.
Agree they probably will drop it once it (if)becomes politically safe to do so. It's a sad state of affairs with the Australian media that the governing party is so threatened by a bias partisan fourth estate. If dropped now the media would be screaming lies, cannot be trusted etc etc until next election.
Probably smart to leave it for a while, at least until ICAC is up and running, then the opposition will have other pressing concerns...
Dear Mister Wizard of Oz Shambolic Democracy!
tbb was fooled into believing that Albo's bodyguard was some Mythical First Nation Giant.
No one said any different...had to research Shrek or Sheik or Shack ...again! Still hardly know his name.
tbb checked & found this Hulk like Giant was born in New Jersey from Persian Parents.
Same Colour but from entirely different continent/s...how is this not exploiting some Token Black Guy?
Shaque has a 10.25" wide grip & reaches 12'6" high to drop a 9.43" tiny ball into 10ft low hoop!
AIS Expert Prof Norm : "Not even sure if Basketball qualifies as exercise for Shaquille!"
Don't get tbb wrong...
Also fine to be tall enough & have shot a few hoops & played & watched a game or two!
Just thought that there is already a proud heritage of Australian Aboriginal Olympic Basketball
Like Mike...
https://cdn.revolutionise.com.au/cups/sportsa/files/5htkkbxo8xoulynu.pdf
1964 Boomer Mike represented a trio of first Aborigines to compete as Aussie Olympians
(Photo) Mike used to play 2nd right rear as Auntie's Token Black Guy.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-04/lindsay-gaze-remembering-tokyo-19...
Also the 1st Aussie Basketballer to slam dunk double digits against the Dream Team.
https://pickandroll.com.au/p/like-mike-the-story-of-the-first
https://indaily.com.au/sport/2020/11/02/honouring-indigenous-basketballe...
2020 Aussie Olympic Flag Bearer Aboriginal Basketballer Mills still has his Voice.
https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1109882/mills-campbell-flagbeare...
So yes! tbb agrees that ALBOs weird arse take on The Voice Constitutes as a Scam
If ALBO wants to lock in Aboriginal swing seats then do that...but let The Voice find it's own body!
From the Essential Macrobusiness site:
Albo’s cowards fiddle while East Coast gas users burn
By Unconventional Economist
Check out the below chart of international and Australian gas prices, published in The AFR:
International and Australian gas prices
Because of its domestic gas reservation policy, Western Australian gas users are enjoying the lowest prices in the OECD. By contrast, East Coast Australian gas users, where there is no reservation policy, are stuck paying among the highest prices in the world.
Even China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast.
Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy the cheapest electricity in the OECD, whereas users on the East Coast are stuck paying high electricity prices:
WA electricity prices are also much lower than in the National Electricity Market on the east coast, averaging $64 a megawatt-hour, while NEM prices were more than four times higher at an unprecedented $284/MWh. The NEM average was more than triple the average of the June quarter last year, even including several weeks when wholesale electricity and gas prices were capped by the Australian Energy Market Operator…
“With energy prices at eye-watering levels around the world, we believe that Western Australia now has the lowest gas prices in the OECD,” EnergyQuest said.
“Western Australia is a low-energy price paradise”…
Previous criticisms of the policies – including that it could deter investment in new gas supply and push up electricity prices by prioritising supply security over efficiency – do not appear to have been borne out by experience in Western Australia, a market that is transitioning to low-carbon power.
How an energy superpower like East Coast Australia could charge its own citizens some of the highest gas and electricity prices on the planet is one of the greatest policy failures of our time.
This failure could be overcome by copying the Western Australian government and implementing a domestic gas reservation requirement, or better yet, combining it with super profits taxes.
Sadly, the coward Albanese Government is refusing to move on either, despite Labor being responsible for failing to implement East Coast gas reservation when it approved the Queensland Curtis Island LNG export trains under the Rudd/Gillard Government.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday also ruled out implementing a mining super profits tax, despite such policies working wonders in places like Norway, which has accumulated a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions on the back of super profits taxes:
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out imposing a new tax on high mining profits to better spread the resources boom to workers, after economist Ross Garnaut proposed the shake-up at the Jobs and Skills Summit…
Professor Garnaut said high commodity prices should be driving budget surpluses, instead of “eye watering” levels of “peacetime record highs of public debt” after massive stimulus spending during the pandemic…
“A significant part of the increase in the profit share in recent years is in mining”…
“Unlike Western Europe and north-east Asia, Australia as a geographic entity has higher terms of trade when gas and coal prices rise”…
“But under current policies, average Australians are poorer.
“We are kidding ourselves if we think no deep wounds will be left in our polity from high coal and gas and therefore electricity prices bringing record profits for companies, and substantially lower living standards to most Australians” [Garnaut said]…
A Labor source said Dr Chalmers was still “scarred” from the failed “super profits” mining tax in 2010 when he was a senior adviser to then treasurer Wayne Swan, and that he did not want to revisit the idea…
“We don’t have a policy for a mining tax,” [Chalmers] said on ABC Radio National…
“We’re not proposing to go down that path.”
The weekend news that Russia has now cut Nord Stream gas flows to Europe completely means international prices will take off again. As we know, one LNG export terminal has been idled in Australia for the past month for maintenance but resumed operations yesterday. These two developments mean the gas cartel will immediately pressure the local gas price higher again. Without intervention, above $100Gj and disaster.
Meet new Labor: the protectors of capital and the enemies of working Australians.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:From the Essential Macrobusiness site:
Albo’s cowards fiddle while East Coast gas users burn
By Unconventional Economist
Check out the below chart of international and Australian gas prices, published in The AFR:
International and Australian gas prices
Because of its domestic gas reservation policy, Western Australian gas users are enjoying the lowest prices in the OECD. By contrast, East Coast Australian gas users, where there is no reservation policy, are stuck paying among the highest prices in the world.Even China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast.
Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy the cheapest electricity in the OECD, whereas users on the East Coast are stuck paying high electricity prices:
WA electricity prices are also much lower than in the National Electricity Market on the east coast, averaging $64 a megawatt-hour, while NEM prices were more than four times higher at an unprecedented $284/MWh. The NEM average was more than triple the average of the June quarter last year, even including several weeks when wholesale electricity and gas prices were capped by the Australian Energy Market Operator…
“With energy prices at eye-watering levels around the world, we believe that Western Australia now has the lowest gas prices in the OECD,” EnergyQuest said.
“Western Australia is a low-energy price paradise”…
Previous criticisms of the policies – including that it could deter investment in new gas supply and push up electricity prices by prioritising supply security over efficiency – do not appear to have been borne out by experience in Western Australia, a market that is transitioning to low-carbon power.
How an energy superpower like East Coast Australia could charge its own citizens some of the highest gas and electricity prices on the planet is one of the greatest policy failures of our time.
This failure could be overcome by copying the Western Australian government and implementing a domestic gas reservation requirement, or better yet, combining it with super profits taxes.
Sadly, the coward Albanese Government is refusing to move on either, despite Labor being responsible for failing to implement East Coast gas reservation when it approved the Queensland Curtis Island LNG export trains under the Rudd/Gillard Government.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday also ruled out implementing a mining super profits tax, despite such policies working wonders in places like Norway, which has accumulated a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions on the back of super profits taxes:
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out imposing a new tax on high mining profits to better spread the resources boom to workers, after economist Ross Garnaut proposed the shake-up at the Jobs and Skills Summit…
Professor Garnaut said high commodity prices should be driving budget surpluses, instead of “eye watering” levels of “peacetime record highs of public debt” after massive stimulus spending during the pandemic…
“A significant part of the increase in the profit share in recent years is in mining”…
“Unlike Western Europe and north-east Asia, Australia as a geographic entity has higher terms of trade when gas and coal prices rise”…
“But under current policies, average Australians are poorer.
“We are kidding ourselves if we think no deep wounds will be left in our polity from high coal and gas and therefore electricity prices bringing record profits for companies, and substantially lower living standards to most Australians” [Garnaut said]…
A Labor source said Dr Chalmers was still “scarred” from the failed “super profits” mining tax in 2010 when he was a senior adviser to then treasurer Wayne Swan, and that he did not want to revisit the idea…
“We don’t have a policy for a mining tax,” [Chalmers] said on ABC Radio National…
“We’re not proposing to go down that path.”
The weekend news that Russia has now cut Nord Stream gas flows to Europe completely means international prices will take off again. As we know, one LNG export terminal has been idled in Australia for the past month for maintenance but resumed operations yesterday. These two developments mean the gas cartel will immediately pressure the local gas price higher again. Without intervention, above $100Gj and disaster.
Meet new Labor: the protectors of capital and the enemies of working Australians.
Coward or realist govt?
Dunno? Agree the mining tax and gas situation is a farce. However still have concerns that if Albo did some of the things suggested in article, they will be a one term govt. Think they are rightfully afraid of their own shadow with this as with stage 3 tax cuts. Situation is fooked.....
Less cowardice and more corruption.
Realism has nothing to do with it. They either govern for Australians or their own career prospects. At the moment they aren’t governing for Australians.
Democracy in Australia is a sham.
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:From the Essential Macrobusiness site:
Albo’s cowards fiddle while East Coast gas users burn
By Unconventional Economist
Check out the below chart of international and Australian gas prices, published in The AFR:
International and Australian gas prices
Because of its domestic gas reservation policy, Western Australian gas users are enjoying the lowest prices in the OECD. By contrast, East Coast Australian gas users, where there is no reservation policy, are stuck paying among the highest prices in the world.Even China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast.
Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy the cheapest electricity in the OECD, whereas users on the East Coast are stuck paying high electricity prices:
WA electricity prices are also much lower than in the National Electricity Market on the east coast, averaging $64 a megawatt-hour, while NEM prices were more than four times higher at an unprecedented $284/MWh. The NEM average was more than triple the average of the June quarter last year, even including several weeks when wholesale electricity and gas prices were capped by the Australian Energy Market Operator…
“With energy prices at eye-watering levels around the world, we believe that Western Australia now has the lowest gas prices in the OECD,” EnergyQuest said.
“Western Australia is a low-energy price paradise”…
Previous criticisms of the policies – including that it could deter investment in new gas supply and push up electricity prices by prioritising supply security over efficiency – do not appear to have been borne out by experience in Western Australia, a market that is transitioning to low-carbon power.
How an energy superpower like East Coast Australia could charge its own citizens some of the highest gas and electricity prices on the planet is one of the greatest policy failures of our time.
This failure could be overcome by copying the Western Australian government and implementing a domestic gas reservation requirement, or better yet, combining it with super profits taxes.
Sadly, the coward Albanese Government is refusing to move on either, despite Labor being responsible for failing to implement East Coast gas reservation when it approved the Queensland Curtis Island LNG export trains under the Rudd/Gillard Government.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday also ruled out implementing a mining super profits tax, despite such policies working wonders in places like Norway, which has accumulated a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions on the back of super profits taxes:
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out imposing a new tax on high mining profits to better spread the resources boom to workers, after economist Ross Garnaut proposed the shake-up at the Jobs and Skills Summit…
Professor Garnaut said high commodity prices should be driving budget surpluses, instead of “eye watering” levels of “peacetime record highs of public debt” after massive stimulus spending during the pandemic…
“A significant part of the increase in the profit share in recent years is in mining”…
“Unlike Western Europe and north-east Asia, Australia as a geographic entity has higher terms of trade when gas and coal prices rise”…
“But under current policies, average Australians are poorer.
“We are kidding ourselves if we think no deep wounds will be left in our polity from high coal and gas and therefore electricity prices bringing record profits for companies, and substantially lower living standards to most Australians” [Garnaut said]…
A Labor source said Dr Chalmers was still “scarred” from the failed “super profits” mining tax in 2010 when he was a senior adviser to then treasurer Wayne Swan, and that he did not want to revisit the idea…
“We don’t have a policy for a mining tax,” [Chalmers] said on ABC Radio National…
“We’re not proposing to go down that path.”
The weekend news that Russia has now cut Nord Stream gas flows to Europe completely means international prices will take off again. As we know, one LNG export terminal has been idled in Australia for the past month for maintenance but resumed operations yesterday. These two developments mean the gas cartel will immediately pressure the local gas price higher again. Without intervention, above $100Gj and disaster.
Meet new Labor: the protectors of capital and the enemies of working Australians.
Just amazing what a f$#king mess those Lib grubs (stemming back to that dikwad Howard) left us in, isn't it!!
DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:Less cowardice and more corruption.
Realism has nothing to do with it. They either govern for Australians or their own career prospects. At the moment they aren’t governing for Australians.
Democracy in Australia is a sham.
Hard to govern for Australians from opposition bench, so realism does come into it.
andy-mac wrote:DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:From the Essential Macrobusiness site:
Albo’s cowards fiddle while East Coast gas users burn
By Unconventional Economist
Check out the below chart of international and Australian gas prices, published in The AFR:
International and Australian gas prices
Because of its domestic gas reservation policy, Western Australian gas users are enjoying the lowest prices in the OECD. By contrast, East Coast Australian gas users, where there is no reservation policy, are stuck paying among the highest prices in the world.Even China, which receives over 70% of East Coast gas exports, typically pays less than Australian users of that same gas on the East Coast.
Moreover, because gas is the key marginal price setter for electricity, Western Australians also enjoy the cheapest electricity in the OECD, whereas users on the East Coast are stuck paying high electricity prices:
WA electricity prices are also much lower than in the National Electricity Market on the east coast, averaging $64 a megawatt-hour, while NEM prices were more than four times higher at an unprecedented $284/MWh. The NEM average was more than triple the average of the June quarter last year, even including several weeks when wholesale electricity and gas prices were capped by the Australian Energy Market Operator…
“With energy prices at eye-watering levels around the world, we believe that Western Australia now has the lowest gas prices in the OECD,” EnergyQuest said.
“Western Australia is a low-energy price paradise”…
Previous criticisms of the policies – including that it could deter investment in new gas supply and push up electricity prices by prioritising supply security over efficiency – do not appear to have been borne out by experience in Western Australia, a market that is transitioning to low-carbon power.
How an energy superpower like East Coast Australia could charge its own citizens some of the highest gas and electricity prices on the planet is one of the greatest policy failures of our time.
This failure could be overcome by copying the Western Australian government and implementing a domestic gas reservation requirement, or better yet, combining it with super profits taxes.
Sadly, the coward Albanese Government is refusing to move on either, despite Labor being responsible for failing to implement East Coast gas reservation when it approved the Queensland Curtis Island LNG export trains under the Rudd/Gillard Government.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers on Friday also ruled out implementing a mining super profits tax, despite such policies working wonders in places like Norway, which has accumulated a sovereign wealth fund worth trillions on the back of super profits taxes:
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has ruled out imposing a new tax on high mining profits to better spread the resources boom to workers, after economist Ross Garnaut proposed the shake-up at the Jobs and Skills Summit…
Professor Garnaut said high commodity prices should be driving budget surpluses, instead of “eye watering” levels of “peacetime record highs of public debt” after massive stimulus spending during the pandemic…
“A significant part of the increase in the profit share in recent years is in mining”…
“Unlike Western Europe and north-east Asia, Australia as a geographic entity has higher terms of trade when gas and coal prices rise”…
“But under current policies, average Australians are poorer.
“We are kidding ourselves if we think no deep wounds will be left in our polity from high coal and gas and therefore electricity prices bringing record profits for companies, and substantially lower living standards to most Australians” [Garnaut said]…
A Labor source said Dr Chalmers was still “scarred” from the failed “super profits” mining tax in 2010 when he was a senior adviser to then treasurer Wayne Swan, and that he did not want to revisit the idea…
“We don’t have a policy for a mining tax,” [Chalmers] said on ABC Radio National…
“We’re not proposing to go down that path.”
The weekend news that Russia has now cut Nord Stream gas flows to Europe completely means international prices will take off again. As we know, one LNG export terminal has been idled in Australia for the past month for maintenance but resumed operations yesterday. These two developments mean the gas cartel will immediately pressure the local gas price higher again. Without intervention, above $100Gj and disaster.
Meet new Labor: the protectors of capital and the enemies of working Australians.
Coward or realist govt?
Dunno? Agree the mining tax and gas situation is a farce. However still have concerns that if Albo did some of the things suggested in article, they will be a one term govt. Think they are rightfully afraid of their own shadow with this as with stage 3 tax cuts. Situation is fooked.....
the thing is andymac...
if they don't get on top this, they will be a one term government anyway!
I hate to break it to the leftists and climate change cultists... (both of which im a casual member) ...but this energy crisis ain't going anywhere...
the war machine has clearly adopted a bleed russia dry tactic
and the davos class are getting exactly what they want - very high (some would argue appropriate...) energy prices - that have absolutely no effect on certain people... but does totally hobble the plebs... and helps facillitate other agendas...
certain governments are pretty stubborn about their energy policies - as we have clearly seen (germany!) - especially in the US and oz, where the trump / morrison shit show curtailed and nuclear bombed a certain trajectory...
triggering more than a regression in policy...
now left governments are just plain stubbornly, and pig headedly, walking themselves into an energy / public disdain disaster
ukraine was not forseeable (much), it has changed everything! ...some stop gap measures and a little pragmatism would go a long long way...
as climate change cultists like elon musk have suggested
but governments just keep snowballing along oblivious to the real concerns of the public
the 'elites' are burning any skerrik of waning good will they possibly had left... as they show zero pragmatism and regard for the little people, people that they do actually need in this thing we call democracy
but it seems, they've long given up on that concept too...
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-pending-collapse-of-the-unite...
short version...
people vote on economic issues when it really matters
and the world appears locked into at least 3 or 4 years of.. 'it really matters'
"Just when you thought the narrative couldn't get any more idiotic, Europe shocks just about everyone.
A few days after the EU threatened commodity traders it would stage an "emergency intervention" to crush energy prices which were rising at a pace of about 20% per day..."
20% per day!
albo (and biden) are going to be dragged kicking and screaming to do what they have been pig headedly avoiding through a process of pulling teeth...
...in a year or two probably...
and they will look like fools
and the damage to their 'brand' will be already done regardless...
andy-mac wrote:DudeSweetDudeSweet wrote:Less cowardice and more corruption.
Realism has nothing to do with it. They either govern for Australians or their own career prospects. At the moment they aren’t governing for Australians.
Democracy in Australia is a sham.
Hard to govern for Australians from opposition bench, so realism does come into it.
Nah. It’s 100% ALP now. They can do something about it right now but instead choose to lie and treat the public like mugs at immeasurable expense to Australia.
Nothing whatsoever to do with the LNP.
Well Albo has just rejected the wishes of majority of Australians by recommitting us to the Big Australia model.
The Big Australia model is destructive of every quantifiable standard of living and measure of success as a nation and a community. The Big Australia model- minimum starting base of an extra 1.000.000 immigrants every five years - will see wages plummet, access to health and welfare severely curtailed, water security utterly toileted , congestion and human traffick skyrocketed, competition for employment turbocharged.
Big Australia model takes the concept of sustainability and environmental protection and boots it so hard in the goolies that the idea of protecting our planet will taste like testicles forever more. Any ambition towards emissions reductions is likewise a hearty joke that Albo can’t quite understand.
Albo sold us all out. We replaced a lying sociopath Scomo with an empty chair spineless eunuch and the difference in outcome is negligible at best. The environment is still rooted. Australians wil still be much, much worse off than if we’d voted in an inanimate object.
The duopoly major parties collude to ignore the issues essential to maintaining a liveable nation in preference to indulging the whims of the plutocracy.
Without putting too fine or hyperbolic a point on it….democratic representation in Australia is dead and buried. We get a choice between Coke and Pepsi. We decide which set of useless cnts will ignore the people.