On Monday this week energy and climate minister Josh Frydenberg suggested that an emissions intensity trading scheme for the electricity industry to help manage the transition to lower-emissions energy sources might be considered in the context of the Coalition’s reconsideration of climate change policy. A mere 33 hours later Turnbull killed off the option. It looked too much like a carbon tax, and the extreme right of the coalition gave it the thumbs down.
And so Turnbull is left looking like a coward. Frydenberg floated looking at something – not actually doing it, just considering it. The right said no thank you. Turnbull ruled it out. We’ve seen this show so many times now.
Back in November 2010 I did a post on Climate change and the Murray Darling Basin at a time when a plan for the Basin was proposed, but not yet settled. The post still gets a steady trickle of visitors.
The Murray Darling Basin Plan was passed into law in November 2012, when Julia Gillard was prime minister, and Tony Burke the minister responsible. There has been a recent kerfuffle, when Barnaby Joyce said an extra 450 GL of water probably would not be forthcoming. The reaction from SA premier Jay Weatherall and his ministers, and Senator Nick Xenophon seemed to imply the South Australia would be left high and dry. Turns out that’s not really the case. Continue reading Murray Darling Basin perspective→
AUSTRALIA’S lofty status as the world’s second richest nation remains intact, new figures reveal, despite household wealth stalling this year.
In the seventh annual Global Wealth Report from Swiss bank Credit Suisse, the “lucky country” posted an average wealth of $US375,600 ($508,900) for every Australian, second only to banking hotbed Switzerland, with an average net worth of $US562,000.
I don’t know about you but my impression is that the Turnbull government is a chaotic mess! Aaron Patrick at the Fin Review says this week’s Newspoll, again 53-47 TPP to Labor, makes Malcolm Turnbull look like Julia Gillard in Liberal drag. That’s five Newspolls in a row.
The Prime Minister is diligent, consensual and organised. But the government, without clear control of Parliament, struggles politically under a relentless attack from a ruthless Opposition Leader.
The Senate has passed the so-called ‘registered organisations commission bill’, with only Jacqui Lambi joining the Greens and Labor to vote against it (see also Michelle Grattan). Now the game moves to proposed legislation to restore the Australian Building Construction Commission, which I’ll examine below.
Essentially the government succeeded with the registered organisations commission bill by doing deals with The Nick Xenephon Team (NXT) and Derryn Hinch on whistle-blower provisions. Hinch reckons the whistle-blower provisions are the best in the world, and the Government has agreed to extend them to the corporate and government sectors by 2018. Continue reading ABCC: a better plan for union governance?→
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, speaks during the final day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Thursday, July 21, 2016. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)Immanuel Wallerstein, the sociologist who gave us World Systems Theory, has devoted his latest commentary to the consequences of a Trump victory. (From the end of the month it will appear as Commentary 437 in the archive.)
Domestically he says it doesn’t matter how much he won by or whether he won the primary vote. He won.
Ignorance, lies, insults and even ‘fake news’. The US presidential election set new lows for political theatre – it couldn’t be described as discourse. And the country could not be more divided, well, short of civil war.
Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein accepted the 2016 Sydney Peace Prize on November 11, delivering a searing speech that reflected on Donald Trump’s presidential victory in the United States and the factors that allowed it to happen.
“If there is a single overarching lesson in the Trump victory, perhaps it is this: Never, ever underestimate the power of hate, of direct appeals to power over the ‘other’ … especially during times of economic hardship,” said Klein, whose books include The Shock Doctrine and This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate. Continue reading Saturday salon 12/11→
The American people have voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump, right? Wrong.
On latest figures 59,821,874 or 47.4% of the eligible voting population voted for Trump. Hillary Clinton attracted 60,121.876 votes, or 47.7%. That’s around 300,000 more. In a democratic system where all votes have equal value, we’d be celebrating a win for Secretary Clinton. [See Update 1 below]
The Senate has passed the 
