Greens preferences allocated, Labor in deep trouble
Negotiations have been finalised between Labor and The Greens for preferences in the Queensland election. The Greens are directing preferences to Labor in fourteen seats, while receiving preferences in one seat – Indooroopilly. The list of seats where Labor has [...]
Sorting out soil carbon
Last week at the ABARE conference Tony Burke Federal Minister for Agriculture announced two new research initiatives. The Soil Carbon Research Program will be a $20 million project to look at changes in carbon in soil, how different climates effect [...]
Reflections on the Brett Stewart controversy
The controversy surrounding the alleged sexual assault and other alleged misconduct by Manly Rugby League player Brett Stewart has taken another turn with the National Rugby League Board intervening to suspend Stewart from playing for four weeks, and fining the [...]
The damn dam
As I and a few others have noted, the Queensland State election may well produce a hung parliament. This has also been commented on by my colleague Paul Williams. Also as noted on another thread, if this eventuates the independent [...]
Bushfire roundup
Fires still burn in Victoria’s forests, but with the exception of the Wilson’s Promontory fire – an unpopulated finger of natural park on Victoria’s souther tip – the big fires are pretty much contained and are no longer threatening private [...]
CPRS draft legislation out
The draft of the CPRS legislation has been released, for your reading pleasure. As I understand it, the draft legislation pretty much exactly mirrors the White Paper, with all its often-discussed flaws. As to what happens now, today’s Crikey email [...]
Australian version of the global gag rule done away with
One of the first things Barack Obama did after taking office was repeal the Global gag rule, which, as described here, “prohibits US family planning assistance to foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provide abortion-related information or services, even if these [...]
Missing Peter Beattie
I’m increasingly convinced that if things carry on as they are at the moment, Labor is gone in Queensland as a majority government. Their biggest hope remains a shift in voter expectations away from an ALP win, and it seems [...]
Newspoll Monday: Labor 56-44
Shanahan gets it right: Even the desperate hopes of some Liberals that the improvement in parliament two weeks ago that saw Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon on the rack have proved forlorn. When jobs are being lost, the economy is contracting [...]
Melbourne's desal plant – where will the money come from?
According to The Age, the two private-sector consortia bidding to build and operate Melbourne’s proposed desalination plant can’t borrow enough money to finance the construction: Premier John Brumby’s $3.1 billion desalination plant, the cornerstone of his plan to drought-proof Melbourne, [...]
Guest post: CPD on Reforming Australia's Hidden Welfare State
Imagine a welfare scheme that gave minimum wage earners nothing, but handed out $11,000 a year to those on the top income tax rate. Surely if any political party ever suggested such a scheme they would be run out of [...]
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