Opinion Politics (warning, may contain political views you disagree with)

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Bigger said:
Good luck getting all these little entrepreneurs we seem to have unearthed paying the amount of tax required to get Australia routinely in the top ten Happiness Index reports, like the Nordic model countries are.

I’m alright, Jack.
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It really held back people like Daniel Ek at Spotify... The key is that corporate tax is relatively low in those countries (lower than Australia). I suspect the harder sell would be average Aussie getting their head around the extra ~14% personal income tax (on average).

It would be no easy task for us to adopt the Nordic Model and I'm not suggesting that - especially when we've been told that high taxes are always bad so it would be impossible to sell. A willingness to explore what we could borrow now and into the future might be astute though? We pay average taxes and complain about not getting any value back. Meanwhile Scandinavians pay high taxes and love the value they get. Nothing to be learned there?
 
wayToGo_ said:
And it is why I shake my head at our current leaders. Why the heck are we taking the lead from the US when there is a model that seems to make far more sense?
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In what way are we "taking the lead from the US"? Australia is way more similar to Norway and Sweden than it is to the USA. In basically every political way you can think of.

The US is kind of unique among English speaking countries in how low its tax rates are and its relatively low welfare spending.
 
wayToGo_ said:
We pay average taxes and complain about not getting any value back. Meanwhile Scandinavians pay high taxes and love the value they get. Nothing to be learned there?
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Except they really don't. The people paying the tax are not the people getting the value, just like anywhere else. A huge amount of older people leave scandinavia each year to avoid the taxation regime. Obviously young people love it because they pay nothing and get everything free.

The additional issue in Australia is how you would sell tax increases to regional areas who already get no benefit because it's not cost effective to build anything there.
 

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Norway is in a very fortunate position with about 55% of the North Sea oilfield being in their zone and have a vast amount of taxes and licencing fees pouring into their coffers. Unlike many countries (South American, African and Middle Eastern) who have money running out of the ground but are blighted by corruption and poor governance the Norwegians have set up an organisation called the Government Pension Fund Global or the Oil Fund as it's known and from it's creation in 1990 it now has assets of over a trillion dollars and counting. Divided up between 5.2 million people each person has $195,000 worth of equity when and if required.

This is the biggest pension fund in Europe and all funded from North Sea oil without any contributions from the Norwegian people and now owns 1.4% of global stocks and shares. There is also a much smaller pension fund run along more conventional lines so the oil fund is really a huge nest egg. Whatever form of government any country has if it can be fortunate and stable and make the right choices like has happened with Norway then you are going to look good. There is a degree of irony here as they can and do to some degree choose to invest their dirty oil money into cherry picked more environmentally acceptable companies while pumping out North Sea Oil to sell to the world.

Norway also has the highest number of electric cars per capita in the world. This is achieved not by subsidising electric cars but by taxing conventional cars at a high rate and making them very expensive, no doubt these taxes may well make their way into the oil fund too making another handy contribution.
 
holybishop said:
It was fun watching the meltdown on Twitter when the completely predictable British election results were rolling through recently.
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It was fun watching the absolute melt in Australia as Bill lost (the we will kill this election Shorten)
Watch the left melt again when they dont get their own way next time around..
 
Purpletown said:
Norway is in a very fortunate position with about 55% of the North Sea oilfield being in their zone and have a vast amount of taxes and licencing fees pouring into their coffers. Unlike many countries (South American, African and Middle Eastern) who have money running out of the ground but are blighted by corruption and poor governance the Norwegians have set up an organisation called the Government Pension Fund Global or the Oil Fund as it's known and from it's creation in 1990 it now has assets of over a trillion dollars and counting. Divided up between 5.2 million people each person has $195,000 worth of equity when and if required.

This is the biggest pension fund in Europe and all funded from North Sea oil without any contributions from the Norwegian people and now owns 1.4% of global stocks and shares. There is also a much smaller pension fund run along more conventional lines so the oil fund is really a huge nest egg. Whatever form of government any country has if it can be fortunate and stable and make the right choices like has happened with Norway then you are going to look good. There is a degree of irony here as they can and do to some degree choose to invest their dirty oil money into cherry picked more environmentally acceptable companies while pumping out North Sea Oil to sell to the world.

Norway also has the highest number of electric cars per capita in the world. This is achieved not by subsidising electric cars but by taxing conventional cars at a high rate and making them very expensive, no doubt these taxes may well make their way into the oil fund too making another handy contribution.
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Yeah but we got a billion dollar stadium out of our resources boom


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mightymouse75 said:
It was fun watching the absolute melt in Australia as Bill lost (the we will kill this election Shorten)
Watch the left melt again when they dont get their own way next time around..
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Do you see that as much as you see the constant whining from the newscorp media who still think their savior Tony Abbott should be prime minister, er, I mean Leader of the Liberal party...oh, I mean, member for Warringah...they just can't get over it.
 
mightymouse75 said:
It was fun watching the absolute melt in Australia as Bill lost (the we will kill this election Shorten)
Watch the left melt again when they dont get their own way next time around..
Click to expand...
I'm looking forward to watching Trump win again in November. This time I'm booking election day off work to really soak it in.
 
raffrox said:
I wonder what the correlation is between tough guy right winger Freo supporters and those that just couldn't let go of Ross for most of last year?
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nah im a lefty who thought Ross had built a great relationship with the team and just needed to sort out the injuries, but i admit i was wrong there
 
I have been reading some interesting material about renewable energy in Australia.

Here are 2 papers produced by a senior professor at ANU (Andrew Blakers) about 100% (or nearly) renewable energy for the south east sea board (incl s.e. Qld) and for south west WA.

www.sciencedirect.com

100% renewable electricity in Australia

An hourly energy balance analysis is presented of the Australian National Electricity Market in a 100% renewable energy scenario, in which wind and ph…
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com

www.sciencedirect.com

90–100% renewable electricity for the South West Interconnected System of Western Australia

Rapidly increasing penetration of renewables, primarily wind and photovoltaics (PV), is causing a move away from fossil fuel in the Australian electri…
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com

The papers suggest it would be quite easy and low cost. WA is more difficult than the eastern seaboard, as we don't have the same altitude for pumped hydro and we have a smaller geographic area (in the south west), so don't get the variety in weather. If the wind isn't blowing in Albany, it also isn't blowing in Lancelin, apparently.

There are some interesting concepts, but I find it all rather optimistic, although I would be forced to admit that the author is approx. 3 billion times more qualified than me (you do the math) with much better resources.

Below is some blog posts that discuss the paper on the eastern seaboard. The posters and commenters are skeptics about renewables and it is frustrating as they make comment without apparently putting much time into the paper. But Andrew Blakers does join the comment thread briefly and I found things to be learnt from the posts and comments.

euanmearns.com

100% renewable electricity in Australia

Guest post by Energy Matters commentator Roger Young. Roger is a retired businessman from Australia who is concerned by the renewables free-for-all. The object of his post, that was originally subm…
euanmearns.com

euanmearns.com

Australia, energy storage and the Blakers study

Roger Young’s recent post focused on the question of whether the energy storage requirements listed in Prof. Andrew Blakers’ study “100% renewable electricity in Australia” were realistic, but at t…
euanmearns.com

So if anyone really wants to get their brain into gear and become an amateur engineer, geologist or physicist then this material will get you started.
 
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dockerfemme said:
I have been reading some interesting material about renewable energy in Australia.

Here are 2 papers produced by a senior professor at ANU (James Blakers) about 100% (or nearly) renewable energy for the south east sea board (incl s.e. Qld) and for south west WA.

www.sciencedirect.com

100% renewable electricity in Australia

An hourly energy balance analysis is presented of the Australian National Electricity Market in a 100% renewable energy scenario, in which wind and ph…
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com

www.sciencedirect.com

90–100% renewable electricity for the South West Interconnected System of Western Australia

Rapidly increasing penetration of renewables, primarily wind and photovoltaics (PV), is causing a move away from fossil fuel in the Australian electri…
www.sciencedirect.com www.sciencedirect.com

The papers suggest it would be quite easy and low cost. WA is more difficult than the eastern seaboard, as we don't have the same altitude for pumped hydro and we have a smaller geographic area (in the south west), so don't get the variety in weather. If the wind isn't blowing in Albany, it also isn't blowing in Lancelin, apparently.

There are some interesting concepts, but I find it all rather optimistic, although I would be forced to admit that the author is approx. 3 billion times more qualified than me (you do the math) with much better resources.

Below is some blog posts that discuss the paper on the eastern seaboard. The posters and commenters are skeptics about renewables and it is frustrating as they make comment without apparently putting much time into the paper. But James Blakers does join the comment thread briefly and I found things to be learnt from the posts and comments.

euanmearns.com

100% renewable electricity in Australia

Guest post by Energy Matters commentator Roger Young. Roger is a retired businessman from Australia who is concerned by the renewables free-for-all. The object of his post, that was originally subm…
euanmearns.com

euanmearns.com

Australia, energy storage and the Blakers study

Roger Young’s recent post focused on the question of whether the energy storage requirements listed in Prof. Andrew Blakers’ study “100% renewable electricity in Australia” were realistic, but at t…
euanmearns.com

So if anyone really wants to get their brain into gear and become an amateur engineer, geologist or physicist then this material will get you started.
Click to expand...
Not bad, and I admire a bit of bright eyed (educated) optimism -but as I've already said a large part of the problem with renewable energy is in the reliability and continuity of supply.
I'm not skeptical regarding renewable energy, I'm just to demonstrate that it isn't as easy as simply designing a wind generator or a solar array, whacking it into place and expecting it provide a consistent and reliable supply of power to a city.
The first article does address that issue, but it seems to me to be a bit dismissive of those issues. In one part, it even goes so far as to say that "PV and wind are variable generators and lack the inertial energy storage possessed by conventional fossil, nuclear and hydro generators. However, this does not mean that a renewable electricity grid will be inherently less reliable than an equivalent fossil fuelled system. As previously noted, PHES can provide excellent inertial energy storage, very fast response time (typically 1% per second) and black start capability (to restore a collapsed grid). "
So basically, its not a problem because it can all be quickly restarted after a blackout? ... wow.

And don't even get me started on the potential issues long-term hydro power might cause environmentally. Australia is not a water rich country, we're doing the opposite of trying to control our population in spite of us being in a unique position to be able to do so, and hydro power, while technically feasible in terms of power supply, needs to be very carefully considered before implementation in any way, shape or form.

These things take time, and they need to be done properly. If not, you're just gonna * it all up and cause more problems down the track.
I mean I thought you folks were all about the environment?
 
Ben The Donkey said:
Not bad, and I admire a bit of bright eyed (educated) optimism -but as I've already said a large part of the problem with renewable energy is in the reliability and continuity of supply.
I'm not skeptical regarding renewable energy, I'm just to demonstrate that it isn't as easy as simply designing a wind generator or a solar array, whacking it into place and expecting it provide a consistent and reliable supply of power to a city.
The first article does address that issue, but it seems to me to be a bit dismissive of those issues. In one part, it even goes so far as to say that "PV and wind are variable generators and lack the inertial energy storage possessed by conventional fossil, nuclear and hydro generators. However, this does not mean that a renewable electricity grid will be inherently less reliable than an equivalent fossil fuelled system. As previously noted, PHES can provide excellent inertial energy storage, very fast response time (typically 1% per second) and black start capability (to restore a collapsed grid). "
So basically, its not a problem because it can all be quickly restarted after a blackout? ... wow.

And don't even get me started on the potential issues long-term hydro power might cause environmentally. Australia is not a water rich country, we're doing the opposite of trying to control our population in spite of us being in a unique position to be able to do so, and hydro power, while technically feasible in terms of power supply, needs to be very carefully considered before implementation in any way, shape or form.

These things take time, and they need to be done properly. If not, you're just gonna fu** it all up and cause more problems down the track.
I mean I thought you folks were all about the environment?
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It's why nuclear has to be involved in discussion, and a Moltern Salt Reactor is being built for Indonesia, China looking into this and Thorium.
 
Why is limited water supply a problem with pumped hydro? Wouldn’t you just use the same water over and over?
I know you’re removing the electrons from it so that could be a problem.
 
The future of coal has already been decided in boardrooms around the globe
www.abc.net.au

The future of coal has already been decided in boardrooms around the globe

Strategic decisions are being made on the future of coal, not by the "green left", but by groups united in a single cause — the unbridled pursuit of profit. And the message is clear: it has little, if any, future, writes Ian Verrender.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au


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Beak_A said:
The future of coal has already been decided in boardrooms around the globe
www.abc.net.au

The future of coal has already been decided in boardrooms around the globe

Strategic decisions are being made on the future of coal, not by the "green left", but by groups united in a single cause — the unbridled pursuit of profit. And the message is clear: it has little, if any, future, writes Ian Verrender.
www.abc.net.au www.abc.net.au


Official Buddy of The Cam 2020
Click to expand...
In response Cormann's office are preparing a press release declaring "We will make coal great again!"
 
raffrox said:
I wonder what the correlation is between tough guy right winger Freo supporters and those that just couldn't let go of Ross for most of last year?
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Kind of a weird thing to say given that the most right wing people on this forum were also the loudest anti-Ross voices. Myself and Clay have both been banned previously for not tongueing Ross Lyon's arsehole enough.
 
bushchook said:
Kind of a weird thing to say given that the most right wing people on this forum were also the loudest anti-Ross voices. Myself and Clay have both been banned previously for not tongueing Ross Lyon's arsehole enough.
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I was just having a laugh. Until this thread I reckon it would be hard to guess peoples political alliances anyway.

I certainly made it know what my thoughts of Ross were (especially the last two years) but I'd be a leftie if anything.

I guess it's the whole right wing stereotype that being ring wing means that you're 'tough'.
 
On Monday the 19th January news dribbled out that Anthony Albanese (more correctly the ALP) had ditched many of the policies that saw it lose an unlosable election.

Nice timing if you want to dump something and not be noticed. School holidays in full swing, the Australian Open was about to move into top gear and Australia Day was on the horizon as distractions just in case there were any awkward questions to answer.

There was quite a swag of policies that were judged to have passed their used by date including their franking credits policy that Chris Bowen managed to explain in such a stupid manner by telling people to "vote Liberal if you don't like it" Plenty of people obviously liked his suggestion and did just that.

Albo is quoted as saying that he was no longer opposed to boat turn backs "because they worked". He also said economic debates had to be won ahead of environmental and social debates? Is this all now ALP policy or is he just shooting the breeze?

These announcements create many more questions than they answer and leave a huge policy vacuum that will be fought over fiercely and probably very publicly within the ALP before the next election. This is a huge change and could well be viewed with much distrust by those more to the left who voted for Labor in 2019. There will be awkward questions asked by any punters they hope to lure to their side about such a radical change of direction and their sincerity of convictions in general.

Shifty Shorten and Chris Bowen are damaged goods and need to be punted as neither is likely to be an asset in any future debates about policy.
 
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