There’s been only the routine Essential Research result to feed the BludgerTrack poll aggregate this week, which has the two-party preferred vote effectively unchanged, although a recent drop in the Greens primary vote seems to have worked its way out of the system. The Coalition gains one on the seat projection thanks to a nudge in its favour in the marginal seat-heavy state of Queensland. Essential Research has provided its monthly leadership ratings, and while the shifts since the previous Essential leadership results a month ago were large, they had already been priced in by the aggregates, so the only change worth mentioning is a further narrowing in Malcolm Turnbull’s preferred prime minister rating.
Before we proceed to preselection news: do take advantage of the discounted Crikey subscriptions offer you can read all about at the post above this one.
Now on with the action:
• The Tasmanian Liberal Party determined the order of its Senate ticket in the event of a double dissolution on Saturday, and it dropped a bombshell in relegating the only Tasmanian MP of ministerial rank, Richard Colbeck, from his number one position at the 2013 election to loseable number five. Colbeck is the only Tasmanian Liberal who is so much as suspected of having voted for Malcolm Turnbull in the September leadership challenge, and he subsequently won promotion to the junior ministry as Tourism and International Education Minister, which partly compensated Tasmania for Eric Abetz’s dumping from cabinet. The top two positions on the ticket are occupied by Abetz and the Senate President, Stephen Parry, who will also be one and two in the event of a half-Senate election, as they were in 2010. In third position is Jonathon Duniam, 32-year-old deputy chief-of-staff to Premier Will Hodgman and a former staffer to Abetz, to whom he is said to be close ideologically. Number four is David Bushby, who was behind Colbeck on the ticket at the 2013 election, and is best known for having miaowed at Labor’s Penny Wong during a committee hearing. Behind Colbeck in sixth place is Break O’Day councillor John Tucker, who completes an all-male ticket to match the Tasmanian Liberals’ all-male complement of three members of the House of Representatives.
• Queensland’s Liberal National Party conducted preselections on the weekend to choose successors to Warren Truss in Wide Bay and Ian MacFarlane in Groom. The first of these was won by Llew O’Brien, a police officer, ahead of Damien Massingham, chief executive of Tourism Noosa, and Tim Langmead, director of external relations at Fortescue Metals. O’Brien had been endorsed by Truss and reportedly won on the first round, despite a finding from 2014 that he had inappropriately accessed police information on two LNP preselection candidates (although no adverse finding was made). Massingham had backing from Attorney-General George Brandis, while Langmead boasted endorsement from a Western Australian contingent including Matthias Cormann and his boss, Andrew Forrest. Former state Opposition Leader Jeff Seeney initially declared his interest in the seat, but decided not to run.
• The Groom preselection was won by John McVeigh, who has held the state seat of Toowoomba South since 2012 and served as Agriculture Minister through the period of the Newman government. McVeigh is the son of Tom McVeigh, who held Groom and its predecessor electorate of Darling Downs for the Nationals from 1972 to 1988. McVeigh reportedly won the local party ballot by a margin of around 40 votes over David van Gend, a prominent social conservative and founder of the Australian Marriage Forum. McVeigh had been endorsed by Ian MacFarlane, while van Gend’s backers included former Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson, Senator Joanna Lindgren and former Senator Ron Boswell. The result will necessitate a state by-election in Toowoomba South, to be initiated when McVeigh resigns from state parliament, which he says he will do when the federal election is called.
• The South Coast Register reports Liberal MP Ann Sudmalis is under serious preselection pressure in her southern New South Wales seat of Gilmore, having put noses out of joint locally by publicising her opposition to the Baird government’s council amalgamation plans. But while Sudmalis still faces a local ballot to ratify her preselection, she has to this point had nobody nominate against her. The Sydney Morning Herald reports Sudmalis is likely to be safe due to the proximity of the election, and the fact that Gareth Ward and Andrew Constance, who respectively hold the state seats of Kiama and Bega, want her in place for another term so they can succeed her in 2019.
• Victorian state upper house MP and former Fremantle Dockers AFL coach Damian Drum has been preselected unopposed to represent the Nationals in Murray, where Liberal member Sharman Stone is retiring in a seat she won from the Nationals in 1996.
• Ahead of Saturday’s Mackellar preselection, Sarah Martin of The Australian reports Alex Hawke’s Centre Right faction is continuing to support Bronwyn Bishop, as there is “no alternative suitable candidate”. This is despite the urgings of Treasurer Scott Morrison, purportedly on behalf of “the leadership team”, despite the Prime Minister’s insistence that he staying above the fray. The view seems to be that a win for Bishop is “assured” if she can get backing from moderates on state executive, which apparently might happen for some reason, and that she will at least be competitive even if they don’t, thanks to her local numbers. However, the vote will be determined by a secret ballot, so a lot of inside sources could end up being surprised. Meanwhile, businessman Dick Smith, who threatens to run as an independent if Bishop wins, has run newspaper advertisements warning of a threat to the Mackellar way of life if preselectors fail to choose wisely. I’d be interested to know if media advertising to influence a preselection vote is an Australian first.
• Dennis Shanahan of The Australian reports that Hollie Hughes, who contentiously won top spot on the ticket in the New South Wales Liberal Party’s preselection for a half-Senate election, is likely to drop all the way to the all-but-unwinnable sixth place in the event of a double dissolution. This is because two of the higher positions are reserved for the Nationals, and the Liberal Senators who faced election in 2013 include two of cabinet rank, in Defence Minister Marise Payne and Cabinet Secretary Arthur Sinodinos.
Don @658 ‘I believe they do, contrary to ‘common sense’. While the trees live, mature trees continue to grow, and sequester far more carbon than young forests.’
Young forests imply young trees and these would be sequestering more carbon than trees in a mature forest. In a muted forest you would have a mixture of aged trees, with old and dying trees being net contributors of CO2, and the younger growing trees absorbing CO2.
Older growing trees would be taking in CO2 (because that is the feedstock of growth), but they would be losing limbs and have their cores decaying, thus giving off CO2. The balance of these to
two activities would determine the net effect for that individual tree.
One thing is certain, mature forests are great sinks of carbon. All the leaf litter, mass of roots, and great diversity and concentration of living things make it that way. Clearing a forest releases that CO2. Replanting starts to CO2 absorption again, but it takes a long time to get a old growth forest back to store as much carbon dioxide as it did before clearing (in some cases thousands of years and in other cases never as things like soil erosion, nutrient deficiencies, changes micro climate will never let it get back to how it once was.).
[A major bank will help foot the bill for a glitzy pre-election political fundraiser to be fronted by Treasurer Scott Morrison and his deputy Kelly O’Dwyer at the same time as they are resisting calls for a royal commission into the scandal-plagued banking sector.
The $1200 to $2500-a-table breakfast, scheduled for 10 days after Mr Morrison delivers his first budget, will be held under the banner of co-sponsor National Australia Bank.]
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/fundraiser-for-assistant-treasurer-kelly-odwyer-to-be-sponsored-by-nab-amid-banking-firestorm-20160415-go7c4y.html#ixzz45sIippNu
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CTar1 – Remember not to wear the Pickelhaube when ballooning. I’ve seen movies in which that caused a disaster.
phoenixRED@690
Well fancy that!
Here was I imagining it was so you could head butt your opponent instead of bayoneting them in close hand to hand combat. 😛
[ Simon Katich
Posted Friday, April 15, 2016 at 4:36 pm | Permalink
pheonix_Red
I have a photo of CTar1 wearing the new ‘hat’…..
http://tinyurl.com/j9yfjm8
]
Ha Ha …. I can just imagine ‘Mr Quiet and Shy’ ….wearing his new helmet, strutting around his backyard and singing all those patriotic German marching songs and sending the grandkids to sleep with “Lili Marlene”
…Underneath the lantern ……
The pickelhaube was not simply ornamental. This is an Anglophone furphy.
The pickelhaube was in fact functional. It was the final solution when ammunition was fully expended. Rather than bear the abject ignominy of surrender, regiments would charge the enemy in fully dressed lines.
The Battle of Spicheren was decided at the crisis point by a Pickelhaube charge.
The death defying order was, ‘Achtung! Löschen Sie die Köpfe! Angriff des Feindes!’
phoenixRed
[ the London Bobby]
??
For doG’s sake she was a CoL Policeman, not the dumb Metro coppers.
Much trouble we will have in the near to medium term future of the world is how to balance globals needs with the needs and fairness towards each nation state.
We do not want to see a world with run-away climate change because one or one group of nations decided “it was the West’s fault, we are owed this” and pushes global environmental limits past there boundaries or “f*ck this we are the USA, most powerful nation on earth we can emit what we want”.
We need mechanisms that reward nations for good behaviour (keeping population stable, keeping emissions within environmental limits, not stealing from a neighbour). And punish them for non-compliance, preferably with established, known in advance mechanisms that use the military as a last resort and do not apply in an inverse relationship to a nations power (e.g. the more powerful it is the better terms it can achieve when breaking the rules).
By setting hard limits based on a nation’s environmental capacity rather than population (which is the most discussed when talking about the environment) and ratifying a fair mechanism for developing countries to use over their allowance (ocean sinks) & trade we set up a means for nations to meet all of their needs and resolve conflict peacefully and fairly.
The alternative, setting in place no mechanism or one based on population size (per capita targets) or ad-hoc targets (one where nations are incentivised to use their power or recalcitrance to do less than their share for a ‘win’ for their people) creates a world where nations are incentivised to do their own thing without regard for the global situation.
The alternative is a world of conflict – of he said, she said, of we need another meeting the last one was unfair, our population has grown so much we need more allowances…
Senator Muir has given the road safety legislation some thought. Here are his conclusions.
http://www.senatormuir.org.au/news/rsrt-muir-to-call-for-senate-committee-examination
L G H@692
Well actually I would love to see a reference for that because it is BS.
Try:
nett increase in atmospheric CO2 = level of CO2 emissions – CO2 absorbed
I didn’t know Deakin U-N-I-V-E-R-S-I-T-Y taught such dodgy stuff. Perhaps you should request a refund?
Some weekend fun from David Rowe.
SK
[I have a photo of CTar1 wearing the new ‘hat’…..]
The hat is almost right. It’s got the ‘FR’ (Frederick’s Reich) going for it, but I don’t have blue eyes.
[ bemused
Posted Friday, April 15, 2016 at 4:42 pm | Permalink
phoenixRED@690
CTar1
Posted Friday, April 15, 2016 at 3:09 pm | Permalink
Bw/poroti
1 x pickelhaube just got delivered.
Well fancy that!
Here was I imagining it was so you could head butt your opponent instead of bayoneting them in close hand to hand combat.
]
Maybe we can talk CTar1 …. seeing he is in Canberra …. to front up to Parliament next week wearing his Pickelhaube and fall out of the gallery and land on the PollyWaffle Malware TurnBull BLIMP and prick/explode all the hot air and bullshit out of THE DUD we have as PM ????
It would be nice to find a figure for annual CO2 absorption (per hectare or something) of mature forests.
LGH
[In terms of your solution point 4) Develop carbon sequestration technologies – a lot has been invested in this yet has not provided a workable solution. It also is an example of treating the symptom of a problem rather than the cause – never a good idea when looking for a durable solution.]
The main problems with carbon sequestration is not finding a technology, it is with cost. As this has been invariably linked to energy production – e.g. coal fired power stations, then it will never be cost effective.
If we take a broader view, then something like pyrolysis create charcoal if appropriately subsidised by a nice big carbon tax or whatever would be viable.
We also have, e.g.:
– iron fertilization of oceans (risky)
– burning biomasss (non fossil) and injecting CO2 underground (needs subsidy)
– planting lots of trees and protecting existing forests
– using CO2 absorbent cement and other chemical processes
The main challenge with all this is it costs money. If we have lots of cheap energy, which is coming, we can use some of this to scrub CO2 and store it underground, chemically or whatever.
When the shit really hits the fan I suspect we will find the money.
Display Name
@ 700
My point to include Africa is this.
According to our current technological trajectories the worlds ability to keep the current levels of population with great quality of life with limited carbon emissions is very slim.
The ability to do so with a 3 fold increase in African population (according to current technological trajectories) is not going to happen.
I want those people to have the same standard of living as us or at least where they choose to have it within global equity bounds (e.g. they might not want to be just like us).
For me not to include them as a factor (assuming no massive miracle technology that lets us all be huge consumers without climate damage) I would be saying by omission that it is ok for them to remain in energy and material poverty or okay for the world to have to lower its standard of living to compensate one part of the world unchecked population growth.
If we assume that a certain carbon footprint may be necessary to have a good quality of life in the foreseeable future then Africa must absolutely be counted as their population growth is a factor in climate change and if we are to see that every child in Africa receives an equitable and liable share of the world then their population growth (and hence environmental footprint) must stop and stop soon.
So. Just to check that I’ve understand Scott Morrison’s recent comments correctly…
He’s going to bring down a budget that both cuts spending and raises taxes? In an election year? Almost immediately before the election campaign properly begins? And after the Coalition has made claim after claim after claim of being “the party of lower taxes”?
Gee, I can see that working out really well for them. Shorten must be pinching himself as we speak.
PeeBee@701
Apparently it is more complicated than that:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7210/abs/nature07276.html
[ Old-growth forests remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere1, 2 at rates that vary with climate and nitrogen deposition3. The sequestered carbon dioxide is stored in live woody tissues and slowly decomposing organic matter in litter and soil4. Old-growth forests therefore serve as a global carbon dioxide sink, but they are not protected by international treaties, because it is generally thought that ageing forests cease to accumulate carbon5, 6. Here we report a search of literature and databases for forest carbon-flux estimates. We find that in forests between 15 and 800 years of age, net ecosystem productivity (the net carbon balance of the forest including soils) is usually positive. Our results demonstrate that old-growth forests can continue to accumulate carbon, contrary to the long-standing view that they are carbon neutral. Over 30 per cent of the global forest area is unmanaged primary forest, and this area contains the remaining old-growth forests7. Half of the primary forests (6 times 108 hectares) are located in the boreal and temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. On the basis of our analysis, these forests alone sequester about 1.3 plusminus 0.5 gigatonnes of carbon per year. Thus, our findings suggest that 15 per cent of the global forest area, which is currently not considered when offsetting increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations, provides at least 10 per cent of the global net ecosystem productivity8. Old-growth forests accumulate carbon for centuries and contain large quantities of it. We expect, however, that much of this carbon, even soil carbon9, will move back to the atmosphere if these forests are disturbed. ]
lizzie@702
O’Dwyer used to work for NAB.
DN
try this…
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v455/n7210/full/nature07276.html
And now two! So far this week we’ve lectured both China and the US on abiding by international law on maritime boundaries
LOL!!
Is Talcum unaware we haven’t got a leg to stand on here? Someone brief him that WE SUCK AT THIS SAME ISSUE and get him to shuddup.
[“Why would China, the US or any country heed Turnbull’s urgings for the potential explosive disputes in the South China Sea to be settled by international law when Australia won’t do likewise?”]
http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-opinion/malcolm-turnbulls-breathtaking-foreign-policy-hypocrisy-on-east-timor-20160124-gmcz7k.html
Display Name
“according to that graph I found – that nobody seems to be disputing, so I assume it’s accurate. The West’s emissions post 1950 are significant compared to other nations post 1950. So even post 1950, one can reasonably claim that we have the CO2 concentrations we do mostly due to the West.”
I believe that exact measurement is difficult so that knowing any of this information with certainty is not possible – here I am quiet happy to soften my point – if my statement is not so, it is becoming so, and baring any highly unlikely change going to be so.
So I could say we have already crossed the responsibility point, are close to it, will cross it soon or will definitely cross it in the coming years. I am not hung up on this – my reckoning is that we have crossed that point or are near to it already but I am not disputing that that may not yet have happened. I am happy to concede that for reasons outlined above.
“However, it’s true that China and India are going to overturn that soon. My initial objection, if you recall, was to include Africa. That’s just laughable. We are not where we are because of Africa.”
So we can say, at worst, blaming the West is factually true but unproductive to the current situation or productive only in so much as it provokes the west to share technology and money to developing nations. (But unproductive in as much as it creates as developing nations can pollute pollute pollute because the West did it.
And at best can say: The West’s responsibility for the majority of climate change has passed or will soon pass, or definitely will pass this generation into the hands of developing nations.
I have no issue from loosening my statements to this position.
My concern is where we go as a world from here – and that is for every nations to take serious national responsibility for their own emissions and population growth and living within the means of their resources or what they can trade for.
CTar1,
Love the vase! You can keep the Pickelhaube. 🙂
K17
[Remember not to wear the Pickelhaube when ballooning. I’ve seen movies in which that caused a disaster.]
And it would be difficult with Ms Germany’s sun roof.
I think I’ll just leave it on the bench.
Simon Katich@720
Snap!
Beatcha by seven minutes!
Trog! When the shit hits the fan, I suspect we will start global dimming.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfate_aerosols_(geoengineering)
Tweets
Sky News Australia
21m21 minutes ago
Sky News Australia @SkyNewsAust
PM defends govt ‘crocodile tears’ for workers http://bit.ly/1YwQrVD
Bemused
[You are not scaring me but amusing me.]
OK others conflate you with Briefly just as I conflate the “mean girls gang”. You are guilty of bullying in a pack. You are doing JUST what you accoused others especially Confessions of doing.
It need a new name your gang – the three Bs might do it but CTari belongs. If the is an A we could call it ABC
[The anti-war movement existed before 1964 and continued long after and I got involved in the late 60s.]
I was fairly obviously referring the to the anti-vientnam war movement. It is this sort of almost autistic behaviour that i am referring to. Being offensive and silly for no useful reason.
[China has good reason for a little paranoia about the US and its main concern with other countries relates to their housing US bases close to China. The US has no justification for reciprocal paranoia apart from it seeming to have become embedded in the US psyche.]
Agreed
[The US routinely sails naval ships and submarines off the coast of China. Does China do the same to the US? Does it even have the capability?]
China most definitely DOES have the capability and has been building a quite impressive blue water fleet. I do not claim expertise but it is the sort of thing you might find interesting to learn about. I rad somewhere that they had a more powerful fleet in the Pacific – for a while – but the USA has boosted numbers.
[I read some statistics a few years ago that the US spends as much on its military as do the next 14 military powers combined. Doubtless this gap has now narrowed, but it is still overwhelming.]
You will find this link fascinating. I did and I am a pacifist (mostly) http://www.globalfirepower.com/
Never fear it is not some lefty plot.
[Stuff like the US proposing to invade China via Vietnam is just utter rubbish and there is no rational way to discuss it.]
Hmmmm! Thing is Bemused you do not know and I do not know and possibly even the president at the time did not know. What we DO know is that the Vienam war was intended to contain China (and Russia). We also know that some elements of the military considered nukes and that bombing the irrigation works was contemplated. Now I struggle to think of a reason, other than a long term plan to invande (or destabilise) China might have been for the Vietnam war. What was their strategic goal. Now you may lknow of one that makes sense ans I will be interested, but I can really ONLY think that getting into North Vietnam was somehow to gain entry to China – Maybe just the island of Hainan. Now it may not have been a sensible or realistic strategic goal (the yanks by and large are not especially good at strategy) but it was probably still a goal nevertheless.
[India is obsessed with Pakistan and most of its military points in that direction. Pakistan is even more obsessed with India.]
I think this is slightly out of date thinking. Not saying it is not so, but it seems less true now than 10 years ago.
[And no, I am not an ASIO spook.]
Quite sure? You can take a joke sometimes I hope. Should have used a smiley.
don, that you did. I wont even use the Adelaide time delay excuse.
But way back I did post a link for DN of The Conversation article about mature forests and sequestration.
http://theconversation.com/big-old-trees-grow-faster-making-them-vital-carbon-absorbers-22104
PeeBee
[When the shit hits the fan, I suspect we will start global dimming.]
Agreed. Far from ideal, risky, but the technology is available.
Don @718, thanks for the link. I was thinking about the Indonesian forests currently being cleared for palm oil plantations and thought that those forests could continue to absorb carbon dioxide more or less for ever. They would be accumulating peat and therefore sequestering carbon on and on going bases.
Bemused
I am happy in life to go by what people mean when they speak to me, their intention of what they said and what they think rather than the literal interpretation.
If you want to paint me as an idiot for the fact that the literal wording of a sentence or an equation was in error despite the obvious intention and context so be it.
Yes I meant exactly this “Try: nett increase in atmospheric CO2” not increase in emissions. The point that I had been arguing for an hour or more.
I am typing quickly responses on a blog, not writing a speech or an assignment.
S.K. and Don
Thanks
We have 4B ha at the moment. There has been around ~0.5B ha cleared over the past 100 years.
So forests would have covered early industrial era emissions, prior to 1900. Around 1930, we’re already down to only 50%.
That’s very rough, give or take 10% 😛 .
L G H@732
Try quality rather than quantity in your posts. ‘Do it right and do it once’ as the saying goes.
LGH @ 716
Fair enough. Certainly if we’re talking about solving the problem- rather than just assigning blame – there are few countries we can ignore.
bemused
The USA has 75 submarines, China 68. Not a huge difference in numbers. I am not sure that there is too much difference in power either – not for the modern ones. At least a few of the newer ones are nmuclear powered with warhead capalbility.
Also I read somewhere that submarines are a naval vessel of choice for defence in in-shore waters (hey do not attack me because I read it somewhere and an NOT sayiing it is true)
daretotread@728
I cannot be held responsible if your posts contain such ludicrous propositions that others, quite independent of me, also respond with a certain amount of ridicule.
See my advice to L G H@732
Oops L G H@735, not 732.
Re protecting forests and soils.
I don’t believe that initiatives to protect forests and soils and should be included in a countries emissions calculations.
The reason is that the sequestration capacity of these systems is finite, and as a critical part of our capacity to remove carbon in the future, should not be frittered away as offset excuses to pollute.
Forests and soils should be protected using other financial and regulatory instruments.
(This is another way the little Hunt is so disingenuous – claiming soil protection and forest clearing initiatives as ‘reduced emissions’ when in fact the benefits are simply projected. )
phoexix
[ to front up to Parliament next week wearing his Pickelhaube and fall out of the gallery]
I could wear a Chicken Suite.
Note that all of the legitimate discussion around what I said (excluding Bemused literacy critiques) climate change we just engaged in revolved around fixing the point of responsibility inversion.
This was not disputed:
The future climate change catastrophe is being built on the overpopulation of the developing world, immigration to the west & rising emissions in the developing world.
E.g. extrapolate reducing emissions in the West and population growth sans immigration in the West and what does the future look like for climate change?
Pretty bloody good.
Extrapolate birth rates in the developing world and increasing emissions in the developing world and what does climate change look like?
Pretty bloody bad.
I have put forward how I think global quality can be reached and the earth saved (each nation is forced to live within its landmass footprint with allowance for developing nations to borrow from unclaimed territories & trade permits with the others as well as via free technology transfer).
There are two major factors in climate change: population size & per capita emissions.
Any group that has both categories falling (e.g. the West) is sustainable.
Any group that has EITHER growing indefinitely is unsustainable (unless emissions are zero).
For everyone that wanted a source: first link on google for per capita emissions, population growth and climate change http://www.tai.org.au/documents/downloads/DP26.pdf
I don’t believe that initiatives to protect forests and soils
andshould be included in a countries emissions calculations.bemused at 739
hung by your own petard? 🙂
Bemused
You are really sometimes a silly old “f”
for Bemused sake at 742 let me change that to:
There are two major factors in climate change: population size & per capita emissions.
Any group that has both categories falling (e.g. the West) is sustainable.
Any group that has EITHER growing indefinitely is unsustainable (unless per capita emissions are zero OR APPROACHING ZERO).
C@t
I’m well pleased with the vase (8 Dollar at the local flea market).
I’ve been scrawling a lot lately. Small children are liking Art Deco stuff.
daretotread@737
Huge qualitative differences.
L G H@744
If it makes you happy. 😉
L G H@746
Axiomatic.