What insightful comments from both of you. These are the conversations that give these forums such credibility!

Australia's economic growth halves in June quarter as mining boom slows

by: Stephen McMahon, Deputy Business Editor From: news.com.au September 05, 2012 12:24PM

AUSTRALIAN economic growth has halved in the June quarter as the slowing of the mining boom weighs on activity.

Following a bumper start to the year, Australia's economy grew by 0.6 per cent in the three months to June, well below the upwardly revised 1.4 per cent growth registered in the first three months of 2012.

The data supports the Reserve Bank's decision yesterday to leave interest rates on hold at 3.5 per cent.

But the slowdown in growth will cause deep concerns as the economy wrestles with the impact of falling commodity prices as the Chinese economy slows.

The gross domestic product (GDP) growth for the year to June was still 3.7 per cent, in seasonally adjusted terms, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed.

This was down from the annual rate of 4.3 per cent recorded in the March quarter but is still among the highest in the developed world.

And well above its long term trend of 3.25 per cent.

Economists had been expecting GDP to rise by 0.8 per cent in the June quarter for an annual rate of 3.7 per cent.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/australiasm-economic-growth-halves-in-june-quarter-as-mining-boom-slows/story-fn7j19iv-1226465534302

Job ads fall for fifth month

From: AAP September 03, 2012 2:46PM

JOB advertisements have fallen for the fifth consecutive month, marking the weakest trend since late 2011.

Job advertising fell 2.3 per cent in August, after a drop of 0.8 per cent in July, the ANZ job advertisements survey showed on Monday.

The data shows there are nearly 10 per cent fewer jobs being advertised than a year ago.

Newspaper job adverts dropped 6.1 per cent, with weakness posted in all states - including a six-month trend of softness in the mining states of Queensland, WA and NT.

Internet job advertisements have also shown consistent weakness - down 2.1 per cent in August, after a fall of 0.7 per cent in July.

Here, too, the states exposed to mining have begun to reverse an earlier trend of strength.

ANZ head of Australian economics and property research Ivan Colhoun said the data showed that the labour market was still in a soft patch.

"Newspaper and internet job advertising trends highlight a continued easing in the labour market in all states and territories except South Australia," he said.

"Although this state may also see reduced hiring expectations in the months ahead, given the recent indefinite deferral of the Olympic Dam expansion.

"Of most interest from a macroeconomic perspective has been the emerging weakening trend in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland - the states most positively influenced by the mining investment boom."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/business/worklife/job-ads-fall-for-fifth-month/story-fn7j1dox-1226464046862

here:HomeNational TimesPolitical NewsArticle

Carbon tax leaves big polluters better off

Date September 6, 2012 48 reading now
Lenore Taylor, David Wroe


Viable ... brown coal generators have collectively gained aproximately $1 billion following the implementation of the carbon pricing scheme. Photo: Justin McManus

AUSTRALIA'S highest-emitting brown coal electricity generators are between $400 million and $1 billion better off than they would have been if there were no carbon tax, new modelling shows.

The brown coal generators' stronger-than-expected financial position yesterday forced the Gillard government to abandon its attempts to pay some of them to close down by 2020, infuriating environmental groups and the Greens.

Giving up on the negotiations frees at least $1 billion in the budget from 2013-14.

It triggered demands from the Greens that the government reconsider $4.5 billion worth of compensation yet to be paid to the companies on top of $1 billion already handed over.

Advertisement

Those calls will become even louder as a result of new modelling by Frontier Economics obtained by the Herald.

''We estimate that, in total, the brown coal generators are, at the very least, around $400 million better off than if the Gillard government carbon pricing scheme had never been implemented. More likely the collective gain in value … is around $1 billion,'' the private modelling company says.

The analysis shows that instead of winding up collectively somewhere between $400 million and $900 million worse off, brown coal generators are likely to be between $400 million and $1.1 billion better off, depending on assumptions about how much of the carbon price they are able to pass on to customers.

NSW black coal generators, who got no compensation for the carbon tax, had argued the Victorian brown coal stations were unfairly advantaged by the compensation package.

The Greens leader, Christine Milne, who fought against the generous compensation, accused the government of a ''breach of faith'' and called for an immediate review.

''Shutting down some of the dirtiest coal-fired power stations was at the heart of what we are trying to do,'' she said.

A spokesman for the Climate Change Minister, Greg Combet, said the government did not believe Frontier's modelling ''accurately reflects the impact of carbon pricing''.

The failure of the closure negotiations shows that the shift to cleaner electricity will be much slower than predicted.

A buyout of dirty power stations would have slashed the nation's annual greenhouse emissions by up to 21 million tonnes - about 13 per cent of the 159 million tonnes needed to meet Australia's 2020 target.

These cuts could now be shifted onto the companies and councils who will pay the carbon price. At Treasury's forecast 2020 price of $37, that would amount to $777 million. ''It shifts the burden from the power generation sector onto the broader economy,'' said Erwin Jackson, of the Climate Institute.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/carbon-tax-leaves-big-polluters-better-off-20120905-25exz.html#ixzz25dMAQxTD

Gillard pulls out of Christian Lobby speech in gay marriage row
By chief political correspondent Simon Cullen

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has pulled out of a speech at the Australian Christian Lobby's national conference, after its managing director compared the health effects of smoking to homosexuality.

Ms Gillard said Jim Wallace's comments were "heartless and wrong" and it would be "inappropriate" for her to attend the conference next month.

Mr Wallace made the remarks in Tasmania yesterday during a debate with Greens leader Christine Milne on the merits of same-sex marriage.

"I think we're going to owe smokers a big apology when the homosexual community's own statistics for its health - which it presents when it wants more money for health - are that it has higher rates of drug-taking, of suicide, it has the life of a male reduced by up to 20 years," he told the audience.

"The life of smokers is reduced by something like seven to 10 years and yet we tell all our kids at school they shouldn't smoke."

This morning, he accused "gay activists" of misrepresenting his comments.

"I was not comparing homosexuality with smoking at all," Mr Wallace said in a statement.

"What I was saying is that on one hand we are vocal on our discouragement of people to smoke and on the other we are suppressing public dialogue about the health risks associated with homosexuality.

"Instead of more free speech-suppressing vitriol and demonisation from the gay activists, there needs to be an open and honest debate before Parliament changes the definition of marriage."

Ms Gillard was listed as the key note speaker at the ACL conference, but has been facing pressure to pull out of the event.

"I believe yesterday's comments by Jim Wallace were offensive," she said in a statement today.

"To compare the health effects of smoking cigarettes with the many struggles gay and lesbian Australians endure in contemporary society is heartless and wrong.

"Although everyone is entitled to their own view, these statements reiterated again today on behalf of ACL are totally unacceptable."

Demonisation
The Greens have applauded the Prime Minister's decision, saying she should never have agreed to speak at the ACL conference.

"The Prime Minister should not be going anywhere near the Australian Christian Lobby because they're a private company, they have no affiliation churches and their whole focus is to attack the gay community," Senator Milne told ABC radio.

But Mr Wallace said he was disappointed by Ms Gillard's decision to pull out of the event, describing it as a blow to free speech.

"This is a victory for the demonisation tactics of gay activism and its constant misrepresentation and spin of anything that is said by people who support marriage as between a man and a woman," he told ABC radio.

Mr Wallace said he could not understand why his comments offended homosexuals or the Prime Minister.

There are currently two bills before the House of Representatives aimed at legalising same-sex marriage - one from Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt, the other from Labor backbencher Stephen Jones.

Labor MPs have been given a conscience vote on the legislation, but Coalition MPs are expected to follow the party's position on the issue, which does not allow for any change to marriage laws.

A final vote on the legislation is not expected until later this year, although at this stage it appears the legislation will struggle to get the support it needs to pass the house.

yes does seem simple....but its not an option....all the power companies supply at the same rate, so can you suggest a real alternative....?????](*,) ](*,) ](*,)

The ACT Government has announced Australia's largest solar farm supported by a feed-in tariff will be built in the Territory's south.

Spanish-based company Fotowatio Renewable Ventures (FRV) will build the facility on 50 hectares near Royalla just off the Monaro Highway in Tuggeranong.

The 20 megawatt facility will be made up of 83,000 photovoltaic panels and produce enough renewable electricity to power 4,400 Canberra homes.

The project will cost ACT households an extra 25 cents a week or $13 a year. That is expected to decrease to around $9.50 by 2020.

FRV chief executive officer Rafael Benjumea says the company has extensive experience in solar power farms.

"We have built more than 350 megawatts all over the world, investing more than 2.5 billion Euros ($AUS 3 billion) in solar panels," he said.

Construction is due to begin next year and is expected to be finished in 2014, subject to environmental and planning approval.

FRV National Manager Andrea Fontana says the construction of the solar farm will have minimal impact on the environment of the chosen site.

"The good thing about this kind of [solar] plant is that the height is less than 2 metres with just a few plants or visual protections," he said.

"The impact would be almost non-existent."

Mr Fontana says the solar farm will produce about 37,000 megawatt-hours per year.

ACT Environment Minister Simon Corbell says it is an exciting new step in Canberra becoming a sustainable city.

"I think Canberrans will welcome this project," he said.

"This is about making Canberra the solar capital of Australia, it's about making the shift to renewables at a very cheap price, with a great saving in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and jobs and economic activity in our city."

Mr Corbell says the project will generate around 50 jobs during construction.

"The Government's reverse auction process is about getting the cheapest price for the best amount of renewable energy generation, and today we've delivered on that," he said.

"This will be the largest solar farm for the ACT, it will save our city over half a million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, and it's being done at a very cheap price for consumers."

The ACT Government says the solar farm will have an approximate reduction of 560,000 tonnes of carbon emissions over the 20 year life of the project, aiming to make Canberra a carbon neutral city by 2060.

Federal environment approval has already been given.

They shouldn't all be charging you the same as they won't all be paying the same carbon price because they won't all be producing the same amount of carbon. But you probably knew that Genius, right?

Hey Batfink, remember when you said that no-one was going to step forward to build green power to compete with traditional methods?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-09-05/act-solar-farm-named/4244494?section=act

Does Canberra's solar power plan take into account the greenhouse gases emitted during the manufacturing process of the solar panels?

How do you guys feel about wind turbines?

I was pretty sure I sure an in-depth paper on the health issues associated with turbines being largely false rhetoric and thoroughly debunked.

next round will be health issues associated with gas seam mining......

Power stations deny they're better off

Reported by AAP
Friday, September 7, 2012

The country's dirtiest power stations have hit back at claims they are over-compensated to the tune of $1 billion under the Gillard government's carbon price regime.

Frontier Economics this week released a report suggesting brown-coal generators would be at least $400 million better off and "more likely" $1 billion richer.

But the Energy Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) - which includes the owners of Hazelwood and Yallourn power stations in the Latrobe Valley - labelled the analysis "inaccurate".

"This isn't modelling, it's back-of-the-envelope arithmetic," ESAA chief executive Matthew Warren said in a statement on Friday.

"It doesn't consider the effect of crucial factors like weaker electricity demand and soft wholesale prices on the viability of these power stations."

Mr Warren said the real measure of the financial health of generators was the difficulty they faced refinancing over the past year.

Power stations were written down in value by hundreds of millions of dollars and some owners had to inject their own money to keep the businesses going, he said.

Labor this week abandoned plans to pay coal generators to shut down about 2000 megawatts of highly emissions-intensive generation capacity by 2020.

Green groups are now demanding brown-coal generators forgo $4.5 billion worth of compensation payments due to be delivered over the next five years. They've already received $1 billion from Labor.

But Mr Warren insists the "combination punch" of the carbon tax, soft wholesale electricity prices, weak demand forecasts and deepening market uncertainty are "clearly hurting the bottom line of Australia's coal-fired power stations".

Federal Climate Change Minister Greg Combet on Thursday dismissed Frontier's analysis, saying compensation was necessary to ensure the dirtiest power stations and their financiers "retained confidence in their assets so they would continue to operate".

NSW government-owned generator Delta Electricity on Friday told The Australian black-coal stations in NSW, Queensland and Western Australia would be worse off after the scrapping of the contract for closure program.

It wants the compensation package to be reviewed.

Tony Abbott says he can't remember ‘punching wall near fellow student'

From: AAP September 08, 2012 12:59PM

TONY Abbott punched a wall twice near the head of a woman who beat him in a Sydney University election, according to extracts from a political journal.

..Fairfax Media on Saturday published extracts from an article in The Quarterly Essay by David Marr.

It explores the student political life of the federal opposition leader and how it influenced his time as a Howard government minister.

In September 1977, Barbara Ramjan, now a social worker, defeated Mr Abbott for the university's Student Representative Council (SRC) presidency, Marr writes.

Once the victory was declared, the SRC offices saw wild scenes including flashing, mooning, jeering and abuse.

Mr Abbott approached Ms Ramjan, who thought he was coming over to congratulate her.

"But no, that's not what he wanted," she recalls in an interview for the essay.

"He came up to within an inch of my nose and punched the wall on either side of my head.

"It was done to intimidate."

Mr Abbott told Marr he had no recollection of the incident.

"It would be profoundly out of character had it occurred," he is quoted as saying.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/tony-abbott-says-he-cant-remember-punching-wall-near-fellow-student/story-e6frf7jo-1226467996723

Is this the beginning of a Gillard revival?

DateSeptember 8, 2012

Michael Gordon

JULIA Gillard isn't big on admitting to personal failings. Truth is, she is at her best when her back's against the wall and she's conceding absolutely nothing, as she was last month when defending her conduct as a lawyer 17 years ago.

So it was refreshing, and maybe a reflection of increased self-confidence, to hear a confession of fallibility this week that gave a personal dimension to the Prime Minister's ''national crusade'' to give children a better education and a better future.

Gillard was reflecting on the good and bad of her own education, at Adelaide's Unley High in the 1970s, when she referred in passing to the one girl with a disability at the school, who tended to be shunned by the high-achievers and lived a lonely life.

''I have frequently reproached myself for not spending more time with her,'' Gillard volunteered, adding that, even at good schools like hers, those earmarked for success were ''streamed'' while the rest were ''stigmatised''.

''I was in the top class, others were in classes routinely and cruelly referred to as 'vegie class'. We were marked for success - they were marked for failure,'' she told the National Press Club. ''From my earliest years, the life-changing unfairness of being denied a great education has struck me as a moral wrong. For me, eradicating that moral wrong is what drove me into politics and drives me still.''

One of the criticisms of Gillard is that she came to the top job without well-formed views on certain areas of policy - a criticism that has also been levelled at Tony Abbott. But education has always been her strong suit and it is at the epicentre of Labor's recovery strategy.

There are many unanswered questions concerning Gillard's national plan for school improvement, including where the money will come from to fund it and whether the states will come on board. But, for the first time since she snatched the job from Kevin Rudd, Gillard is on the front foot, setting a positive agenda and talking about her preferred topics.

It is way too early to predict whether this will transform a modest improvement in Labor's - and her own - very low standing with voters into a fully fledged recovery, but the dynamics of the contest have changed and, for the first time in a long time, Abbott is under some pressure.

It is similarly premature to suggest Gillard had found her mojo. She still manages to say things that grate, such as the line that rankled with my colleague, Tim Colebatch, in the Press Club speech launching the crusade - that ''under our plan, you will need to be at the top of your class to get into a university teaching course''.

Aside from the obvious point that those at the top of the class tend to aspire to higher paid jobs than teaching, Colebatch retorted: ''Doesn't the PM know that the best teachers inspire kids to learn not because of their academic results, but because of themselves?''

The next day, Gillard took the crusade to an unlikely venue - a convention of miners in Perth - and delivered a speech that included more than one needlessly patronising line. ''Teachers see the potential in kids, you see the potential in landscape,'' she told the gathering. ''You invest in mines. They invest in minds.''

Among the companies represented at the conference was Rio Tinto, the nation's largest private employer of indigenous Australians, and one that opened a $13 million education complex at one of its mines last month. Depicting those present as one-dimensional (''If it's there, you find it. If you find it, you dig it up'') doesn't seem to me to be likely to endear a sector that already feels it's had a rough deal from this government.

But, in focusing on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, the new dental scheme backed by the Greens, and implementing the Gonski plan to lift Australia's education performance - policies with a combined $20 billion price tag - Gillard has moved into a new phase of her prime ministership.

There is, to be sure, still unfinished business in two of the three areas she cited as evidence that Labor had lost its way under Rudd more than two years ago - pricing carbon and slowing the number of asylum seeker boat arrivals.

As Malcolm Turnbull observed in his George Winterton lecture this week, these two issues have represented almost the entire focus of opposition questions in Parliament for the past two years, and this isn't likely to change any time soon. ''Are they really the only important issues facing Australia?'' Turnbull asked.

Although he was at pains to say he wasn't criticising Abbott (there was a ''concentration of themes'' when he was leader, too, Turnbull said), the lecture was a reminder that, just like Labor, the Coalition has in the wings someone who aspires to the leadership and would approach the task very differently to the incumbent.

On asylum seekers, part of the the problem for Labor is the ambiguity of the government's position on new arrivals - that those who came by boat since August 13 ''run the risk of transfer to a regional processing country''. More than 1500 have arrived since the decision to reopen Nauru and Manus Island - too many to be accommodated at either place any time soon.

Part of the problem is that asylum seekers in transit countries can't see any evidence yet that there is another pathway to a safer and better life.

Even so, the new strength of Labor's position is that there is now a clear strategy that transcends managing problems, even if it is open to the charge of being internally inconsistent - to ensure ongoing economic prosperity by delivering a surplus in next year's budget and to spend big in the years that follow on clear areas of need (disability insurance, dental care and schools).

This week saw confirmation of the 21st consecutive year of economic growth and, while it isn't equivalent to winning 21 premierships in a row as Wayne Swan asserted (not least because the other team was in charge for more than half of this period), it is something no other developed nation can boast.

The question is this: will Gillard get any credit for economic management and for going hard on traditional Labor issues - or have voters already stopped listening? My instinct is that she still faces a huge battle, but a comeback cannot be ruled out.

One reason for this is that Gillard's ability to set the agenda in the past fortnight has put the focus back on Abbott - and he hasn't performed very well.

And here's the rub. If Gillard's recovery does nothing more than keep the Rudd forces at bay, which would seem the most likely outcome right now, Abbott can expect to coast into office in 12 months' time.

There are, however, two other possibilities. The first is that her stronger performance doesn't translate into a big lift in Labor's primary vote, prompting a switch back to Rudd. The second is that she defies history and restores Labor to a competitive position. Under either of these scenarios, the question of leadership of the Coalition comes into play.

Michael Gordon is national editor.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/is-this-the-beginning-of-a-gillard-revival-20120907-25jwr.html#ixzz25ra6NcI2

MALCOLM Turnbull has described those who claim legalising gay marriage would undermine the institution as ''dripping with the worst sort of hypocrisy'', in a speech defying the Coalition's opposition to changing the law.

Mr Turnbull, a frontbencher who cannot vote for gay marriage because of Tony Abbott's refusal to give Liberals a conscience vote, said the ''deepest pools'' of this hypocrisy were all too often found ''among the most sanctimonious''.

''Let us be honest with each other. The threat to marriage is not the gays. It is a lack of loving commitment - whether it is found in the form of neglect, indifference, cruelty or adultery, to name just a few manifestations of the loveless desert in which too many marriages come to grief.''

Delivering the Michael Kirby Lecture last night, Mr Turnbull said if Liberal frontbenchers had a free vote, he would support the private members' legislation voted on later this year.

In what could be construed as encouraging backbenchers to do so, he noted that ordinary Liberal MPs were not expelled if they crossed the floor, ''so in that sense every vote is a conscience vote''.

But ''because the leadership are not permitting a free vote, shadow cabinet ministers are bound to vote in accordance with the collective decision''. If they wanted to cross the floor, they would have to resign from the shadow ministry ''and I do not propose to do that''.

Mr Turnbull offered a swingeing demolition of the case against gay marriage - and also pointedly said that previously Liberals had been given a conscience vote on marriage issues.

''I am utterly unpersuaded by the proposition that my marriage to Lucy, or indeed any marriage, is undermined by two gay men or two lesbians setting up house down the road - whether it is called a marriage or not,'' he said.

''Do the bishops seriously imagine that legalising gay marriage will result in thousands of parties to heterosexual marriages suddenly deciding to get divorced so they can marry a person of the same sex?'' he said.

''Are not the gays who seek the right to marry, to formalise their commitment to each other, holding up a mirror to heterosexuals who are marrying less frequently and divorcing more often?''

Mr Abbott has said marriage is between a man and a woman not just to fulfil their own personal happiness ''but because we have obligations to the children that come with families''.

But criticising those who objected to gay marriage on the grounds that children deserved to have a mother and a father, Mr Turnbull said that ''in an ideal world, as opposed to this vale of tears, the best parents for any child are their biological parents. However in many cases one or even both biological parents are simply not there.

''And … not infrequently, even when they are there, one or both of the biological parents are neither loving nor wise. ''So the proposition that the ideal parents for any child are its biological parents is a statement with which we can all agree in the generality, but which does not apply, for one reason or another, in many particular circumstances.''

As for concerns that gay married couples would be more likely to be able to adopt children, he said gays were able to adopt in several states; adoption was a state issue, and many married couples today were not accepted as suitable to adopt a child.

Invoking the name of John Howard, Mr Turnbull said there was a strong public interest in people living together and supporting and helping each other.

Mr Howard ''was not thinking of gay couples when he said in 1995, 'a stable functioning family provides the best welfare support system yet devised'. But the point is well made.''

Codependency was economically good for the state, Mr Turnbull said. ''There will plainly be less demand for social services, medical expenses, hospital care if people, especially older people, like Michael [Kirby] and [partner] Johan, live together as opposed to being in lonely isolation consoled only by their respective cats''.

With the legislation - there are separate bills from a Labor backbencher Stephen Jones and Greens' Adam Bandt - doomed to failure, Mr Turnbull said that even if the Liberals had a free vote, he thought the numbers would not be there to pass gay marriage. But they were certainly there for civil unions and ''we should not miss the opportunity to legislate for civil unions for same-sex couples in this Parliament''.

I'd post this in touchy subjects if it hadn't been canned, but i found this a generally uplifting experience:
Today I heard a speech from and met one Father Peter Kennedy, former parish priest of St. Mary's in South Brisbane. He and his followers were expelled from the church for 'problematic practices' within his parish, he allowed women to preach, blessed marriages of same-sex couples, and he baptized their children. For that, the Catholic Church kicked him out. He also stressed his interpretations of religious scriptures in general, namely, that they "are not historical" they are written by people and they are a subtle themed way of finding a little meaning and purpose in life.

The man deserves a medal for demonstrating how religion should be done.

Peter Kennedy is an idiot with no idea how religion should be done

How the fuck are they making stories about Abbott's 'uni anger'? its an even bigger non-story than gillard resigning from a law firm.

Does Canberra's solar power plan take into account the greenhouse gases emitted during the manufacturing process of the solar panels?

This thread just seems to bring out the douche in everyone.

Is Turnbull building his way up to challenging?

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/turnbulls-gay-marriage-swipe-20120706-21mou.html



Edited by notorganic: 10/9/2012 07:17:43 PM