They could always pay tax in another country with better infrastructure to do the same thing, then we'd get nothing.



Been to Mackay or Gladstone lately?



Mining engineering can be useful and the skills they learn can be applied to geotechnical engineering for sure. There's also project engineering. I disagree with you on that point.



Of course but the way Ruddy comes across is that mining is over so lets not waste our time propping it up. The way he came across was not positive.



Haha oh jesus. Worldwide economies cannot afford to lower let alone cease their dependence on coal. Its not realistic.

Extracting from Africa is a long way away. Put simply they don't have the infrastructure.



But wouldn't it balance out? The money you get off the mining companies you give to the workers they just fired so they can feed their kids.



Given the logistical problems we have its hardly surprising though is it?



That's the nature of mining though. I've seen efficient American mines in the USA which are now 75% full again because they got cheeky with their excavation slopes. Labour costs kill any kind of efficiency here anyway.



I see companies like BHP giving us their middle finger and taking new projects to countries like Canada with similar infrastructure and logistical problems.



The argument will always be that they employ so many tax payers so thats enough. I think a lot of people as a result of the boom have put unrealistic expectations on mining in general.

Massive election news dropped today:

Both Rudd and Abbott will be on a back-to-back election edition of Annabel Crabb's Kitchen Cabinet in the final week of the campaign. Following this important event is an election-eve Rage special guest programmed by the deputy leaders of the three major parties. Could be a pivotal moment in deciding the election race.

Guardian Lonergan poll not quite so bad for Labor

Lenore Taylor, political editor
theguardian.com, Monday 19 August 2013 15.54 AEST

A new opinion poll suggests Labor’s electoral position is slightly less dire than other recent surveys have suggested – although it still suggests a clear Coalition victory.

The Guardian Lonergan poll, taken over the weekend, shows the Coalition on 44% of the primary vote, ahead of Labor on 35%, well under the 38% of the primary vote it achieved in 2010.

But Lonergan calculates the Coalition ahead 52% to 48% on two-party preferred terms – similar to the position it has been in for most of the campaign – largely because of preference flows from a 12% Greens vote.

The result is slightly less bad for Labor than the Newspoll conducted for the Australian on the weekend, which showed Labor's primary vote at 34%, compared with the Coalition on 47% and the Greens on just 9%. On a two-party-preferred basis, that put the Coalition ahead 54% to Labor’s 46%.

Asked about the polls while campaigning in northern New South Wales on Monday, Kevin Rudd said "I'm a fighter. I will continue to fight and I will continue to fight for Australian families … We will fight this to the conclusion of the campaign."

He blamed Labor’s difficulties on Coalition attacks and negative campaigning, and said this was also the rationale for Labor’s new attack ads, launched Sunday night.

“If you were in the firing line for two weeks of wall to wall negative attacks upon yourself, you know something, it would probably have an impact on what people thought about you – now we are returning fire,” he said.

But according to the Lonergan poll – based on automated calls to 1,676 voters – Labor is trailing disastrously in Rudd’s home state of Queensland, where the party needs to win seats from the Coalition to have any chance of victory.

It found Labor’s primary vote in Queensland was 34% compared with the Coalition’s 50%. In NSW, Labor’s primary vote trailed 33% to 47% and in Victoria 32% to 44%.

It also found the Coalition’s lead was bigger with men (46% of the primary vote compared with 35% for Labor) than women (42% to 34%).

The only age bracket in which Labor was in the lead was 18- to 24-year-olds, where it attracted 42% of the primary vote compared with 37% for the Coalition. The Coalition was slightly ahead among 25- to 34-year-olds (39% to 34%) but strongly ahead among 35- to 49-year-olds (44% to 33%) 50 to 64-year-olds (44% to 38%) and the over-65s, where the Coalition leads 53% to Labor’s 30%.

According to Newspoll, Rudd’s personal popularity is also waning. Rudd still edges Abbott as preferred prime minister – 43% to 41% – but his support is dwindling, equating to a loss of three points from the previous poll and a rise in Abbott's rating of four points, the closest Abbott has ever been to Rudd on the question of preferred prime minister.

Rudd's voter satisfaction rating also dropped four points to 35%, while his dissatisfaction rating rose six points to 54%, his worst ever personal support.

Abbott's satisfaction rating, meanwhile, is on the up, with a rise of three percentage points to 41%, up seven points during the election campaign, while his dissatisfaction rating was 51%, down one point and a five-point fall overall during the campaign.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/guardian-lonergan-poll-gives-slight-hope-to-labor

Liberal figures avoid court examination over Phillip Island rezoning

August 19, 2013 - 5:15PM

Royce Millar
Investigative reporter

The Liberal party has averted a potentially damaging pre-election court examination of planning minister Matthew Guy's botched rezoning of farmland on Phillip Island, courtesy of a taxpayer-funded deal to silence the landowner and developer involved.

In a last-minute, out-of-court settlement, the Napthine Government has struck a confidential deal aimed at putting an end to the two-year row over Mr Guy's back flip on rezoning of a 24-hectare property to residential at Ventnor.

The deal prevents a courtroom grilling of some of the party's most senior figures, including federal frontbenchers Greg Hunt and Andrew Robb, and former premier Ted Baillieu, over their knowledge of one of murkiest planning affairs in Victoria's recent history.

Without a settlement, the Liberals faced the prospect of a Supreme Court hearing listed to start on Tuesday and expected to run until the eve of the September 7 election. The hearing will now be discontinued.

The deal allows Mr Guy – widely viewed as a Victorian leadership aspirant – to avoid forensic examination of the single most damaging controversy in his stint as planning minister.

On Monday the parties to the compensation deal, including land purchaser and subdivision proponent Carley Nicholls, and the landowner, John Cadogan, refused to comment.

But Fairfax Media understands both will be compensated in a package totaling in the millions. Fairfax understands government offers to Ms Nicholls have increased as the court hearing date neared.

Ms Nicholls had sued Mr Guy and was seeking the reinstatement of his original rezoning of the 24-hectare property overlooking Western Port Bay. Her husband Jim Hopkins, a member of the Liberal Party at the time, is from an established Phillip Island family.

As Fairfax Media revealed last year, Mr Guy's initial approval of the Ventnor rezoning followed approaches to the minister's office on behalf of Mr Hopkins by family friend, former Kennett government planning minister and nearby resident, Rob Maclellan.

At the time of the Ventor rezoning saga in 2011, Mr Maclellan's former chief of staff, Meg Bartel, held the same position in Mr Guy's office. She left the minister's office soon after the Ventnor controversy erupted.

But influential Liberals also opposed the scheme, including former local branch president Jonathan Dade, who lives next to the contested farmland, and local federal MP and shadow environment minister Greg Hunt.

Fairfax Media understands that the office of then-premier Ted Baillieu was actively involved in ensuring Mr Guy overturned his initial decision.

Ms Nicholls in particular had threatened to reveal all about the events leading up to Mr Guy's initial rezoning, and the subsequent pressure from senior Liberals to over turn it.

In June she went public for the first time to reveal that Mr Guy had visited her home at Phillip Island months before the rezoning in September 2011, and over her kitchen table had given her a favourable hearing.

Had it proceeded, the rezoning would have delivered Ms Nicholls a multi-million dollar windfall. Instead, she said in June, she faced financial ruin.

In his affidavit Mr Guy acknowledged visiting Ms Nicholls' house but denied discussing Ventnor.

Mr Guy's defence, detailed in court documents, was that he acted "in error" in rezoning the land but had relied on the advice of ministerial staff. He said he overturned his decision after learning that the Bass Coast Shire Council opposed the extension of town boundaries at Ventnor.

In June, Ms Nicholls told Fairfax Media she had been left owing more than $3 million on a property that could not be developed and is of little value as farmland. Rezoned for housing, the picturesque, gently sloping island site would have generated a profit of more than $10 million.

"Surely the community should be able to take a minister at his word when he exercises his ministerial powers. But how can the community trust this minister at his word now?" she said at the time.

Greens leader Greg Barber said: “It's sure expensive having Matthew Guy as planning minister in this state."

Mr Guy has repeatedly refused to discuss the Ventnor matter with Fairfax Media or answer written questions, including about the contact between his office and Mr Maclellan.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/liberal-figures-avoid-court-examination-over-phillip-island-rezoning-20130819-2s6xs.html#ixzz2cPn5G1ZE

Look at the end of the day the only reason mining companies can make money is because they extract resources from countries... therefore surely we can agree they should pay the same corporate taxes as other businesses, plus a royalty fee for the ore they export. If those corporate taxes include things such as the carbon tax... well then so be it (assuming the tax is applied equally across all industries).

What that royalty fee should be (as a percentage of the value of ore extracted) I'm not an expert and I don't know... but I as an Australian wouldn't be disappointed if we were towards the higher end of what countries around the world charge.

If the companies think the tax is too high or the cost of operating is too great... then I'm sure other companies will eventually fill the void when they see profitability in the business be applying better efficiency and smarter technology (or just because the ore price goes up).

If the government is then helping support and promote diversity of industry to protect the country from anything (internal or external) that might hurt the mining industry, then I Just consider that smart.

It's Mining. It's a finite resource. Sooner or later other sources become depleted and Australia's higher costs become viable again.

Three weeks to go, can Labor still win? Oh, yes

August 20

John McTernan
Despite the polls Labor can turn the tide with a ruthless strategy of attack.

This election has always been Labor's to win. Starting behind, it needed messages and policies to cut through to the public to get the momentum necessary to overtake the Coalition. Two weeks in, and with three weeks to go, that remains the case. Can Labor pull back the poll deficit and win? Definitively yes. How? Well, as Ronald Reagan used to say, ''It's not easy, but it is simple.''

Most importantly, Kevin Rudd has to project a clear picture of Australia's future with Labor. This election is, in reality, a choice of two futures. Tony Abbott has committed himself, rather oddly, to a policy platform that is almost entirely driven by Labor and the Greens. He will implement Labor's DisabilityCare and Julia Gillard's legacy Better Schools and he will reverse Labor's mining tax and carbon price. Oh, and then there's his own emblematic policy of paid parental leave - hated by his own side and business, and backed solely by the Greens, no wonder since it's a tax on big business to expand state welfare massively.

Parties of the centre-left can only win with a compelling vision based on future and fairness. The absence of a Coalition vision should make this contest so much easier. The best policy has edge, crunch and lift. It cuts through to the public, it is specific and it inspires.

That happened last week with Rudd's promise on gay marriage - four days after the dull debate Katy Perry was raising it to Abbott's discomfort. More should be made of Better Schools. The backflip by Christopher Pyne and Abbott should be mercilessly attacked, but the real weakness is that the Coalition is literally tax and spend on this issue.

It will give the extra cash to states, the Catholic system and independent schools with no strings attached. Bill Shorten, and before him Peter Garrett, have tied agreements to raising schools standards. There is no better issue for connecting with the aspirational suburban voters that Labor needs to bring back.

Then, Labor needs to be relentless in its pursuit of the Coalition on costings. This may seem like an abstract, indeed arid, area of debate. But it goes to competence.

Joe Hockey cannot be allowed to bang on for three years about debt and deficit and then say it doesn't matter whether his numbers add up. He has made the bottom line the symbol of economic management. So be it. Now it's his turn.

Take paid parental leave, a policy costing $6 billion. Do the numbers add up? Certainly not, at the very least the 1.5 per cent levy falls short simply because the fall in corporation tax has been part of the collapse in revenues that Labor has suffered. But more, that levy is intended to be balanced by a 1.5per cent cut in corporation tax. So there are, in reality, two spending commitments. How on earth does that work?

A sustained attack on costings would hurt the Coalition because it goes to credibility. Abbott's trademark since he became Opposition Leader has been discipline - both personally and in his caucus and the Liberal Party. He has been disciplined everywhere except in spending; here he remains true to his true Big Government self. Attacking here wedges him with his party, which is nervous about this side of him.

Which brings us to the final strand of an effective election strategy - negative campaigning.

In politics attack is the best form of attack. James Carville, who got Bill Clinton elected, said it best: ''If your fist is down your opponent's throat he can't say bad things about you.''

All voters always say they hate negative ads. Who wouldn't? What they are really saying is that they are not shallow or venal enough to be moved by malice, money or misrepresentation. But their votes say something different. The right attacks - the ones that resonate - move votes. So, Labor is right to campaign on GST. Eight out of 10 voters believe that if there were wall-to-wall Liberal governments then the GST would be increased.

What makes this scare campaign even better is that the Coalition if elected would review the GST. Even the least attentive of punters would agree with the proposition: why would they review it if they don't plan to increase it.

As for Abbott, his gaffes have to be seen, and portrayed, for what they are - revelations of character. Until we see a politician in the job of prime minister we don't know how they will go. So we have to read the clues. The remark about the ''sex appeal'' of a woman in that context was just casual sexism. Saying gay marriage is a ''fashion'' reveals a deeply held view. We are seeing Abbott's character and character goes to judgment.

A Labor head-kicker should be relentlessly pursuing these errors.

Labor can turn the tide with a ruthless strategy. The alternative is the drift to acceptance of the ''inevitability'' of a Coalition victory. It's still all to play for.

John McTernan is a political strategist and was former prime minster Julia Gillard's director of communications.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/three-weeks-to-go-can-labor-still-win-oh-yes-20130819-2s7ax.html#ixzz2cSBiOlhs

Except how it will affect the economy spending such money lol.

>.<

-PB

I'm going to call it now. Lib/Nat win the lower house, but the greens just hold on the the balance of power in the senate. Double dissolution within six months of the new senate sitting after the ETS/Carbon Price gets blocked twice.

Already made promises that don't mathematically add up. Already complained there isn't enough tax revenue. Better introduce one of the most expensive policies of all time.

Also...Titanic 2? I haven't seen that one, was Di Caprio in it? :lol:

Isn't this the Labor spin doctor who had Gillard knitting on the front cover of the Womem's Weekly to "soften her image"?

Yeah, a male is the chief editor of Women's Weekly. #-o That was Helen McCabe.

Caring for where free money comes from? Ain't nobody got time for that

Told the mrs about the parental leave. Her response was simply "well, I'm voting for liberal then" :lol:

This is the worst part about it all. This one completely implausible promise and everyone loves him. It's WORSE than Rudd's stimulus hand-out.

I just lodged my dad and partner pay form today (not easy to do if you're not on the dole ironically) and you get 2 weeks at the minimum wage (minus tax) whick I think works out at around $1200. My wife got the Maternity leave for our last daughter and that was the same but for 18 weeks.

The Liberals is 26 weeks for primary carer at full pay and 2 weeks for partners at full pay. but only up to 475,000 per annum.

The Liberals seems good but it is going to be hard to fund as all they are doing to cover the cost to taking 1.5% of the Company tax and stock piling it to cover the difference between the Labour scheme and theirs. Which means less of the current taxes going to useless things like health care, Education and national services upgrades.

PV4 I implore you to speak with your wife and ensure that she understands that the Liberal version is not better and will also not come in to affect until 2015, meaning that they can't afford to bring it in for 18 months prior to getting elected as they'll need time to build the funds to cover the short fall.

supercoach is quite right the article is written by the former labor spin doctor, who's idea it was to place barge arse knitting


John McTernan is a political strategist and was former prime minster Julia Gillard's director of communications.

He might have written the article, but it wouldn't have been his decision to put her on the front cover knitting. That would have been the chief editor's call.

Wut? :\

Wikileaks is popular with those retards who wear tinfoil hats and think everything is a government conspiracy.

Looks like I have to fill out all 97 boxes below the line. I like the idea of crossbenchers holding the balance of power, makes the government negotiate and prevents another '75 constitutional crisis. But these preference deals are absolute shockers.

I wish we could just do above the line preferenceing. Can make up your own mind but it cuts the number of boxes dramatically.

Preerence deals shouldn't be allowed. I may as well just not vote at all if my vote for party B ends up being just given straight to party A any way. It defeats the fucking purpose.

Preferences are critical in our first-past-the-post system... if there are 3 similar candidates who get 20% each, and one way-out-bizarre candidate that gets 40%... it is only right that the preferences are distributed in turn between the 3 similar candidates such that the most popular ends up with 60% and represents the electorate (rather than the extreme candidate that is liked by 40% but hated by 60%).


IF we had proportional representation, THEN you would do away with preferences... the number of first-choice-votes a party receives would determine how much of the parliament they fill.


I definitely think you should be able to (in fact obliged to)to preference above the line for the Senate... then the only reason to vote below the line is if you disagree with a particular person within a party that is the preferred candidate for a particular party.

Party preference deals are a horrible system. How-to-vote cards shouldn't be allowed, either (so many people think they *have* to follow their parties card for their vote to count... it's annoying).

That's why you number the boxes. Preference should be determined by the voter and not by deals done by parties.

Liberal Kevin Baker resigns over website with offensive material

Party loses candidate for seat of Charlton after he admitted making 'inappropriate comments' on his website

Helen Davidson and Gabrielle Chan
theguardian.com, Tuesday 20 August 2013 19.02 AEST

A Liberal party candidate who ran a website containing offensive material including references to domestic violence, incest and child abuse has resigned, leaving the seat of Charlton without a Liberal representative for the upcoming election.

In a statement late on Tuesday afternoon, Kevin Baker resigned his candidacy, noting that his name would still appear on the ballot paper in Charlton.

"I deeply regret the posts made on my website and decided that it was not appropriate to continue as the party's candidate," Baker said.

Earlier in the day, the opposition leader, Tony Abbott, said there was no doubt Baker had "done the wrong thing, no doubt about that, he absolutely has done the wrong thing".

"Now, to his credit he has pulled down the site. He has abjectly and I think quite properly apologised," Abbott said.

Pressure for Baker's resignation built through the day as the prime minister called on Abbott to "man up" and show "a bit of leadership and guts" and disendorse him. Rudd has disendorsed two candidates for inappropriate comments in the first week of the campaign.

Also on Tuesday, Labor campaign spokesperson Penny Wong had compared Baker's case to Pauline Hanson's disendorsement by John Howard in 1996, saying Abbott needed to do the same thing.

Baker was running in the seat of Charlton, based in Newcastle and vacated by former climate change minister Greg Combet. It is a safe Labor seat, with a margin of 12.7%. The Labor candidate is Combet's former deputy chief of staff Pat Conroy.

Baker posted lewd jokes and offensive references on forums on the Mini-Mods website under his surname, the Daily Telegraph reported.

As moderator, he also allowed others to make posts including sexist and racist jokes, links to pornography and jokes about the pope and paedophilia, domestic violence and child abuse. Posts also included jokes about members of the Australian parliament having criminal convictions.

Baker also engaged in joke threads about Josef Fritzl, the Austrian man who held his daughter captive and repeatedly raped her over 24 years.

Underneath a joke about a rabbi, Baker replied: "Bwahaha ... see, this sort of stuff is *exactly* what they wouldn't allow on the other site."

Baker reportedly also referred to posts as "tit-banter".

The website was set up as a forum for Mini Cooper enthusiasts.

"I set up an online forum for Mini Cooper enthusiasts several years ago," Baker said in a statement. "On the site I made comments that were inappropriate, which I deeply regret and for which I apologise unreservedly. In the last few years I have also failed to moderate the site properly."

The website was later shut down.

The tagline for the "general discussion and banter" sub-forum on the site read: "Talk about anything you want – no censorship, no stress!"

Baker is a former Australian apprentice of the year and is a director for the health charity Heartkids NSW.


http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/20/liberal-candidate-offensive-jokes-website

Edited by Joffa: 20/8/2013 08:32:00 PM

I took your comment as a general comment on preferences... e.g. the "I voted for the Greens I hate both the major parties... why should either of them get my preferences" argument.

Since the majority of people are clearly not interested in numbering all of 50-100 boxes, I still think you should be able to preference-vote above the line in the Senate (rather than letting the parties decide where your preferences go if you vote above the line).

It would make life very hard in terms of vote-counting, but it'd be a much fairer system and eliminate the stupidity that always comes out of preference dealing.

Digitalise the voting process and you eliminate any possible problem you have there.

Preferences above the line is a great idea, makes it that much easier and really the vast majority of the time you vote for the party not individual candidate in the senate.

Digital voting? If it aint broke don't fix it. While Australians are great at complaining about everything I really can't see an issue with how the polls are done now, very orderly and quick to be honest.

I think digital voting would streamline the process. And it'd make it a lot easier to work a preference system.

Like I said, what's the point in the whole voting system if I vote for the ASP, they give their preferences to the Greens and then the Greens give their preferences to Labor? I may as well just not fucking vote. Which is why I don't.