True enough about knee jerking, I for one hope the Libs get it right, time will tell...for me I want to see substance and not hype.

If Abbott can become a statesman, well that would be fantastic and to our nations benefit, but to call him that after one month is frankly disingenuous .

But as usual they're too busy bickering and trying to make each other look bad in an internal power struggle instead of getting their shit together and making the LNP look bad.

wouldn't it be nice to see an opposition party willing to work together and get fair dinkum results for the people of Australia, for the people....sick of any and all governments fighting and bickering....we can't they get some form og co-operation happening??????

Yes Abbott really led the way in opposition with how he worked with the Govenment of the day.

its important to remember that a vast majority of legislation gets bipartisan support...its the small amount of controversial legislation that gets all the attention

Yes Abbott really led the way in opposition with how he worked with the Govenment of the day.

Yeh look this thread is full of partisans but Batfink really takes the cake.

Edited by Decazz: 6/10/2013 05:16:44 PM

obviously blue text required there Joffa....and i agree.....100% i know i am dreaming , but it would be nice if the politicians put the country first and self last......:-"

Industry's coal seam gas campaign is a con


The gas industry is working a scam on the people of NSW, in collusion with other business lobby groups and federal and state politicians. It's trying to frighten us into agreeing to remove restrictions on the exploitation of coal seam gas deposits. Failing that, the various parties want to be able to lay the blame for an inevitable jump in the price of natural gas on the greenies and farmers.

According to the gas lobby, the manufacturing lobby, the Business Council, federal Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane and former Labor minerals and energy minister Martin Ferguson, we have a looming gas supply crisis in NSW and must unlock our local coal seam gas resources if we're to avoid shortages and the price hikes they bring.

NSW Minister for Resources and Energy Chris Hartcher, at whom most of lobbying is aimed - his government boasts of ''the toughest coal seam gas controls in Australia'' - must fully understand the deception, but seems reluctant to expose the dishonesty of his Coalition and business mates.

The problem, we're told, is NSW produces only about 2 per cent of the natural gas its households and industrial users consume. And when facilities for liquefying and exporting gas start operating within a year or two, producers in Queensland and Victoria will switch to exporting their gas to gain the higher foreign prices.

So NSW is facing a massive shortage of gas, which will cause a big jump in gas prices and threaten the jobs of thousands of people working in gas-dependent industries. The obvious answer, we're told, is for NSW to fill this supply gap and avert the price hike by urgently developing its own supply of coal seam gas.

There's just one problem with this neat story: it reveals - or exploits - an ignorance of how markets work. The lobbyists' faulty logic is ably exposed by the Australia Institute's Matt Grudnoff in his paper, Cooking up a price rise.

For many years, the prices paid for natural gas by consumers on Australia's eastern seaboard have been a lot lower than prices paid in other countries. The absence of plants to liquefy the gas so it could be exported meant our market was cut off from the world market.

We had no liquefaction plants because we didn't have enough gas to make them profitable. What's changed is the advent of fracking, which has enabled us to begin exploiting our extensive deposits of coal seam gas.

The development of ''unconventional'' gas in Queensland has progressed to the point where it's become economic for three liquefaction plants to be set up near Gladstone. When those plants start operating in a year or two, the barrier that separated our eastern seaboard gas market from the world market will disappear and the era of low gas prices will end.

Grudnoff estimates the wholesale price of gas will double or treble from between $3 and $4 a gigajoule to the world ''netback'' price of $9 a gigajoule. ''This is because Australian gas producers will have the option to sell to the Japanese, who are willing to pay $15 a gigajoule,'' he says.

The difference between $15 and the netback price - also known as the export parity price - is the cost of liquefying the gas and transporting it overseas. If you're as ancient as I am, this should remind you we've already been through a similar process of the low local price rising to the high world price when the Fraser government introduced export-parity pricing for oil in the late 1970s.

The percentage rise in retail gas prices paid by households will be a lot smaller than the rise in the wholesale price. Estimates by Hugh Saddler, of the energy consultants Pitt & Sherry, suggest Sydney retail prices will rise by 11 per cent to 18 per cent - roughly twice the rise caused by the introduction of the carbon tax.

The point is, wholesale and retail prices will rise to the new export parity price throughout the eastern seaboard. In Queensland where the frackers have had an easy ride, and in Victoria where the present moratorium on fracking seems likely to give way to an unrestricted regime, just as much as in NSW where the frackers are given a hard time.

Because of pipelines between the states, how much gas a state produces has nothing to do with the prices its households and businesses pay. According to the gas lobby's logic, the coming ability of producers to get much higher prices by exporting their gas should produce shortages of gas for local users in Queensland and Victoria, not just NSW.

In truth, there will be no shortages of gas in any state, just a requirement to pay the higher, netback price. There's no reason producers would prefer to sell to foreigners if locals are offering to pay the equivalent price.

With the advent of fracking and access to higher prices, it's not surprising gas producers are desperate to extract as much coal seam gas as possible as soon as possible. But their argument that increased production in NSW could hold down NSW gas prices is economic nonsense.

Any new gas producers in NSW won't be willing to sell to locals for anything less than the equivalent price they could get by selling to foreigners. That's the scam.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/industrys-coal-seam-gas-campaign-is-a-con-20131008-2v63m.html#ixzz2hBo397vt

"Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard couldn't trust Bill Shorten, you shouldn't trust him to run the country. Authorised by Liberal Party Canberra."

what a farce this selection of the ALP's leader is becoming

I am honestly intrigued: how so?

That's not an adequate answer, batfink. You have made the observation that the selection of ALP leader is becoming a farce. What evidence do you have of this? If you have anything that proves that this process has been or will be remotely farcical share it, I would love to see it.