Tuesday 4 December 2018

The Liberal Party of Australia continues a prolonged and very public evisceration of its own body


The Sydney Morning Herald, 2 December 2018:

Craig Kelly walked into the Engadine Gymnastics Club on Sunday night a man under pressure.

The embattled Liberal Party backbencher spotted a group of local politicians who had also been invited to hand out awards to excited children. The group included Lee Evans, a Liberal member of the NSW Parliament, and Carmelo Pesce, the Liberal mayor of the Sutherland Shire Council.

Kelly put out his hand to greet the mayor. Pesce put his hand behind his back.
"You're a f---ing prick!" Kelly shouted at Pesce. "Are you f---ing kidding me? You're not going to f---ing shake my hand?"

Pesce refused to speak but Kelly - who had spent much of Sunday trying to save his career - didn't take the hint: "What? Do you mean you're not going to f---ing shake my hand."

Pesce relented and told Kelly he could not stomach the thought of shaking his hand.

"You're a disgrace for what you're doing to the party," Pesce told Kelly.

"You're the disgrace," Kelly shot back. Gymnastics coach Graham Spooner intervened and told the men to cool it. So did Evans.

Kelly confirmed the encounter when contacted by Fairfax Media on Sunday night but declined to comment. Pesce refused to talk but Evans confirmed the exchange: "This is not how you behave in public," he said of Kelly.

The incident capped off another bad day for Kelly and the Liberal Party, which is riven by bad blood and infighting ahead of a federal election next year.

Just a few hours earlier Kelly thought a deal had been done to save him from losing a preselection challenge by local councillor Kent Johns for his safe southern Sydney seat of Hughes.

A preselection defeat would be a disaster for Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who needs to keep Kelly's conservative faction happy and do whatever it takes to keep the unpredictable backbencher from shifting to the crossbench.

A plan was hatched over the weekend to fix it all. Morrison's powerbrokers decided the best way to handle a tough preselection fight was to cancel the preselection altogether. The NSW Liberal Party's 23-member state executive would be asked to use its emergency powers to automatically endorse all sitting MPs, including Kelly.

The proposal initially received the support of some members of the moderate faction, who loathe Kelly for his role in the demise of Malcolm Turnbull but were prepared to suck it up for Morrison and party unity.

But as the day went on the backlash grew. Several moderate state executive members resisted enormous pressure from some of the most senior figures in the Morrison government to get on board and save Kelly. By 5pm it was clear the plan to cancel preselections would never get through the state executive. Kelly would likely have to face preselection after all - a reality that hit just before he strode into the Engadine Gymnastics Club.

An intervention by Malcolm Turnbull proved crucial. Turnbull hit the roof when he found out about the peace proposal and telephoned state executive members, including Matt Kean, a minister in Gladys Berejiklian's government, to urge them to vote against it.

Turnbull couldn't believe Kelly and his conservative allies were backing a plan to suspend preselections when they'd campaigned so hard over recent years for reforms to give grassroots members more power in selecting candidates.

In a series of tweets, the former prime minister went public: "It has been put to me that Mr Kelly has threatened to go to the crossbench and 'bring down the government'. If indeed he has made that threat, it is not one that should result in a capitulation. Indeed it would be the worst and weakest response to such a threat.

"It is time for the Liberal Party members in Hughes to have their say about their local member and decide who they want to represent them."

Turnbull felt he had no choice but to reveal he got involved on Sunday because News Corp publications were preparing to publish stories he believed did not reflect what actually went on.…..

Former Prime Minister Malcolm Bligh Turnbull serving up a cold dish of political revenge on the parliamentary party which sacked him as leader......




What Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian reported on 2 December 2018:

Malcolm Turnbull yesterday urged senior Liberal Party figures to defy Scott Morrison by voting against a plan to prevent conservative MP Craig Kelly losing preselection, saying the Prime Minister just wanted to “keep his arse” in his prime ministerial car as long as possible.

The brazen power play was calculated to trigger an early federal election, with Mr Turnbull claiming such a move would help the Berejiklian government avoid facing an anti-Coalition backlash and losing office in March.

Mr Turnbull urged several moderates, including NSW minister Matt Kean who is on the Liberal state executive, to repudiate Mr Morrison by voting against the deal to save Mr Kelly, which would prompt him to become an independent MP.

The ousted prime minister told Mr Kean that if Mr Kelly moved to the 
crossbench it would “force Morrison to an early election and that will save the Berejiklian government”.

“We should force Scott to an early election because all he’s about is keeping his arse on C1”, Mr Turnbull said, referring to the prime minister’s commonwealth car.

Mr Turnbull told Mr Kean that he and Mr Morrison in government had agreed to go to an election on March 2 — three weeks before the NSW government election — but the Prime Minister was now reneging.

The moderates on the executive should not support Mr Kelly as a “matter of principle” as Mr Kelly was the “most destructive member of the government”, Mr Turnbull told Mr Kean, adding that there was “no bigger climate change denier than Craig Kelly, apart from Tony Abbott”.

Mr Kelly, the member for ­Hughes, led the backbench ­revolt against Mr Turnbull’s ­national energy guarantee, in a rearguard action that forced the policy to be dumped, precipitating the then prime minister’s downfall.

But Mr Kean said he was going to resist Mr Turnbull’s call and vote on principle to save the federal government….

Read the full article here.

Another Liberal Party hard right troglodyte 'threatens' the ailing party......

WA Today, 2 December 2018:

Senator Jim Molan has slammed the preselection process which saw him relegated to an unwinnable spot on the NSW Senate ticket and warned he is "not to be taken for granted" if Prime Minister Scott Morrison doesn't intervene to save his political career.


Speaking on Perth radio on Sunday, Senator Molan said he had been courted by other parties, but would stick with the Liberal Party for now.....

"I'll stay with the Liberal Party, but I'm not to be taken for granted within the Liberal Party."

He would not say if he had spoken to Mr Morrison about the possibility of an intervention, but said the Prime Minister was "smart enough to work that out".

The Fire Next Time: "Climate is a driver of wildfire and of fire full stop"



Image: Green Cross Australia

ABC News, 1 December 2018:

Both the bushfires and the heatwave ravaging parts of Queensland have been described as extraordinary and abnormal.

Bureau of Meteorology Queensland manager Bruce Gunn said records had tumbled in a week of widespread and protracted heatwave conditions, combined with catastrophic fire danger.

"On Wednesday, Rockhampton Airport recorded catastrophic [fire] conditions for approximately three-and-a-half hours," Mr Gunn said.

"This was the first time this district has recorded catastrophic conditions and the most prolonged event in Queensland since the implementation of the current Fire Danger Rating System in 2010."

Fire ecologist Philip Stewart said Queensland's fires of the past few days were historically unusual.

"When one looks at the charcoal records with Aboriginal burning, we haven't seen any indicators that show that there had been mass fires or large intense fires like we are seeing today, or 'mega-fires', as I would call them," Dr Stewart said.

"They're not something one would expect at this time, but then again, fires of this nature can occur anywhere, provided that there's the right climatic conditions and the right fuels and so on."

Dr Stewart said the intensity and the extent of the fires was abnormal, as was the time of year that they were occurring.

He said they were "absolutely" a result of climate change.

"Climate is a driver of wildfire and of fire full stop," Dr Stewart said.

"So when we start to see an increase in temperature, we start see an increase in energy availability in that atmosphere, and that obviously will increase the potential for high-intensity fires and fast fires as well."…..

"We have definitely seen over the past 10 to 15 years an earlier onset of burning and a later fire season as well," Dr Stewart said.

He said the fire seasons were starting to overlap, within Australia and globally, so sharing resources would become harder.

And the tropics burning this week demonstrated that even areas traditionally considered safe were at risk.

"I would say that wherever you are you should have a fire plan … even [in] urban areas as we've seen in Greece recently, right down to the coast, and in the Californian fires … there's always a possibility that a fire can get in unless it's a concrete jungle," he said……

Bushfire and Natural Hazards Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) CEO Richard Thornton said past fires were not necessarily predictive of future bushfires, so people needed to consider the worst-case scenario for them.

"It's about forward planning and getting people to recognise the changing nature of risk," Dr Thornton said.

"I think what we can say more generally and this doesn't apply just to Queensland … is in the Australian context, if we have days that are in the 40s with very high winds and very low humidity, the chances of fire starting and becoming uncontrollable very quickly, is highly likely.

"On those days, communities need to be very vigilant and aware of the environment and what their plans are for those days, and whether it's going to be to leave early," he said.

Dr Stewart said he would like to see an increase in funding for fire management and crews.

"There is very little funding available for any proactive fire management and fire mitigation research.

"We need a lot more, especially in Queensland," Dr Stewart said.


Monday 3 December 2018

The Dept.of Youth sends a clear message to all those climate change deniers in the Morrison Coalition Government & those elsewhere in state governments and Australian industries


“activism  is  like  the  immune  system  it rises  in  response  to  the  threat”  [Aidan Ricketts by way of Jane Caro, Twitter, 1 December 2018]






And on the NSW North Coast……..
Memo to all Australian politicians: these students have parents, older siblings, grandparents and aunts & uncles who vote. Ignore them in May 2019 at your peril. 

Sunday 2 December 2018

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s poor judgment on show again



Just because Scott Morrison’s maternal grandfather and mother were New Zealand citizens and he lived in that country for a few years as an adult, did he really have to wish this NZ political disaster zone on Australia?

BuzzFeed, 29 November 2018:

In a speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday night, prime minister Scott Morrison announced Steven Joyce would head the first national vocational education review in more than 40 years…..

Joyce is a former New Zealand National MP who was given the nickname "Mr Fixit" (making him the Kiwi equivalent of our very own Christopher "I'm a Fixer" Pyne) during his time in politics.

He served as the tertiary education minister for about seven years (January 2010 to December 2016) and was the architect of former prime minister John Key's massive cuts to training programs across the country.

During his first four years on the job Joyce cut more than $60 million from regional and urban training centres, according to New Zealand's Tertiary Education Commission data…..

Sandra Grey, president of New Zealand's Tertiary Education Union, said Joyce's time as minister was a "real disaster for New Zealand".

"The real cost of his cuts is a $3 billion shortfall over the 10 years just gone," Grey told BuzzFeed News. "A $3 billion hole... we're never going to fill that. That's where the strain on staff and students comes. He chose to keep the budget flatlined but it cost more and more each year to run the sector."

Figures from the New Zealand Treasury confirm the Key's government budget left the sector more than $3 billion underfunded by not increasing year on year expenses in line with CPI.

Climate Change 2018: local government putting Morrison & Co to shame



Clarence Valley Council, media release, 29 November 2018:

Council aims to be greenhouse gas emission free

THE Clarence Valley Council has set a target to cut its net greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2050.

The first step in reaching that target will be to cut greenhouse gas emissions (excluding landfill emissions) to 40% below 2016/17 levels by 2030.

It has also adopted a target of supplying half of its own electricity demand from renewable energy sources by 2030, with the long-term goal to secure all electricity from renewable energy.

Council’s waste and sustainability coordinator, Ken Wilson, said council had engaged consultants, 100% Renewable, to help with the development of renewable energy and greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in line with council’s climate change policy.

“Their report shows council is performing well, with about 8.3% of the energy used by council coming from renewable energy – primarily rooftop solar,” he said.

“Council currently has 646.3kw of PV Solar generating capacity.

“To achieve the short-term target the report assessed 47 initiatives involving solar photovoltaic and battery storage, street and park lighting, and energy efficiency costing in the order of $5,764,794.

Council plans to implement these measures over five years, which should help council meet its targets and achieve financial savings well before 2030.

“These initiatives have a payback of between four and eight years. Initiatives involving battery storage are expected to become more cost effective over the next few years, which will improve the payback period.

“Anticipated savings will be reflected in facility operating costs and will be ongoing. The average payback period is 6.5 years.

“These projects do not include a current proposal under investigation to develop a mini-hydro system at the Rushforth Road reservoir.

“The recommended targets are considered achievable and cost-effective.”

Release ends.

Saturday 1 December 2018

Quotes of the Week


“Some say the Liberal Party is dead and personally I do not care whether it is or not. Something will rise, phoenix-like, from its trust fund trash ashes. My kids and I have survived a helluva a lot of vicious Liberal Party policy, and will again. But if the Liberal Party is dead, I will be the first to dance on its grave. Good riddance, horrible people.”   [Academic and blogger Ingrid Matthews writing in oecomuse, 27 November 2018]


"The parliament is part time under this prime minister, but the civil war in the Liberal Party is a full-time occupation."  [Opposition Leader & Labor MP for Maribyrnong Bill Shorten, House of Representatives Hansard, 29 November 2018]

Tweets of the Week