Australian Federal Election Results 2019 at
https://tallyroom.aec.gov.au/HouseDefault-24310.htm.
Sunday 19 May 2019
Yamba rock pool reopens
 |
| Yamba Rock Pool, May 2019 |
Clarence Valley Council, media release, 16 May 2019:
Yamba
ocean rock pool repairs get the thumbs up
BARRY Cribb well
remembers teaming up with half a dozen of his mates, arming themselves with brooms
and shovels and cleaning out the Yamba ocean rock pool by hand.
That started about 40
years ago and only finished when the then Maclean Shire Council offered to take
over the maintenance.
It was a big relief for
Barry and his team, but the Yamba resident retains a strong interest in the pool
and still swims there regularly – daily when conditions suit.
And he’s pretty chuffed
about the latest work Clarence Valley Council has done there.
For the past few years
the pool has leaked and in the past 12 months had to be closed on several occasions
because the water had fallen to a level that meant it was unsafe for swimming.
Council completed
repairs to the pool more than a month ago and there appear to be no signs of
leaks.
“It looks and feels nice
and clean now,” he said.
“I’ve been swimming in
there every day since it re-opened and everyone reckons it is great. It’s not losing
any water now.”
Despite some
interruptions to the work from Cyclone Oma, the work was completed on time and substantially
under budget.
The savings have allowed
the council to undertake further improvements at the pool site, including the replacement
of ageing timber railings with stainless steel and the widening of concrete
paths.
Project manager,
council’s Justin Menzies, said working in a marine environment in sometimes unpredictable
conditions provided plenty of challenges, but thorough planning and having
contingencies meant they could be resolved with little impact on the project.
“We put a lot of effort
into project management to make sure we deliver projects on time and within budget
and we couldn’t be happier with the result,” he said.
“We’ve got pool users
giving us the thumbs up each time we go there and that is really rewarding.
That’s what you do it for.”
Mr Menzies said
observations since the work was complete suggested the pool would stay clean
for much longer following the works.
He said that before the
repairs started, holes in the pool allowed sand to penetrate the base and the
pool would be dirty with sand and decaying seaweed within a few days after
cleaning.
“That’s not happening
now and the only sand getting into the pool is coming over the top,” he said.
“That means it’s clean
much longer and is much more attractive for users.
“It is a great result
for pool users and Yamba.”
Saturday 18 May 2019
Where to follow the Australian federal election vote count on Saturday 18 May 2019
Australian
Electoral Commission (AEC) Virtual Tally Room House of Representatives -
from
6pm with progressive ballot tally all night
ABC News live stream online or televised on Channel 24
ABC News on Twitter
You Ask, We Answer ABC online - from 6pm onwards
Friday 17 May 2019
Has U.S. citizen and media mogul Rupert Murdoch overplayed his hand in this Australian federal election cycle?
“It sounds unreal to
say that News Corp is not a media organisation. It sounds outré to say that it
is instead a political propaganda entity of a kind perhaps not seen since the
19th century, one that has climbed to its pedestal through regulatory
capture, governmental favours and menace, and is now applying its energies to
the promotion of white nationalism, even as white nationalists commit scores of
murders.” [Journalist Richard Cooke wiring in The Monthly,
May 2019],
It is your judgement that counts because the right and responsibility to elect the next Australian Government rests with you, the Australian voter, not with an elderly authoritarian U.S. billionaire who rarely visits this country.
Australian society is not as tolerant of Murdoch's sense of entitlement as it once may have been......
— 💧🐟 Lotta Cheek (@lottacheek) May 11, 2019
March 2018 to March 2019 year-to-year data shows News Corp's principal mastheads are losing readership over the 7 day circulation period, according to Roy Morgan.
By its own admission News Corp has been lobbying local government to keep its community papers afloat in South Australia.
Australian economy has grown weaker and workers paypackets leaner under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison Government
ABC
News, 11 May
2019:
Australia's "strong
economy" has been the Coalition's mantra throughout the election campaign.
Earlier this month, the
Liberal Party created a meme of a smiling Scott Morrison armed with a
lightsaber and dressed as a Jedi alongside the slogan: "The economy is
strong with this one."
In Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's Budget speech, the
phrase "strong economy" featured 14 times.
And Labor, loathe to
campaign on what it sees as the Coalition's territory, has barely challenged
this proposition.
Yet the evidence
suggests the claim is more rhetoric than reality.
On just about any
measure, the economy is not strong — and any enduring pretensions that it is
have been undermined by no less an authority than the Reserve Bank of Australia
(RBA).
Its latest monetary policy statement has revised
down economic growth for this financial year to just 1.7 per cent — more than
half a percentage point below its previous forecast.
That contradicts
Treasury forecasts in the Budget, which are barely a month old and were
reaffirmed by Treasury even more recently in the pre-election economic and
fiscal outlook.
Wages growth, despite a
recent small pick-up, has been weaker during the past six years than at any time since
World War II.
Home values and
household wealth have plummeted amid one of the biggest property slumps in
Australia's history.
The inflation rate is at a historic low of just 1.3 per
cent and has languished below the Reserve Bank's target range of 2 to
3 per cent for more than three years.
Although employment
growth has been reasonably strong, driven by the public sector and community
services, key sectors that drive the economy are shrinking.
Manufacturing,
construction and retail trade have all shed tens of thousands of jobs over the
past year — the building industry layoffs are a product of a massive slump in
dwelling investment, which the RBA reckons will continue for years.
Some better headline
data mask gloomier realities
Only high rates of
immigration have stopped Australia lapsing into a formal recession.
The continued expansion
— now in its 28th year, the longest period without a recession in recent world
history — disguises a "per capita" recession that is driving down
living standards.
Similarly, an
unemployment rate mired at 5 per cent, which is not high by the standards of
recent decades, disguises the true weakness of the labour market.
More than 13 per cent of
the workforce is underutilised — either unable to secure work at all or the
hours they need — and a disproportionate share of the jobs growth in recent
times has been poor quality: casual and contract jobs in relatively low-wage,
low-productivity sectors.
The Reserve Bank is
betting on the unemployment rate staying where it is, but others are less
optimistic.
Westpac's Bill Evans,
one of the most long-standing and respected market economists, predicts that
developments in the labour market over the next three months will disappoint
the RBA with a "deterioration of the labour market" over the coming six
months and "continued weak inflation".
This downturn in the
economy is largely homegrown — the product of weak wages growth and the
unwinding of an unsustainable property boom that left households saddled with
enormous debts.
If there's also an
external shock, perhaps from a trade war sparked by Donald Trump's tariffs on our largest trading partner
China, it will open up the possibility of a double-whammy.
Yogi Berra, the
legendary US baseball star and coach, famously observed that "it's tough
making predictions, especially about the future", and it's a maxim that's
often born[e] out in economic forecasting.
But you don't need a
crystal ball to realise that whoever forms government after the federal
election will inherit a sluggish economy, not a strong one.
ABC
News, 12 May
2019:
The Reserve Bank's new
line in the sand gets its first big test with the latest reading from the jobs
market this week.
The new line, as set
down in the RBA's latest Statement on Monetary Policy (SOMP),
can be roughly defined as the unemployment rate holding at 5 per cent through
2019 and 2020 before drifting lower.
The persistent
head-winds of low inflation has seemingly blurred, if not blown away, the RBA's
previous markers — parallel lines which were intended to corral inflation
between 2 to 3 per cent for as far as the eye can see, or an economist can
forecast.
Governor Philip Lowe
made it clear a further improvement in the labour market was needed to get the
economy out its rut and back in the groove, growing at its full potential.
No back-tracking on this
one for the RBA. Lower unemployment and underemployment — where workers are
searching for more hours to make ends meet — will soak up the spare capacity
sloshing around the economy, inflation gets back to where the RBA wants it and
GDP grows at its long term trend, or better.
That's still a long way
off, even using the RBA's recently updated and far from pessimistic forecasts......
According to
the Australian
Bureau of Statistics, over the twelve months to the March quarter 2019
the living costs for self–funded retiree households fell by -0.2%, while the
living costs for age pensioner households and other government transfer
recipient households rose by 0.3% and 0.2% respectively. Employed households living
costs remained unchanged over the same time period at 0.1% above CPI.
It should be noted that penalty rates for retail workers will be further reduced by 15% of the base wage rate on 1 July 2019 and 1 July 2020 as per Fair Work Commission 2017 decision.
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