Federal Labor Party discussion

[drsmith]

Sometimes when you are planning to remove a tax break that is being abused you can't let the public know otherwise there's a mad rush to take advantage of it before its closed down.

Labor had not been planning this one for very long at all and that's the problem.

 

[sptrawler]

Labor had not been planning this one for very long at all and that's the problem.

Doc, Labor don't put much thought into anything, as has been proven by their record over the last six years.

The really sad aspect is, Labor supporters don't judge their party, by the same criteria, they critique Abbott with.

 

[drsmith]

Doc, Labor don't put much thought into anything, as has been proven by their rcord over the last six years.

The really sad aspect is, Labor supporters don't judge their party, by the same criteria, they critique Abbott with.

On another policy front, the Manus Island detention currently has 145 out of a capacity of 300 and there have been another 128 arrivals since the commencement of the new PNG arrangement.

An upgrade to the facility to a capacity of 600 is not expected to be completed until into Jan 2014, so there won't be many going there in a hurry regardless of how many boats continue to come.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/

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No Essential Media poll out today, but Sportsbet has the Coalition at $1.33 to win the upcoming election against Labor at $3.25.

 

[sptrawler]

On another policy front, the Manus Island detention currently has 145 out of a capacity of 300 and there have been another 128 arrivals since the commencement of the new PNG arrangement.

An upgrade to the facility to a capacity of 600 is not expected to be completed until into Jan 2014, so there won't be many going there in a hurry regardless of how many boats continue to come.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/

Yes, now all Rudd has to rely on, is the press don't print the fiasco unfolding. I'm suprised he hasn't called the election.

 

[drsmith]

The election I feel will be called inside a week.

The last piece of the puzzle is tonight's Newspoll.

 

[sptrawler]

The election I feel will be called inside a week.

The last piece of the puzzle is tonight's Newspoll.

The idiot is relying on the fast food "would you like fries with that" politics.

He is toast, you can't rely on reactive policy to run a soveriegn country.

Running around begging someone to sort out the problem, and trying to bribe them, shows we really are the 'white trash' of Asia.IMO

We enact policy, that blows up in our faces.

What do we do about it? Bribe a third world country to bail us out.

How we can see that as a fair and reasonable outcome, is beyond me.

I would say it just shows what a self centered, capitalist, arrogant country we are.

That is the problem with Chardoney socialism, it's great untill you run out of money.lol

Then what do you do? Become everyones 'bitch' (sorry) backflip on everything. Sad, very sad, what was it all about?
Losers, just losers.IMO


Wish I could say what I really felt, but I'm the quiet type.

 

[Julia]

I don't dislike Abbott. But I do find him a bit limited and am unsure how good he will be as Prime Minister.

I think a lot of people feel similarly. Personally I find what I know of him encouraging in the sense of his long term contributions on a voluntary basis to so many causes in the community. He has done this without fanfare. Just imagine if Mr Rudd did just one aspect of voluntary activity: there would be every press camera in Australia pre-advised to be there filming it!

I also don't know how he would be as PM, but I'm certainly going to give him my vote. I'd like to know what proportion of votes in any election come down to voting for what is seen by the voter as the least worst alternative.
I would tear up my voting paper before voting for Labor because of their dreadful history in the last six years and the reality that there is absolutely no indication that any greater level of moral fibre has penetrated their DNA. Rudd's latest 'policies' (read campaign promises) are politically based. Even he could not deny this, given his multiple utterances in the past about not 'lurching to the Right' on asylum seekers, climate change being 'the greatest moral challenge of our time' etc.

Keating and Howard were both politicians of confidence and conviction. You knew what you were voting for if you voted for them.
Kevin Rudd couldn't be further away from this level of conviction. He will do anything at all to win votes, in the process completely foregoing any pretence at believing in anything. Moral bankruptcy at its essence imo.

I detest the Greens, but I'd vote for them before I'd vote for Labor because they continue to stand up for what they believe in.

Sometimes when you are planning to remove a tax break that is being abused you can't let the public know otherwise there's a mad rush to take advantage of it before its closed down.

Oh my goodness. You will manage to find an excuse for Labor somehow.

Yould apply this to Abbott as well. His 100 dams go north "policy" thought bubble shows that. It makes good politics because it gives the nationals a carrot to dangle to their electorates, but if they try to go ahead with it there'll be billions of dollars wasted.

Could you explain in detail the basis for the above assumption of billions of dollars wasted?

On another policy front, the Manus Island detention currently has 145 out of a capacity of 300 and there have been another 128 arrivals since the commencement of the new PNG arrangement.

An upgrade to the facility to a capacity of 600 is not expected to be completed until into Jan 2014, so there won't be many going there in a hurry regardless of how many boats continue to come.

One of the responsible PNG Ministers was interviewed on 7.30 this evening. He assured Chris Urhlman that they could have quite adequate temporary accommodation in the form of tents and dongas up in "a couple of days". He estimated about two years for the permanent facility to house 3000 to be built.
No reason not to go with his suggested temporary facilities in order to make the point that the government is serious imo.

 

[sptrawler]

Pretty much agree with you there

But once again, what evidence is there that Abbott is any better. If the independents are to be believed he was pretty much willing to make any kind of deal to become PM?

Abbott had a golden run for at least 18 months. Over that time he could have been detailing policies that would help improve the country, but didn't. He seems to take the populist route

Well how does that differ from what Rudd is doing at the moment?

 

[sptrawler]

One could apply this to Abbott as well. His 100 dams go north "policy" thought bubble shows that. It makes good politics because it gives the nationals a carrot to dangle to their electorates, but if they try to go ahead with it there'll be billions of dollars wasted.

I absolutely despise this train of thought, it ifuriates me.
Please don't make statements about, developing the North is a waste of money, with nothing but dumb ar$ed Labor rhetoric.
It wasn't long ago that offshore processing was dumb by Labor reasoning.
It wasn't long ago, that a carbon tax was required to shut down, dirty brown coal power stations.

I'm sick of hearing Labors rhetoric, on what needs to be done, only to find out a year later it needs to be undone.:1zhelp:

 

[drsmith]

The great Rudd resurrection for Labor has stalled.

Despite a sudden narrowing of the gap between Labor and the Coalition on handling illegal boat arrivals after Mr Rudd's bold announcement on asylum seekers being sent to Papua New Guinea the Coalition has gone back to an election-winning lead on a two-party preferred basis 52 to 48 per cent.

After a storming recovery in Mr Rudd's personal support, compared to Ms Gillard and Tony Abbott, dramatically lifted Labor's primary vote from 29 to 38 per cent in just three weeks and took the Government to a competitive 50-50 on second preferences the rate of increase has levelled.

Mr Rudd's political blitz included drastically changing ALP rules to head off corruption and secure the leadership of the Prime Minister against plotting MPs, bringing forward the shift from a fixed carbon tax to a floating carbon price to 2014 and signing a regional agreement with PNG to banish all illegal boat arrivals to Manus Island.

Friday's dramatic press conference with PNG Prime Minister, Peter O'Neill, on asylum seekers and a Government advertising campaign gave Labor an immediate boost amongst Australian voters on the ability to deal with asylum seekers with a jump from 20 to 26 per cent while the Coalition's plunged 14 percentage points to 33 per cent.

The question for Labor now is do they jump with 2PP at 48% in the hope of at least saving the furniture. If their PNG asylum solution unravels before the election itself, I suspect Labor's polling would quickly track back towards Julia Gillard territory.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-latest-newspoll/story-fnc6vkbc-1226683424636

 

[sptrawler]

The great Rudd resurrection for Labor has stalled.



The question for Labor now is do they jump with 2PP at 48% in the hope of at least saving the furniture. If their PNG asylum solution unravels before the election itself, I suspect Labor's polling would quickly track back towards Julia Gillard territory.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...-latest-newspoll/story-fnc6vkbc-1226683424636

I'm bloody sure it will, the used car sales pitch will wear thin real quick.

Jeez bring on an election, everyone is over the bloody circus.

Just because Captain Chaos, pulls his undies on, over the outside doesn't mean he has more credibility. He's still a dick, it just makes it more obvious.

 

[sydboy007]

Originally Posted by sydboy007
Sometimes when you are planning to remove a tax break that is being abused you can't let the public know otherwise there's a mad rush to take advantage of it before its closed down.

Oh my goodness. You will manage to find an excuse for Labor somehow.

You could apply this to Abbott as well. His 100 dams go north "policy" thought bubble shows that. It makes good politics because it gives the nationals a carrot to dangle to their electorates, but if they try to go ahead with it there'll be billions of dollars wasted.

Could you explain in detail the basis for the above assumption of billions of dollars wasted?

I think past experience has shown that when a Government lets the public know a a tax break is going to be removed a lot of people try to take advantage of the tax break before it's closed down

examples:

* The private health care rebate - from what I've read a lot of people prepaid a year in advance so they could take advantage of the 30$ rebate level compared to their new 20% or 10% level

* Rush for housing pre GST to avoid paying it once it was introduced.

Do you think that if the Govt said from Sept 1 2013 we will no longer allow the statutory method for claiming car expenses there wouldn't be a mad rush to get into leasing agreements earlier?

As for Abbott and his go north policy major issues with it are

* poor soils in the area
* very short period when rain falls - dry and hot most of the time
* few good areas for building dams
* high evaporation - ~ 2M a year so dams would have to be relatively deep to provide long term storage
* limited infrastructure in the area - who will pay for it as the Govt wont borrow to build it and the private sector wont build it without wanting to make monopoly profilt. The nationals wont allow foreign investment.
* high freight costs
* past experience in the area has generally been a failure.
* crops grown have required high levels of insecticides, fertlizer and at times herbicides.
* what would actually be grown there?

So if the Govt is going to spend billions on the infrastructure to make this a reality, how about they spent it on

* straightening the rail line between Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne so that trains can compete agains freigh trucks

* Providing financial support for public transport in the capital cities

* Building publicly funded toll roads that take advantage of the Govts ability to borrow long term at low interest rates, let the private sector run the road once built. Tolls can then be set at a level to pay the debt off over the 50+ year lifespan of the asset + maintenance costs rather than at a rate to generate 20%+ returns as the private sector requires. This would be an ideal policy to employ workers loosing their jobs as the resource construction boom fals off a cliff over th enext few years.

I find it sad that the labor thread has all the activity. No one seems to really have a reason to vote for Abbott, except they hate Labor. I see Abbott will be bad as George Bush junior.

What is worse

A politican that changes policy when they realise the one they have isn't working?

or the poltician that sees a policy failing and will not budge one bit due to principal or whatever term you like to use?

 

[Tink]

Agree, Julia.

Abbott just did the Melbourne run on the weekend for Autism, and I think its good seeing politicians getting involved in these charities with the locals. It something he enjoys doing and has been doing for a long time.

When I met with the parents at the centre as part of my visit, they told me that a number of them were participating in Run Melbourne to raise awareness and funds for the Little Learners Autism Program. They asked me if I would join them for the run and I was only too happy to oblige. These parents are an inspirational group and will do everything they can to support their children and raise awareness of autism. I’m honoured to be joining them for the 10 kilometre run in Melbourne on 21 July.

I am also glad to see the public have realised this lurch to the right from Rudd is for power.

 

[sptrawler]

IAs for Abbott and his go north policy major issues with it are

* poor soils in the area
* very short period when rain falls - dry and hot most of the time
* few good areas for building dams
* high evaporation - ~ 2M a year so dams would have to be relatively deep to provide long term storage
* limited infrastructure in the area - who will pay for it as the Govt wont borrow to build it and the private sector wont build it without wanting to make monopoly profilt. The nationals wont allow foreign investment.
* high freight costs
* past experience in the area has generally been a failure.
* crops grown have required high levels of insecticides, fertlizer and at times herbicides.
* what would actually be grown there?

use?

You obviously Know nothing about the North, as I assumed.

*The soil is extremely fertile, and as long as water can be kept upto it, gives high yeild, i.e
Carnarvon fruit and vegetabls, Gerldton vegetables, Wiluna Oranges. Like I posted Rio are growing grain in the Pilbara.

*Very short period when rain falls, dry,hot and sunny is perfect, all you need is water i.e dams, artesian bores.

*Few good areas to dam, I dont know where you get that from? the Kimberly and Pilbara have plenty+ pipeline.

*High evaperation rates, doesn't affect lake Argyle, have you seen it? It is 70k's long. Get out a bit.

*Limited infrastructure- who will pay for it. It was going to cost$12B to pipe from Argyle to Perth? We can find $45B to upgrade the bloody phone system.lol

*High freight cost? most o the produce would be exported. If you hadn't noticed we have a lot of ports in the NW.Like I said get out from behind the computer.

*Past experience in the area? Like I said Carnarvon is and has been a rich agricultural area for years. You've probably been eating their bananas for years. I think you are referal to the Ord programme, which is still running and expanding.

However if you get your Atlas out we are refering to the area between Geralton and south of Broome, which is a between 1 and 2 thousand k's away .
Have you ever lived there, or indeed even been there?

 

[Surly]

Do you think that if the Govt said from Sept 1 2013 we will no longer allow the statutory method for claiming car expenses there wouldn't be a mad rush to get into leasing agreements earlier?

Do you think the leasing arrangement entitles you to an ongoing FBT tax break?

I almost bought a new car on a novated lease last month. Very glad I didn't now.

cheers
Surly

EDIT Further research says you could of got in prior to the change and kept the stat method for the term of the contract of the lease.

 

[chiff]

You obviously Know nothing about the North, as I assumed.

*The soil is extremely fertile, and as long as water can be kept upto it, gives high yeild, i.e
Carnarvon fruit and vegetabls, Gerldton vegetables, Wiluna Oranges. Like I posted Rio are growing grain in the Pilbara.

*Very short period when rain falls, dry,hot and sunny is perfect, all you need is water i.e dams, artesian bores.

*Few good areas to dam, I dont know where you get that from? the Kimberly and Pilbara have plenty+ pipeline.

*High evaperation rates, doesn't affect lake Argyle, have you seen it? It is 70k's long. Get out a bit.

*Limited infrastructure- who will pay for it. It was going to cost$12B to pipe from Argyle to Perth? We can find $45B to upgrade the bloody phone system.lol

*High freight cost? most o the produce would be exported. If you hadn't noticed we have a lot of ports in the NW.Like I said get out from behind the computer.

*Past experience in the area? Like I said Carnarvon is and has been a rich agricultural area for years. You've probably been eating their bananas for years. I think you are referal to the Ord programme, which is still running and expanding.

However if you get your Atlas out we are refering to the area between Geralton and south of Broome, which is a between 1 and 2 thousand k's away .
Have you ever lived there, or indeed even been there?

Bill Heffernan has been exploring agricultural possibilities in the north for quite a time.I wish that he had better news to report,as the idea does capture the imagination.If there was great success there may be a partial solution to the refugee problem,something like the Snowy Mountain Schemes.If that would be legal now ,who knows.
(billheffernan.com.au-farming in the north/hit or myth)

 

[sydboy007]

I for the life of me can't understand why you keep rolling out this rubbish endlessly.
Like I have said on numerous occassions IMO we have a brighter long term future as a food bowl. Than we will as a manufacturing, mining or technology based economy.
We can't compete with China, Europe or the U.S in manufacturing or technology, to think we can is childish. We may score the occassional breakthrough, but we will never be the world leader, or even close.
Mining is finite and our children may also reap some benefit from it, hower it is finite.
The worlds population is increasing and becoming more affluent, they will need more food and it will be an exponential increase.
Australia is fortunate in having one of the best climates and biggest area of undeveloped arrable land in the world. It is ridiculous, to not exploit it.
Have a read of this article, it isn't rocket science.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-04-22/mining-fuelled-agriculture/4640406

To keep laughing it down without logical basis, makes no sense, but that is becoming the norm. lol

* Where will the dams be built? - I'm not againast building dams, just want to see if you can find any suitable areas to dam and will leave the political difficulty of building one aside.
* What will be grown>
* Who will pay for the infrastructure?

 

[sydboy007]

* Where will the dams be built? - I'm not againast building dams, just want to see if you can find any suitable areas to dam and will leave the political difficulty of building one aside.
* What will be grown>
* Who will pay for the infrastructure?

my previous post should have been

* What will be grown?
* Who will pay for the infrastructure? New roads will have to be build, water irrigation systems installed. Govt debt is bad and you wont allow foreign investment in the agricultural sector. Will those using the infrastructure have to pay for the total cost, or will there be a build in subsidy from the rest of us?

Maybe they'll be growing guar? Not a food crop per se, but quite useful in the hydraulic fracking industry. Oh wait, we don't allow that in this country eh.

From the Northern Australia Land and Water Science Review full report

The ‘farmable’ subset of suitable soils is likely to be a fraction of the 18 million hectare total, and its extent and location and particular deficiencies are not known. This makes it impossible to clearly identify a development trajectory for irrigated agriculture, based on the soil resource.

If all of northern Australia’s 200,000 GL annual average streamflow (5) were made available for irrigation, it could support ca 13.3 million hectares of fully irrigated agriculture (assuming an annual irrigation requirement of 15 ML/ha) or ca 20 million ha of less productive irrigated agriculture (assuming a 10 ML/ha requirement, with crops receiving less than their full water requirement, or land being rested for longer periods).

How many rivers is society prepared to alter? By how much is it prepared to alter them? How much money is it prepared to spend on infrastructure to enable water capture and transmission to support irrigated agriculture? Without answers to these questions, it is not possible to objectively identify a development trajectory for irrigated agriculture, based on the surface water resource.

Hydrologically sustainable groundwater‐based irrigation in northern Australia (i.e. that which doesn’t permanently deplete the groundwater resource, and thereby ‘cut its own throat’; but which doesn’t take account of other uses) requires a recharge area that is “several orders of magnitude greater than the irrigated area” (44). This occurs because, in much of northern Australia, aquifer recharge rates are low and the recharge areas required to support concentrated extraction are often of an intermediate to regional scale.

If we take a bold approach, assume that several orders of magnitude means “three”, and ignore the distribution of that water and its other uses, then this provides for a maximum of 120,000 ha of irrigated land (i.e. 1/1000th of the ca 120 million ha study area).
The soil mapping produced by Wilson et al. (this report) shows that this would not provide for irrigation of all the class 1+2 soil potentially suitable for production of irrigated annual crops (16.8 million ha), forestry (32.4 million ha), improved pasture (16.8 million ha), perennial crops (6.0 million ha) or rice (3.6 million ha). For all crops, therefore, using a recharge‐area assessment and a 3rd order of magnitude relationship between recharge and extraction, water rather than soil is the factor limiting crop production.

A more precautionary approach would use a 4th order of magnitude multiplier (1/10,000th of the study area) and determine that groundwater could support 12,000 ha of irrigated agriculture (ignoring other uses). Under this assumption, the availability of water would pose a far greater limit to crop production than the availability of suitable soil. And that doesn’t take into account competition for groundwater from other uses.

Using the prospectivity method, we estimate that the area of potentially groundwater‐irrigable land in northern Australia to be around 40,000‐60,000 ha. This constitutes around 0.4% of northern Australia’s potentially class 1+2 annual cropping soils, and approximately 1%, 2%, 0.2% and 0.4% of the class 1+2 soils for perennial crops, rice, forestry and improved pasture, respectively.
Crop production in northern Australia is limited by water, not soil.

The current total surface water storage capacity in northern Australia is ca 11,170 GL (Figure 12, Cresswell et al., this report). If we exclude the Ord River Dam, which is already accounted for in irrigated agriculture (and for which there are limited opportunities for similar storages in the north), the volume drops to ca 1,170. Assuming that all this water was available for agriculture (and it isn’t – much is lost via evaporation and is used for other purposes, such as domestic supply), it could support ca 80,000 – 120,000 ha of irrigated agriculture. As outlined above, this is sufficient to irrigate only a very small proportion of the potentially suitable agricultural soils. Irrigated agriculture in the north is likely to be water rather than soil limited.

I may not get up north, but I do read what others have found and studied up there.

If you're such a firm believer then

* How many hectares do you see being able to grow crops?
* How much would this increase current crop production for Australia?

 

[sptrawler]

* Where will the dams be built? - I'm not againast building dams, just want to see if you can find any suitable areas to dam and will leave the political difficulty of building one aside.
* What will be grown>
* Who will pay for the infrastructure?

The dam at Lake Argyle currently supports an irrigation area of approx 100sq/klm which is being increased to 400sq/klm.
It also provides power for the Argyle diamond mine and Kunanurra from a 36MW hyro electric power station.

The Camballin township was initially established to support Northern Developments Pty. Ltd., a company incorporated in Sydney in 1951 to establish small scale rice production in 1952. Demonstration that rice production was feasible, a 17-mile dam was constructed on the Uralla creek in 1957, trebling the water storage.
The project was abandoned due to flooding.
Yes that's right too much water. The Fitzroy requires a huge dam.

The Fitzroy River was diverted in the 1950s as part of the failed Camballin Irrigation Scheme to store the water to irrigate crops of cotton, sorghum and other feed crops.

There have been other proposals over time to dam the river at Dimond Gorge.

In April 2007, the then state opposition leader Colin Barnett announced plans to dam the river, should he become elected, in order to provide a water source for a new irrigation venture to replace the Murray-Darling Basin which has experienced significant water shortages as a result of the drought. His 20 year plan also included piping the water further south as an additional source for the Perth Integrated Water Supply Scheme. However, these ventures were not pursued when in government.

Who is going to pay for the infrastructure? One would assume it would be the government, like I said we can find 40 - 50billion for phone upgrade.
12 billion to pipe water all the way down the West coast and irrigate on the way, doesn't sound that bad. Think of the farming land available from a 3000km water supply line.

Further south you have the Ashburton river, the Fortesque, the De Grey to name a few.

The further south you get the crops grown would change of course.

 

[sptrawler]

Well Sydboy, I see you at least read something to make some basis to an argument rather than just regurgitating, Labor anti Abbott rhetoric.
I, unlike yourself am not knowledgable enough in the subject to be able to answer the question of how much land, or indeed how much increase in production.
However, with the draughts we are having in the South of the country and the drying of the Murray, Darling.
It is a feasable direction to build an increased agricultural industry, which is a sustainable, renewing and growing market place.

Read what Du Pont said with regards its future.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/...-exit-from-paints-business-to-focus-on-farms/

It really doesn't bother me, I've run my race. But I can see the only world growth market, that we have the inside running on is agriculture.

We have a very flat topography that lends itself to irrigation.
We have over 300 days of sunshine/annum up north, which lends itself to crop growth.
We have a lot of per capita money at the moment, that should be spent wisely.
We have a massive growing food shortage, just to the north of us and they are sick of rice.
If we develop farming techniques to provide, livestock and feed for them.
Also we don't need green houses to grow lots of vegies, I think it is only limited by lack of vission and leadership.

Better still Syd, if you think what I'm saying is full of you know what.
You tell me what is going to maintain our kids living standards, going forward?
You tell me what we are going to do better than the major blocks, U.S, Europe,China, Japan etc. In enough quantity to support our top 10 lifestyles?

I tell you what we have got, that China, Japan, Europe and the U.S hasn't got, a lot of land and a small population. Also most of our land mass, falls in a favourable climatic belt.