Monthly Archives: March 2017

The Week That Was – March 12 to March 18

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The West Australian election saw a changing of the guard with the Labor party winning the election. It a larger than expected success for the party, with 18 seats changing. There are now questions over what caused the loss for the WA Liberals. The belief is mostly jsut that West Australians just got annoyed with the Barnett Government and wanted change, although the preference deal with One Nation appears to have been somewhat of a contributor. Barnett will now step down from the Liberal leadership and a new leader will be voted on – as soon as the Liberals know just how many people will be in the party room. The Nationals, both West Australian and Federal are warning the Liberals to never make a preference deal with One Nation ever again, but neither the Prime Minister nor the NSW Premier (NSW is having some by-elections right now so the premier has been out and about) have specifically ruled a deal out.

There are concerns that some of the NDIS staff that are involved in the rollout have not recieved adequate training in order to understand what kind of treatments and plans are appropriate for people on the scheme. This, in addition to states preemptively cutting their funding to providers has left people unable to access providers and treatments that benfit them. One person affected by this change, who has cerebral palsy and autism, did have several treatmets that aided in his quality of life (like remedial massage, which was helping with some of his paun) removed from ghis treatment plan. Another concern is that providers are having trouble applying to be part of the scheme, while others are having trouble recouping money from the scheme.

South Australia had a pretty nice week in the power stakes, with their power plan announced and Elon Musk suggesting he put some (non-domestic) Tesla batteries in SA, and would do it for free if it took more than 100 days. It appears however that some other South Australian companies were already making batteries too. Other parts of the SA plan include having a gas plant backup just in case the power goes out in the state again.

It was also energy week for the federal government, firsly covering the concerns concerns over both a gas shortage and the price of gas in Australia. Gas companies on the eastern coast of the country tend to send most of the gas overseas cheaply, and at a loss meaning that the prices go up in Australia. This sending abroad also means that unless more is saved for use here in Australia, we’ll run out soon. Meanwhile, Malcolm Turnbull announced an expansion to the Snowy Hydro in southern NSW. The idea is that they’ll increase the capacity of the hydro-electric plant by 50%, as well as pump water up to the dams to make sure there’s enough water for peak times, all at the low price of $2 billion. It’s hoped that the NSW and Victorian governments will chip some money in for the (at least) four year long projects but Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said he was a “Nation Building Prime Minister”, says the federal government will be happy togo it alone.

But the week of energy and power (in the sense of electricity anyway) wasn’t over yet.

In what can only be described as one of the best political smackdowns I have ever seen in my 23 years on earth, South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill crashed Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg’s press conference and gave him a telling off for hating on South Australia. Many even recalled the Love Actually press conference scene.

Also this week, there were calls to look at reform in order to help with housing affordability. There are again calls to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax, while people also suggested allowing people to dip into their superannuation to help them buy a house. The Greens also had their idea costed by the nerds this week, in which they propose changing the one-off stamp duty charge that is paid as soon a you buy a home with an ongoing land tax, which would reduce costs, but also reduce one of the state’s biggest cash cows for a few years.

Finally this weeks, the unemployment rate rose by 0.2% in February; Peter Dutton told CEOs to back off from the same-sex marriage debate; the craft beer industry wants changes to the way kegs are taxed; Bill Leak was farewelled at a memorial servoce; and there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing about the Adani mine in Queensland, with concerns there is a Cayman Islands bank account.

Tweet of the Week

This is the look German Chancellor Angela Merkel gave when Trump said that he and Germany had wire-tapping in common

https://twitter.com/spectatorindex/status/843231346046644225

Annabel Crabb on workplaces v parliament for women – SMH

Lessons on love from a Divorce Lawyer – TIME Online

How Insiders is beating Today and Sunrise in ratings – The Age

The plan for when the Queen dies – The Guardian

The Two Weeks that Were – February 26 to March 11

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Uni returned and work schedules changed so you’ve got two weeks rolled together again.

Joko Widodo, Indonesia’s President, finally made his way to Australia and met with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. They talked about Australian and Indonesian military and maritime partnerships and announced that there would be a new Australian consulate in Surabaya.

Penalty rates are still causing issues, with Labor continuing to paint the issue as one Malcolm Turnbull is responsible for. Turnbull doesn’t seem to be making it easier for himself by not stating his position clearly. Ann Sudmalis MP didn’t make it easier either, after she was quoted as saying that penalty rate cuts were a ‘gift’ to young people. Meanwhile the government is hoping that the Fair Work Commission can phase in penalty rate cuts in order to ease the blow on workers.

Malcolm Turnbull has had shocking fortnight in the polls after Tony Abbott decided to make comments about the direction of the Liberal Party and what the government needs to do to keep their voters from moving to One Nation. While Abbott doesn’t have the numbers, people think he might be trying to get someone from the party’s right, like Peter Dutton, into the Prime Ministership instead. The polls the next week were in Labor’s favour on two-party preferred, and Turnbull’s approval has taken a dive

George Christiansen has quit at the Chief Whip of the National Party, but says he does not intend to quite the Party. This is something that Pauline Hanson is advising Christiansen to do (unsolicited) because she thinks the voting public will not be too happy with an unstable House of Representatives and government. Meanwhile the Queensland LNP had a crisis meeting last weekend in which they discussed the growth of Pauline Hanson’s One Nation. Pauline Hanson has been pointing out the similarities One Nation has with the Coalition, while her critics are suggesting that her party not that much of an alternative party, and closer to the Liberal Party. Although she has been casting doubt on the benefit of vaccinations – making the AMA and mainstream politicians wary.

Meanwhile the Joint Strike Fighter planes were flown to Victoria via Queensland for an airshow to be shown off. All looked good, until it was announced that they were not going to fly to Queensland when they were planned to because they didn’t yet have lightning protection and couldn’t fly in bad weather.

Finally this fortnight, intelligence sharing is unlikely to be looked at during the Lindt Siege Inquest; the economy grew 1.1%, therefore avoiding a recession; there is an increase in Indigenous students going to university, but more support for students is needed; Western Australia has gone to the polls, and it looks as if the Labor party will win; and The Australian cartoonist Bill Leak has passed away.

Tweet of the Fortnight

A stern warning on Election night in WA

https://twitter.com/sallyjsara/status/840444700339257344

Things I’ve Been Looking at Online

Vale Bill Leak – ABC Online

A look at One Nation in the WA Election – ABC Online