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
Kara L 