Gabor

Short of a nuclear reactor, I can’t think of anything, and so far I never heard of any such thing orbiting earth.
There were very small scale nuke power sources employed in the past but those satellites were destined to travel far outside the solar system.

I might misremember?

The Soviets used nuclear power sources in a series of radar reconnaissance satellites. Infamously, Cosmos 954 crashed in Canada, requiring a major clean-up in the Arctic north. Another in the series missed eastern Australia by about 20 minutes, crashing into the South AStlantic.

If you had to pick one machine that triggered the biggest explosion of wealth in our history, which would you pick?

the singer sewing machine.

I think people are beginning to realise that native title claims could soon be made against their little suburban patch of land

No.

Claims could be made and they will never be successful without a huge and coordinated changes to State and Federal legislation.

State level protections against compulsory acquisition are weak but the presence of a different Crown and King-in-Council in each jurisdiction makes native title claims on valuable land extremely unlikely, as well as the prohibition on governments taxing each other.

What is more likely, are dumb ideas like “land rent” and a repeat of the WA Indig. heritage legislation.

Outside of unicameral Queensland and the spoken for territories, it would be very difficult to make a reality unless very popular.

From the Oz today, Pat Dodson.
I am sorry he has cancer, I don’t wish that sort of thing on anyone.

But “father of reconciliation”, really?
This bloke had an Irish father, and I have never heard him say anything remotely suggesting that aboriginies have agency and they should stop behaving so badly towards each other. Also “whitey” educated him and he was to become a priest, until he decided the aboriginal way had more in it for him.

Pat Dodson, the father of reconciliation, has conceded the No case in the referendum debate has been “effective” and that a lack of detail has made promoting the voice more difficult, as Yes23 prepares to launch a more aggressive campaign to claim victory.

The Western Australia Labor senator, who is seriously ill and has so far been unable to campaign for Yes23, said the October 14 referendum to constitutionally enshrine a voice to parliament and executive government was “a contest of Australia’s integrity and honesty, and its future”.

In an interview with The Australian, the Broome-based senator said the voice’s relevance is “what will determine its effectiveness”, and rejected claims that Indigenous Australians were already over-represented in federal parliament.
“I think there is a fairly effective No campaign being run. I don’t believe that’s necessarily a campaign that’s … in our best interest but it’s their campaign,” Senator Dodson said.

“I think that it’s difficult, as everyone knows, to promote the Yes campaign in terms of the detail, what the proposition is, what the provision is, why this is important, how it’s going to benefit us.

“There are some questions that are about detail, which are really not the substance of what we’re talking about. The referendum is about a principle. We put principles in our Constitution, and then we leave it to the legislators to use those principles when they come to make laws.”
Following a bruising fortnight of parliamentary sittings in Canberra, Senator Dodson’s intervention just over four weeks out from the referendum comes on the eve of a major pivot in Yes23’s messaging and strategy.
Speaking in question time on Thursday amid Coalition and No campaign outrage over “racism” comments made by Indigenous academic Marcia Langton, Anthony Albanese called for a respectful debate.

“I want the Yes campaign to be positive. The Yes campaign is about embracing a message of reconciliation and unity and, yes, love. Fear is a powerful emotion. But it’s not one that advances a country. What advances a country is bringing people together and a positive message,” said the Prime Minister, who had earlier joined Michael Long at the completion of the former AFL star’s walk from Melbourne to Canberra in support of the Yes campaign.

Ahead of the launch of Yes23 television ads on Saturday, campaign director Dean Parkin acknowledged speed-bumps in the conversation “have not been helpful” and that winning the referendum vote will be a “difficult task”.

As tens of thousands of pro-voice supporters attend mass walks in more than 40 capital cities and regional towns over the weekend, Yes23 is preparing to amplify warnings about the consequences of a No vote.

Amid No campaign warnings that the voice body will intervene across every facet of government, Senator Dodson said “if it wants to deal with an irrelevancy, then it will be dealt with as irrelevant”.
The 75-year-old, appointed by Mr Albanese as Special Envoy for Reconciliation and Implementation of the Uluru Statement from the Heart, said the voice would be elected by Indigenous Australians “for the purpose of Aboriginal representation to the parliament and the executive”.

“(It) exclusively concentrates on the matters that affect Aboriginal people.

“And that will go from health, housing, education, employment … to legacy issues that we know we still have to deal with and the perennial issues that we haven’t got on top of like deaths in custody, incarceration rates, kids being taken away and domestic violence,” he said.

“We’re going to have to deal with some of those broader legacy issues that are going to the question of disadvantage and dispossession, and displacement of Aboriginal people, as well as the contemporary issues now, they’re matters for the future.”
Senator Dodson said future Indigenous leaders elected to a national voice should not be prejudged as “being inept and unastute as to the nature of the responsibilities and the obligations … they’re going to have to carry in their advocacy to the parliament on matters that affect them”.

“There’s a maturity within the Aboriginal leadership that I think people underestimate and condemn and foreclose upon without really understanding that there’s been huge changes, understandings and development.

“So it won’t be the same ol’, same ol’ experience that people thought they had with ATSIC or something like that. I think there’s a quality of leaders (who have a) sense of their accountability and responsibility.”

Senator Dodson, a former Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation chair and Aboriginal Deaths in Custody commissioner, said Australia’s future identity would be measured in terms of whether the nation votes yes or no.

Born as a “non-citizen” before the 1967 referendum, Senator Dodson said he grew up in an era dominated by governments and “learned white folks who believed that they knew best”.

Ahead of opposition Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Jacinta Price telling the National Press Club on Thursday that Indigenous MPs and senators were “over-represented” in the parliament, Senator Dodson said he was elected to represent an entire state.

“You’re trying to represent the interests of the state and that encompasses everyone in the state, the farmers, the miners, the Aboriginal people, the small-business operator. As an Aboriginal person, member of the Labor Party and a senator, I’m a politician that is a member of the Labor Party.

“I’m not there exclusively for Aboriginal people. In fact, there are many things internally, when the topic of Aboriginal people or issues that affect Aboriginal people arise, I don’t necessarily see that as me having to be the definitive answer on those matters. I might join the debate, I may not join the debate, depending on which portfolio it is.”

Writing in The Australian, Mr Parkin said Yes23 would ramp up efforts to win over soft voters by countering “misunderstanding and misinformation”.

Mr Parkin – who rejects claims that the voice is a “project of the elites” – said while “some Indigenous people disagree” with the proposal, he believed a majority would vote yes.

“I have no doubt politicians and bureaucrats want to find solutions, regardless of their position on the referendum. But I am similarly of the resolute conviction that without a Yes vote, there will be no successful means to finding those solutions without ongoing advice from the real experts – the people in communities,” Mr Parkin wrote.
“That conviction stems from the decades of failed policy underpinned by stop-start policymaking, not so much characterised by course adjustments as it is by ripping up the map every few years.

“Our campaign has just over four weeks left to run. This is the period when we believe Australians will really focus on both the provision and the choice.”

Pointing to repeated failures in Closing the Gap – illustrated in a recent Productivity Commission update – Mr Parkin said “we have to ask what a No vote will mean for the nation”.

With Yes23 signing up almost 40,000 volunteers to doorknock, hit the phones and attend booths on referendum day, Mr Parkin said Yes23 had “never been under any illusions that winning this referendum would be anything other than a difficult task”.

“Australians are justifiably hesitant about changing the foundation document that has been the platform for such a successful nation.

“The debate has rightly been robust. The conversation more broadly has occasionally taken detours, which evidently have not been helpful to a Yes campaign that is working to explain a constitutional change to 18 million Australians,” he wrote.

“In talking to people about this, it’s very common to meet voters who currently plan to write no on their ballot paper. Exploring their reasons, it has been my consistent experience that more often than not, their view is based on a misunderstanding, or sometimes simple misinformation.”

286 supercomputer from the 80’s!

Another thing protecting freehold and even leasehold land is the revenue raising ability of these properties.

Put NT or a caveat on it and rates, land tax, CGT all are cruelled and the state’s main objective (continuing its own existence) is threatened. More so than now, given that an explicit death tax is being kite flown by Dim Chalmers.

You see, Wayne Swan apparently knows better than Jacinta Price, coz….coz…..coz….he “grew up” with indigenous, never mind the fact that Jacinta Price is indigenous.

You have no idea what a Hell Hole of violence and disadvantage Nambour is. Most people imagine the place is a dozy Sunshine Coast hinterland town trying to be a tourist destination, but Swann’s lived experience© tells us that the place is Wadeye on stilts – burning cars, clan violence, drunks rolling around outside the cafes and wood fire pizza restaurants, desperate women, and children roaming the streets at midnight.

Believe Wayne Swann. Alternative facts matter…

Which will happen if the Voice gets up.

I’m definitely voting no, but explain how (if you have the time).

I see s 129 as an inelegant way to expand the nebulous “nationhood” powers.

A smart government might make The Voice redundant like the Inter-State Commission and roll it into something benign like the PC (where the IC technically sits now).

“Sock her” Swan defends “Smash her” Albo.

Respect for women, Labor Party style.

I have an aboriginal lady coming here for morning tea today. She does every Friday.

Does this grant me “special insight”?

Crossie

You’re right, I am saying it would be carried out differently. That’s all.

If we get The Voice and “land rent”, talk will be cheap and moving to WV, almost heaven, will probably happen after all (or maybe rural ID, WY, SD or MT).

I’m not living in an apartheid nation where I was born free to live as a serf to a self appointed committee of Marxist, 1/64th blooded Bunyip Aristocracy.

From the Oz today, “Productivity slowdown costs workers $25,000 a year”.

Probably not of much interest to most.

However because of my background in economics, I think it is important as it shows the cost of ignoring the productivity slowdown that started in the mid 1990s. It shows that the average worker would now be $25, 000 pa better off if we had maintained that higher level of productivity.

Oh, BTW, I have known Alex Robson (Deputy of the Productivity Commission) for 20 years and I judge him as very “sound”. Make of that what you will.

The average Australian would be earning $25,000 more a year if the nation’s productivity performance had not slumped since the mid-1990s, with a new Productivity Commission report ­rubbishing union claims that corporate greed has been responsible for workers’ slow pay growth leading into the pandemic.

The new insights from the PC come as updated figures revealed the jobs market remained tight in August, with the number of employed Australians jumping by nearly 65,000 in the month, or about twice the level predicted by economists.

The unemployment rate, however, remained steady at 3.7 per cent, the Australian Bureau of Statistics data showed, as the ­ongoing surge in net migration swelled the pool of available labour and workforce participation ticked up to a record high.
Ahead of the release of the ­Albanese government’s employment white paper, PC deputy commissioner Alex Robson said the new report showed that lifting the country’s productivity performance would be of far greater benefit to workers’ prosperity than interventions to redirect more ­national income into employees’ pockets, as demanded by workers’ groups such as the ACTU.

“Over the long term, for most workers productivity growth and real wages have grown together in Australia,” the report concludes.

Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe, whose last day at the bank is on Friday, in his final speech last week urged politicians and the public to embrace reform to lift the country’s flagging productivity performance, saying it was “central to our future prosperity”.
This is, fundamentally, a political problem, and it is a major problem. If we can’t build a consensus for change, the economy will drift and there is a material risk that our living standards will stagnate,” Dr Lowe said.

The PC report showed that claims by left-wing think tank The Australia Institute that the profit share of workers had plunged over recent years was based on flawed analysis that failed to account for the impact of the low-employing but high-earning mining and agriculture sectors.

Mr Robson said the highly ­lucrative and capital-intensive mining and agriculture sectors employed only 5 per cent of the ­labour force, and including them created a skewed impression that workers had claimed a shrinking share of productivity gains over ­recent years.

“If you want to do this properly, and you want to look at profit shares, you’d want to disaggregate by sector to get the full picture. We have this mining boom starting in the 2010s, and without taking that into account you are really missing a key piece of the story,” Mr Robson said.

Excluding those two segments, the PC found that the share of the productivity growth dividend going to the remaining 95 per cent of workers had declined by less than 1 percentage point over the past 27 years.

Were it not for this so-called “negative wage decoupling” over the past three decades, the average annual income for the 95 per cent of workers outside the mining and farming sectors would be $3000 higher today, the PC estimated.

“But compare that to a world where you had maintained productivity growth since the mid-90s (of 2.2 per cent); the income gains are $25,000, or eight times more than if you can do these other things,” Mr Robson said.

The June quarter national accounts revealed that productivity is going backwards at the fastest pace in at least three decades, undermining hopes of a return to the even modest annual growth of 1.2 per cent assumed by Treasury’s long-term budget forecasts and the Intergenerational Report.
“The policy conclusion, then, is that productivity is really, in the long run, the key to real wages growth. The Treasurer (Jim Chalmers) has said that the government has got a laser-like focus on productivity, and that would be one of our messages as well,” Mr Robson said.

The ABS jobs figures showed that the number of full-time employed Australians rose by 2800 people in August, eclipsed by a 62,100 surge in part-time employment.

The underemployment rate, which measures those who have jobs but who are trying to get more hours, lifted from 6.4 per cent in July to 6.6 per cent, the seasonally adjusted data showed.

ANZ head of Australian economics Adam Boyton said the predominance of part-time jobs and the falling number of hours worked “took the gloss off” the ­latest employment figures.

He aid it was a “fairly consensus view” that “the moderation in GDP growth suggests jobs growth should ease over the rest of this year”. “The risks around that view could be starting to become more skewed to a stronger labour market, however,” he said.

Analysts agreed that the latest jobs report would not shift incoming RBA governor Michele Bullock’s view on interest rates, with the central bank board seeing a “credible path” to bringing inflation back under control without the need for further hikes.

The participation rate, which is the share of working-age Australians who are either in work or looking for jobs, ticked up to reach a record 67 per cent. The employment-to-popula­tion ratio also rose by 0.1 percentage point to around historical highs of 64.5pc.

A steady unemployment rate despite a booming month for jobs growth was explained both by the higher participation rate and the blockbuster growth in the working-age population.

Just goes to show, Wane (deliberate) Swansteen knows as much about Nambour as he does about being Treasurer. SFA

If you had to pick one machine that triggered the biggest explosion of wealth in our history, which would you pick?

Steam engines.

Which we still use, although today we call them coal-fired power stations.

If you had to pick one machine that triggered the biggest explosion of wealth in our history, which would you pick?”

Well, it’s a silly question because inventions stand on the shoulders of previous inventions and/or technological changes such as electric power.

But if I had to, it would be a toss up between the steam engine and the lathe.

Note that machines are all about using energy beyond human and animal.

Something which the morons running the joint have failed to grasp.

It’s quite infuriating, sometimes I try and post something and “internal service error” comes up. The comment has no swear words or anything…..it is very annoying

Same with me over the last two weeks.

I wondered if it made a difference if the post was attempted as a page was full, or whether it only had a few comments on it. Have yet to test that theory.

Private property is exempt…..for now.

Don’t worry, they’re coming for it by other means.
Within a decade, the PPOR will lose its CGT exemption.
They’ll start big (maybe 20mill plus) then ratchet it down.
It’s like the super limits.
“It only effect the 0.1% blah blah blah” will be the tag line.
Until the thresholds are lowered.

Hunter can and will be subpoenaed. And he will be forced to show up. He can claim the 5th when questioned on live TV all he wants.

hzhousewife

Sep 14, 2023 9:02 PM
If you had to pick one machine that triggered the biggest explosion of wealth in our history, which would you pick?

steam engine

That’s what makes the video so interesting. Define ‘wealth’.
The steam engine enabled us to harness energy at very cheap rates to free labour from the fields and factories. But it didn’t create wealth – it created a replacement for human work.

Private property is exempt…..for now.

That still leaves a lot of publicly owned property, like the public reserve in Mosman that a grab was attempted on.

Good on Pauline for raising the question of time limiting. Hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money is being hoovered by lawyers on both sides, and apparently there will never be an end of it.

Time to call time on the scam.

Buccaneer

Sep 14, 2023 10:30 PM
Which machine, the lathe. Pretty much every complicated industrial machine needed the lathe to be invented before if or components that constitute it, or construct it could have occurred.

The video that started the conversation.
I get what the bloke is saying, but it appears there is no real machine that started our civilisation because the question is too vague.
Our civilisation is the sum of many different ways of harnessing energy to get the labour surplus that enables progress.
The question is unanswerable – it’s like the answer to “Life, the Universe, and Everything.” It probably will turn out to be 42.

Ken Henry was another well know luddite.
He had to have his EA or COS on hand to use excel.
If you can not get granular with data off your own bat, you should not be heading up a public service department.
Let alone chairing a bank.

Rabz: If you want to copy from the Oz, try pasting it as plain text.

Thanks Rabz – will give it a try.

It likely was text from the Oz the other day. Funny thing though. It refused 5 paras of it; then I pasted one by one – that worked, until three paras had been pasted. Then it refused paras 4 and 5. Weird.

Yep, TheirABC is in panic mode about The Invoice. Opinion pieces, examples of how mean the No peeps are, criticism of Jacinta, repetition of lies about citizenship and the census – it’s all there.

Now this:

CheckMate September 15, 2023

This week, we debunk a popular list being shared on social media that claims to show all the “voices” Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people already have.

We also look into the controversy surrounding the Yes campaign’s use of John Farnham’s 1980s hit, and whether taxpayers picked up the tab for it.

[snip]

But as CheckMate has found, the list contains a number of misleading assertions and inaccuracies.

Most importantly, unlike the proposed Voice to Parliament, none of the so-called voices is a constitutionally enshrined advisory body to the federal parliament.

The list’s reference to “3,278 Aboriginal corporations” and “243 native title bodies”, for example, refers to the number of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations registered with the Registrar of Indigenous Corporations.
CheckMate: ‘Secret’ Voice documents

With a referendum on the Voice to Parliament approaching in the second half of the year, there’s one myth about the proposed body which refuses to die, despite repeated debunking.
Indigenous woman Jacinta Nampijinpa Price speaks to a forum, with and Indegenous elder and child flanked either side.
Read more

As the registrar’s website makes clear, these are simply corporations owned and controlled by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander people. The registrar’s office regulates these corporations, advising on good governance and ensuring compliance with the law.

Among those included on the register are various sports clubs, a charity dedicated to helping teach Indigenous students STEM subjects, numerous construction companies and an organisation that helps Indigenous people track their ancestry.

Elsewhere, the list draws attention to “48 land councils” and “35 regional councils” but offers no more detail on them.

In any case, the former count is inaccurate: NSW alone is home to 120 local Indigenous land councils, which work with the state’s peak body to manage land and advocate for land rights.

Nor could CheckMate find evidence of 35 regional councils, a number which appears to stem from the number of regional councils included in the final structure of the now-defunct Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC).

As for the claim that Indigenous people already have “three advisory bodies”, a recent article from the Parliamentary Library suggests that the only remaining federal advisory body is the Coalition of Peaks, which partners with Australian governments on the National Agreement on Closing the Gap.

According to the library, however, the Coalition of Peaks has “stated that it views the proposed Voice to Parliament as complementary to its role”.

Meanwhile, the reference to “122+ Aboriginal agencies” was too vague to confirm, though it echoes a problematic list of 109 “separate Aboriginal agencies” shared earlier this year.

Of course, they never engage with the central point, which is that there are many, many inputs from the Aboriginal perspective into local, State and Federal policy, how much they cost, and how effective they are.

BTW, whatever happened to the TSIs? We’re not hearing a lot from them, probably because they know that if such a Heath Robinson/Rube Goldberg setup was ever implemented, they would be at the bottom of the pecking order.

AWB = appropriate workplace behaviour.

The church has been working on side hustles for hundreds of years

Tough crowd this morning.

When JC (the other one) cursed that fig tree He commanded them to bring the cannoli. Right ?

Sharing Travel
@TripInChina
Good function. Huawei mobile phone Take Excel photos and become Excel files.

https://twitter.com/TripInChina/status/1701983695924875363

Vicki
Sep 15, 2023 9:24 AM

The question of personal experience of Aboriginal people will be different for everyone. But it will even be varied for those who have had widespread experience with them.

Wise words.
Albeit in the limited context of land access, I’ve had a fair exposure to indigenous organisations over the past 30-odd years – and through that individuals.

That experience has been varied, on balance generally positive – although, like any ‘average’, with outliers.

My takeaway (anecdotal for whatever that’s worth) is that dealing with aboriginal society through any Gubba process means dealing with a few senior people – and the outcome is wholly dependent on personality, attitude, and whatever it is those people are actually trying to achieve on the ground. There’s no Aboriginal ‘democracy’ visible to the casual whitefella.

In the result, if you find yourself dealing with an urban activist – you will have an entirely different experience if you’re dealing with people trying to do something positive for the community they live in, or someone trying to make a quick buck for themselves.

The Voice might be quite different to this; but how that’s going to happen appears to be secret business.

Very few today are willing to work their way up.

Ranga, the system precludes this happening.
You will never again see a teller at a bank end up running the place (Don Argus).
You will never see someone who owned & ran a McDonalds franchise run the company (Charlie Bell).

Meloni has failed terribly and Lampedusa is Exhibit A.

Yes, the whole Meloni thing was yet another curated fraud. An admittedly energetic but shallow rhetorician was promoted as being – and promoted herself as being – a ‘right-wing’ agent of restoration. Once elected, she immediately aligned herself with the Ukraine wing of globalism. That was the tell.

Italy is being completely swamped by Africans and there isn’t a thing she can do about it. The ultimate cause, however, is that Western Europeans, including Italians, now hate children.

We had a Bosnian (I know, but the world is a strange place nowadays) rock band staying here yesterday, and they had an afterparty on the balcony last night. I played them some Iggy and the Stooges. Typical band, some nice, some not so nice. They’re gone now.

Amongst the wreckage, which included a half full bottle of Wild Turkey, I found a Marlboro Red 20 packet with zero health warnings. Apparently the WHO doesn’t run Bosnia. The original pack!

Yess! It is my cigarette case of choice for the forseeable. 🙂

It looks like they were drinking the Wild Turkey with Coke. I suspect that it was fashion rather than taste. 50 years ago, they would have been drinking the despicable Southern Comfort.

I looked them up, and apparently they are ‘primitive’ rockers, been around since 1985. I can’t even pronounce the name of the band, let alone the members’.

But, around here, the joint is full of descendents of Eastern Europeans who worked on the Snowy scheme, and apparently they have a following.

My dream is that The Hu come and stay and play a local gig.

“I’m reminded about the Monty Python skit about the hospital that has all the staff and equipment but no patients.”

But plenty of machines that went “Ping”.

Italy has got to stop playing nice, or it will be overrun with illegal immigrants who have to be supported by local infrastructure and services.

The hesitancy to turn off the bloody tap raises questions about bribes, election funding and blackmail.

Tom
Sep 15, 2023 10:56 AM
My dream is that The Hu come and stay and play a local gig.

I saw what you did there, Johanna.

Is there still a version of The Who touring the world and scooping up Boomer goodwill?

Just read Roger’s autobiography, and they (well Pete and Roger) sill are perfoming.
BTW, Roger was a welder’s assistent before becoming a rock star.

In more news from the ‘too cheap to meter’ land, “…Analysis from the AEMC has shown that price settings in the wholesale electricity market are currently set too low to ensure there is enough generation and battery storage to keep the system reliable as it transitions.”

So it is clear then that, according the regulator, prices need to rise significantly. It’s a pity Benson didn’t ask Bowen’s Flack how that squared with the government’s view that renewables will force prices down.

From the Oz.

Electricity prices are set to rise further over the short term under a draft ruling by the Australian Energy Market Commission to raise the existing market price cap to drive urgent new generation as households and businesses face the prospect of blackouts.

The AEMC on Thursday announced draft changes to the National Electricity Rules that it says were needed to prevent an electricity reliability failure as ageing coal-fired generation plants were retired amid the transition to more renewable ­energy.

The AEMC modelling revealed that the proposed move to raise the wholesale price ceiling from $16,000/MWh to $22,800/MWh by 2027 would result in retail electricity prices rising by a further 3 per cent.
This would come on top of the more than 20 per cent increase to retail electricity prices consumers are already facing.

The move to reset the pricing rules is the first permanent change in more than a decade amid warnings that without the new investment, retail prices could eventually rise by significantly more. “This proposed change is about improving reliability and decreasing prices for households and businesses over the long term,” a spokesperson for Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen said.

It is the second alarm bell for the Albanese government over its drive to transition the energy market to renewables amid warnings raised in August by the energy market operator that a lack of investment in new generation would lead to a reliability crisis.
The AEMC says the current wholesale price was too low to drive more generation investment into the system and consumers would ultimately benefit from greater competition, resulting in greater reliability and lower retail prices of 1.6 per cent over the long term.

The draft determination by the AEMC says “price settings in the wholesale electricity market are currently set too low to ensure there is enough generation and battery storage to keep the system reliable as it transitions”.

“The AEMC sets the rules for the National Electricity Market and provides independent expert energy advice to Australia’s state and federal governments,” the AEMC said.
“It is strongly focused on providing a framework for a reliable electricity system and affordable electricity prices, particularly in light of the current cost-of-living concerns.

“An essential part of this work involves implementing arrangements to make sure there is enough electricity supply in the wholesale electricity market to meet the needs of households and businesses over the coming years and reduce the risk of outages.

“Analysis from the AEMC has shown that price settings in the wholesale electricity market are currently set too low to ensure there is enough generation and battery storage to keep the system reliable as it transitions.”

The AEMC said the proposed new price settings would have “no impact on wholesale electricity prices over 99 per cent of the time” and would kick in only in extreme or emergency settings.

However, they would deliver additional capacity into the system by driving new investment “that will have substantial benefits in reducing the risk of outages and ensuring our electricity system remains reliable for households and businesses”.

“As these price settings apply rarely, the proposal is expected to result in a relatively small impact on retail electricity prices,” it said.

“The Reliability Panel’s modelling predicts a small increase in retail electricity prices by 2027, but ultimately the adjustment will lead to lower long-term prices for consumers than would otherwise have been the case.”

The commission’s modelling forecasts a “short-term increase in consumer bill costs” of 3 per cent in real terms in 2028. This increase would occur progressively between July 2025 and 2028.

The modelling also showed extra investment stimulated under the rule change would ultimately result in lower prices and better reliability because of the effect the investment would have on driving competition in the market.

AEMC chair Anna Collyer said adjustments needed to be made to manage the transformation and “support decarbonisation of the electricity sector”.

“These changes would encourage more generation and battery storage into the system when we need it most, reducing the risk of damaging outages for electricity consumers and keeping the system stable as we rapidly transition to higher levels of renewable energy and decarbonise our economy,” she said.

“This proposal is designed to have no bearing on prices under typical market conditions. Rather, it en­ables price fluctuations to encourage new market entrants, thus fostering competition to the benefit of all consumers.”

Opposition energy spokesman Ted O’Brien said the proposed rule change would force consumers to pay for the transition to renewable energy.

Zatara> I think that was a “Yes, Minister” episode

Timeless humour, no matter the source

The fact that Kanye West hasn’t been deported from Italy officially – or monstered out of the country by less official interests – confirms everything you already guessed about the demoralised insipidity of the place now. He is deliberately ridiculing a collapsing Christian society.

Insult of the week:

“…fishnet stocking wearing poodle headed queer…”

Twostix on Alexander Downer at my place.

My dream is that The Hu come and stay and play a local gig.

Seconded. The Leningrad Cowboys would be excellent too!

(For Tom’s education The HU are a Mongolian heavy rock band. They’re rather good.)

Watching cna.. more and more stories about “carbon footprints” and how Singapore is reducing them. Maybe that extension cord from Oz is a goa. Carbon was not in the conversation last time I was here in 2019.

And how long will that exemption last if the Referendum is passed by whatever nefarious means? Because if it is passed, then “Community Support” for the measure will mean the government of the day can and will impose it by degrees.
Once the bastards get a foot in the door, there’ll be no stopping them.

They’d need to pass State and Federal law in a coordinated effort or it won’t work.

Their revenue is also at stake. CGT, rates, land tax, stamp duties and possible estate tax.

As committed as Albanese is to the Voice, there’s no commitment to the rest of the nonsense fortunately. I think he’s fine handwaving away Makaratta because the Voice to him is just cosmetic virtue signalling.

I hope.

Cheap energy is the spark needed to boost jobs and manufacturing and make Australia rich.

The tax/excise impost of fuel has probably cost Australia more in productivity lost than it could ever raise in government revenue and spending.
But I wouldn’t know – I’m not an economist.

Alamak!

I think we are both right.

Monty Python – The Machine that goes PING!