Sarkozy (who has been posturing alongside Merkel) had the old ‘rabbit in the head-lights’ look when Standard & Poor’s stripped France (as well as Austria) of AAA ratings and further downgraded Italy, Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, Malta, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia.  There have been moves internationally to have the number of letters in the alphabet  increased, but as to whether this is political move; finanical commentators don’t believe so, they said they will wait to see what happens and then report on it.

As Ms Gillard settled more comfortably into the 1.5 seat (no doubt enjoying not being on the defensive), and her her brittle laugh echoed around the bank loans manager’s outer office, she said there is always a price to be paid by governments that had put off reforms, spent more money than they had and borrowed like there was no tomorrow (well at least not in their electrol term). She warmed up to the task and continued by suggesting that for too many years, European governments have deferred the nation-building, productivity-enhancing reforms which Australia has made the foundation of our dynamic and resilient economy …

In stark contrast to Europe, Australia had strict fiscal rules that would return it to surplus in – at this stage her voice lowered to a mumble but an aide (the minister from NSW who is clearing his name with respect to misappropiated funds) stated “she said 2012-13″.   Ms Gillard stated she was available – along with world’s second greatest treasurer (Wayne Swan) – to advise them how to (mumble but it sounded like) ‘cook the books’, but it would cost and she would bring along some pay sheets to validate her (and Wayne’s) hourly rate … (but they would bring their own gutting knives and other ‘tools of their trade’). She said European leaders should swiftly undertake structural reforms to boost their economic potential and lift growth.

When no-one asked AMP economist Shane Oliver, he warned swift action to repair European budgets could cut growth further and is alleged to have said ‘fiscal austerity leads to economic deterioration and budget deficits that blow out; effectively worsening the economic outlook’. Poor little rich kid and sometime shadow treasurer, Joe Hockey – walking out of Jenny Craig – lambasted Ms Gillard for the intervention, saying it was “a little rich” for the Prime Minister to lecture Europe; then he muttered ‘did someone mention lamb, mmm BBQ lamb’.

In August, the world’s most succussful borrowing country ever – the USA – had its credit rating cut from AAA to AA (it would have been lower but the agency had an offer they couldn’t refuse; a drone with coordinates of their homes or $1 billion in any currency they wanted – which the USA would print).  Now the Germans are stoic people and their economy is used to pretty much prop up the Euro with a AAA rating. Another unasked question (till now) is why have Portugal’s and Cyprus’s ratings been cut to junk status and not the USA? Oh yeah, the drone.

France is the Euro fund’s second-biggest guarantor and before the downgrade, the head of the French central bank, Christian Noyer, used diplomatic means (he cried like a girl) to have Standard & Poor’s strip Britain of its top rating before France (little realising that England had threatened to send over soccer hoodlums).  Britain’s Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, offered to shake his hand (no doubt for the ‘Yorkshire hand shake’ – a rapid knock of his forehead on the bridge of the Frog’s nose) and said (in his best Prince Charles accent) ‘the suggestion was unacceptable, do please calm the rhetoric’ and logically pointed out that Britain is not part of the euro zone and should be spared a downgrade.

What gets me is why do they need to keep borrowing money? When the man in the street gets a loan, he just pays it back. …

The Salvation Army indicated that it will need to feed 2.2 million Australians at Christmas … all in an environment of massive earnings from royalties for the sale of our diminishing resources by these same tow governments; and the solution according to ‘the Honourable’ Karen Struthers (Minister for Community Services, Housing and Women, in a December 21st 2011 press release) … Two local bunnies MPs Peter Lawlor and Peta Kaye Croft are all for the rights of caravan park dwellers.

As we see more and more people unable to pay their electricity bills or being kicked out of their homes, it begs the question, are we turning into a state of the USA and is this the start of Aussie Trailer Trash, displaced and marginalized people unable to sink roots and no possibility to become part of a community?

Ms Struthers claims caravan park dwellers and residential park home owners and the broader community have a say, but in her press release, you can tell it’s already a done deal, the government has given up not just on these people but the greater community. She visited manufactured home parks on the Gold Coast and encouraged participants to make submissions to the recently released discussion paper on growing the industry’s future, then puts some spin on it (sugars the bullshit) by pretending that ‘it’s important home owners and support agencies join discussion on how the government can ensure sector growth while also protecting the rights of manufactured home owners; that input from industry forums and the discussion paper are vital in determining future government policy when it comes to this type of home ownership and the parks that accommodate them’.

Of course her statement that ‘it will be a growth industry’ further confirms the complete and utter failure by the Labor government/s to make housing affordable; of course politicians, their families and relatives (many now employed in government) will all live in gated areas to separate the riff-raff and growing number of homeless and marginalized trailer-trash and the pensioners (now past their productive life) from their neighbourhoods.

Yet another example of the total failure of urban planning. ‘Let them eat cake …’

The Australian Medical Association released its public hospital analysis, revealing Queensland has 2.4 beds per 1000 people – lower than the national average of 2.6; 10,911 public hospital beds in 2009/10 – up 106 from the previous year; about a tenth of what doctors believed were needed.

Public hospitals’ performance in every state and territory was well below target for access to emergency departments and elective surgery set by the Council of Australian Governments, with the median Australian waiting time for elective surgery 35 days.

However, Queensland although stating it was 27 days, the real waiting time was far higher, but I guess that’s why they pay so much money to administration.

How this happens is, before people appear on a waiting list for elective surgery, they have to see a specialist and be booked in for surgery, so there is a big delay in waiting to see said specialist, which can in itself, take 6 months; but if you’re waiting for ear, nose and throat surgery in Queensland, it can be more than five years. A doctor suggested that because of the length of the wait, some people don’t make it to surgery.

However, in the SMH (Aug 8th) the story suggests another direction to the spin ‘The unemployment rate in flood-affected Queensland rose to 5.6 per cent in July from 5.2 per cent in June’.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/jobless-rate-jumps-in-july-20110811-1inr9.html

‘Early stage testing in animals has shown that a Nanopatch delivered – flu vaccine – was effective at a lower dose and can combat needle phobia, needle injuries and cross contamination and it doesn’t need refrigeration, which makes transport to developing nations easier’. The Premier said the exciting new develop showed how the State Government’s investment in the Smart State Strategy was resulting in new and exciting commercial biotech ventures.

Anna Blight said ‘it used to be that after developing a concept here, Queensland innovators would need to go offshore to bring their project to fruition; now Queensland can be the true home of innovation and a new bio tech industry – our State can profit while doing good in the world’ and ‘the Government partner with US businessesHealth Care Ventures and Eli Lilly to establish a Bio Capital Fund and (sic) on its way to reaching $250 million for investment in biotechnology ventures and Queensland-based venture to be supported through this fund’.

Wow … how smart is that ?

On top of inhaling medicines (and other not so friendly chemicals) we can apply them via patches … just wait till the tobacco companies find out ….. what … they have?

Maybe that’s why Anna Bligh calls herself ‘the minister of reconstruction’ ….

Canada – with a population in 2010 of 34+ million – received less than A$2,000; the Solomon Islands – with a population of about 320,000 people – received about $3,000 and the Australian Coalition received about $170,000.

Tony Abbott – in my opinion – shares the trait of negativity like Michael Ennis (NSW League player) and brings the ‘game’ into disrepute.

Hilllary Clinton and others are outraged about the suppression of protests, yet when Saudi troops arrived in Bahrain what happened? Nothing. Could it be that the USA believes change is less necessary in Saudi Arabia than Libya?

Prince Saud Al-Faisal promised to ‘cut off the fingers of those who try to interfere in our internal matters’ and explained protests in the kingdom are unnecessary; there is conjecture that the reason there aren’t mass protests yet – in Saudi Arabia – is because the monarchy enforces its position with the help of torture, mutilation and execution. Why are the USA and the UK so emamoured of the Saudis? Could it be oil access or export licences granted by the UK government for arms sales to the kingdom (4 times as much as in 2003)?

The Brown government was so determined to preserve its special relationship with the Saudis, it derailed British justice, by forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its inquiry into corruption in the Al Yamamah deals.

But is it just weapons or is there more at stake? Is the distinct likelihood of unrest in Saudi Arabia pushing oil to $200 a barrel when the world went into meltdown at just under $150 a barrel? The reality is that most governments in power regardless of left or right are likely to survive the economic dislocation that a sustained price of $200 would deliver. But even if the regime remains, it’s not clear that it can keep delivering, as Wikileaks cables showed American diplomats questioning the kingdom’s ability to keep raising production.

The big problem with all oil producing countries is overstated reserves and with the Saudies its said to be 40%; production quotas assigned to OPEC states are a function of the size of their stated reserves, so all members of the cartel have an incentive to exaggerate them. Saudi Arabia posts the same figure as it did in 1988.
Western governments rely on production forecasts from the International Energy Agency, which has been proven to have no real idea; recently backing away from forecasts of future supply and on its aggorant dismissal of those who have warned that global oil output might one day peak. In 2006 the IEA predicted that world oil supply would rise from 82 million barrels a day to 116 million in 2030, only to reduce the forecast to 106m in 2009; a 105m in 2010 and 96m by 2035.

Given that the IEA’s new prediction relies on an assumption that Saudi output will rise from 9m barrels to 14.6m in 2035, every country dependant on oil has reason to be concerned. Dr Sadad al-Husseini (former head of Exploration and Production at Saudi Aramco) said ‘sustaining 12 million barrels/day output will only be possible for a limited period of time, and even then, only with a massive investment program; and then a slow but steady output decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it’. When this information was released, he claimed not to have said it, dspite the figures in the report being detailed and precise.

Now, as Japan needs more energy than ever before to rebuild and access non-nuclear fuel for energy, things are going to get a lot tougher …. Peak Oil has passed and we all will suffer; those that plan the least, will suffer the most.

BHP – one of the world’s largest producers of thermal coal making almost 10% of its revenue -  have seemingly acknowledged the need for action on climate change, even though the mining industry (the Minerals Council of Australia), was a very vocal opponent of Rudd’s emissions trading scheme.

Although this observation hasn’t received a good reception from politicians, the hung vote and several weeks later a survey indicating if another election were held Labor and the Coalition would lose even more seats just shows how out of touch they are with the people and how beholding they are to the fossil fuel industries. Are both sides of politics  too scared to canvass the end of the coal industry because it would not be welcome by their financial sponsors or because it will highlight to the public how much of what they spend is dependant on what corporations sell off each week.

Both parties back the oxymoron ‘clean coal technology’ and the non-event of carbon capture and storage. Australia’s energy production is particularly carbon intensive and the highest among OECD countries in terms of tonnes of carbon emitted per unit of energy. Coal-fired power stations account for almost half of the country’s emissions and therefore, is a prime example of the need to look beyond just coal.

Minister for Climate Change Greg Combet is charged with developing a policy involving a price on carbon and said ‘my three priority areas are support for renewable energy, greater energy efficiency in industry and households and working towards the introduction of a carbon price; I will be working with other parliamentarians, the business community and the environmental movement to build consensus and to discuss the best way we can achieve a price on carbon’; however, he is reported to have assured the coal industry it had a sound future.

There is a need for revenue generated by any carbon price to be returned to the economy – say – through tax cuts, to offset the cost impact of businesses and individuals.

If Australia did take the lead by implementing a carbon price before a global agreement was struck, Mr Kloppers said ‘it needed to ensure investment did not go offshore to countries without a price on carbon’.

Tony Abbott (who has polarized and alienated many with his hard-man opposition for the sake of opposition) has ruled out allowing Coalition MPs to sit on a cross-party committee to be established by the month’s end to discuss potential responses to climate change.  But is BHP just playing the uranium card ?

BP became the company Beyond Petroleum in 2000, but under new management in 2007 with Tony Hayward, they dropped the green washed label by resuming tar sands operations, winding back wind and solar operations, closing alternative energy headquarters in London and finally, the cream on atop the cake, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

With Peak Coal predicted for Australia in 2040, is BHP more interested in nuclear power for Australia so they can dig more coal to sell elsewhere; is it an announcement to push the South Australian government to OK the Olympic Dam mine expansion; would nuclear reactors reduce our greenhouse emissions ?

Whatever the question and answer, if an honest approach is used, then nuclear power will not be a solution … ever; the simple reason is that an honest approach is one where the embodied energy and GHG emissions emitted in developing the land, building and commission a nuclear power plant and decommissioning the plant and ensuing emissions to do so are added to the emissions of the plant while it is running and being maintained; and then when you have added that in and then considered – rationally – where the nuclear waste is to be stored, that the real cost emerges; and it won’t be a simple Prof Ross Garnaut type solution like dumping tailings at sea either.

Both the ALP and the Coalition have brought policies that most independent analysis suggests will fail to reach the presumed bipartisan target of a 5 per cent reduction in emissions from 2000 levels by 2020.

That, in itself, makes both policy positions untenable. They don’t match the science, they don’t match the expectations of public polling and they don’t match the business need for some sort of certainty to unlock the tens of billions of investment that must be made to bring Australia’s energy network, and its broader economy, into the 21st century.

The most remarkable thing is that the media and the electorate will let them get away with it. The extent to which they do will be answered by the performance of The Greens, the party – according to RBA board member Warwick McKibbin – that has produced “closest to the best policy on climate change”. And the only party that is unable to deliver it.

How the politics of Dumb and Dumber entered the climate debate can be traced back to the fateful day in Canberra when the Liberals rolled Malcolm Turnbull and, much to their own surprise, put Tony Abbott in his place.

Abbott’s climate scepticism didn’t win him any greater support, but his “great big tax” mantra certainly hit a nerve – mostly Labor’s. It fits neatly into a newspaper headline and an audio sound bite: so effectively, that Abbott hasn’t been compelled to produce another original thought on the matter ever since.

The Labor government has been unable to resist the scare campaign, centred as it is around the impact of energy prices in the western suburbs of Sydney. Ever since Rudd pulled the ETS, destroying the last vestiges of his credibility, and was finally dispatched, and Gillard and her advisors dreamed up the Citizens Assembly, the ALP has tried to create a smaller target for the Opposition.

Gillard didn’t even mention climate change in the official election launch, but the Opposition took a shot at it anyway, suggesting it had a secret deal with The Greens to produce an interim carbon tax. So Labor retreated further and promised it would not.

The ALP has promised a suite of policies that sound nice and are steps in the right direction, but don’t mean a lot because they lack ambition. The fuel efficiency measures still leave Australia well behind the rest of the world, the emission caps on new power stations will not affect those already in the planning stages, and the reward for early action for business means nothing unless company boards can see a carbon price.

The Liberals, bizarrely, have chosen a direct action scheme that rewards the two groups that argued loudest against an emissions trading scheme – the farmers and the heavy emitters – by creating a private and exclusive “abatement market” run by bureaucrats and to be paid for by taxpayers. How did this get through?

It reminds some observers of the Greenhouse Gas Abatement Scheme which was panned by a subsequent audit as being next to useless. Even more bizarrely, the Liberals climate spokesman Greg Hunt compares it to the UN Clean Development Mechanism. That, though, produces a tradable commodity, a Certified Emission Reduction unit. It’s a carbon market! Albeit one that has been rorted horribly because it is run by bureaucrats.

None of this is quite as bizarre as the concept of the citizens assembly. As soon as 14 million Australians go to the polls to elect their leaders, the ALP (presuming its re-elected) will go to the phone book to find 150 souls to consider a strategy to address the greatest moral and business challenge we face.

It turns out that UTS researchers have already done something similar, but much more extensive. A project they conducted, targeting not just 150 Australians, but 7000, and staggered over four in-depth studies, concluded that most voters want the government to adopt an ETS now, and to target bigger reduction targets.

The four studies – conducted at yearly intervals – showed that voters wanted revenues generated by an ETS to be used to ease poverty, assist seniors and invested in research and development, and not to be used to reduce taxes for business.

Professor Jordan Louviere, who headed the research, said it showed that the proposed Citizen’s Assembly was unnecessary – what the community has clearly wanted for years is an ETS.

“It is possible, now, for the government to come up with a workable ETS plan that meets the community’s expectations and makes the trade-offs clear that will come with an effective plan,” he says.

“From the public’s perspective any climate change plan consists of eight key features: When does it start? How will revenue be collected? What will be done with the revenue raised? What happens with the transport sector? Are energy-intensive sectors of the economy given special treatment? Does the plan have a strong R&D component? What reduction in carbon emissions should Australia aim for? Finally, should Australia move now or wait for other countries?

“We asked our survey respondents to choose between plans consisting of different options for these features. In doing so we made it clear to them the nature of trade-offs that would be involved in, say, holding back on the start of an emissions trading scheme or protecting certain industries.

“Overall our results suggest that Australians are committed to a climate change plan that works. They believe that it is happening and clearly recognise that there are substantial costs to adopting a plan.”

Try getting a politician to say that. Maybe on Monday.

http://www.climatespectator.com.au/commentary/path-least-resistance-0?utm_source=Climate+Spectator+daily&utm_campaign=a5bcf06f72-&utm_medium=email

By Margot O’Neill for Lateline

A new survey of Australian politicians shows a clear majority believe climate change is happening, but many appear to be unsure about some of its consequences.

The University of Queensland (UQ) survey of more than 300 federal, state and local government politicians found that nearly 70 per cent believed human-induced climate change is happening and rated it as one of Australia’s most important challenges.

But more than 40 per cent of those questioned said they believed it would be safe for the planet to warm by 4 degrees Celsius, despite scientific warnings that a global temperature increase of 2 degrees or more could be dangerous.

The survey also uncovered confusion about what climate change really means.
For instance, 75 per cent of politicians believe the Great Barrier Reef is threatened by global warming, but only 55 per cent agree that ocean ecosystems are also threatened, even though the Great Barrier Reef is part of the ocean’s ecosystems.

Kelly Fielding, from the Institute for Social Science Research at UQ, says the results highlight the complexity of the issue of climate change.

“It takes a high level of knowledge, and scientific knowledge, to really understand the full range of effects,” she said.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg of UQ’s Global Change Institute agrees.

“This is a complex area and I think this is revealing that even our leaders have trouble sort of getting the core concepts,” he said.

Some scientists are alarmed by the response on the effects of a 4-degree temperature rise.

Nearly 7 per cent of politicians believe a rise of up to 6 degrees would be safe.

Climate scientists say such rises will probably lead to an escalation of heatwaves, bushfires and the melting of the polar ice caps.

“The thing that scared me most of all in the survey is the temperature question,” said Andy Pitman from the University of NSW’s Climate Change Centre.

“I find it remarkable that people would think warming of four, five, six, seven degrees might be loosely defined as safe.”

Dr Fielding says some stark party political differences were also evident.

Asked whether the planet is warming because of human activity producing greenhouse gases, 98 per cent of Greens said “yes” compared to 89 per cent of Labor, 57 per cent for non-aligned politicians and 38 per cent of Liberal-National politicians.

Throughout the survey, many more Liberal-National politicians answered “don’t know” or “uncertain”.

“What you’re seeing is greater certainty and belief on the part of the Labor Party politicians and more knowledge about the specifics of climate change, whereas for the Liberal-National Party politicians it’s greater uncertainty and that uncertainty is creeping through in terms of being able to respond to sort of specific questions about climate change that tap into the detail of climate change,” she said.

Only 56 per cent of surveyed politicians trust the world’s leading climate science body, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change or IPCC, although nearly 70 per cent said they were greatly influenced by what scientists say.

But again, that depends on party affiliation. Nine-eight per cent of Greens said they were greatly influenced by scientists compared to 85 per cent of Labor politicians, 54 per cent for non-aligned politicians and dropping to 44 per cent for Liberal-National politicians.

Only 18 per cent of federal politicians responded to the survey. Of the entire survey group, 97 were Labor, 73 Liberal-National, 41 were Greens and the remaining 97 described themselves as non-aligned.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/12/2980671.htm?section=justin