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On January 02 2020 22:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Genuine question is there a place that doesn't have an uncontrolled fire right now? How can the PM even possibly expect reelection after this? It's believed half a billion animals have died in these fires, that is insane. Show nested quote +Bushfires ravaging Australia have now killed at least 17 people and created a plume of smoke thought to be present over an area greater than that of Europe.
The government has deployed military ships and Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns where supplies were depleted and roads were cut off by the fires.
Authorities confirmed three bodies were found on Wednesday at Lake Conjola on the south coast of New South Wales. More than 175 homes have been destroyed in the region.
An area of thick smoke covering nearly 5.5 million sq km (2.1 million sq miles) has started drifting over the Pacific Ocean towards New Zealand.
Antti Lipponen, a physicist and research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said the plume was 14 times the size of Japan, and superimposing it over a map of Europe, showed it would stretch from Iceland to Turkey. SourceNSFW + Show Spoiler + In Morrison's defence - and you will not hear me defend Morrison very often - the conditions are horrific, and Australia is really, really large with a lot of isolated communities in tinderbox areas. We are talking open scrub across broken terrain as far as the eye can see, with random towns dotted through it on single-access roads, and not a drop of rain for 18 months. I'm sure there have been failures in the response, but I don't believe they've been worse than the usual failures. The situation is just that bad.
In the long-term, of course, his party has presided over a systematic dismantling of what little climate policy we had, and for this he has my undying hatred. He famously brought a lump of coal into parliament to extol its virtues a few years ago, but whether enough people judge him for that in three years' time remains to be seen. It does feel like public opinion may finally be turning.
Specifically on re-election, he has a brand new mandate and will continue to spin, redirect, delay and handwave, hoping that enough water has passed under the bridge by the time the next election rolls around. Ironically, the thing that has most turned people against him is the trivial non-issue of his trying to take a family holiday at Christmas. For a man who has managed public opinion masterfully up until this point, the optics were atrocious and it badly damaged his standing with his rural, doing-it-tough base.
Personally, I'm hopeful that our self-immolation is the catalyst needed to finally force his hand on climate, but anything he implements will be as toothless and hamstrung as he can make it while still claiming to have done something.
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On January 03 2020 19:35 Belisarius wrote:Show nested quote +On January 02 2020 22:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Genuine question is there a place that doesn't have an uncontrolled fire right now? How can the PM even possibly expect reelection after this? It's believed half a billion animals have died in these fires, that is insane. Bushfires ravaging Australia have now killed at least 17 people and created a plume of smoke thought to be present over an area greater than that of Europe.
The government has deployed military ships and Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns where supplies were depleted and roads were cut off by the fires.
Authorities confirmed three bodies were found on Wednesday at Lake Conjola on the south coast of New South Wales. More than 175 homes have been destroyed in the region.
An area of thick smoke covering nearly 5.5 million sq km (2.1 million sq miles) has started drifting over the Pacific Ocean towards New Zealand.
Antti Lipponen, a physicist and research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said the plume was 14 times the size of Japan, and superimposing it over a map of Europe, showed it would stretch from Iceland to Turkey. SourceNSFW + Show Spoiler + In Morrison's defence - and you will not hear me defend Morrison very often - the conditions are horrific, and Australia is really, really large with a lot of isolated communities in tinderbox areas. We are talking open scrub across broken terrain as far as the eye can see, with random towns dotted through it on single-access roads, and not a drop of rain for 18 months. I'm sure there have been failures in the response, but I don't believe they've been worse than the usual failures. The situation is just that bad. In the long-term, of course, his party has presided over a systematic dismantling of what little climate policy we had, and for this he has my undying hatred. He famously brought a lump of coal into parliament to extol its virtues a few years ago, but whether enough people judge him for that in three years' time remains to be seen. It does feel like public opinion may finally be turning. Specifically on re-election, he has a brand new mandate and will continue to spin, redirect, delay and handwave, hoping that enough water has passed under the bridge by the time the next election rolls around. Ironically, the thing that has most turned people against him is the trivial non-issue of his trying to take a family holiday at Christmas. For a man who has managed public opinion masterfully up until this point, the optics were atrocious and it badly damaged his standing with his rural, doing-it-tough base. Personally, I'm hopeful that our self-immolation is the catalyst needed to finally force his hand on climate, but anything he implements will be as toothless and hamstrung as he can make it while still claiming to have done something.
Seems you guys are ~halfway through the 10 plagues of Egypt, I'm oblivious to Australian politics but if this doesn't cause a massive change in your country's politics I'm not hopeful about my own.
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5930 Posts
On January 21 2020 16:40 GreenHorizons wrote:Show nested quote +On January 03 2020 19:35 Belisarius wrote:On January 02 2020 22:44 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Genuine question is there a place that doesn't have an uncontrolled fire right now? How can the PM even possibly expect reelection after this? It's believed half a billion animals have died in these fires, that is insane. Bushfires ravaging Australia have now killed at least 17 people and created a plume of smoke thought to be present over an area greater than that of Europe.
The government has deployed military ships and Navy ships and military aircraft were bringing water, food and fuel to towns where supplies were depleted and roads were cut off by the fires.
Authorities confirmed three bodies were found on Wednesday at Lake Conjola on the south coast of New South Wales. More than 175 homes have been destroyed in the region.
An area of thick smoke covering nearly 5.5 million sq km (2.1 million sq miles) has started drifting over the Pacific Ocean towards New Zealand.
Antti Lipponen, a physicist and research scientist at the Finnish Meteorological Institute, said the plume was 14 times the size of Japan, and superimposing it over a map of Europe, showed it would stretch from Iceland to Turkey. SourceNSFW + Show Spoiler + In Morrison's defence - and you will not hear me defend Morrison very often - the conditions are horrific, and Australia is really, really large with a lot of isolated communities in tinderbox areas. We are talking open scrub across broken terrain as far as the eye can see, with random towns dotted through it on single-access roads, and not a drop of rain for 18 months. I'm sure there have been failures in the response, but I don't believe they've been worse than the usual failures. The situation is just that bad. In the long-term, of course, his party has presided over a systematic dismantling of what little climate policy we had, and for this he has my undying hatred. He famously brought a lump of coal into parliament to extol its virtues a few years ago, but whether enough people judge him for that in three years' time remains to be seen. It does feel like public opinion may finally be turning. Specifically on re-election, he has a brand new mandate and will continue to spin, redirect, delay and handwave, hoping that enough water has passed under the bridge by the time the next election rolls around. Ironically, the thing that has most turned people against him is the trivial non-issue of his trying to take a family holiday at Christmas. For a man who has managed public opinion masterfully up until this point, the optics were atrocious and it badly damaged his standing with his rural, doing-it-tough base. Personally, I'm hopeful that our self-immolation is the catalyst needed to finally force his hand on climate, but anything he implements will be as toothless and hamstrung as he can make it while still claiming to have done something. Seems you guys are ~halfway through the 10 plagues of Egypt, I'm oblivious to Australian politics but if this doesn't cause a massive change in your country's politics I'm not hopeful about my own.
I'm doubtful there will be any meaningful change, seeing just how much climate change policy completely wrecked Labor. There won't be any real serious climate/environmental mitigation strategies outside of lip service or a feelgood Indigenous land management program that you might hear about once every decade. Labor is swinging further right* and not doing much of anything while the Liberal Party and their associated media are busy putting all the blame on climate terrorists and an unprecedented* number of arsonists.
I'm at work in Melbourne right now and people are somehow putting the blames on the Greens on preventing backburning. Despite the Greens having close to zero serious political power in this country and this conspiracy theory holding zero weight if you even take more than a minute to think about it.
Australia is just like any other affluent country where people absolutely want zero change even when the house is burning down. The issue isn't our fault, its always someone else's fault.
*Part of Labor's historical base is actually pretty socially right wing. A lot of their actions currently hover between trying to take back voters that are choosing to support Pauline Hanson's One Nation and appealing to the numerous socially conservative unions that have their roots in catholicism. As far as I am aware, the more economically/socially left wing unions like the AEU tend to support the Greens/no one over Labor.
On January 03 2020 18:24 iPlaY.NettleS wrote: Half a billion animals is a lot, but cats alone kill 1.5 - 2 billion native animals in Australia every year. Why wouldn't he be re-elected because of bushfires? Because he was on holiday when it happened or something? Fire services are a local and state govt responsibility funded by council level emergency services levy and state revenue. I don't follow the reasoning.
The fundamental issue isn't the sheer number of animal deaths, its the sheer loss of habitat that will never recover between whole regions burning down and isolated regions suffering from dieback. This is especially a problem for NSW's Koala population that is already toast. These impacts are more severe than Australia's feral (and domestic pet) cat issue will ever be that I can't honestly believe you responded with that.
Fire services are funded by state governments. State governments give the money, of which NSW fire departments have either not received money or have faced funding cuts. Scott Morrison is a part of the NSW Liberal Party as he serves the Division of Cook. The NSW Liberal Party has done its best to gut as much funding from fire services as possible. Obviously its Morrison's problem, the state that he serves is burning down while his federal and state party are in charge. He cannot blame NSW Labor here, who would have done the same government services gutting as the NSW Liberal Party have done, as the NSW Liberal Party have been in continuous power since 2011.
Outside of NSW, he has done everything to look as callous as possible between the holiday and clear use of victims as PR fodder. Obviously that's not a good look when you're known for bringing in a lump of coal into Parliament because you're a climate change denier.
Now, I don't think it'd impact his re-election chances a whole lot in the long run because we're already busy trying to hunt the ever-elusive superarsonists that apparently never existed in Australia's history as a bushfire prone country but you'd have to be silly to not think this is clearly not a positive to his election chances.
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koalas and kangaroos arent birds or rodents.
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5930 Posts
I'm not sure what you mean by that statement but no they're not. They are also impacted by habitat loss in the same ways the Koala is, indigenous Australian species are fragile like that.
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I mean that half a million Kangaroos and Koalas lost is something rather different to the same amount of birds lost due to their relative scarcity compared to our feathered friends.
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I don’t usually give ScoMo (That fella down under) credit but he deserves it for this new submarine deal.The new joint UK-US subs are over 4 billion dollars cheaper each than the French ones and use superior nuclear technology rather than the diesel in the French deal, allowing them to be underwater longer.
The French deal should never have been signed off in the first place, now we have tens of billions to spend on other things and superior subs in the deal.It’s a win all round.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-15/allied-naval-united-states-biden-australia-nuclear-submarines/100465628
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Yeah but a Western alliance, with one of the most powerful militaries in the world and the strongest in Europe, may be in tatters as a result.
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Seems like the great deal will cost a trade union with EU, because they backed out agreement in shitty way arcording to EU. Don't know if it's great political handling to get untrustworthy reputation as a country.
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Yes more notice should have been given as well as an attempt to renegotiate the French deal.
Still, the cost of the French subs had blown out to $90 billion for 12, after originally starting at $50 billion.Work was originally stated to be 90% Australian, later lowered to 60% and the countries were too far apart when it came to work ethic.So while more discussion should have happened, the cancellation is entirely the fault of the French for a bad deal becoming worse.
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/cost-culture-clash-50bn-deal-france-lost-to-us-uk-2021-9?r=US&IR=T
An example of the gulf in working practices was when Australian officials were left “stunned” to hear discussion of “la rentrée,” the process by which French workers would get ready to restart work after the whole company stopped working in August for a month-long vacation
French officials in return were likewise said to be surprised that Australian officials expected meetings to begin on time, citing a French phenomenon known as a “diplomatic 15 minutes” whereby people were considered to be on time as long as they arrived within 15 minutes of the start time.
The report also mentioned French workers requesting more understanding of their need for long lunch breaks.
I know subs are expensive, but $90 billion for 12 diesel is outrageous especially for an economy our size.
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imo France is upset because they are not competitive at all, and cancelling the deal like this put it into spotlight
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51135 Posts
if the coalition somehow wins again, i'm trying to figure out a way to get out of this country asap.
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I really hope the coalition don't win.
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As a public servant I look forward to a month of caretaker :D
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I think it's time for a change and I'm not the only one who thinks that. The Coalition has had their chance.
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51135 Posts
Thank fuck the country was sane enough this cycle.
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The headlines are saying Labor won but it really wasn’t a great night for them.Their primary vote currently (66% counted) actually dropped from their 2019 defeat.The big winners were the greens and the independents.Minor party primary vote is now over 30%, last election it was around 25%.
The way things are going it’s hard to see majority governments being formed much longer by the two major parties.A good thing if you ask me.
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I think the biggest factor was voters in safe seats got fed up with being taken for granted. Both parties will have to think long and hard about this.
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