Posted by: sustainadelic
on 24 Apr, 2011
Last week union boss Paul Howes threatened to oppose the carbon tax if it led to the loss of one job in the steel industry. Australian industry, sensing a weakened Government, is queuing up to demand special treatment.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 22 Apr, 2011
Do you live in a giant McMansion? If you do, a Sydney artist would like to knock your house down.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 17 Apr, 2011
NSW consumers are facing power bill increases of around $300. Of that, something like $100 will be the result of subsidies for solar panels and other green schemes, through mechanisms such as the solar feed in tariff. Most of the rest is due to increased infrastructure costs - building new power lines and so on.
Posted by: sustainadelic
on 06 Apr, 2011
The Greens won their first ever lower-house seat, Jamie Parker in Balmain, in the recent NSW state election. They won 10.3 per cent in the lower house, up 1.3 per cent. With 90 per cent of counting complete for the upper chamber, they have 11.16 per cent, up 2 per cent on 2007. They have two more senators, to give them a total of four. A third senate candidate, Jeremy Buckingham, is narrowly leading Pauline Hanson for the final seat.
But... is that good?
On the face of it, yes. It's the Greens' highest ever vote and first lower house seat. They are clearly the third party in Australian politics. The gap between them and the Labor Party is closing.
But with so many voters deserting Labor, the fact the Greens didn't pick up another 2 or 3 per cent must be a worry.
One issue that may have hurt the Greens was the call to boycott Israel by Marrikville candidate Fiona Byrne (in her capacity as Marrickville mayor), supported by prominent NSW Green Lee Rhiannon. This foray into left-ist fringe politics was a godsend to conservative media commentators keen to portray the Greens as extremist lunatics.
Greens leader Bob Brown thought so. "NSW voters wanted to hear about issues that were effecting them day to day ... I think it was damaging to the campaign," Senator Brown said.
The Greens are at a tricky point in their evolution. As the only party that takes climate change seriously, they will continue to grow, because climate change is the key issue of our time.
But growth brings challenges. Being a junior partner in government risks means you are tarred with the same brush when the government is on the nose. It also means compromising, as with the carbon tax, and thus risking alienating your own core support.
The Greens must do two things. Firstly, they must find candidates who come across as intelligent, respectable, reasonable people who do not alienate "middle Australia". Bob Browns, not Lee Rhiannons.
Secondly, they must keep focused on their core issue, which is the environmental.
Political parties need a core narrative, a guiding principle at their heart. Liberals stand for the free market. Labor stands for worker rights and universal access to public services such as education and health. (Labor's problem is they no longer believe unequivocally in either of these.)
