Chair of the committee, Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson, asked Rainforest Reserves Australia’s vice-president, Steven Nowakowski, who had funded nine full-page newspaper advertisements promoting an open letter attacking a shift to renewable energy and promoting nuclear.
Nowakowski said they were paid for by donations, some coming from the signatories of the letter, but would not name them.
Referring to a submission about the proposed Moonlight Range Wind Farm which was later refused by the Queensland government, Labor senator Michelle Ananda-Rajah said: “Seven of the 15 references you cite in opposition to this windfarm appear to be completely fabricated.”
One of those references was a 2018 report on contamination at the Oakey Windfarm published by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2018. There is no windfarm in Oakey and Queensland has not had an EPA since 2009.
Nowakowski said: “This is just a distraction …” but was closed down by Ananda-Rajah.
You can’t lose what you don’t have. The Libs have been almost completely purged from inner city and inner suburban seats everywhere (with the absolutely inexplicable exception of Tim Wilson). Theres nobody left in the lib party room to stand up for the interests of MPs in those seats. The current lib leadership are mostly concerned with acting all hairy-chested and right wing in order to save their own regional seats from One Nation.
I’m just waiting for the liberals to explain how refurbishing worn out coal stations , building new nuclear , building new coal plants, with carbon capture and storage mind you, will lower emissions and by how much? and lowers bills and when and by how much ? that’s the same questions they are asking Labor except they intend to spend a ■■■■ load more than labor
so what happens now ? the teals ? a new party ? there is a huge gaping hole in Australian politics now that the Liberals and national parties have descended into a farcical joke. I would put money on a new centre right party within the next few years
Is this little Timmy saying they should finally go it alone and let go the apron strings? Because let’s face it, they’ve only been pretending to be the bigger partner, the Nats have been wagging the dog for years when it counts, them and the fringe nutters. Scions of the Blueblood-acracy follow Little Timmy into the suburbs beyond the leafy canopy and rub shoulders with the plebs, but always know the pool house at mum and dads is ready to go, as is the Portsea manse. Wankkers
I had dinner last night with two Comrades who are Federal Ministers. It was a social catchup which evolved into a lively discussion on Labor Government and the frustrations of the job.
The older bloke was a Minister in Rudd-Gillard time and related the initiatives and progress made in that period in his portfolio, and the frustrations over the next Government dismantling and neglecting these changes. He has been rebuilding again, but the fear seems to be that unless Labor becomes the longterm Government it desires that this cycle would continue. The other first time Minister also related his fear that all the work being done in his portfolio takes more than one or even two terms to consolidate, so they are compelled to act cautiously.
Neither were trying to excuse the criticisms I made over a lack of ambition in the Albanese Government or an apparent abandonment of Labor values.
Now me being me, and having drunk a good measure of Shiraz rejected the approach as weak and suggested that if this tactic had been followed by Whitlam/Hawke/Keating then all the great Labor programmes of the last 50 years would be dust. They countered by saying that the stop/start policy development actually is more destructive and leads to watered down actions.
My conclusions are that we do have a strong and talented Government that have a sound vision for a longterm reign. I reject the tactics as we need change to the structure now and not rely on marginal outcomes, and the dramatic shifts we saw in 1972 are what our entire Nation needs.
Our discussion ended with an agreement from both to be bold and brave. While I know their hearts are pure that extra bottle of red influenced the promise, and I wonder how they feel today.
