In my experience from my kid’s primary, it means a kid threw a chair or something. Unable to regulate their behaviour = big tantrum. And shutdown = stay in their classroom.
Stuff that happened in the 1980s semi regularly at my school without a message to parents, because they couldn’t.
If I posted photos publicly anywhere else, Meta could use those too right… because they are public?
Do you also have a robot vacuum cleaner?
I stated today somewhere on Blitz that Australia was in crisis because of politicians… The prosecution rests, your honour.
Thursday 3 October 2024
Australia is rich in coal, gas, and sunlight. Low-cost energy used to be a competitive advantage for the nation.
However, through pure incompetence and “net zero” pig-headedness, our policymakers turn energy into a cost-of-living nightmare and competitive disadvantage for the nation.
Already this year, we have witnessed Qenos – Australia’s last plastics manufacturer – shut down due to high energy prices.
Qenos’ announcement to close came amid Australia’s manufacturing share falling to the lowest level in the OECD.
Multiple other major manufacturers, including Nestle and PepsiCo, have also threatened to leave Australia due to high energy costs.
On Wednesday, ABC News reported on how South Australian businesses are being hammered by surging electricity costs, which is threatening their viability and resulting in cost inflation.
Adelaide bakery Vili’s, which has 350 staff and produces about 50,000 pies daily, has been hit with 22% increase in electricity costs, which will add 25 cents to the cost of a pie.
“Our energy bills are around the $500,000 mark, and obviously our increase on top of that, well, you know, we’re looking at roughly an extra $100,000 on top of that number”, manager Peter Utry said.
“We understand that everybody’s doing it tough, but as a business, if you’re not passing your increased costs onto your customers, you’re not going to have a business”.
South Australian ice cream maker Golden North renewed its electricity contract in January and was hit with a 50% rise in electricity costs.
“So that increase … is worth $197,000 a year. So our power’s gone up from just over $400,000 to just over $600,000 a year”, Operations manager Rick Willis said.
Last week dairy producer Beston Global Food Company cited onerous energy prices as a key factor behind it entering administration, placing 160 jobs at risk.
Australian Industry Group CEO Innes Willox said that Australian energy prices spiked in 2022 because of conflict overseas.
"Australia used to be historically very cheap when it came to energy. That was one of our great competitive advantages, and we’ve lost that advantage”, he said.
“It’s always heartbreaking when you hear of companies [shutting] their doors because of energy prices”.
“If we start losing local businesses that are energy reliant, we lose the heart and soul of the community that we live in”, Willox said.
How can Australia expect to be competitive in manufacturing with high-cost energy due to policy failure?
East Coast Australia is a major gas exporter, sending more than 70% of its gas supply overseas, particularly to China.
However, because there is no domestic gas reservation mechanism in place on the East Coast, Australians pay globally high energy prices.
Australia’s high gas prices have pushed up electricity prices, further increasing costs for businesses and households.
Meanwhile, China and Japan are receiving more Australian gas than they require and are re-exporting it to third countries for profit.
If the Albanese government simply followed Western Australia and every other gas exporter on the planet and set aside a reasonable portion of our East Coast export gas for domestic consumption while regulating its cost using traditional cost-plus pricing, Australia would have low-cost gas and electricity, as well as a more competitive manufacturing sector.
Australia’s manufacturing would expand on its own, without the need for government subsidies, because low-cost energy would become a comparative advantage rather than a disadvantage.
Western Australia has low gas and electricity prices, despite being a significant gas exporter.
The United States is now the world’s largest gas exporter, yet domestic prices remain low (less than US$2.50 per gigajoule) thanks to its gas reservation policy. The United States has also decreased carbon emissions by transitioning from coal to gas.
If the federal government fixes the East Coast gas market through reservation and cost-plus price regulation, then energy costs will plummet, our manufacturing industry will become significantly more competitive, and overall inflation and cost-of-living pressures will abate.
However, if it continues to pander to foreign governments and the gas cartel, keeping gas and electricity prices high, then cost-push inflation will run rampant and only taxpayer-subsidised industry will remain in Australia.
Australia’s economic future depends on affordable energy.
This is an American article, but it applies to Australia also.
Published Fri, Oct 4 2024 6:02 AM EDT
Between 1979 and 2024, productivity in the U.S. soared by 80.9%, while hourly pay grew by just 29.4%, according to research by the Economic Policy Institute.
This trend has often been referred to as wage stagnation. But more recently, some economists have suggested that deliberate policy decisions have actively suppressed workers’ wage growth.
One reason might be the unreasonably high rate of unemployment in the U.S.
“Economists produce this thing they call the natural rate of unemployment,” explained Josh Bivens, the chief economist at the Economic Policy Institute. “It’s like the lowest unemployment can go without generating inflation.”
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the natural rate of unemployment has hovered between 4.5% and 5.5% throughout history. But since 1979, the U.S. has spent far more time with actual unemployment well above that estimated natural rate.
This has real-world consequences for the American middle-class because wages tend to grow faster during periods when unemployment is low.
“The best bargaining chip any employee has to getting wage growth is going to the boss and saying, ‘I’m going to go somewhere else unless I make more money,’” said Bivens. “And that’s just not a credible threat when unemployment is high.”
And… An Australian centric article on a similar theme from mid last year.
You’ll need to click on the below link as the charts enbedded in the article won’t copy across.
I’m only pushing this barrow because of a discussion in another thread.
Not sure that I am a fan at all of Leith van Onselen , the author of this story and many others that roam away from the facts. He has a negative slant on most of his economic articles.
The real reason why QENOS has closed is more to do with the collapse of the Chinese economy than the cost of energy.
That has been a problem for about 15 years. Governments got so excited about the scale of the CSG projects in QLD that they begged for the investment. Provided lucrative tax incentives and whatnot. Absolutely zero effective protections on the domestic supply. Now that those export deals are signed, it’s unfair to mandate some of that gas get diverted.
I don’t know if it was the Howard or Rudd federal government or if it was the QLD state government that folded on the issue, but the failure was of the 2005-2010 vintage of decision makers. Albanese is just copping the incompetence of those before him.
@Bacchusfox I have no idea to the cause of the QENOS collapse, so I’ve looked it up. I dunno if this report is accurate or not.
Apr 18, 2024
“The decision to place Qenos into administration reflects the erosion of key pillars of Australia’s industrial landscape – and risks causing much more. Federal and State governments have begun to refocus on industry strategy just as the consequences of many years of inattention and lightweight policy are being felt,” Innes Willox, Chief Executive of national employer association Ai Group, said today.
"The causes and consequences of Qenos’s closure are wide. A whole range of industrial and commercial products depends on the flow of resources and materials between oil and gas producers, refiners, chemicals businesses like Qenos, intermediate manufacturers of products like food and beverage packaging, and downstream users like food processors. Any house in Australia will have multiple polyethylene products in it.
"The closure of the ExxonMobil refinery in Victoria in 2021, driven by age and the pressures of the pandemic, dealt a blow to Qenos and many other businesses in the industrial ecosystem. A major plant outage added to the problems. But most of all, the long-term rise in natural gas prices eroded Qenos’s competitiveness and its prospects. Prices rose over the past decade because of the take-off of LNG exports, the erosion of Southern gas production, and the lack of adequate planning to manage these long-foreseen developments.
"The current Federal Government intervened in gas markets starting in 2022 to respond to the extraordinary price surge that followed the invasion of Ukraine. Their Mandatory Gas Code of Conduct is forceful where previous governments’ support for gas users was merely rhetorical. But if the Code succeeds in its goals – and it is still too early to say that it will – gas prices will still be three times their pre-LNG average.
"Qenos is surely not the only industrial gas user to be unviable at these prices; and more businesses may shrink or collapse without the local product supply and demand for goods and services that Qenos provided. Full reliance on imported inputs will mean some businesses have no compelling reason to manufacture locally. Circular economy projects to more fully recycle plastics are just getting going and cannot yet fill the gap that Qenos will leave. Chaotic disruption of sovereign supply chains is a risk.
"Meanwhile for those gas users who can manage under higher prices, the prospect of supply shortfalls looms. The loss of Qenos’s demand pushes those fears back only slightly, with production in the Bass Strait rapidly declining. There is not yet a convincing plan to stave off the shortfall on the supply or demand sides.
"Natural gas use will decline over time for economic and emissions reasons, but that must be by adopting better solutions to our needs, rather than failing to meet them. The States and the Federal Government need to get serious about navigating our gas transition. Businesses across the country use gas today for process heat or feedstock. That will not change rapidly or without effort. And the economics of alternatives are still often a struggle.
“There is more pain to come, and it will not be confined to the 700 workers directly impacted by the Qenos closure. We need a coordinated response to the ripples of this closure, especially in the chemicals and packaging sectors; and a convincing long-term plan for reliable and affordable industrial energy. Qenos’s facilities were in Victoria and New South Wales, but the risks are national. All the States and the Commonwealth need to work together to halt further industrial decline,” Mr Willox said.
Canary in the coal mine?
QENOS were a good customer of mine for about 40 years, under a variety of names and ownership including ICI. They were the only manufacturer of PE and PP with plants at Botany NSW and Altona Victoria. For many years they struggled with outdated plant but had a great technical centre and a major employer of scientists and engineers.
The local market for these polymers fell due to lower cost imports of raw materials and finished products from over Asia and they nearly went under a few times, and then were taken over by a Chinese Company about 15 years ago, who modernised factories and purchased lots of QC equipment from us. The products were all exported to China for the growing needs of industry there.
The Chinese markets now have an over production of most polymers, so it is cheaper to source them in China hence QENOS has suffered with higher costs and smaller customer base.
The articles are all about the cost of gas and while this has added to expenses, it is only a very small part of the issue.
I do agree that Australia needs much better policy on gas production and distribution. It is a major export earner and benefits us with this income. Though in the long term it may be of more benefit to our world to stop gas production entirely and do more in renewables.
I question the motivations behind these articles and your reasons for posting them, as they do not create a true picture.
I applied for an internship there 18 years ago and they never responded, so ■■■■ em.
I’m petty, sue me.
They were always a difficult Company to work with, slow payers, strange workplace rules, but it all changed when the Chinese took over. The Staff had been worried that a Chinese owner would mean loss of workplace privileges and decreased wages but it was the opposite.
Now all Staff were given good redundancy packages and all monies owing for holidays, leave service have been honoured as well.
It will be tough for many of them to find jobs though.
And their parent company announces the advanced development of glasses which can identify anyone live.
What a creepy world we live in.
Id really like the government to ban “smart glasses”.
IMO, this article from The Guardian is way more interesting…
NSW police say the man was reported missing last year and alleged his body was cut up to hide the remains
Australian Associated Press
Sat 5 Oct 2024 08.32 AEST
A Sydney woman has been charged with murdering her husband, almost 18 months since he was last seen.
New South Wales police said on Saturday that the woman, 53, allegedly cut up the 62-year-old’s body in order to hide his remains.
An investigation into the man’s disappearance began in July 2023, when police said they were called to a home at Greenacre in Sydney’s west after he had not been seen since May.
In a statement, police said his disappearance was later deemed suspicious.
A woman, who police identified as the missing man’s wife, was arrested at a hospital in Bankstown on Thursday.
She was charged with murder and was remanded in custody after facing court on Friday.
The woman is due to return to court in December.
Doing it for equality
Find Australia on this list.
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/ranked-the-worlds-most-innovative-countries-in-2024/
The QENOS enquiry stems from your question of accuracy in an article about the high cost of power, particularly gas, in Australia. In a total of 6-lines within the entire article, the author claimed QENOS closed down due to power costs. Him, not me.
It’s an Australian news article posted in the General Australian News thread. I thought you’re supposed to post articles for comment and discussion. Isn’t high power costs a current talking point?
You also challenged the author of the article as to accuracy and reliability. He’s been writing articles for a fair amount of time, but I personally have never been in a situation to fact check him. I’d could only guess that the author has some sort of historical reliability and accuracy. But I dunno.
Querying your point on the QENOS closure, I researched another article on the issue which I also posted. This time the article was the work of the AI Group. A peak national employer organisation.
Once again, it’s not my research or words in the article. Just me posting for comment, discussion and possibly correcting misconceptions.
With all due respect, if you don’t like the content of the articles, I can’t help that. Either both articles are wrong, or you @Bacchusfox need to readjust your perceptions.
