We have John Howard to thank for that.

Before we get rid of the Senate we need to have a purge & get rid of most of them, albeit that it results in some initial chaos. We need to also change how we select those put up for election to give a better chance of not getting a rabble like we have. We also need a viable third political party.

Limited natural resources.
simple things like supply of water and an increasing expansion in the population, does not work in this country.
The droughts tend to highlight the issues of water supply for the big cities and the expanding suburbs, as well as the farms to the west of the major populations on the east coast.
So the building boom, yeah great, generates jobs, but the developers, mostly from overseas, buy up large amounts of farming land and bush land, take the profits and that's it, bye bye.
So now we have all these new housing estates and councils have to fork out the money for infrastructure, roads, power water and sewage, but also needed are more emergency services, to support the increasing growth.
Why haven't the developers, been made to support the infrastructure for at least 20 years, to assist the councils.

We loose farmland, bush land, the underground water becomes contaminated, but yeah, new jobs created.
The green party, has it a bit confused, mines, rehabilitate the land after the mine has finished in the area, so the land is returned to the way it was or better, with dams and areas for wildlife and farming returned, I have seen many areas that you would not know the difference after five years.

Now the Green party, most live in inner city Melbourne, they support the idea of housing estates on farming land and bush land.

But the housing estates, they clear all the land, take away the topsoil, you buy that back from the landscapers.
So we end up with the water courses changing, the flow of water is not slowed, and due to that, the top up of underground water is reduced, and when it does rain, we get flooding, since all the trees are knocked down, the winds are not slowed, so higher evaporation, salt levels rise in the area, effects of storms are more pronounced.
The land can never be reclaimed for farming or bush land.
looks like in the future we may need to get used to drinking water recycled from sewage and desalination of salt water.


I see the greens have gone quiet about the claims they made regarding the coal fired power stations and coal mining causing sea level rises in the pacific, and causing the flooding of many south pacific island countries.
Fact is, most of the islands, that were wanting to make compensation claims against Australia, are sinking, proven with surveying equipment and the GPS, Glonass, BeiDou satellite systems.
Putting a stick in the sand to mark the water level, doesn't show if the water is rising or the land is sinking.

simple things like supply of water and an increasing expansion in the population, does not work in this country.

Yes, it cracks me up when the supporters of "Big Australia" advocate for an accelerated population increase. Sydney now has 5.2m people. Melbourne reportedly hit the 5.0m yesterday and yet there is only 25m people on the continent. Governments don't have the money to make the infrastructure catch up to the demand, try as some of them might.

" We'll all be rooned" said Hanrahan
Before the year is out "

Place was virtually Cactus before the year started: Can't Govern what you don't own.

We need a Donald Trump over here lol.

Further to my post 6 above about the Banking Royal Commission, the new government does not include a dedicated financial services or superannuation minister (superannuation a $3 trillion industry), which sectors were previously covered by Kelly O'Dwyer. Given big changes are likely to the sector after the Royal Commission, this is surprising. Also, corporate regulator Australian Securities and Investments Commission, (ASIC) has no one to report to, since it previously reported to Kelly O'Dwyer.

The new treasurer has said that "Ministerial responsibilities within the Treasury portfolio will be announced in due course". This probably means that either the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg or Assistant Treasurer Stuart Roberts might get the gig. Let's hope someone does as the new Prime Minister voted against the royal Commission - "a populist whinge".

Lets also hope that the omission is a result of the confusion of the government change, and not an indication of a weakening of policy in fixing the criminality revealed by the Royal Commissioner.

In any parliamentary democracy, an elected government succeeds only to the extent they can manage the bureaucracy.
Left to its own devices, a bureaucracy will grow and in doing so absorb an increasing percentage of GDP..

Labor governments are notoriously bad at managing the growth of the bureaucracy, which is why you always see economic downturn under a Labor government. As Winston Churchill said when asked what was going to happen prior to WW2, "study history".

On the subject of never-ending growth so dear to the hearts of some pollies and lots of developers, as mentioned by Brad water or the lack of it is the key. When I was doing a uni degree as a (very) mature age student I did a year of environmental science and got on very well with the teaching staff as we all about the same age. One of the professors had made a study of old historical weather records and other geographical information since the arrival of Europeans and concluded that before including any effects of global warming, the maximum population that the Australian continent could support was about 22 million. After that we would be using more water than the system could replenish. We are over that by 3 million people now and certain vested interested interests are determined to push ahead with fracking even if it damages/destroys ground water supplies and development in water catchment areas leading to pollution of major dams. The Goyder's Line across South Australia was an early recognition of the problem and has been proved to have been correct. In the USA where underground aquifers supply a lot of their cities there is a growing shortage as these sources become polluted with industrial waste ('Silicon Valley' in particular). Common sense would suggest that Australia could learn from this but our pollies seem determined to copy American mistakes like we try to copy everything else they do. (The JLA - Just Like America syndrome.) In the public service there was the instruction that we follow 'Worlds Best Practice' but when I asked what that actually was, the answer was always whatever they do in America.

In saying/writing this I am not being anti-American but it seems that our pollies and their advisors (who are NOT Public Servants) fail to understand that America is a very different country with a much larger population and very different priorities. Just because something suits their requirements and works in the USA does not mean that it is automatically suitable here. In my time as a middle level public servant it was apparent that 85%+ of the pollies were from a legal background and 99% had no knowledge of even the basics of science and mathematics (unless they had to calculate their perks, entitlements and lifetime super payouts). [One particular pollie with a passing resemblance to a potato seems to have a problem with arithmetic as he could not even add up the number of his supporters.] Having spent many hours drafting detailed 20+ page briefing papers for various Ministers and then seen the filtering process these papers went through as they passed through senior management and then the Minister's staff to finally arrive as a single paragraph on the Minister's desk, I'm not surprised that the pollies remain ill-informed and pass stupid policies with the full confidence of ignorance. It is not surprising that they cannot even get their Party Room affairs in order.

Andrew

Just remember, "World's Best Practice" is usually not the best practice.

Today we hear that the salination plant in Sydney will finally need to be turned on by October as we are running out of water. The problem is, the thing got damaged in a storm and it won't be ready until Christmas.

I've heard it will use massive amounts of electricity. Therefore, get ready for increases in the price of both water and electricity.

What a mess these politicians have made.

I don't usually comment on political matters but compulsory superannuation is common to all employees or retirees of whatever political persuasion. So I think I am on neutral territory. The banking Royal Commission has shown that federal governments, not just the present, haven't adequately regulated the major financial institutions since the introduction of compulsory super.

Why they don't is puzzling as the push for productivity is relentless; superannuation rorts would increase wage costs across the board. And also increase Government pensions for retirees, because self-funded super payments will be reduced.

Its seems to be a general governing policy today of state and federal governments, from electrical standards to agricultural water use to superannuation and banking, that regulation should be strong but compliance weak by under-funding and/or under-staffing regulating agencies.

Regarding electrical standards, these appear to be prone to being bypassed because of free trade agreements as well.

There are downsides to high immigration: For example most migrants are males (look at pictures of a typical load of boatpeople, especially from South and East Asia that have high male imbalance to start with.) This leads to increased harassment and assaults on women. There's a chapter on this phenomenon in Ann Coulter's 2016 book - I noticed Trump was using it in 2016 campaign, without citing source.

- continued:

If I'm right, Sydney & Melbourne must have a surfeit of young men...looking for jobs...and company.

Nightclub owners exploit this by offering 'free cover charge' for ladies -- and high entrance fees for men

Back in the 1990s the State Bank of NSW ran an ad on how easy it was to remember a six digit PIN number that could double as a password and they were the first bank that allowed customers to set their own PIN/password at the ATM.

They used that very example in the ad - where a couple of blokes needed to flick a tenner to a bouncer to get inside a nightclub, the State Bank customer easily remembered his password even after a skin full and got in and the bloke with the conventional PIN number forgot his and lucked out.

They were the days - when ATMs issued $10 notes and one felt wealthy having one.