Australian Politics
ABC host Leigh Sales shares her astonishing virus theory as the virus tidal wave hits just before Christmas
Leigh Sales has shared her theory for why Covid case numbers may be rising ahead of Christmas. The ABC host questioned whether high testing numbers prompted by travel requirements are behind the recent spike in NSW.
'Queues for covid testing in Sydney are suddenly long, partly because of people needing a test to travel,' she wrote on Twitter. 'Is it possible that's why case numbers are up - catching more asymptomatic people who otherwise would be invisible?'
Testing numbers have been steadily climbing in NSW, reaching 104,501 on Wednesday, the highest figure since October 13.
South Australia, Queensland and Tasmania are requiring negative tests for inter-state entry.
It comes as the number of Covid-19 cases in NSW is expected to increase again after the highest count in more than three months, with predictions they could hit 25,000 infections a day in January.
The state reported 1,360 cases from 104,501 tests on Wednesday, prompting NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet to repeat his call for the focus to shift to people in hospitals and ICU, of which there were 166 and 24 respectively.
While hospitalisations generally lag infection spikes, Mr Perrottet has 'complete confidence' the hospital system will cope thanks to the state's 93.2 per cent full vaccination coverage.
The Omicron variant is believed to be behind an increasing number of cases, with Newcastle and Sydney seeing a surge.
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Australian businesses are desperate for staff - but instead of going back to mass immigration, we should END the dole and get lazy Aussies off their backsides, writes MARK LATHAM
Sometimes in politics you can only shake your head in amazement as to how public policy is made.
For nearly 30 years our governments have been spending billions of dollars supposedly to make young Australians 'job ready' through vocational training.
Now, in the post-Covid economic recovery, we are being told there are 50,000 fruit picking jobs, 30,000 hospitality vacancies and 15,000 trades and construction jobs in NSW that can only be filled by foreign workers.
Pacific Islanders have been brought in for the farm harvest - while the other positions will be filled by going back to big immigration numbers of 200,000 per annum.
Meanwhile, some parts of western Sydney and country NSW have youth unemployment rates of 30 and 40 percent.
How hard is it to ensure Australians get first crack at the jobs?
The immigration program should be designed, first and foremost, for the benefit of people who live here now, not new arrivals.
Australia has a one-off opportunity to reduce unemployment to zero and slash the cost of the dole for taxpayers.
Yet the Federal and State Governments are blowing it through their obsession with 'Big Immigration' and going soft on welfare abuse.
There are so many job vacancies at the moment, anyone who says they can't find work is not really looking for it.
The only possible barrier for some is a vaccination requirement, but in many NSW workplaces this ended today (December 15) with the abolition of vaccine passports.
Bringing workers from overseas puts pressure on housing prices and adds to urban congestion. It floods the labour market and holds down wages.
The logical alternative is to end the dole.
We can't have permanent youth unemployment in Australia, a generation who think that work is optional and taxpayers will carry them forever.
Ending the dole would be a culture shock to these job snobs, a wake up call about the necessity of work.
It would end the labour shortages quick smart, save the government vast amounts of money and avoid an over-reliance on overseas workers.
If young people in particular got off their backsides they would find work tomorrow on farms and in cafes, restaurants and pubs.
What's wrong with these Liberals – Morrison, Treasurer Frydenberg and Premier Perrottet – that they only see the soft option as viable? Why have they lost the ability and backbone to make tough but effective decisions for Australia?
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The miserable ghost is a dogmatic Warmist
It fits with his Leftist leanings
Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has unleashed a vicious spray on Australia’s climate change deniers, labelling the conspiracy theorists as “crackers” and “mad”.
Speaking at the Australian National University on Wednesday, Mr Turnbull warned that controversial viewpoints were no longer a punchline, insisting those who denied the environmental impacts of fossil fuels now held real power over Australia’s future.
“There used to be a time where we would say 17 per cent of people believe the world is flat, Elvis is still alive, and martians are present and living among us,” he said.
“And you‘d sort of shrug that off as being mildly amusing.”
“But when you have people disbelieving facts … you have, not eccentric points of view, but positions that have real consequences.”
The former PM then turned his attention to his political rivals, taking a subtle dig at John Howard and Tony Abbott as he recounted “an example of craziness” about climate change.
Mr Turnbull said he had tried to convince prominent conspiracy theorist and Sydney businessman Maurice Newman that climate change was real, but Mr Newman was too insane to listen.
“I was spending some time with Maurice Newman – a good friend of John Howard‘s and Tony Abbott’s,” he said. “I said to Maurice: ‘what if I asked one of our top climate scientists to summarise in one page, what the key (climate) points are, basically an exposition of atmospheric physics’.”
But when Mr Turnbull presented the evidence of global warming to Mr Newman, he said the powerful businessman responded with a rant claiming Australia’s universities, media, and government organisations were all in on the same evil conspiracy about fake climate change.
“It sounds crackers, but we are dealing in an age where there is a lot of madness about,” Mr Turnbull said.
Mr Turnbull urged the Morrison government to rein in its own conspiracy theorist MPs, insisting Australia was now running out of time to avoid a climate catastrophe.
“We’ve been caught by this poisonous political Troika that has bedevilled climate policy in Australia for so long,” he said.
“We‘ve got a long term problem, but we don’t have a lot of time to address it. “We’ve got to get cracking between now and 2030
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Just two in 10 Australian motorists plan to buy electric vehicles
Australia’s efforts to reduce transport emissions are in jeopardy, as new data reveals just 16 per cent of motorists intend to make their next car purchase an electric vehicle.
Despite earlier research finding Australia must phase out petrol cars by 2035 to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050, a new survey by Compare The Market finds more than half of motorists may buy another one.
The comparison firm asked 1000 Australians when they plan to replace their current vehicle and found 70 per cent will be in the market for a new car by 2025.
But fewer than two in 10 said they would buy an EV, and a further 49 per cent said they were still undecided.
Those findings are ominous because new cars last 14 years on average, meaning the vehicles motorists buy today will affect Australia’s carbon budget as the nation moves towards net-zero emissions by 2050.
That was a major conclusion from a Grattan Institute report earlier this year, which said Australia must make EVs cheaper to speed up the transition away from petrol and diesel cars.
“Electric vehicles will become more accessible to more people in the future, but with many Australians planning their next car purchase during the next few years, we might not see improved prices in time,” Compare The Market’s Stephen Zeller said of the new survey data on Wednesday.
“It would seem that for the majority of Australians, an electric vehicle might still be one more car purchase away, but their next petrol car might well be their last.”
Worryingly, more than a third of survey respondents in New South Wales and Victoria (Australia’s largest states) said their next purchase will not be an electric vehicle. That’s more than twice the number who said they would buy an EV.
Jake Whitehead, research fellow at the University of Queensland and an expert on EV policies, said he was unsurprised by the survey’s findings. Dr Whitehead said inadequate government policies mean EVs are still too expensive in Australia to entice more buyers to make the switch.
“We shouldn’t read too much into just one survey, but the undecided group is a big opportunity,” he told The New Daily.
Dr Whitehead said his research shows the majority of Australians are interested in buying an EV. But a lack of choice is discouraging many from making the leap.
“The policy settings aren’t in place to encourage that undecided group to definitively purchase an electric vehicle,” he said.
Though growing quickly, electric vehicle sales accounted for less than 2 per cent of total light vehicle sales in the first half of 2021, according to data from the Electric Vehicle Council.
The global average is 4.2 per cent, while other comparable economies like the UK have achieved rates above 10 per cent in the past year.
One reason for that is choice. Australians can choose between just over 30 EV models right now, but Britons can choose between more than 130.
Dr Whitehead said Australia needs a national EV sales target to encourage manufacturers to sell more models Down Under.
He said the current patchwork of state government policies isn’t enough to bridge the gap and ensure Australia sells its last petrol car by 2035.
“It’s a major risk for all states as well as the country in achieving [emissions] reduction targets,” he said. “We need a major transition and the longer you delay, the more disruptive it becomes.”
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/finance-news/2021/12/15/electric-vehicles-buying/
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
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