Australian Politics
Inside the disastrous renewable energy project that's blown out in cost by $10BILLION after it was plagued by sinkholes, gas leaks and flooding
Pumped storage is an attractive idea in many ways but this project should be a warning about how it can go badly wrong in practice
The 'complex' Snowy Hydro 2.0 project continues to face delays, months after a sinkhole and a gas leak caused operational difficulties.
ABC's Four Corners program revealed on Monday the $2bn project, which has since blown out to $12bn, has faced a number of safety and operational delays.
The project's use of a $150m 400-tonne boring machine, called Florence, has caused chaos for workers and planners in recent months.
The tunnel project, which aims to dig the 15km journey below Kosciuszko National Park, was launched in March 2022.
Four Corners reported on Monday Florence has only completed 150m since the project began because of geotechnical issues the workers faced when they hit soft ground 100m into the dig.
The stalled project has added another $2bn to the budget blowout, according to Four Corners.
Despite the initial concerns, the project continued on when the machine became bogged due to water and soft ground.
'We would push forward 50cm then spend the next week clearing out all the mud and water from around the tunnel boring machine,' one worker told Four Corners.
'Sometimes there was 3 to 4 feet of water around the machine.'
To ensure the project could continue, so-called 'slurry system' equipment was ordered but it was designed on inappropriate modelling.
Snowy Hydro chief executive Dennis Barnes, who was appointed in February, told a Senate estimates hearing on Monday the Florence machine continued to operate despite the difficulties it had experienced.
'There's been no point since Florence experienced this soft ground in November 2022 that the machine has not been in some way been able to move forward,' Mr Barnes said. 'It's not bogged, it is able to move.'
Mr Barnes accepted he was naive when he took on the project earlier this year and informed a previous Senate inquiry that the project would be up and running sooner rather than later.
'I'm sorry to have understated the restarting of Florence ... it was far more complex than I anticipated,' he said.
The project also saw a sinkhole open up just before Christmas. Mr Barnes said this sinkhole was just outside the construction boundary.
The tunnel also filled up with toxic gas in July as the work was underway in an attempt to stabilise the ground around the Florence machine.
Mr Barnes told Senate estimates this was caused by a chemical reaction which caused isocyanate, a hazardous chemical.
SafeWork NSW told Four Corners the gas posed a 'serious imminent risk' to 'health and safety' and labelled the Snowy 2.0 project as having 'inadequate control measures ... to prevent exposure to a harmful substance'.
The project had also been issued a number of fines by the NSW Environment and Heritage Department.
Mr Barnes said the project was working with the state government to meet its compliance obligations and assured the Senate estimates hearing on Monday that the project is about 40 per cent complete.
Mr Barnes said while 'design immaturity and geotechnical issues' had initially added to the budget blowout, the project still was important for Australia.
'The market really does need this asset and I would characterise this as something good for the Australian market,' he said.
'We have taken third party modelling and determined that over and above the $12bn there's still a $3bn (estimated portfolio value).'
Snowy 2.0 has been pitched as a critical driver to the renewables transition and will aim to create enough clean energy to power half a million homes.
As of June, $4.3bn had been spent on the project, and is expected to be fully operational in late 2028.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12662139/Snowy-2-0-delays.html
*********************************************Labor’s business blueprint will make Peter Dutton PM
If the government’s 784-page “close the loopholes” blueprint for conducting business in Australia passes the Senate, Peter Dutton is highly likely to become the next prime minister.
Just like in the early days of the voice referendum proposal few, including most government politicians, have studied the detail and understand that the blueprint represents an unprecedented attack on the sort of people who dominate the less affluent electorates that voted No.
In the vicinity of 75 per cent of the ALP’s 77 seats in the House of Representatives voted No and a large number will simply not stand for their elected representatives again supporting actions favouring the views of the affluent rather than ordinary Australians.
The 784-page business blueprint is really a multitude of different actions, so people keep discovering new horrors as they study the pages, particularly the nasties hidden in the 500-page explanatory memorandum.
The latest horror to be revealed is that Australia’s 2.7 million casual workers are destined for a cash pay cut if the legislation passes.
I will explain the detail below.
Many of those using casual work, particularly in the No vote areas, have been able to keep up their mortgage payments because of the high cash rewards available in casual work.
The seven independents in the Senate have a unique decision to make. If two of them allow the “closing the loopholes” business blueprint to pass the Senate, then they will very likely have made Dutton prime minister.
In addition, the fury created in the nation when millions discover they are the “loopholes” will almost certainly cost some independents their Senate places. If all seven reject the bill then Anthony Albanese has a much better chance of having a second term as Prime Minister.
Casuals are not the only victims and my regular readers will be aware of some of the other targets.
The business blueprint confuses employment arrangements and commercial contracts. This means that enterprises like those providing regular gardening, electrical, plumbing, IT and many other services must prepare for years of legal chaos. And if they find that, unintentionally, they have broken these incredibly complex laws they may suffer enormous penalties.
Currently, as I explained under the heading “Lack of certainty as to whether firms are obeying or breaking the law,” we have clear laws as to whether a person is a contractor or an employee, thus enabling small enterprises to do their jobs without a legal morass.
Accordingly, the blueprint represents an unprecedented attack on the Australian small and medium-sized businesses that dominate economies in the “No” electorates.
But the legislation gets even more nasty as it attacks around 50,000 long-haul truck drivers who have borrowed to buy their truck — usually securing the loan against the family home.
Back in the Gillard government days the government set up one of the most feared anti-small business bodies ever conceived in Australia: the infamous so called Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, which set about putting independent truckies out of business.
Thanks to the courageous effort of the Senate independents in 2016 the truck owners were saved, but not before five took their own lives after being threatened with the tribunal brutality.
Now, once again, truck drivers are in danger of becoming a “loophole” that needs to be closed, so the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal will restored to do the job. Will the independents again save truckies from turmoil?
Around 60 per cent of residents in Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ Queensland electorate of Rankin voted No. As well as many casual workers, contractors and truckies, the electorate also has many pensioners who were delighted when their local member, as Treasurer, announced they would be able to earn more money without impacting their pension. They planned to accept his advice to use the vast number of gig platforms available to easily obtain suitable work.
If the business blueprint passes they will discover that the gig platforms are yet another “loophole” and must be destroyed. They will find it hard to get the extra revenue. While the attack on contractors, truckies, and pensioners is vicious, the attack on casual workers goes beyond belief
I can’t recall a government ever having the audacity to base a looming election campaign on reducing the cash income of 2.7 million battling Australians (mostly No voters) partly because of the government politicians’ desire to please its affluent friends, particularly union officials who live in prosperous Yes voting seats.
Step one is to virtually abolish casual work by making the definition so complex that no one can risk employing a casual because the fines for paying people extra via the casual employment classification can be up to $93,000. Accordingly the casual labour “loophole” is closed.
Most existing casuals will need to transfer to full-time employment, or, more likely, part-time employee status. That means 2.7 million will receive a lower income.
Casuals earn more money than full/part-time employees because they receive an extra “loading” of 25 per cent. The full/part-time employees of course receive holidays, long service leaved etc but those rewards are delayed and don’t come via much-needed cash.
But even if those full/part time extras are valued and superannuation included, casuals are still better off.
Bank economists expected mortgage stress to create many more forced home sales but they underestimated the power of the extra money casuals receive, which has substantially lessened the impact of higher interest rates.
According to the statistics almost all new jobs in the last six months were part time, almost certainly dominated by casuals, because of the desperate need to pay rent and mortgages.
There will be an riot when 2.7 million casuals discover they are a “loophole” and must have their cash pay cut.
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Rising taxes, interest rates and tightened tenancy laws. Here's why landlords say they're selling up
For Alison Dougherty, being a landlord was always a two-way street. "The tenants depended on me and I depended on the tenants," she said. "So it was always important to me to look after the tenants and no request unless it was unreasonable was ever knocked back. "And if I had a great tenant, which I often did, I wouldn't raise the rent."
But after more than a decade as an investment property owner, Ms Dougherty joined what industry groups warn is an exodus of landlords selling up.
Rising taxes, changing tenancy laws and biting interest rates are some of the reasons, according to one recent industry survey, that property investors are exiting the market in droves.
"Many are selling their properties. Many are selling all of their properties," Nicola McDougall from the Property Investment Professionals of Australia (PIPA) said.
"And what our survey also showed — a significant percentage have actually said they will never be an investor ever again."
The strength of the link between pro-renter regulations and property divestment has been questioned by one research body, which added that a booming market had offered property owners another strong incentive to sell.
"There's been good capital return for people who have the inclination to sell at this time," Michael Fotheringham from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute said.
But both research groups have warned the sale of homes that usually house a booming population of renters is having poor outcomes for tenants.
These landlords all contacted the ABC after it covered problems in the rental sector in recent months, wanting to tell their side of the story.
Loss of control a key theme for landlords
When Ms Dougherty returned from a stint living overseas about 15 years ago, she couldn't afford a house in Melbourne.
Piecing together a retirement plan, she bought a rundown house — what she called "the worst house in the best street" — in Bendigo, and began contributing rental returns to a self-managed super fund after she renovated and rented it.
A second Bendigo property followed, then good returns when the property market boomed.
They were still generating income when she decided a changing regulatory playing field meant the money could be invested elsewhere with less risk — and sold both.
The changes enacted in 2021 included new minimum standards, changes to rules around pets in rentals and mandatory regular inspections of things like gas appliances and smoke alarms.
"I was finding it was getting quite complicated with the new changes and, increasingly, there were more costs being put on the owner," she said.
"[The tenants] could do things without even asking me and in the longer term, it felt like I didn't have control over my property anymore."
The September survey of more than 1,700 investors found the exodus was particularly pronounced in Melbourne, where a quarter of property investors who responded sold at least one rental home in the past year.
'You can vote with your feet'
The wall of Dean Campion's home office is decorated with the framed listings of properties in his investment portfolio, which once spanned nine properties in four states.
These days, he sees property investment as a kind of hobby. But when he started out, it was a vessel for social mobility out of his working-class upbringing.
"My dad was always stressing on me about not ending up working in the factory," he said.
In the late 1980s, as a 24-year-old university graduate, he put down a $15,000 deposit on a three-bedroom, "fairly rough" flat beside a highway in Cheltenham.
The value of the $51,000 property rose by the price of the deposit in the space of 12 months, he said, and the capital gains allowed him to buy a house in Brunswick.
His portfolio grew to include three homes in Mt Gambier, one in Tasmania, one in Albury and three in Traralgon, where he would usually buy cheaper properties and use the income to offset the mortgage.
He acknowledges landlords "get a bad wrap" and that this kind of wealth-creating opportunity no longer exists for people like his daughter, 25, who has a large HECs debt and pays more rent than he used to.
But he says some states are more landlord-friendly than others, and Victoria isn't one of them.
He said he decided to sell his Traralgon properties after their value rose during a wave of COVID-era seachangers at the same time as the regular inspection requirements were slimming his rental returns.
"That was going to be at least $1200 per property. I thought it's getting too much," he said. "The government can change the rules, but they can't force you to keep being a landlord. "You can vote with your feet and that's what I've done."
Rising rents, land tax changes among pressures on landlords
For Branko Kovac the property industry is less like a hobby and more like a game of Monopoly. It started when he bought a second property in Sunbury for $54,000 with his wife in the late 1980s.
"When I had the equity in the other place, that let me, basically, play like Monopoly," he said. "I was buying one house up against the next house, the next house up against the next house, and so forth."
He said he had owned about eight properties along his property journey, which was helped by a $40,000 lottery dividend early on and hindered when rising interest rates put him in "danger of nearly losing everything" later in the 1990s.
Today, he owns a rental property, a holiday home and a farm in Sunbury.
At the rental home — a four-bedroom house leased to a single mother — he recently increased the rent from $345 to $400 per week, which he said was the first rent rise over her seven-year tenancy.
Pointing to rising rates and the upcoming lowering of the land tax threshold, introduced so the state can pay off its COVID-era debt, he said a second increase was on the table, even though he makes some income off the property because it's paid off.
Is it unfair for someone who owns property to increase the rent of someone who doesn't? When asked this question, Mr Kovac said he empathised with people locked out of property ownership. "At the same time, we're giving them a house to live in," he said. "Unfortunately the government of the day has made things so difficult that the tenant has to absorb the costs.
"I like to try to be a good person and not a bad person, but the government is pushing me to become a person I'm not happy to [be]."
Property churn 'unsettling for tenants'
What happens when those investors sell up? Pointing to survey statistics, PIPA says fewer properties are being bought by fellow investors year-on-year. "We can safely assume that those properties have been removed from the rental market," Nicola McDougall said.
This position is backed by the Real Estate Institute of Victoria, which says a historically high number of new sale listings are likely to have been rental properties.
AHURI's Michael Fotheringham said it was "simplistic" to assume the properties are passing from investors to owner-occupiers, given home ownership remains out of reach for many.
However, he warned of a "range of ways in which property churn is unsettling for tenants" even as properties are sold from one investor to the next.
That could include tenants being evicted as properties are sold, rents being raised as new leases begin, or homes being let on the short-term rental market, which reduces rental stock without increasing home ownership.
Dr Fotheringham said good policy would strike a balance between quality of life for tenants without being cost-prohibitive for landlords.
"This is the main game here — trying to find a balance of rental reforms that benefit the tenants without being punitive to landlords, and actually find outcomes that are good for both groups," he said.
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The Australian Border Force has confirmed it sent 11 asylum seekers to Nauru in September, the first transfer to immigration detention on the Pacific nation in nine years
The evidence to Senate estimates on Monday from the head of operation sovereign borders (OSB) confirms a report in Guardian Australia revealing the Albanese government sent asylum seekers to Nauru just months after the last people were removed from detention on the island.
Rear Adm Justin Jones, the head of OSB, told estimates the 11 people were transferred “from Australia to Nauru” on 7 September.
A whistleblower told Guardian Australia there is an enormous amount of “secrecy” surrounding the group of asylum seekers.
“How many more sad people are going to be stuck here for god knows how long,” they said. “I’ve been witness to so much heartache. It’s just so sad.”
At estimates, officials refused to say how many boats the 11 “unauthorised maritime arrivals” came on, where the boat or boats were intercepted, their country of origin, and whether there are any minors in the cohort.
The Greens senator Nick McKim accused the government of “outrageous secrecy” and “lack of transparency” for refusing to answer questions about “on-water matters”, in line with policies introduced by the Coalition.
Jones said these details were all “operationally sensitive” because they go “to the heart of relations with neighbouring countries across the region”.
Michael Thomas, the first assistant secretary of people smuggling policy in the home affairs department, said the cohort were in an “initial reception” phase in detention where they are identified and subject to health checks.
“At this stage providing more detail on the cohort may have an impact on relations with Nauru, as well as privacy and safety,” he said.
At one point McKim referred to Murray Watt, who was representing the home affairs minister, as “Mr [Scott] Morrison”, in reference to the former immigration minister who instituted the policy of refusing to comment on on-water matters. McKim withdrew the remark.
McKim complained that even under the Coalition officials answered questions about whether children had been detained. “That’s your narrative,” Watt replied.
McKim concurred, commenting the major parties’ policies were the “same rubbish, different bin” when it comes to offshore processing.
Asked why their boat wasn’t turned back, Jones replied: “If we are able to safely and lawfully turn or take back personnel we will do that. In this case we were not able to safely or lawfully conduct a take-back or turnback.”
Jones confirmed it would not be lawful to turn or take back a boat that had reached Australia’s migration zone.
Thomas said 13 asylum seekers on Nauru, including the 11 in the new cohort, were in detention, who he suggested could move to community accommodation after assessment by Nauru.
Jones said there had been seven ventures intercepted en route to Australia in 2022 and the vessels in all cases were rated not seaworthy.
He vowed that dangerous boat journeys “will not succeed”. “We will not allow the door to tragic loss of life and criminal exploitation to open again,” he said.
Jones said in one operation in 2022, marine crew spent 20 hours in “suboptimal sea conditions, transferring passengers and crew from their foundering vessel to safety”.
“The risk of life and safety of all involved is real. This is why we work so hard to protect people from the false promises of criminal people smugglers.”
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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)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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