Australian Politics
The pot calls the kettle brown
One brown man insults another brown man. Leniu is a Samoan and Mam has some Aboriginal ancestry. Both are footballers in the Rugby League, a form of football with a mainly regional following in Australia. "Monkey" is widely held to be a very bad word
Spencer Leniu has admitted to using a racist remark against Broncos star Ezra Mam in the NRL’s season-opening double-header in Las Vegas.
Leniu, who was playing his first game for his new club, lodged a guilty plea to a contrary conduct charge with the NRL judiciary on Thursday. He now faces a long suspension after admitting to calling his opponent a “monkey”.
“I want to apologise to Ezra and his family for using the word I did, and I am sincerely sorry to cause him such distress,” Leniu said in a Roosters statement.
“I’ve put my hand up and want to take ownership of this. I said the word, but I didn’t mean it in a racist way. Anyone who knows me knows that’s not who I am.”
Leniu had initially denied using a slur in post-game interviews after the Roosters’ 20-10 win over Broncos at Allegiant Stadium, telling Triple M the angry exchange with Brisbane players was “fun and games”.
https://www.smh.com.au/sport/nrl/leniu-admits-to-racist-slur-against-mam-20240307-p5fam9.html
**********************************************Airline Fined $250,000 For Standing Down Worker Concerned With COVID-19
Australian national carrier Qantas has been fined $250,000 after standing down a worker—who was an elected health and safety representative—after he raised concerns about the risk of COVID-19 to staff cleaning aircraft that had arrived from China—an action the judge described as “shameful.”
Lift truck driver Theo Seremetidis was employed by subsidiary Qantas Ground Services (QGS) at Sydney International Airport, and was sidelined in early 2020, before which he had worked for Qantas for nearly seven years as a ground crew fleet member.
Last year, NSW District Court Judge David Russell found the airline engaged in discriminatory conduct, ruling that Mr. Seremetidis was unfairly cut off from other staff who were seeking his help.
“The conduct against Mr Seremetidis was quite shameful,” the judge said. “Even when he was stood down and under investigation, QGS attempted to manufacture additional reasons for its actions.”
Last week Qantas agreed to pay Mr. Seremetidis $21,000 for economic and non-economic loss.
On March 6, Judge Russell ordered that QGS be convicted and fined $250,000, finding that the company’s conduct involved significant culpability and was deliberate, rather than inadvertent and that QGS had “deliberately ignored” the consultation and other provisions of the Work Health and Safety Act. He said there was a “gross power imbalance” between Mr. Seremetidis and senior managers at QGS.
Mr. Seremetidis was “most conscientious” in carrying out his role as a health and safety representative, the judge found, staying up-to-date with official announcements about the pandemic and even doing research on his day off.
Judge Russell found QGS saw Mr. Seremetidis’s directions to cease unsafe work as a “threat” to the conduct of the business, in particular to its ability to clean and service aircraft and get them back in the air, and pointed out that the role of health and safety representatives was “vital” to the protection of workers and the running of any business.
During the hearing last year, Qantas said it had taken the action because Mr. Seremetidis had been “creating anxiety amongst the workforce.”
It was revealed the airline had told concerned workers that the risk of them contracting COVID-19 from their work was “negligible,” and they could not “be reasonably concerned about contracting the virus.”
Prosecutor Matthew Moir said Qantas gave priority to its commercial interests over the health and safety of its workers. But Qantas lawyer Bruce Hodgkinson argued the airline had been doing its best to deal with the fast-unfolding pandemic.
Qantas Apologises
A Qantas spokesperson said the airline accepted the penalties. “We agreed to compensation for Theo Seremetidis and the court has today made orders for that compensation to be paid,” the spokesperson said.
“We acknowledged in court the impact that this incident had on Mr. Seremetidis and apologised to him. Safety has always been our number one priority and we continue to encourage our employees to report all safety-related matters.”
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GDP figures paint a picture of a very sick Australian economy
The GDP numbers paint a picture of an economy that is sick, seriously sick.
It is an economy that is being held up – barely, held up, I should stress - by a bizarre and explosively volatile and quite simply unreliable combination of China-driven demand for our iron ore, coal and natural gas, and the utterly out-of-control flood of 1500 migrants every single day of the year, weekends included.
In the December quarter the economy grew by just 0.2 per cent, after growing by just 0.3 per cent in the September quarter.
Indeed, it slowed through each quarter of 2023. So over the year, the growth was a miserable 1.5 per cent. Over the latest six months it was an even more miserable annual rate of just 1 per cent.
But when you factor in the utterly unprecedented population surge, thanks to the equally unprecedented migration flood, per capita growth was negative 0.3 per cent for the December quarter and a just horrible negative 1 per cent for the December year.
The economy was in clear and undeniable per capita recession all the way through 2023.
All those migrants kept the aggregate numbers positive. But it was a false positivity, with the per capita numbers, the numbers that reflect the actual reality for Australians, going backward.
And that’s before you factor in all the other negatives from the migrant surge – the pressure on housing, on infrastructure, the complications it causes for wages and business costs, and cost-of-living.
Now bring in China.
But for the surge in exports (that’s, importantly, export volumes) – combined with an entirely understandable fall in our demand for consumer imports, given the terrible state of the local economy and household incomes - the overall December quarter GDP growth number would have been negative 0.4 per cent
Let me just draw out and stress this utterly critical point.
But for China – and more general demand globally for our coal and natural gas – our economy would have shrunk by 0.4 per cent in the December quarter.
But for China, per capita GDP would have fallen by nearly 1 per cent – an annualised fall of close to 4 per cent. That’s recession, with a very big capital R, in terms of actual reality for individual Australians.
Ask yourself: can we really rely on China to keep the music playing? A China, that is experiencing all sorts of problems, with all that concrete poured into ghost cities and now also export challenges?
Yet we still have almost all our eggs, so to speak, in that basket marked ‘China miracle’.
That, and sustained massive immigration to supply workers on the one hand, and demand for businesses from construction and housing to retail, on the other.
And yet even with those two spigots still pouring through 2023, our economy was staggering.
The figures further confirm what I have been writing since Melbourne Cup Day. The Reserve Bank should not have delivered that last rate hike.
Governor Michele Bullock will have to think long and hard about what she proposes the board does next Tuesday week.
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Origin, NSW government negotiate delay to coal-fired Eraring power station’s closure
East coast residents should hope they agree. Blackouts loom otherwise
The planned retirement of Australia’s largest coal-fired power station will be delayed as Origin Energy holds talks with the NSW government to keep the Eraring plant open beyond August 2025, easing the prospect of blackouts hitting electricity consumers.
Eraring, which supplies more than 25 per cent of NSW’s electricity needs, is due to shutter as early as August 2025 – though an independent expert last year concluded the state Labor government would need to strike a deal to safeguard electricity supplies.
More than six months into the talks, The Australian understands both sides are confident that a deal will be struck, although progress is limited to a point where a deal could be some weeks if not months away.
The extension of Eraring would ease fears that the rapid fire exit of coal from the national grid may increase the risks of blackouts, given the lack of replacement back-up power in the system.
A deal could still fall over, underlined by the collapse in talks between the previous NSW state government which held talks over acquiring Eraring.
Representatives for both the NSW Energy Minister Penny Sharpe and Origin declined to comment. Both sides negotiating have signed strict nondisclosure agreements.
Origin chief executive Frank Calabria said last month that both sides were keen for a deal as quickly as possible. “Both sides are governed by a very strict confidentiality agreement, but I can say that negotiations are active, they’re constructive, and they’re ongoing, and both parties will want to bring that to conclusion in as timely a way as possible.” Mr Calabria said.
Such is the confidentiality, neither party will discuss the nature of the deal though a risk-sharing agreement shapes as the only feasible option.
Such a deal has been used by Victoria in the past as the state Labor government struck deals with AGL Energy and EnergyAustralia to keep the state’s two largest coal power stations open.
EnergyAustralia’s Yallourn will close in 2028, while AGL’s Loy Yang A will shutter in 2035 – giving the state enough time to bring online sufficient quantities of renewable energy. The terms of both deals remain a closely guarded secret, but they are a guiding principle for any extension of Eraring.
But the deal is complicated, compounded by a rapidly evolving energy market and a looming end to a coal cap that will likely uproot the economics of Eraring.
The federal government in conjunction with state counterparts introduced a $120 a tonne cap on the price of coal, a scheme that drastically improved the financial performance of Eraring.
Eraring has in recent years been losing money. A rapid rise in rooftop solar has seen wholesale prices plunge to zero or below during sunny days, which explains why Origin in 2022 announced the retirement of the coal-fired power station in August 2025 – some seven years earlier than initially expected.
But Eraring’s fortunes changed in 2023 when the coal cap allowed Origin to recoup costs above $120 a tonne for coal, which returned the generator to profitability.
The scheme will end in June and Origin is facing higher costs for coal that will dent the financial returns of Eraring without an unexpected move in Australia’s wholesale electricity market.
Should it return to a loss-making entity, a risk-sharing agreement with the NSW government would likely see the taxpayer compensate Origin beyond 2025.
Such a scheme would be politically sensitive to the Labor government which has won favour with large swathes of the electorate with its commitment to renewable energy.
Moving to curtail political hostility, the Labor government is talking tough – insisting it will not be held hostage.
NSW Treasurer Daniel Mookhey has highlighted Origin’s recent bumper half-year revenues as evidence of the company’s responsibility to prolong Eraring’s lifespan, a stance that caused bewilderment among those close to Australia’s largest electricity and gas company.
Origin is a publicly traded company and law requires the management to act in the best interests of its shareholders. Prolonging Eraring might be in the best interests of NSW, but it may not satisfy shareholders.
Despite the political posturing, Origin has the whip hand. The loss of Eraring would remove 2.8 gigawatts of capacity from the state’s energy grid, which independent expert Cameron O’Reilly in 2023 said would risk grid stability.
Without sufficient electricity generation capacity, households and businesses in NSW would face a heightened risk of price increases and even blackouts.
With such a risk, Australia’s energy market has positioned for Eraring staying open.
“The NSW government is extremely concerned about reliability and affordability. They are very worried, but nobody thinks Eraring is closing in 2025,” one senior energy executive told The Australian.
“If the market thought Eraring was closing, there would be a substantial increase in wholesale electricity prices between 2024 and 2025 and there isn’t. The only question is, however, how long it will stay open for and how many units (operating).”
Extending Eraring, however, will undercut NSW’s energy transition timetable, critical if the state is to meet its emission reduction plans. NSW has set a target of halving emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels and reaching net zero by 2050.
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"Build to rent" is no solution to rental housing shortage
The build-to-rent (BTR) industry, virtually non-existent in Australia seven years ago, is becoming a small part of the solution to solving housing supply issues. But BTR will never replace mum and dad investors.
BTR’s 2017 arrival was certainly timely since demand for rental accommodation is being driven by the systemic change in living preferences, with a growing proportion of the population renting, and renting for longer.
BTR makes up just 0.2 per cent of Australia’s housing market with the most recent report by Ernst & Young calculating just 11 developments are up-and-running, with a further 72 in the works.
The majority of the pipeline is coming to Melbourne, followed by Brisbane, with Sydney a distant third.
BTR apartment projects are purpose-built projects for long-term rent that do not rely on the typical off the plan pre-sales. BTR housing is held in single ownership with tenants getting the security of longer-term leases from institutional landlords, who are getting tax incentives from state and federal governments.
The last federal budget offered a tax break from July this year for BTR foreign investors. But the industry reckons far more needs to be done to incentivise investment, saying further changes to the GST and to land tax are essential as BTR projects are at least 10 per cent more expensive to build and operate than typical build-to-sell (BTS) projects.
To date two thirds of BTR investment has come from overseas where the product is well established. The 2023 MIPIM (Marche International des Professionnels d’Immobilier) international conference in Cannes, France, heard the rental model has been embraced in Europe and North America, but with some stigma against it in the UK.
Attendees were told BTR must be seen as complimenting the traditional housing delivery model, rather than being in opposition. With more than 20 million housing units, the US BTR sector comprises 12 per cent of the total value of the residential sector, but 5.4 per cent in the UK.
The Australian property consultancy Charter Keck Cramer (CKC) noted 2024 will be a “defining year” for BTR in testing the resolve and investment thesis of many BTR developers and their financiers.
It warns capital has been harder to raise given higher risk adjusted returns after rapid rate rises and construction cost increases.
“The role that the build-to-sell (BTS) and build-to-rent apartment markets respectively need to play in addressing the housing and rental crises cannot be overstated,” says CKC’s Richard Tremlett.
“In comparison to the established housing, or the greenfield house and land markets, the BTS apartment market is not well understood by many policy makers. The BTR apartment market is even less understood given it is still emerging as a residential asset class.”
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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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