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The Forum > Article Comments > Courting disaster: now and in the future > Comments

Courting disaster: now and in the future : Comments

By John Harrison, published 15/4/2014

Two examples of how reactive short-term political thinking damages our long-term national interest emerged at the weekend.

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...The least reliance the population invests in a Government, the easier for that Government to obfuscate.
Posted by diver dan, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 9:03:42 AM
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If the Queensland Premier had not returned, he would be criticised for that too.

Damned if he does, damned if he doesn't.

Nice to see a politician can pull their lips off China's arse for five minutes.

As for longer terms, most politicians *are* in it long term.
They need to impress their constituents in order to get reelected time and again.

No matter who forms government, each member hopes to get reelected.
Some of them have been in politics their whole adult life!
Posted by Shockadelic, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 10:12:13 AM
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John, your bias shines strong.

What you have to remember is that for every Cambel Newman hater John out there, there are just as many who would have said, so much for him not caring had he not returned. So he is caught between a rock and a hard place I am afraid.

As for China and our future, what happens in the future is pretty much up to them, as we will simply go for the ride should they invite us.
Posted by rehctub, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 10:15:11 AM
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Yes we could and should grow the economic pie John!
This means we could pay down debt, without increasing tax or cutting current services.
Ending costly duplication, could save the Queensland treasury, as much as 30%, the cost of duplication?
When ideology replaces reason and logic, [well it always does,] some very bad decisions are made!
Anna Bligh, i.e. was one of those crash through or crash, extreme aristocrats, whose trail of incompetent decisions, cost Queensland many millions.
One thing the LNP haven't tried, is delisting the reef, or some parts of it, with huge hydrocarbon promise, could be explored and exploited.
Some industry analysts are on the public record saying, we could have more carbon reserves to our immediate north, [a euphemism for the GBR,] than the entire known reserves of the ME!
Political ideologues like Campbell, will duck shove their responsibility for economic growth, by saying, as always, that the Government has no business in business!
Whereas, pragmatists, like a spectacularly successful, Lee Kwan Yu, will just crack on and get it down!
The state is allegedly short of money, but could easily have literal trillions locked away, by nothing more that blatant stupidity?
Look, our own indigenous sweet light crude, leaves the wellhead as a virtually ready to use, diesel, needing only a little insitu, chill filtering ,to remove some sand particles, and a soluble wax content, that produces black smoke and or, fouls the injectors on cold and frosty mornings.
With that removed, its far and away, superior diesel, than anything we import, and it creates 75% less carbon from the well head to the harvester, than anything we currently import.
And there is likely to be copious gas there as well, which could be earning huge export dollars, particularly now, and particularly in Asia; as well as providing energy security for the state, for as far out as it is possible to envisage.
The problem we the people have, is leaders who can't think beyond just the next election, or how best to feather their own nests?
40% pay rise anyone?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 10:15:39 AM
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There is no shortage of fossil fuels on this planet. Sufficient winnable reserves in gas, liquid and solid forms which have already been located will, if burned, be more than adequate to demonstrate conclusively and finally that carbon dioxide is indeed a greenhouse gas and that an excess of this substance will wipe out the world as we know and need it to be.

So we may safely put a value of zero on all undiscovered oil and gas - including, of course, that which may or may not lie beneath the BGR.

There is, however, a planetary shortage of clear thinking, of long range vision and of evidence based policies. A few years of partisan, short-termism on the part of Labor has been well and truly eclipsed by the current federal government's childish preoccupation with tearing down that which they inherited, whether good, poor or indifferent.

So, Labor and Coalition are not the answer.

Greens aren't either, due to their being locked into cloud cuckoo land positions which are primarily religious items of faith, entirely devoid of flexible, analytical thinking and problem solving.

I guess that leaves me expecting a global political, environmental and economic crash but hoping against hope that the impossible happens and that our politicians, State and Federal, from whichever party, learn to grow up, play nicely and start to use the brains that they were born with.
Posted by JohnBennetts, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 1:03:22 PM
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Anyone who knows anything at all about oil, knows that our own sweet light crude, in common use, produces four times less TOTAL Co2, than that which we currently import.
Yet those with so called green credentials, extol us to leave that which produces far less carbon in the ground, all while continuing to import something which is guaranteed, to produce four times more carbon, than that which lays beneath our feet.
And think, we are already parting with 26 billions per plus just to import vastly inferior products, which in part pay for terrorism, and Putin's ability, to swallow smaller neighbors!
If we could replace that dirty oil with cleaner import replacements, we could add another 26 billion to Queensland's economy!
As for claiming that we may or may not have the possible extremely large reserves under the GBR!
We'll never ever know, if we never ever look! Well?
Yes we do need to source endlessly sustainable alternatives, but can't actually afford them, but particularly, while we a virtual captive energy market, keep on paying well over the odds, for that energy.
And given that is so, continue to harm the domestic economy, due to the inordinately high cost of fully imported energy, which as the first consequence, vastly suppresses the domestic economy.
Think, every dollar kept circulating inside our own economy, does the work of at least seven, while that extracted as repatriated profits, by foreign oil cartels, doesn't add a single job to or improve the domestic economy, rather just the opposite!
There are things we should be doing. Importing at significant cost, something that produces four times more Co2 in common use, than what lies beneath our feet, just ain't one of them!
Or indeed, continue to allow blinkered and extremely irrational ideologues, to force that same outcome on us, due entirely, to their blind arrogant, dog wagging the tail, intransigence!?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Tuesday, 15 April 2014 4:35:13 PM
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