"Enormous debt". Nota Bene - because that's what we have or, at least that's what future generations will have. The dumb bums who have incurred the debt, and seriously added to it with this week's vote-buying idiocy, won't have to repay it.

The first "support" that needs to be withdrawn is the dole for all but the very few who are unable to work. The dole is a safety net, not a way of life. Force lazy bastards to work, and stop importing aliens to do it for them. Then, look at middle class welfare, but remember that it is the middle class that is carrying everyone else. Have a good look at the disability pension, too, as well as the nonsense of paying people to look after other people's children. Women want work? OK, but do your natural job first, and stay with your children until they are ready for school. Your neglect as parents is the reason why we have two generations of totally ignorant, useless people needing support. Child care is theft; a total rort.

And yes, look at pensioners as well. If you can't afford to keep yourself, you can't expect to live in a mansion. My generation of (part) pensioners was severely battered by Morrison when he was Turnbull's treasurer. Now the loathsome creature can't find enough people to sling money at in order to keep his job. I gave away the free money he handed out to pensioners, who didn't really need it, because I regarded it to be the same as taking money from the Mafia.

Yet another example of middle class welfare is proposed subsidies for electric cars such as the $3k offered by Victoria. According to TV talking heads this is so inadequate as to make Australia an international laughing stock. Then last night Albo told us he would make inner suburb housing available to 10,000 low paid frontline workers. This is so jet setters using city hotels can have their rooms cleaned by people living nearby.

Soon the government will pay for everything deemed worthy. You have to wonder if it would be simpler just to let it sort itself out. Example electric car makers getting their prices way down or paying the city workers enough to live nearby.

Taswegian, you have touched on something the pollies do not understand.
Their idea to enforce 50% electric cars will probably be impossible.
The industry word is EV prices and IC car prices will be equal by 2025.
I just do not see it happening and if so their 50% regulation will fail.
The subsidy of $3000 by the Victorian government is silly as it does
not bring the price down to a significant amount. If it was $15000
then that would make a difference.
If there is a breakthrough in battery manufacturing that would make
a difference but I just do not see it coming.
Still subsidising everything that might affect CO2 is the fashion
so who knows.

There'd be no poor if the Public Service wasn't so top heavy with high salary useless !

Agree with most of this, David. And both major parties are complicit in this game, whether it be tax breaks for folk who already receive huge tax treatment, advantages.

Or a cohort of wealthy mums shouted free child care paid for by the less well off, in some crackpot shameless scheme, simply to buy votes.

Here's the thing, union membership is just around 20% of the workforce, presided over by officials elected by that cohort, with a secret ballot.

Who rarely get a real say in candidate preselection.

Then it's these same candidates whose views prevail at the annual party meetings, which then decide party policy and direction?

Meaning, a small minority gets to decide policy and direction. And that nuclear power is not party policy And deletive expletive what the people want!

Let alone rights the new robber barons/ paper shuffling profit demanding middlemen are accorded.

Welfare paid for with taxpayers' money must be means-tested at all levels so it goes to the needy not the greedy

We need real tax reform that shares the burden between those with a capacity to pay a fair and equitable share.

And an energy policy that eliminates all the passengers it is asked to carry/ price gouging And as a fit for purpose amenity, massively turbocharges an increasingly automated economy that needs fewer and fewer employees/income-earning taxpayers!

Plus much smaller government as a rationalized government that eliminates an entirely unneeded middle tier.

This surely requires a shift to cooperative capitalism and taxing profits/income, not people, per see.

And doable with an unavoidable flat tax of just 15% levied on the aforementioned, above a generous tax-free threshold!
Alan B.

With the right energy/taxation policy and in a paradigm of cooperative capitalism, locally produced electric cars could be produced for less than 15,00 AUD! And similarly, trucks, buses, trams, trains and tractors, etc.

As for range limitations, overcome with a cling wrap thin layer of electrified, super-strong superconductor, graphene, highway/tram track underlay, and vehicles fitted with an underbelly electric magnetic induction plate that then allows continuous charging on the go!

All the above just requires the stroke of an actually elected official's pen! And there must be primary preselection and or, optional prefernncing if only to eliminate the above mentioned drones and unelected swill/shite for brains, from the decision-making process, which may at times, involve trillions of taxpayer dollars!
Alan B.

Apply the term comparative manufacturing costs to trucks tams etc. To understand where I'm coming from.

Not suggesting they could all be produced for as little as 15,000 AUD! However, with the right single site, single manufacturer of all components operating from that single site and therefore taxed just once! Possible for some?

But particularly if excluded, during the first five years, from the ubiquitous and cascading GST!
Alan B.

Boils down to how much is enough?
Greed is indeed great.

Along every road Alan ?
Anyway, why do you think nothing has happened with inductive charging
of electric cars ?
There has been no solution to the RF interference problem.
Especially your idea of having it linear, what a great antenna !

I see Alan is back with his pie in the sky, Flash Gorden ideas. Been on the Kool Aid while away old mate? I wonder what your "cling wrap thin layer of electrified, super-strong superconductor, graphene, highway/tram track underlay, and vehicles fitted with an underbelly electric magnetic induction plate that then allows continuous charging on the go", would cost for an Adelaide to Perth section of highway.

At least you want to power it with nuclear power, rather then windmills. As for the cost of building locally I presume you meant $15000. If so you are probably right, or it could be even less, I doubt the last standard Holdens cost that much ex factory door. However you are forgetting, or don't understand the costs of marketing. Then add inventory costs, & the cost of getting paid, & you have something closer to real cost, before profit.

In my last manufacturing company it cost us over twice the cost of the item production cost to get it to local retailers, & over 4 times to Melbourne, Adelaide & Perth. In fact with one product which we exported, it cost us less to ship to Japan than Perth or Adelaide.

You are right about those batteries Bazz. Those I use in my remote control planes have escalated in price by 300% since 2015 when I bought my first. Then we have this Hydrogen garbage, producing by windmill & exporting. Talk about stupidity, unless subsidised by the tax payer to about 500%.

I wonder when the clowns are going to demand ships go back to cotton sail power, to save the planet. At least that would help local manufacturing.

He is right about the subsidies. A neighbor became a single mother when her bloke strayed. She is struggling somewhat with house repayments, a bit high for a single.

Luckily she is very well paid working for a defense contractor, & her situation highlights the stupidity of paying more for childminding than the job pays.

She recently negotiated to work 3 days a week, now her daughter is in preschool. With all the child care benefits, family tax plan B supporting parent benefit & something else she mentioned, + now free child minding most of the day at preschool,she has a higher net income working 3 days than 5.

I guess it depends what you call austerity. We can have all these ladies send their kids to childcare, & subsidise that, or we could just give them the subsidy & let them stay home & look after their kids themselves. This way we can claim 2 people employed for about the same payout. Pretty shonky accounting really, & of very doubtful benefit to the kids.

The best country in the world has needy ? What does that say about our bureaucrats !

Hasbeen. Your example was manufactured all over the country by dozens of tax-paying companies from dozens of sites. And where our local production was mostly bodies, interior fit-outs with maybe glass, rubber, lights, and gearboxes/diffs made locally?

But from various sites by a compilation of different companies.

Fiat. e.g., built a whole complete car from a single site, by just one company.

This and an energy component that is vastly less costly than the wages bill is how you reduce costs. plus a preorder, direct marketing factory direct is how you get cost down below any current import.

This model further assisted by cooperative capitalism as facilitated and government-funded co-ops, that eliminate obscene CEO salaries and board members gravy trains.

I get that you know SFA science and all your alleged expertise is related to gas-guzzling high-performance combustion engines?

Magnetic induction now charges your phone overnight. And any interference is almost wiped out by the in my preferred example, superconductor's electronic characteristics.

Or maybe you think Flash Gordon sneaks in when nobody is watching and secretly plugs it in. S.A.

The underlay concept is simply the same but just much [Melbourne to Darwin, e.g.,] longer. Otherwise, you can put Flash Gordan into the shafts and haul away. Given he's your special imaginary friend and not mine1

Short-haul Electric planes will also have their range extend by runway graphene underlays, cling wrap thin solar panels, and repelling magnetic VLT/electric rail gun type catapults, and use the extra torque, via counter-rotating, double prop systems that together, effectively doubles/triples current range. And get the most thrust from the engines and battery output.

We lead the world in nanoparticle molded carbon fibre and possess all the elements to manufacture batteries lithium right here.

There will be an MSR thorium pumping 500 MW into the Indonesia grid in around twelve months. Let's see how many S.A remarks you make then, my moribund friend?

You and patently feebleminded S.A., R. W., folk like you, I believe, are the reason we are an economic backwater!

You'll have a nice day now, y'hear.
Alan B.

Alan said
Magnetic induction now charges your phone overnight.
And any interference is almost wiped out by the in my preferred example, superconductor's electronic characteristics.

Come on Alan, I think you know better than that.
The zero resistance will mean less IR loss and a bit more radiation.

Induction charging for cars and busses was stopped in the UK by OFCOM
to see if it could comply with the regs.
All gone quite since about two years ago.

Come on Alan, you read Flash Gorden comics as a boy. He had all those pie in the sky futuristic inventions, like flying cars,[probably nuclear powered], & all this stuff you promote as if it is realistic back in 50s comics.

I don't have a problem with your nuclear power, or your fuel from algae, [you've gone quiet on that], but you lose your way when you fall for the CO2 global warming scam. Don't have enough math to follow the equations that disprove it I suppose.

There is certainly too much subsidising of crackpot schemes connected to energy. Wind and solar. Electric cars. The next corporate welfare splurge will be on hydrogen. A hydrogen powered Hyundai has travelled from Melbourne to Broken Hill on a single tank. That should get the renewable energy enthusiasts worked up, even though the vehicle returned to Melbourne on the back of a truck.

So, all the fantasists will get subsidies for the electric and hydrogen cars. They will also need subsidies for the fleets of carriers needed to get them back home.

If sending electricity to any point via any means, create RF interference, why does sending via exisiting high voltage transmission lines not create problems for radio frequencies? What a great antenna indeed.

It's only lightning bursts that hit the ground at around a million volts and at the point of contact, generating as much as 12,00 C that creates significant RF interference

A superconductor doesn't need such high voltage and therefore there's far less resistance and consequent magnetic field, than in copper or aluminium. Therefore less RF interference? Albeit, large enough for an underbelly induction plate.

Besides, car radios are such old technology. Give me a ten stack CD player any day.

but if you must have radio? Then the choice is either FM or digital, neither of which seem to have any problem with RF interference?

! Electricity follows the line of least resistance and given a super-strong, superconductor is envisaged and using already tested prototype technology. Most of the alleged problems shouldn't arise.

In honour of hasbeen, we could even power a Bathurst, electric 24-hour race and call it the Flash Gordon. If there's any problems with a graphene underlay then we could use new-age capacitators and a fast charge that can, via tried and tested technology, be completed in thirty seconds?

Other things that extend range include, regenerative braking and a locally invented, solar panel paint job. And I believe it has been patented as painted on sun-exposed, body panels. Albeit not as efficient as regular solar panels, but able to generate electricity from all parts of the body. And not significantly more costly than a regular paint job.

Even invite the old hasbeen to participate in a celebratory event as a prelude to the main event, where he'd likely win?
Alan B.

Anything too technical for ttbn's pea-brain/science-free zone, gets a crackpot label.

Moreover, he has plenty of mates in all our parliaments and political parties. little wonder we are an economic backwater with no visionary, nation-building projects on the table just the biggest spend in our entire history!
I get you don't want an electrified economy or one power b thorium and power prices as low as 1 cent PKWH.

Prices that low would see a stampede to set up manufacturing plants here and genuine tax reform manifesting as an unavoidable 15% flat tax, minus current tax compliance costs. wouldn't just turbocharger the economy but send into orbit And as a mostly Automated high tec, high wages projects.

Meaning we could grow the economy quite massively without increasing our population number and also reduce the cost of transport. A major factor that adds costs to everything we use or consume!
Alan B.

Flat Tax & a National Service or Gap Year Service is the ONLY way if we want some sort of sane future !

ttbn.
The question is not should we switch to electric cars, but how can we make it economic.
The oil companies have told us that we will be changing away from oil based fuels.
Electric cars have already driven all round Australia and only needed
to recharge on a 240 volt GPO overnight a couple of times.
At the rate fast chargers are being installed the Ceduna to Kalgoolie
part will be equipped with fast chargers soon.
I do not think that there is a future for hydrogen cell cars as the overall
energy efficiency is too low and the lifetime of fuel cells is I am told short.

Alan said;
If sending electricity to any point via any means, create RF
interference, why does sending via exisiting high voltage transmission
lines not create problems for radio frequencies? What a great antenna indeed.

Answer it does, why else do you think Broadband over Power Lines got
the thumbs down from ACMA ?
I attended a demonstration by Country Energy and the radiated interference
was horrendous.
Any transmitter that comes on anywhere in its spectrum kills it stone dead !

I think you may be referring to the national grid transmission lines.
They do cause some interference but by restricting their frequency
spectrum and power they get away with it.
What we are really talking about here is using frequencies in the
region of 150Khz at powers of many Kilowatts, maybe tens of Kw.
The harmonics generated go all across the HF spectrum and VHF.

As far as the phone chargers are concerned they are probably only
magnetic and as the power level is so low, to hell with the losses.
Different kettle of fish when handling multi Kilowatts.

No, inductive systems at those power levels is just not on.
Hmm, just think how much power would be needed one Sunday afternoon on
the M1 north of Sydney with thousands of cars all drawing power, ughh.

I'm sorry Bazz you may know a lot about high-frequency transmission lines? By one of my properties was just yards from such an array and we just never experienced the RF interference you claim. Perhaps you are just full of it?

Yes at some point the magnetic field generated will light up neon tubes. But the tried and tested system I'm referring to is not high voltage. Because as a superconductor, it just doesn't need to beat the same level of resistance, which for graphene, almost nonexistent.

Hasbeen, just major highways and rail. Other than that, could be trailed for home use where you park your car every night? Meaning, you just drive in and leave the car there and come out in the morning to a car with an 80% charge and ready for the morning commute.

The car of the future will be electric, probably carbon fibre over carbon fibre honeycomb internal sandwich. the outer and inner carbon fibre overlay, separated by a fine mesh of, 200 times stronger than steel, graphene? Which would make a vehicle with armour no bullet or RPG could penetrate. also fitted with double glass as bulletproof polycarbonate. Glass smashed by flying stones etc, a thing of the past!

Graphene layers also act as a faraday cage to block magnetic pulses that destroy electronics. Given two layers, one could also double as a circuit carrying all the current to all the inboard electrics, the other carrying all the charge to the batteries, given its superconductor characteristics.

Can't see a role for this technology powering ships but maybe submersibles where the water is no more than an average of 200 metres deep and where to recharge they'd need to all but hug the bottom/undersea graphene cored cable.

Roll on roll off interisland ferries maybe, Singapore to Darwin etc, given decent battery capacity for the deep parts?
Alan B.

Alan, you reason you never heard any interference might be you never
listened where it was. They have done a good job of keeping it down
but the power levels are probably well below 10 watts in a restricted bandwidth.
The problem is the high power required. To drive cars requires
kilowatts and the same stretch of roadway might have 20 cars on it.
So you are probably looking at 10 kilowatts.
In your scheme,would it be inductively coupled or capacitor coupled ?
In Germany Mercedes experimented with overhead wires and pantagraphs
on trucks on an autobahn as per trolley buses.

If people don't want high income earners get even more then why are they so vehemently against removing negative gearing & introduce Flat Tax & a National Service ?
Because they're just as selfish & greedy as those they condemn ! Hypocrites the lot !

Yes, Bazz, but that's KWs not extreme high voltage.

I believe a test track loaded with a simulated peak traffic example is how it could be done and by the positioning of many multiples of SMRs along the line of long distant travel given that'd be the cheapest option in the long run. And as nuclear waste burning MSRs. Which would mean we could build the deleted expletive lot with other folks dollars and allow local co-ops to own and operate them almost as if they were highway service stations competing for your dollar.

And doable if the ones supplying the lowest cost energy via efficiency, got the longest stretches for their own underlay. There'd be short breaks where only stored battery power would operate, to ensure a really competitive model prevailed, left right and centre.

Trams and trains don't currently need overhead wires but can use an inground system. Suggest it be located at every stop and such amenity be completely cover and strategically placed so as to avoid water intrusion.

If a high load is a problem? then the solution is more input circuits rather than upping the voltage. Except where the thing is related to grid distribution, which could also be region-specific microgrids?

Not completely adverse to overhead wires. Just prefer systems less available to, high metal booms, etc, morons and or saboteurs. The more we can put underground regardless of type or system, the better I like it for the sake of enduring reliability.
Cheers, Alan.

Alan, I still do not understand how your suggestions long under road
conductor is going to couple to the vehicles without large losses
where there are no vehicles. How do you stop it radiating all the power away ?
Also just what would be mounted on the vehicles ?
A coil ? or a capacitor ?
The whole idea seems impractical.

Yes Bazz, just like nuclear fusion, it will only be perpetually only 10 years off. Don't hold your breath.

I haven't a clue how Alan B's concept is supposed to work but I imagine using the rails as a kind of earth/ground & the actual train being a positive perhaps ?
Maybe hydrogen could be used to power trains ? I'd say let's lay the tracks or better, start by building mono rail track infrastructure now & all else will be a matter of whatever is invented first. Main thing is the infrastructure in progress & the employment & economy are in full swing !

Individual,
Hydrogen can be used to power trains, and may be regarded as a practical alternative to diesel in the not too distant future.

Only the lunatic fringe support national service nowadays, and most people rightly regard a progressive tax as better than a flat tax.

________________________________________________________________________________

Bazz,
What Alan and others envisage uses induction coils. I presume the coils in the road would only be powered up (beyond a low level used for detection) when it's detected the vehicles are where they can be charged that way.

I can't see it being economic, despite the reduction in need for battery capacity (which I've heard is the single biggest cost for EVs).

________________________________________________________________________________

David Leyonhjelm,
Excessove means testing is bad policy for two reasons:
firstly it creates perverse incentives. Were better off not replicating the USA's anti-aspirational system.
Secondly, excluding people from the benefits of what they pay taxes for increases their resentment of paying tax. That may suit you politically, but it's strongly against the national interest.

Aiden, If Alan's idea was to have coils in the roadway and as a car
passed over they would be energised in turn then that would be
practical but very expensive. However it does not avoid the radio interference problem.
These coils to be able to transfer a usable
amount of power operate at around the 100Khz range and because they
are not tightly coupled leak a lot of the power. which include harmonics.
Each coil would need its own high power oscillator, as piping the
power over long distances would be not on.