Re: A word to Q&A: seat your greens, Michael Bodey, The Australian, page 6, 18 December 2015

Ironic that on 30 June 2015, Janet Albrechtsen lamented the arrogant left-bias of the ABC and in particular the Q&A program, when today it is reported in the same paper that an independent review of the Q&A program found that it is in fact biased against the Greens.

Apparently the review also concluded that in terms of both speaking time and questioning, the program content was dominated by the Coalition government.

I wonder why I find it hard to trust the Abbott cheer squad, when all they do is charge at windmills with their self-serving vitriol.

I am not a fan of Q&A and I'm even less a fan of Tony Jones. However, I'm glad in this instance that the facts unreservedly bury the inane assertions of Abbott and his pack of hyenas.

Abbott beat Kevin Rudd who is almost winning the UN Secretary General seat ( but keeping a beady eye on J Gillard, PM and Pension). Kev went overseas to find policies for the Australia people and being World Ruler is better than down-under or under-done or undone which Julia did. Sec Gen Abbott would look undone in jocks doing laps of New York city but he knows how to shirtfront and eyeball and may come up to scratch. UN needs some one-liner speakers and we miss his style:
"We're stopping the boats. Start the bombs. Bomb the starters. We're boating. Stopping the start".

Turnbull, is doing his best to rid the Liberal Party of the last vestiges of the failed Abbott regime. Short of sending some to the gulag for re-education he has given them the flick, others have seen the light and repented past sins and are now firmly on board. Others are yet to be dealt with, but given time they too will be purged.

The Abbott regime was a failure, and there are some other infiltrators that need culling. People that are mind set like Abbott find it hard to change their evil intentions.
AU came very close to the bone with Abbott and his policies that were a sham.
Turnbull is in Japan to find out what Abbott said to Abe concerning the submarines that were to urgent to get quotes for. In any case those subs need to be built here. As with all military equipment.

The depth of the delusion that the left whingers suffer from continues to amaze me.

Firstly, the only "independent review" that I am aware of is the internal review done within the ABC whose result was pretty much pre ordained. That Q&A is invariably stacked with labor/green guests with generally one token moderate or conservative is their warped version of "balanced".

Secondly, While Krudd is tilting for the post of UN SG, and has managed to drum up a couple of insignificant supporters, he hasn't a snowball's chance in hell of getting the position without the Aus Government's support, and even Turnbull would not inflict the pompous self serving windbag on the UN. JG has more intelligently opted to take a few well paid, but meaningless posts to pad her dotage.

Finally, the thought that Liberal party has been completely reformed by Turnbull's ascension is laughable. MT is unlikely to forget how quickly he was booted out when he tried to deviate too far from his mandate as leader, and his whole hearted adoption of Abbott's successful policies is proof of this. While MT has populated his cabinet with his supporters, there is still a strong conservative backbone in the caucus.

As TA is no longer in the cabinet he's no longer bound by the party line dictated by MT and is free to air his opinions publicly, and while he is has honoured his pledge not to undermine or criticise MT, he is voicing the concerns of a significant portion of the coalition and cannot be dismissed lightly

No one will ever dismiss Abbott lightly, not after his election B/S . He sold every conservable body part he used to have, to secure that election. You could say he told unimaginable untruths and others that were just plain not correct.
The Conservatives in his own line up went against him, now that says something. You really are on the nose when that happens, and helped along with a few lefties. Two thirds of one term and out you go.
No wisdom in Abbott’s ramblings since, just more of the same offensive scriptures as before. Abbott’s ramblings will not guarantee his followers any guarantee of reelection.
Julia could be frontrunner in that contest, she has more wisdom and control than Rudd

579,

It must take a vast feat of controlled amnesia for the left whingers to forget the greatest political lies in decades perpetrated by Juliar and Krudd, and their vast incompetence.

There is no doubt that the Abbott government was the most successful since 2007 with restoring border control, 4 free trade agreements that are already improving trade, and improved relations with Indonesia, the USA and China, ditching the inefficient carbon and mining taxes, and MT has no intention of messing with such fantastic results.

With Saxon efficiency , Norfolk island was settled from 1788 and illegals were flogged to death for 65 years. In the fascist tradition of Cuban socialists the evil suspects in Guantanamo Democracy camp are abused for America. Australian Liberal barbed-wire children , the young and free and girt by sea , will be of our race .
The blacks were chained, shot, poisoned and raped. Now it's the browns turn to learn our values.. It's fantastic that we are not biased.

FromTheSidelines, "I am not a fan of Q&A and I'm even less a fan of Tony Jones"

Pig's derrière you're not! LOL

Shadow, good to see you have come out of your period of morning after the catastrophic demise of 'Fearless Leader'. As the forums number one Abbott worshiper you must have been shocked when the Mad Monk got his comeuppance. Unceremoniously booted by his own party. Australia had not endured such a poor performing PM since the days of spats and straw hats, in the form of another conservative nit-wit Stanley Bruce.
Did you know Tony Baloney even tried to seek an audience with the Queen of England recently, most likely out to implore her her majesty to right the injustice of poor Tone's sacking. He knocked on the door, but no one answered, I wonder why?

//FromTheSidelines, "I am not a fan of Q&A and I'm even less a fan of Tony Jones"

Pig's derrière you're not! LOL//

What do you base that conjecture on, OTB? The fact that FTS had a go at Abbott? That's hardly indicative. If everybody who disliked Abbott was a Q&A fan, it would receive better TV ratings than the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

The man was a joke and a sizeable majority of people thought so - considerably more than those who watch Q&A. I know it must be easier for you to caricature everybody who disliked Abbott as some latte-sipping, Green-voting, limp-wristed uber-lefty, but the harsh truth is that a lot of people of who disliked him were from his own side. Because it wasn't the Q&A's anti-conservative bias that was turning people off Abbott, it was stuff like this:

http://tinyurl.com/c8r9q5g

For christs sake, he looks like he's having some sort of seizure. You don't need a Tony Jones to foment dislike when you have a retard like Tony Abbott who was capable of kicking such spectacular own goals that he made the opposition redundant.

Judgment has been passed on Abbott’s whining about the Qand A must watch show for all of Abbott’s past fans.
The judgment was Abbott is a winger, the show is fair and just.
Its up to Morrison and Dutton to prove their worth without interference from Turnbull. Any changes come as an agreement by all party members, not Turnbull. That is a massive change in direction. We no longer have politics run with the blessing of one man.
The voters will determine their worth at election time. Bishop says Turnbull is a breath of fresh air.
Some liberal reps may not be treated so kindly by the electorate next time around, they have suffered a significant embarrassment and feel new blood is required.
Climate change has won the day albeit 20 years to late, fossil fuel is on the nose and must go. Sanity does prevail with persistence.

"Did you know Tony Baloney even tried to seek an audience with the Queen of England recently, most likely out to implore her her majesty to right the injustice of poor Tone's sacking."
He still has credit in the account with My Husband and I, Knight of Australia. There must be some title available, even an Esquire. Probably 'My Lord' is a bit upmarket for an ex-priest.

wow abbottphobia is still alive months after he was backstabbed. Just shows you hatred is stronger than reason for many. The abc/regressives prove that.

nnn, Toni Lewis, 579,FTS,

You are all idiots, grow up.

when dropkicks support a liberal leader it is a time to worry.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

Trust the 'fact-checking'(sic) ABC to review itself.

The ABC must believe that Q&A could not withstand an independent review.

When one remembers that there were hundreds of suitable academics available with the skills to perform that review and far more cheaply than the ABC's mates.

Ray Martin declared before the review that Q&A had nothing to answer for. Why then did the ABC management move Q&A and Jones to the news division for supervision?

Because Putin's our new friend. A true-blue liberal with other people's money and tight media business.

Abbott phobia is rife and may take years to quell, after what he did it’s not surprising he got backstabbed, by his own party. The biggest dropkick that ever entered parliament.
You have nothing to fear but fear itself Banjo. All fear has been curtailed, we are now floating on the sea of tranquility, the raging torrents have subdued. The era of panic was severe and torturous to say the least.
Turnbull is a very popular man with a wide spectrum of voters. It’s only the far right that can not see his worth. He is digging in for quite some time by all accounts. He has the interests of Liberal, Labor, and Greens. What a man amongst individuals. This bloke has all Australians at heart.
Q&A was moved to appease Abbott, they knew he was very sensitive to scrutiny. Abbott did not want to be questioned, what he said was LAW. Morrison has his hands full with the 7.30 report. They are our representatives and need to be held to account. They make statements in shorthand and must be prepared for full explanation.

579,
As I said, when dropkicks like you support PM Turnbull, it is time to worry. I think the Libs will much regret that they elected Turnbull.
He is already showing signs of being much like Rudd.

Paul,

Sorry to spoil your delusion, the hiatus in my postings has more to do with an increased work load and overseas business trip than MT ascending to PM.

I must admit to being amused at the left whingers' delight in MT as PM being like turkeys celebrating Xmas. If as I suspect MT calls a DD election early next year, the polls show that not only with the trolls such as Lambie disappear, but the Labor and the greens will lose about 3 senate seats each, and the coalition will get control of both houses.

Kevin for 2017.
A bbott is no boat.

an independent review of the Q&A program found that it is in fact biased against the Greens.

Ray Martin independant !
LOL.

SM Wasn’t that the proposed scenario before the last election. Turnbull is a smart man, his popularity is over the moon, then again he has just tinkered around the edges. Remember his popularity is only on loan, until he proves himself of justifiable policy. Bill will make sure he keeps on track.
If Morrison can’t improve his bottom line he will battle to get reelected again. Abbott needs to allow new blood into the electorate, he has disgraced himself.
Howard was ok until he went overboard with work choices, and showed his true colours. Some just can not be trusted, and others will apparently do anything to get elected. The Liberals went with Abbott because of the Howard factor before workchoices, but Abbott could not compete at all.

I think the coalition will win the next election, but not the 2019
election because they are promising growth growth and more growth to
reduce the deficit and the debt.

They will fail and the electorate will put Labour into power because
they will be again be promising growth growth and more growth to
reduce the deficit and the debt.

It is going to take a long time for the message to get from the few
economists, who do understand what is going on, to the Treasury
economists and then to the politicians.
It will probably take about four election cycles before they get the message.

However it all might be short circuited if the expected financial
crash happens during that four election cycle and then all bets will be off.
Some are making noises that the crash could happen in 2016.
No one really knows.

Shadow, there is no shame in admitting you were overcome with grief and sadness following the downfall of Fearless Leader, even real men cry, many of the forums most noted conservatives, you included, had misplaced their faith and trust in Tax Em' Tony, only to see your hopes for a truly divided Australia, with you and the other elitists Have's on the one side, subjugating the masses of Have Not's on the other, a kind of ultra conservative utopia. Sorry that your dreams of a class ridden society with the Mad Monk at the helm did not last, and fizzed out just like Tony!
Now, what do you think of new man Malcolm? Seems to stand for everything you despise, a liberal progressive no less.

The greatest leader Australia has ever had was Tony Abbott.
I have just returned from Europe and when Europeans from Britain,Italy or Germany realised I was an Australian.The first thing they would say was, they wished they had a tough leader like Tony Abbott.
The issue in every European mind is when will they stop immigration.

You talk a bit silly Paul. It is one thing to make jokes about the Mad Monk
and the like but it does not go anywhere.
One thing I suspect from a few unguarded remarks that Joe Hockey made
indicated to me that he understood about the end of growth.
I suspect that he had not partially or completely convinced Tony Abbott
that we are facing that problem. I think Abbott was trying to have a
bet each way on the growth problem.
All politicians will flail around until it hits them clean between the eyes.
They are just too afraid to even consider the possibility.
They just want the idea to go away, or they actually believe they can
manage their way past it and get something for nothing.

Paul,

There is no shame in overcoming the grief that still festers in your heart at the knifing of brown eyed Bob and Christine Minge.

But I am glad that you support a Liberal over that idiot Dinner Tally, and wholeheartedly support his direct action plan, his rationalized NBN etc. Perhaps you are ready to join the Have Brains and leave the have nots, perhaps you will turn your back on the green socialist utopias such as Cuba and North Korea and join the real world.

Bazz, put simply Abbott was not up to the task of leadership and failed the test when it come to making the necessary decisions that the majority of Australians would be willing to support. We all make mistakes but in Abbott's case his parliamentary colleagues, with some prodding from outside, along with a degree of self interest, realised Abbott was not going to improve and simply dumped him and went with the alternative in Turnbull. Hockey was too close to Abbott, and his way of thinking, in the end he had gambled his whole political career on the success of for want of a better word Abbottism, and came crashing down. Hockey still had enough clout to have been a real thorn in Turnbull's side, but was bought off with the ambassadorship to the US. How much can Turnbull count on the loyalty of the likes of Morrison, Bishop and Pyne etc as much as Abbott could, its all tied to political success.
I think there is a real deep seated animosity between Turnbull and Abbott, they simply don't like each other, which goes a long way back, Turnbull is not willing to buy Abbott off with anything at this stage.

As for having a joke at Abbott's expense, all politicians are fair game, and what is posted on a forum such as this is of little consequence to others.

On the question of growth, it would be a courageous politician who went to the electorate with a policy of declining growth, therefore a decline in living standard as the population grows. All populists politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to growth, they have to deliver growth to accommodate the expectation of an ever increasing population, and maintain their own position of power. Keating was a competent treasurer and is credited with a number of achievements in the economic sphere, but is still remembers for his "recession we had to have" remark. people don't like economic pain and whatever Hockey realised, its of little consequence when it come to the political reality.

Shadow, I do believe your man Malcolm has had a number of meetings recently with our man Richard to discuss common ground in a number of areas. Greens are in fact closer to Liberals like Turnbull on many social issues than they are to conservative Labor people. Why should I support Labor with Shorten in command. At both the last Federal and State elections I gave my preference to the small 'l' Liberal candidates over right wing conservative Labor people. Now if you were the Liberal candidate it might have been a different story, I may have preferenced you just below Attila the Hun, due to Attila's better social policy than yours.

Now Paul 1405 that is a better commentary.
There is no doubt that Abbott lost the support of the parliamentary
liberal members. After all they would know him better than any of us here.
As you put it the populous politicians will not take the risk of saying
it like it is. That is largely the fault of the voter who also is very hard of hearing.
I can see that even on forums like this.

We have a limited time to move to a different energy system and if we
can do it successfully we may be able to get some growth but that
should not be our prime aim. We have to learn how to run a steady
state sustainable economy. That is an economy with a stable or perhaps
a slightly declining population.

I suspect that it cannot be done without nuclear energy if we are to
have a living standard not much different to what we have now.
Without nuclear, uranium, thorium or fusion, I do not see anything
else on the horizon.
Rhosty has a number of suggestions re algae and similar.
They are not new techniques so I wonder why they have not already taken off ?

So Paul, we are in a bind, the politicians and the public do not
believe there is a problem and all it needs is to fiddle with taxes
pay rates, social benifits and all will be well.
Most civilisations failed because of declining returns on resources employed.

'According to Muradel CEO and University of Adelaide Associate Professor David Lewis, if the demonstration plant is successfully scaled to a commercial plant, it will produce 500,000 barrels of refinable green crude a year by 2019 – enough petrol and diesel to fuel 30,000 vehicles for a year.'
It seems to be on the go in US and costs here are similar to crude oil, or were last year. The long term costs may be efficient whenever China climbs out of the red.

Nicknamenick, best you check your figures again.
That much fuel will supply Australia for about 12 hours even allowing
for refinery gain.
Australia uses one million barrels a day.
Another problem would the Singapore refineries be prepared to reset
their plant to process that small amount of feedstock ?

'At the time of the 2015 Motor Vehicle Census (MVC), there were 18.0 million motor vehicles, including Motor cycles, registered in Australia'
You're right , 18m is larger than 30,000. 1 year is longer than 1 day.
Darn it , have to tell the S Aust researchers that.

Yes Nick, it is not uncommon for stories to get exaggerated by not
looking properly at the figures.
Quite often there have been dramatic announcements of "HUGE" discoveries
of oil and quote billions of barrels or something.
Then when you work it out it amounts to 2 1/2 hours of the worlds usage.
Not that that is not a worthwhile find but it would not change the
supply problem for the world.

erm Buzz mate
it's not oil in an algae mine they are working on. Like chocolate or a winery, you grow more choc and winer and boil it up or something.
It's the first proof of concept output. Then it's scale-up using sunlight , CO2 and cash registers.
1/2 day , 1 day , 2 days..
you get the idea.

Nick; understood there have been several real projects over the years
for algae production. Some have been more promising than others.
One I remember was a continuous process with the algae produced in
glass tubes exposed to light.
It was a continuous process in contrast to batch processes.
Don't remember much of the detail but it did work.
A lot of these workable processes fail when it comes to scaling up.
I remember one that it was calculated up it would need a pond the
size of Ireland to supply Europe with fuel.
The continous process, if I remember correctly had problems with the
amount of electricity needed to run the lighting. LEDS might now
improve that problem. They needed artificial light because the
process had to continue day & night.
Some fail because they cannot get the Energy Return on Energy Invested
up to suitable levels.
Still they are working on algae systems and hopefully they might
get there one day.

It's electricity you want? No worries.

'The key to this device is this, the filter. Now, the sunlight comes from this direction, some of the wavelengths pass straight through to the silicon-based cell over here. Other wavelengths are reflected back to the gallium arsenide-based cell. The gallium arsenide cell is a triple stack of photovoltaic layers, unlike the silicon cell, which has only one. Splitting the sunbeams and using the double cell system produced a staggering 40% efficiency for converting sunlight to electricity - the highest for any commercially viable solar power system.'_ Oz 2015

Nick, this reply a gave to Tony might expand my thoughts for you.

Well Tony, I think you are driven by fear of global warming.
It does not matter whether global warming is true or not.
There is not enough economically available fossil fuels to drive the
atmosphere like the IPCC & others believe.

We have to leave oil & coal before oil & coal leave us !
Your idea of an interconnector that support other states is fine as
far as it goes, but do you understand that it means every state must
be able to generate & store enough electricity to support say two other
states as well as itself ?
As far as building damns to store water that is fine but there are two
big catch 22s involved.
No one has been able to designated where it is possible to build those damns.
The Energy Return on Energy Invested on the earth moving needed to
build those damns has been calculated to be very poor, even if you
could find suitable places.
Oh yes the greenies won't let you build them anyway.
That is the third catch22.

Batteries for storage, are you kidding ? The resources needed to
build and maintain them as big enough to run a state is gigantic.
Also the charge/discharge cycle losses would rule most batteries.

Another thing you have overlooked i the multiplication of costs.
Once you start backing up other states and charging storage of
whatever sort you have to cater for x times a days capacity + 1
where x = number of overcast windless days.
That just multiplies up the cost by those figures.
Catch 22 number four.
To be practical where the blazers do you expect to get that much money
in a time of zero growth ?
Posted by Bazz, Tuesday, 22 December 2015 3:45:16 PM

Australia has vacancies with full sun in abandoned sheep studs, suitable for 1) algal pools 2) solar power. The surplus daytime electricity is available for recycling the Murray into the Hydro , then re-used at night for power and round and round. They say sea -water can be used for algae , but it could rust out the Hydro turbines if things get too overloaded. Sydney sewage may give methane for fuel to generate pumping so the combinations could be run through Jupiter casino for the best bet.

errr are you having me on ?
Whats this about Jupiter Casino ?
Murray & Hydro ! Well that might feed a couple of country towns and
that is it.

Paul,

I am well aware of the fickleness and treachery of the greens, and that your natural competition is from labor, so your preference of the libs is not a surprise.

As for MT changing Abbott's successful policies, I don't see any change and perhaps you could point out a few. As far as I can see MT is continuing with the wildly successful border control policies of Abbott, the FTAs of Abbott and the response to ISIS of Abbott etc.

MT is certainly a far slicker salesman than TA, and I can see another successful decade of Coalition rule.