The latest news from Victoria is very puzzling.
The politicians have congratulated themselves by giving very large
pay rises to politicians.
What are they congratulating themselves about ?
Well there have been some interesting decisions which will make a lot
of money available to pay the pollies.
The first was to close a a couple of power stations.
That will save the government from the costs of more wind & solar
systems subsidiaries etc. I know, I know. It will all come clear, huh !
Then they are not going to build more dams. That will save big bikies.
That on its own will pay the pollie increases.
They will increase, using Federal Govt money, the desalination plant
size to compensate.
You see they believe it will never rain again. Really !

The Victorian parliament members of the opposition or preferably
someone other than a politician should apply to the court of disputed
returns to cancel the results of the last election on the grounds of
the insanity of the members.
Seriously, anyone who thinks you can close large generator stations
and it has no affect apparently does not understand that 5-6=-1 and
must be considered to be deficient in reasoning.
Anyone who believes it will not rain again or hardly ever, in
Melbourne of all places, has a mental disassembly of some kind.

They really have now lost the plot as they say, and should not be in
charge of any government.

Victoria showed how mad it was by electing the Andrews Government. A very dumbed down mob.

Elect? it was a landslide rejection of the opposition
Maybe, no one can be sure, it will be closer next time
But if Victorians are dumb Queensland is in trouble
Mexicans own most of it and are the hardest workers up there

What are Mexicans doing in Queensland? I thought Queensland was in the hands of the Chinese like the rest of the country. Did anybody see this today:

http://www.businessinsider.com.au/chinese-buyers-are-getting-ready-to-flock-back-into-australias-cheap-property-market-with-one-city-emerging-as-their-clear-favourite-2019-9

Like I've been saying, Australia has a Chinese future. And there will be a lot more Gladys Lius in parliament before much longer.

PS Begs the question: Should Parliament be bilingual, with MPs fluent in both Chinese and English, or supplemented with Chinese-English interpreters for the members?

I think that Victoria has ceded from Australia and become the 24th state of Venezuela. With the snout in the trough and stuff the public attitude I think the pollies will fit right in. I have always been perplexed by how readily socialist leaders will piss away public money on self-aggrandisement.

No. There's nothing wrong with Victoria. The madness lies with Victorians and the people they put into power.

Well ttbn, the Victorian government certainly seems to be suffering
from some form of insanity. They seem to be out of touch with reality.
If they were the board of a company there would be calls for a special
meeting by shareholders to consider their removal.

Oh! no! Once again the forums Conserves have gone into a spin, getting themselves in knots. When it comes to politics the only thing Victoria is suffering from is good government. The state is fortunate not to have the likes of ScumO' and his bunch of fruit loops running the show.

Don't worry fellas the blokes in the white coats will be along soon to take you back to where you belong.

ttbn how many times have I asked you; Did your 'Great White Hope' that Corny Banana fella give you a refund, or did he sucker you like the rest of the misguided fools, and pocket the dosh. I suspect Corny kept your cash.

So that is good government ? They cannot even do arithmetic.

Dear Bazz,

It was an independent tribunal which handed down
a salary increase not only to the premier but
also granted an 11.8% per day rise to ministers
and the Opposition leader.

It appears that the Victorian Independent Renumeration
Tribunal was set up this year to determine the
salaries and allowances of MPs and senior public
servants.

A government spokesman explained that the decision was
made to do this because -

"These decisions should not be made by politicians and
in Victoria we've made sure that they never will be..., "
a spokesman said.

The Opposition also said it was appropriate the wages were
set independently.

This was done to bring Victoria in line with other
states. So the pay increases were not done by the
Andrews Government but by an independent tribunal.

Dear Bazz,

All rot as usual. Victoria has the cheapest power on the eastern seaboard states including SA.

I think the money the premier receives is obscene and some of the selloffs a real concern, but on the whole he is doing a solid job.

Yes Foxy, I sure you are convinced of all that.
I would have thought you were more switched on than that.
Never mind, it is all a bit of fun.

Dear Bazz,

I'm not sure what you mean by "switched on".
I live in Victoria and am very pleased with
the work that our Premier and his team
are doing. But perhaps judging by actions instead
of slogans, and empty words - is not considered "switched
on?" I'll take good outcomes over glitz every time.

cont'd ...

Dear Bazz,

Just for your information:

The state of Victoria is "switched on."

Assisted dying laws, medical marijuana, safe
injecting rooms, resounding support for same-sex
marriage,compelling support for a republic,
emphatic rejection of race-baiting, a
new cabinet comprising 50% women.

Voting and
backing the biggest infrastructure agenda in road
and rail in Victoria's history, rejecting the
"low road of fear and division" and "detecting
nasty flakes from a long way off." ( reference
to the Liberal Party's Victorian President
Michael Kroger - who as the Premier stated -
swans around the suburbs that he's never been in
in his Burberry trench coat lecturing people about
the cost of living). Victoria has the lowest energy
prices, and Melbourne is rated as the best live-able
city in Australia.

We Victorians are the most socially liberal and
deliciously up-ourselves - "switched on" folks
in the country.

If it's that good Foxy, then why is everybody moving to QLD?
http://www.sbs.com.au/news/why-everyone-is-moving-to-queensland

Foxy said;
Victoria has the lowest energy prices,

Victoria NEVER has the lowest prices. Qld is almost always the lowest
followed by NSW and SA.
At the moment an unusual event
Price QLD NSW SA VIC TAS
Energy $0.00 $38.43 $-526.56 $41.16 $90.28

Interesting SA has to pay others to use their electricity.
Negative pricing ? and that is considered a success ? It is unusual.
Those are Megawatt prices.
The renewable part of the network is in trouble with grid instability.
They are having other technical problems that I do not understand.

Dear AC,

They're moving from NSW to Queensland - and that's
perfectly understandable because of Queensland's
improving economy under Labor, their standard of
living and affordable housing market are driving
the surge in individual migration.

Dear Bazz,

South Australia has the highest retail electricity
prices whereas households in Victoria and yes
Queensland pay the lowest prices.

Nope, we have the cheapest average bills out of Qld,NSW and SA.

This is from the Australian Energy Regulator. Check out the graphs on pages 11 and 12.
http://www.aer.gov.au/system/files/State%20of%20the%20Energy%20Market%202018%20-%20Full%20report%20A4_2.pdf

You keep doing this don't you. Time to dial the fibs back a little.

Has Bazz,

"Has Victoria Gone Mad ?"

All western nations are suffering chronic mental illness;

'She'll be right mate', 'takin the piss' and our previous 'friendly cultural racism'
- Are or were completely at odds with globalism agendas and political correctness

* Our culture is being torn down and rebuilt with a new generic globalist culture, and this is occurring in all western nations.

*There's no real 'national' democracy in a 2 party system where one of the parties is an 'immigrant platform'.

Therefore, this isn't 'national' democracy;
- It's 'international democracy' being imposed on nation states.

Madness?
Where the hell would I start?

There is no democracy, it's already ALL DECIDED.
Were all just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

All I can do is promote the wisdom of looking at 'the bigger picture';
- Because if people can't do that, we're really stuffed.

Why don't we all just line up indian file on the edge of a cliff and we'll take turns kicking the person in front of us off?
- Sorry, thoughts of moronic and irrational stuff come to mind -

Given that Victoria's generation base is mostly brown coal based, it is not surprising that Victoria has the lowest average power price. However, it used to be lower still when Hazelwood was running, and is set to jump massively when the human skid mark Andrews gets to close the generators in the Latrobe valley.

Dear Shadow Minister,

Coal-fired power stations age while gas prices rise
and the contribution of fossil fuels is starting
to decline with the closure of these ageing coal-fired
power stations.

Victoria has committed to a renewable energy target of
40% by 2025, Queensland a 50% by 2030 and ACT is aiming
to run completely on renewables by 2020.

Consumers and businesses are also rapidly leading the
charge to renewable energy in order to reduce their
electricity bills.

Integrating variable renewables into the grid will
require investment in transmission net works and energy
storage such as pumped hydro and batteries.
But doing nothing is not an option, as coal-fired
power stations are reaching the end of their useful lives
and cannot simply be replaced.

Another important fact is that the growth of variable
renewables is being driven by the fact they are now
cheaper to build than other new generation infrastructure,
as well as social and political interest.

"This is the tide coming in and it's going to be difficult
to stop"

Foxy,

As usual you are singing from the Labor/green songsheet and have got much of it wrong.

Consumers and businesses are not flocking to get renewable energy to save money, and while renewable generators are nominally cheaper than new coal plants, once you include the cost of distribution, storage etc they are considerably more expensive.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-29/hazelwood-electricty-prices-climate-pollution-gas-supply/9599998

Considering that the wholesale price of power nearly doubled when Hazelwood closed, the cost of power in Vic is likely to jump to close to SA's when the other coal plants close. Blackouts will become a new and frequent occurrence as Vic approaches its renewable targets.

As for Queensland, Labor won't be in power by 2030 if it tries to shut its coal plants.

Dear Shadow Minister,

My information comes from reputable energy sources.
However, I'm not going to argue with you.
This is not a competition about who's right or wrong,
and I certainly don't think that finger-pointing
achieves anything productive.

History will show us in which direction the future of
not only this country but the entire globe - lies.
Our young people are trying to lead us in the direction
that they want to see by their demonstrations here and
overseas.

Do you have any children and grandchildren?

I do.

Foxy,

Being a power systems / network electrical engineer for more than a decade I think my definition of a reputable source differs widely from yours. For example, the cost of distribution of power is generally more than the cost of generation, and for diverse / small generation this is disproportionately higher. Similarly, large power stations have a life of 40+ years while wind turbines seldom last longer than 20yrs.

Yes, I have two grown children and I don't want to see the economy cocked up by greenie zealots.

Shadow Minister,

I see you are an engineer. Do you have training outside of engineering?

Dear Shadow Minister,

You write "Consumers and businesses are not flocking to get renewable energy to save money"

What an ignorant statement regurgitating rightwing talking points rather than the objective truth.

Why on earth do you think there has been such a huge uptake of solar panels in both businesses and households?

Try again old chum.

Foxy, here are the prices of electricity per Megawatthr right now;

QLD $233.79 NSW $266.26 SA $292.51 VIC $299.99 TAS $108.74

Dear Bazz,

Sorry - the average electricity costs per
kWh by State are as follows:

Vic. - 23.272c / kWh

Qld - 23.545c / kWh

NSW - 27.56c / kWh

SA - 37.62c / kWh

As given - August 2019.
CANSTAR Blue.

SR,

After a decade of vast solar subsidies roughly 15% of households have taken up solar panels and the vast majority of businesses don't have any renewable generation.

You and I have a very different idea of "flocking"

That's interesting Foxy. You figures show in a Conservative state like NSW where government policy favours non-renewable energy production, costs are higher than in Progressive Victoria, where government policy favours renewable's. The gap in the consumer price can only increase. Unfortunately many believe the big lie that energy produced from coal fired plants is somewhat cheaper than wind and solar, that is no longer true.

Yet the market price in Victoria is almost always more expensive.
Price QLD NSW SA VIC TAS
Energy $14,000.37 $99.17 $77.50 $110.89 $110.25

Note the QLD price !
It is hard to copy formats on this software.

Bazz, your post makes no sense Qld is what $14,000.37c while in NSW its $99.17c, for what, a AA battery? And where is this info from? Out of someones rear end.

in Progressive Victoria, where government policy favours renewable's
Paul1405,
That sounds interesting, any examples ? Let us know & we'll push for these renewables up here !

Paul, it is a market and the buyers must have needed more than
QLD could supply. The $14k is the market limit. Qld the other day was
actually $0.00 ! Sth Aus sometimes is negative, in other words they
pay others to use their electricity.
Those problems are caused by renewables.
Right now it is;
QLD NSW VIC SA Tas
$68.31 $83.09 $91.27 $89.44 $90.28

The Tas Vic link is still down, been four weeks I think.
The figures are from the network operator.