Federal Election 2010

[AtD]

Just in case you haven't already heard:

If you have turned 18 since the last election, you have until 8pm Monday to enrol to vote, so you'll have to email or fax it. Snail mail won't make it in time.

http://www.aec.gov.au/Enrolling_to_vote ... olment.htm

If you've moved house but were already registered at your old address, you have a few more days.

[Edgar]

They should allow Australian Residents who have live here in the last few years to be able to vote too.

Here I am, watching all unfold but not able to choose my leader.

[Hooligan]

They should allow Australian Residents who have live here in the last few years to be able to vote too.

Here I am, watching all unfold but not able to choose my leader.

Become a citizen then

[Wayno]

Ok, so this bothers me. SA has a lot to lose if Uranium is on The Greens hit list. It's not just our few uranium mines, but it significantly crimps the profitability of ODX.

THE Australian Greens would shut down South Australia's signature economic project, the Olympic Dam uranium mine, if given the chance.

The party, which is poised to win the balance of power in the Senate after the election, has conceded its absolute opposition to uranium mining remains unchanged.

This is despite entering into an ill-defined preference deal with the ALP in the federal election.

Both parties were yesterday playing down the bizarre deal, which increases the chances of a Greens senator replacing a Labor one.

Both the state and federal Labor Governments have been unflinching champions of the mine.

But the revelations the Greens want it closed will confuse some voters about Labor's position and cast doubt on the integrity of the deal.

Greens senate candidate, Penny Wright, who could ride a wave of thousands of Labor second preferences into Parliament as a result of the deal, has admitted her party has a long-standing policy on its books calling for all uranium mines to be closed.

She told ABC radio that Greens policy was explicit "uranium mining is not a sustainable way to be relying on income". The Greens' policy document is even clearer - committing the party to "end the exploration for, and the mining and export of, uranium".

The massive $21 billion expansion of Olympic Dam promises thousands of jobs, and has formed a central pillar of the economic strategy of South Australia. It is currently in the Environmental Impact Statement phase with both the State and Federal Governments after the company has reportedly spent billions preparing to gear up.

If it all goes ahead as is likely, it promises to exceed the giant ERA operation at Ranger, the largest uranium mine in Australia, making Olympic Dam the largest uranium mine in the world.

A spokeswoman for BHP Billiton refused to comment on the issue.

The Greens and Labor revealed on Monday they had agreed to swap preferences to maximise both parties' chances. That raised suspicions the parties had reached an understanding on some key policy areas.

Speaking yesterday, Ms Wright said the giant BHP Billiton operation could still operate but the uranium part would be shut if the Greens had their way.

"Our policy is we're not calling for the Olympic Dam mine to be closed, but certainly our policy is not to mine or export uranium in any form," she told The Advertiser. "We're certainly not in agreement with mining the uranium."

[SRW]

But, of course, there's no indication that the Greens will actually 'have their way', even with the balance of power.

[SRW]

Immigration cuts could cripple industry: universities
Bronwyn Herbert, ABC News Online, 26 July 2010

The peak body for the nation's universities says the Federal Opposition's plans to cut immigration numbers could cripple the multi-billion dollar international education industry.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott announced at the weekend that if he were elected, he would cut net immigration numbers from around 300,000 a year to 170,000.

Mr Abbott says skilled migrants would be quarantined from the cuts under his plan, but visas for international students as well as people seeking family reunions would face the chop.

The Federal Government is also adding to the confusion for the industry, saying that it is yet to decide whether the 100,000 students currently studying in Australia can remain here.

Universities Australia chief executive Dr Glenn Withers says any plans to restrict the entry of international students as a way of controlling migration are flawed because most international students return home after studies rather than become migrants.

"The more they restrict the entry of international students ... this will severely affect the international education activities in Australia of universities and VET providers," he said.

Universities Australia says the international student sector is valued at $18 billion and is Australia's third largest export.

Dr Withers says it is the wrong time to make cuts.

"This is a great industry that we've built up in Australia in the last 15 years," he said.

"It suffered partly because of the Indian student problems of a little while back, and to add further difficulties to that now is the wrong time to be doing that and the cost may be not just revenues to universities and the VET providers."

Dr Withers says thousands of Australian jobs are at risk.

"If the industry, we calculate for instance, collapsed by half, you'd lose over 60,000 jobs of Australians," he said.

Dr Withers says there is already considerable anxiety in the sector and student visas this semester have dropped by 20 per cent.

"There has been a lot of publicity around immigration, visas, the international student area and immigration more generally that are creating an impression that we are not welcoming students or even welcoming visitors," he said.

"We have got to be very careful about how we are conveying what Australia is about and what sort of society Australia is.

"There is a range of factors there that are in play but they have produced, for instance, a drop in visa applications already for semester two of this year for higher education of 16 to 20 per cent and that could be even greater in areas like the private collages, TAFE and the English language training courses."

Dr Withers says both sides of politics are contributing to a state of uncertainty.

"[The Government and Opposition are] too anxious, too tight and too concerned in this area, so both are indeed causing some problems of international students cutting back here," he said.

Council of International Students president Robert Atcheson agrees cuts to international student numbers could have a substantial impact.

"Any cuts to the international student visa category is going to have a drastic impact not only in terms of the economic impact of Australia and the universities, but also impacting students that want to come here and get a better education than they would be able to back home," he said.

Australian National University demographer Peter McDonald says cutting international students will have a big impact on Australia's migration for the next few years.

"The big issue for us is that there is a very large group of students who have finished their degrees or their qualifications in Australia, somewhere between 100,000 and 200,000," he said.

"They are here in Australia on an 18-month visa and the Government is going to have to make a decision about their longer-term future."

OK, so there's a number of factual points to be made, one being the migration numbers are trending lower anyway (even despite the Coalition's 'pledge'), another being the Government has already made changes to student visas. But if the Coalition's idea is to keep numbers low (the term 'cap' was bandied about, I think), and migration continues to be politicised, then that's interesting from a 'development in Adelaide' point of view. For instance, what does instability in the education industry, including a decline in international students, mean for Adelaide's high proportion of student accommodation developments? Just something to think about.

[stumpjumper]

A growing population of working age for SA may be an advantage to - our industry? our dwelling sales? (I'm not sure the distinction is always made) but we should first make sure what sort of increase, and what rate of increase, SA can comfortably handle. Otherwise the whole state will suffer to subsidise a few.

As to foreign students, one factor which attracts them is the availability of part-time work to suit students. I don't mean to bash the poor old Shoppies again, but given that there is clear support from the public and the business sector for extended trading hours, it's time the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association dropped its opposition to extended retail trading hours and let Adelaide catch up with the rest of the world. The Shoppies' opposition is political rather than commercial or practical, despite its story of shop assistants forced to work gruelling extra hours. In almost every case, the extra hours would be worked by additional part-time or casual staff. After all, the Shoppies supported the federal Labor government's new 'modern' awards which increased the loadings their members would receive if they did work longer hours. They can't have it both ways.

[Prince George]

I don't mean to bash the poor old Shoppies again, but given that there is clear support from the public and the business sector for extended trading hours, it's time the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association dropped its opposition to extended retail trading hours and let Adelaide catch up with the rest of the world.

An unusually concilliatory tone, stumpy, this politics-on-prozac election campaign must be getting to you.

I wonder what evidence there is that "there is clear support from the public and the business sector for extended trading hours". I rather suspect that the story is one of white-collar workers vs everyone else - and I say this as a white-collar worker (or at least a worker whose collar would be white were I to bother wearing collars at all). Yes, I can see that us desk-jockeys would probably like having stuff open after we knock-off, but are you claiming that the people who would be staffing the stores are clamoring to work, say, 5PM-9 every weekday?

The flipside of this is the number of stores that are already not opening for all the hours that they could be. No evidence is less trustworthy than anecdotal evidence, but this came up in a conversation a month or two ago with a friend who manages a retailer in town. We were having dinner with him one Saturday night and I asked him when he needed to get into the shop the next day; he replied that they had stopped opening on Sunday, something that they had only started doing last year. He explained that they had found that Sunday was just stealing trade from Saturday, they were turning over the same amount of stock, just over the course of two days. It simply wasn't worth the trouble to be open that extra day.

The biggest retailers can absorb that kind of cost, so I can well understand that they would be supporting the idea. So, outside of the likes of the accountants at KPMG and the management at Myers, how much support is there really?

As for "[catching] up with the rest of the world", what parts of the rest of the world were you thinking of and in what sense do we need to catch up? Since reducing regulation almost always plays into the hands of the deep-pockets of the big chains, I could hardly imagine it doing more than accelerating our already precipitous decline into Koolhaas's generic city(*) or the NEF's clone town. I recall during our drive across America staying in the little town of Pecos, TX (birthplace of the rodeo). The stores throughout the town were largely closed, but never fear because Walmart was there, and was open 8AM-10PM 7 days a week. Or at least it will be until they open a super-center in either Odessa or Carlsbad - then they may have to review whether it's worth keeping this smaller store open. Shall we catch up with them?

(*) not that Koolhaas himself would have called it a decline, he considered himself just documenting a pattern rather than bemoaning it. Although he may have shifted that position somewhat after getting the briefs for so many Prada stores or "icon" buildings.

[rev]

They should allow Australian Residents who have live here in the last few years to be able to vote too.

Here I am, watching all unfold but not able to choose my leader.

Australian residents or citizens?
Imho, if one isn't a citizen, no matter how long they've lived here, they shouldn't be able to vote.

[Nort]

They should allow Australian Residents who have live here in the last few years to be able to vote too.

Here I am, watching all unfold but not able to choose my leader.

Australian residents or citizens?
Imho, if one isn't a citizen, no matter how long they've lived here, they shouldn't be able to vote.

Yup, the right to vote is one of the things that comes along with citizenship, shouldn't be any other way.

(Non-citizen permanent resident myself)

[peas_and_corn]

As to foreign students, one factor which attracts them is the availability of part-time work to suit students. I don't mean to bash the poor old Shoppies again, but given that there is clear support from the public and the business sector for extended trading hours, it's time the Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees Association dropped its opposition to extended retail trading hours and let Adelaide catch up with the rest of the world. The Shoppies' opposition is political rather than commercial or practical, despite its story of shop assistants forced to work gruelling extra hours. In almost every case, the extra hours would be worked by additional part-time or casual staff. After all, the Shoppies supported the federal Labor government's new 'modern' awards which increased the loadings their members would receive if they did work longer hours. They can't have it both ways.

The SDA is thinking of its permanent employees, most on wage rather than a per-hour rate, who will end up working more hours. My store manager does 6-18 on weekdays and pretty much the same on weekends (though he starts a little earlier) and rarely takes a day off. And of course I know a bloke who is a dry goods manager who is regularly doing 16 hour days. It's easy to say "oh but there'll be more casuals"- how, exactly? Sales really won't increase in the long run (people only have so much money!), there'll just be more hours to cover.

Loadings only mean something if you're on an hourly rate, which many people in retail are not.

[Prince George]

"Hung parliament" - if only we could take that literally.

[peas_and_corn]

I wasn't aware Parliament was a painting.

[Wayno]

"Hung parliament" - if only we could take that literally.

here you go - covering all angles here...

hung-donkey.jpg (14.98 KiB) Viewed 2199 times

[yousername]

ABC has now said Labor has 72 - Coalition 70. Three seats in play

Brisbane QLD (70.7% counted) - Currently +0.7% to Libs
Boothby SA (77.9% counted) - Currently +0.6% to Libs
Hasluck WA (74.6% counted) - Currently +0.3% to Libs