Amid blackout scare stories, remember that a grid without power cuts is impossible... and expensive

Dylan McConnell, University of Melbourne

Introduction

The Commonwealth, through the ACCC, have highlighted the fact that (a) greater consumer power and (b) lower marginal cost of supply are two ways of reducing electricity costs to consumers. I'm proposing that (c) consumer trading in electricity is an enabler for greater competition in both the electricity supply markets and the electricity retail markets.

This is a proposal for community decision making bodies based on FOWTOR regions. One could argue that the current division of Australia into states and territories was really an accident of history, and is not an ideal division of authority. The recent problems with water flows down the Murray, and the difficulty of getting state agreements on water use, highlights at least one problem with the current state/territory divisions.

What I am proposing is 'citizen parliaments' for each FOWTOR region.  

Synopsis

• The crisis Australia is suffering did not start with the dropping by China. We have been suffering this for decades. But the China crisis brings it to a head.
• This crisis in dealing with waste calls for new initiatives and for a new era in which real bi-(multi-)partisan cooperation is a real possibility.
• The COAG get together of ministers for the environment is a real opportunity to take a completely new approach.

Well that was a year, that was! 2016? The year that they destroyed the meaning of the word #Census. And now we understand it was the year that they destroyed the meaning of the word #Centrelink, too.

2016. The #Censusfail year and the #Centrelinkfail year.

The number of people that have enough money to benefit from ‘neoliberalism’ is vanishingly small, compared with the number that don’t.

This week both the Australian Labor Party leader Bill Shorten and the Liberal National Party Malcolm Turnbull claimed electoral victory. 

In fact, we all lost.

Climate Change

Climate Change our greatest challenge was ignored.  The result will be more of the same, both parties support opening new coal mines and continue to ignore the climate crisis.

Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is based on a lie. It's been happening since the mid 70s when US economist Milton Friedman & Austrian/British economist Friedrich Hayek finally threw out the long standing economic traditions of British economist John Maynard Keynes, (who had focussed on government policy to avoid the problems of unplanned market forces made clear in the 1929 crash), and replaced it with a return to *unrestrained competition*. Neoliberalism took up this argument with a passion.

#Bixit

The lie of Neoliberalism goes something like this:

All the pundits have been banging on about how most of us don't make up our minds about who we'll vote for in an election until a few days, or even hours, before we enter the little booth to leave our mark on democracy.

Well, I don't know about you but I pretty much made up my mind at birth; I could never vote for a Tory and my class loyalty comes first.

And it's too close to call (maybe), Labor is going to take some seats of the Coalition, a handful of Greens and independents will sit in the lower house and the Senate will be another dog's breakfast.

Protest on Nauru

Every day since 20 March, asylum seekers on Nauru have demonstrated in the family camp, OPC3, against almost three years of detention in appalling conditions on Nauru.

While Malcolm Turnbull boasts that there are no longer children in closed detention in Australia, he wilfully holds children, women and families in detention in mouldy tents, and confined, with no future on Nauru.