JAM said:
Heh, no, an FTA with China means sweet FA when it comes to relations. It's purely business with them, and it's an FTA that's been a decade in the making.
Abbott is an embarrassment. The quicker he's replaced the better it is for Australia.
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Talking Politics
- Thread starter Legends of 2017
- Start date
Heh, no, an FTA with China means sweet FA when it comes to relations. It's purely business with them, and it's an FTA that's been a decade in the making.
Abbott is an embarrassment. The quicker he's replaced the better it is for Australia.
Baloo said:
So the spin on the FTA is - it's got not so much to do with the current government, and we kowtowed to China anyway - Abbott failed again.
I reckon the "Alan Jones" test should be applied- if he is against something you know it must be OK
And Abbott's apparent good rapore with Modi? The relationship with India is a crucial one. Doing well on this front.
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/modi-is-like-a-brother-says-abbott/article6611521.ece
Dunno if the FTA is good or not. It's been crafted through the Howard, Rudd, gillard, Rudd, Abbott governments. Abbott gets to sign it.
But if you think signing an FTA with China means we are on good terms, you can't have had many business dealings with Chinese.
As for the India relationship, seems ok, but I'd rather Australia didn't feed India with uranium until they sign up to the nuclear non proliferation treaty. Both parties allow that to happen
But if you think signing an FTA with China means we are on good terms, you can't have had many business dealings with Chinese.
As for the India relationship, seems ok, but I'd rather Australia didn't feed India with uranium until they sign up to the nuclear non proliferation treaty. Both parties allow that to happen
I think Julie Bishop's popularity is really quite amusing, and up there with people's love of Turnbull. It just don't make sense to me. Sure she managed to say the right things about the downing of MH17, and got some good stares in while being critical of Putin but she is still just blurting out the same crap as Abbott on most things, and toeing the party line.
Great Barrier Reef will be 'slaughtered': scientists dismiss Julie Bishop's claim reef not at risk
Date November 21, 2014
Peter Hannam, Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
Scientists bemused at Bishop's reef comments
Australia's leading coral reef scientists say Julie Bishop's remark that the Great Barrier Reef is not in danger from climate change flies in the face of even the Government's own reports.
World-leading scientists say the Great Barrier Reef will be "slaughtered" this century as seas warm and become more acidic, dismissing comments by Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop that Australia's natural icon was not at risk.
Ms Bishop told Sky News on Friday her office had sent the White House a briefing outlining the Australia's efforts to preserve the reef after US President Barack Obama's warning in Brisbane last weekend that its "incredible natural glory" was threatened by climate change.
Scientists have dismissed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's comments that the Great Barrier Reef was not at risk.
"Of course, the Great Barrier Reef will be conserved for generations to come. And we do not believe that it is in danger," Ms Bishop said.
Mr Obama told the University of Queensland audience on the sidelines of the G20 meeting he wanted the reef to still exist "50 years from now" so his grandchildren could visit.
While Ms Bishop and other Coalition leaders have criticised the US President's intervention, leading scientists have come to his support.
Scientists say rising temperatures and acidity are two long-term threats to the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Obama was "right on the money", Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the university's Global Change Institute, said. "He was stating a fact.
"We have one of the jewels of the planet in our possession and we should care a lot about climate and he wasn't getting that from our leader [Prime Minister Tony Abbott]," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
Peer-reviewed research published by Dr Hoegh-Guldberg in 2012 said the global agreement to limit CO₂ concentrations to 450 parts per million in a bid to keep global warming to under 2 degrees from pre-industrial times would not be enough to protect the reefs.
Any increase above 1.5 degrees would be devastating, the research found.
The reef has already shrunk by half in 30 years, he added, with climate change a factor in its retreat.
Threats
Charlie Veron, a former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, went further, saying the Abbott government was downplaying the dire future facing the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs everywhere.
"In the long term, that is the whole of this century, we are going to have the Great Barrier Reef slaughtered," Dr Veron, a world authority who has scientifically named about one-quarter of all known corals, said.
"There's no doubt about that at all, if carbon-dioxide emissions keep on tracking as they are."
CO₂, as the major greenhouse gas, traps radiation, heating up the planet. While natural variability plays a role, the background warming continues apace with 2014 on course to be the hottest year on record, the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration reported on Thursday.
The immediate threat is another outbreak of bleaching – some of which is now being detected – as ocean temperatures warm, disrupting coral ecosystems, Dr Veron said.
"In the short-term, the Great Barrier Reef is incredibly at risk from mass bleaching from the warming of the oceans," he said.
He also dismissed the federal and Queensland governments' Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, released earlier this year.
"It's basically a five-year plan to head off UNESCO," Dr Veron said, referring to the UN body's review of the Great Barrier Reef's World Heritage status due for completion by mid-2015.
Acid effect
Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said government efforts to curb run-off of farm chemicals and the recent decision to ban off-shore dumping of dredge spoil – after approving major works to expand the Abbot Point coal port – would go some way to aid the reef's ability to cope with near-term challenges.
The increased concentration of CO₂ not only heats the atmosphere, it also results in an increase in the acidity of the world's oceans as carbon gets absorbed by the seas.
"It's just chemistry ... you can't deny that," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
"It's dropped the amount of crucial building blocks for skeletons and shells by 26 per cent," he said.
"That's then had an impact on the abilities of corals and other organisms to build their skeletons and to rebuild them after storms, after damage from crown of thorns [starfish] and so on."
Work at the James Cook University has shown that altered chemistry affects some fish in ways that reduce their ability to identify predators and even find their way home.
"It's just one of many, many significant changes that we are yet to discover," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
The health of the reef was also covered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, which predicted "significant change in community composition and structure of coral reef systems in Australia".
"The ability of corals to adapt naturally to rising temperatures and acidification appears limited," the chapter on Australasia said.
Contradiction
Jon Brodie, a chief research scientist from James Cook University, said Ms Bishop's comments contradicted the government's own report on the state of the reef.
The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014 "found the reef to be in poor condition and the outlook is for continuing deterioration," Dr Brodie said. "It's obviously in danger."
"Climate change remains the most serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef and is likely to have far-reaching consequences in the decades to come," the report said.
Dr Brodie said government efforts to improve the reef's water quality had made some headway "but it's small progress". He noted that the government had extended targets out to 2018 because goals set in 2009 had not been met.
The government's 2050 action plan, still in a draft stage, will "absolutely not work", Dr Brodie said, adding that it so far fails to set goals to address long-term threats such as climate change.
"Under that plan, the reef will continue to decline," he said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/great-barrier-reef-will-be-slaughtered-scientists-dismiss-julie-bishops-claim-reef-not-at-risk-20141121-11r4a6.html#ixzz3JrLz72cs
Great Barrier Reef will be 'slaughtered': scientists dismiss Julie Bishop's claim reef not at risk
Date November 21, 2014
Peter Hannam, Environment Editor, The Sydney Morning Herald
Scientists bemused at Bishop's reef comments
Australia's leading coral reef scientists say Julie Bishop's remark that the Great Barrier Reef is not in danger from climate change flies in the face of even the Government's own reports.
World-leading scientists say the Great Barrier Reef will be "slaughtered" this century as seas warm and become more acidic, dismissing comments by Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop that Australia's natural icon was not at risk.
Ms Bishop told Sky News on Friday her office had sent the White House a briefing outlining the Australia's efforts to preserve the reef after US President Barack Obama's warning in Brisbane last weekend that its "incredible natural glory" was threatened by climate change.
Scientists have dismissed Foreign Minister Julie Bishop's comments that the Great Barrier Reef was not at risk.
"Of course, the Great Barrier Reef will be conserved for generations to come. And we do not believe that it is in danger," Ms Bishop said.
Mr Obama told the University of Queensland audience on the sidelines of the G20 meeting he wanted the reef to still exist "50 years from now" so his grandchildren could visit.
While Ms Bishop and other Coalition leaders have criticised the US President's intervention, leading scientists have come to his support.
Scientists say rising temperatures and acidity are two long-term threats to the Great Barrier Reef.
Mr Obama was "right on the money", Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the university's Global Change Institute, said. "He was stating a fact.
"We have one of the jewels of the planet in our possession and we should care a lot about climate and he wasn't getting that from our leader [Prime Minister Tony Abbott]," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
Peer-reviewed research published by Dr Hoegh-Guldberg in 2012 said the global agreement to limit CO₂ concentrations to 450 parts per million in a bid to keep global warming to under 2 degrees from pre-industrial times would not be enough to protect the reefs.
Any increase above 1.5 degrees would be devastating, the research found.
The reef has already shrunk by half in 30 years, he added, with climate change a factor in its retreat.
Threats
Charlie Veron, a former chief scientist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, went further, saying the Abbott government was downplaying the dire future facing the Great Barrier Reef and coral reefs everywhere.
"In the long term, that is the whole of this century, we are going to have the Great Barrier Reef slaughtered," Dr Veron, a world authority who has scientifically named about one-quarter of all known corals, said.
"There's no doubt about that at all, if carbon-dioxide emissions keep on tracking as they are."
CO₂, as the major greenhouse gas, traps radiation, heating up the planet. While natural variability plays a role, the background warming continues apace with 2014 on course to be the hottest year on record, the US National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration reported on Thursday.
The immediate threat is another outbreak of bleaching – some of which is now being detected – as ocean temperatures warm, disrupting coral ecosystems, Dr Veron said.
"In the short-term, the Great Barrier Reef is incredibly at risk from mass bleaching from the warming of the oceans," he said.
He also dismissed the federal and Queensland governments' Reef 2050 Long-Term Sustainability Plan, released earlier this year.
"It's basically a five-year plan to head off UNESCO," Dr Veron said, referring to the UN body's review of the Great Barrier Reef's World Heritage status due for completion by mid-2015.
Acid effect
Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said government efforts to curb run-off of farm chemicals and the recent decision to ban off-shore dumping of dredge spoil – after approving major works to expand the Abbot Point coal port – would go some way to aid the reef's ability to cope with near-term challenges.
The increased concentration of CO₂ not only heats the atmosphere, it also results in an increase in the acidity of the world's oceans as carbon gets absorbed by the seas.
"It's just chemistry ... you can't deny that," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
"It's dropped the amount of crucial building blocks for skeletons and shells by 26 per cent," he said.
"That's then had an impact on the abilities of corals and other organisms to build their skeletons and to rebuild them after storms, after damage from crown of thorns [starfish] and so on."
Work at the James Cook University has shown that altered chemistry affects some fish in ways that reduce their ability to identify predators and even find their way home.
"It's just one of many, many significant changes that we are yet to discover," Dr Hoegh-Guldberg said.
The health of the reef was also covered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, which predicted "significant change in community composition and structure of coral reef systems in Australia".
"The ability of corals to adapt naturally to rising temperatures and acidification appears limited," the chapter on Australasia said.
Contradiction
Jon Brodie, a chief research scientist from James Cook University, said Ms Bishop's comments contradicted the government's own report on the state of the reef.
The Great Barrier Reef Outlook Report 2014 "found the reef to be in poor condition and the outlook is for continuing deterioration," Dr Brodie said. "It's obviously in danger."
"Climate change remains the most serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef and is likely to have far-reaching consequences in the decades to come," the report said.
Dr Brodie said government efforts to improve the reef's water quality had made some headway "but it's small progress". He noted that the government had extended targets out to 2018 because goals set in 2009 had not been met.
The government's 2050 action plan, still in a draft stage, will "absolutely not work", Dr Brodie said, adding that it so far fails to set goals to address long-term threats such as climate change.
"Under that plan, the reef will continue to decline," he said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/great-barrier-reef-will-be-slaughtered-scientists-dismiss-julie-bishops-claim-reef-not-at-risk-20141121-11r4a6.html#ixzz3JrLz72cs
JAM said:
I'm one of the insert leftard here types so I'll insert myself now shall I? As Baloo has pointed out the grunt work on the FTA has been ongoing for 10 years and it was probably done by public servants. And lets be clear, they haven't signed anything, the announcement was of their intention to sign, it was a stunt and we know very little of the detail.
Gillard was hounded out of office by Abbott, Jones, Murdoch and Rudd et al. Abbott has told more lies and prostrated himself in front of his coal gods but has seen much less public criticism.
JAM said:
I'm pro-free-trade by principle, so good on Abbott for inking the deal, would have happened with or without him but happy to give it a tick.
As for Liverpool - wish he was here. Even his hero Johnny Howard is critical of Tone Abbott and his football team is on the skids and still won't win the EPL - ever. Suck it up Livers.
Certainly not but as a candidate PM who made "truthfulness" one of his key election planks then he deserves all the scorn and criticism he gets. As pointed out though the Murdoch press let's him off the hook on this most of the time though.
Face it kids, Abbott is a dud, as is Smokin' Joe and Christopher Pyne. Bishop and Turnbull are the only front-benchers with any guts or principle.
Baloo said:
It has allowed her to only make cameos locally but when we do see her she is portrayed though the eye of an international lense which lends gravitas and credibility. It is built on very little. Being the foreign minister helps also because we see her as divorced from the grubby local issues. In truth listen to her speak and she is just as bad as the PM, or Abetz or Brandis.
'We never promised special treatment for the ABC' - Tony Abbott
Cuts = Efficiency divident
What a wanker.
Cuts = Efficiency divident
What a wanker.
My tips for voting in the Victorian state election:
A - If you don't understand how the preferential voting system works and that YOU are the one that gives out preferences, not the parties, if you don't know who is up for election in your seat and you don't know/care about any of the issues, then scribble some witty crap all over the voting form and put in an informal vote.
B - If you do understand how the preferential voting system works, you do know who is up for election in your seat and you do know/care about the issues, then you'd know that they're all full of BS and probably should be in jail, then scribble some witty crap all over the voting form and put in an informal vote.
I know how I'll be voting and despite what some say about informal votes, I'll sleep at night knowing that I'm not aiding or abetting what I consider to be criminal activity.
A - If you don't understand how the preferential voting system works and that YOU are the one that gives out preferences, not the parties, if you don't know who is up for election in your seat and you don't know/care about any of the issues, then scribble some witty crap all over the voting form and put in an informal vote.
B - If you do understand how the preferential voting system works, you do know who is up for election in your seat and you do know/care about the issues, then you'd know that they're all full of BS and probably should be in jail, then scribble some witty crap all over the voting form and put in an informal vote.
I know how I'll be voting and despite what some say about informal votes, I'll sleep at night knowing that I'm not aiding or abetting what I consider to be criminal activity.
Free trade is good but beware the fine print:
http://theconversation.com/how-the-us-trade-deal-undermined-australias-pbs-32573
http://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/04/still-not-loving-isds-10-reasons-oppose-investors-super-rights-eu-trade
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/11/18/china/reality-check-china-australia-fta
http://theconversation.com/how-the-us-trade-deal-undermined-australias-pbs-32573
http://corporateeurope.org/international-trade/2014/04/still-not-loving-isds-10-reasons-oppose-investors-super-rights-eu-trade
http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/11/18/china/reality-check-china-australia-fta