The South Australian Political Landscape

[fish]

For those who complain she has had nothing to say here is Isobel Redmond's address to the 2012 State Council Annual General Meeting.

My father calls her Invisible Isobel!

[gossipgirl]

We call her Isobel "Where the bloody hell are you" redmond

[RustyCage]

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/three-south-australian-cabinet-ministers-on-a-knife-edge/story-e6frea6u-1226455749446

Three South Australian Cabinet ministers on a knife edge

THREE Cabinet ministers face a tough fight in retaining their marginal seats at the next state election following a redraw of electoral boundaries.

The seats of Bright, Hartley, Ashford and Elder have had their margins trimmed even further in the Electoral Districts Boundaries Commissions final report released this morning.

The rural seat of Frome, held by independent Geoff Brock, is now a notionally Liberal seat and Liberal sources said that if the party preselected a good candidate for the northern seat it could be won back at the next election.

Transport Services Minister Chloe Fox's seat of Bright is also now a nominally Liberal seat and has had its margin trimmed down to 0.1 per cent.

Education Minister Grace Portolesi will face an uphill battle in her eastern suburban seat of Hartley which is now listed as Labor's most marginal - 0.5 per cent.

Infrastructure Minister Patrick Conlon has seen his southern surburban seat of Elder reduced to a margin of 1.7 per cent and will add to the speculation that he is considering standing down at the next election in favour of former Victor Harbor mayor Mary Lou Corcoran.

Former minister Steph Key, who is yet to decide her future, will also face a fight in her southern seat of Ashford after having the party's margin more than halved to 1.5 per cent.

The commission, headed by Supreme Court Justice Margaret Nyland, reaffirmed its decision to rename the seat of Norwood as Dunstan after former Labor Premier Don Dunstan.

But it rejected a call to name Port Adelaide after former ALP federal minister Mick Young saying this should be left to the next commission.

[Squawk]

Bye bye to the Olympic Dam expansion.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/bhp-cancels-30-billion-olympic-dam-expansion-in-south-australian-outback/story-e6frea6u-1226455884519

Curiously, the Treasuer was in Mt Gambier to make the announcement about the sale of forward rotations of state forrests this morning. I wonder when the Govt knew about BHP's decision? ie
was the Treasurer trying to cover over the bad news elements of the sale knowing this BHP announcement was coming? Or
was the forest sales seen as a good news story to balance out the bad BHP news? Or
it is all just a coincidence?

[dedja]

it's not bye-bye ... it's been deferred as widely expected.

BHP will expand it, just a matter of when.

[scoob]

Always a good sign to be compare to with Greece


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nationa ... 6459321037


Low-wage route to faster growth by: Richard Blandy From: The Australian August 28, 2012 12:00AM

BHP Billiton's decision to postpone indefinitely its planned open-cut expansion of its Olympic Dam mine is a terrible kick in the guts for South Australians.
South Australia is not doing well. Despite being voted by the Economist Intelligence Unit the fifth best city in the world, Adelaide senses that it is looking into an economic abyss. Employment has fallen by 20,000 people during the past 12 months, in a state where jobs normally grow by more than 10,000 annually.

The Olympic Dam project would have increased South Australia's economic growth rate by at least half a percentage point per annum, adding at least 4000 jobs a year. Eventually the expanded Olympic Dam would have been larger in economic terms than the state's agriculture, forestry and fishing sector, to nearly match its manufacturing.

South Australia is one of the slow-lane states in Australia's two-speed economy. Olympic Dam was the project that was going to allow it to shift lanes, leaving behind the losers in Victoria, NSW and Tasmania, and joining the winners in Western Australia, Northern Territory, Queensland and Canberra.

...The South Australian government is faced with severe budgetary problems and has already lost its AAA credit rating. It has several major construction projects under way and was relying on payroll tax and stamp duties from economic activity stimulated by Olympic Dam to meet its projected expenditures.

South Australia shares Greece's problem within the eurozone, but in far less acute form. Monetary union works in Australia because Australia is a political and fiscal whole, with mechanisms that flow productive resources from slow-growing states to faster-growing ones, and income support from the fast to the slow. This does not happen in the eurozone.

Our overarching national tax and welfare system, in particular, automatically redistributes income from fast-growing states to slow-growing ones. Support of slow-lane states by fast-lane states is further formalised through the efforts of the Commonwealth Grants Commission to achieve fiscal equalisation between state governments. This is all light years ahead of economic integration in the eurozone.

The problem with these arrangements is that they only smooth adjustment to the transfer of people and economic activity. They do not stop the adjustment. South Australians would prefer South Australia to be a fast-lane state than a slowly declining, slow-lane one.

So what is plan B, now that Olympic Dam has fallen over? How does South Australia become a fast-lane state?

The answer, short of something, Micawber-like, "turning up" -- another Multi-Function Polis, perhaps -- has to involve a monetary devaluation of economic activity in South Australia.

A nominal devaluation would involve South Australia leaving the Australian monetary union and issuing its own currency -- the South Aussie, say, with a lower international value than the Australian dollar.

This would have the effect of cutting real wages and incomes in South Australia, helping South Australia to become more internationally competitive, and thereby able to grow faster, provide more jobs and reduce its level of unemployment. Short of doing this, which would be practically, as well as politically, exceptionally difficult, South Australia must undertake a real devaluation (as is demanded of the Greeks in the eurozone).

South Australia already has experience with this approach. South Australian premier Tom Playford kept nominal and real wages in the state below those in the rest of Australia for much of his 26-year reign from 1938 to 1965. He kept South Australian wages and prices down artificially by rigging consumer price index increases in Adelaide, through price controls on key items in the CPI, by providing cheap public transport and low rents in public housing, and so on.

As a result of Playford's manipulations, South Australians had lower real wages and incomes, but they also had faster economic growth.

This was the time in the early post-war years when South Australia built its manufacturing base and was the fastest growing state in the commonwealth.

After Playford, governments, unions and the arbitration system decreed it was unfair for South Australian workers to have such low incomes and restored them to parity with Australian norms. South Australia has grown more slowly than the rest of Australia, and has steadily lost its share of national population and national economic activity ever since.

Plan B for South Australia involves adopting once again the brutal reality of economic Playfordism. Government spending and taxes (especially business taxes) need to be slashed. Budget surpluses need to be assured. Wage rates in the public sector need to be cut by, say, 10 per cent with the concurrence of the unions involved, of course.

Private-sector unions need to agree that their members' minimum wages should be reduced similarly, and overtime and penalty rates reduced. Competitive businesses' prices would fall by the extent of their fall in costs. Regulators would reduce the prices charged by monopolies equivalently. The South Australian economy would reform on a lower cost base with prices, say, 5 per cent lower.

As a result, South Australia would export more (including to the rest of Australia), import less and borrow less. More businesses would start up in, or relocate to, South Australia rather than somewhere else because they would be more profitable there. Businesses already located in South Australia would expand faster or contract more slowly.

Probably only a Labor government with its union base could achieve such a real devaluation now that the voting gerrymander that sustained Playford in power has gone. There can be no doubt that plan B would work in restoring faster growth and greater prosperity to the South Australian economy. Fewer of South Australia's young would have to leave home to be securely employed in a prosperous place.

The alternative is for South Australia to continue its slow economic shrinkage relative to the rest of the country while South Australians hope for the next big thing to take over their fantasy space from Olympic Dam.

[Gozu]

OPPOSITION frontbencher Martin Hamilton-Smith says the Liberals can win the next election but would not say if that could be achieved under the current leadership team.

Asked if he thought Leader Isobel Redmond and Deputy Leader Mitch Williams could take the party to victory in March 2014, Mr Hamilton-Smith said: "Of course the election can be won. There's no such thing as an election that can't be won and the current leadership group has my full support".

However, Mr Hamilton-Smith, who stepped down as Liberal leader in 2009, refused to answer repeated questions on whether the election could be won under Ms Redmond and Mr Williams.

The Liberal Party is meeting tonight ahead of a two-day retreat in McLaren Vale.

The Australian has reported Mr Hamilton-Smith last night said MPs had made a judgment about Mr Williams' leadership and he would "deal with" him in the partyroom.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6460839178

[GWW]

A bit of vote buying here I would say, although I won't say "no" to a $1,000 payment

I suspect they're trying to gain favour from voters before the anticipated debate about tenure between the 2 major parties before the next election.

http://www.news.com.au/national/governm ... 6460311972

PUBLIC servants will get a one-off $1000 payment costing more than $33 million as part of a new wage deal with the Government.

The deal is aimed at heading off industrial unrest before the next election and part-time employees will get a pro rata, one-off payment depending on the hours worked.

Under the Government's offer, which will be for two years, about 33,000 public sector workers will also get a 3 per cent increase from October this year and another 3 per cent next year.

[Jimmy_041]

OPPOSITION frontbencher Martin Hamilton-Smith says the Liberals can win the next election but would not say if that could be achieved under the current leadership team.

Asked if he thought Leader Isobel Redmond and Deputy Leader Mitch Williams could take the party to victory in March 2014, Mr Hamilton-Smith said: "Of course the election can be won. There's no such thing as an election that can't be won and the current leadership group has my full support".

However, Mr Hamilton-Smith, who stepped down as Liberal leader in 2009, refused to answer repeated questions on whether the election could be won under Ms Redmond and Mr Williams.

The Liberal Party is meeting tonight ahead of a two-day retreat in McLaren Vale.

The Australian has reported Mr Hamilton-Smith last night said MPs had made a judgment about Mr Williams' leadership and he would "deal with" him in the partyroom.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6460839178

And people wonder why journalists (sic) are called cows

[Gozu]

A KEY policy adviser to Upper House MP Michelle Lensink yesterday quit after being confronted about a fraud conviction.

Policy and media adviser Adam David Jones was found guilty of an elaborate identity theft scam a fortnight ago - but failed to inform Liberal party hierarchy.

Jones, 24, of Millswood, was given an 18-month sentence after pleading guilty to 74 counts of fraud in the Adelaide Magistrates Court.

Deputy Chief Magistrate Dr Andrew Cannon imposed a six-month non-parole period, but suspended it in favour of a $500, two-year good behaviour bond.

Jones, who has worked for Ms Lensink since October last year, was ordered to repay $36,239.43 to American Express and $13,240 in Victims of Crime levies.

At the time of the offending, Jones was working at a Norwood Telstra shop as a salesman.

He stole the identities of numerous customers and used them to obtain American Express cards.

Between February and August last year he went on a spending spree, purchasing lavish meals, electrical goods, menswear and jewellery. He also paid an outstanding court fine of $343.75 using a fake card.

After being approached by The Advertiser early yesterday, Ms Lensink questioned Jones but he repeatedly denied he had been convicted.

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/sout ... 6471375427

[oldeagle]

From a phone salesman to a key policy advisor to a MP!! Obviously they have some meaningful discussions in the phone sales world. Would like to now what the other job applicants' creditionals were for them to be passed over.

[GWW]

With all the job losses in the Queensland Public Service stemming from the Newman Govt's recent Budget, makes me wonder what the SA Liberal Party would do in this regard if they win the next election.

[Jimmy_041]

Let's hope not GWW, because we need more of this:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/business/sa-business-journal/ratings-agency-moodys-downgrades-sa-to-aa/story-e6fredel-1226471870156

I'll quote one line: "Moody's expects the state's deficits to persist, leading to a significant increase in debt levels over the medium term. In our view, these trends also reflect a loosening in South Australia's fiscal policy stance," it said.
But, as long as we are quite prepared to keep electing these people, we should be prepared to keep paying more, and more, in taxes to support them.
The State Govt can just keep getting more, and more, credit cards with increasing limits to pay for it all.
10 years of gilding the lilly are coming home to roost

[fish]

Meanwhile Isobel Redmond has been visiting a strip club with three of her male colleagues!

OPPOSITION Leader Isobel Redmond has revealed she visited Hindley St strip club The Palace on a tour of licensed city nightspots at the weekend.

She spent from 1.30am to 3am on Saturday night speaking with bouncers, venue owners and party goers.

Ms Redmond said she was prompted to visit the area with three male Liberal party colleagues - Duncan McFetridge, Mark Goldsworthy and Stephen Wade - after a spate of alcohol-related violent attacks in the city.

[Dogwatcher]

I heard they were surprised when they walked in to see Kevin Rudd there...

[scoob]

Meanwhile Isobel Redmond has been visiting a strip club with three of her male colleagues!

OPPOSITION Leader Isobel Redmond has revealed she visited Hindley St strip club The Palace on a tour of licensed city nightspots at the weekend.

She spent from 1.30am to 3am on Saturday night speaking with bouncers, venue owners and party goers.

Ms Redmond said she was prompted to visit the area with three male Liberal party colleagues - Duncan McFetridge, Mark Goldsworthy and Stephen Wade - after a spate of alcohol-related violent attacks in the city.

Are you serious? What are you shaking your finger at about this story?

[southee]

Meanwhile Isobel Redmond has been visiting a strip club with three of her male colleagues!

OPPOSITION Leader Isobel Redmond has revealed she visited Hindley St strip club The Palace on a tour of licensed city nightspots at the weekend.

She spent from 1.30am to 3am on Saturday night speaking with bouncers, venue owners and party goers.

Ms Redmond said she was prompted to visit the area with three male Liberal party colleagues - Duncan McFetridge, Mark Goldsworthy and Stephen Wade - after a spate of alcohol-related violent attacks in the city.

And....your point???

[fish]

Relax guys just a bit of fun!

[Jimmy_041]

Relax guys just a bit of fun!

Prove you were having fun!
Where's the smiley?

[Sky Pilot]

Fish are you able to offer some substantive proof that you were having fun? A graph even.