Peter is the former national president of the National Civic Council and on the News Weekly editorial team.
The meeting of state and federal energy ministers convened to sign off on the National Energy Guarantee (NEG) has been given a briefing paper from the Council of Australian Governments’ Energy Security Board claiming that with the National Energy Guarantee in place, there would be a reduction of $550 a year on consumers’ electricity bills. Yokohama, one of Japan’s 45 new HELE coal-fired power plants. The National Energy Guarantee (NEG) is designed to end the uncertainty over future energy policy, by encouraging investment in energy projects which will drive down costs, while meeting the government’s Paris Climate Change target. However,…
The five by-elections held on 28 July were conducted as a referendum on the leadership of Malcolm Turnbull and Bill Shorten, but the votes recorded in the five seats shows a growing level of disenchantment with both major parties, with little appetite for the Greens who positioned themselves as the alternative. The two seats which were the focus of most attention were Longman in Queensland and Braddon, on the west coast of Tasmania. Longman is traditionally a Liberal seat, with a large number of retirees living between Brisbane and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. Interestingly, Labor’s Susan Lamb won the seat at…
The by-elections to be held in five federal seats on July 28 will tell whether the electorate buys Bill Shorten’s “politics of envy”, but the signs are that most people will reject it. Labor held four of the five seats, while the other was held by a former Xenophon party member who quit the party to sit as an independent. The Liberals have decided not to contest the two seats in Western Australia, but the other three – Mayo (South Australia), Longman (Queensland) and Braddon (Tasmania) – are all marginal seats, and could therefore fall to the Liberals. As opposition…
A private member’s bill introduced into Federal Parliament by NSW Liberal Democrat Senator David Leyonhjelm (pictured below) to legalise the possession for personal use of cannabis is now under consideration by a federal parliamentary inquiry. Cannabis (marijuana) is the most widely used illicit drug in Australia. Senator Leyonhjelm is a radical free-market advocate who believes that restrictions on drug use should be removed as a matter of principle. In May, he introduced the Criminal Code and Other Legislation Amendment (Removing Commonwealth Restrictions on Cannabis) Bill 2018. He said: “Adults should be free to make their own choices, as long as…
