Australian news headlines, Auspol news headlines Friday 22 September 2017

 Electricity prices set to rise.

 Competition and Consumer Commission chief Rob Sims told the Press Club on Wednesday that network charges- the poles, wires and transformers- were by far the biggest driver of electricity prices increases. They account for over 41%, retail margins account for 24%, generation 19%, and green schemes 16%. However, it is the green schemes that our politicians most often speak. Getting to grips with adverse selection is going to be hard but it is essential. 

“In this nightmare, a utility commits to build a very expensive new power plant...However when electric rates are raised to pay for the new plant, the rate shock moves the customers to cut their use. The utility then has no way to pay for the new power plant unless it raises rates even higher- causing a further spiral as customers cut their use even more or walk away. In the final stages of that death spiral , the utility's more affluent customers have drastically cut purchases by implementing efficiency and on site (solar) power, but the poorest customers have been unable to finance such measures. The utility is then left attempting to collect rates from poorer and poorer customers.” 

It's been this way in Australia since the late 2000s and it is set to continue.    

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Cashless Welfare card headed for Wide Bay. 

You don't create jobs or help people into jobs by dis-empowering and demonising people yet that is what the Coalition is proposing to do by forcing more than 6500 people living in Queensland's Wide Bay region to go on the welfare management cashless card next year. Human Services Minister Alan Tudge says that the area was chosen because of its high youth unemployment, intergenerational welfare dependence and the prevalence of alcohol, drugs and gambling among young parents. The federal government will invest an additional $1million into community services to complement the roll out of the scheme. The regional Queensland area was announced Thursday as the fourth location for the roll-out of the cashless welfare card after WA's goldfields and East Kimberley regions, and Ceduna in SA.  

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All in all a nasty debate has just got nastier. 

There was just no way that this debate was ever going to be civil and instead of doing their job and voting on this in Parliament, the Coalition has unleashed this hateful debate on the Australian Public all for a non binding postal survey that is costing the Australian taxpayer $122 million. The No campaign has been particularly nasty saying that equal marriage is an attack on free speech and Christian schools and values. It is not, it never was, all this vote is about is whether we should have equal marriage for same sex couples in a secular state such as Australia (we should). Please consider voting Yes today! In other news Attorney-General Brandis says that man who head-butted Tony Abbott had nothing to do with the Yes campaign. 

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Photo credits:

Image 1 theherald.com

Image 2 health.qld.gov.au

Image 3 sites.psu.edu