Health News at Your Fingertips

Big energy users in Queensland and NSW to cut down use as Aemo warns of energy supply gaps

The Australian Energy Market Operator has several tricks up its regulatory sleeves when it comes to ensuring we don’t get blackouts in a tight market.

One is the daintily named Reliability and Emergency Reserve Trader (or Rert, NOT Rort), which is a pre-arranged list of big energy users that agree to reduce load in a power pinch – and collect some payment for helping out.

Yesterday, the Rert was activated for Queensland and it’s been done again, for most of the rest of today. Interestingly, the same request is being made in NSW for about the same period.

We learned yesterday that Rio Tinto’s Boyne Smelter was not part of the scheme, but we have to assume other big power users will be.

Some, of course, can’t turn off the power for too long – such as aluminium* smelters, as their potlines turn solid after a couple of hours and are then useless.

(*Not to be confused with aluminum, which is the Yanks’ accidental typo, when Alcoa lodged its company name and left out the ‘i’ by mistake.)

That is a cracking headline …

Energy a likely focal point at national cabinet meeting on Friday as WA announces state-owned coal power plants to shut

There’s a national cabinet planned for Friday, and you can be certain that energy will feature highly, for reasons that may be more acute by week’s end.

Aside from blaming the Abbott/Turnbull/Morrison government, the Albanese government will need to come up with more of the “way forward”.

Part of that may be the Transition Plan, or even gas storage options floated by the energy minister, Chris Bowen, after energy ministers had their first post-election gathering last week. (It wasn’t the “emergency” meeting as some described.)

To make up for the lack of federal Labor v Coalition stoush at the cabinet meeting, the various states might bring a bit of their own banter to the table.

On Tuesday, NSW energy minister, Matt Kean, seemed to be laying at least some of the blame for the current electricity squeeze on the neighbours to the north.

“Obviously, there’s been some big challenges in Queensland,” Kean told reporters including Guardian Australia’s own Tamsin Rose.

“They’ve had an unusually cold winter and a number of the big generators have gone out of the system. That’s putting increasing pressure on the NSW generators.”

Not surprisingly, his Queensland counterpart, Mick de Brenni, was not overly impressed.

“Queensland has been doing the heavy lifting for the entire east coast, whether it’s on supplying gas to NSW and Victoria, to opening up more gas fields for exploration,” de Brenni told journalists.

(After that riposte, de Brenni wanted to “reassure all Queenslanders that the system is operating … We don’t expect there to be widespread outages.”)

Meanwhile, Victoria’s power pinch is forecast for tomorrow evening at this stage.

In news to darken the soul of Queensland senator and wannabe coalminer Matt Canavan, Western Australia has joined the rush to dump the fossil fuel from its electricity sector.

According to the ABC, the McGowan Labor government will exit coal in its grid before 2030 and pour billions of dollars into renewable energy.

In a “landmark announcement” this afternoon, the premier, Mark McGowan, and energy minister, Bill Johnston, said state-owned power provider Synergy would shut its remaining coal-fired plants by 2029.

Synergy currently owns and runs two coal-fired power stations, the 854Mw Muja plant and the 340Mw Collie plant, both near Collie some 200km south of Perth, ABC said.

Something else to chew over at the national cabinet gathering this week.

Tasmanian Greens leader tables petition calling on government to end subsidies for greyhound racing

The Greens leader in Tasmania, Cassy O’Connor, has tabled a petition in that state’s parliament calling for an end to government subsidies for the greyhound industry.

It was a great honour to table a record-breaking petition condemning the brutal greyhound racing industry in parliament today. This is an industry that wouldn’t survive without tens of millions in taxpayer money.

More than 13,500 Tasmanians signed the e-petition to end the subsidies to greyhound racing – making it the biggest e-petition in Tasmanian parliamentary history. The public know this industry has cruelty at its core and want no part in paying for it.

The momentum to end the cruelty of greyhound racing is gathering as the industry continues to lose its social license.

Tasmanians have spoken, and the Rockliff government is on notice. This industry, that breeds dogs to die or cast aside when they don’t run fast enough, has had its time.

The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds – which is backing the petition – has detailed 64 deaths of greyhounds on Australian racing tracks this year, and 4573 injuries. There were 213 greyhound deaths from racing in 2021.

Judge rebukes Pauline Hanson staffer James Ashby for being ‘evasive’ during defamation trial

Senator Brian Burston was alleged to have been a “serial text pest” and worse (read on)…

Guardian reporter Michael McGowan has filed from the federal court on Burston’s defamation case against his former boss, Pauline Hanson.

Hanson’s staffer James Ashby was accused by a judge of being “evasive” in his evidence.

The disgraced Hey Dad! actor and convicted child sexual offender Robert Hughes has been released from Sydney’s Long Bay jail and is expected to be deported immediately to the UK.

There’s still a flurry of notices from the Australian Energy Market Operator this afternoon, as the electrons flow around the national electricity market. (Note SA is still paying users to take its power.)

The market, though, remains tight, with a total of five “lack of reserve – level 3” notices issued for NSW for later today and into Wednesday. Each has a possible shortfall of supply.

Tasmania, meanwhile, has joined its mainland counterparts in facing a supply gap within the next day or so.

It’s the only one of the five states without a price cap imposed by Aemo (though at the $15,100/megawatt-hour maximum rate it was charging for its power earlier today, it might not be long before it joins the others with a forced $300/Mwh limit).

Another long evening ahead for regulators (and bloggers).

Far-right extremism less closely monitored amid focus on Islamist extremism, Victorian inquiry hears

From Callum Godde in Melbourne for AAP:

A “myopic” focus on Islamist extremism in Australia since 2001’s September 11 attacks in the United States has come at the expense of monitoring the far-right movement, a Victorian parliamentary inquiry has been told.

Liberty Victoria president, Michael Stanton, has acknowledged the recent emergence of far-right extremism in the state, citing neo-Nazis gathering in the Grampians and gallows erected outside state parliament as pandemic legislation was debated last year.

He told an inquiry on Tuesday that far-right extremism is real, but argued Victorian politicians need to be careful not to blindly expand executive powers, surveillance and censorship to combat its influence.

“We need to make sure that in responding to those confronting scenes in the Grampians – whether it be Nazi salutes or display of the swastika – or the erection of gallows outside parliament, that we do not have a legislative response that throws the baby out with the bathwater,” Stanton said.

“Sometimes that involves tolerating speech that we find offensive or humiliating.”

The barrister said Australian law enforcement agencies’ focus has been drawn away from neo-Nazis and other far-right movements over the past 20 years by Islamist extremism.

Both must be addressed, Stanton said, but Victoria’s parliament should not cast the net too wide with any reforms.

“The focus should be on those people who are directly likely to be engaged in committing violent acts,” he said.

“To cast their net more broadly risks increasing stigmatisation – the kind of stigmatisation faced by the Muslim community, or parts of the Muslim community, in Australia for almost two decades – and risks being counterproductive.”

As well as investigating the rise of far-right extremism in Victoria, the inquiry is studying how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected its apparent growth.

Col Blanch to be appointed WA police commissioner

Current deputy police commissioner in the Western Australian police force, Col Blanch, will become the force’s new commissioner next month.

Blanch, who has overseen key portfolios including gang crime, homicide, organised crime, and state intelligence, has been appointed for a five-year term.

Blanch became, briefly, a household name last year as the public face of the WA police force’s search for missing girl Cleo Smith, who was found, safe and well, 18 days after she vanished from a remote camping site.

“We have all had tears in our eyes this morning,” he said of the early morning rescue of the girl.

Blanch is also a former executive director of intelligence for the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission, and chair of the WA State Emergency Coordination Group.

WA premier, Mark McGowan, said Blanch was an outstanding candidate.

“Col Blanch has proven himself a leader of integrity who cares deeply about safety of the community and those serving under his command,” McGowan said.

“Mr Blanch has been directly involved in shepherding the state through the pandemic and he is well-placed to lead the Western Australian Police Force as it confronts challenges of the post-pandemic world.”

And now Victoria …

Christopher Knaus

Experts urge ‘careful consideration’ in designing Australian centre for disease control after Labor’s election promise

Before its election win, Labor had promised to set up an Australian Centre for Disease Control to help prepare for, and cope with, future pandemics and outbreaks.

Experts are now urging the government to carefully consider the body’s design prior to its establishment, warning there is a risk that the establishment of an Australian CDC may be “seen as a ‘quick win’” by the new government.

Three experts from the Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases at the University of Sydney, Prof Ben Marais, Prof Tania Sorrell and Prof Lyn Gilbert, say the Covid pandemic showed such a body was sorely needed to coordinate the national response, collate critical data, and conduct rapid research.

In a statement published Tuesday, they said:

Careful consideration and consultation are needed to establish this organisation as one that society can look to as a leader in preventing, preparing for and responding to disease outbreaks.

It needs to be an entity that can bring together the collective expertise of researchers, epidemiologists, public health microbiologists and practitioners, communications, infection prevention and control experts, and policy makers.

The three experts said questions remained about whether an Australian CDC should examine both infectious and non-communicable diseases, how it would be structured to avoid bias or perceptions of bias, and how it could create a national disease surveillance network across various jurisdictions.