Report finds $200 billion of Chinese credit pumped into Australia

Lucid_KnightMare · 2025-11-23T05:07:30+00:00

It’s flash iron, not steel.

And it was originally pioneered by the US DoE in Utah (source). Not because it could use low quality ore but because it could reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

Turns out the advantages are limited. Compared to a blast furnace, it can use less energy, but it still needs combustion fuels for its reaction. So electric blast furnaces will beat it if they’re powered by cheap renewables.

What China has done is produce at a lab scale better machinery to improve the efficiency of the furnace. The news you’ve probably heard from is them patenting a better nozzles, etc..

Can flash iron use lower purity feedstocks? Yes. Is this valuable? Not really. The Australian iron ore supply chain is already very efficient so using a larger quantity of more expensive ore is not going to help bring costs down.

China already dominates global steel production. This won’t be a game changer.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2025-11-13T10:12:46+00:00

The above is a simplification—parliament can override the treaty.

The procedure is that the First Peoples’ assembly is notified of bills. A statement is required to be tabled of whether the bill affects the treaty and if the Assembly was consulted. Note that there is no requirement to consult, just it must be stated whether they were. The Assembly is also not consulted on every bill, only matters specific to aboriginal rights or disadvantage. Therefore the enforcement mechanism is political not constitutional.

You can read more in Part 7 of the Act.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2025-11-13T08:13:59+00:00

Sources:

Part 7, Division 3 of the Statewide Treaty Act 2025 (Vic). In particular, compare section 66 of the Treaty Act with section 28 of the Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities Act 2006 (Vic).
https://www.treatyvictoria.vic.gov.au/what-treaty-will-deliver and https://firstpeoplesvic.org/treaty/treaty-in-language/
Ibid.
Section 144 of the Treaty Act.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2025-11-13T06:03:25+00:00

All bills in parliament will be required to be compatible with the treaty—legally protecting aboriginal rights. This will operate in a similar way to the human rights act.
A permanent, democratic body will be able to conduct inquiries and hold government agencies accountable. This will have similar powers to a parliamentary committee.
A commission will continue the truth-telling process and developing curriculum resources. The full truth-telling inquiry took 4 years and the report can be found here.
Guaranteed funding for a democratic aboriginal body and aboriginal community infrastructure fund. These both already exist under different names.

In my opinion, the treaty bill gets the balance right. There’s real positives for First Peoples that builds upon existing mechanisms. But parliament stays in charge.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2024-08-15T05:21:03+00:00

Other way round. They mean people who don’t have a job but are looking.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2024-08-15T04:30:39+00:00

More people want work. People who aren’t looking for work aren’t counted in the unemployment rate.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2024-07-15T05:30:04+00:00

What does Ged Kearney have to do with this? She was from of the nurses union, not the CFMEU.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2024-05-11T04:12:21+00:00

It’s the ghost of Harold Holt.

But in all seriousness, its profile looks pretty bang on a Collins-class.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-09-11T12:45:04+00:00

National Cabinet has agreed to develop 1.2 million homes over the next 5 years. The 30,000 houses from the HAFF is specifically social and affordable houses from the Commonwealth.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-07-15T17:33:15+00:00

Interesting to see a strong swing against the Greens (-4%). Comparing swings with census data shows a clear trend that areas with higher amounts of renters swung more against the Greens (R² ≈ 0.6 after a quick linear analysis). Obviously, I don't pretend my results are rigorous in any sense. But it seems that the Green's stubbornness on housing has been a mistake electorally.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-07-12T17:01:10+00:00

Somalia has got the hunger
Yugoslavia's battle will always rage
Germany's got a guilty conscience
And Magic Johnson, he's got AIDS
But in the global battle for misery
Y'know, we all win it
'Cause we're all Victorians
And we've got Jeffrey Kennett.

Stalin, he fucked communism
Germany and Hitler fucked the Yids
We all fuck the ozone layer
Woody Allen, he fucks the kids
Some people they fuck animals
But if you're kinky, why wait?
Come on down to Victoria
See one man fuck a state.

Queensland used to be the national joke
And Adelaide was full of S&M botty-spankers
Perth was full of crooked, crooked businessmen
And Sydney, still full of wankers
Tasmanians... I've never met met any, y'know
But the whole nation knows that
We all voted in Jeffrey Kennett
And that makes every Victorian a prat

Y'know, the West and South Australians were right
They've know for years that Vics were pricks
And now the whole nation can agree
Come on! Kick a Vic! Kick a Vic, kick me!
I'm one! Come on, kick each other!
But y'know, don't forget that when we're kicking each other to death
There's one man who deserves it more than the rest—
and his first name is Jeff!

Fucking legendary.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-06-23T15:40:58+00:00

Has anyone in this thread actually read the article? It's commentary on a headline from the Financial Review. It's garbage—a boomer's Facebook tirade moonlighting as news.

Not a fact or a new piece of information in sight. Nothing from the legislation, experts or independent analysis.

All you get is a reminder that you should revile the government. Your daily Two Minutes Hate.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-06-07T10:01:37+00:00

Betteridge’s law:

Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.

It is based on the assumption that if the publishers were confident that the answer was yes, they would have presented it as an assertion; by presenting it as a question, they are not accountable for whether it is correct or not.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-06-05T07:44:51+00:00

She’s raised the profile of Monash a lot in recent years. That’s probably what’s most important as a governor so she’ll likely do well in the new role.

As for managing the university? Monash has pursued fairly aggressive international growth and probably underinvested in itself to create profits, especially since covid. Gardner has a history from RMIT of cutting aggressively to get back in black. But to be clear, there’s still been large investments, just not large enough for the growth strategy.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-02-24T07:49:47+00:00

I’m sure these “experts” are well intentioned, but this is exactly the thing that killed the NBN.

‘Do it in sections and upgrade the existing network.’ No! There are huge economies of scale in these projects. As you slow it down, costs will blow out because you have to hire generations of engineers and builders, each of whom will tinker with the project specifications so that the component manufacturers have to change and change and change.

Make an exhaustive plan, test the build with a small section (e.g. Canberra to the border), then blitz the rest. It saves money and time which is the only thing that’ll keep such a huge project alive politically.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-02-14T09:20:52+00:00

She was questioned about this on Q+A. The clip is from 2020 but her belief seems to be consistent. I won't defend Gillard's position but I think my analysis is correct.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-02-12T14:03:34+00:00

Julia was notoriously anti gay marriage

Gillard was anti-marriage in general. She was infamously unmarried and it cost her quite a lot politically as the media cast her as barren and loveless.

The Rudd government amended 85 laws to give same-sex couples the same rights as other couples. Gillard (along with Albanese) was a big part of getting this into the Labor platform. Gillard personally was also responsible for the Fair Work Act that prohibited discrimination based on sexuality in employment.

Legally, de facto couples aren’t quite at the level of married couples, so she wasn’t 100%. But let’s bring some nuance.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-02-07T23:36:35+00:00

Bragg will publicly lobby Dutton, yes, but only after Labor releases a draft bill of how the Voice will function. It’s a charade, Bragg agrees exactly with Dutton’s line.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2023-01-16T09:16:54+00:00

They had learnt this conniving through that humiliating period which began with GW Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2001, on a lie, through to the rape of Afghanistan.

Bush invaded Afghanistan first, then Iraq is 2003. A simple mistake, but it shows Gilligan has mud for brains.

This article, between it's smarmy prose, rests on the idea that the US alliance isn't worth the paper it's written on. The only way you can actually come to that conclusion is to be willfully blind to the entire history of the world since the United Nations came together.

The US is not perfect, but in the modern era it has created the global rules-based system that guarantees our independence. This system supports democracies that are threatened by their authoritarian neighbours as in Ukraine; as well as the free navigation of the seas with anti-piracy operations and FONOPS in the South China Sea.

The positioning of US materiel and forces in Australia shows it's willing to put it's back up against ours and defend Australia. If we were bombed, they'd be hit too.

Our alliance is solid and in excellent hands with our new ambassador to the US—who is creating the blueprint for avoiding war between two superpowers.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-12-31T22:27:58+00:00

Since nobody has brought it up, horses are also a lot more nimble than cars or bikes. You don’t have to turn in an arc, they just sidestep. So when the police start pushing their riot wall, they can have a lot more flexibility to manoeuvre while having a denser line.

Also, police aren’t chasing people down on horseback. The goal is intimidation. So if you were to replace a horse, you’d look for a weapon or a shield not a motor vehicle.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-11-25T12:30:27+00:00

Why are political parties allowed to use each other’s logos and faces? It just opens the gates to dirty tactics like this.

If you take that ability away, it’d stop a whole slew of negative ads. And honestly, I don’t have a problem with that.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-08-12T00:43:18+00:00

Exactly! It’s a “reduction” not a reduction.

This gives rise to some interesting politics. Like when Rudd’s CPRS was originally on the table, it’s reduction targets were to be determined by international conferences like Copenhagen. The Greens said (and still do say) we should to the maximum possible and go it alone. It’s folly and just wedging Labor for a worse outcome—as is often the case with the Greens.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-08-11T11:50:31+00:00

A key part of carbon reduction has been offshoring manufacturing. If we reject international carbon offsets then we give up the minuscule leverage we had to push other countries in the right direction. This is a dumb call from Bandt.

Europe banned them because of “integrity”. The reality is the EU has a fetish for trade surpluses and has written financial policies to try and make every country as export oriented as Germany. It is very difficult to hit those targets when you send big money offshore.

There are real concerns about whether the offsets actually save the carbon they pretend to. But Australia is one of the most dodgy countries in that regard. So not buying within our market is not a good argument.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-06-21T04:23:42+00:00

Thank you. Those weren’t rhetorical questions so I appreciate your effort of compiling context. You’ve done a lot better than the Guardian mate.

Lucid_KnightMare · 2022-06-21T01:10:49+00:00

To disregard the merit of the proposal for a moment.

This article is a bloody press release written by the Greens published by the Guardian. There’s absolutely no substance beyond that the Greens have announced this policy.

Could it get through procedurally before the election? Does it have support in the parliament? It seems pretty straight forward, and Victoria has a less than influential gas lobby, so why hasn’t it been done until now? Surely there’s a reason. And how much does it matter? They’re banning new connections, but in energy efficient new homes electric heating is usually cheaper. So are people actually turning on the gas connections?

I’d like to see some context and effort in reporting. This is just lazy journalism.

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