A certain “warm inner glow” about the latest Prius woes for Toyota

A Prius hybrid sits at a Toyota dealership in Stone Mountain, Georgia, one of the US states where some dealers are pulling ads from ABC television. Photograph: Erik Lesser/EPA(photo from the Guardian)

I must confess to having a certain “warm inner glow” about the latest woe for Toyota, not so much about the problems that have plagued them about sticking accelerator peddles, which is a big blow to their corporate prestige and one that I am sure won’t hurt them in the long run if the handle the recall and fix fro the problem correctly as they seem to be doing.No what strikes me about the problem with the brakes on the Prius is that it just exemplifies  the old adage that teh more complex you make something the more likely it is that some aspect of that complexity  will fail or just not operate as it should. Frankly I love power brakes on cars I recall what it was like to drive a large car (a Landrover) that did not have any power assistance, in fact I think that cars like that brought more people into communion with the deity than a whole bus load of holy rollers because nothing focuses your mind  on the next life like ineffectual brakes on a big heavy car. But I digress the thing that worries me with the braking system on the Prius is the fact that it requires a computer to make it work properly. Oh I very much appreciate the point of regenerative braking in terms of recovering some of the cars kinetic energy back into the battery but that delay between hitting the stoppers and having the car respond could be very nasty in an emergency. ABS is part of the equation as well and my experience with that on loses surfaces left me less than confident that it is the boon that many think it is control it with the same computer and you must need some very fancy software just to make it work. From what I can gather it is software glitch that is the culprit here ….
I keep coming back to my oft stated premise for economic and environmentally friendly motoring, its all about  mass and aerodynamics reducing the former and being mindful of the latter when designing the shapes of our cars and motorcycles. Isn’t it about time that the use of light weight materials and optimised and simplified design migrated from the race shop and into the mainstream vehicle design? After all isn’t racing supposed to be all about improving the breed?
Cheers Comrades

There is not even universal support within the Warministas for an ETS

This song is dedicated To “JM” who just refuses to give up on Emission trading as the way to save the world…..

The knowing supporters of emission trading are a rump, albeit powerful, of financial interests who see a multi-billion fortune to be made from trading financial derivatives, carbon-intensive industries that see scope for rorting to prolong their industries, and the politicians who support them by gulling the public that they are doing something that will help save the planet.

Corruption thrives on secrecy and its close cousin, complexity. But ETS has powerful opponents that include the International Monetary Fund as well as the green movement.

In the heat of an election campaign that has already started, it is impossible for the government to explain the CPRS except in the most general terms, and most of those who already understand it know it is a lemon. The CPRS is fertile ground for the mother of all fear campaigns, and Abbott has the intelligence and the ruthless cynicism to exploit it. He is flirting with Lord Monckton to shore up his support among the climate-warming deniers and global conspiracy loonies. It won’t be long before he applies his Jesuit mindset to exploiting the arguments of the high priests of the environmental movement such as the American scientist James Hansen.

Kenneth Davidson

The CPRS is a dead policy walking, and it won’t be that long before the stink of its rotting corpse begins to offend even the Pant-suit wearing minister in charge of trying to breathe life into it…
Cheers Comrades

My bold in the quote

Hopefully I can soon enjoy a well earned holiday from playing boy mechanic.

I certainly has been a bit wet here over the last couple of days. In fact on Saturday night it was like the heavens had opened and the roar of rain on the tin roof kept me awake for most of the night, well that and the niggling thought that I had left the window of the Subaru that I am doing up open. I lay there in the dark trying to decide if it was worth going out into the wet stuff to check. when I did check on Sunday morning I discovered that despite the window being open the floor of the car was not awash as I had feared but only just a little damp. I was amazed.
For those interested in a progress report on this current project I can say that it is rather like ” The curates egg” being good in parts! The engine that I pulled out of the parts car is a beauty that starts and runs very sweetly indeed. I thought that I would be taking the car to get a road worthy certificate this week but instead I shall be pulling the engine out for the third time because the transmission is completely stuffed!
I briefly considered fitting the manual transmission from the parts car but after discussing it with my wife we decided that we could not live with a stick shift. More than a decade of driving cars with Auto transmissions has made both of us reluctant to go back to a manual So I’m off to Yandina on the sunshine coast to buy a good second-hand trans from the Subaru specialist there today. They say that they can put it in the boot of the Falcon but I yet to work out precisely how I will get it out again at this end, Just relying on “eating my Wheaties” will not actually be enough when it comes to the crunch because an Auto is a heavy bit of kit.
I am being rather philosophical about this turn of events because I have learned a great deal about this model car in the course of this project hopefully school will be out soon and I can enjoy a well earned holiday from playing boy mechanic.

Cheers Comrades

Another hit on the credibility of the IPCC

Sinking: The IPCC wrongly said half the Netherlands was below sea level

This post will undoubtedly upset those poor Warministas who have been reliant on  the ascendency of their faith as proof of the rightness of their belief. Put simply the heat is going out of the Warminista message and more and more people are turning their backs upon the cries of “repent Ye climate sinners!“  If the trend evident in this survey is sustained then I reckon that the Warminista faith will be history by this time next year!

A growing number of Britons are sceptical about global warming, a poll has revealed.

It found around 26 per cent – a rise of 10 per cent in just three months – do not believe the world is getting hotter.

And it showed that the proportion of those who think climate change is a reality has fallen from 83 per cent to 75 per cent since a similar survey was carried out in November.

These results come as yet another aspect of the last IPCC report is found to contain a significant error of fact, further undermining the credibility of the organisation. (as if it have mush credibility left after the recent bloopers that have been discovered)

The new error appears in the second volume of the IPCC’s 4th Assessment Report, a 980-page document which predicts the likely impacts of climate change.

It warns: ‘The Netherlands is an example of a country highly susceptible to both sea-level rise and river flooding because 55 per cent of its territory is below sea level where 60 per cent of its population lives and 65 per cent of its Gross National Product (GNP) is produced.’

Although the Dutch National Bureau for Environmental Analysis has taken responsibility for the mistake, the error has fuelled criticism that key parts of the panel’s report uses unreliable information and unscientific reports.

I have lost count of the times that one Warminista or another have genuflected to the IPCC as if it is the embodiment of divine wisdom when it comes to the climate of our planet But yet again we find that this tome is unreliable even it the way that it describes the way that the planet actually is. If we can’t rely upon the IPCC to get the details of the planet’s current geography right then how can we rely upon the predictions it makes about the future?

Cheers Comrades

Has anyone got a new climate change shirt for Brother Number One?

Brother Number One needs a new climate change shirt.

There has been a definite mood shift in the Australian electorate when it comes to climate change, I have noticed it when I have spoken to friends and acquaintances about the issue. The flurry of desperate commentary on the opposition ’s direct action approach from the likes of Penny W(r)ong and Brother Number One makes it very clear indeed that the government has slipped back from their previously commanding position in the eyes of the public to being very much on the back foot. The desperate scare stories emanating from government offices paints a far from glowing picture of a government that has bet all on a way of approaching the issue and lost its shirt.

Until this week the Rudd government was able to assume a receptive public and a sympathetic media over climate change and an ETS. The government had placed all its politics in one ETS basket, committed to climate change action as a core promise and an ETS as the platform for that promise.

Coalition critics of the ETS, such as Liberals Nick Minchin and Cory Bernardi and Nationals Ron Boswell and Barnaby Joyce, were subjected to media grillings and derision as climate change deniers. But after the fiasco of Copenhagen, a new Coalition policy and the desperate attempts by the government to tackle the new political framework have started to change the media atmosphere.

The questions are now more sceptical and concentrate on ETS costs, not the science or morality of believing in climate change.

As ABC Lateline host Tony Jones said to Wong on Thursday, the question of who’s putting forward a climate change policy is now not the only question. “The policy question now on a lot of people’s minds is how much is it going to cost,” he said.

Dennis Shanahan

Is  there anyone out there who still thinks that Brother Number One will pull that double dissolution trigger to fight an election on climate change now?
Frankly I say bring it on!
Cheers Comrades

Use the Jihadist’s own beliefs against them.

This may well just be an Interet fantasy but there is something here:

Now I am not a believer in any God or deity but it seems to make perfect sense to me that If you are fighting a religiously motivated enemy that you should use their own dogma to undermine their activities.

Cheers Comrades

Vaccinate that puppy every year?

A little ball of fluff

Regular readers may recall my piece about the passing of our much loved little mate while we were away for our holiday by the beach, well after a respectful time we have made some effort to find a new family hound. Now it would have been easy to rescue some undoubtedly loveable mutt from the pound or just to have bought the first cute looking ball of fluff that came our way. I was even offered, gratis, a Labrador retriever who had developed a taste for domestic poultry. But that offer fell through when the dog’s owner decided to keep her out of the hen house rather than give her away.
After much thought we as a family decided that it would be better to stick with the breed that we know and love. This meant that I had to do the ringing around the small circle of people who do “our” breed. having been on the other end of this conversation so many times it was strange to be the one seeking a pup. In the first instance we had to decide which gender we wanted and I put the argument to my beloved wife that a dog tends to be more loyal to its master than a bitch. My wife and daughter won and we decided to get a bitch this time. Eventually I found a breeder who has some pups and we will be collecting ours on the 19th of February. Our little ball of fluff is costing more money than I want to talk about and everyone here is getting quite excited as each day passes and the special day approaches. The breeder has kept us updated and she was even happy to ensure that the name that we have picked will be the one that appears on the pedigree.When we collect our little ball of fluff she will be eight weeks old and she will have already had her first vaccination, the booster at twelve weeks should provide her with protection from the most common and deadly canine maladies. All of this stuff is running around my head so I of course noticed  the piece that I quote below:

Research by pet industry lobby group the Australian Companion Animal Council has found that it costs $746 a year to keep the family pooch and $583 for a cat.

Australia has one of the world’s highest pet ownership rates, with almost two-thirds of people owning at least one pet.

Australian Veterinary Association president Mark Lawrie said his organisation updated its policy last year to recommend vaccinations be conducted every three years.

“It’s vital that people still get kittens and puppies done. As with people, vaccines save many lives,” Dr Lawrie said.

He said all vets were aware of the association’s policy.

It had always struck me as rather strange that vaccines that we use in humans generally impart a life long immunity to the disease that they target but that the vaccines for diseases in dogs had to be redone annually, now it seems that my suspicions may have been correct.  It may now be policy to advocate vaccination every three years but I will be interetsed to see if that is the message that I get when I take our little girl in for her 12 week jabs.

Cheers Comrades

“These people are not in the same game as the West, they want to lift their standard of living, and they will not be assisting in carbon abatement.”

I don’t know why but it seems that old Labor war horses keep writing opinions that I tend to agree with The opinion piece by Gary Johns in today’s Australian is a good case in point, I have been saying loud and long that right or wrong that the science can not overcome the politics when it comes to climate change. I had to ask my correspondent JM many times if he thought that his “solution” could be made to happen and although he eventually claimed that it could, the fact that it took many attempts and that his admission was most grudging really suggests that his belief in the possibility of mitigation is at best window dressing and if he actually believes it in his heart of hearts I would be most surprised.
Anyway I commend the opinion piece that I quote below.

The further debate will have to debunk the old adage that delaying change will be more costly.

This adage is just plain wrong. New technologies will not be adopted unless they are cheaper than current technologies. The reason why politicians subsidise the most expensive low carbon options, like wind turbines and solar panels, is that people mistake low carbon for low cost abatement.

Also, these boutique non-solutions are not a huge budget cost (just a considerable waste of money).

Sure, there is a risk to the environment in waiting for the technology to catch up, but that won’t change the minds of several billion Chinese, Indians, Indonesians and South Americans.

These people are not in the same game as the West, they want to lift their standard of living, and they will not be assisting in carbon abatement.

If in future historians of public policy dig through the entrails of climate change they will find a fascinating combination of millenarianism, ego-driven scientists, business that preferred to use the environment as a sales device, a propensity by governments to allow NGOs to get too close to the policy process, a media that mistook stunts for debate, lying former politicians, and current politicians who wanted to ride the hero’s wave, retiring before their purported policies bore no fruit.

There is good science and there is good economics, they each need time to guide the way. The job of the politician in this debate is to buy time.

Gary Johns

As I have been saying here for some time when the politics demonstrate that the solution can not be made to happen the time has come to learn to live with what is coming, because to do otherwise is to waste effort and treasure in a noble but futile exercise in climate piety.

Cheers Comrades

My bold in the Quote BTW

Tony’s plan: a good each way bet

Having an each way bet

When it comes to major changes to our entire economy I think that that part of the Hippocratic oath taken by each doctor which says “firstly do no harm” should apply, and one thing that is clear about Brother Number One’s plan is that it would certainly do major harm to the pocket book of every citizen who uses any kind of energy and has to find the $1100 each year that the CPRS is estimated to cost them. And that is before we even consider the harm that empowering a whole new cohort of spivs and swindlers to trade in the permits that would be created under the CPRS. Worse still , as I have pointed out before the chances of the CPRS actually making a scrap of difference to the emissions form Australia is very low indeed.

Mr Abbott proposes no cap and therefore no compensation.

Instead, he would create a $2.5bn fund to provide incentives for industry and farmers to reduce emissions through measures such as storing carbon in soil.

An Abbott government would plant 20 million trees by 2020, covering an area equivalent to 10km by 20km. It would also provide $1000 rebates to home owners for solar cells. And it would investigate ways to bury powerlines, allowing for more urban tree planting.

Mr Abbott said his proposed plan would have the same start-up date as the CPRS – July next year – and would also achieve the 5 per cent carbon reduction proposed by Mr Rudd, but the Opposition Leader’s target is based on 1990 levels, whereas the government’s base-level year is 2000.

[...]

Business groups including the Minerals Council, the Retailers Association and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry welcomed the plan, backing the view that it made little sense to adopt carbon trading without similar schemes being used overseas.

As Mr Abbott was releasing his plan at least 1500 farmers marched on parliament to protest against restrictions on land use that they said were linked to climate change.

When Mr Abbott and Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce outlined the new policy to farmers they received solid cheers. The National Farmers Federation also applauded the plan.

As far as I can see all of these measures can have benefits even if the fears from the Gaia devotees are wrong about the anthropogenic causes of the claimed planetary warming.

For instance storing carbon in our  soils can only improve the fecundity of our agriculture and planting more trees can invigorate the environment and provide a resource for future use , while we are on trees I applaud the suggestion that we could do more to remove overhead power lines and thus allow more urban tree planting. There would of course be another upside to this and that is a reduction in the number of times that people have a loss of supply every time there is a bit of wild weather which is what happens regularly around here every storm season It might even help prevent bush fires like the ones we saw around this time last year.

My regular commenter PKD sought to tease me in the comments yesterday by suggesting :

Looks like you’re stuck without a political party to support your denialsim…although give Tony a week, and I’m sure he’ll do another climate change backflip again!!!

PKD

But I think that his own Warminista faith has blinded PKD to the versatility  of  the opposition plan, in the first instance it seeks to encourage greater efficiency in the way that we use energy (which will reduce emissions) and secondly it will have direct effects upon the measures it encompasses.thirdly it is a “do no harm” option that will have benefits even if the whole AGW house of cards completely collapses as many ardent sceptics are expecting. By contrast the Government scheme creates great opportunities to churn huge amounts of money from its “Great Big Tax” enriching a whole swag of spivs and swindlers in the process and its likely hood of making any difference to our emissions is in fact very small indeed. Small enough to be in the winning the lottery territory in fact. Further the government policy has the problem that it certainly will do harm to our economy if they are wrong about the science. If you want to use a racing analogy Tony Abbott is making a prudent each way bet on the “carbon stakes” where as the Rudd Wong syndicate are putting all of their cash on a rank outsider to win when that nag has a definite limp.

Hmm, I know which horse has better odds of going the distance.

Cheers Comrades

Even the faux outrage about Tony’s advice for his daughters has not made a dent in the trend away from our beloved leader.

It is better to be ascending than falling down

Yeah, I know that these surveys are incredibly unreliable and have a very big margin for error but this is the second one in a row which show a decline in the fortunes of Brother Number One and a rise in the approval of Tony Abbott. Even the faux outrage about Tony’s hypothetical advice for his daughters has not made a significant dent in the trend away from our beloved leader.

According to the latest Newspoll survey, conducted last weekend exclusively for The Australian, the Liberal Party’s primary vote rose three percentage points to 37 per cent – its highest since the election; the Coalition’s vote was 41 per cent compared with Labor’s unchanged 40 per cent two weeks ago. Although the primary vote difference is within the margin of error, it is the first time the Coalition has been in front of Labor on primary vote, and the two-party-preferred margin is the equal closest since 2007.

Mr Rudd’s personal standing has continued to fall, with his satisfaction rating dropping two points to 50 per cent last weekend – a decline of nine percentage points since the start of November; dissatisfaction jumped four points to 38 per cent, his highest level as Prime Minister.

While the Coalition vote rose, dissatisfaction with the Leader of the Opposition rose four points to 39 per cent reflecting a six point rise in dissatisfaction among females following Mr Abbott’s comments on virginity.

[...]

Since Mr Abbott replaced Mr Turnbull in December and dumped Liberal support for Labor’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and the Copenhagen talks collapsed, Labor’s primary vote has fallen three points, its two-party preferred vote has fallen four points and dissatisfaction with Mr Rudd has risen six points to a high of 38 per cent.

The collapse of the Warminista orthodoxy (with regular revelations of ever more problems about the veracity of the IPCC) and the, failure of the Copenhagen farce, the sparing of Australia from the spivs by the courageous Libs who stood up to Turnbull’s emasculating support for Brother Number One’s CPRS are all in play here and I for on will be very interested to see if the opposition will continue to enjoy this trend once we have the return of the parliament.
Cheers Comrades

Stop apologising for being cantankerous and embrace your inner grump, for the sake of humanity.

Well that explains it!

As I have got older I have become somewhat more grumpy, You know I get just a bit more steamed when things don’t go right. I have tried my darnedest to be even tempered in the face of adversity and thanks to a (still) rather high flash point (which I put down to the application of Yoga breathing) I have managed to avoid actually descending into any spittle dripping rants to anyone who matters in my life. I suppose that my grumpiness is well controlled  and more expressed in sarcasm  than in rage  but this report suggest that being cranky is a sign of a more advanced nature.

Researchers now believe that being aggressive, intolerant and short-tempered could be a sign of a more advanced nature.

A more childlike attitude to behaviour such as tolerance and sharing, could, in contrast, be an indication of not being as developed, the new study suggests.

The news will be welcomed by those who are known to operate on a short fuse, such as talented but foul-mouthed chef Gordon Ramsay and businessman Sir Alan Sugar.

It could also provide scientific weight to the writer George Bernhard Shaw’s famous saying that “all progress depends on the unreasonable man”.

So all of those namby-pamby vegetation peaceniks are obviously not the way forward for humanity it is the cranky and aggressive people that drive progress and we  should stop apologising for being cantankerous and embrace our inner grump, for the sake of humanity.

If you don’t like it then you can bugger off and hug a cabbage

Cheers Comrades!!!

The elephant in the room consistently ignored by the Warministas

Breakthrough: American scientists have discovered a link between water vapour and the earth's temperature

Almost everything t that I have ever read about “climate change ” from those of the Warminista faith concentrate on Co2 and occasionally methane as the most important elements in our chaotic and multifaceted climate  when they go in to long diatribes about AGW (take a bow JM). But they are almost dismissive about the role of water vapour in the atmosphere. Yet the water vapours and the clouds they form are many times more important to keeping this planet habitable than the minuscule amounts (by proportion) of Co2 in our air. Which is why I found the report in the Daily Mail most interesting.

American researchers have discovered that the amount of water high in the atmosphere is far more influential on world temperatures than previously thought.

Although the findings do not challenge the theory of man-made global warming, they help explain why temperatures can rise and fall so dramatically from decade to decade.

The study, published in the journal Science, says a 10 per cent drop in humidity 10 miles above the Earth’s surface explains why global temperatures have been stable since the start of the century, despite the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

And a rise in water vapour in the 1980s and 90s may also explain why temperatures shot up so quickly in the previous two decades, they say.

Water vapour has long been recognised as an important greenhouse gas. Like methane and carbon dioxide, it absorbs heat from the sun that would otherwise be reflected back into space, keeping the planet warm.

However, most computer models that predict climate concentrate on the levels of water lower down in the atmosphere.

Dr Susan Solomon, of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘Current climate models do a remarkable job on water vapour near the surface.

‘But this is different — it’s a thin wedge of the upper atmosphere that packs a wallop from one decade to the next in a way we didn’t expect.’

Observations from weather balloons and satellites show that ’stratospheric water vapour’ increased in the 1980s and 1990s and dropped after 2000.

The changes took place in a narrow altitude region of the atmosphere where they would have the biggest impact on climate.

Can’t wait to hear JM or PKD explain this new study in the light of their insistence that the factor to worry about is Co2 because if this study is right it reduces the role of anthropogenic Carbon dioxide to that of a bit player, and one who has no significant dialogue…

Maybe they need a new script……

Cheers Comrades

The newest convert

Find below some suggestions on how to address “climate change” from the latest convert to the Warminista faith Now I’m not going name names but I bet there are many other latte sipping Warministas who think that this prescription for the problem has merit……….

This is a message to the whole world about those who are causing climate change, whether deliberately or not, and what we should do about that,’ he declared.

‘Talk about climate change is not an ideological luxury but a reality,’ he said in the tape released to the Al Jazeera television network, adding: ‘All of the industrialised countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility.’

He called for a boycott of American products and the end of the U.S. dollar as a world currency.

‘We should stop dealings with the dollar and get rid of it as soon as possible,’ he said in the brief recording.

‘I know that this has great consequences and grave ramifications, but it is the only means to liberate humanity from slavery and dependence on America.

The “Environmentalist” even used a quotation from American liberal political activist Noam Chomsky to support his cause.

He said: ‘Noam Chomsky was correct when he compared the U.S. policies to those of the Mafia.

‘They are the true terrorists and therefore we should refrain from dealing in the U.S. dollar and should try to get rid of this currency as early as possible.’

Click on the the Daily Mail Icon above to find out just who it is who has suddenly Taken up the cause of those poor sad polar bears.

Is anyone really surprised?

Cheers Comrades

Green report card, back of an envelope style

Brother Number One is, like a lot of progressives, rather full of grand sounding ideas that always seem to fall into heap when the cold hard light of reason falls upon them.

Just six months after its launch, the $70 million Green Loans scheme to get Australians to install energy-efficient products will be lucky to survive past March without millions more in taxpayer funding.

Similarities are already being drawn between Green Loans and the Government’s bungled $3.2 billion home insulation subsidy scheme. A Senate inquiry into the insulation rebate scheme is probing accusations of malpractice, rorting and mismanagement.

The much-vaunted Green Loans program was supposed to run for three years but is being bled dry by a flurry of unregistered operators.

So far, there have been just 1000 subsidised loans approved for solar power and water-saving and energy-efficient products.

Now thousands of people who paid $3000 each to become Green Loans assessors will be thrown on the unemployment scrapheap if the scheme collapses.

Instead of using only registered training organisations, unregistered groups were allowed to conduct audit training courses, with one earning $300,000 in one weekend by packing 200 people in a class at $1500 a head.

So lets just do a quick back of an envelope acesment of Brother Number One’s attempts to change the nation for the betterment of its people shall we?

Relaxing the rules for illegal boat arrivals: hmm well Club Chrissie island is full to bursting  that must be a plus……….

“lap tops for every high school  student”:  Ahem No it seems that this was an aspiration and not a promise………

The  schools building program as part of the stimulus package : gee that one must be working when even schools that are being closed down can get a new Hall or library………….

The CPRS : sadly for Brother Number One and Penny W(r)ong those evil members of her majesties loyal opposition had the audacity to block that in the senate and boy are their spiv mates upset about it now.

Finally we have this revelation that the “green schemes ” have been scammed enmasse and have already exhausted their budget allocation : Yeah like who would have that that would happen?

Its not a good look for a government heading for election now is it?

Not surprised Comrades

What you advertise may not be what you end up selling

It may disappoint some of my more conservative friends but I have never been a fan of governments privatising infrastructure assets, especially if those assets provide an income stream to treasury. It seems short sighted and stupid to me. So the efforts from Anna Bligh(t) to sell off key pieces of the Queensland family silver finds me actually siding with left wing unions on the issue.

I am a member the "No to the Privatisation of QLD Government Owned Corporations" group on Facebook

QUEENSLAND’S unions believe they are on the cusp of rolling the Bligh Government’s $15 billion privatisation program with a major escalation of their campaign and possible industrial action likely within weeks.

Union sources said a special conference to overturn the asset sell-off was now more than likely to occur within the next six months.

But Premier Anna Bligh thumbed her nose at the unions, saying she did not have to follow the outcome of a new vote.

“The Labor Party has the right to make whatever decision it wants to make but the Government makes decisions and implements them,” Ms Bligh said.

“Obviously I’d take into account the views of the party but I’m not bound by them.”

About 45 per cent of Labor-affiliated unions have so far backed a move for a new vote to overturn one taken at last year’s Labor conference that supported the newly-elected Bligh Government’s asset sell-off scheme.

I just don’t think that Queensland will be a better place if these key assets are sold and it looks to me that what our premier is actually selling is her own power base ….
Cheers Comrades