ELECTION TIME
 

So the election is on us and now they are counting.

I went to my local polling station and asked both the Liberal and Labour people about what their aviation policies were. I was thinking GA and small aircraft, not airlines.
The answer from both was 'What'. I see that as a what are you talking about answer. In short GA and aviation in general meant ZERO to them.
So how did you vote?

So how did you vote?

What is your annual salary?

How old is your wife?

… some people like to keep some things private :-)

How would a polling station volunteer know anything about any of the policies, let alone GA?

Yeah, because GA is what makes the world go round and puts food on the table for the majority (!) of the people ... Did you also ask them on their policy on golf courses and other decision-relevant causes?

Ah yes .... Election time ....

Now it appears that we have a Labor Green Accord and a host of teal climate changers in control, my crystal ball shows $9.00 Avgas and $6.00 mogas in the not so distant future as we head towards net zero by 2030. Goodby GA my friend. RIP

Hope I am wrong :-)

RIP GA, you have been a good friend over forty years.

NoMilk: Way down in the bowels of the Labor Party, there WILL be someone who has developed a policy position on both of those issues. The fact that it isn't published or if it is, you don't know it, means nothing.

Starting with golf courses (these are not my personal views):

1. They are major irrigators using lots of our scarce and precious water. (strike one).
2. They use lots of fertilizers which creates a run-off problem, blue green algea in local waterways. (pollution, strike two).
3. They use lots of chemical insecticides and weed killers to maintain the greens (more pollution, strike three).
4. They require exclusive use of what should be public open space - parks (exclusive land use, strike four).
5. The private golf courses are elitist, exclusive and predominantly the abode of rich white males (strike five - they don't vote for us).

Anyone think an Albanese Government is going to be friendly to golfers?

Now lets look at GA.

1. They use lots and lots of leaded petrol and are thus a major source of lead pollution (strike one).
2. All Private aircraft are very expensive and thus owned by rich white males who don't vote for us, pilots are also stuck up elitists. (strike two).
3. GA aircraft use internal combustion engines that contribute to global warming. (strike three).
4. GA aircraft use airports that take up scarce public land that could be better used by the community as parks, kindergartens, etc. (strike four)
5. Recreational aircraft burn scarce, polluting, fossil fuel for private enjoyment, how dare they? (strike five)
6. And finally, aircraft make lots of noise that enrage our supporters living close to airports.

Yep, we are right down there with the golfers. We will be lucky if we get no attention at all.


You need to own an electric aircraft that requires no training because that would be elitist and its also got to be LGTPQI whatsit friendly.

Electric helicopter you mean? Land it on your roof next to the solar panels.

“We’ll be lucky if we get no attention at all.” !
Aren’t we lucky then . Because that’s exactly what we’ll get.

Someone is already in the ALP document vault trying to find Labor’s last ****e ,,sorry ‘White Paper’ which had SFA in relation to GA. May or may not be regurgitated.
Kiss goodbye to anything good that may have come out of Sen Susan’s material.

Might have to spent my declining years in quiet enjoyment with an electric motor sailplane….
Aw shucks …can’t recharge it … no power today. Or tomorrow Calm and overcast. Bugger.

Far more airports have closed down than golf courses in my neck of the woods. The one at Moorabbin closed due to the Airport not extending its lease.

Politics aside, if you had your own batteries and solar cells you could charge. Cells still charge in overcast conditions just not as much. If your not happy with your power provider stop whinging and provide your own.

Look she's 18, ok? If you don't believe me I can show you the mail-order invoice.

PDR

Cedrick. Where I live we have only a monopoly power provider. I did have an order in with RussCom for a very small nuclear pack, but that’s now not allowed for either export or import.
I would gladly provide my own but until batteries of any decency don’t cost the earth or keep blowing up then I’ll
just have to live with it.
No worries tho, I’ll take an aero tow.

The pathetic ‘****e paper’ was something Albo was very proud of when it was delivered. In reality is just another glossy feel good document that is only useful for starting BBQ’s or for placing in the bottom of your cats litter tray. It did nothing for GA, aviation, or the space race! On a seperate note, it would’ve been nice to see Rex Patrick win a senate ticket again or even see Xenophon return to the senate, but it was not meant to be. The Greens/Teales/Impotent Labor will only want to snuff out GA due to its drastic impact on our precious environment. I mean, with just a handful of GA aircraft left, the guvmint will need to save our future. I mean, it’s not as if India, China, Indonesia and the USA are causing global pollution.

The problem is that per capita Australia produces double the CO2 that China does and 6 times the amount India does, it sounds crazy, but poor people don't use as much as rich affluent citizens. So in order to reduce the carbon footprint in those countries you would create some huge humanitarian issues by removing what little access the poorer population has to modern services. Where in Australia the impost is far less as those at the middle and top are excessive consumers of energy and CO2 producing goods.

Simple way of illustrating it, Australia has 1.8 cars per household, China has 1 car between 3 households. In India the figure is lower than 1 car per 11 households.

Once you get the handle on those figures it is quite clear we produce more pollution than we should, ie for comfort, fun, pleasure, whatever, while those other countries are producing pollution just to sustain population. What that means is they have almost no way to reduce the figure in reality without causing humanitarian disasters.

When one digs a little deeper into the "broad" figure that is thrown around of 70 odd % of Australian emissions being from dirty power generation, it becomes more apparent that that is BS. They always bundle the first 4 into that figure. As depicted below, from the CSIRO November 2021 statistics.


Energy production is the largest contributor to Australia’s carbon emissions. This is followed by transport, agriculture, and industrial processes. Specifically:

• energy (burning fossil fuels to produce electricity) contributed 33.6 per cent of the total emissions
• stationary energy (including manufacturing, mining, residential and commercial fuel use) 20.4 per cent
• transport 17.6 per cent
• agriculture 14.6 per cent
• fugitive emissions 10.0 per cent
• industrial processes 6.2 per cent
• waste 2.7 per cent.

So, to supply the "third world" emerging economies with the material and fuel to "survive"; as the worlds quarry, we contribute a large chunk of emissions to merely allow these nations to function and manufacture. Therefore, per capita: we wear those emissions for them to dig it up and supply it.

Greens policy is to not mine it ourselves, or mine it to sell it to others..... that will end well.

We will even wear the carbon footprint for the massive solar farm in the NT that will supply Singapore. Yes, solar does have a carbon footprint. Where do you think the 4500km cable will come from?

And? Construction of a coal or gas fired power station has a carbon footprint too. Said coal or gas fired power station will have massive carbon emissions for every GWh of electrical energy produced. The cable and associated solar panels will have close to zero. Add it up over the lives of the respective power stations and see what you get.

All countries are about 30-40% power generation and 20-30% transportation, look at most developed countries. The difference is our type of usage and fuels. The UK only has 1/3rd of Australias per capita, because they are thrifty with their usage, have switched to renewables, drive miserly vehicles short distances and rely on renewable powered public transport. Unfortunately Australia and the US are way behind these ideals. The UK has dropped rapidly from 12ish metric tons CO2 to 5 metric tons per person in pretty much the last 20 years due to pretty much wiping out coal use and turning the whole island into a wind farm. They also have strict vehicle emmission targets and large uptake of EVs. Meanwhile Autralia and the US sit around 15+ tons per capita. For goodness sake our top selling vehicles last year were the Ford Ranger and Toyota Hilux. The top 10 UK cars sold were mostly compacts and 2 in the top 5 were Teslas, only one mid sized SUV made the list (if you can even call it an SUV, it looks like a tall compact).

Australia is not the UK. The Poms have teensy villages with skinny streets that a Ranger wouldn't fit in, the villages are a few km apart, the pub is walking distance from the terrace house. Poms in big cities pay a levy to go in there, so they avoid it.

We have bigger distances to travel, more farms that need big vehicles to cart stuff around, and the pub is a drive away, if you are allowed to drive home afterwards. We don't have the public transport infrastructure - get out of the major cities and there is a bus every 30 minutes that goes to a place that you don't need.

I am helping the averages along with 3 vehicles - 2 work vans and one personal car. But I also have 10Kw of solar to relieve me of paying for electricity.

A coal-fired or "nookular" base generator is still needed for nights when the wind doesn't blow.