As Mike Baird moved into the Premier's office this week so did a significant influence: Jesus Christ.

Mr Baird is a proud and committed Christian who once considered becoming an Anglican minister. His rise to the top has seen a concentration of powerful religious conviction among the upper echelons of the new government.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/onward-christian-soldier-a-premiers-faith-20140425-379pp.html

God is appearing in more and more places around the Federal Parliament, and among all sorts of people. Mike Seccombe, Aban Contractor, and Mark Metherell report on the growing link-up of church and state.

God moves in mysterious ways, and never more so than when He moves into politics. On Thursday, for example, the Liberal Party announced that its candidate for the seat of Greenway, centred around Blacktown, would be Louise Markus, a prominent member of Hillsong, Australia's largest church.

The US-style, high-energy, hand-clapping Pentecostal church, which draws its people from the Bible belt of Sydney's north-western suburbs, attracts more than 15,000 people each Sunday. Its Friday night youth meetings reportedly draw 2000, its children's meetings some 1600 and its women-only gatherings more than 1000.

The church is as entrepreneurial as it is evangelical, constantly seeking to expand its influence through CDs, books and other media. And now it might be in line to claim its second federal MP. It already has Alan Cadman, the fiercely right-wing member for Mitchell - which includes Baulkham Hills, the epicentre of Hillsong influence - as a prominent member of the flock. Greenway, which adjoins Cadman's seat, is held by Labor's Frank Mossfield, but is highly marginal, and the sitting member is retiring at the election.

You might have thought someone standing for such a marginal seat would want all the media attention he or she could get, but the Liberals' state director, Scott Morrison, refused to let the Herald talk to her. He said she would do "local media first".

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/04/11/1081621834807.html

See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAhw2cVRVsA

In this video, Bart D. Ehrman makes a strong scholarly case against the idea of Jesus being "the son of god"... One of the major problem in his conclusion is trying to rally the troops of atheists to create institutions that can rival the "charity" networks of religions without their deadly "crusades".

One of the major problem of atheism is that it DOES NOT HAVE A MESSAGE TO SELL... I do agree though that atheists can do "charitable" work and to some extend provide a better one on one help with no proselytising. Atheistic "charitable" enterprise thus are far more altruistic than religious dedication. One of the problem here as well is that "atheistic charitable enterprises" can become infiltrated by religious personnel (all welcome) while the reverse can happen, but with many caveats.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKxJc-huEA

Every election I take the ABC's Vote Compass survey, and every election it tells me to vote for a party I don't support.

I believe we should invest more in public transport, public education, and public healthcare. I support marriage equality, drug law reform, and the humane treatment of refugees. When it comes to WestConnex the only thing I want in my backyard are solar panels and maybe some kale plants. Put succinctly, I'm a rabid inner-city leftie. But in the world of Vote Compass, there is only one answer – I'm a Green.

"A Labor or Liberal candidate contesting an inner-city seat will almost certainly be far more progressive than their respective parties' state platforms." 

The problem is, I'm not a Green.

I've been a Labor Party member for more than 10 years and have volunteered for my two local candidates at every state and federal election since.

Yet Vote Compass keeps telling me I'm a Green. And I'm not alone. All my fellow Labor volunteers from the state seats of Balmain and Newtown who have taken the Vote Compass survey have experienced the same frustrated bewilderment when told they should vote for the party they are campaigning against.

So what is the problem?

The first issue is how the responses to the Vote Compass survey are calculated. Responses are graded against each of the three parties' state platforms. There is the erroneous assumption that voters living in the inner city who support one of the two major parties, vote for state party platforms without taking the candidate's personal views into consideration. This is a misleading assumption. It assumes that major parties have a one-size-fits-all platform, ignoring the fact that local candidates represent a diversity of views within a larger coalition.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/why-abcs-vote-compass-doesnt-work-for-me-20150326-1m7vlv.html

Don't sell public assets ! 

In the past few years, our electricity prices have doubled. While the media has feasted on the likes of pink batts, Peter Slipper and Craig Thomson, the astonishing story behind these price hikes has been all but ignored. And yet, it may be one of the greatest rorts in Australia’s history.

Since 2009, the electricity networks that own and manage our “poles and wires” have quietly spent $45 billion on the most expensive project this country has ever seen. Allowed to run virtually unchecked, they’ve spent vast sums on infrastructure we don’t need, and have charged it all to us, with an additional fee attached. The spending was approved by a federal regulator, and yet the federal government didn’t even note it until it was well underway.

Let’s be clear: this is the single biggest reason power prices have skyrocketed. According to the federal treasury, 51% of your electricity bill goes towards “network charges”. The carbon tax, despite relentless propaganda to the contrary, is small beer, comprising just 9%. The rest of your bill is carved up between those companies that actually generate your electricity (20%) and the retailers who package it up and sell it to you (20%). The Renewable Energy Target is such a small cost impost, the treasury’s analysis doesn’t even include it; the Australian Energy Market Commission says it makes up around 5%

read more: http://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2014/july/1404136800/jess-hill/power-corrupts

The Abbott government has proposed a major concession to the heavy-polluting electricity industry in its direct action climate change policy by exempting individual companies from caps on emissions.

The government is beginning public consultation for the so-called safeguards mechanism for its $2.55 billion Emissions Reduction Fund, which will pay major polluters to reduce their pollution.

With the first auctions for the fund only three weeks away, companies are yet to see what penalties they would face if they increased emissions.

The office of Environment Minister Greg Hunt said on Thursday the "safeguard mechanism will ensure that abatement achieved under the emissions reduction fund is not offset by rises in emissions elsewhere in the economy."

But the Greens and climate groups said that the measures proposed would not ensure Australia cut greenhouse gases and met emissions reduction targets for 2020 and beyond.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/power-sector-to-get-special-treatment-under-direct-action-20150327-1m8n4h.html

New research from Oxford University has named Australia's most polluting coal-fired power stations and warns of the risks they pose to the economy and the environment.

The report's author, Ben Caldecott, who is currently in Australia as a guest of the University of Sydney Business School's Balanced Enterprise Research Network, has openly criticised the Australian Government's record on climate change and said the country should be leading by example.

"The International Energy Agency has calculated that a quarter of the world's subcritical capacity needs to be shut down by 2020. Australia has 26 gigawatts of that capacity," he said.

Australia has 22 coal-fired power stations which account for around a quarter of the nation's carbon emissions.

"From our analysis we found that four companies had more than half of the subcritical capacity - the least efficient capacity - and those were AGL, Origin, Stanwell and Delta," Mr Caldecott said.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-27/most-polluting-power-stations-named-risks-economy-environment/6353712

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/nsw-state-election-2015-the-castle-actor-michael-caton-steps-into-csg-debate-20150327-1m9gki.html

A senior Labor Party official has blasted Labor's state election campaign as too responsive and declared the party is suffering from a "crisis of policy" following the loss of key inner city seats of Newtown and Balmain to the Greens.

Tim Ayres, the NSW secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, told a Fabian Society event on Tuesday night that the campaign had left Labor portrayed as "a party of protest" when it needed to be also "a party of reform and progress".

While he said it was the correct policy to oppose the Coalition's proposal to partially privatise the NSW electricity network, Labor also needed "a forward looking economic, environmental and social policy agenda".

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015-key-union-leader-tim-ayres-blasts-the-crisis-of-policy-in-labor-campaign-20150331-1mbvgp.html

If you live at the centre o the world, Newtown (Sydney), as I do, you need to know a few things. The Labor only ticked two boxes out of ten, the greens ticked all the boxes while the Libs (CONservatives) ticked none. Newtown is organic. This does not mean that the people there live on carrot juice, but they are alive...

I believe Balmain is the same. By organic I also mean that the people there are nice, plentiful and weirdoes. Weirdoes exist in contrast to the tight-arsed moneybags who live in dead expensive suburbs... I mean dead, because there is often no-one there in the street apart from a dark-windowed Merc passing by. In Newtown, it's like a fiesta everyday. Even the shops... Argh... Too many are going bankrupt because the moneybags keep raising the rents... They don't care much if their premises go empty for a year or two... They write it off on negative gearing...

But there is always someone prepared to sell scented candles and the business is far more successful than on the north shore... There is anarchy, welcome to refugees and St Vinnies... magic happens every minute. Not that people oppose change, people resent progress "for progress sake, where a favourite haunt is turned into a gentrified apartment block with keypad at the front door... This ain't Newtown... The reent the WestCONnex because it is planning the destruction of St Peters, an adjacent grungy neighbourly suburb destined to become high rise... Nope. sir, we don't want more rabbit warrens on top of each other. Many houses in Newtown are like rabbit warren but at least one can see the sky.

Meanwhile at the "no land tax party:

Workers for the No Land Tax Party say they are worried about not being paid up to $1 million in wages owed to thousands of its election-day staff.  

Kristal Young, like many of the thousands of others in yellow vests who handed out for the party at polling booths across NSW on Saturday, responded to a flyer in the mail about a month out from the election. She was promised $330 for the day and a generous bonus if the party's vote topped 5 or 10 per cent.

The party's bill for its labour could hit nearly $1 million. Its lead candidate, Peter Jones, says up to 3000 people handed out how-to-vote cards.

But Ms Young, from Sydney's northern beaches, has not yet been paid and is beginning to fear she won't be.

"It's all been very faceless," she said.  "I haven't spoken to a single person. It's weird."

A Facebook group with disgruntled employees complaining about payment had attracted about 70 members on Tuesday.

Ms Young says she began questioning her arrangement with the party on polling day.

No one seemed to show up to ensure that work had been done. Nor had she provided a tax file number or bank account details as one usually would for an employer.

Mr Jones, whose mobile phone redirected to a voicemail message assuring employees they would be paid, declined to say where the party would find the money to pay employees.

"We're doing it [payment] now," he wrote in a text message.

One of the party's founding members, Balmain architect Jeff Madden, who quit about six months ago, said the party was then about $50,000 in debt. "Since then they've been spending a lot of money, I don't know how they've got that, or if they do."

An email sent to employees on Tuesday promised payment by April 30. That's 20 days later than employees were initially promised.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/nsw-state-election-2015/nsw-election-2015-no-land-tax-party-election-day-staff-worried-about-payment-20150331-1mc0pj.html