I would assume that none of us find Peta Credlins political leanings to be surprising, but I am hopeful it may be starting to more apparent to the general public.

I think the answer to the headlines question is easy, there is a strong possibility Credlin is a Murdoch shill, and protentially always has been. If you haven't already you should watch 'Nemesis' on the ABC about the LNPs tenure from Tony to Scummo.

During Tony's tenure, he keeps getting more and more advice from Credlin, or only discusses issues with her, and ignores the position of the remaining MPs in his party, prioritising Credlins positions. After Tony got toppled, all of a sudden you see Credlin on Sky News as a host dishing out opinions about the direction the country should take and screeching whenever the government goes against those 'opinions', as sky news does.

According to the below report from the guardian, there was a rumour floating around that Sky News offered Credlin a position after she left the Fedral government when Tony was toppled (published 21/3/2016):

"Sky News has declined to confirm a rumour that former chief of staff to Tony Abbott, Peta Credlin, is considering an offer to join the 24-hour news channel as a commentator for the federal election."

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/mar/21/the-bolt-report-to-be-resurrected-on-sky-news-five-nights-a-week?CMP=share_btn_url

Followed by this article 10 days later (31/3/2016): https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/31/peta-credlin-joins-sky-news-as-2016-election-campaign-commentator?CMP=share_btn_url

I also found this statement from the above article very interesting, though I can't say it is still the case as these articles are from 8 years ago

Sky News is one third-owned by Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Europe, with the rest owned by Nine and Seven.

Credlins Wikipedia page states:

As a political commentator and self-described journalist, Credlin has been described as a partisan

And has her credentials listed as:

She graduated with a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne with a concentration in constitutional law, politics and history in 1998

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peta_Credlin

This is potentially a better source, or a least is a second source giving the same info:

Peta Credlin has a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Melbourne with a concentration in constitutional law, politics and history. Peta is admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor in Victoria and has a further post-graduate qualification in law from the Australian National University.

https://www.mckinnonprize.org.au/panellists/ms-peta-credlin/

The below article refers to a book written by Niki Savva who, according to Wikipedia, is an author/journalist and former senior advisor to Johnny H and Peter Costello. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niki_Savva

"It wasn’t just those rumours, it was everything else to do with their behaviour. Their behaviour, the way they ran the office, the way they ran the government, ultimately led to their downfall,” Savva said. “That is what people inside the Coalition genuinely believe and so many people told him [Abbott], they warned him about this, and he wouldn’t listen.”

And naturally some heavy hypocrisy from Peta in her response

"Niki Savva never made contact with me or my office on any of the claims in her book,’’ Abbott told News Corp on Sunday. “I’m not going to rake over old coals and I don’t respond to scurrilous gossip.”

Credlin said, also to News Corp: “After 16 years in politics, I’ve always made it my practice not to comment on gossip or stories from unnamed sources.

“Sadly, modern politics is full of both. So I’m hardly going to change this practice especially when the so-called journalist didn’t make any effort to contact me. This book says a lot more about her lack of ethics than it will ever say about me.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/mar/06/abbott-and-credlins-destructive-approach-led-to-downfall-says-author?CMP=share_btn_url

There is also this article from 2014 (published 24/2/2014), though the article doesnt go into a great amount of detail, and the link to another report in it is broken, but at the same time AFR is a fairly right leaning publication and it doesnt seem Tony sued them for defamation, which seems to be the general way people in the political class seem to want to obfuscate their involvement in such things. I guess he wasnt as concerned about his hat as Bruce was:

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has denied any knowledge of almost $900 million that the Tax Office paid to Rupert Murdoch ’s News Corporation between September and January.

https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/news-to-me-abbott-says-of-882m-cash-for-murdoch-s-news-corp-20140218-ixrok

And then there is when Tony made comments like this in 2014 (published 16/7/2014):

The Australian newspaper is Rupert Murdoch's 'gift to our nation'' Prime Minister Tony Abbott has told a gala dinner in Sydney to celebrate the publication's 50th birthday.

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/tony-abbott-praises-the-australian-as-rupert-murdochs-gift-to-our-nation-20140716-3bzwg.html

Now, somewhat unsurprising, Tony was offered a position on the Fox News board of directors in 2023, which he accepted, because supposedly Australia's LNP MPs are all experts in media and therefore deserve to have obtained these prestigious positions within News Corp without any prior experience in media. Oh whoops, my mistake, according to the below source (Fox's own website), Tony worked as a journalist at The Bulletin and The Australian (strange he worked for these institutions prior to entering parliment according to the below):

Tony Abbott AC was elected as a Director of Fox Corporation in November 2023. Mr. Abbott served as the 28th Prime Minister of Australia from 2013 to 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Party of Australia from 2009 to 2015 and a member of parliament from 1994 to 2019. Prior to entering parliament, Mr. Abbott worked as a journalist at The Bulletin and The Australian.

https://www.foxcorporation.com/management/board-of-directors/tony-abbott-ac/

So, there appeared to be a strong relationship between Tony and Murdoch before he was toppled as PM, potentially even going back to before he entered politicas, according to Fox itself. The person who Tony was closest to in the parliament (which, again, can be seen documented further in 'Nemesis'), his chief of staff, an employee of the government, not an elected official, were making decisions for the majority of the party and direction of the government, without consulting the rest of the party's elected representatives, which is, you know, the whole point of having political parties and representatives in a democratic nation.

While none of the above conclusively connects Credlin to Murdoch prior to her being hired by Sky News in 2016, I think it definitely leaves questions needing to be asked about Credlins credibility throughout her political career, her subsequent career as a political commentator, and what has now been further demonstrated as her having direct connections to members of the VIC LNP, who she is actively "dispensing advice from the sidelines" to.

Who knows, maybe she is just a useful idiot who got hired to be a commentator by Murdoch after she demonstrated herself (the Barrister and Solicitor) to be such a useful idiot, under the other useful idiot Tony in parliament, and it was just a match made in arrogance from then on. But I think there is also fair reason to suspect that she wasn't just a useful idiot, and was instead complicit in everything, but I can't say (or demonstrate) for certain (please don't sue me for defamation Peta, I havent stated certainities, just speculations, plus your hat isn't that important).

Those turbines look interesting, definitely a plausible technology based off that video. Looks like they have used gearing between the two blades to concentrate the energy from both blades so you only need one electric generator (generally just referred to as an electric motor but they do both) which is far more efficient (but still along the same lines of) stacking multiple up using electrical connections like you can do with solar modules to increase power output, which is what I was thinking of when I wrote my previous comment.

It also makes me think of this, https://youtu.be/Qbv_dtwTGDo?si=fSpRWpGqBlTEjMqH, which seems like a decent idea to me.

I'm not sure if it is a lack of feasibility that is getting in the way or just a lack of political will and interest. Could even be because solar is so cheap now that a newer, less refined technology (even in terms of legislation and infrastructure planning) with higher up front costs is just less desirable. I think I could still be worth investing in both in the long run (assuming it is actually viable).

Pervoskite still has some challenges to overcome before it can be a primary material in solar modules. One of the major problems being Potential Induced Degradation (PID) which is ironically caused by sun exposure, and leads to decreased power output from the solar cell. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666386422003174

The market is currently looking transitioning from p-type modules to n-type (both crystalline silicon based). P-type was the market leading technology for many years because issues like PID, Light Induced Degradation (LID) and Light and Temperature Induced Degradation (LeTID) were more easily resolved in p-type modules. N-types (also known as TopCon) are taking over now as these issues are being resolved and n-types are capable of reaching higher efficiencies than p-types. The higher power classes of n-types (>= 430W) over p-types (peaked around 415-420W) [these power classes are from modules designed for residential installations so have a surface area of about 1750mm*1100mm] is also enabling people to claim the maximum rebate for installing solar on their residence. This is because there is a rebate maximum that is based on installations up to a total size, and the newly released n-type modules (have only been in the market a little over a year) have a power class (440W) that divides evenly into the max installation size (6.6kW) so people can claim the entire rebate.

It looks like the manufacturers are looking to work towards developing hetero-junction (HJT) solar cells. There are a combination of both silicon and pervoskite, with the intent to be to make the most of both materials properties to improve module efficiency while also keeping PID, LID and LeTID within reasonable levels across the module's lifetime.

Edit: just adding some more citations. I haven't directly quoted from any of the sources, just regurgitated info from my head and added them for further readings. Information above may be subject to some inaccuracy. https://www.solarquotes.com.au/blog/p-type-and-n-type-solar-cells-excellent-electron-adventure/

https://www.maysunsolar.com/blog-n-type-solar-cell-technology-the-difference-between-topcon-and-hjt/

https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy21osti/78629.pdf

https://www.pv-magazine.com/2019/03/12/lid-and-letid-qa-with-jinkosolar/

Edit 2: grammar/spelling

Considering

Only 1% of Australian taxpayers own nearly a quarter of all property investments across the country, amid concerns over escalating rates of wealth concentration.

Data provided by the Australian Taxation Office has revealed the extent of that concentration, with more than 7% of property investors – or 215,321 people – accounting for 25% of all property investments.

That 7% also have three or more interests in investment properties across the country, with 1% of investors – or just 19,895 people – currently holding six or more investment interests.

And that is only the top 1% of tax payers (which is only 7% of investors), I can't imagine what percentage of property investment is owned by the top 10% of tax payers.

From: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/04/a-quarter-of-australias-property-investments-held-by-1-of-taxpayers-data-reveals

So I've been reading up on this topic a bit more and I came across this

Problem Australia’s interstate freight rail network comprises many long sections of single track. This restricts the number of train paths, reducing rail’s competitiveness with road, and hindering rail’s ability to meet growing freight movement demand. The interstate freight rail network needs to be enhanced to accommodate growth in the freight and passenger task, and improve efficiency and safety.

From here, https://www.infrastructureaustralia.gov.au/map/advanced-train-management-system-implementation-interstate-rail-network

On the bright side it is a proposal to upgrade a lot of the rail corridors to support more freight than we have currently. Though it was added in 2016 and is still only in the 'potential investment options' phase

Unfortunately we don't have a rail freight network that either works well or reaches every township in Australia, and until we do encouraging the switch from ICE road haulage to EV road haulage is the best way to reduce transport industry emissions.

For a lot of the more rural towns (or a least for the ones I know of) that do have rail connections, they are only accessible using diesel locomotives as there is no electricity network set up to power electric trains. So if we don't want to introduce more emissions from rail freight we would have to electrify the whole rail network.

Realistically we should be building rail and allowing EV trucks to be more accessible, but Australia is a big place, building all that rail infrastructure will take time. A good stepping stone would be to build rail connections to regional urban centres and then have trucks distributing it to the surrounding towns, but even building that much rail will take time. And that's just the construction. The amount of time it would take to secure the land corridors for the rail would be considerable alone. AEMO have been having a difficult enough time securing land rights to build transmissions networks across properties

This actually seems pretty positive, but I guess also demonstrates how responsible Howard is for helping set in motion Australia's apathy towards environmental destruction, especially when it gets in the way of fossil fuel operations.

Possibly, but Turnbull did take over as head of https://murdochroyalcommission.org.au/ after K Rudd stepped down to take whatever diplomatic job it was he took.

I think the Murdoch press had a big hand in Turnbull being replaced as PM, because he was actually considering implementing renewable energy policies https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/sep/19/turnbull-warned-rupert-murdoch-trying-remove-him-prime-minister

That same day the Daily Telegraph had warned of “a toxic brawl” over energy policy. On Sky the night-time commentators Peta Credlin and Andrew Bolt ramped up their negative assessments of the national energy guarantee and of Turnbull himself.

So he is probably butthurt for other reasons too

I cant say for certain, but I can definitely speculate. I do know cotton requires a fair amount of water to grow, but I don't think it would use as many petrochemicals in the production. Though it would still use some, even if that is just in the supply chain through things like diesel for trucks and ships. The chemicals they use (like pesticides) may be derived from petrochemicals, but even if they aren't they could be damaging to the environment in many other ways. So I think polyester could have the greatest emissions of the two.

I guess it could depend on the scale of production too. Like if we were to try and replace all polyester clothing with cotton, that could have a massive impact due to the amount of land and water needed to produce such quantities of cotton clothing and such. But at the same time, creating clothes out of plastic isn't going so well either.

Ultimately we will probably still have to have some diversity materials for sustainable clothing production. It will really come down to a balance of land use, water use, what uses the least amount of chemicals, and probably a lot of other considerations.

I think bamboo is a good up and coming fabric. Bamboo grows like a weed so it's pretty sustainable and I'd say it's pretty durable as well. I've got some bamboo work socks a couple of years ago and they are still going hard. Super soft and comfortable too.

I don't think there are heaps of options available in terms of shirts and shorts, pants, etc yet. I'd say the ones that are out there would be more expensive than polyester or even cotton. But hopefully as the industry grows they get cheaper.

Edit: I think bamboo breathes really well too. Well it at least seems to with those socks I have. So it could be a good fabric for hot weather too.

Is this the great Factorio Square spitter massarcre?

I identify as 'meme'