There's an irony in the High Court taking a "strictly black letter, literal, narrow interpretation" of the sections of the Constitution (43 &/or 44?) in that these are the exact types of lawyers/judges the Conservatives have been appointing to the High Court as their response to earlier "versions of the High Court bench" which were "more creative in interpretation".
The latest development is the impending resignation of the (Liberal) President of the Senate for being a dual citizen ( British as well as Australian ) so the irony continues given that this all started as an attack on two Greens Senators.
Yes I live in the Federal seat of Mayo in South Australia and campaigned actively for Ms Rebekah Sharkie & "scrutineered" for her ( observer at the counting of votes ) & was delighted when she defeated Jamie Briggs ( Liberal apparatchik given the blue ribbon seat Alexander Downer had held since it's creation by the power brokers over a local dairy farmer and long time local member of the Liberal Party ) Rebekah Sharkie was a former Liberal Party member and briefly worked in Jamie Briggs office but found it "too toxic" & left.
The State election in Queensland in December will be most interesting.. Major changes in electorates, several new electorates in Brisbane and the Southeast coastal region as part of a redistribution since the last election. The One Nation wildcard, strongest in Queensland ( there must be something strange in the beer or bananas up there...they fell in love with Pauline Hanson, then out of love with her, then they rushed to Clive Palmer, his party collapsed in turmoil & bickering, Clive's business fortunes tumbled & he's in trouble in the courts, and twenty years after their first romance with Pauline she's back with a vengeance and her party might do dangerously well in the State election )
The proposed Adani Carmichael basin Coal project is quite controversial, but has support from the ALP Premier, and probably the Liberals, but might be divisive within the Nationals as it's on the nose with the farmers and graziers.
The amounts of public money being given to Adani are astounding. For example two coastal Councils are each putting $Aus 18+ million each of ratepayers money into building an Airport near the mine site..in a completely different Shire to their own Council Shires. Yet Commercial Banks and institutional lenders in the private sector in Australia and Asia are shunning the proposed project in droves, but the Federal government is committed to "lend" Adani about $Aus one billion. Then there's the water licenses granted by the Queensland State government that have pastoralists in uproar.
I'm not anti mining by any stretch, I've worked in mining exploration helping to map copper, gold & uranium deposits, re~designed and constructed resistivity probes for coal seam mapping etc... But there's something, or several things very smelly with this Adani project in my opinion.. When private sector lenders refuse to get involved on the scale that's occurred with Adani then that should be ringing alarm bells ... they don't make business decisions on sentimental grounds, if they think there's money to be made they get involved, when they refuse to get involved, and not just one or two or three banks, but well over a dozen major Austral~Asian Banks & other major institutional lenders as well.. Then it's definitely a project to be most cautious about giving taxpayers money imho.
Plus I recently was advised that although there is a huge amount of coal in that deposit, it's not a particularly high quality grade of coal, it's low to medium (at best) grade coal. So when you look at future risks, if there is a reasonable probability of a surplus of coal supply over future demand, then it's the Coal miners with high quality coal who suffer least in that situation, and the Coal miners producing lower grades of coal who are most exposed to loss of contracts, most exposed to price cuts.
I worry that these dopey politicians in local, state and federal governments are about to "invest"? huge amounts of public monies in a project that could easily get into real trouble in ten/fifteen years time. That's aside from the obvious environmental risks and impacts. We're already mining & exporting record amounts of coal from existing mines and there is no imminent shortfall in production capacity. It's a project that could easily be deferred for a decade, even two, and the Coal will still be there. The unnecessary urgency by Politicians to push it through is another alarm bell in my opinion. Makes you wonder how much "grease" has been applied behind the scenes.