South Australia election: Economy, jobs dominate leaders’ debate between Jay Weatherill and Steven Marshall

Updated 9 hours 21 minutes ago

Photo: The state of the economy and jobs were a key focus of the debate. (ABC News)

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Map: Adelaide 5000

The economy and jobs have dominated the first leaders’ debate of the South Australian election campaign between Premier Jay Weatherill and Opposition Leader Steven Marshall.

The two men took questions from an audience of 120 voters who gathered in Adelaide for the ABC State Leaders’ debate, which covered topics from mental health resources, leadership and environment to business and rural community support.

Mr Marshall, a first-term MP, focused his attack against the Premier on the government’s jobs record, saying 25,000 jobs have been lost in the state over the past eight months.

“We’ve heard from the Premier that we’ve got this resilient growing economy but that’s just not the case,” he said.

“Our domestic economy contracted last year, our exports went backwards. We’re the only state in Australia where last financial year our exports went backwards.”

Mr Weatherill, who is aiming to win a fourth term in government for Labor, accused Mr Marshall of making factual errors.

Look back at how the debate unfolded in our live blog

“Exports have actually grown and they grew the strongest of almost any state except Western Australia in the year to November,” he said.

“And we also know that the South Australian economy actually grew last year – it didn’t contract.”

Mr Weatherill said Mr Marshall’s planned Productivity Commission review of government spending was a sign the Liberals would make deep cuts to bring the budget back into surplus quickly.

“People voted for both Campbell Newman and Tony Abbott on the basis there would be no cuts and then they set up their cuts commission just as Steven Marshall will do after the election and they got a whole lot of nasty surprises,” he said.

But Mr Marshall says there will be a cap on public sector job cuts. He says curbing government spending over four years will bring the budget back into the black.

“We’ve done our modelling and we believe by setting that cap (of) 5,170 we’ll be able to return the budget to surplus within two years and that’s what we need to do in SA,” he said.

“We need to balance the budget.”

The two leaders earlier had a face-to-face debate on ABC radio which was dominated by business support projects and economic reform.

The election will be held on March 15.

Sulfur combusts on contact with air to create stunning blue lava-like rivers of light in the Kawah Ijen crater on the island of Java.

Photograph by Olivier Grunewald

NG Staff

Brian Clark Howard

National Geographic

Published January 30, 2014

For several years Paris-based photographer Olivier Grunewald has been documenting the Kawah Ijen volcano in Indonesia, where dazzling, electric-blue fire can often be seen streaming down the mountain at night.

“This blue glow—unusual for a volcano—isn’t, of course, lava, as unfortunately can be read on many websites,” Grunewald told National Geographic in an email about Kawah Ijen, a volcano on the island of Java.

The glow is actually the light from the combustion of sulfuric gases, Grunewald explained.

Those gases emerge from cracks in the volcano at high pressure and temperature—up to 1,112°F (600°C). When they come in contact with the air, they ignite, sending flames up to 16 feet (5 meters) high.

Some of the gases condense into liquid sulfur, “which continues to burn as it flows down the slopes,” said Grunewald, “giving the feeling of lava flowing.”

Cynthia Werner, a research geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) at the Alaska Volcano Observatory, told National Geographic that Grunewald’s photos show an unusual phenomenon.

“I’ve never seen this much sulfur flowing at a volcano,” she said.

Werner noted that forest fires in Yellowstone National Park have caused similar “rivers,” as heat from the blazes melted the sulfur around hydrothermal vents.

“When you go to Yellowstone, you can see their traces as black lines,” she said.

According to Werner, it’s relatively common to find molten sulfur around volcanic fumaroles (hot vents). The mineral has a relatively low melting point of 239°F (115°C), and the temperature at the hot vents often exceeds that.

Blue volcanic fire was described in antiquity in Italy on the south slope of Mount Vesuvius and on the island of Vulcano, Grunewald said.

“Blue flames may also be observed at the base of the plume of erupting volcanoes, when ash explosions occur,” he added.

Grunewald did not use any filters to capture his images of the blue fire. The burning happens day and night, but it’s visible only in darkness.

Kawah Ijen volcano is the subject of a new documentary released earlier this month that was produced by Grunewald and Régis Etienne, the president of Geneva’s Society of Volcanology.

Photograph by Olivier Grunewald

Kawah Ijen Crater Lake is green because of the hydrochloric acid in the water.

Kawah Ijen Crater Lake, at the top of the volcano, is the world’s largest such body of water filled with hydrochloric acid. In fact, it’s the acid that makes the water green.

Werner explained how the lake became so acidic: The volcano emitted hydrogen chloride gas, which reacted with the water and formed a highly condensed hydrochloric acid with a pH of almost 0.

The lake has a volume of 1.3 billion cubic feet (36 million cubic meters), or about 1/320 of the volume of Oregon’s Crater Lake.

Photograph by Olivier Grunewald

In the Kawah Ijen crater, sulfuric gases escaping from cracks ignite as they come in contact with the air.

As the burning gases cool, they deposit sulfur around the lake.

To speed up the formation of the mineral, a mining company installed ceramic pipes on an active vent near the edge of the lake, said John Pallister, a USGS geologist who has studied the volcano.

The pipes route the sulfur gases down the vent’s sloping mound. When the gases cool, they condense into liquid sulfur, which then flows or drips from the pipes and solidifies into hard sulfur mats.

After the solid sulfur cools, the miners break it up and haul it off the mountain on their backs.

“I have also seen the miners spraying water from a small pump onto the pipes to promote cooling and condensation,” said Pallister via email. “Sulfur stalactites sometimes form from the liquid sulfur dripping from the pipes. These are collected and sold to tourists.”

Pallister added, “I have been told that the miners sometimes ignite the sulfur and/or sulfur gases to produce the blue flames that are so prominent in nighttime photographs.”

Miners have been extracting sulfur here for more than 40 years. At times they work at night under the eerie blue light to escape the heat of the sun, and to earn extra income, Grunewald said.

The miners sell the sulfur for about 600 Indonesian rupiah per kilo (less than 25 U.S. cents per pound), said Grunewald. They can carry loads of 176 to 220 pounds (80 to 100 kilos) once a day—or twice if they work into the night.

Photograph by Olivier Grunewald

A river of sulfur flows near Kawah Ijen’s acid lake.

When Grunewald photographs Kawah Ijen, he wears a gas mask as protection against toxic gases, including sulfur dioxide. “It is impossible to stay a long time close to a dense acid gas without a mask,” he said.

Pallister described the miners’ daily routine as “tough duty.” He has seen many of them using only wet cloths as gas masks.

Some of the miners do have gas masks that visitors have given them, said Grunewald, but they “have no money and no opportunity to change the filters.”

“I feel bad for these miners,” Werner said. When she and her colleagues work in Indonesia, “we usually bring gas masks and leave them there with the people we work with, because sometimes they don’t know that what they are breathing is harmful.”

Photograph by Olivier Grunewald

In Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, the sulfur dust in the soil of a hydrothermal vent ignites to form blue flames.

Grunewald has also documented the blue glow on the Dallol volcano in the Danakil Depression, in the Afar region of Ethiopia near the borders of Eritrea and Djibouti.

The heat of magma sometimes ignites the sulfur dust in the soil, forming flames of electric blue.

“It is very rare to see that,” said Grunewald. “The powder of sulfur could burn for a few days.”

The depression is geologically active, with hydrothermal vents and sulfur springs, some of which are tourist attractions.

The Afar region is famous for having the world’s highest average temperature of 93°F (34°C), thanks in part to the volcanic activity.

The Observer carries a warning by Labour leader Ed Miliband that climate change is now a national security threat. Dame Helen Mirren is pictured. She tells the paper of her concern over rising levels of screen violence towards women.

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The storms and flooding continue to generate headlines with reports of the latest disruption providing the backdrop to a variety of stories in Sunday’s newspapers.

The Observer leads with comments from Labour leader Ed Miliband that Britain is “sleepwalking into a national security crisis” because of a failure to recognise that climate change is causing the extreme weather.

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Money Money Money

Swedish pop legends Abba wore garish stage costumes to save money on their tax bills, according to a new book to mark their Eurovision success 40 years ago.

According to a story in the Mail on Sunday, the group took advantage of a law which meant their clothes were tax deductible if not also used for regular wear.

Band member Bjorn Ulvaeus recalls that the “terrible” clothes also meant people would remember the then-aspiring superstars.

In an interview with the paper, he urges “decent people” in the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats “to come forward and say, we can’t have this ambivalence any more because it will be disastrous for this country”.

A photograph of the devastation after a tidal surge ripped through Milford on Sea in Hampshire on Friday night is featured on the front page of the Mail on Sunday.

However, the newspaper also carries comments from Met Office expert Mat Collins that it says appear to contradict a suggestion from the organisation’s chief scientist that climate change does have a role to play in the stormy weather.

“There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter,” it quotes Prof Collins as saying.

The lead story in the Sunday Express says dangerous levels of bacteria that can cause typhoid fever, dysentery, hepatitis and antibiotic-resistant bugs similar to MRSA have been discovered in floodwater near the Thames.

The paper also reports that Treasury chiefs are reviewing the possibility of exempting flood victims from VAT payments on home repairs and replacement goods.

‘Short-term agendas’

Images of storm damage continues to appear across the papers

A front page story in the Sunday Times says that five aircraft unable to land at Heathrow and Gatwick during Friday’s storms were forced to declare emergencies, some perilously close to running out of fuel.

In an editorial, the Sunday Times accuses successive governments of failing to plan for extreme weather.

“The government’s own impact assessment seems to assume that flood risk will remain the same over time, despite official projections that clearly suggest it will increase,” it adds.

Writing in the Independent, Richard Ashley, a scientist who in 2007 co-authored a government study into flooding says there has been a “systemic failure to take a longer-term and strategic approach to environmental hazards”.

“Many in government either don’t believe, or don’t wish to upset those who don’t believe, that the climate is changing,” he writes.

“An interest in floods falls away rapidly after a major event, short-term political agendas return and only what affects the outcome of the next general election becomes important.”

The Sun on Sunday also suggests the storms “underline the need for changes in the way we prepare for, and cope with, such extreme weather”.

“While David Cameron was right to say money is no object in the relief effort, future policy must focus on prevention,” it adds in an editorial

Meanwhile, the Sunday Telegraph carries a report that councils in some of the areas worst affected by flooding – in Surrey and the Somerset Levels – have published plans to build on land that is currently under water.

farm output and investment

(Edits)

* Floods destroy cattle feed, bedding in SW England

* Erratic weather, volatile prices threaten investment

By Nigel Hunt

LONDON, Feb 14 (Reuters) – Floods in southwest England and elsewhere have submerged crops and destroyed cattle bedding and feed, with the consequences likely to be felt for months, or even years, in terms of lower production of both crops and meat.

Britain’s Environment Agency had issued 416 flood warnings and alerts, as of early Thursday, including 16 under its most serious category, indicating danger to life.

Thousands of acres of farmland in Britain are under water, with some submerged for weeks, although agricultural economists say it is too early to forecast how output might be affected.

“Of course there is a big cost to this but at the moment the big worry is making sure the cattle are fed and dry,” said Chris Mallon, chief executive of the National Beef Association.

Some farmers have turned to social media with #Tractoraid on twitter providing updates on the progress of 30 tonnes of donated feed and bedding on a 225-mile journey by tractor from Yorkshire in northern England to Somerset in the southwest.

“At the moment people will be helping and people will be interested but once the flood water disappears and it is not as visible, farmers will be having to make sure their business survives and it will be very difficult,” Mallon said.

The National Farmers Union on Thursday called on members to make longer-term commitments rather than immediate donations.

“What we now need are the pledges of fodder or straw, rather than the actual deliveries, so that we can call upon people’s generosity as and when it is required over the coming weeks and months, when the waters finally abate and farmers return to face a fetid swamp,” NFU regional director Melanie Squires said.

DROUGHT TO DELUGE

Britain has swung from drought to deluge in the last couple of years, posing major challenges for the country’s farmers.

The country’s then farming and environment minister, Caroline Spelman, called a drought summit in February 2012, a year which turned out to be the second wettest on record in Britain.

The rains led to Britain’s harvesting its smallest wheat crop in more than a decade last summer and the latest drenching is expected to lead to more disease in crops and increased indebtedness among farmers.

“The fiscal impact will last long after the flood waters recede,” NFU chief economist Phil Bicknell said, adding that the erratic weather has coincided with increasingly volatile prices for agricultural crops and created “a new set of challenges”.

“It is difficult for them (farmers) to plan ahead. Where is the incentive for them to invest consistently, and we need consistent investment,” he said.

Livestock farming is barely profitable in Britain for even the most efficient producers and cattle numbers have been falling by about three percent a year.

“The average livestock farmer last year made just over 16,000 pounds ($26,000) in terms of farm business income so any sort of repair operation (or) reseeding is going to significantly eat into those sort of margins,” Bicknell said.

Dairy cows in parts of western England and Wales also normally start to graze in February as grass begins to grow, Derrick Davies, vice chairman of the Royal Association of British Dairy Farmers said.

Davies said some farmers may, therefore, be running short of winter stocks of food.

The rains may also have disrupted potato planting which began in Cornwall in December and would normally be underway across southern England.

“It is too early to understand the impact of the recent wet weather. It may have delayed plans to plant some new potatoes in the south,” a spokeswoman for the Potato Council said. ($1 = 0.6011 British pounds) (Reporting by Nigel Hunt; Editing by Giles Elgood)