Legislative inaction? No worries!

Relative inaction no bad thing. A year or two of relative legislative inaction will be a consequence of minority government and that might be no bad thing.

One of the problems with politicians is their belief that they need to be doing something to justify their existence when not reacting to every call for action from this or that pressure group would normally be far more sensible.

Judging whether the next three years are to be among the best in the nation’s history will depend on how few laws are changed rather than how many.

A big enough agenda. The tasks before the Gillard Government are big enough already. Transforming the health changes from words to reality will require a major effort in itself. Completing the changes to the public education system likewise.

And then there will be the promise to create a community consensus so the country can deal with climate change. Successfully dealing with those three subjects would be a mighty achievement without worrying about anything else.

Keeping Kevin happy. What Kevin wants Julia should give. The biggest impediment to a stable minority Labor Government would be to have Kevin Rudd unhappier than he need be and seething away inside the Cabinet tent with discontent. And that means giving him the ministerial post of his choice.

If that happens to be Foreign Affairs then so be it but perhaps his part-time United Nations role working on climate change will encourage the former Prime Minister to take that as his domestic responsibility as well.

What minerals exploration crisis? With all the weeping and wailing from the mining industry you would think that the prospect of higher taxation had brought mineral exploration to a halt. What a surprise then to see this morning’s figures on the subject from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The trend estimate for total mineral exploration expenditure, reported the Bureau, rose $29.2m (5.1%) to $601.3m in the June quarter 2010. The current quarter estimate is 23.7% higher than the June quarter 2009 estimate.

The largest contribution to the rise in the trend estimate this quarter was in Western Australia (up $25.0m or 7.7%) followed by Queensland (up $2.2m or 2.0%). The trend estimate for metres drilled rose 2.1% this quarter. The current quarter estimate is 28.5% higher than the June quarter 2009 estimate.

In original terms, exploration on areas of new deposits rose $75.8m (43.7%), while expenditure on areas of existing deposits rose $102.0m (35.7%). In original terms, the largest rise by minerals sought came from expenditure on iron ore exploration (up $54.5m or 56.6%), with the largest rise occurring in Western Australia. The next largest rise came from expenditure on gold exploration (up $34.9m or 26.7%).

Circumnavigating the Arctic Ocean. It’s not often possible to circumnavigate the Arctic Ocean but this year two expeditions are hopeful of doing so — the Norwegian explorer Borge Ousland and the Peter I yacht from Russia.

Their task looks possible because average ice extent for August was 5.98 million square kilometers (2.31 million square miles), 1.69 million square kilometers (653,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average, but 620,000 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) above the average for August 2007, the lowest August in the satellite record. Ice extent remained below the 1979 to 2000 average everywhere except in the East Greenland Sea near Svalbard.

Average ice extent for August was 5.98 million square kilometers (2.31 million square miles), 1.69 million square kilometers (653,000 square miles) below the 1979 to 2000 average, but 620,000 square kilometers (240,000 square miles) above the average for August 2007, the lowest August in the satellite record.

Ice extent remained below the 1979 to 2000 average everywhere except in the East Greenland Sea near Svalbard.

— Credit: National Snow and Ice Data Center

The graph above shows daily Arctic sea ice extent as of September 6, 2010, along with daily ice extents for years with the four lowest minimum extents.

The solid light blue line indicates 2010; orange shows 2009, pink shows 2008; dashed green shows 2007; light green shows 2005; and solid gray indicates average extent from 1979 to 2000. The gray area around the average line shows the two standard deviation range of the data.