06:00
Just days after backflipping and ruling in Tim Wilson’s favour in the Goldstein sign stoush, Bayside City council has started issuing threats to its residents for premature sign erection.
In a letter dated 28 February the council’s senior investigations officer, Steven Boyce, wrote:
A number of complaints have been received regarding a proliferation of political signage around the Bayside municipality such as the one displayed on your property.
Under state planning legislation community-based signs, which includes political signs, can only be displayed when an election has been called …
As no election has been called the political sign displayed on your property is unauthorised.
Although not the council’s preferred course of action fines may be issued for not complying with state legislation. Your cooperation therefore is requested in removing or completely covering the sign within two days of the date of this letter.
Independent Zoe Daniel has asked the council to revisit its interpretation of the rules but evidently the council is unmoved.
Updated
05:51
Up to 200mm of rain expected in Sydney
The Bureau of Meteorology has increased its forecast for rain in Sydney on Wednesday in an indication that the predicted east coast low is going to linger in a place that’s not great for the city.
In the updated forecast, Sydney can expect 150-200mm of rain on Wednesday, up from the earlier prediction of 60-90mm. Thursday can expect another 20-45mm, which may seem like the odd shower by comparison.
“The chance of a thunderstorm, possibly severe, with gusty winds in the evening,” is the not very promising prediction for Wednesday.
So far, the warning hasn’t been updated, but you can expect that will change before long.
As mentioned in an earlier post, Warragamba Dam sits at 99% full as of Tuesday, and has been releasing water to create one metre of “air space”. That space will disappear overnight, as the east coast low forms, and the dam – which accounts for 80% of Sydney’s reservoir totals – will start to spill.
Just how much it spills, and what happens to other tributaries flowing into the Hawkesbury-Nepean floodplain remains to be seen. If BoM’s forecast for 100-150mm for Warragamba itself on Wednesday and another 30-50mm on Thursday play out, then you can expect some big spills.
Earlier today, WaterNSW was not expecting an event on par with last March’s big spill and floods, but east coast lows can be hard things to predict and this particular rain event has tended to surprise.
Updated
04:02
Guardian Australia photographer Mike Bowers is out and about getting shots of the thunderstorms.
He’s taken an incredible shot of the storm on the Hay Plains between Narrandera and Hay.
Updated
03:55
As expected the Reserve Bank has left its cash rate at the record 0.1% rate after its latest monthly board meeting.
There’s not a lot of shifting in the language, with the RBA governor, Philip Lowe, saying he plans to be “patient” about raising the rate. For one thing, the board hasn’t seen enough price increases or wage growth to be convinced Australia’s underlying inflation rate will be “sustainably” within the 2% to 3% annual range just yet.
There are uncertainties about how persistent the pick-up in inflation will be given recent developments in global energy markets and ongoing supply-side problems, Lowe said in a statement.
At the same time, wages growth remains modest and it is likely to be some time yet before growth in labour costs is at a rate consistent with inflation being sustainably at target. The board is prepared to be patient as it monitors how the various factors affecting inflation in Australia evolve.
Of course the Russian invasion of Ukraine is something new since the February RBA meeting:
The war in Ukraine is a major new source of uncertainty.
Inflation in parts of the world has increased sharply due to large increases in energy prices and disruptions to supply chains at a time of strong demand.
If anything, that sort of uncertainty sounds like it would prompt central bankers everywhere to be just a bit more hesitant when it comes to raising rates.
Some of that assessment is already showing up in the short-term markets that investors can bet on, when it comes to anticipating rate rises. Lately, those punters have pushed back the timing of the first RBA move to July, assuming that first rise is to 0.25%.
Updated