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June 02, 2004
I've been working all day trying to get my head around energy. It's a tough policy area. Then late in the afternoon I had a moment to glance through the papers and saw this cartoon in the Australian Financial Review.
Rowe
I smiled. How true. The Howard Government doesn't have an national energy policy, apart from protecting the coal and aluminium industries at all costs. There was little in the recent Budget.
From what I have been able to gather McFarlane's Industry Department has been captured by the energy intensive industries. McFarlane cannot see beyond coal. They are in favour of an efficient and competitive national energy market, but they remain utterly opposed to renewable energy.
It is not providing effective policy leadership, does not have a game plan apart from protecting coal, and has little in the way of energy market reform.
Maybe the Howard Government is going to announce its national energy policy in the near future? At the moment it is not clear how its energies policies will satisfy the objectives of sustaining the environment and also maintaining economic growth.
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And at this stage it's not clear how anyone's energy policies could satisfy the objectives of sustaining the environment and maintaining economic growth. There's the rub as to why it's business as usual for us all.