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December 9, 2008
A group of economists - Tony Cole, Saul Eslake, Allan Fels, Rod Glover, Nicholas Gruen, Ian Harper, Tony Harris, Mike Waller - have written an open letter to the Prime Minister advocating aggressive stimulus of the economy.
The economists propose three strategies for a second package of stimulatory measures:
---a one-off downward adjustment to compulsory superannuation contributions to free up funds for short-term consumption combined with an acceleration of contributions towards a target of 12 percent as the economy recovers;
---a sustained program of nation-building public investment, funded by additional public borrowing, to modernise Australia’s ageing economic and social infrastructure; and
----targeted temporary assistance to our households and businesses to improve their energy efficiency and help them adjust to climate change.
The latter is what caught my eye in the light of the renewable industry struggling to stay afloat and the frozen billions of investment dollars in Australia's wind and solar industries.
They say that the need for temporary economic stimulus presents an opportunity to prepare households and businesses for the carbon-constrained world we are building. If well designed and combined with appropriate pricing measures, a short-term investment in energy efficiency could prove a highly cost-effective means of reducing emissions.
Faiiure to act on energy efficiency and renewable energy is becoming a characteristic of the Rudd Government. What we have is support for the energy intensive industries that produce greenhouse gases----cash for the coal industry is the latest subsidy--- and an indifference to the renewable energy industry that is covered by strong rhetoric about decisive action on global warming.
Meanwhile, the United Nations-led talks in Poznan, Poland will be based on the first draft of a new global agreement on reducing greenhouse emissions.
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On top of the generally disappointing attitude to renewable energy is this government's failure to support Australian innovations in the area.
http://www.alp.org.au/media/1208/mstra020.php
Pretty strange for a PM who doesn't want to run a country that doesn't make things.