Greentech for the federal election

It’s been the best part of a decade since I’ve been writing about greentech and innovation in the environment space. In March 2013 I consolidated my experience and wrote about the carbon price, which was introduced but which – following the Liberal-National coalition’s electoral win in September of that year and despite the stock market taking no notice of the carbon price – was abolished. 

Within two years the architect of elimination – Tony Abbott – would be out of office and a new leader appointed in his place. Malcolm Turnbull immediately started to make noises about greentech. Julie Bishop appeared on-camera from Paris in the wake of the COP21 talks aimed at gaining global agreement on what to do about climate change. It was all "technology" and "innovation", with the foreign minister parroting what the new PM had been rabbiting on about on TV for months.

Until this year that was about all we heard about technological solutions – and the attendant profitability rises that would appear. It’s hard to work out how credit for the change might be attributed, other than that, as I wrote recently, both the Federal Reserve and the European Commission have appointed advisory panels to provide those bodies with information about the downside risk stemming from climate change. It seems that, financially speaking, now doing nothing is worse than doing something.

Going by indicators from Labor, Greentech is an attractive proposition for various shadow ministers. But would this stated desire result in new companies forming under Labor, if it were elected at the next federal poll? 

Labor has form in this area. On 11 June 2008 between 7.34pm and 7.36pm a story aired on the TV about ideas for GM Holden to manufacture hybrid (petrol-electric) vehicles in Australia. Labor was in government at the time and they were subsidising the auto industry because it wasn’t sustainable on its own. Toyota had announced that it would build hybrid Camrys in its Melbourne plant, and (using imported batteries) it did. 

The Australian auto industry was finally allowed to die by the (conservative) Coalition government under Tony Abbott. 

But in 2008 the Labor party – which has always tried to help workers, especially in industries such as manufacturing and mining – was as usual throwing around ideas. The ABC News story involved interviewing the GM Holden boss in Australia, Industry Minister Kim Carr (see photo below), and a Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) employee named David Lamb. There was also a guy from the Federated Chamber of Auto Industries and a guy from a magazine named GoAuto. 

Lamb quit CSIRO in 2011, having worked there from 2003 as the CEO of the Australian Automotive Technology Centre. Before that he worked for Ford in Taiwan. He now lives in Melbourne and tutors English. When Labor gave vent to an electric vehicle policy in advance of the May 2019 federal election people were again talking about making EVs here.

But of course Labor lost the election so we’ll never know what they might’ve done. The point I’m trying to make is that it is easy to talk about greentech but doing something is a little harder. So forgive me if I’m sceptical about Labor’s ideas – whatever they are. At least with the Coalition you don’t get an announcement until something has plans far advanced. Meanwhile, universities and companies are getting on with the job even in the absence of a carbon price.