Category: Australia


Australia’s missed opportunity on climate change policy ?

Filed Under: Australia, Economics, Energy, Environment, Society by tknows — Leave a comment
October 15, 2008

Europe is now at a critical point in terms of the future of climate change policy in the EU and around the world.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/14/europe/union.php

With the policy focus now firmly on the financial crisis an a looming recession, climate change is seen as risky territory for politicians. Britain provided the framework to the EU for tackling problems in the financial system, Australia could have provided – and still has a chance to provide – a framework for the world for tackling climate change.

The same issues are arising in the EU as in Australia, namely:

- Where and how should the burden fall?
- Who, if anyone, should be protected and to what extent?
- How should funds generated from pricing carbon be redistributed?
- What is the correct framework for handling countries with fewer emission ’sins’ to atone for (i.e. developing countries who are yet to emit levels that developed countries have to date, but are well on their way).

If Australia can answer the questions above when it presents its final paper on the issue (originally due early next year I believe but perhaps delayed now?), then it will do the world a great service and any actions we take will be noticed on the world stage. The Garnaut Review made some good inroads to answer these questions, although stated targets were disappointingly low.

Comment

Modeling of Costs of GHG Abatement: A less dismal perspective

Filed Under: Australia, Economics, Energy, Environment by tknows — Leave a comment
September 26, 2008

The Garnaut Review has modeled the cost to Australia for mitigation of 1.1% of GDP by 2020 under a 550ppm scenario and 1.6% of GDP by 2020 under a 450ppm scenario. I won’t get into discussion of the correct interpretation of these figures here, although that is very important, but, I want to provide another assessment – using a different methodology to that of the Garnaut Review – done recently by McKinsey & Company, looking at the Australian cost curve for GHG abatement. They concluded that:

A signi?cant reduction in Australian GHG emissions is achievable—30 percent
below 1990 levels by 2020 and 60 percent by 2030 without major technological
breakthroughs or lifestyle changes.

Reducing emissions is affordable—with an average annual gross cost of
approximately A$290 per household to reduce emissions in 2020 to 30 percent
below 1990 levels.

And these are 1990 levels, I’d like to know what happened to using 1990 as a baseline since I thought that was the Kyoto agreed approach, yet Garnaut’s discussion focuses on reduction from 2000 levels. This could be in the report, I haven’t read it in full and may have missed this.

Comment

There is a Substitute for Quality

Filed Under: Australia, Business, Food by tknows — Leave a comment
February 14, 2008

It’s called profit!

I finally got around to contacting Dairy Bell about their obvious recipe changes in recent years (can you say cost down, margin up?).

I was going to put pen to paper but email is just so much easier! Anyway, I let them know what I thought and that their products are now crap. I’m sick of food manufacturers *cough especially Arnotts *cough pursing these cost down, margin up strategies in producing food products. They inevitably reduce the quality of the product which is ironic given Arnott’s slogan: “There is no substitute for quality” – see, clever title right… ;) .

These moves clearly indicate that companies such as Arnotts think shareholders are more important than customers. Well, I know of companies with customers, but no shareholders, but I don’t know of many companies with shareholders, but no customers. /rant

As for dairy bell, they are clearly struggling in recent years due to ongoing pressures but really, I think they have missed a lot of opportunities in recent years. We all know how ubiquitious the gelati store is around Melbourne these days. Surely with Dairy Bell’s experience and brand recognition they could have tapped into this market early on. “Dairy Belle” anyone?

If you visit a Dairy Bell store these days you’ll see that they are confused and grasping at straws. They are selling mixed lollies and chocolates as well as ice cream. The chocolates I think is ok, but mixed lollies? Oh and while they are at these, why wouldn’t they pay more attention to their core product, Ice Cream. Right. The ice-cream is presented in a way unchanged in as long as I can remember. This is while funky gelati stores are laying whole snickers bars on top of ice-cream shaped into waves. And then there is the service, Sim knows what I mean.

Anyway, enough ranting… It’s a pity really because Dairy Bell used to be great. Great quality and reasonable prices, definitely formerly the best ice-creamery in Melbourne. Now, to be honest, I would only give them a few years and wouldn’t be surprised if they close up shop. As for Arnotts, I don’t want to get started on that. All I’ll say is this, if you don’t know what I’m going on about, buy some Saladas and pay close attention. “You’ve changed man, You’ve changed” – I say.

Over and out.

Caveat: Of course, without seeing figures, for all I know, Dairy Bell never been more profitable. But somehow I doubt it.

Comment

Electoral Role Stalking

Filed Under: Australia, General, Stalking by tknows — 1 Comment
September 14, 2007

I was in the city office of the AEC today and discovered that you can obtain some useful details about individuals using the system they have in there for checking electoral enrolment details.

Whilst the online enrolment verification facility requires address details, the one in at the office only requires a surname and/or first name. Voila! Stalkers dream. This explains why some people may have received text messages from me today enrolling them that they a) weren’t enrolled to vote, b) are enrolled at the wrong address, c) are being stalked by me.

I thought they should have at least required a date of birth or something for verification but nope, just a name is all it takes to obtain a full address of any individual enrolled to vote (majority of people aged over 18).

Comment

Consumerism = De-forestation

Filed Under: Australia, China, Economics, Environment, Society by tknows — 3 Comments
June 11, 2007

We often hear about the deforestation occurring throughout the world usually in far away places such as Brazil or Indonesia (ok, not so far away). This problem is often seen (by myself at least) as being remote and a problem to be solved in the countries facing the problems by increased economic growth and education.
However, an interesting article in Scientific American highlights that most of the unsustainable and illegal logging is occurring as a result of demand tracing back to developed countries and companies. Perhaps we as consumers need to pay more attention to what we are buying and where it comes from.

In this regard, I think companies need to provide more information in the way of product provenance details. On the example of trees and timber (although it applies to many commodoties in our world), think of all the furniture in Melbourne shops such as Myer, Harvey Norman, Officeworks and other smaller retailers. How many of those stores are aware that the products they import (in the case of Officeworks, 95% of furniture comes from China) are directly linked to the unsustainable destruction of forests?

This also highlights another problem with our current society, the importance of low cost competition. Because let’s face it, we all love the fact that we can buy a $59 leatherette chair from Officeworks. In fact, I bought a table from Officeworks which for all I know traces it’s origin back to illegal logging half-way around the world. And let’s say one of the giant retailers took the lead and decided to make sure it’s suppliers only used sustainable timber (and let consumers know just how and why it was sustainable), how would this affect the price? It’s fair to say that most consumers would opt for the $79 chair – with no questions asked – over the $139 chair which uses sustainable and legal materials. The sad part is that these same people would probably go home after buying such a product and shake their heads at the rapid loss of our forests.

I would like to see more information provided to consumers on where their products come from in Australia. We have had it for food and drinks for many years. Now it is time for it to be applied to many other products.

Comment

So called “Democracy” in Australia

Filed Under: Australia, General, Society by tknows — 2 Comments
June 10, 2007

Check out my post at Simantic.  Having lived (and currently still living) in countries where freedom of speach and the media are severely restricted, this situation occurring in Australia is extremely disappointing.

Comment

Australian Attitudes Towards Asia and Languages

Filed Under: Asia, Australia, General, Language, Society by tknows — 3 Comments
March 26, 2007

An interesting lingua franca audio program about Australian’s attitudes towards Indonesia and Asia in general and discusses our low levels of foreign language studies.

Very interesting points raised however I would add that every Indonesian that I have talked to on my trip has been shocked when I had planned to learn Indonesian.  Their reacting is usually something like, “what for? its useless!”.  I kid you not.  This has been the reaction of just about every Indonesian I’ve spoken to.  Secondly, if I tell them I want to go there, they nearly always say that it’s dangerous and that they might ‘bully’ me there being a foreigner.  Now, this should be taken in context since most – in fact all – of the people i’ve asked have been Chinese Indonesians.  If you follow the situation in Indonesia you will know why this might impact on their attitudes towards Indonesia.  Anyway, I should also add that just about every Indonesian I’ve met has been very very nice and friendly and most have very good opinions and attitutes towards Australia.  To be honest, I think they are mostly shocked that we want to learn Indonesian since they all want to learn English. Oh, and I would also add – since they don’t mention it in the program – that if you can speak Indonesian you can get by very well in Malaysia since the languages are very similar.  I still think it is a very useful language in the region just that perhaps it’s more useful in political circles than business ones.
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2007/1878187.htm

Any thoughts on Indonesia by my many readers? That’s you Sim and Sarah….. :P

Comment

Still with the resources…

Filed Under: Australia, Economics, Energy, Environment, General, Uncategorized by tknows — Leave a comment
March 23, 2007

Australia is continuing in it’s tradtion of being a resource focused economy with a ban lifted on uranium mining and along with bilateral support by the two major parties.  Now, my post isn’t about the suitability or otherwise of nuclear as far as our energy/environmental problems are concerned, that is a complex issue that I’ll avoid here.

My point is mainly that it is disappointing to see that Australian governments still have such a resource focused mentality – as opposed to knowledge and technology, value adding etc – and that along with support for nuclear power, they should be suitable encouraging other alternatives to coal or gas fired power generation.  Namely, renewables such as solar and wind.

The reason this came to my attention was because of an article I read recently (actually one of three) about a solar researcher who is leaving Australia because of lack of financial support for his solar based approach to large scale power generation.  Australia has had and still continues to have a competitive advantage in the research and development side of solar power.  If backed by suitable government support and initiatives, we could become a world leader in this area not just academically, but economically.  Anyway, for now it seems there is no interest in this from the current government, lets hope that as well as supporting uranium mining, the opposition Labour Party will also support other ernergy and economic alternatives.
Articles about David Mills leaving Australia and why:

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/innovations/stories/s1860693.htm

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/1841239.htm

Comment

Language in Australia sucks

Filed Under: Australia by tknows — Leave a comment
August 29, 2006

There are quite a few Indonesians at UIBE, and just about all of them speak English either fluently, or at a reasonable level.  Meanwhile in Australia unless you speak a second language at home, almost nobody is bilingual.

They need to start improving the language relevance and teaching methods at schools and increasing the number of Australians who are bilingual.  Forget about Italian, French and whatever else they teach, imo, the following are worth learning these days (not only worth using, but can be used widely).

Mandarin
Spanish
Arabic
Indonesian
Japanese (still important imo)
“Proper” English (schools in Aus need to put more emphasis on teaching proper English)

Ok, my rant is over.

Comment
Powered by WordPress | Theme: Motion by 85ideas.