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By Les Scammell, February 9, 2009 4:25 pm

AS temperatures soared to 45c (113f), most of Australia held its breath. We all know what high temperatures, strong winds, a dry earth from a decade of drought, and idiots with nothing better to do with matches than cause mayhem, can do to our fragile environment.

And that was the sorry tale that many Australians woke up to on Sunday morning. Almost half of the state of Victoria turned to ashes in what has been described as the worst Victorian bushfires in history. In fact, the worst bushfires in Australia’s history.

Estimates are that nearly 200 have or will lose their life, 33 people from the one hamlet have died. At last count, over 750 homes had been destroyed with countless schools, halls, churches and businesses in ashes. In some areas, complete towns have been wiped out. I don’t mean tiny villages either, I am talking small towns with populations of around 1000. Australia has not known such devastation since cyclone Tracy wiped out Darwin many years ago.

One can only imagine the terror that many families have endured. In fact, it’s not only the families. Emergency services such as firefighters, both paid and volunteer, state emergency services, police and ambulance. They have all been involved in the fight and now, when a lot of the danger is over, they must help with the clean up. It is their job to search burnt out properties and vehicles trying to account for every person known to be in the burnt out areas.

I know lightening caused many of these fires, however there is now evidence to show that quite a few were also deliberately lit. Why? That is the question on everyone’s lips.

Australians are a resilient lot. We will band together, forget issues that often divide us, and get stuck in to clean up the ruins and yes, rebuild again. Hundred’s of thousands of dollars have already been donated including $100,000 from Football Federation Of Australia along with a pledge to replace soccer equipment in all schools and clubs.

In what many would consider sheer irony, the northern parts of Australia are recovering from cyclone damage and suffering from huge floods – the weather at its extremes.

The Victorian bushfires may have been one of our worst disasters on record – but that is only a statistic. We will regroup and rebuild. We will get on with our lives. It’s the Australian way. We don’t quit – we fight on.

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By Les Scammell, February 4, 2009 11:22 pm

The Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd announced a very broad and very expensive economic stimulus package yesterday, one which seems to be hailed as ideal in some quarters and yet in others labeled as economic vandalism. For the ordinary Australian, it is hard to know who is right and who is wrong. It seems though the politicians are playing  politics while the economy stinks sinks.

If the truth be told, even the experts don’t know. That is probably the biggest problem with the world’s economic problems at present. No one really has any idea how to get things moving again – of course with that comes the guess work as to how long the world’s economic woes will continue for.

I am no expert and I take a rather simplistic view on the whole situation. It starts from the basic premise that we did elect Kevin Rudd and his Labor colleagues to run this country – part of that job is trying to run the economy. A closer look at the package makes it very attractive.

We are trying to avoid falling into a recession which is defined as being two consecutive quarters of negative growth. The stimulus package is divided into  a now and later. The now involves cash hand outs in the hope people will spend. That will prevent these next two quarters from going into the negative.

The second component involves infrastructure spending. This is where it gets interesting because every dollar allocated is going into areas where the funds really are needed.

Our schools have been desperate for this type of funding for a long time.  Public housing has needed a boost in funds for about ten years – it has a real boost now. Even the rebate for insulation is welcome addition.

The opposition proposes simply bringing forward tax cuts. For a ‘liberal’ party, they are very conservative. From my perspective, tax cuts mean nothing. Petrol price rises along with the increase in price of basic foods, particularly fresh food and meat, means the tax cuts are already spent.

Malcolm Turnbull, the opposition leader says 72 hours is not longer enough to consider the package – yet 12 hours is long enough to consider it and so no, we will vote against it!

The minor parties of course are looking at how they can capitalize on the package for their special interest groups. The Labor party was elected to run this country. It should be left to do the job. In our current economic environment, we cannot afford political grandstanding.  Economic experts have all come out in support of the package. That is good enough for me.

Turnball says the pre Christmas hand out did little for the economy. At the same time statistics reveal that pre Christmas spending had the biggest growth in over 20 years.

My fear is that this country’s economic future will be held to ransom by a politician who was once a banker – and who started this whole mess – bankers!

Comments (5)

By Les Scammell, February 2, 2009 11:08 pm

In my last post I highlighted some of the flaws in the latest push by Governments to produce small fuel efficient hybrid vehicles. Let me recap some of the problems:

• Increased congestion in our major cities
• Decreased use of public transport
• Increase in waste, eg, tires
• Increase in petrochemicals to produce components

Of course this is all based on an assumption that people will buy more vehicles more often due to their reduced costs. Some households will go from a single car household to a two or perhaps three car household – our young will be able to afford cars a lot sooner.

So what are the solutions? Public transport is one solution, however here in Australia no government appears willing to bite the bullet and push for a decent public transport system. They all pay lip service whilst running the services down.

Public transport needs to be viable and cost effective. You can only reduce prices so far so the answer has to be to make the alternatives so much more expensive. If city parking cost $40-$50 per day together with congestion taxes for our busiest cities, $10-$15 per day becomes the cheaper option.

Couple this with free, “safe” and well lit parking facilities in the outer suburbs and commuters would have the best of both worlds – using their car and public transport.

When it comes to cars themselves, rather than producing small fuel efficient vehicles, it is time that smaller 6, 7 and 8 seater vehicles were produced. I am sure that one full 8  seater is far cheaper to run than four 2 seater concept cars.

Of course there is one aspect to this whole argument that most people seem to forget – cars only produce 15% of all carbon emission. Power generation is by far the biggest producer of carbon – it’s ironic, one solution is to produce electric cars. What do they need? A power supply at every parking meter. Using the biggest source of carbon emissions to resolve the smallest source of carbon emissions!

That’s life I guess.

Comments (9)

By Les Scammell, February 1, 2009 3:37 pm

There is a big move here in Australia and, I suspect, the rest of the world, to produce small fuel efficient hybrid cars. I believe they are looking at a  $15-$20,000 market. The average family car is priced in the $30-$40,000 range so they are looking at smaller cars for a much smaller price.

The concept is, on the face of it, quite reasonable. Smaller cars use smaller amounts of fuel. If the run on hybrid engines there is an even bigger saving. The price is certainly attractive. There is however a range of problems that I don’t think people have thought through very well.

Our government is looking purely at the carbon effect. Manufacturers are looking for survival so if a government is going to throw tax dollars, they will put their hands out. Besides,  selling 2 million cars always sounds better than 1.5 million or less.

Australia is a car dominant society. Less than 10% of workforce rely on public transport to get to and from work. In fact car pooling is a bit of a rarity as well. We have our cars, we love our cars, and heaven help anyone who threatens  our right to own and drive a car.

Where I take issue with the solutions proposed – that is, the small efficient hybrid car – is that it really won’t solve any problems. In fact, if anything, it will exacerbate them.

Single car households, when the time comes to replace their vehicle, will be able to become dual car households. Rather than spending $35,000 on a new sedan, they will be able to buy two small cars – and still have change. This will have the effect of increasing the number of vehicles on the road.

More vehicles equals more congestion which leads to road rage, car accidents and higher pollution. You can guarantee that two small cars will output more carbon than one medium size car.

Increasing car numbers also leads to other effects often not considered. Two cars means twice the number of tires required, and the associated disposal. We will also have the problem of trying to dispose of more car bodies in the future.

Small cars – even though fuel efficient and using hybrid motors are not the solution. The problem is far larger than just cars. In my next post I will highlight possible solutions to what is becoming a battle of self interests by many players.