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Is the Australian Stimulus package green enough?

For all the excitement and interest in the latest $26.5 billion stimulus package, one has to wonder if this is going to have a net positive or net negative effect on our environment.

I think its going to be rather negative. Even with the money being assigned to allowing people to claim back the cost of roof insulation; there is not much else in the stimulus to help stimulate people to act more eco friendly.

One would think handing out this sort of money into the economy could be done in such a way to encourage things like:

• research and development on Eco Friendly technologies and techniques
• training and publications on how to be more Eco Friendly
• public transport systems (and not just more roads!)
• Solar power system grants
• More solar hot water grants

Instead $26.5 is mostly going into direct cash payments to consumers - no strings attached, no education; people will be 'free' to spend it how they see fit. Of course the assumption here is that it will get spent, I suspect a fair amount of it will be directed to paying off debit; so not really supporting the economic activity at all. Or go into down payments on property now that the interest rates as so low; do people ever learn??

This is a real missed opportunity to stimulate the economy and steer people to more environmentally friendly ways of living.



The only Eco thing in all of this is giving people in effect a grant for installing roof insulation - this is rather a hit and miss thing to be funding. On the one hand it will help a bit with reducing heating and cooling bills. But it does nothing to make a living space more 'livable' in winter or summer - similar efforts will have to be made heating and cooling to control the termperature. For instance does the installation of roof vents get funding?  These help avoid a 'heat stack' occurring in your loft and pushing heat into the living space. They also help encourage the circulation of fresh air...