Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

There are two glaring lessons for politicians from the Anika Wells’ entitlements affair.

First, don’t grab greedily at every generous entitlement MPs and especially ministers can get, even if “the rules” allow you to do so.

Second, if you do get into trouble, show some humility and apologise early (and often).

If Wells had acted differently at the National Press Club last week, when she was pressed on the nearly $95,000 bill for three airfares to New York (for herself and two officials), she might be looking a little better politically than she is now. No doubt the past largesse Wells has enjoyed would have been probed in the wake of the fares. But her handling made sure she would be cut absolutely no slack.

The communications minister had flown to New York to spruik at the United Nations the federal government’s ban on under-16s having social media accounts. She hadn’t been able to catch the prime minister’s plane because she was delayed by the Optus triple zero crisis.

Wells could have said, “while the fares were within the guidelines they certainly appear over the top; I am looking into them and will make public why they were so large”. Instead she doubled down. Her testy response to the journalist who pushed her – “I’ve answered your question” – produced footage that would be played repeatedly.

She (and Anthony Albanese in defending her at the weekend) have come across as arrogant. Ordinary people would expect a minister to check out an exorbitant airfare when it was brought to their attention. Does anyone think Wells would not do so, if $34,426.58 for her fare had appeared on her personal credit card?

Albanese actually knows to be careful with spending public money – his office went out of its way on the day to stress he’d paid for his wedding at The Lodge.

There is now a feeding frenzy on Wells’ spending all, it seems, formally within “the rules”, but a poor look to those without access to workarounds enabling them to turn public money to private benefit.

Wells wrapped her attendance at a friend’s birthday party in Adelaide in June within some work commitments. The “wraparound” is a favourite strategy of ministers who want to reduce the personal costs of private engagements.

She took her family skiing at Thredbo, also in June, where she had official engagements as sports minister. This is under the so-called family reunion provision, which allows families to accompany the politician (up to a cap).

In 2012 Tony Burke, then a minister in the Gillard government, combined a family excursion to Uluru with a work trip. Finally in 2020, Burke repaid more than $8,600 for the family travel. He had eventually decided the travel, while in accord with the rules, did not meet community expectations.

The argument that politics is a hard life and families suffer doesn’t really hold water in such rows. Politicians are not conscripts, and they earn a lot more than the average wage. While it is natural they want to take the kids on excursions (like everyone else), they have adequate personal resources to do so.

Wells should know entitlements are both a honeypot and a trap. As sports minister she is offered many freebies, raising potential conflicts of interest in itself. The taxpayers have financed her husband attending multiple events.

It might all be within “the rules” but collectively Wells’ behaviour has painted a picture of someone enjoying an excessive amount of perks, who is blind to appearances.

Entitlements have “trapped” many senior public figures over the years.

Sussan Ley in 2017 quit as health minister after questions about her travel entitlements. She had previously bought a Gold Coast apartment while on an official work trip. She said she hadn’t intended to make the purchase and the trip was within the rules.

A former speaker, Peter Slipper, in 2014 was found guilty of dishonestly using Commonwealth entitlements in visiting wineries several years before.

Then there was the famous instance of Liberal Bronwyn Bishop, forced to step down as speaker in 2015 after it was revealed she had spent more than $5,000 on a helicopter to fly from Melbourne to Geelong for a Liberal fundraiser. Joe Hockey, treasurer at the time, said “instinctively” this didn’t pass the sniff test.

Wells’ position is not at risk but her colleagues have had to form the veritable conga line to defend the embattled minister. Meanwhile in a counteroffensive to the Coalition attacks, the government delved into the use of entitlements by shadow communications minister Melissa McIntosh.

When Wells is supposed to be explaining and defending the social media ban, which starts Wednesday, she has drowned out much of her own message.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers was clearly frustrated as he was quizzed on Monday about the Wells affair. He resorted to the “I’ve answered your question” line.

Chalmers was speaking at a news conference to announce cabinet had agreed the energy rebate won’t be extended beyond this month.

It’s a sensible decision, and would have been one Chalmers wanted, albeit it will add to the problem of containing inflation.

But the timing could not have been worse for the government. When juxtaposed against Wells’ spendathon, householders will be cynical, furious or both.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: in awkward timing, government ends energy rebate as it defends Wells’ spendathon – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-in-awkward-timing-government-ends-energy-rebate-as-it-defends-wells-spendathon-270791

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

The Greens have suffered a year of significant setbacks. The election saw their numbers go backwards, losing three of their four lower house seats, then one of their senators, Dorinda Cox, defected to Labor.

But the year ended on a positive note, with the Greens doing the deal with the government to reform Australia’s key environment legislation, winning more protections for the environment in exchange for their support.

The chief negotiator for the Greens on that deal was veteran senator Sarah Hanson-Young, who has been in parliament for nearly two decades.

As the Greens’ spokeswoman for both the environment and communications, her end-of-year has been remarkably busy. She joins us to talk about the biggest news of this week.

On the social media ban, coming into force this week, Hanson-Young calls it “a fake silver bullet” that risks ending up “with kids in more unsafe spaces”.

I have very little hope that the ban as it is right now is going to make young people safer. I think parents are going to be frustrated over the next few months that it’s not the silver bullet that it’s been promised to be.

[…] I’m actually really worried that there’s going to be a lot of kids who fall through the cracks, [who] will find their way back onto social media or find themselves into other online spaces that are even darker and more dangerous.

Hanson-Young says Australia should do more to push big tech companies to provide safe platforms for everybody.

One of the key things that we should be doing, and can do if the government wanted to, would be to allow users – young people in particular – to opt out of those dangerous algorithms. So the technology that pushes dangerous and harmful content in front of them, even when they haven’t searched for it […] If you could turn those algorithms off for young people in particular, that would be a huge step forward to making people safer.

[…] The next thing the government should do, and they should announce it this week, that they’re going to regulate algorithms, they’re gonna regulate the advertising of these big companies, and they’re going to put in place a legislated legal duty of care on these companies. If you had all those things working in sync, we’d be in a much better situation.

Read more:
‘Make the platforms safer’: what young people really think about the social media ban

On the Greens’ successful negotiation of reforms to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, which passed the parliament last month, Hanson-Young says it showed “we’re the true opposition […] while the Coalition are in total disarray”.

This was one of the the toughest negotiations I’ve had in my political career. It took a long time and not once did I think we had it in the can until right at the end when […] the deal was finalised right before it passed the Senate. There was there was a lot of back and forth.

But you’ve got to know when to hold them, when to fold them and when to get the deal done. And I made the decision, along with my parliamentary colleagues, that getting an outcome – that protected Australian bushland, new protections for native forests to restrictions on land clearing and stopping fossil fuel companies being fast- tracked and getting their mines approved within 30 days – these were all important things that we couldn’t let pass us by.

Read more:
Grattan on Friday: when the music stopped, Greens had out-stepped flat-footed Liberals on environment deal

Speaking just hours after former Nationals leader and deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce finally confirmed he was moving to One Nation, Hanson-Young questions how long it will last.

Look at [former Labor leader] Mark Latham in New South Wales, look at what’s happened every time Pauline Hanson’s tried to recruit a new person to a party, it never lasts long.

I don’t know how long the Barnaby Joyce and Pauline Hanson union’s going to last, but you know, it reminds me of kind of what happens over in Trump land; they’re friends until they’re not, and it doesn’t seem to last very long. But of course, we can’t be complacent about it either.

Read more:
Barnaby Joyce joins One Nation to run as NSW Senate candidate in 2028

On the details of Communications Minister Anika Wells’ use of taxpayer money on various travel expenses and events, Hanson-Young says it’s important politicians have the resources to do their job, but that shouldn’t be abused.

It’s a hard area, because you need to be able to to do this job well, you need to spend almost all of your time doing it […] So there’s a balance, because I think […] to be able to do it well, you do need access to resources.

What I don’t think has been handled very well by Anika Wells is […] you do need to acknowledge that there is a privilege that comes with this position. And with that privilege, particularly at a time when regular people in the community are finding it really tough […] you’ve got to be a bit more sensitive to that […] And I just don’t think the minister’s really understood how it looks to the community.

Despite the Greens’ confidence being “knocked” by the loss of former leader Adam Bandt’s seat at the last election, Hanson-Young says she’s optimistic about the party’s future.

We lost those three lower house seats, including our leader’s seat, and that really knocks your confidence around. It really does. But I think in the midst of all of this and in the desperation of our political opponents […to] dance on the grave of Adam Bandt’s loss […] it masked the fact that actually we had a near record high of Green vote across the country. And that the depth and breadth of that vote is very strong. And of course in South Australia we had a record high in the election.

[…] I would say: the recent environment law reform negotiations, getting that done, having the backing of the community, getting A$50 million dollars extra for the ABC – the Greens are back. We’ve got our confidence back and we’re feeling really good.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Sarah Hanson-Young on the social media ban as a risky ‘fake silver bullet’ – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-sarah-hanson-young-on-the-social-media-ban-as-a-risky-fake-silver-bullet-271517

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David Lindenmayer, Distinguished Professor of Ecology, Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University

Reforms to Australia’s nature laws have passed federal parliament. A longstanding exemption that meant federal environment laws did not apply to native logging has finally been removed from the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

Native forest logging will now be subject to national environmental standards – legally binding rules supposed to set clear goals for environmental protection. This should be a win for the environment, and some have celebrated it as an end to native forest logging in Australia.

But the reality is such celebrations are premature. We don’t have all the details of the new standards, or know how they will be enforced and monitored.

Business as usual?

Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt has told the forestry industry, including in Tasmania, that native forest operations will continue as usual. In an interview with ABC Radio Hobart, he said the changes keep day-to-day forestry approvals with the state government, but introduce stronger federal oversight.

If that is the case, the logging of habitat for endangered species, such as the swift parrot, will continue, pushing these species closer to extinction. The Tasmanian government has shown no signs of willingness to change its current approach.

And if “business as usual” logging persists, the environment reforms will fall far short of what Australia’s forests – and their plants and animals – need.

Uncertain standards

We don’t yet know what the national forestry standards will contain. But the draft standards for some threatened and endangered forest species aren’t enough to arrest ongoing declines, based on drafts I’ve seen that are yet to be publicly released.

Crucially, we can’t meet the habitat requirements for many forest-dependent species by simply replanting previously cleared land. This is because the trees in replanted forests won’t be mature for several hundred years. Many forest-dwelling species live in holes and hollows that occur only in mature trees.

In other words, allowing loggers to “offset” the forests they damage by replanting other areas is broadly impossible. This reinforces longstanding concerns about the limitations of biodiversity offsets as a way to conserve endangered forests and animals.

Industry pushback

Parts of the forest industry are already seeking to rebrand damaging practices such as mechanical thinning (the removal of large numbers of trees), as forms of so-called “active management” to create healthy forests.

The Australian government’s Timber Fibre Strategy makes extensive reference to the use of “active management”. However, the scientific evidence shows the opposite: such activities can degrade forest structure (by removing key understorey vegetation), facilitate the invasion of weed species, and undermine the ecological integrity of forests.

Different forests

Australia has a vast range of different forest types, and many support a variety of animals and plants threatened by forestry operations.

Effective national standards therefore need to be detailed and sophisticated to deal with such complexity. This will take considerable time to design. And it’s possible each species and forest type will need a different set of standards.

These will need to account not only for the direct impacts of logging – such as the death of animals when their habitat trees are felled – but also indirect impacts. For example, logging can increase fire risk, promote the spread of weeds and feral animals into disturbed areas, and trigger long-term changes in vegetation structure.

Developing national standards is only part of the challenge. Implementing them will demand significant new resources, as well as robust monitoring to ensure governments and logging contractors actually stick to the rules.

Better recovery

Many of Australia’s threatened species don’t have up-to-date recovery plans that will guide the best way to prevent their extinction. And when plans do exist, there is often a lack of resourcing to put them into action.

Without substantial investment, many plants and animals will fall between the cracks, and these new environmental standards will not deliver the change so desperately needed. They must be matched with careful monitoring of species in forests and properly-funded plans for their recovery.

A simple solution

There is a straightforward way to avoid the ecological, administrative, and financial problems created by native forest logging – stop it altogether.

The evidence shows ending native forest logging would deliver significant benefits for biodiversity, forest ecosystems, and reduce fire risks.

It also would benefit government finances because taxpayers would no longer need to subsidise an economically unviable industry that currently loses large amounts of money.

The environment law reforms are to be welcomed. But the devil will be in the detail as to whether hopes for better environmental outcomes and improved forest conservation are realised.

David Lindenmayer receives funding from the Australian Government, NSW Government and the Victorian Government.

He is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, Fellow of the American Academy of Science, Fellow of the Ecological Society of America, and Fellow of Royal Zoological Society of NSW.

– ref. Australia has new laws to protect nature. Do they signal an end to native forest logging? – https://theconversation.com/australia-has-new-laws-to-protect-nature-do-they-signal-an-end-to-native-forest-logging-271203

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By George Tian, Senior Lecturer in Law, University of Technology Sydney

In October, Australia signed an A$13 billion rare earths and critical minerals agreement with the United States. This is designed to boost supply of minerals vital to everything from military technology to clean energy.

Australia has large reserves of many of these minerals, while the US is trying to find alternative supplies after China gained a stranglehold on much of the global supply.

But there’s a sting in the tail. To date, Australia hasn’t produced many of these elements domestically, preferring to mine the ores here and do the highly polluting processing overseas. Turning ores into minerals comes with a host of pollution issues, from radioactive waste to dangerous chemicals.

For Australia to become a major rare earths and critical minerals player, it will have to better manage these environmental risks.

Costs unequally shared

In the 1990s, major US rare earth mines such as Mountain Pass scaled down or shut their most polluting processing activities.

As the US and other rich countries retreated, the most hazardous processing shifted to countries under economic pressure or more willing to bear the environmental burden. China ultimately absorbed much of this capacity. This is why it now refines about 80% of the world’s rare earths.

What’s happened in rare earths isn’t unique. There’s a global pattern of rich countries outsourcing pollution, groundwater contamination and other social and environmental costs to poorer and less-regulated nations. Recent media investigations have found significant and ongoing damage done by rare earth mining, ranging from heavy metal pollution to radioactivity to discharges of dangerous chemicals.

Australia has benefited from outsourcing pollution. For more than a decade, Australian rare earths producer Lynas has dug up ores in Western Australia and shipped them to its Malaysian refinery, where the dirtiest processing was done. This may satisfy national environmental regulations. But it can simply relocate the harm. Lynas has vigorously defended its processing plant, saying independent experts have found operations were safe and compliant with regulations.

In 2020, the Malaysian government required Lynas to relocate the processing stage producing low-level radioactive waste.

In response, Lynas opened a new plant in Kalgoorlie to do this processing domestically with muted pushback. Another miner, Iluka, is constructing Australia’s first fully integrated rare-earth refinery north of Perth.

While domestic processing capacity is expanding, Lynas and emerging producers will still depend on overseas facilities for the most hazardous processing for now.

Cleaner processing technologies such as improved solvent extraction and closed-loop systems do exist, but they remain expensive and hard to scale. As a result, producers still rely on overseas facilities where hazardous steps can be performed more cheaply or under lighter regulation.

The better path: shared and responsible governance

Solving the problem of offshore pollution has to be done by distributing responsibility fairly.

Here is what’s required to make Australia’s rare-earth supply chains sustainable:

• robust environmental standards applying to both mining and processing
• transparent and traceable supply chains
• incentives rewarding cleaner production and penalising polluting practices.

Industry self-regulation — where companies label, report and monitor many of their own environmental practices — has been repeatedly shown to be vulnerable to weak oversight and regulatory gaming. Given the urgency of climate and ecological risks, relying on voluntary standards alone is no longer sufficient.

A better approach is co-regulation, where government, industry and communities collectively design rules, share data and jointly monitor compliance.

European Union frameworks such as Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and the Digital Services Act were designed in this way, demonstrating how ongoing engagement with multiple actors can work to create adaptive, participatory and enforceable regulations.

This approach could work well for critical minerals by embedding sustainability and social licence throughout supply chains before environmental damage is done.

Green tax incentives or certification schemes can help by rewarding cleaner producers. The EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism is already pushing producers outside the EU to improve emissions reporting even before it comes into effect on January 1.

But these tools need careful design to avoid slipping into “green protectionism”, where higher environmental standards end up penalising developing nations that have fewer resources to comply.

The transparency gap

It’s hard to verify whether critical minerals were sustainably produced, as our recent United Nations white paper points out.

One solution we outline is a digital product passport – a verifiable digital identity tracking minerals through mining, extraction, processing, manufacturing, use, recycling and further use. These passports would make it possible to validate green claims, make recycling and transport across borders more secure and efficient and boost trust for consumers and investors. Responsible producers would earn a genuine premium for doing the right thing.

Digital product passports will come into use in the EU next year for products, such as textiles, car batteries and construction materials.

Without transparent traceability, Australian miners – who often meet higher environmental standards – risk losing market share to cheaper but less sustainable alternatives, as seen in the nickel sector.

While digital traceability of critical minerals has many advantages, its implementation will face legal challenges. There’s no standard list of critical minerals for instance. Minerals are often mined in one country, processed in another and sold in a third, making it hard to assess how cleanly they have been produced. Solving these issues will require collective effort between producers and buyers.

Towards a truly clean transition

Australia’s rare earths deal with the US is strategically important. But ramping up production of these metals and minerals risks reproducing environmental inequalities.

The next phase of the clean-energy transition must not simply shift pollution to poorer countries – it must eliminate the problem through cleaner technologies coupled with traceability, shared responsibility and accountability across borders.

George Tian currently serves as Co-Chair of the Private International Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law (ASIL), Washington DC; Deputy Co-Lead, ODR Working Group, Silicon Valley Arbitration & Mediation Center (SVAMC), CA, USA, and as a Domain Name Arbitrator for the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva, Switzerland.

Jeanne Huang is the UNECE-UN/CEFACT co-lead of the Critical Minerals Traceability and Sustainability Project and Regional Rapporteur for the Pacific.

– ref. Australia wants to be a critical minerals superpower – but processing is messy and dangerous – https://theconversation.com/australia-wants-to-be-a-critical-minerals-superpower-but-processing-is-messy-and-dangerous-269799

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sasha Grishin, Adjunct Professor of Art History, Australian National University

Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo are two fashion designers who redefined “the look” of fashion on the street from the 1970s onwards.

They were born a year apart in the early 1940s, one in Derbyshire in England, the other in Tokyo in Japan. They were both largely self-taught, self-made mavericks who contributed to, and redefined, the punk scene in the 60s and 70s. Their use of unconventional materials and designs shocked the fashion establishment and helped to establish alternative realities of accepted dress codes.

The great achievement of many revolutionary National Gallery of Victoria exhibitions is the strategy of juxtaposing two vibrant artistic personalities, whereby a new and unexpected reality is created that allows us to establish a fresh perspective.

Westwood and Kawakubo are household names in the fashion industry. But by bringing them together and clustering their works under five thematic categories, new insights appear.

It is a spectacular selection of over 140 key and signature pieces drawn from the growing holdings of the NGV supplemented with strategic loans from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; The Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Palais Galliera, Paris; the Vivienne Westwood archive; and the National Gallery of Australia, among others.

Punk and provocation

Westwood, subsequently Dame Vivienne Isabel Westwood, initially in collaboration with Malcolm McLaren of Sex Pistols fame, helped to mould and dress the London punk scene.

For her, dress was never ideologically neutral but a lightning rod for social change.

Pornographic slogans, emblems anchored in fetish practices and sadomasochism, and dresses made of plastics and supplemented with safety pins and chains subverted the comfortable status quo and allowed her fashion sense to penetrate into the middle classes.

What was once outrageous became something daringly respectable.

Kawakubo was born into an academic family and came to fashion design when making her own clothing in the 1960s under the label Comme des Garçons (“like the boys”) in Tokyo.

Conceived as anti-fashion, sober and severe, she made largely monochrome garments – black, dark grey and white – for women, with frayed, unfinished edges, holes and asymmetric shapes.

A men’s line was added in 1978. The number of outlets in Japan grew into the hundreds. Later, her designs established a strong presence in Paris.

The themes that bring the two fashion designers together in this exhibition include the opening section, Punk and Provocation. Both designers drew on the ethos of punk with its desire for change and the rejection of old ways.

Breaking orthodoxies

A second section is termed Rupture for the conscious desire to break with convention, whether it be Westwood’s Nostalgia of Mud collection of 1983 or Kawakubo’s Not Making Clothes collection of 2014.

There is a strongly expressed desire to break with the prevailing orthodoxies.

A third section, Reinvention, hints at a postmodernist predilection of both artists to delve into traditions of art history and from unexpected sources, such as Rococo paintings, revive elements from tailoring traditions, ruffles and frills.

Although both artists are rule breakers, they do not act from a position of ignorance. It is from a detailed, and at times pedantic, knowledge of garments from the past.

In the late 1980s, Westwood revived English tweeds and Scottish tartans. Kawakubo drew on the basics of traditional tailoring in menswear and applied it to unorthodox patterns and materials in her garments for women.

The ‘ideal’ body

A fourth section, The Body: Freedom and Restraints, perhaps most problematically challenges the conventions of idealised female beauty and the objectification of the female body.

It is argued in the exhibition that Westwood’s Erotic Zones collection (1995), and Kawakubo’s The Future of Silhouette (2017–18), may be viewed as attempts to redefine the female body.

Kawakubo’s Body meets dress-Dress meets body collection, presented in 1996, systematically interrogates boundaries between bodies and garments. Westwood, at a similar time, played with padding and compression in her designs to question the ideals of a sexual, “ideal” body.

The final section of the exhibition is appropriately termed The Power of Clothes. This returns us to the recurring theme of employing fashion to make a statement concerning social change, whether this be the punk revolution or protests connected with climate change.

Through their work, both Westwood and Kawakubo argue fashion is a political act and make broader social statements through their garments, particularly women’s wear.

Both fashion designers were prominent polemicists. As quoted in the exhibition, Westwood in 2011 declared,

I can use fashion as a medium to express my ideas to fight for a better world.

Kawakubo is quoted as saying in 2016,

Society needs something new, something with the power to provide stimulus and the drive to move us forward […] Maybe fashion alone is not enough to change our world, but I consider it my mission to keep pushing and to continue to propose new ideas.

This exhibition will be seen as historically significant and it is accompanied with a weighty catalogue. The NGV has established major collections of over 400 pieces of Westwood’s and Kawakubo’s work that lays the foundation for any further serious exploration of fashion from this period anywhere in the world.

Westwood | Kawakubo is at the National Gallery of Victoria until April 19.

Sasha Grishin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How self-taught, self-made mavericks Vivienne Westwood and Rei Kawakubo redefined punk – https://theconversation.com/how-self-taught-self-made-mavericks-vivienne-westwood-and-rei-kawakubo-redefined-punk-269517

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Rohan Best, Senior Lecturer, Department of Economics, Macquarie University

A federal government green energy program is subsidising unnecessarily large home batteries and blowing out in cost.

The Labor government launched its A$2.3 billion Cheaper Home Batteries Program in July, with the aim of bringing down household power bills and reducing people’s reliance on the energy grid. The program was projected to lead to more than 1 million installed batteries by 2030.

There has been a massive uptake. The Clean Energy Regulator, which administers the program, told The Conversation that around 146,000 batteries have been installed in just five months.

But digging into the data reveals some major concerns about the program – many of which I previously anticipated. The average size of the batteries installed under the program is roughly double what a regular household requires to meet its energy needs. And that has resulted in a major cost blowout.

But there are ways to fix the program and ensure its benefits are distributed fairly among Australians.

What exactly is the Cheaper Home Batteries Program?

The program provides discounts of around 30% of the cost of an installed battery.

These batteries are valuable to store the excess energy from millions of rooftop solar systems in Australia. As such, they are an important component of the renewable energy transition.

The federal government has been celebrating the popularity of the program.

In September, when the Clean Energy Regulator revealed 50,000 batteries had been installed in just two months, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said:

This program is working in the suburbs, in the regions and in our cities. Australians are proving the naysayers and climate change deniers wrong – they want to be part of the clean energy future.

Early warnings have come true

In April I warned about the potential problems with the program if it wasn’t properly targeted, including that it would give higher subsidies for larger batteries which could, in turn, lead to major cost blowouts.

These warnings have come true.

The Clean Energy Regulator told The Conversation that as of December 3, “there are currently around 146,000 batteries installed under the Cheaper Home Batteries Program”.

By the end of the year, it expects this figure to rise to around 175,000.

More than 98% of batteries have been installed for households, with businesses making up most of the rest.

The average system size of battery installation is more than 22 kilowatt-hours, which can cost around A$18,000. The most common system size installation is roughly 19kWh.

More than 80% of validated residential battery installations have been above 10kWh.

For perspective, a typical household battery is around 11kWh, which can cost around A$10,000. And a battery as small as 5–6kWh could be sufficient to store energy in the middle of the day that can cover much of the evening peak for most households.

As of December 3, the program had cost roughly A$749 million, according to a spokesperson for the federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.

This means around 30% of the cash pool has been spent on less than 15% of the projected 1 million batteries.

At this rate, the budget allocation of $2.3 billion might therefore run out in 2026, rather than 2030 as originally planned.

If this trend continues, and government budget allocations are extended, the total cost of the program could blow out to around $10 billion.

However, projections are vexed in general and there are reasons why the future will not be identical to the past. For example, the discounts per kWh are designed to decrease toward 2030, in line with assumptions of battery cost reductions.

So, what now?

The government says it is “working carefully […] on how to deliver on our objectives and keep the program sustainable for years to come”.

This could include adjusting the program to lower discounts for large batteries.

Currently, batteries above 100kWh are ineligible, and batteries above 50kWh only get a discount with respect to the first 50kWh. A possibility to discuss is lowering the 50kWh threshold to 15kWh.

Means testing could also be introduced, as is the case in some state schemes.

Means testing can refer to assets, such as property values used by Solar Victoria, with potential to use financial assets like for the age pension.

This could help to direct subsidies to the people who need them most.

Co-mingled schemes including multiple technologies, like in the Australian Capital Territory, could also give households more flexibility and provide a genuine opportunity for renters.

The success of this program can’t just be about how many new batteries are installed. It must also be about cost-effectiveness and fairness.

And on that front, it’s clear there’s plenty of work to be done.

Rohan Best previously received funding for projects for the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and the New South Wales Government.

– ref. Australia’s $2.3 billion green energy program is funding oversized batteries and blowing out in cost – https://theconversation.com/australias-2-3-billion-green-energy-program-is-funding-oversized-batteries-and-blowing-out-in-cost-271206

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Barnaby Joyce has finally made the jump to One Nation and will lead its New South Wales Senate ticket for the 2028 federal election.

Pauline Hanson said on social media: “It’s official! We have made our announcement on 88.9FM in Tamworth.”

In a statement Hanson said, “I am pleased he’s chosen One Nation, and I welcome his experience, his advice and his determination to get a fair go for farmers and regional Australia. Mr Joyce strengthens One Nation’s position in parliament just as many Australians are strengthening our position in the polls.”

“Welcome on board,”

The One Nation leader flew to Joyce’s New England electorate for the announcement.

Joyce told local radio, “Pauline made an offer to me to come to One Nation, and I have taken that up”.

The move has been an open secret for weeks, but Joyce has made the transition in stages. During the last parliamentary sitting he confirmed he was leaving the Nationals but left unclear his future with One Nation. Earlier he had stopped attending Nationals party meetings.

Joyce is a major catch for One Nation, which has been surging in the polls, at around 15% and even rising up to 18%.

Joyce started his parliamentary career in the Senate after winning at the 2004 election. Later he moved to the House of Representatives. He has made it clear that one motive for his leaving the Nationals has been that Nationals leader David Littleproud relegated him to the backbench after the May election. He was also confined to his own seat during this year’s campaign.

Joyce will sit for the rest of this term as a One Nation member in the House of Representatives.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Barnaby Joyce joins One Nation to run as NSW Senate candidate in 2028 – https://theconversation.com/barnaby-joyce-joins-one-nation-to-run-as-nsw-senate-candidate-in-2028-270792