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<h1>The Travels of the <br> Techno-Freedom-Fighter</h1>

The Travels of the
Techno-Freedom-Fighter

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Carbon Trading Won't work
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Carbon Trading is one of these things that economists love because it looks so clean and simple on the pages of a textbook. But in the real world it's very hard to make it work like it should. If it's not set up right, if it's not policed right, then it can be worse than useless. The big companies get to pollute more AND charge us more, and the pollies get to tell us they're fixing the greenhouse problem.

Voters have got no way of knowing because we have to rely on the government to actually tell us how much CO2 has been reduced. The only "proof" we have that greenhouse emissions have been reduced is that everything gets more expensive! Carbon dioxide has no taste, no smell, you can't see it and it's mostly emitted a long way from where people live.

The problem with carbon trading is that it puts all the power and knowledge about how to reduce emissions into the hands of bureaucrats and big companies. They are asking us to trust them to reduce greenhouse gases, without giving us any proof back that they are actually doing it except increased prices. We know they can increase prices already for no reason, we don't need another demonstration!

A scheme should give everyone direct ownership for reducing their emissions, by making it easy for them to make lifestyle decisions to produce less emissions. We keep getting told that this is a global problem for the whole of humanity, if that's the case we need a scheme where we can all help, and not get screwed by businessmen. Our scheme would actually put responsibility for climate change into everyone's hands, instead of just talking about it. Our scheme is as follows:

1. Start switching all our power generation over to renewable, and develop the technology enough so it can, but the technology to meet base load does already exist, like solar storage, hot rocks, hydro.
2. Switch our interstate freight transport infrastructure over to be based on rail
3. Switch our intracity transport over to electric cars and compressed air cars as well as electric light rail. Electric cars have a short range but can be recharged at home from power generated by renewables.
4. Help people to change habits in home, and use new technologies to reduce emissions in the home.
5. Work with businesses so that the development of ALL new technologies and production methods are considered for their greenhouse impact. This would help to avoid problems like we saw yesterday with this new gas, Nitrogen Triflouride, being used by makers of plasma screens, which is the worst greenhouse gas yet known, with 17 thousand times the global warming effect of carbon dioxide.

July 4, 2008 | 2:29 AM Comments  1 comments

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A Capital Knowledge Economy
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

What I would like to do is to create "business clusters" around centres of knowledge in Canberra. These clusters will be located close to universities like the ANU and research centres like the CSIRO, and will help to commercialise the world-leading innovations and technologies created at these institutions.

As part of the plan, the CAP will re assess ACT government laws and taxes, in order to reduce barriers for small technology startup firms. If this is not done, the knowledge and information will "leak" to where demand is highest and the barriers are lowest.

At ANU, two technologies stand out as examples of Australian ideas that are internationally competitive:

Seeing Machines is an award winning company that designs vision based human machine interfaces, and grew out of research work at the ANU. It now employs a considerable amount of people and has a client list including some of the world's biggest car manufacturers and their suppliers.

The Solar sliver cell technology is a unique design for flexible, inexpensive and efficient solar cells, developed by Professor Andrew Blakers and Dr Klaus Weber of the ANU. Sliver cells are being commercialised by Origin Energy, who have built a pilot manufacturing plant in Adelaide.

The second stage of the project would utilise urban design to maximise human capital - a key component of value in a knowledge-based economy. Measures to be included would focus on housing, lifestyle and communications infrastructure which would allow people to work from home. Cultural and social design issues that improve cultural openness and social connections within a community would also be considered. Such measures are key to the informal information flows that help a knowledge economy to thrive.

what I mean is that in order to retain and build upon our existing high quality of life in Australia, we need to develop our knowledge economy. Australians are great at coming up with innovative, practical solutions, but we are terrible at making money from these ideas. Business clusters will help Canberra to develop our great ideas and get the rewards in the marketplace.

June 27, 2008 | 10:59 AM Comments  0 comments

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a Wellness Department?
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I think that we should establish a "Wellness Department" to improve the health of all Canberrans.

The Australia's Health 2008 report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) released yesterday shows that some of the greatest improvements to the health of Australians can be made by helping people change their lifestyle.

What I mean is that In the ACT we have a Department of Health which is in reality a Department of Illness. I would like to establish a Wellness Department which would have as its mission the improvement of health and wellbeing for all ACT residents. We need to recognises that most people find it difficult to make lifestyle changes, so we want to help people to make these changes.

The new Wellness Department would introduce schemes to help Canberrans improve their nutrition, increase physical activity and reduce or eliminate alcohol and tobacco use, in line with the recommendations from the AIHW report. The schemes would be voluntary, and free or inexpensive to access. Basically We know the causes of ill health, we know the lifestyle changes needed to improve health, so what are we waiting for?"

June 24, 2008 | 11:06 AM Comments  0 comments

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Haven for the have-nots (reply)
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

there was a great article in the Canberra Times on Friday called Haven for the have-nots

http://canberra.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/haven-for-the-havenots/789430.aspx



REPLY


Great article James, its good to see that someone is noticing the good work that they do at Havelock house. Well done! Affordable housing is such a complex issue even the term ‘affordable housing’ is assertoric. Affordable to whom? Its disturbing to me that many of the people I speak to see homelessness as just a ‘welfare issue’ and that they have very little idea of the larger impact. Housing is a critical determinant not only, of social cohesion and household well-being but also of labour market efficiency. A serious shortage of affordable rental housing represents an increasing constraint on economic growth in Canberra and significant barrier to the economic and social participation of residents. The housing market in Canberra is failing to provide affordable rental accommodation close to the labour markets that depend on a lower-skilled, part-time and casual labour force. Recent research clearly demonstrates that ‘affordable’, private, low-rent housing is concentrated in our urban fringe As a result, tenants face geographical barriers to the low-wage jobs in the Civic and other town centres. Current taxation arrangements do not stimulate investment in the supply of low rent housing. Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) similar to that of the USA Tax Reform Act of 1986 would be one way of tackling the issue. As per the proposal put forward by the Brotherhood of St Laurence in 2004 the LIHTC could be made available for housing delivered to low-income households by community housing organisations, funded in part by changes to the Building Write-Off Allowance this will make an impact on the current lack of supply and could be introduced in the next Commonwealth budget.