Tag: Australia

Australian Partnership: East or West?

submarineAustralia has to decide whether it will go west (with France or Germany) or east (with Japan) vis-à-vis its choice of partner for the next generation of submarines. This project is set to be Australia’s “biggest ever defense procurement programme.”

While all three countries have quite the resume for this position, what will ultimately decide which direction Australia chooses will be the following issues: capability, cost, risk and schedule. In addition, the way that these countries’ systems and software applications collaborate with America – Australia’s alliance partner – will be an additional major consideration.

It could well be that ultimately Australia will decide to go the eastern route. Just last month during its talks with Japan, the military discussed potential design and production issues of the submarines, possibly narrowing down its choice. But nothing is yet set in stone. Proposals are still being welcome from all three countries. And, no matter which country is chosen, much work will still take place in Australia.

One reason China and Russia are not being considered (despite the fact that they are experts in this field) is because Australia does not generally work with these countries in military matters.

Ultimately, price will probably be one of the key determining factors as to which route Australia will ultimately take on this project.

China’s Environmental Efforts

China is making significant environmental efforts. As the leading carbon polluting economy around the world, the country intends to impose a carbon tax in an effort to decrease greenhouse emissions. That’s great but it should not lead us to believe that the whole world is going green.  In Australia, the government has been pleased about the carbon tax – anticipated to be put into practice within the next three years – given that it is working on its own climate change policies and shows that internationally, countries are working hard to decrease greenhouse emissions.

China has been working on different ways of working with cleaner energy sources but it remains uncertain as to exactly how this is going to work and what effect it will have on the country’s emissions or those throughout the world. At last month’s UN Climate Chance Conference held in Durban, SA, the mega economies of the world decided to come up with a legally-binding treaty within the next three years on this matter. Yet the conference was still unable to commit to drastically reducing emissions throughout the world.

Australia’s Concerns Vis-à-vis China

Australia remains concerned though about China’s green efforts. Since the starting price of the increase to China’s plan to price carbon is $1.55, this is just a tiny fraction of Australia’s starting price of $23 per tonne.  Thus is causing the Minerals Council of Australia to think that it could hurt the competitiveness of Australian businesses.  This might suggest that Australia is a bit too ahead of the game on global green acidity which ultimately puts its economy in a more vulnerable position.  Time will tell.