Australian Government Pares Down Green Car Innovation Fund - Again
By John O'Dell August 17, 2010
Australia's developed a bit of a reputation over the past year as a country interested in fostering alternative energy vehicles. It even set up a $1.3 billion (Australian dollars) innovation fund last year designed to help its domestic car and parts makers with the costs of developing new technologies.
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Mitsubishi iMiEV electric cars from Japan being offloaded in Australia. The Green Car Innovation Fund was set up to help develop EVs and other highly efficient advanced technology vehicles at home.
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Since then, however it's been paring down the fund - a signal, perhaps, that the powers that be down under don't see immense public support for the idea of fostering home-grown development f cars that will help Australia reduce its appetite for oil..
It 's not as though the Aussies don't have money.
The government in 2008 approved a $6.2 billion aid package to help ensure the longterm viability of the nation's ailing domestic auto industry and said $3.4 billion of it - more than half - would be earmarked for green programs and projects. And both the present government and the opposition are projecting budget surpluses by 2010, which could certainly be used to support spending on automotive innovation.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard has even promised that if her party retains power after the elections, she'll authorize a 4-year, $A394 million car scrapping or "cash for clunkers" program.
The Australian newspaper The Age is reporting, though, that her government, embroiled in a tough election campaign, has sliced $A200 million from the innovation fund - following a similar cut when the new budget was announced earlier this year.
That reduces the innovation pool to about $900 million, including funds already disbursed. An anonymous government spokesperson was quoted by the newspaper as saying that $A590 million remains to be parceled out through the 2018-19 fiscal year.
In a statement reported by The Age, the federal government said the latest reduction "will ensure that the Green Car Innovation Fund better reflects demand for the program."
That apparently caught domestic automakers - who would get most of the money - by surprise.
"In the middle of an election campaign, without any consultation, to see an announcement like this creates some questions and concerns," the head of the Australian Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries told the paper.
Well yeah...questions like is the reduced demand the government speaks of a reduction of industry or popular demand, or merely acknowledgment that Australia's interim caretaker government has lost its sense of the national appetite for more efficient vehicles?
We know times are tough and we're not going to presume to tell the Australians how to run their country, but we certainly hate to see funding pulled from programs aimed at helping countries get off oil and promote development of cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and trucks.
Meantime, its nice to see that not everyone in the green car field is looking for government assists.
The head of Better Place Australia, an arm of the California-based EV battery charging and battery exchange services provider, told the paper that his company wasn't expecting to see any government money as it works to bring a battery charging infrastructure to that country.John O'Dell, Senior Editor
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Sometimes difficult decisions need to be made, such as what spending to cut, in order to maintain a balanced budget. I wish the US government would take a hint. A budget surplus in 2010??? We in the US would have to completely halt all spending for the rest of the year, plus increase revenues in the meantime, to pull that off. Heck, my personal budget is balanced... just scale it up 100000000x.
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