Rewriting the narrative: Confronting Australia’s past in order to determine our future

Since colonisation, history has been whitewashed to suit the socio-political aims of the settler. The $50 million redevelopment of the landing site of Captain Cook, disingenuously renamed the ‘Meeting Place Precinct’, is stark evidence of this. This essay argues that in order to arrive at a comprehensive understanding of history, Australia must engage in a process of national re-founding via truth-telling and active listening between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples respectively. Keywordshistory wars; frontier violence; British invasio

What’s next for the Renewable Energy Target – resolving Australia’s integration of energy and climate change policy?

Australian climate change policy and its integration with Australia’s electricity markets have been fraught for at least two decades. The only enduring policy has been the Commonwealth Renewable Energy Target (RET). Despite the relative success of the RET in driving investment and reducing emissions, state governments have now pivoted towards contracts-for-difference (Cfds). In this article, we outline the issues associated with policy discontinuity and the large-scale RET and review its effectiveness as an emissions reduction tool and driver of electricity sector abatement. We find that the RET has been relatively successful across the key criteria of cost and emissions reductions and is a better policy instrument than contracts-for-difference, which are increasingly being adopted by state governments. Building on the work of Nelson et al. (2020), we propose a new approach, which would allow for continued use of Cfds but utilising the RET’s policy architecture

What’s next for the Renewable Energy Target – resolving Australia’s integration of energy and climate change policy?

Australian climate change policy and its integration with Australia’s electricity markets have been fraught for at least two decades. The only enduring policy has been the Commonwealth Renewable Energy Target (RET). Despite the relative success of the RET in driving investment and reducing emissions, state governments have now pivoted towards contracts-for-difference (Cfds). In this article, we outline the issues associated with policy discontinuity and the large-scale RET and review its effectiveness as an emissions reduction tool and driver of electricity sector abatement. We find that the RET has been relatively successful across the key criteria of cost and emissions reductions and is a better policy instrument than contracts-for-difference, which are increasingly being adopted by state governments. Building on the work of Nelson et al. (2020), we propose a new approach, which would allow for continued use of Cfds but utilising the RET’s policy architecture