As it happened: WA news on Monday, August 18

They say spending $217 million to facilitate a once-yearly motor race is a gross over-expenditure and what was originally mooted as a ‘multi-use motor sports complex’ with permanent infrastructure is now proposed as temporary, but without any cost reduction.

They also say the government has not outlined recurrent costs or any economic benefits.

“From Newcastle to Canberra, Adelaide to Townsville, the legacy of these events is not one of prosperity but of disruption, disillusionment, and economic disappointment,” they write.

“These events shift economic activity rather than create it, drain public funds, and leave communities worse off – and angry.”

They foreshadowed the imminent release of their own cost-benefit analysis showing negative economic impact of more than a billion dollars over the next 20 years.

They also claimed the Whadjuk Aboriginal Corporation, responsible for the Indigenous Land Use agreement that includes the peninsula, does not support the project, did not give permission when requested for exploratory drilling, and was not formally and directly notified of the government’s intentions.

“No one living here ever expected such a poorly considered event would be inflicted on them,” they wrote.

“The $217 million should be better spent – particularly on hospitals.

“Governments, even those with large majorities, ignore popular opinion at their peril.”

The WA government was contacted for comment.

Berry said the safeguard mechanism was widely acknowledged to be broken as an emissions reduction tool and needed redesign, not the recommended expansion.

He said the Commission had focused on federal issues, but calling for “laggard states” like WA to introduce a renewable energy target was a “low-hanging” fix that would be a huge step towards greater productivity.

Berry said other incentives that should be considered included stronger guidelines on community benefits and a price on carbon.

But he urged the focus to be on the big picture, not the specifics:

What if productivity isn’t the variable to be solving for here?

Productivity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. For decades, Australia’s productivity gains have mostly flowed to corporate and shareholder profits, not the wider community, and have often come at the expense of nature. We’ve become more efficient at extracting, consuming, and discarding – generating more waste and emissions in the process.

More crucially, productivity is an incremental goal in an extraordinary time when pragmatism demands urgent and ambitious action. We do need to be mindful of the costs of the energy transition, but in the face of the climate crisis, the right question isn’t which path is cheapest – it’s which path can protect a liveable planet.

As we accelerate our economy towards a climate cliff, Chalmers and Albanese are convening a roundtable on improving its fuel efficiency.

If we’re going to take economic reform seriously, it has to be about more than incremental improvements - we need a wholesale reframing of what productivity and economic success look like.

Imagine an economy where rising productivity meant shorter working hours, better public services, and restored ecosystems. Imagine if we used progress in our skills, technologies, and ideas not to squeeze out marginal economic gains, but to rapidly decarbonise industries, regenerate landscapes, and support communities through a just transition.

At this moment, Australia needs bold leadership on reforms that put productivity in its proper place - as a tool, not a goal. We can use that tool to confront the greatest challenge of our time.

You can read more on the roundtable at the related articles.

The project from POSCO (Korea), Marubeni (Japan), and China Steel (Taiwan) aims to decarbonise the steel manufacturing supply chain.

As a new facility with annual emissions over 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide it will be subject to the federal government’s safeguard mechanism, however the EPA has also recommended conditions requiring periodic reporting on carbon abatement and hydrogen integration.

The report is now open for a three-week public appeal period before hitting the minister’s desk.