Priorities?

On Thursday 9th August 2007, Sarah Antico, Aleks Krajcer and I took an educational road trip to Canberra. It was precisely 11.37am that we stood to observe a House of Representatives standing committee hearing on Industry and Resources at Parliament House. This was not my first experience at such a location, however with a broadened knowledge and more vested interest in the Australian Parliament now as opposed to last time I visited when I was in Year 6, I found the experience a lot more worthwhile and not as boring.

My expectancies of a committee hearing were similar to what I viewed in question time on the ABC radio however, to my ignorance found that it was completely different and more enjoyable. I got to experience and observe first hand, a formal proceeding of the parliament that was made up of members from the House of Representatives and the Senate including both government and non government members.

The committee hearing covered the following topics:
The development of the non-fossil fuel energy industry in Australia.
A comparative study of the following renewable energy sectors: solar, wave, geothermal, tidal, wind and hydrogen.
A case study that examined the relative state of development of these sectors and their prospects for economically viable electricity generation, storage and transmission.

The main focus however, was on the state of the art solar energy world wide and how with the use of storage technologies we now see the future of solar energy in Australia. This was all demonstrated in a very civil and structured manner with one person talking at a time, and everyone taking on their own roles. The person that was speaking would stand up and everyone else’s focus and attention was on them. Each person spoke with power and confidence demonstrating their educated knowledge on the topics, with the all other members listening profusely with respect, curiosity and deep interest. Real life applications, pictures and PowerPoint presentations were used in aiding the expression of such information.


When I first heard the topics that were to be discussed at the hearing were alternative energy resources, I must admit I was a little disappointed as I thought there were plenty of other topics I would rather have been listening to. I then however realised how important such an issue is, not just to Australia but worldwide, and the severe impacts that carbon emissions have on global warming and in turn our precious planet earth almost then putting me in suspense and huge attention focus on what I was about to hear.

On the way home from Canberra Sar, Aleks and I discussed what we had witnessed and all concluded how disappointed we were in the fact that it was such a huge, relevant and vitally important topic, however the main focus of the hearing was on money and funding for the implementation and construction of alternative energy power stations. Their were concerns about the expenses that they would incur but what I don’t understand is that while the issue of global warming and its disastrous effects on plant Earth are always spoken about, funding cant be prioritised for an issue that is so detrimental to the future of our nation.