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Yesterday I attended an event put on by the Kyneton branch of the University of the Third Age. U3A is a really interesting institution - an example really of what is best about Australia. It consists of a bunch of people in a small town being interested in working together to facilitate their own and others learning.
So yesterday about 150 people gathered on a wet cold day to listen to one of my heros. Most people know of Professor Ross Garnaut as the primary author of a report on climate change that was published back in 2008. Actually he has been a significant contributor to various Australian public policy debates all the way back to when he was an economic adviser to Bob Hawke in the mid 80s.
He has been a contributor to 3 things that have ended up being the focus of my professional life:
He played a significant role in developing the intellectual framework the economic reforms made by the Hawke and Keating governments that led to what became known as Competition Policy in the 1990s.
It was Competition Policy that motivated the electricity and gas privatisations that my firm became a major adviser to and then led to me (eventually) becoming an energy markets specialist.
He became Australian Ambassador to China from 1985 to 1988 and has since played a major role in trying to shape Australia's engagement with China - and Asia more generally.
I have spent 2 periods, totalling over 5 years, living and working in Asia.
He has, more recently, become the climate change / carbon pricing guru.
How the electricity sector deals with the transition from a high emissions present to a low emissions future has become the major focus of my professional work since I have been back in Australia.
I deal with things on a fundamentally different level to Ross Garnaut - with the consequential reforms that flow from the 'big pictures' that he paints and then navigates through the political level. I get to work when officials want to know what to do next - or how to make something work.
When you do my sort of work, it is always helpful to have a good sense of why you are doing something - and I've always found Garnaut to be a good source of that sort of content.
Yesterday he had various things to say, but one thing really stood out for me. He was talking about the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. In the midst of his usual measured and careful analysis, there was one little burst of the sort of passionate language I don't associate with people like him.
It was quick - but went something like this: "The behaviour of those responsible for managing and regulating global financial systems was traitorous - their choices have condemned the people of North America and Europe to a generation or more of economic grief." I've put it in quotes, but it is just my memory of the gist of what he said.
I think I agree.
E
When you do my sort of work, it is always helpful to have a good sense of why you are doing something - and I've always found Garnaut to be a good source of that sort of content.
Yesterday he had various things to say, but one thing really stood out for me. He was talking about the impact of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008. In the midst of his usual measured and careful analysis, there was one little burst of the sort of passionate language I don't associate with people like him.
It was quick - but went something like this: "The behaviour of those responsible for managing and regulating global financial systems was traitorous - their choices have condemned the people of North America and Europe to a generation or more of economic grief." I've put it in quotes, but it is just my memory of the gist of what he said.
I think I agree.
E
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