Who is this Wally?

"The alternative for Australian business is going head-to-head with China on labor costs and raw material costs, and you have lost that already."

Has he looked at the price of commodities lately and the supply/demand outlook featuring the roles of Oz andChina ?

Wind blows ill for Australia

HOW far behind is Australia on developing sustainable energy industries and creating new businesses? And what are the consequences?
A former senior public servant was scathing this week in a conversation with global sustainability expert and special adviser to the United Nations Global Compact, Paul Hohnen. The former bureaucrat said: "China will be the world's workhouse, Brazil will be its farmhouse and Australia could be its poorhouse."
Mr Hohnen, a former Australian diplomat to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and deputy high commissioner to Sri Lanka, said Australia seemed to be ignoring areas where it had a competitive advantage. Tackling these issues, he said, would help it avoid fulfilling that prediction.
Obvious examples included solar energy, wind farming, technologies in manufacturing and agriculture.
But at the same time, he said, business was only following the lead set by the Howard Government.
He said Australia's decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol was also in effect telling the business community that sustainability and renewable energy in the face of climate change were not first-order issues.
"Business is at its best when it has adapted to change, when it's being entrepreneurial, seeing risks and not sitting back," he said.
"But I am not sure businesses can respond if it's getting signals from government that it doesn't matter.
"That's the very clear impression that everyone in Europe has, that Australia has lost the plot on greenhouse gas emissions. Australia and the United States are mentioned in the same breath.
"Everybody understands Australia's traditional reliance on coal and no one expects that Australia will get out of coal quickly.
"But they do expect Australia to get into clean coal technology, and to join the world in making clear commitments to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, whether in Australia or somewhere else in the world, because the consequences of greenhouse for Australia are dramatic."
Mr Hohnen's comments coincide with revelations in court this week that federal Environment Minister Ian Campbell ignored advice from his own department that a controversial Gippsland wind farm, a huge political issue in the federal seat of McMillan during the 2004 election, could be built without significantly affecting the endangered orange-bellied parrot.
Mr Hohnen runs an Amsterdam-based consultancy, Sustainability Strategies. He is in Australia this week running workshops for businesses, run by the Australian Centre for Corporate Social Responsibility.
He said companies like GE and Toyota were leading the charge in using climate change and sustainability to develop new lines and markets, and enjoyed increased recognition from investors.
But Australian businesses seemed to be ignoring these opportunities. "We still seem to be very much fixed on being resources-rich and I don't see the resource minimisation and maximisation that I see going on overseas.
"The alternative for Australian business is going head-to-head with China on labor costs and raw material costs, and you have lost that already. Unless we compete more intelligently, we're simply not going to be in the game.
"In 1990, India, Spain and Australia had no wind farms, but by 2000, India and Spain were the fourth and fifth-largest wind operators and India was exporting to Australia.
"This is a technology that we could have built in any of our car or aerospace industry factories in the '70s.
"Instead, we will be importing wind farm and solar power from low-cost manufacturers elsewhere."