I need to study the proposals in more detail but it sounds like Howard-lite. It seems that if you want save a smidgin on energy and water you may or may not be able to borrow some money. Don't get knocked down in the rush. On the other hand if you want to create millions more tonnes of CO2 by building a bigger coal ship terminal then the govt will have a large cheque ready.

I can't remember if Rudd's '20 by 20' was 20% renewables or CO2 reductions by year 2020. Well this budget won't touch that so it looks like it will take spiralling prices and an economic slowdown. The short assessment is that Rudd is not fair dinkum on climate change.

The budget also expects a surge in farm production

Which if you follow the link...

Farm production was forecast to grow by 20 per cent in 2008/09, well up from estimates of two per cent growth in 2007/08, the budget papers for the upcoming financial year said.

"High world wheat prices and widespread summer rainfall are likely to encourage increased crop plantings, particularly as farmers aim to recover lost earnings from two poor seasons," the budget papers said.

Fields of dreams. Plant it and it will rain. Or to paraphrase the idiot from ABARE, if the price of wheat is high enough it will plant itself.

And as Gav highlights (from the SMH)

The Bureau of Meteorology's latest rainfall outlooks says: "The La Nina event in the Pacific Basin is weakening: computer models indicate a return to neutral conditions over the outlook period of May-July." At the southern end of the NSW grain belt there is only a 50 per cent chance of rainfall being above-average.

I agree with Boof. We have gone from the Rodent to the Ruddite.
Howards "Battlers ^® " were appropriated and rebadged "Working Families ^® ". A slightly more optimistic aspirational tag, which might just come back to haunt them should there be a recession.

In a similar vein, the Labour Party appropriated the libs corporate base and attached it to there union base by continuing to subsidise transport, minerals and coal.

RE Solar, Water
What's the point of throwing money at these problems if you also add 3 more hoops to jump thru? Means tested or not, a low income family is unlikely to install a solar system. Let the well off have a little subsidy to install the bloody things, if enough get installed the price might come down. And in any case, a saving of the resource has been made.

This obsession with 'not wasting the taxpayers money', with having to appear like 'effective managers' means that we are wasting time and energy in meaningless managerial measures/procedures when the real objective is to save water and energy.

And then we increase the defence budget.
Why? Who is going to invade us? We are exporting our resources faster and cheaper than it would be worth any countries while. The way the weather is shaping up... we might be exporting a lot less food in the future. If we weren't so busy supporting other invasions...

And let's not forget...
The Department of defence has shown its supreme managerial mastery by purchasing rusty boats requiring extensive rebuild, helicopters that don't fly and fighter jets that are inferior to cheaper Russian alternatives. All from US suppliers. Who are these guys working for?

It should be policy to immediately scale back the size of the air force... which will become the most expensive and unsustainable branch of the services. We are not going to have a natural gas powered airforce.

rant ends.

On looking at other Budget summaries eg http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23693640-5012587,00.html
I think the climate part is a shameful exercise in procrastination and fudging. Therefore Rudd has broken his election promise to take decisive action on climate.

Of course they think no-one will check whether 300,000 landlords installed extra insulation in rental properties. They don't need $13m to research how the metals industry for example will be affected by carbon caps. I can tell you now the answer is the same as diet and exercise; it's tough but it pays off in the long run. So what the hell has PNG logging got to do with Australia's emissions? I'm picking up signals that the long awaited emissions trading scheme will be put off or watered down to this same kind of tokenism.

Memo to Rudd ... when you give the environment the same priority as the military we'll know you're serious.

I see the solar rebate will no longer be available to households where both adults earn the average wage under the new means test. Since it is not financially viable to install even a subsidised system at present costs, then how many do they expect to be installed by households earning below average wages? Really, the only people who could be expected to afford solar are the well off, and without that support I fail to see how there will be any sales volume to deliver longer term economies of scale (and accompanying cost declines) that could make solar affordable in the future.

Rudd is like the Taliban with a bumper crop of poppies. The government profits from the enemy of the human race while pretending that its going to do something about climate change. Give me a break. Go stand on a beach in Newcastle and tell me we're serious about this problem.

Australia is a coal junkie..

I'll do an update on the budget now the real press reports are in.

I'd note I agree with the solar subsidy comments above - Rudd is proving worse than the Rodent so far.