I asked to have this thread be reopened to talk about this article in The Conversation. The Conversation is a publically funded journal mainly written by academics in their field and is not much subject to foolishness and bias. It is not supported by government funding or any specific industry.
The article is timely as we are now facing the question of how to best spend public money to re-energise the economy. Recovery will be slow but without stimulus recovery will be painfully slow. Of course the rent seekers and opportunists will all have their hands out, some money will be well spent but the risk is some will not.
Whether a financial arrangement is a subsidy depends on your definition. But the linked article points out in this country by any definition it is substantial. The Conversation (TC) refers to this International Monetary Fund paper. Which includes as subsidies where operators are not required to pay their costs. A major subsidy world wide is ignoring the cost of pollution. Largely the costs to individual people and public health of air pollution. There are many other forms of subsidies, some of which have been mentioned upthread.
From the TC article:
If we divide the IMF subsidy figure by the number of direct jobs, the governments of Australia spend A$730,000 each year for every direct job in the coal, oil and gas industry. That equates to A$1,832 for every Australian.
The jobs generated is always the first figure quoted by anybody wanting to have an action or policy approved but if you look at the people out of work now and what it will cost to get them back into work you have to ask if what we are already paying for the fossil fuel industries, that were not closed down during the pandemic, is rather high.
We already have one example of the FF industry putting their hand out that was discussed here.
Before I am challenged with being political (again) let me point out this is a matter of broad policy and the current situation is derived from many decisions, made by many governments of all persuasions, over a considerable period of time.
