There has been considerable early and enthusiastic interest by Government in the Trybrid Project, at a range of levels. In 2006 and 2007, the formal engagement with Government is still, however, at an embryonic stage. 2008 is programmed as the year the engagement of Government is planned to move from informal to formal arrangements. Initial discussions have been focused around the Australian Government, but this is set to change, as global interest in a global problem accelerates, and with now many government around the world looking for ways to reduce fossil fuel dependency.
The election of the Rudd government on November 24, 2007, brings with it a sizable shift in focus on the dangerous climate change agenda. One of the leaders in the drive towards research based solutions for the climate change agenda is Senator Kim Carr, the new Minister for Science, Innovation and Research. The Trybrid design team was invited to the Australian Marine College on October 23, 2007, where Senator Kim Carr and Launceston MP Jodie Campbell where briefed in the company of senior academics and invited engineers at a specially convened forum to discuss the solar hybrid drive systems surrounding the Trybrid Project. Hear the enthusiasm with which Minister for Science and Innovation, Kim Carr, addressed the Trybrid Project in an Oct 25, 2007 radio interview kim-carr-on-trybrid.mp3.
The acceleration of the climate change debate through 2006/07 has seen a rapid shift away from debate simply about climate change awareness, to debate about finding solutions to climate change. Carbon trading schemes the worlds over are seemingly at the front door of what could become the single biggest traded item in the decades ahead. Similarly, Governments the world over are becoming more aware of vote power and need to address what is shaping up to become the planet’s single biggest future challenge. The shift in international concern can be tracked on the two graphs below, where climate change concern has grown strongly across the corporate sector:
As the world temperatures are already moving up a degree, on route to a 2 degree rise, and potentially upwards towards the dreaded third degree rise, where, with business as usual, a 3 degree temperature rise seems a tipping point peak, where imminent, dangerous, but potentially reversible potential exists for governments willing to make commitment to solutions that can get results now. The Trybrid project is a practical, see, feel and touch project that can, and will make inroads into reducing C02, and with its use of off-the-shelf technology, and not pipe dreams, government has clearly identified a potential role in supporting this project.
Initially the project had been dubbed the ‘Queensland Sustainable Boat” in informal talks with the then Queensland Environment Minister, the Hon Desley Boyle, now Queensland’s current Tourism Minister.
Queensland’s Government’s responsibility for care of the endangered Great Barrier Reef has seen very little research or funding focus on the fuel use of the many thousands of both private and government boats plying the waters of the GBR. This compared somewhat unfavorably with the neighboring State of NSW where some public sector, $AUS $1,000,000, had already been directed at Solar Sailor’s innovative solar hybrid ferry. In 2007, the Queensland Government put renewed vigor into the sustainability focus, establishing a new Department of Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation heading the new department with a man of lifetime passion for his new portfolio, the Hon Minister Andrew MacNamara. Andrew’s McNamara’s Queensland’s Oil Vulnerability Task Force has made clear a number of declarations with comfortable alignment with the Trybrid objectives and observations, which are have been widely reported. 
The Minister’s strong personal position on Peak Oil is to be applauded, and being that Trybrid is all about, ‘Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation”, its seems likely that dialogue between the Trybrid team and the Dept of Sustainability, Climate Change and Innovation will be productive.
The Douglas Shire Council whose jurisdiction up to March 2008 covered some of the world’s oldest Daintree rainforests, as well as local governance of the fast ferry town of ort Douglas, has long been a leader in sustainability.
The Trybrid Project Manager, Rod Davis, who is also one of the two 2004/08 elected leaders of Port Douglas, has pushed many of the shires sustainability innovations in the built and natural environments, with Council in 2007 endorsing plans to build models in sustainable housing, and now, through this project, sustainable marine transport.
There have been public discussions between Rod Davis and the Australian Federal Government’s Environment Minister, the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull,
and the ALP’s spokesmen on the Environment, MP Peter Garrett 
through Radio Port Douglas, where Rod Davis has had a weekly broadcast for many years, and which in 2007 addressed the issues around the Trybrid project, an exert of which can be heard here.davisvsgarrettboatbit.mp3
. The 2007 Australian election has seen considerable commitment of both Labor and Liberal Parties to addressing the climate change and peak oil issues, and 2008 promises to be a productive year for further building of relationships between this project and the stated intents of both sides of the Australian Federal Parliament.
There have been multiple preliminary and to date informal discussions with a range of government agencies who have interest in matters marine, and matters environment. In 2008, these discussions are intended to precipitate into clearer partnerships.
The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority through its regional advisory boards has been the seeding point for growing discussions around this project.
The Great Barrier Reef Climate Action Plan 2007-2012 has the stated aim to ‘showcase the initiatives that reduce the climate footprint of GBR stakeholders’, and, ‘identify and support initiatives that reduce emissions”, and accordingly, the recent GBRMPA initiative to purchase hybrid drive cars, whilst admirable, now needs to take the next step forward, by researching replacement of the authorities fleet of heavy carbon emitting boats, and the Trybrid Project is clearly in the right place, at the right time, to fulfill this growing need, and in so doing, lead by example when it comes to reducing impacts on the Great Barrier Reef. The Trybrid project welcomes the potential support of the GBRMPA.
The Australian Greenhouse Office has clearly identified the impacts on climate change on the marine environment together with GRUMPA.
The AGO identifies the shipping sector as responsible for a predicted 2 Mega tons of CO2-e by 2020, which is by comparison is about two thirds of the predicted emissions of the railway industry in Australia. Replacement of aging fleets, and ‘improvements in operational efficiency’ have contained the rise of shipping emissions from the predominant bulk cargo sector, whilst the smaller recreational and fast ferry sector has a seemingly growing thirst for fossil fuels, with increasing tourism interest in recreational visitation to dive attractions, and the recent boom in pleasure boat use inflaming the issues. Brief discussions with the AGO’s Christopher Baker have suggested the need for this project to be directed to the Minister, for which the discussions as mentioned above will now need to accelerate as the project’s design advances.
There have been several informal discussions with interested parties in scientific and industrial research at CSIRO, and formalization of these discussions is scheduled for 2008, in the hope that CSIRO can value add this project. Thanks go to David Lamb at CSIRO for his insights.
It is hoped that the AGO’s coordinating role will pull together and aid funding in collaboration with other agencies such as GBRMPA, and research and educational institutions such as the Australian Marine College.