But the truth, Stewart says, is very different. “We have this long-term capital pool, and it wants companies to do incredibly well over the long term,” she says.

“And then we have corporate Australia, which is wanting to invest and wanting to grow. And I feel like there’s an amazing opportunity in Australia that exists in so few other countries to actually get the capital settings and capitalism right for the long term.”

And there’s never been a more important time to nail this model, and get government, capital and business aligned.

Schroder says the energy transition required across Australia and the world will need up to $10 trillion, but it also needs everyone on the same page.

“This is the actual ‘team Australia’ moment,” Schroder says.

“This is the actual moment when you say, ’we’ve got all these natural resources, we’ve got all these great minerals, we’ve got a terrifically stable political system, we’ve got fantastic capital pools, we’ve got smart business leaders, we’ve got sun, we’ve got wind.”

Stewart adds: “We’ve got the natural capital, and people.”

The pair were part of a roundtable on sustainability that was also attended by Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce, Seven Group chief executive Ryan Stokes and Aurizon boss Andrew Harding, and hosted by Westpac’s institutional banking chief executive, Anthony Miller.

Joyce, too, has felt the rising heat on profits in recent months. But as he heads into a period of enormous catch-up investment following the pandemic that crippled Qantas – a new plane will arrive every three weeks for the next three years – he feels the criticism is misplaced.

“We have to be making money to make those investments, otherwise we’re in stagnation,” he says.

A big part of that investment is designed to make Qantas greener; Qantas is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars over the next few years into sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), which cuts total emissions by 80 per cent compared with fossil-based fuel.

The only available supplies are offshore, so Qantas has deals out of Heathrow and California.

Joyce says the SAF industry is booming in that US state in part due to the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which promises almost $US400 million worth of subsidies for clean energy.

“The reality is, government has to put the policy settings in place, government has to make investments to make it happen. That’s what’s happening in California, it’s happening in Europe,” Joyce says.

Stewart and Schroder have been similarly stunned by the impact of the IRA, which is only starting to be appreciated in Australia.

“I’m not advocating for the IRA, but I think Australia should be thinking about the Inflation Reduction Act as representing a big threat for the flow of capital and flow of attention,” Schroder says.

Aurizon’s Harding has noticed a shift in the mood in corporate Australia since the Albanese government legislated for an emissions reduction target last year.

Harding says customers who were previously supportive of cutting emissions in his sector but unwilling to help pay for it are now more receptive. But as with everything, the devil is in the details.

Harding says the government’s proposed safeguard mechanism, which Aurizon will be part of, could have the perverse effect of making lower-carbon rail transport more expensive than road transport, given the rail sector’s largest players are captured by the mechanism but the road transport (made up of a large number of smaller players) is not.

“If you’re going to use the one mechanism to level the playing field and it doesn’t observably level the playing field, then you have to counterbalance it with another mechanism,” Harding says.

Stokes sees a similarly uneven playing field. Boral will be subject to the safeguard mechanism, but rivals who import concrete won’t.

It’s an example, Stokes says, of the need to avoid a narrow definition of sustainability that only considers the environment, or carbon. “You’ve got to think of environment, social and commercial,” he says.

“Because if the cost of reducing carbon is to eradicate industry and business, that’s not sustainable.

“And the notion of putting a cap or a cost on industry, that means that you just literally export your emissions to a less favourable jurisdiction where the emissions are higher. That doesn’t drive sustainably in a true form.”