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Priority one: a sustainable agenda

By Michael Krockenberger - posted Saturday, 15 December 2001


The Howard government has been accused of lacking a third-term agenda. Perhaps this reflects the Australian mood. Perhaps Australians don’t want change in these troubled times. Commentators speak of reform fatigue.

However, there are clear signs that Australians want more than the status quo. Social researchers such as Hugh Mackay remind us that Australians crave a vision.

A missing vision is the environment. While Labor used the election campaign to update its environmental policies – arguably leaving it too late to have much electoral impact – the Coalition rested on its laurels. No new major policies were released.

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This would be fine if the laurels were worth resting on. However, other than marine conservation it is not a good record - and that against a backdrop of disturbing environmental facts.

Australia has the developed world’s highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions, principally due to high fossil fuel consumption and clearing of native vegetation. Despite this the Howard government has consistently argued a special case for Australia in international negotiations.

Careful analysis shows that Australia has no special greenhouse case other than that it is an especially energy inefficient country. But the Australian government has used bully diplomacy to get special concessions within the Kyoto Protocol. And having achieved these it still won’t ratify the Protocol.

Australia has the highest percentage of arable land affected by land degradation of any developed country. Salinity is a scourge eating away our agricultural resources and built infrastructure. The Howard government has recognised the land degradation problem and is spending more on the problem than any previous government. But it is not enough and far too much of the Natural Heritage Trust funding has been dissipated through lack of strategic approach.

Australia clears more land than any other developed nation and is only exceeded by a handful of developing countries. Broadscale land clearing is an absurd activity. The burning and rotting of native vegetation is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, and the major cause of dryland salinity and biodiversity loss. No developed country has lost more species of mammal in the last 200 years. Scientists now fear that the current spate of clearing will lead to many extinctions of woodland bird species. Land clearing is also economically absurd. The cleared land, primarily used for cattle grazing, has low economic returns, and the long-term costs from salinity are enormous. The current national repair bill for salinity is estimated at $65 billion and rising.

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is the largest per capita water user outside North America. The major user is irrigated agriculture, especially thirsty crops such as rice and cotton. Governments have been unwilling to tackle these vested interests.

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Other than the USA Australia produces the most waste per capita of any nation. And we are one of the least energy efficient countries in the OECD.

A reform agenda for Howard’s third term? Sustainability reform, or to give it another name, environmental modernisation.

It would not just be good for the environment but also good for the economy and employment. Australian can achieve 20 – 40% energy efficiency gains at no net cost for a start. Renewable energy industries employ far more people, many of them in the regions, than coal power stations. Environmental industries are worth $1 trillion worldwide and unless Australia gets moving we’ll miss the boom.

This efficiency of resource use, whether it is reducing waste, energy use or water use, is a boost to productivity. It involves two facets: developing new sustainable industries and greening and cleaning existing ones. It is a strategy for both urban and rural Australia.

And given the make-up of the Senate, it should have a better chance than most other reforms the government could think up.

The reform should be started by establishing a National Sustainability Council. The core of the idea is there in the government’s proposal for a business roundtable on sustainable development. But it needs to be far broader than just business. It needs eminent experts in environmental sustainability. But above all it needs teeth, akin to those of the National Competition Council. Just as that body was empowered to sift through legislation, policies and practices to ensure competition, so a Sustainability Council needs to do the same to ensure sustainability. The lever is money - Commonwealth funds need to be tied to sustainability reform.

Current subsidies need to be redirected. There are billions of dollars at state and Commonwealth level that foster activities that damage the environment. A recent University of Technology Sydney study identified an annual total of $6.5 billion for fossil fuel use alone.

Not all of these subsidies need to be removed, but if a significant proportion were redirected to more sustainable activities substantial reform could be achieved. The first step is a high-level inquiry.

The inquiry should also investigate the case for environmental tax reform. This is widely pursued as part of the European Union environmental modernisation agenda, and is the imposition of taxes on environmentally-damaging activities such as pollution and over-use of resources, with a corresponding reduction of taxes on socially-beneficial activities such as employment and innovation.

New revenue is needed to fight salinity. The best source is a means-tested levy akin to the proposed, but never implemented, East Timor levy. A recent ANU study showed that Australians are happy to pay more tax if it is directed at worthwhile projects such as the environment.

Australia must ratify the Kyoto Protocol. The longer Australia leaves environmental modernisation the harder, and the more expensive it will be. More expensive both in direct dollar terms and in lost opportunities.

Australia has a ‘hot, heavy and wet’ economy, one that requires large amounts of energy and water and produces large amounts of waste to create wealth. Australia needs sustainability reform to convert to the ‘cool, light and dry’ economy that will enable us to be a successful 21st century country. Nothing could be a more important reform agenda.

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About the Author

Michael Krockenberger is Strategies Director for the Australian Conservation Foundation.

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