Beyond the Great Divide: moving imaginary mountains in Australia’s political landscape

At this point I should probably admit that my only qualifications in writing this article are a BA and a heritage just barely rural enough to know how little I know about the outback. I’ve had a few crazy ideas. One was to create a rural land trust for communities wanting to buy cleared land to establish community-owned plantations (this could spin off the organizational structure already created through Landcare). The upfront capital could eventually be repaid, HECS-style, as tax from the proceeds of selling the mature wood.

Another was to set up an investment program that funds the conversion of outback properties from diesel electricity generation to cheaper & more sustainable technologies. The converted properties could eventually repay the cost of conversion plus, say, a 20 per cent return on the investment, by paying what they usually pay for energy (I recently spoke to the manager of a homestead in the Northern Territory that was going through $450 worth of diesel per day).

Most of my ideas are harebrained, unresearched, and have all sorts of potential flaws. I’m writing this article in the hope that it will inspire people to come up with better ideas. We need young people in the National party working to bring about debate on tough questions – like why are we in coalition with a party that refuses to sign the Kyoto protocol when the CSIRO says that agricultural producers will be among the biggest losers from global warming?

We need young forest campaigners working to ensure that every battle to save a forest is also a battle for sustainable rural forestry. We need young economists looking at the viability of various schemes that encourage regional renewal – e.g. investment in cheap & sustainable transport alternatives (bringing the new breed of super fuel-efficient cars and trucks onto the Australian market could be the single most effective way to reduce the cost of living in the outback, not to mention greenhouse gas reductions).

We need young people in the Green party coming up with viable policy incentives for regional renewal that mesh rural and environmental interests. We need young journalists writing about positive examples of ‘battlers’ and greenies working together, and sending them to every broadsheet, tabloid and rural paper in the country.

Most of all, we need to remember that the myth of the ‘Great Divide’ has been created and maintained because it serves the interests of wealthy and powerful elites. To bring it down we need to focus on the creation of a common agenda for change. Played off against each other, rural and green interests can often end up being dismissed by the major parties. If we can create a political alliance between these two forces, and do it right, we’ll scare the pants off pretty much every Labor and Liberal Minister in the country. And I, for one, think that sounds like a lot of fun.