Future challenges for the Australian Nation: the changing Australian society

The technological and scientific advances being made would have been unimaginable even a decade ago and increasingly profitable businesses and industries will be marked by their efficient use of scarce natural resources. Australia already has a dynamic and vibrant environmental industry sector, ready to provide solutions. The success of this sector, over coming years, will have enormous implications for Australia, both in its local application and because of its export potential.

There is every reason to believe that these advances can also reinvigorate some of our regional areas and potentially open up vast new opportunities for settlement and industrial development. For instance, new salt- and drought-resistant crops have the potential to revolutionise agriculture.

We have a long-term commitment to regional areas and recognise that, in many ways, those communities have been more practically aware of the consequences of land and water degradation than many others. As the stewards of vast tracts of the Australian landscape, they’ll also play a critical part in the environmental repair so desperately needed.

Gains in areas such as biodiversity and energy must be made, but at the heart of this agenda in the time ahead will be water.

Salinity and water quality issues are seriously affecting the sustainability of Australia’s agricultural production, the conservation of biological diversity and the viability of our infrastructure and regional communities.

In a dry continent like ours, with an economy that derives $28.5 billion in export income each year from the land, with the drinking water of millions of Australians potentially affected in years to come – there is no more pressing issue than tackling water quality and salinity issues. In many cases, water-related issues are as pressing in the cities as they are in regional Australia.

Importantly, co-operative effort between governments at all levels, industry sectors and local communities, pulling together, will be needed to fast-track the behavioural and structural changes required for the future.

This is already the essence of our approach. The Natural Heritage Trust gives resources and accountability directly to local communities to fix local problems and this emphasis on community ownership is also the foundation of our Action Plan on Salinity.

In the process the property rights of individual Australians must be fully respected. The right to compensation must be included in our policy prescriptions.

Conclusion

At the last election I argued for policies that would leave Australia a better country, that would make Australia a stronger country, that would give Australia a capacity to compete more effectively in the outside world.

And we’ve delivered. Whatever the self-serving doomsayers may say, Australia enters the twenty-first century more secure, more prosperous, more respected, with its people possessing greater potential than ever before in its history. This nation is clearly heading in the right direction.

The major policy announcements in recent months, in defence, in innovation, in welfare, and in environmental repair will be pursued with the vigour and determination for which this government is well known. Their successful implementation coupled with the safeguarding of low interest rates, low inflation, high productivity growth and the repayment of Labor’s debt will be key features of our third term in office.