Re-evaluating our resources - natural and human - is the future for Australia

Australia Day is accepted as our national birthday. Birthdays are complicated things that pull at our emotions in different ways. They are certainly a time for celebration of what we have achieved but they are also a time for reflection about what remains undone and contemplation about the legacy we will leave.

Our young nation has much to celebrate. In the time of white history, we have gone from convict colony to a modern and vibrant society. We are a democratic and civil society that has produced world leaders in science, engineering, medicine, business, agriculture, the arts and sport; and we have the priceless gift of the oldest living culture. We clearly punch above our weight as a nation.

However, for Aboriginal Australians and many others, January 26 is not a day for celebration. As Thomas Keneally noted in his 1997 Australia Day address, a majority of Australians can see why today cannot be a day of rejoicing for all, and that may be grounds for ultimately finding an Australia Day with which we can all identify.

I endorse that view. It would be better to have a more inclusive date for our national day.

We are a highly urbanised society. Over 80 per cent of our population now lives on one per cent of our land mass, and within 50 kilometres of the coast. As Donald Horne pointed out, Australia's national identity now is more about the beach than the bush.

Our industry base has changed enormously. It was once dominated by agriculture, mining and manufacturing, but the services sector now accounts for two thirds of the economy. The transition has been painful and there are many casualties who feel abandoned and bitter.

We are an intensely multicultural society. Over 44 per cent of our population are first or second-generation Australians. More than 15 per cent of us speak a language other than English at home.

With the exception of Indigenous people, we are an ageing population with the proportion of us over 65 expected to double by 2050.

The big economic decisions of the 1980s, to float the dollar, open up financial markets and reduce protection, changed Australia radically and forever. We had no alternative but to enter an ever-expanding global market, driven by the revolution in communications technology and the collapse of communism.

But successive national governments did not manage the transition from closed to open economy very well. The weight of adjustment was not shared equally and some communities, particularly in rural areas and the outer suburbs of the capital cities, fell behind.

My sense is that Australia still is casting around for values to replace the relative certainties that existed before the 80s. We are a small nation in a big new game and we're not quite sure yet of our place in the evolving order of things. The elements which cemented Federation after 1901 - industry protection, centralized wage fixing and the White Australia Policy - are all gone. Where they used to be there is only the promise of more change and greater competition.

Also, terrorism has changed the world and Australia is not immune to that threat. We appear to be heading for war with Iraq, which many Australians find difficult to understand. That already has generated growing unease within our communities and new pressures on the economy.

This combination of external pressures and internal forces has created considerable insecurity and nervousness. As Geoffrey Blainey noted in a recent article, 2002 ended with a severe bout of the jitters.

So I perceive my country now to be a bit lost; still not managing change equitably, searching for its place in the world and looking sometimes for simple truths and solutions which no longer exist.

Therefore it seems sensible to look to the bedrock of our nation, the things that give us stability. In my view they are our land and waters and the nature of our relationships with each other.

Unless we use natural resources in a sustainable way, we are mining the future. Unless the relationships between our citizens are respectful and inclusive, we are a divided and diminished society.

By any measure, we are not caring properly for our natural resources.

We imported European systems of agriculture unsuited to our fragile soils and rainfall patterns. Australia's wealth depended on agriculture and mining for a long time and we lacked sufficient knowledge about the long-term results.

The results are evident today. By 2050, 17 million hectares of land will be at risk from salinity. Acid soils are likely to affect an even greater area. About 50,000km of streams are degraded. Australia's rate of land clearing is exceeded only by Brazil, Indonesia, the Congo and Bolivia. Weeds cost over $3.3 billion per year in lost production. There is not enough water in some of our river systems now to meet the combined demands of agriculture, human consumption and environmental flows.

Additionally, no one is certain of the impact of global warming, but the best scientific modelling predicts drier weather patterns will become the norm for most of Australia.

The tasks before us obviously are enormous. Farming systems will have to change; further adjustment in the farm sector is likely; rehabilitation will take decades and will be impossible in some areas; public and private costs will be huge; new regulatory systems will have to be introduced and a vast amount of political and social capital will need to be invested.

But unless we do it, in my view we will limit our future as a nation and as a society.

The first step is to give proper prominence to these issues. A much wider public debate is needed to generate community understanding about how to care properly for country and the things that are at risk. Government already has a pretty fair idea, but is gridlocked by the scale of the problems.

The issues have already provided some impetus. The impact of drought last year certainly registered on the national radar screen. So did Richard Pratt's initiative to reduce loss of water by piping it on farms instead of using open channels.

The Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists has developed a blueprint for fundamental change to our land and water management systems involving a series of building blocks for sustainable natural resource use.

In the first place, there needs to be a commitment to long-term action by all political parties. Governments will change and there must be confidence that partnerships, once begun, will be continued. Resource management plans should be developed on a regional basis and owned and driven by regional communities. One size doesn't fit all and there will be different priorities in different regions.

Regional plans should be consistent with broad national policies and priorities. The Commonwealth should make it clear to the states that the targets must be met and that no other outcome will be accepted.

Two key national priorities should be increasing environmental flows in the Murray-Darling system and capping the Great Artesian Basin.

There should be a market in which landholders can bid to provide environmental services for public benefit. The services would help to implement regional plans, using public investment. Systems already are being trialled in New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

There should be a national water market with consistent cross-border mechanisms. The issue of what water allocation goes with property rights needs to be resolved. It would help if the cost of water could be better reflected in product pricing and description.

Everyone agrees that very significant long-term public investment is required and that there needs to be a secure mechanism to raise it. My own view is that much of the public investment in practice will need to come from the federal government and I can see no more effective option than an environment levy as part of the commonwealth tax system.

However, taxpayers would need to have confidence that their new contributions are being used properly. There have been allegations that successive federal governments have allocated Landcare and Natural Heritage Trust funds with political intent.

I therefore believe an independent body, eg. a sustainability commission, should receive and administer the proceeds of an environment tax levy, conduct regular resource audits and report each year to the federal Parliament. It also should provide expert advice to government on natural resource management policy.

Whatever the final detail, I am encouraged by the developing consensus around a series of building blocks to care for our country. And their potential to cement part of the foundation for a contemporary Australian culture and identity is a fitting concept to contemplate on Australia Day.

The second part of the foundation for a contemporary Australian identity must involve the relationships that shape our civil society.

In particular, I believe the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians deserves special attention. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people are the first peoples of Australia and have special rights arising from that status. Their cultural heritage is protected by commonwealth and state legislation.

Pragmatically, Aboriginal people are increasing as a proportion of rural and remote populations. Their birthrate is higher than the national average and more people are identifying as Indigenous. They also are a critical part of some regional economies and they are gaining increasing political influence.

Morally, Australia's Indigenous people have not been treated equitably. They have been dispossessed of their land and remain the most disadvantaged group in our society.

In my experience, the overwhelming priorities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples are to achieve greater economic independence and protect their culture and identity. The two go together. It's hard to maintain your own culture when you are dependent on a dominant culture's welfare.

There were great expectations that these priorities could be advanced after the High Court's Mabo decision in 1992 and the passage of the commonwealth Native Title Act in 1993. Importantly, the legislation reflected a political compromise in a process begun by the High Court. There were high hopes that the basis of a national settlement with Australia's first peoples had been achieved.

However, a lot of Aboriginal people now believe that the 1993 compromise has turned out to be unjust. The Native Title Act has been amended significantly since then and the High Court, with new membership, has identified additional constraints on native title.

Native title now is confined basically to land where no one else has a permanent interest - where the traditional owners have never been forced to leave their country - and where they can prove that they have practiced their laws and customs on a continuous basis since settlement.

Torres Strait Islanders have won native title claims because they have been able to remain on their traditional land and waters. However, there have been few determinations of native title on the mainland. The capacity for native title to assist Aboriginal economic development has been restricted largely to isolated areas and negotiations with the mining, oil, gas and electricity industries.

The Native Title Act has not served its primary purpose of providing for the recognition and protection of native title.

As well, the transaction costs are enormous, the cost of individual court cases sometimes exceeding state expenditure on Aboriginal programs. The annual cost of the National Native Title Tribunal and native title representative bodies is over $50 million.

There has to be a better way - that has been acknowledged by the High Court. In his judgement in The State of Western Australia v Ben Ward (Miriuwung Gajerrong), Justice McHugh noted:

"The deck is stacked against the native title holders whose fragile rights must give way to the superior rights of the landholder wherever the two classes of rights conflict. And it is a system that is costly and time-consuming. At present the chief beneficiaries of the system are the legal representatives of the parties. It may be that the time has come to think of abandoning the present system, a system that simply seeks to declare and enforce the rights of the parties, irrespective of their merits."

Many Aboriginal people are totally frustrated and discontented with the extent to which native title has been able to advance their goals. I believe they would be prepared to consider alternatives and the timing is right for such a discussion. Some new form of national settlement might be possible - the 1993 exercise clearly has failed.

It might include, for instance, an Indigenous economic development fund that could be accessed by those who choose to opt out of native title claims, or who choose not to exercise their right to negotiate. That investment then could be leveraged by agreements with industry about particular projects and could deliver greater economic opportunities for Aboriginal people.

The possibility of settling some major unfinished business with Aboriginal Australians, and assisting their escape from the destructive spiral of welfare and substance abuse is another fitting thing to contemplate on Australia Day.

As a proud Australian, I rejoice that these opportunities exist and that they can be raised for national debate. However, I am frequently frustrated and disappointed at the nature of the debate that occurs. Too often, issues are 'dumbed down' and reduced to gladiatorial point scoring. Too often, views are dismissed because of where they are thought to come from on the political spectrum. Too often, positions are shaped by opinion polls and spin jockeys at the expense of candour and honesty.

I believe there is a responsibility for community leaders and the media to ensure an informed and inclusive debate occurs about the big issues that shape our nation.

Caring properly for our country and resolving unfinished business with our first peoples can become national goals that unify our communities and create greater national certainty and confidence in a continually changing world.

Happy Birthday Australia.