Unimpressed with the standard of contemporary political
debate in Australia, the Board of Australia21 has become increasingly concerned
that a number of grave challenges are being ignored, bypassed or placed in the “too
hard” basket, and that there is no sign of this changing as we head into
vitally important national elections.
Accordingly, we commissioned a series of essays by a number
of Australia21 Directors, Fellows, Associates and other contributors, which
draw attention to threats arising from global change. These are threats that
all Australians will need to manage in the near future, and need to be thinking
about now. The resulting publication is available for download
from the Australia21 website.
We hope that this series of essays will help to stimulate a
constructive discussion between voters and political aspirants from all parties
about the kind of Australia we will leave to our children in an increasingly
hazardous, globalised and resource-constrained world.
We think political parties should take a long-term view when
they frame policies to put to the Australian people. When they propose new
policies, they should be expected to explain how sustainable they would be in
the long term, and how they would fit into a longer-term context. We wonder
whether politicians are acting responsible when they imply that Australians in
full-time employment are “doing it tough” – “tough” against what benchmark,
exactly?
So what do we propose? As a response to the concerns raised
in these essays, we are posing a series of questions under twelve themes for
consideration by voters across Australia.
They are not the only questions that come to our minds, but
they are some of the more important ones, and if these twelve questions
clusters can become part of the political discourse in the lead-up to the
election of our next government, this small volume will have served a valuable
purpose.
You might like to put some of these questions to our
political leaders and your local candidates:
1. On Greenhouse
gases:
What is your assessment of Australia’s contribution to
greenhouse gas emissions and to the global effort to curtail their growth? Do
you believe that we should radically curtail energy production from fossil
fuels? If so, over what timeframe? Should we also curtail our mining and export
of fossil fuels to other countries? What energy source(s) would you see as most
promising replacements for fossil fuels in Australia, and what should we do to
encourage rapid uptake? If you do not believe we should rapidly curtail
reliance in fossil fuels, please outline your thinking on this matter.
2. On economic
management and growth:
How long do you think we can sustain the current approach to
economic management in which growth of GDP is required to maintain high
employment and accordingly the rate of GDP growth is seen as an indicator of
the health of the economy? Do you think we need to develop a more “steady
state” approach to economic management, in which we can maintain full
employment without rapid growth in the demands placed upon our resources and
the biosphere? How (on the business principle of “what gets measured gets
done”) can we better integrate the health of the environment and measures of
human well being, in Australia and globally, into our measures of economic
performance and economic “success”?
3. On defence policy:
What is your concept of what the Australian Defence Force
(ADF) should be structured to do over the next two decades? Are we spending
enough on defence for the ADF to be able to meet your expectations? Are you
concerned about the prospect of strategic competition emerging between China
and the United States, and how do you think Australia should respond? Do we
have
the right decision-making processes in place to ensure that
we go to war only for the right reasons, and with good prospects of success?
4. On food for our
future:
What is your assessment of the prospects of Australia
feeding itself in the context of rising temperatures, declining extent and
health of croplands, and rising food prices and international famine? What
policies would you support to ensure that your constituents will be resilient
to what many predict is an imminent global food crisis?
5. On our dependency
on oil:
In view of the tenuous state of Australia’s oil reserves and
the firm likelihood of oil crises in the near term, what policies would you
favour to build Australian resilience in this area? Do you think the Government
should adopt policies to ensure that we have specified stock levels of fuels
and lubricants in-country? Should the Government seek to develop the capacity
to produce liquid fuels from non-conventional sources?
6. On prospects for
the global economy:
What do you think is the likelihood of another global financial
crisis? What should we do to prepare for such an eventuality? What is your
assessment of Australian prospects of again withstanding major damage from a collapse
in the international economy?
7. On protection
against toxins and antibiotic resistance:
What role should government play in protecting the community
against exposure to toxins and deterioration in antibiotic sensitivity?
8. On the valuation
of services provided by ecosystems:
Do you agree that we should include in our evaluation of
proposed developments or changed land use the economic value of the services
provided by local ecosystems to human communities and to industry? If not, how
do you think we should best protect ourselves from the loss of these services?
If so, what role should government play in building the value of these services
into our thinking about the economy?
9. On ecological
footprints:
Should we be trying to reduce Australia’s current ecological
footprint? Can we do this in a way that assists developing countries without
simply transferring an equivalent part of our footprint to them?
10. On environmental
refugees:
What role should Australia play in the accommodation of
environmental refugees from the South Pacific and from South-East Asia as sea
levels rise? What impact should such refugees have on the numbers taken from
other migration categories? How should we best integrate provision for refugees
from the results of climate change into our immigration policy?
11. On domestic
travel:
Do you think that the rising demand for rapid movement between
our major cities can be met into the indefinite future by increasing civil
aviation capacity? Can you foresee a time when exclusive reliance on air travel
might become a problem or face constraints?
12. On responding to
the needs of the coming generation:
Is Australia preparing its younger population adequately for
the likely risks ahead as climate change and resource scarcity challenge the
conventional wisdom of endless economic growth?
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