It was with a weary feeling of déjà vu that I heard on ABC Radio
National this morning that we are to have a new agricultural assistance policy
to replace the Drought Exceptional Circumstances framework, a new policy that will
emphasise encouraging farmers to be prepared for drought rather provision of
assistance after disaster strikes.
Wear déjà vu because that is exactly what we thought we had
achieved in the Department of Primary Industries and Energy in 1997, the second
year of the Howard Government. After months of hard work and inter-departmental
consultation by folks like Ken Matthews and Vanessa Tripp, National Party
Leader and Minister for Primary Industries and Energy John Anderson put a
submission to Cabinet which emphasised farmers accepting more responsibility
for managing the risks involved in a business which is by definition prone to
the vagaries of the weather and to natural disasters. The leitmotif of the submission was that farming is a business, not a
lifestyle choice, and managing the business is in the first instance up to the
farmer. Accordingly, the focus of Commonwealth policy would be on creating
financial instruments which would enable farmers to even out their highly
variable income from year to year, assisting marginal farmers off the land, and
providing training and counselling for those who were forced to move off their
farms.
One of the stellar achievements (we thought) was that
Cabinet agreed that we would no longer be in the business of providing interest
rate subsidies, spectacularly bad public policy which disproportionately channels
funds to the most highly indebted farmers, some of whom should no doubt be
assisted to move off the land rather than being assisted to remain on it.
Unfortunately this part of the package was blown away by
President John Howard when it faced its first test. I say President because
Prime Ministers are as their name suggests first among equals, people who run a
Cabinet and consult their colleagues before making any important decision, after
giving their colleagues due notice and giving them time to obtain advice from
their departments; Presidents don’t need to bother with all that bureaucratic
stuff, they get things done, they just issue Executive Orders.
Soon after the policy was adopted President Howard donned
his Akubra and his elastic sided boots and went off to survey flood damage on
the Namoi – in the heart of John Anderson’s electorate of Gwydir. At his caring
and concerned best he spoke on camera to a local farmer and asked him how the
Government could best help him. “We are really going to need an interest rate
subsidy” said the farmer. “Done” said President Howard, with John Anderson
standing at his side.
So we were back in the business of interest rate subsidies,
but now we are going to change all that.
Following the death of a distinguished old boy of The Armidale School, Rex Budd DFC, in November last year, I was asked to write a tribute to him for the February edition of the Old Boys’ Magazine.
This is reproduced below. Copyright in the image belongs to the Australian War Memorial.
Rex Robert Budd, DFC (1935-2010)
Flight Lieutenant Rex Robert Budd DFC died on 4 November 2010 after a short battle with cancer.
Rex was born in Murwillumbah on 5 September 1935. He grew up in Murwillumbah, and attended The Armidale School from 1950-52. He participated very actively in the life of the school, being a member of the Dramatic Society for the three years of his attendance, a member of the Swimming Team, the Choir, and the Library Committee, a Sergeant in the Cadet Corps, and a Monitor in his final year. He received a Merit Award, and matriculated with Honours in Maths.
After leaving school he spent time at Nerrigundah station outside Quilpie, roo shooting and filling in time until he was old enough to join the Air Force.
After joining the Queensland University Squadron at Archerfield to undergo his National Service training, he was accepted into RAAF pilot training. He graduated top of his flying course and served in flying roles with two Air Trials Units (Meteor), two Fighter Operational Conversion Units; 3, 76, 79 Fighter Squadrons (Vampire and Sabre); 5 and 9 Squadrons (Iroquois and Bushranger gunships)and in administrative appointments with other units.
He served two operational tours of duty with 9 Squadron between 1968 and 1970 flying Iroquois helicopters during the Vietnam War. He was the first RAAF pilot to log 1000 hours during that campaign and was the third of five gunship flight commanders, all having previously flown fighter aircraft.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his superior leadership, courage and devotion to duty during 625 days service overall in Vietnam. During that service he showed both his daring and his innovation. On one occasion he rescued six SAS soldiers who were under enemy fire, lifting the patrol out of the jungle on 45 metre ropes, needless to say coming under fire himself in the process.
He was the third of the five “Bushranger” gunship flight commanders to serve with 9 Squadron. This gunship variant of the Iroquois helicopter, was a simple yet very effective air weapons system, created through typical Aussie ingenuity. Legend has it that the prototype aircraft was constructed from weaponry and other components bartered from the Americans for slouch hats and Australian beer. The whole Squadron contributed to the development of the project in some way and it was a fine team effort.
After returning home from Vietnam he started his own helicopter mustering business based in Mareeba and became one of the pioneers of helicopter mustering. On so doing he recognised the skills needed from people who had worked in the bush and who understood stock – he felt that it was easier to teach a stockman to fly a helicopter than to teach a helicopter pilot how to be a stockman.
As he worked his way around the various properties Rex kept a weather eye out for good stockmen who were interested in becoming pilots. He was a man of generous spirit. In 1972, in the early days of helicopter mustering, he went to Highbury Station where Kerry Slingsby was head stockman. Kerry Slingsby had started his working life at age 14 as a ringer in outback Queensland and by the time he was 24 he was head stockman at Highbury. Highbury had invested in its own helicopter and pilot, but the pilot had little livestock experience. Rex took suggested that Kerry that he learn to fly the helicopter himself, took him for his first ever helicopter ride, the whole matter was settled over a bottle of rum, and Rex handed Kerry a cheque for $1000 to help pay for him to have the necessary flying training at Long Beach in the US. Rex didn’t leave Kerry to sink or swim. After Kerry had been in the US for a while he received a telegram from Rex saying, “By now you will think a helicopter is totally impossible to fly but stick at it and it will come to you”. When Kerry returned to Australia Rex gave him a mustering endorsement.
Some time later Kerry went to Kununurra in the Kimberley and started his own mustering business, branched out into charter and tourism, and by the time he sold the business two years ago he owned 25 helicopters and 25 fixed wing aircraft. Kerry Slingsby was just one of several people who launched themselves into successful helicopter mustering businesses after coming into contact with Rex.
In his spare time Rex enjoyed motor bikes, cars and gardening, for which he had a particular talent.
He is credited with the importation into Australia of the Hughes/Schweitzer H269 piston engined helicopter and its application to mustering cattle.
If there is one thing I have learned in forty years in public policy it is that raising “doubts about the science”, as well as being the first resort of the naïf, is the first, second and final resort of the scoundrel. They teach it in Defending Vested Interests 101.
So here we go again; there is a report entitled Holes in science of Murray plan in today’s edition of The Weekend Australian (see here) which informs us that:
In technical volumes published with the guide, the Murray-Darling Basin Authority said the complexity of hydrologic modelling made it difficult to consider a large range of scenarios on sustainable diversion limits in a timely way. Hydrologic models have been developed for all major rivers in the basin in conjunction with the states and the CSIRO.
"Overall, about 80 per cent of current surface water use under current diversion limits in the basin is explicitly represented in the hydrologic modelling framework," the guide says.
The technical volume concedes the authority had developed another analytic tool to examine the numerous water flow scenarios in a timely way as it developed recommendations on diversion limits.
In response to this
NFF chief executive Ben Fargher said he would challenge how the plan had identified environmental assets for protection and the modelling for environmental water requirements.
"They are saying because of the complexity of all the hydrological models it has been difficult for them to do the modelling, and so they've used analytical tools," he said. "We are not confident in that. In our view it is not robust, not good enough and we are going to challenge it."
NSW Irrigators Council chief executive Andrew Gregson said the guide's modelling "has holes in it" and the authority needed to be 100 per cent certain, given the enormous ramifications for the communities along the river.
Never mind that Wentworth Group Chief Executive Peter Cosier says that the science underpinning the analysis is “some of the best in the world”, and that MDBA itself says that the 20 per cent of water flows not represented in hydrologic models would not affect recommendations about water allocations or environmental flows because it had been accounted for by an additional analytic tool. If you are not “100% certain”, there are “doubts about the science”.
Where have we heard this before?
The example of climate change is too obvious to need labouring, but I mention it here for the record. If you cannot tell me the exact date on which the last glacier in the Himalayas will disappear completely, there are “doubts about the science”. Of course the central question is, as Professor Ross Garnaut reminded us in his Cunningham Lecture at the Academy of Social Sciences on 9 November, what if the mainstream science is right?
Another area in which “doubts about the science” is a constant refrain is the area of quarantine risk assessment, as I discovered in 1996-97 when I was Secretary, Department of Primary Industries and Energy and, ex officio, Director of Quarantine, the person who exercises all the statutory powers relating to plant and animal quarantine.
Australia has treaty obligations under the World Trade Organisation’s Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement not to use quarantine measures as a barrier to trade: we are obliged to work on the basis of a scientific assessment of the quarantine risk. The quarantine risk assessment is not an on-off switch yielding an answer as to whether we will or will not permit imports; it is intended to establish the basis on which the risks can be managed, while allowing trade to take place, with imports being prohibited only in the cases that present a very high risk of unacceptable consequences.
In my experience, just about every time we put out a draft report for industry comment the comment was that we had got the science wrong. When we responded that the assessment had been undertaken by an independent panel of scientific experts we were told that they were the wrong experts and that they weren’t independent because at some stage in the past they had undertaken work for someone who, it was alleged, had a vested interest in the outcome of this enquiry.
We decided to overcome these endless scraps about the independence of the scientists and the quality of the science by introducing new procedures under which we would consult the relevant primary industry sectors about the panels we proposed to appoint for any given quarantine risk assessment, in the interests of clearing away any issues about the appointees before the work was done.
I then led a round of consultations with the various industry associations to brief them on the proposed new procedures and obtain their reaction.
Most of these bodies were mature and constructive in their response to the proposals, but some of the most passionate resisters to import competition were utterly recalcitrant. Most notable of these was the Grains Council of Australia, with which there was a long-running issue about the importation of feed grains.
When I started to outline the proposed new procedures to them the leader of their delegation cut me off with a question: “What are the appeal provisions?” I suggested that he might like to hear about the procedures before discussing what remedies were available if the industry felt that the assessment had not been conducted appropriately.
“I am not interested in the procedures, just in the appeal provisions”, he replied. When I asked how come, he replied with words to the effect that “you people” will lie and cheat your way to whatever outcome you want, “so I am only interested in the appeal provisions”.
Leaving aside the offensiveness of his conduct, his bottom line was that he was not going to compromise the Grains Councils’ ability to say that we had got the science wrong by getting drawn into the process of agreeing on a suitable panel to conduct a quarantine risk assessment.
So when you hear someone say "there are doubts about the science", reach for a lump of 4"x2".
There is bound to be near-universal agreement that establishing a comprehensive plan for the management of the Murray Darling Basin is a very complex and challenging piece of public policy, the implementation of which would require political leadership of a high order. The Murray Darling Basin is the third largest river basin in the world, and by far the driest. Its waters have been substantially over-allocated, a fact that has been recognised since the early 1990s, and it has outstanding conservation values, some of which we have international obligations to protect. It plays a central role in Australian production of food and fibre, and some townships depend to an important extent upon irrigated agriculture and the maintenance and management of irrigation assets.
On a matter of such complexity and importance one might expect the responsible Minister, who at the end of the day has to take the Basin Plan to Parliament, to take a leading role in managing the politics of the issue.
Au contraire, the Murray Darling Basin Authority unveils it to a startled world late one Friday afternoon, all hell breaks loose, and The Weekend Australian for 23-24 October, under the headline Minister distances himself from Murray-Darling Basin report, quotes the Minister for Water etc., Tony Burke, as saying (see report here):
The guide is not government policy, it is not my document, I have deliberately made sure I did not launch it.
And just in case you were still in any doubt as to whether the Minister was up to the task he rushed off and sought legal advice from the Solicitor-General as to whether the Authority was giving effect to its onerous duties on a sound legal basis or whether he might have grounds to instruct the Authority to listen harder to the people making the most noise.
A Minister made of sterner stuff might have seen handling an issue of such pith and moment as a wonderful opportunity – the best opportunity he will ever get to demonstrate that he is able to deliver major reform. As it is, Tony Burke has made the Commission’s task immeasurably more difficult and signaled to the opponents of reform that the Government does not have the stomach for this fight, thereby encouraging them to mount an even more vociferous campaign, confident that it will work.
Had I been advising the Minister, I would have advised him, far from disowning the Authority’s Guide, to launch it at the opening of the business day and to set the rules of engagement for the consultation process that it is designed to set up. I would have suggested that he use the following talking points at the launch:
- We are here today to launch the Murray Darling Basin Authority’s Guide to the Murray Darling Basin Plan.
- This Guide has been developed by the Murray Darling Basin Authority pursuant to the Water Act 2007, legislation which was introduced into Federal Parliament by the Howard Government and passed with the support of the Australian Labor Party.
- It has been developed to expose for public comment the Authority’s thinking about how it should go about its task of balancing environmental, economic and social requirements, subject to making certain necessary provision for the health of the river and its ecosystems.
- This is a very ambitious and challenging exercise. No-one has ever attempted anything like it on this scale. The Murray Darling Basin is the third largest river basin in the world, and by far the driest. It is host to unique, world class ecosystems, some of which we have international obligations to protect. At the same time, it is the source of the livelihood of many enterprises, industries and communities built around irrigated agriculture.
- It has been recognised since the early 1990s, and by many commentators before that, that the waters of the rivers in the Basin have been substantially over-allocated and that these allocations must be wound back. Winding these over-allocations back will take time and will need to be handled with sensitivity because the over-allocations have themselves been in existence for long enough to become embedded in the social and economic fabric of the Basin, and to an extent the wider Australian community.
- The Government recognises these issues but none of them can be allowed to distract the Government or the Australian public from the fact that we have to make the changes that will protect the health of the river systems upon which everyone in the Basin relies. Without healthy rivers no-one in the Basin has a long-term future.
- The Authority estimates that in order to protect the health of the river and its high value ecosystems it is necessary to reduce diversions from the river by between 3,000 and 7,600GL per annum.
- On the basis of the social and economic analysis that has already been undertaken, the Authority has assessed that any reduction of diversions greater than 4,000GL per annum would involve social and economic costs that would outweigh the additional environmental gains, and so the real focus of our attention is where in the range 3,000-4,000GL per annum the line should be drawn, the trajectory by which we get ourselves to the desired point, and the adjustment mechanisms which need to be brought into play.
- The Guide makes clear that as well as the global cuts to diversions it is necessary to distribute the reductions geographically so that additional water is available for the environmental assets at the places where it is needed. Much of this additional water has a cumulative environmental effect – the waters of the Basin have done a lot of work by the time they reach the Murray Mouth and the Coorong.
- The Authority itself recognises in the Guide that further work on the social and economic impacts needs to be undertaken, and it has already commissioned some of this. The consultation process will lead to further information and insights.
- For its part, the Government has guaranteed, and I reaffirm today, that there will be no cuts to anyone’s water entitlements – the Government will achieve the necessary reductions only by purchasing water from willing sellers. The purchases that have already taken place represent a good start on what is required.
- It is important for all participants in the consultation process to recognise that this Guide I am releasing today is not the Basin Plan, nor is it a draft of the Basin Plan. It simply sets out for public comment the current state of the Authority’s thinking about how it should go about framing the Draft Plan.
- In framing your comments, I would ask all participants to work on the basis that the feedback that will be of most interest to both the Authority and to me will be the potential impacts on the respondent of what is set out here. We want to hear from irrigators and irrigation managers how the proposals will affect them, from local government and community organizations how the proposals will affect their communities, and from other regional business people how the proposals might affect their businesses.
- If you think we have got the science wrong or the socio-economic analysis is deficient or incomplete, we will welcome your comments and take your concerns seriously, but in the interests of a constructive and civilised debate I would ask you in making your comments to bring forward the scientific evidence or socio-economic data or analysis that you find more compelling.
- I would also ask participants to remember that at the end of the day we must achieve a substantial reduction in allocations, with an appropriate geographic distribution, so please bear in mind that if you seek a lesser reduction for your enterprise or community, that may come at the cost of a greater reduction elsewhere.
- I now ask the Chairman of the Murray Darling Basin Authority to make a few remarks about the consultation processes that the Authority proposes to undertake over the weeks and months ahead.
My guess is that if the Minister had adopted something like the above approach he would now be running a manageable political process, one from which he would have prospects of emerging looking like someone who can get things done.
He chose not to go that way, and sadly my current expectation is that the failure of Murray Darling Basin reform will take its place alongside the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, the Mineral Resource Super Profits Tax and the Home Insulation Program as a case study in how not to do public policy.
Two photographs taken at Armidale Airport in about 1959, at what we used to call an “air pageant”. Mount Duval can be made out in the background.
Not sure of the aircraft type – I was told at the time that it was a DH-60 Gypsy Moth (some of which were fitted with Genet radial engines), but I am not so sure.
Two Cooperative Research Centres that have their headquarters at the University of New England have received Awards for Excellence in Innovation during the Cooperative Research Centres Association’s annual conference in Canberra in late May.
The Poultry CRC won its award for education, training and outreach – for Poultry Hub, an interactive online educational resource. Poultry Hub is being developed to support the transfer of information from R&D into industry as well as supporting the education and training aims of the CRC.
The Sheep CRC’s Precision Sheep Management (PSM) initiative received an award for innovation in science and technology.Accepting the award on behalf of the CRC, its Chief Executive Officer, Professor James Rowe, described the PSM as follows:
Essentially, Precision Sheep Management is a package of tools for graziers to move the management of their sheep from a mob to an individual basis. Historically, shepherds looked after the whole flock. Over time, that moved to farmers dividing sheep up into groups based on age, sex, type or breed, and managing these as mobs.
Now, with affordable and robust technology, we can monitor and manage each and every animal in the mob according to its needs and merits, as well as the farmer and the market’s needs. It’s a whole new approach to livestock management, and it’s driving productivity improvement.
It is sad to read the report in the 7 May 2009 Australian Financial Review (p. 8) that Land and Water Australia (LWA) is to be abolished and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) is to have its budget reduced from $13 million to $10 million (i.e., a 23% reduction).
Land and Water Australia began life in 1990 as the Land and Water Resources Research and Development Corporation, an R&D Corporation established by the Hawke Government under the Primary Industries and Energy Research & Development (PIERD) Act 1989.
It acts as a research investor and research broker developing, in collaboration with industry, government and local communities, research programs directed to the development of the knowledge required for sustainable management and use of Australia’s natural resources. In 2007-08 it delivered a $38.7 million R&D program, leveraging its $13 million budget appropriation to $38.9 million through its collaboration with other government agencies and industry. Given that we have custodianship of a land mass of about 7.5 million sq. km., with great geographical, climatic and biological diversity, $13 million p.a. of Government expenditure does not strike me as excessive, even in the toughest of times.
I have been through one of these R&D corporation executions. It was my sad duty as Secretary, Department of Primary Industries and Energy in 1996 to preside over the wind up of the Energy Research & Development Corporation.It is never an elegant procedure – simply a matter of shutting everything down, paying all the bills, switching off the lights and sending everyone home, no matter how important, high quality or close to completion any given program might be.
No doubt there will be some fine words at budget time about how LWA has done a great job but its job is done, the baton will be picked up by the Caring for our Country Program, or CSIRO, or someone. Don’t believe a word of it, it never works that way.R&D is a delicate flower.It is not possible to break up research teams and shut down programs and have everything continue as though nothing has happened.And as this is about saving money, there is by definition a clear intention to reduce expenditure on the function.
The Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) was established under the same legislation as LWA. It is an interesting and important body because it is the home for funding R&D projects which cut across rural industry in general and thus cannot readily obtain funding from any of the sector-specific R&D bodies, and for R&D relating to new and emerging rural industries. I find it hard to explain why its budget is as small as it is, let alone why anyone would want to cut it.
Reductions of this kind at the present time raise a larger question about the Government’s response to the Global Financial Crisis. The Government has, for understandable reasons, spent tens of billions of dollars attempting to stimulate consumer spending and the housing industry, in the interest of sustaining employment levels.That is all very well and good, but given that just about every consumer product is manufactured overseas, it is a mystery why the Government chooses to stimulate consumer spending to the point where it feels it is necessary to bring about the abolition of the jobs of people who are currently employed in contributing to the business of government, such as people working on rural R&D programs, people collecting essential data for the Bureau of Statistics, or self-employed contractors working for government agencies.
