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Where Are Australian Federal Party Views on Society and the Environment Heading?

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Where Are Australian Federal Party Views on Society and the Environment Heading? Presentation Paper of Japan Accounting IGES Discussion Paper 2001-No. 2. (in Association Annual Meeting in 2003. (in Japanese). Japanese). Saio, K., Kokubu, K., Nashioka, E. and Imai, Further information: Chika Saka and S. (2002) “Current status and Issues of Roger Burritt can be contacted by email as Environmental Accounting Practices” follows: [email protected] and [email protected] WHERE ARE AUSTRALIAN FEDERAL PARTY VIEWS ON SOCIETY AND THE ENVIRONMENT HEADING? Australia has, this month, recorded a played out over the next few years in population of 20 million human beings. It Australia at the federal level. remains a country with an exceedingly low population density. Australia is one of the First, a comment on the current federal driest continents in the world. Three levels Liberal Coalition policies is expressed by of government – federal, State and Territory, Susan Brown, a former conservation council and local, look after its political interests. co-ordinator and environment adviser to While local government has considerable Australian Democrats leaders Cheryl Kernot responsibility for society and the and Meg Lees – both of who have since left environment (eg policing, development the party. approvals, licensing of business activities such as pollution permits, etc.), the federal Second, is an edited extract from an government sets the national agenda. insightful speech by Clive Hamilton to the National Left ALP/Trade Unions In November 2003 a new Leader was Conference at the Humanities research chosen for the federal Opposition Labor Centre, ANU, Canberra, 11 May 2002. party - the Honourable Mark Latham. The Liberal Coalition has been in government Third, comes a solid reply to Hamilton’s since 1996, headed by the Honourable John challenge by the, now, new leader of the Howard. The next federal election is Labor opposition, Mark Latham. expected in 2004. The Australian Democrats represents a third force in federal politics. This is followed by a plea for control of Others include the ‘One Nation’ party and a media concentration made last month in small group of independent members of Parliament by Kelvin Thompson - as Parliament. reported in the daily Hansard. He feels that the media are too powerful and ignore Opinions expressed below reflect some of environmental issues to follow their own the recent, diverse views about the agenda. environment and society that are likely to be 10 Finally, an alternative perspective on media These Liberals are accidental greenies. They concentration and the environment is knew whatever they did, they would never provided by the Canadian Institutes for be accepted by some of the main Journalism and Natural Resources. conservation groups which, despite their rhetoric, cannot deal ideologically with How a blue-blood Liberal conservative governments. But they headed up a country rapidly outspending its government has quietly environmental bank account. In a green- adapted to greenie ways, tinged Senate, big political packages came By Susan Brown, Australian with an environmental price tag. Democrats. Governance for the environment is difficult in Australia. The legacy of the floundering No one expected a green-tinged Liberal fathers' Constitution of federated states Party under John Howard. Not the public, means states have control of water and much which assured most pollsters before the of the land. There are many environmental 1996 election that it trusted the Australian examples of state-federal bunfights Democrats and Australian Labor Party paralysed by competitiveness, politics and more on the environment. Certainly not finger-pointing. conservation groups, which play footsy with conservatives only when they want to The ALP-established environment policy teach the ALP [Australian Labor Party] a under Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser lesson. And not the Liberals, with a followed the trend. But by the Hawke- membership then uninterested in the Keating years, well-organised industry and environment and a policy platform tending some union groups were able to threaten to the minimalist. greenish cabinet ministers intent on wider reform. They effectively turned federal ALP But this month the Howard government agreed to start pulling environmental flow environment policy into bone-throwing back to the Murray-Darling rivers. It is the events - a new park here, an inquiry there. latest in unexpected big-ticket On ascension in 1996, the Liberals expected environmental moves by the Liberals. to go no further than the $1billion Natural Cabinet has also moved towards protecting Heritage Trust, a clever political ploy one-third of the Great Barrier Reef. designed to buy votes for the part sale of A muted press release merely announced Telstra [a national telecommunications structural adjustment for the fishing company]. But a GST and diesel deal for the industry, despite Environment Minister Democrats included a fat $1.2 billion David Kemp getting one hell of a cabinet environment package in new and changed win. Liberal environment ministers aren't spending directed to clean air and allowed to gloat because it salts the wounds greenhouse initiatives. of an already outraged National Party and The government was mildly surprised to annoys some industry groups. Yet the record note it was the biggest single amount given shows a Liberal government that has done over to the environment. Perhaps it could more for the environment than any deal with this bothersome portfolio after all. government. In the next deal with the Democrats, the Liberals achieved a complete overhaul of 11 federal environmental legislation, giving fuel subsidies. Some of the government's sweeping new powers to the environment environment spending has been slow or off- minister, and giving the community and target and it slashed environment group conservation groups the right to be funding. And environmental problems informed, to question and to go to court over continue to worsen. The State of the decisions. States, industry and farming Environment report shows we are not groups were furious. But the environment moving fast enough to overtake the rapid announcements kept coming. decline in natural ecosystems. Nearly $2 billion more for the National Still, it's hard to argue there hasn't been Heritage Trust, $1.4 billion for the National increased environmental spending, increased Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality, federal protection for more of Australia and $500 million for the Living Murray plan and more environment laws passed under this hundreds of millions of dollars more for government. And it will keep coming. There oceans, sustainable cities, water quality, land is no guarantee the rest of Telstra will be and marine reserve areas, and so on. There is sold but you can bet full privatisation would even $150 million for Queensland land come with a hefty environmental price. clearing should the Nationals stop helping farmers spoil the process with the same The forests issue is re-emerging. The enthusiasm they are spoiling much of the campaigners are not just ferals but also the land. fed-up middle class - and they are gaining increasing media coverage. Clearly, the ALP The Liberals got over their green shudder by will have to work much harder than it placing environment under the trendy imagined. Tories as greenies? moniker, an aspirational issue. Not everyone Source: Online Opinion, posted Tuesday, wants a week in the wilderness but they like December 02, 2003. to know it's there. They want clean water in http://www.onlineopinion.com.au. This the rivers, fish in the sea and control over article was first published in The the bulldozers. The government knows Australian newspaper on 25 November investors and insurers are telling business 2003. Many thanks to the editor of Online that unless sustainability is up at board level, Opinion and to the author for permission companies are taking considerable risks in to reproduce. the medium-to-long term. Despite low-profile announcements, the Social democracy under message is getting through. Although for much of the past decade the Liberals have consumer capitalism, lagged behind Labor in polling on the by Clive Hamilton, The environment, recent polls show the main Australia Institute. parties level-pegging, sometimes with the Liberals in front. Since the early 1980s, many of us have been searching for a coherent alternative to neo- Mind you, the Liberals haven't given up liberalism, for a way of reinventing social their day job: keeping the big end of town democracy in an era of global consumer happy. The Howard government still refuses capitalism. We have failed miserably. The to sign the Kyoto Protocol, facilitates left has been wandering in the wilderness, uranium mines and brings in wider fossil- 12 mouthing the old slogans to a world that is real incomes were around $9,000; today no longer interested, distraught at its they are more than $30,000. Average irrelevance, but not knowing where to turn. households today are filled with big-screen TVs and DVDs. When we overfly the The vacuum has been filled by the pallid suburban expanses of Sydney, we see apologetics of the so-called Third Way - backyards dotted with swimming pools. It is Thatcherism with a human face. The Third nothing for an average parent to spend Way is the way that no-one can define, a $1,000 on a present for a child or to buy program in search of a rationale, a social them a personal mobile phone. Ordinary analysis in which conflict is conveniently families happily shell out $40,000 for a four- replaced by complexity, and in which any wheel drive play-thing and gamble away a talk of power is taboo. few thousand dollars each year merely for entertainment. They avail themselves of Around the world, we have seen the parties sophisticated healthcare when it’s needed. of the left transformed into their opposite, Almost everyone has access to good quality with the spin doctor elbowing out the policy primary and secondary education.
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