Building a sustainable society | Planning News February 2020
Australia is facing the same crises we’ve been facing and exacerbating since at least 1972 (see ‘The Limits to Growth’[1]). It’s time to have another go at building a society here. We ignored, or tried to destroy, the First Nations from 1770, and we pretty well stuffed up the whole place between 1770 –2020. The 2019 bushfires and now the Corona Virus have exposed our problems and, perhaps, focussed us on the future.
These are the most pressing issues we faced even before the bushfires and the COVID 19 pandemic:
· Global warming, the destruction of species and land degradation
· Population size, composition and distribution - (affecting homelessness and overcrowding, congestion and long journeys to work, excessive car-use and exposing a history of colonialism, inequity and exploitation).
· A shaky economy, skills shortages, worsening unemployment and underemployment (Peter Harris was onto this in 2019). Especially youth unemployment. Many commentators have been pointing this out for years.
As at September 2020 we also need a plan to recover from drought, bushfires and COVID 19. The following is proposed as a discussion paper.
2050 Vision
Planners can contribute to building the third version of Australia. We need a shared vision and we need to learn from our mistakes. If we are going to;
· slow and reduce global warming,
· build resilience to natural disasters,
· preserve our biodiversity and
· have an equitable society,
Let’s imagine the future:
By 2050 many more people than now will live in large regional towns which serve their surrounding food bowls. No one will be homeless. Everyone will be ‘legal’. Regions might all be self-sufficient in energy and water and attracting small local industries (including water recycling, waste management and waste recycling, renewable energy projects, food and goods production). Towns will be “protected” from wildfires, cyclones and flood, and be well-connected to the capitals and other metropolitan centres. Food-producing areas will be protected from urban development; farming will be informed by Aboriginal practices and be focussed on conserving resources. Millions of trees will be thriving across the country. More of our electricity, water and telecommunications infrastructure will be underground. We will be importing fewer goods and, instead, making them locally.
States will contain a varied number of regions (some regions may match Aboriginal language groups, some may be based on water catchments, some may contain two or more council areas). The states will have sufficient funds to meet their constitutional responsibilities.
The slide to privatisation will have stopped and we will have excellent public health, education, water and energy supplies. The ABC, Arts Council and CSIRO will be well funded. (All National bodies, such as the ABC, will be located in Canberra).
Population distribution - National Settlement Policy
This could include:
· Rolling out a 20-year plan to create sustainable regions each with a large regional centre. (There will be many policy levers needed such as compulsory medical and teacher placements. Perhaps we could limit the growth of metropolitan universities and put new universities in regional centres?). Regional centres would also be arts and science hubs. Think what a lot of sense this will make when future pandemics hit.
· Urban growth boundaries around big cities and dormitory towns
· Read the Post-war reconstruction documents available in the National Archive and set up a Nation Rebuilding Authority (thank you “Utopia”) to co-ordinate regional development of: renewable energy systems, massive tree-planting programs, waste management and water supplies - including desalination plants, covered reservoirs, pipelines, recycling - and with communications systems mostly underground. Upgrade housing, possibly some land restructuring if offered. Build public housing.
· Many new roads connecting some new or expanded settlements. Build high-speed rail inland between Melbourne - Brisbane with branches Adelaide - Albury and Sydney - Dubbo.
· Ensuring that Nation Rebuilding and disaster recovery includes local TAFE training opportunities.
The Federal Government has set up a national Covid-19 commission which could do instead of the Nation Rebuilding Authority. I hope they’ll be focused on public provision but sadly they so far seem pretty deficient in vision! https://pmc.gov.au/nccc/commissioners
NSW has also set up Resilience New South Wales.
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/true-hero-shane-fitzsimmons-to-head-up-nsw-disaster-and-recovery-agency
Population numbers and composition - immigration
We need to sort out the current massive backlog of visa applicants (including the 23,000 arriving by plane annually). Perhaps it’s time to introduce an Australia Card which shows residential/citizenship status, right to work, and entitlement to health, education and welfare services. Some suggestions:
· Streamline immigration policy: Reduce classes of eligibility for permanent settlement to e.g. refugees and close family reunion. Increase quota of refugees.
· Close offshore detention: Speed up processing in existing overseas regional facilities by providing funding to UNHCR. Take more refugees from existing camps in Kenya, Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Asia, etc.
· Settle refugees as part of a National Settlement Strategy: As well as going to large regional centres, Adelaide, Canberra, Dubbo, Newcastle, Wollongong, Port Macquarie, Alice Springs, Warrnambool, refugees could also be settled in small to medium-sized towns. Locations could make an expression of interest and be audited for infrastructure capacity and energy and water requirements. (Learn from Shepparton and Nhill). (We could, as part of a national settlement policy and possibly as part of restructuring Australia into regions, locate an entire refugee camp - perhaps the Rohinyga from Bangladesh - in Australia.
· Itinerant workers: let’s focus on workers from the Pacific islands. Yes, some foreign students because they’re fantastic and are keeping our economy going but the real need for jobs and sending money back home is from our neighbours and sea-level is rising and flooding their homes.
Restructure the economy – reduce unemployment – improve education
· Restructure education and training: Overseas students should have temporary visas only for the time of study and the amount of work allowed should be strictly controlled. (As a separate policy area, we should reassess our education export industry. Is it really worth it?). The impact on our education system and our cities has never been assessed. It should be.
· Why not try a 9 - 12 months paid ‘national service’ or ‘army reserve’ or national civil defence: (Mike Kelly the ex- Federal Member for Eden Monaro is suggested this) As part of rebuilding and addressing global warming and ‘future-proofing’, we should develop a Community Defence Force. For example, this could be open to anyone aged between 16 and 22 and could be taken in 2 x 6-month blocks. It could be compulsory. You would just need to have completed 12 months by the time you were 22 and then be available, as the Army Reserve is, in emergencies. High school years 10, 11 and 12 could be structured so that students can take a year or six months off and then return. Perhaps universities and TAFEs should run their own entrance exams. We should really look at all this post-COVID, especially for the class of 2020. They could be really lucky and end up very well-educated!
Getting young people out of cities, working and learning when they are fit and able and mixing with a wider population might help build a more educated, tolerant and adaptable society. Regional towns would benefit from the population growth, new infrastructure and energy and water systems and become more attractive for settlement.
The service could include:
· Building and construction; roads, housing, wind turbines, solar panels, waste management, desalination plants, pipelines, underground NBN, energy, communications.
· Bush fire clean up and building resilience against future events; access roads, underground services, temporary housing on farms.
· Training in electrical and plumbing work, disability support, aged care, maritime rescue, fire fighting, floods and other emergencies.
· Cooking, cleaning, logistics, driving, first aid, mapping, walking, camping, physical training, fruit picking, farming, tree planting and watering.
· Living and working in a remote Aboriginal community for a month. (But only if the locals wanted this!! I could imagine it might be a chore… ).
Implementation and funding options:
(This was written before the corona-virus rescue packages were announced… they show that it would be possible to fund a national recovery plan).
· Redirect the Defence budget for 20 years: Half the Defence budget could be distributed to the regions. We don’t need submarines or warships. We don’t have time or the resources to be preparing to fight overseas enemies when the country is being destroyed by the effects of global warming and the global economy and by the corona virus. It’s pointless spending money on military defence when anyone who wants to take us over can simply buy us. The recent bushfires have done more damage than any invasion could. If someone did invade us in future it would be much harder to control 100 self-sufficient regions anyway. “Divide and conquer.”
The defence forces could be reorganised to assist with the Community Defence Force and to work on nation rebuilding - increasing the capacity of regional areas to accommodate population growth, plant trees, aid in bushfire recovery and shift to renewable energy and water management. Regions would organise accommodation, rotations, local TAFE training, etc.
· Dole or Universal wage: Those doing their year’s national service could be paid the dole or everyone could be paid a universal wage.
· We could also end the fossil fuel subsidy, introduce a carbon tax, leave the war memorial alone and get corporations and cruise shipping lines and a whole lot of others to pay their tax.
Julian Golby, Narooma, NSW September 2020
PS Sorry… I would normally include pictures with this but it’s really about the future.