Concluding Comments

CHAPTER SIX

The Agreements of '92 made it a momentous year in broadening, by government consensus, the involvement of the Commonwealth government and intervention by governments generally in the whole area of the physical environment.  The Australian environment was nationalised.

The Agreements of '92 are wide ranging.  While nominally being just environmental agreements, in fact they potentially impinge on all future aspects of Australian life, social, industrial and economic.  They cover not only projects but policies and programmes.  They are both eclectic for conservation groups and ubiquitous for industry.  They are pervasive through virtually all areas of government, including transport, energy and urban planning, if the 384 commitments by the nine governments in the NSESD are taken seriously.

The Agreements are omnivorous in their appetite and global in their targeting of special interest groups.  They are a recipe for hundreds of government processes and interventions, and they rarely present visions for individual actions.

The ESD processes of actual consultation and sharing or exchange of views were in themselves enough to lift the broad generational awareness and appreciation of the concept of sustainable development.  The concept was implanted as one of the facets of Australian life.  To seek to go further and enshrine it in intergovernmental agreements is where the imbalance became intolerable.

If one takes the Agreements at face value -- and there are many sincere Australians who do so -- then they demonstrate a naïveté, an environmental idealism and zealotry, that is utterly inappropriate in this world of international competitiveness.  They are full of processes, not outcomes.  They contain no costings.  They contain no specifics and no alternative options, except those that are an inadvertent consequence of the uncertainties of what the various statements actually mean.  Unbalanced in their treatment of sustainable development, they concentrate on environmental sustainability and neglect the realities of development as the engine of such sustainability for future generations.

Yet, concealed in their verbosity, there are a few diamonds of hard truth for the future of Australian society, and a few kernels of truth that should be fostered to maturity.

This paper is biased because there is no opportunity to filter through the vast bulk of the Agreements and discuss the real meanings of sustainable development, intergenerational equity and ecological ethics.  The major task of this paper is simply to present the fact that in 1992 the nine governments in Australia made massive and wide-ranging environmental commitments on our behalf.  The diamonds and the kernels will wait, but clarification and restoration of balance cannot.

An efficient, co-operative and small CEPA, intent on results rather than power or processes, could conceivably cut its way through the mazes of interwoven bureaucracies.  Much depends on the CEPA, and its personnel, and whether the States are willing to forgo the NEPA safety net for a time, trusting the goodwill of the CEPA.  It is early days for the CEPA, and it deserves, possibly, a new start without historical baggage.

One could perhaps be optimistic, but only if one forgets recent history, not limited to:

• the rigidity of greenhouse policy against new scientific findings of less alarming climate scenarios;
• the impression of a loose cannon presented by the Commonwealth legislation on endangered species;  and
• the increase in both volume and uncertainty of government intervention driven largely by the Commonwealth.

Against this background, the NSESD aims at "creating a partnership between governments, the corporate world and community groups that have a particular interest in, or capacity to contribute to ESD".  That is a noble aim, unmet by the NSESD.

One tantalising possibility peeks through, but is unlikely for several years or more.  Community concern for The Environment may cool to the point where concern for the human environment and the human condition becomes more dominant.  The pre-eminent importance of humans, as recognised by Brundtland, may be accepted amidst concern for The Environment.  The newly rediscovered importance of human health in environmental issues may be a pointer.  Another may be that the National Health and Medical Research Council was only an advisory body from its formation in 1936, but it became a statutory body in 1992.  Recently there seems to be more concern about pollution aspects, the so-called "brown" rather than "green" issues.  National standards for human health are an acceptable concept, while national standards for greatly diverse environments are not.  Increasing populations are a dynamic way to focus attention on human issues.

If the enhanced environmental skills and the improved environmental ethics of the community at large can be proven to have overtaken the historical deficiencies, and can be relied upon to outpace increases in demographic and other pressures on the environment, then perhaps the priority of the human condition will be restored.  Governments may come to accept that care for the environment is best a personal, private enterprise matter, although repair of old damage may require government intervention.

Industry may be able to promote the efficiency of self-regulation if it can gain the confidence of the community about its environmental morality and literacy.  The community may need to be content for a time that the year of change is now past.  It is time for stabilisation and considered assessment.

Overshadowing such a development is the fact that the 1980s generation of schoolchildren has been indoctrinated with the doom and gloom of greenhouse, acid rain, ozone deficiencies and disappearing species.  They fear things that go bump in the night more than do the children of less selfish generations.  They are averse to either risk or action.  Industry and governments have yet to appreciate the impacts that will occur when those schoolchildren join the workforce and government agencies.  Dependence on government is a difficult addiction to break.

I suggest that the Agreements of '92 do not accurately reflect Australian community opinions about the environment, in 1993.  Indeed, they may not ever have reflected such opinions, even in the conservation enthusiasms prior to the Rio Conference.  They possibly would have had maximum support in 1990, perhaps in the afterglow of the Federal election of that year.

Judging from the votes and the media coverage of environmental issues prior to the latest Western Australian and Federal elections, it appears that in 1993 community emotional support for vigorous environmentalism is relatively low.  This is no doubt related in part to the economic downturn, but it may also be caused by the previous excesses of political environmentalism.  There can be little doubt that in a few years, particularly if the economy is growing strongly, there will be a resurgence.  As discussed previously, voters and workers will then include those who as schoolchildren were nurtured on doom and gloom stories, and environmental disinformation.

I therefore suggest that there is now effectively a two-year window of opportunity for responsible developments to occur, provided of course they can find markets.  This window, I suggest, will be open no later than the next Federal election, probably closing partially a year-or-so beforehand.

If this perception of public attitudes is correct -- and I have no hard data about my impressions -- then there will be a real paradox.  There will be opportunities in 1993-94 for development with few environmental obstacles raised by the public, but with new environmental obstacles raised by governments through the Agreements of '92.

There will, no doubt, be more attempts to "fast-track" projects.  But the international requirements for reporting and auditing will need to be factored in, as never before.  The legal, foreign policy, and investment implications are for others to discuss.

The formalisation by Agreements of '92 has given political respectability to several former war-cries of concerned conservationists.  The economic crises in Australia in 1992 had little apparent impact on the imbalance in the Agreements away from development to favour conservation.

Never before have Australian creators of real wealth faced such a heavy and burdensome cobweb of governments and agencies reluctant to endorse or approve development or keen to impose regulations and conditions should the developer persist.  The burden may well prove too heavy for many smaller developers to cope, while larger developers may simply move more investments overseas.  Recapturing investor confidence may be a truly intergenerational heritage.

Responsible and increasingly skilled developers are confronted with more government processes, and environmental constraints.  The Agreements of '92 portend more uncertainties, not fewer.

The Agreements have provided the opportunity for Australia to display high environmental morality internationally, but they contain elements of self-destruction for our developing nation.  The Agreements are flawed because:

• they demand additional and enlarged government intervention toward a planned environment;
• they are unbalanced;
• they are uncosted;
• they display an ethos of inaction and a nihilist version of the precautionary principle;
• they massively expand uncertainties within government policies and processes;
• they miss opportunities for dynamic and visionary reappraisal of an environmentally-literate and skilled Australia and are un-Australian;  and
• the two National Strategies lack elementary bases of credibility.

These Agreements must therefore be withdrawn, rewritten or balanced as soon as possible with a compensating set of agreements to counter or revoke such flaws.

Realistically, they cannot be withdrawn.  Both internal politics and international reporting commitments preclude such an action.  However, some key elements, for example, the NEPA, could be delayed provided an overview plan of rescheduling action is followed.

Practically, Australia could not afford continued delays and uncertainties while the complete Agreements are rewritten.  And relevant special interest groups and the community, are wearied by gabfests, and cannot afford them.  So the existing Agreements must be clarified, and some of their structural outcomes tested.

Consequently the environmental Agreements of '92 must be balanced with a development agreement based on a national vision.  But again, it will require initiative at the Commonwealth level to drive such a new agreement, with intensive support from industry and the silent majority.  Industry will require more fire in its belly than it has shown to date.  The silent majority will need to review their attitudes to comfort, selfishness and complacency, and be more rigorous in analysis of conservation issues.  Any developmental agreements must reduce the role of government and enable investment and the creation of wealth.

There is an urgent need to develop visions for environmentally responsible development with approval for Australia having a development ethos as well as an environmental ethos.  There is an urgent need to be proud of responsible pioneering, which is compatible with and indeed drives sustainable development.  There is a need to recognise that self-regulation is more efficient than regulation by government.

The nationalisation of the environment by the Agreements of '92 cannot be undone, even if the community wanted it.  But it can be harnessed and re-directed.

And, if I had a single Term of Reference for new agreements, it would be to develop an ethos that is unashamedly and selfishly Australian.  Future work must be tested against the simple criterion of relevance to Australia.

The call, "Think globally, act locally", should be reconsidered in the form of "Act globally, think Australian".

Australia has only about 0.3 per cent of the world's population yet possesses over 10 per cent of proven mineral resources and a land area of about 5 per cent of that on the planet.  Consequently, development of Australia and growth that is forceful are critically important to the world as well as to Australians.  The disproportionate natural richness of Australia makes it essential that national strategies and policies be subject to rigorous analysis of their relevance to Australia.

In discussions of biodiversity and preservation of endangered species, many of the arguments are essentially ethical or religious expressions, to the effect that Australians have a special responsibility to conserve them.

To an even greater extent, because the obligation is to both present and future generations of humans, Australians have a special responsibility to develop its rich resources.

The total environment of Australia has an extraordinarily rich heritage, uniquely favoured on the planet.  The country is rich:

• in its people;
• in its landscapes, geography and mineral resources;  and
• in its introduced species such as wheat and sheep;

just as much as it is rich

• in its endemic species of flora and fauna.

Yet the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development is dominated by the fourth component, the native flora and fauna.  People seem merely objects for social engineering.

It would be a matter for national shame, and result in an ever-increasing national debt and an ever-decreasing quality of life, if Australia managed its rich heritage with the imbalance written into Agreements of '92.

How sad it is that international and Australian investors should look at the Australian scene of environmental controls and be moved to write over this Great South Land, like medieval seamen poring over maps of a flat earth -- Here be Dragons.