Implications for Australia

CHAPTER FOUR

4.1 GENERAL

The Agreements of '92 might be regarded simply as signs of increased environmental maturity and responsibility on the part of the nine Australian governments.  Indeed, the NSESD represents a more sophisticated statement about conservation vis-à-vis development than the National Conservation Strategy and the several State equivalents of the 1980s.

It is the all-embracing sweep of subject matter, actions and reporting responsibilities of the international Conventions that provide the Commonwealth with greater scope for invoking its external affairs power.  Principle 11 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development even commits each country that it "shall enact effective environmental legislation". ⁽⁷⁹⁾

The IGAE and the two national strategies would, of themselves, be powerful means of nationalising the environment.  But it is the combined effects yet again of the clutch of international and national agreements more than each individual agreement that make them so important.  I leave aside purely political issues for others to make separate analyses.

The CEPA provides the Commonwealth with a ready-made 125-person bureaucracy to be involved.  And in addition the NEPA would provide the authorisation by the nine Parliaments to legitimise matters such as national standards.  It would become the tenth environmental authority in Australia, and El Supremo, with its own statutory bureaucracy.

The Agreements of '92 have massively increased government intervention, with such deeds as 384 commitments under just one strategy.  The fundamental question to be addressed is whether the Agreements will result in more effective protection of the environment.  This will be examined below.

The associated and no less important question is whether the Agreements will increase the efficiency of the government role in environmental issues, and whether the end result will be an increase in Australia's international competitiveness.

As will be discussed, my conclusion is that the Agreements are unlikely to cause an improvement in any of these matters.  To the contrary, as present plans stand, I see very great potential for less efficient and effective environmental protection.  And, without a doubt, the net combined effect of the Agreements is a great expansion of uncertainty, an ethos that is biased against development, and a loss of international competitiveness.  The uncertainties are illustrated by two facts.  First, it is now unclear whether the CEPA or the NEPA will develop uniform national standards.  Second, there are fatal flaws in the National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development, such that it is not sustainable nor is it appropriate to Australia (Section 3.5.6 above).  There are many other disadvantages, of which only a few are now discussed.  First, the status of the CEPA is reviewed.

4.2 STATUS AND PRIORITIES OF THE CEPA

At this stage, it is understood that there is no intention to provide the CEPA with specific enabling legislation. ⁽⁸⁰⁾  In 1992, the CEPA administered 13 pieces of legislation relating to environmental protection.  The Commonwealth government will consider at some time in the future whether or not it will legislate to establish the CEPA as a statutory authority.  As previously mentioned, the CEPA's stablemate, the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service, was created as a statutory body in 1975.

The Commonwealth is committed to national standards across Australia, said to be focusing on better environmental management rather than complete reliance on regulatory measures. ⁽⁸¹⁾  The CEPA is actively seeking input from business and industry in the development of a strategic approach to these issues.  The extent to which it can do so successfully, while still clearly recognising the substantive role played by the State, Territory and Local governments as the primary enforcement authorities, remains to be seen.

The Executive Director, David Buckingham, is continuing the consultative processes begun by McPhail.  There appears to be a pragmatic approach to potential roles for the CEPA, treading softly where State authorities may be sensitive to intrusion.  Broad or "national" aspects are being explored, ranging from important trivia like recycling and litter to fundamental economic controls like the extent of self-regulation versus government regulation of the environment.

Issues of immediate priority to the CEPA, on which it will work in close collaboration with the States and Territories and business, industry and community groups, are said to include:

• establishing the National Environment Protection Authority provided for in the InterGovernmental Agreement on the Environment;
• developing the scope and impact of the Environmental Choice Program;
• promoting waste minimisation and recycling;
• introducing national environmental quality standards, guidelines and goals;
• assisting in resolving the problems of contaminated sites;
• strengthening the reporting on the state of the Australian environment;
• identifying, publicising and seeking broad based solutions for critical urban environment issues;
• streamlining and improving environment impact assessment across the country;
• promoting pollution avoidance and new technologies;
• contributing to effective and efficient greenhouse climate change responses;  and
• contributing to the development of the Multi-Function Polis Australia, including activities in Adelaide. ⁽⁸²⁾

One can have little quarrel that most of these subjects are valid interests for some type of Australia-wide body.  Whether this should be a CEPA -- reporting to the Commonwealth Minister -- or a NEPA -- of all nine Ministers -- remains the unanswered question.  At present, in typical compromise, both are planned, so that the question does not have to be answered yet.

It is important to remember that with the CEPA, as with the proposed NEPA, it is the physical environment, not conservation, that now dominates.  This appears to be largely a result of divided bureaucratic responsibilities in Canberra, where there is already a Commonwealth conservation body, the Australian National Parks and Wildlife Service.  Thus any nationalisation of conservation issues is being handled separately from the processes discussed here.  There will inevitably be more confusion at some unknown time.

4.3 EXAMPLES OF CURRENT CEPA PROJECTS

4.3.1 Waste Minimisation and Recycling

The first contact that the CEPA made with the Australian public was the promotion of the cartoon character, B. Smart.  We were introduced by B. Smart to the new agency, the CEPA, which modestly asks and answers the question in advertisements:

Who are we to care?

We're a new agency of the Commonwealth Government.

Our job is to work with other state and local government bodies, industry, unions and the community to help find national solutions to Australia's pollution problems.  But we can't really achieve anything without your help.  So B. Smart, and play your part. ⁽⁸³⁾

How true, and yet how sad and childish an introduction to the national thought processes about the environmental priorities of this country in 1992.  Yet it fulfils the dominant imperative -- give comfort to the community, and make them participants.  The potential influence of such mass appeals, if carried on for a generation, is enormous.  But it can trivialise and homogenise the mind, and distract from any grasp of a real vision.

Yet another campaign to recycle materials, minimise packaging, reduce waste, make compost and carry your own shopping bag, is a natural for kindergarten environmentalists.

In the 1970s, when environmental laws were evolving around the globe, such appeals to the masses were commonplace.  Everybody could join in.  Everyone made garbage and waste was a subject that everyone could easily understand and deplore.  Boy Scouts, junior Rotarians, politicians and local councillors were enthusiastic.  "Pilot" programmes sprang up around the country, to favourable media coverage.  Photo opportunities proliferated.  Keep Australia Beautiful campaigns were heavily promoted, often supported by the packaging, canning and bottling industry in public-spirited attacks on litter -- and very successful ones.

There was a surge towards imposing deposits on some items of packaging.  South Australia copied some of the enthusiasms of North America, and imposed deposits on soft-drink containers.  Various reports of success and non-success resulted.  Will the CEPA follow?

Such public campaigns to involve the community in waste reduction and in recycling usually strike a sympathetic chord, and rightfully so.  Whether they are economically feasible and cost-effective is generally a local issue, often hinging on efficient management.  But they are, or could be, the flip side to increased government intervention.

There have been campaigns where so much enthusiasm has been aroused for saving waste newspapers that the receivers have been overwhelmed and unable to cope.  Not only that, but traditional, more stodgy but long-lived newspaper-collection programmes, such as one in Western Australia for the hospitals, have collapsed when the glut forced the price down.

Such campaigns will continue to surface and will gradually become viable here and there.  They will continue to attract public support, even from those too young to remember the salvage drives of the war or the old sonorous calls of the bottle-o.

One can understand the CEPA's mounting a campaign such as "B.  Smart".  Most States were probably happy to relinquish responsibility to a national body, with claims of cost-savings through uniformity of advertising and so on.  Who cares if previous campaigns have failed on economic grounds and possibly even in conservation itself? ⁽⁸⁴⁾

Ultimately, of course, as B. Smart recognises, the cost-effectiveness will be determined not at a national level on this vast continent, but on a local level -- the level of the garbage collector and the local Council.  The Council rates that householders are willing to pay, plus their dedication to pre-sort rubbish, will make or break each programme.

And perhaps the findings of the Industry Commission, which mounted an extensive Inquiry into the costs and benefits of such matters as paper recycling, will be read.

Perhaps even, in time, the advertising agency and the bureaucrats who create such features will realise that to promote BYO shopping bags -- "Take your own backpack, trolley, string bag or shopping bag to the supermarket or fruit shop" -- is perhaps, in the 1990s, a little twee?  And yet new generations of new shoppers are growing up, and supermarkets are changing, so perhaps some form of extension programme will be needed for another generation or two.

These comments are not attempts to denigrate resource recycling, which is so obviously important from many perspectives.  But is some of it not economically and environmentally self-defeating?  And is it really of vital, first-priority importance to Australia at this time?

4.3.2 National State of the Environment Report

The second major community initiative by the CEPA is its programme to produce a National State of the Environment Reporting System.

Truly national matters like a report on the state of the Australian environment are being examined, over a 3-year process, and modelled on such professional but public interest documents as those produced by Canada.  Some States may object, but one can only support such ambitions for the Commonwealth government, if for no other reason than to consign to oblivion the publication Australia's Environment:  Issues and Facts, unfortunately produced by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in June 1992 as a "prototype".

Again, few would quarrel with the potential usefulness of the proposed development of various indicators of the status of the environment.  The discussion paper and the workshop were methodical developments towards documentation for domestic use and for international audits following Rio agreements.

Some parochial (State) government instrumentalities, already working on their own reports, and preferring to keep their production in-house, may prove restive.  But as an Arab commented in Stockholm in 1972 after stories of independent stances by some Australians, "I have never heard of a country called New South Wales."  A National State of the Environment Reporting System for Australia must be far more than a bound collection of nine individual reports by each government.  It must be synthesised.  The CEPA clearly has a valid national role in such an activity.  Operationally it will also be important as a database in the discussion of national standards.

4.4 NATIONAL STANDARDS -- THE CALL FOR A FEDERAL AGENCY

One can understand calls for uniformity of environmental regulations and for common environmental standards in such environmental issues as air pollution and water pollution.  Industry may believe that otherwise it can be unfairly disadvantaged, and communities may fear that their areas may become pollution havens.

It is such a call that has been the driving force for such a Federal agency to date.  Yet one must ask whether it makes sense, on practical, environmental, economic or community grounds.  One may also question whether it comes from Chairmen of industry for its reassuring concept, or from field CEOs, knowledgeable about realities of inhomogeneities.

What is more, lack of clarity in knowing what kind of problem existed, and what required a solution, led to the early discussion of simply "a Federal agency" (see Section 3.2 above).  Later discussion caused the creation of the CEPA in the first place and will possibly lead to the creation of the NEPA.  But it is still far from clear that both are needed for technical reasons, as distinct from political reasons.

The then Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, announcing the intention to form a Federal EPA, stated that:

Increasingly, the Australian community and investors are demanding national approaches to major environmental issues. ...  They do not want as many systems for dealing with these [national or global] problems as there are States and Territories. ⁽⁸⁵⁾

Similarly, then-Premier Nick Greiner stated:

I firmly believe that we must reconsider our narrow obsession with States' rights. ⁽⁸⁶⁾

It may be noted that in a companion speech, on "Earth Day", the NSW Minister for Environment mentioned that the more extreme greenhouse predictions envisaged the waters of Sydney Harbour rising around the Opera House.

Certainly conservation groups wanted more centralised and supreme power to be given to the Commonwealth. ⁽⁸⁷⁾  But industry was far from being as demanding as Mr Hawke implied.

In its Bulletin of January/February 1991, the Business Council of Australia reserved its decision about the need for a Federal EPA. ⁽⁸⁸⁾  This was at a time before the Commonwealth Position Paper which suggested (rather obscurely) two new agencies or structures.

The BCA "supports the concept of nationally consistent (though not necessarily uniform) environmental standards".  It called for "rationalisation of the present situation as a useful role for a Federal EPA, although actual administration would seem best left as a State activity".

The BCA then made the most important point about standards which has not been reflected in any of the Agreements:

Standards should ... be developed which are appropriate for the Australian environment;  based upon the actual measured impact on the environment.  There is nothing to be gained by Australia adopting the toughest standards in the world if that is unnecessary and will put us at a competitive disadvantage.

The issue of national uniform standards is a complex one, pursued in Appendix 1.  Here only a few key points are made.

The IGAE uses the terms national "standards, guidelines and goals," (see Section 3.4, above).  One cannot quarrel, usually, with the concept that national standards can be set where they are determined by considerations of human health.  One should, however, be aware that much of the risk analysis on which human health standards are set may not be an exact science (see Appendix 1, below), and numbers can be rubbery.

But such is the enormous diversity, and resilience, of the Australian environment that there may be even greater doubt about the rigour of arguments for national, uniform environmental standards.

A drive for uniform standards may lead to adoption of the lowest standard.  The IGAE provides for any government to adopt "more stringent standards" than the "uniform" standards set by the NEPA.  Thus the proposed NEPA will not necessarily lead to more consistent standards, as desired by industry.

As discussed in Appendix 1, the costs of environmental regulatory standards is increasingly recognised as important.

The proposed arrangement for the NEPA is that draft standards will be made available for public comment, together with analyses of the social and economic impacts of such standards. ⁽⁸⁹⁾

Such pragmatism is commendable, but of course it immediately gives the lie to any notion that the standards set are scientifically rigorous and immutable.  And once that step is taken, and the conceptual rigour of a standard is compromised by considerations of the real world, one can ask again why there should be uniform national standards, for environmental reasons as distinct from health reasons.

In summary, the argument for uniform national environmental standards is a fragile one.  Yet it has been the ultimate stated rationale for much of the drive towards a Federal environmental agency.

4.5 IMPACT OF THE CLIMATE CHANGE CONVENTION

The Convention on Climate Change was signed by Australia at Rio but is not yet ratified.  Before ratification is considered there should be a cold, hard reappraisal of Australia's situation.  This is only summarised here as follows:

• Australia is committed to a national greenhouse policy but several international competitors are not; ⁽⁹⁰⁾
• the Australian national strategy aims at the Toronto Target with an economic caveat;
• the Convention does not require the Toronto Target;
• the dominant US position on the Convention was taken under the Bush administration;
• the predicted impact of greenhouse on the Australian climate is now much less than when the national strategy was developed;
• greenhouse national policies and reporting have spin-off implications for energy issues and an array of industrial and community activities.

4.6 THE COSTS OF ESD

Costs were important considerations at the Rio Conference.  Principle 5 of the Rio Declaration listed the eradication of poverty as an indispensable requirement for sustainable development.  The special needs of developing countries were given special priority by Principle 6.  Commitments of several billion dollars were sought from developed countries.  The UNCED Secretariat has estimated that international concessional financing of order $125 billion will be required annually. ⁽⁹¹⁾  If Agenda 21 were to be implemented, about $600 billion a year would need to be spent in developing countries, mainly by those countries.

The Australian Agreements of '92 do not generally deal with costs of their implementation.  The affordability of the 70 Objectives and the 384 government Commitments of the NSESD, and of the NEPA and the IGAE, is not examined.  There are no Treasury analyses referenced.  Indeed the agreements are so wide-ranging and uncertain as to defy costing.  Consistent, however, with the way in which ESD discussion has proceeded in Australia, there are several references to mechanisms being "cost effective".

Section 2.5.1.5 of the IGAE notes that decisions on major issues taken at one level of government may have significant financial implications for other levels.  It is agreed that major or abnormal implications will be "considered" under some circumstances.

The cost of the CEPA is borne by the Commonwealth government as a Commonwealth Agency.  The cost of the NEPA cannot yet be estimated.

There is of course a fundamental issue overlooked in some discussions of the "costs" of environmental agencies.  That is the question of self-funding.  Should a pollution control agency seek to recoup its operational costs by fines and by licence fees, for example?

More to the point is the equivalent question for conservation agencies.  Should they be self-funding by revenue gained from exploitation of their (sustainable) resources, such as forests, parks and wildlife?  This point is raised because some States have encountered it, perhaps more realistically than has the ANP&WS, which had a budget of some $26 million in 1989-90, over and above funds from fees in Kakadu and Uluru.

The point of cost is also relevant when consideration is given to the merits or otherwise of self-regulation of standards by industry.

The National Strategy for ESD recognises that many of its "broad strategic directions and actions" will require "substantial funding." ⁽⁹²⁾  Each jurisdiction is to determine its own priorities.  Thus uncertainties are further compounded, and opportunities for non-uniformity tacitly expanded and approved.  Will each government really report to its electorate each year which of the 384 commitments it has met?

But that covers only the costs to carry out ESD actions.  The costs of benefits forgone because of ESD or, more likely, of loosely interpreted theories of ESD, are not even mentioned.  The total cost of the agreed Strategy is unknown.

What seems extraordinary is that no-one seems to have asked what the costs might be, before the nine First Ministers endorsed the Strategy.

The greatest cost, in my opinion, is not even the possible direct cost of implementing a number of the commitments and agreements.  A far higher cost is the extensive uncertainty that must afflict developers, confronted with not knowing what will happen next and what it will mean.

And a higher cost again is the unnecessary blight that is imposed on Australia's present and future by the imbalance of the strategies and the agreements, and the bias not towards a visionary sustainable development, but towards an ethos of defensive and negative environmentalism, an ethos of a poorly-defined precautionary principle.

Under such circumstances I make an urgent recommendation for a new intergovernmental agreement on economically sustainable development (see Section 7 below).

4.7 FLAWS AND OMISSIONS IN THE NATIONAL ESD STRATEGY

There are several flaws and omissions in the National ESD Strategy but only three major ones are discussed here.  They are not in order of priority.  Any one of them is a fatal flaw.

4.7.1 Wealth

None of the Australian Agreements of '92 adequately addresses the creation of wealth.  In particular, the revolutionary message of the Brundtland Commission, that economies must grow at increasing rates to achieve global Sustainable Development, is largely suppressed in the National Strategy for ESD.  Like the laughter of Johnson's philosopher, the economic imperative does occasionally break through the NSESD.  Two of the seven "Guiding Principles" are:

the need to develop a strong, growing and diversified economy ...

the need to maintain and enhance international competitiveness ... ⁽⁹³⁾

But these principles have as their principal purpose desirable environmental processes, not an ethos of development for wealth and quality of life.  Similarly, the Intersectoral Issue of Pricing and Taxation is dedicated to economic instruments that will assist environmental or natural resource management, not the alleged other arm of ESD, development.

Some might argue that ESD is, after all, about the environment and environmental issues, and that the NSESD should concentrate on the environment.  That is precisely a fatal flaw of the Australian ESD processes.  Any vestige of a vision has been confined to the environment alone.  If the very concept of sustainable development means anything, it means a balance between environment and development.  The ethos must promote development more than simply as a tool to preserve the environment.  Development can also be quite properly a tool to improve the quality of life for this generation as an end in itself, if that is desired by this generation, provided the environment is sustained responsibly.

Dare one say it -- there is more to life than "The Environment".

Somewhere along the way, the development ethos has largely disappeared from the Australian ESD processes.  The Brundtland Commission report, Our Common Future, ⁽⁹⁴⁾ is widely accepted as the basis for the Rio Conference and the UNCED process, so let us examine whether the Australian Agreements of '92 are faithful to the Brundtland findings.  Brundtland's personal comments in the Foreword to Our Common Future were not solely directed at the physical environment.  She wrote:

What is needed now is a new era of economic growth -- growth that is forceful and at the same time socially and environmentally sustainable.

"Growth that is forceful":  oh, to have those words appear respectable again, and be uttered by Australian political leaders in public, without fear of reprisals.

Those words, or their intent, are greatly diminished in the National Strategy for ESD.  They appear to an extent in the Guiding Principles ⁽⁹⁵⁾ but not broadly throughout.  They appear in Section 3.3 of the IGAE but in a half-hearted manner, short of actual endorsement and using bracketed phrasing that obviously indicate a painful birth.  Thus Section 3.3:

The parties consider that strong, growing and diversified economies (committed to the principles of ecologically sustainable development) can enhance the capacity for environmental protection.  In order to achieve sustainable economic development, there is a need for a country's international competitiveness to be maintained and enhanced in an environmentally sound manner.

The emphasis is still on a goal or "capacity" for environmental protection not on responsible development for an improved quality of human life.  One might question whether the second sentence makes logical sense, or is simply circular argument.

So, in the end, the Australian 1992 environmental strategies are unbalanced.  They place too much weight on one half of the sustainable development balance.  While such a bias persists, the ESD strategy is but another overburden to development, not a far-sighted and enabling policy.  It is not a vision but a defence.

The lack of balance skewed the ESD process from the outset, of course, by bonding of the word "ecologically" with the phrase "sustainable development".  This initiative, perhaps peculiar to Australia, incorporated a bias from the beginning and made a mockery of the concept of balance in all the debates and reports.

If there was to be a real balance, then the word "economically" might have been added to offset the added detail that was given by the word "ecologically".  But it was not to be.  In 1992, in the depth of the worst economic recession since the 1930s, the First Ministers placed their priority on the environment.  They neglected to consider the cost, much less the economic impact, of their ESD strategy, or even to mention its magnitude.

4.7.2 People

Another element that is largely neglected in the Australian Agreements, in spite of being "first and foremost" the "ultimate goal" of the Brundtland Commission, is simply people.  Unbalanced Australian environmental policies are permeated by the "only man is vile" syndrome.

Yet, as Brundtland stated in her Foreword:

First and foremost our message is directed towards people, whose well-being is the ultimate goal of all environment and development policies.

The first Principle agreed upon in the UNCED declaration at Rio states that:

Human beings are at the centre of concerns about sustainable development.  They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature.

The centrality of that message is not echoed in the bulk of the Australian National Strategy for ESD.  Instead it is the natural environment, and ecological processes, that dominate and motivate the NSESD.  Although the Commonwealth definition of ESD begins with the notion of using resources, it puts as the first reason the maintenance of ecological processes.  Increase in the total quality of life comes second.

The NSESD is coloured with the deep green philosophy that homo sapiens is simply one of many million species with equal standing on this planet.  The draft National Strategy for Conservation of Biological Diversity emphasises "no one species or generation should claim [Earth] as its own." ⁽⁹⁶⁾

The early parts of the NSESD do include the enhancement of "individual and community well-being and welfare" as a core objective.  But the body of the strategy and its commitments appear remote from the purpose.  They quickly concentrated on environment.

It is as if Australia was sliding to environmental catastrophe so rapidly that the sudden plethora of agreements in 1992 was needed to avert this or that environmental tragedy.  But the medicine is being applied for the wrong illness.  A balanced, sustainable development process depends on a growing economy being able to provide wealth, part of which can be used better to look after the environment.

None of the body of the Agreements, with the possible exception of hints in the CEPA and the NEPA, is directed towards forceful economic growth.  And humanity seldom gets a mention, except in special-interest advocacies such as gender issues, that is, women, or Aboriginals, and in diffuse policies, such as intergenerational equity.  None of the Agreements expresses a joyful and positive vision but only angry or prosaic defensive attitudes, lacking confidence, and looking to the future with a precautionary principle.  Has youthful Australia really come to such a melancholy dreary pass?  Curiously, although gender issues were treated in both the NSESD and Agenda 21, Chapter 25 of Agenda 21 which deals with "Children and Youth in Sustainable Development", has no equivalent in the Australian document.  This seems a curious inversion of priorities even if one did not make a point about intergenerational equity.

In this context, it is important to note that any imbalance or bias towards environment in the ESD strategy has gone beyond the Environment Ministers, whose responsibility it is to favour environment.  This imbalance is now at First Minister level, that is, through the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, and Premier(s) and Cabinet(s).  The Strategies are retreating further from hard technical issues into the unreality of populist politics, and further from humanity into deep green causes.

4.7.3 Australia

Finally, and most sadly, there is little in any of the National Strategies that is peculiarly Australian (except the term ESD).  There is little that acknowledges the vast latent strengths of this country, in either human or natural terms.  There is little that acknowledges the environmental potential of this country, or its unique geographical context.  It is as if the drafters of the strategies were cocooned from Australian reality but pumped full of United Nations documentation.  It is as if they were exposed, not to fresh air and the rugged, open bush but only to archives of previous committee deliberations overseas.

Such a comment is, in fairness, unfair.  The various strategies were exposed to much Australian community consultation and input.  They fairly reflect much of a certain community view.  The fundamental question is, what was the underlying ethos of the various drafts?  Was it the ethos that man is vile and that developments are grudgingly tolerated only if they can help sustain The Environment?

Most important in the whole development of the various strategies is the flaw that they reflect consensus, rather than an exciting and stirring vision for the future.  One cannot help but wonder at the dissipation of all the effort, time and resources that knowledgeable and caring Australians put into achieving the Agreements of '92.  Could not these efforts and Australian emotional and intellectual resources have been better directed towards a wider vision for Australia, acknowledging quickly the goal of sustainable development and then working out how to start and fuel the engine of the concept, development?

The Agreements of '92 are so preoccupied with an anxiety to protect the environment that they may suffocate the developments essential to afford that protection.  Why does Australia flagellate herself in this manner?  The answer must lie in the fact that conservation advocates were more successful than development advocates in selling the contents of the agreements to the bureaucracies that drew them up.

Such a fundamental imbalance also exists in media perceptions that conservation groups occupy, and operate from, the high moral ground.  Few dare to challenge them because of the potential for personal and irrelevant abuse.  While the economic illnesses of Australia have many and complex causes, it can be confidently stated that the denigration of a development ethos has frustrated recovery and diminished international competitiveness and efficiency.  The 1992 Agreements do not correct, and indeed they aggravate, such a denigration.

Those few who dare analyse or criticise the precautionary principle may expect extensive personal abuse, by those "full of passionate intensity".  Such personal attacks are a great disservice to the community at large.  They distract attention from the issue itself, and tend to trivialise it.

The "feel good" imagery of saving the planet has more emotional appeal than does development in the corridors of paper, protected from the harsh exigencies of international competition and the creation of wealth.  Consequently, of course, this way of life can only be sustained by extensive borrowings overseas.  Others can comment how long this can continue.

Australian developments often suffer in their international competitiveness from tyrannies of distance imposing transport and infrastructure costs.  Yet they suffer doubly when governments impose on them environmental policies and attitudes more suited to older, wealthier, more settled and more stable economies, with long-established infrastructure, free from such tyrannies of distance.

Perhaps the simplest way to highlight the missing ethos of the Agreements is to say that they do not admit the need for a pioneering attitude.  It is left to the reader to make a personal value judgement as to whether Australia, as a nation, no longer needs pioneers, and instead should follow a precautionary principle as a way of life (see Section 3.5.5 above).

Instead of pioneers, the Agreements of '92 promote more and more actions and processes by governments.  They promote a "planned environment", by government process and by massive, pervasive interventions.

With the collapse of the planned economies, world politics has clearly demonstrated that there is a need for a new world order.  In a similar way there is a need for a new environmental ethos in industry, government and the community.  A highly bureaucratic involvement in a centrally-planned environment is grossly inefficient in itself, quite apart from the relationship between centrally-planned economies and environmental ills.  Although severe pollution problems are not unique to any land, the carelessness and vast extent of massive pollution in the Soviet Union has few parallels. ⁽⁹⁷⁾

Bureaucracies can also lose contact with the real world, in issues like regulations, standards and processes.  Self-protection by a regulatory body against criticism can cause it to impose additional margins of "safety" in an open democracy, so that instead of a health standard being accepted, a more senior body decides to make assurance doubly sure, and adds a further safety margin for a more severe standard.

There must be a recognition that over the past two decades, as political interest in environmental issues has grown, so too have both the interest and the skills of industry grown.  This seems scarcely recognised by government which ratchets up regulations and controls, instead of ratcheting them down.

Self-regulation should be encouraged but does not appear to be mentioned in the Agreements.  The government and the community must enable industry to spend less time in process and more time in progress in order to be internationally competitive, instead of being consumed in a growing black hole of government controls.

New and far-ranging policies and inquiries are also time-consuming and do not create wealth.  The skills of productive people are spent on defensive papers, submissions and witnessing.  Not even considered in this paper are the related "initiatives" such as National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Strategy, the Commonwealth Major Projects Facilitation Initiative and National Forests Policy Statement, the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21.

Actually the Commonwealth Major Projects Facilitation Initiative appears to be achieving some success, in environmentally "fast-tracking" at least two major projects, MIM's $250 million McArthur River zinc, lead and silver mine, and the Zapopan Mt Todd gold mine.  Aboriginal issues are another matter.  It is understood that the major projects group was absorbed in early February 1993 into a new National Investment Council.

But special government mechanisms and agencies to overcome the difficulties and delays caused by other agencies and processes within government are surely an absurdity, and demand changes in the delaying processes themselves.  A new commando corps of government, fighting government for special cases, is scarcely efficient government.

The Agreements of '92 inhibit rather than enable Australia's economic recovery.  Whether the "fast-tracking" processes violate the agreements is a matter for time to make clear.  By their very existence and the excitement and plaudits they attract when successful, they indict the present state of the national environmental processes.

---

ENDNOTES

79.  Johnson, The Earth Summit -- The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), page 19.

80.  I. McPhail, "The Role of CEPA and NEPA -- Towards a National Approach to Environmental Protection in Australia".

81.  Ibid.

82.  Ibid.

83.  Press advertisements, 1992.

84.  Industry Commission, Interim Report on Paper Recycling.

85.  Robert J. Hawke, Our Country, Our Future.

86.  N. Greiner, The New Environmentalism:  A Conservative Perspective.

87.  Fowler, Proposal for a Federal Environment Protection Agency.

88.  BCA, "A Federal EPA for Australia?"

89.  IGAE, Schedule 4, Section 10.

90.  See Annex I plus Article 4, Section 2 of the Convention on Climate Change in Johnson, The Earth Summit -- The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development.

91.  Johnson, ibid.

92.  NSESD, page 18.

93.  NSESD, page 8.

94.  WCED, Our Common Future.

95.  NSESD, page 8.

96.  Draft National Strategy for the Conservation of Australia's Biological Diversity, page 6.

97.  Murray Feschbach and Alfred Friendly Jr, Ecocide in the USSR.  Health and Nature Under Siege.