Great article Gavan.

< In September, Tony Abbott announced that if elected the coalition would pursue an ambitious plan to double agricultural production by the middle of the century, through a network of new dams across Australia's north. >

I would have thought it virtually impossible to achieve, but Abbott has managed it, and done it decisively. That is; he’s shown the libs to be significantly worse than the incumbent government!!

Heavens to Murgatroid, how can he possibly espouse such a thing as a doubling of agricultural output….. in this country where we have pushed it to the max and beyond, with enormous consequences; in the Murray/Darling, WA wheatbelt, Qld Brigalow Belt and the rest.

Oh, if ONLY the Greens presented a viable alternative that could attract the votes of all those concerned about a sustainable future, to the extent of winning power in their own right. But alas, the Groans are barely any better than the Liblabs!

< Alternatively, Australia could lead the way in developing a conservation economy for northern Australia. >

Absolutely!

< It will be no easy task. The notion that national prosperity is inextricably tied to exploiting our natural resources is deeply engrained in our national psyche. >

It should actually be a relatively easy thing to achieve. The problem is not the national psyche, but the atrocious ‘beholdenness’ of our government (of whichever persuasion) to big business and to continuous rapid never-ending growth… and thus to gross ‘antisustainability’!

continued

We are indeed in a sweet spot with the mining boom. It gives us the means to develop a sustainable society, not just in the north, but for the whole country.

All we need is the right political entity, espousing genuine sustainability, with a stable population as a core requirement, and we’re away!

I think the majority of Australian citizens are hanging out for a third party that they can actually support, rather than the current situation of having to vote for which ever they think is the slightly lesser of two evils.

If old Bob Brown was to retire and someone (who?) with a bit of a better sense of sustainability was to lead the Greens, and they really got behind a coherent plan for a sustainable country, then they’d get massive support and win outright power.

The struggle would then be between the populace demanding a sustainable future and the old traditional big-business high-pressure vested-interest rapid-expansionist push, which governments have kowtowed to for decades.

Perhaps then the Libs and Labs would start competing to be the most sustainability-oriented party.

Oh dear, I do like to dream! ( :>|

Ludwig
What policies would you put in place, and how would you define a successful outcome?

The length of the mining boom will be determined by China's economic development, not Australia's policies. If we try to draw out the boom by slowing mining growth, all we'll do is lose market share to Brazil, Qatar etc. We'll also miss out on the opportunity - which will not last more than a few years - to benefit from Australia's best terms of trade for more than a century.

I agree with Rhian. There is a time in the tides of men ....

The author's objectives are noble and worthy, in terms of responsible northern development, and in the just recognition and respect for indigenous interests, development and future wellbeing; and current economic circumstance does provide an opportunity to do the right thing. One should not despoil that which is irreplaceable and of high cultural and environmental value and significance, purely in the name of quick profits, and certainly not when a host of far more acceptable alternatives exist.

I hope the author's aspirations for the north may be realised. To do otherwise would be a sad indictment on our governance and our society at large. The author's vision should also provide a key to possibilities for many other areas of heritage, cultural and national significance. Fingers crossed. Conscience, integrity, vision.

Com on ludwig, show us your policies, you have the nation waiting. Au is a sweet spot, the knockers would disagree, We are an island and that is insulation, The world around us is falling apart, the extent that we get effected by is unsure. If only Australians would bye more Australian content, it would benefit us greatly. Govt policy is not every-thing.
You can lead a horse to water but!

<If only Australians would bye more Australian content, it would benefit us greatly.>

One way to get more out of the mining boom is use it as a means of training more Australians. Sadly, the government has squandered this opportunity by allowing mining companies to source more of their labour from overseas. An extra tax will provide nowhere near the benefit of a more highly skilled workforce.

It is also an ideal time to cut immigration, as there would be plenty of demand for the skilled workers thus displaced from the Ponzi economy.

fester. it's hard to know what you are on about, Train more Australians, where are these more Australians going to come from. Cut immigration, and what. We have skilled shortage, because the youth are still at school training to be pen pushers. Fly in fly out workers, they are not tradies, just people that drive around in utes all day. Go to the towns in the WA and just hope you do not need a mechanic, there aint any, they all work for the mines. Mechanics, electricians, welders, turners.
All you will find in towns are impostors. Do not go there

<where are these more Australians going to come from.>?

Why, from the Ponzi economy of course. There is a large skilled labour force there which could easily meet the needs of the mining industry.

<Cut immigration, and what. We have skilled shortage>

Not at all. What of all the skilled workers building the infrastructure for a growing population? This opportunity will not be available when the boom is over. Look at the massive public debt and the myriad of other problems resultant from the immigration driven Ponzi economy. Continuing to stoke it makes little economic sense.

*There is a large skilled labour force there which could easily meet the needs of the mining industry.*

Fester, alot of these people have absolutaly no intention of heading
out into the heat, the dust and the flies. They want the cushy
city life.

I had a bloke from Perth deliver some gear the other day. He lasted
just a few days in a mining town. His wife could not hack it,
they packed up and left and had to borrow thousands to do so.

No money or training will get these people to change their minds.
They are so conditioned to city life, they simply can't cope in
the bush

Yabby

I'm pointing out the fact that when you try to solve a skills shortage with immigration, you create the need for many more skilled workers to build the infrastructure for them, and generate a large public debt in the process of building that infrastructure. The alternative is to train people for whom the infrastructure has already been built.

What happens if you cut immigration? Who can know all the consequences? I can only suggest that there is a large and highly skilled labour force that would become available. But with the Ponzi economy chugging along, you dont see them.

Fester, I agree with you that we should be training more people.
But its a bit much to expect mining companies to train them all.

Alot of the people that they need are engineers etc. Alot are
specialised gas people. Our eduction system needs improving for
both university education as well as the trades, to convince kids
that becoming an electrician etc is worthwhile. As it is, a huge
number drop out of their apprenticeships for all sorts of reasons.

The thing is, miners already spend heaps on training. Everyone who
I know, who goes to the NW, has to do accreditation course after
course. Its part of their duty of care. But there is absolutaly
no loyalty. No matter what a company spends on training an employee,
if he's offered 5c more elsewhere, he's usually off.

Where we had a lot of migrants come in, was when they were offered
visas, if they enrolled as students in Aus. Many bought their
visas that way, but I gather that hole has now been plugged.

That’s a very big question Peter. But thanks for asking.

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

Let’s start with broad principles:

Bottom line: we need to develop a sustainable society, and quickly. Or at least, we need to get on the right track quickly.

We simply MUST get right away from continuous rapid expansionism!

Currently, we have very rapid population growth. This means that our basic infrastructure and services are just being stressed right out and we are spending inordinate amounts of money just trying to keep them at the same (poor) level for ever-more people, instead of steadily improving them for the existing populace.

We are using the mining boom to rapidly take us directly AWAY from a sustainable future! This enormous wealth is being used against our best interests! Our future looks much worse than if we’d had no minerals to exploit in the first place!

So, policy no 1 – Gear immigration down to net zero over the next few years. Progressively lower it in large increments over, say, five years. Then match it to the emigration level from the previous year. As immigration drops, emigration will also reduce. After perhaps a decade, it will more or less stabilise.

Policy 2 – Abolish the despicable baby bonus. We absolutely do not need incentives to have more kids in this country!

Policy 3 – Increase the refugee intake, as Immigration Minister Chris Bowen desires. It would then be the largest category within a net zero immigration program.

That’ll do for a start. Your turn.

Yabby

Without all of the costs of the Ponzi economy there would be more funds available to train people.

As is clear from the ballooning public debt around the country, the Ponzi economy is not a model for long term stability. The mining boom provides a great opportunity to change.

Pretty fair start, Ludwig, but:

. Mining has been our saviour, without which we couldn't have surfed the GFC, or maintained employment despite manufacturing etc downturns;
. Immigration net zero: Hard to do (nonetheless worthy) especially with boat arrivals, and if wanting to increase refugee intake - but I don't think we should increase refugee intake, and would prefer to assist troubled nations with their education and infrastructure, so as to tackle the world refugee crisis head-on;
. Baby Bonus: Yes, get rid of it and adjust family allowances to serve the primary purpose of ensuring adequate living standards are maintained - we don't want a lot of pre- or post natal stressed mums;

My thoughts:
. Throw out the carbon tax and forget a minerals resource rent tax (MRRT), and legislate to make all minerals a Federal asset (or convince the States to hand over these rights to the Aus people, and hence the Fed gov't), and set spot price arrangements for all royalties - so there is a standard across the board, and all contribute equitably, not just the big miners via MRRT;
. Throw out First Home Owners Grants, and use the savings to support builders to directly increase the construction of affordable housing;
. Scale back the hyper plans for the NBN to fibre to the node, and put the savings to improving healthcare (including Medicare coverage for dental), and education services - with a health, education and housing focus on the needs of indigenous Australians, and make full employment for all our indigenous people a key priority, including by aid to establish heritage-based services and businesses such as ecotourism, art/craft and construction or manufacturing;
. Re-establish arrangements to enable solar power and solar hot water in every Australian residence, including via subsidy, permits, net grid-input allowances;
. Make work for the dole universal and mandatory;
. Increase direct Local Government funding, and allow greater autonomy in resource allocation;
. Simplify taxation, including adoption of Ken Henry's recommendations;
. Get out of Afghanistan;
. Independence for Tibet and West Papua.

Howzat?

I agree with the author that we are in a sweet spot. My grandfather by my age had gone through two world wars and a great depression.

I don’t agree with the author’s premise about governance. Yes we need good governance, no it doesn’t have to come from the state. Social order is best when it comes from freedom and consent, not coercion, politics and bureaucracy. The state’s contributions are generally negative: taxes, debt, inflation, depressions, wars, bureaucracy, rules and regulations, vested interests, and tragedy of the commons. Yet when people talk about what “we” ought to do, they invariably mean the state. Because the state gets all its revenue by coercion, it means it has no non-arbitrary way of knowing whether it is providing too much, not enough, or just the right amount of a service.

Agree with your points 2 and 3.

The whole sustainability thing seems vexed to me for a number of reasons.
1. how do you define it? It seems to me a dream of stasis, a modern version of the religious concept of Paradise, in which all economic problems of the scarcity of resources are permanently solved.
2. Many of the alleged problems of sustainability – for example infrastructure – are not really problems of sustainability, but of the governmental provision of services. For example, private water suppliers never regard demand as a problem, but when government supplies water we get this there-are-too-many-people business.
3. Similarly the problem as between farmers and miners is not inherent to resource scarcity. Without government’s arbitrariness, there would be no issue that could not be settled on the basis of private property rights.
4. Thus even if sustainability is a problem, the conclusion that government can make things better than worse is unsound. Governmental responses *must necessarily* waste more resources for a given output because of the economic calculation argument, which no-one ever can or does refute http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3839
5. If production is to be lesser, then we are not comparing apples with apples.

Freedom is better both for human beings and the environment.

*Without all of the costs of the Ponzi economy there would be more funds available to train people.*

Fester, its not so much about more money, but on changing processes
and wasting less of the money that we do throw at education.

Alot of the trade courses could be shortened for instance. Alot
of the time students spend at Tafe is pure waste. But of course
the lecturers want their money, its not in there interest to change
the system.

I spoke to a young plumber recently, who'd like to upgrade to being
a self employed one. The red tape thrown at him is enormous and
since he lives in the country, quite difficult to do without
internet facilities.

Our system itself makes it really difficult for people to gain
skills, we then wonder when they get disheartend and throw in the
towel, which a huge number of apprentices do.

Given that the heads of our universities earn 700k$ per year,
clearly they are not short of a quid either. So just throwning
more money at things is often not a solution.

Take a look at countries which have great training systems, like
Germany or Switzerland. Learn from those, because those countries
have been able to base great industries on the skills of their
workforce.

Even in America today, its the unskilled who are out of work, not
the skilled

Pretty Good Saltpetre.

<< Mining has been our saviour… >>

Yes, but it would have been to just the same extent, if not greater, if we’d had a much smaller rate of population growth over the last decade or so. That would have allowed us to have a considerably lower rate of primary resource exploitation in order to generate the same average per-capita wealth, and buffer against the effects of the vagaries of international economics. Very rapid population growth and a very rapid increase in the scale of mining didn’t increase our ability ride through the GFC relatively unscathed.

<< …forget a minerals resource rent tax… >>

Well, if a spot price for all royalties would work, then great. We definitely need it to be equitable and we definitely need a much better, more tangible and more evenly spread return from our mineral wealth to the whole populace…. and less obscene profits for big mining companies and obscenely huge salary packages for the top echelon of mining (and various other) companies.

<< Throw out the carbon tax… >>

Maybe. But whichever way we do it, we’ve GOT to get off of our addiction to oil. This is all-important because of peak oil, or rather; the inevitable rise in the price of oil rather than shortages, which could have devastating effects on our society. Climate change really should be a background concern here.

Peter Hume wrote:

<< Agree with your points 2 and 3 >>

But not 1?

You’ve given no reasons.

<< The whole sustainability thing seems vexed… It seems to me a dream of stasis, a modern version of the religious concept of Paradise, in which all economic problems of the scarcity of resources are permanently solved. >>

Yes, basically. Except that I’d prefer to think of it in terms of logic and common sense rather than religion or religious comparison.

<< Many of the alleged problems of sustainability … are not really problems of sustainability, but of the governmental provision of services. >>

If the population was stable, the government could provide services of an increasing quality. But it is pushing sh!t uphill with rapid population growth, and ends up on average just providing the same (or declining) level of service for ever-more people, instead of improvements for the original populace.

So the provision of services is very much a sustainability issue. It is an issue of poor governance allowing demand and supply to be out of balance, with government very strongly promoting ever-increasing demand and then forever struggling with supply.

<< For example, private water suppliers never regard demand as a problem, but when government supplies water we get this there-are-too-many-people business >>

Really? It is both private suppliers and the government that desire increasing demand. There is not enough thought or planning from government about the ‘too many people’ side of the equation. There needs to be much more of it, not least where water resources are concerned.

<< Thus even if sustainability is a problem, the conclusion that government can make things better than worse is unsound >>

You’ve lost me. Why couldn’t government makes things better? They could easily redirect the money spent on the stupid baby bonus into useful improvements in education, and all sorts of other things which could take us a lot closer to a sustainable future.

Ludwig, my reason for being agnostic on your point 1 is because my agreeing to it would depend on you first making out your reasons for thinking that government can make the situation better than worse, when both the upsides and downsides of government action have been taken into account, which I don't think you've done yet. You can't just assume or assert it.

In particular, you need to eliminate the possibility that government attempts to achieve sustainability will not make the situation worse, even in its own terms.

"You’ve lost me. Why couldn’t government makes things better?"

Because of the economic calculation problem which is explained in that link I posted. Government will have all the same problems that inhere in the original problem *and* the economic calculation problem on top of that. The result must be either
a) *greater* waste of natural resources to achieve a given outcome, or
b) lesser satisfaction of human wants as compared to the non-policy option (ie the option of leaving people free from being subject to policy), so you're not comparing apples with apples.

Peter Hume,

You really need to get over your hate of Government, it can only do you ill. Government is the accepted mechanism chosen to maintain an orderly society, and democracy is the form of government chosen by free societies as the best and fairest available. We all will have reason to find fault with particular governments from time to time, or with various policies or the way they may be implemented, but we either accept that our particular form of government generally serves the needs of our society with reasonable effectiveness, or we seek means to establish a better form of government. We have the polls, we have the media, and we have free speech with which to voice our concerns or suggestions, which is far more than some societies have available to them. But, in the absence of a better model, simply finding fault with no superior suggestions offered is simply baying at the moon. Find a few thousand people or so who may agree with your viewpoints and you may have something worth considering, but a lone voice in the wilderness bears no credence.

You appear to propose anarchy, or libertarianism, which fundamentally amounts to the same thing, and which amounts to chaos. If you have some specific suggestions for improvement, or grievance in mind, please identify them. Else, if you just hate taxes then join the club and try to make the best of it. And, please, try to think seriously about the legitimately available alternatives.

Saltpetre
My specific suggestion for improvement is freedom. Freedom doesn’t mean chaos and disorder. In fact most of the order and harmony in society does not come from government, for example, the order that is in language, art, science, morality, sport, family, cuisine, music, and the provision of the goods and services that you take for granted, like the food on your table from all over the world. It is simply brainwashing to attribute this order and harmony to government. Only about ten percent of government’s activity – the protection of rights to personal freedom and private property – can claim any credit for the downstream order and harmony. The rest of governmental activity actively promotes waste and division. My question is whether you can refute the argument, not whether you agree on the basis of beliefs you can’t rationally defend.

Nothing you have said has dealt with the issue here, which is, whether it is true that government can promote ecological sustainability at the same time as promoting the countervailing values that people want satisfied; any better than could be done in the absence of any government policy apart from protecting freedom and private property rights. I have shown the viable alternative – freedom. I have shown why governments can’t do they pretend, because of the problem of economic calculation. It’s no use trying to personalize the problem to me. It’s not a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of reason. Either you can refute the argument, or you can’t. You haven’t done so. Do you even understand what the argument from economic calculation is? Can you represent it accurately? If not, why not try to understand it? If you think you can refute it, go ahead, don’t bore me with irrelevant personal argument.

“if you just hate taxes then join the club”.
You have just shown that you don’t even agree with your own theory. We don’t pay taxes for the reasons you gave, do we, that government is the accepted mechanism blahblahblah. Give me rational reasons, not brainwashed reasons.

“We have the polls, we have the media…”

Why should you or I have to try to get what we want through the polls or the media or government, for gossake, when you haven’t been able to give one single reason why government is competent to make better decisions than the people in the first place?

Thus the problem is not “hate” on my part, it’s that you and so many statists just keep re-circulating beliefs in the state, like the dark ages belief in the church, for which you are completely unable to offer any rational justification but just slogans that you don’t even agree with yourselves. It is truly a religious mindset.

For example, the idea that government can centrally plan the optimal use of the entire Murrary-Darling Basin so as to satisfy the most urgent and important wants of all the people with an interest in its resources, is just so stupid, so contradicted by experience and logic, that you should be joining in criticizing it, not joining in blindly promoting obedience or acquiescence to what will and can only be another tragedy of the commons.

Peter Hume,

"My question is whether you can refute the argument.."

The food on the table you say I can take for granted is subject to myriad government regulations and controls to ensure quality and safety, from the farmer's use of pesticides (and their availability and usage protocols) through handling, packaging, transportation and finally presentation. Meat is tracked from producer to plate, fish stocks are monitored and subject to sustainable quotas, drinking water is processed to ensure quality and freedom from pathogens, industries are subject to environmental conditions (to obviate toxic pollution) and workplaces and methods subject to OH&S, food outlets subject to health inspection, and food subject to analysis to ensure absence of contamination or toxins, licencing used to provide safety on our roads and safe use of heavy equipment, environmental analyses mandated for exploration and mining or industrial ventures (partly to protect your 'non-monetary values' of habitat and quality of life), building standards and town planning employed to ensure public safety, amenity and quality of life, water usage is rationed to provide adequacy of supply as well as maintaining environmental values, education and health services are provided affordably and at appropriate standards, transportation, roads, garbage tips, electricity, sewage, telephone, internet, radio, TV, air travel and aircraft certification, maintenance standards and operator standards, flight crew, groundstaff, airports, airspace, emergency services, police, military, industry, and taxation to pay for these services and to ensure value to the Aus populace from production and utilisation of resources, trade unionism and Fair Work Act, etc..

In the Murray-Darling state governments over-allocated water rights, probably based on optimal conditions, with insufficient allowance for extended dry spells - but without quotas no water would have reached Adelaide at all. Without government control there would be complete chaos.

You make much of your 'economic calculation', but this is just a construct in your mind, because values and heritage of both economic and non-economic significance are in reality the very essence of government, maintained and preserved for all, for now and for the future. I say again, your plan is chaos.

How does that refute my argument? All you’ve done is list a whole lot of government activities.

The deep structure of your argument is only this “without government doing such and such particular thing we’d have worse results, because without government doing that thing we’d have worse results.”

So it’s illogical. You’re proving my argument, not yours.

In order to prove your argument, you have to show that particular government decision-making produces better results when all the costs are taken into consideration.

To do that you need to show that government has some rational criterion (rational in terms of the evaluations of the consumers of its services) for knowing whether it is providing the right amount of a service, or too much, or too little.

For example with building standards, there is a value in not having the roof fall down, and a value in economising on building costs. How do you know that government standards aren’t forcing people to pay for a Rolls-Royce standard when they only want a Holden quality and Holden cost? The difference may be tens of thousands of dollars per house. Multiply that out over all Australia, and think what better outcomes that money might produce in any of the other areas you mention, say education or parks.

Take parks. There is a value in devoting land to conservation, natural beauty and sympathetic uses. And there is a value in people having food here and overseas (human society doesn’t stop at the border); and in parks not spreading noxious weeds and feral pests. How do you or Gavan McFadzean know whether particular land is better used this way or that? The electoral process provides no way of knowing, because
a) campaign promises are completely non-binding on politicians
b) you can’t separate out the policies you want from the ones you don’t want
c) you have no say whether or not to pay for it, and
d) government has no way of knowing the balance of the different values that people are trying to satisfy in conservation versus development.

If you do, what is it?

“[E]ducation … services are provided … at appropriate standards…”

How do you know?

You can’t prove it by the fact that government provides the standards, because that’s circular. But that’s all you’ve done so far.

Different parents and students have different values and are trying to achieve different purposes. How do you know that education standards are not lower or higher than appropriate? The parents have no direct say, nor do the students. How do you know that the interests of particular children, for example the disabled or the gifted, are not sacrificed for the benefit of, say, the main stream of students, or the teachers’ union? You’re not seriously suggesting that a dissatisfied parent could exercise control through the ballot box are you?

Also, if the whole basis of government’s legitimacy is that it represents the people, and these same people can’t be trusted to ensure the appropriate standard of their children’s education, then what reason is there to presume that government in representing them provides the appropriate standards?

As for food safety, poisoning your own customers is obviously bad for business, and a business that does so will suffer losses or go broke (like the South Australian salami makers a while ago – one slip and they’re gone). They’re also liable in contract and tort. But if a government department fails to ensure food safety, they pay no price for getting it wrong, simply externalize the blame, and claim they don’t have enough resources.

“If a private business fails to perform its basic intended purpose, it ceases to exist. If a government department fails to perform its basic intended purpose, it gets bigger.”
P.J. O’Rourke

“… without quotas no water would have reached Adelaide at all.”

How do you know?

To believe that, we would have to believe that water for drinking or bathing is less valuable per litre than water for irrigating broad acres. It’s absurd.

Of course the government misallocated water rights. They have no rational way of knowing how *not* to misallocate them, that’s the whole point!

“…your 'economic calculation' … is just a construct in your mind…”

No it’s not. Economic calculation is a construct of the minds of all the billions of dispersed people concerned with all the different conflicting resource uses possible. It is the only way they can
a) express with a lowest common denominator the different competing values that they consider most urgent and important, and satisfy them in that order, and
b) peaceably harmonise their resource use and services with everyone else on the basis of equal rights for all.

It’s you who are advancing a value system that is just a construct of your own mind, because, as I have just shown, you have no rational criterion for how to allocate scarce resources to their most urgent and important social values, other than to assert in the abstract that your or government’s way is best, regardless of the wishes of the people consuming or paying for any given service, and in fact actively overriding their demonstrated preferences.

You ignore that for every such decision, greater social value must have been destroyed – else what’s that rational criterion you haven’t supplied yet? – and one group was able to get an unfair advantage by forcing another group to sacrifice their values; with everyone participating in a welter of coerced cross-subsidisations cancelling each other out. It’s you who stand for anti-social chaos.

Furthermore your argument is irrational because it discloses no principle for liberty and limiting government power, only a principle for endlessly expanding it, yet we already know that full government control is unethical and chaotic.

On what *principle* do you say anyone has any right to any freedom? Why doesn’t that principle apply to the other areas?

All the points you raised only beg the question and ignore the costs, and your argument is thus invalid.

But let’s put aside all your invalid and unsound arguments so far.

Okay. So. Your refutation of the argument from economic calculation is … what?

Peter Hume,

You argue as though governments operate in vacuo, which is so far from the case it is just not funny. Why do you think governments have scientific and practical research facilities, planning and testing organisations, a CSIRO, a Health Commission, EPA, PBS, etc, etc, and conduct community consultation, as has been happening regarding Murray-Darling water allocations and second Sydney Airport, etc? Just how much consultation would you suggest, how could it be implemented, and what overall benefit would you expect to gain? Your implied suggestion that governments should consult fully and effectively with all those billions of minds you mentioned is just plain ridiculous.

Government is spread over federal, state and local levels, and with input from a wide range of interest groups, local, national and international, from industry and commerce, civil rights, environmental, fiscal and economic. Popular movements have swayed government policy, as in Gordon on Franklin, old growth forest logging, Gunns pulp mill and Tom Price Point, Vietnam war, etc. The people do have a voice, and use it where merited. What people don't do is sit around and bitch and expect things to get better.

If you really think you have something better to offer, why don't you start up a lobbying organisation to do something about it?

For your own benefit though, you haven't convinced me that you have anything worthwhile to offer, and I doubt you have convinced anyone else on this forum. So, unless you can come up with something far more concrete than you have thus far, on this or any other thread contribution you have made on this forum as a whole (that I have seen), then I would not waste my time. Just a suggestion.

Saltpetre
"Just how much consultation would you suggest, how could it be implemented, and what overall benefit would you expect to gain?

For your argument to be sound, it would have to equal or better that which the market does.

"Your implied suggestion that governments should consult fully and effectively with all those billions of minds you mentioned is just plain ridiculous."

Why? The market does so, and does it in a way that is peaceable, that equilibrates supply and demand, does not involve massive avoidable waste, that harmonises conflicting claims, does not permit rent-seeking, and that and does not unjustly enrich one privileged group at the expense of another. The only reason you say it's "plain ridiculous" for government to be expected to do that, is because government is so far from being able to equal, let alone better that system, that's it's just plain ridiculous.

"If you really think you have something better to offer, why don't you start up a lobbying organisation to do something about it?"

Because you haven't explained why any given decision should be political in the first place.

"For your own benefit though, you haven't convinced me that you have anything worthwhile to offer"

Perhaps not, but that's obviously not because you can refute my argument, so your failure to re-think your beliefs reflects only on your irrational method, not on the merits of the ethically and pragmatically superior alternative of liberty and property over coercion and bureaucratic central planning.

All it means is that, like the mediaeval religious, you have plumped for an irrational belief in a superbeing and, being shown disproofs of your superstition, you choose to persist in in it.

Australia as a desert Island is, yes, in a sweet spot. Like a glass full of "stuff" it gives an air of OIL & COAL primed & Pumped confidence. But greedy, wanton, lustful civic and business leaders BELIEVE they can fill up the full glass endlessly. These fools are smitten with all the 7 deadly sins of immigration. All these sins have one common point: they use up mineral, energy, environmental sump(rivers,trees, swamps) and biodiversity RESOURCES. Like ALIENS leave for greener (New Zealand) pastures when they have consumed every thing of value on ours.

I don't think we care as a Nation if these chamber of commerce thieves and politicians of Greed all succumb to their sins ON THEIR OWN TIME. But Frankly, we WILL find a way to cut them loose in their own folly.

Do all the things (selectively Tax 'em HARD) that let the TOO BIG to FAIL ..Fail and watch as they all slough off the New Zealand and Tasmania like cockroaches under the light. For a short time Australia will be isolated internationally.

This won't last:

The US needs us as a Uranium source and a Pacific base.

The Commonwealth needs us for credibility

Our environment will REBOUND and we will be the only Nation that has zero climate change impacts, A huge saving that would EQUAL lost income from the lost souls who seek to destroy this land in a blaze of glory, undeserved wealth and lus7t.

The true 'sweet spot' must be in a state that fail all those GFC Failures who still believe they are "Too BIG to Fail".

Otherwise Australia faces a very SOUR future with all our resources OWNED and exploited by FOREIGN interests for the benifit of a burgeoning Australian ARISTOCRACY that calls itself Chamber of commerce, & State and Federal politicians.