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.