This article seems to contain contradictions such as the need to burn native forest for healthier trees and grassland, but surely burning creates CO2. The whole question of agriculture and emissions seems to be a vexed issue, particularly if more factors are added such as use of diesel and fertiliser and the creation of methane by grazing animals. Therefore I think there is no mileage in any form of extra financial reward for farming on account of trees planted or not cut down. The PM's long awaited carbon report may have other ideas, not necessarily correct.

Maybe the salvation is that farmers could do OK under business-as-usual. The world will have more hungry people and less reliable rainfall but then again oil based fuel and fertiliser is getting expensive. We'll just have to take it as it comes.

I take Don Burke's point that 'the land' is not where we should be looking for an environmental fix. However he neglects to mention a couple of points: first, historically farming is an explotative activity, although today's farmers are often very green and are fighting to overcome the foolish practices of the past that have led to soil degradation and dry-land salinity. Modern-thinking farmers don't clear wetlands, they farm in a way that the will allow the land to have value for their children.

Second, as for the 15% of farm area being turned over to 'greening', most often much of this is done on unuseable sections of properties (creek areas, roadside boundaries etc) and has little negative affect on a farm's productive capacity and often enhances it as green areas turn into wind breaks etc. Also, the government through various schemes rewards farmers for this 'sacrifice'. It makes good business sense.

I'm not much of a whale fancier although I'd not like to see a whale species (nor any species) go extinct. I think there is a shrillness to come conservation rhetoric. Likewise for Mr Burke to attribute the clearing of the Moree wetlands as an act desperation seems equally shrill. The clearing was not done by 'farmers' it was done by an individual and on a massive scale. Don Burke's defence of it leaves me wondering about his 'environmentalist' credentials.

Why use the word "bashing" in your title?
A typical right wing polarising ploy maybe?
And perhaps some or even many of our farming practices are unsustainable?
Meanwhile the Australian Environment Foundation is another "conservative" front organisation associated with the IPA which has as its purpose to counter and undermine the credibility of the environmental movement altogether and to lobby for the dismantling of environmental protection legislation altogether---let the "invisible hand" of the market rule!

Meanwhile these two books/websites give a completely different picture of how "free" the markets really are and the role of outfits such as the IPA in promoting the gospel of "I Shop Therefore I Am" or "When In Doubt: Go Shopping".

1. http://www.benjaminbarber.com
2. http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/missionaries.html

Needless to say the two authors are loathed at the "right" thinking IPA.

Problems with the economic management of farms is long standing from the improper introduction of non-native species to the over subdivision of land with soldier settlement blocks to agarian socialism.

If provided said funding must be for change management and transition from the farms, rather than sustaining unproductive enterprise. In the nineties, thousands of white collar middle managers were dislodged, owing to the flating of organisational structure. These folk needed to re-skill. Some retrenched managers entered a second career path -at middle age- and others purchased franchises. The white collar workers adapted. Most adapted successfully, without the special help,as is so often provided to farmers.

1. Farmers should not be treated as a special class people.
2. Farmers need to adapt or at least differentiate their investments
3. Funding should not focused in a way that old uneconomic practices
are repeated over and over.

I came across these two references yesterday. One in Readings in Carlton and the other via an internet link.

1. http://www.blessedunrest.com
2. http://www.bioneers.org

The author of ref #1 is a successful businessman.
Altogether he praises the role of peoples activist groups and NGO's, including the multi-faceted anti-globalisation movement.
Needless to say the IPA ideological hacks promote the entirely contrary view. In the case of NGO's they argue that these organisation have hijacked "democracy"---a bit like the pot calling the kettle black especially in the light of the Consume and Free Market Missionaries websites I pointed to in my previous post.

I have known of the Bioneers for years when they were regularly featured in the marvellous Co-Evoltion Quarterly and Whole Earth Catalog published by Stewart Brand and the Point Foundation---way back in the 70's and early 80's.

Totally agree with the article. Those who actually live out on the land will recognise that this has been the case for some time, but of course, those who are actually in the area will be denounced as farmers or sympathisers, while the uninformed will continue to use farmers as a scapegoat, aided by the federal government.

The worst thing is that periodic clearing is necessary land management. Before settlers prevented or contained fires, bushfires would rage across the country and it was a necessary part of the land cycle.
Aboriginal elders who have been on the land for many years agree - they weren't averse to using fire to manage the land and see it prosper.
Yet now we refuse to do so based on outmoded principles which are damaging the land we seek to protect. Such stupidity.

Whats more, the federal government will now claim that they're meeting kyoto because of programs they have put in place - never mind the fact that it's this issue which is getting them there and it's farmers doing the heavy lifting without assistance.

Burke is totally right. We all like to look and think of cute little seals when it comes to the environment, but boring, practical measures that happen to be contrary to the ideals we've come to believe in are rejected as being the whinges of farmers, so it's just tuned out.

Interesting to see the references to a certain farmer at Moree. So many also call for farmers to be more business-like and self-sufficient. Well, on the scale that this particular farmer operates, he calculated in a business-like way that the production he would make from the cleared lands would far outstrip the cost of the fines he would get from clearing it (note that on the scale that most farmers operate, this would not hold true - this bloke is a very big operator). So he went ahead and cleared the land. It makes him more viable, why not?!

Problem is, that as a whole we want farmers to make enough money to look after themselves financially, we dont want to pay any more for our milk, bread, fruit, vegies and meat, AND we want them to sacrifice profit for the benefit of the environment as a whole. Farmers cannot be all things to everyone. As a nation we need to decide what is most important (environment, farmers that get no tax-breaks, cheap food etc), and then be prepared to pay the price as a whole.

Oliver,

I don't think farmers want to be treated as special but there are very real reasons to do so.
-Ag exports constitute some 20% of total export value(higher before resource boom)
- Ag related industry drives 10% of GDP although farm gate value is 3% of GDP
- Our farmers are not subsidised, nor protected by tariffs. Our level playing field isn't level.
- We can't afford to lose the experience gained by our current farmers over long periods of time. If too many exit the industry the vacuum cannot be filled properly when the drought ends.
- climate change, if thats what we're facing, should not be borne by farmers alone, but the population as a whole.
- farmers have a triple whammy at present as a result of the high AUD due to resource prices and interest rates, a combination of resource based inflation and consumer credit/mortgage bubble. None of it attributable to farming, nor benefit gained by farmers.

Which you are 'we' Country Gal'?

Doesn't look like you are in WA where Big Biz through deregulation, would have had all the dairy farmers broke, except the milk Cockies being able to sell out owing to high land prices because they are so close to the cities.

Wheat cockies are battling also, owing to grain prices not much higher than back in the 1970's.

Then we have American plus European growers being spoon-fed with subsidies while the Aussie cockie is told the economy can't afford it.

Well, if the economy cannot afford it now, when will it ever?

With our quarry and our pitstocks booming to Chinese and Indian demand, WA has become like a 19th century colony again, now magnified, with us the home country, the nation's businesses growing fat on the same old colonial principle, money being spent mostly on infrastructure which is not expected to last, but only mostly to do with the quarry and pit mentality, much of the news mostly about sport and the multiplication of billions made by mining entre-rep's per gratis again of China and India.

The only chance for the cockies now is to take a chance and risk money on pit plus quarry stock shares, the young ones a bit tentative, because old great granpa had always been told that risking money on the share-market was like backing a horse with either a gammy leg or a crooked jockey - and anyway it was still a shonky way of making money. Never ever made you really proud like having to wait for a whole season praying for rain, and cursing that ancient Bugger up there, when rain peters out, and giving thanks a little when it does rain, but not enough - bit like Fiddler on the Roof.

What a bloody life?

Cheers.

Don this article is not a good expression of the issue. Lots of problems here:

“the biggest producer of greenhouse gases is government.”

That’s a pretty strange way of putting it. The components of this are attributable to our whole society, including farmers.

“With the end of these fire regimes, trees and shrubs have sprung up to dominate.”

Yes. In some areas grassland has turned to woodland or scrub. But let’s not overstate it. Large areas were originally wooded to some extent.

“This has led to poor forests - low levels of biodiversity combined with overcrowding of trees leading to unhealthy growth and soil erosion.”

The country is in a state of flux, heading towards a new equilibrium. What you see as poor woodland or scrub are actually immature plant communities. I’d like some evidence indicating that new woodland or scrub lowers biodiversity. It probably does in some instances, but I wonder if it does on average? And I seriously question the ‘soil erosion’ assertion and suggest that this is probably a result of grazing rather than more woody plants.

“The farmers asked if could they clear these lands and return them, via a crop or two, to native grasslands much like those before white settlement.”

It might be appropriate to clear some former grasslands if the intent is to return them to some semblance of what they were. But of course this doesn’t apply to original woodlands or scrublands, even really open ones. These could be thinned but not cleared.

Via a crop or two? What? And then when the soil is depleted, let them be overtaken by native grasses only, with a vigilant removal of weeds…and minimal grazing pressure…..and the right fire management to keep them open? Hmmmm.

continued

Let’s face it, the motivation is not really to return these ecosystems to a natural state nor anything like it. The motivation is increased productivity. Now I’m not saying that’s bad. In fact it is good, if it is done in balance with natural systems….

15% left uncleared. Now that’s not reasonable. I would suggest something closer to 50%. A 50/50 deal for productivity and ecological processes seems pretty reasonable to me.

“Would you give 15 per cent of your land or business to the government?”

It is still theirs and much of it is still productive to some extent. Even if they were to clear former grassland, I would suggest that 50% of it should remain ungrazed or uncropped. Oh alright if you want to barter, I’ll begrudgingly accept 25%...but certainly not 15%.

“They believe the system they propose would be environmentally much better than now and it would enable them to earn a living.”

There is merit in this. If 50% (or perhaps 75%) of woodland that has thickened or grassland that has been encroached on by woody plants can be cleared, then both biodiversity and productivity can be improved. But not if it is totally or predominantly converted into cropland of monotypic introduced pasture or if natural pasture is subjected to a heavy grazing regime.

“Many of you who are reading this are the enemy.”

Now that’s a good way to win friends and support for your cause: deliberately offend a good part of your readership! (:>|

“If we want to save, say princess parrots, we need to save the entire biodiversity of their habitat.”

YES. But I don’t have too much confidence that many farmers are interested in this sort of thing. Let’s face, it is all about productivity….and any gains for biodiversity or for threatened species will incidental.

Why should we feel sorry for farmers?
Through their support for conservative political parties, who are the major greenhouse deniers and their constant neverending derision for conservationists, they are one of the major causes of greenhouse gas emissions being what they are today.
If they and their political cohorts had of listened 30 years ago instead of hooting with laughter, we would not be in this predicament today.
Letting conservatives try to fix greenhouse is like giving a horse a shovel and saying "clean up your own sh!t" it just won't happen .
John Howard is suddenly green, BULLSH!T, he is just using greenhose as an excuse to bring in nuclear and to try to mininmise the cost to his mates in business.
Using trees as carbon soaks is only tempary, when the trees die they release the carbon back into the air, Howard continually claims we have reduced our emissions , this is a lie , they have increased, we just have more trees i.e. more carbon soaks but that is not a sustainable solution we must drastically reduce emissions.
I am not familiar with the woody weeds Don Burke is on about, however if they are some crappy shrub with a short life span I can't see that they are much real value.
Don't get me wrong I am not saying don't plant trees, but make sure they are the right trees and when they die they are a bennefit and not another problem.
Funny thing is I live on a ex travelling stock reserve, there are a lot of trees well over 150 years old, so it is pretty much original.
Open grassland it is not and never has been I have at least 200 trees on 10 hectares, this is near Albury NSW.
We hear a lot of crap from Howard on the cost of reducing greenhouse yet yet my fuel bill per quarter is $1500
5 years ago it was $900, my elecricity bill is $235 a quarter so if it doubled it would still be a piddling increase compared to my fuel increase.

Ludwig said, "A 50/50 deal for productivity and ecological processes seems pretty reasonable to me". And my "bull$hit canary" dropped dead.

So when will we see half of Ludwigs house set aside for ecological processes? If he actually owns a house. When can will we see half the banks of the Tank Stream restored to their original condition? Or half of Brisbane's South Bank? Fast chance all round.

What the posts on this thread have made abundantly clear, again, is the fundamental double standard being applied by the urban majority, on the rural minority. And not just on environmental issues. Even modest tinkering with the metrocentric social safety net is enough to set the hounds baying. But those same hounds bark even louder to the contrary at the faintest sniff of a notion that farmers should have any safety net at all.

And if you don't know the difference in ecological values and biodiversity stocking rates between a firestick woodland, a managed pasture/woodland mosaic, an overstocked infestation of woody weeds and rotated crop/pasture regimes, then at least have the decency to defer to the judgement of the wildlife themselves who consistently vote with their feet.

They favour managed pasture/woodland mosaics first, firestick woodland second, rotated crop/pasture regimes a close third (or second, depending on crop cycle), and woodyweed infestations last. Well, there is one correction, last of all is the inner metropolitan electorates that exhibit the highest green vote.

You people talk about biodiversity values all the time but the wildlife themselves want absolutely nothing to do with you. And I respect their judgement a lot more than yours.

Once again, we have an unambiguous demonstration of an underlying incapacity of metrocentrics to empathise with rural people. It is not new. The ancient Babylonian words for "slave" had the man or woman pictograms combined with the pictogram for mountain. People beyond their immediate community of interest were fair game for the most fundamental abuse of human rights. Plus ca change?

The sooner we have a new state boundary between us the sooner we will become good neighbours.

Oh c'mon perseus, I live in the country and country folk are contemptous of city slickers, I think you would find more sympathy in the city for the country than visa versa.
If country people granted some validity to others point of view, and entered into a meaningful dialogue instead of their constant neverending greenie and city slicker bashing we might get somewhere. I have stopped talking to people around here, its akin to talking to a rake, although I get more sense from the rake at least it knows the value of silence.

Yeah, right, a meaningful dialogue with nutters who want half our net worth to "protect and maintain" a fourth choice habitat when they, themselves, refuse to put themselves out one tiny iota for biodiversity.

And you still don't get it, alanpoi, we don't want your sympathy, we want you to go to the far queue and mind your own business so we can fix real problems with real solutions.

Country Gal is right on the money, so to speak ......

If the way we use our land is set to make so much difference to our CO2 outcomes, then we should pay attention to our farmers and their needs - after all, they feed and cloth us !

There, that caught your attention, didn't it ?

When you look at what we consume and identify what materials and products originate with farmers, it quickly becomes clear that we could in many cases double what the farmer receives for product at the farm gate and still have a very viable price structure.

This is particularly so for milk and wool, and much of what we call "produce". The fact is that farmers in Australia are crap at getting a fair go.

I am in Paris at the moment and have been astonished at the high standard and wonderful quality of food here, albeit it a bit (not much!) more expensive than at home.

Going back to wool, the value of the farmer's wool input to a mens suit could double and the price of the suit would go up by only about $10. Same sort of deal with a litre of milk !

And why aren't we growing hemp as well as cotton? And pressing forward with developing aquaculture ? And better managing the marginal land we are beating to death in the endless search for economic efficiency at the cost of sustainability ?

Merde !

Perseus you do insist on repeatedly putting your foot in it big-time don’t you!

“So when will we see half of Ludwigs house set aside for ecological processes?”

I’m as fully into ecological compromise as anyone could be:

After three weeks on my new property I have already documented every native plant, weed, planted plant, bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian…. and invertebrate…that I have come across.

I’ve got a ‘biotreat’ system that treats all household greywater and puts it out on the garden. I’ve turned off my hotwater system, because you don’t need it in north Qld even at this time of the year. I carefully monitor my water use and I’m working towards installing multiple rainwater tanks.

And I’m gearing up to grow all manner of Australian dryland plants, after having developed a rainforest at my last place….and to grow as much of my own food as I can. And I feed the birds, in moderation, thus attracting a wide variety.

For farmers it should be all about finding the right balance between productivity and environmental protection, including a high level of maintenance of ecological processes.

Now you’ve got to admit that clearing 85% of any given property and making all of that productive is not a fair compromise, unless the level of productivity is very low, ie, low grazing pressure, so that a high level of natural ecological process can coexist with it.

Gee, I conceded that perhaps up to 75% productive land might be workable, if it is done in the right manner. But no, that is not good enough for you. You’ve got to have at least your 85% apparently.

But then I guess you’ve got to disagree if you possibly can with them city folk and maintain that extraordinarily polarised us-and-them attitude between the city and country that you so often express.

“The sooner we have a new state boundary between us the sooner we will become good neighbours.”

Perseus, I have taken you up on your promotion of separate states for rural communities a few times. But when I have started asking the apparently hard questions, you have deserted the discussion!!

It seems totally clear to me that despite your constant and vehement promotion of this, you can’t indicate just how it would work or what the advantages would really be for rural folk!

Ludwig
I think Perseus, may have a point re boundaries:

I come from a region in Northern NSW which originally had many small, local councils.The negative side of which was -duplication of services.However it also had a positive side - it enabled the rural communities greater control.

When many of those councils were amalgamated, the weight of numbers in the bigger cities meant the power shifted (forever) to urban dwellers & their carpetbagger friends.

Shortly thereafter, large tracts of bush & farm land were delivered to developers on a platter, through various ‘legal’ but dubious schemes.And strangely enough the(much touted) cost savings -if ever there were any -never showed in reduced rates & fees.

Actually the scenario went something like an old song:

'They paved paradise
And put up a parking lot
With a pink hotel, a boutique
And a swinging hot spot
Dont it always seem to go
That you dont know what youve got
Till its gone'

Ludwig, I have repeatedly pointed out that the major advantage of regional states is that the proportion of state level per capita expenditure (15% of GDP) that is normally spent on head office overheads (about 1/5th, or 3% of GDP) is currently taken out of the circular flow of the regional economy.

This may not seem much to the economically illiterate but it essentially means that regional economies must grow by 3% each year just to maintain their current position. And as regional areas account for 1/3rd of the state population in both Qld and NSW, it means that the metropolitan capital region will grow by 1% each year even if they produce no increase in productivity.

And as anyone with even the most rudimentary exposure to economic modelling will understand, the long term consequences for rural areas are gradual decline, reduced investment and reduced services.

It is simple to model. Take out your calculator, key in the number 0.97, hit the "x" button, key in 100, and hit the "=" button. Then hit that "=" button 20 times and you will get the answer 54.37 which is the comparative size (percentage) of the regional economy in 20 years, compared to what it would be if these structural government leakages were not present.

But this is masked by the continual productivity increases in the regional economy that are twice that of metropolitan productivity increases. So we have more gradual declines in regional economies when the productivity figures should be producing robustly expanding ones.

And when we combine this regional subsidising of the metropolitan capital with increased interstate and overseas migration, that also heavily favours the expanding metropolitan economy, we get the completely unsustainable growth and serious diseconomies of scale that is now clearly in evidence.

Thanks Horus. Your point is well taken.

I am actually in favour of a two-tiered system of government, with national and regional governments. I have never been opposed to Perseus’ notion of more states or of a governmental system that separates large urban areas from predominantly rural areas.

But I have not been able to envisage just how such a setup could be significantly better than the current arrangement, especially when you factor in the costs and inconvenience of the conversion.

Perseus, if we have regional governments, whether they be called states or supercouncils or whatever, they will still be largely centred on population centres. So presumably there would be states centred on Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, Rockhampton, etc.

This concept is up for discussion as part of Beattie’s push for local government amalgamations in Queensland.

I cannot envisage states that specifically exclude large population centres in order to be predominantly rural. There is no suggestion of this within the current Qld amalgamation debate.

As you know, I am seriously concerned about “the completely unsustainable growth and serious diseconomies of scale that is now clearly in evidence.”

So I am open to any possibilities of government restructure that might reduce or eliminate this. Please keep trying to convince me.

You make a good argument DRW. The price that a farmer receives as a percentage of the finished/saleable product is neglible. Its particularly bad in the case of wool, as there is an antiquated processing structure in place whereby a fleece may change hands up to 12 times before being purchased by the consumer - and remember that each of these 12 sets of hands wants to make a profit. There are currently some organisations trying to flatten the market out somewhat for wool, but they are up against a number of middle-men that dont want to lose their incomes either.

Certainly farmers should get double their income for most produce without driving up the final price too much. Consider wheat. Currently the price per tonne is $215. The price per tonne for bread at $3 for a 650g loaf is $4615 (rounded). If the famers return was doubled to $430/tonne, the total cost (and this assumes no other ingredients for simplicity) would come to $4830. This would equate to a per loaf price of $3.14 (or a 4.7% increase). Or course in real life it is more complex than that. The grain trader wants to maintain his profit margin, so it gets added onto the farmers price, the processor wants to maintain his margin, so it gets added onto the traders price, the manufacturer wants to maintain his margin etc etc etc.

Many countries in Europe have faced the problem that we face now. Their solution has been to subsidise their farmers, in some cases pay them NOT to produce a certain product. This decision was based on the premise that farmers add more to the value of the country than just produce. They are the main environmental custodians, so it was decided that the entire population of the country should contribute towards helping farmers to play that role (which is why we are up against a brick wall when trying to get these countries to drop their farm subsidies)

Don't be fooled into believing Don Burke represents many farmers in the western region.
The AEF has the agenda of pushing unsustainable cropping practices further out in a bid to gain more support for industrialised agriculture, and the promotion of GM.
There has been many thousands of hectares given the green light with PVP management plans. They were ok'd because the desired outcome & goal is more grass, not to grow a crop. Those landowners are obviously using better and more effective methods.
If Don's farmers honestly thought that to leave the country as is was environmentally incorrect then why "sacrifice" 15 percent to remain that way??
Woody weed encroachment isn't a result of poor fire management, its a result of poor grass management.

Ludwig, the issue of whether a regional state should be centred on existing provincial cities like Townsville, Cairns etc is not our call. That is up to the people in that region and, as things stand at present, support for autonomy is stronger outside the provincial cities than in them. So I see no reason why a new province MUST have an existing city as its capital. The New England referendum failed because Newcastle was included when they did not want to be in it. Many states in the USA do very well without one.

The cost in setting up new states is a natural concern but, on reflection, is overrated. Each community in the existing state is a part owner of every piece of existing state legislation, intellectual property or software. So when part of a state decides to form a new state they have every right to take a copy of all that material for their own use.

There would not need to be any wholesale rewriting of laws, for example, because the most prudent approach would be to take each existing law and pass a single ammendment stating that all references to the state of Queensland be changed to the state of North Queensland, in the same way Australian law evolved from British law

All the existing elected state members from the region would remain the elected members of the new state and meet to form their own parliament and government. And one would hope that the community has given them firm instructions to ensure that all service delivery standards are met before any additional changes are made.

The ratios of departmental spending are also well defined amongst Australian states and the few instances of serious failure within a department can be clearly traced to deviation from these budgetary norms. The key is to ensure that the allocation decisions within those budgets are consistent with regional community priorities. From there, it is then only a matter of directing the Feds to send the regions fair share of GST money to a new regional bank acount.

Australian Farmers' average age is around 50 .

They have not the education or cultural background that makes it easy for them to be conservationists .

Many are short of money and need "help" from the Government with a combination of the stick and the carrot, if the Governments are serious about preserving the biodiversity that's left .

The recent greenhouse credits that have given cash to a Queensland Farmer for conservative farm management is a good start .

Ron Greentree ,probably the biggest wheatgrower in Australia was chastised for an obvious lack of compassion for the RAMSAR registered wetland that he coveted . His bad example for other farmers is something Don Burke would no doubt prefer not to talk about .

All of what you say is fine Perseus. Of course any new state would take all of the basic structure of the old state that it has separated from with it. Afterall, we are talking about new states, not new countries.

You are probably right in that the cost of setting up new states would be pretty minimal.

The ratio of federal spending and parliamentary representation would presumably be no different either.

But all of this just takes a new state to the same position as the old state, with nothing gained.

Nothing in your last post suggests any sort of gain.

I can’t get my head around your “major advantage for regional states”, as expressed in your previous post:

Why should population increases and hence an automatically continuously increasing economic turnover in our cities translate into a decline in rural areas? It might look that way in terms of expenditure ratios, but I would suggest that that would be a false impression.

A declining ratio of expenditure on rural issues within a paradigm of continuously increasing overall expenditure (from an ever-larger GDP) does not necessarily mean a decline in total expenditure in rural areas, nor a decline in per-capita expenditure.

I would suggest that any decline in population or quality of life in rural areas has much more to do with drought and unsustainable landuse practices that have caught up with us in some places, than it does with any decline in the ratio of national expenditure for the bush....and that there has actually been a big overall increase in expenditure there, due to this ongoing productivity decline.

I can’t see how the erection of new rural states could change the situation in favour of rural communities. Any sort of increase in expenditure that is needed in hard-pressed rural communities can be lobbied for and won through our current system just as easily as it could with a revamped governmental hierarchy.

It comes down to the scale of the issues, the lobbying prowess of the people and their elected representatives and the will of the government of the day.

How I wish posters would "speak to the chair" or the ARTICLE instead of each other. Telephones are for that.
Woody weeds now, I have walked in woody weed country that Burke speaks of, it sure is depressing. Not as depressing of course as desert, which if it were cleared it would become.
No blame on current owners for overgrazing, done along time ago.
What to do? Woody weed I believe is a first growth to recovery but may take a hundred years, even after complete destocking, so is no longer viable farming, grazing land.
If cleared what happens? crops? your kidding with an ephemeral rainfall of even nine inches, there is the SIX feet of evaporation.
Un cleared and left to "grow" solar energy maybe one solution, clear it and replant AND water another. I can only speculate on that?
But best is, hang the guy who illegally cleared in Northern NSW, he hasn't enough money to make compensation for damage he's done.

fluff

Ludwig, you have completely ignored my post on the leaking circular flow of money in regional areas. Productivity growth in regional areas outstrips that of metropolitan areas but still, regions are in economic decline. The leakage of funds from the regions is a direct result of metropolitan overheads. Shift these overheads to a new regional capital and that money will then remain to circulate within the regional economy and reverse the decline.

The evidence is very clear that most metropolitan consumer spending is limited to no more than about 2.5 hours driving distance. In SEQ that means Noosa and Byron. All areas outside that zone get minimal "trickle down" effect. And this means that states will achieve the best distribution and recirculation of government funds when most of the state is within 3 hours drive of the capital.

This also has a "quality of governance" dimension in that SEQ residents can exercise their democratic rights, to protest, or to lobby Ministers or Officials very cheaply, often within their lunch hour. But any citizen that lives more than 3 hours drive from the capital must take a whole day, or more, to exercise the same rights. And that constitutes a structural inequality in the system.

Furthermore, regional communities of interest generally average from 10,000 to 15,000 people while metropolitan communities are closer to the 45,000 that also matches a parliamentary electorate. To base parliamentary electorates on regional community threshholds would be serious overkill in urban locations while the alternative produces oversized electorates in the bush with excessive distances. New states allow each to match their electorates to their own communities.

The existing states also waste a huge amount of money in flying people in and out of the regions on "fact finding" missions and providing briefings etc and this sort of expense will be eliminated with regional autonomy as all the decision makers will be locals who already know the issues.

“How I wish posters would ‘speak to the chair’ or the ARTICLE instead of each other. Telephones are for that.”

Really fluff?

This is the first time I’ve seen this view expressed here. Pertinent discussions between posters is perfectly proper, for as long as they connected to the thread subject or have evolved from it.

No we shouldn’t be speaking to the ‘chair’. Houses of parliament and stodgy old formal meetings are the place for that.

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Pers, I read your comments on the “leaking circular flow of money” many times. I found it very hard to comment on, so I left it alone.

You are always going to get leakage of that sort, as people will spend some of their money in population centres where the variety of goods and services is greater than they are locally. This will continue to happen with regional setups. People will still be free to cross state borders, and to spend on the internet.

So I can’t see that much would change in that area.

If we know the figures for this sort of financial loss from regional areas, then we should be able to lobby for compensation, via government funding or tax concessions, within the current governmental setup, should we not?

We would still have fly-in, fly-out arrangements with the mines, across state boundaries if Townsville and Mt Isa ended up in separate states, or Perth and the Pilbara. Again, financial loss for some regions could just as easily be dealt with under the current setup as it could with new states. In fact the erection new states would not in itself address this issue, unless it was accompanied by just the same sort of financial adjustments that could be implemented under the current system, or unless restrictions to where people worked or spent their money were implemented, which I’m sure would not be viewed well.

I can’t imagine that flying bureaucrats around on fact-finding missions would be a significant expenditure.

(FYI Perseus http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5822#82731)

Fluff, it is very hard to decipher your ramblings and rantings, but one point I can pick out (I think). You appear to blame the woody weed problem on historical overgrazing. In most cases this is inaccurate. A large number of woody weed problems have stemmed from UNDER-grazing. Particularly since the move in northern areas from sheep to cattle, which dont exert as much grazing pressure on these weeds. The move from sheep to cattle has in a number of areas come about because the land has shown that it can produce enough vegetation for cattle (sheep need less), and the summer rainfall patterns being detrimental to blowfly control. This is why in western areas of NSW you will find more sheep than cattle, because they need less fodder (will eat it closer to the ground) AND rainfall patterns tend to be winter-based.

I note your comment, Ludwig, but it is not for you or I to decide the appropriate size for a "province". Our surveys show that many regional people prefer the greater sense of security from being in a state with 900,000 people rather than 300,000. Others value the increased localisation more highly than the security of a larger entity. Ultimately it must be left to the people of each region to determine their own governance.

This whole "eliminate the states" notion is based on the assumption that the existing state elites would calmly sit by while the very structure that reinforces metropolitan concentration of wealth and power is dismantled. This is naieve to the point of fantasy. And the persistence of this unrealistic option only stiffles more gradual and achievable reforms.

Regional governance is only an issue in the regions themselves. There is no need to engage metropolitan voters on issues that they have no interest in. They will remain in their city states no matter what reforms are made in the regions so why would anyone bother complicating the issues by devising regional solutions that make sense to metropolitan residents.

The stakeholders in this issue are the 1.4 million regional Queenslanders, 1.6 million in regional NSW, 1.2 million in regional Victoria, 0.5 million in regional WA and 0.3 million in regional SA. And clearly, it is up to each community to decide the character, and scale of their own government.

Some may opt for smaller states with no local government (as in the ACT) while others, especially those with small populations in a large area, may stick with three tiers, as the NT has done.

It is the very height of arrogance for me, or any other Australian to take it upon ourselves to impose a government model on people outside their own community. We all rightly have a say, as voters of one country, on matters relating to the whole country. But the moment a majority starts imposing its will on matters that do not concern them is the germ of malgovernance.

“…it is not for you or I to decide the appropriate size for a ‘province’ “

Of course it isn’t Perseus. But it is for me and for anyone who feels so inclined to make suggestions and express opinions.

My size preference is very loosely based on a compromise between the size of current local government areas and current states, and a workable number of provinces across the country.

Much more to the point is your assertion that “….the major advantage of regional states is that the proportion of state level per capita expenditure… that is normally spent on head office overheads… is currently taken out of the circular flow of the regional economy.”

I addressed this in my last post, but you haven’t responded to it at all.

Given that you see this as the major advantage, and given that I just can’t see any advantage here at all, this is the stuff we need to concentrate on.

Keep bearing in mind that I am not opposed to you on this subject, as I have been on some others that we have exchanged views over on this forum. In fact, I very much like the idea of better and fairer governance for rural people, or for all of us for that matter. But I need to perceive real benefits in whatever changes might be proposed.

Fluff, with regards to rainfall and evaporation:

Rainfall for a cropping area would need to be around 16inches a year to be reasonable cropping country. 12 inches would be enough IF the rain fell at the right times (which of course is NOT guaranteed). So 12inch country might be ok on a given year (opportunity cropping). It also depends on your soil type. Good heavy black clays hold moisture well and in some areas the retained moisture from summer storms can be enough to plant on without requiring rain at sowing time.

As for the evaporation rate, you are correct, BUT this is summer evaporation rates only (must of our cropping is winter cropping when the rates are much lower), and is from a body of uncovered water, not from the soil.

Ludwig, your comments on leakage from regional money flows mentions things that will continue but fails to quantify them. Interactions between regions and the rest of the country and will continue. But it should be the responsibility of a regional state government to maximise the benefits to the regional community. A centralised metropolitan government has neither obligation nor inclination, to do the same.

Most regional Qld public housing and new classrooms are not built in the towns where they are needed. They are all prefabricated in Ipswich and trucked into town. This creates no local jobs and all the economic benefits remain in the South East. But the budget figures list this outlay as taking place in the region where the building was trucked too.

Just imagine the protests if Beattie sourced all future public housing and classroom construction from Sydney?

But the impact on the regions is even more detrimental because the absence of local construction capacity then becomes a key factor in a mining company's decision to operate on a fly-in-fly-out basis. The regional community gets the adverse environmental impacts of the mine while the coast and metropolitan areas get the economic benefits and the royalties.

The WA government currently gets $1.7 Billion in mining royalties but there is no obligation to return any of it to the regions that produced them. The Kimberley/Pilbara region has over 135,000 people and their share of this revenue would be $115 million or $850 per capita. This money would create an additional 20,000 jobs and shift a total of 40,000 people to a region with abundant water and where the average commuting time is less than 5 minutes.

If the new state of Kimberley had all of its royalty funds the population would at least double and the residents of Perth would keep their city the way they like it, with existing infrastructure that serves their needs.

Instead the existing states actively pursue policies that make their urban problems worse while stiffling the kind of development that will take the pressure off the cities and lower our average ecological footprint

Welcome back Perseus. I trust you had a good extended long weekend.

“Ludwig, your comments on leakage from regional money flows mentions things that will continue…”

Absolutely they will. In fact I find it hard to envisage anything significant that regional government could do about this, short of implementing draconian policies regarding who is allowed to work and live where.

“They are all prefabricated in Ipswich and trucked into town.”

I don’t see what is wrong with this. It makes eminent sense to me that this sort of building would be made in one place, in a factory specifically set up for it, and then transported all over the place to small towns. It seems no more practical to cart materials into small towns and build things from scratch than it does to prefabricate them elsewhere. Either way, the labour needed for assembly would be sourced both from locally and from roving teams with the specific skills needed for that job.

I don’t know. Maybe there is some merit in that sort of argument. But I think it is up to you to quantify it and convince us, not the other way around.

I’ll have to strongly disagree with your point on population boosting:

“This money would create an additional 20,000 jobs and shift a total of 40,000 people…”

Yes, this sort of money would create new jobs and attract more people, which would create a mixture or advantages and disadvantages for the established population. It would also cause a definite loss for the regional natural environment and would not significantly alleviate population pressure in Perth or other cities.

If new states were to lead to large-scale population boosting, then I would be dead against them. A little bit of population growth, to the extent of revitalising existing or previously existing businesses would be fine. But big population growth the extent of changing the character of towns or regions would not be a positive thing.

Perseus

I hope this discussion has not come to an end. It is just starting to get interesting.