tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia-6778/articlesA more sustainable Australia – The Conversation2013-08-29T00:32:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/124592013-08-29T00:32:37Z2013-08-29T00:32:37ZA more sustainable Australia: let’s get creative about productivity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29719/original/r3m9n5rk-1377132203.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Cities are the key to our productivity.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/mugley</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a></strong> As the 2013 election campaign continues, what are some of the long-term issues that will shape Australia’s future?</em></p>
<p>Productivity will be even more critical over the next 12 months as high export prices decline. The question that should be front and centre in the debate about Australia’s future vision is: what drives productivity?</p>
<p>Here is the recent story, with a chart from a presentation by Dean Parham, Australia’s foremost productivity expert. </p>
<p>Labour productivity growth has halved since the early part of the last decade. Capital productivity has also fallen so the productivity with which we use all inputs into production has gone flat.</p>
<p>Incomes have grown faster than labour productivity because the value of exports relative to the cost of imports has been rising. With those terms of trade falling, we would like to restore the 3% labour productivity growth and the 2% overall productivity growth as soon as we can. </p>
<p>How do we do that?</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=290&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29480/original/z2sp9yqx-1376878288.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=364&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Australia’s national productivity.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dean Parham</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Churning the economy</h2>
<p>Let’s return to the origins of productivity growth - innovation and churn.</p>
<p>Churn refers to the exit of weak performers who are replaced by the entry of stronger performers. This exit and replacement matters for the productivity of an industry or community. </p>
<p>The scope for churn depends on incentives for and resistances to change. These in turn depend on policy. For example, the way that policy makes it easier or more difficult for new firms to enter markets.</p>
<p>There is a rich agenda for policy reform in Australia, as previous Productivity Commission Chairman Gary Banks has <a href="http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/120312/productivity-policies.pdf">presented</a>. </p>
<p>The Prime Minister has announced a national economic reform panel, which should study the Banks list closely. The <a href="http://asiancentury.dpmc.gov.au/white-paper">Asian Century White Paper</a> also had a good hit list of reform topics. </p>
<p>Banks suggests measures related to incentives, such as trade policy, those related to capability, such as education policy, and those related to flexibility, such as workplace regulation.</p>
<p>We have the menu but we have to regain the appetite for reform.</p>
<h2>Innovate</h2>
<p>Innovation is more difficult to pin down and less often discussed. Yes, it includes making new things, like iPads or robotic trucks, but it also means doing things differently.</p>
<p>Our research report, <a href="http://blip.tv/faculty-of-the-professions/borders-blurred-the-changing-nature-of-trade-in-a-globalised-world-6291071">Borders Blurred</a>, found that businesses break up their operations as they shift design, production, sales and after-sales services around the world in response to cost differences. </p>
<p>They might, for example, do design work in Australia using high-skill and expensive labour, and organise the production processes that require a lesser degree of skill in other lower-cost locations. </p>
<p>Successful firms respond to changes in markets; they learn and they are agile in creating new and competitive goods and services.</p>
<p>But where does the capacity to innovate come from?</p>
<p>Partly this comes from inside an organisation, but increasingly we understand that whole communities, that is, the cities and towns where businesses are located, matter.</p>
<p>As Chairman Banks said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The innovations that shape the productivity potential of organisations can stem from ‘internal learnings’ specific to a firm, but commonly involve the absorption and application of knowledge generated externally. The institutions and forces responsible for creating and transmitting knowledge are therefore important for a country’s productivity performance.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Governments have taken action to improve performance with various subsidies, like those for the car industry, but subsidies have not created “value for money”.</p>
<p>There are sometimes calls for the creation of company clusters to capture and promote this information sharing, but the specific selection of apparently connected businesses is not likely to succeed either. </p>
<p>It is better to focus on removing impediments for generating ideas and transferring them within an existing community. </p>
<h2>Cities, universities, research</h2>
<p>From this perspective, there are three things to add to the productivity action list, which are key parts of setting the vision for Australia – the cities, the universities and research funding.</p>
<p>Cities contribute to the productivity of people who live in them, because the productivity of each worker is aided by those around them, and productivity growth is supported by these interactions and the sharing of ideas. </p>
<p>But some cities work better than others as centres for sharing information. We need to pay more attention to policies that could make our cities work better and its citizens more creative. </p>
<p>If we understood this better, we could also say more about the two-way relationship between cities and their surrounding regions.</p>
<p>Within cities, universities play a key role. They broker information and act as the intermediaries between raw knowledge and those who apply it. </p>
<p>Universities undertake basic research, but the translation of this research into real-life application and innovation can be further strengthened and prioritised. </p>
<p>And within universities, the funding systems matter: they support this research that generates new ideas. </p>
<p>These systems are now based on student load, both domestic and international, and are under challenge. Universities are subject to the same sorts of competitive processes that are driving manufacturers to globalise. </p>
<p>New competitors include teaching-only operations. They can operate at lower costs and the risk is that they will draw students away from the traditional suppliers.</p>
<p>It will then be more difficult to sustain the business model in which revenue from students is used to support our research performance. </p>
<p>More direct funding for research, public and private, will be critical for the success of the innovation system.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/12459/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Employee of the University of Adelaide</span></em></p>A more sustainable Australia As the 2013 election campaign continues, what are some of the long-term issues that will shape Australia’s future? Productivity will be even more critical over the next 12…Christopher Findlay, Executive Dean, Faculty of the Professions, University of AdelaideLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/163452013-08-27T02:22:05Z2013-08-27T02:22:05ZA more sustainable Australia: measuring success<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29569/original/25y77wr6-1376977149.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need a better way of understanding and predicting how well our society is doing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Klesta/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>**<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a>.</em>* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.*</p>
<p>How successful is Australia? You’d think we’d have a fairly easy answer to that - you could get it by looking at our gross domestic product, or GDP. But over the years we’ve gained a number of other success indicators, from <a href="http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/hdi/">health and wellbeing</a>, to the <a href="http://www.ihdp.unu.edu/article/iwr">environment</a>, and they often <a href="http://conservationbytes.com/2013/07/03/the-economy-worse-off-since-1978/">tell a different story</a>. </p>
<p>In 1968, US senator Robert Kennedy <a href="http://www2.mccombs.utexas.edu/faculty/michael.brandl/main%20page%20items/Kennedy%20on%20GNP.htm">observed that</a> GDP “measures everything … except that which makes life worthwhile”. These days not many experts believe GDP is enough to measure whether a country is succeeding. </p>
<p>It’s obvious that we should be using a winder range of progress measures. The real question is why we still struggle to bring those measures into decision making. Why don’t we take it for granted that all decisions must balance economic, social and environmental factors as a matter of course?</p>
<h2>Why do we struggle?</h2>
<p>People have a collective lack of willingness to think long term, beyond five to ten years. This is the normal state of humanity – we dislike change. This approach works well when external conditions pose no obvious threat. But this means we can end up like the frog in hot water, which doesn’t realise the water is warming until it’s too late. </p>
<p>We tend to assume that whatever is the case now will remain the same. This leaves us in a difficult position when some of the things we depend on, such as functioning environments and societies, gradually deteriorate. </p>
<p>Another problem is that these problems are collective, rather than individual. This means that when resources are used by everyone - such as ocean fisheries, or the atmosphere - self-interest always wins out and the resources suffers. This, known as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons">tragedy of the commons</a>, continues to be a major problem for global resources. </p>
<p>We also fear things we believe are complex. Our approach to complexity is to divide it up: we find it easier to consider economic, environmental and social aspects independently. We can become quite expert in each one. But we lose the ability to consider all factors simultaneously. It makes it difficult for leaders to make balanced decision when these aspects have all become separated. </p>
<p>Reinforcing this separation, we have developed information that does not support balanced, integrated decision making. For example, over the past 50-60 years economic information has had a significantly larger weight in decision making, notwithstanding the significant increase in the amount of social and scientific data over the same time period.</p>
<p>Combined with the tendency to short attention spans, this leads to more weight being placed on information about current activity (such as income and consumption) rather than longer term drivers of change such as the condition of public infrastructure, the environment and social capital. We have information on the condition of these assets but it tends to not be integrated or organised in a meaningful way. That makes it hard to use it efficiently in standard analytical and related frameworks – let alone broader public debate.</p>
<p>The consistent recording of trends over time provides information to assess past decisions, correct mistakes and visualise the future. In the wonderful <a href="http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/house.htm">words of Abraham Lincoln</a>, “If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how do to it”. </p>
<p>Developing the habit of recording past events in a structured and widely disseminated fashion also has the significant side effect of reducing apparent complexity. There is nothing simple about the economic system or the measure of GDP that we use to reflect its performance. But we are now attuned to it and thus, as a collective, see the economy through a different lens to the one we use for environmental or social issues.</p>
<h2>How do we adapt our point of view?</h2>
<p>One solution would be to change human nature. This is likely to be a tough ask. A more practical approach is to record trends in economic, environmental and social factors, on which we can base decision in the future. </p>
<p>Fortunately, new frameworks for this sort of data collection are being implemented in Australia and globally. In 2012 the United Nations statistics group adopted an international statistical standard: the <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/seea.asp">System of Environmental-Economic Accounting</a> (SEEA). It integrates environmental data (such as flows of water, energy, waste, and emissions and stocks of natural resources) with the standard measures of economic activity.</p>
<p>This SEEA provides an information base for other indicators, such as resource efficiency and sustainable consumption, and inclusive and comprehensive wealth. It could also be used in standard analytical tools such as economic modeling and cost benefit analysis.</p>
<p>Further <a href="http://unstats.un.org/unsd/envaccounting/seearev/Chapters/SEEA_EEA_v1.pdf">research</a> has shown the potential to integrate ecological information with standard economic accounting. In particular, we need to consider environmental and economic data for small areas (such as forests, farms, or wetlands).</p>
<p>This integration of environmental, economic and social information at local scales could drive changes in the way we consider decision making at national and international scales. At local scales we deal better with complexity, since there are fewer unknowns and we have a greater interest in thinking for the long term since the impact of decisions and choices affect us directly.</p>
<p>Australia has a small yet strong tradition in environmental-economic accounting and has been a leading country in the development of the SEEA and other measurement frameworks. This work should be encouraged, supported and more actively co-ordinated to build nationally accepted histories of our relationships with the environment.</p>
<p>We need a comprehensive and regular Australian land and ecosystem assessment program along the lines of the recently commenced <a href="http://www.unep-wcmc.org/uk-national-ecosystem-assessment_646.html">UK National Ecosystem Assessment</a>. This would first entail dividing Australia up into regions of different land and ecosystem types, such as forests, agricultural land, wetlands, and coastal zones. </p>
<p>Then, using a variety of indicators we would: </p>
<ul>
<li><p>assess the quality and change in quality of those ecosystems</p></li>
<li><p>assess the type and quantity of ecosystem services (such as food, fibre, air and water purification, and recreation) provided by those ecosystems.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>While there are a number of related initiatives in Australia, these need to be co-ordinated, regularised and resourced through institutions. Maybe then we can stop thinking about the short-term, and start thinking about the future. </p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16345/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Obst was the editor and lead author for the United Nations System of Environmental-Economic Accounting (SEEA) from 2010-2013 and continue to work on a consultancy basis for international organisations that are implementing the SEEA as an international standard.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>John Wiseman is a Professorial Fellow with the Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute (MSSI), University of Melbourne. </span></em></p>**A more sustainable Australia.* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.* How…Carl Obst, Honorary Research Associate, Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of MelbourneJohn Wiseman, Professorial Fellow, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/168412013-08-26T04:13:36Z2013-08-26T04:13:36ZA more sustainable Australia: from suburbia to newburbia<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29473/original/69y3rzm5-1376873126.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Our cities may be booming, but what about our regions and suburbs?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Takver</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>**<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a>.</em>* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.*</p>
<p>Australia’s cities have a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-grass-isnt-greener-in-the-outer-burbs-12532">sprawl problem</a>, and it’s driving us all apart. Growth in housing continues in the outer suburbs and regional areas, while jobs remain in the central city and inner suburbs. The result is that 74% of Australians drive to work. </p>
<p>Driving to work costs time, money, and has an effect on health and well-being. It’s also a major part of Australia’s high carbon emissions. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, as good jobs gravitate to the inner city, housing becomes ever less affordable in the inner city, exacerbating the suburban divide. </p>
<p>It’s not just travel time and peak hour traffic that’s the problem. It’s the cost of living in the inner city versus the social isolation of the outer suburbs. </p>
<p>What can we do to bring cities closer together? </p>
<p>Australia’s current metropolitan plans – which set the policy framework for housing and jobs growth in each of our capital cities – designate specific areas for new development and employment growth. These are connected by existing or planned transport corridors. </p>
<p>So where’s the best place to direct development?</p>
<p>This question raises a classic debate about urban form. Metropolitan planners have grappled with the best configurations for housing and jobs for over 50 years, but actual development patterns reflect both market forces (where firms want to locate and where people want to live) and urban regulation.</p>
<p>Essentially there are three models. The first option involves moving people to where the jobs are, by creating more homes near employment centres. Australia’s become quite good at populating the inner city with diverse and higher density housing, but affordability is suffering. </p>
<p>The second option is to make it easier for people to travel to work, through better networked public transit. But governments have been reluctant to spend on public transport – aside from some notable exceptions. </p>
<p>The third option is to move jobs to people.</p>
<p>That’s not as easy as it sounds. It’s hard to get private firms to relocate from established centres unless the incentives are pretty attractive. Lower-cost undeveloped land might attract some firms, especially with reduced regulation, but this appeals mainly to land hungry lower value industries like storage and warehousing.</p>
<p>A very liberal approach to development on the urban periphery does allow for some economic migration outwards. The Walmart highway strips and big box malls blighting the outskirts of many American cities are one legacy of this type of approach.</p>
<p>Some academics call this “scatterisation”, because without any imperative to centralise, development is very footloose. That makes it hard to sustain a concentration of economic activity within a single location. So the benefits of agglomeration – the clustering of complimentary businesses, the stimulation of secondary employment in local services – never really arise.</p>
<p>It’s not really viable to service dispersed industry by public transport. But when state or local governments become desperate to attract economic development of any kind, there is a real temptation to ease up on spatial strategy – potentially undermining existing commercial and retail centres, and future public transport use, in the process.</p>
<p>Better using existing transport infrastructure, by promoting jobs in middle ring and established outer suburbs, could be a key opportunity. Realising latent value in currently underutilised hubs – like Lidcombe or Granville in Sydney’s west – would give workers a contra-flow commute on trains returning from the city centre.</p>
<p>The federal government’s <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/suburbanjobs/">Suburban Jobs Program</a> provides a model. The scheme sought to fund projects that attract and retain jobs beyond the metropolitan CBDs, particularly in areas affected by high population growth and increasing traffic congestion.</p>
<p>Time will tell whether these projects will deliver lasting benefits to their host regions, but the concept of supporting capacity building schemes able to create direct jobs while enhancing local skills and knowledge, is sound. Such schemes should be a priority for well-located middle and outer ring suburbs hardest hit by job losses in manufacturing, particularly areas serviced by heavy rail.</p>
<p>Relocating government agencies is another good way to bring jobs to suburban and regional centres. In Western Australia, more than 5,000 jobs have moved from expensive CBD offices to shared hubs in Perth’s suburbs over the past two years, and decentralisation to regional centres is also planned.</p>
<p>Similarly, a special decentralisation task force has been established recently in NSW, where only around 31% of state government agencies have a presence beyond the Sydney metropolitan area.</p>
<p>Sometimes financial incentives are used to encourage companies to shift to regional areas. Unless these are carefully targeted, it’s usually better to focus on locational carrots like infrastructure, amenity, and access to skilled workers, and to nurture local business from the ground up.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.regional.gov.au/regional/programs/rdaf.aspx">Regional Development Australia Fund</a>, now in it’s fifth year, has provided funding for strategic infrastructure projects ranging from the development of a regional museum and cultural square to a business innovation and start up centre in regional and outer suburban Australia.</p>
<p>As the creative refugees flee expensive inner city rents, there are new opportunities for suburban and regional areas to rebrand. Now that self sufficiency – producing local food, energy, and water – has been revalued, suburban homes and generous backyards could hold new appeal.</p>
<p>Visions of “newburbia” imply retrofitting strip and box malls around fresh modes of work and trade – shared business hubs, surrounded by lively local retail and services, well connected to regional and global centres by quality transport and communications infrastructure.</p>
<p>Regional cities such as Bendigo in Victoria showcase the potential of non-metropolitan areas. The resumption of regular rail services to Melbourne has provided new economic opportunities for a wider regional hinterland. There’s also an active city council keen on promoting other urban magnets like culture and the arts.</p>
<p>Could suburban and regional revival change Australia’s economic geography? High value jobs growth will likely continue to focus on the globally connected capital city CBDs. But stronger commitment from all levels of government to supporting sustainable growth in well located alternatives could ease some of the pressures affecting inner cities and outer suburbs alike. </p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16841/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicole Gurran receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>**A more sustainable Australia.* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.* Australia’s…Nicole Gurran, Associate Professor, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/165552013-08-23T04:55:16Z2013-08-23T04:55:16ZA more sustainable Australia: we need to talk about our soils<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29229/original/7njmg268-1376452777.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">We need to get our hands dirty and have a look at our soils.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/JerseyRed</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>**<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a></em>* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.*</p>
<p>Our soils are in trouble. Not only are they declining in health, but we’re losing the capacity to even know what state they’re in. Storing carbon may be one way to improve our soils, but it could also be a red herring. </p>
<p>We shouldn’t underestimate the problem. The UN predicts that the world’s population will exceed nine billion by 2050, requiring an increase in food production of 60%. And Australia’s continuing capacity as a major food producer and exporter relies on the sustainable management of our soil resources. </p>
<p>While conversations about environmental issues such as water resources, water quality, climate change and biodiversity have been brought to the forefront at some stage, our land resources seem to have slipped under the radar.</p>
<p>If we’re to build a sustainable future, we need to look to the dirt beneath our feet.</p>
<h2>Sick soils</h2>
<p>The first national audit of Australian soils, in 2000, found they were declining in health due to processes such as erosion, acidification, and salinisation. Thirteen years on and those problems have not improved. </p>
<p>The second phase of the audit, completed in 2008, found that our soils need long term monitoring, consistent information, and baseline data. The processes that affect soil health operate over large time scales and areas. It’s important to know where we started from and how to tell if things have changed. </p>
<p><a href="http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=agronomyfacpub">Soil health</a> is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The continued capacity of soil to function as a vital living system, within ecosystem and land-use boundaries, to sustain biological productivity, maintain the quality of air and water environments and promote plant, animal and human health.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We’re also losing good, productive soils suitable for agriculture. When Australia’s major cities were first settled, they were located on fertile land for food production and close to reliable water supplies. But as the cities expanded these productive soils were developed. This has consequences for food production, particularly in the urban fringe of a number of Australian cities, including Sydney and Melbourne. </p>
<p>Resource and geography expert Dr Nicole Cooke at University of Melbourne <a href="http://www.springer.com/food+science/book/978-1-4614-4483-1">says</a> there is currently no coherent food policy in planning scheme and instruments, and the current productivity of peri-urban environments is more by accident than design. Some pioneering municipalities, such as <a href="http://www.csu.edu.au/research/ilws/news/events/docs/FoodSecpdf/By_accident_or_design_Cook.pdf">Bacchus Marsh just west of Melbourne</a>, are endeavouring to embed landscape productivity into their planning schemes.</p>
<h2>Is carbon storage the future?</h2>
<p>The recent <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report</a> also identifies that soil carbon stocks are low across agricultural regions but are central to maintaining soil health and food production.</p>
<p>Both the <a href="http://www.climatechange.gov.au/reducing-carbon/carbon-farming-initiative">government</a> and <a href="http://grattan.edu.au/static/files/assets/abf7f66f/521_public_seminar_hunt_speech_outline_130716.pdf">coalition</a> have carbon policies that include managing soils to increase carbon storage. Recent <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/srep02179">research</a> suggests that these solutions are technically and economically unsound. </p>
<p>Increasing soil carbon is unlikely to offset Australia’s carbon emissions. But that’s not to say we shouldn’t look at it for other reasons. Managing soils for carbon can part of the way to improving soil health. </p>
<p>Increasing soil carbon is largely reliant on increasing the amount of soil organic matter. This can be done through a number of means, including retaining or increasing ground cover, reducing tillage, and increasing plant growth.</p>
<p>Where soil organic matter is increased, additional benefits such as decreased erosion, improved nutrient cycling and soil fertility, and increased buffering capacity, and hence, resilience, can result.</p>
<h2>Give soils a chance</h2>
<p>There are still a number of gaps in our understanding the link between soil organic matter, soil health and sustainability. </p>
<p>Understanding the <a href="http://vro.dpi.vic.gov.au/dpi/vro/vrosite.nsf/pages/soil_health_mis7898_appc">role of soil biology</a> currently lags behind current knowledge on other disciplines of soil science. This knowledge is critical in improving soil health as nutrient cycling, decomposition and a range of other important soil processes are reliant on soil life. </p>
<p>Exciting soil molecular biological research into the underlying biology of the nitrogen cycle is revolutionising our thinking about how and what soil organisms form nitrate, known as <a href="http://www.abdn.ac.uk/staffpages/uploads/mbi010/The%20Encyclopedia%20of%20Soils%20in%20the%20Environment.pdf">nitrification</a>. Manipulating nitrification will be a key to improving nitrogen use efficiency in agriculture, and lessening the environmental impacts of food production.</p>
<p>But knowledge of the importance of soils and soil science is gradually declining in the natural resource management area. The gradual contraction and demise of the former state soil conservation surveys or their equivalent has resulted in the loss of a generation’s worth of soils knowledge. The surveys provided much needed broad-scale information at the time for agriculture. This now needs to be updated and improved to a scale that is useful for land managers. There is some work to nationally coordinate soil surveys through <a href="http://www.asris.csiro.au/">ASRIS</a>, however this has been under-resourced and progress has been slow.</p>
<p>Government agencies are decreasing their involvement in soils research and communication of soils-related knowledge to landholders and the community. These roles are increasingly being replaced by consultants who answer a specific problem or are hired for a specific task. This results in a piecemeal approach, and the bigger picture gets lost amongst these smaller projects. </p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16555/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vanessa Wong receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Corangamite Catchment Management Authority.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Edis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>**A more sustainable Australia* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.* Our…Vanessa Wong, Lecturer in Soil and Land Management, School of Geography and Environmental Science, Monash UniversityRobert Edis, Soil Scientist, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/167302013-08-21T03:40:30Z2013-08-21T03:40:30ZA more sustainable Australia: closing gaps in childhood inequity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29058/original/5rq9d5vk-1376289164.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why don't we have universal access to early childhood education?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Flickr/Phyllis Buchanan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>**<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a></em>* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.*</p>
<p>Looking after children during their early childhood yields a huge return on investment. It’s not just good for the economy, but for the health and well-being of our children too. The cliche is worth repeating: our children are our future. </p>
<p>But that future is suffering from poor policy. Australia’s system of early childhood education and care has been rated as inequitable, unsustainable and one of the worst in the world. </p>
<p>Fortunately there have been some significant improvements in the last couple of years. But before we look at the system, let’s start with the most important part: children.</p>
<h2>2012: a snapshot</h2>
<p>In 2012 most Australian children were on track and doing well in five developmental areas: physical, emotional, cognitive, social and academic skills. That’s broadly acceptable, but it isn’t equal across the board. </p>
<p>The 2012 <a href="http://www.rch.org.au/aedi/">Australian Early Developmental Index</a> (AEDI) reported one in ten children were developmentally vulnerable in two or more areas. And in very remote areas, one-third of children were identified as developmentally vulnerable.</p>
<p>Why are some children better off than others? While it may be tempting to blame family or community, <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16351334">international studies</a> have shown that the quality of childcare also matters to children’s development and school readiness. More importantly, early childhood education and care is an area over which the government has direct leverage.</p>
<p>Compared to other nations, Australia has an abysmal child care and preschool record. Our expenditures as a percentage of GDP are the <a href="http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf">lowest in the OECD</a>. We spend 0.1% of our GDP, compared to the OECD average of 0.5%. Brazil’s proportion, for example, is four times higher, while Denmark’s is tenfold. </p>
<p>And we have a low rate of early childhood participation. In 2012, <a href="http://www.uis.unesco.org/Education/Documents/oecd-eag-2012-en.pdf">the OECD</a> ranked us 34th in preschool attendance. Only half of all Australian four-year-olds were enrolled in preschool.</p>
<p>To be fair, these number only include kindergarten enrolments. As a general rule in Australia, there is a strong public perception that kindergartens have higher standards of educational quality. </p>
<p>Until recently, <a href="http://www.acer.edu.au/documents/PolicyBriefs_Dowling09.pdf">fewer quality demands</a> have been placed on long day care centres, teachers are paid less, and often there is no requirement for a certified teacher to be present. In short, the programs that disadvantaged preschoolers can access (often under-funded long day-care programs) are not of the same quality. </p>
<p>And that’s assuming that they even have access. The <a href="http://www.growingupinaustralia.gov.au/">Longitudinal Study of Australian Children</a> showed that children who did not attend any formal early childhood programs were more likely to be growing up in single-parent, Indigenous, and/or non–English speaking families from economically disadvantaged areas.</p>
<p>Luckily, Australian governments have realised that this inequity is not sustainable. In 2008, COAG made a commitment that by 2013: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>All children in the year before formal schooling will have access to high quality early childhood education programs delivered by degree-qualified early childhood teachers, for 15 hours per week, 40 weeks of the year, in public, private and community-based preschools and child care.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Meanwhile, the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority has been creating a National Quality Framework. In June 2012, the <a href="http://acecqa.gov.au/national-quality-framework/">National Quality Standards</a> were implemented. Every early childhood centre — kindergartens and long day care — is now being assessed by these standards.</p>
<h2>Good for the economy</h2>
<p>For every dollar invested in early childhood care, <a href="http://www.policylink.org/atf/cf/%257B97c6d565-bb43-406d-a6d5-eca3bbf35af0%257D/EARLYCHILDHOODEDUCATION.PDF%20%20">up to A$17 </a> can be returned. The <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Pre-k_education/report_prek_econpromise.pdf">average return</a> is A$2.36.</p>
<p>How does this work? Well, savings are made in money not spent on education interventions, <a href="http://www.highscope.org/content.asp?ContentId=219">crime rates</a> and health care.</p>
<p>No study has found any disadvantage. But there are disagreements over the most sustainable course. Economists <a href="http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/human-services/new-research-early-education-as-economic-investme.aspx">argue</a> that small inexpensive policies may well be worthwhile, whereas big effects from expensive interventions may not be. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, we know precious little about the <a href="http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/Pre-k_education/report_prek_econpromise.pdf%20">economic costs</a> of providing different levels of childcare quality.</p>
<h2>A sustainable future?</h2>
<p>All told, it appears that Australia has realised that it is off-track. But will the national standard and universal access be enough to fix things up? </p>
<p>The latest data show 89% of children were enrolled, but only 56% for the COAG goal of 600 hours a year. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1253&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1253&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1253&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1575&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1575&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/29066/original/gmf3f5nr-1376294428.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1575&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Snapshot of Preschool Participation in Australia: increasing, but a long way to go…</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">DEEWR, using ABS data</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>On a national level, the National Quality Standards, while promising, are too new to evaluate (none of the children in the 2012 AEDI would have experienced child care under these standards). </p>
<p>Other policy options, such as a child care subsidy, do not guarantee equality. In Quebec, where such a policy is in place, the quality of the early childhood programs is worse for children in the lowest socioeconomic quartile. These <a href="http://dspace.cigilibrary.org/jspui/bitstream/123456789/21296/1/Quality%20Counts%20Assessing%20the%20Quality%20of%20Daycare%20Services%20Based%20on%20the%20Quebec%20Longitudinal%20Study%20of%20Child%20Development.pdf?1">observations</a> suggest that, ironically, the more privileged Quebec families are benefiting most from the government’s policy.</p>
<p>We need to be spending at least five times the amount on early childhood to compete with our closest OECD neighbours. We need all centres to be held accountable to the new National Quality Standards — poorly performing or unsafe centres need to be shut immediately. Wages for educators need to be subsidised in order to attract well-trained professionals into long day care settings. Funding needs to target those with the greatest need — and be directed towards improving quality, not increasing bureaucracy.</p>
<p>Some early childhood educators are heartened by the 2012 AEDI data. Louise Cooke, an early childhood educator and researcher with the Northern Territory <a href="http://www.education.nt.gov.au/parents-community/early-childhood-services/families-as-first-teachers-program">Families as First Teachers</a> program said, “there is still a long way to go to ‘close the gap’, but services on the ground that work with families are seeing some tangible gains for young children”. </p>
<p>The key for her has been access: namely, offering these disadvantaged families many of the opportunities — such as playgroups — that are afforded families elsewhere in Australia.</p>
<p>But she is worried that decisions made by staff in Canberra often leads to waste and duplication of services. Her solution for sustainability? Better consultation with community, and better coordination.</p>
<p>Regardless of the approach, early childhood education and care is one of the most sustainable pathways towards reducing the economic and social disparities between the rich and the poor.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16730/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Squirrel Main was a research fellow from 2011-2013 on the E4Kids project at the University of Melbourne.</span></em></p>**A more sustainable Australia* As the 2013 election campaign continues, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.* Looking…Squirrel Main, Researcher, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/164682013-08-20T03:52:52Z2013-08-20T03:52:52ZA more sustainable Australia: staying in work as we age<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29196/original/gb3xym5s-1376442623.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nearly a third of agriculture workers are over 55.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Image from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>**<a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a></em>* As we hit the half-way mark of the 2013 election campaign, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape our future.*</p>
<p>Retirement ages across the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (<a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/employment/oecd-employment-outlook-2013_empl_outlook-2013-en">OECD</a> countries are rising to keep up with greater life expectancy, to the <a href="http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/cars-burned-fuel-short-in-france-pensions-protest-20101018-16qws.html">dismay of those keen to retire</a> and the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/money/planning/an-enriched-retirement-20110614-1g0sg.html">relief of those who want to keep working</a>. </p>
<p>The economic case for higher labour force participation among older workers is strong – in Australia a five percentage point increase in the participation of 50 to 69-year-olds is projected to be worth 2.4% of GDP in 2050. That would fill most of the 2.75% fiscal gap that the <a href="http://archive.treasury.gov.au/igr/igr2010/report/pdf/IGR_2010.pdf">Treasury estimates</a> will result from population ageing.</p>
<p>But will increases in average life expectancy be accompanied by more years in good health, allowing us to work longer than we have in the past? And if not, can the potential chronic health problems of an older workforce be accommodated in the workplace?</p>
<h2>Living longer doesn’t have to mean more health problems</h2>
<p>There is much debate over whether living longer means we’ll be chronically ill for longer. In the 1980s, James Fries, a gerontologist at Stanford University, first argued that as average life expectancy had increased because medical, environmental and behavioural changes have reduced premature death, so would ill health and disability be compressed by delaying the onset of chronic illness into the final years of life. He said total years of poor health would be reduced; a hypothesis known as “morbidity compression”. </p>
<p>An alternative model is that the onset of ill health happens at the same average age and the gains in average life expectancy merely extend the total years of morbidity. </p>
<p>A third possibility involves a dynamic equilibrium in which ill health is delayed and total years of ill health remain unchanged.</p>
<p>The evidence on trends in morbidity is still largely inconclusive. Most research is based on US data with studies that show compression, expansion, as well as limited change in levels of morbidity. The most recent large <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w19268.pdf">study</a>, released last month, found evidence of a significant compression in morbidity among older Americans. </p>
<p>A 2009 study by <a href="http://www.cepar.edu.au/partner-investigators.aspx">Carol Jagger</a> at the University of Newcastle in the UK looking at EU countries found considerable international variation in trends, with nine countries where disability-free life expectancy increased and four countries where it decreased.</p>
<p>Closer to home, the picture is also mixed, not least because the necessary longitudinal data is scarce. A recent <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">report</a> by the National Sustainability Council notes that baby boomers aged 53 to 62 in 2007-08 had greater rates of obesity, diabetes, hearing loss, arthritis, and high cholesterol than the same age group in 1989-90. Part of the reason for apparently worse health is because a greater proportion of the younger cohort survived, albeit with greater health issues on average.</p>
<p>Risk factors such as obesity and chronic conditions such as diabetes that we’re observing earlier in life (due to screening, for example) do suggest greater health complications in future. But disability and functional limitation from these conditions may still be delayed by enabling technology or cures.</p>
<p>The Australian Institute of Health and Ageing (AIHW) <a href="http://www.aihw.gov.au/australias-health">reports</a> that between 1998 and 2009 increases in life expectancy at age 65 included more years at the end of life with a disability and with severe functional limitations. But on the positive side, these were on top of increases in disability-free life expectancy at age 65 – from 7.1 to 8.2 years for males and 8.7 to 9.7 years for females.</p>
<p>As new data comes on stream, the next step for researchers will be to project the rates of healthy life expectancy into the future. Some are <a href="http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs13524-012-0156-2.pdf">doing this</a> already by extrapolating trends and calculating the probabilities of moving into ill health.</p>
<p>A massive <a href="http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/">global effort</a> to understand the health challenges across countries reveals that in Australia and elsewhere, musculoskeletal problems, particularly lower back pain, are the top causes of “years lost to disability” among older people. It is an area to which more research funding should be dedicated.</p>
<h2>What does this mean for an ageing workforce?</h2>
<p>Health <a href="http://www.cepar.edu.au/media/97250/participation_briefing_paper_final_with_logo.pdf">barriers to employment</a> can be overcome if such conditions and capabilities can be accommodated to allow people to work. </p>
<p>Government responses include providing services that help individuals and employers by way of advice and through subsidies for workplace modifications. Changes to incentives around benefits mean that individuals on Disability Support Pension (DSP) can now work up to 30 hours per week without losing benefits. And the <a href="http://deewr.gov.au/how-national-disability-recruitment-coordinator-works-employers">National Disability Recruitment Coordinator</a> works with businesses with 100 or more employees to help them employ and retain people with a disability. </p>
<p>Perhaps we can also appeal to employers’ self interest. After all, older workers have enormous value. They have mature judgement, reliability and loyalty, corporate memory, and lower levels of occupational health and safety incidents. Business can also benefit from workers that resemble their client demographic. </p>
<p>With the right modifications and assistive technologies, older workers can be <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537112001236%5D(http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0927537112001236">as</a>, if not <a href="http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/get/guid:ffe3dad9-d860-439b-b4fc-bbd33c359973/ASSET1%5D(http://digitalarchive.maastrichtuniversity.nl/fedora/get/guid:ffe3dad9-d860-439b-b4fc-bbd33c359973/ASSET1">more</a>, effective than other employees. </p>
<p>More could be done to incentivise employer involvement in health, to prevent illness and cope with disability. Australia has one of the lowest proportions of people with disabilities in the workforce in the <a href="http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/social-issues-migration-health/sickness-disability-and-work-breaking-the-barriers_9789264088856-en">OECD</a>. Lower levels of labour force participation among people with disabilities have been <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4446.0main+features92009">stagnant</a> for some time.</p>
<p>Some industries are absorbing older workers at higher rates than others. Currently, the industry with highest proportion of older workers is agriculture, forestry, and fishing – 30% of its employees were aged 55 or over in <a href="http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003May%202012">2012</a>. Since 1995, the education and health-care industries have seen the greatest gains.</p>
<p>It remains to be seen what the health and disability profiles of older workers will be and which employers will be able to adjust and reap the benefits of population ageing.</p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/16468/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rafal Chomik works for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research which receives funding from the ARC.</span></em></p>**A more sustainable Australia* As we hit the half-way mark of the 2013 election campaign, we’ve asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia – the issues that will shape…Rafal Chomik, Senior Research Fellow, ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research, Australian School of Business, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/171992013-08-19T04:39:12Z2013-08-19T04:39:12ZA more sustainable Australia: are we ignoring the future?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/29476/original/fhntpjk3-1376876162.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Where are Australia's politicians leading us?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paleontour/Flickr</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em><strong><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/a-more-sustainable-australia">A more sustainable Australia</a>.</strong> As we hit the half-way mark of the 2013 election campaign, we asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia - the issues that will shape our future. We begin with Geoffrey Robinson, who looks at our history of neglecting the future.</em></p>
<p>Every election campaign in Australia has a focus on marginal seats – a topic of endless frustration to electoral observers. But at least marginal electorates can be seen as microcosms of the nation. There is more ground for concern about the narrow manner in which the current campaign has defined the future interests of Australians. </p>
<p>It would be easy to blame voters for this, to agree with economist John Maynard Keynes that humans are prone to discount the future, but this pattern largely reflects failures of political leadership.</p>
<p>The Coalition seems to be focused on restoring a golden age that ended with the defeat of the Howard government. The threats to the future are seen as resulting from Labor’s record of “debt and deficit”. </p>
<p>Labor campaigners boast of their concern for the future, but the party’s modest policy record calls this commitment into doubt. Even the Greens, apart from their championing of the Labor government’s modest carbon price, have largely focused on the present concerns of left-inclined voters.</p>
<p>This omission on the part of political parties reflects popular understandings of sustainability, which are closely linked to fears of resource depletion. The 1970s texts that launched the modern environmentalist movement, such as authored by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Population_Bomb">Paul Ehrlich</a> and the <a href="http://www.clubofrome.org/?p=1161">Club of Rome</a>, were deeply shaped by fears of resource exhaustion. It is now clear that many of these fears were illusory. Fossil fuel reserves are not on the verge of exhaustion, but our overuse of them drives climate change. </p>
<p>The focus of elite panic is no longer resource depletion but concerns about the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4740270.html">alleged budgetary implications</a> of an ageing population decades into the future. This panic serves to undercut environmental sustainability, as the “environment” is cast as a luxury that is no longer affordable.</p>
<p>Discussions about sustainability in Australian politics are thus often sidetracked into the politically convenient field of arguments about population levels. The Coalition has promised to add “sustainability” to the title of the Productivity Commission, but this curious promise is largely a leftover from the 2010 campaign. That year Labor ineptly sought to divert voter concern about asylum seekers into a notably incoherent debate about population levels. </p>
<p>In 2002 the Department of Immigration commissioned a major report from CSIRO on the sustainability of Australian resource usage. This final report entitled <a href="http://www.cse.csiro.au/research/futuredilemmas">Future Dilemmas</a> suggested that Australians were a nation of “<a href="http://www.abc.net.au/science/future/theses/theses.htm">future eaters</a>”, to use a phrase popularised by Australian academic Tim Flannery. </p>
<p>It contended that the degradation of the natural environment was not taken into account by policy makers and suggested that advocates of rapid population growth explain how Australia could accommodate the equivalent of 90 new cities the size of Canberra over the next 100 years. The report met an anxious response from the Department, was reviewed by unsympathetic economists and condemned to the archives.</p>
<p>The controversy around Future Dilemmas largely put an end to thinking about sustainability at the level of the Commonwealth government. This is unfortunate. Australia has a rich history of attempts to establish institutions and processes that address sustainability. </p>
<p>In 1985, <a href="https://theconversation.com/barry-jones-in-climate-change-everything-old-is-new-again-1914">Barry Jones as Science Minister</a> established the Commission for the Future. The Commission was a pioneer voice on the need for a response to the greenhouse effect, but it endured constantly diminishing budgets and was finally wound up in 1998. After Jones’ departure from the ministry he chaired a parliamentary committee on long-term strategies but it did not survive the change of government in 1996.</p>
<p>Jones - despite his vision and enthusiasm - was never an effective political player, but in the early 1990s debates about the sustainability of resource use briefly occupied a central position in Australian politics. In 1987 and 1990 the Labor government of Bob Hawke campaigned for reelection on the basis of its “green” credentials. </p>
<p>However many of its environmental initiatives were deeply unpopular with natural resource industries and with significant sections of the Labor Party. In 1989 the Hawke government established the Resources Assessment Commission with judicial chair in an effort to depoliticise these disputes over questions such as the fate of old-growth forests and mining in Kakadu. </p>
<p>The commission’s short life was unhappy. The resource lobby was unhappy with the commission’s conclusion that public opinion on the question of Kakadu mining should guide policy. In 1993 the Keating government abolished the commission.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s the Labor government sponsored consultations between representatives of government, industry and environmental organisations on “ecologically sustainable development”. The government hoped that these discussions could depoliticise natural resource conflicts. </p>
<p>The discussions were difficult; the issue of old-growth forests was particularly divisive and led many environmentalists to withdraw from the process. The outcome of this process was disappointing. </p>
<p>In 1992 the Australian and state governments agreed to a <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/about/esd/publications/strategy">National Strategy for Ecologically Sustainable Development</a>. This strategy remains in effect but it has limited impact, beyond the provision of yet another “tick a box” criteria for annual reporting.</p>
<p>The Labor government elected in 2007 showed little interest in establishing an institutional focus on sustainability. The sole exception was the Climate Commission, set up in 2011; the Coalition has pledged to abolish it.</p>
<p>Former Labor minister Lindsay Tanner <a href="https://theconversation.com/dumbing-down-the-media-or-shooting-the-messenger-lindsay-tanners-sideshow-1010">has argued</a> that much of contemporary Australian politics now revolves around stunts and gimmickry. There was a time when advocates of sustainability were able to win the battle of images: forest preservation activists were masters of the media stunt. This victory proved short-lived. </p>
<p>Politicians have caught up, they have learnt how to champion tree planting for the 6PM news and <a href="https://theconversation.com/clearing-more-land-we-all-lose-14601">wind back controls on land clearing</a> at the same time.</p>
<p>Pioneer political scientist Alan Davies once argued that Australians had a <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/8495203">talent for bureaucracy</a>. This talent expressed itself in novel institutions such as statutory corporations to operate public services and the industrial arbitration system. These institutions often expressed popular aspirations for efficiency and equity more effectively than politicians. </p>
<p>The future of sustainability policy in Australia will depend on developing new institutions. </p>
<p><em>Thanks to the <a href="http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/measuring/publications/sustainable-australia-report-2013.html">Sustainable Australia Report 2013</a> for inspiring this series.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/17199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Geoffrey Robinson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A more sustainable Australia. As we hit the half-way mark of the 2013 election campaign, we asked academics to look at some of the long-term issues affecting Australia - the issues that will shape our…Geoffrey Robinson, Senior Lecturer, School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.