WEBVTT 1 00:00:01.780 --> 00:00:05.500 to advise them on their new Ministry of Unsustainability 2 00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:12.720 and what policies that they could use to produce the unsustainable future that was their policy goal. 3 00:00:12.920 --> 00:00:17.420 So I gave some thought to this and I mapped out a program of policies. 4 00:00:17.600 --> 00:00:21.480 I thought that they should start with exponential growth in population 5 00:00:21.480 --> 00:00:27.740 because we know that no species can expand its population forever in a closed system 6 00:00:27.740 --> 00:00:32.960 and that populations are inevitably brought under control eventually 7 00:00:34.680 --> 00:00:39.420 through shortages of food or through disease or through fighting amongst themselves. 8 00:00:40.760 --> 00:00:44.620 So an unsustainable future, exponential population growth is a good starting point. 9 00:00:45.300 --> 00:00:48.540 How could we compound the impact of a growing population? 10 00:00:48.920 --> 00:00:51.940 Well, we could encourage increasing consumption per person 11 00:00:51.940 --> 00:00:56.800 and this would ensure that the growing population put a compounding, 12 00:00:56.800 --> 00:00:57.720 increasing efficiency. 13 00:00:57.740 --> 00:01:00.920 And this would have a significant effect on resources and on natural systems. 14 00:01:01.900 --> 00:01:05.560 I suggested perhaps we could go ahead and deplete some important resources. 15 00:01:06.260 --> 00:01:08.000 Oil would be a good one to start with. 16 00:01:08.760 --> 00:01:14.020 And of course at the time it was suggested that the peak of world oil production 17 00:01:14.020 --> 00:01:17.940 might already have happened, but if it hadn't happened it would be in the next few years. 18 00:01:18.120 --> 00:01:23.360 And we now know of course that it was in 2007 and oil production has declined dramatically. 19 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:26.840 And of course with the price of petroleum fuels, 20 00:01:26.840 --> 00:01:33.980 now at $7 a litre, we've seen four-wheel drive vehicles banished to farms and mine sites 21 00:01:33.980 --> 00:01:37.420 where they should be rather than clogging up suburban streets. 22 00:01:41.860 --> 00:01:44.980 And we're well on the way to being a hydrogen economy 23 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:49.240 because it's recognised that oil is so important that it needs to be saved 24 00:01:49.240 --> 00:01:51.140 for aviation fuel and lubricants. 25 00:01:52.700 --> 00:01:56.720 I advise them in terms of unsustainability that we could overuse 26 00:01:56.840 --> 00:02:00.740 our fisheries and forests and thus ensure that future generations 27 00:02:00.740 --> 00:02:03.060 didn't have the same opportunities that we had. 28 00:02:03.620 --> 00:02:07.200 In environmental terms, perhaps we could disrupt the global climate. 29 00:02:07.400 --> 00:02:09.820 That's a good way of producing an unsustainable future. 30 00:02:11.180 --> 00:02:15.140 In economic terms, I suggested that they could embrace a policy 31 00:02:15.140 --> 00:02:19.660 of exporting unprocessed raw materials of low value. 32 00:02:19.980 --> 00:02:24.820 Perhaps they could put money into infrastructure like wharves and railway lines and roads 33 00:02:24.820 --> 00:02:26.820 to encourage increase in oil production. 34 00:02:26.820 --> 00:02:27.100 Perhaps they could put money into the production of new and existing quantities 35 00:02:27.100 --> 00:02:28.380 of commodity exports. 36 00:02:28.720 --> 00:02:33.420 And they could commit the country to importing elaborately transformed 37 00:02:33.420 --> 00:02:39.700 manufacturers that required the export of increasing amounts of raw materials. 38 00:02:40.060 --> 00:02:44.760 In social terms, I suggested they should try and reduce social cohesion 39 00:02:44.760 --> 00:02:51.620 by expanding inequality, running down the public provision of health and transport 40 00:02:51.620 --> 00:02:56.580 and education in favour of a private provider model, I thought, would be a good mechanism of achieving that. 41 00:02:56.820 --> 00:03:02.000 I thought perhaps in industrial relations terms they might consider taking Australia 42 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:08.020 back to the 1930s by changing even further the balance between employers and employees. 43 00:03:08.600 --> 00:03:15.040 Perhaps doing away with a centralised arbitration system and requiring people to negotiate individually 44 00:03:15.040 --> 00:03:17.180 with their employers would be a good way of doing that. 45 00:03:17.340 --> 00:03:22.760 And in spiritual terms, I thought they might encourage Australia to embrace crass materialism 46 00:03:23.300 --> 00:03:26.120 and the delusion that we will be more happy and more fulfilled. 47 00:03:26.140 --> 00:03:26.800 In economic terms, I suggested that they could embrace a policy of increasing the quality of the raw materials of the world. 48 00:03:26.820 --> 00:03:29.600 If we consume increasing quantities of raw materials. 49 00:03:30.740 --> 00:03:36.440 Now you can probably intuit why I was such a success as Director of Australia's Commission for the Future. 50 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:43.120 I think I can claim that I've had most of my recommendations adopted even before I presented them to the government. 51 00:03:46.260 --> 00:03:51.260 Because what I spelled out in 2005 as the policy recipe for an unsustainable future 52 00:03:51.820 --> 00:03:55.140 was largely the strategies that were being followed at that time 53 00:03:55.820 --> 00:03:56.800 when Australia was in a state of crisis. 54 00:03:56.820 --> 00:03:58.560 It was rapidly depleting natural resources. 55 00:03:58.880 --> 00:04:02.200 It was doing relatively little about its serious environmental problems. 56 00:04:02.540 --> 00:04:09.640 It was so unconcerned about its economic viability that 43 consecutive trade deficits went largely unremarked. 57 00:04:10.060 --> 00:04:20.440 And the born again treasurer of the time, Peter Pentecostello, was able to explain this as showing that the market was really working. 58 00:04:21.160 --> 00:04:24.020 Equity and socialist stability were being undermined. 59 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.360 And above all else, 60 00:04:26.360 --> 00:04:32.080 we were seeing what a conference at the time called the pressure of the increasing expectations of a growing population 61 00:04:32.080 --> 00:04:35.000 in a globalising human-dominated world. 62 00:04:35.340 --> 00:04:37.020 And surprisingly at the time, 63 00:04:37.040 --> 00:04:41.360 nobody remarked on the fact that the Australian Bureau of Statistics analysis 64 00:04:42.360 --> 00:04:46.180 showed that our economic progress was coming at social and environmental cost. 65 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:51.640 They had by 2005 produced three reports in their series Measures of Australia's Progress 66 00:04:52.360 --> 00:04:55.500 which had shown that all of the economic indicators for Australia 67 00:04:55.500 --> 00:04:57.900 were positive apart from our trade deficit, 68 00:04:58.100 --> 00:05:02.060 that the social indicators were mixed with some very worrying negative trends, 69 00:05:02.340 --> 00:05:06.300 but almost all the environmental indicators were going in the wrong direction. 70 00:05:06.700 --> 00:05:10.460 And I recall that Mike Archer and Bob Beale in their 2004 book 71 00:05:10.460 --> 00:05:15.460 said that Australia had stoked the fires of wealth and growth by burning the floorboards. 72 00:05:18.060 --> 00:05:23.300 In 2004, in his influential book, Well and Good, Richard Eckersley asked the question, 73 00:05:23.300 --> 00:05:26.180 Given what you know about the state of the world, 74 00:05:26.400 --> 00:05:31.820 would it be your absolute top priority to become twice as rich in the next 20 years 75 00:05:31.820 --> 00:05:33.220 so you could double your consumption? 76 00:05:33.960 --> 00:05:36.140 And he said that when he asked that question, 77 00:05:36.280 --> 00:05:40.200 not many people, even those in the bottom deck aisle of the income distribution, 78 00:05:40.940 --> 00:05:45.760 thought that it was their absolute top priority to become twice as rich and double their consumption. 79 00:05:46.180 --> 00:05:50.680 He pointed out that that was at the time the top priority of all of our governments, 80 00:05:50.880 --> 00:05:52.720 state and federal, labour and coalition, 81 00:05:52.720 --> 00:05:58.000 who were all equally committed to a rate of economic growth of between 3 and 4 percent, 82 00:05:58.220 --> 00:06:01.460 which if continued would make us twice as rich in 20 years 83 00:06:01.460 --> 00:06:03.460 and allow us to double our consumption. 84 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:08.600 It was clear at the time that our present process was unsustainable 85 00:06:08.600 --> 00:06:11.060 and that doing nothing was no longer an option, 86 00:06:11.220 --> 00:06:16.420 although if you recall it was by far the preferred strategy of most elected politicians. 87 00:06:17.240 --> 00:06:21.680 We were at the time being warned that global warming was likely to see 88 00:06:21.680 --> 00:06:24.660 an increase in temperature in the next century 89 00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:28.260 of three or four times that which we'd seen in the last century. 90 00:06:28.540 --> 00:06:32.400 The International Geosphere Biosphere Programme had warned us that 91 00:06:32.400 --> 00:06:34.680 in terms of key environmental parameters, 92 00:06:34.980 --> 00:06:38.920 the Earth system was right outside the range of natural variability 93 00:06:38.920 --> 00:06:41.060 of the last half million years 94 00:06:41.680 --> 00:06:45.980 and that human activities were affecting the dynamics of Earth systems 95 00:06:46.680 --> 00:06:50.540 in ways that were complex, interactive and apparently accelerating, 96 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:55.080 so it was entirely conceivable that we could alter natural systems 97 00:06:55.080 --> 00:06:59.880 in ways that would threaten the very processes and components on which we depend. 98 00:07:00.480 --> 00:07:05.940 And it was recognised at the time that we had done much damage through ignorance, 99 00:07:06.220 --> 00:07:09.680 through applying narrow technical knowledge to parts of the problem 100 00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:14.380 instead of considering the complex interactions of natural systems, 101 00:07:14.480 --> 00:07:20.260 the physical, the chemical, the biological, the human, the social, the political and the economic. 102 00:07:20.260 --> 00:07:24.020 There had been some chastening reading at the time. 103 00:07:24.340 --> 00:07:31.480 The Ehrlichs, their book One with Nineveh, which took its title from the line in the old hymn The Recessional, 104 00:07:31.680 --> 00:07:35.340 Lo, all our pomp of yesterday is one with Nineveh entire, 105 00:07:36.260 --> 00:07:39.420 to remind us that past human societies have collapsed 106 00:07:39.420 --> 00:07:45.580 when they outgrew their resource base and failed to interact sustainably with natural systems. 107 00:07:46.780 --> 00:07:49.120 Similarly, Meadows, Randers and Meadows, 108 00:07:49.200 --> 00:07:50.180 in their book Limited, 109 00:07:50.260 --> 00:07:51.800 Limits to Growth, the 30-year update, 110 00:07:52.100 --> 00:07:55.880 had reminded us that they said in 1972 111 00:07:55.880 --> 00:08:01.280 that if the trends in growth were to continue for another 100 years, 112 00:08:01.540 --> 00:08:02.920 we would reach limits. 113 00:08:03.140 --> 00:08:09.280 And they suggested in 2004 in their update that some of those limits were visible. 114 00:08:09.720 --> 00:08:13.460 Jared Diamond's influential book Collapse pointed out that 115 00:08:13.460 --> 00:08:17.540 a range of previous human civilisations had collapsed 116 00:08:17.540 --> 00:08:20.080 through getting out of balance with natural systems 117 00:08:20.260 --> 00:08:23.060 and failing to take action to correct the trends. 118 00:08:23.340 --> 00:08:26.300 It also documented a range of human societies 119 00:08:26.300 --> 00:08:31.380 which had resolved their imbalance by changes to their social institutions, 120 00:08:31.820 --> 00:08:36.300 changes to their economic practice, changes to their political organisation 121 00:08:36.300 --> 00:08:39.580 to bring them back into balance with natural systems. 122 00:08:39.920 --> 00:08:42.220 And he suggested in the subtitle of his book 123 00:08:42.220 --> 00:08:45.220 How Societies Choose to Fail or Survive 124 00:08:45.220 --> 00:08:50.240 that we make conscious choices which determine whether our societies fail. 125 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:54.240 According to whether we are prepared to change practices 126 00:08:54.240 --> 00:08:57.820 which have served us in the past but are now causing problems. 127 00:08:59.220 --> 00:09:03.260 Richard Eckersley again suggested there were three alternative responses 128 00:09:03.260 --> 00:09:07.640 to the increasing realisation in the first years of this century 129 00:09:07.640 --> 00:09:11.020 that our process of development was not sustainable. 130 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:13.020 The first, he said, was denial. 131 00:09:13.480 --> 00:09:16.720 John Kenneth Galbraith, he quoted as saying 132 00:09:16.720 --> 00:09:20.220 that rather than change, most people will try to prove 133 00:09:20.220 --> 00:09:21.900 that change is not really necessary. 134 00:09:22.420 --> 00:09:24.700 And Tanberg produced a wonderful cartoon 135 00:09:24.700 --> 00:09:28.580 when the Millennium Assessment Report was released in March this year 136 00:09:28.580 --> 00:09:32.220 when 1360 scientific experts from 95 countries 137 00:09:32.940 --> 00:09:35.740 concluded that we are on the brink of ecological disaster 138 00:09:35.740 --> 00:09:39.240 and they showed our Prime Minister being asked to respond saying 139 00:09:39.240 --> 00:09:40.640 I demand a second opinion. 140 00:09:43.380 --> 00:09:46.080 The second possible response is avoidance. 141 00:09:46.180 --> 00:09:49.060 And Eckersley quoted that great sage of our time, Woody Allen 142 00:09:49.060 --> 00:09:53.260 as saying, don't ever underestimate the powers of distraction. 143 00:09:53.880 --> 00:09:59.380 That you can distract people from problems by some large sporting events perhaps 144 00:09:59.380 --> 00:10:03.060 or by invading a country in the Northern Hemisphere 145 00:10:03.060 --> 00:10:10.260 or by trying to get them to focus their attention on short-term problems 146 00:10:10.260 --> 00:10:13.860 and problems which are fundamentally of less consequence 147 00:10:13.860 --> 00:10:16.840 than the large-scale ones with which we're faced. 148 00:10:17.080 --> 00:10:18.900 If you were at the session last night, 149 00:10:19.060 --> 00:10:22.700 you would have heard Stephen Snyder comment on the relationship 150 00:10:22.700 --> 00:10:25.840 between the September the 11th terrorist attacks 151 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:30.120 and other perils to which we are inured. 152 00:10:30.340 --> 00:10:34.300 And I was on a panel with Philip Adams at a conference last year 153 00:10:34.300 --> 00:10:37.560 in which we were invited to speculate on the risks of terrorism 154 00:10:37.560 --> 00:10:41.880 and I pointed out that the Bali bombing shocked Australia 155 00:10:41.880 --> 00:10:45.940 because 100 young people, 100 people died, 156 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:48.600 100 Australians died, most of them young people. 157 00:10:48.600 --> 00:10:52.080 And this caused a fundamental change to the way we think 158 00:10:52.080 --> 00:10:54.240 about our relationship with the rest of the world. 159 00:10:54.420 --> 00:10:57.520 But I reminded that conference that every three weeks 160 00:10:57.520 --> 00:11:01.400 100 Australians, most of them young people, die on our roads. 161 00:11:01.880 --> 00:11:05.600 And we regard this with such equanimity, we actually call it the road tolls 162 00:11:06.280 --> 00:11:08.520 if it were the inevitable price of using the system. 163 00:11:09.140 --> 00:11:13.640 Every two days, 100 Australians are killed by the effects of smoking tobacco. 164 00:11:14.120 --> 00:11:17.460 And again, we're remarkably sanguine about this risk. 165 00:11:17.460 --> 00:11:21.580 The point I'm making is that it is easy to be distracted 166 00:11:21.580 --> 00:11:26.580 by large events, shocking events, into ignoring problems 167 00:11:26.580 --> 00:11:28.960 that are much more fundamentally serious, 168 00:11:29.760 --> 00:11:33.920 including the imbalance between us and ecological systems. 169 00:11:35.860 --> 00:11:40.100 Back in 2005, I suggested we should aim at healthier futures. 170 00:11:40.420 --> 00:11:43.960 And healthier was an acronym I developed because we use acronyms 171 00:11:43.960 --> 00:11:45.920 to remember important concepts. 172 00:11:46.240 --> 00:11:47.440 You might recall that we used the acronym 173 00:11:47.460 --> 00:11:49.140 that at the time the military precept, 174 00:11:49.220 --> 00:11:50.440 no American troops overseas, 175 00:11:50.680 --> 00:11:53.480 was memorized through the acronym NATO. 176 00:11:54.640 --> 00:11:58.980 And our approach to foreign policy, 177 00:11:59.200 --> 00:12:01.320 Australians suspect every Asian neighbor, 178 00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:03.040 we remembered through the acronym ASEAN. 179 00:12:03.200 --> 00:12:06.980 And the then Commonwealth government's approach to reconciliation, 180 00:12:07.440 --> 00:12:09.300 hold off when apologies really demanded, 181 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:11.140 was remembered through the acronym HOWARD. 182 00:12:11.200 --> 00:12:12.300 So in that spirit... 183 00:12:17.460 --> 00:12:20.180 In that spirit, I suggested the acronym HEALTHIER 184 00:12:20.180 --> 00:12:22.580 for the sort of futures we should be trying to achieve. 185 00:12:22.840 --> 00:12:26.740 I suggested they should be humane, have an ecocentric approach, 186 00:12:27.020 --> 00:12:31.560 a long time horizon, be informed, efficient, and resourced. 187 00:12:31.800 --> 00:12:35.200 They should be humane, I suggested, in the sense that we should be trying 188 00:12:35.200 --> 00:12:38.900 to develop technologies and approaches that could at least in principle 189 00:12:38.900 --> 00:12:43.020 be extended to the entire human family, rather than a privileged minority 190 00:12:43.020 --> 00:12:44.160 in a few countries. 191 00:12:44.160 --> 00:12:48.240 It should have an ecocentric approach because we should recognize that 192 00:12:48.240 --> 00:12:51.200 the economy gives us things that we need, 193 00:12:51.320 --> 00:12:54.780 but predominantly it gives us things that we have to be persuaded to want, 194 00:12:54.940 --> 00:12:58.580 like designer clothes and DVD players and urban assault vehicles 195 00:12:58.580 --> 00:13:01.840 and copies of my new paperback book, which I promise not to mention. 196 00:13:04.240 --> 00:13:09.180 But the natural systems of this planet give us the things that we absolutely need, 197 00:13:09.300 --> 00:13:13.380 like breathable air, drinkable water, and the capacity to produce our food, 198 00:13:13.380 --> 00:13:16.640 and other things which are more important than the economic trivia, 199 00:13:16.860 --> 00:13:20.320 like a sense of cultural identity and spiritual sustenance. 200 00:13:20.560 --> 00:13:24.640 And unless we recognize that and put as our highest priority 201 00:13:24.640 --> 00:13:28.900 the maintenance of natural systems, we have no future even as a species, 202 00:13:28.980 --> 00:13:30.100 let alone as a civilization. 203 00:13:31.340 --> 00:13:34.620 It would have had a long time horizon because we would recognize 204 00:13:34.620 --> 00:13:38.620 that the decisions we take today about urban planning, about transport, 205 00:13:38.780 --> 00:13:43.140 about energy systems, are literally setting in concrete what our options will be 206 00:13:43.140 --> 00:13:44.660 for 50 years into the future. 207 00:13:44.860 --> 00:13:48.460 But by and large, these decisions are taken by people who are worried 208 00:13:48.460 --> 00:13:50.780 about this year's balance sheet or next year's election. 209 00:13:51.180 --> 00:13:54.860 And the economically rational process of discounting the future 210 00:13:54.860 --> 00:13:59.160 means that they take no account of the costs and benefits of their decisions 211 00:13:59.160 --> 00:14:01.020 30 or 40 years into the future. 212 00:14:01.180 --> 00:14:03.960 And we'd make better decisions in a whole range of areas 213 00:14:03.960 --> 00:14:09.060 if we routinely asked ourselves what they would look like in 50 or 100 years' time. 214 00:14:09.400 --> 00:14:13.060 It would be informed in the sense that we would have invented 215 00:14:13.140 --> 00:14:17.780 and invested in a better understanding of the complex natural systems of the Earth 216 00:14:17.780 --> 00:14:21.780 and our impact on them so that we could make decisions to fulfill our needs 217 00:14:21.780 --> 00:14:24.740 in ways that put less pressure on natural systems 218 00:14:24.740 --> 00:14:27.440 and are less likely to cause significant disruption. 219 00:14:28.060 --> 00:14:31.460 It would be efficient in the sense that we would have dramatically improved 220 00:14:31.460 --> 00:14:35.540 the effectiveness of turning resources into the things that we want, 221 00:14:35.660 --> 00:14:38.640 like shelter and food and clothing and mobility, 222 00:14:39.260 --> 00:14:42.900 and so dramatically reduce the demands on natural systems 223 00:14:43.140 --> 00:14:43.920 of our life. 224 00:14:44.080 --> 00:14:47.340 And finally, it would be resourced in the sense that we would have moved away 225 00:14:47.340 --> 00:14:51.480 from using energy vectors that are either in limited supply, like oil, 226 00:14:51.660 --> 00:14:55.020 or environmentally unacceptable, like coal, 227 00:14:55.160 --> 00:14:59.300 in favour of renewable resources and dramatically improved efficiency. 228 00:15:00.500 --> 00:15:06.280 Now, in specific terms, I suggested then that the basis for the changes 229 00:15:06.280 --> 00:15:09.840 we needed to make were already there in the recommendations 230 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:12.300 of the ecologically sustainable process 231 00:15:12.300 --> 00:15:15.140 of the early 1990s that had been gathering dust 232 00:15:15.140 --> 00:15:18.280 in Commonwealth government pigeonholes for 15 years. 233 00:15:18.880 --> 00:15:23.900 And they were there in the principles laid down in the report 234 00:15:23.900 --> 00:15:26.620 of the Global Scenarios Group, The Great Transition, 235 00:15:26.800 --> 00:15:31.660 which suggested that the underpinning values that are needed 236 00:15:31.660 --> 00:15:35.420 to produce a sustainable future are a new triad. 237 00:15:35.420 --> 00:15:38.740 They suggested that the values underpinning Western society 238 00:15:38.740 --> 00:15:41.300 at the moment are consumerism, individualism, 239 00:15:41.320 --> 00:15:43.380 and domination of nature. 240 00:15:43.680 --> 00:15:47.880 And they suggested in 2005 that these need to give way 241 00:15:47.880 --> 00:15:53.120 to a new triad of values, quality of life, ecological sensitivity, 242 00:15:53.380 --> 00:15:54.760 and human solidarity. 243 00:15:55.300 --> 00:15:59.400 And you may recall now that we adopted in the early years 244 00:15:59.400 --> 00:16:03.680 of this century these new values, and we moved towards being 245 00:16:03.680 --> 00:16:04.740 a sustainable society. 246 00:16:05.180 --> 00:16:08.780 And the election of the new government last year was the culmination 247 00:16:08.780 --> 00:16:11.280 of the great change in social values, 248 00:16:11.320 --> 00:16:12.000 and the new economic values in Australia, 249 00:16:12.240 --> 00:16:16.540 in which the old econometric approach was no longer acceptable. 250 00:16:16.840 --> 00:16:20.020 Let me remind you of the specific decisions that have been taken 251 00:16:20.020 --> 00:16:22.060 in the last 12 months by this new government. 252 00:16:22.280 --> 00:16:25.200 It decided to stabilise the Australian population 253 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:28.780 by limiting net inward migration to 60,000, 254 00:16:28.920 --> 00:16:31.800 and ending the facile incentives that were developed 255 00:16:31.800 --> 00:16:34.880 by a previous government, whose name for the moment escapes me, 256 00:16:35.040 --> 00:16:36.980 to encourage people to have more children. 257 00:16:36.980 --> 00:16:41.940 It has reset resource use to sustainable levels 258 00:16:41.940 --> 00:16:44.840 by an investment in sustainability science, 259 00:16:45.180 --> 00:16:46.820 the understanding of natural systems, 260 00:16:47.080 --> 00:16:49.300 by the adoption of the precautionary principle, 261 00:16:49.480 --> 00:16:53.400 and recognising that it's conceivable for the entire human family 262 00:16:53.400 --> 00:16:56.280 to live at a level of resource consumption equivalent 263 00:16:56.280 --> 00:17:00.020 to Australia in 1960, and has adopted as its target 264 00:17:00.020 --> 00:17:03.700 for the next 15 years to reduce resource use in Australia 265 00:17:03.700 --> 00:17:05.860 to that which we had in 1960, 266 00:17:05.860 --> 00:17:10.540 a level that we can consume with moral responsibility 267 00:17:10.540 --> 00:17:12.120 for the rest of the planet. 268 00:17:12.560 --> 00:17:15.900 It has extended the initiative of the RAND government 269 00:17:15.900 --> 00:17:18.620 back in 2005 to ban plastic bags 270 00:17:18.620 --> 00:17:21.380 by becoming a zero-waste society. 271 00:17:22.740 --> 00:17:25.760 Garbage disposal services have been discontinued 272 00:17:25.760 --> 00:17:29.720 because we are now producing no waste that cannot be composted 273 00:17:29.720 --> 00:17:31.520 and turned into useful energy in the home. 274 00:17:31.860 --> 00:17:35.840 And it has embraced the principle that there will be 275 00:17:35.860 --> 00:17:37.880 no further loss of natural areas, 276 00:17:38.080 --> 00:17:42.700 and indeed the principle of levying people 277 00:17:42.700 --> 00:17:47.000 to take endangered natural areas into public ownership 278 00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:49.700 to ensure their maintenance has been extended 279 00:17:49.700 --> 00:17:52.500 with a government investment in the restoration of areas, 280 00:17:52.700 --> 00:17:54.980 particularly in the urban surroundings 281 00:17:54.980 --> 00:17:56.800 that have been degraded in the past. 282 00:17:57.280 --> 00:18:00.080 We have adopted a target of a low-carbon future, 283 00:18:00.980 --> 00:18:05.480 extending the target that was already adopted 284 00:18:05.480 --> 00:18:09.600 of 60% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, 285 00:18:10.000 --> 00:18:13.220 and pledged Australia to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 286 00:18:13.220 --> 00:18:15.800 by 90% by 2075. 287 00:18:16.400 --> 00:18:18.120 And in terms of implementing that, 288 00:18:18.260 --> 00:18:20.460 we have gone beyond the earlier promise 289 00:18:20.460 --> 00:18:22.420 that there will be no new coal power stations 290 00:18:22.420 --> 00:18:26.140 to invest massively in efficiency and solar water. 291 00:18:26.280 --> 00:18:29.780 The new geothermal power station in the north of South Australia 292 00:18:29.780 --> 00:18:32.340 is steadily replacing the old wind turbines 293 00:18:32.340 --> 00:18:34.980 which were providing most of our energy until recently. 294 00:18:35.580 --> 00:18:38.280 As I said earlier, rising fuel prices 295 00:18:38.280 --> 00:18:40.320 and the new efficiency standards 296 00:18:40.320 --> 00:18:42.240 which the government has implemented 297 00:18:42.240 --> 00:18:45.700 has meant the end of four-wheel drive vehicles in city streets. 298 00:18:46.440 --> 00:18:50.080 And a new generation of urban planners 299 00:18:50.080 --> 00:18:54.560 see as their goal not to encourage mobility 300 00:18:54.560 --> 00:18:56.240 but to encourage accessibility, 301 00:18:57.220 --> 00:18:59.320 recognising that people do not come to cities 302 00:18:59.320 --> 00:19:01.860 so that they can drive around in search of services. 303 00:19:02.000 --> 00:19:04.760 They come to cities for the services that they provide, 304 00:19:04.760 --> 00:19:06.560 and the new school of planning 305 00:19:06.560 --> 00:19:09.840 is committed to ensuring that services are accessible 306 00:19:09.840 --> 00:19:10.820 where people live, 307 00:19:10.980 --> 00:19:14.920 so they no longer have to spend $10 a litre on fuel 308 00:19:14.920 --> 00:19:16.800 to get to inaccessible services. 309 00:19:17.520 --> 00:19:19.580 The government has dramatically invested 310 00:19:19.580 --> 00:19:20.920 in research and innovation. 311 00:19:21.220 --> 00:19:23.200 It has abolished university fees 312 00:19:23.200 --> 00:19:26.100 as part of its commitment to educating all young Australians 313 00:19:26.100 --> 00:19:27.200 to the limit of their ability 314 00:19:27.200 --> 00:19:29.180 rather than the limits of their parents' wallet, 315 00:19:29.340 --> 00:19:32.260 because it recognises that an educated community 316 00:19:32.260 --> 00:19:34.280 is the best possible investment 317 00:19:34.280 --> 00:19:36.520 we can have in a sustainable future 318 00:19:36.520 --> 00:19:38.560 and an economically viable future. 319 00:19:45.280 --> 00:19:46.180 Most fundamentally, 320 00:19:46.340 --> 00:19:49.260 it has embraced a new decision-making process, 321 00:19:49.720 --> 00:19:52.860 building on examples like the Resource Assessment Commission 322 00:19:52.860 --> 00:19:54.620 in the 1990s 323 00:19:54.620 --> 00:19:57.440 and the Douglas Shire Council's decision 324 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:01.240 about water filtration in the early 2000s. 325 00:20:01.260 --> 00:20:03.980 You might recall that the Resource Assessment Commission 326 00:20:04.280 --> 00:20:05.420 was set up by the Hawke Government 327 00:20:05.420 --> 00:20:07.980 to look at a proposal to mine at Coronation Hill 328 00:20:07.980 --> 00:20:09.060 in the Northern Territory, 329 00:20:09.100 --> 00:20:13.300 and it decided that there was no simple calculus 330 00:20:13.300 --> 00:20:15.600 that could determine whether a project like that 331 00:20:15.600 --> 00:20:16.300 should go ahead, 332 00:20:16.520 --> 00:20:17.980 that experts could advise 333 00:20:17.980 --> 00:20:20.940 on the economic benefits of the proposal, 334 00:20:21.300 --> 00:20:23.920 they could advise on the social costs and benefits, 335 00:20:24.220 --> 00:20:26.320 they could advise on the cultural impacts, 336 00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:28.940 they could advise on the environmental risks. 337 00:20:29.180 --> 00:20:32.140 And weighing those up to decide whether on balance 338 00:20:32.140 --> 00:20:34.160 it was good or bad, they said, 339 00:20:34.160 --> 00:20:36.180 was a political process 340 00:20:36.180 --> 00:20:38.940 that should be taken transparently and in the open. 341 00:20:39.200 --> 00:20:41.900 In similar terms, in the early 2000s, 342 00:20:41.940 --> 00:20:44.400 the Douglas Shire, faced with a choice between 343 00:20:45.160 --> 00:20:47.660 cheap but environmentally disturbing ways 344 00:20:47.660 --> 00:20:50.460 of purifying their water, like adding chlorine, 345 00:20:50.820 --> 00:20:53.000 and more environmentally desirable 346 00:20:53.000 --> 00:20:55.920 but more expensive ways, like microfiltration, 347 00:20:56.140 --> 00:20:59.000 commissioned engineering studies of the alternatives, 348 00:20:59.340 --> 00:21:01.020 published a discussion paper 349 00:21:01.020 --> 00:21:04.060 which quantified what the impact would be on the rates, 350 00:21:04.160 --> 00:21:06.680 and had an 18-month period of public discussion 351 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.420 before inviting the public to make a decision in a plebiscite. 352 00:21:10.580 --> 00:21:12.920 And you might recall that the public of Douglas Shire 353 00:21:12.920 --> 00:21:15.220 voted to tax themselves to implement 354 00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:17.240 the environmentally cleanest way. 355 00:21:17.500 --> 00:21:20.560 And the new government is inspired by those examples 356 00:21:20.560 --> 00:21:23.200 to trust the good sense of the Australian people 357 00:21:23.200 --> 00:21:25.440 and implement a decision-making process 358 00:21:25.440 --> 00:21:28.460 in which we are all involved in making difficult decisions, 359 00:21:29.300 --> 00:21:31.100 recognising that there are costs and benefits, 360 00:21:31.260 --> 00:21:32.080 winners and losers, 361 00:21:32.380 --> 00:21:34.140 and recognising that it's a matter of 362 00:21:34.140 --> 00:21:37.240 social values to decide what we will do 363 00:21:37.240 --> 00:21:39.580 and how the winners will compensate the losers. 364 00:21:40.260 --> 00:21:42.340 Finally, as you know, the government has adopted 365 00:21:42.340 --> 00:21:43.800 as a metaphor for the future, 366 00:21:44.000 --> 00:21:45.840 the Ise Shrine in Japan. 367 00:21:46.340 --> 00:21:50.740 The Ise Shrine is the main centre of the Shinto religion. 368 00:21:51.160 --> 00:21:54.280 It's the equivalent of St Peter's to the Catholic Church 369 00:21:54.280 --> 00:21:55.460 or Mecca to Islam. 370 00:21:56.640 --> 00:21:59.020 And I remember telling the government 371 00:21:59.020 --> 00:22:01.020 about my visit to the Ise Shrine, 372 00:22:01.020 --> 00:22:04.060 and I was struck by the fact that it was a wooden structure 373 00:22:04.140 --> 00:22:06.420 that had been there for more than 1200 years 374 00:22:06.420 --> 00:22:08.340 but appeared in perfect condition. 375 00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:10.880 And I was told the secret was that the Shrine 376 00:22:10.880 --> 00:22:13.300 had two identical sites side by side. 377 00:22:13.580 --> 00:22:16.200 And after the Shrine had been there for 20 years, 378 00:22:16.480 --> 00:22:19.500 they built a replica on the second site of the first one, 379 00:22:19.720 --> 00:22:22.280 transferred the sacred objects to the new one, 380 00:22:22.380 --> 00:22:24.040 and dismantled the old structure. 381 00:22:24.260 --> 00:22:26.320 And they were able to do this because the site 382 00:22:26.320 --> 00:22:29.000 was in the middle of a forest which produced enough wood 383 00:22:29.000 --> 00:22:31.300 to rebuild the Shrine every 20 years. 384 00:22:31.540 --> 00:22:33.140 And for 1200 years, 385 00:22:33.140 --> 00:22:35.600 the Shrine has been rebuilt every 20 years, 386 00:22:35.840 --> 00:22:38.940 so it is always new, always in good condition, 387 00:22:39.160 --> 00:22:42.820 but always produced sustainably from its natural resource base. 388 00:22:43.200 --> 00:22:46.580 And the adoption of the Ise Shrine as the metaphor 389 00:22:46.580 --> 00:22:50.740 for our society is symbolic of our embrace 390 00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:53.800 of this new idea of living sustainably. 391 00:22:54.300 --> 00:22:57.080 Now I remember when I spelt this out in 2005, 392 00:22:57.420 --> 00:22:59.760 even in the sort of friendly and intelligent audience 393 00:22:59.760 --> 00:23:02.020 that come to the Adelaide Isears Festival, 394 00:23:02.020 --> 00:23:04.160 there were still a few people in the audience 395 00:23:04.160 --> 00:23:06.660 who thought that I was talking about a utopian vision. 396 00:23:06.920 --> 00:23:09.480 And I reminded them that in one sense I was, 397 00:23:09.640 --> 00:23:12.560 but in another sense all of the great social advances 398 00:23:12.560 --> 00:23:15.680 of our time have been seen as utopian visions 399 00:23:15.680 --> 00:23:17.320 when they were first sketched out. 400 00:23:17.780 --> 00:23:21.620 200 years ago, abolition of slavery was seen as utopian. 401 00:23:21.780 --> 00:23:25.280