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If Australia does draw back from globalisation — as opposed to trade, which will continue — then there should be more focus on our primary sector and how it could be better financed. Australia’s long history as a primary producer constitutes what economists call a ‘comparative advantage’: an economic area in which a country does best while giving up the least.
After an excruciating few weeks of negotiations with the Nationals — and far too many hours subjected to Barnaby Joyce’s ramblings — the Morrison government has finally announced their predictably underwhelming plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The Murugappan family have found themselves in the middle of this nasty tangle, their fates politicised and manipulated.
It is no coincidence that white ‘settler’ theology in this country has barely begun to engage with Indigenous people. Arguably, it has only begun to do so because the Indigenous citizens of the churches have begun to cast off the imaginative shackles made for us by our white gubbas and find our own voice.
Recent research has documented some of the historical causes of the ongoing absence of water justice. When the land rights agenda emerged towards the end of the 20th century, deliberate decisions were made to restrict access mostly to land without water rights.
On a superficial level, it makes no sense to commit so strongly to managing the impacts of climate change (adaptation) on the one hand while refusing to significantly reduce emissions (mitigation) on the other. On the other hand, when you start to unpack the logic of so much adaptation policy, this contradiction fades away.
There is a common error about economics that, if not corrected, has far reaching consequences. It is the widely held belief that economic growth and consumption are the same. They are not.
A common argument is that publicly-funded artists take unnecessarily from the ‘average Australian’. In the current international crisis, this argument fails to recognise that artists and arts workers are just as deeply impacted financially by COVID-19 as the ‘average Australian’ in other industries.
The global impact of COVID-19 has further increased inequality in food security, with nations already facing widespread famine, malnutrition and food insecurity being hit the hardest.
While the world is largely focused on COVID-19, a recent report from Global Witness revealed that murders of land and environmental defenders, defined as people who take a stand for land and environment in a peaceful manner, reached a high in 2019.
The full economic impact of the coronavirus lockdowns will not be fully felt until the end of the year, but it will be devastating. The Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, is already estimating that the effective employment rate is 13.3 per cent; it may be headed for as high as 20 per cent. It raises a question, not just in Australia, but in many developed countries. Will there be a significant middle class left after such economic destruction?
For our society to function responsively to what is now a dynamically changing context, we urgently need differently oriented governance. This will, no doubt, be unpalatable for some — both in government and in the general public. But without re-setting how we are governed, our land and our society will suffer further destruction.