Saving the Murray-Darling – the saga continues
Well, by dithering and not keeping faithful to a clear and explainable policy line they have managed to alienate just about all the stakeholders. In addition, they have made two bad choices to chair the responsible authority. The first chair was too rigid and bureaucratic and lacked the skills to engage with the parties to reach a viable compromise. The present chair, Craig Knowles, is focused only on getting a deal, at whatever cost to the original policy objectives and to the river system.
Also, both chairs and the Government have failed to understand that the first, essential step to resolve any complex policy issue – and this one is complex indeed – should be to devise principles to frame the discussion and to get the stakeholders to agree to them. If that is not done, the likely outcome is that any divergence that may exist at the beginning of the process will only grow larger as the process unfolds. What then happens is that the only possible solution is the lowest common denominator, the kind of solution that makes no one happy, except of course the consultants and lobbyists, who are always ready to gnaw at the carcass of policy failure, at the expense of taxpayers. Which is exactly where the Government finds itself now.
What should those principles be in this case? Well, the first principle should be to place the matter in its true context. It is lunacy to deal with the future of one river system, however important, without placing it in context. The proper context is the future of Australia’s agricultural sector. Why do I say that? Like the car industry, and the textile industry in the 1970s, the agricultural sector in Australia is facing fundamental challenges: climate change, a high Australian dollar; competition from lower cost producers and so on. Like the car and textile industries, Australia’s agricultural sector needs fundamental reform – and it needs it now. So, the principles I would suggest be used to frame the debate about what happens to the Murray-Darling river system are what we need to agree to initiate a process of reform of the agricultural sector as a whole.
There are only a few and they can be expressed in one sentence: that we grow crops in southern Australia that can thrive on our relatively poor soils, can find a ready market, here or abroad, and do not require high inputs of water or fertiliser or pesticides and insecticides. Complementary principles would be: that any process of structural adjustment should be guided and funded by the Australian Government, on behalf of all of us who support the agricultural sector with our taxes and with our purchases; and that the interests of growers and communities should be safeguarded, but not without appropriate limits on what this might cost.
If I were to apply these principles, it would not take me long to conclude that there are two crops we should not grow in Australia: cotton and rice. Cotton requires high inputs of water or fertiliser or pesticides and insecticides and rice requires high inputs of water. Because of that, they generate a particular high impost on our fragile environment and on our unreliable supply of water. There are countries where these crops are grown without creating environmental damage and where water is reliable and plentiful. Some of these countries are our neighbours, like Thailand for example. We could stop growing rice and cotton here tomorrow and we would be able to import quality cotton and rice, at a lower price, and create wealth in neighbouring countries, which may well use this new wealth to buy from us things we grow that they cannot grow. Everybody wins.
Yes, you will say, but what about rice and cotton growers. Well, I say, what about car workers or textile workers or any other industry that needs or has undergone a radical transformation because the world changed. Why should farmers be any different from any other workers or small business owners?
As I said earlier, any process of structural adjustment should be guided and funded by the Australian Government, meaning that we taxpayers, as we have done before, should be prepared to support fellow Australians who are making a sacrifice for our collective benefit. By the way, just as we support farmers now, in this country that claims it does not subsidise farming. A country where billions of dollars flow into the farming sector every year from the budget in various forms, carefully hidden from sight as ethanol for fuel legislation or diesel fuel rebates and so on.
So, Mr Knowles and Mr Bourke, how about we start again and, this time, we try to get it right, for our sake and, more importantly, for the benefit of the generations that follow us?
Patrick Callioni is a former senior public servant, with the Queensland and Australian Governments, and is now the Managing Director of consulting company, Enterprise Intelligence Pty Ltd, which specialises in helping business to do business with government and vice-versa.
