Lucky Country?: Reinventing Australia

By Ian Lowe

Can we reinvent the Lucky Country? Fifty years ago author Donald Horne described Australia as 'a lucky country run by second-rate people', adding that our leaders are mostly unaware of events that surround them. The good fortune continued when our wide brown land proved to contain bountiful resources of saleable minerals, allowing successive generations of second-rate leaders to create an illusion of economic progress by liquidating those assets. But a crisis is approaching, driven by irresponsible encouragement of population growth rates typical of poor developing countries. In this polemic work, Ian Lowe will assess the state of Australia and whether we can retain our status of the Lucky Country.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of Queensland Press
• Release date: Mar 23, 2016
• ISBN: 9780702255465

Ian Lowe

Ian Lowe is an emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and was a reviewer for the United Nations-sponsored 2005 Millennium Assessment Report and the 2004 report of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Program. He is the president of the Australian Conservation Foundation and is the author or co-author of sixteen other books, including Living in the Hothouse (2005) and A Big Fix (2008). He lives on the Sunshine Coast.

Book preview

Professor Ian Lowe AO is emeritus professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University in Brisbane, as well as being an adjunct professor at Sunshine Coast University and Flinders University. His previous books include A Big Fix, Living in the Hothouse, A Voice of Reason: Reflections on Australia and Bigger or Better? Australia’s Population Debate. Professor Lowe has been a referee for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme and the Millennium Assessment. He attended the Geneva, Kyoto and Copenhagen conferences of the parties to the Framework Convention on Climate Change. He was a member of the Australian delegation to the 1999 UNESCO World Conference on Science and has served on many advisory bodies to all levels of government. He was president of the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) from 2004 to 2014, and in 2009 the International Academy of Sciences, Health and Ecology awarded him the Konrad Lorenz Gold Medal. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering.

For Maven Cordelia and all of her generation

CONTENTS

Introduction

Environment

Geography

Society

Economy

Balance

Acknowledgements

Sources

Introduction

In his iconic 1964 book, Donald Horne described Australia as ‘a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck’. He went on to say that we ‘live on other people’s ideas’ and that ‘most of our leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise’. His book caused a sensation at the time and became a runaway bestseller. The striking cover, an Albert Tucker painting of a sun-bronzed Aussie, appealed to the traditional Australian image of a country defined by its rural lands and their produce. The phrase ‘the lucky country’ quickly became part of the language, though its message was often misrepresented by people who had not even read the book, or had skimmed quickly through it and missed the irony of the title.

Donald Horne was a remarkable Australian. He grew up in a country town, but he moved with his parents to Sydney while he was at school. He began to study at the University of Sydney with the intention of becoming a teacher, but his formal education was interrupted when he was conscripted into the army during World War II. After the war he drifted through a brief dalliance with the diplomatic service into a career as a journalist, rising through the ranks to edit magazines. When it was rumoured that he was about to be sacked from the editorship of The Bulletin, then a popular publication, the University of New South Wales offered him a post in its Faculty of Arts. He became a prominent academic in the politics department, achieving the distinction of being promoted to professor without even having a bachelor’s degree! A few months before he died in 2005, the University of Sydney finally conferred an honorary Doctor of Letters on the man who was probably their most famous drop-out. Glyn Davis, now vice-chancellor of Melbourne University, who as an honours student was supervised by Horne, described him as ‘a familiar public intellectual in Australia, a man who helped the nation understand itself’. Davis observed that The Lucky Country ‘was both description and program … calling for government to encourage the innovation missing from public and business life’. It resonated with the community because it was such a perceptive analysis of what is good about Australia, as well as what we could do better. Davis attributed the breadth of Horne’s understanding of Australia to the many roles he had filled: ‘student, soldier, diplomatic cadet, young journalist, editor, advertising executive, academic’. He was truly a unique individual.

Reflecting on the book’s reception 35 years after it was first published, Horne wrote about the way his argument had been misunderstood or deliberately misrepresented. He said, ‘misuse of the phrase the lucky country, as if it were praise for Australia rather than a warning, has been a tribute to the empty-mindedness of a mob of assorted public wafflers. When the book first came out, people had no doubt the phrase was ironic. Twisting it around to mean the opposite of what was intended has silenced the three loud warnings in the book about the future of Australia.’ The first of these three loud warnings was that it is essential to accept the challenges of where Australia sits on the map. These challenges include how we develop relationships with our Asian neighbours, with whom we have tended to engage on purely economic terms; how we reconcile our colonial history of dispossessing Australia’s original inhabitants; and how we develop our foreign policy and defence strategies in the complex world of the Asia–Pacific, recognising the competing interests of the two great powers, China and the USA, as well as a significant group of middleweights like ourselves. Horne’s second warning was the need for ‘a bold redefinition of what the whole place adds up to now’, which requires us to recognise that Australia has changed fundamentally in recent decades and have a serious public discussion about societal values, population growth and what kind of country we’d like to become. Obviously that process would be facilitated if we were to elect visionary leaders who were willing and able to guide, or at least participate in, the public discussion. His third warning saw a need for a revolution in economic priorities, ‘especially by investing in education and science’, which have been sacrificed in this country to privilege markets and the pursuit of endless growth, while we further tether ourselves to a globalised economy that puts our well-being in the hands of forces we can’t control.

Writing in 1998, Horne observed that these same three warnings should be repeated, ‘with the amplifying knob turned up’. If he were alive today, he would certainly think that the three warnings are still valid, more than 50 years after he originally issued them. In this book, I revisit these warnings to show you why they are still relevant today; if anything, they are more urgent because they have been neglected for 50 years by politicians content to drift with the random tides of international affairs. I am also compelled to add a warning of my own: the environmental challenges we face simply can no longer be ignored. Horne’s three warnings – on geography, society and the economy – must all be filtered through the lens of our precarious environmental situation. The devastatingly extreme weather patterns that come with climate change, the loss of biodiversity, the breakdown of the Earth’s ecosystems and our unsustainable use of finite resources all affect our future prospects.

In 2015, the need for change was signalled by a UN report on progress toward sustainability. It showed that Australia ranks 18th out of the 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries: below the UK, New Zealand and well below Canada. The rating was based on 34 indicators covering economic, social and environmental progress. Australia ranked among the worst of all the affluent countries on such indicators as our level of resource use, the municipal waste we generate, the greenhouse gases we use for each unit of economic output and our obesity rate. We were also well below the average on social indicators such as the level of education we reach, the gender pay difference and percentage of women in parliament, economic indicators such as the poverty rate and the degree of inequality, as well as environmental indicators such as how much land we protect and our share of renewable energy. Perhaps most worrying, we are also well below average in our capacity to monitor progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. As the old adage goes, you can’t manage what you don’t measure.

While the global future looks extremely problematic, Australia has unique advantages that would allow us to be both a model for the developed world and a beacon of hope for the developing nations in our region. It will not be easy. What Horne acerbically called ‘empty-minded public wafflers’ remain an obstacle to achieving that desirable future, as do powerful vested interests and their political clients. Yet I am an incurable optimist and believe that the changes are possible; as the author Arundhati Roy enthusiastically expressed it, a new world is not just possible, but its early beginnings are already visible to the prepared senses: ‘on a quiet day, I can hear her breathing’. Like a small plant emerging from the earth, this new world needs to be nurtured – but the mighty Moreton Bay fig trees that are such an iconic part of the Queensland landscape were once tiny saplings. We must cultivate those seeds of change so we can grow to become a truly lucky country. That will be a wonderful legacy to future generations.

Let me tell you something of the background I bring to this book. That is important for you to know because I, like you and everyone else, see the world through the lenses of my values and my experience. Like Donald Horne, I grew up in small country towns. I was lucky to get a state bursary when I finished primary school, enabling my parents to send me to the state high school about 40 kilometres away and get a very good education. After finishing school, I got a job in Sydney working for a company that built electronic equipment; they supported me to study electrical engineering part-time at the new university of technology. Four years later, that institution had become the University of New South Wales and I moved to a job in its applied physics department, building equipment for researchers. Like Horne, I also learned to write by contributing to the student newspaper. I became heavily involved in student politics and in the years after The Lucky Country was published, I was active in the debates it stimulated about our geographic position, our responsibility for the treatment of the original Australians, our investment in education and science, and our rapidly changing urban societies. Unlike Horne, I was not moved by his arguments to support the American War in Vietnam.

After graduating, I had the rewarding experience of ten weeks travelling around the USA with a group of ‘student leaders’ from nine other countries, meeting politicians and other decision-makers. A creative rearrangement of my return fare allowed me to visit Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and the Philippines on my way home, giving me a wonderful introduction to the variety and complexity of our region. I taught high school science for eighteen months, then went to the UK to research for a doctorate in physics at the University of York. Ironically, given where my thinking has moved since then, my doctoral research was funded by the UK Atomic Energy Authority! My first academic post was in the Technology Faculty at the then new UK Open University. It involved working in multi-disciplinary teams to produce integrated learning experiences for mature-age students. After the publication of The Limits to Growth and the subsequent oil crisis in the 1970s, I became very interested in the issues arising from energy supply and use. I returned to Australia in 1980 to lecture in science, technology and society and direct the Science Policy Research Centre at Griffith University in Brisbane.

As well as my academic work, I have been involved in a wide range of advisory roles to all levels of government, mostly in the broad areas of energy and environment. I directed our Commission for the Future in 1988, when we published an excellent discussion paper written by Donald Horne, arguing persuasively for government support for innovation. I chaired the advisory council that produced the first independent national report on the state of the environment in 1996. As the science we drew together showed clearly that we are not living sustainably, I became active in public discussion of the environmental problems. I negotiated early retirement from Griffith University at the end of 1999 and the university subsequently made me an emeritus professor, which is an honorary appointment for life. This freed me to be more involved in other activities and led to me being invited to be president of the Australian Conservation Foundation, a role I filled from 2004 to 2014. I have given four addresses to the National Press Club about the need to change our approach and become an innovative society, in charge of our own destiny and working purposefully for a sustainable future.

Those of us who were born around the middle of last century in Australia were incredibly lucky in the lottery of life. We grew up in a time of peace and relative plenty in a secure country. But we need to recognise that there are now storm clouds on the horizon. We have a responsibility to future generations, our own descendants, to be thinking about our legacy to them. As I was writing this book, I became a grandfather for the first time. Looking at my precious little grand-daughter, I could not help reflecting on what sort of world she will grow up in. She could well live until the end of this century. I hope that we will act responsibly by putting in place the structures and policies that will allow her to have a secure, comfortable and rewarding life. So I have dedicated this book to her, and all of her generation of young Australians.

I have assumed that you, the reader, are a thoughtful Australian who shares my view that we should be thinking about the future we are all creating. In this introduction, I have briefly set out the warnings Donald Horne sounded 50 years ago. In the following four sections, I will summarise what I believe to be the current situation and prospects for change in each of the key areas in turn: environment, geography, society and economy. Then I will conclude with some thoughts about combining these aspects of our life to shape a future that could be sustainable.

I hope the discussion will help you in two ways. First, I believe we all need to understand how our individual actions can contribute to shaping a better future. Second, and more importantly, I believe we all need to be putting pressure on our elected representatives at all levels – local, state or territory, and national – to be acting more responsibly, taking the decisions and setting the structures now that will enable us as citizens to play our part in creating a genuinely lucky country.

ENVIRONMENT

Australia has some very serious environmental problems. If we are to achieve our goal of ecological sustainability, these problems need to be dealt with immediately … The problems are the cumulative consequences of population growth and distribution, lifestyles, technologies and demands on natural resources … No single government or sector is to blame for these problems. We are all responsible.

—Australia: State of the Environment 1996

Much of Australia’s environment and heritage is in good shape, or improving. Other parts are in poor condition or deteriorating … Our changing climate, and growing population and economy, are now confronting us with new challenges.

—Australia: State of the Environment 2011

The current observed changes to the Earth systems are unprecedented in human history … several critical global, regional or local thresholds are close or have been exceeded … abrupt and possibly irreversible changes to the life support functions of the planet are likely to occur.

—GEO5, UNEP 2012

The first edition of Donald Horne’s The Lucky Country says absolutely nothing about environmental issues, because they were not on the radar in 1964. Most observers see the 1962 US publication of Silent Spring by Rachel Carson – which set out the detrimental effects of pesticides on birds, animals and the world’s food supply – as the beginning of broad awareness of the impacts of human activity on natural systems. It began a discussion of these issues among scientists and the more aware public officials. The first laws seeking to protect environmental standards emerged about ten years later. Of course, there had always been a link between industrial production and local pollution, as recognised in the old Yorkshire saying ‘where there’s muck, there’s brass’ – wherever there is a mess, it is the result of somebody making money. The problem that has developed in the last 50 years is that our growing human numbers and increasing consumption have dramatically increased the scale of environmental effects: from the local to the regional and now the global. Our ecosystem is under serious threat – from climate change and other effects of human activity – and our political efforts at regulating these threats have been seriously compromised by those with economic interests in maintaining the damaging behaviour. These issues clash most strongly in the areas of energy use and resource exports, and the strain that population growth puts on our urban development and infrastructure. Shifting our development trajectory onto a path that could be sustainable will require a concerted effort by our politicians to act in the interest of future generations. It will also need all of us to accept less wasteful living standards.

The damage we’re doing

Twenty years ago, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) decided to develop reports on the Global Environmental Outlook (GEO). I was in a workshop UNEP convened to discuss the structure of these reports. Five have now been issued, each one expressing the need for change more urgently than the previous study. As long ago as 1999, the second GEO report warned that serious problems were emerging from increasing human consumption of resources. It concluded that the standard development model, assuming continuing growth in material living standards everywhere in the world, was not sustainable and ‘doing nothing is no longer an option’. World leaders essentially ignored that clarion call. As subsequent reports have pointed out, the global environmental problems are steadily worsening, arguably the inevitable consequence of the continually growing population and increasing consumption per person. One recent report, GEO5, said in 2012 that despite efforts to ‘slow the rate or extent of change’, neither the scope nor speed of these adverse changes has abated in the past five years. We are now close to or exceeding the thresholds of ‘possibly irreversible changes to the life-support functions of the planet’. An abrupt and irreversible example is the accelerated melting of the Arctic ice sheet due to global warming.

GEO5 noted that such changes are already having serious consequences for human well-being. Droughts are combining with socio-economic pressures to affect food production and human security. Increasing average temperatures have led to significant human health problems such as increased outbreaks of malaria. Increased frequency and severity of climatic events, such as floods and droughts, are affecting both human settlements and the natural world. Rising sea levels pose a threat to coastal buildings as well as reducing the capacity of some small island developing states in the Pacific to produce their food. Perhaps most importantly, biodiversity loss affects everything from our food supply to the loss of existing and possible future medicines from natural systems.

If we want to avoid these consequences, we need to recognise and respond to the root causes of the environmental problems, rather than concentrating just on the symptoms. As one obvious example, it is not enough to reduce individual impacts on natural systems; we need to reduce the total impact. The ecosystem does not recognise or respond to the number of humans on Earth or the scale of our industrial production, but it does respond to the sum total of our water extraction, our food production, our dumping of wastes, our destruction of habitat and our release of introduced species. There is no prospect, even in principle, of a sustainable future unless we recognise and respond to that fundamental truth. It calls into question the underlying assumption of most decision-makers, the myth that continuing growth is both possible and desirable. This is ‘a toxic meme’ which makes it impossible to have a rational discussion about the problems we face.

Climate change

The atmospheric concentration of the most important greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, has varied over the period of human existence between about 180 and 280 parts per