There were many actions that could have been taken to
minimize the impact of the demographic and environmental forces.
In most cases there would have been a cost and this justified inaction.
Others could have been considered as “no regret” policies, that were
beneficial for other reasons as well.
Transport is a good example of a “no regrets” policy
area. If more people were
encouraged to used public transport, walk, or cycle then this would reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. But side
benefits would include:
However, governments saw no votes in such initiatives,
preferring to pour money into roads. People
had no encouragement, either in the form of argument or opportunity, to use cars
less.
Incentives to save were never seriously on government
agendas. Saving meant less
consumption, which was unattractive in the short term even though it was
beneficial in the long term. Borrowing
to consume is negative saving and this was encouraged in the late 1990’s and
at the turn of the millennium by record low interest rates.
At that time, about 8% of household disposable income was paid in
interest, despite low interest rates. Governments
could have been imaginative and introduced a tax on consumer debt and tax
deductions on savings as an offset. Instead, we got the GST which increased the cost of consuming
services leaving less money available to save, as consumers value their current
lifestyle more than their future lifestyle.
Many people do not want to retire at age 65 or younger.
With a lower proportion of the workforce engaged in physically demanding
activity than in the past, many people want to continue working.
This may be to continue earning an income or because they prefer the
stimulation of work to the boredom of retirement.
Current corporate preferences militate against this and so other avenues
are needed. This is likely to be
community work or small business. But
where is the assistance with ideas and finance for older people to engage in
these productive activities?
Health policy could have done much more to avoid avoidable
costs such as those associated with:
A drop in death rates from vehicle accidents since the
1970’s had stalled by 2000. There
was no stomach for not registering vehicles that could travel at significantly
higher speeds than the maximum legal speed.
But road collisions cost $15 billion per year, equivalent to 4% of GDP.
Yarra Valley water had a brief campaign to encourage
Melbourne residents to install water tanks in 2000 but it was not persevered
with. It should have been made
mandatory for all new homes to have a water tank to harvest rainwater and to
have water recycling facilities. Continued
encouragement for existing homes to install water tanks was needed.
Farmers were slow to realize that it was possible to
increase and diversify income by generating solar and wind power which could be
sold to distributors. Banks were
slow to lend for this purpose.
It was clear in 2001 that governments were not going to
invest anything like enough money to solve salinity (and other) problems.
The farming and environmental movements needed to work out other ways of
getting funding:
Australia, with its abundant solar energy resources should
have established itself as the leader in solar technology.
The export opportunity was vast in addition to potential energy savings
domestically. However, governments
were against “picking winners” which meant that Australia had none.
Australia should have ratified Kyoto. This would have encouraged other countries to do so and enhanced our credentials for selling solar solutions to our neighbours. It would also have supported the “clean green” image that our agriculture industry sought but could not sustain.