The 2020 Summit

It takes a big event to get me to come out of my self imposed exile and the 2020 Summit was such an event.

I was fascinated watching the end product of the two days of discussion and regardless of any cynicism that you might read in the media one thing, at least for me, was certain - there were traces and elements of Gough Whitlam's arrival on the front stage of Australian political and government management back in the 1970's.

With those memories well and truly fresh in my mind I have to say that the concept of engaging with the population of a country to have more democratic and less bureaucratic government was one of the notions of that era as well.

Indeed the major transition for most people back in the 1970s was from a very tightly controlled form of government to something less formal and controlled and more reliant on the population as a source of energy and new ideas and enthusiastic (albeit voluntary) workers.

Coming after decades of Liberal and Country Party rule this was honestly meant to be a way forward into the future towards a more inclusive form of society and government.

Viewed in this light one HAS to ask the question - why is it that this experiment failed? Why is it that these great ideas about inclusion and commitment fail?

As an example only let's consider the AAP

The AAP aimed to develop a social welfare system that would place Australia at the forefront of social development (Hayden 1978: 122). It was an innovative plan as it sought to transfer decision- making power from centralised bureaucracies to regional structures, affecting all sectors of welfare from Federal and State to voluntary agencies (Graycar & Davis 1977:22). The AAP was seen as the instrument that would facilitate the planning and coordination of regional issues affecting social development. It gave local communities the chance to develop and control their services (Graycar 1978:357).

To achieve the aims of the AAP, Regional Councils for Social Development were established throughout Australia. These were to be the mechanisms by which a 'redistribution of power was to be effected' (Graycar 1978:357). They were to have responsibility for planning and co-ordinating services in their region. Regional variations in service delivery were to be recognised in the establishing of these Councils (Hayden, 1978:125).

This Prime Minister is actually going further than his predecessor - he wants to be able to create "a Federation that works" and part and parcel of this notion is the idea that somehow barriers between the voters and people of Australia have to be lowered so that government is truly representative or at least really in touch with what their aspirations and expectations are and what their frustrations are as well as any suggestions that they have for resolving the issues that are causing their frustrations.

Gough and Bill Hayden tried this nearly forty years ago and they ended up with some interesting results that frankly, the current government would do well to read up on and consider. After all there is no sense in making the same or similar mistakes - one should learn from history.

As someone who was totally enthusiastic and carried away with the notions of inclusion and involvement of the populace in governance I remain dedicated to the NOTIONS that underpin the principles that are being stated here. In principle I think it is a highly desirable thing to involved people in how they are governed and in the processes of government. How and whether it can be accomplished is I think moot.

So I welcome the challenge.

What I would like to contribute to this discussion are simply a few questions:

1. What economic conditions have to be in place to enable and facilitate change?
   
2. Do people have to have a stable employment and financial situation before they will risk change?
3. Is it true that in our immediate environment to the north of Australia there are millions of people who are at imminent risk of being unable to afford to buy food?
4. Is it true that the farming community in Australia, which has suffered the worst drought in at least living memory, is looking for a way to overcome their current lack of income for the years of the drought for some resulting in a debt situation?
5. Is it true that prior to the drought Australia was a major contributor of the food supply for millions of people in other countries including those to our north and as far away as Africa and Europe?
6. Is it true that with the price of oil increasing daily and to previously unimaginable levels the search for sustainable and renewable forms of energy there is now a focus on the production of vegetable matter that can be converted into bio-fuels?
7. Are the prices for bio fuel producing matter higher than the price for renewable food supplies?
8. Is it true that as countries like China and India emerge from very low levels of income their rate of consumption of animal protein usually rises quite rapidly.
9. Is it true that this change is requiring massive increases in grian production needed to produce meat and dairy products?
   

Once the answers to these questions are in I suspect that what they may tell us is that in the short term at least, some farmers are more likely to produce vast quantities of vegetable matter that is suitable for conversion to bio-fuels than what they were producing previously before the drought? If this suspicion is confirmed then I suspect that while Australian farmers may well find themselves in a position to make a financial killing their actions will have some serious impacts on the global food supply situation to the extent that it will contribute greatly to the ever shrinking availability of affordable food for millions of people across the globe.

I even venture to suggest that there will be a competition between the needs for fuel and food.

Any decision that does not deal with this reality will - at least in my view be one that could have dramatic results in both the short and the longer term.

Food takes at least takes quite a while to grow and then some more time before it can be distributed to where it is needed.

Millions of people who would be affected cannot continue to exist for the time taken to grow and distribute food thus there will in all likely hood be riots and violence as hungry people try to do something drastic to change whatever is leaving them in this state and past experience with this sort of human behaviour elsewhere in the world in the past SHOULD alert us to the problems that they cause and then the realisation of the issues in the past need to be multiplied by the numbers of people who may have now have the resources to buy things that they want but with nothing available on the shelves for them to buy.

It's a complex issue but one that I suspect will need in the VERY near future to be addressed and not through some collaborative and cooperative and consultative mode but rather through harsh almost dictatorial use of power to make people grow the food stuff that is needed and not to take their own needs for profits to influence their decision making - but to impose decision making that puts the world and Australia ahead of personal gain!

My fears may only be mine - but unfortunately there seem to be others who are saying similar things and they are far more qualified in this area than I am:

For example:

Key speaker at the national science briefing Professor Julian Cribb said the security of our food supply is "the global scientific challenge of our time".

The problem was more urgent even than climate change, said Professor Cribb, from the University of Technology in Sydney, because it will get us first . . . through famine and war. "By 2050 we will have to feed the equivalent of 13 billion people at today's levels of nutrition," he said.

"This situation brings with it the very real possibility of regional and global instability. Investment in global food stability is now defence spending and requires proportionate priority."

A "knowledge drought" – the lack of innovation to address farm productivity challenges – had added to the crisis, Professor Cribb said.

He called for a massive increase in public investment in agricultural research and development.

Farmers face challenges posed by drought, climate change, rising oil prices, erosion and nutrient loss combined with more demand for food stocks and biofuels.

Global grain stocks have fallen to their lowest level since record-keeping began in 1960, while Australia's sheep flock is at its lowest since the mid-1920s, with about 86 million.

In September last year 2007 the Australian Bureau of Statistics found consumers were paying 11.9 per cent more for basic food items than they were two years before. That is almost double the Consumer Price Index rise of 5.9 per cent during the period.

See also:

UN Warns of food shortage riots

Meat Vegetable Prices to Skyrocket soon

A submission to government about world food shortage

then just type in "food shortage" in any good on line search engine and the number of hits will astound you.

People are thinking about all this NOW elsewhere what worries me is that there is not a similar level of thought in this country about these matters.