More evidence of the failure of market led reform in Australia: market reform in water threatens Australia's future

"Australian water is now effectively commoditised: allocated to whoever is willing to pay the going price"
Ian Douglas

Excellent article by Ian Douglas of Fair Water Use Australia on the failure of market approaches in national water reform.:

"This blind commitment to growth, which also suffuses the policy platforms of the major parties, is being used to justify public-private partnerships and the construction of ill-conceived and untenably costly water infrastructure, most notoriously desalination plants. Our governments appear quite comfortable entering into public-private partnerships with multinationals whose track record in terms of corporate responsibility on the global stage is, at best, in-glorious."

Douglas argues that the reliance on market based approaches and the privatization of water is incompatible with the idea of access to water as a public good and poses a serious threat to Australia's water future:

Douglas argues that despite the fact that polling indicates that at least 70% of Australians are opposed to water privatization it continues to be imposed on the nation, under the guise of water reform:

"Australian water reform was conceived in 1994 by the Council of Australian Governments; nurtured by the prevailing mantra that free-market exposure was the ultimate panacea for undercapitalised and inefficient public utilities. COAG went one giant leap further, in deciding to establish a national water market; arguing that this would direct water to its most productive use.

In the years since these sweeping changes were announced, the wisdom of applying free market principles to the management of an essential natural resource has been largely discredited by events overseas: In the water-supply sector, major corporate players have been accused and, in more than a few instances, convicted of price-gouging, anti-competitive behaviour, corrupt practice and fraud. On all continents there are moves to wrest control from private corporations. Globally, more than 90 per cent of water services are now publicly owned.

In Australia there are valid concerns that water reform is leaving crucial decisions, with respect to the “where”, “when” and “how” of water distribution, in the hands of entities whose priority is profit rather than socially and environmentally responsible water use. Questions are being raised as to why our governments have been prepared to implement these radical policies without seeking and obtaining prior electoral mandate and in the absence of adequate constitutional protection of water.

The crisis in the Murray Darling and the failure of market mechanisms

Bruce Haigh on the madness of using market mechanisms to manage water in the Murray Darling Basin and the need for a radically different approach to the management of Australia's water resources:

"The management of water should not be left to markets where the pursuit of profit has water abused, devalued and often powerless with respect to sustainability. Water needs a voice and a value beyond the market. At the moment it comes a very poor second in calculations relating its use - agriculture and industry have the upper hand and water is required to comply".


"The National and Liberal Parties presided over the slow decline of rural Australia. They had the opportunity to reverse this during almost 12 years of government. They declined to do so and as a result many jobs were lost and economic opportunities that may have come through the provision of better services and infrastructure were not created, but were lost. This neglect saw the rise of rural Independents who now hold the balance of power". 

Industrialising the Kimberley: Colin Barnett's hubris

image of James Price Point, Kimberley, courtsey of Wangle

Excellent piece here by Martin Pritchard, Director of Environs Kimberley about the hubris and nightmarish impact of Colin Barnett's plan to industrialise the Kimberley.

Pritcard shows that the James Price Point development is the first step in the Barnett vision to gift much of the Kimberley region to mining and resource companies and turn into an industrial and mining zone.

WA writers on the failure of the market economy to deliver social and economic and environmental justice

Western Australian writers and thinkers continue to write about the market and corporate economy and issues of social, economic and environmental justice.

Sarah Burnside has published recent pieces in online publications New Matilda and Online Opinion. In New Matilda she challenges the idea that the majority of Aboriginal people benefit from the mining and resources industry. In reviewing a recent Australian monograph on Indigenous people and the mining industry Sarah suggests that there little evidentiary support for the idea that mining is clearly good for Aboriginal people.

On his blog Neville Numbat, Piers Vertegen continues to write important pieces on environmental issues. His most recent piece, also published in the online publication Wangle, discusses the likely impact of Julie Gillard's ascendancy for climate change policies. Piers argues that based on her past record the new PM appears unlikely to support real action to address climate change.

In other articles Piers writes about a recent WA Auditor General's report on the failure of WA government agencies to reduce energy consumption and the lack of tangible action and commitment by the Barnett Government to take action to reduce the alarming growth in carbon pollution in WA.

Colin Penter has published this piece in Online Opinion contrasting the ways that civil society groups are whistleblowers are criminalized, while corporations that break the law regularly avoid any substantial penalty. The tenets of limited liability and corporate personhood are used to enable corporations to avoid facing the full force of the law for their criminal behavior. This is a protection not available to individuals and civil society and violates the idea of equality before the law.

Perth based journalist Vicki Laurie has published a long essay in the July edition of the Monthly on the response of WA government agencies to Aboriginal disadvantage. Using the lived daily experience of one Aboriginal family, Vicki demonstrates the enormous gulf between the policy rhetoric of politicians and government agencies and the realities of life for Aboriginal families.

Disability activist Erik Leiopold has published a number of recent pieces in the West Australian and Online Opinion on the private members bill on Euthanasia currently before the WA Parliament. Erik's piece draws on his new book, based on his PhD thesis, which explores the links between market values, disability and euthanasia.

Academic and Director of the WA 2020 Project Peter McMahon has published an Op Ed piece in the West Australian (Monday July 5 2010) on the coming energy crises and its likely impact on Perth. Perth is one of the least sustainable cities in the world and Peter's article describes the energy challenges facing the State as a result of dwindling oil reserves and climate change.

In the lead up to NAIDOC Week Myrna Tonkinson from the University of WA has written this piece in Eureka St lamenting the lack of progress and commitment by Governments in addressing Aboriginal disadvantage.

West Australian families and the environment pay for the market's excesses

image courtesy of the Conservation Council

This excellent piece by Piers Verstegen the Director of the Conservation Council of WA appeared recently in the West Australian and can be found on Piers's excellent blog site Numbat News. There is also a Facebook site to keep up with latest activities of Piers and the Conservation Council.

State Budget rewards polluters but punishes environment and families

By Piers Verstegen

In a closed briefing to business and community groups on the State budget, Premier and Treasurer Colin Barnett said that this budget strongly reflects the policy agenda of the Liberal-National Government. Sadly, an examination of the budget reveals this agenda as one that places the environment as one of the Government’s lowest priorities.

The second budget produced by the Liberal-National Government continues the established trend of running our environmental regulators on the smell of an oily rag. Much less than 2% of the overall State budget is dedicated to the increasingly impossible tasks of reducing carbon pollution, managing waste, regulating polluting industries, controlling land clearing, managing national parks, reducing air pollution, protecting the marine environment and all the other functions of the State environment portfolio.

When you consider that environmental protection is the responsibility of States under the Australian Constitution, this is grossly inadequate. The inevitable consequence of this budget frugality will be increasing impacts on our environment, increased threats to our biodiversity and health, and carbon pollution skyrocketing out of control in WA.

For a realistic assessment of the environmental consequences of this year’s budget, one must look beyond the environment portfolio. On the other side of the ecological balance sheet, the budget increases the already very significant taxpayer subsidies for polluting and destructive industries in Western Australia.

For example, the budget earmarks over $100 million towards assisting the development of a polluting LNG processing plant on the Kimberley coast – in the middle of the southern hemisphere’s most important hump-back whale calving ground. If it goes ahead, this development would be responsible for increasing WA’s greenhouse emission by 25% on its own.

Premier Barnett has stated that the Kimberley is the Government’s number one environmental priority, and a small allocation has been made to allow for the creation of a new marine park at Camden Sound, North of Broome. This funding is welcome; however the government’s environmental credentials in the Kimberley must be weighed against the heavy taxpayer investment in opening up the north for damaging and unsustainable industries.

Expenditure in the energy portfolio, which could hold the key to a clean renewable energy future, is even more alarming. The budget reveals that more than 99% of capital expenditure by the government’s energy utility will fund polluting fossil-fuel generation; less than 1% will be spent on renewable energy.

And if this is not bad enough, the budget totally fails to account for the massive economic liability that will be passed on to future Western Australians as a consequence of Western Australia’s rapidly increasing carbon pollution.

The Rudd government have delayed the introduction of an Emissions Trading Scheme for the moment, but some price on carbon will inevitably be introduced in some form in the future. Failing to disclose this cost to householders who will be forced to bear that cost because of decisions made to subsidise polluting industries today is duplicitous.

The EPA have advised that WA carbon pollution is likely to increase by an alarming 75% in the next few years. Decisions made today will determine whether Western Australia unlocks its clean energy potential, or locks into a future where Western Australian’s will be forced to pay higher and higher carbon polluting costs.

The disparity between the government’s treatment of the environment and polluting industries is echoed just about everywhere you look in the budget papers.

For example, water charges for households will be increased, but Collies rapidly expanding coal-fired power industry will continue enjoy huge volumes of water almost totally free of charge.

Mining companies receive even more handouts as part of the State Governments $80 million mining exploration incentives package (they already receive generous tax concessions for expolration activities from the Commonwealth), but taxpayers will have to pick up the bill for environmental damage caused by mining as the government continues it’s policy to exempt miners from paying bonds to cover the cost of rehabilitation.

And while families pay more for power, the budget continues the generous energy subsidies enjoyed by mining and other industries supplied from the grid in regional areas.

Financially this budget is in surplus, but that fails to account for the massive environmental and economic liability that will be transferred to future generations as a consequence of the Barnett Government’s overwhelming focus on expanding and subsidising unsustainable and polluting industries in WA.

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