Response to Discussion Starter 5, Greening Australia - Newtown Group

At present, environmental policies and programs are "fiddling while Rome burns". The need is to stop the damage and start on improvements to the environment, rather than to slow down the rate of damage now underway.

The Federal Government spends $5.7 billion per year on subsidies to environmentally damaging processes, and has a $1.1 billion program over three years to start repairing damage.

In the landscape, the damage is driven by agriculture, and the communities involved are remote, and don't have the skills and funds to change the direction.

In discussion, there was consideration of ideas about putting salt back into the ground, and other engineering ideas such as underground 'dams' to block the flow of salty water. Kathryn argued that engineering is not the answer, but rather the processes that cause salt to surface have to be changed.

Similarly, Sydney's "poo" demonstrations 10 years ago produced an engineering solution - outfalls 4 kilometres out to sea. However, this pollution now produces red tides for 6 months of the year, reaching all the way to New Zealand and affecting fisheries there. Solutions that deal with human waste without a massive collection are required, and have been developed for the household level.

The place of ecological values alongside other values was discussed, because it means that no values are absolute. The problem is the lack of a vision across social and ecological change issues.

Kathryn argued that the values are the key to movements surviving the engineering solution. She argued for the environment movement to shift to more local organisers and local education campaigns based on ecological and social values, to avoid being top heavy and burnt out. On jobs and the environment, Kathryn noted that industrial use of natural resources by giant corporations focused on high throughput and not so much on quality, in use of fish, trees, agriculture and irrigation.

She proposed that workers, farmers and environmentalists could unite against the common enemy of the giant corporations and banks. There is a new wave of evictions of farmers now underway, as banks which have held many farm titles, sell them to agribusiness corporations. She noted that there are 8 million hectares of organic farming in Australia, and 8 million hectares of broad acre wheat farming. The farmers have quietly adopted organic methods, they have already stopped expansion of irrigation in riverlands and shifting to horticulture. These positive changes need support.

If movements of workers, farmers and environmentalists are to work together, they can't be superficial, but should have a deep appreciation of the values involved. So far there is no genuine dialogue between the environment movement and the corporate sector. While we need vision, we may not need ONE vision for all, but many localised visions which all share global values. There was significant disagreement about how to discuss this area.

The NSW Alliance of peak citizen bodies is a good place to develop shared visions and values, and better solidarity, but it is largely affected by the priorities of the Labor Council. Political party differences are partly a barrier to greater unity.