Guest essay by Viv Forbes
To compete in today’s world we need to score well on resource availability, capital assets, energy costs, tax burden and workforce/management. It also helps to have secure property rights and a sound currency. Today’s Australia scores poorly on all counts.
In 1901, the year of Federation, Australia was the richest country in the world per capita.
The Pioneer generations, with freedom to explore and invest, had developed valuable mineral assets – gold, silver, lead, zinc, copper, coal, tin and iron. And they had bred up large numbers of sheep and cattle on our native grasslands.
Energy was abundant – wood, horse power, kerosene, gas, hydro and coal powered electricity – we were among world leaders in cheap energy. Sydney had gas lights in its streets as far back as 1820.
The Pioneering innovators also invented game-changers such as the stump jump plough, the Ridley-Sunshine Harvester and froth flotation of minerals, and they developed better Australian versions of Leviathan coaches, Southern Cross windmills, Merino sheep, Shorthorn cattle, Federation wheat, Kelpies and Blue Heeler dogs.
The Builder generations who followed the pioneers invested heavily in productive capital assets like flour mills and wool sheds, mines and collieries, smelters and saw mills, power stations and electric trams, trans-continental railways and overland telegraph lines, orchards and plantations, stockyards and abattoirs, breweries and vineyards, dams and artesian bores, factories and universities, exploration and research, pipelines and harbours, railways and roads. There were no “Lock-the-Gate” signs.
Governments were decentralised with minimal taxes and red tape, creating new business was easy and union power was minimal and generally beneficial for workers.
But then the Termite generations took over, and for much of the last forty years taxes, handouts and green tape have been smothering new enterprise. We are sponging on the ageing assets created by past generations and building little to support future Australians. The monuments left by this generation are typified by casinos, sports arenas, wind-energy prayer wheels, sit-down money and debt.
The trendy war on carbon has already inflated our electricity costs – this will hasten the closure of more processing and manufacturing industries. Green tape is shutting-the-gate on new investments in exploration, grassland protection, dams, power stations, fishing, forestry and coastal development. Taxes are weakening existing industry and the savings that could build new industries are being wasted on bureaucracy, delays, legalism, subsidies, climate tomfoolery and green energy toys. Finally, union featherbedding is crippling any large survivors.
Australia’s future prosperity demands cheap energy, more investment in productive assets, reduced government costs, more productive labour and the freedom to explore and innovate.
We must change, or more jobs will follow Holden.
More at carbon-sense.com
Lessee, if debt is growing in absolute and relative terms faster than GDP, it means …
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 11:01 pm
Someone ought to do something to re-design the welfare. Most farmers are heavily in debt and working for the banks.”
While their Gov’nt allows imports from the EU zone (Olive oil, tomatoes and oranges for instance – I do try to buy Aussie owned/grown foods in any case). The ALP/Greens sold Australia out to the “carbon” banks in 2010. What will the UN do with our ~AU$800mil (10% of carbon tax revenue) annual carbon tax contribution?
@AW: re climateace You said: “Other than reports I doubt he has anything tangible” could that mean seeing he uses OPM, could those reports have been OPR’s?. BTW, Mr. Forbes essay is short to the point and as he pointed out has been happening all over the world sadly enough. I just hope as with your efforts to take on the Gore’s of this world others in different segments of our society will take the “termites” to task. Thanks and a Happy New Year.
Patrick
I suggest you read my first response to the Forbes article. Nothing that anyone has stated in a subsequent post has been able to put the smallest dint in it.
Patrick
[While their Gov’nt allows imports from the EU zone (Olive oil, tomatoes and oranges for instance – I do try to buy Aussie owned/grown foods in any case). The ALP/Greens sold Australia out to the “carbon” banks in 2010. What will the UN do with our ~AU$800mil (10% of carbon tax revenue) annual carbon tax contribution?]
It is an abiding mystery to me why successive Australian governments of all persuasions bargain away free trade in primary produce. Let’s hope that the Abbott Government does not repeat the dose with the TPP.
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 11:00 pm
Australia has done both. You are ignoring the facts.”
Talking of facts, can you document any/all of Abbotts direct action plan projects that have been/are being implemented?
patrick
[Talking of facts, can you document any/all of Abbotts direct action plan projects that have been/are being implemented?]
It is true that the Abbott Government has been remarkably slow off the mark. As you would be aware, Minister Hunt, just before Christmas and after three months on the job, has issued a Discussion Paper.
I regret that this issue was raised.
Yes, many of us, myself included, agree overall with Viv’s article. But so what?
If we start mixing our politics with our science, we’ll end up as badly wrong as the extreme greens.
I regret that this issue was raised.
LM
[Yes, many of us, myself included, agree overall with Viv’s article. But so what?
If we start mixing our politics with our science, we’ll end up as badly wrong as the extreme greens.]
Science and politics should never be together seen.
Climateace is obviously on holidays from public service job – sitting on his verandah of his hobby farm house using comments from this post for entertainment – what a sad life!
climateace;
Could you answer one question, please?
Does your name “climateace” refer to more than one person?
bullocky says
[climateace;
Could you answer one question, please?
Does your name “climateace” refer to more than one person?]
Completely irrelevant to the issues raised by Forbes.
Gerard
[Climateace is obviously on holidays from public service job – sitting on his verandah of his hobby farm house using comments from this post for entertainment – what a sad life!]
I promote the truth as I see it. All the rest is irrelevant. (BTW, you could always discuss the issues raised by Forbes.)
Economies grow and prosper in spite of government and bureaucrats, not because of them.
Governments just get in the way – I am always amused when socialists/lefties announce “job creation is their top priority”, yet these are the people whose policies and incompetence frighten away real job creation. So the jobs created/promised are only for more bureaucrats, charged with obstructing new investment under the auspices of some supposed greater good.
Australia is lucky enough to have huge natural resources, mostly found by entrepreneurs in small companies. As someone who has found and developed a large mine – not in Australia – I can tell you the mine permitting process has become an expensive nightmare. For one minor non-critical permit, we had to deliver 8,700 pieces of paper – I am certain it was just weighed and never read. I do not know what it is about left wing governments that always try and kill the goose that lays the golden egg.
The corruption and power of Australia’s unions are legendary and undoubtedly a negative as far as inward investment is concerned.
Australia is naturally wealthy, despite the best efforts of the bureaucrats, greenies, lefties and union leaders. Prosperity is a relative term, without the machinations of these four groups, Australia would be a lot better off.
climateace,
Unanswered, unresolved.
“climateace says:
December 26, 2013 at 11:34 pm
It is true that the Abbott Government has been remarkably slow off the mark. As you would be aware, Minister Hunt, just before Christmas and after three months on the job, has issued a Discussion Paper.”
Slow off the mark to react to a non-issue (CAGW), you are correct there. The current Govn’t has bigger issues (Like about AU$400bil of debt) to work through. However, all that has been done is, as you say, the incumbent Govn’t has issued a discussion paper (Relating to “climate change” and how to “tackle” it and their direct action plan) which is completely unlike the previous Govn’t which introduced a “proice ohn cahbon” (A “price” which Gillard could not explain in an interview on ABC other than to say it was, effectively, a tax) all on the word of Garnout and Flannery, y’know those well known climate scientists. Oh wait! They are not a climate scientists.
“climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 12:57 am
I promote the truth as I see it.”
Truth (As you see it). LOL Given you have blatantly expressed (Paraphrasing) support for “some sort of action” on reducing emissions of CO2 to “tackle” climate change suggests to me you are far removed from any form of truth promotion.
Peter Miller
[Economies grow and prosper in spite of government and bureaucrats, not because of them.]
It always amuses me that the same people who say this sort of thing are often righteously apoplectic about sovereign risk in countries where governance is weak, the laws chaotic, the rule of law largely absent and the bureaucracy inefficient, ineffective and riddled with corruption. Such countries notoriously also have badly educated workforces prone to the sorts of disease absent in well-ordered countries. The infrastructure in such countries is absent or poorly maintained. Using the infrastructure by way of a car ride can be lethal. Ecosystem services in terms of clean water, clean air are often lacking. In the absence of effective regulation the food can be lethal. Managing currency risk in such countries can be a nightmare. Finally, in terms of law and order you might wake up one day and find that your mine workforce has been murdered and your mine taken over by a local warlord.
The opposite of all these things is brought by good, strong democratic government and efficient and effective bureaucracies.
You can’t have it both ways.
Lewis
At last, an intelligent comment on the Forbes article! In terms of timing there can be little doubt that the GM execs listened (live) to what Hockey said in the House and that it was the last straw. But I was being a (bit) wicked in attributing the degree of causation implied.
Beyond that there are systemic reasons why our vehicle manufacturing plants are closing down. The main reason is that we have a terribly strong currency because of our mining industry exports. It is the Australian version of the Dutch disease.
Beyond that, there are lesser reasons having to do with government subsidies for car manufacturing overseas, a lack of capital investment in productivity (very low rates of robotics compared with o/s plants) and other factors, as you rightly point out, including economies of scale.
Labor productivity was definitely a factor. That said, it is interesting to know that car workers in places like Germany earn more than car workers in Australian.
Finally, it has long been a matter of considerable angst for me that Australian plants specialized in huge, heavy, gas guzzling Australian tanks at a time when petrol prices are heading north and we need to move to decarbonise the economy.
The government subsidies that have propped up this archaic nonsense for decades would far better have been spent on improving mass transit in Australian cities.
I wounded how long Telstra will last? John Howard tried his hardest to sell it off while he ruled.
Here’s something to look at Australia’s government system is only 113 year old and was put in place by a system that took centuries to evolve. The British control seemed to change direction round the the time of Harold Holts death , Australia became more Americianised . In 1966 we threw out pounds shillings and pence for the all mighty dollar.
“climateace says:
December 27, 2013 at 2:18 am
…and we need to move to decarbonise the economy.”
Not only do you not understand what you are talking about with regards to “carbon” and climate (Climateace being a rather unfortunate handle), you have no idea about manufacturing, in particular, personal transport, vehicles. Truck making in Aus has no such problems.
Mass transport in Australian cities? Really? What industries will be serviced by such mass transport systems? Next you’ll be calling for high-speed rail links between cities.
I think I asked climateace once before – are you David Karoly? Your pompous arrogance is very similar.
: Australia has, over the past couple of decades, climbed up the ladder of the world’s largest economies, because over the same period the EU and US have done even greater damage than Australia to their own economies..
Important in this general economic damage are gratuitous penalties to energy costs and gratuitous damage to development prospects in the interests of the disinterested climate and disinterested animals and plants and the fictitious mass extinction events and water degradation which is not occuring.
climateace,
Please document the ills you believe have taken place.
Climateace
“The opposite of all these things is brought by good, strong democratic government and efficient and effective bureaucracies.”
So, you are a bureaucrat and a reasonably articulate one. You are required to believe that CAGW and imminent Thermageddon are the gospel truth, or there usually employment consequences.
From your other comments, you seem to be a fan of lots and lots of government rules and regulations. I guess no comment is needed on that.
The most corrupt bureaucracies in the world are usually to be found in Africa, South America and in some parts of Asia, usually in socialist leaning kleptocracies, posing as democracies.
As for bureaucracies being efficient and effective, that I agree is the theory. In fact, it is a good theory and it is such a pity they are as rare as rocking horse poo. I need to reword this statement, some parts of government bureaucracy are efficient and effective, but they are all too often interlocked with those which are inept or corrupt.
The man made global warming myth has spawned huge numbers of hugely expensive and utterly pointless bureaucracies throughout the Western World, these should be first on the list to be culled, as their cost to our economies is truly astronomic.