SUSTAINABILITY
WATER, DECENTRALISATION AND THE ECONOMY IN THE 21ST CENTURY As Australia enters election mode this month, Warwick Lorenz outlines his vision of the nation we should be in the next 50 years – one that invests in water infrastructure to develop its primary industries, and to decentralise and grow its population to make its inland regions more liveable.
W
e Australians can change our prime minister in five minutes, we can build the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House and the biggest iron ore mines in the world, but we have trouble thinking ahead of the game. We have 7.5 million square kilometres of territory inhabited by 25 million people. We are the most arid continent on Earth and the most underpopulated! We are the wealthiest country in the world per capita, with the best lifestyle, yet we fail every time to think more than three years ahead when it comes to politics, the budget or the development of the country.
BOUNDLESS OPPORTUNITIES Sixty per cent of Australia’s population lives in four cities. Eighty per cent of the population lives within 40 kilometres of the coast. How’s that for decentralisation? The rest of the country is empty. Our wealth, to a large extent, is based on $220 billion of mineral and resource exports per year to the booming nations of southeast Asia. We also rely on $60 billion of agricultural production, of which we export $40 billion! We are in the iron ore, coal and food and fibre business. We are satisfied with 25 million people in a world that has more than doubled its population in the past 60 years. How about the future? Fifty years from now we should be a population of 50 to 60 or even 70 million people, spread across the country, with a revived manufacturing sector providing growth and exciting employment opportunities, and a market of 11 billion people across the planet wanting to buy our resources, our manufactured and valueadded products, and our services. The reality is we have to populate the country before we lose control of our ability to maintain our borders. World population increase is unstoppable. It has been achieved by continued improvements in medical science, solving the world’s food 40
Quarry April 2019
It’s hard to imagine a national government today undertaking ambitious projects like the Hoover Dam ...
production issues with modern farming and eliminating massive world wars.
MOVING TO DECENTRALISATION Overpriced real estate in the big capital cities is a fact of life that we all seem to love. We love feeling richer, but the real answer is to make the country liveable. Take a trip through the Midwest of the USA and you find great, rich cities such as Des Moines or Ames or Omaha out there on the Great Plains – some of it the most productive land in the world. The difference is, they have water and we don’t! Water is the answer and water security should be the major priority for every politician in the country at any level. Water security will enable us to spread and grow. Imagine inland cities down the east coast with populations between half a million and one million people. The water would bring increased agricultural stability and security. Protection from drought means investment not just in growing produce but in its processing. That means loads of jobs with opportunities for
people to build great lives in country areas. Companies such as Teys, the third- or fourth-generation butchers who own some of the biggest abattoirs in the country, should be inspirational. Teys will put abattoirs wherever there is product to be processed and employ hundreds of people doing it. Their abattoirs run like hospitals and are a classic example of how an industry can be generated by entrepreneurs with an appetite for risk, intelligence and courage. With 50 million people, Australia could be building tractors again in regional areas. Wow, could we actually start up our steel mills again and go back into production? We have more iron ore and coal than anybody in the world, yet we shut our major steelworks down. Imagine living in a green country city with satellite villages. Sounds idyllic, and you can still take holidays on the coast!
DAMS OF THE NORTH The CSIRO has recommended the concept of building six dams in northern Australia.1 It’s been 70 years in the
