Australia fails the common sense test as a global citizen; and Government is responsible

Having spent many years living in the UK from 1980 to 1995 after extended travelling through Europe, I was always amazed by the insular mentality of a country adjacent to the diversity of Europe. They didn't seem to learn from their neighbours. The Germans, for example, all had double glazing. Their winter temperatures could drop as low as -25 degrees C. When this happened, the UK might only drop to -8 degrees C; but still that wasn't enough to convince the Brits to install double glazing in 100% of dwellings. It was a piecemeal affair with shonky double glazing salesmen selling a range of shonky products. Keeping warm in the UK over winter was often a challenge; particularly when much of the heat generated in the houses ended up leaking into the outside environment. The UK has now virtually exhausted its North Sea gas reserves as its economic decline continues. Now I'm not saying that the UK's decline is due to lack of double glazing; but the underlying theme was haphazard inefficiency. Let's reflect for a moment on Australia's own parochial confusion over what really matters. The biggest moral questions facing humanity; ordered in significance that you may or may not challenge:

• Overpopulation
• Inequitable distribution of wealth
• Destruction of the global ecosystem
Australia has no decent code of conduct for addressing any of these issues. Australia’s code of conduct is as follows:
• Deliberate, extreme population growth driven by pursuit of short term profit which exacerbates destruction of the Australian environment, escalation of Australian greenhouse gas emissions and escalation of net global emissions
• Ongoing dispossession of the Australian Aborigines and all who come after them using this authoritarian self-colonisation policy; but we do wish to recognise the Original Australians in the Constitution?
• This extreme population growth is driven by mass migration of relatively wealthy people into Australia, which exacerbates inequitable distribution of wealth
• Refugees represent only a small proportion of total migrant intake which exacerbates inequitable distribution of wealth
• Selling off Australian assets in pursuit of short term profit, which benefits wealthy foreign entities at the expense of Australia
• All of the above result in deterioration of social, economic and environmental conditions in Australia exacerbating inequitable distribution of wealth in Australia
• All of the above result in reduction of the foreign aid budget over time, reducing Australia's capacity to support family planning education in the developing world and exacerbating inequitable distribution of wealth globally
• Australia's Federal Budget grows at between 6% and 8% per capita per annum while GDP per capita over the last decade or more grows at less than 1% per annum. The GFC cannot be held solely accountable for this
Take the example of energy or mining companies that acquire mining licence areas, drill holes to prove their reserves and then sell off the majority to foreign interests in China, the US or other nations. This generates billions of dollar surges in foreign investment, which is really just numbers on a bank account. It's a bit like an Australian who won't be given a mortgage to buy a house, so he has to buy it as a minority shareholder with a foreign investor that has more "credibility" than the Australian. This is really just playing games with money; and the long term loser is Australia. The resulting surge in demand leads to a surge in what is called "skilled migration". Many of the jobs created on these projects are taken by these new arrivals. So we have a process that effectively gives the majority of these assets away to foreign interests while generating a surge in employment for foreign workers. This is something that Gough Whitlam tried to stop with his Khemlani loan back in 1973. I think he was on the right track, regardless of what people may think about the protocols of his strategy. While the peak in construction activity continues the new arrivals apply for permanent residence and the project moves from construction to production. At this point the demand for these workers significantly reduces. They then start competing with other Australians for fewer jobs and we get a surge in unemployment as is happening now and also happened around the time of the so-called GFC. The outcome? A cash cow is created for the majority foreign interests that own the projects. They use every means available to them to extract both the money and the minerals/energy from Australia using multinational corporate accounting, and the surplus of "skilled labour" is described as a marginal increase in the percentage unemployed. But the resources sector is just one example of how surges in migration for temporary projects can have adverse consequences. There are many other examples of surges followed by glut in the Australian economy; and many are driven by extreme growth combined with lack of long term strategy. By way of example, the entire direct and indirect tax revenue from Australia's coal industry has been estimated to be roughly $5 billion per annum. With Federal Budget cost per capita of roughly $17,000 this annual revenue pays for the so-called social cost of about one year's net inflow of migrants (294,000) people. Assume only 25% of these people have tax paying average wage jobs and pay $11,400 in tax. That's roughly $3000 average direct tax revenue per additional person; not the $17,000 it costs. Of course there are other indirect taxes on these additional people, but the difference is pretty clear. And remember they have to be supported not just for one year but for the rest of their lives; long after the coal industry is gone. The Federal Budget excludes the money not spent on preventing rapid decline in the quality of all forms of essential infrastructure, so is a misleading number. With population doubling roughly every 40 years, 6% unemployed in 2040 would be twice as many people as 6% in 2000. So putting the Australian economy into overdrive has many adverse outcomes; which raises the question of how much inherent common sense a free market economy can be expected to have while Government remains asleep, or brain-dead, at the wheel. This brain-dead mentality is, of course, also championed by the Government propaganda tool the ABC. The ABC never critically analyses any of these issues in public policy debate of the Federal Budget with politicians.