Australian Politics and Policy - Senior, 2019a

Australian Politics and Policy
Regional environmental policy
One new area of policy that did attract broad political and funding commitment
was the environment. Since the early 1970s, environmental issues have increasingly
come to the forefront of discussion regarding sustainability. Debates regarding
the conflict between economic and environmental sustainability gained political
traction.TheBrundtlandReport 26 crystallised the debates highlighting unsustainability
in terms of a threat to survival. The report overtly linked environmental
sustainability and the uneven distribution of economic benefits. 27
After the Brundtland Commission emphasised the importance of sustainable
development and pushed it to the top of the agenda of the United Nations and
the multilateral development banks, 28 environmental protection became a major
Australian government policy objective. In the late 1980s, the federal government
embarked on a series of sectoral ecologically sustainable development investigations,
which culminated in the adoption of the National Strategy for Ecologically
Sustainable Development in 1992. 29
A national land care program was jointly proposed by the National Farmers’
Federation and the Australian Conservation Foundation, and in 1989 then Prime
Minister Bob Hawke, in the Statement on the Environment, announced the Decade
of Landcare. Water catchment and the management of salinity were two key areas.
Programs included in the Decade of Landcare focused on implementing ecologically
sustainable land use around Australia, promoting research and action
regarding land degradation throughout rural, regional and remote Australia, and
raising awareness of the importance of conservation and sustainable practices.
Regional development policy in the 21st century
The policies driving regional development at the conclusion of the 20th century
aimed to maintain economic and social vibrancy through regional-scale governance
and place-based solutions, in line with the ‘new’ paradigm that gained
considerable traction in the first decade of the 21st century. The ‘new’ paradigm
in regional policy has been strongly driven by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development (OECD) since about 2006. It emphasises area-specific
or place-based approaches, rather than whole-of-government arrangements.
Much like other Liberal–National (Coalition) governments, the Howard government
(1996–2007) showed little inclination to drive a national regional development
agenda, maintaining ‘that local and regional development was a State responsibility’
andtheCommonwealthwasoftena‘competitor,ratherthanapartneroftheStates’. 30
26 World Commission on Environment and Development 1987.
27 Ekins and Jacobs 1995; Kane 1999.
28 Daly 1990.
29 Godden 1997.
30 Tomaney 2010, 29.
678