Hello again,

Astute Australians will have become aware that there are emerging global threats to human existence and to human societies including oil prices & availability, economic collapse, transgenic diseases (e.g. bird flu) and nuclear war.

Of these, oil prices are likely to cause immediate and serious problems for many, particularly those at the end of long global supply chains (such as Australia, and particularly Tasmania) and whose urban designs and poor public transport systems virtually force people to rely on low cost fuel for personal transport.

For each of the potential threats to us, there exist strategies that could help us to survive. For example oil price rises can be countered by developing alternative energies such as solar or ethanol, retaining and building forests and investing in more effective public transport. Threats from transgenic diseases could be countered with investments in health and vaccines.

Yet in the face of these threats, governments are engaging in strategies and actions that make our situation more perilous, that expose us to greater risks and threaten our future and that of our children.

As an isolated island with good soil and forests Tasmania has the potential to survive many of these threats providing that its people and government engage in coherent action to help assure their future. Yet under the current regime, farmers have been exposed to massive contract losses (e.g. potatoes and poppies) while simultaneously being hit with rapidly rising fuel prices. Government programs do not appear to offer any real protection to this vital industry that provides the food required for life.

Rise sharply

Federally, Tasmanian farmers are being betrayed by labelling laws that disguise the source of food products and by ‘free trade’ agreements (e.g. with China) that introduce competitive pressures that farmers cannot withstand. The over-regulation of Australia compared to countries like China increases farm costs and thereby reduces farm competitiveness, making it cheaper for competitors to sell into your country. For years, Australia’s Tax Act has favoured overseas companies by allowing them substantially lower tax rates, thus your government effectively subsidises foreign competition.

Global observers agree that fuel prices are going to continue to rise sharply. Here in North America people are squealing at a cost of $3 per gallon at the pump. Tasmanian prices of $1.40 per litre represent nearly $6 per gallon! Diesel is, inexplicably, more expensive in Australia than petrol, even though it requires much less refining. Thus farmers and truckers are paying a premium for the privilege of doing their work, much of that money of course is going to your governments, in the form of excise and sales tax. The rates for excise and sales tax remain a constant percentage of fuel prices regardless of price, thus governments take windfall amounts of money from the population without themselves doing anything at all when fuel prices rise. It would make sense for Australians to demand that governments use that income to help protect the population from the certainty of further fuel price increases, or decrease the government’s take after prices reach a particular ceiling.

Tasmania has to import LPG from the mainland for its own use. When oil prices get high enough, LPG will become an important substitute. Despite this your federal government has recently signed a massive deal to sell much of its gas reserves to the US ‘to help the US achieve energy self-sufficiency’.

Of course, there’s plenty that can be done but given the governments that Australians elect, it doesn’t seem likely that they will do anything except fund more racecourses, provide liberal access to public forests for chippers and pulpers and sell vital assets to the private sector such as Tasmania’s rail system and your Telco Telstra. Thus your only defence may need to be personal or community based action, independent of government.

Farmers for example can learn to use gravity and deep ripping to irrigate crops thereby saving high water pumping costs. Farmers can also operate with far fewer inputs thus reducing their costs, even putting manure back into the soil instead of selling it! Finding and developing local markets will be vital as diesel tops $2.00 and big buyers keep trying to force farmers to sell at pre-determined low prices regardless of their costs.

Forestry can selectively log and mulch waste instead of converting it into heat and smoke that accelerates climate change. Chipping and pulping can be curtailed and timbers that take decades (or longer) to grow can be used in high value industries instead of turning them into business cards for Asia.

Controlled by big businesses

Governments could provide tremendous help, but you’ll have to force them to it. They don’t look like they’re really committed to anything except furthering their own narrow ends while allowing the bureaucracy to grow largely unchecked. As in the US, Australian governments appear to be almost entirely controlled by big businesses. All this in an environment where Australia is already in debt to the rest of the world to the tune of over $500 billion, a debt guaranteed to mire your young in desperation for generations (or until one of the catastrophes mentioned earlier occurs).

None of this is pleasant reading, nor is it pleasant to review global events that place us closer to catastrophe, such as America’s relentless pursuit of war and conquest in the middle East.

These directions and conclusions are sad for us all, particularly given the way that this generation has lived off debt, bequeathing monstrous problems to their young. I can only hope that you can shake off the yoke of government regulation and political correctness to take control of your own affairs and become more self-sufficient. None of your parties is relevant to the problems that face you, in fact the problems are hardly discussed at all by governments, perhaps because they are signposts to the governments’ own failures.

I wish you all well.

Regards,

Adele Sainte Marie