Most Australians know all too well how precious water is. Sydney just experienced a severe drought, while towns across New South Wales and Queensland ran out of drinking water. Under climate change, the situation will become more dire, and more common.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. In 2004, federal, state and territory governments signed up to the National Water Initiative. It was meant to secure Australia’s water supplies through better governance and plans for sustainable use across industry, environment and the community.
But a report by the Productivity Commission released today says the policy must be updated. It found the National Water Initiative is not fit for the challenges of climate change, a growing population and our changing perceptions of how we value water.
Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5%. And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, The Guardian reported “the 1% are coping” by taking private jets to their luxury retreats.
Such perverse affluence further fuelled criticism of the so-called 1%, which has long been the standard rhetoric of the political Left.
In 2011, Occupy Wall Street protesters called out growing economic inequality by proclaiming: “We are the 99%!”. And an Oxfam report in September last year lamented how the richest 1% of the world’s population are responsible for more than twice as much carbon pollution as the poorest half of humanity.
From the date of Federation, 1 January 1901, to the formal proclamation of the NSW colony on 7 February, 1788, Billy Cotsis takes a look at how we got the national day wrong and the tragic dispossession of Indigenous lands via the context of what Greeks went through last century. He also spoke to First Nations people Marchers protesting Aboriginal rights on Australia Day at Parliament House in Canberra, Sunday, 26 January, 2020. Photo: AAP/Mick Tsikas
25 January 2021 11:05am
When the oppressed become the oppressors.
We are in the same country and we want to celebrate the diversity and achievements of Australia, not be divided – and yet there huge arguments on the purpose of having a day for all Aussies to celebrate when many argue and bicker, mostly with strangers, about 26 January.
Federation, reflection days can mark progress, history
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January 25, 2021 12.05am
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There is clearly an appetite in this country to annually renew and celebrate our national spirit while reflecting on the sins of our beginnings (“Date with destiny”, January 23-24). Moving Australia Day to January 1, the date of Federation in 1901, would allow us to mark the first steps towards independence from Great Britain without the day being overly burdened by guilt and introspection. January 26 could then be re-designated as national reflection day, an opportunity to contemplate the Indigenous experience since 1788 and to renew the national commitment to equality and inclusiveness for all who live here. A mature community should be able to acknowledge its shortcomings, both historic and contemporary.