Barnaby Joyce: We need a vision for Australia.

Barnaby Joyce is the leader of the National Party in the Senate. He writes regularly for the Canberra Times and has a  blog called Barnaby Is Right. Barnaby’s not always right, but he’s been right often enough that it’s worth looking through the archives there.

This item was published during the recent Fourth of July celebrations. Senator Joyce makes some interesting comparisons between the US and the Great South Land.

NOTE: Barnaby refers to ‘Eric Leifson’. I thought the gentleman’s name was Leif Ericson – if anyone can clarify that point I’d be grateful.

Last week America celebrated the 236th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This week they are hosting the arrival of the Australian American Leadership Dialogue, slightly less profound, I admit, but a good policy examiner.

Both nations saw European settlement with its disasters and its benefits. Man’s relentless goal of exploration, conquer and colonisation is moralised now as having serious faults yet if we are honest we should acknowledge our own personal benefit from this process.

Parallels between America and Australia allow Australians to borrow from America’s undoubted success whilst hopefully avoiding their mistakes.

We tend to date our European birth by the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and on that timeline, Australia is 224 years old this year.

Putting aside Eric Leifson’s aborted colonisation attempts, the US would be approaching 400 years since the arrival of the Mayflower and the first sustained English settlement. In 1844 America was 224 years old, the same as Australia today. The 1850 census counted America’s population at 23.2 million. The ABS estimates Australia’s population at 22.7 million people today.

About 240 years after the Mayflower, America came to its tragic civil war with the death of over 600,000. Thankfully that will not eventuate here in 15 years’ time. Mind you, Western Australia continues to wonder why it should be propping up the rest of the country and the north of Western Australia asks the question why it props up Perth.

Australia’s Constitution borrowed heavily from the earlier American version, including the establishment of a States’ house, in place of Westminster’s House of Lords. In the US each state has two Senators regardless of population, which gives a distinct regional franchise to American elections. By 1850, 30 states had joined the Union for its 23.2 million people while Australia has just six states, the same as at Federation.
This may not be such an issue if our Senators were spread throughout our country but they are not. In Western Australia and South Australia, 12 out of 12 Senators have their offices in Perth and Adelaide. In the US this would be the city of Dallas having 12 Senators and New Mexico, and other bordering states to Texas having none.

Queensland prides itself on regionalism, around 50 per cent live outside Brisbane, yet only 3 of 12 Senate offices are based away from the capital city. Australia wide only 14 out of 76 Senators are based outside a capital city, despite a third of Australians living in regional Australia.

Australia’s Senate rather than giving the regions a franchise, actually reaffirms the power of capital cities. It has gone from a cure to a curse for regional Australia.

Australia’s five biggest cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide) house 60 per cent of our population. As far as inland Australia is concerned, not much has changed since Lachlan Macquarie was here as 85 per cent of Australians live within 50 kilometres of the coast.

In the United States, less than 6 per cent of its population live in its five biggest cities (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston and Philadelphia). Indeed, 73 per cent of the American population live in towns below 100,000 people.
Nearly every town has substantial infrastructure to drive economic activity. The more towns the more cells of economic opportunity; the more opportunity the greater the vibrancy and resilience in the economy. Texas between Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin has an economy and population comparable to Australia.

So Australia has got to come forward with policies which encourage the economic development of new areas. Why shouldn’t we encourage development of our disparate areas via tax concessions? If we have a better idea what is it? America connected its coasts through vast inland railways. We are still waiting for an inland rail to create an efficient link between our second and third biggest cities, Brisbane and Melbourne.
The greater the dynamism in the demographic spread, the greater the dynamism of the nation. The people who are stalling Australia’s growth are us as we stare myopically from on top of our distinct pile in our parochial corner accusing all others of parochialism for theirs.

We must be a nation with a vision extended beyond a mere romance with the outback and the geological fortuitous coal and iron ore deposits. We need the vision now for who we will be in 150 years time and we need to be unselfish yet relentless so that it happens.