<- Back

 Assimilation to Our Land

by Ellen Hardy | 14-Dec-2009 | Comments (1) Tags: nuclear, water, agriculture  9 ratings. Please log in to rate and comment

As we stride towards our inevitable Republic, two substantial debates of immense importance continue to be avoided. In the shape as it has been known since British settlement, Modern Australia has been hamstrung by an Oedipal Complex: obsessed with the romantic ideals of a distant Motherland. Australia must be weaned off of the ridiculous notion that we are a farming nation, and instead embrace a burgeoning nuclear industry that is quite literally a part of our landscape.

The booming population of a desert country should not have to compete for water with anachronistic agriculture imposed on us by nineteenth century imperial Britain. I do not advocate the complete destruction of the industry, but rather argue that we must domesticate agriculture in both senses of the word: bring it under control, and focus on domestic consumption, as opposed to an export-driven industry.

It is time to mature and see that the Quixotian myth of our infancy – that farming is the backbone of our nation - is nothing but our Achilles heal. While they pay only a fraction of the cost to that of other industry and household consumers, the agriculture sector dominates around two-thirds of our water consumption. It is forecast that in the coming decades we will be facing hotter temperatures and decreasing rainfall, while our rapidly expanding population is expected to require approximately 30% more water by 2050. Meanwhile, roughly two-thirds of all agriculture produced is being exported overseas, while it accounts for an ever-declining portion of our GDP (presently 3%).

Agriculture has produced a scorched earth of salinity instead of sustainability; of profit over pragmatism. We have systematically ignored the impact of the sector on the environment, and now as its economic force dwindles, reaction is paramount. We must cease this aqua-welfare and begin to increase the cost of water for the agricultural sector in order to substantially reduce output, and ultimately, the plunder of our most vital resource.

Our reduction of agricultural production will not only benefit us, but the greater world. We must end our selective embrace of globalisation and leave exportation agriculture to the third-world and poverty stricken nations that depend on it. With food imports to Australia rising 50% between 2002 and 2007, this notion is a stark reflection of an increasing reality.

So how do we counteract any adverse economic and social effects of the decline of agriculture? Opportunities for employment and investment manifest themselves in a number of key areas. Firstly, there is a significant prospect for the retraining of these workers in healthcare and other essential services required to negate the drain of an aging population (or be faced with higher taxes and reduced services). Secondly, a dwindling rural landscape provides opportunity for the promotion of and investment in renewable energy technologies, such as geothermal, wind, and carbon sequestration.

Most importantly however, this proposal for innovation by agricultural castration both provides for and requires the enrichment of our nuclear industry to aid investment, infrastructure and job creation.

With our enormous uranium reserves, we are the nuclear capital of the earth, and we must become the steering force of the issue. In contrast to agriculture, our vast expanse must be utilised for the ethical and sustainable exploitation of our mineral wealth but, most crucially, as the world’s nuclear waste repository.

Our failure to conduct any serious debate about a nuclear repository is a shamefully populist blight on our political leaders. Today’s Ruddities will be condemned by history as Luddites, and significantly, we risk losing what could essentially be a monopoly to a visionary, but unsuitable nation.  

We are the country that has all of the key requirements to become a nuclear repository: geographical and political stability, space, and the ability to receive transport by sea. Economically, the tantalising prospect of income generating imports will energise fiscal debate.

It is impossible to see how, in the current throws of worldwide carbon emission reduction, nuclear power will not become a dominant force. It is estimated that China alone will be building 300 new nuclear power plants in the foreseeable future.

The repository program must follow a classically socialist structure, and be protected and secured by our defence forces. It must also firmly involve and benefit the indigenous population, who own one-fifth of this land. It will also assist in the invigoration of our oft-neglected infrastructure and research and development industries.

Furthermore, by storing the world’s nuclear waste, we can prove the supposedly incongruous notions of responsibility and the nuclear industry as false. There is also a strong argument that as the world’s forth largest producer of coal, and with the largest reserves of uranium, that we have an ethical obligation to accept this responsibility.

The solution to our long-term prosperity lies in taking these prohibitive and proactive reforms. Australia must embrace our splendid isolation and usher in an epoch of self-sustainability built on the foundations of respect for our natural environment, and practical utilisation of our natural resources and capabilities for the betterment of the global community.

We must assimilate to our land, and then we will cease to be blinded by the colonial idealism of the nineteenth century and embrace the realities of the twenty-first century.

Things to Do

 More Entries

 17 ratings.

 8 ratings.

 16 ratings.