Lucky Last….Free Riders & Developers Blasted

In an unexpected tirade from Australia’s senior public servant, Treasury boss Ken Henry this week took aim at “free riders” who made it impossible to get agreement on global action to combat climate change. He also expressed alarm at the plundering of Australia’s natural resources, saying any development that did not respect conservation was not development at all because it denied freedoms to future generations. Nicola Berkovic had this report in The Australian.

Nicola Berkovic in The Australian (29 March 2010):

TREASURY boss Ken Henry has railed against the disgraceful management of the nation’s water resources.

He also yesterday took aim at “free riders” who made it impossible to get agreement on global action to combat climate change.

And he expressed alarm at the plundering of Australia’s natural resources, saying any development that did not respect conservation was not development at all because it denied freedoms to future generations.

In a speech on sustainable development, Dr Henry said water extraction from the Murray-Darling Basin had exceeded inflows in three of the past 10 years.

“Water management on this driest inhabited continent on Earth has been a disgrace,” he told the Winds of Change forum, near Bungendore in southern NSW.

His comments came as Water Minister Penny Wong sought to discredit the opposition’s new spokesman on water, Barnaby Joyce, saying he did not accept it was necessary to return the Murray-Darling Basin to health by buying back water entitlements.

Dr Henry also attacked world leaders who opposed measures to tackle climate change, comparing them to free riders — an economic term describing those who put their own needs above the community interest.

“It should be obvious the free-rider problem explains why it is virtually impossible to get governments to agree on global action to address climate change,” he said.

And he said those who considered conservation and development to be mutually exclusive had a poor understanding of both.

“Development which does not respect conservation is not development at all.

“Conservation safeguards a substantive freedom — a freedom to have and to preserve for future generations something that we value and to which we have reason to attach importance.”

Dr Henry said humans had made terrible mistakes in the past, plundering precious natural resources to the point of extinction.

He said society should not let species such as the spotted owl, yellow-footed wallaby or hairy-nosed wombat become extinct.

Speaking near the edge of Lake George, which just a few weeks ago had a “smudge of water”, Dr Henry said: “One picture in particular sticks in my mind . . . It is a photograph of . . . tyre tracks running out across Weereewa’s bed — a poignant reminder that there is nothing we humans do on this place that doesn’t leave an indelible mark. And we have done so much. Our tracks are deep.”

Source: www.theaustralian.com.au