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Australia 'living beyond its means'

Friday, the 22nd of October 2004.

Australia has been named as one of the world's top-four natural resource consumers.
Environmental organisation WWF International has warned that the global population is consuming about 20 per cent more natural resources than the planet can produce.
The group's Living Planet Report for 2004 estimates that each person has an ecological footprint equal to 2.2 hectares in terms of their capacity to pollute or consume energy and other resources, including food.
However, it says the planet can only offer 1.8 hectares each.
This contrasts with the position in 1960, the year WWF was launched, when people used only 50 per cent of what the earth could generate.
WWF says the country with the largest overall footprint in 2001 was the United Arab Emirates, with about 10 hectares per person.
It was followed by the US and Kuwait with scores above nine hectares, while Australia was the fourth-largest burden on the world's resources, with 7.7 hectares per person.
'Ecological debt'
WWF International director-general Dr Claude Martin says the world is "running up an ecological debt which we will not be able to pay off".
The report, the fifth in a series, says that between 1970 and 2000, populations of marine and terrestrial species fell 30 per cent. Those of freshwater species declined 50 per cent.
"This is a direct consequence of increasing human demand for food, fibre, energy and water," it said.
Jonathan Loh, one of the report's authors, says that on present trends, countries will miss a target of significantly reducing biodiversity loss by 2010, as agreed at the Johannesburg Earth Summit in 2002.
The fastest-growing component of the footprint was energy use, which had risen by 700 per cent between 1961 and 2001.
Overall, resource use as measured by the footprint rose 8 per cent in per capita terms among the planet's richer 1 billion inhabitants in the years 1991-2001 but fell by the same percentage among the rest of the world, WWF said.
It found that North Americans are consuming resources at a particularly fast rate, with an ecological footprint twice as big as that of Europeans and seven times that of the average Asian or African.
Unsustainable
"If we all reached the level of per capita footprint of the average North America, it is clearly an unsustainable situation," Mr Loh said.
"The planet clearly would not be able to sustain that level of consumption for very long."
Mr Loh says bringing the world back into balance involves action on a number of fronts, including slowing world population growth.
But he says technology could play a vital role, particularly through the use and development of more environment friendly energy sources.
"If you look at that 20 per cent excess, a very large part of our footprint is coming from the consumption of fossil fuels," he said. "And that is the biggest problem to target."
-- Reuters

ABC 22-10-4

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200410/s1225563.htm

Australian economy slips worldwide

The 14th of October 2004

The Australian economy has slipped four places in the world competitiveness rankings but remained in the top 15 of countries, a new report has shown.
The World Economic Forum's (WEF) Global Competitiveness Report 2004-2005, ranked Australia 14th out of 104 countries, placing it well ahead of many European industrialised nations and emerging Asian economies, including China.
Finland placed first in the world, followed by the United States and then Sweden, the annual poll found.
The Australian Industry Group (Ai Group), the lead partner in administering the survey locally, said that although Australia had a high ranking, it slipped from its 10th placing of 2003 after being overtaken by Japan and the United Kingdom, which had experienced strong economic growth over the past year.
The Ai Group attributed the decline in Australia's competitiveness ranking to the appreciation of the local currency and the nation's poor savings record.
These factors had also contributed to Australia being ranked only 33rd of the 104 countries in terms of the report's sub-index measure for macroeconomic stability, it said.

Ai Group chief executive Heather Ridout said the 14th place ranking was a positive report card on the Australian economy, but that it exposed the high level of competitive pressures facing the nation.
"The WEF study reinforces the messages in Ai Group's own research that highlight how much the higher Australian dollar has affected Australia's competitiveness," she said.
"We clearly need to do more on tax rates, compliance and labour deregulation if we are to effectively respond to the increasingly competitive business environment in the years ahead."
In terms of WEF's sub-measure of business competitiveness, Australia had come in 13th, reflecting well on the quality of the national business environment, Ai Group said.
And while Australian businesses had ranked highly, placing 19th, in terms of company operations and strategies, there remained scope for further improvement, it said.
Ai Group said businesses highlighted tax rates, labour regulations and tax regulations as the three major areas of concern in doing business locally.
© 2004 AAP

SMH 14-10-4

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/10/14/1097607327940.html

3.5 million live in poverty: Senate report

Thursday the 11th of March 2004.

A Senate committee's report says there are up to 3.5 million people living in poverty in Australia and they are not benefiting from overall economic gains over the past two decades.

The main recommendation, one of nearly 100 in the report titled A Hand Up Not A Hand Out, is for a Federal agency to report directly to the Prime Minister about poverty reduction targets and methods and to establish a new definition of the poverty line.

"It's a story of families unable to afford medications for their children, for their head lice, it's a story of children without text books because their parents can't afford to pay or hire them," committee chair, Labor's Steve Hutchins, said.

Prime Minister John Howard has rejected the report, saying although the nation's rich are getting richer, poor Australians were not getting poorer and were better off than when his Government came to power in 1996.

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The committee also recommended a national jobs strategy to promote employment opportunities, a new minimum wage benchmark and more money for schools to provide needy students with breakfast.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s1063897.htm

ABC 11-3-4

http://www.abc.net.au/news/justin/nat/newsnat-9jul2003-11.htm