Waging a green jihad on suburban homes

It seems rarely a month passes without some new assault on the lifestyle and housing choice preferred by the overwhelming majority of Australians – the detached suburban home. Denigrated by a careless media as ‘McMansions’ or attacked as some archaic form of reckless housing choice which is ‘no longer appropriate’ (according to some planning or environmental fatwa), the detached home is under a constant assault of falsely laid allegation and intellectual derision.

The latest of these assaults is the form of a proposed ‘green star’ rating scheme for ‘McMansions’ which critics claim cost could cost homeowners thousands of dollars in devalued prices.  While the critics suggestions of financial hardship might be taking the possible impacts a bit too far, it is reasonable to challenge this obsession of regulators and green crusaders which views the detached home as some form of modern environmental vandalism.

The very first (and what should be obvious) fact that escapes our fanatics’ attention, is that houses, or home units, or even office buildings for that matter, don’t use energy. Only the occupants in them, and their behaviour, consume energy. The dwelling itself can be designed for more efficient energy use by the occupants, for sure, but remember always that it is people who consume power, not buildings.

That point was brought home, embarrassingly for our rampaging environmental and social crusaders, by no less than the Australian Conservation Foundation in 2007. Their ‘Consumption Atlas’ revealed what came as a surprise to many, but which should have been widely understood from the start: that wealthy people who can afford to live in the expensive home units and townhouses of trendy inner city areas use much more energy, and have bigger carbon footprints per capita, than their suburban counterparts.  More than that, it also revealed that inner city areas are “consumption hotspots” and smaller household sizes have greater environmental impacts than larger (chiefly suburban) households.

The significance of those findings has been studiously ignored by the advocates of environmental engineering who claim that a leading virtue of wholesale change in housing type - from detached suburban to high density inner urban - is that this will be good for the environment. The facts, however, show that it ain’t necessarily so. If a large family of five, for example, (mum, dad and three kids) living in a four bedroom house with two cars in the suburbs produce a smaller carbon footprint than the dinks and yuppies living in their city apartment, why aren’t the media, environmental and planning advocates asking more questions?

At the time the ACF report was released, I was running the Residential Development Council, and I can still recall hearing the ACF’s key findings mentioned in some very early radio news bulletins on the ABC.  For some reason, the story quietly petered out but the ACF kindly had a version on-line and once I sent a copy to Demographia’s Wendell Cox, it went on to infamy. Wendell prepared a report analysing its findings for the RDC in terms of housing choice and greenhouse gas emissions, which is well worth reading. You can still find the report ‘Housing Form in Australian and its Impact on Greenhouse Gas Emissions’ online.  Talk about the man who kicked the hornet’s nest.

There have been other reports too, which have either been ignored (where their evidence doesn’t suit the cause) or attacked (if the evidence is clearly getting too close to the truth). If you’re remotely interested in some of the facts (as opposed to the parade of rhetoric in the mainstream media) have a look at the evidence in this study called ‘The Relationship Between Housing Density and Built Form Energy Use’ which you can find online here.  There’s a graph on page six which shows the dwelling operational energy (blue part of the bar) for apartments as roughly three times that of detached homes.  (The suggestion that occupants of high density apartments will be less likely to use private transport is yet to be borne out by evidence, with the ACF report admitting that higher incomes allowed inner city residents more opportunity to drive despite the presence of convenient public transport and also (heaven forbid) to fly to places, than households with lower incomes.)

Common sense also comes into play. Consider the basic design of apartment buildings as opposed to the detached house. Cross flow ventilation in apartments is harder to achieve (unless it’s a penthouse occupying an entire floor) than in the detached home with windows on all sides. Then there are the energy uses that the apartment more or less makes essential. No room for a solar powered Hills Hoist in the backyard – instead, energy guzzling clothes dryers are practically essential. As are air conditioners - not just for individual apartments but also for common areas throughout the building (foyers and corridors). Lighting in common areas is also almost always permanently on. Lifts to move people up and down also consume energy – taking two people from ground to level 25 in an air conditioned lift produces a lot more carbon than walking up a flight of front stairs into the detached home, after all.

I’m not proposing that the leftist green agenda which is waging war on the detached home instead turn the blow torch of blame to the wealthy, nor am I suggesting that there’s anything wrong with apartment and townhouse developments. But what’s wrong with letting market forces play more of a hand, without the overt moralising and environmental hand wringing that seems to accompany decisions on urban planning policy? Is it really necessary to malign the detached suburban home, in order to make the alternative more attractive?

We are talking about middle Australia which is under the barrage of assault for having the temerity to choose a form of dwelling that actually suits them. The fact is that people prefer, in the main, to raise children in houses rather than apartments. They often like to keep pets, and have a garden around them. The children tend to like backyards to play in. The cars these families drive aren’t a ‘love affair’ but a necessity – getting from suburban home to suburban workplace, and picking up or dropping off children on the way, isn’t exactly a valid choice with public transport. But you get the strong impression, reading the constant digest of anti-suburban living which parades through mainstream media, that mainstream Australians are a reckless bunch of self-interested misfits whose behaviour and choices need to be controlled by people wiser than them.

And there’s one of the great ironies in all this: those who advocate denying housing choice and enforcing apartments over detached homes, public transport over private, inner city density over suburban expansion, invariably seem to do the opposite of what they preach.  Next time you come across one of these green jihadists waging war on the suburban home (and the people who live in them), ask them if they live in a house or a unit, how many children they have, ask how many cars they own, and ask what their power bill is like.

(The term ‘green Jihad’ isn’t mine, but one that leading global demographer and geographer Joel Kotkin used recently in an excellent article “California’s Green Jihad”  for Forbes Magazine. It’s well worth a read, if you want a sobering insight into where the green obsession got California, and where it will no doubt lead us also).

Banana-nomics

The price of bananas is again making headlines as it pushes up inflation and threatens rising interest rates. But what’s the price of the humble ‘nana got to do with property markets? Plenty.



Banana prices have risen almost 500% since Cyclone Yasi wiped out much of north Queensland’s banana crop earlier this year. The immutable laws of supply and demand dictate that when supply falls relative to demand, prices will rise. Which is what they have done, and as they did a few years ago when the same thing happened after Cyclone Larry. As banana supply was restored, prices fell. As they will again.


Banana prices are a self-evident, every day example of supply and demand at work. They’re the sort of example understood by consumers and even school children with no formal economic training. But clearly the lessons are beyond the capacity of some Australian politicians, most land regulators and many town planners. In the very same way that constraints on supply create scarcity value for every day commodities, constraints on supply and scarcity equate to rising prices for all types of real estate, not just housing.


It starts with misguided planning schemes that aim to direct consumer behaviour and distort their purchasing decisions by limiting choice. This has become commonplace in planning to the point of representing accepted wisdom. One of the most obvious examples has been the continued efforts by some regulators and planning authorities to attack the detached house as a choice – however best suited to the needs of young families – which ‘Australia can no longer afford.’ Like a contemporary version of Stalinist central command, housing choice is distorted via planning schemes that are biased to high density apartments in central locations (that consumers are told is good for society), as opposed to detached housing on the urban boundary (that remains the majority consumer preference). Faced with little choice, more people are forced to choose the option deemed appropriate by higher authorities than themselves, and when this is later reflected in data, the regulators hail this as some sort of fundamental change in consumer preferences. You’re seeing this type of shallow analysis in the media, pushed by various interest groups, on a regular basis now.


An equally significant consequence of using planning ideology to achieve social engineering outcomes has been the impact on prices. In the case of raw land for housing, we have succeeded in the unimaginable – needlessly elevating prices far beyond the reach of average Australians, on the basis that we may run out of land, in a country where land is plentiful. This has been achieved simply by making raw land for detached housing development scarce because permission is not allowed outside artificially drawn urban planning boundaries. (On top of creating scarcity, of course, new land supply is taxed more aggressively than existing supply, via upfront levies. This is no doubt because there are fewer votes at risk in taxing new housing lots as opposed to raising council rates or other broad based revenue measures. Plus, new supply is tied up in a regulatory tangle which now means it can take 5 or 10 years just to get permission to develop land in areas already described as intended for future housing. Go figure).


The proof is readily available. In the Brisbane region, for example, the price of vacant land per metre is now 2.3 times (230%) what is was a decade ago. Established house prices also increased, but at a lower rate – they are 1.5 times (150%) the price a decade ago. Average weekly earnings, just to bring it back to earth, are 0.6 times (60% higher) what they were a decade earlier.


In Melbourne, where supply constraints have been more sensibly managed, land for housing is 1.3 times the price of a decade earlier. Little wonder developers are giving up hope for south east Queensland and focussing their energies in Victoria.


If the fundamentals of supply and demand (let’s call it banana-nomics) are so obvious in the market for new land for housing, where else are they revealing themselves?


Recent reports have noted that Australian retail property rents (a lot like our housing prices) are amongst the highest in the world. Research by CB Richard Ellis suggests that rents in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane are higher than the better shopping strips in Los Angeles or Milan. How can this be? Los Angeles County has a population of around 10 million people, some of whom are noted big spenders. Retail demand there would dwarf that of Brisbane’s retail spend.


Once again, the answer lies in supply. LA’s ‘sprawl’ is arguably more about the historically easy dispersion of retail and commercial space along high streets and back roads throughout the metro area, as it is about expanding housing. As LA developed, it was relatively easy to create new retail space, and there is plenty of redundant retail space in older strip areas where secondary traders can operate at low market rents. In Australia, by contrast, planning constraints have been much more onerous. The major retail centres, developed from the 1960s to the late 1990s throughout metropolitan areas largely remain the same major centres we have today. Finding new opportunities for retail expansion is a large hurdle which few clear – protection of the retail hierarchy and existing centres, and preventing a dispersal of retail activity beyond existing areas, is the deliberate intention of urban planning schemes.


The result has been that those with the existing retail centres have paid for, and now own, a precious commodity: the permission to conduct retail activity, with limited threat of competition in that catchment. Our retail rents have grown because retailers – and consumers - have had limited alternative choices. New retail operators have encountered barriers to entry in the form of planning laws and no-compete clauses, once again reinforcing the value of existing permissions. Just ask Aldi or Costco what they think our planning schemes are doing for competition if you don’t believe it.


City carparking is another example of banana-nomics at work. A study by Colliers International reveals that city parking costs in Sydney and Melbourne are more expensive than London, Tokyo or New York. Brisbane came in at 14th most expensive on a global list of 156 central business districts. How can it be? The answer is simply that the anti-car crusade has led to planning policies which deliberately seek to limit CBD parking spaces, in the futile hope that this will somehow force people to abandon the convenience (and frequently the necessity) of private transport in favour of buses or trains.


Those ambitions have never come to much, so regulators then resort to the blunt weapon of taxes – with car parking levies now common in many cities and the prospects of congestion charging for access to CBDs frequently rearing its ugly head. This deliberate attempt to restrict (and then punitively tax) the supply of city parking spaces has the inevitable effect of raising prices.


But there is one fundamental difference between how banana-nomics works for banana growers and property developers. Banana growers can grow more plants and create more supply. The same can’t be said for developers of property. In housing, new supply is likely to remain constrained by growth boundaries and the preference of regulators towards higher and medium density within existing areas. This will create a floor under the cost of new supply which means that prices are unable to fall (they can’t fall below the cost of production). So raw land is unlikely to get much cheaper, unless there are some radical (and many would say much needed) reforms to planning policies around Australia.


The same applies to retail property. Retailers (most recently evidence by Solomon Lew’s Just Group comments about retail rents) may object to high rentals, but they won’t get much option. Major retail centres are where the action is, and the alternative (on-line retail) isn’t sufficiently appealing to the majority of consumers, who get more from their shopping trip than just a retail transaction. New shopping centres won’t be created within existing urban boundaries because planning schemes are unlikely to allow further retail dispersion away from existing centres. In the limited cases where approval is granted, existing centre owners will play hard ball, arguing fervently against the free market (witness Westfield’s objections to a new Aldi Store, approved by Brisbane City Council, north of Brisbane). Their actions are understandable, given they’ve outlaid very large investments that are contingent on the existing planning scheme remaining.

And the same applies to car parking. Unless there’s a monumental shift in policy attitudes to private transport and city car parking, we aren’t going to see multiple new above or below ground public car parks being created in our cities, no matter how much the demand. That will mean prices remain high.

In all cases, it has been the planning regulations that restrict supply and limit choice, not demand, that have been responsible for making our housing, our retail rents, our car parking and so much more, amongst the costliest in the world. And given that those constraints are unlikely to change, you’re unlikely to see that position reverse itself any time soon.

The burning question, of course, is how long can it last? If supply costs elevate prices beyond the capacity or desire to pay, people stop buying. Economies slow down. The music stops.

How do you like them apples?

An affordability time bomb?

The fuse was lit in the early 2000s, as housing affordability quickly began to deteriorate across Australia. But the fuse is a long one, and the real damage may not be felt for another 20 or 30 years when a generational change makes itself felt across Australian society. If the predictions are right, it could be very painful.

That there is a housing affordability problem in Australia should be beyond doubt. This issue is something that ought to be separated from movements in broad housing markets – typically measured by changes in median prices of established houses – because the affordability problem is not universal. Instead, it is felt most by young families in the early stages of family formation, and who are in average income brackets, trying to enter the housing market.

Making the bomb

For these households, the last decade has seen the price of new housing escalate rapidly – well ahead of any increase in their household incomes. Driven by restrictions on new land supply, exacerbated by the rapid imposition over a few short years of increasingly usurious upfront levies, and worsened by a dysfunctional and counter-productive planning system which adds costs and delays for no measureable benefit, the cost of new housing has been forced beyond the reach of many traditional purchasers. I am not talking here about the median price based on established houses in settled areas but the cost of new land for housing at the fringe. They are quite different markets.

These younger and typically lower income households are increasingly deferring their decision to buy a home of their own, either waiting for a change in their financial circumstance or waiting for prices to fall. They may be waiting a long time because what needs to happen for prices of new housing to fall is a wholesale reform of planning regulation and infrastructure financing. In short, less bureaucracy and lower taxes. Don’t hold your breath. The Bligh Government’s recent budget offer of a $10,000 grant for any new housing purchases under $600,000 is tokenism in the broad scheme of things. Plus it’s only 6 months worth of tokenism.

For evidence of the impact of these failed policy experiments, you need look no further than the growth in the cost of new land for housing. According to the UDIA’s 2011 State of the Land Report, the cost of a typical block of land in south east Queensland has leapt from around $80,000 at the beginning of the decade to around $220,000 by 2010. That’s almost a threefold increase in price. In the Brisbane Statistical Division – which takes in surrounding local authority areas where much of the land supply is located – new lots grew from $78,000 to $215,000 but shrunk in size over that time from 705 square metres to 615 square metres, meaning the cost per square metre jumped from $111 to $350 – a 215% increase. Average weekly earnings in that time grew from $800 to $1200 – a 50% increase.

There are some economists who still point the blame for high land prices at a demand side thirst for land, fuelled in part by high levels of population growth and low costs of debt. But that story ignores the underlying cost-push pressure on land, imposed directly by regulatory mechanisms. The UDIA report also identifies that the land acquisition cost itself is only $60,000 per lot for a typical city fringe subdivision. (That figure itself would be lower if there was more competition in the supply of land). But that $60,000 is doubled after taking into account the cost of preparing the land for the market (development works), then add the cost of government levies ($39,000 per lot), GST ($20,000 – which is money for the State Government remember), stamp duty and land tax and other costs, and you’re up to $200,000. A significant chunk of that $200,000 number - $39,000 in levies, $20,000 in GST, $5,200 in stamp duty and land tax, and $12,000 in finance costs – is directly attributed to government and much of it delivered in the past decade. Finance (holding) costs, for example, are directly linked to the interminable delays in getting subdivisions approved – which have gone from a number of months to several years in that space of time.

Making the fuse

So with prices of new land being pushed up faster than the capacity of its typical consumers to pay (that is, younger and lower income households in the early stages of family formation), we get the inevitable result: lower levels of home ownership.

According to a recent and I think worrying report by REST Industry Super, one in four Australian households by 2036 will be retiring without owning their own home. That’s a fall from 85% retiring with their own home today, to 75% in 15 years’ time. Home ownership of Australians under 35 years of age has fallen from 45% in the mid 1990s to around a third today, and that reduction in home ownership will only work its way through the demographic cycle, as the REST report identifies.

But what’s worse is that alternate future savings aren’t what they could be. The same report notes that median superannuation fund balances for people aged 55 to 64 are a miserable $70,000.

Now do the maths here and if you’re a policy maker with a long term view you should start to worry. In 15 to 20 years time, we may have a greater proportion of the population entering retirement and not holding title to their own home. Plus, superannuation balances are nowhere near what’s needed to fund these people in their retirement years. The ageing of the population is going to mean more people in retirement relying on taxpayer support (the current boomers) but they are likely to be followed by another generation entering retirement with even less financial independence than their predecessors.

If you think that superannuation ever stood a chance of taking the place of the pension or aged welfare in the future, think again. And the situation’s been made worse because we’ve denied a larger chunk of the current young population the chance to save for their own future via home ownership, by deliberately increasing the cost of new housing supply through introduced regulatory and tax measures.

Adding more combustible material

Now if all this wasn’t bad enough, we’ve now got the anti-growth provocateurs claiming that our rates of population growth aren’t sustainable, and that we need to effectively halt growth or the sky will fall in (or some equally nonsensical doomsday scenario).

The ‘sustainable’ Population Minister Tony Burke recently released a population plan which said nothing about future population and entrepreneur Dick Smith continues to wage his campaign for low or no growth in Australia. With politicians running for cover and Dick pushing himself in front of news cameras, it was left to Bernard Salt to point out that, if we now choose to slow our population growth by reducing immigration, we reduce our productive taxpayer base and effectively kneecap our economy. Look what falling population growth (now at a twenty year low) is doing to a wide range of economic sectors in Queensland – from airports to construction to property – for an insight into what a low growth or no growth future might be like. Bernard’s articles here and here on population growth are worth reading if you haven’t done so yet.

The bottom line is a rapid slimming of the population bulge of young working age Australians will mean fewer taxes for the non-working Australians in the future. And in the future, if fewer of those Australians enter retirement without the title to their own home, or do so still holding a large mortgage because the upfront costs and mortgage size were excessive and their entry into the market deferred, there’ll be less capacity to self-fund retirement. Super nest eggs of $100,000 won’t go far – figures of five or six times that are what’s needed.

Ka-boom?

The shame of it all is how unnecessary the current policy settings are. Despite the clear damage being done to the current generation of new entrants and young families by deliberately increasing the cost of new entry level housing, and the increasing reports of mortgage stress and defaults in the face of mortgage overburden and cost of living increases (and yes, imagine the collateral damage we’ll see with a carbon tax), policy makers blindy carry on citing untested and unproven ideology.

If you ever wanted an example of the sort of deranged policy speak that passes for town planning in some circles today, have a read of this tirade by a Queensland academic, suggesting that the ULDA’s involvement in low price housing at Flagstone is somehow a reckless return to ‘1960s style sprawl.’ Typical of many similar ideologues, the author makes no mention of the affordability issue and is totally removed from market needs of young families.

Left unchecked, today’s policy settings will continue to exert unnecessary cost pressures on new housing. It will deter many from the market because they simply cannot afford it. Or they will defer their entry into the market, still with low deposits, and find themselves retiring still with a mortgage and a miserable super fund balance, and a relatively smaller society of working taxpayers who will resent any further burdens on their wallets to pay for someone else’s aged pension.

This is something that the highly paid academics may not get. They may be planning their second investment home, and a generation of highly paid bureaucrats may face retirement with lovely super fund balances and a tidy property portfolio. In the process, we may have created two classes of Australians – those with property (and probably quite a bit of it), and those without.

Personally, I don’t think that’s a pretty picture. And how ironic that this is potentially the future we now face? It was almost 70 years ago that Robert Menzies gave his ‘forgotten people’ speech. A lot may have changed in that time, but much of what he had to say then rings loud and true today:

I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole...

The material home represents the concrete expression of the habits of frugality and saving "for a home of our own." Your advanced socialist may rave against private property even while he acquires it; but one of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours; to which we can withdraw, in which we can be among our friends, into which no stranger may come against our will. If you consider it, you will see that if, as in the old saying, "the Englishman's home is his castle", it is this very fact that leads on to the conclusion that he who seeks to violate that law by violating the soil of England must be repelled and defeated.

England may have lost its chance with widely available home ownership, but is it too late for Australia?

The day the music died

“Life is great in the Sunshine State” was a song written in 1958 by Clyde Collins, and became a sort of anthem which championed the low tax, pro-business and pro-growth attitudes of government and people that characterised Queensland for so long. Queensland’s economic reputation became a magnet for talent and capital, with net interstate migration peaking at over 1500 people per week in the early to mid 1990s, in turn fuelling more growth. But that’s now just a fond memory. Queensland’s population growth is slowing rapidly, its economy being outpaced by South Australia and even Tasmania. The wooden spoon economy that once was Victoria is now the envy of many in business in Queensland. If it weren’t for the resources sector, Queensland’s economy would be in the toilet. What went wrong?

If you’re part of a national business, it can be hard to explain – the idea that the Queensland economy is somehow limping along behind the rest of Australia is counter intuitive. Many interstate colleagues, after being subject to decades of economic bragging by Queenslanders, have accepted as an article of faith that somehow Queensland is immune to downtown. But it’s sadly true, and the evidence is mounting that Queensland’s performance has hit the skids.

One noticeable indicator has been the rapid decline in population growth. Net interstate migration was once the engine room of growth in Queensland, with cashed up southerners moving here with spare cash after buying a better house than the one they left behind, meaning money for the kids’ education, a boat, and a better lifestyle all round. But that trend has now slumped to its lowest levels since records began. From a peak of nearly 50,000 or 1000 per week in the early 1990s, last year the figure collapsed to 9,576 people, or 184 per week. Overall population growth was for a time held up by increasing numbers of overseas arrivals to Queensland, but even these figures are now falling, bringing overall population growth in Queensland to a relative standstill. It’s something The Pulse foreshadowed here and here.

(It’s ironic, isn’t it, that only one year ago the State Government was holding a population summit, arguably because Queensland couldn’t cope anymore. And now the problem is insufficient growth. So much for long term planning, and a cautionary tale about the dangers of governments waxing lyrical about the future, rather than focussing on the here and now. As The Pulse warned a year ago: “It would be the ultimate irony if, in the midst of a debate about future population numbers outstripping our capacity to deal with them, that this turned out to be the least of our worries.”)

For an economy which for so long has been reliant on growth, the slowdown is having dramatic effects. Construction starts are at record lows. According to the UDIA’s latest quarterly Development & Construction Industry Performance Report, some 17,000 construction jobs have been lost since 2008, with nearly 8,000 lost in the most recent quarter. Reports this week that housing finance approvals have fallen across the board but most dramatically in Queensland, will mean more bad news on that front is just a matter of time. Beyond construction, the broader economy doesn’t rate much better. In mid April, Commsec released it’s “State of the States” report, which revealed that “Queensland is at the bottom of the list in terms of economic performance, suffering from above-average unemployment and a poor housing market.”

That view was reinforced by a report from the Centre for Independent Studies earlier in the year, which claimed that Queensland’s financial performance rated amongst the worst of any state. According to reports at the time: “In the 2009-2010 period Queensland ties with South Australia for dead last, while Victoria and Western Australia are ranked as the best performers in terms of fiscal management.”

Rising costs, taxes and charges and increasing red tape are frequently blamed, and it seems with some justification. In February, the RACQ released research showing that Brisbane motorists are paying more for fuel than drivers in other major Australian cities. Hang on, didn’t we used to have some of the lowest petrol prices in the country? With petrol and transport forming a significant part of the average worker’s household budget, this becomes another nail in the Queensland growth coffin.

Of course petrol isn’t the only non-housing cost for average income households to grapple with. The whole cost of living equation, which used to be in Queensland’s favour, has somehow reversed. In April, ING’s Financial Wellbeing Index reported that consumers Australia wide were struggling with rising costs of living, but that Queenslanders were struggling the most. “Queenslanders, who are still recovering from disastrous floods and cyclones, suffered the biggest hike in living costs - 8.3 per cent over the past year, compared to 6.3 per cent in NSW,” the report said. And a leading factor in those costs of living are rapidly rising utility costs. Electricity and water bills are galloping well beyond many household’s capacity to pay. In fact, the rapid rise in utility costs now rates as more of a concern for consumers than interest rates, according to this report.

Once again, it’s a reversal of fortune for Queensland, which once (in what seems recent memory) boasted of low electricity charges (that’s history), the cheapest vehicle registrations in the country (now among the highest), among the lowest land taxes and stamp duties (no longer), a quick and efficient development approval system (that was good while it lasted), abundant land for growth and development (now artificially constrained without empirical justification), a solid tourism industry (now being beaten by Victoria – can you believe it?) and of course low cost, affordable housing. The sad reality is that it is now more expensive to buy a block of land in Brisbane than Melbourne, and that Melbourne’s western corridor has overtaken the Gold Coast as a growth region in Australia, according to this report.

So what went wrong? Everyone will have a theory, mine traces the roots of this downturn to a few things. First, the series of planning initiatives which sought to constrain urban growth within artificially imposed urban growth boundaries had the immediate effect, combined with the introduction of upfront development levies, of raising the cost of land, which rose relatively fast compared to other major centres. Housing is the biggest single cost for most new families, and once the costs of new housing supply in Queensland were pushed to the brink of people’s capacity to pay, the market – along with our competitive position – slowed dramatically. We can’t blame the GFC, or interest rates, as these have the same effect nationally. These don’t explain why Melbourne, for example, has experienced solid supply growth in new housing supply, at lower costs, than south east Queensland.

Promoted under the guise of ‘sustainable growth’ these land use policies have failed the aspirations of average workers on average incomes of around $60,000 per annum, who can no longer afford new housing product, without considerable financial pain. The phrase ‘growth management’ has become a byword for ‘growth control’ and reflects an outdated and unsupported view (on the evidence at least) that our rates of growth need containment. A state which once sought and promoted growth has become a state which fears it, and we are paying the economic consequences.

Another major contributing factor has been the disconnect between public policy and the people it is designed to serve. Policy initiatives which have sought to direct consumer behaviour through pricing models have not been subject to affordability tests, or financial impact tests. So whether it’s been the raft of new building codes which have added thousands to the cost of building a basic home, or what’s happened to electricity prices, water prices, or any of a number of ‘user pays’ initiatives, it seems few have asked the obvious question: ‘can the user (ie the consumer) afford to pay?’ The combined effects of multiple cost increases have eroded Queensland’s economic advantage, with workers on average wages feeling it most. They have responded with belt tightening – something the denizens of Brisbane’s inner city coffee shops, or upper echelons of the bureaucracy, may be unfamiliar with.

Finally, we seem to have lost sight of a simple reality: there can be no public sector without a profitable and healthy private sector. The latter generates wealth, the former collects it, and spends it, redistributing wealth according (in theory) to democratic decisions made by the people. But rather than supporting and promoting private sector growth and development, an attitude appears to have taken root which derides wealth creation and which assumes the public sector can do better. That’s most visible in development, where ‘greedy developers’ (who actually provide many times more houses than government, and who pay considerable taxes) are attacked as a group for daring to question the imposts on their industry. It has become a thought crime to challenge planning policies which promote lovely images of future urban growth without a single reference to consumer needs, aspirations or capacity to pay.

Developers aren’t alone – witness the furore on South Stradbroke Island, where sand miners defending their industry against planned closure have been marginalised and attacked for having the temerity to point out the economic value they bring to that community. (This reached a point of high farce when the Premier and Climate Change Minister were pictured on some supposedly pristine sand dune, talking to media about the importance of the natural environment on Stradbroke, except the very dune they’d been pictured sitting on was a former mine site which had been rejuvenated by the miners).

Economic growth and private sector wealth creation are what will pay for the public hospital beds, school classrooms and expanded infrastructure. Private developers, given the chance, will provide Queenslanders with the types of housing they want, in locations they want, at prices they can afford. Farmers will provide food efficiently if allowed to manage their land without instruction from environmentalists and policy makers. And the taxes paid by miners and farmers and other businesses will also pay for the national parks and environmental standards the community says it wants. This is a pretty fundamental thing to understand, but are we living in a state anymore where this is clearly understood?

Tiny [thought] bubbles

Entrepreneur Dick Smith wants Australian families to be subject to China-like population doctrine. Families should be limited to just two children, the father of two and grandfather of six says, because our population growth is something like ‘a plague of locusts.’ But at the very time people like Smith are warning that the sky is falling on population control, our population pressure is arguably the opposite: we need more people, not less.

Thomas Malthus was an 18^th century economist and Anglican clergyman, whose ‘Essay on the Principles of Population’ (published 1798) popularised the notion that vice, plague and famine were natural forms of population control, without which population growth would ultimately be limited by the means of agricultural production. In short, overpopulate and starve because food won’t keep up.

Maulthusians never seem to fade far from attention. Almost 200 years later, in 1968, Paul Ehrlich wrote the blockbuster ‘The Population Bomb’ which warned of imminent mass starvations and famine due to overpopulation. 1968 must have been the year for sensationalist blockbusters, because it was also the year that Erich von Daniken wrote ‘Chariots of the Gods’ (which argued that ancient astronauts built the pyramids, educated the Aztecs and basically gifted mankind with alien intelligence). Pseudo sciences sell better than dry evidence-based science after all. Just ask American pulp fiction writer L Ron Hubbard (and look where it got him).

Now joining the fray is our very own Dick Smith, former super-nerd and founder of Dick Smith Electronics stores, aviator, publisher (of Australian Geographic), entrepreneur and 1986 ‘Australian of the Year.’ Ironically, given his latest comments on population theory, he was also founder of the Australian Skeptics Society (amongst whose ranks you’d be unlikely ever to find a Malthusian).

Dick’s a popular figure in Australia, and when he speaks people (and the media) listen. But there are a number of problems with Dick’s suggestion that Australia is overpopulated, and even more problems with the suggestion we need to limit our growth through a two child policy.

First, let’s start with some global perspective. Overall, world population growth rates are slowing according to the United Nations and the US Census Bureau. Further, based on United Nations forecasts, populations by 2050 will be smaller than they are today in 50 countries – leading economies included. Here’s a useful article from The Economist which explains. And in this article from Bloomberg’s Businessweek, titled ‘Shrinking Societies: the other Population Crisis’, the massive economic and social problems of countries with falling populations are highlighted. Here’s an extract:

"Europe, Korea, and Japan have gone into panic mode," says Carl Haub, a senior demographer at the Population Reference Bureau. A declining population impacts a country's economic growth, labor market, pensions, taxation, health care, and housing, according to the U.N. Globally by 2050, the number of older persons in the world will exceed the number of young for the first time in history, according to the U.N. The imbalance will create havoc in the pension systems and make it difficult to support retired and elderly persons, Haub says.

That sounds awfully familiar. Australia’s ageing population is a problem, and this country also faces a demographic time bomb whereby, in the absence of more young people, we will soon have a very large population of retirees and seniors, with demands on the welfare system largely unfunded by the present tax system and those who fund it (namely, workers in the private sector).

But strangely, discussions about our ageing population and how to fund it, and concerns about the overpopulation of Australia, seem to take place side by side without the logical connection being drawn between the two. If we are to avoid a horrendous tax burden on the future generation of workers, in order to maintain our standard of living and support the needs of the boomers, we will need more workers. It’s either that or higher taxes. And the problem with higher taxes, as other countries with similar problems have found, is that they can lead to an exodus of the workforce seeking better opportunities elsewhere. Which in turn reduces the tax base. No ‘win-win’ there.

Doug Saunders is the author of ‘Arrival City’ - a book about the conflicts and change brought on by massive urban migrations. And in this article, he explains the problem very clearly:

In Japan, an aging population and commensurate shrinking work force and taxpayer base has produced 20 years of consistent deflation, rising poverty and inequality. To avoid that fate, other countries are either shifting more of the population into the working-age bracket by raising retirement ages, or by taking in large numbers of immigrants.

Without mass immigration and much higher retirement ages, now-prosperous states will become impoverished: By 2050, most Western countries will have to devote between 27 and 30 per cent of their GDP to spending on retirees and their needs, according to the bond-rating agency Standard & Poor’s; this will produce fiscal deficits in most advanced countries of almost 25 per cent of GDP, making the current crisis seem minuscule by comparison.

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In Japan, the first advanced country to see its population shrink and age rapidly, employers have responded the only way they know: By moving to China, which is now home to some 20,000 Japanese firms.

But even China is aging fast. The working-age population, which now makes up three-quarters of China’s 1.3 billion citizens, will plummet to 66 per cent after 2035, when the country’s population starts falling. Already, China’s coastal cities are talking about taking in immigrant workers. “Given China’s age structure today,” Mr. Fishman writes, “it is in the midst of a retirement avalanche … today, for every 10 working Chinese there are two elderly dependants, but by 2050, there will be six elderly dependants for every worker.”

This is not a remote or abstract crisis. Countries like Canada will soon be fighting to attract anyone we can get to work – and squeezing as much as we can from the remaining few.

Australia has been fond of comparing itself to Canada. We are both western democracies, operating under similar governance systems. We both have relatively small populations given our geographic size (Canada has 34 million people, we have 23 million) and abundant natural resources. A resource we both lack is people. If Saunders is right about Canada fearing the same demographic problems as Japan (population 127 million), Australia might want to take note.

Dick Smith’s concerns for Australia rely on a second, also false, argument:

"We are putting our kids into high-rise because we are running out of land, because people want and need to live close to the city. We pay $50 million a year for free range eggs for our bloody chooks to be free range - what about our kids? I was a free range kid. I had a backyard. We are starting to lose that now, and it's only driven by the huge population increases." (full article here)

But Dick, we aren’t running out of land. This argument is preposterous, on any valid domestic or global comparison. The reason we are denying future generations a backyard in preference over high density dwelling is not a land shortage brought on by population growth, but a planning philosophy which dogmatically asserts that growth boundaries and high density are the preferred regulatory path for accommodating growth. Developers and land economists could explain this to Dick, if he were prepared to listen. Plenty of people, given the choice, would happily occupy suburban blocks far from CBDs because their work (which for 9 out of 10 Australians is not in the CBDs) and their lifestyle preferences (typically raising a family) are that way inclined. Those people though are not planners, and neither are they part of the current oligarchy which delivers decisions allegedly in their interests via the confines of inner city coffee shops.

Even in the United Kingdom (population 62 million, in an area slightly larger than Victoria) there are those proposing the establishment of new urban centres to provide housing choice and to accommodate growth. Ian Abley’s Audacity.org has proposed a ‘250 New Towns’ movement, which seeks to do precisely that.

If there are those prepared to venture such audacious ideas in a nation the size of the UK, one wonders why Australia has allowed itself to become preoccupied with the notion that we are somehow running out of land.

Australia’s growth rate is currently a dizzying 1.6% per annum. It’s fallen from a high of 2%, as international migration was reduced. Neither rates of growth, on a global scale, are remarkable. By 2050, when global population growth is predicted to stop, our total population will reach an estimated 35 million people, of whom 23% - or nearly one in four - people, will be aged over 65.

It reads not like a recipe for over population, but one of under population. Perhaps it’s time the tiny thought bubbles of Dick Smith and his cohorts in this discussion were well and truly pricked by the sharp end of reality?

The socialisation of ‘private’ property

The notion of private freehold land was once sacrosanct, in law and in public policy. But the rights of private property owners are slowly being eroded. To what extent is land private anymore, when so many government impositions can be made upon it, without recourse? This exchange below is a piece of satire, designed simply to highlight where property rights are heading. The interchange, and the characters, are entirely fictional.

THE SCENE: A landowner with a 100 hectare parcel of rural land right on the wrong side of the urban growth boundary, visits a bureaucrat to discuss his options for improving the value of his holding.

Landowner: Good morning, I’m here to discuss this letter which says I can’t divide my block up because my application’s been knocked back under this regional plan of yours.

Bureaucrat: Good morning Sir. First I should explain it’s not my regional plan, it’s a regional plan for all of us, so we can all live sustainably and plan for a better future for our wonderful region. Now the reason your application was rejected is because your land has been defined as an important piece of our rural environment and we don’t want to see that ruined by people chopping up blocks for rural residential housing.

Landowner: Who’s this “we”?

Bureucrat: The government, and the community Sir. There’s been extensive public consultation on all our planning schemes so we’re really only doing what the people want...

Landowner: Not what I want mate, and no one asked me. Look, immediately across the road, some developer’s bought my neighbour’s land which is the same size as mine and they’ll be subdividing it for a new housing estate. My neighbour’s retirement and future health care costs have all been met through that sale, but here I am right across the road, and I can’t do anything like that.

Bureaucrat: Well I am sorry Sir, but the boundary has to go somewhere, and it’s important we balance the needs of future housing with the need to preserve rural lands. Plus, the people who live on your neighbour’s block in the future will appreciate having the open space provided by your land.

Landowner: Oh terrific, so you’re using me to provide the views for the people across the road all cooped up on tiny blocks and in townhouses. If you want the views that much, why don’t you buy my land?

Bureaucrat: (laughs) The government isn’t made of money Sir.

Landowner: All right, so tell me this. My land’s only marginal as cattle country. Half of it’s covered with regrowth so to improve the land I’ll need to clear some trees and improve the pasture. I presume you don’t object to me doing that?

Bureaucrat: Sir, I’m sorry but you can’t be serious? Haven’t you heard about climate change? We can’t allow people to cut down trees willy nilly, there are very strict rules about that. We need to care for our environment, not ruin it. Plus, that land is an important koala habitat and essential to the survival of the species in this region.

Landowner: What?! You’re kidding aren’t you? No one’s ever seen a koala out here in living memory. It’s the wrong sort of country. The wrong sort of trees. What sort of bloody evidence are you on about?

Bureaucrat: Scientific evidence Sir. We’ve used the latest satellite imagery and survey maps to determine that ...

Landowner: (Interrupting): .... did anyone get out of their bloody office and actually walk around and look for themself?

Bureaucrat: Yes Sir, they did. (Impatiently) We have a report on hand from a prominent environmental group which claims to have collected koala droppings in this very area.

Landowner: (Increasingly impatient). They’ll find koalas on the bloody moon that mob if they’ve smoked enough drugs... you must know that they’re all bloody inner city hippies who wouldn’t know koala shit from cow shit.

Bureaucrat: Now Sir, calm down. They’re a very respected group - very influential in government circles.

Landowner: Only because those bloody greenies give the government their votes to keep them in power and doing what they want. (Pauses). Never mind, if I have to leave the trees, I’ll need to improve the water holding of the land. I want to dam the seasonal creek that runs through it. You don’t have a problem with that I hope?

Bureaucrat: Sir, I find your disrespect for the environment disappointing. That creek is an important riparian habitat, at the headwaters of an important waterway where lungfish fossils have been found. You can’t possibly dam the creek. In fact, we will shortly be asking landowners with creeks on their properties to instigate a riparian repair program, so that these creeks can be restored to their original pristine condition.

Landowner: (Mouth agape). WHAT?! You tell me I can’t put a dam on my creek so the cattle have some water, and not only that, I’m supposed to spend a small fortune planting weeds along the creek bank because someone downstream found a bloody fish skeleton? Have you lost you mind?

Bureaucrat: Not at all Sir, it’s good policy to ensure the protection of creeks and waterways for future generations. There are serious fines if you deliberately breach that policy you know. But rest assured, we will consult with landowners like yourself before the new riparian laws come into effect.

Landowner: What’s the bloody point if you’ve already made up your mind?! For crying out loud – I can’t divide my land which is next to useless as a rural block except that it improves someone else’s views, I can’t cut down the trees to improve the carrying capacity, I can’t dam the creek to hold water, and now you want me to spend my money planting reeds along a dry creek bank and it’ll only be dry because all the water will drain away because there’s no dam to hold it back. Tell me this, what exactly CAN I do with my land?

Bureaucrat: Anything you like Sir, it is freehold land after all and this government respects private property rights above all else.

Landowner: So I can put a house on it?

Bureaucrat: Provided you seek the appropriate planning permission, and ensure that all the referral agencies concur with where you plan to put the house. Mind you, you’ll need to ensure that the house design and colour scheme also comply with local character planning guidelines, and also that any greywater and blackwater is treated with an approved on site eco-friendly waste treatment plant. We have extensive guidelines which are available if you’d like to read them.

Landowner: But right across the road there’ll be multiple brick shit boxes on small blocks with a sewerage connection? Those waste treatment plants cost a small bloody fortune...

Bureaucrat: But what price can we put on saving the planet Sir? I don’t think you should be down heartened, it could prove a valuable asset for your property, and we’re processing the approvals much faster now. You could even have yours in under 3 years. Of course that depends on how our revised planning scheme progresses.

Landowner: What revised scheme?

Bureaucrat: As part of our commitment to creating more liveable places, we’re looking at realigning some roads and creating bikeways and public transport corridors. Now, my understanding is that the draft plan for your area could mean a busway and bike path through the middle of your block, but we won’t be able to confirm the final decision until the draft plan has been out for public consultation, feedback received and the final plan gazetted. That could be as quick as 10 years.

Landowner: (By now, on the verge of tears). You want to push a busway through my block? That’ll render it unsaleable... and you want to take 10 years to work out whether you’re going to do it or not? Listen, there’s no one bloody well there who will ever use a bus. Not now, not ever. Anyone living there will be a tradie or work locally, they’ll use their cars. That’s what they want. But if you do that, I’m stuck with complete uncertainty about whether my land is going to be affected or not, and I doubt you’re going to offer me any compensation.

Bureaucrat: There IS certainty Sir, your land is freehold, and as such, of course we will compensate you for the slice we require, if we require it, based on our official land valuation of your land as a rural holding.

Landowner: But the value you come up with will be next to nothing because I can’t subdivide it, I can’t clear the trees for the sake of some phantom koala shit, I can’t dam the creek because of some ancient fish bones, and I won’t be able to afford to build a house because of the time and uncertainty of the approvals. You’re rendering my land next to useless, you know that?

Bureaucrat: (Taking offence) That’s NOT true Sir. We regard your land as very useful, for all the reasons I’ve outlined. That’s why we’re so intent on protecting it. Plus, we’re aware of certain underground gas finds that could be of great value as royalties to the government in the future.

Landowner: Well that’s terrific, at least I might get to make a buck if some drillers arrive some day. Bring em on!

Bureaucrat: No Sir, YOU won’t get to make anything. The gas is underground, you have no ownership of the mineral rights. The miners will and the government will collect the royalties, which improves our ability to create more liveable communities for all of us. (Sarcastically) You included.

Landowner: So you mean they can come onto my land, uninvited, drill holes everywhere, knock down trees in the process, even poison what little water’s in the creek, and there’s nothing I can do about it other than stand by and watch you and them make money at my expense?

Bureaucrat: I’m sorry you feel that way Sir. But the Government has certain obligations to expand the productive capacity of the economy and the resources sector is very important in that regard.

Landowner: I don’t know why I bother, why my parents ever bothered, why don’t I just go on the dole and forget about doing anything with the land?

Bureaucrat: But it IS your land Sir, it is freehold and you own it. You’re a very lucky person, so many others would be envious of you, given how unaffordable land has become.

Landowner: I’ll bet I could change their mind in a heartbeat. Christ, I’m ruined. Have you got anything else you want to tell me?

Bureaucrat: No Sir, that’s about it I think. (Pauses) Now let me think, there was something... now what was it? (Pauses again) Oh, of course, did I mention that someone thinks they might have found a sacred site? ....

Tourism down but by no means out

As the ravages of Cyclone Yasi leave scars across the northern landscape, and as much of the rest of Queensland continues with a clean up and repair bill from successive flood inundations, recreational visitor numbers to various part of the state will inevitably tumble in the short term. Tourism’s recovery from natural disasters will occupy headlines for a time, and the industry will recover. As it does so, industry leaders could begin to focus on some of the man-made disasters which deserve equal attention in any rebuilding and growth plans.

Tourism industry representatives have so often predicted their industry’s near death that there’s a Cassandra element about it. From pilot’s strikes to the Ansett collapse, to S11, SARs, bird flu, the high Australian dollar, Cyclone Larry and now Yasi – each has prompted dire warnings of imminent demise accompanied by the request for bigger advertising budgets. You’d be forgiven for thinking the industry was one of our most vulnerable, based on the repeated prophesies of doom.

But the industry over the years has proven itself remarkably robust. International visitor numbers may not reflect long term predictions or industry ambitions, and Queensland’s share of that traffic may have slipped, but the numbers generally have held up. In fact, last year, there were 2% more international visitors to Queensland than the year before. This is a handy snapshot of international tourism trends, and it doesn’t provide evidence of past bloodbaths. The picture isn’t one of constant growth, but it is one of relative stability.

Domestic travel has fared worse, but with a strong dollar, who can blame Australians for seizing the opportunity to see the world.? That too will return to a balance once the dollar falls below current levels (which must surely happen at some stage). And business travel continues to perform strongly. The industry might itself be preoccupied by images of white beaches and bikini girls, but men in dark suits attending meetings and conferences actually generate more nights and more dollars spent. It’s why Brisbane is by far the largest tourism market in the state, surpassing the Gold Coast. Room rates for hotel rooms in Brisbane are hardly being sacrificed, and even discount room site Wotif.com suggests that $300 to $450 per night is the going rate for the Brisbane CBD. That’s not dissimilar to what you’d pay for a decent hotel room in New York City, which is hardly evidence of a bloodbath.

So the reality will be that, despite the horrors of Yasi and the floods that affected much of the state, the industry will recover. As it does though, it might be timely for industry leaders to focus on some of the man-made problems that have been wreaking damage just as effectively as natural events.

Let’s start with the ridiculous difficulty faced by tour operators or developers of new facilities, trying to create new product for the leisure or business travel market. What the industry desperately needs is a widening and dizzying array of new tourism experiences and offerings, from Cape York to Coolangatta. Each new experience creates a richer picture of the Queensland offering and it builds the incentive to travel here. It also means each new operation has its own marketing budget, which combined with others is a more effective way of luring visitors than government sponsored campaigns. (What happened to that ‘new brand’ campaign “Queensland, Where Australia Shines”. Don’t remember? The cringe factor can be found here. It’s now been replaced with ‘Queensland, ready to welcome you.’ Tourism’s elder statesman Jim Kennedy suggested in October last year that industry agencies were out of ideas and in need of a shakeup. He could well be right).

The challenges aren’t just faced by larger businesses talking major resorts - even the smallest operations seem stymied by planning and environmental regulations. For example in Cape York, traditional owners in several communities were hoping to build tourism experiences but the environmental bureaucrats combined with the politics of Green preferences meant those hopes were dashed in the form of Wild Rivers Legislation. On Fraser Island, chances of anything much happening at Orchid Beach were killed off by environmental forces claiming the area too sensitive, even to beach camping at Waddy Point. On the Gold Coast some years back, attempts to build a skyrail experience to the Springbrook Hinterland were similarly strangled in regulation and anti-anything politics. Earlier this month, developer Graeme Juniper abandoned plans for a $500 million eco resort in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, after a fruitless seven year battle with the local (and allegedly pro-tourism) council. I even know of one dairy farming family who wanted to run Dairy Farm tours in school holidays for city kids in south east Queensland, but the town planners in the local council heaped so many regulations and application fees on their idea that it too died a deliberate death by bureaucracy.

The point here is that whether it’s a micro tourism proposal or a major one, whether it involves simply accessing natural areas or building structures on private or public land, the regulatory environment is tilted heavily against the proponent. This has become a sort of Berlin Wall of regulatory opposition, too difficult for most to scale and too big to go around. Erected in the name of environmental protection or safety, these regulations have had the effect of achieving environmental paranoia and a nanny state obsession with the precautionary principle. And they are strangling the chances of new tourism products being established, which are essential to the future viability of the industry.

Without new tourism experiences or new physical assets, the Queensland tourism picture will start to fade like a postcard from Surfers Paradise in the 1960s. It possibly already is, unaided by tourism campaigns which largely turn their back on promoting business tourism in the capital city and instead trot out the same beaches, the same palm trees, and the same rainforest. For the industry, identifying this massive obstacle to the development of new and expanded tourism offerings ought to be a very high priority.

And when it comes to calls for increased marketing budgets, perhaps we could start to press for campaigns which make direct connections to districts and regions. Instead of announcing some new $10 million tourism campaign designed to bring visitors back to Cairns, for example, give the money to Qantas, Jetstar and Virgin in exchange for free or heavily discounted seats. If a Sydney-Cairns return flight is worth $250, $10 million would be worth 40,000 free return seats, even more if the subsidy was one way only, or for discounts rather than free seats. Over the course of six months, an extra 40,000 visitors spending money in Cairns (or any other distressed destination) would have a direct bearing on the profits of businesses that employ people and that constitute what is called the tourism industry. Initiatives which go direct to stimulating visitor traffic have to be superior to cliché ridden advertising campaigns.

Finally, it would be good to start undoing the assumption that our environment is too fragile and far too sensitive to allow any more intrusions by people. Operators and visitors may have impacts, and these are manageable. You can’t have industry, jobs or create taxes to pay for social services by locking up vast areas with ‘DO NOT ENTER’ signs.

The obsessions with ‘damage’ caused by walking or 4WD tracks in wilderness areas, with water quality because of people’s sunscreen, or the outright alarm at the prospect of clearing a few trees to make way for a structure of some sort, must surely look a bit ridiculous now.

Have another look at the images of vast devastation caused by Yasi, or of the floods of 2011. Thousands of hectares of trees and forest damaged, rivers and creeks unrecognisable. Yet we’re precious about the relatively minor impacts of man and in the process are choking off an industry’s future prospects to develop new product.