Economic Sustainability?

I still haven’t been sent any clear definitions of sustainable development and so I’ll just plod on with considering it to be some form of development that allows a community to thrive and flourish in a way that supports a shared perception that there is a worthwhile future.

Sustainable economic development allows residents to believe that they will benefit from the effort they make throughout their working life. They will be rewarded with an adequate standard of living, and will be able to plan ways for their children, and their grandchildren, to share in whatever they manage to achieve. To be sustainable the economy within which they conduct their enterprises needs to be playing the same game that they are.

In his book, The International Bank of Bob, Bob Harris discusses many issues relating to the economics of small communities and the individuals who live in them. He talks about the postcode lottery that destines a child to a life surrounded by every possible opportunity and choice, and another to abject poverty with no choice but to be abused and used by the fortunate ones.

The fortunate ones have powerful friends, politicians, bankers, lawyers. The fortunate ones have families who understand how to shelter their financial affairs from the tax collector. The fortune ones will always be playing the game of life on the winning side, with the winning hand, using the winner’s rule book.

Not so the unfortunate. They will have no privileges. If they ever find themselves with a winning hand the rules will be changed so that they lose. Because the law makers are always playing on the winner’s team.

One of the significant issues Bob Harris comments on is the way that various peoples of the world have their land taken from them. This has happened across centuries, since man first crawled from the swamp. Bob describes, as we probably all understand; how once the land is taken the people are effectively serfs, subordinate to the new land owners.

Today, in the Shire of Augusta-Margaret River, we aren’t seeing the violent possession of land that was experienced by the aborigines when the European’s arrived. Today it is the value of the land that is taken away from the local residents. This has exactly the same effect, destroying the social fabric, de-moralising the residents and effectively leaving them with nothing, but without shedding any blood. Quite painless.

We, the residents, can fully recognise what has been happening. Or at least the view from Karridale is clear, if others have better experiences then they are fortunate. We can see that many millions of dollars leave the AMRShire economy every time a major development occurs, and we weep impotently, because we have no protection against this civic conspiracy.

When the Group Settlers arrived here the land of the SW had no value. In Karridale the robber baron MCDavies had taken all the profitable timber and moved away to more profitable forests elsewhere. They toiled, many failed. Then, after WWII, a second wave of ANZACS arrived willing to try again, building on the foundations that had been laid down by those early settlers. They worked hard and eventually created a landscape of which they could be proud. They lived softly in the landscape, enjoying a modest lifestyle that was founded on the primacy of family and community. People mattered. Reputation was everything, and the community shared an enormous wealth of generosity and kindness towards each other, even while living through some very difficult times.

Then there came the rise of the corporation, and specifically the land development corporation. Some men from the Eastern States turned their eyes to the East and decided that Western Australia might at last have value. The Urban Planning monster slithered down the coastal strip.

Politicians could determine that Western Australia must have growth, in population. Then local government could place restrictions on all land development. Not a house was to be built, not a parcel of land subdivided unless the institutions with authority had given prior approval. No more gifting your children a home. But this rule only applied if you were a land owner, in practise it only applied if you were a farmer.

If you made your wealth by investing in property you could acquire as many as you wish and then gift them to your children. However, if your wealth was in your land the rules could be changed, and they were, in 2005. This immediately reduced the value of rural land.

As Peter Lane explained in the newspaper report at the time he would now have to buy land elsewhere when his children needed homes. The policy was particularly strange in that it treated land east and west of Bussell Highway differently. This was such a clear case of discrimination, creating a great divide within the community, but the civic leaders were not listening to the community. Ask Why?

The corporations speculatively purchased very specific blocks of this now reduced value land. Amazingly just one year later, in 2006, those very blocks of land owned by the corporations were placed into what the planners called “Development Investigation Areas” DIAs.

No land except the DIAs could be developed in Karridale.

This effectively blocked the local residents from sharing in any increase in land values. Their land had been de-valued and they had been pushed out of the game completely.

To satisfy the democracy rule, and give a passing nod to the universal declaration of human rights, the Augusta-Margaret River Shire had to embark on a ludicrous farce they called sustainable planning. In their case it was even more tragic because they needed to employ a Sustainable Planning Manager and keep the pretence going for a few years. It was just not acceptable for them to ignore the community and so they played them like a bunch of idiots, even importing the second hand hamlet ideas of James Lundy.

The question nobody at Augusta-Margaret River Shire will answer is this;

‘How can we have sustainable development if all the growth in land value is removed from the local economy?’

I am not writing this flippantly. I would truly like an explanation as to how an economy can be grown when both the capital growth and profits are removed to benefit investors in Asia and NSW?

The AMRShire strategic plan for Karridale, is to rezone two blocks of rural grazing land as residential, subdivide into 250 blocks, and sell those off to retirees, FIFO workers, and investors seeking holiday homes. All profits from the 250 blocks will go to the investment corporations; one Perth based, with Asian investors, and one with a Sydney address, investors unknown.

I just cannot see how this model of development is sustainable.

Can we all stop and think for a moment what it would mean to our local economy if these subdivisions were creating profits for local people? For lots of local people. How much opportunity there would be in giving farming families a chance to benefit from selling off a small parcel of their land?

When I first moved here my neighbour said we were, “Cash poor, but land rich”. Just a few years later she had been reduced to, “Cash poor, land poor,” as the shire redefined her holding and marked down the value.

I can see why the local economy is so economically depressed, particularly in the Leeuwin Ward. If any enterprise, not just farming, took profits out of the business on this scale, investing nothing back to generate further profits, then it would eventually become moribund.

That is what will happen here in Karridale.

The community presented a development plan that would have seen profits retained within the local economy, but the officers of the shire would not approve, nor even sit down and discuss. Ask Why?

And while you are asking why, think also about asking who?

Just who are the people behind the corporations who are being gifted the profits from our land?