Australian Manifesto

 We are affected by two types of people. Creative people and competitive people. It's more of a sliding scale between these types of people. The creative people who affect our lives make stuff, invent stuff and discover stuff. Their world is limitless. They are driven by curiosity. The competitive people are combative. In their world resources are limited. The cup isn't half full, it's half empty. If their thinking is "there is only so much to go around" then they want to be first in line. And they are. To do well in life you need to be one of them or create something they want.  Our lives are greatly affected by the most successful of each of these types of people. Our standard of living mostly comes from creative people. Look around you. What do you see? Did any of it exist 200 years ago? Not much. Why is it there now? Because it is essential to the functionality and comfort of our present existence. Who made it happen? Creative people. Competitive people brough...

  At first glance, people will say irrigating the Australian interior will be too expensive for many years to come. Technology needs to advance to such an extent to bring the cost of such a venture right down. After all, other farmers elsewhere in the world get their water for free. How can you compete with that? If we link sunlight and wind revenue directly to the production and delivery cost of water to our inland, then the equation looks much better. We are wasting our sunlight and wind to the tune of billions of dollars per year. Let's stop doing that!!! We need to create the infrastructure to link the two parts of the equation so they balance each other out. In the driest continent on the planet, it is just stupid not to do this!!! The coastal corporations and townships will be building an ever-expanding economy. As it grows it will need more and more energy. Our farmers will never produce too much energy to sell because growing economies can never have too much energy. If ene...

  As of the time of writing this manifesto, we are still being bullied by China through aggressive trade behaviour. China feels we are a small economy dependent upon them.  China believes it can bully us and so it does. This will continue to happen unless we change our strategy and grow our economy from within Australia. Stop relying on potentially unfriendly countries for our economic growth. We need to look at new immigrants for our growth. Even low-skilled immigrants and refugees stuck in camps and detention centres here and around the world can be a source of GDP growth if given the right opportunities.  Yes, we need to be careful to keep the balance right when importing people, but we have been good at that. We assimilate people into our country better than most. Some people have said Australia’s environment is too fragile and we could be easily overpopulated. Others, especially just after each of the World Wars, have said "Populate or perish". If you listen to Profe...

Russia attacking Europe via Ukraine is just the beginning of what is to come. The main game is when China makes its move.  China wants to be the main player the way it has been for centuries. That is why they call themselves the Middle Kingdom. Everything should revolve around them. They want that back. They think that in the age of humiliation, that important position was stolen from them. They think the USA being the leader of the west is the usurper.  In my opinion, this is a fundamental misunderstanding of the USA. The United States of America claims to be a Republic. However, it often looks more like a Corporatocracy.  This is why the NRA and "big pharma" have such illogical control in the USA. Other examples are probably too numerous to mention. The USA is all about making money. They know how to make money and they know what environment needs to exist to make money. They know that China has huge potential to make money and the people in the USA desperately wan...

  With lots more water around there will be a lot more bush. The fear of larger bushfires in our nature parks should cause our Government authorities to rethink the shape of our parks.  Perhaps they could be shaped in an hourglass shape or a string of beads shape so if firefighters can’t beat a fire in one section of the park at least they may be able to defend another part of the park at the narrow pass and allow wildlife an escape route from a burning section of the park to a safe section. To reduce wildlife road kill road tunnels under this narrow section of the park will be cheaper to build and less intrusive. This reshaping of the parks will be done by swapping neighboring farmland for parkland. The monitoring of wildlife for research purposes and the controlling of feral animals at these narrow passes with fireproof surveillance equipment and a string of "felixers" may also be beneficial.  The landscape of new national parks may be manipulated to make them more inv...

If you want your political party to keep getting re-elected you have to show the population that your economy is growing and that, as a result, life will get better for voters. In New Zealand, the progressives could not improve productivity in their country, so they lost the next election despite Ardern's high profile and many achievements. As the opposition leader who won the election said, "It's hard to get an extra litre of milk out of a cow". He was referring to the fact that New Zealand has two main industries: agriculture and tourism. He won the election because he promised higher productivity and more efficiency, mainly through less Government spending. This means he will probably just cut expenses, which will cut fat and possibly some muscle as well. It's the same old cycle over and over again. And to make the GDP grow artificially, New Zealand has immigration. It's a kind of industry that only countries with good civil rights and the rule of law can o...

Can you imagine an agricultural coastal corporation that provided a one-stop shop for farmers? They had all the data on the market. They would know which crops would sell and for how much in each part of the world.  They had all the data on which crops could grow and where and how to grow them. Then they sold off-the-shelf solutions to farmers which had been tried and tested. They underwrote the package on the condition that all their recommendations were followed. This could happen if those same coastal corporations were supplying the farmer with all the water, fertilizers, finance, and equipment needed.      These corporations would tap into the latest research to provide the best solutions to their clients, the farmers. For instance, sensors in the ground tell farmers exactly how much water to provide for what type of crop and what soil type. Artificial intelligence allowed pest and weed control via robots using selective spraying. The list of new ideas for improv...

Larger farms exist further inland by necessity. If they can obtain as much water as they need, they could be hugely profitable by virtue of their sheer size.  So a farmer can work out how much water they need for which crop they intend to produce. If they don't have enough land for the solar panels to produce enough green energy then they need to consider upgrading to more efficient panels, using wind turbines or turning waste into green energy. Any type of green energy qualifies for the piped water allocation. The coastal corporations will give farmers an estimated figure of how much the water will cost to get to their land. The farmer just has to get creative with the green energy production to make the figures work, depending on the product they want to produce that year. If the farmer has a certainty of the supply of water then they can plan with much less risk. Banks will back them more willingly with capital investment.  Just as Mr Morrison failed to understand the signi...

Initially, to fund this terraforming of Australia, public money will be required for research grants. But more importantly, the Government must show vision and leadership by announcing that they will be actively investigating this with serious interest as a long-term strategy for our country. They will be reporting any progress made to attract interest from possible investors (including overseas Governments interested in our progress) but also from our own superfunds and insurance companies. As the case studies develop, our Government should underwrite a few initial test projects to fast-track progress. If this works, then  I believe Australia would be unrecognisable in 50 years. And the initial investment to get the ball rolling is nothing compared to the final potential result. Whether any politician or investor cares about 50 years from now is up for discussion. But the profits will start flowing within a short enough time after successful small-scale test projects occur. Then, ...

Farmers could be given low-interest loans to set up their portable solar arrays or wind turbines. I believe old solar panels which still work well are thrown out by the truck load. So much so that it's a real headache to try to recycle them. Rather than throwing out old solar panels that still work, the Local Regional Governments could provide recycled solar panel depots where farmers can pick up old solar panels for free and repurpose them for their farms. Local country electricians could be paid to repurpose these old solar panels at the request of interested farmers. The electricians would be paid by the Local Government with Federal Government grants. Any extra training necessary could also be covered by these grants. Until farmers are convinced of the worth of the project, this might prove to be a cheap alternative for farmers who want to "test the waters".  Once the water or “water credits” starts flowing to their farms, the farmers can invest more heavily in more e...

Presently, our economy runs in a perverse manner. If you can borrow enough from a bank, you can hook into an increased lifestyle. You can become a real estate owner. Our weird tax system encourages this. As long as you keep making the minimum repayment the bank asks of you, they are fine. You can attach your credit card to your home loan at the home loan rate, not the unsecured rate. You can buy the car you desire. You can have that overseas holiday. You can definitely put that extension on your home. Just push the mortgage out a bit further. It doesn't matter because, due to inflation in the real estate sector, your house is going up in value anyway. Your house sometimes earns more than you do per year! It's like having two incomes.  So if worse comes to worse, you just sell and take a smaller profit.  Oh…. By the way. Remember all the for sale signs all over the Pittwater area during the GFC. As I understand it, that was because of margin calls in the stock market. Apparentl...

The climate is changing. Droughts are becoming more extreme and floods more damaging. A radical climate requires a radical change in our thinking, behaviors, and actions. If our environment is becoming wild, then we need to tame it before it tames us. We have already seen harsh environmental consequences with massive bushfires, prolonged droughts, and destructive floods, and according to scientists, this is just the start of things to come.  A study by Dr Falster of the ANU says the possibility of megadroughts lasting up to 20 years is on the horizon. They have happened before. Only now, with the effects of climate change, they will be worse and more frequent. How could any farmer last for 20 years without rain? It's impossible!!! And banks won't want to talk to farmers ever again.  Remember in 2019 when newspapers talked about "Zero Day". That was the day when country towns like Dubbo, Tenterfield, Stanthorpe, Warwick, Tamworth and Nyngan would have their taps turned...

I'm no engineer but I imagine that the pipes transporting the clean water will be very large and have a ratchet system where water can only flow forward. Also, a corkscrew system within some of the pipes powered by wind or solar could pump the water through the pipes uphill. That's an ancient technology. As mentioned previously, every 500 to 1000 meters or so there will be a large silo that stores water.  That water was pumped into the silo during daylight hours from the pipes when excess solar energy was available. Forget about Snowy Hydro 2. We don't need that. The water is released to keep the water flowing forward at an acceptable rate during the night or whenever necessary. Depending on how much water you release and from how many silos, you can control the flow of the water even though you are far from the desalination plant and the original pumping stations. You can even control the flow of water  at night.  The silos are painted by local artists with murals promot...

I propose that farmers are only allowed to buy water from the pipes that reach their land with green energy produced on their farms.  So forget about paying for water with cash, it's not allowed. Yes, the grid would need to be decentralized and upgraded to accept all this new green power. But that must happen anyway in this renewable energy age. The electricity grid needs to decentralise and it’s doing so slowly.  Where is green energy investment going at present? It's going where the grid already exists. And it already exists where the land receives a reasonable amount of water. So the farmers and investors are seeking windfall gains from the existing electricity infrastructure. No extra water is being pulled inland. We need to see this as an opportunity to build a whole new class of infrastructure. Setting up this framework of infrastructure and regulation will force water inland. An argument could be put forward suggesting that in a free economy, farmers should be given the...

  About 40% of the cost of desalinating water is from energy inputs. Farmers providing this energy by solar harvesting as a contribution for water entitlement would reduce desalination costs substantially. What if farmers provided the other 60% of the expense of desalination in the form of more green energy. So the coastal corporations sold that extra 60% of green energy into the energy market to fund their operations. Those coastal corporations providing the desalinated water to farmers would have their expenses covered. But then you have the added expense of pumping desalinated water hundreds of kilometers inland. Same thing. The farmers provide enough energy to pay for the piping of desalinated water to their farm.  Farmers should pay for water with the green energy they generate on their farms. If they don’t do this, they are wasting money on their farms as sunlight bounces off their land uselessly. This must be demonstrated to them, otherwise, they will just see another s...

Research groups and universities need to be funded. Corporations and semi-government organizations need to be grouped together in conferences with Government leadership. Those corporations may eventually group together to be massive joint ventures. Their task eventually will be to suck vast amounts of seawater from the ocean, desalinate the water at a massive scale and pump the clean water to our vast interiors whilst making a profit doing this. Imagine factories that grow into gigafactories for making and transporting clean water. Just like when new towns sprang up and grew and grew during our gold rush era, clean water and clean electricity will, I believe, be the new gold of the 21st century. It can and will open and develop our vast interior. We also need to fund entrepreneurial farmers trying new things. The first few farms proving that a profit can be made using the latest technology and desalinated water for irrigation will open new massive markets.   Massive pipes with...

  If I had a vision of what I think Australia would look like in future years then this is what I would see. And think about this…. You always hear about the rise of China, or the rise of India, or the rise of Africa. You never hear anyone talk about the rise of Australia. Well, maybe we should think about it ourselves. After all, no one else is going to think about it. Australians will realise that without ready and economical access to water in all parts of Australia, then this country will not realise its true potential. If you look at how civilisations have grown and developed throughout human history, they have only ever done so in areas of favourable climatic and environmental conditions. So reliable access to clean water was essential. In the past that meant humans needed to go where Mother Nature provided such conditions.  I believe we are now entering a time in human development where we will be able to change the environment sustainably to provide favourable hum...