By Dick Nichols
The closer Green parties get to the Treasury benches, the greater the pressure upon them to go beyond Green buzz words — to produce a detailed model of green economy and sustainable development, along with some strategy of implementation.
So it wasn't surprising that in Tasmania before the recent poll the Green Independents (enjoying, proportionally, the largest green parliamentary representation in the world) produced a "Business and Industry Strategy" called "Green, Dynamic and Prosperous" (GDP). This was presented as a plan for "win/win solutions to industry development and environment protection" and "a first step towards building a new, prosperous future for Tasmanian business and industry".
Despite this attempt at producing a worthy program for government, the Greens lost 25% of their support. Is there any connection? Or would the recession have robbed the Greens of votes whatever documents and platforms they put up?
These aren't easy questions, but clearly a lot of voters were convinced that the Green Independents didn't have a serious program for fighting unemployment.
That's because, for all GDP's talk about Tasmania's unemployment crisis, it lacks a credible plan to create jobs. Its scheme of a clean, green, high-tech Tasmanian economy exporting sophisticated, high-value products into niche markets around the world is more wishful thinking than serious and careful alternative economy.
Unlike, for example, New Zealand NewLabour's proposed job-generation programs, which firmly grasp the nettles of the increased government expenditure and taxing of the wealthy needed to create jobs, GDP evades numerous critical questions:
- How, exactly, will small business take up the jobless slack as Tasmania's traditional resource industries close down?
- What policy would be followed if, despite GDP's proposed bevy of incentives, business doesn't invest in the high-tech export sector?
- How will the Green Independents "require financial institutions operating in Tasmania to invest the vast majority of their funds in Tasmania"?
- Where will the money come from for upgrading education, retraining and reskilling and for increased research and development? More generally, what budget is proposed for this model of green economy?
- What policy will be pursued towards those companies that threaten to pull out of Tasmania because of the more exacting environmental standards proposed? Or those that refuse to electricity at massively subsidised prices?
GDP provokes this blunt line of questioning because its method is to paint pictures of dynamic and picturesque regional economies in other parts of the capitalist world (Emilia-Romagna, Switzerland) and imply that, with a bit of nudging and encouragement and some R&D incentives from a Green Independent government, Tasmanian business would soon be up there with the rest.
This is fundamentally misleading. Not only are the "nicest" parts of the world economy tied by a thousand threads to the most polluting parts, but special conditions (closeness to markets, centuries-old craft traditions) underpin their growth.
This does not mean that Tasmania mightn't develop, say, a high-class furniture industry (proposed as an alternative to woodchipping) or that a green economic policy shouldn't put a lot of effort into helping the development of small industry and business.
It does mean that it is well-nigh impossible to conceive of the Green Independents' small-business orientation solving the massive task of ecological restructuring which confronts the Tasmanian and (Australian) economy. That alone can make a serious dent in the unemployment figures.
(GDP is also intensely parochial. It leaves the impression that if all polluting industries migrated to the mainland and left Tasmania as a "clean, green centre of excellence", it wouldn't be of great concern.)
In similar style, GDP also cites numerous examples of overseas companies that have made money because they adapted to tough environmental standards or led the way in new, non-polluting technologies. Canvassing these examples, however, is hardly convincing. Which Tasmanian or Australian enterprise is sufficiently "cashed up" to risk the millions (and sometimes billions) of dollars needed to develop such technologies?
The deficiencies in GDP all point in the same direction. A program of restructuring that begins to cut back unemployment and restore our battered environment requires massive investment, and such sums can be mobilised only by government. And a government able and willing to carry out such a policy can come into existence only with the support and backing of the mass of working people.
Yet the approach of GDP (and the actual record of the Green Independents in parliament) puts them on a collision course with working people and the unemployed. Instead of presenting a practical program of job creation through conversion to ecologically sustainable production and environmental repair, the Green Independents' documents offers a cloudy dream of small business picking up a slice of the green consumerism market.
Indeed, the document's trust in market-based solutions is extreme. "If a region's information services are up to the task, the reliance on governments to direct economic development is greatly reduced. Market trends, demand conditions, new industry entrants and emerging industries will be quickly communicated to private investors. If these investors are also up to the task, regional development will adapt to nomy. Only where private investors fail to respond quickly enough is it necessary for the government to intervene."
If this is true, why do we even need a green politics? The market will emit its signals for clean, green produce, entrepreneurs will react, and a new, green economy will emerge, guided by the invisible hand. It's not surprising that GDP is full of references to latter-day greens like Jeff Kennett, Michael Heseltine and the directors of large multinationals and "business and industry analysts regarded as world leaders".
Lack of space prevents a thorough canvassing of GDP's detailed proposals. Some of these are imaginative possibilities for exploration, some are pious hopes, many are simply cockeyed (e.g. "determine if 'brain drain' from Tasmania is affecting our ability to successfully compete").
But that's not the main point. As a strategy for the Green political movement, GDP is a loser. It will continue to shrink the movement's potential base of support among working people (to the left), without picking up any substantial forces to the right.
The odd entrepreneur may be grateful for GDP's suggestions about some new green product lines; mainstream politicians will swipe whatever they think is useful from its pages. But the real movement towards a green and socially just economy and politics will stagnate.