DEMOCRATIC SOCIALIST PERSPECTIVE

Over the past 200 years capitalism has inflicted serious damage on Australia's natural environment. In a continent that is 70% arid or semi-arid, the fertile areas have been ruthlessly exploited. The indiscriminate clearing of natural vegetation for commercial farming has led to serious climatic changes and devastated the habitats of indigenous animals. Inappropriate crops and farming methods have exposed the soil to erosion, and pastoral activity in semi-arid areas has contributed to the spread of the desert. Poorly considered irrigation, excessive clearing of trees, and overuse of artificial fertilisers have led to the poisoning of more and more farming land through salination and acidification.

The dumping of household, industrial and mining waste products (garbage, untreated sewage, chemical and metal wastes, radioactive tailings from uranium mines, etc.) and extensive use of chemical pesticides, has led to the poisoning of land, rivers, lakes and coastal waters. The poor design of cities and excessive reliance on private automobile transport rather than public transport has led to serious air pollution problems and the disappearance of much of the best agricultural land under suburbs. Cancer threatens to become a national epidemic as a result of radiation and toxic chemicals on the job, seepage of industrial wastes into homes built over abandoned dumps, and the poisoning of the air, water, food and other basic consumer goods.

The technology already exists to deal with these problems — to clean up and control pollution, to preserve the natural environment, to recycle industrial and domestic waste, to introduce environmentally safe production processes and to plan livable cities. The lack of concerted action on these problems is a result of the subordination of the health and welfare of the mass of people to monopoly capitalism's rapacious drive for private profit. Capitalist enterprises operate with almost total disregard for their impact on the environment and the health of their employees and the community in general.

Protection of the environment and of workers' health on the job are closely related matters. As part of its austerity drive, big capital is trying to roll back existing environmental and health standards, and is fiercely resisting the development of new standards.

Working people are entitled to full information about, and control over, the environmental conditions that affect their health and survival where they work and live. Environmental and health standards must be established by working people and communities with full access to technical information and based on consultation with experts of their own choice.

Elected community committees must be empowered to decide directly on projects to establish factories or use industrial processes that may adversely affect the local environment. Such committees must be empowered to gather full and accurate information about the relevant ecological and health issues, and to make their decisions on the basis of this information, not out of concern for corporate profits.

The poisoning and destruction of the environment is a crime that threatens human survival, and should be treated as such. Corporations that violate environmental standards should be forced to pay the full cost of cleaning up the damage they have caused and fully compensate all whose health has suffered as a result of such violations. These corporations must be forced to install pollution control equipment and prohibited from passing on the cost of this to consumers through higher prices. Companies manufacturing chemical pesticides and artificial fertilisers should pay a levy to finance the development of environmentally safe fertilisers and methods of pest control.

A large-scale program of public works, funded by increased taxes on corporate profits, should be introduced to clean up our land, rivers, and coastal waters, to carry out reforestation projects, and to establish publicly owned plants for recycling industrial and household waste.

The habitats of rare or endangered species of plants and animals must be declared national parks, and an extensive program must be introduced to restore the ecological balance of these areas. Communities currently based on the economic exploitation of such areas must be guaranteed compensation, job retraining and alternative employment.

Every aspect of the nuclear power industry, from the mining of uranium to the disposal of radioactive waste products, is fraught with lethal and insurmountable dangers. The party opposes any attempts to establish a nuclear power industry in Australia and demands the immediate cessation of the mining and export of uranium.

Just as they should reject the false dilemma of having to choose between employment or cuts in wages, working people should reject arguments by the capitalists that they cannot afford to take the measures necessary to clean up and protect the environment, or that workers' jobs will be threatened by environmental protection measures. Working people cannot afford bosses who put profits before the health of their employees and the community in general. Such companies should be nationalised without compensation (except for small stockholders) and placed under the control of workers' committees provided with complete access to the government funding and all the technical information required for meeting the requisite health and environmental protection standards.

Where environmental protection can only be achieved by the closure of an industry, as in the case of uranium mining and the nuclear power industry for example, governments and employers must be forced to provide alternative work, training and retraining, and where appropriate, compensation to employees and communities affected by such closures.

While victories along these lines can slow the slide to environmental catastrophe, ultimately this problem can only be resolved through the replacement of the capitalist system with a worldwide system of democratic socialist planning. Mass political action aimed at winning concessions from the capitalist ruling class can play a crucial role in raising mass consciousness of the need for such a radical social transformation, and in organising the social forces that can carry it through.