If you spend more time in Australia than just on a short holiday or business trip, you might notice that the fuel price is very low in Australia in comparison to most countries in the world and that there are many big cars on Australian roads. Especially the omnipresent ute. Furthermore, a “hoon-culture” of “car-enthusiasts” is very distinct. Does all that have an effect on the average fuel economy. I wanted to find out.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) published 2019 a report, which – among others – adresses this question (“Fuel Economy in Major Car Markets: Technology and Policy Drivers 2005-2017“). That report investigates the fuel economy of newly registered light-duty vehicles (LDVs,) across the world from 2005 to 2017. LDVs are a category defined as passenger cars, passenger light trucks and light-commercial vehicles below 3.5 tonnes. For a better readability I will use the term “car” for LDV.

Average fuel consumption among the highest in the world

The average fuel consumption between countries differs substantially among countries, ranging between 5.2 l/100 km and 8.9 l/100 km. A big difference can be seen between

• advanced economies with a fuel price below USD 1/l –
  Australia, Canada and the United States, where average fuel consumption is in the 7.9 to 9 l/100 km range

and

• advanced economies with fuel prices above USD 1/l –
  European Union, Turkey, Japan and Korea, where fuel use per kilometre ranges between 5.2 and 6.5 l/100 km.

Australia consumes more than the global average car fuel consumption, reflecting larger and, therefore, less efficient vehicles.

Australia in 2017 had an average fuel consumption of 7.9 litres/100 km whereas e.g. Germany had 5.9 l, Italy 5.2 l and the USA 8.6 l/100 km. That means that Australian cars burn about 52% more fuel per 100 km than cars in Italy and 34% more than in Germany.

Heavier and larger vehicles

Advanced countries with relatively low population density and low fuel prices have larger shares of SUV/utes than other advanced economies. This is the case especially for Australia where about 30% of car sales were large SUV/utes (like e.g. Ford F-150, Toyota Hilux, BMW X5, Isuzu D-Max or Audi Q7) in 2017. In the same year, small SUV/utes (like Toyota RAV4, Honda CR-V) accounted for 29% in Australia. Whereas the European Union, Japan and Korea, with much higher population densities and higher fuel prices, have smaller vehicles. In Japan, large SUV/utes had only 2% market share and small SUV/utes were just 9% of car sales in 2017. Large SUV/utes accounted for less than 5% of the car market in Germany, France, Korea and United Kingdom.

Also, vehicle weight is closely correlated with fuel use. 70% of new cars sold in 2017 in Australia weighed more than 1 400 kilograms. This ranks Australia among the world’s highest average vehicle weight markets. In contrast, around 70% of new cars in France and Italy weighed less than 1 400 kg, ranking them the most fuel-efficient among the countries assessed.

Furthermore, the report also found that city cars in the Europe Union are 15% more efficient than comparable ones in Australia. In general, it can be said that average fuel consumption in advanced economies with fuel prices above USD 1/l is more efficient than in similar vehicle size market segments in economies with fuel prices below USD 1/l.

Fuel economy improvement rate slowed down

Between 2010 and 2017, the overall average fuel consumption in advanced economies with fuel prices above USD 1/l improved by 15% and in advanced economies with fuel prices below USD 1/l improved by only 9.5%.

However, between 2015 and 2017 the average fuel economy improvement rate slowed down to 1.4% per year globally. And in advanced economies even to only 0.2% per year. Key drivers of the recent developments include the rapid decline of diesel sales in several major vehicle markets. This is most notable in Europe. Worldwide, 76% of new Cars sold in 2017 were petrol ones and just under 17% were diesel.

The growing consumer demand for larger vehicles is also a major determinant. Australia has had a particularly high market share of SUVs and utes, closing in on 60% in 2017.

Mandatory fuel economy standards have an effect

The fuel economy improvement rate of countries after implementing fuel consumption standards or efficiency-based purchase incentives was nearly 60% higher than countries without standards and incentives. The higher improvement rate is also reflected by the higher market share of electrified cars (hybrids, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), battery-electric vehicles (BEVs) and fuel cell electric vehicles). Regulated countries are amongst others Canada, China, European Union, Japan, Korea or the United States. Wheras Australia has no regulations but some incentives like Brazil, Chile, Malaysia, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey.

Fuel saving technology – turbocharging

Turbochargers enable the recovery of energy from exhaust gases. This allows the engine to operate closer to its optimum efficiency throughout the drive cycle. In addition, vehicles with the same power rating can be produced with smaller engine displacement and lower engine weight, further reducing fuel consumption.

Nevertheless, the diffusion of turbochargers in petrol engines is lower in Australia where engine displacement remains far larger than elsewhere. The lower share of turbocharged petrol vehicles in Australia may be partly due to lower fuel octane values.

Electrification is going to be crucial

The electrification of cars is going to be crucial to ensure that fuel economy can be effectively improved. Countries that currently have high average fuel consumption values, like Australia, could benefit the most from electrification since electrified vehicle efficiency is less dependent on size and weight.

The uptake of fuel saving electric powertrain technologies (hybrid, plug-in hybrid and battery electric) is higher in countries with regulations and incentives than those without. The market share in 2017 for electric powertrains only reached 1.1% in Australia where there are no federal fuel economy regulations, though several states provide incentives up to 4% of the vehicle price (Queensland Government, 2018; NSW Government, 2018).

No clear policy towards electrification

Unfortunately there is no clear policy in Australia regarding electric vehicles (EVs). A patchwork of conflicting regulations and road-user taxes between states and territories is inhibiting take up of EVs.

The Australian federal “emissions reduction minister”, Angus Taylor, has ruled out policies used elsewhere to drive EV uptake. These policies might include direct subsidies to consumers or a ban on new fossil-fuel car sales from 2030 or 2035 as promised in countries including the Germany, the UK, India, Thailand and Japan. Instead, the Australian federal government is spending billions of dollars on subsidies for the enormous twin cab utes that dominate Australian car sales.

However as of May 2021, Canberrans who buy electric and other zero-emissions vehicles automatically receive two years’ registration for free. The Australian Capital Territory already waives stamp duty for clean cars, and has promised households and not-for-profit organisations interest-free loans of up to $15,000 to buy them.

On the other hand also in May 2021, the Victorian parliament passed the country’s first road user charge – a tax on every kilometre driven – for EVs and hybrids. The Victorian government argues that it had to impose a new tax on EVs because drivers of those vehicles don’t pay fuel excise. This makes about as much sense as taxing nicotine patches on the basis that those giving up smoking aren’t paying tobacco excise any more.

But the New South Wales government just announced it will waive stamp duty on electric vehicle purchases and provide subsidies for 25,000 new purchases as part of a $490m strategy to drive uptake of EVs.

Conclusion

The 2019–20 Australian bushfire season was a major climatic event and the largest wildfires Australia has ever seen. At the same time, Australia is among the countries in the world with the highest average fuel economy and CO2 emissions per km. To change this is to increase the number of electric vehicles. A road user charge for electric vehicles should be many, many years off. Not now and not before Australia has a reasonably priced electric vehicle market and the right level of supply. The uptake of EVs needs to be encouraged.

The post Fuel economy and fuel price – big cars appeared first on GoAustralia.

If you had asked anyone those days about Australia, you would have received an answer which possibly contained words like kangaroo, koala, Sydney, crocodile, snake, Ayers Rock, convict, barbecue, steak or Quantas. But the name of anything made in Australia?

Aussie, Aussie, Aussie

Australians then believed (and still believe) that Australian Made is an expression for quality. And that feeling was heavily promoted by the industry. In 1993 when I first time came to Australia, everywhere you could see all kind of logos often with an Australian flag, that outlined the Australian origin. This was really difficult for me to grasp.

It was (and fortunately still is) more or less unthinkable, that in Germany you would have found the German flag on so many products. Especially together with statements like “stolz deutsch” (proudly German), “im Besitz von Deutschen” (owned by Germans) or “In deutschem Besitz und stolz darauf” (German owned and proud of it). Certainly, in the “1000 years” between 1933 and 1945, Germany had had enough emphasizing of “Germanism” that it will last another 1000 years. Moreover, I also wonder, what people of other nationalities would say, if they found this kind of statements on German products today.

And since then, Australia has even extended it’s labelling of “Made in Australia”.

Country of origin label for food products sold in Australia

In 2016 the Australian government introduced a law, that requires food companies to specify the percentage of Australian ingredients, as well as whether the product was made, produced or grown in Australia. As a result, most food products in Australia now have to state whether they were grown, produced, made or packed in Australia or overseas. However, it mostly addresses the “Australianness” of products and not where the main imported ingredients come from.

Furthermore, food companies can claim their product is made in Australia if the food is processed in Australia. But that doesn’t necessarily mean any of the ingredients are actually from Australia. E.g. manufacturers adding salty water in Australia to fully imported pork can make it Australian made.

In a recent survey of more than 20,000 subscribers of CHOICE, almost all respondents said that knowing where the food and drink they buy comes from is important. When a logo on food shows “Made in Australia from 0% Australian Ingredients”, I also think it makes a difference where the ingredients come from.

“Made in Australia campaigns” and tariffs

Also non-food companies still regularly advertise their products as Made in Australia or that the company is owned by Australians. They hope that applying to Australians to support Australian producers will boost their sales.

Besides the labelling, manufacturing in Australia was helped along a good deal by very protectionist tariffs. That made Australian products cheaper towards imports and therefore more competitive. Consequently, behind those walls of tariffs, Australian manufacturing grew to its height in the 60s. For instance, the car industry had over 200 per cent tariff levels. Levels of protection were still high through the 1970s and ’80s.

I was very surprised, when I saw the exorbitant prices of imported cars the first time I came to Australia in 1993. For example, back in Germany a VW Golf was a standard car which was widely affordable. Here in Australia it was a luxury item.

But the tariffs were a double-edged sword. In other words, the effect was not only that imported products were more expensive but also that the prices for Australian products rose above a “normal” competition level and drove inflation to a high to a large extent. In 1974, it passed 15.4 %. Accordingly, Australians had to pay top dollar for sub-standard local products. Normally over time the degree of protection should have been gradually wound back as companies learn to compete, improve their productivity, and are able to face the international competition. But that didn’t happen.

Meanwhile, the producers felt like living on an Island of the blessed and became adept at lobbying for ever higher tariffs.

Cutting tariffs had a destructive effect

At the end of the 80s and the beginning of the nineties Australia reversed its policies and pulled down tariff barriers a to a large extent. For the manufacturing sector, it was devastating. The industry was exposed to competitive pressures, some went bankrupt and some went offshore. The manufacturing sector in Australia went from about 30 per cent to about 6 per cent of the GDP. In the late 1980s manufacturing was the biggest employer in Australia, with 16.5 per cent of the workforce. Now less than 1 million people work in the sector, accounting for 6.4 per cent of jobs.

Australia’s extensive mineral resources plus other primary products, such as agriculture, now account for about three quarters of its goods exports. In other words Australia is just digging it out of the ground and then sending it to other countries. There it gets manufactured into value-added products that Australia then reimports.

The end of car production in Australia

In October 2017, Australia witnessed the shut-down of its last car manufacturing plant. After 100 years of building cars in Australia, General Motors’ Aussie outpost, Holden, closed its doors. Before Holden, Ford, Toyota and Mitsubishi had already stopped producing cars in Australia. Not only the fierce international competition had to be blamed, but also that the manufacturers didn’t see the change in buyer profile coming.

For a long time, the Australian consumer preferred V6 and V8 sedan cars, such as the Holden Commodore with a Corvette V8 and the V8/V6 Turbo Ford Falcon. Then the SUV and the small engine economic vehicle gained popularity – leaving the local manufacturer and its roaring engines off the buyer’s shopping list.

In February 2020 Holden had more sad news for anyone who’s a fan of big V8 engines, massive burnouts, and the occasional ute: Holden will close up shop by 2021. Sales, design, and engineering for the brand will all cease completely, marking the final blow to that country’s automotive industry. One reason stated by GM was, that they could not overcome the challenges of the investments needed for the highly fragmented right-hand-drive market.

Depending on imports

The economic shutdown that followed the coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of Australia’s supply lines. The dependence on manufactured goods from overseas and especially Australia’s over-reliance on supply chains out of China became evident.

In June or July at big retailers like K-Mart, Target or even JB-Hifi, you could get the feeling, that they were closing down. The shelves were stripped bare of almost any goods you could imagine. Even display-models were gone. And now in October the situation is not much better. A lot of products are simply not available or it takes weeks to get them in. That reminds me of times when I was a teenager, when a lot of hardware was only available on order and you had to wait for weeks.

Make-believe Australian products

Consequently, it becomes also apparent that there are inauthentic supposedly ‘Australian Made’ products.

R.M. Williams for example can be considered an Australian icon. It has a fairly long history of making high-quality footwear, especially Chelsea boots (lose-fitting, ankle-high boots with an elastic side panel) but also riding boots and other. I have two pairs of R.M. Williams boots myself and I love them.

On R.M. Williams’ Website you get the impression, that their products are made in Australia, but that is not always the case. The majority of R. M. Williams products other than boots and leather goods are made outside of Australia, mostly in China and South East Asia. And R.M. Williams is not even owned by Australians any longer. In 2014, luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH) acquired R.M. Williams.

Also other well known Australian shoe manufacturers, like Blundstone and Baxter Boots still make some boots in Hobart and Goulburn. However, most are now made in China, Vietnam and India. Blundstone has also opened a factory in Mexico for the North American market.

What could be in the future?

In these Covid-19-times, a lot of people talking of recreating the manufacturing base Australia once had. But this would require again a large dose of protection. And that doesn’t come cheap. It would damage Australia’s competitiveness and jobs primarily because the tariffs would act as a tax on the people. One just have to look at the USA today or at the times of Australia’s protectionist era.

Australia is the world’s biggest gas and coals exporter. Therefore, the current national government considers coal and gas as the primary mean for the recovery of the COVID-19 struck economy and also for the supply of cheap and reliable energy. In my opinion that might not be a sustainable outlook. The decline of China’s coal consumption and its crackdown on pollution suggests a bleak outlook for coal and gas exporters like Australia. But Australian industries could benefit with a pivot to clean and green technology.

Australia – a renewable energy superpower

Australia has a long coastline, intensive sunshine, stable society and reliable governments. Therefore, it would be an ideal country to become a world leader in large-scale and low-cost renewable energy infrastructure and energy storage. Australia could become a renewable energy superpower. But growing that industry will require government support and well-designed, bipartisan policies that stand up over the long term. Short-term policy support won’t be enough to create such a thriving industry. But there is still a lot of people who are saying, ‘No, we must keep our coal-fired electricity’. I am of the opinion that Australia has to get over these cultural wars about climate change and seize a once-in-a-century opportunity.

Another option would be to promote innovation with research and development incentives. It’s been done before. And innovative products require highly skilled workers to produce. Above all, these are the types of products other countries with lower wages simply can’t produce to the same standard.

The post Made in Australia appeared first on GoAustralia.

Election time is on. According to the Australian Constitution the House of Representatives elections must be held at least every three years. The Prime Minister decides the date for an election. The 2019 federal election in Australia will be held on Saturday 18 May 2019.

Soon the sixth prime minister in 6 years?

The current prime minister is Scott Morrison, but this can change any time. Between 2013 and today Australia had had 5 different prime ministers.

John Howard was the last prime minister to serve out a full government term in the office. He won the 2004 election and led his party to the 2007 election, but lost. Since then, the five subsequent prime ministers have been either voted out of the office mid-term by the caucuses of their own parties, assumed the office mid-term under such circumstances, or both.

The electoral system of Australia is not easy to understand. I haven’t met anyone, who could explain how the voting works, what exactly the difference is between the Senate and the House of Representatives and what the parties specifically stand for.
As a matter of fact the voting system is so complex, that even the head of the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC)doesn’t even seem to know how it works.

Since the electoral system privileges the larger parties, the government will be formed either by the Australian Labor Party (ALP) or the Liberal National Party (LNP – a Coalition of the Liberal Party of Australia and the junior partner the National Party of Australia).

Women in parliament

When you read about Australia (e.g. in tourist brochures etc.), you will almost always come across the statement, that Australia was among the very first countries that granted suffrage at national level. Nevertheless
it took 40 earth years before a woman was elected to the Federal Parliament. And still, specifically in the conservative LNP, women are highly underrepresented. About a fifth of the Liberal MPs and 1/7 of the National MPs are women. Labor almost meets 50% and the Greens do:

What to do to win the election

Although after already having been far behind in the voters favour after years of governing and internal party feuds, the ruling LNP has narrowed the gap to Labor in the latest news poll, which gives the opposition a 51%-49% lead. To now get ahead of the opposing party, the front-runners do what they always do:

1. Pretend to understand the problems of workers – be a ‘man of the people’
2. Act normal – drink lots of beer and eat sausages
3. Be a family man
4. Promise that everything gets better when in power
5. Attack the opposition whenever and however possible
6. Copy other successful campaigns

1. Pretend to understand the problems of workers – be a ‘man of the people’

As a party leader who wants to become prime minister (or at least minister) you have to act as if you are one of your clientele (even if you are not). So visit a factory site or a rural area, wear a high visibility vest, hard-hat or similar workers outfit, handle any machine like a forklift etc. and talk about the struggles of the people you just met or Bruce, the man standing next to you.

2. Act normal – drink lots of beer and eat sausages

Another act in the play “be a ‘man of the people'”. As Australia still being mainly a patriarchy, as a man-candidate you have to act like normal Australian men do – drink beer, eat sausages or beef and do some sport (or at least – again – pretend)

3. Be a family man

As a family man and a ‘man of the people’ you have to love your family, love pets (and in Australia especially dogs), love other people (specifically kids) and love sport. Show that as often as possible when the media are present.

4. Promise that everything gets better when in power

Before elections, you always have to promise more money, more jobs, less tax and general better living conditions, when you win the election. Furthermore, should announce grand new projects for the good of the country.

Shorten pledges billions for seniors’ dental bills, childcare and educators’ wage rise

Coalition announces $63m veterans’ spend before Anzac Day election hiatus

Extra $100 million for upgrades to one of NSW’s worst roads promised by Labor

Coalition to announce $100m equity fund to invest in small businesses

Labor pledges stricter rules for skilled worker visas

LNP: $5 Million for Australian Innovation to Reduce Dementia Pain

High-income earners would receive $77bn in tax cuts under Liberal plan

Labor pledges $107m to battle Indigenous disadvantage in justice system

LNP pledges more fishing opportunities for all Australians

Labor targets family violence

A re-elected Morrison Government will invest up to $1 billion to increase defence capabilities

LNP: More Drought Support for our Farmers and Regions

Labor pledges $200m to boost bulk billing as Coalition digs in on tax

LNP: New $8 Million Health and Hospital Expansion in Victor Harbor

ALP: Build better TAFE – invest $100 million in TAFE upgrades

The Morrison Government is investing $1.65 million over three years from 2019–20 in an exciting program to help improve the lives of young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people

ALP: Give workers a tax break – of up to $1,063 each year,

LNP: More than $400 000 for Community Sporting Facilities in Hasluck

The preservation of Australia’s historically significant sites and landmarks will be strengthened through a $6 million investment from the Morrison Government

… and many many more

However, you wonder what the ruling party has done in the past term.

5. Attack the opposition whenever and however possible

LNP: Over $3 Billion Costing Black Hole as Bill Shorten Can’t Set Out Detail of Costings of Dental Policy

Morrison attacks Labor’s electric vehicle policy: “Bill Shorten wants to end the weekend when it comes to his policy on electric vehicles where you’ve got Australians who love being out there in their four-wheel drives.”

LNP: Bill Shorten Needs to Come clean on his Endangered List of Vehicles

“That’s what the Labor Party stands for,” the Prime Minister said, “Lies and taxes!”

LNP: Labor should apologise for flu scare campaign

Josh Frydenberg says Labor plans $387bn in new taxes

‘You will get up with fleas’: Bill Shorten attacks Liberals’ deal with Clive Palmer

It seems that the Morrison government launches far more partly ill-founded and/or exaggerated attacks on Labor than reverse. And the Liberal Party has already plastered their “Scare” campaign all over social media. Furthermore, the Liberal government gets heavily supported by Rupert Murdochs News Corp Australia, which has nearly three-quarters of daily metropolitan newspaper circulation and so maintains great influence on the public opinion in Australia.

6. Copy other successful campaigns

And finally, add some kind of US-American election campaign with people behind you, that represent the whole spectrum of the voters:

The post It’s election time appeared first on GoAustralia.

Besides some Australians regard the 26 of January 1788 as a symbol of the adverse impacts of British settlement on Australia’s Indigenous peoples and suggest moving Australia Day to an alternative date.

Nevertheless, part of the official celebrations is the Australia Day Address 2019 delivered by Social researcher and bestselling author Hugh Mackay. I thought it was an excellent address worth listening to at any time. He addressed a lot of contemporary issues and gave thought-provoking impulses. Therefore, I have put it on our website for everyone to listen (or to read the transcript).

“Thank you very much Premier for that very generous introduction. Your Excellency Governor Hurley, Mrs Hurley, Angelos Frangopoulos, and good afternoon everyone.

I wish to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which we are gathered, and to pay my respects to the Gadigal elders, past and present, and specifically to thank Yvonne for her welcome to country.

I’d also like to add my thanks to the brilliant Conservatorium High School Chamber Choir for that stunning performance.

In 1788, the First Fleet dropped anchor in what was to become known as Farm Cove (just across the park). Over forty nationalities were represented in the people on board those 11 ships – including French, German, Dutch, African, American, West Indian, as well as English, Welsh, Irish and Scots – and of course they landed on a continent where hundreds of indigenous nations were already co-existing. So I think you can safely say multiculturalism is in our DNA.

In fact, when we celebrate Australia Day and we’re casting around for things to brag about and things to feel proud of, surely that’s chief among them: our renowned ability to create a remarkably harmonious society out of such extraordinary diversity. We brought people here from 200 different birthplaces around the world. Right now about a third of Australians were born overseas, in Sydney 43 per cent of the population was born overseas. We think of New York as the great melting pot. They can come up with a measly 35 per cent of their population born overseas. Well, we’ve brought people here from those 200 different places and made it work so well that if there are outbreaks (as there sometimes are) of ethnic tension or racial prejudice they’re reported in the media because they are so unusual, because they are not characteristic of who we are.

Of course, we’re proud of more than our harmonious diversity. We like to brag about that, don’t we? Our inventiveness, for instance – from zinc cream and the Hills Hoist to wi-fi and the Snowy Mountains hydro-electric scheme, plus our many breakthroughs in medical and scientific research. We can take pride in such cultural institutions as the ABC and our brilliant network of public libraries … and in our volunteer services, from surf lifesaving to bushfire-fighting. I think we can even be proud of Federation itself – that still-glorious symbol of our willingness to bring six sovereign states together to form the Commonwealth of Australia. And, of course, we go wild over any athletes, actors, artists who win gold for Australia.

If you’ve ever been overseas (and I’m sure most of you have), I think I can guess what you said when you arrived home: ‘Best place on earth. Why would anyone want to live anywhere else?’ We all say that. We don’t always acknowledge that that’s exactly what Belgians say when they get home from a trip abroad. It’s what Russians, Canadians, Mexicans, Danes, Spaniards, Germans and Dutch say. Even New Zealanders say it.

Most of us are patriots, simply because it’s natural for us to love our homeland, but patriotism can easily get out of hand when, for example, we try to claim the values of any civil society as uniquely ours, or when we fail to acknowledge that the finest, noblest qualities spring from our humanity, not from our nationality.

Still I’m a staunch patriot myself, but I must say the Australia I love today – this sleep deprived, over-weight, over-medicated, anxious, smartphone-addicted society – is a very different place from the Australia I used to love.
I was born in 1938, I spent most of my childhood in the 1940s, and my adolescence in the ‘50s. I began my research career, straight out of school, in 1955 – pre-TV, pre-computers … though not quite pre-historic. Reflecting on more than 80 years of living here, and more than 60 years of studying the place professionally, I could point to many ways in which Australia has changed in that period – for the better and the worse. Here are my top three picks.

By far the greatest cultural change has been wrought by the gender revolution. I grew up in a binary world of males and females with little tolerance for ambiguity, no understanding of the gender continuum, and little argument with the proposition that women were second-class citizens when it came to education, employment, remuneration and social status. The women’s liberation movement of the 1970s began the long haul towards gender equality – but of course that goal is still far from being realised – but that has evolved into a social revolution that is about far more than feminism: same-sex marriage is perhaps a potent symbol of our growing relative acceptance of the many nuances of gender identity. And more broadly, it’s part of our awakening to the fact that we need to take each other seriously as persons, as individuals – to respect each other in our own right, rather than as members of any group defined by its gender … or, indeed, by its ethnicity, religion or political convictions.

The second big change relates to the distribution of wealth and income. I grew up, like most of my generation, with the great advantage of being a middle-class kid in a middle-class world – my family bore no burden of wealth, privilege or entitlement, but none of the hardship of poverty either. We belonged to a society that dared to dream the egalitarian dream and that saw our public education system as its most powerful symbol. Do we still dream that dream? I doubt it. We are learning to live with a chasm of income inequality: two million of us are either unemployed or underemployed, the workforce is being increasingly casualised, three million of us live in poverty, and that includes the 16 per cent – I will just repeat that figure, the 16 per cent – of dependent children who lack reliable access to safe and nutritious food. Meanwhile, there’s been an explosion in the number of high-income households – some enjoying executive pay packages most of us find impossible even to imagine – and last year’s ACOSS/UNSW report on inequality revealed that the top 20 per cent of Australian households are now 100 times richer than the bottom 20 per cent. This is a situation we would once have found abhorrent.

The third big change that I want to identify is more complex but, in summary, we have become a more socially fragmented society – more individualistic, more materialistic, more competitive – and that takes us to the heart of what I think might be the biggest social challenge facing contemporary Australia: the challenge of preserving our social cohesion.

Social cohesion is the absolute fundamental prerequisite for any healthy society, but it doesn’t automatically happen. In contemporary Australia, just like many comparable countries around the world, we are facing some serious threats to our social cohesion from a series of radical shifts in the way we live – none of which incidentally are related to immigration or, indeed, to cultural diversity.

Let me remind you some of the many social changes that are putting pressure on the stability and cohesiveness of our communities and heightening the risk of social fragmentation.

Our shrinking households: When I was born, the average Australian household comprised 4 people; the average today is just over 2 people, and our fastest growing household type is the single-person household – already accounting for one household in four, and soon to become every third household. Now not everyone who lives alone feels lonely – just as not everyone who feels lonely is socially isolated – but the trend towards ever-smaller households clearly increases the risk of social isolation.

Our rate of relationship breakdown: When I was born, fewer than 10 per cent of marriages ever ended in divorce; today, between 35 and 40 per cent of marriages and other relationships are expected to end in separation or divorce, with obvious emotional and social consequences not only for the couples who are splitting, their families, their friendship circles and the neighbourhoods they are entering and leaving.

Our falling birth-rate: I was born just before the baby boom that sent our birth-rate to 3.6 babies per woman through the 1950s. Our present birth-rate (at 1.7 babies per woman) is way below replacement rate: relative to total population, we are producing the smallest generation of children Australia has ever produced, which means the social connections that were previously initiated by children when a family moves into a new neighbourhood are less easily made than they once were;

In compensating of course, notice that as the birth rate falls, the rate of pet ownership rises. And the names we give our dogs suggests that they are indeed child substitutes. I know dogs called Ian and Nigella. And a man recently thought I would like to know that his dog is called Hugh.

Our increasing busyness: Here’s a fourth change. When we greeted each other, we used to say, ‘G’day’ or ‘How are you going?’ Now our standard greeting has become, ‘How are you going – busy?’, reflecting a revved-up way of life that leaves us less time and energy for the nurturing of personal relationships, especially with neighbours;

Our increasing mobility: What about our increasing mobility? On average, we move house once every six years and, thanks to almost universal car ownership, most of us live in drive-in/drive-out suburbs and towns where footpath traffic has declined and there are fewer opportunities for the incidental social contacts that build a sense of community trust;

Our increasing reliance on information technology at the expense of personal interaction: And then of course, there is our increasing reliance of information technology at the expense of personal interaction. The IT revolution is brilliant of course, seductive, efficient, convenient, we can’t do without it. But it’s a paradoxical revolution: on the one hand it promises, and does, connect us like never before; on the other hand it makes it easier than ever before for us to stay apart. (No wonder that, among young people, the heaviest users of social media also report the highest levels of loneliness and anxiety.)

Cumulatively changes like those, and there are many others you could add to that list I’m sure, but changes like those obviously threaten social cohesion. So we better ask ourselves, does that really matter?

And the answer to that question lies in the character of our species. We humans are, by nature, social beings: we need each other. In particular, we need the sense of belonging to communities that sustain us, nurture us, support us and protect us and even give us our sense of personal identity – you can’t make sense of who you are without a social context in which you operate.

When social cohesion is threatened, the consequences are likely to be serious for us. Just a few weeks ago, in consultation with the Australian Psychological Society and Swinburne University of Technology, released The Australian Loneliness Report, revealing that one in four Australians report feeling lonely for at least half of every week; that loneliness is a greater problem for young adults than for older people; that lonely Australians have significantly worse physical and mental health than those who are more socially integrated.

Now it’s easy to imagine how feeling socially isolated, or even excluded, could lead to a state of anxiety or depression, but recent research shows that social isolation directly affects health more generally, by causing changes in the body such as inflammation, cognitive decline, hypertension and poor immune functioning. Socially isolated people are also more likely to have sleep disturbances, to smoke, and to make less use of health-care services. And they are more likely to be exposed to the health risks arising from over-reliance on information technology.

Given all this, it’s hardly surprising, isn’t it, that social isolation is now emerging as a greater potential threat to public health than obesity is.

Now I hope you find this kind of social analysis more than simply “interesting”. After all, we are not mere bystanders to these trends and their consequences. As citizens of Australia, we are active participants in the social changes that are redefining our way of life. We ourselves are shrinking our households; we ourselves are keeping the divorce rate up (I’ve made my own modest contribution to that); we ourselves are driving the birth-rate down (I wasn’t so good at that); we ourselves have embraced busyness as a way of life; we have allowed ourselves to become addicted to our smartphones and our social media.

No one could seriously expect any of these trends to be reversed. But once we have understood the hazards of social fragmentation, we have nowhere to hide: we need to own the ways we are reshaping Australia’s way of life, and then we need to own the health risks that follow.

So how might we minimise the risk of social isolation in our society and its damaging consequences?

As a starting point, I believe we need a radical culture-shift in the direction of more compassion – more kindness, more tolerance, more generosity, more forgiveness, greater mutual respect – in our public and private lives. We need to abandon the relentless and fruitless quest for personal happiness and, adopt, as a way of life, a greater responsiveness to the needs of those around us. As Mahatma Gandhi put it: ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.’

And yet I fear the trend is going in precisely the opposite direction. We humans are not at our best when we are trying to cope with a heightened sense of disruption, uncertainty, insecurity and anxiety, especially when we lack a vision, a sense of direction, an explanatory narrative. At such times, we tend to become less compassionate, less tolerant, less forgiving, more self-absorbed, more prejudiced, more vulnerable to fear and generally harsher in our social attitudes. That’s what feeds our obsession with security; it’s what drives our unrealistic yearning for simple certainties; it’s what encourages misplaced faith in so-called ‘strong’ leaders; it’s what pushes some of us in the direction of political and religious extremism.

But the fact that it’s natural for us to freeze up and turn inwards when we are feeling anxious and insecure, and when the future seems so uncertain and insecure, only increases the urgency of my appeal. In fact, I regard compassion as the only truly rational response to an understanding of what it means to be human. Because we are members of a social species, we thrive only when we belong to supportive communities. And if you accept that our moral sense – our moral code – derives from, and is constantly reinforced by, social interactions within a community, then it follows that the only way to ensure our social and our moral health is by nurturing and sustaining those communities.

And the only way to do that, I believe, is by committing ourselves to the deeply civilising discipline of compassion – tempered, of course, by justice and fairness.

So how might we build a culture of compassion?

It’s easy to wring our hands about the state of the nation (we all do it) but not so easy to acknowledge that the state of the nation actually starts in our street, with our own attitudes and our own behaviour. So this is, firstly, a plea for us all to take our role as neighbours more seriously. Ultimately, the health of any society (especially its mental health) depends upon the health of its local neighbourhoods – the streets, apartment blocks, suburbs, towns where we actually live; the places where we need to feel as if we belong; the places where we have to learn how to get along with people we didn’t choose to live amongst (many of whom strike us as weird, exactly as we strike them); the places where feelings of loneliness and social isolation are most likely to overwhelm us; the places where homelessness begins.

To say as too many people do “We don’t know our neighbours” or, even worse, “We have no interest in getting to know our neighbours” is to say something deeply sad and deeply troubling about our lack of awareness of our responsibilities to each other as fellow citizens. The Swinburne/APS research found that almost half of all Australians do not feel they have neighbours they can call on for help – that sounds like an early warning of a serious threat to social cohesion.

We all know how to be neighbours when disaster strikes – a bushfire, a flood, a cyclone or some more personal crisis in our street. What a tragedy it would be if we became the sort of people who needed a catastrophe to galvanise us into being good neighbours.

So a call to become more compassionate is partly, perhaps mainly, a plea to do all the simple things that good neighbours routinely do: smile and say hello when you pass someone in a local street, or wait with them at a bus stop. Be especially alert to the well-being of anyone in your street, or your apartment block, who you know is at risk of social isolation particularly the frail elderly. Keep in touch with them; be ready to offer practical support – even if it’s only the gift of listening. Engage with local groups – book clubs, community choirs, U3A groups, community gardens, events at your local library, sporting and service clubs, neighbourhood associations, faith communities – anything that will put you in touch with what’s going on in your local area, and make you more aware of people potentially in need of your help. Organise occasional street parties or picnics in the local park. If you really need an excuse, invite the neighbours in for a drink to celebrate Australia Day.

No one is suggesting neighbours have to become best friends – though some do. But each of us needs to recognise that we are not only members of a family, or of friendship circles, or of workplace communities; we are also neighbours, and that’s an important and distinctive dimension of our role as citizens. There’s no virtue in being kind and respectful towards your friends – people you like and mostly agree with. Social virtue demands that we treat everyone kindly and respectfully – especially those we don’t like much, and most especially those we disagree with about politics or religion, or anything else.

But this is also a plea to local governments, to urban planners, architects and designers to pay more attention to creating the spaces and places that foster local community interaction – parks, plazas, gardens, walking tracks, libraries, playgrounds, child-care centres, cafes – any community hubs that encourage personal interaction.

Social interaction builds social cohesion; social cohesion builds social capital; social capital builds strong societies. And compassion is like the high-octane fuel that drives the machinery of social cohesion.

But a culture of compassion is not only about fostering a spirit of kindness and mutual respect in our local neighbourhoods and communities. It’s also about institutions winning back our trust by restraining their lust for wealth or power in favour of a more sensitive engagement with the society that gives them their social license to operate. In the commercial marketplace, that’s as a start a commitment to fairness in the setting of prices and wages. In the boardrooms and executive suites of our banks and other big businesses, it’s about a commitment to moral integrity, as well as profit-making. In the hierarchies of organised religion, it’s about a restoration of the spirit of humility. In the media, it’s about an obsessive concern with truth-telling.

In the nine parliaments of our nation, it’s about parliamentarians respecting each other as legitimate representatives of the voters who elected them – thereby respecting the institution of parliament itself (remembering, always, that parliament belongs to the people and a lack of respect for the institution amounts to a lack of respect for us).

Finally, here are some other things we might expect of a more compassionate Australia.

A culture of compassion would address, finally, the need for serious reconciliation between Indigenous and other Australians, perhaps via a treaty. It is never too late for a treaty. In particular, it would mean responding respectfully and generously to the Uluru Statement’s call for Indigenous Australians to be given a formal advisory voice in matters that directly affect the well-being of Indigenous people.

A culture of compassion would address the cruel and unconscionable way we treat people who come to us, by whatever means, seeking asylum and refuge.

It would encourage a greater concern for the educational welfare and development of children in our most disadvantaged public schools.

It would mean that inequality – of income and opportunity – would become an urgent focus of public policy. The thought of three million Australians living in poverty would scandalise us.

In a culture of compassion, we would not tolerate the present distortions in our housing market – including our level of homelessness – especially when, on Census night, one million Australian dwellings stood empty.

In a culture of compassion, we would be far more vigilant than we have been about our citizens’ right to privacy.

In a culture of compassion, we wouldn’t allow ourselves to become too busy to spend time with the people who need our undivided attention, let alone become too busy to notice when our neighbours need help.

A culture of compassion would mean paying at least as much attention – and devoting at least as much of our public discourse – to the health of our society as to the health of our economy. In such a culture, we would think of ourselves more as citizens than consumers. We would acknowledge that people don’t thrive because they own their own house, or have a new car, or take holidays overseas: they thrive because their lives have meaning and a sense of purpose; they thrive when they feel as if they are being taken seriously and their voices are being heard; they thrive when they feel loved and supported; they thrive when they feel safe; they thrive when they feel they are part of a society that recognises and includes them.

On Australia Day, we like to acknowledge and celebrate Aussie heroes. Let me suggest that, this year, we also acknowledge the unsung heroism of all those people who are already helping to create a culture of compassion; people who are quietly devoting themselves to the wellbeing of others, especially those in their neighbourhood most at risk of social isolation; people whose lives are shaped, in the words of that great Australian, ‘Nugget’ Coombs, ‘by the thought of others’ need.’

Do you dream as I dream of a kinder, more compassionate, more generous, more equitable Australia? If enough of us are prepared to act as if we are already living in that kind of society, that’s the kind of society it will become.

Thank you.”

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