Launch of Issue No. 8 of Australia Together
Launch of Issue No. 8 of Australia Together
A plan for a safe arrival in the best future we can imagine.
Followers of The State of Australia on Substack will by now know quite a bit about Australia Together, the nation’s first long term, integrated plan for a better future for everyone.
The starting draft of this plan has been in development for over four years and it now houses Australia’s largest consolidated dataset about the wellbeing and security of the Australian society, natural environment, economy and democracy. It also houses a wide array of targets and strategies for ensuring that the Australian community and the governments we elect can work together to safely navigate not just to a better future for each of us but also to the best future we can imagine as a nation.
That “best future” - as Australians have said they would prefer to imagine it - is described in the Vision for Australia Together. And strategies selected for inclusion in the plan are those that have emerged as the most likely to help Australians safely make that Vision a reality.
Read Issue No. 8 of Australia Together here.
Read the Vision for Australia Together here.
In the years that ACFP has been working on issues of Australia Together and testing the usefulness of both the plan and the planning process for Australians, the starting draft has expanded so that it now includes over 360 integrated targets and strategies, all of which work together to speed up Australia’s progress towards a life of wellbeing and security for everyone, including future generations.
This integrated plan has been developed because drastic and irreversible climate change and the possibility of war between major powers are now both looming much too close for comfort. We need all the speed we can get in our travel towards a safe landing in a future of wellbeing, peace and happiness. Australia Together, as an integrated plan, therefore dispenses with the usual silos into which governments and other political players push their disparate, self-serving and plainly ineffective policy agendas. Most of these agendas now favour corporate interests over the public and national interest and most are propelling us in a direction that is the opposite of the Vision for Australia Together. For proof of this see ACFP’s report on The State of Australia 2022.
There is absolutely no evidence that Australians want to travel in a direction that is the opposite of the Vision for Australia Together. That’s a direction towards chaos, extreme deprivation, and decimation of all our land, all our society, and all our joy in life. So at ACFP we hope that, as Australia Together grows over time with the input of more and more Australians, it will include and integrate all the strategies we need to stop our travel along that path and speed our travel instead towards the future we want – before time runs out.
But even now, by its integration of hundreds of safe targets and strategies – all aimed squarely at travel towards the Vision via the safest paths – Australia Together already adds up to an exciting, transformative plan that gives Australians a very strong chance of wellbeing and security for everyone. There is still time to avert the disasters of climate change, war and democratic decline. All the targets and strategies in Issue No. 8 of Australia Together can be implemented before time runs out if the will is there in our governments.
The question is not whether we’ve got the right plan - because there is nothing in Australia Together that constitutes an unreasonable aspiration, an unreachable target, or an unsafe strategy. As a wealthy nation we are entirely capable of realising the future we prefer because we can and are designing the most efficient plan to make it a reality. The pressing question instead is whether we can impress upon governments the need to support that plan. ACFP will be shifting some of its work towards addressing that question in 2024/25.
What’s in Issue No. 8 of Australia Together?
Issue No. 8 of Australia Together contains 27 new targets and 25 new strategies, bringing the total number of targets and strategies to 364. It’s a big, serious plan for a big nation facing serious challenges. ACFP has high hopes that as time passes the plan will be taken seriously by those we elect and that commitment to it may become the means by which politicians choose to demonstrate that they respect the will of the people of Australia and are prepared to put them and their agendas above the agendas of corporations.
Of the 25 new strategies in Issue No. 8 a few stand out including:
Soc04.07.01 and Soc04.07.02 on security of funding for health. These are strategies for abolition of taxpayer funded subsidies for private health insurance and reinstatement of universal health care in public and private hospitals reliably funded by a single public fund based on a fair Medicare levy and fair use of that levy. These strategies do not prohibit private health insurance; they simply transfer the taxpayer funded subsidies for it so that they will help fund a more sustainable and integrated universal health care system with public and private hospitals that can be accessed by everyone.
Soc04.10 on health system sustainability and universality. This proposes introduction of a scholarship and bond system for medical students to support the levels of quality health care needed by Australians. It’s there to ensure we have enough doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to meet everyone’s health care needs.
Soc05.04 on lifelong education. This proposes legislation recognising lifelong education (from birth onwards) as a fundamental human right.
Soc13.01 on a proposal for a trial of a universal basic income (UBI). This is a strategy to run a pilot scheme trialling a UBI for artists so that data can be gathered for consideration by a citizens’ jury on the best design of a UBI for all Australians that is proposed under various other strategies that have been in the starting draft of the plan since its inception.
Env04.01 on long overdue reform of the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.
Env10.03 and Env10.03.01 on nature conservation - what is now being called Nature Positive by the government. These are strategies to stop nature and species loss by 2030.
Env08.01 on sustainable agriculture. This is a strategy for transition to food security in the age of climate change.
Env11.02 and Env12.02 on forest conservation and rewilding and restoration of degraded landscapes and ecosystems across Australia.
Econ01.06.01 and Econ01.06.03 for economic transformations. These are strategies to transition away from exports of fossil fuels and certain other raw materials towards production and export of zero emissions goods - in other words, goods made here in Australia using renewable energy.
Econ04.03.01 and Econ04.07 on fair and progressive taxation. These are key strategies to restore fairness in the way we collect and use tax in Australia and through that to create both universal income security and universal services security particularly for health and education. This is proposed to be done via a process of national community engagement on the design of a National Accord between the people of Australia and elected parliamentarians on Wealth, Welfare and Wellbeing.
Gov01.03.03 on participation in democracy. This is a proposal to lower the age at which Australians are eligible to vote to 16 years.
Gov12.01.04 and Gov12.01.05 on promotion of peace and economic cooperation in a multipolar world. These are strategies which acknowledge that the nations of the world are in transition from the post-Cold War unipolar dominance of the United States to a multipolar arrangement of potential peaceful cooperation between nations. The strategies acknowledge that Australia’s current foreign policy and our approaches to security are ill-suited to that new world order. The new strategies are designed to reorient policy and community discourse towards peace and economic prosperity and away from war.
Issue No. 8 also includes revisions of some existing strategies, the most notable of which is the strategy for free early education and childcare under Soc11.01. This amendment aligns the strategy for free childcare with other strategies for universal income and services security.
The full list of new targets, strategies and amendments is provided at the beginning of Issue No. 8.
Key insights emerging from Issue No. 8 of Australia Together
Four years of experimentation with this form of national planning have shown that it is entirely possible for Australians to assemble a coherent agenda capable of making their preferred future a reality. But two keys to the successful implementation of the plan itself have emerged:
the need to select and give priority to policies that protect and promote fairness, equality, and a fully inclusive society; and
the need to fix our democracy before we can expect to fix other problems.
Democratic institutional reforms are a prerequisite to the success of all other worthy policy reforms. And key to the necessary reforms of democratic institutions is the need to develop the commitment and skills within the federal government and the federal public service to collaborate with the Australian people before setting national policies. This is a huge skill deficit in the Australian government.
So to begin establishing a remedy for that, Australia Together gives high priority to strategies for community-led collaboration on the development of a new Australian Constitution. It also prioritises strategies to secure human rights for Australians and to reform our severely distorted electoral funding laws. Unless these problems with our arrangements of democracy are solved Australians cannot expect to be able to bring enough pressure to bear on governments to do what’s necessary to overcome shortfalls in policy on the two biggest things that are threatening our future - namely, climate change and war.
Where to now?
Issue No. 8 of Australia Together is likely to be the last before the federal election due in 2025. The performance of the 47th parliament and the current government will be assessed against this Issue in the forthcoming report by ACFP on The State of Australia 2025. The report will lay out the latest data on movement towards or away from the Vision for Australia Together, assessing movement in all 364 Indicators in the plan unless data are unavailable.
At present it is not expected that this will reflect positively on the performance of the current parliament and government. Nevertheless the plan provides guidance to political parties and candidates for the 48th parliament as to the preferences of Australians for the society and future they want to create. ACFP will do what it can to raise the profile of Australia Together among the candidates for the next parliament.
Read about the National Accord on Wealth, Welfare and Wellbeing here.
Read about strategies in Australia Together on a universal basic income (UBI) here.
Read about strategies in Australia Together on a collaborative constitutional convention here.
National Integrated Planning & Reporting - inclusive, community-driven national planning
Australia Together is generated using a process developed by ACFP called National Integrated Planning & Reporting or National IP&R. This process allows any and all Australians to select Targets and Strategies that are safe and discard ones that are unsafe or which will have the effect of disabling other safe Strategies. The plan contains 57 generic safe Direction statements for our society, environment, economy and governance. These function as a signpost system for arriving at our preferred future without excluding anyone, without tripping each other up and without slowing our progress.
You can find out how to suggest inclusion of a Strategy in Australia Together on the ACFP website at https://www.austcfp.com.au/make-a-suggestion. It’s easy and it’s fun.
National IP&R gives everyday Australians a guidance system for generating safe Targets and Strategies. If you would like to suggest a Target or Strategy, you can assess whether your idea is likely to follow the safe routes towards the Vision for Australia Together. The forms on the webpage I’ve just cited make it easy.
ACFP hopes that Australians will become more and more involved in using National IP&R as the decade passes. Perhaps by 2030 it will be the standard practice of an inclusive Australian nation charting its own course to the best future we can imagine.
And just to keep in mind how good that future could be, the current draft of the Vision for Australia Together is provided below. If this describes the life and country you want by 2050 or sooner, then you can help make this Vision a reality by becoming involved in building Australia Together.
Feedback on the Vision for Australia Together and suggestions about the Targets and Strategies in the plan is always welcome at ACFP by email at info@austcfp.com.au.
Find out all about ACFP
Become involved in building plans for a better Australia here.
