Yvonne Haigh

Haigh and Moloney examine the manner in which social equity is embedded in Australian public policy. The chapter argues that Australia's colonial settlers and their early governments built a society based on hidden divisions which are still evident in many contemporary policy failures. The authors argue that several historical cleavages challenge the nation's perception as a "lucky country" in which all citizens may achieve economic prosperity. The chapter draws first on case studies that highlight the racial categorization of Australian Aboriginal citizens and, second, on the evolution into market-driven disability schemes. Both cases illustrate how social (in)equity, a term not formally conceptualized in Australia's scholarly and policy circles, informs where and how government policies can engage and disengage from social equity considerations.

At its heart, politics addresses the perennial problem of maintaining social order, which it treats as the highest public good. Political scientists, then, study the processes that hold societies together. We assume that ES, RC and CSR represent putative public goods associated with maintaining social order and discuss problems related to their recognition and promotion in liberal-democracies. We argue that, though ES, RC and CSR are public goods, governments in liberal democracies cannot bring individuals and leaders of firms to pursue them. This results from basic principles of ordering in liberal democracies, which limit a government’s capacity to cause people and those responsible for firms to accept and pursue ES, RC and CSR.

Pathways towards a post-carbon society are being explored across all levels of government, within the scientific community and society in general. This chapter presents scenarios for cities and regions in Australia after the Age of Oil, particularly the energy-intensive state of Western Australia (WA). It argues that a post-carbon WA would ideally use technological and wider social choices to reduce carbon emissions close to zero. It focuses on policy requirements, institutional and governance arrangements and socio-technical systems to provide an industry-focussed renewable energy development plan that will help to balance ongoing and past emissions and lead to a low-carbon society.