Amid upheaval in global health and as communities across Australia respond this week to flooding, fires and other disasters, a new report identifies a policy pathway to healthier, more sustainable futures. But it also has some critical gaps.
Melissa Sweet writes:
Increased investment in health, education and climate adaptation and resilience, as well as determined efforts to reduce poverty and wealth inequality, and greater support for self-determination of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
These are among measures highlighted in a new report recommending policy transformation if Australia is to have any hope of achieving global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by the target of 2030.
The report, Transforming Australia: SDG progress report 2024, finds that Australia is not on track to meet most SDGs and that “business as usual” policies will ensure the goals are not met, with negative impacts upon health, the environment and economy.
The ‘transformation pathway’ to achieving SDG goals includes progressive tax reform, and a 10-year, $20 billion investment in green manufacturing and infrastructure, with modelling indicating that this pathway will deliver $300 billion higher GDP by 2050, compared with a ‘business as usual’ pathway.
The report also calls for elevation of the leadership, collective knowledge and intergenerational stewardship of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and says recognising the status and contributions of First Nations Peoples is integral to Australia’s SDG journey.
“Integrating First Nations ways of knowing, being, and doing into future policy and governance presents a transformative opportunity to reimagine Australia,” it says.
“The authentic integration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges into policy-making will require moving to a model of supporting the self-determination of Indigenous Peoples, as described in the Uluru Statement from the Heart, the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.”
Vision and gaps
The Transforming Australia: SDG Progress Report 2024 is the third in a series of reports produced by the Monash Sustainable Development Institute assessing Australia’s progress toward achieving the SDGs.
The 17 United Nations SDGs provide a global framework for sustainable development, aiming to ensure future generations are better off than their predecessors while leaving no one behind.
The report’s authors say the transformations proposed require long-term vision and an integrated approach to policymaking, underpinned by strong political leadership and a robust social license to drive and sustain change.
Unfortunately, the report fails to address an underlying determinant of governments’ capacity to progress the meaningful reform it envisages: the news and information environment.
When Australia and other countries signed up to the SDG goals in 2015, it seems that there was little consideration of the extent to which our global, national and local public squares would be wrecked by weaponisation and monetisation of misinformation and disinformation.
The terms don’t rate a mention in the report, despite their profound impact on politics, policy and communities’ engagement in policy discussions. It would have been useful, perhaps even transformative, to have had an SDG acknowledging the importance of a safe, reliable and relevant news and information system.
The report’s Transform Australia Pathway identifies six key transformations that research and modelling confirm hold the greatest potential to achieve the SDGs.
Among these, the report says Wellbeing and Resilience, Energy Decarbonisation, and Sustainable Food Systems emerge as critical enablers, unlocking broader progress across multiple SDGs through their significant “spillover” effects and interconnected impacts.
Planning for the future
The report’s authors say they are not endorsing particular policies, nor advocating for increased expenditure in identified areas (although that is how the report reads), but that their recommendations focus on the importance of measurement and planning for the future.
They urge government departments to use the latest data and integrated modelling to evaluate and prioritise policies and to improve policy coherence.
They urge establishment of implementation plans for the 56 actions Australia has committed as part of the United Nations Pact for the Future on 22 September 2024, world leaders adopted the Pact for the Future.
The report also recommends that SDG-aligned targets be integrated into the Measuring What Matters framework whose scope should be expanded to address gaps in monitoring outcomes around the state of the environment, sustainability of cities, and resource use.
Overall, 43 percent of the SDG indicators included in the Transforming Australia: SDG Progress Report 2024 have no comparable metric within the Measuring What Matters framework.
The Monash report calls for the Intergenerational Report, which provides a 40-year outlook on the economy and the Commonwealth Budget, to be used as an accountability mechanism, reporting on all the SDGs.
The narrow economic focus of the Intergenerational Report overlooks critical areas such as environmental sustainability, social equity, broader social trends and technological advancements that are crucial for a better future, says the Monash report.
The Monash analysis finds that Australia’s performance on the SDGs is mixed – around 30 percent of indicators are on track to meet 2030 targets, while 34 percent are going backwards. None of the 17 SDGs are completely on track.
Growing disparities
The report says growing disparities threaten the wellbeing of many Australians. It highlights the impacts of persistent poverty, as socioeconomic inequalities are worsening across domains such as wealth, housing, health, and education.
More than three million Australians live below the poverty line with a similar number experiencing food insecurity, while wealth inequality is worsening, and disparities in education outcomes between low and high socio-economic groups have widened dramatically since 2018, placing Australia well behind peer countries such as Japan, the UK, and Canada.
Other findings include:
- Investments in both research and development and knowledge-based capital (SDG 9) have declined to 40 percent below the OECD average – or around a third of the levels invested in leading countries.
- Government revenue as a share of GDP in Australia was 36 percent in 2022 (SDG 17), below the OECD average of 42 percent and well behind peer countries such as Norway (65%), France (54%), and Finland (53%).
- Australia’s economic complexity (SDG 9) has steadily deteriorated over the past 20 years – placing us 93rd among 130 countries, just behind Honduras, Armenia and Uganda.
- The state of Australia’s environment raises significant sustainability challenges, with continued decline in threatened species (SDG 15) and worsening impacts from natural disasters (SDG 13).
- Australia is falling behind our peers when it comes to the circular economy and efficient resource use (SDG 12). Australia’s material footprint is nearly double that of leading countries while circularity rates in Europe are almost three times higher.
Also read – The Conversation: A new report card shows inequality in Australia isn’t as bad as in the US – but we’re headed in the wrong direction
See Croakey’s archive of articles on health inequalities
