THE PROCESS of devising a national strategy for ecologically sustainable development (ESD) reached the end of its first stage last December, when the nine working groups established by previous Prime Minister Bob Hawke delivered their reports.

The release of the reports, accompanied by a flurry of press statements from the parties involved, was followed by several months of relatively quiet activity. The pace is now quickening again, driven by the need to take a coherent ESD policy to the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development being held in Rio de Janeiro next month.

However, concern remains strong that the process is losing its way under the guardianship of Paul Keating. Confirmation that the Prime Minister does not rate the environment and ESD as high a priority as his predecessor came with the announcement in March that, reversing a pledge given by Bob Hawke, he would not be attending the United Nations conference.

UP AND RUNNING ...

The nine ESD working groups&emdash;made up of representatives of industry, unions, environmental organisations, consumer interests, various government agencies and departments and the CSIRO &emdash; covered the sectors of agriculture, energy production, energy use, fisheries, forest use, manufacturing, mining, transport and tourism. Between them, they came up with over 600 recommendations, ranging from the broad (governments should support ESD through responsible land management mcorporatlng economic and environmental principles) to the specific (by 1993, mandatory energy labelling should be extended to major electric, gas and solar appliances not yet covered).

A survey of how successful participants felt the working group process had been found the majority of them to be positive about the experience of meeting and consulting with representatives from different interest groups. However, they were far from confident that the work they'd done would be put to good use. Nearly a third (32%) of respondents to the survey said they thought the government wouldn't use the reports. A minority view (21%) believed they would, while 47% were non-committal. Some months down the track, a number of participants feel this pessimism has proved justified.

DESTINATION UNCERTAIN

Tracey Jones, spokesperson for the ESD Working Group in Canberra, says that following the reports' completion in December, the Government established a structure of subcommittees to assess the work done. The many recommendations that came out of the working group process needed to be sorted through, duplications and contradictions had to be ironed out and implications for government policy identified, she says. This second stage of the ESD process is due to result in a draft report containing a list of "agreed initiatives", to be sent to state governments by mid-year. Bill Hare, manager of the Australian Conservation Foundation/World Wide Fund for Nature's ESD policy unit, describes what's happening a little differently: what's really going on, he believes, is a lot of rewriting and watering down of the orginal recommendations; As he sees it, the ESD process is now effectively in a "bureaucratic burial ground".

He feels a loss of direction has occurred and attributes it primarily to the change of prime minister who's just "not very interested" in the ESD process.

The ACF has previously commented on gaps in the One Nation package, describing it at the time of its release as a case of "some bad, some reasonable, but many lost opportunities to implement recommendations of the ESD working groups". ESD recommendations appear to have been "completely ignored", it said, and in many cases the measures outlined would have outcomes in direct conflict with them.

Responding to the working groups' reports last December, the ACF and WWF proposed a five-point follow-up plan to the Government. Among the factors the organisations saw as crucial to the success of the ESD process was a clear timetable for implementing the recommendations, with implementation to be co-ordinated by a federal office of ESD. At the time of writing, none of the five-point plan&emdash;whose adoption is strongly supported by the Consumers' Association&emdash;had been acted on by the Government. "Overall," says Bill Hare, "it's a bit of a shambles."

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