Marine resource management: The high cost of precaution

摘要

"Australia rides on the sheep's back." Sounds a bit quaint and outdated in today's 21st Century Australia where 90 per cent of the population rarely sees a sheep, cow or farm. Everyone knows high-tech manufacturing and services are the core of advanced economies, and a pristine natural environment is surely more important than the profits of a few primary producers. Although this seems to be the general view of much of the overwhelmingly urban majority of the population, the reality is quite different. Australian manufacturing is in decline. Two decades ago it comprised 18 per cent of gross domestic product (GDR). Now it is just 13 per cent. In New Zealand it is 19 per cent, Britain 17 per cent, and in China 39 per cent. With the ongoing boom in manufacturing in Asia, the huge untapped labour reserve there, and our much greater costs, taxes and regulatory burdens, it seems unlikely that this situation will reverse anytime soon.