The word "elite" gets bandied about alot but often defies definition due the nature with which it is used. One of the most insightful descriptions of the Australian elite I have seen is by Greg Egan . In his novel Distress one of his characters called the elites the "Professional Australians".

Professional Australians

Greg Egan in my opinion is Australia's best author, and would rank him as the person on this planet I would most like to have a beer and a chat with. While he writes mainly in Science Fiction, he is not scared to add wider social issues into his novels. Most post-cyberpunk sci-fi authors often limit themselves to the near future, Egan does not always do so, but his novels which do have implemented near future Australian social and environmental issues. Distress , published in 1995, is one such novel.

Distress contains a lengthy commentary on the Australian "elites". Egan writes from the viewpoint of an Australian character named Bill Munroe who was one of the original pioneers on the bio-engineered coral island of "Stateless" out in the Pacific. Stateless had earned the enmity of modern nations as it was built on stolen biotech intellectual property from America by the biotech engineers who created the technology.

In the novel, Australian is one of the strictest nation-states toward Stateless. It has trade restrictions on the island and won't allow any direct flights. The main character, Andrew, has to fly up into South East Asia to catch a flight to Stateless which is east of Australia. The following discussion is between Andrew and Bill Munroe takes place on Stateless and explains why Munroe came to live in Stateless and why Australia is the strictest nation-state toward Stateless;

I said, "Did you really come here [Stateless] for the light?"

Munroe shook his head. "Hardly, I just had to get away."

"From what?"

"All the noise. All the cant. All the Professional Australians."

"Ah" I'd first heard that term when I was studying film history; it had been coined to describe the mainstream directors of the 1970's and 80s. As one historian had put it: 'They possessed no distinguishing features except for their nationality; they had nothing to say, and nothing to do except foist a claustrophobic vocabulary of tired nationalist myths and icons on to their audience, while loudly proclaiming themselves to be "defining the national character", and to represent, in person, "a nation finding its voice".' I'd thought this was probably a harsh judgement - until I'd seen some of the films. Most of them were stultifying horse opera's - rural colonial melodrama's - or sentimentalised war stories. The nadir of the period, though, was probably an attempted comedy in which Albert Einstein was portrayed as an Australian apple farmer's son, who 'splits beer atoms' and falls in love with Marie Curie.

I said, "I always thought the visual arts had grown out of that long ago. Especially in your mode [painting]"

Munroe scowled, "I'm not talking about art. I'm talking about the entire dominant culture."

"Come on! There is no 'dominant culture' anymore. The filter is mightier than the broadcaster." At least, that was the net-swoon line; I still wasn't sure I bought it.

Munroe hadn't. "Very Zen. Try exporting Australian medical biotech to Stateless, and you'll soon find out exactly who is in control."

I had no answer to that.

The discussion between Andrew and Munroe picks up again soon after;

He [Munroe] said, "Don't you ever get tired of living in a society which talks about itself, relentlessly - and usually lies? Which defines everything worthwhile - tolerance, honesty, loyalty, fairness - as 'uniquely Australian'? Which pretends to encourage diversity - but can't ever stop babbling about its 'national identity'? Don't you ever get sick of the endless parade of buffoons who claim the authority to speak on your behalf: politicians, intellectuals, celebrities, commentators - defining and characterising you in every detail ... from your 'distinctive Australian sense of humour' right down to your f**king 'collective subconscious iconography' ... who are all simply, liars and thieves."

I was taken aback for a moment, but on reflection this was a recognizable description of the mainstream political and academic culture. Or if not the mainstream, at least the loudest. I shrugged. "Every country has some level of parochial bulls**t like that going on, somewhere. The US is almost as bad. But I hardly notice it anymore, least of all at home[Australia]. I suppose I've just learnt to tune it out, most of the time."

"I envy you then, I never could."

The tram slid on, displaced dust hissing softly. Munroe had a point: nationalists - political and cultural - who claimed to be the voice of their nation could disenfranchise those they 'represented' just as effectively as sexists who claimed to be the voice of their sex. A handful of people pretending to speak for forty million - or five billion - would always wield disproportionate power, merely by virtue of making the claim.

So what was the solution? Move to Stateless? Become a-sex? Or just stick your head in a Balkanized corner of the net, and try to believe that none of it mattered.

Munroe said, "I would have thought that the flight from Sydney was enough to make anyone want to leave for good. Physical proof of the absurdity of nations."

I laughed drily. "Almost. Being petty and vindictive with the East Timorese is understandable; imagine dirtying the bayonets of our business partners for all those years, and then having the temerity to turn around and take us to court. What the problem is with Stateless, though, I have no idea. None of EnGeneUity patents were Australian-owned, were they?"

"No."

"So what's the big deal. Even Washington doesn't go out of its way to punish Stateless quite so ... comprehensively."

Munroe said, "I do have one theory."

"Yeah?"

"Think about it. What's the biggest lie the political and cultural ruling class tells itself? Where's the greatest disparity between image and truth? What are the attributes which any self-respecting Professional Australian boasts about the most - and possesses the least?"

"If this is a cheap Freudian joke, I'm going to be very disappointed."

"Suspicion of authority. Independence of spirit. Nonconformity. So what could they possibly find more threatening than an island full of anarchists."

in the previous diary I pointed out the disparity between Bush's inaugural speech and the reality of his situation. Bush is not unique, the denial of reality extends to Australian politics as well. In 1995, Egan pointed out that the emperor was wearing no clothes - ten years later, Australia remains bare arse naked.

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Reading some of Costello's comments on the rule of law, independent judiciary and cabinet parliament as being "Australian Values", reminds me of Greg Egan's pillorising this behaviour as acting like a "Professional Australian" .

Costello says;

According to our Constitution, we have a secular state. Our laws are made by the Australian Parliament.

"If those are not your values, if you want a country which has Sharia law or a theocratic state, then Australia is not for you.

"This is not the kind of country where you would feel comfortable if you were opposed to democracy, parliamentary law, independent courts and so I would say to people who don't feel comfortable with those values there might be other countries where they'd feel more comfortable with their own values or beliefs."

He added: "These are Australian values and they're not going to change and we would expect people, when they come to Australia or if they are born in Australia, to respect those values."

There is an ulterior threat there too, all those are functions of government, if you are against those, you are against the government - and the worst crime in the national security state is not agreeing with the government. A quick way to become the enemy of the state.

Greg Egan has his own remarkably insightful response to it in the novel "Distress";

He [Munroe] said, "Don't you ever get tired of living in a society which talks about itself, relentlessly - and usually lies? Which defines everything worthwhile - tolerance, honesty, loyalty, fairness - as 'uniquely Australian'? Which pretends to encourage diversity - but can't ever stop babbling about its 'national identity'? Don't you ever get sick of the endless parade of buffoons who claim the authority to speak on your behalf: politicians, intellectuals, celebrities, commentators - defining and characterising you in every detail ... from your 'distinctive Australian sense of humour' right down to your f**king 'collective subconscious iconography' ... who are all simply, liars and thieves."

I was taken aback for a moment, but on reflection this was a recognizable description of the mainstream political and academic culture. Or if not the mainstream, at least the loudest. I shrugged. "Every country has some level of parochial bulls**t like that going on, somewhere. The US is almost as bad. But I hardly notice it anymore, least of all at home[Australia]. I suppose I've just learnt to tune it out, most of the time."

"I envy you then, I never could."

The tram slid on, displaced dust hissing softly. Munroe had a point: nationalists - political and cultural - who claimed to be the voice of their nation could disenfranchise those they 'represented' just as effectively as sexists who claimed to be the voice of their sex. A handful of people pretending to speak for forty million - or five billion - would always wield disproportionate power, merely by virtue of making the claim.

.....

"So what's the big deal. Even Washington doesn't go out of its way to punish Stateless quite so ... comprehensively."

Munroe said, "I do have one theory."

"Yeah?"

"Think about it. What's the biggest lie the political and cultural ruling class tells itself? Where's the greatest disparity between image and truth? What are the attributes which any self-respecting Professional Australian boasts about the most - and possesses the least?"

"If this is a cheap Freudian joke, I'm going to be very disappointed."

"Suspicion of authority. Independence of spirit. Nonconformity. So what could they possibly find more threatening than an island full of anarchists."

Australia has a deplorable history with refugees, having lost all our national conscience and compassion at the hands of the Liberal government. With water levels rising due to global warming and climate change, we are slap bang in an area that will likely be the most affected. The Carteret Islands of PNG are already having issues including starvation and loss of arable land to a rising ocean . It is likely the 1,400 inhabitants of the islands will become the first climate change refugees.

The Moat

I first came across climate change refugees when I was about twenty in Greg Egan's brilliant short story, "The Moat" . Egan called them "environmental refugees". From the story;

Some Pacific Islands are losing their land slowly, year by year; others are being rapidly eroded by the so-called Greenhouse storms. I've heard plenty of quibbling about the precise definition of the term 'environment refugee', but there is not much room for ambiguity when your home is literally vanishing into the ocean.

PNG claims that the Carteret Islands hastened their problems by dynamiting a coral reef when fishing, but like Egan wrote there is not much room for ambiguity. The Carteret islanders have lost their gardens to the salt of the ocean and are often existing on just coconuts and fish.

Mr Molocai said his people could no longer eat most traditional foods. "The wild taros, the greens, the breadfruit, they don't grow any more," he said. "We just got coconuts and, when we can catch them, fish. All the gardens are spoilt. When the high tide comes in, all the saltwater goes in the gardens."

In "The Moat", the main character is a lawyer who works for refugees trying to get their applications through the bureaucratic process of government. His business is often targeted for graffiti by those who don't want the refugees in Australia, and would prefer they drown in the Pacific.

I spot the graffitist from a block away. ... [After a struggle] ... I lean against the gate.

'So tell me one thing.' I point at the wall [at anti-refugee graffiti]. 'Why? Why do you do it'

He snorts. 'I could ask you the same f**king question.'

'About what?'

'About helping them stay in the country. Taking our jobs. Taking our houses. F**king things up for all of us.'

I laugh. 'You sound like my grandfather. Them and us . That's the kind of twentieth century bullsh*t that wrecked the planet. You think you can just build a fence around this country and just forget about everything outside? Draw some artificial line on a map, and say, people inside matter, people outside don't?'

'Nothing artificial about the ocean.'

'No? They'll be pleased to hear that in Tasmania.'

He just scowls at me, disgusted. There's nothing to communicate, nothing to understand. The anti-refugee lobby are always talking about preserving our common values ; that's pretty funny. Here we are, two Anglo-Australians - probably born in the very same city - and our values couldn't be further apart if we'd come from different planets.

Egan's brilliance as a writer is not only his understanding of science, but also his cultural and social insights. In Distress he successfully both satirised and described the Australian cultural and anti-cultural elite as Professional Australians .

I would hope that if, or when, the inhabitability of Pacific Islands occurs that they are welcomed to Australia with open arms, rather than being discriminated against like we used to the Kanakas, and more recently the abuse of refugees at the hands of political outcomes, including re-election of the incumbent government.

The Australian Department of Immigration is a modern day governmental disgrace, that will sit as a stain on this country in the same way that government policy with the stolen generations has. People like Blainey need to be reminded that the "black armband" in Australian history comes from the government and government policy, not the Australian people.

PNG claims it doesn't have the money to relocated the Carteret Islanders, so make it easy for the Carteret Islanders to migrate to Australia, with full work and citizenship status. Those that choose to, can come to Australia.

The suburbs are often lined up for derision. They have too many roads, too many cars, the houses are too big, they suburbs wasteful, they are ostentatious and so forth. But suburbs are popular, and develop strong and tight communities. One school of thought seems to be that the suburbs will end up wastelands as energy prices increase to the point where they are unsustainable, an opposing viewpoint is that the suburbs can become the focal point of intellectual, food, energy and commercial production.

Commerce

In his novel Distress Greg Egan writes of a post-information age Sydney where the CBD is a wasteland. His main characters live in the suburb of Epping and actually travel into the CBD to see the new tourist areas that the government has paid for to try and bring the suburbanites back into the city centre to spend their money.

In Egan's post-information age world, telecommuting and an entrepreneurial-contractor commercial landscape turned the CBD into a ghostland. Without commerce to support it, the CBD had no reason to exist and the suburbs took over as the dominant place of economic, social and cultural activity.

Telecommuting is on the rise as bandwidth becomes ubiquitous. It is predicted 3.4 million Australians will telecommute by 2008. Other than Sydney and Melbourne, telecommuters, as a group, are larger in number than most Australian cities.

That has the potential to be transformative.

Food

Suburban land is some of the best agricultural land in Australia. This is a result of the way that modern cities have grown from agrarian origins. Bill Mollison developed the technology of Permaculture which is a suburban technology as much as an agricultural one. This takes advantage of natural patterns in plant partnering, location and watering to maximise the output of a square metre of land.

The method of food production is successful enough that small blocks of land, such as the old suburban quarter acre, can provide up to 80% of a household's food needs. This isn't for everyone, however, most suburban yards are purely decorative but even a little addition of food production can take pressure of the family budget.

Permaculture mixes in food bearing plants with decorative plants to radically change the whole notion of the front and back yard.

Even with houses getting larger and blocks smaller, as is the pattern in recent developments in western Sydney, there is still ample room on a building block to lay decorative garden beds that can produce food. Another aspect of permaculture is that it is permanent agriculture, there is no seeding each year, the system is set up so nature does that itself.

So it is self-sustaining. Once a permaculture garden is started, it is off and running.

Energy

The North-east blackout in New York showed the vulnerability of heavily centralised energy systems. The suburban environment is prefect for decentralised energy system like solar power. Houses carry ample surface area and can feed their surplus energy production back into local or national energy grids.

A decentralised energy system would also protect against catastrophic failures in central systems such as the New York blackout, or something more common such as trees pulling down power lines.

Telecommunications companies have set up small generator networks that can load balance in times of stress. These are a decentralised response to possible failure of the major energy grid. Suburbs can do this as well, and if excess energy production is possible, make it commercially productive for the home-owners.

Conclusion

The suburbs are often denigrated, but they are thriving social and cultural areas, with strong community ties. Their reasonably large land plots means technologies such as permaculture and renewable energy have advantages in a suburban environment. The changing nature of telecommunications and work patterns to an entrepreneurial self-employed style of commerce also strengthen rather than weaken the suburbs.

It is possible that the suburbs will become the place of dominant production output.