Squandering the future—Climate change, policy failure and the water crisis in Australia

Since European arrival (1788), statist developmentalism1 has driven natural resource use in Australia. Despite evidence of a systematic decline in the quality of Australia's ecosystems, policy-making still reflects the exploitative paradigm upon which statist developmentalism relies. This paper will draw on recent policy changes within the water sector in Australia as a case study, allowing the authors to consider the types of social, economic and ecological consequences that can come from statist developmentalism. Fuelled by climate change, water availability is looming as an extremely serious problem for Australia. Despite this, recent policy changes within the water sector are not likely to achieve sustainable water use in the short-term, and may do little to subvert statist developmentalism as the dominant paradigm within natural resource use in Australia in the foreseeable future.