POLLUTION
POLITICS AND NATIONAL COMPETITION POLICY - THE NATIONAL COMPETITION
POLICY REVIEW OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION ACT IN VICTORIA
MURRAY RAFF
ABSTRACT:
This article examines the engagement
of conventional economic rationality with the problem of containing
environmental degradation‚ through the lens of Victoria's review
of its Environmental Protection andLitter Acts. That
inquiry was initiated within a national framework for review of
all regulation that constrains competition in and between the public
and private sectors. The article disputes the place assigned to
environmental issues within the contemporary discourse of economic
rationalism‚ largely due to its failure to integrate fully
the scientifically verifiable facts of ecology, and the essential
requirement that ecosystems retain their integrity, regardless of
human activity in markets or elsewhere. These defects in human economic
organisation could be redressed in some measure by invoking legal
liability to force internalisation of environmental costs.
