Australia’s 2060 Budget Fantasy: How Neoliberal AI Worship and Paris Pledges Mask Colonial Climate Gaps
Original framing: “Australia in the 2060s: an optimistic outlook dominates budget forecasts in the Intergenerational Report” — The Conversation - Global
The report’s AI-driven optimism is a classic example of the *trickster* archetype—here, embodied by the neoliberal myth of ‘innovation’ as a substitute for regulation or redistribution. Like Coyote in Indigenous stories, who promises solutions but delivers chaos, the report’s faith in AI obscures the real trick: shifting blame for climate inaction onto future technologies while maintaining the status quo. Erasmus’s satirical *Praise of Folly* would mock the Treasury’s ‘intergenerational equity’ as a hollow phrase when Indigenous children today face water shortages and school closures due to climate inaction. The absurdity lies in treating GDP growth as a moral good while ignoring the material conditions of life for the most vulnerable.
Australia’s 2060 Intergenerational Report is a neoliberal fantasy that conflates technological optimism with systemic change, ignoring the historical patterns of extractivism, the racialized impacts of climate inaction, and the Indigenous knowledge systems that offer viable alternatives.
The framing serves to legitimize business-as-usual while obscuring the power structures—fossil fuel lobbies, colonial land tenure, and financial speculation—that perpetuate ecological and social inequality. Cross-cultural examples, from Māori guardianship to Latin American *Buen Vivir*, demonstrate that prosperity need not be tied to GDP growth or technological domination, yet these perspectives are excluded in favor of Silicon Valley-style solutions. The report’s trickster-like reliance on AI and Paris pledges reveals a refusal to confront the material limits of Australia’s resource-dependent economy, while marginalized voices—Indigenous communities, regional farmers, and climate refugees—are systematically silenced. To move forward, Australia must adopt Indigenous-led climate sovereignty, just transition frameworks, and ecological economic indicators, grounded in historical lessons and cross-cultural wisdom. The path to 2060 cannot be paved by AI alone; it requires dismantling the structures that have shaped this myopic vision in the first place.