Valley of despair.

John O'Brien, dairy farmer in Victoria and Chair of the Gippsland State Emergency Services and Water Board:

Our area of the Latrobe Valley is one of huge despair. At least one third of the 18- to 30-year-olds are out of work. I counted 19 suicides in a three-month period last winter on farms in the West Gippsland area.

The greed in Australia--in the upper echelons of business, in government, in bureaucracy--has gone crazy in the last 10 years. Whereas the average family is struggling. It's very hard for people to have open minds to the economic and cultural changes that are necessary when they are carrying such loads.

We can't go forward without coming to grips with why people are not accepting change. It is because they're bitter. I can see why our Aboriginal brothers and farmers are bitter at what has been done. Nobody is prepared to sit down and talk with one another.

In the Latrobe region we've worked to establish a traineeship programme on best farming practices at the local TAFE (college). I can see it opening up young people's minds--those who come through the programme are better able to cope and make something of life. That local action gives me some hope.

But the corruption and greed of the global marketing system frightens me. Governments and bureacrats haven't a clue how it is impacting families. They are acting on impulse, not with a clear vision of where we should be going.