New Australia Party

Michael Lardelli, on Governance Committee of SPGN

Michael Lardelli, who is a senior lecturer in Genetics at the University of Adelaide, helped form the new Australian party, Stop Population Growth Now, and is on its governance committee.

Lardelli explains his motives for supporting this new party this way:

"My background is in activism over resource limitations, particularly oil. I have been interested in that since 2004. However, anyone who studies resource limits and becomes interested in broader sustainability issues eventually realises that the core issue in all these areas is population size. Increasing population size eradicates any savings made by individuals who may be trying to reduce their environmental impact, e.g. CO2 emissions."

Food security for Australia in doubt

"The thing that particularly worries me is food, since there is a lower limit on how much food one person needs and so a person can only reduce their food consumption so far.

The green revolution was, and is, only possible through the use of large inputs of oil so a declining trend in oil production - which began in 2008 - threatens our food security.

I recently looked at Australia's food production statistics and it is clear that if we double our population size we will not be able to feed ourselves in a drought year."

Australia already a net importer of vital foodstuffs

"We are already net importers of fruit and veg! Put that together with the declines in food production that will be forced upon us by declining oil production, phosphate production and even climate change and any increase in Australia's population begins to look like national suicide."

A father's duty to his children

"I have two young children and my duty as a parent is to maximize their chances of survival - that is why I was happy to help form SPGN (Stop Population Growth Now) when I was asked".

What is the Stop Population Growth Party on about?

Stop Population Growth Now, describes itself as "a body of Australians seeking to reduce Australia’s population growth to zero as a matter of urgency."

They say, "Government policy is adding almost another million to Australia’s population every three years. This is damaging the quality of life of all Australians and greatly reducing the prospects for our children.

This highest ever growth rate is a direct result of government policy.

Recent polls show that a majority of Australians do not support this government caused, rapid population growth. Most Australians believe that our population growth should be stopped while we work out how Australia can cope with changing climate, diminishing supplies of water and most non-renewable resources, city congestion, loss of arable land to city expansion and loss of Australia’s unique flora and fauna."

Their next statement, that Australians have no-one to vote for in the Federal Election later this year, needs updating, because the Stable Population Party of Australia is now well-established.

But, as SPGN says on its website, "Labor and the Coalition favour rapid population growth. The Greens are ambivalent on the issue."

Stop Population Growth Now, like the Stable Population Party of Australia, has announced its intention to run Senate candidates in every state, with this "single objective – to bring population growth down as rapidly as possible, by giving you the voter the right to vote on this most important issue."

Is two too many Population Parties for Australia?

Is it a good thing to have more than one party specifically canvassing votes against more population growth in Australia? Won't this dilute peoples' efforts?

I don't think so. I think it will raise the profile of the issue at the polling booths. If both parties are successful in getting candidates appointed, the variety should contribute to more sophisticated evolution of the related policies after the election.

It will also give a 'heads-up' to the Greens and other parties on this issue which affects every other policy in Australia.
Indeed, we could have more small population-focused-parties. Each could approach the population and environment field from a different angle, which may be what they intend to do. Business in New South Wales, for instance, and Oil Depletion in South Australia. Really, there are so many angles which can be commented on.

Other Australian political parties with small population policies

Note, however that the New Australia Party also exists - and is the only one in favour of a small population attempting to raise its profile at the moment in Victoria. Unlike both single-issue population parties, it provides the public with the ability to interact on-line to form and modify its policies. It deserves more support than it is getting.

We should also not forget that the Australia First Party has a small population policy as well, and, despite its embattled history, an appeal to the some of the most disenfranchised working class and rural sector, with quite effective dissemination via long-distance truckdrivers. I will shortly be writing about this party's policies related to population.

And the Animal Justice Party is no single issue party either. Its policies run deep and will soon be on-line, including the population policy. The Animal Justice Party's performance might just surprise the public, which has been accustomed by the mainstream press to the idea that 'most people' don't care much about how we treat farm animals and wildlife. In fact, from feedback I have received, it appears that nothing could be further than the truth.

The alert reader may see, as I do, the potential for a number of large groups in Australia which have been sidelined up until now although they actually carry the costs of population growth without the profits, to express themselves through these new parties.

It will be very interesting to see if all these new parties manage to get their quota of 500 people and, with these people and alternative media help, are able to keep their issues in the minds of the greater public and seriously contest the elections. A few years ago, with the stranglehold that the growth lobby has on our media and government, and hence the national and state elections, the potential for any alternative party not secretly backed by business or the other big parties, to get up, would have been much less.

An Environmental Sociologist's opinion

A great deal of political analysis and newsy comment could still be made on what drives these parties, what might split them, and about the people in them, but let's keep things simple for the moment.

My personal investment is to help them all to succeed because I agree with Michael Lardelli that Australia cannot continue to support its current population as fossil fuels decline, let alone grow its population. It is therefore imperative to aim to stop population growth as soon as possible, but also to reduce our intake of fuels and vital resources. In my opinion this can only be done by involving the greater public in the industrial issue of drastically reducing work and output, whilst sharing available paid work. If population growth slows, prices for land and every other thing will drop, making it eminently possible for any Australian to survive - perhaps better than they do now - on smaller incomes and less paid work. For more on this see Sheila Newman, (Ed.) The Final Energy Crisis, 2nd Edition, Pluto Press, UK, 2008 in the articles, "101 Views of Hubbert's Peak" and "France and Australia After Oil".

The New Australia Party is the second new party with a small population policy, we have covered in two days, but it is not single-issue. The population policy appears to be an important and central one. The party has a wide range of policies and which members can contribute to. They are also looking for members. The policies they have had which I have read quickly seem very good - better than the major parties at any rate. See in the notes section at the end of this article a comment about their views on the kangaroo meat industry, which at time of writing I note are currently subject to a yahoo poll.[1]

I would suggest that this party is a good one for people to get involved in if they have specific interests in policy formation.
Here is some information about the founder, Alan Ide.

On the party site, it says that "NewAustralia was founded following the collapse of the Democrats at the last election. Some NewAustralia members and in particular the founder had tried hard to steer The Democrats in the direction now adopted by this site. After the election we resolved to use the accumulated policy material to try and launch a new party."

Below are links to the New Australia Party site, the policies and the way to join.

Alan Ide, the founder of the New Australia Party writes:

"In the lead up to the election Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are trying hard to convince us that there is some difference between the parties beyond the spelling of their names.

In reality though Lib/Labs present a united front on almost all aspects of policy.

Tony Abbott's climate package reminds us that the Lib/Labs will never do anything serious about the Greenhouse problem. The two packages on offer are just two different ways of continuing business as usual. Both avoid the polluter having to pay. The Libs are more honest - they don't charge the polluters at all. Labor's muddled ETS charges some of the polluters via the sale of emission permits, but then offsets this cost with even more fossil fuel subsidies. The result will be the same - Australia will remain dependent on coal and the world's worst greenhouse polluter.

The Lib/Lab position on population is the more the merrier. For them there are no limits to growth. Not enough water? Build another few coal-fired desal-plants. GDP will go up. GDP per head may even go up as people have to pay more for accommodation, food and water. Quality of life however will be going down.

On transport, the Lib/Labs will continue to heavily favour road-based transport as they do at the State level. Even when money is allocated to public transport it is often wasted. In Victoria billions have been poured into public transport - to fund a ticket system that doesn't work and a wavy roof for a station. Meanwhile road building continues apace.

Defence is another are of near-total agreement. The Lib/Labs will continue to pour money into expensive but obsolete 'assets' such as the Joint Strike Fighter, destroyers and assault ships. This is even as the chorus of criticism about the slow, short range JSF grows louder and its clear inferiority to competitors becomes more apparent. At the same time it becomes more and more evident that the era of the surface warship is well and truly over - yet still the Lib/Labs pour billions into these indefensible future war graves.

Right now the only other choice is the Greens and a few single-issue parties. Unfortunately though Green policy involves massive tax increases, open door migration and little if any national defence. No wonder they are stuck on about 10% of the vote!

NewAustralia offers a way forward. We are a multi-issue party. We do propose a major tax swap, not a major tax increase. We propose a more cost-effective defence strategy, not a no-defence strategy. We advocate a stable population for the world and Australia. We would preference the Greens and other like minded policies - adding to the net environmental vote, not splitting it.

But to do this we need members - 500 of them. If you like what you see at www.NewAustralia.net then click the Join button. Its free and you don't have to do anything else - until we get 500 members.

Alan Ide
Founder"

Candobetter Editor's Notes

Given the presence of animal activists and anti-kangaroo industry activists on this site, it is relevant to note that the New Australia Party is very strong on ecological values, but it is obvious that it has come from a different direction than many of the activists on this site. It comes from the same direction I initially came from, and supported the kangaroo industry for idealistic reasons, which some members will hotly defend. As a participant in their 'Supporters' Forum' I managed to have the statement at the end about statistics not being adequate to go ahead inserted to modify their policy (See below). There was even some discussion about getting rid of it since it is not core policy and I now see that there a poll on the issue has just been posted at yahoo - see below.

Below is the policy, and the paragraph in question in the poll with the statement that I wrote highlighted at the end.

"Kangaroo - Farming kangaroos to produce Kangaroo meat rather than beef and sheep meat may have environmental benefits. Kangaroos have much lower methane output and water inputs during meat production. Kangaroo is also healthier to eat then beef or sheep, and kangaroos have a lower impact on the land. For this to work kangaroos would have to be properly farmed as opposed to hunting roaming populations which would not be sustainable on a large scale. Climate Taxes on methane producing animals may assist kangaroo farming to become economically viable - although higher fencing and other costs may make kangaroo farming unviable.

Harvesting of roaming native populations should only be continued once the statistics on kangaroo and other indigenous fauna became reliable, which is currently not the case."

Poll to remove the kangaroo paragraph from the New Australia Party policies:

Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
NewAustralia group:

Should NewAustralia remove the 'kangaroo paragraph' (http://www.newaustralia.net/rural.html#kangaroo) from its web site?

o Yes
o No

To vote, please visit the following web page:
the following web page.

Thanks!

Note also that the Justice for Animals Party may incorporate a small population policy; I know that one of the organisers is working on this.