Weekend of 7-8 March 2015: Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) - Australia’s only environment group campaigning on the impact of human population - will examine the question “Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph?” in a half-day symposium to be held in Adelaide. “Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph” will be held on Saturday, 7th March at 1 pm, at the Hawke Centre, UniSA West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide. The public is welcome to attend and admission is free.
The SA-NT Branch President of SPA, Dr Michael Lardelli, says development lobby arguments for increased immigration to reduce the so-called problem of an ageing population will be taken apart. “For instance, the government likes to proclaim that the elderly will put huge pressures on the health system, but the truth is that whether a person lives to 50 or to 100 the last few months of their lives are likely to require more health resources. It really has little to do with age – the problem lies in treating chronic health problems for people of any age.”
“On Saturday SPA will have three specialist thinkers who will tell us that any apparent problems associated with ageing are all manageable”.
Dr Katharine Betts, Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Swinburne University, will be speaking on The Challenges and Benefits of an Ageing Population. She agrees that ageing presents some challenges but compared with the problems created by continual growth these are trivial. “The core benefit of an ageing population is that more human resources will be not tied up in the unavoidable labour of caring for the young. In the more mature age structure that is currently blossoming there will be many more real human resources available creating huge opportunities for work, for caring and for building strong communities”.
Dr Betts’ conclusion is that
“the ageing of the population is one of the best things to have happened to the human race in the last 10,000 years”.
Another of the speakers, Associate-Professor Phil Lawn from the Business School of Flinders University, whose topic will be Myths about Superannuation and the Intergenerational Debate says that an ageing population poses no fiscal problem for the Federal Government.
“The secret to providing for future retirees is boosting the productivity of the working population which requires adequate investment in education, training, health, natural capital and low-emissions and energy-efficient critical infrastructure” says Professor Lawn.
Dr Jane O’Sullivan, from the University of Queensland, will present to the symposium on the topic A Sustainable Future Cannot be Reached Through the Pursuit of Youthfulness. She says that the Intergenerational Report released yesterday by the government should be recognised as political spin and that it is deeply flawed.
“We have every reason to expect that future Australian workers will be more productive for longer, provided they are not shut out of the workforce by a flood of imported job-seekers. Population growth, the government’s preferred solution to ageing, is hugely expensive and detrimental to productivity”.
State President of SPA, Dr Lardelli, says that the public is welcome to attend and admission is free.
“Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph” will be held on Saturday, 7th March at 1 pm, at the Hawke Centre, UniSA West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide
Sustainable Population Australia
South Australian Branch
http://www.population.org.au
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Vivienne Ortega
Mon, 2015-03-09 20:08
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Intergenerational report- madness
anon. (not verified)
Tue, 2015-03-10 14:06
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Government suggest first home buyers dip into super funds
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