The Moral and Statistical Basis for a Public Inquiry into Population Growth

Population Growth Management in Australia, by reduced rates of migration, will be proven to be the moral choice from every perspective if comparative analysis of economic outcomes can confirm the domestic economic benefits of the strategy. This may seem ironic; but it is irrefutable.

FACTS:

Australia is a unique member of the OECD combining:

• Resource rich exporter of feedstock for industrial, fossil-fuel based, economies
• World leadership in extreme and unsustainable mass migration in inherent denial of any requirement for transition to stable population; despite facts to the contrary
• World leadership in the practice of unsustainable growth and its denial
• Government media propaganda machine supporting unsustainable growth denial contrary to the legitimate facts provided by government data
• Australia's GDP and population growth rates in 2012 were roughly 4 times the OECD country averages. (1.8% population growth in 2012)
• This is driven by pro-growth dogma that assumes that rapid growth in a resource rich country is obligatory. Arguments are fabricated to support the dogma, rather than critically reviewing what is actually occurring to establish the facts. This can be described as the “Nauru model” combined with mass migration
• Australia's public and private sector debt are rising rapidly; and population growth may be a direct cause
• Annual interest, just on the increase in government debt since 2008, is roughly an additional $8 billion that cannot be spent each year on philanthropic foreign aid (or anything else)
• Infrastructure expansion is not keeping up with demand, so intangible debt is much higher; and population growth may be a direct cause
• Australia's unemployment has been growing at 2.3% per annum for a decade; and population growth may be a direct cause
• Australia's Multifactor Productivity (an ABS reported statistic) reduced at a compound rate of 1% per year from 2004 to 2011; and population growth may be a direct cause
• Over 20,000 children die every day in the developing world as a direct result of lack of philanthropic aid
• Australia's sole source of “wealth” is the natural environment. People feed off the environment - they don't create wealth per se. The people are the custodians; responsible for sustainable management

The Moral Confusion of the Australian Pro-Migration Argument

It is no coincidence that Japan has stabilised its population and Australia has not. Modern Australia is a migrant nation, whereas Japan has never been. So when sustainable limits became obvious and family sizes reduced, the Japanese had no migrants driving population growth. This creates a demographic imbalance as the population ages, but eventually this will have to work for Japan.

Australia, on the other hand, has not come to terms with the inevitable requirement to stabilise population by transitioning from a migrant nation to a nation. So it maintains the existing annual mass migration program, which grows larger every year because it is a roughly fixed percentage of an ever larger number.

Migration was never considered immoral in the past and this is still the majority view. Two hundred years ago the people of most nations had sustainable lifestyles. Populations were also stable. Migration to Australia in those days was predominantly from a small country called Great Britain that was undergoing an industrial revolution and an unprecedented rate of population growth.

A friend said to me:

“Australia does not have finite wealth. A larger population creates more wealth so we all share in a bigger pie. On the question of resources, it is not known how much there is available to exploit but it is not politically or morally acceptable to say we are going to keep it all for the current population’s comfort and enjoyment only.”

This all appears driven by a belief that reducing migration is greedy and that there are no limits to growth. Also, because all except Aborigines are migrants within the last three centuries anyway, it seems driven by a double standard argument that, since we are (virtually) all migrants, it is immoral to restrict migration. It is also supported by an unfounded assumption about ever “bigger pies”. There is no doubt that self-interest drives human decision-making. But this type of moral confusion serves neither self-interest nor the greater good, as explained below.

Why this moral confusion is irrational:

• In 2012 Australian GDP/capita was approximately USD 42,000
• In 2012 World GDP per capita was approximately USD 12,700
• In 2012 Developing World GDP/capita ranged from USD 400 to USD 3,000. Since most of these countries are run by autocrats, the actual GDP/capita of the proletariat is close to zero for over one billion people
• Based on these facts, if you moralise about “global sharing”, you would have to share all with the poorest people on earth. Why would you share with the rich?
• To carry this moral assumption to its ethical conclusion you would have to reduce GDP/capita in Australia to that of the poorest in the developing world. Assume one billon of them and 23 million of us. (23 million x $42,000) divided by (one billion + 23 million) = $944 per person per year
• It would be impossible to do this with our high social and infrastructure costs; regardless of whether they all migrated to Australia, or all remained in their homelands
• The best way to support them would be in their homelands, as this would be less costly. So at least we’ve established this fact
• But still, there is a practical limit to what we can give. This limit is driven by the prosperity of our own society and the high cost of living in our own society
• None of those championing the “morality of mass migration” assumption (because it is not morality per se) are prepared to actually deliver according to the assumption
• Their argument falls apart because it is predominantly relatively wealthy people who are allowed to migrate into Australia (not refugees). This is something pro-growth extremists love. They argue skills shortages, which must be addressed to enable extreme GDP growth, drive the demand for educated people
• Even if migrants are desperately poor; once they arrive they cost as much as anyone else for the economy to support
• So we have a bizarre situation where moral confusion over the obligation “to share” using mass migration aligns perfectly with the profit motives of pro-growth government and big business
• Claiming this moral confusion as moral high ground is extremely destructive because it suffocates transparent development of a coherent population growth management policy. It is not only self-destructive. It is also globally irresponsible and undeliverable, because unless every country can adopt sustainable strategies within its own borders, humanity will be doomed anyway
• The grim reality is that some countries are richer than others and they are not under a moral, or any other, obligation to lower their prosperity to the level of the poorest countries. But they are under an obligation, as custodians of their lands, to achieve “profitable”, moral outcomes which adopt the most cost effective methods of philanthropy and domestic sustainability
• The most important failure of the moral confusion is that IF it can be shown that Australia’s economic performance is deteriorating as the direct result of the high cost of population growth, then wealth cannot be sustainably generated to sustain philanthropic aid to the developing world into the future; which is the most moral and cost effective way to share the wealth with those who need it most. This would be in conflict with IMF objectives
• This problem is far more advanced in the USA, whose long term population growth rate is less than ours

Conclusions

Believing Australia’s mass migration program is an act of “moral sharing” is mistaken because it can only deliver the opposite of this outcome – targeting the “top end” of humanity for the sharing rather than the “bottom end”; and guaranteeing to exacerbate this inhumane bias in the process; particularly if Australia’s adverse social, environmental & economic trends continue. The less profitable a nation is, the less it can share with the less fortunate.

A snapshot of what these trends would do over the next 40 years:
- Population will double
- Unemployment will be 2.5 times higher
- ABS Multifactor Productivity (Ref. ABS) will drop to two thirds of current value
- Growth in annual Budget expenditure will exceed GDP
- Government debt will continue to grow by over 10% of the value of the Budget each year?

None of the above is trending towards sustainable prosperity for Australia.

Even if Australia targets the “bottom end” of humanity for migration, each one that migrates will indirectly lead to the deaths of many more of those left behind due to the diversion of resources to sustaining those migrants in Australia. The majority of Australia’s migration is currently not refugee or impoverished persons migration.

Population Growth Management in Australia, by reduced rates of migration, will be proven to be the moral choice from every perspective if comparative analysis of economic outcomes can confirm the domestic economic benefits of the strategy. This may seem ironic; but it is irrefutable.

The leaders of pro-growth extremism reside in big business and government. Most of the “pie” goes to big business and government. Over the last decade GDP has grown at roughly 2.4% per annum while GDP/capita has grown at roughly 0.9% per capita per annum in combination with a degraded living environment whose negative equivalent cost is not quantified in the national accounts.

Slower growth may provide exactly what everybody needs; serving both the self-interest of all Australians and the greater good. Without performing a Public Inquiry to Determine a Basis for the Optimum Rate of Population growth, which is free from political interference, the facts are unlikely to be exposed.

A link to this petition is here:
http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/australia-requires-a-public-inquiry-to-determine-a-basis-for-the-optimum-rate-of-population-growth-2

An analysis of this kind has never been performed.