Tonight 7.15PM: Melbourne's skyrocketing population: Kelvin Thomson speaks out in Melbourne November 11

I just heard Brisbane local ABC radio's Madonna King interview Doug McTaggart the Chief Executive of the Government owned Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC). He talked of 20,000 (I think) people moving up to Queensland each quarter. I am not sure how this topic came into it, but Madonna King asked if that would cause property prices to go up and he unsurprisingly confirmed that it would. Then Madonna King suggested that property would be a good investment. In other words, Madonna King apparently sees profiting from others' needs for such a basic necessity as shelter being a good thing and, presumably, allowing (or deliberately causing) population growth to drive up property values is also a good thing, although se didn't state that explicitly. A regular feature of her program is a discussion of property values with a real estate investment adviser. In those sessions she talks as if its inherently good if property prices go up and bad if they remain the same or go down Then, on other occasions, Madonna King rails with seeming passion against housing unaffordability and the plight of the homeless. At least one of her Saturday Courier-Mail columns in the previous month was devoted to this issue, However, she seems inexplicably incapable of understanding the obvious irecconciliable conflict of interest between property speculators on the one hand and ordinary Australians needing secure adn affordable shelter on the other. As I put in a media release as Lord Mayoral candidate on 4 March 2008 in response to one of Prime Minister Rudd's similar expressed concerns about housing unaffordability:

Mr Rudd needs to decide whether he will continue to serve the interests of the property sector or whether he will provide ordinary Australians with affordable housing, but he cannot do both.

Naturally my media release was not published. Doug McTaggart also went on to explain how population growth necessitated the Queensland Government's fire sale. The argument he put was, the Queensland faced 3 choices: 1. Not build the infrastructure necessary to provide jobs for and meet the needs of the new arrivals; 2. Raise taxes; or 3. Sell off assets ("Rearrange the balance sheet" as he put it at one point. Interestingly, both Kevin Rudd and Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper neglected to tell the Australian public that selling off public assets was part of the price they would have to pay for the population growth that they insist is so much in our interests. (See, for example "Population is destiny" in the Australian of 19 September.) Somehow, it apparently occurred to neither King nor McTaggart that another choice should be offered to the Australian public: 4. Reduce immigration and stablise our population. McTaggart's 'argument' in favour of privitasation was reported almost immediately afterwards on the ABC's 10AM news bulletin. For those who may be interested, I have written more of Madonna King's method of journalism, which many of her listeners mistake for properly holding to account our political and business leaders #comment-248100">here on John Quiggin's web site as well as in the article "Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties” of 30 Apr 09 on this web site.

It's a sure sign Brisbane's population has reached saturation when new dams are proposed.
If a city cannot sustain its population on the existing resources it has, then it has reached population saturation.
Brisbane's metropolis now sprawls from NSW to Noosa Heads and west of Ipswich. It's population demand for water has exceeded its water supply.

Queensland Premier Bligh says "the Queensland Government will have to come up with alternative sources of drinking water if the Traveston Crossing dam in the state's south-east is not approved." [ABC 10-Nov-09]

Water is just one public utility, then there is electricity, gas, public transport, education, housing, aged care, etc. All Queensland public services are overstretched from Rudds flood gate policy on immigration with spill over effects from interstate as many thousands flee saturated Sydney and Melbourne to a bulemic Brisbane. Australia's urban population problem is snowballing, yet Rudd blindly cannot see the elephant in the room or has a hidden agenda. It has nothing to do with race and nothing to do with the refugee issue - which are being mischieviously played as political red herrings.

Traveston dam on the Mary River near Gympie will be another travesty of justice on the existing rural community way of life and ecology to feed an insatiable sprawl policy.

Garrett stands to be remembered for his watering down of Australia's environmental legislation and for species extinctions on his watch.