Zero population growth rate needed for Victoria

Our state's population grew by a record 82,430 last year, the boost in numbers caused mostly by people coming from overseas. A policy of zero population growth may "hurt" the economy, and cause some short-term inconveniences, but an "ageing population" should not be a rationale for continually replacing our retirees without ecological suicide! Our economy supports the supply of goods and services, but our ecology supports all life and our very existence on the planet! Thirty percent of Victoria's animals are either extinct or threatened with extinction. Our state has been losing its endangered grasslands at a rate equivalent to more than three football fields a day. So-called "sustainable" industries such as intensive farming, irrigation, native forest woodchipping, and overgrazing are pushing the endurance of Nature to new and dangerous limits. Our climate change figures are predicting the worst-case-scenario! Our biodiversity is not a "service" but part of a system that supports all life and can't be quantified monetarily. This is our government's short-coming! Our Brumby government is intent on economic and population growth for Victoria, on making more freeways, growth corridors, and industries while leaving the mammoth task of repairing the damage for the next generation! We can't have continual growth on finite resources. The above article was originally published on 25 June 2008. It is front-paged here in view of Cardinal Pell's comments among other pertinant events.