population

For further information, see candobetter.org/SaveEmigrantCreek Motorway magic tricks, 2 Nov 2006 Crikey! The RTA people must be magicians. They say they can improve the quality of Ballina’s drinking water by constructing a motorway through the Emigrant Creek water catchment (environment protected). This is what they will do on only two of the 63 properties impacted. (A selection of magic tricks).

• Destroy over 1000 mostly mature rainforest trees that form part of the natural water catchment infrastructure.
• Disturb a “capped” dip site containing arsenic and DDT.
• Destroy a specially constructed island for wildlife as well as a bird garden.
• Traverse a five-acre lake teeming with life that feeds into the storagedam and will carry 20,000 plus pollution generating vehicles per day.

For some of the stakeholders affected by the preferred route decision, a brief message. To the losers:

• 400 white egrets that will have to find new sleeping quarters and all the other birds, over 100 species. “I’ll miss you, thanks for coming.”
• Platypus and other numerous water critters... “Watch out for toxic road dust and diesel emissions.”

To the winners:

• Cr Alan Rich who voted for the water catchment route and who represents impacted ratepayers... “We will remember”! • Members of the CEPS lobby group... How do you spell DeCEPSion?
• Greens MLC Ian Cohen and mayor Silver who helped CEPS hoodwink 18,000 people into demanding the government route the motorway through the water catchment so they could protect their “spoils”... Enjoy!
• Ballina Shire Council who persuaded the RTA to give priority to future ratepayers in a new village, at the expense of current ratepayers who live in the water catchment... Blatant discrimination.

More losers:

• The 18,000 mostly Ballina residents who were hoodwinked into acting against their own best interests... You acted in good faith and were used, no hard feelings!

The big losers: The 98 families who either lose their homes, lose their livelihood or both, or are entombed in their homes because the motorway will run within 100 metres... You were dudded. Hardly anyone lives on the alternative route down on the coastal plain. A special message to the RTA, who will break the rules of the environment protected catchment and will also treat the heartland of the former Big Scrub land with contempt. This land is an extension of the World Heritage-listed Mt Warning National Park. May your magic wand be in good working order. And a question for Mr Cohen: What colour is green? Ian Cooke Newrybar Entire species under threat, 15 Feb 07 (Note: This letter from Ballina Shire Councillor Alan Rich is not directly related to the Emigrant Creek catchment issue, but it is included here as an example of what appears to Ian Cooke to be a perplexing inconsistency in Councillor Rich's attitude to the environment. - JS) The ongoing clearing of trees, the global melting of ice caps, the extinction of species and Luis Feliu’s front page Echo story last week all have something in common. That common thread is the need to protect our environment. You reported in the story that “Cr Alan Rich said the clearing had been the ‘worst form of environmental desecration that’s possibly occurred’ in the shire which could spell the death of a rare species of native tree as a result”. While you correctly quoted me, a key point needs to be made. It wasn’t just the “death of a…tree” that worried me. If this last tree dies it will mean the extinction of the whole Fontainea oraria species in the wild. That could still happen over the next 50 years or so as a result of his land clearing. To think that one person could be found responsible for the extinction of an entire species sickens me. No amount of fines or ‘rehabilitation’ seedlings can replace a natural forest eco-system, be assured. Thank you for prominently reporting the story. In my view this vandal got off way too cheap. If ever a jail term was deserved, this was it. Alan Rich Lennox Head Double standard, 15 Feb 07 Cr Alan Rich may be right (Echo, February 8) when he says that land clearing in Amber Drive, Lennox Head had been the worst form of environmental desecration that’s possibly occurred in Ballina Shire. However that act of desecration will be nothing compared to what is about to happen in the Ballina Shire’s protected environment water catchment in the Knockrow/Newrybar area. And this act of desecration has the full support of Cr Rich. That’s right, Cr Rich voted at Ballina Shire Council for the RTA to route the proposed six-lane motorway through Ballina’s water supply knowing full well the potential environmental desecration of thousands of trees and also the pollution risk to Ballina’s water supply. In addition, a land-holder’s plan he was also fully aware of to restore the natural infrastructure of the water catchment by planting an additional 250,000 trees is now in tatters because the motorway route has made this rescue project unviable. Discussion had taken place with the Australian Forest Corp to create a carbon pool, accredited under the NSW government Gas Abatement Scheme for the catchment. That opportunity is now lost. And why would Cr Rich and other councillors, apart from Cr Cadwallader, Felsch and Howes, want to do this? It is simply that they assessed that a $500 million plus ‘Kath and Kim’-styled village of 7000 people west of Lennox Head (yet to be built) should be spared any impact from the motorway, but at the expense of the protected environment of the water catchment and the loss of 250,000 trees that will now not be planted. In the same edition of The Echo, Cr Howes says “development is all about ego, money and money-making and more money.” She is so right. Ian Cooke Newrybar Motorway reality check needed, 22 Feb 07 Everything Ian Cooke writes seems to be influenced by his inability to accept reality. He lives in Newrybar right on the Pacific Highway and the new NSW Government motorway is going right past his front yard. He’s hurting. In his last letter about the highway he tediously repeats the same story that he’s been peddling for years now as fact. They’re his opinions only and they’re wrong. General managers, council leaders and others have responded in public and in private, over and over again, to his letters in the past. We have tried to provide accurate information to the readers he publicly continues to confuse. His facts are wrong. His assumptions are wrong. His conclusions are wrong. Newspapers have refused to run his defamatory letters and ads. He’s desperately hurting. For him to pretend that my small part in an advisory letter to the RTA was influenced by a proposed village to accommodate “7000 people west of Lennox Head” is all in his mind. If what Cooke says in his letter was true, which it’s not, Cr Margaret Howes would have illegally breached NSW pecuniary interest laws by her vote, which he refers to, because the proposed development is on her property. Facts are she didn’t participate. He’s been repeating these sorts of misrepresentations for years and it’s overdue for the nonsense to stop. He’s hurting others. Nasty, if not defamatory, statements based on his distortions have had their day. The state government announced the highway route in September, 2006. I feel sorry for him but it’s time to move on. If nothing else, his worn-out and predictable lines have become quite boring. Alan Rich Lennox Head Water theory, 8 Mar 2007 In response to Mr Rich’s letter (Echo, February 22), in our private lives we are concerned about water and global warming are we not? Local and global alike. Mr Rich represents not only Emigrant Creek catchment residents in Ballina Council but is a representative for the Shire on the Rous Water board. He’s a known protector of botanical species and is, I understand, one of the eminent persons of Big Scrub Landcare. A man well placed and well qualified to be a protector of our environmental concerns. In theory. Yet over the past two years our environmental guardian remained steadfastly aloof during the RTA’s motorway proposals where routes were to make a direct assault on that pivotal natural resource of the shire – drinking water. In neither of his representative roles has he been proactive to safeguard these widely held private concerns. There has been no outcry, no support – only disinterest. The T2E motorway can only adversely impact the drinking water of this catchment and the red soils of the Big Scrub therein. The catchment’s future… more bitumen roads, more erosion, less trees… is an environmental disaster waiting to happen. People who live in the catchment and those served by it (i.e. water drinkers in Ballina Shire) must regret that a man so well placed and well qualified to be protector of our environmental concerns, was so, only in theory. Fay Bogg Secretary, Waterdrinkers & Watercatchers of Ballina Shire Inc.   Highway observations, 8 Mar 2007 It is with some irritation that I find myself having to once again censure the prosaic media misadventures of Cr Alan Rich (Echo, February 22). Adjectives like nasty, boring and tedious are tenders that no-one who knows Ian Cooke well would ever attach to his character. For the public record and as a friend and admirer of Ian Cooke, I would like to offer my own observations. Given his terribly adverse circumstances (a proposed motorway through his front yard and clean through the catchment of Emigrant Creek), Ian Cooke remains an affable, genuine, loyal and generous spirited individual. He has one great detraction however – he has the tenacity of a terrier and depending on one’s position, this is either an admirable virtue or a source of fear and loathing. Ian Cooke wants public answers to simple public questions and so far he hasn’t got them. I should not have to remind Alan Rich that he is an elected public servant and Ian Cooke is a constituent and is therefore perfectly entitled to ask those who are supposed to represent the community’s best interests to explain their actions. The ‘servant’ component is important, councillor. That’s precisely what you are. Ballina Shire Council did absolutely nothing to support the residents of the plateau in their fight against the motorway in spite of the fact that it was clearly by far the most socially disruptive and the most environmentally destructive option. Why? Since the announcement of the preferred route, water quality and water management have become absolute priority issues with the media, the public and the government taking a keen interest. Councillor Silver and Councillor Rich are the chair and vice chair respectively of Rous Water, yet they chose not to heed advice from senior Rous Water management that recommended absolutely no motorway anywhere in this vital catchment. Why? There is a radically increasing likelihood Crs Rich and Silver will eventually be issued with an official ‘please explain’. Their answers should make for entertaining reading. Keep digging, Ian. Mike Burless Newrybar   Highway versus water supply, 17 May 2007 Ballina shire councillor and deputy chair of Rous Water, Alan Rich, is critical of the Queensland Government's lack of planning for population growth and water needs given the call to pipe water from the Northern Rivers (The Echo, May 3). Perhaps Cr Rich should have reflected on some home truths before casting aspersions on other politicians. When Ballina shire's water supply was not keeping up with demand in the mid 1980s, one option considered was to build a new dam on Upper Emigrant Creek to supplement the existing dam on the same creek which was then the main source of supply for Ballina shire. In the event, Ballina shire was connected by pipework into the Rocky Creek dam system which was built primarily to supply Lismore and Byron shire residents. With Rocky Creek catchment not receiving the normal summer/autumn rainfall the region is now facing early water restrictions which could reach level 5 by Christmas if the usual dry winter and spring prevails. In the last 12 months or so Ballina Shire Council has: accepted Planning Minister Frank Sartor's announcement to make Ballina an economic growth centre together with his call for another 60,000 residents to come to the North Coast; and voted for the RTA to route the proposed six-lane Pacific Highway motorway through the Emigrant Creek water catchment which is zoned a protected environment. This option was preferred rather than adjust a draft plan for a village of 7000 people west of Lennox Head. The preferred route has been announced as the one which traverses the entire length of the catchment and will run adjacent to Emigrant Creek for the full journey. When the motorway is built, a new dam in upper Emigrant Creek is probably not viable and pumping from the Wilsons River is only a short term solution. I ask Cr Rich to consider the following questions: What if climate change causes a more permanent rain shadow on the further inland Rocky Creek catchment similar to that which has occurred elsewhere, particularly in Sydney and Brisbane? Should Lismore and Byron shire residents' scarce water supply be used to satisfy Ballina Council's population growth plans given that the planned capacity of Rocky Creek Dam did not include Ballina shire residents? Was it provident for Ballina Shire Council to tell the RTA to, in effect, jeopardise the ability to increase storage capacity in the Emigrant Creek catchment which is the most easterly in Australia? It is not too late for Roads Minister Roozendaal to review the preferred route decision, but will Ballina Council initiate such action? Ian Cooke Newrybar

Originally published in the Sydney Morning Herald Clive Hamilton December 30, 2006 Plans revealed this week to squeeze a further 1.1 million people into Sydney over the next 25 years will transform it into the nation's least liveable city. Twenty years ago Sydney was less congested, slower, more friendly and had more green space. Unregulated population growth and timid planning are choking the city, a situation exacerbated by the refusal of the Labor Government - still hostage to the economic rationalist fear of public debt - to invest in a modern public transport system. Sydney must stop growing sooner or later. If the "endless growth" mentality is not reversed, in 20 years' time we will be reading in the Herald of the next plan to lever an extra million or so residents into a bursting metropolis. The fact is that while the State Government can take measures to alleviate the pressures, in the end Sydney's expansion is decided in Canberra because overseas migration drives population growth. Rarely in our history has a federal government pursued such a high level of immigration as the Howard Government. Each year about 130,000 new migrants arrive on our shores and a third of them decide to settle in Sydney. The Government plans to increase the numbers. The pressures from the influx are tempered by the efflux of thousands of Sydneysiders leaving the city each year, mostly heading north, driven out by declining amenity and house price inflation. The fact that John Howard, who has gained re-election by exploiting Hansonite xenophobia, has presided over a record inflow of foreigners is an irony little remarked, not least because the Government tries to keep the figures quiet. The immigration program is a response to pressure from big business, which demands a steady flow of labour and dreams of a market of 50 million people. The belief that Australia can accommodate a much bigger population is based on ignorance. Ecologically, Australia is not a wide brown land but a narrow green strip down the east coast. People don't want to live in Wilcannia and, as the national water crisis should tell us, there are not resources to support them. The most rapid growth in the immigration program is in the business long-stay category, under which businesses sponsor migrants. And under the business migration visa scheme, the wealthy can effectively buy Australian citizenship. The business lobby and the Government will not admit it, but a high level of immigration is of no economic benefit. Gross domestic product grows but the higher income is merely spread over more people. Under a policy of zero net migration we could allow in perhaps 40,000 people each year, because that is how many Australians leave the country. This gives us plenty of scope to meet our humanitarian obligations and we should use it to increase the number of asylum seekers and political refugees. Immigration should be aimed at improving the moral capital of the nation rather than our financial stocks. Instead of fast-tracking money-obsessed, self-interested business migrants, or overseas students who slip in the back door through visa scams run by dodgy universities, we should welcome more people who have suffered from oppression and have learned the value of human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Unlike natural population growth, the immigration tap can be eased back tomorrow. Doing so is the only way to protect the quality of life in Sydney. Already congestion, with all its frustrations and rage, is approaching the intolerable. Sydneysiders spend more time stuck in traffic than any other Australians. The growing volume of cars on the roads is undoing decades of legislation designed to clean up the air. In the 1980s smog levels fell after laws were introduced to improve car engines and fuels. Now the gains have been overtaken by the sheer number of cars, especially in Sydney. The recent State of the Environment Report notes that ozone concentrations have been falling in all capital cities except Sydney, where they are getting worse. The Iemma Government's plan to funnel more and more people into established suburbs will inevitably destroy what makes those suburbs pleasant places to live. Fifteen years ago a study compared living standards in Sydney with those in four Japanese cities. While incomes were higher in Japan, the population density in the four cities was five to six times greater than in Sydney. Japanese dwellings are around half the size and they sit on allotments of land only a quarter the average size of Sydney ones. The provision of public amenities - in the form of parks, school grounds, hospital grounds, roads and sporting facilities - is much higher in Sydney. Japanese city dwellers enjoy about 250 hectares of public open space per million people; Sydneysiders have more than 4000 hectares. And while Japanese have 32 playing fields per million people, Sydney residents have more than 500. But the gap is narrowing between Sydney and Japanese cities and will continue to do so as long as immigration booms; the Howard Government's decisions are having a direct effect on quality of life in Sydney. It's not just the loss of open space and road congestion but the psychological effects of overcrowding. A famous experiment in the 1960s found that when too many rats are forced to live in a cage of a given size they soon display abnormal behaviour including hyper-aggression, failure to nurture young normally, increased mortality, abnormal sexual patterns and infant cannibalism. In human populations, crowding causes physical diseases and psychological stress. When humans are forced to live in these "behavioural sinks", defined less by geographical proximity than by excessive social interaction, they respond with aggression, attempts to isolate themselves and, when all else fails, drugs and alcohol. One thing is certain: as the population of the emerald city expands so will the industries that help us cope with the anxieties of living in a behavioural sink.

This thesis (pdf, 2.6MB) compares population policy and demographic outcomes in France and Australia from 1945 taking into consideration projections to 2050. These features are analysed using a theoretical approach derived from James Q. Wilson and Gary Freeman, flagging focused benefits/costs and diffuse benefits/costs of population growth, including growth fueled by immigration.

This analysis is framed by the New Ecological Paradigm developed by Dunlap and Catton.

The oil shock of 1973 is identified as a major turning point where French and Australian policy directions and demographic trends diverge, notably on immigration.

It is established that in both countries there was a will for population stabilisation and energy conservation, which succeeded in France. In Australia, however, a strong, organised growth lobby over-rode this Malthusian tendency. A major force for growth lay in the speculative property development and housing industries. The specific qualities of the Australian land development planning and housing system facilitated land speculation. Speculative opportunity and profits were increased by population growth and, with decreasing fertility rates, the industries concerned relied increasingly on high immigration rates. In France, to the contrary, the land development planning and housing industries had no similar dependency on immigration and, since the oil shock, have adapted to a declining population growth rate.

The author concludes that France has a relatively Malthusian economy and that Australia has a relatively Cornucopian one. These observations may be extrapolated respectively to non-English speaking Western European States and to English Speaking Settler States.

Speculative benefits from population growth/immigration are illustrated by demonstrating a relationship between ratcheting property price inflation in high overseas immigration cities in Australia and the near absence of this inflation in low growth areas. In contrast this ratcheting effect is absent in France and French cities where population growth and immigration have little influence on the property market.

The research suggests that speculative benefits of high population growth have been magnified by globalisation of the property market and that these rising stakes are likely to increase the difficulty of population stabilisation and energy conservation under the Australian land development and planning system.

The thesis contains a substantial appendix analysing and comparing French and Australian demographic and energy use statistics.

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