Sandra Kanck

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) are partnering with filmmaker Maxine Trump on the Australian premiere of her award winning film To Kid or Not to Kid in Melbourne and Perth on the 26 and 27 February. The documentary is being screened as part of SPA’s ‘Stop at Two’ campaign. This will be the first time the film will be screened in theatres before being released on Amazon Prime on February 27th.

SPA National President, Sandra Kanck, says the aim of the campaign is to normalise the choice of having small or childfree families.

“The choice whether or not to have children is one of the biggest decisions any individual or couple will make in their lifetime,” says Ms Kanck.

“This decision is often swayed by family and social factors that have traditionally encouraged larger families. It is clear, however, that overpopulation is playing a very significant role in humans’ unsustainable impact on the planet, including climate change and these matters are now bearing on the decisions made by many to have smaller families or no family at all.

“As an environmental NGO, we advocate for smaller families as one solution towards reducing pressures on the Earth and support those who go down that path,” says Ms Kanck.

“We applaud director Maxine Trump for turning the camera onto her personal life to bravely dive into the taboo and stigmatised topic of child-free living and to explore the reasons behind this choice,” she says.

“As Director Trump has herself declared ‘’’Why can’t we talk about not having kids?’ We think it’s about time we did.”

Ms Kanck also advised that this month will see the launch of Childfree Magazine, founded by Brisbane based Tanya Williams, author of A Childfree Happily Ever After.

“The launch of this new magazine is another timely contribution towards a less judgemental world where it’s OK not to have children,” says Ms Kanck.

More information

“To Kid or Not to Kid” will be screened in Melbourne on February 26, 08:30 pm at Cinema Nova, bookings here. It will be screened in Perth on February 27, 06:45pm at Bassendean Community Centre in cooperation with Transition Town Guilford, more information here. The Melbourne screening will also include the short film ‘Talking Heads: Choosing to Have Children….or Not’ made in house by SPA.

For more information, please contact Michael Bayliss, SPA communications Manager, at [email protected]

Maxine Trump, Director of To Kid or Not To Kid can be contacted for interview or movie review at [email protected]. or at the website.

Tanya Williams, Chief Change maker at Childfree Magazine>/em>, can be contacted at the website.

"Media resistance has always been one of the big problems," says Sandra Kanck, who came from a family where there were seven children and she learned early that one wage did not go as far for seven as it might for fewer. From 1994-2009 Sandra served as an Australian Democrats’ Member of the upper house of the South Australian Parliament. Her ‘maiden’ speech in parliament was – predictably for those who know her – about population. For more than nine years Sandra Kanck has been either President or Vice-President of SPA, mostly the former, including reluctantly juggling the role of Acting Treasurer for three months during one of her stints as President.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) has called on the new Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, to heed the findings of a paper issued yesterday. It found that the number of migrants arriving in Australia since the beginning of 2011 who found jobs about equals the number of new jobs created in Australia for everyone over the same period.

The paper was written by Professor Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy of the Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR), Monash University.

SPA National President, Ms Sandra Kanck, says this has had harmful impact on employment levels and working conditions of ‘incumbent’ Australians, particularly young people. Incumbents include migrants who arrived prior to 2011 as well as Australians born here.

“Since 2010, employment growth has slowed to about 100,000 a year,” says Ms Kanck. “Yet permanent immigration keeps increasing and is now at a record high level of 210,000 for the 2012-13 program year.

“This is on top of very high numbers of temporary migrants who might also work – 457 and working holiday visa holders, students and New Zealanders. There are over one million temporary migrants living in Australia now,” says Ms Kanck.

“Australia still has strong natural increase in its workforce, with the number of people turning 18 outnumbering those turning 65 by 80,000 per year. No extra jobs were made available to those young jobseekers over the past two years. Each one who found a job left an older worker unemployed.

“As a first step, the new Minister must match the immigration program to the number of jobs available and not disadvantage incumbent Australians, especially young people. Youth unemployment in northern Adelaide suburbs is now 42.6 per cent. It is also unacceptably high in the western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney.

“As a second step, the Minister should note that immigration makes up 58 per cent of Australia’s very high annual population growth rate of 1.6 per cent. By cutting immigration, he will reduce population growth. This is vital for preserving the environment and for many other social reasons such as reducing housing unaffordability and hospital waiting times.”

Sandra Kanck gives her account of what preceded her 'expulsion' from the Australian Democrats over the matter of population policy. Sandra was an Australian Democrats member of the South Australian Legislative Council from 1993-2009 and the last Democrat member in elected government. When she retired she became the president of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) and still is. The conflict in the Australian Democrats is a reflection of the greater conflict in Australia between the growth lobby and democratic representation and environmental democracy. As such it is important to people far beyond the Democrats themselves. (Article written by Sandra Kanck).

The observations already made on “Can Do Better” about what has happened in relation to the internal machinations of the Democrats and my sacking from the party are extremely perceptive. That’s probably because those of us who have fought for population abatement have seen these things acted out before, sometimes on bigger stages and not necessarily in political parties.

Thirty-three years ago, in formulating the Democrats’s no.2 objective “To accept the challenges of the predicament of humanity on the planet with its exponentially increasing population, disappearing finite resources and accelerating deterioration of the environment”, the founding mothers and fathers of the party were profoundly aware of the future.

The treatment meted out to me began, I suspect, a year ago when a strongly-worded new draft population policy was circulated – and I was a member of that policy working group. The pressure mounted when it went out to ballot in May, and further increased when the ballot was supported by 80% of those members voting. As voting is voluntary, it was a clear victory because those who strongly opposed it would have ensured they cast their votes.

But around the time of the circulation of the draft policy, I was approached by South Australian-based political party, Stop Population Growth Now (SPGN), and asked if I would find out if a letter from them might be published in the Democrats’ National Journal – that letter suggested the amalgamation of SPGN with the Democrats to strengthen our common base and form a new political party. I took this to the party’s National Executive and it was voted down. But, combined with the policy ballot, it seems it was the beginning of the end for me.

I was obviously never privy to the background plotting that led to a vote by the party’s National Executive just five weeks ago to declare Sustainable Population Australia Inc., of which I am National President, to be a political party - and it came as a complete surprise to me. The losers in the policy ballot had set things up for a swift counter-offensive. Payback was in order for the strong policy ballot result it seems – and big time!

The spokesperson who advised the media on Tuesday that I had been expelled, John Davey, is also the factional leader and puppet-master of the group which has taken this action. The conflict of interest between his means of earning an income, that of a migration agent, and working to take me down because of my determination to give primacy to the environment ahead of economic self-interest, seems not to have been recognised by his supporters and never acknowledged by him.

As a Democrat member said to me “this debacle has revealed itself for what it is - a fight between the growth-at-any-cost group and those who care about the future of our country and the world”. It’s a fight that is writ large elsewhere, a fight that will ultimately be lost by the growthists when the planet itself hits back. As the saying goes “Nature bats last”.

The environmental group at the centre of the controversy between its national president, Hon. Sandra Kanck, and the Australian Democrats has countered claims by those who expelled Ms Kanck that it is a political party.

Spokesperson for Sustainable Population Australia (SPA), Dr Jane O’Sullivan, says that SPA is recognised by the Dept of Environment (SEWPAC) as an environmental group, a prerequisite for obtaining tax deductible status through the Australian Tax Office. The regulations governing this are strict and include one that precludes any association with a political party, let alone running candidates for office as a party.

“For its 24 year history, SPA has had a mix of members from all walks of life and from all political parties. These include Labor, Liberal, National, Greens, Australian Democrats, Stable Population Party and the Stop Population Growth Party,” says Dr O’Sullivan.

“SPA is very mindful of being independent of political parties,” she says. “We are a lobby group that seeks to inform the public and policymakers of the need for an ecologically sustainable population.

“Because an ecologically sustainable population is less than the one we have at current standards of living, SPA calls for an end to population growth through lower migration and birth rates.

“It thus comes as no surprise that the leader of the coup against Ms Kanck, John Davey, is a migration agent who clearly has a vested interest in either maintaining or increasing migration levels,” says Dr O’Sullivan. “That is what this dispute is really all about.”

Dr O’Sullivan says that the national executive of SPA acknowledges the huge amount of work Ms Kanck undertook in trying to keep the Australian Democrats viable.

“This has, however, been entirely separate from the work she has done for over three years in running our organisation,” she says.

On 11/12/2012 newspapers reported that Sandra Kanck, last Australian Democrat to leave parliament, now president of Sustainable Population Australia, had been 'expelled' from the Democrats by John Davey, a professional migration agent, in the role of "Democrats National Executive spokesman." Davey is reported to have said that "the decision was made as a "last resort" after Ms Kanck refused 'repeated requests to put appropriate distance between her activities amongst other special interest groups and the Democrats'". Senior Deputy National President Darren Churchill defended Kanck, saying that a group of seven people had attempted to take control of the party and was "removing anyone who stands up to them". It seems incredible, but is this also the same John Davey of the Democrats whom in 2002 Crikey.com referred to as a "former porn lobbyist" and "Director of the Eros Foundation, the lobbying group for various naughty interests" in "The power behind Brian Greig’s throne [in the Australian Democrats]"?

Whatever happened to the Democrats' Population Policy?

The Australian Democrats used to have a population policy in favour of a small population in Australia for ecological reasons. Under Democrat John Coulter's presidency a bitter battle was fought to preserve this position. Tension developed as immigrationist members gained some traction through fair and foul means and continually tried to break up the policy, purportedly wearing down the mainstream membership.

Cheryl Kernot

During Cheryl Kernot's leadership, the profile of the party became so strong that it looked to some as if Cheryl might actually eventually become prime minister. At the same time she began to downplay the population policy. Then, to the shock of many Australians, overnight Kernot left her own party and joined the ALP. It seemed to some as if she for some reason failed to take seriously her own success and had been seduced by inaccurate promises of a stronger rise to power via the ALP. Instead she fell into almost total obscurity, and it looked to many as if she had been pushed.

Gradually the Party seemed to be pulled apart, finishing up with Andrew Bartlett, an immigrationist at its head. It was now hardly recognisable as itself and hardly registered on the voting radar. Bartlett was also an extreme advocate for non-detention of asylum seekers. Losing his Queensland seat in the last Federal election, Bartlett ran in the 2009 election for the [immigrationist] Greens. Not succeeding there, he became a research fellow in Migration Law at the College of Law, Australian National University.

Sandra Kanck

Sandra Kanck was an Australian Democrats member of the South Australian Legislative Council from 1993-2009, after which she became president of Sustainable Population Australia, a group that wants a small population for Australia. Australia in the grip of a population growth lobby with extremely high immigration and awards bonuses to women who have babies. Kanck is also involved in numerous other causes.

Countering John Davey's claim to authority in the Democrats is Darren Churchill, who holds the title of Senior Deputy National President of the Democrats. He says that Ms Kanck has not been expelled at all and that Mr Davey does not have the power to expell her. Churchill reportedly said a group of seven people had attempted to take control of the party and was "removing anyone who stands up to them".

"...Mr Churchill said the group headed by Mr Davey had proclaimed itself to be running the Democrats and had set about passing a series of unconstitutional motions to expel or suspend anyone who did not fit into their agenda." ..."(Mr) Davey is not a spokesperson for the party - he has not been approved by our proper procedures and processes."

Deputy National President, Darren Churchill has said that the "only constitutionally authorised person to speak to the media on national executive matters is the national president." According to him there is an upcoming election for a new president, and, until someone is elected in that role, the Deputy National President has assumed the role of party spokesman. (Source: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/breaking-news/kanck-still-a-democrat-party-official/story-e6freuz0-1226534655857)

In a story taken from Adelaide Now Mr Davey was reported in the Australian to have said:

"The most important principle we hold as Australian Democrats is to be beholden to no group or groups in the community."

Mr Davey himself is the Principal Solicitor and Registered Migration Agent for Hermes Legal and Migration Services, which also advertises that it has a network of professional teachers and tutors who can assist in the preparation for the International English Language Testing System (“IELTS”) and that it is currently taking enrollments for classes in Adelaide, Melbourne and Canberra. "Class sizes are limited to 10 and pre-booking is essential. Classes last for 3.5 hours (with a 20 minute break in between) and cost $77.00 each inclusive of GST." http://www.hermlegal.com.au/index.php/our-services

Below are some more details:

" Herm Legal and Migration Services:

John Davey

John Davey BA (Melb), LLB (Syd), GCLP (UniSA)
Principal Solicitor

John is the Principal Solicitor and Registered Migration Agent of our firm. He has extensive experience in both the public and private sectors and was a one time legal adviser to the Australian Democrats in the Commonwealth Senate. Admitted to legal practice in South Australia, Victoria, the Australian Capital Territory and the High Court of Australia. John also teaches in the Migration Law Program at the Australian National University and is the attending solicitor at the Aids Action Council in Canberra. John’s expertise lies in commercial migration and dispute resolution law and maintains an active part in community activities. John holds a Bachelor of Laws from the University of Sydney, a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne and a Graduate Certificate in Legal Practice from the University of South Australia and is registered as a Migration Agent with the Commonwealth Office of Migration Agents Registration Authority (Migration Agents Registration Number: 0851129)."

Massive accrual of power on all fronts by Growth Lobby in Australia

Australian political parties have been stalked by the commercial population growth lobby now for years. (See Sheila Newman The Growth Lobby and its absence in Australia and France, Chapter 6, for the history: http://candobetter.wikispaces.com/file/view/GrowthLobbyAndAbsence-Newman-2002.pdf (wikispace deactivated -have asked to reactivate - Ed, 21 Oct 14) and http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au/public/adt-VSWT20060710.144805/index.html.) There are many examples of the devastating effect this march has had on our democracy. (See http://candobetter.net/GrowthLobby.) This process has contaminated the mainstream media as well as the commercial media, and it seems to have utterly infected the Australian Labor Party and the Liberals in every State. The Greens also seem to have been fatally weakened by it, and the Australian Democrats continue to be torn apart by it. The power of the Australian Multicultural Foundation, working with the Australian Academy of Technical Sciences and Engineering (ATSE), the Scanlon Foundation (formerly the Brencorp Foundation) and the Institute of Global Movements is quite frightening (see: http://candobetter.net/node/1928 ) as is the power, financial and media reach [See http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/705 and http://candobetter.net/taxonomy/term/249 ] of the Property Council of Australia and APop.

Read about a new population theory in Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals." Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it.

Illustration on teaser was reduced from original at http://www.gerasimon.com.au/australian_oil_painting_3.htm

What took the Prime Minister so long?

National environment group, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) says that comments made by the Prime Minister in announcing the creation of a Population Ministry all but guarantee a skewed outcome for the government’s population policy inquiry.

“While welcoming the creation of the new portfolio, SPA wonders why it took the government so long to recognise that it was needed,” says Sandra Kanck, President of SPA.

“But as a consequence of other comments made at the time of the announcement SPA has concerns about the policy that will be developed.

Australians want to stop population growth

“Opinion polls show that a majority of Australians want to stop wanton population growth and believe we have neither the water or infrastructure to support Kevin Rudd’s ‘big Australia’.

“The Prime Minister has become a mite sensitive to this sort of feedback and is now attempting to show that he is listening, but who is he listening to?

“Kevin Rudd said on Saturday that the new Minister, Tony Burke, must be ‘acutely mindful’ of the positive implications of growth on the economy.

What about biodiversity, water, and infrastructure

“There are many other things Mr Burke could have been told to mind, such as the impact of increased population on biodiversity, or water, or shortage of infrastructure.

“The PM’s marching orders unfortunately tell Mr Burke to come out on the side of the development lobby, which has immediately skewed the whole debate.

Blinkered economic approach

“The new portfolio being based in Treasury, rather than, for instance, Environment, further shows that the PM’s views on the matter are blinkered.

“The new Minister was formerly a Shadow Immigration Minister and, given the Rudd Government’s shocking record of increasing immigration without telling the Australian public in the 2007 election that this was their intention, Mr Burke will be carrying a lot of baggage.

“The former Shadow Environment Minister, Kelvin Thomson, has shown himself to be the only Federal Labor MP who understands that without an environmentally sustainable future there is no future. That Kevin Rudd has picked Tony Burke over Kelvin Thomson says far more about the PM's politicking on this vital issue than about Kelvin Thomson's deep understanding and commitment to a sustainable Australia” said Ms Kanck.

Further comment: Sandra Kanck

Let’s talk about the national anthem: We do not have boundless plains to share!

Australia’s national anthem is outdated,
incorrect and should be changed according to the environment group Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

National President of SPA, Sandra Kanck, says “If we pause on Australia Day to reflect on our identity, our thoughts should turn to reforming the anthem. It is an absolute nonsense to say that this continent has boundless plains to share, as is claimed in the second verse of the anthem.

“This is deceptive advertising,” she says. “Anyone one enquiring about the offer might find their choice was between the Hay Plain and the Nullarbor Plain.

“Our soil is not golden – it is in fact old, thin and lacking fertility. Every dust-storm blows more precious top-soil out to sea. Only six percent of our land is arable, and we are progressively building over much of that six percent.

“If we ever did have an abundance of ‘nature’s gifts’ we have made a mockery of them with our shocking record on mammal extinctions.

“We have so little respect for the seas with which we are ‘girt’ that we pollute them with run-off, and within those same seas we are overfishing towards extinction of the marine life.

“We have so little regard for this land that we have overloaded it with human beings. Hence, we are fast destroying our rivers and forests and reducing our biodiversity.

“Reflecting on the words of our national anthem might help us take stock and recognise what has already been destroyed, and what might be saved.

“But we cannot in conscience continue to sing these words with any pride because so many of them are untrue.

“If we continue using Advance Australia Fair then we must at least change the line ‘We’ve boundless plains to share’. Boundless they may be, but with no shade and temperatures above 45 degrees in summer, no water, and empty salt pans that deceptively look like lakes on our maps, these plains are not habitable.

“Let’s have a national anthem that reflects our aspirations and that sings of Australia’s unique natural assets but, also, let’s not lie to the world about their nature” said Ms Kanck.

MEDIA RELEASE
22 October 2009

MORE REFUGEES - FEWER SKILLED MIGRANTS

Were Australia a compassionate nation, it would be taking in more asylum seekers and fewer skilled migrants, according to Australia’s only environment group dedicated to lower population, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

SPA National President, Ms Sandra Kanck, says Australia could double the number of refugees it accepts, providing that at least as many, if not more (which is SPA’s preference), were cut from the skilled migration program.

Australia's humanitarian program is currently 13,500 annually, while skilled immigration for 2008-9 is 115,000. Total net overseas migration, however, for the year ended 31 March 2009, was 278,200 persons. As well as skilled migration, this includes family reunion, New Zealanders and those on temporary visas.

“We have no moral obligation to the people coming here under the skilled migration program – they are not fleeing from war-torn states," says Ms Kanck. "They are taking places we could make available to real refugees.

“With 22 million refugees in the world at the moment, Australia cannot take them all, but we can accept more than we currently do – provided we reduce the skilled migration intake," she says.

Ms Kanck says that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s rebuffing of asylum seekers and attacks on so-called people smugglers are a diversionary tactic.

"Mr Rudd is responsible for one of the highest immigration rates in decades so his line on the current influx of asylum seekers is simply a smoke screen to avoid public discussion on the bigger issue of the immigration blow-out.

“Refugees have to wait in long queues for places to become available, while at the same time Mr Rudd has an open door policy to people who want to come here for purely economic reasons.

"Surely Australia can supply its own skills and not poach from other countries," says Ms Kanck. “If we got rid of the baby bonus we could put that money into training/retraining our current population and thus decrease our reliance on the skilled migration program."

Ms Kanck added that a multi-pronged approach was what was required in dealing with refugees. Diplomatic efforts could often diminish conflict that cause people to flee.

"For instance, what is Australia doing to ensure that the Sri Lankan Government is treating the Tamils fairly and humanely?" she asks.