population policy

September 13 marks thirty years since ideologues took control at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo to stigmatise the idea of stabilising population numbers, falsely claiming it led to human rights abuses.

There is a new policy blog or political movement called Low Migration Australia.  It is very well written and explains the relevant concepts succinctly.  The movement was started by Edward Smith.  Well worth a look.

"My objective, with your help, honourable members, is to make Melbourne, and even Victoria, a great place to live. Not merely a great place in population size or area to rival such places as Shanghai, New York, London or Sao Paulo. Such greatness would be mere obesity, with all the disadvantages of such. Not a city or a state where people are crammed into dogbox apartments, living on crowded and congested streets in an environmentally unfriendly concrete heat island. But a spacious city with open skies, open and tree-filled streets, with gardens. An environment where children can play safely, where the car is not king but a servant.
Walkable patchworks of various styles of housing, where one would enjoy walking, cycling or travelling through by public transport. A city of learning, education, the arts and self-supporting industry, where families and communities can thrive. Where the less fortunate who may be living on lower incomes are not segregated into high-rise towers but live in affordable detached or medium-density housing spread throughout the suburbs. Where their children have the same opportunities as other children. Where ghettos of crime and despair are not created. A city where the environment—the living environment—is prized and of prime importance. A sustainable city or cities in a sustainable state. This can only happen when people are proud of their neighbourhoods and where they, as citizens, have control over what they create—the built form, the environment, the infrastructure. This is what, I believe, we as a Parliament can achieve." (Clifford Hayes, Extract from speech.)

[This speech was paragraphed by candobetter.net editor. It was taken from the unproofed Hansard transcript and will be revised if there are changes.]

Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (16:54:47): President and honourable members, especially new members, congratulations. I grew up in Brighton, the son of a doctor and a school teacher, so in many people’s eyes I had a life of privilege, but my parents had just bought a house, my father was starting his own medical practice from scratch and I was sent to Gardenvale state school. However, I did not like school, particularly getting the strap in my first few days there for playing in the third graders’ playground.

So when I learned to read, quite well, I told my mum I wanted to leave school. She laughed and told me I had to do another 12 years before I could leave.

I was devastated. By grade 3 my parents were able to send me to Brighton Grammar.

But in grade 4 my father suffered a terrible car accident, which affected him and his earning ability for the rest of his life. Mum worked, which was not that common in the early 1960s, and Dad brought in some money, so we got by okay. My two sisters and I managed to finish at private schools, but my father's situation got worse, and he relied on drinking and heavy medication, which by the end of our schooling left him totally incapacitated.

Being a bit of a rebel and not a great student, I decided on a very different course to the academic life so beloved by my parents. I had become interested in photography and filmmaking, and to my parents’ horror I wanted a career in the film industry. So I left home and went to work.

The Australian film industry was almost non-existent then. I found a job in the nascent television industry with Hector Crawford at Crawford Productions in Collins Street. My first job was on Homicide as a music editor, although I only had the vaguest idea of what that job entailed when I started. Over the next few years Crawfords produced the top three or four highest rating TV dramas in Australia at that time.

I went on to become a freelance film editor, and in 1979 I won an Australian Film Institute award for my part in editing Mad Max.

Members applauded.
The PRESIDENT: As tempting as it is, can we hold the applause until the end.

Mr HAYES: However, it was my experience working in the Northern Territory on the feature film We of the Never Never that changed my view on how we treated the first inhabitants of this land, and I came home a firm believer in Aboriginal land rights.

My parents, particularly my father, who was a keen advocate to the few who would listen back then for Indigenous recognition and other social issues, were both academic and left wing in political inclination, which was a pretty unusual stand compared to many of my friends’ parents in Brighton. So I was always interested in politics and comparing and arguing various points of view.

However, it was travelling overseas for six months when I was 24 which opened my eyes on how we lived in Australia. I was trying to find my way around the gridlocked streets of Bangkok, and looking over a bridge I saw swarming below a mass of humanity living in shacks on the side of a city canal, which would be no bigger than the Elwood canal down our way. A couple of hundred people were living down there—working, living and laughing.

I realized that there were many ways to live the life that I thought was normal from my little bubble in suburban Melbourne. I also realized that which so many Australian travellers come to see: we are all so enormously privileged to grow up and live in the open spaces and remaining nature of our suburbs and the surrounding countryside.

I lived in Sydney for a while working as an editor. Here I was in the heart of the film industry and lived the life of a continual after-work party—restaurants, bars, parties, picnics, drinking, eating and all that goes with it. It was the 1980s, and Sydney was a beautiful city and definitely the place to be. Few would disagree that most of the beauty around the harbour has now been spoiled by overdevelopment.

I got married and divorced in fairly quick succession. I bought an old farm house in a small town, Deans Marsh—between Geelong and Lorne—as a weekend retreat, and I became more and more interested in small-scale farming, self-sufficiency, agriculture and alternative lifestyles.

I got married again and we had a daughter followed by a son a couple of years later.

Computerisation had swept through the TV industry, enabling me to work from our farm house but often requiring travel back and forth to Melbourne. I studied for a diploma in applied science, farm management, by correspondence through Melbourne University, with a view to starting a small vineyard, which would certainly supplement my growing wine cellar. That was when devastation struck and my life had to change.

My wife wanted out, citing my lifestyle, the working, the drinking, the parties and generally being away from home too much. I was not much use as a father—and what is more, she was taking the kids. My drinking, smoking and party life had to stop.

I realised my health was being affected and my lifestyle was costing me more than money. I was losing friends, my lucrative business and now what I valued most—my family. I sought help and I found it through an organisation which pointed me to a path of spiritual recovery. As a result I no longer drink or smoke, nor do I take any mind-altering substances except caffeine, and have not done so for many years.

However, I did start that small vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula with a business partner. After a while I managed to reconcile with my family, and though my wife and I did not resume our marriage we became good friends and I had the opportunity to be the father I had always wanted to be to my children.

In 2003 I sold the vineyard and I moved back to Brighton again, buying an older style apartment with a backyard, where I still live today.

While I always had a political interest, my real political activity was about to start in the most unlikely way.

My mother, who still lived in the old family home nearby, told me that a developer had plans to build a 5-storey building of more than 100 apartments right behind her house. The whole street was affected, most of the houses being single storey.

All of our neighbours were up in arms: 'They can’t do this here!’. And the reply from our council: 'Oh yes, they can’.

It was Melbourne 2030, and we had been declared, without our knowledge, to be living in an activity centre.

What is more, the council had plans for more 4 and 5-storey buildings scattered around North Brighton.

Our group of residents decided to run someone against the local councillor. I was the only volunteer, and I ran on the issue, opposing high-rise development.

With huge community support, I was elected by a sizeable majority seeking to maintain our village character. Once elected, I had the full support of council in moving for more restrictive height controls in our village-style shopping centres and surrounding residential streets.

The minister, through his department, would not allow the changes, but after much lobbying he did grant so‑called 'discretionary’ height controls but at heights greater than the council’s decision.

The developers were still not happy and took the council to VCAT, where the VCAT member overruled the council’s refusal, saying discretionary controls gave him the discretion to break them. What is more, he and other members over the years took it upon themselves to give council lectures about our housing policy, developed out of widespread community consultation, for being too restrictive.

VCAT continues to grant permits for building heights far in excess of our meaningless discretionary controls as granted by the state government.

So much for the wishes of the community, or democracy, where elected bodies such as municipal councils can be overridden by a bureaucrat and increasingly by the state government.

This is where I discovered the general attitude of the planning bodies.

Senior planners in the government said to me, 'Councillor, if you don’t want high rise, you must want sprawl’.

I said, 'I don’t want either’, to which they replied, 'Well, where will you put the population?’.

Research showed me how population growth had been ramped up in recent years from a long-term average of 70 000 per annum to 200 000 people per annum. Melbourne is now growing by 2500 people, seeking accommodation, every week.

This fact is used by the government to overpower councils on the issue of planning in particular. Most government planners advocate urban consolidation and the destruction of our valued Australian suburban life. They talk of high-rise schools. Where will the children play?

To achieve this so-called consolidation, governments, planners and developers want to bring in more and more people, not from the outer suburbs but from overseas, to densify the inner city.

Who benefits? The developers and the property industry.

After being elected mayor of Bayside I joined an organisation called Planning Backlash. Led by the awesome Mary Drost, OAM, we represented planning groups with similar issues all across Melbourne and regional Victoria.

This group has led the campaign for greater say for residents and councils and has regularly met with all planning ministers, both Liberal and Labor, up until this minister, who no longer consults with us.

Rapid population growth has been connected with our planning problems.

Around this time I saw Dick Smith’s documentary and found the policies of Sustainable Australia. I came to see that global population growth and the corresponding increased pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, species decline and habitat destruction have made population growth the major environmental problem, both globally and locally.

Yet population growth was not even mentioned by the major political parties, including the Greens.

The Greens advocate lowering consumption, and rightly so, but until they realistically tackle the population issue they cannot address the current rate of environmental destruction and greenhouse gas emissions in this state or in this country.

This issue has nothing to do with race or religion, nor should it. For no matter how much we reduce consumption and the ensuing pollution per person, if we increase the population at the same time, we will make zero or even negative progress.

And we in this country are growing at rates far above the world population growth rate, and our greenhouse gas emissions keep on rising.

A similar charge could be made against the major parties, Labor and Liberal, who cry economic ruin if we reduce population growth by returning to 1980s or 1990s levels of immigration, as our party advocates.

They say the current rapid population growth raises gross domestic product. Yet, as we all know, GDP per head of population growth and wages growth have been stagnant over recent years as we have imported more and more workers.

In 2010 I met William Bourke and joined Sustainable Australia. Their policies on local planning, affordable housing, infrastructure, the environment and a more diverse economy appealed to my frustrated desires, particularly at a local level.

As to planning in this beautiful city and this bountiful state, planning should be a good thing, not like here, with our planning system—deregulated, discretionary and encouraging the atrocious.

Then we, the residents, hopefully with the support of our councils, try to make the proposal less bad. Even this process is under attack, with planning bodies such as the Grattan Institute seeking to remove third-party appeal rights. Even less local democracy is being demanded.

Planning, we believe, should be conceived at the local level, initiated by local planning groups or citizen juries. Planning should then set the agenda, set the social and environmental goals, the population density and height controls. Then developers would have to conform to these established local requirements—a democratic process.

Finally, just before I finish, I would like to thank a few people who helped me take this journey to find my way to this most historic and honourable chamber: William Bourke, our hardworking federal president and an invaluable mentor; Mary Drost, of indomitable spirit, and the committee of Planning Backlash; Richard Rozen and my supporters in Brighton Residents for Urban Protection; Derek, Evelyn, Kerrie, David, Beth, David and John of Restore Residents’ Rights; Jill Quirk, who ran in an election with me; Kelvin Thomson, a former MLA and an early advocate on population growth, who is now my fantastic chief of staff; Noel Pullen, a former MLC, who helped us in the planning battle; Alex Del Porto, James Long, Sonia Castelli and Bayside councillors past and present; my family, especially my two children, Alice and Harry.

My objective, with your help, honourable members, is to make Melbourne, and even Victoria, a great place to live. Not merely a great place in population size or area to rival such places as Shanghai, New York, London or Sao Paulo. Such greatness would be mere obesity, with all the disadvantages of such.

Not a city or a state where people are crammed into dogbox apartments, living on crowded and congested streets in an environmentally unfriendly concrete heat island. But a spacious city with open skies, open and tree-filled streets, with gardens. An environment where children can play safely, where the car is not king but a servant.

Walkable patchworks of various styles of housing, where one would enjoy walking, cycling or travelling through by public transport.

A city of learning, education, the arts and self-supporting industry, where families and communities can thrive. Where the less fortunate who may be living on lower incomes are not segregated into high-rise towers but live in affordable detached or medium-density housing spread throughout the suburbs. Where their children have the same opportunities as other children. Where ghettos of crime and despair are not created. A city where the environment—the living environment—is prized and of prime importance. A sustainable city or cities in a sustainable state. This can only happen when people are proud of their neighbourhoods and where they, as citizens, have control over what they create—the built form, the environment, the infrastructure. This is what, I believe, we as a Parliament can achieve.

Members applauded.

Dr Liz Allen of the ANU, who describes herself as a demographer, has written another mass immigration promotion article within the disappearing post-war paradigm of jobs and growth. In ”Here’s what a population policy for Australia could look like,” she pays no attention to the diminishing prospects offered under that model by Australia’s shallow economy of holes and houses.

Allen argues that we need more young people to “fund the Australia we’ve become accustomed to”, but she should question the rising costs of that Australia where population pressure is inflating all the basics, whilst continuing to erode our manufacturing base, due to these costs, which affect wages and profits.

Allen advocates increasing the youth cohort for Australia. She is unoriginal in this goal of population engineering, which she, like many others before her, has put forth dishonestly as if it is an uncomplicated benefit. However, to increase the youthful cohort in Australia also means increasing the aging cohort, because immigrants also age. This is a classic population Ponzi. Henri Leridon, senior demographer with INED in France, once wrote an article lampooning this kind of ‘replacement demographics’ which Liz Allen would do well to read. See “Warning on folly of trying to increase and maintain a country’s youthful cohort by mass immigration”.

Allen pretends that Australia’s population policy isn’t really about numbers

Allen writes,

“But contemporary population policies, for countries like Australia, are less about controlling numbers and more about ensuring population well-being. The core tenet of a population policy for Australia should be about the population’s quality of life, now and into the future.”

This is casuistical. Australia already has a de facto population policy that is all about control - controlling numbers upwards by flooding the country with more and more migrants. And Liz Allen is advocating more of the same!

As for ensuring population well-being, Australians are constantly complaining about their quality of life deteriorating due to the effects of this population engineering, but no-one in power listens and the mainstream media - in which I include The Conversation - continually publishes articles like Liz’s, favouring the politics of the growth lobby.

The growth lobby are a small number of people who benefit from the continual inflation of prices of land, power, energy, water. They either form or influence the government and the opposition. The rest of us pay for this.

Australian demographers ignore population doublings at our peril

Liz Allen is a demographer - essentially a mathematician or a statistician. I have come to realise that Australian mathematicians specialising in demography rarely have interest in or knowledge about the natural environment or political concepts like democratic representation and local self-determination. At best they filter everything through the narrow lens of econometrics.
Despite this, I continue to be amazed at how none of the demographers writing about population in Australia ever raise the major issue of doubling times. At 1.6% growth Australia is destined to double, with an ever enlarging population base, every 43.67 years. But populations increase more rapidly when they are constantly in movement, as they are in Australia, because this breaks down the natural population brakes associated with endogamy. At 2.4% growth, Victoria’s population is set to increase in under 30 years - to about ten million, then in 30 yrs time, to 20 million.

The great question that Dr Allen avoids or somehow actually fails to think about, is where does it stop? And can you stop it when you have huge population bases rapidly growing? Australians were slowing down their population growth and the population would have declined in around 2030 (recollection from old projections) but population engineering by politicians and corporations associated with the growth lobby and the corporate media, has prevented this democratic adjustment. To my mind it is obvious that Australians were noticing the rising cost of living and the crowding of positional advantages, so they stopped having so many children.

Surely any demographer unable to consider the problem of population doubling and population inertia and democracy should stick to maths and stay away from policy.

Moving population out of the cities won't solve the problem

Finally, Allen also recycles the very old political argument that population growth problems can be alleviated by getting people to move to the country. There is an equally old argument against this. It is that, despite every attempt to get people to move to the country, people keep moving to the city. Even those who move to the country tend to move back to the city. It is very hard for me to believe that Liz Allen, demographer, is unaware of the failure of this ‘solution’, so once again, I think that she is simply promoting propaganda.

"The Conversation" recycles fake news

The Conversation is abusing the authority it derives from its association with universities because it does not apply academic rigor to the articles it publishes. The article I have criticised would go well as an op-ed piece in the property pages of any Australian newspaper, along with the other fake news. In the article’s collage of frequently used population fallacies, nothing justifies the term ‘expert’.

Australia has no coherent population plan other than to inundate the major cities with people. Instead of a well though-out population policy, the strategy has been to stoke overall economic growth to support big business. This suits the property industry and retailers but GDP per capita growth is stagnating while ordinary Australians are worse off.

Peter Dutton and Tony Abbott have both recently called out for a reduction of immigration to Australia. To quote Mr Abbott: "At the moment we’ve got stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, clogged infrastructure and there is no doubt the rate of immigration impacts on all of these things.”

We support Mr Abbott's comments but it's unfortunate he didn't consider this while he was Prime Minister. Australia is suffering cumulative economic and environmental damage from unconstrained growth.

It is incorrect of Peter Dutton to suggest that “in the Labor years the number peaked at about 305,900 in one year which was an enormous number, we’ve got that number down now below 190,000 ”

While it is true that net overseas migration (NOM) – which includes both permanent and temporary long-term residents – peaked under Labor (at 315,700), it was still running at 245,500 as at the year to June 2017.

Most importantly, Peter Dutton failed to mention that Australia’s permanent migrant intake has never been higher than under this Coalition Government, set at nearly 210,000 a year currently.

Currently 60% of Australia’s growth is skilled migration whereas the humanitarian intake is less than 10%.

Foreign aid has also been significantly cut whilst the coalition has been in power. This is particularly true for overseas family planning services and the access to education that is required to empower women to choose the size of their families.

Paul Hawken, who was the keynote speaker at Melbourne’s Sustainable Living Festival, stated that family planning and access to education are together the most significant global responses to addressing climate change.

SPA calls for a fundamental change to population policy that addresses population issues both nationally and globally. This should involve reducing total migration to around 70 000 per annum (without any cuts to our refugee program) while also implementing a generous proactive humanitarian aid program that will address global overpopulation and displacement issues without coercion.

This will help to lead us towards stabilising populations both at home and abroad in the most sustainable and equitable way possible.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) is an Australian, member-driven environmental charity which works on many fronts to encourage informed public debate about how Australia and the world can achieve an ecologically, socially and economically sustainable population.

A Social Democratic Party that Lost Its Way: Once-upon-a-time Canada’s New Democrats knew that there were Limits to Growth. They knew about the Club of Rome, about Silent Spring and about the Population Bomb. They knew that resources were finite and that their unrestricted extraction would cause irreparable damage. They knew that “growth” was the ideology of the cancer cell. Yes, in the 1970’s the environment was very much on the agenda. Party academic and scholar Charles Taylor spoke of “the politics of the steady-state” and John Harney ran his federal leadership campaign on those kinds of issues.

Here’s what the British Columbia NDP stated in 1972:
a. “An NDP government will undertake a study of the effects of continued exponential growth in the Province of B. C.
b. “Such a study of the exponential growth in B. C. would investigate the possibility of taking all steps deemed necessary to deal adequately with the situation.
c. “The Environmental Control Committee of the provincial NDP will study the adoption of a steady-state economic policy, the concept of progress and limited growth, and the party’s stand on this matter.”
d. “It is recommended that a federally-sponsored permanent research group be established to investigate all aspects of growth and to submit recommendations for action. Such a research group would be required to submit reports within two years of its establishment, and at subsequent two year intervals.”
e. “An NDP government will give top priority to environmental problems with particular emphasis on population control.”
f. “An NDP government will encourage all means which will bring about voluntary limitation of population.”
g. “Immediate steps will be taken to educate the public in the urgent necessity of halting population growth.”
(From Policies for People, Policies of the B.C. NDP 1961-78, p.30)

So what happened to all of this? Somehow the NDP lost its vision. Its prescient grasp of the impending ecological crisis slipped away into the hands of those who would have us believe that we can “have our cake and grow it too”. That we can have Economic Growth—“development”—and environmental integrity at the same time. They reconcile these contradictory goals with self-delusional, trendy oxymorons like “sustainable development” and---my personal favourite—“smart growth”. The NDP has become a party not just about dividing up the economic pie more equitably—but about “growing” the pie too. “Grow the pie to grow the revenues, and increased revenues will allow us to fund and maintain an endless laundry list of social services. Growth is not the problem you see. The problem is that the poorer among us are not in on the action. Apparently the NDP has not heard the terrible news: We’re living on a finite planet.

As I wrote in 2008, when the NDP was led by Jack Layton and the federal Liberals by Stephane Dion,

“In this they are not to be distinguished from any other party. Even the Greens, beneath their rhetoric, are committed to Economic Growth, because their leader Elizabeth May shares Layton, Harper and Dion’s goal of boosting Canada’s population to 40 million plus via immigration (http://www.greenparty.ca/index.php?module=article&view=85). That's right folks. Greens and so-called 'environmentalists' somehow believe that you can add another Metro Toronto to Canada's population every decade without negative ecological impacts! Yeah, and you can eat a liter of ice cream every day and lose weight too. Immigration accounts for two-thirds of the country’s population growth, and it is that, coupled with per capita consumption rates, which drives economic growth. And economic growth is eclipsing wildlife habitat and spurring greenhouse emissions.

No Jack, it’s not about driving Green cars, or building windmills, or retro-fitting houses. It’s about stabilizing our population level, limiting economic growth, and finally establishing what we talked about 35 years ago—a steady-state economy.”

Well that was then and this is now, September of 2015, when the country is in the midst of a federal election campaign. A campaign where, once again, contending leaders employ histrionics and fake outrage to give the impression that each offers the voters a radically different choice than their rivals. And once again, many voters are buying it. Harper is the devil incarnate or he is the one man who can be trusted to guide us through tough economic times. The fate of the world hinges on stopping Stephen Harper or re-electing him. That is what rhetoric can do to peoples’ brains.

But if there is indeed a difference, it is, as Freud would have put it, “the narcissism of small differences”. The differences are so petty that each leader feels obliged to inflate them to stake out a distinctive position. All parties support continued hyper-immigration-driven rapid population and economic growth, but some are careful to couch it those aforementioned oxymoronic euphemisms like "sustainable growth", "sustainable development", and drumbeats, "smart growth" (smart extinctions? smart clear cuts? smart carbon emissions?).
The only difference between the Opposition Parties and Harper's Conservatives is that the former are more adept at Greenwash. Nothing better illustrates this point than the absurd contention of NDP leader Thomas Mulcair that he is committed to getting the oil sands oil to market, but will ensure that it will be extracted and delivered safely and responsibly in accordance with tougher environmental regulations. What Mulcair doesn’t get is that it is not how the oil is procured and shipped to market that is of crucial importance, but the fact that once “marketed” and received, customers are going to actually BURN it. How is Mulcair and his party going to “green” that? And this is the party that accused Stephen Harper of not being serious about tackling climate change.

No doubt Mr. Mulcair took his cue from the newly elected NDP Premier of Alberta, Rachel Notley, who shortly after assuming office this summer, declared that the oil sands project was a “tremendous asset” and an “international showpiece”. That’s quite an abrupt transition for a party that once regarded it as the planet’s most conspicuous environmental blight, and insisted that the oil sands was in reality the “tar” sands. Funny how that works.

Funny, except that Mother Nature is not laughing.

Tim Murray
September 8, 2015

Video and text inside: Recently the Federal Government released another Intergenerational Report. It would be easy to dismiss it as a political stunt. After all the well-known scientist they got to spruik it, Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, has now done just that, correctly lambasting it for its failure to talk about climate change. Any discussion about the future which leaves out climate change is farcical.

And these Reports, first commissioned by Peter Costello, are absolutely a Trojan Horse for the right wing agenda of winding back the social contract, dismantling the benefits achieved in Australia with a lot of blood, sweat and tears over many years, in health, education, and retirement incomes, which make Australia one of the best countries in the world to live in. They run a scare campaign about population ageing designed to convince us that our health, education and retirement incomes systems are not sustainable. Speech by the Hon. Kelvin Thomson, Federal Member for Wills, to the Protectors of Public Lands Annual General Meeting Saturday 18 April 2015

But is the issue of Intergenerational Equity important? Bloody oath it is. Do we want to be remembered as a generation that wrecked the planet and passed on an inheritance and legacy of unemployment, mental health problems, drugs, conflict and terrorism to the next generation? Surely we have an obligation to pass on to our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents gave to us. We do not have a right to trash the joint.

So how are we going so far? Well let's look at deficit and debt, the two Ds, a bit like Daz and Dee from The Block. It is true that we need to balance the books. It is true that leaving behind deficit and debt is unfair to future generations, who have to pick up the interest bill.

It is worth noting that countries with large populations and rapid population growth tend to have greater problems of deficit and debt than smaller countries, or countries with stable populations. Rapid population growth leads to overcrowding and pressure on existing infrastructure. Residents and communities naturally object to this, so in order to head off public objection to rapid population growth governments have to build new infrastructure. This new infrastructure is very expensive, and leads to deficit and debt.

The Queensland academic Jane O'Sullivan points out that maintaining infrastructure in a population growing at 2 per cent doubles, repeat doubles, the infrastructure cost for governments, who have only two percent extra taxpayers to pay for it.

We have seen a classic example of this in Melbourne, with the former State Government secretly locking Victorians into a contract to build a tunnel through Royal Park that would have cost $8 billion. Seriously $8 billion for a tunnel! I recently had Professional Engineers in my office giving this outrageous cost as an example of the way the public sector is being stooged by private consortiums. Victorian taxpayers have dodged a massive financial bullet as a result of the new Victorian Government negotiating an end to this contract. It is remarkable that the Liberal Party and its media and corporate cheer squad have the temerity and audacity to criticise this. To lock Victorians into a multi-billion dollar contract with a secret side note days before an election was the height of contempt for the right of Victorians to democratically decide our future.

It is brazen and shameful that they should criticise an incoming Government for delivering what it promised - no East West Link. The $340 million cost is entirely the responsibility of the Liberal Party for its secret and devious attempt to foist this project on the Victorian people no matter how they voted. Frankly they should pay the money, not ordinary Victorians. At the very least they should hang their heads in shame.

Let me return to the double Ds, deficit and debt. During the good times John Howard and Peter Costello introduced measures which damaged the revenue and pushed up deficit and debt. The fiscal time bombs they left behind for subsequent governments included abolishing tax on superannuation income, cutting capital gains tax in half, introducing the Baby Bonus - now thankfully gone - and ramping up Family Payments.

The Abbott Government has gone down the same path. They reinstated the Howard Government’s fringe benefits tax arrangements for privately owned motor vehicles, which Labor had cancelled, at a cost of $500 million a year. They cancelled Labor's 15 per cent tax on superannuation income over $100,000. This reduced revenue by about $600 million a year. They abolished the carbon price, at a cost of $7.6 billion, and overturned the mining tax. One country which runs a whacking great surplus and has no debt is Norway, which years ago introduced a sovereign wealth fund. People say Norway is fortunate because it has lots of natural resources. And we don't?

The legacy of deficit and debt we are handing down to future generations is not unavoidable. For example we have allowed companies to avoid paying tax on their income.

In one financial year just 10 companies channelled over $30 billion from Australia to Singapore and avoided paying tax in Australia. In that year, 2011-12, an estimated $60 billion in so-called "related party transactions" went from Australia to tax havens. Energy companies have established "marketing hubs" in Singapore, but their principal purpose appears to be as a destination to shift profits in order to pay less tax. A report by the Tax Justice Network estimated annual tax avoidance by the top 200 companies at over $8.4 billion.

And as for infrastructure spending, the property developers who are the beneficiaries of the increased land value that comes from population growth ought to be the ones to pay for the costs of this growth. I support the Labor Government capping Council rates. Pensioners shouldn't be the ones paying for population growth; the beneficiaries should be.

My friends let's now look beyond the double Ds. How are we really going? Is there really intergenerational equity? Not in my book. The opportunities I and my generation had - free tertiary education, lots of job and career opportunities, affordable housing - seem a distant memory for way too many young people. They are now fitted up with an axis of financial evil - job insecurity, housing unaffordability, and student debt.

Job security has declined dramatically. Back in the 1980s well over half a million 15 to 19 year olds had a full time job. By January this year the figure was more like 150,000, an all-time low. There has been a dramatic switch from full-time to part-time employment. Back in 1980 just 20 per cent of workers aged between 15 and 19 were part-timers but the figure is now about 75 per cent.

This might not be a problem if those same young people were also studying and setting themselves up for more secure work once they have improved their skills and qualifications. But this is not happening. Youth unemployment is now at its highest for 17 years. The number of long-term unemployed has risen dramatically in the last seven years, and is now well over double what it was in 2008.

Well-qualified young workers are finding it difficult to break into high-skill jobs. Many young people have to continue their part-time university jobs after they finish their degree. And those who do have jobs have less secure jobs. Three weeks ago the Saturday Age reported a worker who only knew if he had work when he received a text message just 15 minutes before his shift was due to start at a clothing warehouse. As a statement of the bleeding obvious, it is impossible to plan his day or his life around that kind of insecure work. It is a throwback to the work arrangements on the waterfront a hundred years ago, when dock workers would stand in a line waiting to be picked out for a day's work.

The rise of casual, contract and labour hire jobs, with far fewer protections for workers, is a feature of the last 20 years. More than 2 million workers are now engaged as casuals and more than 1 million are contractors or in labour hire.

The personal and social consequences of unemployment and underemployment are negative and long-lasting.

Experts say that young people lose their hope, their health deteriorates, they suffer from depression and anxiety, and they become vulnerable to drugs and crime. Being out of work for long periods can affect physical health, mental health, and future employability. The job market is now also tougher for postgraduates.

Young people are also getting the rough end of the pineapple in relation to housing. Whereas I and my generation had opportunities to buy and live in detached houses, high-rise apartment towers in Central Melbourne are now being built at four times the maximum densities allowed in such crowded cities as New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

These hyper-dense skyscrapers are being built with little regard to the effect on the residents within, or their impact on the streets below, or on neighbouring properties.

And as if these issues aren't big enough, this week a prominent Britain-based international mental health commentator, delivering a public lecture for the Queensland Mental Health Commission, suggested the modern rat race could be making us unhinged! Gregor Henderson said that across the world levels of diagnosed depression and anxiety, and the prescribing of drugs to deal with those conditions, are rising alarmingly. Mr Henderson said there may be a link between the way the modern world is structured and the elements of emotional and psychological distress we are seeing.

He said that if we keep putting such a high value on economic product, this leads to materialism, consumerism and individualism, which are mostly short-term benefits. Our modern style of living is out of synch with our mental and physical wiring.

I certainly think one of the contributors to increasing mental health issues is the loss of our connection with nature. Numerous studies have shown that public open space delivers tangible and important benefits for physical and mental health. Mathew White and colleagues at the University of Exeter Medical School found that people who live in urban areas with more green space tend to report greater wellbeing - less mental distress and higher life satisfaction - than city dwellers who don't have parks, gardens or other green space nearby.

A study from Norway says that health benefits from nature arise from nature's stress reducing effect. Stress, as is well known, contributes to cardiovascular diseases, anxiety disorders and depression. The American biologist E. O. Wilson says that because humans evolved in natural environments and have lived separate from nature only relatively recently in our evolutionary history, we have an innate need to affiliate with other living things. That is why the work of civic-minded groups such as the Protectors of Public Lands is so important, not just for us, but for those who come after us, and I congratulate you on the work that you do to protect our remaining public open spaces.

People aren't just unhappy with their own lives. They're unhappy about the quality of their political leadership as well. One of the defining features of modern political life is a pervasive loss of faith in government's ability to solve problems, or indeed do anything much at all.

Sally Young, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne, says we are living through a lost era of policy making. She says that politicians of today are suffering a crisis of confidence about whether their policy making can make a difference. She contrasts this with the difference made in the 1970s by Gough Whitlam and Malcolm Fraser.

So if we are failing future generations, and I am convinced that we are, what can we do about it? I think employment is one key. We need to get fair dinkum about full employment. Now there are plenty of captains of industry and economists who immediately change the language and the objective of "full employment" to that of "creating jobs". But they are not the same thing at all, even though they may sound similar.

The objective of "creating jobs" is used as cover for the desire to reduce workers’ pay, conditions and rights. It is claimed that reducing these things will increase labour market flexibility and thereby create jobs. It is also used as a battering ram against the environment, with the need to create jobs used to justify all manner of environmental atrocities. We should not agree to surrender pay and conditions or our beautiful and unspoiled environment. This would be the opposite of intergenerational equity.

So how do we achieve full employment then, given its importance? I think five steps are crucial.

First, we should wind back our migrant worker programs, which have skyrocketed in the past decade. In a stable or slowly growing population, workforce ageing will help solve unemployment. As workers retire unemployed workers or young people entering the labour force get job opportunities. This is how things used to be. But when we are running massive permanent and temporary migrant worker programs, the unemployed and young people entering the market find themselves up against ferocious competition from new arrivals. The size of these programs puts us on a treadmill. No matter how fast we create jobs we still have unemployment above 6 per cent. More than 760,000 Australians are out of work, a totally unacceptable figure, and a recipe for drugs, crime, mental health issues, even terrorism. As recently as the year 2000 the then Immigration Minister Phillip Ruddock said that net migration may average out at 80,000 per annum. A funny thing must have happened on the way to the Forum, because his government subsequently increased it to over 200,000 per annum, where it still sits.

Second we should focus on education, skills and training. What has happened to technical and further education is a scandal. Back in 2008 political parties promoted the deregulation of vocational education. 'Contestability', that is competition between the public TAFE Colleges and new private training colleges, became the name of the game. They competed for students and for government subsidies. The idea was that competition would lift standards and be good for students. The result has been the opposite.

Private training colleges have been quite unscrupulous. Their interest has not been in the students, it has been in making money.

They get students in and churn them through. They have no interest in whether the students get the skills they need to find work afterwards. As long as the students, or taxpayers, pay them, they're alright jack.

Private colleges have cherry-picked the most lucrative courses, leaving TAFE to deliver the balance. The creation of a private market in education led to the appearance of education brokers, signing up people outside Centrelink offices with inducements like free laptops. Consumer protection has been inadequate.

And then there is the change towards "competency-based" training. Whatever the virtue of the theory, in practice colleges have put students through courses in a matter of weeks. Quality assurance has been absent. Trainers sign students off as competent, but in practice they are woefully incompetent.

What we can do about this? The Australian Education Union TAFE Division has called for a cap on the funding available to private training providers, with 70% of government funding going to the public TAFE institutes, and TAFEs and private providers able to compete for the remainder. The union is also calling for the abolition of third-party delivery, in which training providers pay external businesses to deliver training courses.

Then there are the universities. We introduced student fees and uncapped student places. Now the Liberal Government wants to deregulate student fees. This would be a disaster. When I went to University there were no fees and places were allocated on the basis of academic merit. If Christopher Pyne succeeds, the system will have been turned on its head. Academic merit and performance will count for nothing. Your capacity to pay large fees, or more commonly your parents’ capacity to do so, will count for everything. How are academic standards and quality expected to survive such an onslaught?

The explosion of international student numbers has damaged the integrity of the system. On Thursday the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption released a damning report which said universities are too financially reliant on international students to fully confront academic incompetence, poor language skills, plagiarism and even bribery. “Students may be struggling to pass, but universities can’t afford to fail them,” the report says.

Education needs to return to being about academic achievement and quality, not making a profit.

Third we need to back science. The 2014-15 Budget cut a staggering $150 million from the science budget, including a $115 million cut to the CSIRO. The CSIRO says these funding cuts will cause the loss of nearly 1400 workers, over 20 per cent of its workforce, including 500 science and research staff. We can't compete with the rest of the world behaving in this short-sighted way. And we should rebuild engineering expertise in government, and insist that companies building infrastructure invest back into the engineering profession, for example through cadetship graduate programs.

Fourth we need to back manufacturing. During the mining boom we acted as if it didn't matter if all our manufacturing went offshore. But to have all our eggs in the mining and agriculture baskets is, once again, foolish and short-sighted. Recent developments around the iron ore price reinforce this. We need a diverse economy, and manufacturing provides good jobs in the middle of society - not rich but not poor. It brings with it research and engineering expertise; the kinds of things that distinguish successful nations from unsuccessful ones. We should be wary of entering into trade agreements that kill off manufacturing and render our economy narrow and vulnerable.

Finally we should back the home team - Australia. Our personal buying habits, our government buying habits, and our foreign takeover laws should support Australian jobs and Australian industry. It is remarkable that when the Victorian Labor government says it is going to use local steel that we have economic commentators saying you can't do that it's a breach of our trade agreements!

We should have food labelling laws that spell out what food is Australian and what is imported, so consumers can make an informed choice. We should not enter into Trade Agreements that contain Investor State Dispute Settlement clauses or other provisions which act as a barrier to governments carrying out the wishes of the electorate on matters like these.

There is much that we can do which will generate full employment, and it needn't involve trashing the environment. But if we don't do it, then future generations will be deprived of the opportunities that so many of us have had. And the big question for us now is, do we want to be remembered as greedy, selfish, ignorant and short-sighted, or remembered as visionary, intelligent, compassionate and generous?

Watch highlights of the Surf Coast Energy Group Forum. The issues of population, climate change and pressures on our bio-diversity are addressed. Kelvin Thomson attended, Prof Ian Lowe was a speaker and the audience was large and varied.

“Every week, groups like ours receive calls from distressed residents, appalled at the conduct of planning in Victoria. People expect clear planning rules, integrity in governance and decisions in the long term public interest. Instead we have a rampant culture of secrecy and non disclosure, conflicts of interest, a perception of favoured access and undue influence, and a risk and perception of corruption.” - Ann Birrell, Vice President of Save Our Suburbs. SOS conducted a survey of Victoria's election candidates on associated matters and found 90 per cent and more support for planning reform. Candobetter.net's editors note that 54% supported wider population debate for a stable population on ecological grounds. The full questionnaire is to be found at https://www.surveymonkey.net/results/SM-9PF3VJPL/ Over 80% of respondents admitted to thinking that Victorians are unhappy about the way Melbourne is developing. Latest update on individual candidate responses can be found on a spreadsheet here: http://sos.asn.au/vic/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/141117-Planning-Survey-of-Candidates-RO.xlsx

A survey of Victoria’s election candidates has found overwhelming support for planning reform across the state and across the political spectrum:

- Over 90% support political donations reform
- Over 90% think that the Planning Minister should publish advice relied on and reasons for decisions
- Over 95% say we need to improve transparency, accountability and integrity

The survey was conducted by Save Our Suburbs and supported by 18 other community groups, representing thousands of concerned Victorians. The results were released on the SOS website today.

"The purpose of the survey is to draw candidates' attention to key planning issues and to provide information for voters.” said Ann Birrell, Vice President of Save Our Suburbs.

“Every week, groups like ours receive calls from distressed residents, appalled at the conduct of planning in Victoria. People expect clear planning rules, integrity in governance and decisions in the long term public interest.

“Instead we have a rampant culture of secrecy and non disclosure, conflicts of interest, a perception of favoured access and undue influence, and a risk and perception of corruption.”

“Candidates from all backgrounds share our concern that planning is out of control in Victoria, from urban to rural electorates and from the far left to the far right of politics.“

“Once in Government both the Liberals and the ALP have a track record of continuing to deregulate our planning and governance system, in complete disregard for the long term public interest of Victorians.

"As a result, we are about to see a fourth Victorian Government lose office.” concluded Ann Birrell.

Live trend results: https://www.surveymonkey.net/results/SM-9PF3VJPL/
Latest update of individual responses: Planning Survey of Candidates November 2014 RO
Link to SOS Report and full Results: http://sos.asn.a

Groups supporting the Survey include:

Save Our Suburbs, Green Wedges Coalition, Protectors of Public Lands, Planning Backlash, Public Transport Users Association, Ratepayers Victoria Inc., Save Albert Park, Yarra River keepers Association, Docklands Community Association, Residents Against Inappropriate Development in Doncaster, Fitzroy Residents Association, West of Elgar Residents Association, East Enders, Western Region Environment Centre, Appropriate Development for Boronia Group, Darebin Appropriate Development Association, Citizens for a Liveable Melbourne, Moreland Planning Action Group

Source: Save Our Suburbs Media Release 17 November 2104

What is a normal response from an environment minister to a straight question to a matter that alarms about 80% of Australians, as even self-styled demographer, Bernard Salt of KPMG admits? [1] Mr Kelvin Thomson, ALP member for Wills, asked Greg Hunt, the Liberal Government Minister for the Environment, whether the Government would consider adopting a stable population policy to avoid new infrastructure imperatives. Minister Hunt responded bluntly that "the answer to the honourable member's question was: No."[2]

Mr Hunt does not seem like much of a Minister for the Environment. And he does not appear to have much interest in democracy. This is the second time he has flouted the public right to accountable policy this year. See also, "Environment Minister Greg Hunt speaks fluent nonsense to Kelvin Thomson on population".

Calls for referendum on population growth

This refusal is particularly flagrant when his own state (Victoria) has recently had two events which resulted in resounding calls for a referendum on halting population growth. These were, "The Big Population Debate", organised by Mary Drost of Planning Backlash on 13 October 2014 and "Must Melbourne Keep Growing", organised by Jill Quirk of Sustainable Population Australia and Victoria First on 14 June 2014.

Before an audience of around 280 people, Mary Drost, Convener of Planning Backlash, commenting that "We the people have never been asked if we wanted a big population," obtained from Kelvin Thomson and Lord Mayor Robert Doyle that they were in favour of a referendum on population growth.

At the equally packed auditorium at the Hawthorne Arts Centre Chandelier Room for the Must Melbourne Keep Growing event, Julianne Bell of Protectors of Public Land, read a motion for a plebiscite on population growth, which was also passed unanimously.

"That this meeting calls on the Victorian government to convene a scientifically based Victorian conference on what constitutes a long term environmentally sustainable population for Victoria, with reference to the Victorian State of the environment reports of 2008 and 2013 indicating environmental damage from current population levels."

Is Mr Hunt so afraid that he can't defend his policies?

Then again, maybe Minister Hunt is simply afraid to open his mouth on the subject. Especially to Mr Thomson, who is awfully well informed about it. At the Big Population Debate, we saw a remarkably courageous or foolhardy Lord Mayor of Melbourne's fire go out like a doused squib at the first encounter with intelligent argument on the subject. Then again, he could have prepared better. Or could he?

It was the Victorian environmentalist, Jill Quirk, who remarked, not so long ago, "I dare anyone to argue the benefits of population growth to ordinary Australians without mentioning cappuccino or using the word 'vibrant'. Indeed, Lord Mayor Doyle returned again and again to the accessibility of a good cup of coffee in contemporary overpopulated Melbourne. Although no-one can actually remember him using the word 'vibrant' - he might have slipped one in somewhere as his arguments grew progressively harder to decipher.

NOTES

[1] Bernard Salt in Straightening out bananas 2010, who is in the business of trying to persuade Australians to embrace the population jugganaut, admits freely to colleagues in the Property Council of Australia that if you polled Australians on 'big Australia' 80% would come back against it.
[2] Minister for the Environment, Greg Hunt, House of Representatives Question No. 0103:
Mr Thomson asked the Minister for the Environment, in writing on 13 May 2014:
Will the Government consider adopting a stable population policy to avoid new infrastructure imperatives?
Mr Hunt: The answer to the honourable member's question is as follows: No. [Dated 25 July 2014]

The Australian Greens state:

“We are a party with a philosophy we stand by, a party with its eyes fixed firmly on caring for people and the environment as we meet the 21st century challenges. No one should be left behind as we embrace the environmental, social and economic opportunities in everything from high-speed rail, high-speed broadband, medical technology, solar power, food production, communication, education and technical innovation.”

The Australian Greens will deliver a caring Australia, a safer climate and a proud global reputation. We are the strong, honest party who will stand up to those who protect their own interests to the detriment of the environment and deny everyone else a fair go. It is the Greens who will stand up for what matters.

Einstein once said that you cannot solve problems with the same mindset that created them. (Quote from Christine Milne)

SOME FACTS

The Greens support 45 million population by 2050 which will increase greenhouse gas emissions by over 90 million tonnes per year.

We produce the highest emissions per capita on earth and the Green plan for addressing this is to continue chaotic expansion of our carbon based economy with a Carbon Tax magic wand to make the fairytale work.

This is a form of pro-Growth extremism that denies reality.

This is the same Population/GDP growth rates that Australia has used since Federation. This is an outdated mindset.

The Greens want to build a population driven, growth-based, economy that defies all the basic rules of sustainability.

The Gillard Carbon Tax was allegedly going to reduce emissions by roughly 60 million tonnes per year.

The Greens seem to think growing the population of Australia at 1.8% per annum (doubling every 40 years) is “Green” when actually it is unsustainable and categorised by numerous "experts" as socially, environmentally and economically destructive.

Once your own environment is destroyed you cannot help others.

The Greens seem to think chaotic expansion at existing extreme growth rates, which are 4 times that of the OECD country average, is a way to achieve disciplined improvement and welfare for all?

They also seem to support deteriorating economic fundamentals driven by extreme population growth – which will directly reduce Australia’s capacity to pay for foreign aid in the future?

Why aren't they calling for a public inquiry? :
Australia requires a public inquiry to determine a basis for the optimum rate of population growth

Note that Mr Abbott's 2010 policy on population growth still amounted to wanting to have his cake and eat it, in the sense of wanting 'sustainability' but growth at the same time. He does say, however, that "Australia needs a population that our services can satisfy, our infrastructure can support, our environment can sustain, our society can embrace, and our economy can employ." Unfortunately he seems to want to leave the judgement of what this is up to the productivity commission, which seems to be entirely incompetent to assess ecological sustainability. Will Mr Abbott toe the line of his political promoter, the Murdoch Press, by keeping Australian targeted for continuing overpopulation, or will he use his big majority to carve out something more democratic? Clive Palmer, probably correctly, described Abbott as a B.A. Santamariaist" on Q & A tonight.

On Tony Abbott's websiste you can read:

"Real Action On Sustainable Population Growth

Posted on Sunday, 25 July 2010

Australia needs a population that our services can satisfy, our infrastructure can support, our environment can sustain, our society can embrace, and our economy can employ.

Australia's population growth since World War II has helped create the prosperity we now enjoy. Successive waves of post-war migration have expanded our capacity as a nation.

Under the Howard Government, our immigration programme enjoyed support from a majority of Australians who were confident that the programme was fair, competently administered, and delivering benefits to the entire community.

Under Labor, migration-fuelled population growth has caused Australians to become increasingly concerned, and to lose confidence in our broader immigration programme.

The hopeless failure of Labor’s border protection regime has further eroded community trust.

Under Labor, net overseas migration has risen to 300,000 people per year, against a long run average of around 140,000 per year. [Candobetter.net editorial comment: Actually it was more like 80,000 per year until Howard ramped it up, but it is true that it has increased even more under Labor - see Graph above, based on Australian Year Books and ABS stats].

At this rate Australia’s population would reach 42.3 million people by 2050, significantly above the earlier Intergenerational Report II (IGR) forecast of 36 million.

As a result, the quality of life for Australians living in our major urban areas today is under great pressure.
Fuelling population growth today must not rob future generations of the quality of life and opportunities we currently enjoy. That is what sustainability is all about.

On the eve of an election, Labor politicians have suddenly started to say they no longer believe in a “big Australia” – while cynically trying to put off any decisions on these issues until after the election.

While Labor may have changed its rhetoric under its new leader, Labor’s policies on immigration or population have not changed.

The Coalition believes it is necessary to ease population growth to deliver more sustainable population levels, based on our present and future capacity, so that our infrastructure, services and environment can catch up.

Unlike Labor, the Coalition’s population and immigration policy is clear.

The Coalition will:

1. Establish ‘Guard Rails’ for Population Growth

The Coalition will set clear parameters for population growth by tasking a renamed Productivity and Sustainability Commission to advise on population growth bands that it considers are sustainable.

This recommendation will provide a Coalition Government with the expert advice necessary to establish the framework for setting migration programmes.

2. Take Real Action on Immigration

The Coalition will reduce Australia’s annual rate of population growth from more than 2 per cent under Labor, to our historical long-run average of 1.4 per cent within our first term.

This will require reducing our annual rate of net overseas migration from 298,924 in 2008/09 to no more than 170,000 per year by the end of our first term.

3. Make a Clear Commitment to Skills Migration and Regional Australia.

The Coalition will ensure that two-thirds of our permanent migration programme will be for the purposes of skilled migration.

A Coalition Government will also quarantine the level of employer nominated skills migration and 457 temporary business visas to at least the levels it inherits. In addition, the Coalition will liberalise arrangements for temporary business visas (457s) subject to clear standards, to make them more accessible to business, especially small businesses, and business in regional areas, with proven skills shortage needs. [= Yes, repeat No? – Mark’s comment]

To address the skills needs of regional areas and small business, the Coalition will encourage the settlement on either a temporary or permanent basis of new arrivals in regional and rural areas.

States such as Queensland and Western Australia will be afforded a high priority for permanent and temporary skilled visa applications.

A Coalition Government would also seek to resettle more entrants from our refugee and humanitarian programme in regional areas, where these resettlement programmes have proved to be highly successful.

4. Establish A Clear and Consultative Process to Restore Control

The Coalition will produce a White Paper on immigration that will reframe the structure and composition of Australia’s immigration programme to address the policy challenges of sustainable population growth.

A Discussion Paper will be released by the end of 2010, with a final paper to be completed by the Coalition’s first Budget in May 2011. This will help inform the composition of the 2011-12 migration programme.

Australians want their government to take control of population and immigration policies to restore confidence and ensure our immigration and population levels are sustainable and in the national interest.

The Coalition’s plan for Real Action on Sustainable Population Growth will restore confidence and re-establish consensus on the benefits of our immigration programme."

"This submission does not follow the suggested response questions but sets out to make comment upon what we see as the necessary strategic planning issues for the future of Melbourne... In our previous submissions on planning, BRAG has pushed for a federal population policy that limits immigration to more sustainable levels like we used to have in the 80’s and 90’s of around the 70,000 to 80,000 p.a. mark and we have not moved away from that stance. The first step in any planning is to have a population policy that is sustainable otherwise planning policy will continue to fail....we believe that the general planning powers must be with local councils who better understand their municipalities and those who live in them. Centralization leads to power and power leads to corruption and this is one of the issues we are now facing with developer donations being used to corrupt decision-making." You may not agree with everything, but it's a pretty impressive democracy submission.

Melbourne Metropolitan Planning Strategy Submission from the Boroondara Residents’ Action Group (BRAG)

The Boroondara Residents’ Action Group has a current membership of over 500, mainly residents and small business operators in Boroondara. BRAG also receives strong support from the general residents of Boroondara.

BRAG is registered under the Associations Incorporation Act 1981 N0 A0054624J
P. O. Box 1034 Camberwell Vic. 3124 www.brag.asn.au [email protected]

Introduction

The Boroondara Residents’ Action Group has been lobbying for a new planning strategy to replace Melbourne 2030 and Melbourne@5million since before the last state election but the discussion paper is a big disappointment because it provides little in setting a strategic direction or evaluated options.

Therefore this submission does not follow the suggested response questions but sets out to make comment upon what we see as the necessary strategic planning issues for the future of Melbourne. Any planning for the future must be accepted by key interest groups but most importantly by the residents and general citizens of Melbourne. Otherwise it will fail, just as M2030 did, because the residents and general public were not really consulted so they had no ownership of M2030 or M@5Million.

The Ministerial Advisory Committee has indicated that we must move away from regulation as the primary means of achieving outcomes, which is very concerning, as that would leave planning and construction in the hands of developers who would act in their own interests and not in the interests of the end users, the residents of Melbourne.

The Committee has listed some principles including a Polycentric city linked to regional cities which could be developed further to provide a more realistic planning direction but the Committee has accepted that Melbourne’s population will continue to grow without any indication that it is the escalating growth that is part of the problems we are now facing, overloaded infrastructure, unacceptable housing densification, water and power issues, public transport issues, traffic issues, etc.

In our previous submissions on planning, BRAG has pushed for a federal population policy that limits immigration to more sustainable levels like we used to have in the 80’s and 90’s of around the 70,000 to 80,000 p.a. mark and we have not moved away from that stance. The first step in any planning is to have a population policy that is sustainable otherwise planning policy will continue to fail.

We recommend that the principles set out in *Kelvin Thomson’s 14 point plan are seriously considered and we understand that this is really a federal issue but unless the state governments start a push to review the current policies nothing will change.
( *Kelvin Thomson is the Federal Member for Wills and a copy of his 14 point plan is attached)

Recommendations For a Planning Policy for Melbourne

One of the key issues that residents are concerned with is protection

- for Melbourne’s leafy green suburbs and the increasing amount of opportunistic development that is changing the character of their tree-lined streets. Therefore any plan must contain mandatory protection of neighbourhood character and mandatory height controls set by the local councils after consultation with their local residents.

- Any proposed new suburb in future must first have the necessary infrastructure before any housing is built including roads, drainage, sewerage, water and power, shopping centre, social amenities and transport links.

- A detailed plan to upgrade existing public transport to meet immediate and future needs in Melbourne including a rail link to the eastern suburbs and to existing and any new airports

- A detailed plan to capture and recycle suburban rainwater and build local water storage and distribution capabilities.

- Plan for reducing our dependency upon building houses to keep the economy going and introduction of hi-tech industries and intellectual products – bring back the “clever country concept”.

- Decentralization should be one of the main objectives of any planning policy. In Victoria there are opportunities to create regional cities with one initially in the east of the state where there are resources for power and water and one in the west where there are several suitable sites such as Hamilton or Warrnambool.

- We believe there should also be a plan to develop in the future another major city in Victoria of about 1 million ( or more) and, because Portland has the potential to develop a natural harbour, it should be investigated now as a possible site.

Note : regionalization, with good planning by establishing smaller cities using cheaper land tax and other exemptions, can be surprisingly inexpensive and would strike at the cause of our current urban problems. First build the infrastructure then the people will follow. Fast trains linking to Melbourne will be essential.

- There have been many suggestions, mainly from those in the planning profession, to centralize planning. However we believe that the general planning powers must be with local councils who better understand their municipalities and those who live in them. Centralization leads to power and power leads to corruption and this is one of the issues we are now facing with developer donations being used to corrupt decision-making.

- It will be essential that VCAT be returned to be an appeal body on planning issues ( partly because tribunal members are generally planners or architects who’s professions rely upon the development industry for their income and their decisions continually go against councils and resident objectors). VCAT should only be able to adjudicate on whether or not council has made its decision properly based on its own and government regulations and procedures, VCAT should not be able to act as an “Authorized Authority”. This would return some sanity to issuing planning permits.

- Currently planning permits can be rolled over for a further period and are often traded on sale of the property, which places a value on the permit and makes the property more easily tradeable. Very often large profits are made by such trading. This is undesirable and should be stopped.

Finally

Currently planning has been ad hoc and continually changing depending upon the government of the day. This will be the sixth strategic plan for Melbourne in the last 25 years plus many minor planning changes which does nothing for certainty. (That means there are real changes about very four years).

Over this period public consultation has been token and inadequate resulting in planning decisions being heavily criticized by the public. We note that members of the Ministerial Advisory Committee consulted with many who were listed at the back of the discussion paper “Melbourne, Let’s talk about the future” but not one resident or resident group. This is damning but not surprising because that is how it has always been.

It looks to us that nothing has changed. The professionals seem to be saying “we know best” but do they? We don’t think so for in all that time they still haven’t got it right.

Jack Roach
President Boroondara Residents’ Action Group.

In Summary.
Any planning policy must contain pointers to the following :-

- A plan made in concert with the federal government for developing a sensible population policy.
(To continue to support population growth in our cities makes no sense when we don’t have enough water, power, public transport or adequate health systems, police, etc to cope with the current population numbers).

- A similar plan made in concert with the federal government for a workable policy on climate change & environmental issues in conjunction with the population policy
- Ensure honest and genuine community consultation processes in developing a new metro strategy. ( Didn’t happen for M2030 or M@5Million).

As well as developing a new planning blueprint for Melbourne it is essential for consultation on a new planning blueprint for coastal areas and consultation on a new planning blueprint for country areas

- Regionalization policy which should include broadband rollout for home office connection and improved train and fast train services.
- A plan for a future airport to service the eastern growth corridor and the Mornington Peninsular.
- Remove dependency upon development as the only way to keep the economy going.(Strengthen manufacturing base toward hi tech. industries and intellectual products. Bring back the “Clever Country” concept).
- Scrap Melbourne 2030. and Melbourne@5million.
- Positively protect heritage.
- Protect suburban residential from opportunistic infill development Return planning power to Councils. (Centralized planning V each council having its own say must be in balance). Melbourne is like a giant tapestry with each area having its own character with different requirements and different demographics. Ensure that the Minister for Planning’s plan for new residential zones is enacted to protect the residential suburbs from opportunistic development through his Neighbourhood Character policies.

- Retain third party rights - to be notified, object & appeal.
- Councils to set and control zones in their own municipality.
- Councils to set height controls.
- Councils to identify where any development should occur
- Review Urban Growth Boundaries to ensure they are permanent
- Convert VCAT to an appeal body only.
- Restrict VCAT from acting as a planning authority.
- Limit areas for high-rise development.
- Provide positive plan for protecting public land and open space.
- Provide guidelines for better designed student accommodation complexes that blend with existing residential areas & amenity rather than the current future ghettos that overpower the local area especially in university precincts.

Other suggestions that are not directly related but must be included in policy:

- A Corruption Commission that has the real power to work properly.
- No Political donations (for access and/or favours – especially from developers).
- The role of paid lobbyists must be removed.

Kelvin Thomson’s 14 point plan.
Condensed from a recent speech made to the Malvern East Group.

A lot of people have agreed with me that a population of 36 million is not a good thing for Australia - opinion polls show 2 out of 3 think it is a bad idea. People don’t want it. But a lot of people think it is inevitable, that there is nothing we can do about it. This is simply not true. As I said earlier, the population number we end up with depends on our net overseas migration numbers.

So to show there is an alternative, in November 2009 I released a plan for population reform, a plan to stabilise Australia’s population :

- Stabilise Australia’s population at 26 million by cutting the net overseas migration program to 70,000 p.a.
- Cut the skilled migration program to 25,000 p.a.
- Hold the family reunion program at 50,000 p.a.
- Increase the refugee program from 13,500 to 20,000 per annum.
- Alter the refugee criteria to include provision for genuine climate refugees.
- The revised number of annual permanent arrivals from these programs would be 95,000 – 50,000 family reunion plus 25,000 skilled plus 20,000refugees. Two more factors need to be considered, the number departing permanently from Australia and the number of people arriving permanently from New Zealand. To reach a net overseas annual migration target of 70,000, the number of automatic places available for New Zealanders needs to be restricted to the number of departures from Australia over and above 25,000.
- Reduce temporary migration to Australia by restricting sub class 457 temporary entry visas to medical and health related and professional engineering occupations.
- Require overseas students to return to their country of origin and complete a 2 year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence.
- Abolish the baby bonus.
- Restrict large family supplement and Family tax benefit A for third and subsequent children to those presently receiving them.
- Dedicate the savings from the baby bonus and reduced expenditure on family payments fro 3rd and subsequent children towards increased investment in domestic skills and training through universities and TAFE
- the final 3 points go to increasing aid to the U.N. and using aid budget to educating girls for better family planning and putting overpopulation on the agenda for International Climate Change talks.

US Fiscal Cliff
Friday 4th January 2012/ac
In November 2012 an astonishing 47.7 million Americans were receiving taxpayer funded food stamps but the United States government still imports over 1million immigrants a year - and those are the legal ones.

Comments can be made on the original blog which was republished here from http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/us-fiscal-cliff.html

The US fiscal cliff has been avoided, but the fundamental problems are alive and well. The US Budget continues to go deeper and deeper into unsustainable debt, and US society has a depressing level of real poverty and inequality.

As of November 2012 an astonishing 47.7 million Americans were receiving taxpayer funded food stamps. One in four American children is on food stamps, and it is projected that half of all American children will be on food stamps at least once before they turn 18.

The US Census Bureau says the number of Americans living in poverty increased to a record high of 49.7 million last year- an increase of about 6 million in just the past 4 years.

Remarkably, instead of prioritising finding jobs and opportunities for Americans of all backgrounds who are living in poverty, the US Congress imports 100,000 migrants into the US every 30 days- over 1 million a year. It is a recipe for ongoing misery, poverty, and a massive infrastructure- driven national debt which continues to be a burden to both the US and the global economy.

Kelvin Thomson MP
Federal Labor Member for Wills

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”.

Policy Objective: a) To ensure our continent’s long-term sustainability, we aim to first stabilise then reduce Australia’s population to an ecologically sustainable level... Inside read the Democrats' new population policy for Australia and a comment from the Senior Deputy National President, Darren Churchill.

In response to my article, "Growth lobby finally devours Australian Democrats?" here: Darren Churchill, Senior Deputy National President, Australian Democrats, wrote: "Your article asks, "Whatever happened to the Democrats' Population Policy?" Well, after some years without a proper population policy (although population was still referred to in our Immigration and Environment Policies and our party objectives) the Australian Democrats balloted a new Population Policy in May this year. it has been hailed by many as our "best Population Policy ever!" See it here: http://www.democrats.org.au/policies/pdf/Population.pdf."

I'll allow your readers to make their own assessment of the connection of our strongly balloted policy and the stories of the last couple of days."

Here it is below, to save readers looking up the pdf:

Australian Democrats Population Policy

THE ISSUE

1. As a consequence of human impacts, Australia faces serious environmental degradation and resource constraints which continue to be exacerbated by a growing population, increased per capita consumption and inefficiencies.
2. Population growth reduces our ability to preserve our unique biodiversity and places strains on our economy, infrastructure and housing supply.
3. A growing population puts more pressure on us to find new ways of ‘keeping up’ with material demands that are one of the highest per capita in the world.
4. Population growth does not necessarily create wealth, despite the claims of the development lobby, and it certainly does not improve national well-being.

POLICY OBJECTIVES

a) To ensure our continent’s long-term sustainability, we aim to first stabilise then reduce Australia’s population to an ecologically sustainable level.
b) To restrain population growth in a way that is equitable to all, is in keeping with the environment’s capacity to sustain human numbers and that acknowledges Australia’s international human rights obligations.
c) To support families in making decisions about family size so that additional stresses are not placed on our unique environment, long-term agricultural productivity or infrastructure.
POLICY ELEMENTS

The Australian Democrats will work towards:

i. Creating a formalised system whereby immigration intakes are determined as a result of trends in key indicators of sustainability.
ii. Decoupling the business visa class immigration programme from market demand, and instead introducing an annual quota system congruent with key indicators of sustainability (when considered with Policy Element iii).
iii. Doubling the numbers in our humanitarian visa class.
iv. Expanding programmes promoting gender equality, empowerment and opportunities for women, and welfare services so that the aged are less reliant on their dependents to financially support them, both at home and in our international development programmes.
v. Expanding programmes that make all family planning options cheaper and more accessible to anyone who may choose them.
vi. Expanding programmes that provide retraining and support the 1.5 million long-term underemployed, unemployed and disadvantaged back into the workforce.
vii. Limiting baby bonus/family leave provisions and diverting the resources to education, family planning and foreign aid.

Official Australian Democrats Policy – as balloted 25 May 2012
Humanity ? Sustainability ? Prosperity ? Democracy Page 1 of 1
Authorised by: Darren Churchill, 29 Brunswick Circuit, Kaleen, ACT, 2617

A Michigan State University study has found that for each 1% increase in population, emissions increase by a bit more than a 1% increase in most nations. If Australia did not grow its population then by 2020 there would be almost no increase in carbon emissions. The Stable Population Party of Australia has called upon the Labor Government and the Greens to explain how their support for rapid population growth is consistent with attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – or admit it’s just green-wash.

The Stable Population Party http://www.populationparty.org.au was formally registered by the Australian Electoral Commission on 23 Sep 2010. The party will stand candidates in every state and territory at the next federal election.

"Carbon tax just abating emissions of six million extra people:" Stable Population Party

Australia’s record population growth of six million people (or 30%) from 2000 to 2020 makes Labor’s carbon emissions reduction target of 5% in the same period implausible and disingenuous.

In the lead up to World Population Day on July 11, a review of population growth and carbon emissions has confirmed a direct correlation. Michigan State University’s Thomas Dietz outlines in Nature Climate Change that, “Looking at most nations during the last few decades we find that for each 1% increase in population, we get a bit more than a 1% increase in emissions.”

Professor Bob Birrell of the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University Monash agrees that population and carbon emissions are inextricably linked.

“In the absence of population growth to 2020, there would be very little growth in emissions in Australia, making it far easier to achieve the 5% reduction target, with or without a carbon tax. The current big Australia population growth means there’s virtually no chance,” said Professor Birrell.

Carbon emissions rise in line with population numbers

“Carbon emissions historically rise in line with population. What’s clear is that the government must first address the population question if it is to manage the carbon emissions issue. Increasing population whilst trying to cut carbon emissions is like trying to empty the bath with the tap running,” said William Bourke, Founder and President of the federally registered Stable Population Party.

He added that a 5% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in 2000 to 27.3 tonnes per head in 2020 could have been achievable with or without a carbon tax. Now, however, due to record population growth of 6 million people (or 30%) from 2000 to 2020, Australia needs to reduce our per capita emissions to around 21 tonnes per head. This implies a 27% per capita decrease just to get a 5% total decrease.

"If 27% is anywhere near achievable, imagine what we could do with a stable population!" enthused Mr Bourke. He explained that a stable population is a basis of Europe’s 2020 target to at least 20% below 1990 emissions.

Imagine how much lower Europe's emissions will be than Australia's in 2050 after the European baby-boomers have died if Europe continues on its low immigration policy and Australia continues its high immigration policy.

“More people means more carbon emissions, and a carbon tax without real environmental gain," said William Bourke.

"Under the Labor/Greens scheme the carbon tax is effectively a population growth tax – and a zero-sum game. As one of the highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases in the world, it is critical that we play a role in stabilising our population and reducing our total emissions. The Stable Population Party supports action to reduce emissions and promote energy efficiency, but a stable population with a united global solution is vital. Without this we are simply exporting jobs."

Mr Bourke called upon Labor and The Greens to explain how their support for rapid population growth is consistent with attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – or admit it’s just green-wash.

“A stable population would help lower carbon emissions and ensure a more sustainable use of the Earth’s resources,"

he concluded.

The Stable Population Party Australia is reaching out to members and sympathisers in a series of networking events across Australia. Should be interesting and fun to meet like-minded people and help to organise a coordinated electoral response to the growth lobby that has taken over our country. (Candobetter Ed.)

Invitation to all sympathisers

A message from William Bourke, National Convenor of Stable Population Party of Australia:

We'd like to welcome members and non-member supporters to Stable Population Party networking events across Australia.
These social events present a great opportunity to engage with like-minded people on sustainability and population matters.

Each event will run for around 3 hours & include:

- Party update
- Opportunity to meet current candidates
- Opportunity to meet state coordinators to discuss policies, campaign support and expressions of interest in candidature
- Opportunity to purchase lunch/dinner & beverages

Details:

NSW

12pm on Saturday 2 June @ Edinburgh Castle Hotel, Sydney (L1, Lounge Bar):

http://www.edinburghcastlehotel.com.au

Queensland

6pm on Friday 8 June @ E'cco Bar, Brisbane:

http://www.eccobistro.com/ecco-bar.html

Victoria

12pm on Saturday 16 June @ Richmond Club Hotel, Richmond (L1, Balcony Bar):

http://www.richmondclubhotel.com.au

WA

12pm on Saturday 23 June @ The Court Hotel:

http://www.thecourt.com.au

ACT

12pm on Sunday 24 June @ The Kingston Hotel (Red Room):

73 Canberra Avenue, Kingston

For planning purposes, please RSVP ASAP by replying to this eNews or contact us through our website: CLICK HERE

Networking events: NT, SA & Tas

Would you like to attend a networking event in Darwin, Adelaide or Tasmania in July?

If so please contact us ASAP to express your interest. You can reply to this eNews or contact us through our website: CLICK HERE

Your support is vital...

Our grassroots community party relies on its members and supporters to make these events a success. We look forward to seeing you there!

Kind regards

William Bourke
National Convenor
On behalf of the national committee
STABLE POPULATION PARTY
www.populationparty.org.au

Like us on Facebook:
www.facebook.com/populationparty

Follow us on Twitter:
www.twitter.com/populationparty

"There is one announcement in the budget which I cannot in all good conscience overlook and with which I strongly disagree. The government has increased the permanent migrant worker program from 125,000 to over 129,000. This is heading in absolutely the wrong direction. We should be cutting the number of migrant workers, returning it to the level it was in the mid-1990s —around 25,000. This is because, firstly, Australia has big cost-of-living and congestion problems arising from our rapid population growth, and increases the number of foreign workers only makes these problems worse." Kelvin Thomson - see last four paras this article.

Speech by Kelvin Thomson, Monday, 21 May 2012, House of Representatives, recorded in Hansard, p.96.

Mr KELVIN THOMSON (Wills) (19:34): I rise to speak in support of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2012-2013 and cognate bills, which help create a budget that continues the Australian government's tradition of sound economic management, assisting those who are most in need and supporting those sections of the economy struggling under the pressures of a high exchange rate and a two-speed economy.

This budget has taken the tough decisions needed to balance the books. Its core theme of economic responsibility stands in stark contrast to the shamelessly shallow budget reply delivered by the Leader of the Opposition—an unflattering commentary both on his economic illiteracy and on the quality of modern-day political debate where spin doctors come up with one single proposal designed to occupy the airwaves for 30 seconds and draw attention away from the absence of any serious, detailed, costed budget alternative. On this occasion it was the proposal regarding languages other than English, but frankly it could have been anything. Anything will suffice so long as it distracts attention from the total absence of numbers in the opposition leader's response—a budget reply without numbers or figures. It reminded me of the pub with no beer!

The opposition leader treats the Australian people as fools prepared to trust him as Prime Minister without the faintest idea of which government programs and benefits he would keep and which ones he would axe. The opposition leader's budget reply shows the Liberal Party is still besotted by the free market and globalisation. But, as John Quiggin has identified in his book Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us, the assumptions behind neoclassical economics have been laid bare by the global financial crisis. The extra investment generated by more favourable tax treatment is supposed to be allocated efficiently so as to produce higher rates of long-term economic growth, but the economic crisis has shown that success was built on sand. Much of the extra investment went into real estate or into speculative ventures that collapsed when the bubble burst. Having cut taxes drastically, governments were left with inadequate financial resources to convince now-cautious investors that their bonds were a safe investment. More generally, the global financial crisis has exposed the view that incomes accruing to different groups in the community are an accurate reflection of their marginal contribution.

The opposition leader talked about deficit and debt.
He did not tell us that Howard government policies resulted in the spending of 94 per cent of a $330 billion increase in tax revenue from 2004-05 from the mining boom mark 1. This in turn forced the hand of the Reserve Bank, which pushed interest rates higher to contain inflation.

The opposition leader raised the deficits of the past four years. Again, he conveniently overlooked the global financial crisis, and the effective measures undertaken by the government to protect Australia from that crisis. The OECD has found that Australia's fiscal stimulus measures were amongst the most effective in the OECD in terms of stimulating economic activity and supporting employment. The Nobel Prizewinning economist Joseph Stiglitz lauded the Labor government's stimulus spending, saying:

Not only was it the right amount, it was extraordinarily well structured, with careful attention to what would stimulate the economy in the shorter run, the medium term and the long term.

When I look around the world, it was, I think, probably the best-designed stimulus program in the world and you should be happy that in fact it worked in exactly the way it was designed to work.

In fact we are in a better budgetary position today than we would have been had unemployment risen, as it would have done had Joe Hockey been Treasurer.

The budget is in better shape than it would have been because the largest item on the revenue side—the pay-as-you-go taxes—has defied the trend of falling revenue. Personal tax collections are, in fact, stronger today than Treasury thought they would be at the depths of the GFC panic in early 2009.

The opposition talks about net public debt. The budget papers outline that net public debt will peak in 2011-12 at 9.6 per cent of gross domestic product. Most countries, and every large Western economy, would love this result. By comparison the average net debt position of the major advanced economies is expected to be around 93 per cent of GDP in 2016 and 2017. Our public debt is trivial compared to the OECD average.

Other countries would love to be in our shoes.

The strength of our public finances is a key reason behind Australia receiving a AAA credit rating with a stable outlook from all three major rating agencies for the first time in our history. We are one of only eight countries that currently meet this standard. Returning to surplus sends a strong message of confidence to the est of the world during a period of heightened global uncertainty.

I want to particularly welcome those initiatives that support manufacturing, invest in the nation's universities and enhance skills training. The pattern of growth in the Australian economy is uneven, with the resources and resource related parts of the economy growing strongly. Business investment as a percentage of GDP is expected to reach a record, with companies planning to invest $120 billion in the resources sector in 2012-13, or around 150 per cent more than two years ago. The resources and resources-related sectors of the economy are likely to average growth of nearly nine per cent per year over the next two years, accounting for 15 to 20 per cent of total GDP. Let me note in passing that this makes a nonsense of those predictions of doom and gloom in the mining and resources sector over the mining tax and the carbon price made by some big mining businesses and their Liberal and National Party puppets.

In stark contrast, the non-mining part of the Australian economy is forecast to expand at an average annual rate of just two per cent over the same period.

Manufacturing

Manufacturing is facing challenging conditions, which I know of first hand from the recent pressures on components manufacturers in my own seat of Wills. Manufacturing employed 997,000 Australians in November 2010, but this fell to 945,000 by November 2011, a fall of over 50,000 workers or over five per cent of the industry's workforce.

Although the relative decline of Australian manufacturing has been a multidecade trend, its contraction has accelerated in recent years. Eighty-six thousand manufacturing jobs were lost between mid-2001 and mid-2011. It would appear the loss of manufacturing jobs is gathering pace. Total employment in the industry fell below one million in May 2010 for the first time in decades. Of the 86,000 net jobs lost in the industry in the past decade, 69,000 were lost between February and August last year. This is a troubling picture. The decline in manufacturing's share of employment has been more rapid in Australia than in most other developed countries.

The ACTU has concluded that it is conceivable that Australia will soon have fewer workers employed inmanufacturing, as a proportion of total employment, than any other developed country. I regard it as incredibly important that we stop this from happening.

There has been plenty of research to show that manufacturing is essential for economies.
Manufacturing provides better-paid jobs, on average, than service industries, is a big source of innovation, helps to reduce trade deficits and creates opportunities in the growing 'clean' economy, such as recycling and green energy. These are all good reasons for a country to engage in it.

Technological innovation is important to growth in manufacturing. Advances in computer integrated manufacturing can increase productivity by saving businesses time. Increased efficiency is not the only benefit of computer integrated manufacturing.
In addition, Australian innovators can license their technology for local or overseas use. Improvements in CIM can also reduce geographic constraints, allowing Australian companies to operate more effectively through global supply chains. The NBN is an important development for further improvements to compute integrated manufacturing.

In the budget the Australian government has recognised the importance of innovation in manufacturing by investing $30 million over four years to establish a Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre to bring our brightest researchers and manufacturers together to drive innovation through new and improved industrial products and processes.

It will establish sectoral collaboration to support major manufacturers, small and medium enterprises, industry bodies and research agencies to create solutions in their production lines. It will help them realise new market opportunities through harnessing new technologies, business processes and technical knowledge.

The Manufacturing Technology Innovation Centre is consistent with the Prime Minister's Taskforce on Manufacturing, and demonstrates this government's commitment to facilitating the transition of manufacturing to 21st century technologies and processes. This stands in stark contrast to the opposition, who would pull the rug from underneath the manufacturing sector and allow it to wither and die.

Manufacturing is important to our economy. Without the initiatives of the Labor government, the high Australian dollar will see manufacturing continue to retreat, and we will end up with a two-state economy.

Queensland and Western Australia will benefit from the mining boom, but other states, like my state of Victoria, will not.

The ACTU has concluded that it is conceivable that The budget's $714 million loss carry-back scheme will Australia will soon have fewer workers employed in help support businesses that are not in the mining fast lane of the economy. In 2012-13, companies will be able to carry back losses incurred in that year of up to $1 million so they get a refund against tax previously paid. From 2013-14, companies will be able to carry back losses for two years. This means a manufacturing, tourism, education, retail and construction business which is currently profitable and paying tax will know that, if it undertakes investments in 2012-13 that initially result in a loss, they will get a tax refund of up to $300,000 when they lodge their 2012-13 tax return.
This measure will provide assistance to nearly 110,000 companies.

Higher education teaching and learning will also see an increased funding commitment, of $38.8 billion over four years from 2012-13. Government funding to the university sector in 2011 was around 30 per cent higher than in 2007. Training more students will help Australia meet emerging skills shortages and deliver a highly skilled, productive and innovative workforce.

Immigration

There is one announcement in the budget which I cannot in all good conscience overlook and with which I strongly disagree. The government has increased the permanent migrant worker program from 125,000 to over 129,000. This is heading in absolutely the wrong direction. We should be cutting the number of migrant workers, returning it to the level it was in the mid-1990s —around 25,000. This is because, firstly, Australia has big cost-of-living and congestion problems arising from our rapid population growth, and increases the number of foreign workers only makes these problems worse.

Secondly, it is not true that we are short of workers.
We have 600,000 people out of work, and the budget papers indicate that unemployment will go to 5.5 per cent this year—that is, it will rise. Furthermore, it is government policy—and I totally support it—to lift our workforce participation rate, bringing people who are presently on pensions into the workforce. We are short of jobs rather than short of people. The idea that we are short of workers is wrong.

To give the House an example of what I am on about, there has been a debate between Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart about where workers for their mining companies should come from. Gina Rinehart wants to bring them in from overseas. Andrew Forrest wants to find local workers, particularly Aboriginal workers. I think Andrew Forrest is right and Gina Rinehart is wrong. But, for as long as we continue to run a massive program of migrant workers—permanent migrant worker numbers are up from 24,000 in 1996 to over 129,000 now, and temporary migrant worker numbers are up from less than 40,000 a decade ago to more than 90,000 last year—Gina Rinehart's view will prevail, and the mines will employ foreign workers, not local ones.

In conclusion, the 2012-13 budget spreads the benefits of the mining boom to help families on low and middle incomes with the cost of living and provide much needed help to small business while still balancing the books as we need to do. This budget also supports businesses in meeting the challenges and opportunities of the mining boom through a loss carry-back reform, while support for skills training and our universities will help us adapt to the structural changes in our economy and facilitate innovation. It continues the foundation for lower inflation and lower interest ates than we had under the opposition, and lower unemployment than we would have if they were to be returned to government. I commend the bills to the House.

Kelvin Thomson's home page.

You might wonder why city staff in towns like Campbell River, Courtenay, and Nanaimo, BC or 500 other localities across the land are threatened with disciplinary action if they leak information about the hidden pro-growth agendas of their "employers"--the mayors and town councillors. Well, here is the context. Regional planners, under the direction of their political overlords---the proxies of developers----are trying to shove tens of thousands more people into the North Vancouver Island region. And they don't want people get wind of it, or at least to grasp the full implications of their devious plans. Sound familiar? It should. What is transpiring here is transpiring across Canada and the continent of North America--and elsewhere. New subdivisions are sprouting up all over the map in place of greenbelts, woodlands and marshes and the people have little say in the matter.

Fake environmentalists facilitate growth whilst pretending to 'manage' growth

The most frustrating thing about this development is that fake environmentalists are able to pose as the peoples' champions in resisting this imposition. But their issue is not with population growth, which they contend is inevitable, but with "sprawl"---even though at least half of sprawl is driven by population growth and not by poor land-use planning (cf. "Outsmarting Smart Growth" by Kolankiewicz, Beck and Camarotta). They want to 'manage' growth and steer it away from farmland, while packing the unending stream of newcomers into tighter and denser lots alongside existing residents, who are encouraged to surrender their living space in the interests of food security and the environment. Thus people are presented with a false antithesis. Either accept growth with sprawl or so-called 'smart' growth without it. The local NDP, Greens and environmentalists tell people that population growth is something not in their jurisdiction, that immigration (or child benefits) policy is a federal matter and that nothing can prevent inter-provincial migration as guaranteed under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In other words, growth out of their hands. Yet which political parties receive top marks from the Sierra Club? The federal Greens and the federal NDP. And what is their immigration policy? To increase the absurdly high immigration intake quota of the Harper Government by 25%, while matching or besting its pro-natalist programs.

Guilt and the Outdoor Living Channel

This is the pretend-game that enviromental NGOs play. Either population growth is not controllable, or even if it is, they have nothing to do with it--- and in any case, it has little bearing on environmental degradation, whether farmland or species loss, or GHG emissions. "It's not whether we grow", they argue, "but how we grow". Sprawl can be cured by good planning. Just squeeze tighter in the sardine can so that incoming migrants can snuggle up to you. And above all, feel guilty about having extra space in the backyard for your son to play in or a nature trail at the end of your block to take your dog. If it is nature that you want, well, you can get that on the Outdoor Living Channel, can't you?

Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth

Let me confess that whether it is the white-flight "Freedom 55s" from Alberta or California, or people from across the world, I've never felt lonely enough to want them living under my nose, and neither do most of us who chose our 'low-density" lifestyle. Some may call that selfish, I call it a human right. Is it my demand for space that is unreasonable, or the demand that I accept as reasonable a human population level that is 250% higher now than when I was born? Why are we being forced to accept population growth? One principal reason. Population growth is thought to be a necessary agent of economic growth, our Great God. The myth that continued economic growth is necessary, desirable, inevitable or even possible remains our major stumbling block, the first domino of misconceptions that must fall before we can reclaim any semblance of the quality of life that we once enjoyed. We are in a foot race with Mother Nature. If we don't stop growth, she will stop us. Time is almost up. Don't let the Pied Pipers of Fake Environmentalism lead you down a futile path. Fight growth, not the symptoms of growth.

Tim Murray

Male Gang-Gang Cockatoo under threat in Hornsby and Ku-ring-gai from encroaching Sydney urban sprawl. © Ian Montgomery, Birdways

Australia's greatest social, environmental and economic problems are 'root (cause) driven' by immigrated (human) overpopulation.

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) is putting unsustainable pressures on Australia's economy (demand driving higher prices, interest rates, raising the cost of living, reducing housing affordability, unemployment, record consumerism driving import demands and a spiralling trade deficit.

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) are putting unsustainable pressures on Australian urban society (creating ethnic enclaves, fueling racism, causing road congestion, overloading public infrastructure - water supply, energy, hospitals, roads, schools, childcare etc).

Human overpopulation (from immigration and record migrant births) is putting unsustainable pressures on Australia's environment (river flows, sprawl destroying bushland and killing off wildlife, sprawl invading arable land).

Perhaps Sydney's Gang Gang Cockatoo deserves to be made symbolic of the environmental harm driven by the pressures of excessive immigrated population sprawl. An endangered Gang Gang Cockatoo population is found in forested gullies in Sydney's northern suburbs. It is threatened with extinction by encroaching urban development resulting in clearing of forest and woodland habitat for more human housing. [DEC]. The Gang Gang surely has a supreme moral right to be protected from extinction than the rights of invading humans.

Yet both Gillard's Federal Labor & Abbott's Federal Liberal talk of 'sustainable population' is mere hollow headline spin. Both are committed to economic growth, because they know no better.
Both are committed to encouraging skilled immigration because if is a cheaper bandaid measure for industries not prepared to invest in local vocational training. Both have deceitfully chosen a joint campaign of media distraction on a miniscule refugee issue.

Both are only using the phrase 'sustainable population' as a slogan for vote catching.
The LibLabs have become irrelevant.

The Greens immigration policy is mainly about encoyraging more asylum seekers and vaguely "support(s) skilled migration programs that do not drain critical skills from other countries and do not substitute for training or undermine wages and conditions in Australia."

The Nationals are just adopting a combined Coalition policy - committed to blind economic growth, a vague interpretation of what 'sustainable population means and a nominal reduction in annual immigration from 2% to 1.4% (170,000 p.a.) while "liberalising" arrangements for temporary business visas (457s).

So where are there immigration policies for Australia that seriously address the problem and subsequent immigration harm being caused? My own policy would be to effect an absolute moratorium for 24 months, during which time an independent commission assesses the triple bottom line (TBL) impacts and establishes true TBL targets and maxims for (1) population, (2) immigration, (3) supply minimums on a per capita basis for TBL outcomes - e.g. infrastructure minimums like '1 hospital bed per 5000 people' within a 30 minute car journey, etc. Such maxims set quantifiable limits on Australian social, environmental and economic values.

Of all the currently registered political parties in Australia, only the following have a serious policy committed to reducing Australian immigration:

Australia First Party (NSW) Incorporated

Australia First immigration policy reads:

"Australia First Party agrees with the notion that our primary reason for immigration should be based on Australia's need, i.e., the only justification for immigration is net value to Australia. We will make sure that immigration takes into account social cohesion, employment opportunities, urbanisation and environmental issues.

Our policy on immigration is "zero net" which means the number of immigrants we will allow in each year will equal the number of people permanently leaving Australia per year."

One Nation

One Nation's immigration policy reads:

"To restrict immigration except that related to investment and for this to continue at least until Australia’s unemployment crisis is resolved."

Secular Party of Australia

Although not advocating reduced immigration, the Secular Party of Australia does advocate reducing the Australian birth rate and has some comparable initiatives:

The Secular Party of Australia's immigration policy reads:

"Global population is a significant issue in dealing with many environmental problems. Australia is a dry but relatively rich country, and has a low population compared with our neighbours. Australia's resource wealth will enable us to maintain a privileged position in the global community. The Secular Party is opposed to policies that encourage a higher birth rate. It is the policy of the Secular Party to abolish the baby bonus.

The Secular Party deplores xenophobic attempts to demonise refugees and asylum seekers. We support continuation of an immigration program that is both economically beneficial and environmentally sustainable, and which provides sufficient allowance for our humanitarian obligations. We note that migrants to Australia must agree to respect certain values, including the equality of men and women, as part of the Australian Values Statement in the immigration application form. It is the policy of the Secular Party to consider means by which migrants may be required to respect these values that they have already agreed to."

is not registered with the Australian Electoral Commission for the coming Federal Election.

Its policies are:

"1. Adopt a formal national 'population policy' to stabilise Australia's population at around 23-26 million through to 2050. (Since we are at 22 million, this would mean a moratorium).

2. * Adopt a balanced and sustainable migration program, with annual immigration at around *50-80,000, being equivalent to total annual emigration.

3. Reject any selection of immigrants based on race.

4. Maintain Australia's current annual refugee intake of 13,750, within the broader immigration quota.

5. Phase out the Baby Bonus and re-direct funds to an appropriate parental leave scheme that promotes greater female participation in the workforce.

6. Tie foreign aid wherever possible to the improvement of governance and economic and environmental sustainability, with a particular focus on women's rights and education and on opportunities for couples to access family planning services."

"The Stable Population Party was due to be officially registered on July 24, but Julia Gillard called an early election on July 17 and prevented us from standing candidates under our party name." [SPPA website]

Serious immigration reduction policy for Australia is overdue. The longer we allow more and more arrivals, the closer Australia is approaching social, environmental and economic crises.

One of our CanDoBetter commenters, 'RichB', has highlighted the site Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. This is a visionary site! The movement seems to have gone to some considered endeavour to explore the issues. I like the question toward the bottom of the site:

'What will the world be like when our population starts getting smaller?'

As more globally-aware people begin to question the 20th Century 'growth-only' tenet, alternative ideals such a 'Low Population Planet', deserve to be considered and debated. But where to start?

One practical moral campaign that would immediately start curbing the out-of-control human birth explosion would be to lobby against the funding requests of charities supporting countries that have high birth rates. Now before readers jump to questionning the morality of this, this is not to stop funding emergency life support needs, but to make non-life-support funding conditional on recipient self-change.

These are some dominant charities in this field.

* UNICEF

* World Vision
* Feed the Children

* Save the Children

* Food4Africa

While it would be callous to allow people to die from hunger and malnutrition, the charity donation system seems to only perpetuate welfare subsistence and not address overpopulation poverty in undeveloped countries. For time immemorial, the starving of Africa and India have been dumped on our television screens to make us feel guilty.

Why has the problem not been resolved since television was invented and before?
The starving message has become a cliché to the point that it has become a permanent human condition. This is unacceptable. The charity system needs overhaul.

Charities need to be held accountable for fixing the problem not perpetuating it.
Donations need to be channelled through independent organisations that require conditional offerings. Donations can end up anywhere and do, like in arms purchases. The charity donations must stop and be replaced with:

1. Physical shipments of emergency food, shelter and medical supplies

2. Conditional relief funding linked to population control measures - family planning and birth control measures should be advocated - female education, contraception, changing cultural traditions of excess children (more than 2), and UNHCR funded free and professional male vasectomies. Perhaps even a free dwelling could be offered to male heads of families that undertake vasectomy and have only two children. Think of this as an incentive in impoverished countries!

On issues of fundamental cultural change, financial carrots seem more effective and ethical than punitive sticks.

Until then those donating should boycott charities until donations are conditional on and accountable for birth control.

As for wealthy developed nations with high birth rates, they have the financial means to address their own population excesses. Any country over 3% annual growth rate is irresponsible and so a target priority.

According to Nation Master website, the top 20 highest ranked developed countries by population growth rate are:

We should refer to them as the G20 - 'The Greedy 20'.

Rank Country Growth Rate (2008)
1 Maldives: 5.566%
2 United Arab Emirates: 3.833%
69 Saudi Arabia: 1.954%
81 Malaysia: 1.742%
82 Israel: 1.713%
107 Bahrain: 1.337%
114 Australia: 1.221%
116 Luxembourg: 1.188%
124 Ireland: 1.133%
131 New Zealand: 0.971%
137 United States: 0.883%
139 Canada: 0.83%
140 South Africa: 0.828%
144 Iceland: 0.783%
151 Liechtenstein: 0.713%
153 Thailand: 0.64%
154 China: 0.629%
156 France: 0.574%
160 Hong Kong: 0.532%
165 Netherlands: 0.436%

These wealthy countries extravagantly impose a selfish disproportionate burden on the planet's capacity. They have wealth capacity and as global citizens and members of the UN, have an obligation to pay a Greedy Population Levy to fund underdeveloped countries in controlling their excess population growth. The wealthy with an excess problem need to be supporting the poor with am excess problem, because the poor do not have the means to do it themselves. Let's make it means tested and charge say 0.01% of each countries GDP.

As for those poor displaced peoples caused by civil unrest and arms conflict, why does not the UN with the support of developed nations impose a 10% levy on each item of weaponry sold globally, so that the revenue is channelled to allow the UNHCR manage humanitarian and peace-keeping operations for the civilians affected?

International arms sales is the world's largest and richest discretionary industry. It can easily afford such a levy.

A case in point is the plight of millions of Yemeni refugees having fled civil conflict and currently starving in al-Mazraq camp, Yemen:

'Millions of Yemenis starving as donors fail to meet pledges, says UN'

• £70m needed this year and next to feed poor and hungry
• Traditional donors, including Britain, have yet to offer aid

On Tuesday 25 May Mark O'Connor and Bernard Salt debated Australia’s population options at the “Future Summit”, run by the Australian DAVOS Connection (ADC) at the Hyatt in Melbourne. It was a one-hour debate, moderated by Jane-Frances Kelly of the Grattan Institute, before an audience mainly of business people. Organizers were surprised by the numbers this session attracted.

On Tuesday 25 May Mark O'Connor and Bernard Salt debated Australia’s population options at the “Future Summit”, run by the Australian DAVOS Connection (ADC) at the Hyatt in Melbourne. It was a one-hour debate, moderated by Jane-Frances Kelly of the Grattan Institute, before an audience mainly of business people. Organizers were surprised by the numbers this session attracted. The session was recorded.

Australian DAVOS Connection Future summit

Originally there were to have been four panellists, but professors Roger Short and Hugh White (Strategic Studies ANU) cancelled at the last moment, leaving an hour’s debate between environmental writer, O'Connor and growth marketer, Bernard Salt. Moderated by Jane-Frances Kelly of the Grattan Institute, this parallel session surprised the organizers by attracting more than its share of the mainly business-person audience. The room was packed with more than one hundred people.

Recently a letter appeared in The Canberra Times questioning Bernard Salt's status as a demographer and this time he was introduced as some kind of 'urban investigator'. Salt nevertheless quickly took the debate into the demography area, by running a version of the ageing population scare.

O'Connor said something about Salt and himself being good 'amateur demographers' and implied that they should both defer to the real experts. Salt explained that he was "not a demographer at all but an historian” and described himself as having an MA in urban history. He added that he wished journalists would not describe him as a demographer. A Google search will, indeed, find him repeatedly described as one.

Bernard Salt comes across as a “true believer” in population growth, conceding few if any downsides to it. He appears to have trouble understanding where the other side is coming from, and tends to caricature environmental and resource arguments against growth.

In this debate, he began with an exaggerated account of the costs of paying the old age pension for an aging population. He claimed that, even by raising the retirement age to 69 years, that would only buy us “a year or two”.

He based his positive case for growth on the value of 'optimism', concluding with a virtual paean to optimism, describing his belief that our cities will become marvelous, exciting places to live, with superlative transport systems made possible by density.

Blind optimism or tunnel vision?

Indeed, the optimism of growth economists and neo-liberals lies not just their failure to foresee economic crises but in their apparent belief that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse went out in the medieval era, or at least with WWII. Like Francis Fukuyama's End of History, they seem to believe that the establishment of Western [pro-business] liberal democracy is the ultimate and final form of human government.

Bernard Salt characterised the recent leap in immigration figures as temporary, pending the return home of overseas students. He also did not seem to make a difference between gross and net immigration figures. Peter McDonald of the ANU, who is a 'professional' demographer and a fellow growth lobbyist, seems less confident that the students will go home, and suggests that recent projections of an Australian population of 36 million projection in 2050 would need immigration to come down to 220,000 a year. Mark O'Connor thinks that the numbers would have to come down to 180,000 net.

In reply to a statement from mining executive, Hugh Morgan, in the audience, Mark O'Connor observed how little China or India would gain by invading Australia. Salt said that he had never held out the prospect of Australia being invaded by more populous nations. Only a short time later, however, he had come full-circle, sternly warning that the USA would not come to our aid if this happened. Dismissing an argument by O'Connor that Australia was not a large fertile and empty country, Salt said that what mattered was Australia's failure to convince its Asian neighbor nations of this.

He often sounds, however, as if he actually believes this myth, and is not averse to trying to spread it. In this debate he seemed to avoid making any firm call on whether Australia was in fact a semi-desert continent with limited carrying capacity. In fact, such an admission would pin him down to a factual argument and impede much of his pro-population growth rhetoric.

Multicultural Cart before Sustainable Horse

Salt seems to have a bizarre view of the world we live in and what should be our priorities. One got the impression that introducing an even mix of the world’s races into Australia was more important than keeping our population sustainable. The rationale he manufactures is that otherwise other nations will mistaken Green Australia policies for the old White Australia policies. Aided apparently by his ignorance about Australia's environment, Salt conveys a right-wing-business attitude, dismissing people who object to environmental destruction as hysterical exaggeraters.

The Grattan Institute moderator often failed to refer illogical claims for countering by the opposing debater. She seemed more concerned with moving through a variety of subjects, and getting audience response. Many of these responses from big business people showed how little some people in the commercial world understand threats to environments, or limits to natural resources. One man from Geraldton in West Australia, for instance, claimed that Geraldton had about twice as much renewable wind-energy generation as they could use, and a vast resource of underground fresh water inside the sands. There was no chance to ask if the water was renewable, or if these wind plants were real or projected.

So far the only account of this debate we have seen in the mainstream media was one strongly biased towards the pro-growth side in Alan Kohler's in Business Spectator, Entitled, “Rolling up the drawbridge” it began with Bernard Salt's ludicrous premise, “Australia risks becoming an international pariah if it relies the environment as an excuse to resist further migration, the Future Summit heard today." Kohler then gave eight paragraphs to summarizing Salt’s remarks, and two paragraphs on Mark O'Connor's.

Later this item, by Dally Messenger, appeared in the Business Spectator. It improves coverage of the debate.

This important statement from the Public Health Association of Australia came out in November last year but has been overlooked. It should be emphasised that the Public Health Association does not make press releases like this lightly. The entire document can be downloaded here.

Time for leadership on Australia’s population growth

The Public Health Association of Australia (PHAA) is calling on Federal and State Governments to develop sustainable population policies to curb the associated population health and environmental risks.

“Australia’s population is projected to grow from the current 22 million to 35 million people by 2049 unless urgent action is taken now. Given the dramatic impacts that population growth has on health and environmental sustainability, it is hard to believe that Australia still has no population policy -- it is well past time to develop one,” according to Michael Moore the CEO of the PHAA.

More population will dramatically impact on food security, housing, mental health ...

PHAA spokesperson Dr Peter Howat of the PHAA said: “The projected 60% increase in the population in just 40 years will have a dramatic impact across many areas of service provision including hospitals and other health care services. The impact will extend to food security, nutrition, affordable housing, transport, education, stress and depression with the changing demography of Australia’s population”.

More population will negate any reduction of Australia's carbon footprint

Importantly, this rate of population growth would also effectively negate any achievements in reducing Australia’s carbon footprint. Yesterday the United Nations released its State of the World Population 2009 identifying population growth projections between 8 billion and 10.5 billion people by 2050. The report also identified ‘the key point is that women and men themselves, not Governments or any other institutions, make decisions on childbearing that contribute to an environmentally sustainable human population’.

PHAA spokesperson Dr Liz Hanna added:

“Population growth of this scale will magnify environmental impacts including climate change, drought, and soil degradation and will dilute all the health benefits of migration, including access to education, health care and employment. On the other hand, stabilising population growth would have many benefits for both health and environment.”

Policy to curb overpopulation risks now critical

Dr Howat noted that: “It is now critical that all our Federal and State Governments develop sustainable population policies to curb the risks associated with the social, economic and environmental instability that result from rapid and unsustainable population growth. Population policies must be developed to assure the equitable provision of services and infrastructure. With careful planning, there is a greater likelihood that the already vulnerable members of our communities -- including Indigenous people, recent migrants, non-English speaking people, single parents, unemployed, homeless and other low income people will not be further disadvantaged.”

Emphasis placed on need for OBJECTIVE inquiry

Mr Moore emphasised “The PHAA is calling for leadership from the Australian Government to commission an objective inquiry into Australia’s population policy options in order to develop a sensible population policy”.

For further information:

see PHAA Sustainable Population Policy http://www.phaa.net.au/documents/20091028SustainablePopulationforAustraliafinal.pdf

Source: PUBLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION OF AUSTRALIA MEDIA RELEASE www.phaa.net.au 18 November 2009

For further comment:
Michael Moore CEO PHAA
Dr Peter Howat, PHAA Spokesperson (Perth)
Dr Liz Hanna, Environmental Health Special Interest Group Spokesperson (ACT)

Wayne Swann obfuscates

According to recent reports Wayne Swan ..."can't bring (him)self to agree with those who think we can solve all our problems by putting a freeze on national
population growth”. No Wayne, we certainly can't solve all our problems by reducing runaway population growth, but it sure would go a long way toward easing house prices, shortening hospital queues, preserving the environment and cutting our carbon footprints.

Who is this ‘We’?

A great many Australians these days would really like to know who exactly Mr Swan is referring to when he talks about "we" solving “our” problems. Is it the "working families" struggling in the outer suburbs to pay off hefty mortgages on second-rate housing stock on the fringes of our cities - or is it the vested corporate interests at the big end of town which possess an insatiable appetite for more growth, more markets and more people? Whose problems are you trying to solve Mr Swan?

Political addiction to population growth

The gap between the policies of the Liberal/Labor (Liboral?) party elites - that are politically addicted to massive population growth and mass-immigration - and the wishes of the electorate has never been greater. It’s a bipartisan problem. Tony Abbott has been whipping up mass hysteria about boat people lately, trying to make it an election issue. He's going to "close the borders" screamed the Herald Sun last week. But on the broader topic of mass-immigration, like the P.M. and Wayne Swan, Mr Abbot has also nailed his colours to the mast as a "big Australia" man whose "instinct" is to bring in "as many people as possible".

Who benefits and who loses by population growth?

Cheerleaders for the growthist lobby in the media have been doing their level best to scare the bejesus out of the public by raving on about retiring baby boomers and even raising the prospect of an armed invasion should we dare to consider putting the brakes on. The problem is no-one seems to have any real insight into where all this growth is heading for our country as well as the thorny question of who benefits and who loses from it? Who gets the profits and who gets to pay? How does the average citizen benefit when GDP per capita declines through massive population growth? Exactly what are the long-term implications for the environment and the famed liveability of our cities of this new "mega-trend"?

Rudd like a deer caught in headlights on population numbers

Despite the creation of a new population ministry, Labor has not had a great deal to say on these questions so far other than "growth is good". Mr Rudd hasn't even had an opinion this year. He appeared like a deer caught in the headlights recently when Kerry O’Brien confronted him on the 7:30 report - which is a bit strange considering that he "made no apology" last year for his support for “a big Australia”.

These questions are being ignored by our leaders other than a very vague undertaking to perhaps grow somewhat “differently" than before - presumably by stacking people 50 stories up in ugly high rises or transforming our urban areas into Los Angeles-style megalopolises with double-decker freeways and ghettoes of haves (those who bought houses before the great population explosion) and the less-fortunate have-nots that didn’t.

Some commentators in the media are suggesting that Rudd has "gone cold" on a big Australia this year. But what is far more likely is that he is simply being a very clever politician – like his predecessor John Howard - and is saying nothing publicly. Behind closed doors, however, he and his minions are champing at the bit to raise the volume as high as they can get way with without provoking too great a backlash from so-called working families whose marginal seats Labor took back from “Howard’s battlers” at the last election.

Expect Spin

To keep population growth ticking along at 2.1% per annum and maintaining a docile and electorate Rudd will try to do what politicians do best - bombard us with a mountain of meaningless words on things like the "programmatic specificity" of his new population ministry - but without of course actually doing anything.

One thing is certain, if the present growth trajectory is going to be maintained by Canberra indefinitely, the volume of complaints rising from the public is going to grow incredibly loud. When it takes the average person more than a lifetime to pay off a mortgage on an average house and when commuters have to spend half their lives stuck on clogged freeways or dysfunctional public transport systems, the politicians that continue to push growthist polices are going to eventually pay a heavy price at the ballot box.

Stable Population Party of Australia - a new alternative

Let's hope the newly formed Stable Population Party of Australia can capture many of the votes of the people that are most badly impacted by our government’s mad growth-at–all-costs agenda. We desperately need to lobby and apply pressure on our elected leaders to change their current policies. This is going to require constant media campaigns to get the public's attention as well as a small army of committed activists to get the message out.

Growth Lobby vs The People

The public needs to be made aware that there is an alternative to growth for growth's sake and that there is an alternative to the "Liboral Party” and their bipartisan and undemocratic policies which are failing to maintain a sustainable population. Make no mistake; the growth lobby is a formidable opponent with enormous financial resources on its side as well as the backing of both major parties and large sectors of the media. Only a very vigorous and determined grass-roots campaign the likes of which we haven’t seen before in Australia is going to have any chance at success at slowing down this juggernaut.

NOTES

7 April title was changed to better reflect newsworthy content

Population growth a threat to biodiversity

The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated human population growth as a “key threatening process” to Australia’s biodiversity under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (the EPBC Act).

“The bigger our population gets, the harder it is for us to reduce greenhouse pollution, protect natural habitats near urban and coastal areas and ensure a good quality of life for all Australians,” said ACF’s director of strategic ideas, Charles Berger.

“More people means more roads, more urban sprawl, more dams, more transmission lines, more energy and water use, more pollutants in our air and natural environment and more pressure on Australia’s animals, plants, rivers, reefs and bushland.

“We need to improve urban and coastal planning and management of environmental issues, but we can’t rely on better planning alone to protect our environment. Rapid population growth makes sustainable planning nearly impossible, so stabilising Australia’s population by mid-century should be a national policy goal.”

The EPBC Act nomination cites many government reports that acknowledge the direct link between population growth and environmental degradation.

The nomination looks at four specific areas where human population growth is directly affecting native species and ecological communities – the coastal wetlands of South East Queensland, Mornington Peninsula and Westernport Bay in Victoria, the Fleurieu Peninsula in South Australia and the Swan Coastal Plain in Western Australia.

ACF is calling on the Government to set a population policy that will:

* Stabilise Australia’s population by mid-century.
* Increase humanitarian migration and continue to support family reunions, but substantially reduce skilled migration.
* Return Australia’s overall migration to 1990s levels.
* Adequately fund strategies to minimise the environmental impact of population growth.

Source: Press Release Date: 23-Mar-2010

Jacob Saulwick, in "Libs back Greens call for inquiry into 'big Australia'",
March 16, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald, writes,

'The Greens leader, Bob Brown, said yesterday that the inquiry would hold hearings in every capital city, asking whether Australia had the environmental, housing and transport capacity to meet a predicted increase in population to 36 million by mid-century.
''We don't have the infrastructure to deal with 21 million people at the moment - for example, public transport and water infrastructure - let alone the estimated 35 million people by mid-century,'' Senator Brown said.'
[...]
'The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said the opposition would work with the Greens on the proposed inquiry.
''Australians want to be heard on this issue,'' he said. ''I think Australians are very frustrated by a prime minister who just signs us up to a 36 million population and they don't have any say about it.''
The capacity of state and local governments to provide services for their growing constituencies needed to be examined, he said.
''All of these issues require some very careful analysis to know what our migration intake should be.''
The Greens will move a motion in the Senate in May calling for the inquiry to be set up.'

Dick Smith, however, has suggested that what is needed is a proper risk study, ie. a study which shows what the risks are at various population numbers (milestones) and growth. .... "It could show that with 36 million in 2050 what our risks are and what the chance of those risks of occurring are. Anything like that can be more objective, and allow people then to work out what they think an optimum number may be."

High Rise does not solve population growth problems: State of Australian Cities Report

High rise is often touted as a panacea for population growth energy costs, but the State of Australian Cities Report, which has just been released, shows this is yet another furphy produced by the growth lobby.

The State of Australian Cities Report 2010 has been released, to assist the Australian Government, in cooperation with state, territory and local government, and in partnership with the community and industry, to improve Australian urban policies.

The report is designed to redress an information deficiency about economic, environmental, social and demographic changes, and to reveal trends and provide a platform of knowledge for the development and implementation of future urban policies.

The report found that the past outward urban expansion has meant a greater distance between residential and employment areas with a resultant greater use of cars, higher transport costs, more vulnerability to oil price rises and the loss of agricultural land or habitat. More recently, however, the pattern of growth has seen an increasing proportion of population growth accommodated in existing inner and middle suburban areas, most notably in Sydney.

The level of car dependency in Australian cities has increased at a faster rate than population growth, creating traffic congestion problems as infrastructure and public transport have failed to keep pace with population growth.

Other key findings include:

* Australian cities rank highly on an international comparison, particularly on indices that measure quality of life and global connectivity, and measures related to the social condition of people.There is evidence to suggest that Australian cities suffer with respect to infrastructure. Of concern is the evidence that suggests a decline in international relative performance and perception in the past five years.
* Water restrictions in major cities across the nation saw total consumption by households fall by 7 per cent between 200001 and 200405 despite population growth over the period.
* Residential energy use accounted for approximately 7 per cent of total energy consumption in 200708, but grew at a high rate (2.2 per cent) relative to other sectors over the period. This growth is attributed to population increase, higher ownership of appliances and IT equipment per household, and increases in the average size of homes. Standby power was the greatest contributor to average annual growth in household energy use over the period 198990 to 200607.
* Transport emissions are one of the strongest sources of emissions growth in Australia. Strong growth in emissions from the transport sector is expected to continue, with direct CO2 equivalent emissions projected to increase 22.6 per cent over the period 2007 to 2020 (or around 1.58 per cent a year).
* Climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. Since 1950 much of eastern Australia and the far southwest, where our largest cities are located and the majority of the population lives, have experienced an annual decline of up to 50 mm in rainfall per decade affecting both the availability and quality of water supplies across urban areas.
* Levels of the key pollutants of lead, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the largest capital cities have decreased significantly over a ten-year period. However, particulate air pollution and ozone levels have remained at or above national air quality standard levels over the period and showed no evidence of decline.
* While national recycling rates have increased, total waste generation has also continued to increaseby around 31 per cent from 200203 to 200607 (4 years), exceeding the rate of population growth of 5.6 per cent over the period.
* When both direct and indirect environmental impacts are taken into account, higher [per capita?] environmental impacts at the household level are associated with higher incomes and smaller household sizes. Therefore, despite the opportunities for efficiency and reduced environmental impacts offered by more compact forms of urban living, inner city households of capital cities, followed by the inner suburban areas, feature the highest consumption of water use, energy use and ecological footprints even when reduced car use is taken into account.

The New Australia Party is the second new party with a small population policy, we have covered in two days, but it is not single-issue. The population policy appears to be an important and central one. The party has a wide range of policies and which members can contribute to. They are also looking for members. The policies they have had which I have read quickly seem very good - better than the major parties at any rate. See in the notes section at the end of this article a comment about their views on the kangaroo meat industry, which at time of writing I note are currently subject to a yahoo poll.[1]

I would suggest that this party is a good one for people to get involved in if they have specific interests in policy formation.
Here is some information about the founder, Alan Ide.

On the party site, it says that "NewAustralia was founded following the collapse of the Democrats at the last election. Some NewAustralia members and in particular the founder had tried hard to steer The Democrats in the direction now adopted by this site. After the election we resolved to use the accumulated policy material to try and launch a new party."

Below are links to the New Australia Party site, the policies and the way to join.

Alan Ide, the founder of the New Australia Party writes:

"In the lead up to the election Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott are trying hard to convince us that there is some difference between the parties beyond the spelling of their names.

In reality though Lib/Labs present a united front on almost all aspects of policy.

Tony Abbott's climate package reminds us that the Lib/Labs will never do anything serious about the Greenhouse problem. The two packages on offer are just two different ways of continuing business as usual. Both avoid the polluter having to pay. The Libs are more honest - they don't charge the polluters at all. Labor's muddled ETS charges some of the polluters via the sale of emission permits, but then offsets this cost with even more fossil fuel subsidies. The result will be the same - Australia will remain dependent on coal and the world's worst greenhouse polluter.

The Lib/Lab position on population is the more the merrier. For them there are no limits to growth. Not enough water? Build another few coal-fired desal-plants. GDP will go up. GDP per head may even go up as people have to pay more for accommodation, food and water. Quality of life however will be going down.

On transport, the Lib/Labs will continue to heavily favour road-based transport as they do at the State level. Even when money is allocated to public transport it is often wasted. In Victoria billions have been poured into public transport - to fund a ticket system that doesn't work and a wavy roof for a station. Meanwhile road building continues apace.

Defence is another are of near-total agreement. The Lib/Labs will continue to pour money into expensive but obsolete 'assets' such as the Joint Strike Fighter, destroyers and assault ships. This is even as the chorus of criticism about the slow, short range JSF grows louder and its clear inferiority to competitors becomes more apparent. At the same time it becomes more and more evident that the era of the surface warship is well and truly over - yet still the Lib/Labs pour billions into these indefensible future war graves.

Right now the only other choice is the Greens and a few single-issue parties. Unfortunately though Green policy involves massive tax increases, open door migration and little if any national defence. No wonder they are stuck on about 10% of the vote!

NewAustralia offers a way forward. We are a multi-issue party. We do propose a major tax swap, not a major tax increase. We propose a more cost-effective defence strategy, not a no-defence strategy. We advocate a stable population for the world and Australia. We would preference the Greens and other like minded policies - adding to the net environmental vote, not splitting it.

But to do this we need members - 500 of them. If you like what you see at www.NewAustralia.net then click the Join button. Its free and you don't have to do anything else - until we get 500 members.

Alan Ide
Founder"

Candobetter Editor's Notes

Given the presence of animal activists and anti-kangaroo industry activists on this site, it is relevant to note that the New Australia Party is very strong on ecological values, but it is obvious that it has come from a different direction than many of the activists on this site. It comes from the same direction I initially came from, and supported the kangaroo industry for idealistic reasons, which some members will hotly defend. As a participant in their 'Supporters' Forum' I managed to have the statement at the end about statistics not being adequate to go ahead inserted to modify their policy (See below). There was even some discussion about getting rid of it since it is not core policy and I now see that there a poll on the issue has just been posted at yahoo - see below.

Below is the policy, and the paragraph in question in the poll with the statement that I wrote highlighted at the end.

"Kangaroo - Farming kangaroos to produce Kangaroo meat rather than beef and sheep meat may have environmental benefits. Kangaroos have much lower methane output and water inputs during meat production. Kangaroo is also healthier to eat then beef or sheep, and kangaroos have a lower impact on the land. For this to work kangaroos would have to be properly farmed as opposed to hunting roaming populations which would not be sustainable on a large scale. Climate Taxes on methane producing animals may assist kangaroo farming to become economically viable - although higher fencing and other costs may make kangaroo farming unviable.

Harvesting of roaming native populations should only be continued once the statistics on kangaroo and other indigenous fauna became reliable, which is currently not the case."

Poll to remove the kangaroo paragraph from the New Australia Party policies:

Enter your vote today! A new poll has been created for the
NewAustralia group:

Should NewAustralia remove the 'kangaroo paragraph' (http://www.newaustralia.net/rural.html#kangaroo) from its web site?

o Yes
o No

To vote, please visit the following web page:
the following web page.

Thanks!

Note also that the Justice for Animals Party may incorporate a small population policy; I know that one of the organisers is working on this.