Nick Minchin

Average wealth per person diminished by population growth

Dr Coulter next made a comparison of population growth and "gross state
product per capita" GSP/capita for Australia's states and showed how those states with the fastest population growth have negative GSP/capita. That is, -individuals within Australia's rapidly growing states, are becoming poorer while those with the lowest population growth rates show positive GSP/capita - i.e. they are becoming more wealthy.

Bob Such: Rural land should not be sacrificed for suburbs

Independent member of the House of Assembly, Bob Such, reminded us that, (as someone representing a partially rural electorate) people with livestock were well aware of the idea of carrying capacity and that we should not be building on our best agricultural land to sustain population growth.

Former Finance Minister Minchin states opposition to rapid growth:

Former Special Minister of State, Minister Assisting the Prime Minister 1997-98, and Minister for Industry, Science and Resources 1998-2001, and Minister for Finance and Administration from, Nick Minchin described his economics credentials and drew the attention of those present to his long history of opposing rapid population growth.

Michael Lardelli: Food, phosphates and fossil fuel trends won't sustain bigger population

Michael Lardelli looked at Australia's current food production and trends in world phosphate and oil production and questioned whether we will even be able to maintain our current population in 40 years if we do not complete a transition to localised, low energy food production with nutrient recycling.

Comments from the floor

Isobel Redmond was asked to comment during the questions period and stated that she supported the TOD idea to avoid building on agricultural land.

One of the younger members of the audience, who was a reporter from the Adelaide Advertiser newspaper, posed the general question to those present about what life would be like in a much larger city. Would there still be room to park at the beach, he asked. John Coulter replied that there were already other cities in the world where she could experience our possible future, e.g. LA.

One speaker commented that it was encouraging to see SA state Liberal MLAs at the Forum in force, but that it was disappointing that no-one from the governing Labor Part seemed to have turned up.

The event was useful because it showed political representatives that there is little to support rapid population growth and there are many negative effects.

Kelvin Thomson, the Federal Member for Wills, Dick Smith and Sustainable Population Australia present...

Kelvin Thomson, the Federal Member for Wills, Dick Smith and Sustainable Population Australia are proud to present Australia's first ever Simultaneous Population Forums.

For the first time across Australia, leading politicians, academics and community figures are converging in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide to discuss the issue of runaway population growth and its implications on our environment, economy, liveability and way of life.

Recent projections indicate that Australia's population will reach 36 million by 2050. If this is allowed to happen it will mean Melbourne's population will increase by 78.4% and reach almost 7 million people, Sydney's population will soar by 61% and become a city of 7 million people, Brisbane's population will go through the roof by 114% and hit almost 4 million, Perth will grow by 116% and reach 3.3 million people, Adelaide's population will rise by 42.6% and become a city of 1.6 million, Canberra's population will increase by 50% and Hobart's population will rise by 34.9%.

The impact on our major cities will be devastating- declining housing affordability, traffic congestion, demand on already strained natural resources such as water, spiralling cost of living, loss of local amenity and liveability.

Runaway population growth is the underlying cause of the major problems we now face. If left unchecked, runaway population growth will lead to our major cities becoming overcrowded concrete jungles.

The impact of a 60% increase in Australia's population on ournative wildlife will be catastrophic. Already over 200 species of Australia's birds are under threat- 30% of our 760 species.

The Australian Government has promised to cut carbon emissions by 60% over the next 40 years,and all the science is saying we need to cut them by 80% to tackle global warming. How are we supposed to do that if our population is going up by 60% at the same time? It's pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet.

These forums seek to encourage further debate and discussion on the type of Australia we want to leave behind for future generations. Our generation has an obligation to pass onto our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

SPEAKERS

Mark O'Connor, Canberra Forum

Mark O'Connor (b. 1945) is a professional poet and environmental writer with a special interest in population. He has taught at several universities, has published 16 books of verse, including books on the Australian Alps, the Barrier Reef, Blue Mountains, rainforests, and the Pilbara, and is the editor of Oxford University Press's much reprinted Two Centuries of
Australian Poetry.
He was the Australian National University’s H C Coombs Fellow in 1999, and thereafter a Visiting Scholar in its Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Contributing editor of Oxford University Press's Protected Area Management: Principles
and Practices (2001). He is a frequent voice on a range of ABC radio programs. His most recent books on population are This Tired Brown Land (1998) and the best selling Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, by Mark O'Connor and William Lines.
Mark's website is at www.australianpoet.com/about.html

Barry Cohen, Canberra Forum

Barry was the Federal Member for the seat of Robertson from 1969 to 1990 and held the position of Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment from 1983 to 1987. He is an author of 8 books including, Life of the Party, How to Become Prime Minister, Life with Gough, Whitlam to Winston and What About the Workers. Barry has been a columnist for The Australian, The Bulletin, the Financial Review, Time, and the Sydney Morning Herald among others.

Dick Smith, Sydney Forum

Dick Smith is one of Australia's most well known and respected personalities. In 2005 the National Trust nominated him as one of 'Australia's Living Treasures.” Businessman, entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist, aviator and a passionate advocate for the environment, Dick is active in many fields of public life. He talks and travels widely all over the country and is never shy to take on difficult topics—from aviation safety to supporting refugees and the fair treatment of David Hicks. When Dick talks, people listen. They may not always agree, but they never doubt his sincerity. His latest interest is in initiating a debate on Australia's population policy, sparked by his concern for the future his grandchildren will face.

Robert Oakeshott Independent MP, Sydney Forum

Robert Oakeshott is the Independent MP for Lyne (Mid North coast NSW).
Rob first entered state parliament as member for Port Macquarie in November 1996 at just 26 years of age. He remained in State politics until August 2008 when he resigned to run for the Federal byelection of Lyne in September of the same year.
Rob won the seat of Lyne with a convincing result and entered into federal politics. He is 1 of only 3 unaligned members in the House of Representatives in Australia today.

During his political career Rob has focused on the needs of regional communities and how they play their part in the broader Australian policy and political landscape.

He is currently a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Training and the Joint Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and on Cyber Safety.

Rob has a bachelor of laws and a bachelor of arts with honours. He is married with 3 and a half children and currently represents one of the fastest growing regions in Australia where the daily policy challenges of population versus environment and lifestyle are front and centre.

Kelvin Thomson, MP, Federal Member for Wills, Melbourne Forum

Kelvin was born in Coburg in 1955 and went to school at Pascoe Vale North Primary School, later winning a scholarship to Essendon Grammar School. He has first class honours degrees in Arts and Law (winner of the Supreme Court Prize 1987) from the University of Melbourne.

Before entering Parliament Kelvin worked for the Commonwealth Public Service, as an electorate officer, project officer for the Commonwealth Ombudsman and principal project officer for Australia Post.

He joined the ALP in 1975. He was elected as a Coburg councillor in 1981 and served two terms as deputy mayor until 1988 when he was elected to the Victorian Parliament as the Member for Pascoe Vale He was re-elected in 1992 and served in the Shadow Cabinet from 1992-1994.

In 1996 he was elected to the Federal Parliament as the Member for Wills. From 1998 to March 2007 Kelvin served in a range of Shadow Ministries, including Assistant Treasurer, Environment and Heritage, Regional Development, Roads and Housing, Public Accountability, Human Services and Attorney General.

In November 2007 Kelvin was re-elected to the Federal Parliament as Member for Wills. He is Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Barry Jones

Barry Owen Jones, AO, is one of Australia's living treasures as well as a writer, broadcaster and former Labor politician. His career has spanned education, film, politics, civil liberties, constitutional change and 'the knowledge society'.

Barry represented the federal seat of Lalor (1977-98) and in the Hawke Government became Australia's longest serving Science Minister (1983-90). He served as National President of the Australian Labor Party 1992-2000 and again in 2005-06.
In 1985 he became the only Australian Minister invited to address a Summit meeting of the 'Group of Seven' northern industrial powers, in Ottawa. In 1987 he chaired OECD's review of the Yugoslavian economy.

In June 1990 he was part of an international think tank invited to investigate 'perestroika' in the USSR and make recommendations to Mikhail Gorbachev.

He was a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris 1991-95, Vice President, World Heritage Committee 1995-96 and a consultant for OECD .

He is the only person to have been elected as a Fellow of all four Australian learned Academies: Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE) in 1992, the Humanities (FAHA) in 1993, Science (FAA) in 1996, and Social Sciences (FASSA) in 2003.
His books include Macmillan Dictionary of Biography 1981, Sleepers Wake! Technology and the Future of Work 1982, Living by our Wits 1986, Barry Jones' Dictionary of World Biography 1994, 1996, 1998. His autobiography, A Thinking Reed, was published in October 2006.

Barry currently serves on the boards of CARE Australia, the Macfarlane Burnet Institute, The Centre For Eye Research, Australia and Victorian Opera and chairs Vision 2020 Australia and the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority. He is currently a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Katharine Betts

Adjunct Associate Professor Katharine Betts is with the Sociology Discipline at Swinburne University of Technology. She has been doing research in population studies for over thirty years, beginning with fertility and family planning and then the politics of immigration policy.

Her major work is an analysis of the politics of Australian immigration published in Ideology and Immigration (MUP, 1988) and in The Great Divide (Duffy and Snellgrove, 1999), as well as in a number of journal articles. Recent articles include studies of public attitudes to population growth (2010), the effects of immigration and fertility on demographic ageing
(2008), and the politics of the growth lobby in Australia (2006).

In 1993 she helped found the quarterly demographic journal People and Place; she and Bob Birrell are the editors. She served on the National Council of the Australian Population Association from 1996 to 2000, and from 2002 to 2006.

Toby Hutcheon, Brisbane Forum

Toby Hutcheon has worked on environmental issues for nearly 20 years. He started at Greenpeace as a campaigner on the Nuclear Free Seas campaign opposing nuclear powered and armed ship visits to Australia- dividing his time between the Greenpeace office and the bows of nuclear warships.

In the late 80's he set up the Direct Action Unit, setting in train Greenpeace Australia's high profile direct actions program.
He subsequently ran Greenpeace Communications Division and was a member of the Greenpeace Olympics team which initiated the idea of the 'green' Sydney Olympics, working closely with the NSW Government to secure the games for Sydney.
Toby moved to Europe in 1996 working on the Chernobyl Campaign for Greenpeace International in Moscow.

He returned to Australia in 1997 to coordinate the successful campaign opposing a second Sydney airport at Holdsworthy.

Since that time, Toby has worked for the NSW Government on waste issues and ran a consultancy advising business, government and communities on zero waste initiatives.

Toby joined the Queensland Conservation Council in 2004. QCC is the peak environment organisation in Queensland, supporting over 70 groups around the state and specifically focuses on climate and water issues, two of the most significant issues affecting our future.

He believes that we can all make a difference.

Jane O'Sullivan

Dr. Jane O'Sullivan is a member of the National Executive of Sustainable Population Australia. She has worked as an agricultural scientist with subsistence farmers in developing countries, and has been actively involved in a range of environmental and development organisations.

These experiences have affirmed her view that population stabilization is the key factor on which positive social and environmental outcomes depend.

She is currently applying her scientific expertise to population issues, particularly the economic implications of population growth rate.

Larissa Waters, Queensland Forum

Larissa Waters is the Australian Greens lead Senate candidate for Queensland in the 2010 federal election. Larissa is an environmental lawyer who has worked in the community sector for 8 years advising people how to use the law to protect the environment.

Larissa lives in Brisbane with her partner and their daughter.

John Coulter, Adelaide Forum

Dr John Coulter has achieved a lifetime of environmental work from the mid 1950s. He is a Founder member of Conservation Council of South Australia (1971) and former President (1984), Councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation 1973 – 1990 and from 2003 to present and former Vice President, Australian Democrat.

John was a Senator for South Australia 1987 – 1995 and Leader 1990 – 1993. He introduced first legislation to control ozone depleting substances, first national legislation to protect threatened species and in 1988 the first major Senate Inquiry into Climate Change. He is a former National President of Sustainable Population Australia and edited SPA Newsletter from 1990 – 1996.

Bob Such, Adelaide Forum

Dr Bob Such has been the Member for Fisher since 1989 and independent since 2000. He is a former Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education and Minister for Youth Affairs and a former Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees and Speaker of the House of Assembly. He has a PhD in environmental politics, a BA (Hons) majoring in economics, a Diploma of Teaching and a Diploma of Education.

He has been a member of several Parliamentary Standing Committees (Economic and Finance, Social Development, Environment, Resources and Development) and chaired various Select Committees – Youth Justice, Cemeteries, Education.

Nick Minchin, Adelaide Forum

Senator Nick Minchin has served as a Senator for South Australia in the Commonwealth Parliament since 1993, having been re-elected in 1998 and 2004.

Following the Federal election in November 2007, Senator Minchin was elected by his colleagues as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He has served as Shadow Minister for Defence from 2007-2008, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy from 2008-2009 and the Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy 2009-2010.
In March 2010, Senator Minchin announced his decision to stand down from the Opposition front bench and as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and that he would not be recontesting the 2010 Federal Election.

Senator Minchin served in the Howard Cabinet for 9 years. He was the Minister for Finance and Administration from 26 November 2001 until 24 November 2007 and is Australia’s longestserving Finance Minister.

Senator Minchin was Leader of the Government in the Senate from January 27, 2006 until November 24, 2007. He was Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate from October 7, 2003 until January 27, 2006.

Senator Minchin also served as the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources from 1998 to 2001 and Special Minister of State and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister from October 1997 until October 1998.

When the Coalition won Government in March 1996, Senator Minchin was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with two specific responsibilities, making the Native Title Act more workable and implementing the Government's policy to hold the Constitutional Convention.

From 1994 to 1996 he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition.

Dr Michael Lardelli, Adelaide Forum

Michael Lardelli is Senior Lecturer in Genetics at The University of Adelaide. Since 2004 he has been an activist for spreading awareness on the impact of energy decline resulting from oil depletion. He has written numerous newspaper articles on the topic, has delivered ABC Radio National Perspectives and has spoken at events organised by the South Australian
Department of Trade and Economic Development and others. He regularly translates into English the blog of Prof. Kjell Aleklett, the President of the international arm of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). He has lectured on "peak oil" to students in the Australian School of Petroleum and recently co-authored an article in the scientific journal
Energy Policy which shows that the all time peak of world oil production was probably in July 2008.

Michael has two young children and his initial interest in population stemmed from the threat posed to agricultural production by restricted oil availability. Consequently he has written a number of online articles on population that have been carried by the websites Online Opinion and Energy Bulletin.

Mal Washer

Mal Washer was born in 1945 and grew up on the family farm at Capel, in the south west of Western Australia. He completed his Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia and started practising medicine in the northern suburbs of Perth in 1972.

After 'retiring' from a successful career in medicine, which included establishing one of the major single private primary care facilities in Australia, Dr Mal Washer entered federal politics in 1998.

Aside from medicine, Mal is passionate about science, innovation and the environment, and this is reflected in his appointments in Parliament:

... Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts; ... Chair of the Policy Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts; ... and previously on various Backbench Policy Committees including: Environment and Heritage, Health and Ageing, Small Business, Tourism, Sport and the Arts and Industry, Tourism and Resources.

He is also Vice Chair of the Population Development Group, Chair of the Drug Law Reform; and is involved in the Fertility Preservation Parliamentary Support Group, the Disability Support Group, the Diabetes Support Group, the Schizophrenia Support Group and the Prostate Cancer Support Group.

Jorg Imberger

Jörg Imberger is the Director at the Centre for Water Research and Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Imberger received his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970 and became Professor of Environmental Engineering at UWA in 1979.

His main research interests are in the motion and mixing in lakes, estuaries and coastal seas in response to both natural forces such as tides, meteorological surface fluxes, river inflows and outflows as well as anthropogenic forcings such as effluent buoyant jets, bubble plumes and mechanical mixers, the effect of such motions and mixing on ecological systems residing in the water bodies and the application of this combined knowledge to the sustainable management of such water bodies.

Professor Jorg Imberger is an internationally recognised and respected environmental engineer. He was named Western Australia Scientist of the Year in the Premier’s Science Award in 2008 and was also recently elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and inducted to the US National Academy of Engineering and American Geophysical Union. The
2007 ASLO A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement was also awarded to Imberger for his work on physical limnology. In 1996 he was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize and in 1995 the Onassis Prize for the Environment for his contribution to environmental issues. Imberger has continued to work in the area of water quality management in lakes, rivers and estuaries. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Science and
Engineering, the International Water Academy, the Argentinean Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Arts. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 1996 was awarded the Western Australian Citizen of the Year. Imberger is the recipient of numerous local, national and international awards. In 2004 he received the Henderson Oration, James N. Kirby Award, the Kernot Medal, the Clunies Ross National Science & Technology Award, the Peter Nicol.

SPA

SPA began its life in Canberra in 1988 as "Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population", with no more than a dozen members as its co- parents. It is now a national organisation of 1200 members with branches in all states and the ACT, and now has the slightly revamped name of "Sustainable Population Australia".

Its formation resulted from a growing consciousness that human impact was destroying our natural environment and that we needed to limit human population to reduce that impact and establish a balance with the environment, hence our logo with scales showing a human being and a tree in perfect equilibrium.

With that as our aim, SPA has publicly argued that:

- Australia needs a population policy that results in the stabilisation and then reduction of population numbers.
- Australia must limit its migration intake and remove pro-natalist policies.
- immigration and humanitarian categories should be kept separate in determining the nation's intake.
- although we cannot take responsibility for all the refugees in the world, we can accept more if we limit the skilled migrate intake.
- any shortage of skilled labour should be addressed by Government investing more money into training the existing population.
- race must not be a factor in the choice of people who migrate to Australia.
- we have a moral obligation to address population pressures at an international level by increasing the foreign aid budget.

The Speakers - some comments

Some of the speakers may come as a surprise, since two or three have previously not been very supportive of population reform - or their organisations have not followed through.

We can only hope that this time they will stand up and be counted at this breakfast and then in the future. It would be interesting to comment on particular speakers but we won't do that here because the event itself is monumental and who, caring about Australia's environment and democracy, would not wish this forum every success?

A Word about SPA and SPA Victoria

SPA is not perfect and is not perfectly democratic or fair, however there are no other organisations in Australia (apart from candobetter.org) and now some new political parties with a focus on stopping population growth. If you want to make a difference to population numbers in Australia, consider joining SPA and supporting fairness and democratic participation at National and State SPA elections. All State SPA branch offices need harder workers, prepared to help with holding meetings, minute taking, distribution of information to members and the public and organising events and structures. The National Executive needs people who are prepared to help the Branch Officers and to further democratic and active participation.

Sheila Newman, a Candobetter writer, began the SPA Branch in Victoria around 1994 and helped organise the above Population Reform Forum in Victoria in the absence of the current Victorian President, Jill Quirk, who is overseas, but whose ability to connect with other environmental organisations and to engage with social and environmental activists, should be recognised here and throughout SPA. In Victoria, getting behind Jill Quirk and helping her with the work she does, notably the administrative and clerical jobs, would further the population policy reform cause enormously.

Victoria is the original engine of growth lobby politics in Australia, therefore the SPA Branch here is particularly important, as is Kelvin Thomson's work which has done so much to bring this life-and-death issue into the light.

The next Victorian SPA AGM will be on the July 22nd at 7.00pm, 2010 at North Melbourne Library.

Transcript:

Panel discussion on population, Radio National Breakfast program
Friday 9 April 2010, 8.10am – 8.23am
Interviewer: Fran Kelly
Panel Members: John Coulter (SPA), Bob Carr, Nick Minchin

Fran Kelly: This week has definitely been about the politics of population. With the appointment of Tony Burke as population minister on the weekend Labor has 12 months to come up with a national population policy. Australia’s never had a formal national population policy or target. So we thought we’d discuss this morning what that policy should look like and also explore why the politics of population is so fraught with danger. To help us answer those questions we’re joined by three guests who all support a contained population for Australia and have tried for many years to put the issue on the map. The call for a smaller Australia was backed up by a Lowy poll this week which showed that 69% of us think that 36 million Australians by 2050, which is the Treasury projections released earlier, is simply too large, too many people.

Dr John Coulter is Vice-President of Sustainable Population Australia and a former leader of the Australian Democrats. Nick Minchin is a former Finance and Industry Minister in the Howard Government and he’s set to retire from the Senate next year after 18 years in that chamber. They both join us in Adelaide this morning. Also on the panel today Bob Carr, Premier of NSW between 1995 and 2005, he’s in our Melbourne studio. Good morning to all of you.

I want to ask all of you what a federal population policy should look like. Nick Minchin, Senator Minchin, can I ask you that first, what should it include, a population policy for this country?

Nick Minchin: Well what I don’t think it would be would be to say we want a particular nominated numerical target in a particular year and when we reach it we’re just going to stop. I don’t think that is realistic but it should be a very deliberate and clear framework within which decisions affecting the population are made. And it should be responsive to both inevitable trends that are not responsive to levers, like the birth and death rates, and certain givens in the immigration rate, but it also should be proactive in trying to influence outcomes, and it should be about the sustainability of particular rates of population growth, and I think the problem we have at the moment is that in the absence of any formal population policy all we have is a responsive component which simply seeks to respond to whatever goes on with the natural increase and the immigration rate. So I think we need a much more proactive component in a formal population policy.

Fran Kelly: Proactive in trying to influence where our population policy heads?

Nick Minchin: Yes. Exactly.

Fran Kelly: OK we’ll come to that in a moment but first let me ask all our panelists this simple question, what should a population policy look like – John Coulter?

John Coulter: A population policy should begin with a recognition that Australians are not living sustainably now, environmentally sustainably now, either with respect to the Australian environment or with respect to the global environment. Moving on from that there needs to be a recognition from all governments that the drivers of this unsustainability are continual population growth and economic growth and both those levers need to be tackled. There is no magic number, I agree with Nick on this, there’s no magic number to which we should be aiming by a particular date because of that reciprocal relationship, so the shape of it should be a direction rather than a particular number.

Fran Kelly: OK, and Bob Carr to you now just on that particular number the Minister Tony Burke did make it clear yesterday that Labor will not be coming up with a target, no number. He says a population policy target is not central to that, he agrees with John Coulter that it should be more about direction than number.

Bob Carr: Yes that’s my position as well, I think though the population policy has got to detach us from the idea of endless growth because the only policy we allow for now has been more – M-O-R-E. I think it’s got to acknowledge that there’s some validity, some truth in the notion of the carrying capacity for a continent with Australia’s characteristics and I think there’s an opportunity to link population growth to a number of variables – I’ll give you three: energy efficiency, limited or cautious population growth until we cease to be such a major emitter of carbon. And that could await the arrival of nuclear fusion for example or another endless non-polluting supply of baseload power. Water – the efficiency with which we handle water, the advent of new technologies for desal, again, a cautious approach on population growth, or restrained approach on population growth, until we make progress on that front. And I think the third very quickly is urban consolidation until cities like Perth and Brisbane achieve the urban consolidation rates that Sydney’s got, i.e. the ratio of apartment dwelling to single detached cottage dwelling I think has got to be linked to population growth.

Fran Kelly: OK so all three of you think we don’t need a target, but all of these things are contingent on numbers, aren’t they? Bob Carr as you said there, a notion of a carrying capacity that is just a target by another name, isn’t it?

Bob Carr: I think we’ve got to discuss the context in which carrying capacity constraints cut in. We’ve got to say carrying capacity constraints are there until we’ve achieved the levels of water efficiency, energy efficiency and efficiency in land use that are desirable. I think that’s a way of dealing with that and of linking that to policy outcomes.

Fran Kelly: Nick Minchin the point you made in your initial answer there, we need to be proactive in trying to impact where our population is headed – what do you mean by proactive? That’s presumably pulling some levers and not others. What would you be proactive in?

Nick Minchin: Well obviously the rate of immigration is the most amenable lever available to governments. Despite Peter Costello’s colourful rhetoric I don’t think governments do have levers over the birthrate and they certainly don’t have and shouldn’t have levers over the death rate. So the natural increase I think is largely a given and not amenable to the government, but the immigration rate is definitely amenable and I’ve sat round our Cabinet table for 10 years where we had the annual discussion of the immigration program and that is entirely within the hands of the government. And I don’t want to be party political today but Mr Rudd just saying ‘Oh well 36 million it’s just going to happen and we just have to work out how to deal with it, that’s ridiculous because the rate of immigration is entirely a function of federal government policy and is a direct lever over which it has all the authority it needs.

Fran Kelly: In fact, let’s stay with that it is a direct lever, a lever that governments pull. It’s our only formal population policy we’ve had really from one year to the next is alterations and changes in the immigration policy. Earlier in the program we spoke to ANU demographer Peter McDonald, he’s given advice to the federal government that the immigration intake in this country should be around the annual intake of 180,000 people a year in order to be able to economically support our ageing population. Let’s have a listen:

Peter McDonald: Yes we have given that advice to the government. Obviously it’s not 180,000 every year, that can’t possibly work. But broadly in the range of 160,000 to just over 200,000 averaging out at about 180,000. This result produces the best impact upon ageing in the population and that then contributes to growth in GDP per capita for Australia.

Fran Kelly: Nick Minchin do you like that number, do you like that advice?

Nick Minchin: No I don’t I think that’s ridiculous. With great respect to Mr McDonald he is well-known as a high immigration guy and none of what he said has any foundation. We all know that the ageing of the population is not amenable to change by dint of the immigration policy because immigrants by and large come in at an age profile not dissimilar to the current profile of the Australian economy.

Fran Kelly: That’s not true for the large number of temporary entrants?

Nick Minchin: No but by and large, every study that’s ever been done on this shows that you’re not going to change the age profile of Australia in any realistic way by altering the immigration program in any realistic way, so that’s nonsense. And the productivity commission has made quite clear that … the real economic determinant for me is real GDP per head. That’s the economic variable in all this, and for Mr McDonald to say that will be maximized by 180,000 is also nonsense according to the Productivity Commission which shows that high rates of immigration will not enhance real GDP per head. That is 50% more, 180,000 is 50% higher immigration than the average under the Coalition government of around 125,000 so it is a massive increase in the immigration rate we’ve had for the last 10 or 15 years.

Fran Kelly: John Coulter, what’s your response to that advice that Peter McDonald has given the government. 180,000 immigrants per year.

John Coulter: Look I agree with you Fran and I’ve looked at the figures which came from the ABS just a couple of weeks ago on per capita growth of gross state product and in fact states that have performed worst were Queensland and Western Australia with a minus 2.3% and WA with a minus 2.1% growth and that was simply due to the very rapid rate of population increase. And if you look at that over a longer period of time you find exactly the same thing. Could I just pick up on what Bob Carr was saying – whilst it is highly desirable to use various technological techniques to try and improve our energy efficiency and find alternative means of energy and to improve the efficiency with which we use other resources, unfortunately humanity over the last couple of centuries has always taken those improvements as a way of increasing its population so the total impact on the environment was actually increased. So while we do those things it is absolutely vital that we recognise that we are not living sustainably now and consequently we need to do those things now which will reduce both the per capita impact and also the number of capits. And picking up on one of the things that Nick Minchin has said in relation to the birth rate, in fact the Howard government followed by the Rudd government has provided a very large baby bonus and that has certainly had some impact on the fertility rate. That should be removed, we should not be rewarding people in Australia for having babies, particularly when we have the highest emissions per capita of greenhouse gases in the world.

Fran Kelly: OK now these are real political hot button points, now John that you’re saying. Bob Carr do you think any politician would willingly suggest we need to cut our birth rate?

Bob Carr: I think it’s quite feasible for politicians to say that. I think Australian people are responsive to the argument that we are not serving the country’s environmental or economic interests by running such an ambitious policy of population growth. And look I agree completely with what’s been said about ageing of the population and immigration. Every study I have seen has made it absolutely clear that you’d have to run immigration at absolutely unsustainably high levels and for a very long time to have an impact on population ageing profiles.

John Coulter: You’re putting it off to the future

Bob Carr: Yes, you’re putting it off to the future. My challenge to the people who support a big Australia, a constantly growing population on both fronts, immigration and natural growth, is this: when are you satisfied? Are you satisfied when a population of 50 million or 60 million, all the east coast of Australia, every last inch of it, is urbanized? Because that’s what this debate is about. In land use patterns, in terms of planning, the idea of a bigger Australia, a population of 50 million, is a concept for the total, heavy, intensive urbanization of the east coast of Australia. That’s what this debate is about. The idea that we’ve got a population distribution that remotely resembles that of north America – we’ve got no Chicagos, we’ve got no Oklahoma cities or Kansas cities, we haven’t got sizeable population centres in inland Australia and given the water and other constraints, the aridity of the land we never will.

Fran Kelly: OK, we’ve only got a couple of minutes left. I’ll come to all of you one more time before we go but Bob Carr just a political question to you from all your experience is it possible to have an immigration debate in this country without it becoming overloaded with racist overtones. Already again this week it’s got muddled up with asylum seekers.

Bob Carr: Absolutely. The Australian public have got the highest political IQ of any electorate in the world and what we’ve seen in the last six months since this 36 million figure started to alarm people and render them anxious is a sophisticated debate where people haven’t opened up the issue of multiculturalism or where migrants come from. There’s been no Hansonite element whatsoever in this, it’s been a debate about population targets, about carrying capacity, about water and energy use, about planning the shape of our cities and these super ambitious immigration targets that governments have signed up to. This is a debate not about the value of immigration but about the costs of surging levels of immigration that Australians find very disturbing.

Fran Kelly: OK Nick Minchin a final question to you, I’m wondering what you make about the hints that our Population Minister Tony Burke is putting out there about our two speed economy and the answer to our population programs might be a greater spread of population? This has been tried before and has failed hasn’t it?

Nick Minchin: Well I was going to say, every immigration minister in living history has said oh what we need is a better distribution of the population. In a country that doesn’t have internal passports it is of course utterly ridiculous. You might give concessions to people to go to Kalgoorlie but they can hop on a bus to Sydney the very next day. That’s an absolute nonsense and we’ve heard it all before and it won’t work.

Fran Kelly: And John Coulter we’ve heard from you, you keep making the point that we’re not living sustainably. The fact is however we’re living here, the world is populating at a massive rate. Human population will increase from 2 billion to 9 billion in a single lifetime, with that sort of potential overload, it’s almost irrelevant what policy we opt for here and more people will ultimately come anyway won’t they?

John Coulter: No, I don’t think so, and I’ve held this view for the last 40 odd years that Australia should be deliberately setting itself on a course towards a sustainable future, not in isolation but being very very prepared to share its knowledge and its technology and its success and its failures with other countries. And just picking up on the issue of racism, the most racist policy we can possibly pursue is this one of high immigration. Because what we’re saying to the rest of the world is ‘You bugger off, we’re going to just continue to consume more and more and more, and we don’t care what happens to the rest of you’. So it’s the high immigration people who are in effect the most racist people.

Fran Kelly: That sounds like a great place to leave it. John Coulter, Bob Carr, and Nick Minchin, thank you very much for joining us on Breakfast.