Jane O'Sullivan

A new report confirms beyond doubt that rapid population growth is the main cause of Australia’s housing affordability crisis, notes Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). While interest rates and government policies influence short-term trends in house prices, it is population growth that has driven house price inflation long-term.

There have been many news headlines about an article in the Lancet, "Population and fertility by age and sex for 195 countries and territories, 1950–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017."

The news reports on this paper are hyperbolic - quite unwarranted. Why have they picked up on this article, which contributes less than others to the Lancet's special issue on "global burden of disease"? Just an excuse to trot out the 'birth dearth' scaremongering stories, I guess.

The paper itself presents no more than a methodological tweek on how global population data are collated. It's relation to "global burden of disease" is just to ask "how do we calculate the denominator?"
The only real news (which I gleaned from a table, not commented on in the paper) is that Global Population in 2017 was probably even bigger than UN's last estimate, by maybe 90 million! [1] Yet all that gets reported is concern about too few births!

So why not a headline like "There are 90 million more people on Earth than previously thought"?

No, they have to pick up on the entirely un-newsworthy fact that nearly half the world's countries have 'below replacement' birth rates. The problem is, many of the others are far more above replacement than the low-fertility countries are below it.

Even then they misreport it.

Science Daily

Science Daily says, "Ninety-one nations are not producing enough children to maintain their current populations." This is almost certainly incorrect. If you've got a relatively young age profile, then at replacement rate fertility you're still producing many more babies than needed to maintain the current population. The population will grow by momentum (filling up the age cohorts) before levelling off. So this is a factually incorrect statement.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181108205327.htm

BBC

BBC headline is, "Remarkable' decline in fertility rates".
What the data in that paper makes clear is that the uncertainty around global fertility rate means that we can't say for sure whether fertility has declined at all over the past decade. Why do they keep referring to the decline of 40 years ago, and pretend it's 'remarkable', without showing the slightest concern for that decline stalling more recently?
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-46118103#

UK's Channel 4

UK's Channel 4 says "There has been a dramatic global decline in the number of children being born, researchers have revealed." Well, these researchers revealed nothing, but one of their charts showed (as the UN data had done before them) that the past 5 years have recorded the highest number of births in Earth's history. So even the "remarkable decline in fertility rates" has not translated into a decline in number of births, dramatic or otherwise, due to the vast increase in number of mothers.

Don't you just love the media?

NOTES

In the pdf file, it's the second table, starting on p 2025, which is the population table. Top line, right hand side - global population 7,640,466,000 (give or take 250 million). UN's 2017 World Population Prospects lists it as 7,550,262,000. That's 90 million less.

Out of interest, past UN estimates for the year 2017 are (in thousands):

2017: 7550262

2015: 7515284

2012: 7484325

2010: 7435809

Unfortunately the Lancet publication presents multi-page tables with the caption at the bottom, and insufficient labelling of the column headings to actually know what the data in the table represent until you've scrolled down to the caption.

Mercurius Goldstein is a current candidate for the Legislative Council Preselection in New South Wales. Because overpopulation via mass planned invited economic immigration is a very big concern in Australia, and people wonder why the Greens downplay or even suppress this concern, we have published Goldstein's views on population numbers with an analysis by Jane O'Sullivan.

Mercurious Goldstein's views on population [1]

"Briefly I believe that:

1) Anyone who isn’t serious about equality, empowerment and education for women and girls globally, isn’t serious about population.
2) Anyone who isn’t serious about developing a carbon-neutral economy for NSW, Australia and the world, isn’t serious about population.
3) Anyone who isn’t serious about implementing sustainable agriculture such as the Greens NSW policy in this area, isn’t serious about population.
I think it’s obscene that we live in a world where lumps of coal, new cars, or live sheep, can more readily cross borders than human beings.

The liberty of people can be arbitrarily denied and they can be indefinitely detained and abused by governments, but we are told we must not restrict the flow of fossil fuels, live animals in misery ships, or any form of cross-border corporate power. That’s the “logic” of neoliberalism, and we need to dismantle it.

I hope the above can serve as a general response to the question."

Jane O'Sullivan's analysis

This is a very interesting response, in a population-denialist psychology sense.

Before looking at the substance of what he is saying, the tone is aggressively condescending. It reads as a put-down to the people raising the population issue.

It uses the same rhetorical device that the Greens' population policy by-line uses: appearing to introduce balance between population and other factors, while actually deflecting and belittling any attention to population.

(That policy by-line says, “Environmental impact is not determined by population numbers alone, but by the way that people live.” It does not say, "Environmental impact is not determined by consumption patterns alone, but also by our population numbers." The wording the Greens have chosen might be argued to be saying the same thing, but actually it is falsely accusing those who raise the population issue of claiming it is the sole determinant of environmental impact, at the same time it completely dismisses population by failing to include the word "also" in the final clause.)

Mercurius' three points use the same trick of reversing the points. It makes it look at first glance as if he is "serious about population" - indeed, more so than all those shallow, naive people who raise the population issue, because they, by implication, don't put sufficient weight on equality, carbon emissions or sustainable agriculture. His logic seems to be that if you are not way too busy pursuing equality, renewable energy or sustainable agriculture to even think about population, then you're not "serious about population".

Of course, he's not serious about population at all. He doesn't seem to have any awareness of the issues, other than that the people raising it often want to reduce immigration and therefore they are evil and dangerous in his view. He does seem to be serious about silencing the population issue within the Greens agenda. That's what this statement is designed to do. He hopes "the above can serve as a general response to the question." It doesn't "serve" as anything, it just deflects the issue.

To illustrate, would it be acceptable to anyone, if the Greens said "Anyone who isn't serious about developing a carbon-neutral economy isn't serious about equality"? Would people really accept that these issues are linked to the extent that we shouldn't actually do or say anything about equality until we have achieved a carbon-neutral economy? Of course not. We can and must do both at once. But apparently not when it comes to "population".

However, it would be entirely valid to say:

1) Anyone who isn’t serious about population, isn’t serious about equality, empowerment and education for women and girls globally. (The fact is, family planning programs, through both their direct impact on changing attitudes toward women and their role, and by reducing the burdens of childrearing and the crowding of schools through population growth, has enabled far greater empowerment and education for women than any non-family-planning agenda to help women in high-fertility countries.)

2) Anyone who isn’t serious about population, isn’t serious about developing a carbon-neutral economy for NSW, Australia and the world. (Do I need to explain this one?)

3) Anyone who isn’t serious about population, isn’t serious about implementing sustainable agriculture. (Regardless of whatever the Greens NSW policy in this area is, agriculture can't be indefinitely intensified to feed indefinitely more people - and its further intensification comes with greater environmental costs.)

Sheila [Newman] asks [2] "Are the Greens actually an open-borders party?" Certainly, there are quite a few Greens members who appear to support open borders. There are a great many more who wouldn't actually support open borders if they thought a lot of people would use them, but delude themselves into thinking that the refugee inflow will remain a mere trickle, and the economic migrants will continue to be only those we really need to fill skills shortages (as if they ever were), even if we let anyone come and stay for ever and access our welfare system if that's what they want to do. Such nonsensical beliefs are cultivated by ensuring that there can be no open and honest discussion about the implications of "open borders".

To emulate Mercurius,
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about democracy.
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about protecting the environment.
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about indigenous rights;
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about housing affordability and homelessness;
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about a welfare safety-net;
Anyone who supports open borders isn't serious about decent pay and secure jobs.

Perhaps these statements could be taken as "hypotheses" which the Greens should either disprove, or openly distance themselves from advocating open borders. That means, they have to actually come up with workable policies on immigration, not just heap scorn on the government's position.

NOTES

[1] The context of statement from Mercurius Goldstein is explained in this email: On Sat, Aug 6, 2016 at 1:52 PM, Geoff at Eco Bushwalks Sydney wrote: I received this email below the dotted line today from the candidate. It was as you can see addressed to the group via me. [...]"
.................................................................................................

[...]
As you may be aware, I am currently a candidate for the Legislative Council Preselection that is being run.

For the information of members of the group, could I please ask for this opportunity to share my views on population?
I was asked about population recently in another forum, and this is the answer I gave then, and it remains my view.
I have also cc:'d a couple of other GNSW members for whom this matter may be of interest.

Briefly I believe that:

1) Anyone who isn’t serious about equality, empowerment and education for women and girls globally, isn’t serious about population.
2) Anyone who isn’t serious about developing a carbon-neutral economy for NSW, Australia and the world, isn’t serious about population.
3) Anyone who isn’t serious about implementing sustainable agriculture such as the Greens NSW policy in this area, isn’t serious about population.
I think it’s obscene that we live in a world where lumps of coal, new cars, or live sheep, can more readily cross borders than human beings.

The liberty of people can be arbitrarily denied and they can be indefinitely detained and abused by governments, but we are told we must not restrict the flow of fossil fuels, live animals in misery ships, or any form of cross-border corporate power. That’s the “logic” of neoliberalism, and we need to dismantle it.
I hope the above can serve as a general response to the question.
---
With thanks for your consideration,
Yours sincerely,

MERCURIUS GOLDSTEIN
New England Greens (Glen Innes Region)
I live and work on Ngarrabul land and pay my respects to Elders past and present.

[2] Sheila Newman (Researcher and editor of candobetter.net in correspondence with Geoff Dowsett about Mercurius Goldstein's statement) wrote: "Is this guy a globalist? Does he agree with massive import export economies and with destroying the diversity of hunter-gatherers, herders, tribes and nations for this? What is his timeline for educating all women and how does he reconcile this with the problem of suburbs being built over our bushland and the rights of other species? Are the Greens actually an open-borders party?"

[a] Due to a garbled email, I erroneously gained the impression that Mercurius was the convenor of a population working party in the Greens, but he is not.

Geoff Dowsett writes that he received a pathetic response from the Greens re the letter he sent to the Australian Minister for Immigration. He invited people to comment on the Greens response. Inside find some apt responses from Jane 0`Sullivan, of Sustainable Population Queensland. The responses are inserted in a different colour, email style.

Hi All. A pathetic response from Greens Senator Sarah
Hanson Young  to my Dutton letter. Your ideas for a
response are very welcome.   Geoff Dowsett.

Dear
Geoff,

Thank
you for contacting the Australian Greens and providing us the letter you sent
to Mr Peter Dutton MP, in relation to the government’s migration programme and
its impact on Australia. As the Greens spokesperson for Immigration &
Citizenship, Senator Sarah Hanson-Young has asked me to respond to you on
behalf of the Australian Greens.

The
Greens believe that environmental impact is not determined by population
numbers alone, but by the way people live. According to the Greens
policy on sustainable populations “The current level of population,
population growth and the way we consume are outstripping environmental
capacity. Australia must contribute to achieving a globally sustainable
population and encourage and support other nations to do the
same.”

JANE O'SULLIVAN: The
Greens address "the way people live" in most of their other policy areas. Why
does the Population policy not say "Environmental impact is not determined only
by the way people live, but also by population numbers"? They didn't even bother
to include the word "also" in the current version - it is entirely dismissive of
the number of people. Nor is there any recommendation under that policy which
would stabilise Australia's population. Nor is there any acknowledgement under
any other policy, such as energy or transport, of the impact of population
growth. This policy statement has one purpose only - to bury the population
issue.

The Greens do not accept that population growth is a problem in or
for Australia. It is only recognised as a Global problem. I asked a Greens
Senator if she thought Australia had a right remain less overpopulated than
anywhere else on earth (i.e. to limit immigration from any more crowded place)
and she said "No." Despite us having no say over how other people breed, she
said we have to put their resource needs ahead of our environmental
custodianship.

That's the crux of it - if Australia can't contain its own
population independently of the rest of the world, then it also can't preserve
its unique biodiversity and ecosystems. How green are the Greens
really?

Is it even possible for a nation to encourage others to "achieve
a globally sustainable population", while supporting rampant growth in that
nation? How could that work?

The
issues that you raise in your letter are not issues that can be tackled
individually, and are not as simple as dramatically reducing Australia’s
migration programme to subsequently reduce our population. Australia has a
wonderful tradition of integrating cultures into our community, and this was
especially important to our recovery post-World War II. Immigration is still
important today, and is designed to meet Australia’s economic and social
needs.

JANE O'SULLIVAN: Actually, there is nothing
simpler than the Federal govt adjusting immigration quotas. They doubled them,
without so much as a statement in Parliament or a press release. They could
halve them just as easily. We already turn away far more prospective immigrants
than we accept, so nothing would change on that front, except the criteria would
tighten.
There is not one iota of evidence that immigration today meets
Australia's economic and social needs (let alone that it is designed to do so).
There is abundant evidence that it has negative economic and social
impacts.
The touchy-feely argument that multiculturalism has made a major
contribution to Australia's wellbeing is at best an ambit claim, that says
nothing about the required levels of future migration. There are plenty of
countries which made spectacular post-World War II recoveries without
immigration. To say that we are better and happier for multiculturalism is to
devalue the largely more homogenious societies from which our migrants come.
Cultural tolerance is important for the harmoneous integration of a lot of
diverse immigrants, so it is a very good thing that Australia has nurtured
cultural tolerance. But it says nothing whatever about whether that immigration
benefited the incumbent population.

The
Greens are the only voice in parliament providing a real alternative to the
current status quo. The problems you have outlined for the current government
are issues that the Greens wish to tackle as part of their broader values as a
party.  Australian Greens members of parliament are campaigning and
advocating for these alternatives on a daily basis, and were elected to
parliament for these very values. Our ability to explain the entirety of that
platform in the media is somewhat limited, but you will see that these values
are integral to Greens’ policy responses on day to day
issues.

JANE O'SULLIVAN: What
a lot of hubristic nonsense. If the Greens were going to tackle these issues as
part of their broader values, they would have been doing it already. They've
been doing the opposite - vilifying people who raise concern about high
immigration, and turning every discussion on immigration into a discussion about
refugees - deliberately generating misconceptions in the public to support
massive immigration.

You
are welcome to read more about the Greens policies on population here, although I note that as you are a member of
the NSW Greens Population & Sustainability Working Group, you would
already be aware of them and are able to put forward your views on these
matters to shape this policy directly. We hope that you continue to do
so.

Yes,
well, we've read them, we've criticised them, and nothing changes.

Furthermore,
the Department of Immigration has a link on their website where they seek
submissions and papers on policy initiatives. You can access the site here.

Thank
you for your contribution to this important conversation, and thank you once
again for forwarding this to the Greens Members of Parliament and
Senators.

Kind
regards,

HAYLEY
PEARSE  EXECUTIVE
ASSISTANT & OFFICE MANAGER

OFFICE
OF SENATOR SARAH HANSON-YOUNG

AUSTRALIAN
GREENS SENATOR FOR SOUTH AUSTRALIA

Level
7 / 147 Pirie St, Adelaide, SA 5000

TEL  ADL
+61 8 8227 0425  PARL +61 2  6277 3430
|  FAX  +61 8 8227 0426 

"Home ownership is a means to an end. It is not necessary for all people in all places. What all people want is housing affordability, security, and autonomy. A place they know they can come to, where they are in control of their own lives, which can be arranged to best serve their interests, tastes and lifestyle, and which will not enslave them financially. It is these values which have been so steadily undermined in Australia over the past decade in particular.

In some European countries like Germany, only about half of all households own their home. Many people have cited them, in an effort to wean Australians off their preference for ownership. However, the situation here is very different to that in Germany. There, tenants have substantial rights protecting their tenure and enabling them to decorate and to a certain extent modify their abode. Most importantly, the housing market is not inflating, so there is no expectation that rents will outstrip inflation into the future." (Dr Jane O'Sullivan) [1]

Submission to the Home Ownership Inquiry
House of Representatives Economics Committee
By Dr Jane O’Sullivan, June 2015

I am grateful to the Committee for its consideration of Home Ownership, which is an issue of increasing concern for Australians.

Home ownership is a means to an end. It is not necessary for all people in all places. What all people want is housing affordability, security, and autonomy. A place they know they can come to, where they are in control of their own lives, which can be arranged to best serve their interests, tastes and lifestyle, and which will not enslave them financially. It is these values which have been so steadily undermined in Australia over the past decade in particular.

In some European countries like Germany, only about half of all households own their home. Many people have cited them, in an effort to wean Australians off their preference for ownership. However, the situation here is very different to that in Germany. There, tenants have substantial rights protecting their tenure and enabling them to decorate and to a certain extent modify their abode. Most importantly, the housing market is not inflating, so there is no expectation that rents will outstrip inflation into the future. [1] This Submission was made in the name of Dr Jane O'Sullivan.

In Australia, renters are faced with ever-tightening budgets as rents are ratcheted up, and the prospect of termination of lease forcing them to move, with great uncertainty about where they might be able to afford to move to. They generally have little if any control over the fittings and finishes in their home, the energy mix and efficiency, or the level of security afforded. The only insurance against ever-increasing insecurity is home ownership.

I hope that this inquiry will consider policy options both to improve the accessibility of home ownership, and to improve the security and rights of tenants.

Current rates of home ownership

Home ownership is still relatively high in Australia, but most current households bought their first home before the escalation in property values, that began in the late 1990s. The rate of decline in home ownership among younger cohorts between the 2006 and 2011 census is disturbing. The following chart is reproduced from Leith van Onselen [2]

Behind this relatively small change in overall home ownership is a vast increase in household debt levels. The ratio of mortgage debt-to-disposable income exceeded 140% in December 2014. [3] This is up from an average debt of 27 per cent of average income in 1985.[4] The Economist reported that, since the 1970s, virtually the entire increase in the ratio of private-sector debt to GDP around the world has been caused by rising levels of mortgage lending.[5]

LF Economics documents that housing in Sydney and Melbourne requires more years of median income to pay down the capital value than in any other city except Vancouver.[6] Vancouver is another city beset by very high rates of immigration-fuelled population growth. When one factors in that mortgage interest rates are higher in Australia than elsewhere, even at our current relatively low rates, affordability in Australia is extremely low on world standards. If setting aside 30% of a median income for the purpose, Sydney or Melbourne households would spend 6 years saving for a 20% deposit, and 23 years paying down the principle on a loan for 80% of median home price, plus a further 20 or more years to cover the interest, according to the LF Economics report. Spending 30% or more of disposable income on housing is considered to indicate housing stress. Thus the median household entering the market faces official housing stress for their entire working life. Let us remember that households entering the market as first-home-buyers initially average incomes well below median.

The ratings agency Filch found Australia had the highest growth in dwelling prices since 1997. This is unsurprising, since we had the highest population growth also.

Source [of Nominal House Prices diagram]: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-15/fitch-graph-of-housing-price-growth-since-1997/6018762

Thus Australians have shown very low elasticity of demand for housing, absorbing huge cost increases with relatively little change in purchasing behaviour – accommodated by a massive change in debt, impacting on consumption behaviour and work-life balance. A declining proportion of income spent on every-day consumption means a smaller multiplier-effect of each person’s productivity in the whole economy: fewer jobs are needed to service this consumption, while more people try to increase their hours of work to pay their mortgage. Workforce participation can only fall as the least competitive in the labour market are forced out.

There are two main reasons for this low elasticity:
a) Conditions in the rental market have worsened also, making long-term renting ever less attractive. Median rent statistics hide the fact that new additions to the rental stock offer less and less amenity. Like-for-like, rents have risen faster.
b) Expected further inflation of housing makes those without property nervous that they will be permanently locked out if they do not buy in as soon as possible.

It is often argued in the media that rising house prices have been driven by Australians demanding bigger and fancier houses. This is patently untrue. If it were true, the standard post-war three-bedroom bungalow in inner ring suburbs would be decreasing in value. The average ‘house’ may have increased in size, but not the average abode, when apartments are included. It is land which is inflating, not the cost of construction nor the scale of homes.[7]

The truth is that the average standard of accommodation in Australia has been steadily declining, with the average young couple settling for a smaller apartment, in a noiser and less green neighbourhood, with less contact with neighbours, and/or a greater distance from work and community amenities. Most will have spent more of their adult life either in their parental home or in share-houses, than their parents’ generation. Most will spend a far greater proportion of their life-time earnings just keeping a roof over their head. All these factors contribute to considerable loss of quality of life in Australia.

An increasing number of reports document the social stresses of housing unaffordability. The Age reported on multiple families living together because they can't afford the rent.[8] Minimum wage workers are being pushed to the fringes of Sydney, with UWS urban studies researcher Dallas Rogers affirming that geographical separation of rich and poor creates a cycle of disadvantage.[9]

The inflation of house prices does not benefit home owners, as the inflation will equally affect the home they buy to replace one sold. This was well explained in a recent letter in the Canberra Times:

“If you bought a house in 1995 for $200,000 and sold it in 2007 for $600,000, how much profit did you make?
“A) Nil. B) About $200,000. C) $400,000. D) None of the above. The correct answer for most people would be D. If it was your only house, you would have needed to buy another house in 2007 to replace the one you sold. An equivalent replacement would cost $600,000. Add to that the costs of selling (say $20,000) and the costs of buying and moving (around $40,000), then you would have spent an extra $60,000 to be in the same position you were in 1995.
“Many people think that they are better off when the price of their house goes up. They aren't. It is still the same asset. What does go up is their capacity to borrow.
One of the most outstanding achievements of the last Liberal/National government was to double household debt. The profit of Australia's major banks was closely aligned with this increase in debt.”[10]

The Reserve Bank of Australia suggested that consumption growth in Australia will depend on further housing inflation, with the ‘wealth effect’ (the illusion of greater wealth) encouraging households to spend.[11] Thus they are relying on households exercising their greater capacity to borrow, using debt to pump up GDP. Given the effect of housing unaffordability on the ability of households to save for retirement, others stress importance of housing equity to fund retirement, advocating the use of reverse mortgages. Yet, if households are coerced into spending their growing home equity instead of paying down their mortgage, they will not have equity to draw on in retirement. This attitude appears to be merely kicking the can down the road – to land in a very rocky place, when the current young and over-leveraged cohort reach retirement. Private debt cannot sustainably grow GDP any more than fiscal debt, and it’s about time our macroeconomists admitted it.

In an article in The Conversation, Keith Jacobs argues that the majority of people would benefit from falling real estate prices, but the media and political discourse spruiks housing inflation as enrichment:

“Why has this crisis of affordability not been addressed by government? A major reason is that powerful industry groupings such as the financial sectors, property developers and real estate lobby groups have been spectacularly successful in maintaining pressure on the policymakers to privilege wealthy homeowners at the expense of less well-off households.”[12]

Demand and supply drivers in the housing market

The main factor driving these stressors is population growth.[13] Population did not initiate the past 15 years’ hyper-inflation – that was primarily the capital gains tax discount. But population growth was used since the mid-2000s to prop up the bubble caused by that rash and inequitable gift to the rich.

Was it the faltering of housing inflation in 2011 that caused the Gillard government to backflip on its election promise of reducing immigration, and further escalate population growth despite worsening unemployment?

In countries with stable populations, like Germany, property values are near stable, and housing is not a magnet for speculative investment. It is free instead to serve its occupants. Japan’s property bubble ended as its population growth tailed off. Australia’s population growth remains far higher than almost all other OECD countries. This is not only at the expense of affordable housing, but of fiscal balance, with the increased infrastructure costs amounting to over $100,000 per person added[14] , and already accounting for State government debts.[15]

Yet, because it forces up aggregate levels of debt, population growth is great for the banks. Unfortunately, policy-makers tend to turn to banks for macroeconomic advice, apparently oblivious to the conflict of interest between the banks and the populace they leverage. CommSec’s quarterly State of the States reports, which Premiers spruik as a measure of their personal success, invariably places population growth as a dominant determinant of economic performance. Yet the same reports show incomes more consistently outstripping cost-of-living in the states with least population growth. Only by ignoring per capita metrics are the faster-growing states portrayed as more successful. If headline economic indicators were routinely reported per capita, and change in public and private debt were subtracted from them, we would have a much more realistic view of wealth trends. This is the story the banks do not want to tell.

It is frequently claimed that house price rises are due to inadequate supply of housing. This excuse is wearing thin with the public, who see that government policy has taken every opportunity to increase demand. In addition to the expanded immigration program has been added increasing access of foreign investors to Australian real estate. The capital gains tax discount remains sacred, even as welfare and community services are sacrificed as ‘fiscally irresponsible’. Intermittently, first-home-buyer grants further fuel demand and ratchet up prices.

Foreign investment in real estate does not increase supply, it merely fuels the demand, and further displaces prospective home-owners. Without foreign capital inflows, the supply of housing outstripped demand growth continuously from 1950 to 2007.[16] There is an acknowledged tendency for foreign owners, particularly Chinese, to leave properties empty,[17] with the effect that their purchase decreases, rather than increases, housing supply. If developers claim that they can no longer find up-front funding for new ventures on-shore, it is only because, at the current value of land, their proposed development is not commercially viable. A liberal government should not be interfering in the market-place to prop up such unviable ventures.

By introducing investors who have much lower costs of capital than Australians, as well as providing a haven for those who may be laundering corrupt earnings,[18] the prices can be ratcheted even further beyond what is economically rational for Australians. This can only progressively lock Australians out of home ownership, and leave them increasingly beholden to foreign landlords.

Such fuelling of demand plays into the hands of those with control over supply. A recent University of Queensland study[19] found that speculation in peri-urban land was highly lucrative for those with political connections, who have more than a knack for picking the next area to be rezoned. Likewise, approvals for height relaxations on inner urban developments are equally lucrative. It serves developers to present supply as the problem for housing affordability, and themselves as the heroic saviours. Their claims that foreign investors are needed to get projects up are purely self-serving. Their investment in numerous lobbyists and think tanks spruiking population growth ensures that supply is never met, and ever more concessions from government can be requested to help them ease the pressure that they themselves have bought and paid for.

The proportion of investment housing relative to owner-occupied housing

The main impact of the capital gains tax discount was to attract investors into the property market, massively intensifying demand. It goes without saying that housing investment decreases home ownership. Investors need tenants, and those households competed out of home ownership by cashed-up investors are forced to remain tenants. Population growth ensures rental vacancy rates are kept very low, forcing up rents and motivating renters to stretch their credit limit to purchase property. Once heavily mortgaged, both home owners and investors depend on further price increases to recover their investment. But this can only happen at the expense of younger people entering the housing market, each cohort facing higher indebtedness than the last. Each year housing inflation continues, more investors are attracted, further decreasing the proportion of housing that is owner-occupied. It is a vicious cycle.

The Prime Minister was clearly declaring himself on the side of investors against home-owners, when he recently said “I do hope that our housing prices are increasing.” Anyone who thinks that property owners can continue enjoying investment growth well above CPI, without housing affordability deteriorating inexorably, is deluding themselves. Yet, as the old adage goes,

“It's hard to get someone to understand something when their salary depends on them not understanding it.”

The impact of current tax policy at all levels

Tax policy currently preferences investors over home owners, particularly through the following elements:
• Capital Gains Tax discounting;
• Tax deductibility of interest rates;
• Depreciation of buildings;
• Negative gearing.

Together, these measures mean that financing an investment property is much cheaper than financing a home. This is inequitable. Changes should aim to level the playing field, removing systemic advantages of investors over owner-occupiers.

No interest payments on real estate should be tax deductible. These are not productive investments, they merely serve to flood demand and inflate housing prices. Those with money to invest should be free to invest in property, but those who have to borrow to do so should not get special treatment from government, as if they are doing the economy a favour, because they are not.

The ability to depreciate buildings, rather than merely deduct the costs incurred in maintaining them, is also an inequitable means for investors to minimise their costs. In a rising market, where the building has probably increased in value in spite of wear and tear, this is a dishonest device which further disadvantages owner-occupiers.

The capital gains tax discount is a gift from the tax-payers to the richest members of society. Saul Eslake documented the extent to which the introduction of this discount in 1999 stimulated an enormous increase in the use of the negative gearing facility to shift taxable income to lightly-taxed capital gain.[20] Borrowing for property investment and the proportion of loss-making landlords increased dramatically.

Before the capital gains discount, negative gearing was mostly only a means of deferring tax from current income to future capital gain. However, the ability to deduct interest and depreciation contributed to the amount of income offset. It is the capital gains discount that has turned negative gearing into a major tax rort. Saul Eslake (op. cit.) estimated the tax avoided to be in the order of $5 billion in 2011. He concluded, “This is a pretty large subsidy from people who are working and saving to people who are borrowing and speculating.”

The claim that abolition of negative gearing would force rents up has been debunked by a number of commentators, who have demonstrated that its abolition between 1985 and 1987 did not result in any consistent rent response across Australian cities – in Sydney and Perth, where vacancy rates were unusually low, rents rose, but in other cities they were unchanged or fell.[21]

Other measures have been implemented to advantage first-home buyers in the marketplace. These include first-home buyers’ grants and stamp duty waivers. These measures invariably serve merely to push the price of real estate further upward. Prices are limited by buyers’ capacity to pay, and if this is supplemented by government, the first-home buyers simply pay more. The impact on prices affects all buyers, and has the impact of increasing total mortgage debt carried by the community.

What is needed is to remove the advantages enjoyed by speculative investors, not to fuel an arms war between investors and home buyers.

Opportunities for reform

It is not difficult to identify a range of measures which would stem housing inflation and shift speculative investors to more productive investments. What is lacking is the political will.

The following measures are roughly in order of impact, from the greatest and most certain to the least or less probable.
1. Drop immigration quotas significantly and tighten conditions on most forms of temporary work immigration, allowing population growth to taper off.
2. Remove the capital gains tax discount (across all forms of investment income), allowing only a CPI adjustment. Capital gains tax should not apply to the family home, or at least should be net of all expenses in buying the next home.
3. Disallow foreign investment in property. This is purely inflationary, and allows foreigners privileges in Australia which are not reciprocated.
4. Disallow mortgage interest payments and building depreciation as tax deductions.
5. End negative gearing, allowing tax deductions to be claimed only against the income from the activity that incurs them (but permitting costs to be carried forward against future rents or capital gains).

Land tax has been proposed as an additional measure, but is problematic in an inflating housing market. It means that people can no longer even count on home ownership to insulate them from rising costs of housing. As their home rises in market value, through no fault of their own and conferring no advantage on them, they nevertheless face rising tax. Rates are already a land tax that many long-term residents find hard to endure. A land tax can only force more of them out and accelerate the geographical separation of rich and poor.

However, tax on vacant property may be worthwhile, to deter speculative behaviour and prevent investors withholding stock from the market. Any property vacant for more than three months, without being under contract or development application, may be subject to the tax.

The nation’s elected representatives need to decide whether they support:

- on the one hand, ongoing profiteering by developers and real estate speculators, who are increasingly not even Australian, knowing that this can only mean increasing levels of household debt, housing stress, homelessness, inequality of wealth and geographic separation of rich and poor generating slums, crime and civil unrest,
- or on the other, stabilisation of land values and the diversion of speculative investment to productive uses in enterprise and infrastructure, knowing that this means an overall drop in investment returns (including their own) compared with recent expectations, but may avert a bigger drop that an over-inflated bubble must ultimately cause.

To use Tony Abbott’s parlance, “Whose side are you on?”

A rational and sincere public servant should know that the current situation is unsustainable and highly damaging to the fabric of society. Unfortunately I have seen little evidence of such a combination of wisdom and sincerity.

“Surely by now there can be few here who still believe the purpose of government is to protect us from the destructive activities of corporations. At last most of us must understand that the opposite is true: that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens.”
Derrick Jensen – “Endgame: The Problem with Civilization”

Jane O’Sullivan
June 2015

FOOTNOTES

[1] Forbes 02/02/2014. In World's Best-Run Economy, House Prices Keep Falling -- Because That's What House Prices Are Supposed To Do. http://www.forbes.com/sites/eamonnfingleton/2014/02/02/in-worlds-best-run-economy-home-prices-just-keep-falling-because-thats-what-home-prices-are-supposed-to-do/
[2] van Onselen, L. 2015 Winners and losers in negative gearing reform. Macrobusiness 31/05/2015. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/03/will-hurt-negative-gearing-reform/
[3] Leith van Onselen 2015. Australian household debt ratios hit record. Macrobusiness 31/05/2015 http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/03/australian-household-debt-ratios-hit-record/
[4] Kenneth Davidson 2015. Left out in the cold by a state reluctant to invest. The Age, 25/01/2015.
[5] The Economist 31/01/2015. Safe as Houses. http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21641206-banks-have-been-boosting-mortgage-lending-decades-expense-corporate
[6] LF Economics 2015. Housing affordability in Australia. https://gumroad.com/l/UXjubSee summary at http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/04/oz-housing-affordability-measured/
[7] Van Onselen 2015. Australia’s idiotic land bubble. Macrobusiness 10/04/2015. http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/04/australias-idiotic-land-bubble/
[8] The Age, 20/01/2015. Multiple families living together because they can't afford the rent.
[9] Inga Ting 2015. The Sydney suburbs where minimum wage workers can afford to rent, SMH, 9/6/2015 http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/the-sydney-suburbs-where-minimum-wage-workers-can-afford-to-rent-20150608-ghjc6v.html
[10] Keith Calvert, Phantom Profit, The Canberra Times 4/6/2015.
[11] Michael Pascoe 2015. RBA remains dovish, but that's no surprise. Sydney Morning Herald 8/05/2015. http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/rba-remains-dovish-but-thats-no-surprise-20150508-ggx4s9.html
[12] Jacobs K. 2011. Why falling house prices aren’t the calamity the media would have you believe. The Conversation, 13/12/2011. http://theconversation.edu.au/why-falling-house-prices-arent-the-calamity-the-media-would-have-you-believe-4547
[13] Ridiculous immigration fires housing spike – Bob Carr. The Australian http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/immigration/ridiculous-immigration-fires-housing-spike-bob-carr/story-fn9hm1gu-1227393713757
[14] O’Sullivan J. 2014. Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Infrastructure provision and funding in Australia. http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/135517/subdr156-infrastructure.pdf
[15] Daly, J. 2014. Budget pressures on Australian governments 2014. Grattan Institute. http://grattan.edu.au/report/budget-pressures-on-australian-governments-2014/
[16] Soos P. 2011. Debunking the myths peddled by Australia’s property bubble ‘deniers’. The Conversation 14/12/2011. https://theconversation.com/debunking-the-myths-peddled-by-australias-property-bubble-deniers-4488
[17] Callick, R. 2015. Why the Chinese are willing to pay over the odds for local property. The Australian, 11/06/2015. http://m.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/why-the-chinese-are-willing-to-pay-over-the-odds-for-local-property/story-e6frg9fo-1227392052366
[18] Nick McKenzie, Richard Baker, John Garnaut 2015.Corrupt overseas buyers ramp up property price, burn locals. The Age, 23/06/2015. http://www.theage.com.au/national/corrupt-overseas-buyers-ramp-up-property-price-burn-locals-20150622-ghu5pn.html
[19] Murray C. and Frijters P. 2015. Clean Money in a Dirty System: Relationship Networks and Land Rezoning in Queensland. IZA Discussion Paper No. 9028, April 2015. http://ftp.iza.org/dp9028.pdf
[20] Saul Eslake 2013. Fifty years of housing failure. Address to the 122nd Annual Henry George Commemorative Dinner The Royal Society of Victoria, Melbourne 2nd, September 2013. https://www.prosper.org.au/2013/09/03/saul-eslake-50-years-of-housing-failure/
[21] Greg Jericho 2015. Negative gearing: a legal tax rort for rich investors that reduces housing affordability. The Guardian 19/03/2015. http://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2015/mar/19/negative-gearing-a-legal-tax-rort-for-rich-investors-that-reduces-housing-affordability

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A graph from "Australian Population Scenarios in the context of oil decline and global warming" at http://www.crudeoilpeak.com shows that the bulge in the Australian population pyramid which growth economists say will cause a larger number of aging people than the economy can cope with, was obviously caused by high levels of post-war immigration. Dr Jane O'Sullivan has quantified the enormous cost in new infrastructure and maintenance of population growth.

This population pyramid, which appeared at http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=1300 was made using ABS on-line population modeling software and purports to represent our population at 2007. [1]

Bulging Australian population pyramid

The graph shows that the bulge in the Australian population pyramid which growth economists say will cause a larger number of aging people than the economy can cope with, was obviously caused by high levels of post-war immigration. (The lighter coloured parts of the pyramid represent the overseas-born part of the Australian population.)

Without this high immigration, projections would show a much more moderate increase in the future proportion of aged to other cohorts in Australia's population. [a]

A growing population grows the problem: Dr Jane O'Sullivan

By continuing immigration at higher and higher levels our governments and the developer lobby will create a real monster of a problem.

University if Queensland, Agricultural Scientist, Dr Jane O'Sullivan has quantified the cost of constantly increasing infrastructure stock. She says:

"The point most overlooked about population growth is that it costs bucket-loads more than ageing, and many times more than the additional revenue from the extra people. You might think that, at 2 per cent growth, we need 2 per cent more infrastructure and services each year.

The problem is, to add 2 per cent to our infrastructure stock each year, we need more like 100 per cent more infrastructure construction activity that we'd need for a stable population. It works like this: if a cost-weighted average lifespan of infrastructure is around 50 years, we need to replace around 2 per cent of it each year to maintain current stocks. If we also have to grow by 2 per cent, that is twice the infrastructure burden.

The same multiplier principle applies to any durable asset. It turns out that the average lifespan of an asset is equal to the percentage increase in cost caused by each 1 per cent of growth. If buses last on average 15 years, we need to spend 15 per cent more on buses per 1 per cent of growth, just to maintain current service levels. If the average doctor or engineer works for 25 years, we need to graduate 25 per cent more per 1 per cent growth - at 2.1 per cent growth, that's over 50 per cent more graduates, and 65 per cent more enrolments per head of total current population.

Little wonder that the skilled migration program has only made the claims of skills shortages more strident.

The 2010 Intergenerational Report anticipates additional ageing-related costs of only 2.4 per cent of GDP by 2050, with population growth to 36 million.

Stabilising at 24 million would only increase this cost by around 0.8 per cent of GDP."Newcastle HeraldApril 28, 2010

Of course the Australian growth lobby knows this perfectly well and has ... um... engineered ... the situation. Australia, unlike European countries, pretends that this growth will create its own wealth, seeing population growth and demand for more infrastructure as an economic stimulus. In Europe it is rightly considered a cost.[2]

Notes

[a] [30-4-2010 this sentence was edited from one which said there would be no increase, which was overstating the situation.]

[1] I erroneously attributed the 'population pyramid' to the Productivity Commission, on 29-4-2010 when I first published this, but when I sought further details the next day, I found that it came from http://www.crudeoilpeak.com/?p=1300 My apologies.
[2] See Chapter Seven, notably the heading, "Reasons for Connections made to Housing and Demographics", in Sheila Newman, The Growth Lobby and Its Absence.