population growth

The growing Somali community in the UK are going back on extended holdidays to Somalia - the country they claimed in the first place is so dangerous they want asylum. Female genital mutilation is also an issue.

Cultural and legal dissonance

A program on BBC TV's Newsnight on 24/7/12 looked at the growing Somali community in the UK and the frequent issue of (illegal) Female genital mutilation of children in the commnity. It compared (culturally sensitive Britain, and no doubt Canada too) with the Somali community in France. In France people are jailed for up to seven years for perpetrating this practice, but in the UK no prosecution has taken place despite frequent evidence that this is happening. Some of the girls interviewed were articulate and condemned the practice, saying the UK Government should do more to intervene. However, I was struck by the number who said that they were fearful of FGM 'when back on holiday in Somalia'.

No questions asked

No questions were asked as to how a community that predominantly use an 'asylum seeker route' to seek settlement in the UK and elswhere can now be taking regular holidays back in Somalia, which by all accounts is still a very unsafe place. The additional issue of how a community that has one of the highest welfare dependency and poorest employment records in their adopted country can afford to fly back to Somalia on extended holidays, was not explored. It should be. This is probably the tip of an iceberg in manipulating residence status by asylum claimants.

Tim Murray who also blogs on candobetter tells me that many former asylum seeking Tamils from Sri Lanka now resident in Canada frequently return to Sri Lanka on vacation. Such abuses of our asylum/refugee systems are costing us billions in extended support and infrastructue costs, yet our governments turn a blind eye.

The Growling Grass Frog, one of the largest frog species in Australia, was previously widespread across Victoria. They are now endangered. Southern Brown Bandicoots once occurred commonly in the wider Frankston area (pre-1970s). They have rapidly declined and are now restricted to isolated remnant habitat patches. They have little chance of long term survival against the economic benefits of population growth. Without robust ecosystems, with each natural species contributing its part to the web of life, we end in a barren, artificial and sterile, wastelands. (First posted
Posted July 13th, 2012; Reposted July 15, 2012.)

The Growling Grass Frog, one of the largest frog species in Australia, was previously widespread across Victoria. They were once so abundant In Victoria that they were used for dissections in universities and to feed the snakes at the Melbourne Zoo.

The now endangered Growling Grass Frog were once so common around parts of Melbourne that they were the only frogs people saw.

Worldwide, amphibian have declined and become extinct at a greater rate over the past fifty years than birds, reptiles and mammals. Australia alone has seen the extinction of eight frog species in recent decades.  At least 27% of the 219 Australian frog species are threatened with extinction.

Wildlife species cannot be “saved” in the long term by protecting them solely in captivity in zoos or small reserves. Without the existence of sustainable wild populations interacting with their environment, and evolving, each species will end up hopelessly inbred, and eventually doomed to extinction. Apart from high quality wetlands, they need grassland habitat for foraging, dispersal and shelter, and overwintering sites. 

An anthropocentric colonial concept assumes that "vacant" land is a wasted resource unless there is concrete, lawns, landfill, infrastructure and housing on it. 

The framework to protect our native species, even endangered ones, can easily be "revised" and made impotent against the lucrative economic momentum of the property development industry.

The expansion of the urban boundary is not really urban planning but a caving into market forces and the greed for growth.   

Native species are victims of relentless government efforts to increase the size of our economy. However, each species, even humble native frogs, have intrinsic value and a role to play in maintaining our shared ecological foundation.

Protecting Marvellous Melbourne

Part of the problem of protecting Melbourne's "marvelous" status is that Melbourne's population continues to grow.  Those governing and making decisions on planning assume the adage that "growth is good".  Population growth has become a synonym for economic-growth.

We are outstripping our ability to provide for the demands of our swelling population.  This is a time of job losses, and a decline in our once vibrant manufacturing base.   An economy that relies on housing inevitably comes hits the limits of growth with the inability of being able to fund infrastructure, especially for the outer growth suburbs. 

We are being strangled by an economy built for failure. The short-term benefits of land taxes, cash flows and stamp duty etc fail to cover the long term costs of urban expansion. 

The goal should be to grow the economy until the costs are higher than the benefits.   At this stage we need wisdom, and the political willpower to stop growing.   Our growth is now uneconomic, counterproductive and destructive.

City planning has become synonymous to the greed for growth at all costs. 

Protection for species being wound backwards

Protections for key threatened species in areas added to Victoria's urban growth boundaries by the Baillieu government have been wound back under yet to be released biodiversity plans.
Under the revised plans — which still need approval by the Commonwealth — proposals for wildlife corridors for rare bandicoots have been scrapped and buffer zones for threatened frogs reduced.

The Southern Brown Bandicoot, which is listed as threatened in Victoria, would have set up corridors for the species to move between habitats in Melbourne's south-east, will be re-written by the end of the year – no doubt watered-down to make more ease for developers.

Southeast Melbourne and the Westernport region are home to some of the few remaining populations of Victoria's endangered Southern Brown Bandicoots outside of national parks.

The proposed buffer zones around waterways and wetlands to protect the Growling Frog populations will also be reassessed and weakened. It's an effort to make green wedges and conservation corridors more rubbery and eventually non-existent.

According to the VPNA media release 12 June, Obviously the Victorian Government has been captured by developers and is failing to take into account long-term conservation and community needs.

Prescriptions for strategic assessment

On 16 April 2010,  the federal environment minister approved several prescriptions for ecological communities and threatened species associated with the Melbourne strategic assessment. These prescriptions specify requirements for protection of nationally protected matters that must be followed in preparing precinct structure plans and in undertaking individual developments.

The expansion of Melbourne's urban growth boundary will also include the clearing of critically endangered grassland and woodlands, as well as the establishment of large grassland reserves west of the city and 200m wildlife corridors on each side of creeks.

Our slow-evolving species need to adapt to more disturbances, smaller fragments, narrower gene pools and thinner remnant habitats - what the developers and our State government condescends to “save” for them.

Southern Brown Bandicoots once occurred commonly in the wider Frankston area (pre-1970s). They have rapidly declined and are now restricted to isolated remnant habitat patches. Presently there are only two known populations within 15 km of the Pines Flora Fauna Reserve, namely the Royal Botanic Gardens Cranbourne (RBGC) and at Quail Island in Western Port Bay. The population at RBGC is the only population in the greater Melbourne area large enough and managed appropriately to be considered secure. It's the thin-edge of the knife!

Nationally threatened species such as the Southern Brown Bandicoot, Growling Grass Frog and the critically endangered Golden Sun Moth should be protected before final urban growth plans are released. But this hasn't happened as yet! Instead of green landscapes and green policies, they are being based on greed.

"Furry friendly" Peninsula Link?

Peninsula Link's builders are spending $20 million on eco-friendly initiatives including a "furry freeway" for endangered wildlife. A 30m-wide underpass will allow animals including the protected southern brown bandicoot to cross below the freeway. Picketers were attempting to save native bushland from being cleared until the appeal was heard and were keeping a 24-hour vigil at the Frankston South Westerfield property, a pristine pre-settlement biodiversity hot-spot. Bulldozers razed the area anyway, and the “furry freeway” for endangered wildlife is simply tokenism. Property prices in the Peninsula are expected to surge.

Green wedge backlash

Coalition co-ordinator Rosemary West said the inclusion of a Cranbourne South egg farm within the urban growth area could rebound on the government at the next election. Planning Minister Matthew Guy announced the decision to rezone the 104-hectare Brompton Lodge egg farm in June this year following a logical inclusions review. The review committee concluded it was not high-quality agricultural land and the egg farm was not viable in the long term. What is “viable in the long term” now? Nothing in the way of “progress” and urban sprawl!

It also recommended incorporating the adjoining Ranfurlie Golf Course within the urban growth area. Coalition co-ordinator Rosemary West said the rezoning was very poor planning, with Brompton Lodge surrounded by green wedge on two of three sides.

It's beautiful land, it's in the path of a proposed southern brown bandicoot corridor between the Royal Botanic Gardens at Cranbourne and The Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve in Frankston North , and it's a viable egg farm. It's doomed to yield 1100 housing lots!

Native animals, conservation corridors, food production, green wedges and picturesque land and our city's “lungs” can't hold back the spread of concrete, housing and the lucrative profits from population growth.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke will have to give environmental approval before the growth plans can proceed. However, with State government having control over biodiversity and with no population policy coming from Burke, also the Minister of Sustainable Population, there is little chance the answer will be “no”!

An Australian Farm Institute study provides a comprehensive review of what is currently known about the amount and location of Australian agricultural land, the rate of land use change occurring, and how governments make decisions both in Australia and internationally. Whether or not there will be sufficient good quality land available for agriculture in the future has not been a high priority issue for most of the past two hundred years.

Does Australia need a national policy to preserve agricultural land?

Obviously we do! This is a question being asked by the Australian Farm Institute

The rate of land use is changing, and it's important how governments make decisions both in Australia and internationally. Australia has the sixth largest land area and the lowest population density of almost any nation on earth, so the question of whether or not there will be sufficient good quality land available for agriculture in the future has not been a high priority issue for most of the past two hundred years. It's assumed that land is an infinite resource.

Our large land mass gives false sense of security, but Australia has only a little more than 6% arable land, irregular water supplies, and Australia features 96 percent desert. It lacks regular water, fertile soils and resources to carry its current population load. Yet, politicians remain bent on adding millions more people to Australia.

Obviously property development is more lucrative than horticulture, and their lobbyists are far more cash-up and powerful. Food security is not high on politicians' priority list.

According to the research report, Australia is being too reckless with its best agricultural land, and future generations might regret decisions that are currently being made about the future use of that land. With urban sprawl, mining, CSG and environmental demands taking more and more land, and foreign investors also purchasing significant areas, it is legitimate to ask whether Australia can realistically plan to become the future "food bowl of Asia". It's also legitimate to ask if our government's drive for perpetual economic growth be justified if it means we pay higher prices for imported food, something that may diminish in future years with global population reaches 9 billion.

While Australia appears to have plenty of land, in reality only about 3% is actually suitable for cropping, and even less of this is considered to be prime agricultural land. Low or high Population density and population size can't be compared to the nations in Europe of Asia with fertile soils, high rainfall and high human "carrying capacity".

The report concludes that Australia currently lacks a consistent and comprehensive understanding of where this land is located, or how much of it is being diverted from agriculture each year.

Australia is now a net importer of horticultural products, whereas it was a net exporter only a few years ago. Wheat, dairy, fishing and sugar production are all down from their previous peaks.

Earlier detailed research by researcher Dr McGovern, lecturer in the Queensland University of Technology’s school of economics and finance, found that Australia exports only around 25 per cent of its agricultural product at second-stage production, not 80 per cent as has often been supposed.

There's a great international market opportunity for a four-fold increase in food production in Australia, but there's no explanation on just this magnificent feat is going to be achieved, especially if climate change scientists are correct. A free-market economy has no parameters for the limitations of Nature, and that the security of domestic food supplies must be a priority over exports.

Once high immigration - the driver of our population growth - created jobs and an economy of scale, now our population growth is threatening our local fresh food supplies, and it must be slashed. We can't rely on imported food as global overpopulation will mean countries will need the food for their own populations. Food is more important than a "healthy" GDP!

Property development and real estate is obviously more lucrative than growing vegetables. It's about short-term profits and cash flows than real planning. What's the use of economic growth - a pseudonym now for population growth - without food security?

We must stabilize our numbers or we will be no better off than bacteria in a petri dish, bemoaning the lack of room for growth, knowing our final demise but being trapped by a leadership vacuum on population and its implications for food security.

The remarks made by prominent Australian businessman and environmentalist, Dick Smith that in 100 years time people in Australia will be starving to death is not implausible.

Minister for Sustainable Population Tony Burke remains silent, while our growth-based economy continues unfettered. . It's a number-free ministerial policy.

See also: The Groundwater Footprint: The Privatisation of the World's Water Resources of 16 August 2012.

Nostalgic memories can be dismissed as invalid, but the facts beneath this strong emotion may reveal the true direction in which we are heading.

Many people yearn for earlier times in their lives, especially for childhood, provided they were protected and supported at the time rather than abused or neglected by the adults around them. The emotion “nostalgia” can colour memories in such a way that we lose objectivity or even accuracy. So is there any validity in a person’s memories about another era?

When we try to piece together how things must have been before any of us were on the planet we use public records and paintings, photographs, literature and people’s accounts. A first hand account may have been written contemporaneously, 10 years later or even 50 years later. To some extent, nostalgia could permeate anything not written contemporaneously. (On the other hand over catastrophising could permeate any account!) So how do we avoid the “contamination” of nostalgia?

Recollections of childhood can be tinged with nostalgia, perhaps for the state of childhood and the love of one’s parents. So how do we know in giving or receiving a rosy account if it was really better 40 or 50 years ago? Is it valid to test whether things were better in the past by imagining that one could revisit, as an adult, places from the past unchanged and imagine how one would feel? Would it still be nicer than it is today, even without our youth and all those dear long dead folks? If the answer is “yes” maybe there is a case for saying in a particular case that things were actually better in the past.

At the age of about 19 I read a book called Future Shock by Alvin Toffler which made a big impression on me. What stays with me about Toffler’s thesis was that he said the world is changing very fast, so fast that most people are disoriented by this and in fact suffer shock akin to the culture shock one may experience on visiting a place that is utterly different from one’s usual environs. He called this phenomenon Future Shock This book made a lot of sense to me as the main difference between a rapid change in one’s environment and visiting a completely different environment is the fact that distance is involved in the latter. Furthermore the culture shock from visiting a very exotic place is reversible by going home! One has some control! With future shock from a dramatic change in one’s immediate surroundings, one cannot escape by going home. The situation usually cannot be reversed and the sufferer has to really go through a grieving process for what is lost (the surroundings they were used to) and at best a gradual healing and acceptance.

In conversation recently the subject arose of what must have been an unfathomable trauma for the Australian Aborigines around Melbourne when the ships from Britain arrived and the people’s whole existence was over-run and annihilated in a very short time. Hopefully nothing like that happens in the future to the people of Melbourne that could ever compare in magnitude to that abomination! The life of the Aborigines went steeply and rapidly down hill in mere decades because of this invasion. If an elder of the Boonwarrung tribe had said to his grandson in 1860 that life had been idyllic when he was a boy and that they did not have to share their land with white people and it was dismissed as nostalgia would it be any the less true? There can be little argument that life 50 years earlier was a quantum of magnitude better for him and his people than in 1860.

People living now especially in first world countries with rapid population growth are accustomed to constant change. That is not to say they are immune to future shock but they are told that change, or “progress” or population growth are normal and to be expected Everyone would have heard the self comforting adage often expressed on the loss of something beautiful and treasured like a creek or a piece of bush land with a cornucopia of bird life giving way to a freeway or a housing development “Oh well that’s progress!’ People on the outer fringes of Melbourne (termed the “growth corridor”) see the countryside around them caving in to never ending housing concrete and bitumen. The pain of lost paddocks, lost natural areas, ruined creeks, lost wildlife is so immense that my friends there tell me they try to avoid driving near these once loved places. They just don’t go there any more. Is this a situation of grief or immediate nostalgia? How does one reconcile oneself to the loss? Are we supposed to just forget what was there? If we keep the memory is it nostalgia? Which is in fact better, the ever expanding suburbs and connected by dark grey tar and hard edged concrete, or the paddocks, countryside and farms connected with the vagaries of country gravel roads? Does the unhappiness of those who lived there before it was transformed render their comments invalid?

If we lived in a place where population remained fairly constant would nostalgia figure so largely in our lives as a way of recollecting “the way things were” or would we only regret the normal and inevitable loss of the power of youth and the attrition of those we love over the years.

I don’t know because I have always lived in an environment that has changed rapidly. Of the houses I have lived in or known intimately, massive changes have overtaken them, a road though the back yard and the house demolished, neighboring houses expanded to the adjacent fence looming over me and views blocked by new buildings. The city where I live now is being re-built with old houses pulled down , gardens destroyed , earthworks boundary to boundary to provide cavernous holdings for cars, trees chopped down, the dreaded yellow notices on house after house warning of massive expansions. With unending high population growth our only certainty is continuing uncertainty and upheaval.

GM crops are being seen as an “answer” to human overpopulation, a “big Australia” and a way of securing food for the future. The global challenge is to produce 70% more food in the next 40 years. GM has the potential to increase hunger around the globe.

Greenpeace has been accused of being anti-science over the destruction of experimental GM wheat trials in Canberra earlier this year.

GM crops are being seen as an “answer” to human overpopulation, a “big Australia” and a way of securing food for the future.

Greenpeace's senior scientists, Dr Janet Cotter, says she thinks the big issue with GM is crop contamination.  She says we are seeing lots of canola contamination in Australia, and in wheat trials overseas we are seeing contamination of crops.  The insertion of genes into the genome causes unexpected and unpredictable results such as allergies - allergies are proteins and in peer reviewed studies protein introduced into a pea plant, have caused allergen problems.

Population challenges

Population growth in developing countries generates a huge challenge to food and nutrition security, with 93 per cent of world growth expected to occur in those countries while arable land is being reduced by land degradation and climate change. The global challenge is to produce 70% more food in the next 40 years. Of course, it's offensive to cultural, economic and religious sensitivities to keep within our ecological limits?

The success of the Green Revolution at feeding Asia’s growing population is touted across the world as a triumph of modern humanity over the limitations of nature and traditional farming. The Green Revolution is shuddering to a controversial halt precisely, when greater productivity is needed.  Dr Bourlag's “population monster” is rearing it's ugly head!

Dangers of GM

Lack of research done to detect any effect this herbicide and insecticide DNA might have on human health. Over the years we have had some horrific side-effects from the use of chemicals that had been researched for 10 years and later proved to be cancer-causing or dangerous to pregnant women. They were then withdrawn from the market.
GM has the potential to increase hunger around the globe. This jars with people's logic (and defies brilliant marketing campaigns by the GM industry) but the companies responsible for producing food globally could actually cause further food scarcity. The International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development reported that
instead of allowing farmers to save and reuse seeds as they have done for generations, they will be required to purchase new seeds each year.

GM companies claim that their seeds will feed the poor, when in fact their only goal is greater profits.  GM canola can cross-pollinate with a number of other species, and eating such resulting crops would decertify organic livestock as well.

Shady agro-giant, that food-world Voldemort, Monsanto in the 1990s sold Indian farmers, stricken by drought and poverty, were so entranced by Monsanto's promises of wealth that they take on debt, at local moneylenders' extortionate rates, to buy the GM seed hundreds of times more expensive than traditional seed. 

French researchers found rats fed GM maize showed
significant liver and kidney damage. The findings only came to light after Monsanto was forced to publish its raw data on safety tests by anti-GM campaigners. Dr Seralini concluded that rats which ate the GM maize had ' statistically significant' signs of liver and kidney damage.

Scientists at Scotland's Rowett Institute found intestinal and immune system damage to rats fed GM potatoes. Even though some lectins are highly toxic to humans, the developers of the GM potato believed that it would be toxic to insects, nematodes and fungi without harming mammals. To his surprise and alarm Dr. Arpad Pusztai, a Hungarian immigrant to Scotland, found that rats fed the GM potato suffered damage to their immune system and digestive system.

Canadian gynaecologists have found insect toxins from GM plants in the blood of pregnant women and their foetuses.  The researchers suggest that the most
probable source of the toxin is GM food consumed as part of a normal diet in Canada, where GM presence in food is unlabelled.

Africa's solution to drought and crop diseases may be in growing genetically engineered crops specifically tuned to resist weather conditions and mature quickly. This could result in saving crops from losses of harvests, which are followed by hunger and starvation. Nearly 200 million people in Africa are undernourished.  At present, most African countries cannot advance GM crop research because national policies or regulatory systems are not prepared to deal with safety requirements. Only South Africa and Nigeria have a specific policy for biotechnology.

Facing a growing number of people in need of food aid, the Kenyan government gazetted existing legislation in August that allows for the importation of genetically modified (GM) crops as well as for the cultivation of GM food crops within Kenya.

Teresa Anderson, of the Gaia foundation, which partners with the African biodiversity network to prevent the industrial commoditisation of the continent’s agriculture, says Kenyan farmers’ opposition to the new legislation is a testament to how devastating GM could be for their farming practises. Farmer would no longer be able to save their seeds for the next planting season, and would be in possession of a patented product.

decline of bees

The decline of honeybees around the world continues to puzzle scientists. Australia is the only continent that has been spared the mite but it may soon be here.

The genetic modification leads to the concurrent genetic modification of the flower pollen. When the pollen becomes genetically modified or sterile, the bees will become malnourished and die of illness due to the lack of nutrients and the interruption of the digestive capacity of what they feed on.  Digestive shutdown due to hard material in the digestive tract compromises the immune system and points to GMO flower pollen.

Russian Scientists Find Third Generation of Hamsters Sterilized by GM Soy.  One group of hamsters was fed a normal diet without any soy whatsoever, a second group was fed non-GMO soy, a third ate GM soy, and a fourth group ate an even higher amount of GM soy than the third.

 Using the same genetically modified (GM) soy that is produced on over 90 percent of the soy acreage in the US, the hamsters and their offspring were fed their respective diets over a period of two years, during which time the researchers evaluated three generations of hamsters.  GM crops, instead of being a solution to feeding a blow-out of global population growth, could actually solve the overpopulation crisis.

Nearly all the third generation GMO babies were sterile!

While Australia is in a more fortunate position than many other countries, our natural environment, our biodiversity and our agricultural resources are already under strain from the demands of our current population. To restore sustainability to our landscapes and waters, we need to reduce the demands on them.

UN Millenium Development Goals failing

The U.N.'s Millenium Development Goals has been trying to eradicate poverty, with a program that started in 2000, and the goal is supposed to met in 2015. However, the world is still at 2 billion people who make less than $2 a day. The problem is: overpopulation causes poverty and hunger, and makes nations vulnerable to corruption. If you tackle reproductive rights first, it's the first step in addressing poverty and food security.

This article describes an example of the serious and inhumane impact, in the form of crisis involving several individuals, and a specific suburb and hospital system, of Australian immigration policy. The government is maintaining a policy of high mass immigration contrary to the wishes of the majority of citizens. Citizens have no useful outlet and no effective parliamentary representation on this.
The mass media covers matters in a manner that keeps the arguments circular and without constructive democratic outlet. For this reason candobetter.net serves an important purpose in expressing peoples' views and in exposing the impacts of the government's undemocratic and environmentally and socially harmful policy.

Student industry - easily abandoned cash-cows

In this article the push by universities to get students from overseas to make up finance shortfalls that once were supplied from taxes comes under the spotlight.  The article looks at the cost to Australian students deprived of places and the cost to foreign students of maintaining their places.  It also looks at how Victorian hospitals' bed shortages are a direct result of the effective push by the growth lobby to have more and more people in this country.

There is little revealed in the media of foreign student struggles, their impact on university courses and standards, their access to residency, and scams. Universities have become another industry, outsourced globally for economic benefits rather than institutions that aspire to quality education, learning, ethics and research – and a way to ensure our young people are able to reach their potential equitably.

Open to rorts and scams

The Federal government migration program, designed to attract thousands of young, highly skilled students to fill Australian jobs, has been "corrupted" by a Melbourne man who created a sophisticated scam that rorted the already dubious system.

Carmine Amarante made tens of thousands of dollars, and was expecting more in the future, by manufacturing hundreds of fraudulent documents for international students to ultimately become permanent residents.

The student scam also allows “students” to enter Australia without sufficient financial support, without tickets and money to pay for their air fares to return to their countries.

Our own personal experience

We have experience with an international student we were in contact with, from a country in South America. I will call her “G” so not to identify her.

We helped her find accommodation and we have invited her to join us for a few social and cultural events.

G has been under terrific stress - no job, no money, failed exams, not being able to pay rent, and then she developed a mental health issue - paranoia, delusions, crying and became suicidal.

She started a fire in the rented house she is in, and burnt her clothes and linen. She suffered bouts of paranoia and called the police three times, thinking she was being assaulted or raped.

G asked for help. We took her to a GP and he referred her to the local public hospital - one of the biggest in Melbourne. We stayed with her for 12 hours in the hope of getting a bed.

After my partner spent many hours with her, not long after he left she was released by the hospital, to another “student” who arrived at the emergency ward last moment. He had no money, was almost illegal himself, with inadequate accommodation and no car.

She had to be picked up at the station. She was threatening to escape, and she vowed she wasn't going to take “drugs”!

She was using her acquaintances and friends to borrow money. She had no job, her rented room was almost expired, and she wasn't welcome where she had been living.

Excessive stress on foreign students

This kind of situation has occurred before, with very serious consequences, such as when Huan Yun "Allen" Xiang, a 46 year old Chinese student with little social support, shot several people in his class at Monash university in 2002. Although Xiang might have developed paranoid schizophrenia anyway and was presumably a permanent citizen, since he ended up indefinitely at Thomas Embling Hospital for the criminally insane, he seems to have been isolated by language difficulties. As he began shooting, it was reported that "People in the classroom were initially confused by the noise and by Xiang screaming 'You never understand me!' from the desk he was standing on."[1]. He would would also “curse the lecturer constantly in Cantonese” from the back of classrooms.[2]

It should be recognised that the stress of being away from one's family and compatriots and studying in a new language, without adequate finances or whilst acquiring large debts, is guaranteed to increase health risks. If Universities are to have foreign students they should be responsible, caring and hospitable towards them and liaise with the Department of Immigration and the students' embassies. In the days of Columbo Plan students, foreign student welfare was taken seriously, but this caring attitude has fallen away as foreign students are now simply seen as cash cows.

Population growth drives bed shortages for locals and for immigrants

Our recent crisis was made worse by Victoria's hospital bed shortages. The impact of high population growth means that there was no bed for G at the local hospital. Despite overcrowding in this hospital already, the Victorian government is planning to greatly increase population and housing density in the surrounding suburban area. The “shortage” of beds is due to not the number of beds dwindling, but to our population boom!

G is not illegal at the moment as her visa has not expired. She was given more time to pay the university fees that she owes. If this time expires, so will her visa. There are no funds coming from her family. They live in poverty, and G was actually expected to sent money to them!

Quite legal to be vagrant in Australia

After ringing up “Immigration dob-in line,” I was informed that it is quite legal to stay in Australia unless the visa has expired, or there is some evidence of fraud. This is despite students being without income, accommodation, or not being able to pay for study fees. Even illness can't force them to be deported.

In Continental Europe, not having suitable accommodation or funds are grounds for being refused entry or sent home.

The Immigration Department won't do anything about students in need, or those causing problems to themselves or others until they are illegal! They don't even have to have money or ticket, (depending on the student visa type) and if they don't manage, Australian authorities generally do nothing!  G can be destitute here and there is no duty of care from our government. The department of Immigration suggested that I should contact charities!  Already our charities are over-used. 

Foreign students are silently allowed to “fall through the cracks” of social support, but any criticism and exposure of them is based on “racism”?

Abandoned by the Embassy

The embassy of the country G came from was not interested in her difficult situation in Australia. They had no funds, despite the Ambassador being on a salary of $20,000 per month, with an office in Canberra!

The university tried to contact her, but got no response. We don't know where the money for her ticket home is coming from.

She is now in a public hospital ward in a psychiatric unit.

Poverty of foreign and Australian university students

Governments are reluctant to pay for the costs of educating Australians, and to give them the support they need. The growth of demand from international students, most of them from Asia, is a way of filling a potential gap in university enrollments which are now beyond the means of most Australians to pay. Foreign students are willing to pay for their own education, at full costs, at no expense to the Australian government.

Education has become Australia’s third largest export earner, after iron ore and coal.

High student poverty rates

Universities Australia has reported that one in eight Australian students surveyed by them told of regularly going without food or other necessities because they did not have enough money. According to the National Union of Students the maximum Youth Allowance benefit that an Australian student under 25 and living in a share house can receive is $245 per fortnight, which is 38% below the poverty line ($645.15 per fortnight). No wonder students are struggling.

Population groups which may be at particular risk of food insecurity include homeless people, those on low income or living in poverty, including people on pensions and benefits, unemployed people and students - including international students.

Universities Australia’s most recent survey found that one in eight students regularly go without food or other necessities because they don’t have enough money. Money Help’s financial counsellor Brian Kerr says, most of the students I’ve helped are international students who find themselves in financial difficulty. Students are on such a low income but the cost of being a student is so high.

Tips and services to keep you above the poverty line

Foreign students little more than slave labour

Overseas students getting as little as $6 an hour to work in local Asian restaurants are too afraid to complain for fear of losing even the meagre wages paid by their unscrupulous bosses.

They are here as cash-cows, to provide willing, cheap and flexible labour to businesses.

Little media attention

There is very little in the media about the problems of international students. It's a hidden industry, and the costs to our already strained charities is ignored.

The implications of universities being starved of funds and having to rely on international students has impacts on Australia's job market, especially for local students. Education here has been globalized, to our detriment.

Ambiguity of International students programs makes abuse likely, with serious consequences

Amarante admitted he was paid between $500 and $1000 for the 777 false work experience documents he created and had paid employers, some who were friends, some from referrals and others he approached on the street. This exposed “student” scandal further compromises our GSM (“general skilled migration”) program.

Of the 375 visa applications lodged under Amarante's false documents, 34 were granted permanent or temporary visas, 67 were refused, 217 remain pending and 57 were withdrawn.

Students coming to Australia should be interested in education, not residence in Australia. Learning and qualifications should be the motive, not living in Australian. Mixing immigration and education leaves this scheme open for corruption and distortion. It assumes that we have insufficient job applicants and ignores our population growth, our youth unemployment and underemployment levels, and displaces more further Australians from housing.

Notes

[1] Jamie Berry, (2003-09-12)."Student believed Monash killings were 'his destiny,'" The Age.

[2] Jamie Berry, "Student 'hosed' room with bullets, court told,"The Age, September 13, 2003.

Post-script - G, motivated by her estranged mother, wants to "sue" the people her helped her for "emotional abuse" (trying to get rent payments from her) and "kidnapping" (after admitting being suicidal to the local GP and taking her to hospital) in order to acquire funds to pay her fees and stay in Australia!

Shallow policy-making based on economic health at the detriment of the majority of the people of Australia is about pandering to the the "needs" of big businesses and those who benefit from growth.

The impacts are not only on people, but on animals.

Non-humans are usually ignored in the economic-growth paradigm that dominates policy making today. “Sustainability” is often referred to as being about ensuring comfortable human survival, and not other species.

The Ponzi-economic growth-based rational not only displaced existing people as the pyramid becomes larger at wealthier at the top, but displaces non-humans.

Land clearing and agriculture

Agriculture, land-clearing, logging, urban sprawl, roads, introduced and feral animals all result in wildlife habitat destruction.  Increased noise, pollution, traffic, and crime also means that animals come under threat from contacts with humans.   Our mammal extinction rate is the highest in the world, and Australia's rich natural heritage of biodiversity is under threat from more extinctions.  

Habitat loss is their greatest threat as more land is being made available for human "carrying capacity". As several large-scale scientific studies have confirmed, severe environmental degradation is taking place due to animal farming. Animal farming for meat, leather, and milk is depleting our natural resources at an alarming rate.

Green-house gas emissions from animal farms are a major contributor to global warming. Enormous amounts of water and plant food is required to produce meat. It is estimated that about 100,000 litres of water, 100 kilogram of hay, and 4 kilogram of grain is required to produce just one kilogram of meat.
The quality of life for animals suffers, with factory-farming that becomes more inhumane in order to feed so many people.

Greater human-animal contact.

As our urban boundaries continue to expand, livestock, wildlife and pets also come into more contact with people.  This means they are more and more under threat from thrill-killings, theft and interference.
Kangaroos are reportedly being tortured on a weekly basis due to increasing population growth in the Peel region, with one animal being found torn in two after being tied to two separate cars.

There is a constant push by governments for ever increasing population growth to drive economies, despite the fact that animal habitats are being decimated and many areas of the world, including Australia, are struggling to provide enough water for the existing population.

Associate Professor Eleonora Gullone from the School of Psychiatry and Psychology said the number of inhumane acts committed against kangaroos and domesticated animals over the past two years in Whittlesea ( a high growth area of Victoria) was concerning. There is evidence that kangaroos are disliked by farmers and rural property owners, she said.

High population growth and social disunity go hand in hand with tensions, crime, displacement and homelessness, and these factors all make animals ideal and silent victims social dis-ease. Kangaroos are our national iconic animals, and landholders have been pandered to too much by our DSE and permits to get rid of them are far too easily handed out.

Increasing demand for livestock products.

  Population growth means increasing demand for livestock products such as dairy, eggs and meats.  Livestock are under pressure to produce more, but to save costs and space, they are being confined in factory farms.  This means mutilations to stop their "aggression", antibiotics in their foods, increased risks of zoo noses(disease originating from animals), methane gas emissions, pollution to waterways and soils,  and declining animal welfare standards.

In the mid-twentieth century, exponential population growth was noticed early and taken seriously enough to spur a dramatic acceleration of global food production from the 1940s onwards. Traditional farming practices and traditional crop varieties were displaced as farming became intensive: the birth of industrial agriculture or factory farming occurred on a massive scale. Not only animals, but we too will feel like factory-farmed chickens squashed into metropolitan areas where housing is becoming more dense.

Companion animals and human densities.

Pets are good for children as it teaches them social skills and to have empathy with animals.  However, being forced into high density living denies children the ability to thrive, and to have the full benefits of space and room to raise animals for companionship.   It's a formula for mental illness and less active children, more prone to obesity and diabetes. Many elderly people rely on companion animals too.  Due to more people renting and moving into animal-hostile lifestyles, more draconian "management" of homeless animals is being considered.   Pets become the waste products of society when they can't be accommodated. They are doomed to the rubbish-bin of “death row”. Our cities are becoming more removed from the natural world.

Overfishing:

Mulloway (Argyrosomus japonicus) occur in estuarine and coastal waters surrounding Australia, Africa, India, Pakistan, China, Korea and Japan. In Australia they are a highly targeted iconic fish species due to their large size, attractive silver coloration and good eating. Reported commercial catches of mulloway in New South Wales show a steady and substantial decline from 380 tonnes in 1973/74 to 60 tonnes in 2005/06.

NSW DPI Narrandera Fisheries Centre research scientist, Dr Lee Baumgartner, said a film crew visited the Riverina region last year to film the documentary and raise awareness about issues facing the iconic Murray cod.

“Over the years Murray cod have suffered substantially due to overfishing, habitat loss, poor water quality, pest species and river regulation,” he said.

Overfishing has drastically reduced the numbers of Southern Bluefin Tuna. The world's oceans have been experiencing enormous blooms of jellyfish, apparently caused by overfishing, declining water quality, and rising sea temperatures. Now, scientists are trying to determine if these outbreaks could
represent a "new normal" in which jellyfish increasingly supplant fish. By removing a curb on jellyfish population growth, overfishing "opens up ecological space for jellyfish," says Anthony Richardson.

A seeming increase in shark attacks worldwide may well have a human cause, with low-cost air travel, but also overpopulation, overfishing and even climate change among the hidden suspects, say experts. The experts behind the Australian Shark Attack File argue that the enormous increase in the size of the Australian population over the last century has contributed to the increase in numbers of overall shark attacks (including non-fatal attacks). The shark is under relentless attack from humans themselves.

A third of open-water shark species, including the great white and the hammerhead, are facing extinction, driven in part by demand in Asia for shark-fin soup, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Loss of biodiversity

The monocultural practices of modern agricultural methods have been the driving force behind this loss of genetic diversity. Monoculture is the practice of broad scale cropping using the one variety of plant.

Globally, more than 5,000 wildlife species are threatened with extinction. Some 25% are mammals, and 11% birds. Of the reptile, amphibian and fish species described as threatened, 20% are reptiles, 25% are amphibians and 34% are fish.

Biodiversity loss is one of the world's most pressing crises and there is growing global concern about the status of the biological resources on which so much of human life depends.
It has been estimated that the current species extinction rate is between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be. - IUCN

Our duty of care to the animal kingdom is being compromised by excessive population growth.

Few of us realise that the main cause of the current environmental crisis is human nature.
All we're doing is what all other creatures have ever done to survive, expanding into whatever territory is available and using up whatever resources are available, just like a bacterial culture growing in a Petri dish till all the nutrients are used up.

Our growth means the world in which rampant consumption in rich countries, and over population in developing countries, is rapidly outstripping the global resources.

Ultimately, the loss of biodiversity will result in a dead, cruel and sterile planet in which local or regional ecosystems have collapsed.

How many other "solutions", detention centres, unaccompanied children, unidentified entrants and money must be spent on failed policies to address the asylum seeker issue? The government is trying to please too many lobby groups - those who want the economic benefits of population growth, and those prefer to act with compassion and humanity.

The High Court made permanent injunctions preventing the removal of asylum seekers to Malaysia.

More "boat people" will come

Immigration minister Chris Bowen conceded that there would be more "boat people" after the High Court was convinced to block the "Malaysian Solution".

We have had many failed "solutions" to control asylum seekers arriving randomly on our shores?   The size of the "welcome mat" to take risky voyages and increase people smuggling has become larger.

Julia Gillard needs to show some leadership on our behalf. The reason for all the detention centres, unaccompanied minors, armed guards and the processing of claims is because we are enslaved to a relic of a different era with our agreement to the 1951 Refugee Convention. 

We are a sovereign nation, not a colony subservient of the UN, and we should be free to make our own policies, and decide who and how many people come here.   Malaysia is not a signatory.
The flow of "boat people" is a political smoke-screen to hide the real source of our population boom - economic immigration.

John Howard's asylum-seeker smoke-screen

Prime Minister John Howard claimed to have "stopped the boats", but there was no mention of any plans to increase overall immigration numbers, or whether the  meatworkers and fruit pickers, skilled temporary workers, were given preference over those with professional qualifications, like trained doctors or accountants.

Back in 1988 Howard said he didn't want to see the rate of Asian immigration increase any further.

Heart of the "Australian story" ?

Howard also said: To an extent greater than almost any other country, we are a nation of relatively recent immigrants. Immigration has been at the heart of the Australian story because, without it, the country we now know could not have come into existence.   What was the "heart of the Australian story" should not become an epic, or tomes to fill a library!  Our early childhood experiences and memories don't have to be lived and recreated throughout our lives as we reach maturity.   What was beneficial in our infancy is not necessary to continue, and can be detrimental. It's like trying to relive childhood, and retain the benefits of it instead of moving on to maturity.

Growth is only one stage of a community's or nation's lifecycle. Malignant growth continues.

All evidence shows that Australia as the “Lucky Country” has already gone into history. No politician is considering reviving or reliving this part of the “Australian story”.

So while Australians felt secure that our borders were tightly protected from "boat people", polls showed that they were relaxed and comfortable about immigration despite the substantial increase in the intake from under 100,000 to over 200,000 a year during Howard's era. The impacts weren't immediately noticeable, and the use of asylum seekers as a smoke screen to disperse the economic immigration debate worked successfully. 

By contrast, the return of significant discontent intensified with the Rudd Government’s further expansion of immigrant numbers to over 300,000 a year, relative reduction in the skilled proportion of the intake and, perhaps most significantly, loss of control over unauthorised boat arrivals. Kevin Rudd's popularity severely plummeted when he unapologetically supported a "big Australia"!

John Howard never wanted to talk about his booming immigration program. Kevin Rudd didn't want to either. Why not? Because it just doesn't fit. Immigration adds to the demands for labour as well as supplying it, and these families need food, clothing, shelter and all the other necessities. They also add to the need for social and economic infrastructure: roads, schools, health care and all the rest – requiring public funding.

Easy to obtain PR in Australia

It's actually very easy to obtain PR in Australia. The immigration
figures speak for them selves. We have the highest population growth in the developed world, and of course this is a magnet for those seeking a new country.

We already have our own displaced in Australia, with growing homelessness and poverty

The "immigration" debate is largely about asylum seekers, while the real source of our population growth is economic immigration - students, skilled workers, and family reunions. 

Small numbers of humanitarian refugees

Australia could easily disband on the UN's outdated refugee convention, and manage the surge of asylum seekers ourselves.  We could slash or disband our discriminatory economic immigration policy and increase our humanitarian intake – off-shore.

Our of our net migration of 185,000, only 14,500 are humanitarian - selected off and on-shore - yet they consume the "immigration" focus.

The government is trying to please too many lobby groups - those who want the economic benefits of population growth, and those prefer to act with compassion and humanity.

Our government only wants the ready-education and well-off to provide willing casual workers, and people to buy into property - not the displaced, unskilled, needy and poor.

With so many contradictory policies coming from our mainstream political parties, it indicates they are in a quandary about retaining "popularity" with voters, being seen to address overarching national and global issues, retaining their power, and at the same time appeasing their powerful corporate supporters and their growth-agendas.

The fact that our State and Federal government decided to create a Melbourne @ 5 million , and the "big Australia" policies, contrary to consultation and democratic principles is due to our governments' direction mainly coming from big businesses, global and national corporations, and very large and powerful lobby groups.

Voters and grass-roots interests are increasingly being ignored in favour of the elite, and those with economic and political power.

Plans are now about defining the details of how are communities are to accept the growth that's taken to be already decided, not whether it is in our interests.
Sham "consultations" are on how, not "yes" or "no" do we want them, or whether they in our best interests.

Family-hostile high rise apartments are not appropriate in Australia, and at a time we are often preached to about being sustainable. It's given lip-service in reality!

Melbourne's "activity centres" of high developments mean energy-guzzling lifestyles with little options for alternative living and self-sufficiency.
EnergyAustralia NSW and the Australian Conservation Foundation (download main findings report) have both come to the same conclusion that high-rise living, as more people are being forced to "choose" due to population growth, means much higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions that villas, townhouses or separate dwellings. The NSW Energy Australia study revealed that high-rise apartments use 30 per cent more power than a typical detached house. Much of this is in the common areas such as foyers and car parks where lights are often inefficient and are left on night and day. They are ineligible roof-top solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and water-tank harvesting, or the ability to enjoy the benefits of eaves, the shade of trees or the self-sufficiency of home gardens.

Capitalism is a great ideology and can achieve many wonderful things and open doors, but unchecked, it can undermine democracy and the will of a nation's citizens. Former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, by over-riding the concerns of the Australian people regarding population growth, saw his popularity plummet after he gave his unapologetic support to a “big Australia”. It was also his lack of action on climate change and the power of mining giants that undermined him too.

The groundswell against atrocities committed to Australian cattle sent to Indonesia was overlooked in favour of the power of the livestock industries and their well-financed lobby groups. Politicians are funded by big corporations and they will never “bite the hand that feeds them”.

Despite the overwhelming majority of Australians who don't want population growth, it is foisted upon us by compliant politicians pandering to the greed of big business, the banking sector and developers.

As a society we are succumbing to Stockholm syndrome - where victims start to comply with their prisoners - as we allow capitalist excesses to wreck our land, our cities, and clear bushland and wipe out the habitat of flora and fauna. All for greed and profits – even risking endangered species in the process,

Profits now come before people, profits before environmental sustainability, profits before community. It's money before life itself. The self-destructive human gene is being allowed a free reign to support “economic growth” at all costs, and allow us to collectively ignore the converging signs on our planet that should indicate our time of growth is OVER. Nothing living can keep growing without it becoming detrimental and destructive - to internal vital organs and infrastructures, and on a macro planetary level.

With so many contradictory policies coming from our mainstream political parties, it indicates they are in a quandary about retaining voter "popularity", being seen to address overarching national and global issues, retaining their power, and at the same time appeasing their powerful corporate supporters. Such contradictory forces are hard to reconcile.

Increasing private-public partnerships, contracting out, privatisation, creation of authorities 'outside government' etc over the past 20 years in Victoria "has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office." (Auditor General, Victoria) The forward plan also notes concerns about population growth and food security.

On Tuesday 24 May 2011 Victoria's Auditor-General, Des Pearson, tabled his Annual Plan for 2011-12 today in the Victorian Parliament.

The Annual Plan contains details of areas of audit interest for 2011-12, and a forward program of proposed audits for 2012-13 to 2014-15. Among these, are plans for ammendments to the Audit Act 1994[1]. Below we cite from that document, although some of the headings are from the editors of candobetter.net.

Amendments to the Audit Act 1994 are needed

Over the past 20 years, Victoria has seen an increase in the ‘arms-length’ delivery of public services through the private and community sectors. There has been increased private sector involvement in the delivery of public services through arrangements such as outsourcing and public private partnerships. There has also been a trend to create new legal entities ‘outside government’, such as companies, associations and statutory bodies, allowing these entities to access broader revenue sources and more flexible governance regimes.

Steady erosion of accountability

"This has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office.

Responding to these changes in the way government delivers services, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) held an inquiry last year into the Act.[2]

VAGO made several representations to the inquiry, including a formal submission.

The all-party report of this Parliamentary Inquiry made wide-ranging recommendations, seeking to prevent the erosion of public sector accountability, strengthen the independence of VAGO and update the Act to reflect contemporary trends.

PAEC unanimously recommended measures to:

• ‘close the gap’ on entities currently outside Parliament’s audit mandate
• allow access to public sector information held by private sector contractors
• introduce annual audits of performance statements and management controls
• enable joint audits with other Australian auditors-general
• improve the effectiveness of external performance audits of VAGO
• ensure agency comment included in our reports to Parliament is accurate, balanced and substantiated.

Urgent Need to repair the Audit Mandate

As indicated in our Annual Plan 2010–11, the Act is in urgent need of reform.

Auditor General needs access to public information held by private sector contractors

In April 2011, the government tabled its response to PAEC’s recommendations. The government response included support in principle for some of the key recommendations; in particular access to public sector information held by private sector contractors and ‘closing the gap’. A number of other recommendations were also supported.

Given the importance of the need to repair the audit mandate, a number of technical and legal issues will need to be discussed further with government as it considers how any amendments should proceed. VAGO looks forward to a strong role in the further development of amendments to the Act.

Population growth and diminishing oil supplies

Our scanning during development of the 2011–12 Annual Plan reconfirmed climate change and the environment; the ageing of our population; risks to sustainable development from diminishing oil supplies; population growth; and the continuing need
for transparency and accountability, as major challenges for government in coming years. In addition, the Council of Australian Governments Reform Agenda continues to affect the scheduling and focus of our program of performance audits, particularly in the health sector. [3]

[Candobetter.net Editor:] From reading this report, notably the attachments from page 58, it seems that in 2009 the Auditor-General looked into Victoria's food security and concluded that there were no significant risks. Since then, however, the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee (PAEC) has suggested that the matter be revisited, i.e. that food security may now be an issue.

"The Committee supports the Auditor-General's commitment to environmental scanning of issues and understands this underpins the Office's multi-year audit program. The Committee considers therefore, it would be beneficial if the Auditor-General's Office updated its research with relevant information on food security from 2010 and 2011 prior to scopint this audit to consider more recent research on issues surrounding food security." (PAEC)

The Victorian Auditor General responds on page 60 by noting the PAEC's comments and undertakes to consider food security in the audit research and scoping. Here the Auditor General also agrees, "As advised in the conduct of its annual planning function, VAGO will continue to, consider issues such as population growth and its impact on current and future service delivery and public sector activity."

NOTES

Source of material in this article: http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx

[1] "1.3 Amendments to the Audit Act 1994,"http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.3.

[2] "The former government sought to consolidate accountability arrangements for public bodies under one Act. The Public Finance and Accountability Bill 2009 was introduced into Parliament in December 2009, however, the Bill lapsed without being passed through the Upper House when Parliament was prorogued in October 2010. Any further progress on these reforms will be dependent upon the new government’s priorities." http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx ,p1.

[3] http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/reports_and_publications/annual_plan.aspx, p.4.

Here is some documentation for the 18 May 2011 PAEC discussion on Energy and Resources by the way: Hansard proof report - not for quoting - http://www.parliament.vic.gov.au/images/stories/committees/paec/2011-12_Budget_Estimates/Presentations/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf/Energy_and_Resources_presentation.pdf

Australia's rising emissions

Australia is on course to miss the bipartisan target of a 5% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2020.

The emissions for the 12 months to December 2010 are 0.5%
higher than the previous 12 months , according to figures released 18th April. An increase in emissions was offset by a drop in electricity demand due to lower temperatures, the flooding of Queensland coal mines and greater use of hydro-electric power due to greater rainfall.

These temporary offsets disguise the fact that it means national emissions of over 570 million tonnes per annum in 2020, well above the target of about 530 million tonnes.

Australia's annual emissions rose to 543 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent as at December last year, up from 500 million tonnes in 2000, meaning the nation is already nearly 70 million tonnes over its 2020 target.

Based on even the highest population growth projections, the 2020 target will still make Australia one of the world’s most carbon-intensive economy, producing more than 20 tonnes of CO2 per person - ahead of the likes of the United States, Canada - even Saudia Arabia.

Population growth out of control

Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia's population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, and in a paper to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, recommended that the Copenhagen conference 2009 acknowledge the importance of population as a key driver of climate change.  It didn't happen!

While Australians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.

High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions and to accommodate population growth.  However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Atlas calculation of  greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas they are greater than for those living in low-density areas, and that with increasing density and loss of open green areas , our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.

High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.

ACF Consuming Australia, the main findings

Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.

Population growth not "projected" but "targeted"

The Third Intergenerational Report's "projection" (or "targeted") is that Australia's population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.

The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected and be the first priority of government . They should  not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and (the) academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth.

Population growth can't be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.

Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009 . It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries, it says.

Government posturing on climate change

Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such discriminatory attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and "save" the planet?

Emission reduction in Australia must occur in a context of rapid population and economic growth. If Australia’s population reaches 35.9 million by 2050, a 60 per cent decline in total emissions by this date will require a cut in per capita emissions from 28.8 tonnes per head in the year 2000 to 6.1 tonnes per head in 2050.

Strong ghg emissions in growing nations

In developed countries with relatively high rates of population growth, including Australia, Canada and the United States, total greenhouse gas emissions have increased strongly by comparison with countries with low rates of population growth (notably in Western Europe).

(Population growth and sustainability, by Dr Bob Birrell, Monash University}
 
According to modelling, the growth in greenhouse emissions of 221 million tonnes to 774 million tonnes in a business-as-usual case (or 184 million tonnes) was attributable to the six million population growth – compared to 2000 level of 19.2 million but with the GDP reaching projected levels at 2020. Thus population growth was responsible for 83 per cent of the overall growth in greenhouse emissions between 2000 and 2020 under the business-as-usual case.

The carbon footprint of farming will become larger over the next 40 years as we feed a rapidly growing world population. With an additional three billion people in the world by 2050, producers will face a unique challenge. To feed the world, farming emissions must rise

The link between population size and carbon emissions can't be ignored when reporting anthropogenic climate change. They are irrevocably linked to our numbers, economy and lifestyles.

Australia is one of the top nations for per capita greenhouse gas emissions. Our population growth rate is the largest in the developed world. Each person added adapts our lifestyles and add to our total output. Australia has a limited "carrying capacity" due to poor regular water supplies, poor and arid soils, vast deserts, limited arable soils, and sensitive biodiversity that has evolved slowly. The "canaries in the mine" - our wildlife - are being pushed to the edge of extinction at a global rate. What ever we do individually to recycle reduce and re-use is being negated by undemocratic governments who are relying on property development and population growth to keep our growth-based economy ticking. It's unsustainable.

Australia an "embarrassment" Senator Sarah Hanson-Young

Australia is an 'embarrassment' on climate change, says Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

Many other countries have already put a price on carbon and introduced realistic pollution reduction targets.  And while they are spending significant public and private dollars firming up investment in the technologies and energy sources for the future, Australia is still locked in a debate over whether big polluters should even pay for their pollution. We are also still locked into the retro "populate or perish" economic growth ideology!

The Greens have no population policy. It's all based on vague possibilities and limitations, flexible and ambiguous statements and non-quantitative slogans. They even want to create another category of refugees under "climate change" so they can be resettled in Australia! Surely anthropogenic climate change - and all the environmental issues they say they want action on - can't be fulfilled if the elephant in the room of population growth/size is ignored.

Europe has population stability, not an economy based on growth! They can actually spend money on implementing climate change technologies, and plan ahead, not just try and keep up with infrastructure "shortages" and shortfalls. Contradictory policies will keep the Greens out of office.

Our MPs are indeed in a position to change the climate of debate in government circles , towards a culture of stabilisation rather than businesses-as-usual promotion and acceptance of environmentally damaging unending population growth.

The conflict between koalas and humans is due to the fact that koalas prefer forests growing in better soils, and most of these forests have been chopped down for agriculture and housing.
The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there a possibly as few as 43,000 koalas remaining in Australia. Koalas are a “vulnerable species” in NSW.

Former NSW Premier Kristina Keneally's $16 million support for koalas was a token pre-election gesture considering the massive threats to koalas. They need a particular species of eucalypt trees, which are being rapidly cleared in NSW.

The conflict with humans is due to the fact that koalas prefer forests growing in better soils, and most of these forests have been chopped down for agriculture and housing. This has left many koalas living in small, isolated patches of poor quality forest. It means that young koalas may have to cross open spaces, including roads and attacked by dogs. They have even been spotted scratching at wooden human structures such as fences and poles, with dogs barking at them from below!

Lack of suitable food and the stresses of fragmented habitats makes them more susceptible to disease.

The Australian Koala Foundation estimates that there a possibly as few as 43,000 koalas remaining in Australia. Koalas are a “vulnerable species” in NSW.

Keneally's government recently reported that that by the year 2036, NSW will have a “projected” population from 7.2 million now to 9.1 million people.

MP, Kristina Keneally failed to give support for the Bill to have pets banned for sale in pet shops and mandatory desexing. Her respose was a big fat “no”, hidden amongst diversions about the cost of desexing mice and rats.

Commercial use of National Parks NSW

The NSW Keneally Government’s Tourism Bill introduced specific tourist development provisions into the National Parks and Wildlife Act, 1974, including a long shopping list of facilities to allow for such things as fast food joints, supermarkets, golf courses, rifle ranges, conference centres and resorts of all sorts.

It's about prostituting our National Parks. Instead of Parks and Wildlife being the custodian of wildlife and wilderness, it will be procuring visitation to protected areas that exploits and harms fragile ecology for commercial gain.

These changes are dressed up by the Government as a strengthening of the National Parks Act when the opposite is true. Advice from senior legal counsel confirms that the changes will undermine the multiple layers of protection that have until now kept national parks free from development.

The areas account for 30 per cent of New South Wales’ national parks and would be protected by strict guidelines including visitor number caps according to the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS).

We humans can continue fueling the loss of other indigenous species, consume natural resources and destroy habitats for our own growth, or we can take the responsible and moral decision to share our land equitably. The survival of native species needs more than token gestures.

Strezlecki Koalas- devestation in Gippsland

The Strzelecki State Forest is home to mammals such as echidnas, platypus, koalas, wombats, two species of antechinus, two species of bandicoot, the black wallaby a variety of gliders and possums (including sugar glider, greater glider and yellow bellied glider), several native rats (including the rare broad-toothed rat) and bats, including the bent wing bat, potoroos and the rare and endangered tiger quoll, (the largest carnivorous marsupial on the Australian mainland), and the Southern rat kangaroo, common in Tasmania, but very rare on the mainland. The dingo, once common, has disappeared from the region.

The Strzeleckis have the only relic population of koala left in Victoria and South Australia. All other populations are genetically inbred.

Friends of Gippsland Bush spokesperson Suzie Zent said that the Victorian koala was almost hunted to extinction in the early 1900s. By the 1930s the koala in mainland Victoria was confined to a few remnant areas in South Gippsland and Mornington Peninsula.

Hancock logging

In 1998, Hancock purchased perpetual logging rights to a large portion of Victoria, including the Strzelecki Ranges. It was and still is Australia's largest ever forest sale – 170,000 hectares.
In 2001, Hancock signed hardwood contracts to supply Maryvale until the year 2027.

The best of the remaining Strzelecki habitat is being logged at a rate of 700 hectares per year by Hancock Victorian Plantations (HVP), after they gained perpetual logging rights in 1998 via the sale of the Victorian Plantations Corporation by the Kennett Government, after logging 7000 hectares of koala habitat over the past decade,

As the Strzeleckis were replanted with indigenous trees between 1950 and 1980 (after massive clearing between 1880 & 1930) the Koalas in many instances moved back into planted areas.

October 2006 a $7 million deal meant protection for several key rainforest catchments, with Hancock handing over logging rights in contentious areas such as College Creek.

As part of this latest 'protection' deal, 1,500 ha of Mountain Ash forest inside the 8,000 ha of Cores and Links were to be clear felled, mainly for woodchips, over the next 20 years. Only after the logging companies have pocketed their profits, the 8,000 ha will then be fully managed as a reserve.

Any shortfall not reached by logging selected areas within the Cores and Links would then be met by logging native forest.
The Victorian government then signed a $5.5 million deal to buy back native forest in Gippsland's Strzelecki Ranges. The landmark deal was to save more than 20,000 hectares of native forest from logging in the state's south-east.

However, the 2006 historic Heads of Agreement (HoA) was overturned by current Conservation Minister Gavin Jennings and HVP CEO Linda Sewell a new agreement in August 2008 without community involvement. This new agreement will allow for clearfelling of ~350ha of Mountain Ash inside College Creek and another 1150ha elsewhere within the Cores and Links Reserve.

The January/February 2009 Delburn and Churchill fires burnt out approximately 50% of the best remaining koala habitat in the Strzelecki Ranges. Thousands of koalas most likely perished in the fires. Sam the koala become a symbol of those lost souls.

Koalas need protection

When tourists arrive in Australia, the first thing they want to see is a koala. It is far more inspiring to see them in the bush rather than a zoo. HVP have strategies to develop habitat and corridors on their property but they are a business and their strategies will only be followed if there is a profit in it. The safety of the koalas relies entirely on the contractor out felling the trees at the time. They are not going to stop and check every tree before it is felled. Spotting koalas is very difficult and contractors just don't have the time.

Scientists say inbreeding is leading to higher rates of disease in many koala populations and is threatening the species' survival. But a recent study has found that koalas in the Strezlecki Ranges have maintained their genetic diversity.
Deborah Tabart from the Australian Koala Foundation says it vital that strong, healthy populations are preserved.

Reflex Paper

The Reflex brand has been the target of the Wilderness Society’s Ethical Paper environmental education campaign. In less than two weeks, hundreds of Australian companies have pledged to not purchase Reflex Paper until Australian Paper stops sourcing from native forests.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_P28Jloxec

Strzelecki Ranges is suffering from devastating logging regimes under Hancocks management, with problems of habitat for koalas and other issues. Also remember the devastating effects of the fires in Victoria. State and federal politics as well as corporations are lacking transparency over such important matters.

Save the Redlands.. Eat a koala?

Car stickers suggesting people should eat koalas have outraged environmental groups, the RSPCA and politicians in Brisbane's east.

State MP for Cleveland Mark Robinson condemned the stickers, but says that we need to find better ways for koalas and humans to coexist in the Redlands without stopping development and growth. There's little chance the koalas can coexist while competing for the same territory, and so many obstacles. Local businesses were more interested in protecting their own interests than koalas.

Redland mayor Melva Hobson said the stickers were reprehensible and in extremely bad taste. Even though most of the residents treasured the koalas and wanted them protected, he rejected the inference that the council has got the balance between development and the environment wrong. Koalas don't have political or financial powers as business lobby groups, their they are unlikely to swing any “balance” in their favour.

Humans are in plague proportions, with SE Qld being a good example. Koalas are threatened there. Koalas can't adapt to the power of human land transformation, introduced enemies and chain-saws!

Ethical paper petition

Sign the ethical paper petition. Paper shouldn't cost the Earth.

It's an evolutionary trait for species to consume and grow and dominate, but humans do it better than others. The decline of koalas has nothing to do with inability to adapt, or “survival of the fittest”. Species' decline has everything to do with massive population increases in Australia, and it is not “natural” but augmented by immigration. There is no way koalas can evolve and adapt fast enough to overcome roads, logging, land clearing, invasive species and pets. The only way koalas could “win” is if they had machine guns to protect them!

Broadcaster and Naturalist David Attenborough said in a speech to the Royal Society of Arts in London on 10 March, hosted by its president, the Duke of Edinburgh….....”...we can all see that every extra person is – or will be – an extra victim of climate change – though the poor will undoubtedly suffer more than the rich. Yet not a word of it appeared in the voluminous documents emerging from the Copenhagen and Cancun Climate Summits”.

Why this strange silence? I meet no one who privately disagrees that population growth is a problem. No one – except flat-earthers – can deny that the planet is finite.

'Climate change is undoubtedly going to get worse; the only question is how much and how fast, he said. I believe that we somehow have got to prevent the human population from increasing as fast as it is doing.

Big population preferred over tackling climate change

John Howard and Kevin Rudd were both advocates for large populations. Because a growing population equates to a growing economy, until you reach the tipping point of no return on environmental/climate change. No politician has the foresight to see this.

Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd gave priority for a "big Australia" over tackling climate change, the ‘greatest moral challenge of our time’.

Melbourne University reproduction expert Roger Short argues that Australia’s population growth – apparently increasing by one person every two minutes - is out of control, increasing the rate of global warming.

High density developments create hot cities

While Victorians are supposed to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time our government is pushing for high rise developments and population growth.

High density housing advocates say planning policies must compel higher density in order to save energy and cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. However studies using a diversity of methods demonstrate the converse. The Australian Conservation Foundation Consumption Altas calculation of per capita greenhouse gas emissions shows that those living in high-density areas are greater than for those living in low-density areas. Our cities are becoming hotter and less sustainable.

High-rise developments mean that residents are much more reliant on non-renewable energy and have higher per capita greenhouse gas emissions than those in lower single houses with gardens, solar energy, recycling, trees and shade, and water tanks.

A combination of climate change and urban growth will push temperatures higher in cities worldwide, say researchers. Dr Richard Betts, a climate scientist in the UK, and colleagues found not only do cities retain more heat than rural areas do but hot cities will grow even hotter as the climate warms and cities grow.
By mid-century, night-time temperatures in cities could rise by more than 5.6°C, they say.

As cities grow warmer, it will become even more important to invest in urban cooling strategies, the study suggests, such as white roofs, green spaces, calculated window placement and other architectural decisions that allow buildings to spit out fewer greenhouse gases and less heat. This means more investments and infrastructure needed for high density buildings to replace what Nature provides naturally – and free!.

Food security taken for granted

Climate change will affect the availability and cost of reliable food, water and energy supplies. It will threaten remaining natural ecosystems and biodiversity and increase storm intensity and the likelihood of both wildfire and heat-related deaths.

The Third Intergeneration Report’s “projection” (or social-engineering) is that Australia’s population is likely to reach 35.9 million by 2050.

The people of Australia should be consulted, and respected, not be manipulated by the economic interests of the business elite and the academics entrenched in the economics of constant growth when the priority should be the people of Australia. Population growth can’t be ignored in the context of anthropogenic climate change.

Australians greenhouse gas commitment

The Rudd Labor Government pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Australia by 5 per cent relative to year 2000 levels but this cannot be achieved if Australia’s population grows as projected. Treasury modelling indicates that, with business-as-usual, emissions will reach 774 million tonnes by 2020, 40 per cent above the 2000 level. However, it is set against government encouraged population growth of 20% by then.

Braking the rise in Earth's population would be a major help in the fight against global warming, according to an unprecedented UN report published in 2009. It draws a link between demographic pressure and climate change. "Population growth is among the factors influencing total emissions in industrialised as well as developing countries," it says.

Australia's hypocrisy

Our growing population and relatively emissions-intensive economy means that we will have higher adjustments costs than many other developed countries to reach ostensibly similar goals. Our government's posturing on climate change and ghg emissions is purely rhetoric while we in Australia continue to boost our population. How can we be taken seriously, internationally, with such hypocritical attitudes – that we can continue to grow our population and economy but other nations must reduce their greenhouse gas emissions and “save” the planet.

Sir David Attenborough said, there is no major problem facing our planet that would not be easier to solve if there were fewer people and no problem that does not become harder (with more people).

A population growth of 20% by 2020, and at the same time a symbolic reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, is inherently contradictory and people will be forced to pay an ineffective carbon tax.

While human populations expand, renewable energy sources must continue to outstrip increasing outputs of carbon emissions to achieve this target. The carbon tax will simply burden the people of Australia, and net greenhouse emissions reduction will be outside their control.

According to a global financial services study, a carbon tax will have to be set at $60 a tonne -- three times the expected $20 tax to be set next year -- to force electricity generators to switch from dirty brown coal in southeastern Australia to cleaner gas to reduce greenhouse emissions.

The Australian "Carbon price 'would need to be tripled' to force change from coal-fired electricity"

With privatisation of the power suppliers, the market forces needed for them to switch to renewable energy, rather than passing on the costs to consumers, would be considerable.

The carbon tax will be a financial burden on families, and businesses, and do little to actually address climate change while at the same time our population continues to boom!

New wave of asylum seekers could be coming our way

As the nation panics over a small number of asylum seekers, we're left to wonder how Australia will respond to the millions of anticipated "climate change” asylum seekers?  How are we to respond?

According to the Australian Greens, Australian society, culture and the economy has benefited, and will continue to benefit, from immigration of people from around the world.   We won't continue to benefit if immigration continues to drive our population growth beyond sustainable limits. The environment, and ecological forces, and Nature's devastating powers transcend humanitarian concerns and economic requirements of an economy that needs to be fed by constant growth. We still haven't, despite advances in science and technology, solved the limitations of nature, and we still can't harness extreme weather or reign in natural disasters.

The Australian Greens are being inconsistent with their environmental and climate change policies by supporting limitless population growth.

Australia's fragile food security

The Chief Scientist's report to PMSEIC (Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council Oct 2010) on food security, reported that we currently feed nearly 40 million people on top of our own 22.5 million. If our population grows to 35–40 million as planned, and climate change reduces food production, we can expect to see years where we will import more food than we export.

We can no longer rely on increased water, land and energy use to drive the transformation of food production systems.

The PMSEIC report suggests increased challenges to the important food exporting industry including land degradation, population growth, long-term climate change, competition for arable land in peri-urban areas, scarcity of water, nutrient and energy availability.

With the high level of foreign investment in agricultural production much of our food production is committed to overseas consumption. There are now a large number of properties owned by middle eastern companies using them as feed lots to prepare animals for the live stock export trade. WA is responsible for 50% of live animal exports. There is also feedlot livestock for export to Indonesia and the USA.

In 2008, following prolonged drought, our wheat exports dropped to nearly match the level of our domestic consumption. Wild fish catches are declining in Australian waters and productivity in the agricultural sector declining.

Status of Refugees – at present

According to the United Nations Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees (the Refugee Convention), a refugee is someone who is outside their own country and cannot return due to a well-founded fear of persecution because of their:  This definition does not at present include those fleeing from climate change, overpopulation or natural disasters.

From the Australian Human Rights Commission webpage:
Governments have traditionally approached climate change as an ecological problem, or more recently, as an economic one. So far, the social and human rights implications of climate change have not been widely recognised .....As a signatory to the major international human rights instruments, Australia has an obligation to protect people against the threat that climate change poses to human rights. But the challenge is to develop a response to climate change that distributes rights and responsibilities equally.

...a human rights-based approach to policy development could, and should, be adopted to provide a standard for evaluating policy and resource allocation.

Under the 1951 Refugee Convention, a refugee is a person with a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion. Environmental and climate change factors are largely irrelevant.  Will it be changed?

Surely there needs to be a lot more emphasis and policies, on "responsibilities" , not just rights.  There is a lot of talk and words related to "sustainability" and mitigating climate change, but little is being done in real terms, especially in Australia.

The Hon Tony Burke MP is Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities. He is not a minister for Sustainable Population any more! There is a lot of use of the word “sustainable” but little action.

Australian Greens – “No human being is illegal”

The Australian Greens want an immigration program that is predominantly based on family reunions and other special humanitarian criteria as defined by international human rights Conventions.  They want migrants to be given access to a full range of culturally sensitive, appropriate health services including a comprehensive medical examination on arrival.

"No human being is illegal"

They are also lobbying for the planning for climate change refugees with a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region.

It is vital that Australia needs to develop a considered, long-term approach to asylum seekers and refugees because many of them could be heading our way. 

Australian Greens Deputy Leader Senator Christine Milne thinks so. Australia is historically one of the biggest contributors to the climate crisis. Whether we are legally obliged to or not, we certainly have a moral obligation to help those who climate change will hurt or displace. However, we are not responsible for their over population, their unsustainable environmental use, or their cultures that encourage fertility. 

Environmental refugees set to increase six-fold

Norman Myers of Oxford University has estimated climate change will increase the number of environmental refugees six-fold over the next fifty years - to 150 million. 
Australian climate scientist Dr. Graeme Pearman, has predicted that a 2°C rise in temperature would place 100 million people “directly at risk from coastal flooding” by 2100.

Asia Pacific region

Most of the 22 nations in the Pacific are low-lying atolls, with limited land space, small populations and little financial resources. More than 50% of Pacific Islander people live within 1.5 kilometres of the shore. They are all under threat of natural disaster and rising sea levels.

The Asia Pacific region is home to over 60% of the world's people, of which according to the United Nations two-thirds of whom live in extreme poverty. With such large proportion of the current population living in poverty, climate variability already has a significant impact on the health and livelihoods of people across Asia.

Climate change will exacerbate natural disasters, health problems and threats to water and food security.  It  will undoubtedly affect the lives of those who are without social and economic resources to adapt to the changes in climate.

At the Copenhagen Conference in December 2009, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), António Guterres- G-Magazine report , predicted that climate change will become the biggest driver of population displacements within the not too distant future. The numbers we're talking about are astronomical. His agency predicts between 50 and 200 million people to have moved by 2050.

A report suggests billions of people will starve by the year 2050 - ABC online , unless farm productivity lifts around the world. 

Food production must be lifted or many people could go hungry, and there is a lot of pressure on food industries and farmers to increase their efficiency and output.  Australian food security expert Professor Peter Langridge has similar views. However, there are limits to what Nature can continue to provide.

Listen to the MP3

Norman Borlaug – the father of the “green revolution”

Norman Borlaug was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1970 for his "green revolution" that revolutionised food security for millions of people and for many nations. In his acceptance speech, he warned the world in the clearest terms that his breakthrough had not tamed what he termed the "Population Monster". He merely bought us about 40 years respite in which to do something about it.

"Big Australia"

With bipartisan support for a "big Australia" and ongoing economic immigration, there seems to be little empirical or pragmatic difference between the Australian Green's altruistic and moral justification for population growth, and the demands of our capitalistic economic growth argument.

Is it because Australia’s political elite, including the Australian Greens,  can no longer say ‘NO’ to immigration or accepting asylum seekers?   Our sovereignty is not being given due respect, or being sufficiently honoured.

Our first priorities should be to the Australian voters, citizens, our descendants, and any obligations to help other nations should be primarily through aid, crisis assistance, providing skills ( not poaching them!), health and family planning advice, training towards permaculture farming.

Land sales slump but prices hit new heights

News that the median price has hit $190,000 a block comes as the development industry celebrates three Baillieu government policies aimed at increasing land supply on the urban fringe, reducing the burden of infrastructure levies and making it cheaper to hold land. As a result, sales of Melbourne house blocks have slumped by three-quarters in a year. (The Age report 18th January).

Planning Minister Matthew Guy told The Age the Coalition would also change the controversial infrastructure levy of $95,000 a hectare in Parliament, so that landowners have to pay only when they are ready to develop a new estate - not at the point of purchasing land for development.

Due to greed, favouritism towards developers and population growth, it sounds like land prices may have actually peaked.

The “chronic shortages of land” is being blamed, not boosted demand due to population growth.

Limits of growth

There are limits to growth, including prices. Once prices peak, they will find sales go downwards. It just becomes unaffordable for the average family to buy.

Speaking at a rally held in Melbourne last year to oppose the adoption of Planning Scheme Amendment VC67, Green Wedge Coalition joint co-ordinator Rosemary West said the changes would see 43,600 hectares taken out of the green wedges for urban sprawl.

The urban growth boundary expansion will clear for urban development 5000 hectares of environmentally significant Western Basalt Plains grasslands, the grassy woodlands of the Maribyrnong and Merri Creek catchments with their giant red gums and 4000 hectares of the south east food-bowl where highly productive market gardens using recycled water double as southern brown bandicoot habitat, she said.

Food bowls bulldozed for housing

Melbourne’s South East contains some of Australia’s most fertile agriculture land and produces fresh food for Melbourne’s rapidly growing population. As urban growth takes over existing farmland, new food production areas will need to be developed. 
The project planned would see the development an intensive irrigated food production zone on Melbourne’s south-eastern fringe, to be known as the ‘Bunyip Food Belt’. 

Media Release - July 2010

However, with the State Government able to achieve its population estimates for Casey within a more contained boundary, City of Casey Mayor Cr Lorraine Wreford couldn't understand why Planning Minister Justin Madden abandoned a critical part of the Bunyip Food Belt in favour of urban expansion.

The State Government’s decision to allow the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) to encroach on the highly fertile, valuable and sustainable farming lands in Casey is a huge blow to the entire state. 
The agricultural lands of the Bunyip Food Belt have the potential to not only supply abundant and fresh produce to the people of Casey, but to the whole State, so this decision will impact all Victorians.
Once this land is built on, it is gone forever. The State Government’s decision to allow the further expansion of the UGB into an area Council has fought hard to conserve for agriculture, is a bitter disappointment , said Cr Wreford.

Obviously, profits for developers and State coffers are more important than food security.

Land is not a limitless resource

Land is not a limitless resource. We can't have urban sprawl destroying more of the most devastated State in Australia.

We already know the impacts of floods in Brazil due to massive deforestation.

According to the 2008 State of the Environment damning report, Victoria's historic use of land has left a legacy of highly cleared and fragmented native vegetation over much of the State.  Current patterns of resource use in Victoria are unsustainable. 

High levels of vegetation clearing may constitute the crossing of an ecological threshold, beyond which rapid change occurs and ecosystems may not recover.  Development in peri-urban regions is driving loss of natural habitat and biodiversity, as well as agricultural land.

Victoria is already the most heavily cleared state. In Victoria, relatively stringent controls were introduced in 1987, but in the 15 years before that time, land in private hands was cleared at a rate of about 1% per year (CSIRO). Native grasslands are a highly endangered ecological community in Victoria, and have been reduced to less than 1% of their original extent.

We can't keep clearing land and bulldozing ecosystems for housing or we continue to reap the disasters of bushfires, climate change and species losses.

Photo: An Australian housing estate before construction in 2001. This estate is in Narre Warren, Victoria.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Victoria too reliant on property development

In his first interview since assuming the role of Victoria's Treasurer, Mr Wells said Victoria needed to broaden its economic base by rebuilding the neglected areas of agriculture and manufacturing.
It is reliant on population and migration and if one of those two factors flattens then part of the economic base will suffer.

So, our we are embedded in an economy that depends on population growth? Mr Wells also slammed what he branded the unsustainable level of government debt under Labor.

Population growth

The elephant in the room, as usual, is politically-driven population growth. With Victoria's economy based on land and property development, and service industries, there is little else to support our booming growth. We don't need a big population as we do not rely on resource mining, and agriculture doesn't require much either. Our politicians are basing their policies on short-term benefits at the cost of long-term sustainability. That's the bottom-line - political lives are short and political donations drive their policies.

The Baillieus are some of the most prominent land developers around Melbourne.  As such, strategies are unlikely to change.  With this affordability impasse, they'll look to hand people more hand-outs, "open" more land for developers, and wealth will ultimately find its way back into their pockets. It is a legalised wealth transfer of public money.

Although we like to think of ourselves as civilised, we're subconsciously still driven by an evolutionary impulse for survival, domination and expansion. This is an impulse which now finds expression in the idea that inexorable economic growth is the answer to everything, and, given time, we will naturally redress all the world's existing inequalities.

However, this logic fails to recognise that the physical resources to fuel this growth are finite. We're still driven by growing and expanding, so we will use up all the oil, we will use up all the coal, “vacant” land and we will keep going till we fill the allegorical Petri dish and pollute ourselves out of existence.

The population of Australia is now over 22.5 million and increasing rapidly, currently at a rate of 1.7% increase per year. Despite the deceptively small number, it still means a doubling of population every 41 years, and the subsequent increases of food, water, infrastructure, environmental degradation and housing. Opinions differ, but economic and politics demand ongoing and maximum population growth for their own agendas.

What the experts say – Tim Flannery

Professor Tim Flannery, Australian of the Year 2007, calculated a long-term carrying capacity of between 8 million and 12 million. We had that population in 1950 and 1968 respectively, not so long ago. The population is now over 22.5 million and increasing rapidly, currently at a rate of 1.7% increase per year.

Despite the deceptively small number, it still means a doubling of population every 41 years, and the subsequent increases of food, water, infrastructure, environmental degradation and housing.

Human, social and economic systems must remain within the carrying capacity of Planet Earth. Carrying capacity is defined here as the maximum number of human population that can be supported by a particular ecosystem or eco-region or physical landscape on a continued basis without irreversibly degrading the health and ecological processes.

His report, Tim Flannery - Biological considerations in determining an optimum human population for Australia
Our diversity of species in Australia is extremely high, with slow growing and reproducing plants and a very small number of warm-blooded carnivores, with a correspondingly minutely adjusted ecosystem incorporating highly specialised characteristics and co-operative behaviours. We do not have the mountainous and fertile soils with predictable seasonal patterns of Europe.

On the contrary, Southeast Asia has very productive soils, plentiful rainfall and plenty of sunshine, with a large ability to provide food for cheap. Australia has the oldest soils on the planet - very depleted, dependent on fertilisers, plentiful sun shine, but rainfall is the limiting factor.

The world ability to supply food for a growing population depends on the population carrying capacity. The population carrying capacity depends on the soil quality and the level of technology applied.

Australia's unique landscape and environment
With Australia's population projected (boosted) to reach 35 million by 2049, critics continue to express concern about the pressure this growth will place on resources.

Humans are large warm-blooded omnivores. They have high energy demands. This makes them potentially vulnerable in Australian environments. Human populations in Australia have always been small and dispersed, being an order of magnitude or more smaller than the average density found on other continents (Birdsell 1953).

Virtually all hunter-gatherer societies seem to possess a 'golden rule' of population. This is, that in "normal" times, the human population of a given area rarely exceeds 20-30% of the carrying capacity of the land. (Sahlins 1968).

Surely, Flannery states, It would appear to make good sense to observe the 'golden rule' of population in determining Australia's 'carrying capacity'.

1994 Australian Parliament House of Representatives Standing Committee

In late 1994 The Australian Parliament House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long Term Strategies delivered a report entitled Australia's Population 'Carrying Capacity'. One Nation—Two Ecologies. This report argued that Australia should adopt a population policy.

Obviously, it's worrying that the population trajectory has most likely already exceed the long-term carrying capacity.

Australian Academy of Sciences Symposium:

In 1994, Australian Academy of Sciences held the Symposium, "Population 2040: Australia's choice". The joint statement said:
the quality of all aspects of our children's lives will be maximised if the population of Australia by the mid-21st Century is kept to the low, stable end of the achievable range, i.e. to approximately 23 million.

Australia's land mass, though large, is less rich than other continents in many biologically important elements. As a consequence, its ecosystems are relatively fragile, and human impact on the environment is particularly severe. This impact has been documented even for the relatively sparse, low-consumption Aboriginal societies. The impact of modern Australian society is much more severe.

Stable Population Party of Australia

The Stable Population Party of Australia is advocating a stable population at 23 million in line with the Australian Academy of Science findings. To obtain this option we would need to have zero net migration and phase out the baby bonus.

MP Kelvin Thomson

Kelvin Thomson's 14 Point Plan for Population Reform aims to set out the reasons why I believe the world’s projected population levels are too high and unsustainable – global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste, war and terrorism.

We are already in “ecological overshoot”. Land size does not equate to carrying capacity. Our lifestyles, for the most, are spiraling downhill due to the stress of population growth and the associated costs and loss of social capital. Once ecosystems melt down, they are gone. It doesn't depend on what we want, but how many people our land can realistically and desirably support. Big is not necessarily better.

Treasury 2010 Intergenerational Report

According to the Treasury 2010 Intergenerational Report, the best way to respond to the economic and fiscal pressures of an ageing population is to support strong, sustainable economic growth. Economic growth will be supported by sound policies that support productivity, participation and population — the '3Ps'.

They assume that if Australia's productivity growth could be increased above the long-run average, the economy would be bigger, living standards would be higher and fiscal pressure from the ageing of the population would be reduced. If, for example, annual productivity growth was to average 2 per cent over the next 40 years, then:

• annual real GDP growth would average over 3 per cent over the next 40 years and the economy would be $570 billion bigger in 2049?50; and
• real GDP per capita in 2049?50 would be 15 per cent (or around $16,000) higher.

It assumes that the main purpose of the economy is to GROW, even to our own detriment. Costs of economic growth include increased pressure on social relationships and environmental degradation, whilst non-welfare issues include distribution, poverty and intergenerational equity. Also, GDP per capita is a better measure of the economic well-being of a country than total GDP, as it takes into account population size – very populous countries may have very large overall GDP, but when divided by population size the resultant GDP per capita figure will give a much clearer indication of the country’s comparable wealth.

The same baseless argument of "keep the economy growing" is being proved as a sham. As for a worry of populations going down, why is this a bad thing? While GDP overall may decrease, GDP per person (or GDP per capita) will certainly increase. Higher populations don't create wealth, it just redistributes. Production is the engine room of economic growth!

So as populations go down, the average citizen is better off. Only people reliant on growing markets ie, CEO's, politicians, producers of consumer goods etc would be worse off.

Japan is presented as a "loser" in the population stakes, where India is "the big winner". Makes you wonder about the value of winning that particular economic growth race!

Tony Burke Minister for Population

The nation's first Population Minister, Tony Burke, ruled out setting population targets in the strategy that he will draw up over the next 12 months. He ruled out a model that could take into account lour “chronic” labour shortages, with any precision. With a growing population happening "no matter what", the federal government would not focus on an arbitrary population target. His recent “report” is a sham. Our population growth is not arbitrary or inevitable, but manipulated by political decision. What about shortages in water, energy, food, land and funds for education and training?

Tony Burke needs to take a holistic viewpoint, and not just base his assumptions on limitless growth. 

Global threats
We are not the only country in the world that has raised the population question. Global population is an increasing threat, and once natural resources and amenities outstrip supply, we could be facing famine, lack of potable water, pollution of oceans and waterways, and environmental degradation - leading to further decline of species, and extinctions. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan are other Asian countries that are facing food security problem due to limited arable land to support the ever increasing population.

Evolutionary Trait to expand
An evolutionary trait of species is to consume and increase numbers and overtake the territories and resources of other species is very well developed in humans. Once populations tip over a level that supports an economy of scale, the downside could be disastrous.  As species capable of a moral and spiritual dimensions, can we justify the mass extinctions of other species on the planet, for our own expansion? Each species lost means a decline in the health and robustness of our ecologies.

As Dr. Paul Ehrlich said, All causes are lost causes without limiting human population.

Birdsell, J.B. (1953). Some environmental and cultural factors influencing the structure of Australian Aboriginal populations. American Naturalist 87:171-207.

Sahlins, M. (1968). Notes on the original affluent society. Pp 85-89 In Man the Hunter. R.B. Lee & I DeVore (eds). Aldine Publishing Company, Chicago.

'Laboral'* invitation of hoards of foreign populations from 'contra-cultural' societies is directly displacing the lesser numbers of traditional Australians (those born here and with traditional ancestral origins in Australia). It is a repeat of British colonisation of Australia that directly displaced Australia's Aboriginal people. It is what the Dutch immigrants did to the native South Africans under Apartheid. It is what the Chinese immigrants have done to the indigenous Fijians.

It is immigration history repeated!

The Laboral policy of immigrant favouritism is 'reverse racism'. It is discriminatory against local people and their traditional way of life, their values and their rights. It is a form of 'cultural treason' against the incumbent population.

Then when an immigrant gets into a position of influence (management, politics) favouritism to the immigrant's countrymen and women is ignored by Australia's anti-discrimination laws. Australia has one rule for immigrants, another rule for traditional Australians who feel unjustly targeted by the various laws that favour immigrants. These laws treat traditional Australians as if we are inherently racist. But by such favouritising and by immunising immigrants from racism rules, Australia's anti-discrimination laws have become a passive form of reverse racism.

The tragedy to all parties (locals and immigrants alike) is that the unjust discrimination felt by traditional Australians is causing local disaffection, understandably. But what conveniently goes unmentioned by supporters of cultural immigrants to Australia, is the aggressive intolerance of foreigner cultures by the countries of origin of many Australian immigrants cultures - Indian intolerance of Christians and China's intolerance of Falun Gong are classic examples.

Traditional Australian are feeling marginalised in their own native country. That disaffection and sense of injustice is steadily converting tolerant easy-going Australians, like myself, into angry resentful protectionists. The vocal outrage is perceived as racist, but it is an early cry for justice by disaffected locals. Reverse racism risks inciting reactionary racism. It throws civilised tolerance out the window and descend humanity into its primitive mode of protecting its own clan. It is a slippery slope.

Once reactionary discrimination takes a cultural hold amongst a local population united against a perceived threat of invading immigrant culture, local attitudes become entrenched. Human history has many stories of such and many quite recent and close to home.

One shouldn't have to sign a declaration of accepting cultural diversity of foreigners if that cultural diversity is open ended without parameters and that policy does provide for Australian cultural values and standards to prevail. Yet it has become standard policy for Local and State governments to mandate all public servants comply with accepting cultural diversity - willy nilly!

I shouldn't have to speak Mandarin to get a job in North Ryde. Immigrants should though have to accept Australian values and social standards by living in Australia - equality of women, free speech, reward based on merit (no chronyism), fair pay for a fair day's work (no slavery), highs standards of hygiene, etc.

Australian social values and standards were once common sense and taken for granted, but with so many arriving with different values and standards, Australia has got to the point of needing its social values and standards protected in legislation - an Australian Values Act.

Cronulla in 2005 was a warning to governments. Heed it and curb the immigration and listen to us locals! Yet in the government of our modern society, especially across Australia, members of parliament are naive, and untravelled idealists who invariable tow their Party's line and whom hold no experience or qualifications in sociology. We are ruled by incompetents of dangerous naivety.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, is a crucial document. The first 21 Articles of the Declaration all profess classical Western rights, also called liberty rights or “negative rights,” including the right to private property, freedom of speech and equality before the law. Universal human rights ideals are contrary to human nature, over-ride national and individual rights, fail to consider the finite nature of our planet, the limitations of multiculturalism, and the "success" of the human species.

Increasing world-scale problems

This promises a world in which human beings are ensured the ideology of freedom of expression and be protected against fear and poverty. Unfortunately, however, reports by the United Nations Development Programme spell out the rise of a disaster which distances us from the idealistic this world. Our world is facing complex global scale problems, such as war, religious intolerance, conflict, violence, hunger, poverty, illiteracy, pollution, crime, theft, fraud, murder, corruption, immortality, child abuse, human rights violation, oppression, inequality, injustice, nuclear weapons, overpopulation and global terror among others.

Multiculturalism

Multiculturalists state specifically that our societies should be based on the principle of various ethnic groups only united by “human rights.” But this is a weak "glue" for a society, to say the least. This means that your rights to decide the future of your society and your country, for instance in managing your immigration policies, are decided by our leaders and out of our hands. Originally meant to be a core of rights ensuring political and individual liberty, today human rights are increasingly used for the opposite purpose. They claim other people’s resources, property etc as a universal "right" of access! The very notion of human rights suffers from a kind of contradictory ideals .

Multiculturalism presumes the peaceful coexistence of many cultures within the boundaries of a single political unit (usually a nation). These ideals sound good, but humans are complex and they prefer boundaries, and thus they fail.

We have been brainwashed for decades in Western nations that we must embrace mass immigration for many reasons including the most popular - population growth, demographic imbalances, economic growth, and population decline.

New world order

The call for a "new world order" in 1990 raised optimism among people worldwide.

It refers to the emergence of a bureaucratic collectivist one-world government. Further, the new draft sketches a world in which there is one dominant military power whose leaders ‘must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role’. For the poor, the majority of whom are people of colour and indigenous, the "new" seemed to be very much like the old. Changes in the global economy continue to favour the few, the elites. To them, it makes more sense to open our borders, invite illegal immigration, and risk rising lawlessness and terrorism. In fact, each such crisis becomes a potential instrument for change! Former President George H. W. Bush echoed that assurance. Out of these troubled times... a new world order can emerge.

Whose "human rights" should take precedence?

Moreover, who decides which “human rights” should take precedence? If you say that free migration should be a universal human right, you trample on the rights of the peoples at the host end of mass immigration to preserve their cultural heritage. Should Muslim nations, or overpopulation nations, be allowed to dump their unsustainable population growth in the West? Sharia laws tend not to respect human rights, allowing them to undermine countries that do respect individual rights. Democratic principles means that "human rights" will become a tool for undermining democratic nations in favour or totalitarian ones, precisely the opposite of what was originally intended.

Overpopulation not being addressed

We still have millions of unintended pregnancies, often resulting in unsafe abortion or maternal or infant death; and continuing rapid population growth in the world's poorest countries. Population growth, migration to urban areas, conflicting needs for existing land, and insufficient financial and natural resources have resulted in widespread homelessness and habitation in inadequate housing.

Migration from a country tends to encourage those who stay to have larger families and that when migration possibilities are reduced, population growth declines, thereby enhancing the prospects for improved well-being. Boundaries - to aid and migration - mean that populations are more likely to care for their own territories.

Westerners are the suckers of the 21st century. We fail to support our own interests and cultures. We exist solely as a vehicle for funding other nations, and as the obedient dumping ground for their excess population growth. How can Australia be selling off farm land, industries and water rights to overseas interests?

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirmed that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and that all persons have a right to satisfaction of economic, social, and cultural needs. The convention on elimination of all forms of discrimination against women referred in its preamble to the particular disadvantages of women living in poverty.

Population growth which outpaces increases in production will make it increasingly difficult to satisfy the rights and needs of all population sectors. Contraception is a legitimate means of achieving this end.

We are, as a species, too successful and our success contains the seeds of not only the failure of the natural environment, but our own too.

With 2236 people arriving every week in Victoria - 1800 of those moving to Melbourne
Why buy east when you can Mumbai west? 11/9 The Age there is scant recognition of the amount of infrastructure needed to support these numbers.

Point Cook is called "Mumbai Cook". According to the article: one of Melbourne's newest suburbs tells an old migration story that echoes the history of places like Carlton's Little Italy - Lygon Street - or Richmond's mini Saigon - Victoria Street.

Comparing Melbourne's multicultural imprints of Victoria Street and Lygon street and Richmond simplify and hide the real issues here. It is the reluctance of our political leaders to acknowledge the world's global threats, and the impact of on-going and limitless population growth on an already stretched Australia's resources. Our wide and open spaces are being turned into housing estates!

What was stimulating in the past, and helped us create an economy of scale, is now toppling our population over the point no return, and human numbers will keep increasing.

Delhi and Mumbai rank among the world's top most populated cities. Mumbai, with a population of 20.4 million, occupies fourth place behind Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Undoubtedly, like in Australia, urban sprawl will keep continuing and real estate prices keep increasing. Property in Mumbai is already some of the most expensive in the world, and no doubt there are some great positives about the city, and some have become wealthy!

Everybody is searching for good jobs in Mumbai for earning money that can helps them to survive their life. But many of the people are unable to get the job even if they are talented and meritorious. Currently Mumbai stands communally far more polarised in terms of population distribution than ever before, and this is one of the primary reasons for the presence of crime in the society. The burgeoning crime rates to the fact that more and more unemployment has been created after the shutting down of the textile mills in and around the city. In India, religious and caste divisions generally coincide with economic divides, and these give rise to an amplified form of social division.

The city's crime graph, like its burgeoning population, is also rapidly rising: over the last decade the city has witnessed a 52% rise in crime.

Sankar Chatterjee, curator of paleontology at the Museum of Texas Tech University says that a meteorite more than 25 miles wide hurtling toward Earth at 36,000 miles per hour and caused massive destruction. In fact, the exact scenario played out 65 million years ago near present-day Mumbai, India, and could be the smoking gun that ended the dinosaurs’ reign on Earth.

The sixth extinction can't be blamed on meteorites but to human overpopulation!

Bringing Mumbai to Victoria's west is about importing this global threat to Australia. Despite the converging threats of climate change, peak oil, peak soil, extinctions, rising costs of water, power and infrastructure needed to maintain our lifestyles, growth continues!

Urban sprawl means additional infrastructure are needed for power, water, increased transport and health costs, not to mention the increase in greenhouse gas emissions!

The Australian Conservation Foundation has called for clear goals to stabilise our population, saying that a rising population will make it much harder to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, restore our rivers, biodiversity and soils to health and ensure a good quality of life for everyone.

Infrastructure spending will always be inadequate in keeping up with such high growth.

However, the tremendous financial and political power of the growth-lobby is far greater than the threat of anthropogenic climate change, or any global or local environmental or sustainability concerns.

For too long the immigration program has been out of public control and run purely for the interests of an elite number of business groups and portions of a pro-ethnic lobby who are both quick to throw the term "racist" or "nimby" when their their interests aren't pandered to.

Housing prices are at levels that can only be called unaffordable, cruel and family hostile. We used to be a country famously known for our rate of home-ownership! Now we have rising homelessness, mortgage stress and "shortage" of land and housing.

Companies no longer bother to run traineeships and apprenticeship programs because they prefer to import skills. Universities aren't training sufficient Australian doctors, so we have "skills shortages". They are poached from overseas to save on education costs, and create another justification for immigration.

Universities aren't funded sufficiently, so they must rely on foreign students.

Roads are congested, water and electricity costs are accelerating as fresh food prices inflate due to market becoming high density housing and as water is rationed to farms. Freeways costing billions must be built, in denial of peak oil, to keep up with traffic demands.

The growth lobby never admit that their population growth doesn't improve GDP per capita but only the overall size of the economy, or that the infrastructure shortfall makes everything more expensive.

You don't have to know that 35 per cent of Sydney's population was born overseas. Some areas are even higher. The ethnic diversity is overwhelming!

The elite business interests, the ethnic lobby, and the pampered property developers have their own selfish interests at heart not that of the general population.

http://www.fecca.org.au/

There appears to be another group of people that just enjoy screaming "racist" as a way of feeling superior! Secular humanitarian ideologies have become a major force, and keep promoting "equality" and a "one world" approach to everyone instead of patriotism.

Racism is more prevalent in poorer areas, and where third- and fourth-generation Australians live in ethnic enclaves, feeling like minorities. All this "diversity" and "multiculturalism" that we are supposed to embrace is the result of mass immigration, something we have no say about.

Immigration lobbies' selfish arguments have created their own myths for too long to justify our ongoing population growth. However, ideologies, economies and ideals are infinite, but not our land, our ecosystems, our limited fertile "green belt", our natural resources, our water, energy and our hip-pockets.

Regaining Compassion for Humanity and Nature - by Professor Charles Birch

Regaining Compassion for Humanity and Nature by L. Charles Birch
(extracts from the above)

Charles Birch's teaching career included Oxford, Columbia and the Universities of Chicago and Minnesota, as well as visiting professor of genetics at the University of California at Berkeley and professor of biology at the University of Sydney. Professor Birch has blazed new paths into the relationships between science and faith.

He saw 2 billion people on the planet and 6 billion, and counting, at the end of the century, where resources obviously were finite. The global ecology was being rapidly depleted and the harmony that Christianity preached appeared further from reach than ever.

Birch met many of the world's great thinkers in population and genetics, including Paul Ehrlich. For years he was prominent in the Zero Population Growth movement, which attracted widespread support in Australia.

The Fate of the Earth

Unless we change we'll get where we’re going. Anon.
Our generation has a litany of crimes against the world to its record. Topsoil disappears at the rate of one football field each second.

Arable land is covered with concrete at the rate of three football fields each minute. Forests disappear at the rate of four football fields each minute.

Species disappear at the rate of one hundred a day. Add to this the greenhouse effect and the hole in the ozone layer and it becomes obvious that our present treatment of the Earth cannot continue for ever.

The world is dying. We are on an unsustainable course.

The collapse of civilizations

The decline of the Mayan civilization in the lowlands of Guatemala was almost certainly due to severe soil erosion and deforestation. For seventeen centuries the population doubled every 400 years, reaching a density by AD 900 comparable with that of agriculturally intensive societies of today. At this peak the civilization suddenly collapsed. Within decades the population fell to less than one-tenth of what it had been. They didn’t know how to look after the Earth

The collapse of the civilization that occupied the Euphrates River basin of the Great Fertile Crescent was also probably a consequence of humanly induced environmental deterioration. The difference between us and the Mayans is that we know we are on an unsustainable path. We may not have seen the collapse of whole civilizations in our day in this way, but we have seen the disappearance of large areas of formerly habitable earth.

The United Nations Environmental Program warns that one-third of the entire land surface of the world is now in danger. In the world as a whole, topsoil disappears each year in an amount equivalent to the total topsoil of the entire vast wheat belt of Australia which covers 113,000 square kilometers.

World population

The world’s population in 1992 was estimated to be 5.4 billion. It is likely to reach 6.3 billion by the end of this century, nearly the equivalent of adding another China. More than 90 per cent of the increase is in poor countries. That poses an immense problem for the rich and poor world alike.

So-called development of vast inland spaces is limited by shortage of water. That is the main limiting resource of Australia. It is the reason why most Australians live on the coastal fringe.

Soil Deterioration

The deterioration of soil on agricultural lands is worldwide. The world as a whole loses 113, 000 square kilometers of topsoil each year which is equivalent to the topsoil of the entire wheat belt of Australia being lost each year.

Likewise, much of existing agriculture in Australia is unsustainable. The Center for Farm Planning and Land Management in the University of Melbourne estimates that 60 per cent of Australian agricultural land requires treatment for land degradation, salinity, erosion and tree decline. For every hectare of land used for cropping, between 50 and 300 tons of topsoil is lost each year. The cost is at least $600 million each year. Former Prime Minister Bob Hawke said that ‘none of Australia’s environmental problems is more serious than the soil degradation . . . over nearly two-thirds of our continent’s arable land’ (Brown 1990, p. 60).

Soil erosion in Australia has been called the quiet crisis because it creeps upon a farmer often unnoticed. It has increased in recent years because of the pressure for the farmer to produce more from each hectare. Another problem is that short-term costs of combating soil deterioration often exceed the short-term benefit in some places by three times. Rangelands provided about a quarter of Australia’s grazing country for sheep. Overstocking and subsequent invasion by inedible shrubs, such as hopbush, and inedible annual grasses has resulted in nearly 3 million hectares being completely ‘shrubbed out’.

Deserts are expanding as a result of inappropriate human activity in Africa, south-central Asia, Australia, the western United States and southern South America. In China between 1949, when the Communist government came into power; and the year 2000 it is estimated that the total area of desert will have doubled (Ehrlich & Ehrlich 1990, p. 129).

Student Christian Movement

He found the Student Christian Movement, a very liberal organisation. It didn't emphasise future things that are going to happen to you in terms of heaven and hell, rewards and punishment. It emphasised a way of life which was basically modelled on the life of Jesus and so you had to study the life of Jesus. God didn't manipulate the world or God didn't send flowers, God didn't send fire and angels and chariots and all this sort of stuff.

So it was what we now call a very liberal interpretation of the Christian religion. And God was not the manipulator of the world. And if you wanted to use a word, it would be God's influence was persuasive. And that stayed with me. And I found it very persuasive.

Interview with Birch

Lester R. Brown (1990, p. 190)
The Worldwatch Institute in Washington was established in the 1970s to alert the world to increasing threats to human well-being and to the environment. Its director Lester Brown, caught on to the concept of the ecologically sustainable society and wrote Building a Sustainable Society (1981) in which he diagnosed the present state of global unsustainability and suggested paths to sustainability

Ehrlich, Paul, and Anne Ehrlich. 1990. Overpopulation
The Earth's population is increasing rapidly. Some say that the Earth will not be able to support it's inhabitants in the future because of overpopulation. However, the truth in this lies in it's definition. The Ehrlichs discuss the different connotations of the term "overpopulation." Often it is thought of in relation to crowding and density (i.e. too many people in a certain area would constitute a high population density).

Charles Birch obituary in the media-He died last year

©The Cairns Post

Q1. Why are house prices in urban Australia perpetually rising?
ANSWER:
Demand for housing exceeds supply, particularly in the capital cities. Real estate investors, the real estate industry and property developers seek to maximise their capital gain on selling housing and so seek the highest price on an open unregulated market.

Q2. Why is demand for urban housing exceeding supply in Australian cities?
ANSWER:
Population growth is outpacing the combined rate of sales of existing housing and construction of new housing in the capital cities.

Q3. Why is housing demand so strong?
ANSWERS:
Australian federal and state governments are encouraging business development in the capital cities and so employment opportunities are disproportionately higher in the capital cities. Australian federal and state governments are encouraging urban population growth at rates that exceed the housing supply in the capital cities. Since employment opportunities are disproportionately higher in the capital cities, population growth is disproportionately high in the capital cities.

Q4. Why is housing supply in capital cities not meeting demand?
ANSWER:
Housing in the capital cities is not becoming available at a rate that can keep up with population growth. Housing is not being constructed fast enough to cater for the increased demand in the capital cities. Even when mass housing construction is released, governments are not funding appropriate residential/social infrastructure - schools, public transport, emergency services, recreational facilities, etc to maintain quality of life comparable to established suburbs.

Q5. Why is Australia's population growth so high?
ANSWER:
Net immigration growth is the bulk of the population growth and this is being perpetually and recklessly encouraged by successive pendulous cycle of Lib/Lab political parties with vested interests in the short term profits of growth.

Comment:

The sheer volume of immigrants to Australia are -over-demanding housing forcing housing scarcity and price rises making housing unaffordable to Australians. Governments are encouraging urban property price increases - through excess immigration, and urban-centric economic stimulus, yet all the while neglecting social responsibility for providing urban capacity. As Sheila Newman states on CanDoBetter: "Here in Australia every state government is in the business of raising the price of land beyond the capacity of most people to pay for it, creating exorbitant rents."

Just because many foreign governments allow excessive populations, this does not mean that Australia has to accept foreigners seeking a better opportunity. Beyond Australia's humanitarian obligations to accept refugees fleeing persecution, Australia does not have to accept economic migrants. It is these economic migrants who are displacing Australians from housing, employment, education. Economic migrants are not paying their way and are draining tax revenue to the detriment of indigenous and local Australians.

Once Australia's homeless have a humanitarian safety net of food, shelter, clothing, medical care and educational opportunity, only then should Australia consider extending invitations to foreigners to share the Australian dream of owning one's own home, but then only if carrying capacity permits.

"105,000 Australians are homeless on any given night."
[Source:Homelessness Australia]

This is a national disgrace! It is as if Australia has a 'Migrant First Policy'.

Australian Per Capita Self-Reliance Cost

What is the cost to house, feed, shelter, clothe, provide medical care, educate in literacy and numeracy a person in Australia to enable that person to become independently self-reliant and at an acceptable Australian quality standard of living? From birth to say age 22 when tertiary education will prepare a person for the workforce in the 21st Century, let's say the per capita cost is $1 million. In addition, the costs of providing social infrastructure and economic opportunities to nurture and support one's stable family environment would need to be included. Let's say the per capital cost is then $1.3 million for argument sake.

It thus costs $1.3 million in Australian taxes to get each Australian-born to a minimum self-reliance standard. Many of course will require more resources and time to achieve this and those who are disadvantaged may never reach this ideal standard, so the costs will be higher.

It is with this reality in mind that Australia's social policy and immigration policy needs to be fully realised and publicly costed. The fact that this is deliberately neglected by cyclical Lib/Lab governments at all levels that Australia's living standards are rapidly approaching those of 'Second World' New Zealand.

New Zealand a 'Second World' nation you ask?
Well, the term traditionally referred to Eastern Bloc countries, but times have changed. The term more usefully refers to countries that on the basis of economic prosperity, living standards and quality of life lie between the First World (like most of Western Europe) and the Third World (like most of Africa). Some Third World countries like Malaysia are advancing, while some First World countries like New Zealand are going backwards.

"An international report has found that a sixth of New Zealand children are being raised in poverty - a higher rate than in all but three of the world's 26 rich nations.

The Innocenti Research Centre, established by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), says 16.3 per cent of New Zealand children in 2001 lived in homes that earned less than half the national median income.

Only Mexico, the United States and Italy had higher rates of child poverty."

[Source: 'NZ's child poverty rate one of highest', NZ Herald, Simon Collins, 2nd March 2005].

Further Reading:

Read More about the 'Second World' by author Parag Khanna in his book 'The second world: empires and influence in the new global order.'. Khanna claims this Second World comprises Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia, emerging Third World countries such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Libya, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

However, just as some Third World ('developing') countries are advancing, there are some presumed 'First World' (developed) countries that have allowed their economies and societies to slip below modern First World socio-economic health standards. These include New Zealand, Greece, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Russia, and Portugal. We may refer to retrograde socio-economic as 'nation backsliding'.

The measures determining a country's socio-economic health include a factor of Physical quality-of-life index (PQLI) derived from basic literacy rate, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 0 to 100 scale. The measures are also a factor of Gross National Product (GNP) as a measure of comparative economic performance and the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (with one-third weight).
A decent standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.

Each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often advertise it, as a means of attracting talented immigrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging emigration.

An alternative measure, focusing on the amount of poverty in a country, is the Human Poverty Index.

A small Australia means big taxes?

Bernard Salt says that there's a strong need to lift the number of taxpayers in Australia during to pay for the retirement needs of the baby boomers, that mob of imminent retirees born between 1945 and 1960. And it's not a Ponzi scheme, he says, noting that the baby boomer bump is a one-off.

Whereas Kevin Rudd said in October last year I believe in a big Australia, Julia Gillard is now saying I do not support the concept of a big Australia. Bernard Salt's main concern is that we need strong population growth to support a rising tax base in the coming decade. At least he is inadvertently revealing the real rationale for population growth – a bigger tax base!

New figures released last week by the ABS show we added 432,000 last calendar year.

Bernard Salt is a Partner of KPMG, a financial services company, based in Melbourne.  Bernard holds Bachelor of Education and Master of Arts degrees and is a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. He is considered a demographer.

Baby boomer threat ?

His view is that after 2020 it will be a bleak time for Australian investors, as baby boomers retire off. Salt predicts that as the growth in the number of centenarians continues to outpace every other age group in Australia, governments will struggle to afford to keep them alive.

These are very expensive years to maintain, he said. Dismissing people as economic burdens is clearly his way of evaluating people, as economic units! His solution? Keep growing the population to 'balance” older people, despite the fact that all populations grow old eventually. This is a simply life cycle. Many older people are self-funded now. The real costs in taxes is actually in supporting population growth!

If we continue with our forced population growth rate, will will continue to have not one-off “bumps” of older people, but cumulative mountains of them.

Size of wallets to determine our future?

Despite the costs of population growth, the scientific facts as opposed to columnists’ opinions, it will be the size of our wallets that determines our future?   Economics alone cannot be the simple rationale for justifying a "big Australia", as suggested by Bernard Salt.

(Melbourne's sprawl - Wikimedia Commons)

If we stabilise our numbers, we won't need the big tax base. We won't need the continually increased spending on schools, hospitals, roads, freeways, law enforcement, water and power infrastructures. The amounts would be fixed and stable, except for maintenance.

There are many dimensions and implications of increasing our population, and the only "benefits" are economic ones, simply devoid of the multitude of considerations.  People are not a economic units that can be stacked and stored for financial benefits, like factory farmed animals.

The costs of population growth are many, and are financial, environmental, wildlife losses, social and in living standards.

Soil erosion

Prior to European settlement, there was little bare soil in Australia apart from the areas that were sparsely vegetated in the semi arid and arid regions . Erosion in pasture lands has doubled from natural conditions, with a five-fold increase for improved pastures. Soil stability is essential to the health of the vegetation growing in it and the other biodiversity inhabiting that vegetation. Vegetation is also essential to maintaining soil stability.

If our arable, fertile coastlines and vegetation areas are covered by housing, infrastructures and developments, Australia's capacity to maintain viable biological services would be severely compromised.

Grazing is the main land use contributing to total soil erosion across assessed river basins, because of the vast areas involved in grazing and their location in northern Australia.

Loss of species

The number of species on Earth was gradually diminishing – not by the slow inexorable processes of extinction on a geological time-scale, but through the landscape changes imposed by human ‘development’ – by clearing, agricultural chemicals and housing developments as well as the more direct impacts of hunting and gathering to satisfy an exponentially growing human population.

"Sustainable growth" is an oxymoron as nothing can growth forever while our land and natural resources are finite. 

The overlay of climate change will impact more, and large communities are more at risk from threats and extinction than small, flexible, and diverse communities.

Stealing from future generations

If Population Minister Tony Burke is still conducting his inquiries, how do we know that he might not conclude that Australia could indeed expand to 35 million, or to 40 million, by mid century? If so, should we expand to our maximum numbers, deny climate change, and deny the livelihoods and an intact, beautiful Australia, to next generations? How will they be able to grow, or will they be forced to stabilise their numbers?

This short-sightedness is based on consumerism, greed, and ignores the multi-dimensional costs of expanding our population.

Canadians respond to Australian Mischaracterization of Canada

LTE editor, Sydney Morning Herald

Re: "Canadians have successfully managed a similar swelling in population numbers", by Josephine Tovey (SMH June 29/2010)

It would come as a surprise to most Canadians that we have coped well with the addition of 13 million consumers since 1970. Yet with trans-oceanic vision, Professor Peter MacDonald, sounding less like a demographer and more like a growth-obsessive economist with rose-coloured glasses, confidently asserts that to be the case. In fact it is not.

At least three government-funded studies---Report number 25 from the Science Council of Canada, a 1990 report from the Privy Council and the damning Healey report of 1997----all documented the devastation wrought by population growth on our arable land and ecosystems. Our largest cities are bursting at the seams with congestion, smog, overloaded infrastructure and unaffordable real estate. Built-up development pressures have overwhelmed urban boundaries and claimed 20% of our best farmland for housing to accommodate a largely foreign-born demand. According to Ontario Farmlands Trust, Ontario alone lost some 600,000 acres of prime farmland in the decade following 1996.

Strict land use planning is typically touted as the panacea for this runaway population growth, but smart growth strategies have been a proven failure. The reality is, as York University Professor Robert MacDermid established in his report on municipal campaign financing in 2009, civic election campaigns are essentially bankrolled by corporate money, most of it from the same developers responsible for the cascading sprawl. The local planning department is, for all intents and purposes, a branch plant of the real estate industry. No wonder that the folks who underwrite home purchases, like the CEO of our goliath Royal Bank of Canada, Gordon Nixon, have lobbied for an immigration quota 50% higher than its current stratospheric level. More homebuyers, more profits. And the ecological costs can be expiated by discreet donations to high profile environmental NGOs like Nature Conservancy Canada or the David Suzuki Foundation, which naturally, have nothing to say about the negative environmental impact of mass immigration nor about the morality of accepting corporate donations.

Tovey and MacDonald have it dead wrong. In Canada we have not managed growth. Growth has managed us.

Tim Murray
VP Biodiversity First
Quathiaski Cove, BC
Canada V0P 1N0

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Re "Canada's Experience" dated June 29, 2010:

Josephine Tovey claims that Canada is some kind of success story for having gone from a population of 21 million in 1970 to 35 million today. She is roughly correct in saying that Canada's population has grown, but she and demographer Peter McDonald should be very careful about saying that any country's population increase (Canada's or Australia's in particular) should be characterized as a "sucess story".

Canada and Australia are similar in some respects: both are large areas of land, but Nature has imposed severe limitations on them. Both have huge desert areas : Canada's is in its north ; Australia's is in its Interior. In addition to desert, remember that almost 40% of Canada is north of the 60th Parallel and has to deal with extreme cold and 8 to 10 month long winters. Remember also that Canada, in contrast to Australia, has a river system in its Interior and that that system, in part, has enabled Canada to support its population increase.

The question Ms. Tovey should ask is this : Why should any country have a larger population? Canadians who have lived in southern British Columbia and Southern Ontario, the areas of Canada that have experienced high population growth, will tell you that those places have not been "improved" by bringing in more people. In fact, they are "full". In support of that claim, Ontario's Environment Commissioner has stated that Southern Ontario does not have the water to support the planned population increase there and that its river systems cannot handle the wastes from that population.

Ms. Tovey should note that in 1976, Canada's federal government asked The Science Council of Canada, Canada's most eminent scientists, to make recommendations about an optimum population for Canada and how Canada could best use its land base and its resources for itself and for its role in the world. That group stated that Canada had to discard two myths about itself One was that its large land base meant that it could take unlimited numbers of people. To help end that misconception, it recommended that Canada restrict immigration and stabilize its population at roughly what it is now. The other myth was that Canada had infinite resources. To assist in ending that myth, it produced rsearch to show that Canada had a finite resource supply and that it should take measures to protect those resources, particularly its farm land. It recommended that since there were few food-exporting countries in a world with an increasing population, Canada should concentrate on becoming a major food exporter.

Since then, Canada's real estate and immigration industries have convinced our federal government to ignore much of what The Science Council recommended. As a result, Canada has lost huge amounts of the country's best farmland in southern Ontario to immigration-driven housing development.

One event precipitated that loss. Canada's Progressive Conservative Party began an immigration intake policy of 240,000 in 1990, contrary to the advice they had been given that immigration produced alomost no economic benefits and that it would not solve aging population issues. As senseless and incredible as it may sound, Canada's Immigration Minister in 1990 stated she was raising immigration levels (which were around 85,000 when her gov't took office) in order that the Progressive Conservative Party could compete with its rival, the Liberal Party, for the immigrant vote. Even more incredibly, that policy has been virtually institutionalized and all of Canada's federal political parties now support it. Over 5 million immigrants have entered Canada since then. They are responsible for around 70% of Canada's population increase.

In other words, Canada has regularized population insanity. Contrary to what demographer Peter McDonald says, Canada is falling into "a big heap". Canada's immigrant visible minority has become the proverbial tail that wags the dog. Immigrant advocacy groups and their converts parade around the country evangelizing for the Religion of Diversity. The reality is that according to one academic, immigration has become a huge economic drag of over $20 Billion a year. According to many others, immigration-driven population growth is transforming many areas of Canada into a virtual social and environmental disaster-in-progress.

If Australia thinks Canada is a "success story" to imitate, then go ahead. See you in the asylum !!

Dan Murray
Immigration Watch Canada
www.immigrationwatchcanada.org
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Josephine Tovey's June 29th article leaves readers with the impression that
Canada has successfully "managed" the addition of 14 million people during
the last 40 years, the implication being that Australians need not worry
about their own population ballooning out to 36 million if, per Peter
MacDonald, they manage it properly. Ms. Tovey does not seem to have
consulted anyone about the cost of this rampant population growth.

A report released in March by the Toronto Board of Trade said that the
estimated round-trip commutes in that city now average 80 minutes, longer
than commutes in London, New York, and Los Angeles, and cost Canada more
than $5 billion a year. Gridlock also afflicts Canada's other large cities,
many of which are unable to maintain the infrastructure to keep up with
growth and suffer a decreasing environmental quality. The Ontario Medical
Association estimates that there are close to 6000 premature deaths and
17,000 hospital admissions in Ontario each year caused by smog. Canada's
growing cities are devouring not only the greenspace that makes them
liveable but the agricultural land that feeds them. According to a 2005
Statistics Canada publication, about one-half of Canada's urbanized land
sits on dependable agricultural land, and some 14,300 square kilometres of
dependable agricultural land have been converted to urban uses.

What about water? A 1991 advisory document to the Privy Council of Canada
says: "Canada is endowed with vast water resources, but with 90 percent of
its population concentrated within a band up to 100 miles of the USA border,
water resources in these areas are already being utilized to their fullest.
Polluted water has become an everyday concern." Most newcomers to Canada
come from countries with much lower per capita energy consumption levels and
consequently substantially increase their greenhouse gas production in their
new country (not to mention their consumption of other resources). Canada's
rapidly growing population has prevented it from meeting any of its targets
for greenhouse gas reduction. Population growth and development has also
taken a tremendous toll on Canada's ecosystems. The number of endangered
species in Canada, as elsewhere in the world, goes up each year. Of the 428
species of birds that regularly breed in Canada, 60 are in danger of
extinction. As the collapse of its cod fishery has shown, Canada's resources
are not inexhaustible.

And what of the much vaunted economic benefits that population growth has
allegedly brought Canada? Economist Herb Grubel calculated that recent
immigrants cost the Canadian government about $18 billion (Canadian dollars)
more in services than they pay in taxes each year. According to Statistics
Canada census data from 2006, the median earnings of Canadians (in
inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars) increased by a negligible 0.1% between 1980
and 2005, while the earnings of the poorest fifth actually fell by a
sizeable 20%. But the "doors wide open" immigration policy, initiated in
1990, that has ramped up Canada's population growth in recent decades has
brought economic benefits to some. The 2006 StatsCan census data shows that
the real earnings of the richest fifth of Canadians increased by 16%. Among
those, one can be sure, would be developers who profit from building houses
and bankers who profit from the mortgages, some business interests
benefiting from cheap labour, as well as the "immigration industry."
Politicians seek both to please corporate interests and gain the votes of
newcomers by maintaining mass immigration, come boom or recession. Given
that those who benefit from growth also tend to be the ones who own the
media, it is perhaps not surprising that the costs of immigration have
received so little coverage in the Canadian media.

Canada is a land rich in resources, which has enabled it delay paying the
price for its wasteful pursuit of growth. That does not make it a good
manager. Canada should not be seen as a "growth-managing" role model for
Australia. On the contrary, by virtue of the fact that Australia is having a
public discussion about growth, it is a role model for Canada, where the
media still spout the corporate party line that growth is good and more is
better.

Madeline Weld
President, Population Institute of Canada
www.populationinstituteofcanada.ca
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Original article:
Sydney Morning Herald
June 29, 2010

Canadians have successfully managed a similar swelling in population numbers. Josephine Tovey explains five things Australia must do to cope with an extra 14 million people.

How does a Western country used to low-density living, with an abundance of space but little arable land, create liveable cities while undergoing a population explosion from about 20 million people to 36 million in 40 years?

That is the conundrum now vexing Australia. But Canada has undergone that change in the last 40 years and it is one that experts in population and urban planning say Australia could handle too, if the growth is well managed.

''Canada didn't fall in a big heap because its population went from 22 to 35 million,'' Professor Peter McDonald, director of the Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, said.

Its population has grown from about 21 million people in 1970 to almost 35 million today - roughly the same rate of growth projected by federal Treasury between now and 2050 for Australia.

Coping with such growth comes down to long-term planning and attention to key areas, Professor McDonald said. These include creating mass transit systems for expanding cities, providing housing where it is needed, addressing environmental needs like water, food and energy, and directing infrastructure into smaller towns that can share the population growth.

Canada's population is spread across a lot of medium-sized cities -more than 33 have a population above 100,000, but only one, Toronto, has a population of more than 5 million.

Public transport
''One of the problems people have with higher densities is that it does produce more traffic and parking problems,'' said urban planner Dr Garry Glazebrook. ''It will, unless we shift some of our travel out of cars.''

Housing
Providing affordable housing will require a mix of high- and medium-density infill, as well as new homes on greenfield sites. ''There will be a strong demand for medium- and high-density housing,'' said Professor Peter McDonald, particularly from migrants.

Water
Better water savings measures, such as low water use toilets and showers, are needed, says Grant Leslie, the manager of the Water Services Association of Australia. Desalination plants, new dams and water recycling plants were also part of the solution, he said.

Energy
Homes and businesses will need to become smarter with their energy use. ''Many areas of our economy use much less energy … that's a matter of replacing more of our fossil energy sources with renewable sources,'' said demographer, Professor Graeme Hugo.

Redistribution
Targeting infrastructure at rural and coastal communities that can sustain high employment is important in managing growth around the country, said Professor McDonald. ''The important thing is investing in smaller places you think are going to be successful.''
http://www.smh.com.au/national/canadas-experience-20100628-zf9r.html

Populate of Perish?

Since the slogan ''populate or perish'' was coined during World War II we have forged a consensus that a growing Australian population is mainly good for national prosperity.

The populate or perish policy is nothing new, of course. Under various guises, it has driven growth in Australia for more than 200 years. However, those who argue that big population equals better everything are wrong.

1968

(photo: Perth in 1968)
In 1968 we had a population of around 12 million. The year 1968 was a tumultuous one in the world beyond Australia. Nothing so dramatic occurred in this country!
Officially, the economy was ‘buoyant’, with an 8 per cent growth in GDP in 1967-8. Private spending rose sharply (especially for cars and consumer durables), average weekly earnings continued to rise by 6 per cent, and private fixed investment leapt by 11 per cent in 1967-8.

(photo: Billy Snedden)

Billy Snedden, the Minister for Immigration, said that Australians, and certainly the government, did not want a multiracial society. Prosperity, the gathering mining boom, job security, an increasingly comfortable lifestyle had protected most Australians from imported excitement.

People on a reasonable income (slightly higher than median) can no longer afford to purchase a reasonable house (2-3 bedroom, one bathroom), a reasonable distance from where they work. In 1968 interest rate was 5.38% and steady. Homes were in good supply and inexpensive, and there were jobs for everyone who wanted one. We had “full” employment. There was no real waiting time for hospitals and emergency services were all first class.

(photo: PM John Gorton)

Under the Liberal Government, Prime Minister John Gorton (1968-71), the Australian dollar was worth $ 1.25 US.

The trains and buses were uncrowded, as were beaches and public facilities. People could afford holiday houses. Public transport was not yet privatised. The drought had ended and water was not even an issue in the big cities. The crime rates were very low and and violent crimes as it is seen every day today were almost unknown.
In 1968 the average price of a vacant Melbourne home site was $3659 and the average after-tax earnings $2825.

The culprit of higher housing prices in Australia was clearly identified as being the price of land which had been driven up by planning controls often designed to create more compact cities.

Our lifestyles, for the most, are spiralling downhill due to the stress of population growth and the associated costs and loss of social capital. Once ecosystems melt down, they are gone. It doesn't depend on what we want, but how many people our land can realistically and desirably support. Big is not necessarily better. Bigger populations can be harder to move away from disasters, like the financial crashes, natural disasters and climate change.

Peak Oil

 The US military recently warned that the world faces a "severe energy crunch" and looming oil shortages. The military predicts a "Peak Oil" scenario - where demand outstrips the world's supply capacity - as soon as 2012.

The world's oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, Britain's former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years.   Peak Oil is not some doomsday myth. It is a very simple equation based on supply and demand related to a very finite resource.

Australian Conservation Foundation

Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) president Professor Ian Lowe says the belief that population growth leads to economic prosperity is flawed. You don’t have to be Dick Smith to realise that our continued reliance on population growth as a key economic driver has serious environmental and societal implications.

Nation building?

The argument that a nation-building government would be bold enough to choose a bigger Australia has absolutely no merit at all, because as we can see today all what was good about Australia in 1968 are not good today, yet our population has almost doubled which proves conclusively that more is NOT better.

How fraudulent this model of limitless growth is! There is unwillingness to consider the finite nature of our material world and properly value negative externalities and the non-material factors that contribute to our well being.

Norway

Charles Berger’s valuable piece “If Norway can prosper with a stable population, why can’t Australia?” On Line Opinion, February 22, 2010 highlighted the lack of evidence supporting the supposition that population growth stimulates economic prosperity.

GDP

Economic modelling conducted for the Intergenerational Report concluded that lower population growth would mean lower per-capita GDP for Australia, among other ills. If you look at what's happened to real gross domestic product per person, you'll see it has fallen in three of the past five quarters.

Over the past seven financial years, real GDP has grown by 23 per cent, but real GDP per person has grown by less than half that. So we haven't been doing as well as the headline growth figures imply. In fact, there is now more mortgage stress and increasing costs of utilities, rates and charges.

Infrastructure

Let's consider NSW's population growth, which increased 80% from migration last year. Its needs for upgraded and new infrastructure are arguably more pressing than anywhere else in Australia (new land release, infrastructure for higher housing density, transport, water; tax revenue for health care, education, law enforcement etc).
Effectively, Australia has to go into debt to provide the infrastructure for a growing population. Why is this so?

Please explain, Mr Rudd

The main mechanism through which the economy benefits from immigration is the lowering of wages by increasing the supply of workers. Cheaper labour costs eventually mean lower consumer prices... but also higher profits to business. The fact the economy is slowing and inflationary pressures easing, the Rudd government needs to explain its justification for an acceleration in the immigration program.
There are already too many people on the planet and in Australia, but all we hear is that we need to increase our population dramatically if we are to survive. This mindset is a slippery slope to oblivion!

Allied with the attitude that too much growth is never enough is the belief we need all the growth in population we can get, particularly through immigration.

The evidence to sustain the view that national well-being is best achieved by high GDP growth cannot be found.

Rudd's penchant for a 'big Australia' is behind his absurd record immigration policy. Population growth and congestion is out of control and is the common denominator driving up Australian land prices, electricity, water, inflation, consumer demand, interest rates, and consequently the costs of living of ordinary Australians.

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope - roads, public transport, health, education, housing, you name it!

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope.
The cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!

BIGGER ELECTRICITY BILLS

Today, Origin Energy chief executive, Grant King, warned the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia in Sydney that Electricity prices across Australia were likely to triple over the next 10 years.
He blamed the combination of the federal government's mandatory renewable-energy targets, energy policy uncertainty, higher electricity transmission and distribution costs, and higher fuel costs would drive the increase.

King attributed the rise in electricity demand to booming sales in energy-inefficient flat-screen televisions and air-conditioners. ['Energy prices to triple', The Australian April 14, 2010] This is clearly a consequence of new housing development driven by population growth laregley fueld by record immigration. And the growth lobby like the Urban Taskforce are lapping up the new cash!

Last month, that dodgy NSW Government euphemism 'The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART)' approved electricity price rises of up to 64% over the next three years, with "those living outside the main cities will bear the brunt of the increases."

'Country Energy, which provides all of rural NSW customers with their electricity, has been allowed to raise its prices by the steepest amount, with an increase of $918 if the scheme is introduced; otherwise, the rise will be $601.

'Overall, Energy Australia customers will see prices rise by a total of 46 per cent, for Integral Energy 60 per cent, and for Country Energy 64 per cent.

Welfare groups have warned that the price rises will force many low-income households into ''energy poverty'', and they will not be able to afford to pay their bills.'

[Brisbane Courier Mail, 'Households to feel pinch as price of power soars', 19th March 2010]

BIGGER WATER RATES

Across Australia, water rates are on the rise as each capital city spends big on desalination plants to cope with their swelling populations.

Last April (2009) it was reported by the Essential Services Commission that Melbourne households faced water price hikes of up to 84% over five years. The key drivers were claimed to be the global economy (standard excuse) as well as government not keeping water infrastructure up to demand and so deferring infrastructure works for years. [The Age (Melb), 21 Apr 2009]

Just two days ago, (12th April 2010), with Melbourne's extravagant new desal plant blowing out to cost a whopping $5.7 billion, Melbourne's water prices will further escalate to pay the bill and because of the extravagant dependency of desalination for electricity, which is also going up in price.

'Over the past five years the price of electricity has increased 13 per cent a year in Victoria - and in NSW prices have risen 28 per cent a year in each of the past two years.'

['Water plans drift behind a veil of secrecy', The Age April 12, 2010]

BIGGER HOUSING PRICES

In 2009 Australian capital city house prices rose by 12.1%. Meanwhile Australia's homeless stands at 16,000. Key drivers for house prices surging are the government’s first-home owners’ grant boost.
['Web alert - warning on 'crazy' house prices', Sydney Morning Herald, 16th February 2010]

Other drivers are the inflow of new immigrants seeking accommodation and foreign nationals permitted to invest in Australia's residential housing market.

BIGGER MORTAGE INTEREST RATES

Last December, interest rates were predicted to rise 1% during 2010. But the drivers were the surge of capital projects in the next few years and China growth.
['Business, brace for 1% rise in interest rates in 2010', Sydney Moring Herald, 24th December 2009]

This month, all the banks followed the Reserve Bank in raising their mortgage rates by 25 basis points, making this the 5th interest rate rise since October and has pushed up mortgage costs by a total of almost $250 a month.

Treasurer Swan said the rise was “a painful reminder” the economy was improving. How out of touch is Swan?

Economists warned there could be at least one more rate rise before the end of the year.

['CBA, ANZ, Westpac follow as Reserve Bank raises official cash rate to 4.25%', Herald Sun , 6th April 2010]

BIGGER GROCERIES BILLS

It was confirmed just last November that Australians "are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation. The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.

Experts say the explanation for our pricey produce and soaring staples is not drought, currency movements or transport costs. University of NSW associate professor Frank Zumbo said comparing costs over 10 years eliminated such variables and exposed our "cosy" supermarket duopoly as the main reason.

[Daily Telegraph, 'Australia has fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation', 9th November 2009]

BIGGER MEAT PRICES

Wholesale butcher Kevin Masterton says the days of expensive cuts at cheap prices are over for Australian meat lovers. He's predicted Australian meat prices will never be the same again.

"Everyone is predicting Lamb will be the first Australian meat that is unaffordable. Some of the predictions I've seen is that lamb racks and cutlets will be one hundred dollars a kilo by the middle of this decade," Kevin said.

And it's all because we've been spoiled for choice. The drought has forced farmers' hands - they've had to off-load cattle to stay afloat. "They see that they are going to make more money on the cattle so they hold onto them for longer. There is also quite a bit of export, the economy has started to turn so there is less cattle in the market," Kevin said.

And it's a similar story when it comes to lamb. There's been a nine per cent jump in retail sales and a 10 per cent rise in national expenditure on the meat.

And this year the nation's sheep flock is forecast to hit its lowest point since 1905. "And we have got massive exports to the middle east, so if you take those factors into account they've had a pretty detrimental impact on the stock," Kevin said.

"Lamb has probably had the most spectacular increase - we are probably talking four to five dollars a kilo for the lamb cuts."

['Meat prices on the rise', Today Tonight, 3rd March 2010]

So there is not enough capacity in our meat livestock industry to cope with demand, hence meat prices are going up.

BIGGER PETROL COSTS

"Crude oil prices have surged to 18-month highs on the weekend and have swept petrol prices higher.
Oil prices could go to $US95 a barrel, warns analysts. Domestically, a litre of unleaded petrol costs $1.29, up 0.3 cents.

'Oil, which has been trading at between $US75 and $US85 a barrel for months, now appears to be in a new range that could go up to $95, according to oil trader and analyst Stephen Schork.'

[Perth Sunday Times, 'Petrol prices set to rise, 6th April, 2010]

The trend suggests that Australian petrol prices could be nudging $2 a litre in two years time and this time it will stay there in line with international prices. Ain't globalisation and free trade great for locals!

BIGGER POORER AUSTRALIA

The compounding cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!
What the economic data doesn't report is the social consequences - like the growing depression, family breakdowns, homelessness, substance abuse, suicides and domestic violence.
The long term impacts on children are devastating for not only the children but the future society they become adults in.

More people into less space driving up living costs, only delivers a poorer Australia.

The drivers of these costs must be addressed as a national priority.
The BIG elephant in the room is starkly Rudd's immigration out of control!
Rudd's red herring Population Minister is just that, an election red herring.

Rampant Rudd and his immigration wrath must be stopped!

A community event

If I had closed my eyes and angels had transported me to another 'Community Event' near a creek, how long would it have taken me to realise that I was somewhere else?

The Ecologist

He stood facing towards the creek and the sea on the concrete esplanade amidst passing groups of people. Behind him were tent stalls, housing the advertising of corporate sponsors as well as local environmental information. There was a stage to the side and an array of white plastic tables and chairs arranged for the celebration and the re-enactment of a grand parade of 1918. A flotilla of floral decorated boats glided down the creek, their occupants dressed in costumes of the early settlers a century prior.

I got into conversation with the man because I knew him through his specialised knowledge and writing about local fauna and the environment. Immediately we were in tune ... but it was a sad tune. We both remembered another time when pleasure in our local environment was spontaneous and personal, solitary or otherwise, in a time well before the concrete we stood on had been poured.

He told me he remembered Australia with its wildlife, wild places and wonderful freedoms even within our suburbs encountered on his arrival from Europe in 1953 .

Life as a fun fair

The re-enactment event that day was orchestrated, organised for the community's enjoyment and to show pride at the achievements of the creek conservation group.

Neither the ecologist nor I were at that moment engaged by the celebration.

Remarking on how activities in our city are increasingly organised, he echoed my thoughts.

This rings true, when I think of the festivals, marches, parades, Big Day's Out, Fun runs, triathlons and marathons that dot our calendars now. Maybe it's good for some but is it a sign of a change in our society? Is it a sign that we are increasingly looking to government authorities and commercial groups to commemorate community events and to organise that which did not always require organisation - our own leisure?

The conversation moved fast to wildlife matters, especially the local bandicoot population now threatened by a major road development about to bisect its habitat. I shared his concern at the prospect of the loss of this precious remnant of habitat and of an Australian animal that I never yet seen in the wild.

As we talked, a young woman in pink tights and little satin shorts loped past on very high stilts waving stiff elongated wooden arms draped with painted gossamer to give her the look of a butterfly. Behind us a row of tents held photographs and information about the local natural environment compiled by local groups of concerned naturalists.

The man took his leave but not before telling me that he thought it was "all over" and that massive change would be so fast that most of us would not be able to comprehend what is happening.

We said "goodbye" and I re-joined the table with my friends. A local member of parliament sat with us for a short while. I could not focus or communicate my amorphous concerns which felt more like internal alienation or anxiety than a problem for a can-do politician to tackle.

The band for whom I had been waiting eventually played their new and unfamiliar repertoire, at the end dipping back into past favourites with a masterful mesmerising performance of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" which had an intensity that fulfilled my yearning at that moment.

A little later we all adjourned to the pub where I looked through the windows to little snatches of dark blue sea scalloped with land and vegetation. The sea marked short straight lines across the sky with no hint of the Tsunami that I had heard was on its way across the Pacific.

To the right of my view was a very ugly new concrete bridge crossing what looked like a canal with straight sides but which was actually the creek around whose past and future the day's celebrations had focused.

At the timber pub table, the crew, bonded by years of local environmental struggles seemed happy that the day had gone well and got stuck into their celebration ..........But the next campaign looms .............if it is not already lost - an unwanted marina over-development.

Will our future leisure time be increasingly taken up with campaigns to preserve our environment from unwanted development? Will our social connections and celebrations also be related to these combats? Will our future be marked with more fun fairs but less real fun?

Kevin Rudd has expressed his desire for a "big Australia", contrary to public interests, without an independent scientific assessment of our "carrying capacity", and without any population plan or policy.

Australia is already a "big" nation. We have vast sunburnt plains, ancient rocky ranges, rugged coastlines that spread across the horizon, sparkling and pristine beaches, the envy of the world. We have the greatest Barrier Reef, and our biodiversity is one of the richest in the world with many flora and fauna species unique to Australia.

Australia is the driest inhabited continent on earth. Its interior has one of the lowest rainfalls in the world and about three-quarters of the land is arid or semi-arid.

Marsupials and monotremes (eg, kangaroos and platypus) are amongst the most well known endemic species. Although 70 species of marsupial occur in South America, Australia has the largest number in the world, with about 144 species.

Australia has the highest biodiversity of seagrasses in the world with 30 of the 58 species existing worldwide present in our marine environment. Australia has the largest uranium deposits in the world, with about 40 per cent of the planet's recoverable uranium resources. Deposits in the NT alone are thought be worth $12 billion. Australia has the largest identified reserves of bauxite, lead, nickel, tantalum, mineral sands, zinc and uranium.

(photo: old growth forest Brown Mountain Victoria)

The tallest reliably documented tree ever measured was the Thorpdale Tree, a Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) growing at Thorpdale in Victoria, Australia. The tree was measured at 112.8m (370 feet) standing and 114.3m (375 feet) on the ground after it was felled in 1884.

In 1995, an extraordinary Huon pine tree was found in Tasmania, Australia. What was thought to be many trees covering 2.5 acres, appeared to be just one tree - a very old tree. Some media reports claimed it could be 30,000 to 40,000 years old, one of the world's oldest trees!

Australia has the greatest risk of bushfires in the world.

In contrast to the "big" things to be proud of, a report by British risk analysis company Maplecroft has found that Australia has overtaken the United States as the world's largest polluter and is now leading the world in per capita emissions of CO2, topping a list of 185 countries!

Our wealth is in our natural heritage, not on numbers of people. What will make a few privileged people wealthy will impoverish our land and the majority of our people. We are not a colony or a territory but a sovereign nation that we need to protect, be proud of and cherish. We don't need more people to have a "big Australia"!

With the global population projected to reach 9 billion by 2050, there are now calls to rein in the growth to save the planet.

Deliberate population growth is all about greed and consumerism and a failure to appreciate what is naturally "big" about Australia.

One of the most important principles internationally when referring to greenhouse gas reduction schemes it that the polluter pays. This means that national targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions should be based on the historical contribution of each nation to global emissions.

A most important factor is the levels of emissions per capita. Australia has the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person at 26.7 tonnes per annum and this it twice the average level for all other industrialised countries and 25% higher that per person in the USA (21.2tonnes).

It is obvious that Australia's population growth policies have a enormous impact on our greenhouse gas emissions. Our immigration rate is the major contributing factor of our population growth and thus the biggest contributor to increasing our greenhouse gas emissions, and not "natural" growth. Immigrants coming here therefore adopt our consumption habits and lifestyles, thereby increasing their emissions, and our overall output.

If Australia decides to increase our population rapidly, to 50 million by 2060 or more, then energy-related emission would grow to around 600 parts per million CO2, or about double 1990 levels! (Population Policy and Environmental Degradation Sources and Trends in Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Clive Hamilton and Hal Turton, Monash University)

People are not pollution -- Why climate activists should not support limits on immigration.
People are not "pollution" and neither is CO2, but both can cause problems from excess quantities!
Recently, as concern about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming increasing, the anti-immigrant argument has taken on a new form. Now the argument is: immigrants should be kept out because our way of life is a threat to the world’s environment.

According to the article: To calculate “per capita emissions”, we simply divide a country’s total greenhouse gas emissions by its total population. This provides a useful baseline for comparing countries of different sizes – but it tells us nothing at all about the emissions that can actually be attributed to individuals. In fact, most emissions are caused by industrial and other processes over which individuals have no control. In Canada, for example, no change in the number of immigrants will have any effect on the oil extraction industry at the Alberta Tar Sands, described by George Monbiot as “the world’s biggest single industrial source of carbon emissions”.

Monbiot site on Canada

However, Australians have made effort to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but unless our numbers are limited the gross output will continue to rise. Industry and technology cause anthropogenic emissions, and a higher population increase the demand for larger markets and increased production. More population naturally equates to a demand for more jobs, and thus more industries and more plundering of finite natural resources! Excessive exports are due to human greed and worship of growth.

The Government accepted the findings of Professor Garnaut that a fair and effective global agreement centred on stabilising long-term atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases was at or below 450 parts per million of carbon dioxide equivalent is in Australia’s national interests. However, the Australian National Greenhouse Accounts released in June 2009 showed emissions rose by an estimated 553 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, or 1.1 per cent, in 2008. According to Climate Group, (Jan 2008) compared with 2000 levels, emissions from energy-use were significantly higher across all states, collectively up 19 per cent.

The Greenhouse Indicator Annual Report, released by the Climate Group, measures emissions created by electricity and petrol use across the eastern states. The report shows overall emissions were 5.3 million tonnes lower in 2009 than in the previous year. The base line should be 2000 (Copenhagen) or 1990 levels (Kyoto) , not 2008! So we are reducing our increase?

Australia has declared it will not go beyond a 5 per cent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 without guaranteed action by major emitters including the US, China and India. Little hope anyway of going beyond 5 %! By 2020 the Federal Government wants to cut emissions by 5 to 25 per cent. At our present rate of population growth, our numbers are likely to be well over 25 million by then!

THE United States (Jan 29th) officially stated a goal to cut carbon emissions by 17 per cent by 2020 off 2005 levels, in a submission to the United Nations as part of last month's Copenhagen meeting.

Our 5% is looking a little short now that the US have challenged it!
Kevin Rudd's drive for a "big Australia" and his efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emission are totally at odds, and are completely contradictory and hypocritical to addressing climate change, what he previously called the "greatest moral challenge of our time"!