Sustainable Population Strategy Consultation 2011

The government has ignored the environmental submission to the sustainable population strategy public consultation, (led by Terry Burke MP), says former senator Sandra Kanck, who is president of Sustainable Population Australia.

The results of the Government’s consultation on a population strategy for Australia show that the process was only ever for show, says environment group, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

SPA’s President, Sandra Kanck, says that the outcome is what Minister Burke started off saying, which was that the solution to our population problem was to move people around the countryside.

Superficial solution like shifting chairs on the deck of the Titanic

“This is nothing short of the deck-chairs on the Titanic solution: put them in clusters on one part of the deck or spread them evenly, the Titanic will still sink.

“There seems to be little understanding that every new person arriving on this continent either as a migrant or a newborn will ultimately be demanding the same standard of living as the rest of us.

The ice submerged in the future

“Just like other Australians they will need water, food, petrol for their cars, hospitals for their health needs, and more power stations, and each of them will be responsible for the release of still more greenhouse gases, regardless of whether they live in the city or the country.

“This is a huge disappointment – despite the large numbers of submissions to the inquiry which recognised the environmental implications of continued population growth, the Government has ignored them.

“This government has demonstrated that (a) it has no understanding of the environment and (b) it remains captive to the development lobby,” said Ms Kanck.

Sustainable Population Australia

SPA is a group which began around 1988 [1] (as Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population). It has sought to educate Australians about the fragility of their country and the limits to population growth. It has approached the political problem of population growthism by appealing to the authorities via established channels. SPA self-organises through committees, which have tended to have a top-heavy concentration in Canberra. SPA is a tax deductible environmental organisation which, under the rules of tax-deductibility, cannot be seen to be a political lobby-group.

The Stable Population Party Australia and the Animal Justice Party

Due to these characteristics, SPA cannot innovate theory or become the base of political groups. A political group, The Stable Population Party, started up last year. This group attempts to reach the public through the mainstream press. This group may suffer from an inability to attract people who are suffering from the impacts of population growth because they do not recognise the cause of the increasing social and environmental costs they are paying for, nor do they realise that they are not alone; that the entire Australian population is paying dearly for this undemocratic process. So, although a lot of people have joined the Stable Population Party, more would join if they had better understanding of how population growthism affects us all. For instance, an example of another party with an interest in stable or shrinking population is the Animal Justice Party. It is because the members of one and the members of the other respond to different cues and political paradigms that we have two parties instead of one.

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[1] This was originally written as 1998 instead of 1988. It was on 26 May 2011.