Australia's population problem

Jack Roach of Boroondara Residents Action Group (BRAG) writes that neither our federal nor our state governments can fund the infrastructure required to supply a doubled Melbourne population. The growth lobby, which includes the Labor opposition, is placing pressure on Mathew Guy to reduce residents' rights. The real problem is, of course, the unwise decision to grow Melbourne's population.

From an article originally at BRAG Headings have been inserted in this republishing by the editor of candobetter.net.

"Plan Melbourne" has been criticized by the planning expert, Professor

Australia's population growth well above all other OECD countries

Roz Hansen, hand picked by the government to draw up and provide advice on the strategy. We criticized her appointment because she was one of this city's planners who were advocating unlocking the potential in the existing residential areas for massive development as a response to the record rate of our population growth which, on a population basis, is well above all other OECD countries.

In an article by Jason Dowling in the Sunday Age (26/1) Roz Hanson says that "The elephant in the room is how do we fund the public transport and community services for 8 million people in 2050"?

Roz still doesn't get it, the question that needs to be answered should be "If you double the population of Melbourne you need to double the infrastructure but can our governments (both Federal & state) do it"? Of course they cannot because they just can't get that much tax out of us. Right now they can't even fund the necessary infrastructure upgrades to meet current needs let alone the future needs of record immigration.

Population push squeezing all of us

As a response to the continuing government policies pushing to increase our population, developers have been increasingly moving into our existing residential areas to build apartments and squeeze more and more into the suburbs. The residents reacted and through organizations like BRAG and Planning Backlash they lobbied the government for protection from such rapacious development.

The government responded by announcing the "Reformed Residential Zones" which require new developments to meet neighbourhood characteristics and mandatory height limits.The developers and the building lobbyists screamed that these new zones would lock them out of the residential suburbs and Radley de Silva from the Master Builders Assoc said that some councils were trying to lock up their suburbs. Actually he is right. We suspect this is a shot at the Glen Eira and Boroondara Councils but other councils are putting up plans to follow their lead by putting around 70% to 80% of their residential areas in the most protected zone - the neighbourhood residential zone.

Growth lobby squeezing Minister to squeeze democracy

The Planning Institute of Australia, the Master Builders, HIA, the developers and investors etc. are now applying pressure on the government to modify the new zones. The Labor Party have said if they are re-elected they will bring back Melbourne 2030. That would not be very clever would it ?

We at BRAG have many times made it clear that the elephant in the room is the increasing population numbers due mainly to the record and ever increasing rate if immigration, and those who come to this country on visas as a back door way of gaining residency. If it continues, the population of Melbourne will more than double within the next 35 years - yes, more than double to well over 8 million.

Moderate immigration to reduce population growth

In our view it's the rate of population growth through immigration that needs to be modified.
This does not mean that we should shut up shop altogether for, if we cut back on the immigration quotas to something like the numbers we used to accept ( around 70,000/80,000 p.a instead of the 225,000 p.a.in 2013 - and stll rising) we would still be in accord with what other countries do and meet our international obligations. We could even increase the numbers of refugees we accept.

Currently we are growing at about 1.82% p.a. compared with the world average of 1.1% so if we did cut back we would still match the other OECD countries or maybe even be a bit above.

Makes sense to us.

This story follows on from "The Aussie version of creation" an illustrated story which is circulating widely by email, author unknown. [If you are the author, please let candobetter.net know and they will acknowledge your work.] I copy it here to give the context in which the story of blokes arose, but I have updated the story with changes to conditions in Aussi Paradise.

The Aussie verson of creation.

In the beginning God created day and night.
He created day for footy matches,
going to the beach.....

And BBQ's.......

He created night for going prawning, sleeping

and BBQ's,

On the Second Day, God created water....
for surfing, swimming
and BBQ's on the beach,

On the Third Day God created the Earth to bring forth plants to provide malt and yeast for beer
and wood for BBQs,

On the Fourth Day God created animals

and crustaceans for chops, sausages,
steak and prawns for BBQ's
On the Fifth day God created a Bloke to go to the footy, enjoy the beach, drink the beer and eat the meat and prawns at BBQ's, and God saw that it was good.

On the Sixth Day God saw that the Bloke was lonely and needed someone to go to the footy, surf, drink beer, eat and stand around the barbie with.

So God created Mates, and God saw that they were good Blokes.

On the Seventh Day God looked around at the twinkling barbie fires, heard the hiss of opening beer cans and the raucous laughter of all the Blokes. He smelled the aroma of grilled chops and sizzling prawns and
God Saw that it was good .. ...

Well..... Almost good.....

He saw that the Blokes were too tired to clean up and needed a rest.
So God created Sheilas to clean the house, to bear children, to wash, to cook and to clean the Barbie, and then God saw that it was not just good....

It was Bloody Awesome!

IT WAS AUSTRALIA !!!!!

The Story of blokes, continued - by Quark

And that was pretty good for a while for most blokes and the sheilas didn’t mind it much either. They used to quite like BBQs in the back yard as it saved on washing up and the blokes did most of the work anyway. But as time went on, the back yards disappeared and so, fewer blokes could have BBQs with their mates and sheilas.

The blokes who couldn’t have bar-b q-s became quite aggro as they felt cooped up which is natural as they had been created as BBQ loving creatures.

The other thing that changed was that the sheilas could no longer spend all their time looking after children, cooking, cleaning "barbies" etc. as they had to go to work to help pay off the mortgage on the apartments sans backyards.

This, they were told by the newspapers, was the way it was going to be for all blokes eventually in Australi-bloody –a and that they could no longer expect to have back yards with "barbies".

This cut to the quick of blokes lives and affected their mental and physical health. Whilst blokes always had beer guts, they were starting to have more than that and to be actually obese from all the fast food they had to eat on account of the sheilas no longer having time to cook.

The other problem for blokes was that whilst they used to love going to the footy, they also liked to kick a footy around with their mates. This became harder as the local footy grounds and playing fields disappeared under masses of town houses. The blokes became quite sad but they did not know quite what they were sad about as they still had their beer even though the barbies had gone.

The blokes had really enjoyed surfing, swimming and fishing as the sea and rivers had been created for this purpose. But around the same time as the back yards disappeared the blokes started to have trouble parking their utes at the beach.

A whole lot of signs started appearing at their favourite places saying they only had two hours for a day of surfing and swimming and, what’s more, they had to pay for the privilege!

This made the blokes furious because they used to be free to do what they bloody well liked in Australi-bloody –a.

Then these blokes got older and got a bit used to not getting their own way. They started reminiscing with their mates instead of trying to do all these blokey things. A new lot of blokes cropped up who never knew that you could have a day at the beach and not have to worry about parking.

These blokes were different and seemed happy to sit in cafés with drinks that you would expect sheilas to like such as cappa –bloody chinos and café –bloody- lattes whilst playing with their mobile bloody phones which were not created by God, unlike the sea and the plants for the malt and the yeast for the beer and the sheilas and the crustaceans.

And the other bloody fly in the ointment for the blokes was that, whilst they used to have plenty of time for surfing and swimming and fishing after work and on their “sickies”, most of these blokes, one by one, lost their bloody public service jobs or permanent sort of cushy jobs even in the private sector and had to go onto contracts. This bloody meant that they were even working when they weren’t being paid in the time that they would have been surfing and swimming! What’s more they didn’t get “sickies” or if they did they didn’t have time to take them or they’d lose their jobs!

The blokes who virtually had owned the bloody place no longer seemed to! It was as though the place that had belonged to all blokes to enjoy and do as they bloody well pleased now belonged to a few blokes that they didn’t even know and who seemed to live in castles somewhere and even had houses overseas or owned whole islands. They were not regular blokes. The regular blokes sort of lost their "blokiness" when they were put in this position. They started to agree with the blokes they didn’t know who now seemed to own the bloody place. Maybe the blokes thought this was the way for them to own the place again…

Meanwhile what was happening to the sheilas? Well the sheilas never thought they owned the place unless they were rich sheilas, but that didn’t matter because the sheilas could go where they pleased and it was as good as owning the joint. So when the backyards disappeared around the same time as the parking signs went up at the beach and the blokes lost their cushy jobs with ‘sickies”, the sheilas who had got equal pay to the blokes a few decades earlier also lost their cushy jobs with “sickies” and found themselves on contracts.

Just as the blokes were stuck at work when they could have gone swimming, so were the sheilas. The sheilas still had to have the babies but other sheilas were hired to look after lots of babies while the sheilas who had the babies went to work to pay the mortgage for the apartment or the house with not even enough land for a BBQ.

The blokes and the sheilas had to race to the child care centre before and after work to drop off and pick up the babies. Life for both blokes and sheilas became a balancing act to maintain a life without BBQs, surfing and swimming.

But most blokes and sheilas were very appreciative of the large flat screen teles that were the centerpieces of all living rooms in Australi-bloody- a.

It had all happened so insidiously, the blokes didn’t realise. And that’s the story of blokes.

"It is astonishing that the Australian Industry Group [AIA] is calling for an increase in Australian migration from 190,000 to 220,000, through an increase to our permanent Migrant Worker Program. First it is astonishing that they think the number should be lifted by 30,000, when as recently as twenty years ago the entire permanent Migrant Worker Program was less than 30,000. Secondly it is astonishing that they want to increase the number of migrant workers when we are already unable to find jobs for Australian workers" (Kelvin Thomson, MP., Wills, Victoria, Australia)

[Headings and emphasis are by candobetter.net editor]

Why would industry call to increase worker immigration when Australians cannot get jobs?

Secondly it is astonishing that they want to increase the number of migrant workers when we are already unable to find jobs for Australian workers, including those who have come here on previous permanent Migrant Worker Programs. Last month unemployment increased by 3,400 to 712,500 Australians who cannot find work, and this number is forecast to increase. Official forecasts are that the jobless rate will rise within about 18 months to 6.25%, and stay there through to the end of 2016-17. More Australians will be out of work than at any time during the past decade, and far more than during the Global Financial Crisis. The forthcoming closures of Ford and Holden, job losses at Qantas, concerns for jobs at SPC Ardmona and Alcoa, the resources industry construction workforce winding back – all the indicators are that many Australians, including migrant workers, are looking for work or will be looking for work in the near future. They are entitled to our first consideration.

AIA irresponsibly and selfishly misrepresenting Oz population growth rate

The Australian Industry Group says that increasing migrant numbers is needed to “support positive growth in our population”, and refers to relatively low levels of natural population growth. This is incorrect. For each of the past thirty-six years I have gone back to check this, births have exceeded deaths in Australia by over 100,000 – we have natural population increase by over 100,000 every year without any migration at all. In any event, population growth is not a good thing. It is putting great pressure on our environment, quality of life, housing affordability, traffic congestion etc.

Need to use Australian's skills

The permanent Migrant Worker Program, referred to as “Skilled Migration”, should be used to bring workers with skills that it is not possible to find in Australia, not used as a catch all scheme – recently we even saw calls to bring in truck drivers from overseas. It should not be used to drive population growth, not used to put downward pressure on wages and conditions, and not used as a substitute for genuine action to train and skill young Australians. If we are fair dinkum about reducing unemployment, and fair dinkum about increasing workforce participation, we will reduce migrant worker programs, not increase them, and build and use the skills of out-of-work Australians.

- Please feel encouraged to post your comments on candobetter.net and also on Kelvin's Blog: http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2014/01/extraordinary-call-for-increase-to.html 

Article by Sheila Newman and James Sinnamon.

Absence of choice hallmark of Big Population

The tone is dictatorial: You will have a Big Australia. It will be perhaps 48.3m in 45 years. Nowhere in the article is anyone saying who decided to allow such high immigration or questioning the events leading up to this - certainly not the current Australians or those of 20 to 40 years ago. It is as if the author, who is the Melbourne Bureau Chief for the Australian Financial Review knows about some change afoot that the rest of us don't suspect; perhaps something violent that will stop dead any revolt as more and more Australians realise what they are being herded towards.

Aztec-like traditions

Aztec-like, the article harbingers the elites' desired crammed Australia with a symbolic child sacrifice, Alexander Marshall of Malvern East. As with the best traditional victims, Alexander, who looks about 5 years old, has no say in his fate. Innocence is what the gods and the elites require. Alex's appearance as a star on the elite-media altar that is the Australian Financial Review will be all too brief. Soon, through the aging process, he will look different from his photograph here. If the elites who drive the big financial markets and Australia's distant governments have their way, Alexander will gradually fade into an ever growing crowd of Australians suffering shortages of vital resources and competing with a stream of foreign born students and workers who will, by that time, have completely overwhelmed Alex's contemporaries. With immigration 60 per cent of Australia's population growth now and if the anticipated population of 48.3 (or more) actually happens, most of those people will be a foreign born selection-weighted for their ability to out-compete the natives in housing, income, position and status.

The infill process

Alex's suburb, Malvern East, will be unrecognisable, well before he reaches fifty, for Malvern East is doomed by planners to 'high densification', part of the plan to cram in that 48.3m and the next 48.3m and the ones after those. This old suburb, with its spacious and ornate wooden houses (all that is left of once vast forests nearby), its broad-leafed plane trees on every street, is already pocked with moonscaped sites and notices announcing twelve new units for a single block.

Scapegoating the elderly

The article pretends, "That people can expect to live longer than any other period in history is a main driver of this population increase." In reality it is out-of-proportion mass immigration that is clearly driving Australia's overpopulation. Ironically, that immigration, far from keeping the population youthful, is actually increasing the rate of aging. The article uses the old fallacy that we need many migrants to care for our hugely aging population, without ever admitting - does the writer even realise? that past immigration contributes more aged to our population than the native-born? See "Immigration speeds up Australia's rate of aging - FECCA" and High post-war immigration blamed for today's economic problems.

For a completely different way to manage the needs of our population and economy, see: "Discussing Australia's Dependency ratio 2009 with graph by Dr Katharine Betts".

Scapegoating outer-suburbanites and the disabled

Another hallmark of this typically growthist article is its scapegoating of certain classes. Scapegoats include those who live at a distance from the CBD away from major transport routes. They are portrayed as costing the rest of us for infrastructure, however elsewhere, the article acknowledges that population growth is driving housing unaffordability and thus pushing people outwards to cheaper lots. (High density inner suburbs also need lots of infrastructure - consider the proposed and already hated East-West Link. High-rise use more fuel to run than houses.) The aged, of course, are accused of being the reason that we must all submit to our 'demographic destiny'.

The AFR beats the ageist drum, beginning the article by evoking how a tram has to wait while a 70 year old man with a prosthetic leg slowly mounts it. "Getting drivers to wait for passengers to reach their seats is just one example of the changes we will have to make in the way we live and work if we are to cope with the massive population changes experts predict." The problems with this image and its conclusion are multiple. Firstly, people have long lived to 70 plus and had prosthetic limbs. (Remember Long John Silver?). Secondly, we are in a society that promotes independence for the disabled. Thirdly, and much more relevantly, has the author not noticed that women with prams and toddlers usually also cannot mount moving trams at a run. This is an example of the absurd lengths to which journalists, high and low, are expected to go to market the growthist message in Australia. They might as well be writing for real-estate agencies, but in fact they are. Both the Fairfax and Murdoch press are heavily invested in global marketing of Australian real-estate among their many other corporate interests. More and more of the pages of the Australian Financial Review these days are taken up with real-estate, property development, land-marketing, land-use planning arguments, and industries associated with immigration. This article by Dunckley is just one more example, a double-pager one, signifying that someone there thinks they have to step up the pace of propaganda.

Live AFR videos: Rebecca Thistleston tells of measures the Building Industry advocates the government adopt for a sufficient number of houses to cope with population growth to be built; Matt Starkey describes our future with more than double (48 million) our current population (23 million) by 2061 and 70 million by 2100.

Demographic mythology of the Growth Lobby

I have been reading articles like this one in the Australian press since the early 1990s, when I began to understand what was driving Australia's population growth in the face of manifest democratic disquiet. See The Growth Lobby in Australia and its Absence in France, which first identified what it is about our system and other Anglophone systems that makes it so hard to stop population growth when elites are driving it. For a short explanation of what the "Growth Lobby" is, see "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future". I recently wrote a book, the result of ten years of independent work on population and economic theories, (S.M. Newman, Demography Territory and Law: The Rules of Animal and Human populations, Countershock Press, 2013.) I honestly know quite a lot about population and I can tell you that this article is a compendium of demographic mythology, thrown together to prop up a failing economy in the short-term, and throwing the rest of us to the wolves. The scale of population growth that this article is advocating is nothing short of an invasion.

Why it all makes sense

My attention was first drawn to Mathew Dunckley's article in the Financial Review by a number of people who are concerned about the consequences of overpopulation in Australia. A frequent remark was that it did not make economic sense to advocate a situation where democracy would be frankly reduced by crowding of electorates and an increasing number of people would face malnutrition, homelessness and disease. Why would anyone advocate such a situation? The answer seems to be that this situation benefits a few corporations and their investors. The banks want it, the property developers want it, the miners and building materials producers want it, and the newspapers want it. They want it because there is global economic decline and they have important investments in resources and commodities that benefit from increased demand. They know that increasing demand by driving up population growth will cause poverty and social dysfunction. But they don't care. Unlike the Australian, the Age, the Herald Sun, the Sydney Morning Herald or the Courier Mail etc., which all have the same agenda , the Australian Financial Review does not even pretend to care about 'democracy' or the 'people'.

Tourism vs Big Business - an example of the paradigm

Many people in Australia are worried about the effect of human population growth and infrastructure expansion on Australian wildlife and habitat. They often seek economic arguments to defend other creatures and the beauty of nature against people and forces that appear completely uninterested in anything but money. So these conservationists wonder why, for instance, koalas are being driven extinct through the rapid removal of their remaining patchy habitat. Why, they wonder, would the government damage local tourist industries by removing the very things that attract so many people to this country? This conundrum arises repeatedly. Indeed the native animal and wild spaces tourism is a huge and valuable source of income for many people in Australia, and particularly for those in rural areas. So, why would government policy be so much more inclined to destroy than to protect it? The answer is obvious to anyone except those who still believe that Australia's governments try to promote what is best for most Australians. Our governments are only interested in what is good for banks, property developers, and allied corporations. Our elites and their parliamentary servants have become quite distant from nature and reality. They have no feeling for their compatriots, only for their financial and political peers. They are not interested in local economies; they are probably against local self-sufficiency, cooperation and self-government. So, the senseless makes sense, in a way, if you are blinded by greed.

Australia has mandated a relatively steady average compound annual population growth of 1.6+% since 1901 combined with a relatively steady average compound annual GDP growth of 3.2+% since 1901. Inside I criticise Australia's most recent so-called Population inquiry, conducted by Tony Burke. Relatedly, I also ask you to sign a petition for a new population inquiry, which you can quickly find here: Australia requires a public inquiry to determine a basis for the optimum rate of population growth

I am asking readers to forward the petition because it cannot grow if it is not forwarded.

Why do we need an optimum population inquiry for Australia?

Any multi-national industrial company uses risk assessment techniques similar to those defined in the Australian government's WorkSafe Safety Assessment for a Major Hazard Facility.

Safety of personnel is the highest priority for such global corporations. Safety assessments are performed based on the reality of the finite resources an organisation has available to manage and implement its business strategy.

Risk assessments typically rate a particular risk based on both the likelihood of it occurring and the consequence. Where a Risk Assessment confirms that there is a catastrophic consequence (ie loss of life) and a high likelihood of that outcome (for example infant mortality in the developing world), then implementing mitigation measures would be deemed obligatory.

This is exactly the situation a country would find itself in if its population growth policy could clearly be demonstrated to reduce its ability to provide foreign aid for such mitigation measures.

A related question is: Why is Australia experiencing increasing public and private sector debt even with rapidly increasing population and manic exploitation of every natural resource that mining, oil and gas and farming operations can feasibly develop? Why also has the number of unemployed increased at a compound rate of 2.3% per annum over the last decade? Is rapid population growth a root cause of both of these outcomes?

From a macro perspective, if analysis of the rate of population growth in Australia showed that the cost of each additional Australian for the Australian economy is reducing Australia's profitability (for example due to increasing national debt) then it would follow that this is indirectly responsible for the loss of life of many people each year in the developing world, due to our reduced capacity to pay for foreign aid.

The environment is finite and this is a zero sum "game". The more pigs at the Australian trough gorging on excess, the more people die in the developing world?

This is one good reason why we need a Public Inquiry. There are many more; as outlined below.

Critique of Australia's most recent inquiry into population

See below my critique of Australia's most recent failed inquiry into population, as conducted by Tony Burke, a recent minister for Sustainability and Environment with the Gillard Government. The history of Burke's inquiry, readers may remember, followed on Gillard's remarks about not being keen on a big population. Gillard went on to preside over a continuing expansion of Australia's immigration program and this report sank without a trace.

My responses to Tony Burke's remarks highlight what appears to be an attempt to prop up a pro-growth status quo argument in denial of the facts, which continues a sad tradition of intellectual dishonesty in Australian government on the matter of population policy:

Tony Burke's severely blinkered inquiry

Extract from: Tony Burke, Minister for Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities, Sustainable Australia –Sustainable Communities; A Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia (2011)

My comments in Italic Bold:

Box 3 – Why Australia does not have a population target

A number of submissions to the public consultation phase called for the Government to set a population target. Indeed, public discussion over the past 40 years has periodically called for a population ‘target’ to be set. The pressure to provide such a target is often based on a belief that there must be a measurable, finite limit to the capacity of the country to provide resources for its population. These debates have often been fuelled by the publication of possible projected population trends.

There are many aspects of population growth, such as changes in fertility rates, longevity, or emigration, that we cannot accurately predict nor directly control, especially beyond the immediate future.

Good points, but a long term average "target" has been achieved, whether by accident or by GDP chasing. That target has been 1.6+% compound average annual growth and has been tracked over the decades since 1901. 60% of population growth is currently due to net migration; which could possibly be modified to target a lower rate of growth. See http://candobetter.net/?q=node/3421. The target is currently to double population every 40 years; forever. This is not realistic.

Further, governments have limited practical tools through which they can influence population. Immigration is the most direct lever, but this is still limited in practicality (for example, migration from New Zealand, or the movement of Australians overseas or returning home). The adoption of a population target would also limit the use of the migration program as a policy lever to address emerging skills gaps and labour shortages.

Good points; but another argument for doing nothing? Skills gaps are driven by demand, which is driven significantly by government policy on population growth. Roughly half of GDP growth is attributable to the direct consequences of population growth – which also dilutes GDP per capita while lowering quality of life in a rapidly degrading environment. Rapid population growth is accompanied by rapid growth in the number of unemployed. The growth rate of unemployed over the last decade has been 2.3% per annum – far faster than population growth. So what is causing this social problem?

It is clear that any perceived ‘optimum’ population is likely to change in the future due to changes in the way resources are used and developments in technology. Such developments may, for example, facilitate an increased water supply, greater yields in food production, and increasing take-up of alternative, renewable energy. As we strive for greater efficiency in consumption of resources, it follows that a larger number of people could be supported for the same consumption.

The future is endless. A relevant question is how long Australia wishes humanity to survive here and globally? The optimum population is clearly a stable population, because growth cannot continue indefinitely. By practicing a policy of extreme growth, the time available to develop technological solutions to the massive negative impacts of rapid growth is exponentially reduced. There is no way to double population every 40 years indefinitely – regardless of the extent of improved resource use and technological development. This creates a blueprint for an inherently unsustainable society - which is what we are now experiencing.

Improvements in urban planning and technology in the future also have the potential to change the way we live and work, reducing the external costs of population growth currently being experienced, such as traffic congestion. Hence, it is more useful for governments, businesses and communities to focus on ways of improving our wellbeing, protecting our environment and making better use of the resources we have, rather than trying to determine an absolute limit to our population and focussing efforts on restricting growth in order to not exceed this ‘limit’.

This is partly true, but there are limits. It doesn't make sense to propose that solutions can be developed to accommodate endless growth without addressing the potential for moderating the primary driver of this rapid growth (aka population growth). Chaotic expansion is not preferable to disciplined improvement.

Since the 1970s, all population inquiries sponsored by Australian governments have rejected the notion of a population target or national carrying capacity. Mandated population targets would typically be arbitrary, and impossible to deliver in practice.

Australia has effectively mandated a long term average annual population growth of 1.6+% since 1901 combined with a long term average annual GDP growth of 3.2+% since 1901.[1]This proposition is not supported by the actual track record, which shows relatively steady adherence to consistent rapid long term growth targets.

In addition, setting such a target has the potential to distract attention from addressing the challenges presented by other aspects of population change, including location, age and skill composition.

Many of the distractions in Australia today are CAUSED by the rapid rate of population growth…….!

Population projections are illustrations of what the population might look like, on the basis of various assumptions about mortality, fertility and migration. These are generally based on past trends, and at best should be seen only as rough guides to the direction of current population movement. For example, if assumptions about fertility do not eventuate, then projections are likely to be quite different to actual population numbers, particularly in the medium to long-term.

This is arguably absurd in light of the relatively steady long term population growth trends already achieved by Australia and the potential for variable migration during a transition to more moderate rates of growth………

So, rather than setting a target, the central objective of this Strategy is to lay the platform for a more sustainable Australia. In contrast to relying on long term projections, this can be better achieved by managing the impacts of all aspects of our current population, closely monitoring migration levels, and using population projections for the short to medium term to plan and prepare for our population’s needs in the future.

There has been a consistent "target" since 1901. The problem is that this target is clearly far too high by developed world (or any other) standards, and therefore requires critical review. This document is paying lip service to the task at hand rather than recognising the need for performing ongoing comprehensive review that ensures we are on the right track.......... It is an oxymoron to talk about sustainability in the context of a population growth rate comparable to those of the most underdeveloped and environmentally degraded developing-world dictatorships on earth.

NOTES

[1] All the global growth rates are from the CIA World Factbook. All data on OECD population and GDP growth rates were from this source and were compared to actual ABS data for 2012.

The following email emerged after Christopher (Kit) James was approached once again to contribute to Environment Victoria's funds. Exasperated, he scrawled on the back of the request that he would not be contributing until Environment Victoria began to campaign against population growth in Victoria. Note that we are on course for 70million people at the end of the century unless Victorians and Australians combine to resist this awful fate. How can Environment Victoria claim to be effective in the face of this rate of human population growth?

From: Kelly O'shanassy, CEO, Environment Victoria

Date: 3 December 2013 3:52:46 PM AEDT
To: Christopher James
Subject: Population issues

Dear Christopher - I received your note regarding population threats and Environment Victoria's role in population campaigning. I appreciate your thoughts.

Environment Victoria absolutely recognises that the human population has an unsustainable impact on the earth and that infinite growth on a finite planet is physically impossible. We also recognise that the ever rising population, and consumption of natural resources, and the pollution subsequently produced, has put the world into ecological overshoot. And with population and consumption rates continuing to increase, that overshoot will spiral out of control. All of this is our public position listed in our Charter to Safeguard Victoria's Environment. Click here to read our Charter on our website.

In our Charter, we use ecological footprint as a measure of the impact of humans on the planet. The ecological footprint is an internationally recognised indicator that calculates humanity's demand on nature. It is a product of the population and the consumption patterns of that population. Victoria's ecological footprint is three times higher than the world average. The research shows this is largely due to our polluting energy supply and the way we produce and consume the food we eat and the goods and services we buy. Of course, it is also effected by the population.

In our Charter, we set a goal to reduce Victoria's ecological footprint by 25 percent by 2020 and to sustainable levels by 2050. While these goals are big, they are what's necessary and we have never shied away from a problem just because its hard.

[candobetter.net editor: The problem is not just 'hard'; the goal is an absurdity with the current population increases. Where has Ms O'Shanassy been living, we wonder? Is Environment Victoria a professional false-flag environment organisation?]

Of course, Environment Victoria will not be able to achieve these goals alone.

Like our planet, Environment Victoria has limited resources and we focus our efforts on the things we can influence and where we can create the biggest outcome for Victoria's environment. We are currently undertaking research on how Environment Victoria can campaign to reduce Victoria's ecological footprint. This already includes a focus on transitioning from coal to clean energy but it may also focus on other issues, such as advocacy for a clean economy or advocacy for sustainable food production and use. We have discussed whether we should run a sustainable population campaign and have come to the conclusion that a state based organisation would be unable to have a big enough impact on population growth. Population policies are set at the national and international level and is a global issue. The solutions involve the empowerment of women and cover numerous human rights issues of which we are not the experts. So while we publicly recognise that population is a problem and that a stable global population is essential for any kind of sustainable future, we have a responsibility to campaign in areas where we can make a difference.

I hope this provides some clarity for you. I fully understand if you wish to direct your donations to an organisation that does run population campaigns but I hope you will continue to see the value in the unique and essential campaigns we do run here at Environment Victoria, that aim to make the biggest possible difference to our environment by 2020.

Thank you so much for your generous support and I'm always happy to chat about our work.

Best regards

Kelly O'Shanassy
CEO
Environment Victoria

ttp://www.environmentvictoria.org.au

DIRECT: (03) 9341 8119 MOBILE: 0421 054 402
RECEPTION: (03) 9341 8100 FAX: (03) 9341 8199
STREET ADDRESS: Level 2, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053
POST: PO Box 12575, A'Beckett Street, Carlton, Victoria 8006

Do you really need to print me?
Please consider the environment before printing this email.

Jill Quirk of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA), Victorian and Tasmanian Branch, writes about the many problems of Plan Melbourne. Indeed there are so many problems that it is crazy to go ahead. But most of us realize that the Planners and Ministers behind Plan Melbourne intend to just go on driving bulldozers until something bigger stops them or they run out of oil. There is no plan B and so no room to listen to comment. This is a real problem for the rest of us because we live here.

Welcome. I always worried about population but I believed the demographers who said it would take care of itself. They were wrong, so I stopped listening to them. I kicked off a national debate about this issue in 2009. The points I made were about endangered species, climate change, traffic, housing, and the cost of living and the problems of Australia at 36 million. In 2010 there was movement - from the Greens, the Liberals, Kevin Rudd at Easter establishing a Population Minister, and Julia Gillard renouncing Big Australia. The election came and went, but there was no action. I don't know why Julia never delivered on this - I personally think she might still be PM today if she had.

In political debate people are very frightened about being called racist or xenophobic. This is true of Prime Ministers and also of the people who live in our street. Yes there are racists out there, it's a pity, but it's true. But the use of the term racism has become a new kind of McCarthyism, used to stifle debate. Just as there were communists in the 1950s, but the fear of communists was used in an hysterical way to shut down and discredit and attack all kinds of political ideas that the McCarthyists disliked, so too now we see the name calling used to stifle and shut down debate on things we desperately need to debate.

How do we counter this?

It's not easy, but

1. We need to point out that Australia already is a multi-racial society - one quarter born overseas, one half with one or both parents born overseas. The bird has flown. No-one is trying to maintain Australia as a white Anglo Saxon outpost of the British Empire - it can't be done, and I haven't come across anyone who is trying.

2. As a consequence of this, our actions will assist, and are intended to assist, Victorians of all backgrounds. For example Broadmeadows has double digit unemployment. Many unemployed people in Broadmeadows are of Turkish background. They are entitled to our consideration, rather than running migrant worker programs that stuff up their ability to find work.

3. We need to point out that if talking about population makes us racists, we are in pretty good company. People don't usually think of Dr Martin Luther King as a white supremacist. What did he have to say about population? “Family planning, to relate population to world resources, is possible, practical and necessary. Unlike plagues of the dark ages or contemporary diseases we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and education of billions who are its victims".

And people wouldn't ordinarily think of David Suzuki as a puppet or fellow traveller of Pauline Hanson. What did he have to say about population? Dr Suzuki said “of course human numbers are at the very core of our crisis.

The explosive rate of growth simply can't continue". And while we're at it, let me point out a few more. - John Stuart Mill, the great nineteenth century philosopher said " solitude, in the sense of being often alone, is essential to any depth of meditation or of character, and solitude in the presence of natural beauty and grandeur, is the cradle of thoughts and aspirations which are not only good for the individual, but which society could ill do without. Nor is there much satisfaction in contemplating the world with nothing left to the spontaneous activity of nature... Every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out, and scarcely a place left where a wild shrub or flower could grow without being eradicated as a weed in the name of improved agriculture".

Former US President Bill Clinton told the United Nations in 1993 that “to ensure a healthier and more abundant world, we simply must slow the world's explosive growth in population". And his Vice-President, Al Gore, said. Quote “I consider the dramatic growth in the world's population to be the greatest challenge currently facing the environment. ... He said the "effects of this rapid increase are felt around the globe. Starvation, deforestation and lack of clean water are just some of the problems".

4. Finally, on issue of racism, we just have to toughen up a bit and accept that it will happen, and that if we're going to win, we can't run away from this issue just because people will call us names. There are people out there who will look you in the eye and put their hand on their heart and swear black and blue that they are progressives, that they are left of centre, but they will not touch population because they are scared of being called names.

This is very ironic, given that the most common characteristic I find in the people who I have come across in my work on the population issue is compassion.Many of you are motivated by compassion for the environment, by compassion for other living creatures. You do not think it is alright to trample species after species into extinction on our relentless growth path. Others are motivated by compassion for the poor of the world, and feel deeply about the plight of the poor and the great disparity of wealth between globally rich and poor. You see population growth as the great obstacle to lifting the poor out of poverty.

It is ironic in the extreme, therefore, that we have a couple of agents provocateur out there accusing us of trying to hijack the environmental movement, when we are the most fair dinkum environmentalists you'll find. I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Jacques Cousteau, who has devoted his entire life to marine conservation.

Cousteau said. "We must alert and organize the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources”. He says “Over consumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today".

I defy anyone to challenge the environmental credentials of Captain Paul Watson, the Founder of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, who has spent his life risking injury and imprisonment to harass Japanese whalers.

He says quote “the accusation that a stand to reduce immigration is racist is music to the ears to those who profit from the cheap labour of immigrants. They are the same people who love to see environmentalists make fools of themselves. And there is no environmentalist more foolish than one who refuses to confront the fact that uncontrolled human population growth is the number one cause of the world's increasing environmental problems”.

And does anyone think Sir David Attenborough, with a lifetime behind him of educating and advocating for the protection of our rainforests and other wilderness areas, a bogus environmentalist? David Attenborough has described global population increase as frightening, and said the following. “I've seen wildlife under mounting human pressure all over the world and it's not just from human economy or technology - behind every threat is the frightening explosion in human numbers. ". He said " I've never seen a problem that wouldn't be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more".

Well I am not scared of being called names. I don't enjoy it, but I dislike a whole lot more the fact that instead of the optimistic view I had of political progress when I was young, that we were getting better at looking after the environment and had learned from our mistakes, that we were going to stamp out global hunger and poverty, that we would stop going to war, that in fact we are going backwards. On the Environment, war, waste, terrorism, global poverty, extreme weather etc.

And I dislike more the fact that this has happened during my political career and that I have been quite unable to stop it. Being an MP is a great opportunity and privilege, and with my remaining time as an MP I want to do everything I can to turn this around.

I want to put forward an alternative, a smart alternative, to the direction we are going now, which I absolutely believe is the wrong direction. At the heart of this smart alternative is the idea of stewardship. I got the word from my sister Jaquie. She is a strong Christian, whereas I don't have any religious beliefs. But you will have heard the phrase, we don't inherit the earth from our parents, we borrow it from our children, and I think that it is spot on. We don't own the place, we have the privilege of managing it for a while. And I have regularly finished speeches by saying that we have an obligation to hand down to our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents left to us.

I think stewardship is a good word to express this fundamentally crucial idea. I've decided I like it better than sustainability.

You could fill libraries with the work done on sustainability, and properly understood it is indeed a powerful and useful idea, but sadly it has been so used and abused and prostituted, including by the forces of darkness, that it has become an Alice in Wonderland word - you know, when I use a word it means whatever I choose it to mean, so nowadays pretty meaningless. So when you hear the word sustainability in future, substitute for it the word stewardship - I find it works pretty well.

The second thing about my smart alternative is that it is very mainstream or middle of the road. I believe in giving the voters what they want. People who believe in giving the voters what they want are, again, at risk of being called names - for example, populist. But the people who scream populist are essentially trying to fool us into supporting ideas that are not in our own best interests. The people who scream populist reveal a basic contempt for the people and their ideas, and a lack of respect for democracy. Again, if we are going to succeed, we have to be strong enough to put up with a bit of name calling. Because population is not about race, it is about stewardship.

Some people will think my ideas radical, because they are very different from the path we are on at the moment. Some will think them conservative, because they place a lot of value on our heritage and value the past and are sceptical about the changes that are happening in our world. Indeed I often think my ideas are more conservative than the Liberal Party, better for workers than is the Labor Party, and better for the environment than are the Greens. But at their heart is giving the voters what they want, not what some billionaire or their media puppets think is good for them.

And another element of my ideas, again consistent with giving people a genuine say, is making things as small, and local, and self-sufficient, as we can be. Globalization has helped a lot of people, but it's also harmed plenty, and in the world of the future we will be better off retaining as much independence and self-reliance and self-sufficiency as we can.

And given that, and because we have to start somewhere, I want to focus on Victoria First. Victoria has a greater population increase each year that any other state or territory, driven by having the largest migration intake.

What on earth is the value of this?

We are told the big increase in Australia's migrant worker programs is to meet the needs of the mining boom, and to find workers for remote and inhospitable parts of Australia that locals won't live in. That's the myth.
The reality is that more people come to Victoria than anywhere else, and that Victoria ends up with all the problems associated with this rapid population growth - Melbourne grows by 200 per day, 1500 per week, 75000 per annum. In my view Melbourne and Victoria is the archetypal example of the folly of rapid population growth, and for me as Melbourne and Victorian born and bred, it is exactly the place to start a fight back and push back against this foolishness and short-sightedness.

So what is Victoria First going to do? There are many things we could do, but first and foremost we have to grow. You probably know that exponential growth is behind the population problems the world has. But I want us to make exponential growth work for us.

How will we grow?

Of course any and all suggestions to do this are welcome. I need and value your assistance in this mighty enterprise. But my ideas are as follows. First, enjoy the summer. I love the Australian way of life. The warm summer nights, the caravan parks by the beach ( not sand overshadowed by high rise) the cricket on TV. I want to save that, not spoil it. So have a rest and enjoy the summer. But I do want you to do three things over the summer.

First, join. It costs $10. But this is not about money. It's about your time and your energy and your various abilities. If you don't join today, please take a membership form and join later.
Second, take one or more of the takeaways, speeches etc. on the table and read them one day when you're sunning yourself somewhere.

And third, when you have those family or office or neighbourhood get togethers, or you're down the beach or up on the Murray River talking to someone in the tent next to you, get them gently, GENTLY - don't ram it down their throats, no-one likes being lectured - onto the topic of population and stewardship. And somewhere, in your family, or your workplace, or your street, or your holiday spot, find someone else who will join up.

If you all join up, and the people who are apologies who've told me they'll join up join up, we'll start with over 100. But by February 1st next year, let's make it 200. If everyone here finds one other person in the next two months, we'll have that.
And with 200 people we can letterbox a Federal electorate. Now it's up to me to find the money and get the leaflets printed - all help gratefully received! But it's up to me to accomplish that. And of course not everyone can letterbox, but I'm hoping that in your elaborate network and complicated circle of obligations and favours given and received that you can find someone to do that for you.

And if we can do this every month or couple of months next year we could build up to 1000 by the end of the year. They might prove to be very easy, or it might prove too ambitious, but it is a target, a goal.

And then the year after that, we will use our 1000 members to build up to 10000. Because then we will be taken seriously. We could have a rally now, but we will be ignored, almost certainly by media and certainly by governments. And even with a membership of 1000, in a state of several million we will still be ignored and overlooked. But if we have 10,000, and can turn out half of them to a rally outside Parliament House or the Melbourne Town Hall or the Property Council - then they will listen to us.

Of course we can support and be involved in campaigns which reinforce our message. A few meters from here they want to build a freeway through Royal Park and over what's left of the Moonee Ponds Creek.

It's a disgrace. Let's fight that. And my Council, Moreland, has released draft Planning Zones, or daft Planning Zones, that would enable high rise to move right through beautiful single story detached dwelling suburbs like Brunswick West, Pascoe Vale and Oak Park. Let's fight that.

And I'm up for innovative ideas on spreading the message. Use social media, of course. And taking our leaflets and membership application forms to places where people are feeling the sharp end of population growth - CBD car parks for motorists who've been stuck in traffic jams, Council meetings and VCAT hearings where residents are being done over by developers, universities, where students are facing ferocious competition in the job market, maybe auctions where young people are missing out on a home of their own, senior citizens clubs where older people struggle to pay the bills for our infrastructure expansion.

We need to find the people who are suffering from rapid population growth, support them, and recruit them.

CONCLUSION Edward Kennedy's speeches were undoubtedly some of the finest of the twentieth century, and everyone knows two passages from his speech about his second assassinated brother Robert, - ' my brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, but be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it. And secondly, "some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were, and say why not?

But before he said those things in this most memorable of speeches he said the following.

"Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change. And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe".

I believe that as well. My fellow Victorians, it is time we went out and found ourselves some companions in this little corner of the globe.

Victoria First is a new organisation to promote democratic empowerment over the size of Victoria's population. It was launched today by Kelvin Thomson, Labor MP for the Wills electorate in Victoria. Victoria is a state in Australia that is at the center of the elite push for a huge population, which is projected to go from 17m in 1994 to 37.5 million by 2050, and possibly 70 million by 2100. Currently immigration contributes 60% + to annual population growth in Australia. Membership forms for Victoria First inside.

This first film of Kelvin Thomson's Victoria First launch speech is the first of several records of this event. Other films will be uploaded of interviews, discussion, election and question time.

Download Membership application form for Victoria First here

Already, infrastructure and services are failing to keep up. In the wake of the population tsunami inflicted on Australia by a runaway power elite in parliament and the press, nature is being paved over with unique fauna in danger of disappearing forever. Homelessness is a new feature of Victorian society. Suicide rates and drug use are climbing. Industrial conditions and wages are declining. There are weekly protests in front of parliament over loss of self-government in the suburbs. Many of these protests are led by women representing community groups. The mainstream media reports little of this, but Kelvin Thomson seems to have picked up on it. Julianne Bell, the force behind Protectors of Public Lands Inc. and Jill Quirk, President of the Victorian and Tasmanian branches of Sustainable Population Australia hold the offices of Secretary and Assistant secretary to Victoria First. This is a reflection of Kelvin's trust and respect for them. The vice President is Michael Bayliss, who ran for the Stable Population Party this year and the President is, of course, Kelvin Thomson .

Kelvin Thomson seems to be the only politician in Australia who chooses to represent the environmental and democratic interests of Australians in the face of the Growth Lobby. See more detail at http://candobetter.net/?q=GrowthLobby and http://candobetter.net/?q=taxonomy/te

Film 2.Kelvin Thomson Victoria First incorporation 1Dec 2013

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhFbwNJ8Dk4&feature=player_detailpage

This film documents the Elections, Resolutions, and Incorporation of Victoria First.

New projections released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics have revised upwards the growth estimates that triggered the Big Australia debate in 2009 and 2010. At that time it was estimated that Australia was heading for 35 or 36 million by 2050. Now according to the ABS central projection we are tracking for 37.5 million by 2050, and possibly 70 million by 2100.

This growth will be overwhelmingly in Melbourne, Sydney, Perth and Brisbane. Melbourne is set to double by 2060, to 8.5 million, and Perth and Brisbane are also set to double. Sydney will increase by 80%.

This increase will be disastrous for these cities. It will drive traffic congestion and gridlock, high rise and the loss of public open space, a widening gap between rich and poor and social inequality. It will fuel housing unaffordability and job insecurity for our young people.

It makes a farce of the view that population growth in Australia is about populating our regional and remote areas

14 million of the extra 18 million people projected for 2060 will move into just 4 cities.

The latest upward lift is a consequence of net overseas migration rising yet again. The Bureau of Statistics is now using a net annual migration figure of 240,000 per year, more than double the numbers just 10 years ago. Migration is now the source of 2/3 of our population growth.

To challenge the view that rapid population growth is a good thing, I am setting up a non-government organisation called Victoria First.

Its first meeting will be:
• Sunday, December 1st, 10am- 12 noon
• Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt Alexander Rd, Flemington

From a Press Release by Kelvin Thomson, 27 November 2013.
(Cartoons by candobetter.net).

A report released by the Federal Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics underlines just how inadequate and incompetent Melbourne’s recent planning has been.

The report analysed population growth, jobs growth and commuter flows in Australia’s four largest cities. It found:

1) Melbourne was the only city in which jobs growth in the outer suburbs had failed to keep pace with the population boom. Parts of outer Melbourne now have less than one job for every three working people, forcing residents to commute further for employment.

2) Eighty-four per cent of outer Melbournians drive to work, the highest level among Australia’s biggest cities, and just 9% use public transport.

Monash University Professor of Public Transport Graham Currie said any city growing in population without expanding public transport was planning for decline. He said “the future cupboard of public transport projects is looking bare” and that “If population grows by 25% but services remain essentially static, we have a per capita decline of 25 per cent in service levels. We are not responding to growth. Rather we are going backwards”.

This report reveals as a fraud the idea that Melbourne’s rapid population growth is okay. Jobs are far removed from homes, and workers are not using public transport, leading to traffic congestion, long commutes, and reduced quality of life for everybody – a planning debacle.

It’s all very well to say that what is needed is better planning, but expanding the urban growth boundary and high rise and urban consolidation have both given us the outcomes we have today. The better planning never happens, and it won’t as long as Melbourne’s population continues to grow by 200 a day, 1500 a week, 75,000 each year.

Originally published at http://kelvinthomson.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/melbourne-planning-debacle.html

Today I helped a registered nurse to scan documents to submit in a job application. While we were doing this, she mentioned to me with great concern that she had heard that the government is talking about making people work until they are 70 years old and make them take out loans on their homes in order to fund their retirement. "I'm only 46," she said, "but I didn't work when my children were young and I never had the money to save for a home. So I'm supposed to keep on working until I'm 70. I'm too tired now to work full-time because, even though standards are slipping, working conditions are getting tougher and tougher and management more and more unreasonable." The latest productivity report on An Aging Australia supplies policies to undermine the political strength of older people who would otherwise be able to represent the rest of the community and defend the wealth and security basis of the younger generations. Blaming older people for economic decline that has its real seeds in resource decline sets the scene for generational splitting. However, the real targets are actually today's young people and their children.

You would think that in an Australia where the Productivity Commission (see below) is banging on about how health care for an aging population is going to be a huge slice of our economic pie that my friend would be sitting pretty. Not so.

Setting the tone for scary policies: "An Aging Australia" Productivity Commission Report

The news about people working until they are 70 years old and being made to sell their houses back to the bank comes from another rather Orwellian report by the Australian Productivity Commission. The Commission seems to want to blame a lot of its suggestions here on the aging population and the costs of health care. (The reference is An Aging Australia, available at this URL: http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/129749/ageing-australia.pdf).

The report has a narrow economic basis whereby GDP = Numbers of Workers X Productivity X Terms of trade. There is no overt consideration of resource depletion, although you can tell it is lurking namelessly. The report presents as an excuse for more population growth, even though it predicts an indefinite (possibly endless) period of economic poverty, when people will have to borrow on their homes to live and work until they drop for declining returns, which it relates vaguely to the end of the mining boom.

Demographic Fairy-tales

In a section entitled "Demography: Net overseas migration", the Report comes clean on what is driving high population growth in Australia: Successive recent governments have pushed very high immigration.

"Unlike either fertility or mortality, [Net Overseas Migration - NOM] is more readily controllable by the Australian Government (DIAC 2013). Most particularly, the Government can set quotas on its migration program [...]."

The report also admits that our extremely high mass immigration is a wild card, although it uses less colourful language:

"Were such levels of [Net Overseas Migration - NOM] to persist over the next 50 years, it would imply a considerably more populous Australia than most population projections."

The section concludes with a sublimely irresponsible comment about why our population might not spiral out of control but somehow stop after 2017 or something like that:

"Typically, advanced countries experience population growth slowdowns as their population numbers rise, and some reversion of Australian population growth rates to the average OECD rate might ultimately be expected," it concludes, blithely.

My comment The Report's faith in Australia experiencing a population growth slowdown to the 'average OECD rate' is dangerously ridiculous in the light of Australia's high immigration. It is presumably relying on 'demographic transition' ideology, which is (a) unreliable and (b) does not take high immigration into account. Australia's population growth was slowing naturally but this natural trend has been completely distorted by State and Federally led mass immigration.[1]

See footnote for full quoted passage.[2]

There are some very slanted presentations of the medical costs of aging, notably in a diagram, "Hospital Costs by Age and Sex 2010-2011," which shows a kind of upside-down pyramid with costly old people at its wide top and low cost young people near the narrow base. This gives an apparent cost-weight per elderly person. The casual observer could easily infer from the graph that there were more people over 65 and 85 plus than all the other age-groups in 2011. In fact, due mostly to mass immigration, these numbers will actually be continually bloated, year after year, instead of dying back naturally as the baby-boomers leave their mortal coil.

Mass immigration, discontinued in Western Continental Europe after the first oil shock in 1973, meant that population numbers will decline naturally there as oil declines. In Australian and other Anglophone countries, however, there will be no such gentle and natural decline if artificial population boosting through high immigration is allowed to continue.

The report justifies its presentation of 'trends' in the following statement:

"The apparent neat precision of any particular number is not meant to convey that this shall inevitably be the result, when over a 50 year period a wide variety of unknown factors will arise. But the existence of unknown factors is no basis for not considering the trends, which are the important aspect of this analysis. The trends are unmistakable in most cases."

The problem is that those 'trends' in population, and their proposed solutions in erosion of housing equity and retirement benefits will be taken for gospel by the mass media and parliament. They will be portrayed as inevitable and used to further the corporate agenda, which is to control more and more of Australia's remaining wealth, and allow the majority of citizens less and less control over their material and political circumstances. The very narrow context of this kind of economic report prevents it from recommending citizen empowerment or admitting to resource depletion or inviting comparison with more democratic societies and reconsideration of our legal system. Can the report researchers and writers be criticised for this? Not really; they are working within the same paradigm as the nurses I described at the beginning of this article. It would be career suicide for them to suggest that we are going in the wrong direction with overpopulation and overconsumption.

The Report fails to take into account some enormously influential trends in climate change, overpopulation, oil depletion, loss of democracy (e.g. laws against 'terrorism'), numbers of wars with increasing impact.

It doesn't consider that during the industrial revolution where its life-expectancy charts begin, life expectancy went down to less than half of the ordinary biblical span of three score and ten before it went up again 'due to modern medicine'. And that now diabetes and other nutritional diseases related to our so-called advanced lifestyles and medicine are reducing life expectancy, not increasing it. It does acknowledge a failure to factor those disease risks in, but still merrily uses its projections:

"As the ABS notes, this approach also ignores the possibility of major adverse events, such as major pandemics or wars, though historically these have sometimes been important. Some of these events would be difficult to estimate given their rarity in historical data, and at best, could be treated separately as low probability, high impact events with assumed statistical distributions. For example, the European Actuarial Consultative Group (2006) assesses that there is a high risk of a major global pandemic over a decade, but that events with significant excess population mortality are unlikely. Others doubt that it is possible to make ‘any scientifically based prediction about the emergence of future pandemics ’ (Taubenberger and Morens 2009). Given this, it is more reasonable to take account of other significant risks — such as the possible adverse impacts on longevity of lifestyle factors (growing obesity) and antibiotic resistant bacteria, which would have a gradual effect and could be modelled as a lower - life expectancy scenario in mortality projections. "

In fact, the Report shows what struck me as a wicked sense of humour at times, as if it recognises its own absurdity. On prevention of obesity and other diseases like AIDS, it seems to suggest that dying young might be more economical in the long run:

Second, and more subtly, gauging the effectiveness and efficiency of preventative measures on a disease - by - disease basis can miss the reality that people live to die another day (Bonneux et al. 1998). Dollars saved on avoiding (or minimising the costs) of one disease opens the possibility of people experiencing another costly disease. Ideally, assessments of particular interventions should adopt a longitudinal approach that takes into account the timing and costs of disease and quality of life under the counterfactual that no preventative action is taken.

Housing equity, poverty and power

The Productivity Commission Report "canvasses "policy approaches currently over - the - horizon, but nevertheless relevant to a deeper consideration of the challenges of an ageing Australia (including the role of non - fungible housing equity as a financing method and the link between labour force participation and the Age Pension eligibility age)."

Comment:This report supplies policies to undermine the political strength of older people who would otherwise be able to represent the rest of the community and defend the wealth and security basis of the younger generations. Blaming older people for economic decline that has its real seeds in resource decline sets the scene for generational splitting. The power elites (in the form of banks and corporate government) can then find ways to seize remaining assets and resources in the community for their own enrichment. Young people should realise that this report actually targets their generation - see the huge bulge in the 2014 population pyramid of people below the age of 60. These are the post-baby-boomers. It is their old age that is targeted here. Without land and housing they have no means to grow food, no secure shelter, no security to pass on to their families. The Productivity Commission, with its very narrow parameters of examination, is effectively providing future governments with excuses to make laws to beggar the population. And the Commission is cynically aware of this, implying that young people are stupidly myopic and won't realise that it is their futures that are being targeted, because they cannot imagine being old:

"Despite the possibility of such responses [i.e. protests against giving up their homes], governments can use anti-avoidance measures to reduce the risks of such behaviours at older ages (as it does already with gifting provisions). And responses by the young to possible asset tests when they are old are likely to be relatively weak, reflecting discounting of the future , myopia and the fact that caps would apply to any government - backed equity withdrawal."

Don't you love the term government-backed 'equity withdrawal'? A great new term for the State stealing from its citizens.

On Housing equity: Aim: Put land outside the reach of banks.

To avoid being patsies to these predator policies, Australians need to create new community ownerships with special laws of inheritance for their children, to help relocalise power and organisation in line with families and clans. These are the only secure bases for people in hard times. The British legal model promotes the opposite. If Australia changed its system to Roman Law (the kind used throughout continental Europe) children would be guaranteed to inherit from their parents; shelter and income would be deemed civil rights at law. Another model that amounts to the same thing is the New Zealand Maori land-rights model, which guarantees every Maori descendent land which cannot be sold. Banks should not be able to take shelter and food-gardens from owners or their inheritors. Governments should not be able to legislate water prices out of reach of suburban food producers. Planners should not be able to authorise buildings which block sunlight from gardens and solar panels. People should all have rights to viable land. This is what is missing from this report, which assumes that we will all work for other people and rely on diminishing rations when we can no longer compete with young workers.

The Report trots out the low inflation assertion with which many Australians would disagree:

"The average Australian has nevertheless fared well in the last two decades in terms of net national disposable income per capita, low inflation and low unemployment."

In fact, inflation indicators fail to take into account the very high cost of land for housing, which drives up all other costs. Wages must be high enough for workers to pay the highest accommodation costs in the world and business must pay similar costs for premises, plus wages. Shrinking disposable income has appeared to stretch because of cheap imports from low-wage and low land-cost countries, like China. People have only been able to afford trinkets, however. Whilst rents and mortgages rose, dependence on wages and debt grew. With mass immigration and watering-down of industrial protection, wages and conditions are deteriorating and the cost of finite resources, shelter, food, water and power are inflating.

Conclusion: These trends are the result of government engineering the population to please corporate fancy. If Australians do not start to band together against their corporatised governments these nightmares will come to pass.

Commission Press Release: Key Points of An ageing Australia: preparing for the future

Productivity Commission, 22 November, 2013 [3]

"The report examines the effects of ageing on economic output (underpinned by changes in population, participation and productivity) and the resulting implications for government budgets were current policy settings to be maintained.

Key points:

Australia's population will both grow strongly and become older. Such slow but profound shifts in the nature of a society do not elicit the same scrutiny as immediate policy issues. The preferable time to contemplate the implications is while these near inevitable trends are still in their infancy.

Population ageing is largely a positive outcome, primarily reflecting improved life expectancy. A female (male) born in 2012 will on average live for an estimated 94.4 (91.6) years.

However, population growth and ageing will affect labour supply, economic output, infrastructure requirements and governments' budgets.

Australia's population is projected to rise to around 38 million by 2060, or around 15 million more than the population in 2012. Sydney and Melbourne can be expected to grow by around 3 million each over this period.

The population aged 75 or more years is expected to rise by 4 million from 2012 to 2060, increasing from about 6.4 to 14.4 per cent of the population. In 2012, there was roughly one person aged 100 years old or more to every 100 babies. By 2060, it is projected there will be around 25 such centenarians.

Total private and public investment requirements over this 50 year period are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century, which reveals the importance of an efficient investment environment.

Labour participation rates are expected to fall from around 65 to 60 per cent from 2012 to 2060, and overall labour supply per capita to contract by 5 per cent.

Average labour productivity growth is projected to be around 1.5 per cent per annum from 2012-13, well below the high productivity period from 1988-89 to 2003-04. Real disposable income per capita is expected to grow at 1.1 per cent per annum compared with the average 2.7 per cent annual growth over the last 20 years.

Collectively, it is projected that Australian governments will face additional pressures on their budgets equivalent to around 6 per cent of national GDP by 2060, principally reflecting the growth of expenditure on health, aged care and the Age Pension.

Major impending economic and social changes can create the impetus for new reform approaches not currently on the policy horizon. For example:

The design of the Age Pension and broader retirement income system might be linked to life expectancy after completion of the current transition to 67 years in 2023.

Using some of the annual growth in the housing equity of older Australians could help ensure higher quality options for aged care services and lower fiscal costs.

Wide ranging health care reforms could improve productivity in the sector that is the largest contributor to fiscal pressures. Even modest improvements in this area would reduce fiscal pressures significantly."

NOTES

26/11/2013: Correction to Stupid mistake about baby-boomers' ages corrected on population-pyramid-2014.jpg. I had them as tweny years older than they are. Apologies. Thanks Jill Quirk of SPA Victoria for pointing this out.

[1] For the latest on demographic theories and which ones hold water, see Sheila Newman, Demography, Territory and Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2013, Chapter 2, "Modern Fertility, Mortality and Development Myths."

[2] An Aging Australia, (Productivity Commission), pp.37-38:
"DEMOGRAPHY
While the technical definition and estimation of net overseas migration (NOM) is complex, it is a measure of long - term arrivals less long - term departures.

NOM has been a critical factor behind Australia’s population growth and will continue to be so (PC 2011 d ).

Unlike either fertility or mortality, NOM is more readily controllable by the Australian Government (DIAC 2013). Most particularly, the Government can set quotas on its migration program — which comprises three categories of migrant (humanitarian, skilled and family re-union). That said, the Australian Government does not have full control over NOM as any number of Australians (and New Zealanders) can arrive or depart. Moreover, the number of temporary entrants, such as long - term visitors and working holiday makers, is effectively uncapped. Their numbers are largely driven by other factors, such as economic conditions. However, since temporary entrants ultimately leave, they do not contribute to long - run population growth.

Currently, NOM is around 230000 per year, which is well above the longer - term average.

From 1948 to 2003, NOM was around 90 000 per year, with no upwards trend. In contrast, in the period 2003 – 2012, the average NOM was around 200000 and the trend growth was around 10000 per year (figure 2.2).

DIAC (2013)forecasts that current high levels of NOM will persist at least until 2017, but that its growth rate will decline. It projects NOM of around 250000 in 2017.
Were such levels of NOM to persist over the next 50 years, it would imply a considerably more populous Australia than most population projections.

It is difficult to establish whether a level of NOM around 200000 – 250000 is likely to persist. In part, the high recent levels may reflect strong relative economic and income growth in Australia c ompared to other countries, which make Australia an attractive destination. Given that the terms of trade are now declining, it is possible that NOM will fall somewhat from its current level.

The contribution of high relative fertility rates and migration means that Australia’s population is growing at a rate well above most OECD countries. Over the period from 1999 to 2010, Australia had the 4th highest population growth rate among OECD countries, with higher growth rates than some less developed economies, such as Mexico and Turkey (OECD 2013). The average growth rate for Australia (1.47 per cent growth per annum) was more than four times that for the 27 European Union countries (0.35 per cent per annum) and more than twice that of the OECD overall (0.68 per cent per annum). The persistence of NOM of 250000 persons per year would underpin continued high growth rates of this order.

Typically, advanced countries experience population growth slowdowns as their population numbers rise, and some reversion of Australian population growth rates to the average OECD rate might ultimately be expected. "

[3] This is a press release from the Productivity Commission about its report.

This year my 8-year-old daughter's school class has been studying “sustainability”. Last term she was all over me like a rash about not wasting water. Unfortunately, I had to explain to her that saving every last drop of water was actually a waste of time, 'The water you save will just let the government bring in more people because it wants to grow the population. It actually makes more sense for you to use as much water as possible because that may slow the government down'. Article by Michael Lardelli [1].

Adelaide's population has now grown to a size where coping with the growth has outpaced our capacity to pay. SA's $2 billion desalination plant (costing $130 million per year to run) was built explicitly to cope with population growth and would be unnecessary without it. Then there are the costs of extra hospital beds, congested roads, crowded schools etc. Counterintuitively, these dyseconomies of scale are counted as positives when GDP figures are calculated!

As a scientist I am used to reality sometimes appearing counterintuitive. The most famous example is Galileo dropping two metal balls of different weights from the leaning tower of Pisa to demonstrate that they would both hit the ground simultaneously. Demography – the study of the structure of human populations – is another area where the obvious answer is not necessarily the correct one. An interesting example of this was Senator Nick Xenophon's insistence before the recent election that he wanted to promote faster population growth in South Australia. Apparently Nick believes that, with SA's population growing at 1% per year, "We're sitting on a demographic time bomb. There'll be fewer taxpayers compared to the rest of the population." Nick appears envious of WA's population growth of more than 3.4% even though this will double WA's population in only two decades! Imagine trying to double a state's infrastructure – hospitals, roads, sewerage, power etc. - in 20 years when the current estimate is that each additional person requires about $200,000 of infrastructure. From where will that money come?

Unfortunately, Nick has been deceived by the notion that it is possible to significantly “youngify” our population through migration. But even pro-migration demographers reject this idea. As demographers McDonald and Kippen stated in a report for the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs in 1999, “Levels of annual net migration [into Australia] above 80,000 become increasingly ineffective and inefficient in the retardation of ageing. Those who wish to argue for a higher level of immigration need to base their argument on the benefits of a larger population, not upon the illusory 'younging power' of high immigration.” At the moment annual net migration is about three times higher than the 80,000 recommended! A 2008 paper by Katherine Betts a sociologist who specialises in Australin demographics shows how Australia's current sky-high rate of population growth could more than double our population by the end of the century (and our water, food and fuel consumption etc.) but make little difference to our population's median age. In fact, if we encourage immigration rather than supporting women to have children we could end up with an older population structure than otherwise! With ideas this counterintuitive it is no wonder that our normally intelligent Senator Nick is confused.

Australia's current rate of population growth is truly exceptional– or 'third world' – depending on your viewpoint. At the moment we are growing at three times the rate of the rest of the OECD. But despite the yawning infrastructure shortfalls that rate is not fast enough for Labor's Bill Shorten who wants to see still higher levels of immigration. The next arrival could “be the next Albert Einstein or a good taxpayer”. But it could just as well be the next crime boss or a welfare recipient. And while the current SA Labor government starts to talk about dismantling our current planning approval system (to make it easier to realise its urban expansion and densification dreams) the leader of the alternative Liberal government wants more incentives to boost our population growth. It's enough to make you bury your head in your hands in despair – or join Stop Population Growth Now.

NOTES

[1]The author of this article, Michael Lardelli, is senior lecturer in genetics at the University of Adelaide, translator of Prof. Kjell Aleklett's book “Peeking at Peak Oil”, a committee member of Sustainable Population Australia and a member of the management committee of the political party Stop Population Growth Now.

A new not-for-profit NGO is being established to safeguard and enhance Victoria’s way of life. Victoria First will fight to halt rapid population growth, overdevelopment, reduce traffic congestion, stop the increasing cost of council rates, rising utility bills, and seek to protect Victoria’s unique animals and plants. First inaugural meeting: Sunday 1st December 10am-12noon at Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt Alexander Road, Flemington.

Victoria First - Statement of Purposes

- To protect Victoria’s unique, beautiful and endangered birds, plants and animals
- To safeguard Victoria’s way of life, its backyards, its open spaces, its room to move, room to breathe, room to live
- To halt Melbourne’s rapid population growth
- To achieve a reduction in Australia’s migration programs to the levels of the 1980s and 1990s, ie net 70,000 per annum compared with the 190,000 we have now
- To give ordinary residents a genuine say in planning issues in their streets and neighbourhoods
- To stop the decline in housing affordability and job opportunities for our young people
- To improve the affordability and quality of education, skills and training
- To stop increasing traffic congestion
- To stop the increasing cost of essential services such as council rates, electricity, gas, and power, particularly for pensioners
- To take all reasonable steps and support all reasonable community actions which advance the above objectives

This meeting will be Victoria First’s Inaugural Meeting to formally incorporate, adopt rules, appoint office bearers and a committee of management. Victorians welcome.

When: Sunday 1st December 10am-12noon
Where: Flemington Community Centre, 25 Mt Alexander Road

Kelvin Thomson writes, "Malcolm King’s article, "Fortress Australia: green wasting the future", in the Sydney Morning Herald [1]makes numerous claims which are ... so far divorced from reality that one wonders why he makes them. He describes himself as director of a PR Business. It is time he disclosed his clients, which may help us understand the answer to that intriguing question."

Claim: “Australia has a low population but the western suburbs of its two largest cities are growing under the load of poor infrastructure and a total lack of urban planning”.

Reality: Growth boosters always claim the problems could be solved by better infrastructure and better planning. If it is capable of being solved, how come it never is? Why can no government of whatever political party, in any fast growing city, get infrastructure or planning right? The reason, pointed out brilliantly by Queensland academic Jane O’Sullivan in her work on the costs of infrastructure in a growing population, is that population growth of 2% sound innocent enough but in fact it doubles the infrastructure task of any government or council.

Claim: “The real story is that the environmental movement is under attack by the anti-populationist and anti-immigration forces who are “green washing” their anti-immigration policies to make them more palatable to the electorate”.

Reality: I got interested in Australian birds, plants and animals when I was just 10 years old. I got interested in conservation and environment issues when I was a teenager, and interested in politics as a result. I first talked about climate change in the mid-1990s, and when I was Shadow Environment Minister between 2001-2004 I successfully proposed that Labor adopt the Kyoto Protocol, increase the Renewable Energy Target, introduce an emissions trading scheme to put a price on carbon, and return water to the ailing Murray-Darling Basin. And I have found similar priorities among the people I have met at Sustainable Population Australia. It is precisely their concern at the impacts of habitat destruction and climate change on our birds and plants and animals that cause them to believe that we should try to stabilise our population. Claims of ‘greenwashing’ are pathetic and laughable.

Claim: A stable population “would have radical implications for Australian society and capitalism”.

Reality: In fact it would have positive implications for society and capitalism. The wealthiest GDP per capita countries in the world are not those with large and rapidly growing populations, they are those with small and slowly growing populations, such as Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Claim: “Advocates of population stabilisation want a one in/one out immigration system, stop building houses for first home buyers and stop Kiwis arriving.

Reality: None of these claims is true of me. I propose net immigration of 70,000 each year (not net zero), and a cap on New Zealanders arriving which would still allow for a similar number to that we have seen since the Trans-Tasman Agreement was introduced. As for first home buyers, I am the one blowing the whistle on the way rising house prices are denying first home buyers the chance to enter the market. I support first home buyers and oppose rising house prices driven by population growth.

Claim: That the reason it takes an hour to get to work is not growing population, but because every single person drives a car.

Reality: Mr King accuses Sustainable Population Australia of having a social engineering agenda, yet he apparently wants everyone to stop driving their cars! Just how does he plan to accomplish that? Either utterly naive, or utterly insincere.

Claim: “Over the next 30 years almost 6 million baby boomers will pass on….The population of much of eastern Europe and Japan is falling”.

Reality: Australia’s population is growing faster than ever before. When I went to school and learned about population Australian was 14 million. Now we are 23 million. Treasury projections are that we will hit 36 million by 2050, and keep rising. Same for the global population, which hit 7 billion in 2011, having trebled in a little over a century, and is tracking for 9 to 10 billion by mid-century. I used to believe those demographers who claimed that population would take care of itself. But their predictions are always wrong – the population always grows by more than they predict – so I have stopped listening to them.

Claim: The solution to the traffic jam on Punt Road is to ride a push bike.

Reality: Melbourne is on track to go from 2 million cars now to over 3 million cars by 2036. If you think the Punt Road traffic is bad now, wait till Mr King’s vision for Melbourne arrives!

Conclusion: Mr King’s claims are so far divorced from reality that one wonders why he makes them. He describes himself as director of a PR Business. It is time he disclosed his clients, which may help us understand the answer to that intriguing question.

NOTES

This growth-lobbying article has been syndicated by the Murdoch Press (which has a huge property.com and investments in many areas of the property development industry, upstream and downstream). See, for instance: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/comment/fortress-australia-green-washing-the-future-20131021-2vwzy.html (Brisbane Times) ; http://www.watoday.com.au/comment/fortress-australia-green-washing-the-future-20131021-2vwzy.html (W.A. today).

Plan Melbourne is the latest by the latest Victorian government to attempt to accommodate forced population growth. This article examines the economic propositions entailed in the plan. The fundamental failure of Plan Melbourne is that it is driven by a political imperative to maintain rapid population growth. Developers and some industry sectors will benefit, but to the detriment of the general public. ...Planning solutions, whether they be decentralisation, intra-urban dispersion, environmental pricing or other strategies face too many political and implementation difficulties to be successful. Reducing the rate of population growth, on the other hand, would make the planning tasks so much easier. Excessive growth requires massive infrastructure costs and borrowing requirements that will jeopardize Victoria’s AAA credit rating. Most AAA-rated countries have little population growth and modest infrastructure needs.

[Candobetter Editor:This video is from the Plan Melbourne page and gives an animated plan of what the government wants for Melbourne to 2050. There is no exit plan after that; it is as if population growth will magically stop in 2050. In fact, it is likely to be even faster then due to internal dynamics created by early engineering plus the larger base.]

My overall impression is that this plan will fail because it does not embrace some fundamental principles of urban economic development. My concerns are as follows.

Decentralisation: In 1965, leading urban economist the late Max Neutze, in his book Economic Policy and the Size of Cities, developed a theory of selective decentralization based on the observation that Australian urban centres were either too large or too small, and therefore population growth should be diverted away from the larger ones to smaller ones. But because of the prevalence of market imperfections in urban development, namely externalities, imperfect foresight and imperfect co-ordination, the free market could not do this without government assistance.

He tentatively suggested that the optimum size of a major city in terms of efficiency and liveability was between 200,000 and one million, and that decentralization policy should aim to push the new regional centres towards that level. But because only a few regional centres could reach such size, decentralization must be very selective, perhaps to only two or three centres in Victoria that are already large enough to provide their own momentum – e.g. Ballarat, Bendigo. Eventually they will become large enough for growth to become self-sustaining and for government assistance to be withdrawn.

Plan Melbourne fails here in two respects. Firstly, it accepts that Melbourne’s population will continue to grow and exceed optimum, with escalating adverse effects on efficiency and living standards. Secondly, it has too many growth centres, many of which are far too small to reach optimum size, even with permanent government assistance. Selection of unviable centres merely diverts resources away from more viable centres and reduces their chances of robust growth.

The multi-nodal alternative: In 1972, I adapted Neutze’s theory to the internal structure of cities, on the observation that most of the problems of overcrowding occur in or near the central business district, while centres in outer suburbs are too small to provide an adequate range of commercial, financial and recreational services. That is, commercial centres within cities were either too large or too small, and therefore an objective of planning should be to divert economic activity away from the CBD to a few outer suburban centres, which would be assisted to grow to a size which would eventually provide a range of activities similar to those offered in the CBD. Again the policy would be selective – perhaps for two or three carefully selected centres – and based on a similar understanding of market imperfections as identified by Neutze. In 1972 the multi-nodal (or polynuclear) concept had been an established principle in town planning and geography literature, but had not hitherto been developed in the economics literature.

Again, Plan Melbourne fails to embrace the selective principle, despite its underlying logic. Selection of too many centres ensures that none of them will succeed and that the city centre will continue to expand, as envisaged in the Plan.

Increased urban density: There is ample anecdotal evidence and formal research to suggest that increasing densities beyond optimum levels adds to inefficiency, reduced liveability and housing affordability problems. Pro-growth optimists constantly claim that problems of congestion and over-development can be solved by good planning and expansion of infrastructure, but do not acknowledge the time lags and huge costs this will entail. For example, the massive construction costs of underground tunnels, desalination plants and high-rise buildings are clear examples of agglomeration diseconomies resulting from over-development.

Furthermore, medium density housing, retail developments and major road projects frequently attract public opposition because of their impact on local amenity. Research that I have done reveals a negative correlation between income and density – that is, as people become wealthier they generally prefer to spread out to take advantage of the benefits of parks and gardens, peace and tranquility, car parking and open space.

Another disadvantage of increasing densities is that the population pressures causing them force up housing and rental costs, pushing low-income earners out of the property market and into a poverty trap.

Plan Melbourne fails badly here, and is certain to exacerbate the above problems.

Conclusion: The fundamental failure of Plan Melbourne is that it is driven by a political imperative to maintain rapid population growth. Developers and some industry sectors will benefit, but to the detriment of the general public. In the 40 years since I did my original research I have seen Melbourne gradually deteriorate, as traffic congestion worsens, commuting distances lengthen, environmental damage continues, water restrictions intensify, more people are priced out of the housing market, successive governments fail to keep up with infrastructure requirements, outer-urban agricultural land diminishes and public opposition to over-development increases.

Planning solutions, whether they be decentralisation, intra-urban dispersion, environmental pricing or other strategies face too many political and implementation difficulties to be successful. Reducing the rate of population growth, on the other hand, would make the planning tasks so much easier. Note also Tim Colebatch’s argument that excessive growth requires massive infrastructure costs and borrowing requirements that will jeopardize Victoria’s AAA credit rating, whereas “most AAA-rated countries have little population growth and modest infrastructure needs” (Melbourne Age, 15.10.2013).

Robert Braby

Radio interview with the thinking person's politician, Kelvin Thomson, on the impacts of population growth and the policies that keep pushing it up in Australia.

Elliot says there is not a great deal state governments can do about population growth, but suggests that the Fed Gov should look at immigration numbers. Kelvin agrees with him and makes other points, perhaps choosing not to disagree with the interviewer whose knowledge is probably deficient.

Candobetter.net wants readers of this article to realise though that State Governments all have websites dedicated to attracting immigrants from overseas. The reader should also understand that housing and land development, water and power - all the things that population growth is inflating - are almost entirely the responsibility of state governments. There are growth lobbies dedicated to influencing state governments and parliaments on just these issues. These growth lobbies are shored up and given authority by the mainstream media - Murdoch and Fairfax - which both own property.dot.coms marketing Australian property to the world. The ABC, our public media, apes these attitudes.

The economy of Australia is one of the largest capitalist economies in the world, with a GDP of US$1.57 trillion. We stand apart from the rest of the OECD with both population growth and economic growth rates roughly four times the OECD country average. Admittedly some of the other members of the OECD are going through hard economic times, but many of similar size to Australia (such as Sweden) have sound economies, high GDP per capita and far slower population and GDP growth rates.

There is no evidence supporting the argument that rapid population growth is a rational strategy for Australia. Quite the opposite.

The only countries with higher population growth rates than Australia are authoritarian regimes with average GDP per capita roughly 4% of that of Australia. The exceptions to this low GDP per capita are Singapore and the UAE. But there is a big difference between these and Australia. They are city states where the cost of infrastructure expansion and social welfare is nowhere near the cost in Australia. The UAE has 88% expats and Singapore also grows due to its expat workforce.

But Australia has some other remarkable statistics in its historical closet. Since Federation compound annual population growth has rigidly adhered to an average of around 1.6+%. At the same time annual GDP growth has compounded at around 3.2+%. GDP per capita has, not surprisingly, compounded roughly in line with the rise in GDP diluted by the increase in population = 1.032/1.016 = 1.6% per capita.

Now it doesn’t take a genius to see that in 1900 these growth rates were based on a young undeveloped country and a world “without limits”, where the rise of humanity against its adversary the environment met with no logical opposition.

It also doesn’t take a genius to see that, at least hypothetically, zero population growth would only require 1.6% compound GDP growth to deliver 1.6% GDP growth per capita without the adverse social, environmental and economic consequences of population growth.

But hang on; haven’t we become more enlightened since 1900? Haven’t we learnt through the 60s and 70s that there are Limits to Growth? The Club of Rome was formed in 1968 and commissioned MIT to research and publish the now famous “Limits to Growth”.

Well yes we have become more enlightened, based on numerous ANU Polls and the Essential Report, 23 July 2013. But this never gets mentioned in public policy debate. Are the government and the media just pretending that this inconvenient truth should have no influence on public discourse or political policy development? How much longer will we have to wait?

Please also consider signing (and most importantly forwarding) the petition at the following link:

http://www.communityrun.org/petitions/australia-requires-a-public-inquiry-to-determine-a-basis-for-the-optimum-rate-of-population-growth-2

This puts Mr Roberton way ahead of two of Labor's federal leaders, Bill Shorten and Paul Howes, who are still singing the praises of population growth.

Of course John Robertson did not suggest that he would do anything concrete to stop this rapid population growth. If he had done so, Murdoch's editors would almost certainly have refused to run his piece.

He implies that we may have to be fatalistic about population growth, but will need to spend more on catering for it: He correctly remarks that "Expanding our city at the current rate - while slashing services and failing to deliver infrastructure - is a recipe for disaster." But he fails to note that governments can't simply spend ever more on infrastructure because the rising rate of population growth is driving them towards bankruptcy. Every extra person in Australia, needs at least $200,000 worth of additional infrastructure, though some studies suggest the figure is far higher. The impossibility of coping with such rapid population growth without letting services and infrastructure deteriorate is well explained on Kelvin Thomson's Wikipedia page (last paragraphs).

That's a lovely pair of pincers to have your political opponents trapped between. But there's no reason to assume Robertson could do any better if he came to power. There is no piece of magic technology called "good government" that gets you out of that trap, unless you can reduce the rate of population growth. But at least Robertson seems able to see both sides of the trap he (and his opponents) are in.

You can find the text of his article here: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/sydney-needs-services-not-just-a-rising-population/story-fni0cwl5-1226731779788#mm-breached

And below that is a reminder about the Fenner Conference on Population (10-11 October in Canberra) for which bookings close on Monday.

FENNER CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT 2013

10, 11 October 2013

Shine Dome, Acton, Canberra

Book online at https://www.amlink.com.au/secure/html/fenner2013.html

Further information at www.population.org.au

Keynote address by Professor Paul Ehrlich

Other speakers include:

Suzanne Cory, Hugh Possingham, David Lindenmayer, Chris Dickman, Bob Birrell, Mark O’Connor, Jane O’Sullivan, Michael Lardelli, Simon Michaux, Sharyn Munro, Rhondda Dickson, Michael Jeffrey, Gary Jones, Ian Lowe, Michael Raupach, Ian Dunlop, Tony McMichael, Paul Collins, Haydn Washington, Kelvin Thomson, Julian Cribb, and Roger Short. Richard Denniss is after-dinner speaker.

Registration: $220 ($170 concession) Dinner $70

Organised by Sustainable Population Australia Inc.

Australia’s population annual growth of just under 400,000 people is absolutely unsustainable, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). Our annual population growth, of which 60% is made up of economic immigrants, amounts to building another Adelaide every three years, with all its need for infrastructure, fuel, housing ... at a cost of about $200,000 per person.

Figures out today from the Bureau of Statistics reveal Australia’s population grew at 1.8 per cent, with net overseas migration of 238,300 people (60%) in the year ending March 31, 2013, and natural increase of 159,100 people (40%).

SPA National President Ms Jenny Goldie says infrastructure spending has not kept pace with such rapid growth, resulting in greater congestion, unaffordable housing and longer waiting times.

“It is now generally accepted that it costs $200,000 in extra infrastructure for every extra person. With 400,000 at $200,000 per person it means $80 billion in one year. No wonder the states are crying poor!

“Another way of looking at it is that we need to build another Adelaide every three years with all the associated infrastructure” says Ms Goldie.

“The environmental consequences of human population growth are equally concerning,” she says. “A rapidly expanding population demands access to more natural resources, be it food, fibre or oil, putting ever more pressure on soils, seas and forests.

“Biodiversity is adversely affected. Birds and mammals have been driven to extinction by human overkill, loss of habitat, invasive species, pollution and disease. Human activity is the prime cause of these processes and they intensify as human numbers grow.”

Ms Goldie says it is alarming that over 100,000 were added to Victoria’s population in one year.

“It’s all very well for the Victorian Government to talk of better planning but that kind of growth simply translates into crowded roads, trains and schools, higher house prices and rents, and loss of general amenity such as sunshine and views when more high rise buildings are built.”

Ms Goldie hopes the new federal government will realise that rapid population growth is not beneficial to the average citizen who has to wear its downside.

“The new government must lower immigration and remove all incentives for a high birth rate.”

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

On Tony Abbott's websiste you can read:

"Real Action On Sustainable Population Growth

Posted on Sunday, 25 July 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Coalition will:

1. Establish ‘Guard Rails’ for Population Growth

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

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

2. Take Real Action on Immigration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4. Establish A Clear and Consultative Process to Restore Control

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

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

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

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

Despite being officially launched in 2010, it's the 7th of September 2013 that will see the real birth of the 'population party'. William Bourke, the leader of the Party, says, "We champion a difficult but critical cause - misunderstood by some, and misrepresented by others. Despite the huge challenges of running a national campaign on a shoestring budget, our grassroots community party has collectively run an honorable and professional campaign. We have much to be proud of."

Australia's sustainable choice

Tomorrow Australians face a critical decision.

Either they allow the tri-partisan population explosion that's pushing Australia to 40 million people by 2050, or they vote to slow down and stabilise at around 26 million.

Australia has a chance to lead by example on this critical global issue, and to partner and support other nations for our collective benefit.

The Stable Population Party offers a sensible and responsible path that will permit Australians to fulfil their primary and overwhelming moral responsibility - to pass on a sustainable Australia.

How-to-vote card

Please print and share our national how-to-vote card: CLICK HERE

Please also forward this article to relevant people in your network (via BCc rather than an open email), to help build awareness for the Stable Population Party, and particularly for the Senate vote in all eight states and territories.

Every single Australian has a choice to Vote [1] Stable Population Party for The Senate.

A sustainable Australia starts with a stable population.

Geoff Brown the Stable Population Party candidate for the marginal seat of Lindsay is calling on the media "to challenge Fiona Scott and Tony Abbott about comments made on Four Corners last night by Ms Scott, the Lindsay candidate for the Liberal Party, that the traffic congestion plaguing the people of Lindsay is caused by 50,000 boat people." In the light of criticisms of Bob Katter for demographic ignorance, the silence on the same ignorance in the major parties is deafening.

The Big Distraction

Comment from candobetter.net: Indeed, it is staggering that politicians continue to be let get away with the pretense that all immigrants arrive here as asylum seekers, when far more people than 50,000 arrive each year and most of them are not 'boat people'. The Stable Population Party calls this 'the big distraction'.

Total Overseas Immigration figures dwarf asylum seeker numbers

To clarify, over 300,000 legal immigrants arrived - mostly by plane - in 2008 and 235,900 in 2009, which is the latest statistic available due to changes in the way these things are now counted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Many of these legal migrants were invited by various state governments, which all have websites promoting immigration to Australia for professionals, tradespeople and investors, who then have the right to bring the balance of their families here.

Geoff Brown defends Lindsay voters against redneck assumption

“Fiona Scott has just cemented in the minds of all that watched Four Corners last night that the people of Lindsay are a bunch of ignorant rednecks. It was embarrassing to hear such divisive, politically cynical drivel being peddled as fact” said Geoff Brown.

“Fiona Scott in trying to defend her comments implied that the 50,000 boat people that have arrived since 2007 somehow all drive cars and live in western Sydney. Ms Scott went on to say that the 50.000 boat people was twice the size of Glenmore Park, a large Penrith suburb”

He said that the media needs to challenge Fiona Scott and Tony Abbott over these divisive comments about 'boat people'.

Pop growth 1000 day of which 2% are asylum seekers

"50,000 boat people over 6 years averages out to just 24 arrivals per day. This is dwarfed by the real cause of traffic congestion in western Sydney, population growth, which is running at over 1000 per day. The major parties, specifically the Coalition, are whipping up the voters of Lindsay into a frenzy about being invaded by 24 boat people per day to distract voters from the facts about population growth. As exemplified by Ms Scott they are using misinformation about the numbers of boat people to confuse and strike fear into voters to avoid scrutiny of their population policies”.

“If the voters of Lindsay want to take real steps to alleviate traffic congestion then they need to thing better not bigger and vote for the Stable Population Party”, Mr Brown concluded.

For any reader in doubt, they will find that the Stable Population Party handles this issue very well on its website: http://www.populationparty.org.au/Featured-Media?&riID=58

Further comments - Geoff Brown – 0431 222602

Let’s ask why Greens, Liberals & Labor suppress the population issue: Stable Population Party - The party says it will reveal all in a front-page ad in the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday. The Stable Population Party points out that, despite a ‘massive thumbs down for big Australia’, [1] with 70 per cent hoping the population does not hit the 40 million mark projected by 2050, no major party will raise population as a campaign issue.

Tri-partisan undemocratic push by Lib/Lab/Greens

They say that this is because there is a tri-partisan undemocratic push for our unsustainable population growth of
over 1000 people per day, or well over a million people every three years – the size of Adelaide!

William Bourke, the leader of the Stable Population Party said today,

"Despite holding the balance of power in both houses of parliament, not once did The Greens question Julia Gillard regarding her broken promise to “not hurtle down the track towards a big Australia.” [2]

Yet our rapid population growth is the single biggest environmental threat we face.

Why exactly are the major parties pushing rapid population growth?

The Stable Population Party say that they are about to reveal two key reasons, and that they have taken the extraordinary step of placing a post-it note advertisement on the front of every Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday September 3.

“By standing Senate candidates in every state and territory, the Stable Population Party is the only
party providing a choice on the biggest issue facing Australia – population growth,” said William Bourke, President and NSW Senate candidate for the Stable Population Party.

“Population growth is now the underlying issue linked to all of Australia's major problems."

Bourke says that there are six key reasons to vote for a stable population.

A stable population will help:

- Relieve overstretched infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, roads and public transport;
- Ease cost of living pressures, including housing, energy, water and transport;
- Protect our environment, including food, water & energy resources, and animal habitats;
- Promote education and training, to increase job opportunities for all Australians;
- Minimise overdevelopment, including high-rise and sprawl; and
- Create a more resilient economy, to sustain and enhance prosperity.

“Population is not a single issue, it is the everything issue, and we need a choice. We won't resolve
any of Australia's major problems until we first stabilise population. We must think better, not bigger," says William Bourke.

Challenge to the Media

“Let’s spark this boring election campaign into life. We challenge the media to question the major
parties on why they won’t stop Australia’s population hitting 40 million by 2050 - and then sit back
and watch the pollies squirm,” said Mr Bourke.

Stable Population Party website: http://www.PopulationParty.org.au

[1] http://www.news.com.au/tablet/massive-thumbs-down-for-big-australia/story-fnehlez2-1226560309280
[2] #10;1225884715195#ixzz2dLQPpwkQ>http://www.news.com.au/features/federal-election/julia-gillards-first-act-dumping-big-australia/story-e6frfllr-<br />&#10;1225884715195#ixzz2dLQPpwkQ</a></p>&#10;</body></html>">

Sustainable Population Australia, Green Wedges Coalition, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria and Planning Backlash are four of the peak planning and environmental groups that have produced a Sustainable Population Charter for Victoria because the government seems unable to do so. It recommends that net overseas migration be reduced from the recent 232,000 immigrants in a year to 70,000 net per annum. See "Peak Community Groups advocate for Population size as an election issue."

This useful democratic initiative could save Melbourne from chaos, but it has been reported in a slanted kind of way by Murdoch's Herald Sun, which gives quite unmerited authority to a disrespectful and ill-informed response from the government.

Government response irresponsible and disrespectful

Planning Minister Matthew Guy's response, as quoted below from the Herald Sun, seems to show a shameful disregard for the facts of a problem for which he is responsible by switching to questionable and irrelevant figures from the 1950s and 60s in response to a clearly emerging overpopulation crisis today in Victoria. In so doing, he has thumbed his nose at respected women community leaders who have stood up to represent concerned citizens in the absence of any fair representation from Mr Guy or his ilk on population. Instead of having the honesty to admit what is happening, Mr Guy raised an irrelevancy that is almost impossible for the average person to prove or disprove or sensibly situate in the debate.

“Planning Minister Matthew Guy said that the state's population growth was higher in the 1950s and 1960s and migrants should not be singled out by community groups." (The Herald Sun)[1]

Check the facts for your self in the graph above, which takes figures from Australian Government year books and the ABS from 1945 to 2009. Does it look to you like immigration was higher in the 50s and 60s? No, of course not. And figures continue to climb since 2009. Between 2006 and 2011 immigration has contributed 60% of Australia's population growth. No-one is 'singling out' migrants.

In the face of the environmental planning groups' carefully worded and researched document, Mr Guy has referred vaguely to conditions in the 1950s and 1960s (when world population was between 2.5 and 3.5 billion instead of its current size of 7.1 billion and energy resources were hardly tapped.) What kind of intellect are we dealing with here?

He did not bother to provide the figures he claimed to be alluding to, nor did he say why they were relevant. He failed to take on board that it is the duty of citizens to form alliances to restrain his government from its constant attack on democracy, property and environment. And that it is his duty to respond rationally and democratically.

"We are living longer, we are having more children, there are a whole range of factors in population growth," said Mr Guy.

http://betaworks.abs.gov.au/betaworks/betaworks.nsf/projects/demographyVideo/frame.htm Note that in this video, even the Australian Bureau of Statistics is now politically massaging growth, saying that Australia's population is 'growing stronger' - instead of 'increasing faster'.

Well, yes, of course there are a 'whole range of factors in population growth', but immigration is the biggest and a multiplier of fertility opportunities. (See Sheila Newman, Demography, Territory, Law: The rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2012.) Mr Guy also does not say that the few people and corporations pushing for higher population growth derive the narrowly focused but huge financial benefits that the rest of us pay so dearly for in the loss of parkland, in homelessness, in lack of education and jobs.

Politically intimidating put-down

"Simply targeting overseas migration is simplistic and it won't solve population growth problems," Mr Guy reportedly said.

This put-down of the careful work that the peak planning and environment groups have actually done looks like an attempt by a powerful politician to intimidate democratic and highly relevant comment by slurring its spokeswomen.

The graph showing immigration from 1901-1944 shows our earlier immigration patterns, where during both World Wars and during depressions, more people left the country than came in.

This is not 'good management'

"Mr Guy said growth had to be well managed which was why the Government was pushing ahead with the East West Link and a metropolitan planning strategy.” [1]

If that is good management, then why is Melbourne's oldest park (Royal Park) targeted by the growth lobby to receive a concrete horrendoplasty and why are there protests on the steps of parliament, as even usually tame councils call for a sane alternative in rail? See "Melbourne Protestors demand: Trains not Tollroads!"

Mr Guy's 19th century ideas similar to Ethiopia's Mennilik II

Mr Guy reminds me of Mennilik II in Ethiopia, who decided to develop the country in the late 19th century, when the population was only 4 or 5 million and people lived in stable economies among clans on their own land. After Mennilik's modernisation programs, which included massive land 'reforms' - driving people off their own land into cities - Ethiopia's population climbed to 10 million. In 1950, as development continued, the population climbed to 18.3 million. In the 1970s there were more huge land reforms. In the 1980s there were mass government resettlements. Now in 2010 Ethiopia's population is 83 million and climbing rapidly still.

Mr Guy is pushing the very same process as his government promotes more bad laws to prevent people from having any say over how they live and what is done around them in their own country. Like the Ethiopians, we are being rounded up for the sake of economic ideologies of benefit to a very few. Those who dare to protest are attacked with lies about numbers, fatuous pronouncements about living longer and having more children, and innuendo such as 'don't blame immigrants'. But Mr Guy, who is not deaf, blind or illiterate, knows that his government constantly advertises for immigrants and that Australia's population is growing mostly because of immigration, which is now so high that it is driving the destruction of local ammenity in the form of unwanted and costly infrastructure that his government is imposing on its constituents, just like some primitive dictatorship.

In 1994, when I began to research what drove population growth, Australia's population was 17m and our net overseas immigration numbers averaged about 80,000. We did not need desalination plants and homelessness was an unusual problem. But the Murdoch and Fairfax Press and corporate Australia were already baying for growth. By 2013 we have already reached well over 22million - a dangerous growth rate that has caused cost of living to skyrocket and quality of life to deteriorate.

Mr Guy says, "Simply targeting overseas migration is simplistic and it won't solve population growth problems."

The fact is that the Murdoch and Fairfax Press promote politicians who make misleading statements like that one by Mr Guy because Murdoch and Fairfax have huge investments in population growth.[2] ABS figures show that stopping high overseas immigration would go a long way to solving population growth problems because it is the major driver of population growth in Victoria and Australia.

Mr Guy should pay attention to that sustainable population charter.

[1] John Masanauskas, "Don't blame migrants on suburban boom, warns Planning Minister Matthew Guy," Herald Sun, August 30, 2013.

[2] The mainstream press are part of the corporate lobby. As well as both the Murdoch and the Fairfax press owning huge property dot coms (realestate.com.au and domain.com.au) and constantly beating the populate or perish drum, owners, board members and their associates can position themselves to benefit from the influence of journalistic reporting on the value of resources, commodities, and manufactures, as well as influencing who gets elected by choosing who and what gets publicity. By the way, David Williamson's new play, "Rupert", does a magnificent job of showing how this happens.

Groups representing thousands of Australians intend seeking meetings with Federal MPs to see where they stand on population growth and are calling for a referendum on the issues.

Peak environmental and planning groups in Victoria have cooperated to create a people’s Population Charter which says to the growth lobbyists “enough!”

Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, Green Wedges Coalition, Planning Backlash, Environment East Gippsland, and the Vic/Tas branch of Sustainable Population Australia represent thousands of Victorians concerned that urban and rural amenity is being paved over as our urban open space, productive farmland and critical wildlife habitats are lost to more and more development.

The group intends to seek meetings with various Federal MPs to assess their support for action on population growth, and is also calling for a referendum to gauge the level of support for government to adopt a population policy which is responsive to the environmental carrying capacity of each region whilst also observing our international humanitarian obligations.

Acting Victorian president of Sustainable Population Australia and charter spokesperson Jenny Warfe says:

“Representative democracy is failing us. From Tecoma to Collingwood and Port Campbell to Gippsland, environmental and community groups are battling developer juggernauts, road and toll way builders. We are all having the same arguments over and over again with decision makers who don’t care what their constituents want, just what their developer mates want. And they want more of everything. It’s time to take back the decision making process about critical environmental and planning issues before unchecked population expansion rolls over all that is dear to us and critical for our future survival.”

It is fascinating to note that the bulk of the people leading and animating these groups are women, standing up to the male-dominated ideology of forced population growth in Australia.

Labor MP David Bradbury must correct error riddled conservation funding announcement (NSW), says Geoff Brown, Stable Population Party candidate. Mr Brown, who is a New South Wales natural conservation activist, has long fought to retain Cumberland plain woodland against attempts by governments to allow it to be destroyed for massive suburban developments. He believes now that the ALP has tried to take credit for his concept of the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. Geoff is running as a candidate for the Stable Population Party.

Mark Butler, the Federal Environment Minister, and David Bradbury, Labor member for Lindsay and the Assistant Treasurer, have been called on by Geoff Brown, the Stable Population Party candidate for Lindsay, to set the voters of Lindsay straight, after Lindsay's leading local newspaper, the Penrith Press, printed a half page story riddled with errors and misinformation about Labors 2010 federal election commitment of $7.5 million towards the establishment of the Cumberland Conservation Corridor.

Geoff Brown, also the President of the Western Sydney Conservation Alliance, developed the concept for the Cumberland Conservation Corridor in 2005, and at the 2010 election ran as an Independent using preference negotiations with Labor and Liberal to extract the $7.5 million deal from Labor. So he is on top of this issue. Several articles published by candobetter.net show his record on this matter. See Cumberland plain woodland and Geoff Brown.

Brown described himself as "livid" when he read the Penrith Press article which erroneously stated that Labor had announced $7.5m towards establishing the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. He said the article made it look as if Labor had just made some new 2013 committment. He said the voters of Linsay would be confused.

"The story should have been about why it took 3 years to fulfill their 2010 commitment. The article was littered with errors based on the dubious media release put out by David Bradbury and Mark Butler. If not corrected it will let Labor off the hook in Lindsay from announcing any new local conservation funding outcomes for the 2013 election. Labor may try to fudge their way out of it”.

Geoff Brown called on David Bradbury and Mark Butler to front the voters of Lindsay and tell them:

" - That neither Labor nor Liberals have yet promised any new conservation money in Lindsay for the 2013 election
- The announcement cited by the Penrith Press was from the 2010 election and it took 3 years to cobble together an outcome
- The Mulgoa biobanking site stays in private ownership so will not become part of the publicly owned Mulgoa Nature Reserve. So no net public benefit or use for education
- The Mulgoa site was never at threat of development and was already protected under Penrith Councils LEP which zones it E2 Environmental Conservation (I argued that money be better spent trying to conserve bushland in Penriths north at risk of development)
- That nearly half of the $7.5 million was spent on land care projects that are outside the Lindsay electorate and nowhere near the proposed Cumberland Conservation Corridor. Projects such as those in the Blue Mountains and the Cranebrook wetland project are not anywhere near the CCC
- That $3.4 million funding for weed removal and the planting trees is exactly what Tony Abbott proposes with his Green Army and Direct Action policy. This outcome condones the Liberals policy
- That 2000 ha of local bush land has not been protected (David’s MR and his letterbox propaganda claims he has saved 2000 ha of local bush land. He is claiming to have protected the 558 ha Airservices Australia land at Shanes Park and 1300 ha of bush at the Orchard Hillls Defence Establishment. These sites are not formally protected. Shanes Park has the proposed Castlereagh Freeway running through it)
- That biobanking is a scheme whereby there is a net loss of habitat. Bushland gets bulldozed with developers offsetting that clearing by funding the management of bushland elsewhere. In this case the State funding came from the clearing of critically endangered bushland in the Sydney Growth Centres. It is a highly dubious method of conserving nature.
- That the land owner is not raising his income from selling the biobanking credits. He gets a guaranteed $6.6 million as the joint Federal and State funding has already purchased the credits."

Labor caught out moving the fence posts

Geoff Brown added that Labor has been caught out trying to change the location of the Cumberland Conservation Corridor. As an example he cited the wetlands at Cranebrook near the Waterside housing estate as being 'nowhere near' the CCC.”

Mr Brown says that Lindsay voters need to be aware that Labor has not yet committed any new money towards conserving bushland within the Cumberland Conservation Corridor.

Mr Brown met last week with Mark Butler and David Bradbury calling on them to fund the protection of 1500 ha of Priority Conservation Land north of the ADI Site that is threatened. He says that the 50 ha of Mulgoa land was already zoned for protection but this 1500 ha of bushland has no such conservation zoning.

In his opinion, the only way it will be zoned for conservation by Penrith Council is if there is money on the table to buy it.

"The voters of Lindsay need to join with the Stable Population Party in calling on Labor and Liberal to commit to protecting this land.”

A better, not a bigger Australia

Mr Brown concluded by saying that to his knowledge, the Stable Population Party is the only minor political party in Lindsay actively lobbying Labor and Liberal about protecting the environment and limiting more urban sprawl and traffic congestion. He said that voters could rest assured that the Stable Population Party stands for a better not a bigger Australia.

Reporting on the Australian elections by the ABC is Orwellian. If it sends chills down your spine then you will understand why candobetter.net is so keen to publicise political alternatives, especially any that promise a civilised halt to the overpopulation juggernaut to which Tony Abbot and Kevin Rudd have hitched their evil stars. This article promotes information about the candidate list for the Stable Population Party. The introduction was written by Sheila Newman, who has also filmed their Victorian candidates.

The Stable Population Party has announced that it has now finalised Senate groups in all states and territories. it has also just approved House of Representatives (local) candidates in the seats of Griffith (challenging Kevin Rudd) and Denison (challenging Andrew Wilkie). It has a final total of 26 candidates in our very first election.

Candidate list: CLICK HERE

The party is looking for polling place volunteers.

If you would like to join a support group for one of our 10 local candidates for other campaign activities, please let us know ASAP and we will put you in touch: CLICK HERE

House of Representatives

Final list of House of Representatives candidates:

NSW

BEROWRA - Deborah Smythe

LINDSAY - Geoff Brown

EDEN-MONARO - Martin Tye

WARRINGAH - Mike Cottee

QLD

BRISBANE - John Roles

GRIFFITH - Jan McNicol

TAS

DENISON - Brandon Hoult

VIC

LALOR - Jonathan Page

MELBOURNE - Michael Bayliss

MELBOURNE PORTS - Steven Armstrong

Senate

The Stable Population Party is running Senate groups in every state and territory, so every Australian voter will be able to vote for a stable population above the line on the Senate (large white) ballot paper.

Fundraising campaign

The Party is getting close to achieving our fundraising goals, to ensure it can pay the $32,000 Senate nomination fees, as well as 10 local candidate nomination fees of $1,000 each.

It is looking for help.

Donations of $20, $100 or more are greatly appreciated. Donations up to $1,500 per annum are tax-deductible.

To donate: CLICK HERE

William Bourke is the President of the Stable Population Party. www.populationparty.org.au

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

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

The Stable Population Party declares itself to be "Committed a stable, sustainable, open and tolerant Australia."

A New South Wales lawyer, Philip Howell, has written a brilliant new democratic strategy to decide from the local level upwards, how big we the people want Australia's population to be. As a population sociologist who compares international systems on this matter, I am really impressed and can only encourage everyone to support this man's remarkable contribution to our democracy and wellbeing. Look at his site for more detail on reforming our constitution.

The original site, along with the reasons for the proposal is to be found here: The We Will Decide Proposal

This section describes how the proposal will operate in practice. Further details are provided in the Explanatory Notes.

The Purpose

1. The aims of the We Will Decide proposal are:
- To give people control over the population density in their residential area, by preventing development in that area which would allow the population to grow by more than the people want. People have a legitimate self-interest in controlling the scale of development in their local area.
- To provide a connection between the number of migrants and the preference of the people for more or fewer people in their area. The number of migrants permitted to enter the country in Australia’s self-interest will be restricted by reference to the total of the local decisions made by people about the population in their area.
- To continue to allow the Commonwealth Government to determine the number of migrants permitted to enter the country pursuant to our international obligations.

The Process

2. In the online census form for 2016, any respondent whose answers confirm that he or she:
- Is over 18; and
- Has a usual residence;
will be asked a new question, namely:
‘Would you like to comment on how many people should live in your area?’
Where an online form is submitted for more than one respondent - for example all members of a household - each person submitting the form who is above the age of 18 will be asked the new question. A negative answer to the question would be recorded, and the respondent would continue on with the census form. An affirmative answer to the question would generate a unique code linking each individual respondent with the Statistical Area Level 1 (“SA1") in which his or her usual place of residence is situated.

3. Each respondent would have 14 days to log in to the ABS’s We Will Decide website using the unique code. On logging in, the respondent would be presented in sequence with 3 screens:

Screen 1 will describe what the respondent will be asked to do. View the text of the screen here: Screen 1.

Screen 2 will display a map of the area about which the respondent will be asked to make a decision. It will be based on the Statistical Area Level 1 (SA1) in which the respondent’s usual residence is located. The size of the area will depend on whether the respondent’s SA1 is classed as urban or rural by the Bureau of Statistics. In summary:
- Those living in residential areas classed as urban, or in commercial areas, will decide in relation to an area comprising their own SA1 and each adjoining SA1 which is in the same Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2).
- Those living in areas classed as rural will decide only in relation to their own SA1.
The reason these areas have been selected is explained here: Determining the Area. The text of the screen may be viewed here: Screen 2.

Screen 3 will allow the respondent’s decision to be recorded. It will show the area’s present population and ask the respondent to select a percentage change between negative 2.0% and positive 2.0% which represents the respondent’s preference for the rate of increase or decrease in that area’s population over the next five years. The selection will be made by from radio buttons or check boxes on a number line, divided at intervals of at least 0.2. (Intervals of 0.1 would be better, but may not fit easily across smaller screens.) The text of the screen is here: Screen 3. Note that the respondent is shown rates of change per year and asked to decide on an annual rate of increase or decrease.

The Results

4. Locally: Results of the people’s decision as to the level of any increase or decrease will be calculated separately for each SA1 across the country. The calculation will be made as follows:
- The response from each respondent who makes a decision about an SA1 will be recorded as a decimal number; for example, an increase of 0.2% will be recorded as plus 0.2, and a decrease of 1.5% will be recorded as minus 1.5.
- All responses will then be added.
- The total will then be divided by the number of responses.
- The result will be a decimal number between minus 2.0 and plus 2.0.
This number will express the rate of population change per year which people living in that area wish to occur throughout the next five years. This will be the People’s Decision at a Local Level.

5. Nationally: The percentage change decided for each area at the Local Level will be applied to the current population of that area to determine the numerical increase or decrease preferred in that area. The country-wide total of those local numerical increases or decreases will be the Peoples’ Decision as to the extent to which Australia’s population should increase, decrease or stay the same.

Using the Results

6. Locally: The impact of the Peoples’ Decision at Local Level will vary depending on the area under consideration. In general, the intention is that development which would permit the population of residential areas to change contrary to the wishes of the people in that area would be prohibited. To ensure some flexibility, this would be implemented as follows:
- In areas classed as residential, more intense residential development would be prevented if its effect would be to increase the population by more than permitted by the people’s decision. Extensions to existing dwellings, or their replacement with larger dwellings would not be classed as ‘more intense’, but any development of dual occupancies, villas or flats in place of a lower density dwelling form would generally be prevented, unless the development did not increase the overall population in the area. Proposals for less intense development could use the people’s decision as a reason why the development should be approved.
This prohibition could be subject to a proviso. If fewer than 10% of the people in an area participated in the We Will Decide process, the prohibition would not take effect. The decision of those who responded could be treated in the same way as for non-residential areas.
- Some people live in areas classed as commercial, industrial or rural. In such non-residential areas, the people’s decision would not be binding on Government. It would merely be another factor which could be taken into account when development applications are considered.
This would permit Governments to change commercial, industrial and rural areas to residential, or to increase the number of residences in those areas if necessary. So it would still be possible, for example, for Governments to permit residential flats in commercial areas near to major transport routes, up until the point at which the area became mainly residential, after which the people would decide.
There will be no other local impacts. No-one will be forced to move if the people vote to have a lower population. There will be no restrictions on the movement of people at all. The only restrictions will be on development which would permit a change in population density which the local people do not want.

7. Nationally: The People’s Decision for Australia will become the prime (but not exclusive) determinant of the number of people permitted to migrate into Australia.

The migration intake which the Government announces each year deals with people who will be permitted to stay for 12 months or more. In future, existing visa categories which permit entry for more than 12 months would be divided into two groups.
- A National Interest category, comprising all those who are brought in to serve Australia’s self interest. This would include skilled, business and student migrants, family re-union entrants, working holiday makers and so on.
- An International Obligations category, comprising those we permit to enter for selfless reasons, or because of existing treaties and arrangements with other countries. Mainly this group would include refugees and those admitted for humanitarian reasons, plus New Zealand citizens, who have for decades been granted free access (with reciprocal rights for Australians who move to New Zealand).

Each year a National Interest calculation would be made. From the number representing the People’s Decision for Australia (see point 5 above), the following would be subtracted:
- The expected natural increase (i.e. births minus deaths), assuming current fertility and mortality rates are equal to the average for the previous five years; and
- The expected number of migrant departures, assuming that the rate of departure remains the same as the average over the last five years.
The figure remaining would indicate the number of new visas which could be issued to new migrants each year. An adjustment would then be made to take account of the propensity of some potential migrants to obtain a visa but then not travel to Australia.

In summary, in mathematical terms:

People’s Decision minus expected natural increase minus expected migrant departures equals new National Interest visas which can be issued (propensity adjusted).

If the result of the calculation is zero or negative, the Government would be prevented from issuing visas in National Interest category for that year, because the people would have decided that it was not in their interests to admit more people that year. If the result of the calculation is positive, the Government would be able to issue visas in any of the National Interest categories up to the number permitted by the Peoples’ Decision, taking account of the propensity of some migrants not to take up the offer of a visa.

We Will Decide would have no effect on the International Obligations category. The Government would still decide the refugee and humanitarian intake, and New Zealanders would come and go as they please, as Australians do in relation to New Zealand.

Implementation

8. From the time a decision is made to introduce the We Will Decide proposal, migration levels should be reduced dramatically, pending a trial of the proposal. Assuming in-principle adoption in 2013, it should be possible to run a voluntary trial of the proposal in 2015 which can be used to guide the migration intake from then. The next census will occur in August 2016. The We Will Decide process will formally take effect when the census results become available in early 2017.

9. We Will Decide can be introduced without amending the Census and Statistics Act. A new regulation under s.8(3) of the Act would however need to be made and placed before each House of Parliament.

10. The People’s Decision for Australia could be implemented by the Commonwealth Government voluntarily following it when formulating the migration intake each year, but it would be far better for the changes to be implemented by amendments to the Migration Act.

11. The Commonwealth Parliament could impose the People’s Decision at a Local Level on the Territories, but has no power over planning and development within the States. The most it could do there would be to authorise planning authorities at all levels to take the People’s Decision into account, using the incidental power in s.51(xxxix) of the Constitution.

Implementation at a State level would require the co-operation of State Parliaments, which would need to amend their planning laws.