(The new words for this old song are by Quark and Neutrino.)
There's not enough housing, dear Liza, dear Liza,
There's not enough housing dear Liza, there's not!
Then build it, dear Henry, dear Henry, dear Henry
Then build it, dear Henry, dear Henry, then build it!
But how will I build it, dear Liza, dear Liza
But how will I build it with not enough tradesmen?
Exhibition opening Friday 19th April, 5.30-7.30pm. Art Space, Lord Street, Port Campbell.
All Welcome.
Cr. Simon Illingsworth to open exhibition
Exhibition open times -
Friday 19th April -1pm to 4.00pm
Saturday 20th April -10 am to 4 pm
Artists include Barry Bree, Della Crabbe, Laura Fazzalari, Ben Fennessy, Sue Ferrari, Jean Gleeson, Jodie Honan, John Irving, Lyndall Jones, Helen Langley, Marion Manifold, Ian McConnell, Jill Quirk, Andrea Radley, Maree Stewart and Heather Wood.
R.S.V.P. for exhibition opening appreciated Marion Manifold, Secretary, Port Campbell Community Group Inc.
M. Manifold - #10;Further Overwintering information <ahref=" https:="">
Thank you to sponsors Corangamite Shire and Coastcare Victoria, "Caring for our country"
"My objective, with your help, honourable members, is to make Melbourne, and even Victoria, a great place to live. Not merely a great place in population size or area to rival such places as Shanghai, New York, London or Sao Paulo. Such greatness would be mere obesity, with all the disadvantages of such. Not a city or a state where people are crammed into dogbox apartments, living on crowded and congested streets in an environmentally unfriendly concrete heat island. But a spacious city with open skies, open and tree-filled streets, with gardens. An environment where children can play safely, where the car is not king but a servant.
Walkable patchworks of various styles of housing, where one would enjoy walking, cycling or travelling through by public transport. A city of learning, education, the arts and self-supporting industry, where families and communities can thrive. Where the less fortunate who may be living on lower incomes are not segregated into high-rise towers but live in affordable detached or medium-density housing spread throughout the suburbs. Where their children have the same opportunities as other children. Where ghettos of crime and despair are not created. A city where the environment—the living environment—is prized and of prime importance. A sustainable city or cities in a sustainable state. This can only happen when people are proud of their neighbourhoods and where they, as citizens, have control over what they create—the built form, the environment, the infrastructure. This is what, I believe, we as a Parliament can achieve." (Clifford Hayes, Extract from speech.)
[This speech was paragraphed by candobetter.net editor. It was taken from the unproofed Hansard transcript and will be revised if there are changes.]
Mr HAYES (Southern Metropolitan) (16:54:47): President and honourable members, especially new members, congratulations. I grew up in Brighton, the son of a doctor and a school teacher, so in many people’s eyes I had a life of privilege, but my parents had just bought a house, my father was starting his own medical practice from scratch and I was sent to Gardenvale state school. However, I did not like school, particularly getting the strap in my first few days there for playing in the third graders’ playground.
So when I learned to read, quite well, I told my mum I wanted to leave school. She laughed and told me I had to do another 12 years before I could leave.
I was devastated. By grade 3 my parents were able to send me to Brighton Grammar.
But in grade 4 my father suffered a terrible car accident, which affected him and his earning ability for the rest of his life. Mum worked, which was not that common in the early 1960s, and Dad brought in some money, so we got by okay. My two sisters and I managed to finish at private schools, but my father's situation got worse, and he relied on drinking and heavy medication, which by the end of our schooling left him totally incapacitated.
Being a bit of a rebel and not a great student, I decided on a very different course to the academic life so beloved by my parents. I had become interested in photography and filmmaking, and to my parents’ horror I wanted a career in the film industry. So I left home and went to work.
The Australian film industry was almost non-existent then. I found a job in the nascent television industry with Hector Crawford at Crawford Productions in Collins Street. My first job was on Homicide as a music editor, although I only had the vaguest idea of what that job entailed when I started. Over the next few years Crawfords produced the top three or four highest rating TV dramas in Australia at that time.
I went on to become a freelance film editor, and in 1979 I won an Australian Film Institute award for my part in editing Mad Max.
Members applauded.
The PRESIDENT: As tempting as it is, can we hold the applause until the end.
Mr HAYES: However, it was my experience working in the Northern Territory on the feature film We of the Never Never that changed my view on how we treated the first inhabitants of this land, and I came home a firm believer in Aboriginal land rights.
My parents, particularly my father, who was a keen advocate to the few who would listen back then for Indigenous recognition and other social issues, were both academic and left wing in political inclination, which was a pretty unusual stand compared to many of my friends’ parents in Brighton. So I was always interested in politics and comparing and arguing various points of view.
However, it was travelling overseas for six months when I was 24 which opened my eyes on how we lived in Australia. I was trying to find my way around the gridlocked streets of Bangkok, and looking over a bridge I saw swarming below a mass of humanity living in shacks on the side of a city canal, which would be no bigger than the Elwood canal down our way. A couple of hundred people were living down there—working, living and laughing.
I realized that there were many ways to live the life that I thought was normal from my little bubble in suburban Melbourne. I also realized that which so many Australian travellers come to see: we are all so enormously privileged to grow up and live in the open spaces and remaining nature of our suburbs and the surrounding countryside.
I lived in Sydney for a while working as an editor. Here I was in the heart of the film industry and lived the life of a continual after-work party—restaurants, bars, parties, picnics, drinking, eating and all that goes with it. It was the 1980s, and Sydney was a beautiful city and definitely the place to be. Few would disagree that most of the beauty around the harbour has now been spoiled by overdevelopment.
I got married and divorced in fairly quick succession. I bought an old farm house in a small town, Deans Marsh—between Geelong and Lorne—as a weekend retreat, and I became more and more interested in small-scale farming, self-sufficiency, agriculture and alternative lifestyles.
I got married again and we had a daughter followed by a son a couple of years later.
Computerisation had swept through the TV industry, enabling me to work from our farm house but often requiring travel back and forth to Melbourne. I studied for a diploma in applied science, farm management, by correspondence through Melbourne University, with a view to starting a small vineyard, which would certainly supplement my growing wine cellar. That was when devastation struck and my life had to change.
My wife wanted out, citing my lifestyle, the working, the drinking, the parties and generally being away from home too much. I was not much use as a father—and what is more, she was taking the kids. My drinking, smoking and party life had to stop.
I realised my health was being affected and my lifestyle was costing me more than money. I was losing friends, my lucrative business and now what I valued most—my family. I sought help and I found it through an organisation which pointed me to a path of spiritual recovery. As a result I no longer drink or smoke, nor do I take any mind-altering substances except caffeine, and have not done so for many years.
However, I did start that small vineyard on the Mornington Peninsula with a business partner. After a while I managed to reconcile with my family, and though my wife and I did not resume our marriage we became good friends and I had the opportunity to be the father I had always wanted to be to my children.
In 2003 I sold the vineyard and I moved back to Brighton again, buying an older style apartment with a backyard, where I still live today.
While I always had a political interest, my real political activity was about to start in the most unlikely way.
My mother, who still lived in the old family home nearby, told me that a developer had plans to build a 5-storey building of more than 100 apartments right behind her house. The whole street was affected, most of the houses being single storey.
All of our neighbours were up in arms: 'They can’t do this here!’. And the reply from our council: 'Oh yes, they can’.
It was Melbourne 2030, and we had been declared, without our knowledge, to be living in an activity centre.
What is more, the council had plans for more 4 and 5-storey buildings scattered around North Brighton.
Our group of residents decided to run someone against the local councillor. I was the only volunteer, and I ran on the issue, opposing high-rise development.
With huge community support, I was elected by a sizeable majority seeking to maintain our village character. Once elected, I had the full support of council in moving for more restrictive height controls in our village-style shopping centres and surrounding residential streets.
The minister, through his department, would not allow the changes, but after much lobbying he did grant so‑called 'discretionary’ height controls but at heights greater than the council’s decision.
The developers were still not happy and took the council to VCAT, where the VCAT member overruled the council’s refusal, saying discretionary controls gave him the discretion to break them. What is more, he and other members over the years took it upon themselves to give council lectures about our housing policy, developed out of widespread community consultation, for being too restrictive.
VCAT continues to grant permits for building heights far in excess of our meaningless discretionary controls as granted by the state government.
So much for the wishes of the community, or democracy, where elected bodies such as municipal councils can be overridden by a bureaucrat and increasingly by the state government.
This is where I discovered the general attitude of the planning bodies.
Senior planners in the government said to me, 'Councillor, if you don’t want high rise, you must want sprawl’.
I said, 'I don’t want either’, to which they replied, 'Well, where will you put the population?’.
Research showed me how population growth had been ramped up in recent years from a long-term average of 70 000 per annum to 200 000 people per annum. Melbourne is now growing by 2500 people, seeking accommodation, every week.
This fact is used by the government to overpower councils on the issue of planning in particular. Most government planners advocate urban consolidation and the destruction of our valued Australian suburban life. They talk of high-rise schools. Where will the children play?
To achieve this so-called consolidation, governments, planners and developers want to bring in more and more people, not from the outer suburbs but from overseas, to densify the inner city.
Who benefits? The developers and the property industry.
After being elected mayor of Bayside I joined an organisation called Planning Backlash. Led by the awesome Mary Drost, OAM, we represented planning groups with similar issues all across Melbourne and regional Victoria.
This group has led the campaign for greater say for residents and councils and has regularly met with all planning ministers, both Liberal and Labor, up until this minister, who no longer consults with us.
Rapid population growth has been connected with our planning problems.
Around this time I saw Dick Smith’s documentary and found the policies of Sustainable Australia. I came to see that global population growth and the corresponding increased pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, species decline and habitat destruction have made population growth the major environmental problem, both globally and locally.
Yet population growth was not even mentioned by the major political parties, including the Greens.
The Greens advocate lowering consumption, and rightly so, but until they realistically tackle the population issue they cannot address the current rate of environmental destruction and greenhouse gas emissions in this state or in this country.
This issue has nothing to do with race or religion, nor should it. For no matter how much we reduce consumption and the ensuing pollution per person, if we increase the population at the same time, we will make zero or even negative progress.
And we in this country are growing at rates far above the world population growth rate, and our greenhouse gas emissions keep on rising.
A similar charge could be made against the major parties, Labor and Liberal, who cry economic ruin if we reduce population growth by returning to 1980s or 1990s levels of immigration, as our party advocates.
They say the current rapid population growth raises gross domestic product. Yet, as we all know, GDP per head of population growth and wages growth have been stagnant over recent years as we have imported more and more workers.
In 2010 I met William Bourke and joined Sustainable Australia. Their policies on local planning, affordable housing, infrastructure, the environment and a more diverse economy appealed to my frustrated desires, particularly at a local level.
As to planning in this beautiful city and this bountiful state, planning should be a good thing, not like here, with our planning system—deregulated, discretionary and encouraging the atrocious.
Then we, the residents, hopefully with the support of our councils, try to make the proposal less bad. Even this process is under attack, with planning bodies such as the Grattan Institute seeking to remove third-party appeal rights. Even less local democracy is being demanded.
Planning, we believe, should be conceived at the local level, initiated by local planning groups or citizen juries. Planning should then set the agenda, set the social and environmental goals, the population density and height controls. Then developers would have to conform to these established local requirements—a democratic process.
Finally, just before I finish, I would like to thank a few people who helped me take this journey to find my way to this most historic and honourable chamber: William Bourke, our hardworking federal president and an invaluable mentor; Mary Drost, of indomitable spirit, and the committee of Planning Backlash; Richard Rozen and my supporters in Brighton Residents for Urban Protection; Derek, Evelyn, Kerrie, David, Beth, David and John of Restore Residents’ Rights; Jill Quirk, who ran in an election with me; Kelvin Thomson, a former MLA and an early advocate on population growth, who is now my fantastic chief of staff; Noel Pullen, a former MLC, who helped us in the planning battle; Alex Del Porto, James Long, Sonia Castelli and Bayside councillors past and present; my family, especially my two children, Alice and Harry.
My objective, with your help, honourable members, is to make Melbourne, and even Victoria, a great place to live. Not merely a great place in population size or area to rival such places as Shanghai, New York, London or Sao Paulo. Such greatness would be mere obesity, with all the disadvantages of such.
Not a city or a state where people are crammed into dogbox apartments, living on crowded and congested streets in an environmentally unfriendly concrete heat island. But a spacious city with open skies, open and tree-filled streets, with gardens. An environment where children can play safely, where the car is not king but a servant.
Walkable patchworks of various styles of housing, where one would enjoy walking, cycling or travelling through by public transport.
A city of learning, education, the arts and self-supporting industry, where families and communities can thrive. Where the less fortunate who may be living on lower incomes are not segregated into high-rise towers but live in affordable detached or medium-density housing spread throughout the suburbs. Where their children have the same opportunities as other children. Where ghettos of crime and despair are not created. A city where the environment—the living environment—is prized and of prime importance. A sustainable city or cities in a sustainable state. This can only happen when people are proud of their neighbourhoods and where they, as citizens, have control over what they create—the built form, the environment, the infrastructure. This is what, I believe, we as a Parliament can achieve.
Members applauded.
This article reproduces a leaflet written by Jim Quirk, who was my father. The leaflet advertised a 'Nature Show' at the lower Melbourne Town Hall in 1966. The Field Naturalists Club of Victoria and the Society for Growing Australian Plants sponsored the Nature Show to help the plight and status of the wombat in Australia. I wonder if the same results could be achieved today. Have we advanced at all? Reading of the particularly dire conditions for wombats in South Australia, it would seem not. And, think of the kangaroos who suffer so badly still at the wrong end of rifles and who are caught up so messily and tragically in urban development. The discursive nature of the account below may be a reflection of a time when conservation was a battle but our lives were not as stressed and rushed as they are today. We were more able to organise politically for causes in NGOs which were not then commercialised.
This animal, as all naturalists and most people in general know, is a marsupial, indigenous to Australia , including some Bass Strait islands. It is confined to Eastern and Southern Australia, including the great Australian Bight area. Fossil remains have been have been found in Western Australia, s,o apparently it inhabited that part of the continent.
Wombats are divided into five main species, although some naturalists concede only four distinct types. The most significant differences in the various species are size, fur and nose covering. The species best known to Victoria has a bare nose.,while others in Eastern Australia have hairy noses. Some have coarse hair; this applies to the Naked -nosed Wombat, while the southern , while the Southern Hairy-Nosed and Flinders Island species have soft silky fur. Size and weight for adults varies from about 2’ 6’ and fifty pounds, to 3’ 6” and eighty pounds or more. These figures apply to the small Flinders Island variety and the species familiar to Victorians respectively.
Wombats are, of course essentially nocturnal animals and as they burrow in the ground sometimes to the extent of 15 feet, are not frequently seen. They are herbivorous, feeding mainly on grass, the roots of a variety of vegetation and some fungi, almost entirely confining this activity to the hours of darkness.
These native animals are not prolific breeders, bearing only one young a year, about July. Tiny when born , the young remains with the parent for about 6 months. Wombats are credited with being the most intelligent of marsupials and the Flinders Island variety is regarded as being the most attractive of the species. It is on record that wombats have become most docile with friendly people and much liked as pets.
The wombat as with most animals and birds has suffered greatly with the advent of the white man to this country - very little is known of the hairy-nosed variety of South Queensland, and those inhabiting Southern New South Wales have been killed out over a large part of their range. By 1887, every wombat on King Island had been killed. This brings me to the “political" side of this animal, as affecting it in the State of Victoria.
Victorians have certainly been no exception to the incompatibility of native fauna and human settlement. The wombat early incurred the displeasure of settlers, when they erected fences to stop the movement of the introduced rabbit. These fences naturally came across the path of the wombat as it moved about to feed at night. Being a very strong animal and naturally adopted to burrowing and pushing obstacles aside, the wombat had no difficulty in getting through the fences . So the irony is that the introduced rabbit has indirectly been the death of probably hundreds of thousands of wombats: no rabbits, - no wire-netting fences - no holes made by wombats - and probably no entry to the Vermin List on which this otherwise harmless animal was placed by the State Government in 1906, at the behest of farming interests.
Of course human settlement would still have affected this creature as it has all forms of wild life, but possibly not as drastically, as in addition to being the only only native animal declared vermin in 1906, a bounty on its destruction was added in 1925. The operation of the Act was for municipalities to administer the bounty, but subsidised to the extent of 2/6 a “scalp” by the State Government. The subsidy was increased to 7/6 in 1949 with the local councils adding 2/6 which meant a reward of 10/- ($1.00) for each wombat killed by farmers and hunters. Municipalities concerned were mainly in northern Victoria, where the animals are most numerous.
The exact number of wombats killed in Victoria since Federation is not known, but in the past 6 years, bonuses have been paid in respect in respect to over 50,000. I consider the number slaughtered since the introduction of the bonus in 1925 must be at least 500,000, although exact figures are not available, as amounts paid in bonuses before 1960 also included dingoes, foxes etc. Many more before this though would have been slaughtered - as mentioned earlier, the animal was classified as vermin in 1906. No one knows the present Victorian wombat population - estimates vary between 2,000,000 and 500,000 - it could be much less than the latter.They are now practically confined to the “wilderness' area of Eastern Victoria being largely eliminated by settlement etc.
The Fauna protection Council was formed in 1959 to counter a widespread racket, prevalent then in the export of Australian birds. It obtained the affiliation of most of the natural history and animal welfare organisations in the State at the time. It was successful in its representations to the Federal Government not to further permit the export of native birds.
Many unsatisfactory aspects of the treatment of native fauna were subsequently discussed by the Council, prominent amongst them, the sad situation of the native wombat. As we considered its vices exaggerated, its treatment by authority unenlightened and not in accord with civilised society, it was decided in 1961 to try to persuade the then Minister for Lands to remove it from the vermin list and logically place it under the control of the Fisheries and Wildlife Department, like other native species. Despite considerable efforts, we were unable to get the Minister to alter the decision made 55 years earlier.
In 1964, with a new Lands Minister in office, the council decided to again put in a plea for the wombat, and as a result had a deputation to the Minister in October of that year. With the aid of many other people and organisations, despite considerable opposition from political representatives of farming interests, some headway was made the Government giving consideration to the removal of the bonus system of control. It was then realised that this was the best we could hope for at this stage; after all, old customs die hard, they’d been shooting and trapping wombats for probably 100 years. It was accordingly decided to concentrate on this, which culminated in the Government passing a bill, after vigorous debate and opposition from a political segment, in April of this year to discontinue the payment of the $1.00 wombat bonus for a trial period of three years.
The morality of the bonus rankled strongly and the Council now feel that this is a most significant decision, although not all that was sought. Considerable destruction of the animal by fumigation and other methods will still be carried out by Lands department employees, if Gippsland farmers have their way, as this native animal is still classified as VERMIN. The Council will not be satisfied until the wombat is removed form the list of Vermin and placed under the control of the Fisheries and Wildlife Department. On the other hand, full note must be taken that the bounty has been removed for only a “trial' period of three years, and little mercy or sentimentality was shown in the parliamentary debates on the subject. In the three years we have, we will have to persuade the Government to sponsor some satisfactory research on the animal, so that more will be known about its numbers, natural increase and life cycle.
What has happened to the wombat over the years is an example of the ruthlessness and brutality of our dominant species towards other forms of life with which we share this world. What has been achieved in the last few months is an example of what an enlightened, determined public can achieve. It is an example that in the long run it is not the overwhelming mass of people or a few academics who are going to save wild life and habitat, but a persistent and informed section of the public, the more numerous the better, who are prepared to give their time and energy to persuade our legislators that it is good policy to adopt intelligent wildlife conservation measures - for it is the politicians who are eventually going to make these decisions, be they good or ill.
J.H Quirk
(August 1966)
Videos of KELVIN THOMSON and all panel speakers have been added to this article. Open mic part now published here too. Today, June 14, 2014, a packed hall with people standing at the back in the Hawthorn Arts Centre voted for a national plebiscite to ask the people what size population they wanted. The forum interacted with a panel of four speakers: Kelvin Thomson, MP for Wills; Sheila Newman, Evolutionary Sociologist and Candobetter.net editor and writer; Clifford Hayes, former Bayside Council Mayor and planning activist; and William Bourke, Leader of the Sustainable Population Party. There was a queue for the open microphone and the meeting closed later than expected. All motions passed with an overwhelming show of hands.
We will probably replace this film with another from another angle which recorded the size of the audience, the applause and the show of hand on the motions. In the meantime this gives the content of the Open Microphone session.
The Hawthorn Arts Centre was the venue for a large public meeting today asking the question “Must Melbourne keep growing?” Speakers, Hon. Kelvin Thomson MP, Ms. Sheila Newman, evolutionary sociologist, Mr. Clifford Hayes, former Bayside mayor and Planning activist and Mr. William Bourke president of “ Sustainable Population Party” all addressed the meeting with the ultimate message that Melbourne does not have to keep growing. The audience was given the floor for the open mic second hour of the program and took full advantage of this. The meeting voted unanimously for the federal government to hold a national vote on Australia’s population aiming to stabilise by 2040:
''That, on the basis of State of the Environment reports and in the interests of democracy, the meeting calls on the federal government to hold a national vote on population at or before the next federal election, with a proposal to allow Australia to stabilise its population by 2040. A working group will be formed by concerned citizens in order to draft an appropriate question."
Additionally the meeting voted unanimously for the Victorian Government to convene a scientifically based conference to establish the long term sustainable population for the state, on a motion proposed by Ms Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Land:
"That this meeting calls on the Victorian government to convene a scientifically based Victorian conference on what constitutes a long term environmentally sustainable population for Victoria, with reference to the Victorian State of the environment reports of 2008 and 2013 indicating environmental damage from current population levels."
According to the President of Sustainable Population Australia’s Victorian and Tasmanian branch, Ms. Jill Quirk, ”The first resolution is to give the Australian people the right to determine their own quality of life and quality of the environment for the present and future. The second is asking the government to undertake its absolute responsibility and to stop the reckless, irreversible destruction caused by needless rapid population growth and over development happening now.”
Public forum with Kelvin Thomson, William Burke, Sheila Newman, Clifford Hayes and numerous community groups. Sustainable Population Australia & Victoria First are hosting a panel discussion and open mike on Melbourne's population future. The event will be filmed to use as a document to show how Melbourne people feel about overpopulation. "Melbourne's population growth is treated by the media, by governments and by planners as though it is inevitable, giving the impression that the fate of Melbourne is to be a city of 7 to 8 million by mid-century. What the public seldom hears is that Melbourne's huge growth rate is not inevitable, nor that growth of the population does not magically stop at mid-century unless changes to existing trends are made. If present growth rates continued, Melbourne would be a city of about 20 million by the end of the century. The truth is that Melbourne's future could be largely in our own hands. This meeting is a chance for the people of Melbourne to question the ideology that "Melbourne must keep growing"" (Jill Quirk, President SPA Vic & Tas). "Melbourne has been growing by 200 people a day, 1,500 a week and 75,000 each year for some time now. The latest projections are that this rapid growth will escalate still further. But Melbournians are not asked whether this is what we really want for our city." (Kelvin Thomson, President, Victoria First)
Federal MP and President of Victoria First, Hon. Kelvin Thomson;
Clifford Hayes, former Bayside Mayor
Planning activist, Sheila Newman, population author and editor of candobetter.net
William Bourke, President of Sustainable Population Party.
Please come and have your say!
Contact: Jill Quirk, President, Sustainable Population Australia,VicTas branch
vic [ AT ] population.org.au ph. 0409742927 or Julianne Bell, Secretary, Victoria
First jbell5 [ AT ] bigpond.com ph. 0408022408
This article features videos of the four Victorian based candidates for the Stable Population Party - Jill Quirk, Clifford Hayes, Michael Bayliss, Steven Armstrong and Jonathan Page - not necessarily in that order. It is very interesting to see what the candidates have to say and how they present. Australians have a chance of making a crucial difference by voting for these candidates in the Senate and in the lower house for the next Federal Election. Candidates are also running in other states. Check this website for details: http://www.populationparty.org.au/templates/pop/page/page_html_standard.php?secID=210
The first video is of senate candidate Jill Quirk, who gives quite a rundown of Victoria's population problems. Many candobetter net readers will know of Jill. It is good to see that the Stable Population Party is running a woman with such experience in population matters. Jill has been particularly active in campaigning for a sustainable population over the last 10 years after a lifelong interest and concern for the environment especially our native fauna. She approaches this issue as a writer and artist as well as leading and educating on the issue within an environmental population organisation. She is convinced that for future survival not only of Australia’s wildlife but ultimately for its people, we must plan towards a stable population living within the severe environmental constraints of our land.
Clifford Hayes has more than five years experience as a councillor at Bayside City Council in Melbourne. He held the position of Mayor and Deputy Mayor. Clifford was elected by the community on a platform of planning reform, opposing high rise over-development in Bayside (100,000 residents). Clifford also has significant experience in the film and television industry and farm management (viticulture). He enjoys swimming and the arts.
Michael Bayliss is running for Melbourne. Michael has post graduate degrees in both economics and sport science and has developed inclusive sports programs for people with disabilities in capital cities across Australia (was finalist in the WA support worker awards in 2012). He has also been an advocate and campaigner for disability inclusion, animal rights and sustainable town planning. Michael strongly believes that a stable population will help address Australia's housing crisis, environmental toll and infrastructure debt.
Steven Armstrong is an electronics contractor and a surfer. Steven became interested in the population issue 25 years ago when he was astounded to hear Bob Hawke urging us all on to 50 million. Having waited patiently for the major parties to come to their senses, Steven now realises this is not going to happen. In order to offer a democratic choice to the people of Melbourne Ports, and challenge 'big Australia' advocate Michael Danby MP, Steven has decided to act.
Jonathan Page is running for the seat of Lalor.
Jonathan has a professional background in science and a strong connection with the Australian environment, having spent much of his formative years bushwalking. He treasures the beauty of many other species on this planet and is pained when hearing about the next Australian species under threat due to land clearing or other human activity. Jonathan is also particularly concerned about the housing affordability crisis, which of course, is exacerbated by rapidly growing demand for a finite resource (habitable land in well serviced areas).
The last video is of NSW-based William Bourke, who is the leader of the party. I have featured this video in another article on candobetter.net. William gives a very clear idea of what the Stable Population Party is offering.
SPPA calls for "A better quality of life" and articulates six reasons to vote for a stable population:
to Relieve overstretched infrastructure, incluidng hospitals, schools, roads and public transport;
to Ease cost of living pressures, including housing, energy, water and transport;
to Protect our environment, including food, water and energy resources, native bushland and animal habitats;
to Promote education and training to increase job opportunities for all Australians;
to Minimise overdevelopment, including high-rise and sprawl;
to Create a more resilient economy, to sustain and enhance prosperity.
Monash University's Dr. Bob Birrell of Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research spoke at the Sustainable Population Australia AGM on July 20, 2013 to a conference center packed to standing room only. The speaker was retained for questions until long after the end of the talk. "It was chilling the way Dr Birrell calmly and factually revealed the deep globalised shit we are in. It just doesn’t make sense at all. If only the public understood what is being done to them and their children...not to mention our environment." Videos by Steven Armstrong.
The meeting yesterday was well summed-up by one of those present as a “rip snorter”. The room was filled to capacity with standing room only. The mean age of the audience was substantially reduced on previous AGMs, an indication of how the effects of overpopulation are hitting more and more people in the form of unavailable, unaffordable housing, massive power bills, congestion and stress at every level ... and unemployment.
One gentleman slapped a wad of 10x $10 notes on the table at the beginning of the branch meeting and people seemed keen to give money to help SPA.
"It was chilling the way Dr Birrell calmly and factually revealed the deep globalised shit we are in. It just doesn’t make sense at all. If only the public understood what is being done to them and their children. ..not to mention our environment." (A new SPA member).
The notes below were taken by a member of the audience and are an impressionistic paraphrase of some highlights of Birrell's speech. You will need to watch the videos of the speech for detailed quotes.
Bob Birrel in calm measured tones revealed the treachery of our governments to Australians especially workers.
The latest population increase was 370,000 people, representing a growth rate of 1.7%. This increase was made up of 210,000-215,000 permanent entry including humanitarian. It included temporary entry e.g. 457 visas and working holiday visas. About 30,000 people moved here from New Zealand (but not all were born there; many migrated there from elsewhere.) Natural increase (births over deaths) made up 150,000. That makes a huge excess of immigrants over native born, to the tune of 150,000: 270,000.
Snapshot - In December 2012 the ABS calculated that there were 1.1 million temporaries here. Most temporary visa holders have work rights. Visitors don't have work rights but many work anyway. This is all on top of the permanent entry people, numbering about 210,000- 215,000.
May 2012-13: 108,000 new arrivals added to labour market. Total employed persons only increased by 127,000.
Rate of workforce growth has declined sharply. During the mining boom it grew by 200,000 but this has halved- leading to an increase in unemployment.
Our Youth disadvantaged by immigration levels:
50-60,00 young people seek entry level jobs each year. Immigrants competing with them for these. There has also been a drop in workforce participation.
This is the CFMEU billboard Dr Birrell refers to: "In the 12 months to February 2013, Australian construction industry employment grew by only 1.1%, but the number of 457 visa holders employers had working in the industry actually increased by 25% to 14,080. Between December 2012 and March 2013, trades apprenticeship numbers dropped from 67.500 to 53.400."
Labor elites now tend to see themselves as globalisers, harking back to the Hawke-Keating era of deregulation. By subjecting workers to enterprise bargaining and international migrant competition they are trying to overcome a bogey they perceive in "Protectionism".
Government has pushed the selection of migrants onto employers, failing to regulate to safeguard local job opportunities. The rules don't require the employer to test the local market. All this came to a head recently over the 457 visas. The CFMEU (mining and construction union) has led the ACTU in a comeback on behalf of workers (see picture of CFMEU Billboard: "More apprenticeships, fewer 457 visas.")
Globalisers In the 1980s the ALP opened the Australian economy to globalists- to “wake up” the sleeping economy. These policies overcame our protection heritage. 457s were good news for globalising forces. CFMEU (mining and construction) were very concerned. They saw 457s as breaking their control. Chris Bowen, the current Federal treasurer is not in favour of protecting local jobs and his book Hearts and minds is apparently very revealing of his preference for the globalist ideology.
The Howard government had given away our right to this Doha conference in 2000 in exchange for tariff concessions from other countries. Rudd confirmed this when he became prime minister.
There has been a split in ALP ranks over this- Craig Cameron and Kelvin Thomson are among those who support labour market testing.
Julia Gillard said, just before she was removed, that Australians should be at the head of the (Job) queue- stated this publicly. One of the last things her government did was to subject the 457 visas to labor market testing. The new law has not yet been proclaimed, but went through on the very last day of parliament. The protections for workers are weak, but they are an improvement on the naked 457. They protect workers in trades but leave professions pretty unprotected.
BOOK LAUNCH & DISCUSSION, Balwyn Library 2pm: Sustainable Population Australia, Victorian and Tasmanian branch
At this meeting we are proud to launch an exciting new book, published in December 2012, Demography, territory and law: rules of animal and human populations by population sociologist and SPA member, Sheila Newman.
How do you think overpopulation happens and does it have to happen? Ms. Newman will present an overview of established population theories, then new ideas from her book. This will be followed by general discussion. Some of the ideas may be familiar to you, some will not, but certainly you will not have seen them considered together as they are in Ms. Newman’s book.
When - Saturday March 23rd 2013 at 2.00 p.m. 
Where - Balwyn Library Meeting Room 336 Whitehorse Rd. Balwyn VIC 3103
Melway Map – 46E8 Tram No. 109
Contact Jill Quirk 0409742927 vic[AT]population.org.au
(Copies of the book will be on sale at the meeting after the talk for those interested. You can also purchase a print copy here: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/QueenieAlexander2000 or ebook (kindle) here: http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/B00ALE8YSA/ref=sib_dp_kd#reader-link)
“Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.” (Jill Quirk, President, SPAVicTas)
“The Urban Development Institute of Australia congress being held in Melbourne this week is a blatant exercise in talking up Melbourne’s and indeed Australia’s population for the benefit of developers rather than for the current residents,” says Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch).
“In a return to the past (the year 2010) ex PM Kevin “Big Australia” Rudd, will be the keynote speaker on Thursday March 7th. His topic will be “Population growth for a stronger economy”. He would do better to find out how Melbourne residents actually feel about more population growth. Melbourne is presently groaning under the planning and environmental implications of being capital of the state with the highest numerical population increase of any in Australia, with no relief in sight.”
Miss Quirk said, “Mr. Rudd needs to be severely questioned on the title of his talk but the context makes this unlikely. Were he speaking in parliament or the public realm he might be questioned but his speech on Thursday will be heard at a forum of an industry known for its bias to high population growth with no practical or logical end point.”
President Quirk added, “Population growth is placing strong pressures on our environment and on planning. Economically it is causing reduced housing affordability and a huge need for upgrading, replacing and building infrastructure and services. It is clear that Victoria is already not keeping up with these increasing needs in the vital areas of schools, hospitals and fire and ambulance services.
Endless and high population growth is not inevitable and with the reality of an energy and resource constrained future, responsible leaders would be planning for a stable population and a steady state economy as soon as practicable. SPA hopes these issues will be raised effectively but the program and industry bias of the conference gives little hope of this.”
Not so livable Victoria - Melbourne rally calls on government to curb immigration and stop advertising for new settlers overseas for Victoria in view of environmental and amenity impacts of huge population
Despite record high temperatures - on 29 November, the hottest day on record for that month - about 80 concerned leaders of activist groups in Victoria attended the "Stop the Planning Disaster Rally" organised by Rosemary West of Green Wedges Coalition Victoria. Supporters gathered on the steps of Parliament on Thursday 29 November. Many representatives of peak group members of Protectors of Public Land Victoria were present.
Resolutions Moved at Rally “STOP The Planning Disaster” 29 November 2012 on the Steps of Parliament
This rally calls on the State Government:
1 To abandon proposed changes to the commercial, green wedge and rural zones.
2 To revise new residential zones by:
i. Excluding retail, office and other inappropriate commercial uses;
ii. Excluding multi-unit development from the neighbourhood residential zone;
iii. Including mandatory height controls and density controls on all multi unit development in conjunction with local councils and residents; and
iv. Strengthening heritage protection through rewriting the heritage legislation.
3 To retain the democratic right of residents to object to and appeal planning/development proposals.
4 To abandon the East West Link tollway and implement the Rowville, South Morang, Doncaster and Tullamarine rail projects.
5 To lobby the Federal Government to curb immigration and stop advertising for new settlers overseas for Victoria in view of the environmental and amenity impacts of the huge population boom and of State Government failure to provide for infrastructure.
6 To refer legitimate planning zones review to the proper forum - the Parliamentary Standing Committee on the Environment and Planning – and to allow a new six-month public consultation period.
Moved Rosemary West, Green Wedges Coalition Inc.
Seconded Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc.
Some groups came from as far away as the Mornington Peninsula. Celebrity Rod Quantock performed the role of MC of the rally (see attached photo taken by Jill Quirk President Sustainable Population Australian Inc. of Rod against the Green Wedges banner.) Among the speakers were Professor Michael Buxton of RMIT; Colleen Hartland Member of the Legislative Council for the Western Metropolitan Region; and Brian Tee Shadow Minister for Planning and Sustainable Growth, Member of the Legislative Council for the Eastern Metropolitan Region. People also stayed to speak in the "Open Mike" segment at the end of the rally, despite the searing temperatures.
Jill Quirk (President Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) Victorian and Tasmanian Branches, and National Representative) will host Dr Geoff Mosley to speak at the AGM, this Saturday, 7/7/2012, at 2PM. Dr Mosley was Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1973 to 1986 and is currently the Australian Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. Given the raging population growth and six new suburbs bearing down upon our Green Wedges, SPA Victoria's AGM is of great importance to Victorians.
On- Saturday July 7th at 2.00p.m.
At -Balwyn Library Meeting Room, 336, Whitehorse Road, Balwyn, Victoria.
There will be an election of office bearers for 2012-13- at the meeting. Financial members are invited to nominate for any of the following positions- president, vice president, treasurer, secretary, or committee member (5 positions)
Following formal business our Guest Speaker, DR GEOFF MOSLEY, will reflect on his 60 years of involvement with conservation, the lessons learned, and the way ahead.
John Geoffrey "Geoff" Mosley (born 14 September 1931) was Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1973 to 1986 and has had a lifelong interest in preserving wilderness. His contributions were acknowledged in 2005 when he was awarded a Medal of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In June, 2008 he was named as the Individual Award winner in the Australia World Environment Day 2008 Awards. In 2008 he also became the Australian Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoff_Mosley
“Westerfield” –destroyed in 2010 for the construction of the Frankston By-pass in 2010.
Venue details: 336 Whitehorse Rd
Balwyn VIC 3103, Australia
Tram number:109
Melway ref. 46E8
Contact: Jill Quirk- 0409742927 jillq[AT]optusnet.com.au or vic[AT]population.org.au
By upwards engineering population growth, the Victorian and Australian Governments are showing disregard of "ultimate deprivation" and leaving "future generations with the task of rationing energy, oil and food..."
Today, Friday, 18thth November, 2011, Sustainable Population Australia, Victorian Branch president, Jill Quirk has condemned Victorian Planning Minister Matthew Guy's recently announced approval of a development at Clyde North of up to 6600 houses covering more than 400 hectares to expand the population by 18,500.
The previous Victorian Government's ‘Victoria in the Future’ (VIF) projections estimated that Casey could reach a population of 370,000 by 2026 which is larger than the present city of Canberra.
“Due to government growth policies, we are risking future food security by destroying prime agricultural land for new housing estates. As one of Australia’s most fertile and valuable agriculture areas, Casey should be preserved for the vital role of food production. Casey has a favorable climate, topography, fertile soils, supportive transport and recycled water infrastructure. With climate change, limited arable soil and oil depletion, Australia needs markets close to cities as Casey is to Melbourne.” said Ms. Quirk
“The push for ever more population growth by governments and business is denying us the chance of an environmentally sustainable future. The apparent lack of real long term thinking with regard to population and the emphasis on the electoral cycle from our politicians will leave future generations with the task of rationing energy, oil and food, and untangling the transport gridlock. The Victorian government should now concentrate on providing reliable transport services to the existing outer suburbs rather than seeking to swell these areas with anther million people by 2025.”
“Instead of planning and policies based on growth and the disregard of ultimate deprivations, we need policies based on realistic appraisals of our long term needs, a sustainable population, and sustainable economy” said Ms Quirk.
Further comment: ph. Jill Quirk, President Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch) 0409742927.
(The patrons of Sustainable Population Australia are Patrons: Hon Bob Carr, Dr Paul Collins, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Lowe, Dr Mary E White.)
"Despite this grim picture, unlike global population growth, our own population future is very much under our control and we need not be overwhelmed. Stability of population numbers is within our reach this century. We owe it to Victorians who will be born 50 years from now to take control so that those who come after us can enjoy what we have enjoyed – clean air and water and reliable food and housing supplies. To do nothing is the real crime against humanity." Jill Quirk, President, Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) Victoria.
Today, 28 October 2011, Jill Quirk, President of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) spoke about the frightening trends in human population growth world-wide and in Victoria and Australia. Her message was that, despite the fact that Victoria and Australia are part of the overpopulation problem, it is still possible to stop before we are overwhelmed. Politicians and the commercial interests they serve by fanning local population growth here need to be made instead to serve the public good by stabilising our population.
"On October 31st the world’s population will zoom past the 7 billion mark just 12 years after reaching 6 billion. Despite taking all of human history up to 1800 to reach 1 billion, many seem to think the phenomenon of ever increasing human numbers is inevitable and normal!" said President Quirk.
"Globally we are growing at the expense of the environment on which we depend, threatening our water, air and food security. Our numbers are impacting on all the other creatures with whom we share the planet."
Ms Quirk said that, to many, the global human population “explosion” seems so vast that it is difficult to see how we might ever exert control over it.
"No one can be sure when this staggering increase might reach its zenith. We do know however that growth, even slower growth cannot continue forever."
Despite the impression we are given that "For those who've come across the seas, we've boundless plains to share," [1] we are running out of pure fresh freely accessible water, our few good soils are being impoverished and built over in Victoria, or threatened by extreme mining technologies like gas-fracking. Yes, our population is growing much too rapidly and is already too big. But this is not because of natural growth, it is because of government policy for extreme immigration numbers.
"Sadly, Victoria’s population also grows very rapidly cheered on by vested interests, lobbyists and the government. This growth and associated development is destructive to coastal areas, waterways and biodiversity, all of which also struggle with a changing climate," says Jill Quirk.
On a more optimistic note, however, she adds, "Despite this grim picture, unlike global population growth, our own population future is very much under our control and we need not be overwhelmed. Stability of population numbers is within our reach this century."
She says, "We owe it to Victorians who will be born 50 years from now to take control so that those who come after us can enjoy what we have enjoyed – clean air and water and reliable food and housing supplies.
To do nothing is the real crime against humanity."
We are often given the impression and even schoolchildren receive this propaganda that Australia is nearly empty and should therefore take on as many people as wish to come here, as if this arid continent could somehow act as a relief valve for the rest of this enormous planet. In fact Australia is already very densely populated on the thin green fringes around its southern and Eastern coasts, but very sparsely populated in the interior. There is a reason for this settlement pattern. Climate, rainfall and soil fertility make much of Australia almost uninhabitable for industrial society. Quite a bit of Australia is dry hot desert, similar to the Gobi Desert in China, which is also sparsely populated. Contiguous to Australia's deserts are rangelands. Those parts contain some mines and rangeland grazing, but little else. Even when only Aboriginal peoples lived here they only occupied the rangelands in very low numbers, which they kept low with very strict marriage laws that limited fertility opportunity for clan members.
Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
www.population.org.au
Patrons: Hon Bob Carr, Dr Paul Collins, Prof Tim Flannery, Prof Ian Lowe, Dr Mary E White
[1] From "Advance Australia Fair," Australia's National Anthem.
Melbourne people can hear MP Hon. Kelvin Thomson speak at the A.G.M. of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch) on July 16th at 2.00p.m. The topic will be, "The population issue in Australia - post Population Strategy." The title refers to Minister Burke's recent "Population Strategy." In this article we talk about why this meeting is so important for Victorians and Australians and discuss events leading up to it, from Barry Jones's Australia's Population Carrying Capacity Inquiry (1994), through the Bracks Population Summit (2002) and Tony Burke's "Population Strategy" (2011). We at http://candobetter.net hope that subsequent events in Victoria will maintain and support SPA Vic's promotion of a better population policy for Australia. (Inside: Link to Steve Vizard's surprisingly good program contrasting Jones Report with Burke Report.)
Committee for Melbourne growthers are scraping the bottom of the barrel looking for new ways to get people to move to the hated high-rises the property development lobby has planned all over Melbourne. Mary Drost says, "Both Andrew McLeod and Bernard Salt are obsessed with growth. It is exactly this growth that is making Melbourne less liveable as everything is overstretched." Jill Quirk asks, "I wonder if Salt and MacLeod think widows Jeannie Pratt or Elisabeth Murdoch should vacate their premises for a flat in an "activity centre" or is just people who inhabit more modest post war triple fronted accommodation who are being asked to move over ?"
A group with an apparent interest in land speculation, with the dignified sounding name of The Committee for Melbourne, is pushing a crude barrow to get elderly people to give up their homes. It wants them to agree to be rehoused in high-density apartment blocks and thinks that if the State government lets them pay less stamp duty, they just might be tempted. This was the subject today of an article by John Masanauskas in the Herald Sun, "Lobby group calls for older couples to give up family homes," 17 February 2011.
It is probably not coincidence that, at the same time, Boroondara Council is trying to force 48 so-called "activity centres" (i.e. high rise developments) on its protesting residents. In a hangover from the Brumby government's human sardine policy, the council hopes to attract some of an additional 17,600 people that a few business hopefuls have promoted as likely to arrive over the next 16 years, based on shaky statistical projections.
Bernard Salt, the well-known KPMG spruiker for population growth and megacities, and the CEO of the Committee for Melbourne, Andrew McLeod, have managed to leave some unfortunate quotes for posterity.
Herald Sun writer, John Masanauskas, gives the impression that Salt believes that middle Melbourne (whatever that is) is fraught with the probability that "dad's going to drop dead and mum's going to be living by herself in a three-bedroom home". Salt predicts that the iconic 'mum' will eventually "find that the three-bedroom home with a garden and lawn becomes too much for her and she will therefore want to downsize."
In Salt's world, like Brumby and Bracks's macho-small-minded worlds, all women are 'mums' if they aren't girls trying to overcome a 'man drought' [catch his latest book], and all men are 'dads'. One senses that they are doomed, like cabbage moths, to fly and mate, lay their eggs, then die. Some, however, live on past their use-by date and become 'empty nesters', as CEO, Andrew McLeod calls them, opining:
"If they are an empty-nester living near a school they are actually taking a role that from a society's perspective would be better taken by a family."
You get the picture. According to this kind of view, societies and their suburbs should be reorganised into age cohorts. None of this bowls club down the end of the street and the little old lady in the corner shop, or the old man sitting on his porch in the sun, surveying his tomato patch, and the children visiting the lady over the road to climb her mulberry tree and use her grown-up daughter's books and toys, while their mother heads down for a game of tennis and their father takes the dog for a long walk up to the top of the hill to watch the sun set over the bay.
Salt and McLeod seem to have an odd and naively statistical view of societies, where people are labelled according to some of their qualities, like cards in packs, and are okay about being moved around in a kind of Lego world on the whim of some boys who never quite got over playing Monopoly.
Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Victoria, comments:
"I think the rhetoric from Bernard Salt and Andrew Macleod that widows and "empty nesters" should leave their homes" and move into apartments for the convenience of others who would like to buy their houses is opportunistic , sexist, vulture-like, devoid of compassion or understanding, and the language of Grandpa and Grandma and (quote Bernard Salt) "rattling around in their veneers" is belittling to ordinary people.
"I wonder what the adult children of these targets of the hovering developers and real estate agents think of this blackmail? I also wonder if Salt and MacLeod think widows Jeannie Pratt or Elisabeth Murdoch should vacate their premises for a flat in an "activity centre" or is just people who inhabit more modest post war triple fronted accommodation who are being asked to move over ?"
She adds,
"Behind the figure of ridicule, the widow, whose husband has "dropped dead" is a person in shock, in grief and who is making a huge adjustment to a major life-change.
Importantly, she perceives,
"The widow is extremely vulnerable and could well fall prey to the kind of persuasion and pressure that Macleod and Salt seem to want to institutionalise so that everyone these people meet will echo the same refrain. 'Don't rattle around in the veneer, it is your civic duty to move out of your house now and let a young family with children at Lauriston and Camberwell Grammar move in.'"
And then she asks an interesting question:
"I wonder what Barry Humphries might say about this. He ridiculed the Australian suburban lifestyle for decades but I don't think he ever seriously thought of disrupting it and breaking it down."
What next? Will Mr McLeod and Mr Salt be investing in cemeteries and urging everyone to buy vertical plots in order to squeeze more coffins in? With the baby boomer curve on course to crash over the next 20 years, it's a sure thing.
Planning Backlash is the name of an umbrella group under which many different suburban groups gather to protect the rights of citizens whose environments and properties are threatened by intensification of development and the population growth that drives this. Mary Drost is their main spokesperson.
Mary says that all of Melbourne will be affected by this population growth and overdevelopment if the Boroondara Council gets away with it, and that the local people are furious that Booroondara Council is continuing a densification plan dating from when Justin Madden was Planning Minister under the Brumby government, which lost power in the last election. Densification will wreck the area, she says, and Planning Backlash is appealing to their State Member, Ted Baillieu, for help based on promises he made before the election.
Mary is actually pictured in John Masanauskas's article in a photo by Ben Swinnerton (which I have cropped above), leaning, smiling, over a picket fence, with a large sunny garden behind her.
She says,
"Both Andrew McLeod and Bernard Salt are obsessed with growth. It is exactly this growth that is making Melbourne less liveable as everything is overstretched. Their obsession is taking them to new boundaries, now they want the older people to get out of their houses to make way for the next generation. Maybe they want to euthanase us as well. I am not going to be stuck in a dog box to keep McLeod and Salt happy!"
She adds, "They would have done well at the time of the Russian Revolution, move the mobs into the big houses and let the owners live in one room. How would the grandmothers look after their grandchildren in dog boxes? What a nerve!"
As her own lifestyle shows, everyone is not a poor old used up mum or a dad pining away without purpose. For years, in a tradition starting with her mother, young couples have been living rent-free in a little flat that Mary's husband and she had made at the side of the house. In this way they "get a start in life." In return they help where they can.
"People usually stay about three years and then get their own place, after they have saved a deposit," Mary said. "Sometimes our guests have been young couples who were relatives."
At the moment, she is sharing her house with one couple, who "came back for a while." In the flat on the property there is a second couple.
She thinks and I think that this is a good way to use property. But it's not what Salt and McLeod would want, because their objective is to increase property turnover. Their guiding principle is commercial, not social.
Mary says that her brother and his wife, who have grandchildren, could not do without a big house, as they are "forever having children coming to stay and the families come home for dinner sometimes twice a week."
"What nonsense to say that we should all be moving into dog boxes," Mary exclaims. "Some no doubt want to, but I tell you this, it is the quickest way to give up and age and die. If you want to stay young then stay active. Don't forget that the government wants people to age in place and not go into nursing homes. The Dutch do this very well Australia should learn from them."
Ironically, Bernard Salt, who looks to be over sixty in his photographs, actually lives in a heritage house a couple of blocks from Mary. We googled the address we were given and provide a picture above. We have removed the name of the street from the picture.[1] Candobetter.net doesn't believe in exposing peoples' addresses unnecessarily, but it does seem on the face of it that Mr Salt talks the talk but doesn't walk the walk, and it is of interest to those dealing with the impacts of his marketing to see where he is actually coming from.
Since her photo and some comments appeared in Masanauskas's article, a number of people have looked Mary up in the phone book and have called her, agreeing strongly with her defense of her right to remain in her home.
[1] After an unsolicited comment which complained about this exposure of Mr Salt, we canvassed our editors and writers who all agreed that it was relevant to show how Mr Salt lived. It was felt however that the important thing was to convey how he lived, which should include the suburb (of which it seemed typical, and which was the same suburb as Mary Drost's), but not necessarily the street. Therefore we have reduced the information on the photo. Discussion welcome.
This article title is based on the title of a debate at the Municipal Association of Victoria AGM, which took place on Thursday, October 21 at Hotel Sofitel. The article itself is based on speech notes from SPA Victoria's president, Jill Quirk, for her part in the debate. Panel members were: Jill Quirk, President of Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch); Pru Sanderson, CEO, VicUrban; and Professor of Physiology, Roger Short, Melbourne University. The Chair was Jon Faine.
Sustainable population MUST BE THE DEAL since the alternative is societal and ecological collapse.
Sustainable means – able to be sustained/maintained without decay or degradation. Unless this is envisaged over a long period of time, it is meaningless in human terms. The previous custodians of this continent had staying power of over a period of 40,000 -60,000 years. Europeans have only made their mark- over about 230-50 years.
In other words if we are to be sustainable over any significant and meaningful time period, we’ve hardly begun.
Victoria at present does not have a sustainable population.
The State of the Environment (SOE) report 2008 reflects the simple fact that most areas of the state are highly stressed. Most natural vegetation, waterways, wetlands, coasts and rivers are reported in a parlous condition.
“Population growth, settlement and consumption patterns and climate change are the key drivers of environmental degradation in Victoria”
“Victoria’s population growth, increasing affluence and the expansion of our cities and towns, have contributed to unsustainable levels of resource consumption and waste production.”
It is clear that population growth combined with the broad practices of our society are leading us in the wrong direction. It is ultimately our environment which will dictate whether or not we are sustainable and it is therefore non negotiable. In order to achieve sustainability our environment must come before all the considerations including the economy.
To understand the seriousness of the SOE report and that with continuing population growth, if no changes are made, the situation will worsen must be also to understand that the end of our stay here is in sight.
Sustainable population must not be confused with "sustainable growth" in population which of course is an impossibility, even an oxymoron. Stabilization of our population as soon as we can should be our aim as it is necessary but not sufficient for long term sustainability
Greenhouse gases are an example of a waste product and in Australia rise in lock step with population growth.
Instead of striving to stabilize our population, which is necessary but not sufficient for sustainability, the push from those with the loudest voices is to grow as fast as we can.
Our leaders and planners need to incorporate resource depletion, including peak oil, in realistic rather than fanciful visions of our future.
In Victoria- what I hear is:
“Extension of UGB
High rise /Activity centers.”
But:
Post peak oil, Melbourne's outer suburbs and established areas will become less sustainable. Peak oil will highlight terrible problems of transport and self sufficiency.
Authorities, leaders and planners must bear this in mind.
Right now, as we cannot start any sooner –
The issue of democracy at a local level is crucial in shaping our future and needs to be protected.
We associate planning very much with local government. The role of councils ideally is as an intermediary between the rights of some and the assumed freedoms of others. At this level, the sustainability of local areas has the best chance of being protected.
As David Suzuki once said, referring to the protection of the environment, “Every victory is temporary, every defeat is permanent.”
We have no serious option but to be a sustainable population, so to me it is definitely a deal. The possibility of achieving it rests with all levels of government.
We need to acknowledge our impact, lessen our individual impact, stop seeking more, do less, and acknowledge that infrastructure is not the cure-all for runaway population growth.
We can stabilise our population. We cannot do it immediately but by mid century – yes.
We are not sustainable now.
We face oil depletion and declining environment
We owe it to ourselves and to our grandchildren and great grandchildren that a sustainable population must be THE DEAL.
Audience of about 250 Councillors and Council officers from across Victoria, at MAV Annual Conference on Thursday, October 21, at Hotel Sofitel. Session title: "Sustainable Population – Deal or No Deal?"
Session Chair: Jon Faine
Panel members: Jill Quirk, President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch); Pru Sanderson, CEO, VicUrban; Professor Roger Short, Melbourne University.
Each Panel member spoke for approximately10 minutes , followed by questions and general discussion.
Quark writes about how the mainstream press is becoming increasingly hysterical in its promotion of growth lobby propaganda, particularly since the Australian Federal election in August 2010.
Population sociologist Sheila Newman's talk, "Stable Population dynamic demystified," presented fascinating original material using social and biological research showing how most animals, including humans, can maintain steady state populations in different environments and conditions. Whilst showing how small populations can be maintained, it failed to bear out Hobbs' dismal prognostications.
The talk given by population sociologist Sheila Newman at the AGM the Victorian branch of Sustainable Population Australia on July 22nd entitled "Stable Population dynamic demystified" or "Population dynamic simplified" was received with great interest by the audience. Ms Newman presented original material using both social and biological research showing how most animals including humans can maintain steady state populations in differing environments and conditions. It was a fascinating talk based on diverse disciplines including sociology, legal systems, energy and land use planning. The talk presented new ideas which challenged many old assumptions. For those who were not able to hear this talk , the e-book on which it was based can be found at "The Urge to Disperse".
UPDATE DEC 2012: If you would like to know more, Sheila Newman has just published her amazing new theory in a marvellous new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). Forensic biologist, Hans Brunner writes of it: "This book takes us to a completely new paradigm in multiple species population science. It shows how little we understand, and how much we need to know, of the sexual reactions when closed colonies with an orderly reproduction system are destroyed, be it people or animals." Two chapters are on multi-species demography, the rest apply the theory to non-industrial societies and the author comes up with a completely new test for the collapse model of Easter Island, which will stun those who thought they knew all about it.
To give an outline of the range of this talk, Ms. Newman's first important point was that populations of any animals appear to be programmed to seek mating opportunities away from the individuals with whom they have grown up (Westermarck effect) which appears to be innate. This behaviour limits mating opportunities since individuals must be selective and eligible partners must be found. This is true from animals with which humans would identify such as apes or other higher mammals, but it seems to be universal and observable in much more humble creatures such as cockroaches. In human societies, this innate force has been translated into laws of behaviour in societies which prohibit mating with close relatives.
An important observation was that these prohibitions extended to further relatives when the carrying capacity of the land was low, thus ensuring that populations did not exceed carrying capacity. Ms Newman discussed exceptions to this pattern and the importance of territory for independence from parents, marrying, and raising offspring. All these factors mitigate against overpopulation.
Her talk then went on to discuss the modern situation which has enabled the Leviticus dictum "be fruitful and multiply" to gain currency and disrupt population stability. Influxes of foreigners disrupting land tenure practices, dispossession of original inhabitants (e.g. colonisation) have served to cause population blow outs as people move from rural to urban environments. Reference to original territory is lost and "fertility opportunities" with unrelated others abound. Ms Newman notes that colonised nations that have retained control over land have populations that are better under control and are better off materially than those who have not and that those nations which have not inherited from their oppressors the English legal and inheritance system have a definite advantage over those who have.
I have to admit to a predisposition to be very receptive to this way of viewing history and the population explosion we are undoubtedly part of. We were told by 17th century English Thomas Hobbes the natural state of mankind is to lead lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". We have come to believe that this is how life was even just a few hundred years ago. Although this view is widely accepted along with other sets of notions such as endless childbearing and universal high infant mortality my inclination has been not to believe that such a contrast exists between the past and the present and to pursue the veracity of another ancient commentary this time from Psalms 90
The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,
yet is their strength labor and sorrow;
for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
"Stable Population demystified" will have ensured that those with the door still ajar on viewing our past are now open and ready for further exploration.
Jill Quirk
Kelvin Thomson MHR, Federal Member for Wills, is holding a Population Reform Forum at a breakfast at the Zoo on 7 May 2010. These forums are being held at the same time all round Australia. Please note that the Melbourne Forum has been so popular that it is booked out and there is a waiting list! I mention this in case anyone is still thinking of attending.
Here is an amusing piece from Suzanne Carbone of the Age Melbourne Life Postcode 3000. I have attached Jill Quirk's cartoon of the elephant in the room.
"The Age 27 April 2010
POSTCODE 3000
The Elephants Will Be In A Room Nearby
FEDERAL MP Kelvin Thomson, Dick Smith and Sustainable Population Australia have teamed up to hold simultaneous population forums across Australia on May 7. Debating the nation's population boom, projected to be 36 million mouths to feed by 2050, is no longer the elephant in the room. Funny about that because back in 2008, Sustainable Population Australia's president, Jill Quirk, drew a cartoon with an elephant in a room with "Population" written on it. On May 7, Thomson will lead the breakfast forum with brainiac Barry Jones in Melbourne, and Smith will be in Sydney. In a quirky coincidence, the Melbourne forum is being held in Melbourne Zoo's Trail of the Elephants precinct, the Bong Su room to be exact. Bong Su is the male Asian elephant who was instrumental in increasing the elephant population with female elephant Dokkoon. They're the proud parents of big baby Mali."
Julianne Bell
Secretary
Protectors of Public Lands Victoria Inc
Jill Quirk, of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia, did a cracking job on this meeting that has given people another opportunity to hear and talk with Kelvin Thomson, Federal MP. Wills, Victoria. It would be a good start if all the other SPA branches in Australia also invited Kelvin to enlighten their cities and regions.
Why do I make such a fuss of Jill's part in this? Well, without people like Jill, persevering on population politics in Victoria - for years now - we would be in an even worse position vis a vis the tsunami the growth lobby wants to unleash. Credit, of course, has also been given to Julianne Bell, of Protectors of Public Lands and Royal Park Protection Group who convened an earlier speaker-meeting with Thomson. We should also be aware of Mary Drost, of Planning Backlash, and a number of other activists, such as Christine Pruneau of MRRA and Maryland Wilson of AWPC - almost all of them women - in Victoria - who have chosen not to remain silent and, self-funded, have stood up to be counted on population matters.
There is no doubt that if anyone can save Australia's democracy, environment and quality of life, it may be Kelvin Thomson. It is such a relief to hear someone speak up clearly over the constant dull roar of the growth merchants, from our Prime Minister, through every Australian state premier and treasurer, and all the bankers and property developers.
It seems that nearly everyone in big business has become completely craven, and, like King Midas, fascinated by gold, deaf to every birdsong. Official Australian values seem to have become as crass as those of the Egyptian pyramid commissioners, who wanted to take it all with them, and had their slaves killed so they would join them in death.
Yes, many Australians feel as if they are being enslaved by the growth lobby.
It would be wonderful if other politicians began to see through the growth merchants and got behind Kelvin. That would change Australia's outlook from one of anxiety to hope.
Meeting 29 November - details end of story
Australia's population is now rising at about 2% per annum. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has announced that our population could rise to 35 million by the middle of the century. Other experts estimate that 35 million is a conservative figure and it could be more like 40 million. It is certain that If the current growth rate continues, the population will double in 35 years. That means our population would be 44 million by 2045.
Australia's environment is under stress already with 22 million people. Not enough water reaches the mouth of the Murray River to keep the lakes of the Coorong alive. In Victoria water restrictions prevail and a desalination plant is being built. This means there is not enough fresh water in the state for people's current needs.
Why are our political leaders so pleased about the level of population growth when it causes so many logistical and environmental problems?
A handful of politicians voice an opposing view to the prevailing glee about growth.
The Hon.Kelvin Thomson MHR for Wills is notable amongst these.
Come and hear Kelvin Thomson speak on:
- "Population reform- Political challenges"
When?
3.00p.m. Sunday November 29th 2009
Where?
Meeting Room 1 North Melbourne Library (upstairs) 66 Errol Street, North Melbourne
(next to the Town Hall and Post Office near the corner of Errol and Queensberry St. (Parking usually available in surrounding streets.) Tram No 57 from Elizabeth St. travels along Errol St.
All welcome ! This is a public meeting held by
Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
Please join us for afternoon tea and meet Kelvin Thomson afterwards.
contact
Jill Quirk President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
[email protected] (If that doesn't work messages will be forwarded from astridnova[AT]gmail.com)
0409742927
What a coup for long-time environment and democracy activist, Julianne Bell! Last night in Melbourne at the AGM of the Royal Park Protection Group, federal ALP Member for Wills, Hon Kelvin Thomson announced and detailed his 14 point plan for population reform, which is reproduced at the end of this article.
The plan was well received by an audience composed of the Royal Park Protection Group [RPPG] members of members of other Victorian community groups.
Questions from the audience indicated a high degree of engagement with the topic both on the local and global level.
After delivering his plan , Kelvin Thomson spoke of his lifelong interest in Australia's unique native fauna, and his concern that it can very easily be extinguished mainly through through loss of habitat and that our compassion should extend to living creatures other than humans. He said that many small species will disappear and not even be noticed by most people however be a loss to bio-diversity all the same.
Thomson also referred to the more iconic example of the koala whose perilous survival has been most recently in the news. He pointed out that there are only as many koalas remaining in the wild as there are additional humans in Australia every few weeks!
Kelvin Thomson expressed his concern that Australians need to leave our continent in as good condition as it was when we found it.
A motion at the end of the meeting was passed unanimously and in support of Kelvin's position which also called for a population summit.
It was very appropriate that RPPG host this ground-breaking speech because RPPG was formed to defend 20 ha of Royal Park, in the heart of Melbourne, from being sold off by the Bracks government to Australand (Singapore majority owned) developers for a housing estate which was advertised worldwide to prospective immigrants. After this extraordinary gift of the peoples' land, the Bracks government even gave Australand $80m of tax payers money, purportedly in exchange for 10 days use of the land for the Commonwealth Games. Unable to win against the might of corporations and government, and with little help from Victorian unions, RPPG members went on to form Protectors of Public Land (Vic) and have now led Victorians in organising against the destruction of democracy and public land for commercial interests profiting from politically engineered population growth.
Kelvin Thomson will be the guest speaker at a Public meeting run by
Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian branch)
on Sunday November 29th at 3.00pm.
Topic: Population reform- Political challenges
At: Meeting Room 1 North Melbourne Library 66 Errol St. North Melbourne.
All welcome.
Enquiries to jillq[AT]optusnet.com.au
Tonight I am releasing for discussion a 14 point plan for population reform.
The first 11 points go to how we can stabilise Australia’s population.
1. Stabilise Australia’s population at 26 million by cutting the net overseas migration program to 70,000 per annum.
2. Cut the skilled migration program to 25,000 per annum.
3. Hold the family reunion program at 50,000 per annum.
4. Increase the refugee program from 13,750 to 20,000 per annum.
5. Alter the refugee criteria to include provision for genuine climate refugees.
6. The revised number of annual permanent arrivals from these programs would be 95,000 - 50,000 family reunion plus 25,000 skilled plus 20,000 refugees. Two more factors need to be considered: the number of people departing permanently from Australia, and the number of people arriving permanently from New Zealand. To reach a net overseas annual migration target of 70,000, the number of automatic places available for New Zealanders needs to be restricted to the number of departures from Australia over and above 25,000. The Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement would be renegotiated to achieve this, splitting available places for New Zealanders equally between skilled migrants and family reunion, and allowing New Zealanders to also apply and compete with other applicants under these normal migration programs.
7. Reduce temporary migration to Australia by restricting sub-class 457 temporary entry visas to medical and health related and professional engineering occupations.
8. Require overseas students to return to their country of origin and complete a two-year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence.
9. Abolish the Baby Bonus.
10. Restrict Large Family Supplement and Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children to those presently receiving them.
11. Dedicate the savings from abolishing the Baby Bonus and reduced expenditure on Family Payments for third and subsequent children towards increased investment in domestic skills and training through Universities and TAFEs.
The final three points go to how we can play a role in helping stabilise global population.
12. Increase Australia’s aid to meet the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income with money saved by abolishing Fringe Benefits Tax concessions for company cars, and greater use of off-the-shelf purchases in defence equipment purchases.
13. Use more of Australia’s aid budget for educating girls and women, and for better access to family planning and maternal child health, and advocate in the United Nations and international fora for other countries to do likewise.
14. Put overpopulation on the Agenda for the Copenhagen Climate Change talks.
How have I arrived at this plan?
I have set out the reasons why I believe the world’s projected population levels are too high and unsustainable – global warming, food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability, overcrowded cities, transport congestion, fisheries collapse, species extinctions, increasing prices, waste, war and terrorism – in detail in a speech to Parliament on 17 August. [Candobetter.net Editor: This link is broken, but the contents are reproduced below. The broken link was http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php.]
If we are going to achieve this outcome, everyone has a role to play. Every country has both the right and the duty to stabilise its own population at a level compatible with its own resources and environment. In equity terms, this is an easier issue to deal with than carbon emissions, where the poorer countries have a legitimate anger that the wealthy countries have had all the fun; wrecked the neighbourhood, and the police have been called in to shut the party down just as poorer countries were starting to arrive.
The equitable approach is for each country to pull its own weight and stabilise its own numbers. Countries should not be asked to do more, or less, than this.
The two most promising ways of achieving population stability around the world are educating girls and women, and the provision of better health services, particularly reproductive health services. These two measures lower the fertility rate. According to the World Vision chief executive Tim Costello, for every extra year a girl stays in school, her fertility decreases. “She has fewer children and more optimism and power”, says Tim Costello. Professor Roger Short says that removing the barriers that separate women from the knowledge and technologies they need to manage the size of their family will cause family size to fall, even in poor, illiterate communities. He says conversely, as a result of lost attention to family planning since the 1990s, the population projection for several countries in 2050 has been raised, e.g. Kenya, up from 54 million to 83 million.
There are four things Australia can do to promote this international responsibility. First, in international fora such as the United Nations,
we should promote population stabilisation, better education for girls and women, and improved health services.
Second, we should increase our overseas aid program to meet the United Nations target of 0.7% of Gross National Income. This would involve an increase of $350 million in 2010-11 and a bit over $1 billion in 2011-12. The Government is committed to returning the Budget to surplus, so clearly such an increase would involve finding savings from elsewhere in the Budget – the money has to come from somewhere. One option which has merit in my view is scrapping the $1.5 billion fringe benefit tax concession for company cars, a subsidy from taxpayers which has been criticized by the Australian Conservation Foundation and other groups as damaging to the environment. Another is to trim fat from the defence budget by buying off-the-shelf military equipment rather than engaging in incredibly expensive modification. For example the Air Warfare Destroyer project cost double the initial estimate of $3.5 to $4.5 billion, to be $7.5 billion. So too did the Amphibious Vessel project, initially estimated at $1.5 to $2 billion, and finishing at $3 billion.
This additional money could be channelled into three critical areas – improving education levels, improving health outcomes and reproductive health services, including contraception, and developing renewable energy-based economies which have a path to prosperity that is not linked to increasing greenhouse emissions.
Third, we should put the issue of population stabilisation on the Agenda for the Copenhagen Climate Change talks. Al Gore has listed population increase as one of the three key drivers of climate change, and he is right. It is hard to see how any serious carbon reduction targets can be met while the world’s population continues to escalate. Until we address the issue of population, we are fighting global warming with at least one arm tied behind our back. Whilst it is unreasonable to ask developing countries to remain impoverished, it is not unreasonable to ask them to adopt a goal of population stabilisation.
Fourth, we can lead by example, and stabilise our own population.
The reasons why I believe Australia’s population needs to be stabilised are also set out in detail in my speech to Parliament on 17 August, which can be accessed at [candobetter.net editor: Link no longer functional, due to Kelvin's retirement"http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php">http://www.kelvinthomson.com.au/speeches.php.]
Population is a function of birth rates, death rates, and migration rates. I am in favour of everyone living as long as possible. That leaves the migration rate and the birth/fertility rate.
Australian population increase over time is set out in the following graph:
Population policy cannot be a long-term side effect of ad-hoc immigration practice (Barry Jones Report, 1994). Immigration policy should be based on population policy.
Australia’s population has been skyrocketing in recent years, and the principal reason for this is the dramatic increase in our migration rate. This increase is due to the record high levels of Australia’s permanent entry program in recent years and to a surplus of long-term temporary arrivals, notably students and workers, over departures.
The increased migration rate has made all the previous projections about our population quite inaccurate understatements. Australia is now officially projected to have 35 million people by 2049. Just 2 years ago the Intergenerational Report predicted we would have 28 million.
Previous predictions and projections about Australia’s population have been gross underestimates. Back in 1984 the World Bank’s population projection for the year 2100 was 21 million. We reached that in 2007! A decade ago, forecasters were predicting we would not hit the 22 million mark until 2040. We’re there already!
The idea that the population is going to take care of itself is just wrong. Not only does it never happen, population is now a runaway train.
To bring the train back under control we need to return to a net overseas migration number more in keeping with previous practice. Net overseas migration in 2007-08 was 213,461. I believe this should be reduced to 70,000. If we cut net overseas migration to 70,000, and the fertility rate was maintained at 1.8, according to Professor Bob Birrell, of Monash University’s Centre for Urban and Social Research, the population would reach 26 million by the year 2050 and stabilize at about this level for the rest of the century.
The age profile of the population would also remain relatively constant.
A net overseas migration figure of 70,000 is not unachievable or without precedent. There were several years in the 1980s when the net overseas migration figure was in the 70,000s, or less. There were three years in the 1990s when the net overseas migration figure was less than 70,000. As recently as 1998 the net overseas migration figure was less than 80,000. In 1994 the Australian Academy of Science advised the Federal Government that it would be prudent to keep net migration below 50,000.
A net overseas migration rate of 70,000 is not inconsistent with Australia’s obligation to be a compassionate international citizen, nor is it inconsistent with a humanitarian approach to allowing family reunion for present Australian citizens. The present number of refugees and asylum seekers taken by Australia is 13,750. It has been at the 12,000 – 13,000 level for many years. It could be increased to 20,000, an increase of over 45%, within the context of a large cut to the overall migration program.
If we increase the refugee program we would also be better prepared for the possibility of climate refugees. There is a distinct prospect that in future low lying islands in the Pacific will be rendered uninhabitable by sea level rise and storm surges. I think our refugee criteria should be altered to enable us to accept people from the Pacific Islands provided they can demonstrate that their former homes are genuinely uninhabitable as a consequence of climate change, and provided that Australia is not being used as an overflow by countries which have failed to address their own population capacity and allowed themselves to become overpopulated.
Nor is a generous family reunion program inconsistent with population stabilisation. The family reunion program stood at 49,870 in 2007-08 and 56,366 in 2008-09. A figure of 50,000 could be retained.
What is incompatible with population reform is our skilled migration program. In 1995-96 it was 24,100. It had risen to 114,777 by 2008-09 – four to five times what it used to be. It should be cut back to 25,000.
To those who object that we need these workers, I ask, why is it that the catch cry for just about every Government project, and every private sector project, is that it will provide jobs for our workforce. If we are already short of workers, why do we need to find them these jobs? Why is it that 100,000 young Australians aged between 15-24 dropped out of the labour force last year?
Ambit claims about the need for a vastly increased workforce or an imminent lack of labour, also underpin much of the ageing population scare (See Overloading Australia, pp 98 ff).
And workforce participation by older Australians is rising, not falling, and could rise further. For 2008-09 average participation in the workforce was 81 per cent for 50-54 year olds, 69 per cent for 55-59 year olds and 49 per cent for 60-64 year olds. These participation rates have gone up during the last decade. Further improvement is possible. Why have our Disability Support Pension numbers risen? Its annual growth rate in the last 10 years has been 3.16 per cent, and it continues to rise despite Government efforts to reduce it. Skilled migration also undermines the need for a concerted effort to lift aboriginal employment.
Employers who claim they will need a huge labour force in the future usually mean that they would like a large pool of job seekers to select from, to suppress wages. In reality no managing director will employ more staff than necessary. Automation and robotisation are often preferred.
To those who say, these workers are needed for the skills they bring to Australia, I disagree. Only a minority of Non-English Speaking Background migrants use professional qualifications in the work they find once admitted to Australia. This applies to former overseas students and those with qualifications from overseas. And bringing in 3485 cooks and 1082 hairdressers under skilled program visas in 2007-08 is an indictment of our own education and training system. The present arrangement is suppressing market signals that would improve our education and training system. We have become addicted to skilled migration. It is time we broke the habit.
Our Universities and TAFES have had their funding slashed and have been told to make ends meet by bringing in overseas students. It would be better if young Australians who are presently missing out on a place at a University or TAFE were given a place. 18,500 eligible applicants missed out on a university place this year, up from 12,600 last year. Professor Bob Birrell says that the real number of students missing out may be much larger. He says eligible applications amount to 227,000, compared with actual acceptances of 161,000- a difference of more than 66,000. The proportion of resident young people enrolled in higher education is relatively low by European standards. This reflects the period since 1996 when there has been very little increase in the number of domestic subsidized places. There should be a large increase in domestic enrolments in higher education so we can match the demands of the job market, where at least half of net job growth requires degree credentials. This requires an increase in funding, and the money has to come from somewhere.
This is where the birth rate issue comes in.
Australia’s fertility rate has moved between 2004 and 2007 from 1.76 to 1.93 children per women. This does not mean that births are less than deaths. Births per year in Australia are twice deaths, and have been so for many years.
In 2004 the Howard Government introduced the ‘baby bonus’ to encourage women to have more children. This payment is contradictory to the objective of stabilising Australia’s population. Furthermore if it has any effect, it encourages women to have children for the wrong reasons. Children should be loved and wanted, not seen as a potential source of income. If it has no effect, it is a waste of taxpayers’ money which could be better used elsewhere. Its present cost to the revenue is $1.4 billion in 2009-10.
Recently the total fertility rate has been increasing. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), the Australian total fertility rate was 1.93 babies per woman (2007), up from 1.81 in 2006 and the highest since 1981.
I have no problem with ongoing Family Payments for the first and second child, but payments for third and subsequent children fly in the face of efforts to achieve population stabilisation.
The Large Family Supplement is paid for the third and each subsequent child at a little over $280 per annum. Its cost to revenue in 2009-10 is estimated at $208 million. It should be phased out – while it would be unfair to remove this payment from those presently receiving it, it should be grandfathered, and third and subsequent children born from now on would not be eligible for it.
The Family Payments Budget for 2009-10 is $17.4 billion. It is one of the Federal Government’s largest and most complex expenditure programs.
The STINMOD micro simulation model produced by the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling (NATSEM) indicates that around 375,000 children are third or subsequent children.
Assuming that the distribution of rates of payment for these children is similar to that for Family Tax Benefit A recipients generally, it can be assumed that about 33% would be on the maximum rate, about 30% on less than maximum rate but more than base rate, about 30% on base rate, and about 7% on less than base rate.
Using 2009 rates for 0-12 year olds adjusted up a little to take account of higher rates for 13 – 15 years, the cost is estimated to be approximately $1.3 billion in 2009-10.
As with Large Family Supplement, I would propose that Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children be restricted to those presently receiving it.
The combined savings from cutting out the Baby Bonus, Large Family Supplement, and Family Tax Benefit A for third and subsequent children would be approximately $1.4 billion plus $200 million plus $1.3 billion, ie nearly $3 billion.
While this saving would not all become available immediately, it is very significant and could greatly boost the levels of university and vocational education in Australia. It could be used to boost the number of places being offered by Universities so that eligible students do not miss out on a place, it could be used to boost funding for TAFE, and used to boost funding for apprenticeships.
The Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education said we could achieve a demand driven entitlement system for domestic higher education students, where public funding will be provided for each undergraduate student eligible for a university place, at a cost of $1,130 million over 4 years. The Budget Papers have allowed $491 million from 2009-10 to 2012-13 towards this objective. Finding the extra $639 million and funding the extra places would be money well spent.
In relation to the TAFE sector the Australian Education Union has called for increased funding to meet projected needs in vocational education and training of $1,125 million. Key areas for spending include:
• Projected growth in enrolments, the economy’s anticipated need for higher level qualifications, investment in retraining the workforce and strategies to engage those in society who are under or un-employed.
• Workforce transition and renewal and professional development.
• Building and technology improvements.
• Student services and support programs.
I would also like to put money into reducing HECS debts, which I think are too high, and into increasing payments to apprentices and Youth Allowance, which I think are too low. I acknowledge, however, that these are expensive items, so improvements in these areas would be subject to getting in the full $3 billion in family payments savings, and therefore would be some time off. I think it needs to be, regrettably, a second order priority to creating the extra places for young people, and some not so young people, who are presently neither studying or working.
Temporary entry permits have skyrocketed in Australia. In 1995-96 they were 3.1 million. By 2007-08 they had reached 4.2 million.
This number is made up of:
• 110,570 subclass 457 visas;
• 278,180 student visas;
• 3,808,610 other visa classes.
There are no caps on student visas, 457 visas, or Working Holiday visas. Nor are there caps on numbers taking up bridging visas or 485 visas after completing courses here.
It is said that this doesn’t matter because the temporary residents all return to their country of origin. This is not true. At least half of former overseas students are staying on either by gaining permanent residence visas or temporary bridging or 485 visas. Maybe around a third of 457 visa holders gain permanent residence, mainly via Employment Nomination visas. Furthermore, while they are here, they add to Australia’s population pressures.
In 2008, on average nearly one million temporary residents, including tourists, were here at any one time.
Temporary entry work visas are a tool for undermining the wages and conditions of Australian workers, and a recipe for exploiting overseas ones.
The Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union has uncovered dreadful examples of the use of sham contractors who are underpaid or not paid at all, and threatened with deportation if they complain or seek to enforce their rights. Subclass 457 work visas have no worthwhile role to play, except in very limited situations. They should be restricted to areas of clear need, that is to say the medical and health related and professional engineering occupations. If we really are short of workers, how come political and business leaders are forever promoting proposals with the catchcry, “jobs, jobs, jobs?”
Overseas students should be required to return to their country of origin once they have completed their course. They should be subject to a 2 year cooling off period before being eligible to apply for permanent residence in Australia. Since the Howard Government changed the rules in 2001 to allow students to apply for permanent residence, onshore, overseas student numbers have skyrocketed from 204,000 to over 467,000 in just seven years. Rorts and scams have crept into the program and damaged Australia’s international education reputation. Decoupling the link with permanent residence will put the focus back on education where it belongs, restore Australia’s international education reputation, and probably also reduce temporary entry numbers.
At present we also have uncapped migration from New Zealand. The number of New Zealand citizens stating that they are settling permanently in Australia has increased from 16,364 in 2002-03 to 34,491 in 2007-08 and 47,780 in 2008-09. About 7,000 of the 34,491 were third country migrants who have migrated to New Zealand, then got citizenship, then come to Australia. This open-ended, uncapped program makes it impossible for Australia or New Zealand to implement a population policy and it needs to be reformed.
The Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement with New Zealand would need to be re-negotiated to do away with the open door. The present arrangement has no formal legal status. In any event, we need to stabilise population globally. Hence getting other countries such as New Zealand to address their population capacity, rather than simply acting as an overflow for surplus population, is important.
What we should do is monitor annual departures, and renegotiate the Trans Tasman Travel Arrangement with New Zealand to close off automatic entry for New Zealanders, while allowing the places made available by annual departures from Australia above 25,000 to be filled by New Zealanders, splitting available places equally between skilled migrants and family reunion. Otherwise New Zealanders would be eligible to come to Australia under the normal programs, applying and being assessed in the same way as everyone else.
This would give Australia control over our net migration number which we presently don’t have. We can set a target for permanent skilled migrants, family reunion, and refugees, but we have no idea how many people are going to come in from New Zealand, and no idea how many people are going to leave Australia. These numbers are too important to be left to chance, and we should set a net target figure. The approach I have adopted is based on a net overseas migration target figure of 70,000: 95,000 in from skilled, family reunion and refugee categories, expecting at least 25,000 to leave, and allowing New Zealanders to fill the places made available through this process. The number of departures in recent years has been far higher than 25,000, and even when permanent arrivals numbered around 90,000 it was still well above 25,000.
In combination these measures would do great things for Australia. First and foremost they would stop us wrecking our environment. Second they would get us to focus on higher education and training for young Australians. They would open up job opportunities for younger and older workers who are presently missing out. They would help us meet carbon reduction targets. They would make housing more affordable. They would put a halt to the creeping inflation and price rises for food, water, and energy. They would address the declining quality of life in our cities, the traffic congestion and the disappearing backyards and open spaces. They would enable us to be compassionate, decent international citizens, taking more refugees and lifting our overseas aid. Above all else they would discharge our obligation to pass on to our children and grandchildren a world, and an Australian way of life, in as good a condition as the one our parents and grandparents gave us.
Shortly after his lunch with the "Progressive Business Association" must have ended, Mr Madden, who apparently departed shyly out the back door, looked surprised to be intercepted and presented with the resolutions of the Bastille Day Rally against Urban Expansion and Rotten taxes by Julianne Bell, Rosemary West and Jill Quirk, acting on behalf of the environment and democracy.
See also: Unnatural Growth and Rotten Taxes and Animal Apocalypse Shortly after his lunch with the "Progressive Business Association" must have ended, Mr Madden, who apparently departed shyly out the back door, looked surprised to be intercepted and presented with the resolutions of the Bastille Day Rally against Urban Expansion and Rotten taxes by Julianne Bell, Rosemary West and Jill Quirk, acting on behalf of the environment and democracy.
See also: Unnatural Growth and Rotten Taxes and Animal Apocalypse
Julianne Bell presents Planning Minister Mr Madden the resolutions from Melbourne's Bastille Day rally against Urban Expansion, July 14, 2009. (Photo by Jill Quirk)
Bastille Day, Melbourne, Tuesday 14 July, 2009 Many groups with converging environmental, landholder and democratic concerns gathered at the corner of William and Collins Streets, to hear speakers alert the public about Planning Minister Madden's unpleasant and undemocratic plans for Victoria's green wedges.
Ms Bell of Protectors of Public Lands (Victoria), Jill Quirk, of SPA, Ms West, of Green Wedges, and Michael Hocking, of Taxed Out (S.E. Region), had organised a day of protest, which Planning Backlash had urged people to attend. "In our view the attack on Victorians by the Brumby Government in implementing the urban growth boundary expansion, the Green Wedge land grab and levying exorbitant taxes on family farms and small land owners is extraordinarily serious. It has far reaching implications for, amongst other things, destruction of the environment and climate change," wrote Mary Drost.
The meeting passed the following resolutions under the heading of "Protectors of Public Lands":
This meeting:
1. Deplores the fact that Planning Minister Justin Madden MLC is hosting developers at an ALP fund raising lunch and is putting Victoria’s planning policies up for sale.
2. Calls upon the Minister to:
• abandon the Green Wedge land grab.
• levy developers, not family farmers and small landowners.
• hold a population summit to determine how many people Victoria can reasonably sustain.
• meet with community groups at Parliament House to discuss the Urban Growth Boundary Extension and related matters.
Instead of their usual stamping ground on the steps of Parliament House, where politicians are apparently willing to take the flack for the growth lobby, the protesters had decided to demonstrate closer to the source of Victoria's woes - at a meeting with big business and developers held by the ALP-fundraising arm known as the Progressive Business organisation in the Intercontinental Rialto Hotel.
After speeches from Julianne Bell, Rosemary West, Michael Hocking and Brian Walters S.C., the demonstrators spread out in an angry body hundreds big across Collins Street, rhythmically shouting, "Axe the Taxes" and proceeded downhill to the hotel where Mr Madden's Bastille-Day rendezvous was scheduled.
Outside the hotel there were a number of impromptu speeches through a loud-hailer, punctuated with sustained chants of "Sack Madden", "Sack Brumby", whilst the crowd waited patiently, if noisily, for Julianne, Michael, Jill and Rosemary to deliver the resolutions to Mr Madden. It was clear that most of the people attending, particularly those who stood to lose enormous equity through taxes on any future land-sales or through enormously increased rates if they did not sell, were responding to immediate and serious threat. The faces were tense, there were tears glistening, voices were angry. One man with a continental accent took the loud-hailer and warned that people would be drained of every drop of blood - he meant money - if they failed to halt the process there.
Eventually the four delegates returned to say that they had delivered the resolutions but that Mr Madden had still not arrived for the lunch.
After some deliberation, and in view of the fact that the police had asked politely, the crowd disassembled, with cries of 'We'll be back!" Julianne Bell, Rosemary West, Jill Quirk and a candobetter journalist went around to a cafe behind the hotel and drank their coffee facing the window.
Mr Madden was spotted shyly leaving the hotel and was intercepted, as pictured in the photos. He did seek to separate himself quickly and turned away, but wheeled around when someone called out, "Marie-Antoinette! Are you afraid to talk to the people?" He then remained long enough for Julianne Bell to present him personally with the Meeting Resolutions. There was a brief chat, where he insisted that his door was always open, or words to that effect, prompting another comment to the effect that if it only cost $1,500 for business to lunch with him, then surely taxpayers who pay much more than that annually, could expect to have much more influence. A member of his party was heard to claim that the State Government has nothing to do with population growth in Melbourne, that it is a Federal Government responsibility. A member of the Bell party corrected this misapprehension.
Indeed, population growth policy, particularly through immigration, is more and more crafted and influenced by the States, for it is the state governments which look after land and water. Population growth increases the price of land and State Governments reap financial benefits from land-transactions via taxes. The Victorian government has a website called www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au (see more about this and the developer lobby in Melbourne at Melbourne 2008: Life in a destruction zone which shows some of its dedication to the policy of increasing population in Australia.)
One more thing. The resolution calling for a population summit could backfire, since Mr Brumby's predecessor, Mr Bracks, held the Melbourne Population Summit in 2002. This event was almost entirely given over to developer propaganda, with journalists making speeches to promote population growth, as if they actually experts. The Premier and many others misled the public by talking as if Australia's population was falling and presenting massive population growth as a benign, even positive. Auspiced by the developer officiated and funded Australian Population Institute (APop), the Dennis Family Corporation (Developers, Financiers, builders, land-bankers), various commercial media with a reliance on marketing land, Mr Pratt, a big advocate of big populations and 'managing water' for business reasons who was facing criminal charges before he died, with Master of Ceremonies, Steve Vizard - convicted of insider trading - it was a very sorry event which reflects and reverberates to this day to the great shame of all politicians associated with it.
The opaque but omnipresent relationship of Australian state governments to developers and big business is a source of disquiet. A Bastille Day lunch between Victorian Planning Minister, Mr Madden, and big-business seemed especially Marie-Antoinette, as hundreds of angry farmers, other landholders, wildlife and other environment groups, demonstrated outside.
All were concerned about the bad laws and injustices that excessive population growth is driving in Victoria. Most are beginning to realise that it is because of the Government's excessively close relationship with the developer growth lobby that Victoria is suffering from water shortages, homelessness, increased violence and loss of democracy. A new tax the government wants, which would involve taxing landowners instead of developers for government-imposed changes to land-zoning could beggar thousands of people.
Jill Quirk, Victorian President of Sustainable Population Australia, said, “Planning Minister Madden's Bastille-day lunch with the ALP's developer-linked Progressive Business fund-raising arm is ironic.” 
Yes, Jill. Bastille Day is the anniversary of the time in the French Revolution when the people demanded representation in return for their taxes from a worthless government that was selling off public land to the highest bidder in order to finance debt and printing worthless money.
The Progressive Business organisation calls itself is ‘an associated entity of the Australian Labor Party [which] from time to time, donate funds to the Party’. It has two membership types : Corporate - $1,550 (incl. GST) and Business - $990 (incl. GST). Corporate members get 5 Tickets to the Breakfast Briefing Program and access to 5 Twilight Briefings for 5 company representatives; Business members get 3 Tickets to the Breakfast Briefing Program and access to 5 Twilight Briefings for 3 company representatives.
Most Victorians pay far more than this in taxes every year but the Minister for Planning doesn't listen to them.
The Victorian public get NOTHING but coercive population growth and development expansion. Research has shown that many of the government's sponsors and business associates reap far more in public contracts than they ever donate.
President Quirk commented that, "In a democracy, government policies should be conceived and drafted with the interests of ordinary citizens in mind. The push for more and more population growth causes friction, disruption and loss for those directly impacted and also to the citizens at large. Nature as a whole is being steam-rolled and many cannot sleep at night from rage and despair."
The Victorian Environmental Assessment Council is currently conducting investigation into Crown and Public Land in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Track record of such inquiries mean that only a naive Melbourne citizen would expect anything from this one, other than excuses to confiscate and give away to developers more and more of Melbourne's public land.
For this reason it is important for alternative forums to give as much publicity as possible to the issues in hand. We do this here via one excellent submission, from Jill Quirk, on behalf of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia. (Below this report the submission is reproduced in its original form.)
Ms Quirk states, "SPA (VIC) with its particular focus on the interaction of population levels/lifestyle and the environment notes that the investigation into public and crown land has most likely sprung from the pressures of population growth on land use and the increasing importance and competition for the use of this land to a growing population with diminishing private open space available to it."
Ms Quirk's submission highlights what should be the outstanding priority of the report, the problems caused by the State Government's obdurate engineering of a much bigger population. Without this massive population, Victoria's water supply would probably be adequate and the city would be cooler, because there would be fewer buildings, less industrial activity and more trees and green spaces.
The purposes of the investigation which the SPA VIC submission addresses are to systematically identify and assess the uses, resources, condition, values and management of Crown land, and public authority land in metropolitan Melbourne; to assess values of Crown land, and public authority land for areas not committed to a specific use, and report on appropriate future uses relevant to Melbourne's livability and natural values; and to report on the contribution of Crown land, and public authority land to Melbourne's livability and opportunities for enhancement of this contribution.
Ms Quirk explained that SPA VIC would urge a broad approach with particular consideration given to the pressure on land- of a rapidly rising population with diminishing private open space.
She observed that, "Diminished private open space is prescribed by the Melbourne 2030 urban consolidation blueprint necessitated by projected massive population growth, and she also notes that this projected population growth was under- estimated at the time of design.
This situation makes it necessary to contend with the problem of a very much larger population in the future in Victoria with no end of this growth anticipated.
"At current rates of growth Melbourne could have 8 million people well before the end of the century", Ms Quirk warned.
The problem of encouraging population growth with no end in sight is further complicated by the declining state of the Victorian natural environment (as noted in the 2008 Victorian State of the Environment report).
The inevitable increased urban temperatures in Melbourne from an increasing proportion of built up areas, (Urban Heat Island effect) make the "need for open space with vegetation, especially trees to mitigate or modify increased temperatures at local levels", especially urgent.
"Open space which is not concreted or paved allows maximum absorption of water in to the ground which is important for the health and survival of vegetation in the surrounding area. It is therefore imperative to consolidate and increase permeable open space," Ms Quirk observes.
Ms Quirk has called the Enquiry's attention to the fact that democracy is a victim of Melbourne's recent land-use changes. "The impact on democratic rights and democratic structure of centrally engineered changes in use of public land and reduction of public land," she said, and referred to http://candobetter.org/node/628.
Ms Quirk points out that, "There is a pure environmental value of open land."
"A fundamental contribution of land that has not been built over is its capacity to absorb water. Once it has been built over it cannot serve this function. In addition, water shortages through drought and increased demand on our water supplies have resulted in noticeable loss of green areas both in public and private gardens. Thus any that remain are crucial to the health of Melbourne’s urban environment..
"The other contributions of land with vegetation (especially trees) are to cool the immediate environment via shade and transpiration. Heating up of the urban environment has occurred through expansion and densification necessitated through population growth (Urban Heat Island effect) as well as because of global climate change. The cooling attributes of trees and other vegetation create a microclimate of relief in an environment which is otherwise incapable of modifying the effect of summer heat. They thus reduce the need for inside use of energy using air conditioners and other cooling systems.
It must also be remembered that birds and small animals require habitat to survive. e.g. every Grevillea Robin Gordon that disappears removes food for several wattle birds. Public open space has become even more crucial for our wildlife than it was before the massive loss of private open space i.e. private gardens that is well under way.
Public open space has become even more crucial for our wildlife than it was before the massive loss of private open space i.e. private gardens that is well under way.
"With a rapidly increasing population (largely socially engineered by governments- notably state governments by designating nearly all areas in the state as in need of immigration) over the last 10 years, (see http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au) there has been noticeable pressure on both public and private land. This trend will continue with bipartisan pro population growth stances. Private gardens are being lost at an alarming rate as houses on generous blocks with trees are bulldozed for units and town houses , resulting in a far greater coverage of the land with impermeable surfaces and building, loss of trees, shade and other vegetation This leaves neighbours with less and less relief from built up areas and often owning no garden themselves people rely more and more heavily on public land for recreation. The benefits of open space to people may not always be accurately measured by the number actually on the land at a particular time. The benefit to some may be simply in the relief and reassurance of walking past an open space."
"The value of open land is so much more than the dollar price estimated in terms of what it would yield if subdivided and sold to developers or built on to create a revenue raising venue. It is a defect of our land valuing and legal system that it fails to account for many damages to quality of life through changes to land use."
"We were fortunate in Melbourne that our founders were far sighted in setting aside areas of land for Melbourne’s people. Unfortunately their provisions for future generations have sometimes been exploited for short term objectives (according to Coasian economic values) at the expense of the general population.
These considerations should be uppermost when making assessments with respect to –uses and values of public land. Democratic rights and structure at a local level should be strengthened as opposed to their removal to distant government and commercial forums."
The Final Recommendation made by the SPA Victoria report is that there should be no erosion or loss of public open space from our current situation. It asks that the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council focus on maintaining and maximizing the natural attributes of any land under consideration for the benefit of Victorian citizens present and future.
"We ask that the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council focus on maintaining and maximizing the natural attributes of any land under consideration for the benefit of Victorian citizens present and future."
ORIGINAL SUBMISSION BELOW
The Secretary
Metropolitan Melbourne Enquiry
Victorian Environmental Assessment Council
Level 6
8 Nicholson Street
East Melbourne 3002
16 February 2009
Dear Sir/Madam
Re Investigation into Crown and public land
Introduction:
I am writing on behalf of Sustainable Population Australia: Victorian Branch (SPA VIC).
SPA is an environmental organization whose aims and objectives are:
.To contribute to public awareness of the limits of Australian population growth from ecological, social and economic viewpoints.
.To promote awareness that the survival of an ecologically sustainable population depends on its renewable resource base.
.To help promote policies that will initially lead to stabilization of Australia’s population by encouraging near replacement fertility rates and low immigration rates.
.To promote urban and rural lifestyles and practices that are in harmony with the realities of the Australian environment, its resource base and its biodiversity.
.To advocate low immigration rates while rejecting any selection based on race.
.To help promote policies that will lead to the stabilization, then reduction of global population.
SPA (VIC) with its particular focus on the interaction of population levels/lifestyle and the environment notes that the investigation into public and crown land has most likely sprung from the pressures of population growth on land use and the increasing importance and competition for the use of this land to a growing population with diminishing private open space available to it.
With reference to the purposes of the investigation
(“The purposes of the investigation are to:
(a) systematically identify and assess the uses, resources, condition, values and management of Crown land, and public authority land in metropolitan Melbourne;
(b) assess values of Crown land, and public authority land for areas not committed to a specific use, and report on appropriate future uses relevant to Melbourne's livability and natural values; and
(c) report on the contribution of Crown land, and public authority land to Melbourne's livability and opportunities for enhancement of this contribution”)
SPA VIC would urge a broad approach with particular consideration given to the following:
1. The pressure on land- of a rapidly rising population with diminishing private open space. Diminished private open space is prescribed by the Melbourne 2030 urban consolidation blueprint necessitated by projected massive population growth (which as it turns out was under- estimated at the time of design.)
2. A very much larger population in the future in Victoria with no end of this growth anticipated (At current rates of growth Melbourne could have 8 million people well before the end of the century.)
3. The declining state of the Victorian natural environment (as noted in the 2008 Victorian State of the Environment report)
4. The inevitable increased urban temperatures in Melbourne from an increasing proportion of built up areas, (Urban Heat Island effect) and the consequent need for open space with vegetation, especially trees to mitigate or modify increased temperatures at local levels
5. Urban water management: Open space which is not concreted or paved allows maximum absorption of water in to the ground which is important for the health and survival of vegetation in the surrounding area.
6. The impact on democratic rights and democratic structure of centrally engineered changes in use of public land and reduction of public land. (http://candobetter.org/node/628)
Pure environmental value of open land-
A fundamental contribution of land that has not been built over is its capacity to absorb water. Once it has been built over it cannot serve this function. In addition, water shortages through drought and increased demand on our water supplies have resulted in noticeable loss of green areas both in public and private gardens. Thus any that remain are crucial to the health of Melbourne’s urban environment.
The other contributions of land with vegetation (especially trees) are to cool the immediate environment via shade and transpiration. Heating up of the urban environment has occurred through expansion and densification necessitated through population growth (Urban Heat Island effect) as well as because of global climate change. The cooling attributes of trees and other vegetation create a microclimate of relief in an environment which is otherwise incapable of modifying the effect of summer heat. They thus reduce the need for inside use of energy using air conditioners and other cooling systems.
It must also be remembered that birds and small animals require habitat to survive. e.g. every Grevillea Robin Gordon that disappears removes food for several wattle birds. Public open space has become even more crucial for our wildlife than it was before the massive loss of private open space i.e. private gardens that is well under way.
Value of open space to residents of Melbourne
With a rapidly increasing population (largely socially engineered by governments- notably state governments by designating nearly all areas in the state as in need of immigration) over the last 10 years, (see http://www.liveinvictoria.vic.gov.au) there has been noticeable pressure on both public and private land. This trend will continue with bipartisan pro population growth stances. Private gardens are being lost at an alarming rate as houses on generous blocks with trees are bulldozed for units and town houses , resulting in a far greater coverage of the land with impermeable surfaces and building, loss of trees, shade and other vegetation This leaves neighbours with less and less relief from built up areas and often owning no garden themselves people rely more and more heavily on public land for recreation. The benefits of open space to people may not always be accurately measured by the number actually on the land at a particular time. The benefit to some may be simply in the relief and reassurance of walking past an open space.
The value of open land is so much more than the dollar price estimated in terms of what it would yield if subdivided and sold to developers or built on to create a revenue raising venue. It is a defect of our land valuing and legal system that it fails to account for many damages to quality of life through changes to land use.
We were fortunate in Melbourne that our founders were far sighted in setting aside areas of land for Melbourne’s people. Unfortunately their provisions for future generations have sometimes been exploited for short term objectives (according to Coasian economic values) at the expense of the general population.
These considerations should be uppermost when making assessments with respect to –uses and values of public land. Democratic rights and structure at a local level should be strengthened as opposed to their removal to distant government and commercial forums.
Recommendation: that there should be no erosion or loss of public open space from our current situation and we ask that the Victorian Environmental Assessment Council focus on maintaining and maximizing the natural attributes of any land under consideration for the benefit of Victorian citizens present and future.
Sincerely,
Jill Quirk
President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian Branch)
Contact: Via candobetter.org or by post to PO Box 1173 Frankston (for public correspondence)
20 Feb 2009
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