SPA

Right now the UK is politically divided on whether or not to leave the European Union and the mood in many quarters is ugly. It seems that there is a very strong chance that the forthcoming Brexit referendum could swing in favour of the Leave vote, something that seemed unimaginable a few years ago. The main reason for most people wanting to leave is because they are concerned with the UK’s rapid rate of population growth. This article is by Michael Bayliss (President of Sustainable Population Australia Victoria and Tasmania Branch) and Mark Allen (Population, Permaculture and Planning)

A proportion of the blame can be placed on those who have a narrow vision of what it is to be British in the 21st century and who are often misled by those parts of the media that take a more sensationalist approach.

However, the left also need to bear some of the responsibility because they have for far too long placed the topic of population in the politically incorrect basket. With net migration last year coming in at 300,000, people have a right to be concerned, especially when there is no end point to this rate of growth in sight. What is all the more concerning is that the refusal by many on the left to engage on this important issue has allowed the right to exploit this to their advantage by peddling all kinds of fear and untruths. Sadly it appears to be working.

So what lessons are there to be learned here in Australia? There is a parallel because we too are experiencing rapid population growth with net immigration in 2015 at 168 000, so the impact here is larger on a per capita basis.

While it may appear that this would be tempered somewhat by the sheer size of the Australian landmass, this population growth is centered mainly around the Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane conurbations. Until there are jobs, infrastructure and the political will, our boundless plains will continue to be just that. Considering that these plains are mostly desert and rangeland, there is an argument that they are mostly not suitable for new urban settlement anyway, so the focus is very much on our narrow strip of green along the Eastern seaboard. To put this in perspective, the populations of Sydney and Melbourne are growing by 1600 and 1760 a week respectively and people are beginning to feel it.

Meanwhile the government (and just about everyone else) are currently doing a good job of keeping our high rate of immigration away from the public radar. Instead we keep reinforcing the association in the minds of many people of migration with refugees. As John Howard famously promoted this very misunderstanding when he said on the radio 2014:

“One of the reasons why it’s so important to maintain that policy is that the more people think our borders are being controlled, the more supportive they are in the long term of high levels of immigration...And one of the ways that you maintain public support for that is to communicate to the Australian people a capacity to control our borders and to decide who and what people and when come to this country.”

However, the wool cannot be pulled over our eyes forever as the negative consequences of population growth only keep intensifying. Eventually more and more people will join the dots and it is then that we face the threat of the fear- mongering far right taking a foothold.

Do we really have to wait until then? If we engage in sensible rational discourse now about what constitutes a sustainable rate of growth we can avoid all of this. This means that the left have to come to the table. If the issue continues to be ignored we could end up with a situation similar to what is going on in the United Kingdom and it will leave the topic in the hands of those who feed off fear and hate.

This issue is only going to get bigger as Australia's population continues to grow by a new Adelaide approximately every three years. People of compassion need to be the ones who set the tone for the conversations that will ultimately come. If the compassionate fail in this responsibility, they will create a void where people with bigoted views will take centre stage.

Australia is a multicultural country with a proud tradition of supporting refugees and this needs to be the central message on the left. We do not need to be an apologist for the rapid population growth that is being used to justify an economic ponzi scheme.

It is time to put left and right ideologies aside and focus thoughtfully on delivering the most equitable and compassionate outcomes for all people and the earth as a whole. How rapidly we grow our population and how we distribute that population should be part of that discussion.

The views in this article do not necessarily correspond with the views of Sustainable Population Australia

Sunday 14 Feb 2016 at 12-12.30pm: Mark Allen of Population Permaculture and Planning asks: Is it possible to accommodate a growing population without unacceptably high density living and urban sprawl? If so, what rate of population growth should we be looking at and what types of community should we be creating? This workshop discusses the merits of village style living in combination with permaculture principles and asks the question, where do we go from here?

Sunday 14 Feb 2016 at 12.30-1pm: Mark O’Connor, co-author of Overloading Australia, will look at why environmentalism is almost meaningless when there is no plan to limit growth of population, why this issue is often ignored, and what a better form of environmentalism could and should do. What are humane and practical ways to limit Australia’s and the world’s population? (Sustainable Population Australia - Victorian Branch (SPA Victoria) organised this event.)
http://www.slf.org.au/event/population-permaculture/Sustainable Population Australia presents 

POPULATION, PERMACULTURE AND PLANNING

Permaculture based sustainable planning

Weekend of 7-8 March 2015: Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) - Australia’s only environment group campaigning on the impact of human population - will examine the question “Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph?” in a half-day symposium to be held in Adelaide. “Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph” will be held on Saturday, 7th March at 1 pm, at the Hawke Centre, UniSA West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide. The public is welcome to attend and admission is free.

The SA-NT Branch President of SPA, Dr Michael Lardelli, says development lobby arguments for increased immigration to reduce the so-called problem of an ageing population will be taken apart. “For instance, the government likes to proclaim that the elderly will put huge pressures on the health system, but the truth is that whether a person lives to 50 or to 100 the last few months of their lives are likely to require more health resources. It really has little to do with age – the problem lies in treating chronic health problems for people of any age.”

“On Saturday SPA will have three specialist thinkers who will tell us that any apparent problems associated with ageing are all manageable”.

Dr Katharine Betts, Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Swinburne University, will be speaking on The Challenges and Benefits of an Ageing Population. She agrees that ageing presents some challenges but compared with the problems created by continual growth these are trivial. “The core benefit of an ageing population is that more human resources will be not tied up in the unavoidable labour of caring for the young. In the more mature age structure that is currently blossoming there will be many more real human resources available creating huge opportunities for work, for caring and for building strong communities”.

Dr Betts’ conclusion is that

“the ageing of the population is one of the best things to have happened to the human race in the last 10,000 years”.

Another of the speakers, Associate-Professor Phil Lawn from the Business School of Flinders University, whose topic will be Myths about Superannuation and the Intergenerational Debate says that an ageing population poses no fiscal problem for the Federal Government.

“The secret to providing for future retirees is boosting the productivity of the working population which requires adequate investment in education, training, health, natural capital and low-emissions and energy-efficient critical infrastructure” says Professor Lawn.

Dr Jane O’Sullivan, from the University of Queensland, will present to the symposium on the topic A Sustainable Future Cannot be Reached Through the Pursuit of Youthfulness. She says that the Intergenerational Report released yesterday by the government should be recognised as political spin and that it is deeply flawed.

“We have every reason to expect that future Australian workers will be more productive for longer, provided they are not shut out of the workforce by a flood of imported job-seekers. Population growth, the government’s preferred solution to ageing, is hugely expensive and detrimental to productivity”.

State President of SPA, Dr Lardelli, says that the public is welcome to attend and admission is free.

“Population and Ageing: Disaster or Triumph” will be held on Saturday, 7th March at 1 pm, at the Hawke Centre, UniSA West Campus, 55 North Terrace, Adelaide

Sustainable Population Australia
South Australian Branch
http://www.population.org.au

This article forms the basis of a brochure, attached for download and printing, prepared by Roland Johnson for the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia.

‘The modern plague of over population is soluble by means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is …universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions of people who are its victims’. [1]
Photo: Martin Luther King, 1966 (revered symbol of human rights)

But powerful forces have opposed population control and the world’s population has more than doubled since 1966 to seven billion, with three billion desperately poor. Migration to rich countries is not a solution. Watch Roy Beck’s YouTube video , ‘World Poverty, Immigration and Gumballs’, to see why.

In the screenshot below, one gumball equals one million people; the tall jars represent the three billion poor. The wine glass holds five years’ migrant intake at one million a year (the current intake of the United States). Even if Australia took one million people a year (nearly four times our current intake) the numbers of the poor would continue to grow at around the rate of 80 million each year. [2] Besides, Australia’s immigrants are more middle class than poor.

Poor people desperately need help where they are, including with family planning. We must stabilise our numbers, both nationally and globally. Currently the world is finding it difficult to feed all of the seven billion already here. [4] It won’t get easier if the global population grows to 9.75 billion or more by 2050. [5]

AUSTRALIA

From 2007-13 Australia’s net migration averaged over 230,000 p.a. which, added to an average annual natural increase of 157,000 p.a, meant growth of 387,000 p.a. and an annual growth rate of 1.8 per cent. [6] This is among the highest in the world. [7] It is destroying Australia’s ability to help the world’s poor and this growth will take us from 24 to 64 million in 2100. [8] It must stop some time.

WHY NOT NOW?

A sustainable Australian population

Australia’s total fertility rate (TFR) is around 1.9 per woman, [9] technically below replacement— 2.1. But the population is still youthful. So we would keep growing due to natural increase until 2046, leveling off at 26 million. A policy to stabilise our population closer to 26 million rather than 64 million is needed.

The growth lobby of big business, developers and media moguls is forcing Australia’s growth to be among the fastest in the world. Our total increase of 387,000 a year is more than the population of Canberra (381,488 in 2013). [11] This growth is against the wishes of 70 per cent of voters. [12] Our 1.8 per cent p.a. exceeds Canada’s high 1.2 per cent & NZ’s 0.8 per cent. [13]

The Immigration Department is overloaded

Immigration Department files reveal “…enforcement capacity has collapsed…nine in ten skilled migrant visas may be fraudulent …[investigation into] a Somali people - smuggling cell linked to a terror suspect … ceased due to a lack of resources’. [14]

Two thirds of new arrivals are on some kind of working visas, which are issued by licensed agents subject to rorting and bribes. Many visa holders, through a well understood system of visa churning, eventually gain permanent residency. [15]

Immigration policy can be changed. Around 80,000 people leave Australia permanently each year. This means that we could have a refugee intake of 20,000 p.a., plus other special cases, and achieve nil, or at least very low, net migration.

Economic Costs

Dr Jane O’Sullivan’s submission to the Productivity Commission, re ‘Public Infrastructure Report’ shows that each new person added to the Australian population costs taxpayers over $100,000 in infrastructure. [16]

“[P]opulation growth and ageing will affect labour supply, economic output, infrastructure requirements and government budgets… Total private and public investment requirements over this 50 year period [to 2060] are estimated to be more than 5 times the cumulative investment made over the last half century…”

[17] Building the equivalent of a new Canberra every year is not cheap.

The Federal Government is dominated by the growth lobby and State governments compete for the prestige of a higher population. They promote immigration and advertise for immigrants. They rezone prime agricultural land for housing. Local governments then increase rates, which forces the famers off the land. Local councils also convert pleasant suburban streets to high-rise ghettos to collect more rates. The costs of the extra services are paid for by existing tax- and rate-payers.

Choking Cities

‘Population growth is great for business but governments can’t keep up. Roads are clogged and public transport is groaning. The health and education systems can’t cope with demand’. [18]

Employment

With many new workers and the loss of our manufacturing capacity, we are already unable to employ many of our young.

‘Between 2011 and 2014 the number of jobs increased by 400,000 but new migrants took 380,000. Some 240,000 more young Australians entered working age compared with those who retired, but they had to compete for only 20,000 extra jobs’. [20]

Agriculture

Australia looks big on the map but it’s an old, dry, infertile continent. Sprawling cities are taking some of our best land—land high on the two factors of good soil and reliable rainfall. (These are the areas shaded dark green on the map.) Much of Australia is marginal agricultural land (shaded yellow), and the greater part is unsuitable for any agriculture (shaded red).

Australia might be able to feed a domestic population of 60 million for a while, but this would leave us without food for export to pay for imports. A sustainable population must stay below 30 million; over that we start to sink to third-world standards.

Climate Change

Climate change will badly affect Australia’s agriculture with reduced irrigation in the Murray-Darling Basin and marginal land becoming arid. The so-called inexhaustible Great Artesian Basin is now declining. The idea of Australia as the food bowl of Asia is a myth!

Minerals

Iron ore reserves were once thought to be almost inexhaustible. But all of the high grade, easily accessed mineral deposits in Australia have been mined out and energy consumption in mining has increased by 450 per cent in the last 40 years. [21] We are one of the world’s largest exporters of LNG, but this leaves little for the local market. [22] In order to find more, pressure for fracking access to coal-seam gas builds up. This risks polluting underground water and increasing food insecurity.

THE GROWTH LOBBY

While all Australians pay the cost of population growth, big business profits from it. Their self interest in growth is understandable. But it is unconscionable that politicians, most journalists and many academics support them. (See ‘How the Growth Lobby Threatens Australia’s Future’, James Sinnamon.) [23]

The growth lobby finds ways to silence its critics. In the USA the prestigious Sierra Club was given $100 million on the understanding that it would not continue to oppose the one million p.a. migrating to America. [24]

The slur of racism by the growth lobby has stifled the population debate.

BUT

Martin Luther King understood the cost of growth. Was he a racist?

‘I don't think slowing the rate of growth is blaming immigration or ethnic communities’
(Voula Messimeri, Chairwoman of the Federation of Ethnic Communities Councils of Australia). [25]

Immigrants also suffer the effects of population growth. Poor migrants suffer the most.

The lobby promotes the fear of an ageing population

But the Australian Bureau of Statistics reports that ‘Even large difference in the level of net immigration will have a relatively small impact on the age distribution’. [26]

Natural increase is still strong so our population would not decline without net migration. Immigration makes us bigger, not younger. Besides the aged contribute to society in many ways—ways worth billions of dollars. [27]

What about humanitarianism?

Australia’s policies serve the growth lobby, not the greater good. There is no virtue in luring away the best and brightest from poor nations. Australia poaches doctors and nurses from developing nations to service the huge rise in our population. We take about 1000 doctors and 2800 nurses a year. How many more come on temporary or 457 visas?

Most of Australia’s migrants come for economic reasons; this is no way to help the world’s poor. We should accept refuges and provide desperate women of the third world—who procreate even when their children are starving—with the means of family planning.

THE ENVIRONMENT

‘Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, perhaps it’s time we control the population to allow the survival of the environment’. [28]

Sir David Attenbourough (celebrated conservationist)

The World Wildlife Fund reported in 2014 that the world wildlife population had been halved between 1970 and 2010. The human population doubled in the same peroiod contributing directly to 82 per cent of the loss of wild life. [29]

We are already destroying the environment by overstocking our poor soils, habitat destruction and deforestation all of which causes soil loss and salination. We are doing this in 2015 to support nearly 24 million people. What would we do to support 64 million?

GLOBAL WARMING

Global warming is our greatest immediate threat and as Figure 3 shows, Greenhouse gases increase with the world’s population.

And Australia’s per capita emissions are the highest in the OECD. [31]

Our responsibility to other people, those now living and those yet to be born, and our responsibility to other species, all mean that Australia must curb its runaway population growth. The world must slow down and stabilise too.

Prepared by Roland Johnson for Sustainable Population Australia Vic/Tas.
www.population.org.au

This material is available in pdf form for downloading and printing here: Population Flyer cropped.pdf

References

[1] tp://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Overpopulationaccessed 18 January 2015
[2] Roy Beck, World Poverty, Immigration and Gumballs The Population Reference Bureau’s annual World population data sheet shows a world population of 7.238 billion in mid 2014 and 1.137 billion in mid 2013, an estimated increase of 101 million people, 98 million of this increase in less developed countries. See www.prb.org
[3] Roy Beck, op. cit.
[4] Paddy Manning, ‘“Global” risks on food security mean us too’, The Age, 3 December 2011, p. 16
[5] The United Nations’ projections for 2050 include 9.746 billion (medium), 16.218 (medium high) and 24.834 billion (high).tp://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange/longrangeExecSum.pdfaccessed 18 January 2015
[6] Data on growth calculated from the ABS, Demographic Statistics, Catalogue no. 3101.0 various issues. The average NOM for 2007 to 2013 was 237,000 pa and the average annual growth rate was 1.81 per cent
[7] See World Bank http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW accessed 18 January 2015
[8] Projection series 20, published online with, Australian Bureau of Statistics (2013), Population Projections, Australia, 2012 (Base) to 2101, Catalogue no. 3222.0.
[9] The average total fertility rate from 2008-09 to 2013-14 was 1.9085. Calculated from ABS, Demographic Statistics, Catalogue no. 3101.0, June 2014, p. 39.
[10] See ibid.
[11] ABS, Demographic Statistics, July 2014, Catalogue no. 3101.0, p. 26
[12] Katharine Betts (2010), ‘A bigger Australia: opinions for and against’, People and Place 18(2), pp. 25-38
[13] World Bank data bank
[14] Nick McKenzie and Richard Baker, ‘Terror touches down’, The Age, 7 August 2014, pp. 1, 4.
[15] See Dr. R Birrell, Sydney Morning Herald online , 7 August 2014.

[16] Jane O’Sullivan (2014), ‘Submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into Infrastructure provision and funding in Australia’, p. 3 http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/135517/subdr156-infrastructure.pdf
[17] Productivity Commission (2013). An Ageing Australia: Preparing for the Future — Overview. Melbourne, Productivity Commission, p. 2
[18] Alan Kohler, ‘Healthcare and infrastructure spend tearing budget apart’, The Australian, 6 May 2014, p. 30
[19] Source: Department of Infrastructure and Transport, Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport, Road vehicle-kilometres travelled: estimated from state and territory fuel sales, Report 124, Canberra, Department of Infrastructure and Transport, 2011, pp. 372-3
[20] Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy (2014), Immigration and Unemployment in 2014,/em>. Monash University, Melbourne, Centre for Population and Urban Research
[21] Simon Michaux (2014) ‘The coming radical change in mining practice’ in Jenny Goldie and Katharine Betts (Eds) Sustainable Futures: Linking population, resources and the environment, CSIRO Publishing, Collingwood, Victoria, pp. 75-76
[22] See ‘Reform needed to minimise LNG export impact on manufacturers: report’, ,em>Gas Today, 24 July 2014 http://gastoday.com.au/news/reform_needed_to_minimise_lng_export_impact_on_manufacturers_report/088251/ accessed 25 November 2014
James Sinnamon, "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future."

Kenneth R. Weiss, ‘The man behind the land’, Los Angeles Times 27 October 2004
Quoted in Mark O'Connor and William Lines (2008), Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, Envirobooks, Sydney, p. 145
ABS (2000), Projections of the Populations of Australia, States and Territories: 1999-2101, Catalogue no. 3222.0, p. 2
For more on the benefits (and costs) of demographic ageing see Katharine Betts (2014), The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster?, Centre for Population and Urban Research, Monash University
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Attenborough accessed 25 November 14
Living Planet Report 2014 accessed 25 November 2014
Population data are from United Nations Department of economic and social affairs http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/Excel-Data/population.htm ; Carbon emissions data are from Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Centre (CDIAC)
The Garnaut Climate Change Review, Chapter 7, ‘Australia’s emissions in a global context’ 2008, updated in 2011 http://www.garnautreview.org.au/chp7.htm

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) today called on the Federal Government to undertake a complete review of immigration into Australia in light of claims of widespread rorting of the system.

This week, Dr Bob Birrell and Dr Ernest Healy from the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University issued a report called Immigration and Unemployment. In it, they claimed that the Department Of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) had not only issued record number of student visas to people who may not be considered genuine students, but had granted permanent residency to large numbers of skilled migrant applicants who did not have the appropriate skills being claimed.

According to the report, large numbers of cooks and accountants are being issued visas despite there being plenty of local candidates. It called for a halting the recruitment of migrant workers whose occupations are in surplus in Australia or for which there are available resident candidates.

National President of SPA, Ms Jenny Goldie, says both Labor and Liberal Governments have been so focussed on stopping “boat people” they have allowed rorting to continue in the much larger skilled program.

“Related to this is the 12-year high unemployment rate of 6.4 per cent in July,” says Ms Goldie. “Birrell and Healy have revealed that since 2011, migrant workers have taken 380,000 of the 400,000 net jobs growth. Young Australians, in particular, are missing out on jobs with unemployment for 15-24-year-olds hitting 14.1 per cent

The report revealed that visas were issued to 7000 foreign accountants in 2012-13 despite 7200 domestic students completing bachelor or higher degrees in accounting in 2012. The Department of Employment declared there was “a more than adequate supply of accountants”.

“You would think that the respective Ministers for Employment and Immigration would confer occasionally on what was in the best interests of the country, but apparently not,” says Ms Goldie.

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.

Packed meeting in Hawthorn backs vote on Victoria’s population

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."

Meeting voted for Gov to have scientific conference re long-term sustainable population

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.”

Saturday June 14th at 2.00pm
Hawthorn Arts Centre,
360 Burwood Rd Hawthorn,
Chandelier Room (Melways 45 D10)

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)

Panel

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

Amid all the talk by politicians and media about the imminent horror budget with cuts to many important services, Treasurer Joe Hockey fails to see the source of more than enough money to cover all these ‘holes’, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

Cutting immigration significantly, and thus the population growth rate, would free billions of dollars that would otherwise be spent on infrastructure.

SPA National President, Ms Jenny Goldie, says estimates of the infrastructure costs of each new person added to the Australian population range between $200,000 and $300,000 per person, whether a new born baby or an immigrant.

“Thus, with population growing by over 400,000 annually, the additional cost in infrastructure is at least $80 billion, of which $48 billion is from net overseas migration,” says Ms Goldie. “This infrastructure cost is a cost borne by the existing population, either as economic benefits foregone or as deterioration in infrastructure services.

“Halving net overseas migration (currently 241,000 annually) would mean a savings of $24 billion or more.”

Michael Reddell of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand wrote this week that ‘Internationally, there is no evidence over the last century that countries with faster population growth, or greater inward migration, have achieved faster income or productivity growth than other countries…’

“The Productivity Commission has already shown that Australia’s very high immigration levels add nothing to the welfare of Australians,” says Ms Goldie.

“Australia now has the highest rate of population growth (1.8 per cent) of any OECD country. This adds 1.8 per cent every year to the cost of health and hospitals, schools, transport, pensions and other support benefits without any improvement in the quality of service.

“A very large reduction in the immigration intake would solve the problems the Treasurer sees in the Australian economy,” says Ms Goldie. “And the abolition of all inducements for families to have more children would also help. This is not to blame immigrants; it is to blame government, opposition and much of the media who all appear deliberately blind to this very large and unmanaged financial cost to the Australian community.”

The Abbott government’s reopening of a visa loophole in the temporary working visa (457) program is a retrograde step, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

The Gillard government in 2013 had tightened the program to stop rorting by employers in the mining, construction and IT industries who knowingly hired hundreds more foreign workers than they had applied for.

SPA National President, Ms Jenny Goldie, says that with the recent decline of manufacturing in Australia and an increase in the unemployment rate to six percent in January of 2014 , it was critical that as many jobs as possible went to Australians.

“The Gillard government was right to tighten the 457 program in 2013,” says Ms Goldie. “Companies had taken advantage of it by bringing in too many workers, to the disadvantage of local workers.

“In July last year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported that real unemployment is more than double the official figure. It should actually be 13.1 per cent when ‘discouraged’ jobseekers, the ‘underemployed’ and those who want to start work within a month, but cannot begin immediately, are taken into account.”

Ms Goldie says bringing in excessive numbers of workers, albeit temporary, only puts pressure on governments needing to supply infrastructure for an additional 400,000 people who are added to the population each year. Australia’s population growth rate of 1.8 per cent is three times the OECD average of 0.55 per cent.

“Temporary workers need housing and hospitals just as much as permanent residents,” she says. “Perhaps if employers had responsibility for providing these themselves they would be less inclined to favour foreign workers over Australian residents.”

Sustainable Population Australia, SPA Media Release, March 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government response irresponsible and disrespectful

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Politically intimidating put-down

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

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

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

This is not 'good management'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr Guy should pay attention to that sustainable population charter.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

July 30. The film will be introduced by Australian population scientist, Sheila Newman, (Demography, Territory, Law) who will also lead discussion afterwards. Grounded in the theories of social scientist Riane Eisler, the film strives not to blame but to educate, to highlight a different path for humanity. Overpopulation is merely a symptom of an even larger problem - a "domination system" that for most of human history has glorified the domination of man over nature, man over child and man over woman. To break this pattern, the film demonstrates that we must change our conquering mindset into a nurturing one. And the first step is to raise the status of women worldwide.

Sheila Newman, who will be introducing the event, is the author of a new demographic theory book called Demography, territory and Law, the Rules of Animal and Human Populations.

The event is sponsored by Sustainable Population Australia and Arts in Action. You can find out more about it at www.artsinaction.com.au/mother-caring-for-7-billion. You can purchase tickets at the door or order them online. Tickets online are $7/$10 BF. At the door tickets will cost $12/$15.

Synopsis

Mother, the film, breaks a 40-year taboo by bringing to light an issue that silently fuels our most pressing environmental, humanitarian and social crises - population growth. In 2011 the world population reached 7 billion, a startling seven-fold increase since the first billion occurred 200 years ago.

Population was once at the top of the international agenda, dominating the first Earth Day and the subject of best-selling books like “The Population Bomb”. Since the 1960s the world population has nearly doubled, adding more than 3 billion people. At the same time, talking about population has become politically incorrect because of the sensitivity of the issues surrounding the topic–religion, economics, family planning and gender inequality. Yet it is an issue we cannot afford to ignore.

Today, nearly 1 billion people still suffer from chronic hunger even though the Green Revolution that has fed billions will soon come to an end due to the diminishing availability of its main ingredients–oil and water. Compounded with our ravenous appetite for natural resources, population growth is putting an unprecedented burden on the life system we all depend on, as we refuse to face the fact that more people equals more problems.

The film illustrates both the over-consumption and the inequity side of the population issue by following Beth, a mother and a child-rights activist as she comes to discover, along with the audience, the thorny complexities of the population issue. Beth – who comes from a large American family of 12 and has adopted an African-born daughter–travels to Ethiopia where she meets Zinet, the oldest daughter of a desperately poor family of 12. Zinet has found the courage to break free from thousand-year-old-cultural barriers, and their encounter will change Beth forever.

Grounded in the theories of social scientist Riane Eisler, the film strives not to blame but to educate, to highlight a different path for humanity. Overpopulation is merely a symptom of an even larger problem - a "domination system" that for most of human history has glorified the domination of man over nature, man over child and man over woman. To break this pattern, the film demonstrates that we must change our conquering mindset into a nurturing one. And the first step is to raise the status of women worldwide.

"Mother: Caring for 7 Billion" features world-renown experts and scientists including biologist Paul Ehrlich, author of “The Population Bomb;" economist Mathis Wackernagel, the creator of the ground-breaking Footprint Network; Malcolm Potts, a pioneer in human reproductive health; and Riane Eisler, whose book “The Chalice and the Blade” has been published in 23 countries.

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."

Why is ALP not decreasing the migrant program when jobs are falling and unemployment is rising?

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.

457 Visas: Howard, Rudd and Doha 2000

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, last day of parliament passed protection for local workers against 457 visas

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.

Media release from Sustainable Population Australia (SPA); Further information: Jenny Goldie 0401 921 453
See also: Baby bonus 'scrapped' in budget in the SMH, Government scraps baby bonus in deficit budget on the ABC.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) today wholeheartedly welcomed the Budget decision by the Federal Government to abolish the baby bonus from March 2014.

Instead eligible families will receive increased family payments (Family Tax Benefit Schedule A) when they have a new baby.

SPA National President, Ms Jenny Goldie, says introduction of the baby bonus by the Howard Government was ostensibly to help families with the costs of having a baby. It became associated, however, with the then-Treasurer Peter Costello’s call to increase the birth rate (“One for Mum, one for Dad and one for the country.”)

“This was probably the most unwise thing Costello ever said,” says Ms Goldie. “The last thing this country needs is a boost to its population. Our annual natural increase of over 150,000 is on top of excessive immigration levels (net migration 228,000 to September 2012).

“Whether it was causation or simply correlation, after the introduction of the baby bonus, Australia’s fertility rate went from 1.7 to 2.0 before dropping back to 1.9. This places us amongst the highest of OECD countries.“

Ms Goldie says Australians have to appreciate that the country is already overpopulated.

“Most environmental indicators are going down, not least biodiversity, and our largest cities congested. Infrastructure is not keeping up with population growth so services are declining.

“It is critical that we stabilise population numbers as soon as possible. Abolishing the baby bonus is a welcome first step,” Ms Goldie says.

Further information: Jenny Goldie 0401 921 453

Everyone gets a smaller slice of the national cake and pays more for it. The arrival of Australia’s 23 millionth person tomorrow is no cause for celebration, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

Academy of Science said best stop at 23 M

Ms Goldie says: “But we are not stabilising our numbers. We continue to grow at Third World rates, at 1.7% pa.”

Treasurer Ken Henry's concerns

In 2009, then Secretary of Treasury Ken Henry expressed concern about the addition of another 13 million people by mid-century. He said a ‘population expansion of this order has a host of implications for the Australian economy and society; and it raises a number of profound issues for economic policy’.

“Yet if 1.7% continues, there will be even more than Secretary Henry cited. There will be 43 million by mid-century and 100 million by 2100,” says Ms Goldie.

Ken Henry’s comments prompted the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) to commission a study[ii] on the impact of different levels of Net Overseas Migration (NOM) on Australia’s physical natural and built environments out to 2050.

DIAC:Higher immigration causes adverse effects

The 2010 DIAC-commissioned study found, amongst many findings

· Higher levels of NOM impose greater adverse impacts on the quality of our natural and built environments (note: NOM to September 30, 2012 was 228,000 pa)

· Decreased urban water supply is a significant environmental constraint exacerbated by higher NOM

· Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are expected to grow to several times current levels by 2050 unless rapid mitigation activities are implemented, and will be significantly higher with higher NOM

· Urban expansion will cause the loss of horticultural production from peri-urban areas which will reduce access to high quality fresh food, especially vegetables, with Sydney being particularly vulnerable.

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)

Once again members of the Victorian and Tasmanian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia braved the usual dreadful hot conditions at the Sustainable Living Festival in Melbourne, which has just come to an end.

Candobetter supports SPA's message and admires SPA Victoria.  We salute them for their almost single handed contribution to opening debate in Victoria on population numbers.

Jill Quirk, the President of the Victorian Branch, has shown great skill in bringing together various conservation and environment organisations, as well as planning activists, together on the issue of population growth.

It is hard to imagine that only a few years ago most environmental and planning activists actually could not see the connection. Although they could see the connection between development and loss of ammenity, democracy and natural environment, they still believed the government's dishonest pretention that population growth in Victoria was falling. They did not understand what was pushing overdevelopment and they often did not realise that their local problems were repeated not just in other suburbs, but in other states, all across Australia.

Despite some attempts to silence debate from bullies who claim affiliation with Right to Life, the Socialist Alliance and the (non-incorporated) Refugee Action Alliance and seem to work to the advantage of developers and government, it has become possible to educate more people on what is actually happening, as our government tries to engineer our population and deprive communities of natural ammenity and citizens of reasonable rights to enjoy their property.

It is through the experience of trying to stop forced population engineering for commercial purposes that only bring benefits to a very narrow minority that more and more people are realising that effective democracy in Australia is an illusion.  We may be able to talk, but we have little or no means to organise and act.

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) has called on the new Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, to heed the findings of a paper issued yesterday. It found that the number of migrants arriving in Australia since the beginning of 2011 who found jobs about equals the number of new jobs created in Australia for everyone over the same period.

The paper was written by Professor Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy of the Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR), Monash University.

SPA National President, Ms Sandra Kanck, says this has had harmful impact on employment levels and working conditions of ‘incumbent’ Australians, particularly young people. Incumbents include migrants who arrived prior to 2011 as well as Australians born here.

“Since 2010, employment growth has slowed to about 100,000 a year,” says Ms Kanck. “Yet permanent immigration keeps increasing and is now at a record high level of 210,000 for the 2012-13 program year.

“This is on top of very high numbers of temporary migrants who might also work – 457 and working holiday visa holders, students and New Zealanders. There are over one million temporary migrants living in Australia now,” says Ms Kanck.

“Australia still has strong natural increase in its workforce, with the number of people turning 18 outnumbering those turning 65 by 80,000 per year. No extra jobs were made available to those young jobseekers over the past two years. Each one who found a job left an older worker unemployed.

“As a first step, the new Minister must match the immigration program to the number of jobs available and not disadvantage incumbent Australians, especially young people. Youth unemployment in northern Adelaide suburbs is now 42.6 per cent. It is also unacceptably high in the western suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney.

“As a second step, the Minister should note that immigration makes up 58 per cent of Australia’s very high annual population growth rate of 1.6 per cent. By cutting immigration, he will reduce population growth. This is vital for preserving the environment and for many other social reasons such as reducing housing unaffordability and hospital waiting times.”

Permission to publish this eloquent and magnificently drawn cartoon gratefully acknowledged to the artist, Keith Nesbitt of Sustainable Population Australia, South Australia. The original drawing was done in black and white. Jill Quirk (President of SPA Victoria and Tasmanian Branch) coloured it electronically.

Sandra Kanck gives her account of what preceded her 'expulsion' from the Australian Democrats over the matter of population policy. Sandra was an Australian Democrats member of the South Australian Legislative Council from 1993-2009 and the last Democrat member in elected government. When she retired she became the president of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) and still is. The conflict in the Australian Democrats is a reflection of the greater conflict in Australia between the growth lobby and democratic representation and environmental democracy. As such it is important to people far beyond the Democrats themselves. (Article written by Sandra Kanck).

The observations already made on “Can Do Better” about what has happened in relation to the internal machinations of the Democrats and my sacking from the party are extremely perceptive. That’s probably because those of us who have fought for population abatement have seen these things acted out before, sometimes on bigger stages and not necessarily in political parties.

Thirty-three years ago, in formulating the Democrats’s no.2 objective “To accept the challenges of the predicament of humanity on the planet with its exponentially increasing population, disappearing finite resources and accelerating deterioration of the environment”, the founding mothers and fathers of the party were profoundly aware of the future.

The treatment meted out to me began, I suspect, a year ago when a strongly-worded new draft population policy was circulated – and I was a member of that policy working group. The pressure mounted when it went out to ballot in May, and further increased when the ballot was supported by 80% of those members voting. As voting is voluntary, it was a clear victory because those who strongly opposed it would have ensured they cast their votes.

But around the time of the circulation of the draft policy, I was approached by South Australian-based political party, Stop Population Growth Now (SPGN), and asked if I would find out if a letter from them might be published in the Democrats’ National Journal – that letter suggested the amalgamation of SPGN with the Democrats to strengthen our common base and form a new political party. I took this to the party’s National Executive and it was voted down. But, combined with the policy ballot, it seems it was the beginning of the end for me.

I was obviously never privy to the background plotting that led to a vote by the party’s National Executive just five weeks ago to declare Sustainable Population Australia Inc., of which I am National President, to be a political party - and it came as a complete surprise to me. The losers in the policy ballot had set things up for a swift counter-offensive. Payback was in order for the strong policy ballot result it seems – and big time!

The spokesperson who advised the media on Tuesday that I had been expelled, John Davey, is also the factional leader and puppet-master of the group which has taken this action. The conflict of interest between his means of earning an income, that of a migration agent, and working to take me down because of my determination to give primacy to the environment ahead of economic self-interest, seems not to have been recognised by his supporters and never acknowledged by him.

As a Democrat member said to me “this debacle has revealed itself for what it is - a fight between the growth-at-any-cost group and those who care about the future of our country and the world”. It’s a fight that is writ large elsewhere, a fight that will ultimately be lost by the growthists when the planet itself hits back. As the saying goes “Nature bats last”.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sustainable Population Australia takes the State of the Environment report 2008 as a warning of the unsustainable path that Victoria is on as the government recklessly engineers its population at a rate about twice the level it would naturally be at present. This state government and its predecessors have actively encouraged population growth through the artificial means of seeking increasing numbers of migrants from overseas to settle in Victoria, using the website "Liveinvictoria.com.au".

This submission represents the overall position of Sustainable Population Australia whose Aims and Objectives are:

- To contribute to the public awareness of the limits to Australian population growth from ecological, social and economic viewpoints.
- To promote awareness that the survival of an ecologically sustainable population depends in the long-term on its renewable resource base.
- To promote policies that will lead to the stabilisation, and then to reduction, of Australia’s population by encouraging low fertility and low migration.
- To promote urban and rural life-styles 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 of immigrants based on race.
- To promote policies that will lead to stabilisation, and then reduction, of global population.

There are severe constraints on the population growth patterns for the future in Australia including in the relatively environmentally hospitable state of Victoria. Sustainable Population Australia takes the State of the Environment report 2008 as a warning of the unsustainable path that Victoria is on as the government recklessly engineers its population at a rate about twice the level it would naturally be at present. This state government and its predecessors have actively encouraged population growth through the artificial means of seeking increasing numbers of migrants from overseas to settle in Victoria, using the website http://www.liveinvictoria.com.au. As we know most of those who come to Victoria gravitate to Melbourne. The State’s capital suffers from severely worsening traffic problems, demanding costly solutions, and ongoing pressure to accommodate more and more people such that agricultural land and areas of nature on the city’s fringes are constantly sacrificed. In the established areas of Melbourne and, to a lesser extent, in the regions, greater density of living is imposed on residents who are distraught to see their surroundings changed rapidly before their very eyes and to their great disadvantage.

Planning assumes change

The concept of ‘planning’ in Victoria assumes change. Most changes in building and infrastructure are driven by population growth, especially the building of more houses and roads. Planning without growth would be about improving the way things work for a given population in the face of changes over a longer time scale not associated with growth, especially those over which humans have less immediate control such as climate change. The sole objective, however, of planning today is to accommodate population growth with scant attention to residents' amenity and services.

It is clear that due to the changes to Melbourne in the last few years, residents have been aggrieved by the loss of livability of Melbourne, despite commercially defined indexes to the contrary. This loss includes loss of amenity – light space and quiet, loss of parkland, increased traffic congestion, and diminished Green Wedges. It also impacts on our democracy as authoritarian planning laws are pushed through parliament by development-sympathetic governments against widespread public objection. The schedules of the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) have abounded with planning problems where private citizens have had to devote time, money and energy into trying to preserve their amenity or to mitigate damages impinging on them from potential developments. This type of (often futile) activity does not increase the quality of life for people; quite the opposite, in fact. It is a significant negative for them.

Residents are facing enormous loss under the now proposed planning changes. If changes are implemented, many of their cases will simply not be heard as residents lose their appeal rights. Furthermore they will not be warned about changes made in their immediate neighbourhoods. Whilst this may expedite change and create ‘certainty’ for developers, it creates helplessness and constant uncertainty for residents. People can accommodate moderate change if it is slow, but just not knowing what changes are going to occur in their neighborhoods yet to watch it happen at a rapid rate is truly unsettling. People are depressed and traumatized for a variety of associated reasons.

Planning is for the future

.
Since planning is mainly about the future the following questions should be asked in considering the proposed changes.

What path does this set us on?

Is it the path of greater livability in the sense of increasing access to nature and green spaces, with secure homes and land and quality of life? Does it have an end point? What is the likely outcome of this plan? In the already established areas of Melbourne, if we understand this correctly, proposed zones are as follows, with 3 different approaches to development applied

1. Residential growth zone
2. General Residential Zone
3. Neighbourhood Residential Zone

Where you happen to live and therefore your future or fate relies on which regime is applied to your area. As this will be a council decision it introduces a further note of uncertainty.

Putting the effect on the individual aside, the aim seems to be largely to break down barriers to change, to maximize and expedite development. Of concern is the removal of the imperative to make planning application for certain developments in certain areas. This means that they will become “as of right” and will include the extension of commercial activities into residential areas.

The aggregate effect, it seems, would be more activity and congestion and more noise, especially in areas with increasing mixed use.

Increasing densification in residential areas means diminished amenity. This might be more tolerable if the city of Melbourne were not simultaneously bulging through its previous urban growth boundary thus rapidly changing the landscape on the fringes of the city. Densification necessarily means reduction of open space especially private gardens. This reduces habitat for urban wild life, much of which is essential to our well being whether we have any conscious affection for it or not! (e.g. presence of micro bats acting as a natural and indigenous control over mosquitoes.) Loss of open space and vegetation in the established areas cities also increases Urban Heat Island Effect. This means that, even without climate change our urban areas will necessarily get hotter as vegetation is reduced and hard surfaces and masses increased. The inexorable loss of open space for children to play no doubt contributes to the much publicized childhood obesity epidemic.

No matter what measures are taken for the provision of infrastructure and services such as public transport, hospitals and schools, there is no way of catching up with these even for the existing population while there is continual extra need for the addition population built into the planning scheme.

The proposed changes to the planning scheme are more accommodating of extra population and extra activity around population centres. It is the accommodation of population that ensures that population in a given area will grow. There is no end to this process and no end envisaged in the proposed plans. This is irresponsible and negligent, considering the impacts of overpopulation are well-known. With increased densification and outward growth, quality of life in population centres, particularly in Melbourne must deteriorate.

Where does this end? It would seem that the process set in place by the proposed changes will lead ever more rapidly to increasingly overpopulated centres built to the requirements of developers, who have the economic motive of forcing more people into less space and show no signs of self-restraint.

A city such as Athens should serve as a warning to those who determine the future of Melbourne – This city grew very fast in the 1970s with high rise springing up like mushrooms bringing a 3rd world quality to the once modest sized beautiful city. It’s not too late for Melbourne. Let’s not do it!

Rural areas especially on the fringes of Melbourne

The most troubling aspect of the zoning changes is that the zones allow industry in areas where this would have been prohibited previously. The Green Wedges, set aside as the lungs of growing Melbourne 40 years ago, would no longer be safe to any degree. Once again the main concern is that there is no end to the process that these changes set up. If it were a finite number of developments and then a cap, the people of Melbourne would have some certainty that their environment will continue to be to some extent livable. But the current proposal does not mean such certainty. Instead it sets up a process whereby the Green Wedges are progressively degraded by development, thus facilitating more intensive development in the future. In effect, it ultimately annihilates them. In the shorter term this change facilitates a land-trading climate conducive to land speculation. Some will make windfall profits as land switches from rural to commercial. This will benefit the few who can take part in this game but ultimately through the rising cost of land will be detrimental to the rest of the population. It is not in the interest of the common good and quality of life for all of us.

What planning needs to be

Real Planning should take into account the physical reality of our time and place in history. It is almost without doubt that the world has passed Peak Oil production and is certainly beyond peak per capita oil production. Oil has lubricated our lives, fed us and transported us for as long as any of us can remember. As per capita production declines over the coming decades, at our peril we will build out our precious back yards and Green Wedges, extend our urban growth boundary and increase car dependency with urban settlement in previously rural areas. Our survival depends on us not doing this. The flip side of the Peak Oil coin is Climate Change and the need to limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions. Stabilising population and building in local self sufficiency and sustainable public transport is essential to this.

Figure 3, ‘World total oil per capita 1960-2011’ suggests that, where once oil came from oil wells, now, to keep up with human population growth we supplement well-oil with all kinds of other stuff, whilst still presenting it as the same old stuff. If we still relied just on crude and lease condensates from oil fields, where trends are shown by the lowest and oldest line in the graph, we would be considerably poorer in total oil supply than we seem to be. Early definitions for total world oil (see EIA Crude and lease condensate from 1960-2011) only counted crude oil and lease condensate. Coinciding with the decline in easy oil availability as it became necessary to look harder and deeper for oil, the definition of oil started to include other sources obtained away from petroleum fields. The BP definition above counts crude oil, shale oil, oil sands and NGLs (the liquid content of natural gas where this is recovered separately). The EIA definition for Crude, condensate and most other liquids from 1970-2009 comprises natural gas plant liquids, and ‘other liquids’, defined as, “Biodiesel, ethanol, liquids produced from coal and oil shale, non-oil inputs to methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), Orimulsion, and other hydrocarbons.” That’s a lot of new sources, all of them requiring more energy to extract than that required to harness the traditional ‘gusher’ close to the surface, now a rare phenomenon. (Excerpt from forthcoming book, Lost Tribes, by Sheila Newman..)

Victoria needs to work within the real constraints that face us for the survival of those who are too young to take part in this submission exercise today and for their children. Changes to the Planning code need to be made with this consideration uppermost.

Wrong way- Go back-

Population restraint is about planning at the local level.
Victoria must plan to achieve a stable population not too far beyond the middle of this century to avoid a severely compromised future. This is possible and planning for it needs to start now.
The issue of zone reform is critical and the changes envisaged are so extensive in scope I would advocate that the state government set up a parliamentary enquiry to address it in detail to ensure the best possible outcome for the people of Victoria.

NOTES

The so-called “Global Livability Report” ranks Melbourne high, but it also ranks Hong Kong and Vancouver high – both of the concrete nightmares where development trumps democracy, nature and access to natural amenity. http://www.eiu.com/site_info.asp?info_name=The_Global_Liveability_Report
The 'livability index' report comes from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), which is part of a group associated with the Anglo-centric Economist magazine. People in Hong Kong rent cages stacked one on top of the other in rooms in concrete high rises. There are protests about the abrogation of public land and the ever increasing intensity of development. The EIU put overcrowded concrete Vancouver and Melbourne equal at the head of its list in 2002. Clearly this list is a list about concrete spaces and developers' anti-human values and the Economist’s unwise promotion of economic growth and globalisation. The award is used as a manufactured consensus thing promoted by big business for big business and against relocalisation, human scale and natural surroundings. In other words it is corporate propaganda. About the Economist group:
"From its beginnings in 1843, when The Economist newspaper was founded by a Scottish hat manufacturer to further the cause of free trade" ... http://www.economistgroup.com/what_we_do/our_history.html"
"Many of the issues facing the world have an international if not global dimension. The Economist brand family is ideally positioned to be the commentator, interpreter and forecaster of the phenomenon of globalisation as it gathers in pace and impact." [In other words, a propaganda outfit that actually has some deluded ordinary subscribers.] http://www.economistgroup.com/what_we_do/our_brands/the_economist_brand_family/index.html

Jill Quirk:
President: Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch)
Postal address P.O. Box 240
West Heidelberg 3081
[email protected]
0409742927

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports the highest population growth rate since 2009. An 18 per cent increase in annual net overseas migration to 197,200 is responsible for the rise. Australia is entering a period of uncertainty for which we will be better prepared if we do not have to support ever more people - native born or immigrants. -- Sustainable Population Australia (SPA)

Australia's population growth getting out of control

The latest figures that show Australia’s growth rate has risen to 1.5 per cent are alarming, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

The Australian Bureau of Statistics reports this is the highest growth rate since 2009. An 18 per cent increase in annual net overseas migration to 197,200 is responsible for the rise.

SPA National Vice-President, Dr John Coulter, says, irrespective of what Prime Minister Gillard once said, we are indeed hurtling down the track towards a big population.

Socially, environmentally and economically beyond the pale

“If we continue with a 1.5 per cent national growth rate, Australia will have doubled its population to 45 million by 2060,” says Dr Coulter. “This is totally untenable in environmental, social and economic terms.

“We are facing the twin challenges of climate change and peak conventional oil,” he says. “The latter will mean a possible doubling in oil prices by the end of the decade which will have grave implications for the economy.”

Dr Coulter says the current resources boom will not last and Australia will not be able to support even the present population, never mind a larger one.

Petroleum depletion, massive economic debt and climate change make three scary horsemen

“The US author Richard Heinberg is currently touring Australia. He warns that the end of economic growth is imminent because of the energy crisis, the debt bubble and climate change. If there is no economic growth, we certainly cannot support a growing population.

“Climate change is particularly worrying because we appear to be heading for a rise in temperature of at least 3.5o C which will wipe out much of Australian agriculture.

Dr Coulter said that Australia is entering a period of uncertainty for which we will be better prepared if we do not have to support ever more people, be they migrants or native-born.

Further information: John Coulter 08 8388 2153

Source: Press Release from SPA, www.population.org.au, 28 September 2012

NEW POPULATION BOOK: Sheila Newman has just published new theory in a new book, Demography, Territory & Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (see link). 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. 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."

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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.

Sustainable Population Australia (Victorian and Tasmanian branch) Annual General Meeting

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)

Guest Speaker, Dr Geoff Mosley

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

Sustainable Population Australia is pleased to announce the auction of the 4 piece art work “Encroachment” by noted Kimberley artist and SPA member Jackie Ellis.

Sustainable Population Australia is pleased to announce the auction of the 4 piece art work “Encroachment” by noted Kimberley artist and SPA member Jackie Ellis.

You can view this beautiful and thought provoking group of paintings on the SPA website auction page http://population.org.au/auction. The works will also be on display at the SPA AGM on April 14th 2012 at the University of Technology, Sydney.

The four, oil on canvas works will be sold as a single item. Any bids equal to or in excess of the reserve price of $700 will be accepted. We invite you to visit the SPA website link above to view the art work and see how to make a bid. The closing date of the auction is April 30th.

This is a great opportunity to purchase art portraying the sequential effects of population growth in a wilderness environment. To view a wider range of Jackie’s inspiring work, her background and achievements please visit her website www.journeyfree.com.au

All proceeds from the auction will go to the Sustainable Population Fund for SPA’s continuing work. Our thanks to Jackie Ellis for her very generous donation.

"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.

SPA Population Film Festival - Brisbane Sunday 4 June 2011, Event supported by The Stable Population Party Australia. Details below.

Population Film Festival - Brisbane, Sunday, 04 June 2011 19:13

there

Recent documentaries and short films on a pivotal issue for our planet.   SUNDAY 28 AUGUST 2011 TRIBAL THEATRE 346 GEORGE ST, BRISBANE Purchase tickets online at OzTix. Great value Festival Pass -- see all films for only $25 !! See summary program below, or view detailed program notes here.

  Program:

10:00am How many people can live on Planet Earth? 2009. (60 min.). Note: Admission to this film is for Festival Pass holders only.

In this BBC Horizon special, naturalist Sir David Attenborough investigates whether the world is heading for a population crisis.

 11:30am Mother: caring for 7 billion.  2011.  (55 min.) Tiroir A Films.  Australian Premiere. Ticket price: $13

A courageous and sensitive new film that shows how population silently fuels our largest environmental, humanitarian and social crises, and finds hope in the empowerment of women. View trailer at http://www.motherthefilm.com/trailer. 

 Followed by public forum on global aspects of the population issue.

 1:30pm A smorgasbord of short films to munch on.  FREE admission with any other ticket from this Festival.

Arithmetic, population and energy. (30 min.)  Physicist Professor Al Bartlett’s classic lecture on exponential growth rates.
Empty handed: responding to the demand for contraceptives. (8 min.)  Women’s lack of access to reproductive health supplies in sub-Saharan Africa.
Immigration, World Poverty and Gumballs - Updated 2010.  (6 min.)  A colourful and unforgettably graphic test of the rationale for current U.S. immigration levels.

 3:00pm Dick Smith’s population puzzle. 2010 (60 min.) A Simon Nasht film.  Ticket price: $13

Follows the journey of famous Australian Dick Smith as he explores the population issue for Australia.

 4:30pm State of siege: from the green bans of the 1970s to the present. 2011. Tropic of Oz Independent Films. Queensland Premiere.  Ticket price: $13

Dennis Grosvenor’s new documentary on Sydney’s conflict between developers and residents, political patronage, the loss of democracy, and the arrogance of power. 

 Followed by public forum on Australian aspects of the population issue.

TICKETS

Tickets for sale online and at the door. 
Purchase tickets online at OzTix. Great value Festival Pass -- see all films for only $25 !!

Teas, coffee and snacks available, including tasty vegan hot dogs!

Cinema discount parking available in Tank street.    Roma Street rail and bus station is nearby.

This event is presented by Sustainable Population Australia.           www.population.org.au      Enquiries: seq @ population.org.au

Supported by the Stable Population Party    www.populationparty.com

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

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

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

Superficial solution like shifting chairs on the deck of the Titanic

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

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

The ice submerged in the future

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

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

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

Sustainable Population Australia

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

The Stable Population Party Australia and the Animal Justice Party

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

Candobetter.net's role is to promote your voice, whatever party or group you belong to or do not belong to

Candobetter tries to bring all these actors and groups together and provide them with diverse platforms to educate and reach diverse groups. We believe that a large part of our problem is Australia's political system, which is authoritarian, over-arching, and contemptuous of citizens, who have few or no rights. The mainstream media is a part of this political system. Candobetter writers tend to write for the alternative internet media because they no longer have faith that local and citizens' appeals to the establishment media and government process will work.

Please consider, whether you are in a political party or an environment group, that supporting the few voices at the top of that group will not be enough. Your own voice is very valuable but it won't find comprehensive expression in hierarchical groups and committees, nor in participating in government 'forums'. We urge you to express yourselves on candobetter. We don't censor, we don't have meetings, and we don't try to organise you, but we provide a valuable forum.

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