Vanishing plains

“More loss than gain in encroaching urban sprawl on threatened open plains”, The Age, 31/5. The grassy plains surrounding Melbourne are under threat from overdevelopment; they are important to the environment but get overlooked.

Dad emmigrated from England in the 1960s and it is not a place he would want to return to now. According to one report the country is more dangerous than the Balkans in terms of crime! As politically-incorrect as it is to say it, England’s huge growing population (mainly through excessive immigration) would be a contributing factor – crowding millions of people together on a relatively small island is asking for trouble, especially when they come from disparate cultures. (The Optimum Population Trust focuses on overpopulation in the UK.)

Skills shortage – not!

With the ongoing drought and declining water storages, barely-coping infrastructure, ever-longer hospital waiting lists and so on, what does the Government decide to do with some of its Budget money? Increase the immigration intake to address the so-called “skills shortage”! I can't adequately express my disgust. From the Herald-Sun:

Add 31 000 to skilled

AN extra 31 000 skilled migrants will be accepted in 2008-09 to help tackle the worsening labour shortage, Immigration Minister Chris Evans said yesterday.

All up 133 500 will be let in.

Senator Evans said the scheme had not grown sufficiently in the past to respond to the skills shortages.

Australia will accept 190 300 migrants in 2008-09, including 56 500 for family reunions.

The increase in skilled migrants will cost the Federal Government $1.4 billion over four years through the cost of settlement, health, education and employment services.

More than 100 000 migrants are expected under the uncapped temporary skilled worker scheme.

The money spent on supporting immigrants is money that should be spent on services for the people who are citizens here! Especially with headlines such as “Patients needing treatment being forced to wait longer” – “More than 200,000 sick Victorians were left waiting unacceptably long times for treatment as the public health system buckled under increased pressure late last year.”

My published letter – 6/5

I got another letter published in The Age today! Much the same topic as my previous one (3/3/2008 entry). (The other letter is from a lady who also posts on the Public Population Forum.) The newspaper is doing a series on planning for Melbourne’s future, but it is focused on how to accommodate more people rather than a more fundamental solution of containing population growth. I would like to see a Government with the courage to say, “We’re full up, you’ll have to go somewhere else”.

Not just supply and demand

Housing Industry Association Victorian acting executive director Robert Harding (“City’s house prices among cheapest”, The Age, 5/5) warns that “we” need to be conscious of housing prices moving towards the “dearer markets if we are going to have the population growth and attract industry and development”. Healso says that increasing housing supply would cap property prices. Obviously, if the supply of housing is increased so that it exceeds demand, then property prices will stabilise and might even fall.This is also true of increasing the supply of pumpkins in a marketplace.

Mr. Harding’s thoughts have no more ultimate direction than the proverbial dog chasing its tail. Housing prices are obviously subject to the vicissitudes of supply and demand, and population growth will certainly increase one kind of industry – housing. There is not, however, in what Mr. Harding says an explanation or argument extolling the actual benefits to Melbourne residents of striving for an ever-increasing population.

– Jill Quirk, East Malvern

No winners in this contest

Those interviewed in “City’s house prices among cheapest” seem to regard population growth as a competition in which the city that can cram in the most people is the “winner”. They appear oblivious to the negative social or environmental consequences of such overcrowding. Reducing population growth would reduce demand for housing and help lower prices.

– Suzanne McHale