Too popular

“Melting pot set for population boom”, ABC News, 19/11; “South East Queensland: beautiful one day, now a building site”, The Age, 20/11. Queensland, long a popular destination for immigrants from other states, is full to bursting, and long-time residents are understandably fed-up with the influx, continuing construction projects and community tensions that ensue. But Queensland Premier Anna Bligh seems paralyzed with apathy towards the problem, saying all her government can do is try to accomodate the population surge. A government could halt such growth if it really wanted to (immigration border and quota controls, scrap the baby bonus, etc.) but none seem to.

Bligh acknowledged this week that south-east Queenslanders are beginning to think the lifestyle costs of population growth outweigh the economic benefits. “But population growth is a fact of life in Queensland. We cannot put up the barbed wire fence at the border, we can’t stop people having babies, so we have to find a way of coping,” she said.

More articles from The Age:

“Salad days under threat as sprawling city comes knocking”, 15/11. Housing development will cover much of the fertile farmlands (originally volcanic plains) surrounding Melbourne, threatening the city’s future ability to feed itself.

“How to feed the 7 million”, 17/11. Yet another opinion that regards the growth toward 7 million as inevitable, rather than something that should be prevented.

“World population growth slowing”, 18/11. Good news – but the momentum of growth means that it will continue climbing for decades yet. Also the VECCI chairman proves how addicted to continuing growth business is:

VECCI chief executive Wayne Kayler-Thomson said the average Victorian now retired at 60, and federal and state governments should aim to lift this to 65 by using sticks and carrots to make people put off their retirement, and get retired people to return to work part-time. But with Melbourne’s population expected to swell by 60 per cent in 40 years, he backed population growth, warning the alternative was to go backwards like Detroit and other cities in the US mid-west. “Can we afford to shut the gate strategically, economically or morally?” he proposed to the VECCI summit. “Sydney has also stumbled since the 2000 Olympics as it makes up its mind about the desirability of a larger population.”

If you want to keep Melbourne liveable, then we most certainly can afford to “shut the gate”!

“Perish the thought that we can handle a bigger population”, 19/11. Opinion piece by former NSW PM Bob Carr.

Tanner suggested people in high-density countries would consider strange our reservations about high immigration. The implication is that every last place on this battered planet should cheerfully sign on for the population explosion. I think other countries can understand that Australia has a narrow fertile coastal strip and the rest is arid and semi-arid. We resemble North Africa more than North America. Curious as we are, I think Australians don’t want to be packed tight, and remain attached to space, air, the natural world. And instead of more coastal suburbs they may even prefer the glimpse of waves breaking on golden sand through the branches of a eucalypt. Funny that.

The Age letters roundup: 14/11:

Waiting in vain for water projects

Lindsay Tanner (“Population fear is nonsense: Tanner”, The Age, 13/11) scoffs at fears of population increase but admits that one major barrier to sustaining a bigger population is the availability of water. But he is confident that “it could be overcome through desalination, water recycling and storm water harvesting projects”.

Victorians have been waiting in vain for water sourcing projects other than the desal plant. If it’s not a PPP (public private partnership) project with profits going to private operators, it seems the Government does not want to know about it.

In 2005, the City of Melbourne proposed a “sewer mining” project in Princes Park, which would have supplied recycled water for inner city parks, Melbourne University and the Zoo. It was to be funded jointly by the state and federal governments, with contributions from the City of Melbourne and City West Water.

Water Minister Thwaites refused to contribute Victoria’s share (from memory a miserly $13 million) and the project lapsed. The excellent proposals made by Monash University for stormwater harvesting at a 2008 parliamentary inquiry also do not appear to have been adopted.

– Julianne Bell, Protectors of Public Lands Victoria, Parkville

Counted like cattle

How can Australia be compared with Bangladesh? Lindsay Tanner is measuring the validity of a country in people per square kilometre, as if they were livestock!

Australia is deceptively large. However, it is the driest continent, with a limited “green” coastline. These areas contain fragile and unique ecosystems, and support a rich range of unique biodiversity. Australia’s spectacular coastlines, rivers, wildlife and vegetation is what we cherish.

Our carrying capacity should be assessed by independent ecologists, agriculturalists, climate change analysts, demographers and environmental scientists. Such an important issue cannot be left to ad hoc decision makers and business groups with conflicts of interests.

– Vivienne Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

Such vandalism

The famous demographer W. D. (Mick) Borrie remarked that when growth rates are high we tend to overestimate population growth, and when they are low we underestimate it. And so now, egged on by urban transport chaos and high immigration rates, forecasters are predicting that Australia will contain 35 million people, and Melbourne 7 million, within 40 years. The history of forecasting suggests this is an overestimate, massive climate-change-induced in-migration notwithstanding.

Yet some have seized on it to advocate policies regarded as a bad idea, such as the proposal to line tram and bus routes with five-storey buildings. It is doubtful whether settlers who live there will be convinced to forgo their cars, which they will then drive through our leafy suburbs, thereby ruining their amenity along with that of one of the world’s most liveable cities.

More sober and carefully managed responses to our urban amenity problems would seem wiser than misconceived, environmental vandalism on a scale that future generations might regret.

– Dr. Ray Wyatt, University of Melbourne

Captive to business

Minister Tanner shows the extent to which government is the captive of big business, property developers and construction unions. Aspiring to the population density of either Dublin or Bangladesh is nonsense. The issue is not one of population density, but human impact on the environment. Craven supplication to vested interests in business and unions is not what we expect from elected representatives. While we cannot control world population, we can at least exercise some control over our own population to minimise further environmental degradation.

– Greg Angelo, Balwyn North

Population

What point is Lindsay Tanner (The Age, 13/11) trying to make with his comparison of our population to that of Bangladesh? Is he also going to compare the standard of living, education and health care?

– Pauline Ashton, Maribyrnong

Lindsay Tanner argues that Australia is not overpopulated and points to Bangladesh as an example of how many more people could be squashed on to our island. There’s a compelling case.

– Graham Parton, Stanley

Why does Lindsay Tanner stop at Dublin when comparing potential population density? If more is better, we should be aiming for densities like Mexico City or Shanghai!

– Ross Tanner, Clifton Hill

It is hard to be optimistic about Australia’s future when the Liberals deny climate change and Labor cannot see the contradiction between increasing our population and reducing emissions.

– Don Garden, Kew

I can’t remember seeing any of Bangladesh’s cities mentioned in the most liveable list.

– Neville Garner, Blairgowrie

How convenient, shifting the blame on to immigrants for the unsustainable lifestyle of those of us already here.

– Akhdur Maruan, Brunswick

16/11:

What madness

As Labor’S Lindsay Tanner points out, Australia could indeed house more people than Bangladesh (The Age, 13/11). All you need to do is cut our rations of food, water and space.

Doubtless our precious GDP numbers will increase as fast as our unmeasured quality of life and environment deteriorates! But who will vote for this madness? Oh I forgot, all the parties support population growth so it doesn’t matter who you vote for.

– Alan Ide, Murrumbeena

While he’s at it perhaps the Prime Minister could say “sorry” to the nation’s wildlife for its shocking rate of extinction since European settlement. Nah, let’s forget the apology and do something about it.

– Jill Barclay, Murrumbeena

17/11:

Just nonsensical

Once again we see a senior Government member with his head in the sand over Australia’s population growth (“Population fear is nonsense: Tanner”, The Age, 13/11). Lindsay Tanner’s comments comparing Bangladesh with Tasmania show remarkable and worrying ignorance. Size says nothing about the population-carrying capacity of a land; Mr. Tanner is comparing one of the most arid countries on earth with one of the most fertile. This fertility has led Bangladesh, and many of its neighbours, to vast over-population that relegates many of its citizens to abject poverty.

With climate change, millions more are likely to starve to death as wells dry up and Himalayan glaciers retreat. Or, perhaps he knows this, but like most of our State and Federal Government representatives, he is also prepared to subject Australia to unsustainable population growth in the name of political self-interest.

What’s the bet that history will eventually show this stance, and the Labor and Liberal governments’ underwhelming response to climate change, to be the biggest leadership failure in Australia of all time?

– Andrew Verlei, Patterson Lakes

SMH, 14/11:

Plan now for a sensible limit to our population

I read that the Labor backbencher Kelvin Thompson has launched a 14-point plan to contain Australia’s runaway population (“Here’s looking at you kids: NSW leads a boom in babies”, November 12). At last someone in the Federal Government has recognised the stupidity of setting an ever-increasing population as an essential goal.

The economic benefits are far outweighed by factors such as the rapid depletion of water, food and building materials, and urban infrastructure such as transport that is already at breaking point.

The Federal Government’s population targets will make it impossible to reach any decent carbon reduction levels. Each immigrant from a non-industrialised country will, on arrival in Australia, become a carbon dioxide polluting unit at a tenfold increased level.

It will be hard for visionaries such as Thompson to convince Australians their wasteful lifestyle and hedonistic “quality of life” will need to be curtailed. But failure to do so will result in a rapid diminution of both.

– Mike Dibbs, Port Macquarie

Lindsay Tanner is a powerful voice in Government and to have him call for “substantial population growth” has to be taken seriously (“Tanner backs call for growth”, November 12).

He should travel to Wilcannia to see what our “inadequate” 21.5 million, with its demand for irrigated produce, has done to the once-navigable Darling River. There is a limit to population growth in Australia: water. Population planning should be based on our physical limits, not aspirational comparisons with Bangladesh.

– John Warren, Annandale

Lindsay Tanner shouldn’t send mixed messages about Australia’s population. Is he saying that Barry Jones, David Suzuki, Al Gore and Ken Henry are all laughable when they talk about the need to address population issues here? Does he really think we can continue to engineer our way out of overpopulation and climate-change problems such as water shortages?

I am happy for Tanner to reassure countries such as Bangladesh that we can take many more climate refugees. But we are going to have our own problems with poverty, pollution and starvation in the coming decades if we don’t urgently start planning for a slowing of our birthrate and a smaller intake of skilled migrants.

Europe’s slowing population and lead role to reduce emissions don’t appear to have had any dire economic impacts. We need smarter leaders to start planning now for an ethical slowdown in our population. It’s time to rewrite the economic textbooks and prepare for the likely millions who will be on our doorstep as climate-change refugees in the next 20 to 80 years.

– Ngaire McGaw, Seventeen Mile Rocks (Qld)

Peter Garrett deserves congratulations for rejecting the Traveston Dam (“Garrett decision to stop dam lauded as a triumph”, November 12). As a biologist, I appreciate having an Environment Minister willing to base decisions on the best available scientific information.

While headlines now shift to the controversy on locations of possible desalination plants, I suggest we first need to debate the human carrying capacity of the Australian continent.

As the science-literate Mr Garrett would be aware, the root cause of most, if not all, environmental degradation is the rapid growth in the population of our own species. We urgently need to determine how many people different parts of our country can sustainably support. Mr Garrett and his department should lead this debate.

– Tim Curran, Malanda (Qld)

20/11:

Growth catastrophe waiting to happen

Bob Carr draws attention to the lack of thought behind the call by Kevin Rudd and Lindsay Tanner for greater growth, more population and, consequently, more demands on our limited resources, such as water (“Perish the thought that we can handle a bigger population”, November 19). We have introduced a new category – “catastrophic” – to warn of impending bushfire danger. Do we need a similar scale to warn of the results of unplanned and self-stimulated growth? Societies have collapsed from outgrowing their resources. Let us plan an escape route now while we are still at the danger level.

– John Warren, Annandale

My published letter, 13/11

In response to “Shut the door on Kiwis to curb growth says MP”, Herald-Sun, 12/11:

Migration ruining land, wildlife

Thank you, Kelvin Thomson, for giving concerned political constituents a voice on the issue of overpopulation (“MP wants to slash Kiwi migrant influx”, November 12).

For years, this festering issue has been taboo on both sides of Parliament and rampant population growth has been regarded as a fait accompli.

But as we all know, this growth is the direct consequence of government policy, or lack of it.

At the moment, our population destiny is being driven by excessive immigration and ridiculous baby bonuses, the result of smart lobbying by the big end of town who will profit handsomely from this population bonanza.

Yet we are watching our environment being destroyed and our wildlife decimated as record levels of land-clearing and habitat loss occur, all in the pursuit of more humans.

– Tony Smith, Burwood

People explosion damages nation

Thank you, Kelvin Thomson, for speaking out on the problems caused by excessive population growth.

If this growth is not restricted, the quality of life Australians have taken for granted will continue to decline and the environment will be destroyed.

– Suzanne McHale

This isn’t just a New Zealand thing. We need to restrict immigration from everywhere. This obsession with population growth is killing our country.

– Ang

The Age, 13/11:

Growth unstoppable

An important element that appears missing from your welcome coverage of the projected population increase is the innate momentum of growth. If our population is to grow to 35 million by 2050, it will not stop there, but will continue for at least another 30 to 40 years.

This is well illustrated by Australian Bureau of Statistics figures on Australia’s present rate of growth. Even though the fertility rate is below replacement rate, our population would continue to grow until the mid-2030s even in the absence of net immigration.

– John Coulter, Scott Creek, SA

Silly boat people. If only they had said they want to do a course in English, not classes. Then they would be fast-tracked into the country for a lead role in the great immigration scam: the international student rort.

– Tricia McDonald, Malvern East

But there are also deniers: “Population fear is nonsense: Tanner”, 13/11. Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner believes the idea of Australia being overpopulated is nonsense, as other countries have far higher population densities. He does not take into account that much of the Australian continent is desert and its soil is old and infertile, thus it cannot support a high population. Even if it could, a high population density is not desirable as crowding people together is an unpleasant way to live.

Growth isn’t good

“The big leap”, The Age, 10/11. Residents of a seaside town, Torquay, are experiencing the unpleasant aspects of population growth.

Monash University demographer Bob Birrell says the entire world is ageing and the massive numbers of migrants needed to increase the ratio of workers to pensioners could be more of a catastrophe than the problem it seeks to overcome. “It is not sensible policy to commit ourselves to building a new Canberra every year for the next 40 years,” he says, citing Canberra’s population of about 390,000, which is less than the 439,000 population growth this year. “To go to 35 million, it’s dumb growth. It diverts our scarce capital…to building more shopping malls and extending suburbia rather than increasing the productivity of our existing workforce so we can make more and export more.”

Former NSW premier Bob Carr says Australia is choosing to “play Russian roulette with water security” by encouraging such high population growth. He is incredulous that almost every development today is subject to an environmental impact statement except for “the most fundamental of all, a decision to ramp up immigration”. Carr, who launched Mark O’Connor and William Lines’ book Overloading Australia earlier this year, says people mistakenly think Australia is like North America, which has “serious rivers” and a fertile inland. “We are like North Africa – a fertile coastal strip and, a short distance inland, an arid zone where the soil blows away and the rains fall erratically. But people project the North American experience on to Australia and there are powerful business interests behind high immigration. The housing sector loves it. I don’t think the Australian people want it.”

Letters, 11/11:

Winners grin, but losers left to cope

Torquay residents’ concerns about water, amenity and environmental impact in the face of exponential population growth are entirely reasonable. (“The Big Leap”, Focus, 10/11). As residents see all these factors deteriorate, they may well wonder what benefits they are getting from huge changes to their town.

A footpath here or there, or a conveniently located supermarket, would not quite compensate for the lost tranquillity of a town that has tripled in population in three years.

To see who benefits from population growth, look at who advocates it. To see who pays and loses, look at who is forced to accommodate it and live with its consequences.

– Jill Quirk, president, Sustainable Population Australia, Victoria, Frankston

The disappearing people

I suppose now that Torquay has blocked a proposed housing development, those who would have lived there will just vanish. A population of 35 million people will demand housing, not the other way around.

– Edward Sainsbery, Eaglemont

From sleepy to dusty

Tina Lee of Torquay feels anxious about her part of heaven being transformed from a small hamlet into a big city-like coastal suburb. It’s also like that in the suburbs of Melbourne. Port Melbourne, where I was born some 73 years ago, was a sleepy hollow 10 years ago, with a population of about 7000. Now, on every corner, we have apartments, some on the beach as high as 16 storeys, and a population of about 16,000 – and climbing.

We also suffer from dust due to demolition, filthy streets, blocked drains, traffic disruption and no footpaths at all during building. We are in the midst of Melbourne’s new main sewer being installed, which will possibly take two years – more dust, more noise, more upheaval.

It is all happening due to the growth of Melbourne, for better or worse.

– Lois Daley, Port Melbourne

Following a path to ruin

Mary-Anne Toy has done a great service to the residents of this part of the world. However, she failed to note that we in the Surf Coast Shire pay virtually the highest rates in the state, with annual increases several times the rate of inflation.

The council is now hell-bent on erecting a $25 million-plus new chambers, together with sundry sports fields. This antipodean Taj Mahal is the wrong building at the wrong time in the wrong place, sited a few hundred metres from the shire’s northern extremity – making it much closer to Geelong than Anglesea, let alone Lorne.

Mayor Libby Mears maintains she cannot afford to pay for all the infrastructure to cope with the population boom, yet trumpets the wonderful (and unnecessary) splurge on the new chambers and associated facilities. She and her co-councillors seem to have forgotten that less than a dozen years ago the then council “lost” many millions of dollars.

An exhaustive inquiry seemed to come to the conclusion that no one was to blame. Many of us are waiting, fearful for a repeat of that disaster.

– Michael Muschamp, Torquay

“That’s it for sprawl: Madden”, 11/11. The incompetent oaf of a Planning Minister promises the urban growth boundary will not be moved again in his lifetime.

Planning and environment academic Michael Buxton, of RMIT University, said he had heard similar promises before. “This is the third time they have made this promise, originally it was made by [former premier] Steve Bracks,” Associate Professor Buxton said. “And it was made when the Government expanded the boundary in November 2005 and they just keep rolling out the same promises and the same inadequate solutions. “The promises are designed to try and fool people into accepting their inadequate solutions.”

“Growing population calls for big-picture focus”, 11/11. A rather unfocused editorial, saying that growth should be planned for, and that Australia can’t close its borders to the rest of the world. But if we don’t want our cities to evolve into the hellish megacities in the countries mentioned, we will have to put up restrictions.

“Shut the door on Kiwis to curb growth says MP”, Herald-Sun, 12/11. MP Kelvin Thomson, seemingly the only politician concerned with, and outspoken about, population growth, says that immigration from New Zealand should be cut, as well as immigration generally. (I thought NZ had a good quality of life – are things so bad there that people want to leave?)

Mr Thomson called for annual net immigration to be slashed from more than 200,000 now to just 70,000. This would stabilise the population at 26 million by 2050, instead of the 35 million predicted by the Government. Under the Thomson plan:

• Skilled migrant numbers would be cut from 114,000 to 25,000 a year and refugees would rise by 6000 to 20,000.
• The baby bonus would be abolished and family payments cut to lower the fertility rate.

Growing like a cancer

Everytime I see that Victorian Government Transport “Plan” ad on TV (YouTube parody version), I want to throw something at it! “Victoria is growing” the voiceover man cheerily says – well, that’s not a good thing, is it? Life is getting very stressful for those living here. The Govt. merely seems obsessed with scarring the landscape with yet more freeways.

“Labour has been ‘maladroit’ in immigration policy, admits Home Secretary Alan Johnson”, Daily Mail, 2/11. A politician somewhat grudgingly admits that the U.K.’s immigration rate has had negative effects.

“Backyard blitz puts Aussie lifestyle under threat”, The Age, 15/4. An English professor is dismayed by the reduction of backyard size of Australian homes. Backyard vegetation also provides shelter for local birds.

“City’s population explosion threatens urban devastation”, The Age, 5/11. This article only concentrates on how to accommodate a large population, rather than trying to prevent such growth. It is not inevitable if governments have the will to combat it!

“Time to take in hand the birds in the bush”, The Age, 5/11. Native birdlife is diminishing rapidly in Victoria, due to land clearing and urbanization, both caused by population growth. The Brumby Government’s thoughtless approval of vegetation clearing around properties is not helping.

The Age letters:

1/11:

Perish the thought

In response to Peter Munro’s article “The big squeezy” (25/10) – do we really want 35 million Australians by 2050? There was a time when our nation’s leaders cried: “Populate or perish!” That cry is now public policy at state and federal level. The planet is racing towards the tipping point for oil reserves, potable water supplies and unstoppable climate change. We live in a society so accustomed to having it all we should update our national pledge to bring it in line with the logical outcome: “Populate AND perish!”

– Michael Virant, Kensington

That article portrays a grim view of Melbourne’s future, assuming that population growth is inevitable. Its liveability will be destroyed if this becomes reality.

Herald-Sun letters:

7/9:

I’m 32 and lived in the one street in Croydon for 31 of those years.

I remember thinking as a child that there was so much space in Croydon. Not so now.

In the past few years I’ve seen townhouses popping up everywhere. I’m starting to feel hemmed in, in my own street.

Croydon, I love you. But you’re changing, and I don’t believe it’s for the better. I think it’s time I left.

– Nola Wernicke, Croydon

Unfortunately, the problem of overdevelopment is afflicting all suburbs, so moving is not really a solution, unless you go somewhere in the country – but then there is the problem there of lack of transport and facilities (such as medical care).

24/9:

We need more people pointing out the impossibility of reconciling increased population, current affluence and a healthy environment. Something’s got to give.

– Beverly Broadbent, East Brighton

3/11:

Hidden agenda on migrants

Australia’s population has been growing and growing over the past decade, and all we hear from our political leaders is either silence or what a great thing population growth is, never mind the environment or the cost of building new housing and infrastructure. The Labor and Liberal parties pretend to make a fuss about a few hundred boat people, but at the same time they are opening the door to hundreds of thousands of so-called skilled migrants. Their tough stance against asylum seekers is really just a way of disguising from the public their pro-immigration and pro-population growth policies.

– Lynne Skinner, Kangaroo Flat

6/11:

Get off the fake grass

The idea that fake grass is better for the environment than real grass is a myth that continues to be enthusiastically promoted by people with vested interests. The logic goes that synthetic turf doesn’t need to be watered or mown and is therefore the obvious choice for ecologically aware gardeners. However, fake grass is a petro-chemical product that takes a long time to break down – unlike real, living, organic grass. In addition, the manufacture and transportation of synthetic grass creates carbon, whereas real grass absorbs it. Artificial grass also damages the soil underneath it and creates an inhospitable environment for the life that thrives in and around real grass, such as insects, worms and birds. While real grass may not be perfect, it is surely a better option than synthetic turf.

– Virginia van Engelen, Port Fairy