A collection of letters from the last week or so about population growth. I did not send one in as I felt I couldn’t add anything more to the discussion.
SMH, 18/9:
It’s not just paying pensions; population growth is bad news all round
Business groups will no doubt welcome the news of the runaway growth of the Australian population, but it is bad news for the country (“Population boom prompts pension fears”, September 18).
The article discusses population growth only from a financial point of view. The Treasurer will announce a forum of officials from Treasury, the Reserve Bank and the author of the pension review. No mention of town planners, transport planners, water or health experts.
Economic growth, driven by population growth, will make a few richer, but for most it means higher prices, degraded countryside, more crowded, dysfunctional cities, pollution and problems with transport and hospitals.
The Government should review population policies, not from a simplistic economic viewpoint, but looking at the total impact on the nation.
– David Knowles, Chittaway Bay
Population growth raises many challenges, but providing services to retirees is a minor hurdle. More important are the challenges of environmental impacts, the impossibility of carbon emission reductions, infrastructure overload and water and food security.
Barry Jones’s 1994 parliamentary report recommended a formal population policy be adopted. The Government said no. It said then its policies would result in an Australian population of about 23.5 million by 2051.
The submission of the Australian Academy of Science to that inquiry concluded a population of 23 million by 2040 was politically feasible and desirable. The academy must be dismayed at the 50 per cent population overshoot now being considered.
– Gordon Hocking, Oyster Bay
I’m confused. Kevin Rudd says it would be reckless not to introduce a trading scheme to reduce carbon emissions. But it is apparently appropriate to increase our population by 65 per cent in 40 years.
– Alan Taylor, Kirribilli
Tom Keneally is still writing fiction. He says our lack of will to decentralise, not immigration, is to blame for “the parlous condition of our environment” (“Our door should always be open”, September 16). You cannot put people in a desert and expect them to thrive. Efforts to grow cotton and rice in the Murray Darling basin have met with disaster. I don’t recall Frank Lowy, Harry Seidler, Frank Knopfelmacher and the others Keneally cites champing at the bit to move west of Bourke.
To produce food you need fertile soil and water, commodities of which Australia has a very limited supply. A sustainable population is one that can survive comfortably on what is available.
– Joe Gritching, Terrey Hills
20/9:
Immigration won’t keep us young
Your editorial recommends that Australia prepare for a much larger population (“Congratulations – it’s a boomlet. [But now the fun starts…]”, September 18-19). Among the reasons is to ensure there are sufficient people of working age to support older Australians. You say 13 per cent of the population is over 65, but this is projected to rise to 22 per cent. That, apparently, is a problem.
If there were no immigration, and the number of births each year matched the number of deaths, 23.1 per cent of Australian females would be over 65, as would 19.7 per cent of males. That is, the high ratio of elderly folk is a consequence of this being a healthy place.
To avoid such a proportion of elderly people by encouraging immigration is an interminable quest. When the population does get to 35 million, someone will alert us that the only way to avoid having too large a proportion of elderly is to encourage more immigration.
The editorial mentions “a growing global population in a world of finite resources”, yet somehow neglects to mention that Australia is part of that world. Australia’s resources are also finite. Would it not make more sense to encourage senior Australians to continue to contribute, as the evidently good health of this nation allows?
– David Arthur, Maryborough (Qld)
It was ironic and disturbing that two articles on Saturday highlighted how badly Australia is handling the population issue (“Populate and perish: Sydney’s time bomb” and “Abortion couple not aware that they had broken the law”).
On the one hand we have evidence that we are in the midst of an unsustainable population explosion. On the other, a young woman has been prosecuted for taking the responsible decision to terminate a birth she did not want. For the past decade we have had excessive immigration and irresponsible fiscal programs rewarding people for overpopulating. It is time for governments to encourage responsible population control.
– Peter Hook, Naremburn
A clueless one who disagrees, 21/9:
Notions on population such as those expressed by David Knowles, Gordon Hocking, Alan Taylor and Joe Gritching (Letters, September 19-20) are neo-Malthusian claptrap. Today, on a percentage basis, fewer people suffer form starvation than in Malthus’s day. Furthermore, the poor and unfortunate can count on a degree of back-up in times of hardship because of stocks of food, medicine and materials available from wealthier countries. It is little known that the relative costs of energy and resources are in decline except when political and social unrest or interference destabilise markets and supply chains.
The Greens would have us believe we are on the verge of ecological and social collapse, because of our numbers. If this is the case, why are lifespans increasing worldwide, child mortality falling, age-adjusted cancer rates decreasing, mortality from many diseases declining, literacy and numeracy rates increasing and agricultural production per hectare increasing? Although desertification and land degradation is increasing in some parts of the world, in developed countries wilderness is on the increase.
This is the old eugenics movement repainted green. Fear and guilt are its stock in trade.
– Tim Mondzheyovsky, Newtown
The Age, 22/9:
Quality control starts with people
I endorse The Age’s commitment to engaging the public in the debate on Australia’s population (Editorial, 19/9).
However, I believe that The Age has been hoodwinked by the arguments used to justify an increase in the Australian population to 35 million.
Wayne Swan believes that an Australian population of 35 million is beyond his control and is unavoidable. Mr Swan includes climate change and an ageing population as “two of our greatest challenges”. As if population increase via immigration will fix the perceived problems of an ageing population. Why isn’t uncontrolled world population growth seen as a challenge?
Wayne Swan is interested in stimulating economic growth only via the most simplistic and least imaginative of mechanisms: population increase. It is unsustainable and he places Australia at risk. A 60 per cent increase in population will diminish the quality of life of current Australians. It diminishes food, water and environmental security.
Australians have a choice: they can either lamely accept a reduction in their quality of life, or they can engage in the debate and influence the future.
– Nicholas Howe, Malvern
24/9:
Endless growth is a dangerous drug
How marvellous. Melbourne hits 4 million and the extra millions just keep coming faster and faster – 75 years for the first, now only 22 years for the latest. Unsurprisingly, the economists are delighted. Somewhere between the basic science they learnt at school and gaining an economics degree, these proponents of perpetual growth must undergo a cognitive transformation. In science they learnt that growth is a temporary phenomenon. Individual organisms grow for a time, and then mature. If a particular species goes through a population growth phase, it will be at the expense of others and there will always be a limit to its expansion imposed by environmental checks such as water and food supply, space or disease.
Then in their economics courses, they learnt this was wrong. A healthy economy must continually expand, fuelled by ever more people consuming ever more resources. This dogma is spread far and wide, so most of us come to believe that growth actually can continue forever. Global warming? It’s a figment of the scientists’ imagination. Ageing population? We need more growth to solve that one too.
Relying on population growth to solve our problems is like relying on an addictive drug. Ever increasing doses are needed to achieve the same effect and the ultimate result can be tragedy.
– Ralph Judd, Blackburn North
People, we must talk
With the revelation that Melbourne is growing by 90,000 a year, and Australia by 500,000 a year (The Age, 23/9), Ross Gittins’ article (Comment, 23/9) was timely. Population policy in Australia is the Rudderless ship (pun intended), careering along without regard to the carrying capacity of the land. Apparently because of the perceived short-term economic benefits of seemingly unlimited immigration (where the individual is reduced to a taxable consumption unit), government policy overrides any serious consideration of a sustainable population figure.
We are all aware of the inability of infrastructure to keep pace with immigration and with climate change, over-allocation of water resources and anticipated reductions in crop yields. It defies logic that we are not having a vigorous public debate regarding population policy in this country.
– Chris Owens, Lysterfield South
An end to business as usual
It was no surprise to read that the Business Council applauds the news that Melbourne’s population has hit 4 million and the country will reach 22 million within days. More people means more demand and more profit for business.
Never mind the thousands facing rental stress or homelessness because housing supply cannot keep up with such demand. Never mind the commuters pushed onto overcrowded public transport because the State Government cannot keep up the supply of infrastructure. Never mind all the other species that lose their habitat because Melbourne expands ever outwards.
This kind of growth is cancerous. It should be deplored. We need to tighten skilled immigration and temporary visas, abandon the trans-Tasman agreement so that we don’t have nearly 50,000 New Zealanders settling here annually, and leave just the refugee program intact, or even enlarge it, as it is a mere fraction of overall net migration. While we’re at it, get rid of baby bonuses. They’re the last thing we need in an overcrowded world.
– Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW
Find the equilibrium
Ross Gittins is spot on in pointing out the dream world inhabited by most economists and politicians, who don’t seem to understand the fundamental fact of the ecological limits of our planet.
There is, however, a need for a more fundamental overhaul of the world economic order than just population. We need to look beyond a growth-based economy powered by consumption and debt to strive for an equilibrium between a reasonable level of prosperity and a sustainable ecology. Economic growth should be directed predominantly to the developing world, where it would raise living standards and constrain population growth.
– Michael Hassett, Blackburn
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
26/9:
Keep it real
The idea that fake grass is better for the environment than real grass is a myth. The logic goes that synthetic turf does not need to be watered or mown and is therefore the obvious choice for ecologically aware gardeners. However, fake grass is a petrochemical product that takes a long time to break down. The manufacture and transportation of synthetic grass creates carbon, whereas real grass absorbs it. Artificial grass also damages the soil underneath and creates an inhospitable environment for the life that thrives in and around real grass, such as insects, worms and birds.
– Virginia van Engelen, Port Fairy
28/9:
Above all, water is a numbers game
Hearts go out to Indians enduring water shortages (“Water wars loom in a nation of parched fields”, The Age, 26/9).
Water is so closely tied up with food production that the possibility of famine looms large.
Farmer Chatan Singh, who is deep in debt because the rains and crops have failed, has eight children. India grows by 20 million people a year. Both exacerbate the growing crisis.
A country can only be sustained if its population and resources are in balance. India was able to sustain a large population for a long time as long as the monsoon came on time and the Himalayan snows melted in spring to feed rivers. Neither of these are certainties any more with climate change.
If your crops fail and you have no capacity to borrow, of course, it matters not if you have eight or two children – they all starve. But assuming Chatan Singh is borrowing to feed his family, we may assume his debts would be less if he had fewer mouths to feed. This principle works at a national level. It is thus vital that nations such as India include population stabilisation in their National Adaptation Programs of Action in the lead-up to climate change talks in Copenhagen.
– Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW
29/9:
Keep on growing
Congratulations to Ross Gittins (BusinessDay, 28/9) for pointing out that population growth is not only bad for the environment, but also to our economic wellbeing.
The question is, why do all four major political parties support unlimited population growth for Australia?
– Jeff Triplett, Broadmeadows
Herald Sun, 28/9:
Over-populate and kill quality of life
Congratulations to the Herald Sun for bringing out the full disaster of our state and federal governments’ population push (“Population boom a bust”, September 24).
As the population goes up, our livability goes down. Just ask people in the streets.
People are sick and tired of packed roads, trains, hospitals and a dangerous shortage of water, which we are being forced to share with another 112,000 people each year.
The Government fails to mention that more people means more pollution and a larger carbon footprint. The best way to clean up the atmosphere would be to put a lid on this huge increase of population.
Get migration levels down to a sustainable number.
Our governments obviously are under the thumb of big business, making their millions supplying more and more of us with more and more things.
Demand a population summit.
– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash Coalition
Rudd unhouses the poor
Kevin Rudd, when in Opposition, attended the housing affordability summit and demanded solutions.
Since assuming power, he has increased immigration even further, driven up the price of existing housing by increasing the first-home buyer grant, and now he and Swan make it even easier for non-residents to buy Australian housing.
Surely Rudd must rate as the ultimate hypocrite? He has fuelled the housing bubble at the expense of renters and less affluent citizens while essentially government-guaranteeing house prices for the more affluent.
This is the extreme form of wealth shifting to benefit the rich.
Shame on you, Kevin Rudd, for the socio-economic impasse you are creating.
– Tony Smith, Burwood
Doubly stupid density planning
If the world is going through global warming as a result of demands from world population growth, then why on earth is Australia planning to nearly double its population in the next 40 years?
– Russ Picton, Goughs Bay
