On 3/4, PM Kevin Rudd announced the appointment of a Population Minister, in the form of Tony Burke, who is already Minister for Agriculture. It seems that, in an election year, he is realizing that his assertion of supporting a “big Australia” is at odds with the views of many citizens. Whether this appointment actually achieves anything seems dubious; it appears more of an appeasement to such citizens. Tony Burke is to spend “12 months writing a population strategy” – conveniently ending after the Federal election.
A letter from the H-S, 7/4:
Population debate overdue
Rudd has finally woken up to the fact that a growing majority of voters do not agree with government policy of the massive population increase being forced on us. It is overloading our infrastructure and damaging both environ ment and the quality of the wonderful Australian way of life. However, one wonders whether he is serious or not? If he’s really serious, he would have appointed Kelvin Thomson Minister for Population.
Thomson is the clear-sighted MP who was courageous enough to speak out in Parliament last year and ignite the population debate across Australia. We owe him a debt of gratitude.
When will the Victorian Government and Opposition appoint a minister and shadow minister for population? Victoria is being swamped more than any other state in Australia. Time to say, “we are full”.
– Mary Drost, convener, Planning Backlash, Camberwell
Not surprisingly, property developers oppose any curb on population, because it will affect their profits – never mind the environmental and social cost. Urban Taskforce Australia are the enemy!
Tony Burke claimed today that “it is impossible to cap the nation’s population growth”. Bullshit! They’re the government – they could cap growth if they really wanted to, but they are beholden to corporate donors and business lobby groups such as the one previously mentioned.
The Age letters, 3/4:
Given Melbourne’s over-population, the government should stop wasting taxpayers’ money on major events designed to attract more people.
– Matthew Engert, Preston
5/4:
Sustainability is the key for the 22m already here
Now that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has appointed a Minister for Population (“Rudd flips on ‘big Australia’ ”, The Sunday Age, 4/4), the appointee needs to look not just at what might not be sustainable in the future but, rather, what’s already unsustainable for many of the 22 million people at present coastally crowding Australia. He should have been put in the job yesteryear.
Incredibly, shamefully, our indigenous people are still sheltering under bits of wood and scraps of corrugated iron and there’s virtually no social housing program worthy of the name.
Renters are paying almost as much as home buyers and the immigration influx has no regard to the shrinking overall resources. Government-hoarded land needs to be freed up and councils need to stop allowing landlords to pack houses to the rafters and charging families by the room.
Too much time is being spent cataloguing already recognised public health problems and listing piecemeal solutions that are one, two or even three federal elections away.
Hotels and liquor outlets don’t need to be open all night long and it might be good to see more than just one politician actually physically exercising in public.
It’s the present that’s the problem. Fix that and the future will take care of itself.
– Brian Haill, Frankston
Zero is the marker
Well done, Kevin. Devoting some attention to this global issue, following your earlier over-the-top enthusiasm for a projected 2050 population of 35 million in this dry, dry land, is welcomed.
Overpopulation is a world problem, not just a coming Australian issue. But I worry that this will become migrant bashing when it really hinges on fertility, worldwide. Already, the Liberals’ new right-leaning leadership is turning the announcement into a call for a loathing of the handful of asylum seekers who arrive here by boat.
Let’s forget the previous government’s mantra of “one for mum, one for dad and one for the country” and stop funding the third and subsequent births and get back to the real universal need – zero population growth. If Tony Burke is to make a mark, that has to be his contribution to stabilisation of the world’s population.
– John Gourlay, South Yarra
On the wrong foot
While it’s wonderful that the government has at last recognised the need for a population policy, and given Tony Burke the job of writing it, it seems to have already decided some important aspects of it. For example, one of Burke’s jobs is to determine what size population we can sustain, while another is to see how we can boost the population in rural areas. Isn’t that jumping the gun a bit?
If he can find any rural areas with too much water, food and fibre production, wildlife and clean air and not enough high-density living, where the people want more traffic and crime, then maybe he could suggest increasing the local population.
Until then, perhaps it would be better to work on finding the sustainable level, rather than starting with the assumption that the rural population is too low.
– Graham Parton, Stanley
People issues to ponder
Tony Burke will be Australia’s first Population Minister and will draw up a strategy on how to support the growing population and its effect on infrastructure and services, housing, congestion, the environment, agriculture and water.
It seems his brief is to take population growth as a given and come up with some ideas on how to cope with it.
If we have a Population Minister, people might think we have a population policy. Questions for Minister Burke: Will you establish a figure for our maximum desirable population after a rigorous assessment of our limits to growth? Then, will you tell us what you will do to prevent this total being exceeded?
– Roy Arnott, Reservoir
6/4:
Given Melbourne’s overpopulation and associated problems, perhaps the Victorian government should stop wasting taxpayer money on major events designed to attract more people here.
– Matthew Engert, Preston
Asylum not the issue
IT IS heartening that Kevin Rudd has taken note of the electorate’s disapproval of his own views on population policy, even back-flipping on his vision of a “big Australia”.
It is disheartening that he has chosen to announce his about-face during renewed and dated rhetoric directed at him by the Opposition Leader following the increased arrivals of asylum seekers.
Even more worrying is Tony Abbott’s populist response, linking border protection with the population debate. If politicians continue to link asylum with immigration, then an independent population policy will never be achieved.
The issue of asylum and skilled migration intake are separate in policy and quota. Australia has a tiny quota for genuine refugees that pales in comparison to the government’s massive immigration quota.
Asylum and “boat people” are a red herring that will ultimately blur and confuse the electorate in what is a serious debate. The debate is about whether Australia will choose to be smaller and smarter or, like Tony Abbott’s mouth, be big and stupid.
– Shaun Dumbrell, Williamstown
7/4:
Close our borders
I teach English to new migrants, and, at a personal level, their reception couldn’t be better (Alison Sampson, Comment, 6/4). But, in a few years, migration has quadrupled, and got out of control, delivering 1 million people every 3.2 years. In the same short time, Australia’s education system has fallen rapidly behind other OECD countries that aren’t taking such numbers. Health systems creak; crime accelerates. It’s all our youth I worry about, not recent migrants. How can Ms Sampson be so narrow?
Tim Colebatch, on the same page, rightly asserts that quadrupling immigration in a decade has crippled the housing market for future generations.
Australia is not the inevitable, or sole, destination of the world’s migrants. But the future hopes of young couples to own a home are disappearing with every new million arrivals.
What about those who are already here? Close the borders now. God knows we have enough problems internally.
– Robin Rattray-Wood, Rosanna
8/4:
Population
The government’s plan to double Australia’s population in the next 40 years must be a scheme to attract new Labor voters: nobody currently living in Australia seems to think it’s a good idea.
Warwick Sprawson, Brunswick
Population growth is a global, as well as a local, problem and a major cause of climate change. The two should be tackled the same way – with global and local solutions.
– Julia Thornton, Surrey Hills
Run on the cheap
We live next to a railway station in the inner suburbs, and a medium-density redevelopment is under way a few doors up (Tim Colebatch, Comment, 6/4). The unfortunate part about this is not the building, which is mediocre enough, but the cars. Parking is already under pressure because of the station.
No off-street parking has been provided, nor does the council require it – and there is always an expectation that every household will be able to have one or more cars. What makes this a bad idea in narrow inner-Melbourne streets is, as always, the car.
There is no magic bullet to solve overcrowding. Increased housing density will just lead to other intractable problems.
Turning down the immigration tap while we work out what we’re going to do about it is a good start. Reinstating the Foreign Investment Review Board’s role is another. As my dad always used to say, “This country is being run on the cheap.” Nothing has changed.
– Charles Meo, Northcote
