Developers’ paradise

If there is one thing I dislike about the subreddit r/Australia (and perhaps Reddit in general!) it is that it seems to be dominated by patronizingly smug young urban males. The main topic that incites this irritation is anything to do with urban planning . The prevailing opinion there is – to use one direct quote – “Taller buildings means higher density, less sprawl, less traffic, more efficient, better for environment.” Anyone who contradicts this view – such as suggesting that population growth should be restricted so that high density is not so necessary – is regarded with contempt (“NIMBYs!”) and downvoted.

This was in a thread about the latest ugly monstrosity for Melbourne predictably approved by Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Such extravagences are merely profit-making exercises for developers and mostly overseas investors, and do nothing to alleviate the housing crisis here or help the environment (as one commenter points out in the article comments: “Heating and cooling of common areas 24/7, running elevators 24/7. No access to air clothes drying – every apartment will be running a dryer. The energy consumption of apartments is higher than homes add to that they can not use green energy like solar, water catchment etc.”). I sincerely hope that the property market will collapse catastrophically, and an airplane fly into the building.

A Danish urban designer called Jan Gehl visited Melbourne last week and was critical of Docklands, and high-rise in general:

Professor Gehl is critical of high-rise towers as a planning solution. “The residential tower is the lazy architect’s answer to density,” he said. “My interest is ‘cities for people’ not ‘cities for developers’ and not ‘cities that make traffic happy’.”

Cities packed with tall glass-and-concrete towers are dreary, ugly and dehumanizing; the buildings are harsh and cold in aspect. Many of the ancient cities in Europe are pleasing to look at as their older apartment buildings are generally low-rise and made of stone, which gives them a warmer organic feel.

A recent article at io9 showed some designs of futuristic cities with a more organic look rather than the sterile glass-and-concrete metropolises usually favored by architects.

Some letters criticizing the development (and planning generally):

Freeway mania

The Peninsula Link is soon to open. This is the freeway
opposed by environment groups as it cut through several reserves, including the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, heritage original native bushland. The aerial map images below show the extent of the destruction:

2009:

2012:

The remaining creatures living there will be subjected to the noise and pollution from thousands of motor vehicles passing through every day.

Those who participated in this vandalism – construction workers and others – should be thoroughly ashamed. How would they like their houses to be bulldozed while they were living in them? So much of Victoria’s vegetation has been cleared since European settlement and it is still ongoing despite supposedly greater environmental awareness now. The situation is much the same in other states.

Roads are one infrastructure item governments always seem to find funding for – despite making cuts to vital services such as health care – and there are more planned around Melbourne to scar the landscape. Population growth is one driving force (so to speak) behind road construction and there is no sign of either stopping, unfortunately.

A relevant letter from today’s Herald-Sun:

Precious peninsula

THE Government claims the new Peninsula Link freeway will cut the time of traveling between Mt Martha and Carrum Downs by 17 minutes, and save 40 minutes in peak time.

The aim is more than an expensive $759 million effort to reduce driving times for commuters.

The peninsula’s green wedges will be more accessible and be nibbled away for urban sprawl. More land will be opened for housing to soak up our population growth, set at full-throttle speed by government policies.

More of our environmental and social capital will be traded in so developers and investors can profit from Melbourne’s growth.

Housing on the peninsula won’t be affordable, but maximised by good location and the globalisation of the property market.

– Beatrice Ortega, Heidelberg Heights

More angering news is that the Victorian Planning Minister now has new powers to speed major projects. Which means he can override environmental concerns and residents’ protests against inappropriate developments in favor of business and developers. I feel so helpless to oppose these greedy growth-obsessed parasites and politicians, and it is incredibly frustrating to see the continuing destruction of the once-livable city and state I have grown up in.

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Addendum: A letter, The Age, 29/1:

Destroying nature just to fulfil wants

AS PENINSULA Link opens to huge amounts of traffic and raves about the racing car-perfect surface, we should take a minute to think about what we have lost in order to save some time: hundreds of trees that were homes to wildlife, hundreds of hectares of precious habitat for endangered southern brown bandicoots, and the songs of birds. We’re going to lose more as development speeds up throughout the Mornington Peninsula and, in particular, the Tootgarook Swamp, which stands in the way of the Peninsula Link extension to Rye.

The cost, so often advertised as $756 million, will be more than $2 billion by the time we pay it off over 25 years. As we hear more and more of our human services being cut, education being slashed, and hospital beds being closed, I despair at our selfish desire for comfort over substance; and at our ability to leave a sustainable planet for the future.

– Gillian Collins, Friends of the Pines Flora and Fauna Reserve, Frankston North

News article, 31/1: “Peninsula Link blamed for more animal fatalities on Casey roads”, Cranbourne Leader.

Melbourne in 2050: unlivable

“Still liveable?”, The Age, 22/11. This in-depth article looks at the rapid growth of Melbourne – predicted at the current rate to reach 6.4 million in 2050 – and the failure of the State Government to keep up with the infrastructure required to support such numbers. New suburbs are being built on what was once farmland at great distances from the CBD, and the residents there have virtually nothing in the form of access to public transport. The current planning system favors developers at the expense of livability issues, and there is no move to change this. Of course, the basic problem is the relentless population growth the city has been inundated with – and neither State nor Federal Governments appear willing to tackle this issue by reducing the too-high immigration rate, and discouraging the high birth rate – too radical for our growth-based economy to contemplate. One academic quoted in the article does not believe population growth is a problem:

The state government’s 20-minute city proposal is “a complete pipedream”, says Carolyn Whitzman, associate professor in urban planning at Melbourne University. “Whether Melbourne has 4 million or 6 million people, we’re not travelling in a particularly equitable direction,” she says. “I don’t necessarily see population growth as a bad thing, it just has to be managed properly. Currently, we live in a socially divided and environmentally unsustainable city.”

Realistically, population growth is almost never “managed properly” – certainly not by Australian governments – and with most cutting funding such management is even more unlikely.

From a commenter in a related article:

Still more articles agonising about strategies for adapting Melbourne’s moribund infrastructure to cope with future population explosion, all predicated on the unspoken and unchallenged assumption that population growth is inevitable and sacred. None of the learned commentators and politicians dares mention the obvious solution – limiting population growth, which could be done with social pressure on parents to limit family sizes, and governments limiting immigration. Why the collective dread of mentioning this obvious fact?

– boxchester, Melbourne, November 22, 2012, 11:48AM

I feel like starting a Mattew Guy hate page on Facebook or something! The Planning Minister comes across as arrogant and condescending in his statements, such as this opinion piece: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting”, H-S, 22/11, a relentlessly optimistic extolling of Melbourne’s continous expansion. (I would like to declare a fatwa on the word vibrant …) He is of the opinion that huge skyscrapers make a city “sophisticated” – “Mr Guy dismissed those who complain about over-development, saying: ‘If Melbourne is too successful, maybe they should move to Adelaide’.” (source) – presumably Adelaide is not yet wrecked as Melbourne? “Taller buildings, he said, were a symbol of a growing nation, a strong economy and can ‘define a city’.” (source) He wrote a rather patronizing opinion piece in today’s Herald-Sun: “The metropolis our forefathers built will continue to be vibrant and exciting” (behind a paywall, reproduced below):

Collected letters

Another batch of letters from The Age, in response to the article linked to last entry about Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Most feel the same negativity toward him and the planning system as I do. I did not comment on the planning reforms site as I did not know what to say specifically about the topics – not qualified enough.

Miserable Melbourne

The 7:30 Report for 27/4 featured an infuriating interview with Planning Minister Matthew Guy. Dismayingly but predictably, the only message he emphasized is finding ways to “accommodate” the increasing population, not try to reduce growth. Increasing population by immigration and birthrate is “sustainable” – yeah, right (not!) He and others in government and business are clearly trying to brainwash citizens into regarding growth as inevitable. Marvelous Melbourne is fast becoming Miserable Melbourne. An earlier article, “Make room: state population set to soar”, The Age, 24/4, gives no good news.

Government-sanctioned vandalism

Two dismaying articles from The Age demonstrating an assult on the environment and residents’ rights by the Victorian Liberal government under Ted Baillieu.

“Baillieu reviews green laws”, 12/2. Native habitat is once again under threat due to the Liberal government’s seeking to remove excessive “red tape” (regulations). This despite that biodiversity is already much reduced:

Victorian National Parks Association executive director Matt Ruchel said numerous government and scientific reports over the last decades had shown Victoria as the most cleared and ecologically stressed state in Australia, with high numbers of threatened species.

“Planning reform blocks appeals”, 15/3. The overcrowding and destruction of once-pleasant established suburbs looks set to continue, and residents will not be notified, and have no right to appeal inappropriate housing developments near them. The anger and despair I feel at this is almost too much to be borne. And I am powerless to do anything about it. Planning Minister Matthew Guy is proving just as much an urban vandal as his predecessor, Justin Madden.

And, of course, a main factor behind each issue is Victoria’s continuing and relentless population growth, which is neither inevitable nor desirable (except to businesses such as the building industry which profit from it).

Some collected letters in response to both issues:

A future timebomb

“Sir Bob Geldof calls for women to have fewer children”, The National (UAE), 16/3. The musician and activist made these remarks during a visit to the United Arab Emirates, but the Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, rejected this suggestion:

“It’s not entirely clear to me that the way to succeed is to stop having children,” said Sheikh Nahyan, also at the forum. “They are the future.”

He said it would be better to focus on food production and consumption, as well as energy, water, pollution, deforestation, biodiversity, urbanisation and disease.

Sheikh Nahyan also quoted the UN as saying “we should not ask whether we are too many, but what can we do to make the world better”.

A foolish and short-sighted response. The Middle East generally has a large and growing population of young people, many of whom are impoverished, and even some of those educated have little in the way of job opportunities. This has been one unpublicized motivation behind the “Arab Spring” – venting anger and frustration at their situation.

Like China, Middle Eastern countries are facing a “perfect storm” of rising populations and dwindling resources, and are scouring the world to alleviate this, mainly by buying up farmland in countries such as Australia and Africa, something which understandably meets with resentment from many citizens there. Something has to give.

But Geldof called on the UAE to accept the harsh reality now and avoid disastrous consequences later.

“They either find a cultural way to make this acceptable or they’re going to have an anthropogenic critical event,” he said.

Global consumption is also expected to increase by 1,600 per cent in the next 90 years.

“I think the tipping point has been reached,” Geldof said. “There can’t be more people on the Earth than we can feed.”

They can’t say that they haven’t been warned.

Speaking of celebrities, “Cherryl Barassi on hoons, suicide pills and ratbags in sport”, H-S, 3/3. The wife of a well-known former Australian footballer had a few incisive things to say, including opinions on population growth. In the print article this was also included in a sidebar:

“Overpopulation and rabid consumerism are destroying our one and only beautiful little planet. Even the one-percenters who run the show can’t be happy in this climate of greed and denial. We are the ka-ching dynasty.

“How about we cancel public funding of the IVF program, and any other breeding incentives, and make it easier to adopt around the world?

“I’m tired of hearing about rights, the right to have 12 children, 12 cars and 12 televisions in one household. I’d like to hear more about responsibility.”

Paving over Victoria

The continuing development and destruction of Victoria’s green spaces leaves me (and many others) in a frustrated rage. The current Government continues this policy, wanting to put up for development the Green Wedges around Melbourne – corridors established over 3 decades ago to provide some environmental breathing space. Unfortunately the deliberate encouraging of population growth (approximately 90 000 people a year) has these areas under threat. The Planning Minister, Matthew Guy, is proving as developer-friendly as his predecessor, Justin Madden, was. Some recent articles from The Age:

• “Review threatens to destroy ‘Melbourne’s lungs’ ”, 30/7
• “Open spaces to shrink as Melbourne grows”, 8/8 – public parks are also under threat.

Some letters:

Fill ’er up

Another backlog of articles and such to list! I have neglected posting out of sheer despair; I feel so powerless and insignificant as nothing I say can do anything to change the government’s policies.

“No ‘we are full’ sign for Melbourne”, The Age, 7/3. With tedious predictability, Ted Baillieu’s Liberal Government has decided not to do anything to restrict Melbourne’s population growth as it is good for the economy. Certainly not for the residents who have to endure the erosion of living standards resulting from such growth! To say I am disgusted and disappointed is an understatement. The city I grew up in is essentially ruined. Disturbingly:

He said 84 per cent of Victoria’s economic growth over the past five years had come from population growth, compared with 71 per cent for Australia as a whole, an unsustainable situation that would require higher productivity from Victoria’s workers to reverse.

Earlier, however, Planning Minister Matthew Guy was saying, “Bigger may not be better for Melbourne”.

Victorian Labor politician Kelvin Thomson now has his own blog; he is one of the very few politicans who seem to understand that excessive population growth is not a benefit for Australia (or the world).

SPPA convener William Bourke wrote an opinion piece on the ABC News site, “Ageing Australia: a crisis or triumph?”, saying that an older population is not necessarily something to be concerned about, despite the scare-mongering by businesses and politicians.

“Planet could be ‘unrecognizable’ by 2050, experts say”, 21/2. A planet of 7 billion is bad enough, but 9 billion will be even worse, as this article predicts. Feeding all those people is the main issue. In the rest of the natural world, animal, bird and insect populations tend to increase in times of plenty – but when famine strikes, many will perish from starvation (the boom and bust cycle). The “Green Revolution” has helped humans avoid this for the most part (at least where food is evenly distributed), but it is reliant on environmentally-unfriendly means of production such as synthetic (petroleum-based) fertilizers and monoculture crops controlled by corporations. The only way to avoid this cycle – with the prospect of millions fighting for dwindling resources – is to give everyone (i.e. in all countries) access to family planning, and remove incentives for having large families in times of plenty, even if this tends to go against human instinct to reproduce.

Fat city

A short news article from the 10/6 The Age on a statement by MP Kelvin Thomson:

Melbourne growing obese: Labor MP

Federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson has described Melbourne as “obese” in a scathing attack on the Victorian government’s decision to expand the urban boundary by thousands of hectares. “Melbourne is becoming an obese, hardened-artery parody of its former self. Extending the urban growth boundary is like a man rapidly gaining weight who thinks he can solve the problem by loosening his belt,” he said in a statement. He said the expansion would destroy nearly 7000 hectares of volcanic plains grassland, would add thousands of cars heading to the CBD every day, would create a massive infrastructure bill and contradicted the state government’s Melbourne 2030 planning blueprint. A planning amendment is before State Parliamentto expand Melbourne’s urban boundary by 43,600 hectares and allow for an estimated 134,000 new homes. It is expected to pass with the support of the opposition.

– Jason Dowling

A more detailed press release is reproduced at the PublicPopForum.

Melbourne is getting more unpleasant to live in as each year passes, the population increases and the city grows further like a cancer. Yet all the media can do is exult over rising real estate prices (good for investors and developers) and how the “building boom” supposedly benefits the economy. The Herald-Sun article below is an example (not available online):

More people, more homes: Victoria leads nation in building boom and urban sprawl

Outer suburbs in Victoria are booming with a mass of new homes built. Victoria is the growth capital of the country and in the past year has had four of the top five fastest-growing regions by population.

The Population and Residential Building Hotspots report by the Housing Industry Association showed Whittlesea north top the list with an incredible $484 million worth of new building approvals in 2008-09. There was 18 per cent population growth in Whittlesea north in the same period. Wyndham south took second place with 13 per cent growth, and Cardinia Pakenham and Melton east were fourth and fifth.

The HIA says Victoria has the fastest growing population, and building works must keep accelerating in areas of demand.

But a leading urban planner said the push to the fringes meant the gap between the “haves and have nots” was rapidly increasing. HIA Victorian executive director Gil King said there was no sign of boom suburb growth slowing.

“Victoria has had the nation’s fastest population growth, meaning demand for housing is higher than other states,” Ms King said. “It is crucial that the Victorian Government continues to introduce measures that aim at stimulating housing supply, including the promised expansion of the urban growth boundary.”

Senior urban planning lecturer at the University of Melbourne Dr Alan March said he was concerned about the low density of developments in growth areas and questioned how growth would spread. “One of the great problems we suffer in this growth is going into areas that are poorer in the levels of services that they have, compared to existing areas,” Dr March said. “And there’s not a great range of housing choice.”

Dr March said first home buyer grants were pushing prices up and there must be more assistance given to people in boom suburbs.

“If you look at data over the past 20 years, we are seeing a greater distance between the haves and have nots,” he said.

Of course the HIA wants more houses built as it profits their members! Never mind the damage to the environment. The fragile native volcanic grasslands that provide breathing space are being subsumed under a mass of housing – but most people tend to see these regions as “worthless” and open land that should be built over.

I get angry and despairing at this continuing destruction, enough so to hope for a firestorm to destroy the housing estates.

Population Minister

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

Too popular

There’s been a steady deluge of articles about the population debate, as well as a related issue: housing affordability. Problem is, while the debate drags on, the population continues to grow. The housing shortage is directly attributable to growth, but no politician is game to drastically change the system. For me it is dismaying to see the older houses and gardens in my suburb and others be demolished and replaced with ugly cramped townhouses and enormous multistory houses with barely any room for vegetation, as well as open land be smothered with housing estates that are spreading like cancerous growths. I absolutely hate how Victoria has changed since the early 1990s, when Jeff Kennett’s Liberal government came into power and instigated a massive social upheaval which has been continued under the Labor government following it. It is horrid to live through. Victoria’s population growth is now the fastest in Australia. Popularity sucks!

“Inquiry call as population tops 22 million”, ABC News, 25/3. Various population experts, the Federal Opposition and the Greens want an inquiry into what population is sustainable for Australia. The last such inquiry was in 1971!

“Australia’s population growth is already leading to a range of pressures”, ABC News, 25/3. An overview of Australia’s population issues.

“Carr wants migrant intake cut to curb growth”, SMH, 25/3. Bob Carr, the former Labor premier of NSW, says Australia’s immigration intake should be slashed by half to slow population growth. The Stable Population Party is also quoted:

A new party pushing for a stabilised population capped at 23 million was gathering support, its Sydney convener, William Bourke, said. The Stable Population Party of Australia wants to keep the national population static despite a projected population increase to 9.2 billion globally, from 6.8 billion now. “Australia’s extreme population growth is either causing or exacerbating our economic, environmental and social problems,” he said. The main problems were housing affordability in cities, soaring power prices, scarce water resources and a straining health system. Migration and inducements for families to have more children were contributing.

“Australian population growth double the world average”, H-S, 26/3. Australia’s population growth is 2.1% – higher than China, the US, Canada, Indonesia and most other nations. This should be considered a disgrace!

“Victoria’s population boom could be recipe for disaster says Labor MP”, H-S, 26/3. MP Kelvin Thomson again is a sole voice speaking out against unchecked growth.

Crowding us in

“Two good to be true”, H-S, 14/3. Some scientific evidence demonstrating that smaller families (one or two children) are better for parents’ health!

“Overpopulation the great unmentionable in Queensland politics”, Courier Mail, 16/3. Queensland is one of the most populous states and the strain is showing (as with Victoria), yet its deluded politicians still promote growth.

One of the comments below that article:

Well, SCOTTY OF QLD, have you ever lived in China? Or that skyscraper capital of the world, Hong Kong? Have you any idea what effect it has on people’s psyche to live like crabs in a basket? To constantly fight over resources and space? To bring up children in a tiny flat situated a hundred or more feet up in the air? Nah, I thought not. Well, you might want to live like that, but I’m damned sure I don’t want to. Nor do I want this for my kids and grandkids. Instead of comparing Australia with Third World countries (and saying, god forbid! that we should ape them), why not look at examples of intelligent population and lifestyle and resources management, such as we see in the Scandinavian countries? It is not our fault if countries choose to overpopulate. Likewise, it is simply RUBBISH to say that if overpopuilated Third World countries can scrape along, Australia (which has more than 76% desert, in case you hadn’t realised!) should be able to manage a huge population too. Why do you think migrants want to come here? To escape the overcrowded, chaotic countries they are leaving behind – duh!

Various developers have been making the usual alarmist statements about housing and land shortages (of course, they stand to profit from this). In “High-rise push to halt urban sprawl”, 16/3, some are promoting high-rise towers as a solution – not a desirable one for reasons stated in the comment above. I certainly don’t want Melbourne and its suburbs to end up as nightmarishly crowded concrete canyons. “Australia faces housing affordability ‘time bomb’: developer”, 17/3 – another developer pushes for smaller and more dense housing. There is only so much land, and covering it with housing estates is not acceptable – open space is necessary for environmental and mental health reasons. Crowding people into towers is not acceptable either.

Greens leader Bob Brown is pushing for a population strategy inquiry – at last his party seems to have realized it is a simmering issue that won’t go away.

“For a new generation, Alpha will be better”, The Age, 20/3. The generation born this year has been dubbed Alpha. Their future could be difficult, and shows how misguided encouraging a high birth rate is – it means more strain on resources, and competition for jobs.

The last of the Alphas will be born in 2024. Australian National University head of demographics Peter McDonald says they may be our biggest generation yet. He says the number of births could be higher in the future because of large numbers of migrants having babies.

In 2050, when the eldest Alphas turn 40, the population is predicted to reach 35 million. Professor McDonald refers to the “echo effect” – if there is a larger population that will trigger another baby boom because there are more people to have babies. Mr McCrindle, however, predicts one in three Alpha females will not have children. Professor McDonald says the bigger generations generally face greater competition in the labour force, but with Australia’s skills shortage this is less of an issue.

“The aging population scare debunked” at PublicPopForum. Quoted below:

Pamela Kinnear’s 2001 study for the Australia Institute, “Population Aging: Crisis or Transition?” concludes:

Conclusion: Alarm over the ‘ageing crisis’ is not justified by the evidence. The transition to an older population can be facilitated by promoting the well-documented benefits that accrue in societies that have equitable access for all citizens to healthcare, education, employment and retirement income. Policies should also focus on overcoming discriminatory attitudes to older people, ensuring security of employment over the life-course, and making a commitment to gender equity in both public and private spheres. Population ageing is not a threat to Australia’s future but an opportunity to ensure decent living standards for all.

Judith Healy’s Study for the Australia Institute 2004, “The Benefits of an Aging Population”:

Far from being net receivers of help and support, older people are, in fact, net providers, at least up to the age of 75 years. They provide childcare, financial, practical and emotional assistance to family members including helping people outside the household with the tasks of daily living. Such unpaid caring and voluntary work adds up to a significant proportion of GDP, around seven per cent on some measures (Ranzijn et al. 2002; De Vaus et al. 2003). Grandparenting has become an important social role in an age when people tend to have more living parents than children. Not only does it benefit grandparents themselves who find that grandparenthood is an important aspect of their lives, but it also appears to benefit grandchildren substantially.

In addition, it is likely that older communities will be more law-abiding communities since older people are less inclined to commit crimes against property and people. The Australian Institute of Criminology (2002b) estimates that homicide rates will fall by around 16 per cent between now and 2050 and there is likely to be less crime altogether resulting in substantial savings in prison and policing costs in the future. Older people are involved in the community as active members of clubs with a large Melbourne survey reporting that one-third of men and one quarter of women aged 55-75 years belonged to a sporting club (Howe and Donath, 1997). They also attend musical concerts, theatres and art galleries more frequent ly than younger people, read more and visit libraries more often. Thus it is probable that the arts will benefit from an older Australia.

Letter from the H-S, 19/3:

I agree with Ian Thomas (50/50, March 17), the world should be practising zero (or even negative) population growth. Governments promote population expansion purely for monetary reasons, not the environment. The world cannot sustain such a large population.

– J. Meulblok, Buckley

Kelvin Thomson speech

MP Kelvin Thomson, one of the few politicans concerned about overpopulation, made an excellent speech at a Sustainable Population Australia meeting on 10/2 (also reproduced at the PublicPopForum). One of the points he makes is that the alarm over an ageing society is misguided.

“New party wants population debate”, SMH, 8/2. Another concerned businessman, William Bourke, proposes a new political party focused on overpopulation.

Although he has never been involved in politics, Mr. Bourke, 39, said his instincts told him Mr. Rudd had slipped up badly last year when he said, “I actually believe in a big Australia – I make no apology for that. I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing.” Mr. Bourke says the huge increases in population forecast by the federal Treasury in its third intergenerational report are a direct result of government policies, including record immigration levels and the baby bonus. Yet the only public debate is on how to deal with the consequences of so many more people, not whether such growth is desirable. He said “the extreme and radical rate of population growth” meant more high-rise apartment blocks, overcrowded transport networks and loss of parklands were inevitable, and it was time for a national debate about whether this was what people wanted. Mr. Bourke said he and a small group of like-minded people expect to reveal the name and plans for the party within three weeks and where they want to run candidates.

Letter, The Age, 6/2:

Norway can do it

Lindsay Tanner says that unless our population grows rapidly, we will suffer “lower productivity and less economic growth”. But from 1997 to 2007, 13 OECD nations had higher per-capita economic growth than Australia, but lower population growth. The suggestion that population growth is necessary for a vibrant economy is unsupported by any empirical evidence, and contrary to the examples of countries like Norway and Germany, which are doing fine with stable populations. If they can do it, why can’t we?

– Charles Berger, Australian Conservation Foundation, Carlton

SMH, 9/2:

Immigration policy must reflect our country’s fragility

Your editorial says there “is a popular opinion that holds Australia must rein in its population growth or suffer severe environmental consequences” (“A big Australia needs even bigger investment”, February 8). I presume this opinion is popular because our population growth to date has already led to severe environmental consequences.

There is a vast amount of scientific evidence to suggest we have stuffed up our environment at every level, and continue to do so. Those who say adding millions more people to the equation will not harm the environment if we do things the right way are the ones who are burying their heads in the sand. While we have the current system of buying, selling and developing land, the environment will always suffer.

You say “we have been adapting to higher populations since day one of the colony”. I respectfully suggest you should have said we have been “adapting poorly”. And when you say “we occupy one of the largest land masses in the world”, you should have said “one of the driest and most infertile land masses in the world”.

You could say we “enjoy” one of the world’s lowest population densities if we liked to live throughout our continent, but we don’t. We largely stick to the coast, so the population density in our cities and towns is similar to many other countries. Those trying to get to work on the Sydney road system would no doubt vouch for this.

“But since when have we given up so easily?” That is what I would say about those wanting a population debate and, heaven forbid, a population policy. Going along with governments who are hooked on high immigration simply because of an unproven economic benefit is the easy path.

Being against massive immigration does not mean you are anti-immigrant. We are all immigrants somewhere along the way, but we should not let that allow us to give up on fighting for a better way for this ancient and fragile country.

– Andrew Cronin, Robertson