Immigration rhetoric can’t be sustained
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One of the more pointed observations made by Kevin Rudd at his Wednesday night press conference announcing a leadership ballot the following morning was that he would not be “lurching to the right on the question of asylum seekers, as some have counselled us to do.” Rudd was right. Since becoming Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has made a point of hardening the government’s rhetoric on that issue, emphasising that she understood voters’ concerns about people arriving by boats. On the weekend, she went further and adopted the opposition’s rhetoric about population issues. “I don’t believe in a big Australia,” she told Laurie Oakes. “I don’t believe in simply hurtling down a track to a 36 million or 40 million population, and I think if you talk to the people of western Sydney or western Melbourne or the Gold Coast growth corridor in Queensland people would look at you and say ‘where will these people go’?” The usual anti-immigration suspects were quick to emerge. On cue, out came Dick Smith and “leading demographer” Bob Birrell to celebrate. Gillard’s remarks adopted almost word-for-word the line the opposition has been using on the issue — cloaking an attempt to exploit animosity towards immigration by linking it to sustainability and planning issues. The only difference is that the opposition has also attempted to confect a link between immigration and asylum seekers as well, in order to tap into hostility toward Muslims. Senior Labor figures had for some time been concerned that the opposition would try to use high immigration — which it oversaw while in office — as a way to exploit xenophobia. Under the apparently innumerate Scott Morrison, they’ve done just that, while more junior players have got the dog-whistle going — Abbott’s parliamentary secretary Cory Bernardi called for the banning of burqas and Kevin Andrews — who presided over record immigration levels — declared he wanted immigration slashed by 80%. Ironically, they were doing it at a time when Chris Evans as immigration minister was patching some of the large holes left by the Howard government in our immigration program — and particularly the rort that saw student visas being used as a backdoor means to obtain permanent residency in Australia. Rudd wasn’t averse to a bit of rhetorical realignment himself in the face of the emerging anti-immigration campaign, dropping his liking for a big Australia and summoning the capable Tony Burke from the backwater of agriculture to take on the role of population minister. Rudd’s strategy, typically, was for a review that would take the issue beyond the next election. Nevertheless, Gillard’s rhetoric is a substantial further shift toward a hostile view of high immigration. Particularly when there’s any hurtling involved. As the IPA’s Chris Berg nicely pointed out on Twitter on the weekend, it’s funny how we like policies that increase population levels through a higher birth rate, but not ones that achieve the same goal through immigration. “Sustainability” is a fine word. Our major parties have little interest in sustainability when it comes to resources exploitation or stopping our carbon addiction from cooking the planet, but it’s a wonderful term to wave around as a distraction. The opposition is presently proposing the hare-brained scheme of replacing the Productivity Commission — the single most important governmental reform of the past two decades — with a Productivity and Sustainability Commission. And Burke now finds himself Minister for sustainable population. “Sustainable population” offers a false dichotomy between population growth and sustainability — the same sort of contrast as, indeed, it’s closely related to, the false dichotomy between economic growth and environmental values. In fact one of the more amusing aspects of the population debate is watching environmental groups, who are normally the first to insist that there need be no tension between strong economic growth and environmental and climate action, insisting that we have too many people already and can’t have any more if we want to preserve our environment. The “sustainable population” rhetoric is aimed at conning voters into assuming that in policy terms we can’t walk and chew gum, that we can’t get our planning priorities right, we can’t put in place policies that facilitate population growth while addressing environmental, infrastructure and quality-of-life issues. Charging for externalities will get us a long way down the track to resolving this alleged tension — whether they’re carbon emissions, congestion or infrastructure costs. And letting markets work properly — in areas such as housing supply, or properly charging for carbon — rather than imposing ever greater layers of regulation can’t do any harm either. The political retreat from high immigration might make voters happy now but voters in future decades will pay the price in lower economic growth, a smaller workforce and higher prices. It’s the ultimate in vision-less leadership. |
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73 Comments
For far too long we have been concentrating on a 1% of the visa applicants and totally ignoring the rest of would be migrants.
Just wondering what is the difference between Julia Gillard and John Howard. A lipstick?
I note that you describe Bob Birrell as a “leading demographer”, as though you doubt that.
Whatever you think of his views - and whether he is actually stating a position or just raising issues - I would think his credentials are sound, and widely recognised.
Bernard,
Generally a good article, but your conclusing paragraph is just a little patronizing.
Many of us DO realize that the price of reduced immigration is indeed lower economic growth, a smaller workforce and higher prices - but it is a price we are perfectly willing to pay.
This doesn’t mean we’re necessarily all right wing fruitcakes by the way - I personally would be perfectly happy to see our quota for immigration halved but our quota for refugees quadrupled.
Yes, I echo Oscar’s comment. I’d need to be convinced of this:
“Sustainable population” offers a false dichotomy between population growth and sustainability — the same sort of contrast as, indeed, it’s closely related to, the false dichotomy between economic growth and environmental values.
The problem with Rudds statement on population that he conveyed was he supported a big Australia. He could have simply said that it was a natural outcome because of economics and sustainable immigration to back those economics. What puzzled me in almost all the issues that have arisen has been the governments lack of attack on the opposition and instead fighting a rear guard action. On population it should have exposed the flaws in student visa rorts or the back door exploitation used by industry for foreign labour.
RENA ZURAWEL
Both have balls but unlike Howard Gillard doesn,t lose them outside the comfort of parliament.
And the great joke on us all is that while we pretend to have lower immigration we have this longing for more and more tourists - 6 million of them a year will surely do more damage than the 180,000 or so who will create housing and building and jobs and taxes for the economy.
Gillard [Moderator- This comment has been edited. please refrain from calling the PM this sexist insult] loves Ruddock’s vicious refugee policy.
I find it amazing that yesterday she said “we can’t have kids in detention, no matter what you think of their parents actions”. Of course the parents actions was to save their kids from death.
Oscar, I like that quadrupling of refugees but do you understand that we are wasting $300 million a year on a program that has absolutely no legal standing or any cover of any convention or law in the world?
In fact it breaches conventions galore because we are literally importing people who have been asylum seekers but have protection in other countries already while trying to deny those who have not been able to access any protection before they get here?
How on earth this country has been allowed to dogwhistle their way through this lie year after year is beyond me.
The article essentially posits that population growth and economic growth are the only two variables in the equation .
Of the existing millions of Aussies, about 5% of the “workforce” are counted as being unemployed. This figure ignores underemployment and undereducation, part time employment, parking of a large number off the employable list by way of various pensions (including for invalidity and age).
The great big unconsidered variable is underemployment, which may be as high as 30%. I wonder what the real numbers are.
My point is that there remains much to be done to improve the economy via increases in participation rates, lowering of unemployment and so forth. Indeed, one large emerging factor appears to be the retention of all people in the school system beyond puberty. We need a discussion as to whether this is actually a good thing or just suits those employed to babysit the lower grades.
All of this will improve the standard of living of our existing population. This would require no environmental disincentive at all.
There is no immutable strong link between population and economic growth. Greece’s current turmoil proves that.
It’s intellectually lazy to conflate cheap “border protection” xenophobia with forward-planning for a sustainable population. It’s like claiming that refusing someone a glass of water because you barely have enough yourself is equivalent to refusing just because they’re Muslim.
I love the fact that people say that higher prices are a price they are prepared to pay for reduced immigration and lack of economic growth. Thanks for speaking on behalf of Australia! I’m sure those people struggling to pay their electricity bills this winter are happy to hear it.
As numerous economists (and history) have shown, economic growth is the only thing that has consistantly lifted people out of poverty and have increased health and educational outcomes for the population. Aid doesn’t work, but trade does. All economic policies implemented should be about increasing our economic growth.
And this includes sustainability. Contrary to popular belief, sustainability and economic growth do not have to have an inverse relationship. From a business perspective, is all about efficiency. It’s increasing output with less resources, not accepting reduced output and leaving resources idle. It’s making processes less environmentally damaging, not getting rid of the processes all together. As for population, it is ensuring that the country can support more people (i.e workers and consumers), not reducing birth rates and refugee and immigration levels. Both Gillard and Abbott should not be stepping away from an increased population policy. They should be pointing out the ways an increased population can make our lives better.
@Scott,
I would believe your argument if I could also manage to convince myself that our resources are infinite, as is our ability to deal with the unintended consequence of economic growth.
I’d probably also believe in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.
Australia was built on immigration. Even the aboriginies emigrated here 40-60,000 years ago. There is no doubt that our cities are burdened with too many people trying to use available resources, but that may have much more to do with governments pursuing economic rationalist agendas, and budget surpluses, than immigration rates. What says that future immigrants have to settle in cities. Why can’t we plan for immigrants to settle in regional centres? If there is a shortage of agricultural labourers, why can we plan for immigrants to settle on farms?
Immigration has enriched our country, economically, financially, socially, ethnically and culturally. If we close ourselves off to the world now, how do we maintain our growth and diversity?
It ain’t sexist, we are both women.
@ SCOTT - One of the most feared and dreaded words in our lexicon is about growth - its called cancer. There are great similarities between cancerous growth and economic growth. One kills the individual, the other ultimately destroys a country.
Economic growth is all about making money - you know, the greed is good theme - and despite your concern about those in the community who cannot pay their electricity bills, they are very unlikely to be assisted in doing so by said economic growth. That is the trickle down phenomena - doesn’t work. Witness the current stoush over the RSPT. For growth in the mining industry to advantage the plebs, we need a greater direct share in the profits in that sector. I don’t think that is going to happen anytime soon. The owners/bosses will hang onto every penny, so what is the point of growth in that industry (for example). And please don’t tell me they create jobs etc. etc. Every industry is into technology to reduce the workforce as much as possible - none more so that mining. Currently they employ a very small percentage of the total workforce in this country, and for the reasons quoted above, this can only get worse.
I could go on about the environmental damage, the cost of infrastructure, the upheaval in communities from rapid growth and inequality and many, many more problems unrestrained growth causes. I think the whole idea is a con.
So Bernard, can we support 100 million people in Oz? How about 1 billion people on this continent? 10 billion?
There is a limit somewhere in there - and before anyone accuses me of hyperbole and strawmen, my point, and the most obvious of obvious points about population growth is that there are limits. If you acknowledge that there isn’t an infinite capacity to house, feed, clothe people in this country and the world, then you’ve automatically admitted that at some point population growth will have to stop (or be stopped outside of our control).
Given that population is going to be limited at some level, why don’t we get to choose the level? We will have to deal with the pain of reorganizing our economy around a different growth trajectory at some point, why not now rather than later when it may be forced on us?
Further, I take great exception to the whole ‘economic growth is the only thing that matters’ argument. Economic growth is championed because it has been very successful at improving the quality of life for people. But don’t pretend that it is the only thing that improves quality of life, and it is quality of life that matters. When excessive population growth (or specific types of economic growth) starts to seriously impact our quality of life, then why would we rationally pursue it? Why should we want to look forward to living in ever denser cities, becoming ever less important in the overall scheme of things, just to spur economic growth?
@Jenny Haines,
No one (as far as I am aware) has suggested we should stop immigration altogether. It is of a matter of how much we should be relying on immigration as the primary driver of our future economic growth.
If you are in business, immigration is a very attractive idea (apart from those bad, bad boat people, of course!) because it ensures a permanent supply of new customers. The alternative paths to growth are much harder (e.g. by out-competing other businesses).
However, it is a “quick and dirty” solution for which the real cost is only ever paid by later generations - e.g. in a significantly degraded environment, overallocation of water resources, unsustainable forestry practices etc etc. Sound familiar?
Economic growth through immigration is a Ponzi scheme.
Oh come on!! That a few in the chattering middle class’s can make a half arsed argument around economics, growth or even environmental sustainability doesn’t hide the fact that a vast majority of so called ‘Middle Australia” just doesn’t want any immigrants that are not Anglo’s with a million bucks in their pocket.
Call it like it is - racist nation.
If Australia sat off the coast of Europe or North America and the Dutch, Germans, Belgians, Canadians or even Americans (non African of course) were on the boats instead of the Chinese, Indian, Afghan or Pakistanis, who would be demanding the Government did something about it?
Poor old Oscar worries about being branded as a “right-wing fruitcake” because he wants a reduced rate of immigration. I would suggest that Bernard has demonstrated himself to be the right-wing fruitcake with this nonsensical piece of fluff.
Some time between now and enternity, Autralia’s population growth must cease. Surely that is indisputable. So the question becomes when? and at what population level? and will it occur “naturally” (ie by cataclysm) ? or as a result of planning?
Do nations with a large population have a better living standard than nations with a small population? Do nations with higher population growth rates have higher standards of living than nations with lower population growth, or even a stable population?
As a nation, can we reduce our reduce our ecological footprint if we keep adding more feet?
The efficiency argument is utter nonsense. So called efficiency will be overwhelmed by population increase every time. So called efficiency is frequently obtained at cost of more intensive energy use.
enough!
Scott, that is the biggest load of old cobblers. Even if we don’t increase our footprint the global population will grow.
Why don’t you admit you are just another greedy, selfish slug.
Bernard, the reason we like policies that increase population through the birthrate is that they involve making love. There’s no intercourse as far as immigration is concerned. Anyway,I think it matters not. Congestion is becoming a real problem in Melbourne. Our standard of living is not as good as it used to be. Gillard is all talk on this. Tony Abbott will act. We should all get behind Tony now.
Speaking of right wing fruitcakes … Oh, Hi Troy C - didn’t see you there!
Bernard,
Best thing you have written for a while.
The asylum seekers debate should not be confused with the population debate. Rudd unfortunately did so, when he declared his belief in a big Australia in the middle of a debate on asylum seekers, and now they are linked in the public’s mind.
The last few paragraphs are quality. Charge for externalities (as distinct from sin taxes) and otherwise try to limit intervention in markets. For example, the supply-side of the housing market is completely distorted by political economic issues.
Can’t you hold an argument without resorting to personal abuse, Oscar?
@Troy C
Yes. When do you plan on contributing to one?
Sticks and stones Marilyn.
And it’s not the trickle down effect (generally used when talking about tax), it’s the multiplier effect when talking about GDP.
To use your mining example, the mining industry is a huge investor in Australian shipping, rail, automobile and construction industries (which employ large amounts of Australians). If the mining industry takes a hit (as it might under the RSPT), all these industries will as well. It’s not just about direct employment, it’s indirect employment as well.
As for your analogy comparing GDP growth to Cancer, in my opinion that is pretty dodgy. No country has ever been destroyed by GDP growth.
Now, now we can all agree to get behind Tony and push, we can just be thinking about different things as we do.
Mine’s a clifftop, by the way.
Isn’t ‘sustainable population’ about how we act within our ecological boundaries? So it’s not just about migration, right? It’s about our lifestyle, our urban planning, our wellbeing. And when you say this of environmental groups: “insisting that we have too many people already and can’t have any more if we want to preserve our environment”, it’s not the full picture. We can have more, just not at these levels.
I feel bemused writing this as I became an Australian citizen on Saturday - one among 3000 on that day at the MCG. The government should limit the amount of skilled (ie me
and increase the amount of asylum seekers.
Check out this from the Australian Conservation Foundation:
http://www.acfonline.org.au/population
It spells out clearly what a key environmental group is asking our government to do. Not quite what Bernard says here.
Still, lettuce keep up this debate (now that I’m in the door).
Yours, looking forward to voting for the first time in 10 years,
ScAussie Lou
Way back at Jenny Haines - “Why can’t we plan for immigrants to settle in regional centres? If there is a shortage of agricultural labourers, why can (sic) we plan for immigrants to settle on farms?”
Haven’t you noticed Jenny that no one wants to go and live at “regional centres”. Up on the north WA coast there are huge development projects employing thousands of people but virtually no infrastructure - no housing, no properly funded local government and seriously lacking social infrastructure. A three bedroom house costs $2000 / week to rent. Development booms in these places (and numerous similar ones in all states) should be slowed down by government intervention and the payment of a mining super profits tax. Let’s actually build these communities properly from the ground up so that they have a leg to stand on when the first blush of development is over.
There is no shortage of “agricultural labourers” unless some government subsidises Pacific Islanders to come and pick fruit - like the Kanaka cane cutters of 100 years ago - nowadays a totally discredited scheme. Mass immigration today is bringing people who expect to live in our capital cities, where all the half-decent facilities are, the same as we do. We wouldn’t ask new migrants to do some thing that we are really not prepared to do ourselves… would we? Or if we do ask them - let’s do it up front. Tell them, all of them, even the nice white city people from English and South African and Asian cities, that if they want to come here and build our economy they may only live in a regional centre a long way from the coast for, say, five years, before they can join the real Australians. Fat chance I’d say.
@Holden Back - in the queue mate!!
Honestly Bernard Keane is like a dog with a bone - determined in any article he writes about the population debate to keep labeling those that don’t want a ‘big’ Australia as anti-immigration and by inference, racists. From what I have observed those such as Dick Smith aren’t anti-immigration, they want reduced immigration - that’s a big difference.
I am one of those who would like to see an increase in our annual refugee intake but overall who wants a ‘smaller’ Australia because like Bob Carr said, ‘it is nice to be able to see the beach through gum trees’ and as someone who grew up on the South Coast, I am amazed at how development has gone rampant down there. I don’t care who I share the beach with, it is just nice to hold on to a bit of space. Ask a migrant from London or Beijing if they want to see Sydney or Melbourne as populated as the cities they left and I reckon you’d be hard pushed to find one that would want those city’s congestion replicated here.
The reality is the world is overpopulated and the more populated it becomes the more problems we will see as a result of that. Why should Australia add to that?
Hello, where did I say that GDP was like cancer. Hmmmmm Scott my boy you confuse me with someone else and slander me in the process.
Tom, Holden Back, et al:
Tony has achieved the impossible. He is now an asset to each side.
BTW, H(C)McC: Country towns should not ever be thought of as somewhere to send people for punishment, not even as second-best. All the problems for country towns start at the feeling of entitlement of the big mobs of 2-legged cattle who live in the capital cities and consider it their right to have everything laid on.
Charlie McColl - agreed that people do not want to go to regional centres or farms if they think they are being dumped there. The operative word in my posting was to PLAN for immigrants to move out to regional centres
Actually Hugh (Charlie) McColl, when I lived in Italy, that is exactly what happened. You can’t just up and move to Rome, or Venice, even if you are Italian born. You have residency in one area and need to apply for residency in another area if you want to move. You will need to demonstrate that you have an income (e.g. a job in the new area) and all other factors such as finding accomodation requires you to have residency approval. My ex husband wanted to do a real estate course in Alessandria which was too difficult to do in Genova (where we lived at the time) so he actually had to find someone who lived there to vouch that he had accomodation before he could enrol. Perhaps we should be looking at taking on more asylum seekers rather than migrants, who surely will be happy to live anywhere which isn’t conflict free. By increasing the population numbers of smaller regional areas it would improve the demand for goods and services there, thus increasing job demand and eventually infrastructure would improve too.
MITCHEM’s proposal would brand immigrants and refugees as second class citizens. I think that most Aussies prefer to think that we be a classless society. I certainly do.
Annestar yeah London and Beijing - nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.
There’s no shortage of beaches you can see through the gum trees in Australia, the shortage is for people who want to live in these places to the exclusion of anyone else.
Bernard, you think we’ll be worried about ‘economic growth’ when the oil starts running out and getting really expensive in a decade? Then completely runs out in two?
What will the teeming millions do then? Hope there’s some alternatives — like the stockpiles of lithium they ‘just’ discovered in Afghanistan for electric car batteries, for instance.
Bernard, I bet you can’t even define ‘economic growth’ or why it’s meant to be a good thing. All the heterodox economists are talking about a sustainable economy (not even ‘sustainable growth’ anymore), and Bernard’s back in the dark ages in the economic growth camp. You haven’t considered the cost of increased congestion, pollution, lack of a regionalisation plan, water supply in Australia, etc etc, all things Julia Gillard alluded to in that story you hate so much. In fact, the people who are pro heavy immigration are one group only: big business. They want more consumers, more people to buy things from them and make them rich, and more cheap labourers to drive down wages and improve their profit position. OK, fine, drive down wages, but you’d better drive down house prices and commodity prices at the same time, or else you’ll just be forming ghettos full of semi-skilled slaves and servants brought in under the guise of a jolly ‘big Australia’ where everyone is happy piled into cities of 10 million and driving automobiles everywhere.
Bernard, in your pursuit of economic ‘growth’, have you done an analysis of GDP per capita vs total GDP growth in Oz? No, I didn’t think so. It’s trending down at present.
Apart from the student visa rorts, apart from the many cases I’ve heard about where 457 visas and the like are being abused to undercut wages of perfectly well-qualified locals, and apart from high local unemployment and underemployment issues post-GFC, the other thing is that basically hundreds of Brits are being invited across to, for instance, replace 200 Coles store managers (who were all sacked), and ditto for Woolies, and run Railcorp and various other public institutions — did you know Aussies are too stupid to run anything, and need to replaced by a management class from overseas? Where those people come from Howard’s ‘traditional source countries’, by the way, forget your ‘xenophobia’.
I think any country that is trying to massively grow its population right now has rocks in its head.
Further, polling by Essential Research, published right here on Crikey a few weeks ago, shows that the MAJORITY of Australians don’t want a big Australia, don’t want this mad rush put up by Howard and Rudd. This is meant to be a DEMOCRACY, we keep getting reminded whenever we invade somewhere else for ‘scarce’ resources, where the pollies are supposed to do what the people want. Given that there is really no MORAL position on skilled immigration, etc (humanitarian and refugee intake is another matter), don’t you think it’s wise for the pollies to do the will of the people? Especially at election time?
Bernard, are you actually (*gasp*) anti-democratic? Apart from not being able to define what sort of ‘economic growth’ you are striving for, in a planet clearly with finite resources being used up at an astonishing rate of knots, can you now go on to try to define what you think of as ‘democracy’??? Or is Australia the govt of Bernard, by Bernard, for Bernard? What’s the rationale for a big population, given that ‘economic growth’ is a furphy and an environmentally suicidal path? (And what happens when rabbbits breed out of control and exceed the food supply limits of an area? People will be no different.)
Yes MICHEM, we know they do things differently in other places, especially in places that have static or even falling populations. And on my (superficial and fleeting) observations two years ago, Italy has none of the issues facing it that Australia has. Immigration (the 180-300,000 number) is mostly made up of willing, capable people looking for a better future. Only a small proportion is ‘refugees’ and only a tiny number are ‘asylum seekers’. Most of the regular migrants cannot come unless they have a job to go to or an investment in a job. That job will almost certainly be in a city. New migrants cannot be parked in Bathurst, Ballarat, Toowoomba or elsewhere ‘regional’ while state and local governments PLAN to create opportunities for them. They already have opportunities in the metro areas where they are heading. No one currently living in the metro areas is PLANNING to leave any time soon…. now why would that be? If we aren’t prepared to actually do the planning and make the changes (preferably ourselves ie. the current population not the newcomers) then let’s stop creating the problems that we can so readily identify. Let’s reduce migration and stop pretending that breakneck economic development is always good and migration should drive it.
So Mr Keanes you must be happily dreaming of the day Australia’s population reaches and surpasses a billion people.
You’re not? You think a population of over a billion people would be a bad thing? But this is what you’re asking for. This is what the politicians and business leaders are aiming for and working towards right now, whether they know it or not. This is what we will have in 200 years given our current growth rate.
So Mr Keanes just imagine the vast infrastructure it will take to support a vibrant population of a billion hard working Australians - rapidly growing towards two billion - all the jobs and wealth it would generate. Dare to dream, Mr Keane, because we are well on track to making this dream of yours come true.
I cannot imagine the technological leaps necessary to support a billion people in Australia. But it wasn’t so long ago that a billion people in the whole world was equally unimaginable.
Our resources are not infinite, they are not adequate for the total supply of refugees, but they are more than adequate for the current supply of boat people, even if it increased by orders of magnitude.
Our resources would in fact go further if we took a less punitive (and less expensive) approach to boat people.
That is, the world-wide supply. Of whom only a small fraction of the most desperate get here on their own steam.
“I cannot imagine the technological leaps necessary to support a billion people in Australia.”
Business leaders don’t care if its sustainable or not. They don’t even care what Australia’s population is in actual numbers. They just want a 1% or 2% or 3% growth each year. That this growth compounds and results in scary huge numbers after a few decades, they simply don’t care.
Bernard Keane with his usual pro-immigration twaddle. If population equaled economic prosperity then Bangladesh would be a shining beacon for the world. Instead I think we should look to Scandinavia.
It’s atrophied old-school types like Keane that are totally empty of ideas and out of tune with the people.
When the average man on the street hears “Australia’s population will reach 36 million in xxx years” they automatically assume thats the maximum the population will reach. The announcements are carefully worded to give that impression.
The average person assumes that the population will magically stop growing at that point. It won’t.
He assumes the government will do all they can to halt further growth at that point. The government will do nothing.
He assumes business will stop calling for more population growth. Business will demand more population growth at this point, even more voraciously. The new goal will be 60 million. And after that 100 million. And then 200 million, etc. etc.
What about the false dichotomy between economic growth and quality of life.
In a world with finite resources there is a limit to how many people can live in it. With the aspiring middle class worldwide approaching 2bn we are about to face up to the reality of limited resources. Oil is an obvious one, fresh water another, both are needed for food, which when scarce causes all human beings to exercise their political voice. Geopolitics in the next decade will be extremely interesting as nations struggle to source adequate resources for “their” growth. Given the appalling ability of human beings to overcome the tragedy of the commons and free riding (look at the overfishing of the oceans or the debacle at Copenhagen) the future does not look promising.
Naturally if everyone accepted a lesser share of the world’s resources then we could increase population, envision Asimov’s Caves of Steel as a possible future end point. Is that what Australians want? Sean had it right when he mentioned per capita GDP growth is trending downwards (note GDP is not a very good indicator of quality of life as it assumes no scarcity of resources and that environmental pollution is costless). So if Australia has 22m people now and our infrastructure and government services are struggling should we continue with high immigration? I suspect the majority of Australians are or are moving to the No camp which is driving the pollies.
The Prime Minister was absolutely right - the people whose quality of life is not being improved by immigration are wary of the Big Australia. Why should they change their minds when more people reduces their ability to live the life that they want and enjoy? Immigration has driven up housing prices so that young people can’t buy a house and those who can have to have one far distant from their work and family or else small enough that they can’t raise a family.
A Minister for Sustainable Population is not before time. Instead of covering our ears and eyes we should find solutions to the infrastructure issues created by big population before we bring so many people into the country. Water and the loss of agricultural land are just two that need urgent attention. I like the fact that the PM has understood that there are other options than bringing in so many new people that the infrastructure groans under their impact.
Australia brought migrants from Europe some while ago to build the Snowy Mountains Project and many other schemes, transport, steelplants, etc.
Under the Fraser government lots of European migrants were only accepted if they had skills Australia needed: programists, tradespeople, degree engineers - many of them refugees. People usually do not realise that many refugees are employed by universities, big companies, in research… perhaps not so many are big businessmen.
Although skills are not criteria for refugee status I still do not understand why an experienced lady neurologist was detained for seven years with a small daughter for no reason other than applying for a permanent visa in Australia. Finally we discovered that she actually had met p/r criteria from the very beginning. She got the visa. Till the rest of her life she will stay on social benefit.
We locked up in detention centres doctors and nurses from bombed Kabul hospital.
What I am trying to say is that we keep talking about the numbers. But, regardless the numbers, what are we going to do with those migrants? Dumping them on the desert, as someone suggested? Dumping them in a kind of look-alike lost property dept. education institutions well beyond puberty until their menopause?
It has to be a sound, government program to balance our national interests and meet our humanitarian obligations.
We need maths teachers, badly. But even a true blue Aussie, born in Sydney, highly qualified overseas (USA) with a Ph.D.in physics is not allowed to teach this, or any other, subject in Australian schools. Many countries in Europe and Asia train very good professionals. What do we do with them, Mr. Bennetts? We lock them up. Yep.
A degree engineer from overseas to be recognised in Australia has to write a Shakespearian tragedy in 3000 words about his ‘problem solving’ achievements under very unusual circumstances…. must be some dramatic situation in which an overseas engineer proved his, mainly writing, skills.
Now, and I am not vicious, but probably as much frustrated as Marylin:
A degree engineer, from Europe, and anywhere else, has a diploma with a syllabus book showing: well over a hundred exams in the field and associated disciplines, 42 contact hours per week for the period of 5-6 years with compulsory 2 year experience in the discipline. His qualifications are compared to an Australian Bachelor Degree.
How does it compare to any university engineering studies in Australia?.
The shock migrants get on arrival is the fact that we teach 4 subjects at school. This is a joke.
To able to accept migrants, utilise their skills for non-urban areas, we have to stop bloody wars and put the money into technological development of this country. Economics, what I learned at my university, is not about making money. It is about stewardship of the country.
So, the first question should be: why do we need migrants? How can we help them initially? How can they help us in the long run?.. Then we can talk about numbers.
I understand, refugees should not be considered in this category. Humanitarian program is regardles the skills. But quite a number of refugees have proven to be a great asset to Australia. It is stupid not to utilise their skills.
AMEN
Rena, Once again you make no sense.
I am married to a refugee. Others in my family are also refugees and immigrants from a large number of places, not only anglo. I have a daughter of whom I am most proud whose partner is from the Middle East. I grew up amongst refugees of 20 nationalities who opened our eyes and mouths to a wide range of new and delightful foods, in return for which our family taught them to play cricket and a thousand other lovely things happened. You seem to think that I am anti-migrant or anti-refugee. I am not, and I have never been.
So many of my school friends’ parents had to abandon a profession or a trade and learn to make do as a forklift driver or labourer that I have lost count. The many languages of my childhood - I am sorry, but I did not learn them but I have been welcome in these families’ homes and they in mine.
What you are trying to say about me I do not know, however I have argued above against treating our new citizens as second class, or banishing them to “the bush”. I am not in favour of a “big australia”, and I respect all immigrants or refugees, whatever their skills, as being welcome to this great mixing bowl of a nation.
Regarding your claim, again incorrect, that immigrants typically spend 5 to 8 years at university to become an engineer is simply wrong. I will cite one instance only, just to indicate that, once again, your sweeping generalisations are so often wrong. Mogens, my Danish boss of a few decades ago, was a Danish engineer. His university experience consisted of 3 years for his bachelor degree and a further year to gain a master’s degree in civil and structural engineering. Australian curriculums have for many years required a minimum of four full-time years for professional engineers.
You have come to Crikey’s comments columns and again appear to want to be taken seriously when you are spouting cr_p. I am sure that in amongst it there is a message and that you are a kind-hearted and experienced person, but please refrain from pi__sing us off.
Once your audience recognises that you are talking through your a_se, you have lost them.
Be kind and careful to your fellow readers and contributors, please. You might even find that those who you thought were against you are not.
@Tom Jones.
Plenty of places in Australia have cheap housing. Practically giving it away in some places. I realise that’s because that’s not where people want to live, people want to live in big cities, preferably close to the center. Because big cities are good places to live, lots of jobs, lots of services. And that is precisely because of all the people there - lots of people means lots of people providing services and demanding services.
You can’t have the advantages of a big city without the disadvantages.
@Ben Aveling
But maybe you can, at least in my cornutopian world of affordable housing and a decent social settlement not directed by greed and big business interests.
“Sean had it right when he mentioned per capita GDP growth is trending downwards”
That’s only for the last year or so due to the GFC. GDP growth has been stagnant while population has grown.
However, if you look at the longer term trend, between 1959–60 and 2008–09, Australia’s GDP per capita grew by 161% in chain volume terms. Nice graph of it here.
http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4613.0Chapter25Jan+2010
Thanks for that, Scott. On first read, it appears that the figures are not adjusted for inflation. Hence, 161% might stack up well at all. It is only a couple of percent per annum.
It takes into account inflation…uses the reference year of 2007-2008 (so all GDP figures both pre and post are adjusted into 2007-2008 dollars). By keeping the value of the money constant, only volumes change and hence gives you an inflation adjusted (or real) change in GDP/capita.
@Ben Aveling
Sincerely, where are these places where houses are practically given away?
If we have 22 million people living here now then we have a choice - if we want to be sustainable.
If we continue to burn coal, if we all individually every morning sit alone in cars buring fuel as we wait on congested roads for each other to move, if we wait for our dams to fill up with increasingly unpredictable natural rains and if we continue to rip down our forests and natural land to plant lawn around our massive sprawling new houses and burn more oil to mow the grass - then we are already completely unsustainable at our current population of 22 million people.
If however, all our electricity is generated from renewable sources, our cars are electric or burn hydrogen (power or hydrogen from renewable energy), build mass transit public transport (renewablly fueled), use renewable energy to desalinate water, and live in higher density using existing cleared land - then our country can sustain many, many more people - without causing any more impact on the environment - and without using up a limited resource.
If people aren’t polluting our environment in their day-to-day living and we aren’t reducing the natural habitat of our native animals and can all get around more efficiently than we do now - then there really isn’t a limit up to 40-50 million people living in Australia.
Its not hard to do all of that with today’s current knowledge and technology - we just have to stop doing things the way we do them (inefficiently and badly and unsustainably now).
If we organise our society according to real sustainability - the proper definition of the word and not the false meaning that advertisers and politicians are trying to force it to mean - then we can all live at a better standard of living AND reduce our impact on the environment AND maintain economic growth.
Nowhere you’d want to live, that’s the problem. Outback Australia, dead and dying towns that don’t have enough population to support enough jobs to support the population. Nasty vicious circle.
I can’t find the link now, but there was a news article a while back about people buying houses for less than the first home buyers grant.
“then there really isn’t a limit up to 40-50 million people living in Australia.”
Why attempt to push up the population to this level? What would it achieve?
And more importantly, as I have emphasized in my other posts, it wouldn’t stop at 50 million. Nobody in power wants it to stop growing, ever. The skies the limit. A billion people in Australia and still growing? It may seem ridiculous, but this is what business leaders and politicians are aiming for right now, inadvertently.
Chris, the point is that if all new population growth was contained within the current geographical limits of every city and town then it might be possible to have a much higher population - without all the environmental downside. However, in order to contain expansion in that way, it would require our society to adopt a whole new set of living principles. If we start now, this year, with our new PM and an election coming up - to adopt those required new living principles - we may be able to demonstrate that ‘sustainable’ population growth is possible. I reckon though, that if we discover the capacity to adopt such ‘new principles’ and prove their authenticity and capability we will in fact demonstrate to ourselves that (hyper) population growth is unnecessary in order to have economic viability and sustainability. So what are we waiting for?
EngineeringReality: Two points
ONE: There is simply no possibility of renewable energy sources providing 100% of supply anywhere in the near future, let alone across the whole of Australia.
Past yapping about waves, tides, solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, sheep farts and so forth have no prospects of being scaled up, constructed and reliable inside decades, if ever. It’s a nice dream, but only a dream. I challenge you to produce clear evidence of the broad details of a plan that meets existing technologies and logistic limits while also considering economics, social & environmental impacts, costs to consumers and timeline.
TWO: 40 - 50 million population? What then? Do we raise a drawbridge in (say) 2040 and defend the ramparts, enforce a one-child policy and grow old together?
No number, simply pulled from one’s nether regions, is logical. Let’s hear from the demographers, consider social and environmental impacts, consider alternatives and then adopt national goals.
@John Bennetts
We’ve had this arguement before - and I guess we will for a while - until I’m proven right. I’m younger than you - so I have more time on my side of course.
I know you’re intelligent - but you seem to be stuck in conservative thinking that I see so commonly in my (older) engineering collegues. For example some are still advocating 1920’s style electromechanical relays to be installed today in 2010 for protecting the electricity network of one of our capital cities. Because they are simply of the mindset that these “new fangled” solid state relays are not up to the task - they “know” what works and is possible and anything else is “untrusted”, “unproven” and “risky”.
Your attitude keeps striking me as exactly like this. As an engineer you should be well aware of the fact that just because it hasn’t been done before that isn’t a reason that it can’t be done.
Not once in our discussions have you advocated any sort of vision for improving the future - or adopting new and improved technology - you always ask where has it be done before? Or where is the evidence? The same old what I call 1950’s thinking - which as I think of it now is not logical - because the 1950’s was a time of amazing change and technological progress. There wasn’t much conservatism as we as a species broke the speed of sound, sent people into orbit and flew higher and dived deeper.
Too often I am faced with engineers (like you) who should know better than to dismiss possibilities as impractical or impossible. You also dismissed economists as not worthy - but you are exhibiting their type of closed thinking - “its too expensive - can’t be done” or “too risky to contemplate - we’ll only invest the funds once someone else proves it can be done”.
I’m sure you know the following - but going to remind you anyway.
Europe is going for a massive program for Solar Thermal in North Africa. And Germany now generates more than Australia’s entire electricity demand via wind turbines.
I know that wind turbines and solar thermal (with storage) is sufficient to supply all of our power needs.
Concentrate the sun and you can melt thick steel plates in seconds - and flash steam in milliseconds. There are no limits to how you can scale up solar thermal. Its not a particularly complicated technology - any kid with a magnifying glass outside burning ants can do it.
So you’re completely wrong when you say “solar thermal, … and so forth have no prospects of being scaled up, constructed and reliable inside decades, if ever”
COMPLETELY WRONG.
now onto 2.
I just pulled out that number as an illustration for my point. Currently we are unsustainable. If we were we could support more population. I used those figures to illustrate that we could support a doubling of population with a smaller impact on our environment.
My position is if we can live together and not use up limited resources and pollute the environment then we can have a population of any size.
@Chris
“Why attempt to push up the population to this level? What would it achieve?”
Well I can’t answer that question - I personally don’t agree that we should have that many people - what I was saying is that if we use technologies that mean that the water and electricity that everyone uses is generated cleanly, if we recycle almost 100% of our packaging and paper, grow our food more efficiently on existing cleared land, used existing plantations then we could have a population of 40 and *do less damage to Australia’s environment* than we are currently doing with 22 million.
As to what it would achieve - well see my next answer
“And more importantly, as I have emphasized in my other posts, it wouldn’t stop at 50 million. Nobody in power wants it to stop growing, ever. The skies the limit. A billion people in Australia and still growing? It may seem ridiculous, but this is what business leaders and politicians are aiming for right now, inadvertently.”
Yes you’re exactly correct - they are pushing for more people - because economic growth is based in the long run on the rate of population growth. Even after the productivity benefits of technological progress are taken into account, growth in GDP converges to the rate of population growth. So thats why business and politicians want it to go ahead.
What I am saying is that without a big change in the way we power and supply our societies needs for food, transport and material goods then this economic growth that flows from population growth will further and further wreck our environment until we are living on a planet that more closely resembles Mars or Venus than Earth. No plant life, no animals - just concrete human settlements where-ever we can fit them. No nature - just shopping centres and business parks.
The problem EngineeringReality is that coal is cheap and we have rather a lot of it in use and for export. Current power generation is over 81% coal, just over 12% natural gas and about 5% hydro. Coal is a messy pollutant that is for sure, far more polluting than petrol which we burn up in our cars. Electric cars can solve the latter issue provided that can actually recycle the batteries (and improves the balance of trade to boot) but even with heavy renewables subsidy and regulatory support with a solar panel bank on every house (the fact the subsidy is maximised for 1.5kW systems for residential is pathetic) and apartment building we need to replace the coal power stations as they come off line. The only option that makes sense for base load power is nuclear absent new technology. The moment the Greens start echoing this I switch my vote to them.
Note totally agree about smart power grids and systems. More residential power use should take some pressure off the massive upcoming spend on transmission. That is another plus for zero population growth - transmission spend could actually flatline.
So yes I vote for less population growth as even now we are building more coal power stations for growth corridors like the Gold Coast to Sunshine Coast.
@EngineeringReality:
As you point out in different words, youth is a time where making mistakes is acceptable. With maturity comes an expectation that broader experience will decrease the mistake rate. So, in this way, I understand your youthful enthusiasm for untried and/or failed solutions for the world’s energy needs.
You may remember that I have actual hands-on construction experience of a couple of solar thermal installations - soon, with a bit of luck, there will be a third. Each one bigger than the previous.
I have never said that alternate and emerging means of electricity generation cannot do their bit, only that, at most, they are both resource intensive and inadequate. Now, young fellow, is the time for action and right now I am in favour of pushing wind and solar panels and carbon pricing and all the rest to make the biggest carbon-free contribution possible.
However, that will not be enough, especially in the current cash-constrained national and international economies.
We will all have to do more, and that doen not include further huge and irrational subsidy of domestic scale poor quality rooftop solar PV installations, propped up by massive feed-in tarrifs. That, my friend, is part of the problem, not of the solution. Short term, uneconomic stopgaps such as the rooftop solar schemes are doomed in the long run to either be mothballed or overtaken by advances in PV farms, perhaps on the roofs of the factory down the street from your place, where maintenance regimes can be adequate, spares available, etc.
We will eventually, as another contributor has said, have to turn to carbon free base load generation, which at this stage of evolution means Type III or better nuclear.
In the interim we need to start charging coal and oil burners for the externalities and do what we can, where we can.
Oh, and one other thing…
I have no problem with solid state relays. As with other product lines, it comes down to cost, safety, reliability and maintainability. I just love renovating stuff in old switchrooms and seeing how much smaller the new equipment is relative to the 1960’s clunkers. But note: the 1960’s stuff has proven itself for 40 years.
Yes, progress is good. Professional engineers ensure that this progress is supported technically and practically. It is not professional right now to place all the eggs in the renewables basket when other carbon-free (eg Type III+ nuclear) technologies are available.
TOM JONES: A ‘minister for sustainable population is a wank’. The very title alone tells one that it was invented by a PR firm.
The only way a person in that position could do any good is by having some powers to act in reducing our own birth rate. Drastically reducing our immigration, is another thing to be undertaken. And we must allow a greater admittance of asylum seekers..
It is hard to see why asylum seeks should have to be regarded by the red-neck brigade as evil when the real problem resides with our inefficient systems of government.
Could the Minister for Sustainable Population have the clout to force state governments to be honest. To plan sustainable suburbia? Of course not. To work out better forms of infrastructure? Or to ask big companies why we need to import skilled migrants? Once again, of course not.
Could he/she force home-grown Oz kids to get an education in order to qualify them for the skilled jobs market?
Julia Gillard is going to have to come up with some proposals with teeth in them, not mere PR waffle.
Perhaps bodies like the Catholic Church will only understand the world is over-populated when we start farming people for protein?
Could the same Minister have enough clout to bring in a two child policy, over the
fury of the various churches? Of course not.
I don’t know what happened there.
“Minister for Sustainable Population”? Since the government’s only real plan is to grow our population until it is physically unable to grow any further, I take it thats a bit of Orwellian doublespeak. It should really be “Minister for Unsustainable Overpopulation”.
@John
I’m not saying that the older stuff is not good - indeed I reckon some of it will outlast a lot of the new equipment. It was built with a degree of over-engineering and safety margin that current economics doesn’t allow.
I was more protesting against people who dismiss considering the newer technology out of hand.
I agree that PV isn’t the answer - but wind and solar thermal do have an important role to play in our future. Yet where I sit (in CBD of biggest city) I have to drive two hours before I can spot a wind turbine. Its a pretty windy city, yet our leaders have criminally left us down by refusing to support this clean technology.
Staggeringly bad when modern 3MW turbines are popping up all over the rest of the world.
Also I did a few calculations last night. On Monday 7/6/10 NSW used 230,492MWh of electricity over the 24 hours of the day (integrating the half hourly max demand from AER for full 24 hours).
Using a figure of 900W (0.9kW) of solar energy hitting each square metre of land at the latitude of Sydney then over a 6 hour day the amount of land receiving the same energy as the whole of NSW used on a random workday Monday is a square 6.5km to a side. (6,533m x 6,533m = 42,683,704m2).
That is a pretty small area. (Yes leaving aside efficiency calculations in capturing, storing & using the energy in every component) but it illustrates how much energy there is coming from the sun. That area is 6 square metres for every resident of NSW - population 7.1 million.
We can definitely use todays technology and knowledge to capture and store this free, clean energy.
Without this I would be a supporter of nuclear energy to support our population’s energy needs - but the dangers, risks and technological uncertainties of nuclear energy just mean it isn’t a solution.
The dangers, risks and uncertainties of nuclear energy are mainly in the mind. Read “Why Vs Why - Nuclear Power”, Pantera Press, 2010. Barry Brook and Ian Lowe argue the two cases concisely, in about 100 pages each.
In practice, mirror arrays cover about 50% of the dedicated land, with the remainder being taken up with bits and pieces and maintenance roadways, so a paddock 8 km on a side is what you need, plus an allowance for losses and inefficiencies - say 10km square, so I agree in principle with your observation. It matches pretty well with others’ on the same subject. I am concerned that the Spanish and others seem to have difficulties getting through the night with solar thermal, because in the morning, if the system is not hot and ready to go, ST is not available till well after the morning peak usage period. That issue is worth watching.
Regarding wind turbines, I expect that public resistance will harden over time. Fires in the nacelle are also potentially difficult to manage. In dry conditions, these are too high to extinguish, yet I have seem many films of grass fires started by burning matter dropping from them and landing quite a distance downwind. This is a bit of a sleeper of an issue at present and perhaps we will not share the overseas experience.
But, please do find and read the book. It is worth it.
Total nonsense about 35+ million. Australia will be bankrupt long before then.
That’s what the ‘infinate population’ bunch can’t seem to grasp. Australia is a deficit/debtor nation that depends on foreign money, capital, skills and material to survive. Plus it is rapidly running out of critical resources - oil, water and food (even some types of coal). Therefore structural deficits can only increase.
We don’t even generate enough financial capital internally to meet current requirements (such as for mortgages or investment) let alone large population growth or even new major investments into power generation, transport, etc*.
It’s poor skill, industrial and technological levels means that technical pipe dreams are just that - pipe dreams. Basically because we have to import the material and skills to undertake even the simplest projects (such as a fast train), but because we are a deficit nation we have to borrow the money from overseas to do it!
Each extra person added to the population increases the deficit. Eventually the money will stop, and so will (take to just one thing as an example) the oil we import. Game over.
We’ve spent the last 40 years painting ourselves right into a corner, with a 20-25M population we might, just might, be able to dig ourselves out over the next 20 years and maintain a resonable society with a reasonable (about 1960’s) standard of living. Add another 10M to the mix and we will simply not have that option.
* Note how we are wasting our limited capital and dwindling borrowing capacity on boondangles such as housing speculation and freeways/tollways, some of which some of which will only be completed about the time Oz is 100% dependent on oil imports, which we will have to borrow even more money to pay for. At least they’ll be great for the cyclists and horses and carts.
* Note also that just about every power station in the country will have to be replaced over the next 20 years anyway. Even if they remain coal powered then electricity prices have to double (or even triple if that greater boondangle carbon capture is used) to pay for it.
* Note the industrial and skill limitations. If we go nuke we will have to import the material and skills and borrow the money. If we go large scale solar we have to import the material and skills and borrow the money. If we go wind … if we go fast rail …. you get the picture. This is even worse when you look at the loss of skills (industrial, scientific, farming, trades, etc) over the next 15 years or so with the baby boomers retiring. The way we are going in 20 years there will be no one left here who can even change a lightbulb, let alone understand how it works.
@Tom Mullin:
Lovely contribution, sir! Nothing like logic to blow away a few cobwebs.
TOM MULLIN: Please find enclosed a comment I wrote under the aegis of The Environment. Why am I doing this? You may ask.
Because your view of the future is as jaundiced as mine. Also your coment was terrific.
“Congratulations Tim, on a fine editorial. However, I do think you lust after the gentle rolling meadows and dew-soaked alpine passes of Utopia.
You mention things which should have been achieved years ago, yet, in a world population of seven billion people, how long does it take for the next billion people to arrive? Five years? Ten?
The very fact that the natives are talking about Population Growth/Climate change is probably a fair indication that we will not do anything about it. This is the great Australian way; watch footy, but we’re too unhealthy to play it.
“By radically changing our own economy…” Hello? Radical change is utterly alien to the Australian way of life. Hell! We can’t even get a Republic going for us; how the hell could we change our consummate greed and fix our economy, to facilitate a balanced environment?
You mention educating women as being important and, of course, it is. But education is an on-going process, yet we have run out of on-going time.
How is it possible to cut through the religious claptrap of ten thousand years of mud-brick, fundamentalist religion? How do you appeal to the Catholic church to restrict the reproductive rate of Australian Catholics? The Orthodox Jews? The fundamentalist Muslims and Fundamentalist Exclusive Brethren and their ilk, and the Fundamentally Stupid?
There is nothing anyone can do to limit the amount of people coming here, is completely correct. So, inundated by refugees, economic or the terrorised; we HAVE to mandate for a one child policy. We have to allow abortion, and we have to allow people the right to make their own decision about terminating their own lives.
The arguments against allowing these things are facile, specious and rooted in religiosity. But how are these minefields crossed?
Whoever it was that said ‘Man carries within him the seeds of his own destruction’ was unintentionally spot on the money.
Australia, to do something radical about its population growth in order to fix our environmental woes, should A) Abolish all forms of Fundamentalist religion. B) Introduce, as of now, a one child policy.
So are we condemned to blindly stumble along our rocky road to oblivion”.