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The Forum > Article Comments > The real sustainability issue > Comments

The real sustainability issue : Comments

By Mick Keogh, published 4/8/2010

A bigger population can be more sustainable, with the right policies.

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Good arguments presented here so far by the against side, I would be interested to see if anybody could answer them.

And more precisely, with an argument instead of complaining.
Posted by King Hazza, Thursday, 5 August 2010 4:42:42 PM
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It is too simplistic to cut immigration based on immediate emotions of over crowding.

The sustainable population debate is an emotional one. Migrants buy up our companies, they push property and house prices sky high, they crowd our universities and schools, they clog up our roads, they take up seats on our trams, buses and restaurants. It costs billions and years of political and bureaucratic struggle to upgrade our infrastructure. So the natural easy solution is: stop immigration.

But it is part of a bigger issue. The ageing population. Sometime after 2014 the baby boomers in USA, Europe, Japan and China will decide they've had enough, retire, and begin a tactonic shift in the workforce and consumerism. The labour force must be incredibly taxed to pay for the pensions and escalating heathcare costs. Baby boomers lived in a time of immense prosperity due to a rapidly growing population. As the population grows, company sales and house prices will naturally rise - just because there's more demand. But as the population declines house prices will decline, and companies will be forced to innovate and create real value rather than just depend on increasing demand.

Perhaps it would make more sense to gradually increase immigration before the USA and Europe start pushing to attract immigrants. Perhaps attract skilled immigrants that will help create innovation and pay the pensions and healthcare costs of the retiring baby boomers.

Howard Siow
MyPak Egg Cartons Packaging
http://www.mypak.com
Posted by Howard Siow, Friday, 6 August 2010 11:44:37 AM
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Glad you raised the ageing issue, Howard. But it is not the bigger problem. In fact it is a very modest problem, compared with the costs and non-monetary impacts of population growth. What's more, population growth won't make it go away, it will only defer a part of it.
Stabilizing population will bring us only to the level of total dependency ratio we had in the 1960's - only with higher workforce participation than then. Also, more of the non-workers will be aged people covering their own costs, rather than young people who are totally dependent. There is a whole range of other benefits from ageing, including lower crime rates, higher levels of personal saving and lower levels of private debt, meaning less reliance on international capital. Add these to the benefits of population stabilization (a bit like stopping banging your head against a wall) in not having to build infrastructure just to stand still, and having much more capacity to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Population growth won't diminish the total number of aged people we have to provide for, only their proportion of the total population. There would actually be more retired people. So this isn't as big a saving as you think, because it's not just the running costs of aged care and health care, it's the infrastructure. Using the Intergenerational Report figures, which exclude infrastructure, the maximum difference it will make is maybe 5% of GDP by 2050, but we're already being told we must spend 6% of GDP per year for the next 10 on infrastructure for population growth (770 Billion over 10 years) - and that's only the 'infrastructure' portfolio - major federally funded transport and utilities projects, not all the capacity expansion of hospitals, schools, government offices etc that goes into other portfolio budgets, and State and local governments. Ageing is a trifle by comparison.
Posted by jos, Friday, 6 August 2010 3:37:05 PM
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Thanks jos. Many good points.

As life expectancy lengthens we can't continue thinking that 65 is the end of useful working life. Certainly if you have the cash, retire whenever you want to. The pension system was implemented when life expectancy was less than 65 so the planners didn't even think most people would collect. Now life expectancy is 85 and hopefully it will continue to increase.
An interesting side light of the immigration debate is the claim that migrants are often demonised as causing all the problems of congestion and environmental degradation and it just isn't right considering the huge benefits that immigrants has made to Australia. Slow growthers say no, no, no we agree that immigrants have made great contributions but we need to get sustainable and now is the time. I wonder if slow growthers should shoot back that it is unfair that all the future problems of Australia are being blamed on older Australians (many who are also immigrants as well). Proponents of high immigration are saying that older Australians are sucking the life out of the economy and it just isn't fair considering the huge benefits that older Australians have provided to Australia over the years.

I think more appropriate is jos point that it just won't matter that much compared to all the problems associated with high population. Ageing will be one of the easier problems to solve and having more older people in the population will have many significant advantages.
Posted by ericc, Friday, 6 August 2010 11:49:01 PM
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ericc's post listing the water problems of Australia makes the key argument against increasing our population and hoping the future can solve the problems we make.
Australia is like the Sahara with a fringe around it. It has fewer, smaller and more variable rivers than any other continent.
We increase our population by building on our farmland.

There are so many short-term interests in population increase, especially governments needing a source of prosperity with our decline in manufactures and consequent imports; and so we rely on rising property prices and the building industry, as well as mining, to keep us prosperous.
It is a Ponzi method of keeping going, with cohorts of ageing populations getting bigger and bigger and requiring ever larger immigration. Yet the water that we need . . .
Posted by ozideas, Monday, 9 August 2010 11:54:05 AM
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First there's the assumption that we're happy to reduce the income we make from selling food in order to feed more people by saying "it would simply be diverted to the domestic market".
Then there's the assumption that increased urban water use would be OK because we already do that, so look out for more frequent and harsher water restrictions.
Then there's the assumption that the "more liveable" regional centres should accommodate the larger population - thus making them just as less liveable as the cities that we all agree are overcrowded. Some more common sense would have improved this article considerably.
Posted by Sustainable, Monday, 9 August 2010 1:18:36 PM
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