James Paterson is yet to learn the lesson that the future need not be like the past. Assuming that Australia can cope with a population expanding to infinity defies the reality of our current and increasing resource shortages. Also, he should read some of the earlier articles on OLO to see how his economic arguments do not hold up. It is GDP per capita that is important, not raw GDP. Expanding Australia's GDP is good for big business who benefit from any increase in market size but it is now making average Austrlalians poorer since it decreases GDP/capita. If James is a young student then I feel sorry for him - his medium-term future is one of oil and other resource shortages and he will be struggling to find a place during the coming decades of economic decline. Increasing the number of consumers of a diminishing resource pie is not a good idea!

Hang on, let me get this straight...

What you are saying is that despite the fact that up to 80% of the population is against an issue, the Politicians should ignore it in order to.... What exactly?

Talk about the tail wagging the dog, you are stating that in order to better manage the economy, treasury wants to increase the population, so the Politicians must do so rather than comply with the known wishes of their electorate?

I realise you know Economic Theory, but lets take it back to Democratic Governance 101 shall we? The ELECTORATE decides, or ought to, ignoring them when their wishes are known is the most hypocritical heap of tripe I've ever seen.

That is the problem with the current parlous state of Democracy in this Country, the Politicians say what the electorate wants to hear and then they do their own thing (bugger the electorate) once elected...

The power of the Executive HAS TO BE BROKEN, it is not for the over-educated elite in their Ivory Towers to decide for me and every other voter, how this Country should be run, it is for US.

We don't want immigration to increase, damn, a major chunk of Australians don't want immigration full stop, refugees or otherwise.

Where and when do we get a say? Oh, you'd prefer we didn't? Isn't that dandy...

“The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, names urban congestion, housing supply, lack of water and pressure on government services as potential results of a “Big Australia.”

When and where did Chairman Rudd say this? If the Chairman does believe this, why is he aiming for a ‘big Australia’?

Anybody who believes that economic growth follows population growth also believes the moon is made of green cheese. Even minimal research – in place of ideological trumpeting - would show that increased population comes at the expense of LOWER per capita income, less ability to provide infrastructure, and dire effects on social cohesion, not to mention the degrading of the environment which seems to be constantly at the fore with the chattering classes busy telling us what our current population has already done to the Australian environment. Their solution is to start removing water rights from food producers already in the name of environmental health.

Less food, more people!

“But the Coalition is now in the unenviable position of advocating a policy direction which could lower Australia’s future GDP by up to 17 per cent”, writes Paterson. Perhaps the Coalition is taking note of the “80%” of Australians who do not want an increase in population; perhaps, unlike Paterson, ‘ordinary' Australians know that their individual wealth will DECREASE, and Australian will become a very unpleasant place to live.

In his penultimate paragraph, Paterson even suggests that “The Coalition lost its lead as the better party to manage the economy…”

What! Hasn’t he heard of the BER fiasco; the insulation tragedy or the proposed tax on the mining industry which is what really saw us through GFC, not Rudd’s doling out of the surplus left to it by the previous government.

He finishes his piece with misguided rubbish about populism, and waffle about the ‘strangeness’ of elected politicians actually listening to what their employers – the Australian people – want! It seems that the move from the real world to university has put a stop to that democratic ‘nonsense’ for Paterson.

Good on you James. A nice bit of writing which further debunks the anti-people league, which is not very hard.

You'll get all sorts of comments from the bearded gnomes, Adelaide hills dwelling Amish, geneticists and the Asians Out lobby who all support the Unsustainable People Australia collective.

The Dr Deborah Pelser quote was gold re "warns that increasing levels of migration will lead to higher rates of schizophrenia as well as “heart disease, diabetes, chronic neck and back pain, asthma and migraine” and of course “a greater likelihood of being overweight or obese.”

Did she say anything about increased sun spot activity or rising sea levels?

James, you walked right into this one "including floating the dollar, privatisation and deregulating the finance industry, were measures that rarely won voter approval."
Yes because we have clearly felt the benefits of ALL of these things, now with corrupt companies like Macquarie Bank rorting customers and consumers of services and infrastructure (which strangely, were more efficient and cost LESS when public) because they can.
You just proved that the people were RIGHT all along.

And a former Liberal Staffer that doesn't like democracy, how quaint.
Not to mention how you say that concerns of standard of living are expressed but think about the economy!
This is why I will never vote for the Liberals ever in my life.
It was also too hard to point out that the countries with the lowest population (Scandinavian, Swiss) and most stagnant population (above countries, plus Japan) happen to be doing BETTER than us, or anyone else in terms of returns both nationally, corporately and per person (strangely enough, all of these countries have vastly stronger economic policies in place too).

Nothing but a thinly disguised spin from your average low-grade Liberal party member trying to tell the public they take second place to someone making a buck and keeping the current system in place.

And Cheryl, "disagreeing" is not "debunking", especially when he failed to provide anything substantial to disprove it- look at your dictionary please.

You are a hard man King Hazza.

I'm going to go with James on this one as he has worked in politics and may know what is possible and what people will go for. Unlike the anti-pops who want to take less people - finito.

Custard you said a mouthful re the standard SPA line- 'The power of the Executive HAS TO BE BROKEN.' They hate democracy and the only thing worse than democracy is technology, which apart from people, is the root cause of all our problems.

Apart from the anti-democratic, anti-technology and anti-people aspects of the SPA well, it a load of cobblers really.

PS. You're pulling a very long bow re reregulation and population

James,

I think you have it the wring way around. The economy is here to service the population, the population is not here to service the economy. The economy is a tool by which to help society run, not an end in itself. I have yet to hear a justification for incresing the population that is not based on the economy.

There are also limits to the carrying capacity of the land where population is concerned, and we are already seeing problems throughout the country in the supply of water. People don't want to pay the true cost of it either. This is one factor, the fertility of the soils is another, as is the current reliance on fossil fuels - the price of oil is unlikley to come down much now, it will just rise.

What an absolute and utter crock.
“As the IGR notes, even a moderately slower rate of growth and a population of 30 million in 2050 would produce a real GDP 17 per cent lower than with a population of 36 million.”
What's the diff between 36 mil, and 30 mil? 'Bout 16.666...% by my reckoning. In other words, Paterson has discovered 17% less people will result in 17% less GDP. Bugger.
Still, GDP isn't that hard to fix. Since it's only a measure of cash transactions, all we need is an ash Wednesday, or a black Friday, or hey! A good flood always boosts GDP.
And the supporting pensioners argument is pathetic, too; unless Paterson thinks we can keep expanding the population without end. Otherwise, as soon as growth stops, the proportion of pensioners has to increase, regardless of total population size -particularly with ongoing improvements in health care and consequent longevity.
So when's the best time to pull the plug, vis a vis supporting pensioners? When there are 3 million of them, or 8 million of them, or 20 million of them?
I'm guessin' the best time for Paterson, is when Paterson is a pensioner.
“...the Coalition should stand on principle and support what is best for the Australian economy, (and to hell with the Australian people) just as John Howard did.”
If you want to grow up to be an economist, you might have to work on those sums a bit more.

Sorry but you are a fool if you think Abbot and his party would honour any of the commitments they give on population or immigration. Or anything else for that matter. They will ramp up immigration and baby bonuses the same as Howard did despite anything they say now. Remember "core and non core" promises. Havent we learned yet? Politicians are liars. FFS Abbot even admitted it and still we act as if he is really going to cut population growth.

This is nothing but populist political point scoring and posturing and in line with everything this "oppose everything" opposition has done since Abbot was made leader.

Indeed I am a hard man Cheryl.

For me Personally, the author would have needed not his experience in politics (which over the years has taught me doesn't mean much at all when it comes to sounds thinking- especially Rudd and Tony Abbot- but instead would actually have to make a convincing and comprehensive case to convince me he's right (instead he makes vague and often false generalizations which I provided plenty of counter-evidence, hence the big debunker is in fact me).

I'm sorry but it's clear Mr Paterson does not intend to make a case but make some spin. He proved his insincerity by saying how the government 'correctly' ignored the will of the public in privatization, which any consumer of the asset sold off will tell you was a gigantic mistake (that is, if the motive for selling it was sincere at all- which I doubt).

All in all, even if he WERE truthfully and unavoidably correct, it would just mean a tradeoff between more space and higher cost of maintaining it (which quite frankly there is no wrong answer depending on what is more important to each person). Of course, a higher population actually puts a huge economic strain unless we permit and pay for the development of more infrastructure and houses (which requires the sacrifice of more land) before they become economically stimulating.

Also the disingenuous and long since debunked 'pensioner problem'- that we need more (working age) people to prop up the pensions for the oldies (assuming we MUST retain the pension), ignoring that these people will also grow old, and the problem will repeat anyway.

When the executive dictates the political agenda and we can merely nod one way or the other, with nary a real choice in sight, HOW IS THAT DEMOCRACY?

I have no f*Yn idea what an SPA line is or isn't, but I do know that isn't democratic.

Any move that is known to be directly opposed by 80% of the population, which the Executive pushes through under the supposed outcome of the democratic process is bunkum, sheer and utter bunk.

If 80% of the population opposes it, fine, we won't give them the chance to vote on that one, we'll just slide it through shall we?

Yeah, if I'm on the wrong side of the line that thinks that is acceptable, that is fine with me.

I can't see why we have trouble selling the democratic process in Afghanistan, it is just like what you had under the Taliban, they make the decisions, you can decide which color turban, but the decisions will be the same.

Population growth does necessarily translate into less welfare per Australia. The more salient aspect of population growth is the sight of more people, including foreigners, utilising more resources - education, health, transport, infrastructure, etc. The benefits of population growth are harder to appreciate - the transfer of skills, knowledge, entrepreneurship, culture, etc.

The fear that population growth is linked to lower standards of living can be attributed to misconceptions of how economies work. More people mean that the economic pie is sliced into more pieces - people fear that their slice is getting less and less. However, the exponential benefits of a greater population mean that the size of the pie gets bigger too - everyone's slice is bigger.

Unfortunately, we only have one world L.H., and that pie isn't getting any bigger.
In fact, if everyone now on the planet were to enjoy the standard of living of typical Americans, we would need the resources of 5 planets.
Doesn't leave a lot of room for growth, now does it?

That's fine for private economics, but for public assets, transport consumption, infrastructure, space, size of cities and pressure on roads, a day in Sydney speaks for itself (and I'm sure those from many other cities could relate similar experiences).

The polls referred to are wrong about population. The people polled were not informed about the real state of world ocean food sustainability To consider population growth it is vital to understand whatever national and world population can be adequately fed.

People without food already riot. Civil unrest and war these days can lead to and wipe out entire nations.

Ignorance of the ocean environment and devastation of world land and sea natural food resources on this planet, does not provide for informed poll data.

Lack of data is hindering debate and solutions.

Water is not the only resource problem. In reality, water is a secondary problem compared to biology and sustainability of affordable and available staple protein food

Grim, and others here, don't appear to understand what actually generates wealth.

This goes to the core of 'capitalism' - capital. There is the natural state of things but it is capital that is able to generate exponential amounts of value in addition to what nature has provided for us. A river provides water and fish. The powerpower that uses the currents to generate electricity is capital - it is able to provide utility above and beyond nature's endowment.

For as long as humanity has existed, innovation has driven growth. Where there is a demand for something, someone - a entreprenuer, a scientist or, god forbid, even a politician - will provide because it is in their interests to. This Malthusian approach to the world completely neglects the immense power of human innovation.

The big problem is that whilst there is no end of speculation about the benefits of population growth, there is no evidence that we are better off because of it. And in order for a population to be utilised, you need a supporting infrastructure. With a massive population growth rate currently, infrastructure costs are sending governments deeply into the red.

Unless infrastructure can keep up with population growth, living standards cannot be maintained. Infrastructure is not keeping up. So it isn't so much a matter of Malthusian pessimism as it is one of understanding that the infrastructure which underpins Australia's civilisation is a real cost which is not being met for the current rate of population growth.

With very little respect at all LH, you are confusing Capital with Credit.
The real Capital is the -strictly finite- resources of this planet. Innovation does not create Capital; even innovation which allows us to use our resources more efficiently does not create Capital. Innovation merely moves wealth from the have nots to the haves.
Take for instance Bill Gates. He did not 'create wealth'. He created an operating system which he sold to the rest of the world. Every owner of a PC takes money out of their own pockets, and puts it into Gates's pocket.
And the world's debt burden rises.
Accountants distinguish between 'good' and 'bad' debt. 'Good' debt, we are told, is buying an appreciating asset (say real estate, or real Capital), whereas 'bad' debt is buying a depreciating asset (say a car or a TV).
You shouldn't have to be a genius to see 'bad' debts are those we have to pay for ourselves, whereas so called 'good' debts are those which we leave for our children to pay ( in the form of hugely inflated prices); which is precisely why I said the author just wants to put off having to pay a higher percentage of pensioners, until he is a pensioner.
Just open your eyes and look around, and tell me your children's futures look brighter than yours did.
Capital isn't growing it's shrinking, but our children's debts are certainly and undeniably growing.

The title of this piece is spot on - both the major parties will posture on population and indeed on issues like climate change and natural resource depletion. The reason is simple James has put the argument succinctly - we have created an economic system that has a logic of its own; politicians are in awe of that system and simply keep feeding it. Stopping population growth is not and cannot be a single issue (those who are concerned about population growth are invited to join http://www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com/) It requires a major rethink about how we make the transition from a growth paradigm to one of a stable system. A system where our population level is such that we can feed, clothe and provide shelter for every person. A system where we do not create a society that is dependent for its very survival on material that it cannot be sourced locally. It means we need politicians that have the courage to recognize that we need to abandon the survival prosthesis that 21st century society has become. I doubt that we have the people in parliament who are capable of delivering that - hence we need a new breed of politician, a politician whose entire life experience has not been defined by politics.

Sounds like this author confuses GDP with standard of living.
Yes, under Howard our GDP rose, but all other measures of standards of living fell.
When all the fresh water is being utilised, when all the fisheries have crashed, when all the soil is degraded...then it will be way too late.
Do you freaks realise the damage that this high school level of understanding of economics is doing to the country? We have exported productive industries and imported consumers. Most of the "profits" are now by middle-men creating nothing. Sure a credit system may keep us bumbling along for a decade like Japan, but to dump our grand kids in such poo *knowingly* is absurd...no, actually it is evil.
There are too many millionaires and billionaires who are willing to treat humans as cattle. By going for maximum population they are ensuring their low-paid workforce has few options and no real choice: this is exactly how they want it.
Australia has lead the world without being big in numbers. We did that with a "can-do" culture, lots of resources and minimal class and entrenched powers. If the BB gen had not been quite so thorough in screwing following generations then we might have a fertility rate suitable to maintain population. As it is we have to import families to make up for the ones we destroyed here by "enjoying the kids' inheritance". Bravo for selfishness, now deal with the new watered down Australia!
I don't think city folks will ever really get ecosystems, nor the fact that economics is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.

BTW. Fester brings up an excellent point. Growth spruikers like to point out profits without any reference to costs. Just as the big energy companies, car companies, etc don't pay for pollution but pocket all the profits, the beneficiaries pocket the profits but then place the burden of costs (congestion, infrastructure "user pays", etc) back on the poorest.
"Accounting" is one of the black arts these days!
Does everyone realise the company responsible for Accounting and Auditing Enron is still in business doing exactly the same thing? All they needed was a name change to go back to business as usual! BTW. The Sarbanes-Oxley changes that were supposed to fix accounting issues have been effectively worked around already. Big business and financial accounting is still as dodgy as ever!
Never trust the simple figures coming out of industry and the Libs as it is based on "get the right answer" accounting research.

Thanks all for your comments.

Please accept this broad response to the questions raised. In my view, the notion that we don't have enough "room" or "resources" to fit more people is easily the weakest argument against migration and population growth.

Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth, including Western countries with very similar lifestyles and who equally value living in large homes in the suburbs as opposed to high-rise apartments.

Yes, much of Australia's unpopulated areas are hot and dry. But look at Israel - a country one third the size of Tasmania with more than 7 million residents and growing. They built a prosperous and vibrant nation in the middle of the desert with virtually no natural resources, limited arable land and extremely limited access to water. But through investment in infrastructure, they've built farms where there was once desert and desalination plants that mean Israel will never run out of water.

Australian farms produce more food on less acreage today than we ever have in our history, much of which we export. We have hundreds of years worth of coal and gas supplies to power electricity well into the future. And we have floods so frequently all across Australia that relatively cheap dams could easily capture for household and business consumption.

Those who say we can't handle any more people take a very dim view of Australian entrepreneurship and ingenuity. I won't be losing any sleep over continued strong migration and population growth.

I would sincerely appreciate an attempt to build a decent city out in the arid desert zones James, but sadly such proposals are never put forward and reach planner level, nor any plan to get people to start moving there (preferably from the existing cities as they are easily double comfortable carrying capacity). Ditto on inventions to redirect floodwaters, but sadly leads me to my end point below.

"But look at Israel -... They built a prosperous and vibrant nation"
Er, not really a good example- although to be fair, they suffer the extra adversity of frequent attacks, so stability and prosperity would be impossible to gauge.

"and desalination plants that mean Israel will never run out of water."
Who pays for these desal plants? It starts to contradict the supposed financial benefits if we must start introducing such expensive infrastructure to actually make the accomadation.

"Those who say we can't handle any more people take a very dim view of Australian entrepreneurship and ingenuity."
Because we have easily among the low-grade entrepreneurship and ingenuity in the Western world as far as major project works go. When was the last ambitious project we've undertaken? The interstate roads and inter-city expressways of yester-decade do count, yet no positive examples of public benefit since. We produce many great minds but our authority gives no ear to them but instead to the usual low-output thinkers and developers to dump dodgy quick-fix solutions in the form of public-private partnerships, while the quality thinkers leave our shores for America or Europe.

For me, unless you can show me a good project that IS in the works, in which case I WILL endorse it, my skepticism of anything more than worsening the urban sprawl around the cities to squeeze them in, and hope 'she'll be right' will continue.

you may not lose sleep over population growth james but you should be losing sleep over our food security - farm incomes are in decline (farm incomes have gone down by 22% in the last 10 years) This reduces the incentive for young farmers to stay in the industry. The pattern is evident where I live. As farm incomes are being squeezed developers come in and offer to buy the land to secure the farmers retirement. The land remains as a farm but the government is approached to rezone the land for it is no longer profitable as farm land. Result the government has just announced that it will rezone some of our prime farm land for housing - 7000 new homes. More land taken out of production further decreasing our food security.
It seems that you are hell bent on ensuring that we repeat the mistakes made overseas but sleep easy the full consequences of your reckless decisions will not be felt in your lifetime - it will be left to future generations to clean up after you. Want to know what that future is? Well documented by Jared Diamond but no doubt you dismiss his research.

sadly, I agree Hazza.
Needless to say, I'm disappointed Paterson has made no attempt to address my point about pensioners as a percentage of population.
Do you accept that at some point we must face population stability, Paterson; or do you believe we can -and should- continue to increase our population forever?
If we do have to face population stability, when is the best time to address the problem of a large percentage of pensioners; when the number is small, or when the number is big?
How do you justify merely putting a problem off, for your children or grandchildren to address, apart from simple self interest?
While I agree Australia is a large country with plenty of room for more people, our resources are still finite (and as current events testify, the bulk of us don't get a fair return on those resources now).
Your figures have failed to show any advantage to a larger population.
So long as natural resources are finite, more people means less 'pie' for each of us.

I'm not arguing that we are running out of space, water, oxygen or anything else.

I simply state that it is absurd to point out that a politician could (or should) ignore what 80% of the population WANT.

To the extent that they do do so, that is PRECISELY what is wrong with our current political system, the electorate does not exist to provide numbers for the elected and non-elected officials to crunch and play with. The electorate is the employer of the officials, both elected and unelected, the sooner we get back to that point the better.

James -

As Chris Rock says "You could probably drive your car with your feet if you really wanted to, but that doesn't make it a good idea."

High population growth makes every problem harder to solve except the rich getting richer.

James I imagine you would manage okay with 20 people living in your house. That doesn't mean it's the way you want to live. A billion people on our planet don't have running water or a place to go to the toilet. They are alive, but that doesn't mean they think they have a wonderful lifestyle. Maybe we should apply some of our entrepreneurship, ingenuity and creativity to helping them.

When should population growth stop? When the environment is really, really, really screwed or now when it is only sort of screwed. Why not take some time out and cure cancer and diabetes, help a billion people out of poverty, help them to learn to read.

Why cram more people into Australia just so rich people can get richer? What is your long term strategy? Just keep doing what rich people tell you to do?

In short, with absolutely no practical solutions being offered except expecting the existing population to 'take one for the team' for the greater good (a cheap, quick-fix quick-profit developer-friendly solution that ultimately is only convenient for them), and no actual answer to the questions being asked, or any proof that they're wrong, there exists little sign of the active lobbyists of this field don't really care, and don't really think there IS any good for most of the population beyond themselves either.