Is that it?

Let me pop a few of Dick's bubbles. There is no population crisis nor a food crisis in Australia. In 2008 Treasury revised its population projections (note the word 'projection') so that Oz's pop in the mid range (schedule B) might reach 35 million in the year 2050. At current rates with recent cuts to immigration it will struggle to reach that. But it was always going to reach close to that. We knew that back in the 80s.

Is it a crisis? No. Population is people and people are the drivers of capital and innovation in our society. Note that Dick and others don't use the word 'society' very much. That's because the anti-pops are instrumentalists - we (you and me) are just economic units and our worth is measured by how much we consume.

Is Australia going to run out of food now or in the mid future? No. We export $40B worth of food per year and that is growing. We import $6B mainly from New Zealand and Asia re reciprocal trade arrangements. Food we have.

Their ideas are protectionist and a throw back to the horrific anti-trade days of the 1930s. They are throw backs.

The anti-pops believe the world is a closed system and that we're all doomed anyway for a whole range of barking mad reasons such as global warming, rising sea levels, earthquakes and anything that smacks of apocalypse and catastrophe. The only catastrophe I can see is if we take their anti-immigration and anti-Muslim ideas seriously. The anti-pops think social justice means recycling your garbage on a Tuesday night.

Dick Smith recently ran TV ads where his staff were a happy multicultural group of people, happily displaying Dick's range of electrical products. But this is not the future for the anti-pops. They are against not only having a multicultural society, they are against capitalism (no growth) - the very same system that Dick used to become a multimillionaire. Hypocritical? I'll let you decide.

Cheryl,

Are you saying that the world "isn't" a closed system?

While I sympathise with the author's position, that "The pursuitof endless growth is the least intelligent response we can make", I question the artificial and parochial limits that structure his thinking. By "artificial" I mean he thinks by default within the growth capitalist paradigm he feigns to despise. And by "parochial" I mean he fails to consider the ethics of his luxurious zero-population-growth position. Capitalism is based on endless growth, period. And population increase offers the best guarantee, ceteris paribus, that it will be maintained. But other things are 'not' equal; the economic growth juggernaut is patently insane in its destructive impacts and within inevitable earthly limits. In this context, Australia opting to halt population growth means it must maintain economic growth by other means. And this it will optimally achieve via resource exports, that is by driving the growth engine, and concomitant population increase, off-shore. It's a moot point whether Australia can maintain its living standards with a stable population (Queensland has just been deemed the worst performing economy in Australia precisely because of stagnant population growth), but there is no question as to the dubious ethics of its luxuriating in a relatively provincial haven that it maintains by unsustainable practices, including population growth "off shore".
We have to stop thinking nationalistically, we are part of a world system, economically and environmentally, and if Dick Smith wants to do something about ecological unsustainability, he should be attacking the root cause: an economic system that demands endless growth.
Seen in this light, Dick, you present as part of the problem, and your parochial lobbying is irrational, unethical and hypocritical; in fact just another aspect of Western conceit.

Dick Smith is correct . Continuing population growth would be a lesser problem if most of the additional residents went to live in places which are not already overcrowded [ assuming that such places had adequate water supplies ] . In reality , most will live in Sydney , Melbourne and greater Brisbane . Most will be encouraged by the pro - growthers to travel by car [ particularly 4WDs ] and live in Mc Mansions .
The pro - growthers ' media will constantly demand better public transport , then complain about the cost of providing it and criticise it when it is provided . The cost of extending facilities to ever further spreading suburbs will escalate , but every attempt by governments to increase taxes to extend facilities , or to require developers to meet the cost as a condition of planning approval will be condemned .

The inevitable contribution from Australia's resident multi-millionaire doomsayer. Should have seen that coming.

Dick Smith is a "successful Australian". Which means that he has made a lot of money for himself, selling cheap imported electronic gear. Bully for him. Australia needs shopkeepers.

Presumably on the basis that his success as a shopkeeper somehow endows him with superior insight into the issue, he was last August allowed to screen an hour-long "documentary" that promoted his personal views on Australia's population.

In it, he wandered through a fact-lite, emotion-rich rant that played the fear factor at every opportunity, much as he does here... "ghastly natural disasters have shown that we are just one unexpected shock away from crisis".

Fear of the future is always an easy card to play. The simple fact that we have no idea what will happen tomorrow, nags away at us constantly. People like Smith play on those fears, with horror scenarios based on nothing more than a hankering for how it used to be in the fifties.

As Peter Curson, Professor of Population and Security at the University of Sydney observed at the time of the doco, "Australian society will be quite different in 40 or so years time with presumably different goals, priorities and adaptive strategies".

Smith's assumption, as it was with Malthus, is "if nothing changes".

"I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, that food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, that the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state... Assuming then my postulata as granted, I say, that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man." Thomas Malthus: An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Malthus wrote six editions of this essay between 1798 and 1826. Let us hope that we do not have to endure the same from our home-grown Malthusian.

Malthus was at least prepared to argue from scholarship, rather than from the script of a second-rate disaster movie.

Cheryl

People who advocate for a sustainable population are critical thinkers. We are cautious because we can see the potential problems that it will cause. We do not pretend to know the truth. We do not believe that a society's success is assured because it has population growth, free trade and diversity. We believe the world is much more complex than that, and if you lack this foresight that is your loss.

*Dick Smith recently ran TV ads where his staff were a happy multicultural group of people, happily displaying Dick's range of electrical products.*

Err Cheryl, last time I checked, Dick Smith sold that business to
Woolies, about 20 years ago. With your information so out of
date, no wonder your arguments are so flawed.

I think that Dick has actually written a very good article,
but posters like Cheryl and Pericles will seemingly continue
to be blinded by those bright shining city lights.

Fact is that Perth today depends on gas for its water.
Without it, the city would be stuffed. Recently I saw
a documentary about rubbish dumps. The city of New York
trucks its rubbish hundreds of km to get rid of it, in
trucks burning what is still cheap oil. Beyond the
glow of those lights, things get pretty messy.

Dick is clearly thinking about the ramifications beyond
the cheap energy genie which now powers our cities.

Good on him.

Mr Smith is correct, control the flood of people into this country, or we will end up like some of the tattier and impoverished (both morally, spiritually and finaciallly) parts of Europe.
Have a look at Africa; you don't need a crystal ball.

My thanks to Dick for a calm and measured article that is spot on. There is no point in further population growth, unless you have a vested interest such as property developers or businesspeople wanting a bigger market or Catholics defending outdated encyclicals. We may assume Cheryl fits one of those. Ordinary people and other species do not benefit from continuing human population growth. We have at least two major crises confronting us and we must adopt a very cautionary attitude. These crises are climate change and peak oil. Given that both will affect food security adversely, we may well find ourselves in a situation of food shortages and even famine in some parts of the world before the decade is out, even this year.

Bravo Dick Smith. A true national hero.

" It's a moot point whether Australia can maintain its living standards with a stable population (Queensland has just been deemed the worst performing economy in Australia precisely because of stagnant population growth), but there is no question as to the dubious ethics of its luxuriating in a relatively provincial haven that it maintains by unsustainable practices, including population growth "off shore"."

It is also moot that Australia, or any other country, can maintain its living standard through population growth.

A growing population means an ever thinner slice of the economic pie, even if it growing. And the cost of living pie usually grows a lot faster than the economic pie for the majority of ordinary Australians.

I put it to you that those who will suffer the most as a result of a stable population will be the minority big end of town who are shouting the loudest for population growth.

The majority of ordinary Australians will benefit from a stable population with falling cost of living pressures and easy congestion etc.

The big end of town will just have to learn to live with less wealth and ptivaledges.......to bad so sad.

Dick Smith admits he's made more out of real estate than he did with Electronic Dicks. This makes properties dearer, so the answer is ZPG? Give me problem-solvers anyday rather than Malthusian problem-creating doomsayers. Malthus is still wrong.

"Give me problem-solvers anyday rather than Malthusian problem-creating doomsayers. Malthus is still wrong."

The only thing that Malthus was wrong about was the timing.

Collapse has happened to all the great human civilisations that went before us.

Our civilisation is no different and will also eventually collapse due to ecological overshoot. It will no doubt survive in small pockets here and there at least for a while. But it will never again be as widespread as it currently is.

Malthusian doomsdayers you say. I would rather them than naive optimists like yourself. Better to be prepared for the worst while hoping for the best.

Well said Dick.

Dick Smith - true capitalist with a latter day conversion to cutting people out of the customer service equation.

Here are some more facts. Australia is a net exporter of energy. We are the ninth largest producer of energy in the world and that is growing.

Our domestic consumption is less than one third of production. Food we have, energy we have and we also have catastrophists in abundance calling themselves the Sustainable People Lobby.

Look up the term cultural pessimism and you'll see these jokers writ large. Look up Spengler and Vico and you'll see the seeds of their anti-humanist thinking.

One of the reasons the anti-pops have failed to get their message across is that at the end of the day we run a capitalist economy.

The anti-populationists are watermelons - green on the outside and red in the middle. Although I'd suggest there is a fair element of Byron Bay fire twirler here too. Don't let the facts stand in the way of your end of the earth fantasy.

Now that the global warming debate has been lost thanks largely due to numerous failed predictions and warmist hypocrites flying around the globe and buying mansions on the coast the attention has now switched to another dogma. Australia still has a huge amount of land, resources and yes even water. We can accomodate many many more. In the 1970's the alarmist warned of running out of food and water if the population reached far less than we have now. Instead the standard of living is much much higher thanks to the 'big polluters'. We live longer, eat better and have a higher standard of living. Thank God for His mercies.

Cheryl
We may live in a capitalist society but that is not to say that any system based on unending growth can survive in a finite world. It won't. We have to move to a steady state economy with minimum throughput of resources. This entails a stable population.

Ho Dick Smith!

Why did you put your signature to this article?

Why didn’t you let me sign it?

I share your Ideas and don’t have as many enemies as you do

Dear runner

What you wrote is rubbish really. The climate debate is not lost - the issue is very much alive. Emissions are still climbing and the Earth is warming and we are heading for disaster unless we turn the situation around. Australia has lots of land but very little of it is arable but even the soils there tend to be infertile. Our climate is variable and subject to 'droughts and flooding rains' which will get worse under climate change. The 'big polluters' that have brought us temporary material comfort are destroying the atmosphere with their emissions. Those who raised the alarm in the 1970s about famine were not wrong - we were simply given breathing space thanks to the green revolution. Now that global population is nearly twice as big, we have twice the problems. It all comes down to population and resources. We not only hit the limits, we passed them in 1979 and are now in overshoot.

Nope fellas, Cheryl is far closer to the truth than our mate Dick.

But Dick is right to the extent that there is no real reason to populate as opposed to not-populate, and his suggestions that we should then eliminate concessions of various sorts for larger families is one of the only two possible responses (the other is to limit immigration), if we choose to go down that route.

However, the concessions do not encourage larger families as such. Their removal would do absolutely nothing, people do not have babies due to tax concessions. What their removal definitely would do is increase poverty. In other words, Dick is advocating an increase in poverty.

There are many other problems I could point to, but where I do become very impatient with this sort of material is where the writers seriously try to claim food security as a reason for limiting population.

Others have pointed out that food exports far outweigh imports with no sign of this changing. Dick cites a government report which I looked at. In essence, this report 'Australia and food security in a changing world' is a lobbying document, designed to push more government funds into agricultural research. One of the giveaways is the vagueness about just how Australian agriculture might somehow fail to feed Australia's population, followed by definite, but alarmist, nonsense about how lack of nutrition would affect the elderly and babies.

Really, Dick should know better than to foist this sort of rubbish on us, and he did not make his millions listening to these sorts of "experts".

Priceless, Mr Windy..

>>The only thing that Malthus was wrong about was the timing.<<

Just like the first century Christians who anticipated the return of Jesus during their lifetime, I suppose. The only thing they were wrong about was the timing.

It is very easy to look around you and find reasons to fear the future.

Yabby sees Perth's shortage of water as a sign of the approaching apocalypse, avoiding the admission that it is a straightforward lack of foresight and planning. Or the challenges of getting rid of New York's waste, as if that were a new problem, or one that could not be resolved if it were given political priority.

The pompous "sustainable population" advocates also carefully avoid any thought that this country might be able to support a population significantly greater than it does at present, before it becomes necessary to "sustain" that level. How come all the previous predictions have come to nothing, but suddenly we have to take this one as gospel?

No offence to those gospellers, by the way, still waiting for the Second Coming.

Pericles, what I am pointing out, is that this whole frigging
circus that we have built in the last 100 years, is basically
built on the back of the cheap energy genie. All that food,
all those lights, all that carting away of rubbish, none of
it magic, all due to cheap energy.

Remove the genie and see what happens.

Dick rightly points out that there is no good reason to take
things to the limits. The more that we do, the higher will
be the price paid, by those living here. It won't be me lol.

Next we'll have Cheryl bleating about the starving babies.
Remove cheap energy and see what happens to the price of food.
If you want crowded cities, Bombay and Calcutta would be
great places to live.

What a dilemma we live in.
Economics - tell us that we need growth to keep us in our comfort zone and that encompasses all that it entails. Well I believe "economics" will need to be rewritten for a sustainable future. Worldwide population growth of 80/90 million people per year will certainly be test to that.
We (being the human race)like to keep a check on all other life forms, don't we. Oh those pesky animals/birds who dare to scrounge or prey upon or near us. And those trees, we can cut them down at "any" rate we like. I mean to say, they will grow again, wont they?
I was always told that the world works at a finite balance. Too much of one thing and what do we do?
As far as immigration goes, I think back 50 years and say what an idealistic place we live in with our large blocks of land and small capital cities, and think how long can we keep this going. Even if Australia had zero population growth, will the rest of the world be the same and would eventually we be committed to give our space to equalize distribution anyway?
Decisions will need to me made eventually.

Cheryl

People who advocate for a sustainable population don't need to use emotional language when arguing for their cause. Australia's position as the ninth largest exporter of energy should be used to increase our per capita wealth. As mining is not a big employer of labour. It is not humanist to dilute Australia's export income among more people. This just increases the potential for creating more poverty within Australian society, as if there is not enough already.

popnperish

'The climate debate is not lost - the issue is very much alive'

No like the tobacco industry the Government funded alarmist needs to continue with propaganda in order to protect their tax payer funded junkets and benefits. Thankfully the general population has woken to the fact that higher fuel and electricity prices mean more pain for most pensioners. Not every one can afford to burn up carbon at the rate of Mr Flannery and Mr Smith.

Dick,

As a young Australian I totally disagree & am disappointed with your position on this issue.

While watching your "documentary" on population prior to Q&A last year I also got quite angry with you, as you stood in front of your helicopter, tractor & 4WD (on one of your many large properties)espousing that, as a society, we use too many resources & are threatening the land we live on... it was a shameful hypocrisy.

I think your stance on this issue is derived from your narrow world view & your pessimism about other peoples motives & Australian society in general.

As a society we face significant challenges in resource management, governance & social function, but this has always been the case. As a society we can and will respond to these challenges.

Over the next 10 - 20 years it is likely that we will see major developments in...

1. Cellulosic ethanol for transport fuel
2. Renewable industrial & household energy from biomass, solar & geothermal, perhaps even nuclear
3. food security planning & agricultural efficiency
4. Water use & treatment planning
5. Natural Resource Planning
6. urban planning

As these are developed and implemented a sustainable population will continue to thrive & can easily afford to grow in Australia. In these circumstances - why cap population at all?

Why don't you focus on the challenges & opportunities?
Why are you optimistic about yourself & pessimistic about the rest of society?
Why do you so easily forgive yourself for the hypocrisy of your own monumental personal environmental footprint?
Why don’t you want to see Australia continue to grow & evolve?

You occupy a position of leadership in Australian society because of your large material wealth & profile.
It is a shame you don't use that position constructively

"As a young Australian I totally disagree & am disappointed with your position on this issue"

As an ordinary Australian, without resorting to the typical, "I'm entitled to special consideration because I'm young" chant, how do you feel about it?

I don't agree any more or less than you with Dick, but it is interesting how you put yourself above others by arrogantly pushing a "special entitlement", perspective.

Do you think that will endear yourself to others? Or do you simply not care about anyone else, because you're so special.

Or do you feel you are more entitled than anyone older than you? The ones who paid for everything up till you could come onto the scene and suddenly become more important than everything before you?

We do see this attitude a lot and I'm interested in the basis of it. (were you an only child?)

Something must be generating this overblown sense of entitlement some people have.

I'm eager to learn ..

Tet

You say the antigrowth movement doesn’t need emotional language to advance its cause. I suggest you inform Dick Smith , because his article is full of it, including this priceless gem

“A collapse of the financial markets, followed by ghastly natural disasters have shown that we are just one unexpected shock away from crisis. ”

Smith says the best arguments for growth he’s heard is “because we can”. Trivialising and failing to acknowledge counter arguments is the hallmark of the ideologue.

Here are a few other reasons to support growth:

- We need skills and labour we don’t currently have to capitalise on the once-in-a-century opportunity created by the resources boom.

- Most surveys show that migration has a positive effect on economic conditions in Australia – for example, over the longer term per capita economic growth and output has been higher in states with faster population growth

- Migrants are also better off coming here – or else they wouldn’t come

- Personally, one of the things I like most about Australian society is its cultural diversity. Immigration is an important contributor to that.

The argument contained in the article are, at best, debatable.

- The water constraint is a furphy. Yabbie, Perth has Australia’s highest per capita water consumption in Australia. Desalination is affordable. We can use other sources more efficiently too (dams reserved for agriculture, Yarragadee).

- Arguments about global population sustainability are a furphy (as well as being wrong) in a debate about Australia’s immigration levels. Immigration doesn’t add to the world’s population, it only redistributes it.

- As others have pointed out, the food security argument is a furphy. We produce far more than we use, and will for the foreseeable future.

- The arid continent argument is a furphy. It is true that much of Australia is arid and uninhabitable, but Australia is a very big place. The small proportion that is comfortably inhabitable covers areas bigger than many countries with much larger populations (e.g. Japan).

The difficulties with this debate is the tendency to reduce it to a pessimissm vs optimism stance. It is more about risk mitigation based on projections about resources and environmental impact, and especially future food supplies.

To deny there is the possibility of global food shortages is to adopt the resting on laurels approach of most governments who adopt bandaid approaches instead of being proactive and reducing the impact of potential problems caused by a growing populations.

The fact that healthy economies produce less children has to be the starting point. One of the most obvious approaches is to raise the standard of living, fostering democracies and standards of governance in the Third World. Birth rates will come down as a response to improved living conditions and education.

The solution is not always just to move populations around so that the effects of overpopulation are spread particularly to countries where resources are already limited and land encroachment is impacting on agricultural production such as in Europe. What we don't need is an imbalance in terms of food production where the world's food supply is governed by a smaller number of providers, but a greater spread of agriculture including increasing local food production. Local food production has a positive spin off for local communities, the environment (where suitable crops are grown), self-sufficiency (reducing dependency and protection against dumping).

Good comment Pelican - what is the worst that could happen if we limit population growth? There really is no downside - we can look at countries with both stable populations and zero economic growth eg Denmark and cannot really claim that these countries are worse off than those countries which shoot for larger populations and high economic growth.
On the other hand if we look at countries with high population growth one is hard to find evidence that population growth is a good thing.
On that basis I cannot see what the fuss is about - there appears to be no downside to limiting population growth but there is the genuine possibility that higher population growth will leave us all worse off.

Amicus,

Your comment reminded me of the quote "They got the guns, but we got the numbers." Think about that from whatever perspective you like.

Surely the argument regarding immigration as a solution to the aging population could be solved by cutting the pension significantly, or perhaps increasing the age to become eligible for the pension. Or does this conflict with your "special entitlement" perspective?

Also if the population issue has been a "crisis" since the 50/60/70s then by definition it is not a crisis. Most people (with the possible exception of the young) seem to ignore the possibility of significant change for the better in technology, agriculture and energy generation. I suppose many are unable to comprehend timescales greater then their life expectancy.

Dick Smith,

Thank you for your contribution to Online Opinion.

Some time ago, at the end of the 60’s, I came across a book by Robert Ardrey, ‘The territorial alternative’.

Ardrey, having examined a wide range of animals and their territorial domains, tried to understand where the humans stood in relation to the minimum area of land needed for survival.

On reflecting about this problem, I imagined a model which, if it does not answer the question of how large a plot has to be to shelter and sustain a family, it helps to understand how crucial the land factor is.

Suppose that a family with one child survives just well on a small farm, the arrival of a second child makes things a bit tight and the birth of a third, difficult.

I stop here to make sure that the ones who enter this debate can so do without being influenced by the concept of money.

Money and economy, put together, cause much confusion in the minds of people

I have seen quite a few tourist resorts built on pristine pieces of land, and then in a few years the tourist resort was bankrupt, and destroying the natural environment to build the tourist resort was a total waste.

Perhaps this is also becoming the story of Australia.

People were once generally informed that if they worked hard they would build a better life for their children.

This is not necessarily the case, and children are now likely to die at a younger age than their parents.

Parents are also unlikely to really know their children, with many fathers only seeing their children occasionally, and mothers now sending their children off to daycare.

We are destroying the country for little human gain, and simply increasing the population will probably increase the destruction for even less human gain.

@Amicus
I have identified myself as a young Australian for this purpose...

Dick Smith recently sought "young Australians" to come forward with solutions to his population conundrum.... but he was simply looking for 'young' people who agreed with him.

I wished to emphasise in my comment that I was a) young & b) disagreed with him. In fact I don’t even agree that there is a population conundrum.

I think in this context your comments are very much unfounded, and somewhat offensive.

You are entitled to your opinion as I am entitled to mine.
Perhaps you could keep your comments to the subject matter

Good on you Dean K. Gee the anti-pops went wobbly when you started to talk about energy renewal.

Skeptic "money and economy put together, cause much confusion in the minds of people."

No money and no economy cause much more confusion mate and that's what the no growth lobby want.

We're in the realm of magical thinking here if the anti-pops think we're going to junk one trillon dollars per annum worth of economy. That's their bottom line. Kiss the economy good bye and start a new paradigm. Might as well call it Kampuchea now.

Here's an ethics test for the 'no growthers'. A baby and the last seal lion pup on earth fall in to the river. Who would you swim for?

You'd go for the sea lion wouldn't you? Admit it - and the sea lion pup can swim. Jeeez.

I'm sorry Tet if I offended you. The last thing I want is a Tet Offensive.

Vanna
where do you get your life expectancy data? It's not consistent with the ABS, who estimate that life expectancy at birth is higher now than it has ever been

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3105.0.65.001

oh cheryl .. thank you, nicely done.

Mr Smith's article and all of the letters to date do not address one of the fundamental questions: how does Australia actually achieve its desired population? Population change is derived from the excess of births over deaths, and in-migration over out migration. All of government policy is directed toward improving health with a consequence of steadily improving life expectancy. Nobody seriously suggests that should change.
Similarly there is absolutely no control over out-migration and again nobosy seriously suggests that should change. Of in-migration there are in fact many disparate groups including returning Australians, family reunifications, refugee quotas in accordance with our international obligations and so on. The percentage actually subject to control is actually quite small and influenced by a range of factors not directly subject to government intervention; eg the rate of investment affecting employment demand for skilled labor.
That leaves the birth rate. The European experience is that vastly more generous policies aimed at increasing their very low (well below replacement level) birth rates have been almost universally unsuccessful.
In Australia's case our total fertility rate is only fractionally below long term replacement level. Given this and our existing age structure the point at which deaths will exceed births (assuming fertility remains at sub-replacement level) is some decades in the future.
The challenge therefore is to manage our population growth for the forseeable future with sensible policies. Everything else is simply posturing.

@James O'Neill - agreed - if we were to stop all migration we would stop population growth - for it is our migration policy that is the real problem. Note it is the policy not the migrants that is the problem - if people are invited here by our migration programme we cannot hold them responsible for accepting the invitation.
Government and big business like migration for similar reasons. It avoids us having to do something about skilling our population to meet our needs and furthermore it exerts downward pressure on wages and working conditions.
No one can deny that Australia has been enriched by the cultural diversity that has been the fortunate (unintended and much resisted) byproduct of migration but there is such thing as too much of a good thing.
As far as the ageing issue is concerned migration actually makes it worse for you create a population bulge in 20-40 age group without the underpinning of a succeeding generation.
We can solve the so called problem of older people by shifting the funds spent on the baby bonus to fund programmes that encourage employers to employ older workers - there are a great many jobs that many older people would be able and like to do - it is certainly preferable then sitting at home with only day time television for company.

Rhian.

"In a world focused on economic success, the basic health of children is being forgotten. "

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/suffer-the-little-children/2008/10/01/1222651093091.html

It is questionable that an ageing population is going to increase the costs of running the country,

However I cannot see quality of life improving with an increased population.

It will mean more of a boxed in lifestyle, and more ill health in the longer term.

BAYGON

To say it with O’Henry: “there are two grafts that ought to be banned by law. Business Migration and Business privacy”

"Just like the first century Christians who anticipated the return of Jesus during their lifetime, I suppose. The only thing they were wrong about was the timing."

Pericles, there is hard archeological evidence for the collapse of every single one of the past great civilisations. But there is no hard archeological evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. So why you are bringing religion into this is beyond me.

In many cases there is varying amounts of evidence, some times debatable, that the past great cilvilisations collapsed also due to ecological overshoot.

A few examples where the archeological evidence for ecological overshoot is strong include the Easter Island/Rapanui civilisation (due to deforestation and over exploitation of wild food resources, the Aztec civilisation (due to irrigation damage) and indeed the Maori civilisation of New Zealand was well on its way to total collapse when Europeans arrived (due to over over exploitation and extinction of wild food resources).

We are currently on the exact same path as the Maori and headed for the same dire situation that Europeans found them in with endemic warfare of scarce resources and canibalism due to lack of other substantial sources of meat.

Dean K, you are not a current or former economics of business (or similar non-science degree) are you by any chance?

Regardless you have been successfully indoctrinated by the economists and business community into the believing that there are no limits to human expansion due to our technology.

Our technology and its application is also subject to the ecological limits of finite planet Earth Dean.

Perhaps you should head back to school and broaden your education with some rationalising Earth science.

Dick has done what he wished to do over the years and now pontificates others to nanny state subservience. If dicks canvas was trimmed earlier, would he now hold these narrow views or is he just trying to hold on to his Vegemite sandwiches while prescribing others to less choice in their productive pursuits and expression.

Mr Windy,
welcome to OLO, you're a breath of fresh air in a mostly fetid environment. You quoted me above and I just wanted to say I agree with the tendency of your comments. The big end of town would certainly suffer most from a halt in population growth. Though unless Australia opted out of the growth paradigm in a sustainable manner, we'd all suffer.

I prefer not to deal with fantasy, however, and this article and most of the contributions in favour of halting population growth are precisely that. However much we discuss it, the reality is that the population will grow, will be force-grown to serve its master, economic growth. It seems inevitable that despite the plethora of historical precedent, and contemporary empirical evidence, even out "advanced" civilisation hasn't learnt the rudimentary biological facts about life on Earth.

The best comment made somewhere above I think is, well the gist of it, what is to be gained, qualitatively from population growth? Will we be happier with bigger crowds, greater sprawl and more intensive accommodations?
There is nothing to be gained qualitatively from a larger population, but much to be lost. I aver therefore that however it is rationalised, the real motive behind population expansion is economic.
Until the sustainable population adherents wake up that the real enemy is global capitalism, and go after it, they're just whistling in the wind. Looming Peak Oil, AGW and the GFC have done nothing to halt the economic growth obsession and populations will continue to follow suit until the whole thing collapses.

Here come the pro-growthers, bleating like cats on a hot tin roof. How much of their histrionics is driven by the realisation that their property portfolio are grossly inflated and ready to pop at any moment?

What would you know about society Cheryl?

I don't get to spend time with my family during the week because I'm caught in traffic and struggling to make ends meet as the government sucks my finances out of me to provide infrastructure for migrants. My son's school is overcrowded and he is in a room with two composite classes (four classes). He might get lucky in our underfunded education system and get a degree or a apprenticeship in a trade but, more likely, some work-ready scab will be imported off the shelf from overseas as a cheap option for our socially conscious businesses.

The best performing European economies have low pop growth rates and higher per capita spending on health, education and transport (not that better PT helps in Melbourne, it just slows our 18thC road system unless we want to re-engineer our entire rail system). The GDP per capita and income per capita is also higher in these European countries too. Here's a clue: the govt's in these clever countries use taxes to maintain, consolidate and improve existing infrastructure.

You can't win this argument on society, economy or environment. What have you got? Nothing! Bloated, pointless gasbags.

What's that? We can all move to rural areas? Oh yeah, sure. Once we get past commuting distance farmlets with a horse and sheep for cashed up "tree changers" we can drive 4 hours a day to work for a basic wage (and that's not the inflated average wage, that's the real $50K pa that most low income families live on)? Or we grow mung beans in our back yard and live off that?

What do you clowns know about the realities of over-population that average people face? You're just blowhard ideologues who need a rocket up your....

Rhian,

Compare this paper on real wages in Italy from 1270 to 1913.

http://www.paolomalanima.it/default_file/Articles/Wages_%20Productivity.pdf

Figure 10 in this paper shows it all, but here are two quotes:
"Over a long period, an inverse correlation between population and wage rates dominates: at least from the beginning of the series until 1820. Wage rates increase only in times of population decline, such as the golden age for workers between 1350 and 1450, and the 1630-1750 period."

"From the ratio of the cost of the basic requirements for survival - the poverty line - to the average hourly wage, we deduce that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries workers had to work 500-1000 hours per year simply to survive, whereas in the nineteenth century about 1500 hours were necessary."

In 2006 our Productivity Commission modelled the effects of increasing skilled immigration by 50%. This is the best possible case for economic benefits from population growth. They found (p. 191)

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves. For existing residents, capital owners receive additional income, with owners of capital in those sectors experiencing the largest output gains enjoying the largest gains in capital income. On the other hand, the real average annual incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than in the base-case, as additional immigrants place downward pressure on real wages."

More specifically, the expected per capita gain in income (p. 198) was only $383, and hours worked per capita were increasing faster than growth in average income, implying that average income per hour worked would be falling. They didn't consider effects on the environment, congestion, etc.

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/9438/migrationandpopulation.pdf

Their findings are consistent with studies in other countries, such as the 2008 House of Lords report in the UK.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldselect/ldeconaf/82/82.pdf

Our politicians and the media are trying to tell that there are marvellous economic benefits from population growth because the elite are more concerned with total than per capita GNP, i.e., population growth is good for them, but not for the rest of us.

Mmmm...
1. I wonder if Dick understands longevity and the roll it is playing in our demographic momentum, or demographic swelling.
2. 500,000 extra in 2010? Not sure about that. 150,000 natural and 54,000 permanents, so maybe half of Dicks number.
3. I also wonder what Dick feels and understands about peak population and then global decline, as predicted by the UN under various scenarios. The most I recall was half our current global population by 2150.
4. Japan is in population decline and has a huge Ageing population problem.

Or they emigrate to a more affordable country, as our 87,000 Australian permanent departues last year attest.

Currently approx. 1000 skilled emigrations per week. Mainly 25 to 35 year olds as the largest group.

So, we experience peak emigration, due to cost of living, housing affordability and tax systems, while the public argument seems to be focused on immigration levels declining. Note, the govt has hold of this lever and immigration can be turned back on at any time. No so for our emigration, and that requires more attention. It is impacting our NOM greatly at the moment....

Dick never mentions our emigration rates rising and hitting historical highs?

"For Dick to use his affluence and power more effectively and with more significance, he could offer to repay the outstanding HECS debts of the first 5000 to return after being away for at least 5 years, back to OZ?" - demografix, April 20, 2011

James O'Neill,

If you scroll down to the bar chart in this report showing legal immigration to the US from 1820 to 1994, you will see that a government can indeed cut off most immigration very quickly.

http://www.cis.org/1965ImmigrationAct-MassImmigration

As I posted on the previous "Thought Bubbles" thread, the US elite after World War I were very frightened by the Russian Revolution, continuing violent labour unrest, horrific riots involving black Americans and the migrants displacing them from their jobs, and a series of anarchist bombings, often targeted at individuals. They managed to shut down mass migration very quickly, among other measures aimed at reversing globalisation. If businesses were concerned about skilled workers, they had to train them themselves. Disaster didn't happen, even with immigration near or below zero net.

Australia is not going to run out of workers generally, either. According to the Australia Institute, our method of calculating unemployment only includes less than a third of the people who want a job, but don't have one. Including these people would give a true unemployment rate of 14.3%, and it would be 20.5% if we include the underemployed.

https://www.tai.org.au/?q=node/254

Of course businesses would have to submit to the indignity of hiring older workers and disabled people, or even having to train young apprentices.

Natural increase is harder to influence, but is only a temporary problem at best. The fertility rate has been below replacement level since 1976. Most of our population growth is coming from immigration.

Australia potentially can support a much greater population than it already has. Examination of much more intensely populated areas of the world shows how that might be done. In those parts, we see many more smaller towns interconnected by good quality road/rail infrastructure.

Australia is characterised by very concentrated populations in large cities. In the Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne - Adelaide corridor there is heaps of potential to develop many new towns that are sufficiently large to support either an industry or a decentralised government department or similar.

The real constraint on population growth is not water, per se, but infrastructure. What is clear is that larger population generates substantially greater economic activity and taxation revenue.

The real weakness in Australian governance is the lack of sound long term planning. The short electoral cycle means that few governments give any attention to longer term planning issues. It is surely possible to set population objectives and to develop plans to achieve those goals

Ah this is great. At last this subject seems to be getting the attention it deserves from OLO posters.

Good on you Dick Smith!!

It seems that a high-profile person from the business community that has seen the light and come over strongly and determinedly to the sensible side of the discussion is just what we needed to really get the population and sustainability debate rocking in this country.

Wonderful stuff!

And onya Cheryl, Pericles and a couple of others for promulgating the debate!

Dear Herbert Stencil

If you looked at GDP per capita rather than total GDP, you would find extra people don't add to well-being, assuming GDP is a measure of well-being. And why must we pave over other species' habitats? Surely other species have rights too.

popnperish,

GDP is the measure of economic "well-being". It is a quantitative measurement, not a qualitative one.

Growth and overpopulation past a certain point contributes to a sense of dissatisfaction among the populace because the quality of life diminishes.
Paradoxically, however, people who are discontented will always want "more" and will seek it through increased material consumption as an artificial device to make themselves happier....the merry-go-round just goes faster.

Dick Smith is right if we can reform the financial system.Our present system must have growth,since our growth with the sale of all our Govt banks gets expressed as debt because the private banking system creates the money to equal it in their computers.So the more growth we have,the more debt we incur.To overcome this bleeding of money from the real economy we need inflation so the banks again create our inflation as debt.

Our pop would be falling if not for immigration.25% of our pop was born OS.It is the financial system that pushes for immigration.Ordinary workers are not getting the benefits of growth now,so why have immigration that is driving our wages lower?

Women are a problem out of control.

Talking about this TRUTH is simply TABOO in our society and there are nasty consequences of even attempting to bring up the topic.

Equal rights for women is a joke based more on the hard wiring of human genetics to breed and WAR in endless cycles to preserve the quality of the species against any survival of the fittest event even when there isn't or doesn't appear to be one.
Men are merely slaves in this process, to their own hormonal fluxes and to paternal power structuring that is always aiming at harem states through war and injustice.

Ultimately women have far more rights than men and an ability to mask injustice with beauty and allure. For example women are the biggest voices condemning overpopulation caused climate change yet they insist on the "equal?" right to have ALL the children they need. This to go from social obscurity to powerful social doyennes no matter the consequence for climate or social justice for the many.

Far more needs to be said if we are to escape not just an overcrowded and unjust Australian society but a global war of apocalyptic proportions.

I am not about to put myself on that chopping block but some words of a Prince song echoing long hidden truth do come to mind:

"You don't have to make love to have a baby
and you don't have to have a baby to make love"

Now not all women are so bereft of conscience and intelligence that they aren't aware of the true problem. But to highlight the exceptions as a beacon of hope for women and the world while the vast majority of women are intent on destroying the planet and blaming everyone but themselves, is something that only an American Hegemonist like Hilary Clinton would stoop to.

Master Arjay
1. Natural growth is births minus deaths and here we are at about 160,000 more babies than deaths, so our population would still be growing, not as you claim.
2. NOM is immigration minus emigration. Emigration is peaking and trending up.
1000 skilled Aussies leaving per week last year as aour actual 'brian drain'.
3. Our death rates are due to double in the next 15 years so we may approach a 0 or neutral natural growth.
4. Australia is likely to see its peak population as soon as 2035, if our fertility holds or falls, our NOM drops back due to less immigration and more emigration and especially as our deaths approach 300,000 plus per year as projected. deaths are a certainty in the demographic science.

<< Our pop would be falling if not for immigration. >>

Arjay, this is a fallacy. Our population would still be growing at quite a significant rate even if we had zero immigration.

<< So the more growth we have,the more debt we incur. >>

Well! What a brilliant reason to wind back our growth rate!

KAEP,

What a strange post.

According to Camille Paglia, if things had been left up to women we'd all still be living in grass huts. : )

I'm always amused and entertained when people seek to single out "one" gender and blame it for the "human" capacity to overreach itself contrary to its supposed intelligence.

Excellent article. What a pity so few people understand that there is nothing sustainable about how we are living. The last 80 years of economic growth has been built on cheap and abundant fossil fuel and the destruction of the world's forests and fisheries. Some wealth creation. And now the developing world wants to join the party just as things are starting to turn nasty...

But then things turned bad for many other species a long time ago, like the Tasmanian Tiger and the Paradise Parrot. The entire global population of large primates is now less than the population of Canberra. I wonder where people like Cheryl and Pericles live their lives. In search of the next great coffee shop?

Dick Smith says "Now Japan must deal with a further massive blow, but at least its cohesive society is pulling together. One wonders if such a recovery from disaster would be possible if the nation was not held together by a common culture."

So are you actually rejecting multiculturalism now?

Australia had its own cohesive society with a common culture until "people-who-know-better" decided we were impoverished by not having people of every-ethnicity-known-to-man living here.

Why don't you bite the bullet and oppose immigration then, Dick?
That's virtually the only reason our cohesive/common culture is being undermined.

But no, Dick still supports immigration (just less of it).
And doesn't *explicitly* oppose multicultural immigration.

Cop-out.

For the pro growth lobby I have a suggestion. As has been pointed out on this and other threads there is plenty of space in Australia, there are places that have not ever been settled. Lets pick a few places like Birdsville, Meekatharra,Kalgoorlie,Alice Springs and points in between for the developers to build their new cities. On the understanding that they are to live there them selves and all new migrants are to proceed there as soon as they have been welcomed to Australia and are not to leave in any circumstances.
I am sure that they will love living with all that space around them just begging for developers to build Macmansions for all. I also hear that there is land going for the asking in the Sahara, Gobi and other choice locations that they might want to investigate.
Good on yer Dick. I do not mind at all that you have made a quid. At least you are trying to do some good with it, unlike certain West Australian Billionaires who want even more tax relief.

Shockadelic, it is entirely possible for a multicultural society to be cohesive hence Dick Smith's comments are not contradictory.

All it requires is for Australia to pursue a melting pot multicultural policy rather than a salad bowl one.

Low annual immigration intakes and an expectation that immigrants will 'fit in' means that they will be unlikely to band together and form parallel sub-cultures as is happening at present with our high immigration intake.

If you have an invitation only party then chances are the party will run smoothly and harmoniously. But if you have an open invitation for all comers then chances are your party will end up turning into a brawl. Same principal with immigration.

Poirot,

According to Camille Paglia, if things had been left up to women we'd all still be living in grass huts! Huh?

Well then, Camille Paglia has never heard lada gaga, katy perry or even Tyra McBanks and is obviously living under a Hareem rock just like YOU.

As for being amused and entertained by the TRUTH of a world living unsustainably on the driving force of multilateral sexual conquest, that's a lie because you are patently outraged. As outraged as swine being fed pearls. Your unsustainable world is coming to an end and women are going to have to pull their weight when it comes to sacrificing some of their precious EQUAL? right to have all the environment destroying children and grandchildren that their LUST for POWER craves and their skill at deceit continues to execute to the impoverishment of every living thing on this planet.

Herbert, herbet, herbert!

Clearly you are not science educated!

Even farmers understand the concept of 'carrying capacity' despite generally not being science educated at the university level.

Ever been out side of your urban universe Herbert?

Most of Australia is desert, semi arid or otherwise unsuitable for agriculture. Hence Australia's long term carrying capacity is low.

Only 6% of Australia is suitable for agriculture and, even with oil derived fertilisers, our production is quite low by world standards. Our agriculture is extremely vulnerable to unpredictable drought and flood cycles.

What do you think is going to happen Herbert when our entire food production is consumed in Australia and the next drought or flood cycle cuts our agricultural production for a few years? Idiot!

Apart from the fact that the third world will no longer get food exports from Australia thus increasing starvation there.

As Victorian are seeing from the Wontaggi Desalination Plant debacle, desalination is not an economically viable source of water on a large scale. Hence it is not solution to drought for agriculture.

kaep,

You are obviously vanna's conjoined twin - except you're the shouty half.

What a load of sexist bilge. This comfy unsustainable world has been driven my male innovation from the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Along the way it has acquiesced to the emancipation of women merely as an enhancement to profitable consumerism.

And I'm not "patently outraged" at the thought of the coming end to unsustainable living. Read my post history and you'll find that I advocate the opposite to consumerist ideology...Amicus and his ilk regularly accuse me of wanting to see us all living in caves.

Sheesh!.....

Australia's population would probably not be growing through natural fertility if the baby bribe scheme was abolished.

Divergence,
How pre-industrial Italy provides a model for 21st century Australia eludes me. Before the industrial revolution growth in most societies around the world was far lower than today - almost zero. With output static, rising population could lower real wages. But that’s not how modern economies work. Indeed, both population and real wages pick up in the later part of of Figure 10 that you cite.

Australia sustained medium term real wage growth for most of the post-war period except the late 1980s and early 1990s, and that dip had nothing to do with population growth.

You cherry pick the productivity commission report to find the few points that support your position. The report concludes that “Migration has a neutral to mildly positive effect on overall living standards.” The effects are small because migration only adds a small amount to the population. It found that “positive contributions arise from the increase in labour supply, the changing skill composition due to migration, and a consumption price effect.” And, “offsetting negative effects arise from decreased labour productivity, a decline in the terms of trade, and an increase in interest paid to foreigners.”

Popnperish
You’ll find most studies show an increase in migration leads to an increase in per capita GDP as well as absolute GDP – for example, the PC study cited by divergence predicts a 50% increase in skilled migration will raise population by 3.3% and GDP by 4.6%. Overall income per capita raises by 0.71%.

This has certainly been the case in Australia. If the past 10 years the states with the highest population growth have also had the highest per capita GSP growth. We can argue the direction of cuasation here - I believe it works both ways - but the data flatly contradict any assertion that higher population growth is associated with lower per capita GSP growth.

The two states with the fastest population growth in the past 20 years (WA and Qld) have also have the faster growth in per capita GSP. Victoria and NSW were below average in population and per capita GSP growth.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/5220.02009-10?OpenDocument

@ Mr Windy
Herewith an abridged CV for your information:
4 years of Environmental studies at ANU
5th year honours; studying growth of Eucalyptus
Post grad diploma in economics
11years work experience in both a GTO & private firm.
Currently live in a regional area of NSW.

So I think I'm well positioned to make comment here.

My opinion is that the environmental arguments against population growth are nothing more than irrational fear, supported by selective quoting of unrelated statistics.

Environmentalism these days isn't about science or land management, it is about incitement of irrational fears about other people’s motives and pessimism about society in general.

I think that this is a pity.
i think that Disk Smith and his tribe need to have a good hard look in the mirror.

Ludwig,
Like you I am thoughly enjoying this debate.

Makes a change from the likes of you and i having to hold our end up.

Your reasons are basicly on enviromental grounds, I think, wheras mine are more on social well being and living standards.

I love it.

Rhian

There is, in fact, no statistical relationship between population growth and GSP per capita. If you go to http://www.treasury.act.gov.au/snapshot/GSP.pdf
you will find he following:
"In 2009–10, all jurisdictions recorded positive real growth in GSP with the highest growth recorded by Western Australia (up 4.3%), followed by Victoria (up 2.0%) and New South Wales (up 1.7%).
Most jurisdictions recorded negative real growth in GSP in per capita terms in 2009-10, with the Northern Territory and ACT recording the lowest per capita growth (both down 0.9%). The three jurisdictions recording positive per capita growth were Western Australia (up 1.6%), South Australia (up 0.2%) and New South Wales (up 0.1%)"

Looking at the three states with positive per capita growth, WA population growth was 2.1% (higher than GSP per capita growth of 1.6%); NSW had a population growth rate of 1.3% (higher than the GSP per capita growth of 0.1%); and SA had a population growth rate of 1.1% (higher than its GSP per capita growth rate of 0.2%). The states with negative GSP per capita growth (they got poorer) had positive population growth.

At an international level, there is no correlation either at the top of the wealth table between population growth and GDP per capita (wealth)but there is a strong correlation between high population growth rates and low GDP per capita (poverty).

popnperish

Short term movements in GSP are mainly driven by cyclical factors. That's especially true for the data you have chosen, which are for the year following the GFC.

That's why any serious analysis of the relationship between population and output growth loooks at growth over a number of years, preferably at least a business cycle. my data were for 20 years, which will have ironed out any short-term fluctuations.

I accept that poor countries tend to have faster population growth rates that rich ones. Our economic circumstances and needs are quite different.

*This comfy unsustainable world has been driven my male innovation from the start of the Industrial Revolution.*

Err hang on there Poirot. You as a single swallow, don't make
a summer.

I actually noted Jefferson's wifes immortal quote, as he posted
it on OLO. "There is nothing like money to lubricate a woman's
vagina".

She makes a valid point. Its the blokes with the resources getting
all the sex. When women flock to chasing impoverished, low income
males, I'll take you more seriously.

Rhian,

I didn't cherry pick the data any more than you did. Your focus is on the total GNP, what is of interest to the elite. I was concerned about whether population growth is beneficial to the ordinary resident. Since the Productivity Commission's modelling shows that average hours worked is increasing faster than average growth in incomes and that economic benefits are disproportionately going to owners of capital and the migrants themselves, it is fair to say that there is no real benefit to ordinary people. Even if there were a (small) economic benefit, it is pretty obvious to anyone who has lived in or near a big city for some time that quality of life is getting worse, in ways mostly outside the remit of the Productivity Commission:

More crowding and congestion. More long stressful commuting, with a choice between being packed like a sardine on slow, unreliable public transport (if it even exists) or nightmare traffic and endless hassles over parking. More road rage, tree rage, and other forms of conflict due to overcrowding. Casualisation, unpaid overtime, and other forms of exploitation at work. Lack of training opportunities for our young people, because they are less attractive than already skilled migrants. Shrinking block sizes, with gardens becoming luxuries for the rich. More rules and regulations. Permanent water restrictions. Environmental deterioration. Skyrocketing house prices, from 3.3 times the median wage in 1970 for an average house to currently more than 9 times the median wage in Sydney. Skyrocketing utility bills. Overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services.

Adele Horin reports (Sydney Morning Herald 28/3/11) that over the past 5 years, wages in Sydney have risen by 19.8%, but electricity is up by 64%, water up by 58% (no doubt partly because desalinated water is 4 to 6 times as expensive as dam water), rents up by 30%, food up by 21%, and health care up by 32%. New cars, electronic goods, clothing, and furniture are cheaper, but such things can usually be bought secondhand. The other bills are unavoidable.

OK Rhian. If you look at the figures for 1995-6 to 2005-6 (and I'm sorry I can't seem to copy the relevant graph to this page), total GSP was highest in Queensland (highest population growth rate), but only marginally so, and then came WA and NT (next highest population growth rates). But when you look at the per capita GSP, Queensland is only very marginally above the other states and, with the exception of Victoria and SA, WA did not perform any better than the remaining states. Of the three with low population growth rates, ACT and Tasmania did well on a GSP per capita basis and SA did not. So, again, not a lot of correlation overall between population growth rates and GSP per capita

Yabby,

The last thing I'd want is for you to take me seriously. : )

So you're saying that part of the appeal for guys in innovative thinking and productivity is the opportunity to attract a mate. Yep - I'd go along with that.
I always attribute rampant consumerism to a successful partnership between the genders....the modern Western version is only a more sophisticated adaptation of the age old mediums of engagement.

Way to go, Ruth1

>>I wonder where people like Cheryl and Pericles live their lives. In search of the next great coffee shop?<<

I know that you meant it sarcastically, but it is certainly relevant. We are all coloured by our unique experiences.

It may have a great deal to do with my attitude, for example, that I adore city living, and couldn't contemplate an existence anywhere else.

If I ever move from Sydney, it will be to an even more crowded, even noisier, more hectic and thoroughly congested city. I occasionally find it challenging, of course - but what is life without a few challenges along the way. We had our own water scare a few years ago, that was solved by a couple of years of rain. We have crap transport systems that won't be solved any time soon, and a verging-on-criminal urban planning process that will never go away while there are politicians and lawyers involved.

But I love it. I love the constant background noise, the police sirens crossing the Bridge, the honking of the ferries on the Harbour... I just noticed, I automatically capitalized Bridge and Harbour - there's no hope for me.

Naturally, it makes for great dinner-party conversations. "You cannot be serious, Pericles" they chorus, and there follows a lively debate that wanders all over the place, eventually - somewhere around the top of the third bottle - landing in territory of the metaphysical kind... you know the stuff, why are we here, what is the purpose of our lives, that's a really nice red - French? yeah, thought so... and I tend to arrive at the same place each time.

I like people. Actually like being around them. Lots of them. In buses, in trains - and yes, in coffee shops too - on the street, at the airport. They make me happy, just being there. Can't help it, that's the way it is.

So you need to take my "Australia ain't full yet" suggestions with that as background.

Your turn.

Where do you live, and how does it affect your attitude?

Rhian, it is quite true, re the Italian example, that new crops or new technology can increase the carrying capacity and improve living standards, although such improvements have historically never lasted. Population growth eventually outstrips them. We have been living in one such spike. You are assuming that it can go on forever, with endless technological rabbits pulled out of the hat, regardless of any biophysical limits to growth. Wishing doesn't make it so. See

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

Infrastructure and other problems are being blamed on poor planning, but the real issue was identified by Ross Gittins

http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/punters-well-aware-of-economic-case-against-more-immigration-20101123-185ij.html

Population growth increases the need for both public and private infrastructure. This is delayed somewhat with new babies, but new migrant families immediately need houses, roads, schools, hospitals, port facilities, etc., etc. However, it is likely to be many years before they have contributed enough to pay for their share of it. The economist Lester Thurow has estimated that 1% population growth requires an additional 12% of GDP to be spent on infrastructure. Assuming that infrastructure has an average 50 year lifetime, 24% of GDP would need to be spent every year for a stable population. 2% growth doubles this. Infrastructure Australia estimates that our infrastructure backlog is $770 billion. The planners know that raising taxes on existing residents to such an extent is politically impossible, so the infrastructure is being allowed to deteriorate, the only other alternative.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/industry-sectors/infrastructure-australia-unveils-its-project-wish-list/story-e6frg97o-1225876193194

Pericles - I too enjoy the buzz of city life - having lived in quite a few big cities I share many of your feelings on the subject. But I do not accept that there is a logical link between the enjoyment of city life to population growth.
The reason that we can enjoy city life is because we are reasonably sure that all those little, invisible things are taken care of. However, we can see how fragile city life is be looking back to what happened in London when air travel was stopped because of iceland's volcano - all of a sudden the steady supply of fresh food into the city dried up.
If we want to live in a just and fair society then we need to ensure that essential goods and services are not in short supply - we can build a system of justice under conditions of moderate scarcity. (see David Hume the circumstances of justice.) However, if there is severe pressure on those essential goods and services then civil society quickly breaks down; your enjoyment of city life will be a fading memory. This is why I argue that we need to put a stop to population growth - at least until we can demonstrate we are able to provide those essential goods and services - at present we struggle to do so.
Therefore if you wish to avert a breakdown of that pleasant lifestyle you enjoy then it is both in your interests and the well being of all of us that we stop population growth.

Divergence
I was unable to open your first link, but I think you greatly underestimate the capacity of society to come up with innovative ways to do things. Check out this seminal article by Paul Romer:

http://www.stanford.edu/~promer/EconomicGrowth.pdf

Popnperish

I’m not sure where you’re getting your data, nor why you picked that time period, but this is what the ABS data show for GSP per capita and population growth over the period you chose - 1995-96 to 2005-06 (ranks in brackets)

GSP per capita growth:

NSW ___ 25% ___ (7)

Vic ___ 28% ___ (4)

Qld ___ 33% ___ (1)

SA ___ 25% ___ (5)

WA ___ 29% ___ (3)

Tas ___ 23% ___ (8)

NT ___ 29% ___ (2)

ACT ___ 25% ___ (6)

Aus ___ 27%

Population growth:

NSW ___ 10% ___ (5)

Vic ___ 12% ___ (4)

Qld ___ 22% ___ (1)

SA ___ 6% ___ (7)

WA ___ 16% ___ (2)

Tas ___ 3% ___ (8)

NT ___ 15% ___ (3)

ACT ___ 9% ___ (6)

Aus ___ 13%

So, with the exception of Victoria:

- Every state and territory recording above-average GSP per capita growth recorded above-average population growth

- Every state and territory recording below-average GSP per capita growth recorded below-average population growth

Further:

- Queensland had by far the strongest growth in GSP per capita and population

- Tasmania had the lowest growth in population and per capita GSP

- Regression analysis shows a positive correlation between per capita GSP growth and population growth

[same data source as previous link]

*the modern Western version is only a more sophisticated adaptation of the age old mediums of engagement.*

The age old medium Poirot, goes right to the heart of evolution
theory. Men enjoy sex and have to figure out a way to get it,
women want resources to raise their offspring. Its hormones
all the way. Pairbonding or marriage as you might call it,
is the result of that.

The modern version is that its women who are screaming for that
new kitchen, new furniture, more clothes and all the rest.
Many a man's sex life dramatically improves when he can provide
them all, or dismally goes downhill if he can't.

*I love the constant background noise, the police sirens crossing the Bridge, the honking of the ferries on the Harbour...*

Indeed Pericles, even rats conditioned to their cages, can be
conditioned to be content there :) But I note you chose Sydney
as a place to live. Its natural beauty (the harbour), its not
overcrowded yet by international standards, all good reasons.

So why turn it into a Calcutta or a Bombay for no good reason?

Using GDP/gsp data as an index of how well off we are seems to be the standard measure used by economists and governments. But it is hardly reliable.
GSP or GDP only counts monetary transactions so for example clean air is not part of the calculation.
But even if we are to consider just the monetary activity it is still far from reliable - Queensland will this year have a signficant boost in its GSP - this will be due to the massive rebuilding required as a result of the floods and hurricanes.
If nothing else comes out of this debate it may alert us to the need to employ an alternative measure to the GDP/GSP - we could do worse than use the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_of_Sustainable_Economic_Welfare)
This tool counts costs as negative - for example if you are involved in a car accident that costs $10,000 to fix then that cost would be listed as a deduction rather than added to the GDP as it is at present.
So the data that Popperish and Rhian are skirmishing with is really a red herring - we would need to take a much closer look at what is being counted before we can be confident that the data gives us any useful information about population growth and the quality of life.

@ Mr Windy
Herewith an abridged CV for your information:
4 years of Environmental studies at ANU
5th year honours; studying growth of Eucalyptus
Post grad diploma in economics
11years work experience in both a GTO & private firm.
Currently live in a regional area of NSW.

Well then clearly Dean you have learned nothing about ecology or have been indocrinated with the mind set that ecological limits do not and will never apply to humans.

Technology will not significantly expand the ecological limits that the global human population is now continually butting up against.

The Earth is finite Dean and the human population and or economies can no longer expand further in order for people like you to avoid making difficult decisions along the lines of limiting human fertility and not making prevention of all deaths in the third world an absolute priority.

If your lectures failed to instill in you and sense of human limits then thay have failed you and society at large.

Baygon

I agree that GDP/GSP is a poor indicator of economic welfare, personally I prefer to use real in total (private + public) consumption. If we use these data instead, over the same period chosen by Divergence, the result is almost identical – only Victoria and the ACT break the pattern of higher growth in per capita consumption matching higher growth in population and vice versa.

The ACT data are odd, but looking behind the numbers they are due to the distorting effect of growth in Commonwealth government consumption, which accounted for more than 60% of consumption growth over the decade and is obviously a product of the Commonwealth Government’s role in Canberra.

NSW ___ 37% ___ (7)
Vic ___ 46% ___ (5)
Qld ___ 57% ___ (2)
SA ___ 40% ___ (6)
WA ___ 46% ___ (4)
Tas ___ 36% ___ (8)
NT ___ 53% ___ (3)
ACT ___ 58% ___ (1)
Aus ___ 45

You're better than that, Yabby

>>Indeed Pericles, even rats conditioned to their cages, can be conditioned to be content there<<

But I'll treat that as a minor lapse of manners for the time being.

>>So why turn it into a Calcutta or a Bombay for no good reason?<<

Well, you see, that is not what will happen.

The social and economic environment that created those cities is not present here in Australia. I am certain that as a population we have the wit and the wisdom to grow in a manner that does not create such problems for ourselves. Let's face it, Australia has grown substantially since the fifties, without environmental and social disasters. Why imagine that it will suddenly start to happen now?

The agenda underlying most of the "stop immigration. Now!" brigade has very little to do with food, water or open air, and a great deal to do with a vague hankering to have those times back again.

Oh, what a wonderful time to be alive, the fifties. We used to walk everywhere, you know. The corner shop had everything we needed, and the kids played footy on the oval - heck, they could even play safely in the road. Everybody knew their neighbours - ah, you don't get that nowadays, do you...

And so on.

You know the rest. They are the same people who fill the council chambers when there's a Muslim school on the planning agenda...

Pericles,

I'm a Londoner by birth and have lived in big cities most of my life and can relate to your gregariousness. Indeed I think Australia's Parkesian provincialism is due in part to the "insistence" of space, both outside the CBD's and inside the burbs. But since Sydney, Australia's only (minor) world-city, is surely populace enough for even the pathologically extroverted, may I ask what your reasons are for not preferring a cap upon its modesty? In many ways more intensive living would be good for Aussies, and we might consider condensing our urban centres by half without shrinking their populations--the famed Australian drollery is the uninspiring product of idle independence imo.
As I've said above, my view is that the only plausible motive for population growth is entrepreneurial--for profit and for keeping up with the rest of the world. Is there any other good reason for not being mindful of the stresses we are putting on Australia's fragile ecology, and the world's?

I'm sorry if you took my smartarsed comment the wrong way Pericles,
I did put a smiley in there. But that I think that Desmond
Morris was right, when he wrote The Human Zoo.

I grew up on a quarter acre block, with all its benefits.
I had pet rabbits, rats, mice, chickens, a squirrel, dogs etc.
We had a workshop, I learnt to make things. We had a garden,
I learnt to grow things. The friends I had who were stuck in
apartments, had a miserable time in comparison. Luckily they
could come to my house.

Last time I was in Sydney, everyone whom I talked to, seemed to be
working an extra job or extra time, to afford the real estate payments. Less time for the family of course.

As population increases, those quarter acre blocks are becoming
a luxury. I lived in Paris for a while. Those huge mega blocks
surrounding the city were the perfect breeding ground for troubled
kids, gangs, drugs, etc. I gather its much the same elsewhere.

Why on earth keep cramming more people in there? For what?

If you halved the population of Bombay and Calcutta, they would
be alot more pleasant places to live. Too many people on too little
space and before you know it, you have people pollution

But what about economic growth, Yabby?

<Queensland has just been deemed the worst performing economy in Australia precisely because of stagnant population growth>

That claim was made by CommSec. It is a bit like blaming a drug addict's poor state of health on his inability to get another hit. In fact, Queensland's problems of huge government debt, infrastructure, service and housing shortfalls, are a direct result of the rapidly growing population, not its slowing down. Maintaining a rapid rate of population would only defer a greater downturn.

Queensland is a perfect example of the pitfalls of growing to quickly.

<Capitalism is based on endless growth, period.>

Hopefully, but that is economic growth, not population growth. Personally, I get a kick when the pop growth zealots argue that we need immigration to assuage the jealousy that might arise in other nations from the wonderful lifestyle that a stable population would bring. If you want to argue that capitalism is better with population growth, this argument does not help.

Squeers

Productivity and participation can also produce economic growth and achieve better outcomes, without population increase.

tet, productivity and capital require expanding markets; zero growth at home just means exploitation and growth offshore, which is why I call the idea a western conceit.

My thoughts on population I've said before:
Though I can't help but notice Cheryl always interjecting specifically in population debates and decrying naysayers as secret socialist pinkos- I'm starting to wonder if she works in real estate.

For the topic- until someone approaches our states with an earnest attempt to create some regional metropolises, and aims to use these first to entice residents of existing cities to relocate there to ease up some room and hopefully provide enough space to redesign our existing cities into better connected satellites instead of gargantuan sprawls, and then to further build such cities to accommodate our increase in population- this topic will continue chasing its own tail.

The usual arguments of a need for a large population are usually based on nothing but patriotic racism towards Indonesia allegedly wanting to invade us; or lobbying bodies trying to sell property and household energy resources.
Not to mention often false- and requiring that the author (and audience) don't ever check the population of some of the richest per-capita countries on the planet.

*But what about economic growth, Yabby?*

Squeers, just recently I downloaded an amusing little app called
"Angry Birds in Rio", for $5.99. Not just me, but along with
the original "Angry Birds", last time I checked, another 12
million paying customers had done the same.

Now this stuff is not rocket science, simply a good idea and a bit
of tinkering in Finland IIRC. 70 million$ plus of economic
growth is the result, no trees chopped down or marshes cleared.

Now a smart fellow like yourself, full of good ideas, should have
no trouble doing similar, generating all that economic activity
for Australia, at the expense of rich Western consumers who happily
pay for such amusing things.

The point is, there are many ways to generate economic activity,
without the Ponzi scheme that we are using, ie building more
houses for more people, to administer more people and borrowing
the money from overseas to do it.

Sheltered by man's built environment

For those wanting a glimpse of the future, have a look at the major roads over the Easter weekend, particularly roads from Brisbane to the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast, or roads such as the Bruce Highway.

Easter weekend will probably be a normal weekend in the future if our population continues to increase.

It is somewhat sad to see the traffic on the Bruce Highway. About ever 3rd car has camping gear, and about every 5th car is towing a boat.

The camping grounds are hell on earth over the Easter weekend, and I have seen over 60 boats in a small stretch of river in Nth QLD, and I know they are likely to be catching nothing, because there are few fish left.

Also, Australia’s current birth rate is below replacement levels, and I have always wondered if there is something fundamentally wrong with a society that cannot maintain its population.

If Australia is deemed not suitable to breed in, why should we be inviting in immigrants.

Vanna, our birthrate is not below replacement level. This is a furphy spread by unscrupulous people like Peter Costello.

With net zero immigration, we would still have a considerable population growth rate, due only to births.

So, even though the individual fertility rate is just under 2, the effective national fertility rate is significantly above 2. This is due to there being a disproportionately high number of young breeding people in the population.

Most people are confused by this, but it’s not that difficult to grasp. Trouble is, we have irresponsible people in highly influential positions asserting the opposite.

Thank goodness Costello has done a runner! Now if we could just get his baby: the bloody awful baby bonus, to follow him into oblivion, we’d be much better off.

Don't worry Vanna. Australians are breeding only too well. According to the latest figures from ABS (the year to September 2010): "The preliminary natural increase recorded for the year ended 30 September 2010 (159,800) was 2.1% (or 3,300 persons) higher than the natural increase recorded for the year ended 30 September 2009 (156,500)." The fertility rate was 1.7+ for a number of years then shot up to 1.96 in 2008 (very likely thanks to the baby bonus and to Peter Costello telling people to have 'one for the country) then went back to 1.9 in 2009. It will take years before we reach zero natural increase at this rate.

Master popnperish
Correct, below replacement levels, however the TFR did not really allow for the massive delay in giving birth, so always be wary of the TFR.

Our emigration is peaking and hitting historical higs as appox 87,000 aussies left permanently last year, with the largest grouop 25 to 35 year olds. 1000 skilled people per week! So lower immigration with rising emigration is having a double whammy effect.

But wait, there is more....
Since 2006 our international students, who all must now go home or apply for a skilled migration visa which is getting harder to get, and have been here for 12 months, are included in our ABS population growth percentage. Mad as... as students numbers drop 20% and the ponzi international student population growth scheme comes apart. It is now.

Oh, and our deaths rates double in the next 15 years, so our natural growth may decline to neutral or worse....that all depends on our generaalk fertility rate.

Dick should research emigration from Australia on the Dept site....

Hi Dick, welcome back, it’s been a long time between posts.

We have a syndrome in the socio-political spheres in the developed world. This syndrome requires that we the public, either believe in what we are told or we are skeptical. It seems that all debates are now divisive and vexatious. Sustainable population has unfortunately fallen victim to this syndrome.

There are those who have a public profile and are fortunate enough to have a voice in such debates. These “voices” include politicians, academics, media, expert “opinion” makers, NGO’s and lastly, your category, celebrities.

This syndrome was not widely observed until perhaps the last two years as the CAGW advocacy block began to crumble following Climategate. The advocacy “voices” are now screaming at fever pitch as they re-proselytize their advocacy for a rapidly crumbling phenomenon.

The problem for all debates now is the public perception that there are indeed at least “Two” sides to each issue and now seriously question why the advocates are getting more than their fair share.

I felt sad and concerned when reading your article, because there are so many unanswered and unaddressed issues. In addition, when I looked at the “expert” reference material you quote, I couldn’t help thinking of Al Gore, Michael Mann, Phil Jones, the IPCC, Ross Garnaut, Tim Flannery and the media led advocacy block.

Advocacy, expert opinion, partisan “reports and books” and MSM are all very badly tarnished and the only sections of the population you can now inspire are already converts. Advocacy has brought this upon itself, mostly by cheating, harassing and bullying the public.

The case you make would be OK if your assumption was correct that we only have the resources of the “narrow coastal strip” upon which to drive our economy to sustain our population levels. You absolutely know this is untrue and we know this because you are a very successful entrepreneur and respected business leader.

The question nagging me remains, why would such a respectable businessman abandon everything he knows about economic principles to make a pure advocacy case?

Don’t become another Ross Garnaut.

Mmmm...
1. I wonder if Dick understands longevity and the roll it is playing in our demographic momentum, or demographic swelling.
2. 500,000 extra in 2010? Not sure about that. 150,000 natural and 54,000 permanents, so maybe half of Dicks number.
3. I also wonder what Dick feels and understands about peak population and then global decline, as predicted by the UN under various scenarios. The most I recall was half our current global population by 2150.
4. Japan is in population decline and has a huge Ageing population problem.

"For Dick to use his affluence and power more effectively and with more significance, he could offer to repay the outstanding HECS debts of the first 5000 to return after being away for at least 5 years, back to OZ?" - demografix, April 20, 2011
Posted by dempografix, Wednesday, 20 April 2011 7:29:22 PM

Dear Demografix
So what if emigration is 86,200?! ABS tells us (3101.0) that "resident population (ERP) of Australia at 30 September 2010 was 22,408,000 persons. This was an increase of 345,500 persons (1.6%) since 30 September 2009" and that "net overseas migration recorded for the year ended 30 September 2010 (185,800)". Immigration was thus 185,800 plus 86,200 equals 272,000. Emigration is about a third of immigration. (About half of emigrants are new immigrants - they probably got fed up looking for a place to live.)

Surely 345,500 more people in total are enough for you.

Dempografix
It is true that women are having babies at a later age, there are less marriages occurring, and the divorce rate is high, and all three decrease the overall fertility rate.

The baby bonus is just an expensive bandaid to fix more fundamental problems.

However “87,000 aussies left permanently last year”. I am wondering why there are so many emigrants, but we still invite in immigrants.

Immigration may be another expensive bandaid.

I would think Australia is already getting close to full occupancy.

A satellite picture of Australia taken at night shows most of the lights in Australia occur in a thin sliver of land along the east coast, with very little west of the Great Dividing Range.

http://geology.com/articles/satellite-photo-earth-at-night.shtml

To make the area west of Great Dividing Range more habitable, there would have to be quite considerable changes made to the natural environment, and the disaster of the Murray-Darling river system is testimony to the dangers of too much interference with the natural environment of arid areas of a country.

The anti-pops can't sustain their anti-people arguments when faced with the facts. The prime offender is tricky Dicky. Their arguments are based on 'feelings' and a cultural pessimism born from misanthropy on the one hand and mysoginist thinking on the other.

Their instrumentalism is summed up well by Vanna's comment "I would think Australia is already getting close to full occupancy." They want to run an ideological tape measure over every conceivable aspect of our lives, including what we do in our bedrooms.

They really must do more work on how economies operate and especially markets and benefits of trade as their comments in these areas are embarrassing.

The bottom line for the anti-pops and Sustainable People Australia is that they are anti-capitalists. With the fall of communism they have moved like head lice, over to the environment movement and are traducing the best efforts of more rational people to create policies which will protect the environment and not kill off the economy in the process.

They consistently ignore creating new ideas for urban design. This is one area they should really be hammering.

I'm curious why someone with the alias of Dempografix would quote such misleading statistics? Everyone in the business knows that the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) - not the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) - are the authoritative source for our demographic data. Here's a link to the latest ABS Australian Demographic Statistics, September 2010 Pub no. 3101.0
http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0

For the record, ABS report that for the year ended 30 Sept 2010, net overseas migration was 185,800 persons (comprising 441,600 long term arrivals less 255,800 long term departures). Natural increase was 159,800 (301,500 births less 141,700 deaths). So total increase was about 345,500 people.

DIAC are notorious for selective use of their own obscure categories, which understate net migration (they omit long term residents). Which leads me to wonder - if high immigration is so good - why does DIAC go to such lengths to hide it?

Cheryl,

due I fear to some dreadful offence Pericles inferred some time since, it appears, to be his policy to ignore me, even when I've politely addressed a question specifically to him--remarkable sensitivity in one who is often insensitive; and remarkable incivility in one who professes himself gregarious. But no matter.

Perhaps you will address my question above:
"Is there any other good reason [apart from "for profit and for keeping up with the rest of the world"] for not being mindful of the stresses we are putting on Australia's fragile ecology, and the world's [via the growth obsession]?"

You say "The anti-pops can't sustain their anti-people arguments when faced with the facts. The prime offender is tricky Dicky. Their arguments are based on 'feelings' and a cultural pessimism born from misanthropy on the one hand and mysoginist (sic) thinking on the other".

But this is nonsense. I'm neither misanthropist nor misogynist nor pessimist (nor hypersensitive!), and my foreboding at the plague proportions being attained by humankind, and the effects, are based on historical precedent and demonstrable negative impacts in real time: environmental degradation, third-world famine, rampant species extinction and destruction of habitats, resource depletion etc. These are not "feelings", they are raw data of what is underway within our closed biosphere.

I don't deny that I'm an anti-capitalist, but this is based on research and hopefully rigour. I cleave to no doctrine and I don't allow the compelling nature (as I find it) of my critique to pre-empt a critical evaluation of topics at hand. Ergo I welcome, indeed crave, contradictory reasoning.

I have been critical of the "anti-pops", as you call them, above for not identifying the "root" of the problem; for thinking they can have their cake and eat it. Indeed in this thread so-far I think I'm the only one who identifies as "anti-capitalist", most seem to think they can have stable population within a global-capitalist dispensation.

I put it to you then that "you" are being irrational, and I ask again, what is to be gained, qualitatively, from human population growth, apart from growing capital?

Cheryl,
Most of the countries in the world are in debt, because there is less and less to make money from.

Just how much do people need until people start going around in circles like a dog chasing their tail.

While $1 billion is being spent on the baby bonus to tempt women to have children, $3.7 billion is now being spent on daycare centers to enrol those children into after they are born.

So why have children in this society. It is becoming senseless.

After working 60 hours per week for weeks on end, many people are now fleeing to the coast for a long weekend, but there are few coastal areas left that anyone can go to to “get away from it all”.

Areas of bush and sand dunes I used to camp in at Noosa and Agnes Waters are now high rise development or suburban housing estates.

Once we used to worry about not taking enough ice to keep the fish cool. Now someone has to worry about catching any fish at all.

Unless someone thinks sitting around watching DVD’s in a high rise apartment is a quality life, there will be little quality of life in the future.

Ruth,

Thank God - another woman.

I believe the ABS now counts international students as migrants.

"In 2007, to better measure the changes in traveller behaviour and in particular to more accurately capture and measure temporary migration, the ABS introduced improved methods for calculating NOM. The key improvement was the introduction of the '12/16 month rule', whereby a traveller is included in the resident population if they are in Australia for a total of 12 months or more over a 16 month period, or conversely, subtracted from the population if they are away for a total of 12 months or more over a 16 month period."

That mucks up your figures for net long term 'stayers'.

I'd say that Pericles has proven his point.

To answer Squeers question - population is a generic for people. From both a socialist and humanist perspective, people are the generators of innovation, science and technology. The reason why Marx didn't recommend in Das Capital cutting population (Stalin did that for him) was he thought human happiness was THE goal and reducing the number of people contradicted that goal.

There are limits to population from a socio-biological perspective and that's what the anti-pops are on about. I don't believe we can transcend our biological roots (plenty would disagree with me) but we are at an acute period in human evolution we are at the threshold of amazing discoveries in food generation and new energy sources.

Australia doesn't have a population problem. It has an urban design problem.

I'm not hard and fast about the baby bonus. It seems like middle class welfare.

Mark my words though, the anti-population movement has a very nasty social engineering aspect which most Australians would abhor.

"Your turn. Where do you live, and how does it affect your attitude?
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 21 April 2011 2:30:11 PM

Fair point Pericles. I've lived in many places. At 2:30pm yesterday it was Booroomba Rocks. I don't dislike people - far from it - but I have seen the damage they do to other species, and to each other. They sometimes find it hard to understand the consequences of their actions - especially when their income and their lifestyle depend on not understanding it.

"The question nagging me remains, why would such a respectable businessman abandon everything he knows about economic principles to make a pure advocacy case?"

Spindoc, because Dick Smith is exhibiting the wisdom that comes to SOME of us with age.

He has suddenly realised that economics and business does not totally describe the biosphere and all human concerns. And that are economy is 'child process' of the global ecosystem and subject to the limits of that finite global ecosystem.

"The question nagging me remains, why would such a respectable businessman abandon everything he knows about economic principles to make a pure advocacy case?"

Spindoc, because Dick Smith is exhibiting the wisdom that comes to SOME of us with age.

He has suddenly realised that economics and business does not totally describe the biosphere and all human concerns. And that are economy is 'child process' of the global ecosystem and subject to the limits of that finite global ecosystem.

Have you considered Spindoc that what is nagging that part of your deep human nature that is ecologically aware and capable of far better environmental judgement. Dick has obviously re-discovered this part of his long suppressed human nature and allowed it to rise above the more selfish and short sighted aspects of his human nature.

Cheryl

I'm a woman and it shames me that another woman (you) is so aggressive and offensive. Why don't you play the ball and not the man? I, as one who argues for an ecologically sustainable population, am neither misanthropic, misogynist, nor against better urban design. I have not 'moved like head lice' over to the environmental movement - I have always been part of it. I understand enough about economics and the market (read human greed) to know that we cannot have unending resource growth on a finite planet. I support the concept of a dynamic steady state economy that allows people to trade goods and services but I do not support a capitalist economy in which the environment is regarded as an externality. I'm also a feminist and want women to have choice and rights particularly reproductive rights. The latter does not extend, however, to having as many children as they wish because having more than two impinges on the rights of future generations to a functioning biosphere in which they can operate their own economies.

Yep- repeated the same "anti pops don't have arguments (minus the ones I carefully avoided), and are only evil socialists who worship trees and believe in human sacrifice"

Definitely works in Real Estate to keep trolling these lines.

I know that it sounds good, popnperish. Slogans always do.

>>I support the concept of a dynamic steady state economy that allows people to trade goods and services<<

But what does it actually mean in practice?

And how is it achieved? All the "solutions" so far offered depend on the imposition of arbitrary restrictions on a complaisant population.

Except the removal of the "baby bonus", which was always highly dubious policy. Everything else - blanket restrictions on immigration, artificial restraints on reproduction etc. - smacks of government control-freakery.

Yabby,
You're quite right, virtual commodities and communication technology, for instance, does make money without, prima facie, the same material impacts. But there are many contingent materialisms in the production and consumption phases, and in any case the industry, what Fredric Jameson has called a "spacial" dialectical phase of late capitalism, is relatively small potatoes.
Even if we are, as Cheryl says, at the threshold of amazing discoveries in food generation and new energy sources, but I doubt it, a) I balk at the ethical and ecological price of these developments; and b) these technologies could be developed via more sustainable means and efficient methodologies than the clear-felling of creative destruction.
For the record, I agree the baby bonus should be scrapped, and if I had my time again, two kids would have been the limit. Education's the answer.
Popnperish: "I'm a woman and it shames me that another woman (you) [Cheryl] is so aggressive and offensive. Why don't you play the ball and not the man?"
I think you might have stumbled upon something here; "Cheryl's" posts are so characteristically male”, I'm nearly persuaded she's male, or else butch. It shouldn't matter of course, but then the females on OLO, even when their ire is up, rarely descend to the level us men (and Cheryl) are sometimes prone to. And since, at least in my experience, the ladies do comport themselves in a more gentlemanly manner than many of the men, if Cheryl is in fact a man she is misrepresenting and demeaning gendered argument.
Male or female, Cheryl, you have not answered my question or indeed said anything noteworthy, or worthy of your ostensible sex.
GregaryB,
Despite your defence of Dick Smith and his more "mature outlook", I haven't heard of him saying anything critical about the economic system, within which he's a capitalist, and its natural limits? Thus it's the same problem I have with Tim Flannery; they push their particular barrows but don't address the larger context they are complicit in.

Pericles,
be as precious as you like mate, I can't be bothered with you either.

Cheryl is actually Malcolm King, who encourages more foreign students.

Although this may increase the bank accounts of a small number of academics in Australia, it is dubious that it does much for anyone else, as the public have to pay for the infrastructure to have the extra foreign students in the country.

Also training so many foreign students may now be training the opposition.

It is an alarming situation when real estate developers and university academics are the main supporters of increasing the population.

There is minimal on the horizon to increase food production.

Most soil on farms simply holds up the plant, while fertilizer makes the plant grow.

As well as peak oil, there is a likelihood of “peak fertilizer”, as so much fertilizer once applied to the land is now in the sea.

In all, it is environmentally, socially and economically stupid to increase the population in this country.

Nice one Squeers.

>>Even if we are, as Cheryl says, at the threshold of amazing discoveries in food generation and new energy sources, but I doubt it, a) I balk at the ethical and ecological price of these developments; and b) these technologies could be developed via more sustainable means and efficient methodologies than the clear-felling of creative destruction.<<

You write about "balking at the ethical and ecological price of these developments" with - presumably - a straight face.

And then tell me, that I'm the one being precious...?

>>Pericles, be as precious as you like mate, I can't be bothered with you either.<<

No-one, it seems, can "be bothered" to do anything more than pontificate about population management. They all, without exception, back off when asked precisely how they believe it can be achieved. Especially in a democracy that purports to value freedom of the individual.

A "benevolent" dictatorship appears to be their baseline assumption. A dictatorship, moreover, where their, and only their, particular whims and fancies are indulged.

Precious, indeed.

Pericles I had thought by now that it is clear how a stable population can be achieved - indeed most of us opposed to population growth have been saying it quite consistently - stop migration.
The natural growth rate of our population is slightly under replacement level - the only reason our population is growing is because we have become addicted to migration as a "cheap' fix to shortcomings in our policy making process.
Nor is opposing migration a denial of the value of multiculturalism. Rather it is a rejection of a government policy that is still locked in the mode of populate or perish - when that policy now has come to mean populate and perish.

*and in any case the industry, what Fredric Jameson has called a "spacial" dialectical phase of late capitalism, is relatively small potatoes*

Small potatoes Squeers? How much do you think Google earns a year?
Facebook came from nowhere, to be valued at 50 billion $.
We have yet to hear of a value on Twitter. Zynga has millions
playing farm games and people actually pay for virtual goods!

The apps market alone is worth many billions and growing fast.
I'll be happy to stop buying many kg of newspapers a week and
downloading the lot, saving x trees.

This is just one example of services and how they can generate
economic growth, without much environmental impact and in the
process make our lives more enjoyable.

*They all, without exception, back off when asked precisely how they believe it can be achieved.*

Oh that is quite easy, Pericles. Firstly provide all women in
the third world with the same family planning options as we in
the West, take for granted. Secondly make people in the West pay
for their own kids. Capitalism is a wonderful contraceptive.

Well thanks for the indulgence, Pericles, you are a stubborn sod. But lest we come across as a couple of prima donnas, I won't compete with you over who's the most precious.
"No-one, it seems, can "be bothered" to do anything more than pontificate about population management".They all, without exception, back off when asked precisely how they believe it can be achieved. Especially in a democracy that purports to value freedom of the individual".
I agree! I've been saying population management is pure fantasy in the circumstances, you have to attack the root etc., and I don't get any takers either. And I agree it goes against these ideals of freedom, though that's an empty and patronising ideology. I believe in freedom, but this isn't it.
Now I do my share of pontificating on the evils of capitalism its true, and without saying how we bring it down, or offering alternatives. Though in my own defence, first I have to persuade people there's a problem, and that its ok to criticise the system--that it's not a divine dispensation, and that being critical doesn't make you a Stalinist mass-murderer. The prevailing mindset in these post-Cold War days is that there is no alternative to capitalism. I have books arguing this thesis and singing the praises of capitalism! Great for the neoliberals, in fact manufactured by them, but it's crap! If there's no alternative to capitalism, there's no alternative to the degradation and disparity it drives, and no alternative to comprehensive collapse. I want to talk about alternatives, but first I have to get through the cavity-brick wall I keep hitting, what Blake called mind-forged manacles.

But I apologise for being a crushing bore--I feel it! And I shall look for new ways to persuade, without stooping to rhetoric (too much).
I also look forward to being shown to be wrong---only way to learn. I like humble pie!

"Except the removal of the "baby bonus", which was always highly dubious policy. Everything else - blanket restrictions on immigration, artificial restraints on reproduction etc. - smacks of government control-freakery."

Well we all no doubt think that it is a good idea to apply various fertility control mechanisms, e.g. subcutaneous oestrogen pellets, to animal populations in small reserves etc to avoid culling while preventing an expanding population from destroying the carrying capacity of the reserve.

Perhaps circumstances will deteriorate to a point where we need to consider applying the above 'good idea' to ourselves since it is virtually impossible to get global cooperation on CO2 emissions let alone the underlying over population problem.

You would need a mechanism that is virtually impossible for any government to control in any significant way for the purpose of ethnic cleansing etc and that will effect all members of the human race equally regardless of ethnicity, religion or political persuasion.

I.E. A genetically modified biological vector that effects a temporary (several months) reduction in male and/or female fertility that would be enough to signiciantly reduce the average birth rate across the globe without permanently sterlising anyone.

E.G. Assuming it is biologically possible, a cold virus strain that secretes enough oestrogen into the blood stream of those infected to reduce the sperm count in males and to prevent implantation in females.

The key idea would be for the mechanism to be self replicating and self administering rather than relying on the huge effort and drain on resources to administer voluntary contraception across the globe that would most likely give poor results.

It would be akin to drawing straws with all humans sharing more or less equally in the burdon of reducing the global population.

As with other cold viruses, the modified strain would run its global course, immunity would become widespread and its effect would eventually wane. A new strain could be modified similarly and released if required.

Obviously such a drastic measure would be a last resort should uptake of voluntary contraception and development fail to reduce global fertility adequately to avoid the worst affects of peak oil and food shortages etc.

"Obviously such a drastic measure would be a last resort should uptake of voluntary contraception and development fail to reduce global fertility adequately to avoid the worst affects of peak oil and food shortages etc."

GregaryB have no fear. Wherever women have access to safe and affordable contraception they use it, overwhelmingly, to reduce their fertility to average no more than two births per woman - and that cuts across religion and ethnicity. Women generally have more common sense than the mullahs and the priests and the presidents who want to outbreed the "opposition". The scandal of global population growth is the number of women who are too poor to afford contraception.

Some have said that there is no other system other than capitalism.
Socialism, true Socialism that is, one that is not run on party lines and paid for by vested interests is an answer.
It is humane, does not have to pillage the planet and can bring justice for all.
Will it ever work here on earth? Not likely because humans have a fatal flaw that will block it. They are greedy and avaricious.
So we are not going to get an equitable system that will be truly sustainable.
What is the consequence of this? Well we will keep going along the road we are on and inevitable arrive at the point that will bring heartbreak and disaster to us all.
Yes we will run out of food, water, power and that is not even taking global warming into account. When we do a lot of people will not survive.
I can already hear the screams of “ doomsayer” but it is the only outcome.
I am now of a mind that this is the self-regulating system that will eventually save the planet for the handful of people that do survive. Then off we go again on the circle, although it may not be humans that are dominant for the next turn of the wheel.
Discuss all you want, rant about your favorite hobbyhorse, it will not make a bit of difference in the end.
Let’s face it; this is a fleeting instant of time that taken in the context of the life of the planet is on no consequence at all.

sarnian,

It seems that mankind has always found it difficult to accommodate his amazing intellectual capacity alongside his mammalian instincts.

To be gifted with such comprehension, awareness and vision, and yet to be unable to resist his instinctual avarice is perhaps the most perplexing aspect of man's condition.

Sarian,
“It is humane, does not have to pillage the planet and can bring justice for all.”

Unfortunately pure socialism does not want “family”, because it is believed that families accumulate “property”, which begins an unequal distribution of wealth.

We now have a partly socialist system in this country, where families are being slowly eliminated.

However it has lead to more property and not less, because 1 in 4 houses now has only 1 person in it.

So there are 2 houses instead of 1, not to mention the extra cars, TV sets, DVD machines and all the other paraphernalia.

Our current system would be fine, with an average 2 parent family having 2 children.

However there is increasing pressure to destroy such families, and then bring in skilled immigrants to build the workforce.

Perhaps immigrants should be told that they cannot expect to have a 2 parent, 2 child family.

Instead they should expect to have the mother and “her” children living in one house, while the father lives in another, and both parents are expected to work, and the children will be raised in a daycare center, while the countryside is being slowly wiped out to build more houses for more immigrants.

democracy cannot survive overpopulation. Human dignity cannot survive it. Convenience and decency cannot survive it. As you put more and more people into the world, the value of life not only declines, it disappears. It doesn't matter if someone dies. The more people there are, the less one individual matters.
-- Isaac Asimov

Instead of controlling the environment for the benefit of the population, maybe we should control the population to ensure the survival of our environment.
-- Sir David Attenborough

"Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?"
-- Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado; World Population Balance Board of Advisors

"'Smart growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same."
--Dr. Albert A. Bartlett, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of Colorado; World Population Balance Board of Advisors

"The point of population stabilization is to reduce or minimize misery."
--Roger Bengston, founding board member, World Population Balance

We must alert and organise the world's people to pressure world leaders to take specific steps to solve the two root causes of our environmental crises - exploding population growth and wasteful consumption of irreplaceable resources. Overconsumption and overpopulation underlie every environmental problem we face today.
-- Jacques-Yves Cousteau

“Mark my words though, the anti-population movement has a very nasty social engineering aspect which most Australians would abhor.”
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 22 April 2011 12:11:56 PM

Yes, the words are marked:
The use of “anti-population movement” is obviously meant to refer to any individual or organization which expresses concern regarding the pressure of human numbers.
Your words deplore their concerns about numbers impacting unfavourably upon the ability of societies, of whatever flavour, to maintain cohesion within and between themselves, with their resource bases, and with inter-generational needs.
The words embrace great humanitarian workers. Just a few of the many available examples of these are Howard Florey, who fostered the development of Penicillin; Frank Fenner, who signed-off on elimination of the scourge of Smallpox; Judith Wright-McKinney, famous for expressing her love of Australia and its people in poetry, and as a campaigner for Aboriginal rights.

Such people as the above, and those organizations of similar persuasion, are very much pro-people.
The dissimulation associated with your words could only come from an anti-people person on a campaign

Vanna, you say “We now have a partly socialist system in this country.”
I disagree with that, the present so called Labor Government is really a thinly veiled Liberal Government with a labor label.
But I realize having done a bit of research that what I call socialism and the accepted definition are two different things.
I actually said “ true socialism” and not pure socialism, but I really am not able to pin a label on the concept that I was trying to explain. I suppose a more explanatory label would be “moral socialism”
Where our present capitalism falls down, is the corporation legislation allows the huge conglomerates that have eventuated to become so powerful that they can (and do) dictate to governments.
They are also totally without moral responsibility and only exist to provide the biggest profit possible to the shareholders and directors that can be squeezed out of the client base.
A good example of this is the Exxon Valdez spill, where Exxon set out to use its colossal wealth to stymie any punitive action taken against it and years later has succeeded in this.
There is no justice forthcoming in that case and now never will be. It is quite possible that the same will result from the BP spill in the Gulf.
Now my idea of a Socialist government would be able to take action and obtain a fair result for the people that were ruined by these events and not have the results watered down by a weak government in thrall to the biggest Corporation with the biggest earning in the world.
This has nothing to do with families and property except that property is the carrot dangled in front of the population, to incite them to support corporations in their bid to become totally liability free.
You to can be rich like us one day, is the bait and most fall for it.
ps it's sarnian not sarian.

*It is quite possible that the same will result from the BP spill in the Gulf.*

Sarnian, in last weekends Weekend Australian, there was an article
about some of the rorts going on, when BP put 20 billion$ on the
table to clean up the mess. One place which BP needed to rent,
suddenly cost over 600 times more a week, then it used to.

The point is, greed goes right through the community and individuals.
Corporations are mere paper entities, run by people. So this
myth of the evils of corporations compared to those poor people,
is a bit of a furphy.

What the BP saga does show is that some people are as greedy as they
can somehow legally get away with. Thousands of them are trying
their luck to cream it, at BPs expense.

Its no different here. When I get equipment repaired, some of it
from storm damage, the first question is invariably, if its an
insurance job. If it is, the price goes up.

Sarnian
The capitalist system can be used to produce a better society or a more sustainable way of living.

Some food types are presently given a rating if they are believed healthy enough. For example, the Heart Foundation’s “Tick Program” gives food a rating.

http://www.pickthetick.org.nz/home.html

Similarly, every item sold could be given a rating by an accredited organization if it is believed to be environmentally friendly, or suitable for healthy living.

The consumer can then see their likely impact on society or on the environment by purchasing that item.

If that doesn’t work, then eventually those items that have a significantly negative impact on society or on the environment can be made more expensive, or simply removed from sale.

It is a form of risk management.

Our present society, whether it is socialist or not, would have to be one of the most expensive ways of living ever devised.

To raise a child, the mother must first be given a bonus to have the child.

Then the child needs two of everything, because it has to go from mummy's house to daddy's house, then considerable amounts of money have to be paid to daycare centers to raise the child, then enormous amounts of money have to be paid out to cure the child of everything from diabetes to depression.

That’s just children, but adults are almost as expensive to operate, and now we also have immigrants, who are more expensive again.

The global population growth has been dropping now for 20 years and it is thought that our peak population, and then decline, will be around 2070.
Australia now has peaking emigration, permanent Aussies leaving for good and lower immigration, people coming permanently and we could hit our peak population as early as 2035.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/world-population-growth-slowing-20091117-ikct.html

http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/img/worldgr.gif

Population ageing results mainly from declining fertility. According to the 2008 Revision, fertility in the less developed regions as a whole is expected to drop from 2.73 children per woman in 2005-2010 to 2.05 in 2045-2050. The reduction projected for the group of 49 least developed countries is even steeper: from 4.39 children per woman to 2.41 children per woman. To achieve such reductions, it is essential that access to family planning expands, particularly in the least developed countries. Around 2005, the use of modern contraceptive methods in the least developed countries was a low 24 per cent among women of reproductive age who were married or in union and a further 23 per cent of those women had an unmet need for family planning. The urgency of realizing the projected reductions of fertility is brought into focus by considering that, if fertility were to remain constant at the levels estimated for 2005-2010, the population of the less developed regions would increase to 9.8 billion in 2050 instead of the 7.9 billion projected by assuming that fertility declines. That is, without further reductions of fertility, the world population could increase by nearly twice as much as currently expected.

Future population growth is highly dependent on the path that future fertility takes. In the medium variant, fertility declines from 2.56 children per woman in 2005-2010 to 2.02 children per woman in 2045-2050. If fertility were to remain about half a child above the levels projected in the medium variant, world population would reach 10.5 billion by 2050. A fertility path half a child below the medium would lead to a population of 8 billion by mid-century. Consequently, population growth until 2050 is inevitable even if the decline of fertility accelerates.
.

"The global population growth has been dropping now for 20 years and it is thought that our peak population, and then decline, will be around 2070."

Yeah well, we are 60 years and a few billion humans away from that peak and major fisheries are already collapsing or collapsed, oil production is at peak and will be in advanced decline by 2070, climate change is reducing agricultural output and we already have major political unrest and/or civil war across the Arab world.

I don't think we can rely on this supposed natural decline in fertility to avert a major human and environmental catastrophe.

In fact this decline in fertility you speak of is far more likely to result from the catastrophe than occur before it.

Global fertility drops is not a supposed thing. Load the image on my last post.

World historical and predicted total fertility rates (1950–2050)
UN, medium variant, 2008 rev.[2]
Years TFR Years TFR
1950–1955 4.92 2000–2005 2.67
1955–1960 4.81 2005–2010 2.56
1960–1965 4.91 2010–2015 2.49
1965–1970 4.78 2015–2020 2.40
1970–1975 4.32. 2020–2025 2.30
1975–1980 3.83 2025–2030 2.21
1980–1985 3.61 2030–2035 2.15
1985–1990 3.43 2035–2040 2.1
1990–1995 3.08 2040–2045 2.06
1995–2000 2.82 2045–2050 2.02

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

dempografix,

thanks form all the stats, it's a great niche but I've always thought statistics are the ultimate in abstraction. 2.5 kids for instance applies to no one, it's just a crude measure derived from the whole, as is life expectancy, whose increase in the modern context comes down mainly to marginal improvements. More importantly, do you note the way statistics isolate phenomena? For instance, the way they describe a trend in population growth, even extrapolating it based on dedicated "fertility rates", but without factoring in forcing agents such as the artificial demands of economic expansion, or even "real" fertility degradation due for instance to pollutants in the food chain. Population growth is dependent upon the means of production and its carrying capacity, rather than upon family planning, sustainable development or any of the other impressive catch phrases we observe in the breech.
The problem is that our system is inflationary and predicated on growth rather than sufficiency or sustainability. The means of production is not dedicated, or designed to sustain communities--though husbandry is optimal for economic reasons--but to produce a surplus extract above and beyond, and if necessary, despite those needs. The surplus is the raison d'etre, and "not the society". Think about this. "Human society is the means of production and not the point in itself"--it's merely the crop and capital is the harvest. Similarly, environmental degradation is merely a bi-product, an inefficiency that according to best practice is gradually refined. Unfortunately, capitalists are irresponsible farmers devoted to the current crop.

You are correct. Peak oil makes a big difference and may increase the global decline of the global population.

http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population.html

http://www.populationmedia.org/2011/04/08/is-peak-population-almost-here/

http://ourfiniteworld.com/2011/03/28/peak-oil-and-the-third-demographic-transition-a-preliminary-model/

I support a neutral NOM, that is we bring in only as many as are leaving and using our natural growth to balance the increasing death rates to come.

We will be nowhere near 35 million. It is a smokescreen really as we are likely to desk around 2035 then decline back to our approx numbers now. Mad as batshit as it is not overpopulation that we need to fear, but underpopulation.

"We will be nowhere near 35 million. It is a smokescreen really as we are likely to desk around 2035 then decline back to our approx numbers now. Mad as batshit as it is not overpopulation that we need to fear, but underpopulation."

What a load of bl00dy rubbish!

I don't think the human race has to worry about underpopulation even if peak oil and global warfare causes a major carnage.

The minimum number of individuals that geneticists estimate is required to maintain a healthy population long term is around 500. We are currently at about 7 billion!

The only individuals that fear 'underpopulation' are economists, big business and property developers due to the severe reduction in consumers, customers and first home buyers.

Many interesting comments, but some critics fail to appreciate that Oz can certainly still have great economic and technological growth without a substantially increased population. We have the opportunity of a great export boom to invest in new industry in all sectors, to vastly improve our nation's infrastructure. No-one can argue that our facilities are currently anything other than substantially lacking. Dick makes a valid argument that achievement of needed improvements can only be hindered by having even greater numbers in need of these services. It also can not be denied that Oz is way behind in many of these services, in spite of (or more probably because of) a steadily increasing population, and in spite of good economic performance.

Another factor not being taken properly into account by the pro-pop lobby is that we are part of a much greater global community, and which is increasing exponentially, irrespective of whatever we may do in Oz. Food security may not currently be a significant issue in Oz, but in global terms the NEW Green Revolution some are expecting is currently nothing more than wishful thinking. Some are also forgetting the millions who do not have food security now, and the sort of investment which will be needed to give those populations any long term certainty of even minimal levels of food security.

The sort of advancement required globally is enormous, and some seem to be arguing that we should relieve some of that burden by increasing immigration. (So a small number can have a better life in Oz, while the rest of their compatriots just suffer on regardless?)

Facts: We have limited arable land (and those who think barren desert can be easily converted to flowing gardens are sadly mistaken), and we are lacking in industry and jobs for our current population.

When we can provide properly for ourselves, and can ensure similar benefit is extended to the whole of the earth's population, then we may be in a position to look at alternatives for substantially increasing our own population.

"When we can provide properly for ourselves, and can ensure similar benefit is extended to the whole of the earth's population, then we may be in a position to look at alternatives for substantially increasing our own population."

Why do we need to increase our population even if we can properly provide for ourselves and even if the rest of the world can properly provide for itself.

There are currently 22 million Australians. We do not need any more citizens than that under any circumstances! In fact we would be far better off returning to a population of perhaps 18 million.....or possibly less.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, Mr Windy. I was really attempting to answer some of those who would wish us to rush headlong into increasing our population in spite of all that is needed to be done to cater properly for our current population.

If our current economic strength was put to work effectively there could be training positions and jobs created in new industries to cater for all Australians willing and able to work, but it can't happen overnight. In my view it would be short-sighted to take an expedient of importing other than absolutely essential highly qualified labour until we can get out from behind the 8-ball and produce our own. Long standing deficiencies in our education system are to blame for much of any lack of skilled and professional labour in Oz, and deficiencies in our culture are to blame for the large number of Australians on welfare simply because they can't find a job to their satisfaction or that pays better than welfare. We need to pull ourselves up from the bootstraps. Too long the lucky country, with too many lost kids (and adults) on the streets, and too much to be done to improve conditions and opportunity for our indigenous Australians. It's a disgrace. It's time to put our house in order.

In due course it is reasonably possible that the world's population will decrease, at least we should be hoping so. With all the civil strife in the world today I can't help thinking that some of those in favour of increasing our population are really thinking about, and empathising with, some of those elsewhere who are in far greater need than ourselves. Well, much as we may feel for them, we have nonetheless a priority to get our own house in order first, and it is my view that we can best help those in need elsewhere by helping them to get their houses in order as well, rather than helping them to abandon their homelands.

At least in countries like Australia, this whole population debate is simply a re-incarnation of the class war that has been waged for thousands of years between those who own or control the bulk of capital and those who don't.

With a large and growing population, those who don't own capital are forced to compete for limited jobs, consumer goods and properties. Therefore the owners of capital can dictate the prices to be paid, the wages to be paid and the amount of profit that they get to keep.

With a small and stable population it is the owners of capital that are forced to compete for workers and customers. It is therefore, to a large extent, the workers and customers that dictate the prices, wages and the profit margins for capital owners.

Whose side are you on? Who is in the majority and who will win in the end?

It's not just an internal class war, Mr Windy.

>>At least in countries like Australia, this whole population debate is simply a re-incarnation of the class war that has been waged for thousands of years between those who own or control the bulk of capital and those who don't.<<

It is a global issue. Think about it. Here's a quick rephrasing of your assertion:

"...this whole population debate is simply a re-incarnation of the colonial wars that have been waged for thousands of years between those countries who own or control the bulk of capital and those who don't"

Then look at Australia through the eyes of any African country that has experienced European colonial exploitation over the centuries.

Our internal squabbles as to whether 16 million, 22 million, 35 million or 50 million is a manageable number become pretty pointless in the global scheme of things.

A line in a recent New Statesman article by geographer Laurence Smith caught my eye:

"What if you were God, and do the ethically fair thing by converting the entire developing world's level of material consumption to that now carried out by North Americans, Europeans, Japanese and Australians today. Would you?"

Because, as he goes on to point out:

"...global consumption would rise elevenfold. It would be as if the world's population went from under seven billion to 72 billion. Where would all that meat, fish, water, energy, plastic, metal and wood come from?"

If you want the world to be "fair", then reducing consumption necessarily means "all of the people who presently consume ten times that of the average African villager".

Unless of course you believe, as most do, that we are unbelievably lucky to live where we do, and have the lifestyle that we do. We have after all, as individuals, done absolutely nothing to deserve that privilege, except our choice of birthplace.

Perhaps in the long run it will be smarter to share that good fortune a little more than we do.

Mr. Windy,
It is not a question of “whose side are you on” and “who will win”. No one will win.
Both the rich elite and the poor worker will be affected by the crash of world commodities and global warming. The trouble is, that nothing will be done about tackling this until it is too late and we are passed the tipping point and hurting badly. Then we will take notice and try to remedy the problem.
We are like drug addicts or alcoholics, hooked on our addiction to our profligate life style (Australia has the highest in the world) and we are not going to go “cold turkey” and admit our addiction till we are totally deprived.
I agree with Pericles, and would point out that the so-called aim of the developed countries is to bring the third world up to our standards but in fact we should (and will have to) reduce our standard to theirs one day.

*Perhaps in the long run it will be smarter to share that good fortune a little more than we do.*

That is all well and good Pericles. But the more we do, the
higher the population in the developing world.

Perhaps we could start by bankrolling family planning for all
women in the third world who want it and are too poor to afford
it.

Westerners currently utilise around 86 percent of the world's resources. That's about 1 billion people taking the lion's share - and rest exist on 14 percent.

We are the ones that disregard the transience of our favoured status. We are the ones that ignore the fragility of our environment .
We are the ones doing the damage.

I get the gratitude and lest we forget.
We are having approx 320,000 babies each year and about 160,000 deaths, and I am happy to accept that those babies were born in a lucky country, with its wealths in its people, its land and its future.

We could make NOM neutral and then the real issue is how do we pay for our aging nation as pensions and health costs begin to climb.
GST to at least 15% will tax all people. Increase the tax free threshold to $20K and increasse welfare accordingly.
Bring in a mining and super profit tax and a death tax with a tax free threshold of $750k etc. Let Treasury do the numbers...

The short answer is we could change our economy and plan to stay around 22 million or less. Should we? I am not sure there is a short answer to that. I am leaning towards yes. Could we? An even longer answer....

*We are the ones doing the damage.*

Poirot, your guilt trip is very sweet and I am sure well meant,
but hardly accurate.

I suggest that you google "Bushmeat", to see what is going on in
Africa. Rather then farm animals, its easier to shoot anything
that moves in the forests. Huge forests have been decimated of
any wildlife, bonobos, chimps and gorillas are on the verge of
extinction, as more and more of them are put in the pot.

People have 5-8 children in many parts, all having more children.
Where Jane Goodall established her chimp sanctuary, is now surrounded
by ever more people, all wanting meat and land.

Personally I have this moral thinggy, where I believe that other
species have a right to a bit of this planet too, not just wall to
wall humans, at the expense of every other species.

Silly me.

"Westerners currently utilise around 86 percent of the world's resources. That's about 1 billion people taking the lion's share - and rest exist on 14 percent."

Well then that is an excellent argument for Australia and America etc slashing their current populations and severly restricting immigration so that those still in the third world can have a fighting chance.

Thus far the owners of capital have succesfully hoodwinked the masses into believing that population growth will make them more wealthy despite the fact that it should be obvious to them that this is simply not the case.

Countless cases of crass exploitation of 457 visa holders fails to alert Australians as to what the real agenda of 'big Australia' advocates really is.

But with Dick Smith in particular this will slowly change and the majority Australians will wake up and put their votes where there opinions are, i.e. not with either major party or the greens.

Pericles wrote:

"We have after all, as individuals, done absolutely nothing to deserve that privilege, except our choice of birthplace.

Perhaps in the long run it will be smarter to share that good fortune a little more than we do."

And Cheryl wrote:

"the anti-population movement has a very nasty social engineering aspect which most Australians would abhor."

The truth, as demonstrated by the above comments, is that the pop growth zealots are very much into the abhorrent social engineering that some of them are so critical of. Critics of Australian Government policy pursuing high population growth are essentially laissez-faire. Now how much more free market and capitalist can you be than that?

dempografix,
An ageing population will not necessarily create extra costs overall.

The young can cost just as much as the old, as they have to be educated and then housing found.

So the costs of an aging population will be offset by reduced costs if less children are born.

What is alarming is the deteriorating health of children, which means increased costs for the young and old.

A smaller population also means that more young people have to be highly educated.

This is not likely in the future with poor health in the younger generation, an expected increase (and not decrease) in the numbers of disadvantaged children, and the general decline of education systems.

The population has to reduce in numbers for sustainable living, but there are a range of other social problems to also overcome, that are unfortunately not being properly addressed, often because of political reasons.

Dick Smith in Australia.

Sir David Attenborough in Britain: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365208/Sir-David-Attenborough-insists-tackle-population-growth-contraception.html

It seems when ever the subject comes up, the pro-population control comments consistently get overwhelming thumbs up and pro-population growth comments consistently and overwhelmingly get the thumbs down.

Consistently in terms of the number of people making the comments about the articles.

But given the trend is so widespread it is a good indication that it pro-population control represents the majority of western society.

I suspect that if the above two don't suddenly die and if more and more prominent public figures keep coming on board then we may be on the brink of a fundamental change in western population politics.

Dear Mr Windy

Let's hope so though it would be good if another word than 'control' could be used. It suggests coercion and we're not in favour of that! The longer it takes, however, for people to realise we do need to stablise/reduce population, then the more likelihood of coercion down the track.

"Let's hope so though it would be good if another word than 'control' could be used. It suggests coercion and we're not in favour of that! The longer it takes, however, for people to realise we do need to stablise/reduce population, then the more likelihood of coercion down the track."

Sorry buddy but I think that we are going to have to live with coercion with respect to fertility reduction, particularly in the third world where their lack of education prevents them from seeing the link between their high fertility and poor circumstances and where the mullahs and bishops are already coercing them into maintaining high fertility.

Anti-population coercion MUST win out over the religious coercion.

I think we must also be prepared for the possibility of requiring involuntary means of fertility control such as the biological vector previously suggested. Either that or enforced one child policies and abortions etc. I would rather the former if it came down to a choice between these two strategies.

Let us not shirk our responsibility to future generations and our civilisation popandperish.

Fertility CONTROL is exactly what is needed.

Whether it be by coercion, such as enfoced one child policies or by witholding of welfare, or by involuntary means, such as a contagious but harmless e.g. cold virus, biological vector that reduces fertility randomly and temporarily in those that it infects.

We make compromises on the human right to not be killed or not to be left to die when the circumstances suit all the time. E.G. The war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq and medical triage during war and natural disasters. In both cases we generally accept a certain level of 'collateral damage' and indifference in individual cases in order to serve the greater good.

Why should the human fertility be more sacrosanct than human life?

Why should we not also be prepared to compromise on the human right of freedom of reproduction, for a period of time, in order to serve the greater good of future generations and our civilisation?

You stop population growth bots are nuts.
Our population is growing primarily due to our increased longevity and current low death rates. It is called our demographic momentum or swell as the nation ages for the first time in human history.
Think of it like this which age groups are actually growing in number. If we all still died at 50 our population would be 15 million.
I can easily see how the same nutters will then switch to euthanasia.
Australia is likely to see it's peak population early and could quite easily become a country in decline, like many countries today.
Our death rates are projected to double in the next 15 years to a point that looks like neutral natural growth. Same amour of babies ad deaths and no need for any intervention at all.
Migration is made up of immigrants minus emigrants. Now here is the problem as we now have peaking emigration and trending up. No govt controls here.
1000 skilled Aussies leaving permanently per week!

"Our death rates are projected to double in the next 15 years to a point that looks like neutral natural growth. Same amour of babies ad deaths and no need for any intervention at all. "

Sounds good to me!

Once the demographic correction in complete, Australia's population could be once again well below 20 million and on a far better long term ecologically sustainable footing.

Bring it on!

We don't accept the right of impoverished families in Afghanistan and India growing opium poppies and illegally exporting opium to the west in order for them to feed their starving children.

Why should we accept their right to breed as they see fit when the excess population they collectively generate spills over into Australia etc and threatens our social and political stability and our environmental sustainability.

If the west has the responsibility to cut its consumption and share wealth more equitably across the globe then the third world has the responsibility to cut its fertility and stop adding more mouths to the world than can be comfortably fed.

GregaryB
I tend to agree that we could reduce or population. The real question is should we and especially can we? If our emigration continues to trend up as people flee an unaffordable country that we have become, especially in housing and cost of living, then our NOM may also become neutral.
It is not a 'demographic correction' is is as a result of our demographic momentum. We are growing, despite our less than replacement fertility rates.

Perhaps read..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_momentum

http://www.atcbiz.com.au/financial_planning_investment_smsf_articles.php?new=fsuqqyw9pr

Slash the annual immigration intake and abolish the baby bonus and we can live with a short period of demographic momentum.

Because the opposite demographic momentum, of the baby boomers dieing off on mass, is not far away either.

GregaryB
Quite correct.
2011 to 2025 - the retiring economy
2026 to 2035 - the grey economy
2036 to 2050 - the death economy and possible population decline as the boomers, all 5.17 million of them, begin to die on mass
2051 to 2300 - the green economy, sustainable, technological and looking forward

Poirot,

I am curious as to where you get that 86% of resources that is supposedly consumed by the top billion and how it is calculated. If you go to the Global Footprint Network site and look at the tables in their atlas, it is easy to work out that the top billion are responsible for about 35% of consumption.

Pericles,

The West actually has done a great deal for the Third World. It is safe to say that most of the people there who rail against the West and the US in particular wouldn't even be here without us. The Germans started it with the Haber-Bosch process for making nitrogen fertiliser from the nitrogen in the air, removing limitations due to natural sources of nitrogen. It is the source of about 40% of the nitrogen in your body, and billions of people would starve without it.

http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/haberbosch.html

Then there was the Green Revolution after World War II, which doubled, or even tripled grain yields. A number of governments and agencies were involved, but this work really started with varieties developed by the American agricultural scientist and Nobel prize winner Norman Borlaug. The Ford and Rockefeller Foundations and the US government were heavily involved in supporting it. Without the Green Revolution, there really would have been horrific famines in the 1970s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Revolution

Some countries, such as Taiwan and South Korea, used these gains and their own ingenuity to pull themselves out of poverty. Others put the gains into more and more babies and the Swiss bank accounts of their elite. Their main problem is their cultures, or rather their unwillingness to let go of cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional, not Western imperialism. Australia is still a good place to live, not just because we were lucky enough to inherit it, but because we have made most of the right choices to keep it that way. It is quite possible for a rich country to mismanage itself into poverty. Argentina is a good example.

Divergance,

Regarding the saving of the World with the Haber-Bosch process and the Green Revolution, I would ask have you heard of Jevons Paradox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
And if maybe these efforts have not made the problems worse?

Divergence,

Yes, I've just been looking up the 86 percent figure - and it seems the information is from 1998...so the situation may have altered, although how much is probably debatable... also statistics are notorious for their nebulous meaning.

Anyway, it's from the UN Human Development Report(1998) - a study on "Consumption for Human Development".
(couldn't download the report, but it's quoted here):
http://globalissues.org/article/214/stress-on-the-environment-society-and-resources

and here: (item 20)

http://www.stwr.org/poverty-inequality/key-facts.html

"Regarding the saving of the World with the Haber-Bosch process and the Green Revolution, I would ask have you heard of Jevons Paradox?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
And if maybe these efforts have not made the problems worse?"

Did a little research on Norman Borlaug and his Green Revolution.

Apparently he only ever intended it to buy us time to tame what he referred to as the 'population dragon' in the third world.

However clearly no one took his concern about over population seriously and the green revolution has indeed made matters far worse.

Instead of taming the population dragon, global leaders ignored the problem as the global population trippled from 2 billion to 6 billion.

Poirot,

Here is a link to the Global Footprint Network 2010 atlas

http://issuu.com/globalfootprintnetwork/docs/ecological-footprint-atlas-2010/1?mode=a_p

The atlas explains their methodology and gives the environmental footprints for countries in notional hectares of land, in terms of production, consumption (of both domestic and imported resources), imports, exports, and biocapacity (i.e. how much consumption per person the country would support without imports and without using up renewable resources faster than they can be replenished). I recalculated on the basis of the consumption footprints, and it actually came to 38% of consumption due to the top billion, not 35%, so I must have remembered it wrong, but it is still a lot less than 86%. Global population is still growing at about 80 million people a year, mostly in the poorer countries. As Paul Ehrlich once said, "It doesn't matter if per capita consumption is low, if there are a hell of lot of caputs."

It is possible that Haber-Bosch and the Green Revolution will end up doing more harm than good, because without them, the global population would have crashed before serious harm could be done to our planetary life support systems. See page 7 of the atlas I cited above and

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

open version without figures at

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

Of course, this would not be the fault of Haber, Bosch, or Borlaug, but of the people who stupidly abused some wonderful discoveries that could have made poverty history.