Gooda touches on addictions and suggests, thoughtfully, that 'serious addiction requires thoughtful treatment rather than punitive measures and silver bullets.'

Needs cleaning up. <thoughtfully, that 'serious addiction requires silver bullets.'>

HI Jayb,

Give Gooda time, he'll come up with something really substantial.

Nah, just kidding :)

There is an interesting article on PNAS today about population growth in the foraging economies of North America twelve thousand years ago, and in the first agricultural economies in the Middle East at about the same time - the researchers claim to have found that growth was roughly similar, at 0.04 % p.a., or doubling in 1800 years:

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/4/931.abstract.html?etoc

In the abstract, it isn't pointed out that North Americans had only just got to the continent from Asia, or at least the current-US part of it, before spreading further south down to the bottom of South America, across a total of twenty or thirty million square kilometres of human-empty country teeming with wild-life. In other words, colonising two entire continents.

So those agricultural societies were building up on already-existing populations; the foraging societies across the Americas were colonising that vast territory. And both types of societies were growing at about the same rate. Until American colonisation reached its 'saturation point' ?

Obviously the same process happened here in Australia. So one wonders, at what time did population across Australia reach a 'saturation point' ? And what effects would prolonged drought have on those numbers, regionally ? Was there a sort of 'steady state' range of population, from the best of times to the worst of times ? How long did population take to recover from long droughts, and to re-colonise devastated areas ?

Fascinating stuff !

Cheers,

Joe

In the lead up to Federation the reasoning behind not counting was both simple and logical.

The proposed states had no idea how many A* lived within their states, even less idea if those who wandered within, and across, state borders, as well as across electorate boundaries, may have been double, triple, quadruple enrolled and counted..

States largely trusted each other, however this was to large an unknown.

Not knowing for sure how many transient A* listed on voting rolls, or how many times, created far to serious consequences in terms of House of Representative seats.

Simplest solution was not just not count them.

There were A* voters already on the rolls, however they were known, and not wandering around all over the place.

Exclusion was to prevent enrolments of A*'s wandering with no real interest in voting, to prevent inaccurate electorates, and vote rigging.

.

Hi Polpak,

Before Federation, Aboriginal people in every State were counted if they got rations, or came to the notice in some way of the authorities. In SA, the annual Protector's Report contained a section on population, on missions, stations, and elsewhere.

Obviously, those people out of touch with colonial society, still living a traditional life, out beyond even the attractions of a ration system, couldn't be counted because their numbers weren't known. Voting in State elections was probably not high on their agenda.

States were often quite jealous of each other's aspirations, and suspicious of how other States might pad their Aboriginal numbers, especially WA and Queensland, and thereby be entitled to more seats in a Federal parliament. So they agreed simply not to count Aboriginal numbers in calculating entitlement to seats. So Aboriginal affairs remained a State responsibility, not a Federal responsibility, until the 1967 Referendum [actually, much of that responsibility had already been taken over by the Federal government or given over by some States, SA for example: pensions, child endowment, etc.].

It seems that until very late, around 1950, there was still an official assumption that there were tens of thousands of 'myalls', wild blackfellas, traditional people, out beyond the reaches of 'civilization' - but it is very likely that their numbers were barely in the thousands across the country even then. In the fifties and sixties, even in the most remote areas, along the WA-NT and WA-SA borders, when missions and settlements were set up, they gathered in barely a thousand people.

Then the 1967 Referendum; then the extension of the right to vote across the entire country, and in Federal elections, even in the most remote locations.

Joe.