The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > No wages growth, but we keep pushing population growth > Comments

No wages growth, but we keep pushing population growth : Comments

By Eric Claus, published 1/8/2019

The HILDA report, released this week, showed that median disposable income in Australia dropped by $542 from 2009 to 2017, despite the fact that Australia has had the highest population growth rate in the developed world.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All
As long as our jobs for life and generous pensions, bureaucrats have no skin in the game and politicians seem to be serving/advantaging powerful vested interest and our economy is all but welded to the USD, we have as much control over outcomes as a leaf in a raging torrent!

Simply put if the decision-makers are devoid of vision or suffer any consequences of THEIR decisions It'll b business as usual and debt growing and Australia going ever further backwards!

If nothing real changes? Then all we will have is the same old by the same old cliche!

One of those now essential changes has to be fastening our currency to the gold standard, Rather than have to be completely dependant on the whim and caprice of fundamentally flawed fiscal illiteerates!
Alan B.
Posted by Alan B., Thursday, 1 August 2019 6:54:35 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Great article Eric - and especially good to refer back to the insights of the Productivity Commission so many years ago. Just two comments:

1) As you say, GDP per capita may sound a better measure than GDP, and in some ways it is. But in the end it is still just the madness of GDP with all its deeply inadequate measures, simply divided by the number of people in the population. It's no surprise it keeps going up, but that means very little to most of us, as you point out. We need other measures in parallel, such as GPI (the Genuine Progress Indicator).

2) As Al Gore says, representative democracy has been hacked by large vested interests. It has not worked for most people nor for the commons for decades. We need to phase in participatory democracy and phase out political parties. There are lots of excellent and successful trials of this approach happening around the world, and we need to make it mainstream in Australia. It will be long road, and bitterly opposed by selfish vested interests who couldn't care less about growing inequality or trashing the planet. But it could be a peaceful revolution instead of a violent one.
Posted by Poit, Thursday, 1 August 2019 7:08:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So true, the article, but why target immigration when the majority of population-growth comes from the baby-making industry?
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 1 August 2019 8:12:01 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
No it doesn't Yuyutsu. With out immigration our population would be declining.
Posted by Hasbeen, Thursday, 1 August 2019 10:12:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Baby making industry. Wow there's an expression designed to take the joy out of having kids. For the past 13 years immigration has been between 50% and 65% of Australia's population growth.

https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/rp1819/Quick_Guides/PopulationStatistics

Hasbeen you are probably thinking that since Australia's fertility rate has been below the 2.1 replacement since the 1970's that would mean our deaths were greater than births, but that isn't the case, because there were so many young people to start and young immigrants moved in.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.TFRT.IN?locations=XD-AU
Posted by ericc, Friday, 2 August 2019 1:35:21 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Poit - Whatever methods we take to bring about a change will require the efforts of an engaged and intelligent citizenry. I hope we have that.

I'm encouraged by the letters to the editor I read and comments on articles online. I'm not encouraged by the recent election except that the minor parties continue to make sure there is no majority for the majors in the Senate.
Posted by ericc, Friday, 2 August 2019 1:43:45 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. Page 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy