In the Coalition's official policy launch the other night, Springborg made a point of emphasising the role of decentralisation and balanced growth between the regions and the South East in maintaining the quality of life in SE Queensland.

Nothing will do more to maintain the quality of life in the SE corner like encouraging new arrivals to settle in the rest of the state. The ALP does not have a decentralisation policy and the bungling of health policy in the bush has actually exacerbated problems in the South East by increasing rural drift to the city and discouraging new regional settlers.

An actual department of decentralisation will never be as effective as real regional autonomy but it is certainly a good start that actually recognises the problem. Beattie's morons haven't a clue.

All very true Jennifer. The environment simply has vanished as an issue. Everything is being swamped (!) by dams. There is no leadership whatsover on the issue of water recycling and the 'debate' in Toowoomba a few weeks ago lurched from feeble to pooerile.
Jennifer does well to raise the issue of over population. That is the underlying issue in almost all environmental issues worldwide. Sadly 'growth' is perceived by almost everybody as A Good Thing. Periodically the Cairns media et all boast that their growth rate is bigger than Townsvilles. These morons see population 'growth' as an unalloyed good. Controlling human numbers will not of itself ensure a well maintained environment, but it is certain that exponential growth of human numbers WILL ensure that the environment will deteriorate.
A stable population number is a necessary but not sufficient condition for environmental sustainability

Why isn't there a huge movement to stop immigration and cut back on population growth ? The best thing about Australia is our relative lack of hideous overcrowding, is it selfish to want to keep it that way? With an arid continent and water shortages getting worse everywhere, why do we want more migrants and more babies a la Peter Costello ? Only the retailers and the building industry benefit in the short term, but I guess they are powerful enough to keep the migration programmes going full bore. But then Australia has always been a convenient dumping ground: first for convicts, now probably for the world's nuclear waste and for unwanted people from overpopulated countries. By the way, I think the Pope is guilty of crimes against humanity, in refusing to sanction birth control.

There would appear to be a general consensus on this issue. In my location the Council has been encouraging growth at all costs for decades. What used to be fertile vegetable gardening land is now covered in concrete and brick while useless scrubland goes wanting. Wetlands about to be covered by factories. It never ends. The sad thing is that that opinion seems to permeate all levels of government. Until we stop this population at all costs we will continue to lower our collective standards of living. As for the upcoming election I have yet to hear one party make an issue of this subject. For the first time in my life I will be voting informal. I know it is a wasted vote but with the choice I have it will be a wasted vote in any case. Labor; Un-coalition; Greens and the bible led Family First. What a choice. If there were an independent in the group he or she would get my vote hands down. Independents are the only upper house we will ever get in this state.

As usual The Governments have it wrong... Why are we so surprised?

Peter Beattie long ago became irrelevant and only the weakness of the so called opposition will allow him to prevail.

If we were to collect all the rainwater that fell on our roadways and filtered it up into our existing catchments we would soon have plenty of water. Last week off a tiny part of our roof we filled a 3000 litre tank. How much drinking water went out to sea in Brisbane last week - it must have been an incredible volume.

Does anyone know how much water is actually diverted down our stormwater drains every time it rains it must be many millions of litres each year and someone must know?

The other benefit of using roads as catchments to refill existing dams is that if it rains on the Southside and not on the Northside the runoff still gets used to supply our water needs. We already have lots of the pipes in place... we just need to redirect the water.

What would you rather drink recycled sewerage or recycled rainwater? If we can make sewerage drinkable... rainwater must be easier to filter!

PLUS because the initial infrastructure, the pipes & stormwater drains, are in place already, the water transportation pipes are all we need to build.

Come on Premier Pete .... Wake UP! How do politicians sleep at night? Does being devoid of any sensible ideas just allow their sleep to be uninterupted even whilst people die from bodgy Drs or Bush and farmland are being flooded unnecessarily?

And when they retire we pay them heaps and they crow about their public service... What service?

kang,
You almost answered your own question. The reason both Liberal and Labor support high immigration is simple. Big business wants to sell more consumer goods and by giving generous ammounts of money to both parties, they can ensure the maintenance of high immigration.

We really should be debating our carrying capacity, forming a population policy and tailoring immigration to suit.

Only then can we determine what infastructure, including water, will be required in future. But I would not hold my breath waiting.

Well done, Jennifer Marohasy, for speaking the unspeakable.

"But there has been no honest discussion or clever policies put forward by Labor, the Coalition or the Greens to deal with the key underlying environmental issue which is population pressure - locally and globally."

Will there be a politician brave enough to say anything anywhere near as brave and then act on it? Maybe, if comments like the ones previously posted keep surfacing. It's clear we won't have any leadership on the environment and sustainability, but we may get the politicians to follow.

In my dreams, Dr. Marohasy follows up the comment above, with something like: "Reducing immigration and dumping the Costello Baby bonus are relatively simple policy ideas, but they would be a good start to getting Queensland and Australia sustainable." Lets hope Dr. Marohasy and others in the community continue to put pressure on the government and opposition parties "to deal with the key underlying environmental issue - which is population pressure."

I don’t know Jennifer , Maybe the Qld liblabs are simply coming to their senses a bit , On water that is .
Lets face it there’s been a lot of talk about connecting a pipe from the toilet s bend to the kitchen tap lately .
With that image in mind the idea of accessing water from a shiny new dam would be very sweet indeed .

The environment thing as an election issue is getting a bit old anyway .

I expect that in time when our primary producers have been regulated out of competitiveness & our only option for vegetables looks like being those grown in human waste in china & meat grown in unknown conditions from a place with a high disease incidence , The anti farmer tree clearing thing will get a bit old too .
Climate change will I believe be nothing compared to the potential effect of fear of climate change .

“But there has been no honest discussion or clever policies put forward by Labor, the Coalition or the Greens to deal with the key underlying environmental issue which is population pressure - locally and globally.”

How true. And how nice it is to see this expressed by Jennifer Marohasy.

It really is extraordinary that this factor goes unaddressed, especially by the (pseudo)Greens.

“Nothing will do more to maintain the quality of life in the SE corner like encouraging new arrivals to settle in the rest of the state.”

Perseus, for as long as we have a rapid overall influx of people, spreading them around the state is not going to be the answer. But at least you realise the need to relieve population pressure on SEQ.

“A stable population number is a necessary but not sufficient condition for environmental sustainability”

Absolutely right eyejaw.

“Why isn't there a huge movement to stop immigration and cut back on population growth ?”

A very good question kang.

“Until we stop this population at all costs we will continue to lower our collective standards of living.”

Spot on Rhys.

“We really should be debating our carrying capacity, forming a population policy and tailoring immigration to suit.”

Most definitely Banjo.

Oh this is wonderful. The unspeakable population issue is really starting to be spoken about. I reckon it won’t be long now before our pollies are forced to sit up and take notice.

It is wonderful to find great minds thinking alike on population, high time we started a campaign. However ... perhaps one of you can say something about the only argument for population growth and migration that is at all convincing: i.e. without population increase the aging population will have no taxpayers to support it/us and pay our pensions, please tell me that this is not true or that it is exaggerated! (Mind you, even the prospect of poverty in old age would not sway me, at least I hope not).

Don't include me in your population love-in, Ludwig. Population isn't the problem, it is "concentration of population" that is the problem. Spread the 50,000 new arrivals in Qld each year evenly over the entire state and the population of Gayndah (pop 2883) goes up by 36 people requiring 14 new houses. They will need no new roads, no new power lines and, provided they include a water tank, no new Dams.

Longreach (pop 4033) would get 50 more people in 19 new houses using existing roads, existing power and no new dams.

Sarina (pop 9862) would get 123 more people in 47 new houses using existing roads (perhaps some side streets) existing infrastructure and no new dams.

But at the moment the SE Corner with 65% of the population is getting 85% of the new arrivals which is 10,000 more than their share. Over the next 20 years that will be 200,000 people in 77,000 houses requiring 20 new suburbs with all the bells and whistles.

Each new arrival in SEQ costs the existing residents $12,000 a year in congestion costs. That is twice as much as the $6,000 that the state government spends on each queenslander. For a family of four this will amount to $48,000 a year and service $520,000 worth of debt. So there is a very strong self interest in the SEQ population doing all it can to encourage that newly arrived family to keep going north and west where their congestion cost will be zero.

While the major political parties look after the interests of big business, the only party in the last twenty years to advocate a reduction in immigration, to nett zero, is One Nation.

They advocated this untill we sorted out where we were going in relation to employment and population. Makes sence to me

Kang –

There are several reasons that our current population policies don’t make sense even with regard to an ageing population.

1. Immigration does nothing for the ageing population. Immigrants age just like locals. Half our population increase today is due to immigrants and the percentage will increase if we continue on the current course. The productivity commission (Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth, 24 April 2006) did a study which concluded that the average worker would be less well off with an increase in skilled migration. A 50% increase in skilled migration was modelled against existing conditions and the result was that the average worker would earn 0.71% more money and work 1.18% more hours.

That means that hourly wages will decrease. That study did not include the impacts on living standards due to degradation of the environment because it was out of the productivity commission’s terms of reference.

2. Increase in birth rate does have benefits for an ageing population. That means we have to weigh the benefits against the costs, to determine the best policies.

2a. The most critical factor is that by increasing our birth rate, we are not solving the problem of an ageing population. We are simply putting it off, for our children to solve. Population growth has to stop some day, so the ageing population problem has to be addressed some day. Why give the problem to our children?

2b. Another PC study on ageing http://www.pc.gov.au/study/ageing/draftreport/ageing1.pdf found that although there would be structural changes required, the impacts were not serious. For example, funding had to be shifted from education to health, pensions had to kick in a few years later, etc. Again environmental factors were outside the terms of reference. These kinds of adjustments are minor compared to peak oil, land degradation, water and the other challenges of learning to live sustainably.

2c. Almost everyone agrees that global population growth is a serious problem. Is it right for Australia to be trying to increase it’s population while at the same time telling other countries to reduce their populations?

It has taken a long time for population pressure to get such recognition for concern as evidenced in this article and its responses.
But why should Queensland worry? After all, it has often enough been stated by some economists that all six and a half billion of the world's population could be accommodated in an area the size of Tasmania; and that, to be liberal, all the world's families could be allocated "quarter acre blocks" in a place the size of Queensland.
And yes, we do need more people on the land as custodians - with adequate support by the whole Australian community; as Andrew Campbell commented some years ago during a Fenner Conference. That applies to areas capable of remaining agriculturally productive, and to those that can't. Just how many more? - none at all while as much agricultural mining takes place as at present in supplying urban needs for products and export dollars.
But, wherever people live, spread widely are their needs relating to food, water, social comforts, recreation, and waste disposal (from the whole spectrum between sewage and carbon-dioxide). The area we take from is a huge one, as is that where we spread our waste.
Before we get complacent about population pressure we need fundamental change to society. Change away from that mindset encapsulated by that wag in Scotland, just north of the English border, who produced the car-sticker "keep Scotland tidy - throw your rubbish in England". Constrain our population increase until we do, no matter where we live. It is fundamental to the whole dam issue.

Perseus, I would love to know how you envisage getting people to move to where their impact on existing infrastructure and on the quality of life of existing residents is minimised.

Implementing incentives for people to move to places where the negative cost or effect of their presence is one thing. But it would take much more than simple incentives to implement the sort of redistribution that you envisage.

Also, you have only looked at the issue in a one-year timeframe. For example, if people moved into Longreach or Sarina at the rates that you mention, it wouldn’t be too many years before some considerable upgrade or addition to infrastructure would be required. So in one year no new infrastructure might be required and no significant impact might be exerted. But in the longer term, it would be a different story entirely. The average per-person cost could work out to be considerably more than in Brisbane or the Gold Coast.

I do think there is merit in boosting population in places like Longreach, to a limited extent, and other towns that have declined. But I doubt whether Sarina needs it. And other centres Such as Mackay and Airlie Beach could well do with lower growth rates.

You mount a simplistic argument. And one that in the absence of action on overall population increase is not going to achieve much.

Ludwig, you cannot simply make these claims about the cumulative cost of additional population in regional areas without actually examining the numbers. It is sloppy thinking of the first order.

For the record, the consequences of 20 years of 1.5% annual growth for a town of 6,000 people is a town of 8,000 people. Not a single road will need to be widened, no bridges duplicated, no new cross city tunnels, no new toll roads, no new sewerage treatment works and no new water recycling plants.

The smaller the scale the lesser the complexity of the solutions to growth. The extra 2,000 people in this example would need 770 houses which would fit into 7 new streets of 1.1km length running off the existing roads going in and out of town (assuming the existing streets are full and are not extended). The morning "peak hour" would stretch from 3 minutes to 4 minutes of very mild congestion in which almost zero hydrocarbons would be wasted idling in traffic.

So how can you possibly claim that these sort of cumulative infrastructure solutions would be more expensive on a per capita basis than a $1.5 billion duplicated Gateway Bridge or a $3 billion cross city tunnel?

And how does one attract people away from the Metropolitan centres?

Easy. Stop the leaking circular flows of regional GDP into urban government overheads by delivering regional autonomy. The investment will follow the new decision makers, the jobs will follow the investment and the people will follow the jobs. It is economics 101 but the existing government is too busy running a murderous health system in the bush to recognise it's own role in causing the problems it confronts.

“For the record, the consequences of 20 years of 1.5% annual growth for a town of 6,000 people is a town of 8,000 people. Not a single road will need to be widened, no bridges duplicated, no new cross city tunnels, no new toll roads, no new sewerage treatment works and no new water recycling plants.”

What an extraordinary claim Perseus!

A population increases by one third and you are saying that no increases or improvements in any infrastructure would be needed for roads or water. It depends entirely on how good current infrastructure is as to what extent of increased pressure can be absorbed. A 33% increase would well and truly overload a lot of infrastructure, and services.

Would you make the same claim after 40 years? Or after 20 years with a 3% pa growth rate?

Your philosophy of decentralisation doesn’t stop after 20 years, it goes on ad-infinitum. In fact, if your decentralisation did stop after 20 years, as part of a plan to reach a stable population, I’d be all for it.

“So how can you possibly claim that these sort of cumulative infrastructure solutions would be more expensive on a per capita basis than a $1.5 billion duplicated Gateway Bridge or a $3 billion cross city tunnel?”

On a per-capita basis, the sorts of infrastructure upgrades in small towns would be comparable with big expensive things in the major cities. You quoted the figures that indicate a progressively greater per-capita cost from Sydney to Melbourne and Brisbane http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4848#54476. Well, why wouldn’t that trend continue for regional cities and towns?

continued

“And how does one attract people away from the Metropolitan centres?”

The notion of regional governments being able to attract people to their areas any moreso than local councils or Chambers of Commerce is I think a load of bunkum.

People will continue to move to Townsville or Cairns at a rapid rate despite the governance regime, unless those governments set about discouraging that rate of growth… or they get badly damaged by a cyclone.

People will also move to the mines and nearby towns, for as long the so-called boom lasts.

Yes, people follow the jobs. So how would a regional government promote population increase in Longreach or Isisford or Cunnamulla? And even if they were hugely successful, how much impact would it have on decentralisation?

The fact is, if decentralisation was boosted right up, it would mean big increases in centres that are big enough now and have rapid growth rates now, and which are feeling the negative effects of this continuous growth moreso than larger cities.

Ludwig, once a city gets to a certain size then the conventional, incremental options for dealing with growth no longer work. Out come the duplicated bridges, the overhead rail lines and the tunnels which all involve an entire order of magnitude in increased cost. The city itself starts to dwarf its local environment.

But your latest line of logic is in direct contradiction to your initial statements about population growth. You now suggest we should keep on building bigger and bigger cities to capture the economies of scale. So if Sydney is good news at 4 million, why not keep going for 8 million? Of course not, because the diseconomies of scale are already present.

You can't argue for limits on population growth while extolling the benefits of economies of scale. Scale economies provide increased returns for each increase in size of a small unit, and continue for some time, until the unit reaches a size where the benefits of size increases are outweighed by the costs.

So to use your small town example, a standard off the shelf sewerage treatment plant may come in sizes that fit populations of 2000, 10,000 and 30,000. So a town of 4,000 has a fair bit of underutilised capacity and every additional house will spread the overhead costs over more customers. Even if the population doubled, the overhead cost per household will continue to drop.

New states will create more jobs than enlarged local councils because a large proportion of state government overheads are incurred in the capital and this money is taken out of circulation in the regional economy. Form a new regional state capital and the region's share of those overheads will move back to where the taxes were paid. And that money will continue to circulate in the regional economy and create jobs, mostly within a radius of 2 or 3 hours drive from the capital.

A state that is too big will concentrate wealth close to the capital while a state that is too small will not get sufficient economies of scale to outweigh any duplication of functions.

Jennifer, Lack of water for drinking and industry is a good way to keep the population down or stabilised in our greedy ,wastfull "BUY IT,HARDLY USE IT, THEN THROW IT AWAY" society of ours .
All these new dams will directly and indirectly, through allowing increased population, produce ever increasing rates of destruction of the natural environment.
Of particular concern to me, being an occasional fisherman, is the freshwater flows that will be diverted from all the dammed rivers that run to the coast with the supply of fresh water that dilutes the salt and enables the estuary fish to breed and grow .
It is up to all Australians, concerned marine biolgists and fishing groups to demand environmental impact statements that lay out the true cost to the coastal towns,fishing and tourist industries of these proposed dams .

Perseus.

Your post of 11 Sept slipped under the radar. I’ve only just encountered it.

So to continue our debate then…..

“You now suggest we should keep on building bigger and bigger cities to capture the economies of scale.”

Bollocks! It seems as though you need to reread by previous posts! Either that, or just stop claiming that I’m espousing things that you know damn well I’m not.

This is just another example, on the end of a long long line of bizarre interpretations that you have come up with, that are nothing less than diametrically opposed to what I have stated.

“You can't argue for limits on population growth while extolling the benefits of economies of scale.”

What? No, you’ve lost me on that one!

I like the notion of new states, or more specifically, a two-tiered system of government. I started a discussion thread on it http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=29, but not one single person was bloomin well interested!!

I agree that we would get an improvement in governmental efficiency. But I can’t see how new regional governments can improve quality of life for their residents. If they do manage to create more jobs, then a population influx will no doubt result, which will have perhaps predominantly good benefits in some small centres but negative effects in larger centres.

We need to fundamentally change our style of governance. And one of the main ingredients of that is genuine sustainability, and a stable basis for the economy rather than a push to ever-increase it.

So Perseus, what would your ideal state size be, in terms of population or whatever parameters you think are important?