Foundation, you might be able to refer to me as an anti-immigration lobbyist. You'll generally pick up an anti-immigration theme. However in the context of this issue, immigration can provide a tool to promoting decentralisation, if any government is game to try. Why not give immigrants restricted settlement areas. Eg they cant live in any city with a population of more than 100,000. Or even better, restrict them to a certain distance from these population centres. Combine this with the added benefit of tax-based incentives for businesses to invest in regional centres, then you are in with a chance.

However, by far the biggest problem to overcome is our distinct lack of water in the vast majority of Australia. Even if they can be convinced to give the green lawn a miss, most Australians will struggle with constant dust-storms every time the wind gets up. Industry also needs water to operate. Again, solve this problem and we are in with a chance. Until we have the ability to at least move towards solving the water problem, there is no point investing in infrastructure to promote decentralisation - its wasted resources.

Still, I'm all for cutting NSW (Newcastle/Sydney/Wollongong) off the rest of this state and seeing how long they can fend for themselves.

Well, this article ranks second only to the load of absolute rubbish that brought me onto this forum in November last year.

What a collywobbly load of bunkum!! !!

Lyn Allison doesn’t even mention or allude to high population growth or immigration. So if we are going to ignore this all-important factor, then what’s the freaking point of decentralisation?

Without addressing the population issues, with even the most concerted efforts at decentralisation, we would end up with various growth centres, some for better, some for worse, and would still have about the same growth pressure in Sydney and Melbourne. For that matter, we HAVE had considerable decentralisation from the large cities for many years, into SEQ, NQ, SW WA, Darwin, etc….without it leading to solutions to population pressure in the large centres.

Decentralisation may well be part of a solution that is premised on population stabilisation. But it is just completely whacko to pronounce it as THE solution in the absence of an overall population or sustainability policy.

I am disgusted that the leader of the Democrats, who are supposed to have some understanding of sustainability issues, can espouse such crapulous.

Foundation

It seems as though you are only too keen to lay into anyone who might possibly appear to be anti-immigration. So let me clarify my stance.

I am for net zero immigration, which is something in the order of 30 000 per annum. So I am nowhere near being anti-immigration.

I am for population stabilisation in the interests of sustainability. But that does not preclude the reasonably free movement of people in and out of and all around the country.

Now, do you have a problem with this?

Zero net migration was an ON policy.
They as did the Democrats once spoke against mass immigration and the need for a population policy.

The Democrats come very late to the national infrastructure party.

We live on the dryest/most arid, populated continent on the planet.

For increases in population you need water, to have a water supply you need infrastructure... no government has invested in such a way for almost a generation.

ON had a WATER policy and in the early days backed Senator Ernie Bridge and his Watering Australia Foundation. Funnily enough parts of that policy are slowly being adopted by the Liberals lately.

Without water and proper infrastructure you cannot secure decentralisation or population increases. Good to see the Dems catching up to One Nation on this. Pity the helped kill off One Nation.

FROM CAPE YORK

"What do we need and where"?

On a social scale I say it is about social development and town planning.

The Issue - "Sharing Servicing Provisions".

This is about affordablity Yes!

I flip your focus now to point to a Canadian report that may work if we consider and compare these demographic indices to issues we have in Australia.

Social networks need more transport and communication networks. They need plans that are pro-active local and regional development plans that attack underlying problems of cause , critically.

See Counter-Acting Social Drift on http://www.miacat.com/

The essay promoting a reason to support the Cook Shire Mulit-Purpose Event Plan, for example, integrates an open or "No Closed Door Policy", for obvious reasons.

As with all issues to do with people, it engages a pro-active preventive measure that considers the impact of people's life-quality and how all forms of mobility impacts on their individual lives.

What’s more, it is a rural example where location is considered against the systematic degradation of our human needs in favour of capital development, especially now as we see the entrance of new wave privatisation's in social networks where the emphasis is becoming the new buz for servicing the inter-capital "partnerships"?

What does this mean?

With privatisation, governments lost the ability to enlist civic support of regional development programs without massive direct subsidies.

This means governments be it in large cities or small townships appear to find themselves without remedy for the disorder in human relations they create for people at ground levels.

Wasted is the human capital, where human needs work as assets, through two way communication, at both levels.

How to engage people?

If it is considered in Urban and Regional Development, then Lyn Allison quotes well how '17th century economist David Ricardo pointed out in another context, to explain how unrestrained expansion leads to marginal inefficiencies and diminishing returns: each additional house adds excessively to the burden on city infrastructure, and costs of supplying these services rise exponentially when the sprawl exceeds its natural limits.'

This smacks of under-development!

Australia

Population (in millions): 19.73
GDP per inhabitant (in US dollars): 27,000
Density (inhabitants per km2): 2.57
Average age (in years): 36
Life expectancy at birth (in years): 80.13

USA

Population (in millions): 290.34
GDP per inhabitant (in US dollars): 37,600
Density (inhabitants per km2): 30.15
Average age (in years): 35.8
Life expectancy at birth (in years): 77.14

England

Population (in millions): 50.10
GDP per inhabitant (in US dollars): 25,300
Density (inhabitants per km2): 384.13
Average age (in years): 38.4
Life expectancy at birth (in years): 78.16

Japan

Population (in millions): 127.21
GDP per inhabitant (in US dollars): 28,000
Density (inhabitants per km2): 336.69
Average age (in years): 42
Life expectancy at birth (in years): 80.93

The under population of Australia is the major problem, not enough people to support additional infrastructure.

When Australia has a population of 100 Million we should be able to sustain ourselves.