The reason why no-one does anything about it is simple Ludwig - if they were to curtail it in any way, it would become a case of first come, first serve. Those already there would have their house prices skyrocket, and it's hardly fair to tell some people they can live there while others can't. Why should some be allowed to move to coastal areas and not others?

In regard to the article, this is more than just beach shacks: it is kids who spend time in front of computers instead of riding bikes; it is the overweight adults who'd rather watch TV than go to the beach; it is the comfortable bungalows and the fashionable high rise apartments; it is the desire for the material over the down to earth experiences; it is, put simply, the changes to modern life.

Ah but some things are being done about it Turnrightthenleft.

Whole sections of eminently developable coast have been excluded from development, such as the areas north of the Noosa and Daintree Rivers in Queensland. Both of these would be a developers and seachangers paradise if they were opened up. New coastal national parks in the last decade or so have also protected potential development sites.

The various coastal strategy plans and the Integrated Planning Act also implement some restrictions. So it is not just open slather…or at least, not quite.

Of course property values will rise as the demand increases. Enforcing significant restrictions on available coastal land will add to that. One thing is for sure; as our population burgeons and development pressure on the coast increases, the gap between affordability for the wealthy and complete unaffordability for the average income earner is just going to grow.

So it isn’t case of first in best dressed, it is a case of availability to those who can afford it….and moreso all the time.

If the national population had been stabilized a decade or so ago, the pressure for coastal development would have been considerably less, and the need for restrictions on it also much less. This would have helped keep prices down and keep affordability within the range of a greater portion of the populace.

So our continuous growth ethic, and the extraordinary lack of concern about it amongst the general community, has led to and will continue to lead to a more discriminatory situation.

It is just one more reason why we desperately need to head towards a stable population and an overall sustainability ethic in this country.

True, Noosa was nagging at the back of my mind as I wrote that last post... but in regard to a 'stable population' I can't help but wonder what you mean precisely.

Is it in relation to the movement of population, demographic or raw numbers?

In the case of raw numbers, were it not for immigration we'd be in decline - I'd say the population is reasonably stable in this case.

Of larger concern is the age of the population, with so many boomers nearing retirement and wanting to move to the beaches we already have problems and they're not going to go away anytime soon.

We're going to need carers for these people, which we simply don't have.

Increases in immigration are touted as one way to alleviate this problem.

Unfortunately, if these people go where the elderly are - i.e. the coastal retiree areas, that's going to strain the infrastructure even more. Look no further than South East Queensland's water issues.

My notion of a stable population is based on the sustainability imperative. We simply must balance the pressure exerted on our resource base and environment in this country with the ability for the resource base to continue providing the necessary elements for a decent quality of life and for the environment to remain healthy.

To not strive to do this would be grossly irresponsible, if not insane.

This necessitates a halt to the continuously increasing pressure that we are placing on our environment. We can hardly stop this pressure from increasing if we allow population to continue to grow, unless we implement improvements in technology and efficient resource usage across the board to the extent that they cancel out the increasing pressure from a growing population, and keep doing so indefinitely.

Improvements are being made in some areas, but they are tiny compared to the constantly increasing demand for everything exerted by population growth.

Many sectors of our resource base are already overexploited and need to have the pressure on them reduced considerably, not just stabilized.

Population growth has two components in Australia, which are roughly equal; immigration and birthrate. The birthrate is very hard to significantly change, and even if we could, the effects wouldn’t be felt for a long time. So the centre of focus must be immigration.

With net zero or even absolute zero immigration, we would still have population growth, because births exceed deaths by quite a lot, despite the below-replacement individual fertility rate of about 1.78.

So achieving a stable population in the near future would be extremely difficult. But reducing the growth rate by half would be extremely easy, simply by gearing immigration down to about net zero over the next few years.

But even with this in place, we would still have interstate migration and a seachange movement. Some places would still come under constantly increasing pressure. So state or regional disincentives for people moving into population-stressed areas would be in order. But this would just be an extension of current approaches…

more tomorrow

its beddybyes time zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Stable populations would also be necessary in some regions or local government areas. A system could easily be set up to implement this, so that no new housing occurs unless it replaces old stuff and people can only move into the area at the same rate as people move out. With the will, it could all be very simple.

“…were it not for immigration we'd be in decline.”

No. This is far from true. As I outlined above, immigration only contributes about half of our population growth.

“I'd say the population is reasonably stable in this case.”

We still have rapid growth. And this is much greater in some areas than the national 1% per annum growth rate (or thereabouts) suggests. This growth doesn’t affect most of the continent. It gets concentrated in the major cities and other coastal growth areas. So the effects in areas that are feeling the pressure of overpopulation, or of population overwhelming infrastructure or of population leading to obvious environmental decline, are much greater than the national growth rate suggests.

“Of larger concern is the age of the population”

The overall continued momentum strongly away from sustainability, caused largely by population growth is of much greater concern than the increasing retiree portion of the populace. That issue can be pretty easily dealt with by way of a combination of changes to monetary policy, incentives to stay in the workforce, etc. But to tout the solution as being a constantly increasing number of younger immigrants and a higher birthrate, in order to prop up the tax base so that the increasing demand for pensions and healthcare for elderly can be met, is awfully short-sighted and horribly against the imperative of sustainability.

Quite frankly, the issue of an aging population is largely a beat-up by those with a vested interest in maintaining rapidly increasing markets and hence profits, and those in government who wish to appease this big and powerful business lobby.

“…that's going to strain the infrastructure even more.”

Absolutely!! So let’s start seriously thinking about how we can curtail this absurd continuous human expansion!