Dear Rhian,

Quote: “We have one of the lowest population densities in the world, and our resources are more than sufficient to support a larger population.”

Not entirely true. Most people inhabit SE Australia within 300km of the sea. The effective population density is much higher, especially considering much of Australia is uninhabitable.

Quote: “there does seem to be a positive link in Australia between population growth and real per capita living standards”

This statement is nonsense. Look at data from the OECD. Analysis of per capita income to population increase over the 1970 to 2004 period shows absolutely no relation between the two at all. For example, from 1970 to 2004 Italy’s population rose by only 9% and per capita income rose 7.9 times. In Australia, population rose 61% and per capita income 7.3 times. In Mexico the figures are 100% and 6.3 times. In relative terms, you will see that in 1970 Australia was ranked 6th highest in per capita income. By 2004 we had slipped to 10th. Indeed the countries that have bumped Australia down the list (Austria, Iceland, Ireland and Norway) all have a substantially lower population growth. The conclusion then is that population growth has contributed nothing at all to individual wealth, but rather decreased our quality of life and made us poorer economically. In Sydney, thanks to the higher population, I can’t use a hose whenever I please. In the past, I could drive my car into the central business district or go to the beach and park free of charge. Now I have to pay. The harbour is polluted with dioxin such that we can’t eat the fish, let alone swim in it. Graffiti, vandalism, theft and unsolicited violence is far more likely now than it was when I was young. To me this represents a decline in the quality of life, which counts more than per capital income.

Quote: “… cutting migration will have no effect on global greenhouse emissions.”

This is also not true, as discussed over this article: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=460

Rob

Many factors affect a country’s growth. From the 1970s to mid 1980s Australia slipped down the OECD rankings but has since clawed back much lost ground. This almost certainly has little to do with population policies and a lot to do with economic policies - especially economic reforms by Labor then the Coalition from the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

The link between living standards and population I cited was for Australia, not the OECD. Here, the States and Territories with the fastest population growth also have the fastest growth in real per capita GDP and consumption. Think SA compared to WA, or Tasmania compared to Queensland.

Much of Australia is indeed largely uninhabitable. But the inhabitable bits cover an area bigger than most European countries – the 5% of Australia that is arable is larger than Japan or Germany, or Italy, with populations 3-6 times ours. I don’t advocate their population levels and don’t think we’ll reach them, but the dry interior does not mandate quite such a sparsely populated fringe.

A cut in Australia’s migration might cut global greenhouse emissions if migrants emit more here than in their home countries or alternative destinations. But can’t be assumed because we’re relatively intensive per capita emitters. As with water use, the relationship between Australia’s population and emissions is neither straightforward nor linear, as a significant proportion of our emissions derive from resource industries whose output is barely related to domestic population. Furthermore, even allowing that global emissions might be higher if people move here, in the overall scheme of things the net effect will be negligible. We’re far better off focusing on long-term strategies to reduce global emissions, and on Australia’s proper contribution to that effort. Australian migration’s effect on global emissions is not enough for greenhouse to be a material consideration in migration policy, or for migration to be a material consideration in greenhouse policy.

This is why I think migration is a dangerous red herring in the environmental policy debate – there are other much more important and effective issues that we should be pursuing.

“But the inhabitable bits cover an area bigger than most European countries – the 5% of Australia that is arable is larger than Japan or Germany, or Italy, with populations 3-6 times ours.”

How arable is our land Rhian? When we consider total rainfall, reliability of rainfall and soil fertility, there is not much quality arable land around.

Australia’s population has grown pretty much proportionally to its resource base, most notably fertile soils and good rainfall, in just the same way that the population has grown in the USA for example, roughly in line with their resource base. But the US, with a slightly bigger land area, has a vastly bigger population; about 14.3 times bigger than ours.

There is no reason that Australia wouldn’t have had a similar population size by now if we’d had a similarly fertile regime to occupy. Our illustrious politicians have pretty much always tried their damnedest to grow the population. That’s how enormously different arid ancient Australia is compared to recently glaciated and hence edaphically renewed North America.

Would you advocate that the USA should continue to expand its population? Presumably not, given that you don’t advocate their European countrys’ population levels. So I can’t see how you can be advocating that ours should still be growing.

Again, it is well and truly time to come into balance with our life-support systems. And that necessitates population stabilisation (or perhaps reduction). Population stabilisation can only be approached gently, so that would mean stabilising at a level somewhat higher than at present. Then further adjustments can be made, either up or down. But it is essential that we head directly towards a stable population in the first instance.

It still is not clear why Rhian wants a bigger population. To add to the economic argument, the Productivity Commission report this April on immigration found that the economic benefits were negligible, although they ignored the extra pressure on the environment. A number of other such studies around the world have found that per capita economic benefits to existing residents are "close to zero or negative" (see column by Prof. Robert Rowthorn, Prof. of Economics, Cambridge University, in 2/7/06 (British) Telegraph). Of course some powerful groups in the community benefit handsomely from urban land speculation and cheap, exploitable labour.

Damage to the environment is not completely proportional to population, but all else being equal more people mean more energy and water use, more cars, more infrastructure, more sewage, etc. In the US per capita energy use has been flat for more than 30 years. With zero net immigration since the 1970s there would be perhaps 235 million people instead of 300 million and proportionately less emissions (see Numbers USA site).

To add to the lifestyle argument, in the 1970s an ordinary family could buy a modest house with a big back garden for the children to play in for the equivalent of 3 years median wages. Mothers could stay home with their babies and work part time afterwards. Now (for a much smaller block) it is 7 to 10 years wages. Is a greater variety of cheap ethnic restaurants for Rhian really worth a mother crying in a washroom because she had to leave her 3 month old baby to go back to work? In the 1970s when we had 13 million people, which was enough to support two major metropolis sized cities. Sydney had a symphony orchestra, an opera house, a world class museum, at least one world class university, all the diversity and ethnic restaurants you could want, and plenty of higher density housing. Rhian could freely pursue his chosen lifestyle, while other people followed theirs. Why does he want to ram high densities and diversity down the throats of people who would much rather do without them?

Divergence,

Have you considered this aspect of immigration: the vast majority of migrants upon arrival are, and for quite extended periods tend to remain, aliens. This applies also to the children, born overseas, of migrants. It is difficult at any given time to put a number to the people permanently resident in Australia who are Australian citizens. It is even more difficult to put a number to the people who are Australian citizens aged 18 or over. It is this latter subclass that constitutes the total possible size of the population eligible to enroll and vote.

Whilst ever there is a significantly large number of non-citizen migrants (currently believed to be well in excess of one million) it is difficult to know just how large the electorally eligible sub-class of the population is. It is consequently difficult to monitor whether the officially reported number of persons electorally enrolled at any one or number of times exceeds the theoretically possible, or even the statistically probable.

Was it ever to be that a mathematically and administratively skilled interest group took advantage of this situation in which it is difficult to audit true enrolment eligibility levels, it might be possible that such a group could get hold of what would amount to a massive bundle of proxy votes with which to covertly influence, or maybe even effectively control, national policy on an ongoing basis.

A "grey area" with respect to aggregate electoral enrolment eligibility numbers has existed in Australia since about 1950. Do you know of any studies that may have been done from this perspective? The sustained dogmatic adherence to high immigration policy in the face of nil net benefit in terms of other indicators needs some explanation. Could continued migration have been being promoted as a smokescreen for possible large-scale electoral enrolment improprieties?

Divergence - housing affordability is a problem, but population growth is not its cause. The Productivity Commission’s examination of home loan affordability for first home buyers concluded that “overall population growth has not been a key driver of recent rapid increases in house prices.” http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/housing/finalreport/housing.pdf, p.59).

Other recent analysis blames taxes and red tape rising prices (see for example http://www.ipa.org.au/files/MORAN Housing speech July 2005.pdf)

Migration's effects depend on circumstances. Even if migration does not yield economic benefits in the UK, as you suggest, that’s no reason to expect it wouldn’t here. Some Australian studies show the economic benefits are minor (e.g. the PC study you cite), others that they are substantial (e.g. Castles, Forster, Iredale, and Withers “Immigration and Australia: Myths and Realities”), but most independent and credible Australian studies show economic benefits.

Ludwig – I have no problem with Europe’s or the USA’s population densities, what I meant was that I don’t ‘advocate’ them here, in the sense of believing we should set a target of a much larger population and set policies to achieve that end. Advocates of much higher population in a short timeframe are as unrealistic and authoritarian as advocates of zero or negative population growth, in my experience. I don’t believe we should have any population target.

Resource constraints alone do not explain our population density being lower than the USA’s. Achieving higher population takes time, even for pro-growth countries. The Mayflower landed in 1660, and by the declaration of independence in 1776 America’s population was about 5 million. By 1830 – more than 200 years after the first white settlement – the population was 13 million, and by the civil war (1860s) about 30 million.

Adjusting for the fact that Europeans began settlement in the USA almost 170 years before Australia, our population growth since settlement has probably been a little faster that theirs.

Why do I support migration? Mainly because I enjoy the social and cultural benefits of membership of a diverse, dynamic, globally attuned society, which go far beyond the “greater variety of cheap ethnic restaurants” Divergence suggests is my motive