EcoRadio

Category: Population

  • Australia 2050 is a future we can’t afford

     

    Using figures from the government’s intergenerational report, Mr Thorpe and his colleagues have calculated Australia will need 6.9 million more homes to cope with a population of 36 million by 2050. This represents 82 per cent of our existing housing stock.

    Should Australians continue to rely on the car, the country will need 173,348 kilometres of new roads – a 51 per cent rise equivalent to the entire road network of Thailand.

    We would need 3254 new schools, 1370 new supermarkets and 1370 cinema screens.

    In dollar terms, the amount spent by both government and the private sector on infrastructure would need to increase by approximately $2.5 billion every year until 2050.

    The PWC economists say that while the government talks about increasing productivity, it makes no mention of the crucial role the national pool of savings plays in funding infrastructure.

    ”The banks rely quite heavily on the savings of individual people to provide capital for investment in infrastructure. Because as a nation our savings are currently quite low, there is a real risk that there will be a significant shortage of credit.”

    As a result, both the private sector and government have come to rely heavily on foreign capital. But the global credit crunch has dramatically lifted the costs of overseas borrowing, requiring government and companies to take on extra debt.

    The ageing population exacerbates this situation as older people contribute less to the savings pool, and tend to draw more from government coffers in the form of social security and healthcare.

    But a spokesman for the Treasurer, Wayne Swan, dismissed the analysis.

    ”Australia’s reputation as one of the most attractive investment destinations in the world allows it to access large savings pools of foreign investors … to fund high levels of investment in our own economy,” he said.

    ”We are able to be a net importer of capital because foreign investors are confident we use their capital so well.”

  • Europe is not heading for a population collapse.

     

    In addition, fertility rates in Europe are currently above 1.5 children per woman. As a rate of 2.1 is needed in the long run to replace population in the absence of migration, each European generation is reproducing about three-quarters of its number, not a half. In some of the richer countries – such as France, the UK and Sweden – the fertility rate is around 2.

    Pearce says: “Demographer Peter McDonald calculates that if Italy gets stuck with recent fertility levels, and fails to top up with foreign migrants, it will lose 86% of its population by the end of the century, falling to 8 million compared with today’s 56 million. Spain will lose 85%, Germany 83% and Greece 74%.” I ran such a scenario for Italy, using fertility data for 2007 when the total fertility rate there was at 1.37. This concluded that by 2100 Italy’s population would fall to 23 million, almost three times higher than McDonald’s reported number.

    This is all theory, however, since birth rates are notoriously unstable and Europe is likely to face continued immigration in the coming decades. For example, Spain has had low fertility rates since the 1980s, and many projections assumed its slow population demise.

    Instead, Spain witnessed an unprecedented immigration wave, and a gradual increase in birth rates. Despite low fertility, the Spanish population jumped fastest in Europe in the last decade, from 40 million to 46 million. There is no indication, save the short-term impact of the recent economic crisis, that this migration stream is going to end: since 2000 the EU has recorded a net migration gain of 15 million, more than during the previous four decades combined.

    There will be countries and regions that will suffer long-term depopulation due to low fertility and emigration – but a combination of the two phenomena is mostly concentrated in eastern Europe, particularly in eastern Germany, Bulgaria and Ukraine. But the European population will also continue to age, and some demographers predict that babies born in the first decade of this century will live to an average age of 100.

    Since the late 19th century, when a massive decline in birth rates began in most of Europe, some demographers and long-forgotten futurologists have been busy envisioning an inevitable demise of Europe and “western civilisation”. However, it is not population size but affluence and technology that make some countries more powerful than others. Switzerland, with a population of 8 million, is globally more significant than, say, Bangladesh, with a population 20 times larger. In any case, a slow decline in European population should be cheerfully welcomed by all who care about climate change and global pressure on resources.

  • Populate and we will perish

     

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    My view then was that Australia couldn’t have an immigration policy without first having a population policy. It hasn’t changed.

    The then minister for immigration, Phil Lynch, understood what I was on about. He set up an inquiry under Wilfred Borrie, but when Borrie eventually reported in 1978, no mention was made of population numbers.

    What surprises me is that Rudd has decided to support a massive increase without the matter being debated in public, the parliament, the party or the press. I am not alone in my concern.

    What advocates of big Australia haven’t yet done is spelt out clearly the benefits from such a huge population increase. In the early 1990s our annual growth rate, including immigration as well as births and deaths, dropped below 1 per cent. It is now, thanks to more babies and more people living longer, almost 2 per cent.

    With a population of 22 million, the deterioration in the quality of life in our cities is already obvious. Daily our media highlights the inadequacy of our schools, hospitals and transport system, housing and water shortages, and spiralling land prices. You don’t need to be an urban planner, demographer or sociologist to see the problems.

    If the 35 million predicted by 2050 is correct, with Sydney and Melbourne rising to seven million each, we are courting disaster. Double the population and life in the cities will be intolerable.

    No, no, say the big Australians, we can take millions more. We can but who will benefit? It is up to the big Australians to show how this will improve the quality of life for present and future generations of Australians.

    In the immediate post-war period, Australia, having just fought a war of survival with the Japanese, recognised that we could not occupy or defend a vast island continent with six million people. It may seem xenophobic today but fear of being swamped by the yellow peril before, during and after World War II was real enough. Most of these fears have now abated and, thankfully, with the end of the White Australia policy, most Australians recognise that our security is no longer dependent on increased population. If it is, what numbers will be necessary to repel the three billion who live to our near north? .

    The other reason given at the time was that a larger population would provide our manufacturers with the economies of scale. That may have had some validity then, but Australia’s economy now depends more on mining, tourism and agriculture as well as financial and educational services rather than manufacturing.

    The Prime Minister might also care to explain why the government is telling us we must reduce our carbon footprint while suggesting we should double the number of feet. We appear to be on two different planets. Some suggest that not to share our country with millions more immigrants is selfish and that we have the responsibility to help other countries to lighten their population load.

    Excuse me? What about helping them with population control?

    Why has it taken so long for this debate to take place? One reason is that the ethnic lobby brands anyone who questions immigration as racist. That won’t work with the type of people who are now entering the debate. People of the calibre of Dick Smith, Bob Carr and, if I may say so, yours truly can’t be so labelled.

    More and more Australians are speaking out on this issue and they will not be silenced out of fear of being blackguarded by those afraid to seriously debate the issue.

    The pundits suggest the federal election will be fought on the economy, climate change, health care and education. To that we can add population and immigration. It’s the big sleeper. Rudd and Tony Abbott take note. It will be a debate not about who comes to this country but how many.

    Barry Cohen was a minister in the Hawke government.

  • Opposition seeks migration rethink

    Opposition seeks migration rethink

    STEPHANIE PEATLING

    January 24, 2010

     

    AUSTRALIA should consider whether immigration levels can continue to remain at existing levels as part of a comprehensive population policy to determine how many people the country can support, the federal Opposition says.

    Infrastructure, housing and environmental sustainability should be considered when setting the numbers of people allowed to immigrate each year, immigration spokesman Scott Morrison said.

    ”Population policy is a legitimate debate we have to have and it should be free from any suggestion that it’s related to race,” Mr Morrison said.

    Population policy was a ”void” that needed to be filled, he said. ”It’s getting to the point where we can’t afford not to [have one]. We can’t just keep going as is.”

    Treasury modelling released last year forecast that the population would increase by more than half to 35 million by the middle of the century.

    The increases will come from migration, more women reaching child-bearing age and higher fertility rates.

     

    Prime Minister Kevin Rudd welcomed the modelling, saying he was in favour of a ”big Australia”. But it prompted criticism from Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson, who has asked whether Australia can support such a large number of people. Mr Thomson has called for dramatic cuts to immigration levels.

    Mr Morrison said he did not believe Australia should ”shut the door” to immigrants but ”given that immigration accounts for almost 60 per cent of population growth, we can do something about it”.

    He acknowledged population was a difficult issue because it was often railroaded into a debate about racism. ”I don’t want to see it frustrated by people either bringing that element to the debate or trying to stop that debate by attributing that motive to people,” Mr Morrison said. ”The debate is so tough because it’s so easy for people to bring that element into it.”

    Mr Morrison’s comments follow a speech given by Opposition Leader Tony Abbott on Friday night in which he said Australians were worried about the rise in the number of boat people, the ability of migrants to obey the law and the strain arrivals put on the nation’s resources.

    Mr Morrison called on state and local governments to take a greater role in planning for the numbers of people living in their areas. ”The Federal Government has to take responsibility for (immigration numbers) but state and local governments need to be more part of how that decision is made because they’re the ones who have to live with it,” he said.

    Concerns about roads, housing, the strain on the health system and environmental sustainability all needed to be considered as part of a population policy, he said.

  • PM warns of ageing population time bomb

     

    ”Unless we make big changes, we will either generate large, unsustainable budget deficits in the second quarter of the century, or else we’ll need to reduce government services, including health services, as the needs of an ageing population become greater,” Mr Rudd said.

    ”This is not just a challenge for future governments,” he said. ”It will also become a challenge for working families, because with a smaller proportion of Australians in the workforce, the size of the national economic pie will grow more slowly and, as a result, average family incomes will grow at a slower rate than we’ve become accustomed to.”

    The predictions, while dire, are slightly less pessimistic than those in the second such report, released by the then treasurer, Peter Costello, in April 2007. That projected there would be only 2.4 Australians of working age for every one over 65 by 2047, and a quarter of the population would be 65 or more by then.

    Mr Rudd said three sources could strengthen the economy – population, workforce participation and productivity growth.

    The report predicts the population will grow from 22 million now to 36 million by 2050. But Mr Rudd said with lower fertility rates and stable migration ratios, population policy would form only a small part of the solution. And even with lower barriers to women’s working, Treasury predicts workforce participation will fall from about 65 per cent now to about 60 per cent by 2050. This meant productivity growth would be central to generating economic growth, he said.

    Mr Rudd said the rate of productivity growth had hit 2 per cent in the 1990s, after the reforms of the Hawke-Keating governments. But in the past decade it dropped to 1.4 per cent.

    He said without a concerted effort to increase productivity, annual productivity growth would be only 1.6 per cent over 40 years. This meant annual economic growth would fall to 2.7 per cent, below the historical average of 3.3 per cent for the past 40 years.

    But, he said, a determined push could lift annual productivity growth to 2 per cent, which would raise average annual economic growth above 3 per cent. ”The high productivity path would result in our economy growing an extra 15 per cent by 2050,” Mr Rudd said.

    This would add about $570 billion to annual economic output in today’s dollar terms, leaving, on average, each person $16,000 a year better off.

    The director of Access Economics, Chris Richardson, said the speech was a ”scene-setter” for the coming Henry review of the tax system, which is expected to propose potentially unpopular changes. ”If you are going to convince people to do difficult stuff, you have to explain why,” he said.

    Mr Richardson said a 2 per cent productivity growth would be ”marvellous” but would require a unified government and Opposition committed to economic reform.

    ”I agree with the Government’s plans for achieving productivity growth. Things like education revolution, infrastructure are very important. But we have to pay for it.”

    with Jonathan Pearlman

  • Sydney, Melbourne can’t handle growth targets

     

    “If we don’t, not only will we have pretty awful cities in the future, but I believe we will never get the large cities that are being discussed, because they will be too dysfunctional and people will move away,” said Professor Newman from Curtin University’s Sustainability Policy Institute. “It’s a scenario not that far off now.”

     
     

      

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    Since Wayne Swan’s speech in October that confirmed the soon-to-be-published third Intergenerational Report projects Australia’s population to reach 35 million by 2049 from its current 22 million, the shape of the nation’s big cities has been much discussed.

    Treasury secretary Ken Henry told a business leader’s forum in Queensland in March the anticipated population expansion had “a host of implications for the Australian economy and society, and it raises a number of profound issues for economic policy”.

    “Where will these 13 million people live? In our current major cities and regional centres or in cities we haven’t yet even started to build?” Mr Henry asked.

    “How will Sydney cope with a 54 per cent increase in population, Melbourne a 74 per cent increase and Brisbane a 106 per cent increase? Surely not by continuing to expand their geographic footprints at the same rate as in the past several decades. Surely not by loading more cars and trucks on to road networks that can’t cope with today’s traffic.”

    The issue has engaged Kevin Rudd, who has not only met at least twice with capital-city lord mayors, but also demanded states and territories develop capital city strategic plans by 2012 that adhere to national criteria for transport, urban development and sustainability or risk future commonwealth infrastructure funding.

    Professor Newman, who is a board member of Infrastructure Australia, said the lack of public transport in new suburbs on the outskirts of major cities was “rapidly becoming a major social justice issue”.

    “The outer suburbs are less and less rail based and more and more car based, and as petrol goes up this hurts less well-off people most,” he said. “We’ve been building our cities around the car and it’s now catching up with us.”

    Professor Newman said, despite the continuing expansion of the big cities, “a lot of people’s preference would be to live in smaller houses more centrally located”.

    “But the options that are rolled out by developers continue to assume the market is for bigger and bigger houses on suburban blocks,” Professor Newman said.

    However, Bob Stimson, professor of geographical sciences and planning at the University of Queensland, says we “shouldn’t be scared of sprawl”.

    “There’s no shortage of land. Fringe housing developments create more affordable housing particularly for first-home buyers, and it creates the sort of housing that is still the preference for families,” Professor Stimson says.

    “One of the consequences of restricting sprawl and pushing more medium-density housing closer to the city centre is that it is socially discriminating. It pushes up the per-unit cost of housing and makes it less affordable for lower-income households.”

    While Professor Stimsonagrees with Professor Newman that urban rail transport is important, he says it shouldn’t be the sole focus. “So can a good freeway system. It’s not a matter of either/or, but both,” he said.

    Jane-Frances Kelly, program director for cities at the Grattan Institute, warned families buying into car-dependent outer suburbs might be basing their purchase on incorrect financial assumptions.

    “In these suburbs people have made the trade-off of affordability in terms of space, size of backyards etc against the lack of public transport, but that equation will change completely as the price of oil rises,” Ms Kelly says.

    Professor Newman said finding a solution was not a lost cause, with Perth’s public transport system a template for how things could work. “From 1992 until now, Perth has gone from seven million passengers a year to 115 million a year on rail. With the right processes you can generate change.”