Download Population - Department of the Environment

‘A sustainable population strategy for Australia issues paper’ – national consultation
Submission from Sustainable Jamboree
Contact: Ngaire McGaw
Sustainable Jamboree
PO Box 1066
Oxley Qld 4075
Ph 07 3375 7268
http://sustainablejamboree.org
Introductory comments
Sustainable Jamboree congratulates the Australian Government for putting the issue of a
sustainable population onto the agenda. It would be a grave mistake for Australia to strive for a
large population on the false assumption that it will be good for the economy.
We must quickly become more alerted to the stresses human beings are placing on the planet.
There is now some impetus to address the issue of population growth in ways that are socially
acceptable, diverse and sometime subtle. It is timely that we should now seek a more sustainable,
stable population given Australia’s population is growing at a record 2.1% per year which is nearly
six times the average for industrialised nations.
High profile personalities and leaders who have been trying to raise awareness on the issue in
recent years include:
 Scientists like David Suzuki and Charles Darwin
 Film maker David Attenborough
 Political thinkers like Martin Luther King, Bob Hawke, Bob Carr, and Barry Jones
None of the above have had their reputations tarnished because they entered into the debate
about high population growth.
There is some concern that the consultation around the Sustainable Population policy is occurring
separately and concurrently with the consultation on Sustainable Cities with the same deadline. The
concern is that separating the two issues presents a risk that themes won’t be integrated and policies
will suffer, particularly since the ‘Our Cities’ paper does discuss population so much. In any case, it’s
very unfair on those preparing submissions to have to prepare two separate submissions to two
separate discussion papers with each having been written very differently. Please note that Al Gore’s
‘Our Choice’ book includes a chapter on population, thus reinforcing this idea that the issue needs to be
addressed in concert with sustainability/climate change. It’s easy to see why it’s important to consider
population growth as part of the climate change agenda when you consider the following graph
contained in Al Gore’s book (Chapter 9 about population).
1
1200
1650
1850
2100
The above graph is taken from Al Gore’s book ‘Our Choice’ – an entire chapter is devoted to population as part of the
puzzle for addressing climate change.
The United Nations expects, in its low population estimate, nearly 8 billion people on Earth by 2050.
However the high projection, foresees some 10.5 billion people (UN Population Division Biennial
Report). Neither of these would seem sustainable given the existing levels of poverty, pollution and
resource depletion. It is also unfair to point the finger at developing countries as the biggest source of
population growth when Australia itself has been indulging in policies that have lead to a baby boom.
Population is an important issue to consider because there are now internationally recognised ethical
approaches shown to be effective towards stemming exponential population growth. These approaches
help gear societies towards a steady state economy which is one of relatively stable size. The steady
state economy is an entirely physical concept. Any non-physical components of an economy (e.g.,
knowledge) can grow indefinitely. But the physical components (e.g. supplies of natural resources,
human populations, and stocks of human-built capital) are constrained by the laws of physics and
beholden to ecological relationships (reference – Wikipedia).
It is a shame that the above ‘steady state’ concepts weren’t explored in the ‘Our Cities’ discussion
paper given we want a steady state economy but one that also grows the non-physical components like
2
innovation. Even mini baby booms in Australia can place great pressure on our economy (and
environment) as was explored by the ABC’s Background Briefing program back in Mach 2008 (refer
Appendix A).
Sensitivities and misunderstandings
We recognise that overpopulation can result from factors like:
 an increase in births,
 a decline in mortality rates due to medical advances,
 an increase in immigration,
 a decrease in emigration, or
 an unsustainably managed biome and
 depletion of resources.
Here’s a diagram to help illustrate this.
However, many myths and sensitivities surround the issue of population growth so Sustainable
Jamboree is particularly glad that these can now be tackled - hopefully in an ethical way which
does not divide our proudly diverse community.
We find it bemusing that anyone would consider population growth a ‘non issue’ given the obvious
pressures which exponential population growth has been having on:
 Ecosystems;
 Access to clean water;
 Food security;
 Economies; and
 Quality of life to name a few.
Many people don’t understand the mathematics of exponential growth and assume that if
we fall below the replacement rate at any time, this will send our population levels into rapid
decline. We need to translate these concepts into plain English.
The sheer complexity of all the factors that cause populations growth makes it challenging for
people to understand the debate so we need to help people participate in the debate by providing
pertinent and user-friendly information. At times we have seen first hand, some surprising
misconceptions about the reasons for population growth while facilitating a forum after a free public
screening of Dick Smith’s excellent film, the ‘Population Puzzle’, hosted by Sustainable Jamboree
in 2010.
3
Another aspect of population growth of which the general public can be surprisingly unaware, is
that the issue of population growth is inherently a pro-feminist one and one of defeating
poverty. This idea is widely accepted internationally by organisations like the United Nation’s
Population Fund - http://www.unfpa.org/public/.
Examples of international efforts to address poverty can be found in the Millennium Development
Goals.
Women’s rights/gender equity has progressed at least in so far as many women now have the right
to vote but there is a long way to go. For example, it’s high time we also gave all women the right
to contraception. The need to better support women here and abroad will be discussed later in this
document.
Framing the population debate
Sustainable Jamboree identifies the following key points which need to be clearly articulated in
order to arrest some of the destructive and unhelpful statements being made by uninformed people
on the topic of a sustainable population. Often the following statements are made by uninformed
parties that block efforts to frame a sensible debate for a sustainable population both here and
abroad.
4
We hope that the following table helps to challenge those in the community who so strongly reject
the need to or the notion of being able to steer a population towards more sustainable levels over
the short and longer term.
Unhelpful
comment
Commentary
Idea
‘You can’t stop growth’
This is a claim being made the proponents of a strong population growth. They
use it in a way that suggests that somebody is calling for all kinds of physical
and fiscal growth to be entirely stopped or reversed whereas many proponents
of a sustainable population quote internationally reputable economists who are
calling for us to work towards what is widely known as a ‘steady state
economy’ (defined earlier in this document).
The problem with the idea of limitless and unfettered growth in human
settlements is that there is a perception that our planet can provide unlimited
resources. The Global Footprint Initiative shows that many industrialised
nations are living as if there were at least four earths available.
Unhelpful
comment
Commentary
‘You can’t stop people from having babies’
Again this is being used in a way which attempts to make the proponents of a
sustainable population appear foolish, controlling or supportive of a Chinese
style ‘one child policy.’
Most proponents of a sustainable Australia are not seeking to control births at
all - rather they seek to challenge cultural norms or to address the underlying
reasons why some communities seek large families as a form of insurance to
support them as they age.
International options to influence family size
For decades now, there have been encouraging inroads made into influencing
family size through anti-poverty interventions, family planning, maternal and
child health initiatives and programs to empower women around the world for
decades now. Some of these are being led by reputable international
community programs funded through the United Nations Population Fund
(UNFPA).
http://www.unfpa.org/public/.
One recent television fundraising and awareness campaign www.plan.org .au
explains beautifully why it’s important to support women (although they don’t
explicitly highlight the key outcome as one way to help address the underlying
causes of runaway population growth).
Local options to influence population size
In the Australia there have been policies in place which are strongly suspected
of playing a major role to boost our birth rate (reference: Kolling Institute of
Medical Research, University of Sydney, July 2008, Population Health
Congress, Brisbane):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20218993?dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19296785?dopt=Abstract
5
This suggests that policies like the baby bonus policies should be removed,
refined or at least re-badged so as not to convince people they should have
more babies than they would normally plan. There has been some progress in
that the baby bonus is no longer a lump sum.
Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) has a list of credible policy options that
together could help to slow down Australia’s population rate to a more
sustainable level without negatively impacting on sustainable forms of
economic growth. (Note that SPA’s patrons include Ian Lowe and Tim
Flannery).
While family size continues to be a private choice made in the context of many
factors, often these choices are not made in an informed way which anticipates
the likely impact on either the family itself or the broader community.
With the right, ethical, sensitive approach, these choices are possible to
influence, at least for a proportion of our community. For example, this could
happen at the individual level through experienced and qualified family
planning practitioners or at a policy level by reframing or removing incentives
for having more children.
http://www.unfpa.org/rh/planning/mediakit/docs/new_docs/sheet4-english.pdf
Misconception
Commentary
People who call for a sustainable population are really racist
This cannot be assumed. Many people calling for a sustainable population
would actually like to see more support for genuine refugees and migrants from
countries with responsible population policies. We will increasingly need to
accommodate climate refugees rather than taking highly skilled professionals
from countries that need them more badly than Australia does.
The concerning thing about taking too many immigrants is that they often adopt
Australia’s carbon footprint. Even British migrants triple their emissions when
they arrive in Australia. Consequently population policy needs to happen
together with strong climate change policies.
Myth
Debunked
Countries with high rates of population are more successful and have stronger
economies
In contrast with the above, there are clear examples of economic success in
countries with low population growth.
Ireland, Iceland and the US have high population growth rates and are in
financial strife. Meanwhile, Norway and Sweden have relatively low population
growth rates and enjoy excellent GDP figures.
The World Bank has an online book on their website, ‘Beyond Economic
Growth’ (2000) which explores what a sustainable economy should look like:
http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/beyond/beyond.htm
In 2010, this podcast entitled ‘A world beyond economic growth’, Andrew
Simms explores the benefits of a world that has moved beyond economic
growth. Featuring interviews with Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; Adair Turner, chair of the
Financial Services Authority; Professor Richard Wilkinson, co-author of The
Spirit Level; Larry Elliott, Economics Editor at the Guardian. This programme
was originally created for the BBC's World Tonight.
http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2010/12/21/a-world-beyond-economic6
growth
Myth/misconcepti
on
Commentary
We need more people to help with our skills shortage, the costs of an ageing
population and workforce issues associated with the imminent retirement of the
baby boomers.
With the proper planning and reworking of fiscal priorities, it should be possible
to manage the above. Here are just a couple of reasons why we should try to
manage these issue rather than use the quick fix crisis response of bringing
more and more immigrants:



Skilled migrants may have skills which are desperately needed in their
country of origin;
Australians who are out of work can be trained in areas of need with the
right kinds of support programs and incentives; and
The higher the population growth, the more likely that the issues of an
ageing population will get worse and worse over time, from generation
to generation.
Countries like Japan are addressing their ageing population through all kinds of
innovations.
Myth
Our ecosystems can handle a very large population approaching 50 million by
2050. We are the land of plenty. Mother nature can regenerate herself and we
can plant trees.
Australia is one of the driest places on earth and already we’ve had a history of
climate extremes like flood, bushfires, drought and cyclones.
Natural regeneration can take place but can’t keep up with the current pace of
environmental degradation and our unsustainable use of the planet’s
resources.
Myth
The perception that we are a land of plenty has been made by those ignorant
of the environmental damage already done and the growing risks to our water
and food supplies. City-dwellers in particular are so disconnected from the
natural world that they are not noticing the pressures on an ecosystem which is
the life support system we take for granted on a grand scale.
Population has nothing to do with climate change action and emissions
Refer to the graph from Al Gore’s book ‘Our Choice’ – page 2 of this
submission.
As Al Gore’s graph shows, population growth has tracked closely with growth
in greenhouse gas emissions. Since people create emissions, population
clearly has plenty to do with it, even if we manage to lower our emissions per
person (and improve equity across the world in terms of emissions per person).
From a mathematical point of view and put simply, the emissions total for each
country is made up of average emissions per person multiplied by the number
of persons. So we could halve our emissions per person and be fighting a
losing battle if our population growth rate is too high.
Climate change action is taking place at a very slow rate and emissions are
known to be growing, despite the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Therefore it’s
time to look at all the factors at play, including population growth.
Aside from the issue of climate change, human settlements are known to be
competing too fiercely with other life forms, causing extinctions and other risks
7
Myth
by destroying habitat, irreversibly damaging natural landscapes and diverting
natural waterways.
We can build our way out of any increased infrastructure demands in terms of
road and other types of infrastructure
Commentary
The above is extracted from work by Dr Jane O’Sullivan as outlined at:
http://www.lgaq.asn.au/c/document_library/get_file?p_l_id=621228&fileShortcu
tId=672191
The following ideas associated with the above by Dr O’Sullivan are cited at:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2010/s2974890.htm
“MARK O'CONNOR: All advanced nations struggle with infrastructure and
there is a simple way of thinking about what the problem is.
Infrastructure lasts about 50 years, which means that with a stable population which is what most advanced countries basically have - you have got to
replace about 2 per cent of it a year and it’s a very, very large amount of GDP
has to go to it.
If you have a population growing at 2 per cent a year then just to stay in place
and not have things get worse you have got to spend double the amount on
infrastructure - and by a standard economist's rule of thumb that's well
explained by Jane O'Sullivan from the University of Queensland - you then
have to use about a quarter of all GDP has got to be extracted from the
taxpayer and put into infrastructure.
And that ain't possible. That is why none of these places where you have got
rapid population growth are actually keeping up with infrastructure despite all
the optimistic talk that we hear.”
8
Comments / responses to guiding questions
Sustainable Jamboree has the following comments to offer in respond to the template of guiding
questions. Some of these questions we have not answered because we are writing as a group and
don’t always agree that some of the questions asked through the consultation are even helpful to
inform policy development.
Q1: What issues do you think a Sustainable Population Strategy for Australia should
address?
Strategies should at least address immigration and births. Some also consider that access to legal
voluntary euthanasia and pregnancy terminations also play a role and aside from the population
issue, are can be justified from the perspectives of public health, women’s rights, compassion and
so on.
It’s important to consider both immigration and births as is clear from the following - the Australian
Bureau of Statistics released a media release on 24/6/08 which highlighted:




Australia's population grew at its fastest rate since 1988
Growth rate for Australia during 2007 was 1.6% (or 331,900 people)
Net overseas migration contributed more than half the population increase (184,400 people or
56%)
Natural increase (the excess of births over deaths) added a further 147,400 people (or 44%).
On 15 August 2008, the resident population of Australia is projected to be: 21,393,372
Source: ABS
A strategy should draw on research about what Australia’s actual carrying capacity is. For
example:
•
•
•
Tim Flannery says we reached our carrying capacity in the early 1980s
Ian Lowe says we could still take 60,000 immigrants a year (conditionally), 1/3 of current
intake
There are more theories in Australian Parliamentary Library paper: Research Paper 5
1999-2000
Peter Costello undertook a very damaging exercise in social engineering when the baby bonus
was introduced. At the same time he famously instructed families to have a third child for their
country (Intergenerational Report presentation 2004). A spike in births occurred after these
developments (reference: Kolling Institute of Medical Research, University of Sydney, July 2008,
Population Health Congress, Brisbane):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20218993?dopt=Abstract
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19296785?dopt=Abstract
It is likely that policies will be needed to counteract these damaging attempts at social engineering.
While these may also be perceived as social engineering, arguments need to be formulated to
explain clearly why they are needed and why they are consistent with the legitimate role of
government.
9
Photo above: David Caird, source Herald Sun.
Costello’s action gained international attention when Dr David Suzuki visited Australia. Dr Suzuki
said the following in a radio interview:
Suzuki: You know I was shocked to find that you have got a Minister in the Federal Cabinet
here (Treasurer Peter Costello) who is encouraging Australians to have more and more
children.
…everybody thinks that in order to keep the economy growing forever you have got to have a
growing population to keep that economy growing…
Journalist: So you are saying Australia is overpopulated?
Suzuki: You bet.
Source: Interview with radio station 6PR, 22 Sept 2006
Tools to achieve a population target
We strongly disagree that ‘Governments have limited practical tools to achieve a population target’
as flagged in page 6 of the issues paper.
A range of tools are outlined in the policy paper of Sustainable Population Australia available at:
www.population.org.au
Apart from those mentioned in this document and those by Kelvin Thompson MP in his 14 point
plan, the policy could:
 Avoid future skills shortages through the education revolution and cut skilled migration
(especially from developing countries who need the skills more than we do)
 Support parents, particularly women, who choose to juggle work and family
 Support employers to support working parents stay in the workforce / remain connected
with the workforce
 Undertake awareness raising – eg challenge cultural norms which are biased against single
child families (there are a number of midwife columnists/authors and radio presenters from
the ABC who have made efforts in this regard in the recent past in the mainstream media)
 Improve funding for higher profile family planning
 Work at a global level to combat poverty, empower women and other issues – for example
those raised in Al Gore’s book ‘Our Choice’ (which includes a chapter on population).
10
Dame Dr Jane Goodall, primatologist, ethicist and UN “Messenger of Peace”, has beautifully called
for efforts to address population has called attention to this with a compassionate approach to
address population growth: http://growthmadness.org/2007/11/30/jane-goodall-on-overpopulation/
A population policy for Australia would need to draw on Dr Goodall’s words and learn from
mistakes of previous attempts to ‘control’ population and could include:








Ethical Principles
Clarity on what it’s not intending (eg media or social bias against anyone with a particular
family size)
Data/research component (to ensure monitoring, evidence based policy with continual
quality improvement)
Links with a wide range of portfolios (an ABC radio show from Background Briefing, March
2008, illustrated the disjointed decision-making undertaken to date)
Input from a wide range of professions (from statisticians to social planners to health
workers to educators and all workplaces with potential parents on staff)
Implementable work program
A communications plan (eg attempt to confront myths, explain why exponential population
growth is harming the planet, ask everyone to participate in ongoing efforts in a sensitive
way)
Mechanism for public consultation/debate
The policy could strive for:




Early action rather than putting things off til it’s too late
A steady state economy (eg mindful of references like ‘Limits to Growth’ and ‘Common
Wealth’
Broader social and political awareness of the complexities of the issue of population growth
An ethical and cooperative approach and continued reductions for our ecological footprint,
reduce consumption, reduce reliance on the earth’s finite resources etc.
In the context of climate change, we need wide-ranging social and political action that recognises
that the following impact on total emissions: population size + emissions per capita.
Any policy needs to look at ways to remove perverse incentives that encourage people to plan
large families. They could be replaced with systems for identifying families at risk – that is, we
should avoid automatic payments for large families and develop a welfare system with safety nets
for those caught in vulnerable circumstances (rather than wave a carrot for those who would make
family decisions based on financial incentives).
11
Population and the Environment:
Q2: What do you think are the key indicators of an environmentally sustainable community?
This is the million dollar question and there have been plenty of experts in ecology and
environmental science who have made attempts at this.
Internationally, organisations like the Global Footprint Network already have a series of indicators
which would be important to consider.
We need to recognise that an environmentally sustainable community is mindful of the following
framework (see below).


Q3: How have changes in the population impacted on your local environment?
Australians use natural resources at a rate which would suggest we think we have access to the
resources of around 4 earths. This is compounded by population growth, traffic congestion,
housing pressure, pollution, shrinking green space and so on.
Negative environmental and social pressures result from escalating human population. Less
money is available to provide decent care to the most vulnerable in society and too much is
invested in things like roads just to keep up the pace with growth.
An ABC radio program from Background Briefing, March 2008, summarises the issues well
(transcript attached – Appendix A).
Q4: How might technological or governance improvements mitigate the environmental
impacts of population growth?
Reducing the ecological footprint of Australians is very important given we are among the worst in
the world.
However, technical measures only deliver marginal or short term benefits when you consider how
fast our population is growing, how depleted our environment has become and how limited we our
by the size of our planet.
Even low emissions communities like the Amish, have found that population growth is having an
impact on the environment, access to space and ability to provide for families.
Q5: How do population driven changes in your local economy affect your environment?
Population growth is causing conflict in the community where governments are trying to build
higher density housing at train stations but residents won’t even agree to just five storeys. This ‘not
12
in my back yard’ (NIMBY) attitude shows that planning for growth will get increasingly difficult. Also,
by supplying housing to meet the demand, we risk causing supply induced demand. That is, by
allowing more and more housing and development, we encourage people to move here. On the
other hand, we do need to avoid urban sprawl (given those on the outer suburbs are
disadvantaged) and we need higher density neighbourhoods for greater public transport efficiency
for a lower carbon footprint. Clearly a difficult dilemma emerges.
We have seen major redevelopments of bigger and bigger shopping centres for bigger and bigger
populations. These are causing an array of environmental and increasing local car use. A retail
focussed economy is not good for carbon emissions given what we know about ‘The Story of Stuff’
and the embodied energy in the large number of things we consume.
Q6: What lessons have we learnt that will help us to better manage the impacts of
population change on the environment?
We know that population increases places pressure on water and food supplies, land supply and
infrastructure provision, especially when it happens in a rush.
Refer also to work by Dr Jane O’Sullivan on page 8 of this submission.
Obviously reducing our ecological footprint per person is therefore important. It’s also likely that we
need more compact cities that don’t continue to sprawl. On the other hand a compact city needs to
be designed very well since we don’t want to find ourselves in a concrete jungle and living in
energy intensive high rise. We need to encourage a shift away from large houses on big blocks in
cul-de-sacs although this will be a difficult transition. Nevertheless it is one that is increasingly
essential to maximise use of available space for housing, transport infrastructure and so on.
On the positive side, the Queensland Government has made some progress on sustainable
housing design which encourages developers – for example, they highlight the need to consider
that people may be over 50 years of age with less mobility and diminishing eyesight. This is just
one example of how we can respond to an ageing population.
Population and the economy:
Q7: What do you see as the defining characteristics of a flourishing and sustainable
economy?
The Courier Mail’s journalist Brian Williams reported on 8 Jan 2011 that it has been shown that
countries with low population growth are prosperous in comparison to those with high population
growth as is the case in Australia.
“IRELAND, Iceland and the US have high population growth rates and are in
financial strife, says Sustainable Population Australia spokesman Simon Baltais
(pictured). Meanwhile, Norway and Sweden have relatively low population growth
rates and enjoy excellent GDP figures. While the economic performances of these
countries bear closer scrutiny, there's no doubting population growth is not the
panacea for the economy.”
http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/people-its-not-that-difficult/story-fn6ck6201225983964925
Q8: Is your community, business or industry facing skills shortages or other immediate
economic pressures, and how are these best managed?
Skills shortages are best managed by industries taking responsibility for training people up. The
culture in workplaces in recent years has been to reduce investment in training and supervision.
This may be more difficult now as Generation Y tends to spend no more than two years in any one
13
job. As a country we should be able to internally plan for skill needs and manage our industries
with the necessary incentives to draw the right people to where they are needed.
Q9: In the decades to come, what challenges and opportunities will our economy face, and
how will they interact with changes in our population?
Our economy is under pressure from our growing population and many economists who challenge
the dominate values of their profession are starting to voice this concern.
Respectable authors (often economists) on this topic include the following:
Economist, Malthus (200 yrs ago)
1968: The Population Bomb, Ehrlich.
1972 etc: The Limits to Growth, Meadows et al
2002: The Crowded Greenhouse: Population, Climate Change, and Creating a Sustainable World
by Firor & Jacobsen
2005: Population and Climate Change, by O'Neill et al, Cambridge Uni Press
2008: More: Population, Nature, and What Women Want, by Engelman (Worldwatch Institute)
2008: Common Wealth – Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey Sachs (see cover of Time
Magazine below)
Growth Fetish by Clive Hamilton, A Big Fix by Ian Lowe and Overloading Australia by Mark
O’Connor and William Lines are other examples of good quality books that deal with this topic.
At left: 2008 cover of
Time – featuring
Jeffrey Sachs’
‘Crowded Planet’
14
Q10: How should we measure the sustainability of our local, regional and national
economies?
We should not be looking for growth, rather we should be pursuing a steady state. This goes
against the grain of greed and the usual principles of a market economy but things like GDP have
been over-valued in the past whereas perhaps we should look towards a less consumer based and
more collective society interested in our ‘Gross Domestic Happiness’ and a positive triple bottom
line.
The Global Footprint Initiative has done work on measuring sustainability and there are increasing
numbers of corporations signing up for programs like the Global Reporting Initiative which
measures environmental performance and corporate social sustainability. The Global Reporting
Initiative (GRI)1 now has a strong global presence including an office in the USA which attracts
donations from the major accounting firms.2 The GRI is now linked to the United Nation’s Global
Compact3,4 through which over 1,500 organisations from 60 countries using the Guidelines to
produce their sustainability reports5. The Australian mechanism for listed companies to be
scrutinised is through the AuSSI SAM Sustainability Index which includes the top 40 percent
sustainable companies from a list of 193 listed Australian companies6. The European Union is also
making particular headway to establish effective performance indicators across the broad areas
that sustainability can cover7,8. Developments like the Sustainability Accounting, Management and
Policy Journal and businesses for ‘ethical investment’ also provide further indications that
sustainability in business is an emerging priority in terms of quality management, transparency and
accountability in the workplace.
As one example, the participation of women in the workforce and in boardrooms should be a key
indicator for economic sustainability.
Q11: What are the things that make your community a good place to live?
Ecological services are critical to ensuring we have a good place to live with food, water and no
threats to our homes resulting from extreme climate events.
Other things that are important include (but are not limited to) cohesiveness, access to green
space and community meeting rooms, access to culture and recreation, convenient access to
services and things like public transport.
Access to major shopping centres and road space should no longer be considered necessary for a
good life. There’s much work to be done to offer people an appealing alternative (already
experienced by other countries). For example Switzerland has planned for smaller local shops
rather than allow the proliferation of large sprawling shopping centres.
1
Isaksson,R. And Steimle,U. 2009. What does GRI-reporting tell us about corporate sustainability?, The TQM Journal,
Vol. 21 Iss: 2, pp.168 - 181
2 Media release Global Reporting Initiative 13 October 2010
http://www.globalreporting.org/NewsEventsPress/PressResources/2010/FocalPointUSA.htm
3 United Nations Global Compact http://www.unglobalcompact.org/ [accessed Nov 2010]
4 Adams, C. and Petrella, L. 2010. Collaboration, connections and change: The UN Global Compact, the Global
Reporting Initiative, Principles for Responsible Management Education and the Globally Responsible Leadership
Initiative, Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, Vol. 1 Iss: 2, pp.292 – 296.
5 Wikipedia entry for the Global Reporting Initiative accessed Nov 2010
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Reporting_Initiative
6 Aussi SAM index http://www.aussi.net.au/ [accessed Nov 2010]
7 Rametsteiner, E., Pülzl, H., Alkan-Olsson, J. and Frederiksen, P. 2010. ‘Sustainability indicator development —
Science or political negotiation?’ Ecological Indicators Journal, Vol.11,Iss.1;p.6.
8 Schaltegger, S. and Burritt, R.L. 2010. ‘Sustainability accounting for companies: Catchphrase or decision support for
business leaders?’ Journal of World Business, Vol.45, Issue.4; p.375.
15
Q12: How have changes in the population changed the way you live your life?
This is a question better answered by individuals responding rather than a group of individuals.
Clearly population growth has a range of negative impacts on a community’s quality of life.
Q13: What sustainability issues need to be addressed in order for your community to
accommodate a changing Australian population?
Lack of quality affordable housing, social infrastructure and aged care facilities are already evident.
An ageing population is proving to be distressing for those trying to find a place for loved ones
when they must find $300k to pay for it in some cases. There is also a chronic shortage of
assistance for migrants of non-English speaking backgrounds which remains a concern regardless
of what our immigration policy looks like at any given time.
Q14: What are some useful indicators to help measure the liveability and sustainability of
our communities?
Refer to the response under question Q2.
[Submission ends]
16
Appendix A
ABC Radio “Australia’s new baby boom” 23 March 2008
SOUND OF CHILDREN SPLASHING
Rachel Carbonell: Have you looked around you this year, at the local shops, the beach or the pool, and
wondered if there are more kids around?
Well there are. Australia is in the midst of a new baby boom.
Despite years of talk about our record low fertility rate, the birth rate has taken a sharp turn upwards, and its
caught governments completely by surprise. The increase in births is putting massive and unexpected strain
on maternity and early childhood services and infrastructure.
In Victoria, for example, they've hit 70,000 births a year, something they weren't expecting until 2020
Maxine Morand: And this is way, way above any predictions that any of the demographic work that had been
done by the Commonwealth and by our own State demographers. So we were surprised.
Rachel Carbonell: That's Maxine Morand, the Victorian Minister for Children and Early Childhood
Development, who admits the government has been shocked by the numbers.
Hello, I'm Rachel Carbonell, and Background Briefing this week takes a look at the new baby boom, how big
it is, how long it will last and how it fits into the increasingly controversial debate about population policy in
this country.
Genevieve Heard is from the Centre for Population and Urban Research at Monash University.
Genevieve Heard: Currently we have the people responsible for maternity hospitals and services coming to
us saying, 'What's going on? We seem to have ever-increasing numbers of births and we thought there was
still a decline.' Next we're going to have the childcare centres coming to us and asking the same thing, the
pre-schools, the kindergartens the Department of Education, and eventually 70 or 80 years down the track
it's going to be the Old People's Homes and the Funeral Parlours that need to deal within the facts of
increased birth cohorts.
Rachel Carbonell: This young family playing at their local swimming pool is typical of the demographic driving
the baby boom.
Honi Travers: I'm Honi Travers, and my partner's Rod Priest. I have two daughters, Elsie Priest and Sashe
Priest. I'm 33, Rod's Rod Priest: 35.
Honi Travers: Turning 36 soon. Elsie's 18-and-a-half months and Sashe is seven weeks.
Rachel Carbonell: How did you come to decide to have a baby?
Honi Travers: Oh. Well, we didn't really decide directly. We had discussed probably six months earlier that
we were happy together and if we fell pregnant, we'd be happy to have a child together. And from there it
pretty much snowballed and we fell pregnant in the next few months.
Rachel Carbonell: Honi Travers is what demographers call an 'older mother'. She's like many women in their
30s who have put off starting a family much longer than previous generations and are now having a baby,
and then often another one, in quick succession.
She and her family live in the City of Moreland, a municipality in inner Melbourne, which is also experiencing
some of the biggest jumps in the birth rate.
Jenny Merkus is the head of the Maternal and Child Health Services in this area.
17
Jenny Merkus: Well I think the staff have found it difficult because they've experienced the pressure of
having increased demand, and before we could react, because we weren't predicting this increase, they
were experiencing the demand. So there was a bit of a lag in us saying 'Oh my gosh there's more births than
we were expecting.'
Rachel Carbonell: There's debate about whether the blow-out in birth numbers is merely a short-term catchup effect, as women who were putting off starting families in their 20s, hit their 30s, or if there's more to it.
The Director of the Demographic and Social Research Institute at the Australian National University,
Professor Peter McDonald, says much of it is women catching up.
Peter McDonald: There is certainly an increase in births, and a substantial increase in births, of the order of
about 25,000 to 30,000 a year. My view is that this will continue and so as it continues over a longer period
of time, I think it does become something of a baby boom.
Rachel Carbonell: And what do you think is causing this increase in births?
Peter McDonald: Well the statistics show that the increase in births has been primarily among women over
the age of 30, and also women living in middle to higher status socioeconomic areas. What that says to me
is that women who have been delaying their births, and those are the women who were delaying births, are
now having their births. And that's not surprising, given that we've had a considerable social debate about
delaying births, that there is a risk that you won't be able to have the births that you want to have. The
amount of debate about the biological capacity to reproduce in your late 30s, it's been very prominent in
Australia, in all the women's magazines and in the newspapers, more than any other country.
Rachel Carbonell: Professor Peter McDonald says this debate is influencing women to start having children
slightly younger, and that this is an additional factor that will push the baby boom on for longer.
So as this wave of mothers finishes having their families, the next will come through faster because they're
slightly younger.
Peter McDonald: Well yes, I think the baby boom is going to continue, particularly because there is a slight
drop in the age of first birth I think going on. My prediction would be that the baby boom will continue for a
decade or so. After that, you're talking about well, what are girls who are now 15 going to do, and that's a
little bit hard to tell.
Rachel Carbonell: There are other reasons why so many women are having babies at the moment. Some
trace it back to Peter Costello, the former Federal Treasurer, and his enthusiasm for a bigger birth rate in
Australia.
Peter Costello: If you can have children, it's a good thing to do. You know, you should have, if you can, not
everyone can, but one for your husband, and one for your wife, and one for the country. You go home and
do your patriotic duty tonight.
Rachel Carbonell: Peter Costello also brought in the baby bonus, which will increase to $5,000 this year for
each family, for each baby, regardless of their income or assets.
People were initially inclined to think the increase in births in Australia was because of the baby bonus. But
it's now thought the baby bonus is part of a much bigger family policy picture that's helping to induce people
to have children.
Peter McDonald from the ANU.
18
Peter McDonald: The baby bonus was of course was spectacular, but the family tax benefits have also been
increased, and the child care payments, it's all relatively generous, compared to, say, a decade ago. And the
government policy has a kind of direct impact that the childcare is there, and doesn't cost you quite as much,
but it also has a psychological impact. That is, that people in having births, have a sense that the
government and the society values their contribution.
Rachel Carbonell: A recent study by the Australian Institute of Family Studies had some interesting results,
which support the notion that economic security is an important factor for couples wanting to start a family.
The Deputy Director of the Institute is Matthew Gray.
Matthew Gray: About 3,000 people were interviewed about how many children they'd had, whether they'd
had children, their views about how many children they'd like to have, what affected their decisions. And
what was very clear about that was that the ideal family size was well above replacement rate, between 21/2 and 3, and it was fairly similar for men and women. But the number of children they expected to have
was below that, and the number they actually have is below that again. So the desired, or the ideal family
size is significantly larger than what people actually achieve on the whole.
Rachel Carbonell: Did the study go at all to why?
Matthew Gray: When we asked them what factors were important in their decisions about having children,
the number one factor for men and women were the costs of children. And the second factor was whether
they would make a good parent and whether their partner would make a good parent. And the security of the
potential fathers' job and income was important.
Rachel Carbonell: Economic security is certainly important for Honi and Rod, the parents who were
discussing their family decisions with Background Briefing at their local swimming pool recently.
Rod Priest: I think just the cost more than anything, and being able to support more than two children is just
financially out of our scope at this point in time. It's pretty much what it boils down to.
Honi Travers: Rod and I are very different in that he's a realist and I'm more of a romantic, so for me I would
be happy to, say if I did fall pregnant, then bless, and you know, you cope and you take it as it comes. But I
have a partner who's very realistic and looks into the future of 50 years, so he does see financially it to be
something would mean we'd have to be working pretty steadily to get ahead. And he wants to have a bit
more quality of life and to be around with his kids, and that's fair enough I think.
Rachel Carbonell: When you talk to different demographers, they all give different opinions on the drivers
behind the new baby boom.
Genevieve Heard, from Monash University, isn't convinced that family friendly government policies are such
big factors.
Genevieve Heard: Yes, I'm a little bit sceptical of that interpretation. I think if we're looking closely at the data
and we'd say well what changed between when fertility was decreasing in the years prior to 2001, and what's
going on now in the years since 2001. I think it's very hard to say that there was any paradigm shift in
attitudes to mothering or parenting, or any real policy shift that we can point to and say that would make
women feel happier about having more children, or families feel happier about having more children.
19
Rachel Carbonell: Genevieve Heard says it's possible far more frivolous power could be at play, like the
influence of celebrity role models.
Reporter: We have some potential breaking baby news to report to you: rumours began to fly Saturday night
when movie stars like mega-mum Angelina Jolie showed off what appeared to be a baby bump at the Spirit
Awards in California. If she is indeed pregnant, the baby would be the fifth in the Brangelina litter ...
News Presenter: As she emerged from a Sydney restaurant, Nicole Kidman all but confirmed she is
pregnant.
Reporter: Congratulations, how are you feeling?
Nicole Kidman: Very excited.
News Presenter: She and Keith Urban, her country music star husband, apparently told her parents over the
Christmas holidays.
Genevieve Heard: I do think it's entirely possible that fashion has something to do with it. That having babies
has come back in fashion, to a certain extent. Some people have pointed to what celebrities are doing, and
I'm not usually up with that, but apparently there are all these celebrity births that have an impact on people
psychologically. I just think that if people do start having more children, then that can very quickly affect the
culture of our society, and sort of might have a snowball effect. So once there's a small increase in fertility,
there might be a bigger increase in fertility.
Rachel Carbonell: The national fertility rate hit its lowest point in 2001. In 2004 it plateaued and since then
it's been climbing back up again. The fertility rate has risen from 1.73 to 1.85 babies per woman, which
doesn't sound like much, but it translates as an extra 30,000 babies in Australia each year.
Australians are still having smaller families than they used to, and many predict that the long-term fertility
trend will still be downwards. But if the fertility rate stabilises at what it is now, or even declines a little, birth
numbers are going to keep rising for quite some time.
Genevieve Heard again.
Genevieve Heard: Birth numbers will continue to increase throughout this century even if the fertility rate
stays at the same as it was in 2006. And even if it goes down a little bit, because of the in-built momentum of
a growing population, birth numbers are going to increase unless we have a fairly drastic decrease in fertility
again in subsequent decades.
Rachel Carbonell: Yet Australia's most experienced demographers can't be sure what the long-term trend for
fertility will be.
Which is a problem for Federal, State and Local governments. They need to know how long this baby boom
is going to go on, how many babies are being born, where they're being born and who is having them, in
order to get the right services and infrastructure in place.
Maternity and Early Childhood services are already well behind, and many argue, frighteningly so.
20
The Royal Women's Hospital is on the edge of Melbourne's CBD. It's 150 years old and one of the largest
maternity hospitals in Australia.
Communications Director, Mandy Frostick says over the last six or seven years, the number of births at the
Women's has increased by more than 1600 each year.
Mandy Frostick: Well we had had a seven-year continuous decline in birth numbers up until 2001, and that
largely reflected national birth rate trends at the time. But since 2001, we've actually had a 20% increase in
birth numbers here at the Women's.
Rachel Carbonell: Back when the birth rate was still going down, the Victorian government considered
decommissioning the hospital. So it's almost pure luck that it's still around to help meet the demand created
by the new baby boom.
Mandy Frostick: We've had a seven year decline in birth numbers, and at the time there was talking about
whether or not the Royal Women's Hospital, Australian's first Women's Hospital, should even rebuilt. Was
there a need for it? And I think we were very fortunate that that decision was made at that time, because if
you just judged the Women's Hospital on the falling birth rate, national birth rate, it may have been a different
outcome.
Rachel Carbonell: The baby boom is Australia-wide, in city and country areas. It's not evenly spread, there
are some areas where the birth rate has gone down, but overall it's gone up, dramatically.
Of all the States and Territories, Victoria has had the biggest increase in the number of births since 2001.
And it provides a clear snapshot of the challenges the new baby boom is creating across the country.
The magnitude of the increase in babies was evident in the 2006 census data. Since those figures were
released the Victorian government has uncovered more recent data, which shows the baby boom is even
bigger than the census figures indicated.
Maxine Morand is the Victorian Minister for Children and Early Childhood Development.
Maxine Morand: We've been aware there's been an increase in the birth rate since around 2001, but the
increase in the last two years has been much, much higher than we predicted. Last year in Victoria we had
over 70,000 births, and we have predicted around 63,000 births. This is the highest number of births there's
been in Victoria for 35 years. We weren't expecting there to be over 70,000 births until around 20202, and
the ABS, as you know, do a series of projections that are sort of low, medium and high projections, and this
is way, way above any of the predictions that any of the demographic work that had been done both by the
Commonwealth and by our own State demographers. So we were surprised. We were completely shocked,
because ...
Rachel Carbonell: The Victorian government has commissioned the Monash University Centre for Population
and Urban Research to do some projections for them. This work hasn't yet been publicly released.
But the Minister gave Background Briefing a quick look at some of the results, and the projections suggest
the trend in birth is upwards for at least the next 20 years.
Maxine Morand: They will exceed 75,000 births by 2016 and around 80,000 by 2028, but I'd have to say,
given the results of the earlier predictions, we'd never know if that's actually going to be accurate, but that's
21
the best possible guess we can have - well not guess, best possible projection that we can make at the
moment for the birthrate in Victoria in the next few years.
Rachel Carbonell: The City of Moreland in Melbourne's inner north is another interesting microcosm of the
baby boom.
Moreland is traditionally working class and multicultural, and has fast become a popular destination for
young families, wanting to buy a home within five to ten kilometres of the city.
This municipality is at the forefront of the baby boom; it's had the biggest increase in birth numbers of any
inner city area in Victoria.
Medical clinics in this part of town are picking up the slack, where other parts of the health system are
struggling to cope with the baby boom.
The East Brunswick Medical Centre is in the Morelands municipality. Every day GP Miranda Sandars, sees
many mothers and children.
Dr Sandars says it's a tough task when there's already a shortage of GPs.
Miranda Sandars: We know that there is an absolutely appalling GP shortage and it's been there for a while,
it's been in the country at least for a decade, but we're seeing it bite in metropolitan Melbourne now, and it's
not going to get better any time soon. Suddenly there's this additional factor of an appalling baby boom,
which is great, because we love seeing kids, and we like seeing happy, healthy kids and fantastic happy
families, but the number of patients that we're seeing coming along confirming pregnancies and coming back
for a second child in a family where you would have otherwise suspected they might stick with one, and for
third kids, where you would otherwise suspect that they would have stopped at two. It's just phenomenal.
Rachel Carbonell: What's been your experience of the demand on services because of this big increase in
births?
Miranda Sandars: It's driving us mildly crazy. We've just accepted that GPs are going to be the ones who
have to confirm the pregnancy , do the initial ante-natal screening testing, and often that's combined with a
slightly older population, so they're very real risks and very real conversations that we have to have.
Rachel Carbonell: Dr Sandars says Melbourne hospitals are struggling to accommodate women for the
ultrasound they're expected to have halfway through their pregnancies. And in fact they aren't being booked
into hospital for their pregnancy care at all, until much later than they used to be.
Miranda Sandars: We know that they don't get booked in promptly. There is always an issue about will they
get reasonable access to the mid-trimester ultrasound, so when I was a medical student, the standard thing
was you would expect that they'd have a visit with the GP to confirm the pregnancy, they would go in and
have their booking visit, their first maternity visit at 8-10 weeks at the public hospital and then they'd have a
fairly set regime of visits. They don't get in there now till well past 12 weeks, and often up to sort of 16, 18
weeks, depending on when they've diagnosed the pregnancy and what month of the year it is and what
demand there is, because there is always seasonal variation when women conceive and when they're
therefore due. So it's all coming back onto GPs.
22
Rachel Carbonell: A couple of blocks down the road from the East Brunswick Medical Centre is a maternal
and child health centre. The Council here provides all new families with regular access to health and
development checks for children up to five years old through a staff of maternal and child health nurses.
Local mum, Jennifer Jackson and her 18-month-old toddler Eleanor, are among the thousands of residents
who use this service.
Nurse: How are you going, Eleanor?
Jennifer Jackson: She's good.
Nurse: How are you?
Jennifer Jackson: She's great although she kept me up last night, it was too hot.
Nurse: How's she going with the diet and things Jennifer, is she eating well?
Jennifer Jackson: She is eating really well.
Jennifer Jackson: It's really worrying. I mean I worry about my friends that are having kids, and we've had a
really easy run with Eleanor and we haven't had any problems. But you know, sometimes when I've had
friends and family that have struggled with issues or whatever, that it's been really concerning if they can't
get the services they need. And like, for instance, one of my sisters-in-law recently moved to Melbourne from
Perth and she's got a 3-1/2 month old, and she's out of her normal environment, she doesn't have her friends
and parents around, and she needs the extra support I suppose, and just getting answers from medical
people about what to do is really difficult.
Rachel Carbonell: Because women are having their babies later, service providers often comment that the
new generation of older mums need more support. Which also increases the burden on services.
Jennifer Jackson again.
Jennifer Jackson: I find it's really worrying because if a mum is struggling and has any kind of predisposition
to depression or things, that's where it needs to be picked up, and if mothers are being turned away for
simple questions because of time issues and demand on services, then where are they being heard?
Rachel Carbonell: And yet parents in the Moreland municipality have it better than many, with all of the
services that an inner urban burgeoning middle class area like this has to offer.
Parents living in rural and remote areas, as well as those living in some of the country's big growth corridors,
don't have the same services as their city counterparts.
Back at the City of Moreland Council offices, the woman who heads up the maternal and child health
services is Jenny Merkus. She's responsible for making sure these services keep up with demand.
It might sound like a bit of a silly question to ask but are you aware that Moreland is having the biggest inner
city baby boom in Victoria?
23
Jenny Merkus: Yes, I am, and we've certainly experienced the demand and we've known about it for quite
some time, and have had some challenges with it.
And last financial year we had 2,277 births, so that's really significant, and we weren't expecting it.
Rachel Carbonell: Jenny Merkus says it's been a tough time for staff at the frontline of the baby boom. Their
increased workloads have been exacerbated by a shortage of maternal child health nurses.
Jenny Merkus: Well I think the staff have found it difficult because they've experienced the pressure of
having increased demand and before we could react, because we weren't predicting this increase, they were
experiencing the demand, so there was a bit of a lag in us saying 'Oh my gosh, there's more births than we
were expecting', and we had to take measures to put in the budget to increase staff, to look at the design of
the centres. So we've been doing that, but we're playing catch-up, in a time of skill shortage. So it's been a
real challenge for us.
Rachel Carbonell: Like many other councils in this situation, Moreland is attempting to catch up with demand
by creating local scholarships for maternal child health nurses.
The log jam in maternity and early childhood services is just the beginning of a longer term problem.
Demographic researcher, Genevieve Heard from Monash University, says these pressures are going to flow
down the line through a range of childhood services.
Genevieve Heard: We're currently seeing increased concern from the people who have to provide the beds
in maternity hospitals and the maternity services. I think in a few years that concern is going to reach those
who are in charge of childcare centres, and we know that they're already stretched, so they already say that
there are not enough childcare places and that's not going to get any better, in fact it's probably going to get
worse. And then down the track when these children reach school age, the education system is going to
have to cope with them. So I think increased birth numbers have quite extensive ramifications throughout the
age structure of the population.
Rachel Carbonell: The extra numbers will end up in kindergarten and preschool programs, which are under
enormous pressure in many parts of the country.
Some local councils, like Moreland, are already warning that children risk missing out on preschool places
altogether.
The Federal Minister responsible for Families and Community Services is Jenny Macklin. She says the
Federal Government plans to get involved in an effort to try and remedy this.
Jenny Macklin: We've made a commitment so that every single four-year-old in Australia will have access to
15 hours a week of proper play-based preschool. What we want to do is make sure that that is available for
four-year-olds, right around Australia because all the evidence shows that if you put that investment into
early learning, then it really is going to benefit children as they go through school.
Rachel Carbonell: That is one of the services that in a couple of years' time is going to face significant
pressure as this unexpected boom of kids comes through the system.
24
Jenny Merkus: Well in fact just on that issue, unfortunately it's already very serious in many parts of
Australia. There just are far too few four-year-olds going to preschool. I think according to the OECD data,
we get the wooden spoon for four-year-old access to preschool. So this is a very important commitment,
even leaving aside the increasing numbers of babies coming through.
Rachel Carbonell: There's a skills shortage in the early childhood teaching profession too, and the
government is planning to increase the number of university places in this area and discount the HECS fees
of those teachers who then go into areas of need.
And after kindergarten and preschool, there's the wider education system.
Primary schools will have to accommodate this new and bigger generation of children within the next two to
five years. And that's amid a national teacher shortage and a growing inventory of public schools desperately
in need of renovation and repair.
As well as infrastructure and service challenges, there are some cultural challenges with the new baby
boom. Despite the increase in birth numbers, Australian families are still smaller than they were, and overall,
we're a much lower birth rate society than we were in the past.
In the 1960s three and four children families were common, the birth rate was almost twice what it is today.
Now the most common families are two children or no child families.
Social researcher, Hugh Mackay, says one of the effects of this change is that parents have become more
anxious and indulgent. And at the same time, because there are fewer children around, we're a less childfriendly society.
Hugh Mackay says we're breeding generations of little princes and princesses, by being helicopter parents
who constantly worry and hover over our children.
Hugh Mackay: There's also perhaps a kind of overcompensation that goes on. Older parent, only one child
or two at the most, really got to put as much as possible into this. You know, we've left it late, we've got to
take this more seriously. I think there is among older parents, a higher level of anxiety about the state of the
world, and about the vulnerability of their kids, a greater degree of obsession about the security, the safety of
their children. In a sense I suppose it's that they know more, they're more aware of what's gone on in the
world, they're more perhaps concerned about their own security, and perhaps they just are more conscious
of their own mortality and wanting to absolutely do the right thing by their kids, taking all that into account.
Rachel Carbonell: The immediate problems of the new baby boom underline what many say is a lack of
long-term planning for population growth in Australia. So what are the impacts of this baby boom much
further down the track?
The big issue is what impact the higher birth rate will have on the size of the Australian population. But the
birth rate is only one factor; the other big variable is immigration.
Immigration to Australia is currently at record high levels. There are about 170,000 extra people settling here
each year, and they're having babies, too, at about the same rate as the rest of the Australian population.
25
Overall, Australia's population is growing faster than many have predicted.
And that too, is causing concern.
One of those who have been engaged in the population debate for years is Ian Lowe, the head of the
Australian Conservation Foundation. He also worked on the Federal Government's now-defunct Bureau of
Population and Immigration Research.
Ian Lowe: Well Australia doesn't have an explicit population policy. It has implicit population policy which was
enunciated by the former Treasurer, which is that we are so desperate to have an increase in population that
we're prepared to provide financial inducements and facile slogans like one for the husband, one for the wife
and one for the country, to encourage women to have more children. And we also have immigration levels
which have been unprecedented in recent history. So if you were an observer from another planet you would
say that Australia had a policy at least an implicit one, of trying to increase our population as rapidly as
possible.
Rachel Carbonell: Conservative estimates of Australia's future population are 30-million by 2050. Some are
starting to suggest it might be more than that, perhaps more like 35-million, up from about 21-million now.
While that's small fry, compared to the populations of countries like India, China and the United States, it's a
big increase for Australia. Many are starting to argue that now, more than ever, Australia needs a
comprehensive population policy and proper planning for the future demands of our population.
And stories about this are starting to pop up more frequently, such as this one on ABC-TV's Stateline
program.
Reporter: Here on the edge of the city, the landscape changes almost daily. Houses appear as if from
nowhere, on brand-new streets, forming ready-built communities. But there's something missing in between
these houses, and now the people who live in them are asking where are the kindergartens, the sports
grounds, the public pools, even the bus stops.
Rachel Carbonell: Demographers say Australia's track record in planning for population growth is poor.
Genevieve Heard from Monash University again.
Genevieve Heard: I don't have a moral or ethical or philosophical objection to population growth. I think the
concerns are environmental and to do with infrastructure. And I don't think that we are equipped for
continued population growth. I think that our policymakers have been fairly lax in terms of planning for the
future, in terms of infrastructure. I look at the public transport situation here in Melbourne for example, and
throw up my hands in despair; it doesn't seem to me that there's any acknowledgement that the population is
going to keep growing, through birth, and through migration, and that these services and facilities need to
keep pace with that. So I'm quite happy with continued population growth, if we can set ourselves up for it,
but it doesn't seem to me that the Federal government keeps setting at a higher immigration target, and both
Federal and State governments then fail to keep pace with those targets, in terms of services and facilities
and infrastructure that they provide.
Rachel Carbonell: Genevieve Heard from the Monash University Centre for Population and Urban Research.
Director of the Centre, Professor Bob Birrell says the lack of planning is disturbing.
Bob Birrell: We have the quite extraordinary disjunction in Australia between the demographic realities of
today, which involve an upsurge of fertility, but a very, very large increase in migration, which is pushing us
to long-term numbers, I mentioned a figure of around 30-million by 2051 if present settings maintain. There's
a very, very large number, given at the same time Federal and State governments are expressing
aspirations to live sustainably, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 60% of the levels in 1990 or 2000,
depending on the government to try and stabilise water use, and other non-renewable resource use. Now
the aspiration and the demographic realities are miles apart, and few people are prepared to address these.
26
Rachel Carbonell: Bob Birrell says Australia's immigration numbers are based on very short-term year-byyear calculations. He says they're largely determined by the number of extra people we need to fill job
vacancies in Australia, which in turn, is the number of people needed to ease the skills crisis that we hear so
much about at the moment.
Bob Birrell: The Treasury to its credit, has done some long-term crunching in its intergenerational report, but
the Treasury's influence on government is very short-term. They are preoccupied with inflationary pressures
and ensuring there are enough bodies to fill job slots. That's their preoccupation; they pay very little attention
to long-term implications of this policy. The Department of Immigration has had some interest in this issue,
but it's primarily tasked to deliver the number of migrants which the government in office thinks are
necessary in the present setting. So there has been no systematic attention to the big disjunction which is
this aspiration to live sustainably on the one hand, and very large population increases on the other.
Rachel Carbonell: Professor Bob Birrell.
The new Federal Immigration Minister, Senator Chris Evans says in the past his department has taken a
very short-term approach to immigration.
Chris Evans: Well I was shocked on coming to government find that the program is just done annually.
There's a consultation process in the early months of the year, which I've just completed, and then the
Cabinet considers an intake level for the following year. And I was very surprised to find out that the planning
went no further than the year ahead; and certainly I'm indicating that I have a keen interest in developing a
much more medium-term view of those matters, and I think at the very least we ought to be looking at a three
to five year time frame, when planning the annual programs, and to put it in some broader context than just
sitting down every year and picking a number.
Rachel Carbonell: The Federal Immigration Minister, Chris Evans.
Most demographers are arguing for planning that goes a lot further into the future than three to five years. As
Peter McDonald from the ANU explains.
Peter McDonald: First of all I think we need to do long-term labour demand estimates, because that will tell
us what the population is likely to be. That's the first step. Once you've got a notion of the general level of the
population, whether it's going to be 35-million or 32-million or 30-million, that's when you start looking at
where they're going to be, so that's the second step, is the settlement patterns, and once you've worked out
where these people are going to be, then you start looking at all the infrastructure implications of that, the
water, the energy, the transport, the communications and so on.
Rachel Carbonell: The Federal government is worried that the skills shortage will worsen as the population
ages and the original baby boomers begin to retire.
But Monash University's Bob Birrell says it doesn't have to be so. He says the skills shortage can be
arrested, if young people are educated and trained properly.
Bob Birrell: We have a miserable training record. Currently, barely half of young people in Australia aged 18
to 20 are doing any form of post school training at all. And that's completely out of kilter with the changing job
structure in Australia.
Rachel Carbonell: Bob Birrell says it has been much cheaper and easier for governments to bring in people
from overseas who already have the skills. He says Australia now has a larger generation of young people
coming through, who can meet the demands of a growing economy if they're adequately prepared.
Bob Birrell: Under the present setting we will see a very significant increase in the number of young people
O-14 age group, that means all those worries about young people not being available for schooling, about a
declining number of young people entering the workforce, are myths. So this is a positive, that the number of
young people is going to grow, it means that we ought to be redoubling our attention to ensure that they're
trained to meet requirements of the changing workforce.
27
Rachel Carbonell: The new Federal Government says it's not quite that simple, and while it's committed to
increasing education and training, it says Australia couldn't function without a significant skilled migration
intake.
The Immigration Minister, Chris Evans again.
Chris Evans: The overall problem in our economy is that we have an ageing population. We have less
workers in the system, and we have less people supporting those in retirement, and one of the good things
about migration is the average age of migrants are much lower than the general population. So you do in
part address the ageing issue through the migration program.
But it would be wrong to think that somehow the permanent migration system is being used to fill all the skill
needs in the past. It's still at a fairly modest level compared to the demand for skilled labour. I think the
answer is we've got to do both, we've got to invest much more in the skills and education of our people, and
we've also got to bring in the skills that we need. The reality at the moment is we could not staff the public
hospital system without overseas doctors.
Rachel Carbonell: So with record high levels of immigration likely to continue and an increased birth rate in
Australia, the pressure on existing services like water and transport will only keep increasing.
There are calls for governments to take a far more serious look at the effect this population growth is having
on environmental sustainability.
John Coulter is head of Sustainable Population Australia.
John Coulter: Well immigration needs to be reduced because it is one of the very large factors in our growing
population. Both the fertility rate and the immigration rate need to be operated on if we're going to build a
sustainable population which eventually must be a stable population, but at a level which is indefinitely
sustainable in terms of its environmental impact. So we should be bringing our immigration rate down very
substantially, but we should be building the immigration that we have in relation to our international
obligations, and there our main obligation I believe, is to genuine refugees and their plight.
Rachel Carbonell: John Coulter doesn't advocate that Australians stop breeding, but he says governments
should stop trying to boost the birth rate, and instead start preparing the economy for the changes required
to accommodate a smaller population.
John Coulter: If you accept that at least part of the increase in the fertility rate is due to the increase in baby
bonuses, and that sort of support for parents to have children, Sustainable Population Australia would
certainly remove those incentives, while at the same time providing support for children. I don't think the
children should be made to suffer because of the procreative activities of their parents, and we should be
doing that by building better education facilities and so on.
Rachel Carbonell: John Coulter, from Sustainable Population Australia.
Ian Lowe, the head of the Australian Conservation Foundation says Australia cannot continue to maintain
indefinite population growth.
Ian Lowe: Wherever you look in the environment whether you look at the management of solid waste,
whether you look at sewage, whether you look t air pollution, in every case the problem is directly
proportional to the number of people.
Rachel Carbonell: There are others who argue that it's not the number of people, it's how they live, and if
Australia was able to plan properly for population and include in that planning reduced consumption and
reduced greenhouse gas emissions that a grow8ing population would be sustainable in the long term.
Ian Lowe: There's no doubt that we could significantly reduce consumption per person, but if the population
keeps growing, that's only putting off the evil day when we have to come to grips with the fact that
consumption cannot increase forever in a closed system. So if you halve consumption per person and
double the population, the consumption is still the same.
28
Rachel Carbonell: The prevailing economic view is that if population growth slows, economic growth slows.
But Ian Lowe says the economy needs to restructure for a very different future, that isn't so dependent on
constant growth.
Ian Lowe: What is interesting is that some comparative studies that have been done suggest that if you
compare different countries in the OECD, the ones with the stable or even declining population, are actually
more successful at increasing wealth per person than those that have a rapidly increasing population, and
the fundamental reason for that is that if the population is growing, you have to devote both financial and
human resources to assets that are essentially unproductive, like houses and sewers and roads and
powerlines. Whereas if your population is stable, and you don't need to be building more houses and more
roads, you can put the resources into economic assets. So it's actually a myth that population growth is good
for the economy. It makes the economy as a whole larger, but it doesn't make us wealthier per person.
Rachel Carbonell: The Head of the Australian Conservation Foundation, Ian Lowe.
But there's disagreement even among those who advocate for slowing population growth.
Despite being a proponent of population stabilisation, Bob Birrell from Monash University argues that you
don't want a fertility rate too far below replacement which as it suggests, is the fertility rate that women need
to reach in order to replace the current population.
He says fertility rates don't drop because people have made rational decisions not to breed for the better of
the world, but because other social challenges are hindering them when it comes to meeting a partner,
settling down, and having a family.
Bob Birrell: Any society that can't create the circumstances whereby its young people want to have the
capacity to replace themselves, there's something wrong with that. It has serious consequences. We've now
got a generation, particularly of men in their 30s around 25%-30% who are not partnered. This is a miserable
group of men who are unable to achieve what most of their peers still expect of them, that is to have family
obligations, to be parents, to have stable relationships, but they're not achieving this.
Rachel Carbonell: Bob Birrell's view that low fertility rates reflect social ills, isn't shared by Ian Lowe.
Ian Lowe: Generally a rapid rate of population increase is a response to other social problems. And if you
think that your children are unlikely to survive into old age, then having lots of children is an insurance policy.
I don't think it's an intrinsic human condition to want to reproduce in large numbers. I think what is an intrinsic
human condition is wanting to have your children have at least as good a quality of life as you had, arguably
a better one. And that means we have to balance the economic issues with the social and environmental.
Rachel Carbonell: The Federal government has population and sustainability ear-marked as one of the key
categories for discussion at the 2020 summit next month.
It's also committed to producing more frequent intergenerational reports, which analyse population and
demography issues. And these future reports are likely to have a greater focus on sustainability.
But Immigration Minister Chris Evans doesn't believe our rapidly growing population is a major threat to the
environment.
Chris Evans: I'm not convinced that the immigration program is a big contributor to that problem, or how we
respond as a community. There's a debate always about the impact of migration on our cities and the
pressures on our cities, so these are issues in part driven by climate change. But of course it's also true to
say that migrants are living somewhere, then they come here, so there's a zero sum game in the sense of
the world and the pressure of the world population. And I suppose you could argue that bringing someone
from a village in Africa to Australian conditions, where we consume more energy, that you might be adding to
the climate change challenge, because they have a higher standard of living and they consume more
energy. But is that an argument to leave people in poverty and destitution? I don't think so.
Rachel Carbonell: Background Briefing went to the Federal government seeking responses to criticisms
raised in this program and it was a complex exercise. No single department keeps an eye on all the key
data, fertility rate, birth numbers, deaths, number of immigrants and so on. They're spread across at least six
29
different departments and over the portfolio responsibilities of a similar number of Federal Ministers and
Parliamentary Secretaries.
Would it help if there was a one-stop department for this kind of information? It might help statisticians, and
journalists more than policy-makers. Demographer Peter McDonald thinks there's a limit to what
governments can do to control population. It's determined much more by economic life forces and the
economy's appetite for workers. And because we're always underestimating population growth and playing
catch-up, all we can do is try and work out what the population is going to be, and prepare as best we can,
for both service and infrastructure demands and the strains on our environment.
Professor Peter McDonald.
Peter McDonald: The variations in births are important, but for Australia it's the variations in migration that
make the difference, the big difference to future population. But variations in migration are driven by labour
demands. They're not something which we make a policy about, as it were, although the government might
think it makes policy about it. Numbers go up and down according to the domestic labour demand, and
demand is very, very high now, and all you can see is that it's going to continue that way. It's not as if we say
Well Australia's population should be this, or should be that, it's more a matter of doing long-term
investigations about what Australia's population is likely to be, and then accommodating that. So that we
really haven't used that kind of approach in the past, we generally underestimate future population growth,
and that's why our infrastructure falls behind the needs of the population almost all the time. As you say,
we're playing catch-up almost all the time.
THEME
Rachel Carbonell: Background Briefing's Co-ordinating Producer is Linda McGinness; Research, Anna
Whitfeld; Technical Operator, Leila Shunnar; Supervising Producer this week is Chris Bullock. Executive
Producer, Kirsten Garrett.
30
Attachment B – article from Eco Online
Population: perpetual growth is not the answer
March 10, 2010
Martin Rasini gets a little tutorial help on the population issue from one of Queensland’s
sharpest academic and research minds
Dr Jane O'sullivan
Growing crops in a more sustainable way is easier than growing the human population in a
sustainable way.
In fact, the latter is nigh on impossible – and a sentiment embraced by Dr Jane O’Sullivan, an
agricultural research scientist at the University of Queensland.
She is firmly convinced that arguments advanced by government that we must grow our numbers
to meet the costs of an expanding aged population are fallacious.
As a speaker at the Brisbane and Sunshine Coast population forums organised by Queensland
Conservation, the Sunshine Coast Environment Council and other green groups, Dr O’Sullivan will
argue that the cost of growing a younger population is higher than the cost of maintaining a stable
population and that government policy therefore makes little sense.
“The population debate implies a trade-off between economic benefits of growth and its social and
environmental costs, but it seems to be that the touted benefits of growth are poorly based,” she
said.
“In addressing the growth debate, we need to separate the impact of the size of the population and
its demographic structure from the impacts of rate of growth.
“Rate of growth has immediate impact on facilities and resources and in Australia in the past
decade it has doubled.
“There are two major areas of public expenditure associated with nation-building. These are skillstraining and the development of infrastructure.
“In general terms, a stable population needs to replace about 2 per cent of community
infrastructure each year. However, the current growth rate of Australia’s population requires the
provision of a further 2 per cent.
“This not only doubles the capacity requirement but may more than double the cost, as it must be
generated from a diminishing physical resource base. Increasingly, we have to substitute
environmental services, such as for water supply, with more resource-intensive alternatives.
“Even small changes in growth rate result in large changes to infrastructure needs and if necessary
additional resources are not provided, as has been the case in the past decade in Australia,
access to services and service quality declines and society goes backwards.”
She points out that the same effect happens in the supply of skills. To grow the supply of, for
example, doctors or electricians by 2 per cent per year, we need to recruit around 50 per cent more
than would be needed to maintain a constant workforce, either by graduations or immigration.
31
If we import them, they add to the need for every other skills area. Far from curing the skills
shortage, our expanded immigration program is fuelling it.
While the costs of supporting more aged people are overstated, so is the ability of immigration to
solve the problem. Dr O’Sullivan says that for Australia to maintain its current ratio of over-65s to
working-aged people would require a much higher rate of immigration than we have now – a rate
that could not be sustained and would greatly expand the future ageing problem, let alone the
problem of food security.
“The current proportion of aged is an historical anomaly. It must rise, but will stabilise at quite a
manageable level. We can plan for this, but we can’t plan for perpetual growth,” she said.
“Expanding our population is effectively living off the future and putting generations yet to come in
a precarious position.”
Dr O’Sullivan says an oft-overlooked factor associated with population growth is that construction –
the creation of new infrastructure – is the most energy-intensive form of economic activity.
“So, by accelerating growth, our energy intensity rises and our carbon emissions per person
increase. Stabilising population therefore means a drop in per capita emissions without any impact
on lifestyle,” she said.
Dr O’Sullivan says the focus on aged dependents ignores the even greater cost of young
dependents, and completely fails to recognise the cost burden imposed on the community by the
not-yet-arrived. By this she means those who will be additional, requiring expanded capacity, not
those who will replace the current population.
“They provide nothing, yet we have to spend massively to accommodate them.
“The worry that per capita Gross Domestic Product will be smaller with a larger aged population is
outweighed by the fact that, under a growth scenario, capital and resources are being expended on
people who are not yet with us.
“I am confident that, without growth, Australia will be more than able to service the needs of its
aged citizens and that the community will be better off economically and environmentally.
“If we stop the ridiculous scare campaign about below-replacement birth rates, and let our fertility
drop again to around 1.7 where it was before the baby bonus was introduced, we would also be
able to receive many more refugees than we currently do.
“Every time anyone talks about limiting immigration, it is reported that they want to turn away
refugees. I don’t think many people realise that refugees now constitute less than 5 per cent of our
immigrants.”
Dr O’Sullivan is concerned that the population debate is being dominated by vested interests,
which stand to benefit by growth in property and consumer demand and the oversupply of labour.
“The economic benefit is for them, not us.
“We must insist that politicians do not put the wants of the powerful above the needs of the wider
community.”
http://econews.org.au/population-perpetual-growth-is-not-the-answer/
32