One of the major costs of Australia’s blind march towards a “Big Australia”, which began a decade ago (see next chart), has been laid out in no uncertain terms by an audit from Infrastructure Australia, which forecasts a massive 290% increase in the costs of congestion by 2031, unless there is massive investment in new roads and public transport.
From ABC News:
IA says the cost of road delays in the six largest capital cities was $13.7 billion in 2011, but is projected to grow by around 290 per cent to $53.3 billion in 2031 without measures including new roads and more public transport funding.
The report says car travel times in the most gridlocked parts of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide and Canberra are expected to jump by at least 20 per cent if there no measures to boost capacity or curb demand.
“In some cases, travel times could more than double between 2011 and 2031,” the report says…
The audit estimates Australia’s population will grow to 30.5 million in 2031, with the biggest four cities growing by around 45 per cent…
The report predicts public transport demand will more than double in Melbourne, and jump by 55 per cent in Sydney, and nearly 90 per cent across other capital cities.
“Unless peak period passenger loads are managed and capacity is increased, commuters in all capital cities will see more services experiencing ‘crush loadings’, where peak demand exceeds capacity,” the report says…
It also says increased private and public funding will be needed to maintain and grow infrastructure networks.
“We’re increasingly going to need the private sector to be involved in infrastructure investment”…
Hardly sounds like a recipe for growing living standards, does it? And yet our governments continue to push on with the “growth is good” mantra, funneling more and more people into Australia’s largest cities.
The costs of this approach will, of course, be borne by you and I, who will be forced to spend more time in traffic jams as Australia’s infrastructure – already straining after a decade of rampant immigration – fails to keep up with demand.
We will then be called upon to pay for expensive new infrastructure (e.g. roads, rail and desalination plants) in a futile bid support the rapidly growing population, but it will never be enough to maintain living standards.
This infrastructure investment could also lower productivity by diverting investment away from productive areas (see my previous post).
Our children will then be required to live in smaller and more expensive housing, often further away from the CBD, as more and more people flood into our major capital cities.
And then in 30 years time, our children will be called upon to once again ramp-up the immigration intake once the current batch of migrants grows old and needs support – the very definition of a ponzi scheme.
About the only winners from the march towards a Big Australia will be big business, who will enjoy an ever growing customer base and will be able to increase sales without becoming more efficient.
Take, for example, Australia’s banks, which get the double bonus of not just having more consumers to sell debt to, but also extra demand for housing, which helps to support house prices and their loan collateral, especially given the urban consolidation policies operated by Australia’s states.
With a rapidly growing population, headline GDP will also grow faster than would otherwise be the case, making the government of the day look like better economic managers.
However, economic growth through population is an illusion – it expands the economic pie (more inputs equals more outputs) but leaves everyone’s share of that pie unchanged.
One only needs to view the below chart to see what I am talking about. Despite enjoying the biggest mining investment boom in history, per capita real GDP has risen by a paltry 4.8% since September 2008, versus 15.9% growth in overall real GDP (see next chart).
So more than two-thirds of Australia’s economic growth has come entirely from population growth, with growth in per capita terms anaemic at best, despite the huge mining investment boom over that period.
We should also not forget that Australia earns its way in the world mainly by selling its fixed mineral resources (e.g. iron ore, coal, natural gas, and gold). More people means less resources per capita. A growing population also means that we must deplete our mineral resources faster, just to maintain a constant standard of living. Even the high priest of a Big Australia, Bernard Salt, acknowledged as much yesterday:
“…there is always the mollifying effects of the lucky country’s perennial equation: 24 million people sharing the resources of an entire continent delivers prosperity far beyond our effort and talent.”
No, the key criteria that needs to be met in deciding whether to embark on a Big Australia is: “will it improve the living standards of the pre-existing population”? The answer to this question seems to be a resounding “no”.
As I have noted previously, if all Australia is doing is growing for growth’s sake, pushing against infrastructure bottlenecks, diluting our fixed endowment of minerals resources, and failing to raise the living standards of the existing population, what’s the point?
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“As I have noted previously,…, what’s the point?”
As you mention above, Big business ends up making big money and that’s what matters
Ponzi schmonzi
What really matters:
Sudden and Rapid Ice Loss Discovered in Antarctica
The pace of climate change in Antarctica can now be measured in dog years. Several massive glaciers in the southern Antarctic Peninsula suddenly started to crumble in 2009, a new study reports today (May 21) in the journal Science.
R2M, that is good news, when all that ice melts we will be able to compare the maps made of the coastline of the place in about 1500, and note how accurate they were. Portugese mapped it I think (according to Mig) Then we can send all the refugees down there. WW
“If all Australia is doing is growing for growth’s sake, pushing against infrastructure bottlenecks, diluting our fixed endowment of minerals resources, and failing to raise the living standards of the existing population, what’s the point?”
We’ve had 3 non-Liberal governments since the 1949, totalling 22 years. We’ve displayed a marked bias to the style of government we want. They’re a party that has never delivered benefit to the majority of the populace, hell, they’re not even a party that’s ever implemented any major reform.
The point is this type of government we often elect does happen to raise the living standards of the people who ‘count’.
We’re no longer citizens, we’re not part of a collective that ensures mutual prosperity that multiplies to enhance us all. We’re subjects… dregs, utterly worthless pieces of sh*t whose pre-ordained function is to exert ourselves to ensure those that ‘count’ maintain their path upwards.
In the absence of failing to recognise you can pass a tipping point where harshly worded emails no longer have any effect, and citizens must become more militant to ensure Australian parliamentary ministers have adverse outcomes when walking pass grassy knolls, we’re consigned to these type of outcomes.
There is a reason the U.S implemented the 2nd amendment, it’s when … not if… but WHEN government is captured by a malignant culture, the citizenry had means to dislodge said government.
A few years back, I lived in a ‘residents only’ part of Chelsea in London. It used to be a set of local roads, but as the congestion ( and parking!) caved in, barrier gates were erected and pass-cards given out to the authorised few. How long until the barriers are erected at all roads into/out of Point Piper?
It would seem the point is to get vast numbers of younger people in to re-balance the aging population and escape the government running into massive financial difficulties in the next 20 years when there is close to 1:1 ratio of taxpayer:non-taxpayer.
It won’t work, though, and is only a short-term fix in any event – as noted on numerous occasions by the Productivity Commission. Migrants also grow old. Hence, they can only moderately delay population ageing.
Then we’ll bring in more people. Problem solved.
Pantone that will make the next white paper.
… And the one after that…
sigh … yes indeed
If THAT wont work, and I take your point, then what IS the solution to the underlying problem – demographics?
@Dave,
The demographics are now baked in – you only delay the ageing population, and as the rest of the world is ageing, that will require more and more effort.
We now have to find solutions outside demographics.
@Dave. Each person save for their retirement. It’s so simple it’s ridiculous. Population growth has zero to do with an aging population.
The cohort coming in reflects the existing population. IT’S A SCAM. That’s all, it’s just a scam a blindingly dumb population fall for.
4.1 million boomers born her and now we have 5.4 million due to immigration. 80% of the extra 1.3 million will require the full or part pension. You do the math…
Janet above illustrates the tangible aspect of over population. The less visible aspect is that the money is being accumulated by the few, so that the problems have to be sorted out by the many poor.
Unless migration to this country is stopped today, the hordes seeking another opportunity here will ruin the lifestyle for the whole country and inevitably drag the nation down to a life style of say India or Egypt. The wealthy will have bolted to Monaco with its natural barriers WW
Note : approx 80 years after a ‘baby boom’ comes a ‘death bust’. Our natural growth may drop to zero or perhaps even negative and an aged nation will vote to reduce our NOM. Fewer babies born in 2013 than 2012, a fact that most seem to be missing and yet a very significant demographic event.
Brilliant piece
“The audit estimates Australia’s population will grow to 30.5 million in 2031”
This report, as nearly every other of the last twenty years, understates Australia’s population growth and therefore the costs of maintaining and expanding infrastructure and services. Maybe they’re expecting many would be immigrants to be put off as Australia’s one trick economy grinds nearly to a halt as the mining boom which was going “to last for decades”, falters.
466,000 per year till 2031? This seems very unlikely given our projected declining natural growth and the anti-immigration that is taking hold.
Every official estimate in the last twenty years of what our population was going to be now has been surpassed. Alleged anti immigration has had no noticeable effect. Note the huge growth of immigration during the Howard government’s supposedly anti immigrant tenure.
http://archive.treasury.gov.au/igr/igr2007/report/IMAGES/03_Part_2-49.gif
http://archive.treasury.gov.au/documents/1273/images/IGR%20CEDA%20Presentation-3.gif
http://tinyurl.com/k3c6jsc
http://tinyurl.com/kv3wthx
http://tinyurl.com/lupr2sv
http://tinyurl.com/kl6dcj9
By the way, the correct way to talk about growth is in percentage terms, not absolute figures. Ours is currently around 1.8 % per annum, which is extraordinarily high by developed country standards.
It’s not sustainable for a country dependent on immigration for its population growth to grow at percentage rate higher than the world at large, especially when the world at large’s population growth is in long term decline.
By the way, Australia’s percentage growth has fallen for 1.8% to 1.5% over the last 2-3 years. The graph above would tell a slightly different story if the 2014 year end figure was available to be added.
“The graph above would tell a slightly different story if the 2014 year end figure was available to be added”. I did add 2014 to the above chart, but used Sept 2013 to Sept 2014 instead of full year. I can’t imagine a huge difference if year-to-December figures were used instead (not yet available).
466,000 per year till 2031?
Seems like almost pure fantasy when 460,000 is approximately our all time record achieved at the absolute top of a once in a century boom. By way of comparison, the most recent available number is 350,000 for the year to September 2014, and births and immigration are falling while deaths are climbing.
Exactly Willy, notice how the projection shows a tapering after 2007 that has not arrived? For years official predictions have mysteriously shown a marked tapering off in the near future that has yet to appear. There was a slowdown after the GFC but that proved to be short lived. So why do these official projections always show a marked tapering off a few years into the future that never eventuated. We were not supposed to be 24 millions for some years yet but here we are already. This is why I take future projections with a handful of salt, unless of course they are anticipating potential immigrants to be put off by a grinding economy in the near future.
Mmmm… deaths are absolute and we know where they are heading. Not a prediction, it is a projection.
The percentage is made from the absolute numbers…doh!
Just letting my frustration get to me with official lies from the past. The population growth in recent years was ahead of predictions and now with the boom going bust, things may get nasty.
supposedly anti immigrant tenure.
Supposedly being the key word, with Mr Howard taking massive strides in pumping the Ponzi. In Howard-Rudd we had two massive pro-population growth goverrnments in a row who had access to spectacular amounts of cash to pursue their population growth agenda. It’s hardly surprising that the population duly grew.
EDIT: StJ,
It is important to understand that Howard and Costello changed their policies in reaction to ABS proejctions that showed a slowdown in population growth. That is, the projections were very reasonable at the time, but Howard and Costello deliberately set out to ensure they did not come to pass, and now here we are.
Exactly right Stat, PR image and actual policy were absolute opposites during the Howard years. Always was about pumping the housing bubble as hard as possible. All for the specufestors and banks. To hell with everything else and now we’re up the proverbial creek without a paddle.
@St Jacques nominal and percentage are both equally as valid, pros and cons to each – A better picture is painted with supplying both.
Fair point Andy. Got out the wrong side this morning. Just pissed off at the dead end our PARLIAMENTARIANS have “led” us into. Wasn’t the mining boom going to pay for it? lol
lol fair enough too!
what’s the point?
The only possible point is altruistic, namely to provide a comfortable, safe and prosperous place to live for the millions of displaced around the world. The economic arguments are bunkum, and the benefits to the existing population are zero, as you have clearly articulated above.
The only question we have is how altruistic should we be. Australia cannot take all the world’s displaced and refugees. We could certainly take more, and we could certainly be less hard-hearted than Abbott, but what is the right level?
You’ll tie yourself in knots trying to answer that one.
Yeah, very tough question even if you’re trying to answer it in a genuine fashion (which very few politicians are).
If it can be done in a way to not be called racist / xenophobic I’ll support any party that has a plan to bring down the immigration rate so population growth is barely positive, or even falling mildly.
When I first moved to Sydney in 94 there was next to no one on teh train when I had a 7am start.
These days the train is already half full and I really really hate the few times I have to start at 8.30 and face the crush style congestion. How people do that 5 days a week is beyond me.
If it can be done in a way to not be called racist / xenophobic I’ll support any party that has a plan to bring down the immigration rate so population growth is barely positive, or even falling mildly.
Smash the skilled immigrant (and associated hangers-on – spouse, kids) intake – say by 50-75% – and then significantly increase the humanitarian intake (on a %age) basis.
I honestly don’t think it is possible. When people were first discussing the uselessness of the FIRB in halting the money laundering via our RE, the general judgment was that this was pure racism.
However, this is not some kind of ethical question as to whether the law of the land is somehow impinging upon someone’s basic rights. With all the money being made from these sales, by both government and individuals, not to mention our diploma mills, it is clear that the gravy train cannot and will not be halted.
The last Budget has made the end-game clear, the facade will fall down and we will simply sell residency and citizenship without the kabuki theater of justifying this immigration on some economic basis; all so that the government and big business can make money going both ways.
So you do that, and then Aus suffers all the negative effects of reversing demographics, including deteriorating public finance position, lower economic growth etc etc.
So what do you do to fix THAT?
Give a hospital pass to future generations.
“So what do you do to fix THAT?”
To be honest, I’d prefer to deal with the current problem before we start worrying about future ones.
It’s clear that governments can’t/aren’t building enough infrastructure for current population growth so there’s no way that I trust them to do any better in the future.
Until they can show an ability or willingness to provide reasonable infrastructure then I’m strongly against rapid population growth (and yes, I’m aware just how little my stance matters in the general scheme of things).
Good news! The Sustainable Population Party has policies to achieve this http://www.votesustainable.org.au/main_policies
This is the only party to have thought the whole issue through, linking environmental health with a prosperous economy and a better quality of life.
BUT But but Australia needs new debt slaves, otherwise who’ll buy my multi-million dollar shack just west of Parra if we dont have a continuous stream of foreigners joining our Aussie
workers utopia? Without the mega cash out I cant retire and I’ll be damned if I’m going to work into my 70’s to feed an cloth our locally grown lazy dole bludging offspring.Oh wait a minute didnt PK just beat me too that rant….
Guys, here are some notes, I think from UE, which is the half of the issue. WW
Technology IS killing the middle-class > but?
Over the past 30 years , technology has taken us through three waves of structural change.
The first wave was manufacturing, moving from the first world to emerging economies as global logistic chains became more efficient.
The second wave, which we’re midway through, is moving service industry jobs and middleman roles onto the net, which destroys the basis of many local businesses.
The third wave, robotics and automation is getting a grip and will hurt many of those fields that were assumed to be immune to technological forces.
So where will the jobs come from to replace those occupations we are losing?
The New York Times, has examined computeristion’s affect on various types of jobs, and argues that the middle-class has been hardest hit:
The massive decline in the cost of computing since the 1970s has created enormous incentives for employers to substitute increasingly cheap and capable computers for expensive labor.
These advances — which we see as we check in at airports, order books online, pay bills on our banks’ Web sites or consult our smartphones for driving directions — have reawakened fears that workers will be displaced by machinery.
Computerization has reduced the demand middle class jobs, but it has boosted demand for workers who perform “nonroutine” tasks that complement the automated activities. Those tasks happen to lie on opposite ends of the occupational skill distribution.
Computerization has fostered a polarization of employment, with job growth concentrated in the highest- and lowest-paid occupations. Jobs in the middle have declined.
Surprisingly, overall employment rates have largely been unaffected in states and cities undergoing this rapid polarization.
Rather, as employment in routine jobs has ebbed, employment has risen both in high-wage managerial, professional and technical occupations and in low-wage, in-person service occupations.
Computerization is reducing the quantity of jobs, and the quality of jobs . Demand for highly educated workers who excel in abstract tasks is robust, but the middle of the labor market, where the routine task-intensive jobs lie, is vacant.
The important thing is to provide displaced workers with financial assistance and retraining so that they can gain employment in the new industries, whatever they may be.
But >> I’d say oceans of debt is doing a hell of a lot more to wipe out the middle class than technology is.
But >> I’d say oceans of debt is doing a hell of a lot more to wipe out the middle class than technology is.
The oceans of debt are a symptom of the (lower) middle classes no longer being able to increase (/maintain) their living standards through employment, due to the effects described above (and combined with a worldwide attack on workers rights completely gutting their bargaining power).
So, rather than doing it the way they had been in the past, by working more and earning more, they’re doing it on credit.
On a similar note, just wondering if anyone else is reading Ari Andricopoulos’ blog. He has some interesting ideas on the role that “savings” play in suppressing wages and transforming economies into rent paradises.
http://www.notesonthenextbust.com/2015/05/the-supremacy-of-savings-in-our.html
CB, When I was young I was steered in the correct direction by “The Richest Man in Babylon”.
You will also be aware that the UK is now in delfation, where savers are rewarded and those with debts are going to get smashed. This nation is headed down the same path. WW
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Richest_Man_in_Babylon_%28book%29
Love that book, very wise and sustainable.
Hopefully we get hyperdeflation (to mean reversion) to follow the hyperinflation of the last couple of decades.
@WW, not sure I understand the reference, especially not in the context of “supremacy of savings” being our current problem. Maybe I need to reread “The Richest Man in Babylon” from memory his solution to wealth creation was to “save” 1/10 of your earnings. I dont remember too much discussion about the nature of true wealth creation (aka productivity) especially not in a broader society context. Matter of fact its solution “to save” is very much the Beggar-thy-neighbor answer and exactly whats wrong in any society that attempts to save its way to wealth.
CB
I’ve written on this a bit but i don’t have either the time or energy right now. The anti-savings thing is baloney. The whole ‘savings is bad!’ is baloney. There a lots of reasons
1. To create a sustainable world we need savings. We cannot all just consume more and more and more every day without using up our world at an ever-increasing pace.
2. From a macro economic viewpoint, on a national basis, we need savings of some kind. Otherwise we must sell assets to finance ourselves.
The world doesn’t suffer from a savings glut. It suffers from a debt based over-consumption glut fed by Magic Money Trees especially the US Fed.
And then in 30 years time, our children will be called upon to once again ramp-up the immigration intake once the current batch of migrants grows old and needs support
Good luck with that one in a world where China’s natural change is negative 6 or 7 million a year, Mexico’s population has peaked (so the world’s number one population ponzi has to look further afield to satisfy their hunger for immigrants) and India is only a few years away from their peak.
By 2040, immigrants are going to start to be a lot harder to come by. If we haven’t got a full suite of inducements available, it’s going to be quite tough for us to get them.
Nail. Head. Hit.
Geopolitical analysts all see roughly the same thing – post 2030 or so, nations will be in competition to attract immigrants, who will be in increasingly short supply. Sure, some immigrants will be better than others due to economic value-add etc, but fundamentally there won’t be enough to go around.
Quite the change from today.
+1 Germany is set to be short 8 million workers and how well we compete for skilled immigrants will be determined by our cost of living.
Our peaking emigration seems to be totally ignored at present.
https://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/05emigration.htm
Also a good read is http://www.demographicinsight.com.au/other/McDonaldTemple%20-%20Web.pdf
Medium projections at 35million by 2063….
Part of Germany’s response to the problem is to set up German language schools in India in order to catch a bigger share of India’s outflows. They are going at it very hard to attract skilled workers, while we are being left in the dust. When Mexico’s outflows peak, the US is going to start working a lot harder as well. As usual we will be the laggards.
Yes, it seems odd that the labor shortages are not well understood, however they will be by the time the agequake is in full swing. If we remain an ‘unaffordable’ nation, we will lose that race…
The older boomers are already past 65, so we’re already at the beginning of the agequake. We may or not see labour shortages, depending on how quickly automation and robotics progress, but the effects of additional retirees will be upon us very soon from here.
To me the agequake started when retail spending started to decline in growth as the average boomer was 48… That and savings started to climb, creating less consumption and dragging down our GDP.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/ScreenHunter_04-Feb.-06-13.03.gif
How would retail sales growth be after converting to per capita and adjusting for inflation?
SS…lol….beyond my excel skills….
+1.
+1
Isn’t that what robots are for?
I read somewhere on this site that robots can take over most of the mundane jobs by then.
Robots don’t create demand.
As I’m discussing in email now with respect to estimating “congestion costs” at
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/queenslands-infrastructure-health-check–where-we-stand-20150521-gh71r8.html
“People sitting in single occupancy vehicles are drivers of congestion costs and are therefore considered for cost effectiveness for new roads.” – which is a vicious cycle …
A simple and obvious way to improve things would be to encourage more motorcycling.
They’ve recently made lane splitting legal (albeit with a silly restriction or two), which will help, a but a few more easy incentives are:
* Lower registration costs ($500/yr is ridiculous)
* Allow parking on footpaths, etc, in general rather than only in allocated spaces (so long as it doesn’t obstruct thoroughfares)
* Make it possible to get a small capacity motorcycle license (say, up to 125cc, but maybe just 50cc) allowing solo riding from 15 years old so people get into it earlier.
As a motorcyclist I agree, we need more of them, but parking on side walks is unnecessary since if every motorcycle takes a car off the road that’s two (or even three) parking spaces freed up for motorcycles.
Also, I like walking on footpaths.
Build the roads. Develop the infrastructure. Deliver to our kids and theirs a nation capable of comfortably carrying 50-100 million.
What for? The chance that Australia has a population very much above 50 million is very close to zero. Even if we get above 50 million it will only be for a few years.
Why would we want to so many though? I just came back from Vietnam on the weekend, they have ~100m people and yes they are about 1/10th the size of Australia. Having so many people does not make life better, but worse. Australia was far better when we had 16m people, now we’ve become greedy, self-absorbed and unfriendly, all the typical traits of a society overpopulated.
Its just wage arb e.g. more people = lower wages.
Correct.
We will probably creep on up to 30m, then slowly up to 35m on so on. Just as we’ve grown from your preferred 16m to 23m now. Guess what: we needed better road planning, more dams, rezoning and urban renewal all along – always behind the game. Let’s do better for the next generation.
BTW from 16m to 23m: we are wealthy, well paid, well fed, well travelled, well housed. I don’t see a population growth doom scenario having transpired. Nor will it as we ebb forward toward 30m, 40m but we have to provide adequate infrastructure. Dudes, that means saying yes development.
3d1k,
The problem with your simplistic reasoning is – this is not the same planetary enviroment which facilitated your romantic period of time, its completely different and rapidly changing. Your mind numbing one size fits all template just goes to show the complete lack of alternative thinking ability in your quasi religious cult e.g. maladaptive.
Australia’s population growth from16m to 23m occurred at a time when apparently, according to experts, the world was going to fry, drown, starve and collapse under the weight of the rampant growth of that dreaded species, Homo sapiens.
Doomsayers wrong again.
Yeah more people placing more of the most productive country we have under a suburban concrete jungle.
Lets see the smart alecs plan for that. Coz theres fk all evidence that it has ever been considered previously.
“the world was going to fry, drown, starve and collapse under the weight of the rampant growth of that dreaded species, Homo “Economicus”.
Skippy… there fixed it for you 3d1k
What we need it to funnel people away from the capital cities, to smaller cities. Living in NSW I can see that Wollongong, Newcastle, hell, Bega could be made a lot bigger. Eden could be used as a port, especially with the restrictions on domestic shipping being lifted.
The problem is not the number of people, it’s where they are.
Agree. A handful a major population centres in a country this size…
More people for Newcastle? No thanks. Too many already. Go away.
The problem is these regional and rural areas are full of f*ckwits. The fact they vote for the National party is evidence enough.
If they really had a sense of long term planning, they could see the distress high capital city land prices are and commit to arbitrage it.
Instead, you see countless of regional cities selling land for ridiculously high prices, when they should be pushing it towards being free.
You can’t point at them being stupid, thus they deserve what they get.
Tripe!
The macroeconomic settings ensure that there will be no development in regional and rural areas. It’s been thuis for 60 years. These settings have now been in place so long that they cannot be reversed without major social disruption.
I’ve no love for the National party for very good reasons of my own. However your blanket description of rural and regional people is a typical extremist view so well entrenched in cities.
While you’re sitting in your morning 3 hour traffic jam you can ponder on the bigger picture. You don’t have to look far to find it.eg.
“On a per capita basis, the availability of water in Pakistan has plunged by almost 75 percent over the last 60 years, Reuters reported, largely due to soaring population growth.
No worries right?
And that is the thing!! We have blithely given the rights to monopolize these public goods (Water, Electricity, Phone etc, even, dare I say it, Banking) in private hands and wonder why the country is going to the dogs.
Note that Pakistan’s population growth is actually slowing quite rapidly in percentage terms (it’s plateued in absolute terms), as they become one of the last countries to come around to the benefits of contraception. TFR has dropped from 6.6 in 1980 to 3.2 today and doesn’t appear to have found a bottom.
There was a great movie partly about the overpopulation problem in Pakistan – “Bol” (2011) by Shoaib Mansoor.
“A growing population also means that we must deplete our mineral resources faster,”
(And as Rob points out – where the hell is all the water going to come from? We stop showering and all body cleansing? Wear more deoderants – wow! look at that MORE economic growth 🙁 )
Yes!!! But probably of more imminent importance is our economic model where we bring in the people to sit on their asses and do nothing but eat in each other’s restaurants and coffee shops and regulate other people.
Fundamentally, within the current model, every immigrant into the capital cities increases our Current Account Deficit which requires us to sell off more of our land, houses, businesses, farms and mines to foreigners. So we have a dual pressure – more use AND more necessity to sell our productive capacity. I’ve yet to see anyone explain the end game in this..
Why does Infrastructure Australia, a body which should have not inconsiderable resources, totally ignore the whole macroeconomic aspects of what we are doing?
(The answer lies in the stupidity, that is passing itself of as economics, that is being taught at universities. This is a problem that is now more than 50 years old. Hard to see any change – the answers lie back in time.)
Maybe the end game is when we’ve sold off all the liveable bits of the country and the new owners turf us out and we end up sailing from country to country looking for someone that will take us in as refugees.
It’s what we deserve.
We sure won’t occupy the best bits – unless we rent.
http://wh.agh.edu.pl/other/materialy/674_2014_11_07_18_11_05_Alvesson_functional_stupidity_scaIEM.pdf
Sorry but I’ll bring this up once again because it also goes to the heart of the housing fundamentals as well. We cannot compare pre Q2 2006 and post Q3 2006 NOM numbers.
Therefore, has our population increase been much higher than historical norms in the last 5 years?
Obviously all point UE makes still hold regardless.
At this stage of the game, the different way of counting may well be deflating the numbers, or about to start deflating the numbers, as the temporaries start to go home.
@SS
I don’t think it is possible. Temporaries were always counted. Previously it was 12/12 so they had to be here for the full year. Now it is 12/16. So you could be away for 4 months and still count. Permanent departures would always be counted the same way.
Actually was an inflationary impact on ‘immigration’ or ‘population’ as the NOM change from 12/12 to 12/16 swept up a lot more international students (who had taken holidays back home during calendar year) and 2nd year backpackers who have done their 3 months+ in the bush and recent years significant impact due economic situation in Europe.
What do the geniuses you work with say about this FF? Can they connect infrastructure and population or do they need it explained?
Idiots on this site have told me we can EASILY double our population. There’s even a program that says it. We’ve wiped out the most species of any country on the planet but we can double no trouble, the program says so.
Actually, there’s an three word slogan those fucking clowns LNP and Labor can use.
DOUBLE NO TROUBLE.
Double the world’s population? Not a chance. Australia’s? Probably.
Also, use the edit function, keep all your thougths together.
“Australia’s? Probably.”
Not without wiping every species out that’s not human.
WhyTF would we want to do it? What for?
If enough people want to live in an Australia with 40 million people it will happen sooner or later, how we manage it is important. People will go to where they think there are opportunities. Once the mining boom is well and truly over and our housing implodes I suspect our population will decline anyway.
It’s time we all said enough. No more people until there’s money spent on infrastructure. This BS about populating for prosperity is the polar opposite to what’s happening.
DOUBLE NO TROUBLE
Rich42, we are populating to poverty alright. As Dick Smith says, if there are twice as many of us, then every person has half as much of everything. Half as much arable land (or less after the best bits have houses built on them) half as much water, iron ore, gold, nickel etc.
The dis-economies of scale are apparent from the report released. We have passed the point where growth adds to real wealth per person, especially after subtracting negative externalities, which is rarely done.
As Dick Smith says, if there are twice as many of us, then every person has half as much of everything. Half as much arable land (or less after the best bits have houses built on them) half as much water, iron ore, gold, nickel etc.
That same logic applies equally whether there are two people in the country or two hundred million. It’s empty rhetoric.
Populating for prosperity is bullshit, of course!!
But voters are dumb enough to buy that.
Ex politicians wealth should be confiscated to help pay for this treasonous blunder.
…and bank executives
This is the biggest scam on the dumbest people on earth. It’s just too easy for big business.
I keep hearing very simplistic arguments, we need more roads, infrastructure, yadda yadda
In the end you’ll still have more people sitting on the same roads into the city..
What have we seen in the middle ring of Melbourne’s East over the past 30 years?
Kennett closed a few school, they turned in housing estates, many houses knocked down and replaced by units, townhouses with one garage and no backyard
One thriving streets filled with kids kicking the footy now replaced by cars parked up and down on both sides, have to run the gauntlet to get through some of these suburban streets
Trains packed from Syndal station (2nd station on the line) onwards, driving takes twice as long as it did
More homes, less schools has led to fierce competition of getting your kids into a local public school, which now conveniently takes in $14,000 per year for international students, why are our local public high schools taking in international students?
“There were 11,740 people who stated they were permanent (settler) arrivals to Australia during December 2014, a decrease of 1.6% compared with December 2013 (11,930 movements). People born in New Zealand accounted for the largest proportion of settlers (13.9%), followed by people born in China and India (each 12.2%), and the United Kingdom (6.0%).
There were 8,900 Australian residents who stated their intention was to depart permanently from Australia during December 2014, an increase of 3.5% compared with December 2013 (8,590 movements). ”
http://abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/Latestproducts/3401.0Main%20Features2Dec%202014?opendocument&tabname=Summary&prodno=3401.0&issue=Dec%202014&num=&view=
While property owners in Melbourne and Sydney are very happy to see their houses triple in value over the past few years (in part due to the high migration intake), they are less happy with the “new immigrants” living near their backyards and would prefer that they are housed in high density zones. Worth noting that immigrants to the US do not face this form of feudalism that’s emerging here. New immigrants to the US encounter a level playing field when it comes to finding and buying a home. Not here. Given the history of our country, I am not surprised.
Depends which immigrants you’re talking about, rich or poor.
+1 @St Jacques
My parents have absolutely no problem with the Chinese couple who bought the house next to theirs for just under $4 million about six months ago (inner-east Melbourne). They actually like them a lot more than their previous Australian-born ones.
Yes, rich can live anywhere they want. Poor (I’m talking mostly skilled migrants) are restricted to the outskirts or high density areas because existing home owners in well established suburbs are not happy with their suburbs changing into high density (but are happy to cash in for the right price).