The immigration-driven population boom in Sydney – which has added 845,000 people (20%) to Sydney’s population over the past 12 years and is projected to increase Sydney’s population by 87,000 people a year over the next 20 years – is the gift that keeps on giving.
Back in December and January (here and here), The ABC reported that Sydney’s public schools are suffering from chronic over-crowding as they struggle to keep pace with rampant population growth.
And in June, the Daily Telegraph reported that Sydney’s schools will be flooded with thousands of extra students, requiring 50 new schools to be built over the next two decades to cope with the influx, mostly in the city’s west.
Now, the Daily Telegraph reports that Southwest Sydney schools are bursting under the sustained population deluge:
The number of children aged 0 to 17 in southwest Sydney has swelled by more 6300 in the past five years.
Chester Hill High School has 25 demountable classrooms in use – one of the highest numbers in the state.
At Bonnyrigg Heights Public School, students have spilt into an astonishing 23 demountable classrooms in order to fit.
Bonnyrigg High School students are also making use of 22 demountables, while Fairvale High School and Dalmeny Public School both have 20 demountables.
But don’t worry, the NSW Government has the situation under control:
A new school will be built in southwest Sydney as part of efforts to accommodate substantial population growth in the region.
The school will be built in the Liverpool electorate.
Except that the NSW Government’s own population projections have Sydney’s population ballooning by more than 1.7 million people over the next 20 years on the back of mass immigration:
With Liverpool’s population projected to surge by around 75% from 2011 levels:
Clearly, the overcrowding in Western Sydney’s schools is going to get much worse.
That said, it’s not just Sydney’s schools that are facing unrelenting population pressures.
Back in February 2016, Peter Goss, School Education Program Director at the Grattan Institute, penned an excellent article in The Conversation assessing the upcoming shortage of schools across Australia’s capital cities as the nation’s population balloons. This article estimated that the number of school students would balloon by 650,000 (17%) by 2026, which would require the building of an additional 400 to 750 new schools (up from 9,400 currently). NSW (mostly Sydney) would need an additional 213 schools to cope with an additional 14% of students over the next decade, whereas Victoria (mostly Melbourne) would require an additional 220 schools to cope with an additional 19% of students (see below graphic).
All of this, yet again, highlights Australia’s dysfunctional population ponzi in action.
The federal government’s mass immigration ‘Big Australia’ program has committed to an intake of around 200,000 permanent migrants a year ad infinitum:
These extra migrants – which overwhelmingly will choose to settle in Sydney and Melbourne – will need basic services like schooling, not to mention additional economic infrastructure and housing.
Let’s also not forget that the Turnbull Government recently relaxed visa rules to allow 6 year-old foreign students and their guardians visa entry into Australia’s primary schools, thus adding to the crush-loading.
Former NSW Treasury boss, Percy Allen, had the right idea when he noted the following in April:
The Australian government is fiscally broke. It’s running a huge budget deficit that is adding to its interest bill…
To alleviate demand pressure on social services, education and health the government should halve the permanent immigration intake.
To avoid any racist overtones the humanitarian component should be expanded. Significantly slowing Australia’s population growth would also reduce pressure on house prices, city congestion and stagnant wages.
Exactly. The NSW Government should tap the federal government on the shoulder and demand that it lower the immigration intake, in turn relieving pressure on public services, infrastructure and housing.
Why not seek to remove the demand pressures causing the overcrowding in the first place?