Former foreign minister Bob Carr claims that the pandemic is an opportunity to challenge the view held by government and business that the only approach to population growth is “more”.
Carr contends that Australia’s economic growth has been all about lifting population growth, rather than boosting productivity. He notes that population targets are set in Canberra, where population density is the lowest in Australia, and that bureaucrats there have no idea what a traffic jam is.
Carr is a patron of Sustainable Population Australia, which calls for controls on Australia’s population growth for quality of life and for the sake of the environment.
