In 2011, former secretary of the Australian Treasury, Ken Henry, claimed Australia’s “sustainable population” was just 15 million, which is 11 million below current levels:
“A sustainable population for Australia, well I don’t know, maybe 15 million, something like that, that’s one-five not five-zero”.
“It’s evident in the environmental degradation that one sees, the loss of biodiversity, species extinction and so on, it’s very clear that the population growth that we’ve experienced to date, to give us a population of 21, 22 million has not been sustainable population growth in that sense”.
