STABILISING AUSTRALIA'S POPULATION
- TODAY'S ACTION, TOMORROW'S REWARD
It should not be any surprise that population is a critical factor. If our lifestyle and the technologies we use do not change, the impact on the environment will be directly proportional to the size of the population. There is already evidence that the population in the coastal zone is directly causing local degradation. More generally, the scale of our population and its associated demand for imported goods leads us to use our rural resources in ways which are not sustainable.
A sustainable development strategy must therefore necessarily include a socially acceptable scheme to stabilise the human population. Thus a population policy is an absolute essential if we are to achieve the goal of sustainable development - as is the stated aim of the Council of Australian Governments.
The inquiry's terms of reference included -
The Australian Government has made no formal response to the inquiry's recommendations, neither under Labor nor (after the March 1996 election) under the Coalition.
On 9 January 1997, Barry Jones and The Hon Duncan Kerr MHR (then Shadow Minister for Population Issues, Shadow Minister for Immigration, and Assistant to the Leader of the Opposition on Multicultural Affairs and acting Shadow Minister for the Environment) held a joint press conference to endorse the Jones inquiry's recommendation that Australia should develop a population policy and to call on the Government to begin that process.
They announced that the Opposition would consult widely on population issues in the lead-up to next year's ALP Conference. Mr Kerr said the ALP hoped to use the Conference in January 1988 to commit to a set of principles on population policy that reflect national economic, social and environmental concerns.
(Footnote : On 26 August 1997 Mr Martin Ferguson AM MHR took over the Shadow Portfolios of Population Issues and Immigration. Duncan Kerr is now Shadow Minister for the Environment.)
The Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Philip Ruddock has described the Ecumene Project as a most interesting development in terms of our understanding of the long - term impact of population.
Feasible scenarios for Australia's population to 2050 encompass a range of possibilities including stabilisation or slight decline, continued increase, or rapid growth. Commonly quoted ABS projections range between 22.5 million and 28.3 million by 2051 under a range of mortality, internal and international migration assumptions. Other scenarios have been prepared by a variety of commentators, often showing much higher (38 million and more) levels. The major differences between these outcomes are determined by immigration policy, and are variously promoted as highly desirable or catastrophic.
Apart from the social and economic arguments, a crucial factor in the debate over population numbers in Australia is the effect population increase or stabilisation will have on the nation's ability to develop an ecologically sustainable future. Studies in this field are few and far between, and the complexity and inter-relatedness of the issues makes progress difficult. Analyses performed within the CSIRO Ecumene Project reveal that not only the absolute number, but also the spatial distribution of people is important. In other words, from an ecological perspective, internal migration patterns may in fact be as important as international migration patterns. Increasing concentrations of people along the coast in non-metropolitan areas at the expense of rural and traditional capital cities is an almost universal rule, driven by "rust belt - sun belt" forces.
The future of the Australian population debate, and ultimately policy, therefore, will be a product of forces within direct government control, and personal choice. The hierarchy of planning decision-making levels makes ecological reasoning difficult to implement.
He is a former member of the National Population Council, advising the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, and is the co-ordinating editor of the Journal of Australian Political Economy.
Economic Policy and Population Policy: Is Stability Uneconomic?
Developing a population policy is an important part of national planning and needs to be integrated with economic policy, social policy and regional policy. As such, it is a key element in developing balanced relationships between economy, society and ecology. The distribution of population between the metropolitan areas and regional Australia is particularly important, since the impact of population growth can be quite different according to where it is located.
Research on the effect of overall population growth on general standards of living (eg GNP per capital) is inconclusive. This indicates that there is considerable margin for collective choice between alternative scenarios for immigration and population without damaging consequences for national economic performance.
The more crucial policy issues concern how we manage the use of our human resources. Currently the number one policy challenge is unemployment. It is not soluble by the use of restrictive immigration policy to reduce the supply of labour - or by attempts to use immigration to stimulate faster economic growth. Rather, it requires a package of policies emphasising the redistribution of work, more interventionist industry policies and restructuring for ecologically sustainable development. Such policies are easier to achieve in a context of economic and social stability. Productive diversity in the population is an important element in fostering improved economic performance. Australia has an outstanding opportunity to be an international exemplar in showing that balance rather than growth should be the central concept in guiding the future of our nation.
JIM DOWNEY is the Executive Director of the Australian Conservation Foundation. He holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Melbourne and has worked in charted accountancy and financial management.
Jim's involvement in conservation extends over ten years and commenced with the campaign to save the Daintree and Queensland's World Heritage listed rainforests.
Population Policy and Ecological Sustainability
It is now evident that global ecosystems and life support systems cannot withstand an increasing population, increasing rates of resource use and increasing pollution all at the same time. Each of these three elements are key to questions associated with ecological sustainability.
Population growth and increased consumption with it will increase environmental damage in the absence of changes of lifestyle, management and adoption of better technologies.
But these changes will not occur overnight and it is a risky strategy to rely on them as the sole response to correcting environmental damage. Deliberate decisions about population through a population policy are a vital element in a package of measures designed to move us towards a more ecologically sustainable future.
Australia's response so far to issues associated with population has operated in a complete policy vacuum. We simply do not know what we are trying to achieve, we have not decided what are acceptable limits of environmental change and we have not determined how population issues fit into this equation.
A population policy is one key component of an ecological sustainability strategy. Other factors that are linked to this debate are tourism population levels and management, human settlement policies, economic instruments, Australia's place in the World and future trends in food production.
Since 1984 she has been a full-time writer and lecturer, presenting her interests in the prehistoric world and the evolution of the Australian continent and its biota for the enjoyment of everyone interested. Nature of Hidden Worldsand Time on Our Hands, on the fossil record and semi - precious gemstones, (and four children's books) followed The Greening of Gondwana. An account of how Australia became the driest vegetated continent, After the Greening, the Browning of Australia was published in 1994 and won the Eureka Prize. Macquarie University granted Mary White a Doctor of Science degree in recognition of her contributions to Science through her books in 1995. A new book, on the degradation of the Australian continent, how it has occurred and what we can do about it, will be released in August or September 1997 by Kangaroo Press. It is called Listen ... Our Land is Crying.
Listen ... Our Land is Crying
Australia is the driest vegetated continent. Seventy-five per cent of its landscapes are under arid regimes (40% is desert); 10% is marginally arid and suffers frequent droughts; and only 15% is reasonably well-watered, largely along the eastern margin of the continent. Arid lands are inherently fragile and our continent has proved to be no exception.
Australia is an ancient, time-worn land with thin and nutrient-poor soils over most of its surface. Only about 6% of the continent has soils of arable quality. In addition, the eastern two-thirds of the continent is subject to great climatic variability, orchestrated by ENSO the Southern Oscillation - El Nino phenomenon. ENSO is a powerful weather-warper which makes Australia the land of "drought and flooding rains" and makes land management very difficult, compounding the effects of land and water degradation caused by our land-use.
Australia is unique - the product of the co-evolution of the landmass and its biota during the 45 million years since it became an island continent, and as a province of Gondwana before that. Its geological history has predetermined the environmental problems which are now fast reaching crisis point -- its extreme aridity; poor and easily erodible soils; its saline water-tables; and the flat and often inward draining landscapes are all products of its geological history.
Since the beginning of European settlement we have mis-read the land, imposing land-use practices which are relatively sustainable in the Northern Hemisphere but which are unsustainable in this ancient land whose history has been so different. To the first settlers it was a land of unlimited opportunity just waiting to be exploited and tamed. Our expectations today are still completely unrealistic. Ours is not a vast, empty continent capable of unlimited use, of being the food-bowl of Asia, or even of continuing agricultural production at the present level. From the "sustainably" usable perspective, it has to be seen as a small land, less than a fifth of the continent's area, already over-populated and with its resources of soil and water (under current management practices and at our present standard of living) stretched to the limit.
DR JOHN COULTER became interested in conservation in the 1950's and has pursued many aspects of the conservation cause through both state and national bodies since that time. He was a member of the body that formed the Conservation Council of South Australia and served on the Council of the Australian Conservation Foundation from 1973 until 1990. After graduating in medicine in 1956 and a short period in general practice he spent over twenty years in medical research. In 1987 John was elected to the Senate where he held the environment portfolio for the Democrats for many years before spending eighteen months as party leader. He is currently the President of Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population.
Collecting the Population Stabilisation Dividend
Jared Diamond has carefully calculated the rate of extinction of species and estimates that, unless humanity changes its relationship with the biosphere, about half the species now on Earth will have disappeared within the lifetime of a child born today. Population growth, together with a rapidly expanding demand for environmental resources is driving H. sapiens towards an inevitable catastrophe - unless?
The greatest legacy we can leave our children is a turn-around in this seemingly inexorable process. They and their children will reap the dividend flowing from our efforts today. An in this regard Australia is in a position to lead.
We have an opportunity to stabilise our population and to aim toward a sustainable pattern of development. We have an opportunity to share our knowledge and experience of this difficult and never-before, attempted transition with the rest of the world. We can provide assistance through increased foreign aid helping other peoples traverse their own unique paths to sustainability. Possessing this opportunity places a responsibility upon us as a nation. Let us make this our destiny!
Our attempt to fulfil this prospect will provide another dividend - pride that, as a nation, we can look beyond self interest and short term economic rationalism. A pride in our embrace of a larger mission - a mission to ensure the on-going evolution of life on Earth, a process that has been so disrupted by the appearance and rapid growth in numbers of our species.
Click here to return to main page