Australia’s migrant intake 2000-01 – Submission by AESP National Office to the Dept. of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA), Feb 2000

1 February 2000

AUSTRALIANS FOR AN ECOLOGICALLY
SUSTAINABLE POPULATION INC.

SUBMISSION TO

DEPARTMENT OF IMMIGRATION
AND MULTICULTURAL AFFAIRS

CONCERNING

AUSTRALIA’S 2000-01
IMMIGRATION INTAKE

February 2000

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Glossary and Abbreviations *

Introduction *

Australia’s population future *

Net Overseas Migration *

The size and composition of the Migration Program *

Retain Humanitarian Program *

Long-term movements *

Short-term movements *

Trans-Tasman movements *

Ways of achieving the economic and social objectives of the Migration Policy *

Population policy – why Australia needs one *

Aims of a population policy *

DIMA and Australia’s ESD responsibilities *

Population growth and intergenerational equity *

Population growth and biodiversity loss *

Australia’s present population is not ecologically sustainable *

DIMA’s Annual Report ignores ESD *

Building a population policy for Australia *

Population size *

Natural increase strategy *

Savings to Australian governments *

Benefits to Australian families and to unemployment *

Per capita ecological ‘footprint’ *

Humanitarian outcomes *

Economic sustainability *

Conclusion *

Footnotes *

Glossary and Abbreviations

ABS    Australian Bureau of Statistics

AESP    Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population Inc.

clearance    clearance of remnant native vegetation, including not only total clearance but also partial clearance by, for example, over-grazing or fertiliser application

DIMA    Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs

IGAE    Intergovernmental Agreement on the Environment, May 1992

long-term    for a duration of 12 months or more

Minister    Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs

natural increase    the excess of births over deaths

NOM    net overseas migration, which is a measure of the net addition to Australia’s resident population. It consists of the difference between permanent and long-term arrivals and permanent and long-term departures, with an allowance for ‘category jumpers’ (those who change their travel plans). ‘Resident population’ includes permanent residents and long-term residents, but excludes short-stay visitors.

permanent arrivals    all those arriving in Australia to live permanently. Includes those arriving on migrant visas (see below) but also those who are entitled to enter Australia and remain permanently without a visa. Includes New Zealand citizens and overseas-born children of Australian citizens.

permanent visaed migrant intake    all persons arriving in Australia on migrant visas (that is, those arriving under the Migration Program and the Humanitarian Program) who are entitled to settle permanently in Australia

short-term    for a duration of less than 12 months

TFR    total fertility rate, expressed as children per woman, representing the number of children a woman would bear in her lifetime if she experienced current age-specific fertility rates at each age of her reproductive life

total overseas movements    all overseas arrivals and all overseas departures, whether visaed or unvisaed, and regardless of duration of stay/absence

total population size    permanent population plus long-term population plus short-term population – the total number of all persons in Australian territory at any given moment, regardless of their stay. Excludes Australians who are out of the country.

Introduction

This submission is made in response to a call for submissions from the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, the Hon Philip Ruddock, as part of the process of consultation leading up to the formulation of the 2000-2001 Migration and Humanitarian Programs.

The Minister invited submissions in writing by 11 February, in relation to –

• Australia’s population future;
• The size and composition of the Migration Program;
• Ways of achieving the economic and social objectives of immigration; and
• Australia’s Humanitarian Program.

This submission does the following –

• responds to the Minister’s invitation by calling for a progressive phasing out of the Migration Program and recommends that the Humanitarian Program be retained, in the short term, at its current level of 12,000 places;

• recommends to the Minister that a program be developed to achieve net zero overseas movements (numbers in equals numbers out) within 4 years;

• notes that the Minister’s invitation requests views on ‘ways of achieving the economic and social objectives of immigration’, but omits any mention of environmental objectives of a population policy;

• recommends to the Minister that an advisory group be set up within DIMA to develop a protocol which will ensure that all decisions made within the Department are in accordance with its responsibilities under the May 1992 IGAE;

• sets out for the Minister, evidence that Australia’s present population has already exceeded sustainable levels, and thus that Australia is overpopulated; and

• provides evidence to the Minister supporting the urgent need for Australia to develop a population policy, and on the principal ingredients for such a population policy.

Abbreviations used

Please see the Glossary and Abbreviations page at the front of this submission for the abbreviations and meaning of terms used in this submission.

Australia’s population future

AESP notes that the Discussion Paper is in error in assuming net overseas migration of around 60,000 to 70,000 per year as a feasible average over the next 50 years. The following graph shows that present trends indicate a figure somewhat above 95,000 is more likely.

Net Overseas Migration

The higher levels of actual net overseas migration shown will have two likely results:

• Australia’s population size in 2050 will be closer to 27 million than the 23 million suggested in the discussion paper, and

• Australians will demand an end to large immigration programs, which are against their clearly held wishes.

High immigration levels attract continuing public hostility. Councils all over Sydney are being encouraged by their residents to defy State Government enforced urban consolidation policies, which are seen as the inevitable result of contrived population growth. This public hostility can be expected to increase.

Many well-meaning people have, in the past, supported high levels of immigration. They had been seduced into believing that our immigration program was designed to deliver altruistic benefits to disadvantaged people. They have been sadly mistaken.

Australia’s immigration is maintained against electors’ wishes and has been demonstrated to prey on poorer nations by poaching their talented and educated young people. As Mark O’Connor (author of This Tired Brown Land) points out: “Pirating expensively-trained skilled people from developing countries is the reverse of foreign aid”.

The Discussion Paper makes a virtue of the ‘balance’ that the government has achieved in finally sweeping away any pretence that Australia’s immigration program was designed to deliver altruistic benefits to disadvantaged people. Australia accepts only 4,000 refugees per year within her 12,000 place Humanitarian Program. And Australia’s overseas aid programs provide less than half the amount of funding requested by the United Nations. Our support of overseas aid directed towards population stabilisation is a miserly one quarter of the amount the UN recommends.

AESP is aware that the Australian Population Institute has been formed, by business interests, to push for higher levels of immigration. Their argument rests on the belief that our economy will fall over unless our population keeps expanding. This is obvious nonsense. Italy’s population is declining; India’s population keeps expanding . . .

The clear motivation of the business lobby is a desire to continue business as usual with assured growth in their domestic market.

But at least one senior government Minister, Senator Nick Minchin has pointed out that business should look to the world market for expansion opportunities.

Speaking at the October 1999 Master Builders Australia National Building Industry Awards, Senator Minchin said that higher immigration was not the answer for growth in the building industry. He pointed out that our population is increasing by almost a quarter of a million people a year, and added that: “This gives us the fastest growing population in the developed world. Yet no matter the scale of our immigration program, the size of our domestic market pales in comparison with the international one”.

Business needs to use the next 30 years, while Australia is still experiencing natural increase of our population, to follow Minchin’s advice and develop overseas markets.

The size and composition of the Migration Program

It is imperative that any discussion of the Migration Program should include allinternational movements of people that add to Australia’s population size.

The Discussion Paper seeks to erect hurdles in the way of either expansion or contraction of the Skill Stream and/or the Family Stream, and thus limits that discussion. With permanent departures averaging about 30,000 per year, one could expect a net overseas migration outcome of 50,000 from a total immigration program of 80,000. Yet, Australia’s net overseas migration gain is twice that figure.

AESP recommends that the Minister –

• Phase out the Migration Program over four years. The abolition of the Migration Program will bring Australia into line with migration practice employed by all other countries in the world excepting USA, Canada and New Zealand. These are the onlycountries (apart from Australia) that still cling desperately to the outdated colonial-era practice of deliberately importing extra people.

• Retain the Humanitarian Program at current levels. AESP believes that top priority for places within the Humanitarian Program must go to genuine refugees in the most dire circumstances. These will usually be refugees languishing in overseas refugee camps; they will not normally be persons able to arrange their own travel to Australia.

• Manage international movements of people into and out of Australia so as to achieve true net zero overseas movements by 2004-2005. This will require management of long-term, short-term and trans-Tasman movements, all of which contribute to Australia’s population growth.

Long-term movements

As DIMA itself acknowledges ⁱ,

Permanent movement has traditionally been the major contributing component to net overseas migration. However, in more recent years, long-term movement has been accounting for a more significant part of the overall gain (some 43% in 1997-98).

In 1998-99 permanent movement accounted for 42% of Net Overseas Migration (NOM) ⁱⁱ with category jumpers reaching 17.8%.

It is clear that setting the formal immigration program does not provide a tool that can be used by Government to determine population outcomes. Short-term and long-term movements must be controlled in some way in order to arrest the alarming growth of NOM (117,335 in 1998-99).

AESP recommends that this can best be achieved by moving to a policy of balanced international movements – a net zero total overseas movements strategy. Such a strategy would remove the perception that the Government is claiming to have reduced immigration while, in reality, NOM is increasing. This perception doesn’t sit well with the stated DIMA policy of restoring confidence in the migration program.

AESP recommends that the Minister restrict long-term arrivals in any one year to the number of long-term departures the previous year (factored for duration of stay/absence).

Within that reduced quota of long-term arrivals, first priority must of course go to those who are entitled to enter as of right, such as returning Australian residents and their overseas born children.

Short-term movements

AESP notes that, pro-rataed for duration of stay/absence, short-term movements are beginning to add to Australia’s total population size on any given day.

AESP notes with concern long-range forecasts ⁱⁱⁱ prepared by the federal Department of Transport and Regional Development for Sydney airport, which conclude that ‘International passenger movements are expected to grow at an average rate of 8.7 % per annum to 1999-2000, then at 5.9 % per annum from 1999-2000 to 2009-10, and 3.6 % per annum from 2009-10 to 2024-25’.

Pro-rataed for expected duration of stay/absence, these figures suggest that within the next 4 years, net short-term movements could boost Australia’s total population size on any given day by as much as 40,000. A total population management policy is needed to regulate distortions of this magnitude.

Trans-Tasman movements

For many years net Trans Tasman movement has contributed to Australia’s population growth. This can no longer be sustained. And New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Helen Clark, has called on New Zealanders to return home.

Both Australia and New Zealand could benefit from some regulation of Trans-Tasman movements. Now is an appropriate time to explore this issue.

AESP recommends that the Minister set up discussions with his counterpart in the New Zealand Government with a view to renegotiating the agreement to provide that once arrivals in any year exceed the previous year’s departures, travel is no longer visa-free to Australia.

Ways of achieving the economic and social objectives of the Migration Policy

The Discussion Paper makes two important statements that support our view that

Australia’s immigration program is no longer in the national interest:

• “there is no direct correlation between population growth and per capita GDP growth”(P4).

• “increased immigration would have only a marginal impact on the extent of ageing” (P3).

AESP concludes that Australia’s immigration program has become a subsidy to business interests.

AESP is also aware that overseas students and tourists generate export income for Australia, making an important contribution to Australia’s balance of trade. It is important to note, however, that outbound Australian tourists drain more money from Australia than inbound tourists provide.

Net tourism income is NEGATIVE.

Australia would profit more from encouraging Australians to holiday at home than it does by encouraging international tourism, which is having a damaging side-effect of contributing to Australia’s population growth and ecological decline.

AESP recommends that it would be prudent for the Minister to implement AESP’s net zero migration strategy as outlined in this submission, given that the present policy is extremely unpopular and cannot be shown to be in the national interest.

Population policy – why Australia needs one

Australia needs a population policy because –

• Australia’s present population of 19 plus million is not living sustainably now

• Per capita environmental impact is rising

• Continued population growth therefore is accelerating environmental loss and pushing Australia further from its goal of sustainable development

• A greater emphasis is being given to business profits now rather than to the well being of generations of Australians yet unborn. This priority must be reversed.

Australia has:

• one of the most biologically diverse series of ecosystems on Earth – Australia is one of only 12 ‘megadiverse’ regions, and of those, the only affluent nation

• high and ongoing human-induced biodiversity loss

• national and international obligations to halt that biodiversity loss

• a population which rates protecting the environment extremely highly

• high and rising intergenerational inequity, in terms of per capita access to natural resources.

Australia also needs a population policy because successive Australian population inquiries – some independent, some commissioned by government – have all recommended the adoption of a population policy.

Without a population policy, Australia will fail to halt biodiversity loss, will fail to deliver intergenerational equity, and will ultimately negate any reductions that might have been (but so far have not been), achieved in per capita environmental impact.

Development of a population policy will help focus on issues that are vital for Australia’s future well-being. Professor Harry Recher and Paul Lavery have identified these issues. They ask:

Does Australia need more people? Is the continent already overpopulated? These are questions that Australians should ask as we enter the new millennium. The size of Australia’s population will determine the quality of our children’s environment, their jobs, and their access to health care, education and housing. Changes in technology will also affect the lives of our children, but ultimately the cleanliness of their air and water, the amount of open space they have, and their freedom of choice will depend on how many people they share Australia’s and the world’s resources with. ^iv

Aims of a population policy

An Australian population policy must have as its overriding aim the achievement of an ecologically sustainable human population for Australia, which population includes –

• permanent residents

• long-term residents

• short-term visitors.

DIMA and Australia’s ESD responsibilities

Australia’s pursuit of population growth is actively preventing Australia from achieving two key goals (performance indicators) of ESD, which AESP regards as fundamental-

• achieving intergenerational equity (within Australia)

• achieving cessation of biodiversity loss caused, directly or indirectly, by the Australian population.

DIMA has failed to embrace these ESD principles.

Population growth and intergenerational equity

All other things being equal, by growing its population, Australia reduces Australians’ per capita ‘share’ of this continent’s natural resources – of bushlands, grasslands, wetlands, fresh water, undamaged riverine, land and marine ecosystems, pristine beaches, sustainable fish catches, mineral resources and so forth.

Thus future generations – say, 27 million Australians in 2051 (which is where we are heading, on present settings) – will have a smaller per capita share of such resources than today’s population of 19 million Australians.

Active pursuit of population growth through immigration extends the dispossession of aboriginal Australians. The submission of ATSIC to the Jones inquiry said:

‘For aboriginal people today, as in 1788, the land is not merely a resource to be exploited, a commodity to be traded; it is life itself… The standing committee’s reference scenario for the year 2045 has only worse yet to come – a population almost doubled in size, taking over more and more of the best land for housing, suffering greater pollution and congestion, and natural resources under increased threat of depletion and degradation. Such a prospect must be alarming for all Australians. For indigenous Australians it is doubly so, because the damage that will inevitably be caused to the land threatens the heart of our culture and our way of being.’

Population growth and biodiversity loss

Biodiversity loss is just one important aspect of intergenerational equity. Loss of species means that our children will inherit a land made poorer and less stimulating partly through the deliberate policy of government.

No nation that is losing biodiversity can claim to have attained ESD.

Put another way, no development that causes biodiversity loss can claim to be ‘ecologically sustainable’ development. While ever the Australian population’s activities (directly or indirectly) drive biodiversity loss, our population is not ‘ecologically sustainable’.

This view is very strongly endorsed by world-renowned biodiversity expert and scientific advisor to US President Bill Clinton, Dr Peter Raven. Dr Raven has warned Australia that its economic future is crucially dependent on halting its biodiversity loss as a matter of urgency ^v.

Australia’s present population is not ecologically sustainable

The evidence of biodiversity loss and failure to achieve intergenerational equity point to the fact that Australia’s present population – consisting of 19 million residents and the equivalent of approximately 23,000 additional residents as a result of short-term visitors – is not ecologically sustainable, and that Australia is therefore overpopulated.

Australia’s leading scientific organisation, CSIRO, warns that: “Australia can carry its present population – or a higher one – in an economically, environmentally and socially sustainable way only if the nation is prepared to change the way it does things. Australia lacks the necessary knowledge and understanding to manage effectively its current population at current living standards. Every extra person and every unit increase in consumption increase the need to rectify this situation” (Australia’s Population ‘Carrying Capacity’: one nation – two ecologies, 1994).

But both the Australian population and its per capita consumption are increasing.

The Murray-Darling basin, which produces 40% of Australia’s agricultural production and up to 80% of Adelaide’s drinking water, is under serious threat from salinisation. Environment Minister, Senator Hill, described the Murray-Darling Basin Ministerial Council’s salinity audit, which detailed the seriousness of the situation as an “alarm bell”. Our agricultural production underpins the high standard of living that we all take for granted.

AESP argues that it is reckless and dismissive of the needs of future generations to increase Australia’s human population. There is abundant well documented evidence of ecological decline caused by human impact on the environment. Further demands on the Murray/Darling system could see Adelaide without potable water in as little as 20 years.

DIMA’s Annual Report ignores ESD

The Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs’ 1998/99 Annual Report states that:

In implementing the new [reporting] framework, it was agreed the work of the Portfolio, that is our outputs, would be aimed at achieving two outcomes: the “lawful and orderly entry and stay of people”; and “a society which values Australian citizenship, appreciates cultural diversity and enables migrants to participate equitably”.

DIMA makes no reference to its responsibilities in relation to ecological sustainability. Yet DIMA’s actions have a dramatic effect on ESD by very strongly influencing the ultimate size of Australia’s total human population – including not only Australia’s permanent resident population, but also its long-term resident and short-stay visitor population.

The Discussion Paper claims that, “The Coalition Government’s immigration policies and programs have sought to achieve a proper balance between economic, social, environmental and humanitarian objectives”. Yet the abovementioned Annual Report has no section – not even an appendix – dealing with ESD. Nor can AESP find any discussion in any other section of the Annual Report of the impact of DIMA’s role on ESD or on biodiversity loss or on environmental issues generally.

This absence of any evidence that environmental issues are considered in DIMA’s decision-making process is curious, given that DIMA has commissioned the Australian Stocks and Flows Framework project (ASFF).

AESP congratulates DIMA and its Minister, Philip Ruddock, for commissioning the CSIRO Division of Wildlife & Ecology’s Resource Futures Program to undertake the ASFF project. We believe that this project will provide important information for future population/immigration policy making.

Trends emerging from the project’s work suggest that having Australia’s population size peak at the lowest achievable level will produce significant benefits for resource use and balance of payments. We therefore urge the Minister to take an especially precautionary approach to setting the 2000-2001 intake levels.

Building a population policy for Australia

A population policy for Australia should achieve the following –

• manage Australia’s population size
• halt and reverse growth in Australia’s per capita ecological ‘footprint’
• deliver improved humanitarian outcomes internationally
• deliver economic and ecological sustainability.

Population size

The policy must ensure that Australia’s total population (permanent, long-term and short-term) peaks at the lowest possible figure – which AESP suggests is 21 million or just below.

To achieve that, AESP advocates two parallel strategies –

• a natural increase strategy, aimed at achieving zero natural increase (births minus deaths) at the earliest possible date – certainly far earlier than 30 years’ hence, which is the best outcome we can look forward to at the moment and during which period natural increase will boost our population by around 2 million

• overseas movements strategy, to achieve within 4 years a situation where total overseas movements are in balance – in other words, a situation in which total overseas arrivals in any one year do not exceed total overseas departures the previous year, and thus do not contribute to Australia’s population growth.

Natural increase strategy

Research in developed nations (like the UK and the Netherlands) shows that making contraception affordable reduces unintended pregnancies and thus lowers total fertility rates (TFR, number of children per women).

While AESP does not have a precise estimate of the number of unintended births in Australia each year, given that around 80,000 abortions (mainly surgical abortions) take place here each year, AESP suggests that there is scope for Australia to reduce its TFR. By making contraception free (as the Netherlands does) or almost free (as New Zealand is doing), unintended pregnancies can be considerably reduced.

Savings to Australian governments

AESP suggests that in round terms Australia may be able to procure total net savings in Federal/State government expenditure of something like $300 million per year by spending $30 million per year to subsidise contraception.

AESP suggests that subsidising contraception should be a Federal Government initiative. Savings, which flow to the States, could be recovered in other ways, eg by adjustments to the transfers between the Federal Government and the States/Territories.

Benefits to Australian families and to unemployment

Smaller families have advantages. ABS finds that there is a positive correlation in Australia between lower total fertility rates and higher attainment on education, training, employment and incomes ^vi.

It is not easy to determine which is cause and effect here. But it seems logical that those who defer childbearing longer and who have fewer children overall will – all other things being equal – be better placed to invest in their own education and training and to develop their career paths. In turn, those parents are able to invest more in their children’s education, thereby maximising those same prospects for their children.

Per capita ecological ‘footprint’

An ecologically sustainable population policy must include a range of measures to reduce our extremely large per capita ecological footprint, and thus our per capita impact on both Australian and overseas ecosystems.

AESP advocates the following as an urgent priority for Australia –

• outlaw all clearance of remnant native vegetation, on land or in our rivers or surrounding oceans (South Australia’s Native Vegetation Act 1991, modified to incorporate those features of the Trade Practices Act which link to the Commonwealth’s Constitutional powers to make laws on matters involving corporations and overseas or interstate trade, provides a model for such a Commonwealth Bill, with provisions linking to External Affairs powers added on)

• introduce properly funded export replacement strategies aimed at quickly reducing Australia’s reliance on industries which produce export earnings by methods that involve clearance of remnant native vegetation, extraction of water from rivers, or otherwise drive biodiversity loss (preferentially those food and fibre industries which produce fewest export dollars from the greatest biodiversity loss)

• restructure taxation regimes at all levels (federal, State/Territory and local government) to provide financial disincentives to destroy biodiversity and financial incentives to conserve it – effectively a biodiversity tax which ensures that all Australians share the burden of biodiversity conservation, including pricing signals to dissuade corporate and individual purchasers from purchasing products produced by destroying biodiversity

• cap extraction of fresh water from all riverine ecosystems, and wind back extraction rates to ensure that guaranteed and adequate environmental flows are restored within 3 years, such that biodiversity loss caused by water extraction is halted

• cap extraction of all marine resources – including fish, shellfish, krill, seagrass and kelp – and wind back extraction to a level that will ensure that within 3 years marine biodiversity loss from such extraction is halted.

• introduce measures to reduce per capita and national use of fossil fuel and greenhouse gas emissions and maintain this push as long as Australia’s per capita emissions remain above the recommended IPCC global per capita average

Humanitarian outcomes

AESP argues that Australia – an affluent, stable, democratic nation – has a clear responsibility to maintain (and increase) its contribution to global humanitarian efforts.

Australia needs to find a way to meet both its environmental and its humanitarian obligations. AESP sees no difficulty whatsoever in achieving this, by the following means.

Firstly, it is important to understand that Australia’s present intake of permanent overseas arrivals (‘settlers’) is dominated by arrivals from countries that are affluent, stable and democratic. Our largest intakes come from the UK, Ireland and New Zealand – hardly countries in need of our humanitarian assistance.

AESP proposes that permanent arrivals be dramatically reduced, but our intake of refugees should be maintained or increased. In other words, a far higher percentage of places than now would go to those at risk of torture or languishing in refugee camps (and to their immediate families, whose psychological support is important to their recovery from trauma).

Secondly, AESP advocates that some (or all) of the savings from the natural increase strategy (discussed earlier) be used to boost our overseas aid for the education of women, and for family planning and reproductive health for men and women. These measures lower total fertility rates and thus rein in population growth, bringing ecological and economic sustainability more within those peoples’ grasp.

Economic sustainability

To be acceptable to the electorate, the ideal population policy will maintain or improve Australians’ quality of life.

Although recent studies show that, for Australians, ‘quality of life’ is not solely, or even primarily, bound up with money, nonetheless AESP argues that the economic challenge for Australia is essentially as Dr Tim Flannery put it when addressing the Ecology and Empireconference in London in 1996:

What we have to do is find out how to make a living in Australia that will sustain all the biodiversity we inherited with the continent. And that, in the end, comes down to finding new ways of managing us.

Inherent in Flannery’s statement is an understanding that a sustainable economy – or society – ultimately depends on a sustainable environment.

Conclusion

The discussion paper establishes no justification for a policy of contrived population growth on economic grounds. AESP’s submission, by way of contrast, shows that expert opinion warns about the environmental risks of population growth.

Halting Australia’s population growth is a prerequisite to achieving a sustainable Australia; a sustainable economy – or society – ultimately depends on a sustainable environment.

The Australian environment is neither highly productive nor capable of withstanding the kinds of intense exploitation imposed on it over the past 200 years. The litany of environmental degradation across Australia is fully documented in the 1996 State of the Environment Report.

AESP calls on the Minister to develop a sustainable population policy, based on the ecological realities of this fragile continent. To assist the Minister in this task we recommend that an advisory group be set up within DIMA to develop a protocol which will ensure that all decisions made within the Department are in accordance with its responsibilities under the May 1992 IGAE.

AESP calls for a phasing out of the Migration Program, and its replacement with a policy of balanced (net zero) international movements of people into and out of Australia. Within this net-zero migration policy, the Humanitarian Program should be retained.

Footnotes

1. Population Flows : Immigration Aspects, January 1999 edition, Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, page 2
2. See ABS cat. 3101.0, June quarter 1999
3. Air Traffic Forecasts for Sydney, February 1997, Department of Transport and Regional Development
4. Do we really want more people, 1998. Unpublished paper by Harry F Recher, Foundation Professor of Environment and Management, Edith Cowan University, and Paul Lavery, Senior Lecturer, School of Natural Scientists, Edith Cowan University
5. Dr Peter Raven’s address to the Australian Academy of Science, Canberra 1998.
6. See for instance Fertility in Australia, Australian Bureau of Statistics (1992, ABS Cat. No. 2514.0)