Letters to the editor

Letters to the editor from SPA members, supporters and others are a rich source of community insights and concerns about population issues. The SPA web site maintains an archive of published letters.

21 December 2020

Steady numbers

It is predictable that Property Council of Australia SA executive director Daniel Gannon calls increasing population growth in the state “promising news” (“SA brain drain in reverse”, The Advertiser, Thursday).

Well, you would expect him to say that, as he represents the property industry, which will not be happy until there are wall to wall buildings from Port Wakefield to Victor Harbor.

COVID-19 has given us a much-needed respite from the previous high levels of population growth in Australia and SA.

Australia’s population growth rate for the quarter ended June 30, at 0.1 per cent, was the slowest since quarterly population estimates began in June 1981.

This has meant reduced pressure on water supplies, roads, schools, hospitals, energy sources and many other items required for modern living.

It has also meant less Australian emissions generated and less impact on habitat for our flora and fauna. And there has been less competition for scarce jobs and housing.

Part of the reason Australia has been able to achieve such relative success fighting COVID, is our relatively low and spread out population.

Let us keep it that way.

Bob Couch The Adelaide Advertiser

27 November 2020

Theft of skills is not a good migration policy

Labor Party spokeswoman Clare O’Neil wants the best engineers and IT experts and the smartest data analysts to settle in Australia on a permanent basis (‘‘Migration should focus on skilled professionals: Labor’’, 25/11).

These people were trained at considerable cost by their own countries. Bluntly speaking, to snatch them from their countries is simply theft of skills. To steal these people from developing and emerging countries is even more appalling. How can these countries move forward when their brightest and best migrate to the West?

There is plenty of talent in Australia already, talent that is waiting to be furthered, promoted and optimised via a broad range of opportunities.

If Australia wants to be the leader of the pack, then we have to invest in education and training programs, backed up by opportunities for innovation and employment.

That would also be environmentally much more efficient by keeping population numbers in check.

Margit Alm Australian Financial Review

5 November 2020

More than the economy

Re ‘‘Melbourne exodus a huge hit to economy’’ (The Age, 3/11). But a larger economy does not make a more desirable city. Are we aiming to be like Beijing or Los Angeles?

Ask Melburnians (not the property industry) what factors would indicate a better city. Ask those who are trying to buy a home, are delayed in traffic, or seeking peace in a parkland, whether they want Melbourne or its economy to get bigger. Let us have an intelligent debate about the measures of a city’s success and move on from the lazy measure of the size of its economy.

Ian Penrose The Age

2 November 2020

Population debate, difficult but necessary

Bring on a “civilised discussion about population” but Elizabeth Farrelly’s contribution to it underwhelms (“Eight billion humans can’t all be wrong, but we do need a civilised discussion about population”, October 31-November 1). Farrelly recognises the inevitably awful outcomes of overpopulation – “famine, disease, war” – but sets up a straw man when she insists that action to avert it, or even discussing averting it, is dangerous moral territory. She seems to suggest that there is no middle ground between forced sterilisations, on one hand, and “the old wealth-and-education argument” on the other. The evidence is clear that education alone does not drive rapid change in family size, and poverty reduction is near impossible in rapidly growing populations. Yet voluntary family planning programs, that openly advocate small families to slow population growth, have worked even in poor and poorly educated communities. Farrelly says anyone who wants to limit Australia’s population growth can be seen as xenophobic. But we are doing high-fertility countries a huge disservice by falsely claiming economic benefits from population growth, particularly by insisting (as Farrelly rightly dismisses) that an “ageing population spells economic disaster”. The report cited by Farrelly thoroughly debunks the latter myth. Yet countries like Tanzania and Iran are withdrawing women’s access to contraception precisely because they believe what developed countries (more precisely, the vested interests within developed countries) are saying about a “birth dearth”. The moral hazard sits squarely on the other foot.

Jane O'Sullivan Sydney Morning Herald

21 October 2020

Some good news

What a wonderful thing, our population growth has slowed. This is a very small reprieve from the ongoing devastation we cause to the natural environment through consumption, resource depletion, pollution and conversion of productive land to suburbs. COVID-19 recovery funding could be used to pivot to a “no population growth” economy. Economic growth without population growth is possible without wasting resources on more suburbs, schools, roads and hospitals.

We could concentrate on different high value, quality industries involving renewables, health, technology, farming in fertile locations, and the arts, without reliance on the pyramid or Ponzi scheme of population growth. But alas, we are under the yoke of those deluded by a “never ending growth” belief system.

Greg Dunstone Canberra Times

9 October 2020

Don’t take population route in growth pursuit

‘‘Population peril exposed’’, (October 8) delivered the alleged benefits of population growth, namely total economic growth, without discussing the costs. These include infrastructure costs, which are about $100,000 in public money for each new person, be they immigrant or native born. Then there are the costs of congestion and pollution, and the difficulty of achieving targets with respect to greenhouse gas emissions. And while the fortunate minority may complain about the lack of housing inflation with a stable population, it is a welcome relief for the young struggling to get into the market in the first place.

Jenny Goldie Australian Financial Review

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