Sustainable Population Australia has enjoyed some encouraging media exposure in response to our recent media release “Thousands of Australians call for an end to rapid population growth”.
It was picked up at least half a dozen times in the media, including a 2GB interview with our National President Peter Stracham, Channel 7 TV News interview with Communications Manager Michael Bayliss, and some excellent mainstream press exposure at news.com, “Warning over a looming crisis as Australia’s population surges“.
With over 15,000 signatures to SPA’s position statement on population, the media can no longer ignore SPA’s leadership on this criticial issue.
We have also been very impressed by the eloquently written letters to the paper from our dedicated members and supporters. We include a few of our recent favourites below:
Population is housing’s problem
Newcastle Herald, 17 Jun 2024
Last month, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) and the federal budget joined the chorus of media commentators lamenting the obvious; Australia has not built enough homes to keep up with its rapid population increase, meaning that we have a demand problem.
Both major political parties, the Greens and most independents have in the past argued that Australia’s housing shortage is a supply problem. They’ve been blaming everything from bad planning, lack of skilled trades persons, red tape or baby boomers for the current crisis. However, the reality is that when it comes to our struggling home construction, we are still completing 648 dwellings per 100,000 people.
That’s way ahead of most other countries, with Canada at 560 and the UK at 275. There is no shortage of skilled people because 5.2 per cent of the workforce are construction workers compared to just 4 per cent in Canada. We are in this combined predicament of housing and infrastructure shortages because of the demand created by our record population growth, 37 per cent between 2000 and 2022, which is more than twice that of the US, UK and OECD average. This urge to grow is perpetuated by economists who argue that all the housing and infrastructure construction adds to GDP, a belief that like many economic forecasts has proven invalid in today’s climate.
Don Owers, Dudley
Major failing on biggest measure
The Age, 18 Jun 2024
The latest Resolve Political Monitor figures reinforce my resolve not to vote for either major party. Of the many policy areas queried, the standout one for me was “environment and climate” on which survey respondents rightly think that the two traditional parties are performing much worse than others.
Both Labor and the Coalition continue to pursue pro-growth policies that are clearly destroying the natural world and making it near impossible to halt damaging climate change.
Ian Penrose, Kew
Bigger isn’t better
Herald Sun, 18 Jun 2024
Premier Jacinta Allen has announced that Victoria “needs more than two million new homes within three decades” (HS, 17/6).
Such a massive building program, together with the necessary infrastructure will severely and permanently alter life in the targeted suburbs.
The extra demand for food, water, building materials and other resources will further erode the natural world, and the extra demand for energy will stifle efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions.
Do we really need to go down this destructive path?
No. It is entirely based on projections of population growth – growth that is unmanaged, unsustainable, and unsupported by the majority of voters, according to opinion polls.
Alas the major political parties remain wedded to pro-growth business interests, not the public interest, and are stuck in the outdated ideology that bigger is better.
Ian Penrose, Kew