On September 5, 2008, Victorian newspaper, The Age, ran an article by Cameron Houston and Royce Millar, under the screaming headline, 'City of 8 million 'unlivable'.
On September 5, 2008, Victorian newspaper, The Age, ran an article by Cameron Houston and Royce Millar, under the screaming headline, 'City of 8 million 'unlivable'.
The article reported the latest population projections from the Australia Bureau of Statistics. These frightening projections were reported as if they were actual predictions. The article should have generated a number of printable letters to The Age almost immediately.
Surprisingly, on September 7, no reader responses had been published questioning the rapid size and rate of immigration fuelled population growth.
This is disappointing and it is hard to believe that The Age did not receive any critical letters worthy of being published on this issue. On a number of occasions The Age has exhorted the federal government of the day to implement a 'population policy'. People who follow the Age closely in such matters know that the Age always wants higher population. And, what the Age means when it calls for a 'population policy' is higher immigration.
Now that there are almost daily reports of social and environmental symptoms of overpopulation in Victoria, and consternation about rising population, The Age is silent on calling for public debate on population policy. With its false alarm about 8 million for Melbourne (more than twice the current population of Victoria), The Age looks as if it is intentionally attempting to create a self-fulfilling prophecy, at great risk to the quality and safety of the lives of the people of Victoria and future generations.
It is no secret that Fairfax digital owns www.domain.com.au and thereby benefits from the overheated housing industry, in addition to the benefits it derives from kilos of pulped forests weekly in Age newspaper ads for real-estate.
The population-growth-dependent international real-estate market for Australian land and housing has become big business and Fairfax press are big business.
On 11th June this year, John Sutton from the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), stated that it was 'Time for a Genuine Migration Debate'. After all, 56% of Australia's net annual population is derived from overseas migration at the discretion of the federal government . In the course of his statement John Sutton said '... the Rudd Government should take the steering wheel off the big business lobby and ensure Australia's environment,community and worker's interests are all taken into account' . While the economic and demographic benefits of Australia's current net annual migration intake are equivocal, the adverse environmental and social impacts are unequivocal. The fact that the ABS projections are not predictions, particularly on migrant intakes - needs to be emphasised and repeated. The settings can and should be changed.
(Additional comment: Candobetter Editors note that on 8-8-08 a letter criticising the article's failure to differentiate between statistical trends and predictions was published in the Age, in simplified form.)
Arthur Bassett
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