Dick Smith

Registration with the Victorian Electoral Commission (VEC) has been confirmed for the Sustainable Australia Party.

It will now contest both the Victorian election on 24 November and the NSW election on 23 March, 2019. Importantly, local government elections in NSW and Victoria also now become possible.

The party says that a big focus for its state and local government campaigns will be better planning to stop overdevelopment.

It intends also to contest a federal election between August 2018 and May 2019, not to mention the current Perth by-election where Colin Scott is working very hard with the support of a dedicated local team.

"It's the first time we have run the Sustainable Australia brand in WA so we are effectively re-booting the party there," says William Burke, the President of Sustainable Australia Party.

He adds that the last 12 months has been dominated by these huge registration projects that have taken many hundreds of hours of work by a very small and mainly part-time HQ team, with the support of our volunteer state committees. He thanks everyone that helped, including the 500+ Victorian members and 750+ NSW members that returned the manual forms that were needed to register.

The Sustainable Australia Party is now looking forward to finalising the candidate selection process and doing more campaigning

Australian Dick Smith, techie, environmentalist who founded National Geographic, and millionaire, has recently attempted to educate Australians about the wealthy population growth lobby in their country, which benefits from Australia's rapid immigration-fueled population growth whilst the rest of us pay the cost. To do this, he has run his own expensive campaing, including taking out expensive ads in newspapers. Among other things, Smith has decribed Australia's public media, the ABC, as biased in its failure to fairly report the costs of population growth. We on candobetter.net cannot help but be impressed at his community spirit. Are Dick Smith’s ads having an effect on population reporting further afield? Maybe. Here's an example of what we hope may be a new trend in truthful reporting on the matter by the ABC.

Usual ABC ideology

As everyone knows, migrants don’t take jobs they make jobs. Migrants provide employers with welcome additional labour, but somehow the usual laws of supply and demand do not apply here.

This increased supply of labour never reduces the value of labour. It never harms the negotiating position of workers seeking better wages and conditions, or their chance of getting a job. Only a nasty rather “racist” person could doubt these self-evident truths, which seem to be well known to all ABC journalists—or maybe it is simply a well known fact that you won’t survive in the ABC news area if you question these assumptions. Yet perhaps some of the ABC’s business reporters are getting tired of keeping up this pretence.

Is a chink of light creeping by the ABC censors after all?

On 22 December 2017 the ABC’s business reporter Carrington Clarke nonchalantly filed a piece titled, Australian wages stall, as immigration soars.

How can such heresy be allowed?

According to Clarke, the 1,000 extra people being added to our population every day doesn't necessarily make life any better for the people who live in the country and arguably, makes it a lot worse.

This are more people competing for jobs and housing, pushing down wages and pushing up property prices. Australia's population growth is extraordinarily high when compared to our global peers, at 1.6 per cent per year. This is more than double the rate of the US, nearly three times the rate of the UK, and four times the rate of France.
On current projections, Australia will hit 38 million people by 2050.

This high rate of population growth is driven mostly by high immigration. Net migration was 245,400 people over the past 12 months — which was a 27.1 per cent increase over the year before.
That's more than the total population of Hobart in new migrants coming to the country in a single year.

Huge supply of imported workers add to Australia's high unemployment rate

This is also a huge additional supply of workers (although a proportion would be children or the elderly). The simple economic rule of supply and demand means these new workers effectively lower the price of labour, which means lower wages.

(On that last statement, see Clarke’s article 2 days earlier http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-19/high-immigration-masks-australian-economic-decline/8193628 with its subsections “Population growth distorting housing, labour markets”, and “Bigger pie, but more mouths eating from it”. Clarke quotes “Gareth Aird, Senior Economist at the Commonwealth Bank” saying “if you had a lower immigration rate at a time where there is spare capacity in the labour market that's not a bad thing.” Clarke concludes:

"The reason why many people feel that they haven't benefitted from the Australia's long stretch of economic expansion, is quite simply because they haven't. Their pay packets haven't gotten bigger while the costs of essential goods like shelter have risen. High migration makes it nearly impossible for Australia to fall into recession. The economy keeps getting bigger just because there are more people operating in it. It's great for business, because it keeps wages low and there's more people to buy stuff from them. It's great for governments because it means economic growth looks better than it otherwise would. But it isn't necessarily good for ordinary workers."

Now back to Clarke’s 22/12/2017 article. He continues:

"Australia is not currently anywhere near full employment. At 5.4 per cent unemployment, Australia is well above the US which is sitting at 4.1 per cent and the UK at 4.2 per cent.
There are currently 707,000 unemployed Australians. These are people currently looking for work. But that's only part of the story as there are currently about 1.1 million Australians who are 'underemployed'. These are people who are currently working (perhaps as little as one hour a week) but want to work more hours. So the number of Australians currently looking for more work is 1.8 million.

There is still a huge amount of 'slack' in the labour market which is keeping people from getting a decent pay rise. Companies are much less likely to offer big pay rises to workers if they know there's a big supply of other workers who are desperate for a job or more hours. . . . [The resulting ] economic 'growth' hasn't made a sizeable difference to the amount of Australians unemployed and has left us with the worst wages growth since the 1960s.

Companies are benefiting from this huge increase in workers and consumers. New migrants buy more things, which helps keep the tills ringing. And new migrants also mean more potential workers, which keeps wages down. This can be seen in the most recent profit figures, with companies experiencing a 27 per cent increase in profits in a year while workers received less than 2 per cent in wage increases. With 1.8 million people out of work or looking for more hours and 250,000 new migrants moving to the country each year, there's very little incentive for bosses to give workers a big rise.

Which is why, despite '1,000 new jobs a day', workers are getting a raw deal."

Dick Smith has started a campaign supporting the ABC TV news and current affairs as his favourite network, but wants them to show more balance when it comes to reporting population issues.

The Dick Smith Fair Go group launched a campaign on 27 September 2017, with newspaper advertisements in The Australian, the Canberra Times, the Land, The West Australian and others.

In the advertisements, Dick Smith quotes respected Canberra academic Mark O’Connor and his criticism of ABC TV news and current affairs for not showing balance when it comes to the population issue.

Dick Smith says, “A number in the media have criticised me personally for my stand, however I am just communicating what other experts are saying, but get no coverage on.”

“The ABC is my favourite television network, I watch it more than any other, and it was only after I read Mark O’Connor’s book Overloading Australia that I realised that ABC TV news and current affairs had been biased when it comes to covering the population issue,” Dick Smith said.

Dick Smith says “Our democracy can only work effectively if there is fair and open discussion on these issues. I have always been pro-immigration – it is what has made Australia such a fantastic place today. However I believe we should have a population plan, and therefore an immigration plan.”

“My plan is to get one of the major parties to have a population plan before the next election. Over 80% of Australians want this,” said Dick Smith.

When I lodged my nomination as a candidate for the SA House of Assembly seat of Fisher 2 years ago, the very first communication I received was a letter from the ABC telling me I would not get any coverage for my campaign. This was despite the fact that I was the nominated candidate for a registered political party with over 300 members, and I was spending about $6000 of my savings on campaign expenses and nomination fees." [...] "the Earth adds approx. 225,000 mouths to feed EVERY DAY. Australia adds approx. 1000 to its population each day. The implications of this are enormous, and yet it is very clear to me that the ABC soft pedals the matter. To be more specific, it is very common that, when an issue of national importance such as housing affordability comes up, there is very little mention of the influence population growth is having on the matter. The interviewers commonly host guests from the property industry to put their views, but people from such bodies as Sustainable Population Australia never seem to be asked to comment."

Mr Justin Milne
ABC Chairman
Box 9994
Sydney NSW 2001

Dear Chairman

I am writing to you instead of ABC Management because I lack confidence that the content of this letter will be taken seriously by that management. This lack of confidence is based on the fact that a complaint I lodged with the ABC in September 2015 was not answered until April of the following year, and then only after I wrote a personal letter to every member of the ABC Board.

There are 2 matters I wish to raise - firstly, ABC policy regarding airtime given to state election candidates. And secondly, ABC bias in relation to covering the issue of population growth in Australia.

Airtime given to election candidates

When I lodged my nomination as a candidate for the SA House of Assembly seat of Fisher 2 years ago, the very first communication I received was a letter from the ABC telling me I would not get any coverage for my campaign. This was despite the fact that I was the nominated candidate for a registered political party with over 300 members, and I was spending about $6000 of my savings on campaign expenses and nomination fees.

However, in the lead up to that campaign, Matt and Dave on 891 Adelaide chose to interview a selection of candidates for Fisher on their morning program. They comprised Liberal, Labour, Greens and an Independent (Woolyat), whose particular talent was sidestepping every question put to him about controversial issues. And, when I attempted to access ABC talk back, I was afforded little respect or opportunity to put my case before being cut off.

Around this time, the Adelaide Advertiser was kind enough to publish a letter from me that pointed out the ABC was not willing to give me any airtime, and yet Zakky Mullah, a convicted criminal, was given a platform on Q and A to push his twisted agenda.

Chairman, myself and members of our party (Stop Population Growth Now) intend to run in the SA elections in March next year. I request that you direct ABC management to give our party (and other registered parties) sufficient air time to promote our policies, which, by the way, are not racist - they are based on the absolute necessity to create a society that is sustainable and where preservation of our environment is regarded as critical.

ABC bias in relation to population issues

ABC records will indicate I have complained to your organization about this subject before.

Chairman, the Earth adds approx. 225,000 mouths to feed EVERY DAY. Australia adds approx. 1000 to its population each day. The implications of this are enormous, and yet it is very clear to me that the ABC soft pedals the matter. To be more specific, it is very common that, when an issue of national importance such as housing affordability comes up, there is very little mention of the influence population growth is having on the matter. The interviewers commonly host guests from the property industry to put their views, but people from such bodies as Sustainable Population Australia never seem to be asked to comment. It is completely unreasonable to believe that adding 1000 persons per day to Australia’s population is not going to have a very significant effect on housing prices. And there are many other areas where population growth has a major impact. The Adelaide Advertiser was kind enough to publish a letter from me a few weeks ago in which I pointed out that, on current growth rates, the population of Australia will grow from approx 24.5 million today to approx 32.5 million by 2040, an increase of 33%, and that all these extra people would need power, when it is clear we are having problems catering for our existing population, let alone provide for such a huge increase. The commercial media is willing to give publicity to this fact, but where is the ABC on that hugely significant matter.

Recently the DRUM and Media Watch have been borderline contemptuous of the efforts of Dick Smith, who, with his own money, is trying to bring about a proper debate on population growth. Well, Mr Chairman, the ABC is not helping such a debate. Yet when a detainee on Manus so much as stubs a toe, the ABC is all over it, with, I might add, a very clear pro refugee bias.

Please do not assume I am against everything the ABC does. The ABC has some wonderful talent (Anthony Green, Dr Norman Swan to name 2), and I cannot wait for each new episode of UTOPIA. But there is definitely bias in some areas, and it needs to be rooted out.

Chairman, I am a 74 years old senior citizen, with no criminal record (unlike Mullah). I believe I am a respected member of my local community. I have worked (and am still working) paying taxes for 57 years. My taxes have supported “my ABC” for all that time. Why do I feel that my views supporting zero population growth are ignored by your organization. I am not being given a voice by the ABC, yet the commercial media is often willing to publish my letters and take my calls (Jeremy Cordeux gave me 20 minutes on Radio 5AA some time ago), and Leon Byner of the same station is always willing to talk to me. This is so even though it can be argued the interests of commercial media are not served by stopping population growth.

I respectfully request you and your Board to consider this letter, and act accordingly.

Bob Couch

Dick Smith commissioned a Galaxy poll to assess both the impact of his $1 million TV ad campaign based on the Grim Reaper AIDS ad of the 1980s, and community attitudes towards Australia’s developed-world-leading immigration-fueled rapid population growth. The sample comprised 1,005 respondents, distributed throughout Australia including both capital city and non-capital city areas – the report is attached. The main findings of the poll were:

 The majority of Australians (83%) believe that population growth is of such significant consequence that every major political party should have a population plan.
 There is an overwhelming belief that politicians should be doing something about population growth (82%).
 Population growth is an issue of concern for the majority of supporters of both the Coalition (62%) and the Labor Party (62%).
 Among those that have seen the TV ad 91% are convinced that every major political party should have a population plan.

Poll confirms that Smith understands what ordinary Australians want

Dicks Smith said “This just confirms that what I’ve found from the conversations I’ve had with ordinary Australians: 8/10 are concerned that the major political parties have no population plan.” Dick Smith said “Aussie families can have up to 20 kids during their lifetime, but none do. This is because parents have a population plan for the number of children they can give a decent life to. Yet our politicians have no similar plan for our country. It’s time for a population plan that involves stabilising Australia’s population below 30 million by reducing the net overseas migration program down from the current 200,000 back to the long-term average of 70,000 per annum.”

Is Dick Smith the last good rich man in Australia?

Or will some other wealthy people come out in support of democracy too? It is admirable that Dick Smith really seems to be on a truth-seeking mission. He has refused to be put down by the ABC propaganda dogs at The Drum and Media Watch and he has financed a proper survey which has shown his support base is very high. His detractors have greatly underestimated him. Is Dick Smith the last good rich man in Australia, a country run by wealthy men and women politicians, CEOs, property developers, transnational corporations and media owners, entirely for their own enrichment, at great cost to the rest of us.

Tonight (11 September 2017) the ABC’s Media Watch program contained a section in which presenter (Paul Barry) attacked Dick Smith’s views on population and specifically Dick Smith’s complaints about the ABC’s refusal to cover the issue of Australia’s rampant population growth. Yet for much of the time he did not defend the ABC. He did not answer points Dick Smith makes at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-tv-news-current-affairs-bias-growth/or that William Lines and I have made at https://www.dicksmithfairgo.com.au/abc-bias-chapter-overloading-australia/ about ABC bias. Instead, Paul Barry seemed more interested in attacking Dick Smith. [Mark O'Connor is a well known Australian poet and co-author with Bill Lines of Overloading Australia.]

Abandoning the standards Barry and Media Watch normally hold other journalists to, Barry made no attempt to deal with the relevant issues. He did not, for instance, attempt to argue that the amount of space that ABC TV news programs devote to Australia’s extraordinary rate of population growth (we are growing at a rate that would be high even in the Third World) is in proportion with this issue’s importance. Much less did Barry offer evidence or statistics to show that the ABC gives fair or equal space to critics of these very high population growth rates or of the very high immigration rates that drive this growth.

He made no attempt to compare the space and time given to population with that given to other major drivers of contemporary history’s problems, such as “the economy”, or climate change. Nor did he answer the points so powerfully made by Ross Gittins and others about the need to stop pretending that high immigration is any clear benefit to Australia. See for instance https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/bob-brown-laura-tingle-and-ross-gittins-back-dick-smith/

Instead Barry launched an ad hominem attack on Dick Smith, presenting him as an attention seeker. Perhaps Barry thought attack was the ABC’s best method of defence.

He claimed Dick was unreasonably aggrieved at not having his point of view represented on ABC’s program The Drum (where a group of population growth advocates was recently lined up to belittle Dick’s case, with some making misleading statements about him supporting Pauline Hanson). See https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/09/abc-drum-counters-immigration-bias-claim-bias/ Yet if they did not want Dick on their panel, why did they not ask Ross Gittins or Bob Carr or Tim Flannery or Ian Lowe etc etc ? Why only pro-growth panellists?

Barry cannot plead ignorance on this subject. The failure of ABC TV news programs to give appropriate space to the case against our government’s policies of pursuing high population growth has been repeatedly brought to his attention at Media Watch, and he has always refused to cover the issue.

If this refusal to deal with an issue that goes to the heart of Media Watch’s charter (as indeed of the ABC’s) was not based on a careful examination of the case, then it was irresponsible. But if it was based on a careful examination which showed that the ABC’s coverage had not in fact been too small and was not unbalanced, then Barry would tonight have been able to produce hard evidence and statistics to disprove Dick Smith’s criticisms. He would not have needed ad hominem attacks, or puns on Dick’s name.

The nearest Barry came to a defence of the ABC was in pointing out that back in 2010 (that’s 7 whole years ago, Paul, and for an issue that its crucial to a dozen news items every week!) the ABC did run a documentary on population called (indeed) Dick Smith’s Population Puzzle followed by a debate on Q&A.

But Barry failed to mention that at the last minute Q&A insisted that their panel would not contain any clear critics of Australia’s rapid-population-growth policies, thus once again disenfranchising the majority of Australians from the debate. Instead there would be a “sub-panel” (which did contain Tim Flannery) who would be allowed to make a brief statement each but not take place in the subsequent debate. (I think I have remembered this correctly. I do remember that it all seemed bizarre at the time. Media Watch did not, of course, comment back then upon this oddity.)

So instead of a normal Q&A debate, we were treated to an interchange of views between types like Tony Shepherd and John Elliott, whose line was that population growth is needed for business: end of story. For “contrast” these were put in discussion with an utterly pro-growth mayor who wanted us to know about the heart-pangs that he and (he claimed) the fellow citizens of his town suffered daily at being only the second biggest town in their state! (At least that’s what I can remember from 7 years ago. It was certainly not a fair or balanced debate, if a debate at all).

Barry might have found a better example if he had mentioned that back in January 2010, as described on p. 162 of my and William Lines’s book Overloading Australia, the ABC’s 7.30 Report allowed Matt Peacock to make a series of 4 segments on the deep disquiet felt by many scientists and social commentators at Australia’s rate of population growth. But to use this example Barry would have had to explain why the ABC has never since allowed Peacock or others to revisit that issue in similar depth. In fact since then many of those whom Peacock found willing to speak out in 2010 have fallen silent, realising that there is little chance of getting a fair hearing.

I think we have the right to be angry about this. ABC TV news has never provided adequate or balanced coverage of Australia’s population debate; and now that Dick Smith has had the courage to put it on the spot, it is flailing around and trying to defend itself with ad hominem attacks.

Mark O’Connor

Subsequent to Dick Smith's complaints to the ABC about bias towards the growth lobby on the subject of population, on 11 September 2017, Paul Barry, of ABC Media Watch, launched what many thought was a personal attack on Smith, in lieu of dealing fairly with the vital issues at hand. Dr John Coulter (former Senator and leader of the Democrats) wrote the following complaint to Media Watch, where he protests at the treatment of Dick Smith by Media Watch and documents a number of instances of pro-population-growth bias in the ABC. You can also read some a few comments published by Media Watch on this issue here: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s4732374.htm.

Dear Media Watch,
[11 September 2017]

I was quite shocked by your program last evening re coverage of Dick Smith’s attempts to get ‘growth’ both population and economic on to the ABC’s agenda. Unlike your usual, more dispassionate reports you seemed to be more intent on disparaging Dick Smith rather than dealing with the importance of his claims as to the overarching importance of both aspects of growth as the drivers of our unsustainable trajectory and the fact, yes fact, that the ABC has excluded these things from its main-stream news items.

I wrote to you about this back in March and received an acknowledgement but nothing more. Below is some of the content of that letter.

But to bring this right up to date, just this morning there was extensive coverage of the problems with the supply of electricity into the mid-term future. But not a single mention of the fact that Federal Government policy is to add an additional one million people, all needing electricity every five years into the indefinite future.

Is this really an irrelevant ‘fact’? Is it not an important ‘fact’ to bring into this discussion? In every other sphere of public discussion both supply and demand are considered the basic elements of economics 101. Yet in the provision of electricity services, affordable housing, education, hospitals and medical services, roads and transport, etc etc the demand side caused by deliberate population growth through immigration is excluded by the ABC.

On the economic growth side the ABC repeatedly provides data on the growth of GDP but with few exceptions fails to provide the figures on per capita GDP growth which is much much smaller because of the very high level of immigration. Nor does it mention that included in the GDP figures are large amounts spent on attempts to keep infrastructure up to providing for the expanding population. None of these costs, which are added to GDP, improve the lot of existing Australians. It’s not surprising that very many Australians feel they are going backwards – because they are. Or that the Productivity Commission found only marginal economic benefits from immigration and much of that benefit going to the recently arrived.

None of this is to indicate racism. This is purely to do with numbers and how best to build an environmentally sustainable Australia in an environmentally sustainable world. Note that the Global Footprint Network has recently released its figures which show that Australians have the highest per capita environmental impact in the world. We would need 5.2 Earths if all were to live like Australians. Yet all our political parties seek to increase both population and per capita consumption. And the ABC uses language in its coverage of these things as, for example, South Australia ‘falling behind.

These footprint figures link Australians to the rest of the world and how best we can assist other nations to find their own unique path to a sustainable future. With 80+ million refugees and displaced persons in the world and with fertility rates in many middle-east and sub-Saharan Africa very high it seems self-evident that Australia could do much more by way of foreign aid, especially slanting that aid toward family planning, contraception and raising the standard of health of women. Yet Australia has cut its foreign aid program and the ABC has not picked up on the central role of foreign aid to assist women in the ways mentioned. Indeed a number of programs from Sally Sara and others have ignored the central role of high fertility in worsening the plight of people from Yemen to South Sudan. I am associated with an organisation called Population Media Centre which operates in over 50 countries and which concentrates specifically on raising the health of women. It uses long running radio soapies to raise awareness. I have several times urged programs such as Foreign Correspondent and Sally Sara specifically to make a program about the exciting and successful work of PMC in Ethiopia for example, but to no avail.

Below is some or all of the letter I wrote to you back in March:

9th March [2017] letter to media watch.

For example, last week in Saturday Extra a long interview regarding the plight of refugees in Sudan failed to even mention population growth as a driver of this and similar distressing situations across much of the world, especially the middle east and throughout Africa. Population growth is clearly going to make the present look like a picnic compared with the inevitable future. By not dealing with population and implying that the real need is for short-term aid rather than family planning, contraception availability, education and a rise in the standard of living and equality of women, such programs will make the future worse than it needs to be. In short, such programs will increase the totality of human suffering.

See the 2 minute video from the UN on the plight across the Sahel at http://oasisinitiative.berkeley.edu/news/ [Embedded below.]

This item on Saturday Extra was not isolated. A week earlier on a different program a similar account from another refugee camp in Africa failed to mention population growth as a factor.
12th November 2016, "What keeps me at wake at night."

This program on water began with the statement that water was a limited resource but that demand was increasing. It identified the limits on water supply as underpinning several of the areas in turmoil in the middle east, especially Syria. It touched on the appalling conditions in Yemen, specifically dealing with declining water per capita but again failed to mention the very high fertility rate in Yemen or any of the other middle east countries which appear on the nightly ABC TV news showing very large numbers of children but with never a comment on the size of the population or the fact that the high fertility rate will exacerbate the water shortage per capita. It is not a water shortage but a longage of people. This is the point that the ABC repeatedly misses. The standard analysis by ABC journalists as to what ails many of the middle-east countries is presented in political and religious conflict terms; never does it point to the underlying drivers: too many people trying to derive resources, including water and food, from a finite environment.

Last evening (27th March) on Lateline Jeremy Fernandez interviewed HRH Haya Bint al Hussein of Jordan who is in Australia in her role as assisting international refugees and speaking with Australia's Foreign Minister. Princess Haya made the remarkable claim that the world produces three times as much food as needed. This went unchallenged. She was not asked a single question about the very high fertility rates in middle eastern countries and how this was impacting (what is usually called the shortage of food and water but is really) the longage of people. Note that almost every news item that covers the middle eastern refugee situation speaks of families of 4, 6 and 8 children and every video clip shows a preponderance of children. There is no shortage of evidence. She was not asked a single question on family planning or use of contraception.

This morning (28th March) Fran Kelly also interviewed the princess and again there was a complete absence of any questions about the very high fertility rates in Middle east countries, what her charities might be doing about this, about Trump's change to foreign aid specifically with respect to family planning clinics providing abortion advice or services and whether she would be asking the Australian Foreign Minister for additional foreign aid to counter this deficit. Women's standing in Jordan was touched on but only with respect to the number of women in significant positions in government and society.

28th March ABC RN Drive with Patricia Karvelas.
Interview with three interviewees on housing affordability. First comment by first interviewee was that it was a matter of both supply and demand and there was a gap. Karvelas did not pick up on the demand side throughout the interview. She identified ‘the elephant in the room’ as negative gearing but failed to identify that 60% of demand is being fed by high immigration and that many have identified this as a very significant factor in housing affordability. The first interviewer mentioned immigration in his closing remarks but no one picked up on this remark of this factor.

24th March. Stan Grant interviewed Dick Smith in a setting of a Sydney market on the evening Link program on ABC TV.
This part of the program was said to be about population and Australia’s immigration intake. However the context set by Stan Grant was that the size of a sustainable population can be determined by public opinion and Stan kept asking leading questions of those in the market suggesting that any reduction in immigration would be detrimental to their business. Stan could not be more wrong in his assumption. Finding a sustainable population size for Australia is no more a matter of public opinion than finding the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that can be allowed without invoking climate change, or the number of sheep that can be kept permanently in a paddock without overgrazing. These are all matters in which there is good and essential science underpinning consideration of these matters but Stan consistently talked over Dick and did not allow him to advance any of them.
31st March. The Drum. A segment on population that contained no person or mention of environmental sustainability in relation to population growth. Thus, claims that we need population growth, that it was inevitable, that growth was wonderful, that it benefited the economy, that government could do nothing to limit population growth, that Japan was shrinking and we don’t want to go down that path were all left to stand as truth whereas every single on of these claims can be refuted with supported evidence. The selection of such a panel without an alternative voice shows bias.

6th , 7th , 10th April. Three sessions on RN on almost successive days dealing with aspects of housing affordability but none mentioning population growth or immigration.

6th April. Interview with respect to the role of transport development as a way of alleviating the problem of housing affordability (Marion Tell). This was based around a talk by Phillip Lowe, Reserve Bank Governor. Lowe had mentioned population as a driver of housing unaffordability but this was not taken up by Fran Kelly. Together with the other programs not mentioning population growth and immigration this seems a quite deliberate omission.

7th April. Interview with MP, Sarah Henderson who claimed that improving rail links to regional centres would improve housing affordability. No questions asked about population growth or immigration intake.

10th April. Interview with Saul Eslake about use of superannuation as a way of boosting housing supply but again no mention of population growth of the size of the immigration intake.

17th April. Patricia Karvelas interviewing Matt Canavan. Long interview on a number of matters but touching on housing affordability. Canavan mentions population increase and how it is causing problems in Sydney and Melbourne but then provides a solution in opening up more regional centres especially in north Queensland. Patricia does not suggest that perhaps the problem might be the increase in population caused largely by high immigration over which the Federal Government has control.

Finally a search across the ABC from September 2016 to today (19th April, 2017) failed to find a single ABC reference to population increase/ immigration and housing affordability. Indeed there is not a single reference to any impact on any aspect of infrastructure failure and the increase in population being driven by very high immigration.

Van Badham, the author of an insulting Guardian piece against Dick Smith, (Thursday 7 September 2017) parades the usual cliches about 'educating women' to deal with population growth, despite the obvious fact that although women in Australia still have relatively high rates of literacy, our population just keeps growing faster and faster. Not because Australian women are having huge families, but because mass immigration from overseas contributes 60% of Australia's population growth. How is education going to fix that, Ms Van Badham? [16 September 2017: See new footnote #5.]

Not progress

Most people in Australia and the rest of the Anglosphere are educated to believe in a sort of chronological continuous improvement, which they know as 'progress'. This 'progress' explanation is used to excuse all kinds of costs imposed by change. (We also hear, 'Change is good'). But much coercive and costly change is caused by catering to overpopulation and overdevelopment, and both these ills are engineered by powerful people. Over the last 20 years in Australia, the mainstream media has represented the growth lobby by pushing rapid population growth as an economic norm, as an inevitable demographic fact, and has played its only card - the race card - against the many more rational objections.

Rent a troll

With the rise of the internet, the beneficiaries of engineered population growth use crowds of trolls to defend these costs and the growth lobby's excesses on the internet, so that when critics of rapid population growth go to 'progressive' sites that push growth, they will get all kinds of flack. The trolls are designed to frighten questioners away. People should not be misled to believe that the nasty attacks on people who question population growth are sincere - they are too similar and irrational to be spontaneous - but they do need to be countered.

A recent and gross example have been a majority of comments on an article, "I get why you're angry, Dick Smith. The ABC ignores my ideas all the time," in The Guardian (Thursday 7 September 2017) about Dick Smith's ad against massive population growth. You can see these comments here: https://www.facebook.com/theguardianaustralia/posts/1487301447971603. Many are grossly defamatory. [Revisiting the site two days later, I discover that, thankfully, many of these awful comments have been unpublished by The Guardian.] The article itself, although it is apparently by a professional journalist, is sarcastic, coarse, superficial and ageist, characterising Smith as sexist, a white man abusing his traditional privilege, an elderly xenophobe having a 'brain fart'.

Female education in Australia

The author of this gratuitously insulting piece, Van Badham, then parades the usual cliches [1] about 'educating women' to deal with population growth, despite the obvious fact that although women in Australia have relatively good (if deteriorating) educations, our population just keeps growing faster and faster. Not because Australian women are having huge families, but because mass immigration from overseas contributes 60% of Australia's population growth. How is education going to fix that, Ms Van Badham?

Don't let the facts stand in the way, Ms Badham

Immigration is a factor totally ignored by the so-called Demographic Transition 'theory'. Speaking as a population scientist, I would say that Dick Smith is on the right track and Ms Van Badham is ignoring 60% of the equation. However you will find that most Australian 'population experts' - read professional 'demographers' and friends of the growth lobby - also fall for the Badham arithmetic mistake, although they are all more mathematicians and economists than scientists.[2] They fall for it because they do not test it and they do not read around it or anything not produced in English.

Outside the Anglosphere bubble

It was to educate people with open minds that I translated Etienne Van de Walle's: “French fertility in the 19th century,” which you can read here: /node/4247. Van de Walles was not the only French population historian and demographer to write about how France had 'its demographic transition' before industrialisation, right after the Revolution. The Anglosphere is known for ignoring theories that question its own tenets, however, so no-one hears about it.

One brave American population historian, Paul G Spagnoli, dared to write about this strange turning away from scientific method in the Anglosphere, which is so dominated by political and economic ideology. You can read his paper, "The unique decline of mortality in revolutionary France,"(1997) here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11619481. Almost no-one paid attention to this eminent bilingual historian's significant analysis, because it did not suit the anglosphere bias.

Anyone talking population needs to know this

Seuil, France also published a multi-article review by population theorists which included Dupâquier and other notables, as Communications, 44, 1986. Dénatalité : l'antériorité française, 1800-1914., (1986).[3] The meaning of the title is "Fall in the birth rate: the French precedent, 1800-1914." There was both a fall in the birth rate and a fall in mortality, at the same time as there was a rise in marriages, a fall in age of marriage, and a decline in never-marrieds! Why? Well, the French used contraception - but they didn't need the pill; they used the sheath, withdrawal, and various pessaries. Contraceptives have been known forever,[4] but using them demands a will to do so. In the 19th century, as the state cracked down on use of contraceptives because they wanted more soldiers for war, bands of French activists went round the country selling them and teaching people how to use them, especially poor people in cities. (See Francis Ronsin, La Greve des ventres, Aubier, France, 1980.)

Prior to the French Revolution, France's population was either stable or grew very slowly. [5] Although forms of contraception have been available extending back into ancient history, this Ancien Regime population stability is thought to have been due to a different kind of population control, where quite high percentages of people never married, never had children, and where the average age of marriage was quite high (over 25 yrs old). People who did marry and have children averaged above 5 children and life expectancy was low, with many children dying in infancy.

The natural fertility myth and endogamy

The French demography historians, such as Jacques Dupâquier (who calls it a myth) and Henri Leridon, also question the so-called 'natural fertility' concept which Anglosphere demographers believe is demonstrated by the extreme fertility of the Hutterites. See, Bardet and Dupâquier, "Contraception: les Francais les premiers, mais pourquoi?" in the abovementioned Dénatalité : l'antériorité française, 1800-1914. Dupâquier and others refer to the power of endogamy in determining fertility opportunity. The French and most tribal people before colonisation, globalism, and the car, were endogamous. That is, they lived in villages (the equivalent of clans or tribes) where only rarely did anyone marry far beyond the village or tribe. Because of the small range of population numbers within a village or tribe this meant that, like a small game of musical chairs, not everyone would find a marriagable partner, either because they were too strongly related or because all possibles were already married or because they were outside their social class (homogamy).

Another brake on fertility was that lack of housing or a good income made people less attractive as marriage partners.

Transport and the Post-WW2 Baby Boom

The advent of relatively cheap cars brought about a sudden jump in the marriage and birth rates in many countries because people could live in new houses in places that had previously been too far from work and ammenities and they found employment in the post war fossil fuel economy. Hence more people became marriagable. This was called the "Baby Boom." Trains had also made a difference to employment opportunities and the viability of living in once out of the way places. Boats early brought marriagable strangers closer. Planes exploded trans-ocean marriage/fertility opportunities. The latest accelerator of marriage and fertility opportunity is probably the internet which permits romances that are detached from real circumstances.

Colonisation, industrialisation and war accelerate population growth

However the problem of mass immigration remains an accelerant of population growth that is rarely acknowledged, although those who make open borders policy know it well. They just don't talk about it. Just think of how colonisation and war, by exploding endogamous traditions and driving people from their historic villages and tribal lands to cities in search of work has affected India, China, Africa, the Middle East ... Think how it has affected Australia - once occupied by a much smaller lighter footprinted population for 60,000 years. How much difference will the wars pushing people from Africa and the Middle East and the politicians inviting them to enter Europe's almost stablising population make? How much more will the globalisation of everything and open borders accelerate all populations and anihilate all diversity?

About the author

The author of this article, Sheila Newman, is an evolutionary sociologist specialising in population, environment and energy resources. Relevant to the theory expressed here, she has published, Demography, Territory, Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations, Countershock Press, 2012 See peer reviews and explanation here) and Demography, Territory, Law 2: Land-tenure and the origins of capitalism in Britain, Countershock Press, 2014 and she is currently working on the third volume in series, Demography, Territory, Law 3: Land-tenure and the origins of democracy in France. Her major thesis in Environmental Sociology, which included oil economics, was The Growth Lobby in Australia and its Absence in France, 2002. For where to buy these see her bio here: /node/1882

NOTES

[1] [My translation]: "In researching factors to explain differences in fertility between different states in India, two authors proposed analyses based on the same methodology, multiple regression, focusing on each state. Zachariah and Patel (1984) concluded that a small number of socioeconomic variables (with the level of education achieved by women at the top) explained 91% of variation in birth rates. Jain in 1985 concluded in a similarly convincing fashion (explaining 90% of variation) that it was due to three major variables: age at marriage, infantile mortality, and use of contraception. Thus, each one could boast of having identified the key variables to Indian fertility, but both lists of variables were completely unrelated! We can understand why: both lists were not independent and the socioeconomic variables identified in the first article affected the variables taken into consideration in the second. Source: Henri Leridon, "Théories de la fécondité : des démographes sous influence ?", Population 2015/2 (Vol. 70), p. 331-373. DOI 10.3917/popu.1502.0331, pp. 336-337.

[2] Henri Leridon, "Théories de la fécondité : des démographes sous influence ?", Population 2015/2 (Vol. 70), p. 331-373. DOI 10.3917/popu.1502.0331, pp. 334, 'Not theories but ideas.'

[3] Under the direction of the School of Higher Studies in Social sciences - Centre of Transdisciplinary Studies (Sociologie, Anthorpologie, Politics).

[4] John Knowles (Lead author), Report, "History of Birth Control Methods," Katharine Dexter McCormick Library and the Education Division of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, 2012, http://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/2613/9611/6275/History_of_BC_Methods.pdf

[5] Note from Sheila Newman 16 September 2017: I originally wrote that the population of the Ancien Regime 'was also stable for a couple of centuries'; I am ammending this to take into account a revised opinion in France, which is that the population may have grown very slowly. Also, after the French Revolution, France's population did grow, of course, despite a lower birth rate, because of the reduction in the death rate, the increase in marriages and the decrease in celibacy. I have not yet adequately researched whether the role of immigration in increasing growth rates was significant during the Revolution. Note that most documents of the Ancien Regime (such as they were) were lost during the French Revolution and estimating population size during that time, and growth, is not very reliable. With regard to the recent ammendment from two or more centuries of population stability (rather non-growth, due to huge demographic crises such as recurrent epidemics, wars and famines (famines were often related to wars and the depredations of soldiers on local food crops) to 'slow growth'; it is difficult to find the origin of this 'recalculation' and one wonders if it was not a political or a population-theory decision where, on a basis that the leap from estimates of 18-20 or 22m French until 1750 seemed too sudden compared to the first modern census of 1801, which found 29,361,000 people in France. The alternative to this would be to re-guess the population of France under the Ancien Regime at around 25 or even 27 million. This would then run up hard against the 18m estimated by Vauban at the end of the 17th century. That estimate was based on poll taxes by household.

Kindly and patriotic Australian businessman, Dick Smith, has been very poorly treated by the ABC on episode 158 its The Drum program. This is a very serious problem because, in mistreating Dick Smith, the ABC misinforms Australians on a subject of vital and democratic importance. The ABC seems now undifferentiated from the commercial TV channels with regard to reporting on population. Apparently the ABC has actually banned Dick Smith from the program. The letter inside, from Dick Smith to Ms Julia Baird, the Presenter of The Drum, asks for right of reply. We have embedded Dick Smith's video ad at the beginning of the text so you can judge for yourself whether Ms Baird has a leg to stand on. To us it is obvious that what has caused the media to go after Dick Smith is the fact that he has linked growthist population policy to Australia's reigning politicians and they are going to try to destroy him.

Dick Smith Fair Go 'Grim Reaper' TV Ad - 1min from Dick Smith Fair Go on Vimeo.

7 September 2017

Julia Baird Presenter The Drum ABC

Dear Julia

RE: CONTINUING BIAS ON THE ABC

What an outrageous segment on The Drum last night misrepresenting my views on population growth and immigration. This segment did everything to confirm that Mark O’Connor’s chapter in his book Overloading Australia entitled ‘Media bias and ABC blues’ is correct.

Your researchers didn’t even make the most basic enquiries by lifting the phone and talking to me about the statements that were attributed to me.

I note you started the segment with a piece from another TV channel with the large text “Anti immigration ad.” In fact, I have never had an anti-immigration ad.

I spent $1 million on a “Grim Reaper” style advertising campaign explaining that when politicians say growth, they actually mean endless growth. This will either result in growing inequality, or possibly terrible consequences for our society.

Those views are not mine alone, but reflect the views of many educated people from around the world.

The reason I have never run and anti-immigration ad is that I am pro-immigration. I always have been. It is the reason Australia is such a fantastic country.

Yes, upon advice from experts, I believe we should return to the long-term average of about 70,000 per year – as I’m told this will mean there is a greater chance for a sustainable future, and proper full-time careers for our children and grandchildren.

70,000 per year is approximately the immigration number when Paul Keating was Prime Minister, and I’m told is high per capita by world standards.

I have consistently called for a substantial increase in the humanitarian intake. This would be clear if any of your researchers had even bothered to glance at the Fair Go manifesto, or if you had given the panelists the document to look at.

Your segment went downhill from there. The erroneous caption “anti-immigration ad” confirmed exactly what I had been told by politicians about the ABC. They have said to me:

“Dick, you are absolutely right. We need a population policy, but if I ever mentioned it I would be crucified by the ABC. They would immediately link my comment to being opposed to immigration…”

Not at any time during the whole segment did you actually discuss what I am on about. That is, it is not possible to have endless growth in a finite world.

Amazingly, your researchers or producers didn’t even bother to brief Alan Kirkland, the CEO of Choice, about my $1 million “Grim Reaper” television campaign. He actually said on your segment:

“I didn’t know about this campaign until the whole story broke about the ABC banning him.”

Once again, that proves exactly what Mark O’Connor is saying in Overloading Australia. That is, ABC television news and current affairs (and, I will add, The Drum), constantly show bias on the growth issue.

Every one of your panelists were clearly pro endless growth. I particularly loved the comment by Alan Kirkland:

“So we are getting a lot out of migration at the moment, geared predominantly towards delivering what employers need, and that is what fuels the economy, and it has been one of the most consistent forces driving economic growth in Australia, decade upon decade.”

Of course he doesn’t mention for an instant – nor do you, and I would have thought you would have as you are a mother of young children – that with automation and robotics there are real concerns that there will be enough jobs to give a decent full-time career to our young people in the future.

That is why, in my Fair Go manifesto, I have canvassed the idea of a living wage – not at all mentioned by any of your people.

Then of course there is the tired old point from Alan Kirkland:

“We absolutely need to have this debate because I guess the missing piece is saying that population has grown that that has fuelled economic growth but we have really dropped the ball on infrastructure and on housing in particular.”

Yes, that is the Harry Triguboff belief. You just need to spend more money on infrastructure and housing, and the endless growth will be solved.

Has Mr Kirkland forgotten that our high schools are now moving into high rise, and children are living like termites rather than free range with a back yard and a cubby house?

Georgina Downer from the Institute of Public Affairs, reckons, “It is quite rich for Dick Smith to say he is being ignored,” and then goes on saying that I pitched my whole argument about immigration “being incredibly damaging” when this is clearly not true.

Julia, why didn’t you bring up at any stage the issue that I am talking about? It is very simple. You can’t have endless growth in population and the use of resources and energy in a finite world. There is no discussion on this because the politicians have been totally intimidated because they may be branded “anti-immigration.”

It appears that the briefing note handed to panellists said that this was a “stunt.” Nothing could be further from the truth. Since producing my documentary on population, which was run on the ABC, I have worked constantly on this important issue that affects all Australians.

Of note, the documentary was commissioned not by television news and current affairs, but by a completely different ABC department, and the man who did the commissioning did not have his contract renewed.

Julia, you, like every mother, has a population plan – you didn’t have 20 kids. Australian families are sensible and have the number of children to whom they can give a good life. Why then shouldn’t we have a plan for the aggregate that says, “Let’s have the number of people in Australia that we can give a good life to.”

I would say that is pretty simple, but it is not discussed in any way – driven by the fear of politicians into being dishonestly distorted in their views, as your segment did to me last night.

Most importantly, I note the statement by marketing strategist Toby Ralph:

“I am very concerned that he is a guy who won’t vote for a Party that he is about to give $2 million to, and that seems to me a contradiction that you can’t fully move past. I think he needs a nice long lie down and a think about that.”

One simple phone call by your researchers to me would have informed them that I have never had any intention of making a donation to One Nation in relation to this issue. It is a complete fabrication.

I have attached a copy of the chapter in Overloading Australia entitled Media bias and ABC blues. I ask you to read it, and today at 4.30 pm I will be at the ABC Headquarters at Ultimo, waiting downstairs, and I expect to be given a chance to go on air to have the truth told.

I should point out that eight out of ten Australians agree with my views that we should have open discussion and a population plan – not endless growth, driven normally by endless greed.

Regards

Dick Smith

Appendix: Descriptiion of The Drum episode 158

Tonight on The Drum: Julia Baird is joined by marketing strategist Toby Ralph, CEO of CHOICE Alan Kirkland, Georgina Downer from the Institute of Public Affairs and Fairfax national affairs editor Mark Kenny. #TheDrum,

Article by Leith van Onselen. Dick Smith is a national treasure. Yesterday he used his own money to fund an ad in Australia’s major newspapers challenging Lucy Turnbull – the chief commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) – on mass immigration, and asking her what her eventual plans are for the population of Sydney – querying whether it could be 16 or even 100 million.

Below is the ad:

The response from Lucy Turnbull’s office was pathetic. From The Australian:

The Australian sought comment from Ms Turnbull, through the Greater Sydney Commission. Commission chief executive Sarah Hill responded that Sydney’s rate of population growth was the “hallmark of all successful cities around the world”, and the group based its planning on a middle range of growth forecast, prepared by the state’s demographers.

“More than half of this growth is through natural increase,” Ms Hill said. “Our responsibility is to plan for this to make our city more liveable, sustainable and productive, rather than to debate the facts.”

So, “more than half of this growth is from natural increase”, according to the GSC? Not according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). As shown in the below charts, net overseas migration (NOM) into NSW (read Sydney) accounted for 67% of population growth in financial year 2016, and has done so on average over the past 30-plus years:

However, the above charts significantly understate the true impacts of immigration on Sydney’s population growth because “natural increase” captures the children of migrants. That is, NOM brings with it an immediate direct boost to population as well as a subsequent boost as new migrant arrivals have children (subsequently classified as “natural increase”).

For this reason, the Productivity Commission this year estimated that Australia’s population would peak at 27 million by 2060 under zero NOM, versus 41 million under NOM of 200,000 – a difference in population of 14 million! This comes despite only 9 million of this population increase coming directly from NOM. The other 5 million comes from migrants and the decedents of migrants having children (see next chart).

These are “the facts”, which the GSC seems only too willing to ignore: it is primarily mass immigration that is causing Sydney’s infrastructure woes, as well as pressuring housing.

Clearly, the best way for Lucy Turnbull to make Sydney “more livable” is to tap her husband on the shoulder and convince him to rein-in Australia’s mass immigration program.

Because as far as high immigration goes, the buck stops with the federal government. If you are in local or state government then you don’t have much choice but to cope with continuing mass immigration putting an ever-increasing strain on already stretched infrastructure, housing and public services.

Lucy Turnbull is in a unique position to influence federal policy and effect change for the betterment of both Sydney and Australia. But like her husband she is a mouthpiece for the ‘growth lobby’ that gains from never-ending population expansion at the expense of the rest of us.

[email protected]

This article, by Leith van Onselen, was first published at http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2016/12/the-turnbulls-population-credibility-collapses-under-dick-smith-barrage/. Republished with author's permission.

Dick Smith queries Lucy Turnbull’s Perpetual Population Growth Plan. In a half page advertisement featuring in major newspapers tomorrow morning, including the Daily Telegraph in Sydney,
The Sydney Morning Herald, the Financial Review and The Australian, Dick Smith is asking Lucy Turnbull, the chief planner for Sydney, just what her eventual plans are for the population of Sydney – querying whether it could be 16 or even 100 million.

Dick Smith says, “All of the major political parties, including The Greens, spruik perpetual growth. It is easy to see why Pauline Hanson’s policy to reduce immigration from 200,000 per year to a more sustainable 70,000 is gaining more support.”

Dick Smith also asks Lucy Turnbull, “How are we going to find jobs for these extra people?” Pointing out that with modern robotics and automation there are going to be less jobs.

Dick Smith asks Lucy if we are going to come up with a final plan for population, or are we going to “leave it for our children or grandchildren to solve.”

Dick Smith says he has been refused advertising space about his new magazine, Forbidden Ideas, by the Murdoch Press in Adelaide. Here is a film where he speaks his mind on what he perceives to be censorship. This is really a quite funny and very informative speech by an animated Dick Smith.

Thank you John Coulter for this video.

We were surprised to read an article in www.crikey.com attacking Dick Smith for "Vanity Publishing." This seemed such an odd thing for a supposedly alternative publication to be saying about a man whose efforts to air alternative views to the mass media have the necessary heroism of a David to Goliath - Goliath being Murdoch's news chains. The peculiarly snide article effectively defends Murdoch's hold over published opinion and attacks Smith on perceived personal faults.

Here is what one crikey.com reader has written about their strangely unaware article:

daveb
Posted Sunday, 19 August 2012 at 12:05 am | Permalink

"This article sounded like sour grapes and tall poppy syndrome. Sure most of the magazine was obviously trying to sell his re-launched Dick Smith Foods. But Why state the obvious? Perhaps you should try attacking Dick’s arguments and ideas, rather than attacking the man himself. Here is one of Australia’s most philanthropic millionaires, who has noble intentions and is passionate about the long-term environmental sustainability of Australia. He cares deeply about the environment and the two biggest crises facing it - overpopulation and the related anthropogenic climate change - and here you are being snide about it all. Why not focus on those disgraces Gina, Twiggy and Clive, who put their own billions and self interest ahead of the environment."

Good on you, Dick, anyway, from Candobetter.net!

The problem of policing [irony acknowledged] 'free speech' in Australia is multiple and not just about free speech. It is about restraining the power of capitalism focused in one or two media corporations so that it cannot dominate public perception. Unusually public-spirited rich Australian, Dick Smith, has sent a long letter to Kim Williams, CEO of News Limited, defending the Australian Government's attempts to reform the press. In it he accuses the Murdoch press of cynicism in their opposition to these attempts.

"I hold the quaint belief it is incumbent on media owners to ensure their papers and broadcasting channels behave responsibly and in the public interest and show leadership on important issues that affect us. And while calling governments to account, they should not so intimidate politicians and public officials that they interfere with the process of rational debate and good policy. Your organisation has clearly failed this test." (Dick Smith, http://dicksmithpopulation.com/)

Free speech in Australia, Politicians, and the Corporate Media

The problem of policing [irony acknowledged] 'free speech' in Australia is multiple and not just about free speech. It is about restraining the power of capitalism focused in one or two media corporations so that it cannot dominate public perception. This notion of restraining capitalism is sacreligious to those who endorse the free market. Both Labor and Liberal Parties are completely in the thrall of free market doctrine so restraining the concentration of capital in the media seems to be a no-go zone. The problem of policing free speech is also about freedom for politicians to act on behalf of their constituents without being blacked out or attacked by corporate media monsters. On the other hand, it is also a problem of ensuring that Governments do not get into the position of being able to muzzle the media. At the moment, in Australia, the media muzzles and molds politicians. They dare not endorse any point of view that runs contrary to those in the interests of the Murdoch and Fairfax Press. Since the Murdoch and Fairfax press are pretty much all there is, this leaves politicians with no other major media voice, apart from the corporate look-alike ABC. This situation has been in place for so long that there probably are no established politicians in Australia who are not virtual mouthpieces of the Murdoch and Fairfax Press. (The fact that Julia Gillard is so hated by Fairfax and Murdoch is a factor in her favour.) On the question of 'free speech' itself, well, Australians have no right to it that they can defend at law. For this reason, perhaps, a law establishing free speech as a right would be a good place to begin media reform. But, unless we can regulate ownership of the press, only the very rich will be able to express their right to free speech.

Smith on how profit drives appeal to conservative views on climate change

In a straight-shooting and perceptive letter to Kim Williams, CEO of News Limited, Dick Smith condemns the media empire’s overarching profit imperative and the way it impedes free speech in the press when these two things intersect. You might wonder why there would be more profit in appealing to conservatives than in appealing to 'liberals' but Smith is talking about appealing to conservative advertisers, who come from the big business and anti-environmental sector. And, of course, Murdoch is in that very club. He should realise that anything that would reduce greenhouse emissions tends to curb growth and that the powerful on both the 'left' and the right love growth. (This includes the Greens.)

Smith says that the Murdoch media empire profits from prejudice but should be showing leadership on important issues. For instance, he says that the Murdoch Press indulges people who think that man-induced climate change is a furphy, in order to make a profit, even though Mr Murdoch may well not be in personal disagreement with the theory of anthropogenic climate change:

"When friends ask me why your [Murdoch's] organisation runs such opposing views on climate change – from Fox News’ claims that it’s all bunkum to The Australian newspaper occasionally claiming it’s accepted science – I am able to say, “it’s simple. It’s all about making more money. They have worked out they will get more advertising and make more money on Fox News if climate change is debunked using sensationalism whilst they are likely to get greater circulation and more advertising dollars if The Australian shows a different view, so staff are directed accordingly”.

In effect, your organisation promotes views that meet the prejudices of your audience so as to maximise profits. This is not promoting free speech – it is abusing it."

Dick’s letter was followed up by a clear as crystal interview on the ABC’s Lateline on Monday night July 23rd. (The interview starts at the 31minute mark) Dick spoke principally about how the Murdoch press operates with respect to heretical views such as his own - that the economic growth we have experienced cannot continue as it as it is, relying on the consumption of finite resources.

Dick describes the “self censoring” of journalists on this issue in order to maintain employment. He also takes the opportunity in the interview to show how the Murdoch media can appear to be on one side of a debate whilst using another outlet to promulgate the opposite view that will appeal to a majority, thus ensuring a volume of satisfied viewers/readers and profits for “New York” See the interview for yourself at http://www.abc.net.au/iview/#/view/976817

Media promotion of unsustainable economic systems achieved by muzzling contrary views

Smith is particularly dedicated to promoting knowledge about the unsustainability of an economic system that depends on continuous growth in population and resources and energy. He feels that the Murdoch Press fails to support

"the need for major debate and planning by our leaders on how to move to an economic system that does not require perpetual growth in population and the use of resources and energy."

For this reason Smith is printing 2.4 million copies of a magazine to be inserted in daily newspapers, entitled, “Dick Smith’s Magazine of Forbidden Ideas That You Won’t Read About in the Mainstream Media”.

He writes to Murdoch Press CEO Williams,

"As you control 70% of the print media in Australia, it’s obvious that 70% of my magazines will have to go in your newspapers. So will you reject my magazine as you did the original paid announcement? Let’s test your commitment to free speech."

Smith claims that Murdoch won't answer his letters anymore. He seems to feel that this breakdown in communication with Murdoch coincided meaningfully with Smith's criticism of the Murdoch Daily Telegraph's

"...front-page attack of Cate Blanchett when she dared to support the carbon tax."

The Wilbeforce Award - AUD$1m for population leaders under 30

While you are on Dick’s website, if you are under 30 and are already aware of the need to move towards a steady state economy and a slowing of population growth, see if you are in the running for his “Wilberforce Award”.

With the revelation that the recently released carbon tax would exclude petrol, there was much protest and disappointment from climate change activists. But once again everyone missed the elephant in the room as far as meeting Australia’s emissions targets – the immigration rate.

With the revelation that the recently released carbon tax would exclude petrol, there was much protest and disappointment from climate change activists. But once again everyone missed the elephant in the room as far as meeting Australia’s emissions targets – the immigration rate. In the recently published online book Sleepwalking to Catastrophe first-time gen Y author Fiona Heinrichs argues in the same vein as Dick Smith’s Population Crisis. There are two sections in Fiona’s book which particularly highlight the elephant in the room: the hypocrisy of liberals in denying population impacts by focusing on consumption and modeling which verifies the ineffectiveness of the carbon tax without immigration reform. The former point is made in the following excerpt from Chapter 2:

environmental groups have had a mixed attitude towards population. Often they have a tendency to regard population growth as not a significant factor affecting environmental degradation, with resource use and consumption being more important. Global social justice issues typically come before local environmental sustainability.[156]

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) was relatively inactive on the immigration and population issue; however, this was within the context that questioning such issues threatened one’s career. As Ian Lowe, president of the ACF and Australia 2020 Summit participant experienced first hand:

[Lowe] explicitly rejects the per capita consumption argument and has stated that reducing per capita consumption won’t solve environmental problems unless we also stabilise population.

Yet even with Lowe the media rarely reports his concern over population. When Mark O’Connor wrote to him in 2006 asking why this was so, he replied, at length, with many examples of how his frequent references to population were ignored or excised by journalists. He also described how he was sacked as a columnist from one paper for insisting on it. He found that the most biased media were the grossly pro-growthist Murdoch papers.[157]

Recently though, the ACF has done good work in filing a formal nomination of population growth as a ‘key threatening process’ to Australia’s biodiversity under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (Cth).[158] Interestingly enough, this action opens up the idea of suing the Federal government for the social and ecological damage done by its mass immigration policy, as has been attempted against governments in this on other jurisdictions in relation to climate change.[159]

Ecosocialists Ian Angus and Simon Butler, after making the standard argument that to be critical of immigration is to be a ‘racist’,[160] then argue that emissions from ‘carbon dirty’ industries in Canada, such as oil extraction from the Alberta Tar Sands are perhaps more worrying sources of greenhouse gas emissions than population growth.[161] Despite this claim, it does not follow that ‘the relationship between population growth and environmental destruction is shaped by how we use our resources, not by the number of people who use them’.[162] Population growth, along with affluence/resource use and technology, determine the environmental impact.[163] As Sara Parkin, former politician for the Green Party of England and Wales notes in the Foreword to the Forum for the Future publication, Growing Pains: Population and Sustainability in the UK:

As advisors to Barack Obama have pointed out, the future for everyone will be dominated by scarcity – of resources, of land, of airspace (for CO2 emissions) … The more people there are the harder that will be. The maths of sustainability is simple – the equation requires fewer people, consuming less – yet we find it difficult to talk about either.[164]

A Joint Statement by Fifty-Eight of the World’s Scientific Academics, Population Summit of the World’s Scientific Academies said:

‘The magnitude of the threat to the ecosystem is linked to human population size and resource use per person.’[165] Also: ‘There are warnings that the earth is finite and that natural systems are being pushed even closer to their limits.’[166]

The Australian Academy of Science, Population 2040: Australia’s Choice agreed and concluded that Australia should aim for a stable population of no more than 23 million by 2040.[167]

Penny Wong, Climate Change Minister in the government of Kevin Rudd and now Finance Minister, was asked: ‘Australia’s population is projected to increase by 65% … by 2050. During the same period, the government is committed to cutting our carbon emissions by 60%. Aren’t those goals or facts mutually exclusive?’

Wong said:

‘Absolutely not…Whereas the last few hundred years…growth in our carbon pollution has essentially tracked our population and economic growth … The key issue here is breaking that link, not trying to reduce population.’[168]

Wong’s style of thinking is replicated in South Australia; the driest state in the driest continent on Earth by fellow South Australian Labor Party politician Premier Mike Rann, who on the one hand tries to be seen as doing something about climate change, while on the other seeks to double South Australia’s population by 2050, with no limit in sight.[169] Professor Emeritus, Albert Bartlett, Physics, University of Colorado at Bounder, has shown the mathematical absurdity of claims such as Wong’s:

The average growth rate needed to increase Australia’s population 65% by the year 2050 is only 1.252 percent per year. The average annual reduction of emissions needed to reduce emissions 60% by 2050 is 2.291 percent per year. Add these two rates (1.252 + 2.291) and you will find that to accommodate the projection population growth AND to reduce overall annual emissions by 60% would require an annual rate of decrease of per capita emissions of polluting greenhouse gases of 3.543 percent per year over the next forty years. The per capita annual emissions would have to be cut in half every 19.6 years! What is the base for Minister Wong’s belief that this enormous reduction can be achieved, year after year for forty years? What progress towards this goal has Australia made during Ms. Wong’s leadership in her present position of Climate Change Minister? Does Minister Wong really believe this can be done? Or is she basing her policy recommendations on Walt Disney’s First Law:

‘Wishing will make it so.’

Let’s look a little farther. The present rate of growth Australia’s population is quoted as being 1.8 percent per year which is significantly higher than the 1.252 percent per year assumed above. If this current higher rate continues, Australia’s population will double by 2050 and would reach a density of one person per square metre over the whole continent in just over 700 years! Surely the Minister will admit that population growth in Australia will stop itself through starvation, pollution, warfare and the lack of resources long before the population density reaches one person per square metre. The critical question for the Minister then is,

‘Should Australia encourage continued population growth or should the people of Australia act to stop the growth before Nature stops it?’

If the Minister feels that Australians should act to stop population growth before Nature stops the growth, then why not stop it now while there are still some resources and some open spaces? It would be very helpful for the people of Australia if Climate Change Minister Wong would give these facts and options some serious consideration and then report the results of her considerations promptly to the people of Australia.[170]

However, with the recent portfolio shuffle following Julia Gillard’s election to government, such revelations now lie with the new Climate Change and Energy Efficiency Minister Greg Combet.[171] As to whether or not Minister Combet will come any closer to answering such pressing questions, only time will tell.

In the following excerpt from Chapter 4, Fiona makes the second notable point that a carbon tax implemented without stabilising population cannot reduce total emissions:

Prime Minister Gillard was told by her own Department, in a confidential briefing given in September 2010 that the quality of life in Australian big cities, measured by declining indexes of livability, is falling and could get worse.[315] A National Institute of Labour Studies report concluded that a high level of net overseas migration would have substantial adverse impacts on the quality of Australia’s natural and built environments.[316] Unless high levels of migration are cut, Sydney and Melbourne will require over 430,000 ha of new housing land and the loss in agricultural land will result in the need for imported key food stuffs, including dairy, lamb and vegetables, by 2050. Even if immigration ceased altogether, Australian capital cities will still grow by around 50 per cent within two decades, with a cost to each resident for congestion of $ 1,000 per year. For the present immigration level, capital cities will grow by 1.5 times within 50 years. At a net overseas migration level of 260,000 per annum, demand for oil will double by 2050 and greenhouse gas emissions from fuel combustion will increase by 200 percent from present levels.[317] Australian Treasury modeling accepts that greenhouse gas emissions grow, other things being equal, when population numbers grow. Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy did a disaggregation of Treasury forecasts to obtain an estimation of the contribution of population to greenhouse gas production and concluded that ‘83 percent of the forecast increase in greenhouse emissions to 2020 will be attributable to population growth’.[318] Further, Jorgenson and Clark examined data from 1960 to 2005 and found a large and positive association between national-level population growth and anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions for both developed and developing countries, an association which has been so for at least the past 50 years.[319] So the pivotal question is:

What is the point of introducing an emissions trading scheme or a carbon tax or any such policy on already struggling Australian working families, when Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions will continue to surge into the future anyway under the federal government’s unreformed surging immigration rate?

Any reduction in emissions made through a cap or tax would be cancelled out by the subsequent increase in emissions of aggravated population expansion.[320] Targets for reducing emissions cannot be reached without targets for reducing population growth. With population growth expected to contribute to 83 percent of increases in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions to 2020, surely any passionate climate change activist would tackle this environmental problem through immigration reform first? The much publicised battle[321] everyday Australian working families currently face struggling to pay their power bills, reduced quality of life from restricted water and power usage and genuine environmental conservation efforts are made a mockery of when the federal government sabotages these efforts through its unsustainable immigration policy. Mark O’Connor and William Lines make the same observation in Overloading Australia: How Governments and Media Dither and Deny on Population and subsequently suggest Australians should waste water as:

our analysis shows that until we get restraint in population there is no point in citizens saving water. If they do, this will not mean that their neighbours get more water for their gardens, or that tougher restrictions will be postponed. Rather, it means that politicians will be able to continue their irresponsible dream of putting over a million extra people in each of our three biggest cities over the next 25 years (and proportionately even more into Perth). So long as we have such misguided leaders, any water-restraint shown by the individual citizen will only allow our politicians to persist longer in their folly, and will lead – quite soon – to even worse shortages of water, plus many other environmental disasters.[322]

Certainly, the currently planned carbon tax should at the very least be postponed until after the government implements immigration reform first, and then reassessed on its capacity to reduce emissions.

Certainly indeed. Interestingly, Fiona’s book was published in May, so politicians, journalists, climate change activists and various public figures had plenty of time to digest her ideas before the current carbon tax was released. If only they’d listened to a gen Y female and Dick Smith for that matter.

An unusual thing about Dick Smith's book, "Population Crisis," is that it is written by a wealthy man who points out the failings of rich people. He says that most rich people give nothing away and describes them as very selfish. "Our economic system comes equipped with only one forward gear: foot to the floor growth. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be richer. It's an endless treadmill, and none of our leaders appears to know how to get off." Also inside article: Win $1m if you are under 30 by solving the population puzzle.

Dick Smith's book, Population Crisis reminds me of the proverb that "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven," except that here we are talking about the kingdom of Earth.

The fascinating thing is that the camel may just fit through the eye of that needle in Smith's remarkable attempt to save the earth despite his millionaire wealth.

Books like Tolkien's Lord of the Rings are full of rich and powerful noble creatures standing up for truth and justice and the good of the earth in political systems that rely on the kindness and enlightenment of the powerful and their concern for lesser beings, like hobbits. The reality, however, is quite different, particularly in our global capitalist world, where rich people own or invest in corporations which perpetrate global injustices and manipulate public opinion against democracy and against our own nurturing planet.

Nazis and the business lobby - Déjà vu?

Smith looks into the future and sees a looming darkness which no good citizen can ignore, but he recognises that the fight against the vested interests of the growth lobby will not be easy.

"I'm not so idealistic as to believe the necessary changes will come quickly, or that the arguments over climate change will end soon. It seems to me that we are like the generation that existed in the late 1930s in Great Britain. Some predicted that there would be a catastrophe if Hitler was allowed to keep breaking treaties. Others - particularly the business community - said that it was unlikely anything would eventuate and that 'business as usual' was the way to go. That error alone resulted in more than 60 million people being killed. If we make a similar error now, the lives lost and related trauma could be far higher."

A risk taker

Australians with ecological bones and a sense of danger can only hope that Dick Smith's intervention on the subject of population numbers, democracy and ecological impact in Australia will survive the deadening blanket of growthist propaganda, even though Dick Smith himself has predicted that the Murdoch press will destroy him for coming out against population growth in Australia.

His unexpected success with other hard problems caused by powerful forces, offers some hope, however.

Smith's ability to remain an independent thinker and so surprise, straddle and surmount the political wedges created by the mainstream media and the political parties between terrorism, refugee rights and population numbers, makes him stand out in stature above high profile groups and individuals on both sides. It makes his ability and leadership so much more powerful.

When amorphous notions of terrorism and Afghanistan stigmatised David Hicks as untouchable for many, discarding prisoners of war conventions, Dick Smith funded Hicks's civilian defense in Guantánamo Bay - not, Smith precises, because he actually agreed with Hicks's politics, but so that Hicks could get a fair trial.

Smith also became involved in helping to extract hostages in Somalia and with refugee-asylum seeker Peter Qasim. Qasim was detained for nearly seven years by the Australian department of immigration due in part to inconsistencies in his story which others have explained as caused by his dispensing with an interpreter in the mistaken belief that his English was adequate for him to conduct his own defense. The main reason that he was kept imprisoned, rather than deported, was that he was stateless - and therefore had nowhere to go. After Dick Smith's intervention and with pressure from a small group of parliamentarians, Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone invited Peter to apply for a new class of bridging visa that would allow him to live in the community while his situation was resolved. On 16 July 2005, the visa was granted.

Now Smith has written a book about population numbers in Australia. Smith makes an effort to get on top of this wide and difficult subject in a readable book that addresses the growing and reasonable concerns of both the poor and the aspirational classes of Australia and asks those who benefit from their growing insecurity to reconsider.

"Our economic system comes equipped with only one forward gear: foot to the floor growth. The poor want to be rich, and the rich want to be richer. It's an endless treadmill, and none of our leaders appears to know how to get off."

Smith wants Australians to realise how they cannot rely on the mainstream press to inform them on population politics and gives the example of the Murdoch Press.

He says that he knows politicians are afraid of being attacked by the Murdoch media, but that should not stop them from speaking out against population growth. Despite his own (probably well-founded) belief that the Murdoch media will retaliate and destroy him for criticising growth, Smith actually took out a full page advertisement in the Australian telling Australians of the Murdoch media's investment in population growth.

It is indeed a major irony of Australia's predicament that it has a system that forces all major communications through a biased commercial press which inevitably drowns out any single original initiative with its own ubiquitous and repetitious propaganda.

The Electronics Wizard

Dick Smith also downplays his intelligence and qualifications. On Margaret Throsby's show on the ABC on 21 June 2011, he said that his only formal qualification was the Baden Powell Scout award.

Smith's intelligence is however uncontestably demonstrated by the fact that at age 38 he had the good sense, self-confidence and self-control to sell the business that made him a millionaire so that he could enjoy his life. That's a bit like Golem (continuing the Tolkein metaphor) ditching the magic ring before it saps his strength.

He writes:

"I was a relatively young man when I sold my Dick Smith Electronics business. When I could no longer see all the weekly figures in one quick look, I felt it was growing too large. [...] For me it seemed the right time to sell the business to Woolworths. They have built it into a billion-dollar business, and many people have told me I was crazy to sell such a growing concern, but I haven't regretted it for a moment. It was the best thing I ever did, because it allowed me to have the freedom to do worthwhile things - to go adventuring, fly around the world and enjoy my life. "(p.129)

That's the kind of intelligence that can see through growthism. It seems that it is rare in the rich.

He goes on:

"I have successful friends, some of them billionaires, and they often say to me that they wish they could do what I did and get out before the business takes over their lives. I tell them they can, but they just shake their heads as if to say, 'Dick, you don't understand. There are all these pressures that make it impossible to just walk away.' Like most of us, rich or poor, they are trapped inside the delusion that we must forever keep growing."

Maybe the Baden Powell Scout award deserves to be taken more seriously. Smith described to Margaret Throsby how being a cub, then a scout, then a rover was formative. The scout movement allowed him "to be an individual, to organise himself, and get into risk taking."

Smith's parents went through bad luck and poverty. At one stage, Smith's father took to his bed for 12 months causing his mother to go out and get a job for the very first time in her life, in a hat factory. Somehow Smith has missed out on that common rich man's delusion that he deserves to be rich because he is special. He sees himself as having drawn good results in life's lottery, but he has demonstrably retained a feeling of solidarity with ordinary Australians.

Wilberforce Million Dollar Prize to a young person who can solve the population puzzle

An example of this fellow-feeling is Smith's Wilberforce Award.
The Wilberforce award is designed to give a one million dollar prize to anyone under 30 who can impress Dick by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.

How the few that benefit financially from growth do it

I can think of one other thing I would have included in the book, had I been Dick Smith. I would have given a detailed account of how, for some very rich people with control over assets, population growth improves the chances of making money. As Smith implies, what makes the rich richer past what he refers to as the "sweet point" tends to make ordinary people poorer. (The "sweet point" is where the cost of growth is less than the gains to be made from it.) I would have liked to have read more detail on how population growth helped Smith make his fortune. It is important to educate Australians on the how and why of this, so that they can see where the corporate growth spruikers are coming from and what they may have to gain from population growth. It would also educate Australians about how difficult having a few people and corporations controlling most of the assets and means of production in this country and elsewhere makes it for everyone else.

A follow-up book?

One senses that Smith tried to keep things simple in this book. Perhaps he could write another book, to follow up, giving some details on how growth economics and population growth work in favour of the rich and against the rest?

Jon Faine's Conversation Hour featured a debate between growthist Bernard Salt of KPMG and Australian businessman and author, Dick Smith, who argues against growth. The only possibility of commenting was by SMS. There was no phone-in. My own experience of debating population growth on the conversation hour with ex-Premier Steve Bracks was that people later tried to make comments on the internet page associated with that debate, but the page was dysfunctional and quickly fell into total disrepair. I am therefore creating this page in the hope of getting some representation of public opinion on this matter. Comments on these mens' respective books are also welcome.
You can access the debate here, immediately, and here on ABC, eventually.

Hear Dick Smith talk about his book on the Allen Jones show, NSW.
Buy the book, Population Crisis, The Dangers of Unsustainable Growth
for $19.99 here.

Population growth increases costs of retirement - Sheila Newman, Population Sociologist

This is what I wanted to say, and which I finished up emailing to the station under a general heading "Jon Faine Conversation Hour with Salt and Smith."

Bernard Salt's main argument is that we will need more young workers to pay for the retirement of elderly baby boomers. He overlooks the fact that population growth makes us uncompetitive because most of our labour goes into paying for the rising cost of land in the form of high rents and huge mortgages. Without these rising costs people would need very little money in retirement and young people would not have to work so hard and would be easily able to purchase or inherit housing. I think that Bernard Salt's policies are dangerously anti-social, anti-democratic and promote an unsustainable economy.

Here, by the way, is the link for the debate I had in April 2010 with Steve Bracks, when the phones went absolutely wild - as Jon Faine commented excitedly - yet the web-site for comments was not viable. (I retested it recently and it was still not working. Potentially thousands of comments were prevented.) In this most recent debate on a subject marketed with pro-growth bias by all the mainstream media, phone-ins were simply not possible. Will there be a page for comments?

Salt misrepresents himself as small target - debating tactics - From Ilan G.

I thought Bernard Salt successfully presented himself as a small target by agreeing with Dick Smith too often, but as far as I am concerned this is a rhetorical device for hiding his extremist views. I felt he (Salt) misrepresented his real personal views.

What I am trying to say is that someone sitting on the fence of the population issue would have probably been reassured by Salt and seen Smith as more alarmist. Salt used a platitude about business people being concerned about the future which was total rubbish and not at all a reflection on the way they behave. If you have no concept of peak oil and want to think that climate change is not an issue, the things Salt was saying sounded reasonable.

This was illustrated when they talked about population targets for 2050. He made out that Smith's target based on 80,000 NOM (I think) would reach 29M and his (Salt's) higher immigration for this decade before coming down to Smith's level would end up at 32M. So his point was we are talking a difference of only 3 Million or around 10%, which Salt suggested was a marginal difference that will hardly be felt in 2050. But Salt uses every other opportunity to promote population growth and economic growth in general, he never presents any arguments about needing to slow down in the future. If we still have "business as usual" in 2020 and Salt is still around I am sure he will still be advocating increased immigration.

I would like to see Kelvin Thomson debate Salt. Thomson is quicker on his feet and always seems to have the statistics at his fingertips. I witnessed the debate between Thomson and the Committee for Melbourne (CFM) CEO Andrew MacLeod. Like Salt, the MacLeod guy agreed to much with Thomson and said things that he would never otherwise say to any other forum, but Thomson always had really good answers.

So the conclusion is that the growthists are taking note of our arguments and are now using "small target" tactic by agreeing with many things the other side of the debate says, but this only happens in direct confrontations. When they are speaking at a business breakfast or any other corporate talk-fest, they repeat the same mantras that have long been refuted

ABC TV's Tony Jones' current affairs debate this evening 'Dick Smith's Population Puzzle' provided first prominent Australian, Dick Smith, with a heart-felt concern about the uncontrolled, unplanned immigration surge impacting Australia, then second a rigorous but too brief a debate from nevertheless a fair cross-section of what appeared to be informed observers.

It was a good start and that's all it was. Where to next?

It was disappointing to hear the two ethnic voices, one Asian woman on the panel and a young Bangladeshi man, both critical and disrespectful of deep seated Australian notions of what constitutes Australian cultural values. New Australians do not help their cause when they outwardly condescend local cultural sensitivities. It is read as immigrant prejudice and would not matter which country they were in. Criticism of local values risks unnecessarily inflaming dormant nationalism. And nationalism in Australia is mild compared with that across the subcontinent.

Useful issues were presented from many quarters - Bob Brown from The Greens highlighting the global issue and the finite resource issue, Labor Minister for Sustainable Population Tony Burke MP seemed to have a balanced grasp of the key drivers and problems, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Scott Morrison offered constructive input, a developer in the audience pushed the 'growthist line for migrants at all costs, as did trolling boomer John Elliott. The mayor of Mt Gambier presented a constructive tangible example of regional inequality and opportunity. His example is one that should be extended to other regional centres. Other issues raised escape me from short term memory.

Encouragingly, all speakers on the panel and those Tony selected to speak from the audience, offered constructive ideas and input in one way or another. So let's not close off this valuable discussion while the topic is merely at an early chapter in public/political awareness and maturity.

One key observation is that Dick Smith, who dared to initiate the debate and invest much in the documentary, insightfully concluded that at least Australia is mature enough to start publicly debating the subject, but what needs to be thought through next is a national plan for a sustainable population for Australia into the medium term future.

Well done Dick Smith!

May the debate continue into the public arena hereon! CanDoBetter has been leading this debate on population for years, so it is good to see the mainstream media catch up!

Although human population is a global threat, Australians need to embrace the problem of population in Australia first and recognise it as a core driver of social problems in Australia - lowering quality of life, higher costs of living, urban congestion, overburdened public infrastructure, etc. Australians need to become more mature in tackling the debate and not let it slip into unrelated racism and refugee issues. In the process we need to be wary of self-motivated lobbyists and more attuned to the interests of all Australians at heart - indigenous Australians, ancestral Australians, birth Australians, new Australians, Australian society and the Australian disappearing natural environment last, but not least.

Frankly I am so glad now that Big Kev and his 'Big Australia' madness has been condemned to history.

Kelvin Thomson, the Federal Member for Wills, Dick Smith and Sustainable Population Australia present...

Kelvin Thomson, the Federal Member for Wills, Dick Smith and Sustainable Population Australia are proud to present Australia's first ever Simultaneous Population Forums.

For the first time across Australia, leading politicians, academics and community figures are converging in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide to discuss the issue of runaway population growth and its implications on our environment, economy, liveability and way of life.

Recent projections indicate that Australia's population will reach 36 million by 2050. If this is allowed to happen it will mean Melbourne's population will increase by 78.4% and reach almost 7 million people, Sydney's population will soar by 61% and become a city of 7 million people, Brisbane's population will go through the roof by 114% and hit almost 4 million, Perth will grow by 116% and reach 3.3 million people, Adelaide's population will rise by 42.6% and become a city of 1.6 million, Canberra's population will increase by 50% and Hobart's population will rise by 34.9%.

The impact on our major cities will be devastating- declining housing affordability, traffic congestion, demand on already strained natural resources such as water, spiralling cost of living, loss of local amenity and liveability.

Runaway population growth is the underlying cause of the major problems we now face. If left unchecked, runaway population growth will lead to our major cities becoming overcrowded concrete jungles.

The impact of a 60% increase in Australia's population on ournative wildlife will be catastrophic. Already over 200 species of Australia's birds are under threat- 30% of our 760 species.

The Australian Government has promised to cut carbon emissions by 60% over the next 40 years,and all the science is saying we need to cut them by 80% to tackle global warming. How are we supposed to do that if our population is going up by 60% at the same time? It's pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet.

These forums seek to encourage further debate and discussion on the type of Australia we want to leave behind for future generations. Our generation has an obligation to pass onto our children and grandchildren a world in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

SPEAKERS

Mark O'Connor, Canberra Forum

Mark O'Connor (b. 1945) is a professional poet and environmental writer with a special interest in population. He has taught at several universities, has published 16 books of verse, including books on the Australian Alps, the Barrier Reef, Blue Mountains, rainforests, and the Pilbara, and is the editor of Oxford University Press's much reprinted Two Centuries of
Australian Poetry.
He was the Australian National University’s H C Coombs Fellow in 1999, and thereafter a Visiting Scholar in its Department of Archaeology and Natural History, Contributing editor of Oxford University Press's Protected Area Management: Principles
and Practices (2001). He is a frequent voice on a range of ABC radio programs. His most recent books on population are This Tired Brown Land (1998) and the best selling Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, by Mark O'Connor and William Lines.
Mark's website is at www.australianpoet.com/about.html

Barry Cohen, Canberra Forum

Barry was the Federal Member for the seat of Robertson from 1969 to 1990 and held the position of Minister for Arts, Heritage and Environment from 1983 to 1987. He is an author of 8 books including, Life of the Party, How to Become Prime Minister, Life with Gough, Whitlam to Winston and What About the Workers. Barry has been a columnist for The Australian, The Bulletin, the Financial Review, Time, and the Sydney Morning Herald among others.

Dick Smith, Sydney Forum

Dick Smith is one of Australia's most well known and respected personalities. In 2005 the National Trust nominated him as one of 'Australia's Living Treasures.” Businessman, entrepreneur, adventurer, philanthropist, aviator and a passionate advocate for the environment, Dick is active in many fields of public life. He talks and travels widely all over the country and is never shy to take on difficult topics—from aviation safety to supporting refugees and the fair treatment of David Hicks. When Dick talks, people listen. They may not always agree, but they never doubt his sincerity. His latest interest is in initiating a debate on Australia's population policy, sparked by his concern for the future his grandchildren will face.

Robert Oakeshott Independent MP, Sydney Forum

Robert Oakeshott is the Independent MP for Lyne (Mid North coast NSW).
Rob first entered state parliament as member for Port Macquarie in November 1996 at just 26 years of age. He remained in State politics until August 2008 when he resigned to run for the Federal byelection of Lyne in September of the same year.
Rob won the seat of Lyne with a convincing result and entered into federal politics. He is 1 of only 3 unaligned members in the House of Representatives in Australia today.

During his political career Rob has focused on the needs of regional communities and how they play their part in the broader Australian policy and political landscape.

He is currently a member of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Training and the Joint Standing Committees on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade and on Cyber Safety.

Rob has a bachelor of laws and a bachelor of arts with honours. He is married with 3 and a half children and currently represents one of the fastest growing regions in Australia where the daily policy challenges of population versus environment and lifestyle are front and centre.

Kelvin Thomson, MP, Federal Member for Wills, Melbourne Forum

Kelvin was born in Coburg in 1955 and went to school at Pascoe Vale North Primary School, later winning a scholarship to Essendon Grammar School. He has first class honours degrees in Arts and Law (winner of the Supreme Court Prize 1987) from the University of Melbourne.

Before entering Parliament Kelvin worked for the Commonwealth Public Service, as an electorate officer, project officer for the Commonwealth Ombudsman and principal project officer for Australia Post.

He joined the ALP in 1975. He was elected as a Coburg councillor in 1981 and served two terms as deputy mayor until 1988 when he was elected to the Victorian Parliament as the Member for Pascoe Vale He was re-elected in 1992 and served in the Shadow Cabinet from 1992-1994.

In 1996 he was elected to the Federal Parliament as the Member for Wills. From 1998 to March 2007 Kelvin served in a range of Shadow Ministries, including Assistant Treasurer, Environment and Heritage, Regional Development, Roads and Housing, Public Accountability, Human Services and Attorney General.

In November 2007 Kelvin was re-elected to the Federal Parliament as Member for Wills. He is Chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

Barry Jones

Barry Owen Jones, AO, is one of Australia's living treasures as well as a writer, broadcaster and former Labor politician. His career has spanned education, film, politics, civil liberties, constitutional change and 'the knowledge society'.

Barry represented the federal seat of Lalor (1977-98) and in the Hawke Government became Australia's longest serving Science Minister (1983-90). He served as National President of the Australian Labor Party 1992-2000 and again in 2005-06.
In 1985 he became the only Australian Minister invited to address a Summit meeting of the 'Group of Seven' northern industrial powers, in Ottawa. In 1987 he chaired OECD's review of the Yugoslavian economy.

In June 1990 he was part of an international think tank invited to investigate 'perestroika' in the USSR and make recommendations to Mikhail Gorbachev.

He was a member of the Executive Board of UNESCO in Paris 1991-95, Vice President, World Heritage Committee 1995-96 and a consultant for OECD .

He is the only person to have been elected as a Fellow of all four Australian learned Academies: Technological Sciences and Engineering (FTSE) in 1992, the Humanities (FAHA) in 1993, Science (FAA) in 1996, and Social Sciences (FASSA) in 2003.
His books include Macmillan Dictionary of Biography 1981, Sleepers Wake! Technology and the Future of Work 1982, Living by our Wits 1986, Barry Jones' Dictionary of World Biography 1994, 1996, 1998. His autobiography, A Thinking Reed, was published in October 2006.

Barry currently serves on the boards of CARE Australia, the Macfarlane Burnet Institute, The Centre For Eye Research, Australia and Victorian Opera and chairs Vision 2020 Australia and the Port Arthur Historic Site Management Authority. He is currently a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Katharine Betts

Adjunct Associate Professor Katharine Betts is with the Sociology Discipline at Swinburne University of Technology. She has been doing research in population studies for over thirty years, beginning with fertility and family planning and then the politics of immigration policy.

Her major work is an analysis of the politics of Australian immigration published in Ideology and Immigration (MUP, 1988) and in The Great Divide (Duffy and Snellgrove, 1999), as well as in a number of journal articles. Recent articles include studies of public attitudes to population growth (2010), the effects of immigration and fertility on demographic ageing
(2008), and the politics of the growth lobby in Australia (2006).

In 1993 she helped found the quarterly demographic journal People and Place; she and Bob Birrell are the editors. She served on the National Council of the Australian Population Association from 1996 to 2000, and from 2002 to 2006.

Toby Hutcheon, Brisbane Forum

Toby Hutcheon has worked on environmental issues for nearly 20 years. He started at Greenpeace as a campaigner on the Nuclear Free Seas campaign opposing nuclear powered and armed ship visits to Australia- dividing his time between the Greenpeace office and the bows of nuclear warships.

In the late 80's he set up the Direct Action Unit, setting in train Greenpeace Australia's high profile direct actions program.
He subsequently ran Greenpeace Communications Division and was a member of the Greenpeace Olympics team which initiated the idea of the 'green' Sydney Olympics, working closely with the NSW Government to secure the games for Sydney.
Toby moved to Europe in 1996 working on the Chernobyl Campaign for Greenpeace International in Moscow.

He returned to Australia in 1997 to coordinate the successful campaign opposing a second Sydney airport at Holdsworthy.

Since that time, Toby has worked for the NSW Government on waste issues and ran a consultancy advising business, government and communities on zero waste initiatives.

Toby joined the Queensland Conservation Council in 2004. QCC is the peak environment organisation in Queensland, supporting over 70 groups around the state and specifically focuses on climate and water issues, two of the most significant issues affecting our future.

He believes that we can all make a difference.

Jane O'Sullivan

Dr. Jane O'Sullivan is a member of the National Executive of Sustainable Population Australia. She has worked as an agricultural scientist with subsistence farmers in developing countries, and has been actively involved in a range of environmental and development organisations.

These experiences have affirmed her view that population stabilization is the key factor on which positive social and environmental outcomes depend.

She is currently applying her scientific expertise to population issues, particularly the economic implications of population growth rate.

Larissa Waters, Queensland Forum

Larissa Waters is the Australian Greens lead Senate candidate for Queensland in the 2010 federal election. Larissa is an environmental lawyer who has worked in the community sector for 8 years advising people how to use the law to protect the environment.

Larissa lives in Brisbane with her partner and their daughter.

John Coulter, Adelaide Forum

Dr John Coulter has achieved a lifetime of environmental work from the mid 1950s. He is a Founder member of Conservation Council of South Australia (1971) and former President (1984), Councillor of the Australian Conservation Foundation 1973 – 1990 and from 2003 to present and former Vice President, Australian Democrat.

John was a Senator for South Australia 1987 – 1995 and Leader 1990 – 1993. He introduced first legislation to control ozone depleting substances, first national legislation to protect threatened species and in 1988 the first major Senate Inquiry into Climate Change. He is a former National President of Sustainable Population Australia and edited SPA Newsletter from 1990 – 1996.

Bob Such, Adelaide Forum

Dr Bob Such has been the Member for Fisher since 1989 and independent since 2000. He is a former Minister for Employment, Training and Further Education and Minister for Youth Affairs and a former Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Committees and Speaker of the House of Assembly. He has a PhD in environmental politics, a BA (Hons) majoring in economics, a Diploma of Teaching and a Diploma of Education.

He has been a member of several Parliamentary Standing Committees (Economic and Finance, Social Development, Environment, Resources and Development) and chaired various Select Committees – Youth Justice, Cemeteries, Education.

Nick Minchin, Adelaide Forum

Senator Nick Minchin has served as a Senator for South Australia in the Commonwealth Parliament since 1993, having been re-elected in 1998 and 2004.

Following the Federal election in November 2007, Senator Minchin was elected by his colleagues as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. He has served as Shadow Minister for Defence from 2007-2008, Shadow Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy from 2008-2009 and the Shadow Minister for Resources and Energy 2009-2010.
In March 2010, Senator Minchin announced his decision to stand down from the Opposition front bench and as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and that he would not be recontesting the 2010 Federal Election.

Senator Minchin served in the Howard Cabinet for 9 years. He was the Minister for Finance and Administration from 26 November 2001 until 24 November 2007 and is Australia’s longestserving Finance Minister.

Senator Minchin was Leader of the Government in the Senate from January 27, 2006 until November 24, 2007. He was Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate from October 7, 2003 until January 27, 2006.

Senator Minchin also served as the Minister for Industry, Science and Resources from 1998 to 2001 and Special Minister of State and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister from October 1997 until October 1998.

When the Coalition won Government in March 1996, Senator Minchin was appointed Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister with two specific responsibilities, making the Native Title Act more workable and implementing the Government's policy to hold the Constitutional Convention.

From 1994 to 1996 he was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition.

Dr Michael Lardelli, Adelaide Forum

Michael Lardelli is Senior Lecturer in Genetics at The University of Adelaide. Since 2004 he has been an activist for spreading awareness on the impact of energy decline resulting from oil depletion. He has written numerous newspaper articles on the topic, has delivered ABC Radio National Perspectives and has spoken at events organised by the South Australian
Department of Trade and Economic Development and others. He regularly translates into English the blog of Prof. Kjell Aleklett, the President of the international arm of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO). He has lectured on "peak oil" to students in the Australian School of Petroleum and recently co-authored an article in the scientific journal
Energy Policy which shows that the all time peak of world oil production was probably in July 2008.

Michael has two young children and his initial interest in population stemmed from the threat posed to agricultural production by restricted oil availability. Consequently he has written a number of online articles on population that have been carried by the websites Online Opinion and Energy Bulletin.

Mal Washer

Mal Washer was born in 1945 and grew up on the family farm at Capel, in the south west of Western Australia. He completed his Bachelor of Medicine at the University of Western Australia and started practising medicine in the northern suburbs of Perth in 1972.

After 'retiring' from a successful career in medicine, which included establishing one of the major single private primary care facilities in Australia, Dr Mal Washer entered federal politics in 1998.

Aside from medicine, Mal is passionate about science, innovation and the environment, and this is reflected in his appointments in Parliament:

... Deputy Chair of the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts; ... Chair of the Policy Committee on Climate Change, Water, Environment and the Arts; ... and previously on various Backbench Policy Committees including: Environment and Heritage, Health and Ageing, Small Business, Tourism, Sport and the Arts and Industry, Tourism and Resources.

He is also Vice Chair of the Population Development Group, Chair of the Drug Law Reform; and is involved in the Fertility Preservation Parliamentary Support Group, the Disability Support Group, the Diabetes Support Group, the Schizophrenia Support Group and the Prostate Cancer Support Group.

Jorg Imberger

Jörg Imberger is the Director at the Centre for Water Research and Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Imberger received his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley in 1970 and became Professor of Environmental Engineering at UWA in 1979.

His main research interests are in the motion and mixing in lakes, estuaries and coastal seas in response to both natural forces such as tides, meteorological surface fluxes, river inflows and outflows as well as anthropogenic forcings such as effluent buoyant jets, bubble plumes and mechanical mixers, the effect of such motions and mixing on ecological systems residing in the water bodies and the application of this combined knowledge to the sustainable management of such water bodies.

Professor Jorg Imberger is an internationally recognised and respected environmental engineer. He was named Western Australia Scientist of the Year in the Premier’s Science Award in 2008 and was also recently elected a fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and inducted to the US National Academy of Engineering and American Geophysical Union. The
2007 ASLO A.C. Redfield Lifetime Achievement was also awarded to Imberger for his work on physical limnology. In 1996 he was awarded the Stockholm Water Prize and in 1995 the Onassis Prize for the Environment for his contribution to environmental issues. Imberger has continued to work in the area of water quality management in lakes, rivers and estuaries. He is a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Technological Science and
Engineering, the International Water Academy, the Argentinean Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society of Arts. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 1996 was awarded the Western Australian Citizen of the Year. Imberger is the recipient of numerous local, national and international awards. In 2004 he received the Henderson Oration, James N. Kirby Award, the Kernot Medal, the Clunies Ross National Science & Technology Award, the Peter Nicol.

SPA

SPA began its life in Canberra in 1988 as "Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population", with no more than a dozen members as its co- parents. It is now a national organisation of 1200 members with branches in all states and the ACT, and now has the slightly revamped name of "Sustainable Population Australia".

Its formation resulted from a growing consciousness that human impact was destroying our natural environment and that we needed to limit human population to reduce that impact and establish a balance with the environment, hence our logo with scales showing a human being and a tree in perfect equilibrium.

With that as our aim, SPA has publicly argued that:

- Australia needs a population policy that results in the stabilisation and then reduction of population numbers.
- Australia must limit its migration intake and remove pro-natalist policies.
- immigration and humanitarian categories should be kept separate in determining the nation's intake.
- although we cannot take responsibility for all the refugees in the world, we can accept more if we limit the skilled migrate intake.
- any shortage of skilled labour should be addressed by Government investing more money into training the existing population.
- race must not be a factor in the choice of people who migrate to Australia.
- we have a moral obligation to address population pressures at an international level by increasing the foreign aid budget.

The Speakers - some comments

Some of the speakers may come as a surprise, since two or three have previously not been very supportive of population reform - or their organisations have not followed through.

We can only hope that this time they will stand up and be counted at this breakfast and then in the future. It would be interesting to comment on particular speakers but we won't do that here because the event itself is monumental and who, caring about Australia's environment and democracy, would not wish this forum every success?

A Word about SPA and SPA Victoria

SPA is not perfect and is not perfectly democratic or fair, however there are no other organisations in Australia (apart from candobetter.org) and now some new political parties with a focus on stopping population growth. If you want to make a difference to population numbers in Australia, consider joining SPA and supporting fairness and democratic participation at National and State SPA elections. All State SPA branch offices need harder workers, prepared to help with holding meetings, minute taking, distribution of information to members and the public and organising events and structures. The National Executive needs people who are prepared to help the Branch Officers and to further democratic and active participation.

Sheila Newman, a Candobetter writer, began the SPA Branch in Victoria around 1994 and helped organise the above Population Reform Forum in Victoria in the absence of the current Victorian President, Jill Quirk, who is overseas, but whose ability to connect with other environmental organisations and to engage with social and environmental activists, should be recognised here and throughout SPA. In Victoria, getting behind Jill Quirk and helping her with the work she does, notably the administrative and clerical jobs, would further the population policy reform cause enormously.

Victoria is the original engine of growth lobby politics in Australia, therefore the SPA Branch here is particularly important, as is Kelvin Thomson's work which has done so much to bring this life-and-death issue into the light.

The next Victorian SPA AGM will be on the July 22nd at 7.00pm, 2010 at North Melbourne Library.

The article about SPPA in today's Australian (20 April 2010) is an indication of the profile public dissatisfaction is giving the population issue. The Australian is a self-admittedly big population advocate, and so it is interesting to see how the new party, Stable Population Party of Australia, has been reported.

Predictable but unacceptable slurring

The online version is quite acceptable, but a printed edition this morning uses the headline 'New party slams immigrants'. See, Stephen Lunn, "New Party slams immigrants," (April 20, 2010).

William Bourke says that this in no way represents either the article or his lengthy discussion with Stephen Lunn yesterday.

It looks like that Mr Murdoch's editors are trying to paint him in a certain way.

The Australian got the Party's name completely wrong

The Australian did not get the name of his party correct either. The name of the party is not the 'Sustainable Population Party', but the Stable Population Party of Australia. The newspaper apparently cleared this up later in the online edition, but all those people who only read print media will not be able to find the party which they may desperately wish to find. And a lot of people who otherwise might join may not because of the way the Australian has represented the party.

The article itself covers the basic facts about the party, notably the population stabilising policy of balancing emigration with immigration. It also quotes William's factual statement that "population growth might be a single issue, but it cuts across national policy agendas from health, housing and education to water, climate change..." but over-emphasises the fact that it also cuts across immigration.

Why can't the Australian be more positive about what the people want?

In fact the article could be saying so many positive things, such as how the Stable Population Party, by trying to stabilise our population at as low a level as possible, offers hope of an amnesty on starving out and breaking indigenous animal populations, of mortgage martyrdom, of anxiety about old age and rising costs, of a consolidation of community and democracy, and ultimately, as the baby boomers begin to die off in 20 or 30 years, of green space and freedom becoming available to Australia's growing population of cage-reared children, sedated and bloated with fast food.

The Australian is - unfortunately for Australians - interested in marketing Australian property to the world, through its property dot com, realestate.com.au, so positive reporting here would conflict with their business policy.

Dick Smith, FOKE, and Stable Population Party of Australia in Sydney last week

The Party leader encountered a very positive reception at a venue last week.

On the night of the 15th of April 2010, population campaigner Dick Smith spoke to the Friends of Ku-ring-gai Environment (FOKE) group where they had gathered at an environmental event on Sydney's North Shore.

FOKE's main concern is inappropriate development in their suburbs (high rise etc).

The event was packed with 170 seated attendees and a similar number standing.
Dick spoke well and introduced William Bourke of Stable Population Party of Australia to the crowd near the end.

Mainstream media were in attendance including 60 Minutes (who had been with Dick Smith all day), SBS TV, and North Shore Times (News Ltd).

William Bourke was interviewed by SBS TV and around 50 people came up to him after the event for a chat. Most of them departed after getting a SPPA membership form.

Looks like Dick Smith is leading the democratic population policy campaign and helping Australia find political alternatives to the growth lobby.

Makes a good counterpoint to Murdoch's mammoth Australia campaign.

Jacob Saulwick, in "Libs back Greens call for inquiry into 'big Australia'",
March 16, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald, writes,

'The Greens leader, Bob Brown, said yesterday that the inquiry would hold hearings in every capital city, asking whether Australia had the environmental, housing and transport capacity to meet a predicted increase in population to 36 million by mid-century.
''We don't have the infrastructure to deal with 21 million people at the moment - for example, public transport and water infrastructure - let alone the estimated 35 million people by mid-century,'' Senator Brown said.'
[...]
'The opposition immigration spokesman, Scott Morrison, said the opposition would work with the Greens on the proposed inquiry.
''Australians want to be heard on this issue,'' he said. ''I think Australians are very frustrated by a prime minister who just signs us up to a 36 million population and they don't have any say about it.''
The capacity of state and local governments to provide services for their growing constituencies needed to be examined, he said.
''All of these issues require some very careful analysis to know what our migration intake should be.''
The Greens will move a motion in the Senate in May calling for the inquiry to be set up.'

Dick Smith, however, has suggested that what is needed is a proper risk study, ie. a study which shows what the risks are at various population numbers (milestones) and growth. .... "It could show that with 36 million in 2050 what our risks are and what the chance of those risks of occurring are. Anything like that can be more objective, and allow people then to work out what they think an optimum number may be."

High Rise does not solve population growth problems: State of Australian Cities Report

High rise is often touted as a panacea for population growth energy costs, but the State of Australian Cities Report, which has just been released, shows this is yet another furphy produced by the growth lobby.

The State of Australian Cities Report 2010 has been released, to assist the Australian Government, in cooperation with state, territory and local government, and in partnership with the community and industry, to improve Australian urban policies.

The report is designed to redress an information deficiency about economic, environmental, social and demographic changes, and to reveal trends and provide a platform of knowledge for the development and implementation of future urban policies.

The report found that the past outward urban expansion has meant a greater distance between residential and employment areas with a resultant greater use of cars, higher transport costs, more vulnerability to oil price rises and the loss of agricultural land or habitat. More recently, however, the pattern of growth has seen an increasing proportion of population growth accommodated in existing inner and middle suburban areas, most notably in Sydney.

The level of car dependency in Australian cities has increased at a faster rate than population growth, creating traffic congestion problems as infrastructure and public transport have failed to keep pace with population growth.

Other key findings include:

* Australian cities rank highly on an international comparison, particularly on indices that measure quality of life and global connectivity, and measures related to the social condition of people.There is evidence to suggest that Australian cities suffer with respect to infrastructure. Of concern is the evidence that suggests a decline in international relative performance and perception in the past five years.
* Water restrictions in major cities across the nation saw total consumption by households fall by 7 per cent between 200001 and 200405 despite population growth over the period.
* Residential energy use accounted for approximately 7 per cent of total energy consumption in 200708, but grew at a high rate (2.2 per cent) relative to other sectors over the period. This growth is attributed to population increase, higher ownership of appliances and IT equipment per household, and increases in the average size of homes. Standby power was the greatest contributor to average annual growth in household energy use over the period 198990 to 200607.
* Transport emissions are one of the strongest sources of emissions growth in Australia. Strong growth in emissions from the transport sector is expected to continue, with direct CO2 equivalent emissions projected to increase 22.6 per cent over the period 2007 to 2020 (or around 1.58 per cent a year).
* Climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. Since 1950 much of eastern Australia and the far southwest, where our largest cities are located and the majority of the population lives, have experienced an annual decline of up to 50 mm in rainfall per decade affecting both the availability and quality of water supplies across urban areas.
* Levels of the key pollutants of lead, carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in the largest capital cities have decreased significantly over a ten-year period. However, particulate air pollution and ozone levels have remained at or above national air quality standard levels over the period and showed no evidence of decline.
* While national recycling rates have increased, total waste generation has also continued to increaseby around 31 per cent from 200203 to 200607 (4 years), exceeding the rate of population growth of 5.6 per cent over the period.
* When both direct and indirect environmental impacts are taken into account, higher [per capita?] environmental impacts at the household level are associated with higher incomes and smaller household sizes. Therefore, despite the opportunities for efficiency and reduced environmental impacts offered by more compact forms of urban living, inner city households of capital cities, followed by the inner suburban areas, feature the highest consumption of water use, energy use and ecological footprints even when reduced car use is taken into account.