corella
2011-07-21 21:39:41 UTC
"The Population Debate After the Population
Strategy
SPA Victoria Annual General Meeting Speech
Kelvin Thomson, MP for Wills 16July, 2011
I have been asked to speak with you this afternoon on the population
debate
after the population strategy. I have here two graphs of Australia’s
net
overseas migration – one goes back to the 1950s and one goes all the
way back
to 1901.
You can see reasonably readily from these graphs that there is bad
news, and
good news. The bad news is that from 2004 we experienced a
massive
migration spike which drove our population growth rate up to third
world
levels. Had that spike continued we would have been tracking for a
population
of 40 million plus by 2050 and who knows what by
2100.
The good news is that the public outcry over this migration spike and
concern
about population growth has led to government action to rein it in,
and we are
no longer at risk of such an extreme outcome as we were when I spoke
to you
about these issues in 2009. One of the key drivers of this migration
spike was
the decision by the Howard Government in 2001 to allow overseas
students
who had completed post school credentials at an Australian University
or -
vocational education and training college to stay in Australia
indefinitely, and
apply for a skilled permanent resident visa from within Australia,
rather than
having to return to their country of origin.
The number of international
students in Australia more than doubled in just seven years, rising
from over
204,000 in 2002 to over 467,000 in 2009.
Agents overseas had a field day telling students that all they had to
do was to
sign up for courses in Australia, pay the big fees, and they would
be
guaranteed permanent residence in Australia. It transformed the
purpose of
student visas, from getting an education and taking your skills back
to your
home country to help it, to getting permanent residence in Australia.
Dodgy
private colleges sprang up, students were ripped off, Australia’s
international
education reputation started to be damaged.
To its credit the Government has acted to get this program under
control.
Some universities have complained about this. There is no doubt that
overseas
students are buying permanent residence by cross subsidising
domestic -
students.
But the amount of subsidy each domestic student receives from
overseas
students is unlikely to be more than $2000.
Given the Queensland academic Jane O’Sullivan’s estimate that each
new
person in Australia requires $200,000 in infrastructure costs, it
would be much
less draining on the public purse to bring in fewer overseas students
and
restore the amount of Government support for post secondary students
to the -
levels we used to provide.
What my graphs don’t show you is the latest, ‘not so good,’ news. The
net
overseas migration program has stopped its decline and is likely to
track at
180,000 in the years ahead. The announced rise in the permanent
program
and the likely number of subclass 457 visa holders will keep the
migration
program up around 180,000 even with fewer overseas students. The
180,000
net migration number is, as you may be aware, precisely the number
used by
Treasury when it projects that Australia’s population will rise to 36
million by
2050.
As I said in May this year when it was launched, the Government’s
population
strategy represents a missed opportunity to put Australia’s population
on a
sustainable basis and curb our rapid population
growth.
The failure to set targets means we are still on our way to Big
Australia. I
remain concerned that the present rate of population growth – a 60%
increase
in our population over the next 40 years – will put upward pressure on
the cost
of housing, electricity, water, food, council rates, and upward
pressure on
interest rates.
I am pleased that the strategy acknowledges the challenges faced by
our major
cities, such as declining housing affordability and increasing traffic
congestion.
I hope that all levels of government – federal, state and local – and
all political
parties – Labor, Liberal and Greens – will acknowledge the reality of
life for
people living in the big cities, and abandon plans to grow these
cities still
bigger. If all levels of government now work together to stabilise
the
populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, this strategy will
have
achieved something worthwhile.
But I continue to be convinced that another 13 million people will not
give us a
richer country, it will spread our mineral wealth more thinly and give
us a
poorer one.
The Government’s aim to lift the participation rate and find work for
people
who are presently on Job Search Allowance or Disability Support
Payments
would be much more easily realised if we reduced skilled migration to
the level
of the mid 90s to give us a net overseas migration level of
70,000.
So where does the population debate need to go from here? I think
there are a
number of directions it needs to take. Of course the big debate in
Australia, at
the moment, and indeed in many other countries, is about how we
reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. Now it has been pointed out for
years that
population growth is a big driver of carbon dioxide emissions. One of
the
th
reasons the planet’s carbon dioxide levels rose so much in the 20
century was
that the world’s population trebled in that time. Professor Bob
Birrell and
others have done important work quantifying the impact of population
growth
on Australia’s increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and pointing out
how
much harder it is for Australia to meet carbon dioxide reduction
targets while
our population continues to rise. As a statement of the bleeding
obvious, it’s
hard to reduce your carbon footprint if you keep adding more
feet.
The Government has now set an objective of reducing our carbon
emissions by
80% by 2050. There is a strong scientific basis for this target. But
it’s a very
challenging target, and made much more challenging if it’s accompanied
by
population growth of 60% during that same time frame – which is what a
36
million population for Australia would be.
Having said that, I urge people to support the carbon reduction target
and the
carbon price mechanism the Government intends to put in place to
achieve it.
It is essential for the sake of the planet that we start cutting our
carbon
emissions. And it should be recognised that putting a ceiling on
emissions is an
important brake on the notion of growth at any
cost.
The carbon price is intended to steer our industry in the direction of
carbon -
free growth, and I am sure it will, but the idea of an absolute
ceiling on
emissions represents a big change in the way we do things and think
about
things.
I am sure that is one of the reasons why the right wing of politics
and some
corporations have reacted to these measures with such shrill and
hysterical
opposition.
And I think that once a carbon price is in place and business is
thinking about
how they can meet carbon reduction targets at least cost, they may
well work
out that a stable population gives rise to a lower price on carbon
than a rising
one, and their reckless enthusiasm for ever higher population growth
may
diminish.
So I hope you will see that a price on carbon is an important step
forward, and
strongly support this measure at a time when the battle for it has
entered its
most intense phase yet. No guts, no glory.
An important related area to the climate debate is the debate over
electricity
prices. Over the past 10 years electricity prices have almost doubled
across
Australia’s eight capital cities. The most populated cities, Melbourne
and
Sydney, have seen the highest price rises, their prices have more than
doubled.
Melbourne prices have risen by over 50% in real terms. So have
Sydney’s. In
Brisbane real electricity prices have gone up by over 38%, and in
Adelaide real
electricity prices have gone up by over 26%.
Now you might think that more people – a growing population would lead
to -
economies of scale and lead to lower electricity prices, but you would
be
wrong. Rising electricity prices doesn’t just show up on the household
bills I‘ve
referred to, it also shows up in the rising cost of electricity per
kilowatt hour.
Instead of rising population causing lower prices, it leads to a need
for extra
infrastructure and therefore higher prices. And the more crowded a
city
becomes, the higher the cost of doing business. Congestion costs kick
in, and
just maintaining electricity infrastructure becomes more
expensive.
It is untrue, and mischievously untrue, to assert that rising
electricity prices are
a consequence of carbon trading or measures to reduce carbon
emissions. It is,
or should be, well known that Australia has no emissions trading
scheme or
carbon tax.
And as for other measures, as the Clean Energy Council has pointed
out, the
cost of supporting residential solar power is a drop in the ocean
compared to
billions of dollars in network costs. It points out that the
Australian Energy
Regulator estimates the cost of expanding the electricity network in
NSW at
more than $14 billion over 5 years.
Based on the 50MW installed under the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme, the cost
of
solar electricity from the current scheme is less than 4% of
this.
I want to urge electricity pricing regulatory authorities to consider
the hardship
which the rises over the past decade have caused, and think about
pensioners
who are struggling to make ends meet, when they consider applications
for
price rises.
Some people will ask, how will electricity companies invest in
new
infrastructure if they can’t charge higher prices? My response is, at
present the
costs of rapid population growth are being borne by ordinary
household
consumers in general and pensioners and those on fixed incomes in
particular.
Those costs should be borne by the beneficiaries of growth – the
property
industry. Electricity companies should not be prevented from
recovering the
costs of new infrastructure from the new developments which
necessitate it.
Household customers should not be asked to subsidise
infrastructure
development over which they have no control.
In south east Queensland the present population of around 2.9 million
is -
projected to grow to 4.4 million in just 20 years. The electricity
company
Energex has a five years funding proposal to meet this forecast growth
which
includes $5.78 billion for capital investment and a further $1.63
billion to
maintain and operate the network over the next 5 years. So the outlook
for
electricity prices with a growing population is clear. They’re heading
up. There
are people out there who seek to use rising electricity prices for
their own
agenda – to blame the carbon price, or the renewable energy target,
or
privatisation, or the failure to privatise. But the truth is that most
of the rise
we’ve seen is fair and square a consequence of population growth, and
we
should never lose sight of that.
The next really important part of the population debate is the issue
of our
growing cities and the issue of planning. People are having their
democratic
right to a say in what happens in their neighbourhoods taken away from
them.
State governments are ordering Councils to adopt planning provisions
to
accommodate many more people. They are ‘calling in
‘projects. They are
issuing instructions to Planning Tribunals designed to allow
developers to
succeed with their applications, whether local residents want them or
not.
Let me say that I think a lot of residents are a wake up to this, so
it is politically
foolish.
At every Council election nowadays a lot of Councillors get
defeated.
When I was a Councillor in the 1980s I served with older colleagues
whose
Council careers lasted over 20, and in a couple of cases, over 30
years. They
used the brilliant, though simple, election strategy of doing what
their
residents wanted.
Population growth and planning also played a role in the recent defeat
of both
the Victorian and New South Wales Labor governments. I noticed on
election
night the new New South Wales Premier promising, to loud applause, to
repeal
Part 3A of the New South Wales Environment Planning and Assessment
Act.
This Part of the Act gave to Planning Ministers, and let me quote the
words of
the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption on
this , “a
wide discretion to approve projects that are contrary to local plans
and do not
necessarily conform to state strategic plans has the potential to
deliver
sizeable windfall gains to particular applicants. This creates a
corruption risk
and a community perception of a lack of appropriate
boundaries”
Remarkably News Limited, which is certainly very vocal about
Labor
Governments keeping their election promises, in one of its
papers
recommended that Barry O’Farrell ditch this election
commitment. This
newspaper incited the government to immediately break this
election
commitment, showing contempt for the voting public and the nature of
the
election process.
In Victoria the Baillieu Government has proved a disappointment on
planning
and population issues. It did abolish the clearway extensions unwisely
put in
by the Labor Government, but it has so far shown no desire to
support
residents ahead of developers on the core issues of Green Wedges and
high
rise. High rise is going ahead at Caulfield Racecourse, and it’s
planned for
Moonee Valley Racecourse and for North Melbourne . Moonee Valley
Racing
Club wants to build 20 storey towers – completely out of character
with the
neighbouring streets and suburbs in Essendon, Moonee Ponds and
Brunswick.
Just yesterday I read the Baillieu Government has decided that
developers will
no longer need a planning permit to develop lots of less than 300
square
metres, provided they’re within 120 metres of an activity centre or
local park
or open space.
The Small Lots Housing Code is another win for developers, and
another
erosion of residents’ rights. It is absolutely the wrong direction to
be going
down.
The Liberal Government would be foolish not to understand that
public
discontent about Melbourne’s population growth played a major role in
the
Labor Government’s defeat – outside Melbourne the Labor
Government
suffered minimal loses – only losing the seat of Seymour which was
about
water for Melbourne’s growing population, and the seat of South
Barwon,
which was about Torquay’s growing population.
A survey conducted for the Productivity Commission in May found that
52% of
Melbourne’s residents oppose having more people in their suburb, and
only
11% favour it. The survey of more than 3000 Melbourne residents found
53%
oppose redevelopments that replace single dwellings with units or
apartments.
So where is the media demand for politicians to faithfully reflect the
will of the
people on planning and population? Where is the demand for an election
over
this?
We are told that surrendering our single dwellings to units and high
rise will
stop urban sprawl. It does not. Recently in Lara the Geelong Council,
in a split
decision, approved over 380 high density houses directly opposite the
Serendip
Sanctuary. This Sanctuary is internationally recognised for
successfully
breeding captive species. Numerous free ranging wildlife breed here
and spill
over on to the rural land surrounding the Sanctuary which is only 2km
from the
Yan Yangs Regional Park. It is an important wildlife corridor.
Shutting it down
will turn Serendip, in the words of one resident, into an urban park
in an urban
matrix. And last night I saw on TV the Baillieu Government’s Planning
Minister
ordering the Surf Coast Shire to approve yet another housing
development
outside Torquay, called Spring Creek, which is another step on the way
to wall
to wall housing from Melbourne to the Great Ocean
Road.
I encourage those concerned with population to be engaged with
these
planning issues – whether it’s North Melbourne, Caulfield, Moonee
Valley or
Lara, or Torquay supporting local residents will produce better
outcomes and
build the population reform movement.
The next debate the population reform movement needs to engage in is
the
skills debate. The rapid increase in skilled migration from the mid
1990s is a
key reason why we are now tracking for a 36 million
population.
If we returned skilled migration to the 25,000 per annum level of the
mid
1990s we could stabilise our population by 2050 at a much lower level
than 36
million. If we started quick enough we could probably stabilise it at
26 million,
though the window on that number is closing.
Skilled migration has seven strikes on it.
The first problem with labour force migration is that it is the key
driver of
Australia’s rising population. The second problem is that there are
people in
Australia who want work and we should be getting them jobs. There
are
500,000 people on Newstart allowance and 800,000 on disability
support
pension. These people should be our first priority. In the last decade
the
number of people receiving disability support pension grew around six
per cent
per annum in real terms.
Included among the people who are out of work and are deserving of
our
attention are quite a few skilled migrants already in Australia who
are either
not working at all or not employed in areas for which they are
qualified.
A local newspaper which circulates in my electorate, reported four out
of five
skilled migrants in Melbourne are unemployed or underemployed,
according
to a recent survey. The article outlined the case of Preston skilled
migrant
Natalia Garcia, who has applied for 17 engineering jobs in the past
four months
without getting an interview or feedback, despite speaking advanced
English
and holding an engineering degree and seven years industry experience
in
Colombia. Ms Garcia said “We were told Australia was desperate for
engineers
and that we would find a job in a maximum of two
months.”
Ms Garcia is working as an office cleaner, and said most skilled
migrants she
knew were doing the same. It is highly revealing that a qualified
engineer with
seven years industry experience should be working in Australia as a
cleaner. I
suspect that quite a few of the business leaders who bang the
drum
incessantly about skilled migration know about this kind of outcome
perfectly
well. They are not so much interested in the skills of migrants as
their potential
to provide cheap labour in occupations such as cleaners and taxi
drivers and in
providing personal services like house cleaning and chauffeuring at
cut price
rates.
So the third problem with skilled migration is the treatment of,
and outcomes
for, many skilled migrants.
The fourth problem is that the skills shortage is overstated and is
abused in
ways which undermine the wages and conditions of Australian
workers.
National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union,
Dave
Oliver, believes the skills shortage issue is overstated and that
successive
federal governments have failed to deliver an adequate labour market
testing
system, which means employers can exploit the system. The AMWU
has
launched a skills register to give skilled workers and young people
seeking
apprenticeships the opportunity to register for work before employers
are
allowed to bring in workers on 457 visas.
With apprenticeship completion rates below 50%, the long term answer
to our
skills problems cannot be importing workers from other countries on
a
temporary basis. Employers can't complain about skills shortages while
they
are dropping their investment in training.
The fifth objection I have to increasing skilled migration is that we
have
become addicted to it. We need to do more to educate and train our
own
young people. Going back two or three decades, governments and
employers
dropped the ball on training. Governments closed technical schools and
cut
back on technical education. Private employers lost interest in taking
on
apprentices. We started outsourcing our requirement for training. This
has
been an addictive, self fulfilling circle and we need to break the
habit. Those -
countries which do not run a big migration program put more effort
into
educating and training their young people, and they have better
participation
rates as a consequence.
The sixth objection I have to increasing skilled migration goes to the
claim that
this is necessary to avoid capacity constraints and bottlenecks in the
resources
industry. The truth is that running the resources boom as fast as
possible has a
number of economic consequences, not all of which are
positive.
I believe the relentless rise of the Australian dollar as a result of
the resources
boom presents a real challenge to the Australian economy. The current
mining
boom mark 2 represents the highest terms of trade in 140 years, so
the
pressure on manufacturing and other trade exposed industries not
directly
benefiting from higher commodity prices is severe. Retail,
manufacturing,
building and tourism are labouring under the weight of subdued sales,
weak
profits and low orders. We need to ensure that we do not become a one
trick -
economy and that the structural changes that occur as a result of this
boom do
not leave ordinary people behind.
Furthermore, most of Australian’s current migration intake has very
little to do
with the skills needed by the resource industries. ABS figures show
that when
net overseas migration peaked at 315,000 in 2008, 203,000 – 65%
derived
from temporary visa holders, subclass 457s, students
etc.
Most of these migrants work as casuals in metropolitan semi skilled
jobs. -
Most 457s are employed in service industries in metropolitan
areas.
Between March 2009 and March 2011, 36% of all job growth in Australia
was
in Victoria.
But Victoria’s share of Australia’s population is 25%. Most of this
job growth
was in Melbourne, where it was largely driven by growth in the
construction
and people service industries. Links between this growth and the
nation’s
resources industries were minimal. Australia risks wasting the
dividend from
the resources boom in this big city building
exercise. If we slowed our
population growth the dividend from the resources boom could be spent
on
investment in education and knowledge intensive
industries. -
It may be argued that growing our cities and increasing infrastructure
provides
jobs. But is this not just “make work?”. Those same big corporations
which
want taxpayers to fund the provision of infrastructure insist that
Australia is
short of workers and that we need more people to meet the demand for
jobs;
surely they cannot claim in the same breath that we both don’t have
enough
jobs and that we don’t have enough workers to do
them!
And I doubt I am the only Australian who is looking askance at
proposals from
overseas companies to bring in their own workforce to mine
Australia’s
resources.
If the resources go overseas, and the profits go overseas, and the
work is done
by overseas labour, what benefit do Australia and Australians derive?
It is
certainly not from a higher dollar, with its adverse impacts on
manufacturing
and tourism. It is certainly not from the Reserve Bank, which keeps
the trigger
on interest rates due to the mining boom, with all the consequences of
that for
retailing and for small business and home
borrowers.
Skilled migration needs to be tight and targeted, meeting specific
needs, not
some general program to grow the labour force and keep downward
pressure
on workers income and conditions.
An Iranian man, Reza Mostafavi, who came to Australia in 1982, has
worked in
IT ever since and lives in Sydney, contacted my office recently to say
that
graduates like his daughter were finding it very difficult to find
work.
He said the claims about skills shortage were exaggerated and often
promoted
by recruitment agencies who want to bring in people who they could pay
lower
wages.
In one case he knew of the recruitment agency was paying an Indian
worker
$20 per hour and charging the company $60 per hour. He asked me
to
continue my good work.
The seventh and final objection I have goes to the question of the
morality of
skilled migration. In May I participated in a debate on Sky News TV
Channel on
the program known as The Nation, with amongst others Geoff Gallop,
the
former Western Australian Premier. We were talking about migration,
and
Geoff said he thought it was a moral issue, that Australia had a
moral
obligation to take large numbers of migrants from poor countries. Now
Geoff
is a fine Australian who has made a very valuable contribution to this
country.
But skilled migration is not about Australia being unselfish. It is
about us being
utterly selfish, taking the best and brightest from poor countries and
denuding
them of the people most likely to lift them from conditions of
poverty. When
we take a poor country’s doctors or nurses, we damage their health
system.
When we take a poor country’s engineers, we damage their capacity to
build
infrastructure. It is a moral question alright, but there is nothing
moral about
what we are doing.
Finally, while I am convinced that the argument for population reform
is in the
best interests of the people of Melbourne, the people of Australia,
and the
people of the world, I hope that we never lose sight of the fact that
we are not
the only species on the planet. An Associate Professor from Bond
University,
Andrew Wilford, says that 10,000 years ago, humans and our
domesticated
animals, including animals kept for food production like cattle,
accounted for
0.1% of mammal biomass. All the rest of the world’s
mammals – lions and
elephants and whales and kangaroos and antelopes etc. accounted for
99.9%. -
By the start of the Industrial Revolution we and our domesticated
animals
accounted for 10 12%, and the rest of the world’s mammals accounted
for -
nearly 90%.
Today we account for between 96% and 98% -
in other words, all the wild
animals put together now only account for 2 to 4% of the mass of
mammals on
Earth. It is a stunning transformation. I think we have a basic
obligation to
protect those remaining 2 4% and the habitats on which they depend.
I -
commend Sustainable Population Australia on its important work, and I
look
forward to continuing to work with you in the year
ahead.
Kelvin Thomson MP
Member for Wills"
Strategy
SPA Victoria Annual General Meeting Speech
Kelvin Thomson, MP for Wills 16July, 2011
I have been asked to speak with you this afternoon on the population
debate
after the population strategy. I have here two graphs of Australia’s
net
overseas migration – one goes back to the 1950s and one goes all the
way back
to 1901.
You can see reasonably readily from these graphs that there is bad
news, and
good news. The bad news is that from 2004 we experienced a
massive
migration spike which drove our population growth rate up to third
world
levels. Had that spike continued we would have been tracking for a
population
of 40 million plus by 2050 and who knows what by
2100.
The good news is that the public outcry over this migration spike and
concern
about population growth has led to government action to rein it in,
and we are
no longer at risk of such an extreme outcome as we were when I spoke
to you
about these issues in 2009. One of the key drivers of this migration
spike was
the decision by the Howard Government in 2001 to allow overseas
students
who had completed post school credentials at an Australian University
or -
vocational education and training college to stay in Australia
indefinitely, and
apply for a skilled permanent resident visa from within Australia,
rather than
having to return to their country of origin.
The number of international
students in Australia more than doubled in just seven years, rising
from over
204,000 in 2002 to over 467,000 in 2009.
Agents overseas had a field day telling students that all they had to
do was to
sign up for courses in Australia, pay the big fees, and they would
be
guaranteed permanent residence in Australia. It transformed the
purpose of
student visas, from getting an education and taking your skills back
to your
home country to help it, to getting permanent residence in Australia.
Dodgy
private colleges sprang up, students were ripped off, Australia’s
international
education reputation started to be damaged.
To its credit the Government has acted to get this program under
control.
Some universities have complained about this. There is no doubt that
overseas
students are buying permanent residence by cross subsidising
domestic -
students.
But the amount of subsidy each domestic student receives from
overseas
students is unlikely to be more than $2000.
Given the Queensland academic Jane O’Sullivan’s estimate that each
new
person in Australia requires $200,000 in infrastructure costs, it
would be much
less draining on the public purse to bring in fewer overseas students
and
restore the amount of Government support for post secondary students
to the -
levels we used to provide.
What my graphs don’t show you is the latest, ‘not so good,’ news. The
net
overseas migration program has stopped its decline and is likely to
track at
180,000 in the years ahead. The announced rise in the permanent
program
and the likely number of subclass 457 visa holders will keep the
migration
program up around 180,000 even with fewer overseas students. The
180,000
net migration number is, as you may be aware, precisely the number
used by
Treasury when it projects that Australia’s population will rise to 36
million by
2050.
As I said in May this year when it was launched, the Government’s
population
strategy represents a missed opportunity to put Australia’s population
on a
sustainable basis and curb our rapid population
growth.
The failure to set targets means we are still on our way to Big
Australia. I
remain concerned that the present rate of population growth – a 60%
increase
in our population over the next 40 years – will put upward pressure on
the cost
of housing, electricity, water, food, council rates, and upward
pressure on
interest rates.
I am pleased that the strategy acknowledges the challenges faced by
our major
cities, such as declining housing affordability and increasing traffic
congestion.
I hope that all levels of government – federal, state and local – and
all political
parties – Labor, Liberal and Greens – will acknowledge the reality of
life for
people living in the big cities, and abandon plans to grow these
cities still
bigger. If all levels of government now work together to stabilise
the
populations of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, this strategy will
have
achieved something worthwhile.
But I continue to be convinced that another 13 million people will not
give us a
richer country, it will spread our mineral wealth more thinly and give
us a
poorer one.
The Government’s aim to lift the participation rate and find work for
people
who are presently on Job Search Allowance or Disability Support
Payments
would be much more easily realised if we reduced skilled migration to
the level
of the mid 90s to give us a net overseas migration level of
70,000.
So where does the population debate need to go from here? I think
there are a
number of directions it needs to take. Of course the big debate in
Australia, at
the moment, and indeed in many other countries, is about how we
reduce
carbon dioxide emissions. Now it has been pointed out for
years that
population growth is a big driver of carbon dioxide emissions. One of
the
th
reasons the planet’s carbon dioxide levels rose so much in the 20
century was
that the world’s population trebled in that time. Professor Bob
Birrell and
others have done important work quantifying the impact of population
growth
on Australia’s increasing greenhouse gas emissions, and pointing out
how
much harder it is for Australia to meet carbon dioxide reduction
targets while
our population continues to rise. As a statement of the bleeding
obvious, it’s
hard to reduce your carbon footprint if you keep adding more
feet.
The Government has now set an objective of reducing our carbon
emissions by
80% by 2050. There is a strong scientific basis for this target. But
it’s a very
challenging target, and made much more challenging if it’s accompanied
by
population growth of 60% during that same time frame – which is what a
36
million population for Australia would be.
Having said that, I urge people to support the carbon reduction target
and the
carbon price mechanism the Government intends to put in place to
achieve it.
It is essential for the sake of the planet that we start cutting our
carbon
emissions. And it should be recognised that putting a ceiling on
emissions is an
important brake on the notion of growth at any
cost.
The carbon price is intended to steer our industry in the direction of
carbon -
free growth, and I am sure it will, but the idea of an absolute
ceiling on
emissions represents a big change in the way we do things and think
about
things.
I am sure that is one of the reasons why the right wing of politics
and some
corporations have reacted to these measures with such shrill and
hysterical
opposition.
And I think that once a carbon price is in place and business is
thinking about
how they can meet carbon reduction targets at least cost, they may
well work
out that a stable population gives rise to a lower price on carbon
than a rising
one, and their reckless enthusiasm for ever higher population growth
may
diminish.
So I hope you will see that a price on carbon is an important step
forward, and
strongly support this measure at a time when the battle for it has
entered its
most intense phase yet. No guts, no glory.
An important related area to the climate debate is the debate over
electricity
prices. Over the past 10 years electricity prices have almost doubled
across
Australia’s eight capital cities. The most populated cities, Melbourne
and
Sydney, have seen the highest price rises, their prices have more than
doubled.
Melbourne prices have risen by over 50% in real terms. So have
Sydney’s. In
Brisbane real electricity prices have gone up by over 38%, and in
Adelaide real
electricity prices have gone up by over 26%.
Now you might think that more people – a growing population would lead
to -
economies of scale and lead to lower electricity prices, but you would
be
wrong. Rising electricity prices doesn’t just show up on the household
bills I‘ve
referred to, it also shows up in the rising cost of electricity per
kilowatt hour.
Instead of rising population causing lower prices, it leads to a need
for extra
infrastructure and therefore higher prices. And the more crowded a
city
becomes, the higher the cost of doing business. Congestion costs kick
in, and
just maintaining electricity infrastructure becomes more
expensive.
It is untrue, and mischievously untrue, to assert that rising
electricity prices are
a consequence of carbon trading or measures to reduce carbon
emissions. It is,
or should be, well known that Australia has no emissions trading
scheme or
carbon tax.
And as for other measures, as the Clean Energy Council has pointed
out, the
cost of supporting residential solar power is a drop in the ocean
compared to
billions of dollars in network costs. It points out that the
Australian Energy
Regulator estimates the cost of expanding the electricity network in
NSW at
more than $14 billion over 5 years.
Based on the 50MW installed under the NSW Solar Bonus Scheme, the cost
of
solar electricity from the current scheme is less than 4% of
this.
I want to urge electricity pricing regulatory authorities to consider
the hardship
which the rises over the past decade have caused, and think about
pensioners
who are struggling to make ends meet, when they consider applications
for
price rises.
Some people will ask, how will electricity companies invest in
new
infrastructure if they can’t charge higher prices? My response is, at
present the
costs of rapid population growth are being borne by ordinary
household
consumers in general and pensioners and those on fixed incomes in
particular.
Those costs should be borne by the beneficiaries of growth – the
property
industry. Electricity companies should not be prevented from
recovering the
costs of new infrastructure from the new developments which
necessitate it.
Household customers should not be asked to subsidise
infrastructure
development over which they have no control.
In south east Queensland the present population of around 2.9 million
is -
projected to grow to 4.4 million in just 20 years. The electricity
company
Energex has a five years funding proposal to meet this forecast growth
which
includes $5.78 billion for capital investment and a further $1.63
billion to
maintain and operate the network over the next 5 years. So the outlook
for
electricity prices with a growing population is clear. They’re heading
up. There
are people out there who seek to use rising electricity prices for
their own
agenda – to blame the carbon price, or the renewable energy target,
or
privatisation, or the failure to privatise. But the truth is that most
of the rise
we’ve seen is fair and square a consequence of population growth, and
we
should never lose sight of that.
The next really important part of the population debate is the issue
of our
growing cities and the issue of planning. People are having their
democratic
right to a say in what happens in their neighbourhoods taken away from
them.
State governments are ordering Councils to adopt planning provisions
to
accommodate many more people. They are ‘calling in
‘projects. They are
issuing instructions to Planning Tribunals designed to allow
developers to
succeed with their applications, whether local residents want them or
not.
Let me say that I think a lot of residents are a wake up to this, so
it is politically
foolish.
At every Council election nowadays a lot of Councillors get
defeated.
When I was a Councillor in the 1980s I served with older colleagues
whose
Council careers lasted over 20, and in a couple of cases, over 30
years. They
used the brilliant, though simple, election strategy of doing what
their
residents wanted.
Population growth and planning also played a role in the recent defeat
of both
the Victorian and New South Wales Labor governments. I noticed on
election
night the new New South Wales Premier promising, to loud applause, to
repeal
Part 3A of the New South Wales Environment Planning and Assessment
Act.
This Part of the Act gave to Planning Ministers, and let me quote the
words of
the New South Wales Independent Commission Against Corruption on
this , “a
wide discretion to approve projects that are contrary to local plans
and do not
necessarily conform to state strategic plans has the potential to
deliver
sizeable windfall gains to particular applicants. This creates a
corruption risk
and a community perception of a lack of appropriate
boundaries”
Remarkably News Limited, which is certainly very vocal about
Labor
Governments keeping their election promises, in one of its
papers
recommended that Barry O’Farrell ditch this election
commitment. This
newspaper incited the government to immediately break this
election
commitment, showing contempt for the voting public and the nature of
the
election process.
In Victoria the Baillieu Government has proved a disappointment on
planning
and population issues. It did abolish the clearway extensions unwisely
put in
by the Labor Government, but it has so far shown no desire to
support
residents ahead of developers on the core issues of Green Wedges and
high
rise. High rise is going ahead at Caulfield Racecourse, and it’s
planned for
Moonee Valley Racecourse and for North Melbourne . Moonee Valley
Racing
Club wants to build 20 storey towers – completely out of character
with the
neighbouring streets and suburbs in Essendon, Moonee Ponds and
Brunswick.
Just yesterday I read the Baillieu Government has decided that
developers will
no longer need a planning permit to develop lots of less than 300
square
metres, provided they’re within 120 metres of an activity centre or
local park
or open space.
The Small Lots Housing Code is another win for developers, and
another
erosion of residents’ rights. It is absolutely the wrong direction to
be going
down.
The Liberal Government would be foolish not to understand that
public
discontent about Melbourne’s population growth played a major role in
the
Labor Government’s defeat – outside Melbourne the Labor
Government
suffered minimal loses – only losing the seat of Seymour which was
about
water for Melbourne’s growing population, and the seat of South
Barwon,
which was about Torquay’s growing population.
A survey conducted for the Productivity Commission in May found that
52% of
Melbourne’s residents oppose having more people in their suburb, and
only
11% favour it. The survey of more than 3000 Melbourne residents found
53%
oppose redevelopments that replace single dwellings with units or
apartments.
So where is the media demand for politicians to faithfully reflect the
will of the
people on planning and population? Where is the demand for an election
over
this?
We are told that surrendering our single dwellings to units and high
rise will
stop urban sprawl. It does not. Recently in Lara the Geelong Council,
in a split
decision, approved over 380 high density houses directly opposite the
Serendip
Sanctuary. This Sanctuary is internationally recognised for
successfully
breeding captive species. Numerous free ranging wildlife breed here
and spill
over on to the rural land surrounding the Sanctuary which is only 2km
from the
Yan Yangs Regional Park. It is an important wildlife corridor.
Shutting it down
will turn Serendip, in the words of one resident, into an urban park
in an urban
matrix. And last night I saw on TV the Baillieu Government’s Planning
Minister
ordering the Surf Coast Shire to approve yet another housing
development
outside Torquay, called Spring Creek, which is another step on the way
to wall
to wall housing from Melbourne to the Great Ocean
Road.
I encourage those concerned with population to be engaged with
these
planning issues – whether it’s North Melbourne, Caulfield, Moonee
Valley or
Lara, or Torquay supporting local residents will produce better
outcomes and
build the population reform movement.
The next debate the population reform movement needs to engage in is
the
skills debate. The rapid increase in skilled migration from the mid
1990s is a
key reason why we are now tracking for a 36 million
population.
If we returned skilled migration to the 25,000 per annum level of the
mid
1990s we could stabilise our population by 2050 at a much lower level
than 36
million. If we started quick enough we could probably stabilise it at
26 million,
though the window on that number is closing.
Skilled migration has seven strikes on it.
The first problem with labour force migration is that it is the key
driver of
Australia’s rising population. The second problem is that there are
people in
Australia who want work and we should be getting them jobs. There
are
500,000 people on Newstart allowance and 800,000 on disability
support
pension. These people should be our first priority. In the last decade
the
number of people receiving disability support pension grew around six
per cent
per annum in real terms.
Included among the people who are out of work and are deserving of
our
attention are quite a few skilled migrants already in Australia who
are either
not working at all or not employed in areas for which they are
qualified.
A local newspaper which circulates in my electorate, reported four out
of five
skilled migrants in Melbourne are unemployed or underemployed,
according
to a recent survey. The article outlined the case of Preston skilled
migrant
Natalia Garcia, who has applied for 17 engineering jobs in the past
four months
without getting an interview or feedback, despite speaking advanced
English
and holding an engineering degree and seven years industry experience
in
Colombia. Ms Garcia said “We were told Australia was desperate for
engineers
and that we would find a job in a maximum of two
months.”
Ms Garcia is working as an office cleaner, and said most skilled
migrants she
knew were doing the same. It is highly revealing that a qualified
engineer with
seven years industry experience should be working in Australia as a
cleaner. I
suspect that quite a few of the business leaders who bang the
drum
incessantly about skilled migration know about this kind of outcome
perfectly
well. They are not so much interested in the skills of migrants as
their potential
to provide cheap labour in occupations such as cleaners and taxi
drivers and in
providing personal services like house cleaning and chauffeuring at
cut price
rates.
So the third problem with skilled migration is the treatment of,
and outcomes
for, many skilled migrants.
The fourth problem is that the skills shortage is overstated and is
abused in
ways which undermine the wages and conditions of Australian
workers.
National Secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union,
Dave
Oliver, believes the skills shortage issue is overstated and that
successive
federal governments have failed to deliver an adequate labour market
testing
system, which means employers can exploit the system. The AMWU
has
launched a skills register to give skilled workers and young people
seeking
apprenticeships the opportunity to register for work before employers
are
allowed to bring in workers on 457 visas.
With apprenticeship completion rates below 50%, the long term answer
to our
skills problems cannot be importing workers from other countries on
a
temporary basis. Employers can't complain about skills shortages while
they
are dropping their investment in training.
The fifth objection I have to increasing skilled migration is that we
have
become addicted to it. We need to do more to educate and train our
own
young people. Going back two or three decades, governments and
employers
dropped the ball on training. Governments closed technical schools and
cut
back on technical education. Private employers lost interest in taking
on
apprentices. We started outsourcing our requirement for training. This
has
been an addictive, self fulfilling circle and we need to break the
habit. Those -
countries which do not run a big migration program put more effort
into
educating and training their young people, and they have better
participation
rates as a consequence.
The sixth objection I have to increasing skilled migration goes to the
claim that
this is necessary to avoid capacity constraints and bottlenecks in the
resources
industry. The truth is that running the resources boom as fast as
possible has a
number of economic consequences, not all of which are
positive.
I believe the relentless rise of the Australian dollar as a result of
the resources
boom presents a real challenge to the Australian economy. The current
mining
boom mark 2 represents the highest terms of trade in 140 years, so
the
pressure on manufacturing and other trade exposed industries not
directly
benefiting from higher commodity prices is severe. Retail,
manufacturing,
building and tourism are labouring under the weight of subdued sales,
weak
profits and low orders. We need to ensure that we do not become a one
trick -
economy and that the structural changes that occur as a result of this
boom do
not leave ordinary people behind.
Furthermore, most of Australian’s current migration intake has very
little to do
with the skills needed by the resource industries. ABS figures show
that when
net overseas migration peaked at 315,000 in 2008, 203,000 – 65%
derived
from temporary visa holders, subclass 457s, students
etc.
Most of these migrants work as casuals in metropolitan semi skilled
jobs. -
Most 457s are employed in service industries in metropolitan
areas.
Between March 2009 and March 2011, 36% of all job growth in Australia
was
in Victoria.
But Victoria’s share of Australia’s population is 25%. Most of this
job growth
was in Melbourne, where it was largely driven by growth in the
construction
and people service industries. Links between this growth and the
nation’s
resources industries were minimal. Australia risks wasting the
dividend from
the resources boom in this big city building
exercise. If we slowed our
population growth the dividend from the resources boom could be spent
on
investment in education and knowledge intensive
industries. -
It may be argued that growing our cities and increasing infrastructure
provides
jobs. But is this not just “make work?”. Those same big corporations
which
want taxpayers to fund the provision of infrastructure insist that
Australia is
short of workers and that we need more people to meet the demand for
jobs;
surely they cannot claim in the same breath that we both don’t have
enough
jobs and that we don’t have enough workers to do
them!
And I doubt I am the only Australian who is looking askance at
proposals from
overseas companies to bring in their own workforce to mine
Australia’s
resources.
If the resources go overseas, and the profits go overseas, and the
work is done
by overseas labour, what benefit do Australia and Australians derive?
It is
certainly not from a higher dollar, with its adverse impacts on
manufacturing
and tourism. It is certainly not from the Reserve Bank, which keeps
the trigger
on interest rates due to the mining boom, with all the consequences of
that for
retailing and for small business and home
borrowers.
Skilled migration needs to be tight and targeted, meeting specific
needs, not
some general program to grow the labour force and keep downward
pressure
on workers income and conditions.
An Iranian man, Reza Mostafavi, who came to Australia in 1982, has
worked in
IT ever since and lives in Sydney, contacted my office recently to say
that
graduates like his daughter were finding it very difficult to find
work.
He said the claims about skills shortage were exaggerated and often
promoted
by recruitment agencies who want to bring in people who they could pay
lower
wages.
In one case he knew of the recruitment agency was paying an Indian
worker
$20 per hour and charging the company $60 per hour. He asked me
to
continue my good work.
The seventh and final objection I have goes to the question of the
morality of
skilled migration. In May I participated in a debate on Sky News TV
Channel on
the program known as The Nation, with amongst others Geoff Gallop,
the
former Western Australian Premier. We were talking about migration,
and
Geoff said he thought it was a moral issue, that Australia had a
moral
obligation to take large numbers of migrants from poor countries. Now
Geoff
is a fine Australian who has made a very valuable contribution to this
country.
But skilled migration is not about Australia being unselfish. It is
about us being
utterly selfish, taking the best and brightest from poor countries and
denuding
them of the people most likely to lift them from conditions of
poverty. When
we take a poor country’s doctors or nurses, we damage their health
system.
When we take a poor country’s engineers, we damage their capacity to
build
infrastructure. It is a moral question alright, but there is nothing
moral about
what we are doing.
Finally, while I am convinced that the argument for population reform
is in the
best interests of the people of Melbourne, the people of Australia,
and the
people of the world, I hope that we never lose sight of the fact that
we are not
the only species on the planet. An Associate Professor from Bond
University,
Andrew Wilford, says that 10,000 years ago, humans and our
domesticated
animals, including animals kept for food production like cattle,
accounted for
0.1% of mammal biomass. All the rest of the world’s
mammals – lions and
elephants and whales and kangaroos and antelopes etc. accounted for
99.9%. -
By the start of the Industrial Revolution we and our domesticated
animals
accounted for 10 12%, and the rest of the world’s mammals accounted
for -
nearly 90%.
Today we account for between 96% and 98% -
in other words, all the wild
animals put together now only account for 2 to 4% of the mass of
mammals on
Earth. It is a stunning transformation. I think we have a basic
obligation to
protect those remaining 2 4% and the habitats on which they depend.
I -
commend Sustainable Population Australia on its important work, and I
look
forward to continuing to work with you in the year
ahead.
Kelvin Thomson MP
Member for Wills"