Population of Australia

[sbagman]

I argue this with my housemate (we argue alot) and of course I'm coming to Bigfooty's brains trust (!) for some further ammo (or have my argument shot down in flames).

The questions are:
How many people do you think Australia can support?
Assuming we are trying to grow centres which are not currently large cities (can Sydney and Melbourne support many more people? It's doubtful) where do you think the population should be centred? How would we get people to settle there?

I think Australia can support around 35 million people, possibly more, if regional centres were developed over the larger cities. Places like Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Darwin, Canberra. The problem seems to be that migrants want to be where their countrymen are, and that invariably seems to be Sydney or Melbourne. I think a national policy focussing on Australia's population distribution would be a good idea, and incentives to move to regional centres (assuming there are jobs there) would be a good idea. Maybe even creating some new regions and redefining state boundaries and responsibilities (hey! SydneyFan brought it up!) would help. Lop the top off Queensland and make it Carpricornia, wih the Cairns the capital, that sort of thing.

In any case, what do you think the strategy should be?

 

[Sydneyfan]

I think Australia could sustain a population around 30 to 35 million, anymore might put too much pressure on our environment and water resources, etc. I remember hearing how the Federal Government 20 odd years ago (I think it was the Whitlam Government) had the idea of promoting new towns, where industry and services would be moved to entice people to move to these areas and decentralise, reducing the population and concentration in the capital cities. I think places such as Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst-Orange, Rockhampton, Shepparton were on the list but the idea was eventually abandoned. Albury-Wodonga was planned to have a huge population of 700, 000 if the plan had gone ahead. Places which could be looked for further development now could be: the cities mentioned above as well as Townsville, Darwin, Cairns, Dubbo, Lismore, Grafton, Wagga Wagga, and some others possibly.

A similar idea should re-instated to promote growth in regional cities and there surrounding areas, hopefully the benefits would carry through to surrounding rural areas which are doing it tough at the moment, and to put a halt on the rapid growth in capital cities especially Perth, Brisbane, and Sydney. In the capital cities, I believe that greater efforts should be made to urban consolidation, re-developing land already in use rather than swallowing up further surrounding land (often which is useful arable land which could be used for market gardening, etc.). Increasing densities of our capital cities, putting a lot of capital and investment into improved public transport systems so people feel less reliant on the car.

NSW Premier, Bob Carr, just this week said how Sydney is reaching strangulation if the population growth continues abated. I believe Sydney could support a population of 6 million provided and lot of capital and infrastructure goes into planning for the anticipated growth and starts now, with a huge increase in public transport infrastructure which is already lacking IMO. What needs to be done is a Population Plan Australia-wide to decide how many people we can sustain and to go about planning where the people will go. But more effort should be put into developing regional areas and enticing both migrants and residents to move to these areas which hopefully would have follow on effects reducing the decline in many rural regions.

Australia could sustain 30-35 million people though it has to develop a Population Plan now to decide how and where we house the extra people, otherwise if growth continues with no fore thought it will end being detrimental for the environment, resources, and possibly for residents too.

 

[Portia]

Broome would be a great port city.

 

[sbagman]

Originally posted by Porthos
Broome would be a great port city.

Yeah I was thinking that. There's the strategic benefits of having large cities on our northern coasts... Cairns, Darwin and Broome would make a good trio of cities to protect our northern coastline.

 

[sbagman]

Originally posted by Sydneyfan

In the capital cities, I believe that greater efforts should be made to urban consolidation, re-developing land already in use rather than swallowing up further surrounding land (often which is useful arable land which could be used for market gardening, etc.). Increasing densities of our capital cities, putting a lot of capital and investment into improved public transport systems so people feel less reliant on the car.

My oath! I've always said increasing urban density is a good thing.... I hate suburbia....

 

[Voice of Reason]

There's a huge debate on the demographic issue and good points on both sides. I don't have time to summarise now, but my personal view is that Australia can support more people and this should happen in those regional areas where smaller towns can become decent-sized cities (like those mentioned by others) - say Warrnambool, Albury-Wodonga, or in WA, Mandurah, Broome, Bunbury etc.

Needs strong, stable government, proper planning and good economic fundamentals. Also WATER is a very important commodity. So it probably won't happen and we will continue to meander in an Aussie she'll be right fashion.

 

[Portia]

Isn't Broome near one of the biggest fresh water sources in Australia, fron recollection?

 

[Pessimistic]

Sydney is squashed in by hills.

Melbourne has room to breath plus they will fit a few million into the docklands development.

Regional centres shoud be good but they need support for 20 to 30 years or more. I think support ran out after a few years when they last did it.

Medium density seems to be the best practical policy but they need ways to persuade people to go to Melbourne and Brisbane insted of sydney.

 

[Portia]

Jobs are always what is going to persuade people. If the job I'm doing now I could do in Melbourne or Adelaide, I'd be there in a shot.

 

[Dave]

Jobs are the key. We could possibly support 30 million, but not if they were in the same proportion of age groups as our current population is. I saw a report, last year I think it was, (cant remember what it was called) that said by 2050 we wont have enough people of working age to support those that are retired. By that they did not mean financially but that there will not be enough people to carry out the services that our population needs.

Scary thought that.

 

[Bloodstained Angel]

a large (ish) population is a great idea but I agree with NSW Premier Bob Carr in that Sydney is at bursting point and could not sustain a population anymore than its already got (4.2 million at last estimate and growing at the truly staggering rate of 60,000 a year)

So if we decide to have more people, some way must be found to make them settle in other parts of Australia besides Central Coastal NSW and Melbourne.

also - I really don't know whether our environment could handle any more people. Our main river system is stuffed through over irrigation and bureaucratic red tape.

The politics of water is played hard pout in the bush. Some people think more must be done to develope regional centres into big, prosperous cities.

Lets take Mildura as an example - we cannot possible hope to have a place like Mildura with a big population when there is no water for all the people to drink.

Irrigators have the political situation all sewn up - they get as much water as they want (waste ?) they pay a pittance for it (try 4 cents a megalitre !!!!) and they won't share it around.

Our water resources are precious - we don't have enough to simultaneously supply irrigators, water big inland cities and provide 'environmental flows' to keep the river system healthy.

Something has to give somewhere, and at the moment the political will is just not there to properly mamage our water resources.

Untill we can guarantee adequate water supplies - the dream of an Australia with up to 50 million people in it will remain a dream.

At the moment the River Murray system is so sick with a range of environmental, financial and political problems that the city of Adelaide will run out of drinking water in 10 years.

think about it - Adealide with no drinking water - goodbye Adelaide.

We can't even begin to talk seriously about population untill we get serious about water - very serious.

cheers

 

[BMD]

Australia can support more people. Not a huge amount more though, and I don't think we should be growing aggressively. If it's going to happen, let it happen slowly.

Sydney is a different story, it keeps growing extremely fast and it's size is getting out of control. This week the Herald had a story that Sydney with 21% of the nation's population gets somewhere between 40 and 50% of new migrants. This can't go on, the pace of growth is too fast and Sydney is starting to burst at the seams. The state government has policies to promote urban consolidation, however this is pretty controversial as most people don't want the house next door replaced with a block of dog ugly townhouses.

Policies to spread the growth more evenly throughout the nation are a great idea, Tasmania and SA are desperate for people for example, but I don't have any bright ideas as to how we should go about it.

 

[sbagman]

I don't really know Sydney, can anyone who lives there confirm that it IS really bursting at the seams? What are the real-life signs that it is getting too big?

 

[Portia]

Originally posted by sbagman
I don't really know Sydney, can anyone who lives there confirm that it IS really bursting at the seams? What are the real-life signs that it is getting too big?

For my mind its that for the rent I pay, I could be living in a nice house in Norwood (good area in Adelaide), instead of a scummy 1 bedroom flat in Glebe.

 

[BMD]

Originally posted by sbagman
I don't really know Sydney, can anyone who lives there confirm that it IS really bursting at the seams? What are the real-life signs that it is getting too big?

As a life-long inhabitant, I can see it everywhere. I really feel that the growth in the last 10 years has just been astronomical.

The real-life signs are:

1 Traffic, no matter how many freeways get opened it just gets heavier.

2 Crowds, on public transport, in the streets, just about anywhere.

3 New developments, townhouses, units etc are springing up absolutely everywhere. Every old industrial site within 15 kms of the city seems to have become a residential site.

4 As well as established suburbs becoming more crowded (see point 3), the outer boundaries of Sydney just keep expanding.

5 The Central Coast, which used to be a retirement haven, is now full of people who commute 90 mins to Sydney for work

Sbagman, Sydney has definite natural limits, The Blue Mountains to the West, The Hawkesbury river / national park to the North, and the Wollongong escarpment / national park to the South. The ocean's on the east, obviously.

This limited area just keeps filling up. It's a shame, as some of the best agricultural land in the country (river flats) is quickly being covered over with new suburbs. Just crazy, when good agricultural land with fairly regular rainfall is in short supply in this country.

 

[RoosLuver]

Could you fit more people in N.T?

 

[Fat Red]

Whitlam saw this coming 30 years ago and planned for expansion of infrastructure in regional centres. Unfortunately Fraser stopped the whole thing as soon as he got in, preferring the laissez faire approach (somewhat uniquely in his Government's history!)

Clearly Sydney can't take much more. But economically we desperately need more people.

Nothing big gets done in this country any more. Politics is too beholden to vested interests.

 

[Eagle_Fan]

Firstly, stay away from Broome! All of you! It's just perfect the way it is Same goes for Darwin & Cairns.... people like us go there to escape population, not live among it.

Secondly, I was reading an article by some expert who was bemoaning the underpopulation of Australia. Is there really such a thing? Or is it only relative to the overcrowded cities of overseas? And that's a question btw, I don't know the answer.

It's all well and good to say the population should be increased in rural areas, but how do you enforce that? What's to stop people moving back to the already crowded cities? They shouldn't even consider increasing the population until the farming industry gets back on track. Like BSA said, water is the key.

 

[Methuselah]

Australia does not need any more people -there are already too many here, and elsewhere on the planet.
Instead of arguing for an increase in population because economics demands it, try reforming the economic system so that stability is both possible and desirable!
Any economic system that is dependent on a growth in the consumption of resources to be healthy is both stupid and irresponsible. The direct result of such a system is to convert the biomass of other species (plants and animals) into humans - and this will continue, despite all our efforts to the contrary, while we have this crazy system of economics.
We could instead develop an economic and social model more in keeping with a species that is on the verge of travelling to other planets and planetary systems -time we woke up and got on with the job of proper stewardship of all life on earth.

 

[BomberBoy]

Originally posted by RoosLuver
Could you fit more people in N.T?

We need more people. Our government pours so much money into everything (from a Darwin perspective) that down south wouldn't get a mention with our population.

 

[Dippers Donuts]

I don't think we need to increase the population. There seems to be this idea that the bigger the population, the greater our international clout and cache within the new world order. Stuff 'em I say, let's be unique.

Bigger (ie more people) is not necessarily better. Look at the huge populations of India, Indonesia etc as an example of that.

Bob Carr made a very good point when he said that if we were to increase our population to the magic figure of 50 million we would need to increase our migrant intake to 450,000 per year. I can't see the masses supporting such an initiative.

As stated earlier we don't have the inland water resources to sustain a greatly increased population in the interior (unlike the US for example which does) so population increases would have to be centred on the coast.

I suppose WA (as a whole) could handle a few million more but apart from that I can't see too many other opportunities.

So yeah, pretty much the status quo for me (although I'd probably like to see our migrant intake increased and the rednecks sent somewhere else to keep things as they are).

 

[Bomber Spirit]

Originally posted by sbagman
I don't really know Sydney, can anyone who lives there confirm that it IS really bursting at the seams? What are the real-life signs that it is getting too big?

Come round to my place tomorrow morning around 8 and I'll take you for a drive down Windsor Rd.

 

[Bomber Spirit]

Talk about "wide open spaces" that could support 50 million doesn't work. There's no water, no facilities and no jobs. They're all based in the cities, and there's not too much more room to move there. It'd cost $20 billion to get Sydney's public transport system to adequately service the population we've got, let alone if we double or triple it.

 

[Dippers Donuts]

Originally posted by Bomber Spirit
Come round to my place tomorrow morning around 8 and I'll take you for a drive down Windsor Rd.

Hehe true, or come around my place tomorrow morning and I'll take you for a drive down Parramatta Rd.

Or try and drive around Balmain (and I mean drive, let alone park!) on a Friday/Saturday night.

Or try and find a spare inch of sand on Bondi beach during summer.

Or try taking a boat out on the harbour during summer.

 

[Sydneyfan]

Originally posted by BMD


This limited area just keeps filling up. It's a shame, as some of the best agricultural land in the country (river flats) is quickly being covered over with new suburbs. Just crazy, when good agricultural land with fairly regular rainfall is in short supply in this country.

It's a great shame to see great agricultural land swallowed up by development, more often than not bland, mass-produced, generic subdivisions quickly build without much thought into the surrounding environment.

Northwestern Sydney's the lastest major growth area in Sydney which is experiencing growth and already experiencing problems due to lack of infrastructure like Bomber Spirit mentioned with Windsor Road. Heaven knows what the situation will be like in 20 years when the population of Canberra (300,000 extra people) live in the area. The State Government has proposed transport links (such as motorway, rail, busways, etc.) but everything built seems more like catch up work on a congested system rather than actually relieving the system. Another sad fact about the urban sprawl, like BMD mentioned, is that some of Australia's best agricultural land (the Hills-North West-Windsor region) will be continue to be swallowed up by development.

Just after World War 2, NSW State Government developed a plan for Sydney which included a Green Belt (similar to London) with satellite cities on the other side (Penrith, Campbelltown, etc.) but due to the huge post-war population increase the land was largely developed on to accommodate the growth. It's going to interesting to see what happens in Sydney if the current situation continues, in 20 years there wouldn't be all that much of the Sydney basin which isn't suburbia meanwhile the established suburban areas may look dramatically different to now with a lot of redevelopment. Hopefully, the Government will find effective resolutions to the transportation nightmares this will create!