Population of Australia

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Excessive immigration has made a small number of locals richer, for most it has made things worse with cities like Melbourne and Sydney increasingly unaffordable and unlivable. We need to start working towards zero net growth to stabilise our population at around 30 million.

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or fix the actual issue that you highlight regarding getting rid of stamp duty and replacing it with an annual land tax (effectively moving land to a leasing model with a transition over 200 years), remedying rezoning and high density issue, investing in public housing, moving away from traditional banking for residential property to Islamic banking concepts to get rid of the risk of property price bubbles and investing in nation building rather than pork barrelling.

we need to identify the actual issue to find the right solution. In this case we have a vastly under-populated continent but poor property concepts such as R-codes, taxation, banking and a major issue with democracy and pork barrelling.
 

Johnny Bananas

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Fast speed rail is the answer to that problem.
How exactly? The most it will do is expand the commuter belt of Sydney and Melbourne to whichever towns are lucky enough to get stations on the line. I don't see how it would do much to create local businesses and a diversified economy in those towns.

I don't know the answer to the problem of expanding regional towns, but I imagine it would involve reducing the cost of doing business there, enabling more jobs to be created. Which means easier access to container ports, fast internet and skilled people. If the tens of billions that it would cost to build a HSR line were put into local infrastructure and higher education instead, I wonder if that might do more for decentralisation.
 

Johnny Bananas

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We have heaps of land (virtually infinite) that can be used as housing in this country
Do we? Who actually wants to live in a desert? How much more bushland should we clear for new housing? I agree that bad housing policy is what has created unaffordability, but let's not overstate things. Our current way of life can be pretty wasteful and resource-hungry, and I'm not sure that big population increases are a great idea before we address that issue.
 

Admiral Byng

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or fix the actual issue that you highlight regarding getting rid of stamp duty and replacing it with an annual land tax (effectively moving land to a leasing model with a transition over 200 years), remedying rezoning and high density issue, investing in public housing, moving away from traditional banking for residential property to Islamic banking concepts to get rid of the risk of property price bubbles and investing in nation building rather than pork barrelling.

we need to identify the actual issue to find the right solution. In this case we have a vastly under-populated continent but poor property concepts such as R-codes, taxation, banking and a major issue with democracy and pork barrelling.

I like some of those ideas.

I'll chuck another into the mix. In between public housing and private housing, state governments could lease residential blocks of land upon which people supply their own semi-portable housing. Factory built modular housing units, maybe several modules go together to make one house. Truck them in, stack them up by crane. The land would contain some sort of standardised foundation or platform to stick the house on. When people want to move house they literally move house. Long term leases should be available, possibly with the option to pay up front for 3-5 years. It doesn't matter if tenants trash the house because it is their house. Houses could be sold separately to the land, there would be a bit of a second hand market in transportable houses. Houses would no longer become part of the land.
 
I like some of those ideas.

I'll chuck another into the mix. In between public housing and private housing, state governments could lease residential blocks of land upon which people supply their own semi-portable housing. Factory built modular housing units, maybe several modules go together to make one house. Truck them in, stack them up by crane. The land would contain some sort of standardised foundation or platform to stick the house on. When people want to move house they literally move house. Long term leases should be available, possibly with the option to pay up front for 3-5 years. It doesn't matter if tenants trash the house because it is their house. Houses could be sold separately to the land, there would be a bit of a second hand market in transportable houses. Houses would no longer become part of the land.

when my grand father arrived in Australia, Holden's offered him a job which was a requirement to be released from immigration camps. Holden's picked him up in Victoria and he started the next day at the Woodville engine plant.

He was given a car crate to live in which was located on either public or Holden's land. He stayed there, doubling the size of his new home with a second car crate, until he had a deposit for a home.

So your idea is "back to the future" but hopefully standards have improved since then, but the concept is the same.
 

Admiral Byng

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when my grand father arrived in Australia, Holden's offered him a job which was a requirement to be released from immigration camps. Holden's picked him up in Victoria and he started the next day at the Woodville engine plant.

He was given a car crate to live in which was located on either public or Holden's land. He stayed there, doubling the size of his new home with a second car crate, until he had a deposit for a home.

So your idea is "back to the future" but hopefully standards have improved since then, but the concept is the same.

I was thinking the houses would need to have some more architectural merit than that. Well designed with passive heating and cooling and good thermal insulation and all that. I'd ban shipping container conversions and shoddy stuff like that.
 
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Increasing our population to 1 billion is a 4000% increase on our current population.

The idea that we build the infrastructure for that kind of population by 2050 waltzes straight past fantasy and on towards delusion.
Ofcourse we wont because most people are fearful of immigrants so its politically unpopular and governments cant plan long term. But it would be achievable. The only thing you need to build infrastructure is people and metal. Immigrants provide the people and there is plenty of supply of metal.
 

RobbieK

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Ofcourse we wont because most people are fearful of immigrants so its politically unpopular and governments cant plan long term. But it would be achievable. The only thing you need to build infrastructure is people and metal. Immigrants provide the people and there is plenty of supply of metal.

This is so overly simplified to the point of nonsense that it doesn't warrant further discussion.
 
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Do we? Who actually wants to live in a desert? How much more bushland should we clear for new housing? I agree that bad housing policy is what has created unaffordability, but let's not overstate things. Our current way of life can be pretty wasteful and resource-hungry, and I'm not sure that big population increases are a great idea before we address that issue.
Im not stating we should. Im just stating we can. If we fix things like housing policy among many other things.
 

RobbieK

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Im not stating we should. Im just stating we can. If we fix things like housing policy among many other things.
Our hosing policy needs to be fixed. It can't be fixed so well that we increase population by 4000% in 30 years.
 

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I was thinking the houses would need to have some more architectural merit than that. Well designed with passive heating and cooling and good thermal insulation and all that. I'd ban shipping container conversions and shoddy stuff like that.

yep

Personally I would ban 90% of the s**t builds approved. A large but well designed house, without solar, should cost around $200 every 60 days to run. Yet many small shitty designed houses have $450 bills.

Sure it costs more to build but the savings are for the life of the building.
 
Increasing our population to 1 billion is a 4000% increase on our current population.

The idea that we build the infrastructure for that kind of population by 2050 waltzes straight past fantasy and on towards delusion.

agree

Growth has trended in the 1-2% range for a long time and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Unless something radical changes in technology, social or economic, steady growth is the future.

If China is any example of the future, their population has a massive decline in the years ahead. I see the same thing happening around the world as women become educated. War, famine and disease will also play a role for uncontrolled population growth centres.
 
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How exactly? The most it will do is expand the commuter belt of Sydney and Melbourne to whichever towns are lucky enough to get stations on the line. I don't see how it would do much to create local businesses and a diversified economy in those towns.

I don't know the answer to the problem of expanding regional towns, but I imagine it would involve reducing the cost of doing business there, enabling more jobs to be created. Which means easier access to container ports, fast internet and skilled people. If the tens of billions that it would cost to build a HSR line were put into local infrastructure and higher education instead, I wonder if that might do more for decentralisation.
Expanding the commuter belt is how you start it. There is a lot of towns that can be built along that track. The ability of home officing means a lot of people can live up to 500km from work if they have to only go into the office once a week or every second week. Eventually those towns become work places in their own right.
 

Johnny Bananas

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Expanding the commuter belt is how you start it.
What leads you to say this? Every town I'm aware of in Australia with a population in the hundreds of thousands didn't start off as a commuter town, but its own place with its own economy. Even places like Geelong or Wollongong or Gosford that are close to major cities.

The ability of home officing means a lot of people can live up to 500km from work if they have to only go into the office once a week or every second week.
Again, this requires fast internet services. How good is the internet in a place like Yass or Albury? I haven't lived there to be able to say, but the watering down of the NBN probably didn't help.

Eventually those towns become work places in their own right.
Can you name a couple of places that started as commuter towns and became serious employment centres in and of themselves?
 

Admiral Byng

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How exactly? The most it will do is expand the commuter belt of Sydney and Melbourne to whichever towns are lucky enough to get stations on the line. I don't see how it would do much to create local businesses and a diversified economy in those towns.

I don't know the answer to the problem of expanding regional towns, but I imagine it would involve reducing the cost of doing business there, enabling more jobs to be created. Which means easier access to container ports, fast internet and skilled people. If the tens of billions that it would cost to build a HSR line were put into local infrastructure and higher education instead, I wonder if that might do more for decentralisation.

The answer is in creating some local industry as the economic basis for a new town. Somewhere they work, and need to live close by. Once that population is established all sorts of service industries pop up around it - retail, hospitality, education, builders and tradies, medical etc. It needs to be something that is tied to the geography of a particular area using the local resources in that spot, to kick it all off and set the ball rolling.
 

Johnny Bananas

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The answer is in creating some local industry as the economic basis for a new town. Somewhere they work, and need to live close by. Once that population is established all sorts of service industries pop up around it - retail, hospitality, education, builders and tradies, medical etc. It needs to be something that is tied to the geography of a particular area using the local resources in that spot, to kick it all off and set the ball rolling.
I agree with you, this is how any sizeable town begins. The tens of billions that HSR would require could be directed to this sort of industrial development instead, or at least the infrastructure and human resources required, which doesn't include HSR. I can't think of any industry that actually requires nearby HSR to function, except for HSR manufacturing and development itself.
 
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