Dispelling the Myth that a Growing Population Drives Prosperity

The release of the Sustainable Population Strategy Issues Paper in December last year was a welcome step forward in the national debate we need to have about Australia’s growing population, and I have responded with a detailed submission outlining my views on the issue and advancing my population reform strategy.

The Third Intergenerational Report, Australia to 2050: future challenges, projected that Australia’s population will reach 36 million by 2050. It is my view that this population projection for Australia is too high and unsustainable. If this is allowed to happen it will have devastating effects on our ability to tackle climate change and protect our unique wildlife and ecosystems. It would exacerbate the diseconomies of scale of overcrowded cities, transport congestion, declining water supplies and housing affordability. It will condemn many to long-term unemployment and underemployment as we flood our economy with overseas labour while neglecting our obligation to train young Australians.

I am of the strong belief that Australia must be moving to stabilise its population in order to secure its social, environmental and economic future. I have released a 14 Point Population Reform Paper plan to stabilise Australia’s population by 2050 which includes the net overseas migration rate being reduced to 70,000.

Unfortunately the Issues Paper by the Productivity and Prosperity Panel shows no understanding of the downside of a Big Australia, and trots out all the discredited old myths about the alleged advantages of population growth. They say it is a myth that Australia can avoid a bigger population.

It is nonsense to imply that we can never stabilise our population. Australia’s population increase is being driven by net overseas migration, and that is entirely a matter of government policy. Population growth is not inevitable.

It is time for the Australian Government and policy makers to take steps to stabilise the nation’s population.  We need better than the ‘she’ll be right’ growth fetish which is making an utter mockery of our obligation to give to our children a nation in as good a condition as the one our parents gave to us.

AAP Article: 'Aid before guns, Labor MP urges'

FED:Aid before guns, Labor MP urges

Monday, 21 Feb 2011 at 12:12pm;

CANBERRA, Feb 21 AAP - It's much better to spend taxpayers'

dollars on foreign aid than ramping up the defence budget, a Labor

MP says.

People in poor Southeast Asian villages like Australia because

of its aid, Kelvin Thomson has told parliament.

Mr Thomson was a member of a parliamentary delegation to

Indonesia, Brunei and Laos last year.

Poverty was widespread in Indonesia and Laos he said when

tabling the delegation's report on Monday.

The delegation was pleased to see the positive impact of

Australian aid in communities in the two countries.

"We had a fantastic welcome when we visited a village health

clinic and junior secondary school in central Kalimantan, both of

which have benefited from Australian aid dollars," Mr Thomson said.

"We have been having a bit of a debate about overseas aid

recently.

"I wish some of the aid sceptics could visit these projects and

see how much goodwill they generate.

"People there like us.

"It's a much better way to spend taxpayers' dollars than ramping

up the defence budget, which brings the opposite circle of

suspicion, mistrust and arms races whereas aid fosters a virtuous

circle of trust and goodwill."

Mr Thomson said 25 per cent of Laotian villages were still

contaminated by unexploded ordinance from extensive American

bombing during the Vietnam war.

"Villagers are sometimes forced to choose between extreme

poverty and risking injury and death through cultivating

contaminated land," he said.

The delegation was appalled by the situation and thought the US

"should match its responsibility for the horror caused by the UXOs

with financial support to reduce the human toll and render the land

usable".

AAP

21-02 1212

Migration Consequences Studied

The Immigration Department has funded a major report by the National Institute of Labour Studies at Flinders University. Its full title is Long-Term Physical Implications of Net Overseas Migration; Australia to 2050. It can be found at www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research

“Long-Term Implications” find that neither the environment nor our resource security nor our quality of life will benefit from the very rapid growth of population that business lobby groups continue to demand.

It looks systematically at differing levels of New Overseas Migration (NOM) per annum, from zero up to nearly 300,000 a year.  It shows all of them lead to worryingly unsustainable positions, but that higher figures for Net Overseas Migration lead to much worse outcomes. Water supplies to Perth, Melbourne and Sydney will be far worse at higher NOMs.

Writer Mark O’Connor points out that the Report identifies trouble ahead on the oil and food fronts. Nitrate fertilisers, without which we cannot feed even our present population, are made with enormous energy inputs from oil or natural gas, and their price tracks the upward curve of  energy prices.

Mark O’Connor says the world is running out of phosphate fertilisers, much needed by Australian soils. Price has tripled, quality is falling, and supply is erratic. “Long – Term implications” backs up Dick Smith’s concerns about food, saying “The security of production of food in Australia (and imported from overseas) is in question” (pp 129-130)

Melbourne Times Article 1/2/11 'Ban the bag to save the creek'

Minister says ban the bag to save the creek

01 Feb, 2011 04:00 AM

Genevieve Gannon

Melbourne Times Weekly

 

RECENT heavy rains washing rubbish into Merri Creek have prompted Wills MHR Kelvin Thomson to renew his call for plastic bags to be banned from supermarkets.

 

The former Federal Environment Minister has written to current Environment Minister Tony Burke to say the phase-out of plastic bags is necessary to protect waterways and coast lines.

 

‘‘It is absolutely critical that we work together to remove non-compostable plastic bags as soon as possible,’’ he wrote.

 

Melbourne Water spokesman Nicholas McGay said native animals and fish can become entangled in plastic bags, causing injury or death.

 

‘‘Street litter is a threat to the health of Melbourne’s rivers and creeks and the animals that live off them,’’ he said. ‘‘When it rains, any rubbish is washed off streets and carried by the stormwater system into the nearest waterway.’’

 

Mr Thompson’s call was backed by the Friends of Merri Creek.

 

FoMC Member Ray Radford said the issue of who was responsible for rubbish in the water was something that ‘‘fell through the cracks’’ and the only way to significantly reduce litter in the waterways was to ban plastic bags.

 

He said he doesn’t think there was a lot anyone could do once the rubbish reaches the water, he would like to see the issue tackled at its source.

 

‘‘It just comes from the streets, that’s something people might not realise, they might think it goes into a sewage system.’’

 

A Welcome Clarification by the Business Council of Australia

I welcome today’s clarification by the Business Council that they have not recommended that disability support pensions be cut or disability pensioners targeted to fund the flood reconstruction effort or as an alternative to the flood levy. 

Targeting this group with draconian cuts will not address the long-term issues of addressing workplace participation. We should be engaging people with disabilities in employment assistance and rehabilitation where appropriate rather than stigmatising them.

The Business Council is right to point out that people with disabilities who can and want to work should be supported in this endeavour, including through incentive structures.

MELBOURNE CBD HAS TOO MANY LICENSED PREMISES

Tuesday 15 February, 2011

MELBOURNE CBD HAS TOO MANY LICENSED PREMISES

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Simon Overland is right to say Melbourne CBD has too many licensed premises. As far back as 2007 the Herald Sun reported that the number of licenses issued to serve alcohol beyond 3am has risen by 43% in just 5 years, and that in the CBD there were 146 premises with permits to serve alcohol to 3am or beyond.

The three key features of far too many nightclubs and extended-trading premises are binge drinking, drug taking and violent assaults. The increase in venues operating from midnight right through till daylight represents a recipe for the proliferation of binge drinking, drug taking, and alcohol and drug-related violent crime.  These hours of operation threaten the safety of third parties, such as taxi drivers, and even innocent bystanders.

I am in favour of State Government and Melbourne City Council action to make late-night venues more accountable when problems occur.

This could include licence conditions which result in licenses being forfeited when illegal activity takes place in a venue or if patrons indulge in such activity in or around a licensed venue.  Some of these venues are clearly out of control.  I would like to see some of the extended trading hours licences revoked, and those venues which fail to control their patrons are the obvious places to start.

KELVIN THOMSON MP

Member for Wills

UN Concerned By World Population Growth Trends

The world population growth rate must slow down significantly to avoid reaching unsustainable levels, says a new UN report. The World Demographic Trends Report was prepared by the UN Population Division and summarised by BBC News, Science and Environment:-

"To have a reasonable chance of stabilising world population, fertility must drop to below 'replacement level'.

It must then be maintained at that level for an extended period, says the report.

This replacement level is the fertility level at which a population replaces itself from one generation to the next.

The world population is already poised to reach 7 billion later this year and this figure potentially could double to 14 billion by 2100 if action is not taken.

This is of particular concern for the least developed countries worldwide, which are growing at the fastest rate and are already the most vulnerable to famine".

Business Council Callous Towards Disabled Pensioners

The Business Council of Australia suggests that we consider cutting payments to disabled pensioners. The Business Council suggests that cutting disability pensions might encourage some disabled pensioners to enter the workforce.

But the same Business Council submission would, if taken seriously, make it harder for disabled pensioners to enter the workforce, by bringing in more migrant workers from overseas.

The Business Council wants us to fast track temporary migration through 457 visas, and slash 457 visa processing times. It also says we should target annual net overseas migration of 180,000. Not only would this rapidly increase Australia’s population to 36 million, it makes it much harder for disabled pensioners to get a job.

Instead of suggesting measures to punish some of Australia’s poorest people, the Business Council should give people on disability pensions a real chance of finding a job by abandoning its incessant calls for more migrant workers.

Countries with stable populations outperform countries with growing populations, precisely because they don’t leave the poor and disabled behind.

Rising Teenage Obesity is a Disease Time Bomb

The release today of the National Secondary Students' Diet and Activity survey 2009-10 commissioned by Cancer Council Australia and the National Heart Foundation has revealed a troubling trend of rising teenage obesity. The survey took in 12,000 teenagers across almost 240 schools and found one quarter of young Australians are overweight and obese, 85 per cent don't do enough exercise and three quarters aren't eating enough vegetables. Just 14 per cent of the students were found to meet both the recommended daily intake of vegetables and fruit. The data also showed a clear trend of diet becoming poorer and problems with weight increasing as a young person lived in socially disadvantaged areas.

Health experts are warning that this current generation of teenagers could be the first to experience a decrease in life expectancy. These results raise serious issues and represent a rising threat to the health system. Cancer Council Australia chief executive Professor Ian Olver has justifiably warned “that this is a wake-up call for Australians. As obese kids move into adulthood, the heightened risk of chronic diseases like cancer means previous gains in life expectancy may be reversed. We may see today's teenagers die at a younger age than their parents' generation for the first time in history.”

Everyone – parents, schools, media, food and beverage companies, supermarkets, governments – has a responsibility to improve this grim picture.

The House of Representatives Health Committee recommended in 2009 that “should self-regulation not result in a decrease in…advertisements directed at children, the committee supports the Federal Government considering more stringent regulations.” We also need to support the affordability of fresh food – rising due to increasing demand, from a growing population, and declining production, due, amongst other factors, to good horticultural land being paved over for roads and spreading suburbs, is not the right way to go.

Kelvin Thomson welcomes Doctors for the Environment Australia joining the Population Reform Campaign

Tuesday 8^th February 2011           

Kelvin Thomson welcomes Doctors for the Environment Australia joining the Population Reform Campaign

Federal Labor Member for Wills, Kelvin Thomson, today welcomed the release by the Doctors for the Environment Australia (DEA) of a poster to convey the health risks associated with runaway population growth.

“The DEA Poster titled ‘Advancing Australia Fairly’ will be sent to over 24,000 GPs this week, and displayed in waiting rooms right around the country”, Mr Thomson said.

“The poster illustrates very clearly the harsh reality of unfettered, runaway population growth; urban sprawl, destruction of native bushland and wildlife, loss of productive farmland, bigger carbon footprint, traffic congestion and more.

“Our GPs are witnessing first hand the detrimental physical and mental health ramifications associated with record population growth. DEA’s campaign is in the best interests of our community and will support policy makers prepared to take responsibility for implementing a sustainable population strategy”.

“The release of the DEA Poster also coincides with Global Population Speak Out month. The Population Institute, based in Washington DC, has initiated this project to raise awareness around the world about current size and growth of the human population on Earth. It is urging concerned citizens to speak out in some way during February on the importance of addressing the current size and growth of human population as a fundamental sustainability issue.

“Every day brings new evidence of the need to tackle runaway population growth. I have no doubt that the present uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have unsustainable population levels as their root cause.

“Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18% annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive quantities of wheat and corn.

“We are adding 80 million people each year to a world population that has nearly doubled since 1970. Tonight there will be over 200,000 extra mouths at the dinner table, and many of them will have empty plates. Every night, over 200,000 extra mouths.

And in many countries, grain harvests are shrinking. In the Middle East spreading water shortages are shrinking the harvest. In India and China water tables are falling as aquifers are depleted. Irrigated areas are shrinking in the United States. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, wheat yields are no longer rising. Suburban sprawl, and paving of land for roads, highways and parking lots has claimed cropland in California, in the Nile River basin in Egypt, and in China and India. Soil erosion is lowering yields and destroying agricultural land”.

For more information regarding the DEA Population Poster Campaign please visit: www.dea.org.au

For more information regarding Global Population Speak Out Month please visit: http://www.populationspeakout.org/

Herald Sun Article: Call to use F1 cash on regional tourism

Herald Sun Article: Call to use F1 cash on regional tourism

• Phillip Hudson
• From: Herald Sun
• February 07, 2011 12:02AM

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/call-to-use-f1-cash-on-floods/story-e6frf7kx-1226001072736 

THE Baillieu Government should use the $50 million taxpayer subsidy for the Formula One Grand Prix to promote tourism in flood-hit communities, says a federal Labor MP.

Kelvin Thomson has written to Premier Ted Baillieu asking him to consider other ways to spend the money when the contract expires.

"This money could be better spent on other ventures," says the letter seen by the Herald Sun.

"I am writing to request that the Victorian Government give consideration to ceasing to financially subsidise the Grand Prix and to re-allocating the money saved towards building and promoting tourism in northern Victoria."

 It comes after Melbourne's Lord Mayor Robert Doyle last month said the Albert Park race no longer offered value for money.

Cr Doyle said it had cost taxpayers $1.7 million in 1996, last year it was close to $50 million and by the time the contract ends in 2015 it could be $70 million a year.

The Government can terminate the GP contract, but race supporters say it gives Victoria better international tourism exposure than any other event with a TV audience of 350 million people in 132 countries.

Mr Thomson, who holds the Coburg seat of Wills and is a former state MP, said flood-affected towns such as Rochester, Echuca and Kerang and newer national parks such as Lower Goulburn, Barmah and Gunbower had great tourism potential.

"No doubt the Grand Prix provides tourism benefits for Melbourne, but perhaps the floods and indeed the terrible bushfires of 2009, mean that more of our tourism investments ought to go beyond what is, after all, a rapidly growing and prosperous capital city," he writes.

Mr Thomson says he understands the Government needs to honour existing contracts but when they expire, the flood damaged towns would still need help.

"The damage caused by the floods (is) extensive and likely to be long lasting, so that money which becomes available to promote tourism in northern Victoria and build tourism infrastructure, would nevertheless be very useful indeed."

Tourism Minister Louise Asher said Mr Thomson should remember the contract was signed by the Brumby Labor Government until 2015.

"He should focus his efforts on ensuring the Gillard Government delivers the best assistance possible for Victoria's flood affected communities," Ms Asher said.

She said flood hit communities would get immediate and long-term support from the Baillieu Government.

Unstable Climate Kicking In

Climate change skeptics continue to clutch at straws, and come up with excuses for each new drought, fire, flood, cyclone happening in Australia and around the rest of the world.

But every year shows the climate is less stable than the year before. Climate scientists have been saying for years that if we don’t cut our carbon emissions we would get more severe droughts, bushfires, floods and cyclones. And this is exactly what is happening. The droughts of 2002 to 2009 devastated the Murray-Darling Basin and Australian agriculture. The Black Saturday Victorian bushfires of 2009 cost 173 lives and $4.4 billion. The 2011 Queensland and Victorian floods cost 36 lives. The Federal Government is finding $5.6 billion for reconstruction, and the damage to agriculture is over $2 billion and to mining $2.5 billion. Preliminary estimates of the damage from this week’s Cyclone Yasi are $1.5 billion.

These events are regarded as Australia’s worst droughts, worst fires, worst floods, and worst cyclone on record. But thinking about them as one in one hundred year events is foolish and misleading.

If we think these things aren’t going to happen for another hundred years we are living in a fool’s paradise. What the climate science is telling us is that these things are going to happen now much more often, and that future droughts, bushfires, floods and cyclones will be worse than these ones, unless the world cuts its carbon emissions. For example, the journal Nature has found a significant increase in cyclones in the north Atlantic since the 1970s. The warmer the ocean the stronger the cyclones that develop. The Bureau of Meteorology says the sea surface temperature in Australia’s northern tropics was easily at its highest December level in more than 100 years of records last year.

We ignore the lessons of this weather instability at our peril. The cost of the droughts, bushfires, floods and cyclones is massive. It is clear that the costs of inaction on weather instability will exceed the costs of action. We need to stop the rise in carbon emissions in Australia and globally, and reduce Australia’s emissions and global emissions, as fast as we possibly can.

Future generations will not thank us if we bequeath to them a world of Yasis, Lockyer Valley floods, and Black Saturdays.

GLOBAL POPULATION SPEAK OUT 2011

GLOBAL POPULATION SPEAK OUT 2011

February is the designated month for the 2011 Global Population Speak Out. The Population Institute, based in Washington DC, has initiated this project to raise awareness around the world about current size and growth of the human population on Earth. It is urging concerned citizens to speak out in some way during February on the importance of addressing the current size and growth of human population as a fundamental sustainability issue.

How can you help? Find out by visiting their website http://www.populationspeakout.org/

Every day brings new evidence of the need to tackle runaway population growth. I have no doubt that the present uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt have unsustainable population levels as their root cause.

Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18% annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive quantities of wheat and corn.

We are adding 80 million people each year to a world population that has nearly doubled since 1970. Tonight there will be over 200,000 extra mouths at the dinner table, and many of them will have empty plates. Every night, over 200,000 extra mouths.

And in many countries, grain harvests are shrinking. In the Middle East spreading water shortages are shrinking the harvest. In India and China water tables are falling as aquifers are depleted. Irrigated areas are shrinking in the United States. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, wheat yields are no longer rising. Suburban sprawl, and paving of land for roads, highways and parking lots has claimed cropland in California, in the Nile River basin in Egypt, and in China and India. Soil erosion is lowering yields and destroying agricultural land. For more information on this issue, look up “The Great Food Crisis 2011”, by Lester R. Brown.

And, please, speak out about population at least once during February.

Kelvin Thomson

Federal Member for Wills

Tuesday 1^st February 2011

Kelvin Thomson response to Herald Sun Article ‘Power price rises sting consumers’ 1/2/11

Kelvin Thomson response to Herald Sun Article ‘Power price rises sting consumers’ 1/2/11

I do not agree that electricity companies should charge low income earners, pensioners, and working families up to $360 per year- $1 a day- for power before they even use any.

The reality is that consumers should only be paying for the electricity they actually consume. If private electricity operators have to augment their poles and wires as a result of increasing population, they should recover this money from the new consumers and the property developers who are driving and profiting from this population growth.

I think it’s high time pensioners and other household electricity consumers got some relief from ever rising electricity prices. I think regulatory authorities should limit electricity price rises for household consumers to the percentage amount by which pensions rise.  This would give pensioners and fixed-income earners some badly needed respite.

Kelvin Thomson MP

Federal Member for Wills

Tuesday 1st February