Melbourne’s
population is on track to rise from 4.25 million last year to 5 million by
2020. By the end of next year we will have grown 30 per cent in just 15 years.
The
adverse consequences of such rapid population growth are numerous:-
- Residents in my electorate are being told they will have to put up with 3 and 4 storey buildings and even higher in their street to fit in the extra people.
- Traffic congestion in both our inner and outer suburbs, with billions of taxpayer dollars going into freeways and tunnels to try to cope with extra cars.
- Rising unemployment and falling workforce participation.
- Declining housing affordability for young Melbournians.
- Increasing Council rates, electricity, gas and water bills, to pay for expensive new infrastructure.
- Habitat destruction and shrinking numbers of our unique and beautiful native birds, plants and animals.
This
rapid population growth is not inevitable. The ABS figures make clear once
again that it is being driven by rising net overseas migration, which was a
massive 238,000 nationally in the year to March. Victoria had the largest
population growth of any State.
Australia should return its net overseas migration to around 70,000 per annum, as was regularly the case during the 1980s and 1990s. This would ease the pressure on the environment and on Melbournians young and old alike.
Planning Minister Matthew Guy keeps boasting about our great growth, as if we are supposed to feel his joy! He talks of providing "affordable housing" and "jobs", but on the contrary, the jobs market is shrinking. As for jobs, what jobs are being created by inviting more people here? If our State government wants to promote and create jobs, they should be for the existing people here already, not for the migrants who keep coming in! There needs to be innovation, industries, knowledge, skills and research, not population boosting. There needs to be more to our economy than that from property development. As for "affordable housing", our government keep celebrating the increasing prices! With a stable population, the pressure on housing costs would end.
ReplyDeleteThis socially-engineered population growth, of 8 million people by 2050 sharing our city, devised and endorsed by Plan Melbourne, will be a disaster. The future holds many local and global challenges. The IPCC warn of high weather extremes and devastation to agriculture. Already prices for water and energy are excessive and so are house prices. This "growth" being forced onto future generations is based purely on greed and profits, and will condemn this generation of young people, and those yet to be born, with a all the "challenges" of the future, exacerbated by massive overcrowding. No amount of "planning" can alleviate the dystopia these numbers will create.
ReplyDeleteThere's a dis-connect in thinking coming from the halls of power, and it's completely illogical and incoherent with present day projections of food security, the explosion of human numbers, scarcity of fresh water, mega-billion dollar infrastructure demands, increasing poverty, and costs of living. Already there are grim prospects for the future, all made worse by the politics of greed being forced unto us by politicians colluding with property developers and the powerful elite who will benefit from this growth.
Every body agrees. So in this democratic society what is wrong that the people don't dictate policy?
ReplyDelete