Peter Greste

The trial of Peter Greste has been a farce. He was guilty of no more than doing his job as a reporter, and no evidence was led which justified either the guilty verdict or the sentence he received.
 
I support the Australian Government’s attempts to have Peter Greste freed through the use of diplomatic channels and international fora such as the United Nations. If the use of diplomatic channels does not result in his being released, we need to examine our present areas of bilateral co-operation with Egypt and consider whether some of them should be suspended until Peter Greste is released.

The depths to which the rule of law has sunk is a sad consequence of Egypt’s out of control population growth.

In 1948 Egypt’s population was less than 20 million, less than Australia is now. It added a further 20 million by 1975, another 20 million by 1994, and another 20 million to reach 80 million by 2011. The UN says that continuing high fertility rates will see Egypt reach 100 million by 2025 and 140 million by 2050.

In fact Egypt’s birth rate for the last three years exceeds the UN’s “high” projections. The number of births in the 1990s was 1.6 million on average. This increased to around 1.8 million births in the first decade of this century. There were 2.4 million births in 2011 and 2.6 million in 2012, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilisation and Statistics. Back in 1950 Egypt had the same number of births as Italy. By 1977 it had the same number as Italy and France combined. By 2000 it matched the combined total of Italy, France and Spain, and by 2012 the combined total of Italy, France, Spain and the United Kingdom.

 
The consequences of this rapid population growth are plain for all to see – violent, debilitating conflict over access to scarce resources. The world’s leaders need to tell Egypt’s leaders that they need to stop focussing on today’s battles for just long enough to draw attention to the underlying problem, and the need to reduce their birth rate to more traditional levels. If they do not, it is entirely predictable that there will be more conflict and misery in future, not less. It is also predictable that Egypt will make no progress towards becoming a vibrant pluralist democracy where the rule of law, freedom of speech, and proper protection for women and minorities is the natural order.

100 Years of Red Cross – Be Part of the Great Australian Story

Kelvin Thomson invites local residents of Wills to become a part of this year’s Centenary of Red Cross in Australia.

Red Cross has helped shape 100 years of Australia’s social history. To celebrate its Centenary this year, Red Cross is publishing the stories of ordinary Australians whose lives have been touched by Red Cross as volunteers, members or beneficiaries of their services.

“100 years of Australian Red Cross is worth celebrating,” said Mr Thomson.

“Over the past century, especially during times of war and disaster or through the blood service, the lives of most Australians have been touched by Red Cross.

“Every Australian can take part in the Red Cross Centenary celebrations this year, by attending an event or sharing your Red Cross stories and photos.

“I congratulate the Red Cross members and volunteers in my community whose everyday work makes such a positive, lasting difference to the lives of vulnerable people.

“Red Cross is unique as an impartial and neutral humanitarian organisation that brings people together, irrespective of religion, nationality or any political differences they may have, to help those in need.

“I look forward to joining local Red Cross people in our community to celebrate 100 years of people helping people,” said Mr Thomson.

 
To share your Red Cross story visit: http://centenary.redcross.org.au

Sinkhole Suburbs: Thousands Face Ruin

A front page article in the Sunday Age of 8 June with the above heading drives home starkly one of the sad consequences of Melbourne's rampant population growth. Homeowners may end up with debts of tens of thousands of dollars because the property industry and planning authorities are too greedy and short-sighted to make sure homes are only being built in locations that are safe and suitable.

New estates from Grovedale on the outskirts of Geelong to Doreen in Melbourne's north, and including thousands of homes in the municipalities of Hume, Melton and Wyndham, have been built on highly reactive volcanic clay soils on "waffle slab" foundations. Soil movements under a home's foundations cause walks to crack, doors and windows to jam, and floors to tilt. The Sunday Age reports that 160 home owners have contacted Slater and Gordon lawyers.

A Melbourne consulting engineer says waffle slabs, poorly trained and regulated soil testers, and builders failing to follow the AS2870 standard for home footings are at the root of the problem. But one must also question the land releases on Melbourne's fast growing outer suburbs, many in areas with volatile soils, and the expansion of Melbourne's urban growth boundary which facilitated this.

The property industry demanded these land releases, in order to boost its profits, and claimed they were necessary to help make housing affordable. It did this rather than admit that the real solution for skyrocketing house prices is to stop Melbourne's rampant population growth. But homeowners facing ruinous home renovation and legal bills will not think that housing for them has become more affordable as a result of this greedy and short-sighted behaviour.

This unhappy episode shows that far from listening to demands from the property industry for less red tape when it comes to land releases, we need firm, clear and enforced State and local government regulation which protects innocent homebuyers.

Federal Government Disinterest in Royal Park

Given the Federal Government’s plan to spend billions of dollars (Budget emergency notwithstanding) to put a freeway through Royal Park, I asked the Assistant Infrastructure Minister whether the Government had made any estimates of the value of Royal Park as an area of public open space for Melbourne residents. I also asked whether any estimates factored in the impact of current population growth rates on public open space, and the importance of maintaining treed areas in Central Melbourne to mitigate against temperature and summer heat waves.

Mr Briggs has now replied that “these are primarily issues for the other levels of Government”.

It is a matter of profound regret that the Federal Government is prepared to spend billions of dollars on a freeway, but is not sufficiently engaged to find out anything about the damage this will cause.

Support the CSIRO

The Prime Minister’s response to complaints about his failure to appoint a Science Minister was to say that the government should be judged by its performance in the area of science, rather than whether it has a Science Minister.

Following the 2014 Budget we are now, regrettably, in a position to assess its performance. The CSIRO Budget is to be cut by $116 million over the next 4 years. Indeed more than 500 jobs, about a tenth of the CSIRO workforce, will go.

Workforce Ageing – Myth and Reality

We regularly hear expressions of concern about workforce ageing and the accompanying idea that a diminishing number of workers is going to be left with the burden of carrying a population grown old and grey. This kind of thinking and rhetoric lies behind proposals to increase the retirement age and/or reduce the incomes and support being received by pensioners and retirees.

It is true that the workforce is ageing. What is not true is that this is a problem. Figures about the number of retirees compared with workers fail to state the full workforce participation picture, which needs to take into account how many children there are, and the proportion of women who are working. If present rates of labour force ageing and participation continue, the proportion of the total population in the labour force will fall from the present level of 53 per cent to around 44 per cent by 2061. But this level of participation is nevertheless higher than the 42 per cent we had back in 1966. Back in 1966 the nation was thriving, and yet even 50 years from now we will have a higher participation rate than we had back then, when there was no talk of a small workforce carrying a large out of work burden.

Moreover although there are more baby boomers (born in the 16 years between 1946 and 1961) than there are people born in the 16 years earlier, between 1930 and 1945, ALL of the 16 year age groups younger than the baby boomers are more numerous than they are. Baby boomers do NOT form a unique bulge in the population python.

Third, given that we have hundreds of thousands of people who are out of work, workforce ageing and retirement means that the unemployed get a chance to get a job. If we didn't have, or don't have, older workers retiring, then the chances of young people or long term unemployed getting a job fall accordingly. Workforce ageing will solve unemployment, and if you genuinely want to solve unemployment - not everybody does - this is a good thing.

Finally, talk about population and workforce ageing devalues older people and their ongoing contribution, financially and as carers and mentors and role models, to society. For a more detailed and evidence based account of the demographic forces at work in the Australian workplace, see the link below: The ageing of the Australian population: triumph or disaster?, a report prepared for the Monash Centre for Population and Urban Research by Dr Katherine Betts, released 28 April 2014.

http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/cpur/files/2014/04/Ageing-of-the-Australian-population-4.pdf

Declining Trust in Politicians and Governments

In the first week of May I had the opportunity to attend the OECD Forum during OECD week in Paris. One recurring theme during the discussions was a lament about declining trust by the public in governments and politicians, apparently occurring right around the world. The OECD noted this as a very important issue. People were concerned that lack of faith in the political process led to public disengagement, and were also concerned about ongoing and quite widespread problems of corruption.

This is an absolutely valid concern, but sits awkwardly with the OECD’s unwavering devotion to growth and to increasing aggregate demand – the OECD wants more people, more workers, more consumption, more everything! The thing is, increasing population undermines political participation and political engagement. It is RATIONAL to disengage if you are in reality powerless, which you certainly are in large population countries like India and China. The late Professor Albert Bartlett noted that the population of his home city, Boulder, Colorado, had increased tenfold during his lifetime, leaving him with one tenth the say in the running of it that he had initially.

If citizens disengage, the “agency problem” identified by Race Mathews and others kicks in. The people who are paid to run the place (including public servants) have much more at stake than any given ordinary citizen, who has little to gain individually from trying to catch them out or stop them. The risk of corruption at the top by and large is greater for large population countries than it is for small population countries.

The OECD would have more success in maintaining or increasing public trust in politicians and governments if it stopped supporting the “bigger is better” model and worked to slow growth down.