Over the fold, a couple more paras on population, which is becoming a very hot issue.
It will be interesting to see how Abbott handles it. As with the parental leave tax, he has run with a populist position, apparently taking no trouble to square it with his business base, which is already causing trouble. Since he was supporting high immigration intakes only a couple of months ago (in the context of an attack on asylum-seekers), it’s hard to see how he can escape charges of opportunism. In fact, it’s hard to think of a major issue (tax, climate change, parental leave, WorkChoices) on which Abbott has not been, in Malcolm Turnbull’s memorable description, a weathervane. I suppose that’s what authenticity means.
It will also be interesting to see how his 9-day, 1000 km cycling/listening tour affects both his substantive position, and his ability to manage the debate[1]. Presumably, touring through rural areas, he’ll find it hard to back away from calls for a cut in immigration, but the Liberals are all over the shop on this.
The government has its own problems. Rudd’s “big Australia” is popular with business and some elite groups, but the case hasn’t been made to the rest of the country and I doubt that it can be. As I say over the page, it would probably be better to make the case for migration at the individual level (why should person X not be allowed to come/stay here) than in terms of aggregates. But if the Libs keep on messing things up, it will be relatively easy for the government to adjust both its rhetoric and his substantive position.
The strongest arguments in favor of high migration are based, not on narrow economic calculations but on a general presumption in favor of freedom. People want to come to Australia because there are jobs for them here, because they would like to join family members or friends, or to escape from repression and poverty.
Refusing to let them in reduces their freedom and the freedom of their Australian relatives, friends and potential employers. Before we take such a decision, we should have good reason to think that the net costs imposed on the community as a whole by increased migration justifies the loss of freedom involved in every individual refusal of admission.
fn1. Personally, it would be good news for me if he can manage it. I’ve been getting into triathlons and similar, nowhere near his Ironman feats, and it would be good to think that this can be done without detracting from the day job.
John Quiggin 
I suspect we are getting hit with all this “increase population” stuff because we have increased debt so much that we need more GDP to pay it off.
If we do not accept more population then they will have to decrease wages, increase productivity, and raise more taxes, and similar.
The economy, supposedly, has to balance, and a continuously increasing population is a very lazy way to create profits (or pay off debt).
Unfortunately it just leads to worse circumstances latter – but capitalists don’t think about this.
Is there much evidence that Abbott’s popularity is being dented by his opportunism and contradictory statements? Maybe he is discovering just how much he can get away with and finding that it is quite a lot. Or is this just the honeymoon period for new opposition leaders?
For me, a critical issue is reversibility. If we accept a large increase in population, Australia changes permanently, and all future generations have to live with our decision.
We lose affordable housing, and the ability of our kids to play under the sprinkler, we lose beautiful untouched wilderness, we lose some of the most amazing species the world has ever seen; and we lose those things forever. On the other hand, if we choose not to increase our population right now, we retain the ability to change our mind at any time in the future. Taking an irreversible decision is highly restrictive on the decision-making ability of Australians yet to be born.
To paraphrase your last paragraph John,
Refusing to let future generations decide for themselves reduces their freedom.
Before we take such a decision, we should have good reason to think that the net benefits accrued to individuals by increased migration justifies the loss of freedom to every person in the future who was never given a chance enjoy the things we take for granted.
More controversially, I think we need to take some account of the intrinsic right of native animals to live their lives in undisturbed habitat. I’m trying not to sound like a deep-green Gaia-worshiping hippy here, I guess others will tell me how successful I’ve been.
I think most people would agree though, that when a koala loses it’s home in a gumtree to make way for some Bunnings warehouse, or Delphin housing development, at least a small entry has to be made on the negative side of the moral ledger.
John,
Leaving aside your political analysis I very much agree with what you are saying here. I the LDP immigration policy that I championed at the last election aligns very much with your articulated position. In summary the policy says:-
1. Freedom of movement is a great ideal.
2. The bilateral free immigration agreement (FIA) that we have with New Zealand is a good thing. We should seek to have more such agreements with nations of comparable economic standing. Examples of countries we may seek to make agreements with include Singapore, Canada, Ireland, Sweden and many others.
3. Instead of annual immigration quotas we should moderate immigration with a simple immigration tariff. Got no criminal history, pass a basic medical checkup, pay a fee and you’re a permanent resident. Frame the immigration debate around the size of the tariff. I’d start with an opening suggestion of $40k but it’s a political question dependent on experience.
I once spoke with a post war Italian immgrant (WW2). In his words – they came – they got jobs with State Rail and the old Waterboard” because trhey didnt have enough english for anything better.
But – the important thing was – it was a safe government job. They earned that and more on weekend by doing a bit of cash building or restaurant working here and there. The cash income was the difference between being able to take their wives out to dinner occasionally but the government job paid off the house. Later – that bit extra enabled them to start their own building or restaurant business….
Net result? A positive for Australia.
Except now – where do immigrants get the jobs that enable them to keep their heads above water or do they rely on welfare. Where is the investment by governments to keep them while they get established.
Its not there and there is no use fooling ourselves.In my opinion the move for a “big Australia” has no support mechanisms behind it whatsoever and is insulting for its blatant attempt to pander to business who aims to keep wages down.
The government can start taxing, and repairing infrastructure, and building before it gets any points for encouraging big immigration from me. Give the immigrants somewhere useful to work and then watch the benefits flow. But you give them nowhere to go and you will rapidly create more problems and a more indebted government.
Investment? Even Menzies said it didnt matter if was public or private and we all need to be rid of ecorat rationalists who even dare (now) to suggest private investment is better than public. They live in a fools paradise and give the government an excuse to be lazy and incompetent and to ignore all evidence to the contrary.
As for Abbott
Anyone that can run, swim and cycle that far has to spend hours each week in training (any athlete knows that).
So how does he have the time to develop policy? Or even think about it. He is a lycra lout IMHO and he couldnt even prepare his own speech for a debate I once attended on Iraq (with him in it). He downloaded redneck speeches from the US the night before instead (and then just read hellfire and brimstone to the intelligent audience).
Tony Abbott is a fake through and through.
My Dad didn’t speak english when he got here. He worked three months for the RTA. He then ditched that and join the private sector because he wanted to get ahead. I don’t buy your outlook Alice.
“Refusing to let them in reduces their freedom and the freedom of their Australian relatives, friends and potential employers. Before we take such a decision, we should have good reason to think that the net costs imposed on the community as a whole by increased migration justifies the loss of freedom involved in every individual refusal of admission.”
This is an incomplete “chart of accounts” for what is involved, and it does not follow that there is a (net) “loss of freedom involved in every individual refusal of admission” for those whose freedom should be a concern; it omits any effects on the freedom of others who are already here. The headings and criteria for assessment should probably be:-
– Their freedom. This is a large effect, but it should not be counted unless there is some ground for doing so like reciprocal arrangements (as with New Zealand). General criteria like common humanity certainly do apply, but – paradoxically – that should not be counted in under this heading (see below).
– The freedom of their Australian relatives and friends. This should be counted, but it is small unless there is some reason why they cannot get together some other way, e.g. by the relatives and friends leaving. That would apply if the country at the other end was not a good environment, which would apply in genuine refugee cases and quite a few other lesser ones, but is not automatic.
– The freedom of their potential employers. This should be counted, but it is usually only material when distortions have made it impractical for them to meet their needs without reaching that far. Their freedom would be restored better by fixing the other problems than by allowing migrants to reach them.
– The freedom of the others who are already here. Under current circumstances migration probably reduces this, although clearly in the past it has raised it. By any direct measure, a great many people are currently restricted more by migrants, so this is a material negative that would probably outweigh all the other positives if that were all there were to it. However, there is a positive indirect gain. The gains to the migrants do resonate with the wider population to some degree. While those gains should not be counted as such – the migrants have no claim as of right – the resonance of their gains should be counted, to just the extent that the others resonate, to allow the others the freedom to express their charity (which is a technical term that I am using technically). If Australians feel uncharitable, well, that’s that.
It is certainly not clear that migration increases freedom, and it may well reduce it. There are comparisons with how things now are, but also with how they could be if other restrictions and distortions were removed. And there are open questions about just how and how much Australia vicariously substitutes charity for actual gains to migrants themselves, which it would be improper to count (indeed, it would lead to double counting).
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
Im only relating a post war immigrants story Terje. Its not my outlook…but yes I do beleive the government can dveop initiatives to support immigration and I beleive it works to create more wealth for all when capital investment is involved and I dont care about paying higher taxes when it means wealth is increased
and I dont care for ideas that the private sector will do it all Terje…because time and free market economics has proved the shortfall in investment.
When America became great Terje…it wasnt only because the private sector was investing in the economy. Public works were also high on the agenda. Its investment that does it …and creates a multiplier effect and it doesnt matter who invests because of the multiplier effect. But clearly, much of the great phase of capital investment (actual machinery, cobnstruction and building) is over in the US…and speculative investment is just no substitute. The infrastructure of the US is run down and in need of rebuilding…so is Australia’s.
Unless governments get the idea…things will only get worse no matter how much cheap labour they import. If that labour isnt put to productive use (such that their productive efforts have some flow on effect here…not in a Cayman Island tax haven)…you can keep disagreeing with me Terje until your very disagreement becomes untenable to you.
Which it will.
PML – I think the LDP policy position I outlined deals with all your concerns. Free imigration is extended only to suitable nations that offer a reciprocal benefit (like NZ does). An immigration tariff balances out the benefit to immigrants and any concerns of the domestic population by applying a balancing financial fee the size of which is determined politically by the locals.
Alice – when you say “when America became great” what era are your refering to in terms of years?
Thinking about Alice’s comments about Italian immigrants, they illustrate a fundamental difference between now and the post war era labour market – we are not looking for unskilled immigrants. It might make some sense to import skilled labour, and I support taking refugees on compassionate grounds and then training them. But simply bringing in people without skills does not help any of our current problems, economic or environmental. Indeed, even bringing in refugees and not allocating resources to training them is a recipe for creating an underclass.
Overall, I think we do have to face up to reducing overall population icnreases fairly soon. In a few decades time we will probably start coming under pressure to take our share of a million or so environmental refugees from Pacific island nations. We can also forget about meeting any meaingful CO2 emission targets if we keep increasing our numbers.
Interestingly, migration policy, as it is usually understood, actually has only a small impact on net migration into Australia. As Mark Cully says “Migrant flows are dominated by temporary long-stay movements and free movements”. He is talking mainly about gross flows, but even in net terms (inflow minus outflow) this is also the case. In 2008-2009, net inflows were (very) approximately:
Aust residents: -60,000
NZ citizens: 30,000
Working holiday: 20,000
Temp skilled: 60,000
Students: 150,000
Humanitarian+skilled+family 130,000
Everyone is talking about the last item – and this is what people usually call ‘migration’. (NZ residents have free entry, and student numbers count as education rather than migration policy). But there can be big changes in the other items also. The largest in gross flow terms (and hence where we might expect greatest changes in net terms) are Aust residents and students.
@Socrates
You forget Socrates – unskilled labour post WW2 was used to build.
Since when was building a non skill?
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
1930s (after depression),1940s, a1950s – that is when the US built a lot of its puclicly funded infrastructure. What do you think made Rome “great” Terje?? Not when they lost control of their expansion…but when they were building it.
Your type (libertarians) dont want any state investment Terje. In so doing you ignore a major source of wealth…a far more lasting form of wealth than waiting for two bit private sector companies to grow (takes too long), or in waiting for established medium or large private companies to “re-invest’. Often they dont – they just extract wealth and siphon it to tax havens or the private pool of savings of upper private sector echelons of employees…leading to a bigger divide between rich and poor with no real kickbacks into the economy.
@TerjeP (say tay-a)
since employers decided skills meant being able to work with computers in the financial sector doh!
@Socrates
On this comment I agree Socrates with one qualification
“But simply bringing in people without skills does not help any of our current problems, economic or environmental. ”
If we are not building and have no government building projects planned that can support their integration and employment to help them over the initial settling hurdles…and obtaining work and training hurdles…
Then why do it (let them in) except to drive down wages for all and drive up welfare costs and taxes for all (you would think Terje would see the danger in this policy but he apparently cant get his head around it)??
Its one thing to open the doors to immigrants, but what is the government offering by way of initial employment? The boats keep arriving and they are not full of skilled migrants…but I questionn the apparent uselessness of “unskilled” migrants. I think the word “unskilled” is a load of bollocks. How do you think the post war “unskilled” immigrants learned to build? It was taught on the job. The responsibility for training resides with employers primarily as it should…yet has been shoved towards the employee over time.
The private sector and the public sector is failing those who are here now because as far as I can see the only jobs are to do with pink bats now cancelled. Not a bridge, road, school, or hospital construction in sight. Plus employers want university degrees for the most menial of jobs..pushing training costs on to employees and the government.
What point in bringing more in?
“Anyone that can run, swim and cycle that far has to spend hours each week in training (any athlete knows that). So how does he have the time to develop policy? Or even think about it. ”
All of these attacks on Abbott for being fit are just bizarre, and show just what an appalling state of health the Australian population has got too, and indeed, what bizarre ideas some people have about fitness. In case you’re wondering, it’s quite simple to get really fit on 10 hours of exercize per week, which many people can get most of by, for example, riding to and from work. Sean Yates, for example, rides around 90 minutes per day (e.g. here). That didn’t stop him winning the British 50 mile time-trial championship in 2005 and 45 years of age, and nor does it stop him running a cycling team. Some people actually feel that being fit and healthy helps them get through the day and think about things, not hinders them.
@conrad
90 minutes a day inadequate to do the miles Abbott does Conrad – more like two to three hours a day. What you say is bunk.
@conrad
I would agree. I applaud Abbott’s training and participation in sports. It doesn’t make up for his flip-flopping on climate change – although I doubt Abbott has any position, so it’s not really flip-flopping.
@Michael
You mean he just drifts like an amoeba with no real policy anywhere Michael? Maybe he has too many endorphins where even no policy feels just fine after a 26 k marathon.
Abbott does a lot more harm when he talks, than when he runs, swims, and bikes.
I think he should do a lot more bike riding, swimming, and running.
Preferably forever.
LOL Chris – Im inclined to agree. Perosnally I dont think he does much thinking at all …. (but he does plagiarise a lot from the mad US right…enuff said)
“90 minutes a day inadequate to do the miles Abbott does Conrad – more like two to three hours a day”
.
Alice, I ride in A grade races and train around 10 hours per week, since that’s pretty much where the benefits taper off, and you certainly don’t end up overly tired. I’ve also run marathons with less training — so please learn some stuff about exercize physiology before commenting on how much you need to train to get fit (Indeed, Olympic level marathon runners, many of whom no doubt train obsessively, don’t train much more than that — see e.g here). If you just want to think of nasty things to say about Abbott, I’m sure they arn’t too hard too find. Alternatively, criticizing him for not contributing to the worst chronic health problem that afflicts the Australian population is just silly, and shows that you just want to think of something nasty to say, versus something intelligent. That’s not exactly productive.
Regarding unskilled immigrants and building projects, that is something I’d like to comment on too (since I am also a civil engineer). Unfortunately, the days of masses of unskilled labor working on building projects are largely gone. Most construction is now highly mechanised with workers needing various plant operating tickets that are the building equivalents of apprenticeships. Availability of electricians, plumbers and formwork carpenters is even worse. By all means, we should train more of such people, including immigrants, but they are not unskilled. This is why there is a skills shortage in the construction industry!
The sort of building work that is trully unskilled now is mainly maintenance type work. The large construction projects are complex. If you are trying to install fibre optic cable, build a desal plant, or a train line, or four lane the Pacific Highway, you need large plant and skilled plant operators.
I don’t wish to sound xenophobic, and as I said, I support allowing immigration of refugees as well as other skilled migrants. However we shouldn’t kid ourselves about the economic benefits or otherwise of unskilled migrants. Things have changed since the 50s.
And yet I don’t think the notion that building was unskilled 50 years ago is that accurate either. To be sure the skills were different but they were still skills. I’m reminded of the Vasa museum in Sweden where the history of the construction of the Vasa (a ship) in the early 1600s is recounted. Artisans of all sorts came from across the corners of Europe to work on the project. The trades of the different workers is tabulated in lists in the museum. They were all there because they had skills.
It turns out that even installing housing insulation requires skills. Despite some people who live with the delusion that you can’t get skills from a job because skills come from books and classrooms.
Re the skilled versus unskilled debate, I’ve worked in large professional accounting, finance and law firms. For them the debate is about the so called “skills shortage”. I suspect it’s the same with many other industries. From their perspective they are finding it hard to find sufficient numbers of skilled workers to meet increased demand. However, I wonder how much this view is a product of our recent economic growth. Business is growing, and competition for qualified staff is tough (though I hate the term “war for talent” from McKinsey).
Having being exposed to many senior decision makers I can say this is a dominant concern. They look at the demographic trends, and wonder how they will replace the ranks of “baby boomers” and “Gen X’s” (again marketing terms) and wonder how they can keep their highly sophisticated, knowledge/technology based companies not only just operating but growing.
Agree Terje; I was just assuming about the 50s.
@conrad
Conrad you say
” Alternatively, criticizing him for not contributing to the worst chronic health problem that afflicts the Australian population is just silly, and shows that you just want to think of something nasty to say, versus something intelligent. That’s not exactly productive.”
You are right. I didnt criticise Abbott for not contributing to the worst chronic health problem that afflicts Australia…but I should have. When he was health minister he ripped a billion dollars out of the health system.
He can stay on his bike.
I question the presumption that people in rural areas want more people around them. Why did they go there in the first place? I can tell you that the yokels often sit around the TV watching programs like ABC Q&A with remarks like ‘glad those d*ckheads don’t live here’.
We will lose bucolic charm if we continue with quarter acre blocks or many of us will be miserable if forced into high rises. Already cities like Adelaide have paved over their limited areas of good soil and rainfall. That means future food will almost certainly be more expensive. I’d also contend that we will soon see global resource limits bearing down on us with oil the likely frontrunner.
I have lived in quarter acre blocks and 20 story high rises and I can tell you there are pros and cons for both, but if you never actually try it then you will probably be too closed minded to consider it objectively. Where in Australia are people being forced into high rises? Ever considered that some people (just for arguments sake) might prefer to have the convenience that comes with high density living and might choose it over living in the car dependent suburban sprawl. What I can see is that a bunch of vested inner city oldies want to stop anyone else enjoying the convenience they have and are fighting tooth and nail to stop increases in density. Wealthy people who live near public transport and don’t use it also want to keep their streets from being developed. Strange thing is that at some point their leafy streets were farm land. So to simplify it right down – development that brought about their lifestyle GOOD, further development BAD. Them being born GOOD, future people being born BAD. I’m not denying there are ecological limits but some of the arguments from the Malthusian hand wringers are just self-justifying “lets not change anything because I’m comfortable” nonsense.
Tony Burke is quoted as saying that the government needs to consider ways to determine where new migrants settle “in the national interest”, by which Burke appears to mean the national economic interest.
http://www.news.com.au/national/minister-tony-burke-says-migrants-should-go-bush/story-e6frfkvr-1225851126005
The problem with this approach is that there is no reason to expect new migrants to want to stay settled forever in the rural and regional areas where employers are said to be crying out for labour, especially if they bring with them, or acquire in Australia, professional qualifications for jobs for which demand exists in other areas. Further, sooner or later those new migrants will have kids, and will want the kids to have good educational opportunities, and the kids themselves will want more options than to follow their parents into whatever regional and rural occupation Tony Burke has in mind for them. They will head to the major coastal cities in pursuit of higher education and paid work, they will discover the good restaurants, good nightlife and cosmopolitan cultural environment of the major coastal cities, they will discover equable coastal weather and the beaches, and they won’t go back to the bush.
The question which Tony Burke has clearly not considered is: how ya gonna keep ’em down on the farm after they’ve seen Sydney?
Has anyone with an appropriate background looked at the plausibility of the population modelling that has given us the 35 million figure?From the ABSIncreases in fertility rates Australia’s total fertility rate (TFR) in 2008 was 1.97 babies per woman, up from 1.92 babies per woman in 2007 and the highest since 1977 (2.01).
The increase in the TFR between 2007 and 2008 was largely due to births to women aged 30 to 39 years, who accounted for 55% of the increase.
I wonder how sustainable this increasing birthrate trend is? Is it a product of birth age being pushed back and then trending forward again as stories of age related pregnancy difficulties were being told in the media? Ultimately developed countries birth rates are below replacement so doesn’t this tend to mean that there will be a population decline in the future, or even in the present in places like Japan and Italy?
Michael #35, your last sentence is correct. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overpopulation#Projections_to_2050
Fertility rates are difficult to predict. The slight increase in recent years in Australia was not predicted ten years ago when all indications were that the fertility rate was headed south. Also, I believe the calculation of the fertility rate contains a prospective assumption (i.e. that women who are in their teens and 20s today will make the same reproductive choices in their 30s and 40s that women who are currently in their 30s and 40s are making) which may well turn out to be incorrect. Our understanding of the causal connections between government policies, economic conditions and the wider socio-cultural milieu on one hand, and people’s decisions to start families on the other, is incomplete and imprecise. However the following statements are probably true as generalisations, and ceteris parabus:
1. In developed capitalist economies, a combination of achievement of a reasonably high level of economic development, and increased education and employment opportunities and greater freedom of reproductive choice for women, invariably leads to fertility rates falling below replacement levels.
2. Women who commence childbearing earlier in life tend to have more children than women who commence later in life, and this is reflected in national fertility rates (i.e. the English-speaking countries have much higher rates of teenage childbearing than other advanced capitalist countries, and generally higher fertility rates).
3. Countries such as the Scandinavian countries which support women’s choice to combine paid work and motherhood have both higher fertility rates, and higher rates of female workforce participation, than countries where public policies and dominant social attitudes are hostile to women combining paid work and parenting (which is why fertliity rates in the southern European countries, Japan and South Korea have nosedived).
@Paul Norton
Thanks for your reply. Presumably religion and economic outlook effect birthrates as well. There is obviously a large degree of uncertainty about the prediction – a variation of 4 billion in the range of projected increases by 2050 is quite a lot. It is interesting how seriously population projections are taken by business compared to climate change projections.
Michael, it’s worth noting that the two previous occasions in the past 40 years when AUstralia’s fertility rate edged upward against the long-run downward trend were during period of recession in the early 1980s and early 1990s, whereas the most recent increase has been in a period of economic growth.
I think a society has to first guarantee basic rights to its own citizens before seeking to guarantee the rights of citizens of other countries. One basic right that has been taken away from the poorest Australians in an ostensibly to give rights to the citizens of other countries right to secure affordable shelter.
As I showed in my post on 29 March, that is precisely the intention of those pushing hardest for high immigration. As I showed in that post. land speculators and property developers openly gloat (that is when they think others aren’t paying attention) of how high immigration allows them to gouge the rest of us for a basic necessity.
Consequently, even many professional people who are forced to rent describe their circumstances as ‘slavery’. How much worse must circumstances be for people in unskilled occupations, students, pensioners and those living on welfare.
Now that the Australian people have spoken emphatically against contiued high immigration, and the Liberals and Nationals (of all people) appear to be listening to the people for a change, the Murdoch Press. true to form, is demanding that the Labor Government, instead, take its orders from the ‘Business Community’.
Of course, the second sentence of my previous post should have read:
My apologies.
@daggett
I agree that people have a right to affordable shelter but blaming this on immigration is a massive simplification. So property investers should have the right to claim 4 billion in rental losses much of it on property that was purchased on the secondhand market. I find it revealing that “outsiders” can be pretty much blamed for all Australia’s problems.
Michael, there’s no ‘simplification’. Land speculators openly acknowledge the cause and effect as that link in my post shows, and many of us are now living with that every day of our life.
The fact that many, who advocated immigration, supposedly on humanitarian grounds, implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, claimed that immigration would be entirely cost-free, or, indeed, even beneficial, when it clearly has not been been and when they clearly had no basis to believe that that would be the case, should make the rest of us very suspicious of their motives.
My apologies, again. but that sentences, should have been:
@Michael
You cannot really bring up kids in high-rise flats. London housing estates have led to huge feelings of disadvantage and social alienation.
Kids need backyards. Households need reasonable separation from neighbours.
It is human nature when this is allowed to develop freely.
High rise flats may suit some people but only for some stages of life.
However economists only see economic advantages in higher density. This just reflects their ongoing project to pump up their fortunes by artificially growing their markets through aggravated population increases.
@Chris Warren
My first child was born in a high rise flat. Luckily there was lots of playgrounds at the bottom of all the high rise towers and shops and places to eat downstairs. There were buses about 100m away and a train station 500m away. Supermarkets, doctors, schools and wet markets were all in walking distance. We didn’t own a car and didn’t suffer any disadvantage. Now we live as close to a train station as we could afford – 2.5kms away with a bus that runs intermittently and slowly and owning a car is pretty much mandatory because everyone else has one. Your arguments are based on badly done high-rise not well done high-rise, just like your arguments in favour of sprawl is probably based on nice leafy middle class suburbs not the hell holes of suburbia that litter the dark corners of disadvantage in Australia were people chrome in the graffiti covered parks, all the bus shelters are vandalised and any car left on the street has a good chance of being broken into and the gardens are fire hazards full weeds. Perhaps you might see a bit more of the world before proclaiming your own lifestyle supreme.
Abbott certainly seems able to get away with reversals of policies without any real reproach, much more than almost any other politician. Speculating about why, I can pick some element of the lovable rogue persona – the Bart Simpson of politics – and partly from a much more deeply rooted feeling that labor people are supposed to be idealists and should therefore be held to their ideals, while liberals are supposed to be individualists devoted to the gospel of success and should therefore be judged only on whether they win or not.
“You cannot really bring up kids in high-rise flats. ”
You might have to tell that to a billion or so people in the world that do (or whatever the real number is).
@Michael,
Firstly, I have lived in a supposedly well designed high-rise and found living conditions unacceptable. Some are happy to live that way, but it seems that most are not. In any case, are we prepared to trust private property developers to create well-designed high-rise estates, let alone affordable, given their record to date?
Both unrestrained urban sprawl on the one hand or else cramming into high rise on the other incur unacceptable costs.
Thanks to South East Queensland’s past unrestrained development, the koala is expected to be extinct in this region in perhaps as little as two years time.
The economics of population growth is self-evidently insane. In 2008 Bligh defended population growth on the basis that it was necessary to maintain employment of Queenslanders. She said:
In other words, property-growth-driven development is a Ponzi scheme. How are the new-comers expected to then be employed unless yet more people to sell houses to are imported?
And when it has all run its course, what can four million plus crammed into the barren dustbowl that will be South East Queensland hope to be able to trade with the rest of the world in exchages for the goods and services that we all need?
In the meantime, both Kevin Rudd and Anna Bligh have chosen to accept their marching orders from those who gain from this Ponzi scheme at the expense of every one else and of our future.
The second last last paragraph should have read:
My apologies.
@Chris Warren
It seems to me your paragraphs 1 to 4 reflect the preferences of Australians. From an economist’s point of view in the mainstream tradition, these preferences are relevant and not those in say people in Hong Kong. However, I strongly disagree with your last paragraph. You seem to more or less continuously confuse accounting and commerce with economics.
@daggett
Just for the record, I don’t think Australian property developers do a good job of shaping the city. In fact the economics and politics of the development of Australian cities puzzles me as does the bizarro property market that I don’t believe anyone can really explain. It is rare indeed to see any recent developments that add anything much to the cities. But that doesn’t mean that higher density can’t be done better or that the sole purpose of development should be short term profit. I don’t have the answer for that, but just putting the kibosh on development seems silly and reeks of a lack of imagination and NIMBYism. I would like to see evidence that immigrants are responsible for property unaffordability or the poor state of infrastructure – to me they seem an all to convenient scapegoat. I also don’t see that there is a need or desire to FORCE people to live in high rise developments. The expression of this fear seems to me to be projection. Do you fear being forced into high rise towers or do you fear other people choosing it? I’m not a cornucopian either.