Sydney is expected to increase its population to 7 million according to estimates. Credit: Vandelizer/flickr

By Rich Bowden:

While Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has welcomed a 60 percent population growth in Australia by 2050, others have questioned if the country can sustain such a population.

Recent figures released by the Intergenerational Report, which show Australia’s population growth to be the highest in the industrialised world with an expected population increase of 13 million to 35 million in four decades, has divided the nation. Mr Rudd said to reporters yesterday that a “big” Australia was good news.

“I actually believe in a big Australia I make no apology for that,” Mr Rudd said. “I actually think it’s good news that our population is growing.”

“Contrast that with many countries in Europe when it’s actually heading in the other direction. I think it’s good for us, it’s good for national security in the long-term, it’s good in terms of what we can sustain as a nation.”

While accepting that such an increase will place a strain on resources, he added that his Government was planning for the future.

“That is why we’re taking a leading position on climate change but also the long-term sustainability of the Murray-Darling and the proper provision of water supplies for the future.”

“This Government is building for the future – we call it nation-building for the future. But let’s be optimistic about the fact this country’s growing, so many around the world are heading the other way,” the prime minister said.

However there have been a number of questions asked about Australia’s ability to sustain such rapid growth, particularly in light of climate change and the country’s ongoing battle to supply adequate resources, such as water, to its present population of 22 million.

Pessimistic

Treasury Secretary Ken Henry, speaking at function in Brisbane yesterday, said he was pessimistic about Australia’s sustainability given such a dramatic jump in population.

“With the right decisions one can envisage a period of unprecedented prosperity,” he told the gathering. “With less judicious decision however, we could experience an extended period of extreme volatility, with no growth path proving sustainable.”

“My own opinion and I have to stress to this audience that it’s a personal view, not even to be taken as a Treasury view, far less a government one, is pessimistic,” he said.

Mr Henry said the population explosion would present the greatest challenge yet to the Commonwealth since Federation.

“This certainly does pose a set of challenges, just the larger population, putting aside the other ones that I’ve referred to today, does pose a set of challenges for Australian governments, Commonwealth and State that is probably in order of magnitude larger than any that the Federation has yet had to deal with,” he said.

The entry into the debate by the man considered to have steered the country away from the worst of the global financial crisis has bolstered the position of naysayers who consider the rapid increase of Australia’s population to be a negative outcome.

Last month Labor backbencher Kelvin Thomson said such a population increase would see a “catastrophic” effect on the country’s resources.

‘Disaster’

“We are sleepwalking into an environmental disaster,” he told The World Today.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. Credit: djackmanson/flickr

“There will be impact on the availability of food, water, energy and land. These things are already stretched and a 60 per cent population increase will only drive up the cost of these essentials and lower our living standards.”

“And what about the impact on our major cities? Declining housing affordability, traffic congestion, over-crowded concrete jungles,” he asked.

“Australia is blessed in the quality of life that we have and I believe that we have an obligation to pass onto our children an environment and a country in as good a condition as the one our parents left to us.”

Preeminent environmental group the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) earlier this year called for the country’s population to be held at “an ecologically sustainable level.”

“Population increase makes it harder for Australia to reduce carbon pollution levels and is placing immense stress on state and regional planning, infrastructure and ecological systems,” said the foundation in a statement.

However proponents of rapid population increase point to benefits of such a policy such as increased security and economic growth.

”On the whole, strong population growth is a positive, said John Piggott, director of the Australian Institute for Population Ageing Research to the Sydney Morning Herald. ” … because I do think that human capital, if you want to talk in economic jargon, is the most valuable resource we have.”

Tags: ACF, australian population, australian sustainability, ken henry, Water