Can we trust the Greens on population?

• women’s rights;
• unsustainable resource use; and
• inequitable distribution of wealth and power.

This is definitely true but it is odd that a statement of principles should repeatedly point out how difficult the Greens find it to have a position on the population issue.

5. Australia’s population policy should be determined by its commitment to:

• ecological sustainability;
• both global and domestic social justice and equity;
• intergenerational equity;
• multiculturalism;
• international human rights obligations; and
• decent wages and conditions for all workers.

Here the Greens show how their focus on social issues has eclipsed their environmental concerns. Indeed, the best way to describe them now is as the new home of Labor’s disenfranchised left. But Nature has no left or right wing - it cares only about survival …

6. population policy should not be driven by economic goals or to counter the effects of an ageing population.

There is nothing to disagree with there! (See my recent article on the issue of coping with our ageing demographic profile.)

7. an Australian population policy must consider the geographical distribution of human settlements rather than just concentrate upon population size at the national level.

Yet more excuses for why the Greens do not wish to address the issue of population size. You have to wonder who actually wrote this policy!

8. Australia has an obligation to accept humanitarian migration including that resulting from climate change.

“Obligation” is a strong word. We have signed up to international obligations regarding refugees from political persecution and these should be stated explicitly. But what is “humanitarian migration”? Does this mean we must accept those who have become impoverished through uncontrolled population growth in other nations? Maybe so since, by that reasoning, there is no point in us trying to limit our own population numbers and that is, apparently, what the Greens are repeated implying.

Goals

The Australian Greens want: