Population growth is bad for business

Some, like former politician Maxine McKew on a recent ABC TV program, simplistically argue that the local butcher will have more customers with a bigger population. What this conveniently ignores is the fact that market forces will likely introduce a competing butcher, or two, putting the existing businesses under more pressure. Once you factor in higher water, rent, energy, vehicle and borrowing costs, they will be lucky to survive, let alone increase profits.

Every way you look at it, we lose.

It's time for governments to abandon ‘bigger is better’ mirage economics, and to implement policies that help, rather than hinder, average Australians and small business.

We don’t really need a twelve month review for Population Minister Tony Burke to "to develop Australia's first comprehensive population strategy". Australians can already see their quality of life deteriorating.

We now have a housing affordability crisis, an overloaded health system, water supply problems across Australia and traffic gridlock. Impoverished government budgets are struggling to cope with the massive costs for new and upgraded infrastructure like schools, roads and public transport. We are losing our best farmland and recreational bushland to housing, along with our native wildlife and biodiversity. Local suburbs are experiencing major planning conflict, a reduction in personal security and less open space for our children to play in. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

We are on a collision course between finite resource depletion and exponential population growth. But Australia has an opportunity to rapidly stabilise - and demonstrate global leadership in sustainable population management.

The only smart and sustainable choice is to stabilise our population so we can properly protect our environment and plan infrastructure requirements. That way we have a chance to get the business conditions, appropriate economic development, services and quality of life we want for us and future generations.

Our natural increase alone, being the surplus of births over deaths, may add up to three million Australians over the next few decades. Based on recent estimates of permanent departures, zero net migration could be achieved with immigration at around 50,000, comfortably including our high per capita intake of 13,750 refugees.

So we have a choice: a stable Australia with around 23-26 million through until 2050 or an overloaded Australia.

Over to you, Mr Burke.