Stable Population Party: a dead vote

Climate change threatens life on the planet. Recognition of this fact means that governments must take serious action on climate change. Advocates of population control turn this fact on its head. Climate change will lead to a world so harsh, uncertain and polluted, their argument goes, that it's more "humane" to prevent future generations from being born at all.

This population reduction argument is couched in terms of containing, or mitigating, the apparently inevitable effects of environmental destruction. Instead, the struggle for an alternative model of development, based on meeting the needs of people and planet, should be our main concern.

Less migration is a dangerous policy

Migrants are a convenient scapegoat. They are already being falsely blamed for contributing to unemployment. Supporting cuts in migration avoids the burning issue: Australia is the highest emitter of greenhouse gases per capita in the world. Migrants and refugees who come here should be welcomed and invited into our movement for a safe climate.

Who holds power is the real 'population' issue

There is one part of the world's population that poses a genuine threat: the small group of powerful, vested interests who profit most from polluting the biosphere and are desperately resisting change. The real population change is not artificially reducing human numbers. Rather, it is about winning real democratic change, by increasing the number of people who participate in making decisions about investment in green industries, agriculture, global trade and military spending.

Population control narrowly looks only at the quantity of human beings to find a solution to climate change. Ultimately, its narrow vision makes it a divisive policy. The climate action movement, however, is concerned with improving the quality of human life.

Conclusion

The SPP want to "Limit the baby bonus and paid parental leave to each woman's first two children." No argument from me there. Studies have shown that except for the first year of introduction, the Baby Bonus plays no role in birth rates.

Nor do I believe the SPP is a branch of the more radical elements of population control as witnessed by the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) in the UK, which has a website called 'Pop Offsets'. The website allows you to work out how much carbon you emit per day. It then tells you how many births you must help to prevent in order to offset that carbon.

But cutting population will do nothing to relieve infrastructure stress. It will only exacerbate it as the taxable horizon contracts. Cutting population will increase the cost of living pressures as wage inflation goes through the roof. As Australia exports more than $30 billion of foods stuffs per year, cutting population will do nothing to protect our food supply. If the SPP was serious about minimizing urban sprawl, it would focus more on urban design, which it has not done.

By making population the 'everything issue', the Stable Population Party stands for nothing.