Infrastructure deficit impossible to fix without tackling population growth

It is estimated that each new person added to the population requires well over $100,000 of public infrastructure to enjoy the same standard provided to incumbent residents. Thus, the cost of adding a new Canberra-worth of people every year easily runs into the tens of billions of dollars.

In Australia's already sprawling major cities, the cost of retrofitting is eye-wateringly expensive because of the need for tunnelling and land buy-backs and the disruption to existing infrastructure. Take, for example, Melbourne's West Gate Tunnel which is expected to cost $6.7 billion for five kilometres of highway. Per lane-kilometre, this will be 42 times more expensive than the Woolgoolga-Ballina highway upgrade project in New South Wales.

The evidence is clear: Australia is abjectly failing to build sufficient economic and social infrastructure to cater for rapid population growth caused primarily by 15 years of hyper immigration. Infrastructure Australia concluded in 2013 that the infrastructure deficit was already then at around $300 billion. As more people flood into our major cities, the cost and complexity of providing additional infrastructure will continue to increase substantially. The Productivity Commission noted in 2016 that such costs "will inevitably be borne by the Australian community either through user-pays fees or general taxation…"

Existing residents are also being forced to endure greater congestion and longer commute times, more expensive and smaller housing, longer hospital queues, more competition for school places, lower wages, and the rapid transformation of their communities into places they no longer recognise. The deliberate addition of millions more people will also severely hamper Australia's ability to meet its carbon emissions reduction targets, place more pressure on already stressed ecosystems and native habitats, and further dilute our natural resources.

Recent polls by Newspoll, Essential, the Lowy Institute, the Centre for Independent Studies, the ANU and the Australian Population Research Institute show that Australians are increasingly fed up with extremely high immigration and attendant population growth. In each survey, a majority of respondents wanted a decrease in immigration. Yet the major political parties remain hooked on Big Australia mass immigration and refuse to allow an honest debate about population numbers.

The Australian Population Research Institute's Bob Birrell and Katharine Betts have observed that the prevailing view among Australian elites is that all is well with their high immigration experiment. When confronted with concerns, the major political parties, large sections of the media and those with a vested commercial interest in high immigration – property developers, retailers, the universities, employers seeking cheap labour and other members of the 'growth lobby' – claim that running a pedal-to-the-metal immigration program is good for economic growth and thus for the betterment of the country. It is conveniently ignored that while adding more people might make the economy bigger, it does not make Australians richer per head. Although rarely mentioned among the Australian commentariat, the enormous expansion in immigration numbers has coincided with a collapse in real per capita household income growth.

Van Onselen, O'Sullivan and Cook observe the irony in the fact that the staggering infrastructure costs associated with population growth are:

…counted as additions to economic growth (additions to GDP), yet are unlikely to translate into benefits of improved per capita income or well-being for the existing population. Rather, they get passed down the line to residents in the form of extra charges and the lived experience of congestion and reduced amenity.

Until Australians make more of an effort to hold their political leaders to account over forced population growth, the infrastructure deficit will only widen and life in our cities will only get worse.