Why do we keep falling for the idea that the rate of population growth in Australia is inevitable?

That won him much support at the time, and the phrase “we will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come” has become one of his signature lines. The speech was in response to national security concerns flowing from global terrorism but was also widely taken to refer to immigration policy generally. But population numbers boomed to record levels in the next term of his office as Prime Minister.

The ALP too have had views on our rates of population growth. Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, when he was Opposition Leader, called for a “mature debate” on population growth rates. In response to an Infrastructure Australia report that warned rapid growth rates would require $40bn per annum in spending, he had this to say:

It’s a matter of appropriate population growth… What we can’t have is what has historically happened of just opening up land release, growth in outer suburbs, people not located near jobs without working out where they will work, where they will access health and education services, where their kids will play.

There is a role for government in just not allowing the market to let rip and having significant development occurring without looking at the social infrastructure that is required in order to improve liveability and sustainability.

Now elected to office, that debate hasn’t happened. Instead, our rates of net overseas migration have been again set at record high levels.

To illustrate the speed of that growth, consider this graph which compares the various rates of predicted growth in our three major cities (where most growth pressure is occurring) with a range of global cities. While other cities (such as LA or London or San Francisco) may be significantly larger in number, their rates of growth are much slower. Since I did the research for this graph, LA and San Francisco have entered negative territory. In the case of LA, the US Census Bureau said it had “the largest population loss of any county, losing 159,621 residents in 2021.” This hasn’t led to a collapse of the LA economy.

Our rates of population growth, pre-pandemic, were three times that of many global cities we like to compare ourselves with. They are comparable only with the hyper growth rates of cities like Shanghai and Beijing in Communist China. Let that sink in.

The consequences of our inability to deal with these very rapid rates of growth are everywhere – housing shortages, hospital shortages, school shortages, rising congestion (doubling the population of a city but relying on the same transport infrastructure networks that were there in the 1980s will do that!), potable water shortages, energy shortages, shortages of parkland… if you think we’re doing OK you’re very much in the minority. (A recent article of mine went into some of these shortages in more detail).

What does the Australian population think of these rates of growth? Invariably, whenever their opinion is asked, the answer isn’t what the development industry or big business lobbies want to hear. A 2021 poll of Sydney and Melbourne residents for Fairfax media for example found that two thirds of residents wanted net overseas migration numbers to return at lower levels than pre-pandemic. Only One in five were happy with pre-pandemic levels or higher.