Look to our population problem - now

The new millennium will see Australia facing many problems, even crises. Some are going to test our will to breaking point unless we act now.

Principal among these problems, because it will affect every one of us sooner or later, is the problem of our rapidly ageing population with all that involves in the way of soaring social security costs and burdens on younger taxpayers.

By the year 2028 the number of workers for each retiree will crash from a present 6 to 3. By the middle of this century 25 percent of Australians will be aged more than 65.

What are we going to do about it? There's no easy solution as Japan, one of the smartest nations on earth, has discovered. Similarly Britain is now looking at Policies on how to keep people at work beyond 50.

The Australian Population Institute or APop as we call it, is the only organisation in Australia that has seized this nettle - and others associated with our population - and made them public issues.

In the past six months there has been an opening up of attitudes in both Government and the private sector – a realisation that population is at the very core of Australia’s future – and cannot be ignored or denied.

APop is determined to create a focus for debate - about our ageing people, about our fertility rates, about our need for increased immigration, about our need for a population of 30-50 million by the middle of this century.

There is, of course, the concern that a greater population will have a greater effect on the eco-system of Australia. In particular such issues as bio-diversity and greenhouse gas emissions. The point is surely that people have an impact on these factors wherever they are on the globe - whether in their country of birth or in a country they have migrated to.

As we know too well, floods recently inundated huge areas of central and northern Australia. And annually our monsoonal rainfalls could be much better harvested and directed. Our use of tertiary treated water is almost zero and millions of gallons gush from uncapped bores throughout the Outback - there are many areas in which we can improve or innovate.

Environmentalist demographers claim that if Australia significantly increases its population we will see a vast urban sprawl along the east coast of Australia. They seem stuck with the notion that urban development will continue along past lines of single family houses on a quarter acre of land.

In fact we are already seeing a different reality: the compacting of suburbs with smaller block sizes and a huge movement by people both young and old into city apartments with all the efficiencies of energy and resources that this involves.

The Murray-Darling basin is often used as the prime example of the dry land salinity problem faced by Australia with some 2.5 million ha already effected. A variety of solutions are currently on offer: changes in land use, salt interception and other engineering solutions and redirection of water flows to dilute salinity. All are costly.

In fact the CSIRO has estimated that the cost of restoring Australia's landscape could be more than the $37 billion annual value of farm production.

The magnitude of this must surely face us with the need to consider radical approaches. We are not going to generate that sort of wealth with an economy that remains at its present size. To grow that economy we must grow our population and at the same time adopt high-value industries.

But the growing of Australia is not going to happen overnight and it must be rigorously planned and planning requires a basic framework of predictability. Central to that is the knowledge that we will retain sovereignty and governorship of our country.

APop contends that a relatively low population makes us vulnerable to external forces. This low population severely limits our capability to adequately fund the high technology defense forces of the future and to deliver sufficient defense personnel.

Protection of the vast Australian territory, its offshore resources and the rights of free movement in regional waters requires a substantial defense force. Yet defense spending has decreased by 50% per capita over the past 50 years. Our spending at 1.8 percent of GDP is a third less than 15 years ago.

Fertility rates in Australia have fallen to below replacement level. Factors ranging from rising child care costs and industrial agreements that discourage working mothers are producing a rapidly declining birthrate. Government support is needed to make it affordable for people to choose to have more children. Making childcare tax deductible would stimulate the childcare industry, create associated employment and possibly boost the fertility rate.

Boosting population through immigration and encouraging the national birthrate can create a society that will not resent the cost of aged care because it has the tax base to pay for it.

APop contends that our future lies with growing our wealth. So exactly how would increased immigration affect our economy?

Government studies show that there is a net economic benefit from immigration.

Migrant-owned businesses have created 7700 jobs over a three-year period. Two thirds of businesses owned by migrants have developed into exporters and generated $348 million in exports in three years.

The development of a threshold population size of critical mass is necessary to provide the economic strength to not only undertake greater research and development, but also to have the capacity to implement the value added phase within Australia. This threshold population is predictable in the 30 to 50 million range in order to match the strengths demonstrated by other large global economies.

A Greater Australia could have an economy, of a size capable of withstanding global exploitation in currency, trade and foreign affairs.

We are lucky to live in a country where the people have the freedom and the power to change their destiny. Let us not be remembered as a people who had that power and freedom - but shirked the responsibility.