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Angst Swells as Australian Population Nears 25M
- wallace_f 8y ago27 years without a recession, a minimum wage of $22/hr, an endless supply of perfect beaches and natural wonder; a most-developed, low crime, strong social safety net country not far from Asia for holiday. Sounds pretty good
- magicbuzz 8y agoThere’s not actually that much of a safety net. And the figures quoted below are largely unchanged 4 yrs later. https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/miserly-newstart-keeps-unemployed-further-away-from-jobs-20140523-zrmvz.html https://www.smh.com.au/opinion/miserly-newstart-keeps-unempl... I think the real issue with sustained high levels of immigration is that most immigrants end up living in one of two major cities, Sydney or Melbourne. Melbourne is on track to have a London-sized population by mid-century - but that’s of course based on estimates. Which as the article points out, were completely wrong by three decades in 2005.
- wallace_f 8y agoIt's a lot more than what you get in Asia or the US, or most of the world. Maybe not as good as Western Europe, and not as good as Scandanavia or Switzerland
- zavi 8y agoAustralian GDP tanked between 2013 and now. It's a recession by definition. This is trivial to verify.
- adventured 8y agoFor reference, Australia's GDP went from $1.57t in 2013, to $1.38 in 2017. Nearly all nations tanked similarly, but only when priced in US dollars. It was caused by a record USD bull run. The USD gained a lot of ground vs the AUD in just two years. Germany went from $3.88t to $3.36t one year later. France went from $2.85t to $2.43t one year later. Canada went from $1.84t to $1.55t in two years. Japan went from $6.2t in 2012, to $4.4t in 2015. I assure you, their economy didn't actually contract by 29% in three years. That's solely due to the dollar / yen exchange. They didn't shutter a third of their stores or factories. A year later their USD GDP value jumped by ~11%, solely due to the exchange rate, their economic production did not expand by 11%. The US dollar dropping by a considerable amount during the Bush years, was similarly responsible for artificially inflating the GDP of Australia (and all nations) in USD terms.
- ekianjo 8y agoYou need that kind of minimum wage because everything is super expensive in Sydney for example. Even bus rides.
- falsedan 8y agoJust buy blue traveltens and claim you didn't know you rode for too many sections if you're ever inspected…
- jboles 8y agoCan't anymore. Blue TravelTens are gone, it's now all about Opal running. https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/opal-runners-keep-swiping-for-free-travel-despite-attempt-to-close-loophole-20160808-gqnlv6.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/opal-runners-keep-swipin...
- falsedan 8y agoI've been away too long…
- 0xfaded 8y agoOur GDP "growth" is largely because property price inflation is somehow considered economic growth. As an Australian, my conclusion is that Australia has failed to diversify its economy. Money comes in through mining, agriculture, property sales and to a lesser extent tertiary education. The rest is a services economy, and I think the joke about Australia being a country where we all serve each other lattes captures the idea in as few words possible. I've just left the US, and instead of going home I went to Europe to start my company. Denmark is amazingly progressive with how it spends its public purse setting up an environment for innovation. Australia on the other hand seems to have abandoned any idea of establishing a sovereign wealth fund (mining tax) and instead blown millions courting US dollars which hasn't succeeded in turning Australia into a foreign branch of SV. For a longer read, this is obviously one person's analysis, but I fail to find a flaw in his conclusions. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/australias-economy-house-cards-matt-barrie https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/australias-economy-house-card...
- wycx 8y agoFrom the link, on economic complexity [1]: Where does Australia rank on the global scale? Worse than Mauritius, Macedonia, Oman, Moldova, Vietnam, Egypt and Botswana. Worse than Georgia, Kuwait, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and El Salvador. Sitting embarrassingly and awkwardly between Kazakhstan and Jamaica, and worse than the Dominican Republic at 74 and Guatemala at 75, Australia ranks off the deep end of the scale at 77th place. 77th and falling. After Tajikistan, Australia had the fourth highest loss in Economic Complexity over the last decade, falling 18 places. Not the behavior of a modern, mixed economy that many Australians pretend that we have. We are an anomaly. A third world economy with a first world standard of living. Will is last? [1] http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/ http://atlas.cid.harvard.edu/rankings/
- dcx 8y agoThat was an amazing read - thanks for sharing. Being pointed to these kinds of brilliant longform pieces of thinking is one of the best things I consistently get out of HN.
- ulfw 8y agoAnd growing xenophobia that made legal skilled immigration harder and harder over time. I've tried moving to Australia several times. Gave up after spending months interviewing with companies who at the end never pick the foreigner. Most don't even bother talking to you if you're not a permanent resident. Very much like the US.
- dbetteridge 8y agoI just dont get the angst around immigration. If you're going to get all in a tizzy about crowded cities and beaches, move somewhere else! Theres tonnes of places in Australia where you can have beautiful beaches and no-one else around for 100's of km.
- Theodores 8y agoShame there is no water though. Unless you like it with added salt. Same goes for the land, the 'topsoil' that is left also comes with added salt. The place is living on borrowed time, an environmental catastrophe unfolds in the news headlines and before our eyes. Only the ingenuity of man can prevent the place going back to the default 'Aboriginal' carrying capacity. The government can't magically buy feed for the farmers to give to their 'livestock' forever.
- magicbuzz 8y agoTo clarify, there is actually a significant drought occurring at present. http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-07-29/the-big-dry-see-us-hear-us-help-us/10030010 http://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-07-29/the-big-dry-see-...
- legostormtroopr 8y agoYeah, if people don’t like immigrants moving to their city they should move away. That’s a well thought out position.
- nailer 8y agoGoverment should have points added/deducted for moving to crowded less crowded cities. * Adelaide/Hobart +10 Melbourne/Sydney -10 etc. This might mean companies that need immigrants have to set up offices in Adelaide and Hobart. Fair enough. * I'm assuming you read the article re: points scheme
- dbetteridge 8y agoI thought I had heard about them doing exactly this, but haven't seen anything about it in a while.
- tanilama 8y ago25M is really small....what are these angst about. Sounds funny...
- andrewwharton 8y agoIt's not the gross population that's the problem, it the rate of growth in population and the infrastructure that's required to support it. The basic problem is that if infrastructure last 50 years, you have to replace 2% of it every year. Now, for every 1% of population growth, you also have to (on average) also build 1% more infrastructure, so you need to build 3% in total, or 50% more than if you had no population growth. But you only have 1% more revenue to build it with, so inevitably only a fraction of what you need gets built, hence the problems. And the higher the population growth, the worse the problems.
- ulfw 8y agoWhat a really odd logic. So then let's bring immigration down to 0%. Woohoo! Now you still got to "replace 2% of infrastructure every year" with 0% more revenue. How's that working out for you? You argue 0 immigration -> 2% infra costs You argue 1% immigration -> 3% infra costs but also 1% more revenue to use for infra costs I fail to see your issue
- e12e 8y agoIndeed, reminds me of this lecture series: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL76483D7434812A0D https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL76483D7434812A0D At some point there's a (not entirely) rethorical question about what's a "good" growth rate for a town, and a politician indicate 5% is good. 1.05^15 ~ 2. So that's a doubling in the period between someone enters kindergarten and leaves high school.
- puranjay 8y agoGee, 25M. That's the population of some cities back home. Australia has all the resources and land in the world to support much, much more people.
- GnwbZHiU 8y agomost of the land is barren
- oblio 8y agoEven if that's true, Australia covers 7 million sqkm. Eyeballing from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Australia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Australia, I'd say at least 0.5 million sqkm seem super habitable. That's more than enough to support 25 million. For comparison France isn't super crowded, it's about the same size and has 65 million people...
- folli 8y agoCan you compare the quality of living in such a city to the Australian standard?
- vixen99 8y agoSo the concerns of people quoted in the article can be ignored?
- oblio 8y agoEasy. Urbanization is super high but because of various policies which benefit property owners, these people get to keep their property values super high and ever increasing. As a result, everyone crowds to the same places and the housing supply (and associated infrastructure) is strained. From what I've seen it's a repeating pattern in the developed world. I've seen New Zealanders, of all people, complaining about NZ being overcrowded (it has one of the lowest population densities in the world, especially considering its climate and abundant natural resources). TL;DR: Rich property owners block/delay construction to get high rents or sell their properties at a very high prices. Average people suffer. Rich people point average people to immigrants and "overcrowding".
- folli 8y ago“Strong population growth is a key contributor to economic prosperity” This is the main ingredient of any pyramid scheme.
- ekianjo 8y agoThis is especially laughable as a claim when you look at European countries with high immigration and at best very weak economic growth. How do they explain that?
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- sparkling 8y agoI cringe when i hear western european leaders talk about how their countries must accept immigration from third world countries to "save the economy" or "stabilize the social service systems". Even if these immigrants end up to be net tax payers after all the costs of feeding, housing, integrating these people... well, guess what, eventually they get old too and this circle starts over.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago> well, guess what, eventually they get old too and this circle starts over. Our economies are built on the assumption of endless growth. Those immigrants better have children above the replacement rate.
- geff82 8y agoSorry to tell you that there is a big difference between regular immigrants and refugees. A regular Immigrant to Europe usually is a net win from day one because they have been educated for free in their country of origin, while the upfront cost of raising someone in your own country with your own taxes is quite high (Kindergarten, school, university...).
- insertcredit 8y ago
- cm2012 8y agoAngst is always swelling. 25m or 25b.
- raverbashing 8y agoDid Germany really has grown only 1% if we consider migration and the refugee crisis? WRT to the article Australia seems to be paradoxically "big" and small at the same time (it's the biggest country after Brazil), with the big desert areas making its habitable area much smaller than one could suppose (Japan has a similar problem, even though it's bigger than Germany)
- ehnto 8y agoYou are right, it is smaller than it seems, but there is plenty of room to expand. We are quite spread out currently. Not that I am keen on ridiculous population growth, but just interesting to think about.
- rezeroed 8y agoI'd love somewhere like Australia to take on a big terraforming experiment. Even "just" digging a channel from the coast to the middle of the desert. Fish, crabs find their way in, birds start feeding along the channel, fertilising the shore, small plant growth, ... or something. Edit: an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_(China)
- flashmob 8y agoThey did! Although not on the scale as the grand canal, but still impressive. Check out the "snowy mountains scheme", https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Mountains_Scheme https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowy_Mountains_Scheme Quote: "The water of the Snowy River and some of its tributaries, much of which formerly flowed southeast onto the river flats of East Gippsland, and into Bass Strait of the Tasman sea, is captured at high elevations and diverted inland ".
- macintux 8y agohttps://what-if.xkcd.com/152/ https://what-if.xkcd.com/152/
- trevyn 8y ago>it’s the biggest country after Brazil Sorry, what? Australia is 6th largest, after Russia, Canada, China, the US, and Brazil.
- Leary 8y agoIf Australia doesn't have resources for immigration, then what country does?
- antt 8y agoThe US. People don't drink land and we get decade long droughts that make California's look tame by comparison. The majority of Australia has the same hospitality to human habitation as does the Sahara.
- FireBeyond 8y agoRight, the only country that receives less rain is Antarctica. Most of the country receives less than 24" of rain in a non-drought year (of which, the last 11 have been). Many places average 4" of rain a year. Water supply is a ... challenge.
- stephen_g 8y agoIt's the driest inhabited continent on the planet... Literally only 10% of the country is considered technically 'habitable'. That 10% is generally really nice though! (Not that there aren't also cool places to visit in the desert/outback too).
- antt 8y agoFor Americans that don't get what the big deal is: Australia has a livable area about the same size as does California. The rest of the continent is desert that gets so hot they had to invent new colors to describe it [0]. Even towns in the 'habitable' area get in the upper 40C [115F] regularly during summer. The last three years have been relatively cool, but in between 2008-2012 there were days where Melbourne and Sydney basically had to shut down because the heat made infrastructure unusable without damaging it. There is hardly any water and the cities were designed around cars far more than any city outside Los Angeles. Add a population that's three times what the neighborhoods were planned for and you see why Mad Max was thought up here. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/its-so-hot-australia-they-added-new-colors-weather-map/319705/ https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/01/it...
- Leary 8y agoWhat is the livable area of California, and what is the livable area of Australia? What is the population of California, and what is the population of Australia?
- forthefuture 8y agoAustralia = 24 million in 296,790 square miles of habitable land. California = 39 million in 163,696 square miles of total land. California has twice as many people in an area half the size (not including inhabitable parts of California since half of it is a desert).
- oblio 8y agoIs the Australian habitable land that low, though? From what I see, they seem to count all the subtropical land as uninhabitable and there's plenty of subtropical countries out there...
- zaq_xsw 8y agoI'd definitely lean towards agreeing with you there. And on top of that, I live on the west coast of Australia, and there are people living fine from Albany (at the bottom) to Broome (at the top), but there's probably only 5% of the coast that has people living on it - scattered from top to bottom (but obviously mostly in Perth). Seems like there's a lot of empty space here. I have relatives that live in-land (in the "wheat belt"), and the climate is perfectly livable there. I think the only places where it is not-so-livable is in places like Marble Bar (second hottest place in WA), and yet there are still a bunch of people that live there - my friend grew up there.
- mettamage 8y agoThis might be a bit of an insensitive comment, but alas so be it (not living up to my nickname unfortunately). I'm too used to this discussion in my own country and have little sympathy for the other side because in The Netherlands they have been wrong for 70 years now. The "we are getting too full comments" come from emotions, not from facts and I have the prejudiced feeling that in Australia it isn't any different. Australian planologists should talk to Dutch planologists, and it'll be fine. I am culturally biased but I think it will become a problem once they reach about 200 to 250 million. The Netherlands as well: it can still grow a huge bit before it will hit a ceiling. Yes, it'll get more crammed, it just means you have to organize yourself better as a nation. But my point: if the Dutch can live in a crammed space, so can the Australians.
- schoen 8y ago> Australian planologists should talk to Dutch planologists, and it'll be fine By the way, in English planologie is called "city planning" or "urban planning" and a planoloog is an "urban planner" or "city planner". We don't really have the terms planology and planologist (although they sound pretty awesome!).
- mettamage 8y agoHaha, you caught me! I was too lazy to do a dictionary check on the internet and found it fun to assume the word existed.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y agoTo be fair though, in English the suffix '-ology' means a subject of study; a branch of knowledge, and English is fine with portmanteaus. Words mean what people use them to mean. Dictionaries are only, and can only be, historical records.
- IForgotUsername 8y agoI do still think it's worthwhile for us to have the conversation about growth rate regardless of what we could handle in the long run. The only issue is that this conversation keeps getting derailed by racists so I just stay away completely :(
- ppeetteerr 8y agoI like how economists are always touting the economic benefits of immigration. "Sure, government is not coping with the influx of migrants by providing necessary infrastructure, but at least GDP is up 2.5%."
- jl2718 8y agoOne of the amazing abilities of most higher-order organism colonies observed in biology is the ability to self-regulate reproduction within an environment. If native population growth is low, it’s usually for a reason. Native human population growth is between -2% and 20% annually, excluding war, famine, and disease. If you have a population of field mice in equilibrium, and you introduce more field mice, the net population does not increase. The number of births drops dramatically, and the number of deaths by causes mentioned above increases from negligible to potentially 100%. It takes a special kind of westerner hubris to believe that we’re any different. Japanese understand this, and place blame for lack of growth squarely where it belongs: poor economic and social conditions for raising a family due to failed programs of social engineering from the 70s.