AUSTRALIAN ENVIRONMENT FACTS
Australia's present population of about 19 million with zero net migration could probably stabilize at about 23 million around 2030. The level of annual net immigration to reach and maintain a population of 25 million would be between 40,000 and 50,000. [Dr. C. Young ANU). Current intakes are over double and will result in our population continuing to grow rapidly and indefinitely. However, at current living standards our present population is not be ecologically sustainable in the long term. [ACF]
Already four out of every five Australians live on the continent's closely settled coastal plain, which makes up just 3.3% of total land area - and which also comprises our most fertile land. [PIC Report 1991- Withers.] Victoria, for example, is already more densely populated per square kilometre than Brazil, Argentine, Norway, the former USSR and Libya. [Johnson "Operation World"].
Australia is the driest inhabited continent. 58% of the continent is either desert or suitable only for very limited farming. Moreover, an additional 11% receives between 15 and 20 inches of rain annually and is suitable only for non-intensive agriculture. The rainfall problems are exacerbated because:
[a] high evaporation rates - rainfall over 70% of the continent never exceeds evaporation.
[b] the lack of great rivers, and the already serious problem of salinisation.
[c] the unreliability of the rainfall and the frequency of droughts.
[d] poor soils, particularly in good rainfall areas. Large areas of the continent have virtually no soil as a result of millions of years of erosion.
A FEW POINTS ON IMMIGRATION.
Negative factors of immigration include:-
[a] adverse effects on the balance of payments.
[b] the diversion of resources to social infrastructure.
[c] diseconomies of scale in cities that have passed their optimum size [considered to be around 500,000 people].
[d] pressures towards capital widening at the expense of capital deepening [ie. we cannot continue to be a nation that invests only in real estate.]
[e] waste of human resources in the neglect of local training. [Dr. Katherine Betts]
"The increase in overseas debt has rightly been seen as an economic danger signal by Australians... A country which is growing by immigration must not let people in faster than it can economically assimilate them:" [Michael Mumford, Insight Research, London.]
On average, in all big and small businesses in Australia in 1995, it took about $117,000 of capital to provide one job. [D. Francis, "People and Place" Vol 3 No.2]. This confirms that billions of dollars of additional capital will be required to get our unemployed into the workforce. As we have no surplus savings in Australia, the capital for new jobs will have to be borrowed from overseas, thus further compounding our balance of payments problems.
OVERSEAS AID.
Immigration is an ineffective and inappropriate tool to reduce population pressures in other parts of the world. It is substantially more cost effective to assist in meeting people's needs in their country of origin, than to relocate some of them to Australia via migration.
Canadian scientist, Dr. William Rees, says that many such nations are running what he calls "ecological deficits", consuming the resources of poorer nations. In Australia, we are undoubtedly consuming our own resources at an unsustainable rate, as well as that of other, poorer nations while simultaneously reducing our overseas aid. This is a disgrace.
A FEW QUOTES.
"Whole civilizations [Mediterranean region and Aztecs, for instance] disappeared when their soils became saline... A great deal of Australia's soil has blown or washed away... We are running out of the means to grow food. Soil is a finite resource... It is possible that in fifty years, the Murray basin, Australia's main bread basket, will be salt desert. [Dr. Chris Watson - 3/3/95].
"Whether immigration provides net economic benefits or costs - a matter we note, of some contention, is beside the point. Small groups in the total population, such as Aboriginal people, would become proportionally less significant and their voices less heard, as the focus of attention would lie more towards providing for the newcomers and less providing for those already here." [Lois O'Donohue, ATSIC].
"The debate ought to be about the carrying capacity of the continent - a continent that has lousy soils, fragile vegetation and depleted and degraded river systems... Sydney is bursting at the seams." [Bob Carr, NSW Premier, The Australian 3/6/95].
"The sad thing was that at present, Cabinet gave a tick to Immigration Department submissions pretty much in isolation, without directly involving the States, the Environment Department, city planners or demographic experts. Immigration policy should be an instrument for population policy. There is no population policy - it is merely a by product of immigration practice. [Barry Jones, The Age 28/12/95]
