the people of Victoria have voted and over 80% are saying the Greens and Libs did the right thing and they have NO CONFIDENCE in Justin Madden.

Just like we in Sunshine have ZERO confidence in him and his partner in crime Dick Wynne.

Check out the poll here and vote if you havent yet

http://www.theage.com.au/polls/form.html

no confidence vote wrote:
the people of Victoria have voted and over 80% are saying the Greens and Libs did the right thing and they have NO CONFIDENCE in Justin Madden.

Just like we in Sunshine have ZERO confidence in him and his partner in crime Dick Wynne.

Check out the poll here and vote if you havent yet

http://www.theage.com.au/polls/form.html

Trouble is Melbourne 2030 implementation is dumb planning

no infrastructure or services to support population growth and medium density housing in communities is dumb planning Justin

just like the Sunshine RSL project

Victoria the place where dumb planning is encouraged


http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/more-people-does-not-equal-trashing-our-environment-20100113-m6uh.html

More people does not equal trashing our environment

MICHAEL DANBY
January 14, 2010 Comments 41


Australia can cope with population growth. We just need smart planning.

My colleague Kelvin Thomson recently issued a "14-point plan for population reform" in which he argued that Australia's environment and infrastructure cannot cope with a population of 35 million by the year 2050, which has been forecast by Treasury.

Thomson suggested a cut to the skilled migration intake and a freeze on the family reunion intake (while increasing our refugee intake).

Although I agree that concerns about environment and infrastructure are legitimate reasons for questioning population growth, I believe such concerns can be mitigated. Minimal growth should not be our aim.

Continued high population growth is an almost uniquely Australian issue. Most developed countries are battling the reverse problem, that of population decline. The populations of Italy, Germany, Japan and South Korea will shrink by tens of millions of people over coming decades. Russia faces the greatest demographic collapse, with its population predicted to shrink from 140 million to 100 million by 2050. All these countries face disastrous economic consequences. The proportion of people aged over 65 is expected to rise rapidly, as is the cost of medical care. The growing tax burden will fall heavily on the declining proportion of the population who are of working age.

At the turn of the millennium, it seemed Australia might be going down the same path. Our rate of natural increase had been declining for decades, reaching a low of 1.7 per female, and our level of migration was lower than the average over previous decades.

However, in recent years the trends have reversed. We have had rapid increases in our rate of natural growth and in immigration. The Howard government, in fact, encouraged an unprecedented number of migrants.

While neither the Government nor the Opposition has a firm policy of supporting the positive change in natural increase and the boost in migration, principally skilled immigration, a long-standing "vibe" has prevailed in both major parties that population growth is good for the nation.

That is why I am apprehensive about moves, such as proposed by Thomson, to sharply cut our migrant intake (from its current 200,000 a year to 95,000), and particularly our intake of skilled migrants and recent graduates (from 130,000 to 25,000). Not only would it shrink the population of working-age people able to support the ageing baby boomers, it would have economic consequences as Australia still faces a skills shortage.

Research shows that cutting migration to the level Thomson suggests would cost the federal budget about $600 million in the first year. Access Economics figures show that a single year of migration (2008) will add more than $800 million to the tax base in the first year and $1339 million in the 20th year. One year alone of principally skilled migration would benefit the taxpayer by more than $20 billion over the 20-year period.

I do not accept that population growth and protecting our environment are incompatible. Australia can increase its population and still manage our water problem. We must cut our water consumption, better conserve water, modernise irrigation and invest in desalination.

One successful example is Victoria's desalination project, which will provide 150 billion litres of non-rainfall-dependent water from next year. Increased recycling, including upgrading water treatment plants, is projected to save more than 100 billion litres of water per year.

By 2036, Melbourne's population may be approaching 7 million and regional Victoria will grow by up to 500,000 people.

Plans are in place to upgrade transport systems to adjust to this growth: a new rail tunnel between west and east will increase the capacity of Melbourne's rail network by about 12,000 passengers every hour; a new regional rail link will be the biggest expansion to the rail network since the Melbourne city loop.

Last month, the states and the Commonwealth agreed that infrastructure funds would be tied to integrated urban planning that must take into account demographic growth.

If we support the ''vibe" of population growth having economic benefits, it is even more incumbent on us to cut our greenhouse gas emissions, cut our per capita energy use, boost the use of renewable energy, and put a price on carbon through an emissions trading scheme.

We can grow larger, richer and maintain our generous care of seniors, but we will need integrated planning for future water, energy and transport throughout Australia.

Michael Danby is the chairman of Federal Parliament's joint committee on migration.

Looks like Dick Smith might be having an impact with Kev 07 walking away from the big Australia as his idea.

See Dick's Press Release below - it all sounds horribly familiar.

A properly informed community led debate must happen not the usual biased government led debate.



DICK SMITH MEDIA RELEASE THURSDAY 28 JANUARY 2010

DICK SMITH ASKS

“IS IT TIME FOR A NEW POLITICAL PARTY?”
BOOK LAUNCH

Businessman Dick Smith believes Australia’s rapid population growth has
become a major threat to the nation’s future. He asks if it’s time Australia had
a political party dedicated to reducing and containing the growth of its
population.

He will speak further when launching a revised version of the book
Overloading Australia (see www.australianpoet.com/overloading.html) at
Dymock’s City Store at 424 George Street, Sydney at 11.00am Monday 1
February 2010.

“Ideally one of the major parties should take up the issue and give voters a
choice”, Dick Smith said. “Failing that, I expect we will end up with a new party
that is dedicated to the issue.

“It’s not as if the voters need convincing. It is evident that our cities and our
environments are not coping with the increasing population. Everywhere you
see crowding, the loss of backyards and personal space, traffic jams, and skyhigh
house prices that make people mortgage slaves.

“When I was a boy ordinary families on a single income could buy a house in
the suburbs, with a front and back garden. Today that’s mostly for the rich.
“Australia’s population is now growing at 2% a year, several times the average
for industrialised countries. If we maintain that rate, we’d double every 35
years until we run out of food. Half our population increase over the past
decade has come from the surplus of births over deaths, and we still have
twice as many births as deaths each year. Yet the government pays baby
bonuses to persuade us to have more children.

“And the federal government has supported a near tripling of immigration. We
need to get immigration back down to around 70,000 per annum. That’s still
huge, relative to our population, by world standards. It would still allow for a
large non-discriminatory intake, and an increase or even a doubling in our
humanitarian intake, which was less than 5% of last year’s 285,000. We also
need to stop pirating trained people, including doctors and nurses, from much
poorer countries.

“I’m angry that we’ve been fed so much biased information about needing a
larger population. I myself was taken in, until my daughter asked me what I
was doing about “the elephant in the room” in relation to climate change: that
is population growth. My young granddaughter, Charlie Brown, could be alive
at the end of this century when Australia’s population would be over 100
million if the 2% growth stays the same.

It’s also hypocritical that we talk about reducing the nation’s emissions while
facilitating an increase in the number of people responsible for the emissions!
Meanwhile we’re selling off in decades stocks of minerals and coal that took
millions of years to accumulate, and some foolish economists and politicians
even demand a larger population so we’ll have the labour to ship our assets
off even faster!

You don’t need a large population to be wealthy. Look at the USA. It has
fifteen times our population, but we already have a similar GDP per person to
the USA1, and they don’t even have universal healthcare. More people will
simply mean less for each of us.

[color=#FF0000]Of course it’s true that business folk want growth, and many will donate to
political parties to ensure the policies they want. It’s easier to make profits in a growing economy, and I have personally benefited from this growth.
However, commonsense alone will tell you that this can’t go on forever. It
would be gutless for me not to try to communicate the problems of constant
population growth.[/color]

Overloading Australia helped convince me of that, and I believe it will convince
other Australians,” Dick Smith concluded.

On Overloading Australia contact Mark O'Connor 02 6247 3341 or This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

For further information contact Dick Smith on 02-9450 0600, mobile 0408 640
221 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

While Dick Smith has not been my hero on things aviation safety, on this issue he is right.

Australia needs a sensible, modest growth trajectory. Let's face it, as people become richer, more secure that their children will survive, they don't have as many. It's a reflection of our success. And, if our immigrant intake keeps us on a modest growth curve we have the best of both worlds.

Melbourne's growth has exceeded the Vic government's expectations and, despite all their planning for denser cities, they have been overwhelmed to the extent of the imprudent release of green wedge lands and the ludicrous tax on people owning land in the new growth corridor - not just land bankers but farmers and residents. Was this bright idea dreamed up by jealous ALP- contributing developers who saw someone else getting windfall profit while they had to pay for infrastrucure works that they could pass on to buyers??

The Rudd government came in on a platform that included improvements to the health and education systems, and eliminating homelessness. By allowing this greater-than-wartime level of net immigration to continue they will effectively waste any money they've thrown at all these systems.

Too many people, too quickly means more demand on health services - migrants have families, too - and education spaces and most of all housing. The rapid increase in demand for housing at all levels will cause a huge housing bubble that will create more homelessness and poverty among those who can't afford housing or extreme rents. And at this rate of growth, you can forget any gains on climate change, because every person living the Australian standard uses more energy and water than millions of people in the impoverished world.

I wish that Dick Smith could have also pointed out the futility of increasing the population at a greater rate than health or education or housing funding can be increased and that means our standards must be lowered. It's a real false economy. A too rapid trajectory sets the Labor government up to fail against every one of its 2007 election commitments. On top of that, too rapid population growth with set inflation soaring as scarcity strikes.

Businessman's utopia. Citizen's nightmare.

Dear Friends,

Further population growth anywhere is irresponsible. Those advocating more population growth need to understand simple arithmetic of growth and need to look at the finite nature of natural resources.

Countries which have declining populations at present are fortunate. This is the only road to true sustainability. Yet their political leaders cry out in anguish that the people must get back into production! It's a tragedy.

Albert A. Bartlett
Professor Emeritus of Physics
University of Colorado, Boulder
80309-0390

Businessman's utopia. Citizen's nightmare.

We're owned by the banks.. wake up

One of the key features of 2030 or whatever its called now, was the increase in density of housing by getting people to live in high rise apartments. While checking the real estate market for flats in Melbourne, I discovered that SIX out of seven ads for apartments read 'suitable for student accommodation'. That student accommodation sector in Melbourne must be HUGE. Now how many students in a two bed flat does it take to pay the $400 per week rental? Or, are these flats filled with the students whose parents can afford to pay their accommodation?

What will Brumby do if the natives keep attacking the people who make up the stimulus for rapid highrise development in Melbourne? My, my if other nations do a better deal on student migration courses and those students drop Victoria, will that lead to glut of empty city apartments?

Albert A. Bartlett wrote:
Dear Friends,

Further population growth anywhere is irresponsible. Those advocating more population growth need to understand simple arithmetic of growth and need to look at the finite nature of natural resources.

Countries which have declining populations at present are fortunate. This is the only road to true sustainability. Yet their political leaders cry out in anguish that the people must get back into production! It's a tragedy.

Albert A. Bartlett
Professor Emeritus of Physics
University of Colorado, Boulder
80309-0390 I totally agree with you, but reaching our esteemed 'leaders' is impossible.

I am firmly of the belief that a graphical representation could be made of where population, natural resources, wealth and the environment that is sustainable on planet earth is in equilibrium. I would argue that we passed the point of equilibrium many years ago so somebody needs to step up to the plate and push for a limit to population growth.

You do not have to be a genius to determine that the earth is not growing to accommodate the population growth. Is it only politicians that do not realise that the larger the population gets the more it will affect our living standards. I suppose when you think about most of our politicians still believe devine intervention will fix things.

robk wrote:
I am firmly of the belief that a graphical representation could be made of where population, natural resources, wealth and the environment that is sustainable on planet earth is in equilibrium. I would argue that we passed the point of equilibrium many years ago so somebody needs to step up to the plate and push for a limit to population growth.

You do not have to be a genius to determine that the earth is not growing to accommodate the population growth. Is it only politicians that do not realise that the larger the population gets the more it will affect our living standards. I suppose when you think about most of our politicians still believe devine intervention will fix things.

politicians are addicted to growth growth growth as the investment it freates masks all their other social and environmental failings

and it gives them the opportunity to fill up the slush funds like the Vic ALP does with its "donations" vehicle Progressive Business

its a simple time proven recipe for corruption and neglect

growth growth growth wrote:
robk wrote:
I am firmly of the belief that a graphical representation could be made of where population, natural resources, wealth and the environment that is sustainable on planet earth is in equilibrium. I would argue that we passed the point of equilibrium many years ago so somebody needs to step up to the plate and push for a limit to population growth.

You do not have to be a genius to determine that the earth is not growing to accommodate the population growth. Is it only politicians that do not realise that the larger the population gets the more it will affect our living standards. I suppose when you think about most of our politicians still believe devine intervention will fix things.

politicians are addicted to growth growth growth as the investment it freates masks all their other social and environmental failings

and it gives them the opportunity to fill up the slush funds like the Vic ALP does with its "donations" vehicle Progressive Business

its a simple time proven recipe for corruption and neglect

Yes it's called the Pyramid Scheme - illegal in the financial industry - but obviously not in social planning/population.

It's a great scheme while it's being built - everyone wins and wins and wins until it starts to implode. Then everyone loses, it's not pretty and don't expect a soft landing.

The reason it always crashes - every Pyramid Scheme crashes eventually - is because the growth is not sustainable. It only last while you can keep adding investors to pay for the previous investor's returns. Last man out is the last man hanging by a noose.

The government policy/plan has been to keep increasing the investors in Australia (immigration/births) but this is a false economy that cannot be maintained.

When the immigration stops and or the birth rate flattens out again - Australia is going to come to a screeching halt - and we will see the worst depression until the government figures out a better model for a sustainable economy.

Don't know if your aware, but the opposite is true.

Less people the better.

eg, i'ld rather live in Australia in the 80's then 2010.

It was cleaner and safer, etc

I believe there are alot of people in power which want to depopulate the world.
eg, one child polices, forced sterilization, war, new viruses/diseases , dangerous vaccines, experimental GMO/GE foods.

Do you ever wonder why in the year 2010 there still is no cure to old, old! diseases eg cancer?

And why are we still dependent on old, old! fossil fuels?

In 2010? hmmm that's really interesting

What crap wrote:
Don't know if your aware, but the opposite is true.

Less people the better.

eg, i'ld rather live in Australia in the 80's then 2010.

It was cleaner and safer, etc

I believe there are alot of people in power which want to depopulate the world.
eg, one child polices, forced sterilization, war, new viruses/diseases , dangerous vaccines, experimental GMO/GE foods.

Do you ever wonder why in the year 2010 there still is no cure to old, old! diseases eg cancer?

And why are we still dependent on old, old! fossil fuels?

In 2010? hmmm that's really interesting
Don't quite understand what you said. You like less people, you say there are politicians who want to depopulate the world by forced sterilisation, etc, and wars and the suppression of cures for diseases because there might be too many people? And the economic activity generated by wars and ill health is far more valuable than people?

Trouble is it is actually overpopulation that causes the wars and makes diseases spread faster so those depopulators using the traditional war and disease method are patently failing.

With the planet's population soaring towards 9billion we will probably accommodate another 9billion by wiping out all animal habitat and all nature reserves that supply our water and dropping the living standards for all but extremely rich in their fortresses, before anyone gets particularly worried. After all, when it gets hot, hungry and crowded the age old response of humans is fight (war) or flight (migrate to somewhere else).

What happens when we run out of somewhere elses?