News - Community & business

At a recent 2020 Planning Forum in Canberra, ACT Liberal Opposition
Leader Zed Seselja said: “I believe that a bigger Canberra is a good
thing.”

He described a number of reasons why he believes this. Not mentioned
however was how the ACT Government - any ACT Government - could afford
the costs of the extra infrastructure a big population spike would
require. And recent budget troubles are making it obvious the ACT is
already economically unsustainable.

Opposing this line was Mark O’Connor, author of "This Tired Brown
Land" – a book at the vanguard of the argument that population growth
is pivotal to all social and environmental degradation we are
suffering and our children will suffer into the future.

Other speakers at the forum appeared to dance around the population
issue. It begs the question why?

In one of those curious little coincidences in life, this was
summarised quite well just days later in a piece by Melvin Bolton on
Science Alert (http://www.sciencealert.com.au/opinions/20102202-20637.html).

“A lot of people make money out of population growth so in their view
the more consumers the better and the more pressure on land the
greater the rise in its value. That’s the simple reality, but it has
an emotive component that is less obvious. Somehow, the promoters of
population growth have fostered the idea, deep in the human psyche,
that they hold the moral high ground; that nice people can only ever
want more people. Those who disagree are suspect. They must hate
motherhood, or migrants, or both, and are probably closet racists.

“Politicians loathe being asked about population policy. Green NGOs
keep it off their manifestos for fear of losing support. Public
figures in conversation quickly change the subject.”

Kevin Rudd recently announced projections that Australia’s population
would swell to 36 million by 2050 – just 40 years! To align with this,
ACTPLA is planning for a 60% population increase in Canberra in the
same timeframe.

I regularly hear people describe Gungahlin as a planning disaster.
Anyone in Canberra who thinks Gungahlin is a once-off, and everything
from here on will be peachy, is kidding themselves. And the older
established areas won’t be immune to the effects either. Neither will
the next generation, who won’t be able to afford any home that
includes the ‘luxury’ of an actual back yard - thanks to the pressure
of population growth.

Giving Mr Bolton the last word: “All this plays back into the hands of
the population profiteers. Misinformation is easy to maintain when
those who know better prefer to keep quiet."