Kelvin Thomson (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In 2010 I visited Queensland on several occasions to give speeches about rapid population growth—in Brisbane, on the Sunshine Coast and at the Woodford Folk Festival. I encountered great unhappiness at the impact that rapid population growth was having in Brisbane and South-East Queensland and was not surprised when the Queensland Labor government was defeated in 2012, although the scale of the defeat was remarkable. In many respects the Queensland government had fallen victim to the same problems that had beset the Victorian Labor government which was defeated in 2010. The Queensland Labor Party has now pulled off an astonishing turnaround, regaining office in a single term and toppling an elected Premier in the process. In Victoria Ted Baillieu was replaced by his own party and did not get to contest the election; in Queensland Campbell Newman lost his seat.

Political commentators are astonished at this growing political volatility. Kevin Rudd was elected as Prime Minister and replaced by Julia Gillard before the 2010 election. She in turn was replaced by Kevin Rudd before the 2013 election. It is now widely speculated that Tony Abbott too will not get to seek re-election as Prime Minister. So what is going on? No doubt factors like broken election promises, the 24/7 media cycle, the global financial crisis and voters choosing state and federal governments of different complexions are having an impact, but one feature of the past decade is regularly overlooked.

In 2004 Australia had a net migration program of 100,000. Then, in the space of three years, it ratcheted up to well over 200,000, where it has stayed. This doubling has given Australia rapid population growth for the past decade. We now have an extra million people every three years. Prime Minister Howard, who introduced this rapid increase, lost his seat at the 2007 election. I have become convinced that rapid population growth and political instability go hand in hand. I think of this as the witches' hats theory of government. Think about those advanced driving courses that require drivers to drive in slalom fashion through a set of plastic or rubber orange cones, which are commonly called witches hats. The driver's mission is to avoid the hats. If they hit a certain number, they fail the test.

I think the re-election task of the government has some similarities. If you think of each hat as an area of public policy—education, health, housing, transport, aged care et cetera—if a government mucks up an area of public policy, it is akin to hitting one of the hats. And if a government hits a number of hats—that is, fails a number of public policy tasks—it is likely to be voted out, just as the driver who hits the hats will not get their advanced driving qualification. It seems pretty obvious that, if you are a driver, you are much more likely to avoid the hats if you are travelling at 50 kilometres an hour whereas if you are driving at 100 kilometres an hour you are pretty likely to hit some hats. And if you are a government, you are much more likely to solve people's problems if you have a population that is growing slowly rather than one that is growing rapidly.

The Queensland and Victorian Liberal governments were elected on the back of public discontent with issues such as planning, public transport, cost of living, housing unaffordability and job insecurity. But as these things had been caused by rapid population growth—and the growth continued—they did not solve those problems and they paid a massive electoral price for it. For example, governments get punished for trying to sell off public assets. They do it to raise money to build new infrastructure or to pay down debts incurred as a result of past infrastructure building. But they would not need so much money, or so much infrastructure, if the population was not growing so fast. Queensland academic Jane O'Sullivan says population growth of two per cent doubles the infrastructure task compared with that in a stable population.

It is not only in Australia that rapid population growth drives political instability. It happens right around the world. Governments in the Scandinavian countries, with slow population growth, are able to solve people's problems and enjoy considerable political life expectancy. Countries which have high birth rates—such as Egypt, Nigeria and the Philippines—have chaos. In the Pacific Islands, Samoa has had a relatively stable population and stable government for decades whereas Papua New Guinea and Solomon Islands have had neither.

I know it is not fashionable to focus on our past decade of rapid population growth as a cause of Australia's political instability and volatility. Some are happier focussing on the alleged personal qualities of our leaders—they have heaped praise, or derision, on Anna Bligh, Tony Abbott or Campbell Newman—when the fact is that a different leader with the same policies would have led to the same result. Others want to interpret election results through a highly ideological prism, and come unstuck as a consequence of believing too much of their own propaganda.

It is probably too late for this Prime Minister. But perhaps his successor, or successors, and other political leaders around Australia might want to ask themselves: 'Do I want to be yet another casualty of our equivalent of the Colosseum, or do I want a respectable time in office as prime ministers and premiers had as recently as the eighties and nineties?'—and, if so, isn't the way to improve their political life expectancy to slow the 'population car' down and focus on solving people's real life problems?

There is a clear correlation between population growth and social upheaval and unrest. The Arab Spring in Tunisia started when rising food prices, high unemployment and a widening gap between rich and poor triggered riots which led to the flight of Tunisia's autocratic ruler, Zine Ben Ali. Before he left, he vowed to reduce the price of sugar, milk and bread—too little too late. Protests began in Egypt, which led to a change of government there, and in Libya, which led to a change of government there too. The backdrop to this unrest was a rise in global wheat prices of the order of 70 per cent between June and December 2010. People simply could not afford the bread they needed to live. Egypt's population had grown from 22 million in 1952 to 81 million in 2010, nearly a fourfold increase in 60 years. Rapid population growth means lots of high-testosterone young males, who are prepared to risk bullets and oust dictators. After decades of exporting oil to pay for grain, Egypt now needs to import both oil and grain to meet the needs of a population that doubled under Mubarak and did not thank him for it.

But the link between rapid population growth and social unrest is not confined to the Middle East. On 12 August 2011, BBC Radio 4's More or Less program quoted US sociologist Professor Jack Goldstone, who said that, throughout history, there was a clear link between rapid population growth and social unrest as seen in events like the French and Russian revolutions and now in pockets of society that have seen rapid population growth and immigration.

The continent of Africa contains many examples of rapid population growth fuelling political instability. Africa's most populous country is Nigeria. In the 50 years between its independence in 1960 and 2010, Nigeria's population rose from 45 million to 158 million, a more than threefold increase. Accompanying this rapid increase have been economic booms and busts, military coups, widespread corruption and ethnic and religious divisions—and now we have Boko Haram. The population of Ghana quadrupled over 50 years—from six million at the time of independence in 1960 to over 24 million by 2010. From 1960 to 1992, Ghana was marred by military coups. Although rich in natural resources, Ghana is a heavily indebted country, with land disputes in the north erupting into ethnic violence. Kenya had a population of fewer than nine million when it gained independence in 1963. It now has a population of 40 million, a fourfold increase, and is currently growing at a brisk 2.8 per cent per year. In 1982 it became a one-party state and has been beset by mismanagement and corruption.

There is little doubt in my mind that rapid population growth and political instability go hand in hand. While often the instability is attributed to ethnic or religious differences, I believe these are merely symptoms of the underlying problem—too many people for the available resources of land, food, water, fuel, housing and jobs. A scarcity of resources leads to conflict. When that conflict occurs, people may well band together, or divide, along religious or ethnic lines—indeed, that is human nature—but whether we have that conflict in the first place, or whether people of different ethnicities and religions can live harmoniously together, often comes back to whether there are enough resources for all or simply too many people for the available resources. But there is the larger truth that rapid population growth is likely to undermine support for governments irrespective of the prevailing political system and culture.

Let me return to Australia. In 1945 Australia's population was seven million; today it is over 23 million. There is nothing inevitable about this growth. Back in 1945, Sweden's population was also seven million; today their population is nine million. Are we outperforming Sweden as a result? No. Do we have a better relationship with our landscape and environment? No. Does the evidence suggest we are better off as a society for this rapid population growth? No.

Let us go back to the Whitlam years—1974 and 1975. It has become folklore that the Whitlam Labor government were terrible economic managers and that subsequent governments have done a much better job of running the economy. Yet unemployment even in Whitlam's worst year, post-OPEC oil shock, averaged less than five per cent and has never been as low since. The Whitlam government was supposed to be a high-taxing government, but taxation as a percentage of GDP never reached 20 per cent; since then it has climbed above 20 per cent, rising to 24 per cent under John Howard and Peter Costello. And back then your taxes went a lot further. All the roads were free—no tolls; all the universities were free—no fees; and few parents sent their kids to non-government schools, so they did not have to fork out for school fees either. Net migration at that time was much less than 100,000 per annum compared with the over 200,000 it has been in recent years.

Or we could consider the 1960s. Then we had a population of around 12 million. There was no such thing as GST. Homes and rental properties were in good supply and inexpensive, compared with today, when Sydney and Melbourne have some of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world. There were jobs for everyone who wanted one. People did not have to work long hours; in fact, there was talk of a 35-hour week. Government employees did not have to sign work contracts. There were two mail deliveries each weekday and one on Saturday. There was no real waiting time for hospitals, and trains and buses were inexpensive and uncrowded. You could drive across cities in no time at all. Beaches and other public facilities were uncrowded; electricity and gas were cheap and we did not have water shortages. Working people could afford beachside suburbs or a holiday house. Crime rates were low. Many people did not lock their windows or doors. We did not have home invasions and children wandered city streets freely and without fear. We grew our produce instead of concreting our market gardens and then importing it. Prewar, according to the urban historian Patrick Troy, Melbourne grew a third of its own food in backyards—not because it needed to, and not because the country was not eager to supply produce, but because labour and space were available.

I want to spend a little time outlining particular areas where I believe that increasing population causes governments to grow out of touch with their communities and voters and therefore to lose support. Planning is a key area. In order to house a growing population, particularly in big cities, governments end up taking away citizens' right to a say in what their street, their neighbourhood and their suburb look like. Governments appeal to us to accept high-rise—we should become more European, they say—but many people do not want it. They like their backyard and they like their open space, and that is a witch's hat bowled over. In relation to prices, from 2007, electricity price inflation accelerated sharply. A rapid increase in electricity prices is definitely another witch's hat down. Regulators allowed double-digit price increases to fund infrastructure investment, which was needed to meet population growth. A country with a rapidly-growing population needs to devote more resources to building roads, schools, shops, houses, factories and so on than does a country with a low rate of population growth. This makes it harder to achieve the per capita income gains people aspire to.

Unskilled workers suffer from migration, skilled or otherwise. There is a huge amount of evidence that any increase in the number of unskilled workers lowers unskilled wages and increases the unskilled unemployment rate. Employers gain from unskilled immigration; the unskilled do not. There goes another witch's hat. So when you think about the adverse impacts on people that a rising population produces it is not really surprising that governments, in times of rapid population growth, tend to knock over plenty of witch's hats and lose public support. We are seeing this yet again in the trials and tribulations of this government.

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