Dick Smith's Population Puzzle.

[WinstonWolfe]

Hi WW

That graph only shows the number of overstayers who end up in detention. It doesn't show the 50,000-100,000 each year who don't...

Most visa overstayers 'are English lads'

Immigration Minister Chris Evans says many of those who overstay their visas in Australia are young English lads who are having too good a time.
The immigration department told a Senate hearing in Canberra on Tuesday that as of June 30, a total of 48,456 people had overstayed their visa.
"Visa overstayers are people who come on a valid visa who then become unlawful overstayers," Senator Evans said.


"They're often young Englishmen who have gone to a party and are a few days late because they're having such a good time in Sydney.
"Or they've met a young lady and (they're) having a good time."
Senator Evans said they usually went home within a week of the visa expiring.
The number of international students who overstayed their visas was also raised during the hearing.
But an immigration department official said it was a relatively small number.
As of June 30, there were about 3,500 student overstayers.
There were about 547,700 international student enrolments in Australia as of July 2009.

 

[Dazz]

I shall always aspire to the big block and lifestyle we are discussing, for myself and my kids, but the reality is that for the vast majority of people living in Australia today, it is just a dream and shall remain that way. We both know it is already a luxury only available to those few who can afford it.

Yep - just like everyone else. The vast majority aspire to it. I don't agree that only a few can afford it. The land may come in various locations, and that's the majority of the cost, but I'd say the majority attain it in Perth, just the value of the dirt underneath varies a bit.

To give everyone a quarter acre block within a half hour of our capital cities would require a significant decrease in population from where we are currently and that ain't going to happen.

True, but people are more than happy to knock down bush, just as long as they are 5 or 10 minutes from the beach. Have a look at the east coast. Have a look what's happened to Perth over the last 30 years. In 1980 it used to go from Rockingham to Trigg. Now it spreads out about 200km from way way south of Mandurah to Yanchep and beyond. Soon they'll link up Two Rocks. Big flash 4x2's with all the mod cons. People describe land up north as being quite close, only 25 mins drive to Joondalup !!

For my kids, I would prefer them to have a peaceful future. And yes, in the meantime I will continue to work towards the kind of financial future that allows my family to enjoy as many of the benefits of this lifestyle as possible...

Yep - just like everyone else. I'm not prepared to downgrade. Sounds like you are not prepared to downgrade, and I'd reckon the vast majority of everyone else in Oz isn't prepared to either.

.....and here we find ourselves.....

I didn't hear anyone on Dick Smith's program, nor Dick Smith's family, nor anyone on the Q&A panel volunteer to be the first to stop populating. No one was prepared to sacrifice one iota of either lifestyle or family member to reduce the impact on the natural world.

I guess we'll all just carry on and tinker at the edges until someone forces us to change, and then wheel the lawyers in to "strenuously object that our rights have been stripped away".

It's all hot p122 and wind....noble and true for sure, but a load of ol' cobblers.

 

[.toe]

The sooner we put a price on carbon, the sooner the real costs of things will be be known. For example the real cost of international trade, of letting our manufacturing industry go, of importing our food, and of growing the population.

 

[HiEquity]

I didn't hear anyone on Dick Smith's program, nor Dick Smith's family, nor anyone on the Q&A panel volunteer to be the first to stop populating. No one was prepared to sacrifice one iota of either lifestyle or family member to reduce the impact on the natural world.

Agreed. Which is why govts need to take the hard decisions for us. This gets back to the fundamental weakness of democracies - when hard decisions are required which nobody wants. If it is to work the system relies on the populace being convinced it's the way we eventually have to go. Getting that level of consensus will be a long and hard road, just like carbon pricing, that we can temporarily ignore but ultimately can't avoid forever.

Society will ultimately be better off if we can get to that outcome sooner rather than later.

BTW I don't have any hard data but when you include all the villas and apartments out there I would have guessed the average block size in the Perth metro area would be <500sqm?

 

[Sheryn]

Wonder how much petrol/diesel is wasted idling in traffice jams each day?

I thought it was a good documentary, just didn't appreciate the bias towards the end that 9 out of 10 people would vote for....

Good on Dick Smith and his daughter!

The god hubby and I often watch the night new and traffice report and say to each other when the kilometres long evening traffic jam is identified for viewers, "Who'd live in Sydney?"

I usually have a pleasant drive home in peak hour traffice and if I want I can avoid our one traffic light intersection.

No way could I face an hour each way nor standing up in a bus or train for up to an hour.


Kind Regards
Sheryn

 

[Rixter]

I wouldn't be surprised if John Elliot was drunk.

Pigs arsss!

Seriously tho I missed it,,,anyone got a link to a replay?

 

[Dazz]

No way could I face an hour each way nor standing up in a bus or train for up to an hour.

When commuting backwards and forwards to the Middle East every 5 weeks, it used to be ;

• 1 hr in the taxi
• 2 hrs in the airport
• 14 hrs in the plane
• 3 hrs in the airport
• 4 hrs in the plane
• 2 hrs in the airport
• 1 hr in the plane
• 3 hrs in the 4WD

Get there and be expecting to do a 12 hr shift. First day was always fun.

5 weeks later, do it all again in reverse. It never seemed as long coming home.

Of course, we were making the stuff, so had no qualms whatsoever about using some of it up.

 

[topcropper]

Hi

I watched the program - well presented with a good variety of opinions - but I wasn't sure of the relevance of the Bangladesh segment.

Was he try to imply that if the popoulation growth in Australia continues then we shall end up being the new Bangladesh: - dense population = slum housing + congested streets + inadequate health services + beggars on streets.

Lindsay Tanner used Bangladesh as an example of how underpopulated Australia is by using Bangladesh as an example of how populated it's possible to become. I wouldn't be surprised if Tanner is a closet 'small Australia' advocate and mentioned Bangladesh as sort of protest. There must be a lot of misery in that place. There is 160 million people in Bangladesh, in an area two thirds that of Victoria.

If so, instead why not look to other countries with dense population - Singapore/ Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ even Holland, but then the images are not as scary.

You haven't thought much about this comment eh? Lets just look at Singapore?

4.7 million people crammed into an area just a third as big as Sydney? 4.7 million people crammed into 69,000 hectares? Surely you must realise that Singapore imports food? Sydney does. Surely you must realise that Singapore imports energy? Yes? Sydney depends on coal fired power stations, mostly the ones just south of me that I can see from here if I walk to the top of the great dividing range, Bayswater and Liddell in the Hunter Valley

Singapore imports just about everything, and pays for it by having a vibrant financial services sector, IT industry, pharmaceuticals and manufacturing sector.

Singapore depends on countries like Australia to supply it with food and energy, and we gladly swap for the consumer products Singapore produces.
It would take millions of hectares to supply the food needed by the 4.7 million Singapore residents, and more again for the energy and commodities they need.

Singapore needs the food and commodities of 100 times or more it's land mass to sustain it.


See ya's.

 

[topcropper]

The world has a problem ....

Yep, the west consumes too much, and the third worlds population growth is out of control. Agreed.

I think you make a very good argument here that we have to accept our own lifestyle is just as much a problem here as anything else. As well as our pretence that it matters not what problems there are in the rest of the world. In future we have to consume less per capita, significantly reduce the 40% of food we currently waste and compromise on our "lifestyle". We can consume far fewer resources and increase our population at the same time - if we wish to choose that path....

It's just not going to happen.

I like good food and beer. I'm not going to stop eating heaps of meat. I own a water ski boat, it has a 6.2 litre, V8 motor. I own a dirtbike, 2 actually. Everyone in my family owns a dirtbike, including the kids. I own a plastic canoe, and 3 plastic Kayaks. The wife and kids are going to Christchurch, New Zealand next week to their nans 90th birthday by aeroplane. We live in a big house, but we are about to increase the living areas. I have an LCD TV in the lounge room, and one in the tractor, and I am about to buy a few more. We drive a four wheel drive as a family car, as we like to go to places in the bush, the wild remote bush, wilderness places, and camp, and stuff, and canoe down rivers, and just be there.

I was just on the Gold Coast. We were looking about at what people are doing with new houses and stuff to get ideas for our reno. Whole valleys of new housing going in. Massive houses, 4 beds, theaters, with pools, gas fireplaces that look like the old wood ones with silly looking fake wood in em, and the Gold Coast is a place that produces absolutely nothing anymore, but just consumes, food, energy and consumer stuff. There are harvey normans that take up a whole block, and shopping centres bigger than a country town.

Recognising our environmental limitations doesn't mean we have to stop population growth - we can show others how it should be done instead of being the most wasteful country on the planet as we currently are - in nearly any measure - energy, food, land use, transport. But we can't do it if we keep hankering for the quarter acre block and other nostalgic hangovers of the "old Australia", as Mr Smith seems to advocate. That's our most pernicious cultural expectation (just like hobby farms) and it has to change.

Convincing ourselves that changing this lifestyle is in our own best interest is the most difficult challenge but it must be done if there is to be any hope...

You go first then.


See ya's.

 

[CruzCrtl]

Human beings are on the right track of self distracting.

 

[WinstonWolfe]

It's just not going to happen.

It'll happen eventually, if not to us, to our kids, or grandkids.

 

[topcropper]

To give everyone a quarter acre block within a half hour of our capital cities would require a significant decrease in population from where we are currently and that ain't going to happen.

...

And around here, where we are 5 hours from the CBD of the nearest capital city, no one even wants to live in town. The ultimate is to own acres just minutes out of town, preferably with a creek and a view.

I even have a soccer field out the front.

See ya's.

 

[HiEquity]

You go first then.

We are. We have one car and a few bicycles. I cycle to work. No V8s, boats, motor bikes, canoes, TVs, etc etc etc. Two kids and one on the way in a 130sqm house. Haven't used personal plane travel for seven years.

And I spend my working life working on sustainable energy solutions.

Yet we enjoy life...

 

[HiEquity]

And around here, where we are 5 hours from the CBD of the nearest capital city, no one even wants to live in town. The ultimate is to own acres just minutes out of town, preferably with a creek and a view.

I even have a soccer field out the front.

I reckon you deserve all that and more for being 5 hours from a CBD!

Will your kids be able to go to high school in the area? My wife had to go to boarding school in her youth due to poor educational options in her family's farming area. Whenever I suggest a rural lifestyle she slaps me and spends the next ten minutes reading from the list imprinted in the back of her brain of all the disadvantages to farm life. There's no way to get her back out there - at least until the kids have all flown the coop. From her POV it certainly wasn't all peaches and cream...

Good thing we're all different, hey?

 

[Dazz]

Two kids and one on the way...

Good friend,

If I can just refer you to the subject title of the thread, we are discussing the issue of reducing population, and how society is to tackle the ever increasing population problem.

Your ideals seem honourable, but your actions are heading in the exact opposite direction.

Can I suggest the purchase of a good wide screen plasma to entertain yourselves in the evening.....before you are forced to invest in multiple double bunk beds ??

What I'm trying to say is your small efforts, whilst noble, won't amount to a hill of beans if your 3 kids grow up to be like topcropper and myself, wanton consumers, living on grotesque chunks of arable land with every electro gizmo at our disposal, and enough V10's to scare Jack Brabham....our carbon footprint so large we need snow-shoes just to get around.

Speaking of that, I'm rather peckish. I hear over in NZ they have some outstanding roast venison at this time of the year. Combine that with some roe from the albino trout flown in fresh from the Volga, with Bergerac truffle consomme....and wash it all down with a nice Portugese chianti. Then it's fly back to Perth in the evening in time for some ice skating down at the rink with the whole family in the mini-bus, a perfect way to spend a summer's day.

Now, about those blasted Bangladeshi chaps.....

 

[Graemsay]

If so, instead why not look to other countries with dense population - Singapore/ Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ even Holland, but then the images are not as scary.

Holland's up there in terms of highly density populated countries. I'm living in Delft at present, and as you can see from this photograph it's a crowded hellhole of a slum.

There are worse places to live, and it's worth noting you could fit Rudd's Big Australia into Tasmania with a lower population density than over here.

 

[.toe]

Worldwide economic security is becoming more closely aligned with environmental issues whether we like it or not. In the current model, economic growth is reliant on population growth. If we want low population growth and a strong economy for the industrialised world then we should support a worldwide ETS.

Here's why. In 2007 Australians produced 18.8 tonnes of carbon emissions per person. The estimated value of a tonne of carbon in an ETS is $40-$50AUD. That would amount to a cost to the economy of upto $20Billion or 2% of GDP. Next year we plan for immigration of 170,000. That could amount to an added emmissions cost of $160Million.

Of course if we had to bear this cost while other industrialised countries did not, then we'd be in trouble. But a worldwide price on carbon would provide the right motivation for industrialised countries to contain their population, and compete with each other on these grounds.

A cost of an ETS of maybe 2% of GDP might seem like a lot to some people. But that cost assumes there are no advances made to offset the cost by lowering emissions. In a competitive world environment with an ETS we could surely save 2%, given that Aus GDP grew 24% in 2008.

Last year when a 'Big Australia' was K Rudd's buzz word, various anti ETS commentators were questioning how in the world Rudd can support both an ETS and a Big Australia. The arguement being that an ETS would work to kill off a Big Australia. Well bring it on!

 

[topcropper]

I reckon you deserve all that and more for being 5 hours from a CBD!

Will your kids be able to go to high school in the area?

We are 5 hours from a capital city CBD.

We are 16 ks to a town of 300 with a shop and pub and primary school. We are 35 ks to a town of 3000 with a small supermarket, and high school. A school bus goes past our front gate. Tamworth has about 40,000 and even has traffic lights. I'm not sure what else you could need.

On a farm tour of the WA wheat belt a few years ago I got the impression that I wouldn't want to live there in summer. Stinking hot and everything dry as a chip and dusty. There wasn't even much to do on a grain farm over summer as with no rain, nothing grew, and a lot of the farmers had another house over on the coast that they retreated to once harvest was done for 3 months or so. That's a bit different to here.


See ya's.

 

[random]

A few little theories of mine on vehicals

In a country like Australia I have absolutely no idea what the problem is with cars , heavier vehicles yes but cars no.
They have out flexible solar panels already - focus on those , get them more concentrated , embed into car roofs, bonnet and boot surfaces .
Once the motor's moving , it should be able to generate most of it's own energy anyway. If something spins you can generate from it, it just needs the right gearing , better storage technology. This plugging into home and power up servo's only defeats the purpose anyway and more and more power is still being used and needed just a different type .
Lawn mowers and little tractors the same , especially the stuff that doesn't get used much , just bloody park it outside - wow that's hard !
Heavy vehicles , dunno , it gets tougher but I reckon some of our Somersoft minds alone could have ideas on that area?
Trains , people anyway, 100s off mtrs in roof area , lighten up the construction and why couldn't it basically self power just like the car .
Houses , why are they building wind farms , sea generators and solar stations everywhere when a house can power itself from it's own rooftop and have been doing for 30 yrs or ore all over Australia and the world ?
An English teacher mate of mine of the physically useless type , he even laughed about that one himself , built his own mud brick house and solar system 20 yrs ago. His families lived of it ever since it's nothing . There's 1000's of them all over the country has been for years.
Even in Germany's climate a guy invented just a small wind turbine that easily runs his house , it looks a lot like those spinning roof vents we buy at Bunnings and about the same size .
Industry , again it gets tough but they do have miles of factory roof. Lightings easy , all they need is higher powered versions of a solar garden light and they can have as many as they like on all day long. Free and clear environmentally and in cost .
Their machinery , well many factories only actually use quite light machinery & equipment anyway easily solar and wind powered from their roof areas . It wouldn't even be visible .
The heavier machinery and industries , again a lot tougher but their machinery itself could be trimmed right down for a start just as computers can be the size of a phone now .
Street lights , again easily self powered in led lighting .

I mean population energy use is the first thing they moan about yet considering these areas would probably concern more than 2/3 of the worlds population have just everyday living needs , they'd be 1/2 way there with no real problems at all .

Cheers
ps , oops I've rambled again. Ahwell, I'm pretty passionate about this stuff, just delete me.

 

[our obsession]

Random:

An English teacher mate of mine of the physically useless type , he even laughed about that one himself , built his own mud brick house and solar system 20 yrs ago. His families lived of it ever since it's nothing . There's 1000's of them all over the country has been for years.......
Even in Germany's climate a guy invented just a small wind turbine that easily runs his house , it looks a lot like those spinning roof vents we buy at Bunnings and about the same size

Precisely, our intentions precisely. A friend has his house set up totally self sufficient, (power and water supply). A reasonably extensive solar power system, meets all his needs and feeds back into the grid, (he is in a regional vic city), getting him credits, but I must ask him what point are credits when he only uses his own power.

The wind turbines, my understanding-well, for an example over 140 of them are to be erected in/near Macarthur (Vic) and will have enough oomph to power over 200,000 homes. There are already those around outlying small towns north of Ballarat doing similar.

Our intention is, once in our own home to be solar powered, (I have had my friend to be my guinea pig for his set up and running), and rainwater, now he does all this in a suburban street-in a small city, our intention is on hectares, but point being it's fun, it's independence, it may seem like a greater outlay cost initially but ...the IRR immeasurable.

And it it is achievable, right now, can be done, it's just a matter of choosing/deciding to do it!

I am in an area however that statistically has close to more sunshine hours than Queensland. for whatever that is worth, "what we do" may not be best case scenario for other localities, Vic is varied.

But that itself is the thing too, there are multiple solutions for multiple challenges.