Population growth exacerbates housing crisis - Bernard Salt

Raising our population to 34 million would give Australia the same population as Canada but a slightly smaller land mass (but a third of Canada's land mass is covered in sheet ice).

Its really no big deal.


Ahmm? And guess what three quarters of Australia's land land mass is covered in?

See ya's.
 
Ok Im definitely not picking a fight with you on farming practices.

Kangaroo turd? :D

!


Good one. :)
Although the correct answer was desert.



I had to drive into the city today.

Went through Scone and saw all the horse studs on prime farming land, mostly city and super wealthy money.
Went past the power stations at Muswellbrook.
Went past the coal mines all the way.
Then the vinyards, back to profitability due to the dry murray darling river.

The whole area is booming by the way, and looks a picture. Grass and clover a foot deep. The rivers are gushing with water.

Then into the big smoke and got looked down on by someone when I said I was a farmer.



Just thought I needed a rant.

See ya's.
 
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Boomer, the wet/dry season tropics will never be a big provider of food. The soil is crap. This comes from being flooded for 4 months of the year. The ord river scheme only works because the dam and lake Argyle allows irrigation over the dry season. Nothing much of food value grows in the wet. Too many bugs, too humid, too water logged.

Could work a bit if more dams are built, and more land cleared :eek::D
Get my point? :confused: Because I think you have missed it so far. :)


See ya's.

pump it south, not that big a deal
 
Raising our population to 34 million would give Australia the same population as Canada but a slightly smaller land mass (but a third of Canada's land mass is covered in sheet ice).

Its really no big deal.

you could stick 15m in a place such as karratha. the population could be 300 - 500 million quite easily. No idea if it is desirable or not but there is no reason it couldn't be
 
you could stick 15m in a place such as karratha. the population could be 300 - 500 million quite easily. No idea if it is desirable or not but there is no reason it couldn't be



You could do that. It would be possible, but the standard of living would be the same as that of an Ethiopian, and the environment would be completely destroyed, just like Africa's will be in 30 years time.

Thats my point.

See ya's.
 
You could do that. It would be possible, but the standard of living would be the same as that of an Ethiopian, and the environment would be completely destroyed, just like Africa's will be in 30 years time.

Thats my point.

See ya's.

why? look at the UKs population, they import virtually everything, all on an island not much bigger than Rottnest
 
Australia’s population has been growing for the last 200 years – largely through immigration. I don’t see any reason for us to cap it now.

The fact that politicians currently favour the delivery of tax cuts over delivering infrastructure is NOT a sound reason
 
Went through Scone and saw all the horse studs on prime farming land, mostly city and super wealthy money.

Greenies and environmentalists are city based. They don't want more dams, or more power stations, especially not nuclear powered ones, or even wind turbines [too noisey, too unsightly, and kills the odd bird :):)]. They don't want more mines, or more farms, or more cleared land, and as more people move into the cities, there are more and more city based greenies.

Hi TC

I'm in the wind farm development business and come across these problems all the time. I reckon the biggest scourge on the landscape at the moment is all the rural residential blocks going up on prime farming land near our cities. Nice homestead on a few acres with an ornamental dam, a few hazelnuts and nice driveway. We can't go near these areas even though they are windy and close to wires because of the density of development. And for what? It's just turning productive land into unproductive land for the "tree change" set. We can't afford to keep turning our best arable land into lifestyle blocks and I am just floored by how much of this has been happening.

Pity it's mainly the greenies wanting to "get back to nature" who are driving this. The same ones who reckon wind farms are the biggest scourge on their "native" (industrial) landscape. The irony is just lost on them unfortunately...

Keep our population in cities and towns and do productive things with productive land!

And for the life of me I don't know why we don't collect and recycle (ie filter) storm water. Desalinate it with reverse osmosis if you want to get picky about it. Much, much less energy intensive than what's going on now... I do despair sometimes!
 
Hi TC

I'm in the wind farm development business !



Those wind turbines are a magnificent thing. I feel like I've warped into the future when I see them.

And stuffed if I know what the issue is about noise? I was standing right under one in Tassie on a real windy day. And any bird that flew into one must be a bit dumb.


See ya's.
 
Rental crisis linked to migration boom - IMF

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...-migration-boom/2008/09/24/1222217331255.html

Rental crisis linked to migration boom

September 25, 2008

AUSTRALIA'S biggest migration boom is exacerbating the rental crisis, while house prices are overvalued by between 5 per cent and 15 per cent, the International Monetary Fund has said.

Immigration added a record 199,064 people to Australia over the year to March - the biggest annual rise in history, figures released yesterday by the Bureau of Statistics show. This surpasses the boom after World War II, which peaked at about 149,000 people in 1950.

"The inflow of migration is putting pressure on the housing rental market," the IMF said in its latest report card on the Australian economy.

The proposition is supported by new evidence showing rental vacancy rates are lowest in suburban areas where most new migrants tend to settle, such as the western suburbs of Sydney.

The IMF said twin booms in migration and mining added to the risk that the economy might grow faster than desired, sparking inflationary pressures.

On the downside, higher interest rates and tighter credit conditions flowing from the global finance crisis were likely to restrain consumer spending.

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, said that since the report was completed, these risks had shifted even further to the "downside". He said the report had given the Government a "very big tick" for its first budget, which the IMF described as "prudent" and "contractionary".

The IMF also concluded that while Australian banks were profitable and well capitalised, the global financial crisis had exposed some "vulnerabilities", including the high indebtedness of Australian households, and banks' reliance on offshore funding, which had become more expensive since the credit crunch.

These higher costs have had a direct impact on mortgage holders as lenders were forced to lift interest rates outside the Reserve Bank and restrict lending to less attractive borrowers.

Banks could suffer a "significant fall in profits" if they lost access to funding from offshore markets, which accounted for a quarter of their total funding, the IMF said. But banks' exposure to highly indebted households was less of a concern. While house prices were moderately overvalued, it would take a huge increase in loan defaults to cause problems for the banks.

The Reserve Bank will today release its report on the health of Australia's financial system.

In its report, the IMF revealed a doubling in the migration-to-population ratio over the past three years had coincided with a trebling in the pace of growth in rents.

More immigrants settle in NSW than in any other state or territory, the ABS figures show.

But the federal Housing Minister, Tanya Plibersek, said it was wrong to blame higher rental prices entirely on higher immigration. She said increased housing demand came from many sources, including higher divorce rates and older people staying longer in their own homes.

Immigration was also important to fill skills shortages, particularly for tradespeople. "The immigration story is very important for economic development … it's not sensible to suggest then that immigration is the problem."

The Government introduced legislation for its National Rental Affordability Scheme in Parliament yesterday.
 
And for what? It's just turning productive land into unproductive land for the "tree change" set. We can't afford to keep turning our best arable land into lifestyle blocks and I am just floored by how much of this has been happening.

Pity it's mainly the greenies wanting to "get back to nature" who are driving this. !

Make a law that forces them to grow at least 50% of their own food. :eek: You want productive land then you have to use it.
 
being a bit silly look at the united emeriants, and other desert citys, russia strugle to provide food due to -30c temps, but need is the mother of invention, and we have far to go as a world population.
 
Those wind turbines are a magnificent thing. I feel like I've warped into the future when I see them.

And stuffed if I know what the issue is about noise? I was standing right under one in Tassie on a real windy day. And any bird that flew into one must be a bit dumb.


See ya's.

Me too. BIG issue locally.

As for the birds :rolleyes: studies have shown.

rare endangered birds....
killed by wind turbines per annum = 2
killed by cars per annum =102

Peter 14.7
 
Those wind turbines are a magnificent thing.
Agreed. Surely a localised slight loss of amenity ('noise pollution' & 'visual pollution') is infinitely preferable to the uncontained pollution caused by other power sources.


And stuffed if I know what the issue is about noise? I was standing right under one in Tassie on a real windy day. And any bird that flew into one must be a bit dumb.
IIRC an issue is bats which use echo location being confused by the vibrations/noise and failing to avoid the blades. But again, that issue pales into insignificance compared to the existing options.
 
Hi Maverik,

Agree completely. We drove through there again on the weekend as your just 5 minutes up the road, and couldn't believe how quickly all that top end commercial development is coming online. Once the stuff on Pittwater Rd gets completed it will really change the face of Mona Vale. We're still planning on tendering and commencing our MUH build mid next year. Should be online early 2010.

Here's another article I read today which is on topic for this thread:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national...ing-rental-rage/2008/09/24/1222193832330.html

So we've got planned population explosion at the same time as there is a massive under-supply of property in Sydney for the existing population. It doesn't take an economics grad to spell out the demand/supply implications of that scenario.

Cheers,
Michael

Mona Vale also has a sushi train just opened!! Also a few more jewelers, another chemist(thats 7!)

These retailers agree with your demographic outlook.

What street is the land Michael? If it is Golf Ave then i want one! (best spot in Aus!!)
 
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