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We can’t keep the country running at two speeds

Tony Burke

by Tony Burke

19 Apr 05:55am

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Filed under: Big Australia, Economy, Immigration, Migration, Population, Tony Burke

55 comments

Today there will be thousands of Australians losing an hour of time with their kids for the privilege of sitting in traffic gridlock in our major cities.  Somewhere else there will be an employer looking at a business, which could generate much more money if only a worker could be found.

Some people think we're already full.

The concept of Australia running at two speeds couldn’t be starker than it is with population.  One group of Australians are flying at high speed to work at a mine while others may as well put the handbrake on.

Developing a sustainable population strategy means finding a way forward for both groups.  So far a lot of the debate has dealt with national population figures and presumed all we need to do is arrive at a total number.

Business calls for a big figure.  People living in congestion or seeing the local environment being cleared for new developments call for a smaller population and the debate goes nowhere.

The first question for Australia is not ‘How many?’ but “Where?’.  So far we’ve had a number of policy levers which have been aimed at improving the spread of population to where it’s needed but they’ve hardly been a raging success.

You don’t have to go to a mining town in Western Australia to find evidence of the need for more workers to get major projects up and moving.  Since I took on the agriculture, fisheries and forestry job, I’ve been told relentlessly how much harder it is becoming to find employees in regional Australia.

It’s impossible for most farmers or shopkeepers to compete with the mining industry for a labour force and many jobs remain vacant.  This doesn’t mean we have a simple city v country divide or a simplistic old style decentralisation agenda. 

The labour shortage challenges can be found as easily in Perth as the Darling Downs.  And you’d be reluctant to embark on a campaign to encourage too many more people to live in those rural areas that have been looking at trucking in water in recent years.

So we need to find ways of identifying where there is a need for more people and then have policy levers that can help encourage the best local outcomes.  The need business has for people must be tempered by the carrying capacity of different parts of Australia.  And then the infrastructure needs to be planned.

While immigration is relevant to these discussions, the Liberal Party’s attempt to define population policy as being all about immigration misses the point.

Some of the biggest challenges of population pressure have almost nothing to do with immigration.  The increasing congestion in the south east corner of Queensland is largely driven by people moving there from other parts of Australia. 

Western Sydney is a similar story.  The growth along the east coast from Kiama all the way to the Sunshine Coast is largely a story of retirees wanting to shift to the coast.

It’s also true that the Australian Bureau of Statistics adds to our population through the birth rate at the exact same pace that immigration adds to the figures.  Even if there were no immigration at all, our population would keep growing.

Complex? Yep.

Taking these differences into account is something we’ve never done in a co-ordinated way.  It brings together almost every portfolio area and must interact with State and local government.

A sustainable population strategy can allow business to keep moving forward and traffic to start moving at all.  It can allow Australians to imagine what they want their lives to look like in the decades to come, and governments to get on with the planning to make it happen.

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55 comments

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    • Your name:iain forrest says:

      06:43am | 19/04/10

      Why aren’t our media up in arms about the constant spin and the waste of our money from these politicians is staggering. They are servants we employ to look after the country and what a mess they are making off it.
      How can anyone trust a word they say especially about population how many joined us in the last 12 months oh yes it was more than 300000. A fair number good labor voters I’m sure.

      Below’s waste and incompetence is in Millions of dollars and is just a tiny part just wait for the NBN.

      TV station handout $250m
      2020 summit $10m
      Grocery watch $10m
      Initial failed NBN tender $17m
      Stimulus chq sent to people living o/seas or to dead people. $40m
      Copenhagen $1.5m
      Whaling Envoy! $1m
      Ambassador to the Holy See (first such posting!) $10m
      Changes to our border security $100m or more

      And this doesn’t include the BER fraud, Insulation fraud. overspend on School computers, solar panel overspend all of which totalled run into Billions of dollars. More than half borrowed from banks and the Chinese Government.

      But one of the worst in my mind of wasted taxpayers dollars
      The Australian Government-funded aid agency AusAID last month provided $308,000 for the development of AFL in South Africa, an allocation even ARL boss Geoff Carr described as “weird” given South Africa’s main sports are cricket, soccer and, ironically, rugby, in which the Springboks are world champions. Certainly it appears a weird allocation given that the AFL had an operating profit of $214m last year. And the latest rumour is Rudd is going to offer $5b to the NSW alone to sweeten his hospital offer! But from most of our media outlets we hear nothing!

      Reply

    • Matt says:

      07:11am | 19/04/10

      Actually we hear quite a bit, which is why the gullible swallow all the claims you’ve outlined.

    • annie says:

      07:52am | 19/04/10

      Matt tell us whats not true the only item in doubt is the $5b sweetner to NSW!

    • Barry says:

      08:43am | 19/04/10

      Yes Matt. What evidence do you say supports your comment?

    • Andy says:

      09:33am | 19/04/10

      Well, for starters the 300000 figure is net migration and not new permanent residents

    • Steve woy woy says:

      03:30pm | 19/04/10

      It could be the lingering figure left by the last government all that debt they left us gee were do we begin??? you talk of waste get real guys it cost us just over 1.5mil every year just for mountebank Johnny and the missus to live in the harbour-side kirribilli….. then AWB and on and on ...look you only get so many words here and 8000 just isn’t enough to fill in all the woes of the last government… let alone the national debt they left us….. my jumping jeebie an increase of 387% from a mere $700 billion in 1997 up to $3.2 trillion by the close of their term. Yeah like i say get real guys…. we built nothing and gouged plenty for the faithful…... But why be surprised by that history shows us just that the conservative right-wing born to rule liberals never have built anything and only ever lived off the good of the previous working building government’s… gouged plenty tho

    • iain forrest says:

      03:16pm | 19/04/10

      Andy i said joined us mate !!! population grew!!!

    • annie says:

      03:46pm | 19/04/10

      Yes Steve infrastructure a state responsibility, but they seem governed by minority pressure groups so nothing ever gets done. AWB fiasco actually made money for Australia, never cost a cent in totality. The last 5 Federal Labor governments left massive debt behind for other to fix. And i would guess Mr Rudd’s overseas trips cost much more than Kirrabilli. oh and dont forget the Millions extra promised African countrys all for Kevin hopes of gaining the UN secretary general seat. oh yes and the $4 million for the NBN research that the Government wont release that the director in the senate the other day said he would need a minimum of 30 years to just break even! mate i could go on and on.

    • Steve woy woy says:

      05:23pm | 19/04/10

      @ Annie…. Touched a raw nerve did we.. please please do go on I would love to hear the party line spin .... no substance we know and backed by very little if any fact on any matter at all but all the same very very amusing. Just like the throw away line you quoted from the right wing gazette flyer… Mr Rudd’s overseas trips cost much more than Kirrabilli….. do we really want to compare the overseas trips of mountebank Johnny as well… as living at Kirrabilli is just one of the many many extras Annie…. the cost of flying to Canberra each day of sitting was alone over 1mil per annum and johnny spent countless millions on his trips over to see George W. Like the time he set up the sweet deal for George to off load all his Jeep and V8 Chrysler lemons on to the Australian market… yeah we closed the Adelaide car plant down and sent how many off to the unemployed lines???? It’s progress Annie and little Jones- Bartholomew is doing fine so what’s the matter with that??? Migration a hot topic too… Howard kept a single refugee (and his cat) on Manus Island for 6 months at a cost of $4.3 million to the taxpayer…all in the name of Howard’s Pacific Solution. All in all, Howard wasted nearly $2billion of OUR money to keep out 1500 asylum seekers of which 99% are now Australian citizens. Sorry Annie not playing fair am I ...using facts again…  The NBN another fact “quote” Howard govt sponsored review endorses NBN read on Annie click the link http://www.zdnet.com.au/howard-govt-telco-review-endorses-nbn-339302296.htm not more fact oh gee ....

    • Adam Diver says:

      07:30am | 19/04/10

      Was this article about anything? Anything at all?

      We have a population issue and…..apparently the minister for population can tell me its complex.

      Why even write this dribble. Even Tory’s later piece involved a lot more information and a real discussion point.

      Reply

    • Brian B says:

      12:26pm | 19/04/10

      I agree Adam - the article is pointless and simply shows the Government is wallowing in incompetency.

      Tony Burke offers no discussion towards a solution to the problem - but this is typical of the Rudd government - all talk, no delivery.

    • julie says:

      07:24am | 19/04/10

      no wonder you’ve got 12 months to report a finding. it’s going to be a long 12 months isnt it.

      Reply

    • PeteK says:

      07:38am | 19/04/10

      Tony you have the wrong end of the stick. It’s not a matter of growth, or where to put people - we have reached the limit. The limit of of our leaders competence to plan for settling any more people.

      Between Howard, Rudd and policyless , planless Abbott (not to mention retarded State Gov’s) we have ample evidence that you buffoons need to back off growth-for-growths sake and stop biting off more than you can chew. And ramming more people in the cities. And discussing issues you have no track record in.

      Stop stuffing Australia up and wrecking our quality of living.

      Reply

    • persephone says:

      09:30am | 19/04/10

      ‘We have reached the limit’ - oh, tosh. Evidence?

      Still plenty of room, especially if we go for higher density living - our capital cities sprawl further than any in the world, especially the developed world. We’ve got country towns which used to support ten times the population they presently do (and in sometimes far more).

      Higher density living means less travel, as people live closer to the CBD, and thus less pressure on public transport and less need for cars.

      Water isn’t a problem - we’re ‘girt by sea’ for starters, we don’t recycle (as most other populated countries do) and we’re still relatively wasteful water users.

      And we still produce far more food than we need ourselves, being large scale exporters of commodoties such as wheat and meat.

    • isis says:

      10:21am | 19/04/10

      PeteK, you have the wrong end of the stick if you think this guy cares.

    • annie says:

      03:20pm | 19/04/10

      miss pers i thought you were a global warming calamity advocate, so how does 40 million pop and all the nasty pollution fit with your let them all we have plenty of room water and food!!

    • Pinball says:

      04:08pm | 19/04/10

      Persephone is right in what they say.

      Population growth is going to happen, whether you like it or not. In addition to taking on the measures that Persephone talks about, we as a country need to encourage growth in the now larger rural towns, make them more attractive places for people to live and work. I don’t mean live in the rural towns, and commute to the capitials, I mean live and work in the current rural towns. I also don’t mean offer sea-change or tree-change experiences. I mean attract actual big bussiness to these places, to generate actual employment opportunities. One of the main “sweetners” would be good infrastructure, good highways, and good public transport to link future cities to the current cities, ie. high speed rail.

    • PeteK says:

      08:12am | 20/04/10

      Persephone the evidence is the Murray Darling system. If Aussies can’t manage one our largest water systems or our largest food bowl what hope do we have. And if we can’t manage the Murray darling I’d say where is the evidence that we can manage a global issue like climate change? Show me the evidence of your faith based thinking Perse.

      Less pressure on Public Transport? What city do you live in Perse. The only time sydney has had reliable public transport was during the Olympics! Where is the evidence that anyone else apart from innercity get half decent public transport? Open your eyes mate. Their is a pattern here.

      Hmm but stll you are hypothetical Perse.. Water recycling is a fanciful notion -  leaders put into expensive carbon heavy desal plants before they recycle. Fact.

      Using this we -love -growth - cos -it’s invitable robot’s logic: just because we will lose more and more land to salinity and topsoil loss and America will invade Iraq for the third time doesn’t make it smart.

      Is having 36 million people going to mean I don’t have to sit in an emrgency room for 4 hours, or on a waiting list or sit in gridlock?

      If you want to live like sardines go and live in a high rise city.

    • Hay, NSW townie says:

      12:32pm | 20/04/10

      @PeteK ...Murray Darling water problems are mainly due to the State’s greed selling more water rights than the system could cope with. They treated it like a pokie that kept paying jackpots, sell more water / build another outer suburban road get votes.

    • Harry says:

      07:46am | 19/04/10

      “The labour shortage challenges can be found as easily in Perth as the Darling Downs.  And you’d be reluctant to embark on a campaign to encourage too many more people to live in those rural areas that have been looking at trucking in water in recent years.”

      Been West have you? Last I looked Perth even had traffic lights.

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      10:08am | 19/04/10

      get out traffic lights? That must mean they have power too.

    • Luke says:

      08:20am | 19/04/10

      Burke is nothing more than a decoy for precious little Mr Rudd. Remember Rudd doesn’t have an opinion any longer on Population growth after his flip flop. But appointing Burke as population Minister in the lead up to an election makes him look busy on the issue and gives Rudd another person to hide behind on another issue. The ridiculous sudden appointment of a Population Minister is nothing more than a part of an election campaign. We will see no substance come from this guy, as you can see in the above article. It will be all polly waffle and another Rudd soldier for Rudd to hide behind. Burke don’t you have enough to do? By the way does the PM have anything to say about the BER stuff up, Asylum seeker policy flip flop, etc etc etc? Or is he permanently going to hide behind his Ministers and have tea and scones in hospitals until after the election? You guys must be getting very tired of answering and confronting the media on all issues in this country while your Leader attempts to make himself look like the Queen of England, surrounded by loyal protective guards.

      Reply

    • StolenGeneration says:

      09:21am | 19/04/10

      I actually think Tony Burke made some fair calls in this article. Mind you, planning a policy could be much harder. Perhaps one solution is to foster (through incentives and active planning) more larger regional cities. Water? Perhaps its time to revisit some of the JJC Bradfield ideas. Transport? If freight can get swiftly from a regional centre to major markets, then the need to site manufacturing in those areas might diminish.

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      09:55am | 19/04/10

      Fair calls? He simply outlined the issues faced. We already know of the issues I want to see some plans or ideas. To be fair its too early to have some decent ideas and plans but in that case why write this article??? Please someone tell me why

    • Louis McLennan says:

      09:20am | 19/04/10

      “Complex? Yep.”

      Already justifying the stuff up that’s going ot be made in the next few weeks.

      In all seriousness. Give the people of THIS country the freedom to move where they want. Don’t restrict peoples movement then somehow justify opening the floodgates to randoms off planes and boats.

      Reply

    • Shane says:

      09:43am | 19/04/10

      after all that, the only insight this guy can make is that it’s a complex issue? no wonder nothing good ever comes out of Canberra. they’re too busy stating the obvious then patting themselves on the back while they clip that new gold watch to their wrist.

      Reply

    • Hay NSW townie says:

      09:30am | 19/04/10

      Start of last century the profit and tax from wool produced around Hay significiently contributed to the construction of the Sydney Harbor Bridge, after which Sydney grew significiently..unfortunately after giving so much the favor was not returned and Hay is now dyeing…but it also has a lot of under utilized exsisting infrastructure.

      *Schools currently operating about 40% under capacity
      *Hospital bed occupancy rate (non elderly hospice section) 60-80% under capacity
      *Exsisting housing 10-15% unoccupied
      *All weather bitumen airport ..Underused
      *Domestic water ..plenty Murrumbidgee River runs through town
      *Available land for further development ..plenty current population 3000 area of local shire 11000 square kilometers
      *Access to roads .. a major junction on the Sturt Hwy
      *Accesiability to cities within 700km of over 60% of Australia’s population..400km Melbourne, 650km Sydney, 650km Adelaide, 500km Canberra ect
      *Very affordable land and housing prices
      *Major power transmission lines within shire boundary
      *Looking for industry making a strong bid for a Solar Flagships project to utilize one of our major natural assets a vast flat treeless sunny plain highly suitable for Solar power generation.

      A shift of government policy away from being to concentated on cities, and offering some real company tax breaks not just figleaf tokens would revitalise our area and rural Australia. And would be a lot cheaper and more effective than pumping more money into building transport and infastructure endlessly out into outer suburbia.

      Plus our towns are family friendly when you take the average outer suburban dwellers huge daily commute time into consideration.

      And a city only recycles money, primary resources and imports that come into it. A city produces nothing from scratch itself.

      Reply

    • sickofpolitics says:

      11:02am | 19/04/10

      If governments encouraged people to live in the country, people might acturally move there.  For that we need roads, medical services and access to government services. Road funding is so insufficient that roads are closed instead of repaired.  Flood funding approved by the RTA cannot be allocated until the minister makes the announcement.  My guess is that he minister is waiting for the (NSW) election to be called first.  Our community has shrunk by half in the last 20 years, not because people don’t like to live here but it has just become too hard.  Imagine having to drive an extra hour to get to town when your baby is sick for lack of a road.

    • Hay, NSW townie says:

      12:27pm | 19/04/10

      @sickofpolitics ..our community at Hay NSW has all of that (roads, water, hospital, schools, school halls, new libary’s, etc) Hay just needs some incentives for new and exsisting business to attract commercial growth, as well as new people coming to Hay, plenty of people will come back if jobs and job security come to Hay. 

      It would not take any significient start up capital for the government to do this (due to the underused exsisting available infrastructure) it would only be a preparedness to offer some significient commercial tax breaks and perhaps some zone rebates for working individuals earning above $30K per annum.

      Get some sustainable diversified industry and jobs out here then perhaps lower skilled immigrants could also succesfully join our community.

      Is living in Hay within walking distance to all local facilities any worse than living in some far flung outer suburb barely in walking distance to a public transport outer outpost ?

    • Scarlet says:

      07:55pm | 19/04/10

      @ Hay, NSW townie - we need a shift in thinking. Given ADSL2+M and soon the NBN, I could do my job from Hay and would be happy to. But the corporates don’t like it, regardless of lower CBD office usage and happier employees.

    • Hay, NSW townie says:

      12:24pm | 20/04/10

      @Scarlett….The corporates would probably like it if they received a tax incentive to move to you and your job to Hay..
      You could even go fishing in the mighty Murrumbidgee during your lunch break.

    • Micko says:

      09:59am | 19/04/10

      Burkie

      In relation to your statement: “Business calls for a big figure.  People living in congestion or seeing the local environment being cleared for new developments call for a smaller population and the debate goes nowhere.”

      Last I checked…in this democracy only people get a vote…not business.  The fact is the Howard has pumped annual net overseas migration from 90 thousand to 200,000 and Labor has gone even further pushing migration to an absurd 300,000 per annum.

      Most of the migrants we seem to be bringing in are accountants, nurses and doctors.  Given these professions have been on the migration priority list for the last 20 years begs the question why we can’t train enough of our own in these very respectable professions.  Are Aussies too stupid to be trained into these jobs?

      Why not shift the immigration program back towards unskilled labour, that is people prepared to go and work on the mines and farms where we need them, rather than having an endless supply of accountants driving taxies in Sydney.

      Reply

    • Mike says:

      11:38am | 19/04/10

      Good point. When I was Europe recently I noticed it’s the opposite there to what we have - the locals are highly skilled and undertake the PhD’s and whatnot, and the immigrants are invited in to fill in the gaps, eg labouring, to take over the restaurants locals are no longer interested in running, checkout chicks etc. We would need real reform in our educational system to be anything like that.

    • jim says:

      10:20am | 19/04/10

      Wow, we elected a politician that can tell us Australia’s problems.

      For the solution, lets go hire some consultants.

      The problem is, consultants are good only at applying past solutions to future problems. It’s not very innovative.

      Reply

    • Nigel Catchlove says:

      02:07pm | 19/04/10

      Ouch! 
      Apparently, as a consultant, I am devoid of innovative thinking and can only apply past solutions to problems!  Should I put that on my CV? 

      While you are so far wrong it’s not funny, just out of interest, who do you think can apply innovative solutions to problems?

    • Matt Stewart says:

      02:33pm | 19/04/10

      Nigel, clearly the democratic process is designed to deliver the most effective and innovative leaders to solve our all of our problems. The second best source of innovation is a governemnt committee.  Everyone knows that.

    • Lin says:

      10:24am | 19/04/10

      “Some of the biggest challenges of population pressure have almost nothing to do with immigration.  The increasing congestion in the south east corner of Queensland is largely driven by people moving there from other parts of Australia. ” This is NOT correct! Tony, you can’t even get the stats right, or do you toghether with the Rudd govt. think that people are so stupid to believe what ever you dish them out? By far the largest proportion of new people coming to SE Qld are immigrants, the same as for Australia as a whole. Components of population increase in Qld 12 months to Sep 2009: Net overseas migration 50.4%; Natural increase 35.7%; Net interstate migration: 13.9 %. (OESR, Qld Treasury, Sep Quarter 2009)

      Reply

    • Adam Diver says:

      01:03pm | 19/04/10

      That is such a worry. He either intentionally lied or is completely incompetent. I personally believe it was the first but can’t decide if that is better or not

    • Tony Burke says:

      03:13pm | 19/04/10

      Can’t respond to every post but thought I should quickly drop a note on this one.  The net figures quoted are different to the question of who is arriving.  The critical difference is all deaths are subtracted from the birth rate – as though people who come from interstate or overseas don’t die.  That’s why the quarterly report quoted has figures which seem to inflate the impact of immigration and reduce the natural birth rate.  That report also ignores people moving within Queensland which has had a significant impact on the South East corner.

      The report also includes the statement: Net interstate migration to Queensland (19,978) persons over the 12 months to 31 March 2009) continues to ease from the levels recorded in the early part of this decade, but still remains the highest of all Australian states and territories.

    • chris says:

      10:13pm | 19/04/10

      Unlike Lin, Tony has no figures to back up his obvious lies. Wake up people, you are being conned. We must fight the big Australia propagandists at the ballot box.

    • Lin says:

      06:24pm | 20/04/10

      Tony (or one of the ‘advisers’): You say: “The critical difference is all deaths are subtracted from the birth rate – as though people who come from interstate or overseas don’t die.  That’s why the quarterly report quoted has figures which seem to inflate the impact of immigration and reduce the natural birth rate.” And….!?! Overseas immigration and interstate migration figures are then still comparable! But you claim in your article that the increase is ‘largely driven by people moving (to SE Qld) from other parts of Australia’! So, it still doesn’t stand as it is 3 and a half times higher from overseas (whether you include dead people or not). I am seriously worried about the ability of someone who tries to distort simple facts like this to write a ‘population policy’ for Australia.

    • Andrew says:

      10:17am | 19/04/10

      The usual catch cry from this Government regarding anything is “this is a challenge” or “it’s a complex issue”. No solutions, no substance and no answers, just blame Howard for everything and put off commitment until 2050.

      Reply

    • Dave says:

      02:22pm | 20/04/10

      You better be careful Andrew, not everyone likes it when you tell it like it is.

    • cmp.000space.com says:

      10:47am | 19/04/10

      Leave the populaspin minister to his pollywaffle.  Do not even engage with this man.  Bypass him completely and take direct action.  If he won’t drastically reduce immigration remove him and his government from office.  If the lot that replaces him is just as recalcitrant, remove them too.  A simple technique which will work by playing to the survival instincts of our modern gaggle of career politicians.

      Reply

    • jackaroo says:

      11:10am | 19/04/10

      Mate, get your facts straight!
      According to the Treasury Report over the last 12 months 50.4% of migration was from overseas and only 14% was from interstate migration.
      You’re a numbsuckle for printing lies like that. Doesn’t surprise me, but is still sickening nevertheless.

      Reply

    • alex says:

      12:11pm | 19/04/10

      at least he is telling the truth: that he has no clue what to do, that Sydney is a choking mess but you would still opt to live there then in the desert working 4 kilometers underground, that the problem is so complex: read politically sensitive, don’t expect any answers this decade.
      he is just enjoying his new $300k a year tax payer funded job for now.

      Reply

    • Nexus says:

      12:21pm | 19/04/10

      The big issue is that politicians are only interested in one thing - reelection, sorry two things, reelection and their own self importance. There is no history of national planning in Australia as in France - this a multi parliamentary term issue and also multi generational. They have no plan, no idea and the notion of just letting people enter the country in an uncontrolled way to satisfy the business lobby (to depress our living standards) and other interests is utterly stupid and ill considered. Property is another debacle that is about to blow up in their faces.

      Reply

    • Kate says:

      01:29pm | 19/04/10

      Hey Tony - your article is rubbish and your biography tells me you have no skills apart from getting re-elected.

      However question? Where is Peter Garrett hiding? Where is Maxine McWho?

      Reply

    • Luke says:

      02:38pm | 19/04/10

      Most of all, where is Kevin the Prime Minister? Holding hands with patients and doing sound bites on “youtube” so he doesn’t have to answer questions to anything else going on in Australia. Need I list them? No I won’t, I’m sure you know them all.
      Earth to Kevin, are you out of hospital yet? Oh that’s right your in a meeting at COAG, will we see you come out and front the media today. Or will we just have a press announcement from you or one of your Ministers? No questions taken again is my guess.

    • jed says:

      01:37pm | 19/04/10

      i’m sure you’ll have some great advice from the urban taskforce, tony. oh and don’t forget your good made mark arbib and his property developer connections. again the deck is stacked and scumbags like you will sell us down the river, ably aided by an inept opposition.

      Reply

    • acker says:

      04:15pm | 19/04/10

      The Peppin statue between Deniliquin and Hay, a plaque says that in 1961 the wool clip was worth 350 million pounds to Australia. That wool money paid for most of the major infrastructure that city’s are still in using today..yet the same rural areas that produced the wool have been getting screwed ever since. Think about that next time you drive past Opera House Tony.

      Reply

    • Sally says:

      04:53pm | 19/04/10

      Don’t worry about the two speeds Tony…....given the amount of cash you guys have spunked away, the workers in OZ will have nothing as they will be taxed out of existence or leave. Whereas the unions, unemployed, the young and the new migrants (your voting bloc) will vote you in and we will all be one class….....hmmmmmmmmm Socialism/Communism.

      Reply

    • Lowe resident NSW says:

      06:44pm | 19/04/10

      Actually I think there are critical questions that are raised in the article - where is the long term strategic planning about public transport to avoid the gridlock and long commutes that people in major cities have to deal with.  How come we aren’t able to develop a comprehensive public transport plan for Sydney which doesn’t rely on the CBD being the hub?  I know, I know that is a State function.

      My sense is that we are dealing with a real crisis in democracy - nothing of strategic note is undertaken that really plays to allow workers to be more mobile.  I grew up in the bush - Darling Downs actually - I love the bush but what were the options for remaining and carving out a life there ?  Bank closures, the impact of big corporate supermarkets and shops like Kmart and Target - so much of the money that goes into the shops leaves the community. 

      I am not anti migration at all.  We have enough space and I believe that there is economic value as well as human rights to be considered.

      How is it though that we can find governments at all three levels who are about long term community building strategies and not just the things that can be achieved in the next election term???  So many of the policies from both major political parties are short term.  Our real crisis is the lack of engagement in a debate about how to make towns and regional cities more attractive.  We still have communities without schools and basic health support services.  We somehow need to balance the development of Australia to attract people out of Sydney and Melbourne and be smarter in planning - all of it - not just employment and work related training. 

      Not enough cohesiveness between State and Federal Governments - no National Development plan and lots of reactivity.

      But, I am grateful not to be living in the US - they seem in a greater mess.

      Reply

    • mick says:

      07:56pm | 19/04/10

      “Even if there were no immigration at all, our population would keep growing” due to the birth rate. Could someone please explain to him that this is a reason to stop immigration not to continue with it.

      Reply

    • mick says:

      07:58pm | 19/04/10

      Tony Burke wrote “It’s also true that the Australian Bureau of Statistics adds to our population through the birth rate at the exact same pace that immigration adds to the figures.  Even if there were no immigration at all, our population would keep growing.” His obvious spin conveniently omits that without immigration the population growth would have been 300,000 approx less than it was. Even so if the majority of Australians don’t want a big Australia then this is an argument to stop immigration not to continue with it.

      Reply
 
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