- SYDNEY, Aug 2 (Reuters) - ``Populate or Perish'' was once the rallying
call for high immigration in Australia, but today many here are calling
for a smaller population. Far right politician Pauline Hanson has called
for zero net migration to counter what her One Nation party calls the ``Asianisation
of Australia.'' Environmentalists argue for a lowering of immigration and
population, saying the current 18.5 million population is ecologically
unsustainable. But some prominent business leaders are calling for a major
increase for economic reasons. So how many people should live in Australia?
NO POPULATION POLICY Australia has no population policy, despite discussion
of the issue since World War One. People then talked of a future nation
of 100 million people. ``The cart must not be placed before the horse,
making population policy merely an undefined, inexplicit consequence of
immigration policy,'' said former Labor government science minister Barry
Jones in the last population report in 1994. Australia has no target population.
Immigration is determined on an annual basis, which both sides of the debate
agree is ad hoc. They also agree that there is a lack of political will
to publicly tackle such issues, especially with the rise of the ultra-conservative
One Nation. Former Liberal prime minister Malcolm Fraser wants a vigorous
public debate. ``I think it is absolutely critical for the future of Australia
to have that debate. I think Australia, as it is, cannot survive.'' Asia's
booming populations create a geopolitical reason to increase population
to 45 or 50 million by 2050, Fraser believes. ``We are going to be regarded
as wealthy, selfish, lazy, introspective, sidelined, irrelevant to the
world, if we are only a nation by then of 20 to 23 million people,'' he
says. HOWARD TRIMS MIGRATION FIGURES Australia's population is one of the
fastest growing among members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development. The Australian Bureau of Statistics on July 14 estimated
the population could reach 26.4 million by 2051. Since its election in
March 1996, Prime Minister John Howard's conservative government has reduced
immigration to 80,000 in 1998-99, with net permanent migrants around 55,000.
The bureau said the population would be capped at 20 million in 2025 if
One Nation's zero net migration proposal, which would mean 30,000 permanent
migrants a year, was adopted. It would then decline between 2025 and 2029
as Australia's fertility rate is now at an all-time low of 1.7 children
per woman or 10 percent below replacement level. Australia's population
is ageing, exerting pressure on economic growth as the workforce declines
and welfare and health budgets rise. Business leaders believe the population
must increase to a ``critical mass'' to sustain long-term economic growth
and talk of a 50 million population by 2050 -- which would require an annual
migrant intake of around 200,000. ``If we are to sustain strong, high levels
of economic growth we need to have a strong underpinning population base
and that can only be achieved through strong migration levels,'' says David
Buckingham, from the Business Council of Australia. A comprehensive 1988
immigration and population report by Stephen Fitzgerald, now chairman of
the Asia-Australia Institute, called for an annual immigration level of
125,000. The report said such an intake level would boost gross domestic
product by between 0.07 to 0.16 percent, while a higher intake of 220,000
would produce a gain of 0.09 to 0.21 percent. Skilled migrants have invested
A$300 million (US$185 million) in Australia in the past three years, says
a government survey released in May. AUSTRALIA THE EMPTY LAND Terra Nullius
(Empty Land) was the legal premise on which modern Australia was built,
enabling white settlers in 1788 to ignore Aborigines as the original inhabitants.
Terra Nullius has been rejected as a legal concept but large tracts of
land remain empty, with 95 percent of people living on 10 percent of the
land, as 80 percent is arid or desert. Australian Museum scientist Tim
Flannery warns in his landmark book ``The Future Eaters'' that Australia
has a fragile environment which cannot sustain its current population.
Flannery says population should not exceed 20-30 percent of the land's
carrying capacity -- which means Australia's long-term sustainable population
is only six to 12 million. Flannery says the environment has suffered major
degradation since white settlement, with 70 percent of the 22 million hectares
(54 million acres) of farmed land now degraded. ``To this extent, and to
the extent that these problems are ongoing, Australia can be defined as
being already overpopulated,'' says Flannery.
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