Morgan: 56.5-43.5

2,146 thoughts on “Morgan: 56.5-43.5”

1. Boerwar, agreed that there’s not 13 million people’s worth, but there’s some. There is a tendency to overstate the dryness of Australia and understate the development potential of the north.

   You’re absolutely right that the soil conditions in the Kimberley are not fantastic. I wonder if part of the productivity problems up there, though, might be down to the transportation costs of certain agricultural products, a problem which might be alleviated by a more substantial local market. That said, that governments consider GM cotton as the most likely profitable crop tells us something about the soil.

   I don’t for a moment suggest pumping water from the north to any southern metropolis.

2. There are a few hundred asylum seekers coming over and the whole country kaks its pants. Wait till the many millions over the water decide that they want a better a life. Well that’s one way of controlling the population wars!!!! We better start playing nice and doing our fair share for the world.

3. @51.

   Do we really want to rip up the Kimberley, one of the worlds last largely untouched wildernesses, and dump another city or two ontop of it? What’s the point of that?

4. By this time next week, what do think the outcome of the CPR Bills will be –

   a) Coalition passed bills. With or without a split.
   b) Coaltion vote against the bills and so too greens & indep’s
   c) Coalition filibuster, bills not voted on.

   if b) does turnbull remain leader ? Does he take his bat and ball and leave
   politics altogether ?

5. dave
   After watching their relationship bloom these past weeks I have faith that Chainsaw and Penny will come out on top 😀

6. b) with Turnbull remaining leader – other that ‘Power Rocks’ he has no principles.

7. Hey Flannery why don’t you go and do a show and tell in Bangladesh, with lots of photos of average australian homes, meals, past times etc. Then tell them that our population has reached its limit and we can’t [possibly grow anymore.

8. agree Vera, but the liberal party room vote and how the liberal senators conduct themselves if a vote is taken is really where the main game is, imho.

9. Finns

   Why would I want to seriously compromise the quality of life of my genetic offspring?

   And again, why do we want an extra 14M people in Australia? I haven’t heard a single decent answer.

10. Rewi

    There is little doubt that there are opportunities for the significant expansion of agriculture activity in the North. I would be very interested in knowing the thinking of the Committee chaired by Heffernan on the topic.

    I have seen a lot of that country at close hand. A lot of it is lateritic. The thing about lateritic soils is that they cling to nutrients ferociously. A lot of it is highly erodable. Simply look at the soil and it starts moving. Then there are the acidic soils. Then there is the sand. And the sandstone.

    Given the record of agriculture in Australia I am prepared to be seriously sceptical about our plan to move to the North. It is partly about having already failed in the South! Much, but not all, of the record is of short-termism. A lot of this is generated by cost-pressures beyond the control of farmers themselves. But that will apply in the tropical north as it has in the temperate south.

    Some examples of short-termism: the huge shearing sheds in outback NSW. But no sheep. The sheep ate the place out. Our mightiest river system no longer reaches the sea. The water in it continues to increase in salinity. The western Australian wheatbelt slowly being swallowed by salt. The destruction of the productivity of the rangelands through overgrazing, woody weeds and ferals continues almost unabated.

    The rate of soil loss exceeds the rate of soil formation in large parts of our dryland farming regions. I could go on. It is like we some sort of national disease and the symptoms are destruction of agricultural lands. Meanwhile, our cities and towns continue to spread willy nilly over some of our best soils. Those extra 13 million people are mostly going to be living on the top of what used to grow food.

    There have been many, many improvements, but the notion that many of our farming systems are sustainable is simply ludicrous. Moving this folly to the North looks more like the last gasp of a failing system than a noble vision.

11. dave, I’m crossing my fingers that Malcolm can scrape up a magnificent 7 from amongst his Senate rabble. Optimistic maybe but we live in hope 🙂

12. Diogenes

    I thought it was 13 million? Talk about bracket creep!

13. Castrate all the men in OZ that will stop the population growing 👿

14. vera

    I just had an involuntary crossing of the legs! You are wicked.

15. Although I believe in CC, and support an ETS, I hope the Senate blocks the legislation, Turnbull is dumped as leader in favour of the Mad Monk, and Rudd calls a DD which Labor wins in a landslide. This is my ‘best case scenario’.

16. Malcolm can scrape up a magnificent 7

    vera, no worries. if the M7 cant make it:

    

    there’s always the three amigos:

    

17. centaur009

    There is no doubt that the development of an Australian Population Policy would have to take into account our wealth and that of other people in the world. I would be strongly supportive of a massive wealth shift from Australia to third world countries.

    One of our aims should be for the UN to adopt a World Population Policy.

    But this is a no-go zone for all sorts of nationalistic, ideological and religious reasons. The end result is that there are around 1 billion people in the world who go to bed hungry every night. Without transfers of wealth and without a world population policy, that number will simply continue to do what it has been doing for some time now… grow, and grow and grow.

    In that context, heads in the sand, applications to the various gods, pleas to address the multiplying symptoms of over-population are all as strategically useful as tits on a bull.

18. Boerwar
    sorry about that 😉
    Stopping the baby bonus would help too.

19. there’s always the three amigos:

    That’s me in the middle Finns

20. Vera@55:

    Chainsaw and Penny will come out on top 😀

    Pictures! The world needs pictures! And video!

    😀

21. That’s me in the middle Finns

    Vera, since GG and I are the handsome one, so we wouldnt argue :kiss:

22. Cent@57:

    Hey Flannery why don’t you go and do a show and tell in Bangladesh, with lots of photos of average australian homes, meals, past times etc. Then tell them that our population has reached its limit and we can’t [possibly grow anymore.

    Bangladesh has no shortage of water.

    Australia has a severe shortage of water.

    Can you join the dots?

23. Isn’t it funny how our expectations change. I saw the headline figure from Morgan and thought “ohhhh, that’s close”.

    FIFTY SIX POINT FIVE TPP!

    If this is a low ebb for Rudd and his team – and the honeymoon is over – and people are starting to see through Rudd – and blah, blah, blah (as camentaors lead by The Australian are painting it as) then God save Her Majesties loyal opposition.

24. Boerwar@60:

    Moving this folly to the North looks more like the last gasp of a failing system than a noble vision.

    Beautifully and cogently written. Great post in its entirety.

25. exactly Boerwar so how long will those hungry 1 billion sit back, continue to grow and die?? We’re hoping for ever right? The ethics in all of this boggle the mind. We just spent a cool million at least separating conjoined twins, which coukld have saved 100’s if not thousands.

26. Thanks don

27. SBS

    Malcolm Turnbull won’t comment on whether Tony Abbott’s ETS flip means the frontbencher is after his job

    http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1136552/Turnbull:-%27No-comment%27-on-Abbott-abandonment

    IT’S ON

28. centaur009

    So, next steps?

29. Finns,

    I’m known more for my charm and personality rather than handsome good looks.

30. Bangladesh has no shortage of water. Australia has a severe shortage of water. Can you join the dots?

    Australia plate is moving at a rate of 5cm per annum towards the Asian plate. Aust to Bangladesh is about 9000Kms. So according to my calculation it will hit Bangladesh in about 180 million years. See youse all there.

31. Tanner’s and Rudd’s comments on the Australian population issue shows that there is no serious thought going on in the ALP on this fundamental issue. How does one frame a rational industry policy, agricultural policy, environmental policy, social justice policy, ETS, immigration policy etc. without having a population policy? To date both sides of politics has indulged in magic pudding thinking on population and doesn’t have the intellectual guts to address the population issue.

    There are real limits to growth, despite what economics might assume.

32. don@ 72 but they have a shortage of food, shelter, health and everything else necessary to sustain life, can you join the dots?

33. I’m known more for my charm and personality rather than handsome good looks.

    GG, i have seen you. dont let your modesty slip 😆

34. centaur

    We didn’t spend the money on the twins. Roxon said she wouldn’t pay, correctly IMHO. The money came from a lot of charities and people donating their time.

35. We might not have any water but at least what we don’t have doesn’t have arsenic in it:

    http://eetd.lbl.gov/l2m2/arsenic.html

36. A MEMBER of one of the State’s most well-known families can now be identified as the alleged perpetrator of sex crimes dating back to the 1980s.

    Malcolm Arthur Fox, 64, of Brighton, today pleaded not guilty in the Adelaide Magistrates Court to 10 counts of unlawful sexual intercourse by a guardian or teacher.

    He is the husband of renowned author Mem Fox and the father of Labor MP Chloe Fox, the state member for Bright.

    http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,26376339-5006301,00.html

37. SNIP: See article 2 of comment moderation guidelines – The Management.

38. It’s irrelevant where the money came from Diog, but that money could have saved 100’s if not thousands- an ethical conundrum no? Like the US spending more on pet food per anum than would be required to feed everyone on the planet.
    What did Spok say “the needs of the many outway the needs of the few”

39. This is excellent news on more than one front:

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/20/2749053.htm?section=justin

40. Don@70
    You want photos 😉
    http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/forbidden-love-20091114-ifid.html

    Penny Ying-yen Wong and Ian Elgin Macfarlane are quite the couple. She, a 41-year-old South Australian from the left of the Labor Party, born in Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. He, a 54-year-old Liberal cocky from Kingaroy, Queensland, sometimes referred to as ”Chainsaw” because of his raspy voice.

    Asked by ABC’s Four Corners whether it was more difficult negotiating with his own party or the Government on emissions trading, Macfarlane seemed to blush like a school boy.

    ”Oh, it’s an even bet,” he said. ”I mean, at least with Penny you know what you’re dealing with, but she’s tough, she’s tough. I think she’s a very smart woman.”

    Wong is equally lost for words when asked about Macfarlane, admitting to feeling a ”little bit embarrassed” by his non-combative approach. Negotiations have been so congenial that Wong now refers to him as ”Macca”. ”Macca obviously has a challenge on his hands convincing members of his party to act on climate change, given the views aired by some of his colleagues on Four Corners,” she says.

41. 89

    My suspicion is that the Oz government’s recent representation has had some impact.

    Well done PM.

42. I’ve only just worked out that Christian Science is completely different to Scientology and I’m keen to learn more about Scientology as a cult-religion but I’m struggling.

    There’s heaps of stuff all over the net. The more scientology lawayers have tried to stop the release of Scientology documents and information the more has been leaked.

    You can read about Scientolgy’s infiltration of parts of the U.S. government bureaucracy during the 1970s here:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Snow_White
    Or here about what they do to people who try to leave the cult here:
    http://www.lisamcpherson.org/
    More explanation of scientology’s practices and beliefs here:
    http://www.xenu.net/
    (In Scientology folklore, Xenu was a galactic overlord who sent thousands of alien souls to Earth, which became attached to human souls.)

    A good general overview is here:
    http://www.xenu.net/roland-intro.html

    Most of the coordinated protests against Scientology have been organised by an online group called “Anonymous”, see here:
    http://www.whyweprotest.org/en/

43. Rewi 51

    The real problem with the Kimberley and the Ord River scheme was poor choice of crops and pests and diseases. Transport is a problem but if there was enough volume coming out of there it would soon be viable to build a rail line or better port.

    Regarding the whole question of population and capacity, the CSIRO has done studies on Australia’s population carrying capacity. These do NOT consider concerns like peak oil (affects fertiliser supplies) and climate change. Even so it is less than most people think. The capacity depends on the extent to which peopel are willing to intervene in changing natural environemts, flow regimes etc and the extent to which we prohibit wasteful use of our most scarce resources, such as water on growing cotton. You can feed a lot more people if you eat less meat too. (So Bangladesh comparisons are pretty pointless). Even then, IIRC correctly 25 million was about the sustainable limit without large scale environmental engineering inputs (redirecting rivers etc). You might then get up to 50 million if you did the latter. If current farming productivity declines it would be less.

    It can get a bit meaningless to talk about sustainable populations. In one sense no country is fully self sufficient. At present rich arid countries like Saudi Arabia can have large populations (29 million in a desert??) and import surplus food from elsewhere. If later this century there is no surplus food this st4rategy becomes unworkable. So for food, with water sensibly allocated, Australia might support 25M to 50M. For things like fish and timber supplies, we are already beyond what we can sustainably support.

44. Dewgong, Boerwar,

    I don’t profess to have all the answers to these questions. I tend to agree with centaur009, however, that pulling up the ladder isn’t a particularly good option.

    If we accept that the population will grow, and even if that’s by half of the speculated growth, we still have to come to terms with a drying south. I, for one, don’t believe that those advocating a 25 million people (or thereabouts) level for our population will win the argument, regardless of whether or not they should, and I’m not sure they should.

    Yes, we don’t have a great track record on development that is appropriate and sustainable to this continent’s environmental conditions. Yes, we must do it better both in our existing areas of development (which should include seeking better ways to redress problems caused by that development) and in any future areas of development.

    I just get back to this very salient point about water: do we try to take/make water for a population that lives where it is disappearing, or take the population to the existing sources of water.

45. centaur

    It is completely true that the money could have done a lot more good in terms of repairing cleft lip and palates or preventing blindness or immunisation etc, which is why Roxon correctly said she wouldn’t pay for it.

    Unfortunately, people don’t view things in a rational way and will happily donate thousands if it’s a media-frenzy but won’t if it saves a hundred kids from malaria in Haiti.

    Rationalisation of health care gets very, very ugly very, very quickly.

    There is actually a really good post at Bolt’s on the topic today with lots of interesting comments.

46. It is disappointing that it looks like Warren Mindine is again going to be shafted, he should already be in parliament. Same with George Williams, he really needs to be in the Senate after the next election.

47. ShowsOn,

    Where did you see that about Warren Mundine?

48. Don

    Blees book in the post today. 🙂

49. No, Australia can’t support millions of extra people AND maintain its present standard of living.
    If we are willing to cut our standard of living a little (or are forced to) we certainly can take a lot more than we do at present.
    My family of four are very frugal with food. We grow some, we try and reuse scraps, we abhor waste. Yet every week we still throw out enough food to easily feed an extra person – and since the food is thrown out, that’s one person without cutting present living standards.
    We buy our clothes at op shops for virtually nothing and would donate more than we buy back every year – so no trouble clothing an extra person, either.
    Water? The only really frugal users of water in Australia I know of are people who are totally rain reliant. The proportion of our population that a) uses their water allocation in full for only necessities; (ii) re uses every possible drop (let alone put in systems to do this) is very small. We may have come a long way since the drought, but we’re still fairly indulgent in our water use.
    Most people in over populated countries, for example, would not have lawns – they would have the same space (if they were lucky enough to have it) growing food in some form or another. If every backyard in Australia which could had chooks, a vegie patch and a few fruit trees, we could feed a lot more people.
    We don’t have lawns, we have grass. We graze our animals in the garden and run the chooks there. We never water it, or the fruit trees.
    Most houses in Australia are home to fewer people than ever before. There is a growing number of single person dwellings – incredibly wasteful in terms of energy, and one of the reasons we have housing shortages (I’d also be interested to know the role holiday homes have in that).
    So, with minimal changes to present lifestyles, we could definitely squeeze a few more people in and not notice the difference.
    If we made real cuts in our lifestyles, and headed a bit more Bangladesh’s way, without the mass starvation, we could have a lot more people and not notice.
    A more vegetable based diet, meaning less demand for meat, would actually free up land. A more locally based lifestyle – eating local food, working no more than a couple of miles from home, etc – would also make huge differences. Again, these aren’t cataclysmic changes but they would improve Australia’s holding capacity.
    The advantage on the other side of coin, globally speaking, is that it’s well proven that migrants from countries which traditionally have big families have smaller families here, with their children having smaller families again. So if you take a family from Bangladesh to Australia, you not only raise their standard of living but you reduce the world’s population in the long run.

50. Vera, she’s a Hakka woman:

    All this came barely five years after the day Senator Wong got to her feet to make her maiden speech to the Senate, a moment when her thoughts turned to her late grandmother, a woman she called Poh Poh.

    “She was a diminutive woman, with an indomitable spirit. A Chinese woman of the Hakka or guest people, she was my grandfather’s second wife. When the war came to Malaysia she and the rest of the family were in Sandakan, a name that many who fought in Australia’s defence will be familiar with,” Senator Wong said.

    http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/climate-of-change-a-proud-day-for-labors-rising-star/2007/11/29/1196037074490.html

    The other famous Hakka was Deng “rich is glorious” Xiao Ping.

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