Sustainable Population Australia

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) today wholeheartedly welcomed the Budget decision by the Federal Government to abolish the baby bonus from March 2014.

Instead eligible families will receive increased family payments (Family Tax Benefit Schedule A) when they have a new baby.

The decision by the Federal Government to delay increases in foreign aid is short-sighted, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

SPA says it is particularly perverse as a response to the costs of housing asylum seekers as it is only likely to increase the flow of refugees.

SPA National President, Ms Jenny Goldie, says poverty and high population growth rates lead to political turmoil in many countries, usually because there are insufficient resources and jobs for people.

The arrival of Australia’s 23 millionth person tomorrow is no cause for celebration, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

National President of SPA, Ms Jenny Goldie, noted that in 1994 the Australian Academy of Science had said: ‘In our view, the quality of all aspects of our children's lives will be maximized if the population of Australia by the mid-21st Century is kept to the low, stable end of the achievable range, i.e. to approximately 23 million.’[i]

The steady increase in Australia’s population growth rate over the past year from 1.4 to.1.5 to 1.6 and now 1.7 per cent is unsustainable and unacceptable, according to Sustainable Population Australia Inc. (SPA).

In the latest figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) today, the estimated resident population of Australia at 30 September 2012 was 22,785,500 people, reflecting an increase of
382,500 over the previous year, or a growth rate of 1.7 per cent.

The new Minister for Immigration, Brendan O’Connor, has made an excellent start in his portfolio by tightening the temporary workers’ program and thereby protecting Australian workers, according to Sustainable Population Australia Inc. (SPA).

The temporary worker program, whereby foreign workers come in on 457 visas, was set up to fill skill gaps in Australian businesses and industry. A requirement of the program is that employers, before bringing in workers from overseas, must ensure that there are no local workers to fill the positions in question.

What: VicTas branch Meeting/book launch

When: Saturday March 23^rd 2013 at 2.00 p.m.  

Where: Balwyn Library Meeting Room 336 Whitehorse Rd.  Balwyn VIC 3103, Melway Map – 46E8 Tram No. 109

At this meeting, the Vic & Tas Branches are proud to launch an exciting new book, published in December 2012, Demography, territory and law: rules of animal and human populations by population sociologist and SPA member, Sheila Newman.

By agreeing to be keynote speaker at the National Conference of the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA) tomorrow, Kevin Rudd is playing into the hands of the development lobby, according to Sustainable Population Australia Inc (SPA).  Rudd will be speaking on 'Population Growth for a Stronger Economy' at the UDIA conference in Melbourne.
 
SPA National President Sandra Kanck says the development lobby has a vested interest in population growth since it reaps the profits without paying any of the costs.
 

Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) has called on the new Immigration Minister, Brendan O’Connor, to heed the findings of a paper issued yesterday. It found that the number of migrants arriving in Australia since the beginning of 2011 who found jobs about equals the number of new jobs created in Australia for everyone over the same period.

The paper was written by Professor Bob Birrell and Ernest Healy of the Centre for Population and Urban Research (CPUR), Monash University.