The results have been weighted to represent the national population. Year published: Abstract Alongside their level of economic development, countries are often defined by their population size.
Our research review shows why. No events are currently scheduled. Details of future events will be posted as they become available. Connect with us. You appear to be using Internet Explorer 7, or have compatibility view turned on. And in a world in which politicians, at least in some states, have essentially said - "You can do it in the suburbs where the people vote for the other side, but you can't do it in the suburbs that vote for my side of politics" - that's a problem.
Yeah, look, Jeanette, that vision you just outlined of Australia is what I feel too. And it really worries me. And I just feel that our We have left it to the experts, we have left it to politicians and we have ended up with a mess.
And it's I have got enormous faith in the common sense of just average Australians. And I can't think of a better way of dealing with this than to put the power back into the hands of well-informed average Australians, through something like a jury system. You know, of us chosen at random and given access to all the facts and asked to make a decision and given a time to do it and paid to do it would come up with a decision that would be representative, I believe, of what Australians want.
Look, I think that it would be better than local politicians campaigning on the basis that they're going to stop growth in a suburb, when they actually aren't well placed to do that, or shouldn't do that to house our kids. That's extraordinary. If we don't try to do density well, if we don't try to do density better, and we don't look at each suburb, with its existing built form in place, I'm not suggesting there should be apartment blocks in every suburb in Sydney.
What I'm saying is that every suburb in Sydney, every community in Sydney, if you want your kids to be able to live within km of where you live, it needs to be part of a conversation about how we do density well.
And that's what's missing. That requires some serious political leadership. The Reserve Bank data, not the Property Council. I just want to hear from Jay on this. You have lived in Singapore, you know the situation in very high-density cities with high populations. Do they just give up on the idea of having leafy suburbs and backyards and all of those sort of things, and is life any better or worse as a result? Well, before I moved to Singapore, I thought Singapore was just all grey high-rise buildings.
But actually, they planned it very well. So patches of green areas, so there is a great mixture of, you know, high-rise buildings. But Singapore has a policy, you know, to give the public housing to their citizens so most of the Singaporean citizens own their house. Public housing also have a quota for a certain number of Chinese citizens and the Malay and Indian so that they can have racial harmony in one apartment block.
Singapore is a high-density, you know, it's a city state. I think we are more likely to be New York, London And bear in mind, Tony, I don't know precisely what it is, but I would guess that Sydney and Melbourne have something like 20 times the footprint of Singapore.
You do not need to make Melbourne and Sydney look like Singapore or Hong Kong in order to double their population. Nothing like it. Yeah, I was raised by a single mother in inner city Sydney. She is in her 50s now, and those people are doing it pretty tough, she's barely hanging on by a thread to the rental market. My question is, who or what decides how much we should pay for the privilege of having a roof over our heads?
Who or what decided that the working-class in this country should have to work six days a week and commute between two to five hours a day for 40 years, just so they can afford a home? Who decided that we should get little more than an hour a night, and one full day a week to spend with our loved ones doing the things that bring us joy and happiness?
It's a sense you get, and you hear it in the audience, that life has changed underneath us while we weren't watching. Yeah, and to a large extent, it's determined by raw market forces that we've opted to allow to determine the way we live, by the laws of supply and demand.
And if we say, if we say there are going to be , extra residents in a Sydney, in a Melbourne each and every year, we will have an effect on how we live. We can't alter that. On journey times and on wages, on wages. We haven't discussed, one of the impacts of high immigration, and that is downward pressure on wages. We had the Reserve Bank tell us that wages are too low.
There is not enough growth in wages. And the reason is, the reason is, we've got extraordinarily high immigration as part of our economic system. The upward pressure on housing prices, that has had a huge impact on how Australians live now. You keep going on about migration, and finger-pointing migration as an issue. The issue is the infrastructure. You have to keep up Not with wages. That's got nothing to do with infrastructure. We are talking about wages. We are talking about downward pressure on wages.
The issue is not about immigration. And they are regularly, the occupation list is regularly updated by the Department of Industry and together with the Department of We still need those skilled migrants who can contribute to our society. This is something that people have looked at a lot.
And the consensus of that essentially seems to be that immigrants by and large do not push down wages. And particularly not when, as Australia has, those migrants are skewed young and skilled. In fact, in that world, they probably, if anything, push average wages up a little bit. That is what the evidence says, both in the OECD, and the Productivity Commission has come to more or less the same conclusion.
Now, that said, you are absolutely right that migrants do, all other things being equal, increase house prices, but that depends on, what do you do about construction? So, Sydney, this year, is going to deliver in the order of about 35, extra dwellings, that, I think, is the highest on record. It needs to be, because population growth is almost the highest, is the highest on record in Sydney. But at that level, we would essentially be building enough housing given the increase in population.
The catch is we didn't do that for the last ten years. We ran migration at this level, we did not see substantial increase in housing, largely because the planning system locked it up, and that's why we saw house prices go through the roof.
A very quick response is about the failure of our Skilled Migration Program. The most recent study that I read by Bob Birrell, shows that you could abolish it tomorrow without any employers seeing the difference. We are importing professionals, we are importing professionals who are unemployed.
Now, we've got to reassess the notion we hold that the Skilled Migration Program as we make it work is delivering relief from skill shortages. I actually want to come back to Jed's question. Because I think it's a really valid one in terms of how we make our lives, as a whole, work better.
And part of the answer, a big part of the answer, Jed, is that we have to do the planning that's currently going on now. But then we have to actually implement it so that you can have a job that is near where you live so you are not commuting for two hours and not getting time to spend with your mum or your kids, or whatever it might be. We need to do that, we need to make sure they are real jobs, we need to make sure that the transport between those two locations is good, but we also need to make sure that you've got a park that you can go and kick a footy around.
And I completely agree with John's point. His report made it incredibly eloquently last week, as did the RBA report, that if we don't fix the planning system, and, sure, we delivered a record number of houses last year and we need to deliver , more by We're going to have to do it better for decades. We've got some people with some slightly different ideas on how you can fix this. One is Bob Beckett. Go ahead, Bob. So far we have talked a lot about solutions that are Sydney-centric.
So they involve increasing density in infrastructure within Sydney and the current vision is one of three cities between the current CBD, Parramatta and around Western Sydney airport. My question is, is it not also time to seriously consider improving high-speed transportation with nearby regional centres, such as Newcastle, Gosford and Wollongong, to put them within a realistic commutable distance and relieve some of the pressure from Sydney itself?
John, I beg your pardon. John Daley, it seems we are talking about infrastructure, and this is one of the big ones, we've got these huge mega-cities coming, but why not just expand the populations in regional centres and create proper transport connections between them?
Well, it depends what we think we are doing. If what we think we're doing is creating a whole bunch of extra jobs in regional centres, then I think we're going to be disappointed. We have years of official policy to do that, and so far, years of failure. So I'd be surprised if this time is different. If we think we're doing it because we are essentially making Newcastle and Wollongong, to some extent, dormitory towns for Sydney, well, that's doable. But you've got to ask, well, why would I bother doing that rather than just making sure that the rail link works from the edge of Sydney, which is by definition, closer than either Newcastle or Wollongong?
And better still, why wouldn't I increase the density in the middle rings of Sydney, where, inherently, I'm only about half an hour's commuting distance from the centre of Sydney using existing transport networks? Why not? John, why not do both things? And then you've got the opportunity to develop regional Australia whilst simultaneously developing the inner rings or the middle rings, as you call them.
You might well do both but I think what you'll find is that commuting all the way to Sydney from Newcastle and from Wollongong is actually a lot harder than it sounds. I have staff members who commute from Castlemaine which is, you know, it's about an hour's commute, it's probably a bit similar, and they've rapidly got to the point, after a year and a half, of saying, you know, "John, I never get home before dark, it's just too hard.
Whether you do it by high-speed rail or by some other means, high-speed rail just pushes it out further, I think. And what John's saying is absolutely right. You look at towns like Ballarat and some of the areas around Melbourne, where they're sort of dormitory suburbs, it's actually had a big effect on the town and life in those towns. You know, I think we've got so many infrastructure problems at the moment that are crying out to be fixed.
Let's start with the stuff we really need to do now, to serve the populations that are already really struggling, rather than looking at these sort of projects. I'm going to move on quickly to another question from Rachel Chiu. Rachel is in the middle there. Go ahead, Rachel. Thank you very much. So, my question is do you think it's viable to develop Australia's regional centre as a way of alleviating the pressure on our major cities?
And if so, would it create I'll start with Jay. What do you think? We talked about high-speed rail - you can come in on that as well - because, obviously, there's huge infrastructure in high-speed rail in China, in Japan and many other Asian countries. But also, that's a question really saying, should we send migrants to regional centres? Should we make it compulsory?
Our government has tried already to settle those Karen refugees from Myanmar to settle in Victoria, regional Victoria, called Nhill, and that was very successful. They did it with the local community, who had a plan, who can hire those newly arriving refugees to give them job and give them livelihood and it worked very well. And there is a study by Regional Australia Institute that migrants stay in those regional states and regional areas and it works for them So, yeah, I mean, growing in not just the big cities, but spreading out and giving more job and housing opportunities for those incoming migrants, or the temporary migrants, to move to Bob, I'll bring you in here - decentralisation was one of the big plans of the Whitlam government back in the early '70s.
It just never happened, did it? It's part of Australia's DNA. We love the idea. But America is the continent where that can happen. Inland cities based on strong river systems, rivers flowing down the Rocky Mountains. We haven't got that. Two problems Well, every river on the Australian continent would fit in the Mississippi and the Mississippi wouldn't notice it. There are geographic limits about Australia and two really do undermine the happy faith we, as Australians, have sometimes invested in decentralisation.
One is water. Don't forget, in the last drought, that you had inland cities running out of water. It was particularly acute in Goulburn and Canberra, for example. And that is really a restraint on how you could build population in those centres.
And, second, decentralisation only works where you have some terrific value-adding industry. An efficient abattoir, for example, or a mine, like the Cadia gold and copper mine in Orange. Beautiful example. And by the way, talking so fondly as we are of Canberra, Canberra, the city, where immigration targets are set for all of Australia, the targets that Sydney and Melbourne have got to cope with, Canberra has the lowest population densities of any capital city in Australia.
OK, Bob, you mentioned America and we have a question picking up on this idea of smaller cities from Jennifer Crawford. Why don't we do small cities in Australia? Outside the capital cities and their associated conurbations, the largest inland city in New South Wales is Albury-Wodonga, with a population of just under 90, Next is Coffs Harbour with 69, and Wagga with 56, If you look around the world, there are many famous small cities.
How much more pleasant would life be in small Australian cities of between , to , people? As an architect, I'm really excited by the idea. Why can't we seem to do it? I think that when we're talking about planning cities of tomorrow, smart cities of the future, there are some things that we know that work, and I was just thinking about Newcastle and Wollongong.
And one of the things that both of those cities have are world-class universities, which are very much an attracter for innovation, for students, and that is why Newcastle and Wollongong are actually on a really good growth trajectory at the moment, that I think what you need to be able to do, apart from getting the transport links right, is you need to have that attracter, as Bob mentioned.
But also a part of it is about branding and about selling yourself to the world. And I know that we've got members in Newcastle and Wollongong who are working through that process with the universities in those towns. My aunty lived in Armidale. It's quite a pleasant town and not as hot as other towns in western New South Wales. So, I'm kind of wondering why can't we, as you suggest, piggyback off those university towns and make them grow to a size that can sustain theatre, good coffee, yoga classes, and all the stuff that us Inner-West hipsters want to move to?
Actually, I'll go to Tim there. Could we do that in Australia? Could we have lots of smaller cities that still had reasonable populations and be good places to live? Look, the history of Australia has been really telling in that regard because we have seen a relative shrinkage of many of those inland cities. And I think the reason is that the resource base is just so limited.
So, even the agricultural resource base in many of those areas, even our rich irrigation areas, is really small compared with the resource base over much of North America or Europe or East Asia. There's just And, yet, in Melbourne and Sydney, we're part of a global community, really. A lot of our wealth comes from that international trade. Once you get into real Australia, outside that, the Even Nhill, where the Myanmar migrants went to, if you look at the resources available there, it's in the middle of Victorian Mallee.
There's not a mountain to be seen. John Daley, what about this? I mean, I know you're putting all your trust in the middle rings of the existing cities and you think that just building more higher-density properties in those areas will solve all our problems. But surely, it won't, when we get to 40 million. John, we have to worry about it now! Otherwise, there's no point.
That's what thinking institutes are meant for. We may be a thinking institute, but we're also a kind of But what I would note is that you're absolutely right - places like Armidale, more distant from, say, a big centre like Sydney, are not growing that fast. And the answer is fundamentally not because people won't go there but fundamentally because employers choose not to go there.
Now, why is it that employers make that choice? The answer is well, either they're in agriculture - and, as Tim says, the base is not that large and, in fact, agriculture is becoming more efficient which, of course, means it requires fewer people.
And instead most employers in Australia are in service industries and one of the things we know about service businesses around the world, not just in Australia, is that they tend to want to be where all the other service businesses are. Now, that's not true if you're the hairdresser, and it's less true if you are the local hospital. But it's very true for most of the service businesses in our economy. And they want to be where the other service businesses are and that's what makes And, so, this phenomenon that we see in Australia of big cities accumulating more and more of the population is something that we see happening around the world and the only reason that Wollongong and Newcastle are growing faster is precisely because they are close enough to Sydney.
So, we see the same phenomenon in Victoria with Ballarat and Bendigo growing faster than most of the other inland towns, precisely because they are closer to Melbourne. OK, well, first of all, I'd say this. The interest in this subject is huge so we commit to continuing on it. But we're nearly out of time. So, we have time for one last question. It comes from Fiona Batt. The global population is forecast to peak at 9. Jay, we'll start with you, and if you want to pick up on the previous question, you can do that as well.
I wanted to respond to Jennifer. I mean, if they are such beautiful, small towns, I will be the first person who would like to go there if there is a job for a migration expert! I'll definitely go there. Sounds great. You're absolutely right. This is a global connected world. We can't ignore that population is growing outside Australia.
You know, bringing people in, having connection And the most important thing is to have the broadband. The fixed broadband speed is very slow in Australia, as a South Korean. One page to the next, normally two seconds.
There's a connected world. We need a connection and innovation. And for that, we need talent and there is a global race for talent and these highly mobile people going around You know, "Where is the best country to live permanently?
Tim Flannery, let's put it this way, can you actually make a moral case for keeping our migration levels low when those people will be living somewhere in the world anyway? Absolutely, I think you can. Because we have to look at our foreign aid budget as well as our migration budget and say, "How can we do the best for people anywhere? Where can we target that foreign aid budget to bring about a better quality of life as well as having some immigration? But those figures you gave, I don't think they are right.
We're at about 7. I think that's going to be manageable. I really do. I think you're absolutely right. So far, we've been talking about it from a self-interested Australian perspective.
And there is another perspective here, which is essentially, "What about the interests of those people who would otherwise migrate? And they probably will lead much better lives if they come to Australia, chances are.
That is not just because there are other options, it's also because Australia has a whole series of existing high-quality institutions - by global standards a genius for integrating migrants into our community.
So, chances are they will do better here than in a lot of other places. We obviously can't accommodate the entire world. But if we can accommodate some, we're helping people that otherwise would be less well off. And you can make a pretty strong moral case for doing that. Despite the challenges, Australian cities are amongst some of the most liveable in the world. You'll have seen the results.
Melbourne - the most liveable city in the world. I think four of our capital cities are in the top Yes, it's climate, it's a whole range of factors and there's certainly things that we don't rank as well on.
But at the end of the day, Melbourne is number one. People want to come to Melbourne. And if we don't plan for that growth, if we don't constructively and collaboratively work across governments and broadly as a community and talk about what we want from the growth, rather than what we don't want, then we're doing ourselves a disservice and we're doing our kids a disservice, let alone the people who might come, like Jay, and make a wonderful contribution to this country. Facebook Twitter Delicious Reddit Digg what are these?
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