Lois Levy argues that governments should be considering a steady-state economy rather than blindly promoting unsustainable growth. Martin Rasini talks to this environmental warrior of the Gold Coast.
Lois Levy
Veteran environmental campaigner Lois Levy views the upcoming population forums as an opportunity to highlight the unwanted social impacts of population growth and expose the thinking behind it.
Ms Levy, secretary of Gold Coast environmental group Gecko, will be a speaker at one of the forums where she will also argue that government promotion of population growth in southeast Queensland fails to give adequate consideration to the consequences of climate change.
“What I will be trying to convey in my address is that the population growth forecasts handed down by government to guide the new South East Queensland Regional Plan are based on nothing more than the desire of developers to continue to build homes, shopping centres and workspaces,” she said.
“Most of the southeast Queensland growth is occurring in coastal communities such as the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast despite the fact climate change is likely to cause water levels to rise which could require the relocation of hundreds of thousands of people.”
Ms Levy said the southeast Queensland community has never been asked whether it wants growth so, effectively, its voice has been muzzled.
“The forum provides an opportunity to increase public awareness of the many negative consequences of growth and the need for the community to lobby to achieve change to the regional plan,” she said.
“People are unhappy about coping with congested roads, poor infrastructure and reduced open space and, by working together, can bring this message home to the government.”
Ms Levy, a social worker for 40 years and for 13 years a TAFE teacher who now teaches community development part time, has played significant roles in many high-profile environmental campaigns, including the campaign to prevent development of a cruise terminal on the Southport Spit.
Her involvement with environmental issues began in 1979-80 when she worked with community group Friends of Currumbin Estuary to prevent national development company Lend Lease undertaking a major residential project on the north bank of Currumbin Creek.
“As a consequence of that first campaign, I became fascinated with the processes linked to conserving open space and the methodologies associated with involving the community,” she said.
“I have been active in the environmental movement ever since.”
Ms Levy said population growth, with the high-density living that accompanies much of it, is presented to the public as a rosy vision, but that there are many downsides such as anti-social behaviour in general, crime and mental illness.
“We have rising levels of mental illness among our young and we could easily conjecture that this is a consequence of the need for both parents to be working, the increased congestion in our cities and towns and the dearth of social and community infrastructure being provided in new suburban developments.
“Also, in relation to the issue of population growth, we need to consider the Australian psyche.
“Australians have been raised to think of homes as places with sizable backyards and of communities as places with lots of open space.
“Higher residential densities in the form of apartments and townhouses clustered around infrastructure such as town centres mean there will be little in the way of open space and no backyards.
“This is in complete conflict with the Australian vision.”
Ms Levy said the sorts of problems that flow from ill-considered and under-resourced growth are evident in the Gold Coast’s burgeoning northern suburbs, such as Coomera.
“The services in these areas are abysmal and youth is jammed into urban sprawl precincts with no facilities.
“Across the whole of the northern Gold Coast there is only one community hall, at Oxenford, and that exists solely because of the efforts of a community activist.
“There must be a limit to this sort of development and the community must find other ways of doing things.
“I believe it is time for governments and the community to start thinking about concepts such as the steady-state economy.”
Steady-state economy has its origin in ecological economics, although its roots are in classical economics such as the ‘stationary state’ concept put forward by John Stuart Mill.
The steady-state concept connotes constant populations, constant stocks of capital and a constant rate of throughput of energy and materials that, within a given technological framework, will yield constant flows of goods and services.
Advocates argue that neither economic growth nor economic recession is sustainable and that, therefore, the steady-state economy is the only sustainable option and the appropriate policy goal if sustainability is to be achieved.
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