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Letters to the Editor
Open letter to the Premier of Queensland, Anna Bligh

Unsustainable growth may see the "coastline covered in concrete all the way from Victoria to the Queensland border". Image greghardwick.com.au

Dear Madam Premier,

Recently I had a short and enjoyable holiday in Noosa but was dismayed to read in the local papers of the plans by the Minister for Infrastructure to “reform” planning approvals and the possibility of development in the ‘Wild Horse’ mountain region.

This is a process distinctly similar to that carried out in New South Wales with devastating consequences.  You may recall that a previous Premier of NSW, Bob Carr, warned of the danger of growth that would see the coastline covered in concrete all the way from Victoria to the Queensland border.  Unfortunately his warnings have been ignored and many pristine coastal locations, as well as inland regions, have been overwhelmed by housing developments. Along with development booms came the apparently inevitable political corruption which tainted members of both local and state governments -- none more bizarre than the scandal that rocked the Wollongong council.

New South Wales has “enjoyed” a housing boom which we are repeatedly told will rescue the economy and yet this State government is on the verge of economic collapse. It cannot fund necessary infrastructure and is selling off government assets, even the State lottery, as well as schools, parks and police stations. This state is probably the worst off because Sydney has suffered the fastest population growth and as a consequence the government has been unable to maintain even essential services.  Some of the state’s best agricultural land is being swallowed by urban sprawl, forcing growers to move into more marginal land with higher transport costs.

" The Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the value of our soils as diminishing by $300 million every year"

They also suffer the double blow of having governments put cities ahead of rural areas for water allocations.

It has also been estimated by the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Economics that traffic congestion now costs the nation $21 billion per year and there is no likelihood that this will improve while population growth outstrips expenditure on services. At the same time, because growth in road transport outstripped our oil supply capacity, we now must import an ever increasing amount, often from unreliable sources.

The cost of imported fuel has been estimated to rise to $30 billion by 2012 and this estimate was made before the current price rises and the governments expanded immigration program.

Because of the structure of the housing industry more than one million people are considered to be in housing stress, that is, they are paying 30 per cent or more of their income in house repayments.  The number of homeless people continues to rise as do the number of personal bankruptcies, and largely due to housing repayments, Australia’s personal debt is over one trillion dollars -- higher on a per capita basis than the US and the very mechanism that provoked the current economic collapse.

Perhaps even more disturbing is the view of Prof. Fiona Stanley, the child-welfare scientist and 2003 Australian of the year. Her findings provide a direct connection between child and adolescent health problems and the economy. According to her data, one in five parents are unfit for the task of raising children because they are overworked or otherwise stressed.

A quick appraisal of other country’s economic positions shows that those with high levels of housing growth, like Iceland and Spain, suffered the worst in this collapse, something that should not be surprising since all previous economic collapses were related to housing bubbles that burst.

However, events since 2007 should make it obvious that there is something terribly wrong with a system that fails so dramatically and does so about every 20 years.  What is also apparent is that costs for services and infrastructure, are increasing and doing so faster than any revenue gain from growth.

"The national  infrastructure deficit is almost $90 billion"

We have therefore an economic system that is operating as a type of pyramid scheme, with input as GDP artificially structured to obscure its inherent real costs.  It has been suggested by many that what is wrong is the twentieth century “neoclassical” economics which has misinterpreted or ignored the more philosophical approach of earlier economic thought.

Today in a typical introductory textbook (Ekelund and Tollison 1988:147), students read that:

"The overall goal of macro-economic policy is the achievement of economic stabilisation ... to attain maximum economic growth in the present and future."

Economics thus became a science geared toward justifying and facilitating the pursuit of wealth by individuals and nations. In perhaps its most radical departure from the classicists it adopted the assumption that there is no limit to economic growth, an absurdity echoed by the previous Prime Minister shortly before his ignominious defeat.

More importantly it should be now obvious that the foundation of conservative economics, growth and implicit belief in market forces, is illogical and the common factor in economic and environmental failures that have beset our country for many years.  So great has been the faith in these economic principles that successive governments have been unwilling to contemplate that many industries like gambling, liquor and tobacco actually cost the community far more than they return in the way of increased revenue.

"Gambling and the liquor industry are the worst, the later costs the public $7.6 billion per year, causes untold loss of human potential by brain impairment and is responsible for 40 per cent of police work"

These however pale into insignificance when compared to the “junk” food industry that is largely responsible for the epidemic of youth obesity that will swamp our already over-stressed health care system.

"According to Access Economics there will be 7 million obese by 2025, and it already costs the nation over $20 billion annually"

Apparently the minor increase in GDP created by the food industry was considered more important than the health of the people.

One also has to ask what type of economic fanatic would promote population growth at a time when Queensland is subjected to increasing storm intensity.  Victoria and South Australia are drying out, NSW is regularly 70 per cent drought effected, the Murray Darling system that used to produce a third of our food, has collapsed, and climate change will further decimate our agricultural industry.

All this and we still have governments allowing mining and housing developments in those areas that appear to be safe from drought.

"To rank some abstract number like GDP as more important than food production must be the highest of all absurdities especially when it should be obvious that despite, or because of continued population growth, our per capita GDP is declining"

The fallacy of an economic system relying on growth is the subject of a report in the New Scientist magazine (Issue 2678 October 15, 2008) where a cross section of experts from fields including economics, law, and philosophy all conclude that conservative economics has failed society.

These opinions are by no means isolated there has been a growing chorus of criticism from economists. Alan Ramsay, Clive Hamilton Steve Keen and Ross Gittens have all spoken out on several occasions, (while internationally George Soros  author of The Bubble of American Supremacy,  Nassim Taleb author of the Black Swan and most recently John Talbot author of the 86 Lies), to politicians, including the Premier of NSW, as they observe the deterioration  of our cities, smothered under the weight of population growth.

So serious are the findings that I request you examine this report as a matter of urgency, and if its findings cannot be refuted you must abandon the reliance on growth that is not only damaging our nation, but threatens the world’s ability to combat climate change .

I look forward to your response in the near future.

Yours faithfully,

Don Owers
Dudley, NSW

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Related articles:

1. Population: perpetual growth is not the answer
2. South East Queensland Regional Plan: a ‘scary blueprint’