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| Tony De Domenico Executive
Director UDIA (VIC) |
Should
Australia Double Its Population in Another 45 Years?
UDIA
puts population on National Agenda
The
Urban Development Institute of Australia (Victoria)
today said the rapid growth of Australia's population, which is expected to double
in 50 years, should be part of the National Debate for the next Federal election
because of the failure of governments to keep up with current infrastructure and
services.
The
organisation's comments support the warning by Former Treasury Secretary
Ken Henry that the current tax system will be unable to fund the infrastructure
needs of the extra 14 million Australians forecast by 2050.
Tony
De Domenico, Executive Director of the UDIA (Vic) which will host
the UDIA 2013 National Congress in Melbourne next March said, "The theme 'Population
Vision for a Nation' has been specifically chosen to focus on the need for
all State and Federal Governments as well as the private sector to be active in
planning and providing future infrastructure."
Mr
De Domenico said, "Australia needs to come to grips with the reality
that we are in some cases three decades behind in funding infrastructure on all
fronts from transport, schools, health facilities, business infrastructure and
human services.
Current
governments are facing a massive backlog through poor planning or lack of funds
by their predecessors and the failure to address issues has compounded leaving
capital cities choked with transport gridlock, housing developments without services,
and a major demand for public housing and health services with a rapidly ageing
population."
The
major question is: should Governments actively be working now in a designated
catch up period and introduce policies and budgets to harness the new growth focused
on productivity and borrow funds at the lowest rates in history to kick start
major projects?
One
could ask the question why all carbon tax credits being planned to go
overseas and support overseas businesses should not be directed into other initiatives
such as environmental infrastructure, sustainable housing in Australia
and public transport projects for outer suburbs? This is just a
starting point.
"The
current financial situation on lack of funding for basic infrastructure places
a spotlight on failed expensive government programmes which can add up to billions
of dollars being wasted at a time when Australia desperately needs to be building
the nation's capacity to cope with the increasing population," Mr De
Domenico said.
*A
baby is born every 1 minute 46 seconds.
A person dies every 3 minutes
40 seconds.
And an international migrant arrives every 3 minutes 5 seconds.
*Source: ABS
That's
a total population increase of 1 person every 1 minute 37 seconds.
Media
Enquiries:
Ron
Smith, Corporate Media Communications, UDIA (VIC) - Mobile: 0417 329 201
