Labor MP pushes for population freeze
Updated
An Australian federal member of parliament says the government's push to reduce the size of Australia's environmental footprint is not helped by its population policy which is adding more people.
Labor MP Kelvin Thompson is campaigning for the government to cap Australia's population at 26 million... warning that failure to act will create an environmental disaster. Mr Thomson stepped up his campaign with a speech to the Victorian branch of the lobby group, Sustainable Population Australia .. saying that his message is attracting a lot of support.
Presenter: Ashley Hall
Speakers: Kelvin Thomson, Federal Labor MP; Jill Quirk, the president of the Victorian Branch of Sustainable Population Australia
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ASHLEY HALL: It seems of late, the email inbox has become the first place politicians look to gauge the public mood and the Federal Labor MP Kelvin Thomson says what he's found in his inbox has been illuminating.
KELVIN THOMSON: People are concerned about our water supplies and our capacity to meet the food and water demands of a growing population. They are concerned about urban sprawl and the quality of life in our cities. People raise planning issues. They raise issues about the impact on native wildlife. So a variety of concerns.
ASHLEY HALL: The catalyst for the feedback is a speech Mr Thomson gave in Parliament in August, calling on world leaders to stabilise the world's population. He said the world's growing population was to blame for the food crisis, water shortages, housing affordability problems and the extinction of species. And, of course, climate change.
KELVIN THOMSON: It is pretty hard to reduce your carbon footprint when you keep adding more feet and that is true right around the globe. With the world on track to increase its population by 50 per cent by 2050, at the same time as scientists are saying we have to cut carbon emissions by 60 per cent - clearly there is a problem and I believe this does need to be discussed at Copenhagen.
ASHLEY HALL: The latest Treasury projections indicate the Australian population could reach 35 million by 2049 and the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd argues a population of that size would be good for Australia's long-term national security.
But Mr Thomson is having none of that.
KELVIN THOMSON: I don't accept the idea that because Australia is not overcrowded compared to other countries, that we should be copying these other countries.
ASHLEY HALL: That puts you in the opposite corner to the Prime Minister if you like. Is that a fight that you are comfortable being in?
KELVIN THOMSON: That is not my choice. I have said for quite some time that I believe that there is a problem in relation to global population levels and I think if you look at issues to do with our water supplies, with our food supplies, with the pressure on our cities, all of these things suggest that we need to change course.
ASHLEY HALL: Mr Thomson says it will take a long time to change the minds of those policy makers committed to a bigger Australian population, because they've been lobbied by self-interested big business.
KELVIN THOMSON: It needs people to mobilise, to contact media, to contact their members of parliament and to raise these issues on the internet and the like so that there is an understanding both of what is at stake and of community views about this issue.
