A bigger Australia teeters on the edge: comparing the ‘Physical implications’ and 2002 ‘Future Dilemmas’ studies of population growth options

Public policy views on long-term population growth options have been augmented by the 2010 ‘Physical Implications of Population Growth’ report. This reveals that a bigger Australia faces protracted water deficits in three main cities, has high vulnerability to oil depletion, will accelerate its greenhouse gas emissions and has generally poor city structure and function. City structure produces low fluency in transport operations and generates increased congestion and poorer quality of life. Since most migrants settle in discrete areas of Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, increased migration levels directly influence local environmental issues of land clearance, biodiversity loss and water pollution. By 2050, a bigger Australia could quadruple economic churn measures such as GDP compared to a doubling for a smaller Australia. However both a bigger and smaller Australia can expect a doubling of GDP per capita by 2050. Taken individually, the physical constraints have logical and practical solutions. However on the basis of past experience, Australia lacks the institutional and engineering fluency to design and implement a bigger Australia across these interacting issues and challenges in an environmentally neutral way. Copyright. Monash University and the author/s