Gavin W. Jones
Consultant
Social Policy Group
Major Issues Summary
Introduction
The International Context
'Population Attitudes' in
Australia
Components of Increase of the Australian
Population
Definitions of Population Policy
Has Australia Had a Population Policy in Postwar
Years?
Australian Population Inquiries
Major Interest Groups, Organisations,
Arguments and Areas of Contention
Issues Requiring Further Examination in Moving
towards a Population Policy
- Activist or Responsive Approach?
- Interventions to Influence Fertility?
- Need for Wider Range and Better Interpretation of Population
Projections
- Resources and Environmental Impacts
- Immigrant Settlement Patterns and Internal Population
Movements
- Temporary International Population Movements
- How Much Strain Does Non-European Migration Place on Social
Cohesion?
- Other Issues Warranting Further Examination
What Would a National Population Policy Actually
Entail?
- Precautionary Principle
- Size or Growth Rate Goals
- Degree of Activism Required
- Crucial Role of Migration Policy
- Population Distribution and Quality
Integration of Population Policy with Other
Areas of Public Policy and Planning
What Would Be Entailed in Implementing a
Population Policy?
Conclusion
Endnotes
References
Australia finished World War II with seven and a half million
people and the memory of near-invasion by Japanese forces. The 2
per cent population growth goal adopted then had widespread
community support. Our population has now increased to 18 million,
and consensus about appropriate size and growth rates has vanished.
Views about optimum population size range from 5 million to 150
million.
In neighbouring countries, the fact that Australia's population
is tiny in relation to our land area leads to widespread
perceptions that it could be much larger. These perceptions will
colour attitudes to Australia's capacity to accept refugees and
regular international migrants. The extreme dryness of the
Australian continent needs to be emphasised in our attempts to
promote a more realistic perception among opinion leaders in these
countries.
Most Western countries do not have an explicit population
policy. Why should Australia be different? A key reason is that
most Western countries do not have a substantial immigration
program that is modifying their population in major ways.
The majority of Australians would appear to prefer a lower
immigration intake than prevails at present. Thus our implicit
population policy is incompatible with majority views, though
probably not sufficiently so to lead to a major backlash.
Fertility has been below replacement levels for two decades, but
age structure will ensure that at these fertility levels, natural
increase will remain positive for another fifty years. A
little-recognised possibility is that fertility could sink lower
than its current levels, thus in time holding out attractions for
pronatalist policies which stress that 'the best immigrant is an
Australian baby'.
Seeking to respond appropriately to population trends is part of
the mandate of all government agencies serving the population. The
total efforts of the various government agencies probably deal
reasonably well with adapting to population trends. But they
certainly do not add up to an adequate coordinated effort to assess
whether population trends are desirable and to seek to modify them
if they are not. Policy that is only responsive to population
trends rather than seeking to influence them does not deserve to be
labelled population policy.
Successive independent population enquiries commissioned by
government in Australia have all recommended the adoption of a
population policy. So far, governments have always resisted these
recommendations.
If Australia is to adopt a population policy, there are many
issues which need to be resolved. Some of these are:
- Since current fertility rates are on target for eventual
population decline, will Australia at some point need to work on
modifying fertility? What changes in labour market and social
welfare programs and tax regimes would be needed to prevent
fertility from declining further below replacement level? How
crucial is gender equity within the family?
- The need for better and more comprehensive population
projections. More fertility scenarios are needed, as well as
projections designed to permit the evaluation of the regional
impact of demographic trends over a 10-year period.
- The resource needs and environmental impact of alternative
future population trends need to be carefully studied. 'Population
growth is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for
environmental degradation; it is, however, a strong predisposing
factor' (Cocks, 1996: 133)
- A number of issues relating to immigration need to be
investigated, including the effect of immigrant settlement patterns
on the internal migration of the local-born; the relative impact of
immigration and of temporary international movements (tourism,
students) on environmental sustainability; and the relationship
between the scale and pattern of immigration and the formation of
poverty groups.
- The effect of postwar immigration, and the likely impact of
current immigration levels and composition on social cohesion, need
to be carefully studied. Australia has the largest proportion of
foreign born population (at 23 per cent) of any Western country
except Israel. How tolerant are we of ethnic difference?
- The importance of the above question is that any foreseeable
immigration program that selects migrants on the basis of criteria
other than race will inevitably contain a substantial component
(probably one-third to one-half) of migrants from Asian countries.
Higher immigration levels will therefore mean more rapid
modification of Australia's ethnic mix.
What would a population policy actually entail? First, a sorting
out of our medium-term goals for population size and growth.
Second, decisions about whether we want to modify some of the
distributional trends. Third, identification of possible levers by
which population trends could be modified and the specific policy
or programmatic changes that would be required to accomplish these
changes.
Ideally, long-term goals for population size and growth need to
be settled, but it is possible to conceive of interim goals that
would leave long-run options open and therefore not require
immediate consensus about these.
Adoption of a population policy would bring a greater degree of
certainty to government planning and private enterprise decision
making. At least some of the goals of government would be clearer,
even if the government's ability to attain those goals remained
questionable.
In a number of recent discussions of population policy, the
figure of 23 million has emerged as a 'natural' levelling off point
for Australia's population, given the projected slowing of natural
increase and maintenance of a modest immigration program (net
migration of 50 000 per year). More recent ABS projections suggest
that 25 million is a more likely levelling off point, if fertility
rates remain unchanged. Further discussion of the implications of
such an ultimate population would be useful, provided it is
recognised that no figure is sacrosanct.
Migration will remain a crucial element in Australian population
policy. The policy must remain non-discriminatory on the basis of
ethnic background, but as the volume of potential migrants will
remain much larger than the number of available places, difficult
decisions will remain with regard to balance between various
categories of migrants.
With regard to distribution, a judgement is needed on whether
current patterns of redistribution towards the north coast of NSW
and Southeast Queensland, and the net loss through migration from
South Australia and Tasmania are appropriate, and if not, what
policies might be put in place to modify the trends. The same goes
for internal redistribution within major cities.
Formulation and implementation of population policy would
involve many different arms of government - those dealing with
immigration, the family and social welfare, education, health,
employment, regional development and urban planning, to name just
some. Coordination between these bodies would be necessary in order
to assess and anticipate population trends, develop policy on a
consistent basis, and draw on effective community consultation and
expert information in the process.
Whether or not government decides to formulate a comprehensive
population policy, there is a strong case for an ongoing body with
wide expert and community representation to advise government on
population matters. Such bodies have been in place in the past, but
in recent years government has lacked such advice.
This paper addresses the issue of whether Australia should have
a population policy and, if so, what the aims and components of
such a policy should be, and how the policy would be formulated and
administered. Some prior consideration is given to the definition
of population policy, since this is very unclear to most people.
Our 'population history' as well as the history of our attitudes to
population matters are also examined, as they colour the way we
view current issues.
Unanimity on population issues is clearly out of the question;
on the size of the long-term sustainable population for Australia,
for example, submissions to the House of Representatives Standing
Committee on Long Term Strategies ranged between 5 million and 150
million. But in seeking the greatest possible degree of community
support for population policy, a number of issues require research,
discussion and clarification. These will be dealt with in the
remainder of the paper, along with a discussion of what a national
population policy would actually entail.
Official population policies have been introduced in a
substantial proportion of developing countries since the late
1960s. There was considerable international pressure for the
adoption of such policies, in the context of the upsurge in
population growth rates in the 1950s and 1960s caused by the rapid
decline in Third World mortality rates without a corresponding
decline in birth rates. The United Nations monitoring of population
policies around the world found in 1991 that 69 developing
countries (with approximately 85 per cent of the population of the
less developed countries) viewed their population growth rates as
too high, and 61 of these countries had interventions to lower
their growth rates (United Nations Fund for Population Activities,
1992, Chapter 3, pp. 38- 39).
Though Western countries were at the forefront of pressures on
developing countries to adopt population policies, there was -
paradoxically - less pressure on Western countries themselves to
adopt population policies, because their population growth rates
were lower and their fertility seemingly under control (although
planners in these countries were in fact taken by surprise by the
substantial and protracted postwar baby boom). Thus in the United
Nations inquiry, of 38 developed countries, the great majority
considered their rates of growth to be satisfactory. Only 16
mentioned any interventions: seven to raise them, nine to maintain
them. The USA, for example, has never had a full-fledged population
policy, although during the Nixon era the Commission on Population
Growth and the American Future, in its 1972 report, recommended
that '...the nation welcome and plan for a stabilised
population'.(1) Some European countries (notably France) and a
number of Eastern European countries have had pronatalist policies,
but in most of Western and Southern Europe, governments have not
formulated explicit population policies (McIntosh, 1986; Demeny,
1986), nor have they in 'new world' countries including Canada, New
Zealand, Argentina and Australia.
The most dramatic measures - both of a positive and negative
kind - aimed at reversing fertility decline were enacted in Eastern
Europe during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Positive measures to
raise the birth rate typically took the form of raising the
economic incentives and lowering the costs of increased
childbearing, along with the dissemination of propaganda aimed at
encouraging the desired behaviour. Negative measures typically
restricted access to fertility control methods (Teitelbaum and
Winter, 1985: 115). In the West, 'pronatalist measures have been
slower to arise and more muted and subtle' (ibid), no doubt partly
because fertility declines lagged behind those of Eastern Europe.
Western political traditions tended to limit state intervention in
family matters, their more pluralistic political systems tended to
constrain controversial actions by governmental elites, and their
higher standards of living meant that economic incentives to
childbearing proportionate to those taken in Eastern Europe would
be far more costly. The more typical response in the West has been
measures to adapt to low fertility.
As a 'new world' country, Australia is set apart from population
policy developments in developing countries, even though some of
these countries are its close neighbours. But the discussion of
population policy in Australia has its own distinctive history,
which sets it apart from that in other Western countries as
well.
'Population Attitudes'
in Australia
Settled just over 200 years ago as a British colony (later a
series of British colonies), in the process displacing the
long-standing Aboriginal population, the underlying aim of the
different colonies' policy, and later of Australian policy for at
least the first six decades of the 20th Century, was to increase
the British and British-descended population. This implied the
marginalisation, and in some cases deliberate extermination, of the
Aboriginal population (Reynolds, 1987). It was widely believed that
the Aboriginal population would eventually disappear, though this
was not usually stated in as many words. Convicts were the major
element in population growth in the first 50 years in New South
Wales and Tasmania (Borrie, 1994, Chapter 2). Symbolically,
perhaps, this foreshadowed the attitudes of later years (indeed as
recently as the 1950s and early 1960s) that European stock, no
matter how questionable its pedigree, was preferable to even
well-educated and English-speaking non-Europeans. From another
perspective, it foreshadowed Australia's relatively generous
acceptance of refugees in recent times; Australian society has long
been built on the world's flotsam and jetsam.
Well before Federation in 1901, the various Australian colonies
had imposed restrictions on non-European immigration, influenced by
concern over the rapid expansion of the Chinese population in gold
rush times in Victoria and New South Wales in the 1850s and in
Queensland in the 1870s. Upon Federation in 1901, one of the first
actions of the new Commonwealth Government was to pass the
Immigration Restriction Act, and the White Australia Policy (the
popular, no-nonsense term for a policy never officially known as
such) remained in force for the first 70 years of this century. The
population remained not only white, but also overwhelmingly of
British-Irish extraction, until the eve of World War II.
World War II and the fright of a Japanese near-invasion coloured
postwar attitudes. The population was less than seven and a half
million at the end of World War II. Nobody doubted that it needed
to be increased, and the aim of rapidly increasing the size of the
population through a large-scale immigration program caught the
public imagination. When not enough migrants were forthcoming from
north-west Europe, the 'acceptable' source areas were progressively
widened to eastern and southern Europe, and even to Turkey, Lebanon
and Egypt, whose proximity to Europe apparently made them more
acceptable than Asian countries such as Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, India
and the Philippines, which had many educated, English speaking,
even Christian potential migrants. It was not until 1966 that the
first substantial modifications were made to the White Australia
Policy; the policy was subsequently dropped as part of the platform
of both of the main political parties, and totally abandoned in
1972 by the newly elected Whitlam Labor Government.
Curiously enough, there was another contributing factor to rapid
postwar population growth in Australia, and this was the postwar
baby boom, but this never became a focus for policy debate.(2)
Immigration continued to hold centre stage in discussions about
raising Australia's population, even at a time when, in most years
over the decade of the 1950s, well over half the annual increase of
over 200 000 was contributed by a natural increase swollen by high
birth rates (see Fig. 1). Pronatalism, of course, was associated in
some people's minds with the fascist policies of Nazi Germany and
the Axis powers, and this made it hard to promote it as an
instrument of population policy.
The population of Australia continues to be considered
remarkably small by many people (including well educated people) in
neighbouring Asian countries. It is, after all, less than one-tenth
as large as that of Indonesia, which has only one quarter the land
area of Australia, and about the same as that of Sri Lanka, which
has the same land area as Tasmania. Typically, observers in these
countries are unaware of the large proportion of Australia's land
area that is desert or semi-desert, and increasing this awareness
among opinion leaders in these countries should be a high priority
of Australian diplomatic missions and Radio Australia.
In Australia, population attitudes have changed remarkably since
the time of the postwar immigration drives. Australia's population
has more than doubled since those drives began. But it has not
reached the size probably considered desirable by most of those who
thought about the issue in the late 1940s. What appears to have
happened since then is that ideas about optimum population have
diversified - from support for rapid population increase to a range
of views, mostly favouring slackening growth.
Many observers still argue that a substantially larger
population would benefit Australia economically; less frequently
articulated, but probably still important, is the argument that a
larger population would provide less attraction to 'envious eyes
from the north'. And those who set great store by continuing
diversification of the Australian population tend to favour a
continuing immigration policy to ensure a continuing 'leavening' of
the population. However, the most pervasive change in attitudes in
postwar Australia has probably been the increasing concern with
environmental issues and the fragility of Australia's ecosystem.
This has led to an increased level of opposition to rates of
immigration, compared to early postwar attitudes. The evidence from
most but not all public opinion polls is that a slight majority of
the adult Australian population thinks that the rate of immigration
has been too high (Goot, 1991, Table 1). The level of opposition
may have been increasing in recent times, but the evidence is not
conclusive (Betts, 1996b). More will be said about these issues
below, in discussing interest groups.
The Australian population is growing twice as fast as that of
other Western countries (in fact, three times as fast as that of
European countries as a whole), for three reasons: the fertility
rate is higher than in most of these countries; age structure is
more conducive to rapid growth, as a higher proportion of the
population is in the childbearing ages (resulting mainly from a
sharper and more protracted postwar baby boom); and Australia has
an immigration program.
It may appear easy to determine the relative importance of
natural increase and net migration in the growth of the Australian
population; and indeed, from a simple accounting perspective, it
is. Successive waves of immigration boosted population growth - in
the late 1870s and 1880s, from 1910 to 1930 (broken by World War
I), again from the late 1940s through the 1960s, and following a
migration slump in the 1970s, again in the early and late 1980s.
Figure 1 shows the relative contribution of natural increase and
net migration each year over the past 47 years.
On recent trends, we can say that in 1988 net migration exceeded
natural increase, in 1989 their contribution to the rate of
population increase of 1.5 per cent was almost identical, and by
1993 the decline in immigration meant that immigration accounted
for only 20 per cent of the population increase of 1 per cent.
However, it is not quite as simple as this. The contribution of
migration is more profound than is apparent from Fig. 1. Migration
builds up the population on which natural increase is based.
Natural increase, then, would be much lower were it not for the
migrants who have become part of the population in earlier years;
the contribution of migration, in this sense, is greater the longer
the period we are considering. For example, immigrants and their
children born in Australia were responsible for almost 60 per cent
of national population growth between 1947 and 1973 (Borrie, 1994:
Table 10.2).
Even greater complexity arises when we try to disaggregate the
relative contribution of natural increase, international migration
and internal migration in the growth of population in different
States and localities in Australia. What we do know is that in
general, international migration is heavily focused on capital
cities, especially Sydney and Melbourne, whereas internal migration
is heavily focused on Queensland and Western Australia. Both
Melbourne and Sydney lose part of their large net gain from
overseas migration as a result of the net loss of their
Australian-born population, especially to Queensland and Western
Australia. Sydney was the destination of 40 per cent of the
immigration intake between 1986 and 1991, but it experienced a net
internal migration loss of 142 000 in this same period (Burnley,
1996).
It is important to recognise that, although natural increase
continues to contribute a relatively stable growth of approximately
0.8 per cent annually to the Australian population, fertility has
been below replacement level for the past 20 years. It is only
because the numbers in the reproductive ages have been swollen
during the 1980s and 1990s as a result of the postwar baby boom
that natural increase has remained as high as it has.(3) Once the
age and sex structure of the population settles down to fully
reflect the below-replacement fertility level, natural increase of
the population will be negative.(4) However, population projections
indicate that unless fertility declines further, natural increase
of the population will remain positive for at least the next 40
years (Jing Shu et al., 1996, Chapter 6), though it will of course
gradually contribute much less than its recent 0.8 per cent
annually. The projected births and deaths until 2051 are shown in
Fig. 2.
Figure 2: Projected Births and Deaths 1996- 2051 (Series
A)
Source: Rowland, 1997, Fig. 1.
In a later section, the recommendations of different official
Australian population enquiries will be summarised. The definitions
of population policy used in these enquiries have varied. The
National Population Inquiry report of 1975 noted that in the
broadest sense, assuming that the primary function of government is
to serve the perceived needs of the people, a population policy is
as broad as government policy at large. In the narrower sense,
however, the Inquiry argued that we can take a positive or a
passive approach towards population. The positive approach assumes
that population variables (marriage, fertility, migration, etc.)
can be manipulated through policy measures to achieve goals which
society at large, or government on its behalf, believes desirable
and attainable. The passive approach is geared instead to adapting
to the population trends which the society is experiencing.
Although the National Population Inquiry was prepared to accept
that the passive approach is a kind of population policy, I believe
that the broad spectrum of government policies in any country is
designed to serve the existing and anticipated population, and
should not be considered 'population policy', a term better
reserved for policies designed to influence population trends
(including trends in population composition and quality)
themselves.
The Population Issues Committee of the National Population
Council in 1991 used the following definition of a population
policy (NPC, 1992: ix):
A population policy is one whereby government seeks to
anticipate and respond to population trends and prospects in the
light of their impacts and anticipates impacts of public policy on
population trends themselves. It also directly seeks to influence
the determinants of population in order to deliberately alter the
size and/or nature of the population.
The report made it clear that population policy could embrace
not only population numbers and growth but also its distribution
and characteristics.
Perhaps the best concise definition of population policy is that
of McNicoll (1995: 97): '...a coherent vision of the desired
demographic future and a co-ordinated set of actions designed to
move towards it'.
Although calls for a population policy usually include the
adjectives 'full-fledged' or 'comprehensive', implying attention to
a range of population issues, in fact population policies can be
very simple. The core issue in most countries is the rate of
population growth, or the ultimate population size, that is aimed
for. Therefore it has been argued (Australian Population and
Immigration Council, 1977) that Australia did have a population
policy from the early postwar years until the Whitlam government
abolished it in the early 1970s: the '2 per cent target' for
population growth, which envisaged that immigration and natural
increase would each contribute about half the annual growth
rate.
The 2 per cent target could only be considered a medium-term
target, since over the long run a rate of growth of 2 per cent
would lead to a doubling of the population every 35 years, and this
could hardly be envisaged for very long. Nevertheless, it remained
the basis for managing population increase for more than 25 years,
without the acknowledgment of any need to specify what ultimate
population size was envisaged. The view of the planners was clearly
that the desired size was 'much larger than at present', thus
obviating the requirement to specify the ultimate target, at least
in the short to medium term. Two things have changed since that
time. First, Australia's population has more than doubled, so some
of those who wanted a 'much larger' population may now think that
this 'much larger' population has been reached. Secondly, a more
pessimistic view prevails about Australia's longer-term prospects,
with the emergence of high unemployment levels and increasing
concern about environmental issues, and it is probably true to say
that in popular thinking, the size of population considered
desirable for Australia is smaller than it was thirty or forty
years ago.
Since the abolition of the 2 per cent goal in the early 1970s,
Australia has been in the curious situation of having an official
immigration policy, with annual targets, but without an explicit
goal for growth. An implicit growth goal can be inferred from the
migration targets, because the 'base' of natural increase has
remained quite stable over the past 20 years (see Fig. 1). But the
fact that the net migration targets implied by settler intake
targets have fluctuated quite markedly (dropping from well over 100
000 annually in the late 1960s and early 1970s to 10 000 or 20 000
in 1975, the last year of the Whitlam government, then rising again
to 70 000 a year under the Fraser government, dipping again in the
mid-1980s and reaching another major peak under the Hawke
government in the late 1980s) implies that the immigration targets
are influenced more by short-term economic considerations, refugee
crises, broader ideological considerations of new governments, and
the preferences of particular Prime Ministers and Ministers for
Immigration than by long-term population building strategies.
Since the mid-1970s, Australia's immigration targets have
implied acceptance of an increasing population size, but without
specifying just how rapidly that size should be increasing. On the
whole, emphasis has been more on responding to population change
than influencing it. In this respect, Australia has not differed
from most countries of Europe. But although these countries
resemble Australia in not having specific population policies, they
differ from Australia in not having official immigration programs
designed to increase the size of their populations. Therefore it
makes more sense for them to adopt a 'laissez faire' approach to
fertility and mortality, allowing these to settle at the levels
resulting from various health and social policies, without
explicitly considering the desired population growth rate or
ultimate size. But in Australia's case, logic suggests the need to
be more explicit about desired population growth rates.
Australia has had a number of national population inquiries. The
first and most comprehensive was the National Population Inquiry
(NPI), often referred to as the 'Borrie Commission', which worked
over the early 1970s and presented its main report to the
government in 1975 and a supplementary report in 1978. In December
1991 the Population Issues Committee of the National Population
Council presented its report entitled Population Issues and
Australia's Future to the government. Then in December 1994
the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long Term
Strategies presented its report on Australia's Population
'Carrying Capacity'.
The National Population Inquiry was not asked to establish an
'optimum' population for Australia, nor indeed to recommend
specific population policy. On the other hand, it was
asked to examine the 'desirable future population levels which
emerge from its analysis', and 'to produce results that would
contribute usefully to the formulation and application of national
policies'. Given this wide leeway, and the considerable time and
resources placed at its disposal, it is not surprising that the
National Population Inquiry did indeed range very widely, and in
terms of academic content stands up very well against comparable
inquiries commissioned in countries such as the United States (the
Commission on Population Growth and the American Future) and the
United Kingdom (the Royal Commission on Population, reporting in
1949, and the Population Panel of the Select Committee on Science
and Technology, reporting in 1973).
The National Population Inquiry in its 1975 report noted that
opinions would differ about whether continued population growth or
a stationary population is desirable, and that this is a matter
that cannot be definitively proved one way or another. Although the
Inquiry did not espouse either 'zero population growth' or
'unlimited growth', and refused to define an optimum population for
Australia, it did argue that at least a doubling of the 1971
population (12.8 million) was 'feasible and, in some respects,
desirable' (Borrie, 1994: 267). It did not find the idea of a
population of 50 or 60 million alarming, stating that it 'seems
feasible and manageable' (Borrie, 1978: 180). But basically the NPI
endorsed a policy of responding to population trends rather than
actively influencing them.
The Population Issues Committee concluded that 'it is
inappropriate to enunciate an optimum population level or a
carrying capacity for Australia'. Although a population number
could perhaps be determined that in some way reflected the
'carrying capacity' of the country in terms of ecologically
sustainable development, the Committee concluded that the need to
introduce attitudinal and preferential factors in determining an
optimum would mean that ideas about the optimum would vary and no
single national optimum population would be accepted by the entire
existing population.
According to the Committee, the proper purpose of any population
policy must be the enhancement of well-being for Australia, where
well-being is reflected in four national goals. The goals are
economic progress, ecological integrity, social justice and
responsible international involvement. After reviewing the impact
of population on major national goals, the Committee recommended
'that the Commonwealth Government develop a population policy as a
matter of priority', one which seeks to influence and respond to
population change so as to advance the four goals just noted.
Ideas of optimum population die hard, and it was only a few
years later that, spurred perhaps by the consignment of the
recommendations of the Population Issues Committee to the filing
cabinets, the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long
Term Strategies, chaired by Barry Jones, conducted an inquiry into
Australia's population 'carrying capacity' (House of
Representatives Standing Committee on Long Term Strategies, 1994:
120- 126). The Jones Committee did not come down in favour of any
particular size, but it did recommend that an official population
policy should be developed. 'The Australian Government should
develop a population policy which explicitly sets out a range of
options for long term population change, emphasising that year by
year decisions on immigration intake cannot be taken in an ad hoc
fashion without recognising incremental effects downstream' (Jones
Report: 125).
The committee established to prepare Australia's submission to
the United Nations International Conference on Population and
Development in Cairo in 1994 discussed issues of population policy.
Despite some members' strong arguments for Australia's adoption of
a population policy, the official position, stated in the
submission, was as follows: 'The Australian Government has not
specified an optimal population level for a number of reasons.
Chiefly, there is no clear formula for a workable population policy
in a developed country with low fertility' (Woolcott, 1994: 29).
Elsewhere in the report the lack of policy is further justified on
the ground of the diversity of community views as to the character
and objectives of a population policy.
One thing that is absolutely clear from the evidence of
submissions to population inquiries, letters to newspapers, and the
air time given on radio and television to people with an interest
in population-related matters is that a national consensus is
unlikely to develop around issues such as the appropriate long-term
population size or the appropriate population growth rate. By
extension, a consensus is unlikely to emerge on related issues such
as the appropriate net migration target or the appropriate size of
Australia's major cities. The migration debate, however, has many
dimensions other than that of population size; it encompasses
passionately held views on the appropriate balance between
different kinds of migration (refugee, family reunion, skills-based
selection) and the appropriate ethnic composition of the Australian
population. Some say it is socially responsible to emphasise
refugee migration, others to emphasise family reunion, others to
emphasise skills and expected contribution to Australia's
skills-based economy. Some want to limit diversity in the
population, others argue that increasing diversity will be good for
Australia.
Given the wide range of issues included under the rubric of
population policy, it is not surprising that many organised groups
exist in Australia to promote particular views on one or more of
these issues. Perhaps the best known of these groups are
Australians for an Ecologically Sustainable Population, Australians
Against Further Immigration, and various migrant lobby groups,
under their umbrella organisation, the Federation of Ethnic
Community Councils of Australia. Other groups such as the
Australian Conservation Foundation frequently have something to say
on population issues as well. Organisations such as the Housing
Industry Association clearly have an interest in a higher rather
than a lower immigration intake.
In evidence to the House of Representatives Standing Committee
on Long Term Strategies, estimates of a long-term sustainable
population for Australia ranged between 5 million and 150 million.
Given this extraordinary range, consensus is unlikely, though
provision of more information and the holding of educational
campaigns might be expected to narrow the range somewhat.
If Australia is to develop a sensible population policy, with
the greatest possible degree of community support, then those
issues which remain controversial need to be further examined, and
those on which there is inadequate information need to be
researched or quantified.
What are some of these issues?
Activist or Responsive Approach?
One key underlying issue is whether we need an activist or a
responsive (passive) approach to population policy. The responsive
approach is essentially to let demographic trends and patterns take
their course, to monitor them and to bend social and economic
policy to adapt to them. Given the quality of census, vital
registration and migration data in Australia, it is possible to
monitor population trends fairly well. Adaptation of social and
economic policy is complicated by the lack of 'smoothness' in the
population. The nuptiality and fertility peaks of the 1950s
generated a large birth cohort which is still working its way
through middle age and generating echo effects which planning must
adapt to. Dramatic ups and downs in immigration, and shifts in
major migrant source countries, also have important planning
implications. Effective adaptation of social and economic policy to
demographic trends requires careful and systematic analysis of the
trends and their implications.
But despite such complications, responsive approaches to
population are much easier than activist approaches. The key
problems with responsive approaches in the Australian context are,
however, first, that they imply that society as a whole is
reasonably contented with the outcome of 'letting nature take its
course'; and secondly, that the immigration program means that we
are not actually 'letting nature take its course'. The continuation
of a substantial immigration program seems to logically require the
elaboration of a set of goals for population size, composition and
distribution to provide an appropriate framework for the decisions
that are taken annually with respect to immigration targets.
Whether the formulation of such goals necessarily implies a broader
activist stance on population is a moot point. It is logically
conceivable that an activist stance would be taken only with regard
to immigration targets. But it also appears logical to argue that,
if activism is appropriate with respect to immigration, it should
also be contemplated with respect to other forces influencing the
size, composition and distribution of the population.
Activist population policy, however, is also problematic. As
already discussed, it raises the issue of defining appropriate and
nationally acceptable goals for controversial matters such as total
population size at some given time, population growth rates,
relative size of cities, and so forth. Also, 'even if a goal is
accepted, the demographic and political consequences of measures
applied to reach that goal are likely to prove very uncertain and
very unpredictable. For example, populations have proved to be
notoriously unresponsive to measures designed to raise their
natural growth rate' (Borrie, 1975: 707). Migrants, likewise, do
not necessarily go to those places which seek them.
Interventions to Influence Fertility?
In recent times in Australia, it has been accepted without
question that fertility is not an appropriate focus of policy:
decisions about childbearing are private matters.(5) Eschewing of
activism with regard to fertility has flowed readily from the
stability of total fertility rates (TFRs) at about 1.8 (below
replacement level but generating positive rates of population
growth because of the age structure). After all, natural increase
is positive and further growth, if desired, can be generated
through migration. The main arguments about fertility have been
from the environmentalist side, arguing the need for lower
fertility. Higher fertility has not had a constituency.
The stability of fertility rates (TFR of just over 1.8 since
1984) should not lull us into a false certainty that fertility will
never need to be the subject of activist attention, however. Recent
demographic events in Europe could be harbingers of future trends
in Australia. In much of Europe, TFRs have sunk to 1.5 or below,
and in some countries (Italy, Spain and Germany) to extraordinarily
low levels of 1.2. Although this has not yet led to significant
population declines, this is only because of the same kinds of age
structure effects that have held Australian natural increase rates
in positive territory. In time, however, fertility rates as low as
those of Italy, Spain and Germany will lead to accelerating
declines in population size; if we can talk of a 'population
explosion' resulting from high fertility in countries such as
Pakistan, we can equally justifiably forecast a 'population
collapse' in countries with very low fertility.(6)
Up to now, there have been no clear signs that fertility will
automatically 'right itself' in these European countries. European
governments may reconcile themselves to a declining population,
although the ageing implications of their prospective trends are
worrisome, to say the least. Alternatively, they may decide to
develop immigration policies that will redress some of the
population shortfall, though the increasing xenophobia in Europe
would suggest real problems because of the likely sources of those
migrants. But in the longer run, if fertility rates remain
stubbornly low, it is hard to imagine that serious pronatalist
policies will not be devised, notwithstanding the relative failure
of such policies in the past.
The implications of these European trends for Australia are not
yet clear. Fertility has risen somewhat in certain European
countries in recent times, and could conceivably do so in
Australia. Whether to predict rising, steady or declining fertility
into the future in Australia requires a theory of the determinants
of childbearing patterns. But I believe the balance of probability
is that fertility levels in Australia will fall further, thus
carrying the seeds of eventual substantial population decline.
McDonald (1997) has argued that very low fertility in many
advanced countries results from differential levels of gender
equity. Gender equity is more advanced in countries whose
institutions deal with women as individuals than in those where
women are dealt with as mothers and members of families. In some
countries women have achieved near-equal conditions in education
and market employment, but the male breadwinner model remains
paramount in the family itself, in services provision, in
tax-transfer systems and in industrial relations. Although the
latter three can be addressed by legislative and other means,
intra-family relationships and idealised family values remain
resistant to change. Persistence of highly traditional views on
these matters may explain the particularly low fertility in the
Mediterranean countries of Europe, where conservative attitudes to
the family face women with the dilemma of potentially losing the
benefits of educational and employment equity once they start to
have children.
If McDonald's argument is correct, the future course of
fertility in Australia will depend importantly on the extent of
further progress in creating family-friendly industrial relations,
tax and social welfare policies, along with progress in gender
equity within the family. The attitude that having children is a
purely personal decision, and that those having the children should
bear all the costs, will result in further declines in fertility.
In time, such fertility declines would lead to substantial
contraction in population size in the absence of very large
migration programs. If this outcome is not desired, fertility may
eventually come to be viewed, not as a purely personal decision,
with few externalities to worry about, as at present, but as an act
of patriotism, greatly to be encouraged.
Need for Wider Range and Better Interpretation of Population
Projections
The issue of future fertility trends brings us to another matter
creating considerable controversy in discussions of Australia's
population future: the interpretation of population projections.
Projections are simply exercises to estimate the future
consequences of particular assumptions about the trends in the
determinants of population growth: fertility, mortality and
migration. Many individuals and agencies make projections, for
different purposes. The variability in migrant intake, both from
year to year and in relation to official targets, should alert us
to the likelihood that reality will be at variance with the
projections, even over a fairly short period. Longer-term
projections are simply scenarios, showing what will happen if the
assumptions are followed. It is important that projections be
interpreted accurately and with understanding of their underlying
structure.
Recently there has been a controversy about whether 'current
levels of immigration' will lead to population stabilising at 23
million in 25 to 35 years' time (as claimed by Immigration Minister
Philip Ruddock) or whether it would lead to population reaching
28.3 million in 2051 and still be growing (AESP Newsletter, 1997).
Such controversies should be fairly easy to resolve. In this case
they appear to hinge on the meaning of 'current levels of
immigration', because as mentioned earlier, net migration
fluctuates from year to year. The Australians for an Ecologically
Sustainable Population and the Jones Committee report on
'Australia's Population Carrying Capacity' both cite ABS
projections indicating that the 23 million ceiling would require
that net immigration fall immediately to 50 000, less than half its
recent level. But it must be borne in mind that ABS revises its
population projections biennially. The latest set (ABS 1996)
indicates that the net migration level of 50 000 and fertility
about 10 per cent below replacement would lead to a population of
24.5 million in 2051 (see Fig. 3). The reason for the higher
figure, of course, is that net migration levels had been much above
50 000 annually since the previous projections, thus increasing the
population base on which the new projections were computed (Young,
1997b).
What is usually ignored in arguments about likely population
trends is that most sets of projections in Australia utilise only
one fertility assumption, or at most a very narrow range of
fertility scenarios. The range of possible outcomes becomes wider
when a wider band of alternative fertility scenarios are used in
addition to alternative migration scenarios. The earlier discussion
about possible trends in Australian fertility suggests that more
alternatives should be built into official projections, because the
implicit assumption that fertility is not likely to change very
sharply in Australia may be incorrect.
Rowland (1997: 42- 43) has argued for the construction of sets
of population projections combining national and subnational
figures in a way that permits comparisons and evaluation of the
regional impacts of demographic trends over a ten year period. This
would include metropolitan and regional projections based on useful
planning boundaries. Demographic components of growth would be
identified for each region.
Resources and Environmental Impacts
A study of Australia's carrying capacity (Newman, 1994) reached
the conclusion that our supplies of water, fibre and electricity
are adequate for a population of 100 million or more. Our
land-based food production capacity is enough for a population of
45 million people. But we already exceed our carrying capacity in
timber, fisheries and oil (Lowe, 1996: 15). None of these facts
points clearly towards optimum population size, since international
trade can redress resource insufficiencies. Population size and
distribution bears rather direct relationships to urban air
quality, and disposal problems for garbage and sewerage; drinkable
water is a problem for a city like Adelaide; pollution of the
marine environment near our large cities is a serious problem. But
it can be argued that these are essentially issues of environmental
management.
The lack of consensus on the size of a sustainable population in
Australia indicates that further research on the set of issues
related to sustainability - and quality of life - is urgently
needed. The problem is that population growth 'is only one of a
long list of social processes and/or activities customarily seen as
contributing to losses in the environmental component of quality of
life' (Cocks, 1996: 94). Therefore in modelling the impact of
population growth on quality of life, a technical approach is
needed which allows the effect of population change to be both
quantified and convincingly separated from a range of confounding
factors - not an easy task.
In the absence of conclusive evidence on the environmental
consequences of population growth, the following statement from
Cocks (1996: 133) might be taken as a tentative summary:
'Population growth is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
condition for environmental degradation; it is, however, a strong
predisposing factor'.
Immigrant Settlement Patterns and Internal Population
Movements
There is a range of issues revolving around the settlement
patterns of immigrants and the internal population movement of the
Australian born and of immigrants following their initial
placement. As noted earlier, immigrant groups settle in Sydney and
Melbourne in disproportionate numbers, thus placing considerable
strain on their infrastructure and housing (Burnley and Murphy,
1994). By contrast, internal population movement focuses
particularly on Queensland and Western Australia, which attract
migrants particularly from the southern States of Victoria,
Tasmania and South Australia. It is sometimes argued that if there
were less immigration, there would be less movement northwards by
people from Sydney and Melbourne, because the strain placed by
immigrants on the infrastructure of these cities and their effect
on inflation of housing prices would be lessened. The inflation of
housing prices enables Sydney residents, especially on retirement,
to sell their house and move to a better one elsewhere at the same
price.
Temporary International Population Movements
Traditionally, population debates in Australia have focused only
on the permanent population of Australia. But with the increase in
tourism, globalisation and its attendant transitory workers, and in
the number of secondary and tertiary students from overseas, there
is a need to consider the costs and benefits of these temporary
movements. People here temporarily do not have the same impact as
permanent residents, but in some matters their impact is similar.
For example, in terms of crowding of resorts or the strain on
transport systems in holiday seasons, it does not make much
difference whether the holiday-makers are from Australia or
overseas. In terms of housing pressures in cities, an overseas
student population of, say, 30 000 demonstrably imposes strains,
even if all of the 30 000 will have returned home in three years'
time, only to be replaced by 30 000 new students.
Tourism is now one of our major industries, and brings more
export income than the wool or beef industry. The point is,
however, that this revenue comes with a cost (just as it does in
the case of the wool and beef industries), and the cost needs to be
weighed appropriately when planning the future of the tourist
industry.
How Much Strain Does Non-European Migration Place on Social
Cohesion?
Much of the justification for large-scale immigration has arisen
from security considerations (in the early post-World War II
period) and subsequently from economic considerations - the idea
that population growth and increasing scale is good for the
economy. However, as economist Judith Sloan has expressed it,
'ultimately, immigration policy should be about the kind of society
we want, not about economics' (Sloan, 1994). She might have added
that it is also about humanitarian concerns - at least the refugee
component of the policy.
Strains on social cohesion are not easy to measure. Italian and
Greek migrants in the 1950s had generally poor English skills, a
tendency to retain their own language into the second generation,
and low intermarriage rates with the rest of the Australian
population (Price, 1993; Khoo, 1995). The strain this placed on
social cohesion could well have been greater than that imposed by
recent non-European migrants, a substantial proportion of whom are
well educated, speak fluent English and are more familiar with
British-derived institutions. Particular Asian migrant groups, for
example Indo-Chinese refugees and some of the migrants from the
Philippines and China qualifying under the family reunion category,
do, however, include a considerable proportion who arrive with poor
English language skills, limited education and very different
cultural backgrounds. Such groups impose strains, not only on the
social fabric through being demonstrably 'different', but also on
social services through the need for interpreter services, special
English language programs, and so forth. Yet until recently,
Australia has coped remarkably well with the strains imposed by all
these 'different' groups of migrants, be they European or
non-European.
Given the recent prominence of the controversy over Asian
immigration, however, the issue of ethnic difference as a focus of
prejudice must be addressed head-on. The controversies over the
past year triggered by Pauline Hanson's maiden speech in Parliament
indicate that the malevolent influence of a rather crude kind of
racism is still present in Australia - as in most other countries
(Jones, 1997).
The race issue is of the utmost importance in reaching a
consensus on Australian national identity. The importance of race
with specific regard to Australian population policy is that a
non-discriminatory immigration policy, in which education, skills,
and English language are given high priority, and which also has a
humanitarian, refugee component, will inevitably include a large
proportion of migrants from Asia. In recent years, this component
has ranged between one-third and one-half. If a large intake of
non-European migrants poses problems of social cohesion, as argued
by Blainey (1984), then a large-scale immigration policy, even if
desirable on other grounds, might be precluded by social cohesion
considerations.
These days, public support for immigration appears to be waning,
for a number of reasons. There is growing public concern over
environmental issues, and, perhaps more importantly, concern as
well over the high level of unemployment among some categories of
migrants and a common belief (not supported by those economic
studies that have examined the issue) that immigration worsens
unemployment among the population at large. A convincing rationale
for high-level immigration seems to be lacking in the 1990s, and
finally, some are concerned about the increasing heterogeneity of
the Australian population and its implications for national
identity.
Although responses to questions on attitudes to immigration in
general and to Asian migration in particular are difficult to
interpret (Goot, 1991), recent polls indicate majority opposition
to the current rate of immigration, and to the level of immigration
from Asia. On the other hand, multiple issue opinion polling does
not show migration to be an issue of major concern, rating 15th
among issues the voters believed the government should be
addressing in the Bulletin Morgan Poll of 28 November 1995
(Millbank, 1996: 12- 14). This may have changed, of course, since
the Hanson controversy. But interestingly, a poll published in the
Weekend Australian of 3- 4 May 1997 showed overwhelming
support for multiculturalism - 78 per cent said they thought it had
been good for Australia, compared with only 16 per cent who thought
it had been bad.
It is important to know how accepting the Australian community
is of newcomers. The massive postwar immigration program (larger
per capita than the Canadian migration program: much larger than
the US program)(7) appears to have led to surprisingly few social
problems. On the other hand, as Katherine Betts has pointed out,
social cohesion is more than just an absence of crime waves, race
riots and epidemics. Continued high immigration intake in a period
of recession may strain social cohesion, and injury be done to
democracy if public opinion is ignored. There is no question that
racism does exist in Australia, 'taking the form of abuse,
harassment and even physical violence, particularly against Asians
and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples' (Woolcott, 1994:
57). The upsurge of support for Pauline Hanson's complaints about
Asian immigration and Aboriginal welfare programs, though it
reflects many things as well as racism, at the very least reveals
that a non-trivial proportion of the Australian population is, if
given the opportunity, willing to espouse racist views. This should
under no circumstances be taken as an excuse to abandon the
bipartisan support for a non-discriminatory migration program, but
rather as an indication that racial harmony will need to be both
monitored and actively fostered.
Price's (1996) projections of the ethnic composition of the
Australian population show that, on the assumption of roughly
constant fertility and the levels and patterns of migration of
recent years, the proportion of the Australian population with an
Asian (including Middle Eastern) ethnicity would rise from about 7
per cent at the moment to 19 per cent by the year 2025. Overall,
the changing ethnic composition implied by a continuation of recent
levels of immigration need not cause alarm; the figure of 19 per
cent Asian ethnicity in 30 years' time should be
interpreted alongside the projection of 7.5 per cent Asian
born in the same year. In other words, more than half the
ethnic Asian population will have been born and raised in
Australia, and will have been through the Australian school system.
Considerably more of the population will be ethnically mixed by
that time. The Australian population will be substantially
different from today, and presumably better able to take ethnic
diversity in its stride and, indeed, value it positively.
Other Issues Warranting Further Examination
The list of issues requiring further examination could go on and
on. In the detailed discussion above, I have not included economic
assessments of the benefits and costs of larger populations and of
immigration programs, because there seems to be general consensus
in available studies that, on balance, immigration is good for the
economy but the net benefit is small.(8) Nor is the advantage of
stable age structure included, although it is clearly relevant. Nor
have I included research into perceptions in the Asia-Pacific
region about Australia's population carrying capacity, although
they will certainly influence the kinds of international pressures
we may be placed under should major refugee crises emerge in our
region. Nor have I mentioned the particular issues of Aboriginal
demography, including ways to tackle the scandalously high adult
mortality rates.
Implicit in what has already been said in this paper is the need
for Australia to adopt a population policy. Reports and commissions
over the years have advised government that Australia should have
an explicit population policy. There has been a notable absence of
outside advice to the contrary. But governments have steadfastly
ignored the weight of advice.
As the country with the largest planned immigration program per
head in the world, with the exception of Israel, it seems obvious
that at the very least, we need to sort out our longer-term goals
for population size and growth. Decisions are also needed about
whether we want to modify some of the distributional trends -
particularly the ever-increasing tendency for the population to
perch around the coastline, as if some centrifugal force were
operating to empty out inland areas of Australia.
Precautionary Principle
One of the most important underpinnings of population policy in
Australia should be the precautionary principle (Cocks, 1996: 166-
168). This takes various forms, but most include the argument that
if any course of action might possibly have disastrous and
irreversible consequences it should be rejected in favour of a
course of action that does not carry this possibility. In relation
to population growth, the underlying assumptions are usually that
this may contain the seeds of environmental and social disaster or,
at the least, of serious problems; that it does not promise any
obvious economic, social or environmental benefits; and that it is
irreversible for all practicable purposes. This being the case, and
given the uncertainty about many of the effects of further
substantial population growth, it would be wise to go for lower
growth in order to hold options open. This would enable policy in
the future to be more flexible than if population grows more
substantially, thus foreclosing some of the options.
Adoption of a population policy would bring a greater degree of
certainty to government planning and private enterprise decision
making. At least some of the goals of government would be clearer,
even if the government's ability to attain those goals remained
questionable. 'Establishing general demographic goals would also
provide a better framework within which policies in non-demographic
areas might be better developed ... For example, the policy would
define the direction of changes that are linked with sustainable
development, social justice, housing and human resource planning'
(Rowland, 1997: 46).
Size or Growth Rate Goals
An 'active' national population policy (as defined earlier)
would require, at a minimum, a goal for either population size or
growth rates in the short to medium run. Long-run goals would be
desirable as well, but it is possible to conceive of an interim
goal that would leave long-run options open and therefore not
require immediate decision. The growth rate of population is a key
consideration in a whole range of planning issues at both national,
regional and local levels - for example, in planning for housing
developments, gauging the demand for schools and shops, building
roads, planning water and electricity supplies and estimating usage
of national parks and recreation areas.
The House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long Term
Strategies rejected the highest and lowest extremes of population
size options proposed, but saw four other options - ranging between
a 30 to 50 million population and reduction to somewhere in the 5
to 17 million range - as realistic options for community
involvement and debate and political decision. Interestingly,
however, the Standing Committee, by noting that a figure of 23
million seemed to represent a break point between the populations
mentioned by those proposing population stabilisation and those
wanting moderate population growth, and then noting that 'a stable
population of 23 million is readily achievable with a net migration
of 50 000 a year' went close to giving a degree of support to this
figure. In subsequent discussion of the issue, many people
(including the present Minister for Immigration, Philip Ruddock),
seem to have settled on the 23 million figure as a focus of
discussion. Such proponents of a 23 million figure include the
Australian Academy of Science's Working Party (Australian Academy
of Science, 2040 Working Party, 1995).
As noted earlier, recent projections show that net migration of
50 000 a year is likely to result in population levelling off at a
figure closer to 25 million than to 23 million. Whatever the
precise figure, it appears at this stage to represent a 'natural'
levelling off point for Australia's population, given the gradual
slowing of natural increase projected over the coming few decades
(see Fig. 2) and the widespread community belief that net migration
should be lowered. (A number of 50 000 for net migration would
enable Australia to continue a humanitarian refugee program, as
well as modest family reunion and skills migration schemes). In
representing an increase of about a third over Australia's current
population, it does raise environmental concerns but, given the
political will, the environmental consequences should be within
Australia's capacity to manage.
Degree of Activism Required
Once a goal for growth has been determined, consideration needs
to be given to whether current trends are in the right direction,
in which case a laissez faire approach may be satisfactory.
A distinction can be drawn between minimalist and more intrusive
population policies. In relation to matters such as fertility, a
minimalist principle would seem to be in order - that is, to
minimise the degree of intervention consistent with the degree of
importance attached to achieving the particular goal. But if
current trends are either in the wrong direction or are not
considered to be moving towards desired goals quickly enough,
consideration will need to be given to the leverage that can be
exerted on different determinants of growth rates - basically
fertility and migration. As noted earlier, deliberate attempts to
modify fertility rates in Australia would be a radical development,
but one that could be required in time by the force of
circumstances.
Crucial Role of Migration Policy
To the extent that fertility remains immune from deliberate
manipulation, and the goal of reducing mortality is a given, only
migration remains as an effective instrument of policy to influence
population growth. This places migration in a position of crucial
importance, and in the postwar era, a migration 'industry' has
grown up, complete with a government department to run it, lobby
groups to influence it, and private practitioners earning their
livelihoods by serving as migration agents. The migration tail,
however, has been allowed to wag the population dog, especially
since the 2 per cent growth target was given up. In particular,
consideration of population policy issues in Australia will need to
be focused more on matters of internal population distribution and
composition.
Immigration policy will, however, continue to be the major
component of population policy, and faces some major issues, for
example:
- The volume of potential migration will remain much larger than
available places even if stringent criteria are used for education
and English language competence.
- It is impossible to fully control net outcomes - outmigration
is volatile, as is trans-Tasman movement, which is visa-free. This
helped account for the 1981- 82 peak of immigration. (see Borrie,
1994: 269; Carmichael, 1993).
- Striking a balance between the different categories of settlers
is a very touchy business: for example, there is normally conflict
between the economic planners and the ethnic lobbies over the
balance between the skilled and family reunion categories, and
possible conflict between these groups and humanitarian groups over
the balance between these categories and refugees.
- A significant component of the family reunion intake consists
of spouses from overseas married by young Australians (Birrell,
1995). Though there are cases of fraud in this area, increased
mobility of the population will result in an increase in genuine
marriages of this kind which deserve high priority, but which will
occupy an increasing share of the overall immigration intake if
this intake is held at relatively low levels.
- Bipartisan consensus over the past 25 years over the need for a
non-discriminatory migration policy now faces the challenge of the
politicization of the 'race debate'. It is very important that this
bipartisan consensus be maintained.
Population Distribution and Quality
Turning now to issues of population distribution, the
appropriateness or otherwise of current trends in redistribution
will need to be assessed (for example, the rapid growth of
Southeast Queensland and the north coast of NSW, the net loss
through migration from South Australia, Tasmania, and Victoria;
redistribution within cities and the growth of 'poverty belts'
(McDonald, 1995; Gregory and Hunter, 1995). If aspects of these
trends are considered undesirable, it would again be necessary to
look for instruments to modify them. In principle, a minimalist
rather than an intrusive policy would be favoured.
What about population quality? In some circles, such terms are
suspect, redolent of discredited policies of fascist regimes. But
if population quality is taken to refer mainly to the education and
health of the population, the issue is not whether interventions to
improve these characteristics are appropriate, but rather whether
such matters are appropriately included under the rubric of
population policy. As in many other matters relating to population
policy, the marking out of 'turf' becomes important, and the
question of how population policy relates to social policy and
educational policy will need to be resolved. 'Turf' is equally
important, of course, in the area of population distribution, as
policies in this area will involve industrial location, regional
development and tourism policies, among others. Basically, people
(plus their dependants) go where the jobs are, with the important
exception of retirement migration.
In the past, the goal of ethnic homogeneity was a key goal of
population policy, lying at the heart of the White Australia
Policy. No longer is such a goal officially acceptable: Australia's
entry policy, although it is selective according to economic and
social criteria, is non-discriminatory on the basis of race,
ethnicity and national origin. Many in the community still believe
that ethnic homogeneity is an appropriate goal. Such people may try
to achieve the aim indirectly, by advocating holding down the
migration intake. This would be the only way to limit the growth of
the non-European population, because unless Australia reverts to
some sort of ethnic or racial quotas, it seems likely that
non-Europeans will continue to make up at least a third or a half
of the migration intake. But of course, many of those who want to
hold down the immigration intake do so for other reasons - in
particular, for motives of environmental sustainability.
With respect to population quality, the goals of raising the
educational and skill levels of the population have widespread
support. This can be achieved both through improvements in the
educational system in Australia and through maintaining high
standards for education and skills among those accepted as
migrants. However, the family migration category is problematic,
because educational levels are generally lower in this category,
but many - e.g. marriage partners - can enter Australia as a matter
of right. Other much more controversial quality-related goals can
be imagined, made possible by genetic engineering, which
governments may have to deal with more directly in future.
In the end, population policy is a political matter, but to
paraphrase Barry Jones, we cannot really avoid having a policy.
Either we have 'no policy' (actually an eyes-closed policy, with
impacts on population nevertheless arising from a range of other
policies we adopt) or we establish a population policy (an
eyes-open policy).
One reason for reluctance in political and public service
circles to undertake development of a full-fledged population
policy is that the formulation and implementation of such a policy
would involve many different arms of government, because population
policy cuts across the jurisdiction of so many agencies - those
dealing with immigration, the family and social welfare, education,
health, employment, regional development, and urban planning, to
name just some. It is sometimes argued that population policy is
already taken care of in an implicit way by these agencies carrying
out their separate functions, and that it would be best to leave it
that way.
There is some force to this argument. The fact that there is not
a fully articulated population policy does not mean that relevant
activities are not being carried out. On the other hand, the
understanding of 'population policy' by those arguing that 'it's
all being done through existing mechanisms' tends to be one-sided:
i.e. adapting to change in population circumstances. I argued
earlier that such passive approaches to population should not be
considered population policy. The total efforts of the various
government agencies probably deal reasonably well with adapting
to population trends. But they certainly do not add up to an
adequate coordinated effort to assess whether population trends are
desirable and to modify those that are not. Furthermore,
to cite the highly pertinent conclusion of a review of population
in New Zealand, 'no agency has a sufficiently wide scope of
activity in population areas to be able to adequately brief
government on population matters in general, and on the extent to
which population issues permeate the programs and responsibilities
of a number of agencies' (New Zealand Interdepartmental Committee
on Population Policy Guidelines, 1990: 54).
The issue facing Australia is whether a kind of 'muddling
through' approach, aimed mainly at adapting to population trends,
is good enough (indeed, perhaps the 'least worst' approach, given
the lack of community consensus on many aspects of population
policy), or whether the lack of specific attention to population
issues as such is likely to distort the policies actually adopted
insofar as their population impacts are concerned.
As the National Population Council's Population Issues Committee
(1992: 114) states: co-ordination between those public bodies which
need to influence or to respond to population trends is necessary
in order to:
- understand and anticipate those trends
- develop policy on a consistent basis
- propose timely policy adjustments to population itself in the
light of the impacts identified
- draw on effective community consultation and expert information
in this process.
One possible way around the need for coordination that avoids
major changes in bureaucratic structures and issues of 'turf' may
be to adopt the major recommendation of the Jones Committee report:
to establish a Cabinet Committee on Population, to be serviced by a
small secretariat in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.
This would ensure that important population issues would be brought
before Cabinet (through its Structural Adjustment Committee), and,
in turn, that needed actions would be carried out by other
departments. The present situation is unsatisfactory in that the
Department of Immigration, which is perceived, rightly or wrongly,
as being in the advocacy business in immigration and multicultural
matters, is also in effect driving Australia's population policy.
Although immigration is a major instrument of population policy,
immigration policy and population policy should be kept
distinct.
In developing a suitable mechanism for the formulation and
implementation of population policy, not only must issues of the
mandate of different Commonwealth Government agencies be resolved,
but agreement needs to be reached between the three tiers of
government in Australia (Federal, State and local) on the
objectives of population policy. This will not be easy, because the
dynamics of population change differ widely between the States and
even more widely between local government areas, leading to
significant differences in perspective. The principle should be for
national issues to be dealt with by the Commonwealth, and as much
autonomy as possible left to State and local government over
matters directly affecting them. Even at the local government
level, sharp differences of opinion will be faced on matters of
population policy - as can be seen, for example, between growth and
anti-growth lobbies in some local government areas on the north
coast of NSW.
The need for effective community consultation and expert advice
has typically been dealt with in Australia by the appointment of
advisory bodies on population, but the history of such bodies has
been a chequered one. A succession of Australian governments has
put in place a variety of advisory bodies, but their life
expectancy has been limited. For example, from 1949 there was an
Immigration Planning Council, whose main task was to advise on the
annual immigration intake, but which looked to some extent at
issues broader than those of immigration (mainly geographic
distribution issues, as birth rates were relatively high and not
considered a policy target). Later its name was changed to the
Population and Immigration Council to reflect this broader
interest. Subsequently, in addition to this Council, an Immigration
Advisory Council was set up, mainly dealing with settlement issues,
and later a Refugee Advisory Council. During the Whitlam years, an
advisory group was set up on matters of urbanisation and
decentralisation.
In 1981, the Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs
was established, following a recommendation of the 1977 Green Paper
(Australian Population and Immigration Council, 1977). In 1987 it
was restructured and renamed the National Population Council (NPC).
The NPC produced a major report, Population Issues and
Australia's Future, in 1992, but it was subsequently
disbanded, apparently partly because the Minister at the time was
uncomfortable with its overly academic membership. Some members of
a national committee appointed to prepare Australia's submission to
the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo
in 1994 recommended to Government (though of course this
recommendation is not contained in its report for the Cairo
Conference) that a committee be re-established to advise government
on population issues. However, this recommendation was ignored, and
the government is currently without direct outside advice on
population policy issues. The lack of input is exacerbated by the
disbanding of the Bureau of Immigration, Multicultural and
Population Research in 1996, not so long after 'population' was
added to its mandate as one of the few recommendations in
Population Issues and Australia's Future that was acted
upon.
There are certainly committees and consultative forums advising
government on related matters: for example, the Ministerial Council
on Immigration and Multicultural Affairs; the Inter-governmental
Committee on Ecologically Sustainable Development; and the National
Ecologically Sustainable Development/Greenhouse Intergovernmental
Round-table Conference. While these all have something to
contribute to the population debate, the danger of relying on them
for advice on population policy matters is that each of them views
population issues from particular, and limited, perspectives.
The Ecologically Sustainable Development Discussion Process,
initiated by the government in 1990, has been a gloomy one for
proponents of population policy. The Intersectoral Issues
Report, produced in 1992 as part of this process, endorsed the
recommendations of the Population Issues Committee, which had
reported at the end of 1991. But the National Strategy for
Ecologically Sustainable Development (1992), produced
subsequently by government officials, did not endorse the
development of a formal population policy for Australia, but merely
referred to an objective to 'establish the most effective mechanism
for ensuring the impacts of population are reflected in public
policy making' through enhanced co-ordination and information
sharing (ibid: 96). Harding (1995: 176) comments that government
responses at this time and subsequently 'appear to have been aimed
at ensuring marginalisation of population in actions arising from
the ESD discussion process'.
There is, I believe, a strong case for an ongoing body with wide
expert and community representation to advise government on
population matters, something akin to the former National
Population Council. It should be stressed that such an ongoing
mechanism for the systematic consideration of population issues
would be useful whether or not the government decided to
formulate a comprehensive population policy.
Depending on the particular policy adopted, a range of
activities might need to be constrained, and others encouraged, in
order to reach the goal. Suppose, for example, that Australia
decided on a simple policy with five main elements:
- try to constrain growth within a 25 million ceiling
- try to restrain the growth of Sydney, Melbourne and South-East
Queensland in favour of smaller cities
- aim for social harmony among Australia's diverse and
multi-ethnic population
- raise the educational and skill levels of the population
- encourage more efficient use of limited natural resources.
Clearly, a wide range of policies might contribute to achieving
these goals. Immigration policy would remain very important,
bearing directly on each of the goals. Educational policy, macro
and microeconomic policy, industrial location policy, tourism
policy, and a whole range of policies in the social and family area
(bearing particularly on fertility but also on migrant assimilation
and adjustment) would be relevant here. We might, perhaps, draw a
parallel between population policy in Australia and in countries of
South-East Asia. In the latter, family planning programs and
broader programs of education, women's empowerment, etc. are seen
to set the appropriate context for desirable population trends.
Similarly, in the Australian context, the issue may become that of
emphasising those aspects of economic, social and family policy,
seen as good for other reasons, that are expected to have the most
desirable spin-offs in maintaining near-replacement level birth
rates, leading to slower metropolitan growth, holding back sunbelt
migration, etc.
Whether or not Australia adopts an official population policy,
we clearly need both high quality and well focused research on the
issues involved and further public discussion and debate (as
dispassionate as possible, but heated if needs be, given the strong
views surrounding many of the issues involved). With the demise of
the BIMPR (which, notwithstanding many criticisms of its emphases
in conducting and funding research, did facilitate a considerable
volume of quality migration-related research in Australia), there
is a need to devise a mechanism for ensuring that research relevant
to population policy formulation is carried out. It is unfortunate
that so few centres for population and migration research exist in
Australia, and that some of them have recently been forced to close
or 'downsize'.(9)
Unlike most developing countries, most Western countries do not
have an articulated population policy. But then most, unlike
Australia, do not have a substantial and long-term migration
program. Australia's population policy is implicit in its
immigration program, but it is a policy by stealth, a policy
without consensus, and a highly erratic policy, as exemplified by
the wild swings in immigration targets over time. This is not a
satisfactory situation. More transparency over long-term aims is
needed, and if it turns out that the fluctuations in annual settler
arrival targets under different Ministers for Immigration have been
based more on gut feelings than on fine tuning in relation to
economic and social conditions, then that needs to be more apparent
to the general public, too. Population policy has to be seen as
much more than immigration policy.
The following arguments are sometimes raised against the
adoption of a population policy for Australia: (1) there is no
public consensus about goals for such a policy; (2) there is no
clear formula for such a policy in a developed country with low
fertility; and (3) population policy cuts across the jurisdiction
of many government agencies and de facto is already taken
care of by these agencies carrying out their separate functions.
None of these arguments deals with the need, in a country with a
substantial immigration program, to decide on basic goals for
growth and size of population, not to mention distribution and
quality goals. An infinite number of arrangements are possible for
administering population policy, but what is essential is that
policy be sensibly determined in the first place.
Whether or not Australia adopts a population policy, it can be
argued that provision should be made for a long-term advisory body
on population matters that brings together not only government
agencies but also representation from academia and community
groups. Population policy is important for the future of every
Australian, and therefore deserves to be debated and discussed as
widely as possible.
- The Commission envisaged that such a goal would require
antinatalist measures. But as Demeny (1986) notes, ever since that
time, a stabilised population has actually carried with it the
implication of pronatalist measures, since American fertility fell
below replacement level and has remained there. However, population
has continued to grow, not only as a result of age structure
effects but also because of net immigration.
- It did become a focus for public opinion around this time,
however, fuelled by concerns about worldwide overpopulation and a
visit to Australia by two-child family advocate, Paul Ehrlich. An
Australian zero population growth movement developed, with strong
advocates from both the physical and natural sciences as well as
the social sciences (Borrie, 1994: 265-6).
- Hugo (1988, Fig. 2.4) shows the sharp upsurge in births during
the early 1980s despite more or less steady fertility levels.
- Stated in more technical demographic language, 'like other
countries with below replacement fertility and large cohorts in
middle age, Australia has positive actual growth and negative
intrinsic growth' (Rowland, 1997: 24- 25).
- For example, the Population Issues Committee (1992: 105) stated
that for Australia, 'a deliberate policy focus on manipulating
fertility and family status is not an appropriate policy lever'.
Gough Whitlam put it more colloquially: 'governments should stay
well out of the bedrooms of the nation'.
- In a stable population with the level of fertility applying in
1995 in Italy, population size would drop in just 100 years to only
14 per cent of its initial level. Spanish fertility levels would
imply a drop to 15 per cent of the initial level, German levels to
17 per cent and Japanese levels to 28 per cent. Even with a total
fertility rate of 1.7, the level prevailing in France in 1995, a
stable population would fall to 50 per cent of its initial size in
a 100-year period (McDonald, 1997: 1- 2).
- The scale of migration to Australia over recent decades is
reflected in recent figures on proportion of first generation
immigrants in the population of various countries:
Australia 22.7
Switzerland 18.1
Canada 15.6
Germany 8.5
USA 7.9
France 6.3
UK 3.5
- See for example Mark Wooden, in Wooden, M., Holton, R., Hugo,
G., and Sloan, J., 1994, Australian Immigration: A Survey of the
Issues, BIPR, AGPS, Canberra..
- For example, the Centre for Multicultural Studies at the
University of Wollongong has been absorbed within the University's
newly created Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry. The
ANU's Demography Program has been experiencing a gradual decline in
University-funded staff numbers, as in other programs within the
Research School of Social Sciences. The Centre for Immigration and
Multicultural Studies in the same Research School has recently had
a reprieve, but is under threat over the longer term. Macquarie
University's demography program in the Department of Actuarial
Studies and Demography in the School of Economics and Financial
Studies is likely to be contracted and could be under threat of
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