Last week Prime Minister Kevin Rudd launched an attack on the state of planning in Australian cities. Mr Rudd appeared to be palming off criticism by a Business Council of Australia report a few days earlier that questioned the federal government's infrastructure
planning and spending commitments.
Cleverly, Mr Rudd diverted the national headlines by pointing to a yet-to-released report from Treasury that predicts Australia will grow to 35 million by 2050. This estimate is significantly higher than previous guesses.
The 35 million figure grabbed the nation's attention. Where will the next 14 million people possibly go? Green conservationists -- which include the hairy-nosed-wombat-loving secretary of Treasury, Ken Henry -- questioned whether the Australian environment was capable of supporting such a number.
Australian National University's Professor Bob Gregory showed his allegiance to the Whitlam years by igniting the dream of decentralised inland cities. And various anti-immigration types simmered quietly as they imagined the Great Southern Land being overrun by all sorts of shady coloured, weirdly behaving people.
At this stage, one can only guess how Treasury has arrived at its 35 million prediction. But the components of growth are pretty clear. The first is raised levels of immigration. For much of the Howard years, Australia's net migration intake was about 100,000 per year. Then, as skills shortages started to strangle growth in the Australian economy in the early part of this decade, Howard doubled the net migration flow to about 200,000 per year. In general, skilled migrants are in their marrying, breeding years and so lead to multiplied increases in population.
A second source of population growth is rising local fertility levels. Here there is speculation that Australia's recent surge in baby numbers will continue.
And the third source is ageing. Every year the presumed life expectancies of we baby boomers is raised. Just not going to let go of the reins are we?
You can see, though, that predicting population size is pretty much a Melbourne Cup betting exercise. All three sources of future growth can fluctuate wildly.
Sure, it makes sense that we plan for a nation that contains more people. And that we have migration, child assistance and health policies designed with population targets in mind.
What doesn't make sense, though, is to become obsessed with a projection for the population of Australia and its cities in four decades time. An obsession with a Sydney that might have 7 million people blinds us to the most important question: how do we run a city in the here-and-now that has 4.2 million people without adequate public transport, with roads that are choked, with a last-century telecommunications system and with struggling water and electricity systems? The best thing we can do to arrive at 2050 in good shape is to turn today's Australian cities into quality places to live.
Phillip O'Neill, Professor and Director, Urban Research Centre, The University of Western Sydney
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