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Subject: Strategic Implications of Australian Population Policy
Aussiegunneragain    5/10/2010 11:07:01 AM
I thought I'd try and kick of an open dicussion on Australian strategic policy, like we used to have in the old days. I hope everybody takes the opportunity to chip in their two cents worth. The open question is: "What may be the strategic implications of different options for Australian population policy over the next 10, 20, 50 and 100 years?"
 
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Aussiegunneragain    Volkodav   5/15/2010 11:05:39 PM

Australia has both the Americans and the Brits to look to for support.

We could look to the British and they would probably come to help us but I don't think we should rely on others for our Defence. Attitides to foreign entaglements can change and capacities to assist can be stretched and the only way for us to ensure our security is to do what it takes to do so ourselves.
 
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Aussiegunneragain    I mean athousandyoung   5/16/2010 12:09:57 AM



Australia has both the Americans and the Brits to look to for support.




We could look to the British and they would probably come to help us but I don't think we should rely on others for our Defence. Attitides to foreign entaglements can change and capacities to assist can be stretched and the only way for us to ensure our security is to do what it takes to do so ourselves.


 
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bigfella       5/16/2010 5:17:06 AM

A little bird told me that there was an interesting thread on SP full of grownup contributions (and with one glaring but mercifully brief contribution it has been), so I thought I'd put in my 2c.

Agree with a lot of what has been said here. I'm a bit over the middle class welfare being dressed up as encouragement to have kids. As AG pointed out, those kids will still be a net drain on the coffers when we most need more contributors - when the most resource hungry generation in human history goes from being a net contributor to a net drain on expenditure. With it will come an increasingly powerful 'grey' lobby. The same people who backed lots of welfare cuts when they were taxpayers will have a change of heart, I suspect, now that they will need lots of lovely infrastructure & such.

I don't see ZPG as an option & I am saddened but not surprised by the scare campaigns that have been popping up in the last few months. I noted with interest that the population 40 years ago was 12 million & the projected population in 40 years will be 36 million - a proportionally smaller increase. We need to keep our population growing, though a specific goal is unecessary & perhaps a bit unheplful - tends to scare the easily distracted. If it is 33 mill or 40 mill shouldn't actually matter that much if we are half smart.
 
The two obvious solutions are a smart immigration program & lots of spending on infrastructure. Contrary to public perception I think that by & large we have the first. Our refugee intake is not that high & we tend to target the educated & the ambitious (yes, there are occasional issues, but in the context of the whole program not vast). The real problem is part 2. Unfortunately it has become fashionable over the past few decades for governments to abdicate responsibility for building & maintaing infrastructure. We need it. Transport, health, education, power & especially water infrastructure. As DB pointed out, desal is not the solution - yet another exercise in tranferring public money to private sector spivs (or just plain wasting it). Food won't be an issue. We do have poor soils, but we also have vast areas of productive land. It might mean a few less agricultural exports. We also need to deal with housing policy. One of the best ways of integrating new migrants is to get them working & get them buying their own houses & integrating into broader communties. Housing policy at the moment seems geared to making the things as unaffordable as possible - ditch the first homebuyer's grant, ditch negative gearing, lower stamp duty, encourage medium density housing & improve infrastructure on urban fringes.
 
Put simply, if we want to remain a regional power by any definition (economic, military) & a nation that is capable of having a voice internationally we need to continue sensible growth. My bet is that the continued growth of the Chinese & Indian economies will provide us with an opportunity that comes perhaps once every other generation. The Postwar generation used their largess to build the economic & social infrastructure we have been living off ever since. We need to emulate them while we can. Our children & grandchildren will curse us if we do not. 
 
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Volkodav       5/17/2010 7:50:06 AM
Another advantage immigration has over an increased birth rate is that most immigrants are already educated and therefore wont be stuffed up by our totally dysfunctional education system.
 
One of the greatest strategic risks we face is the fact the system and many under performing teachers are letting down our children often discouraging and diverting them from being as good as they could be.  With our small population every child is a natural resource, unfortunately at the moment it is a resource that is being wasted.
 
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Aussiegunneragain       5/23/2010 12:34:47 AM
Well said BF and Volkodav, except for the bit about returning to public ownership of infrastructure BF.
 
One of the only memorable quotes that I remember Kim Beazley making, probably because it was one of the few short enough to be remembered, was during on of his last Budget replies. He said "We want infrastructure investment in the national interest rather than the National's interest". It inadvertantly highlighted one of the huge problems with Government ownership of infrastructure, they often sucumb to the tendancy to use it to pork barrel according to their political needs rather than targeting it at the actual needs of the community. The other problems are that as they own the infrastructure they often  set usage charges for infrastructure too high overall, therefore useing it as a hidden tax. There have also been instances where they draw down too much money from government owned businesses so that adequate maintenance cannot be afforded, then when problems occur their kneejerk reaction is to gold plate the infrastructure and cost us a fortune. Where Governments own infrastructure in a competitive part of an infrastructure market, they have a temptation to fix the rules in favour of their businesses and drive out innovative private sector investment. Finally, they develop infrastructure that they intend to sell, they will often structure the deal in a way that generates the greatest profit for them, rather than the way that is most efficient. The Howard Government's failure to separate Telstra's wholesale and retail arms prior to sale is the best example of that.
 
It is ironic that water infrastructure was the first type of infrastructure highlighted as being in need of repair here as it is probably the type that has had the highest degree of government ownership in Australia. If Governments were going to fix the problems they would have done so by now. Instead we have a situation in Queensland where there are heaps of regions where we could build viable dams and pipe water from. However, because of political considerations for Joh
Bjelke-Petersen one of our most important  dams was built in a rain shadow and because we have inadequate water pricing mechanisms there is less incentive for private sector players to meet the communities needs.  
 
In contrast private sector owners just build their infrastructure to meet the rate of return requirements of their shareholders. To do that there has to be sufficient demand so they are generally better at getting the quantities supplied right than Governments are, without the incentives to play games because of politics. The example I would use is the National Electricity Market. In Victoria where the electricity infrastructure has been entirely privatised private sector investment in generation capacity has been generally very responsive to demand. In contrast in NSW where the Government owns most of the generators, private sector investors find it hard to invest because the NSW Government stacks the regulatory regime against them. The consequence is that NSW is now a net importer of power from Queensland when there are heaps of opportunities for them to build their own generation capacity closer to the source and therefore reducing network costs. It looks set to stay that way thanks to the unholy alliance between the NSW Liberals and the Trade Unions during Iemma and Costa's admirable attempt to sell the generators.
 
Another benefit of private sector ownership is that if they screw something up then their shareholders wear the cost of that and the directors will be held to account, not least because they usually own shares themselves. In contrast when the Government screws something up, as has been predominantly the case with the desal plant in Queensland, the taxpayer wears the cost but has to weigh it against all the other issues with respect to whether to boot them out or not. If its you own it you will care for it better than if it is somebody elses, that is just human nature.
 
So what I would suggest is that if we are to meet our infrastructure needs in the future we should be continuing with market based reform efforts such as infrastructure sales, which are only half way there, rather than slowing them down.
 
Volkodav, on the quality of teaching I agree entirely and suggest that it has a lot to do with the over-reliance of Australians on public education. Give parents a choice and the schools will jack up their ideas. I have to complement Julia Gillard's Myschool efforts in working towards this, in the same vein as I agree with the Howard government's funding of private education to give parents who were willing to spend a bit ex
 
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Volkodav       5/23/2010 9:22:26 AM
Education is one of the easiest and cheapest problems to fix (bar the inevitable teachers union carry on), simply calculate the average cost to all levels of government to put a child through each year of school and provide a transferable credit for that amount for each child to pay to which ever school they attend.  This would significantly reduce the cost to families of sending their children to higher performing (likely private) schools and would force state schools to perform or close down.
 
With the good schools being more affordable the education department would no longer be able to carry poor performing teachers whose departure from the profession would actually help bring up the standards of the schools they had been dragging down.  This would encourage good teachers to stay and be paid on merit as well as attracting talented individuals who avoid teaching because they can't stand the lazy leftie stereotype and lowest common denominator attitude that is so prevalent now.
 
At the same time before and after school care as well as the early learning centres at many better schools could be classified as child care and receive the same subsidies and refunds currently associated with child care making a good education still more affordable for the average person.
 
The other worth while change would be introduce national testing for each year level at the end of each year to be compared for each child to their previous years results and reintroduce school inspectors to provide a delta on their performance.  Teachers would be required to report on any issues relating to the childs or class as a wholes performance during the year as well as the actions they took to remedy the situation, i.e basically what they should already be doing as responsible teaching professionals.
 
The best thing is this would be cost neutral in that it redistributes money that has already been committed to the same purpose, encourages performance, accountability and will produce efficiencies through market forces that will more than cover the  costs of the extra testing and school inspectors that will produce the measurable KPI's that will enable people to make an informed choice.
 
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