Catching a fish is a kind of rite of passage for Aussie kids and back in the day, it used to be relatively easy. Just find any old river, lake or bit of coastline, throw in a line and you’ve before you knew it, you had yourself a nice Yellow Belly or Whiting for dinner. Not any more. Catching a decent fish today has become really difficult. The reason of course is over-fishing. In fact, Vision for Australia makes a direct link between an increasing population and a decreasing chance of catching a fish. Why is that important? Well, there’s an argument to be made that the chance of catching a fish is proportional to our standard of living. The argument goes that that the harder it is for the average person to catch a fish; the greater compromise we’ve made to a key (albeit an unusual one) metric related to our standard of living.
As the population of Australia continues to grow, the case politicians make is that population growth is important for economic growth. We see it differently. We see that growth, which we believe to be important, can just as accurately mean getting better as it means getting bigger. At some point in our future the population of Australians needs to peak, it can’t keep getting bigger forever. We believe in a small Australia. Not small in ambition, achievement or greatness, not small in vastness, toughness or determination but literally, small in population. We dispute the notion that population growth is imperative for national prosperity. Australia faces a choice, become boutique nation of excellence or a bloated nation of mediocrity. Growths doesn’t to mean bigger, it can just as legitimately mean better.
We propose that Australians decide now by way of national referendum, what we want the population of our country to be in the year 2060 year. The ABS projects that at current trends, the population of Australia by 2060 will be around 43 million (and 62.2 million by 2101). As Dick Smith said in a letter he recently published, “I have a feeling it’s all “down hill” from now for most Australians as the population increases. I can’t think of any of our present problems in this world which are alleviated by more people. In fact, quite the opposite. I think unrestrained population growth will make virtually every problem more difficult” and that includes catching a fish!
As the population of Australia continues to grow, the case politicians make is that population growth is important for economic growth. We see it differently. We see that growth, which we believe to be important, can just as accurately mean getting better as it means getting bigger. At some point in our future the population of Australians needs to peak, it can’t keep getting bigger forever. We believe in a small Australia. Not small in ambition, achievement or greatness, not small in vastness, toughness or determination but literally, small in population. We dispute the notion that population growth is imperative for national prosperity. Australia faces a choice, become boutique nation of excellence or a bloated nation of mediocrity. Growths doesn’t to mean bigger, it can just as legitimately mean better.
We propose that Australians decide now by way of national referendum, what we want the population of our country to be in the year 2060 year. The ABS projects that at current trends, the population of Australia by 2060 will be around 43 million (and 62.2 million by 2101). As Dick Smith said in a letter he recently published, “I have a feeling it’s all “down hill” from now for most Australians as the population increases. I can’t think of any of our present problems in this world which are alleviated by more people. In fact, quite the opposite. I think unrestrained population growth will make virtually every problem more difficult” and that includes catching a fish!
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