‘Australia doesn’t have a population policy – why?’, The Conversation, 3 July 2017 updated
Despite recommendations from inquiries over a number of years, Australia lacks a population policy. Includes key graphs covering decades and concludes as follows:
A renewed, earnest and transparent population conversation is needed. With ever more reliance on immigration, we must go beyond the unhelpful pro-immigration versus pro-nationalism debate to consider our population prospects.
The key question is: how can Australia make opportunities of its demographic challenges?
Update 4 July 2017 (in the Conversation series ‘Is Australia Full?’): Tom Wilson on the relative contributions of babies and immigration to our population.
Update 5 July 2017: Liz Allen speaks to Genevieve Jacobs on the ABC.
Update 11 July 2017 (in the Conversation series ‘Is Australia Full?’): Martin, Ward and Sutton suggest Australia’s optimum population was reached many years ago.
Update 24 July 2017: Liz Allen factchecks statistics about Muslim birth-rates in Australia.
