Abbott criticises Rudd's population plans.
Australia’s federal coalition have flown in the face of Kevin Rudd’s ‘big Australia’ plans by stating that they would set population targets in order to limit growth.
Mr Tony Abbott, leader of the coalition party, took the opportunity of the unveiling of a paper on sustainable population growth to attack Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s plans, accusing him of neglecting to take seriously the impact immigration will have on Australia’s growing population.
He stated that since Mr Rudd came into power, net overseas migration had grown by 100,000 a year. Mr Abbott stated that Australia was ill-equipped to deal with such rapid growth and one of the ways he would tackle this would be to change the way the Productivity Commission is run.
The Commission would be re-named the Productivity and Sustainability Commission with an emphasis on providing advice on population. “We simply cannot sign up Australia blind, as Kevin Rudd has done, to a population of 36 million by 2050.” He stated. “Plainly, Australian governments are not adding to our housing, health, educational and transport infrastructure the equivalent of Canberra every year.”
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd appointed Tony Burke as Australia’s first Population Minister earlier this month in an attempt to deal with sustainability issues and reassure the Australian people that his government were committed to dealing with the growing population. Australia’s Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) have also tightened skilled visa regulations and ordered a crackdown on overseas students abusing the system.
The coalition are now attempting to claw back the initiative on population by convincing the people that Mr Rudd’s efforts do not go far enough. They claim that their Productivity and Sustainability Commission would be vital in helping to set target bands for migration planning. Those bands would then be reviewed annually to assess Australia’s infrastructure needs for both long and short-term planning.
Mr Abbott has in the past blamed immigration and fertility rates for the population growth, stating that birth limits would be ‘encouraged’. However it was the Liberals who introduced the baby bonus back in 2002 that was to encourage fertility rates to support an ageing population. The Labour Party at the time opposed the idea.
Many comments on the story in The Australian are cynical of Mr Abbott’s words and accuse him of trying to introduce a one-child policy. What are your thoughts on this issue? Do you agree with Mr Abbott or do you think that Mr Rudd is doing enough to safeguard Australia’s infrastructure? Let us know by filling out the comments box below and don’t forget that you can debate the Australian population topic over on our lively community.
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2 Responses to “Abbott Claims He Would Limit Population Growth”
Comment by Jenny Goldie — May 1, 2010 @ 11:02 am
Tony Abbott’s comments are very welcome in that we do indeed need to limit population growth. He does, however, need to deal with the concept of sustainble population growth – it is an oxymoron. We have reached a stage where no growth is sustainable, except in very limited terms when it is disconnected from using fossil fuels for energy. But it is SUCH a relief to have someone recognise that Rudd’s ‘big Australia’ is not possible in terms of infrastructure, as well as obvious ones such as congestion, pollution and environmental decline.
Comment by ken — June 9, 2010 @ 5:17 am
Tony Abbott’s is welcomed what he said ,
but he need to address issues in immigration policies by labor govt,
helping refuges to settle ( having no skills) and ignoring international students and skilled migrants,,
as we should not forget that skilled migrants helps from generations to build Australia.