Lee spoke to at the AGM of STEP, a community-based environmental organisation based in Ku-ring-gai and surrounding suburbs of Northern Sydney, about the politics of population in Australia and its impact on meaningful climate change action. Following is the text of my speech:
I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet and pay tribute to their history, their culture and their ongoing contribution to our communities.
On behalf of the Greens, thank you for inviting me to speak. I appreciate the invitation to speak about the population issue. There are many aspects to this debate and I look forward to the discussion with you at the conclusion of my talk. In preparing for tonight I realised that in all my time as a state Greens MP I have not been asked to address or discuss this issue previously. Now that I am running for the Senate it has started to come up, and I thank STEP for this rare opportunity to address the issue in some detail.
In recent months there has been more dialogue on population here and overseas, and to kick off my talk I would like to quote from an article by George Monbiot in this week's Guardian Weekly. I thank local resident Richard Blackburn for bringing it to my attention when he saw I was speaking on this topic tonight.
Mr Monbiot refers to a recent paper in the journal of Environment and Urbanisation that has examined population growth and the production of greenhouse gas emissions. This paper found that about one sixth of the world's population - that grouping with probably the highest birth rate - is so poor that it produces no significant emissions at all.
I will come back to Mr Monbiot's comments later but I wanted to inject this perspective into our discussion tonight as it underlines the complexity of the debate about population levels and environmental impacts and the need to consider how we live - what impact we have on our local and the world environment – as part of this debate.
Let's deal with the two obvious questions first off – is population growth a problem and what do we do about it.
The answer to the first question is easy – population growth, in Australia and globally, is a problem. I would be surprised if anyone argued otherwise.
What we do about it is more controversial.
First off some comments on population growth.
While I think we need to address population growth we need to acknowledge that the rate of increase of the human population has been steadily declining since peaking in 1962 and 1963 at 2.20% per annum. In 2007 the growth rate was 1.19% per annum.
The Population Reference Bureau has projected that the population growth rate is expected to peak in 2010 at 77.2 million per annum, then decline steadily to about 43 million per annum in 2050, at which time the population will have increased to about 9.3 billion.
At the dawn of agriculture, about 8,000 BC, when our forebears shifted from a hunter gather life to tending crops and stock the population of the world was approximately 5 million.
Today it is over 6.7 billion and this is about 3 times higher than it was in 1939 when the world's populations was about 2.3 million.
I have provided these few figures to illustrate that while the rate of population increase has decreased the world is still experiencing a massive increase in population – about 43 million each year.
Which leads to the second question – what to do about the increasing population? It is here that the consensus rapidly falls apart.
It is a question that I have given great thought to over the years, and I have settled on views that I believe are consistent with the Greens general principles and political perspective.
I believe that on this issue all of us who agree on the first question – that population growth is a problem – need to be able to have a mature discussion, probably a lengthy discussion, that respects different views.
Australian policy to encourage births
The first aspect of this that I want to address is the relevant policies of the Australian government, that began under Howard and have been continued by Labor, that explicitly seek to boost the birth rate in Australia.
In the main I am referring to the baby bonus, that pays a lump sum, now about $5,000, on the birth of a child, and the various family tax payments.
Now of course the Greens very much support policies that seek to address the disadvantage suffered by women who leave the workforce to have children. Paid maternity leave, for example, is something the Greens have always campaigned for. Women should not have to choose between being a mother and having a career.
But I believe that policies designed to assist women back into the paid workforce can and should be distinguished from policies designed to simply encourage extra births.
Australian women, and Australian families, will continue to have children – we all know that is a given. But the baby bonus, I believe, is poor policy, a blunt instrument, that simply delivers a windfall for having a child rather than supporting the mother to maintain her professional skills or re-enter the paid workforce.
The mentality behind it was revealed by Peter Costello’s famous encouragement to have “one for Mum, one for Dad, and one for the country.”
In a free society women and families are of course free to choose whether to have zero, one, two or twelve children; I don’t believe that the government should be setting a number. But equally there is no rational reason, in an over-populated world, for government policy that seeks to use financial incentives to encourage people to have more children.
The money currently spent on the baby bonus would be better off being redirected into a comprehensive paid maternity leave scheme for all Australian women, including those who chose to step out of the workforce to raise their children full time.
Australian policy on overseas aid
Another area where the Howard government's population stance was damaging was in the area of overseas aid.
Before I entered Parliament I was the Director of a non-profit organisation called AID/WATCH, which scrutinises the fairness and sustainability of Australia’s aid program.
One of the most shameful actions of the Howard government, in a pretty competitive field, was to, in its early years, agree to a demand from Independent Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine that Australia cease funding family planning programs overseas. Senator Harradine was motivated by his conservative Catholicism and a religious view regarding family planning and abortion. Harradine is entitled certainly to his view, though it’s not one that I share, but for the Australian government to sign up to his agenda was a most serious error that came out of political self interest directed to securing votes in the senate. .
The result was that for a decade Australia did not fund any overseas family planning programs. The US under former President George Bush had a similar policy.
After the 2007 election of the Rudd government the lobbying started to have this discriminatory position changed. The Greens, some Labor caucus members and a number of non-government organisations pushed to have the ban overturned.
In March this year their campaigning was successful. The ban was lifted so now Australian foreign aid – government and non-government – can be spent on programs that may provide pregnancy terminations. It is understood that the Prime Minister did not support the change in policy but he accepted the Labor caucus backing for the policy shift.
Foreign Minister Steven Smith said at the time that the change would mean women in developing countries had the same options as those in Australia, if local laws allowed terminations.
In the US there has been a similar shift under President Barack Obama.
The key point here is that women have a right to family planning advice and there should be no limits for religious reasons on that advice.
Now population growth is often cast in environmental terms, and obviously that is part of our considerations, but in developing countries it is also very much a feminist issue.
Without access to family planning women are effectively being forced to have more children than they might want, and at times are suffering from pregnancies that are medically undesirable. Family planning puts women in charge of their bodies, and in charge of how many children they want to have, and that is something that Australian policy should be supporting.
If we are concerned about population growth we need to support increased Australian funding for overseas family planning programs.
Global inequity
So removal of the baby bonus and overseas family planning are two fairly specific, concrete steps relevant to population growth. I do acknowledge that they are not the key to the population challenge.
The Greens would strongly argue that there can be no doubt that those who are concerned about global population growth, and Australia’s population growth, need to be concerned about supporting development in poorer nations.
We need to address the global inequalities in development to address population growth.
History shows that as societies develop, and become wealthier, and raise educational standards, population growth slows and indeed often goes into reverse. In Europe and in Japan we see this very clearly.
The relationship is clear – address poverty and you address population. The two are linked. When women have access to education, jobs and family planning they give birth to fewer children.
In low-income countries large families are effectively a pension scheme – someone will provide for you in your old age.
Why does this matter in Australia? Well apart from the fact that we ought to be concerned about the environment of other nations as well as our own, and apart from the fact that the poverty and misery of others is a moral issue which we cannot ignore, in an over-populated world we are kidding ourselves to think that we will be unaffected.
Migration pressures, whether legal or illegal, will exist whenever there is an imbalance. In a globalised world it is a nonsense to think that any nation can set a domestic population policy in some kind of splendid isolation
Australian population
So I’ve explored a number of issues that I believe help answer the population question. Now I’ll tell you something that I believe is not an answer, and that is to set a fixed number for Australia’s population and to set immigration accordingly.
It is in many ways a tempting approach – let’s work out our carrying capacity, set a number at 10 million or 20 million or whatever, and that’s it.
But I don’t support it. And I’ll explain why – I understand some of you may disagree and I look forward to the discussion.
I believe that in a world full of poverty and tyranny and misery, Australia has a moral obligation to help fellow human beings. I don’t suggest that we can possibly help every human being on Earth who needs it, but we are obliged to do our fair share.
I’m not talking about business migrants who are well off and come here with money – they don’t need our help.
I’m talking about those fleeing dictatorships or persecution, those escaping hunger and warfare, and those who will be the new refugees of the 21st century – environmental refugees, starting with those Pacific Islanders who will have to leave their homelands or be washed away as sea levels rise.
The environment is a moral issue, and we are right to treat it as such. But equally a moral issue is that there are human beings on our planet, who need help, and we are in a position to help, and we ought to do so. Again, of course we can’t and shouldn’t try to fix every problem, right every wrong. But we should do our fair share.
What does that mean in practice? Well I see no reason for high levels of immigration of those who are well off. There is a place for family reunion, bringing over the relatives of those who are already here, and of course Australians love to travel and will maybe meet a life partner, and of course that sort of thing is great. It enriches us. But there remains enormous scope to reduce our immigration intake by reducing business immigration.
But the humanitarian portion of our immigration program is I believe part of the responsibility that we carry as a wealthy nation, and a moral obligation, which we can never ignore.
Population solutions
From my discussions with people who are passionate about stabilising and reducing population growth I find there are two general trends. Those who dislike certain groups of people and whose views do have to be recognised as racist and those who are deeply troubled by the environmental impact of increasing numbers of people in Australia and on this planet.
For my remaining time I would like to explore the issue of population and environment.
The paper from the journal of Environment and Urbanisation that I mentioned at the start of this talk has undertaken some important work on climate change. They found that in areas where the world's population is growing fastest greenhouse gas emissions have been growing most slowly.
Between 1980 and 2005 sub Saharan Africa produced 18.5 per cent of the world's population growth and just 2.4 per cent of the increase in gge.
Compare this with North America where the population increase contribution for the world was just 4 per cent but the emissions boost was 14 per cent.
The authors of this study found that one sixth of the world's population is so poor that they produce no significant emissions at all.
Take one group of people in low-income countries. Those who process waste – I think we have all seen those disturbing images of people sorting and often living amongst piles of rubbish. Many of these people often save more gge than they emit.
Please don’t misinterpret what I am saying. I am not arguing this is ok, and I am not saying these issues are more important than population growth. I am trying to make the point that there are many levels on how we tackle the impact our species has on this planet.
A starting point is how we live – what we consume, how we travel, our education levels, our access to family planning programs and the work we do as well as the number of children we have.
So let's consider our lives and let's start with people in low-income countries. So often they are blamed for high levels of deforestation and loss of biodiversity. Again I am not denying such things happen but let's look at why. Many communities eke out an existence by adopting slash and burn activities that on a large scale are highly destructive.
But loss of forest cover in these countries is in the main driven by commercial operations delivering timber for western consumers and clearing land for cattle farming and animal feed crops that is destined for overseas markets.
Then there are those of us on the other side of the equation who live in consumer societies.
At the start of this talk I mentioned an article by George Monbiot. He articulates the dilemma the world faces more clearly than I could so I will quote from his Guardian Weekly article.
He states: "People breed less as they become richer, but they don’t consume less – they consume more. As the habits of the super-rich show, there are no limits to human extravagance. Consumption can be expected to rise with economic growth until the biosphere hits the buffers. Anyone who understands this and still considers that population, not consumption, is the big issues is … hiding from the truth. It is the worst kind of paternalism blaming the poor for the excesses of the rich."
We may find these unsettling words but I do suggest that we need to step out of our comfort zones. If we are worried about population growth because of the environmental consequences I would argue that the evidence all around us is that we need to address the imbalance in the allocation and use of resources, we need some degree of wealth redistribution side by side with a simpler lifestyle.
The 21st century is going to be tough – so many of the environmental crises we are talking about do not respect national boundaries and will eventually impact on all irrespective of one's wealth.
Food security that has already hit many low-income countries will impact on the western world.
The combined effect of population growth, urbanisation, and higher living standards leads to expectations for more nutritious and higher quality food. The impact on water availability and pollution, land use and biodiversity loss, and indigenous land rights, will be massive.
The answer to these challenges is not setting limits on Australia's or the world's population. It is changing our lifestyles. It is about living with respect for each other, for all species, for this planet.
In the population debate I often hear people talk about Australia's human "carrying capacity". I would argue that his is not helpful to the debate. If anything it represents as sheep in a paddock or apples in an orchard. But the factors determining population numbers are much more complex. Just think of the influences from people living in diverse cultures, under a range of political systems with great variety in their values, lifestyles and aspirations.
The term "carrying capacity" is being inappropriately applied to human societies. For non-human species the resource requirements and ecological impacts are fairly stable, while for humans the determining factors are immensely variable.
The flawed attempt to determine a carrying capacity for Australia is apparent if we look at aspects of this country's history.
For much of our history population numbers were low but that did not stop extensive vegetation loss, soil erosion, widespread pollution and species extinction.
I would argue that today with a much larger population the degree of this environmental damage is in fact lower because of the complexity of changes that our society has gone through.
Our world faces many challenges. For me a key is recognising the complexity of the interactions of the many factors that influence the population numbers of the human species.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss these issues and I look forward to the discussion.