Megalania

'Australian dream' killing the country

With a current population of just under 20 million, Australians would have to abandon production of beef, rice, cotton and sugar cane altogether - as well as move all other crops into the northern half of the country - just to bring their ecological footprint nearer to world average, according to Professor Derek Eamus.

At a lecture entitled 'Is the Australian dream killing us?' at the University of Technology, Sydney on Tuesday night, Eamus will outline how the so-called 'Australian dream' of a free-standing house on a quarter acre block is destroying the Australian environment.

An un-balanced sheet for Australian farming

captaincook

the australian may dream of a quarter acre block and a free standing house but they wont be able to find many within 25 kms of the cities. The future is ultra high density living - in every inner City the old houses are being ripped down and being replaced with units and townhouses. Resi A is the only safe place to be but the prices of these are going through the roof. We can fit at least 6 townhouses on any other quarter acre block. There really is no point moving to Oz to avoid congestion unless like some here you are prepared to move far away from the Cities where frankly there is not much employment prospects.

With regard population, there are two sides to the argument and frankly Australia can easily sustain 30 million if it adopts modern Western standards for water, sewerage etc and relaxes it's xenophobic quarantine "quasi trade barriers" restrictions and allows imported foods etc

Megalania

Two sides.

Call me a sentimental old bloke but I liked the old Australia more. I'm sure the Aboriginals would agree with brass door knobs.

The Big City Developers sit in their Mansions on hectare blocks by the sea and in the mountains and plot how to make more money by squeezing more immigrants into less.

TerraAustralis or TerraForm.

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ABC 4Corners Tall Stories

From: sheila 21/04/2003 11:14:31 PM
Subject: Oversupply of apartments in Melb post id: 849

This is the reason that Bracks, APop and various development enthusiasts are pushing for one million more people in Melbourne. They want to sell apartments.

The hell with our way of life. They want to sell apartments! That's what government boils down to these days. The state collects stamp duty (never enough), defaults on infrastructure, and the developers collect the bucks from a bunch of totally naive investors, and we all pay the cost.
See the article entitled, The Housing Monster at:
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~aespop/ho...terarticle.htm

philj6969

This doesnt take into account those emigrants amongst us who are well off enough to not have to work and can buy a house where they want to, no commuting. This must make up quite a large percentage of all newcomers?

Phil.

I'll post a poll.

dotty

I think the "I'm not going to have to work" thing is in reality a bit of a myth. A past poll on here showed very few people were emigrating with more than 200,000 pounds. Thats only $500,000 dollars.

Now unless you are planning to live in the outback that is barely enough for a house in Syd Melb. Bris possible, Sunshine Coast, you would not get much change. Even poor old Perth seems to have crept up to over $300,000 for a pretty basic house. The dream homes most aspire to look far more than that.

Say I'm wrong and most people are bringing a million oz dollars. Ok use half for the house and the interest on the balance will only earn you $20,000 a year!!! (4% on 500,000)

Also aussie wages are low, so when working you need to do many hours to get a decent pay, I believe the aussies actually work a long week compared to Europe.

Anyway most immigrants I meet find once the savings start going down they get quite uneasy and like the rest of us end up slogging away for a living.

It would be an interesting poll to see how many people are bringing over a million ozzie dollars.