THE Infrastructure Australia Audit issued a week ago would be laughable if

it were not so depressing.

So here is the laughable bit ­ a script I have crafted for John Clarke and

Brian Dawe.

Dawe: Prime Minister, Infrastructure Australia says Australia is lagging and

must do more. Why?

Clarke (as PM): Because we have to keep up with population growth and

economic growth, Brian.

Dawe: And what does IA say we must do to keep up?

Clarke: Spend more money, Brian. Lots more money.

Dawe: And where will that money come from?

Clarke: From you and me, Brian. From the taxpayers. And from road user

charges. That¹s in the report.

Dawe: So taxpayers will have to pay more for roads that are now free. And

pay more for railways and airports?

Clarke: Of course, Brian. How else can we catch up with population growth?

We are going to have 30 million people in Australia in 15 years¹ time.

Dawe: Wouldn¹t it be easier and better not to have the population growth, or

at least slow it?

Clarke: You can¹t do that Brian.

Dawe: Why not?

Clarke: Because the economy benefits. Big companies benefit.

Dawe: So?

Clarke: Well, Brian. If the big companies did not make bigger profits they

would not donate to political parties who support high immigration and more

population growth. These are the political parties that form the governments

to raise the taxes to build all the new infrastructure. Simple really.

Dawe: Prime Minister, thank you for your time.

Clarke: Pleasure, Brian.

Ends

That¹s the fiction. The truth is worse.

The chair of Infrastructure Australia Mark Birrell said, ³It is time for

this nation to treat population growth as fact; a fact our nation should

accept and gear up for.²

It is highly self-serving stuff. It does not help the broad mass of the

Australian population to set ourselves the task of building infrastructure

for more than 200,000 extra people a year ­ and even more than that in some

years.

Some of the audit¹s findings show how silly this is and put the lie to the

argument that we must fill up the empty spaces in Australia or the masses to

the north will do it for us.

The audit says that 72 per cent of the 8.2 million population increase to

2031 will go to the four largest cities. Those four cities comprise just 54

per cent of the population today (12,600,000 people).

So this extra population is not filling up the vast empty spaces it is

pouring into the cities and clogging them up, making living conditions worse

for the people who already live there.

Figures in the audit reveal that our major cities have now hit a point where

they are already too big and that adding to them will result in

disproportionate extra congestion ­ congestion which decreases living

standards. The audit says the cost of traffic congestion in the capital

cities will go from $13.7 billion in 2011 to $53.3 billion in 2031 ­ up 290

per cent.

The population of the four biggest cities will go up by 46 per cent and the

population of the other capitals (now about two million) by 27 per cent ­ an

overall increase of 42 per cent.

So on the Audit¹s own figures this increase of just 42 per cent in

population results in a 290 per cent increase in congestion. For every 1 per

cent increase in population we are getting a seven per cent increase in the

cost of congestion.

Surely, this indicates we have gone well beyond the optimum point in

population growth. It may well have been that up to, say, some time in the

1960s or 1970s there was some advantage to extra population. But this

infrastructure audit shows the downside is now laden with disproportionate,

nasty, costly frustration as commute times get ever longer.

The audit says that growth in demand for non-urban transport is expected to

be lower than the growth in GDP. So do not expect much improvement in rural

and regional roads.

This audit shows that just to keep up and prevent greater congestion in the

major cities will result in a huge diversion in Australia¹s infrastructure

effort away from things that make life better, like telecommunications,

water, energy, schools, hospitals, national parks, public spaces, arts,

culture and sport.

Transport makes up 70 per cent of the infrastructure spending required if we

are to accept a 36.5 per cent increase in the population by 2031 ³as fact².

Nearly, all of that will have to be spent on just ensuring commutes do not

get any worse.

It does not sound like a great deal of progress to me. The figures more

resemble the desperate efforts of Third World countries trying to cope with

huge population growth. And incidentally the audit uses the words ³huge

population growth² to describe the projected 36.5 per cent growth by 2031.

Moreover, that growth rate is described as being in the middle of the range.

If we hit the high end, the damage to our cities will worse than imagined,

because such a high portion of the growth goes to the major cities and just

a 1 per cent increase results in a seven per cent increase in congestion

costs.

It is a myth we need these high population growth rate to maintain higher

standards of living. Sweden has done pretty well economically and in overall

living standards since 1960. If we had had the same population growth rate

as Sweden since 1960, Australia¹s population would now be 13 million. Sweden

grew 30 per cent. We grew 130 per cent.

Denmark has also done pretty well with a population increase of less than 25

per cent since 1960.

The lesson from this audit is not that we need to ³gear up² to spending

billions just to stand still on the transport front, but to seriously

question our immigration and population policies.

The audit should make us ask why are we blindly adding to our population and

pouring so much infrastructure effort into transport at such a large and

obvious cost to other things.