, the proposition that we could not feed many more people is thoroughly unsound.
A recent issue of The Australian has a fascinating article about local proposals in the Bowen area of ​​north Queensland to develop infrastructure, dam several rivers and commence a new major irrigation area, which is strongly supported by the whole local community. Similar projects are possible in many parts of northern Australia. <В
The example of Israel/Palestine
Tim Flannery, Doug Cocks and others make great play about the enormous difference in the agricultural potential between Australia and Europe, pointing to what they call ENSO or, in other words the variable Mediteranean nature of the climate, as an enormous obstacle to agriculture.
This comparison is a bit beside the point. Australia is obviously different agriculturally to northern Europe because of its Mediteranean climate. Therefore, it is useful to study and emulate the highest points of agricultural developments in similar Mediterranean environments. p> As an example, the whole area of ​​Israel/Palestine is about 20 per cent larger than the Sydney statistical district from Broken Bay to Loftus and out to Katoomba.
Sixty per cent of Israel/Palestine is desert, but it supports five million Jews and three million Arabs, with a Western diet, on a high calorific level, and in fact produces about a net 25 per cent agricultural surplus for export. While it is true that very special circumstances have applied there over the last 70 years, it is a fact that while developing agriculture to its maximum, the Israelis have substantially remediated the land from past environmental degradation resulting from more than 5000 years of relatively unplanned human activity. p> The technical achievements of the Israel/Palestine agricultural set-up are of enormous practical importance in Australia, and include optimum use of water, very frugal and effective irrigation techniques, carefully designed arid agriculture, use of saline water in some circumstances, etc.
Looked at in the framework of the Israel/Palestine experience and comparing it, say, with the Sydney region, the argument over Australian carrying capacity falls more clearly into place. The intrinsic upper limits to Australian carrying capacity are still very far off.
The real task is to design optimum development, both to expand agriculture and to remediate the environment at the same time, and to do that you need more people and the creation of development credit at government level to overcome the artificial grip on credit of the global rentiers.
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What the argument is about
It is worth noting at this point, even allowing for the aridity of the Australian continent, and taking into account the rainfall and the amount of well-watered land, that if Australia was to have a similar level of population development to the United States, the population would be 50 million. p> Using a similar method of calculation, if we were to have a similar level of population to Europe, Australia could support 130 million people. Presently, we only use for agriculture about 11 per cent of the water that falls on Australia as rain.
Nevertheless, political and social realities underline all arguments about population. No one like myself, who is in favour of increased population and the continuance of mass migration, is arguing for anything more than the average continuance of the basic 1.5-2 per cent annual net population increase that has been the norm over the past 200 years. p> The argument is between the continuation of the normal highish migration of a relatively new country, or the adoption of net zero population growth, which is appropriate to overpopulated countries. As the above figures indicate, we are a considerable distance from any situation where a continuance of the substantial mass migration of the last 200 years could present any real threat to the interests of the Australian people.
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The footprint of cities
Another argument of the anti-immigrationists is that because most migrants settle in cities, the footprint of cities is the problem.
There is a limited element of truth in this in Australian conditions. In Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, due to the relatively unplanned nature of city growth, too much agricultural land has already been lost to urban development.
Even in these cities, however, this could be overcome for the future by a change to forward planning for city growth. For instance, further population expansion in Melbourne could be concentrated in the area out towards and past Tullamarine Airport (obviously away from the flight paths) where the land is of little agricultural potential.
In Sydney the logical places for further urban development are the sandstone plateaus north of Hornsby and south of Loftus ...
