An " Empty " Land !

A famous British film actor here on a location shoot was once asked by the media for his impression of Australia.  Used to working in both Europe and America his comment summed up the peril we have faced since the first fleet arrived.  He said " Its just so empty " !

We are about to see the Australian population topping the twenty-five million mark and by world standards that is a very small national population number.  Americans now have three hundred and twenty-five million people living in a land area similar to Australia and that constitutes many big cities and an amazing number of small towns spread across the entire continent.

New South Wales is the most populous state but should we drive from Sydney to Adelaide by the most direct route across inland Australia we would have to contend with an unbroken vista of grazing land with few signs of habitation.  The population of Australia hugs the coastline and inland towns are tiny in comparison with our five major cities.

There was a time at the end of the second world war when the " Populate or Perish " mantra saw us open our doors to mainly European migration.  We are determined to maintain an " orderly " arrival process despite huge numbers languishing in squalid refugee camps in neighbouring countries just waiting for the people smugglers to resume their lucrative trade across the seas.

We should be mindful of the world population numbers.  They have risen to about seven billion and there is the expectation that it will top ten billion by the middle of this century.  Already the twin incentives of both war and famine are sending refugees on an unstoppable search for a better life. We have experienced boat people arriving on our shores unasked and many are still detained in detention centres with little prospect of being granted citizenship.

If we maintain an Australia with a small population living mainly in big cities it is inevitable that we will face a future where our borders can not be defended short of sinking incoming boats at sea and going to war with the incoming hordes.  We are fast becoming the last great empty land - in a very overcrowded world.

From a point of view of defense we probably need a population of about a hundred million  people, and that would deliver change much faster than we have previously experienced.  It takes several generations for newcomers to fully integrate but the American experience shows that is the outcome from the era when the United States absorbed the unwanted of the world.

If we expect our alliance with others countries to protect us when world populations are on the move we will be disappointed.  Australia would become the pressure point which relieves their own borders from inward pressure. We can not expect to be immune from the pressure for living space when the search for food has people streaming across borders.

Increasing our migrant intake will certainly change Australia, but if we do it under our own control we can maintain a degree of management.  The alternative is to do nothing and some time in the immediate future world events will determine the future of the Australian continent by unstoppable force.

It doesn't take the mind of Nostradamus to predict what happens in a future overcrowded world.