Listening to a series of maiden speeches in the Queensland Parliament tonight I couldn’t help thinking that people have made their point what needs to change but not that they have any idea what causes it to be that way nor what they would need to do differently to arrive at a different outcome.
The electorate doesn’t like the cost of living rising; doesn’t like assets being sold; doesn’t like the State running up huge debts; doesn’t like rising crime rates; doesn’t like overcrowded public transport and jammed roads…
So they vote out one party and vote in another who says they’ll fix it. But there is no analysis of what is the underlying cause of these things happening.
The reason it is happening is rising population growth rates. Our population is growing fast.
We had a long infrastructure deficit which the last government set about starting to redress (basically had no choice). They had no choice because of all the extra people pouring into Queensland week after week month after month year after year in a steadily growing torrent.
We’re now in a situation where half our power bills for example go to pay for additional infrastructure to provide electricity to all the new people. If we didn’t have any new people we wouldn’t have needed any additional infrastructure and we wouldn’t be paying for it. Our bills don’t stay the same when new people come to live here – they get bigger and bigger.
The same with all our costs. As new people pour in the cost of providing infrastructure for them has to be met somehow and there are only a few ways: sell assets; borrow and run up debt; or raise prices and taxes. None are popular. Hardly surprising.
Until we have people in Parliament addressing the massive economic burden population growth is inflicting on us all we will have the same problems over and over and over with the debt getting bigger and bigger and infrastructure never catching up with the population growth. Will we be able to afford to keep living here? It will get harder and harder the more people are allowed to come here. (Which primarily boils down to Federal Government population growth policies – things like Baby Bonuses and Immigration policies). Our State Government should be screaming at Canberra to turn down the population growth rate. It is our State and Local Councils and us who pay for additional people coming here.