Australia’s population is about to explode – but are we prepared?
If you’ve taken a peak-hour train or driven in grid-lock traffic recently, you’ll no doubt have realised just how packed our roads and public transport have become. And it’s all because of Australia’s exploding population – and it has experts on edge.
In the last year alone, our population grew by 400,000 people, and this figure is only set to climb over the next decade. But are our cities prepared for such an influx?
According to last night’s Four Corners report, the answer is no.
“What we’re facing now is a change in the face of our cities,” Philip Davies, CEO of Infrastructure Australia said.
“Cities such as Melbourne and Sydney are becoming of the scale of global cities like London and Hong Kong. And then some of our slightly smaller capital cities, Perth and Brisbane becoming, in the future, the same size as Melbourne and Sydney.
“So we need to up our game in terms of planning.”
Sydney’s population is set to hit the 8 million mark by 2050, Perth will grow from 2 to 4.5 million, while Brisbane will rise to 4 million from 2.4 million.
Former NSW Premier Bob Carr told the program he fears population control methods such as limiting access to beaches and green space would create a “dystopia”.
“When you contemplate the eastern suburbs of Sydney, access to the beaches, which is a natural space, recreational space, what do you do?” Carr said.
“Do you have fences and turnstiles? When the population around Bondi, for example, reaches the sort of intensified level that means the roads are choked most days in summer, do you start to ration access to the coastal walking trails along the coast?
“And down the national park? Fences, turnstiles, online ticketing. I mean, that’s the sort of dystopia that we can see coming at us through the mist.”
Marg Prendergast, co-ordinator general at Transport for NSW, told Four Corners that Australians would need to overcome their reliance on cars unless we want our roads to be crippled under the pressure of too many vehicles.
“We’re doing everything we can to put public transport as a real option, because single car drivers are just not going to fit on the road in years to come,” she said.
“We can’t build ourselves out of this growth. We actually need to manage demand better. We want people to travel earlier, to travel a bit later.”
Factors like immigration and an ageing population are also fuelling the boom, and as a result, we may find the Australian way of life changed forever.
Aussie businessman Dick Smith fears the Australian Dream may soon be over, thanks to infrastructure failing to keep up with demand.
“Just near here, I used to go through here as a young boy, and there were lots of houses,” Smith told the program. “They are just around the corner there, they are gradually being knocked down.
“But that’s where an Aussie family could live the Aussie dream, they could buy a house. You can’t do that anymore. You’re jammed like a termite in a high rise, or I say battery chooks.”
What do you think about the rising population of Australia and how our major cities are going to cope? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below.