The Hoot: the ACT's ticking debt bomb, the problems with public housing and who said we want 'Big Canberra'?

Very apt to have the issues of public debt and rapid population growth covered in the same discussion – because there is a real connection, not just a coincidence, between the two.

The simple fact is that Canberra, like much of the rest of the country, has a adopted (whether by design, or accident, or a mixture of the two) an economic model which amounts to a Ponzi/pyramid scheme based on pumped-up population growth which does not generate sufficient real wealth to pay for the public infrastructure and services which the swiftly growing population demands.

This might have something to do with the fact that so many of the imported workers are being absorbed into a bloated, over-priced, and largely domestically-focused services sector, including a burgeoning publicly-funded/subsidised care sector, where productivity growth is elusive, at best.

Similar things are happening in other countries, most notably Canada, where some econocrats have recently summoned-up the integrity and intestinal fortitude to begin a public debate about being caught in a “population trap” –

https://www.nbc.ca/content/dam/bnc/taux-analyses/analyse-eco/etude-speciale/special-report_240115.pdf

Some media coverage here –

https://financialpost.com/news/canada-in-population-trap-economists-warn

https://financialpost.com/news/economy/what-is-population-trap-how-do-you-get-out

If only our muzzled, group-thinking econocrats could be so forthright about the herd of elephants in the room, instead of waffling on about “shifting the dial” with the usual tired wish-list of decades-old reform recipes and new ways of taxing wealth, rather than increasing it.

It’s easy to manage population, Proth, especially for an island nation in the far south seas. Historically, Australia’s net migration has averaged a mere 80K. During COVID, when we closed the borders, it fell below, minus 80K.

Crazy Labor has pushed it to 500K, against the wishes of voters, which has created our worst-ever rental and homeless crisis. That’s where the nonsense lies.

This concept of we can stop growth of population by choice is nonsense. If we do not provide or build accomodation then all we do is increase the price of rent or housing – can you explain how we seal off our borders to prevent growth. This is a very NIMBY idea.