Australia   : loves and hates

 Tuesday, 26 February 2002

Populate or ? The SMH features a range of opinions drawn from the current debate in Australia about population control.

For '80s feminists, the brave new world of work represents all that is good for women. No intelligent modern woman would want to be stuck at home with the kids, wiping Vegemite off the walls. She will want to be back in her suit as soon as possible, living the life she was educated to lead. Until public policy reflects this supposed aspiration, women will continue to scorn reproduction. The problem with this theory is that there is no evidence to support it. (Cathy Sherry)

In reality all we can do to vary the rate of population growth is to vary the rate of net immigration. All but the humanitarian arguments in favour of immigration are pretty weak. Certainly most of us think Australia is a better place as a result of both the size and the composition of postwar immigration - but it is strange how much of this boils down to the triviality of culinary multiculturalism. (P.P. McGuinness)

Ross Garnaut, a professor of economics, said the ambivalence about large-scale immigration and ethnic diversity evident since the mid-1990s raised doubts about whether Australia would find itself "on the right side of the demographic divide" as the century progressed.
"If we do nothing and immigration levels are about where they are now I fear that Australia as a whole will start to feel like Hobart feels," he said.
"Some people like living in a quiet and declining community, but our energetic young people will vote with their feet." (Jennifer Hewett)

Ambivalence. That's the word. Younger Australian women have mixed feelings about starting families because they're smart enough to see that the "You can have it all -- career, children, and an intimate relationship" stories they read in women's magazines don't match the terminal exhaustion and constant bickering that is characterizes everyday life for their mothers and older sisters.

The appreciation (or, at the very least, tolerance) shown towards migrants has evaporated; and that's interesting -- because one might have expected a greater degree of sympathy from the substantial proportion of the population who have arrived in Australia since World War II or from the children and grandchildren of those immigrants.

Bad times ahead, what else is new?

7:40:02 AM    comments ()