About Us

Background

Population growth causes and/or exacerbates most of our major economic, environmental and social problems.

Economic

Increased business costs like rent, energy and water; Upward pressure on inflation and interest rates; Infrastructure overload and inefficencies; Reduced per capita value of our mineral wealth and exports; Surging imports to service a larger population with consumer goods; Reduced per capita GDP growth; Loss of vital agricultural farmland and diminished food security; Skyrocketing foreign debt due to trade deficits and banks' overseas borrowing for mortgages; Worsening skills shortages due to stresses on essential services; Diversion of investment into housing and away from vital R&D, manufacturing and export creating industries; Diversion of bank lending away from small business and into more profitible mortgage lending; to name a few.

Environmental

Water crisis; Increasing carbon emissions; Increasing air and water pollution; Growing power needs; Loss of recreational parkland, bushland, biodiversity and native wildlife; Collapsing land and marine ecosystems; Soil degradation; Failing river systems; Crowding and trashing of our coastal towns; to name a few.

Social

Housing affordability crisis for young Australians and ordinary workers; Increasing living costs like mortgages, rent, energy, water and car running costs in traffic gridlock; Loss of personal security; Less open space for children to play; Overloaded health system with long hospital queues; Growing health and obesity implications in polluted and congested cities; Crowded public transport and beaches; Suburb planning conflict; to name a few.

All these problems and a lower quality of life, for what?

A stable Australia would produce many flow-on benefits, relieving the pressure on our over-stretched infrastructure, ecosystems, health system, education system, emergency services, and other essential areas of our economy and environment. It also brings relief to families under pressure from rising house, rent, petrol, water and energy prices.

It's time to recognise the root cause of our major problems - and make the clear choices required to fix them.
 

A Precarious Future

Population growth - and rising consumption - are ultimately constrained by limits of resource availability and ecosystems.  The immediate concerns include peak oil and broader energy security, climate change, biodiversity loss, and water and food availability.

Australia faces a precarious future unless we make rapid changes to stabilise our population. It is selfish of us to put the well-being of future generations at risk through foolish and undemocratic population growth policies.
 

Party Formation

The Stable Population Party is being formed to give Australians a choice on population and the quality of life we pass on to future generations. We are a group of committed people from backgrounds in business and economics, science, the environment, health, academia, demography, politics and many other ordinary citizens.

For too long now, the population debate in Australia has been hijacked by moral manipulators playing the race card. Population and immigration issues have been mischievously diverted from 'how many' to 'where from'.

Stable Population Party is determined to give mainstream Australia a voice in the debate and diminish both the control of high growth extremists and the rhetoric of anti-immigration racists.

Stable Population Party will endorse election candidates based on our philosophy of a stable, sustainable, open and tolerant Australia.
 

Stable Population Party Convenor - William Bourke

"As someone with a business and economics background, I have been concerned about population issues since the mid 1990s. In 2009 I took this further, joining the environmental group Sustainable Population Australia and reading Overloading Australia by Mark O'Connor and William Lines. After hearing Kevin Rudd declare his support for "a big Australia" and Tony Abbott declare his support for "as many people as possible", I decided it was time to act. Australia is desperately in need of democracy to stop the bi-partisan policies of extreme population growth that are causing or exacerbating most of Australia's - and the world's - problems.

I have completed two business degrees and have experience in chartered accounting, banking, federal government corporate communications and most recently run a small business in the marketing field. I have travelled in Asia, North America and Europe and lived in a number of places in Australia including Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and North Queensland.

I am equally concerned about economic, environmental and social issues and have never previously joined a political party.

I enjoy the outdoors including bushwalking in Sydney's Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park where it is possible to see our magnificent native wildlife including goannas, wallabies and kookaburras. I appreciate the fact that past generations made the effort to preserve this for us to enjoy and I want to ensure we also protect our quality of life for future generations. The social problem of housing affordability is also a major concern of mine, with high population growth locking many out of the great Australian dream.

The Stable Population Party aims to provide democracy and choice on the critical issue of population size."

William Bourke
Convenor
Stable Population Party

CLICK HERE fo recent opinion pieces by William Bourke in The National Times (Fairfax online publication).
 

Stable Population Party Objectives

The key objectives of Stable Population Party are as follows:

• To stabilise Australia's population at around 23-26 million through to 2050.
• To provide leadership and support to other countries experiencing rapid population growth, so as to help them stabilise their populations, and thus help stabilise global population.
   

Policies

In order to achieve our objectives, the key policies of Stable Population Party are as follows:

• Adopt a formal national 'population policy' to stabilise Australia's population at around 23-26 million through to 2050.
• Phase out the baby bonus and re-direct funds to an appropriate parental leave scheme that promotes greater female participation in the workforce (rather than encouraging people to have children for the wrong reason).
• Adopt a balanced and flexible migration program, with annual immigration at around *50,000, being roughly equivalent to total annual emigration.
• Maintain Australia's current annual refugee intake of 13,750, within the immigration quota.
• Reject any selection of immigrants based on race.
• Tie foreign aid wherever possible to the improvement of governance and economic and environmental sustainability, with a particular focus on women's rights and education and on opportunities for couples to access family planning services.

* The proposed immigration level is around the average per capita rate for western countries.