FW: Sat.11.8.18 daily digest
  Roderick Smith

-----Original Message-----
From: Roderick Smith [mailto:rodsmith@werple.net.au]
Sent: Monday, 13 August 2018 10:14 AM
To: 'transportdownunder@yahoogroups.com'
Subject: Sat.11.8.18 daily digest

Attached

180810F Melbourne 'Age' - loop construction.

180811Sa Metro Twitter:
- Green Mill (Adam Ford).
- Palais de Dance (Adam Ford).
- Federation Square rainbow.
- South Melbourne Tait & W2. (Adam Ford).
- tram biscuit (MTM).
- Ballarat scrubber 8 (Martin Bennett via MTM).
- Flemington Racecourse trains.

180811Sa Melbourne 'Herald Sun':
- letters (rail & road).
- Richmond station.
- energy, NEG. with tdu.
- liveable Melbourne.
- 180816Th bus strike.
- pink Flinders St.
- Sky News ban.

Roderick.

Metro Twitter, Sat.11.8.18
Extra trains will be run to Flemington Racecourse today for Racing Rewards
Raceday. The first train depart from Melbourne Southern Cross at 10.59.
9.57 Frankston line: Minor delays for some services through Chelsea (an
equipment fault).
- 12.01 Can you advise if this is fixed please?
- 12.08 The Bonbeach boom gates are still down.
- 12.10 It is ongoing; our technical team is currently on site working on
it.
- 12.13 Our techs are still on site working on the fault.
- 12.30 Can you reply when up and running please? I've tried four crossings
to get over in the last 2 hours; all boom gates are down.
11.00 We have extra trains & trams to get you to MCG for the AFL Hawks vs
Cats clash this afternoon.
- 12.17 Except on the Glen Waverley line, where there are no trains, just
buses, with big games at MCG today and tomorrow.
- 12.21 With Melbourne being the sporting capital of Australia, if we didn't
do maintenance/project works on any weekend with a sporting event, we'd
never have any time to get those works done. We do take these events into
account and have extra standby buses available.
- 12.27 Just seems to be the wrong weekend compared to others, based on what
events are on.
- 12.44 Does PTV not care about Geelong? Apart from the colour of the train
Wyndham Vale and Tarneit are part of Melbourne.
Former M&MTB scrubber tram 8. This scrubber entered service in 1934. [The
Martin Bennett photo shows it preserved in Ballarat].
Melbourne Tram Museum‏ is open today (Sat.11.8), 11.00-17.00. If you're
quick, you can even get a genuine Melbourne tram biscuit from Pookie May
Coffee.
The inaugural 'Southern Aurora' in West Melbourne, heading into Spencer
Street station, 1962.
13.30 Minor delays for all loop services while police attend to a
trespasser.
- 13.39 loop running has resumed.

50 years on: Victoria faces fierce opposition to city loop plans. 10 August
2018
First published in The Age on August 10, 1968.
University hits Government on planning for underground.
Tube ‘would be grave error’.
No competent planning says report.
Construction under Treasury Gardens in Melbourne. Photo: Fairfax Media.
The Victorian Government’s plan for an underground railway has been attacked
in a Melbourne University report which warns that to go ahead at present
would be a serious mistake.
It accuses the Government of recommending the expenditure of $80 million
without competent planning or research.
It says the Government has based its limited planning on two assumptions:
that the city workforce will increase 40 per cent by 1985 and that patronage
of rail transport to the city will increase.
Construction of the City Loop Photo: Fairfax Media.
In fact, the report says, the city workforce has remained static since 1951
and passenger traffic has been falling.
“Many of the arguments put forward to support the construction of the
underground loop line are misleading or irrelevant,” it says. “The evidence
is strong that to proceed with the underground at present would be a serious
mistake.”
The report was prepared by Mr Nicholas F Clark, head of the transport
section in the Civil Engineering Department, and Mr K. W. Ogden, a research
student. It has stirred wide interest in the Federal Treasury and Transport
Department, and is likely to strengthen Commonwealth opposition to the
scheme.
Workers at the new Flagstaff Station, 1981. Photo: Fairfax Archives.
“The Minister for Transport (Mr. Wilcox) appears to be acting on the grounds
that the underground railway is Government policy and therefore need not be
investigated,” Mr. Clarke said last night.
The well-documented report says the Government had released no reports
detailing the engineering and planning justification for the present
project.
“Occasional statements on the need for the underground have been based on
very doubtful assumptions,” it says.
Workers inspect a hole in the tunnel linking Parliament Station to Jolimont
Station. Photo: Fairfax Archives.
The report is one in a series of special lectures to transport experts from
Government and industry. Other speakers have included the Federal Minister
for Shipping and Transport (Mr. Sinclair), the Federal Opposition Leader
(Mr. Whitlam) and Mr. Wilcox.
Shopping plan.
The plan sets out to demolish the popular reasons put forward in favour of
the underground loop. It says the Flinders Street station bottleneck could
be solved by staggering shopping hours.
The construction of marshalling lines on the Newmarket abattoirs site would
save trains reversing at Flinders Street and cut congestion.
Workers pour concrete for the City Loop, 1972. Photo: Fairfax Archives.
Mr. Wilcox said in Melbourne last night: “The Government would not be
proceeding with the underground railway loop unless it was satisfied that it
was necessary and logical – and this has been decided on ample expert
advice.
“There have been a number of reports over the years which have recommended
the construction of the underground loop – I can not give them to you
specifically.”
Mr Clark said last night that the only official public document on the
underground was issued by the Parliamentary Works Committee in 1954. “Which
simply is not relevant to Melbourne’s needs in 1980,” he said.
“If detailed information has been obtained then why should it not be made
available to the public, who after all are the owners of the railway?” the
report asks.
The best alternatives to the project would be improvements to suburban rail
and tram systems and the replacement of obsolete rolling stock, some of
which had been in regular service for over 30 years.
“The immediate, short-term problem is the Flinders Street bottleneck for
which there are many possible solutions. It does not justify major
investment without detailed examination of the nature of the problem and
possibly other methods of solution including those with less costs than the
underground,” the report says.
The first train passes through Museum Station (later Melbourne Central) in
1981. Photo: Fairfax Archives.
The Premier (Sir Henry Bolte) and Mr Wilcox will meet the Prime Minister
(Mr. Gorton) this month to press for a $40 million grant to finance the
underground project.
The Commonwealth is expected to reject Victoria’s submission on the grounds
that it is purely a state matter.
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/50-years-on-victoria-faces-fierce-oppos
ition-to-city-loop-plans-20180810-p4zwpp.html>

'It will be gridlock' – bus drivers to strike in Melbourne 10 August 2018.
More than 1000 Victorian bus drivers will refuse to get behind the wheel for
24-hours as they strike for better pay, leaving passengers in Melbourne and
other parts of the state to rethink their commute.
More than a thousand bus drivers will go on strike on Thursday. Photo: Chris
Hopkins.
Across Melbourne, to Geelong and Ballarat, 120 routes will be impacted on
Thursday.
"That will bring the CBD to a standstill. It will be gridlock," Rick Smith,
who has been driving for eight years, told AAP.
Drivers want a four per cent pay rise and one per cent superannuation
increase as part of their new enterprise bargaining agreement.
Transport Workers Union national vice-president John Berger said members had
postponed work bans and stoppages for the past two weeks while negotiations
took place.
In a statement, the TWU said it wanted the 2018 Victorian Bus Industry
Agreement to move away from "the unreliable" Average Weekly Earnings wage
increase model to fixed percentage agreements with bus operators.
The union said it informed all Victorian bus operators of its desire over
three years ago but "in a sign of good faith" had postposed stoppages for
the past two weeks in an attempt to come to an agreement with bus operators
CDC.
But discussions stalled on Friday and an agreement could not be reached.
Mr Berger said while bus drivers did not "take any joy in inconveniencing
the community they serve" they needed to "look after themselves and their
own families".
“These hard-working members are worth more than what the company have put on
the table and have indicated that they are willing to continue to fight for
a decent living wage and a secure future,” he said.
<www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/it-will-be-gridlock-bus-drivers-to-stri
ke-in-melbourne-20180810-p4zwv2.html>

Victorian State Government accused of bullying and bias by Sky boss over
train station news ban.
News Corp Australia Network August 10, 2018.
video: Allan admits Sky News' interviews did not air at stations.
ANGELOS Frangopoulos is angry, very angry, and he’s letting you know it.
As the Sky boss sat at the airport lounge in Melbourne watching his news
service on the various screens yesterday, he is fuming the same broadcast is
no longer being shown on the city’s metro rail network.
It was though — just 48 hours ago — before something of a hijacking by the
embattled Spring Street Labor government.
“This channel is being used for political gain, it’s corporate and political
bullying based on misrepresentations and absolute lies,” the Australian News
Channel CEO thundered yesterday of the apparent Trump-esque style
policy-on-the-fly tweeting based on fake news by Labor.
Victoria’s Transport Minister Jacinta Allan on Wednesday banned New
Corp-owned Sky News from the city’s train station screens after reading on
social media the network was looping an interview to commuters with
Right-wing extremist Blair Cottrell.
The Victorian State Government has ordered a review into Sky News
broadcasting on the city’s rail network. Picture: David Crosling.
She imposed the ban, took to social media to brag about it and then called a
press conference to declare her credentials on “hatred and racism”
tolerance.
The problem was the Cottrell interview was never aired on the rail network
which just shows Sky’s news, sport and weather.
The State Government then did what every state government does to stall,
defuse and distract — it ordered a review.
Frangopoulos said there was no doubt his network made a mistake in
interviewing the neo Nazi in the first place, despite him having been on
other networks including 7, 9 and the ABC, but the opinion broadcast was not
shown to commuters.
The network did not receive a single complaint nor did APN Outdoor that
manages screen broadcasts on the rail network.
Angelos Frangopoulos admitted Sky had made a mistake, but the action of the
Victorian State Government was absolute bullying.
“What the Victorian Government did is an absolute outrage, they acted
without any consultation with anyone based on information they acquired on
social media and took a decision based on falsehoods,” he said.
“For the minister to stand up and say we are running Cottrell interview on
loop repeatedly on the railway network is just appalling and is just not
true. She didn’t check the information at all, government decisions based on
watching social media.
“I am angry, I am very angry. Sky News is being used for political purposes;
we’re to report and take part in the political conversation not to be used
as a political football to assist in political aims by a government. It’s
not what Australia is about … what we have seen is absolute bullying.”
He didn’t list those “political aims” but the government — with its one seat
hold on power ahead of State elections later this year — is under intense
pressure and scrutiny on various fronts including the “Red Shirts” scandal
that has seen 17 former State Labor campaign staff raided, Labor MPs being
investigated over parliamentary guideline breaches and public money misuse
allegations and spiralling African youth gang violence on the streets.
Jacinta Allan admitted the Blair Cottrell interview was never aired on the
rail network. Picture: Supplied.
Sky has in the last 18 months seen a year-on-year average audience increase
of 25 per cent and is expected to lift that when it goes free-to-air
television on WIN in regional Australia and its commentators, of both Labor
and Conservative backgrounds, have not held back on commentary on the state
of the State Government.
“This (Sky) is a distraction for Labor in Victoria and on another level
actual political bullying based on lies and misrepresentation,” Frangopoulos
said.
He confirmed Sky advertisers were now questioning the controversy and he
respected that right but appealed to corporates to base their decisions on
fact and not social media bullying.
252 Comments
<www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/television/victorian-state-government-ac
cused-of-bullying-and-bias-by-sky-boss-over-train-station-news-ban/news-stor
y/cd0b2129c3a812beac7360d6125dab34>

Fate of NEG hangs on Coalition party room meeting. paywalled; with tdu.
Herald Sun August 11, 2018.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/fate-of-neg-hangs-on-coalition-party-room-meeting
/news-story/b1349ce7b00f76cb3076dc8117486538>

Charges expected over lewd request at Richmond station.
Sat.11.8.18 Melbourne 'Herald Sun'.
Richmond Station.
A CLAYTON man is expected to be charged after allegedly asking a 17-year-old
girl to expose her breasts in exchange for money at Richmond station last
month.
The 34-year-old man was interviewed by investigators earlier today at an
address in Richmond, following a public appeal by police for information
regarding the incident.
“Investigators have been told a 17-year-old girl was approached by a man at
Richmond train station about 8.25am on Wednesday 4 July,” police said.
“It is alleged the man spoke to the girl in an inappropriate manner before
getting on a train.
“Police today attended a location in Richmond and interviewed a 34-year-old
man from Clayton in relation to the incident.”
The man is expected to be charged on summons with offensive behaviour.
<www.heraldsun.com.au/news/law-order/charges-expected-over-lewd-request-at-r
ichmond-station/news-story/c149aef87307719104fe0107ddd51014>

A done deal? Principals and parents speak out on school bus cuts 11 August
2018.
Talking points:
•In the new network, the current 109 dedicated school bus routes will shrink
to 47.
•59 schools will lose all their services, including 49 primary schools, but
public routes will ramp up near schools.
•Non-government schools tend to have more kids coming from out of area and
younger students on the bus.
•More than half of students catching a bus to school already use the public
network.
•Most are in high school or college, according to MyWay estimates.
Transport Canberra has defended cuts to school buses under its transport
overhaul amid growing backlash from principals and parents over student
safety.
The non-government sector, set to be hit hardest by the changes, has also
questioned the data and consultation behind the design of the new system,
which will dump most dedicated school buses in favour of more public
services running past schools when it comes online in January.
Elijah Sham, 7, will have to get on a public bus and make multiple
connections to get to school from the Woden bus interchange Photo: Dion
Georgopoulos
A spokesman said Transport Canberra was taking on board community concerns
about safety but the improved network would make better use of its fleet and
keep transport sustainable for a growing city, as a number of school
services were currently under-utilised.
Ideas such as moving public bus stops closer to schools and installing more
pedestrian crossings were being worked through as the government met with
school communities.
But, following a meeting between school leaders and Transport Canberra on
Tuesday, a number of principals, including at Brindabella Christian College,
St Mary MacKillop and Good Shepherd Primary, said very little consultation
was taking place on what now seemed like "a done deal" .
While the government spokesman said faster services would make travel easier
for students, some principals have warned the changes could compromise the
ACT's vision for a more sustainable city by putting more cars on the road as
children face longer walks to bus stops and frequent changes at busy
stations.
Laura and Matthew Sham say they will be giving up their morning walks to the
bus stop with their young sons in favour of long car rides to Brindabella
across town.
The family had chosen to send their sons, Noah, 10, and Elijah, 7, to the
school because there were dedicated school services available. All 17 of
those services will be cut in the new system, though two routes will ferry
students directly from interchanges.
Elijah Sham, 7, and Noah Sham, 10, at the Woden Bus Interchange. Photo: Dion
Georgopoulos.
"I'm not putting them on a public bus, they're too young to navigate an
interchange like Woden by themselves," Ms Sham said.
Transport Canberra said MyWay data indicated more than half of students
catching buses in the territory already used the public network. Of the 49
primary schools set to lose all their dedicated buses in the change, an
average of eight students were on board each bus in the morning, the
spokesman said.
But opposition spokeswoman for transport Candice Birch said families had
long been calling for more dedicated services not less and a number of
non-government schools reported their afternoon buses were almost always
full or close to full.
At large schools such as St Mary MacKillop and Marist College, principals
estimated up to 11,000 students were piling onto buses after the bell each
day.
Marist deputy headmaster Ryan Greer said the school even started running its
own private buses in 2015 to meet demand from growing enrolments in the
north. While he acknowledged the need for a sustainable bus network, Mr
Greer said student safety should not be compromised as a result.
"In other cities like Sydney they might have kids on public transport, but
they also have the culture and infrastructure around that already, rather
than just changing it all in one go," he said.
At Good Shepherd Primary, principal David Austin has just come in from bus
duty. His school has a much smaller percentage of kids catching buses
compared to K-12 campuses and will lose all its dedicated services in the
change, but he said he regularly helped students as young as kindergarten
age onto the bus.
"Parents have peace of mind with a school bus, the kids know the driver, it
goes direct, we supervise them getting on," Mr Austin said.
"I really think this will affect enrolments and parent choice in the
future."
Ross Fox at the ACT Catholic Education Office described the changes as a
significant concern as non-government schools tended to have more kids
travelling from outside their local area and younger students catching
buses.
"It seems as if non-government schools haven't been considered at all in
this," he said.
In the public sector, Janelle Kennard of the peak association for parents'
groups said families also had a strong preference for dedicated services and
direct buses which did not go through interchanges.
But the association had been working closely with Transport Canberra this
week to discuss problems in the proposed network and were hopeful more
direct routes could be included for students attending their local high
school, she said.
"There's about eight high schools we're concerned about in particular, where
kids will be taken out of their way back to an interchange, or some kids if
they live in the wrong place there's no bus."
A spokesman for Transport Canberra could not confirm if the government would
follow through with creating direct services for public high schools but
said feedback was being taken seriously.
While some schools has slammed the changes as an exercise in cost-cutting by
the ACT government as it prepares to bring light rail online, Transport
Canberra said operating costs on the new bus network were actually due to go
up, not down.
Public consultation on the plan ends on Sunday. Visit
yoursay.act.gov.au/rapid-bus-network
Related Article More private school principals join calls against school bus
cuts.
Related Article What will Canberra's new bus network mean for students?
Related Article 'It's just gone': Parents sound alarm over Canberra school
bus cuts.
<www.canberratimes.com.au/national/act/a-done-deal-principals-and-parents-sp
eak-out-on-school-bus-cuts-20180809-p4zwi0.html>

Electricity prices are falling - and will keep doing so - whether or not
energy deal is inked 11 August 2018.
<www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/electricity-prices-are-falling-
and-will-keep-doing-so-whether-or-not-energy-deal-is-inked-20180809-p4zwjr.h
tml>

Plan or perish: management can solve population anxiety 11 August 2018.
Steve Fitzgerald somehow got himself the job years ago of driving a Chinese
government minister on the three-hour journey from Sydney to Canberra.
After a long silence staring out the car window at the passing countryside,
the VIP from Beijing turned to Fitzgerald and said, with evident surprise:
"There are no people!"
Illustration: John Shakespeare.
Fitzgerald, who will forever hold the unique distinction of being
Australia's first ambassador to the People's Republic of China, tells the
story to make a point. Australians have the extravagant privilege of an
entire continent to ourselves. Other than the ice-plated Antarctica,
Australia is the most sparsely populated of the continents by a very wide
margin.
And Fitzgerald's point is that other countries don't regard this as normal.
The big news this week was that Australia's population hit 25 million on
Tuesday night, as far as we can estimate.
This generated a wave of anxiety about overpopulation. To the rest of the
world, this looks quaintly comical. Shanghai has almost as many in a single
city - 24 million people.
Yet Australian anxiety about overcrowded cities and declining social
cohesion is real. And growing. And it's based on realities of daily life -
congested roads, inadequate public transport, overtaxed hospitals,
unaffordable housing. Nor is concern over social cohesion entirely
baseless. There's a rising proportion of newly arrived immigrants who can't
speak English. It was one person in five a couple of decades ago but is now
one in four. The unruly mob behaviour of some South Sudanese immigrants in
Melbourne adds to the atmospherics of anxiety and alarm.
In Australia's political debate, the right fringe and the left fringe both
want to exploit these problems as a justification for curbing population
growth. Tony Abbott and Pauline Hanson, for instance, call for drastic cuts
to immigration. The Greens want to limit population growth because they say
it leads to unsustainable use of resources.
As Australians' population anxieties rise, these political fringes
increasingly will encroach on the centre. They already are. As prime
minister, Tony Abbott presided over a record intake of migrants. Now,
encouraged by rising nativism in Europe and the US, he is a leading advocate
of cutbacks.
This creeping convergence of fringe left and fringe right, unchecked,
eventually will break the postwar consensus for a growing Australia. Would
that be a good thing for the national interest?
And what is the federal government doing about it, other than Malcolm
Turnbull's repeated assurances that "Australia is the most successful
multicultural nation on earth"?
Illustration: Jim Pavlidis.
To begin, remove some of the false constructs. You can have a lot of people,
many more than Sydney or Melbourne or south-east Queensland, without
unpleasant congestion. Look at the world's most populous city, for instance..
Many Australians have visited Tokyo and discovered a city that's certainly
busy, and often crowded, yet surprisingly pleasant. It's home to an
extraordinary 38 million people, more than double the population of New York
City. It's far from perfect. Yet if you can avoid the busier subway lines in
peak hour, life in Tokyo is generally pretty calm and well-ordered.
What does that tell you? Living conditions aren't just a result of absolute
numbers of people if those numbers are well managed. The priority is
planning and building cities so that they work for the people. Not shrinking
the population to fit the infrastructure.
The West Australian Liberal Senator Dean Smith is trying to get a debate
started on Australia's population policy. He says that "there is now a clear
and present danger for Australia's political class". The postwar mantra of
"populate or perish", a concept based on defence needs, has become "plan or
perish", says Smith. "There can be no procrastination in responding to the
electorate's anxiety about quality-of-life experiences and diminishing
living standards as they deal with increased congestion and inadequately
timed infrastructure builds."
The guilty party here is the political class. Most state governments work to
a four-year political cycle. Federal governments operate on a three-year
cycle. Short-sighted, self-interested and complacent, they have usually
chosen to do nothing in the face of growing populations.
One snapshot is a flight between Sydney and Melbourne. In the 1970s the
average flight time was one hour. Today it's an hour and a half. Have the
cities moved 50 per cent further apart? Have aircraft speeds fallen? Of
course not. It's a problem of congestion, itself a result of political
complacency and risk aversion. Only now is a second Sydney airport under
construction.
State and federal governments generally act to build bigger cities only when
the pressure is irresistible and the public outcry becomes overwhelming.
It's a lot easier to blame immigrants.
The former NSW Labor premier Bob Carr is the archetype. He declared Sydney
to be "closed". He knew he had no power over immigration, no power over the
decisions of families to have children, no power over Australians from other
parts of the country who might choose to move to Sydney.
So why make the theatrical announcement that Sydney was "closed"? So he
could blame immigrants rather than manage his state properly. Sure enough,
Sydney's population has grown by 1 million since his scapegoating
declaration. It was destined to keep growing. All Carr did was set up an
alibi for himself by scapegoating immigrants.
Australia's federal system can work against proper planning. The feds set
the immigration intake but the states are responsible for building most of
the infrastructure. Too bad. The people expect the different levels of
government to cooperate. And they can. For example, Joe Hockey's initiative
as federal treasurer to create an "infrastructure recycling fund" was a very
successful innovation, kicking off a virtuous cycle of infrastructure
investment by the states. Congestion is not an in-principle problem of
immigration. It's a problem of management.
Similarly, the South Sudanese troublemakers in Melbourne are another
scapegoat. "The highest concentration of South Sudanese-born people is in
Sydney, yet they don't have these problems in Sydney that we are having in
Melbourne," says the federal Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural
Affairs, Alan Tudge.
"It's largely a law and order thing in Melbourne among a subset of the South
Sudanese communities," he says. "We had a big affray in Melbourne on
Wednesday night and despite police having rocks thrown at them, not a single
person was arrested. They see no consequences so it's no wonder we continue
to get it."
Minister Alan Tudge. Photo: Andrew Meares.
Once again, the guilty party is the political class, in Victoria in this
case. Once again, is not an in-principle problem of immigration. It's a
problem of management.
The postwar consensus for a growing population was partly driven by
"populate or perish" logic, and the ANU's Andrew Carr stepped forward this
week to remind Australia that this logic still holds: "The difficulty of
protecting Australia has always been shaped by one central tension," says
Carr, a lecturer at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre. "We claim a
large continent but have few people living on it. This tension, almost
alone, explains our historic insistence on working with allies like the UK
and US. Yet as we enter a difficult new era, it has seemingly been
forgotten."
Can any US ally today depend on Donald Trump for its security in a crisis?
Carr argues that reducing immigration, which lately accounts for about 60
per cent of Australia's population growth with homegrown births supplying
the other 40, would have several effects. It would harm economic growth,
shrink Australia's voice and influence in the world, and weaken the
Australian Defence Force: "We struggle to provide enough people to crew six
submarines and modest peacetime deployments."
"Few acts could do more to undermine our long-term national security," Carr
wrote in The Australian Financial Review.
Planning is the solution to congestion. Photo: Paul Rovere.
And it fell to the governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, this week to
remind Australia that its big immigration program is not some boutique
social experiment but an economic imperative.
It doesn't just add to economic growth by adding extra population. A key
point is that it keeps Australia young. While the median age in Australia is
37, the median immigrant is between 20 and 25 years old. "This inflow of
younger people through immigration has significantly reduced the rate of
population aging in Australia," Lowe points out.
This has huge implications. It helps keep Australia solvent, for a start, by
slowing the growth in health care costs, slowing the growth in the aged care
and welfare bill, and by keeping a bigger proportion of the country in the
workforce. And, of course, by supplying some of the skills that Australia's
university and vocational systems are failing to provide.
Australia's population growth, at 1.7 per cent a year, making it faster than
the average of about 1 per cent, is therefore an imperative of security and
economics. The problems and frictions it generates can all be managed. If
the political class is up to the job.
And the response of the Turnbull government? Alan Tudge is trying to do a
better job of managing the problems. First, he's working on a visa system
that would better distribute new arrivals around the country rather than the
current clustering in Sydney and Melbourne. While 87 per cent of immigrants
settle in the two biggest cities, "I have regional mayors telling me that
want hundreds more in their area," Tudge says. "South Australian Premier
Steven Marshall, for example, has said that they would like an additional
about 15,000 migrants a year." Better distribution is surely a sensible
idea.
Second, he's working on proposals to increase the proportion of new arrivals
who learn English. He's not pursuing Peter Dutton's idea of making them
learn university level English but he does want them to have conversational
English, another sensible idea. "The lesson from British and European
integration is that they didn't address these issues earlier," Tudge tells
me, "and they're taking drastic action now. In some areas in Denmark kids as
young as one year old have to go to Danish values classes for 25 hours a
week."
Tudge is right that these are issues of management, not problems of
immigration in principle. The Chinese minister is right that Australia needs
more people, but it also needs better managers in the national interest.
Isn't that what our leaders are supposed to be?
Related Article It's getting crowded around here, and that's a good thing
Add to shortlist.
Related Article Population growth is one of the biggest challenges
confronting Sydney local health district chief Teresa Anderson.
Peter Hartcher is political editor.
<www.canberratimes.com.au/national/plan-or-perish-management-can-solve-popul
ation-anxiety-20180809-p4zwll.html>


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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-PalaisDeDance(AdamFord)-s  |  800W x 482H  | 186.75 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-letters-rail-road  |  800W x 688H  | 404.54 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-FederationSquare-rainbow-ss  |  480W x 600H  | 262.9 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-SouthMelbourne-Tait-W2-AdamFord  |  800W x 467H  | 316.45 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-tram.biscuit(MTM)  |  768W x 824H  | 370.59 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-Ballarat-scrubber8-MartinBennett  |  640W x 438H  | 265.15 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-MetroTwitter-FlemingtonRacecourse  |  400W x 135H  | 51.7 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-Richmond-ss  |  640W x 359H  | 198.72 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-a-ss  |  640W x 360H  | 137.51 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-c-ss  |  640W x 359H  | 145.88 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-f-ss  |  640W x 359H  | 142.82 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-liveableMelbourne  |  400W x 682H  | 235.89 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-180816Th-bus.strike  |  600W x 232H  | 130.5 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-FlindersSt-pink  |  800W x 626H  | 682.21 KB |  Photo details
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180811Sa-Melbourne'HeraldSun'-SkyNews-ban  |  800W x 410H  | 227.79 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-b  |  800W x 450H  | 247.27 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-d  |  427W x 640H  | 171.34 KB |  Photo details
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180810F-loop.construction-e  |  427W x 640H  | 183.98 KB |  Photo details