My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Caalcuttin woman from Gadighl country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Straight Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily Ods. It's Thursday, the twenty fifth of January.
I'm zara, I'm emma.
Late yesterday afternoon, Australia's population officially ticked over to twenty seven million.
And according to some it's a number that might have come earlier than predicted.
I think the challenge, the goal really should be to get migration numbers back to a more historically sustainable pathway.
But there are others who say things might not be exactly as.
They seem'sts of lots of concern and dare I say population panic around whether or not we've reached this twenty seven million milestone ahead of schedule or on time or whatever.
You're going to hear from two experts about what this twenty seven million number actually means and why you should care about it in today's Deep Dive. But first, m what's making headlines.
Former US President Donald Trump has defeated Nicki Haley in the New Hampshire primaries. The result brings Trump a step closer to securing the Republican presidential nomination, but former UN Ambassador Hailey says she won't be bowing out of a race that is quote far from over. It comes after Ron DeSantis dropped out of the presidential race following Trump's win in the Iowa caucuses last week. The next major test for Trump and Haley will be in South Carolina, where Haley used to be governor.
Kim Williams has been confirmed as the new chair of the ABC. Williams was formerly the chief executive of News Corp, and he'll replace Ida butt Rose when she steps down as chair in March. The ABC chair oversees the national broadcaster's nine member board and is responsible for ensuring independence and integrity at the broadcaster.
France's Data Protection Authority will find Amazon more than fifty million Aussie dollars for invading staff privacy. Amazon France has been accused of monitoring its warehouse stuff with an excessively intrusive system, and that includes tracking worker's performance through the data recorded on handheld barcode scanners. The authority found Amazon is in breach of employee and privacy rights.
And the good news, a ninety nine year old competitive swimmer has been in three world records in her age category. Betty Brussels set new record times for the four hundred meter freestyle, fifty mon backstroke and fifty meter breaststroke at a competition in Canada. Brussel said, swimming is my love. It makes me forget all my worries and I feel great.
I love Betty Brussel. The good news we needed.
As many of us were finishing our workday yesterday. Australia hit a new milestone. Our population grew to twenty seven million, But in the middle of housing, cost of living and environmental crises, is Australia actually equipped to deal with its growing population. To find out what this number actually means for us, I thought I'd ask the experts to unpack
this one. Mark McCrindle is a demographer, a social researcher and the founder of McCrindle Research, and he joins us on the podcast Now Hi Mark Welcome to the Daily OS.
Oh thanks ever great to be with you.
Now we're ticking over a pretty significant milestone this week, twenty seven million Australians. What does this number really mean? Why is this an interesting or important announcement?
Well, any of these population milestones gives us a chance to reflect on our population, our growth, how we're growing, and our future. And this particular one is key because it's come in record time. We've just had the largest annual population increase ever in our history. It does create challenges, you know, particularly because right at the time that we've hit this new record of annual increase is the time of inaffordability around homes shortages and around vacancies for rentals,
infrastructure bottlenecks. People really concerned about the next generation being able to afford a home. We just hit an annual increase through migration of five hundred and eighteen thousand in the past year. Now, the last ten years, we've averaged about two hundred and thirty five thousand annual increase through migration, so we're more than twice what has been the recent norm.
And that's what I think has not only created the new record in population increase, but new challenges around affordability, housing availability and planning for this growth future.
We have an aging population here in Australia. I'm interested if we know a bit of a breakdown on the demographics of our population groups. What are we looking like on that front, and what pressures do you anticipate there.
Well, that's right, you know, this aging curve on which we find ourselves is pretty dramatic and we just over a decade ago we do only just tipped out of the twenties as the midpoint in our population. It was in the early thirties. Now are in the late thirties. Over the next decade probably edging into forty is the median age of our nation. So that's pretty steep aging.
And the migration numbers don't do a lot to mitigate that because the average person coming in is a little bit younger than the average age but you know, before too long and they're adding to the workforce, but before too long, you know they're on the upper end of the average age.
Factoring in the declining birth rate, do you think there's maybe a bit of imbalance with the conversation around population growth that there is such a focus on migration and potentially the negative impacts of overpopulation for migration against this other concept that we probably hear a little bit less about declining birth rates.
The birth rates have pared down, maybe we've got about eighteen thousand fewer births that otherwise we would have had. Well, we've got five hundred and eighteen thousand rivals in the last twelve months from overseas migration. So in other words, any slight curving of the birth rate is more than matched by massive increases in overseas migration. So it's actually not doing anything to sustain the population by lowering the birth rate.
I wanted to ask another demographer, doctor Liz Allen. She works at the Australian National University, and I checked in with her about this relationship that Mark spoke about between migration and the Australian population.
Let's just take a moment and consider where these facts are coming from. There has been discussion reflecting on and pointing to the Intergenerational Report the igr of two thousand and two, so that's over twenty years ago.
That's a generation ago.
And more importantly, we have had five intergenerational reports completed by the Australian Treasury Department since then each containing population projections. So the concerns and the population panic that has been used and fueled by a cherry picked data point from two thousand and two does suggest that we are ahead of schedule. But these are population projections, not forecasts. So if we think about two thousand and two, think about we've plucked the hell out of our eyebrows.
We've since learned that that's not a good idea.
So we can see what was happening in two thousand and two, and we know then that the assumptions that they may have made based on the trends that they were seeing at that time in relation to the population, namely around natural increase, the balance between births and deaths, and immigration, were perhaps not going to be lived or not going to be experienced the way expected.
So hold on to your population panic pants.
This population milestone is as expected.
A lot's been said about migration and its impact on population numbers. What's your take on perhaps this idea of population panic that you've articulated and the relationship at play with migration there.
So this population panic.
Don't get me wrong, I think there is a healthy element of concern or at least in investment in understanding population and population dynamics. But this kind of panic that's stirred up and is being stirred up by particular commentators, particular elements of the media, lead to people being concerned.
My largest concern around that is.
The fact that when we hear the word population, it's generally code for immigration, and so we're not really reflecting on population in its totality, but rather where that population is coming from. And that sometimes means that we become a bit hostile to each other and we perhaps are not as welcoming as we ought to be. Australia is an aging population and immigration is vital to offsetting adverse consequences, particularly in relation to a shrinking tax payer base, to
ensure that our living standards don't go backwards. We've had a lot fueling this population panic over the last window of time because during COVID, in a so called kind of quasi population experiment, well perhaps the natural population experiments by where whereby we saw international borders close. During that time, we had zero or even negative and in fact, in an order of tens of thousands of people negative net
overseas migration. That meant that we had an excess of people leaving the country, anyone who was about to leave, perhaps they were finishing their studies in a couple of years time, they left, perhaps prematurely. What that then means is we've now kind of coming out of these closed borders. Things are open up again now, and so we've seen these very artificially high numbers of net overseas migration fueling the popular panic.
These will restabilize and will normalize in a very short period of time. It's just a quirk of COVID.
As our population grows, you know, whether or not it's growing at a faster rate than expected, whether or not there is this impact from migration. We are in the middle of a cost of living crisis, a housing crisis, a climate crisis. How does a growing population impact those already strained parts of our society?
As you perfectly state, we are in the midst of a cluster of crisis.
It is the perfect storm.
It's easy to point the finger at people, but the reality is in this country we have seen an unwillingness to invest in vital infrastructure, in a monetary value and to really invest in the well being of people. We need now to consider these multiple catastrophic in some experiences crises and reimagine things so that we are investing in what I think are the four critical issues for Australia climate change, housing, affordability, gender inequality, and of course job security.
We need to consider these things, and more importantly, immigration is vital to helping the nation weather this current storm. In addition to the economic benefits, people that come to this country are literally helping us build this place, build our houses, staff, our hospitals, staff, all manner of critical services.
What do you think would be the most successful ways to kind of meet these problems in the middle with migration numbers and a skills shortage, do we need to see policy and initiative that would bring those things together?
Without a doubt, Australia needs to reconsider its migration program and definitely evaluate whether.
It's fit for purpose for now.
Certainly recent research and investigation that the government has instituted suggests it's not fit for purpose and definitely change needs to occur.
But we do not need a total stop on immigration.
I think what we need instead is to kind of sit back and consider the demography of Australia in its totality. At the moment, we have intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage. The bank of mum and Dad is determining whether you can own a home or not.
That's just wrong.
We should not be seeing that kind of entitlement and privilege come at the cost of cohesion in this country.
I do want to ask you before we let you go about the birth rate and trends we've seen there. What does a declining birth rate mean for the population.
So a declining fertility rate in its own right is not a problem.
It actually indicates that people have.
Greater control over their lives, and Australia is not unique in the world. In fact, half the world's population lives in an area where they are experiencing what's known as below replacement fertility rate.
We're not replacing mum and dad, so to speak.
Now, what does keep me at wake at night is the notion that young people more and more are saying that they cannot achieve.
Their desire for a family. Why.
Because the obstacles to achieving their family intentions are insurmountable.
We have climate boiling.
We have issues that as this kind of cluster of crises, cost of living, housing and so on, mean.
That the future is uncertain.
Our young people are concerned and really don't feel secure in the tomorrow. That needs to be addressed, because without faith and hope for the future, we really have no humanity.
Liz, Happy twenty seven million to you and all who celebrate.
Happy twenty seven million.
And I imagine in a few years time you'll be where was I when the twenty seven o'clock ticked over.
I'm sure we'll be telling our grandchildren that's right, that's right.
Thanks so much for listening to The Daily OZ. If you are listening to this one on Spotify, why not let us know what you thought about the episode. There's a little question box under the show notes, Tim you can tell us there what you thought. We'll be back in your ears again tomorrow, but until then, have a fabulous day.
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