Gold Coast Greens

While we wait for both major parties to define ‘sustainable population’, projects based on long time Greens’ suggestions such as the East Coast high-speed rail links should be considered approaches that would help us sustain the population increase we have already experienced. Over the past decade, while both major parties have boosted Australia’s population through high immigration numbers and birth incentives with little to no attention to support infrastructure, we have seen biodiversity loss on a shameful and dangerous scale including the possible extinction of the koala, water shortages that have destroyed natural river systems including the vital Murray Darling, massive intrusion on lifestyle and cost of living, and irresponsible rises in our national carbon emissions. When the major parties bandy about terms like ‘sustainable population’ in relation to their final recognition of the need for green public transport infrastructure, we need to hear them acknowledge that projects currently in place merely allow Australia to catch up with the needs of the population we have now, before we even consider sustaining further expansion of numbers.

Petrina Maizey
Greens Candidate for Forde