Population Policies In Australia: Should The Government Take An Active Role?

Write an essay in response to the following:

Do governments need to act to control population growth? Why/ why not? Support your answer from ideas developed in the course readings. 

Factors Contributing to Population Growth in Australia

Global population rise is one of the major issues that the world is facing in the modern times. Of late, there have been various arguments about the effects of population rise in different government and other regulatory bodies all over the world. Monitoring the population trends and responding accordingly has been the key adaptive method of the government bodies all around the world. The rising population has had many effects on the world, which has called for the development of many regulations and policies (Abel et al. 2016). Similarly, Australia also has its fair share of contribution to the rising population, and has adapted itself to respond to the issue. However, it seems that considering the large Australian landmass, the current population of Australia seems to be very small compared to the other parts of the world. Nevertheless, at the same time, immigration of people from other countries has been slowly increasing the population in the last two decades, which has highlighted several issues such as the increase in the pressure on the natural resources and the economy of Australia as well. The purpose of this essay is to develop the idea of whether the government should play an active role in addressing the population issue. This discussion would include what should be the aim of the government and the type of policies it should adopt or the weightage that should be given to them in order to understand their priority.

The increase in the Australian population is growing at a faster pace than the rest of the world. There are several factors that contribute to such a fast growing population. The fertility rate of Australia is higher than the rest of the world, which allows more births that are successful in the Australian scenario (Aph.gov.au 2018). A large section of the population belongs to the childbearing phase, which boosts the rapid growth of the population. Thirdly, Australia has an active immigration system, which allows population from others countries to shift to Australia, in search of a better lifestyle.

It is the responsibility of any government in the world to understand and respond to the population issues in order to ensure a better life for the people of the country. The adopted measures help the governments to deal with the changing population trends. This does not include the policies, which are responsible for measuring population, and then assess the modification of policies accordingly. However, the responsiveness of the government should be more on the basis of influencing population trends to act according to the positive effects towards the society (Barnosky, Ehrlich and Hadly 2016). These includes the population enquiries and recommendations, which concludes with the making of the resolutions and executing them.

Importance of Responsive Government

The primary argument for the need of Australian government to adopt population policy as the government has one of the most active immigration programs in the world, which has a large impact on the population and growth of the country. The several reports and surveys over the decades has provided advise to the Australian government to assess and adopt population policies, which can explicitly deal with the concerning issues. However, the government has noticeably ignored all such advises. The government should take decisions, which can influence and bring about change in the distributional trends of population growth of the country (Butler 2012). For example, in Australia, it has been noticed that there is a continuous growth of population in the coastal areas of the country, which has increased the pressure on the natural resources available there and also having a deep impact on the environment. The government should adopt policies, which can change this trend and influence the people to shift towards the interior parts of the country. This will lead to a proper distribution of the population all over the country. This leads to the sustainable use of resources and reduces the impact on the environment.

Moreover, it is also necessary for the Australian government to adopt precautionary measures as the population policy of the country. These precautionary measures can be adopted in different ways, but the primary importance of a these measures is to check and modify any existing policy in case of its failure in the long run (Coale 2017). The population growth of any country consists the underlying effects such as social and environmental adversities. However, the policies that are adopted to modify the effects should not have collateral economic hazards in the process. Considering these potential disasters, there are also certain other possibilities which are caused by the effective population growth. Hence, it is advisable for the government to analyze every situation analytically and decide on the available policies that might be open for application. This type of analytical approach can help the government to have a more flexible approach towards the concerned population issue and if the situation deteriorates in the future, further actions can be taken (Gilbert 2005).

A population policy adopted by a government can ensure that it is actively participating in the planning and development of its outlook. A positive approach from the government makes the ideology clearer to the audience in general. Though there might remain some questionable arguments regarding the achievement of the plans, the proper planning reflects the attitude that the government has towards the situation. For example, the portrayal of the general demographic issues of the country might help in the understanding of the general problem of the non-demographic areas. These helps in the further development of the policies by the government which will be focused on the enhancement of the non-demographic areas (Nielsen 2016). These policies can include the general population management in an area through the sustainable development of the area, concerning the social justice, and human resource planning.

Argument for the Need for Population Policy

The population policies of any government should be focused on the goal that determines the growth and development of the population in a short period of time. It is important for the government to set short term goals as the long term goals at certain time turns out to insignificant due to the certain changes of events or the shifting population trends. The growth rate of a population is essential for the identification of the key issues of the country and helps in the development of policies, which are essential on different levels such as national or regional (Rosling 2012).

It is important to understand the difference between the intrusive and minimalist approach to the policies that are devised by the government. For example, the issues such as fertility or the age group of the population plays a minimalist role in the policy development (Bongaarts 2015). This is so because prioritizing the simple facts can help in the minimizing of the goal that is to be achieved. However, the difference between both the factors can prominently noticed when either of the approaches goes wrong. For example, the intrusive approach includes the migration policies. If the desired results are to be achieved in a quicker way, the policies should focus on the different determinants at the same time. Modification of data might interpret the results in paper, but the actual impact on the society, remains a questionable factor in the presence of the trending circumstances.

Migration plays a very important role in the determination of the population stability in a given region. Similarly, migration have a very deep impact on the Australian state of affairs regarding the population. The population composition and distribution needs to be planned in Australia to tackle the impending effects of population growth. The need for the development of population policies is required on the lines of immigrant management because of several factors. Firstly, without the development of policies, the population will continue to rise due to the rising immigration. There are existent policies, which filter the immigrants according to the educational qualifications or their competence in English language but these basic requirements are not very compatible for strict measures against the increasing population. Secondly, the immigrants arrive from different parts of the world, which make it very difficult to categorize the culturally diverse population (Samir and Lutz 2017). The different categories of population requires different management. Similarly, it is also important to determine the distribution of the population across the country. Population policies are very important in the management of such difficulties.

It is observed from the above discussion that population policies play a very important part in the management and development of a society. A society or country, which is not focused on the development of such policies, might face problems such as economic or environmental sustainability in the future due to the impacts of the rising population. Moreover, the proper engagement of the government helps in the proper identification of the seriousness of the issues related to population and helps in the formulation of the right policies to tackle the problems. Problems such as immigration play a very important role in determining the rising population issue, hence it is important for the Australian government to develop population policies to tackle and efficiently manage them in the future.

References:

Abel, G.J., Barakat, B., Samir, K.C. and Lutz, W., 2016. Meeting the Sustainable Development Goals leads to lower world population growth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(50), pp.14294-14299.

Aph.gov.au 2018. An Australian Population Policy – Parliament of Australia. [online] Aph.gov.au. Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/rp/RP9697/97rp17 [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].

Barnosky, A.D., Ehrlich, P.R. and Hadly, E.A., 2016. Avoiding collapse: Grand challenges for science and society to solve by 2050. Elem Sci Anth, 4.

Bongaarts, J., 2015, January. Global fertility and population trends. In Seminars in reproductive medicine (Vol. 33, No. 01, pp. 005-010). Thieme Medical Publishers.

Butler, C. 2012. Human carrying capacity and our need for a parachute. [online] The Conversation. Available at: https://theconversation.com/human-carrying-capacity-and-our-need-for-a-parachute/html [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].

Coale, A.J., 2017. How a population ages or grows younger. In Population Growth (pp. 47-58). Routledge.

Gilbert, G., 2005. World population: a reference handbook. ABC-CLIO.

Nielsen, R.W., 2016. Growth of the world population in the past 12,000 years and its link to the economic growth. Journal of Economics Bibliography, 3(1), pp.1-12.

Rosling, H. 2012. Transcript of "Religions and babies". [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_religions_and_babies/transcript?language=en [Accessed 11 Oct. 2018].

Samir, K.C. and Lutz, W., 2017. The human core of the shared socioeconomic pathways: Population scenarios by age, sex and level of education for all countries to 2100. Global Environmental Change, 42, pp.181-192.