Latest accidentally-on-purpose migration wave unleashing more unintended and ugly consequences; Why not openly plan and build for 1.5% to 2% annual population growth annually?
Bernard, you say, as you have said often in the past, that 'We should welcome 17 million by 2100, and plan for it: I'd love to see 2% population growth to 17 million by 2100.'
What you have not clearly explained, or perhaps I simply have not absorbed, is why a population of 17 million is better than the population of 5,200,000 we have now.
Due to climate migration may not have a choice. Five million is obviously not sufficient to support the advanced industrial society we have at the moment - see current immigration demand due to lack of workers. The worker shortage is as basic as bus drivers.
that is because out economy has been filled up with make work pork barrels regulations like health and safety, traffic management and a raft of other make work schemes Our universities turn out rafts of people who want jobs telling other people what to do and how to live their lives and too few who actually want to do something useful. Recently on Facebook there was a photo post of contractor who worked on the Upper Waitaki power scheme - I worked on that scheme for a short while - not a road cone, hi vis vest or hard hat to be seen - but huge amounts of work got done by an energetic and motivated workforce building one of the biggest and most complex projects in NZ's history - and only two people were killed in work place (vehicle) accidents.
It puzzles me why we need to import bottle store and dairy staff , bus drivers and a vast array of other cheap labour (only cheap to the employer as these are heavily subsidised by the rest of us through tax payer funded income support) this suits the slave owning class but doesn't do much for the rest of us. Our problem is that thirty years of busybody politicians and academics and a wide array of vested interests have made our economy a beast bloated with wasteful activities.
It's a good question, but I think we will get there anyway as both Labour & National are happy to import as many people as they can get away with just so govt books will look well cooked. It's better to put it on the table for discussion & force the politicians to make a commitment to invest.
Thanks John. We'll be more productive, we'll keep our young people and we'll have a plan to deal with climate refugees, both the rich ones and the poor ones. We don't have a choice in my view. They're coming, regardless, and our politicians can't help themselves from pulling the migration lever.
Bernard, you cover a lot in this which needs longer to ponder but it looks like you're on the money yet again. The general thrust is compelling and I think there's actually an opportunity for NZ to use the fact it will be a climate refuge to its non-exploitative advantage to think and plan ahead and work out how we should do this. Our depressing election is being fought out on old issues and something of a race to the bottom. How do we move on for the next election if not this one? Talking about it and solutions journalism is an essential part of it, but I don't believe it will be enough. Doesn't there need to be some effective coalitions, political and non-political, to start to move this on?
Thanks Glen. That awkward business of finding those rare coalitions is interesting. I’ll delve more into that in future posts. My thoughts are that giving up on the big tunnel projects creates space for deals to much more quickly repurpose the street-side car parks and lanes for cycling, waking and buses.
Feeding 17 million and thus the argiculture sector is also part of this strategy discussion. We have enough land and energy assets. Then shifting food production to better support local consumption plus reduce emissions, may mean we need to develop alternative export products to pay for stuff we can't make in NZ.
Hi Bernard, some interesting food for thought once again. As you mentioned both main parties are now pro immigration/population growth (pretty much the same thing these days), but the debate has never really been put to the public (apart from some slightly ugly grumblings from Winston). Would it not make more sense to first get some public consensus first on what NZ's future population should look like. If people generally want a big NZ then great, but if they generally don't, wont it breed resentment asking for them to plan and pay for something they weren't bought in on in the first place?
That debate needs to present the tradeoffs. Stopping population growth also means no more cheap Ubers and giving up on our current cheap migrant and land valuation inflation model.
Oh, good to hear you Bernard. I thought you had died! But seriously, I am actually hoping that you are (and you are) working hard on The Kaka Initiative which I thoroughly support. I even made a transcript of your Aug 8? podcast (the last bit) if anyone wants reminding. It is such a necessary thing for us to seriously consider and get behind. This is a war. A war to reclaim the country we all thought we were living in and are absolutely NOT. Bring on change, brave change.
As the saying goes, "anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
Having done Econ101 at uni, I can confirm there are a bazillion blind spots, inconsistencies, biases and a whole lot of magical thinking in university taught neo classical economics. It made me question the intelligence and critical thinking ability of my lecturer tbh. If I could go back now I would have some sticky questions for that lecturer, but I wasn't confident enough as an 18 year old to question it out loud.
I listened to this great discussion on the pitfalls of economics education earlier this week, some great points brought up.
For some reason, some economists think of their discipline as science, completely ignoring that we are dealing with how people behave and that people are not always rational thinkers.
Oh I did. I stood up and said, "how far can you blow up a balloon before it all bursts?". Everyone just looked at me funny. But now, I realise that the kind of pressure that the lecturer was driving at was all about increasing consumption, and that was the actual mistake being made. It has taken me years to learn this. And a climate catastrophe.
The 17 million already exist, if you consider the offspring they are going to have anyway. We can refuse to admit them to our refuge/chance for a decent contributive existence, and take our lead from some Northern Hemisphere countries - turning the Med into a liquid graveyard and increasing business for people smugglers. On the flipside, educated immigrants don't have large families and contribute to the ability of a nation to be able to provide for such a population, to protect its wildernesses and biodiversity, and to play its part in leading in a world that is rapidly disintegrating socially. Small entities can lead, look at Zelensky! Education is the answer to population over-reach. Increasing desperation has the opposite effect. Refugees in the desperate category, if asked, want to educate their children and make huge sacrifices to so do. Growth doesn't have to be more expensive trinkets and more mindless waste. It can be the sort of ideas implementation that New Zealanders have been very good at in our history. Innovation in areas such as preventing waste, producing sensible food (must return the fishing quota to government control!) and exporting education to improve the lives of neighbouring countries. Then all the infrastructure that is needed, I am not an engineer, but there are many clever ones out there in the world. New Zealand, for 40 years, has been very inward and backward looking, concentrating on righting wrongs, and missing out on promoting a bright new future for ALL. We have a lot of catching up to do.
I completely agree growth doesn't have to be more expensive trinkets and more mindless waste but it is, in my lifetime percapita energy consumptions has more than doubled, house sizes, car numbers etc all massively increased we know life without all that stuff was as good or better
That’s just because of the selfish way we have done things in NZ. If we had built our cities upwards and around public transport, our carbon footprints would be smaller.
Thanks Mike. Enjoyed your Op-Ed. But you could have population growth here (and not elsewhere) and not use more resources, if we aggressively went to more efficient zero carbon housing and transport. Thoughts?
yes as long as we drop our consumption massively i mean around 75%! and of course fix the infrastructure and health system and do something poverty ...... as we are already pushed way past our social limits. 50% of NZers are in the global 10% of wealth responsible for half the emissions and 10% of us are in the top1% uncomfortable as it is we are the problem https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y
Two things needed to be integrated into this excellent long term planning. 1. A strategy around our responsibilities to take in climate refugees esp from the pacific. 2. How transport will be funded as we electrify the bus and car fleet ie road user charges. 50 years ago we had a Futures Commission that helped with this long term planning. Dumped during Rogernomics. We need a system that incentivizes long term planning out of hands of politicians . 3 year political lilly scrambles will never do not do it
Looking forward to the Independent Electoral Review report coming out in Nov. Might be a slight help, although even longer-term thinking is needed. Is that part of what Wales has done (the Commissioner for Future Generations)?
Bernard, if you'd said we may 'need' to take in 17 million (or whatever) by 2100, that could make sense. But as John T asked, why is high population growth better for NZ? And more importantly, what is the answer to Mike Joy's question?
I appreciate you want to cut emissions, but even allowing for technological progress (and also assuming some of Labour/National/ACT/Greens change their policy to fund infrastructure as you want), detailed observation and simple maths comes up with one conclusion: A high growth strategy will not deliver a sustainable, low carbon future.
Agree Glen, the future will not look like anything we have seen before, so predictions and targets are useless. Everything is vulnerable to climatic and planetary change, we are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise. It is not rational to me to talk about degrowth to avoid planetary collapse, and advocating for a population of 17million by 2100 at the same time.
One of the greatest dangers that will prevent the planet avoiding climate collapse is increasing de-stabilisation which is rapidly emerging in many countries. Is it rats in a limited space for too long, or is it mischief from without - Russia/ China/ N Korea / Saudi Arabia or even India? While bad actors are pushing whole populations out and laying waste to the landscape, the idea of reducing emissions on a world wide scale is a distant dream.
Compared to what the Generals are doing in Myanmar, what Putin is doing to Ukraine, what Assad continues to do to his own people in Syria (all bad actors backed by more bad actors) our governments don't come anywhere near. Misguided maybe, on the wrong track, alienating sections of the population, but not indulging in genocide with impunity. I take it you commented tongue in cheek JAL?
(a) This removing decision making from politicians is a neoliberal thing. With monetary policy making to the Reserve Bank it makes it much more difficult to integrate monetary, fiscal and tax policy. I argue for returning such decisions to politicians, but with several advisory bodies as officers of Parliament to provide long term advice and perspectives on what targets should be and good ways to achieve them (eg the previous Commission for the Future, the existing Climate Change Commission, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Productivity Commission, etc.
(b) There are real benefits in the public sector undertaking much of the necessary planning, financing and construction - the sort of thing that could be done by a Ministry of Green Works, or a revamped Electricity Department or State Advances Corporation - and not having to operate on a profit making basis.
(c)Why the reluctance to even acknowledge that there are funding opportunities using the sovereign currency issuing powers of the government?
Your outline of possibilities is absolutely a Great Way to move, Bernard, in my opinion. Whether we want to keep population increasing to your suggested 17m is moot, but we certainly seem to need more qualified people than we can train, to drive our current population.
And in response to Andrew Riddell’s comment, I agree with his concern in principle, but the main thing is to remove long term planning and execution of big projects, away from the vagaries of the three year election cycle.
And, a small (.75%) annual land tax is TOP policy. Just Saying.
Check their updated, easy to understand website for this and other policies.
That Transport chart was interesting. Not really a great ad for public transport as one assumes the UK cost percentage is so much higher than Ireland's because although it has plenty of rail commuters it is hugely expensive? Is 10% a realistic goal Bernard given only one country is currently achieving that?
Also - We can just about play 'Ministry Review' bingo now can't we - Aged Care review, Immigration worker review, Housing review, Supermarket review (or was that an inquiry...), Bank review/Inquiry....and I know there seem to be infinite others.
Lots of good thoughts, as usual, Bernard. But no mention of the need to preserve and regenerate our natural environment? To quote E.O. Wilson "This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms - folded them into its genes - and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady." If we attempt to address these other big existential problems without fully integrating caring for our natural environment into the thinking, we will fail monumentally. Given the geomorphology of Aotearoa, is 17 M the right number? You're absolutely right to tie housing, transport and climate together.
Would the Affordable Housing, Transport and Climate Commission have the power to increase the residential land tax rate? If not, wouldn't they be incentivised to use their powers to keep land values high?
Do emissions reduction targets allow for population growth? Seems unlikely that other countries would accept a lose NZ migration policy as an excuse not to achieve our targets. Is there any emissions allowance for taking in genuine refugees?
Bernard, you say, as you have said often in the past, that 'We should welcome 17 million by 2100, and plan for it: I'd love to see 2% population growth to 17 million by 2100.'
What you have not clearly explained, or perhaps I simply have not absorbed, is why a population of 17 million is better than the population of 5,200,000 we have now.
Due to climate migration may not have a choice. Five million is obviously not sufficient to support the advanced industrial society we have at the moment - see current immigration demand due to lack of workers. The worker shortage is as basic as bus drivers.
Finding the equilibrium is hard.
I'm aware that Auckland was looking for 578 bus drivers a few months ago and Wellington for 120. I'm not convinced we needed to import them:
168,498 people were on JobSeeker support at the end of March 2023.
https://www.msd.govt.nz/documents/about-msd-and-our-work/publications-resources/statistics/benefit/2023/benefit-fact-sheets-snapshot-march-2023.pdf
that is because out economy has been filled up with make work pork barrels regulations like health and safety, traffic management and a raft of other make work schemes Our universities turn out rafts of people who want jobs telling other people what to do and how to live their lives and too few who actually want to do something useful. Recently on Facebook there was a photo post of contractor who worked on the Upper Waitaki power scheme - I worked on that scheme for a short while - not a road cone, hi vis vest or hard hat to be seen - but huge amounts of work got done by an energetic and motivated workforce building one of the biggest and most complex projects in NZ's history - and only two people were killed in work place (vehicle) accidents.
It puzzles me why we need to import bottle store and dairy staff , bus drivers and a vast array of other cheap labour (only cheap to the employer as these are heavily subsidised by the rest of us through tax payer funded income support) this suits the slave owning class but doesn't do much for the rest of us. Our problem is that thirty years of busybody politicians and academics and a wide array of vested interests have made our economy a beast bloated with wasteful activities.
It's a good question, but I think we will get there anyway as both Labour & National are happy to import as many people as they can get away with just so govt books will look well cooked. It's better to put it on the table for discussion & force the politicians to make a commitment to invest.
Thanks John. We'll be more productive, we'll keep our young people and we'll have a plan to deal with climate refugees, both the rich ones and the poor ones. We don't have a choice in my view. They're coming, regardless, and our politicians can't help themselves from pulling the migration lever.
Please open up
Bernard, you cover a lot in this which needs longer to ponder but it looks like you're on the money yet again. The general thrust is compelling and I think there's actually an opportunity for NZ to use the fact it will be a climate refuge to its non-exploitative advantage to think and plan ahead and work out how we should do this. Our depressing election is being fought out on old issues and something of a race to the bottom. How do we move on for the next election if not this one? Talking about it and solutions journalism is an essential part of it, but I don't believe it will be enough. Doesn't there need to be some effective coalitions, political and non-political, to start to move this on?
Thanks Glen. That awkward business of finding those rare coalitions is interesting. I’ll delve more into that in future posts. My thoughts are that giving up on the big tunnel projects creates space for deals to much more quickly repurpose the street-side car parks and lanes for cycling, waking and buses.
Feeding 17 million and thus the argiculture sector is also part of this strategy discussion. We have enough land and energy assets. Then shifting food production to better support local consumption plus reduce emissions, may mean we need to develop alternative export products to pay for stuff we can't make in NZ.
We have enough land now. But if the trend of greenfield developments continues we will not have enough land for anything.
Hi Bernard, some interesting food for thought once again. As you mentioned both main parties are now pro immigration/population growth (pretty much the same thing these days), but the debate has never really been put to the public (apart from some slightly ugly grumblings from Winston). Would it not make more sense to first get some public consensus first on what NZ's future population should look like. If people generally want a big NZ then great, but if they generally don't, wont it breed resentment asking for them to plan and pay for something they weren't bought in on in the first place?
That debate needs to present the tradeoffs. Stopping population growth also means no more cheap Ubers and giving up on our current cheap migrant and land valuation inflation model.
Oh, good to hear you Bernard. I thought you had died! But seriously, I am actually hoping that you are (and you are) working hard on The Kaka Initiative which I thoroughly support. I even made a transcript of your Aug 8? podcast (the last bit) if anyone wants reminding. It is such a necessary thing for us to seriously consider and get behind. This is a war. A war to reclaim the country we all thought we were living in and are absolutely NOT. Bring on change, brave change.
is it Econ101 that makes economists think there are no limits to growth? https://theconversation.com/critics-of-degrowth-economics-say-its-unworkable-but-from-an-ecologists-perspective-its-inevitable-211496
I agree Mike re degrowth. Apart from one thing that Bernard says which is our responsibility to take in climate refugees
As the saying goes, "anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist."
Having done Econ101 at uni, I can confirm there are a bazillion blind spots, inconsistencies, biases and a whole lot of magical thinking in university taught neo classical economics. It made me question the intelligence and critical thinking ability of my lecturer tbh. If I could go back now I would have some sticky questions for that lecturer, but I wasn't confident enough as an 18 year old to question it out loud.
I listened to this great discussion on the pitfalls of economics education earlier this week, some great points brought up.
https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/episode/rr03-erickson-farley-raworth-keen
For some reason, some economists think of their discipline as science, completely ignoring that we are dealing with how people behave and that people are not always rational thinkers.
Oh I did. I stood up and said, "how far can you blow up a balloon before it all bursts?". Everyone just looked at me funny. But now, I realise that the kind of pressure that the lecturer was driving at was all about increasing consumption, and that was the actual mistake being made. It has taken me years to learn this. And a climate catastrophe.
The 17 million already exist, if you consider the offspring they are going to have anyway. We can refuse to admit them to our refuge/chance for a decent contributive existence, and take our lead from some Northern Hemisphere countries - turning the Med into a liquid graveyard and increasing business for people smugglers. On the flipside, educated immigrants don't have large families and contribute to the ability of a nation to be able to provide for such a population, to protect its wildernesses and biodiversity, and to play its part in leading in a world that is rapidly disintegrating socially. Small entities can lead, look at Zelensky! Education is the answer to population over-reach. Increasing desperation has the opposite effect. Refugees in the desperate category, if asked, want to educate their children and make huge sacrifices to so do. Growth doesn't have to be more expensive trinkets and more mindless waste. It can be the sort of ideas implementation that New Zealanders have been very good at in our history. Innovation in areas such as preventing waste, producing sensible food (must return the fishing quota to government control!) and exporting education to improve the lives of neighbouring countries. Then all the infrastructure that is needed, I am not an engineer, but there are many clever ones out there in the world. New Zealand, for 40 years, has been very inward and backward looking, concentrating on righting wrongs, and missing out on promoting a bright new future for ALL. We have a lot of catching up to do.
I completely agree growth doesn't have to be more expensive trinkets and more mindless waste but it is, in my lifetime percapita energy consumptions has more than doubled, house sizes, car numbers etc all massively increased we know life without all that stuff was as good or better
That’s just because of the selfish way we have done things in NZ. If we had built our cities upwards and around public transport, our carbon footprints would be smaller.
Thanks Mike. Enjoyed your Op-Ed. But you could have population growth here (and not elsewhere) and not use more resources, if we aggressively went to more efficient zero carbon housing and transport. Thoughts?
yes as long as we drop our consumption massively i mean around 75%! and of course fix the infrastructure and health system and do something poverty ...... as we are already pushed way past our social limits. 50% of NZers are in the global 10% of wealth responsible for half the emissions and 10% of us are in the top1% uncomfortable as it is we are the problem https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y
I recommend that all readers read the link that Mike Joy has provided.
Release please Bernard.
Patrick Medlicott
Two things needed to be integrated into this excellent long term planning. 1. A strategy around our responsibilities to take in climate refugees esp from the pacific. 2. How transport will be funded as we electrify the bus and car fleet ie road user charges. 50 years ago we had a Futures Commission that helped with this long term planning. Dumped during Rogernomics. We need a system that incentivizes long term planning out of hands of politicians . 3 year political lilly scrambles will never do not do it
Looking forward to the Independent Electoral Review report coming out in Nov. Might be a slight help, although even longer-term thinking is needed. Is that part of what Wales has done (the Commissioner for Future Generations)?
Bernard, if you'd said we may 'need' to take in 17 million (or whatever) by 2100, that could make sense. But as John T asked, why is high population growth better for NZ? And more importantly, what is the answer to Mike Joy's question?
I appreciate you want to cut emissions, but even allowing for technological progress (and also assuming some of Labour/National/ACT/Greens change their policy to fund infrastructure as you want), detailed observation and simple maths comes up with one conclusion: A high growth strategy will not deliver a sustainable, low carbon future.
Agree Glen, the future will not look like anything we have seen before, so predictions and targets are useless. Everything is vulnerable to climatic and planetary change, we are fooling ourselves if we think otherwise. It is not rational to me to talk about degrowth to avoid planetary collapse, and advocating for a population of 17million by 2100 at the same time.
One of the greatest dangers that will prevent the planet avoiding climate collapse is increasing de-stabilisation which is rapidly emerging in many countries. Is it rats in a limited space for too long, or is it mischief from without - Russia/ China/ N Korea / Saudi Arabia or even India? While bad actors are pushing whole populations out and laying waste to the landscape, the idea of reducing emissions on a world wide scale is a distant dream.
How far from the top is NZ in that list of bad actors?
Compared to what the Generals are doing in Myanmar, what Putin is doing to Ukraine, what Assad continues to do to his own people in Syria (all bad actors backed by more bad actors) our governments don't come anywhere near. Misguided maybe, on the wrong track, alienating sections of the population, but not indulging in genocide with impunity. I take it you commented tongue in cheek JAL?
(a) This removing decision making from politicians is a neoliberal thing. With monetary policy making to the Reserve Bank it makes it much more difficult to integrate monetary, fiscal and tax policy. I argue for returning such decisions to politicians, but with several advisory bodies as officers of Parliament to provide long term advice and perspectives on what targets should be and good ways to achieve them (eg the previous Commission for the Future, the existing Climate Change Commission, the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment, Productivity Commission, etc.
(b) There are real benefits in the public sector undertaking much of the necessary planning, financing and construction - the sort of thing that could be done by a Ministry of Green Works, or a revamped Electricity Department or State Advances Corporation - and not having to operate on a profit making basis.
(c)Why the reluctance to even acknowledge that there are funding opportunities using the sovereign currency issuing powers of the government?
Your outline of possibilities is absolutely a Great Way to move, Bernard, in my opinion. Whether we want to keep population increasing to your suggested 17m is moot, but we certainly seem to need more qualified people than we can train, to drive our current population.
And in response to Andrew Riddell’s comment, I agree with his concern in principle, but the main thing is to remove long term planning and execution of big projects, away from the vagaries of the three year election cycle.
And, a small (.75%) annual land tax is TOP policy. Just Saying.
Check their updated, easy to understand website for this and other policies.
That Transport chart was interesting. Not really a great ad for public transport as one assumes the UK cost percentage is so much higher than Ireland's because although it has plenty of rail commuters it is hugely expensive? Is 10% a realistic goal Bernard given only one country is currently achieving that?
Also - We can just about play 'Ministry Review' bingo now can't we - Aged Care review, Immigration worker review, Housing review, Supermarket review (or was that an inquiry...), Bank review/Inquiry....and I know there seem to be infinite others.
Lots of good thoughts, as usual, Bernard. But no mention of the need to preserve and regenerate our natural environment? To quote E.O. Wilson "This is the assembly of life that took a billion years to evolve. It has eaten the storms - folded them into its genes - and created the world that created us. It holds the world steady." If we attempt to address these other big existential problems without fully integrating caring for our natural environment into the thinking, we will fail monumentally. Given the geomorphology of Aotearoa, is 17 M the right number? You're absolutely right to tie housing, transport and climate together.
Mike Joy's article addresses this.
Would the Affordable Housing, Transport and Climate Commission have the power to increase the residential land tax rate? If not, wouldn't they be incentivised to use their powers to keep land values high?
Yes. They could raise that. Or lower it. The incentives are housing affordability and zero emissions. Not land values.
Do emissions reduction targets allow for population growth? Seems unlikely that other countries would accept a lose NZ migration policy as an excuse not to achieve our targets. Is there any emissions allowance for taking in genuine refugees?