Right: A female mine worker surveys the Pilbara landscape from her monster truck. Generally, however, Australian employers do not have a good record on bringing women into the workforce, or training them in the skills needed as the nation moves further into the 21st century.
Further implications
The population debate is difficult to conduct in Australia. As Dr Paul Norton, from the Department of Politics and Public Policy and the Australian School of Environmental Studies at Griffith University, notes, '[It] intersects with many others, including those about the environment, Australia's economic future, immigration and race politics, "the family" and gender politics.'It is a highly populist issue, that is, one which evokes vigorous, often unthinking reactions from much of the electorate who have historically seen population growth through immigration as a threat to racial and cultural homogeneity and to the job security of current Australians.
The debate has now become more complicated by gender issues such as how actively governments and employers should seek to encourage women to have children and whether that be via baby bonuses, childcare provision or paid maternity leave. It is also complicated by the skills shortage issue.
Australian employers do not have a strong record of supporting their female employees to have children and remain in the workforce. They also do not have a good record in the area of on-the-job skills training. Thus the importation of skilled labour in areas of shortage has become a recourse adopted by governments and favoured by employers because the alternative involves greater long-term planning and investment than we have typically shown ourselves capable of.
Now the debate is complicated still further by our growing recognition of the fragility of our environment and our awareness that our population is ageing. This means governments, employers and Australian citizens have a very difficult balancing act to achieve. Our ageing population would appear to mean that we have to foster population growth, presumably through both natural increase and immigration. However, our finite natural resources suggest that there will be a limit to the growth that is sustainable. Finding this balance should involve honest, rigorous economic, scientific and political debate.
The issues involved are so emotion-laden that the debate appears to be politically very dangerous for any government that seeks to conduct it. It is interesting that one of the first policy announcements Julia Gillard made on becoming Prime Minister stated that she was not a supporter of the 'big Australia' policy with which her predecessor had become associated in the public mind. This was smart politics. However, it is to be hoped that soon, perhaps after the next election, all interest groups will be involved in an informed debate on what level of population growth is desirable for this country.