People policy : Australia's population choices
This lively and readable contribution to the optical debate on Australia's population and immigration policy (or lack of it) comes from one of the country's best known and most authoritative environmental writers. People Policy contains a wide-ranging, multidisciplinary, informative review of the background to, studies on and approaches to population policy. It draws heavily on submissions to the House of Representatives' committee of inquiry into Australia's population (the Jones Inquiry), which the author served as a consultant. Ever assertive and controversial, yet backing up his points with facts and figures, Doug Cocks puts the case for stabilising Australia's population through powerful arguments drawn from environmental, ecological, economic, social and quality-of-life considerations, balancing his personal views by outlining the full range of cases to be made and choices facing the country. People Policy is for general readers with environmental, green, political and social interests relating to human population studies; it has a glossary of demographic terms to assist lay readers. Being fully referenced with an extensive bibliography, it is also useful for students taking demography, population studies, population & human resources, and human ecology units in Geography, Environmental Studies, Demography, Population Studies, Social Policy, and Urban and Regional Planning programs. It will also interest demographers, planners and policymakers dealing with migration, social and economic development, and urban and regional planning
xvii, 347 pages : illustrations, maps ; 22 cm
9780868402475, 0868402478
36923232
1. Historical background to the population debate
2. Australia's demographic choices
3. The politics of population and immigration policy
4. Economic arguments about population size
5. Resource availability arguments about population size
6. Evironmental quality arguments about population size
7. Social (dis)benefit arguments about population size
8. International arguments about Australia's population size
9. Risk avoidance and voodoo arguments about population size
10. Overview of arguments about population size
11. Options for an Australian population policy
12. Complementary policies
13. The long view
learning to adapt
14. Take-home messages
Appendix 1. Jones Inquiry submissions
Appendix 2. Demographic terminology