Ideas on how to attract more people to SA?

[TooFar]

Brando, but don’t you see it is all related. Melbourne is more exciting because the big jobs are there. The jobs attract and keep the more dynamic, creative and entrepreneur type people. The head offices are there, the decisions are made there, leading production companies and artists are there. All this leads to more wealth and more disposable income.

If Melbourne was just a regional town with branch offices and minor manufacturers, do you think it would still be so exciting?

[AG]

Dont worry brando, once there is huge demand for engineers in SA with no one to fill the places, the pays will skyrocket (they pretty much already are for mining engineering with pays of like 150+ gran a year in SA http://mycareer.com.au/jobseeker/search ... c=571&sf=6) and then the youngins will come. Then you should see some major change in Adelaide.

The skilled-worker shortage and high wage situation is a bit more complex than supply and demand of workers. For example, even with those huge salaries that all engineering professions are now starting to see and their rapid increases - with starting wages beginning above $50k a year and over $200k for many mining engineers - the shortfall of engineers in this country is getting worse every year. Engineering is not a very popular profession at all, there's barely 100 civil engineers being trained in each year level across the universities in SA (including myself), and just over 50 mining engineers in total when far more are needed in both. Many people have never heard of many of the engineering professions, and few understand what is actually involved. The rate of wage increases each year in the engineering professions is about 7%, well in excess of inflation which is around 3%.

[Brando]

Brando, but don’t you see it is all related. Melbourne is more exciting because the big jobs are there. The jobs attract and keep the more dynamic, creative and entrepreneur type people. The head offices are there, the decisions are made there, leading production companies and artists are there. All this leads to more wealth and more disposable income.

If Melbourne was just a regional town with branch offices and minor manufacturers, do you think it would still be so exciting?

I agree with what you are saying, but having said that we have to start somewhere.We all agree that some pretty big changes are coming to SA with expansions and new contracts that require skilled workers. We need for these people to stay, not grab and run as many are doing in WA. If we can make changes now maybe we can encourage more of these skilled professionals to stay.

[Edgar]

Some problems are just an easy fix, but it's either South Australian are just too lazy or just too rich they don't have to work more.

Simple as operating stores throughout Rundle Mall till late night (9pm) every night, would bring the city to life. Why is Friday night so exciting in the city? Because Rundle Mall opens through late night and you see more people everywhere.

But we all rather choose only ONE night instead of 7 nights a week.

:wank:

Tell me what's wrong with these businesses? Choose from my above answers.

[monotonehell]

Some problems are just an easy fix, but it's either South Australian are just too lazy or just too rich they don't have to work more.

Simple as operating stores throughout Rundle Mall till late night (9pm) every night, would bring the city to life. Why is Friday night so exciting in the city? Because Rundle Mall opens through late night and you see more people everywhere.

But we all rather choose only ONE night instead of 7 nights a week.

:wank:

Tell me what's wrong with these businesses? Choose from my above answers.

I never understand the let's open longer attitude to trading. People have a finite amount of money to spend. You can either open one night of the week and concentrate all that activity, or open every night, have more staff and operating costs for a grab at the same revenue.

[Wayno]

Some questions for all. Please note i'm just playing devils advocate to understand the key drivers here - my stance is neutral - as always

* For what reasons must Adelaide have a larger population? is it mainly because we find ourselves in the position of needing to rapidly increase the number of people in the younger age brackets (to counter the financial impact of retiring baby-boomers and the exodus of people from SA in the last 30 years)? Keep in mind the BB bubble will be completely gone by 2050-ish. And sure, the mining industry is desperately calling out for help - but must we increase our population simply to sate the worlds resource appetite?

* What is Adelaide's ideal population? Would it be enough if we could magically maintain an "age-bracket balanced" population of say, 1.3million? i know i'm glossing over complex issues - I just want to understand how many in this forum simply desire more people in SA so they can live in a larger city without the hassle of moving interstate.

[AtD]

I don't know if you've heard it, but they say in business, "If you're standing still, you're going backwards," and that's very true. To keep standards of living in line with the rest of the nation, we need to continuously attract investment from interstate and overseas. If our population isn't growing, we're shrinking, in relative terms, to the national and global markets, and as a smaller market we'll attract less investment. Job prospects interstate will increasingly attract our skilled workers leaving fewer taxpayers, and even less incentive for investment, and the cycle continues. So by standing still, we'll quickly find ourselves going backwards.

[Edgar]

Some problems are just an easy fix, but it's either South Australian are just too lazy or just too rich they don't have to work more.

Simple as operating stores throughout Rundle Mall till late night (9pm) every night, would bring the city to life. Why is Friday night so exciting in the city? Because Rundle Mall opens through late night and you see more people everywhere.

But we all rather choose only ONE night instead of 7 nights a week.

:wank:

Tell me what's wrong with these businesses? Choose from my above answers.

I never understand the let's open longer attitude to trading. People have a finite amount of money to spend. You can either open one night of the week and concentrate all that activity, or open every night, have more staff and operating costs for a grab at the same revenue.

What makes you think people in SA have a finite amount of money to spend?

What makes you think by opening every night would results in nothing more than the same revenue as operating just one night a week?

It is such a shame someone like you think that way, perhaps one of the many reasons why you and the rest of the city goes to sleep at 6pm!

Why is Asian countries progressing so vast and quickly? Because they don't stop trading their business. They don't stop making money, they never stop, they don't want to become a 'backwater'.

[Edgar]

Some questions for all. Please note i'm just playing devils advocate to understand the key drivers here - my stance is neutral - as always

* For what reasons must Adelaide have a larger population? is it mainly because we find ourselves in the position of needing to rapidly increase the number of people in the younger age brackets (to counter the financial impact of retiring baby-boomers and the exodus of people from SA in the last 30 years)? Keep in mind the BB bubble will be completely gone by 2050-ish. And sure, the mining industry is desperately calling out for help - but must we increase our population simply to sate the worlds resource appetite?

* What is Adelaide's ideal population? Would it be enough if we could magically maintain an "age-bracket balanced" population of say, 1.3million? i know i'm glossing over complex issues - I just want to understand how many in this forum simply desire more people in SA so they can live in a larger city without the hassle of moving interstate.

They are many reasons why Adelaide must have more population, them being:

1) More population = higher state GDP
2) More population = more pressure for the state government or the local councils to get off their seat and start fighting for the people
3) More population = more attention given by the federal government
4) More population = more businesses and tradings = more job opportunity
5) More population = more demands, people ask more, and the response to these demands is developments

[AG]

Some questions for all. Please note i'm just playing devils advocate to understand the key drivers here - my stance is neutral - as always

* For what reasons must Adelaide have a larger population? is it mainly because we find ourselves in the position of needing to rapidly increase the number of people in the younger age brackets (to counter the financial impact of retiring baby-boomers and the exodus of people from SA in the last 30 years)? Keep in mind the BB bubble will be completely gone by 2050-ish. And sure, the mining industry is desperately calling out for help - but must we increase our population simply to sate the worlds resource appetite?

* What is Adelaide's ideal population? Would it be enough if we could magically maintain an "age-bracket balanced" population of say, 1.3million? i know i'm glossing over complex issues - I just want to understand how many in this forum simply desire more people in SA so they can live in a larger city without the hassle of moving interstate.

In order to maintain and improve our standards of living, there must continue to be a strive for population growth and economic development. Idealising an ideal population is a bit silly, because the population never stands still. Not only that, people's ideas to what an ideal population is vary, I know some people who will claim that Adelaide is too large while others will say it is too small (which tends to be the view of the majority of this forum). Canberra was designed by Burley Griffen at the beginning of the last century with his idea of an ideal population being 75000, but it has since and far outgrown that to be well in excess of 300000 people.

There will always be a demand for resources, it is how we generate the energy and create the products that we need to maintain our standards of living. How do we construct buildings without resources such as steel or concrete? How do we keep from falling into the dark at night time without electricity? How do we get from A to B without energy sources?

[Shuz]

Adelaide, if it was managed well development-wise and given the right resources (desalinated water & nuclear electricity to sustain it) could easily accomodate 3-4 million people.

[Wayno]

interesting article from the Independent Weekly Newspaper (online edition) ==> http://adelaide.yourguide.com.au/news/l ... 80030.html

How many people should SA have, asks Graeme Hugo
(University Professorial Research Fellow, Professor of Geography, and director of the National Centre for Social Applications of Geographic Information Systems at the University of Adelaide)

In the wake of nearly 1,000 workers losing their jobs at Mitsubishi it might be questioned whether SA should have such a focus on enhancing its population growth. Moreover the drought has underlined the unquestionable constraints that water resources place on population growth in this state and the fact that these constraints are being tightened by climate change as run-off decreases over south-eastern Australia. Moreover the oft-quoted idea that population increase necessarily causes an increase in prosperity is a fallacious one as the experience of rapidly growing African country populations attests.

The reality is that in the short to medium term SA does need to grow its population. The demography is important. Between the last two censuses the South Australian population increased by 40,859. However, the population aged under 30 decreased by 5,498. All our population increase is in the older age groups. If we do not have migration as well as other strategies like increasing workforce participation our workforce will begin to decline as the bulge of baby boomers, who make up 28 percent of the population, start moving into the retirement ages. On top of this are the pressures from the mining and defence industries on the workforce. Hence as the baby boom bulge moves out of the workforce there is a real need to grow our working age population as well as initiate a number of other strategies. However in the longer term once the baby boom bulge has passed through the state’s age pyramid we should seek a stable population – one which is not growing but in which there is a balance between working age and non-working age populations.

South Australia was the first government in Australia to introduce a formal population policy – Prosperity Through People – in 2004. Since then the Victorian government produced its own population policy, but successive federal governments have eschewed this even though they had several specific policies which sought to influence population processes.

Successive SA governments over the last decade have been concerned that slow population growth has been a constraint on economic and social development of the state. After over three years of operation it is timely to make an assessment of SA’s population policy.

SA has a distinctive demography which has been shaped over the postwar period. The state experienced very rapid population growth in the first three decades after World War II, when it was one of the fastest-growing parts of Australia, but in the subsequent three decades it has had the lowest rate of growth on the mainland.

At the turn of the century SA had only 1.4 percent of the nation’s population growth although it had over seven percent of the population. It also had the oldest population with 14.5 percent aged 65 years and over in 2001 compared with the national average of 12.6 per cent.

Ageing and low population growth were seen as barriers to the progress of the state and the government introduced the population policy with the aims, to quote the Premier, of:
• Maintaining its current share of the Australian population (7.7 percent)
• Effectively doubling its population growth rate (from 0.6 percent per annum in 2003-04)
• Achieving a population of 2 million by mid-century

Populations change through three demographic processes – fertility (births), mortality (deaths) and migration – and the State policy sought to influence two of these – migration and fertility. Since fertility is difficult to influence most focus has been on migration. The State Strategic Plan set the following targets:
• To match the State’s share of international migrants to Australia with the State’s share of the overall population over the next decade.
• To reduce the net loss by migration to other Australian States and Territories to zero by 2008.

International migration has been dramatic success. Within the state government, agencies were set up to promote migration – Immigration SA (and Education SA to attract overseas students) as well as a population unit, initially within the Premier’s Department, then in the Department of Trade and Economic Development. These agencies initiated a number of strategies to attract migrants but also to lobby the federal government to expand the State Specific and Regional Migration (SSRM) element of the nation’s migration program. This program comprises a number of visa categories which mostly gave potential skilled immigrants a bonus in the Points Assessment Test if they settled in areas which were regional or lagging economically. South Australia gained a great advantage in this since Adelaide was the only mainland state capital which was eligible for all SSRM migrants. However the state also energetically sought skilled migrants in a number of potential origin countries.

Accordingly there was a dramatic increase in immigrants settling in SA – from 3,657 in 2002-03 to 10,061 in 2006-07. Moreover the net population gain from overseas migration increased from 2,798 in 2001-02 to 13,146 in 2006-07. Moreover there was a jump in the number of overseas students from 11,026 in 2002 to 20,580 in 2006. In the Adelaide City Council area it is said that a quarter of the dwellings are now occupied by those students. There has been a significant increase in the number of temporary business migrants (457s) in Adelaide and in regional areas. The numbers of these temporary migrants who applied for, and got, permanent residence increased.

In interstate migration however there was little change. SA occupies a peripheral position in the national economy and it is inevitable that many young South Australians move to the eastern State capitals as they seek career progression, experience and adventure. Research indicates that many of those who leave as young singles and couples, they seek to return to SA once they enter the family formation ages and the state has policies to assist this process.

With respect to fertility, the state has looked at ways that fertility can be stabilised or even increased, especially through improving work/life balance, childcare and other family-friendly policies, particularly in the workplace. However little has been done as yet. Nevertheless like the rest of Australia, SA has seen an increase in its total fertility rate (average number of children per woman) from 1.686 in 2002-03 to 1.826 in 2006-07 – a faster increase than other states. Hence the state’s natural increase (excess of births over deaths) level jumped from 5,845 in 2005-06 to 6,726 in 2006-07.

Some suggest that we should move to a zero population growth strategy immediately to reduce pressure on the environment. This would be misguided on a number of grounds. Firstly reducing population growth is not a silver bullet solution to the environmental and water issues facing the State. We need a water policy which maximises the storage, conservation and judicious use of our water resources. Population is part of this but is not a substitute for sound water, and broader, environmental policies. Secondly, the costs of the imbalance between older non-working populations and younger working populations would have a huge negative impact on the social and economic viability of our society.

What is needed then? In my view we need not to see population as a separate self-contained policy area. Population policy needs to be seen as an element which enhances and facilitates our economic, environmental and social policies. It is an adjunct to, not a replacement of, these policies. Moreover the policy is one which needs to be developed in full cogniscence of the state’s economic, social and environmental realities. We must not have a policy which is driven by a single interest group but one where the full economic, social and environmental impacts are weighed up and a judicious balance achieved which will move us toward sustainability. Not just environmental sustainability but economic and social sustainability at the same time. It is not a case of either/or, environmental or economic considerations – both have to be weighed up. Most of all there must be a dialogue involving all elements of South Australian society to arrive at a shared vision for our future population.

The state’s population policy was a significant innovation – the type of innovation this State has been renowned for. In many ways too it has had success. However it must be seen as a start, not an end point. The policy must evolve and change as it is fine tuned to reflect the economic, social and environmental needs of the state. It needs to be decentralised and local government must be more effectively involved in its formulation and operation. Nothing is more important to this state than its people.

[Wayno]

slightly off topic...

Re. my previous posting on professor hugo and SA's population. He is talking at a forum called "SA - An Economic Powerhouse?" Feb 21-22 at the Stamford Grand Glenelg ==> http://www.business-sa.com/library/powe ... erence.pdf

For the bargain price of $1200 you can participate in these discussions:

• * Lessons learned from WA's mining boom
  * water policy
  * business development
  * excellence in leadership and engineering management
  * demographic vision
  * and much much more (including a set of steak knives)

[Edgar]

+1 to the overall total population of South Australian residence, as I have been granted my residency status as of today.



Big Celebration this weekend for me.

[rhino]

+1 to the overall total population of South Australian residence, as I have been granted my residency status as of today.



Big Celebration this weekend for me.

Congratulations Edgar!