Is Australia Full? With Quality Of Life Degrading, Roads Clogged & Generations Locked Out Of Housing, It's A Simple Answer...

My eyes were filled with a red glow; not from any anger but from the sea of brake lights ahead of me that stretched as far as the road ahead was visible. This was the reality of my commute home today and, indeed, every day.

Work days are no longer special. Sunday afternoons or in fact any time of the week now exhibits this over-capacity experience on the roads of Australian cities.

Such is one of the many consequences of the "Big Australia" policy of recent governmental policy.

I say recent, but the fact is that Australian immigration numbers have never been this high; a policy setting that's been in place now for many years. In fact recent years has seen Australian immigration numbers at triple the historical average and 2.5 the OECD average.

It's becoming obvious that the so called benefits related to increase in economic demand that waves of both skilled and unskilled heart-beats create in no way compensate for the the structural and social degradation that inevitably follows such policies like a shadow follows it's creator.

These fresh arrivals need to eat. Unlike the United States which, to eyeball on a map has a similar land mass to the Australian continent, much of our land is arid and unable to produce crops or support any reasonable population. This is a large country but the population is very much centered around the coast and the Eastern coast in particular. Where will all the food come from?

Dams can only hold so much drinking water, sewers can only transport so much sewerage, the list goes on.

This topic has been on my mind recently and, like most issues of substance it seems, is largely ignored in topical discourse. Instead, we are bombarded with the details of the latest parliamentary sex scandal. Yawn.

It's not just a matter of decades old infrastructure

• Roads that are currently free and paid for are being converted into toll roads to cover state expenses associated with the massive intake of foreigners.
• The large immigration numbers are putting downward pressure on wages.
• Suburbs are becoming pockets of isolation where driving standards are noticeably different, English is not spoken and the basic social etiquette that used to be expected is not adhered to.
• The stress factor of life I notice is increasing; everything from commuting to doing the grocery shopping. Things are stretched beyond capacity.
• The largely unregulated skilled migration visa landscape is now rife with rort after rort as recently covered by the 7:30 report here.
• By every metric I've seen, housing is now undeniably unaffordable; a situation that has essentially locked post-boomer generations out of the market indefinitely.
• Environment and pollution issues take second place.
• Hospital emergency rooms and resources are swamped.

We are only to get more of the same for the foreseeable future it seems.

I'm not completely isolated however. Former PM Tony Abbott has spoken recently calling for a significant reduction in immigration numbers. Some great coverage has also popped up on macrobusiness.com.au that I thought would put a sensible tune to the lyrics of this closet topic; notably the appearance on Sydney radio by Leith van Onselen.

That interview is well worth a listen and can be found here. What's even more telling are the comments that adorn such posts. One Sydney resident in an MB article comment told of how commuters now regularly drive on the wrong side of the road as the only means by which they can join arterial roadways during peak times in certain areas.

Leith van Onselen has also participated recently in a breakfast TV debate recently with the myopic University of Sydney Business School Senior Lecturer, Chris Wright. Worth a look in my opinion. Leith does a great job of including quality of life as an input in the debate which so often acts to focus solely on economic considerations.

Is Australia full? Without prejudice, I think we passed that point a long time ago...