TR EMERITUS

来源: 联合早报17/04/2010 16年前一名美国青年因在新加坡公共场所涂鸦而被判鞭刑的陈年往事，美国人至今还是念念不忘。庞塞（按：芝加哥电视台WTTW第11频道访谈节目“芝加哥今夜”（Chicago Tonight）之主持人）也向李总理提起这件事。 李总理答说：“那是迈克菲。他确实涂鸦了很多地方，还喷漆和破坏汽车。他做了很多坏事。” 迈克菲在1994年因涂鸦而被判坐牢四个月及四下鞭刑。他出狱后立刻回返美国，却在当地屡屡犯法，包括嗜毒和鲁莽驾驶。 询及是否认为新加坡的法律过于苛刻时，李总理重申新加坡的一贯立场，即我国的法律是按本国的国情制定，优先考量的是维护多数人的安全和利益，对违法的本地和外地人一视同仁，不能只惩罚本地人而纵容外地人。 与此同时，他表明新加坡也不在乎外国人怎么评价我国的民主制度。 当庞赛提到新加坡被一些外国媒体或研究机构评为“局部开放”或“是个民主及独裁的混合体”时，李总理指出我国政府是个民选政府，获得人民授权治理国家。 “新加坡必须走自己的路。我们不是美国，甚至连芝加哥都不是美国。芝加哥市长戴利连任了21年，你有没有问过他同样的问题？” 对此，庞赛指出戴利的父亲也当过芝加哥市长。 李总理星期四也会见了戴利。 来源:  http://www.zaobao.com/sp/sp100417_009_5.shtml  Read More →

From: The Sunday Mail (Qld) April 17, 2010 5:44PM THE Australian-born family will be a minority social group in 15 years, according to new research by demographic consultants Macroplan Australia. Soaring immigration and an ageing population mean that migrant families will outnumber Australian-born residents by 2025. According to 2006 census data, 40 per cent of Australia's population were born overseas, or have at least one parent who was born overseas. But if immigration continues at current levels, that will jump to more than 50 per cent by 2025. The news comes days after Tony Burke's appointment as Australia's first population minister, tasked with managing the huge influx of migrants expected to help swell the population to 36 million by 2050, up from 22 million today. A survey of 3000 people has revealed 70 per cent of Australians do not want a bigger population and less than a quarter favoured immigration as the main contributor.However, experts say the migrant majority will be a healthy development for Australian culture and attitudes. "It is all adding to the cosmopolitan nature of modern Australia," said Bernard Salt, a demographic expert at KPMG. "It means our views become less blinkered and we become more tolerant, confident, engaged, opportunistic and optimistic because we are open to new ideas and not obsessed with keeping things the same." Brian Haratsis, chief executive of Macroplan, said Australia's current population tends to "stare at our shoes and say we're the best in the world" instead of embracing new ideas.   Source: http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/australian-born-families-to-be-a-minority-by-2025/story-e6freooo-1225854921892  Read More →

From The Australian By Mike Steketee April 17, 2010 Australia can deal with far more people, as long as we get the infrastructure right AUSTRALIA is the 18th most urbanised of the world's 204 countries, according to UN statistics. Those ahead of us in this league table are mainly city-states such as Singapore and Monaco, or small countries such as Belgium, Bahrain and Luxembourg. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says that 69 per cent of our population live in big cities. Nearly all of them are in the capitals, which grew at a rate of 2.3 per cent in 2008-09, compared with 1.9 per cent for the rest of Australia. In other words, we're becoming still more urbanised. On the basis of federal Treasury projections of an Australian population of 36 million by 2050, the department's head Ken Henry said last year that reasonable assumptions would see Sydney and Melbourne growing from 4.5 million and four million respectively to seven million each, with Brisbane more than doubling to four million. Should we be worried? How would these cities cope, asked Henry. "Surely not by continuing to expand their geographic footprints at the same rate as in the past several decades. Surely not by loading more cars and trucks on to road networks that can't cope with today's traffic." That is, people will have live closer together, which economists say will be more efficient. Henry has canvassed congestion charges to spread the movement of traffic. The Bureau of Transport and Regional Economics estimates an avoidable cost of road congestion of $9.4 billion in 2005 and believes this could more than double by 2020 in the absence of action. But it's not all bad news, particularly if people have realistic choices about where they live. "Properly managed, I think cities of seven million are a terrific idea," demographer Bernard Salt tells Inquirer. "Melbourne and Sydney at four million are more interesting, more connected and offer more opportunities than when they were at two million and the same logic applies to seven million. "It means they offer critical mass, that they are competitive on a global scale. The business and global connections you can provide are far better. "If you keep the country small and limited while the rest of the planet grows, Australians will always be like New Zealanders looking for something better in another country." Glenn Withers, who conducted a population inquiry for the Hawke government, says research at Princeton University in the US has estimated a rise of 8 per cent in average incomes for each two million increase in the size of cities. Tony Burke's job as Kevin Rudd's newly minted Population Minister is to navigate a path through the political shoals of this debate. For starters, he has been spreading the word that a population of 36 million "is not a government target, it is not a government ambition, it is not a government policy". As recent opinion polls show -- though with widely varying results -- people baulk at such a high figure, although it would see population growth slowing from 1.4 per cent in the past 40 years to 1.2 per cent in the next 40. Even if the government wanted to set a target, it would have trouble doing so. The ABS estimates the present birthrate of one new person every one minute and 46 seconds to be exactly the same as the immigration rate. That means the population would grow even with zero immigration. Peter Costello's fantasies notwithstanding, government influence over the rate at which women have babies is limited. The government does determine immigration policy but the rate is driven primarily by economic conditions. If the demand for labour dictates a higher immigration rate, no government is going to stand in the way, particularly when it comes to temporary immigrants. Instead of talking about overall population, Burke is trying to swing the debate on to the needs of different areas and industries, ranging from congestion in Sydney to chronic shortages of labour in Western Australia. "Carrying capacity in any region will be affected by a whole range of issues," Burke tells Inquirer, citing water, infrastructure and environmental constraints. He argues that catering for these needs will require better planning and federal government involvement. "To get this to work there is going to have to be a very high level of co-operation between all levels of government." While that may arouse scepticism, Burke argues this is not an area where governments traditionally have played the blame game. He says many of the population pressures are driven not by immigration but by internal movements, including to southeast Queensland and, in the case of retirees, from cities to the coast. There would need to be more attention devoted to forward planning for infrastructure, urban planning and workforce needs. "The pathway to date with few exceptions has been to wait for people to land in a particular part of Australia, for the population pressure to build because there is too much congestion, and then to start to put the infrastructure in 10 years too late." As for government incentives, Burke is not raising too many expectations. He wants to pursue with the Queensland government Anna Bligh's idea of developing Townsville into the equivalent of a second capital city. Perhaps we should be thinking the same way about Broome. Bligh also has canvassed regional first-home owners grants and levying infrastructure charges at different rates to influence where development takes place. The points system used to assess prospective migrants now includes concessions for people who settle in regional areas, which are defined to include Adelaide, Darwin and Hobart. But "I don't think anyone can say it is working as well as it was hoped", Burke says. Tax incentives, particularly for industry to establish outside the big cities, are one option, but he has "no predisposition as to whether that would work". He agrees that transport is a key issue in a population strategy but says it is too early to be talking about specific ideas such as fast trains, which would encourage decentralisation as well as reducing carbon emissions. He stresses that the issues are much complex than moving people from the cities to the country. In the meantime, while it is prudent to plan ahead, there is no need to panic just yet. Too much weight has been placed on Treasury's 2050 population figure of 36 million. It is not a forecast, as it has been commonly styled, but a projection of where we would end up if we maintained the present fertility rate of about 1.9 births per woman and the net immigration of the past 40 years -- 0.6 per cent of population, which is 134,000 on the basis of the present population and would be 180,000 with a population of 30 million. We can only guess at many of the things that will happen during the next 40 years to influence population growth. Until recently, the widespread assumption was that the fertility rate would keep falling. Instead, it has risen. Net overseas migration, which counts all those who stay or leave for at least 12 months, has fluctuated in the past 20 years from an annual 35,000 a year to 297,000 for the year to September. Treasury's projection may look more realistic from today's perspective but that is not to say it will stay that way in the future. Only two years earlier, its projection on its then best assumptions was for a population of 28.5 million by 2050. Although China may continue to be the locomotive for the world economy -- and the turbocharger for Australia's -- for the foreseeable future, it is heroic to assume that its growth will continue uninterrupted for 40 years and at present high resources prices.  Source: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/dont-panic-but-plan-for-population/story-e6frg6zo-1225854447345  Read More →