SIMON BEAUMONT:
Australia's population's expected to be around about 35 million people by 2050, 3.8 million people living in Western Australia, which necessitates the appointment of a Population Minister. Australia's first Federal Minister for Population, Tony Burke, joins me now.
Minister, good morning to you.
TONY BURKE:
G'day.
BEAUMONT:
What does a Population Minister do? What are the expectations of your portfolio?
BURKE:
The first thing is to try to work out how this issue works differently in different parts of the country. You've got people on your side of the country who are desperately trying to find more workers so they can run their businesses. Then on the other side of the country we've got a whole lot of areas where people are in gridlock in traffic, and they feel you're only adding to unemployment queues by bringing extra people in.
BEAUMONT:
Okay.
BURKE:
It plays out differently in different parts of the country, and first of all we've got to work out how those differences occur. Secondly, we've got to work out how you get all the different levels of government to work together on this.
Because it's not just a case of people coming to Australia, it's a question of whether we have the infrastructure, the health services, the water availability and jobs for people? And it's getting all of that coordinated for the first time.
BEAUMONT:
Over the last couple of weeks, Minister, a lot of callers to this program have asked that question, particularly in relation to water, and again, it's regional. You know, Victoria and Sydney have a very different water issue to what we do in WA, but do you see it as a research-type of department or is it a department that works across all the other departments? How do you see it working?
BURKE:
It's the way you described it the second time.
While they've given me a new portfolio, instead of creating a new department, they've based it within the Treasury.
BEAUMONT:
Okay.
BURKE:
That way I've got access to the information for all the different arms within the Federal Government. But, of course, once we devise a strategy, you can only deliver on it by working cooperatively with state and local government. Because a lot of this goes to urban planning, and a lot of it goes to infrastructure run by the states.
I think politicians have probably always put it in the too-hard basket because the way all of this interacts is complex and difficult. But when we don't get it right we pay a very dear price.
BEAUMONT:
I would imagine that a major liaison you'll have will be with Immigration, and a lot of people are uneasy about a population of 38 - 35 million, and 3.5 million here in WA. How will you liaise with Immigration on this? And do you see that Australia's immigration intake will have to increase? What's your opinion?
BURKE:
Well, first of all, the 35 million is not a Government policy. There is a report that projected that figure. If we look at what's happened in the past and continue it a little bit more slowly into the future, that's where we'd land. There's no Government agenda to arrive at that figure.
BEAUMONT:
Yep.
BURKE:
Our population is going up no matter what we do. We've got a natural rate of increase simply in people having kids. And that accounts for about a third of our population increase.
BEAUMONT:
Mmm hmm.
BURKE:
But you're right, part of this has to involve working with Immigration and some of that may well go to issues of total numbers. I've no doubt a lot of it will go to how we can better target the regions that need people. But I don't want to get too far in front of the consultation that I want to conduct.
I get my first briefing from Treasury tomorrow morning And the job was only announced on Easter Saturday.I'm not arriving pretending that I've instantly got all the answers to an area of policy that governments haven't really addressed from either side of politics before.
BEAUMONT:
All right. One final one, Minister. It'll be a department set up in Canberra, will it? With offices in each city? So we'll have some offices here in Perth?
BURKE:
No. It'll be based within the Treasury.
BEAUMONT:
Okay. But will it…
BURKE:
It sits within the Treasury and that way you've got access to the whole budgetary process. I'll be in the west quite a bit myself during all of this and it's something where we're going to work cooperatively with the different state governments including the WA Government.
BEAUMONT:
Yep. All right.
Thank you for talking to us today.
BURKE:
Great to talk to you.