Views on growth in Queensland are diverse within the community. Roughly half are happy with growth in their area and half unhappy, but their perceptions of what sort of growth is occurring impact on this judgement. If they favour low growth and are in an area where low or nor growth is occurring, then they will be happy with their local area.

Regionally there are differences. Brisbane, which is relatively settled, and the regional areas outside the south east, where there are smaller populations, are generally happy with the growth they are experiencing. Most of the concern occurs in the areas surrounding Brisbane in the south east corner.

Where there is concern it is most likely to be centred on lack of sufficient or appropriate infrastructure rather than the number of people. In this context infrastructure includes roads and dams as well as a perceived failure to plan adequately for traffic. The term also covers social infrastructure such as schools and hospitals.

While increasing numbers of people in an area are seen to impact infrastructure, so is failure to invest and incompetence of government. The unpopularity of the current government therefore appears to have an impact on perceptions of the effects of growth.

Other concern centres around loss of amenity and a resistance to change partly based on the feeling that legitimate expectations about the sort of community that someone had moved to were being destroyed by population growth. This seemed to be particularly evident on the Sunshine Coast.

There does however seem to be an acceptance across all points of view that growth is a good thing, either for its own sake, because it represents progress, because it brings more diversity or choice into life, or most importantly, for its economic benefits.

Concern about the environment is not a big consideration, and there does not appear to be a strong no-growth position.

Underlying responses was that respondents overwhelmingly expect growth to stay strong in Queensland, believe that growth can be handled with appropriate policies, and that anyway there is very little that can be done to stop population growing. But these positions come with a caveat – over 80% believe that significant investment in infrastructure has to be made upfront.

Respondents were prepared to countenance measures to encourage people to move away from the south east corner. There is a fairly common perception that diversification is a good idea. But they would reject measures which raise taxes preferring those that provide benefits or incentives. What benefits might be provided would, however, need to be substantial. There was no support for the provision of a $4,000 first home owners grant top-up by the state government with 31% heavily criticizing the amount as being too small.

The second strongest criticism was that people move for employment and economic reasons, so a grant that had no impact on these would have no impact on migration patterns.

For a state government looking for ways to finance without raising taxes the mining industry provides some possibilities with most respondents being in favour of encouraging the resources boom, and also believing that resource companies do not contribute enough to social and economic infrastructure.

Another source of funds is developers, particularly on the issue of transport infrastructure. Respondents overwhelmingly believed developers should pay more. However there was a fairly even division between whether general revenue or tolls was an acceptable second option.

Governments should not look to taxpayers to meet the shortfall. Despite our question suggesting that an additional $250 p.a. would be an appropriate increase in taxes, almost half preferred to pay just what they are now, or less. Only 17% were prepared to pay at the nominated hurdle, or higher.

Opposition to paying higher personal taxes was not driven to any great extent by ability to pay but to the greatest extent by concerns that the government already has enough but can’t meet its commitments because of waste and mismanagement. Others thought that the money would be raised, but not spent on roads and transport, or just that taxes were already too high, or high enough.

Those who would pay more tended to express it as a consumer transaction where if you needed a good you had to pay for it. There was some political influence on the difference between those two positions with LNP voters much more resistant to higher taxes.

We also asked a question looking at taxation more generally. There was general opposition to increasing taxes to pay for social services with the greatest portion favouring the status quo, followed in fewer, but almost equal numbers by those wanting an increase, and then in still significant numbers by those wanting a decrease.

Again waste and incompetence featured highly in opposition to increasing taxes as did the idea that individuals had a duty to look after themselves and not expect the state to do it for them. Those who wanted an increase tended to talk in terms of equity and fairness.

The last thing we tested was whether respondents would prefer stronger population growth and a stronger economy, or slower population growth and a weaker economy. Many of our respondents, particularly those favouring slower growth, thought they were being forced into a false dichotomy by this question. This carries a message for anyone trying to use this argument for stronger population growth – it will produce strong cognitive dissonance in perhaps a fifth of the population.

Economics was the strongest reason given for supporting stronger population growth, which is not surprising given the question, but is confirmed to some extent as legitimate by responses to other questions.  Other arguments against were that stronger population growth is unsustainable, that there is not enough infrastructure to cope with the growth we have, and that quality of life will suffer. Other arguments for were that it is inevitable, that Queensland is a big state that needs to be populated, as well as a more generalized idea of progress.

Respondents are generally either reconciled to growth or enthusiastic about it with most of their concerns centreing around how it is handled. Many are actually exhilarated by the increased richness of life that population growth brings. They believe that government needs to improve its provision of services, particularly infrastructure and they are resistant to paying any more themselves to deal with the issues. They will however countenance increases in taxes on others and by and large are keen for economic growth to happen.

This is the analysis from a survey conducted for the Local Government Association of Queensland for their inquiry into population growth. The report can be downloaded by clicking here (PDF 598kb).

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