Victorian MP Kelvin Thompson will be one of the speakers at a population forum at Kawana tomorrow.

Victorian MP Kelvin Thompson will be one of the speakers at a population forum at Kawana tomorrow. SERGIO Dionisioaap

YOU can’t improve housing affordability just by building more homes, and population growth is not needed to fund baby boomer retirement.

Those two simple views, a politician and an academic said this week, could not be denied whatever the rhetoric of business and political leaders.

Kelvin Thompson, Federal Labor member for Wills in Victoria, will tell a population forum at Kawana tomorrow that building houses in response to the affordability crisis has never worked.

He said the only solution was to stabilise population to reduce demand by reducing immigration.

Professor Tor Hundloe, a University of Queensland economist who will speak tomorrow, said individual wealth, which only doubled in the 100 years to 1950, tripled between then and 1998 and was growing at 3.3% since.

He said it was utter nonsense to claim the country could not afford the social contract it had with its aged community unless there was population growth.

Mr Hundloe, who spent six years with the Productivity Commission, also attacked what he called the congestion cost of growth.

His research has shown that every business and trade that could had built an extra 15 to 20% into the price of goods and services to cover time lost on the road.

“We are still playing catch-up with infrastructure,” he said.

“There will be some wonderful road infrastructure in Brisbane but within five to 10 years it will be chock-a-block if we keep growing the way we are. Everyone knows that will happen.”

Mr Hundloe said the political attraction with growth was driven by big business demand for it.

Population growth fuelled a 13.6% rise in Australian housing prices last year.

Reserve Bank assistant governor for economics Philip Lowe said if population growth remained strong, more of the economy would need to be devoted towards housing, presenting challenges for both labour and governments.

If that didn’t happen and growth continued, prices would rise at an even greater rate.

Mr Thompson said the country should commit to a stabilised population of 26 million by 2050. A big Australia, he said, would be a poorer one.

“Bigger cities are not better places to live than smaller ones,” he said.

The panel for tomorrow’s Population Forum at Lake Kawana Community Centre from 2pm to 4.30pm also includes Mayor Bob Abbot, Redland councillor Deb Henry, author Mark O’Connor, OSCAR president Johanne Wright, Lavinia Wood from Communities for Responsible Planning and Dr Jane O’Sullivan from the University of Queensland.