Mark Speakman backflips on population comments after copping backlash - watch the video

Australia risks invasion from hostile foreign powers unless our population keeps growing, NSW Liberal leader Mark Speakman says. But his call was immediately rejected as ‘insanity’. 

Liberal Leader Mark Speakman has backed away from comments suggesting Australia could be invaded if we do not pursue “significant” population growth, saying he was “too colourful” in his original comments.

The backdown came after he told The Daily Telegraph that without “significant population growth” we risk not being able to “securely maintain occupation” of the Australian continent.

The Opposition leader refused to say how big he thinks Australia should be, declaring that should be dictated in part by “having the number of new homes to match the population growth”.

He told 2GB on Wednesday that the current rates of population growth needed to be reined in.

“I’m not suggesting that we’re going to be invaded in the next few or five years or necessarily at all,” he said to Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday.

“I’m just making the point that in the long run, you have a stronger economy and a stronger country if you have a steady increase in population.”

NSW Opposition leader Mark Speakman, left, and Dick Smith, right. Pictures: News Corp

Those comments came after his original statements were rejected as “insanity” by one economist who warned a population boom would lead to more dodgy developments, and dismissed as nonsense by former Premier Bob Carr.

Entrepreneur Dick Smith called Speakman’s populate or perish argument “crazy”, and said you don’t defend Australia by spreading people across its northern front.

“It is probably the craziest (plan) but the argument I hear most of all, and it comes from the billionaires and it’s all about greed, is they want more money and the only way they can get more money is by having more people,” Mr Smith told Ben Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday morning.

Former NSW Premier and Foreign Minister of Australia Bob Carr (right) and economist with Leith van Onselen both criticised Mark Speakman’s call for more population growth. Picture: AAP Image

Mr Speakman initially backed the rate at which our population is growing, after it was confirmed that Australia’s population increased 2.2 per cent in the year to April.

“We’re always chasing our tail (on building new infrastructure) but I don’t think Australia has any strategic choice but to maintain significant population growth.

“We are a lightly populated continent, at the bottom of Asia,” he said.

“When you’ve got maybe half the world’s population in the continent next to us and when there are incredible strains on the resources in those countries, when you could have climate change potentially displacing hundreds of millions of people in the next decades, I don’t think Australia credibly can securely maintain occupation of a continent without some population growth.”

Mark Speakman says Australia needs “significant” population growth to maintain secure occupation of the continent. Picture: NCA NewsWire

But that view was derided as “the definition of insanity” by MacroBusiness chief economist Leith van Onselen.

“There is just no way we can build enough houses or infrastructure, or supply enough water. We couldn’t do it over the last 20 years so how are we going to do it in the future?” he said.

“Our major cities are already becoming unliveable with degraded infrastructure and housing,” he said.

Mr Smith told 2GB that Australia will eventually need to stop growing.

“We should actually start doing it now, not later.”

Former Premier and former Foreign Minister Bob Carr had earlier dismissed Mr Speakman’s concerns, declaring that boosting our population by even 10 million people would be a “trivial contribution” in keeping us safe.

Mr Carr – who on Tuesday backed calls to slash the migration rate in half to ease congestion and the housing crisis – said a bigger Australia would not deliver any strategic benefits.

“An extra 10 million in population would be a trivial contribution to our nation’s defence preparedness compared with the lethal force and state of the art naval and air force assets,” Mr Carr said.