Jane asks - "Can we really be so stupid?".

Indeed we can and not just in the area of population.For the last 30 years successive governments of both political persuasions have been inflicting ever increasing,ever more insane,immigration policies on Australia.We have overshot by about 100% our sustainable population level in the light of water shortage,degradation of agricultural and pastoral land and the likely effects of climate change.

We have leadership who have dug us into a very deep hole and they are still digging.In order to have some hope for a sustainable nation we must stop digging now and take drastic action to reverse the course we are on.There are several actions which must be taken now.

(1)Introduce a zero immigration policy.
(2)No foreign students to remain in Australia on the completion of their studies.
(3)Importation of labour to cease unless they have high tech skills which can't immediately be supplied in country.
(4)Existing permanent residency to be cancelled.
(5)Abolition of permanent residency status.Substitute with a renewable visa system to those who qualify.
(6)Set a much higher standard for acquisition of Australian citizenship.
(7)All illegal immigrants to be deported immediately to country of origin without appeal.
(8)Abolish the baby bonus and cease family assistance for children in excess of 2 for each mother.

I can already hear the squeals of anguish and rage from the self interest groups and the well meaning dupes when they contemplate such a regime.Tough,boys and girls - major problems need major solutions.

It seems that if you don't like the idea of population growth you just label it a "Ponzi scheme".

Jane says:
"Deliberate (but not coercive) fertility reduction was the primary enabler of economic development in the Asian Tigers, boosting workforce participation and allowing government efforts to move from quantity to quality of services."

How untrue. Focusing on having an open economy and focusing on health, education and housing improved economic development in the Asian states. In fact Singapore is now trying to encourage married couples to have more children.

Jane, congratulations, a very good piece.

Lucy, just because Singapore is trying to increase their population, doesn't mean that it is right. In their case, I would suggest that it is madness. A couple of years ago when I was there, they seemed to be running out of space, with land reclamation projects, severe restrictions on the use of motor cars to just name a couple of their problems. Sooner or later, we will also find that you can't put a quart into a pint pot.

David

Whilst I agree with most of the above, there are other problems stemming from this growth by population increase. Just a couple are the shape of the skills base, & industrial investment, developed to cater for that growth.

The building sector has expanded rapidly to meet the demand for housing, & infrastructure, & the industrial capacity to supply it likewise. Like the junky, tryng to kick the habit, the longer this type of growth occures, the worse the dislocation & pain involved in the correction. Todays brick layer apprentice will still be looking for beicks in 40 years. He [or she] will not be an aged care nurse, & will find retraining very stressful, & economically difficult.

As the employment of too much of our workforce becomes dependent on high migration, stopping the juggernaut becomes ever more difficult.

We badly need more discussion on sustainability, particularly at a government level. We need to examine experience in other countries. We also need to establish what is a healthy viable economy in terms of a good standard of living. More people mean more rules and regulation and less freedom. Experiments undertaken with animals in confined and overcrowded environments indicate an inability to establish a co-operative and happy existence with much violence and aggression. I strongly feel that the human population is proceeding in that direction with a consequent behaviour that needs more and more control by authority. From control of the streets, to prudential control of the financial system we are losing our ability to live with each other in a civilized way.

If a new ipod or plasma TV or RV indicates a high standard of living and what we aspire to, then I for one would prefer room to breathe, a clean environment, less crime, and perhaps a bit more education and self responsibility which come high on a long list of other things that we used to take for granted within this great country.

I think these things will be at stake if we expand at our present rate.

@Lucy Montgomery: It seems that if you don't like the idea of population growth you just label it a "Ponzi scheme".

@Lucy Montgomery: In fact Singapore is now trying to encourage married couples to have more children.

Singapore is increasing its population for the same reasons we are: because they have a rapidly ageing population. See http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1621347/singapores_aging_population_the_stop_pg3.html?cat=9 and http://www.asiaone.com/Business/News/My+Money/Story/A1Story20080627-73309.html

If there was ever of a population ponzi scheme, this recent change in Singapore policy is it. Of nations with more than 1 Million inhabitants, they are the most densely populated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density They obviously can't solve the ageing population problem by growth forever. So rather than facing the problem and fixing it now, they are just passing it onto their children.

But problem they hand to their kids won't be the same in scope as the problem they face now. Obviously, when the ponzi scheme ends, there will be more elderly than there are now. And as it is now they can't feed themselves. http://www.springerlink.com/content/h76358r787662t05/ In fact, they produce less than 10% of their own food. They are in a world that has already has faced food shortages this decade. It is also a world whose population is forecast to grow by 50% in the next 40 years. The price of food will go up, yet they are perusing a policy that means they will need more and more of it and exacerbating the issue at the same time.

A Ponzi scheme indeed.

Manorina sums up pretty well what needs to be done. But, until we have politicians who have the common sense and the guts to do what is needed, our population will continue to climb out of control.

As it seems that most Australians are disinterested in population control, it is unlikely that we will ever have such politicians,and the crazies in Canberra will keep over-populating the country until it is far too late to do anything about it.

Our housing is now too costly, there are not enough rental properties, and we are a net importer of food. It just remains to be seen how low our standard of living will become. It has been proved time and time again that high immigration means a heavy cost to most people, with a few already rich people getting richer.

The environmental arguments against immigration have not worked; the rising costs of housing has not worked, and the increase in foodstuffs - while we export food to be sold for less than we pay - hasn't worked against immigration. And, nobody seems interested in what immigrants will do for Australia now that most of our manufacturing industries have gone overseas.

The seems to be little point in discussing the subject of population any longer, given the apathy of Australians.

An excellent article adding to the population debate.
Now - I would like another simple article suitable for passing onto friends and aquaintances highlighting the points presented.

I find that people often discuss different subjects which RELATE to the population issues. This means that people are often not talking about the same subject even though they think they are. Confusion and irritation at the stupidity of the other results.

Lets get some clarity so we can better confront those growthists with vested interests in building a bigger population problem for which we will all suffer.

(Different aspects: Population and climate results, Population and women's fertility rights, Population and defense, Population and quality of life, Population and My quality of life, Population and charity, etc etc)

25 per cent of GDP is required to expand capacity by 2 per cent!
Bwhahahahahah!
No seriously, pull the other one. O'Sullivan has some excuse because she is quoting a big-name economist. Her reasoning is thus:
"Now Using USA data, MIT economist Lester Thurow estimated that it requires 12.5 per cent of GDP to expand capacity at 1 per cent per year. For the developed world this was over $200,000 per person of net population growth. Australian estimates would suggest that figure is right in our ball-park too."
But the final estimate defies common sense. Although I haven't looked up figures, 25 per cent is something like the total housing and construction sector - which would include renewal and improvements of existing housing stock and infrastructure (of which there is already a lot), as well as whatever is needed to specifically cater for newcomers.
There are costs outside that sector of course but the figure is obviously far too high. O'Sullivan needes to take a harder look at her estimates.
Australia has been absorbing high numbers of immigrants since settlement.. admittedly the present influx is high in historical terms, and there are difficulties but then there are always difficulties.

Its pretty obvious that some people win from immigration: the middle and upper middle classes; whilst some people lose: the lower classes. So its understandable that the latter group would say and do anything to preserve their fragile economic position.

The first post in this thread shows that type of desperation. Actually some of those suggestions are insane:
"cease family assistance for children in excess of 2 for each mother."
So we should let the poor children starve? And if you took job opportunities away from foreign students far less of them would come here. Given that foreign students already heavily subsidise the education of local students, how would we then fund the shortfall? Would we pay more tax or cut money elsewhere?

rstuart, Singapore is a city-state. It has no hinterland so obviously it doesn't produce most of its own food. But with large agricultural producers in Asia it doesn't need to.

Over-population has not impacted on our food situation. Australia is not a net importer of food. It might be in the future but it isn't now. Even then the problem has been that the free trade agreement with the US has allowed heavily subsidised US agriculture to compete with less supported Australian agriculture. The result has been that farmers have left the industry. Australia actually exports around 60% of its agricultural produce: http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2009/03/27/food-exporters-looking-to-the-middle-east-for-a-timely-boost.html

So if we are importing food then we are doing it because it is cheaper for Australian consumers.

Finally, I take it that "ponzi scheme" is the fashionable term but won't any of the sceptics use the term "pyramid scheme"? Is that too 1990s? :-)

Manorina,I must admit, I was shocked upon reading your post to discover that you feel this way about the state of our country. However let's not get bogged down with that, let's get down to examining your arguement...
Firstly, I ask you the question who are we to put in place a zero immigration policy when 97% of us do not make up or descend from the indigenous population of this land and are, in fact, here in due to immigration.
Secondly, I wonder what kind of fascist-like society would we be encouraging to form if we took the approach of kicking foreigners out at the first chance we get, simply using them for our own profit; and furthmore what adverse effects this would have on our International Relations and trade, take our reccent relations with India for example and the ramifications it is having.
Next I pose to you the the question: On what basis can you claim that "We have overshot by about 100% our sustainable population level"? You say the evidence of this is "water shortage,degradation of agricultural and pastoral land and the likely effects of climate change", but how are any of these plausible justifications? Water shortage is due to current phenomenon of drought being experienced in Australia, e.g. in Victoria, which if it is caused by climate change, cannot be solely accredited to actions by the Australian population but the entire world, moreover many of our water problems are the result of flawed systems which are in need of reform, e.g. the Murray River. Any degradation of agricultural land cannot be cast as the fault of an increase in population, perhaps thinking it is due to higher demand. This would be due to inappropriate, unadapted techniques, lacking forward thinking or as previously mentioned, tough climate conditions due to climate change or the general nature of Australia, the land mass, e.g. it is 18% desert

I am surprised Manorina didn't go further ie; Euthanasia .
Whats the point of storing stupid or useless humans in Goals , old Folks Homes and Mental clinics , and the Lounge Chair brigade , go the Eskimo way discard the Burdens . Further to these ideas find out the IQ score of the author of this article , sterilize all who can't reach this score , how can lowly people possibly tick the Score Card of sustainability eg; 80 Sq Home , 3 Cars ,1 Child , all Uni Educated etc.
Some People want to live in a fantasy World and a lot do , take for example the Health situation 5000 Bureaucrats in Canberra add to that the Number from the States ? Wonder what the product is when divided by the number of Doctors .
An incredible malaise has crippled the average Aussies Brain he believes everything should be run from Canberra , WHAT ? Polio is good? Our Current Juvenile Disciple of ? thinks He with a few well Glammed up Pixies and a Raving Screaming Guitar Plucking Bald Maniac can cook anything to Perfection , I don't agree Ive got him half way between Larry Flint and Hugh Hefner , he plucks everything he touches .

...again @Manorina, following on from my last post...

Finally, I ask what is the link between "the likely effects of climate change" and overshooting our sustainable population. Our greenhouse gas foibles as a nation are a result of, yet again, a system in need of reform. We emit, CO2 into the atmosphere due to reliance on coal power and other non-renewable sources of energy, which yes, I will give you, is due to our population's hunger for power. However putting a cap on population isn't going to decrease this; the answer is in seeking smarter, greener and more renewable ways in which to supply energy.
As a closing point for you to ponder, the current density of the Australian population is 2.8 inhabitants per sq km, i.e. 34 hectares of land per capita. That is equal to about 30 sports ovals per person. Compare that to the case in India, where a single oval would be shared by 4 people.

@Lucy Montgomery: Australia actually exports around 60% of its agricultural produce.

Yes. And Rudd recently said he expected the population to grow to 40M in 2050. Once it hits 60M, which I guess would be in 2070 or so there will be no exports.

@Lucy Montgomery: It has no hinterland so obviously it doesn't produce most of its own food. But with large agricultural producers in Asia it doesn't need to.

We would be one of those large agricultural producers you are talking about. All of those producers are currently in the same situation as us: they have growing populations. In about 50 years or so, they will have no surpluses. What do you suggest Singapore does then? Apart from starve to death, that is.

You probably don't believe that could possibly happen. If you are typical of the pro growth lobby, you instead believe scientists will wave some magic wand and a solution will just pop into existence.

While I'm impressed with aspects of Jane O'Sullivan's article, I'm worried that by reverting to neo-Malthusianism we don't really address the process that has seen average real wages decline in the US and Australia ever since 1972. This sets the status quo (less than 1% of the population getting richer at the expense of the other 99%+) in concrete rather than remedying it.

The current tax system channels wealth to the wealthy and away from the poor and middle class. The wealthy who own more properties and the more valuable properties are able to claw back all the taxes they've paid by enormous increments in their value of their properties. Renters, or people owning only their home don't enjoy this particular privilege.

To a lesser extent land values are also driven by population growth,of course, so if we directed greater attention to capturing our publicly-generated annual land values instead of penalising labour and capital, we'd have a far superior source of funding public works, health, education, etc. There's natural growth in this revenue base which actually encourages government infrastrucure because it is able to claw back some of its costs as land values are increased by public works.

Singapore uses this base to better advantage than Australia, and, as Lucy Montgomery notes they are actually trying to increase their birth rate. It has been found that birth rates always tend to decline when wealth is better distributed.

Re-formulating a tax system that encourages property bubbles is the best way to delimit population growth, but the pressure the Rudd government is reportedly applying to Ken Henry's suggestion for a federal land tax will probably see this positive option frustrated.

I believe the 60% export is grain only, as we are a net importer of fruit and vegetables and we import most of our fish.

We will need that wheat for the population increase and what if the suppliers of our food stops exporting, as it needs it for itself.
We now even import apples from China.

We also see the worlds fish stocks declining the latest being tuna.

One of the biggest impacts on food production is resources that are, or will be, in decline for example oil and fertilisers.

We will have problems in feeding/sustaining our present population.

It is interesting how the Singapore situation is reported or maybe mis-reported..

The Singaporean Prime Minister's New Year's speech
http://www.pmo.gov.sg/News/Messages/PM+Lee+New+Year+Message+2010.htm
sets it out a different way.

Singaporeans are called upon to increase their birth rate SO that Singapore can reduce the number of immigrants.

The argument is to increase GDP per person, not to to just increase the GDP.

In fact the PM speaks about limiting the number of people in Singapore.

Nobody seems to have thought through the likely consequences of an immigration freeze:

2011: we freeze immigration. China, India and Indonesia immediately apply severe trade sanctions. New Zealand does its best to follow suit and to raise protests about Australia in the Commonwealth, ANZUS and UN forums.

2012: we either back down, run out of electronics and whitegoods, or go to war.

Immigration policy is not made unilaterally.

Great article, Jane, thanks

A few thoughts:

1) it has been scientifically proven that migrants age at the rate of one year per annum

2) those bureaucrats in Canberra, agree they are a waste of oxygen - they work in silos, so that what happens in transport can in no way be related to what happens in immigration. At least that's what you get if you ask someone in transport - "Immigration, oh, that's not my department, I just make policy for building more roads, of course we have to build more roads to cope with the population, but someone else makes the decision about population, not me".

Same for health, education, police, security, water, housing, environment, agriculture, foreign affairs, overseas aid, you name it -"ITS SOMEONE ELSE'S DEPARTMENT" - - even the immigration dept, "Oh no we just decide the best policies to acheive any given outcome." It's Mr "I make no apologies for a big Australia" Rudd who calls the shots and NO-ONE in the public service disagrees. So the country can go to hell in a hand basket and the public service will condone it. Wow!

3) 25% does seem a bit high for GDP to cope with 2 per cent increase. Can't pretend I understand it, or that I am prepared to hurt my brain trying to understand it on a public holiday, but it's certainly useful to think of all the extra stuff that's needed every year - 2% more police, 2% more doctors, 2% more teachers, 2% more roads, airports, wharves, buses, railways, etc etc blah blah - 2% of a lot of stuff ON TOP OF the 2% just to maintain/replace what we've already got. Hmmm, dog chasing its tail?

Here, here to Thermoman!

The usual suspects advocating for Fortress Australia.

My idea to keep the black and yellow man from our shores is to station members of Sustainable Population Australia (the usual suspects) on our northern shores from the Kimberly to Cape Yorke in summer. They could be armed with a long stick to push the boats back out to sea.

Or, maybe we let them land, give them a crash course on selective castration and tell them the SPA want to keep them at sea forever out because they're frighten there's not enough food to go around.

If you want a laugh, log on to their website. There hasn't been a greater collection of ratbags since rats and bags were invented.

Had another thought about the 25 per cent figure. As I previously pointed out the figure is completely wrong, but what would the cost of immigration actually be for Australians? Basicaly any costs that are not private sector and therefore paid by the immigrants themselves come from the government sector which, in Australia, is about a third of GDP (okay, rough estimate but go with it). If government costs increase by 2 per cent, that works out to 2/3 of a per cent of GDP. That's still not right, as there are benefits as well as costs - in theory the immigtrants should start generating taxes pretty quickly - but its closer than the ridiculous 25 per cent.
In fact, the only research I've seen suggests that the benefits are positive. One look at British immigration a few years back (sorry don't have a link) indicated that overall the influx was positive mostly because the immigrants took the low-paying jobs which the native Britons didn't want. Here its different again as we can be pickier - refugees are only a small part of the stream - but still the emphasis is on filling skill vacencies.
As for pressure on the environment that can be discounted entirely. the main pressure on the environment comes form the agricultural sector, and that's a different issue entirely.

A Ponzi scheme collapses when people stop playing the game. According to population growth advocates, not only will Australia's economy implode if immigration is cut, but we will also face a raft of international sanctions, dwarfing those against pariah states like Iraq, Iran, Zimbabwe, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or even apartheid RSA. Not only that, but we would very likely face invasion and war for our sin, and face the prospect of shame for generations. One could even imagine the sinners being dispatched in extermination camps to international cheers of approval. Am I alone in thinking that pop growth advocates leave global warming alarmists for dead in the scaremongering and vilification stakes?

Huge and growing public infrastructure debt is a very real and visible consequence of population growth. I would think that $200,000 is a very conservative estimate of the per capita cost. It would be interesting to know what the real figure is. A good article.

Jane is in good company a similar article was posted here
http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=8321
I think most Australians are wary of the drive to expand our population. The dismissal of such views as neo Malthusian simply highlights how little most people know of his theory. There was and is nothing wrong with Malthus's maths - nor indeed with the basic premise namely that if population growth is exponential then food production will also need to grow exponentially.
To assume, as some of the posts have done, that to be concerned about population growth implies that we favour the deliberate culling of some of the world's population shows either a lack of understanding of the argument or a willful distortion.
The danger of population growth is the same for humans as for any other animal. Population explosions in the animal world can be plotted on a bell shaped graph - those who have seen what happens immediatedly after the peak is reached know that it isnt pretty. Humans are in the fortunate position of at least having a choice - we can either encourage our global population to reduce and stabilize at around 2 billion or we can allow it to grow out of control. If we follow the latter course we are really advocating a policy that will lead to famines and the break down of civil society and all that entails.

@Dicko: http://www.pmo.gov.sg/News/Messages/PM+Lee+New+Year+Message+2010.htm ... Singaporeans are called upon to increase their birth rate.

I don't see where he did that.

@Dicko: The argument is to increase GDP per person, not to to just increase the GDP.

You would expect growing the population to do that. Assuming you do it by adding workers, you are altering the balance of workers vs non-workers in favour of workers. The overall effect is more production per person.

@Dicko: In fact the PM speaks about limiting the number of people in Singapore.

Yes. And in the next paragraph he speaks about the need to bring in more foreign workers. He can speak out of both sides of his mouth at once it seems, just like politicians everywhere. Numbers speak louder than words, and Singapore's current population growth rate is 5.3% http://www.google.com/search?q=singapore+population+growth+rate - more than double ours http://www.google.com/search?q=australia%27s+population+growth+rate

@Thermoman: 25% does seem a bit high for GDP to cope with 2 per cent increase.

It isn't that hard to justify. We have to build infrastructure to support that person, as you point out. What those figures say is it costs us 12.5 man years to build the infrastructure required to support one person. So lets start with the house we put that person in. That costs around 10 years wages, and so is equivalent to around 10 man years of effort. He probably shares the house, but then there is his portion of all the other things you list - hospitals, roads, sewage, shops, schools, trains, planes, cars, jails, police.

If you don't build those things, they we have to share them around. So, for example if you don't build houses, the vacancy rate drops, and the price will go up accordingly. If you don't build roads, you get lots of congestion, followed governments scrounging around for money, followed by toll ways. If you don't build power stations, you get blackouts, followed by steeply rising electricity prices as they scramble to pay for the new infrastructure. Sound familiar?

BAYGON,

A very sensible and accurate post.

well done.

@rstuart

I'm pretty sure 25% IS pretty hard to justify, as Curmudgeon pointed out. They will become a thing called, tax payers, you see.

Furthermore, since when have we started to reffering to 'years' as 'man years', we're the dominant species man! Revel in it! Maybe when apes take over the world you can use the term...that or you must be an alien, dog or something...

Sydney Carton: "I'm pretty sure 25% IS pretty hard to justify, as Curmudgeon pointed out. They will become a thing called, tax payers, you see."

Yes, well there is a certain logic in that. The same logic applies to kids. They cost society nothing, because they will all become tax payers one day. All you have to do to make it work is ignore is the time gap between when you pay out the money, and when you get it back.

@Sydney Carton: Furthermore, since when have we started to reffering to 'years' as 'man years'

It is sort of like "years" versus "light years". So a year is a measure of time, a light year is a measure of distance, and a man year is a another way of measuring money. Got it?

As far as population goes it's simply a matter for each town and city- or hypothetical future settlement in the desert on an artesian basin- to decide amongst themselves whether they need more or less people.

Control would simply be the permission to build new houses or apartments, with increasing young people (And old people) living at home with their parents or children and wanting a new place becoming a large enough lobby to demand the singular construction of a new series of houses or flats to accommodate- of course, by then cramped houses would be a broad enough problem for everyone to want to figure out a way to accommodate.

If they WANT people, they would build lots of new houses and highrises and try to promote living there to attract business.

Expansion can ONLY be:
-a totally new settlement in a totally new area selected as having as minimal negative environmental, agricultural and social footprint on any other settlements.
-Clearing land outside a city and expanding outwards
-buying houses, demolishing them and building highrises.

I really don't see why this is so hard for some people to understand.

As Australia stands now- I'd imagine the capital cities would be feeling too crowded and congested, the small satellite towns are doing quite well and feeling they are satisfied with their size, as are many remote places. I'd imagine plenty of towns actually DO want people to come over- but no luck.

A population increase (inevitable- but it needs to be encouraged to be slowed a lot), can ONLY be managed by serious and inventive people plotting entirely new cities and somehow getting people (both new as well as those in existing cities) to move there. Existing cities would hopefully thin down to the point that many suburbs hugging roads that SHOULD be interstate motorways would have shrunk back to the point they could actually be converted into local farmland (with local consumer benefits)- instead of something that turns a highway into a 6-lane residential street with the travel speed to match.

The common point most people ignore in these discusssions is that our local population can't be debated in complete isolation from the rest of the world.

If our population stays constant or even grows modestly in the next couple of decades while the rest of the world population doubles, what we still have will be in even greater demand.

If miraculously we end up as a small army of pensioners guarding a pile of resources that everybody else wants then they will simply come and take it from us. We simply can't hold back the rest of the world.

Our Great-and-Powerful Friends (whoever they may be in the coming decades) won't save us - they'll be at the front of the queue.

Remember what happened to the Middle East over the last hundred years or to those various small nations who were unfortunately sitting on strategically important Real Estate - all brushed aside in the name of progress and the greater good.

The real problem isn't local population growth, it's global growth.

I'd suggest that you people who doubt the 25 percent figure sit down and work out what the present day capital value of the present infrastructure is. You need to include everything imaginable, suburban streets, street lighting, sewers, water and gas supply, freeways, rail networks and rolling stock, airports, power stations and distribution systems. Two percent of that still works out to a pretty big figure and I would bet that the 25 percent of GDP is pretty close to the mark.

We are seeing in Melbourne and Sydney rail networks, what happens if you don't spend large amounts just on the maintenance required to keep the system serviceable. Don't forget to factor in the extra amount required for repairs when we have extreme weather events.

On another point, why is it that the only people who contemplate extreme measures for population control, are the growthists? They seem to be the loonies in the population, not those of us who advocate caution.

David

Manorina, you are quite right. It is just too easy becoming an Australian citizen, and living here. It is easy to get a resident visa, or a student visa. There is so much money to be made from population growth, and the lure of wealth, for a few elite who are supported by governments, is hard to address. Land developers and businesses sponsor our political parties.
We can't have limitless growth, and our cities are becoming expensive and violent. Our immigration levels are far too high, and our numbers will be over 50 million by 2050 at our current population growth rates. If population can be kept "down" to 36 million by then, the restrictions should start now. Why are we importing global problems to Australia? The biggest one is unsustainable human numbers! The 10 most wealthy countries have smaller populations than Australia, except for USA, and they are struggling!

VK3AUU writes:



"On another point, why is it that the only people who
contemplate extreme measures for population control,
are the growthists?"



Assuming David's observations to be reasonably accurate, which I suspect they are, I have a suggestion as to why this may be so. The contemplation of extreme measures as being necessary for population control, in an Australian context and that of this article, I suggest is an example of a debate-suppression technique I call 'rednecking'.

'Rednecking' is where something extreme or repugnant is advanced as being a logical consequence or necessary corollary of a proposed course of action. The actual steps of the 'logic' leading to the extreme measure are seldom, of course, set out. It is simply asserted that such will be so, often with resort to the associations that may already accompany existing buzzwords, labels (eg. 'denialist', 'warmist', 'contrarian', 'growthist'?), or slogans ('Australia - a [']racist['] country'), as purported back-up for such assertions.

If the rednecking has the open or tacit support of those in a position to exercise some form of editorial control over the medium in which the debate may for one reason or another have got started, then the whole debate (or another one that might foreseeably arise out of the first) can be derailed very early on.

Given that OLO is a forum for social and political debate, until Steven Conroy's internet 'filtration' scheme gets into full swing, 'rednecking' is a technique that one must expect to largely see attempted through posts from some posters who may have interests in influencing a debate through other than good argument or demonstrable foresight.

I suspect the technique of 'rednecking' (as distinct from the use of the label, 'redneck', in application to a poster) is closely related to the phenomenon of 'forum rage', but any exposition of this possible connection is something for another thread.

VK3AUU - the 25 per cent figure cannot possibly be right. If we had to dedicate a quarter of our economy to building infrastructure for newcomers we would know it, believe me.. You are looking at an increase in government expenditure (the government pays for all that stuff from our taxes, then you have to deduct the taxes of the newcomers. The government sector does not spend 25 per cent of its money on infrastructure, and much of the budget it does have is spent on renewal of existing infrastructure.. sorry, no 25 per cent..

How true, Forrest Gumpp - some years ago I remarked to a friend's husband that I thought the world was overpopulated and that government policies such as the baby bonus were a bad thing, and copped a tirade about compulsory sterilisation, eugenics, government control of fertility, the works. My reply that I merely wanted the government to stop encouraging population growth and let natural decline occur, was ignored. At least I now have the term 'rednecking' in my arsenal.

curmudgeon - I am sorry to say that your intuitive response does not reflect reality. Areas with high growth rates incur much higher than average unit costs. Look at SE Qld in recent years – very fast growth, and now very high per capita infrastructure costs.
True very high does not necessarily imply 25% - however, I imagine if you take the time to extract the figures from the budget papers you may well find that 25% is a conservative estimate.
Part of the problem with those infrastructure cost is that they are spread out over the whole community this means that everybody in Queensland pays for the priveledge of allowing developers to make a buck by attracting even more retirees to the gold coast.
Population growth is a sure fire way of empoverishing the vast majority of people.

I agree with you Curmudgeon that 25% figure is too round and too big to be credible.

Our PM says he makes no apologies for a big Australia. He takes the position that bigger is better and what makes his position so easy for him is that he does not need to the change the decades long immigration policy mix of skilled migrants (the vast majority), and the smaller inflow of refugees and family /spouse / interdependent and sporting sponsorships.

Migration policy will remain on auto-pilot until we have political leaders who are prepared to call for economic modelling on the real inter-generational cost and examine the sustainability of perpetual population growth. Don't be surprised if that bell shaped curve emerges to reveal we are heading the way of other civilisations that overpopulated and collapsed.

Skilled migration is something I know a little about. For three years my company had a contract to place overseas qualified professionals into jobs. These were highly trained people often with a double degree and post graduate qualifications.
The first thing to bear in mind with these sort of professionals is that they need to be in continuous employment so that they have ongoing access both to the professional literature and to the latest developments - whilst a three month hiatus may be fine the vast majority of people that I dealt with faced a wait of up to three years before they could even begin to apply for the jobs for which they had trained. By that time they were no longer competitive in the job market. Thus the only job I could secure for a highly qualified surgeon was that of chicken boner. Most of them ended up working as taxi drivers or in various unskilled occupations. Whilst I have been out of this area for 10 years my former colleagues tell me that nothing much has changed - only about 10% of the overseas qualified professionals end up working in their area of expertise.
There is research showing that migration as with all population growth has associated with it a net cost to the whole community but of course that destroys the myth. (Ironic that labor should be pushing for it - the fewer people the higher the wages)

Curmudgeon - I don't think anyone on this thread has claimed that the government is actually spending 25 percent of GDP on infrastructure. However, as I read the original article, it was said that in order maintain infrastructure at an adequate level, that is what would need to be spent. Successive governments have failed to do this, and now we are seeing the consequences. One only has to look at the repairs to the Melbourne rail lines which have been carried out by the new operator since taking over late last year, to realise the truth of this.

As the preface to Jane O'Sullivan's article has so aptly said,
"Population growth is a virtually insurmountable challenge".

David

An excellent article. I think about the only aspect of population growth that hasn't been mentioned, is that virtually all that growth will occur in our cities.
Sadly, none of our cities were built on useless desert, or non arable land; although that is the inevitable result.
At precisely the same time that our population grows, our capacity to grow food diminishes.
From Parramatta to Penrith, Liverpool to Luddenham, Sydney has swallowed some very fine farmland, and converted it into quarter acre blocks.
In my memory, Port Macquarie (NSW) has gone from an 'exporter' of meat, vegetables and dairy products to a net importer, as it's magnificent red soil (great for veggies, mongrel stuff on yer boots) is buried under tar and cement.
Someone earlier mentioned how low Oz's population density is.
If only we could move Canberra to the Simpson desert...
And worry about communication channels later.

One point not raised is the hugely inflated infrastructure cost in times of high population growth. The billions of dollars squandered on water infrastructure in SEQs recent water crisis, some of very poor quality, is a good example. And when government turns to the private sector the public will get slugged for about six times the cost. Of course, without the population growth there would have been no water crisis and no need for toll roads.

Australia is now enjoying a period of high commodity prices. Perhaps the demands for mines and mining infrastructure could provide a means of moving away from all the population growth dependent industry. It would be a shame to squander the opportunity.

On the note of our hugging of the coast, I'm going to make a very wild assumption by declaring my doubts that a particularly high proportion of Australians actually visit a coastal place (ie a beachside area) on even a once-yearly basis- despite their proximity.

I think what might attract most people is inviting, high-level infrastructure and public spaces- lakeside parks, casinos, nightclubs and shopping centers with extensive ranges and places to eat- as long as the environment is comfortable and exciting, nobody would care if its by the sea or in the middle of the Simpson Desert.

If Dubai can do it to attract people all the way from Europe, America and East Asia, surely we can manage at least do the same for people already here (both present and future)?

I read Cheryl's comment with some sadness. Jane O'Sullivan is a member of Sustainable Population Australia. She is also an agricultural scientist who has devoted her life to feeding the hungry.

If you are concerned about the fact that modern agriculture depends on massive consumption of cheap fossil fuel - for fertilizer, biocides, harvesting, processing, transport and distribution, if you are outraged by the fact that already 800 million people are chronically and severely malnourished, if you value biodiversity and wilderness, and believe that other species besides homo sapiens have a right to live on this planet, then yes, visit the Sustainable Population Australia website - and please join.

But you have to admit that this population issue has become a marriage of convenience between the greenies on one hand and the racists on the other. The racists have markedly toned down their language and are now using environment, population, education and other concerns as tools by which to exclude people of other races.

The environmentalist don't seem to realise that this is a serious problem. We can't support you until something is done about it.

Now we have another idiot with a straw man argument.

David

The only two people on this forum I would regard as racist are Cheryl and David Jennings- rednecking away as hard as they can go (thank you Forrest Gumpp for a most useful term)and absorbed in imagining racism in others in much the same way as some churches are unable to get their minds out of other people's groins. I have yet to hear anyone who advocates a cut in immigration numbers include refugees in that cut, indeed many advocate an increase in our refugee intake. These are the ones Cheryl describes by the colour of their skin, the 'yellow' and 'brown' people. The issue with a sustainable population has nothing to do with race: within a very short time anyone of any race who lives here adopts the Australian high energy footprint.

Thats as tasteless as it is tactless Candide.
What did they actually say that was racist?

Lucy, can you please tell me why people like Jane amd myself are being libelled as racist when we have opposed racism all our lives? When we care enough to fight for a world where no-one dies from hunger? When we dare to claim that species apart from humans have the right to live? The Aboriginal people lived here sustainably for over 40,000 years. In that time their total numbers were no more than half a million. How long can we keep growing at 435,000 per year before we totally wreck this country? At a global level, how can we keep growing at 80 million per year and avoid environmental collapse and mass starvation? Call me any names you like but please, answer my questions.

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel” wrote Samuel Johnson, accurately referring to its inappropriate use. That was back in 1775.
In 21st century Australia, the term “racism” has become the favoured refuge by many: how else can an article by an author devoted to the present and future well-being of society here, and in the world generally, generate comments about that irrelevant characteristic of humanity – the colour of a person’s skin. Let those initiating them be hoist by their own petard: They obviously have given little thought to understanding the issue, and have no wish to attempt it

@Lucy Montgomery,

For the sake of clarity, as the coiner of the term 'rednecking', I will suggest an answer from Candide, to whom I think you are addressing the question "What did they actually say that was racist?". I hope I will not mis-represent her.

Neither Cheryl nor David Jennings have said anything in this comments thread that could be accused of being 'racist'.

Cheryl's remarks, which might otherwise be taken that way, were clearly made 'tongue in cheek'. What they both did was to blow the 'racism' dog-whistle by implying that posters who express concern about Australian population growth do so primarily to discriminate against intending migrants, not out of concern as to the possible effects of population growth on future living conditions for the entire Australian community.

Perhaps the reason this dog-whistle of 'racism' is blown is because in the absence of migration, Australia's population would not be increasing.

To the extent that population increase may be, or be seen as, a problem, that problem could so easily be solved by dramatically restricting migration. This discussion is as to the nature and extent of such population-increase caused problems. If the discussion is starting to elucidate persuasive arguments against continued increase, those with a vested interest in either Australian population growth as such, OR migration as such for reasons OTHER than the creation of such growth, could have a motive for wanting to derail the debate.

One way of derailing it would be to brand participants with a label that no one wants to be seen as being: that of 'racist'. Only a red-necked bigot would argue against the smear of 'racism', but in the instant of doing so the debate would be seen by all to now be about racism, not population increase. The debate would have been 'rednecked' by creation of the conditions that would permit bigots or the embarrassingly inarticulate to occupy centre stage, and soon be effectively shut down.

Rednecking is really practised best in the MSM and Australian national politics, rather than on OLO, but some try.

It seems that people do not fully understand the migration programme if they think that calling an end to migration will also mean that people no longer migrate to Australia. Australia has an obligation to accept its share of refugees - so refugees will continue to be offered a place in Australia. Secondly the family reunion scheme is likewise unaffected by any curb in migration. Both of these elements of the migration programme are part and parcel of social justice and our responsibility as a good global citizen.
What is opposed is those aspects of the migration programme that are designed to boost our population or make good the short comings in our own capacity to train people in certain areas.

If this forum has taught me anything whenever somebody makes a lazy generalized remark you would be wasting your time actually expecting them to come clean and justify or prove it- they're the type of low-standard individual that when faced with any hard question they'll just pretend they never read your post and will just have another empty whinge filled with more dubious accusations.

In this case, it's more convenient to pretend everyone concerned about population growth is really just using it as a cover for their xenophobia (and admittedly there are a lot of such people)- but it makes itself convenient to avoid having to address those that aren't.

Of course, I don't expect these people to prove me wrong. More likely, I pretend this post will also be casually avoided, or given some stupid rhetoric based on phony justifications of why the can't answer it.

Ruth1, I don't think they were calling you a racist. I think the point was that some people could use the population debate to advance another agenda. Maybe that possibility does scare some people away from the debate?

@Lucy Montgomery: I think the point was that some people could use the population debate to advance another agenda.

They could, I guess. The real point is they don't, yet they are regularly accused of doing it. As Forrest Gumpp noted, Cheryl in particular is fond of using it as trolling technique. At least it appears that way, as she makes exactly the same statements every time an article on this subject is posted, and gets bites every time.

Manorina comments were possibly the most extreme I have seen here on the subject. They were unfortunate, as they are so easily shot down. Australia could easily reduce its population by just reducing its immigration intake. No other measures are necessary. Then again, perhaps Manorina was trolling too.

good work Jane,

I wonder whether Governments, State and federal, have come to the same conclusions, but suppressed their findings?

One useful addition would be a graph of total developer financial contributions to parties and individuals at all levels of Government, against immigration numbers. I suspect there would be a very strong correlation.

@Ruth1,

Lucy Montgomery could have been less equivocal than her statement of "I don't think they were calling you a racist." She could justifiably have said "They [Cheryl and David Jennings] most definitely WERE NOT calling you a racist". I thought I had already made that point very clearly in my post of several hours ago in response to Lucy, but on checking I realise that I had only excused them of saying anything that could be described as 'racist'. I had not excused them from claiming that any other poster had said anything racist, a thing which they also certainly did not do.

To the extent that 'rednecking' may be occurring in any given context, the target is the debate itself, not any individual or grouping of participants therein. The latter would be 'flaming', and that hasn't happened so far on this thread.

Lucy's next two sentences in her commendably brief post of Thursday, 11 March 2010 at 9:57:30 AM,

"I think the point was that some people could use
the population debate to advance another agenda. Maybe that
possibility does scare some people away from the debate?"

made me think.

Could it not rather be that some people fear that having a population debate may result in the unmasking to the public at large of some hitherto unrecognised, or erstwhile unprovable, transcendent OTHER agenda? Could it be that the purpose of the insinuation of implications of 'racism' into the debate is to scare people off from participating in the POPULATION debate?

In 'rednecking', the idea is to empower a likely unknowing factotum having initially some public appeal on some as yet not well articulated issue, but who will also be easy in due course to paint up with smears like that of 'racism', and be dependably (embarrassingly) inarticulate come the crunch, and then pull the rug from under that factotum's artificially inflated cause. That way, as yet not ventilated, or even articulated, issues that may in truth surround the cause being rednecked will never get to be discussable in 'respectable' company.

Reality check:

In 2009, capital spending by all levels of government for all purposes was $66b, represented 5.2% of GDP of $1,260b.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/5206.0Dec%202009?OpenDocument table 3

The 25% figure is not plausible

From this morning's Sydney Morning Herald:

'THE state government is rushing to prepare laws to create a development authority with sweeping powers to compulsorily acquire and rezone privately owned land for resale to developers.

With Sydney's population set to grow 40 per cent to 6 million in the next 25 years, the government has decided it needs a metropolitan development authority to buy privately owned land near rail and bus routes for medium- and high-density housing.'

Reality check Number 2:

Rhian, all that shows is how successive governments are letting our infrastructure run down by not spending as much as they should have. We are living a low tax fool's paradise.

David

I read that to Candide- it's not the first time the NSW State Labor Party have tried to confiscate land to sell off to developers- back in 2002-2004 they have tried to do it to public schools on waterfront estates.
The corruption of this party is absolutely horrifying.

I have only one question to the drooling brainless vegetables and drop-outs that keep voting for these pricks:
How could ANY party- Liberal or otherwise, POSSIBLY be worse?

Hi Ruth1, no implied racism on may part nor trolling. I do attack members of the Unsustainable Pops sometimes as they make some outlandish statements which play in to the hands of racists. The anti-pop movement would do better without them.

Manorina is the first anti-popper who can laid down some form of programmatic policy implementation. I disagree with it as both the baby bonus and paid maternity leave are important wins for women but whether one thinks women should have children and how many is another debate.

King Hazza it may seem no party could be worse but I sincerely doubt it. The only possible exception being the party i once stood for in the early seventies or late sixties: The happy Birthday party - we didnt get many votes but a good time was had by all.

Hehe- nice BAYGON.

Still- I'll be putting even the shooters party a higher spot this next election.

Even if they try that trick by blotting out which parties the candidates are representing (took me off guard- thought I could memorize the parties instead of the names alone)- they'll all get a special place higher up.

VK3AUU

That’s a red herring.

At issue is the article’s inference that we need to increase infrastructure spending by 12.5% of GDP to raise output growth by 1%.

Since 1959 Australia’s annual public investment as a percentage of GDP has averaged 6.6% a year, while real output growth has averaged 3.6% a year. So the claim is clearly wrong.

Whether we “should” be spending more or less is another matter

Rhian: "Since 1959 Australia’s annual public investment as a percentage of GDP ..."

Nowhere does the article say that the investment is solely from the public sector. Obviously if it did say that it would be wrong, because the public sector doesn't spend 25% in total. And because it is so blatantly obvious, it is also blatantly obvious it doesn't mean just public spending.

I am not sure how they came the figure. One way would be to divide the total value of the assets of the country (public and private) by the number of people who live here. That will give you a rough means of the amount of investment it requires per person to sustain our standard of living. The 12.5% figure means there is an investment of 12.5 man years of investment supporting every man, woman and child.

That is not just government investment. It includes shopping centres, private hospitals, education costs, planes, housing - everything. 12.5 man years equates to around $500,000. Considering a house costs around that amount and we average less than 2.5 people per house, we get a fair part of the way there just putting a roof over their heads.

I don't know whether the 12.5% figure is right. But since a house already takes up a fair chunk of that figure, it is in the ball park - definitely within +/- 50%.

"Nowhere does the article say that the investment is solely from the public sector."

Who else should invest in 'infrastructure'? Is it really a good idea for the private sector to own infrastructure?

"I am not sure how they came the figure. One way would be to divide the total value of the assets of the country (public and private) by the number of people who live here. That will give you a rough means of the amount of investment it requires per person to sustain our standard of living. The 12.5% figure means there is an investment of 12.5 man years of investment supporting every man, woman and child."

Wouldn't that give you a really misleading figure. I mean a lot of assets aren't necessary to sustain our standard of living but they exist because they have market value.

"I don't know whether the 12.5% figure is right. But since a house already takes up a fair chunk of that figure, it is in the ball park - definitely within +/- 50%."

Plus or minus fifty percent?!

'Is it really a good idea for the private sector to own infrastructure?' In my opinion no, because we know what happens when they do - we all pay through the nose - on toll roads built and 'owned' for decades by private enterprise in return for the tolls, on exorbitant airport charges when they are sold to Mac Bank, or excessive charges such as on the Cross City Tunnel in Sydney, which could have been built, maintained and paid off in 30 years if it had been constructed for the government on a build-maintain-operate arrangement with private enterprise, for a flat toll of $1.

On the NSW Labor Government, I think they have a close competitor in the race to the bottom of the political barrel just south of the Murray.

I voted for the Party Party Party Party in the first ACT self government election. Under the bizarre modified Hare Clarke system practiced at the time, and owing to the huge number of parties contesting the election, it took eight weeks to find out we hadn't won. Had a good time waiting for the results, though....

David Jennings,

An impressive set of questions. You are obviously putting some thought into this.

I am just taking the most straightforward way I can imagine to measuring to what it costs to add one person.

Take a really simple example. Say an isolated tropical island with 100 people on it. The live in grass huts, wear simple clothes, use simple tools. You want to know how much it would cost to add one person, assuming they live at the same standard at the rest. I would just ask them how long it took them to make all their huts, clothes and tools, and divide it by the number of people there. That would tell you how long it took to build the infrastructure for one person. In this case I expect it would be measured in weeks.

When you look at like this, it is fairly obvious the people in the community have to reduce their leisure time or whatever to build the extra huts, clothes, spears and what. It doesn't matter how it is funded. Maybe they all pitch in, maybe they level a tax and pay tradesman to do it, maybe they insist the new guy take out a loan, pay for new stuff himself, and repay the loan over time, maybe they give a tradesman from some other island pigs to do it. It doesn't matter. It is a closed system. No matter how clever you are with the accounting, the fact remains the community has to sacrifice at least that amount so they can build the new stuff now to accommodate him.

As far as I can tell, Australian is just a bigger version of this island, where everyone has far more stuff.

@David Jennings: Plus or minus fifty percent?!

Valuing stuff involves a lot of hand waving. Fortunately in this case it doesn't matter so much. Whether 2% growth means 12% of GDP, or 30%, the articles point still stands. We would be better off without them.

All this discussion about how much it costs to support the average Australian, but would we be having this discussion if there were no massive government debt, no huge infrastructure shortfall or no housing affordability crisis? Of course not. Instead, we would all be cheering the benefits of high population growth. Clearly, there are very substantial problems coping with the current rate of population growth, so why continue such a strategy when the problems are so apparent and the benefits so nebulous? How much more damage must occur before this failed population growth experiment is curtailed?

Some useful comments above from VK3AUU,:

"You need to include everything imaginable, suburban streets, street lighting, sewers, water and gas supply, freeways, rail networks and rolling stock, airports, power stations and distribution systems......."

and rstuart:

"I am not sure how they came the figure. One way would be to divide the total value of the assets of the country (public and private) by the number of people who live here. That will give you a rough means of the amount of investment it requires per person to sustain our standard of living. ......"

Also the valuable comments from Rhian:

"At issue is the article’s inference that we need to increase infrastructure spending by 12.5% of GDP to raise output growth by 1%.

Since 1959 Australia’s annual public investment as a percentage of GDP has averaged 6.6% a year, while real output growth has averaged 3.6% a year. So the claim is clearly wrong."

I thank VK and rs for putting the infrastructure cost concept so clearly.

All of this points to the need to get actual real data on infrastructure costs; only then can we get to what is needed initially ie the total value of currently existing infrastructure, to get a per capta value.

Infrastructure must first be defined, and terminology established; no easy task. This must include all conventionnal infrastructure (narrow), as well as human infrastructure (broad).

I would include in this broad definition, human infrastucture component eg cost of the skills base, training Doctors, Nurses, Engineers etc

I believe Governments have much of the data already; but are loathe to disclose it, because to do so destroys the economics of their high population policies, leaving the Emperor with no clothes.

My own view is that infrastructure costs, even on a narrow basis, are of the order of $300,000 to $500,000, per extra person; this is expenditure needed to avoid dilution of the base. ( I can provide some substantiation)

Thanks to Jane for the serious work and for getting the issue up for discusssion. Can you do more or persuade another academic to take the research further?

No Fester, I would not be cheering the benefits of high population growth under any circumstances, although I agree the current situation does give the debate more traction.

In the eighties when housing was affordable immigration was much lower, and no-one mentioned it or demanded a higher intake. In fact, if anyone had said we should bring in hundreds of thousands of immigrants and by the way, did anyone object if that meant housing would double in price, you can guess what the answer would have been.

What is so wrong about our current high immigration level is that it was done by stealth and with no mandate, and outside big business there seems very little support for it.

I've been away for a bit, so I'm late on this. However, as someone who both advocates ecological sustainability and deplores racism, I find little to disagree with in Jane O'Sullivan's article.

As I've articulated at OLO on numerous occasions, population sustainability is an issue that is subject to manipulation by various interest groups, with very disparate agendas. While, for example, it may be utilised as a cover to further the objectives of some white supremacist nutter mob, it can equally be deployed negatively in the kind of strawman strategy that favours the 'growthists', exemplified by that which Cheryl consistently uses whenever the subject is raised at OLO.

Forrest, while I like your notion of 'rednecking', isn't it really just a particular version of the strawman fallacy?

rstuart

Let’s develop your analogy. Much infrastructure is a public good – up to a point, more people can use it without existing users being noticeably worse off. So, if the desert island of your example had a main street, a boat jetty, an airstrip, and a radio station, these might not need to be expanded at all to accommodate a larger population. At worst, the expansion would be at lower marginal costs than the average cost of the established infrastructure. You might need an additional airstrip, but not a whole new airport. And the larger population could support things the smaller one did not – perhaps a hospital or a high school, a concert hall or a theatre. This is why many people in the sparsely populated towns of NW Australia are so keen to increase their populations – they want the infrastructure and services that are only viable in larger communities.

Who pays for infrastructure and services is also not as simple as you suggest. If a migrant buys a house leading to increases in building activity, that’s no cost to me and a benefit to the builder who constructs it. Even if migrants’ children attend state schools, that’s fine so long as their parents pay enough taxes to cover the costs of extra teachers. All this leads to increased economic activity – which is one of the reasons for attracting migrants in the first place. Migrants’ gains are not our losses.

Of course, the proper measure of the welfare effects of this increased activity is on a per capita basis. In Australia at least, over many years the States with the fastest population growth (Qld and WA) also have the fastest per capita GDP growth.

Consider the parallels between AGW sceptics and population growth advocates: Both use a succession of false arguments which are regularly recycled. Both have very little evidence for and a substantial body of evidence against their stance.

Would Australians today be better or worse off without the same rate of population growth? The truth is that nobody knows as the Australian experiment has been conducted without a control, but I would suggest that an underpopulated Australia is a far easier problem to deal with. As more than one population growth advocate has pointed out, you cannot shoot people to ease population pressures.

@Rhian: up to a point, more people can use it without existing users being noticeably worse off

True. But you are looking at it as if we just add one person and stop. In reality, that isn't what happens. Currently Australia is adding 100,000 people every year. Our island is also adding new people every year. So yes, one year we build a new mud hut that may take accommodate 3 people. Thus you could say that for next two immigrants, mud huts are free. But you could also say you need to invest the time it takes to build 1/3 of a mud hut for each new immigrant. That is what the formula I gave does.

@Rhian: that’s no cost to me and a benefit to the builder who constructs it.

So who paid the builder? We assume it isn't the migrant, because Australian's migrants are young and thus don't have much in the way of assets to pay for anything. So someone on the island must have paid the builder. You say it isn't you. Well fine, but it doesn't matter because the calculation is about the island in total, not just you. Regardless of whether you helped or not someone had to sacrifice their spare time to get this stuff built. You say it wasn't the builder either. So I presume someone was off hunting his pigs for him while he was doing the building. If so, that hunter would be the unselfish one who ended up taking on the burden.

@Rhian: fastest population growth (Qld and WA) also have the fastest per capita GDP growth.

Both Queensland http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/16/2600001.htm and WA http://www.wa.alp.org.au/news/0210/12-01.php have had to borrow heavily to fund that growth. The Labour government in Queensland is by all indications going to crash and burn because of looming asset sales. Can you guess why they are being forced to sell very profitable assets, even though they know it will get them chucked out of office? It is because in reality there is no magic builder who just does the work. Someone has to pay him.

@Rhiann fastest GDP growth

As Stuart has already pointed out that very growth has created problems for the queensland government. The growth in south east queensland is funded by government debt. What few people fail to realise is that the cost of development is borne by the entire community. For example the homes that are currently being built are spacious. To keepo the costs down and the size of the space up they are built with all the integrity of a hollywood filmset hence they need airconditioning to make these homes remotely habitable - the rule of a thumb is that if you spend $x on an airconditioning system then a similar figure needs to be put in by the community to cover the costs of extra infrastructure to service that airconditioner.
The second point that needs to be made is that GDP is not a measure of wealth or quality of life - politicians have sold that idea to us and on the whole we blindly accept it.

And don't get sucked into any government schemes such as the solar energy devices, hot water etc., in which you have to put in money and then wait for a rebate, unless of course you have money which you don't need for some considerable time.

As of today, the department is currently processing applications which were received on the 18th December 2009. Under the new minister, different arrangements and rebates are being put in place, so no doubt there will be further delays.

See www.environment.gov.au for details

David

BAYGON – I accept that GDP is an imperfect measure of economic welfare, but I suggest other measures (consumption, earnings etc) would tell a similar story.

I still hold that much infrastructure is a public good, and therefore the average cost declines as more people use it. That’s why, here in Western Australia, the government has to heavily subsidise the cost of electricity supply in smaller towns outside the metropolitan area to keep prices on a par with city prices. Over time a growing population tends to reduce the average infrastructure cost per household, not increase it.

Borrowing to finance infrastructure to support an expanding population is also a perfectly reasonable thing for governments to do. It means that the cost of providing that infrastructure is met by the people who use it.

My partner and I arrived in Australia 20+ years ago with enough money to buy a tatty weatherboard cottage outright. Since then we’ve moved on to a bigger home which we paid off from our income. We have university-level education and have been in full-time employment during almost all the subsequent period. We have never claimed unemployment or other benefits, and have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes – far more that we have consumed in general government infrastructure and services. We have paid for the utilities we use. We’ll have enough savings to support ourselves in retirement.

How are you worse off financially by us being here?

@Rhian
Elsewhere in this thread I have described my experiences in working with overseas qualified professionals. Like yourself I am a migrant and have spent much of my working live in migrant advocacy.
However, I am also aware of the research that demonstrates that the first generation of migrants represent a greater cost than benefit to the community. This does not mean that this is true for every single migrant - however as an indifferentiated cohort it is true.
One reason for the government favouring overseas qualified professionals is that those who are most likely to make an immediate return are the overseas qualified. (we need to take into account the savings generated by not having to pay for their training.)
The problem here is that in my experience (I was involved in placing overseas qualified professionals) people from overseas with outstanding qualifications are by no means guaranteed a job - even if their qualifications are in an area of severe skill shortage - Australian employers are still reluctant to employ people from overseas. (most common excuses - they cannot check references; they cannot understand the quality of the degree a candidate with a PhD from the university of Cairo was knocked back on the grounds that one cannot trust these Arab universities!)
I have already commented elsewhere that with regard to migration the objection is to those aspects of the migration programme that are designed to grow our population; we are still required to admit refugees and have a moral obligation to sustain the family reunion programme.

Rhian

you say about your tax contributions etc:

"...far more that we have consumed in general government infrastructure and services. We have paid for the utilities we use."

But surely the point is: you do not know what the value of the infrastructure is. In fact no one does, as it has not been identified or costed.

So your claim, and the claims of others about supposed ecomomic benefits of immigration, cannot be tested or evaluated in any way.

I happen to think that it is essential that we get this information as a priority; which is why I think Jane's article was a good start in this process.

Jane's article is nonsense

Runner, I am still awaiting your answer. It can't be that hard.

jjplug, that is a profound statement, perhaps a bit of explanation as to why you think it is so.

David