Well said Jenny.

Population will again rise as a big issue in 2013, as the federally registered STABLE POPULATION PARTY gives all Australians choice on 'the everything issue' at the 2013 federal election.

"it means a significant cut in immigration, a halving in fact."

Why just half? Why not go all the way?
Why is it that even critics of high immigration can never just bite the bullet and say *no*?

Don't worry, the figures will never reach those projections anyway.
With 3 out of 4 immigrants now being non-European, there will inevitably be a tipping point, when Australians finally twig that they're being *eradicated*.
The population will reduce significantly shortly afterward.

This article couldn't be more timely. What's to be gained from a bigger Australia? Nothing, but more of the problems we have now. Instead of scaling down our government-engineered population growth in response to sustainability issues, it's being ramped up! Immigration is increasing to post-war records, and many categories are unlimited. At a time of threats to scarcity of natural resources, conflicts, climate change, a surge in asylum seekers, rising oceans etc, the economic-growth model should be scaled back, NOT escalated! It's wrong and counter-intuitive.

Bipartisan support for "big Australia" means that our population growth and immigration levels are NEVER discussed openly, or debated in parliament. It's closed policy, and contrary to any democratic debate. The vast majority of Australians do not want a "big Australia", or our ongoing population growth. It impacts on city planning, our environmental stability, our costs of living and makes mockery of being "sustainable" in any form of the word. The world's surging towards 9 billion people, and the planet has never had so many humans. An economy based on perpetual growth is illogical, counter-intuitive and possibly lethal. It's the "elephant in the room" of climate change, declining natural resources and species extinctions. Voters must make sure of political parties' population policies, their candidate's view on the topic of immigration and baby bonuses/conservation etc.

Jenny while it is easy to agree with your main argument, that we must curb our ridiculous population growth, you must fight the right enemy.

Yes this huge influx of people is bad for the people of Oz, but it is the economics that don't work. With the existing population struggling just to keep up with infrastructure spending to support itself, the immigration add too much burden to carry, without drastic reductions in our standard of living.

Looking at just education & health care we can see very real fall in our standards. Continue in this vane, & we will become the poor, almost white, trash of Asia. Not something I desire for my grand kids.

However you go off the rails when you start talking climate change & peak oil as our main dangers. If these dangers actually exist, they are very minor compared to the fifth column with in.

It is the headlong rush to tie up all our assets by the radical green minority that is our most dangerous problem.

The Murray Darling irrigation is not being shut down by anything but a grab for the water by an unholy alliance of green ratbags, South Australian interests, & a nutty bunch who want a raging Snowy river before food production.

Then we see vast areas of the Reef, & now the Coral Sea becoming marine parks. These very lightly fished areas are removed from production, with our sea food supply to come from much more heavily exploited areas.

If you are to win this fight, you will have to switch to the right enemy, or you will find will find a useless & helpless Oz, bequeathed to our kids.

Jenny, this is a useful contribution to the debate but speaking as one who has studied and worked in this area for a long time I have to say that it is not as simple as your article seems to suggest.

There are as you say a number of components of population change. Very little is actually amenable to effective direct government intervention. Fertility rates are very little influenced by baby bonuses and the like. The fluctuations in the TFR you note had more subtle influences than the baby bonus. If Australia follows every other developed nation we can expect to see the TFR continue downward, perhaps stabilising at around the 1.3-1.5 level. That has major structural implications for the population.

Mortality rates are also not amenable to government policy although of course there are indirect influences. No government is going to promote an increase in mortality. We can however expect an ongoing increase in life expectancy which will compound the situation referred to above with sub-replacement fertility levels.

Migration is the third component but is much less susceptible to change than many think. Outward migration is to all intents and purposes free of controls. The rate of outflow reflects a number of influences, including but not limited to economic conditions.

The migration inflow consists of returning Australian residents/citizens, who are not subject to control, New Zealanders who are similarly free to come and go, migrants and refugees. Only the latter two groups are really subject to direct government policy initiatives, but their relative impact on growth depends on all the other factors which are not so subject. There is also a time lag factor.

But I agree it is a debate worth having, especially if we stick to the facts and not get lost in vague concepts such as "big Australia".