I have listened to people complaining about population growth for some time now and finally, someone has hit the nail on the head.

QLD is a prime example and should be a lesson for all involved.

Here we had the good ship bounty (QLD) with back flip Beaty and his then deputy Bligh. They encouraged thousands upon thousands of more passengers aboard but failed to provide the basics, water, roads, jobs, schools, the list goes on.

Now this would not have been so bad if they had spent their ‘win fall’ dollars wisely, but they simply pissed it away. But then, corrupt governments do that don’t they. They just feather their own nests.

Now we have all these additional passengers, along with those who are still arriving yet we have failed to provide for them.

Solution.
First, stop immigration. At least until we get our hospitals on track, our roads built, our schools etc.

Then, stop allowing people to have children while relying on someone else to pay for them. They are your children, if you can’t afford them, don’t have them! At least this way, this portion of our taxes could go towards repaying some of the massive debts we have been burdened with.

Remember, for every 100 you allow, 42 of them have their hands in the cookie jar, while the remaining 58 have to provide for them, then pay the bills and somehow, repay the massive debts.

We should be way past discussing the veracity of the population / continuous growth problem and well and truly into the what-we-can-do-about-it mode.

The problem is indeed very easy to solve. Or perhaps I should say that the mechanics or policy directions are very straightforward. But the politics certainly aren’t.

The most obvious stumbling block is the intimate relationship between government and big business. We also have the problem that just about all politicians are from that sector. They basically have to be in order to be endorsed by the libs or labs and to then get elected. They are predisposed to be bed-fellows of big biz.

But as I keep saying; I think that this could all change very quickly. It really just needs a few key people to start speaking out about the absurdity of a system that is based on continued rapid expansionism with no planned end or slow-down.

I was very pleased to hear Sharan Burrow, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions, speak on Q&A on ABC1 last night.

You’d think that the ACTU would be one of the real powerbase organisations behind the constant push for growth and against anything that might threaten jobs. But she is espousing the development of alternative energy sources, which has got to be a large part of a sustainability strategy, as being very good for jobs.

I hope she can develop this line of thought into one that espouses low immigration and a concentration on per-capita growth instead of gross economic growth as being good for jobs, both in the immediate future and the long term.

My point is, that many of the apparent dinosaur aspects of our growthist system can change, and quickly. And it doesn’t have to take an enormous social or economic upheaval to trigger it. In fact once the momentum starts, it will spread like wildfire.

Now, if Malcolm Turnbull could just see fit to start the ball rolling by espousing sustainability and starting to be critical of continuous growth and high immigration, we’d be on our way to a rosy future!

Divergence and others - sorry but you've completely missed the point on the economic arguments. The amount of immigration to Finland compared to us, for example, matters not a single jot. There have been studies on the economic effects of migration - a lot of them - and more people do not mean more economic problems. Depending on the circumstances they can mean the exact opposite, and there is every reason to believe Australia's economy will generally benefit from immigration (I say, generally).. Certainly there is nothing in recent history to suggest that increased immigration will affect, say, the unemployment rate. If anything it seems to have reduced it (present crisis aside). Paradoxical I know, but there it is. One post tried to get around this by pointing to ratio of hospital beds, which is irrelevent.
All the stats are in agreement that the general health of the population has improved - certainly people are living longer - and that's probably the reason for any reduction in the number of hospital beds per capita. Advances in psychiatric care, for example, have cleared out whole wards of people who in the 1950s, say, would have been long time residents of psychiatric hospitals. More people are staying out of hospital (but health costs are still going up!).
As stated before, the economic arguments simply don't wash. If you're agin immigration, try another tack.

I'm not sure about the situation in Oz, but here in Canada immigration is costing us billions of dollars each year. According to James Bissett, the former head of Immigration Canada, "a study published this year by professor Herbert Grubel of Simon Fraser University revealed that the 2.5 million immigrants who came to Canada between 1990 and 2002 received $18.3 billion more in government services and benefits in 2002 than they paid in taxes."

Has any such study been done for Australia, or are those hyping the economic benefits of immigration doing so with no numbers to justify their arguments, as usual?

Davidf,
Too true, I was using Ludwig's post's terms .
Your site will make interesting reading ta.

Curmudgeon,
Sadly you are simply putting forward of “the defence for status quo” a.k.a. magic pudding scenario version 18.5.6 . A little like Windows, it almost works but does it hide some gremlins and boy does it piss away resources.

Prof Ridd has has been too involved navel gazing in the never world of Aussie politics. Blinded by its intrinsic nature towards myopic tokenism and gross adhocary . When what is needed is a total bottom up rewrite of much of our ideas of society, sustainability and economics.

I'm not preaching 'a new order' revolution here only the ultimate reality Humanity can't continue indefinitely raping the FINITE environment without accumulation adverse consequences.
One doesn't need to have a Barry Jones IQ (164) on steroids to see that current methodologies are failing and have rapidly approaching sunset clauses or self destruction timers are running.

Sustainability need not be a dirty word nor is change after all adaptation is the key to Evolution.
All that is needed is a willingness to see beyond the cash cow mentality (maxim profit for minimum expenditure) of the existing power status quo i.e. The fear that they may lose something by which they mistakenly measure the meaning for their existence. Meanwhile we lose the lot. “there isn't many jobs in a desert" Mrs Burrows Q&A.

Rick S
Cheryl isn't necessarily a humanist...such dismissive labeling may have worked during the stone age as a means to explain and thereby control the unknown. But this is a few millennia later.
'In short one swallow doesn't mean spring.'
This issue is serious.

I'm with Ludwig here: Good points except for the nuclear bit: Way too expensive unless the military (ie. taxpayer) pays!
Fact is, we don't need so many people to generate wealth these days: machines, computers and cheap overseas labour has replaced many, many middle class jobs. Labour is getting increasingly less valuable in the economy. Increasing population aids the property "industry" and makes all labour cheaper, so benefitting all employers.
So plan for a future where your poition is largely determined by your parents wealth because working poor will be synonamous with "working".
I don't want to live in a polluted, crowded, divided nation where human life is worth less and conflict is part of life. Pandering to the oligarchs now, though tempting to some philosophies, is rather silly.