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The Forum > General Discussion > How many is too many? Australias population problem.

How many is too many? Australias population problem.

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I clicked on this discussion because the topic sounded interesting, but then I was disappointed to find yet another cultural-protectionist drivel.

Lowering population levels is indeed important because the more people live on the land - the more regulations are required to keep them from stepping on each other's toes, thus our individual freedoms are compromised. However, the majority of people here have arrived through their mother's womb rather than by planes and boats.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 21 November 2014 11:07:13 AM
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Before, as an individual, you can make such a decision you have to consider what
resources are available, are those resources renewable and if not or they are slow to
renew, can we import more people without causing shortages in vital products.
Of course these products are in my order of priority, water, food, energy, shelter.
The more people the smaller the share, so it becomes a matter of what is the quantity
available ?
You just cannot divide the resources by the amount needed per person and come up with
the number of people possible because for water you have to allow for a 10 year drought.

Now all that would be loverly if you were starting from scratch, but we are not.
So, we have to step back and examine our resources and see which is the most critical.
Well, surprise surprise, it is liquid energy. we have none, zilch, zero, nowt !
Alright, alright Rhosty, I know but we don't know if it is affordable.
We have a lot of coal and quite a bit of gas.
We have enough food and enough water, if the AGWs are wrong.

So if you want to live in a gunnyah and tend your gardens by hand then bring in as
many as you like.

So we are over the limit with energy to a large extent as we rely on others for supply.
This may mean we will have to rely on steam engines if liquid fuel becomes unreliable.
The ERoEI of Solar and Wind is too low to bootstrap an economy and there is doubt
that solar and wind can maintain a non fossil fuel economy once you build it with fossil fuels.

What all this means that we do not have the economic space for a larger population
and indeed there is a real risk that we have already overshot.
Posted by Bazz, Friday, 21 November 2014 3:16:08 PM
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Some really good comments here. The Australian Academy of Science looked at this issue from the environment and resources point of view back in 1994 and came to the conclusion that 23 million was a safe upper limit.

http://www.sciencearchive.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf
http://www.science.org.au/australian-academy-science%E2%80%99s-role-sustainable-population-debate

Here is a link to the 2008 UK House of Lords report on immigration referred to by OTB, and it is just as skeptical about economic benefits as he says.

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200203/ldselect/ldeconaf/179/179.pdf

Our own Productivity Commission modeled doubling skilled immigration in their 2006 report on immigration. They found a per capita economic benefit of less than $400, almost entirely going to the migrants themselves and the owners of capital. They found that the wage depression effects meant that for the bulk of the population, income would be increasing more slowly than would otherwise be the case. They didn't even consider the environmental and resource issues brought up by Bazz and others, or urban amenity, infrastructure costs, house prices, etc.

So why are our elite pushing these very high numbers, when they are making us very little better off on average and are causing a whole lot of other problems? We could have the real cultural and educational benefits from immigration with much lower numbers that wouldn't blow out the population. I believe that this is because the distributional effects are so good for the grasping sociopaths at the top of our society. More people mean bigger markets, easy profits from real estate speculation (and from lending the money to buy the houses and collecting the stamp duty), and a cheap, compliant work force, with people desperately afraid of losing their jobs in an oversupplied labour market. The Australia Institute has estimated the value of unpaid overtime at $119 billion. Furthermore, the people at the top are insulated by their wealth from a lot of the downside, and can fob a lot of the costs off onto the community as a whole, as you might have noted from looking at your utility bills.
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 21 November 2014 6:38:05 PM
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Big business and their puppet governments are simply focusing on "Growth", to the exclusion of any other considerations.
It works for them, and be damned to the rest of us!
The fact that a vast majority in this alleged "democracy" are opposed to further immigration, let alone the refugee intake, is totally irrelevant, "THEY" know what's good for us and they are the rulers so shut up and move over Pleb, do as you're told!
They can dress it up any way they like but that's the situation in essence.
Until the Aussie voters start thinking and acting in their own interests by kicking out the Party Duopoly and breaking with the Multinationals who control them we are doomed to be the victims of their obsessive greed.
Posted by G'dayBruce, Friday, 21 November 2014 8:24:37 PM
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"Until the Aussie voters start thinking and acting in their own interests by kicking out the Party Duopoly and breaking with the Multinationals who control them we are doomed to be the victims of their obsessive greed."

Therein lays the crutch of the problem the populations of almost every democratic country world face. People power has been swallowed by self serving control system for the rich. Where are we going to find a realistic, common sense, pragmatic alternative with a leader who possesses the charisma to gather a big enough following?

Not only is the old guard fully entrenched in the political system disguised as one of two parties, generally speaking the fringe parties attract just enough loonies to make it impossible to take them seriously. The dynamic and/or charismatic leaders with vision that we all long to see either get disgraced by some minor incident in their past, fall victim to the power and corruption, or in a worse case scenario get assassinated.

I left the USA in 1985 because I hated Reagan. NZ seemed to be the only sensible country in the world at the time, but then it too stopped listening to the will of the people. By 2000 I was convinced democracy in NZ was nothing more than lip service. Coming to Australia I've found where I want to live out my days but the politics in this country are every bit as screwed up as the places I left. Clive Palmer is a shining example of just how bad its become.

The frustrating reality is that only the politicians can legislate the changes and drive the improvements in government. But in doing so many would become redundant and therefore have no incentive. 'Serving the People' sounds great, but its a pipe dream.
Posted by ConservativeHippie, Saturday, 22 November 2014 6:54:42 AM
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Well said CH.
The correct phrase is "the crux of the problem", but in this case I reckon your's is far more accurate!
As I've said before, the great social movements of the recent past, the anti-vietnam war movement, feminism etc, scared the power elites and as a direct result we got multiculturalism and PC etc foisted on us, anything to divide us and create dissension and social tension.
"Divide and Rule".
Combine that with a compliant Media and the dumbing-down of Education and it works only too well, sadly.
Posted by G'dayBruce, Saturday, 22 November 2014 9:32:52 AM
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