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.