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.