I'd suggest that you people who doubt the 25 percent figure sit down and work out what the present day capital value of the present infrastructure is. You need to include everything imaginable, suburban streets, street lighting, sewers, water and gas supply, freeways, rail networks and rolling stock, airports, power stations and distribution systems. Two percent of that still works out to a pretty big figure and I would bet that the 25 percent of GDP is pretty close to the mark.

We are seeing in Melbourne and Sydney rail networks, what happens if you don't spend large amounts just on the maintenance required to keep the system serviceable. Don't forget to factor in the extra amount required for repairs when we have extreme weather events.

On another point, why is it that the only people who contemplate extreme measures for population control, are the growthists? They seem to be the loonies in the population, not those of us who advocate caution.

David

Manorina, you are quite right. It is just too easy becoming an Australian citizen, and living here. It is easy to get a resident visa, or a student visa. There is so much money to be made from population growth, and the lure of wealth, for a few elite who are supported by governments, is hard to address. Land developers and businesses sponsor our political parties.
We can't have limitless growth, and our cities are becoming expensive and violent. Our immigration levels are far too high, and our numbers will be over 50 million by 2050 at our current population growth rates. If population can be kept "down" to 36 million by then, the restrictions should start now. Why are we importing global problems to Australia? The biggest one is unsustainable human numbers! The 10 most wealthy countries have smaller populations than Australia, except for USA, and they are struggling!

VK3AUU writes:



"On another point, why is it that the only people who
contemplate extreme measures for population control,
are the growthists?"



Assuming David's observations to be reasonably accurate, which I suspect they are, I have a suggestion as to why this may be so. The contemplation of extreme measures as being necessary for population control, in an Australian context and that of this article, I suggest is an example of a debate-suppression technique I call 'rednecking'.

'Rednecking' is where something extreme or repugnant is advanced as being a logical consequence or necessary corollary of a proposed course of action. The actual steps of the 'logic' leading to the extreme measure are seldom, of course, set out. It is simply asserted that such will be so, often with resort to the associations that may already accompany existing buzzwords, labels (eg. 'denialist', 'warmist', 'contrarian', 'growthist'?), or slogans ('Australia - a [']racist['] country'), as purported back-up for such assertions.

If the rednecking has the open or tacit support of those in a position to exercise some form of editorial control over the medium in which the debate may for one reason or another have got started, then the whole debate (or another one that might foreseeably arise out of the first) can be derailed very early on.

Given that OLO is a forum for social and political debate, until Steven Conroy's internet 'filtration' scheme gets into full swing, 'rednecking' is a technique that one must expect to largely see attempted through posts from some posters who may have interests in influencing a debate through other than good argument or demonstrable foresight.

I suspect the technique of 'rednecking' (as distinct from the use of the label, 'redneck', in application to a poster) is closely related to the phenomenon of 'forum rage', but any exposition of this possible connection is something for another thread.

VK3AUU - the 25 per cent figure cannot possibly be right. If we had to dedicate a quarter of our economy to building infrastructure for newcomers we would know it, believe me.. You are looking at an increase in government expenditure (the government pays for all that stuff from our taxes, then you have to deduct the taxes of the newcomers. The government sector does not spend 25 per cent of its money on infrastructure, and much of the budget it does have is spent on renewal of existing infrastructure.. sorry, no 25 per cent..

How true, Forrest Gumpp - some years ago I remarked to a friend's husband that I thought the world was overpopulated and that government policies such as the baby bonus were a bad thing, and copped a tirade about compulsory sterilisation, eugenics, government control of fertility, the works. My reply that I merely wanted the government to stop encouraging population growth and let natural decline occur, was ignored. At least I now have the term 'rednecking' in my arsenal.

curmudgeon - I am sorry to say that your intuitive response does not reflect reality. Areas with high growth rates incur much higher than average unit costs. Look at SE Qld in recent years – very fast growth, and now very high per capita infrastructure costs.
True very high does not necessarily imply 25% - however, I imagine if you take the time to extract the figures from the budget papers you may well find that 25% is a conservative estimate.
Part of the problem with those infrastructure cost is that they are spread out over the whole community this means that everybody in Queensland pays for the priveledge of allowing developers to make a buck by attracting even more retirees to the gold coast.
Population growth is a sure fire way of empoverishing the vast majority of people.