This debate is very divided by those who think the costs of growth are greater than the benefits and vice versa. GDP is not the only measure of wellbeing and in fact high GDP growth can lead to inflation. It is a fine balance.

History shows us that Australian governments are reluctant to put investment into infrastructure to cope with burgeoning populations whether it be roads, public transport or health care. Populations are also pushed into already burdened cities like Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

If governments are intent on ignoring the wishes of the people (easily discerned by referendum), perhaps what is needed is a new and better planned major urban centre developed along sustainable lines with appropriate resourcing to suit population demands. Ideally where there is sufficient water - like up near Kununnurra and where an efficient rail service and airport can be constructed.

We can't keep damming up rivers and affecting the environment in the way we have done over the years. The Murray Darling won't take much more interference by human activity.

There is also the issue of water, farming, deforestation and an increasing burden on constrained social services.

We would be better to concentrate on improving training within Australia as well as well targeted immigration if needs be. Growth can, and has been, manipulated to to suit the needs of the country at any one time whether it be via baby bonuses, family tax benefits or immigration levels. This should not replace training and education needs to keep up with workforce demands.

All the above does not mean we bail out of our obligations to refugees, which is a humanitarian issue not a growth/economic one.

"On balance, the problems associated with a growing population are more manageable than those associated with a stagnant or declining one."

But you can't grow forever Saul and the bigger your population is when you stop growing, the more difficult coping with the subsequent, necessary decline to a sustainable level will be. Think long term and take a little pain now to save a huge amount of pain later! (i.e. think of your children's future, not your retirement plan).

Michael is quite right. We should be thinking past 2050 when population will fall and fall quite steeply.

The 'we can't grow forever' thesis is code for 'I don't like capitalism' or, in some cases, the clarion call of the poorly educated lower middle classes who don't like immigration and who want Fortress Australia. It's where Pauline Hanson meets Bob Brown.

Much of the anti-populationist rhetoric is really an honest and vocal complaint about poor urban design in Sydney and Melbourne.

Sad truth is- Sydney Brisbane and Melbourne are well over limits (the limit being taking under 20 minutes to drive to work from your place, both inside the same city).

Nor can we populate neighbouring areas, towns and cities as aside from they too being very quite dense now, they too likely rely on the same infrastructure and services FROM the major cities, repeating the same problem.

And of course there is the only particularly fertile farmland being replaced, bush areas, etc.

Virtually every policy I see for population (aside from being a horribly instrumentalist tangent), simply insists on involuntary development upon existing towns, expanding urban sprawl directly outwards and replacing agricultural and forest areas- or drawing from an already over-exhausted river or catchment.
(in short, cheap, quick-fix band-aid solutions which toss environmental, food/agricultural elements in economics and residential considerations into the 'too hard/not important' basket).

We MUST start building cities inland where there are water supplies, on highways/trainways connecting major cities together.
(or at least, actually put something attractive to more people in Canberra and build some apartments between those squillions of highways crisscrossing through empty SPACE (having no interesting nightlife or facilities, nor much in the way of cosmopolitan/urban districts being a possible handicap which should be easy to fix).

By the way, I'm surprised so many people are eagerly jumping in the 'cut skilled migration' bandwagon, when it's obvious we have a massive skills shortage (especially in medicine).
It's like people on the outside of the opposition to open-borders are trying to be in the 'in-crowd' but can't bear looking mean to the needy arrivals- when from a population sense, refugees lacking skills would take the lowest precedence.

I think a BETTER immigration criteria would be stricter character checks. Anyone remotely suspicious, likely to have engaged- or will engage in dishonest or anti-social conduct is simply turned away.

Helen Ridout, Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group:

"Australia is 18th in the OECD in terms of expenditure on education and training as a whole. If we're going to have an education revolution we need to get that up, we really need to increase it."

and

"The other thing we need to do though is not make the problem worse for the disadvantaged. It's really remarkable to me that only 67% of our kids finish school. .......

There are 50,000 of these every year. ...We've got to create rich pathways and educational experiences for these kids."

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/differenceofopinion/content/2007/s2101402.htm

Australia also wastes the talent of older people by shedding them from employment even before they reach retirement age. The Commonwealth and State Public Services have been some of the worst offenders.

The 'Boomer' generation extends over sixteen years and more depending on who is using the term. It is reprehensible and wasteful that such employees continue to be shed and not recruited through plain old-fashioned discriminatory employment practices, including to achieve affirmative action targets(!).

To quote again from Difference of Opinion, this time from Phil Ruthven (same link):

"What astonishes me is how we can still say today that we've got an ageing workforce. I just don't understand. Bear in mind 200 years ago life expectancy was 38. So to talk about retiring at 65 is a bit pointless. In the year 1900 life expectancy was 53. To talk about retiring at 65 was too late 'cause you'd been dead for 12 years. We have a life expectancy nearer to 80 and why we should think 65 is old is beyond me."

Any wonder many believe that high immigration numbers are simply to boost profits for big business while everyone else loses out. Otherwise why not wind the numbers back to something sustainable, improve our education and training and give out younger and older people a chance?

Pelican and others. You have the floor.

TTM.

King Hazza
I should have added that obviously you don't cut skilled migration until internal training and education arrangements are in order; and churning out lots of lovely doctors and nurses (or carpenters, engineers, plumbers etc). There will always be a need for some immigration given we cannot always be exact about supply and demand in relation to occupations and skills. Some elasticity is not a bad thing.

In general,
The fact is there has to be a limit on what one piece of land can support in terms of population even if people might disagree on the ideal cap range.

Why are we in Australia always so intent on repeating the mistakes of others, and insist on buying into the global expansion nonsense. From what one reads in the media most of those who are for unfettered growth are those with vested business interests - who see dollar signs before social and environmental wellbeing.

'For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair.
In joyful strains then let us sing,
Advance Australia fair.'

The Danish national bank reported that Islamic immigration costs more than 2 million Danish kroner (300,000 euros) in welfare per immigrant as a result of low participation in the work force.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=36a_1270930892

Based on the European experience, we can assume higher rates of incarceration, lower rates of workforce participation, increased costs of providing prayer breaks and prayer rooms for those participating in the workforce, welfare costs of polygamous relationships (already recognised by Centrelink), higher costs of monitoring terrorist activity and the potential costs of successful terrorist actions.

What is the point of increasing the population if the cost per capita is greater than the benefit?

Australia should be encouraging immigration which is proven to be beneficial to Australia's long term interest and discouraging immigration which is detrimental to Australia's long-term interest.

The European experience is salutory and Australia must have the guts to act before it is too late.

Indeed Pelican, I actually agree with you overall- but I think if we were to cut our migration intake surely it would be more logical to place skilled migrants higher than humanitarian considerations of refugees?

But ultimately I think instead we just need to tighten our character demands, supposed likeliness to integrate on all arrivals, level of education/literacy, adherence to secular, democratic principals, with stricter quarantine against those even suspected of falling short of these requirements. It would most definitely reduce excess intake- but only of those that would not sit well in this country, without infringing on the rights of people trying to get in with good intentions and ambitions (and state of mind).

My other suggestions should be primarily geared at encouraging existing residents of major cities to relocate in new cities and invest in the full infrastructural and cultural needs for potential residents and take the stress off the cities. Also completely voluntary and encouragement through advertising.

Rich gulf states have no trouble doing it from scratch, after all- and is something that annoys me about Australian governance and administerial-level ingenuity- or more to the point, the complete and utter lack thereof in absolute refusal to even notice other countries doing things that apparently this country is totally incapable of even imitating.

"Polygamists Breeding for Cash"
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10642330&pnum=0
<<Polygamy is one of several issues, like forced marriage or genital mutilation, that France and other European nations face, as immigrants arrive with customs that conflict with the law of the land. But experts say polygamy in France can also be linked to fraud, where husbands hijack a generous social welfare system to line their pockets with state funds from each of their wives.
"They practice polygamy just for that," said Jean-Marie Ballo, founder of an association that helps women escape from polygamous situations, Nouveaux Pas, or New Steps. "I'd go so far as to say that polygamists here (in France) are breeding for cash.">>

Can Australia really afford to go the same way?
Can't we learn from what is happening around us?

"On balance, the problems associated with a growing population are more manageable than those associated with a stagnant or declining one."

Apart from the comment on using immigration to offset an aging population and the lack of mention of the huge public infrastructure debt, I thought the article good to this point. Why refer to a stable population as "stagnant"? Yet the author is hardly alone in suggesting that the sky will fall without massive immigration. Yes, house prices and rents would fall substantially, and there might not be much opportunity for toll road builders wanting to charge the public six fold the cost of infrastructure, but would all mining and industry just stop? Perhaps the skilled worker demand of the mining boom is a good opportunity to move away from a Ponzi-like population driven housing and construction economy. People now pay enormous sums for housing. What extra industry would Australia have were these many billions not spent on servicing mortgages? Australia's great heritage is founded on industry and innovation. Ponzi schemes can only have one outcome.

King Hazza
"Indeed Pelican, I actually agree with you overall- but I think if we were to cut our migration intake surely it would be more logical to place skilled migrants higher than humanitarian considerations of refugees?"

It is only logical if we have a shortage of skills in a particular sector. If we skill up internally including skilling up refugees who often find it difficult to obtain work, the problem is partially solved.

Taking in humanitarian refugees would always be illogical if we used self interest as a rationale. Taking in refugees is about helping those who face imminent persecution or death in their country of origin. Without refugee programs we will be back where we were during WWII when Jewish refugees were turned away from every country and forced to return to face certain death.

As a country we either accept refugees or we don't; we either reject or accept the premise on which the UN Agreement is based. IMO we are a better country for accepting refugees and our population and national development has been based on refugee and migrant intakes.

I wonder how many of the commentators participating to this forum have any first-hand experience of migration. I can offer some personal views which may contribute to enlighten the subject.
35 years ago my family of three and myself became immigrants after undergoing health, education, political and character checks that would embarass 90% of the so called Australian original population.
It was a whites-only policy coupled with the desire of allowing entry only to people who had the following characteristics: no police records of any kind, no open political views, youth, extremely good health, some skills as labourers (considering that there was no recognition of foreign qualifications other than from the UK or maybe USA)and a willingness to accept almost any working conditions in order to survive their move into a new and vast country like Australia.
Nowdays, beside the refugees intake, we can see that there is an open door only for UK citizens with no particular or required skills who inevitably fill positions in the public white collars industry. Medics and para-medics are allowed in only because of a long standing policy of closed numbers in the universities' medicine courses which has created a dramatic shortage of doctors and nurses.
There is no special and real Government policy to facilitate the settling of people in suitable areas other than the big cities.
There is no intention of allowing the immigration of skilled and often quite resourceful people who wish to leave their over-populated countries in Europe, Asia and elsewhere, and contribute to the inevitable growth of this God gifted country.
Reasons officially given? Their english language is not up to the task (has an accent other than Irish or Scottish?), their skills and money are not needed.
I would be very happy to hear otherwise from people in this forum.

How is it possible for economists and planners to project population growth when the real state of ocean food resource and food web ecosystem collapse is not known?

How will an increased human population be able to afford aquaculture produce fed on imported fish that are dwindling in supply and increasing in cost? What is the now manipulated total value of total fish product imported into Australia annually? If anyone can find the new total value and total weight be sure high value fish oil for feed meal is included in the actual total.

Why was fish removed from the Consumer Price Index?

What do economists propose be done with all the sewage nutrient pollution that is already feeding algae that is even stopping people swimming in Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin.

All rivers run to the sea, government dumped sewer system nutrient pollution flows in alongshore current to the GBR, feeding algae that is smothering coral and estuary seagrass.

Do economists understand there is a marine environment that must also be kept healthy and alive to sustain what's left of world ocean food supply?

Do economists have any idea chemistry of the ocean must be managed best as possible to manage chemistry of atmosphere and climate?

Under present circumstance especially involving natural ocean food resource devastation, there is inadequate available and affordable nutritious food to sustain health of the present population let alone the level of increase proposed. Beware, fatal disease also travels by air.

Can anyone on this site find the actual total fish product imported to Australia each year? It's best to find solutions now.

JF Aus

'What do economists propose be done with all the sewage nutrient pollution that is already feeding algae that is even stopping people swimming in Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin. '

You must be a newcomer to Canberra. Lake Burley Griffin has always been a sewerage farm. People living in Canberra in the 1960's and 70's were warned off swimming there. I am sure a lot of it comes straight from Parliament house.

Pelican- indeed it basically is from a self-interest rationale.
I'm just not quite finding the balance between the point that we are so full we have to tell migrants they can't come here anymore (so easily too), and yet can still afford our humanitarian intake.

Pasquino that is an amazing post- I'm inclined to agree with everything you said (and sadly not surprised that our criteria be so dodgy and instrumentalist).

Something is gravely amiss with your reasoning Saul.

Here’s a critique of your article (~1050 in response to your ~1050 words!)…

<< The third Intergenerational Report, released … in January this year, projected that Australia’s population would reach almost 36 million by 2050…the second Intergenerational Report released by the previous Government just under three years ago. … envisaged Australia’s population growing by 7.6 million or just over 36 per cent from its 2007 level to reach 28.5 million by 2047. This is a remarkable difference in less than three years. >>

Yes, thanks entirely to our most unscrupulous PM, who never mentioned boosting immigration during the election campaign and then proceeded to raise it to a record level as soon as he won power, without any public or expert consultation, and in complete contrast to the outcome of the comprehensive nationwide study; the Inquiry into Australia’s Population Carrying Capacity, conducted in 1994.

<<…population growth is one of the three principal drivers of growth in the market value of goods and services produced, or gross domestic product (GDP) >>

Yes, and it is by far the biggest of the three factors, especially while we have rapid population growth. But the ever-bigger GDP does NOT indicate an improvement in current or future average quality of life, which has surely got be the baseline factor. GDP is a terribly flawed indicator of wellbeing.

Population growth is also by far the largest factor in driving us to forever rapidly increase GDP…and it is the biggest factor that is preventing the ever-increasing GDP from translating into meaningful personal improvements.

<< The significant acceleration in Australia’s population growth rate in recent years was one reason why Australia avoided falling into recession (as commonly defined) during the global financial crisis…>>

The key words being; ‘as commonly defined’.

<<…had Australia’s population been growing at the same rate as, say, the United States or Britain, all else being equal Australia’s economy would have experienced consecutive quarters of negative real GDP growth in the second half of 2008, rather than just one. >>

continued

Perhaps, but I wonder what the average per-capita effects would have been. For Australia’s GDP to have actually declined for one quarter while we had very high population growth, the average per-capita decline would have to have been very significant. And during those quarters with low GDP growth, the per-capita measure would have still been in the negative. So the average per-capita effects would have doubtfully been any less than in some other countries, and the indication that you are giving here Saul; that population growth helped alleviate the effects of the GFC in Australia is probably quite false at the personal level.

<< Population growth contributes directly to growth in the demand for a wide range of goods and services >>

Yes.

<< Population growth through immigration adds to the supply of labour, and … can be particularly helpful in alleviating shortages of skilled labour >>

So it is seen as good on both the demand and supply sides of the ledger. And so we are hooked in to the growth spiral. But of course this is whacko stuff in the longer term, as surely the baseline goal is to improve the quality of life for existing residents, rather than forever provide the same quality of life for ever-more people.

Quite frankly, it is high time to concentrate on ways of increasing supply without adding to the demand. THAT would be the sensible economic and political position to adopt, before our economic ability to supply the essentials to an ever-bigger population becomes very seriously stressed…which isn’t far away at all, in all probability.

<<…population growth through immigration also slows the rate at which the population ages...>>

It changes the ratio of young productive people to old dependent people to some extent. But there are better ways of dealing with the financial burden imposed by baby boomers going into retirement, especially when there are such huge and obvious downsides to the size of the population increase that would be needed to cater for it, all else being equal.

<<… faster GDP growth driven solely by faster population growth does not mean that people are becoming better off >>

Absolutely! We’ve basically been in boom times for a very long time now and have always had the strong growth ethic. And yet, we apparently desperately need to boost it. Even with Rudd’s record high immigration, now for three years, we aren’t seeing any sign of growth being wound back. In fact, there seems to be more pressure to forever grow faster…from the economic rationalists point of view.

Let’s face it; the continuous growth ethic hasn’t provided us with what has been purported by politicians and economists to provide for decades! Yes we were on a good thing back in the 50s and 60s, but no longer. We needed to gear towards stabilisation in the 80s. Now we need to do it with great urgency.

Saul, we need a better way – one that is predicated on a stable population and a steady-state economy, with all economic growth being provided by way of developing better efficencies, technologies and alternatives to current practices, and not at all by increasing the rate of resource exploitation or the scale of all manner of other economic activity!.

Intelligent economists such as yourself surely realise this. You’ve GOT to STOP espousing continuous rapid population growth on this continent as being a good thing.

<< Population growth also brings costs >>

It surely does!! And they are enormous!

continued

<< On balance, the problems associated with a growing population are more manageable than those associated with a stagnant or declining one. >>

This is CRAZY!

Surely it is the role of real economists to work out how we can best achieve a healthy economy and how it can translate into real improvements in quality of life, WITHOUT us being hooked into the absurdity of continuous rapid growth.

Continuous population growth and economic expansionism has got to stop. I dearly wish that our leading economists such you Saul would concentrate on this, instead of talking up the obviously critically flawed continuous-growth-with-no-end-in-sight economic paradigm, which WILL take us straight into a situation where we simply won’t be able to uphold our quality of life or anything like it, at which point the house of cards will come tumbling down.

“On balance, the problems associated with a growing population are more manageable than those associated with a stagnant or declining one”: A perspective beneficial to industries involving property, retail, advertising, etc. but not to society around them; and catering for the present at the expense of the future.
What is wrong with a stable population - one which is in harmony with its resources, intellectual and physical infrastructure. A stability which has achieved balance in relation to the demanding needs of its developing youth; and to the transient needs of the aged in the last few years of their lives? Referring to such stability as stagnant would suggest either ossification of the author’s mental processes, or a deliberate attempt at deluding his readers.
For how long do we need to grow, and what is the optimum rate? Saul Eslake’s inference is growth forever - though the current 2 per cent might be excessive. Other growth enthusiasts have suggested 1.4 per cent: This would take our present 22 million to 44 million in 2060, to 352 million by 2210, and continuing to double every fifty years.
What is the experience elsewhere in the world? Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Timor-Leste have population growth rates of about 3 per cent; Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland have a tragically(?) low rates of 0.3 per cent.

Good post, Colinsett,

Saul Eslake's argument reminds me of the joke about the Lone Ranger and his Indian companion Tonto being surrounded by a war party of hostile Indians. "Who is 'we', white man?" The corporate elite like high population growth and mass migration because they want bigger markets and more sales, easy profits from real estate speculation, and a cheap, compliant work force, with any skilled workers already fully trained at someone else's expense. They also like high 'diversity' because it tends to weaken social cohesion, enabling them to divide and rule, and undermines support for the welfare state. They thus have a motive for pretending that a "Big Australia" is good for all of us.

Numerous studies on mass migration, the main source of population growth in Australia, both here (such as the 2006 Productivity Commission Report) and overseas (such as the 1997 Academy of Sciences report in the US and the 2008 House of Lords report in the UK) have shown no significant benefit to the bulk of the existing population, even in narrowly economic terms. This doesn't even consider effects on the environment or amenity.

This graph from the US shows real incomes of different income groups over the past 50 years, indicating that virtually all of the gains from economic growth since the 1970s have gone to the folk at the top.

http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/03/09/the-best-inequality-graph/

This graph from Club Troppo shows the share of national income going to the top 1% of the population from 1900-2000 in Australia and 3 other countries, indicating a significant increase in inequality here too.

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2006/08/24/policy-and-perhaps-culture-matter-for-income-distribution/

Other factors are at work as well in rising inequality, but flooding the labour market with workers is certainly one of them. See the links in

http://www.vdare.com/rubenstein/070129_nd.htm

"The 'we can't grow forever' thesis is code for 'I don't like capitalism' or, in some cases, the clarion call of the poorly educated lower middle classes who don't like immigration and who want Fortress Australia."

The usual invalid slurs of racism and communism from the coporatocracy......how predictable!

The coporatocracy's only interest is in building its collective wealth regardless of the cost to the 'peasants' or ordinary Australians.

Coporate culture has become fundamentally unAustralian, having no respect or regard for egalitarianism upon which the Australian way of life was founded.

Perhaps Australians need to rise up in a mini democratic revolution and put the corporatocracy back in its cage.

Remember......a vote for either major party is a vote for unsustainable population growth, and all the problems that go with it, and a vote for the interests of the corporatocracy.

At the next election send both major parties and their corporatocratic masters a lound and clear message. Vote Green, independant or Stable Population Party of Australia (h t t p ://w w w.populationparty.com/).

"We've boundless plains to share,"
Advance Australia Fair was written in the late 1800s by a naive British settler who had not yet learned that Australian ecosystems were nothing like those in his British homeland.

Our soils are ancient and impovershed, our rainfall is fundamentally unreliable and we cannot possibly sustain the sorts of populations that such navive British settlers once dreamed of.

In 1968, as Australians were coming to terms with the ecological limitations of Australia, Dorothea Mackellar wrote "My Country".

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die-
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold-
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land-
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand-
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Please note the fundamental shift in the understanding of Australian ecology between ecologically naive Peter McCormick and ecologically savy Dorothea Mackellar.

Now we have new waves of fresh and naive immigrants that have equally naive views of Australia and her 'boundless plains' that believe can accomodate countless new Australians.

You are missing the point. Social institutions should be small scale not monoliths, because if they fail and they are small it is always possible to find the faulty components. If they are monolithic that is impossible. This is why nations with small populations generally outperform countries with large populations.

The population of the top 10 wealthiest nations in the worldare:

1. Luxembourg - 491,000,
2. Norway - 4.8m,
3. Singapore - 4.8m,
4. USA - 306m,
5. Ireland - 4.5m,
6. Switzerland - 7.7m,
7. Austria - 8.3m,
8. Netherlands -16m,
9. Iceland - 319,000, and
10. Sweden - 9.1m#