The title of this piece is spot on - both the major parties will posture on population and indeed on issues like climate change and natural resource depletion. The reason is simple James has put the argument succinctly - we have created an economic system that has a logic of its own; politicians are in awe of that system and simply keep feeding it. Stopping population growth is not and cannot be a single issue (those who are concerned about population growth are invited to join http://www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com/) It requires a major rethink about how we make the transition from a growth paradigm to one of a stable system. A system where our population level is such that we can feed, clothe and provide shelter for every person. A system where we do not create a society that is dependent for its very survival on material that it cannot be sourced locally. It means we need politicians that have the courage to recognize that we need to abandon the survival prosthesis that 21st century society has become. I doubt that we have the people in parliament who are capable of delivering that - hence we need a new breed of politician, a politician whose entire life experience has not been defined by politics.

Sounds like this author confuses GDP with standard of living.
Yes, under Howard our GDP rose, but all other measures of standards of living fell.
When all the fresh water is being utilised, when all the fisheries have crashed, when all the soil is degraded...then it will be way too late.
Do you freaks realise the damage that this high school level of understanding of economics is doing to the country? We have exported productive industries and imported consumers. Most of the "profits" are now by middle-men creating nothing. Sure a credit system may keep us bumbling along for a decade like Japan, but to dump our grand kids in such poo *knowingly* is absurd...no, actually it is evil.
There are too many millionaires and billionaires who are willing to treat humans as cattle. By going for maximum population they are ensuring their low-paid workforce has few options and no real choice: this is exactly how they want it.
Australia has lead the world without being big in numbers. We did that with a "can-do" culture, lots of resources and minimal class and entrenched powers. If the BB gen had not been quite so thorough in screwing following generations then we might have a fertility rate suitable to maintain population. As it is we have to import families to make up for the ones we destroyed here by "enjoying the kids' inheritance". Bravo for selfishness, now deal with the new watered down Australia!
I don't think city folks will ever really get ecosystems, nor the fact that economics is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment.

BTW. Fester brings up an excellent point. Growth spruikers like to point out profits without any reference to costs. Just as the big energy companies, car companies, etc don't pay for pollution but pocket all the profits, the beneficiaries pocket the profits but then place the burden of costs (congestion, infrastructure "user pays", etc) back on the poorest.
"Accounting" is one of the black arts these days!
Does everyone realise the company responsible for Accounting and Auditing Enron is still in business doing exactly the same thing? All they needed was a name change to go back to business as usual! BTW. The Sarbanes-Oxley changes that were supposed to fix accounting issues have been effectively worked around already. Big business and financial accounting is still as dodgy as ever!
Never trust the simple figures coming out of industry and the Libs as it is based on "get the right answer" accounting research.

Thanks all for your comments.

Please accept this broad response to the questions raised. In my view, the notion that we don't have enough "room" or "resources" to fit more people is easily the weakest argument against migration and population growth.

Australia is one of the most sparsely populated countries on earth, including Western countries with very similar lifestyles and who equally value living in large homes in the suburbs as opposed to high-rise apartments.

Yes, much of Australia's unpopulated areas are hot and dry. But look at Israel - a country one third the size of Tasmania with more than 7 million residents and growing. They built a prosperous and vibrant nation in the middle of the desert with virtually no natural resources, limited arable land and extremely limited access to water. But through investment in infrastructure, they've built farms where there was once desert and desalination plants that mean Israel will never run out of water.

Australian farms produce more food on less acreage today than we ever have in our history, much of which we export. We have hundreds of years worth of coal and gas supplies to power electricity well into the future. And we have floods so frequently all across Australia that relatively cheap dams could easily capture for household and business consumption.

Those who say we can't handle any more people take a very dim view of Australian entrepreneurship and ingenuity. I won't be losing any sleep over continued strong migration and population growth.

I would sincerely appreciate an attempt to build a decent city out in the arid desert zones James, but sadly such proposals are never put forward and reach planner level, nor any plan to get people to start moving there (preferably from the existing cities as they are easily double comfortable carrying capacity). Ditto on inventions to redirect floodwaters, but sadly leads me to my end point below.

"But look at Israel -... They built a prosperous and vibrant nation"
Er, not really a good example- although to be fair, they suffer the extra adversity of frequent attacks, so stability and prosperity would be impossible to gauge.

"and desalination plants that mean Israel will never run out of water."
Who pays for these desal plants? It starts to contradict the supposed financial benefits if we must start introducing such expensive infrastructure to actually make the accomadation.

"Those who say we can't handle any more people take a very dim view of Australian entrepreneurship and ingenuity."
Because we have easily among the low-grade entrepreneurship and ingenuity in the Western world as far as major project works go. When was the last ambitious project we've undertaken? The interstate roads and inter-city expressways of yester-decade do count, yet no positive examples of public benefit since. We produce many great minds but our authority gives no ear to them but instead to the usual low-output thinkers and developers to dump dodgy quick-fix solutions in the form of public-private partnerships, while the quality thinkers leave our shores for America or Europe.

For me, unless you can show me a good project that IS in the works, in which case I WILL endorse it, my skepticism of anything more than worsening the urban sprawl around the cities to squeeze them in, and hope 'she'll be right' will continue.

you may not lose sleep over population growth james but you should be losing sleep over our food security - farm incomes are in decline (farm incomes have gone down by 22% in the last 10 years) This reduces the incentive for young farmers to stay in the industry. The pattern is evident where I live. As farm incomes are being squeezed developers come in and offer to buy the land to secure the farmers retirement. The land remains as a farm but the government is approached to rezone the land for it is no longer profitable as farm land. Result the government has just announced that it will rezone some of our prime farm land for housing - 7000 new homes. More land taken out of production further decreasing our food security.
It seems that you are hell bent on ensuring that we repeat the mistakes made overseas but sleep easy the full consequences of your reckless decisions will not be felt in your lifetime - it will be left to future generations to clean up after you. Want to know what that future is? Well documented by Jared Diamond but no doubt you dismiss his research.