The problem isn't caused by people but by government incompetence in not providing adequate infrastructure to faciltiate a bigger population (through immigration). People rock! People are the ultimate asset, yet the green quasi-religion tends to view them as pollutants. It's the lunar right wrongly defined by the media as representing a left-wing position.
Many years ago I met Tim Flannery at a party in Sylvania, Sydney. We'd known each other at university. He was keen to convince me that Australia's optimum population was seven to eight million. Staggered by this, I just asked him: "Tim, do you know what Australian society was like when the population reached that figure?" Well, that was 1947 - the population was between 7 and 8 million. White Australia. Women 'in their place'. Universities only for the rich. A rarity for any working class person to complete high school. A fairly (though not entirely) insular society that feared or felt uneasy with foreigners. Etc.
The benefits of immigration are not just economic but also social and cultural. And with around 15 million people identified as refugees by the UNHCR, there's strong ethical reasons for an under-populated country like Australia to take in many more. We need a left-wing party committed to growth to provide an alternative to the reactionary ALP/Libs/Greens.
Human beings are problem-solvers, part of the solution.

Well put ozzie! The ‘big Australia’ mob never ask themselves how countries (e.g. in Scandinavia) with smaller populations than we have manage without increasing their populations. Immigration might be fine for immigrants, but it costs the host population dearly.

High post-WW2 immigration was needed; there is no need for it now. Even the skilled immigration programme is a cheap and lazy way of getting labour – instead of educating and training our own people.

And, asylum seekers, illegals, whatever you want to call them, have nothing to do with Australia’s orderly immigration system. Immigrants are those who have successfully applied through the proper channels to come here. Illegals are cheats who would never gain visas through the proper channels. To lump them in with legitimate migrants is an insult to the latter.

Under no circumstances should people arriving illegally - or arriving legally but overstaying their visas – ever be granted permanent residence. They should be returned on discovery.

And, irrespective of all the name-calling from the looney-Left, any immigration should meet the needs of Australia only; and only people who are compatible with our culture and way of life should be sought. That means Europeans and South East Asians in our own region.

If Australians don't start discriminating on immigration just because they don't like being called 'racist', they are foolishly risking their own culture and values.

Leigh,
I totally agree with you post!
And to another post about the British and the asylum/refuge sager. Yes well, you might now that Britten has now declared that they are opting out of this issue as far as the UN is concerned..I hope that we follow suit.

Giving asylum/refuges visa's it just another sneaky way of letting them in. Hey, after all the gove. sees that they are cheaper, they will work for nicks, they don't care if the job they get is not permanent., it could be just a seasonable one, and that will suit them fine 'cause it will be enough just to stay and settle themselves for the time being.

By allowing this visa process to happen it will most surly under mind or moreover undercut any argument as to what exactly does the ordinary lay person need to live on. Surly it is not just as if it is a 'safely net' as the Howard gove. stated it to be. Gosh, what is the message here? It is to say that the ordinary ozzie lay person should be happy to live below the border line? I don't think so! If often have a smurke on my face as to how this so called 'living standards' is calculated out. And also, isn't is rather sneaky as to how the gove. sets their salaries up? It appears to be very much of a challenge to obtain such a position these days. I wander what they assume to be 'the basic salary' for them? Do their view it as a safety net? No, I don't think so as much.

Ozzie - nope, sorry, your attempted refutation does not cut it. In fact immigration's effects on unemployment is by no means straightforward. The actual supply of bodies on the ground is just one factor. In the UK example, and I don't think you read my post properly, the locals were not doing the jobs filled by the immigrants at all, so the arguement over wages and competion you advance is irrelevent.
As for overall benefit, my distinct impression is that the UK research concluded that there were overall benefits. So who are the economists you cite? Certainly there has been very little work in Aus, so I don't know what research you could be citing for conditions here.. Australia, after all, has been taking immigrants since the first fleet, and a lot more per cepita of late and the economy seems to be doing very well, thank you very much.
Illegial immigration should be discouraged, and legal immigration could be taken down a notch of two if people are feeling uncomfortable, but attempts at making a case for high immigration having bad economic affects has yet to be made.

I think it was a very good article, altho he should have explained "sustainability" as more than just an after thought.
The misuse of the asylum seeker and immigration issues to drown out ecological voices and concerns has been one of the disappointments of this decade-long debate so far- get sustainability right in the first place, as against the shocking contrary example of Tasmania the last twenty years as what NOT to do when imposing a responsible policy on development- THEN, larger populations become feasible.
Otherwise we will just be setting a huge snare for the enlarged populations of the future; that rises as resources are degraded and become useless, with the country becoming a poverty trap, where the only winners will be employers playing off elements of the extended working classes against each other.
Which is not to say that we must ignore global poverty and refugees fleeing wars that are usually the West's fault; let alone avoid trying to help post colonial states out of the messes many find themselves in, in neocolonial times, as a result of Western policies inducing poverty big time for local populations, thru history.
The failure of people like Obama and the various subspecies of "New" Labour, to act on a popular mandate for reform world wide since the collapse of neoliberalism ansd neoconservatism in 2007, is the real tragic story of the last few years.

The argument that immigration should be slowed or reduced or stopped because it undermines the working class belongs back in the nineteenth century from whence it originated. Immigration creates domestic demand, which creates jobs. It is true that illegal immigrants tend to work for lower pay and conditions and this places downward pressure on the wages of the unskilled in general. BUT, this is why illegal immigration should be stopped - by making it legal!

In the early twentieth century when the reactionary trade unions were campaigning against 'cheap foreign labour', they actually prohibited membership to such groups. How bizarre. The best response is to welcome them with open arms and to allow them to join the fight for better conditions for everyone. The capitalist welfare state maintains a significant 'reserve army of the unemployed' while immigrants stimulate demand for goods and services.

As for the ecological concerns, they are absurd in a nation whose national parks, in total area in square kilometres, are equivalent to the combined area of some of the biggest countries in western Europe. (And this doesn't even begin to consider the vast areas of disused farm land in Australia).