Exhume Joh Bjelke Peterson, NOW!

It was a waste of time giving people the vote. Now the common herd think they can have a say in what is best for them.

There was a time when "Never you mind" and the strategic use of police batons were enough to convince the punters that they should restrict their attentions to sport and gambling.

How DARE anyone mention that voters are overwhelmingly opposed to a 'Big Australia'. How dare they put themselves, their children and their country first and above profits for the few at the big end of town.

Let them eat cake and very small glasses of recycled urine in their new urban slums of the future. There was a time when there were market gardens growing there, but hey who needs that when hydroponics with chemicals can grow veggies under glass? People eat too much anyway, they should learn to do without.

It is the way of the future. Meanwhile I'm off to the Val d'Isère for some cross-country skiing, it's too hot, close and pongy in Brisbane's concrete jungle in the year 2020. Brides-les-Bains the year after, a nice long rest is always due for the deserving.

Cheryl rather than dengirating those who seek a sustainable population why not offer some reasons why we should seek to conintually grow our population in this mostly arid land. Is there any point at which you would say 'No enough - we have too many people'.

I don't pretend to know the magic figure but surely commonsense must be screaming out at you that water, arable land and minerals, energy reserves are not endless resources. The sun is about the only continuing resource of which I am aware.

Why is is difficult to work your head around the fact that we can have a sustainable target, better planning and still fulfill our obligations to asylum seekers.

Ludwig - I was hoping for a substantial response rather than a repeat of the original assertion. I know you think that its through taxes and such but, as I previously pointed out, the amount of government spending on the provision of infrastructure is small part of the overall government spend, and even that can be shown to have little to do with immigration. If immigrants stopped coming tomorrow your tax burden would not drop one cent and services would not improve at all.
If you think otherwise then what do you have to back up your thoughts?
Can you point to any direct costs of immigration that are not trivial?

A fair article Mick, all I would propose first;
1- start sending some researchers around areas that would both accommodate a new city and find ones that would actually WANT to change into something like that (some would love it, many would (understandably) abhor it).
2- implement the strategies you outlined
3- Find ways to actually tempt people to go there (as Canberra has full facilities- yet hardly anyone itching to move there, despite the extensive range of museums, parks and zoos).
4- encourage as much as we can for existing residents to move there first. Our cities ARE above limit (measured by the simple presence of peak-hour traffic jams and sheer area of our cities).

In short, infrastructure and employment are only part of the problem- finding a way to start introducing urbanization to an actually willing populace without degrading their living standards to Sydney-slum-levels, and also making a place currently even more boring than Canberra an attractive reason to leave the glittery consumerist paradises of Melbourne and near East Sydney. Not to mention it would also mean that existing major(ish) cities and coastal towns not need to expand already beyond excessive girths to accommodate.

Thanks Pelican, I don't think population is the issue. I think urban planning is. Thinking about 2050 is patently absurd and the 'shock horror' stories pumped out by the SPA are self serving.

Out of a myriad of variables concerning economic life and sustainability, the SPA has solely focused on people. I find it intellectually withering that people are drawn to single causes for complex phenomena but such is single cell life.

How many times have I been asked - do you think population can grow like this forever? Who is the subject of this population? You, me, Germany, the world? Check out the global population graphs for the years 2040-2060 and you'll see the downward trend. But that's ages away.

My other favourite question relates to population but is actually used by the pro-climate changers and it goes - prove that the world is not growing warmer. Huh? I'm at the default position. You're trying to convince me, although granted it's as complex as Chinese maths.

*Answer the question: how much is a life worth? The anti-pops premise is that we (Australians) are worth more than a Sri Lankan, Iraqi or Sudanese.*

Not so Cheryl. But some of us in fact do think that sustainability
involves many species, not just wall to wall humans. We are
not the only species that matter on this planet.

Now given that you think that a life is worth anything, you are
free to send every last $ to Sri Lanka, Iraq or Sudan, for them
to lead a better life. Unless of course you think that those
countries are full. In that case you should be sending money
for family planning!

But given that you own a computer and won't sell it to save another
starving baby in Africa, I can only assume that like with most,
what a life is claimed to be worth is rhetoric.