<< Highly dangerous, even if you get it only slightly wrong. >>

YES pericles.

So we’d better damn well start erring on the side of caution, instead of just blundering forth with absurdly high population growth.

We need to miinimise the chances of getting it gravely wrong. It has become pretty obvious that one the biggest factors, which is also one of the easiest factors to address, is to pull right back on our immigration rate.

We now have many learned people espousing this, as well as ex-business people who no longer have a vested interest in growth, such as Dick Smith, as well as the federal minister and shadow minister in the relevant subject areas and even old Bob Brown!!.

Hey, even our PM and traditionally rampantly pro-growth government have shifted ground to some extent in this direction.

<< Define what you want - say, for example, "a stable population of x". Then you have to plan the trip. How to get there. >>

Ideally yes, but not necessarily. We CAN plan for a much-reduced population growth rate without having anything more than a vague total population level in mind.

Whatever the case, we should err on the side of caution and head towards the low end of the spectrum. Then if we find that with a low growth rate we are managing to get ahead on infrastructure and other important quality of life and sustainability factors, we might choose to increase the growth rate and the target population level a bit.

I love the way you make it sound as though there is a tap that we simply turn one way or the other, Ludwig.

>> Then if we find that with a low growth rate we are managing to get ahead on infrastructure and other important quality of life and sustainability factors, we might choose to increase the growth rate and the target population level a bit.<<

There are a number of problems with your somewhat cavalier approach to the issue, only one of which is the means by which you intend to impose your will on other people's lives.

But there's nothing much more I can add to that which I have already noted. If you are unwilling to do the analysis and forecasting that is involved, then you are not really taking it seriously. It all just becomes a slogan on a banner.

And if you really believe that life under your controlling hand will be an improvement, so be it.

I, for one, don't.

ericc asks:

>>Pericles - Outline advantages to high immigration<<

Define "high", ericc.

My thoughts on this are pretty much aligned with those of Malcolm Turnbull:

http://tinyurl.com/29j5j39

"Historically – and this remains true today – immigration rates are directly correlated to the health of the economy"

It's worth reading, if only because it highlights how much of the perceived "problem" is the result of historically appalling infrastructure planning. His target is of course his home State of NSW, where he observes...

"Shanghai['s] metro only opened in 1995 (the same year Bob Carr became Premier) and now carries 6 million passengers a day on a 268 station network over 400 kilometres in length – by 2020 it will be 877 kilometres in length and the largest in the world."

...but the same could be said of all the rest as well.

We have been complacently lethargic in planning for our existing population - water, energy, transport - and now use that as an excuse not to plan for the next fifty years.

Pure laziness, that's all.

"My thoughts on this are pretty much aligned with those of Malcolm Turnbull"

Not on the subject of AGW they aren't, Pericles. Malcolm has promoted the idea of recycling water from drains. Such a scheme would be viable only if domestic water was more expensive than it is now, and would require a revision of health regulations. Without a much larger population it wont happen.

Malcolm is a sucker for a good story (isn't everyone?), but I dont think he has much of a scientific brain. This might be why he gave public money to those Russian scientists who claimed they could make it rain with an electronic pogo stick or some such.

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2007/s2095134.htm

It may be that governments have suddenly become very incompetent at providing infrastructure, but could it also be an economic truism that when something is suddenly in great demand you will pay through the nose and more than likely get poor quality? Such was the case with the Tugun Desalination plant.

And how is China an example for Australia to follow when 700 million of her citizens have no health care? It certainly has a large pool of cheap labour.

<< I love the way you make it sound as though there is a tap that we simply turn one way or the other, Ludwig. >>

Pericles, when it comes to having very rapid population growth that is the highest in the OECD or low population growth that will gear us towards a stable population level that is only a little higher than the present level or anything in between, it is EASY to implement! So yes, there essentially IS a ‘tap’ that we can turn by simply adjusting immigration numbers and perhaps by also adjusting the birthrate a bit by way of abolishing or boosting the bilious baby bonus.

It is not hard, either in theory or practice.

<< There are a number of problems with your somewhat cavalier approach to the issue, only one of which is the means by which you intend to impose your will on other people's lives. >>

There is absolutely nothing more ‘cavalier’ or more of an imposition on peoples’ lives about significantly reducing population growth than there is about upholding the current absurdly high level of immigration and continuing with the country’s worst policy of all time – the baby bribe!

<< And if you really believe that life under your controlling hand will be an improvement, so be it. >>

Absolutely I do.