BAYGON - the fact that a small working group presents a policy proposal on which they have reached consensus doesn't mean that it's going to be accepted in its entirety by a consensus of delegates to State and National Councils, which are the actual decision-making bodies of the Greens. Delegates to these bodies are selected and entrusted by grassroots branch members to represent their views, and clearly the examples you cite were insufficiently supported by delegates on that basis.

You're of course entitled to pursue your own personal population policy agenda, but you'd have much more chance of the Greens accommodating aspects of it in policy if you were a current member, rather than a former member pissing the product of sour grapes into the tent from outside.

david f - I'd have thought you'd have learnt a little more by now about Greens internal processes. There is no inner cabal of 'leaders' who dictate policy, unlike other political parties in Australia, and certainly the polar opposite of how I imagine the Vatican works.

CJ thanks for responding to all these comments. I must admit that I feel some sympathy for the guys not wanting to continue beating their heads against the wall if there has been no support for population stabilisation within the Greens members.

A few things that the Greens might consider on the social justice platform, with respect to immigration and population.

1) There are about 5 billion people living in countries with GDP per capita less than one tenth of Australia's. I bet almost all of them would like to immigrate to Australia. If Australia took in 1%, that would be 50 million people. It would make no difference to world poverty and completely stuff Australia.

2) The people from those poor countries that do get a chance to immigrate to Australia are the skilled and upper middle class of those countries. Those are the people who would be best able to build those countries, but they are also the best people to fill the skill gaps (or keep labour costs low) in Australia. The business community brags that this is really good business. "We let somebody else pay to train our workforce and then we use them to make profits. This is an opportunity that we can't pass up." That does not seem to meet the Greens social justice pillar in any way.

3) The same is true of boat people. The poorest people can’t afford people smugglers. The truly poor have to make due in refugee camps that they can walk to. Why are boat people more deserving of a chance in Australia than a family in a refugee camp?

continued . . . .

4) As long as Australia is intent on increasing its population there is little moral authority to recommend that poor countries stabilise their populations. It is great for Bob Brown to say that he will push for Australia to increase its overseas aid budget to 0.7% of GDP, but what will the money be used for. If anybody says women’s health clinics or education for women in poor countries, the third world response will be “You just want us to limit our population while you increase your population.” If Australia was stabilising our own population we could show that countries can be happy, successful and prosperous with stable populations.

Good Luck CJ. I hope the Greens can get a solid population policy.

CJ Morgan wrote: david f - I'd have thought you'd have learnt a little more by now about Greens internal processes. There is no inner cabal of 'leaders' who dictate policy, unlike other political parties in Australia, and certainly the polar opposite of how I imagine the Vatican works.

Dear CJ,

I am privy to neither the the leadership interaction of the Greens nor to the mechanisms by which the Curia operate. I don't know how I would learn about either except by hearing the accounts of others. However, they are both political organisations and as such I assume they have some interactions in common.

I now realise that all these discussions on population, global warming
etc etc are now becoming irrelevant.
Populations will decline as food becomes more expensive and scarce,
global warming will lose relevance as energy declines and people will
be more interested in getting a good meal than a tank full of petrol or
ethanol.

I have just watched the four independents on Press Club.
Only Bob Katter made any reference to fuel supply but even he could not
bring himself to use the words "Peak Oil".
Surely, as energy declines, everything else will decline along side it.
Just compare the population curve with oil consumption for the last
140 years and you will be stunned by the match.

We are entering a period of peak everything, including peak population.

@Bazz
I suspect you are right - and most of us who are concerned with population would share your outlook. If you recall the population graph that Dick Smith had on his population puzzle you would remember that he showed a sharp rise in population growth from the beginning of the 19th century to the present.
Biologists have observed that when a species reaches plague proportions you can plot its population growth on a similar graph, furthermore the 'spike' tends to be symmetrical - so we can expect the global population to decline at much the same rate and over the same time span as it took to reach its peak.
So why bother? If we allow nature to take its course then I think the outcome would be far more unpleasant then if we were to take steps ourselves to introduce policies that discourage population growth.
I am not advocating coercion but rather incentives not to have children.