Bravo John le Mesurier. Terrific stuff. We don't need this extra population, goodness knows. Trouble enough with what we have. Can we all have a breather for a couple of years and just catch up with supplying infrastructure to the existing population? Let's start with housing and putting a roof over the heads over those currently homeless. Then we'll work on supplying housing to those who are either single or low paid and giving them reasonable accommodation. Damn the economists and businessman who want unending population growth for their own profits! We live in a finite world - let's work towards a dynamic steady state economy where we don't grow (economically or in population but we do culturally and in the spititual sense). Can we all come to grips with the fact that we are at the end of the age of cheap oil? Growth is not an option. We have to move to renewable energy and localise agriculture. It's a different world we face - let's deal with it.

I wonder who is going to decide who we stop from coming here? At the moment it is anyone who can afford to pay a people smuggler. We have already had more illegals arrive here since the election than Ms Gillard's Christmas Island solution(ha ha) was mean't to address. Australia has heaps of resources and space. We can fit heaps more people however the author is right that we should first have the infrastructure. Successive State Governments have failed dismally here.

Curmudgeon illustrates the implications of high population growth well. In India you have masses of poverty stricken people who are denied any form of contraception. This provides a mass of cheap labour. In Australia there is ready access to contraception, so consequently labour costs can only be undercut by high immigration.

I'm glad that Curmudgeon didn't chime in with the "doing the jobs that lazy Aussies wont" line. Perhaps Cheryl can do that. Having people so poverty stricken and desperate that they would spend all day fishing bits of plastic out of a pile of filth for less than a pound is no measure of the work ethic of a population. Rather, it a measure of the obscene and despicable exploitation of a nation's poor.

Creating a supply of battery humans by denying the poor contraception amounts to slavery.

Runner says "Australia has heaps of resources and space". Well, you're right on the space but not on the resources, apart from a lot of non-renewables like coal that will run out with time. Have a look at the satellite maps - we're mostly an arid country. Sure, we grow enough food to export to 40 million others, but that may change with climate change and the imminent rise in oil prices that will severely impact on agricultural production. We may not even be able to feed our current population before long. So let's take the precautionary approach, shall we, and keep population growth to a minimum until we see what the future serves up to us. I don't think it will be pretty.

So, how do we get our government to really embrace sustainability, including a stable population and an economic system that is not predicated on a continuously bigger turnover every year (or every quarter for that matter)?

How do we overcome the fundamental democracy-destroying connection between the business community and economists (or more correctly; pseudoeconomists or false economists), and government?

How do we make our government uphold one of its most vital roles of being independent of undue influence by powerful players with deep pockets?

We’ve seen a real surge in support for a stable population or a much lower rate of growth recently, perhaps triggered by Rudd’s ‘big Australia’ comments or the appearance of Kelvin Thomson or Dick Smith on the scene. This has been great, but I suspect that it has failed to change anything, or to even momentarily bother the rapid-continuous-growth juggernaut.

So what on Earth can be done?

I'm amused to see comments along the lines of "we have plenty of space and resources". If we have plenty of space, why does the bulk of the population live in state capitals? While there may be plenty of other spots for new towns and cities, I don't see any rush to build them. Dubbo NSW could easily double in size, but where are all the immigrants and city slickers living? As has been touched on by others, we don't have a lot of space, if you include the need for well-watered, arable land. The far north has water to spare, but would anyone on this forum seriously consider living in the Kimberly, for instance? I've lived up there (not exactly in the Kimberly, but in tropical Australia) for several years at a time, and it's not pleasant if you can't handle extreme heat. In the south, there is limited arable land, and on the outskirts of the state capitals, is being turned into housing estates- in part becauue land values become so inflated, horticulturalists can't afford to pay the rates on the profits from say, tomatoes.