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The Forum > Article Comments > Red faces over the Immigration Department’s 'Red Book'. > Comments

Red faces over the Immigration Department’s 'Red Book'. : Comments

By Mark O'Connor, published 11/1/2011

Population growth isn't good and it can't go on for ever.

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<Apparently, anyone who dares to question your dedication to controlling every aspect of other people's lives is a "pop growth cargo cultist".>

Not at all. It is my understanding that a majority of Australians are opposed to a big Australia, yet it is foist upon us because some people in power believe it is good. It is this sort of feudal policy making which I dont like. It is those responsible for things like high immigration and the baby bonus who are the control freaks, not me.

I would like the Australian Government to be a bit less feudal and a bit more egalitarian on the population question.
Posted by Fester, Sunday, 16 January 2011 10:38:11 PM
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Fester, Yabby, Pericles, Cheryl etc;
No point in getting flustered about it all.
Nature does not negotiate !
She, (why do they call it she ?) is about to impose her will upon us all.

With a growing population, less energy, higher fertiliser costs, more
costly transport, the UN is warning of significant food shortages.
Nothing cuts into birth rates more severly than malnutrition.

So as far as we are concerned we should pull up the drawbridge and hang on.
There is no point in us getting involved in the mess just to feel good.
Posted by Bazz, Monday, 17 January 2011 6:57:28 AM
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That's a bit of a squeeze, Yabby.

>>That is just one example, Pericles. The Philippines.<<

You have substituted "they have little choice" for "[their government] not giving them a choice", which is hardly the same thing.

And maaate, you make a very valid point.

>>Pericles, if we can increase our individual and collective wealth, improve our standard of living and simultaneously conserve our resources by slowing population growth rates, why would we increase population growth rates?<<

The answer is that we would not.

Sadly, we have yet to stumble across a way in which this can be achieved.

And Fester, that's not quite the whole truth, is it.

>>It is my understanding that a majority of Australians are opposed to a big Australia, yet it is foist upon us because some people in power believe it is good<<

If you ask people the question "would you like more people in Australia", the majority would indeed answer "of course not".

But that is only half the question. If you completed it by saying "or suffer a slow but steady decline in your standard of living, and that of your children", you might get a somewhat different response.

The concept of a "big Australia" has not, to my knowledge, been discussed outside the framework of the immigration debate. Which, in turn, has been conducted largely by big business saying "we need more labour to be fully productive" on the one hand, and a bunch of back-to-the-fifties suburbanites whimpering "things ain't what they used to be" on the other.

Until and unless we can introduce more reality into the discussion and drain from it the emotive "we'll all be rooned" mentality, we will continue to go round the exact same circles that this thread has exhibited.

Regrettably, we lack the sort of political leadership that is able to think beyond the sound-bite that wins them the next election.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 17 January 2011 7:41:55 AM
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*You have substituted "they have little choice" for "[their government] not giving them a choice", which is hardly the same thing.*

Pericles, quibble all you like. Fact is, in many places both
would apply.
Posted by Yabby, Monday, 17 January 2011 8:10:15 AM
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Pericles,

You are asserting that incomes would fall if we had a stable population, but offer no real evidence. The US has followed the prescription of growthists like yourself. See

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/learn/about-problem/our-lost-future.html

By your lights, it ought to be doing brilliantly. Yet incomes have stagnated for the vast majority of Americans since 1973 in real terms, and the bottom quintile is actually slightly worse off. See the graphs I linked to earlier and here

http://www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org/ourchildrensinheritance.html

I will concede that there have been real gains for the top 1%. The US has been outperformed on important indicators by those despised stable countries. You say that there are a number of factors involved, and there no doubt are, but if population growth were as beneficial as you say, there would be some evidence of it. My guess is that if people followed your advice, they would get the big population with the pressures on the environment, infrastructure, and amenities on top of income stagnation for the vast majority.

Thanks for a good laugh, Fester. A really good counterexample to the more people are the solution crowd. It is worth pointing out that Thailand and the Philippines had about the same population in the 1960s, but Thailand, which had an enlightened government that encouraged family planning, now has less than 70 million and is stabilising, while the Philippines has over a hundred million. According to the World Bank, GNP per capita is $4,060 in the Philippines and $7,640 in Thailand.
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 17 January 2011 4:54:57 PM
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If our population reached stability (whatever that is - one in/one out?) income would probably remain steady for a few years. Then, because we're trade in commodities by volume, it would fall rapidly leading to major economic contraction.

Population is only one angle, labour is another. I'm astounded that some people on the anti-pop side don't connect labour with productivity. They only see labour as a cost or consumers. It's like they skipped Economics 101 completely.

Rwanda? Shrink the tax base? Slash exports (and ergo imports), rip up our trade agreements and then watch billions of dollars of investment pour out of Australia. What have you been taking? Is Kanck behind these ideas? They have the strong smell of mad Democrat behind them.

But I can see the ideological merits of reducing the population and it's entirely consistent with your fundamentalist-back-to-the-earth, Garden of Eden thing.
Posted by Cheryl, Monday, 17 January 2011 6:09:42 PM
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