Cheryl,

Some population growth is inevitable, but that does not mean it is OK to have a whole lot more of it. The Australian Academy of Sciences recommended 23 million as a safe upper limit back in 1994, before there was an understanding of the full impact of peak oil, peak phosphate, etc. However, I don't think that the situation is so immediately serious that we need to look at an enforced one child policy or at no immigration at all, while emigration continues. Such policies will reduce the impact of demographic momentum, which may be crucial if a country is really facing collapse, but is likely to create other serious problems down the line.

My ideas on what should be done are in line with Kelvin Thomson's Fourteen Point Plan. The current fertility rate is fine, slightly below replacement level, so we don't need to educate people, although it would not go amiss to end the government bribes to have children and some of the subsidies to large families, apart from heavily means tested welfare payments. I would reduce immigration to zero net, currently about 80,000 a year. This would include all categories, New Zealanders, refugees, etc. Once we get the population where we want it (for the time being) we encourage people to have a few more babies and/or allow a modest amount of net immigration.

King Hazza "Shockaholic [my name is Shockadelic] Don't forget most of East Asia- people in these countries are very much most of these things (though democracy isn't quite in their control, despite popular protests in most of these countries for the contrary)."

Even if you could find all these things in East Asia, that doesn't explain *why* we would choose those people over Canadians, Dutch, Germans, French, etc.

If you can get XYZ from people of related cultures and also get XYZ from people of unrelated cultures, which of the two options will prove *least* problematic?

Local Australians need to adapt to the additional people, and the immigrants need to adapt to their new society.

If the people you choose *already* come from similar cultural backgrounds, you're already half-way there.

This was the real reason for the "White Australia" policy.
It wasn't about how much melanin your skin had.
It was about all these myriad factors and their impact on social stability.

We aren't even getting a proportional number of "suitable" East Asians anyway.

I did an analysis (on my website) comparing GDP per capita (a good indication of skills and general modern social development) with immigration levels.

Advanced countries like South Korea and especially Japan were *underrepresented*, while countries like Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Thailand were grossly in excess.

http://www.shockadelic.com/immigration.html

Funny, I would think that the views of extreme pro-growth people, such as Ross Elliott here, were the 'tiny thought bubbles'...

And Jon J, you're a bit out of your depth there mate.
There's a huge and growing amount of people who don't give a toss about the colour or ethnic composition of Australia's population.
Its just that 7 billion people on a planet of finite size (and 23 million in a desert) ain't gonna work.