Australia will one day support a population between 50 & 100 million. It is inevitable and no "social" policy intervention should inhibit this from happening.

The factors allowing this population growth to be economically & environmentally sustainable will include, but not be limited to:

1. Cellulosic ethanol for transport fuel
2. Renewable industrial & household energy from biomass, solar & geothermal, perhaps even nuclear
3. food security planning & agricultural efficiency
4. Water use & treatment planning
5. Natural Resource Planning
6. urban planning
7. The rule of law

As these factors are developed and implemented the population will follow. In these circumstances - why cap population at all?

To intervene with some kind of population policy would be to undertake "social engineering", nothing more, nothing less. It's the kind of stuff that the Nazi's were about.

Good old Aus - fifty to one hundred million, no probs?!

But, the best brains the boosters come up with focus on growth: that, it seems, is our basic need - not some exact (or otherwise) number.

And all of the evidence, from past experience they have already lumbered us with, indicates that the faster we grow, the faster we have to run to catch up: If we grew at 1.7 per cent last year, we will have to grow at 1.8 per cent next year to catch up with whatever we are trying to catch up with - infrastructure needs, environmental repair, etc..

From the lessons they are trying to donkey us with, that cornucopian carrot dangled in front of us, we need to trot along faster each year to repair all the ills accumulated in the last one: it will be from a brisk walk at our current 22.6 million, to a fast trot at 50, and a breath-taking gallop at 100.

Are we being treated like donkeys? Could we infer, based on their arguments, that those boosters are goats?

I'm enjoying how the negatives insist that only methods of fascism can be employed in this situation involving the government actually FORCING people to do anything:
How about this?
1- scrap the baby bonus or any other financial INCENTIVE to have or not have children
2- Stricter immigration requirements to only people with some secular education, and moderate viewpoints towards social realities of Australia. This extends to refugees also. Also advertise these policies abroad to ensure that only people comfortable with secularism and tolerance of moderate people and gay people- among other community members, will be encouraged to come.
3- Encourage and promote contraceptives; remove the stigma.
4- De-demonize abortions in the media and counteract church stereotypes..
5- Allow local residents to input and veto property developments in their local area through CIR and compulsory referendums (something Ross Eliot would surely be furious about but would ensure that development would only occur at the benefit and needs of residents who actually live there and their own population needs).

The end result is a greatly reduced incentive to populate, all of which entirely voluntary with absolutely no input by government at all in anyone's actions. Housing options would shift to places they are actually available, instead of compress wherever lazy developers find most convenient to market.
The best part is, it actually enhances people's rights instead of diminishing them (well, except for developers to impose themselves on communities who don't want it).

There was a second part to my last that I had to wait to post, and then lost.
Oh well. I was saying how the very notion of population restraint was a western conceit, a luxury, and that given the nature of the beast, insatiable growth, also a delusion--and already taking the familiar form of xenophobia that caught on like a virus between the wars, witness Michael Dw's comment: "As a result of more expensive energy and resultant recessison, unemployment will approach numbers not seen since the Great Depression. The result will be that all those immigrants will be standing in line waiting for a handout". All those immigrants are Aussies are they not, or human beings at the least, and therefore our equals..? I don't understand the distinction?

I thus find Dean K's crystal ball gazing delusional, based as it is on the premise that capitalism will continue in a rude state of health unhindered. All such prognostications are projections based on business as usual. But that doesn't look possible, the elephant in the room being peak oil. Dean K's seven point plan is fantasy, that is as applied to current populations, which are unsustainable by anything approaching western standards.
If my notion of capitalism is correct, that it either grows or dies, all such derivitive thinking will end up in the rubbish bin where it belongs.
Interesting times ahead.

Sorry, Mitchell sometimes stands in for Squeers.

King Hazza,

Why scrap the Baby bonus when Oz's natural population without immigrants is in decline?

I like the idea of a financial inducement to not have children - but what happens if one slips through? Do they have to pay the money back or hand over the kid?

2- Stricter immigration requirements to only people with some secular education - that puts out the whole Middle East. They're Muslims you know.

3- No prob with promoting contraceptives and sex education too.

4- How do you 'De-demonize' abortions in the media and counteract church stereotypes when the next PM Tony Abbott is against abortion?

5- Compulsory local referenda? That's for cranks like the gun lobby. Don't go down that path.

I'm glad you didn't mention cutting international students - that's a priority of the Sustainable People Lobby.

You guys know that population is falling in large parts of Europe and Japan don't you? If the anti-pops put just one tenth of their intellectual effort in to designing cities of the future, we'll, we'd still be stuffed, but it would keep them busy for a while.