*Dick Smith recently ran TV ads where his staff were a happy multicultural group of people, happily displaying Dick's range of electrical products.*

Err Cheryl, last time I checked, Dick Smith sold that business to
Woolies, about 20 years ago. With your information so out of
date, no wonder your arguments are so flawed.

I think that Dick has actually written a very good article,
but posters like Cheryl and Pericles will seemingly continue
to be blinded by those bright shining city lights.

Fact is that Perth today depends on gas for its water.
Without it, the city would be stuffed. Recently I saw
a documentary about rubbish dumps. The city of New York
trucks its rubbish hundreds of km to get rid of it, in
trucks burning what is still cheap oil. Beyond the
glow of those lights, things get pretty messy.

Dick is clearly thinking about the ramifications beyond
the cheap energy genie which now powers our cities.

Good on him.

Mr Smith is correct, control the flood of people into this country, or we will end up like some of the tattier and impoverished (both morally, spiritually and finaciallly) parts of Europe.
Have a look at Africa; you don't need a crystal ball.

My thanks to Dick for a calm and measured article that is spot on. There is no point in further population growth, unless you have a vested interest such as property developers or businesspeople wanting a bigger market or Catholics defending outdated encyclicals. We may assume Cheryl fits one of those. Ordinary people and other species do not benefit from continuing human population growth. We have at least two major crises confronting us and we must adopt a very cautionary attitude. These crises are climate change and peak oil. Given that both will affect food security adversely, we may well find ourselves in a situation of food shortages and even famine in some parts of the world before the decade is out, even this year.

Bravo Dick Smith. A true national hero.

" It's a moot point whether Australia can maintain its living standards with a stable population (Queensland has just been deemed the worst performing economy in Australia precisely because of stagnant population growth), but there is no question as to the dubious ethics of its luxuriating in a relatively provincial haven that it maintains by unsustainable practices, including population growth "off shore"."

It is also moot that Australia, or any other country, can maintain its living standard through population growth.

A growing population means an ever thinner slice of the economic pie, even if it growing. And the cost of living pie usually grows a lot faster than the economic pie for the majority of ordinary Australians.

I put it to you that those who will suffer the most as a result of a stable population will be the minority big end of town who are shouting the loudest for population growth.

The majority of ordinary Australians will benefit from a stable population with falling cost of living pressures and easy congestion etc.

The big end of town will just have to learn to live with less wealth and ptivaledges.......to bad so sad.

Dick Smith admits he's made more out of real estate than he did with Electronic Dicks. This makes properties dearer, so the answer is ZPG? Give me problem-solvers anyday rather than Malthusian problem-creating doomsayers. Malthus is still wrong.