oh cheryl .. thank you, nicely done.

Mr Smith's article and all of the letters to date do not address one of the fundamental questions: how does Australia actually achieve its desired population? Population change is derived from the excess of births over deaths, and in-migration over out migration. All of government policy is directed toward improving health with a consequence of steadily improving life expectancy. Nobody seriously suggests that should change.
Similarly there is absolutely no control over out-migration and again nobosy seriously suggests that should change. Of in-migration there are in fact many disparate groups including returning Australians, family reunifications, refugee quotas in accordance with our international obligations and so on. The percentage actually subject to control is actually quite small and influenced by a range of factors not directly subject to government intervention; eg the rate of investment affecting employment demand for skilled labor.
That leaves the birth rate. The European experience is that vastly more generous policies aimed at increasing their very low (well below replacement level) birth rates have been almost universally unsuccessful.
In Australia's case our total fertility rate is only fractionally below long term replacement level. Given this and our existing age structure the point at which deaths will exceed births (assuming fertility remains at sub-replacement level) is some decades in the future.
The challenge therefore is to manage our population growth for the forseeable future with sensible policies. Everything else is simply posturing.

@James O'Neill - agreed - if we were to stop all migration we would stop population growth - for it is our migration policy that is the real problem. Note it is the policy not the migrants that is the problem - if people are invited here by our migration programme we cannot hold them responsible for accepting the invitation.
Government and big business like migration for similar reasons. It avoids us having to do something about skilling our population to meet our needs and furthermore it exerts downward pressure on wages and working conditions.
No one can deny that Australia has been enriched by the cultural diversity that has been the fortunate (unintended and much resisted) byproduct of migration but there is such thing as too much of a good thing.
As far as the ageing issue is concerned migration actually makes it worse for you create a population bulge in 20-40 age group without the underpinning of a succeeding generation.
We can solve the so called problem of older people by shifting the funds spent on the baby bonus to fund programmes that encourage employers to employ older workers - there are a great many jobs that many older people would be able and like to do - it is certainly preferable then sitting at home with only day time television for company.

Rhian.

"In a world focused on economic success, the basic health of children is being forgotten. "

http://www.theage.com.au/news/entertainment/tv--radio/suffer-the-little-children/2008/10/01/1222651093091.html

It is questionable that an ageing population is going to increase the costs of running the country,

However I cannot see quality of life improving with an increased population.

It will mean more of a boxed in lifestyle, and more ill health in the longer term.

BAYGON

To say it with O’Henry: “there are two grafts that ought to be banned by law. Business Migration and Business privacy”

"Just like the first century Christians who anticipated the return of Jesus during their lifetime, I suppose. The only thing they were wrong about was the timing."

Pericles, there is hard archeological evidence for the collapse of every single one of the past great civilisations. But there is no hard archeological evidence for the existence of Jesus Christ. So why you are bringing religion into this is beyond me.

In many cases there is varying amounts of evidence, some times debatable, that the past great cilvilisations collapsed also due to ecological overshoot.

A few examples where the archeological evidence for ecological overshoot is strong include the Easter Island/Rapanui civilisation (due to deforestation and over exploitation of wild food resources, the Aztec civilisation (due to irrigation damage) and indeed the Maori civilisation of New Zealand was well on its way to total collapse when Europeans arrived (due to over over exploitation and extinction of wild food resources).

We are currently on the exact same path as the Maori and headed for the same dire situation that Europeans found them in with endemic warfare of scarce resources and canibalism due to lack of other substantial sources of meat.