James O'Neill,

If you scroll down to the bar chart in this report showing legal immigration to the US from 1820 to 1994, you will see that a government can indeed cut off most immigration very quickly.

http://www.cis.org/1965ImmigrationAct-MassImmigration

As I posted on the previous "Thought Bubbles" thread, the US elite after World War I were very frightened by the Russian Revolution, continuing violent labour unrest, horrific riots involving black Americans and the migrants displacing them from their jobs, and a series of anarchist bombings, often targeted at individuals. They managed to shut down mass migration very quickly, among other measures aimed at reversing globalisation. If businesses were concerned about skilled workers, they had to train them themselves. Disaster didn't happen, even with immigration near or below zero net.

Australia is not going to run out of workers generally, either. According to the Australia Institute, our method of calculating unemployment only includes less than a third of the people who want a job, but don't have one. Including these people would give a true unemployment rate of 14.3%, and it would be 20.5% if we include the underemployed.

https://www.tai.org.au/?q=node/254

Of course businesses would have to submit to the indignity of hiring older workers and disabled people, or even having to train young apprentices.

Natural increase is harder to influence, but is only a temporary problem at best. The fertility rate has been below replacement level since 1976. Most of our population growth is coming from immigration.

Australia potentially can support a much greater population than it already has. Examination of much more intensely populated areas of the world shows how that might be done. In those parts, we see many more smaller towns interconnected by good quality road/rail infrastructure.

Australia is characterised by very concentrated populations in large cities. In the Brisbane - Sydney - Melbourne - Adelaide corridor there is heaps of potential to develop many new towns that are sufficiently large to support either an industry or a decentralised government department or similar.

The real constraint on population growth is not water, per se, but infrastructure. What is clear is that larger population generates substantially greater economic activity and taxation revenue.

The real weakness in Australian governance is the lack of sound long term planning. The short electoral cycle means that few governments give any attention to longer term planning issues. It is surely possible to set population objectives and to develop plans to achieve those goals

Ah this is great. At last this subject seems to be getting the attention it deserves from OLO posters.

Good on you Dick Smith!!

It seems that a high-profile person from the business community that has seen the light and come over strongly and determinedly to the sensible side of the discussion is just what we needed to really get the population and sustainability debate rocking in this country.

Wonderful stuff!

And onya Cheryl, Pericles and a couple of others for promulgating the debate!

Dear Herbert Stencil

If you looked at GDP per capita rather than total GDP, you would find extra people don't add to well-being, assuming GDP is a measure of well-being. And why must we pave over other species' habitats? Surely other species have rights too.

popnperish,

GDP is the measure of economic "well-being". It is a quantitative measurement, not a qualitative one.

Growth and overpopulation past a certain point contributes to a sense of dissatisfaction among the populace because the quality of life diminishes.
Paradoxically, however, people who are discontented will always want "more" and will seek it through increased material consumption as an artificial device to make themselves happier....the merry-go-round just goes faster.

Dick Smith is right if we can reform the financial system.Our present system must have growth,since our growth with the sale of all our Govt banks gets expressed as debt because the private banking system creates the money to equal it in their computers.So the more growth we have,the more debt we incur.To overcome this bleeding of money from the real economy we need inflation so the banks again create our inflation as debt.

Our pop would be falling if not for immigration.25% of our pop was born OS.It is the financial system that pushes for immigration.Ordinary workers are not getting the benefits of growth now,so why have immigration that is driving our wages lower?