That's it KAEP, isn't it, the more people (be they immigrants or native-born); the greater the amount of infrastructure required. There's no such thing as a free lunch, as Malcolm Fraser used to say. Large immigration quotas mean we have capital widening (lots of houses that aren't productive in their own right) rather than capital deepening (technology etc) which might actually help the economy. But those of us fighting for population stabilisation/reduction are primarily concerned about the environment and the loss of habitat, pollutants etc that come with bigger populations. We're also concerned about women being coerced into having too many babies,too early, which is a function of the inequality of women in many societies. Population activists want to help women achieve equality and control over their own bodies through universal access to reproductive health services, including contraception, and through equality in education. But I suspect that Cheryl is not interested in any of that - too busy making libellous comments and false assumptions that contribute nothing to this particular debate.

Australia 2012, population ~23 million, median age ~37.5 yrs.

Oh woe be upon us! Our ageing population!

Median ages: Germany 43.7, Finland 41.6, Sweden, 41.7, Netherlands 40.8, Denmark 40.8 etc.

Uganda 15, Ethiopia 16.8, Somalia 17.6 etc.

Have a look at GDP per capita for these countries. An ageing population correlates with wealth not poverty.

Question for growthers; how many immigrants in the 20-30 yr age group will we need per annum to reduce our median age to 37 yrs by 2020 and how will you prevent them from growing old?

A pro-immigration stance is almost invariably an indicator of a spiv with some sort of vested interest in the immigration Ponzi scheme.

Sometimes they try to dress up their interest as humanitarian but that quickly falls away when you suggest replacing economic immigration with humanitarian immigration.

Their economic arguments for immigration also fizzle out with a cursory examination.

Another author writing on population that does not understand that
population is set by the availability of cheap energy.

Energy is getting more expensive so population will fall.
That is all there is to it.

Ross you are conveniently ignoring the fact that Indonesia is a tropical country and if you were remotely scientifically literate you would undertstand that the tropical zone has far higher reliable rainfall and ecological productivity than the souther and nortner laitudes.

This means that tropical countries can, on average, produce more food and sustain larger populations.

Complicating this is Australias highly variable cyclic climatic patterns, impoverished soil, periodic droughts and periodic floods.

All this limits our ability to produce food over the long term. So we might be able to sustain a much larger population in the good years but then when the bad years come many of those hypothetical Australians would be in trouble when it comes to access to good cheap food.

No thanks Ross!

If you admire Indonesia so much then why don't you renounce your Australian citizenship and go an become an Indonesian citizen.

And good ridance to you are your opinions!

Jeeesus Ross you must be thick!

How the hell else do you think it is possible to pack the population of Australia into an area the size of Jakarta, other than through the formation of islands of wealth in a sea of slums!

If you pack that many people together and it is unavoidable that the number who suffer as a resxult exceeds the number who benefit.

It is the very nature of capitalism!

Now Boysley is not listening;
Population is set by energy, whether it be the size of your muscles,
the strength of your oxen or draught horse, or indeed the power of
your steam engine or your tractor.

The cost and availability of energy will determine what appliances you use to produce food.
Rainfall increases or decreases the end result by a small amount but
ultimately it does not have the final say on how much food you produce.

In Australia with a fixed and later decreasing supply of energy we
will have a falling population.
This is the way it is and there is no escaping it, all else is waffle.
Bringing more people into the country will just force us into a crunch
sooner that it would otherwise occur.

The only escape from this regime will be unlimited energy from hot
rocks, cold fusion or some such magic bullet or magic pudding.