Great debate continues here. Pericles and Cheryl, perhaps this comment from Mark O'Connor and the included links might help because what you're failing to grasp is the cost of population growth, Mark writes:

Economists still find it hard to focus on the infrastructure costs of population growth. These amount to at least $200,000 per extra person; and as Jane O'Sullivan elegantly shows in her Online Opinion article (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10137&page=0), they make a nonsense of the economic case for population growth. And absolute nonsense of the case for seeing the enticement of overseas students (with the implied offer of citizwenship) as a profitable industry. ( Australian universities seem to make only about $2000 profit per overseas student per year.)

Worse still, the real infrastructure costs per extra Australian may well be more than double Jane O'Sullivan's conservative figure of $200,000. See Will Bourke's piece on this (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html).

Yet many economists learnt from teachers and textbooks that refused to believe resources could ever run scarce. (If they did, prices would go up, they were taught, and this would supposedly lead to more resources being found, or else a good substitute. There would never be Peak Oil but always Yet More Oil.)

Hence the only constraints on the world's expanding wealth were the availability of capital (no shortage of that sloshing around at present!) and of labour. Hence they keep advising governments that population growth is good for the economy, despite evidence that the infrastructure cost is bankrupting some of the fastest growing parts of Australia, like the state of Queensland.

This piece
(http://theconversation.edu.au/standing-in-the-shadow-of-debt-in-the-sunshine-state-5820?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+19+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+19+2012+CID_c3b7fc6967dca2581d09db3d98e0)
in The Conversation today by Mark McGovern, a senior lecturer in business, economics and finance, is particularly interesting.

continued...

He describes, graphically, how infrastructure costs have bankrupted Queensland, and left politicians with nowhere to go. The public now demands they make huge investments in infrastructure, yet he argues that Queensland's only survival strategy is what he calls “a moratorium on infrastructure” -- and that would be political suicide in the current elections. Queensland, he says, is now on "the path to penury". It cannot even get by by selling off its public assets. That irresponsible strategy has already, he says, been pretty much carried out.

All that's lacking in his analysis is any connection to the two related reasons that Queensland needs so much infrastructure -- spiralling population growth, and reckless go-aheads for resource-extraction projects.

In McGovern's abstract phrasing:
The fundamental problem is that expenditures have not increased returns from production sufficiently. We need to confront the inadequate yields from investments if economic and financial integrity are to be restored in Queensland and across Australia.

Or as I would put it, it's time both governments and economists woke up that pushing up your population tends to make you poorer, and that letting (largely foreign-owned) companies sell off your non-renewable resources for a song won't then rescue your finances.

Matt,

Fine analysis.

The reason it won't get any results is twofold.

1. Canberra is too remote and allows federal politicians to be unaccountable. Parliament must sit in capital cities on a rotational basis so electors can kick their tyres and make sure they know what's really going on at grass root levels.

2. Migrants get the vote far too soon. 10 years is mandatory if you are to defeat the current gross ethnic gerrymander of every electorate in this country. Such gerrymanders put national control effectively in foreign hands. The biggest threat here is a morphing of democracy into a kind of multicultural DICTATORSHIP via very weak puppet leaders at the Federal level.

Australian politicians are lazy and stupid. They have the NUMBERS. They don't need to perform. Recent self promoted pay rises at a time of record immigration levels tend to confirm this.

Lets hope for Australia's sake the above 2 reforms can take the foreign interference out of our economics and politics so WE can get the stability and per-capita economic benefits you espouse.

For what it's worth, migrants (including many recent ones) regularly "get it" better than "long-termers". The majority come for economic reasons and/or a better quality of life - leaving overcrowded places which offer little or no opportunities behind. They know what's at stake.

The Stable Population Party for instance has many members who are recent migrants.

This is indeed reflected in polls where repeatedly 70+% of respondents reject a big Australia. Those pushing for population growth overwhelmingly stand to gain financially from it and are by and large the major donors to the Lib/Labs and perhaps even the Greens if some recent claims by some Green MPs are any indication - but this is increasingly at the expense of the majority and is further misleading because it is actually an anti-humanitarian policy when you understand the consequences and mechanisms at play.

The focus of my posts are really to dispell a lot of the myths that have been sold to Australians for decades.

It's often hard to avoid being misunderstood when trying to make brief comments :)

So, to make it abundantly clear to all etc, I am for immigration as Australia does benefit from it, but I am opposed to GROWING our population through immigration. We can easily accommodate any skills shortages and our generous humanitarian program with a balanced immigration program where immigration equates to emigration (currently emigration sits at around 90,000).

We've had decades of highest-per-capita immigration globally and we are now heading into serious territory - the longer it takes us to move to population stabilising policies, the worse it's going to get and the harder to clean up.

On the other hand, moving to a stable population would re-incentivise training some of our 17.5% un/under employed and working on the 2 million at or below the povertiy line and the further 2 million who are illiterate.

Neat sidebar, WmTrevor.

Also a very nifty way to avoid activating Godwin's Law...

Divergence, this is not a black-and-white issue. It is about creating an intelligent and compassionate balance.

>>Now tell us again, Pericles and Cheryl, how high population growth is so essential for the economy and giving people a decent quality of life.<<

High population growth is not essential for the economy, in the same way that an overdose of aspirin is not essential to cure a headache. However, judiciously applied, according to the circumstances prevailing at the time, modest population growth - or a couple of aspirin - will do the trick.

The view that draconian, absolutist action is essential to solve every economic and social challenge is essentially self-defeating. Pretending that stopping immigration will solve any one problem, any subset of problems, or any global problem at all is to misunderstand the interrelationship between economies and society.

According to Shockadelic, we have spent the past two hundred odd years building an entirely artificial society here in Australia.

>>It is "natural" for people born in Turkey to live in Turkey. It is "artificial" for them to live in Canada, Japan or Argentina.<<

Demotically expressed, this would be stated as "Wogs go home", would it not. Thanks for making your position clear.

And please Ludwig, this is fantasy.

>>Pericles, you have gone to some considerable trouble to explore the nature of Japan’s economy, with the express purpose of looking for whatever you can find to criticise it<<

I have every admiration for Japan and the Japanese economy, having worked there for a while for a Japanese company. All I am doing is pointing out areas where generalized broad-brush theories about this or that founder on the rock of reality. No criticism. Just observation.

>>I repeat: an increasing population is only going to lead to more restrictions upon us all. That is just patently obvious.<<

Oh, really? Tell me, has the population growth of China in the past twenty years resulted in a) more or b) less restrictions on their population?

Pericles, you ask me questions, but you’ve made no attempt to answer my questions! I answered yours last time. How about a level playing field here.

<< I have every admiration for Japan and the Japanese economy… >>

Oh really? Well doesn’t that sit at stark odds with the comments in your last post, and with the notion that it is a poor example of a ‘post-growth’ economy or a state with a stable population!

<< High population growth is not essential for the economy, in the same way that an overdose of aspirin is not essential to cure a headache. However, judiciously applied, according to the circumstances prevailing at the time, modest population growth - or a couple of aspirin - will do the trick. >>

YES!!

And the natural extension of this is; low population growth or moratorium or a progressive winding down could all be totally reasonable actions, depending on the circumstances.

You are highly critical of those who wish to see an end to population growth, even if they want to see it many years into the future, with a gentle approach to it.

This is what I want – a winding down of immigration to net zero over several years, after which we would still have a growing population due to births over deaths, for many years, until it finally stabilises of its own accord.

Now, that is hardly draconian.

It seems that you really are quite confused about this. What you condone as being acceptable and what those you are criticising desire, seem to be perilously close positions!

<< Pretending that stopping immigration will solve any one problem… …is to misunderstand the interrelationship between economies and society. >>

Who’s arguing for a STOP to immigration??

Lowering our very high immigration rate down to net zero or at least a much lower level would be by far the single biggest factor in Australia in moving towards a sustainable future.

Now, I put some very pertinent questions to you in my last post. Could you please address them. Thanks.