Excellent work Peter!

At long last, the P word gets dealt with in a sensible, sensitive manner.

Given that polls reflect that the majority of Australians reject a big Australia, and for good reason, it's great that we now have a choice with the Australian Stable Population Party.

Atman,

a) Malthus was making observations that have proven true and are currently being proven true - some 50,000 people starve to death every day and we're heading towards ecological collapse. You need to look at population overshoot as we are currently eating into the world's ecological capital. Further, consider what's going to happen post cheap oil.

b) You're assuming that population growth is a given - but human desire is the key driver of TFR. Population stabilisatin is readily acheivable, it's misguided individuals such as yourselve that seem to be unable to resist posting erroneous conclusions/arguments which contribute in keeping people in misery and our ecological destruction on the move. Brazil inadvertently dropped the TFR with popular TV shows. Further, Australa's population is growing as fast as it is primarily from immigration - last year, births over deaths was about 150K, immigration net was 200K, add into this long stay visas and you're looking at a totally out of whack system which is a direct driver for our economic and ecological woes.

c) "The belief that we have "too many people" for our food resources is demonstrably incorrect" - there are so many problems with this statement it's hard to know where to start. You need to look at overshoot, peak cheap oil, peak debt etc etc, you need to look at cultural values, education, female empowerment etc. You need to look at global health, fish stocks, grain production and that of and other staples.

If you want to demonstrate that things are false, then you need to do better than just saying they are. I can guarantee that you're reasoning can readily be shot down.

"The Stable Population Party believes that women should have freedom to choose how many children they want and how they want to space those children for the benefit of the family, without government bribing them to have a child."

The story started out OK and then ended up in Somalia. This is a knee jerk reaction to cutting the second child baby bonus by $2K. Fair enough. It was unfunded Howard promise which had no effect on population. A blip up in its first year and them zip.

Actually, people (men) who start telling women its OK to have kids and use throw away book titles like Milton Friedman's 'Freedom to Choose' are invariably not liberals, not for small government and not for women. Have a nice night.

At last someone is talking sense. The facts on population control in Iran made for interesting reading. Apart from educating women, the message also needs to be got across to the fundamentalist religious fringe who don't want populations controlled.

Sorry Altman, Malthus did have it right. Left to nature populations would self-regulate but by providing food and medicine from outside we interfere with that regulatory process.

Cheryl: "Actually, people (men) who start telling women its OK to have kids and use throw away book titles like Milton Friedman's 'Freedom to Choose' are invariably not liberals, not for small government and not for women. Have a nice night."

This makes no sense to me. So using the statement here, men who tell women it's not OK to have kids, and should not have the freedom to choose, are liberals that are for small government and are for women?

This has shattered my worldview.