That which you characterise as ridicule, Matt Moran, I regard as satire – and self-deprecating at that since I placed myself in the objective.

Besides, which part of my idea wouldn't be 'better' for koalas in the north of Australia?

After all you introduced the point with "you need to make up your mind because the window is closing very quickly. Or perhaps you have already and you simply don't care."

So, now I do care, did make up my mind, acknowledged the window is closing quickly and unlike yourself offered a solution – and you're still unhappy?

Not one person arguing here for state intervention in population control has offered any comment or suggestion that is not inherently self-serving and self-interested or downright selfish – precisely the charges they lay against commenters not in agreement.

Ideologies that seem based on resentment, revenge, revolt and rage seem to me to be undifferentiated from theologies that are also fundamentalist.

Nevertheless, and still in the spirit of trying to help, here is a slogan suggestion:

"You can't screw around with population control"

By the way I was being serious about numbats… although the original plan of breeding for domestication in Australia I heard about was for quolls.

WmTrevor, If you really cared obout Koalas, you would have an active breeding program.

Divergence, Your posts always rely on the State to fix what is wrong, Why do you not place any faith in the private sectors ability to deliver.?

"Ferocious competition" from nearly a million temporary migrants, including students, backpackers and short-term workers, is fueling Australia's youth unemployment," Professor Birrell warns in a provocative study to be released today.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/student-visas-used-as-back-door-by-foreign-workers-says-monash-university-study/story-e6frg6n6-1226516962190

With our youth and other of our most vulnerable and needy groups squeezed out of opporutnitties for lower skilled jobs, homelessness becomes a bigger problem:
"There were 49 homeless people for every 10,000 persons, up from 45 per 10,000 in 2006, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday show."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/homelessness-on-the-increase-census-data/story-e6frf7kf-1226515142385

"Ideologies that seem based on resentment, revenge, revolt and rage seem to me to be undifferentiated from theologies that are also fundamentalist."

Hmm, wasn't that what you were proposing though Trevor? A fundamentalist resolution to the problem?

In relation to being selfish - well of course. All motives are for selfish reasons. Why would you expect them to be otherwise? Yet, we still have the question at hand.

Further, if you look at my comments, they are following 3 key well-reasoned ideas and further, if we continue on the track we are on, the above extremes will become ever-more manifest as we are seeing elsewhere.

a) vastly more are suffering and will suffer than are benefitted by us growing our population above current levels and in particular - whether you agree or disagree is up to you.

b) if our intention is to serve a humanitarian purpose, then one must note that some 50,000 people currently die every day of starvation or easily treatable condition - if we are acting in truly humanitarian interests, then this should be our priority

c) we cannot hope to functionally assist those in b) or more broadly the billion chronically hungry by populating ourselves into bankruptcy/poverty - this is looking increasingly unavoidable.

Based on the above, the most reasonable suggestion is to seek to stabilise our population as soon as practical and devote as much foreign aid as possible into helping overpopulated countries move to stable populations that are living sustainably.

Perhaps you see no reason to do this. and are happy with how things are travelling. That's entirely up to you, but if you are at all uncertain, then perhaps you might like to consider looking at political parties who are more in line with the above values. Perhaps you don't have children and don't intend to and are unconcerned with continued wholesale development of what's left of our inhabitable land??

Haaaaa hahahahaaaa!!

Pericles you’re hilaaaarious!

Anything that goes against your beloved ongoing rapid rate of immigration is nothing more than someone’s opinion. And yet anything that you can find that supports your growth obsession must be indisputable fact!

Oh, am I overstating it a tad?

No………… I don’t think I am. This seems to be right on the mark.

Oh hold on…. you don’t need ANY corroborating information. That’s right; your position doesn’t need justification at all. I almost forgot; the current immigration / population growth scenario is just innately the best thing for our country!!

So um, in the interests of trying to regain some sense in this discussion, would you care to proffer a sensible response to this statement from my last post….

>> No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years of the mining boom, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth. <<

And yes the beach was lovely today thankyou. The mild weather with low humidity has continued right up to the middle of spring, which is much later than usual. No sign of wet season build-up yet.