Dear KEAP,

You are a true patriot. You want less Australians in Australia to save Australia from Australians. The fact that you are the titular head of the Sustainable Population Party or People for a Sustainable Party (People's Front of Judea?) gives your opinions a gravitas beyond words. I commend your forthrightness.

Do you think Gillard will personally teach us Mandarin or will that be done in person via house calls from the People's Liberation Army?

Pericles keeps asserting (without evidence) that our politicians are boosting the population in our interest, that it would all go pear-shaped if they weren't doing this. I don't dispute that it is in the interests of the developers and Big Business interests that donate to the major parties. They get bigger domestic markets, easy profits from ownership of real estate and other vital resources, and a cheap, compliant work force. What I question is whether it is in the interests of the vast majority of the population. I have referred to a number of studies, which Pericles ignores, with evidence that this is not the case.

A good test case is Japan, where the population is actually shrinking, albeit slowly. See

http://makewealthhistory.org/2011/02/01/japan-the-worlds-first-post-growth-economy/

"As far as economists are concerned, this is a tragedy and a disaster. How the mighty have fallen. Japan’s GDP is essentially unchanged since the early nineties, its share of global GDP falling from 17 to just 4%. China overtook it last year to become the world’s second largest economy, and now it limps along as a economic failed state, a cautionary tale for students of capitalism.

"And yet, the lights are still on, everything still works. Literacy is high, and crime is low. Life expectancy is better than almost anywhere on earth – 82 years to the US’ 78. The trains run to the second. Unemployment is only 5%, and levels of inequality are enviable. Real per capita income growth matches America’s at 0.7% over the past decade. It’s hardly a basket case. In fact, it is living proof that growth isn’t necessary to deliver a high standard of living."

See also this article from the Economist, where they say that per capita GNP in Japan has been growing faster than in the US or Europe.

http://www.economist.com/node/21538745

<<The government is perpetuating a policy that has been in place for many decades...It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year>>

On the other hand, the below does seem to suggest that some of those much needed skilled migrants weren't quite so much needed after all.

“A new study has found that almost half of Australia's skilled migrants from non-English speaking countries cannot get a job in their field of expertise”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-29/study-highlights-visa-issues-for-skilled-migrants/2418600

Nah, on second thought’s --you're absolute right.

It is obviously only a *discrimination* problem. We’ll fix that right quick by introducing a whole new raft of anti-discrimination legislation.

Cheryl "yep, that's what people do Shockadelic. Use heaters, drive cars, I even hear they use high speed drills and eat food."

Yes, they consume resources. Resources are not infinite. Therefore there is a finite number of people who can live here. You cannot just keep increasing the population forever. When will the limit be reached for you, 50 million, 100 million, 1600 million?
Why even risk reaching maximum capacity? Why not stop while there's still room to move?

"Your default position is not to do away with the heater, cars or food but to do away with the people."

Please! Stop or slow immigration and you are not "doing away" with anyone. Those people live elsewhere and would remain living there. You haven't "done" anything to them at all.

Pericles "There's nothing "artificial" about it, Shockadelic. The government is perpetuating a policy that has been in place for many decades..."

If you take 100,000 people who were not living here, then bring them into Australia, that is "artificial". You have changed actual reality, through what, Pericles? Government ACTIONS.
No person can migrate without the government's permission.
It is not an act of nature. It is a political decision, which "artificially" changes the natural state of things.
A long history of immigration doesn't make it any less "artificial".

"It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year."

Nonsense. If that were true, it would have stopped dead in its tracks during the GFC.
And almost half of immigration is not "skilled" at all. How does our economy "need" those people?
Most of our "unskilled" work is being outsourced to the developing countries most immigrants now come from. Wouldn't they really be "needed" where they already are?

<< It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year >>

Whaaat??

Pericles, this is just rubbish! It is adjusted to meet the desires of developers and big business interests, as Divergence says.

On one hand you seem to have confidence that our government is doing the right thing with its management of the immigration rate while on the other hand you are extremely critical of them for apparently sticking their noses too far into our lives!

Erm….. it… doesn’t… add… up!

You hate the increasing restrictions that we are all facing, which come largely in the form of government-implemented laws and regulations. But you just won’t admit that rapid population growth is a big factor if not the biggest factor that is driving this momentum.

Keeping population growth and the ultimate size of the population down, erring on the side of caution, striving to make sure that the demand for our basic resources can be comfortably met in an ongoing manner... this is what we need to keep restrictions to a minimum and the level personal freedoms to the maximum.

Come on, you can see this simple logic, but are just loathe to admit it.

Hey, I had a nice day at the beach. A swim, a run and a snooze under a Casuarina tree. I trust your day in Smogsville wasn’t too depressing.

Whats that about immigration?

The level of immigration is similar to that of 20 or 30 years ago but the balance or equation is different. 70 per cent of migrants enter under the Skills category: 129,000 and 58,000 in family reunion. In 2010, 168 700 planned places were allocated to the Migration Program comprising 113 850 places in the skill stream, 54 550 places in the family stream and 300 special eligibility places for former residents.

You people have no idea. You really need to go back to school or uni and study how a modern economy works before you make outlandish and fundamentally flawed comments online.

At the core of your anti-people stance is a political desire to set Australian against Australian, to raise trade walls and create Fortress Australia.