"The population control movement invokes the concept of lebensraum. Nations must accommodate biological processes of growth". Australia's population growth is not driven by "biological processes of growth", considering our below long-term replacement levels of fertility. What's driving our population growth is Net Overseas Migration, or the number of people arriving here to live, less the number of Australians going to live abroad. According to the ABS, 60% of our population growth is from immigration. The idea of population "control" alludes to forced sterilizations, abortions, coercion and breeding according to racial or desired physical features! The Sustainable Population Party of Australia support no such things! What they really support should be available on their website, not assumed. It's an acknowledgement that the world is finite, and productivity and growth can't continue forever. Sustainability is what we are all trying to achieve, and population growth is a multiplier of all the challenges we face in a world of decline, depletions, species extinctions, "peaks", climate change, over-fishing, pollution and food security issues. Nothing can grow forever. Why should women only be burdened with responsibility for family planning, and birth control?

Good morning Malcolm.

Thanks for keeping this subject in the spotlight.

Cheers.

"to defray significant revenue outlays from now until about 2050."

Don't worry about after 2050. With AGW there won't be any to worry about.

Malcolm

Who pays you to write this rubbish?

People do increase carbon emissions - they breathe and a lot of them eat meat of ruminants that emit methane when they burp. There's a huge discrepancy between the biggest and smallest emitters, nevertheless, in Australia, population growth contributes 84 per cent to our growth in emissions.

I'm not sure whether any men from Stop Population Growth Now or from Stable Population Party or Sustainable Population Australia will be going for the 'snip' on Friday, nevertheless, most of the men I know in the population movement have had it done happily already.

People in the population movement don't hate people - many are motivated by the suffering of people caused by the imbalance between resources and population. Many others in the population movement are motivated by the effects on wildlife (loss of biodiversity) caused by too many people. But these are altruistic positions to take, surely, not to be derided

Malcolm (continued)...

You sure got in a muddle over statistics, didn't you? How many people leave Australia in one year is of course significant but it's net migration that counts (immigration minus emigration). And if you would care to go the latest ABS catalogue 3101.0 you will see that in the year ending March 2013 Australia's population grew by just under 400,000, 60 per cent of which was from net overseas migration. Yes, the fertility rate is below replacement but it takes decades before natural increase goes negative. Right now it's still well over 150,000.

You're up to your old tricks in trying to denigrate SPA by association. SPA works happily with the UK's Population Matters but they didn't have to tell SPA what to think - SPA has been thinking this way since its inception 25 years ago. SPA has a friendly connection with Roy Beck of NumbersUSA but SPA looks primarily at population as a whole (from whatever source) while NumbersUSA primarily focuses on immigration. They simply want to get it back to manageable levels. At the moment it is out of control and disadvantaging African-Americans in particular. Which brings me to the point of "Who is racist?" Those condoning the mass immigration to the US are actively acting against the interests of poor African-Americans. Add that to the inherent sexism of your position which, by denying legitimacy to the population movement and justifying the status quo, is basically denying women access to contraception and control over their own bodies.

I really don't understand why anyone would believe that the right of the slugs, caterpillars, rhinoceros and rose bushes to grow and reproduce needs to be protected while that of humans doesn't.

People are being turned against each other by the Green lobby which values acorn trees and mosquitoes more than people.

The Green Left are all about controlling peoples behaviour,not saving anything and reproductive control is but one way to do it.