Any viable political party which offers an option for stabilising our out of control population explosion and then reducing it to a sustainable level will have my full support.
Which leaves only this party.

Every now and then some popular character shows up with some popularist ideas. (Joh for Canberra, one nation) And history show that being popular just doesn't cut it! What this country needs is a visionary leader willing to buck the tide and take the nation with him/her!

And given the latest suite of policies, They have such a leader in Malcolm Turnbull! Simply pulling the plug on essential migration is just plain dumb, and just what you'd expect of a dangerous ideologue with a locked and bolted mindset and simplistic ideas?

For heaven's sake, we are a nation of immigrants, with our best days in front of us! We just don't need to start cutting immigration numbers. What we need is decentralisation and ensuring the infrastructure backlog is a thing of the past!
Rhrosty.

ateday, another bunch of naive, idealistic fools who are splitting the vote yet further. VOTE ALA.

Rhosty, why do you hate your grand daughters so much? Kevin Polly Waffle Turnbull is 100% evil, even worse than Slick Willie Shorten. i will preference Lie-Bore ahead of the LNP if Tony Abbott is not brought back.

Rhrosty,

The problem with the infrastructure backlog is that a new resident immediately needs the full complement of infrastructure right away, roads, schools, hospitals, sewage works, power plants, the lot. Assuming that infrastructure has an average lifespan of 50 years, a country with a stable population would need to spend 2% of the real cost of building the infrastructure in the first place just on necessary replacements and maintaining standards. If your population is growing at 2%, as ours was a few years ago, mostly due to immigration and births to recent migrants, then you need to spend twice as much. At the same time, your tax base has only gone up by 2%. The newcomers will (usually) end up contributing enough to pay their share, but it may take decades. At the same time more and more people are pouring in. No wonder we have an $700 billion infrastructure backlog.

Here is what Bob Carr (former NSW Premier) said in a interview in The Saturday Paper (7/11/2015):

“We’re a developed country with a Third World rate of population growth,” says former New South Wales premier Bob Carr, one of the relatively few in this country’s business/political elite who is not a spruiker for “Big Australia”.

“My government was spending on non-Olympics infrastructure at real levels two-thirds higher than the average for the 1980s, but force-fed population growth runs so strongly that no government can catch up.

“With population growth this rapid it is literally impossible to keep pace with infrastructure. You cannot possibly maintain spending at adequate levels to meet the huge challenge this represents.”

Dear Rhrosty,

Malcolm Turnbull is just the other side of the Tony Abbott coin.

MANDARIN, HINDI, or.....?

With only 24 million people, just a boat ride away from the world's two largest countries, way past time to encourage citizens to take up a language - and prepare for the inevitable.

If Mandarin or Hindi don't excite,try Bahasa. Or perhaps Arabic?

An 'innovative' thought would be to completely dismantle ALL national borders and just let 'citizens of our joint world' move around as they can afford it . . . . after all the fact that some nations are fortunate to have mountains of iron ore to flog and/or uranium or oil or whatever . . . is not because they actually grew the stuff . . . . in a true Sociologist socialist framework does not it belong to everybody? including the Chinese who have a mantra of espousing when it suits them of 'Socialism with Chinese characteristics'. . . but what about their record of Human rights and the fact that freedom of speech and religion is only correctly interpreted by The Party? "Now don't you worry about that!" [aka a deceased but 'innovative' Qld Premier] just flog them more iron ore/uranium when the prices hopefully pick up a bit. . . "Workers of the world unite - We alone know what is right!" [or should that be Left?]

Hi Alice,

Actually Bahasa Indonesia is a beautiful language, and not too hard to learn, for at least its basics. Beautiful language, beautiful people - you know it makes sense.

G'day Ateday,

Australia's birth-rate is well below replacement level - in fact, our birth-rate is held up by the family generation of new arrivals. Our potential workforce is on the verge of declining, while our over-65s are about to increase rapidly: i.e. the ratio of workers to dependents is about to rise significantly. We need young people to keep the economy to even at its present levels. So where do we get them ?

But jobs in the near and more distant future will be predicated on skills. We certainly don't need any more unskilled people, we need skilled people - frankly, hungry, innovative, bright young highly skilled people. The problem is that they will probably have to come from overseas and thereby deplete their own countries of skilled people UNLESS the education systems (and human rights systems) there in those countries can be improved.

I suppose that's when it gets complicated.

Cheers,

Joe

Divergence,
If governments didn't have an irrational fear of debt, that would not be a problem at all.

_______________________________________________________________________________

CIA,
Your waffle doesn't make much sense.

Come on Syd, open your eyes a bit.

Turnbull is a catastrophe. Running around the world blowing his fool mouth off, & handing out our cash to try to buy some approval. Give the fool half a chance & he'll give our birth right to the UN, just to receive the pat on the head his ego is desperate for.

Did you notice the swing in the by-election? A catastrophe as expected by thinking people, & this is even before most of the population have woken up to the peanut.

If he is still Liberal leader at the next election, expect a bloodbath, worse than Gillard deserved & received. She was nowhere near as bad as Turnbull. Gillard was just a fool, Turnbull is a bloody minded fool.

Even I could vote Labor. If we are going to have an idiot giving us bad government, we might as well have the experts in bad government, rather than this waffling clown.

Oh dear me, look at all the good ol' boys still crying into their hankies about the loss of their great right PM. It almost moves me to tears of laughter reading it all.
Turnbull is doing well boys...get over it and vote for labour if you don't like that fact.

As for any little group of millionaires scraping together an anti-immigration party making any bit of difference to the political landscape, forget it. One only needs to look at the train wrecks caused by Palmer, and that similar American idiot Trump, to see that money can't produce successful politicians or political parties.

Dick should just stick with electronics, and leave politics well alone...

Not sure what Dick Smith (former sceptic) et al are on but they do not seem to understand basic science and evidence, but more about expressing strong biases and prejudices, at best 'pseudoscience'.

From Salon, featuring New Scientist writer Fred Pearce's book:

'In his latest book, “The Coming Population Crash: And Our Planet’s Surprising Future,” Pearce argues that the world’s population is peaking. In the next century, we’re heading not for exponential growth, but a slow, steady decline. This, he claims, has the potential to massively change both our society and our planet: Children will become a rare sight, patriarchal thinking will fall by the wayside, and middle-aged culture will replace our predominant youth culture. Furthermore, Pearce explains, the population bust could be the end of our environmental woes. Fewer people making better choices about consumption could lead to a greener, healthier planet.'

http://www.salon.com/2010/04/19/population_crash_ext2010/

Not only does he write based on empirical evidence, i.e. facts and reality, in the book Pearce also cites one of Australia's most famous demographic researchers Jack Caldwell https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Caldwell_(demographer)

What he learnt aboout Bob Malthus through to the 'population bombers' and Club of Rome with their 'sustainable environment' and 'steady state' ideas or untested theory is really about, and it's not quantitative, but 'qualitative' :)

Or as Monbiot says, they ignore any correlation between ageing white wealthy types' (massive footprint) with environment issues, but focus on a supposed correlation between non-Europeans and environment issues wink wink... but they are not bigots, ust very concerned environmentalists.

Hi icallmyselfacentristmoderatenoseriously,

Always good for a laugh :)

"Loudmouth, so you want even more boat people to take more land & jobs away from the black-fellahs, nice."

I suggested that, in the future, Australia will need highly skilled young people, and with our birth-rate so low, that would mean that we would have to encourage many of those highly skilled people to migrate to Australia.

If Indigenous people could get highly skilled in large enough numbers, that would be wonderful - along with other Australians. But Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, are not getting skilled in sufficient numbers for a future advanced economy.

Certainly, between a fifth and a quarter of young Indigenous adults are now enrolling and graduating at universities, but they can't carry the load - they make up only 2.5% of Australia's population.

Even Indigenous women, who are now participating in and graduating from universities at a higher rate than non-Indigenous Australian men, can't be expected to do the job - there are fewer 170,000 Indigenous women in the country, and the 27,000 female graduates (roughly one in six women, one in four in the cities) are not going to make much difference to the overall Australian picture: we will need at least hundreds of thousands of skilled people, perhaps millions over time.

Boat people were not necessarily highly skilled. The young people that we need will, far more likely, come to Australia as part of our standard migration quotas.

Do you have anything positive to suggest, instead of " .... all we need to do is get young women out of the workforce & on their backs making babies", a proposal which is not likely to be taken up ?

Cheers,

Joe

imacentristmoderate, government debt doesn't itself kill anything. But irrational fear of debt has prevented governments from investing in the infrastructure we need.

And didn't SE Queensland build a desalination plant?

Aidan,

You effectively want to socialise the costs of a big immigration program. Big business and the politicians get the benefits of a bigger aggregate GDP, more customers, higher prices for urban land, good profits from lending the money to buy that land, a cheaper and more compliant work force, etc., but it is the whole of the community that gets to pay the interest on your loans and pay for your desalination plant, which wouldn't be needed without such a big population.

Ordinary people also get the joys of an oversupplied labour market where they have little bargaining leverage, more pressure on the environment, more congestion and longer commuting, higher utility bills, permanent water restrictions, smaller and more expensive housing with less open space, etc. Where is the enormous benefit that would justify all that? Why should we care if Harry Triguboff or the CEOs of the big banks get a few more million apiece? Economist Leith van Onselen debunks the argument that there is a significant economic benefit for the majority of the population

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/08/ipa-urges-massive-population-ponzi/

A vote for the Sustainable Australia party gives you a chance to say no.

Loudmouth,

You are forgetting about demographic momentum. Our population isn't declining. Even with zero net immigration, our population would still be growing at about a quarter of our current rate and wouldn't start to very slowly decline until some time in the 2030s. Economic insecurity, overcrowding, and high housing costs are poison for fertility rates, so these are the problems you need to address if you want more babies. None of them are helped by very high immigration.

http://www.publicceo.com/2013/09/city-leaders-are-in-love-with-density-but-most-city-dwellers-disagree/

See also these maps showing the inverse correlation between population density and fertility rates in some European and East Asian countries.

http://jaymans.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/another-tale-of-two-maps/

One of the most significant drivers of both our estimated resident population and permanent/citizen, is ageing population at about one third of the former and possibly half of the latter.

Accordingly, stopping immigration, both permanent and temporary could well have zero effect.

What is the solution from Dick Smith et al, and their international counterparts? You don't need to read between the lines, as some have been quite open about it e.g. Ehlrich's old mate, John Tanton, i.e. eugenics.

The more civilised and rational approach is using temp turnover to prop up the tax base without drawing on pensions and health care, so that oldies can be cared for.

Andras,

Every time that you insinuate that we are racists or give a damn about John Tanton or eugenics, I am going to raise your economic interest in high immigration.

Andras also posts on The Conversation where commenters have to give their real names. He has admitted that he is Andrew Smith, Education Consultant at Australian & International Education Centre

I found this on his company's website:

"Central Europe and Turkey education & training services and consulting including market development, digital marketing & promotion, recruitment, study application, visa, migration referral, accommodation assistance and marketing services.

"Marketing services & consulting focuses upon digital channels to increase awareness, range, depth and breadth of an institution's potential market.

"AIECS's focus for market development and student recruitment is between Australia, Europe and Turkey (& Turkic Republics)."

Which is more likely? That Andras really cares about racism or eugenics (which are totally absent from the policies of Sustainable Australia), or that he is worried about his income stream?

Attack the messenger, how about the message i.e. facts, evidence and analysis :)

PS I have nothing to hide, who are you Divergence, Andrew Bolt?

Andras,

It wouldn't have done you any good to deny being Andrew Smith, as you are well aware. I would have just copied and pasted one of his rants next to one of yours and let people draw their own conclusions. You haven't exactly been issuing conflict of interest declarations on your posts. Nor do I see any reason to reveal my real name. My arguments stand or fall on their own, or are backed up by credible authorities.

As for the substance of your arguments, this thread is about Australia's population, not the global population. Arguing about whether population or consumption is more to blame for our global predicament is like arguing about whether the size of a rectangle is determined by the length or the width. Population multiplies the impact of average consumption. Some consumption is necessary for survival, and considerably more is necessary for anything like a decent quality of life. The Global Footprint Network has estimated that it would take the resources of approximately 3 Earths to give everyone in the present population a modest Western European standard of living.

http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/earth_overshoot_day/

It is good news that fertility rates have come down in much of the world, but there is still a lot of demographic momentum and a lot of people who haven't gotten the message. The population of Syria has more than quadrupled since 1960, for example.

Your idea about temporary workers here in Australia might make sense if we had full employment. The ABS definition of unemployment is absurdly restrictive. Roy Morgan Research just asks people if they are unemployed or if they want more hours if they are working part-time. By their figures nearly 20% of our working age population is unemployed or underemployed. We are already supporting or heavily subsidising most of these people.

http://www.roymorgan.com/morganpoll/unemployment/underemployment-estimates

Once all of these people have full-time jobs and we have raised the retirement age for people who aren't worn out or disabled, then we can talk about temporary workers.

There is neither evidence, nor a picture of how a 'low population (growth)' nirvana will look?

Regarding unemployment and population, according to research:

'In fact evidence from Australia and internationally shows that immigration actually creates jobs. In his book, Immigration and the Australian Economy, William Foster’s surveys over 200 studies on immigration and wages. He found there was, “a marginally favourable effect on the aggregate unemployment rate, even in recession”.'

http://www.solidarity.net.au/mag/back/2012/48/immigration-is-not-to-blame-for-cuts-to-jobs-and-wages/

Footprint network, anyone with analytical skills should be sceptical when they hear 'neo Malthusian' expressions like 'sustainability', 'steady state economy', 'zero population growth', 'carrying capacity', 'limits to growth', 'overshoot' etc..

This suggest an 'autarkist' economy, of which there are or have been numerous examples, but have any worked? It seems more about preserving privilege for the elite?

Further, all roads to lead to Rome, i.e. the Club of Rome, sponsored by VW and held on the Rockefeller's estate, you know global presence in fossil fuels, pharma and banking (lets not discuss their earlier obsessions about 'humanity'....)?

The same old names keep popping up, well known in USA in black, hispanic etc. media, but not elsewhere, i.e. the Footprint Network's advisors in the shadows are Lovejoy, Rees, Herman Daly, Myers etc.

Herman Daly developed the 'steady state' ideas, along with Ehlrich colleague of Tanton's at Zero Population Growth (Phillip Adams asked him why are large parts of his biography missing? For good reason...), Garrett Hardin 'Tragedy of the Commons', et al.

While presenting as concerned environmentalists' based on Club of Rome's ideas (not empirical science), but difficult to disprove, i.e. plausible, they are often the focus of ADL Anti Defamation League and SPLC Southern Poverty Legal Center..... for the 'types' they assoociate with in the USA.... 'good old boys'.

For a viewpoint on 'Greenwashing Nativism':

'From climate change to deforestation, FAIR (Ehrlich, Tanton et al) is pushing xenophobia as good eco-politics.'

http://www.thenation.com/article/greenwashing-nativism/

It's a good fit for 'illiberal democracies' wishing to keep the status quo, but it's not much to do with humanity let alone the environment.

For Xmas some reading about 'Using climate change to question immigration' https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/politics/2015/12/12/using-climate-change-question-immigration/1449838800273

Anyone who thinks that either population or consumption can grow without limit on a finite earth is an idiot who doesn't understand elementary mathematics. Warnings about various limits to growth aren't just coming from fringe organisations, as Andras the population booster wants to imply. They are coming from mainstream scientists who publish in Nature and Science, our very top journals. See, for example, this one, which attempts an overview of the total picture

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

open version: http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/

No doubt Andras will tell you that the authors, the referees, and the editors of Nature are all closet Nazis.

No one is proposing that we stop all immigration. That would be silly. The question is whether we want to keep doubling our population every 40 or 50 years. Andras needs to explain why countries with very little population growth or immigration, such as Denmark, are still performing well economically and giving their people good lives. If immigration on a massive scale is such a boon, why has growth in our GDP per capita been anemic since 2007 and why has National Disposable Income per capita been going down since 2011?

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2015/09/gdp-at-0-2-did-the-aussie-economy-just-snap/

Why is the decline worst in Victoria, which has had exceptionally high immigration? Why have wages for most American men been stagnant or declining in real terms since 1973? The US opened up to mass migration in 1965, although it took a while to build up steam. Why hasn't it made ordinary people better off?

Hi Divergence,

Still sore :)

You rightly note that: "Anyone who thinks that either population or consumption can grow without limit on a finite earth is an idiot who doesn't understand elementary mathematics."

Of course. I wonder who would be that stupid: 'without limit'. Or even 'at current rates'. In calculating future Indigenous university student and graduate numbers, extrapolating current growth rates well into the future, I've been guilty of something similar - from memory, once when the blood was really rushing to my head, I extrapolated to 2050 or 2060 and found that the entire Indigenous population were graduates, including babies and young children. So I sort of tweaked my figures, then eventually abandoned the whole future-enchanted project. Up to 2030 is an acceptable time-frame, with one in four Indigenous adults a graduate, but not much beyond that.

Currently, [i.e. not necessarily in the future], population growth seems to have stalled in Europe, Russia, Japan; and will start to do so shortly in China, South Korea and perhaps Mexico. Growth rates in many countries are only positive because of immigration - Australia, perhaps Canada and the US, for example. Growth rates seem to be slowing in South America and Africa, as people move to crowded cities, and more slowly still, as women gain more of their share of education.

One interesting factor about urbanisation is that ex-rural people have fewer social supports, and more pressure is put on women to work (and, indirectly, for girls and young women to get a better education) - at the same time as children come under the purview of authorities who require them to go school, and thereby become a cost rather than an economic benefit (the wonderful John Caldwell wrote eloquently on this shift in 19th century Europe, the US and Australia). The eventual consequence of these factors is a decline in fertility.

So it is just possible that the end is not nigh, not just yet :)

Cheers,

Joe

Actually Loudmouth our politicians do believe that you can have
infinite growth in a finite world and they are neither madmen or economists.

I was told by a minister of the government that service industries do not use energy !

Every post on here so far has missed the point.
The government, both parties are all spouting GROWTH GROWTH GROWTH !

IT WILL NOT HAPPEN !

In fact the drive for a larger population will not happen either
because it would require too much ENERGY !

We are fast coming up against it and you will see it when the price
of oil & coal rise. The reduction in energy demand is starting to
feed through into the banking system and will surface as an increase
in nonperforming debt.
The government is budgeting on an increase in revenue due to an
increase in GDP. If they get it this year they will not get it next year.
The economists have not realised the significance of the gap between
the highest oil price the economy can afford and the lowest price
the newest oil sources can break even on.
That is why Saudi Arabia is fast going broke, they are betting the
house on going broke second.

The masters of the universe do not realise that Goldilocks is dead !

Hi Bazz,

I'm not sure if your two sentences go together:

"when the price of oil & coal rise. The reduction in energy demand is starting to feed through into the banking system and will surface as an increase in nonperforming debt."

Actually the reverse is just as likely, a drop in resource prices (as more sites come on-stream, Roy Hill, Adani [wait and see] AND a rise in energy and manufacturing demand, e.g. India.

But as you point out, a drop in resource prices means that soon enough, some producers drop out - it's cheaper not to produce than to produce - well, you lose less money that way. The Saudis. Russia. Venezuela too. Then it's a different ball game.

Joe