Only a small minority of temporary churn over 'migrants' are eligible and remain long term as citizens to claim pensions and services.

The environment report is a'nomination form' stating generalisations with unclear origins, while citing non experts such as Bob Birrell; conversely many places such as Portugal find both depopulation and climate change are responsible for massive fires in the hinterland.

Meanwhile Macrobusiness has no credibility while it also cites Bob Birrell and its research with Van Onselen merely cherry picking various charts and graphs using headline data, which he does constantly.

More credible analysis regarding Japan compared to Australia, supported by relevant data, is from Abul Rizvi in 'Impact of ageing population on economic outcomes'

https://independentaustralia.net/australia/australia-display/impact-of-ageing-population-on-economic-outcomes,13999

Population or immigration is not really the point except for media to dog whistle catering to bigots and deflect from responsibilities of government, relevant agencies and corporate sector, especially fossil fuels and mining, to implement and follow good environmental policy.

As it Australians are leaving a terrible social and environmental legacy for future generations to clean up.... or suppose they can just pray?

Loudmouth2,

You don't have an answer to the various arguments, so indulge in cheap accusations of racism, with no basis. The environment and the average person's quality of life are just as much degraded by massive population growth whether the extra people are Nigerians or Swedes.

Andras Smith,

Your tactic is to simply claim, without evidence, that anyone who disagrees with you isn't credible. Bob Birrell is perfectly well qualified, you just don't like what he has to say. In my opinion, having read both, it is Abul Rizvi who is cherry picking, not Leith van Onselen. If you want to be credible, you need to show exactly how the cherry picking occurred. Do you dispute that wages are stagnant while the prices of essentials such as housing have been skyrocketing? Do you dispute that commuting times in our major cities have gone up? Do you want to argue with the people who wrote our State of the Environment Reports? What are your qualifications?

Divergence, too easy, just shoot the messenger when your beliefs are under attack.

You cited a 'Key Threatening Process Nomination Form' not a formal 'State of the Environment Report'.

Rivzi has actually worked in the immigration department and researching a relevant PhD. while Van Onselen had been called out years ago e.g. for claiming all those temporaries caught up in the NOM can or do become permanent, simply not true due to the annual permanent cap.

There is no peer reviewed research, anywhere, of evidence that (undefined) immigration causes unemployment and other economic issues, can you produce any? Conversely, many commentators now complain that we only have 'immigration' for 'growth'.... cannot have it both ways.

National and global demographics have been and are becoming clearer, increase in ageing population of non tax paying retirees versus proportionate decline in tax paying workforce age; global population to peak mid century then decline, what's the problem?

Birrell let's not even bother...

Andras Smith,

If you don't like Bob Birrell, perhaps you might want to consider Prof. George Borjas at Harvard, who has written extensively on the economics of immigration.

http://scholar.harvard.edu/gborjas/_publications

or look at the peer-reviewed papers of Jane O'Sullivan from the University of Queensland

http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jane_Osullivan2

Finally there is just common sense. Wage theft has been covered extensively in the press and in government reports, where international students and temporary workers have been cheated of their wages because of their vulnerable situation and because they are often desperate to be sponsored for permanent residency. Why would a 7-Eleven franchise hire a citizen or a permanent resident, a school leaver perhaps, with rights, when they can demand back half a temporary migrant's wages, well away from the security cameras? Any benefits from not having to give the temporary migrants pensions are likely to be wiped out by their undermining of wages. My Ponzi scheme argument stands in the case of migrants who are allowed to stay permanently. They grow old, too, just like everyone else.

http://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Education_and_Employment/ExploitationofCleaners/Report

http://www.ag.gov.au/industrial-relations/publications/report-migrant-workers-taskforce

I don't dispute that the top few percent of Australians do benefit from mass migration. They get a bigger aggregate GDP, giving them more to skim. They also benefit from inflated housing costs and easy profits from real-estate speculation, or a cheap, compliant work force that they don't have to train. As an education consultant, you no doubt understand the financial benefit of huge numbers of international students, who would be less likely to come without work rights or the lure of permanent residency.

As for Leith van Onselen, it is hard to see how he could make up all the graphs that appear in his articles (with sources given). Being qualified doesn't mean never ever getting anything wrong. Einstein famously never accepted quantum mechanics.