"form new states with new capitals"

Eh? I do understand your point, but would this work? More inefficient governments? Or are you proposing that these new states would be small enough to simply replace local govt's?

Regarding water, every single day I drink a bit of water that has been through somebody's washer, down their shower plughole, greased the s-bend for slick sausage-disposal, flowed down the Ganges... etc.

And I'm alright. tic.

We don't have a shortage of water, we just lack the infrastructure to catch it, shift it around and store it. And of what we do have, we waste an awful lot. Last time I checked, 40-50% of domestic water use is expelled as 'grey-water' which could with minimal treatment be returned to storage. Guess what? This alone would solve almost every current water shortage in the country! But the return-flow infrastructure doesn't exist. If it did, as previously suggested, excess rain could also be sent to storage, along with massive amounts of storm-water runoff that currently head out to sea.

We COULD do it, even without drinking water that we might perceive as having been poo-water.

“…and if every government dollar was returned to the community that paid the taxes then there would be no contraction in regional economies.”
The multiplier effect of this would be to encourage economic growth only in those areas of industry and high employment (Gov’t would not have funds to stimulate economy in struggling areas). Regional economies are currently severely affected by drought; without Government injection, many rural economies will fail. People will generally relocate to urban or larger regional centres.

Ultimately, the balance will probably be about making our cities and urban areas more ‘liveable’ whilst retaining a few key regional centres. A few country ‘outposts’ will remain, where community self-sufficiency has taken advantage of a niche tourism market or a ‘natural’ resource – the ability/ opportunity to be a part of the ‘consumer’ population will be less, as goods and services etc. are less available.

Urban Sprawl is both exacerbated and related to a high and inefficient energy consumption. Bigger houses, longer travelling times and water wastage = high inefficiency.

Oh relda, as a rural-dwelling resident of a very small town I find your comments mildly insulting, uninformed and patronising. That we will only survive if we’re self-sufficient etcetera. I’m surrounded by profitable businesses, dairy, wool, lamb and beef farms, corn, beans, broccoli, avocados, asparagus. Export industries in grains, timber, lamb etc. And then all the secondary businesses, retail, hospitality that support them. I can tell you right now, without us, cities would perish. Without cities, life in the bush would be different, but we’d still be here. Probably just band together, run our own ports and continue to operate profitably in international markets.

We have plentiful domestic water, drawn from an environmentally friendly local weir that has never run dry. Now our profligate city-dwelling cousins are greedily eying off our excess rather than looking to fix their own problem (wastefulness).

We don’t have a public transport system that is haemorrhaging cash at every rivet. If we must go somewhere, we must drive. That’s fine. But why is my tax spent supporting this system in the city?

“You can’t cut down the trees”, they cry, ignorant of current already-sustainable (and ever improving) practises. Yet there are more 4WDs per capita THERE than HERE! And we actually drive up steep hills, ford rivers and frankly don’t have much bitumen. Oh well, at least our vigorous regrowth will suck up some of your unnecessary C02 emissions.

I could go on forever, but the word limit has beaten me again.

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“Urban Sprawl is both exacerbated and related to a high and inefficient energy consumption”

That would appear logical, but I read recently a survey of 4,000 dwellings which showed that high-rise apartments are responsible for almost double the greenhouse gas emission per resident when compared to detached houses. Mid and low-rise were also higher per resident, while townhouse developments had the lowest greenhouse gas emissions per resident. The report was by EnergyAustralia and the NSW Planning Department.

T800

I am most certainly not putting the cart before the horse. We could fit the population of Australia into Victoria easily. We could then afford decent facilities like public transport and water and electricity infrastructure.

The only way for regional centers to grow is for our population to grow.

It is only with a much larger population that we can afford the infrastucture for this vast land.

Lyn Allison & the Dems & Labor types would likely pin a photograph of me on their dart boards for suggesting this but I believe an easy way to make moving away from the major population centers attractive would be to re-draw electoral boundary’s to reflect land area rather than just head count .

How many children do you have Steve Madden? I am interested because quite a lot of people who advocate a larger population only have one or two at the most. Politicians notoriously fit into this category.

You will have to have more than that for a growing population. I can hear the roaring for more immigration, except many migrants only have one or two kids at the most, so we are faced with the same problem.

The average number of children per woman in Australia is 1.7, which is below replacement. We cannot expect other countries to purpose breed Australian citizens, and we don't want to for social stability.

Some people want everything - so long as it not to hard - like raising kids.