I call this trick "lifeboat' Australia.
As you see we are adrift in a cyclone know as AGW and about to be swamped by Tsunami "Limited World Resources".
Now with my magic wand we'll bash anyone trying to climb on board.. oh yes we'll throw a few overboard too.(single mums etc)

Noone in their right mind would disagree that there are too many people in Australia....(and here's the tricky bit) at the current rate of profligate life style. We need a steady state economy but how do we implement it?

Now here's a mind blowing flash we are a minor part in the WORLDWIDE problem.
Let's assume we stop all migration, over stayers and Kiwis. How is that going to save our sorry tails with AGW? er no.

Those pesky foreigner will still be breeding...like...er people with limited options. They'll still be polluting like there's no tomorrow. India China et sec peoples want their share of the pie as in consumerist lifestyle. Let's be clear if they get a full head of smoke/pollution etc they'll make our contribution disappear into the infintesimal.
It seems to me that when resources overseas go and we still have a desirable lifestyle they'll come to partake but won't even say please or thankyou.
Your article promises lots but amounts to moving deck chairs on the
on the Titanic.
Shouldn't we be encouraging the world to rid the Icebergs instead.
Second ....How are we going to implement change?
Doomsaying is one thing but it's time we thought bigger than a few migrants ITS A WORLD PROBLEM Lets think on that scale before it's too late.

Prof Ridd - few points to make. The easiest argument to wave away is the economic one. There is no economic limit to population. You will find that higher population tends to call forth increased exports. Look at Finland. Its got nothing but a bunch of lakes and forests but it has the highest per capita income in europe. Why is this so? Because it reacted to its lack of resources by developing high-tech industries. Australia has substantial resources so there has been no need to develop much manufacturing. Also bear in mind the expamples of Sweden and Switzerland, and the opposite case of Nigeria which has lots of resources and a messed-up economy, as well as lots of people who are creating far more mess in their eco-system per-capita than Australians (leaving aside emissions). This trade off between manufacturing and resources, which is influenced by the social-political system, has only recently been realised by economists.
Now take a look at Australian unemployment rates. Is there any evidence they have been affected by increased immigration? In fact, unemployment rates here have proved remarkably resilient in the financial crisis, partly thanks to employers keeping staff on part time rather than sacking and rehiring them. ther is no indication they have been adversely affected by immigration. There is a lot more to argue with in the rest of the article but for now I would strongly suggest you drop the economic side of it.

Not only is Australia having to build for population growth the size of Canberra we are also building it in only a few places. More than half of Australia's immigrants go to Sydney and Melbourne.
As someone living in Sydney, I can attest to the increasing congestion over the last few years (which was already pretty bad anyway) and more crowded public transport etc.
The price of housing (both to buy and rentals) has become extremely high and Australia now has the world's most unaffordable housing. The effect of high immigration has being a major factor in rising housing unaffordability - both rental and buying.

A very good article, and the economic side of the equation does need to be taken into account. The situation is rather frightening when one considers what is occurring in some other countries. China has raised its minimum school age to grade 9, with some schools now going to 6 days a week. It has also built over 1000 teachers colleges, and the reason for all this, it plans to keep educating its population and then go high tech.

Australian manufacturing cannot compete with countries such as China for producing low tech products such as plastic plates or plastic chairs, and if something major does not occur with our education systems, we will not be able to compete with other countries for high tech markets in the future either.

However, how can a university lecturer be lecturing anyone when so many schools and universities import nearly everything they use.The latest being, some schools in QLD are encouraging their students to use a math’s program, from Mcdonalds.

The education systems itself is producing very little.

Country girl,

It is quite obvious that we have outgrown our water supply except in Tasmania and the tropical North, not the places where most of the population growth is occurring. That is why there are permanent water restrictions in our cities, why the Murray-Darling basin is in trouble, with John Howard prepared to sacrifice Ramsar listed wetlands in 2007, because "people are more important than wildlife", why there is endless conflict over water, and why the politicians are building expensive and energy hungry desalination plants up and down the coasts, something they would never do if the problem were simply due to mismanagement. All this is well documented in Asa Wahlquist's book "Thirsty Country". Then there is the risk from climate change.

To you, "walking lightly" probably means that city people should let their gardens die (if they have any open space at all) and restrict themselves to one shower and change of clothes a week. After all, nothing should stand in the way of turning the whole world into one giant factory farm for people.

examinator,

Our environmental problems and their solutions have both population and consumption aspects. You are basically saying that increased consumption due to immigration and pressure on local environments doesn't matter. The US is the world's second biggest greenhouse gas emitter. This graph shows absolute and per capita changes in emissions since 1990 for the US and Europe

http://d.yimg.com/kq/groups/20338607/929044366/name/One%20slide%20from%20WRI%20Pop%20and%20GHG%20emissions.ppt

The US population growth has been primarily due to immigration. It should come as no surprise that migrants adopt the consumption patterns of the host society.

Curmudgeon,

I admire Finland too. However, according to the CIA World Factbook, Finland's population growth rate is 0.098%. Ours is 1.9%, according to the ABS, with 62% of it due to immigration. According to the CIA World Factbook, the Finns take 0.68 migrants per 1000 population, while we take 6.23. Congratulations, you have just shown that prosperity is quite possible without population growth.

Having a job is not the be all and end all of prosperity. After all, the old Soviet Union boasted that they had jobs for everyone. Nor do cheap cars and electrical goods begin to make up for the increased cost of housing. The cost of an average house has gone from 3.3 times the median wage in 1973 to 7.4 times the median wage in 1995. This is Australia wide, so it would be more in the capital cities, sometimes a lot more.

http://www.findem.com.au/factsheets/housingfactsheet.pdf

The cost of the land the house sits on has gone from about 30% to 70% of the total, even though urban block sizes are much smaller.

For another measure of well-being, you might consider that the number of public hospital beds has been cut by a third over the past 25 years. Allowing for population growth, this is a 60% cut, even though the population is older. See

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/28/2638325.htm