Ericc, I realise that those proposals are SPA’s platform, so no entrapment for you! I *do* agree with them, up to a point.

Reducing immigration to Australia to net zero, or even slightly negative for a time, is not a bad idea (providing it is strictly non-racially based). However, are you then prepared for the massive investment in defence technology that would necessitate? After all, even Tim Flannery has conceded that if Australia is to remain a large, sparsely population nation surrounded by small, crowded nations, we’d better have some pretty heavy-duty defences in place.

The Baby Bonus, as it was originally conceived (no pun intended) was a sensible social welfare measure designed by Keating to offset the initial expenses involved in having a baby (baby furniture, clothing, 1 parent not working) that most new parents struggle with. Costello’s expansion of the concept to being a reward for having “one for the country” grossly distorted its original intent.

I don't flatly oppose SPA's platforms, I just get alarmed when they start talking of one-child policies, and express their admiration for a country which still officially practises eugenics.

As an aside, I might also note that no-one has tackled some of the questionable assumptions in the article.

“Unfortunately, it is inherent in the collective mindset of our species that most people avoid even thinking about the problem, let alone acting to try to solve it.” Says who?

“In 2005 the biocapacity of the Earth was 13.6 Ggha”. Again, says who? The Global Footprint Network, who are? On what basis do they make their magic calculation (it would be merely capricious of me to suggest that like their pals at Greenpeace, FOE and the WWF, they probably pull it out of their proverbial).

“It is understood this figure (the UN most-likely growth scenario) is likely to be revised upwards. Some would suggest the 2050 population will be nearer 9.5-10 billion.” Understood by whom? Who is suggesting this population? The UN? The bloke down the pub?

Clownfish,

Q. where do the SPA get their figures?

A. Facebook

Clownfish – You’ve made it clear that you support the central policies of the sustainable population movement and yet your posts imply that anybody who considers those views is nearing fascism.

Can you understand the flip side where people who have no other interest than making short term profits on real estate and keeping wages low by bringing in cheap labour, yell “racist Nazi people haters” whenever the environment or sustainability is mentioned?

With respect to defence, I can’t see a scenario where increasing the population changes anything about our defence. If the Chinese Army wants to invade, having 35 million or 22 million won’t make much difference. I think the Chinese would find it cheaper and simpler to buy whatever they need, anyway. Similar Indonesia. Who else then will be invading? New Zealand?

As I’ve said in numerous other posts and articles: The average Australian does not benefit from immigration or higher population. He gets poorer and his environment gets worse.

That is on the selfish side. On the high minded side, if we agree that there are dangers to increasing world population we look hypocritical saying “All of you poor countries should decrease your populations, but we are going to do everything we can to increase ours. Oh and send us all your doctors and engineers. We want to get richer and we don’t care if we steal the best and brightest from your country, too.”

On most people not thinking about population or sustainability I agree with John Reid. Most people don’t.

On the earth’s biocapacity, I agree with you, it is unlikely anybody really knows, but the general theme that the earth’s capacity to support comfortable life for all of us is likely to be exceeded with continued population growth is true. And besides that, why should it be our goal to cram as many people as possible onto the planet. Why not make it our goal to alleviate poverty or cure cancer?

On the earth’s population revised upwards, I agree with you, “some would suggest” is a bad mistake by an academic with a PhD.

ericc, I support *some* of the policies of the SPA; I also maintain that enthusiastically cheering on a dictatorship like China, and urging that the rest of us follow their example is at least trying on some shiny black boots. Further, someone whose *own arguments* dictate the murder of some 4 billion human beings most certainly nearing fascism, if not outright lunacy.

Of course, John Reid may well be horrified at the thought of extermination camps churning out 80 million corpses a year; in which case, he clearly hasn't thought through the implications of what he's saying. All I've done is take his arguments as they stand, and do the arithmetic. He stands damned by his own words.

As for defence, as Flannery argued in "The Future Eaters", if Australia pursues the path of low population, then we will need to invest heavily in high-tech, remotely operated weaponry that doesn't require significant manpower, to offset the overwhelming advantages in cannon-fodder of some of our near neighbours who would otherwise view our vast, mostly empty lebensraum with avaricious intent.

Clownfish et al, the only ones who are talking about deliberately murdering anyone are you lot. The rest of us just want the citizens of the third world countries to stop breeding like rabbits (or actually like kangaroos) whenever it looks like the food supply is improving a bit.

On the other hand, I would agree with your premise about needing high tech weaponry, but that is generally what is happening anyway. The Yanks seem to be adopting that approach in Afghanistan and the Israelis are certainly doing it against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

David

In the first place, the reason our 'wide land' is so empty, is because there isn't a lot out there. The Sahara is pretty empty too, I believe.
As has been mentioned, many believe Oz is overpopulated now. I doubt if our near neighbours would want to give up their tropical island homes to live in a desert.
In the second place, long before there was a balance of power in the Cold War, the propensity for war was balanced by the risk of dying, against agressive killing. As Khomeini and a long line of war mongers before him demonstrated, you need significant superiority in numbers to employ cannon fodder techniques.
In a democracy like the USA, imperialism requires a very high kill to casualty ratio. Too many casualties, and wars quickly become unpopular.
Rather than high tek, what we need world wide is a move to actual defence forces, instead of offence forces. In our case, a shore based defence system would be cheaper, and significantly slow down the arms race, if our neighbours didn't feel threatened.