I must admit that I am in support of 'public run assetts, to some extent, as it at least offers employment to some who would otherwise be almost un-employable if they were to seek work in the private sector.

Who will ever forget the debarcle whereby a govenment employee was paid $60,000+ per year to sit around as the job he was employed to do was made redundent, however, the government, due to their own IR laws, were unable to sack him and he refussed to take a redunancy payout. To funny!

The truth of the matter Mr PM, is that simply providing more roads, or more dams will only encourage further expansion so in reality, we should be seeking better ways to manage what we have rather than expanding.

As for your continuing push for population expansion, this is your choice, not ours.

Our choice however is to close the doors for a while, take stock and get our affairs back in order.

Make shaw our hospitals, roads, water supplies, power supplies etc etc can cope with the present load, rather than your open door policy which is allowing hundreds of thousands in each year which simply means we continue to devide the cake, so much so, that is it crumbling.

One would think that 'back flip beaties' actions of 'come on, come to QLD' would have paved the way for a directional change in policy, considering the enormous presure he placed on our infrastructure but obviously, you lot are slow learners.

I'm not one that endorses population expansion at all- I agree with your suggestions.

I suspect the PM doesn't want to hear views that contradict with his goal of population expansion.

This is such an important issue but the views of opponents of unfettered population expansion are not being taken into consideration.

When a leader makes arrogant statements like "I make no apology" in reference to plans for Big Australia - you know another nail has been driven into hopes for greater democracy.

We need more Independents to come on board in Federal elections on this issue or the Greens to make their position clear. It is not until the major parties feel some pain in the polls that they might start actually listening to the people they purport to represent.

Even a referendum on this issue perhaps including some options on an optimal population cap/replacement policy which would enable us to continue to fulfill humanitarian obligations

'This is such an important issue but the views of opponents of unfettered population expansion are not being taken into consideration.'

The above is true. However, in the Westminster system if the opponents are neither in the government nor the opposition there is no way that the views can be heard.

Is there a point in joining the Greens? Can that help?

Good points Pelican and David.

And I actually think voting for the Greens WILL help- or at least, ordering candidates from the least to most enthusiastic pro-growth lobby first to last.

Either which way, The Libs, Labor and Nats need to go- their days of concern for the public and not their own pockets has long ended, and the only way to expect anything to change is to vote for someone else.

Of course, if we ever HAD CIR, chances are they might not have even bothered joining- but sadly not the case at the moment.

If Kevin Rudd is so proud of his "Big Australia" policy, it is curious that he didn't mention it before the last election.