ttbn,
If that difference in the numbers haven't secured jobs as Aidan suggests many would have than that means roughly 70,000 future guaranteed Labor voters bought with Aus Tax Dollars !

mhaze- With the greatest of respect I disagree with many of your claims here- I believe that we must not rest until the population is moving down- not just reducing growth- because we are starting at a high point- and countries critically must have policies that aim to achieve this now- but I'll agree to disagree at this point.

Malthuse for example I believe adjusted his claims to remove the part about "food/ production increasing arithmetically and population geometrically" but still maintained the remaining elements of his claims. Of course many economists have discredited the idea- possibly for political or career reasons. I find the "food/ production increasing arithmetically and population geometrically" concept to be useful- and makes some sense given other accounting, economic, biology principles. In biology (such as in "Rat Utopia" population grows exponentially until it runs into environmental limits- seemingly consistent with Malthuse's claims).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink
In accounting there is the law of diminishing returns- which seems to relate to Malthuse's claim of arithmetic productivity. Yes things are complex- for example improvements in technology which can contradict arithmetic productivity are unpredictable even with investment- for example the joke about fusion power is it's always 20 years away.
http://www.britannica.com/money/diminishing-returns

mhaze said that India is exporting food- but that doesn't mean that people aren't starving in India- what is the source of the paradox? The following article may have some information.
http://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/food/india-claims-to-be-self-sufficient-in-food-production-but-facts-say-otherwise-62091

The world prices for grain appears to be higher than Indian peasants can afford- this implies that there is less supply than demand worldwide. Demand is influenced by the population size

ttbn said "There were 507,500 people UNEMPLOYED people in Australia in February 2023; yet we have 650,000 more people due to arrive over the next two years. There are 438,500 job VACANCIES right now."

Answer- Many people are being locked out of the workplace still due to corona mandates even though they have finished. I suspect that labor governments are locking conservative groups out of the employment market- bloody mindedly preferencing foreigners over Australian's.

The thing is every family contains people of differing politics- there are many people young and old locked out because of Labor bigoted beliefs that people of certain views aren't entitled to work.

Canem

Yes, India is not currently reducing its population. That is true of quite a few other countries, particularly in Africa and the Middle-East.

But that doesn't affect the overall world trend toward lower population. It most definitely doesn't alter the fact that the claims made in the 1970s about what would happen in the 80s, 20s and 2000s have been shown to be utterly wrong.

Yet, instead of absorbing the lessons from that, we have people just ignoring the previous erroneous claims and asserting new claims. T'was always thus. Predict the end of the world, and when it doesn't happen, predict a new end of the world. People never learn.

Population isn't falling everywhere. But that doesn't mean it isn't falling anywhere. Most pointedly, growth rates are in decline EVERYWHERE.

We are constantly told by the enlightened that they follow the data. But when the data leads places that don't fit the narrative, it is ignored.

With the greatest of respect to mhaze- World Population is not decreasing despite the claim ("But that doesn't affect the overall world trend toward lower population")- it is increasing at a reduced rate. I'm not convinced that governments are committed sufficiently to a plan to reduce population- though I probably need to do more research on government policy in India, China, Africa, South America. There is a population arms race occurring and there is a pressure to increase birth rate for geo-political reasons amongst certain ethnicities. The Australian governments have acknowledged in the past that Australia has some challenges for competitiveness but fails in acknowledging it's cause- in a population arms race- this is perhaps an example of a self reinforcing purification spiral. Australia generally uses competitiveness as an excuse for further immigration.
India's government for example is also pushing from their side for further immigration from the Indian diaspora- of course India isn't concerned about the impact on Australian identity. I'm concerned about all cultural identity but of course I do favour my own- as all should

The 650,000 increase in population in Australia over the next two years is now reported to have sky-rocketed to 900,000 by 2025. Australia is definitely rooted.