Since both Andrew Bartlett and Judy Spence presumably support the Rudd Government's decision to ramp up immigration to its highest levels in Australia's history (a decision that was made without any public consultation and without any effort made to examine the full impact of higher immigration on the existing Australian population), perhaps they would be kind enough to answer the following questions originally posted by Dr John Coulter on the Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) website.

• How does increasing our population by more than a million every three years make our climate change/greenhouse emission problem easier to solve?

• Every city in Australia is water stressed. How does increasing our population by an additional 5% every three years make our urban water problem easier to solve?

• It is doubtful whether in a climate changed, post peak oil world Australia can maintain water supply to its farmers. How does such rapid population growth make it easier to maintain our rivers, soils and food production?

• Australians have one of the highest per capita environmental impacts in the world. An increase in the Australian population has a larger global impact than the addition of a person just about anywhere else in the world. How does the Rudd Government morally justify increasing Australia’s demand on the global environment at the expense of many peoples far less well off?

• Australia has an acute housing shortage. More and more Australians cannot afford the rising price of a house or rent. One of the main drivers of this situation has been clearly identified as our already high immigration intake. How does Kevin Rudd justify making this situation even worse for ‘working families’?

• Australia has approximately 5% unemployment and another 5% of under employment. How does the Rudd Government justify bringing in unskilled workers when there are Australians unemployed and underemployed seeking work?

• There is a rapidly growing global food shortage. Increasing Australia’s population is leading to more and more high quality, well watered, food producing land going under housing and related urban infrastructure. Where is Kevin Rudd’s much advertised Christian morality?

http://www.population.org.au/

Another question: What happened to Judy Spence's posts?

Efranke, Judy was a stooge; an impostor. So the posts were deleted….which has left a couple of my posts that were written in response looking quite detached from reality.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; whenever a post gets deleted, the administrator surely needs to insert a note in its place saying why it went and who it was from.

Have all these questions from John Coulter been put directly to Rudd, or any of his relevant ministers, or to the opposition with the request that they probe the government on them?

This is vitally important stuff. We really need to know the answers. Sustainable Population Australia needs to push as hard as they can for a comprehensive response.

Ludwig,

Can you say where you heard that the person posting as "Judy Spence" was an imposter?

If it was, then he/she sure had me fooled, just as I was fooled earlier by the person said to be posing as "Ross Garnaut" on another thread. All that he/she wrote appeared to be what I would have expected Judy Spence to have said.

Am I the only person here that was taken in by those posts?

I would certainly be interested to know whether the administrators had conclusive proof that the posts were made by an imposter or whether they had acted on a claim from Judy Spence that that had happened.

What appeared to have been happening was that a senior politician had done something which very few do these days, that is place herself in a situation where she can be scrutinised in a way that few of the journalists charged with interviewing our politicians are prepared to.

If you happen to be a member of a government such as the Government of Queensland which has behaved so immorally in recent years in regard to its encouragement of population growth, its decision to dam the Mary River and its decision to expand the coal mining industry when the Greenland Ice shelf is melting into the North Atlantic Ocean, then I could well understand that if, hyothetically speaking, a Queensland Government minister had put herself/himself in such a position that he/she could well have a motive to pretend that the posts he/she made were made by an imposter.

Efranke, good questions.

I recommend you read the article in yesterday's Sydney Mornig Herald at http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/a-reality-check-on-rudds-rhetoric/2008/07/27/1217097054279.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Daggett, I guess there is no problem in saying that Graham Young specifically told me that Judy was a fraud.

I started a general thread; titled ‘Queensland nude beaches – an example of chronic hypocrisy in law and governance’ specifically because I thought that Judy Spence, Qld Minister for Police was on our forum. I addressed it to her. Graham edited out my reference to her and privately emailed me to tell me that she was a fake.

A damn pity. We really do need the likes of Judy Spence and Ross Garnaut on this forum.