Col, aren’t you getting lost amongst labels a bit or at least your definition of them? e.g no where in legitimate socialism literature does it say “drag everyone down to the Lowest common denominator”. it is equally reasonable to assert that the purpose is to raise everyone. The retiring head of Mac Bank can hardly claim his bonus is deserved unless you support the concept of end (profit) justifies the means. e.g. an insurance company using its might to deny a worthy claim. Or a car company’s executives knowingly selling faulty vehicles on “bean counting” reasoning in order to protect a profit. To me that is immoral and acting without ethics.

Andrew Bartlett et al. There is two glaring dubious assumption on all figures about Australia’s (the world’s) population carrying capacity.
• Models are based on current understanding, technology and circumstances (food production, consumption, waste etc) and these demands would continue to out strip supply.
• And that we can’t change the equation.
All this inexorably leading to a Democrat style catastrophe as if all these things are written in the heavens and can’t be changed.

When I was young and silly, alas now I’m not so young; I belonged to the Australia Party whose platform in the late 60’s included ZPG. It was then thought that Australia’s population cap was nigh. The equation changed BUT it is clear that if we as a country don’t get OFF our collective BUTT we’ll reach a point where technology won’t be able to fish us out. Clearly population numbers isn’t the only or the major factor here. That villain is our profligate consumption/usage of resources (impact).

As for the argument about accepting immigrants, Australia remaining an insulated isolated island while all about us starve, I can no better than paraphrase Viscount Montague Python (he is English ya know) when he said about the Chinese (Asians) with 4 odd Billion on our doorstep We’d better get to like them and hope they’re more tolerant than us

*It is also a reminder that pretending population is the problem is an easy excuse for diverting attention away from the real problem, which is the grossly profligate way that we live.*

Given that the world's population has increased from 1.5 billion
to 6.5 billion in a hundred years and heading for 9.5 billion
and nobody seems to care, why should I care?

Given that hundreds of millions of women in the third world have
no family planning, are forced to have kids that they don't want
and 80 million a year are added to our human population, yet
no officials have the arse to say boo about it, why should I care?

Given that the Vatican still promotes larger families and protests
against every condom, adding to our ever growing problem of
sustainability, yet no Govt officials have the balls to challenge
them, why should I care?

Clearly the "tragedy of the commons" has merit and so does biology.
People ignore basic Darwinian evolution theory in the name of
religion, in the name of all sorts of things. Clearly humanity
is smart enough to discover all sorts of great new things, but
too stupid to live sustainably. Ok, rather then go on a feelgood
trip, which is what many Australian politicians are promoting,
I might as well enjoy life to the full and accept the realities
of nature, which Andrew seems to be denying.

Andrew Bartlett wrote, "it is simply silly to accuse (the Greens) of a 'continued failure to engage in any debate about Australia’s future population', just because their views on population don't concur with the fundamentalist opinions of the author."

If you can show me where the Greens do engage in any debate Australia’s future population, I would be most interested . Certainly, Bob Brown did not touch on population or, for that matter, Peak Oil in his media release concerning global warming on http://www.bobbrown.org.au/files/speeches/Press%20Club%20Speech%20July%202008%20FINAL.pdf linked to from http://www.bobbrown.org.au/500_parliament_sub.php?deptItemID=118

... and I have been unable to find any other clear statements on population on the Greens' web sites in the past.

Also, Andrew, I think you need to lay all your own cards on the table and make it clear to other participants that you favour a population of 40 million as you stated at
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2008/05/21/will-the-great-immigration-debate-take-place/#comment-474139

I am still interested to know how you arrived at that figure when all the other experts who have seriously studied the question (for example Tim Flannery, Michelle Graymore(1), The CSIRO) give a much lower figures for sustainable carrying capacities of this country.

Simply to argue that the fact that Australia has over 20 million now disproves those who argued that we coud not support that many is almost as silly as arguing that because our coastal regions are not now inundated with seawater that we need not fear global warming. (I am sure that many could have equally plausibly said the same of the failed Chaco Anasazi(http://candobetter.org/about#chaco), Mayan(http://candobetter.org/about#maya) and Easter Island civilisations before they all collapsed.) Clearly the signs that our country is not coping with the current human population are already there for those who are prepared to look.

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It's all very well to suggest that if we (or at least those who are not profiteering from population growth - see below) are prepared to live more frugally and that if we are cleverer we may be able to become sustainable with our existing population, but I think, until someone can provide detailed plans of how that can be done and until we see that happen, it would be prudent to assume that it won't happen and it would certainly not be prudent allow our populaiton to grow further based on any such an assumption.

One point that has been avoided by Andrew and other immigration proponents are the sectional interests who are pushing high immigration behind our backs, namely the growth lobby(2) who derive their income at our expense by using immigration to drive up the value of land and to provide customers for housing developments.

It's all too easy to attribute selfish motives to their detractors but I think that if immigration proponents would seem a bit more credible if they were prepared to acknowledge the openly selfish and sectional motivations of many of those within their own ranks, as I have written of in my article "Brisbane's housing unaffordability crisis spun by ABC to promote property lobby interests" at http://candobetter.org/node/610

I also think it is time that immigration proponents acknowledged the harm that high immigration has caused to their fellow Australians, particularly the homeless and the housing stressed who are paying for the windfall profits of the property lobby as they had always intended they would.

Comments, whether critical or supportive of this article, are welcome or for any articles concerning population at http://candobetter.org/population or immigration at http://candobetter.org/immigration

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Dear Queensland Police Minister Judy Spence,

Firstly, can I commend you for having shown your willingness, thus far, to confront your critics? If more politicians were prepared to do so, I am sure that the quality of our democracy would be considerably lifted from the depths in which it now lies

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You may recall that on 8 December 2005, as one of many examples of the Queensland Government's deliberate encouragement of population growth, a full page advertisement was placed in the Courier Mail newspaper encouraging people to move to Queensland. It stated:

FOUR MILLION QUEENSLANDERS

Today: 3,999,865

Tomorrow: 4,000,000

(Row of photos including baby's face, farmer, blue collar worker workers,
attractive female scientist, etc)

Queensland's population will reach four million people tomorrow, Friday 9
December.

If you are visiting or thinking about a move to Queensland, you will already
know we are the nation's engine room, Our population growth is only rivalled
by our economic and employment growth. We now account for 19.5% of
Australia's population.

Tomorrow's milestone and our economic success reflect that Queensland is the
place to invest, work, live and play.
...
To all Queenslanders, I urge you to warmly welcome our new arrivals.

Peter Beattie MP
Premier and Treasurer

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Judy Spence, Do you believe that was fair to the residents of the Mary Valley (http://www.savethemaryriver.com) who now stand to lose their homes in order that the dam said to be necessary to supply the water for the extra residents that are now hear largely as a result?

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I note, once again, Cartman (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=1970#40547) has seized upon the grossly irresponsible stance of the Roman Catholic Church against birth control to justify his own profligate selfish greed. As I wrote elsewhere (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7218#111796) I consider his objection to the role of the Catholic church to be hypocritical and almost certainly disingenuous.

If Cartman were opposed to immigration, Andrew's claim that objection to immigration is only to divert our attention away from our own excessive unsustainable consumption of the earth's natural resources would have some validity. However, Cartman is not opposed to immigration. In fact, he has argued strenuoulsy in favour of high immigration in order that Australia's mineral wealth be dug up and exported as fast as possible. I think it would be safe to assume that Cartman would be one of those who personally profit at the expense of others from immigration.

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Footnotes

1. See PhD thesis "Journey to Sustainability: Small Regions, Sustainable Carrying Capacity and Sustainability Assessment Methods" at http://www4.gu.edu.au:8080/adt-root/public/adt-QGU20060303.132137/index.html

2. See Sheila Newman's Master's Thesis "The Growth Lobby and its absence" at http://candobetter.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/GrowthLobbyAndAbsence-Newman-2002.pdf (2.6MB) linked to from http://candobetter.org/sheila