Australia is currently facing a crisis of gigantic proportions with a shortage of water to meet the needs of the current population. This would be so even without the further exacerbation of the problem from climate change which will serve to worsen the situation. Electricity, Gas, and Vehicle Fuel supplies are also stretched to the limit and becoming excessively expensive and draining on family incomes.

Most States are also facing immense problems of infrastructure inadequacies to meet the needs of the current populations including huge tracts of farmland and bush being taken up by housing developments, desalination plants, commerce, industry, new schools and hospitals, shopping centres etc etc.

Sydney and Melbourne have extreme problems in public transport with the present provision unable to meet the needs of commuters and travellers during peak periods. Main highways into and out of city centres are becoming mere car parks due to the traffic congestion which also adds to environmental and air pollution.

Hospitals and health services are grossly oversubscribed and health care is at crisis levels in most areas. Schools are only just coping and further population increases will undoubtedly cause them considerable problems.

So what are the Federal and State governments doing about these problems.?. They are both working towards increasing the populations and thereby increasing the problems.!. The Federal government are adding to the problem by introducing the Baby Bonus to encourage higher birth rates and the State governments are boasting about how populations of the cities will be increased by the inward migrations which they are encouraging.!. Talk about adding fuel to a fiercely burning fire!. Utter stupidity and ignorance.

The Federal and State governments must immediately announce and work towards stabilising the population at current levels and have a moritorium to halt any further population growth for at least five years until some of these problems are tackled and dealt with. To do otherwise is plainly suicidal for our society and the quality of life of current residents.

Higher birthrates among Aussies is a much better option than immigration. Baby bonus or not some ethnic groups will continue to breed. Before we know it we will be like France, England or Holland. This would be a disaster. We either need to be more selective about immigration or breed more ourselves. We are going to need a lot more workers to pay taxes for the upcoming baby boomer retirements. This won't be done by bringing people here who believe in polygamy and continually milk the welfare system. Hopefully our Governments will have the guts to discriminate in the right way (although I hold little hope).

Yep, spot on Chaz.

It is the most mindboggling thing that our federal government, and every state government, think that rapid population growth has more benefits than negatives.

Or is it that our governments have so totally sold their souls to the vested-interests of big business that wants ever-bigger markets, ever-bigger workforces and ever-greater economic turnover?

Runner, your main concern appears to be that some ethnic groups, presumably within Australia, continue to breed faster than white or traditional Australians. Correct me if I’m wrong.

So, how does boosting our birthrate tackle that issue? An increased birthrate would apply across the board, to all ethnic groups.

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to implement disincentives to have more than one or two kids?

If we did this, those sections of society that breed faster than others would be pulled back into line with the slower breeding sectors…..and we’d be on the right road towards population stabilisation and sustainability.

As for needing more workers to pay taxes for the upcoming baby boomer retirements, I disagree entirely. What we need is a modification of the tax and welfare systems so that more of the enormous wealth pouring into this country can be more equitably distributed to pensioners and to health, education, etc, etc… and so that there are strong incentives for people to stay in the workforce rather than retire.

We have all the wealth we need. We don’t need more workers to generate more economic turnover and tax revenue. We just need a government with the balls to make this huge national income really count in terms of quality of life and security for the whole population.

Part of the problem with democracy is that idiots will not let politicians make hard (but good-and yes i know how tenuous the definition of 'good' is) decisions. For example, the people who profit off the Murray Darling river system over the years and decades (and the state and federal governments) never took any action on this nor would have allowed their politicians to do anything (if they were inclined). These issues have been known about for *decades*.

It is, as Ludwig says, about the quality of life of people currently living in Australia, irrespective of their racial origins. It is our quality of life that is going to suffer even more as more and more people swell the number of people here. It will become increasingly difficult to get medical treatment, to get transport to our destinations, to get school places for our children, to be able to travel in our cars without hitting gridlocks and bottlenecks of traffic, to enjoy the beaches, the countryside, the theatres and cinemas etc etc etc.
Britain already has this gross overpopulation and these are some of the problems they are ecperiencing daily. We do not want or need this in Australia.