"Do you mean if we water our land it will not be good for agricultural use?
Do you mean it is good for grass but if we water it will not be good for crops?"

That is exactly what I am saying Antonios. The vast majority of our soils have been leached of any nutrients from millions of years of weathering and erosion. We used to put tons of superphosphate on them and plow them to within an inch of their lives but that just resulted in dead, lifeless soils that blew/washed away at the first opportunity. Also super became expensive as did fuel. We do better now with reduced tillage and sensible stocking policies but there still remains much damage unrepaired.

There has been no recent glaciacion to grind up the bedrock and produce fertile soils in this country as there was in Europe and Nth america. There are no widespread volcanic soils with their inherant fertility like there are in parts of the tropics. There is bugger all rainfall and what there is is usually flood rains which cannot physically protected from let alone captured and then transported over the vast distances of this continent. The whole climate is the most variable on earth with the only certainty being its unpredictability.

Your ideas are admirable Antonios but far better minds than you and I have investigated these schemes for the best part of two hundred years and all the sensible ones have realised it cant be done. There is not enough fertile land, not enough water and the distances are too vast to introduce more intensive agriculture and irrigation. We would be better off trying to save the rivers, forests and agricultural lands we have than opening more or subjecting existing land to increased pressure.

Why is it that people think we have this "duty" to just hand over whatever we have to anyone who wants it? Why is it that people believe we should populate simply because we can? Why do people think keeping our population small in order to make less of an impact on the environment is "selfish"? Why do people think we owe the rest of the world a living?

Let's face it, plenty of countries make mistakes, but it's not our job to clean up their mess. We live in a magnificent country, let's take care of it. Let's look after our own less fortunate and marginalised people. Let's engage the rest of the world without feeling we need to do everything for countries that simply will not get their act together. Bad governance, corruption, tribalism and oppression must go, but it's not our "duty" to handle the fallout from them. At some time, people have to take responsibility for their own situation. We've seen it before - South Africa, the Philippines, Chile - so don't say it can't be done.

Study the population movements in the last 20 years. Note the growth and decline areas and ask the reasons Why?

Hey Jacksonn, are you going to partake in the discussion that you instigated? Are you even reading this thread? Where are you buddy?

What about my question to you of 1 August:

Can you tell us what you would like to see in regards to population in Australia, with some justification?

I'm always a little alarmed when I hear calls to 'turn our deserts into forests'. I know that desertification is a big issue - that human activities have resulted in the infertility of land and the gradual spread of deserts. But the fact remains that our 'red centre' was desert long before white man came along. A desert is an ecosystem, just as a rainforest is. Why should we destroy that ecosystem? What effect will its destruction have on its surrounding systems?

Assuming that investors came forth to pour the huge amounts of money into damming rivers, capturing rainfall, turning the sea into potable water and so on, we would have two options:
1) Turn what is left of our natural environment into the 'breadbasket of the world' and feed the starving, with little regard for our natural heritage.
2) Turn their offers down, leave the land as it is, work to repair the damage we have done and maintain a sustainable population without destroying the natural integrity of our country.

I'm all for Option 2. Much of the 'wasted' land AS speaks of is too wild to use for sustainable, large-scale, dense farmland. Look at North Queensland earlier this year: dry and inhospitable scrubland turns into giant lake and back into scrubland in the course of a couple of months. The people of the region are hard-pressed sustaining agriculture as it is - until we can control the climate, we won't have much luck turning that land into a 'breadbasket'. And even if we did, what right do we have to destroy our land to suit our own purposes?