I feel no need to explain myself Ludwig.
Facts speak for them selves.
We have so many threads open now and in the recent past that talk of migration.
Population, and truly should be about fear.
So very many threads should be about the real reason we talk constantly about this subject.
Let us drop the lie, a lot of Australians fear, yes fear a culture within a culture.
Yes we fear also for our environment, but even I fear that culture that is separate from mine so demanding that mine changes.
Not The slow changes that we have been given as gift by migration.
But a world wide demand from some that we adopt or let another culture control our way of life.
I understand migrants, refugees are humans.
Wanted an end to child detention, want still control over people smugglers , an end to it.
But while I understand your issue with our populations number see it has let you blindly see only your view.
If I sound racist in my concerns about many Muslim migrants then face some truths, many do, from all sides of politics.
All over the world.
Are we talking growth or content here be honest do we fear growth or content more.

Yes Belly, I am sorry about that, I had a ‘Pauline moment’.

There are a number of issues that need to be addressed if we are even to sustain the population we have, let a lone, rapidly increase it.

There is ‘job creation’ through ‘value adding’ rather than just ‘raw exports’.

While Krudds idea of simply handing out cash, for the masses to splash around may well have boosted our economy last Xmas and post Xmas, what about this Xmas?

Or what about the fact that a little more than half of the population actually contributes, in a positive way, to the national purse and, that’s while we still have a manufacturing industry here. What happens if and when our manufacturing does go ‘off shore’, then what?

We are on a down hill spiral yet we continue to openly welcome people who not only disrespect our way of life, but insist on bringing their cultures into our lives all because we have ‘limp dick’ leaders.

Meanwhile, our own children continue to become homeless. Our hospitals etch closer every day to ‘third world standards’ and we have our leaders playing Russian roulette with our jobs market.

We must be the laughing stock of the world.

I say, Stop immigration, cancel the baby bonus and overhaul our welfare system so it is the ‘safety net’ it was meant to be rather than the ‘way of life’ it has become for many.

On that note I see we are re-visiting the ‘no school, no welfare’ approach.

Good luck with the ‘soft cocks’ we have in power

I am sure that both major parties are like mice on a wheel as far as immigration policy and targets are concerned and it is only the minor parties like the Greens who can cry 'enough' without suffering unduly at the polls. The ethnic groups are now much larger and better organised than in years before, thanks in part to government grants to encourage such representation.

On this issue, I am largely in agreement with rehctub; although I don't understand the line:
"On that note I see we are re-visiting the ‘no school, no welfare’ approach."
Could you please expand? Cheers...

I have long supported the idea that Australia's population should be limited for ecological reasons, and the figure that Barry Jones' committee came up with seems to me to be a reasonable approximation of the high end of estimates of the human 'carrying capacity' of the Australian continent. As a member of the Greens I have also been disappointed that the party has been unwilling or unable to arrive at a definitive population policy, although I understand the humanitarian concerns that drive resistance to enshrining absolute numbers in policy.

I'm therefore pleased that Bob Brown has finally made a strong statement about the unsustainability of increasing Australia's population to the levels envisaged by the Rudd government (and no doubt the Coalition if they were in power), and also that a leading environmental organisation like the ACF has similarly condemned such proposals. This is, of course, why I posted the links that Ludwig shamelesly lifted without acknowledgement.

Unfortunately, debates about population sustainability in Australia are often thinly disguised venues for the expression of xenophobic or racist sentiments, or simple misanthropic selfishness. While I'm pleased that Ludwig has belatedly started this discussion, I'm afraid that it's been poisoned from the start by his execrable strategy of preceding it with a blatant 'dog-whistling' appeal to the haters on his boat-people bashing thread.

I think that's what Belly was trying to say. At any rate, it'd be really great if we could have a discussion about population sustainability in Australia that wasn't designed to appeal to the lowest common denominators of debate about these issues in Australian society.

Belly,
Come on mate, both major parties are high immigration, but Rudd took the lead by greatly upping the intake. Both parties support the baby bonus and have an agreement NOT to debate immigration matters. The Greens stay quiet because they want Labor preferences to get their Senate seats. They are total hypocrits in this regard.

Incidently, it was the Libs who brought about the student and 457 workers fiasco, which resulted in an extra 54000 being granted permanent residency last year, which is not accounted for anywhere. The present government has not reversed that.

While ever big busness continues to pay large donations to the major parties the situation will continue.

We will continue to debate the issue because the polys wont. I want one party or the other to break the agreement about not to debate.