Yes...good to see this topic opened up !

Some key words in Grahams posts are 'INFRASTRUCTURE' needs. Look at us in Melbourne... stage 4 water restrictions.. water related debates in every state.. and dare I say it.... the FIRST point on the ONE-NATION immigration policy was.."population based"...... so apart from any other whacky economic policies they might have or have had..THAT one was a beaudy.

I suggest, as an alternative to immigration, a long term approach.

1/ Increasingly facilitate the growth of FAMILIES... more children born here. (go forth and multiply, be fruitfull..fill the earth and subdue it. Genesis.)
2/ Scale back immigration as the newly fertile generation has more children and they grow to work age.
3/ Expand infrastructre in line with point 1 and re-shape it also to be more 'renewable' based.

My daughter and her partner are finding Rent opportunities are very limited with landlords very picky.

Graham,

There are benefits to the people at the top from a larger economy but not to the rest of us. (Would you rather be an average person in Denmark or China?) Finland only has 5 million people, who don't even speak English as a first language, low population density, and very little immigration or population growth of any kind. It is near the top of the pops on the UN Human Development Index and the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index. The ratio of the income of the top 10% to the bottom 10% is 5, as opposed to 13 in Australia and 17 in the US. A similar point can be made from comparisons with other countries. We are getting the mass migration (and pro-natalist measures like the baby bonus) because the elite want bigger markets, more effortless profits from property development, and an oversupply of labour to keep the work force cheap and compliant. A more diverse population also helps to undermine support for the welfare state.

According to a recent study by Ingrid Linsley, 'Causes of Overeducation in the Australian Labour Market', nearly 30% of Australians are overqualified for their jobs. 16% of the working age population is on welfare as opposed to 3% in the 1960s when we really did have full employment. Where there are shortages of skilled labour it is entirely due to failure to train by government and the private sector.

The Productivity Commission report did not consider damage to the environment or quality of life. Over the past 10 years State of the Environment reports have shown every environmental indicator apart from urban air quality getting worse. More crowding and congestion, losing one's garden, seeing the real cost of houses (in terms of the median wage) triple, and putting up with permanent water restrictions don't make people happy.

DB,

Like many people, you are assuming that Australia needs more people, perhaps because it looks big on the map. However, only 4-6% of it is arable (depending on whether you include cultivated grassland, see CIA World Factbook). If you don't include the grassland, the amount of arable land is about the same as for France. Most of that land is quite marginal by French standards. Our environment is deteriorating, and our coastal waters are getting fished out. According to ABS figures approximately 2 babies are born and one net migrant arrives for every death. The fertility rate we have plus a modest amount of immigration is more than enough to maintain the population at any desired level. Australia isn't going to run out of people any time soon. Why not leave a bit of habitat for the other animals and plants that share the environment with us?

BOAZ_DAVID, you should read SMH journalist Paul Sheehan's article "We Fiddle as the Continent Turns to Dust" posted at http://www.smh.com.au/news/scorchedearth/we-fiddle-as-the-continent-turns-to-dust/2006/10/22/1161455605817.html if you believe that this continent is short of people. It is overpopulated already and will be even more so, if we don't act very soon to stop the desertification of our agricultural land. Paul Sheehan writes :

"We are creating deserts out of farmland. And when the rains do come, heavy rain will bring problems, not just relief. An enormous amount of topsoil is sitting dry and exposed, vulnerable to run-off. ...

"The 'great water crisis' was four years - and 17 columns on the subject - ago. Tim Flannery's seminal warning 'The Future Eaters' was published 12 years ago. The crisis has since quickened and broadened. It is affecting food prices. It should soon bite as deeply on the psyche as oil prices. And it is being compounded by global warming.

"Yet most people still talk about the "drought." It is not a drought. It is climate change. We changed the landscape. We cut, stripped, gouged, channelled and laid it bare. And thus changed the climate. How can we solve a problem when we can't even name it, and thus still can't even face it?"

Graham, I believe you forgot to net off the exports, those who seek a better life overseas because poor ol' Oz is getting so crowded. Most of them probably went to the wide brown land of YouKay with its vast open spaces, to take their place alongside the massed ranks of Polish plumbers.

I think you will find that the net increase (balance of immigration/emigration) in the last year was close to 109,000.

But you get the expected knee-jerk reaction. The usual suspects are back.

I see daggett is once again promoting Shiela Newman's questionable piece of hackwork, stretching our credulity yet again. I expect we will see Kanga any moment now, promoting (in a purely disinterested capacity, of course) the same tired thesis.

What we are witnessing in terms of net intake is well within the capacity of the country to absorb. As Graham points out, the impact on GDP per capita is negligible, which indicates the process of absorption is at no cost in the broadest sense to us as individuals.

>>to decrease the immigration rate for a couple of years... would improve the standard of living of the rest of us by taking the pressure caused by increasing rents and mortgages off.<<

That would be true only if it were immigration that is the primary cause of the rise in prices, which I don't believe has been proven.

A major cause of the increase in price is in fact our greater ability, and willingness, to pay. Until interest rates move higher, there is a considerable incentive to continue to invest in property - while the debt on it is "cheap" to service. We are simply prepared to allocate a higher proportion of our income to the question of where we live, because we still have the readies left over to spend on plasma screens and a new car every couple of years.

Fear of immigration is simply another weapon brought into play by the "we were here first" brigade, without a single thought to its long term implications for our country and its social and economic future.

Why should mass immigration be the status quo? The benefits are far from proven, yet many of the population growth proponents are quick to dismiss climate change on the basis of a lack of evidence: Why the inconsistency? Surely the consequences of overpopulation are far worse than a population within Australia's means? What would Pericles be proposing to fix an overpopulated Australia? Shooting people perhaps? (Some people might even see such an action as a chance to improve the breeding stock.)

I for one am sick of seeing Australia degraded via high immigration for the sake of profiting a few at the expense of all Australians. And as for being racist, the logical direction to point the finger is at the mainly white Anglo-Saxon old males who control the policy.