And I, Wayne, suggest that you leave the silly remarks out. Nobody has suggested "no new children". Nobody has opined against natural increases in population. We have been talking about ridiculous baby bonuses and immigration.

Seeing you want to make it personal, I merely replaced myself with two daughters about 40 years ago and, as I have now forgotten what to do, I won't be producing any more!

Leigh;
It is widely accepted that even university graduates now have a poor command of English, logic and history. Our schools and universities are now seen as prep schools for industry, instead of places to broaden students’ minds with philosophy, history, reason and logic. There’s no cultural curriculum – unless you think pop ‘culture’ suffices. By the age of about fifteen a student’s subject list is reduced to four or five topics – often closely related. Try discussing poetry, art, music, philosophy, morality, literature with any randomly selected group of Australians. German truck drivers can quote Goethe. Most Arabs are vitally aware of their culture, art, music and can discuss moral and philosophical issues with ease. Travel to north Africa and it is difficult to avoid being drawn into a political discussion.
You reckon we have independent media! 70% of all Australian newspapers are controlled by one rabid right-wing internationalist, and the other 30% by someone similar… there is no chance of being informed. The ABC has been gutted and blackmailed to silence by political intervention – as are journalists who oppose the government. SBS has had it’s funding drastically reduced. Surely you know of the nadir to which Foxtel has reduced news reporting? European media, by contrast, are independent and it’s possible to get a balanced view. New Zealand, all of Western Europe and Canada are more or less democratic. Australia has followed the U.S.A. to become a presidential style dictatorship. No one knows their local representative, because they have become irrelevant, thus the only person who campaigns is the party leader. By political advertising, I mean ‘selling’ policies, as opposed to electioneering spending. The present govt. is the largest advertiser in the country, ‘selling’ its unpopular policies.
A lack of a broad education does not preclude intelligence, as your posts demonstrate.
As for Warren Smith’s silly comment. Two children per couple will not increase the population.

As with such issues as climate change, overpopulation cannot be properly addressed unilaterally.If Australia high-mindedly, or with foresight , decides unilaterally to reduce/control its population -It will mean BUGGER ALL unless the rest of the world makes similar commitments.

While we are living in a world where some cultures allow, or even actively encouraging population growth on the flimsiest of economic foundations. And we having a ruling ethos in much of the west
which proclaims our responsibly for all corners of the globe & the need for sharing -regardless of input & responsibility. We are sitting ducks -or suckers waiting to be had.

Either some future “high minded” Aust govt , egg-on by bleeding hearts , or some outside (world) body faced with major natural or manmade system failures will open the doors & all our conservation will mean ZILCH.

It has parallels to someone going to see the new-years eve fireworks display by the harbour - you get there early, take time to case the place finding a spot with a fine view,close to amenmities- you set out your rug/mat/chairs on patch which you deem is a right & proper size for your group , not being greedy you only take minimal space -then last -minute-Freddie & his mob arrive -they haven’t given it half the planning but they are satisfied with less space - & squeeze-in around & in-front of & perhaps overtop of you. So much for unilateral foresight & planning !

Leigh an Ludwig shouldn't feel despondent. At least OLO provides a public forum to air concerns. What I look forward to are some new arguments supporting the status quo. It would be nice to see an advance on the following:

1. Australia needs more people to support a manufacturing industry and a strong economy (don't mention the current account deficit, per capita debt or competition from foreign workers on $2 a day for 16 hour days; pretending that countries like Finland and Sweden don't exist will also help).

2. Australia needs more people and harsher conditions (e.g. a war or two) to slow genetic degradation (i.e. it weeds out the inferior among us).

3. Australia needs more people to offset the effects of an ageing population (pretend not to understand the concept of exponential growth).

4. Australia needs more people so it can raise armies to defend us against greedy foreign powers (the degradation of living standards from a large population will also make Australia a less appealing invasion target).

5. The whole world is stuffed so what difference will an optimally populated Australia make? Anyway, what can you do about it? Shoot people?

6. We will all be killed by an epidemic or asteroid soon, so why worry?

7. Australia can sustainably support a much larger population (only to be used by successful poker players).

8. There are many reasons why high population growth is fantastic for Australia but I don't have the time to write them down at the moment (my favourite).

Notice that I haven't mentioned supporting high housing costs and the associated industry, undercutting wages, and saving on education and training costs by poaching skilled workers from the rest of the world. These of course are the real reasons for Australia's population growth ethos.

Ybgirp

I agree with you re the idiots turned out of universities. Most of the duds should never have been there in the first place. It will get worse if Labor attains office: they think all poor people should go to university no matter what.

However, you don’t have to go to university to be educated and intelligent, so none of the above has any bearing on your previous claims.

Unlike you, I do not know anything about most Arabs “awareness”, but your reference to them certainly does not support your previous claim, either. Name the Arab countries which are democracies! What good has “political discussion” in North Africa produced for the average person?

Your claims about the media are, again, invalid. What about the left wing papers, the left wing ABC etc.?

There is no chance of being informed? Are you uninformed? Unless people really don’t want to know, there are many ways to become informed, the internet being just one. We don’t need to rely on traditional sources any more.

I note that you have dodged the question on political advertising. There is no difference between “selling policies” and “electioneering spending”.

As you say, electoral representatives are nobodies these days. That’s because they do not represent us; they represent their party to us. We should be voting for a leader and cabinet, not for some drone who is totally irrelevant. We have public servants, ombudsman etc to deal with our individual needs at state and federal levels. We don’t need a politician as well in each electorate.

Are you going to advise us which countries you believe are more democratic than Australia? Where would you prefer to live and enjoy the things you find lacking in Australia?

“As with such issues as climate change, overpopulation cannot be properly addressed unilaterally. If Australia high-mindedly, or with foresight , decides unilaterally to reduce/control its population -It will mean BUGGER ALL unless the rest of the world makes similar commitments.”

Horus, I think this is a real furphy (Festers furphy No. 5!). As with climate change, if Australia was to set a really good example, the pressure would on the US to follow suit, and if the US did so even to a limited extent, then the rest of the world would be much more likely to seriously take up the issue.

Australia could and should set an example.

Our borders are completely pervious to climate change, but they certainly aren’t to global population growth. So we CAN develop a population policy based on sustainability in this country irrelevant of the burgeoning world population.

Not only would we be setting an example of how to live sustainably in a country that has constant growth pressure, but we would save ourselves from future decline, or very likely from economic and ecological collapse...or we would at least lessen the decline.

Besides, it is pretty crazy to think that we can’t deal with our own population pressure problem because this problem pervades much of the world. What a cop-out! Of course we can. And of course we should.

Overpopulation or overgrowth of population in this country can most definitely be addressed unilaterally. And in doing so, we would be doing a great deal for the global cause by way of setting the example.