Aside from the obvious sustainability issues, the real danger of immigration is letting in people whose ideology is inimical to democracy and who have no intention of integrating into the Australian community.

At least use your own words, we can not go on reading transcripts from other people.

Let me be honest and direct.
1. The politics and policies of Australia should benefit Australians, not immigrants or refugees.
2. Notions of charity and compassion are nice, but are secondary to item 1.
3. It is impossible to establish policy on an individual basis, so certain guidelines must exist and these must generalize about the type and number of immigrants that will benefit Australia.
4. Under no circumstances should Australia take in immigrants that will not accept Australian values. In case any body doesn't understand 'values', I am talking about freedom of speeech, freedom of religion, equality and human rights.
5. To make it clear, I am saying that any country in the West that accepts Muslim immigrants is asking for trouble. Look at Europe. Islamic values are not Western values.

Yes there are some Muslims that say they believe in freedom and equality but why should we believe these people are any different from the average Muslim in Egypt, Pakistan and Somalia? If they accept the Quran and hadith, their values are not our values.

Have I offended anybody? Oh well.

Kactuz

PS: Besides they should be happy to live under sharia and among 'the best of peoples' (as Muslims call themselves). Why make them suffer among us horrible, evil infidels?

I guess the main argument for a large population is to cover the cost of 'infrastructure'.
ie, if 100 people live on a kilometre of road (city), they can better afford upkeep of that road than if 10 people live on it (country). Likewise, defence is probably the largest single expense for most countries; sheer physical size of the country is a major determinant of expense, rather than population.
On the other hand, if resources are inextricably tied to wealth, then clearly the more people taking a slice of the pie, the less there is for everyone.
(Of course it should be evident here that the major problem in the world is the very very small sector of the population who take half the pie, but that's a different story).
Australia is undoubtedly the 'Lucky Country' in that respect, as I would suggest the ratio of natural resources to population is probably just about the best in the world -in terms of saleable commodities.
In basic necessities however, perhaps not so much. Sooner or later, it will become evident to the people of the world that you cannot trust the profit motive -companies- with control of life's necessities, like food and water. These are items which every country needs to be self sufficient in, and that means population control.
Capitalism requires growth. It's that simple. We need to find an alternative which offers maximum freedom for individuals, but does not require growth.

Examinator

Here's the rub.

Usually when the government announces an important policy it cites some sort of study or research that purports to show the benefits. In this case there appears to be nothing. Australians are being asked to take ON FAITH a policy that will change the country in profound ways.

Any policy has winners and losers. To use the Australian vernacular my gut feel is that large scale immigration is more likely to benefit the "big end" of town than the "small end". More population means bigger domestic markets.

It also means more competition for jobs. Many economists dispute this. They assert that the arrival of immigrants creates more jobs than the immigrants take up. I have seen such analyses and they depend on some rather rubbery assumptions. In practice it has not worked that way in Europe.

But my biggest problem is water. Cities whose water supply is looking increasingly fragile are going to grow fast. Is this wise? Where are the plans to improve and enhance water supply?

"Usually when the government announces an important policy it cites some sort of study or research that purports to show the benefits. In this case there appears to be nothing."

Absolutely right, Steven. There is just NO justification from Rudd for this outrageous policy. Neither does he have any sort of mandate to do this. He didn't even mention anything about this sort of a policy in the lead-up to the last election.

High population growth is simply absurd. Water is just one of several critically important issues that are being rapidly worsened as a result.

My views on this whole subject are very clear. We need to head directly towards population stabilisation at the lowest level that we can easily achieve. That is; about 24 million.

We CAN maintain a reasonable immigration program, at net zero. Within this, the main category should be refugees, to the tune of about double the current intake. That would leave about 5000 places per annum for especially needed skills, family reunion, etc.

The most important thing here is to keep Australian society coherent. If the stresses become too great, the rule of law will break down. All our financial wherewithall will have to be put into crisis management. There'll be nothing left for meaningful defence or anything else.

This is the bottom line - to keep our population within the levels that can be supported, with anything like the current quality of life, by our resource base - especially water supplies.

We so DESPERATELY need the Libs to come out and counter Krudd's terrible 'big Australia' policy and to espouse genuine sustainability! But unfortunately Turnbull seems to be a total Rudd-supporter when it come to massive continuous expansionism.