tortasaurus said: "Who are the LOSERS?"

In short, us.

The average Australian gains nothing from high immigration and population growth. Rather, we face less water per capita, higher property prices, further environmental degradation and pollution, increased consumption of finite natural resources, further pressure on infrastructure and public services, social tension, ethno-cultural division and parallel communities, more urban sprawl and a number of other population related problems.

No wonder why the major political parties discourage any discussion about immigration policy.

rojo

In the EXTREMELY unlikely event of the sort of UN action you envisage the Australian government of the day will have to make some sort of a deal. I regard the probability of anything like this happening as vanishingly small. In fact I think the likelihood is so small that, to be frank, I don’t think it's worth serious discussion.

Absent this sort of "UN pressure," what is the optimum immigration level for Australia and what sort of selection criteria should we apply?

My off the cuff answers are:

Immigration levels should be way below current levels; and

Only YOUNG people with extra-ordinary skills or talents should be admitted.

If I were to put a number to the immigration level I would say 30 – 40,000 per annum of carefully selected immigrants.

I say this while freely admitting that had the sort of immigration regime I am advocating been in place when I applied for immigration to Australia I would never have been admitted.

Pro-immigration propaganda notwithstanding, the NET economic benefits of mass immigration seem to me to be dubious. I suspect the main beneficiaries are what is commonly called the "big end of Town" while most ordinary working Australians either do not benefit or suffer negative consequences

I think rojo's 8% relates to domestic water usage. The other 92% provides our living standards, so if this resource starts to dry up the water will need to be used more efficiently. But before anyone calls for a string of desalination/recycling plants to be set up along the Australian coastline, it is important to note that there are economic constraints to the cost of water. Virtual water is a useful concept for understanding this, though population growth zealots never seem to mention it.

http://www.worldwatercouncil.org/virtual_water/documents/VirtualWater_article_DZDR.pdf

I reckon the ideal population is somewhere akin to Tim Flannery’s figure of 10 million. But we need to be concentrating on the lowest easily achievable figure. And that is in the order of 25 million.

I think rojo’s concerns about pressure to take refugees are very significant. But this should be dealt with almost entirely by addressing the source of the problems through our international aid contributions, with only a very limited intake of the most needy of refugees.

The UN could hardly complain about that, surely. We can very easily espouse the argument that no matter how many refugees we were to allow into Australia, it would only be a drop in the bucket in the world perspective, whereas a boosted international aid effort could help vastly more people.

Of greater concern is the view by our ever-more population-stressed northern neighbours of Australia as an empty resource-rich country with a high quality of life.

But boosting our population is not going to allay any insecurity that we might feel about this. Even if we tripled our population we’d still only have 63 million, compared to more than 100 million on Java alone! We'd still look pretty empty.

We need head as directly towards sustainability as we possibly can, and that means gearing immigration right down and approaching a stable population with priority.
Then, at such a time that we can be sure that we are living within our means, we might recommence population growth. But only if it is within a sustainability paradigm.

David BOAZ, what do you mean; “IMMIGRATION should be replaced by FERTILITY” ?

fester, there are a lot of ifs in a sanction scenario.
if sea levels rise huge numbers of people will be displaced
if agricultural systems fail in different regions
if global population gets to 9 billion
if we ignore the plight of others and shut the doors
if our standard of living is even greater relative to others

It all depends on variables, but I would be concerned if we simply let our water and abundance of land be merely a testament to our standard of living under such conditions.
Population interlinked with climate change is a global issue and will need to be addressed on a global scale. This may or may not be by the UN.

Oligarch, I'm not "hellbent on inflicting pain" via immigration. I'm stating what I think the population will be, and that it can be comfortably achieved.
Very true to say our cities are in trouble, but have a look on a map and you will find many more habitable areas. We have just chosen to congregate in a few.
There is no reason why new cities could not be started in the North and you need not even know they are there. How much contact do you have with Darwin now? It is for most of us a weather statistic. You seem to assume I think we should bring more people to our major cities. That is just dumb.