Ludwig, know, those who prosper from constant growth will be hard to roll.
Belly,
That is just so true. I see it every day in the public service. As the federal Government's contributions to the states increase so do the lurks & perks i.e. profits of the public servants & those who exploit every loophole to get more. The problem with that system is that the more one makes the more another has to give. Growth is direct result of input. do want growth in bureaucracy ? I don't think even you'd like that. Do you want growth in the crime rate because many make a profit from that ? You're advocating growth all round but I have yet to see you advocate growth in integrity, accountability & above all decency. There is good growth & there is bad growth. Population increase is bad growth. Ask anyone with more than two ounces of brain.

<< Blindly lashing out, at one side, for sharing the view most hold, is wasteful self deceit. >>

Scuuuze me Belly! You know perfectly well that I extend just the same sort of criticisms about the facilitation of continuous growth to both Labor and the Coalition. Always have. And I’ve made it abundantly clear.

<< Ludwig, know, those who prosper from constant growth will be hard to roll. >>

I don’t think we should be thinking of it in those terms. We don’t want to ‘roll’ big business, we want to work with them.

What we really need is a concerted effort at the top level of our political arena to explain which growth is good and which is bad, and why. I don’t think this has ever been done, at all, by any government, Federal or state, except perhaps the NSW Carr govt??

It’s not difficult. Even the ordinary plebs would be able to understand it… if they don’t already!

Once the message is out there that the government says continuous rapid population growth is bad, with the various reasons having been clearly expressed, there should be a call for companies to express their support for much lower population growth and the achievement of a sustainable society.

While many big businesses may kick and scream and condemn the government, I think that a lot of companies would sense the advantage in supporting this, if they can see that a large portion of the population agrees with it.

Then hopefully the momentum would swing around to the majority of businesses supporting it.

While I generally agree with the argument that 40 million would be a strain on infrastructure (especially given the skyrocketing cost of said infrastructure), does anyone have any thoughts about how the retirement of the baby boomers will affect Australia in terms of increased immigration?

After all, we are breeding less and over the coming decade or two we will see a sizable proportion of the country's workforce retire. We can also expect those people to consume less of most goods although services are likely to be in demand.

Thoughts?

"does anyone have any thoughts about how the retirement of the baby boomers will affect Australia in terms of increased immigration?"

First the claim that the Boomers will overstretch resources needs to be proved. As I recall, Bronwyn Bishop challenged that claim with evidence. However I cannot refer to her statement ATM.

'Boomers' is a very broad descriptor and useless I believe except for the frivolous. I am not suggesting you are one of them, just reminding of the many years and the disparate people covered by that advertising term that has been adopted by the sensationalist media.

I should have added that there is on the other hand considerable evidence from State Premiers alone of overstretched resources and unmanageable problems from over-enthusiastic immigration policies over many years.

There is also evidence that some of the major hikes in numbers were to placate builders who complained whenever the building boom (and the constant shabby work and corner cutting that went with it) went through a bit of a downturn.

We need to remember too that many of the 'Boomers' that are being sledged as likely drains on the GDP because they have retired (often deliberate through forced redundancies) were in fact migrants themselves.

Immigration to prop up business profits and to 'support' Boomers (what a load of BS!) is a Ponzi Scheme. It always was a Ponzi Scheme.

Graeme, welcome to OLO.

<< …any thoughts about how the retirement of the baby boomers will affect Australia in terms of increased immigration? >>

The cost of immigration in terms of providing services and infrastructure is absolutely enormous. If we were to greatly reduce this (ie; greatly reduce immigration), we would surely easily have the wherewithal to cater for any increase in the demand for pensions, concessions for seniors, geriatric services, etc.

<< After all, we are breeding less… >>

Actually, we aren’t! The birthrate is up a little bit due to the despicable baby bonus and the population on which the birthrate is based is getting rapidly bigger, which means that even if it were to remain the same, we would still have a considerable increase in the number of babies per year.

If we were to halve immigration, we would put a big dent in the number of births per year (without changing the birthrate!).

But we still wouldn't be breeding less. The increase in the number of births per year would just be a little less rapid!