malthusista (continued)
"So, as Australia as a whole is becoming ever more impoverished and environmentally degraded as a result of high immigration, a small minority is perversely gaining. That minority includes land speculators and property developers."
The high immigration's a scapegoat for inaction. As for property speculation, I think the best way to solve that is to replace the GST with a broad based land tax.

"In at least one previous era (as well as now) another minority was also able to grotesquely gain from war as millions died and had their homes and property destroyed. That war was the almost entirely avoidable Second World against Nazi Germany. It should have ended shortly after Italy switched sides in July 1943, if not before."
Almost entirely avoidable?!?!?! How?

I really don't know why you dragged the war into it anyway. Small rich minorities profiting at the expense of others is hardly unusual, but it happened far less in WW2 as government control was much stronger.

In the last paragraph of my last post, I should have posted:

"That war was the almost entirely avoidable Second World [War] against Nazi Germany."

- my apologies

Aidan wrote: "if we take the problems seriously, Australia can achieve sustainability even with a much higher rate of population growth"

This is yet another unfounded assertion.

Clearly our political leaders and planners have not "take[n] the problems seriously" so far now and we are living with the consequences.

Whether they can be made to "take the problems seriously" is yet to be seen and whether continued massive population growth can occur without further destruction of our quality of life even if our political leaders and planners were to "take the problems seriously" is also yet to be seen.

Aidan wrote: "Remember, nobody's forcing people to live in those flats; there are plenty of freestanding homes available further out."

A few weeks ago on the ABC Friday 7.30 Victoria Report it was revealed that the residents of one of the recent additions to Melbourne's urban sprawl had a poor quality of life. There was no public transport and few local services. The only way to travel to work was in a long return journey by car.

The 'choice' that Victorians face is between high-rise cramped accommodation or urban sprawl with its long commute times, lack of services and destruction of native vegetation. In both cases the cost of shelter has been hyper-inflated as a result of population growth.

Quite possibly advances in digital technology may one day reduce our need for space. That has yet to happen, but that will, at best, only make a marginal difference to the quality of life of those living in small high-rise flats.

Aidan wrote: "As for property speculation, I think the best way to solve that is to replace the GST with a broad based land tax."

Any 'solution' which fails to make the demand equal to the supply is no solution.

malthusista,
Apology rejected, as you seem to be using it to avoid answering the question: How was WW2 avoidable? And how is it relevant here anyway?

As for my assertion that "if we take the problems seriously, Australia can achieve sustainability even with a much higher rate of population growth" it is my honest opinion. Remember this is an opinion website! If you have facts that seem to contradict it, I'm prepared to either revise my opinion or explain why they don't.

"A few weeks ago on the ABC Friday 7.30 Victoria Report it was revealed that the residents of one of the recent additions to Melbourne's urban sprawl had a poor quality of life. There was no public transport and few local services. The only way to travel to work was in a long return journey by car."
I had no idea the planners had been so negligent. Which recent addition is it? And do you have the URL or the date of the report?

"The 'choice' that Victorians face is between high-rise cramped accommodation or urban sprawl with its long commute times, lack of services and destruction of native vegetation. In both cases the cost of shelter has been hyper-inflated as a result of population growth."
Suburban development often leads to an increase in native vegetation as the areas expanded into tend to be grassland, and many people plant native vegetation in their gardens.

"Quite possibly advances in digital technology may one day reduce our need for space. That has yet to happen,"
For some people it's ALREADY HAPPENED.

"but that will, at best, only make a marginal difference to the quality of life of those living in small high-rise flats."
On the contrary, it will make a huge difference. But we are still likely to see a trend towards bigger flats in future. And of course space isn't everything and acoustic factors also have to be considered, but we do have the technology to address those as well.

malthusista (continued)

"Any 'solution' which fails to make the demand equal to the supply is no solution."
I'm not suggesting it be a substitute for provision of alternatives. However house prices are being pushed up by the investment value that properties have. By taxing land value, housing will become more affordable for new buyers. But it would have to be phased in gradually to avoid disadvantaging those who've already bought houses.

Aidan,

You keep making unfounded assertions about how we could solve our problems and make life better for everyone while rapidly increasing the population, although presumably not up to the point where most of the mass of the solar system is converted to a ball of Australians expanding at the speed of light. You assert that this is an opinion site, but opinions that aren't based on facts are rightfully considered worthless.

I have several natural science degrees and find the idea that some magical technologies will solve all of our problems (in a timely manner) frankly ridiculous. You need to look at what was being confidently predicted from the 1950s. Where's my flying car? Why can't we regenerate amputated limbs? Why have improvements in cancer survival been so modest, despite all the resources in President Nixon's War on Cancer? Why have the hours of full-time work stayed so high?

You might take a look at the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), which attempts to be a measure of changes in human well-being that is better than GDP or even GDP per capita (itself largely stagnant since 2007, despite massive population growth).

http://www.tai.org.au/documents/dp_fulltext/DP35.pdf

The GPI includes such things as environmental deterioration and excludes defensive spending. Graphs for most countries, including Australia, (and the world as a whole) show the GPI rising with GDP up to the late 1970s and then largely stagnating or even declining. One exception is Japan, where the population has been slowly declining. There have been a number of articles on this in journals such as Ecological Economics.

Your growth isn't making us better off on average, even if it is making our elite better off (which is why we have it).

Divergence, my opinion's based on the fact that every alleged limiting factor for Australian population is a problem that can be overcome.

"I have several natural science degrees and find the idea that some magical technologies will solve all of our problems (in a timely manner) frankly ridiculous."
I didn't say they would. The problems will be solved when we put our efforts into solving them instead of chasing tax cuts and budget surpluses! Technological improvement will make it a lot easier, but rarely the deciding factor. I am not assuming there will be any new products that revolutionize our lives, even though I expect many. However I think it reasonable to assume that processes that currently exist in the lab and offer great advantages will become commercialised over the next few decades.

Safety concerns mean that flying cars will never reach a mass market, hence they'd have to be priced very high to recoup the cost of developing them. And the need for both flying and road components adds extra weight, which is somewhat disadvantageous on the road and a huge disadvantage in the air. So it's far cheaper to take a taxi to and from the airport.

"Why can't we regenerate amputated limbs?"
I hadn't realised they were confidently predicting that in the 1950s. I expect it will be possible eventually, but the science is still a long way off.

"Why have improvements in cancer survival been so modest?"
Because you're comparing them with what they're likely to be in the future. If you compared them to cancer survival rates from the 1950s, or even Nixon's time, you'd discover the improvements are ENORMOUS.

"Why have the hours of full-time work stayed so high?"
Because our economic system is structured so that many people need the money, and most of those who don't need it still want it.

"You might take a look at the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)"
I suggest YOU take a look at it: it highlights many of the problems that I think we should be addressing rather than obsessing over population (which it scarcely mentions).