david f,

Early this morning I was driving through sprawling housing estates on highly fertile, water retaining land that only a couples of decades ago supported numerous small crops farms, with roadside stalls selling fresh produce.

We used to over-pay the farmers by never taking change from the honour payment bucket. We were not the only ones who did that for the privilege.

We especially miss the custard apples that were prolific but ending the season this time of the year.

Of course those sprawling 'burbs could be high rise apartments instead and more intensive living is taking over, bring a raft of new problems that will never be solved if overseas experience is any guide.

It is difficult to understand why some here want to rush headlong to over-populate beyond the taxpayer's capacity to pay for and provide the necessary infrastructure (and social solutions) and ultimately, very soon if some have their way, beyond the breaking point of the already too highly exploited capacity of water and land resources.

Paul Ehrlich, a biologist who published "The Population Bomb,"
in 1968, took centre stage in the late 1960s.
As Tor Hundloe points out in his book, "From Buddha to Bono:
Seeking Sustainability," (and from which I have regularly
quoted in my posts on this forum):

Had there not been student riots worldwide
protesting capitalism in capitalist countries and communism
in communist countries, the book would have had a major
immediate impact.

It was the first of a number of apocalyptic (doomsday)
environmental books.

According to Hundloe - Ehrlich has a tendency to overstate
the case. Yet we cannot challenge his central thesis;
the world is not large enough to nurture
unlimited number of humans.

The world's population was three billion when the book was
published. Today it is approaching the nine billion mark.
As I have emphasised in the past - if we, the middle-class
want the life-saving and life-rewarding tools of modernity -
this is possible as long as there are not too many of us.
This is a fundamental caveat. The experts who measure human
demands on the planet suggest if -by some miracle of
economics - everyone living today was to have a middle-class
lifestyle - we would need immediately two or three more
planet earths. And as stated earlier - humans have the
intelligence, the tools and the natural resources to provide
for a good, sustainable life as long as there are not so
many humans that we exceed the globe's carrying capacity.

I repeat - all the evidence suggests
that we must turn around population growth
and aim for a much smaller population than we have today.

Fox,

You are in denial and ducking.

The population growth, in fact over-growth, is coming from immigration. Young Aussie couples are already not having the children they planned to have and have worked for.

Young Aussie couples are delaying fertility and being obliged to start children at an older age, increasing their own health costs as well as Medicare's. It is because young couples are bearing the weight of taxes and other direct and indirect costs for infrastructure, welfare, Medicare and multicultural policy. That IS discrimination.

What should be the maximum number of migrants per annum, including that 20,000 you have already given a free pass to?

otb,

Correction - I am neither in denial
nor ducking.

I find you offensive.

I have already covered this issue in my posts
on this forum. I have provided sources and
links including the Report from Angus Houston
and panel, as well as the Dept. of Immigration's
intake programme 2015-16. I have listed the numbers
quite clearly.

Very foxy, always the dodging 'politician's answer' (sic) and a deflection.

So much for your professed concern about (over-)population and sustainability in Australia. LOL

Our denigration of others only reflects on ourselves. This is a list where, in general, we are anonymous. If we assume the others we deal with have good will we lose nothing thereby. Since, in general, we know nothing of each outside of the views they express we may keep it that way. There is a tendency to think that those who differ with us are not quite as good or reasonable than those who agree with us. I suffer from that tendency as my ancestors as are everybody else's ancestors were tribal people. I tend to see those who disagree with me as not belonging to my tribe and thus my enemy.

I am writing this because I like Foxy and think she is a very good person. However, I have grown to appreciate that otb has a lot of experience in life and I have learned from what he has told us about
his experience.

Please try to tolerate each other.