We're told that:

"Australians want a future of sustainable self-sufficiency
and a healthy environment supporting a robust democracy -
free of poverty and inequity."

That was one of the projections, as part of the
"Australia 2050 Project" for the Australian Academy of Science.

We're also told that "Equally Australians fear a future in
which the stability of day-to-day life has been eroded by a
degraded environment, depleted resources, lawlessness or
warfare, limited access to health care and education...
or even increased economic or political inequity and the
fragmentation of social cohesion."

"The question - "What will Australia in 2050 look like?"
will not be answered for another 4 decades. But the future
depends on decisions made today, and that means it is
important to get some early insights into what the alternatives
really are..."

http://theconversation.com/where-is-australia-headed-some-future-projections-12403

Will we end up like the US with:
Racial problems,
Crime,
Gun-Violence,
Continued involvement in wars
and so on ...?

Your thoughts please?

Foxy, I started a thread some years ago tiled Australia 2030.

Back then our economy was booming, anyone who wanted a job, had one, and our car industries, along with manufacturing were looking sort of, ok.

Since then we have incurred a huge debt and additional uninvited guests to cater for, whom by the way from all accounts are better catered for than our own seniors.

The next three to five years will be very interesting as we will have lost our car industry, and no doubt most of the support manufacturing as well. Mining shows little chance of saving us and interest rates can't stay were they are forever. I'm also certain we will either be in, or have been in a recession by then.

The two keys issues in my view are big business and a much fairer tax system and there is little evidence of big businesses being supported, in fact the governments under pressure to tax them out of the country as all most can see is the tax they pay, yet choose to ignore the prosperity they create, which, without them would simply not be there. So be careful what we wish for.

The other taboo subject for some unknown reason is that no one will look at changing the tax system other than to inflict more pain on the payees in the first place, the consumers, by way of an increase to the very inefficient GST.

The cold hard reality is we have cooked our goose and the Kevin 07 gamble simply didn't pay off and while many are sticking it to Tony Abbott, the fact is the libs left a fairytale by way of a dream economy and Tony has inherited a nightmare. Of cause he too has lost his way as he should have sacked that wasted space speaker weeks ago.

Foxy, predictions are very difficult especially about the future.
However I will have a go !
First, we will not have solved the energy problem.
No one took notice of what happened to the European economy when it
relied on wind and solar, in contrast to France's nuclear power.

We will try to run the economy on wind and solar backed up with coal.
The rising cost of coal will have imposed 4pm to 8am power rationing
either by cost or regulation.

The high cost of fuels will have reduced international trade to more
expensive and compact freight.
Fusion will be either still a work in progress or too expensive.

Australian coal will be our main export, but there will be a campaign
to keep it for our use.
Industry will be crippled by power restrictions and high cost.

Australia will in fact be better off than many countries.
Europe will still be struggling to cope with their moribund economies
Farming will be a boom industry but the need to either electrify the
rail network to move food around will be a major project.
Some are proposing steam locomotives, although the Snowy output could
only be used for rail.

Wars, will not be a problem for Australia, as it would be too expensive
to attack Australia when the country next door has land to be taken.

This needs more thought than this but it shows the main restrictions.

"What will Australia in 2050 look like?"

Hong Kong.

Abbott has again put his foot in it signing a free trade deal with China without reading it. Side Letter on Skills Assessment and Licensing [DOCX 39 KB] |. Who knows where that could end up.

We are going further and further down the drain, Subs for Japan.
I can not believe why Abbott is still there.

Thank You all so much for responding to this discussion.

Future projections are difficult to make and I'm certainly
no oracle.

However, there are a few concerns after reading the website
I cited earlier. We're told that Australia's population will
increase 50 - 100 per cent by 2050 with the population
living in the North and West projected to increase at the
expense of smaller Southern States.

It makes sense then that energy consumption will also increase
and we're told that fossil fuels are likely to continue to
supply the bulk of this. However we're also told that black
coal, natural gas and minerals (iron-ore, bauxite,
copper) will be exhausted in 60 to 80 years at the current
rate of extraction.

As far as economic growth goes it's predicted that this will
continue over 2011 - 2050 at around 2.5 per cent per year
and shift towards services and away from primary and
secondary industries like agriculture and manufacturing.

What concerns me most is that experts have estimated that
Australia being a dry continent can only sustain a population
of only 21 million with the current availability of water.
This population estimate has already been exceeded - we're
now over 23 million and growing and with mining and other
activities the water resources are being depleted and
contaminated. In the meantime nothing seems to be happening
in solving the water problem. Reduction of our water resources,
will reduce our food growth, how will we feed the population?

Are we going to import water?