Migrants coming to Australia have driven up Australia's population to 24 million, with a future population of potentially 40 million people.

I feel people (are aiming to live in Australia), due to in their minds what is a "worldwide crisis" in terms of human rights and safe day to day living.

Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr, however is concerned Australia's population is expanding too quickly and says there's a case for cutting back immigration by 50 per cent - raising concerns about young people not being able to get housing for example.

Chris Richardson from Deloitte Access Economics says migration addresses the skills shortage.

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2016/02/15/australias-population-hits-24-million

Is that it? What about the shortage of water provision, local food production (with urban sprawl), land degradation and environmental damage?

Then when you take into consideration a shortage of infrastructure and services (to cater for an eventual 40 million population increase), the situation is very serious.

Anyone who thinks that population increase is an unmitigated good thing
should have a look at Egypt.
There are, UN studies I think, that calculated that the Nile can
support 40 million people. This before upriver development in Sudan.
Due to food and fuel subsidies using money from oil & gas exports their
population has risen to 85 million.
Since their oil production peaked in 1998 they have been cutting back
the subsidies and this caused demonstrations about food prices which
led to the deposing of Mubarak.
At present Egypt is living on charity from the Gulf States.
What happens when that runs out.
Egypt has to get rid of some 40 million people to be self supporting.
Where will they go ?

That is an example of what happens if you just let population
increase without taking any care of resources.

The population is now almost double the optimal figure of 13 million. There are not enough jobs for people already here (although much of the increase comes from 'refugees' who are provided with the dole and housing by an ever-decreasing number of Australian workers). These 'refugees' will never bother about working. The Turnbull government has added an extra 19.6 billion to lavish spending (mainly for non-producers); we are barely covering costs with mineral exports to the Chinese, who are dumping inferior steel on us, while it was reported last night that the Whyalla steel works will probably be closed soon.

Australia has become the Stupid Country, run by a new, elite upper class, using the country and us as their playtthings.

ttbn, why do you think a population of 13 million is optimal? Surely the optimal population depends on the technology? I see Australia as underpopulated, particularly Northern Australia.

The shortage of jobs is due to one government policy in particular: trying to balance the budget when there's a cyclical deficit. What they should be doing instead is nation building: constructing the infrastructure for Australia's present and future needs. And if there's a problem with refugees not getting jobs, we should solve it, not write then off as you appear to have done.

We should be investing billions of dollars in molten oxide electrolysis R&D to enable us to produce steel more cheaply than the Chinese. Instead we're cutting the CSIRO budget, so you could well be right in calling us the Stupid Country.

At some point in the future the government will have to do as Mubarak
did in Egypt and start cutting the subsidies(welfare etc) and will
our government suffer the same fate ?

The main problem is no one seems to have done a study on Australia's
carrying capacity. We know how many sheep we can run and how many
cattle we can breed up but do we have a clue as to how many humans we can run ?
The related question not answered, how many humans at what standard of living ?

When we know the answers to those questions a further question is how
do we make the choice of population vs standard of living ?

Those are the questions for the "Business as Usual" crowd.

As a member of the "we'll all be rooned" crowd I do not believe that
we are being given the choice.
Our declining energy production and its increasing cost will impose
answers to those questions.
All economic eras come to a sticky end one way or another, generally
by means of the law of diminishing returns.

Illegal immigration world wide will decrease because nations/regions
will become vigilant in protecting their current status and will
physically reject immigration flows. Additionally travel, formally
and informally, will become very difficult.

It really will be a case of "No room at the Inn" !

Dear Nathan,

I agree that having more people makes life more difficult, that we could have lived better if they didn't come, but unless migrants pose a criminal/terrorist/health risk, we have no moral right to lock them out. Nevertheless we should still frown at them and as much as we can avoid encouraging them with all sorts of benefits.

Regarding the standard of living, I agree with Aidan, rather than with Bazz, that with sufficient technology much bigger numbers can be sustained, including plenty of food and water. However, as I look at the quality of life rather than the standard of living, that's the very problem that I'm trying to avoid: more people would require more technology to be forced on us, not to mention the threat of nation-building which Aidan already articulated.