Ho hum....poor old Shadow Minister always resorts to "Parrot" when he's down on the canvas.

What a sad act....

When you parrot the labor line without question I call you parrot.

I know it annoys you when you desperately claim to have me on the carpet.

Labor's past includes 100+ Cfmeu officials charged, but not a single charge against any liberal MP, and now we have Daniel Andrews trying to bully the CFA on behalf of the UFU to which he is beholden.

When you have one point where a lib MP has broken the law then I might care what you post.

SM,

"When you parrot the labor line without question I call you parrot"

Okay....and in future each time you act like a five year-old, I'll stop the conversation.

Simples...

Dear David, firstly, being a man of your vintage you have my upmost resect however it is totally undeniable that the number one contributor to the appalling situation these less fortunate from aboard find themselves in, is themselves as they simply will not stop breading.

Furthermore, as we sit on the brink of an era not witnessed by people of my generation, with slash and burn announcements every day, why on earth would anyone think it is wise to bring people in who first have to be educated, prior to even trying to find active work for them.

Having said this, you of anyone I know are entitled to your opinion.

Dear rehctub,

There is no need to have respect for my extreme age. I just didn't die when I should have. I have no medical problems so I may be around a while longer. I agree that uncontrolled population growth is the cause of many of our problems. I feel quite guilty for the number of descendants that I have. Although they are all bright and beautiful together they make a heavy carbon footprint. My oldest granddaughter has promised me that she will not give birth to any children although she may adopt some. None of the others have given me such assurances.

Unfortunately many interests push population growth. There are ways to stem the growth - education for women is one. Unfortunately at the Cairo population conference Catholic church representatives got together with Muslims. In return for the Catholics agreeing not to support education for women the Muslims opposed abortion.

Sex education including methods of preventing pregnancy, provision of contraceptive materials, availability of abortion etc. are some of the ways of controlling population growth. Italy, Japan and Ireland have managed to cut down their growth - mainly because women in those countries are free to decide not to have babies, and religion does not have the hold that it used to have.

http://population.org.au/ is the website of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA). They are an independent not-for-profit organisation seeking to protect the environment and our quality of life by ending population growth in Australia and globally. We can work to end it globally by including such efforts in our foreign aid.

It is good that you have given the matter thought and can see what is a tremendous cause of our environmental and other problems. Just as inflation is the result of too much money chasing too few goods, Conflict and environmental destruction are the result of too many people chasing too few resources. Medical science has managed to decrease the death rate including deaths due to infant mortality. Unfortunately the birth rate has not declined to match it.

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Perhaps Australia has already reached the limit of people it can hold and keep its standard of living. One limiting factor is the availability of fresh water. Australia is roughly the same size as the USA, but has only 3% of the fresh water the USA has. Australia's population size is almost 8% of US population size. By that measure Australia is overpopulated.

However, you were concerned over Australia's refugee intake. Australia has about 25 million people. If the refugee quota of 20,000 per year is filled the addition to the population by refugee intake is .08% - not even a tenth of 1% - 8 people in 10,000. Is that a number to worry about? Is that going to make a great difference? Try to put numbers on your concerns, and then ask yourself whether they are worth worrying about.