O.T. Australian Population numbers

Mfewster, I saw that on the news last night too and I'm guessing, like you it raised a few eyebrows.

It seems our estute leaders have based their people per sq. Km ratio on Australia's total land mass, never mind that a large percentage is unsustainable for living. They'd never know this from their desks in Canberra.

Look at Adelaide, beaches on one side, hills zoning on the other. The only way to grow is north or south. Even south is fast filling.

2050 (the year that was quoted), Victor Habour will be a suburb of Adelaide, Gawler will be considered inner city living and places like Mallala will be suburbs of Adelaide. And all with no water to drink. (Just had to throw that in).

Where once population would congregate around natural permanent water, the population of the future will build around desal plants. Some cheap real estate available in Iron Knob...only 50kms to Whyalla's proposed desal plant.!

I have a mixed feeling about this but I am trying to remain positive. My understanding is that with a global problem around an aging population that will severely impact on available workforce numbers we will need as many workers we can get. To balance this out is that timing is everything because they are coming before we need them and that increases worker numbers and creates a favorable employer situation so keeping wages lower.

Being on the cusp of retirement and planning to travel (see Mf I have dragged out of OT for you) I will benefit from a strong economy that can grow with increasing numbers of workers etc but accept that they will also want to share that remote location with me (they might actually be too busy working).

What I've found out during my working life is that I was always just too late to benefit from one thing or another and I don't want that to happen to my retirement. So anything to make that happen sounds OK to me.

Not being an economist makes my economic rationalism sound pretty good but I'm sure that there are 99 other real economists on this forum that will disagree with my assesment and not that they'll be able to agree with each other either.

Kind regards

I smell an election.

If this issue was seriously about a growing population then part of that discussion would revolve around withdrawing the baby bonus. But it won't.

Australia accepts over 300 000 migrants a year. A large majority come from the UK and New Zealand. Over the last 30 years about 25 000 immigrants have come by boat. That's about 800 (or 2.5%) a year.

I'll bet that the majority of the discussion before the election will revolve around that 2.5% that arrive by boat, which makes almost no difference to our population.

The reason this issue exists is because the swinging voters in the outer suburbs are emotional about it, and swinging voters often decide elections.

R.

It would be nice if the government would commit to a real environmental impact study on increasing the population of Australia.

Unfortunately the existing model used by treasury to encourage the "Big" Australia policy have some fundamental flaws, such as not taking into account limited natural resources such as fresh water and land suitable for farming for food production (Info source is friends involved in environmental modeling).

Hopefully then we could have an informed debate on the topic.

G'day everyone, we are back. The thread was moderated and removed, however I discussed it with the mod squad and they relented. Probably we are too far back in the posts now for the topic to be noticed and therefore probably wont generate many more views.
I agree with what those who have responded so far say. Yep, I reckon Rob is right when he thinks he smells an election coming, but it does indicate that the topic is touching a public nerve.
Have to sympathize with Beatit. Economic systems don't have to be built on growth, but ours is. It will take an enormous rethink of how investment works to change this. I note thatour Treasurere is very opposed to limiting population growth. The trouble is, if our population hit 40 million and we still have the same system of growth driven economics, then we have to keep growing at an even faster rate at that time to try to keep the thing ticking along. And the resources for that will come from where? It is exactly the same as chain letters. I send a letter to 10 people asking them each to send me $1 and each of tyhem sends the letter on to another 10 people who each send them $10 and this way everyone spends $1 and makes $9 profit. Why don't chain letters work? Because if you have exponential expansion and limited resources, you soon hit the limits. And with population numbers, we are hitting those limits. It will be much easier to tackle developinbg a sustainable economic system now than it will be when our population is much larger.

Was a time when you could take a drive to Noccundra and see nothing but rabbits .....

Ahhhhh those were the days .... Long gone now tho ....

Most of my favourite sceluded "bush" campsites from melb to the cape are now either a suburb/industrial wasteland or full of tents & vans with doofdoof/generators/portable CD players and the rest ... and a run to the kimberley is now not much different to a run to the mall imho.

Increased population .... happens naturally unfortunately ... Its why the world is over populated. That and smart alecky scientists and their vaccines ... and the spareparts medical "profession"

Increased population due to govt immigration stupidity .... funny how when they work on how many taxpayers they want for the next year ... they seem to forget about the infrastructure / employment needed for the newies ... Or the fact that lots of newies have different views on the number of kids they will have, compared to current "australian" trends in family numbers.

16 million was a nice working population level .... The place has gone to the dogs ever since.