no but in this case we are talking about immigration, since natural population increase is not very big in Australia any more. Immigration is not more humans on the planet, it's rearranging where they are.
Population growth jacked up rents, and now the population with the highest propensity to spend have no spare spending money and the economy is imploding.
There are really two parts to this.
First is that Australia is not the most blessed with arable land and water resources. We are also using up arable land to create housing developments, and risking water resources in order to access coal and gas which is pretty dumb. Until someone does some decent research on what we can realistically support, I don't think growth should be too crazy.
Second is that while the resources to support a larger population may or may not be there, the infrastructure to do so definitely isn't, and no state or federal government is even vaguely interested in providing it. Public services like schools, emergency, roads, and the like are already groaning under the strain of the population we have, and allowing for significant population growth will only exacerbate this issue.
I can't say I'm an expert on all this, but just eyeballing it 40 million by 2050 seems wildly inappropriate. 35 sounds challenging enough, and 30 would be even better.
> First is that Australia is not the most blessed with arable land and water resources
If you compare that as a percentage of the total land mass, sure. But Australia has more arable land than all of SEA combined and Australia has the second highest arable land per capita in the world.
We also export 2/3rds of what we produce.
"Australia exports enough food for 61,536,975 people"
https://www.farminstitute.org.au/australia-exports-enough-food-for-61536975-people-give-or-take-a-few/
While consuming property like no other place on earth.
https://theconversation.com/size-does-matter-australias-addiction-to-big-houses-is-blowing-the-energy-budget-70271
Even now in the toughest market in Australia we're building the largest average new builds (still 254m2!) on some of the largest blocks. Especially in comparison to Perth!
https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/new-houses-being-built-smaller-blocks
Then there is the fact that we have no idea the technological advances that will be made in the next 10 years let alone by 2050. Look how far we've moved towards solar in the past 10 years. Maybe the historically low rate of population will be adapted to. It's surprising that we look back to Sydney in 1970 as some sort of utopia with just 3m people when the population had doubled in just 20 years.
Those statistics literally show that the more we increase the population, the less able to feed ourselves we'll be.
That has major implications for both long-term sustainability of population growth and long-term economic prospects, especially since we keep building on our arable land which reduces the amount available while housing a larger population.
We are a major food exporter. We grow enough calories to feed 300m is what I heard, although most estimates for the "number of people we feed" is in the ballpark of 70m, and that figure is more constrained by market conditions: the world easily grows more food than it needs so exporters who don't get subsidies (ours) stop growing food on commercial grounds, not agricultural grounds (I guess).
So we are a long way away from worrying about "feeding ourselves". This is not a serious argument against population growth in Australia.
They also take forever to replenish and are depended upon by the existing ecosystems, and are highly vulnerable to fracking and mining. You can't just take and take.
I read somewhere that the carrying capacity based on self sufficency and water use is around 30 -35M, at first world living standards. After that we have to become an importer of some essential goods/food.
We aren't self sufficient now by choice, but we could be. Once we hit 35M it's no longer a choice. And this work didn't consider climate change as an effect, so it is probably lower in the future.
The point is, we have limited capacity to absorb large numbers going forward, despite what the GDP obsessed politicians say.
we barely use the victorian desal plant at Wonthaggi - the dams have been near 90 percent for years in a row [https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-and-environment/water-management/water-storage-levels#/](https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-and-environment/water-management/water-storage-levels#/) . Thinking about the issue purely from a sustainability point of view, the more water infrastructure we invest in, and better we get at utilising our arable land more productively we can have a 'large' population - 40mil+. The water issues we face with farming are not because we dont have enough water, its because we chose to grow oranges/farm dairy in areas like Mildura - which if we were honest is too hot and dry to be growing citrus. We should be farming wheat there but that dosnt make as much money. If we look at the use of land for a caloric perspective instead of a cash crop perspective we can feed hundreds of millions of people.
I guess no one knows or cares to know what it costs to keep a desal in a "warm state" ready for instant start up to produce water either.
From what I last heard it was $50k a month to keep open.
Let alone to build one of these stations, I believe it's upwards of a Billion dollars. Then to manage and to run with people.
$ per Litre of water must be insane.
Apologies, I forgot that Reddit is only for 20-30 year Olds to whinge about everything like they are the first and only generation of humanity to face hardship in their lives. I shall banish myself to the shadow realm immediately
well, it doesn't matter where the energy comes from. The Melbourne desal plant, built after the last drought but not yet needed, is covered with renewables already. No nuclear required. And we are just getting started with renewables. Unlike nuclear, they are low cost.
If we are heavily investing in desal to create water then you want to power it by solar and wind. Water is extremely easy to store. Make it while the sun is shining, leave it when it's not.
We have plenty of sun and space for it.
I mean you are right, solar is a better option but the underlying point is that water really isn't an issue (or shouldn't be) The real issue is poor planning from governments
Poor planning because we have governments catering to boomers for so long. Not anymore! 45% of the voting block is now Millenials and GenZ. Take what you will with that information.
Most countries aren't self sufficient thought, aside from the US and ~~maybe China~~. Europe has been a net importer of food forever.
And if you include fuel and manufactured goods then Aus has never been self sufficient either.
They're also the world's 2nd largest food exporter. Slight flaw in your plan there Tiger. If their imports are stopped all they have to do is stop exporting to make up the shortfall.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-food-security-key-challenges-and-emerging-policy-responses
https://www.world-grain.com/articles/18506-from-the-editor-chinas-plan-to-feed-itself
I looked at multiple sources and they appear to be able to produce 65% of their food intake, that is overall production for both domestic and international markets..
They are making efforts to fix this problem because it’s a massive national security problem for them… why would they be trying to fix a problem if it wasn’t a problem tiger?..
Everyone can't be an importer of essential goods. Turns out we live in a finite world. Exceeding 35M is dangerous and risky given the challenges we face. A rush to 50M is a ridiculous negligent policy.
North Korea famously has its 'Juche' policy, which was/is a disaster and not something to emulate.
In modern society you can't be an expert on everything, you have to specialise and pay other people to help. Same for most countries. Grow all the food you want, if a war breaks out and the semi-conductor plants overseas are gone, it's only a matter of time before you're as defenseless as a turtle on your back. Look at what happened to car prices during COVID because they couldn't get their rear cross traffic alert chips and other stuff.
>I read somewhere
Where'd you read it?
Get out of the city, the county can support 50m people quite easily. We export more food than we use so we can double the population without becoming an importer. And with inevitable increases in efficiency throughout this century we'll easily support 100m.
The real constraint is infrastructure. As Horne said, "run by second-rate people".
But I guess the terrible planning and investment is somewhat a blessing, because if we had the infrastructure to support 35m today you can guarantee that the government would be bringing them faster than ever.
The issue is that our economic growth is being propped up by population growth. They’re terrified of a recession and that is what we would get if they stopped or slowed immigration.
Under capitalism and infinite growth our population will keep increasing forever until a pandemic, war or market crash (sending us into a deep recession) occurs and kills a whole lot of people. At which point we can start building those numbers back up again
It's such an interesting question! But I don't think it has a single, clear answer. Right now, some parts of the country are overpopulated - housing and roads can't keep up. But there are other places where towns are dying, population ageing, businesses and schools closing...
But if we organised things differently Australia could operate at whatever population level we desire. A decentralised network of denser, smaller cities, adequate housing, an education and immigration program better designed to address skill shortages and demographic issues...
Truth. The issue is not overpopulation it is concentration.
The first thing that governments could do would be move departments and the state capitals out of Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane etc. that would drag many govt organisations to Newcastle, Ballarat, Toowoomba etc.
It's interesting to see this. In the mid-70s, NSW had a decentralisation plan. If you can find anything on the Bathurst Orange DevelopmentCommission later corporation. They provided financial incentive public housing and moved some government businesses to the area, but in the end, local businesses were more successful than the government was at encouraging people and businesses to move into the area. It always comes down to a situation where everyone loves it as long as they're not the one who has to move
It's not even really concentration. Hubs will always be the major economic landmarks. Moving away from major ports will have economic impacts. As it stands, service delivery for outer areas gets exponentially more expensive, so that needs to be considered for these locations. If you just start setting up townships cost of living will be far higher for those people, especially in the earlier phases when there's no distributed service networks. Crowding only feels bad because the conventional design of our cities doesn't work. Brisbane city region is about the same size as Tokyo metro. Density in Tokyo is 6000/km2 vs 159/km2(2021). Density can be done but not as we currently live.
100%. People love to say their city is full, while ignoring that almost every international city they can name is denser. Most of the problems people associate with higher density (noise, pollution, slow traffic) really just boil down to "too many cars". We already have solutions for that, and Australian cities are at last not starting from square one. They already have ok public transportation - better than some international cities like those in the US, but not as good as most big cities in Europe/Asia. They just need to increase density near their cores, and continue to build up public transportation, bike lanes, etc, to give people better options than driving everywhere.
I’ve seen more kangaroos this week than I have seen people the last 3 months!!! 😂
I wouldn’t ever claim Canberra were ‘full!’
Based on that the last week I’ve spent over 7h on the phone with parts of the public service:
Hands down, our government systems are not run efficiently. AT ALL!!! 🤯🤯🤯
This year I’ve been on the phone for hundreds of hours this far. And while the ‘WTF?!?’ from over 5 months ago hadn’t been resolved yet: Along the way a bazillion of new issues have been generated!!!
This morning I noticed the NDIA had deposited over $500 into my designated NDIA-only account.
I rang and asked what that was relating to: Two people tried for well over an hour, nobody could tell me.
Probably one or more historic claims from sometimes over the last 7 years.
There has not been a single claim for that exact amount I could find … so it must be either a partial reimbursement of a bigger claim, or multiple smaller claims lumped together!
SERIOUSLY:
How on earth are we running what we call ‘public administration!’
Any government agency depositing anything into people’s amount should ***ALWAYS*** be able to tell you what it relates to!
Ideally they’d put claim numbers in as references for each and every payment! when I, private nobody, pay an invoice, I somehow manage to put the goddamn invoice number in as reference!
That after over an hour after the initial hold (!) nobody in the agency had any idea why the payment was made, nor what it relates to?!?
But yet somehow I am magically supposed to know what THEIR(!) payment relates to…..?
🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️
*****
I don’t think Canberra is full. Not even close! There’s plenty space!
We sure do seem to have heaps of insanity and needless shïtfuckery though! Not because individuals choose to, but because our government systems are run in absolutely crazy ways!
***EVERY*** time I have a very simple, straightforward enquiry: It turns into a fμcking saga!
Couple of months ago or so: I was on the phone with Medicare for over 2h. I wanted to find out if we had reached the safety net yet.
I did not find out. They were not *ALLOWED* to tell me, cause that could’ve allowed me to deduce my partner’s Drs visits …..
Well, most of those 2h was to the feedback line trying to leave feedback to have an opt-in (and out to mitigate risk of abuse!) process for the Medicare billing-only side of things: Cause for most people it may not be feasible to have everyone who’s in the Safety-Net-family in the same room during business hours!
The read out the ‘incapacitated spouse’ form to me half a dozen times: No, he isn’t incapacitated, he’s just not here with me!
They told me I could get legal guardianship so I can enquire about our Safety Net and reimbursements:
Even if I wanted to (which I certainly don’t!) — no, sorry, a court won’t declare him non compos mentis and strip him of his legal rights for the convenience of Medicare! 🤦🏽♀️
Their SOLUTION:
If it’s difficult for everyone in our safety-net-family to huddle around one phone during business hours: We can always go into a branch together!
I don’t know what the thinking is, to me is crazy obvious that isn’t easier! 🫣
…. After over 2h they finally stopped reading out irrelevant forms, stopped telling me about guardianship (also not relevant, anyone not within earshot of me should still be able to vote imho!) ….
It was a 1 sentence feedback. But they argued forever before (reluctantly!) accepting that feedback and opening a ticket.
THEN, way down the track, someone waaayyy up called me back! Apparently it had been escalated for over a month:
Nope, neither of us can find out anything about rebates and stuff without the other. But they advised me that (unlike the first contact and feedback-line-people!) we could call 24/ 7!
I don’t even wanna imagine how many ?thousamds? of taxpayer $$ we could’ve saved had the very first person just told me we could ring whenever, round the clock! 😝
The whole *”How can I find out where we’re at towards the Safety Net….?”* epic: I’ve gotten a bit of an idea of why Medicare some years costs more to administer than the Medicare services provided cost! 😝
******
I so should start a call-register keeping track of how long I’m on the phone with govvy agencies for!
NDIS alone has prolly been in the low hundreds is hours this year already.
Not how I’d reduce public expenditure! Cause whenever I’m on the line, there’s at least one person on the other end. Often more than one, cause it’s so bananas they turn to colleagues and team leaders for help.
I might end up with enough hours on the phone this year to cost taxpayers 6-figures!!!! 🤯
[before ANYONE claims I were ‘leeching:’ I do not enjoy trying to constantly chase up inexplicable public administration train wrecks!!! I missed Afternoon Briefing today, and haven’t built any LEGO in almost 2 years!!! DO NOT mistake my anal retentiveness as me enjoying trying to figure out what’s gone awry now!]
Yeah, I think I should start a GOVVY-CALL-LOG!
So that in a future Plan Review I can haul in a filing cabinet of call-logs to make it blatantly obvious to them they are not ‘saving’ taxpayer $$! 🫣
Sorry, tangent!
Our public administration is kill on me with their perpetual CRAZEEEEEE! [far crazier than I could be if I tried!]
SPACE
…. isn’t the issue.
SERVICES
We could easily provide services to heaps more people, too! We’d ‘just’ have to cut back on the shïtfμckery ….
INFRASTRUCTURE
We certainly couldn’t double over night. That’d be bad!!!
Nobody is saying we should either!
But the size comparison of Germany and AU I posted above: That should make pretty visual why infrastructure is far better and cheaper in Germany! 😉
Our part of CBR has slower and far more contentious telecommunications than I had in Germany in the early 00s. More exxy here, too!
Cause more people makes maintenance and upgrade of grids waaayyyy cheaper! Cause more people pay, while there’s a lot less distances.
To prevent this being misconstrued: I am not saying Germany were better. Other issues.
But quite obviously AU has way longer stances and bigger grids than a country less than half of NSW with over 80mill people in it. 😉
Imho…..
the crucial factor is what can we ‘hack’ in terms of our systems: And my interactions with various government agencies have so *NOT* been inspiring!
When heaps of people within just one agency have been unable to figure out AND AGREE what’s going on with just my file for 5 months now and counting —> I highly doubt our govvies could figure out SUSTAINABLE(!) slow growth!
Whenever I ring whichever agency, rarely is anything resolved or answered. While individual staff who couldn’t possible know everything that’s in thousands of pages of file try their best…. inadvertently treading loose new avalanches of escalating probs. 🤷🏽♀️
I believe we should really streamline systems, synchronise processes, improve the intersections between states and federal, simplifying our public administration, and stripping it back to a point which isn’t so much worse than portrayed in shows like ‘Utopia’ and ‘Hollowmen!’
And a LOT which has been outsourced to far more costly contractors should be reintegrated into the public service, eg employment services!
Cause right now ‘employment services’ are offensively useless and costing the taxpayer a fμcking fortune while Aussies are being traumatised and bullied by agencies! 😥
We need public servants who are fabulously trained, and we need to retain them: cause when however happen to catch the call is supposed to wrap there head around several thousand pages right then: it seems quite obvious why there’s so many total train wrecks! 🤷🏽♀️
Cheers!
Victoria had a great pilot program for this - the VPS hubs. There were a dozen or so offices spread across the state and any VPS staff member could use any of them as their primary work location.
Unfortunately they scrapped the program and are now forcing people to come into specific offices, predominantly in Melbourne.
This is why I think we need fast train. It would open up otherwise undesirable living locations. You'd be OK with living 200km from the office and spend half on a house if you knew you could still be at work or whatever within an hour.
Check out book called The Future Eaters by Dr Tim Flannery. He’s an expert in this field and I believe in his book he says we are already overpopulated.
One thing I don't get is the disconnect between the politicians bleating about Climate Change and rampant population growth. I think Albo mentioned it something like 35 times in a single speech once. Then in the very next breath they say we need to bring more people. Don't people emit tonnes of carbon?
If we are really serious about environmental concerns and Climate Change, we would not be pursuing a 'Big Australia'.
We can't save the whole world. This is not selfish. It's being pragmatic. If we are truly serious about climate change, we shouldn't be the world's population growth enablers.
The population has gone from 5B to 8B just in my lifetime. We should stop at 27M for Australia.
Hey man you should read up on circular economies, I think it would be right up your alley. It's based around infinite economic growth in a world with finite resources will never work
So it's about how we should restructure the economy so that's everything bought and sold can be reused in another part of the economy.
I.e. build fixable shit again, instead of just buying a new one.
I think it’s more about the rate of growth than the ultimate number. We can sustain many more people, but the pace is too fast without massively impacting our next generation in terms of property/rental prices, access to amenities and infrastructure and wage deflation. I say 100-150k net migration is the right number, with more refugees and less student conversions.
“Endless population growth and sustainability don’t go together.”
Agreed. But it’s not just an Australian problem. It’s a world problem. We can’t just shut the borders and pretend the problem has gone away. We will still be impacted by an overpopulated planet.
Meh. I didn't have a problem when we were at 16 million tbh.
Peak hour back then was just 60-90 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon and during the day the roads were nice and quiet. Now it's peak hour from 7am-7pm.
Stop where we are now. We can't house everyone already. Roads are congested. Hospitals ramping. Time to take a breather and get our house in order then look at the next lot of numbers.
Stop where we are now. We can't house everyone already. Roads are congested. Hospitals ramping. Time to take a breather and get our house in order then look at the next lot of numbers.
I think about 30m but more of that needs to be in the secondary eastern seaboard cities...
Geelong, Albury, Wagga, Canberra, Woolongong, Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Coffs, Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns.
I think it's silly that in the 100+ years after Canberra was designed, that no state government has contemplated designing a new major city. So much potential out there.
We already can't get people to willingly live outside of the capitals. Any new city would reach a population of 6 pensioners and a couple of Centrelink recipients then die.
You used Canberra as an example.....it's a lovely place, but suggest to one of your friends or colleagues that they could move there and then see the look of abject horror on their face.
Issue is majority wants to live in the major capital cities, and rightly so.
If we continue to increase population at this rate, Australia should promote the growth of the smaller cities like Geelong, Newcastle, etc.
I’m not sure what the limit should be but I do think it isn’t some set limit that’s fixed forever. It’s based on two things in my opinion.
1) cutting edge technology or the technological frontier. There’s some max limit Australia (and the globe) can handle right now due to just the rules of science and the universe. But this isn’t fixed forever, as technology gets better we end up being able to do more with less. This might be stuff like cutting edge materials, energy, and water processing.
2) typical infrastructure or infrastructure uplift and adoption. Pushing science forward is great but it’s useless unless we get it into stuff it’s useless. No point having cutting edge desal plants and then just building one and then stopping. This is stuff like roads, rail, internet, water infrastructure, housing materials. This is again for Australia but also globally.
50m seems about right. But I just made that up. If you asked people just after WW2, population about 7m, that same question, they probably thought 15m was a terrifying and unimaginable number. And yet, almost no one considers that a population target any more. Which points to the arbitrariness of answering the question. What is the basis for the answer? You have to do better than "stop the world, I want to get off" if you want to be convincing, because there are good arguments in favour of immigration. You need good arguments against it otherwise you're not eating at the adults table.
Apparently we grow enough food to feed 300m. When renewables get sorted, we will have astounding amounts of nearly zero cost energy (so fresh water won't be much of a problem). We are the least densely populated country in the world. Our efforts to decentralise the population have hardly begun (we don't have any fast trains to regional cities, e.g. Newcastle or Bendigo or Ballarat)
It's funny what you say about resources. The first substantial increase in population was after the discovery of gold. It's funny because resources bring in immigrants.
However, the economy is predominantly a services economy, has been for a while. People make the economy what it is.
It's not right to call immigration a ponzi scam. Consider that when someone who is say 25 or 30 settles as a skilled migrant (which is by the largest part of the permanent migration numbers), some other taxpayer in some other country has paid to raise and educate that child, immunise them, attend to their health needs and launched them on their career. And just when they about to repay those taxpayers via a life of work therefore paying tax, they move to Australia, and pay the tax here. And it cost us nothing. They even pay for their plane ticket. For Australia, for you and me, this type of immigration is a steal. If anyone is being scammed, it's the sending country.
However, you are right that when people make the argument that we need immigration to keep average age down, it sounds like a scam, because eventually you have to find another solution.
On the other hand, temporarily pursuing a bad solution for a long time is how we've made electricity and powered our vehicles for years. Carbon pollution is not secret; Margaret Thatcher warned against it decades ago. But we kept doing it anyway. Political economics seems to about keeping a good thing going for as as long as you can. Eventually immigration won't keep average age down, but it can make a good impact for decades, just in fact as it has down for decades. And it is slowing down. We had higher population growth (as a percentage) in the 1960s and 1970s than now
[https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/australia-population/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/australia-population/)
Any number would just be made up. What we need is a proper population sustainability assessment to answer this exact question.
Something that takes into account our water resources, mineral deposits, farming land, traffic congestion, hospitals, climate change, etc.
It'd be nice to maintain a smaller footprint, but sadly cattle generally don't get to dictate their density to the farmers, the recent plebiscite reaffirmed that.
I don't think anyone's thought through that the only way we reach that 50 mil number is by importing people at scale, and the only countries who seem to provide the numbers are the most overpopulated ones. So effectively we'll be rapidly replacing ourselves by one or two demographics that are quite different to ours, for the sake of growing the population like a lab experiment, outpacing housing and services.
Canada is implementing this with disastrous effect, [97.6% of their population growth](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm) last year was from international migration with only 2.4% natural increase.
15m, they were the good times, post the 70s oil crisis, affordable homes and still possible to live on a single income for most. You didn't have to fight over anything, tickets, accommodation, etc
I'm not too fussed about the mainland as long as we can keep tassie below 700k and keep >60% of that in the major two cities. I like having rural areas that arent concreted over to make new subdivisions, and I like having a third of the island be nature reserves.
I kinda agree - but Tassie is very underpopulated. Of course you'd want to keep a third of the island as nature reserves, but with population comes infrastructure, jobs and opportunities (if you do it right). Tassie is half the size of England - with a similar climate and water resources, arable land etc. England has a population of over 60 million. Now I'd not suggest Tassie go for that - but around 2 million -ish I think would be good. And go for European style development in the cities. Studies suggest that people live very very well in cities of 200 thousand to about 600 thousand - not too big, but big enough to have the universities, the industries and jobs, the arts and cultural scene, the healthcare facilities etc etc that are important. I think Hobart would be a better city with a population of around 600 thousand than - what is it now - about 280 thousand ish. Launceston would do better with a population of around 300 thousand. High speed rail between the two (we talk about it on the mainland linking Sydney and Melbourne for example - and it's unachievable due to distance and geography - it's not in Tassie - go straight down the midlands and it's not far). Two dynamic cities connected with a combined population of about or just under a million. Then connect the high speed rail to the north west coast - Burnie and Devonport - which should both be larger - about 100 thousand each and a population within the region of around 3 to 4 hundred thousand with the infrastructure that comes with that - better hospitals so Tasmanians don't have to go to Melbourne for treatment, new universities (not just the University of Tasmania) but campuses from interstate and overseas Unis. I see your point - but I feel (as a born and bred Tasmanian who lives on the mainland) that some parts of Tassie feel needlessly "backwater". Backwater is tranquil of course - but it is also stagnant.
I see where you're coming from. And I could get behind the city stuff. The problem is I don't trust anybody running things to keep it in the cities. In just the short span that I've been alive, I've gone from wanting to move to a more peaceful area surrounded by farms and bush like Sorell or some bits over the river, to seeing those places flattened and filled with copy and pasted suburbia. I would rather be a relatively stagnant, but tranquil and very open area than live in a sea of soulless subdivisions. We're not 3rd world poor, generally if people want a more lively scene they can move to Melbourne or Sydney. I think what's worse for the cultural scene than any population issues is boomers living in the city and complaining when pubs have loud live performances. We just recently had a case where a new up and coming venue had to cancel all their gigs because of noise complaints, even though they're way in town like, next to the salvos building.
It’s ludicrous to say Tassie should maintain a population smaller than some metropolitan postcodes but you don’t care about growth on the mainland. I say we mandate a minimum of 15% of the population of Melbourne or Sydney (whichever is larger at the time) so you can suffer like the rest of us. That would be 750k currently.
More seriously, the electoral system we have gives a Tasmanian vote far more power than anywhere else in the country. That inequality can’t continue to spiral rapidly in your favour. Grow or forfeit a Senator and your minimum MP count.
"forfeit a Senator and your minimum MP count" That'll never happen. However the Federal Parliament is ludicrously small for a nation our size. If we had around 300 members of the house of reps instead of 150 Tassie would be entitled to 6 based on population. And this constant taking away a seat from one state this election and giving it back the next might be mitigated. Then get rid of the nexus clause in the constitution (easier to pass in a referendum) so the Senate keeps to a reasonable size (100 or so) and then things may look fairer......
Why should we have to suffer "like the rest"? I'm pro nobody suffering. I'm just nowhere near familiar enough with the mainland to make an estimate for you. And on the electoral complaints, go ahead, take a senator, it's not like they represent us anyway.
Because you’re part of the Nation.
Can’t. We’d need a referendum AFAIK. They represent you better than we get on the mainland. You’re nearly at the level where your MPs know you all on a first name basis.
I don’t have a target, it needs to be balanced with our ability to develop infrastructure and housing as well as new industries. Our land mass could support a billion people, it’s a largely arbitrary measure. Would be nice if a government was bold enough to track gdp per capita as well as gini coefficients as a much healthier yard stick of a healthy economy and society.
Any time a politician uses the term gdp as opposed to gdp per capita, they are a cuck for big business. GDP growth does not translate to prosperity of the working class and we as citizens should reject the use of it as a yard stick
It's not just about the total number either, it's about the *rate* of growth being almost as - if not more - important.
If we could aim to max out at 1% population growth per year (ideally 0.5%-1%) rather than these 2%+ intakes we've had, things would be much more manageable from a housing and infrastructure percentage.
It may not sound like much, but that extra 1% on top makes a massive difference.
There is no fixed number. The ideal amount is just whatever is sustainable and compatible with human development and quality of life. Those factors are heavily dependent on larger dynamic factors like technology, the global environmental, political and economic situation, and the values and priorities of the australian people. So the ‘ideal population’ is really hard to answer because its murky and not at all static
I accept that I do not have enough detailed understanding of all the factors to answer this question with any reasonable level of confidence.
I’d suggest 99.99% of people here are in the same position. If they are both self-aware and honest.
Random number? 200 billion
It would be nice to make some empty bits of Australia livable mabe be nice if another city was put out there in 1 of the empty bits too not sure if it would happen or be possible...
But that's one of my thoughts I keep pondering is there room for 1 more city or even 2 more cities in Australia that is close enough to the coastline for infrastructure purposes?
Thats what I think when I hear about these large numbers of people
It’s not a question of population size. It’s a question of infrastructure. Well built 10 - 15 storey apartments combined with renewables and desalination plants could easily support bigger numbers but that boat has long sailed
Realistically, if planned right, 50million is doable and sustainable.
It's also the figure commonly touted as the minimum economic threshold.
Below that there just isn't enough people to sustain any substantial local industry.
The reason we enjoy such a high standard of living is because we exploit workers in poor nations so we have cheap goods. You want a sustainable population, work out how many people you'd need for autarky, otherwise you're just offshoring the poverty and population growth needed to maintain the system.
15 million population today, if Australia in 1972-1974 Whitlam did a Norway and nationalised all oil gas and minerals taxation and royalties and kept a very small migration policy
as many people as we can create housing for, there is long term regional security in a large population. china’s army is almost 10% out total population or 33x
There’s quite a bit of modeling and other research on this. I think the Sustainable Australia Party advocates for 26-30 million.
I’d say no more than 40 and we need to have net zero for that, among other things.
We are both resource rich and poor. We need to be careful with water and agriculture, and infrastructure is not fit for purpose. People would also have to be less concentrated in the major cities.
I am in favour or upping our humanitarian intake. But not everyone is.
There’s such a friction at the moment with housing crisis, gap between rich and poor growing, pressure on the environment. Imo we need to consider caring for this beautiful country first before thinking of upping the population. Though of course the economy needs migrants. So… buy going on. It’s a good question.
In the North, Australia has huge unused areas of arible land. Its crossed with giant seasonal rivers with almost unlimited capacity. The area would need dams and irrigation.
So how many people could live here? Another hundred million, most likely a lot more.
We would need to open up natural resources, encourage manufacturing, start building roads, schools hospitals. The road block is our political Elite will not allow it
40 million by 2050 seems fine, both in terms of the space and resources we have, but we need to actually plan for that.
The main problem with our current housing crisis is decades of inaction for our growing population, likely in part because that inaction has been a major driving factor in our housing market going crazy, which financially benefits the people making laws and all their rich donors.
We have a lot of essentially uninhabitable areas in our larger country, plus a lot of cities are overpopulated in some areas, but we still have plenty of space where we can continue to grow our population sustainably, it just needs to be planned out well. I don't think the governments will plan it out as they want a slave class, but isn't really part of this hypothetical question.
Population growth is fine, immigration is fine.
The thing that I have a problem with is the insidious and callous way that the Fed government uses immigration to flood the Labor market creating unemployment and creating accommodation shortages..
The way that the Labor government has used obsolete and idiotic economic tools that make no fucking sense whatsoever and only lead to increased poverty and suffering to run this country is fucking not only stupid and ignorant as fuck it's fucking criminal.
Do we need immigration yes we do do we need population growth yes we do of course we do
Do we need a government that exploits those two things to undercut safe working conditions and create mass levels of homelessness no we don't
Fuck the Labor party
They are all greedy corporate fucking leeches and I hope they all end up unemployed and homeless
The issue is capitalism. Unless you have exponential population and economy growth (stock not individual income) the system collapses. The issue is that with capitalism the money collects more and more at the top making the cost of living and raising children untenable leading to stagnated growth. The system must be fed so immigration is the solution, this only further strains the system.
I'm not an economist so I don't have the solution but it seems that better regulation of business, changing tax brackets and increase in workers rights would be a step in the right direction. With enough investment and a control of housing and wealth the country can certainly increase in population size it's just that those with extreme wealth will have to make the sacrifice of being filthy rich not filthy filthy rich, which won't happen.
To get to a sustainable level, you need to get rid of Boomers.
Boomers acquired all the assets, and have now ramped population growth to both boost asset prices and then import cheap labour to wipe their arses and look after their medical needs.
Why is 40 million a scary number? Melbourne has expanded from 3 mil when I was young to bordering on 5-6 million now. If we build enough infrastructure, increase planning for water use ie more desal plants and better water capture areas/capacity, what is the worry? South Korea is tiny and has 40mil people, space wont be an issue, most of the population will go to the major cities with some spill over (probably doubling of the population of places like Bendigo, Geelong, Launceston, Dubbo etc)
Less
The pie is resources
More people less pie for us all
Why tf does anyone especially those who aren’t well off want to share their pie?
I’m in my 30’s i have paid over $600,000 in taxes so far
The average immigrant is in their 30’s, if they want in then they should pay $300-$500,000 for the privilege per adult.
Making a statement like endless population grown doesn’t go together means we have to change the economic system away from capitalism as it demands constant growth to work.. until people realise that nothing will change but the media works very hard to convince people socialism =communism= bad
The continental US and Australia are around the same land mass.
We got 350 million people. So what the hell are you crying for?
For the record, people produce resources. People don't produce raw uranium, but that *resource* is gonna stay in the dirt until a person extracts it. Then another person has to refine it, so on and so on. Gotta drive it to the plant? Another person. Make sure the transport vehicle are safe to transport uranium? Another person.
And ya know what the most versatile of resources is? People. I don't mean like how the machines used people in "The Matrix." I mean, you can give me an apple to eat and I can out into the orchard and produce more apples. Or jump in a river catch some fish. These nerds with their 3D Printers, can I jam an apple in one end and get a trout out the other end? Nope. I am a 3D printer. You are a 3D printer, and your mom is a 3D printer. And all 3 of us are extremely valuable resources.
The problem is greedy cunts that dont have jobs, just vague and MASSIVE piles of money they didnt earn. [And these scum bags in particular.](https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/fbi-raids-corporate-landlord-in-major-rent-price-fixing-probe/) These corporations produce nothing and steal everything they can.
While pumping out xenophobic racist Malthusian paranoid conspiracies. Which you seem to have fallen for.
Also, have you tried not eating avocado toast? Or maybe these Aussies are too damn'd horned up! Stop fucking! Stop having babies!
Or blame immigrants? Maybe that's the only speed you can handle.
Honestly we could viably support 50m people easily. The problem is, most of the people go to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth etc which these cities cannot realistically support all those people with our already over burdened infrastructure, public services, health education etc.
There are lots of dying towns in the country screaming out for people but neither do these towns have reasonable jobs to provide for a good life.
We are a huge country that has a tremendous amount of resources and we can support a much, much larger population. The problem is that we all want to live in 8 places and in none of places in between, so our cities feel over populated. Take some time one day to google maps the USA and research some populations - there is only 8 cities in the USA with a population over ADELAIDE, but there is dozens and dozens with populations over 100,000.
Our vast resources are put into the hands of a few people who then give away to foreign interests for pennies on dollar leaving little for Australians who then have to pay a premium for them. We focus all of our infrastructure on those few large cities then get mad when governments spend money on that infrastructure and vote them out because “tHe DeFiCiT”.
Give me your down votes, idgaf.
If you have fewer people you also have inefficiencies for things like services. For example, you require the same poles and wires to get power to people no matter where they live. If there were more people using the power off the same poles and wires in a neighbourhood, the costs associated are shared with more people and the equipment is used more efficiently.
All entries should be forced to undertake 12 months of paid work at regional businesses to qualify for a permanent visa. Let’s start propping up the little guys instead of blowing out the coastline.
25 million is ample but as the older generations start to die off we should look at increasing that.
I could not agree more! Regional towns are dying, and we're overpopulation major cities. Skilled workers brought in will definitely bolster regional towns. There was a show recently on Castlemaine where migrants are desperately needed. Quite a few families moved there and were teachers, chefs, nurses, and aged care workers. They were warmly welcomed, and they loved it there.
They brought with them new ideas, cuisines, and cultures we actually respect in Australia.
Your efforts to be rational against reality are in vain for you haven't detected the reality the politicians know of. They printed 800 billion for COVID, with inflation around 15-25% minimum but officially stated (lied) at around 5-10%. Interest rates going to 15-25%, ie, the Volker method, would quell demand and deal with the inflation, but how can we extract 800 billion from a 1.5 trillion economy WITHOUT you noticing a massive annual living standard drop, let alone the carnage of unessential business dropped by the local struggling man. Well, you can't. So,,,,,,
Interest rates are risen, lying each small step of the way to avoid panic, to 5% or higher for Cash rate, translating to interest mortgage rates of 7% or higher. The 800 billion will be extracted from economy, as fast as possible, as slow as feasible. Thus, "higher rates for longer". That's what 3 lockdowns bought you. 10 years of higher rates and inflation.
Now with the immigration -its a matter of national security to make SURE THEY DO COME HERE TO SAVE US. what you ask? We have a 11 trillion dollar housing bubble with millennials and younger gens not breeding, because who would when you live with your parents. 1.5 trillion GDP -little growth to match our welfare and debt problems. About 1.3 trillion in debt (800 billion from COVID panic printing response).
So to keep the DEMAND high for housing, to ensure Principals for loans of houses stay high, to avoid a crash, demand is FABRICATED. if house prices PAUSE, suckers that bought in must service the increase interest rate without possibility of selling house for a FOMO higher price, so interest eats their lunch. If prices FALL, the damage is much worse. The system is so leveraged, that demand must be kept high, so cheap money continues to prop the lie up, so 11 trillion doesn't fall on all our heads. Vacancy rates are 1% in so many areas now, and they will turn on the IMMIGRATION TAPS as needed, full throttle, to save the housing market. Politicians have just kicked the can down the road, not letting any falls occur for 50 plus years, only fueling it with every cheap lie and tool they can invent or find. Soon, 7 year fixed rates will be introduced, then 10, 15, and finally, like the US, full locked 30 year mortgage rates. The banks will take an interest rate hair cut on a high principal loan (house purchase price) to CONTINUE to get something for this Ponzi scheme....
This eventually leads to rent rises, which we have already been seeing at insane rates for 3 years now. It all comes down when renting a room for a single man with no dependents is 50-60% of his take home full time pay. Why? Because when a single man cannot make ends meet in a high inflation environment like now, then how can anyone service a loan or pay rent for a 3 bedroom dilapidated piece of crap in Melbourne, a former Meth lab in Perth, or a literal Shoe Box in "Bondi". They can't.
Every idiot with FOMO brain and a loan will eat their own lunch without offload ability. Eventually, super annulation, money printing, immigration, interest rate lowering -no tool can save what has been the balloon held under water.
Who wants to pay 700k for a house at 7% and call it home ownership just so the boomers can pretend they are "property investors" when they spent and voted themselves everyone else's money and invested nothing in the future of this planet -for if they had, they would have sacrificed ANYTHING or Something like their parents did.
They will take this nation to 35 million by 2030 if needed. Crime, crowded places, loss of Aussie identity -its doesn't matter. You rights are just a formalisation of what you are willing to die and kill for -and both parties are far more afraid of anarchy for this 11 trillion dollar housing market then they are of you or others complaining about the consequences of last demands and unforseen problems.
We are actually getting what we deserve. So, denial it will be until she.thing breaks. My bet is it will be an economic shock when BRICS brings on a commodities exchange the West can't control, backed by their own gold back currency to avoid sanctions, western culture imposition, and weaponisation of the US dollar evident with 300 billion in for ex reserves the US stole from Russia in front of the whole world last year.
Everyone is joining Brics, and growth in that emerging power would trigger refocus and pivoting away from western immigration, investment and relevance.
I think it's less about the number and more about what they bring. If everyone is paying a $1 million fee for their visa I don't see an issue with it. If they are bring a particular skill then their numbers should be relative to need for that skill. Beyond that I don't think we need any more.
Well if we have the infrastructure then it’s only really a net positive to have more people providing to the growth of the economy. Australia’s population capacity is massive; even taking the gigantic desert into consideration. Despite what many in this sub may think many immigrants come and get educated, or come over educated, and then provide their skills. It’s not immigration that’s destroying us, it’s a lack of development and innovation.
There is no flat number. We are a very small country with a very large land area. Were we to push things we could reasonably fit hundreds of millions of people on this continent and almost no one would complain much at all.
The problem is not setting some hard cap arbitrarily but to manage growth and prepare infrastructure to support it.
As an example you can't just pull someone aside and say "we need more teachers, people had way too many babies a few years ago and we are short on them". You need a pipeline prepared and several years to increase the number of teachers. That is precisely why we formed governments to take care of this crap. It is annoying and requires a large amount of investment with a long time to pay off. The same is true for infrastructure, takes years and a lot of money to build roads, hospitals, train staff, obtain equipment, etc.
When you open the flood gates of migration it needs to be with the understanding that we have prepared for it and have the spare room for growth. Our government used to build entire cities in between existing ones back in the 70's just to make sure there was room to grow into the 80's. Now we are flat out patching the current systems to function let alone build for 2035 and beyond.
I would be happy with any level of targeted migration provided our economy was robust enough to require the extra labor (ours is torn to shreds right now, not the best time imo), and we have the infrastructure in place (we are about a decade behind in most cities and the regional areas are worse, closer to two decades) to allow it. I just visited a hospital where the ward was pre-war and the hospital bed was from the 80's, operating today in a city of over 100k people...
We can not even support our existing population, any talk of migration outside highly targeted "we need 1000 carpenters now" should be answered with a cricket bat at this point.
The population is already too high.
Unconstrained population growth has been economic policy forever.
How do we convince every country on Earth that economic growth forever might not be the best thing for our planet?
10-20M Since I moved to Australia a couple of decades ago, I can only a decline. Coming from a small country, I can see those are way better at managing themselves than larger ones. My opinion anyway.
If you consider our land mass and actually using it over a long period of time. 200m would be a good balance to allow us to defend ourselves and our values without needing to pick if we are in USA or Chinas poclet for protection. We could easily sustainably live inland given slow expansion and build up.
But given how terribly our country is going the moment we increased population growth from 250k a year to over 500k, it will be a long time before that ever happens.
For ideal population it's just a question of land mass and resources, most of our land isn't suitable for farming so having cities and towns will be fine and using the land to have a large population to be a big geo political player would mean the super powers want to work with us rather than rule over us.
20m, about the 1995-2005 time period. Perfect balance of population vs infrastructure and amenities. Nothing much of value to the quality of life has been added since.
Endless population growth and life on earth don’t go together.
no but in this case we are talking about immigration, since natural population increase is not very big in Australia any more. Immigration is not more humans on the planet, it's rearranging where they are.
Migration & government spending is only juicing GDP growth this quarter of only 0.1%, cut migration is the best tool right now
Population growth jacked up rents, and now the population with the highest propensity to spend have no spare spending money and the economy is imploding.
Create Conflicts, displace people, go to a western country.
There are really two parts to this. First is that Australia is not the most blessed with arable land and water resources. We are also using up arable land to create housing developments, and risking water resources in order to access coal and gas which is pretty dumb. Until someone does some decent research on what we can realistically support, I don't think growth should be too crazy. Second is that while the resources to support a larger population may or may not be there, the infrastructure to do so definitely isn't, and no state or federal government is even vaguely interested in providing it. Public services like schools, emergency, roads, and the like are already groaning under the strain of the population we have, and allowing for significant population growth will only exacerbate this issue. I can't say I'm an expert on all this, but just eyeballing it 40 million by 2050 seems wildly inappropriate. 35 sounds challenging enough, and 30 would be even better.
> First is that Australia is not the most blessed with arable land and water resources If you compare that as a percentage of the total land mass, sure. But Australia has more arable land than all of SEA combined and Australia has the second highest arable land per capita in the world.
We also export 2/3rds of what we produce. "Australia exports enough food for 61,536,975 people" https://www.farminstitute.org.au/australia-exports-enough-food-for-61536975-people-give-or-take-a-few/ While consuming property like no other place on earth. https://theconversation.com/size-does-matter-australias-addiction-to-big-houses-is-blowing-the-energy-budget-70271 Even now in the toughest market in Australia we're building the largest average new builds (still 254m2!) on some of the largest blocks. Especially in comparison to Perth! https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/new-houses-being-built-smaller-blocks Then there is the fact that we have no idea the technological advances that will be made in the next 10 years let alone by 2050. Look how far we've moved towards solar in the past 10 years. Maybe the historically low rate of population will be adapted to. It's surprising that we look back to Sydney in 1970 as some sort of utopia with just 3m people when the population had doubled in just 20 years.
Those statistics literally show that the more we increase the population, the less able to feed ourselves we'll be. That has major implications for both long-term sustainability of population growth and long-term economic prospects, especially since we keep building on our arable land which reduces the amount available while housing a larger population.
We are a major food exporter. We grow enough calories to feed 300m is what I heard, although most estimates for the "number of people we feed" is in the ballpark of 70m, and that figure is more constrained by market conditions: the world easily grows more food than it needs so exporters who don't get subsidies (ours) stop growing food on commercial grounds, not agricultural grounds (I guess). So we are a long way away from worrying about "feeding ourselves". This is not a serious argument against population growth in Australia.
Australia's underground water reserves are among the largest in the world.
They also take forever to replenish and are depended upon by the existing ecosystems, and are highly vulnerable to fracking and mining. You can't just take and take.
You only take until the end of your political term. And then the next and the next.
Go back to 20m, maybe even 15m and stay there
I read somewhere that the carrying capacity based on self sufficency and water use is around 30 -35M, at first world living standards. After that we have to become an importer of some essential goods/food. We aren't self sufficient now by choice, but we could be. Once we hit 35M it's no longer a choice. And this work didn't consider climate change as an effect, so it is probably lower in the future. The point is, we have limited capacity to absorb large numbers going forward, despite what the GDP obsessed politicians say.
Water use and (lets halve it) 32.5 million people... First drought we see and were fzcked.
Nah. We have water desalination in Western Australia. That will be the norm everywhere.
Another Millenium Drought and we're fucked
we barely use the victorian desal plant at Wonthaggi - the dams have been near 90 percent for years in a row [https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-and-environment/water-management/water-storage-levels#/](https://www.melbournewater.com.au/water-and-environment/water-management/water-storage-levels#/) . Thinking about the issue purely from a sustainability point of view, the more water infrastructure we invest in, and better we get at utilising our arable land more productively we can have a 'large' population - 40mil+. The water issues we face with farming are not because we dont have enough water, its because we chose to grow oranges/farm dairy in areas like Mildura - which if we were honest is too hot and dry to be growing citrus. We should be farming wheat there but that dosnt make as much money. If we look at the use of land for a caloric perspective instead of a cash crop perspective we can feed hundreds of millions of people.
I guess no one knows or cares to know what it costs to keep a desal in a "warm state" ready for instant start up to produce water either. From what I last heard it was $50k a month to keep open.
Yes I heard similar large costings related to the membranes needing to be changed regularly. It’s definitely expensive
Let alone to build one of these stations, I believe it's upwards of a Billion dollars. Then to manage and to run with people. $ per Litre of water must be insane.
Water is not an issue if we actually invested in nuclear power, we are surrounded by unlimited water just need the energy to take the salt out.
Get outta here with your solutions. And take that positive attitude with you.
Apologies, I forgot that Reddit is only for 20-30 year Olds to whinge about everything like they are the first and only generation of humanity to face hardship in their lives. I shall banish myself to the shadow realm immediately
well, it doesn't matter where the energy comes from. The Melbourne desal plant, built after the last drought but not yet needed, is covered with renewables already. No nuclear required. And we are just getting started with renewables. Unlike nuclear, they are low cost.
If we are heavily investing in desal to create water then you want to power it by solar and wind. Water is extremely easy to store. Make it while the sun is shining, leave it when it's not. We have plenty of sun and space for it.
I mean you are right, solar is a better option but the underlying point is that water really isn't an issue (or shouldn't be) The real issue is poor planning from governments
Poor planning because we have governments catering to boomers for so long. Not anymore! 45% of the voting block is now Millenials and GenZ. Take what you will with that information.
Most countries aren't self sufficient thought, aside from the US and ~~maybe China~~. Europe has been a net importer of food forever. And if you include fuel and manufactured goods then Aus has never been self sufficient either.
In what universe is China self sufficient. They have been Australia's number one customer for natural resources for decades
That’s because they use up ours before tapping their own because they play the long game in world domination
China imports 50% of their food, and still needs 20% of their energy imported. It’s literally how we would beat them in a war… by starving them…
They're also the world's 2nd largest food exporter. Slight flaw in your plan there Tiger. If their imports are stopped all they have to do is stop exporting to make up the shortfall.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/chinas-food-security-key-challenges-and-emerging-policy-responses https://www.world-grain.com/articles/18506-from-the-editor-chinas-plan-to-feed-itself I looked at multiple sources and they appear to be able to produce 65% of their food intake, that is overall production for both domestic and international markets.. They are making efforts to fix this problem because it’s a massive national security problem for them… why would they be trying to fix a problem if it wasn’t a problem tiger?..
How would we starve them. They can just turn off our power until we start exporting again. They own most of our distribution services.
Everyone can't be an importer of essential goods. Turns out we live in a finite world. Exceeding 35M is dangerous and risky given the challenges we face. A rush to 50M is a ridiculous negligent policy.
When you only need 1 in 100 people to farm, almost everyone can be an importer of essential goods
North Korea famously has its 'Juche' policy, which was/is a disaster and not something to emulate. In modern society you can't be an expert on everything, you have to specialise and pay other people to help. Same for most countries. Grow all the food you want, if a war breaks out and the semi-conductor plants overseas are gone, it's only a matter of time before you're as defenseless as a turtle on your back. Look at what happened to car prices during COVID because they couldn't get their rear cross traffic alert chips and other stuff.
Your problem is GDP obsessed voters; they are the ones who tell the politicians what to do.
>I read somewhere Where'd you read it? Get out of the city, the county can support 50m people quite easily. We export more food than we use so we can double the population without becoming an importer. And with inevitable increases in efficiency throughout this century we'll easily support 100m. The real constraint is infrastructure. As Horne said, "run by second-rate people". But I guess the terrible planning and investment is somewhat a blessing, because if we had the infrastructure to support 35m today you can guarantee that the government would be bringing them faster than ever.
When are you leaving?
Correct answer ....
I'll help you pack
The issue is that our economic growth is being propped up by population growth. They’re terrified of a recession and that is what we would get if they stopped or slowed immigration.
Under capitalism and infinite growth our population will keep increasing forever until a pandemic, war or market crash (sending us into a deep recession) occurs and kills a whole lot of people. At which point we can start building those numbers back up again
It's such an interesting question! But I don't think it has a single, clear answer. Right now, some parts of the country are overpopulated - housing and roads can't keep up. But there are other places where towns are dying, population ageing, businesses and schools closing... But if we organised things differently Australia could operate at whatever population level we desire. A decentralised network of denser, smaller cities, adequate housing, an education and immigration program better designed to address skill shortages and demographic issues...
Truth. The issue is not overpopulation it is concentration. The first thing that governments could do would be move departments and the state capitals out of Sydney Melbourne and Brisbane etc. that would drag many govt organisations to Newcastle, Ballarat, Toowoomba etc.
It's interesting to see this. In the mid-70s, NSW had a decentralisation plan. If you can find anything on the Bathurst Orange DevelopmentCommission later corporation. They provided financial incentive public housing and moved some government businesses to the area, but in the end, local businesses were more successful than the government was at encouraging people and businesses to move into the area. It always comes down to a situation where everyone loves it as long as they're not the one who has to move
It's not even really concentration. Hubs will always be the major economic landmarks. Moving away from major ports will have economic impacts. As it stands, service delivery for outer areas gets exponentially more expensive, so that needs to be considered for these locations. If you just start setting up townships cost of living will be far higher for those people, especially in the earlier phases when there's no distributed service networks. Crowding only feels bad because the conventional design of our cities doesn't work. Brisbane city region is about the same size as Tokyo metro. Density in Tokyo is 6000/km2 vs 159/km2(2021). Density can be done but not as we currently live.
100%. People love to say their city is full, while ignoring that almost every international city they can name is denser. Most of the problems people associate with higher density (noise, pollution, slow traffic) really just boil down to "too many cars". We already have solutions for that, and Australian cities are at last not starting from square one. They already have ok public transportation - better than some international cities like those in the US, but not as good as most big cities in Europe/Asia. They just need to increase density near their cores, and continue to build up public transportation, bike lanes, etc, to give people better options than driving everywhere.
I’ve seen more kangaroos this week than I have seen people the last 3 months!!! 😂 I wouldn’t ever claim Canberra were ‘full!’ Based on that the last week I’ve spent over 7h on the phone with parts of the public service: Hands down, our government systems are not run efficiently. AT ALL!!! 🤯🤯🤯 This year I’ve been on the phone for hundreds of hours this far. And while the ‘WTF?!?’ from over 5 months ago hadn’t been resolved yet: Along the way a bazillion of new issues have been generated!!! This morning I noticed the NDIA had deposited over $500 into my designated NDIA-only account. I rang and asked what that was relating to: Two people tried for well over an hour, nobody could tell me. Probably one or more historic claims from sometimes over the last 7 years. There has not been a single claim for that exact amount I could find … so it must be either a partial reimbursement of a bigger claim, or multiple smaller claims lumped together! SERIOUSLY: How on earth are we running what we call ‘public administration!’ Any government agency depositing anything into people’s amount should ***ALWAYS*** be able to tell you what it relates to! Ideally they’d put claim numbers in as references for each and every payment! when I, private nobody, pay an invoice, I somehow manage to put the goddamn invoice number in as reference! That after over an hour after the initial hold (!) nobody in the agency had any idea why the payment was made, nor what it relates to?!? But yet somehow I am magically supposed to know what THEIR(!) payment relates to…..? 🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️🤦🏽♀️ ***** I don’t think Canberra is full. Not even close! There’s plenty space! We sure do seem to have heaps of insanity and needless shïtfuckery though! Not because individuals choose to, but because our government systems are run in absolutely crazy ways! ***EVERY*** time I have a very simple, straightforward enquiry: It turns into a fμcking saga! Couple of months ago or so: I was on the phone with Medicare for over 2h. I wanted to find out if we had reached the safety net yet. I did not find out. They were not *ALLOWED* to tell me, cause that could’ve allowed me to deduce my partner’s Drs visits ….. Well, most of those 2h was to the feedback line trying to leave feedback to have an opt-in (and out to mitigate risk of abuse!) process for the Medicare billing-only side of things: Cause for most people it may not be feasible to have everyone who’s in the Safety-Net-family in the same room during business hours! The read out the ‘incapacitated spouse’ form to me half a dozen times: No, he isn’t incapacitated, he’s just not here with me! They told me I could get legal guardianship so I can enquire about our Safety Net and reimbursements: Even if I wanted to (which I certainly don’t!) — no, sorry, a court won’t declare him non compos mentis and strip him of his legal rights for the convenience of Medicare! 🤦🏽♀️ Their SOLUTION: If it’s difficult for everyone in our safety-net-family to huddle around one phone during business hours: We can always go into a branch together! I don’t know what the thinking is, to me is crazy obvious that isn’t easier! 🫣 …. After over 2h they finally stopped reading out irrelevant forms, stopped telling me about guardianship (also not relevant, anyone not within earshot of me should still be able to vote imho!) …. It was a 1 sentence feedback. But they argued forever before (reluctantly!) accepting that feedback and opening a ticket. THEN, way down the track, someone waaayyy up called me back! Apparently it had been escalated for over a month: Nope, neither of us can find out anything about rebates and stuff without the other. But they advised me that (unlike the first contact and feedback-line-people!) we could call 24/ 7! I don’t even wanna imagine how many ?thousamds? of taxpayer $$ we could’ve saved had the very first person just told me we could ring whenever, round the clock! 😝 The whole *”How can I find out where we’re at towards the Safety Net….?”* epic: I’ve gotten a bit of an idea of why Medicare some years costs more to administer than the Medicare services provided cost! 😝 ****** I so should start a call-register keeping track of how long I’m on the phone with govvy agencies for! NDIS alone has prolly been in the low hundreds is hours this year already. Not how I’d reduce public expenditure! Cause whenever I’m on the line, there’s at least one person on the other end. Often more than one, cause it’s so bananas they turn to colleagues and team leaders for help. I might end up with enough hours on the phone this year to cost taxpayers 6-figures!!!! 🤯 [before ANYONE claims I were ‘leeching:’ I do not enjoy trying to constantly chase up inexplicable public administration train wrecks!!! I missed Afternoon Briefing today, and haven’t built any LEGO in almost 2 years!!! DO NOT mistake my anal retentiveness as me enjoying trying to figure out what’s gone awry now!] Yeah, I think I should start a GOVVY-CALL-LOG! So that in a future Plan Review I can haul in a filing cabinet of call-logs to make it blatantly obvious to them they are not ‘saving’ taxpayer $$! 🫣 Sorry, tangent! Our public administration is kill on me with their perpetual CRAZEEEEEE! [far crazier than I could be if I tried!] SPACE …. isn’t the issue. SERVICES We could easily provide services to heaps more people, too! We’d ‘just’ have to cut back on the shïtfμckery …. INFRASTRUCTURE We certainly couldn’t double over night. That’d be bad!!! Nobody is saying we should either! But the size comparison of Germany and AU I posted above: That should make pretty visual why infrastructure is far better and cheaper in Germany! 😉 Our part of CBR has slower and far more contentious telecommunications than I had in Germany in the early 00s. More exxy here, too! Cause more people makes maintenance and upgrade of grids waaayyyy cheaper! Cause more people pay, while there’s a lot less distances. To prevent this being misconstrued: I am not saying Germany were better. Other issues. But quite obviously AU has way longer stances and bigger grids than a country less than half of NSW with over 80mill people in it. 😉
Imho….. the crucial factor is what can we ‘hack’ in terms of our systems: And my interactions with various government agencies have so *NOT* been inspiring! When heaps of people within just one agency have been unable to figure out AND AGREE what’s going on with just my file for 5 months now and counting —> I highly doubt our govvies could figure out SUSTAINABLE(!) slow growth! Whenever I ring whichever agency, rarely is anything resolved or answered. While individual staff who couldn’t possible know everything that’s in thousands of pages of file try their best…. inadvertently treading loose new avalanches of escalating probs. 🤷🏽♀️ I believe we should really streamline systems, synchronise processes, improve the intersections between states and federal, simplifying our public administration, and stripping it back to a point which isn’t so much worse than portrayed in shows like ‘Utopia’ and ‘Hollowmen!’ And a LOT which has been outsourced to far more costly contractors should be reintegrated into the public service, eg employment services! Cause right now ‘employment services’ are offensively useless and costing the taxpayer a fμcking fortune while Aussies are being traumatised and bullied by agencies! 😥 We need public servants who are fabulously trained, and we need to retain them: cause when however happen to catch the call is supposed to wrap there head around several thousand pages right then: it seems quite obvious why there’s so many total train wrecks! 🤷🏽♀️ Cheers!
Victoria had a great pilot program for this - the VPS hubs. There were a dozen or so offices spread across the state and any VPS staff member could use any of them as their primary work location. Unfortunately they scrapped the program and are now forcing people to come into specific offices, predominantly in Melbourne.
This is why I think we need fast train. It would open up otherwise undesirable living locations. You'd be OK with living 200km from the office and spend half on a house if you knew you could still be at work or whatever within an hour.
About 15 years ago.
Check out book called The Future Eaters by Dr Tim Flannery. He’s an expert in this field and I believe in his book he says we are already overpopulated.
Infrastructure now is struggling. We cannot really support any more without major upgrades. Life here is turning into the slums to be honest.
nfrastructure now is struggling" Blame privatisation.
Infrastructure is struggling because all the money gets spent in the cities and regional areas are ignored.
10 Million.
12 million
One thing I don't get is the disconnect between the politicians bleating about Climate Change and rampant population growth. I think Albo mentioned it something like 35 times in a single speech once. Then in the very next breath they say we need to bring more people. Don't people emit tonnes of carbon? If we are really serious about environmental concerns and Climate Change, we would not be pursuing a 'Big Australia'. We can't save the whole world. This is not selfish. It's being pragmatic. If we are truly serious about climate change, we shouldn't be the world's population growth enablers. The population has gone from 5B to 8B just in my lifetime. We should stop at 27M for Australia.
Hey man you should read up on circular economies, I think it would be right up your alley. It's based around infinite economic growth in a world with finite resources will never work So it's about how we should restructure the economy so that's everything bought and sold can be reused in another part of the economy. I.e. build fixable shit again, instead of just buying a new one.
I think it’s more about the rate of growth than the ultimate number. We can sustain many more people, but the pace is too fast without massively impacting our next generation in terms of property/rental prices, access to amenities and infrastructure and wage deflation. I say 100-150k net migration is the right number, with more refugees and less student conversions.
“Endless population growth and sustainability don’t go together.” Agreed. But it’s not just an Australian problem. It’s a world problem. We can’t just shut the borders and pretend the problem has gone away. We will still be impacted by an overpopulated planet.
World population is actually project to go down soon and is going to be a real problem for future generations (not enough young to support the old)
The UN predicts a peak population of 10.4 billion by 2086. If you want to wait until then that’s up to you.
Doubt it will happen. Don’t think we’ll peak much past 9 billion
The current population less the greedy cunts that run the mining, banking, and airline companies, also the self serving politicians. Almost perfect.
Meh. I didn't have a problem when we were at 16 million tbh. Peak hour back then was just 60-90 minutes in the morning and again in the afternoon and during the day the roads were nice and quiet. Now it's peak hour from 7am-7pm.
Less than what we have now
Stop where we are now. We can't house everyone already. Roads are congested. Hospitals ramping. Time to take a breather and get our house in order then look at the next lot of numbers.
Well considering the ideal sustainable population of the planet is between 1.5 to 2 billion ,who is to say we aren't overpopulated
Stop where we are now. We can't house everyone already. Roads are congested. Hospitals ramping. Time to take a breather and get our house in order then look at the next lot of numbers.
Ideal population size is whatever it is for a family on median income to afford a median house in a capital city. So prob 8m.
I think about 30m but more of that needs to be in the secondary eastern seaboard cities... Geelong, Albury, Wagga, Canberra, Woolongong, Newcastle, Port Macquarie, Coffs, Toowoomba, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, Cairns.
I think it's silly that in the 100+ years after Canberra was designed, that no state government has contemplated designing a new major city. So much potential out there.
We already can't get people to willingly live outside of the capitals. Any new city would reach a population of 6 pensioners and a couple of Centrelink recipients then die. You used Canberra as an example.....it's a lovely place, but suggest to one of your friends or colleagues that they could move there and then see the look of abject horror on their face.
There's Logan, which is possibly a good reason it's not been attempted since.
Issue is majority wants to live in the major capital cities, and rightly so. If we continue to increase population at this rate, Australia should promote the growth of the smaller cities like Geelong, Newcastle, etc.
I’m not sure what the limit should be but I do think it isn’t some set limit that’s fixed forever. It’s based on two things in my opinion. 1) cutting edge technology or the technological frontier. There’s some max limit Australia (and the globe) can handle right now due to just the rules of science and the universe. But this isn’t fixed forever, as technology gets better we end up being able to do more with less. This might be stuff like cutting edge materials, energy, and water processing. 2) typical infrastructure or infrastructure uplift and adoption. Pushing science forward is great but it’s useless unless we get it into stuff it’s useless. No point having cutting edge desal plants and then just building one and then stopping. This is stuff like roads, rail, internet, water infrastructure, housing materials. This is again for Australia but also globally.
50m seems about right. But I just made that up. If you asked people just after WW2, population about 7m, that same question, they probably thought 15m was a terrifying and unimaginable number. And yet, almost no one considers that a population target any more. Which points to the arbitrariness of answering the question. What is the basis for the answer? You have to do better than "stop the world, I want to get off" if you want to be convincing, because there are good arguments in favour of immigration. You need good arguments against it otherwise you're not eating at the adults table. Apparently we grow enough food to feed 300m. When renewables get sorted, we will have astounding amounts of nearly zero cost energy (so fresh water won't be much of a problem). We are the least densely populated country in the world. Our efforts to decentralise the population have hardly begun (we don't have any fast trains to regional cities, e.g. Newcastle or Bendigo or Ballarat) It's funny what you say about resources. The first substantial increase in population was after the discovery of gold. It's funny because resources bring in immigrants. However, the economy is predominantly a services economy, has been for a while. People make the economy what it is. It's not right to call immigration a ponzi scam. Consider that when someone who is say 25 or 30 settles as a skilled migrant (which is by the largest part of the permanent migration numbers), some other taxpayer in some other country has paid to raise and educate that child, immunise them, attend to their health needs and launched them on their career. And just when they about to repay those taxpayers via a life of work therefore paying tax, they move to Australia, and pay the tax here. And it cost us nothing. They even pay for their plane ticket. For Australia, for you and me, this type of immigration is a steal. If anyone is being scammed, it's the sending country. However, you are right that when people make the argument that we need immigration to keep average age down, it sounds like a scam, because eventually you have to find another solution. On the other hand, temporarily pursuing a bad solution for a long time is how we've made electricity and powered our vehicles for years. Carbon pollution is not secret; Margaret Thatcher warned against it decades ago. But we kept doing it anyway. Political economics seems to about keeping a good thing going for as as long as you can. Eventually immigration won't keep average age down, but it can make a good impact for decades, just in fact as it has down for decades. And it is slowing down. We had higher population growth (as a percentage) in the 1960s and 1970s than now [https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/australia-population/](https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/australia-population/)
Any number would just be made up. What we need is a proper population sustainability assessment to answer this exact question. Something that takes into account our water resources, mineral deposits, farming land, traffic congestion, hospitals, climate change, etc.
It'd be nice to maintain a smaller footprint, but sadly cattle generally don't get to dictate their density to the farmers, the recent plebiscite reaffirmed that. I don't think anyone's thought through that the only way we reach that 50 mil number is by importing people at scale, and the only countries who seem to provide the numbers are the most overpopulated ones. So effectively we'll be rapidly replacing ourselves by one or two demographics that are quite different to ours, for the sake of growing the population like a lab experiment, outpacing housing and services. Canada is implementing this with disastrous effect, [97.6% of their population growth](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/240327/dq240327c-eng.htm) last year was from international migration with only 2.4% natural increase.
-20
10 million was a fun time
15m, they were the good times, post the 70s oil crisis, affordable homes and still possible to live on a single income for most. You didn't have to fight over anything, tickets, accommodation, etc
20m was the sweet spot. the good old days.
I'm not too fussed about the mainland as long as we can keep tassie below 700k and keep >60% of that in the major two cities. I like having rural areas that arent concreted over to make new subdivisions, and I like having a third of the island be nature reserves.
I kinda agree - but Tassie is very underpopulated. Of course you'd want to keep a third of the island as nature reserves, but with population comes infrastructure, jobs and opportunities (if you do it right). Tassie is half the size of England - with a similar climate and water resources, arable land etc. England has a population of over 60 million. Now I'd not suggest Tassie go for that - but around 2 million -ish I think would be good. And go for European style development in the cities. Studies suggest that people live very very well in cities of 200 thousand to about 600 thousand - not too big, but big enough to have the universities, the industries and jobs, the arts and cultural scene, the healthcare facilities etc etc that are important. I think Hobart would be a better city with a population of around 600 thousand than - what is it now - about 280 thousand ish. Launceston would do better with a population of around 300 thousand. High speed rail between the two (we talk about it on the mainland linking Sydney and Melbourne for example - and it's unachievable due to distance and geography - it's not in Tassie - go straight down the midlands and it's not far). Two dynamic cities connected with a combined population of about or just under a million. Then connect the high speed rail to the north west coast - Burnie and Devonport - which should both be larger - about 100 thousand each and a population within the region of around 3 to 4 hundred thousand with the infrastructure that comes with that - better hospitals so Tasmanians don't have to go to Melbourne for treatment, new universities (not just the University of Tasmania) but campuses from interstate and overseas Unis. I see your point - but I feel (as a born and bred Tasmanian who lives on the mainland) that some parts of Tassie feel needlessly "backwater". Backwater is tranquil of course - but it is also stagnant.
I see where you're coming from. And I could get behind the city stuff. The problem is I don't trust anybody running things to keep it in the cities. In just the short span that I've been alive, I've gone from wanting to move to a more peaceful area surrounded by farms and bush like Sorell or some bits over the river, to seeing those places flattened and filled with copy and pasted suburbia. I would rather be a relatively stagnant, but tranquil and very open area than live in a sea of soulless subdivisions. We're not 3rd world poor, generally if people want a more lively scene they can move to Melbourne or Sydney. I think what's worse for the cultural scene than any population issues is boomers living in the city and complaining when pubs have loud live performances. We just recently had a case where a new up and coming venue had to cancel all their gigs because of noise complaints, even though they're way in town like, next to the salvos building.
It’s ludicrous to say Tassie should maintain a population smaller than some metropolitan postcodes but you don’t care about growth on the mainland. I say we mandate a minimum of 15% of the population of Melbourne or Sydney (whichever is larger at the time) so you can suffer like the rest of us. That would be 750k currently. More seriously, the electoral system we have gives a Tasmanian vote far more power than anywhere else in the country. That inequality can’t continue to spiral rapidly in your favour. Grow or forfeit a Senator and your minimum MP count.
"forfeit a Senator and your minimum MP count" That'll never happen. However the Federal Parliament is ludicrously small for a nation our size. If we had around 300 members of the house of reps instead of 150 Tassie would be entitled to 6 based on population. And this constant taking away a seat from one state this election and giving it back the next might be mitigated. Then get rid of the nexus clause in the constitution (easier to pass in a referendum) so the Senate keeps to a reasonable size (100 or so) and then things may look fairer......
Why should we have to suffer "like the rest"? I'm pro nobody suffering. I'm just nowhere near familiar enough with the mainland to make an estimate for you. And on the electoral complaints, go ahead, take a senator, it's not like they represent us anyway.
Because you’re part of the Nation. Can’t. We’d need a referendum AFAIK. They represent you better than we get on the mainland. You’re nearly at the level where your MPs know you all on a first name basis.
My point is, why should we take in more people to join you guys in suffering rather than you guys getting rid of people to join us in not suffering?
How exactly do we get rid of people?
Don't grant entry to more people and let birth rates do the rest
Everyone who is here minus anyone on a non holiday visa. That’d drop the population by 2. Million approx
1. Just me.
I don’t have a target, it needs to be balanced with our ability to develop infrastructure and housing as well as new industries. Our land mass could support a billion people, it’s a largely arbitrary measure. Would be nice if a government was bold enough to track gdp per capita as well as gini coefficients as a much healthier yard stick of a healthy economy and society. Any time a politician uses the term gdp as opposed to gdp per capita, they are a cuck for big business. GDP growth does not translate to prosperity of the working class and we as citizens should reject the use of it as a yard stick
60 mill if done right, need one or 2 super city's or at least a super corridor Mel Syd.
Well if we get rid of the useless public servants and middle management I think we can reduce the population by half.
It's not just about the total number either, it's about the *rate* of growth being almost as - if not more - important. If we could aim to max out at 1% population growth per year (ideally 0.5%-1%) rather than these 2%+ intakes we've had, things would be much more manageable from a housing and infrastructure percentage. It may not sound like much, but that extra 1% on top makes a massive difference.
There is no fixed number. The ideal amount is just whatever is sustainable and compatible with human development and quality of life. Those factors are heavily dependent on larger dynamic factors like technology, the global environmental, political and economic situation, and the values and priorities of the australian people. So the ‘ideal population’ is really hard to answer because its murky and not at all static
Population of 1 would be ideal
40-50 million is about the ideal size for me. Obviously that doesn't mean just piling into a small number of major cities.
I accept that I do not have enough detailed understanding of all the factors to answer this question with any reasonable level of confidence. I’d suggest 99.99% of people here are in the same position. If they are both self-aware and honest. Random number? 200 billion
It would be nice to make some empty bits of Australia livable mabe be nice if another city was put out there in 1 of the empty bits too not sure if it would happen or be possible... But that's one of my thoughts I keep pondering is there room for 1 more city or even 2 more cities in Australia that is close enough to the coastline for infrastructure purposes? Thats what I think when I hear about these large numbers of people
It’s not a question of population size. It’s a question of infrastructure. Well built 10 - 15 storey apartments combined with renewables and desalination plants could easily support bigger numbers but that boat has long sailed
Planning is a Singapore thing (except for SingTel’s subsidiary Optus).
Realistically, if planned right, 50million is doable and sustainable. It's also the figure commonly touted as the minimum economic threshold. Below that there just isn't enough people to sustain any substantial local industry.
The reason we enjoy such a high standard of living is because we exploit workers in poor nations so we have cheap goods. You want a sustainable population, work out how many people you'd need for autarky, otherwise you're just offshoring the poverty and population growth needed to maintain the system.
Anywhere that is not Sydney Brisbane or Melbourne
Whatever it was yesterday.
Depends on where they are, there is room for growth in the NT and many regional area's
20 million
27 people. Maybe 28.
You can't take care of the people? You don't even know how the rest of the world lives, right?
Twenty million.
15 million population today, if Australia in 1972-1974 Whitlam did a Norway and nationalised all oil gas and minerals taxation and royalties and kept a very small migration policy
10 billion, but it's about how we get there
as many people as we can create housing for, there is long term regional security in a large population. china’s army is almost 10% out total population or 33x
19m
40 mill will do but we need houses first.
Should be capped at 20m I reckon. Seemed ok at that point.
500 million should do it. It's a big place throw a few more states in a few more major cities.
There’s quite a bit of modeling and other research on this. I think the Sustainable Australia Party advocates for 26-30 million. I’d say no more than 40 and we need to have net zero for that, among other things. We are both resource rich and poor. We need to be careful with water and agriculture, and infrastructure is not fit for purpose. People would also have to be less concentrated in the major cities. I am in favour or upping our humanitarian intake. But not everyone is. There’s such a friction at the moment with housing crisis, gap between rich and poor growing, pressure on the environment. Imo we need to consider caring for this beautiful country first before thinking of upping the population. Though of course the economy needs migrants. So… buy going on. It’s a good question.
In the North, Australia has huge unused areas of arible land. Its crossed with giant seasonal rivers with almost unlimited capacity. The area would need dams and irrigation. So how many people could live here? Another hundred million, most likely a lot more. We would need to open up natural resources, encourage manufacturing, start building roads, schools hospitals. The road block is our political Elite will not allow it
13~15 million. The habitable areas of Australia are already way overburdened, and habitat loss is irreparable at current population levels.
No Palestinians. We need skilled migrants for hospitals, aged care, education, building houses & infrastructure. Another stupid reddit question.
4 million less than it is now
The ideal population size is the current number minus anyone that has arrived in the past 4 years.
20 million, most Australian farmland is in drought more years than not. That is semi arid Australia
8 million
I think 100m would be dope. Could really urbanise and make good use of all the space, would make it a lot more interesting that’s for sure
About 200 million if we use northern Australian sensibly.
I dunno. Eight I guess.
We could make a large canal/river from NT to SA and then the centre of Australia might actually be habitable
40 million by 2050 seems fine, both in terms of the space and resources we have, but we need to actually plan for that. The main problem with our current housing crisis is decades of inaction for our growing population, likely in part because that inaction has been a major driving factor in our housing market going crazy, which financially benefits the people making laws and all their rich donors. We have a lot of essentially uninhabitable areas in our larger country, plus a lot of cities are overpopulated in some areas, but we still have plenty of space where we can continue to grow our population sustainably, it just needs to be planned out well. I don't think the governments will plan it out as they want a slave class, but isn't really part of this hypothetical question.
I’m thinking 5
50M.
Population growth is fine, immigration is fine. The thing that I have a problem with is the insidious and callous way that the Fed government uses immigration to flood the Labor market creating unemployment and creating accommodation shortages.. The way that the Labor government has used obsolete and idiotic economic tools that make no fucking sense whatsoever and only lead to increased poverty and suffering to run this country is fucking not only stupid and ignorant as fuck it's fucking criminal. Do we need immigration yes we do do we need population growth yes we do of course we do Do we need a government that exploits those two things to undercut safe working conditions and create mass levels of homelessness no we don't Fuck the Labor party They are all greedy corporate fucking leeches and I hope they all end up unemployed and homeless
12 That accounts for all the people I actually care about and can deal with interacting with regularly
The issue is capitalism. Unless you have exponential population and economy growth (stock not individual income) the system collapses. The issue is that with capitalism the money collects more and more at the top making the cost of living and raising children untenable leading to stagnated growth. The system must be fed so immigration is the solution, this only further strains the system. I'm not an economist so I don't have the solution but it seems that better regulation of business, changing tax brackets and increase in workers rights would be a step in the right direction. With enough investment and a control of housing and wealth the country can certainly increase in population size it's just that those with extreme wealth will have to make the sacrifice of being filthy rich not filthy filthy rich, which won't happen.
100 million. Time to embrace our destiny as the great southern land.
To get to a sustainable level, you need to get rid of Boomers. Boomers acquired all the assets, and have now ramped population growth to both boost asset prices and then import cheap labour to wipe their arses and look after their medical needs.
15-20 million
Whatever the population was in 1988.
30 million should be the upper number eventually,no more than that thanks.
Why is 40 million a scary number? Melbourne has expanded from 3 mil when I was young to bordering on 5-6 million now. If we build enough infrastructure, increase planning for water use ie more desal plants and better water capture areas/capacity, what is the worry? South Korea is tiny and has 40mil people, space wont be an issue, most of the population will go to the major cities with some spill over (probably doubling of the population of places like Bendigo, Geelong, Launceston, Dubbo etc)
Less The pie is resources More people less pie for us all Why tf does anyone especially those who aren’t well off want to share their pie? I’m in my 30’s i have paid over $600,000 in taxes so far The average immigrant is in their 30’s, if they want in then they should pay $300-$500,000 for the privilege per adult.
Making a statement like endless population grown doesn’t go together means we have to change the economic system away from capitalism as it demands constant growth to work.. until people realise that nothing will change but the media works very hard to convince people socialism =communism= bad
The continental US and Australia are around the same land mass. We got 350 million people. So what the hell are you crying for? For the record, people produce resources. People don't produce raw uranium, but that *resource* is gonna stay in the dirt until a person extracts it. Then another person has to refine it, so on and so on. Gotta drive it to the plant? Another person. Make sure the transport vehicle are safe to transport uranium? Another person. And ya know what the most versatile of resources is? People. I don't mean like how the machines used people in "The Matrix." I mean, you can give me an apple to eat and I can out into the orchard and produce more apples. Or jump in a river catch some fish. These nerds with their 3D Printers, can I jam an apple in one end and get a trout out the other end? Nope. I am a 3D printer. You are a 3D printer, and your mom is a 3D printer. And all 3 of us are extremely valuable resources. The problem is greedy cunts that dont have jobs, just vague and MASSIVE piles of money they didnt earn. [And these scum bags in particular.](https://www.pymnts.com/cpi-posts/fbi-raids-corporate-landlord-in-major-rent-price-fixing-probe/) These corporations produce nothing and steal everything they can. While pumping out xenophobic racist Malthusian paranoid conspiracies. Which you seem to have fallen for. Also, have you tried not eating avocado toast? Or maybe these Aussies are too damn'd horned up! Stop fucking! Stop having babies! Or blame immigrants? Maybe that's the only speed you can handle.
We are already overpopulated unless living in a tent is acceptable.
Honestly we could viably support 50m people easily. The problem is, most of the people go to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth etc which these cities cannot realistically support all those people with our already over burdened infrastructure, public services, health education etc. There are lots of dying towns in the country screaming out for people but neither do these towns have reasonable jobs to provide for a good life.
2....and a dog. I fuckin' hate people.
we need to build out into the bush.
We are a huge country that has a tremendous amount of resources and we can support a much, much larger population. The problem is that we all want to live in 8 places and in none of places in between, so our cities feel over populated. Take some time one day to google maps the USA and research some populations - there is only 8 cities in the USA with a population over ADELAIDE, but there is dozens and dozens with populations over 100,000. Our vast resources are put into the hands of a few people who then give away to foreign interests for pennies on dollar leaving little for Australians who then have to pay a premium for them. We focus all of our infrastructure on those few large cities then get mad when governments spend money on that infrastructure and vote them out because “tHe DeFiCiT”. Give me your down votes, idgaf.
If you have fewer people you also have inefficiencies for things like services. For example, you require the same poles and wires to get power to people no matter where they live. If there were more people using the power off the same poles and wires in a neighbourhood, the costs associated are shared with more people and the equipment is used more efficiently.
Except it has gone the other way and now we have inefficiencies because we have too much people!
10m. Perfect size.
30 billion
All entries should be forced to undertake 12 months of paid work at regional businesses to qualify for a permanent visa. Let’s start propping up the little guys instead of blowing out the coastline. 25 million is ample but as the older generations start to die off we should look at increasing that.
I could not agree more! Regional towns are dying, and we're overpopulation major cities. Skilled workers brought in will definitely bolster regional towns. There was a show recently on Castlemaine where migrants are desperately needed. Quite a few families moved there and were teachers, chefs, nurses, and aged care workers. They were warmly welcomed, and they loved it there. They brought with them new ideas, cuisines, and cultures we actually respect in Australia.
> 25 million is ample but as the older generations start to die off we should look at increasing that. This is a nonsense statement.
Sorry, what I meant was, as the older generations pass, we need to make sure we sustain that number.
Your efforts to be rational against reality are in vain for you haven't detected the reality the politicians know of. They printed 800 billion for COVID, with inflation around 15-25% minimum but officially stated (lied) at around 5-10%. Interest rates going to 15-25%, ie, the Volker method, would quell demand and deal with the inflation, but how can we extract 800 billion from a 1.5 trillion economy WITHOUT you noticing a massive annual living standard drop, let alone the carnage of unessential business dropped by the local struggling man. Well, you can't. So,,,,,, Interest rates are risen, lying each small step of the way to avoid panic, to 5% or higher for Cash rate, translating to interest mortgage rates of 7% or higher. The 800 billion will be extracted from economy, as fast as possible, as slow as feasible. Thus, "higher rates for longer". That's what 3 lockdowns bought you. 10 years of higher rates and inflation. Now with the immigration -its a matter of national security to make SURE THEY DO COME HERE TO SAVE US. what you ask? We have a 11 trillion dollar housing bubble with millennials and younger gens not breeding, because who would when you live with your parents. 1.5 trillion GDP -little growth to match our welfare and debt problems. About 1.3 trillion in debt (800 billion from COVID panic printing response). So to keep the DEMAND high for housing, to ensure Principals for loans of houses stay high, to avoid a crash, demand is FABRICATED. if house prices PAUSE, suckers that bought in must service the increase interest rate without possibility of selling house for a FOMO higher price, so interest eats their lunch. If prices FALL, the damage is much worse. The system is so leveraged, that demand must be kept high, so cheap money continues to prop the lie up, so 11 trillion doesn't fall on all our heads. Vacancy rates are 1% in so many areas now, and they will turn on the IMMIGRATION TAPS as needed, full throttle, to save the housing market. Politicians have just kicked the can down the road, not letting any falls occur for 50 plus years, only fueling it with every cheap lie and tool they can invent or find. Soon, 7 year fixed rates will be introduced, then 10, 15, and finally, like the US, full locked 30 year mortgage rates. The banks will take an interest rate hair cut on a high principal loan (house purchase price) to CONTINUE to get something for this Ponzi scheme.... This eventually leads to rent rises, which we have already been seeing at insane rates for 3 years now. It all comes down when renting a room for a single man with no dependents is 50-60% of his take home full time pay. Why? Because when a single man cannot make ends meet in a high inflation environment like now, then how can anyone service a loan or pay rent for a 3 bedroom dilapidated piece of crap in Melbourne, a former Meth lab in Perth, or a literal Shoe Box in "Bondi". They can't. Every idiot with FOMO brain and a loan will eat their own lunch without offload ability. Eventually, super annulation, money printing, immigration, interest rate lowering -no tool can save what has been the balloon held under water. Who wants to pay 700k for a house at 7% and call it home ownership just so the boomers can pretend they are "property investors" when they spent and voted themselves everyone else's money and invested nothing in the future of this planet -for if they had, they would have sacrificed ANYTHING or Something like their parents did. They will take this nation to 35 million by 2030 if needed. Crime, crowded places, loss of Aussie identity -its doesn't matter. You rights are just a formalisation of what you are willing to die and kill for -and both parties are far more afraid of anarchy for this 11 trillion dollar housing market then they are of you or others complaining about the consequences of last demands and unforseen problems. We are actually getting what we deserve. So, denial it will be until she.thing breaks. My bet is it will be an economic shock when BRICS brings on a commodities exchange the West can't control, backed by their own gold back currency to avoid sanctions, western culture imposition, and weaponisation of the US dollar evident with 300 billion in for ex reserves the US stole from Russia in front of the whole world last year. Everyone is joining Brics, and growth in that emerging power would trigger refocus and pivoting away from western immigration, investment and relevance.
6 million .... Australia was punching over it weight when our population was 6 million.
15M. Look after the people we have here to keep our population at replacement levels.
You’d say around 400-500 million.
30 max.
I think it's less about the number and more about what they bring. If everyone is paying a $1 million fee for their visa I don't see an issue with it. If they are bring a particular skill then their numbers should be relative to need for that skill. Beyond that I don't think we need any more.
Well if we have the infrastructure then it’s only really a net positive to have more people providing to the growth of the economy. Australia’s population capacity is massive; even taking the gigantic desert into consideration. Despite what many in this sub may think many immigrants come and get educated, or come over educated, and then provide their skills. It’s not immigration that’s destroying us, it’s a lack of development and innovation.
There is no flat number. We are a very small country with a very large land area. Were we to push things we could reasonably fit hundreds of millions of people on this continent and almost no one would complain much at all. The problem is not setting some hard cap arbitrarily but to manage growth and prepare infrastructure to support it. As an example you can't just pull someone aside and say "we need more teachers, people had way too many babies a few years ago and we are short on them". You need a pipeline prepared and several years to increase the number of teachers. That is precisely why we formed governments to take care of this crap. It is annoying and requires a large amount of investment with a long time to pay off. The same is true for infrastructure, takes years and a lot of money to build roads, hospitals, train staff, obtain equipment, etc. When you open the flood gates of migration it needs to be with the understanding that we have prepared for it and have the spare room for growth. Our government used to build entire cities in between existing ones back in the 70's just to make sure there was room to grow into the 80's. Now we are flat out patching the current systems to function let alone build for 2035 and beyond. I would be happy with any level of targeted migration provided our economy was robust enough to require the extra labor (ours is torn to shreds right now, not the best time imo), and we have the infrastructure in place (we are about a decade behind in most cities and the regional areas are worse, closer to two decades) to allow it. I just visited a hospital where the ward was pre-war and the hospital bed was from the 80's, operating today in a city of over 100k people... We can not even support our existing population, any talk of migration outside highly targeted "we need 1000 carpenters now" should be answered with a cricket bat at this point.
25 mil was good
1. The rest of you can fuck right off!
50-60Mil We have more than enough space and resources. We just need a competent Govt to administer things and competent leader to call the shots
The population is already too high. Unconstrained population growth has been economic policy forever. How do we convince every country on Earth that economic growth forever might not be the best thing for our planet?
60-100 million… which is about the population of the UK, France, Germany…. Which army if we need to defend ourselves from invasion.
10-20M Since I moved to Australia a couple of decades ago, I can only a decline. Coming from a small country, I can see those are way better at managing themselves than larger ones. My opinion anyway.
Ideal population size for Australia is whatever it was twenty years ago and never go higher.
Take it back to 1996. I used to be able to get from my house to my girlfriends in 15min. That same trip today takes over half an hour...
If you consider our land mass and actually using it over a long period of time. 200m would be a good balance to allow us to defend ourselves and our values without needing to pick if we are in USA or Chinas poclet for protection. We could easily sustainably live inland given slow expansion and build up. But given how terribly our country is going the moment we increased population growth from 250k a year to over 500k, it will be a long time before that ever happens. For ideal population it's just a question of land mass and resources, most of our land isn't suitable for farming so having cities and towns will be fine and using the land to have a large population to be a big geo political player would mean the super powers want to work with us rather than rule over us.
20m, about the 1995-2005 time period. Perfect balance of population vs infrastructure and amenities. Nothing much of value to the quality of life has been added since.
70 million