and mostly constructive contribution to the debate on population we are meant to be having. It focusses on infrastructure, however, while ignoring environment, and in the end takes a pro-growth position. Multiculturalism is not the issue, rather, it is the carrying capacity of the continent and how many people we can support at a reasonable (not excessive) standard of living without degrading the environment for other species now or for our own species in the future. Within the concept of carrying capacity, we have to consider our greenhouse gas emissions and the work by Bob Birrell at Monash shows conclusively that of the expected increase in emissions between 2000 and 2020, 83 per cent can be attributed to population growth. So how we ever achieve the miserable emissions targets we have promised, let alone those demanded by science, without keeping a lid on population growth, is beyond my comprehension. Add to all this the imminent rise in oil prices that will stymie further economic growth whether we like it or not, and we're going to have an awful lot of unemployed people on our hands, be they immigrants or native-born. Time to take a deep breath and make significant cuts to skilled immigration (not the humanitarian program) and keep it to those skills that we simply cannot function without, while we ramp up our in-house training to provide all the skills we need. Dave : lok : 23 Dec 2010 11:00:37am "...existing Australian community values. Despite how they are articulated,