schools waiting for arrivals - they came and they built. Phil : 24 Dec 2010 1:23:53am Dead wrong. You are incorrectly assuming the cost of infrastructure and population expansion is constant over time. As finite resources are consumed, the cost of providing additional infrastructure (capacity expansion) increases exponentially, the law of diminishing returns becomes dominate. America of 200 years ago had plenty of cheaply available resources. Today finite resources are shared (traded) globally reducing their availability for Australia. Think about blowing up a balloon. At first its easy and as you get closer to the limits it gets harder and harder, and then POP. Some hard numbers as an example. In Brisbane the massive Gateway bridge was open in 1980 at a cost of $140 million. Population growth meant that just 30 years latter (2010) a duplicate bridge was built alone side at a cost of $1.88 billion. You can see how much the cost of infrastructure has increased in Australia in just 30 years. The Brutal Realist : 22 Dec 2010 6:45:02pm Is it just me or does anyone else thinks that this whole current population policy bears the hallmarks of Soviet style autocratic decision making? The Australian people have made it clear that we want a reduction in population and they have made it clear for a long time. It doesn't matter what the benefits are of having uncontrolled population are; the people have said NO MORE! and in a properly democratic country that means the public servants