encourage smaller families, the fact remains that immigration drives our population growth rate of 2.5% pa (amongst the highest in the world). ateday : baby-boomer : 22 Dec 2010 6:01:15pm "Australians agree that in the long-view migration was overwhelmingly positive for the country. We draw a great sense of national achievement from the fruits of the labour of waves of European migrants in the 50s and 60s". Once economies and nations have reached their peak, their tolerable and optimum populations, keeping on will just negate the benefits we've had from immigration in the past. Economic and liveability benefits decline with overpopulation. Peli Cann : How can there be consensus on a statement like that when everyone has a different idea of what is meant by "the country"? A giant slab of real estate is not capable of wanting anything. Such statements only make sense if they refer to what the existing population wants. Politicians have to ask themselves who "the people" are. Are they the general population or just a ruling elite and its well-remunerated attendants and advisers? Commonsense tells us that anyone who does not live in Australia and lacks a deeply ingrained feel for the established way of life of its inhabitants can offer only an absentee pundit's guess at what this country needs or wants. Educationalists and others will have to give up their endless counterproductive attempts to redefine "what it means to be Australian" and stop trying to undermine the folk knowledge of Australians who have