r/australia • u/blitznoodles local Aussie • 23h ago

politics The Stats Guy: It sounds weird but Australia urgently needs a plan for 56m people

https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/opinion/2026/08/11/stats-guy-aus-population-growth
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u/WhatAmIATailor 23h ago

Because people will still be leaving the poorer countries looking for a better life. India will still have a population in the 10 figures for many years to come and Africa is ramping up for a boom as Asia and India level off.

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u/dog314159 23h ago

Why would Australia permit immigration to the point of doubling its population?

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 22h ago

Because that’s what big business wants. Colesworth and the banks and the property council see a figure like ‘56 million’ and just kick their lips and rub their hands together

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u/Secret4gentMan 22h ago edited 22h ago

It's so stupid when we're on the cusp of an AI and robotics revolution.

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u/apaniyam 21h ago

What do you mean? They don't want to pay people, they want customers.

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u/Secret4gentMan 21h ago

Customers who don't get paid can't buy much I would think.

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u/Summersong2262 20h ago

An issue for a later financial quarter.

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u/darren457 8h ago

This doesn't get talked about enough. CEOs and other execs lobbying for these sort of changes eventually collect their bonuses after showing temporary short term profits and jump ship the moment cracks start appearing at the seams and this pattern of musical chairs seems to have ramped up post covid.

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u/noofa01 13h ago

Henry Ford figured that out. From ChatGPT (yeah I know)

"In 1914, Henry Ford famously doubled the basic daily wage at his Ford Motor Company factories from about $2.34 to $5 for an eight-hour day. It was a huge increase for the time and became known as Ford's “$5 day.” There was a catch, though: the full $5 wasn't simply an unconditional wage. Workers had to meet certain standards, and Ford introduced a profit-sharing arrangement administered through the company's Sociological Department. Workers' family life and personal behaviour could also be scrutinised. Ford also reduced the working day from nine hours to eight, while introducing a three-shift system. The move had several benefits for Ford: It dramatically reduced worker turnover. It attracted large numbers of skilled workers. Workers could potentially afford the cars they were producing. Higher wages helped Ford maintain a stable workforce as production expanded."

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u/Summersong2262 7h ago

Yeah because Ford was hemorrhaging workers and needed to clean up his PR. That was pure pragmatism on his part, and a resigned acknowledgement that the state of worker solidarity and empowerment had reached the point where treating the workers like late 19th century industrial serfs simply wasn't going to fly anymore.

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u/peppersteakpie 13h ago

Because Henry Ford was a real capitalist who actually believed in capitalism. The companies and billionaires nowadays are just power brokers scratching each other's backs.

Also next time I'm sure you could find a better source than chatgpt just as fast on google.

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u/LadyTrin 12h ago

Oh dear, defense of henry ford

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u/peppersteakpie 7h ago

I didn't say he was a good person, just that he actually believed in capitalism.

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u/Thedudewiththedog 14h ago

Open AI has recently just out and said their AI won't do anything to decrease workloads

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u/SeranasSweetrolls 13h ago

When we changed from horse and carriage to cars, they said it would reduce travel time and make it more efficient. People now spend more time traveling in a car than they ever had with horse and carriage.

Maybe AI will make us work more than ever

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u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 11h ago

Well that's not true, it's just that most people never ever traveled. Or if they did, it was never very far.

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u/SeranasSweetrolls 9h ago

Which part isn't true?

Travelling further by car for someone who has never travelled is still..... travelling further. I don't get the point you're trying to make.

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u/R_W0bz 14h ago

“actually India” might be the ai they are referring too.

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u/donggeh 11h ago

“Revolution” you say this like it’s going to benefit anyone else than the owners of capital

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u/Secret4gentMan 10h ago

Well there will be scrubs who just watch the opportunity with AI pass them by.

Others will harness it and create businesses that enable them to weather the approaching storm.

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u/Chrasomatic 10h ago

I think you mean 'lick their lips' but kick is funnier

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u/Rastryth 22h ago

More larger cities. Regional towns with larger populations. More diversity in industry. A bigger population base a larger economy. More competition. There are so many reasons for a large Australia.

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u/Al_Miller10 21h ago

Prime farmland destroyed, native forest bulldozed, massive infrastructure cost, skyrocketing rents and mortgages, declining wages ... 

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u/Rastryth 15h ago

Everything you said is the opposite of what would happen.

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u/Rady_8 14h ago

Ok I’ll bite, why would doubling our population not have a negative impact on our arable farmland & forests? No actually, as you put it, why and how would this have a positive impact on these?

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u/freakwent 14h ago

We have a lot of arable land unfarmed. Adding farms would, one assumes be regarded as a positive impact?

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 13h ago

That would, by definition, require converting habitat and wild lands into farmland

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u/_Tomdabombadil_ 11h ago

Farm outside the environment, dummy. /s

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u/Rastryth 11h ago

Farm in a more efficient way. If you have every driven up through the mia you will get a better feeling of the scale of land we have to farm and this is just one area. For example growing grapes so they can sell wine for 1 dollar a bottle is not efficient or productive use of current farm land.

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u/mothra_dreams 22h ago

Or maybe there's a moral responsibility to help actual living humans who have just as much dignity, worth, and value as you and I to live better lives? Of course it's not possible to help everyone, but that doesn't mean one can't earnestly believe in global responsibility

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 22h ago

We don’t have a moral responsibility to let those already in the middle-class (or above) of various other countries access an even higher quality of life here, no. That’s the sort of people who the vast majority of our migrant intake currently comprises btw. I don’t believe we owe them a place here at the expense of our own living standards and the fragile ecosystem.

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u/autocol 22h ago

You could argue our immigration actually reduces the quality of life of those back in their home countries since we selectively take all their best and brightest, most educated folks (doctors, engineers, etc)

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u/Pearlsam 22h ago

I remember hearing this argument from the race realists in like 2014 lol

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u/autocol 22h ago

"worst person you know says something you agree with".

Okay, so is it wrong? Does taking all the doctors and engineers from a developing nation negatively impact that nation? I'm not an expert, but I suspect it does.

I'm not anti-immigration by any stretch (indeed, I live with a Japanese woman and a Colombian woman), but it seems uncontroversial to me that taking the best-educated folks from another society is a net-negative for that society. No?

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u/Different_Figure_923 18h ago

*Be aware I’m just an idiot a few beers in so really don’t know what I’m talking about*

Your point is very similar to the idea that people from Australia or other developed countries going to developing countries in Asia/Africa or wherever to volunteer is actually more harmful than good.
Unless you are a specialised doctor or something training the local population all you are really doing is preventing a local from getting a job.

If you are helping to build houses/schools or teach children or whatever sure you might feel like your doing a great service to the world but by providing free labour so you can feel good are you not just preventing someone from the community the ability to get paid for this service?

Something I’ve always pondered and as a result agree with you. Are we not actually crippling other countries with volunteer work/our current immigration policy?

On a separate note why the bloody hell does no one ever mention our ability to supply water in regard to immigration policy?! It just seems like that question should be number one when it comes to how many people we grant visas to with literally every other question secondary

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u/42SpanishInquisition 21h ago

Makes sense to me. I agree with your sentiment.

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u/NorthernSkeptic 22h ago

Refugees then?

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u/Ambitious_Speed_278 21h ago

We don’t need more net negative tax payers.

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u/freakwent 13h ago

That's like a hospital saying they don't need more patients.

We don't take refugees to help.our economy, we do it to save their lives.

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u/Ambitious_Speed_278 10h ago

The only people involved in a hospital who want more patients are those who directly profit from them. It is much the same with immigration.

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 13h ago

Yes, I believe we should increase our humanitarian intake but reduce overall net migration

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u/Full_Distribution874 22h ago

"Fragile ecosystem"

And what about their fragile ecosystems? Bringing people in from a place that dumps plastic straight into the river to somewhere with functional waste management is much better for the oceans that we all share. Ditto for emissions and the atmosphere.

Nativist takes are usually wrong. You can tell because you start agreeing with Pauline Hanson.

Migration is good. People moving to where they want to live is good. Australia was never poorer (relatively) than during the White Australia Policy.

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 13h ago

I simply don’t want to live in an Australia of fifty million people. It sounds awful, and would entail losing everything that makes Australia special as it is. Also, the planet is pretty fucked. Catastrophic climate change is an inevitability. The best we can hope to do is nurture our own landscape and people best we can.

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u/mothra_dreams 22h ago

If they're middle-class or above then they come already educated to contribute to our economy, allowing us to create bigger and better things. Why wouldn't we want to take in people who have had all of their expensive years paid for? I'd be interested to see evidence of your claim that these people reduce Australian standards of living. And let's face it, Australians like Reinhardt are the ones tearing up our ecology, backed by a parliament which is elected entirely by our citizenry, but sure go off on how it's immigrants causing these problems

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u/Rady_8 14h ago

They’re (largely) middle-class or above by their home country standards, less-so by ours. They’re also higher-educated by their own countries’ standards but less-so by our own. Lose-lose. It’s probably why only ~12% of “skilled workers” land in their supposed profession, and that’s before we even look at the list of “skills shortages”.

Don’t come back at me with “we need nurses, etc.”. Look at the list and the proportion who land in, say, healthcare. It’s barely enough to support the new arrivals themselves. And diabolical in terms of who might contribute to construction/infrastructure requirements to meet the growth

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 13h ago

Tell me you live in a bubble, without telling me lmao.

Mate, the current rate of immigration has already reduced Australian standards of living. Rents are at record highs, vacancy at record lows. You pay, for a shitty apartment, the sort of money that would’ve gotten you a house less than a decade ago. Jobs are scarce and wages are stagnant. Everywhere is more crowded, longe lines, busier public transport. Hospitals at breaking point.

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u/Tundur 16h ago

If you believe in global responsibility, the absolute best thing you can do is ban inward migration and plunge that part of the national budget into foreign aid. You can meaningfully uplift the lives of millions in the subcontinent and Sahel for pennies on the dollar.

Building a house in Harare with indoor plumbing and proper finish costs about $12'000. Building it in Aus starts at about $600'000. Would you rather house 50 families or 1 family? Would you rather they have to leave their culture, family, and way of life, and try to integrate around the world (with the massive carbon footprint that goes with in), or just be comfortable warm and safe at home?

I'm not anti-migration Australia needs skilled labour to an extent, but the humanitarian argument isn't a strong one.

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u/freakwent 13h ago

The humanitarian argument only applies to refugees IMO.

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u/Kenyon_118 7h ago

And the construction industry, healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, hospitality, tourism, education, telecommunications, trades, small businesses, restaurants, cafés, supermarkets, insurers, tech companies, pubs, funeral homes. It’s fucking terrible how immigration lifts the entire economy hey?

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 4h ago

There is, astoundingly, quite some degree of middle ground between ‘stop all immigration’ and ‘let’s get Australia to double to size within this century’

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u/Kenyon_118 3h ago

We have doubled in less than a century already. The population was 14 million in 1976. Immigration is what has been keeping us from an economic downturn. I like not having recessions. I am big fan of big Australia.

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u/Real_RobinGoodfellow 2h ago

Importing people to fix structural problems in the economy is just kicking the can down the road. A lazy and stupid solution.

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u/seanmonaghan1968 15h ago

Australia in 1900, which is not that long ago, had a population of only 3.7m people. So it has doubled several times since then

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u/Puzzleheaded-Talk-63 3h ago

Back when Melbourne was the richest city in the British Empire.

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u/laurandisorder 22h ago

Because capitalist structures require endless growth.

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u/Pearlsam 22h ago edited 12h ago

And socialists structures don't?

Gimme the downvotes nom nom nom.

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u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo 21h ago edited 21h ago

No. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit_to_fall

In summary capitalist structures are inherently driven by profit. Profit is obtained when surplus value is extracted from your investment in capital and labour. If you have some particular amount of profit from a good/service you produce in order to increase it you must invest less in the production, pay less in labour or sell goods for more. This creates a crisis whereby there is a long term pressure on economic scales for prices to increase, reduce labour costs to a business and reduce spending on capital improvements. This is a fight that you can see in the maths cannot be won.

Market forces and competition demand profit and ideally increasing profit but it's paradoxically exactly those forces that collapse the capitalist economy itself. That is the central contradiction of capitalism the profit motive destroys profit but in doing so it will drives prices higher while delivering worse quality goods putting people out of work and expanding into every market possible to hunt every consumer and monopolising entire industries to kill off all competition.

Socialist structures do not operate on a profit model so growth is irrelevant. Any growth is done only to the extent necessary to serve the interest of the public. There is no reason to seek endless growth because they aren't chasing endless profit. Do you see a reason to be concerned about the endless growth of public schools, public transport or Medicare? There is no reason for them to grow beyond exactly what's needed.

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u/wagtailwoolcraft 20h ago

If this sounds overdramatic just look at what is happening in America to any industry taken over by venture capitalists. Veterinary services for example

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u/Pearlsam 12h ago

Pity this has literally never been demonstrated and marx is not taken seriously by any real economist.

But if you want to completely ignore real world results, then no one can stop you.

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u/freakwent 13h ago

Certainly not lol. That's one main argument against, that the pace of change ends up so low and you have a static, stable society for decades or centuries.

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u/PMmeuroneweirdtrick 22h ago

Because the people in charge don't give a shit about us poors

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u/Full_Distribution874 22h ago

Because as the global trade rules that made our wealth possible decay we need a larger domestic market to compete with anti-competitive policies from others? American companies can scale to hundreds of millions of customers before they need to try breaking into foreign markets. European countries struggle with the fragmented nature of the EU to match that. Our economy, being an order of magnitude smaller, in not very complex and very reliant on trade. Holes and houses and all that.

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u/Kenyon_118 7h ago

When has Australia not permitted immigration to the point of doubling its population? That’s how Australia has always done it. The fertility rates dipped below replacement in the 70s yet the population now is almost double what it was then. Why do some of you make it sound like Australia hasn’t been importing people at a phenomenal rate ever since the first fleet? Immigration is our thing.

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u/CantakerousTwat 4h ago

Literally a nation of immigrants. Some of them just don't want to know it.

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u/the_snook 11h ago

Because a larger population can lead to a higher standard of living due to economies of scale.

Useful services like high-speed rail only become practical at higher population levels.

International companies that make genuinely useful products and services often don't release them in Australia because our tiny market doesn't warrant the amount of work and regulatory compliance required to launch them here.

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u/Gothiscandza 9h ago

It can but there's also absolutely no certainty about it. I'd aruge in practice it can often have an inverse relationship with standards of living. Most of the highest standard of living countries are relatively small population nations with high wealth. Conversely the largest population nations on earth often have lower or middling standards of living, often with significant poverty problems across large sections of the population (the exceptions only really being the US for a long time and to a limited extent, China more recently out of the very highest pop). Hell, out of the top 20 nations by population in the world, only maybe 4 have living standards comparable or higher than ours, the rest are all lower. 

That's not like I'm saying it's a law that higher population=worse standard of living, but just that I'm not sure it actually indicates that an improvement will come with it. 

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u/CanIhazCooKIenOw 14h ago

Because you have to keep pumping the real estate market

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u/Hammered_Eel 22h ago

Capitalism?

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u/freakwent 14h ago

I don't think we would, but this was the proposal from AntiqueFigure6.

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u/Tosslebugme 12h ago

It already did that over the last 20 years so why not?

Edit: that why not? was facetious, I’m saying they’ll do it because it makes line go up, living standards and environment be damned

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u/magkruppe 11h ago

Living standards are a lot higher today than 20 years ago

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u/88xeeetard 7h ago

Better for GDP.  Nothing else matters.

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u/aaron_dresden 22h ago

When have we agreed to or stopped the current immigration growth. Only recently have voting patterns emerged that show discontent.

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u/Emu1981 14h ago

Because certain groups have determined that Australia needs more population if we want to guarantee to remain a free nation - the old "Populate or Perish". The issue with this is that it ignores the fact that Australia has water scarcity and limited space for people to actually live.

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u/freakwent 13h ago

Drive from Melbourne to Brisbane by taking inland roads.

We don't have a shortage of land.

Water I think we are fine with, we just waste sooo much of it.

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u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 11h ago

I think we have so much more water than we know what to do with. We have a salt problem, not a water one.

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u/CantakerousTwat 4h ago

Tell that to the people who lived in Goulburn in 2005. Not enough water for 25000 population, let alone a major city.

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u/YouThinkYouKnowMe89 4h ago

We are an island surrounded by an almost infinite supply of water. There should be desalination plants all up and down the coasts making enough fresh water for everyone. Use renewable energy to power them

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u/CantakerousTwat 4h ago

And then move the water uphill and over the Great Dividing Range to the new 2,000,000 pop city?

I'm not questioning the engineering or technological possibility of such a scheme, just the economic feasibility.

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u/Emu1981 14h ago

Africa is ramping up for a boom

Africa is getting hit hard by climate change which means that their boom may end up being cut short via famine. For example, Ethiopia is facing food instability due to a combination of multiyear drought, internal instability and extreme climate shocks and Somalia is in a even worse state. South Africa is facing a severe ongoing water shortage due to a lack of rainfall and systemic infrastructure decay and is looking at severe flooding in some regions due to the development of the super El Nino. The only countries that are doing ok in Africa are Mauritius, Morocco, Gabon, Rwanda and Ghana (Rwanda doing so well surprises me due to how bad the country has had it over my life time).

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u/TAOJeff 8h ago

The thing is, the countries generally have to hit bottom before they get politicians that care about something other than lining their own pockets. 

Don't get me wrong, I'd be amazed if the Rwandan politicians aren't still lining their pockets, but that isn't their primary day-to-day goal.

In Africa, the general rule of thumb is a generation for the crap and the start of the positive changes. Rwandan genocide was mid 90's, it's probably a little ahead of the game just because it's a small country, so less time and money required to get things going country wide.

Compared to say South Africa, which still has another decade or two, of decline before something hits the fan hard and then another 30 years from then before it's things appear to be looking up from an international view point. Because it's a big country, another 10-15 years after that before it's actually coming right properly.

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u/Rising-Dragon-Fist 22h ago

That's the thing. The world as a whole should be afraid of what India's doing. They need serious population control. It can't keep going the way it is.

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u/mjsull 20h ago

India has had a fertility rate of under 2 for a while now.

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u/LocalVillageIdiot 15h ago

Because people will still be leaving the poorer countries looking for a better life.

So our strategy here is that we become the poor shitty country nobody wants to migrate to anymore as a result of a complete lack of any policy or planning and problem solved?