Australia's population: How big is too big? Australia 2050 (part 1) | 7.30

There's a reason we all live in small cities by the coast. The middle of Australia is not habitable for large groups.

trust Australia to upload in 480p >_< the nbn, everyone

These new houses are soulless dumps with no craftsmanship or style.

As an American still living in the States (Colorado), this was fascinating to watch. The similarities are startling. It would seem Australia, like the US, does indeed have the space. What we don’t have, particularly here in the American West, is the water for all the projected population growth. Water is truly our Achilles heel.

Australia has a serious water shortage which will only get worse as the population grows or the climate changes, high immigration is not improving the standard of living for the average Aussie

In Australia, one kid is knocked down every 11 minutes. And he's sick of it.

People must love being stuck in traffic and standing in crowded trains.

There should be a major decrease in the number of immigrants allowed to move to Australia for a number of years until infrastructure has the chance to catch up to the growing population, and properly strategize for the future. Also, universities need to rely less on international students.

theres a 20 year waiting list for government housing unless your from overseas .

People have short memories. In the early 2000's most of Australia's cities and towns faced water shortages. Lucky for us the drought broke before we ran out but if we increase our population like the government wants us to we will run out of water.

Why do we need more people???? Crowds. Traffic. Noise. Houses in suburbia already have barely room for a fence between them. Hospital waiting. Food and water and services, jobs and transport.

I don’t think Australia can handle much more than double the current population.

big DOES NOT equal better... stop this growth it's absolutely ridiculous

What many fail to understand is, Australia avoided recession not just once but humpty number of times because of Migration. Read further before judging me. Many think migrants come here and eat away wealth. But migration works a bit beyond this traditional way of looking at it. Australia as a society is well advanced with great civic sense, and overall a place for great quality of living that Australians built over centuries..... The new migrants (I am talking about those migrate with PR based on points based system) from fast developing countries like China, India, Malaysia are well qualified and migrate with decent savings. Reason, though their countries are fast developing and offer plenty of job opportunities, they feel their governments/politicians are unable to provide the quality of services and life compared to Australia. These high skilled migrants pay huge sum of AUD as visa fee, and add up to sectors that rely on knowledge from across globe to stay competitive. There is a difference between low cost offshoring of jobs vs creating/retaining high end services within Australia's shores. Its not without a reason Google, Microsoft, NASDAQ have created development centers (not Sales office) in Australia - because they feel Australia has everything to attract best talents not just from within Australia but also from other parts of world... These migrants don't just eat away free Medicare but also pay one of the highest taxes in the world (compare income tax rates) that also include Medicare levy :) All because, these migrants feel Australia is a great country for their children to grow and make their future. Note: I am talking about those migrate with Permanent Resident visa (please learn about Points calculator - its designed in a way win-win for both Australia's competitiveness and migrants' aspirations). I am not referring to those who come here as refugees or as students - I am neither undermining them nor appreciating them as I don't know their side of story. Just that I am a permanent resident who migrated through Points Based system, and have invested my 12yrs of savings that I made in the hope to be part of this advanced social system and beautiful country. I am not here to make ethnic enclaves or become a thief. I have much better things to do in my life :)

Developers and those who assert that Australia has plenty of room to grow should be given uncontrolled permission to build and populate anywhere they please so long as it's between Broken Hill and Alice Springs.

I like how they didn't address zoning legislation. Infrastructure will only do so much. If you zone badly, then it'll really blow up in your face. A lot of Australia's suburban cities are badly zoned.

i met a young man from Europe who tried to get an Immigration Visa for Australia....he has a trade and friends/family here in Melbourne yet he was denied.WHY? Un-educated,social service bleeders are welcomed yet people with a way to support themselves and not rely on Government hand outs are denied.....i fear the Government has a different agenda and this country is on its way to being well and truly screwed.

It's not about having babies like we used to it's about feeding the debt based monetary system we currently use. We'd have more babies if we were taxed less and worked less. Not gonna happen if we have to pay for new infrastructure for immigrants is it.

The problem, in my opinion, is the fact Australia has little to no industry. Look across the developed world, almost every developed country has a substantial industrial sector, which hires a significant amount of people and generating tax revenues. So, we are forcing people to move to cities since that's where all the service jobs are located in, adding more stress to the cities already under stress infrastructure, high property price and a lack of jobs. Not to mention urban slums that could potentially form considering the fact there will never be enough service jobs available for everyone.

"See that guy whose English is so poor that we need to subtitle him? Yeah, let's get that guy's opinion on the livability of central Australia." Well done, ABC.