Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/squee...#ixzz2lmCN1sdN

If global warming starts to rear it's head, people will flock to Tasmania and It's currently abundant water supplies.... So thats the first major flaw in the projections.

Well first the biggest impact of climate change is variations in rainfall - none then lots, so that comes first.

And second, boiling frogs. Haven't seen people vacating the QLD flood plains, despite the evidence.

Great stuff - the more the merrier

Australia with 40m+ will have an economy rivalling the big countries of Western Europe. Become a major player

Perth with 3m - awesome

Water? Desal the f**ker - powered by nukes

10-12 nukes plus gas, solar wind, geothermal - juice sorted for a generation

natural, CS, shale gas to last generations. gas to liquid to provide transport fuel. Bio too

Develop a food bowl and free trade zone in the North - feed ourselves and Asia. Provides regional stability and prosperity

HS rail down the east coast - Brisbane to Melbourne. Adelaide even. Geraldton to Bunbury too

etc

Build, build and build some more

Amazulu for PM!

Agree with everything, save for the fracking.... However my non green addition is to do with the water shortages that may come. Instead of Desal, dam some of the wilderness rivers in Tasmania and put a couple of major pipelines under Bass strait and fix up Australias water network. Taking full of advantage of the West Coast of Tasmania being in the top 10 rainfall areas in the World.... Currently.

Fracking IMO is worse than Nuclear.

Create jobs in the energy/utility/food industries and share the benefits.

The water pipeline is interesting

Nuclear is the way to go for energy security

We need to frack on a biblical scale (apart from a few key areas) IMO

Fracking is to risky for the Australian Artesian Basin... With the next war likely to be over water shortages, everything possible should be done to make sure the water supply doesn't get anywhere near contaminated.

IE: Water is more valuable than energy.,.... So not worth the risk to frack.

I'd rather have Nuclear power than fracking 10 times over.

I'd rather have them both

The environmental concerns over fracking are over done big time

Interesting that the Left and Right can agree on something.... Jobs and Growth

Greenies equate to job/growth stifiling in my book.

Indeed. Paul Howes, the union guy, who is far left and I can't stand is a big proponent of nuclear. He sees the advantages for jobs, prosperity and energy security

i couldnt agree more...nows the once in a lifetime chance
to go big and prosper imo

What about the soil salinity problems which are severe in long established irrigated areas such as the Murray-Darling basin? I throw that up for discussion, not questioning what you say. Maybe a slash and burn/shifting agriculture approach like in lesser developed countries? Move somewhere else when the soil becomes too infertile/salt levels too high?

It's interesting on Melbourne. Currently (just over 4 mill), you can travel the equivalent of Glasgow to Edinburgh and still be in Melbourne. Twice as large?

I'm not actually sure that there are any tight oil deposits in Australia that are really suitable for fracking - time will tell but if they're not, they're not. People tend to think it's just a case of identify deposits and go - but there's a reason you get maps like this, geology is the make or break.

http://juanvelascoblog.files.wordpre...plains-map.jpg

I'd tend to say that energy is obviously more valuable than water - since if you have energy you can desalinate yourself as much water as you want.

I agree that Australia should have hardened the f**k up and built itself a suite of nuclear stations - it has the ideal circumstances to do so, large tracts of coastline with nobody anywhere near them. However, as has previously been mentioned, australian politicians are not the best or most insightful of the breed - and the breed only has a 4 year time horizon.

As for massive population increase - the question is 'why'? Historically the larger the population, the better your economy runs due to economies of scale. However it's far from certain that that rings true going forward. With automation and globalisation it may well be that the benefits of a small, integrated, and intelligent population win out, using discardable slave labour for the grunt work (the Dubai model). High quality immigration is already almost there (ahem), but most of the rest needed for that model is lacking.

Oh, and australia could really do with investing research money in fast, efficient solar powered desal plants. A nice world leading, patented, technology in that area would not only win big for domestic usage, but also for overseas sales.

Interesting read and thread here... Thanks very much!! Looks like there's an exciting future ahead!