#1 - Population

Courtesy of the Australian Bureau of Statisticshttp://www.abs.gov.au/, the following points and graphs (from data attained in 2008) aim to outline the key issues regarding population in Australia and to also convey my thoughts on the issue by their being highlighted and accompanying annotations and thoughts:

• Influencing for better or worse, the structure and size of the population shape a nation's economy, society and environment.
• 'Australia's population in 2006 was 20.7 million people and is projected to increase to 35.5 million in 2056 and 44.7 million in 2101'.
• Australia's ageing population will result in tan overall median age increase from 36.6yrs in 2006 to 41.9yrs in 2056.
• There will be a greater proportion of people aged 65yrs and over in 2056. - there will be a huge focus on Aged Care in the future
• People aged 15-64yrs 'working age' will decrease from 67% in 2006 to 58% in 2056. - who will make up our workforce in the future then? Migrants? Robots? No-one?
• Population projections are based on current trends in fertility, life expectancy at birth, net overseas migration (NOM) and net interstate migration. - change any one of those dramatically and you would have an entirely different story.
• Natural increase in population (ie births, deaths etc) contributed to 139,500 people in 2007-07, while NOM contributed 177,600 people. - If going to increase even more, where do they live? How do we feed them? What kind of strain is this going to put on our energy and water supply?

Series B goes off current trends and above stats are based on this series.