Commenting on the opinion piece: Maybe South Australia is fine just as it is

When I look around our workplace, nine out 12 were born overseas. Last time I was in hospital, I’m sure immigrants outnumbered homegrown. This is the same in many workplaces.

What I want to know is, who is going to do all the work if we don’t have immigration? Or do we just close all these businesses up. At the very least we need to have enough immigration so that we can be looked after in the nursing homes.

Better planning is the answer to our woes, thousands of businesses / families do it very successfully, the government just has to do the same. Pick the very best out of the world’s best, industrious people with ambition, and they will only enhance South Australia. – John Cranwell

Hear hear, Matt Abraham. It is indeed refreshing to hear someone with a longstanding background in media present an alternative view to the notions of “bigger is better” and “build it and they will come”.

As a long time RAA member, I too was very disappointed to hear my CEO, Nick Reade, trot out same tired mantra of unceasing population growth being necessary for our economic future.

This has become almost an obsession with the usual vested interests joined at the hip with, and promoted by, The Advertiser and its journalists. Any contrarian view is treated with scorn in its pages as holding the state back economically, without mention of the less tangible costs to our quality of life, including impact on the environment and diminishing finite resources.

The shambolic over-development of Mt Barker against the wishes of most of its residents is but one more example of the costs of overdevelopment. These include traffic congestion and lack of infrastructure, along with loss of valuable agricultural land and natural beauty.

I believe there needs to be a far more mature debate about what truly sustainable populations look like, at local, national and global levels. We can’t hope to simply “grow our way out of trouble” indefinitely and the increasing effects of climate change will surely dictate a shift in thinking. – Jake Howie

The so-called debate on Adelaide’s population growth is a phoney one. The last time rapid growth occurred was 1950-1970. In recent decades growth has stalled.

The advocates of a 2 million target offer no mechanism for getting there. Without the mechanism, the target means nothing.

Many famous cities have experienced negative growth. We need to face the possibility that we too become a ‘shrinking city’. It does not have to be all doom and gloom. See, for example, the National Trust’s 50 year Plan for Adelaide that considers how best to manage all contingencies: increase, no-growth, and shrinkage. – Norman Etherington

The current population struggles with enough housing, electricity supply, water supply, schools and teachers, hospital beds, GP numbers, traffic congestion and more.

SA simply can’t afford population growth, let alone these so called ‘experts’ announcing growth will fix it. Major city population growth has never solved any economic problem in the world, just compounded it. How many examples would they like to prove it? – Michael Pemberton

Commenting on the story: FOI: Govt told of barracks heritage before demolition call

And that’s just the “non-Aboriginal Heritage” assessment. Has there been an archaeological and anthropological Aboriginal Heritage assessment, including consultation with Kaurna?

This is an important area generally, cloase to the Karrawirra Parri (River Torrens) where Kaurna people lived and held ceremonies close to the more permanent summer pools of fresh water along the river, and which was only partially disturbed by the previous and current land use.

What might lie on and beneath the surface in terms of Kaurna cultural heritage? A question ignored in relation to Col. Light’s cottage (which after all still had the foundations in place). – Neale Draper