Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is a pretty big question to answer in one minute. What I would say to you is that I think economic growth is vital to Australia’s future. I think that in the medium term we will need a larger population than we currently have. I think we will have to run an immigration program to deal with the demographic shift and the drop in the workforce. But we also need to tackle those pressing environmental and other problems. The Greens keep raising with me, for instance, the question of climate change refugees and what we are doing to accommodate them. To accommodate them we would have to increase our immigration program. All these things are clearly linked. We are very much focused on the broader population policy issues, but I think we will need continuing economic growth, and I think we will see a continuing modest increase in our population levels over coming years.