By ALISON CROSWELLER

26feb02

AUSTRALIA must set population targets as part of a comprehensive national policy or risk becoming "an ageing, declining society", Opposition Leader Simon Crean has warned.

Mr Crean told a national population summit in Melbourne yesterday: "In the past I've resisted setting targets for the very reason the target becomes the issue, but I am now convinced that unless we set targets, we don't get meaning into the debate."

He urged caution on nominating targets, saying the community had to be brought along in the debate.

"We've got to remind the Australian people of the positives (of increasing immigration), not the negatives and the fear."

But Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock, who was not at the summit, sent a message in which he rejected targets, instead calling for family-friendly policies to minimise falling birth rates.

Mr Ruddock said the Government's priorities for population included encouraging older workers to remain in the workforce longer, and more skilled migration.

Mr Crean's embracing of specific population targets was later rejected by demographers, who said prescribing limits would create the impression Australia was embracing isolationism.

But Mr Crean argued that the Government's do-nothing approach would result in an "ageing and declining society concentrated in a limited number of sprawling cities". Australia's population of 19million would increase to 25million in the next 50 years then decline if nothing was done.

Victoria's Steve Bracks also called for a boost in population but NSW Labor Premier Bob Carr advocated a stable population and no change to the immigration intake. Businessman Richard Pratt renewed his calls for a population of up to 50 million.