If new Prime Minister Julia Gillard really wants to slow population growth, she will need to put the brakes on the economy first.

Returning the budget to surplus immediately would work, as would encouraging her friends at the Reserve Bank to jack up interest rates.

The government no longer has the tools to directly reduce or increase the migration rate.

Leading ANU demographer Peter McDonald gets irritated by the way so many people see population growth as somehow independent of the economy.

Both migration -- and, to a much greater extent than generally realised, fertility rates -- are products of economic conditions.

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