The population growth of Australia is planned at 2% per year (for a long time), of course the numbers must then get bigger.
2% population growth... an obscene figure. That’s 500000 additional people, every... single... year..! At present it is around 1.6% (400000 per year), which is more than twice that of the U.K. and US and most other OECD countries. Again we are not building the infrastructure to support it, around a Canberra worth every year. As the subject of the origin of this thread suggests, we will be unable to do so within any reasonable timeframe or cost. That leaves us sharing more crowded and slower existing infrastructure with more and more people, lowering quality of life for the majority, usually those at the lower end of the socioeconomic scale.
Your data does not support 3-4 times unless you pick a selected year or a lull period not an average over time
Why not refuse the Australians that decided to leave Australia and not contribute to the country's growth in infrastructure by paying taxes here, that right to return then?
Reductio ad absurdum...
Im not arguing against population growth or immigration. Merely the size of our current program, one of the largest in the OECD, for minimal gain for the majority of the population, which significantly contributes to the issues raised in this thread with this and other pieces of infrastructure that we build.