Immigration, page-195

If you read an article like this, from the SMH yesterday, and read the comments

disallowed/politics/federal/pandemic-to-punch-a-canberra-sized-hole-in-the-population-20230102-p5c9vh.html

Almost universally the comments favour a slowdown in immigration, for a range of sensible reasons. SMH is left-leaning, but I imagine readers of right-leaning news outlets would be similarly in agreement

Why is this is an issue where it simply does not matter what the population thinks, and that whoever is in government, they will back a continuing high immigration intake?

The article states we are on track for a population of over 39 million people. This will make us worse off in terms of environment, water, congestion, housing, social cohesion, etc etc etc