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The Forum > Article Comments > States need to intervene in population policies > Comments

States need to intervene in population policies : Comments

By Peter Strachan, published 25/10/2012

Population and fertility policies can lead to failed states.

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The idea that, in places like Somalia instability is caused by excessive population as the author puts it, "As population expands they can no longer feed themselves." is incorrect. Its Malthus restated.

Populations are self controlling. If there is not enough food, human populations cannot reproduce and sustain themselves. Populations don't "expand" during a famine. They expand when food is plentiful. During a famine there is widespread death and infertility until the population reaches a point where it can be maintained by the food available. The same applies to most other species. You cannot have a situation where a long term famine exists while the population is kept alive and reproducing healthy babies(unless food is brought in from outside). Starving people do not reproduce. There are biological reasons for this. If a population can survive and reproduce then there is 'enough' food, though it might be considered barely enough.

Shortages happen locally despite there being enough food in the world e.g. drought and crop failure in some African countries.

If there were not enough food for the worlds population then we would see an immediate drop off in population numbers. i.e. people would starve to death. The belief that we have "too many people" for our food resources is demonstrably incorrect.
Posted by Atman, Thursday, 25 October 2012 11:32:13 AM
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Too true.
We just cannot keep increasing our population ad infinitum.
We have no right to continually keep stealing the right to exist from all the other animal species with whom we share this country and this planet.
We are no better, or worse, than they are and they have as much right as we do to live here.
We are probably worse, in fact, as we are the only animal species actively and selfishly destroying our own environment.
Posted by ateday, Thursday, 25 October 2012 11:36:39 AM
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In my opinion one of the best books ever written about how the never-ending increase of human population inevitably created what is effectively a war on the planetary eco-systems was the book World War III by Michael Tobias, who by the way was featured on this forum a few years ago.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Thursday, 25 October 2012 12:35:11 PM
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Agree with Atman's erudite opinion!
If we want to actually contribute to population reduction outcomes?
Then we need to see, as much as we are able, that the female demographic is also educated!
Even if that means by-passing corrupt officials and or govts, and directly funding the NGO's, who are currently providing most of the education outcomes for the least privileged!
We also need to adopt another economic model never ever dependant on population growth for economic growth or expansion.
Patent and as plain as the nose on your face pragmatism, requires that we attack and remove all elements of poverty and disadvantage, wherever we find it, and then allow the snowballing discretionary spending outcomes to grow the economy.
Moreover, if we but legislatively eliminate all forms of middle man profit taking, we will virtually halve the cost of living or doing business!
All of which should add exponentially to the real economy, while effectively reducing disadvantage.
Ditto real tax reform, [as I've explained and mathematically validated in great detail in earlier posts,[ that ends the need for compliance and or any associated costs!
The only laws that can be enforced are enforceable ones. Even China's one child legislation is routinely broken over and over again.
What is the Author actually suggesting?
That we or somebody somewhere, in say darkest and most visibly corrupt Africa, bring in involuntary sterilisation? [Don't fancy your chances!]
In any event, that would likely mean training many more doctors and nurses!
That then would mean building more schools, hospitals and universities.
The quite massively increased level of education, would then likely negate the need for involuntary sterilisation anyway? All The available stats tell us; educated empowered women, simply do not have as many children!
So, in a roundabout way, perhaps the Author's Ideas are meritorious?
Rhrosty.
Posted by Rhrosty, Thursday, 25 October 2012 12:45:36 PM
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Spot on, Peter.

You make one of the most fundamentally important points in Australian politics:

Population policy, that is; the achievement of a stable population, should sit absolutely at the core of both domestic politics and our foreign aid programs.

The fact that it doesn’t is really disturbing, especially given that Julia Gillard made this emphatic statement said in 2010:

< We need to stop, take a breath and develop policies for a sustainable Australia. I support a population that our environment, our water, our soil, our roads and freeways, our busses, our trains and our services can sustain. >

And given that Bob Carr, very long-time sustainable population advocate and patron of Sustainable Population Australia is now Foreign Minister.

You’ve got to wonder what it takes to get sensible population policies implemented, or indeed to make any significant moves in this direction!
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 25 October 2012 1:05:36 PM
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Good points Peter.

Through partnership, example and assistance, Australia should help other nations to live well and plan their own future within their sustainable resource base. While welcoming our fair share of genuine refugees, we should acknowledge that overpopulation drives the resource scarcity behind most current conflicts and forced migration. By stabilising their populations through voluntary family planning and empowerment of women, nations protect their food, water and energy security, improve infant and maternal health, maximise resilience to climate change, avoid labour exploitation, and free up investment to build prosperity and develop. All people should be able to live in peace and harmony in their homeland.

_______________________
www.PopulationParty.org.au
Posted by PopulationParty, Thursday, 25 October 2012 1:24:23 PM
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Excellent work Peter!

At long last, the P word gets dealt with in a sensible, sensitive manner.

Given that polls reflect that the majority of Australians reject a big Australia, and for good reason, it's great that we now have a choice with the Australian Stable Population Party.
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 25 October 2012 1:38:19 PM
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Atman,

a) Malthus was making observations that have proven true and are currently being proven true - some 50,000 people starve to death every day and we're heading towards ecological collapse. You need to look at population overshoot as we are currently eating into the world's ecological capital. Further, consider what's going to happen post cheap oil.

b) You're assuming that population growth is a given - but human desire is the key driver of TFR. Population stabilisatin is readily acheivable, it's misguided individuals such as yourselve that seem to be unable to resist posting erroneous conclusions/arguments which contribute in keeping people in misery and our ecological destruction on the move. Brazil inadvertently dropped the TFR with popular TV shows. Further, Australa's population is growing as fast as it is primarily from immigration - last year, births over deaths was about 150K, immigration net was 200K, add into this long stay visas and you're looking at a totally out of whack system which is a direct driver for our economic and ecological woes.

c) "The belief that we have "too many people" for our food resources is demonstrably incorrect" - there are so many problems with this statement it's hard to know where to start. You need to look at overshoot, peak cheap oil, peak debt etc etc, you need to look at cultural values, education, female empowerment etc. You need to look at global health, fish stocks, grain production and that of and other staples.

If you want to demonstrate that things are false, then you need to do better than just saying they are. I can guarantee that you're reasoning can readily be shot down.
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 25 October 2012 1:51:59 PM
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"The Stable Population Party believes that women should have freedom to choose how many children they want and how they want to space those children for the benefit of the family, without government bribing them to have a child."

The story started out OK and then ended up in Somalia. This is a knee jerk reaction to cutting the second child baby bonus by $2K. Fair enough. It was unfunded Howard promise which had no effect on population. A blip up in its first year and them zip.

Actually, people (men) who start telling women its OK to have kids and use throw away book titles like Milton Friedman's 'Freedom to Choose' are invariably not liberals, not for small government and not for women. Have a nice night.
Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 25 October 2012 3:11:16 PM
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At last someone is talking sense. The facts on population control in Iran made for interesting reading. Apart from educating women, the message also needs to be got across to the fundamentalist religious fringe who don't want populations controlled.
Posted by little nora, Thursday, 25 October 2012 3:45:19 PM
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Sorry Altman, Malthus did have it right. Left to nature populations would self-regulate but by providing food and medicine from outside we interfere with that regulatory process.
Posted by little nora, Thursday, 25 October 2012 3:49:02 PM
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Cheryl: "Actually, people (men) who start telling women its OK to have kids and use throw away book titles like Milton Friedman's 'Freedom to Choose' are invariably not liberals, not for small government and not for women. Have a nice night."

This makes no sense to me. So using the statement here, men who tell women it's not OK to have kids, and should not have the freedom to choose, are liberals that are for small government and are for women?

This has shattered my worldview.
Posted by Bugsy, Thursday, 25 October 2012 3:54:13 PM
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Once the Australian government bites the bullet and gets an effective population control policy running here, then it will be in a position to dictate to Iran and Somalia about theirs. Till then it will be merely the pot calling the kettle black.
Posted by Jon J, Friday, 26 October 2012 5:56:08 AM
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government bites the bullet
Jon J,
In the present case it would be wiser to suggest they get it !
Posted by individual, Friday, 26 October 2012 6:39:58 AM
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Excellent article, except for the strange title, "States need to intervene in population policies".

States need to STOP intervening in population policies.

All support for making new babies should be withdrawn (at 9-month notice), including the baby bonus, compulsory/paid maternity leave, free health and education, etc.

I would never support an oppressive Chinese-like one-child policy, but people must understand that bringing children to the world, which burdens the ecology of this planet, should be considered just like any other hobby, with the full costs on those who pursue it.

Otherwise, welcome Ateday, I agree with every word!
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 26 October 2012 8:34:21 AM
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Some of the Mickey Mouse solutions to over-population proffered above would have me rolling of the floor, weren’t it for the fact that I’ve just consumed at least two UN approved quotas of breakfast.

1) <<Food supply will limit growth>>

Observation alone should tell anyone that this is a no-goer –it doesn’t apply in the modern world.

Famine after famine after flood sees the “good world citizen ” nations like Oz take in hundreds of thousands through various “humanitarian” schemes and hand-out billions in aid.

The preference is not to tell the famine afflicted that they should have fewer kids. But to tell the non-famished that they should lower their standard of living: eat fewer meat dishes, stop the space program –and subside the poor more.

The US is vilified for encouraging the use of corn in ethanol production since it adversely impacts on the price of grain in Egypt.
And if a tsunami swamps the Ganges river delta, it’s never the case that there are so many Bangladeshis that they have to utilize every available niche whether risky or reliable. Rather it’s the case of the developed world throwing the weather out of kilter through AGW –and, please forward the compensation cheque.

2) << empowering women …dictating terms>>
Some of the other *easy* solutions also have a decided rodent-like smell . With or without a zero population policy Australia is never going to be in a position to “dictate to Iran or Somalia” or anyone else. And as for empowering women, how do you propose to do that (this side of the year 3000)short of a Iraqi style regime change – and, look where that got us.
Posted by SPQR, Friday, 26 October 2012 8:36:15 AM
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The alternative to a one-child policy where women with more than one child per lifetime can no longer vote IS Global War where 5-6 billion people will die within the NEXT 30 YEARS.

Better make up your minds now what you WANT from this fragile living space as the CLOCK is ticking at the rate of 75+ million successful births globally per year.

The notion that education of women will stop this infinite growth stupidity is feeble when you listen to an overwhelming majority of Australian schoolgirls who can't wait to get FREE and have kids to get onto the proverbial EASY STREET.

Those who are blind to this reality will never understand women. They set themselves up for gross injustice, not just from lazy women but from the politicians and wealthy powerbrokers(incl women) who inflame the problem & corral women like livestock with bridezilla media propaganda.

The fact is if you give a kid a football in a glass shop and tell her not to kick it you cannot say that nature will self regulate the fate of the shop. Clearly it WON'T.

Certain folks who THINK they are smart, need to GROW UP and smell the "women are godesses on a pedestal" lies they are shoveling. We may all soon end up Grilled by a neutron bomb. But lets at least KNOW why!. In this world and the NEXT, Truth always sets you FREEE.
Posted by KAEP, Friday, 26 October 2012 9:29:27 AM
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KAEP,

Let me see if I've got this right. You are suggesting that population will cause a thermo-nuclear holocaust. This is a new one.

So far on OLO re the anti-pops we've had civil war (in Australia) aka Rawanda, drought, killer heat waves, rising sea levels, earth quakes, increased crime rate, famine, invasion by Indonesia, tidal waves, tidal waves of refugees, running out of superphosphate (more famine), pestilence and my favourite - the Mayan prophesy. I'm sure there's more.

Now I'm not saying that all this won't come to pass, but you'd have to admit, looking through the single lens of 'population' with birth numbers in steep decline in Europe, that this seems unlikely.

It is far easier for a feral hippy with doomsday fantasies to fit through the eye of a needle, than for the anti-pops to inherit the kingdom of reason.
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 26 October 2012 3:25:46 PM
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Thanks Cheryl. I was wondering how to respond to KAEP, and you just saved me the trouble.

I do find these "discussions" on population quite fascinating, though, as I suspect you do too. Once you have scraped away the doomsday rhetoric, there is very little left of any substance. The sum total of their ability to predict appears to be "if we keep growing our population exponentially, then we will eventually be squashed together like sardines, and die." Which is, of course, mathematically incontrovertible. But about as useful as saying "if you save $0.01c today, $0.02c tomorrow, $0.04c the day after, pretty soon you'll be a billionnaire". (By 12th December, actually. Just in time for Christmas).

At some point, reality creeps in.

But despite this, the debate seems to be a playground for people with a playing-god complex, who think that government is all about telling people what they can and cannot do. And who also think that the more government we have, the happier we will be, when exactly the opposite is invariably the case. The EU experiment is a classic example of this, with the creation of thousands of bureaucrats whose idea of fulfilment is thinking up more and more rules for the hapless citizenry to abide by. These folk are held in high esteem by their colleagues, and universally hated by the populace.

And what greater power can such a bureaucrat have, than the ability to tell people how and when they are allowed to procreate. (I can feel a play coming on, "The Wet Dream of the Anti-Pop"...)

Of course, none sees the absurdity of lecturing third-world countries on what they should and shouldn't do, from the comfort of their armchairs in a leafy North Shore suburb, or while contemplating the endless, empty beaches of Northern Queensland.

It would be vaguely amusing, if it wasn't also vaguely repellent.

I'm worried about KAEP's blood pressure, though...

>>Global War where 5-6 billion people will die within the NEXT 30 YEARS... We may all soon end up Grilled by a neutron bomb<<

I bet he's great fun at parties.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 26 October 2012 4:07:52 PM
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The Second Law of Thermodynamics(2LT),PEAKOIL, plus human History and rapid advances in weapons of mass destruction GUARANTEE what I say is True.

The Jews in 1935 laughed at those predicting holocaust. Most thought it was a passing phase of hooliganism. And who had the last laugh?

The 2LT? You can't have infinite ambitions on a finite planet and you cannot tell some future person that they regulate their breeding rights when you expect bloody bonuses for yours in the here and now.

Your stance is not just selfishness and not just Hypocrisy it is utter stupidity and I suspect the blood pressure is yours to deal with.

You dopes MUST have an inkling how wrong you are. Why don't you have a NAZI party. You could tell each other how electricity prices are making you more at ease going into a better future!

ITM minds far superior to yours are plotting to take over your lives. And they're not coming from Mars. Will anyone feel sorry for you FUTURE EATERS?

I'll just ROLMAO.
Posted by KAEP, Friday, 26 October 2012 6:55:30 PM
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HAAA hahahaaa!

That’s got to be one of the funniest... and cutest, things I have ever seen on O.L.O....Pericles snuggling up to Cheryl!

Pericles, you’ve certainly gone a little ratty lately, after our good long amicable discussion and consequent quite high regard I developed for you recently. But to play snugglepot and cuddlepie with Ms King, now that has really sent my regard for you tumbling!

So, what's the major problem with your outlook?

Could it possibly be that to do nothing about continuous population growth would be a whole lot worse than striving to do something meaningful to lower the fertility rate.... and would just be damn irresponsible... and it would make no sense at all to constantly strive to increase food production while doing nothing about the ever-rapidly-increasing demand for food?

Pericles, are you a complete ‘do-nothinger’ about population? Are you really? Is that the full extent of your argument – that any efforts to lower fertility are just ‘repellent’?

And yet the current efforts to facilitate population growth – the baby bonus and all the other financial assistance that parents get, and the extremely high rate of immigration, are ok by you. Anything on this side of the ledger is fine but anything on the other side is just completely not on?

Your notion that government bureaucracies, police and the rule of law should be minimalised, especially at a time when there is ever-more pressure on people to break the law, due largely to increasing population pressure, is just bonkers.

Lower populations that are much more comfortably able to live within their means and enjoy a high quality of life with the confidence that it will last, would be able to get by with minimalist government control. But big populations and high population growth that stresses out our resource base and environment need a strong government and highly effective rule of law and policing regime.

Your push for no population management and low government ‘intervention’ simply doesn’t add up at all.

.

Well said Yuyutsu.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 26 October 2012 9:54:01 PM
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Ludwig, I admire your tenacity to adhere to a delusion that the total of the world's ills revolve around population. You are now the lone bearer of this fantasy - except for KEAP's Nazi fantasy, which is another new one.

The anti-population 'argument' - so far as it has been an argument - has been so comprehensively crushed that even Michael-in-Adelaide, the lone real thinker of your faction has left the field defeated. You have met your Agincourt here.

Your 'side' has not been helped by people who I fear have recently come off medication - and Dick Smith who recently wrote that Australia's population will reach one billion in 2200. I want you to leave Dick alone. He's not well.

The real politic of the anti-pops on OLO has nothing to do with population and everything to do with trying to get enough people to register the Sustainable People's Party or the People against People Party or what every you are called. Good luck with that.

The prime reason the media won't touch the anti-pops is that you have no coherence to your ideas, no research and no implementation policy. Your rag tag followers are good copy for freak show stories.

The real interest in this debate has turned psychosocial. Why do a small group of people so doggedly adhere to beliefs when the evidence so completely points in the other direction. I put it to you that you need to believe the world is doomed. This gives coherence to your disorganised and contradictory thoughts which must, at times, bother even you.
Posted by Cheryl, Saturday, 27 October 2012 8:47:53 AM
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Australia's population will reach one billion in 2200. I want you to leave Dick alone. He's not well.
Cheryl,
Just because you're atrociously lacking in the skill of diagnosing doesn't mean they're wrong. I put it to you that in 190 years from now Australia would have a population as predicted by Dick Smith. Or have you already forgotten the multiplying effect of our boat people's agenda ? Probably another one of your lackings, foresight !
Posted by individual, Saturday, 27 October 2012 9:44:21 AM
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If Iran can address its own issues, why can't PNG? Why is it our problem?

And the Australian government is hardly in a position to preach "control/limits".

Australians, like most Westerners, *have* been reducing their birthrates.
What do Western governments do? Bulldoze this self-regulation aside, and bring in millions of immigrants, on the false basis of an industrial-age "headcount = wealth" myth.

How about the government stop "intervening" in *our* population growth as well as others'?
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 27 October 2012 3:59:21 PM
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On the bright side, people will at least get a say in the coming election. Do Australians want the big Australia and ongoing population targets of liberal and labor ranging historically from 1.4 to 2.1% of which the a growing proportion (for many recent years over 50%) is coming from immigration.

I suppose the question people should be answering is do they want the big Australia of 35-60-100 million that we are heading rapidly towards? If you say you don't care, believe it's inevitable, then that is basically agreeing with these population targets. As Peter has pointed out, population growth is not inevitable, it's dependant on many factors and stabilising of population is very possible - and for the majority of Australians, very desirable.

I favour stabilising our population now, for those who don't or are ambivalent, just be sure a big population is what you want as it's not something you can turn the clock back on.
Posted by Matt Moran, Saturday, 27 October 2012 4:13:17 PM
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Cheryl clearly wasn't listening when her teacher told the class about exponential functions, or maybe she didn't study math at such a high level. Given our current population of 22.6 million and a population growth rate of 2%, a little work with a scientific calculator will show that it would take 189 years to reach a billion, close enough to 2200. Perhaps she could check this with a numerate friend.

Is a 2% growth rate realistic? It was 2.2% in 2008, but this was a high point. Currently, Australia has a 1.5% population growth rate, mostly due to immigration. This would bring us to a billion in 2265.

Before deciding that we are the nutters rather than the growthists such as Cheryl and Pericles, it might be informative to have a look at the ultimate thermodynamic limits to growth and the time frame involved from the Do the Math blog by A/Prof Tom Murphy (Physics, University of California, San Diego).

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 27 October 2012 4:14:07 PM
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Divergence,

I stand pretty firmly with you and Ludwig with regard to the need for some sort of population control-- and even population reduction.

However, I tend to think that projections of the type made by Tom Murphy in your link, are on a par with earlier predictions that due to the growing popularity of horse-drawn transport the streets of New York would be three metres deep in manure by the end of the 19th century.

They are little better than guesstimates and cannot foresee future developments.

And, although Murphy gave it a cursory glance --he failed to give due credit to future energy sources like this:

http://www.redorbit.com/news/space/1112423632/orbiting-solar-power-plants-technically-feasible-within-30-years-study/

Or, the growing efficiency of/in energy usage.

AND, he didn't factor in this biggy:
http://i1336.photobucket.com/albums/o645/TheRealSPQR/Graph.png
which is likely to suggest solutions that none of us mere 21st century mortals could conceive of.
Posted by SPQR, Sunday, 28 October 2012 8:09:02 AM
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Neatly put, SPQR.

>>...projections of the type made by Tom Murphy in your link, are on a par with earlier predictions that due to the growing popularity of horse-drawn transport the streets of New York would be three metres deep in manure by the end of the 19th century.<<

This kind of doomsday thinking undermines any sensible proposition that might be relevant to the situation. The entire case seems to rest on the supposition that we will be three metres deep in people by the year 2200, or whatever.

It also leads to other silly assumptions. Ludwig makes his share of these.

>>...the baby bonus and all the other financial assistance that parents get, and the extremely high rate of immigration, are ok by you<<

Typically, there are two issues conflated here.

No, I do not consider the baby bonus at all appropriate. And no, I don't think our immigration rate is out of balance with our economy or our ability to absorb new faces.

To me, the baby bonus is just another piece of muddle-headed thinking by governments keen to involve themselves in our lives in every possible way. There may be a case for financial support for the poor, and obviously having children when you are poor is a tougher decision than for public servants living by the beach in Northern Queensland. So as a social measure for the disadvantaged, it has some validity. But as part of middle-class welfare, it is plain dumb.

Interestingly, with our replacement rate the way it is, I cannot see it as being particularly effective in boosting numbers anyway.

Which leaves immigration.

A topic that, from the copious evidence on this forum, seems to have very little to do with any genuine arguments about population growth.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 28 October 2012 8:44:33 AM
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Very interesting Pericles.

So your great hatred of government intervention overrides your great love of population growth!

You are actually totally against the baby bonus. Wonderful. But not because of it’s absurdity in encouraging a higher fertility rate when it is the last thing we need, but rather because it is government intervention in our lives!

Well.... what about immigration?

Don’t you think the policy of very high immigration amounts to a very strong example of government intervention?

And yet you don’t seem to be against this at all.

Like so many things you write, it doesn’t add up!

We are lucky enough in this country to need NO government intervention at all in relation to our fertility rate. And this is just what I would wish to see. No baby bonus and no financial assistance at all in relation to couples wishing to have kids. They should be on their own, and not in any way drawing on the taxpayer.

But when it comes to regulating who comes to this country, there absolutely needs to be strong government intervention with strong policies that are properly regulated, which keep the number of permanent arrivals right down and keep tight control of all those who are visitors and non-permanent residents.

This is so basic and obvious. It is such a fundamental role of government. But it would seem that you would be strongly against it and much more closely aligned to an open-border policy and absolutely minimalist input from the state. Am I right?
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 28 October 2012 10:18:52 AM
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Pericles,

perhaps it might help if you understand that our population is growing as quickly as it is because of population targets set by the Lib/Labs?

The target population growth rates have historically ranged from 1.4-2.1% - last year it was 1.5%. This is an exponential curve such that our current target of around 320,000 per year by 2030 would need to be around 500,000 per year.

Currently, around 7 million of the nigh on 23 million people that call Australia home were born overseas of which over 2 million have arrived in the last 10 years. It is a bit difficult to separate permanent residents to long-stay visas (some of which are valid for 8 years) so we'll just look at NOM for simplicity.

NOM last year was about 197,000, our births over deaths were around 145,000.

According to Bob Birrell of Monash University, we'd easily meet skills shortages with 30,000.

As such, the immigration policy is purely to ensure we meet population targets - what we don't breed here, we import.

But this policy is an economical and even more importantly, ecological disaster. But economically (since you mentioned this as a benefit) it makes no sense - have a read of this: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3889118.html

I suppose in layman's terms, GDP growth has roughly tracked population growth, yet since around 2006 GDP per capita has flat-lined yet the cost of living keeps increasing (because of population growth) - as such, people generally have less disposable income which is why our growth policies of endless population growth are choking the economy.

cheers
Matt
Posted by Matt Moran, Sunday, 28 October 2012 10:45:30 AM
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SPQR,

Space resources are going to be essential to the long-term survival of our civilisation, but even if we had unlimited space solar power satellites built from space resources, there would still be a limit to how much energy we could use on earth due to the waste heat.

It is good that Pericles, unlike, say, Julian Simon, believes that population and energy consumption can't grow without limit, but he refuses to recognise that there are limits to what can be done with efficiency. See this dialogue between Tom Murphy and an economist.

http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/

If Pericles had done a science degree instead of an accounting degree, he would realise that Nature is one tough mother, and that technologies don't always come along to order. What would the starving Irish during the Potato Famine have given for a potato variety that could resist the late blight or the Europeans back in 1348 for an antibiotic that could kill the plague bacillus? In the 1950s, people in responsible positions, such as the Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, were telling people that their children would have electric power too cheap to meter (if only!), and there were confident statements about future cures for cancer and how people would have so much leisure that they wouldn't know what to do with it.

Pericles is like a teenager who is encouraging his friends to dive into a pool without checking the depth of the water. Just go on with business as usual growth and the technologies to keep everything going will magically appear.

He shows little interest in all the environmental warnings coming not from fringe Greenies, but from respected scientists who publish in Science and Nature. He also ignores the damage that the high immigration/population growth policy that he supports is doing to our security, social cohesion, personal freedom, and general quality of life, except for the rich, all for no real benefit to the average person even in narrowly economic terms.
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 28 October 2012 5:01:34 PM
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Golly, this IS fun!

Three in a row, telling me variously that i) I have a "great love of population growth", ii) I should "understand that our population is growing as quickly as it is because of population targets set by the Lib/Labs?", and ii) I am "like a teenager who is encouraging his friends to dive into a pool without checking the depth of the water".

Ludwig, I have no "great love" for population growth. But as an immigrant to this country myself, I do have a fundamental dislike of the fortress Australia stance, so prevalent on this forum, on immigration. Largely because I have found it to be based on a deep-rooted dog-in-the-manger attitude: we were here first, go away. The mutterings about sustainable population are a mere smokescreen.

Matt Moran, of course the intake of immigrants is managed by the government. It is continually changing, however, and I expect it to be adjusted to meet our economic needs as a country, rather than the whims of the anti-immigration brigade. And a rise in GDP per capita is a rise in GDP per capita, whichever way you look at it. Suggesting that it is something else is to ignore reality.

And Divergence, it is pure fantasy to speculate "If Pericles had done a science degree instead of an accounting degree". For one thing, you haven't the faintest clue what sort of degree I have, and for another, when it comes to assessing the economic realities of living in Australia, I know which of the two you mention has greater credibility.

I don't "encourage" anyone to either procreate, or to immigrate, so your pool-diving simile is wasted, I'm afraid. I do however support a government that understands our need to optimize the resources we have, so that we can maintain the lifestyle to which we have become accustomed. My view is that reducing our population numbers will quite quickly put that lifestyle in jeopardy.

Suggesting that we can continue to move forward while standing still is to deny logic. As a scientist, you should be able to see that.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 28 October 2012 5:49:28 PM
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Pericles, not anti-immigration - for it, just at the right levels - we are not served economically by growing our population through immigration period - it will always outstrip the tax base - but nor do I support fortress Australia and that's not what I stand for or advocate - if you read what I wrote, at ho point did I suggest that. If you read my comment I talked about GDP and GDP per capita - GDP is tracking population, GDP per capita has stagnated. Perhaps Read it again ??
Posted by Matt Moran, Sunday, 28 October 2012 6:49:20 PM
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<< I do have a fundamental dislike of the fortress Australia stance >>

Pericles, what do you consider a fortress Australia stance to be?

Does net zero immigration, where immigration would simply not exceed the emigration rate but would still be substantial, fall under this banner?

This is what I advocate.... and I’d hardly call it a fortress Australia mentality.

Or do you want a considerably higher than net zero level of immigration and if so, up to what point. Or do you want it to be just open-ended, so that we have a growing population forever?

After several years of debating this stuff with you, I find that I still need to go right back to the basics every so often in order re-establish just exactly where you are coming from!

<< The mutterings about sustainable population are a mere smokescreen. >>

Well, you’d know categorically that this is not the case with me. My concern about population is always directly and genuinely connected to my desire for a sustainable society. So whatever you may read into other posters’ comment, you can’t use this sustainable-population-is-a-smokescreen BS with old Ludwig!

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 28 October 2012 10:24:49 PM
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I keep saying to you that your comments don’t add up. And this is so at the most fundamental level.

You advocate minimalist government. You think that we’d be at our best if we had minimum laws, minimum policing and minimum government intervention in our lives.

Well, just think about the scenario in which that would exist. It would exist where everyone was happy, healthy, had a high quality of life and lived well within the means of the environment to maintain it in an ongoing manner. That is, within a sustainable society. In this situation we’d see minimal need for restrictive government policies and minimal crime.

But in a society that is stressed by population pressure, with a government that continues to add to this pressure, we need a strong rule of law, strong government policies and strong regulation thereof.

So Pericles, if your first love is a society with minimalised government ‘interference’, then you should surely be on the same side as Ludwig, Matt Moran, Divergence and quite a few others on this forum, and be calling for an end to large-scale immigration, the achievement of a stable population at a level only a little bit higher than the current level and the implementation of a genuine sustainability strategy.

But as it stands, your desire for minimum government intervention and your constant criticism of those who desire an end to population growth seem to be in stark contradiction.
Posted by Ludwig, Sunday, 28 October 2012 10:27:08 PM
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Apologies, Matt Moran, I must have missed something.

>> If you read my comment I talked about GDP and GDP per capita - GDP is tracking population, GDP per capita has stagnated. Perhaps Read it again ??<<

I thought you said...

>>yet since around 2006 GDP per capita has flat-lined<<

Oh, right. You did say that.

But according to the IMF, our GDP per capita has been powering along.

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/australia/gdp-per-capita-at-current-prices-in-us-dollars-imf-data.html

And your other key point...

>>as such, people generally have less disposable income...<<

...doesn't hold up under scrutiny either.

"During the decade 2000-01 to 2010-11, Australia's real net national disposable income grew from $38,500 per person to $49,100 per person in 2009-10 dollars. Year-on-year growth of around 2-3% was consistent for most of the decade, until real net national disposable income peaked in 2008-09 at $47,400 per person. This was followed by a 1.3% decline in 2009-10. Australia's real net national disposable income per capita has since recovered, with growth of 4.8% between 2009-10 and 2010-11."

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/by%20Subject/1370.0.55.001~2012~Main%20Features~National%20income~16

It is always useful to append at least one factual reference to go alongside an opinion.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 29 October 2012 7:27:22 AM
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The topic needs a fecund opinion... world population projections are open to complication. But can be summarised in 9 minutes:

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/moreorless/moreorless_20121015-1200a.mp3
Posted by WmTrevor, Monday, 29 October 2012 8:04:37 AM
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Pericles gives priority to economics over science. Growthists tend to regard the world much like a cartoon of Mickey Mouse. The economy is the face,and the society and the environment are the less important ears. In reality, they are concentric circles. If you trash your society, as in the former Yugoslavia, you also trash your economy. If you trash your environment, you trash both your society and your economy, as in the collapse of the Sumerian city states. Natural scientists, not economists, are the people who know the most about the biophysical basis of our survival and prosperity.

It is true that there has been some increase in GNP per capita due to immigration, but from the government's own 2006 Productivity Report into immigration, the effect is miniscule, even if you don't consider negative impacts from crowding, congestion, overpriced housing, skyrocketing utility bills, etc. See p. 154 and the graph on the following page.

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves. For existing residents, capital owners receive additional income, with owners of capital in those sectors experiencing the largest output gains enjoying the largest gains in capital income. On the other hand, the real average annual incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than in the base-case, as additional immigrants place downward pressure on real wages. Other factors [are] more important to productivity and living standards. The economic impact of skilled migration is small when compared with other drivers of productivity and income per capita."

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/9438/migrationandpopulation.pdf

This is consistent with other big reports from around the world, such as the 1997 Academy of Sciences report from the US, the 2008 House of Lords report from the UK, and the 2009 Fraser Institute report from Canada. From the last of these

"As will be documented below, there is a strong body of evidence indicating that immigration does not contribute significantly to the economy, is not essential to the labor force, and does not help with the problems stemming from an aging population."

(cont'd)
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 29 October 2012 12:00:26 PM
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(cont'd)

Pericles also accuses us of playing "dog in the manger", not wanting to share our prosperity, presumably mostly due to luck, with the world's less fortunate people. He doesn't recognise that a nation state is not just a random selection of people within an arbitrary geographical boundary. Although none of them are perfect, nation states that are good places to live are built on many years of hard work, right choices, and sacrifice, sometimes to the point of life itself, by the ancestors and predecessors of the present populations. They stay good places to live because the existing population is keeping them that way. It is quite possible to wreck a rich country, as they did in Argentina, although they are now rebuilding. In a very real sense, nation states belong to their existing citizens and their descendants, much as corporations belong to the shareholders and their heirs.

In successful nation states, there are enormous amounts of collective property, roads, bridges, hospitals, etc., etc. Very often an individual's share of this collective property is worth more than his personal property. I am not disputing that some immigration is likely to be in the interests of the host population, but beyond this, why should a foreigner have any more right to a share in the infrastructure and other collective property in some other people's nation state than he would to walk into their houses and take their personal property? With their bloated mass migration program, our corrupt and lying politicians are betraying their oath of office and giving away something that isn't theirs to give.
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 29 October 2012 12:21:23 PM
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Thank you for introducing a few words of sanity via that link, WmTrevor.

Although heaven knows how we could usefully employ them on this thread, which seems totally immune to facts, and desperately in love with opinions. I was particularly impressed by the comment towards the end of the programme, that predicted the world's population to be ten billion by the end of the century.

And then added that it could just as easily be sixteen billion...

...or six billion.

That is quite a margin for error. And total anathema to the black-and-white brigade we enjoy here.

I do not "want" a particular level of immigration, Ludwig.

>>Or do you want a considerably higher than net zero level of immigration and if so, up to what point. Or do you want it to be just open-ended, so that we have a growing population forever?<<

What I would like to see, however, is that we welcome immigrants who are prepared to perform productive work that benefits the economy for all of us.

As, it would seem, most of them do. According to Divergence's quote...

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves."

How could this be, do you think? Because they a) work hard or b) because they bludge off the system?

Numbers are only part of the equation, Ludwig, and not the be-all and end-all that you seem to embrace. Engineering a stable population number simply for the sake of numerical neatness ignores the impact of demographics on productivity. Say, for example, our major employers decided to encourage older workers back into the workforce at the expense of young graduates, on the basis that the oldies are more experienced, cheaper, and more reliable.

We would quickly lose our young and talented overseas, I suspect. And see them replaced by... what? Elderly relatives of the already-here?Eager young graduates from Tsinghua University, perhaps?

You seem so totally hung-up on simple arithmentic when it comes to population levels, but seem unable to apply this same skill to the economic realities of an ageing population.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 29 October 2012 1:18:46 PM
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<< What I would like to see, however, is that we welcome immigrants who are prepared to perform productive work that benefits the economy for all of us. >>

Ok Pericles, now we are getting somewhere. You would like to see immigration that benefits the economy, and I presume that means improving and then maintaining a high quality of life and a reasonable level of equality across our society, yes?

Afterall, that IS what the economy is supposed to be all about, isn't it?

Well guess what - you want to see just what I want to see - a happy healthy SUSTAINABLE society, with the right sort of immigration program that takes us there as quickly as possible!

So, our major difference now appears to be the level of population growth that would best achieve this, within a strategy that considers all the other variables.

And I would put to you that a level of immigration much lower than the current level would most definitely give us a much better chance of achieving this.

So again it seems to me that you really should be on our side! If you want an immigration program that gives us the best economic outcome and the best return from our economic activity to the people, then you should definitely SWITCH CAMPS immediately!

Tell your sweet little girlfriend Cheryl that you have seen the light and need to break up with her.

BTW, I note that you have made no comment on the conclusion to my last post. I wrote:

>> But as it stands, your desire for minimum government intervention and your constant criticism of those who desire an end to population growth seem to be in stark contradiction. <<
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 29 October 2012 1:57:27 PM
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It really does appear, Ludwig, that your education and upbringing, coupled with the limited life experiences available to a public servant, permit you only to think in an entirely linear fashion, with the objective to determine whether an object is black, or whether it is white.

>>You advocate minimalist government. You think that we’d be at our best if we had minimum laws, minimum policing and minimum government intervention in our lives.<<

This is typical.

I have of course expressed to you on a number of occasions that I believe that the intervention in our lives by government, together with their public service Remora fish, should be curtailed. That there is already sufficient intrusion into and involvement in the decisions we make every day. That our every activity seems circumscribed by this or that arbitrary law, by-law or ordinance.

But I have never advocated "minimum" anything. That exists only in your mind, as the only possible alternative to the total government control that you find so attractive. The concept that there are shades of grey only touches you in book form, and not as a way of assessing the massive complexity that we face in our daily lives, and working through that complexity in order to achieve some semblance of balance.

Your knee-jerk response to an issue is "the government should do something". The supposition being presumably that doing something is better than doing nothing.

My starting-point, on the other hand, is that where government is concerned, doing nothing is always infinitely better than doing something. That view being informed in part by the failure of any government, ever, to achieve what it sets out to achieve, without either getting it completely wrong, or generating a raft of unintended consequences that require years of further tinkering, adjustment and additional controls.

We do not need State intervention in population policies, for exactly these reasons. Our current visa system is perfectly adequate as a control mechanism, and any meddling with it to artificially skew its intent would be counter-productive.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 29 October 2012 1:58:41 PM
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Yes, Wm Trevor's link was interesting. The rises and falls of pop are curious.

Australia is well placed to be a food bowl for 9 billion people. We export $46 billion food per year and import $6 billion through reciprocal trade agreements. We could drive more food on to our domestic market but why? Economics dictates that we preserve scarce resources.

The real problem, which even most of the anti-pops agree with, is birth and survival rates of 5 kids or so in Africa. Almost no one has discussed what to do short of military intervention.

Of course population is just one vector of analysis and not the most important. What the anti-pops really want is a hammer and sickle government which forces contraception on to women and girls and oddly, this appears to be misdirected at Australia where fertility is 1.7.

In Australia, domestic energy consumption is about 40 percent of all energy consumed. What the anti-pops want here is to go back to the kilgardie safe. The anti-pops are The Sullivans with a copy of Marx under their arms.
Posted by Cheryl, Monday, 29 October 2012 2:05:32 PM
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Pericles "where government is concerned, doing nothing is always infinitely better than doing something."

But it's not doing "nothing".
It's artificially *adding* 100,000+ foreigners every year.
100,000 people who drive cars, refrigerate food, heat or air-condition their homes (newly built on former farmland).

Cheryl "misdirected at Australia where fertility is 1.7"
What does it matter how low our fertility rate is, when the government just overrides it with mass immigration anyway?
Posted by Shockadelic, Monday, 29 October 2012 7:06:22 PM
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yep, that's what people do Shockadelic. Use heaters, drive cars, I even hear they use high speed drills and eat food.

Your default position is not to do away with the heater, cars or food but to do away with the people. You come from another paradigm completely. You're not alone - but you're pretty much alone, in more ways than one.
Posted by Cheryl, Monday, 29 October 2012 7:12:02 PM
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Two very good points, Shockadelic.

I note that Cheryl responded to you without in any way responding to the one and only point that you were making!

Brilliant!

And Pericles won't respond because you have comprehensively nobbled him on this particular point.

The government is indeed doing something, and very much so, by way of imposing very high immigration up on us.

So, going by Pericles' own dictum, they should STOP.... and do nothing instead. And yet, he has never been critical of the government's current approach to immigration, with every indication being that he fully supports the current very high annual intake.

Work that out if you can!
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 29 October 2012 11:06:04 PM
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This conversation is becoming particularly tedious.

But necessary, of course. The kind of binary thinking that goes on here illustrates beautifully one of the principal reasons our politicians find the problems so intractable. It is a balancing act, not a yes/no determination.

>>But it's not doing "nothing". It's artificially *adding* 100,000+ foreigners every year.<<

There's nothing "artificial" about it, Shockadelic. The government is perpetuating a policy that has been in place for many decades...

http://www.immi.gov.au/skilled/_pdf/migplan11-12.pdf

It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year. The discussion here seems to ignore this simple fact. "Doing something" in this context means - as far as I can tell from Ludwig's contributions - doing away with the process that has served us extremely well since WWII, and has been instrumental in establishing the prosperity we currently enjoy. Government intervention to satisfy the doomsayers would create far more problems (economic imbalance) than it would solve (stopping Ludwig from whingeing).

Have great day.

And Ludwig, for heaven's sake, go to the beach and relax.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 10:18:07 AM
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Future Eaters .... Yetch!

They should have been drowned at birth .. the damned lot of them.

Their reckoning is coming. Its written in the Laws of Physics more than any history tome.

The Asian Century will not tolerate free speech and it will not tolerate the selfish profligacy that we are witnessing on this forum.

The Gillard white paper on engaging with Asia is a Death Wish. It has sealed the fate of future eaters and their plethroa of Environment destroying children and grandchildren.

How are sensible people supposed to feel pity for these morons?

To all those interested in SURVIVING the opening pages of the Asian Century, ONLY Energy independence is of any concern. Forget the ALP's Schizophrenic Diplomacy: The sell Carbon to the world so we can have a dysfunctional Carbon Tax variety of Schizoid political embolism for example. Or that 'divide and conquer' Australia with multiculuralism of questionable loyalty embolism. Or the Gender frippery.

Australia cannot engage Asia unless it can stand firmly on its own two feet. That means Geothermal power stations surrounding every capital city for starters.

With all the schizoid emboli and a growing dangerous dependency on Asia for refined fuels, if it came to conflict (more plausible Asia scenario than engagement) then Australia and all its future eating upstarts will be wiped from the pages of history.

Only upside: Cheryl & Pericles et al will be able to read of their own demise in Mandarin if Gillard has enough budgets to teach us all Chinese.

I love this country .. Shame about the greedy, selfish, stupid people!

E N E R G Y ... independence & Teach citizens the Laws of Thermodynamics NOT Chinese Languages and rubber neck diplomacy.
Posted by KAEP, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 11:15:10 AM
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Dear KEAP,

You are a true patriot. You want less Australians in Australia to save Australia from Australians. The fact that you are the titular head of the Sustainable Population Party or People for a Sustainable Party (People's Front of Judea?) gives your opinions a gravitas beyond words. I commend your forthrightness.

Do you think Gillard will personally teach us Mandarin or will that be done in person via house calls from the People's Liberation Army?
Posted by Cheryl, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 2:18:51 PM
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Pericles keeps asserting (without evidence) that our politicians are boosting the population in our interest, that it would all go pear-shaped if they weren't doing this. I don't dispute that it is in the interests of the developers and Big Business interests that donate to the major parties. They get bigger domestic markets, easy profits from ownership of real estate and other vital resources, and a cheap, compliant work force. What I question is whether it is in the interests of the vast majority of the population. I have referred to a number of studies, which Pericles ignores, with evidence that this is not the case.

A good test case is Japan, where the population is actually shrinking, albeit slowly. See

http://makewealthhistory.org/2011/02/01/japan-the-worlds-first-post-growth-economy/

"As far as economists are concerned, this is a tragedy and a disaster. How the mighty have fallen. Japan’s GDP is essentially unchanged since the early nineties, its share of global GDP falling from 17 to just 4%. China overtook it last year to become the world’s second largest economy, and now it limps along as a economic failed state, a cautionary tale for students of capitalism.

"And yet, the lights are still on, everything still works. Literacy is high, and crime is low. Life expectancy is better than almost anywhere on earth – 82 years to the US’ 78. The trains run to the second. Unemployment is only 5%, and levels of inequality are enviable. Real per capita income growth matches America’s at 0.7% over the past decade. It’s hardly a basket case. In fact, it is living proof that growth isn’t necessary to deliver a high standard of living."

See also this article from the Economist, where they say that per capita GNP in Japan has been growing faster than in the US or Europe.

http://www.economist.com/node/21538745
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 3:45:43 PM
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<<The government is perpetuating a policy that has been in place for many decades...It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year>>

On the other hand, the below does seem to suggest that some of those much needed skilled migrants weren't quite so much needed after all.

“A new study has found that almost half of Australia's skilled migrants from non-English speaking countries cannot get a job in their field of expertise”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2008-04-29/study-highlights-visa-issues-for-skilled-migrants/2418600

Nah, on second thought’s --you're absolute right.

It is obviously only a *discrimination* problem. We’ll fix that right quick by introducing a whole new raft of anti-discrimination legislation.
Posted by SPQR, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 7:22:35 PM
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Cheryl "yep, that's what people do Shockadelic. Use heaters, drive cars, I even hear they use high speed drills and eat food."

Yes, they consume resources. Resources are not infinite. Therefore there is a finite number of people who can live here. You cannot just keep increasing the population forever. When will the limit be reached for you, 50 million, 100 million, 1600 million?
Why even risk reaching maximum capacity? Why not stop while there's still room to move?

"Your default position is not to do away with the heater, cars or food but to do away with the people."

Please! Stop or slow immigration and you are not "doing away" with anyone. Those people live elsewhere and would remain living there. You haven't "done" anything to them at all.

Pericles "There's nothing "artificial" about it, Shockadelic. The government is perpetuating a policy that has been in place for many decades..."

If you take 100,000 people who were not living here, then bring them into Australia, that is "artificial". You have changed actual reality, through what, Pericles? Government ACTIONS.
No person can migrate without the government's permission.
It is not an act of nature. It is a political decision, which "artificially" changes the natural state of things.
A long history of immigration doesn't make it any less "artificial".

"It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year."

Nonsense. If that were true, it would have stopped dead in its tracks during the GFC.
And almost half of immigration is not "skilled" at all. How does our economy "need" those people?
Most of our "unskilled" work is being outsourced to the developing countries most immigrants now come from. Wouldn't they really be "needed" where they already are?
Posted by Shockadelic, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 7:38:27 PM
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<< It is adjusted to meet our economic needs each year >>

Whaaat??

Pericles, this is just rubbish! It is adjusted to meet the desires of developers and big business interests, as Divergence says.

On one hand you seem to have confidence that our government is doing the right thing with its management of the immigration rate while on the other hand you are extremely critical of them for apparently sticking their noses too far into our lives!

Erm….. it… doesn’t… add… up!

You hate the increasing restrictions that we are all facing, which come largely in the form of government-implemented laws and regulations. But you just won’t admit that rapid population growth is a big factor if not the biggest factor that is driving this momentum.

Keeping population growth and the ultimate size of the population down, erring on the side of caution, striving to make sure that the demand for our basic resources can be comfortably met in an ongoing manner... this is what we need to keep restrictions to a minimum and the level personal freedoms to the maximum.

Come on, you can see this simple logic, but are just loathe to admit it.

Hey, I had a nice day at the beach. A swim, a run and a snooze under a Casuarina tree. I trust your day in Smogsville wasn’t too depressing.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 30 October 2012 10:13:33 PM
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Whats that about immigration?

The level of immigration is similar to that of 20 or 30 years ago but the balance or equation is different. 70 per cent of migrants enter under the Skills category: 129,000 and 58,000 in family reunion. In 2010, 168 700 planned places were allocated to the Migration Program comprising 113 850 places in the skill stream, 54 550 places in the family stream and 300 special eligibility places for former residents.

You people have no idea. You really need to go back to school or uni and study how a modern economy works before you make outlandish and fundamentally flawed comments online.

At the core of your anti-people stance is a political desire to set Australian against Australian, to raise trade walls and create Fortress Australia.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 6:49:40 AM
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Cheryl,

We get it. Nobody loves you and your only hope of salvation is to bring more desperate people here so you can increase your CHANCES. You have a vested interest in endless immigration. Based on the level of intellect you display here, no one will EVER find time for you. You, like the people smugglers and the migration agents and the property developers and certain politicians make a business out of stealing the rights of Australian citizens and giving them to strangers because you can make some kind of selective Malcolm Fraseresque benefit or profit from it.

You are a very selfish person masquerading as a humanitarian.

The reality is that Australians take a whole day to see a doctor now. The waiting rooms are full of people who cannot even speak english. Despite government propaganda our living standards are plummeting.

It is not selfish to fight for a decent living standard nor is it selfish to thus fight for an end to immigration.

If Immigrants paid $300,000 HECS style fees equivalent to my kids at University for the equivalent upgrade in their life potential just by coming here, then they would be more welcome. As it is they are just bludging on the infrastructure Australians have worked so hard for and paid so much for over our lifetimes. Further we are having to pay over & over for it so others can come here and use it.

It cannot continue. The tax burden on Australians is about to skyrocket with megalomaniac state premiers like Barry O'Greiner going to sharply raise OUR taxes to pay for their PERSONAL immigration benefits. There will be a revolt already seen in the backlash to NSW education cuts.

So pull your head in and listen to the MAJORITY of your peers. Immigration is like dividing 1 by a very big number. The more you divide into it the less each person gets. This is also called the Second-Law-of-Thermodynamics(2LT). And Australians far and wide are getting P'd off.

ITM immigrants must pay $300,000 HECS to raise their living-standards. Just like any other Australian.
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 9:36:39 AM
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Actually KEAP, you and your bearded gnomes on the Khmer Rouge inner suburban far left don't get it because you don't use the ABS, Workforce data or look at government agency websites re immigration data.

That's just plain embarrassing. Time and time again re the anti-pops outrageous claims re population, food, energy have been simply contradicted by government or UN data - not youtube videos! My interest in the anti-pops is psychological: they have the profile you'd find in a sociopath.

Let me pop another balloon for you. International students (who pay full fees) are not only included in the Census but also as migrants (although temporary). There are more than half a million of them who pay their way, buy cars, and yes, even buy food. Your food KAEP, which you had hoped would go to your blonde blue eyed children.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 10:07:01 AM
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Look in the mirror Cheryl.

Don't you get it!

YOU'RE the sociopath.

You HATE your fellow Australians so much.

You WANT a whole new batch of foreigners to play with. Because no one likes you.

ITM migrants must pay $300,000 HECS fees to come to Australia to upgrade their lives same as any other Australian who wishes to upgrade their lives.

That to a normal human being is JUSTICE. Only a sociopath could possibly find it aberrant. And I include unloved politicians like Fraser and magic pudding developer billionaires and people smugglers and migration agents as just as sick as you are, Cheryl. But you lot are NOT a majority and that's the real point. You are going to have to confront the truth of the evil you are espousing.

And very soon!
Posted by KAEP, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 12:04:53 PM
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Japan as a "test case", eh, Divergence?

>>A good test case is Japan, where the population is actually shrinking, albeit slowly.<<

The makewealthhistory article is entirely superficial, and larded with wishful thinking. The fact that it says that The Economist "has not yet entered the 21st century" declares its lack of interest in reality.

But I'm glad you still read it.

>>See also this article from the Economist, where they say that per capita GNP in Japan has been growing faster than in the US or Europe<<

Apart from the obvious - that as population shrinks, the per capita GDP will grow in the short term - note the last five words in the headline:

"Japan’s economy works better than pessimists think—at least for the elderly"

I also read some of the observations made as a result of the article, including this one:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/11/lost-decades?zid=306&ah=1b164dbd43b0cb27ba0d4c3b12a5e227

"My colleague calls the demographic issue bad luck; I think he lets the Japanese government off too easy. True, as your population ages by definition you have fewer workers and a greater share of resources channelled toward retirees, and both of these factors lower growth. But it sounds as though Japan could have done some things to ease its burden, including cutting pension benefits or allowing more trade and immigration."

Perhaps you feel comfortable with the idea that as a replacement for growth, we should allow our government to borrow more money, to emulate the Japanese model even more closely. As you probably know, Japan's sovereign debt is presently 236%. And still rising.

Here's what the IMF had to say in their recent report:

http://www.imf.org/external/np/ms/2012/061212.htm

"Addressing Japan’s fiscal vulnerabilities will require sustained adjustment and bold efforts to raise long-term growth".

The inescapable conclusion is that the combination of events and policies in Japan has caused financial weakness. So be very careful what you wish for.

It also should not need to be highlighted that there are very few similarities between our two economies, at any level whatsoever. Using them as any kind of example to Australia is effectively shooting your theory in the foot.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 12:32:26 PM
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You're not helping The Cause either, Shockadelic.

>>If you take 100,000 people who were not living here, then bring them into Australia, that is "artificial"<<

Our immigration policies have been extremely consistent for most of my lifetime. I'd categorize this - letting a number somewhere less than 1% of our population in through the doors each year - as our natural state. So I'm using the word artificial in its "opposite of natural" meaning.

Perhaps you'd let us know which of the two main categories you feel we should reduce or eliminate: workers with the skills and qualifications we need, or close relatives of existing Australian citizens?

Or alternatively, perhaps you'd like to tell us which of the ten million immigrants that have arrived here since 1950, you would like to send back?

>>No person can migrate without the government's permission.<<

I assume you are only referring to inbound migration. How do you feel about the other way around?

Would you apply that "not without government permission" rule to those young Australian graduates who want to further their careers overseas? If not, why not?

Or perhaps you would only allow them to go to countries with whom we had a reciprocal import/export arrangement? What countries might they be?

And these are lovely words, Ludwig.

>>Keeping population growth and the ultimate size of the population down, erring on the side of caution, striving to make sure that the demand for our basic resources can be comfortably met in an ongoing manner... this is what we need to keep restrictions to a minimum and the level personal freedoms to the maximum.<<

They might pass at a political rally. But behind the words are (presumably) actions. What would those actions be?

What policies, that are different from today's, would you like to see? Better yet, given we already have a process in place, what would be your plan for 2012-13? You've seen the government's numbers, and their rationale.

What would yours be?

And why?
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 2:51:45 PM
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Dear KEAP,

I may be the devil incarnate and Lord of the Flies all rolled in to one (you'd like that) but neither you or any of the anti-pops have given any proof about future carrying capacity of Australia, future ore finds, new oil and gas finds or actually anything above the level of a youtube presentation.

You have been so fixated with consumption you are blind to any other intellectual or programatic pursuits re how economies function or even, for that matter, how economic policy is formulated.

Nor have you bothered to read more widely about the ageing population, mortality rates of the port war generation between 2030 and 2050 or any studies on international population growth rates. Your posts have been the intellectual equivalent of an itch.

Even the anti-pops uberleader Michael-in-Adelaide has vacated the field knowing that when these anti-population parties hit the hustings at the next election, they will torn to shreds. You can't even muster anything that resembles a coherent debate.

You really need to read more widely on economics. You propound arguments that are not only wrong but a few are dangerously wrong to civil society.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 3:05:20 PM
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"What would yours be?" A Bombay Blue Sapphire gin and tonic, thanks. But that's not important in the face of…

A cause! This reminds me of some of those debating challenges from classes in high school…

"Or alternatively, perhaps you'd like to tell us which of the ten million immigrants that have arrived here since 1950, you would like to send back?"

Phew, I'm safe. But on the face of it, this might seem slightly unfair. Just because your parents were in the right place when you were born shouldn't protect you if you're a dropkick. So our proposed rendition list should be PC and be inclusive – both of people we want to send back and people we just want to send.

So I've tinkered with the sentence so it reads: >>No person can 'remain' without the government's permission.<<

Here are some words that would pass at a political rally in support of this:

"It is required that he shall not be a burden to the State of which he wishes to become a citizen. In this realistic epoch of ours this last condition naturally only means that he must not be a financial burden. If the affairs of the candidate are such that it appears likely he will turn out to be a good taxpayer, that is a very important consideration and will help him to obtain civic rights all the more rapidly. The question of race plays no part at all."

[25 OLO points if you guess the writer before Googleing]

Now I know those are only words – and their author was over-eager in State implementation of population policy – unfortunately, sometimes they lead to actions that speak too loudly.
Posted by WmTrevor, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 4:43:18 PM
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Pericles,

I have referred to the 2006 Productivity Report, which shows only a very small increase in GDP per capita, mostly distributed to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves, while wages are depressed for the bulk of the population. There are many similar studies from around the world. Prof. Robert Rowthorn (Economics, Cambridge) had this to say in the July 2, 2006 Sunday Telegraph (UK):

" 'We recognise the positive contributions immigration makes to the country and the economy,' the Prime Minister's official spokesman said last week. 'If we don't have migration, we don't have the growth from the economy that we all benefit from.'

He was responding to some concerns about the rate of immigration raised by Frank Field, the Labour MP for Birkenhead - but Downing Street's claim that 'if we don't have immigration, we won't have economic growth' has been stated over and over again since Labour took office in 1997.

If you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it. What you cannot do is turn it from being false into being true. And the Government's claim about the economic benefits of immigration is false. As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration.

There is no evidence from any of them that large-scale immigration generates large-scale economic benefits for the existing population as a whole. On the contrary, all the research suggests that the benefits are either close to zero, or negative.

Immigration can't solve the pensions crisis, nor solve the problem of an ageing population, as its advocates so often claim. It can, at most, delay the day of reckoning, because, of course, immigrants themselves grow old, and they need pensions. "
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 6:39:57 PM
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Here is a list (in order from top to bottom) of the top 10 countries on the latest World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index. In parentheses, I have the population growth rate, the population in millions, and the rank on the UN Human Development Index (HDI). Where there are 4 numbers, the last is the HDI rank adjusted for inequality (not available for all countries):

Switzerland (0.199%, 7.7 million, 11, 11)
Singapore (2.0%, 5.3 million, 26)
Finland (0.065%, 5.3 million, 22, 15)
Sweden (0.168%, 9.1 million, 10, 5)
Netherlands (0.452%, 16.7 million, 3, 4)
Germany (-0.2%, 81.3 million, 9, 9)
United States (0.9%, 313.8 million, 4, 23)
United Kingdom (0.533%, 63.0 million, 28, 24)
Hong Kong (0.421%, 7.2 million, 13)
Japan (-0.077%, 127.4 million, 12)

Now tell us again, Pericles and Cheryl, how high population growth is so essential for the economy and giving people a decent quality of life.

Even if you were right, we would still be doomed in the long run, because even you recognise that we can't go on growing the population and using up more and more stuff forever. Eventually there will be a day of reckoning, and surely it is better to have it while there is still something worth preserving.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 7:06:05 PM
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Cheryl, enough with the childish Nazi inferences. It's pathetic.

Pericles "So I'm using the word artificial in its "opposite of natural" meaning."

So was I. It is "natural" for people born in Turkey to live in Turkey. It is "artificial" for them to live in Canada, Japan or Argentina.

"Perhaps you'd let us know which of the two main categories you feel we should reduce or eliminate: workers with the skills and qualifications we need, or close relatives of existing Australian citizens?"

I think we should stop all of it, as least for a while, and have a proper democratic process for deciding what, if any, future immigration there will be.

"Or alternatively, perhaps you'd like to tell us which of the ten million immigrants that have arrived here since 1950, you would like to send back?"

None. They're already granted legal permission. Most arrived when our population was smaller and we still had unskilled work.
The issue is *future* immigration, the past has beyond our control.

"I assume you are only referring to inbound migration. How do you feel about the other way around?"

The "other way round" government needs to grant permission, genius.
Frankly, I don't care who *leaves* Australia.

"Would you apply that "not without government permission" rule to those young Australian graduates who want to further their careers overseas? If not, why not?"

It already applies at the other end. Again, couldn't care less who leaves.

"Or perhaps you would only allow them to go to countries with whom we had a reciprocal import/export arrangement? What countries might they be?"

Net reciprocal arrangements are fine by me, if approved democratically (that is, by "the people") in both countries.

And for those arguing the aging population angle: Harsh as it sounds, the next influenza epidemic will solve that problem.
Posted by Shockadelic, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 9:37:27 PM
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Pericles, you have gone to some considerable trouble to explore the nature of Japan’s economy, with the express purpose of looking for whatever you can find to criticise it and hence criticise the notion of a country having a non-growing GDP, steady state economy and/or stable population.

Now can you provide a similar depth of analysis on the advantages of a country with a rapidly growing economy and population?

Can you demonstrate that it will be to our advantage in the longer term?

Can you show that it will lead to your greatly desired reduction in government impositions in our daily lives?

THIS is what would really count for something.

It begs the question: if you are willing to put the effort into the sort of research that you have just done to counter Divergence’s claims, then why don’t you do the same to counter the all-important point of mine that I keep reminding you about?

I repeat: an increasing population is only going to lead to more restrictions upon us all. That is just patently obvious. So your great desire for less government imposition and your great condemnation of those who push for lower population levels and growth rates, simply do not add up!

Your repeated sidestepping of this point is looking very strongly as though you’ve been trumped here!

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 9:51:44 PM
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Pericles, you asked:

<< What would those actions be? >>

1. reduce the immigration rate to net zero

2. reduce the immigration rate to net zero

3. reduce the immigration rate to net zero


Pericles, this is just about all that we need to do! We can basically have business as usual, although I’d of course like to see be as environmentally friendly and sustainability-oriented as possible. But the overridingly important point is to curtail expansionism, especially expansion in the demand for goods and services and everything else, so that the ability for our resource base to comfortably meet that demand can be assured, ongoingly.

<< …what would be your plan for 2012-13? >>

Cut a large chunk off the immigration take, so that it can be geared down to net zero over about a five year period.

Now, that’s not difficult, is it?

So I ask you Pericles; what would you have us do? What sort of growth rate and for how long? At what point would you do what us ‘poppos’ want to do now. That is; stop growing…because it has got to happen sooner or later?

If you are happy with current policies, then at what point or due to what factors and in what way would you have it change?

.

Well said Shockadelic.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 9:56:22 PM
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Great debate continues here. Pericles and Cheryl, perhaps this comment from Mark O'Connor and the included links might help because what you're failing to grasp is the cost of population growth, Mark writes:

Economists still find it hard to focus on the infrastructure costs of population growth. These amount to at least $200,000 per extra person; and as Jane O'Sullivan elegantly shows in her Online Opinion article (http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10137&page=0), they make a nonsense of the economic case for population growth. And absolute nonsense of the case for seeing the enticement of overseas students (with the implied offer of citizwenship) as a profitable industry. ( Australian universities seem to make only about $2000 profit per overseas student per year.)

Worse still, the real infrastructure costs per extra Australian may well be more than double Jane O'Sullivan's conservative figure of $200,000. See Will Bourke's piece on this (http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html).

Yet many economists learnt from teachers and textbooks that refused to believe resources could ever run scarce. (If they did, prices would go up, they were taught, and this would supposedly lead to more resources being found, or else a good substitute. There would never be Peak Oil but always Yet More Oil.)

Hence the only constraints on the world's expanding wealth were the availability of capital (no shortage of that sloshing around at present!) and of labour. Hence they keep advising governments that population growth is good for the economy, despite evidence that the infrastructure cost is bankrupting some of the fastest growing parts of Australia, like the state of Queensland.

This piece
(http://theconversation.edu.au/standing-in-the-shadow-of-debt-in-the-sunshine-state-5820?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+19+2012&utm_content=Latest+from+The+Conversation+for+March+19+2012+CID_c3b7fc6967dca2581d09db3d98e0)
in The Conversation today by Mark McGovern, a senior lecturer in business, economics and finance, is particularly interesting.

continued...
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 10:36:22 PM
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He describes, graphically, how infrastructure costs have bankrupted Queensland, and left politicians with nowhere to go. The public now demands they make huge investments in infrastructure, yet he argues that Queensland's only survival strategy is what he calls “a moratorium on infrastructure” -- and that would be political suicide in the current elections. Queensland, he says, is now on "the path to penury". It cannot even get by by selling off its public assets. That irresponsible strategy has already, he says, been pretty much carried out.

All that's lacking in his analysis is any connection to the two related reasons that Queensland needs so much infrastructure -- spiralling population growth, and reckless go-aheads for resource-extraction projects.

In McGovern's abstract phrasing:
The fundamental problem is that expenditures have not increased returns from production sufficiently. We need to confront the inadequate yields from investments if economic and financial integrity are to be restored in Queensland and across Australia.

Or as I would put it, it's time both governments and economists woke up that pushing up your population tends to make you poorer, and that letting (largely foreign-owned) companies sell off your non-renewable resources for a song won't then rescue your finances.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 31 October 2012 10:36:43 PM
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Matt,

Fine analysis.

The reason it won't get any results is twofold.

1. Canberra is too remote and allows federal politicians to be unaccountable. Parliament must sit in capital cities on a rotational basis so electors can kick their tyres and make sure they know what's really going on at grass root levels.

2. Migrants get the vote far too soon. 10 years is mandatory if you are to defeat the current gross ethnic gerrymander of every electorate in this country. Such gerrymanders put national control effectively in foreign hands. The biggest threat here is a morphing of democracy into a kind of multicultural DICTATORSHIP via very weak puppet leaders at the Federal level.

Australian politicians are lazy and stupid. They have the NUMBERS. They don't need to perform. Recent self promoted pay rises at a time of record immigration levels tend to confirm this.

Lets hope for Australia's sake the above 2 reforms can take the foreign interference out of our economics and politics so WE can get the stability and per-capita economic benefits you espouse.
Posted by KAEP, Thursday, 1 November 2012 3:38:23 AM
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For what it's worth, migrants (including many recent ones) regularly "get it" better than "long-termers". The majority come for economic reasons and/or a better quality of life - leaving overcrowded places which offer little or no opportunities behind. They know what's at stake.

The Stable Population Party for instance has many members who are recent migrants.

This is indeed reflected in polls where repeatedly 70+% of respondents reject a big Australia. Those pushing for population growth overwhelmingly stand to gain financially from it and are by and large the major donors to the Lib/Labs and perhaps even the Greens if some recent claims by some Green MPs are any indication - but this is increasingly at the expense of the majority and is further misleading because it is actually an anti-humanitarian policy when you understand the consequences and mechanisms at play.

The focus of my posts are really to dispell a lot of the myths that have been sold to Australians for decades.

It's often hard to avoid being misunderstood when trying to make brief comments :)

So, to make it abundantly clear to all etc, I am for immigration as Australia does benefit from it, but I am opposed to GROWING our population through immigration. We can easily accommodate any skills shortages and our generous humanitarian program with a balanced immigration program where immigration equates to emigration (currently emigration sits at around 90,000).

We've had decades of highest-per-capita immigration globally and we are now heading into serious territory - the longer it takes us to move to population stabilising policies, the worse it's going to get and the harder to clean up.

On the other hand, moving to a stable population would re-incentivise training some of our 17.5% un/under employed and working on the 2 million at or below the povertiy line and the further 2 million who are illiterate.
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 1 November 2012 9:24:11 AM
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Neat sidebar, WmTrevor.

Also a very nifty way to avoid activating Godwin's Law...

Divergence, this is not a black-and-white issue. It is about creating an intelligent and compassionate balance.

>>Now tell us again, Pericles and Cheryl, how high population growth is so essential for the economy and giving people a decent quality of life.<<

High population growth is not essential for the economy, in the same way that an overdose of aspirin is not essential to cure a headache. However, judiciously applied, according to the circumstances prevailing at the time, modest population growth - or a couple of aspirin - will do the trick.

The view that draconian, absolutist action is essential to solve every economic and social challenge is essentially self-defeating. Pretending that stopping immigration will solve any one problem, any subset of problems, or any global problem at all is to misunderstand the interrelationship between economies and society.

According to Shockadelic, we have spent the past two hundred odd years building an entirely artificial society here in Australia.

>>It is "natural" for people born in Turkey to live in Turkey. It is "artificial" for them to live in Canada, Japan or Argentina.<<

Demotically expressed, this would be stated as "Wogs go home", would it not. Thanks for making your position clear.

And please Ludwig, this is fantasy.

>>Pericles, you have gone to some considerable trouble to explore the nature of Japan’s economy, with the express purpose of looking for whatever you can find to criticise it<<

I have every admiration for Japan and the Japanese economy, having worked there for a while for a Japanese company. All I am doing is pointing out areas where generalized broad-brush theories about this or that founder on the rock of reality. No criticism. Just observation.

>>I repeat: an increasing population is only going to lead to more restrictions upon us all. That is just patently obvious.<<

Oh, really? Tell me, has the population growth of China in the past twenty years resulted in a) more or b) less restrictions on their population?
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 1 November 2012 9:50:20 AM
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Pericles, you ask me questions, but you’ve made no attempt to answer my questions! I answered yours last time. How about a level playing field here.

<< I have every admiration for Japan and the Japanese economy… >>

Oh really? Well doesn’t that sit at stark odds with the comments in your last post, and with the notion that it is a poor example of a ‘post-growth’ economy or a state with a stable population!

<< High population growth is not essential for the economy, in the same way that an overdose of aspirin is not essential to cure a headache. However, judiciously applied, according to the circumstances prevailing at the time, modest population growth - or a couple of aspirin - will do the trick. >>

YES!!

And the natural extension of this is; low population growth or moratorium or a progressive winding down could all be totally reasonable actions, depending on the circumstances.

You are highly critical of those who wish to see an end to population growth, even if they want to see it many years into the future, with a gentle approach to it.

This is what I want – a winding down of immigration to net zero over several years, after which we would still have a growing population due to births over deaths, for many years, until it finally stabilises of its own accord.

Now, that is hardly draconian.

It seems that you really are quite confused about this. What you condone as being acceptable and what those you are criticising desire, seem to be perilously close positions!

<< Pretending that stopping immigration will solve any one problem… …is to misunderstand the interrelationship between economies and society. >>

Who’s arguing for a STOP to immigration??

Lowering our very high immigration rate down to net zero or at least a much lower level would be by far the single biggest factor in Australia in moving towards a sustainable future.

Now, I put some very pertinent questions to you in my last post. Could you please address them. Thanks.
Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 3 November 2012 9:11:29 AM
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Pericles "The view that draconian, absolutist action is essential to solve every economic and social challenge is essentially self-defeating."

And what do think will happen when our population reaches maximum capacity? State-imposed limits on childbirth? Perhaps we can give the elderly a helping hand in reaching the grave a little sooner than expected.

"Pretending that stopping immigration will solve any one problem..."

The point is that continuing *exacerbates* problems, not that stopping will solve them.

"According to Shockadelic, we have spent the past two hundred odd years building an entirely artificial society here in Australia."

Take a look at those photos of women in bustle dresses and parasols, sweltering at Bondi during the summer heat.
Artificial? Yes, at first, like any colonial settlement.
A genuine native culture eventually developed, one the pro-pops don't even acknowledge exists.

"this would be stated as "Wogs go home", would it not. Thanks for making your position clear."

I made it clear alright. Those already given permission are here to stay. Civilised people keep their word. The issue is *future* immigration, which cannot be infinite.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 3 November 2012 2:38:42 PM
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Australia needs to increase our population to sustain grown in proportion with our neighbours as they bring their own populations under control.
Posted by Dallas, Sunday, 4 November 2012 8:29:45 AM
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Apologies, Ludwig. I hadn't noticed.

>>Pericles, you ask me questions, but you’ve made no attempt to answer my questions!<<

You mean these "questions"?

>>So I ask you Pericles; what would you have us do? What sort of growth rate and for how long? At what point would you do what us ‘poppos’ want to do now. That is; stop growing…because it has got to happen sooner or later? If you are happy with current policies, then at what point or due to what factors and in what way would you have it change?<<

I have covered this ground on multiple previous occasions. If you haven't worked out by now that I don't think there is anything "to do", outside the eminently conservative and thoughtful immigration process we have now, then you never will.

Apparently the best reason you can think of for us to stop growing is because "it has got to happen sooner or later". On this basis, why did you not stop working at the age of thirty? You have to stop sometime, why not then? If we used the same logic on animal husbandry, we would all be eating veal instead of beef. Or you'd be making tea with tepid water, on the basis that you have to turn the kettle off sooner or later...

Daft.

There is no need for policy change. Our requirements are assessed each year, in terms of sustainability, sound and responsible economic management, and a dash of humanity (for separated families). The fact that you disagree with the numbers does not indicate a requirement to change the policy.

>>...doesn’t that sit at stark odds with the comments in your last post, and with the notion that [Japan] is a poor example of a ‘post-growth’ economy or a state with a stable population!<<

On the contrary, I believe Japan is an excellent example of a post-growth economy. And we should observe the problems they face, and learn from the methods they are adopting to address those. Let's face it, no country has had to face the trauma of a declining population before.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 5 November 2012 12:50:04 PM
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Pericles,

Arguing with you is like arguing with runner. Your assertion that current levels of population growth in Australia (probably the highest in the developed world apart from city states such as Singapore) are moderate is absurd, as is your belief that our politicians are governing in the interests of the nation as a whole and not that of their rich mates. If you want to claim that there are big economic benefits for the majority of Australians, where is your evidence that the Productivity Commission report or Prof. Rowthorn are wrong?

Of course there have been previous episodes of declining population. Just do a search on "Black Death effects on living standards". The economic historian Prof. Paolo Malanima has written on real wage movements in Italy from 1250 to 1913. He has this to say:

"In the Italy of 1913 which was undergoing industrialisation, waged labourers’ living conditions were worse than they had been 500 or 600 years previously... Over a long period, an inverse correlation between population and wage rates dominates: at least from the beginning of the series until 1820. Wage rates increase only in times of population decline, such as the golden age for workers between 1350 and 1450, and the 1630-1750 period."

"From the ratio of the cost of the basic requirements for survival - the poverty line - to the average hourly wage, we deduce that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries workers had to work 500-1000 hours per year simply to survive, whereas in the nineteenth century about 1500 hours were necessary."

http://www.paolomalanima.it/default_file/Articles/Wages_%20Productivity.pdf

For England, you might look at the 1351 Statute of Laborers, which tried to force working people to accept the same low wages that were prevalent before the Black Death.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/medieval/statlab.asp
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 5 November 2012 7:25:16 PM
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Are you feeling alright Pericles?

That’s a pretty strange post.

<< I don't think there is anything "to do", outside the eminently conservative and thoughtful immigration process we have now >>

Wow! No I hadn’t quite got the idea from all our previous correspondence that your view is quite this extreme!

As Divergence says;

>> Your assertion that current levels of population growth in Australia … are moderate is absurd… <<

Now, you do play some funny games:

<< Apparently the best reason you can think of for us to stop growing is because "it has got to happen sooner or later". >>

Mmmm…. After the hundreds of posts that I’ve written on OLO outlining just what is wrong with high and ongoing population growth, you come out with a daft statement like this! This is just really poor debating.

You seem to have forgotten that other people read this stuff. There are plenty of older OLOers who know you and me pretty well, and know that I have outlined the arguments for a stable population over and over again.

<< On the contrary, I believe Japan is an excellent example of a post-growth economy. >>

Oh you really don’t make sense. You want Australia to have rapidly growing economy and population with no end in sight and completely denounce the idea of us reaching a post-growth economy.

But you… << have every admiration for Japan and the Japanese economy >>

Let’s stop discussing this population stuff Pericles. There seems to be no point.

How about we discuss road safety stuff instead:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14315#246868
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 5 November 2012 10:02:04 PM
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Blimey.

>>Your assertion that current levels of population growth in Australia (probably the highest in the developed world apart from city states such as Singapore) are moderate is absurd<<

Absurd, Divergence? We rank 127th in the world for population growth, according to the United Nations, with a percentage growth rate of 1.01%. Lower than the overall average. Behind such third world countries as Ireland, Israel, Singapore and Luxembourg. And only a smidgeon different to the USA's 0.97%. And that's just the percentage. If you work it out on an actual headcount basis, we are little more than a rounding error. A smudge in the margin, almost undetectable to the naked eye.

Mind you, I do appreciate your proposition that the Black Death can do wonders for worker productivity.

>>Of course there have been previous episodes of declining population. Just do a search on "Black Death effects on living standards".<<

Not sure how you incorporate that into an election manifesto, though.

And please, Ludwig. Even you cannot change history:

>>Now, you do play some funny games: << Apparently the best reason you can think of for us to stop growing is because "it has got to happen sooner or later". >><<

Ummmm, I was only reading back to you your own statement. Go take a look.

>>At what point would you do what us ‘poppos’ want to do now. That is; stop growing…because it has got to happen sooner or later?<<

My takeaway from that remark was that you 'poppos' want to stop growing, now, because it has got to happen sooner or later.

Did I read that incorrectly?

And yet again with the black-or-white assumptions:

>>Oh you really don’t make sense. You want Australia to have rapidly growing economy and population with no end in sight and completely denounce the idea of us reaching a post-growth economy<<

Try losing the "rapidly" for a start. Then delete the "with no end in sight". And replace "completely denounce the idea of us reaching" with "accept that at some point we will reach".

That would be closer.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 11:22:01 AM
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Pericles,

Here is a link to the ABS page where they give the latest statistics. Our population growth rate is 1.5%, not 1.0%, higher than many Third World countries and much higher than all top 10 countries on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index, apart from the city states. It has been even higher in previous years, 2.2% in 2008. 1.5% means a 46 year doubling time, not something that I would like to inflict on my children or grandchildren.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 12:36:27 PM
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That's why the UN figures are averaged over ten years, Divergence.

>>Here is a link to the ABS page where they give the latest statistics. Our population growth rate is 1.5%, not 1.0%<<

They do this in order to smooth out any undue weighting being allocated to any individual year. The high growth in 2008, for example, "coincided" with a very buoyant Australian, pre-GFC, economy. An economy that survived that global trauma pretty well, I thought.

If you go back to September 2009, the figure was 22,065,691. The ABS site tells us that October 2012's figure is 22,803,965, giving an increase of 1.1%

Piddling numbers, I'm sure you will agree. And, of course, nobody is for one moment going to suggest that a) this is a fixed number or b) that it is destined to go on forever.

It still seems to me that the most powerful arguments for population control are that a) growth can't go on forever (well, duh), and b) that if it has to slow down sometime, then that time must be now-now-now.

All this pandering to doomsday absolutism is becoming very wearying. I don't seem to be making any headway against the fixed notion that there are only two possibilities here, infinite growth or total standstill. Neither of which has the remotest connection with real life as it is lived in the 21st Century whatsoever.

Black Death, anyone?
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 2:31:20 PM
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Why does slowing down growth have to amount to the Black Death or living in caves?

What's wrong with moderation?...and we are mindful, I presume, that an unrelenting push for progress leads to breakdown - yes - no?
Posted by Poirot, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 2:50:58 PM
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Pericles can I ask what brought you to Australia? Was it opportunity? Affordability? Open spaces? Quality of life? Or was it just to live somewhere different?

Either way, whatever brought you, do you imagine you'll be able to retain your quality of life at 40/60/100 million? Bob Katter would like 60 million here by 2030. Does that work for you? Or would you prefer Labor's more modest 60 million by 2050 a slightly gentler pace? The Libs are saying they'll drop the rate to 1.4% so business as usual there as well.

It's almost laughable that we are having this debate as though we have a choice. The Lib/Labs are all backed by donors who push for ever more population growth, so even if you had a change of heart e.g. the developers started telling you that they need to take half of your block of land, you probably won't get a say anyway.

The sky won't fall if our population stabilises or declines. For many, the quality of life would actually improve.

Perhaps you have vested interests in population growth?? I can't fathom a mindset that says Australians shouldn't be worried about more people. Is it that you're lacking a working knowledge of Australia's geography? Here's a good start: http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html
Posted by Matt Moran, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 3:52:04 PM
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You certainly may, Matt Moran.

>>Pericles can I ask what brought you to Australia? Was it opportunity? Affordability? Open spaces? Quality of life? Or was it just to live somewhere different?<<

I took an opportunity to live somewhere affordable, that had a reasonable quality of life, and was different. You can keep the open spaces, I'm a city person.

Since I have been here, I have started three businesses that have employed a modest but finite number of people, I have taken nothing from the public purse, paid taxes left right and centre to keep a myriad public servants in coin - in perpetuity, seemingly - and in the process, learned never to accept mediocrity, especially in thinking.

Typical immigrant, in fact.

>>The sky won't fall if our population stabilises or declines. For many, the quality of life would actually improve.<<

My guess would be that population stabilization or decline might well improve the quality of life for the well-off, and those who have benefitted from baby-boom prosperity, but the the impact on the poor and the young would be slightly less predictable, don't you think? Try modelling the impact of population "stabilization", and work out its effect on jobs, particularly in the sectors that are contributing most to the economy. (I suspect that won't include botanists employed by the government, Ludwig).

>>Perhaps you have vested interests in population growth?<<

That's just pathetic. We all have a "vested interest" in maintaining our way of life, and the prosperity that has been created. None of which requires a "vested interest" in either population growth or population decline. Merely a sensible and consistent view on what we can afford to do, and what we cannot afford not to do.

>>I can't fathom a mindset that says Australians shouldn't be worried about more people.<<

And I can't fathom a mindset that says Australians must be worried about more people, right now.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 7:08:59 PM
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there are many reasons why we should be concerned with population growth, 2 million at or below the poverty line, 2 million illiterate, 17.5% un/under employment, in places 40% youth unemployment, growing waiting lists for hospital care, more and more user pay roads etc endangered Koalas, Numbats, Black Cockatoos for just a few.

But I guess things are ok for the moment with you so you're good with immigration levels of over 500,000 per year and Swan boosting Net immigration to over 200,000 per year.

Perhaps ponder this one. Australia has now sold more than 85% of it's wealth in order to grow it's population at 3rd world rates, yet you seem to think there will always be more resources to extract to pay for another 20+ million.

But what might future generations sell to remain in the first world?

Growth through endless population growth does nothing to encourage investment in real productivity or real industry and even the CEO of Gow hasn't caused any major mobilisation in the Australian business community.

When do you suggest we might have a conversation on population? We're currently growing at over a million every 3 years. Would another 10 million suite you? Bear in mind that it takes some decades for the population to stop growing if you stop pushing it up with immigration and it may be that we end up with a lot more illiterate people and as such, lose any chance of stabilising population without outside assistance (assuming there's a country who can help). Perhaps you'd prefer to leave it until the quality of life here is no better than anywhere else in which case, problem "solved".

On our current trajectory, we will be 3rd world in less than 20 years. Population growth gets out of control very quickly - ours has more than tripled since WW2.
Posted by Matt Moran, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 8:00:09 PM
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Further Pericles, there is no evidence to suggest that welfare or job creation are improved with population growth other than perhaps the odd spark.

For instance, the US has an immigration policy of 1 million per year which by your argument, they should be swimming in jobs. Yet look at the graphs displayed here:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/11/the-rich-create-bubbles-not-jobs.html

the US now have some 20 million in poverty. Our rate of immigration per capita dwarfs the US and all other countries. The tax base cannot grow as fast as the demands of the population - hence the sell off of assets, our increasingly bankrupt states, increasingly environmentally risky mineral resource extraction and with all this, the ever declining conditions increasingly more are in.
Posted by Matt Moran, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 8:20:31 PM
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Land use control is the key, Any other issue is secondary at best.
Posted by Dallas, Tuesday, 6 November 2012 10:14:47 PM
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These are certainly concerns, Matt Moran.

>>2 million at or below the poverty line, 2 million illiterate, 17.5% un/under employment, in places 40% youth unemployment, growing waiting lists for hospital care, more and more user pay roads etc endangered Koalas, Numbats, Black Cockatoos for just a few.<<

But what makes you so certain that the resolution can be found in population control?

What exactly will be the impact of closing our borders? How exactly will the hobbling of our vital industries by starving them of qualified workers help the poor? How exactly will you place those 40% of youths in useful employment, once you have slowed our economy to a crawl? How will the waiting lists at hospitals reduce, when you have a one-way traffic of medical skills... outbound? And what exactly is the connection between population growth and the appearance of user-pay roads? And what are Koalas doing in your list of population tragedies?

And this one needs just a little more detail to be even remotely credible.

>>...Australia has now sold more than 85% of it's wealth<<

Perhaps just a teensy bit of evidence might not go astray, what do you think?

Your arguments, if they can be called that, and your raw emotional call to stem the hordes of immigrants who are upsetting your life, might look impressive on a placard. But they don't stand up to a minute's scrutiny.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 11:33:53 AM
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Pericles,

How do you explain the good performance of numerous other countries (as I listed in my previous post) that have very low or negative population growth rates, but still perform very well economically and provide a good quality of life for their citizens? Why aren't they basket cases by your reasoning? You have presented zero evidence to refute the Productivity Commission report or Prof. Rowthorn.

Population growth is good for rich people, not so much because of the very modest effects on GNP per capita, as because it increases the size of the total pie, giving them more to skim, and because of the distributional effects, allowing wealth to be siphoned up to the top, as discussed in the Productivity Commission report. Matt Moran is right.

I would like to give the floor to a post on the Naked Capitalism blog where they were discussing the problems in Greece and the rise of the far right Golden Dawn party:

"Timothy Gawne says:
October 21, 2012 at 11:48 am
"Certainly this is true – if the main political parties offer nothing but poverty and oppression what else are the Greek people to do? Don’t blame the average Greek, blame the politicians, banks and lying economists who brought them to this state.

"If I may though, I do think that many posts are missing the point about “Golden Dawn.” The workers in any country have a vested interest in the rate of immigration not being so high as to drive down wages. They want the border controlled, the same as you don’t want strangers wandering into your house and helping themselves without limit (check out Samuel Gompers and Cesar Chavez). The rich, however, very much DO want open borders, because it creates an overwhelming downwards pressure on wages – and no Virginia, even unions can’t fight the law of supply and demand (there is ZERO record of unions making progress when there are 100 people competing for each job. Unions can’t make water flow uphill either)

(cont'd)
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 12:32:03 PM
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(cont'd)

"But saying that we are going to import an excessive number of foreign nationals in order to drive workers into poverty doesn’t sound very good, so the rich gussie up their vile policy with pretty words like ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’, and they slander any opponent as a racist. They will also muddy the water by talking about the character of the immigrants themselves, when of course the real issue is the rate at which foreign nationals are allowed to immigrate.

"In the time of FDR etc., liberals and progressives understood this and were unashamed of moderating the pace of immigration of foreign nationals. Now most ‘liberals’ have either sold out or become useful idiots. If the only party offering to defend the average worker from this sort of abuse is a bunch of Nazis, well, we are going to push people into the arms of the Nazis, aren’t we? Again, I don’t blame the Greeks, I blame you/us.

"Disagree if you will, but please don’t waste our time by saying that I am ‘scapegoating immigrants.’ The historical record is overwhelming: when the rich force population growth, either via importing excessive numbers of foreign nationals or propaganda encouraging large families, the result is ALWAYS poverty for the many and riches for the few. Just one example: recently in Singapore the oligarchs rapidly increased immigration. Immediately wages fell and rents increased. This always happens, and if we continue to deny the obvious, and extremist Nazis/Stalinists fill the gap, it will be we who are responsible."

Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/10/greek-society-unravels-under-austerity-measures.html#xr4Spv4abPucJqud.9
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 12:35:31 PM
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Nice work Divergence.

Looks like we're well on track to increase population growth rate yet again:
"And that rough-and-ready trend estimate shows a net inflow - long-term arrivers minus leavers - running at more than 27,000 a month, or around 330,000 at an annual rate. A year ago, it was closer to 270,000 a year; 12 months before that it was around 175,000. So, this measure of net migration flows has nearly doubled."
http://finance.ninemsn.com.au/newsbusiness/aap/8560073/travel-figures-suggest-population-surge
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 9:09:06 PM
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Pericles, perhaps keep an eye on Crikey:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/06/29/whos-who-in-4-4-trillion-foreign-farmland-spending-spree/

Or if you're really wanting further info, perhaps see if you can get information out of the FIRB - as I understand it, it's not very easy nowadays.

I've also stated previously that I'm for immigration - but it currently needs to be at emigration levels. We can always turn the tap back on.

But perhaps you might like to get hold of the book Overloading Australia by Mark O'Connor $20 delivered.
http://www.australianpoet.com/overloading.html

In relation to being emotional, well of course. I'm passionate about this and preserving my quality of life, our wildlife and a future for subsequent generations. You clearly do not subscribe to preserving what's good about Australia, have any concern about how much has been lost, indeed you're currently benefitting from it - the joke is that you don't even comprehend why you have a decent quality of life here and that you're actually arguing for lowering your quality of life.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 9:34:51 PM
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Matt Moran, yes! Most of this continent is unlivable due to climate.
So percentage increase or per square mile are irrelevant.
How many people do think live in the Sahara, Pericles?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Koppen_World_Map.png

Divergence, good point about Golden Dawn (something Cheryl should be concerned about).
Pericles wants less government intrusion, wait til we get fascists with the balance of power.

Pericles "And I can't fathom a mindset that says Australians must be worried about more people, right now."

So let's wait until something REALLY terrible happens, then we can act.
Posted by Shockadelic, Wednesday, 7 November 2012 10:27:02 PM
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More waffle, Divergence.

"But saying that we are going to import an excessive number of foreign nationals in order to drive workers into poverty doesn’t sound very good, so the rich gussie up their vile policy with pretty words like ‘diversity’ and ‘multiculturalism’, and they slander any opponent as a racist."

Another one-eyed view, "gussied up" as an either/or choice, when the premise itself is a furphy.

The number imported is not excessive. They are not imported "in order to drive workers into poverty", they are to fill job vacancies locals are unwilling or unable to take. The words "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are principally used by their opponents, not by the companies as is implied here.

Interesting that the race card is introduced here as a form of pre-emptive defence. Nagging guilt, probably. Need to get the retaliation in first...

I wonder where the German economy would be today without their Gastarbeiter?

And I take it that this is a form of retraction, Matt Moran?

>>Or if you're really wanting further info, perhaps see if you can get information out of the FIRB <<

Meaning, it would appear, that you now admit that this statement of yours was a complete crock?

>>...Australia has now sold more than 85% of it's wealth<<

Nice of you to admit it with such grace.

Appreciate the learned contribution from Shockadelic, as always:

>>Pericles wants less government intrusion, wait til we get fascists with the balance of power<<

I thought we already had? Or are you suggesting that the Greens do not already share most of the characteristics of a command-and-control, do-as-I-say fascist dictator mentality?

This is becoming very boring. Have a great day, everyone.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 8 November 2012 10:27:44 AM
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Pericles,

Here are the latest unemployment statistics from Roy Morgan Research

http://www.roymorgan.com/news/polls/2012/4836/

They say that real unemployment is 9.7% and underemployment (i.e., part-time workers who say that they want more hours) is 8.1%, a total of 17.8% unemployed or underemployed. If employers are unable to attract workers, perhaps they should try the free market solution of offering more money or better working conditions. Where it is an issue of skills, perhaps they might look at their training policies. You yourself might try talking to parents who are trying to find apprenticeships for their children. There is no way that a very young, inexperienced Australian can compete with a prime age migrant who has been fully trained at someone else's expense and has several years of experience. Of course, if Australia is ever in trouble, these same employers are likely to be braying that these same working class people that they were happy to throw to the wolves should do their patriotic duty and enlist in the military or be conscripted, perhaps to come back with pieces missing or not come back at all.

You still haven't explained why other countries can do so well with very little immigration or population growth of any kind, nor presented anything to refute the evidence that mass migration is of no significant benefit to most people. In the US, where they have practiced what you preach to a large extent, there is massive social inequality, and wages for the vast majority of the population have been largely stagnant since the 1970s, certainly far below the increase in productivity. You might have a look at the graphs in the State of Working America report

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/

Mass migration is not the only factor responsible, of course, but it certainly has played an important role.

You are correct that "diversity" and "multiculturalism" are more likely to be catchwords of the "useful idiots" on the Left than of the employers themselves.

I am no fan of racism, but if I had to choose, I would rather be called a racist than a traitor.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 8 November 2012 1:56:55 PM
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Everyone should stop trying to "debate" with Pericles.
He is a "true believer", and immigration is an article of faith to people like him (and The Greens, who you would also think would be more skeptical, and yes, they are totalitarians).

He claims he will change his tune in the future, when it's really necessary.
I suspect a mountain of surveys showing a decline in living standards would make no difference.
Skeptical of government in other matters, in this one issue, the government can do no wrong, cannot be questioned.

Why this contradiction?
Because immigration is opposed by "those people", the Nutzis.
And people like Pericles, who claim to want sensible debate, will never, ever want to agree with the Nutzis about anything.

No matter *what* happens the true believers will keep skipping merrily down the road chanting "Immigration is wonderful, Immigration is wonderful, Immigration is wonderful, see I'm not a Nutzi"
Posted by Shockadelic, Thursday, 8 November 2012 5:45:05 PM
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Divergence
Good solid arguments. You make a lot of sense.It gives some insight into Pericles stand on this issue if you remember that he prefers foreigners to locals. He has confessed as much in a number of posts.He wants to see the constant inflow of foreigners, bugger the cost.One can only surmise what motivates such a stand. Perhaps when he first arrived Australia and timidly ventured out on to Bondi beach, some bronzed Aussie dashing by kicked sand in his face and hes been out for vengeance ever since.
Posted by KarlX, Thursday, 8 November 2012 6:00:50 PM
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>>I thought we already had? Or are you suggesting that the Greens do not already share most of the characteristics of a command-and-control, do-as-I-say fascist dictator mentality?<<

No we don't. The Greens, dicks though may they be, do not exhibit any fascist or dictatorial behavior: they are in favor traditional freedoms like assembly, speech, religion and democracy. It's not much of a fascist dictatorship when you won't even form Government because you can't get the votes: proper fascist dictatorships go ahead and form government no matter how unpopular they are.

Cheers,

Tony
Posted by Tony Lavis, Thursday, 8 November 2012 7:38:57 PM
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Well said Shockadelic.

<< Everyone should stop trying to "debate" with Pericles. >>

Yep. It really is pointless.

<< Skeptical of government in other matters, in this one issue, the government can do no wrong, cannot be questioned. >>

Yes. And there are so many other things about his arguments that just don’t add up.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 8 November 2012 9:04:27 PM
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Greenpeace have issued a call to arms to save our reef. The march to export our raw materials marches ever on with us not value-adding a penny to it.

But as Campbell Newman remkared "people want hospitals". Qld needs a moratorium on infrastructure but that would be political suicide. So we continue the pyramid scheme at ever-increasing immigration levels and the states scramble after whatever income they can.

It's useful to run some ball park numbers to illustrate why population growth policies are economical and ecological suicide and hence why the majority of countries with the highest GDP per capita have small populations (12 million or less). Jane O'Sullivan estimated that each additional person costs $200,000 in infrastructure. Australia is now importing net over 200,000 additional people a year on top of our own population growth of around 150,000. This gives rise to an infrastructure deficit of around 70 billion a year. Current total infrastructure deficit according to William Bourke is around 770 billion.

(Further, it is worth noting that this is before we even start to consider the additional trade deficit which ironically is predominantly paid for by our mining exports - and further that the earnings from our mining exports must be shared amongst ever increasing numbers).


But the claim is made, population growth mean more taxes, duties etc. But this is just plain nuts :) As the 350,000 would have to make on average a contribution of more than $200,000 per year. Now consider that of this 350,000, 150,000 are babies, historically, immigration is dominated by family reunions (some times 3 in 4 migrants are dependants but let's say 1 in 2), the number of working of this is likely to be at most 100,000. So, the average contribution of this 100,000 would need to be over 700,000 per year.

William Bourke suggests that the infrastructure deficit per person may even be as much as double the 200K that Jane estimated.
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 8 November 2012 9:56:30 PM
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One of the silly claims made on why population growth is needed is because it creates jobs. This might be news to the 23 million Americans who are out of work. At best you might have a short term gain in job numbers, but here and everywhere else, population growth is well and truly outstripping job creation.

Still even with the ABS's rate of unemployment which might range between 5 and 8%, the reality is rather startling when you translate that to actual numbers - i.e. 5% of 10 million is 500,000 but 5% of 20 million is 1 million. Unemployment is set in part to keep wages and inflation down. Well it keeps wages down, but population growth drives up inflation and cost of living - the major contributing factor to electricity prices is the future investment in poles and wires i.e. we are funding the future infrastructure to accomodate population growth.

But the further flaw in the claim that population growth creates jobs is that all of the industries that benefit from endless population growth are unsustainable and ultimately end up choking. There's only so much land, there's only so much food producing capacity (how many food bowls are we prepared to pave over). The reason is quite simple, resources, energy and technology - this contribute to the situation where you simply cannot keep large numbers of people productively employed. Mining and agriculture are highly automated (and increasingly so). The rate of un/underemployment is actually around 17.5% according to Roy Morgan as the ABS exludes anyone who's even worked as little as an hour a fortnight, is "unemployable" or has just given up.

It is often mistakenly claimed that productivity needs a lot of people - those who say this need to look up the definition of productivty. There are other undesirable side-effects, growth regularly stifles innovation, small-businesses are major employers but are regularly pushed out by big businesses which can afford to wear lossess for long periods and are ever seeking to grow.
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 8 November 2012 10:07:21 PM
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Someone mentioned the war, I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it all right. But it got me to wondering about some of the numbers. I was surprised at how reasonably consistent they've been over the decades.

"About one million migrants arrived in each of the six decades following 1950:
1.6 million between October 1945 and June 1960
about 1.3 million in the 1960s
about 960 000 in the 1970s
about 1.1 million in the 1980s
over 900 000 in the 1990s
over 1.2 million between 2000 and 2010."

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/02key.htm

But what I can't follow – given some of the comments about additional people representing accumulating infrastructure deficit spending – is that since there has been nothing but 'additional people a year on top of our own population growth' for at least six decades, shouldn't this mean that our standard of living is negative for each of the preceding six decades?

In other words, it should mean that our standard of living is approximately where it was at Federation.

Since it isn't – it's considerably better, though I base that on personal experience which only encompasses half of the elapsed time – there must be something else going on.

Perhaps we should be grateful that it's not too late for the Department of Health and Ageing Australia to cancel Achieving Pregnancy Naturally Month – which is on their calendar of events for March next year.
Posted by WmTrevor, Thursday, 8 November 2012 10:51:28 PM
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Well I suppose if you've managed to remain largely unaffected Trevor then understandably, you might have that perspective. Good luck in your bubble :)
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 8 November 2012 11:35:31 PM
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Good thinking, chaps.

If you can't play the ball, play the man. Much more satisfying than having to deal with reality.

>>Everyone should stop trying to "debate" with Pericles. He is a "true believer", and immigration is an article of faith to people like him<<

News to me. The "true believer" thing, that is. I just like asking questions. It's not my fault others are unable to sustain a logical sequence of thoughts.

>>And people like Pericles, who claim to want sensible debate, will never, ever want to agree with the Nutzis about anything.<<

Pretty childish, that "Nutzis" schtick. Would be impressive in a school playground filled with nine year-olds, but otherwise is merely a substitute for actually using one's brain.

>>It gives some insight into Pericles stand on this issue if you remember that he prefers foreigners to locals.<<

I take all people as I find them, KarlX.

Including you.

>>Perhaps when he first arrived Australia and timidly ventured out on to Bondi beach, some bronzed Aussie dashing by kicked sand in his face and hes been out for vengeance ever since.<<

Uh-oh. That school playground again.

>>And there are so many other things about his arguments that just don’t add up.<<

You'd like to think so, Ludwig. Only you haven't found any yet. You've invented a few, but you haven't actually identified any contradictions yet.

And many thanks for - once again - pointing out the bleedin' obvious, Wm Trevor.

>>since there has been nothing but 'additional people a year on top of our own population growth' for at least six decades, shouldn't this mean that our standard of living is negative for each of the preceding six decades?<<

Unfortunately facts and logic don't tend to get much of a look in here these days.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 9 November 2012 3:08:36 PM
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Oh, slight error in my calcs, but the general principle is what I was trying to illustrate.

>>since there has been nothing but 'additional people a year on top of our own population growth' for at least six decades, shouldn't this mean that our standard of living is negative for each of the preceding six decades?<<
"
Unfortunately facts and logic don't tend to get much of a look in here these days.
"

Ah but therein lies the rub, the focus on that particular aspect does not make an argument that we are in better shape - far from it when you consider how much we've sold to get here. No one's denying we haven't had improvements in quality of life, what I'm suggesting is that these improvements aren't because of population growth, they are in spite of it - we've simply had the resources to do it.

This is now all changing very rapidly and as mentioned, most of our productive assets are now foreign owned and we continue to not value-add to our raw materials - i.e. decreasing productive industry here.

These changes will affect people in different ways depending on their situation, but the underlying principles of growth through endless population growth are inherently flawed and if we were to actually measure prosperity rather than GDP, the picture would reflect that.

It is bizarre how we are selling down assets and yet claiming we are doing well because of growth in GDP (which includes government spending by the way)

In any case, ultimately, one must make up one's own mind.
Posted by Matt Moran, Friday, 9 November 2012 5:45:26 PM
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I wrote:

>> And there are so many other things about his arguments that just don’t add up. <<

Pericles, you wrote:

<< You'd like to think so, Ludwig. Only you haven't found any yet. You've invented a few, but you haven't actually identified any contradictions yet. >>

Oh this is just irresistible!

I have pointed out a whole bunch of things on this very thread and heaps more in our numerous previous discussions on this subject. In fact, the contradictions just keep coming at a great rate!

For example:

1. You actually like the Japanese economy and their way of life, having lived there for a while. But you also criticised it strongly as an example of a post-growth economy. And the last thing you would want to see in Australia is a post-growth economy!

2. You are hypercritical of government for the level of ‘interference’ in our lives in just about every way… except for their facilitation of very high immigration, and all the very strong negative factors that go with it, which really does amount to enormous negative and totally unnecessary interference in our lives.

These are such fundamental contradictions that I need not go any further.

I just can’t fathom your arguments. It seems to me that the only plausible answers are;

either that you are playing devil’s advocate just for the sake of a good stoush on OLO… or…

you started off with this argument on OLO five or so years ago and you won’t be seen to be backing down no matter what.
Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 10 November 2012 7:46:45 AM
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The West needs to increase their population to survive the Easts uncontrolled reliance on the west for resources, As the East fail to develop modern farming techniques.
Posted by Dallas, Saturday, 10 November 2012 9:42:55 AM
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Wm Trevor,

Living standards were much lower in the 1950s and 60s, as were expectations of govenment and unemployment. Furthermore, fewer isn't always better. There is an optimum population for each society, dependent on the level of technology, resource base, culture, etc. If the population is far below the optimum, then the benefits of the extra people can outweigh the extra pressure on the environment, the dilution of natural capital, the infrastructure costs, etc. Just think of a little band of pioneers in a big wilderness. They have enormous natural capital per person, but are too few to make effective use of it.

This doesn't mean that because population growth was beneficial at some time in the past that it therefore always will be. It is good that your bones were growing when you were 8 years old and still growing when you were 12, but you have a very serious problem if they are still growing in the same way when you are 40. The 2006 Productivity Commission report that I linked to earlier makes it clear that we have already passed the optimum. They found very modest per capita benefits, mostly distributed to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves, while wages are depressed for the bulk of the population. If we still were below the optimum, then it would be possible to show big economic benefits from more people.

For some evidence that improvement in living standards (at least in the past few decades) has been in spite of high population growth, not because of it, look up the statistics on the CIA World Factbook or elsewhere for the very low population growth countries on the Competitiveness Index top 10.

An exclusive focus on the economy, however, ignores negatives such as crowding and congestion, skyrocketing housing and utility costs, extra pressure on the environment, etc. See, for example, the Executive Summary Immigration Dept.'s 2010 Long-Term Physical Implications of Immigration report

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-report-1.pdf

For the infrastructure costs, see Jane O'Sullivan's paper in the Feb. 2012 Economic Affairs or this paper on the UK by economist Ralph Musgrave

http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/6869/1/MPRA_paper_6869.pdf
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 10 November 2012 12:14:09 PM
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"The West needs to increase their population to survive the Easts uncontrolled reliance on the west for resources, As the East fail to develop modern farming techniques."

by that argument Dallas, the west should stop populating and preserve as much farmland as possible and further have a moratorium on the use of farmland for any other use than growing food.

As it stands, Australia is populating over much of it's farmland, selling off large amounts to China, Qatar and other countries - often for mineral extraction - to pay for our 3rd world population growth - if you fail to understand the cost of population growth, you'll never understand why your suggestion doesn't work. There are readily available and humane ways to encourage population stabilisation and even degrowth - and this is far more human than continuing to act as a relief valve for the dispossessed who avoid year after year tackling population growth..

For what it's worth, India could have readily accommodated 500 million but even now is growing at 18 million a year, China have perhaps stopped some 400 million births with their one-child policy but are still growing at 8 million a year. China is engaging in globally staggering land grabs. Some 30-40 million current reside in refugee camps globally.

We make our wealth go far further if we tie foreign aid with family planning, contraception and education of women as well as encouraging prosperity through smaller family sizes. In so doing we assist countries in moving to better quality of life and the freedom to stay where they are - that after all is the preference of most economic/ecological refugees.

Note that India has some 88% usable fertile land (well did have), China around 24%, Australia less than 10%: http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html.
Posted by Matt Moran, Saturday, 10 November 2012 12:14:22 PM
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Still carrying on like the proverbial two-bob watch, Ludwig.

>>I have pointed out a whole bunch of things on this very thread and heaps more in our numerous previous discussions on this subject. In fact, the contradictions just keep coming at a great rate!<<

Cobblers.

>>For example: 1. You actually like the Japanese economy and their way of life, having lived there for a while. But you also criticised it strongly as an example of a post-growth economy. And the last thing you would want to see in Australia is a post-growth economy!<<

Wrong, on both counts. I did not "criticise" the Japanese economy, I merely observed the challenges they face. And I will welcome a "post-growth" Australian economy, as and when it becomes economically feasible. Right now, it is the last thing we need, but eventually we will need to adjust.

What I take issue with is your insistence that, for reasons that you have yet to explain, we have to act now! now! now!

>>You are hypercritical of government for the level of ‘interference’ in our lives in just about every way… except for their facilitation of very high immigration, and all the very strong negative factors that go with it<<

Look more closely, Ludwig. Your argument that my position is somehow contradictory rests solely and entirely on your own view, that immigration is "very high", and that it therefore involves "very strong negative factors".

If you take your personal views out of the equation, my concern over increasing government interference sits perfectly amicably with my attitude towards their present policy. To me, their stance is reasonably well balanced.

I suspect that this "everything is either black or white" disease is preventing you from finding an equally balanced view. For the record, I don't believe we can or should grow in an unlimited fashion. Nor do I advocate anarchy, merely a responsible government with an emphasis on personal freedom, as opposed to one with a desire to control every aspect of our lives.

Probably too subtle for you, I know, but it is important to try.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 12 November 2012 11:31:07 AM
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Pericles

OK, so you don’t have an inherent problem with a no-growth economy, or I should say; a no population growth society where economic growth can continue and can then actually lead to meaningful average per-capita growth.

And you have no problem with Australia achieving this at some point.

So the only thing you take issue with me over in this whole broad subject is that I want us to gear down to zero population growth quickly.

<< What I take issue with is your insistence that, for reasons that you have yet to explain, we have to act now! now! now! >>

For goodness sake, yet again I say that I have COPIOUSLY stated the reasons for acting in the short term. I’m not going to delve into it yet again. I’ll just give you a few key words – water supplies, stressed services and infrastructure, congestion, environmental degradation, quality of life, more restrictions, etc, etc.

Crikey you are odd: you accuse me of raising the population issue too often and then you accuse me of not having explained what is wrong with continuous rapid population growth. Of course, every time I mention it on a new thread, I relate directly to the subject at hand and explain the connection!

It’s a bewildering criticism, just as is your assertion that I see things in a polarised black and white manner. No one is less polarised on OLO than me, and you know it. So how about giving the knowingly false accusations the big flick.

I wrote:

>> You are hypercritical of government for the level of ‘interference’ in our lives in just about every way… except for their facilitation of very high immigration, and all the very strong negative factors that go with it <<

You replied:

<< Look more closely, Ludwig. Your argument that my position is somehow contradictory rests solely and entirely on your own view, that immigration is "very high", and that it therefore involves "very strong negative factors". >>

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 12 November 2012 4:20:08 PM
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I’m looking very closely….. and I don’t see an answer to my point in your comments. I see an unfounded assertion, and one that I assert is just plain wrong when you say:

<< my concern over increasing government interference sits perfectly amicably with my attitude towards their present policy. To me, their stance is reasonably well balanced. >>

I mean, what is so difficult about the notion that our infrastructure and services are stressed, as is our basic resource supply capability, not least with water, and all the other problems that we are having that are made worse or at least not made any better by rapid population growth?

Surely the thing to do is to at least pull back on population growth for a while until we regain a higher standard in all these areas. And it would be eminently sensible to simply stop population growth forthwith until we are entirely confident that every aspect of our society is up to scratch and can stay up to scratch with a renewed immigration intake.

Why on earth do you want near record high immigration, or as you would call it; moderate immigration, to continue under the current regime of substandard infrastructure, services, etc?

And how do you propose that we change our ways so that we can have this level of population growth without it leading to a lower average quality of life where there would be increasing government-imposed restrictions as well as rising-cost and goods/services-access restrictions upon us?

You can’t! Rapid population growth does indeed sit in absolutely stark contrast to a lower level of government impositions and a higher level of freedom and quality of life.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 12 November 2012 4:23:21 PM
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Not here you haven't, Ludwig.

>>...yet again I say that I have COPIOUSLY stated the reasons for acting in the short term<<

You have somehow convinced yourself that this country has problems with "water supplies, stressed services and infrastructure, congestion, environmental degradation, quality of life, more restrictions, etc, etc." Problem is, these compaints exist only in your mind. By any measure, apart from some localized problems such as NSW's political paralysis in failing to solve our transport challenges, we have in our cities the most envied quality-of-life in the world.

And guess what? "Stabilizing" our population is not going to solve the problem of political incompetence. If anything, it will give governments even more excuses for doing nothing, especially when their revenues start to dry up, as they inevitably will under your stagnation plans.

>>No one is less polarised on OLO than me<<

But still you insist that we are facing problems that can only be resolved by instituting the Ludwig plan. Any other scenario is - by your definition - dangerous and unworkable. Even in this same post, you still insist on calling our present situation one of "rapid population growth", when the growth numbers have been steady for many decades.

I have no idea how you and I can rationalize the discrepancy in our views. I see Australia as providing a growing population with continuing prosperity and comfort, that for many decades to come will still be regarded by the rest of the world as virtually unattainable. Ask Greece. Ask Ireland. Ask Italy. Ask Portugal. Ask Mississippi. Ask Ethiopia.

But then, I'm a glass half-full guy. Maybe things look far more gloomy from where you sit. But surely you're not expecting your empty beaches to be overrun by the madding crowd any time soon, are you?

I'm pretty sure that your depressed outlook for Australia as a whole is rooted in some kind of personal depression, despite all those lovely beaches, and your thoroughly blissful FNQ lifestyle.

As that proverbial barman asked that proverbial horse, why the long face?
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 12 November 2012 6:58:29 PM
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Homeless is not a problem here as those with a left bent want less while the nimby no growth envy those who could build a better model, which will put their home in the shade.
Posted by Dallas, Monday, 12 November 2012 7:35:22 PM
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"As that proverbial barman asked that proverbial horse, why the long face?"

Was it because he didn't have a drink named after him?
Posted by WmTrevor, Monday, 12 November 2012 8:04:49 PM
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regarding homeless:
http://mobile.news.com.au/news/thousands-of-kids-among-homeless-as-national-rate-of-homelessness-rises-by-17-per-cent/story-fnejlrpu-1226515283870
Posted by Matt Moran, Monday, 12 November 2012 8:49:20 PM
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how much more of this is ok with Pericles, Dallas and WMTrevor?

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/conservation/how-much-can-the-koala-bear-20120216-1tas3.html

you need to make up your mind because the window is closing very quickly. Or perhaps you have already and you simply don't care.
Posted by Matt Moran, Monday, 12 November 2012 9:05:57 PM
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<< You have somehow convinced yourself that this country has problems with "water supplies, stressed services and infrastructure, congestion, environmental degradation, quality of life, more restrictions, etc, etc." Problem is, these compaints exist only in your mind. >>

Okaaaaay. Only in my mind eh?? Hmmmm. I wonder how many people would agree that all of those concerns are non-existent in the real world?

Pericles, I think you have just shot yourself down in flames by completely dismissing these very real and enormously significant issues. In fact I’m amazed that you would go so far. This is an enormously polarised statement. You could have played down some of these issues to some extent or questioned the connection with population growth, but it is just crackers to dismiss them altogether. Even the most rampant pro-growth business leaders and politicians wouldn’t go that far, for fear of complete ridicule!

Now, you reckon that our government is doing too much when it comes to impositions upon us. And yet they are inherently lazy do-nothings that would do even less if immigration was brought right down!!

Um... that really doesn't add up.

They are bad for making lots of rules, regulations, taxes and levees and at the same time bad for being lazy, but very good for keeping the immigration rate right up!

Now that just totally doesn’t add up!

Another nutty statement:

<< …especially when their revenues start to dry up, as they inevitably will under your stagnation plans. >>

No of course government revenues will not dry up if our population is stabilised.

Your post is entirely negative towards a stable population but you have offered nothing to support high growth. You haven’t answered my question.

So I ask again: why on earth do you want near record high immigration, or as you would call it; moderate immigration?

What is it going to do for us? How is it going to improve our lives and future wellbeing?
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 12 November 2012 9:21:56 PM
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Pericles says

“You have somehow convinced yourself that this country has problems with ‘water supplies, stressed services and infrastructure, congestion, environmental degradation, quality of life, more restrictions, etc, etc.’ Problem is, these compaints exist only in your mind.”

But what Pericles has not told everyone is that he lives in the prestigious upper north shore suburb of Wahroonga part of a district Wikipedia describes as

“The affluent area is known for its clean leafy streets, stately homes and high property prices…The region is home to hundreds of parks and reserves”

Not fortress Australia but near enough to fortress Wahroonga
It is far far far removed from most of the noise, the pollution, and congestion.

No wonder he can shout "squeeze a few miilion more immigrants in"

I'll bet not many end up living next door to Pericles.
And those few who make it to Wahroonga will be well heeled

The next thing Pericles will be doing will be telling the rest of us to eat cake.

What a hypocrite
Posted by KarlX, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 7:15:35 AM
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That is hilarious, KarlX

>>But what Pericles has not told everyone is that he lives in the prestigious upper north shore suburb of Wahroonga<<

The reason why I haven't told everyone this is that it is entirely and completely wrong. Not even close. Even Ludwig could have told you that I am a city person - Wahroonga is beyond the Black Stump as far as I am concerned.

>>I'll bet not many end up living next door to Pericles.<<

Wrong again. Not that it has anything to do with either you or this discussion, but I live in one of the more densely populated areas of Sydney.

Pretty pathetic, though, to start your own personal class warfare, in lieu of coherent argument.

Equally bizarre is Matt Moran's koala defence. Putting the survival of animal species ahead of the well-being of humans, verges on self-hatred in my book. Where do you draw the line? That's a serious and entirely germane question, by the way.

And it seems that we are still operating in imagination-land, Ludwig.

>>Pericles, I think you have just shot yourself down in flames by completely dismissing these very real and enormously significant issues.<<

Merely asserting that the issues are real and enormous doesn't make them so, you know. You need some factual data to back up your views, not just idle speculation, wondering "...how many people would agree that all of those concerns are non-existent in the real world?".

Incidentally, just another word about that black/white thing. For most people, the opposite of "real and enormous" is not "non-existent". Just sayin'.

>>No of course government revenues will not dry up if our population is stabilised.<<

As your stable population ages, which it inevitably will, fewer people remain in the workforce, while more become dependent upon government handouts for their survival as they age. Government revenues from taxation will diminish, while expenditure increases. Which part of that equation remains an impenetrable mystery to you?

As an advocate of expanding government control over our lives (for our own good, of course), you should take that calculation to heart.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 10:01:51 AM
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Pericles,

Here is a link to the 2011 State of the Environment Report for Australia, including a summary:

http://www.environment.gov.au/soe/2011/index.html

Alarming enough for you? Australia also ranks near the bottom of the developed world in international rankings of environmental management.

http://epi.yale.edu/dataexplorer/tableofmainresults

But you know better than Ludwig, who studies aspects of the environment all the time, right? Your attitude towards other species just goes to show how divorced urbanites like you are from the biophysical basis of their survival.

If a stable population is so bad economically, then why have countries such as Switzerland, Finland, and Japan, with very little or no population growth been performing so well? These countries already have the age structure that is frightening you so much. As someone who debates Arjay so credibly, surely you understand that immigration to keep the population young is a Ponzi scheme? Those young migrants (and a lot them aren't so young) will grow old too, just like everyone else, and we won't be able to deport them once they outlive their value to the economy. They will also need health care and pensions. What happens then? More and more migrants until we reach standing room only?
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 10:56:16 AM
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Ahh Pericles, you accuse me of black and white polarised thinking, which you know is a totally spurious accusation, and yet you repeatedly demonstrate strongly polarised thinking.

Latest example:

<< Equally bizarre is Matt Moran's koala defence. Putting the survival of animal species ahead of the well-being of humans, verges on self-hatred in my book. >>

This is a mind-blowingly silly comment. Obviously the desire is for a balance between human habitation and healthy koalas living in a secure healthy habitat. Anyone could see this, except you apparently!

<< And it seems that we are still operating in imagination-land, Ludwig. >>

And this statement comes from someone who insists that all the big issues concerned with quality of life and environment that are in any way related to population growth exist only in Ludwig’s head!!( :>/

Talk about operating in imaginary loopy la la land!!

Pericles, you’ve gone right off the rails here.

And still, after repeated requests, you haven’t offered ANYTHING by way of possible advantages to us continuing with very high immigration.

This makes up 50% of the whole discussion, or should do. And yet you just won’t go there. You're about knocking the stuffing out of those who desire population stabilisation in the near future, and just completely not about justifying the other point of view.

You would have jumped at the opportunity to list a bunch of advantages to your beloved high population growth if you could have. It is now patently obvious that you simply can’t.

<< As an advocate of expanding government control over our lives (for our own good, of course), you should take that calculation to heart. >>

You’ve got it arse about face again!

Stable population with a healthy resource base and environment = low level of government control.

Large and continuously growing population = ever more government intervention.

That is very clear.

So this actually makes you an advocate for expanding government control over our lives. And very strongly so. You really should take that to heart and have a good hard think about it.

Game over I reckon.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 11:16:58 AM
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It is clear that we live on entirely different planets, Ludwig. Also, you make a point of misinterpreting everything, which makes discussion doubly difficult.

>>Obviously the desire is for a balance between human habitation and healthy koalas living in a secure healthy habitat.<<

My observation concerned choice, not desire. Go read it again.

>>And still, after repeated requests, you haven’t offered ANYTHING by way of possible advantages to us continuing with very high immigration.<<

How many times do I have to explain, that the term "very high immigration" is yours alone. If we did have "very high immigration", it is quite possible that I would be assessing the situation differently. As it is, there is no need for me to justify anything at all - I'm not the one advocating immediate population control.

>>Stable population with a healthy resource base and environment = low level of government control.<<

That absolutely does not follow, outside your imagination.

Which brings me to Divergence's offering:

>>Here is a link to the 2011 State of the Environment Report for Australia<<

I couldn't see a great deal in that report to worry about, from a population point of view. Since it was written entirely by and for the Public Service, that in itself is quite remarkable.

And this is purely laughable.

>>If a stable population is so bad economically, then why have countries such as Switzerland, Finland, and Japan, with very little or no population growth been performing so well?<<

Switzerland has the same population as NSW, and a highly similar GDP. NSW however was not the repository for Nazi war lootings, does not have a skilled manufacturing sector. Furthermore, Switzerland exports five times as much as we do. In the face of such differences, population growth is an irrelevancy.

Finland has the same population as Victoria, but only two-thirds its per-capita GDP. Maybe if they had more people...?

Japan has public debt 230% of GDP. Substituting debt for a lack of workers is not a sustainable strategy, I suspect.

The main problem we have is poor resource management, not over-population.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 1:18:48 PM
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Pericles writes:
"The main problem we have is poor resource management, not over-population."

And this is undoubtedly going to improve as our net immigration increases to over 232,000 per year by 2016 - there's so much incentive to do so.

Re: Koalas, it's not just Koalas - but it is symbolic that we are excluding them from all but public zoos, there are many other species which we are increasingly endangering.

If our concerns are humanitarian, then the notion of using ever increasing levels of immigration to address long-term humanitarian concerns is fruitless. But further, our immigration program is not really helping the most needy so you're not really going to win any ground on that one. Instead, we would be better off working in partnership with the source countries which improves conditions in these countries.

But perhaps you have an escape route planned, so aren't particularly concerned when Australia becomes 3rd world.
Posted by Matt Moran, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 3:30:09 PM
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Pericles,

It is true that no other country is exactly comparable to ours or completely free from problems, but the fact remains that there are countries that have very low population growth and stable age structures, but are still performing well economically (according to the World Economic Forum) and providing very good standards of living to their people (according to the UN Human Development Index (HDI)). So population growth isn't a necessary condition for human well-being.

On the other hand, the US has had high population growth, but also massive social inequality, a severe poverty problem, and stagnant real wages for the bulk of the population, while nearly all the gains from economic growth are siphoned up to the top. Just look at those graphs from the State of Working America report.

As in the US, the 2006 Productivity Report found that most of the Australian population loses out economically from high immigration because it depresses wages and the (very small) per capita benefits mostly go to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves. This is in agreement with studies from around the world, and you haven't refuted it.

It is also true that there are environmental problems that are not related to population - it only took one idiot to introduce the rabbit, but more people make most environmental problems worse. See the Long-Term Physical Implications of Immigration report that I linked to earlier. More people increase the demand for water, for example, both directly and, more importantly, for the agriculture and industry that support them, leading to conflict between people and conflict over water for people and water for the environment. We now have permanent water restrictions in our cities. During the last drought, there was a fleet of white government cars cruising the neighbourhoods and trying to catch out some poor devil washing his car or some confused old lady watering her garden on the wrong day. The costs have been enormous. See

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-14/water-restrictions-cost-1b-per-year-report/2617846

You criticise Arjay for pontificating on finance, which he doesn't understand, but you are doing the exact same thing on environmental issues.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 6:28:57 PM
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There is not a person here who has made application to build housing, let alone affordable homes for others, so who cares here, for these posts only reflect their owner values.
Posted by Dallas, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 7:25:44 PM
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Dallas wrote: "There is not a person here who has made application to build housing, let alone affordable homes for others, so who cares here, for these posts only reflect their owner values."

Dallas, why do you believe that's the case? The purpose of population stabilisation is to reduce misery. You cannot solve the problems caused by rapid population growth with the wave of a wand - you certainly can't solve them with even quicker population growth. Do you understand that Liberal/Labor set population growth targets in order to achieve GDP growth? It has nothing to do with looking after the homeless, the unemployed etc it's purely to serve the short-term profit goals of foreign-owned multinationals.

As it stands some 220 million women globally who would like access to family planning, contraception and education have no access and as such, 100s of thousands will have children at very young ages, 100s of thousands will die preventable deaths - the list goes on. Wouldn't it be better to spend more on this than the selfish ideology that just wants to boost population growth so they can make more money?
Posted by Matt Moran, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 8:08:31 PM
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Moran, if you know what it takes to deliver housing here you may have some clue.
Posted by Dallas, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 10:11:52 PM
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Pericles

I must confess I got it wrong. I do hope you will find it in your big heart to forgive me.

You are absolutely right, you don’t live in Wahroogna, where the highest house price in the last 12 months was $6,900,000.
You actually live in its sister suburb Willoughby where the highest house price in the last 12 months was only $6,400,000.

And despite your protestations they are not yonks apart but a mere stones throw away from each other. Certainly a lot closer that the dusty overcrowded under-serviced western suburbs of Sydney where most of the new migrants seem to end up.

I remember you telling us a number of years ago that you lived in one of those prestigious leafy upper north shore suburbs.
And in my comment I initially wrote Willoughby but had later changed it to Wahroogna

But finding this set me right again
“Unfortunately, this man Hockey represents me in parliament”
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5806#79015

For those from outside Sydney this is a map of Joe Hockeys electorate
http://www.joehockey.com/north-sydney/page.aspx?p=32
Some of Sydneys most prime real-estate

Now that we have cleared that up. Back to my point.

It is highly hypocritical for someone like you Pericles living in an affluent area known for its clean leafy streets, stately homes and high property prices with hundreds of surrounding parks and reserves, to like some latter day Malcolm Fraser, tell rest of suburbia they've never had it so good, stop whinging and squeeze a few more million migrants in, because silver-tails like you need cheaper factory fodder.
Posted by KarlX, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 8:10:11 AM
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Dallas "Moran, if you know what it takes to deliver housing here you may have some clue."

I do, and it's population growth that's making it impossible - the tax base can never keep up with rapid population growth - hence the growing homeless.

In an increasingly automated world, we do not need the labour - so loss of jobs, and we've off-shored most of our productive jobs, factories are closing down.

Put simply, if you want to solve the housing crisis, then it starts with slowing population growth - there simply is no other way.

Failing to do this simply means you end up with growing numbers of disenfranchised and homeless. There are only so many resources to go around, in the end you have growing inequality and a totally destroyed welfare system.

Can you think of a single problem that will be harder to solve with slower population growth or a stable population?

Perhaps read some of my earlier comments which illustrate why the tax base cannot keep up with artificially pushed up population growth.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 8:48:36 AM
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<< …you make a point of misinterpreting everything, which makes discussion doubly difficult. >>

Pericles, you know full well that this is a false assertion, and that I am doing my damnedest to have a proper straightforward debate with you, without deliberate misinterpretation, sophistry, personal attacks or any of the other BS that some posters resort to.

<< My observation concerned choice, not desire. >>

Oh. So what you are really saying is that what you said about it being either koalas or human wellbeing, is not what you meant at all?

Hmmm.

<< Go read it again. >>

Have done. Now how about you reading it again and giving some thought to about how I or anyone else would interpret it.

Alright, getting back on track…..

It is amazing that you see no need to justify your rapid population growth stance – and it IS rapid, not moderate. It is currently close to the highest level of growth that we have ever had, and Australia is right up there near the top in the rate of population growth amongst developed countries of the world. So stop calling it moderate, for goodness sake.

The current growth rate needs justification just as much as a slower growth rate or a stop to growth or negative growth.

You DEMAND full justification for heading towards a stable population in the near future, but you continue to give NO justification for your position.

Sorry Pericles, but in the absence of this, you lose the debate. That’s it. Game over…….unless you do what I repeatedly request – give us some valid reasons why the current growth rate should continue.

I wrote:

>> Stable population with a healthy resource base and environment = low level of government control. Large and continuously growing population = ever more government intervention. <<

You replied:

<< That absolutely does not follow, outside your imagination. >>

Oh yes it does! This is a critical point. Think about it.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 10:24:24 AM
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You're still not getting it right, KarlX. I'd give up on the detective stuff if I were you, you're pretty hopeless at it, Willoughby is still way too far out of the city.

I suppose by a process of guesswork-by-elimination you might eventually get close. But you still won't know whether I live in a big house or a tiny apartment, whether I am surrounded by parks and gardens or just by a concrete jungle, or even whether my street is clean and/or leafy.

It's somewhat sad, though, that this is apparently very important to you.

Ludwig, please stop misinterpreting.

>>Oh. So what you are really saying is that what you said about it being either koalas or human wellbeing, is not what you meant at all?<<

Here's exactly what I wrote, to Matt Moran.

"Putting the survival of animal species ahead of the well-being of humans, verges on self-hatred in my book. Where do you draw the line? That's a serious and entirely germane question, by the way."

And here's your reaction:

>>Obviously the desire is for a balance between human habitation and healthy koalas living in a secure healthy habitat.<<

The two views are entirely compatible. It is possible to desire a balance, and at the same time, entirely consistently, to express concern where animal welfare is put ahead of that of humans. Which, you must agree, would indicate a complete *lack* of balance.

>>It is amazing that you see no need to justify your rapid population growth stance – and it IS rapid, not moderate.<<

That's where we disagree. You say rapid/excessive etc., I say moderate/reasonable. Hence I don't feel the need to justify a position on "rapid", because I don't accept that it is "rapid".

>>...do what I repeatedly request – give us some valid reasons why the current growth rate should continue.<<

I'm beginning to lose count of the number of times I have replied to this. My reason is, quite simply, that we have an acceptable rate in the context of maintaining a solid economic performance, one that benefits all Australians.

Not just koalas.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 3:57:56 PM
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""Putting the survival of animal species ahead of the well-being of humans, verges on self-hatred in my book. Where do you draw the line? pThat's a serious and entirely germane question, by the way.""

we're not doing either Pericles in case you hadn't noticed. Our immigration program is not about the well being of the majority of Australians and we have very few habitats left for Koalas.

What I'm saying is we should not put economic growth ahead of the survival of all species including our own.

I'm unsure what you mean by quality of life, but presumably, the things we're discussiog don't affect you so it's probably a waste of time debating with you.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 6:25:05 PM
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a good quote which sums up a big part of the problem well. If we acknowledge the the rational preposition that we have limits and that we're actually consuming beyond these limits now, then we can have a mature discussion on how best to move forward:

Archdruid Report's John Michael Greer: 'We have a national mythology that limits are always bad – to be limited, to be limiting. This from people who depend every moment on the floor limiting their capacity to fall into the basement. In fact, we have a national phobia of limits, and we need to get past that. We need to deal with the facts that limitations are real, that limits are actually good for us. You know, Mom’s hands holding us up when we were trying to take our first step, those were very powerful limits. They kept us from bruising our nose on the floor. And many limits function the same way.

We need to come to terms with the fact that we don’t have limitless energy, we don’t have limitless resources, we don’t have limitless time. All of these things are specific. They function within a finite world. And engaging in hand waving about well, human ingenuity is limitless. No, it isn’t. Okay, it may be immense, but it’s not limitless.'
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 7:44:18 PM
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I couldn't help it but to think about this State intervention thing anew, Pericles - the scale has been lifted from my teeth - it was the article about the impact of the population in the north of Australia on the koalas that did it...

Enough of this fissparting around waiting until there is better resource management. We need action now and I know where to draw the line.

Fortunately, the solution is simple - I propose that, effectively, we close Queensland with the extirpation of all placental mammals from it.

[I considered the idea of invoking national service for dole recipients to relocate the dingo fence – it is a pest-exclusion device after all – to the NSW, NT border but wasn't sure if that was a step too far?]

We can't create population growth issues in other states because of the hassles they create, as described by others, above – so the human mammals will just have to go somewhere else. To their maker, maybe? Whatever. Not my problem.

There are several advantages to this proposal. It took no effort to think it up, other people will have to do it, figures can be used to prove its advantages along with any number of self-evidently justifiable claims, for example 'the greater good' or the 'well being of the majority of Australians', objections can be dismissed as personally selfish or 'vested-interests', plus it won't affect me in the least or cause me any concern.

Oh, and Blair the koala won't have to worry about being hit by a car a third time but he will have to cope with his chlamydiosis by himself. Nature can be a harsh mistress, but I'm told some like that sort of thing.

Personally I'm more concerned for numbats and propose an accelerated selective breeding program – like Belyaev did with silver foxes. In lieu of cats, they'd be great to have around the house and simultaneously help stop the termites eating it.

Whether or not they are the final type, this finding solutions stuff is easy, and more fun than merely complaining.
Posted by WmTrevor, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 8:02:11 PM
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Well at least someone's paying attention, its a pity Canberra isn't. Last month Cubby Station, this week 15000 prime agricultural hectares in WA - productive assets sold off for short term cash injections by a government incapable of properly costing population growth
http://m.businessspectator.com.au/businessspectator/#!/article/Dutch-disease-GFC-economy-SME-NAB-commodities-mini-pd20121114-ZZQR7?OpenDocument&utm_source=exact&utm_medium=email&utm_content=132978&utm_campaign=pm&modapt=commentary&modapt=commentary
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 9:10:45 PM
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Pericles, our disagreement about the immigration intake being rapid or moderate is moot.

It still requires justification.

The current immigration rate is NOT the fall-back position whereby every other scenario would need strong justification except the current one!

The very notion of this is just plain crackers. It needs to be justified just as much any other scenario.

Well, at long last, under great duress, you have finally given us some idea of your reasoning, or I should say; lack thereof:

<< My reason is, quite simply, that we have an acceptable rate in the context of maintaining a solid economic performance, one that benefits all Australians >>

Simple is right! A solid economic performance does not translate into a solid per-capita economic performance while we have very rapid population growth accompanying high economic growth. It benefits new Australians, but it doesn’t do much for the average established Australian citizen.

And of course, your positive outlook would be somewhat different if you didn’t outrightly dismiss all the major issues that I mentioned a couple of posts back, which you say exist only in my head, like traffic congestion, stressed water supplies, over-burdened and under-maintained infrastructure and services of all sorts, etc, etc.. . all of which are actually worsening under the high-immigration regime.

Your dismissal of these things really is amazing. I still can't quite believe this extraordinary development in our discussion. All of these things only exist in my head eh. Wow!

Your justification for RAPID population growth is extremely flimsy, selective… and just plain wrong.
Posted by Ludwig, Wednesday, 14 November 2012 9:46:38 PM
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Moot, Ludwig?

>>Pericles, our disagreement about the immigration intake being rapid or moderate is moot.<<

I was under the impression that this is in fact the central issue: you regard immigration as rapid, I regard it as appropriate to the circumstances. Fit for purpose, to borrow the jargon.

>>It still requires justification.<<

And that is exactly what I am attempting to discover from you, the justification for changing a perfectly adequate and appropriate policy, simply in order to meet your personal views on the impact of immigration. I feel no similar compulsion to "justify" the status quo, for the simple reason that I consider that there are greater dangers in interference, than in letting it run.

>>The current immigration rate is NOT the fall-back position whereby every other scenario would need strong justification except the current one!<<

As you see, we can disagree on this point also. Change requires justification, except where the existing position is causing damage. You have yet to point out this damage, unless you count unsupported gestures towards "traffic congestion, stressed water supplies, over-burdened and under-maintained infrastructure and services of all sorts, etc, etc.. . all of which are actually worsening under the high-immigration regime."

I would happily join a street demonstration on the topic, where we chant:

"What do we want?" "Maintain the status quo!" "When do we want it?" "Now!".

For some reason, they don't seem to happen much.

It may look differently from your eyrie in FNQ, but as a city type I can tell you that the immigration/population problem is minuscule, compared to the abysmal management by successive governments of exactly the problems you identify.

Oh, and before I go...

>>A solid economic performance does not translate into a solid per-capita economic performance<<

Sorry, but that is precisely what it has done, according to the official numbers. If you have a problem with those, discuss it with the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 15 November 2012 8:32:22 AM
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I wrote:

>> Pericles, our disagreement about the immigration intake being rapid or moderate is moot. <<

You answered:

<< I was under the impression that this is in fact the central issue >>

Not at all. It is still the same level of immigration no matter what you call it. And it still requires justification.

<< And that is exactly what I am attempting to discover from you >>

None is none so blind as he who refuses to see. All the compelling evidence that Divergence, Matt Moran and others have put to you, you choose to just simply dismiss!

This is so extraordinary. On the one hand you purport to be partaking in a sensible debate on this subject, but on the other hand you are completely off the rails.

How can you possibly expect to be taken seriously if you just outrightly dismiss the issues that I mentioned, for the umpteenth time, in my last post, or those that other posters put to you?

I mean, anybody reading this discussion, even those who desire high and continuous growth, would know full well that these issues are real and are connected to population growth.

You might be able to argue that these negative impacts of population growth are outweighed by positive factors, but to just dismiss all of these things and say that they only exist in my head, is beyond ludicrous!

<< I can tell you that the immigration/population problem is minuscule, compared to the abysmal management by successive governments of exactly the problems you identify. >>

You can tell me that if you ignore traffic congestion, stressed water supplies, over-burdened and under-maintained infrastructure and services of all sorts, etc, etc, then the current immigration intake / total population growth rate is minuscule.

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 15 November 2012 10:20:18 AM
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YES it is a matter of abysmal management by successive governments. And the most abysmal thing about this management regime is the in-beddedness of government with big business and the consequent pandering to their wishes for a very high immigration rate.

I wrote:

>> A solid economic performance does not translate into a solid per-capita economic performance <<

You retorted:

<< Sorry, but that is precisely what it has done… >>

Not really. Very strong economic growth accompanied by rapid population growth has translated into very small per-capita economic growth. And that is the average, which means that for many people it would have declined somewhat. No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years of the mining boom, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth.

[Oh this IS fun. Round and round in circles we go!!]
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 15 November 2012 10:22:23 AM
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Indeed Ludwig. Pericles is also omitting the drawing down or sell-off of productive assets and the other significant and growing issues we face including the Small-Medium business crisis. He also hasn't factored in the increase in cost of living (rents, electricity) which has 2 million Australians having to resort to foodbank and 10s of thousands sleeping on the streets. GDP and GDP per capita do not reflect overall prosperity and are grossly overstating our economic success by failing to consider what has been lost in the process. The resources we are selling off at break-neck speed cannot be readily replaced. And as we are increasingly seeing, we are a houses and holes economy - the end result of a high-immigration policy in the pursuit of "economic growth".

TrevorWM, I'm unsure how you believe consigning Australians and their wildlife to unnecessary cruelty through ridicule is useful. Certainly, those that profit from the destruction of wildlife habitat use the same philosophy - anyone who objects is called a NIMBY. Will you feel the same way when they turn their gaze onto you or something/someone you love? Somewhere in your ramblings I get the sense that you value human life but on the other hand you're also supporting further destruction of the systems that support us - this is the ideology of a cancer cell. But if you are of the belief that we are not a cancer (and I agree), then when would you suggest we stop behaving like one?

The reality is that our economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of our ecology. Without sufficient wildlife corridors and respect for the other life we share this country with, our ecological systems collapse and our economy will then necessarily collapse.

continued next post...
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 15 November 2012 10:43:00 AM
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Per capita economic growth is influenced by a lot of factors, such as terms of trade and technology. The 2006 Productivity Report into Immigration (see link in my previous post) tried to quantify this and found that the contribution of immigration (i.e., population growth) to growth in per capita GNP was miniscule (see graph on page 155), with most of the benefit from this contribution going to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves, while the wages of the bulk of the population are depressed. A bigger total GNP is no great achievement. China has a vastly greater GNP than Denmark, but where would you rather live as an ordinary person?

To be fair to Pericles, he lives in an electorate composed of leafy suburbs, even if KarlTX didn't guess the right one. He is probably insulated by his wealth from most of the problems that afflict ordinary mortals, so he simply doesn't see them. He most likely doesn't have to worry about long waiting lists in the hospitals, as he can afford private health insurance. He most likely can afford private education, so he doesn't have to worry about his children being shortchanged in the schools because the public school is underfunded and the teacher has to deal with so many children who don't speak English. He can afford, no doubt, all the space, privacy, and greenery that he wants. No high rise rabbit hutch for him, unless he prefers to live that way. If roads and other infrastructure need repair, his suburb is no doubt top of the list.

He will have a big task convincing other people, though. He might look back at the reaction to Kevin Rudd's "Big Australia"

http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-australia-vision-goes-down-like-a-lead-balloon-20100803-115g7.html#_methods=onPlusOne%2C_ready%2C_close%2C_open%2C_resizeMe%2C_renderstart%2Concircled&id=I0_1352940070560&parent=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 15 November 2012 10:52:42 AM
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This is classic.

When I introduce facts - such as the continuing improvement in our per capita GDP - the only defence is to offer an opinion about those facts.

>>Very strong economic growth accompanied by rapid population growth has translated into very small per-capita economic growth.<<

This would seem to be an admission that per-capita growth continues to improve - but no! Apparently these facts don't count, in the face of unsubstantiated assertions...

>>All the compelling evidence that Divergence, Matt Moran and others have put to you, you choose to just simply dismiss!<<

Not evidence, Ludwig. Opinions.

Yes, I know this is an opinion forum. But how come my opinions are somehow irrelevant, when they are supported by real data, and yours are somehow sacrosanct, because...?

Oh, I see. Divergence has the answer.

>>Pericles, he lives in an electorate composed of leafy suburbs, even if KarlTX didn't guess the right one. He is probably insulated by his wealth from most of the problems that afflict ordinary mortals, so he simply doesn't see them. He most likely doesn't have to worry about long waiting lists in the hospitals, as he can afford private health insurance. He most likely can afford private education, so he doesn't have to worry about his children being shortchanged in the schools because the public school is underfunded and the teacher has to deal with so many children who don't speak English. He can afford, no doubt, all the space, privacy, and greenery that he wants.<<

So, only public servants who live in FNQ have valid views.

That's all right then.

Have a great day. I hope the beach wasn't too crowded.
Posted by Pericles, Thursday, 15 November 2012 4:16:16 PM
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Matt Moran, Australia does not lack any resources, only the will to develop them.
Posted by Dallas, Thursday, 15 November 2012 5:28:30 PM
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Pericles,

It is curious that you only have to assert your facts, while I can link to supporting evidence for my mere opinions.

Dallas,

Infrastructure has a lifetime of roughly 50 years. This means that a stable population would have to replace 2% of its infrastructure every year. If you then have 2% population growth on top of that, you have to spend twice as much. New residents in a community immediately need roads, houses, schools, ports, electricity networks, sewer systems, etc., etc., but it is likely to be decades before they have contributed enough to pay for their share, if they ever do. The economist Jane O'Sullivan (see Feb. 2012 Economic Affairs) has calculated that the 1.4% population growth that we had last year cost us 9.6% of total GNP, She based this on a very conservative estimate of $200,000 cost per person. Others are up to twice as high. Infrastructure Australia estimates a $770 billion infrastructure backlog. The American economist Lester Thurow estimates a cost of 12.5% of GNP to support 1% population growth.

Simply blaming poor planning for the crowding, congestion, and crumbling and overstretched infrastructure and public services doesn't deal with the question of where the money is going to come from. If the politicians borrow the money, they will have to slow down on immigration to allow it to be repaid. People like you would probably be the first to scream if they raised taxes. So we get what we have. Divert money from infrastructure maintenance and public services for existing residents to growth infrastructure for more people. Also raise utility bills to force existing residents to pay for expansion of the network. Let housing costs triple from the 1970s in terms of the median wage, because it is cheaper to pack the new arrivals into a few big cities. Is it really any wonder that a lot of people are unhappy?
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 15 November 2012 5:58:29 PM
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That which you characterise as ridicule, Matt Moran, I regard as satire – and self-deprecating at that since I placed myself in the objective.

Besides, which part of my idea wouldn't be 'better' for koalas in the north of Australia?

After all you introduced the point with "you need to make up your mind because the window is closing very quickly. Or perhaps you have already and you simply don't care."

So, now I do care, did make up my mind, acknowledged the window is closing quickly and unlike yourself offered a solution – and you're still unhappy?

Not one person arguing here for state intervention in population control has offered any comment or suggestion that is not inherently self-serving and self-interested or downright selfish – precisely the charges they lay against commenters not in agreement.

Ideologies that seem based on resentment, revenge, revolt and rage seem to me to be undifferentiated from theologies that are also fundamentalist.

Nevertheless, and still in the spirit of trying to help, here is a slogan suggestion:

"You can't screw around with population control"

By the way I was being serious about numbats… although the original plan of breeding for domestication in Australia I heard about was for quolls.
Posted by WmTrevor, Thursday, 15 November 2012 6:09:04 PM
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WmTrevor, If you really cared obout Koalas, you would have an active breeding program.
Posted by Dallas, Thursday, 15 November 2012 7:48:29 PM
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Divergence, Your posts always rely on the State to fix what is wrong, Why do you not place any faith in the private sectors ability to deliver.?
Posted by Dallas, Thursday, 15 November 2012 7:56:50 PM
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"Ferocious competition" from nearly a million temporary migrants, including students, backpackers and short-term workers, is fueling Australia's youth unemployment," Professor Birrell warns in a provocative study to be released today.
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/student-visas-used-as-back-door-by-foreign-workers-says-monash-university-study/story-e6frg6n6-1226516962190

With our youth and other of our most vulnerable and needy groups squeezed out of opporutnitties for lower skilled jobs, homelessness becomes a bigger problem:
"There were 49 homeless people for every 10,000 persons, up from 45 per 10,000 in 2006, figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on Monday show."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/homelessness-on-the-increase-census-data/story-e6frf7kf-1226515142385
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 15 November 2012 8:46:52 PM
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"Ideologies that seem based on resentment, revenge, revolt and rage seem to me to be undifferentiated from theologies that are also fundamentalist."

Hmm, wasn't that what you were proposing though Trevor? A fundamentalist resolution to the problem?

In relation to being selfish - well of course. All motives are for selfish reasons. Why would you expect them to be otherwise? Yet, we still have the question at hand.

Further, if you look at my comments, they are following 3 key well-reasoned ideas and further, if we continue on the track we are on, the above extremes will become ever-more manifest as we are seeing elsewhere.

a) vastly more are suffering and will suffer than are benefitted by us growing our population above current levels and in particular - whether you agree or disagree is up to you.

b) if our intention is to serve a humanitarian purpose, then one must note that some 50,000 people currently die every day of starvation or easily treatable condition - if we are acting in truly humanitarian interests, then this should be our priority

c) we cannot hope to functionally assist those in b) or more broadly the billion chronically hungry by populating ourselves into bankruptcy/poverty - this is looking increasingly unavoidable.

Based on the above, the most reasonable suggestion is to seek to stabilise our population as soon as practical and devote as much foreign aid as possible into helping overpopulated countries move to stable populations that are living sustainably.

Perhaps you see no reason to do this. and are happy with how things are travelling. That's entirely up to you, but if you are at all uncertain, then perhaps you might like to consider looking at political parties who are more in line with the above values. Perhaps you don't have children and don't intend to and are unconcerned with continued wholesale development of what's left of our inhabitable land??
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 15 November 2012 9:10:34 PM
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Haaaaa hahahahaaaa!!

Pericles you’re hilaaaarious!

Anything that goes against your beloved ongoing rapid rate of immigration is nothing more than someone’s opinion. And yet anything that you can find that supports your growth obsession must be indisputable fact!

Oh, am I overstating it a tad?

No………… I don’t think I am. This seems to be right on the mark.

Oh hold on…. you don’t need ANY corroborating information. That’s right; your position doesn’t need justification at all. I almost forgot; the current immigration / population growth scenario is just innately the best thing for our country!!

So um, in the interests of trying to regain some sense in this discussion, would you care to proffer a sensible response to this statement from my last post….

>> No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years of the mining boom, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth. <<

And yes the beach was lovely today thankyou. The mild weather with low humidity has continued right up to the middle of spring, which is much later than usual. No sign of wet season build-up yet.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 15 November 2012 9:10:42 PM
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Well Matt Moran,What are the State Governments doing to ease the problem, joining more dots to support higher density housing for the left wing or cutting red and green tape to release the constrains on building, None as they pander to those who want their existing homes to increase in value at the expense of those who can't get a home.Hypocrisy takes all forms and appeals to the lowest common denominator, greed. Especially those who do not care for their fellow Australians, not to mention Labor's mess on immigration to suit the lefts care for everything but not take personal responsibility,For those who support refugee policies, I say, self sponsor their desires, and that includes the personal funding of their decisions.
Posted by Dallas, Thursday, 15 November 2012 9:12:00 PM
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I think I've understood what you're saying here Dallas - yes, there is no other thing to call it than putting short-term greed before the national interest.

I think we are in agreement that the states and federal government have been beyond cruel in how they've treated Australian citizens and our wildlife at the behest of big business. To be clear, I am advocating an immigration program which balances immigration with emigration - around 80,000. Within this we'd easily meet our humanitarian intake and any short-term skilled shortages. The issues you're describing aren't created by asylum seekers (~14,000/yr), they are created by ongoing high levels of "legal" immigration (180,000+/yr)- unfortunately, the media have been very remiss in how this has been protrayed such that many Australians think immigration = asylum seekers.

The states are very complicit in our ongoing high immigration policies and are now by and large broke. Put simply, if you grow your population too quickly, you make yourself poorer. As such we have the on-going issues you describe which simply cannot be resolved while our population grows as quickly as it is. My information is that at current rates of immigration, by the time we reach 35 million, of the additional 12 million, around 8 million will be from migrants and the children of migrants. While this is not meant to be an anti-immigration rant, these levels are far too high to be sustained for any length of time - and we've had net immigration levels of over 180,000 for over 12 years - pushed up under Howard, they flew up even under Rudd and under Gillard they are creeping up again.

Our thinking is that if you work towards a stable population, investment might once again find it's way into our own very neglected youth and disenfranchised. But we also need to be of assistance globally where we can - I believe we can be diplomatic but firm on ensuring women have access to family planning, contraception and education (particularly in relation to population and resources).
Posted by Matt Moran, Thursday, 15 November 2012 9:38:03 PM
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Perhaps it is our different ideas on what constitutes "evidence" that separates our thinking, Divergence.

>>It is curious that you only have to assert your facts, while I can link to supporting evidence for my mere opinions.<<

Ok, let's have a look at what you classify as "evidence". Which is quite fascinating, when you open it up to the light of rationality:

>>the 1.4% population growth that we had last year cost us 9.6% of total GNP, She based this on a very conservative estimate of $200,000 cost per person<<

Uh huh.

Let me see if I understand you correctly. Without population growth, our GNP would have grown by an amount greater than ten percent. If that is not the right conclusion to draw, please let me know the calculation you would use instead.

>>Others are up to twice as high<<

Same question. If these figures had been used, would our stable population have delivered 20% growth?

Ummm.... how?

>>The American economist Lester Thurow estimates a cost of 12.5% of GNP to support 1% population growth.<<

Same question again. He appears to be suggesting that a stable population would automatically deliver 12.5% growth... do you see where I am heading with this?

If this is true, it puts all other discussions on economic prosperity into the shade.

But of course it cannot be correct, can it. Life simply is not like that. So there must be some hidden flaw in your "evidence", nést-ce pas?

Let me know when you have worked it out. Then we might be able to continue the discussion using reality as our base, and facts as our yardstick.

You were saying, Ludwig?

>>Anything that goes against your beloved ongoing rapid rate of immigration is nothing more than someone’s opinion. And yet anything that you can find that supports your growth obsession must be indisputable fact!<<

Perhaps you can help Divergence with the mathematics.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 16 November 2012 7:41:54 AM
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"WmTrevor, If you really cared obout Koalas, you would have an active breeding program."

Err... what, Dallas? Slightly personal, but in fact I do have and am satisfied with my active breeding program (and its rigid training regimen) though I can't see that it has anything to do with koalas.
Posted by WmTrevor, Friday, 16 November 2012 8:45:56 AM
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Apologies Ludwig, I almost missed the razor-sharp question at the end of your post.

>>...in the interests of trying to regain some sense in this discussion, would you care to proffer a sensible response to this statement from my last post….

"No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years of the mining boom, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth."<<

Oh, it wasn't a question after all. Just another conjecture, starting with your ever-present, ever-confident, "no doubt"...

Let's have a look at history.

It is a fact, is it not (as opposed to a conjecture) that since 1950, our population has grown from 8 million to 22 million people. It is also a fact, is it not, that both our GDP and GDP-per-head have increased steadily over the same period.

Would you like to comment on the following conjecture:

"No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years since 1950, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth."

Start with your zero-population-growth scenario, and let me know how it works out.

What can we learn from this?

Conjecture is when you look at a set of data, and predict that the world will run out of a vast range of non-renewable resources within the next few years. Conjecture is when you predict that "premature death must in some shape or other visit the human race" as a result of population growth. Or when you predict that in fifty years, the streets of London will be nine feet deep in horse manure.

(Even if this last is apocryphal, it still illustrates man's innate, and seemingly irresistible, desire to create a drama in order to make a point...)

"No doubt" both the Club of Rome and Rev. Malthus were well supplied with data, had the very best of intentions, and did not make their predictions lightly. Yet even so, they have one significant characteristic in common, do they not.

And I won't insult your intelligence by pointing it out.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 16 November 2012 2:33:20 PM
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Pericles,

The problems due to population growth are appearing in environmental deterioration, quality of life issues, and long waiting lists, which mainly affect ordinary people and don't show up in the national accounts, as well as in a really big infrastructure backlog. This wouldn't necessarily show up in the economic growth figures. For example, you might decide to save money by not getting your car serviced. You might be able to get away with it for quite a while, and your household accounts would look good. Of course it would catch up with you in the end.

I am a natural scientist, not an economist, but do you seriously think that Jane O'Sullivan (a qualified economist) would be able to get her paper past the referees and published in a peer reviewed journal if her argument was as patently foolish as you pretend? It would be like Physical Review Letters publishing a paper claiming perpetual motion. The paper itself is behind a pay wall, but her submission (298) to the federal government's inquiry into a sustainable population for Australia has a lot of the same arguments. She also gives a reference to that paper by Lester Thurow claiming 12.5% (see the Wikipedia article on him for his credibility).

http://www.environment.gov.au/sustainability/population/consultation/submissions.html

Here is another paper from Canada, which reaches much the same conclusions as she does

http://global-economics.ca/fiscal-transfers-to-immigrants-in-canada.pdf

John Stone, a former federal Secretary of the Treasury, was also unable to find a per capita benefit from mass migration, contrary to what you say (see his article in the Sept. 2010 Quadrant).

Dallas,

It is the government that sets population policy, mostly through immigration, not the private sector. On the infrastructure issue, the electricity capacity and network, for example, will have to be expanded and the expansion paid for by us, whether it is run by the government or a private company.
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 16 November 2012 6:11:57 PM
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I knew that, Divergence.

>>The problems due to population growth are appearing in environmental deterioration, quality of life issues, and long waiting lists, which mainly affect ordinary people and don't show up in the national accounts<<

As I have been trying to explain, the economic facts do not support your arguments. Even your friend Dr. Jane knows it, as she points out on page 5 of her submission:

"There is no correlation between growth in GDP per capita, and growth in population, among OECD countries"

So there is no point in waffling on about how population increase impacts GDP per capita; your own evidence says the opposite.

And you won't find any defence of, or explanation for, her infrastructure costs. Here's what she says:

"...using Thurow’s indicative capacity expansion estimate of 12.5 % of GDP per percent of population growth"

In other words, she unquestioningly uses a figure that she read somewhere... here's the narrative associated with Figure 6.

"Capacity expansion is provisionally assumed to have a cost of 12.5% of GDP per percentage of population growth."

In your wildest dreams, you couldn't call that rigorous, could you?

It is an assumption that she couldn't even be bothered to justify, let alone measure against its real world impact. By ignoring the flip-side of the same "assumption" - that a stable population would somehow magically grow by 12.5% - she invalidates her entire economic argument.

Incidentally, where did you get the idea that she is "a qualified economist"? As far as I can tell, she is an agricultural scientist and a prominent member of the Stable Population Party. Her contribution would not pass muster in any group of economists I have ever come across.

But maybe I just don't get out enough.
Posted by Pericles, Friday, 16 November 2012 6:54:17 PM
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No disrespect to Dr Jane O'Sullivan, Divergence… I'm certain her 18 soil science papers focusing as they do on yams are exemplars of specialist scientific rigour – though I choose not to read 'Crop Development and Root Distribution in Lesser Jam (Dioscorea Esculenta): Implications for Fertilisation' because I know I wouldn't understand it.

http://www.uq.edu.au/uqresearchers/researcher/osullivanjn.html?uv_category=pub

But an economist? No. As Pericles has noted.

As for her 'The downward spiral of hasty population growth' which you cited, amongst its other claims, I find myself especially confused with this paragraph:

"So, if we’re currently growing at 2 per cent per year, then 25 per cent of our GDP is currently being used to expand capacity to accommodate the people who are not yet here (or will have to be spent eventually to catch up). This means that the GDP available per capita to serve current residents is 25 per cent less than the advertised per capita GDP."

Meantime (no paywall BTW), I've downloaded her 'The Burden of Durable Asset Acquisition in Growing Populations'

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0270.2011.02125.x/pdf

In the hope there is some clarification – unless you wish to offer some?
Posted by WmTrevor, Friday, 16 November 2012 7:17:03 PM
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You missed the glaring error in my post Pericles!

I said:

<< The mild weather with low humidity has continued right up to the middle of spring >>

‘cept the middle of spring is the middle of October, not November.

Just sayin.

BTW, twas a wonderful day here in Cairns. Beautiful beaches, blue skies and bikini babes abounding ( :>)

.......

I wrote:

>> So um, in the interests of trying to regain some sense in this discussion, would you care to proffer a sensible response to this statement from my last post….

No doubt if we’d had a much lower rate of population growth through the years of the mining boom, we would have seen MUCH better average per-capita economic growth. <<

You devoted a whole post to this. Thankyou!

‘cept you went off on whacky tangents and completely didn’t address it!!

The obvious point inherent in my question is that if we’d had a much lower growth rate over this period, we would have had far fewer people to share the wealth amongst and hence the average per-capita wealth would have been considerably higher.

But of course you entirely avoided this. Could it be because you know it is true, irrefutable, and that it absolutely cripples your high-population-growth advocacy?

Average per-capita GDP, notwithstanding the terrible measure of wellbeing that it is, would have been a whole lot higher. And services and infrastructure would have been in much better condition, as would koala habitat and the rest of our natural environment. Our overall quality of life would have been considerably higher.

Now, this is neither hard and fast fact nor pure conjecture. It is somewhere in between.

But can you refute it?

Again you have asked me questions without meaningfully addressing my previous query. So give me a meaningful response and then I’ll be happy to address your questions.
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 16 November 2012 9:06:28 PM
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Thanks to Wm. Trevor for finding an open link to the Jane O'Sullivan paper in Economic Affairs. I have seen her referred to as an agricultural economist, but am not sure if that is the case. In any case, she has published in an economics journal and would have had to meet the same peer review standards. If you look at her paper, Pericles, you will see that she has referred to Lester Thurow, but also done her own calculation.

Pericles is attributing arguments to me that I never made. It is Pericles who has been claiming that there is a significant economic benefit from mass migration, not me claiming that there is a significant negative effect on GNP per capita. If you look at the 2006 Productivity Commission report that I linked to above, you will see that they claim a very small positive effect on GNP per capita from immigration, but find it far less significant than the other factors involved (see graph on p. 155) This is consistent with Prof. Rowthorn's "close to zero or negative" and the opinion of former federal Secretary of the Treasury John Stone (who is an economist) in Quadrant (quoted in O'Sullivan submission): "we could not show that it [immigration] raised per capita GDP—the average Australian’s living standard". It is the distributional effects that make ordinary people worse off, according to the Productivity Commission report, because the high immigration depresses wages, not because it decreases GNP per capita. To this I would add, among other things, environmental deterioration due to the bigger population, crowding and congestion, overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services, and inflated housing costs.

Wm Trevor, I am all for unselfishness. Perhaps the rich people who are enjoying enormous profits from development and other benefits of the current arrangements might care to lead the way and set an example for the rest of us. I don't hate anyone or want revenge. I just want Pericles and his friends to stop using mass migration as an instrument of class warfare.
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 17 November 2012 2:17:54 PM
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I have addressed this, Ludwig.

>>The obvious point inherent in my question is that if we’d had a much lower growth rate over this period, we would have had far fewer people to share the wealth amongst and hence the average per-capita wealth would have been considerably higher.<<

And the obvious point in my parallel question was that without the fourteen million people who joined us on this island since 1950, Where would the wealth have come from? Who would have dug up the coal, mined the ore etc? The pixies?

In the meantime, the facts are clear. GDP has grown. GDP per head has grown. Not a single "if" in sight.

Everything else can only be conjecture.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.

On to Divergence.

>>Pericles is attributing arguments to me that I never made.<<

Oh really? Who was it who posted this?

>>The economist Jane O'Sullivan (see Feb. 2012 Economic Affairs) has calculated that the 1.4% population growth that we had last year cost us 9.6% of total GNP, She based this on a very conservative estimate of $200,000 cost per person. Others are up to twice as high. Infrastructure Australia estimates a $770 billion infrastructure backlog. The American economist Lester Thurow estimates a cost of 12.5% of GNP to support 1% population growth.<<

The numbers simply do not make sense, as I have pointed out. The mirror scenario - that the economy would grow by massive amounts with a stable population - makes no sense whatsoever. I struggle to imagine how anyone could believe otherwise.

And once again, the only empirical evidence is that of GDP per capita growing alongside overall GDP growth.

Everything else can only be conjecture.

Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Posted by Pericles, Saturday, 17 November 2012 6:32:31 PM
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<< And the obvious point in my parallel question was that without the fourteen million people who joined us on this island since 1950, Where would the wealth have come from? Who would have dug up the coal, mined the ore etc? The pixies? >>

That is a complete non-answer to my query.

Pericles, I specifically said; through the years of the mining boom.

So I’m still waiting for a meaningful response.

At the moment it is looking as though you cannot address my query and that you have in effect ceded that if there had been a whole lot less immigrants since, say about 1990, then the average per-capita gains from the mining boom would have been very significantly higher.

Remember, it took me several attempts to get you to justify your agreement with the current level of immigration. You just avoided the query time and time again. And then the answer you gave was just terrible – that it doesn’t need any justification!!

Come on, are you in this discussion for sophistic reasons or to genuinely debate the subject?

If it is the latter, then give me a real answer….please.
Posted by Ludwig, Saturday, 17 November 2012 7:20:29 PM
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Pericles,

All that I can suggest is that you read the O'Sullivan article to which Wm Trevor provided a link.

More people do increase total GNP, at least until you get into the situation of grossly overpopulated Third World countries. No one disputes this. You are just assuming without evidence, however, that population growth is a big contributor to GNP per capita. Yet the 2006 Productivity Commission report says that immigration (i.e. high population growth) is a very minor contributor to GNP per capita. Since mass migration is such a small contributor, the fact that GNP per capita has been going up could be due to any number of other factors, such as technological progress and terms of trade. As I keep pointing out, other countries are doing very well even though their populations have grown very little or not at all.

That extra 9.6% for needed infrastructure spending may largely just represent an addition to the infrastructure backlog. Any extra infrastructure spending that does take place might well show up as a positive gain to GNP per capita, even though it doesn't make existing residents any better off, while the cuts to public services used to divert money to it are not taken into account. How much for having to wait 30 minutes on hold? GNP per capita has long been criticised as an imperfect measure of human welfare,among other things, because it includes defensive spending (on burglar alarms if crime has gone up in a suburb for example) or rebuilding after disasters. Nor does it have anything to say about how wealth is distributed. See the O'Sullivan Economic Affairs paper and the Ralph Musgrave paper that I linked to earlier for the UK.
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 18 November 2012 5:26:20 PM
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Mining and agriculture are big contributors to our export earnings, but don't employ a great many people, about 1.5% of the work force for mining. There is a skills issue, largely due to neglect of training.

What Jane O'Sullivan is saying isn't controversial. This is what Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald had to say on the infrastructure issue:

"As economists know - but don't like to talk or even think about - the reason immigration adds little or nothing to the material living standards of the existing population is that each extra person coming to Australia - the workers and their families - has to be provided with extra capital equipment: a home to live in, machines to use at work and a host of public infrastructure such as roads, public transport, schools, hospitals, libraries, police stations and much else.

"The cost of that extra capital has to be set against the benefit from the extra labour. If the extra capital isn't forthcoming, living standards - and, no doubt, quality of life - decline.

"If we don't build the extra homes - as we haven't been doing for some years - rents and house prices keep rising, making home ownership less affordable. To build the extra public facilities, governments have to raise taxes and borrow money. But they hate raising taxes and both sides of federal politics have sworn to eliminate government debt."

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/punters-well-aware-of-economic-case-against-more-immigration-20101123-185ij.html#ixzz2CYbtierr
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 18 November 2012 5:41:52 PM
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I am aware of that, Ludwig.

>>Pericles, I specifically said; through the years of the mining boom.<<

But the answer is substantially the same.

Over both periods - 1950s to here, and the start of the mining boom to here, our GDP and GDP per head have risen steadily. Although I would not be so silly as to ascribe causality, you have to accept that logic - and an understanding of how business works - indicates very strongly indeed that population growth and GDP growth are related.

The reasons are not hard to determine. Without talented and qualified people on hand to provide both the engineering and mining expertise as well as the grunt work required, the majority of the wealth that we have created over the past fifty years would have stayed underground.

Some would say that this would have been a good thing. They would however have been required to go without a great deal of the quality of life that they currently experience here. Not to mention the very real possibility that we would right now be in the same financial nutcracker as many European countries, who were unable to do what we have done.

>>...you have in effect ceded that if there had been a whole lot less immigrants since, say about 1990, then the average per-capita gains from the mining boom would have been very significantly higher.<<

Absolutely not. Wealth doesn't create itself, you know. It is nonsense to pretend that we could all be better off just by standing around, waiting for the iron ore to jump itself out of the ground, load itself onto ships and earn us some dollars.

>>Remember, it took me several attempts to get you to justify your agreement with the current level of immigration.<<

I know. You're such a saint to put up with it.

But you may also recall that I am not advocating a change to the status quo; you are. Asking me to justify a non-decision is like asking me to justify why I prefer the sky to stay blue.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 18 November 2012 5:45:31 PM
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Here's an article that you will appreciate, Ludwig.

http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/7146

"By luck or superior adaptation, a few species manage to escape their limits, at least for a while. Nature’s success stories, they are like Gause’s protozoans; the world is their petri dish. Their populations grow exponentially; they take over large areas, overwhelming their environment as if no force opposed them. Then they annihilate themselves, drowning in their own wastes or starving from lack of food."

...and

"If we follow Gause’s pattern, growth will continue at a delirious speed until we hit the second inflection point. At that time we will have exhausted the resources of the global petri dish, or effectively made the atmosphere toxic with our carbon-dioxide waste, or both. After that, human life will be, briefly, a Hobbesian nightmare, the living overwhelmed by the dead."

I strongly recommend that you read it all the way through. It should give you some idea of the scale of the real challenges that exist, and put the issue of Australia's penny-number immigration statistics into some perspective.

Think of that petri dish, Ludwig. Then ponder the power that would be needed to stop it spilling over. As Mr Niebuhr put it...

"...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference... that I may be reasonably happy in this life".

I am of the opinion that the resolution to the problem lies in our ability as a world to alleviate the poverty that drives people to multiply mindlessly. Also, that the population stability that you wish to impose upon our tiny corner of the world will have absolutely no impact on the bigger picture - that petri dish - and only serve to trash our own lives to no overall purpose. In short, I strongly believe the answer lies in the self-regulating mechanisms of global economic management. (And definitely not the gonzo economics of an agricultural scientist.)

But then, what do I know.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 18 November 2012 7:23:25 PM
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It’s Monday morning, and Pericles is still arguing for protracted population growth, from a position whereby it is automatically a good thing and needs no justification, while any lower level of growth needs rigorous justification… which it has been comprehensively given by other posters on this thread…. and then dismissed as bunkum by the wondrous all-knowing perfect Pericles.

Oh how depressing! ( :>(

He is coming from such a laughable position, and yet continues to entertain the discussion in a more or less serious manner! Well, it would be laughable, if it wasn’t so sad!

And now for his latest bizarre offering:

Strong population growth in the early years of our country’s history and up to the post-war era of the fifties to about the seventies was a good thing for the establishment and development of the nation. Therefore high, in fact considerably higher, population growth through the nineties, noughties and teenies and beyond is just as good.

What a load of cods!

Yes it was arguably a net positive thing up to approximately 1975, after which it would have been advisable to head gently towards a stable population.

Now, GDP has indeed risen all along with population growth. But, wait a minute; all the economic activity generated by population growth, both good and bad, adds to GDP. So all the work needed to maintain or improve services and infrastructure that is stressed out by ever-increasing demand, which is one of the big negatives of high population growth, actually gets counted as positive within that stupid measurement called GDP!

So, the steady increase of GDP is a highly fallacious indicator of our wellbeing, and we really should drop any further mention of it.

And then there's another bizarre offering – the notion that we have needed record high immigration in order to extract our mineral wealth and make the mining boom a boom, is a complete wallop in the cods!

continued
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 19 November 2012 8:54:56 AM
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We needed a tiny fraction of that level of influx. Something around net zero immigration would have been good!

And if we’d had this, we could have slowed down and stretched out the scale of mining activity AND provided a considerably better return to the average citizen as well, instead of spending a great deal of it to duplicate all the services and infrastructure for ever-more people.

I wrote:

>> Remember, it took me several attempts to get you to justify your agreement with the current level of immigration. <<

He replied:

<< I know. >>

Aaaaah haaaa hahahaaaa!

Yes, not even he could find some way of denying or sidestepping that one!

I made many attempts to simply take the debate forward with a totally pertinent and very basic point, and he ignored, then ducked and weaved, obfuscated and sophisterised…. and eventually said that it didn’t need justification!

That’s classic Pericles!

But wait, it get even more bizarre….

He’s gone off on another wild tangent, all about global population and exponential growth.

What’s the point?

Yes the global situation is looking grim indeed. But is he suggesting that this is a reason to not address population growth in Australia?

<< "...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference... that I may be reasonably happy in this life". >>

Yes!

And in Australia the issue could be dealt with very easily indeed, with one decision to lower immigration to net zero.

But of course, as enormous as the issue is, Australia should be doing what it can to help on the global stage. And one very significant part of this would be to demonstrate that we have got our own house in order.
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 19 November 2012 9:00:32 AM
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You didn't read the article, did you Ludwig.

>>Oh how depressing!... What a load of cods!... Aaaaah haaaa hahahaaaa!...<<

Never mind.

Please feel free to have another, more relevant, swipe at me once you have done so.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 19 November 2012 9:51:37 AM
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Quite right Pericles, I didn’t read all of it. It is more of a book than an article, it is off to the side of our discussion, and you quoted the bits you thought were most relevant.

Your point of bringing this article to my attention is to:

<< …give you some idea of the scale of the real challenges that exist, and put the issue of Australia's penny-number immigration statistics into some perspective. >>

This I addressed in my last post.

It is rather strange that you have quoted Reinhold Niebuhr here:

Niebuhr put it...

"...grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference... that I may be reasonably happy in this life".

Surely this goes with my side of the debate a whole lot better than with yours. As I said, Australia’s population growth issue could be taken care of very easily indeed.

It is just completely crackers to imply that because of massive and very difficult population issues around the world, we should just sit back and accept RAPID population growth in Australia with no end in sight, and just forget all about achieving a sustainable future.

This IS what you are implying, isn’t it?
Posted by Ludwig, Monday, 19 November 2012 10:18:07 AM
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True, it is somewhat longer than usual, Ludwig.

>>Quite right Pericles, I didn’t read all of it. It is more of a book than an article, it is off to the side of our discussion, and you quoted the bits you thought were most relevant.<<

But I really would like to understand the mentality that refuses to read an article (because it has too many words), but still is able to categorically assert that the information in it has nothing to add to the discussion. You go on to assume that all its relevant sentences can be summarized in a couple of sound-bites.

That would strike even a casual observer as somewhat lazy.

If you were tempted at some point to read the piece in its entirety, you would realize how sadly inadequate are these responses of yours:

>>And in Australia the issue could be dealt with very easily indeed, with one decision to lower immigration to net zero... Australia should be doing what it can to help on the global stage... one very significant part of this would be to demonstrate that we have got our own house in order.<<

Australia "putting its house in order", as you describe it, would have absolutely no impact or effect on the problem, any more than would applying ointment to plague buboes. Worse, it would actually provide an excuse for failing to address or attack the real issue, based on your "I'm all right, Jack" moral stance.

But keep dreaming.

And for goodness sake, for your own peace of mind, avoid reading anything at all that might cause you to think just a little less superficially about the challenges facing our world. It isn't all about you, you know.
Posted by Pericles, Monday, 19 November 2012 1:00:57 PM
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Pericles you are getting sillier and sillier in your old age.

You have introduced the most ridiculous straw-man argument: that because of the magnitude of the global population issue, we shouldn’t be concerned about or be trying to reduce our level of growth in Australia.

Who are you trying to kid?? Remember, you and I are not the only ones reading this blather. What do you think others would make of such obvious bunkum?

Where do you get some of these ideas? Your excellent skills with written expression imply an above-average level of intelligence, but your now quite numerous absurd assertions contradict that notion entirely!

Let's get back on track....

Three posts back I said:

>> GDP has indeed risen all along with population growth. But, wait a minute; all the economic activity generated by population growth, both good and bad, adds to GDP. So all the work needed to maintain or improve services and infrastructure that is stressed out by ever-increasing demand, which is one of the big negatives of high population growth, actually gets counted as positive within that stupid measurement called GDP! <<

And……

>> then there's another bizarre offering – the notion that we have needed record high immigration in order to extract our mineral wealth and make the mining boom a boom, is a complete wallop in the cods!

We needed a tiny fraction of that level of influx. Something around net zero immigration would have been good!

And if we’d had this, we could have slowed down and stretched out the scale of mining activity AND provided a considerably better return to the average citizen as well, instead of spending a great deal of it to duplicate all the services and infrastructure for ever-more people. <<

What have you got to say about these points, which are central to our discussion?
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 7:53:15 AM
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Sorry, Ludwig, but it needs to be said.

>>Where do you get some of these ideas? Your excellent skills with written expression imply an above-average level of intelligence, but your now quite numerous absurd assertions contradict that notion entirely!<<

Patronising old git.

Now where were we.

Oh, yes. You have just confirmed that you consider the comfort of the tiniest portion of the world's population - those living in North Queensland, next to the beach, enjoying a government pension that the rest of us are paying for - as being far more important than the fate of billions of people who have little or nothing to eat, and face many decades of the same unless you get off your sanctimonious, dog-in-the-manger hobby-horse, where you moan endlessly about the impact of a few thousand new immigrants on the future of one of the richest, most livable countries in the world.

However much you blather on, it remains the case that your conjectures, estimations, prognostications and forecasts do not, at all, in any way whatsoever, stack up against the facts of the situation as we know them to be, and have known them to be for many years.

If you feel the need to close your ears and eyes to the future of the planet, that is entirely your concern. But to create a fortress Australia mentality - sorry, you already have one - to suggest to others that a fortress Australia strategy will do anything but harm to us, and in doing so delude yourself that the world outside somehow operates entirely independently of the decisions we make here, is pure folly.

Your attitude adds to my view that we should drastically cut all the non-performing, uneconomic components of the Public Service, and make them all work for a living instead. If, by any chance, they might somehow be employable.

Have a great day.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 1:06:50 PM
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Pericles,

You have been arguing that mass migration is somehow of benefit to the nation as a whole. The Productivity Commission, John Stone, the former Secretary of the Treasury, and Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, all say that there is no significant net benefit, even in narrowly economic terms. This is also consistent with a number of studies from overseas. There is also a mismatch between a migrant's immediate need for the full complement of infrastructure and the time it will take before he has contributed enough to pay for his share. Your only answer is that everyone knows that there is a benefit. Pick up a history of science, and you will soon find that there have been a great many things that everyone knew that are now known to be false. You and your friends may indeed personally benefit from the population growth, but it is at the expense of your fellow citizens, who have to put up with more crowding and congestion, more inequality, a more degraded environment, more gouging on their housing costs, more casualisation, etc.

Now you are saying that we owe it to the starving billions to keep taking in people, even if it makes us worse off. The starving billions are starving because they have chosen to stay in the Malthusian trap. Even the refugee crises are mostly due to conflict over resources with increasing population. The Haber-Bosch process and the Green Revolution in the last century increased food production several times over. Some countries used the opportunity to develop and eliminate poverty. Others just put the gains into more babies. No one forced them to do this, or forced large numbers of them to support corrupt and incompetent leaders, or made them hang on to cultural patterns that have become dysfunctional. Shielding them from the consequences of bad decisions and giving the more capable among them a personal solution via emigration is no way to get these problems addressed, and there is no way to help them until they are addressed.

(cont'd)
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 6:05:21 PM
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(cont'd)

Ludwig and I actually do like people. We want all of them, not just the rich, to have good, free lives in a healthy environment where the other species can live too, not a factory farm for people. There is not even any problem with taking a few tens of thousands of immigrants a year, as they add some variety, but why head for a billion people by 2165? It would be nice to build such societies all over the world, but why not start here? Long live Fortress Japan, Fortress Finland, Fortress Switzerland, and Fortress Austalia! Even if we believed your silly Yellow Peril argument, it would make more sense to go for nuclear armed submarines like Israel than open the borders.
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 6:08:59 PM
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Actually, no, Divergence.

>>Pericles, You have been arguing that mass migration is somehow of benefit to the nation as a whole.<<

Terms like "mass migration", phrases like "RAPID population growth in Australia with no end in sight", "high-population-growth advocacy", "growth obsession", "ongoing rapid rate of immigration" etc., all of which have been written by others and attributed to me, are obscuring the issue unnecessarily.

I have been consistently maintaining that the current level of population growth, and the immigration policies that underpin it, are in tune with our current economic needs and our future requirements, and the numbers involved are easily absorbed into our buoyant economy. This stance is supported by all the economic indicators available.

And this, frankly, is either bizarre or insulting, I haven't determined which.

>>You and your friends may indeed personally benefit from the population growth<<

Me and my friends? What the blazes was going through your mind when you wrote that? What possible value does it add to your argument, which as far as I have been able to determine is just another bunch of opinions that happen to agree with yours when they, too, look into their crystal ball?

>>Now you are saying that we owe it to the starving billions to keep taking in people, even if it makes us worse off.<<

There you go again, putting words into my mouth. Where have I said "even if it makes us worse off"? The only thing we "owe to the starving billions" is to take a rational approach to helping them solve their problems. And we will not be able to do that if we slowly impoverish ourselves by deliberately stagnating our own economy through thoughtless population strategies.

Fortress Australia will be no place for bold and innovative thinking, I'm afraid, just the opposite.

We'll descend into a morass of self-indulgent, bureaucratic mediocrity.

That's my forecast. Which, for a change, is completely unsupported by facts.

>>Even if we believed your silly Yellow Peril argument<<

If that is all you took away from that particular flight of imagination, I feel genuinely sorry for you.
Posted by Pericles, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 6:42:44 PM
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Let's see if I've understood the logical consistency correctly…

Population growth "…is at the expense of your fellow citizens, who have to put up with more crowding and congestion, more inequality, a more degraded environment, more gouging on their housing costs, more casualisation, etc."

"Economists still find it hard to focus on the infrastructure costs of population growth. These amount to at least $200,000 per extra person."

Though,

"Worse still, the real infrastructure costs per extra Australian may well be more than double Jane O'Sullivan's conservative figure of $200,000."

So, to maintain stable population levels does this require state intervention of a 'baby levy' of at least $200,000 per child above a couple's replacement level of two, and/or preventative sterilisation?

What if they haven't got the money? Do they get nine months to do so, or else?

Could a childless person or couple with only one baby 'trade' their replacement redemption coupon? At a nominal $200,000 this could be quite useful to those considerate citizens not producing an excess of 'more babies'.

Fortress Australia requires such bold and innovative thinking.

So do the koalas and numbats.
Posted by WmTrevor, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 7:33:09 PM
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HAAAA hahahaaaa!!

Ahh Pericles, you can be very entertaining!!

<< Patronising old git >>

Hehehe. The last time I complimented you on your writing skills, you were only too happy about it, saying that you were always a sucker for a compliment, or words to that effect.

This time….. ooow….. it’s a little bit different.

Hit a sore point did I?

You know what they say; hit a sore point, hit a raw nerve, cut too close to the truth…

And um, there’s nothing patronising about it. I said it as it is – you do indeed have very good writing skills and a good brain behind them. But you are making a whole procession of absurd assertions! You do have a high level of intelligence. So why is this happening!

<< Oh, yes. You have just confirmed that you consider the comfort of the tiniest portion of the world's population - those living in North Queensland, next to the beach, enjoying a government pension that the rest of us are paying for - as being far more important than the fate of billions of people who have little or nothing to eat, and face many decades of the same unless you get off your sanctimonious, dog-in-the-manger hobby-horse, where you moan endlessly about the impact of a few thousand new immigrants on the future of one of the richest, most livable countries in the world. >>

Alright, well you’re obviously very angry and not thinking straight at the moment. I’m sorry for offending you. It was not my intention.

BTW, I did have an excellent day. Thankyou.
Posted by Ludwig, Tuesday, 20 November 2012 7:43:16 PM
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Perilces says

"I have been consistently maintaining that the current level of population growth, and the immigration policies that underpin it, are in tune with our current economic needs and our future requirements, and the numbers involved are easily absorbed into our buoyant economy. This stance is supported by all the economic indicators available."

You just don’t get it do you Pericles. We are already growing too big and too fast

And it might help you to see it if you took a look outside FORTRESS NORTHSHORE.

Unlike you who gets to lounge in airconditioned trains reading the MX, during your short trip from your modern northshore station to your office in Surry Hills. Many Australian have to sweat it out in peak hour traffic jams, or pack like sardines into transport services that run late and hot

Take a look at the huge amounts of bush country and good farming land being lost to urban sprawl.

Take a look at the overcrowded schools. Admittedly not in your leafy abode but further out west

Take a look at the overcrowded hospital emergency wards. Admittedly not in your leafy abode but further out west

I am genuinely sorry for you Pericles.But I am even more sorry for the rest of Australia who you are willing to shaft.
Posted by KarlX, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 8:30:31 AM
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I'm not sure that is their main concern, Wm Trevor.

>>So, to maintain stable population levels does this require state intervention of a 'baby levy' of at least $200,000 per child above a couple's replacement level of two, and/or preventative sterilisation?<<

This is all about immigration.

We have already debugged the contentious issue of a despotic government operating an enforced bonk-limitation strategy, and the little-Australians have been forced to concede that this would be a political strategy decidedly unhelpful at the polls.

However, the opposite is the case when they target the dusky infiltrators. There will always be like-minded folk - fellow little-Australians - who exhibit their fear of "otherness" through a desire to lock and bolt the door, before cowering under the bed.

One aspect that amuses me, though, is the disparity between their use of statistics, and their understanding of what they tell us. Divergence gave us this one...

>>...the contribution of immigration (i.e., population growth) to growth in per capita GNP was miniscule (see graph on page 155), with most of the benefit from this contribution going to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves<<

Which, mathematically speaking, given that we all agree that GNP-per-head continues to increase, indicates that these migrants are contributing more than existing residents to the GNP growth, n'est-ce pas?

And this, from a historical perspective, is precisely what migrants do. In every century since the twelfth, the history of Europe is bursting with examples of migrants fleeing from one place, settling in another, and working their collective butts off. Huguenots, Jews, the twelve million who filed through Ellis Island, etc. etc. Our own post-war immigrants share the same characteristics, in every generation, from Greeks and Italians to the wave of Vietnamese boat-people and beyond.

Pseudo-nationalism is never far from the surface, unfortunately, as is also evident, as the homelanders conveniently forget their history, and move to "reclaim their birthright".

Which, although slightly more politely phrased, and frequently vehemently denied, is what we are witnessing here.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 8:52:18 AM
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"This is all about immigration."

Thanks for the clarification, Pericles... here was me thinking it was about failed states and their intervention in population AND fertility policies.

So closing Queensland (which I still think is justifiable) is off the agenda? That's not going to achieve a depopulation of the Cairns beaches...

or help the FNQing koalas!
Posted by WmTrevor, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 9:25:32 AM
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Pericles,

It is not surprising that their is some benefit to per capita GDP from immigration. After all, the migrants, unlike Australian children, have been raised, educated, and trained at someone else's expense. Furthermore, they can be screened, so that people with criminal records or expensive disabilities can be weeded out. The idea that they are somehow superior people is nonsense. If they were, their home countries would be paradises on earth, and we would be the ones wanting to emigrate. What is noteworthy is that the net benefit is extremely small, something that you refuse to take on board, because you just know that the Productivity Commission and other economists who have looked at this issue have to be wrong. It is rather touching that you see our politicians as wise philosopher kings, rather than puppets of the business elite.

You also ignore the negative distributional effects and the (unmet because expensive) demand for extra infrastructure. Most people will be worse off, because the extra competition from more people drives down wages and worker bargaining power, and the growth enables the owners of capital to jack up prices for essential resources such as land for housing. There are also diseconomies of scale. Desalinated water is 4 to 6 times as expensive as dam water. The Productivity Commission didn't even factor in the extra pressure on the environment.

You keep bringing up the furphy that we want to stop people from having babies. Australia's fertility rate is slightly below replacement level and has been since 1976. It is not a problem, even if a few people want large families, although there is no reason why the rest of us should be forced to subsidise them.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 9:27:02 AM
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Pericles,
Seems you have a fair crowd booting you in the ribs over this one. Could you do with a hand?

It is typical of many Australians to presume that a steady, well managed population growth in this country automatically equates to having to share what they have with an ever increasing number of non productive units.
The "diseconomies of scale" Divergence refers to are of course absolute rubbish. This makes the assumption that the population growth will or should occur in the already congested population centres. Why should we not work towards de-centralising our population. This would indeed have some effect on CREATING economies of scale.

It is distressing to see so many with a narrow minded view. An apparent lack of confidence that we as a nation are indeed able to create new industry, new wealth, broaden our economic base
Posted by ManOfTheLand, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 10:35:26 AM
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A good article "Is Population Growth a Ponzi Scheme?"

http://churchandstate.org.uk/2012/11/is-population-growth-a-ponzi-scheme/

"The basic pitch of those promoting Ponzi demography is straightforward and intoxicating in its pro-population growth appeal: “more is better.” However, as somebody who has spent a lifelong career as a demographer, including 12 years of service as the director of the United Nations Population Division, I find that more is not necessarily better.

As has been noted by Nobel laureate economists Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen as well as many others, current economic yardsticks such as gross domestic product (GDP) focus on material consumption and do not include quality-of-life factors.

Standard measures of GDP do not reflect, for example, the degradation of the environment, the depreciation of natural resources or declines in individuals’ quality of life.

According to Ponzi demography, population growth — through natural increase and immigration — means more people leading to increased demands for goods and services, more material consumption, more borrowing, more on credit and of course more profits. Everything seems fantastic for a while — but like all Ponzi schemes, Ponzi demography is unsustainable.

When the bubble eventually bursts and the economy sours, the scheme spirals downward with higher unemployment, depressed wages, falling incomes, more people sinking into debt, more homeless families — and more men, women and children on public assistance."

How much of this is in evidence already? But in the end, there will always be those who simply won't entertain the possibility that population growth can be anything but good and the more of us there are, the more wonderful it is. The claims will continue that the issues we encounter are always because of incompetence etc failing to consider that the incompetence is only going to get worse as the issue get bigger.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 10:44:49 AM
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ManOfTheLand,

I actually agree with you that the abandonment of decentralisation is part of the problem, and no doubt there are some country towns that really could benefit from more people. As it is, however, 82% of migrants end up in a capital city, as opposed to 66% of Australian born people. This report from the ABS gives some of the reasons

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/2071.0main+features902012-2013

You may not be that aware of the problems in the cities, but the infrastructure/diseconomies of scale issue is very real, with, for example, expensive and electricity-hungry desalination plants being built because the cities have outgrown their natural water supplies and cannot guarantee supply in a bad drought.

We are adding approximately a million people to the population every 3 years. I question the ability of the rural areas to absorb all or most of them on a continuing basis. Many areas don't have the water for a really big population. In many places, there aren't enough jobs for the children of the people who live there already, let alone outsiders. The Australian Academy of Sciences recommended an upper limit of 23 million to Australia's population back in 1994, and a lot of their concerns were reiterated in the 2010 Long-Term Physical Implications of Immigration report. Wishful boosterism can't trump knowledge.

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-fullreport.pdf
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 12:54:03 PM
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It is worth noting that if Australia were to have a referendum tomorrow, the overwhelming majority would reject a big Australia - both of the major parties have acknowledged this - remember Julia Gillard "let's take a breath..." and Tony Abbott recently offering to reduce population growth targets to the Coalition's historically low levels of 1.4% (i.e. the same as it was in 2011).

And that is why we'll never have a referendum.

But as 1.5 million voters are unhappy with the big two and 13% of Australians want a new party, perhaps we'll see a swing towards parties like The Stable Population Party who at least can put the Big Australia arguments as the key to for resolving ageing population, skills shortages, economic stagnation in their place as the nonsense they are.

Either way, we're in for a tough time. The real question is, how much more damage will the big two do before they find it practically impossible to govern and Kelvin Thomson's "Witches Hat's theory of government" becomes a reality?
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 2:30:52 PM
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Some of your rationale is still a little puzzling, Divergence.

>>...migrants, unlike Australian children, have been raised, educated, and trained at someone else's expense<<

Well, errr, yes. But is this not an argument for welcoming them, rather than turning them away?

>>...they can be screened, so that people with criminal records or expensive disabilities can be weeded out<<

Yep. Ditto.

>>The idea that they are somehow superior people is nonsense<<

Not even contemplated, let alone suggested. They are just normal folk, like you and me, trying to make their way in the world. By force of circumstance, they tend to do as all migrants before them have done, and work that little bit harder. Much of that extra effort is out of sheer gratitude, those I have spoken to tell me. They would feel that they are insulting our hospitality if they didn't put everything into it. Would you perhaps be happier if they slacked off, which would at least enable you to make your point mathematically.

>>...the net benefit is extremely small, something that you refuse to take on board<<

On the contrary, I accept it categorically. I also accept that the benefit might seem small to you. But it is still positive, is it not.

Matt Wade in today's SMH identified a possible source of your pessimism.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/after-the-moderation-comes-the-new-reality-20121120-29ny4.html

His suggestion is that we have begun to think that the boom times were normal, and therefore have convinced ourselves that we are somehow being short-changed by the relatively modest growth we are experiencing now.

Ask around Europe, and you will find a number of countries envious of our continued upward trajectory. To speculate that we would somehow magically be better off if we set about deliberately stagnating the economy by starving business of talent, seems to me to be terminally perverse.

Thanks ManOfTheLand.

>>Pericles, Seems you have a fair crowd booting you in the ribs over this one. Could you do with a hand?<<

Fortunately they haven't actually managed to land one kick yet. But I appreciate the help.
Posted by Pericles, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 3:28:02 PM
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Divergence,
I read through the links you have provided and agree with the general gist. I feel however, that they actually ADD weight to my argument.
" 82% of migrants end up in a capital city, as opposed to 66% of Australian born people."

Precisely the problem. I agree whole heartedly that continuing to invest in infrastructure to accommodate more people in the cities is a bad idea.

"You may not be that aware of the problems in the cities, but the infrastructure/diseconomies of scale issue is very real, with, for example, expensive and electricity-hungry desalination plants being built because the cities have outgrown their natural water supplies and cannot guarantee supply in a bad drought."

Yes, I am painfully aware! Throughout Australia's development there has been a steady flow of wealth and resources out of regional Australia to fund this. That is the cruel irony of it. There are other good reasons for decentralising (I'm sure you will agree). Aside from the congestion, limiting resources etc, consider this. You could just about bring the entire country to its knees with only 4 bombs. A scary truth of our defensive vulnerability.
Aside from that, the reports you have provided largely assume that the growth in population will reflect historical growth. I don't deny the logic in this. After all, it has to be based on something. However, they do not take into account the possibilities of a fundamental shift in priorities.
Also, there are more than enough resources in northern Australia alone to accommodate increasing the population many times over. (Not that I advocate we do this in any great rush by the way)
Posted by ManOfTheLand, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 4:12:24 PM
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Here's some data that only mentions GDP twice...

First with "Total health spending accounted for 8.7% of GDP in Australia in 2008, lower than the average of 9.6% in OECD countries. However, Australia ranks above the OECD average in terms of total health spending per person."

And second with "Despite above average public expenditure on families, Australia spends less on childcare services than most OECD countries: 0.4% of GDP compared with the OECD average of 0.6%."

http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/australia/

Near the top under the Topics heading (beside the Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012 - Australia Country Note) an interactive tool allows you to compare the better life indices with 35 other countries.

Pity about the 'Work-Life Balance' indicator, though I fail to see how a 'state need to intervene in population policies' could alter this.
Posted by WmTrevor, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 4:45:38 PM
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Pericles says “ they haven't actually managed to land one kick yet”

Now if that were true, how then did he come by the poor memory recall, inability to absorb facts and and severely bruised ego he’s been exhibiting for much of the latter half of the contest?

Divergence and Lugwig have had it all over Pericles when measured by arguments and facts.

Pericles has not got any solid arguments, nor kicks for that matter, but characteristically holds fast to the notion that if he can make the most noise he wins. Well sorry old chap it does not work that way and if this was a Queensbury Rules bout your corner would have thrown in the towel long ago.

Behind Pericles’s smoke screen, and it is just that a smoke screen, that our present level of immigration is just right is a deep antipathy for native born Australians. Yes he tries hard to hide it, but it keeps popping out, as in this generalization “they tend to do as all migrants before them have done…work that little bit harder”. He clearly has not ventured far west from his silvertail fortress of northern Sydney, for west of the harbour bridge many migrants have never worked.

He tells us to ask Europe what they think of our “upward trajectory” .Our trajectory has little to do with immigration and much more to do with the fact that we were blessed with whopping great mineral deposits and a nearby China market which will buy all we dig up. But that wont go on forever.

Incidentally, while you are asking Europe about their view of out “trajectory” also ask them about how they are faring with immigration. Greece has no jobs but lots and lots of immigrants and few prospects of stopping the inflow, DITTO Spain DITTO France.
Posted by KarlX, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 5:20:40 PM
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William Bourke of The Stable Population Party puts our infrastructure deficit at 770 billion dollars. Yet all states are largely broke and we keep pumping the people in like there's no tomorrow. So where's the money going to come from to fix this?

"Perth's bus and train patronage is exploding beyond expectations, putting pressure on the city's burgeoning public transport network.

In the first three months of this financial year, commuters took one million more train journeys (up 6.5 per cent) and 1.2 million more bus journeys (up 6.2 per cent) around Perth compared with the previous year."

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/15431281/commuter-surge-jams-transport-network/

Alternatively, allowing our population to stabilise would allow us to start catching up and incentivise investing in true productivity.
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 6:15:26 PM
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But wait there's more:
Jobs shortage fears in WA – Australian Financial Review November 20
http://www.afr.com/p/national/jobs_shortage_fears_in_wa_1GOoOPFk6cBAZqmlV7FsmL

The West Australian Chamber of Minerals and Energy has warned of a looming surplus of unskilled and semi-skilled workers as the state’s resources boom shifts into a new phase.

CMEWA’s 2013 State Growth Outlook study, to be released on Monday, projects that the workforce for WA’s mining and energy sectors will peak at 125,000 in 2014 and then edge back as the current wave of construction projects moves into production.

The skills mix required by resources companies is expected to change as well, potentially leaving a large number of unskilled workers without employment.

“Unless there are some big new projects in the resources sector or other construction in WA, you’re going to have some pressure from people coming out of construction and finding it hard to get jobs,” CMEWA chief executive Reg Howard-Smith told The Australian Financial Review.

He said the labour market was already giving an indication of the future. While the number of jobs advertised for the resources sector was strong at about 4000 a week, there was a heavy bias towards professionals (70 per cent to 75 per cent) and “high-end” technical tradespeople (20 per cent to 25 per cent).

“The unskilled positions are still there,” he said. “But I think companies are finding they are more able to fill those from their own websites or from various agencies, rather than having to compete.”

Mr Howard-Smith said the study had taken into consideration recent decisions by companies such as BHP Billiton and Mitsubishi Corp to put major WA projects on hold.

He hoped there might be another one or two projects that had not been classified as under way or having a high degree of certainty that could add to the state’s pipeline of projects.

The study estimated that consumption of natural gas in WA would increase 47 per cent by 2018, with the Pilbara accounting for 70per cent of the requirement...
Posted by Matt Moran, Wednesday, 21 November 2012 6:17:18 PM
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Well Said, KarlX!
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 23 November 2012 9:51:23 AM
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