The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > Stable Population Party 'green-washing' racism > Comments

Stable Population Party 'green-washing' racism : Comments

By Malcolm King, published 22/8/2013

The anti-population party's dodgy international connections and preferences show it's true colours.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 9
  7. 10
  8. 11
  9. Page 12
  10. 13
  11. All
Time goes by, so slowly.

Well, has the magician skipped town in a hurry?

Strange how those who dedicate their lives to fighting "racism" never have an explanation of *why* exactly it's wrong or less preferable to race-neutrality.

The issue is almost always connected to immigration, so the quesstion isn't really whether "racism" is wrong, but whether a "racist" or race-biased/race-restrictive *immigration* policy is better or worse than an everything-and-anything-all-at-once policy.

The potential dangers and problems of people from 6000 different cultures all living in the same city are fairly obvious, the potential benefits of a restricted policy are also obvious (That's why our first federal parliament chose it. They weren't stupid or evil people).

Surely, after all these years, you'd think Mr Spokesperson would have an answer he could just cut-and-paste into every thread he starts!

But no, they never do.

All they can do is trot out the dusty museum exhibits (Nazis, KKK), which they know have no chance in hell of ever happening again (and had little to do with immigration, being attacks on their own citizens).

The problem there was *fanaticism*, not racism per se.
There are just as many tragic relics right next to those, that have nothing to do with race (e.g. Soviet and Chinese communism, witchhunts).

One day the atrocities of the Multicultural Era (and the civil wars that ended it) will be in a glass case next to the above at the Museum of Tragic Utopian Fanaticism.

People will shake their heads and wonder "What were they thinking?!"
Then swallow the latest Disney-meets-Watchtower snake oil.

You'll wake up one day, but it'll be too late.
Posted by Shockadelic, Monday, 2 September 2013 1:35:02 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Ivanthenotsoterrible,

Here is a link to the section of the 1994 Australian Academy of Science report that recommended that we not go above 23 million.

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

"If our population reaches the high end of the feasible range (37 million), the quality of life of all Australians will be lowered by the degradation of water, soil, energy and biological resources. Cities such as Sydney and Melbourne will double or triple in size, multiplying their current infrastructure problems and their impact on the surrounding regions of the continent. Alternatively, new cities of their present size and impact will have to be sited, built and serviced. Moreover, this large population would continue to grow for decades after 2040, and the quality of Australian life would continue to fall."

The Productivity Commission has said that there are no large-scale per capita economic benefits from mass migration, so the above losses aren't balanced by any corresponding benefits - at least for ordinary people. (p. 6)

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

"An understanding of the economic impacts of immigration is sometimes clouded by misperception. Two benefits that are sometimes attributed to immigration, despite mixed or poor evidence to support them, are that:
*immigration is an important driver of per capita economic growth
*immigration could alleviate the problem of population ageing."

It is the Australian Bureau of Statistics that counts international students and temporary migrants as immigrants (so long as they are here for more than 12 months), not something that SPP cooked up. It also counts them as emigrants when they leave. What matters is the balance between immigration and emigration, and it is heavily skewed.

Ultimately, our population and all our human social constructs, such as cities and economic theories, depend on the natural world. Globally, we are facing serious losses or shortages of fresh water, arable land, biodiversity, fish stocks, cheap fossil fuels and minerals, and capacity of the environment to safely absorb wastes. Perhaps it is better to listen to natural scientists like Spinifex on these issues rather than social scientists.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v461/n7263/full/461472a.html

http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol14/iss2/art32/
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 2 September 2013 10:56:40 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thank you for your reply. I am not au faut on blogs but they are interesting, although I fear too time consuming. I actually worked on the 2010 PC report or rather, had some input. The terms of reference were fairly narrow and vague.

We were not trying to determine whether migrants added economic value. We know from baseline studies both here and in the US that educated migrants add value to national productivity. What we don't know is how much. It could be slender as you assert. The idea was not to use the report as a stick. It's simply a case that we can't measure some aspects of behavioural life or, in an instrumentalist way, wrap a ruler around a person's economic worth. I believe neither of us would want that anyway.

There is no plan by either of the major parties to add more people to increase the tax base to support an ageing population. That has been modelled and would not work. It's too late. The push now is to ensure older workers stay in work a little longer and save. Even so, there will be considerable draw downs on the health and pension budgets.

Have you looked at the pending mortality rates of the Boomers from 2030-2050? About six million Australians will die over a 20 year period or so. We will see quite a large drop in productivity with some knock on effects for younger age cohorts.

I would counsel you to be a little circumspect about using government reports in a wholly instrumental way, or rather, 'picking the eyes out of them' for political ends. The reason is that these reports reflect a specific type of methodology and broad brush interpretations are not always wise or accurate.

You would know about the 12/16 rule and that approx 70 per cent of temp migrants and almost all holiday makers exit Australia. It's worth looking at the exits and most especially Australian 'permanent' exits.
Posted by Ivannotsoterrible, Monday, 2 September 2013 11:51:09 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi Ivan,

<Have you looked at the pending mortality rates of the Boomers from 2030-2050? About six million Australians will die over a 20 year period or so. We will see quite a large drop in productivity with some knock on effects for younger age cohorts.>

I dont see much sense in making decisions based on a 40 year horizon. It seems to be totally absurd and more the realm of clairvoyants and sundry charlatans. I agree with Malcolm that there is not enough information for the SPP to justify their claims, but I believe that a better understanding would unquestionably lead to government making better decisions. The best we can hope for is a better present. Leave the future for the speculators.
Posted by Fester, Monday, 2 September 2013 5:46:12 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
ivanthenotsoterrible,

I am beating people with a stick! I post links so that people can tell if I have misrepresented my sources, unlike Malcolm King with his accusations of racism and international conspiracy. Of course there are a lot of confounding factors, but if the economic benefits of mass migration were very large, you would surely be able to demonstrate them. (See also the 2006 Productivity Commission report on immigration (p. 154 and associated graphs).)

You are ignoring the impact on the environment, which can have serious effects on our long-term future. This is not just about ideal koala habitat being ideal developer habitat, but about the environmental damage in producing the exports needed to pay for the imports for a bigger population. The Australian Conservation Foundation has nominated population growth in Australia as a key threatening process under the Environmental Protection Act

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf

So far as climate change is concerned, the worst case outcomes may be unlikely, but we also need to consider the seriousness of the damage they could do if they do happen. That is why we have telescopes looking out for dangerous asteroids. The first duty of a government is to avoid collapse.

There are a lot of quality of life issues related to crowding, congestion, hospital waiting lists, etc., but one of the main ones is the cost of housing, which has nearly tripled in our cities with respect to the median wage since 1973, mostly due to the cost of residential land, even though block sizes are a lot smaller now. Perhaps you could take a look at housing prices in Germany and some other EU countries where population growth has been low

http://www.dbresearch.com/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_EN-PROD/PROD0000000000290566.pdf

in contrast to Australia

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2013/02/the-history-of-australian-property-values/

The EU countries would have also had trends toward urbanization, smaller household sizes, etc. If the difference isn't due to our very high rate of population growth, then what is the cause?
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 2 September 2013 5:59:58 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Well it's been a week now and still no answer.
I guess he can't answer the most *fundamental* question underlying his entire perspective: *Why* is "racism" wrong?.

"Anti-racists" are shallow, deceptive, evasive, ignorant, hypocritical, word-twisting, vicious, game-playing, arrogant jerks.
Which makes me suspect they're the ones that are wrong.

Looking forward to Malcolm's fifth regurgitation of the same material in another 3 weeks (not!)
Posted by Shockadelic, Friday, 6 September 2013 1:24:16 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 9
  7. 10
  8. 11
  9. Page 12
  10. 13
  11. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy