I am not convinced that Australia needs to continue its high levels of immigration.

Commentators like Tim Flannery have stated that Australia should support a population far below its existing levels. The current high population is straining the continents ability to absorb them. Already we have water shortages and import our food. The key proponents of increased imigration appear to be business leaders who want to increase their customer base.

There is ocnsiderable debate about just how real the "low unemployment rates" are, as the many IT graduates hunting for work will tell you, when IT workers are bought in 461 visas.

Heard a new spin on the labour shortage in far north Queensland, backpackers who can pick up work in FNQ can't get residency unless they study in Australia, so they study in Melbourne to get their residency, hope the boom is still on when they can get back to FNQ.

Its difficult to see how people from different histories can trust each other without considerable effort being put in to build a common identity.

“Weaving new threads into our cultural tapestry”

So that’s what the destroyers are now calling cultural suicide and the death of the West.

This character even comes up with the vapid old one about variety of restaurants! He certainly has strange priorities when we don’t have the water or arable land to support half our current population for much longer, never mind export income.

The only people who benefit from the immigration frenzy are immigrants themselves – for the time being.

The rest of us are paying big time for the lunacy, and we ain’t seen nothing yet

‘The rest of us are paying big time for the lunacy, and we ain’t seen nothing yet’

..do you need me to chip in? Because I’ve been here my whole life, and I haven’t paid anything yet. What have you paid, Leigh? I’ll see if I can match it.

Damn, here I’ve been reaping heaps of benefits of immigration, such as life long friendships with people born in other countries, and greater understanding of the world beyond my borders, and only now I realise I was supposed to be paying big time. And poor Leigh here has somehow missed out on all the benefits, despite paying big time!

So, so sorry.

Should we continue to depopulate struggling countries by taking their best and brightest because it’s to our benefit? Surely such selfish action by us only condemns struggling developing countries to perpetual impoverishment. Rather than think of what’s best for us we might think about helping struggling countries to retain their doctors, engineers and others who will help those countries build a better future.

The author also touches on the subject of the lack of trust in some ethnic groups. Shouldn’t that sound a tocsin to our alleged leaders? Wouldn’t it make sense to encourage simpatico migrants and avoid social friction? While it might be true that some migrants distrust Australians and relish the chance to throw up our history a visit to Google© will reveal the quaint practices of other migrant groups who dare to lecture us. For instance, would a healthy live concubine welcome being entombed with her dead master? As Nobel Peace Price Laureate Jose Ramos-Horta said in 1997: "If you compare Australia with Malaysia, Indonesia or China, Australia is the most tolerant country in the region," the East Timorese activist said. "Several regimes in Asia are more color- sensitive than Australia. I get incensed when hypocrites from this region criticize Australia for racism. They should learn from Australia."

If we have a lack of trust it would seem to be imported.

People are only foreigners when they open their mouths to speak!!

The trust bit is spot on. Most immigrants immediately go to people who speak their own language.....and assume they will be treated with respect, dignity and fairness. How wrong can many of them be. I would love to know the figures associated with women being conned into working in sweat shops run by their own 'countrymen' who they 'trust' and the number of people ripped off with immigration lawyers who charge swinaging fees to smooth the path (often unnecessarily) for their countrymen to enter the country.

There are many snakes in the grass for the unwary in ANY society.

BILLIE...
welcome to 'point 1' on the One Nation immigration policy :) yes..it was POPULATION.

The Author said:

[From a pure economic standpoint, immigration supplements our labour market with much-needed skills.]

Check.. as long as they can speak, read and write ENGLISH.

Then:

[In a deeper sense, immigration is valuable because it weaves new threads into our cultural tapestry]

Check..YES.. a few threads.. NOT HALF THE BLANKET... I don't wish to see Skippy's picture on that tapestry becoming a PIG (no offense chinese brethren :) or a MOnkey..or the symbol for the MOON GOD.

Note the word 'OUR'.. its crucial to understand the rest of the sentence. At least that recognizes that WE have a culture.....
So, adding a thread or 2 here and there won't deface poor Skippy..
But if those threads blot out his tail...he can't hop properly...

Then this DEUZY..

[Neighbourhood-level analysis also throws up a startling finding: trust is lower in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods]

Well..stone the blardi crows mate I don't have a Harvard degree.. an MPA or a PHD, but crikey, ..that one is as plain as the nose on Pinokio's face ! (after the lies)

So....its "STARTLING" is it ? Not to me or anyone who has lived in a multi tribal/racial environment..SPECially after the 'other' mob cut off ur water..and another (of that same mob) had been delegated to come and slaughter all 'our mob' during a particular rebellion. [He makes up for not being able to do that by cutting buffalo throats each morning and selling the meat.]

Worrrrd to the MCists... its only startling for those with little life experience and next to zero common sense and the idealism of a 17yr old.