Very good James.

I find it fascinating as to how the growth lobby has so comprehensively consumed our governmental system and made it a slave to their greed. They’ve managed to make rapid never-ending population growth seem as though it is a fundamental necessity, questioned only by a very small number of know-nothing ratbags.

I've been quiet for too long on this issue. This argument is foolish and dangerous. It steers dangerously close to the whacko economics of the National Socialists in the 30s and smacks of protectionism in a recession.

Whoever the hell the growth lobby is, I want a membership. Count me in. What's first? I 'll tell you. First we get these nitwits, take them in a bus to Treasury in Canberra and talk about GDP slide over the next 30 years as a function of declining youth cohorts.

The environmental movement have been banging on about cutting immigration for ages. This doesn't sit too well with the social justice side of the party, and shows, if anything, that bigotry and racism can get in to bed with those who advocate saving the trees if they ignore the methods and just look at the outcomes.

Articles like this are life negating rather than affirming. Once every new born baby is dehumanised in this way, represented as a professional polluter who is a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions, it becomes difficult to feel anything other than apprehension about the future of the human race.

In tough times, people's true colours come out.

Endless growth in a finite world is impossible. Already the results are fully apparent. Declining water and air quality, climate change, shortages, overcrowding, pollution, soil loss and erosion, conflict and wars, floods and fires, economic collapse and ecoligical disaster.

Capitalism is the driver of this endless growth and that paradigm will be its death. Capitalism will go the way of feudalism, slavery and the kings as an old, superceded ideology and humans will have to come up with a new system suited to changed conditions. Capitalism has served us well as a system of growth but now we need to stabilise that growth and become sustainable. A steady state economy is the only way.

An economy where we only use resources at the same rate nature can replenish them. Where we can only produce waste at rates that nature can cope with. A system where products that last are far more valued than the disposable crap of today. Tax the things we want to stop like pollution and waste would be a good start. Giant multinationals will have to go. Replaced by small firms serving the community and under strict regulations regarding inputs and life cycles of their products.

Either that or we suffer the fate of the Easter islanders who fouled their nest so badly that they declined into savagery and destruction until there were none left.

Mindless anti-empirical apocalyptic commentary.

Why do you hate capitalism? Steady state? What's that? If you don't like the food or housing, see ya later. What psychological dispositions causes these people to go all doom and gloom?

Easter Islanders? They chopped down all of the trees to roll those bloody big statues up the hills. Stupid and a worthy symbol of anti-intellectual thinking.

I'm more inclined to think that much commentary about zero population growth and the end of the world type dialogues is born, quite possibly, from penis envy.

If you don't want to have kids - no problem. You want to tell me not to have kids - BIG problem.

Some of this thinking is so wooly it belongs on a behemoth.

Like CherylL I want to join the growth lobby, but I suspect that it does not exist in the form that Sinnamon suggests. Like most of this sort of material, the article confuses agricultural sector growth with overall economic growth. The main burden on the ecosystem is, and remains agriculture. It is certainly the reason why, for example, the Murray-Darling basin is under strain. The eco footprint of the major cities are nothing in comparison. Mining also hardly counts overall, although ther may be significant local affects.
So I would be interested to see a more focused argument from Sinnamon on how he plans to reduce the agriculture sector, but he should also bear in mind that the size of agricultural sectior, in turn, has no bearing on the size of Australia's population. Most of the food grown here is exported, although its importance to our trade balance is far less than it once was. Another problem with the article is that to control population growth Australia would have to drastically reduce immigration. Is this really his intention? What suggestions can the author make about reducing immigration?

Interesting to see your view in action, I often wonder what on earth goes on inside the heads of enviro warrior types.

"An obvious example is that Australians are paying extra water rates to finance costly water desalination.." they have to pay for water desalination in Victoria because the Greens did a preferences deal with the ALP and the price was locking up the Mitchel River, which floods regularly, thus depriving Melbourne of adequate water resources for its growing population - I wonder if people would have voted for the greens if they knew this sort of rubbish was behind it, or if it was then going to be used as justification for yet more anti social behaviour.

So you stop a city getting water, then state how terrible it is .. what hipocracy. How you all must regret doing this since now they need a new Coal Fired power plant to run the desalination plant - is that an own goal?

I see you dislike landlords too, probably the ones who pay for your day job as a cleaner. Another person who hates anyone who has worked hard to get somewhere.

There's no thought to the consequences of your actions or your supported idiology is there? It's all someone else's fault and problem.

I have no issue with bringing more people to Australia, we can convert the deserts in time, if only some idiot enviro-mujahadin would just stop trying to convince everyone that growth, wealth, progress and science (unless it is doom and gloom end of the world type science) is bad.

While I disagree with James Sinnamon on some other topics, in this article I think that he's done well to draw attention to an issue that has been obvious to many of us for quite some time. To advocate perpetual growth in absolute and/or economic terms is ultimately madness in the face of finite resources and habitats. Sadly, I think that the rather hysterical reaction of Cheryl above is likely to typify responses to Sinnamon's article at OLO.

One important aspect that is missing from the article is a coherent strategy for alleviating exponential population growth. While we often hear sensible calls to stabilise or reduce human population growth, we rarely hear about concrete strategies for doing so.

In Australia, I think that the Federal government should remove the 'baby bonus' forthwith, and also the various family allowances that reward larger families. Contraceptive procedures like depo-provera implants and vasectomies could be offered free, not to mention simple measures like distributing condoms.

With respect to immigration, as I've said before it should be limited to bona fide refugees. We certainly can't continue to import economic migrants as we have been in recent years.

I think that Australia reached its human carrying capacity some time ago, and the population question is now a matter of urgency. Would anybody else like to add to the practical measures I've suggested above?

Steady state what a joke. I always find it funny how closely the far right and the far left sound like each other.

What suggestions can the author make about reducing immigration?

All you have to do is STOP the GST.

If governments can't directly profit from immigration they will FEEL the weight of the social gridlocks & chronic violence unrestrained immigration is causing in the community.

Just watch them close all the doors & windows then!

It is possible to create a political groundswell against the GST and this must be done soon.

As for the growth lobby which I view as snails eating the goodness out of our communities ... Ending the GST will be like tipping salt on the buggers.

A theme for endless Australian Economic growth:

Verse 1

Kevin Ruddster and His weevils
Ratting out our Nation
Flying through our Uncle Tobys
Not to bless 'em, but to eat 'em

Verse 2

When Kevster takes a Westpac Pill
The good begin to worry
They can't escape their awful fate
Of loss of interest and money

Verse 3

So come and join us all you kids
For lots of fun and laughter
As Kevin Ruddster and his team
Get all the GST paying migrants they're after

Chorus

Kevin Ruddster, he's our man
Hero of our nation
For mindless violence & gridlock just be sure
And vote Labor at the polling station

Unfortunately we do not have choice. We have overpopulated our planet, polluted it and almost used up every resource. Despite overwhelming evidence that all life on this planet is threatened, we choose to disbelieve and to go on as if nothing will ever change. It seems that we will fight to get the last drop of oil no matter how difficult that is.

We must be babies.

Big change is coming; some of it is already here. Will we refuse to accept what's happening? We didn't learn from Easter Island, or any other fallen civilisation in history and it seems we use denial as our principal coping mechanism.

Auae.

I'd liken population increase to taking on more people in a lifeboat thinking the new additions will help with the rowing. We only find out later they tire quickly and become a burden as the boat sinks closer to the waterline. Even the publicly funded ABC is a cheerleader for continued growth. Their enthusiastic taxpayer funded stock market reports must seem like a gift to big business. While I didn't realise that overseas students may have had permanent residence in mind I do suspect the Pacific Island fruit pickers will ultimately form enclaves in the cities. How they will support themselves remains to be seen. I note many sponsored African refugees still don't have jobs and I wonder if the funds spent resettling them here could have helped more people in their homeland.

As the economy contracts it may be that Australian citizens will find fruit picking type jobs more acceptable. Similarly when baby boomers swamp aged care facilities underemployed Gen Z might take those jobs rather than recent immigrants. Some of the water supply and climate dramas we are experiencing now are just a taste of what lies ahead.

“Would anybody else like to add to the practical measures I've suggested above?”

Yes CJ. It’s all very simple in Australia. Reduce immigration down to about net zero and hurtle the absurd baby bonus into oblivion. That's it. Nothing else is needed in this country.

It is a whole lot harder in the Third World. But I dare say that we could make huge progress worldwide if Obama and the Gates Foundation would just come out strongly in support of population stabilisation and allocate aid resources accordingly.

.
“Steady state what a joke.”

Kenny, what’s your vision of ‘steady state’? What does this term mean to you?

Cheryl deems the article to be "Mindless anti-empirical apocalyptic commentary."

To the contrary the article mindfully explores the simple and unavoidable empirical implications of the exponential function operative within a finite environment.

Unsurprisingly it is Cheryl's comment which offers no empirical or mindfully specific content. People who deny the prevailing limitations to exponential growth can only rail rhetorically and emotively in support of their physically limited and thus essentially flawed ideology.

Curmudgeon states, "Like CherylL I want to join the growth lobby, but I suspect that it does not exist in the form that Sinnamon suggests".

Again this avoids rational contention, this time by evoking the author's promotion of an un-substantiable conspiracy theory, thus insinuating that both the text and the author are not just wrong, but are not credible.

To begin to see the screaming reality of the author's proposition, consider the Property Council of Australia's consolidated form, effort and power to advocate on behalf of the property speculation sector. Exhibit 1 should be the Council's powerpoint prospectus to members, outlining the organisation's mindful strategy of goals, methods and accomplishments.

Until recently this file was downloadable from their website. The link isn't working today. Maybe a passing glitch. Maybe they've realised how embarrassingly revealing it is. I will try to find an active link. Otherwise I can forward it by request.

I am forever amazed at how people can seriously deride so called 'conspiracy' theories when the prime statutory function of Corporations, and cartels of corporation, is to conspire to maximise their market size, market share and profitability. For the sake of genuine progress, can people please get up to speed and coherence with the elements of reality that are basically necessary to inform a useful conversation?

In response to Cheryl I should have also added that James' article considers the empirical range and sectoral distribution of advantage and disadvantage due to urban growth.

From that outline of imbalance and motive to unfairly profit, and then unfairly invest a proportion those inordinate profits toward the creation of even greater imbalance, it is possible to better identify empirical views of the political and PR efforts made by those beneficiaries, as well as the empirical extent of political corruption made manifest by their efforts.

rpg,

Even proponents of landlordism implicitly acknowledge it to be exploitative as did Noel Whittaker in an article "Why Investing in Real Estate is so special" printed in Brisbane's Courier Mail on Friday 23 June 2006. I showed this in the forum "Housing affordability squeezed by speculators" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6697&page=43#103886

In May 2004, I heard, with my own ears on Radio National's "Australia Talks", an economist working, as I recall for the Real Estate Institute of Australia, actually predicting that immigration would soon be in increased and when it did the woes of the property investment 'industry', being the (somewhat bizarre) topic of the day, would end.

So the growth lobby got their wishes, when Prime Minister Howard, behind our backs, ramped up our rate of immigration to record levels.

So, should anyone be surprised that the cost of shelter has since climbed from the straosphere, where it was in 2004 to the Mesosphere?

For more information, see "Brisbane's housing unaffordability crisis spun by ABC to promote property lobby interests" of 23 June 08 at http://candobetter.org/node/610 (For those who have read the excellent "Australia Overloaded" by O'Connor and Lines, this article is quoted from on page 158.)

That this Federal Government continues to maintain such high immigration levels in the light of this undeniable cause and effect shows up their purported concern for housing unaffordability as being disingenuous.

---

Those who profess to support high immigration for reasons of altruism should carefully consider what company they keep.

One who never loses an opportunity to browbeat the Australian government into maintaing high immigration is Rupert Murdoch (see "Rupert Murdoch urges Australia to open door to migrants" at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25015115-953,00.html).

Does anyone here seriously maintain that the man who helped the worst President in US history steal the 2000 elections and then kept him in power for 8 years and who misled world opinion on WMD's, etc, etc, and thereby made it possible for the bloody destructive invasion of Iraq to be launched, supports immigration out of any concern for humankind?

James Sinnamon, author

Keeping the doors open to a liberal immigration program to entice more people is totally foolish. We can't just have one-dimensional economic policies that ignore our on-going capacity to support millions more people in Australia. Money and profits cannot and should not be the bottom line to any policies! We have to consider present resource consumption, projected population growth here and globally, changing conditions, climate change and our environment. We have a housing stress caused by a rapid increase in population, and southern states are in the grip of a long-term drought. Adding foreigners while we are suffering is foolish and could even jeopardise our ultimate survival. We are already overloaded with people in Australia. Only humanitarian cases and one-off family situation should be considered. We can't assume that our country is expanding and can support millions more people! Already we are top-rate exterminators of wildlife species - surely a warning that our ecosystem is already highly stressed!

Need I say any more. Several commentators on this topic, with whom I often disagree have in this case got it right, much to their credit. As I have said on previous occasions, we have to realise that we live in a finite world. The current economic paradigm has got us into this stupid mindset that we must have growth, growth, growth. Mr.Rudd is doing his best to continue this crazy idea as did JWH.

How we accomplish zero population growth is a task which will need some brilliant minds, but it will need a massive education campaign to convince the unwashed multitude that it is our only hope of ultimate survival. We can't rely on plagues or famine or even (and I apologise in advance for this) natural disasters or even wars, to keep our population in check. We will have to fight against the dictates of the Catholic Church. We will also need another John Maynard Keynes to devise a new economic system so that the disadvantaged are not further downtrodden. We need to have more incentives for those who are underemployed to find useful work. The population at large needs to have more regard for the welfare of their fellows.

It would be nice if people like Cheryl and her cohorts could explain how she expects us to continue going the way we are without causing grief.

Keep up the good work James. I am with you.

David

Ludwig,
You are rightly concerned about population stabilization and I agree yet when I've asked how you either don't answer or do so with vague assertions and statements like “it will be difficult “. Both you and the author are doing the equivalent of fiddling with the tea money.
As I pointed out innumerable times that population control doesn’t exist in a vacuum…stop migration and all will be well is BS.

We in the West (less than 30%) of the population consume 80% world’s resources.
And 20% of then consume 60% of that 80%. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist or Norman Lindsay to work out that ‘the magic pudding’ is childish fantasy.

The problem is also our steroidal consumption and the associated pollution and waste.

We need a new paradigm. A system not based on the magic pudding.
To test the validity of your conclusions ask if eliminating 3 billion people tomorrow would it achieve anything except the collapse of the system and a lot of misery?
At least CJ is heading in the right direction (less people not just SEP [someone Else’s Problem]).

James,
Apart from the title you contributed precious little to the debate. One can see from your emotive language you are a balance thinker….you have a chip on both your shoulders

“Cheryl” states that “bigotry and racism can get into bed with those who advocate saving the trees…” But her remark is more evidence that willful ignorance of the blatantly obvious---Australia’s severe overshoot---can get into bed with social justice and use it as a cover for insatiable greed.

Like so many PC growthists, rather than deal with Ms. Newman’s thesis she attempts to put her neo-Malthusian opponents on a psychiatrist’s couch. The substance of an argument is much less important than the imputed motives behind it. “Penis envy”? “Psychological dispositions”? Where is the science behind this armchair psychoanalysis? Upon what empirical foundation does she rest this assertion? And yet she rails against “mindless” and “anti-empirical apocalyptic commentary”.

The salient attribute of a scientist is her power of observation. And if a resident of Australia cannot observe and be alarmed at the water shortages, pollution, urban congestion, soil depletion and dizzying population growth rates of the country then she is visually impaired. Unfortunately in this handicap she has much company, highlighting the one falsehood that James’ introduction contains. The “common” sense of which he speaks is clearly not common, either in Australia or in Canada, the mad house that I inhabit. Both countries are stocked with demographic bulimics who look in the mirror and see a big, fat land of opportunity when in fact it is a Twiggy with a quite limited carrying capacity. This delusion is a mark of the ‘intellectualism’ that she says is the hallmark of her mindless growthism.

Well, you couldn’t accuse successive Australian Governments of having any “common sense”; they have all been hell-bent on increase population, and the current idiots are still going for a 300,000 increase for the current year, despite the economic situation and the parlous state of our environment.

“Little, if any of this wealth trickles down to ordinary Australians…”

True. In fact immigration and the sell-off of real estate to foreigners, costs Australians big time.

While it is true that the developers, builders and other big business are always pushing for higher populations, the blame for our unsustainable population growth lies fairly and squarely with our rotten, self-serving politicians. In pandering to the growth lobby they are either (a) stupid or, (b) being paid off- i.e. they are corrupt. No sane or honest person would be allowing our population to grow the way it has/is.

It is ‘greed’ not “capitalism” that is driving growth, however.

As Tim Flannery used to say, before he lost his bottle and accepted the politically inspired gong, Australian of the Year, 13 million is Australia’s ultimate population.

You cannot speak of population without speaking about consumption. You cannot speak about growth without speaking about consumption and you cannot speak about either without speaking about a political and economic system that labours under the bizarre and dangerous delusion that infinite growth in a finite system is possible.

If calling people who want to limit population growth 'racist' is the only thing that growthists can come up with against the overwhelming evidence of unacceptable impacts on the environment and on democracy from growthism, that really shows them up for the moral and intellectual weaklings they are. As Malkontent says, the growth lobby's humanitarian disguise gives humanitarianism a bad name. And now the biggest plus the growthists had, that people could make money out of land and asset speculation, has also fallen down (you know, the sub-prime crisis and the world depression - spell it with an 'r' if you prefer.) I blame the growthists for the global economic crisis and think that they should be brought to justice.

Wolami mentions the Property Council of Australia's powerpoint about how they are saving their members billions of dollars in taxes and their ambitions for more political influence etc etc, but he says he can no longer find it on their site. You can find most of it summarised half-way down in this article on candobetter.org
<a href=“http://candobetter.org/node/628”> “Melbourne 2008: Life in a destruction zone”</a> http://candobetter.org/node/628

Two other articles which follow on from the Newman thesis to which James Sinnamon alludes but are easier to read are this really interesting one linking the growth lobby and famous politicians to the multicultural foundation and the Brencorp now Scanlon foundation:

<a href=“http://candobetter.org/node/431”> “Scanlon report underpins threat to Australian democracy”</a> http://candobetter.org/node/431

Finally, here is a very recent one about Ziggy Switkowski on population numbers in the Australian (I think it was). A link is made here between exploitation of the Climate Change concerns by growthists as an excuse to promote nuclear power in order to enhance the values of land and infrastucture around proposed plants and create demand. Hard to believe? Have a look anyway.

<a href=“http://candobetter.org/node/1026”> "Ziggy Switkowski, Population Numbers and Nuclear in the Australian"</a> http://candobetter.org/node/1026

Have a look.
(Sorry about the way I have posted the URLs; I'm not sure how this site integrates them)

Go for growth, and try to produce a better example of yourself and you partner, for the next generation of thinkers. It beats talking to machines or hugging trees, at least you get some personal attention and affection and thereby satisfaction which you can touch and feel happy about.

Christopher wrote, "While I disagree with James Sinnamon on some other topics, ..."

Like telling me to 'get help', or words to that effect, six times on the forum "Scrutinising our counter-terrorism laws" of 6 November 2008 at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8120&page=0 and at again on the "For the sake of OLO ...rule changes?" forum at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2479#55802 ?

Anyway, if you choose now not to us such put-downs and, for a change, argue the issue constructively, that's fine, but please don't expect me to fall over myself to express my gratitude to you.

"Go for growth, and try to produce a better example of yourself and you partner, for the next generation of thinkers. It beats talking to machines or hugging trees, at least you get some personal attention and affection and thereby satisfaction which you can touch and feel happy about."

NO! Breeding in the face of overpopulation and resource shortage leads directly to WAR.

They tried that after WWI and the overcrowding led to WWII.

Only women favour war as a means to genetic selection. Its in their genes whether they admit it or not ... Dallas. There's always a woman at the centre of a pub fight and they LOVE it.

The way I see it .. women and girly politicians like Rudd are going to lose out big time as world population grows toward 7 billion. In Australia, there are already signs with degressive child care options.

The ultimate reality of survival on this planet is that before population PEAK, women, THEIR equal rights and economic growth policies rule but after the PEAK, males, brute force and war rule.

It never ceases to amaze me that women have never learnt the downside to playing the genetic survival-of-the-fittest game, at breeding indiscriminately for power and to avert their interminable loneliness.

This time around things will be different and appropriately I believe women are going to have to learn to accept their usual role as subservient citizens in particular with their reproductive rights restricted to one child only.

It makes no sense to endure 20 years of war, famine and disease with at least 4 billon agonising deaths so the current crop of idiot women can "get their personal attention and affection and thereby baby satisfaction which you can touch and feel happy about and BANK on".

Cheryl, how low can you go? Describing your opponent as NAZI isn't a creditable debating strategy.

In fact our current knowledge base owes much to the NAZIs
- invention of thalidomide
- birth atlas to graphically map progress of pregnancy
- rocketry and satellites
- jet engines

If they weren't so racist to have persecuted the slav populations they overran then the map of Europe would be very different today. No I haven't forgotten about the 6 million Jews killed but I also remember the 6 million slavs and gypsies killed directly and the 20+ million Russians killed in war and uncounted other subjugated peoples.

Getting back to immigration:

Australians had the highest standards of living in the world in the 1890s when our population was 3 million?
Until recently the large flows of immigration were
1910
1948 - 1961
1992 -

Australians paid dearly for the post war immigrants who were housed in Ministry of Housing houses located near the car factories where they worked. These migrants worked on the factory floor so the existing population got the higher status, better paid jobs.

Since the 1992 Asians have been able to enter Australia as business migrants, after investing $750,000 here - many bought Sydney harbourside mansions to qualify, but increasingly sending your son or daughter to Australia to study costs $100,000, gives them Australian residency and allows them to work here, then use family reunion scheme.

Cheryl is an academic who must have noticed the ratio of Australians to Asians on campus. In some courses, like medicine and ICT, there is not a skippy in the room and hasn't been for a decade. In the case of ICT the skippys who used to work have found their jobs are offshored to India and Indians are employed as liaison between Bangalore and the client [Australian government department or bank].

The Sydney Morning Herald published figures that said that increasing population added 21 minutes to commute time and people had to work an additional 41 minutes just to retain their existing standard of living.

It's perhaps unsurprising that James derails a discussion about his own article with irrelevant references to his vendetta against me on other threads. However, it's a pity in this case, because not only does it detract from his fledgeling credibility, but it shifts attention from the salient points that he made in the article.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.

Get help, James - and don't give up your day job. Ultimately, people like you do the environmentalist cause more harm than good.

The Problem: Organising against population growth, dispossession and life-threatening hardship as oil and water deplete.

The mainstream media and government represent the interests of the corporate world. Communicate outside them: Internet, talking, books, films, meetings and markets.

Organise between neighbours and kin for power at a local level.

Default human social structure is along kinship lines of family and clan.

• Local Communities with a history together and especially with intact or strong kinship structures have best chance of organising to survive well.

• Current land-use planning and population programs structurally split-up communities, preventing them from organising.

Challenge local laws that stop us having livestock and water for growing food.

• Re-design communities so that we can grow food and keep domestic animals.

• Retain full use of suburban land and water. Find ways to do this.

The government is public-privatising rural land and channelling water to agribusiness which cares not about you and me. We must stop this.

Laws should be primarily for benefit of local communities, then integrated into region and continent

Inheritance and Land-tenure systems need reform along Roman-law lines, like Western Continental Europe, which was able to reduce future population growth trajectories after the first oil crash in 1973.

Roman-style laws
• Preserve land within families
• Share land equally between men and women
• Minimise land fragmentation and speculation

Basically this means that our inheritance system and land-use allocation and planning system need reform towards:

• male and female equal inheritance,

• prohibition against disinheritance of children (legitmate or illegitimate), and

• leasing to substitute for land-sales

Remember:

Cheap goods are the baubles to seduce and distract today’s indigenous populations.
Today’s indigenous populations are us.
We who were born here.
Let us not be distracted by beads and baubles.

• Land with water and a stable population and society are what counts.
• Land speculation is a mug’s and a con-man’s game.
• High profits in any field are not sustainable in the long term.
• No society that encourages one class to profit at the expense of all the other citizens is sustainable.

“Ludwig, you are rightly concerned about population stabilization and I agree yet when I've asked how you either don't answer or do so with vague assertions and statements like ‘it will be difficult’.”

Examinator, what are you talking about?

I’ve answered one question (from CJ) so far on this thread, to which I gave a straight answer.

If you don’t get the required answers to your questions, then ask more tightly refined direct questions. I’m only too happy to answer them if I can.

“…stop migration and all will be well is BS.”

I presume you say this in response to my answer to CJ’s question. Greatly reducing immigration in Australia is all-important to population stabilisation and the achievement of a sustainable society in Australia. Even with net zero immigration, we wouldn’t be stopping migration in and out of this country. Not by a long way.

“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist or Norman Lindsay to work out that ‘the magic pudding’ is childish fantasy.”

What magic pudding are you talking about?

“To test the validity of your conclusions…”

What conclusions?

I must say, your last post left me quite perplexed.

I agree with James that the average Australian would be better off with low immigration rather than high immigration and I agree that real estate developers promote high immigration. Several studies (here and overseas) have shown that the average workers wages go down with high immigration and housing gets more expensive with high immigration. Now who would want that? Perhaps the people who pay wages and own housing.

Despite that, I don’t think that there is a small cabal of evil developers who want to ruin our lives to make themselves rich. I think it is more likely that the general population is uncomfortable with the idea of sustainability.

There are two reasons. First, we are a species programmed for fight or flight from 100,000+ years ago. We don’t easily grasp the idea that cheap oil and natural gas will be gone in 20 or 30 years (it’s already gone for 75% of humans, but I digress), pollution, etc will be worse, less water and land, etc. We want to do something hard and fast right now. Second, for the last 200 years we have learned that we are the dominant species on this earth. We will do whatever we want to the environment, whenever we want and the environment will take it and say thank you. We don’t live in harmony with nature we kick nature’s ass and send it home to it’s mama.

Wilson Tuckey was on the radio yesterday saying the Victorian bushfires were the greenies fault because the National Parks were just left to grow. The forests hadn’t been subdued enough. Lots of callers and the shows host agreed with him. I don’t think these people are part of an evil conspiracy. They honestly believe that humans need to subdue nature, rather than live with nature.

If we all agree that humans are the best species, then why wouldn’t we want as many humans as we can get. Deterioration of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity and loss of resources are all very complicated. The love of our fellow human beings is simple, and the more the merrier

It is also important to understand the battlegrounds, that the two sides of the high immigration debate, fight on. Proponents of high immigration know they are on a loser trying to argue that the environment won’t deteriorate and resources won’t be used up faster with high immigration, so they cleverly change the battleground.

The way that proponents of high immigration can change the battleground, is to claim that the real issue is that opponents of high immigration are all really racists. Make the battle about racism and anybody with only a casual interest in the debate (95% of the population) will quickly decide to line up against the people being called racists. It doesn’t matter if it is unjustified. A brilliant strategy.

A second method is to claim that it’s not really about the environment it’s really about the destruction of capitalism and the rise of socialism. Greenies are really watermelons. Green on the outside but pink in the middle. Change the battleground and the casual observer lines up against socialism. It doesn’t matter if it is unjustified. Another brilliant strategy.

I’ve noticed several times in the past and also today in this stream in a comment by Ludwig, the simple statement “We should have net zero immigration” in response to claims that sustainability is too difficult or too complicated or it will require totalitarian control of the population or population stabilisers want to stop people from having babies. Rarely is there a response, because it tries to bring the debate back to the practical environmental battleground.

I don’t agree with everything James, says but I am sure glad he is working hard to make Australia a better place to live. Thanks, James.

Eric wrote Tuesday, 10 February 2009 1:00:10 PM,
"Despite that [agreeing that population growth is a problem and that developers promote high immigration] I don’t think that there is a small cabal of evil developers who want to ruin our lives to make themselves rich. I think it is more likely that the general population is uncomfortable with the idea of sustainability."

Eric, have you actually read this material, http://candobetter.org/node/628 which, half-way down carries a pictorial and commentary summary of the Property Council of Oz's pdf of how it aims to impact political policy, population size, taxes and infrastructure development to the advantage of its members. They are obviously very well organised, yet the Australian population is not being consulted and there is a lot of evidence that Australians do not like this impact. It is also clear that the PM and the Premiers are basically, 'in league' with these property developers. Sheila Newman reveals links which make this quite clear http://candobetter.org/node/431 . There is also abundant evidence that the mainstream press is promoting the 'cabal' here: http://candobetter.org/PropagandaWatch especially in the articles about the Murdoch and Fairfax press.

Cheryl wrote: "First we get these nitwits, take them in a bus to Treasury in Canberra and talk about GDP slide over the next 30 years as a function of declining youth cohorts."

Notwithstanding a sustained increase in fertility, an ageing population is inevitable. Immigration cannot stop that. As a 1999 parliamentary research paper on population (http://wopared.parl.net/library/pubs/RP/1999-2000/2000rp05.htm) found, it would take "enormous numbers" of immigrants to maintain our current dependency ratio, "starting in 1998 at 200 000 per annum, rising to 4 million per annum by 2048 and to 30 million per annum by 2098. By the end of next century with these levels of immigration, our population would have reached almost one billion."

The paper concluded: "It is demographic nonsense to believe that immigration can help to keep our population young."

An ageing population is something we are going to have to adapt to. No realistic amount of immigration will be able to prevent a decline in the "youth cohorts".

Nor does an ageing population mean the end of the world, as some growthists like to claim.

A stablised population would enjoy certain economic advantages over an ever-expanding one. For instance, an easing of land requirements would be reflected in lower agricultural costs and lower house prices. And it would also mean less imports, relative to our exports, meaning a better terms of trade, thus contributing to higher living standards. A tighter labour market would also mean higher wages, which would in turn spur more investment in labour-saving innovations and technologies, and more investment in human capital.

In truth, most of this hysteria about our so-called "ageing population crisis" has been whipped up by the growth lobby in their attempt to push for even higher levels of immigration. And our corrupted politicians have answered their calls with the highest per capita immigration intake in the world and the highest population growth rate among the developed world.

And all to serve a demographic pyramid scam that one day must collapse like a house of cards, and take our environment and our quality of life with it.

"... the selling of Australian university degrees and vocational training, which has notoriously become yet another means of purchasing Australian citizenship."

Scientist and writer Dr. Peter Wilkinson examined this trend in his 2007 book "The Howard Legacy: Displacement of Traditional Australia from the Professional and Managerial Classes". He noted that the universities "market themselves as providing education but they know, and certainly their prospective applicants know, that they are marketing permanent residency visas."

Amazingly, the visa factories formerly known as Australia's universities still like to claim they are providing an "export industry", despite the fact that the majority of the foreigners now swelling the ranks of their student bodies will end up staying in Australia after they graduate.

Anyway, now that we're all clear on the fact that Christopher does, indeed, hold that I am mentally unbalanced after all, let's move forward.

---

I concur with wallumi and I reject ericc's argument that we are the way we are because most people prefer it that way.

In my view, this lets off the hook politicians who, if they chose, could lead us away from the abyss instead of towards it.

Whilst this may seem tangential to the discussion, I believe that Sharon Beder's essay "Consumerism – an Historical Perspective" of Spring 2004 at http://homepage.mac.com/herinst/sbeder/consumerism.html absolutely refutes the argument that ordinary people were naturally interested in consuming more and more.

In the 1920's rising industrial productivity could have allowed the working week to be dramatically reduced.

However, business leaders judged that the would not be able to make as much profit if people consumed less. So they embarked on massive advertising campaigns to convince American workers to want more consumer goods so that they would want to work longer hours in order to be able to buy them.

So, the materialism that appears to be causing us to consume ever more material goods and also to acquiesce to a growth economy, entailing ever greater population growth, is not a natural human condition.

Clearly when we end the hold that these people have over our governments and counter the propaganda which causes many to want to consume excessively we will be a long way towards fixing our problems.

You argue very well, Daggett. Sharon Beder's eclectic but coherent body of work is of enormous importance to Australia and she stands out among engineers due to her grasp of political and historic matters.
I also appreciate hearing about some work I had not known about, by Dr. Peter Wilkinson,"The Howard Legacy: Displacement of Traditional Australia from the Professional and Managerial Classes".

I feel I should draw peoples' attention here to the new book, Mark O'Connor and Bill Lines', "Overloading Australia", which has received a surprising amount of mainstream coverage, for such a book. It is sort of a rolling reference-book on the multiple facets of population growth propaganda in Australia. I am glad that it also digests a lot of Sheila Newman's theory of the growth lobby and mentions her new book, The Final Energy Crisis, which has a gruesomely detailed chapter about Australia's prognosis with continued population growth. I also liked Mark O'Connor's old book, This Tired Brown land, for its comprehensive and kindly approach to the ecological predicament of Australia. The press unfortunately turned their back on that one, so we have lost years when Australians might have been assisted by their writers to pull together to save us all from water scarcity and battered forests. Perhaps we would not have had those bushfires if people had been able to water their gardens, if so much water and care had not been diverted from our overly interfered-with forests. (There is a link between logging even small patches and increases in forest fires see: http://www.whrc.org/southamerica/fire_savann/index.htm) In my view we are seeing in such disasters as dying gardens and apocalyptic bushfires the outcome of growthist greed driven by a number of easily identified lobby groups, business men, media moguls and politicians over the past few years. The input of these people should be put before the public eye and critically examined. Growthism should be repudiated by our leaders.

My objection to the cabal theory isn’t that I don’t think the Property Council wants high immigration and is willing to bribe politicians to get high immigration. I do think that the Property Council wants high immigration and are willing to bribe politicians to get it. My objection is the thinking that the Property Council is the end of the story. The Property Council has a lot of support from people who don’t get any profits out of it at all. People who just think humans should run roughshod over the earth and do whatever we like.

The story that I see being told is that there are 100 evil property developers in Australia and they have bought off 900 corrupt politicians and those 1000 people are the only ones in Australia who think there should be high immigration. People like Cheryl and rpg who have commented in this thread, probably are not among the evil 1000. They genuinely believe that Australia is better off with a lot more people. If 99.9% of the voting public was against high immigration there wouldn’t be high immigration. Peter Garrett isn’t in the Property Council and he won’t even mention population, even though he says he supports the notion of environmental sustainability.

I personally believe that a majority of Australians would rather see low immigration than high immigration. I’m not sure if a majority would like net zero immigration. The implication that a tiny evil cabal controls population policy in Australia against the wishes of an overwhelming majority, avoids the truth. It is better that we recognise that there is a significant part of the voting public that doesn’t agree that sustainability is important and doesn’t agree that high immigration makes sustainability harder to achieve, than make the Property Council into an all-controlling demon

Eric,

The growth lobby isn't just property developers, upstream it is the banks that finance them, the mines and building materials suppliers; downstream: the construction industries, the conveyancers ,real-estate agents, universities looking for students with cash who will pay for a ticket to citizenry, independent migration agents, home and garden retail outlets, home and garden tv shows (which market property and furniture etc). It is a huge anti-social industry. And this industry is marketed by the major media which invests in the price of land and land-transactions and has fingers in all the other pies; we have a corporatised media. One of our major media owners is or was the richest man in the world. If he goes bust, banks go bust. The media is a part of this corporate lobby and its mouthpiece. It constantly brainwashes people that the economy will die without growth and we will all be poor, or poorer without jobs. And people have been sucked into ridiculously high mortgages, so they believe this like so many serfs listening to bishops thundering from pulpits.

In reality, of course, the higher the price of land, the higher the cost of manufacture and any production, which is why Australia cannot 'compete' with manufactures from countries where the cost of land is relatively cheap, such as France, where it isn't easy to speculate and the government regards population growth as a cost to the state, which it is.

The people benefiting from population growth are able to recognise each other and organise. The people who don't like population growth have a very hard time raising the issue because the mainstream press and business lobbies aren't working for them; they are working for the growthists.

Perhaps there are ordinary people who believe, spontaneously, that we need population growth, but I doubt that they would push this issue hard if they were not making a quid or something else out of it.

I know people who work at banks, construction companies and garden retail outlets who have no opinion about population. They are just trying to earn a quid. I know lots of people at Universities opposed to population growth.

How many of your friends have been brainwashed into consuming more than they really want to? None of my friends have.

If people interested in sustainability want to succeed, we can’t keep living in a dream world where some evil group that brainwashes everybody is controlling everything. It’s just an excuse to explain our failure to make sustainability a priority. Certainly groups with a vested interest and lots of cash use their influence to promote high immigration. Certainly governments want to be able to say the GDP increased by 2%, and making 1.5% of that increase due to population increase is a clever manoeuvre. I am not saying ignore them. What I am saying is that there are lots of people with no vested interests, who just think bigger is better and population stabilisation or population control is a bad idea. Lots of people who don’t make a link between higher housing prices and environmental deterioration and high immigration.

We can’t continue to put all the blame on the property developers and associated industries. We need to reach out to regular people who have not really thought about the long term future or who think some technological miracle will save us. Reaching out to those people isn’t easy.

It’s ironic that several commentators are saying that the Greens are responsible for the Victorian bushfires because they have too much power over local government efforts to clear bushland. I guess whichever side of the debate you are on, your opposition has too much power.

There are less than 1000 members in Sustainable Population Australia and probably less than 100 who are “active.” James Sinnamon is one of them and he is working hard to get the message out. I don’t have to agree with every word he says to appreciate his every effort. I wish there were more like him

James Sinnamon’s ideas are spot on. But they don’t go far enough. The problems are world wide: too many people consuming fewer remaining resources as we all strive for a better living standard. Practical measures to reduce the world’s population in the long run (it will take more than several decades) can be found at http://newpop.spawa.org/images/stories/Documents/gpr_spa_2007.pdf and the current economic woes point to the sanity of a no-growth steady-state economy. The upshot is that globally we need to develop and support a no-growth steady-state economy for a low-consumption smaller global population in a globally sustainable environment. I do not think that human kind can accomplish this. I think that we will inevitably continue along our self-destructive paths. Whether climate change, accompanied by economic and social chaos in the wake of oil depletion, resource wars and similar catastrophes will get us before this century is over is a real question.

erricc,

It seems to me that you haven't taken full account of the evidence in my article, in contributions and in linked articles, that the reason that governments routinely make decisions which are harmful to the best inters ts of this.

How do you think it was decided that it would be good idea for John Howard to increase the rate of immigration to record levels after won the 2001 elections for supposedly being a staunch protector of Australia's borders?

Do you think the idea fell out of sky?

So, if it didn't fall out of the sky, where do you think that decision was made?

I certainly don't remember it being discussed out in the open, with arguments for and against being put forward an fairly considered.

Clearly that it was a good idea to increase immigration was arrived at behind closed doors in discussions to which the wider public were not privy.

The same must also be true of innumerable other policy decisions harmful to that have been made in recent decades - the privatisation of Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank, the state banks, government owned insurance companies, railways, prisons, electricity generators, government owned buildings, etc, etc, the decision to invade Iraq, decisions to forcibly amalgamate local governments, etc.

In the case of the forced Queensland local government amalgamations of 2007, strenuously opposed by the affected communities, former State Labor MP Cate Molly has attested to the fact that they were enacted by Beattie by then Premier Beattie at the behest of the Property Council of Australia (see "Cate Molloy : Forced council amalgamations planned by Property Council of Australia" at http://candobetter.org/node/169).

The fact that, in the case of population growth, some people have been manipulated by relentless media propaganda into supporting policies that are against their own best interests doesn't alter the underlying dynamic.

High immigration and unsustainable economic growth are a direct result of GST, in its direct forms as here and in Britain and in its indirect forms as in the US and other first world nations.

Once people understand the concept, finding a solution is relatively easy and as I am fond of saying:

Scrapping the GST will be to the corrupt in our society like tipping salt on swanny snails and ruddy slugs.

Its so good to see the production of so many intangible assets and untradable goods in this discussion.

“James Sinnamon … is working hard to get the message out. I don’t have to agree with every word he says to appreciate his every effort. I wish there were more like him.”

Hear, hear ericc.

.
I couldn’t agree more Malthus.

Welcome to OLO.

James Sinnamon's byline for this article says:

"Common sense, not to mention the evidence, tells us that a larger population cannot possibly be in the interests of Australia."

Let us accept for the moment that, in a secret ballot, a significant majority of Australians would endorse that position.

Could it be that the promotion of high immigration (in the absence of which there would be no large population growth in Australia) in the face of such common sense, may be more fully explained by the existence of a complementary interest group to that of what has been described here as 'the growth lobby'?

For several decades now the level of enrolments on the electoral rolls has very closely approached, or even perhaps exceeded, the total number of persons estimated as being qualified to be on those rolls. Likewise, there has been intensified over this same period attempts to change the fundamental polity of Australia from that of Constitutional Monarchy to that of some unspecified republic. Could it be that the objective is to bring into Australia sufficient persons having no natural attachment to our traditional polity such that a vote some time in the future to change to a republic would be believable or made explicable, by this demographic trend?

Note well that I am not attempting to impute to the majority of such migrants, and believably future citizens, the actual holding of such republic-supportive views. I merely state that it could be held, in explanation of some future fundamental change to the Australian polity, that such persons could have tipped the balance in a vote.

Now what if there exists an interest group in Australia that has already mastered the art of rigging elections at local, State, and Federal levels, and this group's interests more or less coincide with those of which James is pleased to call 'the growth lobby'? Would such a group of election-riggers not have a vested interest in sustained high migration as a smokescreen to what they were really about?

Consider the National Electricity Market without present Constitutional restraints. Open slather.

BiancaDog, I have also read "Overloading Australia" by Mark O'Connor and William Lines and agree that is an excellent book chronicalling Australia's ruinous path toward overpopulation. The authors succeed in comprehensively demolishing the specious arguments used by the growth lobby in their campaign for ever-higher levels of immigration. I found the chapter "The racist bogey" particularly interesting. The authors make the point:

"In general, rather than opponents of high immigration having a hidden agenda, it is immigration's advocates who have a personal or institutional vested interest, whether they are are ethnic 'leaders' seeking to increase their 'market share', industry groups seeking to increase their business opportunities, or New Class intellectuals expressing their moral superiority."

The chapter on Australia's immigration-induced housing crisis, fittingly entitled "Pyramid-selling Australia", was also especially relevant. O'Connor and Lines note how politicians, business groups and journalists talk as if the "supply" of housing is the only factor worth considering, while completely ignoring the "demand" side of the equation and the fact that high immigration is deliberately being used to ensure the housing market "pressure-cooker" situation the real estate industry desires.

The authors are blunt:

"Whatever money land speculators gain by pushing up prices is taken from the pay-packets and household budgets of those who must buy their overpriced properties. Mortgages that require both spouses to work long hours lead to much stress and pain, many a nervous breakdown, cracked marriage, alienated or dangerously neglected children, and even to homelessness, drug addiction, and ruined lives. Yet, no commentary on Australia's recent property boom refers to the process as parasitic. This is remarkable, granted how difficult it would be to argue that it is not."

In all, "Overloading Australia" is probably one of the most important books published in Australia in a long time. As O'Connor and Lines show, unless we act soon to stabilise our population, our environment, our society, and our quality of life will suffer irrevocable damage.

Thank you, Reyes (and FG, Ludwig, KAEP, Malthus, ericc, Efranke, VK3AUU and others),

Reyes, it was also my intention to quote precisely that paragraph (and a few others as well) from the chapter "Pyramid-selling Australia" from Mark O'Connor's and Willliam Lines' excellent book, which I am two thirds of the way through.

At $20 a copy, it's a perfect and economical gift. I got one for myself and gave away another 9 at Xmas

Apologies for my last post. (Those terrible grammatical errors are the consequence of staying up too late and then getting up too early, but that's no excuse.)

Former federal Labor MP Barry Cohen on the folly of ongoing immigration-driven population growth:

"When the Chifley government initiated the post-war immigration programme, the slogan was ‘Populate or Perish’. One justification was that having just fought a ferocious war with Japan, we needed to build up our population to defend Australia against ‘the yellow peril’. The White Australia policy was alive and well. Our population of six and a half million could not justify our occupation of such a vast empty continent. Economies of scale would enable us to produce goods at a lower price and increase our ability to export.

Only the last of these three reasons has any validity today, and even that is questionable. Our export income is no longer dependant on the mass production of consumer goods. Specialised quality production, agriculture, mining, tourism and educational services earn most of our foreign currency.

The latest excuse for increased population is a shortage of skilled labour. Those arguing the case may be right, but in doing so they should answer the following questions: how many of our current unemployed can be trained to fill these jobs? ... If more skilled labour is required, why can’t we cut, at least, temporarily, the numbers brought in under family reunion and humanitarian categories? Halving both categories would reduce the annual intake by 35,000. What impact will the current increase have on our population level? When will we achieve those levels? What then? Where will new migrants live? Where will the water come from to service them?

I could continue, but I’m sure you get my drift. Which brings me to my life-long obsession, that governments never connect the dots between increasing population numbers and the ‘crises’ that daily beset our citizens — congested roads, air and water pollution, prohibitive land prices, housing shortages, overcrowded hospitals and schools and so on. And that’s before the impact of climate change."

Full article:

http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/3078096/balance-population-with-quality-of-life.thtml

BiancaDog,

You can read more about the "The Howard Legacy" at the following sites:

http://www.digitalprintaustralia.com/www/bookstore/non-fiction/politics-philosophy/the-howard-legacy.html?vmcchk=1

http://www.theindependentaustralian.com.au/page7.html

Some may find Wilkinson's subject matter and conclusions to be too politically incorrect for their liking. Nevertheless, Wilkinson's book raises a number of important issues which need to be discussed, namely the effects current immigration policies are having on a particular segment of Australian society. Wilkinson shows in detail how Australia's present immigration policies, which effectively favour immigrants of high cognitive ability such as the Chinese, are changing the demographic nature of Australia's elites, the professional and management classes.

As Wilkinson explains:

"In selecting skilled immigrants, those who have done a degree in Australia receive bonus points in the criteria for acceptance for residency. In effect the policy selects those Asians who have higher cognitive ability, predominantly ethnic Chinese. In the ‘knowledge economy’ of today a premium is paid for qualifications and cognitive ability. They and their children (who will inherit their higher intelligence) will fill the professional and managerial ranks in Australia. They will dominate the cognitive class and hence have disproportionate influence in the country. This has important ramifications for both internal and external policies as ethnic demographic change continues."

Forrest Gumpp,

I have no doubt that the Labor Party is using immigration as a means of "electing a new people" (see Bertolt Brecht and his infamous quip) - a new people more amenable to a republic. They hope that traditional Anglo Australia will gradually be minoritised and marginalised by the relentless influx of immigrants from the Third World, thus erasing Australia's historic links and affinity with Britain and clearing the way for a republic.

Efranke,

I would not like to leave viewers under the impression that I identify the hypothesised 'election-riggers' of my earlier post with the Labor party, although it would certainly seem as if their hypothetical influence is effective within the present Labor governments. I speculate that the influence of such 'election-riggers' has extended across the political spectrum as understood by ordinary Australians for quite some time, not even necessarily ever having originated from within the Labor party as some may be keen to believe. I would suggest that, as with that of the contended 'growth lobby' of the article, such influence is not in the interests of Australians at large.

Note daggett's comment of Thursday, 12 February 2009 3:51:04 PM that identifies the high rate of migration presently continuing under Labor as having been escalated shortly after the 2001 elections under Howard: the policy is fixed, the party in government irrelevant.

Likewise, I hope I have not left any viewer with the impression that shadowy interests seeking to change the Australian polity to that of a republic in any way depend in reality upon the actual future citizens represented by the high immigration intakes of recent years, and their legitimate future votes, to achieve their objectives. The secret ballot is a two-edged sword. I believe election rigging could bring that result about overnight, indeed could have brought it about in 1999, so far as an officially declared result was to have been concerned. I'm suggesting the high migration level is seen by such interests as being necessary in order to preserve the BELIEVABILITY, in the public eye, of the sort of result they could have secured at any time over recent years, but yet choose to delay.

With the sustenance of believability in any change to the polity of Australia that may be brought about will come the circumstance that the republic achieved will be that of the growth lobbyists/election-riggers, not that of Australians.

Its all about believability.

The Australian body politic has a malignant growth. It needs the therapy of transparency.

Forrest Gumpp wrote, "... the (immigration) policy is fixed, the party in government irrelevant."

I think it would be wrong to conclude that the choice, for example, in the 2007 Federal elections was not important, as I have often said on Online Opinion.

It was bad enough having John Howard win in 2004, but had Howard won in 2007 after his almost countless outrages against democracy and human decency, then there would have been no effective limit to the depth below which governments could not stoop and not be rebuked by the people.

The removal of the Howard Government was a necessary, if obviously insufficient condition for the re-establishment of healthy democracy in this country.

The answer to the problem we not face cannot be a return to the Liberal Party.

We have to find ways to build alternative political movements that are not corrupted in the same way as the major parties are. It could be through struggles to reform existing political parties or it could occur completely outside of them, or it could be some combination of both.

However, if this doesn't occur the cycle we are in will continue until either Labor or the Liberals will have led us over the abyss.

I think this would be one good place to start a discussion on how we can hope to move forward out of this mess.

Whilst the Greens stand for a lot of good things, they seem, on the whole, unequal to the task before them. One of many examples I could give is Bob Brown backing away from his previous principled stance on population a few months ago ("Australian Greens leader questions population growth" of 18 Sep 2008 at http://candobetter.org/node/806). On 29 January, he was reported as opposing the curbing of immigration for environmental reasons (see http://www.watoday.com.au/national/population-debate-booms-20090129-7t5f.html).

Forrest Gumpp,

The reasons why I singled out the Labor Party are simple: they are the most pro-republic of the two major parties and they also have a history of cynically using immigration to further their own political ends. Recall during the Hawke-Keating era when the family reunification immigration stream was dramatically expanded and systematically rorted to provide ethnic branch stacking fodder for the ALP, and to satisfy the demands of multiculturalists seeking to impose their vision of a more "diverse" Australia. As if to rub salt in the wounds of the very people the ALP once claimed to represent, the Anglo-Australian working class, this influx of mainly unskilled, non-English speaking migrants occurred during a period of economic instability and high unemployment.

Given the Labor Party's past behaviour, it is certainly not a stretch of the imagination to suggest that large-scale Third World immigration is being welcomed, possibly even actively encouraged, by some within the ALP who wish to undermine traditional Anglo Australia and gradually replace it with a new population which does not identify with Australia's British heritage and which has no affinity for the Monarchy.

As for "fixing" immigration policy, i.e. implementing an immigration policy which is no longer captive to special interests and which puts the interests of the majority of Australians first, I cannot see it happening unless serious efforts are made to end the tyranny of the two-party system.

Forest Gump,

Your comments about election-rigging are interesting and I am sorry not to be in any position to evaluate your methods of establishing this etc.

However I can support from another angle your supposition about disorganising society to change political trends to favour more growth etc. Any large-scale immigration disrupts self-government. It need not even be from overseas. Perhaps the most destructive kind of immigration is in the floods of people capitalising on real-estate close to the city and moving further out into communities which had some solidarity. Wedge-in a new 'estate' and you blow a whole lot of cohesion and networking and local knowledge out the window. Subjugate local government to State authority (developer driven) and you disempower that local community. Legislate this disempowerment to all local communities and you have third world style authoritarian government. Citizens then have no peaceful recourse against the reduction of their rights, incomes and quality of life to third world economic and social standards as big-business and government, now one, commodify land, water and even citizenship, globally to the highest bidder.

Self-government (democracy) at a local level is incredibly important. It allows us to be adults, whereas distant government effectively disenfranchises us to child-like status. Local self-government is fundamental to establishing local catchment limits to growth and harmonious relationships between land-holders, and control over 'crowds' and various kinds of human movement by the people who have to live with the consequences and can see better than most what they will be. For instance - whether to ban livestock and food gardens, or to build a marina, or a new school,dam or road. All such changes to infrastructure have significant local consequences and failure to obtain informed agreement at local level will sow bad seeds which will grow into mature consequences. A further factor is the pace of change associated with rapid population growth and commercially driven devlopment; democracy simply cannot keep up, even if the structure of democracy had not been destroyed.

Where did you get that tinfoil hat version of Australian political history, Efranke? I think you're confusing the ALP with the greedy Jews from Nazi propaganda posters, rubbing their hands together and conspiring to destroy society just for the fun of it.

Like it or not, monarchy and British heritage are no more relevant to modern Australia than witchcraft trials and living knee-deep in one's own s--t.

Oh, and in case you haven't been keeping up, the former, Liberal, government increased immigration to the highest level ever. I don't know which party you'll find these days to keep Australia for the white man and make sure all those brown people are off the streets.

I have been meaning to spell out more clearly that the article is based upon the Masters Thesis of population sociologist Sheila Newman "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France" downloadable as 2.5MB pdf file from http://candobetter.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/GrowthLobbyAndAbsence-Newman-2002.pdf

The 248 pages at the core of the document give a very interesting historical perspective to the situation we now face.

The gold rushes of the mid 19th century spurred a real estate speculative bubble similar to what we see today. Just as they do now, speculators subdivided the Australian colonies and hoped for population growth to deliver them unearned fortunes at the expense of existing residents, new arrivals and the natural environment.

That ended with the crash of the 1890's.

After the crash, people refused to have large families and the numbers of immigrants dwindled.

During the early 20th century the growth lobby influenced legislators to introduce all sorts of measures to control women's fertility, such as requiring births to be registered at hospitals and taking control of childbirth (and abortions) largely out of the hands of midwives and giving it to male obstetricians.

Of course they worked their hardest to encourage immigration to Australia, but failed until after WW2.

(Interestingly, with a population of 7 million in the 1940's Australia was one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. It established self-reliance and was able to deter the Japanese from invading even before their setback at the "Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. This is the thesis of Andrew Ross's monumental but neglected "Armed and Ready" of 1995 as discussed in my article "The myth of the Howard Government's defence competence" of 21 November 2007 at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6665&page=0 so there was no actual imperative to dramatically increase our population after the war, contrary to the popularly accepted myth.)

Sheila Newman is also editor of "The Final Energy Crisis" (2nd edition) which I cannot recommend too highly. It shows how we cannot hope to sustain a perpetual growth economy ... (tobecontinued)

Being and Nothingness

(continuedfromabove) ... given the constraints of our limited endowment of fossil fuels. At some point we will exhaust our supply of solar energy conveniently packaged for us over many tens of millions of years and will have to return to living off what solar energy falls on the earth's surface using solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc.

It is obvious that we won't be able to sustain the same population with the same material consumption that we are used to.

For more about "The Final Energy Crisis" visit http://candobetter.org/TFEC http://candobetter.org/FinalEnergyCrisis

My review is at http://candobetter.org/node/938

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rpg wrote, "I have no issue with bringing more people to Australia, we can convert the deserts in time, ..."

If you had been following the discussion in the wake of the bush fires, you must surely have noticed hysterical anti-environmental voices effectively calling for the removal of trees around houses as a 'solution' to the bushfire threat.

So, rather than converting deserts into forests, it would seem that we will be converting forests into deserts to accommodate population growth.

When and how do you imagine that we will commence converting desert back into forest or arable land?

Don't you think we should first wait until we have established that we can convert deserts back into forests before we further increase our population?

Ironically, it is those now pushing for out of control population growth, who are destroying whatever capacity this country now has to support any population remotely comparable to its current population.

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Mark O'Connor will be launching his book "Overcrowding Australia" in Brisbane this week, starting at:

The Redland Performing Arts Centre Auditorium on

On Friday 20 February at 4.30pm (refreshments served from 4pm).

For other appearences, see http://candobetter.org/node/1030#OverloadingAustralia-QldLaunch http://candobetter.org/node/1067

(BTW, contrary to the mistaken impression that erricc may have, I am not a member of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) even though I fully support its goals and will do what I can to support it when it advances those goals, such as by promoting the above meeting.

I was a committed member for three years until May 2008.)

Sancho wrote, "Oh, and in case you haven't been keeping up, the former, Liberal, government increased immigration to the highest level ever. ..."

Sancho, do you happen to approve of the current situation in which majority of Australians who oppose high immigration are not represented in Parliament by either of the major parties?

Bob Hawke once boasted that he had enforced 'elite as opposed to popular views on immigration.' (O'Connor and Lines pp104-105). From what you have written I imagine that you would also heartily approve.

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Efranke, I am also concerned that Australia could end up becoming a Chinese colony in more ways than one. I will definitely try to obtain a copy of "The Howard Legacy". Thank you for telling me about it.

In my adolescence I once overheard two elderly women talk about how it would not be them the younger generation (presumably referring to me) who would have to face up to the threat of China. Of course the alleged threat of China had been used in the 1960's to justify our unjust war against Vietnam.

However in the decades since then, the threat has changed from one conjured up by Cold War propagandists to one that seems very real.

I just heard on the news just now that the Chinese are snapping up mining companies at 20%-30% of their market value only a year ago.

According to the Courier Mail's story "Chinese bid $2.6bn for OZ" of 17 Feb 09 at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25065827-3122,00.html about Beijing-base Minmetals bid to take over Queensland mining company OZ (which was formed out of a marriage of two companies Oxiana and Zinifex):

"... it promises to be a major policy headache for the Federal Government, as the Foreign Investment Review Board struggles to balance Australia's national interest with the need to maintain good diplomatic relations with China."

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(continuedfromabove)

So in other words, we appear to have lost much of our national sovereignty as the Australian Government hesitates to prevent a buyout of our mineral wealth for fear of offending our powerful neighbour to the north.

I think Malcolm Fraser and all his successors should be put on trial for having allowed this to happen.

I wonder how John Curtin, Ben Chiefly or those who fought to defend this country during the Second World War would regard this generation of political 'leaders' who appear bent on giving away our sovereignty as fast as they can manage?

I will be standing as a candidate in the Queensland state elections, largely against population growth.

For more information see "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" at http://candobetter.org/node/1121
Contents:
End privatisation - stop the liquidation of Queensland,
End Queensland Government encouragement of population growth,
Demand action against homelessness and housing unaffordability, Labor's coal exports - a crime against this and future generations of humanity,
Why a vote for me is not be a wasted vote,
To intending Labor voters:,
To intending Green voters:,
To intending Liberal National Party voters:,
What you can do.

See also http://candobetter.org/QldElections http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

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James Sinnamon
author

End all public sector jobs and give families tax benefit vouchers for their services which can be delivered by the private sector and watch the population drop naturally.

I guess there is hardly any need to discuss any political question at all, is there, given that the solution to everything is so blindingly simple as Dallas insists?

I wonder if Dallas would care to explain where his/her magic prescription has been tried and has been found to have solved all of society's problems in the way he/she insists that it would have and, if so, why he/she thinks that that example has not been more widely emulated?

I see that Dallas is unable to find her voice.

What a shame! I would have so loved to be convinced that such a simple solution to all our problems exists.

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An article, which may be of interest is "Lawrence Springborg responds to Brisbane Save The Mary River Questionnaire" at http://candobetter.org/node/1130 http://candobetter.org/QldElections

The teaser is:

On 8 March I responded to a questionnaire from the Brisbane "Save The Mary River" group and sent copies to other candidates contesting the seat of Mount Coot-tha, as well as to Premier Anna Bligh and to Opposition Leader Lawrence Springborg. Lawrence Springborg replied almost immediately that same day. I responded to ask that he act against the principle driver of .Queensland's water crises, namely population growth now actively encouraged by the Bligh Government.

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James Sinnamon

Independent anti-population growth
candidate for Mount Coot-tha
http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

James Sinnamon "daggett", Good luck with your undertakings in convincing the residents to vote for you on Saturday. It will be interesting to read the results, of all those individuals who decided you polices were going to help them.

Ps did you circulate a proforma petition on anti- population on your rounds while campaigning

The result of, as of 28 March, is 146 votes, or 0.62% of the formal vote, cannot be described as good (see http://virtualtallyroom.ecq.qld.gov.au/elections/state/state2009/results/district56.html) and I haven't tried to dodge that fact (see preliminary article "What was achieved by my election campaign?" at http://candobetter.org/node/1158 http://candobetter.org/QldElections).

However, as I had almost no media exposure, very few Mount Coot-tha voters would have been able to decide for themselves whether or not my "policies were going to help them" as Dallas put.

In all I printed roughly 1,400 brochures and handed out (I guess) 650 in person and put the rest in letter boxes, mostly hurriedly on the night of Friday 20 March as time ran out. I spoke for 10 minutes to about 40-50 Mount Coot-tha electors for 10 minutes and answered questions at a 'meet the candidates' night on 16 March. I was interviewed once for 5 minutes on Radio 4ZZZ FM. I got two token mentions, only once in person, on ABC's local Radio station, but was not able to tell its listeners anything about myself.

I was not even able to tell ABC listeners the name of my web site. Had I been able to do so, a number of listeners would have been able to obtain a lot of the information that they were crying out for, not just about myself, but other candidates, including independents, Greens and even Labor and LNP caniddates.

I spoke before an audience of supporters of another independent candidate Dave Zwolenski (http://vote1honestdave.com.au/) on 19 March. Although the audience was very supportive, I think it unlikely that many of them would have given me their first preference over Dave.

Other than that my only exposure was my web site, which, whilst gaining increasing numbers overall, evidently attracted far too visitors interested in my campaign, in particular, on the part of Mount Coot-tha electors, to have made the impact I was hoping for.

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(continuedfromabove)

Even though I grew up in the area, I moved away in 1976 and only moved back four and a half years ago. As I live a largely physically reclusive life, largely devoted to internet activism, when I am not working for a living, my profile in the area is not as high as I would have liked it to have been. So the number of votes I can rely on from friends and relatives is not high.
So, the result for me wasn't altogether unexpected.

Still, I believe my reasons for standing were sound.

Whilst others on OLO have also attempted to use the results to ridicule me (see "9/11 Truth" forum at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2166&page=81#59277) none have accepted my challenge to show where my reasons for standing (see "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" of 9 March 2009 at http://candobetter.org/node/1121) were unsound .

COURIER MAIL, ABC BACK HOUSING DEPARTMENT OF MAIN ROADS LAND GRAB

On 25 March Madonna King, the morning presenter of Brisbane's local ABC radio station gave her listeners a small glimpse of how the Queensland Government's frenzy of road construction is destroying the lives of many ordinary citizens. However, the case of those standing up to the Government was undermined when she stated that 'you can't stop progress', a view which curiously echoes what was stated in the previous day's editorial (http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25230270-13360,00.html) in the Courier Mail, which her husband is editor of. (http://candobetter.org/node/1165)

The follwing article may be of interest:

"SEQ Regional Plan a travesty against the people of South East Queensland" at http://candobetter.org/node/1221

The Queensland Government’s Draft South East Queensland Regional Plan (http://www.dip.qld.gov.au/regional-planning/draft-regional-plan-2009-2031.html), far from achieving its lofty claimed goals of "protect(ing) and enhanc(ing) the quality of life", landscape values, biodiversity and natural assets of the region, will, instead, turn even much of that region into an economically depressed, crowded and ecologically unsustainable slum for no better purpose than to keep profits flowing into the pockets of the growth lobby which largely bankrolls the ruling Queensland Labor Party.

Firstly, it was necessary for me to unpublish the article I mentioned in the previous post. It will be republished when I have a final version.

My apologies.

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I have since finished writing another article which, although appearing to be slightly off topic may be of interest:

"Brisbane ABC suppresses alternative candidates in state elections despite listener dismay with major parties" at http://candobetter.org/node/1159 http://candobetter.org/QldElections

The teaser is:

"Brisbane's local ABC radio station 612 (http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/radio/http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/radio/) disregarded its own listeners' expressed dissatisfaction with both the major parties when, during the 2009 Queensland state elections, it refused any air time to local independent candidates. Instead, virtually all the available time was given over to candidates from the governing Labor Party or the Opposition Liberal National Party, who according to the ABC's own listeners, provided little useful information."

It is largely because the ABC refuses to challenge the Growth Lobby or the politicians who do its bidding that it has gained the stranglehold that it has over this country's policy direction.

I have advised the Brisbane local ABC radio staff of the article and have invited them to post comments if they think the article is not fair to them.

Anyone else who disputes the argument put in the article and who believes that the Brisbane ABC behaved fairly and reasonably during the course of the 2009 Queensland state elections is also welcome to post their comments.

Firstly, and expanded version of the the article
"SEQ Regional Plan a travesty against the people of South East Queensland" mentioned above has been republished at http://candobetter.org/node/1221

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Secondly, I urge everyone to read Tim Murray's excellent article "Sustainable tourism: an oxymoronic delusion?" now published on Online Opinion at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8891&page=0 http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8891&page=0 and http://sinkinglifeboat.blogspot.com/2009/02/sustainable-tourism-oxymoronic-delusion.html

Some of it bears repeating here:

"... cities that offer substantial leisure amenities grow an average 2 per cent more than they would have grown had they had fewer amenities. This seemingly trivial increment has an exponential impact. ... a town will double its population in just 17.67 years if it is a popular tourist destination.

"In fact, tourism provides a more accurate forecast of future population growth than any other factor, according their conclusions. Tourists come to visit, and almost instantly resolve to stay - some day. They typically snap up once cheap property, and then drive up the cost of living for those who had welcomed them. Some locals simply cannot pay for escalating property prices. Others can’t even pay the higher rents.

"It is my observation and contention that this growth overwhelms the most vigilant defence of natural ecosystems, as well as gentrifying small localities and effectively pricing local inhabitants out of the real estate market. Locals, or their children, become a low wage service class that caters to the needs of the richer migrants while struggling economically to remain in the community they grew up in. To add insult to injury, many of the relatively wealthy newcomers appear in the guise of environmental crusaders who demand sacrifices of the locals while living immodestly themselves.

"Visitors to impressive destinations typically purchase real estate as a holding property to await their retirement or for summer vacations and often withhold it from the rental market of local young or poor residents. The host community then comes to resemble a ghost town in the winter and a booming madhouse in the summer, with service workers subsisting on low wages while scrambling to find affordable housing in this now gentrified environment."