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.