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The Forum > Article Comments > Population growth, consumers and our ecological ruin > Comments

Population growth, consumers and our ecological ruin : Comments

By Tim Murray, published 26/5/2009

The new economy of real estate growthism relies on an immigration fix and birth incentives for its energy.

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Well said Tim! So much of Australian immigration policy can be seen as the result of the influence that the major developers have over both main political parties - paid for by huge donations. No surprise also the government's response to the GFC - build, build, build, to keep our corporate donors happy. So now it is not enought that they ruin all our children's futures with a mad immigration programme - they are giving away my tax dollars as well to the developers. So much for democracy!
Posted by michael_in_adelaide, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:19:14 AM
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What gets me is the smiles all round when farmland gets turned into housing estates. Living breathing soil is covered in energy guzzling concrete, glass and steel. Pipes connect finite supplies of water and gas. Wires connect largely fossil fuelled electricity. Soon the driveway is adorned with a large fuel guzzling car. Yet we will need that land and energy input to grow food as farming becomes increasingly difficult. When petrol becomes expensive again the cost of a long commute to a CBD job may become prohibitive.

The construction industry should now focus on consolidating the built environment we already have. That includes green makeovers with insulation, smart metering, solar water heaters and so on.
Posted by Taswegian, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:27:21 AM
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Almost every problem that we face on this planet today can be directly or indirectly related to over population. This is unfortunately encouraged by Western governments that almost without exception subsidise their communities to breed. Religions also play no small part as they don't want to fall behind in their influence. The more "souls" they have, the greater their power.

Obviously technology plays a part in minimising bad outcomes in the short term, but even technology has its limits as we can see by casting our eyes around the world. Population increase has to stop sometime but persuading people that we live on a finite planet when all countries are committed to never ending expansion, is a hard task.
Posted by snake, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:40:55 AM
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despite many of your quotes..clearly comming from os,..the sellout of the green..'lobby'..seems to be a universal constant...

clearly the next wave of green is only a sheen over the same old multinationals adopting the green mantra to shepard in their new carbon tax deception

the key seems to be to get consumers[and chase out any creators into low wage states]...the housing situation dosnt transcribe to australia[mainly because we have a huge middle class importation comming

as our skilled workers go os..and we steal the trained os..middle classes..willing to work under the adverse conditions we place on our comunity workers

this decentralisation of workforce due to absurd priced housing costs,has seen the workers needing to travel ever further into the suburbs if only to afford simple needs on the minimised wages, wages the immagrants gladly work for, but find just as hard to make ends meet

the real issue isnt really their wages #
but the life style their wages can afford

maybe its time for decentrlisation..[and many smaller units
not gross centralised powers but decentralised
not too big to fail
Posted by one under god, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 10:42:54 AM
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Population growth is the biggest threat to Australia, and that threat is there because Australian politicians of all persuasions have taken what Bob Carr described as the “lazy” way to sustain the economy.

All Australian governments have kept Australia as a lowly supplier of natural resources to much smarter countries that turn raw materials into consumer goods and sell them back to us. All Australian governments have allowed – perhaps even encouraged – manufacturers to leave Australia. We are now getting dangerously close to American-type dependence on people buying luxury goods from ever-increasing retail outlets for a huge part of our economy - hence the push for greater and greater population increases.

Australian governments now even rely on immigrants to provide the educated classes to run the country in the future because they have been too lazy and too uncaring to educate our own children who are rapidly becoming unemployable. Our ignorant ‘leaders’ laughed at the smartest politician Australia has ever had, Barry Jones, when he tried to push for a ‘clever’ Australia. Who can forget the sneering at his “spaghetti drawings” by his moronic colleagues, including those of his own party who are now in Government?

Australian Governments and the building industry are the villains. Nothing more need be said about the big building industry: they are there for profit, the more the better, and if they can con politicians (not very hard to do), who can blame them? But, there is no excuse for governments.

Continued...
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 11:21:41 AM
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...continued

Australian Governments of both parties are a disgrace. Howard’s attitude to education and the development of Australia as a knowledge nation not reliant on immigration is plain to see in Peter Wilkinson’s “The Howard Legacy”. His ‘tough’ attitudes were a blind for the real dirty work being done in universities selling visas to overseas students instead of producing our own educated elite. Rudd – well we can still watch what he is up to: importing even more people than Howard to spend, spend, and spend. The trouble is, most of them coming now can’t speak English well enough to get a job – if there were any jobs, and we all end up keeping them on the dole. Rudd is, however, determined to increased immigration, both legal and illegal.

Tim Murray’s reference to the buying of environment-driven NGO’s by governments and developers in Canada is interesting, but it must also be occurring here. How many of these high-profile environmentalists we have here are heard to talk about population sustainability these days? Tim Flannery was all mouth on the subject once. He thought that 13 million people about right for Australia. Since his Australian of the year award, he has not made a peep about population.

Given the power of big business, the money they give to political parties and, most of all, our elected dictatorships, there is not much chance of any change.

Australia, I’m sorry to say, is stuffed
Posted by Leigh, Tuesday, 26 May 2009 11:36:32 AM
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