It is interesting that the growthists are focussing on Bob Birrell's motivations, not the validity of his arguments.

David Jennings asserts that he would wreck the economy, but the 2006 Productivity Commission report modelled the effect of doubling skilled migration (see p. 151). They found a trivial per capita benefit, with average income per hour worked actually falling.

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0006/9438/migrationandpopulation.pdf

This is consistent with the 2008 House of Lords report in the UK and the 1997 American Academy of Sciences report. The elite want mass migration because the bigger overall economy and the distributional effects will make them richer, not because it is in all our interests.

Runner asserts that we have plenty of water for a larger population. If that is the case, why is there so much conflict over it in rural areas? The Murray Darling Basin (MDB) is responsible for 40% of our agricultural production.

"Consumptive water use across the MDB has reduced average annual streamflow at the Murray mouth by 61 per cent", according to the CSIRO 2008 Sustainable Yields report. Of course a much higher proportion is taken in a drought year.

http://www.csiro.au/files/files/pna0.pdf

In the cities, desalinated water costs 4-6 times as much as dam water and is a prodigious consumer of electricity. There is no way that the politicians would even consider it if the cities hadn't outgrown their natural water supplies. Utility bills have gone up by 50% in the past 3 years, and that is just the beginning.

The price of a median house went from 3.3 years of the median wage in 1970 to 7.4 years in 2005, and considerably more in the metropolitan areas.

http://www.findem.com.au/factsheets/housingfactsheet.pdf

Runner wants to blame it on young people wanting to have it all, but the major cause of the increase is the cost of residential land (from 30% of the price to 70-80% in the cities, even though block sizes are much smaller). In my community, those small workingmen's houses that were built in the 1950s and 60s are still occupied. They just cost a lot more in real terms

Our lucky country, as many of us who have been migrants, and some of those we would be better without. The population of Australia, is in the region of 22,000,000, less than the city of London, I don't think that our rainfall is less (in some places) and our water storage isn't too bad, just that we have to look after it a bit better. When I was in the UK recently, you only got about 10 or 12 seconds of water out of the shower until you pushed the button in for more, and as Australia is about 25 times the area of the UK, and the population is 400 times more per sq kilometer in the UK, we can't complain about water shortage. Every country either has a recession or depression, or close to it. If you look at the internet "Brief history of Ausrtalia's tax", "History of Australia's tax" this only goes back to 1970, but when the top tax is low, there is a recession or depression, look also at "Tax history of US" and "Tax around the world". If you look at the dates, you will see that when the top tax is low, there is that recession, when the top tax is high (best results when 66.6%), the economy is good. Too many think it is the other way around, but a high tax is a Deterrent to high incomes. The only trouble is that our powers tobe don't have enough to manage the tax so we get only that 30.1% of GDP that is generally needed to manage the finance of the country.

Divergence

At p151 the Productivity Commission actually says that per capita income will rise by $383 pa if skilled migration rises by 50%.

Did you think that nobody would check?

Not sure if we can rely on the rest of your claims.

jjplug stated

"At p151 the Productivity Commission actually says that per capita income will rise by $383 pa if skilled migration rises by 50%.

Did you think that nobody would check?"

Which basically translates to $1 PER DAY extra income. That's a huge benefit.

Still it shows that your side of this debate has a few problems with the truth.

Assuming that Australia has 25 million people thats then $9575,000,000 or 9.5 billion. Is this still a small amount?

At p152 it states that the benefit rises to at least $10 billion a year if Australia cuts out the racism. ;-)

I disagree,

Divergence stated there was a trivial increase in per capita benefit. You then stated that there was actually a per capita benefit of $383 dollars pa. So on average most people are $1 per day better off. That, I think is trivial.
Also you neglected to state that on the same page of the report ( page 151) it also states that to achieve this $383 pa increase ( 0.71 % increase) people have to work 1.18% more hours.
Again on the same page you neglected to also add that it states this per capita increase of 0.71% is NOT evenly distributed among the population. The main benefits are to the migrants themselves and the owners of capital. The resident Australian workers are actually WORSE off, with their incomes growing MORE slowly than they would have been without immigration. In other words, the RESIDENT AUSTRALIAN WORKERS incomes WOULD BE GREATER without the added immigration.

So not only is there a trivial $1 per day per worker average increase in incomes, but this increase is NOT evenly spread. The greatest increase goes to migrants and the rich, with the ordinary Austrlian workers being WORSE OFF with added IMMIGRATION.