Well said Jenny.

Population will again rise as a big issue in 2013, as the federally registered STABLE POPULATION PARTY gives all Australians choice on 'the everything issue' at the 2013 federal election.

"it means a significant cut in immigration, a halving in fact."

Why just half? Why not go all the way?
Why is it that even critics of high immigration can never just bite the bullet and say *no*?

Don't worry, the figures will never reach those projections anyway.
With 3 out of 4 immigrants now being non-European, there will inevitably be a tipping point, when Australians finally twig that they're being *eradicated*.
The population will reduce significantly shortly afterward.

This article couldn't be more timely. What's to be gained from a bigger Australia? Nothing, but more of the problems we have now. Instead of scaling down our government-engineered population growth in response to sustainability issues, it's being ramped up! Immigration is increasing to post-war records, and many categories are unlimited. At a time of threats to scarcity of natural resources, conflicts, climate change, a surge in asylum seekers, rising oceans etc, the economic-growth model should be scaled back, NOT escalated! It's wrong and counter-intuitive.

Bipartisan support for "big Australia" means that our population growth and immigration levels are NEVER discussed openly, or debated in parliament. It's closed policy, and contrary to any democratic debate. The vast majority of Australians do not want a "big Australia", or our ongoing population growth. It impacts on city planning, our environmental stability, our costs of living and makes mockery of being "sustainable" in any form of the word. The world's surging towards 9 billion people, and the planet has never had so many humans. An economy based on perpetual growth is illogical, counter-intuitive and possibly lethal. It's the "elephant in the room" of climate change, declining natural resources and species extinctions. Voters must make sure of political parties' population policies, their candidate's view on the topic of immigration and baby bonuses/conservation etc.

Jenny while it is easy to agree with your main argument, that we must curb our ridiculous population growth, you must fight the right enemy.

Yes this huge influx of people is bad for the people of Oz, but it is the economics that don't work. With the existing population struggling just to keep up with infrastructure spending to support itself, the immigration add too much burden to carry, without drastic reductions in our standard of living.

Looking at just education & health care we can see very real fall in our standards. Continue in this vane, & we will become the poor, almost white, trash of Asia. Not something I desire for my grand kids.

However you go off the rails when you start talking climate change & peak oil as our main dangers. If these dangers actually exist, they are very minor compared to the fifth column with in.

It is the headlong rush to tie up all our assets by the radical green minority that is our most dangerous problem.

The Murray Darling irrigation is not being shut down by anything but a grab for the water by an unholy alliance of green ratbags, South Australian interests, & a nutty bunch who want a raging Snowy river before food production.

Then we see vast areas of the Reef, & now the Coral Sea becoming marine parks. These very lightly fished areas are removed from production, with our sea food supply to come from much more heavily exploited areas.

If you are to win this fight, you will have to switch to the right enemy, or you will find will find a useless & helpless Oz, bequeathed to our kids.

Jenny, this is a useful contribution to the debate but speaking as one who has studied and worked in this area for a long time I have to say that it is not as simple as your article seems to suggest.

There are as you say a number of components of population change. Very little is actually amenable to effective direct government intervention. Fertility rates are very little influenced by baby bonuses and the like. The fluctuations in the TFR you note had more subtle influences than the baby bonus. If Australia follows every other developed nation we can expect to see the TFR continue downward, perhaps stabilising at around the 1.3-1.5 level. That has major structural implications for the population.

Mortality rates are also not amenable to government policy although of course there are indirect influences. No government is going to promote an increase in mortality. We can however expect an ongoing increase in life expectancy which will compound the situation referred to above with sub-replacement fertility levels.

Migration is the third component but is much less susceptible to change than many think. Outward migration is to all intents and purposes free of controls. The rate of outflow reflects a number of influences, including but not limited to economic conditions.

The migration inflow consists of returning Australian residents/citizens, who are not subject to control, New Zealanders who are similarly free to come and go, migrants and refugees. Only the latter two groups are really subject to direct government policy initiatives, but their relative impact on growth depends on all the other factors which are not so subject. There is also a time lag factor.

But I agree it is a debate worth having, especially if we stick to the facts and not get lost in vague concepts such as "big Australia".

'A smaller population will find it easier to adapt to the coming crises of climate change and higher oil prices '

Yea I heard this in the 1970's at school. Still we have a much higher standard of living than then, petrol is still very affordable and the ice age predicted failed to occur. We are a land with plenty to share. Most Australians want immigration in an orderly fashion unlike the current situation set up by a very incompetent Government. A few more doctors and hospitals would be in order although I take it the Government has wasted to much on pink bats, failed green schemes and handouts to be able to afford them.

If we don't grow with peace loving people eventually Islam will rule here.

Good timing on this Jenny,
There is no doubt that Australia needs to develop a more resilient society. Comments like those from the anonymous Runner, represent a very small an ignorant minority. Most people understand that we live in a finite world and that we are rapidly consuming its non-renewable and slowly renewing resources. Runner is ignorant of the fact that there are now over 1 billion with not enough to eat. That was the total world population just 3 life spans ago!
Australian fertility rates have also moved upward in recent times in response to high levels of immigration from regions where larger families are the norm. It can take 2 generations before the incomers adjust to a lower fertility rate.
At the next federal election there will finally be a choice on the matter with the Australian Stable Population Party standing candidates for the Senate in each state. The newly released Greens Policy holds no hope of settings for a stable population. Its just business as usual, which means 3.2% pa growth here in Western Australia!

Peter,
You are right on mostly all counts.

3 life spans ago there was no arab uprising or outward swell by them into other nations.
In just my lifetime, the area in England where I was raised as a child is now a no-go zone for white skinned people. This has exploded in just 45 years.

With this example we can therefore assume it can happen here in the same time frame.

In those 45 years those people have yet to reduce their rate of child production, as 1: it is part of their present religious convictions to produce a minimum of 10 children and 2: it helps to swell their ranks.

20 and 30 year old muslim youths have been reported as plotting and carrying out terrorism acts in England [the country of their birth!] and training abroad with jihadists and al quaeda.

Maybe the Greens should pay a visit to England. Only then will they be able to have a clear picture of the effect Muslims can have on a society.

Yes, our resources are finite. The present population of Australia mainly live on only the fringe of a vast desert., and the plain truth is we can't support many more than we already have.

Who can explain why our leaders both here and in the rest of the world refuse to acknowledge the simple truth that the earth is already overcrowded and take action to at least halt the spiral.

I said before - a carrot and stick approach could be used. For families who limit their birth rate to 2 children per family, financial reward in the form of payment. However, this should also be accompanied by a stick - either penalise those who give birth to more children, or enforce sterilisation. There will always be those for whom the rule should be relaxed. Here I'm thinking of the families who have children with birth defects.

For those who lose a child through death, adoption could be offered. There are always enough innocent children without parents in orphanages who would be overjoyed to gain a family.

"In those 45 years those people have yet to reduce their rate of child production, as 1: it is part of their present religious convictions to produce a minimum of 10 children and 2: it helps to swell their ranks."

This is a classic example of ignorant bigotry outrunning any possible factual basis. Just two illustrations. A Pew Research study published in January 2011 showed that the TFR of Muslim women in the UK was 2.2 in 2010 and was projected to decrease to 2.0 by 2030.

Pakistani women immigrants had a TFR of 3.5; their daughters are already down to 2.5.

In Iran the TFR dropped from about 7.0 in 1980 to 1.7 this year.

There is no country in the world, irrespective of religion, that has an objective of a TFR of 10, much less that it has been achieved. There is a direct correlation between poverty and high birth rates. Those same poor countries also have very high death rates so the high birth rate did not translate to high population growth rates. As development occurred, and in particular education for women and access to safe contraception, the birth rate has dropped dramatically, irrespective of the religious basis of the population.

As I said in my first post, it would be a useful debate if one stuck to the facts. Unfortunately, as is all too often the case, such topics only provide an excuse for the ignorant and bigoted to creep out of the woodwork.

' Most people understand that we live in a finite world and that we are rapidly consuming its non-renewable and slowly renewing resources '

I take it Peter that you are ignorant of the rhetoric back in the 70's. Our living standards were suppose to decrease rapidly. With many more people already in Australia the life expectancy still continues to increase. Our kids also are far better off than what we were. Labelling me ignorant in order to endorse your dogmas really proves nothing.

James,

In Somalia the birth rate is upwards of 5.2 per woman.The country is 99% muslim
In Ethiopia it is more than 5.4 per woman country is approximately 45% muslim
In Afghanistan the birth rate is 5.64
In Senegal 4.78
These are just a few more statistics to add to your list

Aspirations of 10 or more children do not necessarily translate into actuality, though in a very few cases it has done so.
There have been other studies done where some projections have been made ranging from 45% world muslim population by 2030 ranging again to 68% in 2050.

Many other factors contribute to this projection. Maybe the largest is that in Western countries the birthrate has dropped to below the level needed to sustain their present culture.
Regardless, two inescapable facts remain - our world as we know it is undergoing rapid change, and religion will remain a major player, as will the problem of population growth.

Good to see the Stable Population Party or is it the Sustainable Population Party of Palestine? You get the Monty Python ref. These two are at each others throats in Adelaide. Must be an election happening next year.

Actually the overseas migration estimate for the year ending 31 March 2012 was 197,200 people - 18 per cent higher than that for March 2011 (166,800 people), when net overseas migration reached a four year low. About 170,000 is right.

People who worry about population are really worried about people, which makes them odd and very turn of the century. They also tend to make sweeping statements about cutting immigration, not feeding hungry people and getting down and dirty with some mild boggling antidemocratic policies which truly belong online and not in the material world.

Factor in that we export more food than we know what to do with. We can generate more power well in to the next century or longer (don't mention brown coal). Water is always a problem but the Greens won't let us build dams.

The anti-population parties will certainly garner some far left and right wing votes but they are more of a sociological phenomenon which rises up every 50 years or so when change rears its head. Its the only political party which wants fewer Australians to vote year on year because it will legislate for fewer Australians.

So we have a PM who is against a big Australia. But she is leading a government that is taking us directly towards a big Australia with a vengeance!

In the two and a half years since she made it patently clear that she is against a big Australia, she has done nothing to swing her government away from facilitating record high population growth.

I am sure that Gillard was genuine when she denounced Rudd’s big OZ. I’m sure she would dearly like to steer the country towards a ‘sustainable Australia’, as she put it.

I can’t help thinking that she brought Bob Carr; long-time stable population advocate, into her government with this in mind, and that she allows back-bencher Kelvin Thomson free rein to speak against population even though it strongly appears to be against Labor doctrine.

But she is presumably completely brick-walled from taking any real action by the manically pro-growth all-powerful big business lobby, which really controls the government and the country.

You amaze me Luddy old mate, to believe Gillard was genuine.

I doubt even she doesn't know when or if she is genuine any more. She has told so many lies, so damn often, she can't have any idea what she said, when, if it was a good thing to say, or if she meant it.

You should volunteer as an advisor for her, if you know what she means, perhaps you could tell her.

I have no doubt that she was genuine, Hazza.

She had no reason to come out strongly against Rudd’s support for a big Australia. While it might have resonated with lots of ordinary folk, it would have clashed with the economic rationalists’ and vested-interest pro-growthers’ wishes, both of whom Labor is in bed with!

I think that there is a genuine desire amongst many in Labor, if not in the Libs and as well, for a much lower rate of immigration and the achievement of a sustainable Australia. But they are just completely under the thumb of big business.

I see this as the critical issue. We absolute must divorce government from big business. We need to ban political donations, which really are favour-buying bribes, and do whatever else we can to make government independent of the vested-interest push for constant rapid expansionism.

If our government listened to the majority view of the ordinary voters out there, they’d cut immigration tomorrow, and progressively reduce it to net zero or something close to it.

And if we could get the immigration rate right down, we'd be 90% of way towards achieving a stable population.

If we continue with the present lunacy of mass migration from non European countries we will be nothing but a chinese satellite by 2050. That is a simple fact. We were never, ever asked if we wanted this to happen to us; it is a tacit agreememnt between the major parties and anyone who criticises it is deemed a 'racist'. By 2050, there will still be Africans in Africa and there will still be asians in asia. The white population in Australia, however will be in decline and a minority in our own country. If any other cultural or ethnic group were threatened with extinction our politicians and academics would be screaming 'Genocide!'. This hypocrisy astounds me. Can anyone explain it?

Cheryl “Actually the overseas migration estimate for the year ending 31 March 2012 was 197,200 people - 18 per cent higher than that for March 2011 (166,800 people)”

Yeah, let's increase immigration 18% every year! Great idea!
You realise that actually ends up DOUBLING in just five years (compound interest, darling).

2011: 166,800
2012: 197,200
2013: 232,600
2014: 274,500
2015: 324,000
2016: 382,300

Real sustainable!

“People who worry about population are really worried about people, which makes them odd and very turn of the century.”

Who'd worry about what people migrate? Aren't they all interchangeable?
You can just take all the Mexicans out of Mexico and fill it with Zulus, Tibetans and Finns and it will magically still be “Mexican”!

“mild boggling antidemocratic policies”

Like citizen-initiated referenda?
Which would put an end to our insane immigration policy quick-smart!

“Factor in that we export more food than we know what to do with.”

Salinity? What salinity?

“We can generate more power well in to the next century or longer”

Wow! One more century, then lights out!
Immigration levels will only be 3,035,839,338,100 per year by then.(18% increase p.a.)

“Water is always a problem.”

Only because we keep increasing the population, while the rain remains the same.
Stupid rain, keep up!

“a sociological phenomenon which rises up every 50 years or so when change rears its head.”

Yes, change is always good.
Unless you're Marie Antoinette, Ernst Röhm, the Dalai Lama, a White South African farmer or a native Fijian.

Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" push was political suicide, despite the media's downplay of it! Julia Gillard is ignoring her first promise to not "hurtle" towards a "big Australia" but it's still happening. Tony Burke, Minister of "sustainable" Australia, remains silent. There's no one topic that's more at the core of many of today's environmental, social, climate change and economic issues - and problems. Nothing can be "filled" eternally, and in a finite world, there's no precedent for perpetual growth. The world's resources are shrinking, while the planet will have 2 billion more people by 2050. The majority of nations do not have immigration. Why is it assumed that Australia can sustain millions more people at a time of multiple threats? We live in the driest continent and our geography is more like that of North Africa than Europe or South East Asia. Living standards are declining, housing is increasingly unaffordable, jobs are harder to get, costs of living are escalating. There's nothing to be gained from "big Australia" and a lot to lose. It's time to stop being blind to our population growth, and vote accordingly - against the elite who will be the only "winners".

The components making up NOM include offshore arrivals under the Permanent Migration and Humanitarian Programs, temporary long-stay migrants such as students and subclass 457 skilled workers.

Be mindful - temporary residents such as international students, temporary skilled workers (457 visa holders), working holiday makers make up about 55-60 per cent of NOM.

The Unstable Pop Party does not know this nor does its mortal enemy in SA the Sustainable Population Australia. What does this say about the quality of candidates if they don't understand the 12/16 rule (how long people - especially students stay) before they are counted as 'residents'?

This is fear mongering of the worst kind and plays to the basest racist elements in the electorate. While these spoon benders and fear-wallahs talk about levelling the elites as if they were some throwback to Mao or Lenin, they really evince a far right wing set of ideals which can be summed as Asians Out.

The reason why both major parties and the Greens will have nothing to do with these social engineering cranks is that the SPA or SPP or what ever they call themselves actually know nothing about social policy and can't even disaggregate a simple population breakdown.

Cheryl- it's irrelevant to what categories the new arrivals are. They are all invited access Australian residency under our liberal immigration policies. There are few nations that reciprocate the immigration policies that we have here. Why must Australia have permeable borders when the contrary, if Australians were to choose to live somewhere else, don't apply? It's virtually impossible for a non-Chinese to gain residency in China. Just look at how hard it is to be permanent residents in our neighbouring countries? We are being victims of "white" or "Western" guilt, assuming that people must come one way only. Immigration is increasing at a time of multiple "shortages", "peaks" and climate change. We should be gently allowing our population to slowly and naturally decline to sustainable levels, in the face of the hardships future generations will have to face. Greed and ignorance in this generation will deprive future generations of what used to be taken for granted. Population growth now is inter-generational theft.

Why would anyone bother responding to the grossly misinformed rants of pseudonym 'Cheryl'? It's unfortunate that such puerile and fact-free opinion is promoted here, or anywhere for that matter. It would be nice to engage in a rational and mature debate on population and sustainability without spurious injections of irrelevant issues such as race or religion by pseudonyms.
Fortunately 'Cheryl' was outed here this year after he wrote a typically warped piece under his real name with all the trademark whacky assertions, exposing his vested interests in the process.

No Viv and PP, the NOM breakdown is a fact not an opinion.

The article is including a proportion of international students and others who return to their home nations. PP simply can't respond because he is apoplectic with rage. How dare someone come up with a fact?

This is far from a singular instance of these university-style clubs glossing over detail. I note it has not been corrected by those who allegedly support reducing the Asian migrant intake on environmental grounds. And these people want to be a political party?

They are an embarrassment.

Viv, would like to give some more detail on your claim re population growth equals intergenerational theft?

I also note that Sandra Kanck sought to roll the remaining Democrat members (is there any?) to try get the numbers for the SPA to be a political party in SA. Desperate or what?

<< Kevin Rudd's "big Australia" push was political suicide >>

TonyB, I think he had committed hari kari well before he made this stupid utterance.

In fact, he was obviously in favour of a big Australia very early on. He boosted the already record-high immigration rate as soon as he won office.

He got away with that scot-free, despite not even mentioning it in the months leading up the election.

In fact I would have thought that a big Australia would be more politically tenable than a stable-population sustainable Australia, because the all-powerful vested-interest business lobby wants rapid population growth, and the general community is not strongly enough concerned to counter this.

.

Rather than responding to Cheryl’s claptrap, we should be concentrating on this thread on how to politically achieve a stable population.

The vast majority of respondents on OLO agree that we should be doing this, so attempting to debate the few detractors is not of a lot of use.

In theory, it is an extremely easy issue to deal with. All we need to do is to reduce immigration to net zero or something of that magnitude. That's it in a nutshell! I’d be happy if this happened over a period of several years, perhaps a decade, just as long as the momentum is started and the desire to achieve a stable population and a sustainable Australia is clearly elucidated.

But the big intractability in the process is the extremely cosy and highly rortiferous relationship between government and big business.

How we overcome this and make government a whole lot more independent should I think be the main focus of all us poppos and sustainabilityists.

I reckon that if we had an independent government, they would be highly inclined to lead us down the path to sustainability without us having to prod and poke them too much. Well.. Labor hopefully would if they have the likes of Gillard, Carr and Thomson in their ranks.

Let’s start off by lobbying for an end to ALL political donations.

Well Ludwig,

I actually don't expect any members of the SPA or Unstable Population People to respond as most blather on about energy or water or food and are mindlessly focused on consumption rather than productivity. Your mob are looking through the wrong end of the telescope and are stuck with that whacko Malthuse in the 18th C.

You never got around to attacking this article on OLO:

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=13640

because it wiped the floor with your current and jaded understanding of Australia's industrial and political economy. If you wish to convince people beyond your own group of group thinkers of the efficacy of your ideas, the anti-pops need to do much more research and critical thinking.

Almost all of the anti-population bearded gnome commentary (except Michael in Adelaide who has departed) over inflates resident long term migration by 50 per cent. You are including short time stayers, 457s and int students. Not only are your first principles wrong, you don't understand the stats. If you don't understand the stats you can't make policy and therefore are not relevant on the Australian political scene.

But you will get votes from the far right - and that is what you are secretly hoping. No need to explain. We understand your divisive popularism.

Cheryl, whoever is included in the figures this year was also included last year, yes?
And it still went up 18%.
Imagine if we had a general population growth of 18%. Yikes!
Yet this is no problem for you.

Ludwig, I dislike public funding even more.
I'd prefer to see an end to both public funding *and* company donations.
Only individual persons should donate, and remove the discouraging bureaucracy.
Only people who donate humungous amounts should have to deal with any reporting obligations.

I also don't think it's just big business pushing this.
The Greens are silent on big immigration, yet are very anti-business.
It think it's mainly the PC/progressive ideology.
Even if big business changed its tune, the lovey-dove crowd would still be demanding we help millions more to a "better life", especially as living conditions in the Third World are only going to get worse.

Excessive immigration is already ruining our environment, degrading our quality of life, straining our infrastructure, pushing up housing costs, driving down wages, intensifying job competition, eroding our historic national identity and culture, and threatening to transform Australia into an incoherent hodgepodge of conflicting peoples and cultures. And yet both the major political parties want MORE, MORE, MORE. What did Australians do to deserve such a treasonous political class?

Both Labor and the Liberals need to explain why they believe Australia needs to be running the largest per capita immigration programme in the world. They also need to explain to us how such massive immigration helps, rather than hurts, the interests of native-born Australians.

While they're at it, perhaps they could explain why they wish to transform the Australian nation as it had evolved by the late 20th Century (a demographically European nation of mostly British Isles ancestry).

Why does Australia have to be transformed via massive immigration? What have they got against it?

Shockadelic wrote: "With 3 out of 4 immigrants now being non-European, there will inevitably be a tipping point, when Australians finally twig that they're being *eradicated*."

One can walk around some of the streets in our capital cities and not see a single white face in areas that were overwhelmingly white Australian only a couple of decades ago. If that isn't ethnic cleansing, then what is?

Oh wait, sorry, it's called "diversity".

I wonder, does "diversity" increase globally if Australia becomes an Asian colony due to immigration in a world already dominated demographically by Asians?

<< I dislike public funding even more. >>

Shockadelic, I’m not too fussed on it either. I reckon big business should pay the same amount that they are now giving in donations, but in such a way that it is not geared towards influencing government decisions.

Perhaps our government should work out how much money they get from donations on average each year, and come up with a tax on business that provides a similar amount, which is biased towards the big businesses that give the big donations.

It is surely a critically important point to strive for real democracy, which cannot happen while our government is very highly influenced by big business. And this is surely of the utmost importance for our future wellbeing.

We should also be appealing directly to all manner of businesses to divorce themselves from the push for continuous expansion and embrace a regime of sustainability.

Let’s start a campaign of ‘outing’ the big donators and criticising them for striving to unduly influence government decision-making. Let’s espouse a no-donations policy as being the right thing to do, and congratulate big companies that don’t make political donations.

Hello VivienneO, welcome to OLO.

Two very good posts.

Cheers.

It says a great deal about the power of the internet forum that the arguments about Australia's population future have moved not one single inch further forward, even after so many airings. Everyone might as well be talking to themselves.

There are the Ludwigs, who believe that "a stable population" is some kind of economic holy grail, despite the fact that this would inevitably lead to stagnation, both economic and cultural. No amount of evidence will convince them that moderate, managed growth has been a fixture of our past, and will continue to be so in the future, to the benefit of us all.

And there are the xenophobes, who invariably use it as a platform to express their fear of anyone not their own colour or religious leanings - professing at every turn that they are neither bigoted nor racist. They use imagery from the fifties, of Enoch Powell's "rivers of blood", to sustain their fight against people who do not share their nineteen-fifties, white-bread, white-man "Australian" values.

The Ludwigs find these a source of embarrassment, of course, little understanding that they are all part of the same team, deep down. "Go away and leave us alone" is the battle-cry of both factions.

Anyone who has spent any time at all outside Australia understands how unbelievably well-off we are here, and how a programme of isolation from the rest of the world - which is deep-down what the Ludwig/xenophobe team craves - is the worst option of all that is open to us.

Helloow Pericles

You are so sooo schitzo!

<< No amount of evidence will convince them that moderate, managed growth has been a fixture of our past, and will continue to be so in the future, to the benefit of us all. >>

Controlled population growth would be just wonderful!

But the sort of growth that you call controlled, ie; our current growth rate, is a million light-years from it.

Real controlled growth would include full control over all the aspects connected to population growth.

If we were to achieve net zero immigration, we would still have a growing population for three or more decades before it stabilised. And hey, even you have said that we can’t keep growing forever!!

I would be more than happy with that level of growth.

That growth rate would presumably be entirely controllable. We would surely be able to start producing real improvements in all infrastructure and services, instead of, as I’ve said a million times before, constantly duplicating everything for ever-more people and suffering declining quality of existing I & S as they become overburdened and stressed out.

So I take it that you have no problem with the closeness of big business to government, and the resultant strong bias towards rapid expansionism (your brand of ‘controlled’ growth) and directly away from a sustainable future?

Thanks for making my point for me, Ludwig.

>>Controlled population growth would be just wonderful!<<

As I have pointed out to you on a number of occasions - a number exactly equal, incidentally, to that which you have completely ignored - we do, in fact, have control over immigration.

Since this is precisely the growth element over which you insist we should exert control...

>>All we need to do is to reduce immigration to net zero or something of that magnitude. That's it in a nutshell!<<

...it is clear that you are reduced to delivering knee-jerk reactions, instead of actually considering a rational response.

Which is exactly the point I made in my previous post: your attitude is so deeply entrenched in your psyche, it is impossible for you to approach the topic in any fashion other than parroting your tired, baseless mantra.

Let's be very clear about this; your position is virtually indistinguishable from that of the bigots. For example, here is drab's sitrep, from a little earlier.

>>Excessive immigration is already ruining our environment, degrading our quality of life, straining our infrastructure, pushing up housing costs, driving down wages, intensifying job competition, eroding our historic national identity and culture, and threatening to transform Australia into an incoherent hodgepodge of conflicting peoples and cultures.<<

You have used every one of these descriptors yourself, with the honourable exception of the incoherent hodgepodge, as a justification to limit immigration.

This places you firmly in the drab camp, who inevitably follow their twisted analysis of immigration's evils with a dissertation on what Australia has "lost" through immigration, in these terms...

>>One can walk around some of the streets in our capital cities and not see a single white face in areas that were overwhelmingly white Australian only a couple of decades ago. If that isn't ethnic cleansing, then what is?<<

Take care, Ludwig. You are that close to being tarred with the same brush.

Pericles,

You like to accuse us of being motivated by bigotry, but we can equally claim that the people on your side are motivated by greed. So far as the business elite is concerned, a bigger population means bigger markets, more opportunities for rent seeking via control of essential resources, such as residential land in the cities, and a cheap, compliant work force. According to the 2006 Productivity Commission report into immigration, the per capita benefit is trivial and mostly distributed to the owners of capital and the migrants themselves. The average worker is actually worse off, because high immigration tends to depress wages. See p. 154 and the graphs on p. 155 and p. 147. This doesn't even consider negative effects from such aspects as crowding and congestion, skyrocketing housing costs, and overstretched and crumbling infrastructure and public services. The rich beneficiaries of mass migration are effectively insulated by their wealth from most of these problems,

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

While migrants create jobs as well as taking them, immigration is currently running at about 4 times the rate of job creation.

http://www.monash.edu.au/assets/pdf/news/cpur-immigration-overshoot.pdf

The US has had similar high immigration policies to Australia, such as you advocate, since the country was opened up to mass migration in 1965. Between 1921 and 1965, US immigration was then around zero net, and all social classes prospered together. To see the changes since then, stagnant real wages for the majority and massive growth in social inequality, take a look at these graphs (among many others) from the State of Working America report.

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4v-change-hourly-productivity/

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4c-change-real-hourly-wages/

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4-ceo-worker-compensation/

Mass migration is not the only factor involved, of course. Some of the others are discussed in economist Dean Baker's "The End of Loser Liberalism", but it is an important one. Not all jobs can be sent overseas.

Where are those marvelous economic benefits you keep talking about? Living in a leafy suburb as you do, you can hardly lecture the rest of us about sharing with the world's poor. Lead by example.

Divergence trots out the Productivity Commission 2006 report so frequently its a blind copy and paste job by now. The terms of ref of the PC only briefly covered the cost and benefits of immigration. He is highly selective in his choice of quotations as both Treasury and Immi are in agreements that targeted immigration, seeking specific skills at specific credential levels across different age levels add long term value to the economy.

If Divergence had read carefully Birrell's report Immigration Overshoot, he would too have discovered that NOM also covers a large proportion of humanitarian, international students and 457 holders. Let me state again that no anti-popuulation advocate here has shown that they understand this.

Divergence would also know that Birrell is strongly against any immigration and is the author of a number of reports which criticise Australia taking international students - although his salary in large part is paid by their fees.

It is also unusual that Ludwig criticises me for 'claptrap' when I have a professional understanding of Australia's labour market and generational strategy. For the last ten years I have written academic papers and spoken publicly on population and higher education and the effects of knowledge transfer.

The real population problem has already happened as six million Boomers were born in Australia between 1945-1964. From about 2020-2040 they will all die. At no time in Australia's history has there been such a mortality rate.

So Ludwig and Divergence's notion of slashing immigration to zero or by any arbitary figure (which they don't understand) is insane. The tax base would fold back to 30 per cent of its current figure which would place the whole pension and health load on to Gen Y and their children. Just for starters labour price inflation would go through the roof forcing up prices across the board.

It's bizarre that people would even attempt to compare Australia's labour market and immigration policies with the US. It shows an ignorance of the fundamentals of how immigration policy is set.

Ludwig and Divergence's 'policies' are laughable and frankly, embarrassing.

Not really, Divergence.

>>Pericles, You like to accuse us of being motivated by bigotry<<

If you looked closely you would have noticed that I was warning Ludwig against bigotry, not accusing him of it. There are plenty of others who fill those shoes quite neatly.

Ah, here's one now...

>>20 and 30 year old muslim youths have been reported as plotting and carrying out terrorism acts in England [the country of their birth!] and training abroad with jihadists and al quaeda. Maybe the Greens should pay a visit to England. Only then will they be able to have a clear picture of the effect Muslims can have on a society.<<

I was merely pointing out to Ludwig that he is using exactly the same basis and rationale as these lovely people for his anti-immigration stance. And it can so easily rub off, I'm afraid.

And you exaggerate, of course.

>>Where are those marvelous economic benefits you keep talking about?<<

Perhaps you can point them out to me?

I do recall remarking upon the consistent rise in our standard of living, but apparently you regard statistics as irrelevant, while scare stories in the Tele and rampant stirring on Today Tonight are truly-rooly true.

>>Living in a leafy suburb as you do, you can hardly lecture the rest of us about sharing with the world's poor. Lead by example.<<

Apart from the fact that my suburb is decidedly non-leafy, being one of the top ten most densely populated parts of Sydney, I'm not sure what this has to do with anything at all. The "you live in a leafy suburb therefore you must be wrong" argument doesn't exactly have legs, you know. Facts are generally considered far more persuasive.

I’ll step straight past the absurd and highly schizophrenic position that Pericles has adopted; of being both in favour of controlled growth and in support of the current growth rate, and concentrate on what we can do about getting our population growth rate down.

Divergence, can I seek your views on this.

Do you think that the in-bed nature of big business and government is as much of a critical factor here as I do?

Can you suggest how we might make government much more independent?

If we had a much more independent government, would we have a much better chance of getting sustainability-oriented policies implemented, or would be still be stuck with manic pro-growthers holding the reins of power?

Pericles, I hate having to respond to your nonsense, but I can't let this one slip.

How is it a “fact” that a stable population, which just means the same *number*, not the same *people*, will “inevitably” lead to economic and cultural stagnation?
The economy can change in any fashion people want, as can culture.
You don't need *more* people for change to occur.

Even if true, why growth through immigration?
Japan has changed dramatically economically and culturally with virtually no immigration.

Even if we need immigration, why does it have to be so incongruent with our demographics/history? Why 3 out of 4 non-European?

I'm sure there's many Europeans who'd love to get the hell out of Dodge before the proverbial hits the fan.

I'm sure there's many White South Africans who'd love to move to Australia, instead of fearing the next massacre will include their farm.

Which leads to this: “And there are the xenophobes, who invariably use it as a platform to express their fear of anyone not their own colour or religious leanings”

Fear? It's not fear of any particular people, it's fear of the accumulative destabilising consequences.
Fear? Or honesty about human nature, about how our brains are wired to react to dissimilar faces, how people need social continuities/familiarities or they cannot function.

No society can exist in a state of extreme “flux” forever.
No individual mind can either.
Flux must be followed by periods of *equilibrium*. That's what we seek.

Perpetual disruption of society can only reap a harvest of mental and physical illness.
Is this not what we see in the West today?

“their fight against people who do not share their nineteen-fifties, white-bread, white-man "Australian" values. “

Or their individualist bohemian-decadent “values”?
The non-European migrants are even more "conservative" than 1950s Aussies!

Do you think those “behead the infidel” types are going to respect my freedom to do “debauchery” or "heresy" in the privacy of my own home?

The West has at least tolerated the “bohemian-decadent” for some time now.
You want authoritarian, heterosexist, patriarchal, racist, conformist, intolerant?
Don't look West, look East.

Cheryl,

Of course there are economic benefits from mass migration - for big business and the rich, who are in bed with our government, as Ludwig put it, and population growth, at least until near the point of collapse, does increase total GNP. But so what? China has a vastly greater GNP than Denmark, but where would you rather live as an ordinary person? What exactly are the compensatory benefits for an Australian family on the median income ro make up for the congestion, exorbitant housing costs, etc.? You accuse me of quoting selectively, but what I have said about the lack of benefit for ordinary people is consistent with other reports from around the world, such as the 2008 House of Lords report in the UK or the 1997 Academy of Sciences report in the US. This is what Prof. Robert Rowthorn (Economics, Cambridge) had to say in the (UK) Sunday Telegraph (2/7/06):

"If you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it. What you cannot do is turn it from being false into being true. And the Government's claim about the economic benefits of immigration is false. As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration.

"There is no evidence from any of them that large-scale immigration generates large-scale economic benefits for the existing population as a whole. On the contrary, all the research suggests that the benefits are either close to zero, or negative.

"Immigration can't solve the pensions crisis, nor solve the problem of an ageing population, as its advocates so often claim. It can, at most, delay the day of reckoning, because, of course, immigrants themselves grow old, and they need pensions."

You keep bringing up the fact that 457 visas, international students, and humanitarian visa holders are included in net immigration, but you don't discuss how many people in these categories actually end up going home. 457 visas and studying in Australia are largely stepping stones to permanent residency.

(cont'd)

Divergence,

I can't spoon feed you info which is freely available on the Immigration website. Approx 84 percent of international students return - that's our loss.

No. 457 visas are not a stepping stone to residency unless sponsorship can be found, which is rare. See recent changes to Australia's international student rules.

Rowthorn is talking about unskilled immigrants in to the UK. The bulk of Australia's immigrants come from has the skilled migration category, plus some humanitarian.

You are not across this issue re citing the Sunday Telegraph from 2006 and citing GDP from China and Denmark as being somehow indicative of anything.

The SPA, the SPGN and God knows what other blather factory, can't even work out who stays and who goes in Australia. But they're real hot at citing newspapers and quotes that concern other countries with different economic and social priorities. Real hot too at saying we're being invaded by Asians when 20 percent of Oz's migrants come from New Zealand and another 9 per cent come from the UK. They're whiteys.

Oh, that's OK, you say.

Lets cut to the chase - if any reporters are out there and want a radio story, ring up any of these spoon benders, fiction wallahs and backyard racists and ask them to talk about migration - who comes and who goes. No idea.

(cont'd) 457 visa holders:

"Four out of five respondents indicated that they would prefer to live permanently in Australia; only 12 per cent stated that they would prefer to live in their home country."

It is clear that a very large majority of 457 visa holders would like to become permanent residents in Australia because they liked the lifestyle and they liked their jobs here. Only a small minority planned to return home at the end of their contracts."

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/pdf/457s_survey_report.pdf

International students:

"Similarly, AEI (2007) reported that in a follow-up of international
students who had graduated in the previous year, 72 per cent had either applied for (36%) or planned to apply (36%) for permanent resident status."

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/obtaining-better-understanding-student-skilled-graduate-visa-programs.pdf

It is true that conditions are not as extreme in Australia as in the US. If there were a State of Working Australia report I would have linked to it, but economist Bill Mitchell's blog has graphs that show the same sorts of trends: rising profit share at the expense of wages and rising productivity without a commensurate increase in wages.

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=11911

One last thing Divergence,

There was a methodology error in the 2006-2011 Census period which accounted for 294,000 more people than we actually had.

So the ABS has downward revised Oz's population growth over the 5 year period 2006-2011, from 1.8% (average annual growth) to 1.5%.

On that note, I wish you all a Happy New Year.

Cheryl,

Your Teflon-coated strategy is to just assert that no negative evidence applies to Australia. You claim that we face disaster when the Baby Boomers retire without mass migration, yet several European countries already have a stable age structure and little or no population growth, but still rank higher than Australia on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index and high on the UN HDI. Just not comparable. The US has had high immigration, but the bulk of the population has had stagnant/declining real wages for decades, while the benefits of economic growth are siphoned up to the top. Again, not comparable. Bob Birrell doesn't like immigration, so he just has to be wrong, despite the evidence. Here is a link to the Fraser Institute report from Canada, which does have a skilled migration program.

http://www.fraserinstitute.org/research-news/display.aspx?id=13504

You give no evidence of benefits to ordinary people. You completely ignore continuing environmental deterioration, as evidenced by the Government’s own State of the Environment reports. You ignore the dangers of thinner safety margins, despite the threats from climate change and other long-term human impacts on our environmental support systems.

Answer to a question taken on notice from Senator Ellison (21/10/08):

“The total percentage of 457 visa holders who have converted to permanent residence is subject to change over time and is therefore difficult to accurately express as a percentage…However, the percentage of Subclass 457 visa holders who have become permanent residents can be provided for a specific point in time. For example, of the 37,430 people who were granted Subclass 457 visas in the 2003-04 program year, 18,441 (49.3 percent) have been granted a permanent residence or provisional permanent visa (as at 19 October 2008).”

Hardly rare, Cheryl.

This article from the OECD Library shows proportions of international students staying on after their study in different countries in 2008/2009. For Australia it is over 30%, not 16% as you claim.

http://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/eag_highlights-2011-en/01/12/index.html;jsessionid=4qod8mg9nlsm.delta?contentType=&itemId=/content/chapter/eag_highlights-2011-14-en&containerItemId=/content/serial/2076264x&accessItemIds=/content/book/eag_highlights-2011-en&mimeType=text/html

It is true that the rules have changed, but the graduates will get temporary working visa rights, giving them another bite of the cherry later on, as for the 457 visa holders.

Gotta love the examples you select, Divergence.

>>Japan has changed dramatically economically and culturally with virtually no immigration.<<

Do you consider Japan's "dramatic economic change" to be a good example of where Australia should be heading? Leaving aside for a moment your suggestion that the country's culture has changed - I see no evidence of this, particularly at Government level - take a look at what happens when population growth disappears:

http://www.stat.go.jp/data/nenkan/pdf/z02-1.pdf

That's the overview, with the line clearly dipping below zero in recent years.

And this is the impact over the years.

http://www.stat.go.jp/data/nenkan/pdf/z02-2.pdf

If you would like to learn more - and I completely understand that you would be reluctant to do so, as you are clearly allergic to facts - have a browse through the whole site, paying particular attention to the spreadsheets available.

http://www.stat.go.jp/english/data/nenkan/1431-02.htm

Work your way through 2- 2, Future Population, and bend your mind to consider the impact on the country's economy and culture when the population dips below 100 million in less than forty years from now.

Oh, don't forget. You chose this example, not me.

This also puzzles me.

>>I'm sure there's many Europeans who'd love to get the hell out of Dodge before the proverbial hits the fan. I'm sure there's many White South Africans who'd love to move to Australia, instead of fearing the next massacre will include their farm.<<

Why would South Africans come here, only to repeat their experience? You are also forgetting - or perhaps ignoring - that South Africa was famous for its apartheid policy, which institutionalized the situation where the 20% of whites exploited the 80% non-whites. That was a cultural imbalance that has no parallel here, nor is likely to have in the future.

Like it or not, we are one of the most stable multinational communities the world has ever known. And there is no indication that this will change.

Apologies, those were of course Shockadelic's examples, not Divergence's.

Easy mistake to make, though.

I knew there was no point.
I should have stuck to my Pericles boycott.

"Do you consider Japan's "dramatic economic change" to be a good example of where Australia should be heading?"

Consider their success over the last *century*.
None of it due to immigration. That's the point I made.

Do any of your graphs have anything to say about the economy? No.
I'm supposed to "bend my mind to consider the impact".
No tell me, show me.

"Leaving aside for a moment your suggestion that the country's culture has changed - I see no evidence of this"

WHAT?!
Japan's culture hasn't changed?!
Stagnant? ROFL!
A Japanese person from a century ago wouldn't recognise the place.

But the *people* would be instantly recognised as "Japanese".

That's the point I made, which of course you "leave aside" because it smashes your ridiculous perspective to smithereens.
You don't need to change the *people* to change the culture.

Nor the economy.
Despite recent waves of immigration, most nations on Earth are little different demographically to what they were a century ago.
Are their economies unchanged? Still manufacturing hoop skirts and riding steam trains, are we?

"the country's economy and culture when the population dips below 100 million in less than forty years from now."

40 years, eh?
Who knows what Japan, or anywhere else, will be 40 years from now.
These are hypothetical projections, not facts.
You're the one allergic to facts. All you have are hypotheses and opinions.

"Why would South Africans come here, only to repeat their experience?"

White South Africans are going to be massacred in Australia? By whom?

"South Africa was famous for its apartheid policy"

And? Relevance?
But they're a multiculti happyland now, eh?

"no parallel here"

You said it!

"we are one of the most stable multinational communities the world has ever known."

We were stable before that too.

Maybe its not the "multis" who are responsible for that.
It's in *spite* of them.

The *Australian* character is the reason we've never had a dictatorship, revolution, civil war.
Once that character is destroyed: watch out, "multis" about!

So, according to the sanctimonious, open-borders zealot Pericles, I am not only a morally deficient person because I happen to think that, one the whole, mass immigration is bad for Australia but also because one of my objections to mass immigration happens to be on cultural grounds.

In other words, having a healthy regard for one's one culture and not wanting to become a minority in one's own country due to mass immigration makes me an evil person.

There is of course something very wrong about how Pericles tries to frame this debate. For example, immigrant communities are encouraged to promote their own ethnic identities and their own group interests. Ethnic minority organisations – cultural centres, business networks and political lobbies like FECCA – are accepted and treated with respect by politicians. The justifying story told to the majority is that we all benefit from cultural diversity. At the same time, majority ethnocentricism is held to be dangerous and regularly criticised in the media, education system and by the multicultural lobby. Any attempt by members of the Anglo-Celtic Australian majority to advance their own group interests is immediately condemned. Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent are expected to forgo group loyalties and are even punished for showing them in politics and business. How can something be so precious and notable for one section of society but worthless and disreputable for another?

This flagrant double standard is most evident in immigration matters. Apparently, it is acceptable, even noble, for immigrant communities to lobby for the importation of more of their own kind. Yet, it is "racist" for the Anglo-Celtic majority to prefer British or European immigrants over those from other backgrounds. Immigrant communities openly brag about their growing demographic strength, while Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent are vilified merely for mentioning the fact that current immigration policies are reducing their percentage of the population.

Please explain.

In any case, since Pericles likes to impugn the moral integrity of his opponents and sniff out their alleged prejudices, let's turn the spotlight back on him and examine his motives for supporting mass immigration.

Could it be that Pericles harbors his own deep-seated ethnic prejudices?

Based on what he has posted in the past, it is abundantly clear that Pericles harbors an animus against long-standing Australians which evidently affects his judgment on immigration matters. Put bluntly, he doesn't seem to like native-born white Australians and probably wants to seem them become a demographic minority as soon as possible. He is not an objective commentator on immigration matters, merely an ethnic chauvinist.

Let's all keep that in mind next time Pericles enters an immigration debate and start lecturing others on their supposed bigotry and impure motives.

Conditions in Japan are by no means as bad as Pericles would like to make out

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-hill/reconsidering-japanrecons_b_786198.html

What does it matter if the population goes below 100 million? The country is already so overpopulated that they are only about 40% self-sufficient in food.

The real point of Bob Birrell's Immigration Overshoot report is that the government is adding people through immigration several times as fast as jobs are being created. This means that a lot of people miss out, unlike the 1950s and 60s when there really was full employment and Pericles might have had a case. Roy Morgan Research puts real unemployment in Australia at 10.0% and underemployment at 8.1%.

In a tight labour market, Pericles might take a chance and hire the deaf girl, or take on young people who will need training. Now he can pick and choose, and only hire people who are already trained. The people he passes over don't vanish in a puff of smoke, though, or get sent to the migrants' home countries in a one for one exchange. They move between low-paid precarious employment, often with insufficient hours, and unemployment. This sort of lifestyle plays hell with people's marriages and family life, as well as their mental and physical health. They may turn to alcohol or other addictions to dull the pain, or get involved in various forms of antisocial behaviour. The taxpayer, i.e., the community as a whole, gets to pay for all the direct welfare costs and the indirect costs to the health care system, etc. The employers are privatising the profits and socialising the costs. Allowing this or facilitating it can hardly be in the national interest, despite the claims of immigration spruikers like Cheryl.

I am no fan of racism. It is needlessly hurtful to individuals, wastes talent, and creates animosity between groups of people. Even so, it is common sense, not bigotry, to point out that you can have trouble when you get large concentrations of migrants with an incompatible culture.

<< I knew there was no point. I should have stuck to my Pericles boycott. >>

Join the club, Shockadelic!

We really do need to move beyond the Pericles distraction factor and stop debating whether slowing population growth and reaching a stable population is advisable or not. We need to concentrate on how we achieve it.

The science is in. The majority view is in. It has been in since at least the huge population carrying capacity study of 1994.

The best thing to do is to strive for a stable population, gently, to be reached via a steadily slowing growth rate in about thirty or forty years as it was espoused in 1994, but somewhat more urgently today.

As I keep saying, and I keep being dismayed by the lack of interest in this: the main problem seems to be the enormous bias inflicted on our government by big business, which drives unending rapid population growth.

How do we get our government to embrace Gillard’s statement: “a sustainable Australia, not a big Australia”?

Talking to a very well paid bureaucrat the other day it was explained to me that we need more boat people not less.
You could have pushed me over with a feather ! I enquired how he came to that conclusion is was explained me thus. "I want to live on a $65,000 a year pension so I can live comfortably in my old age.". We need more people paying Tax.
Now this bloke is on 200 grand a year & wants to work, correction stay employed until age 67. This is the attitude of the majority of our senior bureaucrats who run the show into the ground yet expect to be kept by those of us who battle for every Dollar because of their utter mismanagement.
Now they think the many boat people will magically turn into an army of Tax payers. Why does Government allow these parasites to ruin it for everyone ?

Grossly overpopulated Japan is an excellent example of where Australia does NOT want to end up. That is why forward thinking people are working towards a stable population choice.

Japan simply demonstrates that there is no easy way out of overpopulation. They tried resource war (fail), nuclear (fail), and finally the people (although not ignorant boosters in government/business) accept that the demographic bulge is the easiest and most gentle way out of the catch 22 of overpopulation.

Finally we see some excellent news for the people of Japan and their future generations, with a record drop in population:
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/15744664/japans-population-logs-record-drop/

Once they get back down to a sustainable population that their natural energy & food resources can handle, you will see stability in Japan and most likely a return to replacement fertility as costs of living settle back down.

Overpopulation has been a didaster for Japan, as it is for China, Egypt, Bangladesh, etc, etc, and this clear Japanese lesson should make us all even more determined to reject the simplistic 'grow and hope' arguments spruiked by some.

Ludwig,

You asked me what to do about the situation, and I would also be interested in the opinions of others.

I think that we first need to make clear to the public that the problem is not with Australians having too many babies. The truth is that we would still have very high population growth even if we had forced sterilisations and abortions after one child, as our enemies hysterically and dishonestly proclaim that we want. According to the ABS, 60% of our population growth is coming from immigration. The migrants also contribute heavily to natural increase, because they also have children. Half the population of New South Wales has at least one parent born overseas. The Australian fertility rate is slightly below replacement level and has been since 1976. It is not a problem. There is still some natural increase from demographic momentum, but it is temporary and we can live with it, even if a few people want large families. There is no need to lavish money on them, though, other than on the basis of heavily means tested welfare, like the families of unemployed people.

The real problem is the collection of sociopaths and useful idiots that we laughingly call our politicians. Since rapidly growing population makes the solution of our other problems very difficult or impossible, I would put this issue first. Support politicians, candidates, and parties that are willing to stabilise the population. Put growthists last on the ballot, even if you like their other policies. Put growthist incumbents last of all. The object is to throw them out after one term, before they become entitled to all the perks. If enough of us do this in marginal seats, we can make government change hands at every election. The politicians will soon learn that the business elite can give them money, but can't force people to vote for them.

Work for strict laws to limit political donations by individuals and to forbid donations by any sort of organisation.

drab “This flagrant double standard. Please explain.”

I know, it's absurd!
This contradiction is pointed out to them every time, but it just goes in one ear and out the other.

“an ethnic chauvinist”

I think snobbery is a key element.
To appeal to the elitist you must be “adorably quaint/exotic” or “classy/sophisticated” and Aussies are neither.

This is why you hear ridiulous statements about how we "don't have a culture"!
They just can't see it, because "culture" to the snob is either "quaint peasant" or "deluxe aristocrat".
Aussies don't qualify either way. So "no culture".

because "culture" to the snob is either "quaint peasant" or "deluxe aristocrat".
Shockadelic,
What is culture to a non-snob then ? Football ? Listening to Cricket 18 hours a day on the radio in the age of Television ? I think culture requires a degree of intelligence as well.

"The real problem is the collection of sociopaths and useful idiots that we laughingly call our politicians".(@ Divergence). All politicians should have some experience and understanding of environmental science and ecology. The thin-ness of their studies, of politics, power, and laws limits their understanding of the real world, and of our reliance on the planet's finite resources, and limits to growth.
The planet has never been at such as crucial stage as it is in now. There has never been as many people on it as there are now. Earth has been compromised by years of consumption levels never seen before, and ecosystems able to cope with it are now under severe pressure. One of the outcomes is "climate change" - and "peak" just about everything.
The no-brainer way to increase the size of our economy, GDP, is through raw population growth! However, such a scheme fails to take into account limits to growth, the costs of growth, and the long term implications. More and more Australia's so-called democratic system is being undermined by business groups and big company moguls who are able to buy political power and sway political policies for their own short-term monetary gain. The reason for Australia's increasing immigration rate, liberal selling of visas, and unlimited categories, is that the property market has become cannibalistic - and prepared to destroy the once "Lucky Country". We have too many politicians in Australia, captive to growth-ist policies, but very few statesmen.

What the SPA, the Unstable People Party and the Stop Population Growth via Armageddon Party fail to understand is that NOM is the addition (or loss) to the resident population arising from the difference between those leaving Australia and those arriving, either permanently or on a long-term basis (in the county 12 months or more over a 16 month period).

This includes long-term temporary entrants such as overseas students, New Zealand citizens, and Australian permanent residents or citizens returning home after an extended absence. Remember those Kiwis. They love us. God bless em.

The largest contribution to NOM in recent years has not been permanent migrants, but people entering Australia on long-term temporary visas, in particular overseas students and temporary skilled migrants.

Unlike the permanent Migration Program, temporary migration is NOT subject to planning levels or caps set by the Government. Government has no control over the numbers of Australian citizens and permanent residents leaving or returning to Australia.

I will leave you with those thoughts. You have some policy rewriting to do.

Individual “What is culture to a non-snob then?”

“Culture” is whatever beliefs, behaviours and activities are inherited and shared by a group of people.
It's however people live their lives *together*.

No, it doesn't have to be “intelligent” or exciting, decorative, spicy, elaborate, or anything in particular.

The notion of “multicultural” is a contradiction in terms.
What is not shared is not “culture”!

Even cultural rebellions (dada, punk) require an shared *context* to be comprehensible.
They can't just have no relationship to anything.

You can have a syncretic or complex culture, but not *multiple* cultures at once in the same group.

If people are living at odds with their neighbours, that's not “culture”, that's just personal “lifestyle”.

Our society allows significant leeway in that regard, but that's because the notion of private personal liberty is, drumroll, part of our “culture”!

“Football?”

Sumo?
Cockfighting?
Camel wrestling?

“I think culture requires a degree of intelligence as well.”

That's just what a snob would say.

Oh reeeeeaally! Well you shouldn't be supporting multiculti immigration then.
Some of those cultures are very obviously inferior in intelligence.

How about an IQ test for all immigration applicants?
Oh no, then we wouldn't get those quaint exotic people with the frilly skirts and spicy dishes!
Who will entertain the bored rich White snobs!? (and clean their floors).

Overloading Australia: Authors Mark O'Connor and William J. Lines

As a result of Jennie Goldie's article, I obtained from the library the book Overloading Australia. The facts the authors present are very thought provoking, and demonstrate the dangers of overpopulation not only for Australia, but for the rest of our world.

My 'bigotry' does not support illegal refugees being allowed to flood in. However I, along with many other Australians, would be in favour of [limited] legitimate immigrants. This last year in particular a large number of our refugee intake has been from Pakistan, which is a very strong patriarchal society, and this is at odds with the freedom women have in our society. A more diverse cultural mix would theoretically continue our - so far - multicultural and multiracial society's harmony.

At the same time, we should pay attention to applying a more stringent examination of would be immigrants. For varying reasons Australians have shown great concern regarding this subject.

The strong argument against increasing our population is set out very clearly in the book.

The subject of proposed population and its effects are too wide ranging to post here, but if one reads this book, it is possible to better understand the numerous ramifications of overpopulation.

I’m with you all the way, worldwatcher. Mark O’Connor in particular has been a great champion for a sustainable population for many years.

There are certainly big concerns with multiculturalism. Just like growth, it is a grab-bag of good and bad aspects, and it is just far too over simplistic and downright wrong to promote it as being an entirely good thing. We should indeed be much more selective with the immigrants we choose, for cultural, religious and ethnic and reasons.

Divergence, I’m pleased you agree that we should be effectively banning political donations.

<< Support politicians, candidates, and parties that are willing to stabilise the population. Put growthists last on the ballot, even if you like their other policies. Put growthist incumbents last of all >>

Yes, we should definitely be doing this. But I’m not so sure that it amounts to a solution, under the current political setup. We’d need a huge groundswell of people that understand just how bad continuous growth is and be willing to vote accordingly.

The compulsory preferential voting system blocks anything less! It effectively STEALS the vote of those who wish to vote against incumbent and alternative growthist parties!

Even if you specifically vote against Labor and Liberal and put them last and second last, your vote will most likely end up counting for the one you put second last!!

This is the extent to which the pro-growth-forever totally-antisustainable paradigm has entrenched itself. This compulsory preferential system is the most extraordinary antidemocratic RORT, designed to keep the big parties in and the new parties out!

The alternative is so simple – optional preferential voting, which is entirely different, because it is allows a true indication of the wishes of the voter.

These are the sorts of things that we need to be considering very carefully in the struggle to achieve a much lower immigration rate and ultimately a sustainable society.

I’m not sure our lobby or within it; Sustainable Population Australia or the Stable Population Party really understands the significance of this. It is not just about the logical argument for stabilising our population; it is very much about political reforms … because there are some real doozies out there that are blocking our progress.

Ludwig,

I am not sure that I understand how this would help. Lets suppose that we had optional preferential voting. We could then refuse to pass on preferences to the major parties, which sould be emotionally satisfying and make it clear that a lot of people were unhappy with them, but what good would it do otherwise? Unless we really did have a huge groundswell of support, one of those parties would still have a plurality of the vote and get elected. Business as usual.

If we target incumbent growthists for retribution, we interfere with the major parties' business model and make it harder for the party bosses to enforce party discipline, because it has become harder to get members in marginal seats re-elected. Elections in such seats often turn on a few hundred or a few thousand votes. If enough such seats change hands, then the government is out of power. They also lose if enough of their members decide to break ranks on high population growth to get re-elected.

I know it is pointless having any kind of "discussion" with you, Ludwig, as you decide upon your answer long before you have even heard the question. But someone has to try.

Your foray into voting systems as a means to gain traction for your population-management policies, is driven by your perception that Australia is run for the benefit of what you vaguely describe as "big business". Therefore you favour a system that somehow cuts them out of the loop.

>>As I keep saying, and I keep being dismayed by the lack of interest in this: the main problem seems to be the enormous bias inflicted on our government by big business, which drives unending rapid population growth<<

This is informed by your view that only governments should be allowed to make decisions - that "big business" is somehow, by definition, incapable of supporting the interests and aspirations of Australians.

Which is of course utter nonsense. While the pay scales of the tiny handful at the top of their pyramids are undoubtedly shameful, their businesses are completely focussed on the task of meeting their customers needs.

A task that they perform, on the whole, substantially more effectively than any government.

Admittedly, living in NSW does give me a uniquely sharpened perspective on exactly how appallingly inefficient government can be. But evidence exists that NSW is not unique in this respect.

Our prosperity as a country has not been achieved by governments running businesses, but by business itself.

I'm confident that voters will continue to elect a government that understands that businesses need to prosper, in order for us to prosper.

Yet you conclude that a different system would bring different results.

>>The alternative is so simple – optional preferential voting, which is entirely different, because it is allows a true indication of the wishes of the voter<<

If the "true wishes" are for a prosperous Australia, changing the system will change nothing. The only way you will achieve your ends is via a dictatorship in which public servants make all the decisions.

Dante described this in his Fourth Circle.

Divergence

I have not cast a vote for any candidate/party for several federal elections. The reason is that I want to vote against Labor and Liberal but I know my vote will end up counting for one of them.

This has stopped me from voting for environmentally friendly / sustainability-minded candidates/parties or for anyone who is better than the Liblabs.

So, anyone who understands that their vote can be STOLEN AND PLACED WHERE THE VOTER DOESN’T WANT IT TO COUNT, can’t vote… and simply HAS to lodge a blank ballot paper!

And anyone who doesn’t understand this and who wants to vote against the entrenched Liblab continuous-growth antisustainability paradigm CAN’T DO IT! They effectively vote FOR the continuation of this paradigm!!

It could not be more disgusting or more diametrically opposite to democracy, or to the very principle and purpose of voting!

As to how much of a difference it actually makes, it is hard to judge. But it is definitely one of the basic reforms that needs to happen if we are to get away from the continuous-growth-highly-antisustainable-momentum-until-we-crash political paradigm that we are currently trapped in.

I am looking firstly at the worst aspects of our political system that aid and abet antisustainability and at those that are most easily remedied. Compulsory preferential voting slots straight into both of these categories.

Banning political donations would be a whole lot more difficult.

Pericles, you amaze me. Your whole post is built on a house of cards, which is so easily demolished.

You make the assertion that I want to cut big business out of the loop, which of course is utter nonsense!

Big business, small business and in-between business have all the right in the world to lobby vigorously for what they want.

It is the government that needs to put this into perspective and not be unduly swayed by it, and by the big money behind it in the form of big donations.

Now, I’ve got some quality beach-bumming to do on this wonderful sunny day here in Noosa. Do have a nice day couped up there in inner Smogney. Cheers.

Ludwig, you amaze me.

You make the assertion that you don't want to cut big business out of the loop, which of course is utter nonsense!

>>It is the government that needs to put this into perspective and not be unduly swayed by it<<

If the government does not take into account the requirements of the businesses that provide for the needs and aspirations of you and me, that is effectively cutting them out of the loop. Even in a situation where they were not permitted to donate money, their concerns about, and recommendations for, government policy would still need to be heard, would they not?

On the other hand, the government could legitimately be accused of being "unduly swayed", if they were to give excessive credence to the half-baked bleatings of a few fringe-dwelling single-issue fanatics, don't you think?

>>Now, I’ve got some quality beach-bumming to do on this wonderful sunny day here in Noosa.<<

I did enjoy my week amongst the suntanned public-servants-pretending-to-be-surfers in Noosa, but it is so good to be back in the real world. The restaurants are way better (and much less of a rip-off) for a start.

Pericles,

Big business should be entitled to put its views to government like anyone else. We simply believe in "one person, one vote", not "one dollar, one vote". Even if you are correct about what would maximise GDP, there are other things that matter in life besides money. Big business has inordinate influence on the US government. You might take a look at those links I posted earlier to graphs in the State of Working America report to see how brilliantly that has worked out for ordinary people, even in narrow economic terms.

You also like to portray us as a few disgruntled activists on the fringes, but the vast majority of the population agrees with us, not you, about mass migration. They are quite capable of seeing that it has no advantages for them or their families in economic terms and that the resultant high population growth is damaging to their quality of life in a number of ways. Kevin Rudd's popularity tanked when he made that statement about believing in a Big Australia, when "the focus groups went ballistic". See this poll that was conducted at about the same time and the video of Ross Gittins, the Economics Editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/big-australia-vision-goes-down-like-a-lead-balloon-20100803-115g7.html

Not so. That is pure revisionism, Divergence.

>>Kevin Rudd's popularity tanked when he made that statement about believing in a Big Australia<<

His poll numbers tanked when he proposed the proposed Resource Super Profits Tax, at the same time that the Senate rejected his Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

And politicians of integrity are supposed to lead, rather than slavishly follow the polls. Gillard's backflip was merely par for the course for a government that lacks any skerrick of integrity or ethical foundation.

I admire Ross Gittins - I can see two of his books on my bookshelf, even as I write - and I think he is absolutely correct when he says on the video that you posted:

- that Australia as a whole has been anti-immigration "since the days of the White Australia policy, going back to a previous century". What we are seeing today is the same old fortress Australia stance, that blithely ignores the massive benefits the country has reaped from the increase in its population. I categorize it as classic dog-in-the-manger.

- that the recent debate on population "got mixed up with boat people", which has allowed the fear-mongers and rabble-rousers to further muddy the waters.

- that we need a proper debate on the subject. Gittins quotes "scientists saying we can't carry all that many" and economists saying "of course we can", and suggests - correctly in my view - that we should bring the topic into the open for detailed examination.

Unfortunately, we are fundamentally incapable as a nation of looking further than the end of our noses - or in Ludwig's case, the end of his beach. So the chances of an intelligent debate, free of xenophobia or Greenie scaremongering, are, regrettably, precisely nil.

@ Pericles

Hear hear.

Pericles "we should bring the topic into the open for detailed examination.....an intelligent debate, free of xenophobia or Greenie scaremongering"

i.e. not a debate or "open" examination at all, just *your* agenda only (Mr Status Quo).

Just look at these threads on OLO. Nice "open debate", eh?

Hanson tried to open the debate, got a million voters.
What's happened since? Nothing. Business as usual.

Pericles, the quality of your comments is really tumbling. And that’s from an already very low level!

What is so hard for you to understand about this statement?:

<< You make the assertion that I want to cut big business out of the loop, which of course is utter nonsense! Big business, small business and in-between business have all the right in the world to lobby vigorously for what they want. >>

Why have you then come back and said again that I want to cut big business out of the loop?

It would be wonderful if we could just have a sensible debate. But instead I get a constant stream of false assertions about my views. Your previous post to which I politely responded last time was full of this stuff. You assert that I hold positions and views when you either don’t know my exact views or do know full well that I don’t hold those positions!

This is of extremely poor form. Any drongo can do that if he’s got no qualms about verballing, defamation and the complete destruction of his/her own credibility!

So again, I will say: I do not want to cut big business out of the loop, as if I hadn’t already said it crystal clearly!

You have a great deal of criticism for government. I would have thought that you’d agree that government at all levels is unduly influenced by big business and that the balance needs to be shifted so that the wishes of the ordinary citizen are better catered for and the wishes of the already rich and powerful are a little less pandered to.

But no, it seems that your desire to disagree with Ludwig takes higher priority!

The same thing applies with compulsory versus optional preferential voting. Clearly, OPV is much more democratic and in line with a better quality of governance, and is surely something that you should be supporting.

But hey, ‘that horrible Ludwig character is against CPV, therefore I’m for it!!’

Well, that’s how it’s looking to me!

It is always enjoyable hearing your opinion of my contributions, Ludwig.

>>Pericles, the quality of your comments is really tumbling. And that’s from an already very low level!<<

They invariably appear immediately after I have caught you out on some inconsistency or other, as in this case.

>>Why have you then come back and said again that I want to cut big business out of the loop?<<

You can protest all you like, but the gist of your complaint has always been that big business has too much influence on government policy, is it not?

>>As I keep saying, and I keep being dismayed by the lack of interest in this: the main problem seems to be the enormous bias inflicted on our government by big business, which drives unending rapid population growth.<<

So what is your remedy for this situation? Presumably it is to find a way to eliminate this "enormous bias", yes?

Exactly how far is "eliminating the bias" away from "cutting them out of the loop"?

I am sure you will have an answer. You always do. But it is likely to be just as convincing as the previous attempts to divert attention away from the imprecision of your thought processes.

And don't kid yourself.

>>Clearly, OPV is much more democratic and in line with a better quality of governance, and is surely something that you should be supporting. But hey, ‘that horrible Ludwig character is against CPV, therefore I’m for it!!’<<

As it happens, I don't consider OPV to be either more or less democratic than the farce we have in place right now. The only point I did make on the topic is that "changing the system changes nothing". And I stand by that, absent any evidence whatsoever that the result from OPV would be somehow more representative of the will of the electorate.

Perhaps you could explain how any increased fairness would come about.

Pericles,

In the dog in the manger fable, the hay was of no use to the dog, so he could easily let the ox eat and find a comfortable place to sleep somewhere else. You might have a point if we were standing in front of a vast green fertile hinterland that was unpopulated, but Australia really isn't a big country. It is a small to medium sized country wrapped around a big desert. Our survival and prosperity ultimately depend on our resource base, including the ability of our environment to take abuse. In 1994, the Australian Academy of Sciences looked at carrying capacity and issued a report recommending a maximum population of 23 million. A lot of their concerns were reiterated in the 2010 Long-Term Physical Implications report, which was released on Christmas Eve to avoid scrutiny in the media.

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-summary.pdf

The government's own State of the Environment reports have shown deterioration of essentially all environmental indicators apart from urban air quality. Why do you and James O'Neill think that you understand these issues better than scientists who have been studying them for decades? As well as ignoring current environmental and resource issues, you ignore the need for adequate safety margins, for example, if some of the nastier climate change predictions come to pass.

You also ignore quality of life issues, possibly because they don't impinge much on people like yourself, even though most people would rather not live like battery chickens. The cost of an average house has doubled to tripled in terms of the median wage since the early 1970s, mostly because of the cost of the land the house sits on, even though the average block size is a lot smaller.

(cont'd)

(cont'd)

<politicians of integrity are supposed to lead, rather than slavishly follow the polls>

Every tyrant has said that since the year dot. As Jared Diamond pointed out in "Collapse", whether a society collapses or solves its problems and survives largely depends on whether the elite can insulate themselves from the problems their policies are causing for the rest of the population.

You keep vaguely referring to economic benefits, but exactly what are they - for people who aren't rich and don't work in the immigration industry? You accept the Productivity Commission finding that the per capita economic benefits of mass migration are small. Do you also accept that the findings that they are mostly distributed to owners of capital and the migrants themselves, or the finding that mass migration depresses wages? If mass migration is so beneficial, what about the good performance on the WEF Competitiveness Index and UN HDI of Sweden, Finland, Japan, Germany, etc., despite low or no population growth? Why have ordinary people in the US fared so badly despite high immigration, which you say is so beneficial?

http://stateofworkingamerica.org/chart/swa-wages-figure-4c-change-real-hourly-wages/

You keep reiterating that the migrants are better off. This may be true, but foreigners live (and want to live) in independent countries. They have a responsibility to solve their own problems. I have no problem with helping them, but not if we need to walk over our fellow citizens to do it. I don't accept the view that the common people have responsibilities as citizens (to enlist in wartime for example), but the elite owe them nothing.

<< It is always enjoyable hearing your opinion of my contributions, Ludwig. >>

Yes I know, Pericles. You obviously get considerable entertainment out of the manner in which I and many others respond to you. You seem to relish discontent, and dare I say it; you find any expressions of agreement with you downright eye-rollingly boring!

You are not on this forum for the right reasons.

Oow, let me retract that statement. I must not stoop to your level of making assertions when I am absolutely sure of their veracity.

It would seem that you are not on this forum for the right reasons.

<< … the gist of your complaint has always been that big business has too much influence on government policy, is it not? >>

Der… yeayus!

<< Exactly how far is "eliminating the bias" away from "cutting them out of the loop"? >>

A bl88dy long way, you tw!t

Woops, I mean, … er…um….no, I can’t come up with a better way of saying it!! ( :>|

A better balance, dear Pericles, not a jump to the loopy la la end of the spectrum, this is what we need. A better balance between the wishes of big business, ordinary citizens, lobby groups and scientists, rather than an overwhelming bias towards the wishes of those who can throw big money at the government and BUY big favours accordingly.

Regarding OPV vs CPV, you wrote:

<< Perhaps you could explain how any increased fairness would come about. >>

Read all of my posts on this thread, not just the ones addressed to you. I refer you to a previous post:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14508#250920

Dear me, Ludwig, you do seem to be getting those knickers in a twist.

>>It would seem that you are not on this forum for the right reasons.<<

There are "right" and "wrong" reasons for being on this forum? Wow, that's news to me. I was under the impression that it is an opinion forum, and that the only criterion is expressing that opinion.

As you will have noticed by now, in my opinion you frequently write a heap of unmitigated rot about the "overcrowding" of Australia, along with a heap of unsubstantiated conjecture about what effect an increase in population will have on our lifestyle. If this opinion upsets you, I suggest you tell Nicola Roxon. She will then pass a law that makes my opinion of you a criminal act, on the basis that you feel offended. Poor dear.

As for your ideas as to the increased level of fairness we can expect from OPV, I thank you for the link, but would gently point out that it was completely empty of any illumination.

>>This has stopped me from voting for environmentally friendly / sustainability-minded candidates/parties or for anyone who is better than the Liblabs.<<

The obvious point that you have missed, of course, is that it is not the candidates that are important here, but the votes. From the performance of the Greens (Christine Milne following in Bob Brown's footsteps with her fruitloop observations on the rule of law being just the most recent example) it is unlikely that a "sustainable population party" would get much support. By definition, they would be anti-business, and - for the moment at least - more people rely upon business than on government for their daily bread.

But that is conjecture, as well as entirely beside the point, which is about representing more accurately the views of the people.

Explain again, if you will, how the change in voting requirement from CPV to OPV will automatically guarantee more effective representation.

Pretend for a moment that I am really, really stupid, and spell it out for me.

Thank you in advance.

@Pericles. The CPU vs OPV debate is a red herring. The Libs are currently toying with a change because, and only because, they think it will give them an electoral advantage. Hardly an ethical stance but then why would they break the habits of a lifetime and do something because it was the right thing to do.

In my opinion both options are seriously flawed. If one wishes to get an electoral result that actually reflects the main opinion of the voter, as opposed to their second, third etc choice, then proportional representation is the only realistic option. Most of Europe has it in one form or another and New Zealand changed in the 1980s and recently confirmed that choice overwhelmingly in a referendum.

Making a threshold of say 5 percent eliminates the crazy fringe which preferential voting does not as recent experience in xthe Senate shows, viz Steve Fielding and others.

Australians have an unfortunate tendency to believe that whatever they are doing at any given time is the best option imaginable even though nowhere else in the world agrees. A Bill of Rights is another classic illustration of the point.

I agree with most of what you say, except to query why you expend time and energy responding to Divergence, Ludwig and their ilk. You are not going to persuade them of anything and the entertainment value is a diminishing value.

Quite possibly, James O'Neill.

>>If one wishes to get an electoral result that actually reflects the main opinion of the voter, as opposed to their second, third etc choice, then proportional representation is the only realistic option<<

There are several flavours of this, too, though, and if we ever do get around to picking one, it is sure to be the very least effective option available.

The issue is, though, that changing the system requires political will, a quality that is conspicuously absent. Having reached a point where our politics is a mixture of the dynastic and the venal, I see little opportunity for a rational overhaul. All those concerned have become so accustomed to protecting and enhancing their own personal position within the gravy-train culture, that any genuine issue is drowned out by self-interest.

>>I agree with most of what you say, except to query why you expend time and energy responding to Divergence, Ludwig and their ilk. You are not going to persuade them of anything and the entertainment value is a diminishing value<<

I am enough of a realist to know that there was never any chance that logic or common sense would ever be persuasive in their case. Nevertheless, the conversation keeps me abreast of the thought-processes they employ, and the exercise of responding to them occasionally comes in useful in the real world.

have a great day.

Pericles,

The Australian Academy of Sciences (at least when they backed the 1994 report) would no doubt be surprised to find that they lack logic and common sense (in your exalted opinion), since their views on stabilising the population were exactly the same as mine and Ludwig's.

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

• "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair

No problem with that, Divergence.

>>...their views on stabilising the population were exactly the same as mine and Ludwig's<<

Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Even scientists.

The interesting thing about that report is that there is not a single representative of business, nor a single economist, on the panel of Contributors. It is further evidence that folk who are supported by the public purse - especially those who have tenure, and don't actually have much to do - have substantially different views to those who are practical and pragmatic value-creators.

Altogether, the cast list was a perfect example of the quote you provided.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

A quick glance at the vested interests of those good people on the panel is a great illustration of how their wages influenced their opinions.

http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section1.pdf

Classic.

Doesn't follow, Pericles. The scientists don't get more money if they come out against population growth, but the businessmen do, if they come out for it and persuade the politicians. In any case, you don't seem to appreciate that if you trash your environment, you also trash your economy. The Sumerians didn't have much of an economy when they destroyed their fields with salinisation and their city states collapsed.

Asking a businessman or economist if, say, global warming is a real phenomenon is about as intelligent as asking a biologist about whether the Federal Reserve should increase interest rates.

You might do a thought experiment on what the economy would be like if there had been no scientists over the past 200 years.

I take it Pericles that by your non-mention of anything further about cutting big business out of the loop, you have conceded that eliminating the bias is indeed a bloody long way removed from cutting them out of the loop.

What an embarrassing faux pas, or I should say; deliberate false assertion of my position. It would be nice if you’ve learned your lesson and ceased and desisted from doing that sort of thing anymore.

<< There are "right" and "wrong" reasons for being on this forum? >>

I think that you would find that your repeated false assertions about the opinions and positions of those with whom you disagree does indeed amount to being on this forum for the wrong reasons.

Yes, OLO is about expressing opinions, and then it’s about those opinions being respected and debated… and certainly not deliberately misrepresented.

Now, how’s this for a doozy of a contradiction. You say:

<< I was under the impression that it is an opinion forum >>

And then…

<< …you frequently write a heap of unmitigated rot… >>

Well, say no more – you appreciate OLO as a place for expressing opinions and then you demonstrate complete intolerance of any opinions therein expressed that are different to yours. Or am I somehow misreading your comments?

<< As for your ideas as to the increased level of fairness we can expect from OPV, I thank you for the link, but would gently point out that it was completely empty of any illumination. >>

Why am I not surprised. What you are saying is that these statements of mine from the post that I referred you to mean nothing to you:

<< …anyone who understands that their vote can be STOLEN AND PLACED WHERE THE VOTER DOESN’T WANT IT TO COUNT, can’t vote… and simply HAS to lodge a blank ballot paper! >>

<< And anyone who doesn’t understand this and who wants to vote against the entrenched Liblab continuous-growth antisustainability paradigm CAN’T DO IT! They effectively vote FOR the continuation of this paradigm!! >>

continued

<< It could not be more disgusting or more diametrically opposite to democracy, or to the very principle and purpose of voting! >>

You say:

This post << was completely empty of any illumination >>

What does that mean? Does it mean you already knew this stuff, or that you have learnt something but it has caused your eyes to glaze over?

You would have picked this to shreds if you could have. So, you either agree totally with me… or you don’t know whether I’m right or not or you don't give a hoot!

<< Explain again, if you will, how the change in voting requirement from CPV to OPV will automatically guarantee more effective representation. >>

Have done. If you don’t get it from my emphatic statements, then I’ll have to conclude that you are indeed really really stupid…. or worse: that you actually applaud a voting system that can and does misrepresent some voters!

Here’s one further hint – better representation could just maybe possibly be linked to a voting system that indicates the true intent of the voters, and doesn’t take the votes of some voters and place them under the names of candidates / parties that the voters don’t want to vote for or even specifically want to vote against!

But as I have also said, it is hard to know what effect it will have.

It is but one small reform that would go in line with a better quality of governance and a better likelihood of us achieving a much brighter future than what we are likely to get with the continuation of the current political paradigm.

<< The CPU vs OPV debate is a red herring. The Libs are currently toying with a change because, and only because, they think it will give them an electoral advantage. Hardly an ethical stance but then why would they break the habits of a lifetime and do something because it was the right thing to do. >>

Yes James, the powers that be have implemented the system that they feel will give them an advantage. They are indeed unscrupulous.

I agree with you that FPTP is a whole lot better than CPV, but disagree that it would be better than OPV.

<< [Pericles] I agree with most of what you say, except to query why you expend time and energy responding to Divergence, Ludwig and their ilk. You are not going to persuade them of anything and the entertainment value is a diminishing value. >>

I wonder how much of a realistic impression you have of my overall position (can’t speak for Divergence) and how much you have been misled by the polarising statements of Pericles, who constantly makes my position out to be at the end of the spectrum rather than a change in the point of balance between various factors.

So, in the interests of us understanding each other better, could you outline your primary concerns with my position as it relates to the subject of this thread. Thanks.

Ludwig, I apologies for lumping you in with Divergence. His is an all together different order of obfuscation. Having re-read your posts I am most discouraged by the fact that the argument is never really advanced and a great deal of time and space is spent in tit for tat type responses.

I did not argue for first past the post election modes. I think that is possibly the worst of all options as it inevitably favors the big two at the expense of smaller but in my view worthy options such as the Greens. My post actually said we should have a system of proportional representation and if you agree with that I would be delighted.

I am a she, not a he, James O'Neill. Exactly what obfuscation are you talking about? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! I support stabilising the population, as the Australian Academy of Sciences did in 1974. You are the one pretending that this is not under government control, even though our fertility rate has been slightly below replacement level since 1976. If agreements have been signed, as with New Zealand, under very different circumstances, then they can be unsigned. Yes, bad economic circumstances overseas might bring a flood of expatriates home, but that can be adjusted for in the intake in future years.

For really masterly obfuscation on this issue, however, you need to look at the Green's population policy.

http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com.au/

For intellectual dishonesty, Ludwig, this is neat.

>>Now, how’s this for a doozy of a contradiction. You say:
"I was under the impression that it is an opinion forum"
And then…
"…you frequently write a heap of unmitigated rot"<<

If you had a modicum of honesty, you would have cut'n'pasted:

"...in my opinion you frequently write a heap of unmitigated rot"

... which is hardly a contradiction, is it not?

But it does at least demonstrate how this game is becoming completely silly. More evidence here...

>>I take it Pericles that by your non-mention of anything further about cutting big business out of the loop, you have conceded...<<

I concede nothing, of course, only that you continue to illustrate the futility of attempting to discuss any of the points you raise.

>>...you demonstrate complete intolerance of any opinions therein expressed that are different to yours<<

I can only assume that by this you mean "if you don't agree with me, it means you are intolerant of my opinions". Of course I tolerate your opinions. I just don't agree with them, that's all. Sheesh.

So, enough of the tit-for-tat, as James O'Neill aptly describes the conversation. I have said all that needs to be said about my opinions on "a bigger Australia", and also on your diversion into voting processes. Have a great day.

@Divergence. Impossible to tell that you are a woman from your nom de plume. If you had the courage to use your own name it would remove one, albeit small, factor from the general confusion of your comments.

If you bothered to read what I actually said at the outset you will see that I did not say what you attribute to me. My point, and it remains a valid one, is that of all the various components of population change, which are both increase and decrease factors, the component that is seriously amenable to government intervention is actually a very small component of the total. Even then there is a time lag.

Your total inability to understand even the most basic of demographic principles means that you cite studies you manifestly do not understand, and rail against those population components such as migration and refugee flows where you prejudices dictate your arguments. Neither is a particularly sound basis for debate.

Of course you can use your real name, James O'Neill, because you would never dream of saying anything politically incorrect, so need have no worries about reprisals in the real world.

Let's test your claim that "Very little is actually amenable to effective direct government intervention."

According to the ABS, population growth is currently running at 1.6%, 58% of which is due to immigration. The rest is natural increase, partly due to births to recent migrants and partly due to demographic momentum among the longstanding residents.

According to the Immigration Department's Fact Sheet 20, there are 190,000 immigration places (not counting New Zealanders), 68% of which are for skilled migrants (entirely at the discretion of the government). The rest is for family reunion, but the only categories that (rightly) cannot be capped are for partners and dependant children, i.e., the government decides on all other relatives. If skilled migration were reduced, this component would also become smaller, as would the component of natural increase due to births to recent migrants. The humanitarian component is insignificant, only about 13,000 places. You could keep this program even with zero net immigration. (For 2010/11 (Fact Sheet 5), (claimed to be) permanent emigration was 88,461.) Net New Zealand settlers were 44,298 for 2011/2012 (agreement could be abrogated at the discretion of the government). No one has claimed stabilisation could be done instantly. This is a straw man.

It is clear that the vast majority of the immigration program, the most important cause of population growth, is "amenable to direct government intervention." Either you don't know what you are talking about or you are lying. Which is it?

@divergence. I use my own name because I stand by my arguments, right or wrong, not because of your stupid allegation of political correctness.

You stil fail to grasp the main point. Migration is not a singular concept. It covers a wide range of categories of which only a relatively small proportion are amenable to direct government intervention. There are also consequences of policy intervention. Your casual claim that skilled migration could be significantly reduced further betrays your fundamental inability to grasp the wider economic picture.

As to your final question, apart from being a false choice is simply offensive. I was a professional demographer for many years and published in peer reviewed journals, authored books, and contributed to others. I was also a consultant to the UN and to several European governments. I will put my credentials against yours any day of the week.

@ Divergence,

You’ll have to excuse James, he is too busy telling us how experienced and well connected he is to address your arguments.

And as for: <<Let's test your claim that "Very little is actually amenable to effective direct government intervention.”>>
It’s funny that James appears to believe that it is beyond the ken of a govt to control population growth (which in the Australian context comes down to immigration).Yet James fervently believes a govt was able to orchestrate the 9/11 twin towers attack and its subsequent cover up: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14343#247316
( I’ll bet his years of training as a demographer came in handy in ferreting that one out!)

Perhaps it's just the Australian govt that is unable to organize complex things?

So that is the end of our ‘tit for tat’ twaddlydoo for the time-being is it Pericles. Good move to wind it up.

See you on the next thread that you have a go at me on… and off we’ll go again on yet another round of the Ludwig – Pericles roadshow. You know, this stuff has rolled on between us for quite a few years now. Fun isn’t it. But yes, it is time to end this session. Pity we can’t end it altogether and indulge only in meaningful debate. But of course that would be asking toooo much!

.

James, you wrote:

<< Having re-read your posts I am most discouraged by the fact that the argument is never really advanced >>

Yes, I appreciate that. Trouble is; when someone asserts that you hold a view that you don’t or that it is not accurately portrayed, you’ve got to respond or else others will think that it is true. And so it goes on and around and up and down…. without advancing the debate... and boring everyone else to tears!

Yes, FPTP certainly does favour the big parties, as does CPV. OPV is definitely the best in this regard.

Proportional representation sounds good, but I’m not sure it is the right way to go. I’ve battled with it for a long time. One of the problems could be that the two big parties almost always have a pretty similar vote and that the balance of power would therefore be held by a small party or rabble and/or an assortment of independents. I don’t know if that would make for effective governance.

What we really need is one party which has the right agenda being strongly in control. This does create a paradox, because the worst scenario is a party with the wrong agenda being strongly in control. So I am inclined to think that the best system is OPV, in which the true wishes of the voter are best represented.

However, I am open to modifying my views if you can convince me otherwise. Cheers.

@spqr. There you are at it again. What I said in the post you kindly linked to was that blowing away the official fairy tale about 9/11 was not the same as saying one knew what really happened. What was needed was a proper investigation. I even gave several references where one could read why I take that view. Some however, apparently including you, are impervious to the evidenc, including but not limited to the laws of physics.

@ludwig. The tail wagging the dog is of course a possibility under pr, although the electoral consequences for the dog could be dire if they fail to reflect public wishes. One reason for suggesting a 5pc threshold is to avoid that lunatic fringe getting into parliament in the first place.

I had the great good fortune in my career to spend a significant chunk of it living in Europe where, in most cases, pr works perfectly well. The New Zealand experience also shows that it helps develop a different electoral mindset that is missing under the triennial dictatorships that most other systems create.

In my view the present system is profoundly undemocratic and unfair and serious thought needs to be given to an alternative. I am unpersuaded that opv is the best alternative.

Thanks, SPQR

James O'Neill, the skilled migration program, some of the family program (relating to more distant relatives), and the agreement on open migration with New Zealand are all amenable to direct government control. These are the main categories (unless you know of other secret ones), and bringing the numbers down in them would definitely stabilise the population in the long run. Our fertility rate is slightly below replacement level and has been since 1976. Demographic momentum is predicted to play out completely at some time in the 2030s and is getting smaller all the time. You were arguing about the possibility of stabilising the population, not whether it would be wise.

Even if I believed that mass migration was in the immediate economic interests of the majority of Australians or even all of them (and I don't), I still wouldn't believe that the economy trumps the environment. I am a natural scientist, not a demographer, and used to thinking in terms of deep time. I have children and am worried about their future and that of my friends and their children, as well as feeling a sense of responsibility for my fellow citizens and for our environment and the other species that live in it. The Australian Conservation Foundation has applied to have population growth declared a key threatening process under the Environmental Protection Act. Note what they say about the secondary effects of population growth.

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf

Finally, if I were the bigot that you claim, it ought to be easy to find at least one post of mine with racist abuse. You find one, and I will give $50 to the charity of your choice. Concerns about our refugee program following in the footsteps of Europe (huge numbers, lots of unfounded claims, and extreme difficulty in removing failed asylum seekers) don't count. If I have misrepresented a study, it ought to be easy enough to call me on it. Pericles does it with Arjay's statements on the financial system (with amazing patience). "Because I said so" isn't good enough.

@Divergence. the fact that you ally yourself with SPQR is a telling fact in itself. One doesn't have to make explicit statements on anything to reveal the agenda underneath. The Liberals are masters at it. It is called dog whistle politics.

Raising the spectre of mass uncontrolled immigration fits that image very well. The unspoken agenda is that we don't want people here who are "not like us", i.e. brown/black/yellow skinned, Muslim etc etc. To put the kindest construction on it, you may not intend that but that is surely what it reads like.

I am sorry, but you still do not appear to understand the complexity of controlling migration flows to achieve a desired result. Reducing skilled migration intakes which is one of your suggestions, will have economic consequences affecting job opportunities in this country. Experience shows that one result will be an exodus of skilled Australians because the economy cannot support them here.

Another example you cite, that of New Zealanders, is again not as simple as you suggest. There is an agreement between the two countries going back to the 1960s which includes, inter alia, a free labor market between the two with mutual recognition of qualifications etc. While in theory the Australian government could renounce its obligations under those agreements (plural) in practice the world doesn't work that way.

I don't doubt your environmental commitment, which I share. But that is not a reason for formulating half-baked arguments in quest of an illusory goal of any given population size. After more than 40 years of looking at the policy issues, and giving advice on them, I know how difficult it is to formulate a policy that meets all the appropriate criteria. It may even be impossible, although that should not be taken as an excuse for doing nothing. As always, the trick is what one actually does.

James O'Neill,

You are obviously right that there would be disruption if government immediately slammed on the brakes and made a drastic reduction in skilled migration. It would need to be gradually reduced over a number of years, with business given plenty of warning to institute training programs and the like. Temporary visas could be used to fill unavoidable gaps, but not leading to permanent residency, so that the lure of sponsorship could not be used to cut wages or working conditions. In the long run, I am not worried. There is no correlation among the developed countries between population size, density, or growth rate and economic performance. There is a correlation between population growth rate and economic performance among the poorer countries, but it is negative. Anyone who doubts this should look at the country rankings on the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index and the statistics on the individual countries on the CIA World Factbook.

The New Zealand government is taking Australians for a ride, and our own politicians really ought to renounce the open borders agreements. The NZ government has instituted a mass migration program of their own, and one of the attractions is that after living in New Zealand for a few years and taking out citizenship, you will be able to move on to Australia. The agreements also let NZ offload its responsibilities for some of its more disadvantaged home-grown citizens, although our government did block welfare for them in Australia.

James O'Neill "Reducing skilled migration intakes... Experience shows that one result will be an exodus of skilled Australians because the economy cannot support them here."

Highly illogical.
If there are fewer competitors in your field, your skills would be even more valuable and in demand.
Employers will be licking your boots. Why would you leave the country?
If the skills are *essential*, employers can't choose not to have them. They must pay up or shut down.
If they're not essential, we don't really need more from overseas, eh?

"New Zealanders... not as simple as you suggest... in practice the world doesn't work that way."

Really? Agreements are broken or revised all the time.
Our hands are not tied.
It's the minds of the political class that are bound, by ideology and lobbyists.

@shockadelic. Before you leap into claims of illogicality I suggest you acquaint yourself with some basic principles of economic history.

Of course agreements are broken or ignored, particularly by countries that have scant regard to their international obligations. In the case of NZ migration the former PM Robert Muldoon once observed that he wasn't concerned about the net outflow of New Zealanders to Australia because it raised the average IQ of both countries. Be grateful for small mercies.