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.