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".