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The Forum > Article Comments > Racist population fears killed by facts > Comments

Racist population fears killed by facts : Comments

By Malcolm King, published 25/1/2013

Migration is not destroying the Australian way of life.

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Make up your mind Malcolm, do you want to defeat the Anti Pops via scientific or ideological methods? If their analysis of population trends is, in your opinion wrong then that's your trump card, it's not necessary to prove or even discuss their motivations. "Racism" is impossible to substantiate therefore Anti Racism is an unscientific approach, "inability to read statistics=racism" or "anyone who takes an unscientific approach to the immigration debate is racist".
To incorporate it into your argument is to play exactly the same game as the Anti-Pops because stoking fears of "Racism" among the Hoople Heads is just as meddlesome as investing in them a fear of "overpopulation".
Anti Racists are just the reverse image of Racists, whichever way you look at the picture, either in positive or negative you can still only see ugliness, bigotry and bad character.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Friday, 25 January 2013 9:21:40 AM
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Arh, the ol' 'racist' tag toward those who disagree. Well, two can play that game. I charge Mr King with 'bigotry' for being intolerant of opposing opinions.

Nevertheless, bringing in large amounts of migrants when there are already high numbers of unemployed people only fosters resentment, because it is the unemployed and the working poor who have to compete for work against the new migrants. If job security was more assured amongst the working classes, then a certain amount of immigration would be acceptable to them. Don't expect the Australian poor to be accepting of large immigration when it is them who have to compete for living wages.
Posted by Aristocrat, Friday, 25 January 2013 1:24:48 PM
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Additionally, migrants often take up residency in those suburbs where the working poor reside. Social cohesion or a sense of community is already something hard to achieve in cities; by importing people who have values and world views contrary to those working classes, further division is created.
This division can be manageable while a sense of job security is assured, but if unemployment becomes too high and an underclass grows, who do you think will be targeted?

Anyway, it's probably just easier to call me 'racist' and forget about these problems
Posted by Aristocrat, Friday, 25 January 2013 1:34:28 PM
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I did not know that Bindi Irwin was a racist.

You learn something new every day, thanks Malcolm!
Posted by Bugsy, Friday, 25 January 2013 2:22:22 PM
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This article is totally offensive and driven by pure ideology. It's offensive causing us 'anti-pops' (our motivation is the betterment of mankind through stabilised or lower numbers of people, as well as preservation of other species) and offensive causing us racists. (I've been working on this for four decades and I have children and grandchildren of every hue.)

Of course we know there are temporary migrants in Australia (too many in fact). It's a concern because but they are the biggest source of permanent migrants. It's population though that matters, whether it comes from migration or natural increase. And according to the latest figures from ABS 3101.0, our population growth rate of 1.6 per cent (a Third World rate)was made up of natural increase (42%) and net overseas migration (immigration minus emigration - 58%). Natural increase should come down if fertility stays below replacement (2.1) but net migration can be enlarged at the whim of government. Unfortunately, in the most recent quarter listed (year to June 2012), both are still increasing. Natural increase (151,300 people) was 800 higher than the natural increase recorded for the year ended 30 June 2011. And net overseas migration (208,300 people) was 38,100 higher than the net overseas migration recorded for the previous year.For those of us who would like to stabilise or reduce our overall numbers, we're going the wrong way! That may be just fine for Malcolm King - he's probably got a vested interest in population growth. What is it Malcolm? Real estate perhaps?
Posted by popnperish, Friday, 25 January 2013 2:33:04 PM
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Amazing - a Bindi anti-population story just before Australia Day. Who would have thunk it? I'm surprised the Unstable Population Front of Judea hasn't endorsed Bindi. It would get her as poor old Dick Smith in the papers for a day.
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 25 January 2013 2:36:45 PM
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It's bizarre that something this far-fetched gets a run. In that sense, it's best to ignore it, and certainly not bother to waste time demolishing it.

The only possible curiosity might be to see if 'Cheryl' bobs up and comments on her own work.
Posted by PopulationParty, Friday, 25 January 2013 2:52:25 PM
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Perhaps we could send this twit to keep the peace in Woodridge, between some of that thriving multicultural society there. He'd pretty soon become the news, & probably a statistic to boot.

Only someone with their eyes wired shut could have written this bit of pulp. I wonder if writing this rubbish is his small PR business product.
Posted by Hasbeen, Friday, 25 January 2013 3:57:25 PM
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The numerically-challenged Malcolm claims the value of Australia's food production is about ten times our actual gross national income ($500,000 times 23 million people is some $11.5 trillion). Just the first of his ridiculous tirade of numerical nonsense.
ABS figures, which he likes to quote, clearly show Australia's population growth over the past year was 1.6% per annum, the fastest rate among developed countries by a considerable margin. At this rate, we'd exceed our drought-year food production within two decades. It doesn't matter what proportion of those were temporary or permanent or 457s or Kiwis, or born to Australians or born to immigrants. That's the net result, year on year. It doesn't matter much how many of them live in one house - a completely spurious discussion.
Apart from vilifying people with legitimate concern for our ecological sustainability, I'm not sure what Mr. King is for. His argument that population growth is not a problem is based on arguing that immigration numbers aren't that high. (He doesn't actually say what figures any 'anti-pop' has cited that are wrong.) If it wasn't a problem, it wouldn't matter how high they were.
Thank heaven that he is no longer a director at DEEWR Labour Market Strategy!
Posted by jos, Friday, 25 January 2013 4:09:11 PM
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Jos is quite right. If continued, that 1.6% population growth will double our population every 43.3 years. The ABS only counts people for net overseas migration if they have arrived and stayed in Australia for the past 12 months. Tourists, business visitors, etc. who come in for a few weeks don't count.

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/3412.0Explanatory%20Notes12010-11?OpenDocument

From the point of view of popukation impact on our environment and society, it doesn't really matter if people stay permanently or if they go home after a few years and are replaced by even more temporary migrants. In any case, that figure of 18% for 457 visa holders converting to permanent residency isn't believable. This was a reply in Parliament to a question by Senator Ellison in 2008

"SUPPLEMENTARY BUDGET ESTIMATES HEARING: 21 OCTOBER 2008
IMMIGRATION AND CITIZENSHIP PORTFOLIO
(33) Output 1.1: Migration and Visa Policy
Senator Ellison (L&CA 72) asked:
What is the percentage of 457s who have converted to permanent residency?
Answer:
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. Subclass 457 visa holders can become permanent residents at any time over the period of their visa, which can be up to four years. Some visa holders may also be granted further 457 visas and become permanent residents while on a subsequent visa. 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)."

Note that the real figure is likely to be even higher, as explained.

If Malcolm King can call us racists, then we can ask if he is motivated by greed. What are his employment or business interests that could benefit from high population growth or high immigration?
Posted by Divergence, Friday, 25 January 2013 4:43:00 PM
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The growth lobby's arguments are so weak that the ONLY weapon they can find against the obvious problems of overpopulation in Australia is to speciously accuse perfectly tolerant Australians of racism. The growth lobby honestly has no other argument. The fact that the author is in the employment agency field places him squarely among the few focused beneficiaries of population growth. At the moment Australia cannot even supply local business with natural gas, despite running roughshod over democratic rights in order to force new mines all over the place. See http://candobetter.net/node/3157 Population growth in Australia is nothing short of coercive in its consequence and socially engineered in its design.
Posted by BiancaDog, Friday, 25 January 2013 5:02:18 PM
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FANASY ISLAND - scene 1

TATTOO:

Mr Bourke, Ms Kanck - help! We didn't know we were counting Australian and New Zealand people as migrants! You should have told us. We didn't know we export more than $30 billion a food per year. We didn't know about the intrastate movement of people to the cities. The sky is falling in!

VOICE OF MR ROARKE AS IF GOD-LIKE

That's alright Tattoo, next time we try and scare the Australian people and run an anti-migrant fear campaign, we'll do some research first. Now, get back on the bus, we're heading home to Byron Bay.

TATTOO

But Mr Roarke you said we was going to catch de plane.

Fade out to internecine squabbling.
Posted by Cheryl, Friday, 25 January 2013 6:16:41 PM
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BiancaDog
There are lots of arguments to in favour of Australia having a larger and diverse population; Malcolm has only covered some of them. They include:

- We cannot find enough skilled and unskilled workers to do the jobs that are needed (yes there are unemployed, but they don’t seem willing to move where the work is).
- We have one of the lowest population densities on earth.
- A diverse society is more interesting, stimulating and rewarding to live in than a monoculture
- Migrants bring skills and knowledge which we may not have
- In Australia, population growth is positively correlated with economic growth (States and regions with the fastest population growth have the fastest per capita economic growth)
- A larger population allows us to benefit from economies of scale in sharing infrastructure costs and gives critical mass for services that need large population bases to be viable, like high-quality orchestras and expensive state-of-the-art medical equipment

While Malcolm’s arguments about housing are a bit abstruse, the data he uses support a simpler conclusion – if the number of people per household is fairly stable, then the rate of growth of the housing stock must have kept pace with the rate of growth in population, so the oft-heard complaint that migration causes housing stress doesn’t seem to be true in the long run (though I’ll admit there can be pockets of pressure, such as the Pilbara at present)
Posted by Rhian, Friday, 25 January 2013 6:28:02 PM
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It is sobering to realise that in a short 224years since first settlement, we already have-22,620.600 people.

Yes to emphasize-- that is 22million, 620thousand and six hundred
people in a little over 200years. At that rate it won’t take too many centuries to have a massive unsustainable population.

Water and electricity and the cost of those are already a major problem.
Posted by CHERFUL, Friday, 25 January 2013 7:18:31 PM
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CHERFUL

22 million isn’t very many people – there are municipalities in China with more people than Australia. Japan has about 6 times our population but 5% of our land area.

Even allowing that much of Australia is desert, we have more arable land than Germany, France, the UK and Italy combined – and they have combined populations of more than 260 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_real_population_density_based_on_food_growing_capacity

Saying that “it won’t take too many centuries to have a massive unsustainable population” is rather like telling a starving man that, if he eats more calories than he uses each day, he will eventually become dangerously obese.
Posted by Rhian, Friday, 25 January 2013 8:32:53 PM
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Malcolm,

It is a difficult task to comprehend and process how the various facets of society, combine and produce the social design we experience today .

The present design appears to work , as we are borrowing billions of dollars each year and in addition selling major agricultural, government and
private assets to overseas interests, which further disguises the the economic mess we are in.

To this background we have population boosters from the property development industry which includes the banks, who base their business model

on making profits from land speculation. To make this land speculation work, billions of dollars of taxpayers and borrowed money, is poured
into endless real estate infrastructure projects .

However, at the same time our universities and schools are falling on world rankings because of funding shortfalls . In addition our manufacturing
base has collapsed due to lack of private and public funding into research and development .

The destruction of our best farmland on the edge of cities and the demise of wild habitat both here and overseas where a major proportion of our
food is imported from, should be accompanied by a sense of shame. That habitat loss is due to housing and increased food production, due to
population growth.

The appropriate educational moral response, is to encourage families to have around 2 children , at around thirty years of age and to have balanced
migration. That is , if 80,000 people leave each year, then bring in 80,000 people.

This is an internationally transportable design and all our foreign aid should be used to help the rest of the world and especially our near neighbours ,
to stabilise their populations.

From ABS data, our birthrate is double our deathrate and the extra 1.2 million people every 3 yrs in Australia, is just unsupportable on all fronts.

Denmark with just 5 million people , export all over the world, as they are doing the exact opposite to Australia’s real estate driven mindset.

Regards,

Ralph
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Friday, 25 January 2013 10:30:52 PM
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Rhian,
Cheap Third World labour has driven down wages in the Taxi, Hospitality, Agricultural and Construction industries, here's but one example:
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/dishing-out-pay-of-8-an-hour-20130125-2dci8.html
Chinese and Indians will often work for as little as $40-50 cash a day, no Australian can live on that, but it gets worse, Chinese will deliberately undercut locals to try and drive them out of business,even if it means taking a short term loss, this is how they operate everywhere, it's what caused the anti Chinese riots in Honiara and Port Moresby
I recently quoted a large plastering job, my figure came in at around $15,000, a Chinese plasterer gave a price of $5,000, which is just ridiculous. The owner of the property went with the lower quote even though I told him repeatedly he was heading for trouble, that it wasn't a realistic price. Sure enough they stuffed up the job so badly that he sacked them after two days and rang me to see if I'd finish the job and fix the mess they'd made, which would have meant stripping a lot of the sheets off because they'd unclipped all the electrical cables and left them hanging out side the sheets, why I don't know...I told him to go jump in the lake.

Chinese have access to vastly cheaper building products which they import themselves and won't sell to Australians, I saw the quote in the above case, he'd allowed something like $500 for materials, when I was called back his board and stopping compounds were still on site and they were a Chinese brand I'd never seen before. If he's paying $10 for his compounds and I'm paying $30 how can I compete? How can my supplier compete?
Rhian this is the reality of immigration, not the airy fairy fantasy world you live in.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Friday, 25 January 2013 10:37:34 PM
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Ethnocentrism, which the anti Racist defines as "Racism" is a group survival strategy, opposing ethnocentrism in a particular group is to set oneself in opposition to their survival. Anti Racists are opposed to the survival of the ethnic groups they target for their "Racism", be they White Australians, Israeli Jews, Germans, Japanese and so on.
Anti Racists are bad people, genocidal minded maniacs equally as bad, though far more numerous than "Racists".
I'd like to ask the author to name one publicly self avowed "racist" in our society, someone who people look up to, who is invited to speak to school and community groups or whose expertise in his field is consulted by lobbyists and special interest groups.
I'll save him the job, there are none, "Anti Racists" on the other hand are legion in this society and they dominate all levels of our schools, community groups, political parties and public institutions and they are routinely consulted by government and NGO's.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Friday, 25 January 2013 11:12:43 PM
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A very logical article.
I can see why a pro-immigrant, anti-racism article like this one would stir up the pro-white, anti-everyone-else brigade!

JoM, I really can't see ANY 'community group' looking for a 'respectable' racist to give them a talk and that they can all look up to... Lol.
I guess maybe a community group looking to start an Australian chapter of the Aryan Nation maybe...?
Posted by Suseonline, Saturday, 26 January 2013 12:40:20 AM
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Malcolm King “The anti-pops thinking has much in common with the conspiratorial and delusional beliefs of the Heaven’s Gate cult”

Such as?

In the breakdown of supposedly “Temp” visas, the departures are consistently *half* the arrivals.
Surely, if past arrivals are similar to today, there should be an approximately equal number.

If 200,000 “temps” arrive each year, but only 100,000 leave *each* year, there is a net gain *every* year of 100,000 supposedly "temporary" people!

The Australian citizens' arrivals and departures are virtually identical, so why do pro-pops always bring this up?

If anything, departures of our citizens are more noticeable, as the proportion of the total departures is almost *double* the proportion of arrivals.

“the numbers of foreigners allegedly invading our borders sinks to 84,014 souls and then drops further to 77,636 when we deduct those who leave.”

77,000 people who weren't here the year before.
Who need homes, jobs, food, energy....
And another 77,000 next year.
And another 77,000 the year after.

No problem! We still have some arable farmland and native forest on the East coast that hasn't been bulldozed yet.

And a few species that aren't endangered yet.

“Because the anti-pops are innumerate racists.”

Every people on Earth is “racist”.
There are even many peoples who are a mixture of multiple ancestries. And they all want *their* people to survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiracial#Ethnic_groups

Just because we have a single racial (but multi-ethnic) ancestry, we are “racist”, only because that single race is “White/European/Caucasoid”.

We don't care about Kiwis and returning Aussies because, shock horror, they won't dramatically alter our demographics beyond recognition.

What you forget to mention in your breakdown is how many non-Europeans there are in the “perms”: 3 out of 4.

It's not just an invasion, it's an inversion (of our demographic history).

“We are all organisms, each with a unique character.”

And a *shared* character, biologically and culturally inherited from *our* ancestors.

Our close, direct, recent ancestors, not prehistoric Mitochondrial Eve.

“Lets give the anti-pops attitude a name – racist.”

Let's give the any-old-pops-will-do attitude a name – genocidal.
Posted by Shockadelic, Saturday, 26 January 2013 2:23:05 AM
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suseonline,
No, the premise of the article is that since there is in his opinion no scientific basis for the claims of the sustainability lobby they must therefore be "racist".
I've played this game with anti Racists over and over and I always win because they can never name even one publicly avowed "racist".
"Racism" is just a kill word used by bourgeois criminals to oppress those whom they deem inferior, to kill debate, to kill dissent, to kill democracy and kill working class people's political liberty.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Saturday, 26 January 2013 7:02:03 AM
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With the escalating rise in immigration you must take into account the enormous amount of agricultural land being taken over for housing and also of course for infrastructure. Australia is not blessed with an infinite amount of good land and the water resource is problematical to say the least.
It also means more power generation with it's increased emissions, public transport is lagging behind demand and housing is woefully inadequate.
The only reason that vested interests have for increasing the population is to provide a larger pool of labour to force down wages and the spin off is in providing a bigger base of consumers to soak up the output of (mostly) imported retail goods.
There is no good reason to increase Australia's population other than greed.
Posted by Robert LePage, Saturday, 26 January 2013 9:33:24 AM
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I think you're right Jay.

The article has banged another nail in the hopes of the anti-populationists that their fear campaign has any solid empirical evidence. They didn't even know that about a quarter of NOM were Aussies and Kiwis. They don't know the export capacity of our food production nor do they know a key leading indicator of population, people per abode. What does that say about their research? They are laughable.

Even so, I think they will get votes from the far right who loath foreigners, Muslims and people who don't come from Anglo stock. They will also do well from NIMBYs and those who can't add up.

One of the reasons why the Greens, ALP and Libs won't have a bar of these silly social engineers is that, to coin a phrase, 'if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck', then its a duck. Ditto the 'foreigners out' stance of the SPA, SPGN and Stable Population Australia.
Posted by Cheryl, Saturday, 26 January 2013 10:44:34 AM
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Apparently Malcolm King hasn't bothered to research the objects of his ad hominem and straw man attacks, the so-called "anti-pops", both the SPP and the SPA have explicitly non-racist manifestos. The claim that all opponents of high population growth are racially motivated is nonsense and prejudicial.

The drivel on the "Mayan Apocalypse" was amusing (and irritating) due to the author's total lack of understanding of what the Maya actually believed, he's fallen into the same trap again, with all the confidence of the ignorant.
Posted by mac, Saturday, 26 January 2013 11:31:37 AM
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Cheryl.
The Anti Pops are wrong and so are the Anti Racists, they're as bad as each other but the fact remains, Indian and Chinese immigration is driving down wages and working conditions as well as ruining the small business prospects of all Australians.
Chinese immigration is also destroying our diverse communities, where I live, Preston, Chinese have all but taken over the retail spaces,I've done the legwork and counted the number of Chinese owned businesses, it's approaching 90% along High St and 40-50% in Preston Market. It would be decades since one ethnic group dominated that precinct and this is happening everywhere, all suburban shopping strips are becoming Chinatowns, so where are the Anti Racists on this issue?
As we know Chinese businesses exploit their workers and they import all their stock at a fraction of the price of a locally made equivalent. They also price fix, all Preston's Chinese groceries charge the same for their product lines, all the Chinese Cafes charge the same prices for a plate of noodles, they never have sales, they simply don't compete with each other. The result of this is that High St Preston will be a Chinatown forever, the lack of competition, low wages and price fixing means that they will be impossible to dislodge and local people wanting to open a shopfront will never be able to find an open space in a high traffic area.

This is an exact repeat of the events of the late 19th century, everything that was said against Chinese immigration was as true then as it is today and the same caste of Anglo Saxon criminals are facilitating and profiting from the arrangement at the expense of the working classes.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Saturday, 26 January 2013 11:46:31 AM
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I am a white racist. I don't particularly like chinese so I must be a racist. They are rude, pushy, arrogant and all they think about is money and how to relieve you of yours. The central tenet of chinese 'culture' (which I think is just a word invented by western liberals to justify non white racism) is that chinese are superior to other people. Why the hell are we importing them?
Posted by Cody, Saturday, 26 January 2013 11:59:23 AM
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Rhian,

Here are the 10 top-ranking countries on the latest World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index. In parentheses, I have listed the population growth rate, the population, and the rank on the UN Human Development Index (HDI). Where there are 4 numbers, the last is the HDI rank adjusted for inequality (not available for all countries):

Switzerland (0.199%, 7.7 million, 11, 11)
Singapore (2.0%, 5.3 million, 26)
Finland (0.065%, 5.3 million, 22, 15)
Sweden (0.168%, 9.1 million, 10, 5)
Netherlands (0.452%, 16.7 million, 3, 4)
Germany (-0.2%, 81.3 million, 9, 9)
United States (0.9%, 313.8 million, 4, 23)
United Kingdom (0.533%, 63.0 million, 28, 24)
Hong Kong (0.421%, 7.2 million, 13)
Japan (-0.077%, 127.4 million, 12)

Where is the benefit from population growth? Note that Australia's population growth rate of 1.6% is well above any of them, apart from Singapore, which is a city state and thus a special case. {Melbourne is also growing at 2.0%.)

The Productivity Commission in its 2006 report into immigration modelled the economic effects of a 50% increase in skilled migration. They showed a gain in GNP per capita of less than $400 by 2024/5 (p. 154):

"Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves. For existing residents, capital owners receive additional income, with owners of capital in those sectors experiencing the largest output gains enjoying the largest gains in capital income. On the other hand, the real average annual incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than in the base-case, as additional immigrants place downward pressure on real wages.The economic impact of skilled migration is small when compared with other drivers of productivity and income per capita." p. 154 (see also graphs on p. 147 and p. 155)

You talk about economies of scale, but ignore diseconomies of scale such as traffic congestion and the cost of desalinisation (4 to 6 times the cost of dam water). The Productivity Commission report says that evidence for a net benefit is inconclusive.
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 26 January 2013 1:22:43 PM
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Malcolm King (together with his alter ego Cheryl) is doing his best to obfuscate the issue of population growth. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) is concerned about how many people are living in Australia, so they don't distinguish between a returning expatriate and an overseas migrant. Expatriates are Australian citizens, so they have a right to live here. It is easy to pick a year when more of them come home than leave (due to the global financial crisis), but that situation can't continue indefinitely. Our expatriate ratio is only about 2.8%.

Last I heard, New Zealand is an independent country. Why should New Zealanders have open borders with Australia and not be considered migrants? If Malcolm King is saying that they should be somehow special because of our shared history, this indicates the very racism that he is trying to smear on others.

Why is there such a discrepancy between Malcolm King's 18% of 457 visa holders who get permanent residence and what Senator Ellison was told in Parliament?

How exactly do ordinary people (as opposed to the rich and those with jobs in the immigration industry) benefit from the population growth?
Per capita benefit is trivial, and very little of it is distributed to them. Their wages are depressed. Most of the diseconomies of scale fall on them. The average house in 1973 cost 3.5 times the median wage (with the land about 30%), now it is 7-10 times, depending on the location (with the land more than 70%, even though block sizes are much smaller). Utility bills are skyrocketing. We have a $770 billion infrastructure backlog, according to Infrastructure Australia. (Migrants need the full complement of infrastructure right away, but will take many years on average to contribute enough to pay for their share of it.)

Despite what Malcolm King says, negative effects on the environment are all too real. The Australian Conservation Foundation has applied to have population growth considered a key threatening process under the Environmental Protection Act.

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf
Posted by Divergence, Saturday, 26 January 2013 2:04:17 PM
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Look at it this way. Australia is importing racism faster than it can grow it here. So, when all the racists outnumber us what are they going to do ? Well, what they always do, they'll have dictatorships which promote the killing of it's decent citizens by child soldiers.
Posted by individual, Saturday, 26 January 2013 4:04:14 PM
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Divergence
We have had this discussion before. The competitiveness indexes measure how business-friendly an economy is. They consider things like business taxes and regulation. They do not measure standard of living or quality of life.

The human development index is, however, a real quality of life measure. Australia has faster population growth than any of the countries you listed, and also ranks higher on the HDI than any of the countries you listed. Australia’s HDI is second in the world,
behind only Norway:
http://hdr.undp.org/en/statistics/

perhaps that is why you omitted it from your list?

In fact, if you look at the Human Development Index, six of the top 7 countries have population growth ahead of the rich-country average of about 0.7% growth, and the top 2 – Australia and Norway – have population growth about twice the average for rich developed economies.

HDI Rank – population growth – country

01 - 1.3% - Norway
02 - 1.4% - Australia
03 - 0.5% - Netherlands
04 - 0.7% - United States
05 - 0.9% - New Zealand
06 – 1.0% - Canada
07 - 0.3% - Ireland
08 - 0.8% - Liechtenstein
09 - -0.1% - Germany
10 - 0.8% - Sweden

Population data from here:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.GROW

looks to me like Australia's population growth is about optimum
Posted by Rhian, Saturday, 26 January 2013 5:13:20 PM
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King's article shows that he understands and uses something the anti population and anti immigration lobbies don't, evidence vs opinions, beliefs, cherry picked data and at best vague references.

The idea of overstating population growth and immigration to create alarm is not new, it emanates from USA nativist movements, namely John Tanton of U.S. Inc., his journal The Social Contract and umbrella or front organisations funded by him to promote reduced immigration, reduced population growth, English, influence media and politicians etc. CIS, FAIR, Numbers USA, PFIR etc.

Objective? To green wash his racial views, and surreptitiously co opt environmentalists, liberals, progressives etc.

On the Irwins, what a coincidence, guess who visited Australia Zoo in January? Roy Beck of Numbers USA, who has been an employee, colleague and friend of Tanton.....
Posted by Andras Smith, Sunday, 27 January 2013 1:43:31 AM
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Rhian “perhaps that is why you [Divergence] omitted it from your list?”

And what are you ignoring from yours?

The top ten HDI countries are *all* majority-White populations, the very people we are no longer welcoming as immigrants (only 1 out of 4 now).

Oh, and it's not just the top 10.

Let's look at the rest of the 47 “Very high human development” countries.

Note that 8 of these countries were formerly behind the Iron Curtain (9 including East Germany), yet have caught up in no time.

11 Switzerland (majority White)
12 Japan
13 Hong Kong
14 Iceland (majority White)
15 South Korea
16 Denmark (majority White)
17 Israel (majority White)
18 Belgium (majority White)
19 Austria (majority White)
20 France (majority White)
21 Slovenia (majority White, former communist)
22 Finland (majority White)
23 Spain (majority White)
24 Italy (majority White)
25 Luxembourg (majority White)
-- European Union (majority White)
26 Singapore
27 Czech Republic (majority White, former communist)
28 United Kingdom (majority White)
29 Greece (majority White)
30 United Arab Emirates
31 Cyprus (majority White)
32 Andorra (majority White)
33 Brunei
34 Estonia (majority White, former communist)
35 Slovakia (majority White, former communist)
36 Malta (majority White)
37 Qatar
38 Hungary (majority White, former communist)
39 Poland (majority White, former communist)
40 Lithuania (majority White, former communist)
41 Portugal (majority White)
42 Bahrain
43 Latvia (majority White, former communist)
44 Chile (majority White)
45 Argentina (majority White)
46 Croatia (majority White, former communist)
47 Barbados

It's not population growth, it's the *population*!

With our current immigration policy, we won't be in the top 10 (or 47) forever.

“looks to me like Australia's population growth is about optimum”

Looks to me like being White is optimum.
Posted by Shockadelic, Sunday, 27 January 2013 3:34:20 AM
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Looks to me like being White is optimum.
Shockadelic,
What is the optimum for non-whites ?
Posted by individual, Sunday, 27 January 2013 8:17:47 AM
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Shockadelic

You are right that most countries with high Human Development Indexes have white populations. But as any half-decent student of statistics knows, correlation does not necessarily signify causation.

Europe was the home of the industrial revolution, and the birthplace of modern capitalism. European countries and those settled by Europeans were the first to adopt the mix of social, political and economic policies that have proved most conductive to high living standards. These include democracy, rule of law, and mixed economies with vigorous private sectors and governments that provide or support infrastructure, social protections and essential services. This gave “white” societies a massive head start in the development stakes, but other countries that have adopted similar policies have in some cases achieved similar levels of development, sometimes very quickly (Japan, Korea).

You quite rightly identify those European economies that did not adopt these policies until quite recently – the former communist states of Eastern Europe – as having significantly lower levels of development than the Western democracies.

Being white is neither necessary to attain very high development (Japan, Korea), nor sufficient (Albania, Armenia). Having lots of oil can also help (UAE, Qatar).

It is policies and resource endowment, not genetics, that determine whether a society has high human development
Posted by Rhian, Sunday, 27 January 2013 1:18:09 PM
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Rhian,

Where do you get 1.3% population growth for Norway? The CIA World Factbook has 0.327%, which sort of defeats your argument. The inequality adjusted top 10 HDI rankings are Norway, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Iceland (0.679%), Ireland (1.112%), Germany, Denmark (0.239%), Switzerland. Slovenia (-0.185%). Note that half of these countries are also on the World Economic Forum top ten, and some of the others also rank high, so there isn't an enormous difference. You also need to consider, as with the Australian states, whether good economic performance is attracting people in some of the higher growth countries, rather than more people creating good economic performance.

Furthermore, you are misleading in your discussion of arable land. Arable land is not all equal. There is a lot of land in Australia that is technically arable, but will only produce a crop in a wetter than average year. Our wheat production per hectare is between 1 and 2 tonnes, depending on drought. It is 8.9 tonnes in the Netherlands and 7.2 tonnes in the UK. The average yield in tonnes per hectare for all cereals is 1.72 in Australia, and 7.09 in France (according to the World Bank). This is not surprising, as our soils have not been renewed by glaciation or mountain building, so good soil is very scarce, apart from alluvial land and some old volcanic hotspots. Then there is the ENSO cycle with long recurrent droughts. See these maps from Dr. Chris Dixon of the CSIRO

http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html

There is a theory that the Aboriginal people never developed agriculture, unlike their cousins in New Guinea, because it would have been a death trap. Even enough food to see a village through a European winter wouldn't have been enough to survive a long ENSO drought.

The bottom line here is that we export about 6o% of our grain in an average year and 40% in a drought year, despite Malcolm King's hype.

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2010-05-06/can-we-feed-“big-australia”

Why do you want more people to eat up our safety margin, especially in the light of likely negative consequences of climate change, the end of cheap oil, etc.?
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 28 January 2013 1:19:47 PM
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Rhian,
Europeans didn't "adopt" modernity, we CREATED it, creativity is a crucial difference between White and non White populations.
As has been conclusively demonstrated on this forum in the past the progress of the "Asian Tigers" relies almost exclusively on technology and IP transfers from Europe, some licensed but much of it plagiarised.
Look up the figures for U.S patent applications by Asian firms, then look up comparative productivity figures, Asians (the much lauded leaders in non White development) are neither creative technicians and strategists nor productive workers. Even if you are going to insist that race is "just a social construct" then it's probably the most important and valuable of the many social constructs we use to make sense of the world around us. In strategic terms race is an accurate diagnostic tool and an useful part of a forecasting system, science is not colour blind, talking about race may be politically incorrect but it's scientifically sound.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 28 January 2013 1:43:28 PM
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Divergence

I got my data from the world bank site that I linked to.

The Norwegian government’s statistics website gives this table, indicating 1.3% population growth in 2012 and also an annual average of 1.3% growth over the 5 years to 2012:

http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/02/02/folkendrhist_en/tables/tab/00.html

I agree that well-performing economies tend to attract migrants, but this is just an effort to shift the goalposts on your part. You proposed that high population growth causes a loss of welfare, and you quoted some statistics that you think proved your case. The evidence you used does not in fact support your argument, and indeed is more supportive of my view that a positive rate of population growth is beneficial. You may believe that countries with positive population growth would do even better if population growth was lower, but you have no evidence to support that.

It is not surprising that countries that rank highly on the WEF competitiveness measure also do well economically and in terms of broader human development. It’s just that the causal link has nothing to do with population. These are the top 10 factors that the WEF cited as impediments to Australia’s competitiveness, in order of importance:

Restrictive labour regulations
Inefficient government bureaucracy
Tax rates
Tax regulations
Access to financing
Poor work ethic in national labour force
Policy instability
Inadequate supply of infrastructure
Inadequately educated workforce
Insufficient capacity to innovate

http://reports.weforum.org/global-competitiveness-report-2012-2013/#=

Unless you can link these causally to population growth, the data are irrelevant to your argument.

I agree that not all arable land is equal. Nonetheless, we do have an awful lot of it, and we do produce a lot more agricultural product than we could possibly consume.

Jay

Ok, so Europeans created modernity, but we are not the only ones capable of benefiting from it. If migration threated the economic and social systems that make societies thrive, we'd expect developed countries with a tradition of high migration to score relatively poorly in the human development rankings. The success of Australia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Norway and the USA demonstrates that migration has not caused development to be retarded.
Posted by Rhian, Monday, 28 January 2013 3:08:13 PM
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Jay of Melbourne,

That isn't really fair. It is true that Europeans invented systematic science. The ancient Greeks produced the first real scientists, and there was no technology equivalent to the Antikythera device (an analogue computer) anywhere in the world for a thousand years. Nevertheless, other people have made extremely valuable contributions to science. This is a list of Japanese Nobel laureates. Some of their contributions have been enormously important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Japanese_Nobel_laureates

Rhian,

Growthists frequently claim that high population growth is vital for economic performance, so the Competitiveness Index is very relevant. All that I wanted to show was that countries can have very low or no population growth and still be competitive, as well as giving their people a good quality of life.

Growthists also assume that the future is going to be just like the present. I believe the warnings from the scientific community about what we are doing to the environment, that carrying capacity may be less in the future. Even purely natural changes, long bad droughts or new plant diseases, can bring about a collapse, especially if people are living at the limits of their carrying capacity. See Jared Diamond's "Collapse" for just some examples. Perhaps our motto ought to be "prepare for ill and not for good", not "let the good times roll".
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 28 January 2013 3:51:24 PM
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Rhian,

I have shown that high population growth reduces welfare, but not from these rankings. Here are some of the factors I have mentioned.

Gouging on the cost of residential land feeding through into house prices and rents, from 3.5 times the median wage for an average house in 1973 to 7-10 times now. This is not primarily due to "young people wanting to have it all", but to the skyrocketing cost of residential land, from 30% of a house-land package to 70%. Do you seriously believe that house prices could have been jacked up to such an extent without population growth increasing demand?

Water, electricity and gas prices. Desalinated water is 4 to 6 times as expensive as dam water and a huge consumer of electricity. Far more infrastructure has to built than is needed for the existing population.

Wage depression and other forms of labour exploitation, such as casualisation and unpaid overtime - supply and demand, not Marxism. This graph from the State of Working America shows the decline in real US male wages for most families in the US since 1979.

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

While a number of other factors are involved, Prof. George Borjas (Economics, Harvard) estimated in 1999 that half the loss of real wages among the least skilled workers, the ones in the US facing the greatest competition from immigrants, could be attributed to immigration.

http://www.cis.org/BookAdaptaion-HeavensDoor
Posted by Divergence, Monday, 28 January 2013 4:57:15 PM
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Divergence,
For a start look at the right hand column on that Wiki link and note the Number of European co contributors to those projects, where was Japanese science when the foundations of those theories were being formulated in Europe?
I refuse to play the "Who's white?" game, we all know who among the ancients most resembled ourselves, the "Islamic" scholars inherited the achievements of the Hellenic then the Byzantine thinkers and the medieval academies of the Near East relied as much on European thinkers as they do today.
There is no "That was then, this is now" when it comes to race and exchange of ideas, based on the close ties and mutual interests of thinkers today we can safely say that there would have to have been a consistent rate of cultural, philosophical and technological exchange between the West and the East over the last two or three millennia, if not longer. People don't change, race determines the pace, the form and consistency of philosophical and technological developments.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 28 January 2013 5:25:29 PM
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Pardon me, I'd like to add that the racial dimensions and implications for technological and philosophical development are not a source of shame among anyone but anti Racists and self hating Whites, Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Korean students work their butts off to get into programs at top Western universities. The foundations for a "better life" for an enquiring Asian mind is never sought in Harare, Port Moresby or Islamabad.
Posted by Jay Of Melbourne, Monday, 28 January 2013 5:35:12 PM
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individual “What is the optimum for non-whites?”

Survival.

Rhian “correlation does not necessarily signify causation.”

Aren't you the guilty one? (“population growth = high development”)

More believable (since many White high HDI countries have *low* immigration), to conclude “White = high development”

“Europe was the home of the industrial revolution, birthplace of modern capitalism, the first to adopt..."

Why the home, the birthplace, the first, a massive head start?
Accident? Luck? Fairies' blessings?
No, *who* we are!

If every race is equal there would be no “head start” for anyone, and it wouldn't be Europeans, since we were latecomers historically.

"(Japan, Korea)”

By mimicking Whites, not being "Asian".
East Asia was stagnant for centuries until “Dead White Males” applied the defibrillator.

“the former communist states of Eastern Europe – as having significantly lower levels of development than the Western democracies.”

And... significantly higher than most non-White countries that were *never* communist at all!
Less than one century of communism, millennia of Whiteness. Bullseye!

Note also, the two Latin American countries.
The Southern Cone having the *least* mixing.

“Being white is neither necessary (Japan, Korea), nor sufficient (Albania, Armenia).”

But it sure doesn't hurt.

“Having lots of oil can also help (UAE, Qatar).”

Yes, let's see those rankings drop along with the oil supplies, eh?

“It is policies and resource endowment, not genetics"

A lie told often enough becomes the truth.

I'm afraid your own cited reference shows otherwise.
It's gold, gold, gold for Whites!
The rare exceptions prove the rule.

But let's ignore the bleeding obvious, since it rocks the ideological-fantasy boat.

“Ok, so Europeans created modernity”

And either created or more effectively utilised everything else.

“the success of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Norway and the USA demonstrates that migration has not caused development to be retarded.”

A tradition of high migration, from *where*, of *whom*?
Mostly from other White populations. Mostly.

Pete Townsend “We must race the race so we can face the face.
We got to race the race, we got to.”

Can you face our face, Rhian? Got to.
Or we lose the race (in both senses).
Posted by Shockadelic, Monday, 28 January 2013 7:29:17 PM
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Survival.
Shockadelic,
Is that why we are the minority on this planet ? Or has it something to do that we realised long ago that we're overpopulating the planet but still hoping the others will come to realise that in our time ?
Posted by individual, Monday, 28 January 2013 11:27:04 PM
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Individual
The competitiveness index does not measure economic performance. It measures what a bunch of business people think of Australia’s economic policies.

Are high house prices caused by population growth? It may have contributed, but the data show that Australia’s housing stock has grown in line with its population – hence the data Malcolm quotes, indicating that the number of people per household was stable over the past 10 years. Still, there is good reason to think that housing demand is growing faster than population. This is due mainly to demographic changes in the existing population, such as smaller households in an aging population. And housing market experts point to government policies constraining land releases as the main source of rising house prices. For example, the UDIA says that:

“Australia does not suffer from a lack of land suitable for development and inadequate housing supply is a manufactured condition. State/Territory and local governments are primarily responsible for generating an adequate level of supply.”

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=udia+rising+land+prices&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CDIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.udia.com.au%2FLiteratureRetrieve.aspx%3FID%3D102027&ei=KCEHUfiPFq66iAeJtYGwDQ&usg=AFQjCNHFFkhf64ZvFpASO3jxFEywga3SGQ&bvm=bv.41524429,d.aGc

I do not assume the future will be like the present. But nor do I share your distopian apocalyptic fantasies about imminent eco-collapse. And in the extremely unlikely event that you are right, shaving a few tens of thousands off our annual migrant intake is hardly likely to make much difference.

Shockadelic
Individual claimed that the HDI data proves that population growth is bad for human development. I pointed out that the data s/he quoted in fact shows the opposite. It is hardly inappropriate to point this out.

By the content of your argument it appears that you do not oppose migration, just non-white migration. Would you support high migration if we returned to the white Australia policy?

Jay of Melbourne
“Japanese, Indian, Chinese and Korean students work their butts off to get into programs at top Western universities”. Indeed they do. And I say we should welcome them - except that Australia doesn’t have any top Western universities
Posted by Rhian, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 11:40:45 AM
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Rhian,

Developed ountries can still rank high on the HDI despite high population growth. I never claimed otherwise. (There is a negative correlation, however, for the poorer countries.) What I was claiming was that it is possible to rank high on the HDI while having a stable age structure and low or no population growth, in other words, that high population growth, unlike what many growthists are claiming, is not a necessary condition for good economic performance or decent living standards.

In a frontier economy, there are enormous natural resources per person, but production is limited by the lack of labour. More people are a win/win proposition, and you would expect just having a bigger population to significantly raise GNP per capita. This is no longer the case, at least according to the 2006 Productivity Commission report. In the present situation, only total GNP is being substantially boosted by population growth, enabling our movers and shakers to strut on a bigger stage. The distributional effects, such as wage depression, also siphon a larger share of the nation's wealth up to them. All that the average existing resident gets is more competition for jobs, housing, public services, and amenities, along with more pressure on the environment (see the Australian Conservation Foundation submission I linked to earlier) and, in some areas, more ethnic tensions. You and Cheryl have been remarkably elusive on what's in it for the average existing resident.

If we had a stable population, the demand for extra residential land would be obviously be very small, with people per household about the same, no matter what the government did about supply. This seems obvious. Why has the government restricted supply? To give their mates rent-seeking opportunities might be the cynical answer, but it is more likely that they can't afford the extra infrastructure costs. Assuming a 50 year lifetime for infrastructure, you would need to replace 2% of it every year. If your population is also growing by 2%, then you would need to spend twice as much upfront, but your revenue is only growing by 2%. See

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0270.2011.02125.x/pdf

http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/6869.html
Posted by Divergence, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 1:21:55 PM
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Divergence,

I checked out your ACF citation. It states and I'll put what the report highlighted in caps that:

"Among the most important trans-national studies of population and biodiversity are the
following: McKee et al (2003), a multivariate regression analysis finding close correlation
between population density and percentage of overall species under threat.

The authors found that POPULATION GROWTH RATE IS NOT A STRONG PREDICTOR OF THREATENED SPECIES BUT “human population density alone was significantly and strongly correlated with threatened species per unit area.”

It's pop density as per coastal regions and our capital cities. This is a very different take on your original assertion.

I thought Oz was number two on the HDI - not that anyone cares for subjectively derived and measured criteria.

Whose idea was it on this post to start doing international comparisons of population and economic development? It shows a fundamental ignorance of individual social, historical and national development. It's like comparing Keats with Baudelaire. So what?
Posted by Cheryl, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 1:37:28 PM
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“Australia does not suffer from a lack of land suitable for development and inadequate housing supply is a manufactured condition.
Rhian,
I don't suppose you've spoken to too many who get flooded periodically ? As a matter of fact right now would be a fantastic opportunity for those academic experts to find that suitable land for more development. Australia may be large in but it is small in habitable area unless people are prepared to drastically lower their quality of existence to that of pre-colonialisation.
.. shaving a few tens of thousands off our annual migrant intake is hardly likely to make much difference.
Is that so ? When it comes to collecting your Super & you'll be told that it's all gone to the extra tens of thousands will you still be saying that ?
In Cairns I have to look at the cost of staying in motels because I, as a citizen of the lucky country have to watch my Dollars. When you walk into a 4 star motel & you find it is $165.00 per per night you think twice of taking a room whilst 20 or so boat people staying there are sitting around the pool or hang around the lounge at our expense. That's only twenty, how about tens of thousands ?
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 9:53:43 PM
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Rhian “Individual claimed that the HDI data proves that population growth is bad for human development. I pointed out that the data s/he quoted in fact shows the opposite. It is hardly inappropriate to point this out.”

Did I say anyone's opinions were “inapproprate”?
I simply disagree with your conclusions.

“By the content of your argument it appears that you do not oppose migration, just non-white migration. Would you support high migration if we returned to the white Australia policy?”

No. My concerns cover a wider spectrum than just race/culture.
All the same issues about infrastructure and the environment that other people are talking about are of concern to me too.
I just don't *omit* race/culture like they do.
Posted by Shockadelic, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 11:05:39 PM
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I just don't *omit* race/culture like they do.
Shockadelic,
On the other hand it would be a good start if one didn't make a distinction.
Posted by individual, Tuesday, 29 January 2013 11:25:00 PM
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Rhian,

This graph shows the population growth of Norway since 1960

http://www.google.com.au/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&met_y=sp_pop_grow&idim=country:NOR&dl=en&hl=en&q=population%20growth%20norway

I don't understand the discrepancy with the CIA World Factbook, but let's accept that this graph is right. Apart from 2008 and 2009, when it was Iceland, Norway has been top of the pops on the HDI since 2001 when its population growth rate was 0.5%, less than a third of our current 1.6%. In any case, I don't think that small differences in HDI rank between countries mean that much. Does it really matter for quality of life whether you live in Denmark or Sweden? I suspect that Cheryl doesn't like international comparisons because she doesn't want people to know that a country can have a small population, lots of old people, and very low or even negative population growth, but still perform well economically and give its people a very good quality of life. Australia also performs very well in comparison to many other countries, apart from environmental management, and some of us would like to keep it that way.

I agree that an environmental collapse is extremely unlikely in the next few years, but it is not impossible in our children's or grandchildren's time. Many other societies have collapsed. Why do you think that we are immune? How much population growth matters depends on when there is danger of collapse. 1.6% growth will double our population in 43 years. It might not matter next year, but it might make an enormous difference whether we have 26 million or 45 million people.
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 9:37:03 AM
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Divergence,

You need to look up how the Flexicurity system in Denmark works before you go further. Population plays almost no role in the social, economic and political framework of the Scandanavian counties. You really must look further afield than the silly preoccupation with population. Boffins use international comparisons to look at labour market policy initiatives but even that can be highly problematic. See my Keats and Baudelaire quote in most recent post.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 9:49:09 AM
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Who wrote this? Top of the class.

- We cannot find enough skilled and unskilled workers to do the jobs that are needed (yes there are unemployed, but they don’t seem willing to move where the work is).
- We have one of the lowest population densities on earth.
- A diverse society is more interesting, stimulating and rewarding to live in than a monoculture
- Migrants bring skills and knowledge which we may not have
- In Australia, population growth is positively correlated with economic growth (States and regions with the fastest population growth have the fastest per capita economic growth)
- A larger population allows us to benefit from economies of scale in sharing infrastructure costs and gives critical mass for services that need large population bases to be viable, like high-quality orchestras and expensive state-of-the-art medical equipment
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 9:51:33 AM
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You really have been cherry-picking, Cheryl. Of course the distribution of people matters, but there is a lot more to the problem than that. From the submission:

"The total length of urbanised coastline has increased by a third from 1980 to 2004 – an increase which corresponds tightly with the increase in population over the same timeframe. (Beeton et al 2006, indicator CD-30) The 'sea change' phenomenon is driven in part by perceived decline in amenity of urban life as our cities grow ever-larger, and so can be seen as an indirect function of urban growth."

"Of particular relevance to this nomination, the report [Foran & Poldy, "Future Dilemmas"] found that land use, water use, energy use, and pressure on fisheries would all be higher under high growth scenarios as a direct population effect. The problems of land degradation and biodiversity loss, however, are more strongly linked to indirect population effects, particularly the need to produce agricultural and resource exports to pay for imports."

In mallee woodland, with little urbanisation: "Land clearance for cereal cropping and sheep grazing, algae blooms, overextraction
of water for irrigation, and salinisation have combined to reduce and degrade mallee woodland habitats. These developments occurred primarily to meet the agricultural needs of a growing domestic urban population, and a desire to generate export income for Australia to pay for the increasing demand for imported goods by a growing population."

I hope that people will look at the submission themselves to see why Australia ranks at the bottom of the developed world for environmental management and to see what the growthists are doing to wipe out other species and trash their children's and grandchildren's future.

http://www.acfonline.org.au/sites/default/files/resources/EPBC_nomination_22-3-10.pdf
Posted by Divergence, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 10:21:06 AM
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I actually had some respect for the ACF but after reading that unadulterated poppy-cock, Divergence, I will bid them adieu as just another tax funded political organisation spewing out terms such as 'neo-maltusian' and post modernist conceptions of the economy. What? Huh? Was the person who wrote that off medication?

Now I may be wrong but the type of anti-pop spin in that article had former ACF President Ian Lowe's finger prints all over it. See below about what I and the Spectator reviewer think of Lowe.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/australia/7809008/people-management/

Now it just so happens that Lowe is also the patron of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) - Kanck's mob. Convenient or what? I mean, can the anti-pops not resort to backyard citations for their pitch to slash immigration and meddle with female conception rights?

Just one small thing before I go - how is it that the SPA claim tax deductivity as an environmental lobby group when they (a) are emphatically a population reduction group who (b) are actively supporting and promoting the Stop Population Growth Now party in Adelaide? Two words only required here: tax department.
Posted by Cheryl, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 3:45:15 PM
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+1 You will find connections amongst these networks to some very dubious organisations and people in the USA who are worse than simple anti pop/immn growth - environmental issues lobbyists which they claim.... especially when even neo cons avoid them all roads lead to Rome, yet same are active in Oz under various guises... one of the king pings of the anti pop/immn movement in USA was an admirer of the "White Australia" policy.....
Posted by Andras Smith, Wednesday, 30 January 2013 7:53:14 PM
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individual "On the other hand it would be a good start if one didn't make a distinction."

I bet you can make a distinction between Chinese and Tibetan, eh?
Or Zulus and Bushmen.
Or Eskimos and Sioux.

Oh, but you can't distinguish "Australian" from Tibetan, Bushmen or Sioux.

Would it really be a "good start" to eliminate every ethnicity on Earth?
I can't believe you think you're ethically superior to me!

You are promoting genocide. Hitler is *your* buddy, not mine.
Posted by Shockadelic, Thursday, 31 January 2013 8:46:02 AM
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Cheryl,

<We cannot find enough skilled and unskilled workers to do the jobs that are needed (yes there are unemployed, but they don’t seem willing to move where the work is).>
According to Roy Morgan research, we have a real 10% unemployment rate and an 8% underemployment rate. Of course these people are happy to live on Newstart at $35 a day and skip meals rather than take a job at the award wage that is going begging. Nothing to do with employers preferring migrants who have already been trained and will put up with more because they want sponsorship for permanent residence or are ineligible for welfare. How on earth do the countries without mass migration ever manage?

< We have one of the lowest population densities on earth.>
Not as low as the Sahara Desert or Antarctica, and for much the same reasons. See
http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html

<A diverse society is more interesting, stimulating and rewarding to live in than a monoculture>
Sure, but why isn’t ~88,000 a year (zero net migration) enough, plus some temporary migration. Do we really need to double the population every 43 years?
<Migrants bring skills and knowledge which we may not have>
See previous comment.

<In Australia, population growth is positively correlated with economic growth (States and regions with the fastest population growth have the fastest per capita economic growth) >
Correlation doesn’t imply causation. Good economic performance attracts people, and some countries are doing well without population growth. In any case, do you seriously think that we can go on adding people and using up more and more stuff forever?

<A larger population allows us to benefit from economies of scale in sharing infrastructure costs and gives critical mass for services that need large population bases to be viable, like high-quality orchestras and expensive state-of-the-art medical equipment>
The 2006 Productivity Commission report also talks about diseconomies of scale. It says that net benefit is inconclusive. Sydney and Melbourne already had enough critical mass for high-quality orchestras, etc. in the 1970s when we had 13 million people.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 31 January 2013 1:13:20 PM
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Cheryl,

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has more than 40,000 members, who directly elect 35 members to their Council, which is responsible for policy. The idea that Ian Lowe could make policy on his own, or even do it in coordination with a small group of fanatics, is laughable. As he has made no secret of his views, I doubt if he could have ever been elected ACF President if he didn't have a lot of support from the members. By the way, he didn't write the submission. Then there is also the supporting evidence listed in the submission from government reports or peer-reviewed journals. Are all these scientists in it together as part of some conspiracy?

The truth is that people love scientists when their findings lead to yummy new consumer goods or cures for their ailments. It is quite another story when the scientists' findings, or the policy implications of those findings, are a threat to someone's financial interests or pet ideology. Some of us act like grown-ups and accept that we are being told the truth or what is likely to be the truth, even if we don't like it. Others claim that there is some sort of conspiracy. Is global warming also poppycock? How about evolution?

Perhaps you and Andras should wear the label 'environmental vandal' with pride, just as you expect all of us to wear 'racist' and 'anti-pop'.

Shockadelic, I am concerned with social cohesion as well. I am just not convinced that the problems are due to race rather than culture and the way the government has been managing immigration.
Posted by Divergence, Thursday, 31 January 2013 1:32:50 PM
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Unemployment and underemployment have nothing to do with population. One of the problems is a shortage of skills in specific areas such as engineers, motor mechanics and much more. See the skills list in the article. No argument re Morgan's figures.

Are you quoting the poet? I heard him try take on Bernie Salt on population in Melbourne some time ago. It was embarrassing for all concerned and especially for the poet. He used the stock standard anti-market and anti-growth responses too.

Economic growth is predicated on a raft of factors, the least important is population. Population gives scale and is important for large scale manufacturing and growing service industry. Actually, it's individual people, education, skills and motivation that top the list.

The 2006 Prod Comm conducted no investigation in to benefits of migration. They said it was a 'line ball' but used no methodology to assert their statement. They needed to do a longitudinal study over two generations.

I don't have the scientific credentials to determine whether Global warming is poppycock or not, or whether seas levels are rising or fracking causes earthquakes or whether polar bears are drowning. What some 'scientists' and commentators have done is use system theory to try and explain everything but end up explaining nothing.

Are you equating Darwin's theory of evolution with AGW?
Posted by Cheryl, Thursday, 31 January 2013 5:13:55 PM
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Malcolm and Cheryl,

Is this paid or unpaid sport ?

You have brought a level of debate that teased out how we have just lost 30% of our coast to urbanisation. This has all happened in very recent times .

At what point do you want to save the last of the natural habitat , for those species who share the coastal strip ?

Say leave none or 2% , which will not allow the survival of a wild system ?

Kind regards,
Ralph
Posted by Ralph Bennett, Thursday, 31 January 2013 9:52:35 PM
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Cheryl "A diverse society is more interesting, stimulating and rewarding to live in than a monoculture"

What of those who don't share this opinion?
Where can they go? Sooner or later every nook and cranny of the West will be "multified".

Where do you go if you just want to experience "Dutch" culture, but there's nowhere left in the Netherlands that is "Dutch-only", *everywhere* is "multified"?

Every culture in your "diversity" is in and of itself a singular culture.
And the only reason any of them exist is because they were *not* all mixed together, but existed in separate locations and ancestries.

Mixing everyone together will actually *destroy* genuine cultural diversity.
But you're not interested in genuine cultures, you just want superficial titillating distractions to stop the boredom.

Divergence "I am just not convinced that the problems are due to race rather than culture"

The two are inextricably linked.
You can't have Dutch culture without Dutch people.

Can black, brown, yellow people ever be truly "Dutch"?
If they somehow achieved that miracle, it would be at the expense of their *own* ancestral heritage.
A Tibetan who "became" Dutch would cease to be "Tibetan", would sever an ancient connection.

Is this really a better future for mankind: disconnected, decontextualized all-and-nothing people?

The whole multi-thing, detaching cultures and peoples from any context, is dishonest, disrespectful and can only fail in the end (very nastily), as it satisfies nobody's genuine social instincts.
Posted by Shockadelic, Friday, 1 February 2013 6:10:21 AM
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Hi Shockadelic,

Your cookie-cutter definition of 'culture' is a bit old-hat - people, individuals, can be bicultural, even multicultural, able to speak a number of languages, feeling comfortable in different settings, 'being' a different person in different settings - in effect, say, 'being Dutch' in the company of other Dutch, 'being Australian' in the company of other Australians (often the same people), perhaps 'being Friesian' in the company of other Friesians. Just as someone can 'be a teacher' in the company of other teachers, and 'be a rev-head' in the company of other rev-heads.

Our identity is very much multi,and 'culture' is a very protean concept, depending on the situation one may be in, and who one may be with. Unless, of course, you're confusing 'culture' and 'race'.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 1 February 2013 7:38:08 AM
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You are promoting genocide. Hitler is *your* buddy, not mine.
Shocadelic,
given half a chance you might actually surprise yourself.
Posted by individual, Friday, 1 February 2013 3:31:39 PM
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Yes, the "Australian poet", and white nationalists (as they are politely described in the USA) have been attempting to elevate Birrell as Australia's (only) authority on immigration while denigrating Salt i.e. trying to shut down debate which may view immigration and "others" as +ve for Australia.

Cheryl, don't bother trying to use logic and evidence as those with strong beliefs will ignore and continue circular arguments...... while offering neither evidence nor solutions.
Posted by Andras Smith, Friday, 1 February 2013 7:57:46 PM
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Loudmouth "Your cookie-cutter definition of 'culture' is a bit old-hat"

It's multiculturalists who trivialise ethnicity.
Each is a pretty decorative box of superficial kitsch, only existing to distract middle class whites from their suburban boredom.

And when they're not entertaining you, the coloured people can do the dirty jobs.
You're just 19th century imperialists in new clothes.

"individuals, can be bicultural, even multicultural"

But a *mass* of people will inevitably merge. Only in the initial stage will you have "diversity".
Over many generations you get syncretism, biological and cultural synthesis.

"Australians" are ourselves a merged people, a combination of the various ancestries of the British Isles and, to a lesser degree, other Europeans.
We merged, becoming a distinct ethnic type. We didn't remain "diverse".

Syncretism brings you back to Monoland again.
A different Monoland, that takes some time to develop, but a Monoland just the same.
Meanwhile, mixing and merging will have destroyed the genuine originals.

"Friesian, teacher, rev-head"

Yes, people can be complex.
Cultures can be complex.
But they can't be *everything* at once.
You can't be "Morman Wiccan cannibal vegan luddite astronaut".
Nor can a people or culture.

"Unless, of course, you're confusing 'culture' and 'race'."

I'm not confused at all.
Race is biological variation.

But racial and cultural variants developed in *tandem* historically, which is why it's preposterous to try and detach them from each other.
You only have "Dutch" culture because you have biologically "Dutch" people, and vice versa.

People can have multiracial origins.
But you only have "multi" for while, then you don't.
Mixed = Mono. A new mono, but still mono.

Switch on one allele (black hair), and you switch off alternatives (red hair).

There many peoples with hardly any allele variation.
Same hair, eye colour, head shape, body type, little sexual differentiation.
"Whites" have an incredible allele variety.
Do you want red hair or green eyes to be "switched off" *forever*? You can't get them back once they're gone.

"Enlightened" multiculturalists are often hysterical about endangered species.
Save the yellow-speckled dimitugu!

But human biological variants are to be ignored, denied, obliterated!
Who's confused?
Posted by Shockadelic, Friday, 1 February 2013 9:15:47 PM
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Yes Andras, the USA anti-pop and race connection is worth a story in itself.

Let me pop another cherished anti-pop belief. Since 2007 the SPA and their ACF acolytes have been moaning that the expansion of cities is destroying our food growing potential. This is rubbish. We are one of the worlds largest producers of food.

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) there has been a trend of diminishing agricultural land since 1976, when Australia boasted nearly 490 million hectares that was either arable, dedicated to permanent crops or suitable for grazing. Over 33 years, that area diminished by 16 per cent. Shock Horror! Why?

The Government set aside more than 21 million hectares — a space roughly comparable in size to Britain — into "conservation and natural environments". The anti-pops won't tell you about that. The anti-people lobby is cunning and a major embarrassment to the Greens.
Posted by Cheryl, Saturday, 2 February 2013 2:52:41 PM
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Yes, and they are well versed in diversionary and time wasting tactics, e.g. when asked to show evidence of direct causal links to their claims, one is to cite a report without any specific references, then at best one may find some headline statistics which suggest some vague correlation......

I suspect the Greens are already well of aware their connections with dubious networks in the USA where all lead to one man, John Tanton. The international eco/green media are wide awake to this and have highlighted such links.

Will be interesting and embarrassing to many the links that already exist, with several politicians, "sustainable population" and front groups, demographers etc. in Australia gaining access to mainstream media, from both sides of politics, being complicit. Known as "green washing" or the "greening of hate", think saw the former expression in Fairfax for the first time in Australian media this week.

Many are unwitting accomplices, many are very coy or secretive, while tactics of fronts and how they deal with the media have all the hallmarks of cults, i.e. inner circles know the full story, while volunteers etc. are innocently drawn in.

End of the day says a lot about the lack of depth and analysis in the Australia media ("medium"?)
Posted by Andras Smith, Saturday, 2 February 2013 6:50:14 PM
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Cheryl,

As you are no doubt well aware, those maps I linked to are from Dr. Chris Watson, a soil scientist at the CSIRO. Mark O'Connor just put them up on his website (with Dr. Watson's permission). But of course, the ACF and any scientist who doesn't support your line must be talking poppycock. What are your own qualifications in a relevant field, such as soil science, geohydrology, or conservation biology?

http://www.australianpoet.com/boundless.html

So far as the debate with Bernard Salt is concerned, here is Mark O'Connor's side of the argument. Demonstrating that he is wrong would give you and Andras far more credibility than making snide comments.

http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/bernard-salt-is-not-demographer.html
http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/baby-boomers-retiring-is-there-really.html
http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com.au/2011/05/bernard-salt-in-damage-control.html
http://markoconnor-australianpoet.blogspot.com.au/2011/06/bernard-salt-abandons-his-baby-bust.html

Andras keeps jumping up and down about racism. Effectively, he is saying that we can't talk about environmental deterioration, growing social inequality, or damage to people's quality of life, because it might give comfort to racists. The problems with racism (which doesn't include just wanting your own culture to survive) are all too obvious. Apart from being hurtful, it wastes talent and creates animosity between groups of people. Nevertheless, I am far more concerned about people like him and Cheryl who are spruiking for enormous population growth and, in the worst case, setting us up for a collapse than I am about people who want to do the right thing for the wrong reasons. For that matter, how do we know that Andras isn't a real estate developer or migration agent who is simpy motivated by greed?

Finally, we export about 60% of our grain in an average year and 40% in a drought year.

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-05-06/can-we-feed-%E2%80%9Cbig-australia%E2%80%9D

Doubling our population removes this safety margin, and that's assuming we won't run into serious problems with climate change, the end of cheap oil, peak phosphate rock, etc.
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 3 February 2013 12:19:31 PM
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One of the benefits of OLO is that one can actually prove by using ABS or referring to ABS citations or trade news the true state of the economy. We can also look at how the nation has fared over time.

http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/07/16/australian-food-exports-surge-to-historic-record.html

The above take their figures from the ABS and report on export and trade news. It gives an idea of the generative power of the Australian economy.

I only realised last year that almost all of the anti-pops have no background in economics or politics - they appear to be, well, I don't know, coming from a radical functionalist agrarian paradigm. This of course doesn't preclude them from having an opinion, it is just that they cite their own papers or dodgy self-serving blogs.

They go for the worst case scenarios. If its not asteroids, viruses, invading mongol hordes, rising sea levels, fracking earthquakes, pestilence, no phosphates or drowning polar bears, its something else, oh yes, heat waves.

The most interesting thing about the anti-pops is that they are to the Greens what Pauline Hanson was to the Liberals - but in reverse. Their Red Guard mentality is hostile to everything capitalism stands for and they seem to have had their brains zapped by Hamilton's book Growth Fetish. They also seem fond of quoting some chap who was or is a poet, which is nice. Apparently for them, the ageing population is just a doddle.

Their anti-population push will certainly garner some votes from the haters of immigrants and those from the lower middle classes who want to vent their spleens on those who have been more successful.

I worry for the anti-pops though as there are elements on the far right who have undoubtly been watching their anti-immigrant push and who may come calling. The feral gnomes won't like the far right at all - although they line up on race and possibly eugenics.
Posted by Cheryl, Sunday, 3 February 2013 1:25:31 PM
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1. Neither SPNG or SPA knew they were counting Australians, New Zealanders and working holiday makers in the number of migrants.

2. Neither SPNG or SPA have demonstrated they understand inflows, outflows and Australian visa regulations nor anything about how an economy operates.

3. The 2011 Census showed there had been no growth in household sizes over the last 10 years. In fact there was a rise in couple families without children (+20.3 per cent between 2001 and 2011), one-parent families (+16.8 per cent between 2001 and 2011).

4. Almost all of the world’s population growth has been confined to Africa and parts of Asia. In Australia, population growth has slowed and the hubs of growth are based in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and SE Queensland. This is part of a global trend of movement of people to the cities. The anti-people have not discussed this at all.

5. Australia’s current population is about the size of New York City and will grow to the approximate current size of Mexico City by 2050, although six million Boomers in Australia will have died by then.

6. According to the National Farmers Federation, there are approximately 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, 99 per cent of which are family owned and operated. Each Australian farmer produces enough food to feed 600 people, 150 at home and 450 overseas. Australian farmers produce almost 93 percent of Australia’s daily domestic food supply.

Australian live cattle exports totaled 694,429 head in 2011 (down 21 per cent on 2010 due to Indonesia cattle ban), valued at A$629.4 million, according to ABARE (2012). According to Australian livestock export industry statistics review (2011) the nation exported 2,458,448 sheep in 2011, valued at A$328 million. Food – we got.

The anti-pops won't tell you about that either. The anti-people lobby is a major embarrassment to the Greens and is giving comfort to the far right.
Posted by Cheryl, Sunday, 3 February 2013 2:18:02 PM
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Cheryl,

From Michael Lardelli's Energy Bulletin article (link above), based on ABARE statistics and graphs, which he cites

“From the broad summary above we can draw the following conclusions. Under current economic, environmental, energy supply and climatic circumstances:
1. We are currently not self-sufficient for fruit and vegetables.
2. In a good year we could supply about 3x our current population with wheat but, in a drought year, less than 2x our current population.
3. We could supply 2x our current population with red meat in normal – not drought – years.
4. We could probably double our pig and poultry meat production if we consumed all our coarse grain production domestically (i.e. no exports) and significantly reduced our wheat exports. This is not possible under drought conditions.
A population of 36 million Australians is approximately a 64% increase over today’s number. The rough analysis above shows that, in a drought year and under current conditions of resource supply, we would be nearing the limits of our ability to provide our own population with food and we are already beyond the limits of our ability to produce fruit and vegetables for ourselves. We would not be 'food secure'.”

You don't seem to understand that the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment. If you trash your environment, you also trash your economy. If qualified scientists call attention to the environmental problems, you accuse them of talking poppycock. You believe what you want to believe. You have no more understanding of the biophysical basis of our survival than you accuse us of having of the economy.

So far as the ABS statistics are concerned, what matters is how many people are living in Australia, not whether they are called migrants, New Zealanders, or something else. The issue is how many people are making demands on our environment and infrastructure. If the number of working holiday makers declines, then so will their share of the population statistics. Note that people are not counted unless they stay for a whole year.
Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 3 February 2013 5:18:36 PM
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But you're doing it gain Divergence! You're quoting either SPA or SPGN references which have nothing to do with the ABS. Where do you get this rubbish re meat and grain? If I thought the economy was a subsidiary of the environment I wouldn't be using the Internet to trade information.

Here is Lardelli's ref

http://www.stoppopulationgrowthnow.com/lardelli.html
Posted by Cheryl, Sunday, 3 February 2013 6:49:06 PM
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+1 Yes all the John Tanton acolytes
Posted by Andras Smith, Sunday, 3 February 2013 6:53:23 PM
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