Good post, Shockadelic

It is easy to show an economic benefit from migration if you assume full employment, and that was the case in Australia in the past. The population was also a lot smaller, so there was less pressure on the environment. If you accept the concept of an optimum population (at a given level of technology), there can be too few people as well as too many. From the Roy Morgan figures, however, 20% of our working age population is now unemployed or underemployed. Different world.

Andras Smith (who hasn't denied that he is a migration agent) wants to discredit all the economists and demographers (and ignore the natural scientists) who don't agree with him. Harvard University is hardly in the habit of employing cranks, and that would also be an unfair description of the very eminent British economists who contributed to the 2008 House of Lords report on immigration.

The Republican Party (GOP) in the US is caught in a bind. This has little to do with Latino votes. The Latinos tend to be fairly poor and overwhelmingly vote for the Democratic Party. They will continue to do so. The GOP can never offer them as much. The GOP base want immigration restriction. The graphs that I linked to in my previous post show that the vast majority of Americans haven't benefitted from globalisation or mass migration. The big GOP donors, the Chamber of Commerce types, want more customers and lots of cheap, compliant labour.

It might surprise Malcolm King and Andras, but there are quite a few migrants from both English-speaking and non-English-speaking backgrounds (NESB) in SPA. Migrants are perfectly capable of seeing the problems with the environment, the job market, unaffordable housing, inadequate infrastructure, crowding and congestion, deteriorating urban amenity, etc. As an Iranian scientist remarked to me, "A lot of us come from overpopulated countries. Why would we want to duplicate the overpopulation in Australia?" See this survey after Kevin Rudd's Big Australia gaffe.

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

Nearly half the NESB population surveyed and a majority of everyone else thought that Australia doesn't need more people.

This discussion is becoming irrelevant because it is a "Business as Usual" proposal.
It just won't work because to insert large numbers of immigrants into
a zero growth economy would force the economy into a major depression permanently.
By the end of this decade people will be pulling up the drawbridge.

If you think the governments attitude to illegal immigrants is tough
now, as they say "You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet !".

Shockadelic, are you not Mark O'Connor?

Like O'Connor you put words into peoples' mouths..... you people cannot help yourselves can you.... a lie is easier than having to deal with the facts and empirical research....

I'm not a migration agent, but education consultant, and under Oz legislation only registered migration agents managed by DIBP can advise on migration and assist with applications (it's a criminal offence for Australians to advise on or assist with migration unless a registered agent). Not unlike what refugee advoicates find, Australian governments of both left and right have been infected with not only nasty policies, but paranoid themselves about outcomes thus everything is cloaked in secrecy...... Nazis understood that well, although everyone knew something gross and unfair was happening.....

Here's an example of O'Connor's 'diplomatic' and 'informed' responses to a young woman raising questions about Australian's immigration policy on a registered migration agent's blog,

'Work, Longer and Cut Immigration' http://immigrationptyltd.wordpress.com/2011/03/02/%e2%80%9cwork-longer-cut-immigration-labor-mp%e2%80%9d-interesting/ (based on the work of Vic MP Kelvin Thomson, who is part of John Tanton's network via attending PFIR Progressives for Immigration Reform events in the US and cooperating with Bob Birrell)

The discussion was stopped due to O'Connor degrading the debate..... and was successful in stopping any discussion..... yet hardly a great PR for SPP/SPA? Is this simply the arrogance of strong beliefs, or a need for anger management?

Do SPA/SPP sponsors and supporters condone this type or behaviour, or is it seen as justifiable because you have stronger and wackier beliefs than others?

Is O'Connor's behaviour a portent of what one could expect from a SPP/SPA influenced administration, just follow orders in our totalitarian yet sustainable paradise?

Whoops, Shockadelic, for what it's worth, Divergence claimed I had not denied being a migration agent....?

I was never asked, and the answer is no.

Again, that shows how the SPA/SPP operate, fact free zones.....

Just to add, Germany of the 1800s...... the Nazis really had to do nothing re. trying to exterminate jews as anti semitism was ingrained via the German churches who complained about euthenasia in the 1930s, but not the treament of the people from the old book... and readily provided the Nazis with lists of those who had converted.....

There is a parallel with John Tanton as he not only accepted money from the Pioneer Fund (researching eugenics) but fraternised often with open anti semites and holocaust deniers

http://imagine2050.newcomm.org/2009/09/13/tanton-network-caught-in-bed-again-with-anti-semites-and-holocaust-deniers/

Further, he obviously saw Australia as fertile ground in the 1960s and 70s, why? Much of the populace, especially older end, had already been softened up and conditioned by the white Australia policy which he admired, and as we know does not take much to get (too) many Australians dribbling at the mouth about race, immigration, etc.

Question, who were Tanton's original cyphers in Australia? Were these Australian academics or politicians studying in the US at the time?

"Shockadelic, are you not Mark O'Connor?"

No, I already told you that Shockadelic is my real name.

Why don't you do what all the obsessive anti-racist stalkers do and look it up on the electoral roll?

I don't care what O'Connor, SPP, Tanton or anyone else says or does.

I voice my own opinions and that is all.

I agree, Bazz. Boosting population when you have looming environmental and resource problems is about as foolish as you can get.

Curious that you never denied being a migration agent all the times that I brought it up before, Andras. Your work as "education consultant" wouldn't involve bringing foreign students to Australian Universities or facilitating their arrival, would it? Asking about a possible conflict of interest is not a smear.

If anyone really is indulging in smears or bringing down the tone of debate, it is you. The Southern Poverty Law Center and similar organisations in the US have hit on a clever tactic (picked up by you) to shut down debate and discredit political opponents -- just smear them as racists, "hate groups", or "haters". You don't even need to point to anything that they have personally said or done that might be interpreted as bigoted in some way. It doesn't even matter if their organisations reject racism or other bigotry in their policies and have migrants, Black people, etc. as members or even on their executives. All that you have to do is establish some tenuous chain of guilt by association, even more tenuous if you are trying to stretch the chain from the US to Australia. (You couldn't even come up with a plausible Australian mastermind,)

If you want a higher tone of debate try addressing the real issues.