Hi Matthew,

Where to start ? I have a feeling you can't get to Dublin from here. But let's see.

Over the past forty years, Australia's population has grown, not from five, but probably fifteen million, to twenty two million. Much of that has been due to migration of young people. BUT I would wager that those migrants have had, on the whole, a better employment record that the Anglos who were here before them.

In other words, it's not as if migrants have massively boosted the unemployment rate. That may be a home-grown phenomenon.

Back to topic: Gary Johns' proposal about single mothers , welfare benefits, contraception and conspiracy theories:

I love conspiracy theories - in fact, there should be board games (Christ, I'm old-fashioned !) which reward the most outlandish of them. [Now, why would I want people to do that ? Hmmmmmm ... ]

For example, how do we know that most of the world's problems and financial difficulties are not planned and controlled by a secret group of ex-Catholic Swedish financiers (suppressed by the Lutherans for 400 years) living deep underground in a secret city in Costa Rica ? Who would think it possible ? Therefore, it may be so ! No evidence whatever ? Yes, indeed ! Such clever b@stards !

And I'm sure that, in bits an pieces, somebody could finds evidence of such activity, and the dire effects it is about to have on the world. Go for it, Arjay !

Joe

Loudmouth,

It is easy to mock Matthew, but you might take a look at this paper by Prof. Bob Birrell, a demographer at Monash University

C=http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/cpur/files/2013/02/Immigration_review__Feb-2013.pdf

"The update examines the latest information on the number of recently-arrived migrants who have found employment in Australia, including 2011 Census data which was not available at the time of the publication of Immigration Overshoot.

"The main finding is that the number of migrants arriving in Australia since the beginning of 2011 who found jobs is equivalent to the total number of new jobs created in Australia over the same period. This has had a harmful impact on the level of employment, participation in the labour market and the working conditions of other Australians, particularly young people."

It is easy to understand that a population can grow faster than the ability of the economy to create jobs. Why would you go to the trouble to train a young Australian school leaver, when you can get a prime age migrant who has already been trained at someone else's expense? Furthermore, the migrant is more likely to be under your thumb because he wants you to sponsor him for permanent residence or isn't eligible for welfare. There have been a number of studies around the world, including our own 2006 Productivity Commission report on immigration that show wage depression, i.e., an overstocked labour market.

In any case, this thread is really about how government welfare policies may be contributing to social dysfunction. It really has nothing to do with immigration or population, except insofar as depressed wages are a disincentive to choosing work rather than welfare. Our own fertility rate has been slightly below replacement level since 1976. Any big welfare families are balanced by all those people who don't have children or only have one.

Hi Divergence,

" .... the number of migrants arriving in Australia since the beginning of 2011 who found jobs is equivalent to the total number of new jobs created in Australia over the same period."

Are you saying (or Birrell is) that immigration did not either increase or decrease unemployment levels in the period 2011-2013 ?

And that the unemployment rate, and economic participation rate, of Australians remained static in that period, in spite of 'churn' ?

And does "new jobs created" mean jobs that never existed before, or simply jobs that fell vacant ?

Joe

Here's what one of the authors of the Productivity Commission said of Divergence's racist assertions that migrants aren't worth an Aussie.

"Thank you for your reply. I am not au faut on blogs but they are interesting, although I fear too time consuming. I actually worked on the 2010 PC report or rather, had some input. The terms of reference were fairly narrow and vague.

We were not trying to determine whether migrants added economic value. We know from baseline studies both here and in the US that educated migrants add value to national productivity. What we don't know is how much. It could be slender as you assert. The idea was not to use the report as a stick. It's simply a case that we can't measure some aspects of behavioural life or, in an instrumentalist way, wrap a ruler around a person's economic worth. I believe neither of us would want that anyway.

There is no plan by either of the major parties to add more people to increase the tax base to support an ageing population. That has been modelled and would not work. It's too late. The push now is to ensure older workers stay in work a little longer and save. Even so, there will be considerable draw downs on the health and pension budgets...

I would counsel you to be a little circumspect about using government reports in a wholly instrumental way, or rather, 'picking the eyes out of them' for political ends. The reason is that these reports reflect a specific type of methodology and broad brush interpretations are not always wise or accurate.

You would know about the 12/16 rule and that approx 70 per cent of temp migrants and almost all holiday makers exit Australia. It's worth looking at the exits and most especially Australian 'permanent' exits." Posted by Ivannotsoterrible, Monday, 2 September 2013 11:51:09 AM

What you’re seeing with articles promoting eugenics and slashing population is the re-emergence of sociobiology in Australian life. For them, only the strongest, whitest and fittest survive in their post apocalyptic fantasy world.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/node/54774

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=8838

Since you are determined to hijack the thread...

Loudmouth,

Just go to the link. The number of jobs in the economy is growing, but the number of new jobseekers is growing even faster.

"If the incumbent workforce is growing by around 100,000 per year, but there has been no increase in the number of incumbents in jobs, then this must mean that some aspiring new entrants are missing out on employment, some who were in jobs are now unemployed and some have dropped out of the labour force, either because they were retrenched, have retired early or are discouraged by the difficulty of obtaining employment. It could also be that they are discouraged because
competition for available jobs means that the pay and conditions available have deteriorated."

Malcolm,

Your first post is irrelevant. I never denied that there is a small per capita economic benefit from mass migration, and both the 2006 Productivity Commission report on immigration and a number of studies from overseas, such as the 2008 House of Lords report, claim that it is small. They also say that the benefit mostly goes to the migrants themselves. The reason why your growthist friends want the mass migration is because the distributional effects syphon wealth up to themselves. All that the ordinary existing resident, native born Australian or migrant, gets from it is more competition for jobs, housing, public services, and amenities, with depressed wages and inflated costs for necessities of life such as housing.

<Divergence's racist assertions that migrants aren't worth an Aussie.>

Lie. I never wrote any such thing. I believe that any nation state's first responsibility is to its own citizens, but that doesn't mean that non-citizens are of lesser worth as human beings. You have a greater responsibility to your own children than to the neighbours' children.

(cont'd)