We are a "chronic outlier" on immigration. Australians don’t want mass immigration; it's the ALP and the Coalition who are addicted to Big Australia. There is no serious opposition to it. 17 million voters don't mean a damn.

The only people wanting to come here now - millions of them - are not English speakers. It's hard enough understanding poorly-educated young Australians these days. This doesn't matter to politicians and elites who have nothing to do with them.

The three most important words in this long piece are 'bypassing the electorate' which is what our political class is doing more and more these days.

ttbn you closed your comment with:
three most important words in this long piece are 'bypassing the electorate'

I think those days may be numbered for the big parties. I live in Kooyong and at the last federal election we chucked out the worlds best treasurer. A string of other electorates also gave the finger to a number of other high profile candidates.

I suspect that all the pollies are now on notice to attend to their electorates and pay attention to what we the electors may want. The days when they just pander to their key supporters and the loudest drum should now be over.

dkit

Agree with most of this. We cannot keep bringing people in when we can't even house those already here. As for skills we don't have? can be made good by guest labour. And half the salary withheld until they return home. And while here, transfer their specialist knowledge and skills to Ozzies.

Simply trying to grow the economy via unsustainable migration creates much more problems than it solves! Whereas creating and deploying cheap energy will grow the economy via energy dependent, automated. high-tech manufacturing And, create an energy super-power, via the transmission of the world's cheapest, cleanest, safest electrical energy.

Doable and affordable, if the new neo-liberals in power in Canberra just use the brains they were born with! And started to put Australia and Australians first!

If we need more workers, then change our regressive laws that keep able-bodied retires at home when real tax reform would allow them to return to the workforce along with their lifetime skill sets. And require business to take on and train more apprentices.

We changed the government to change ultra-stupid neo-liberal policies, not entrench them!
Alan B.

It is all very well to have aspirations to bring in multitudes of new migrants. The overloaded staff in DFAT are taking forever to process those who are in the pipeline now.
David

No comments about this from the faux greens. The unmandated march to
an overpopulated, environmentally depleted Australia is further reason to avoid voting for the major parties and avoid any preferences going to them.

This article is spot on. All the comments are also great, especially ttbn's "bypassing the electorate". This Jobs and Skills Summit reminds me of the show trials that they used to have in the old Soviet Union with a predetermined outcome, so that our politicians, who supposedly represent us, supposedly have a "consensus" to trash our our environment and quality of life, all to benefit themselves and their donors.

Watersnake is right. Put the big neoliberal parties last with their sitting members last of all, and the party that is in government last in the Senate.

Why don't Australian governments ask the people what we want? They have no mandate for a big Australia! And we only have enough water at best to hydrate, wash, sanitize and feed 30 million at best!

What we need is not more migrants but, rapid rail, nuclear energy, i.e., MSR thorium and deionization dialysis desalination for starters. And if we don't have the required skills?

Then why not copy what the engine house of Europe did and import temporary guest labour. Worked for them. Why not us?

If we had a bill of irrevocable rights, we could have a citizen's-initiated referendum!

And have a say in non-mandated outcomes! And not before time!
Alan B.

We cannot keep bringing people in when we can't even house those already here.
Alan B,
I'm sure that if it was possible to just import talent without the bodies harbouring it they'd do that.
The real problem here is that we have ample bodies but no usable talent ! Unless of course you believe being tattooed & hooked on drugs is what's required to do the skilled work ?

Just try to get a job, Indyvidual, if you are over 45 or 50, or if you are young and need to be trained. What business wants is a cheap, compliant work force that won't need to be trained and will put up with low wages (maybe even wage theft) and bad (or even unsafe) working conditions. Mass migration from poor countries fills the bill admirably.

Mass migration from poor countries fills the bill admirably.
Divergence,
It also fills the enclaves !

If menial jobs aren't being taken by our useless than they should be filled as part of a National service as part of regaining common sense & common decency & common responsibility & respect !
Simply paying lazy people for becoming more lazy & more stupid & more of a burden is exactly what we don't need but will end up with if we insist on perpetuating status quo !
Albo is in a very good position to introduce a non-military national Service for unemployed young people. Pay them $20/day & feed & house them for at least twelve to eighteen months or at least till they get a job. The acquired social skills alone will pay dividends to our society !

Hey Indyvdual,
I've always thought the correct amount should be 'double dole for full time work' so if they get $500 a fortnight on the dole now, give them $500 a week for working full time 'doing things to help the government save money', and also give them training credits which can be spent up-skilling. Make more courses and qualifications accessible online and app-based, use the training credits to cover the cost of testing, and add the qualifications of a digital resume, so people can't lie.

I'm for any scheme that offers young unemployed people an opportunity to change to a better mentality that the one of their gen X parents.
I have yet to hear of a scheme that is more effective to nation-society building than a National Service !
Ask those who did serve except the pointless ones who went for education rather than useful skills.

The engine house of Europe is being taken over by the immigrants.
Just check what is going on in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and Denmark.
The immigration queue is full of single men who will not assimilate
easily and later will want to change everything to their rules.
I know, I know, I am all sorts of a terrible person, but just check
for yourself.

My solution is to get those on the dole out of bed and off to work.
There is about the same number on the dole as the number of job vacancies.
That way the govt gets more taxes and less dole paid out.
I know this is always suggested but it cannot be that hard.
I would back free training for anyone on the dole with the proviso
that the dole for them in the next five years would be 50%.

The article avoids credible research deferring to nativist opinion masquerading as economic and environmental analysis; imported from the US i.e. 'Tanton Network' (he was on ZPG, an admirer of white Australia and still the muse of the alt right, GOP, Bannon etc.).

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/eugenics-border-wars-population-control-the-tanton-network/

However, credible research tells a different story, not just global population peak mid century and decline, but already Australia and much of the world has 'passed the demographic sweet spot' in the working age population (due previous below replacement fertility trends).

https://data.oecd.org/chart/6NUn

Solution? Decreased pensions and/or services for retirees, cut services and budgets in general, or increase PAYE taxes for working age?

Maybe more sensible as always to simply have modest permanent skilled migration and more significant temporary churn over of 'net financial budget contributors' (under the NOM net overseas migration); as we approach the 'big die off'.

or increase PAYE taxes for working age?
Andras Smith,
No, just pay on merit !

What are you talking about?

You can't have it both ways, a healthy economy for all while restricting or shutting down immigration, while the population ages into more retirees and proportionally fewer PAYE taxpayers, with below replacement fertility rates i.e. fewer kids and less youthful.

It's basic mathematics, unless of course you are suggesting a nativist and fossil fueled 'steady state' or 'degrowth' economy, serving 0.01%, while the remainder suffer.

Andras,

Where is your proof that Stephen Saunders, the author of this article, is motivated by racism, rather than by genuine concern for the environment, the survival of the other species that share it with us, and the well-being of all of our fellow citizens? If you want to accuse someone of being a racist, you had better back it up by showing that he has said or done something racist and not just by some tenuous chain of guilt by association. (I danced with a man, who danced with a girl, who danced with the Prince of Wales!)

A lot of us object to Big Australia, not because we hate brown people and want to exclude them, or object to a moderate number of immigrants (zero net ~ 70,000 a year), but because the Big Australia politicians are trashing our environment and the quality of life of ordinary people. The cost of an average house has gone from 3 or 4 times the median wage in the 1970s to more than 12 times in Sydney and Melbourne.

https://www.canstar.com.au/home-loans/housing-affordability-in-australia-2022/

Wages have been stagnant for more than a decade. State of the Environment reports have been showing more and more deterioration since they started in 1996, and the last one was so bad that the Minister for the Environment refused to release it before the election. Yes, bad management, but also more and more people competing for jobs, housing, water, space on the roads, public services, etc., etc. All so the top 1% or 0.01% can privatise the gains from those extra people and socialise the costs. In 2019, Australia's population was growing at 1.5% annually (doubling time of 46 years), and Albanese wants to make it even higher. Has it occurred to you that the extra competition for jobs and housing, along with more grueling commuting, might be suppressing fertility?

Because he uses Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) ideology masquerading as demographic 'research' which had hosted deceased white nationalist John 'passive eugenics' Tanton a colleague of Paul Ehrlich at fossil fueled ZPG (supported by Rockefeller & Ford Foundations) in '70s; SPA is part of what is described in the US as 'Tanton Network' which informed Trump White House, Steve Bannon et al.

Here is a recent report from independent journalist Brooke Binkowski titled:

'Eugenics, Border Wars & Population Control: The Tanton Network. Nearly everything Americans hear about the U.S.-Mexico border is wrong, and it’s very likely because of one relatively small but extremely well-funded and influential group of American racists.'

https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/eugenics-border-wars-population-control-the-tanton-network/

I doubt if the vast majority of SPA members have ever heard of Tanton, who was genuinely concerned about the environment and probably just had the usual common prejudices of a man of his generation. Please point to anything written by Saunders or anything on the SPA website that is racist.

Of course not, they just promote junk science, data illiteracy and dog whistle (post 1970s) immigrants and population growth; old eugenics movement careful not to give the game away (according to Tanton's own advice, though he was found to be hanging with KKK types...).

In fact, several have contributed to Tanton's journal The Social Contract Press over decades, including a patron who bagged the interview of Jean Raspail, author of 'Camp of the Saints' (invasion by 3rd world); basis of the 'great replacement'.

You can't have it both ways, a healthy economy for all while restricting or shutting down immigration,
Andras Smith,
You can have it both ways. Allow young couples to earn sufficiently to support a small family, you wouldn't need so much immigration. The one & only reason why our home-grown population is slipping is because of the declining living standard young couples experience,
particularly wage earning couples.
Doesn't it occur to you that immigrants from poorer countries manage to either exploit our welfare system or they're very successful in starting small enterprises & out-breed the people born here with your help ?