To so many posters... I see a new "Australian" emerging.. this Australian KNOWS his own past.. he/she knows it warts and all, and nows it in the context of HISTORY... he/she is becoming emboldened.. strong.. brave..and will NOT be cowed into sheepish embarrassment by ludicrous and doctrinaire questions by Journalists.

This Australian will take the bull by the horns.. control it, and direct it into a future.

This new "Australian" will know world history, including critical battles, turning points and religions, and the basic ideas behind them. They will KNOW how we came to be as we are, they will have some idea of the philosophical ideas which have shaped for good or bad, this society we live in. He/She will have a strong sense of culture, and self determination.

He/she will reach out to others, with confidence and pride, without arrogance. They will welcome anyone, no matter their skin color, but they won't EVER accept displacement either cultural or racial by stealth or demography or invasion.

May this new "Australian" become strong, unbending, unashamed, forging ahead to the future in unity and focus.

Craig.. pls refer to some of that material mentioned by Tribal.
Good on you all for interacting and grappling with these issues of national significance.

I agree we can take more immigration and would prefer some real chances of unput to how it is undertaken rather than pretend immigration will go away. It won't.

Religion is an issue that will not go away so needs to be addressed by our government. I would like religion to be the right of someone to practise in private. No denial of religion just I do not want to know about it. I do not care if I work with a muslim nor a homosexual. In both cases I have no desire to respect or know about what they actually do, just respect their right to do it in private. I do not want it to be my business.

The big problem is where, Sydney probably is running out of room without massive amount of money poured into infrastructure. For me to travel 15km to work by public transport takes 1.15 hours.

Tasmania could take easily a million people yet migrants do not want to go there. They are too racist to accept a white society. Again, their problem, not mine. If they want to live here then maybe some choices need to be taken away.

West Australia, so much land and so few people. If they can manage some water plans then easily another 3 million people.

That is four million without any drama, rainfall areas in the far north would also be a great place though they seem to be thriving of their own accord.

We can take more but we need plans and possibly a longer wait for citizenship. Also New Zealand has to become another country, it is not another state, lets stop acting like it is.

TO ALL POSTERS

UPPER CASE IS NOT NECESSARY TO MAKE A POINT. IT IS IRRITATING. Get my point?

A sound writer does not need to use upper case to make a point.

Upper case turns me off reading posts.

Cheers
Kay

“There is more than one path to sustainability”.

With rapid continuously growing population with no end on sight? Andrew, I agree with Colinsett; this is fully disassociated from reality.

You “prefer pathways that have a chance of working….”

Like what? Nothing can work if we continue to rapidly add stress to our life-supporting resource base, which is already well and truly stressed. You can forget about social justice if we don’t protect the basic support mechanisms of our society.

The basics of economics and ecological principles seem to not be a part of your thinking Andrew.

When the Democrats disassociated themselves with net zero migration and real sustainability, they became just another pea in the pod of the profit motive panderers. They have steadily gone downhill ever since to the status of a critically endangered species.

Net zero migration still allows for about 35 000 immigrants a year. There is scope for the refugee intake to be more than doubled within this number. It well and truly allows us to fulfil our responsibilities as a compassionate nation, along with a solid international aid effort. How on earth you can be against net zero immigration is beyond me.

“I am sure the ACF Council is currently having as much fun dealing with his anti-migration views as the Democrats did 15 years ago.”

What? The ACF has a good population policy, which hasn’t changed since 1993. ACF calls for: ‘A government population policy to stabilise Australian population numbers at a level that is precautionary and ecologically sustainable’ and ‘Immigration to Australia should be looked at in terms of ecological sustainability and our humanitarian commitment to accept refugees.’ (http://www.acfonline.org.au/uploads/res_population.pdf).

International social justice is better served by Australia spending money and effort in places where it is desperately needed than by bringing a tiny fraction of the world’s needy people to this country. From a global perspective, it would be better if we closed our borders completely and instead contributed a greatly increased international aid effort.

I have only responded to your first paragraph and I’ve run out of space!

Kay-O-saurus the Poster Nazi,

It was the implicit shouting character of your use of caps that prompted me to reply to your off topic, ill mannered outburst on this thread.

If you had not used caps I would not have bothered.
To wit, caps are useful on fora where you only have 2 posts per 24hrs and 350 words per post and a lot to say. Caps definitely highlight a point in a crowded, competitive format such as this.

A sound writer does what gets the job done. Just read some Hunter S Thompson.

Further, no one will bother reading your posts because:
* you're WRONG and
* by RECUSING yourself from using caps, you dramatically reduce the probability of your posts ever being noticed.

Its horses for courses, or in your case feet for sticking in the mud.

Bull, Yep every poll I have seen indicates that Australians do not want high immigration or multiculturalism. I flies in the face of democracy that people continue to be ignored by the politicians.

Colinsett, Thanks for the info re CSIRO research. Will try and get copy of "Future Dilemmas".

Andrew, I think the real reason behind why the parties all have high immigration policies is because big business dictate the policy. They do not give large donations to the parties for nothing. Big business does not care a fig about the social or enviromental impacts, as long as more consumer goods are sold. We cannot even get the infastructure needed for the present population. We desparately need politicians that will draft policy on what is best for Australia.