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The Forum > Article Comments > Taking the sharp edge off our fears > Comments

Taking the sharp edge off our fears : Comments

By Andrew Bartlett, published 27/1/2006

Andrew Bartlett argues Australia needs to put some serious resources into multiculturalism and migrant settlement programs.

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Andrew,

For now, I will let lie the glaring logical and factual flaws in your last post and won't dwell on the fact that you have barely responded to any of my posts and not at all to my most recent posts.

Had you read the article "Overpriced and over here: Housing affordability" at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4156 by Damian Jeffree?

In it, he notes the critical link between continued relentless growth of Australia's population and our hyper-inflated housing market:

"The current level of immigration is effectively pumping demand and preventing the normal supply and demand pricing mechanism from operating to lower prices. The resulting prices unfairly disadvantage the current generation of Australians trying to afford what we should aim to have as a basic right."

Even though property speculators openly advocate increased immigration in order to drive up the already obscene cost of Australian housing, this crucial factor, which has, more than anything else, caused the impoverishment of ever larger sectors of the current Australian population, is barely ever mentioned or discussed by anyone in the spectrum of Australian politics ranging from the small 'l' liberal to the far left, who supposedly have the best interests of Australia's working class and underprivileged at heart.

You talk of immigration 'enriching' Australian culture. I ask you what sort of culture is possible for the growing numbers of Australians who have been cheated out of their entitlements to decent affordable shelter and the right to live in secure stable communities as a result of what is, at best, naive misguided head-in-the clouds idealism, or, at worst, naked profiteering?
Posted by daggett, Thursday, 16 February 2006 1:47:20 AM
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daggett

I'll avoid the usual pot-kettle retorts.

I read that piece you refered to. I've been one of the few people at federal level consistently trying to raise the major problems with affordable housing, so it is good to see others drawing attention to it. His commentary about the problems of housing affordability are good, although I think his analysis of the migration figures are flawed.

Of course growing numbers push up demand which, in the absence of other factors, can impact on prices. However, it is silly to try to suggest that is the sole, or even main cause of the problem with housing affordability. It is this sort of reasoning which makes me use terms like 'anti-people'.

On the demand side of things, just as big a factor has been the dramatic decline in the number of people per dwelling. I presume you wouldn't advocate a compulsory minimum on the number of people residing in each house,or some formula of people per square meter of floor or land space, even though it would clearly be a plus for 'sustainability'?

By far the biggest impact on housing prices has been tax changes which encouraged many more investors into the market seeking windfall capital gains, pricing owner-occupiers out - coupled with a big drop in government investment in public and community housing. I haven't noticed anti-migration sustainability advocates complaining about this. Blaming migrants is just a cop-out.

We could make big sustainability gains by mandating building codes with greater energy and water efficiency designs. This would probably also push up the price of housing, but it could be subsidised in the same way we have a first home buyers grant now - indeed it would have more sense and public good to it than the first home buyers grant, which is poorly targetted.

However, as I've said repeatedly, we should aim for a stabilised population, which is likely to happen over the next 50-75 years with net migration numbers roughly around where they are now. Although if anyone thinks that that alone would solve housing affordability problems, they're dreaming.
Posted by AndrewBartlett, Thursday, 16 February 2006 9:48:16 AM
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ANDREW GOOD ON YOU

… for avoiding the “usual pot-kettle retorts” – you are keeping this discussion at a high level and I am amazed and very pleased that you are bothering to pursue this discussion with all the other demands on your time.

In your post yesterday you summarised my argument as “basically saying you want to help the world's starving and help everyone else's quality of life by keeping them out of Australia".

Yes! – you have somewhat overstated my case but it’s helpful to look at it this way.

Australia should raise its low foreign aid to the UN recommended amount of 0.7% of GDP (it’s currently only about 0.2% or something). And use those resources to work with poor countries to raise their per capita GDP by a combination of economic development and population stabilisation through better primary health care, education and contraception. BUT those countries will be suspicious if we do not stabilise our own population. Therefore the best way we can help the world’s starving is indeed to lead by example – to be a showcase of the benefits of a stable population, while working internationally for the same goal. We will not help by acting as a receptacle for the overflow populations of other countries – we could take 1 million a year and it wouldn’t make the slightest difference, when there’s another 3 billion on the way over the next 50 years.

I do not advocate zero immigration – something like 50,000 net would discharge our refugee obligations – but I do advocate a halt to the immoral practice of raiding Bangla Desh for its expensively-trained doctors, i.e. skilled immigration. And at the same time we should seek in all ways possible to reduce the large ecological footprint per capita. Remember also it is not our country to give away – those people who have been here for 50,000 years probably don’t think thir lives have been enriched by immigration over the past two centuries.
Posted by Thermoman, Thursday, 16 February 2006 9:32:49 PM
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Anderw Bartlett you say:

"last word, if you haven't been able to figure out my reasons for supporting migration from my article and all of my comments, then I doubt my repeating them is going to help much."

You are wrong Andrew, you have not given any reasons, except in a most general sense, for your support of high immigration.

You did not do so in your article, where you took high immigration as a "given" - "it is a simple fact that Australia has and will continue to have very high levels of migration."

Andrew, you did say: " I happen to support high migration .... I think it's very valuable and important. .. I believe the net social and economic positives of migration are significant...)

Are these your reasons - " very valuable and important ...net social and economic positives" ?

Andrew, you said: "I find it hard to see how people can be so strongly of the view migration is a negative when Australia has so clearly benefited economically, culturally and socially from big waves of migration over the past 60 years."

So Andrew, is your reason based on your perceptions of historical benefits?

These are the only reasons you have put forward in your posts.

You have argued against against,low or nil immigration; but this is not the same as arguing your case for high immigration.

So what is the problem Andrew? As our senator tell us in detail why you and the democrats support a population of 30 million by 2050.

If you believe in it sell us the benefits.

Andrew, you are correct that repetition of vague generalities will not help me, nor will snide comments, and I am not requesting this.

I will be honest with you Andrew, I do not think you have thought through your policy position; if you had, you would have told us, and we would all have a clear picture of the benefits of your (and the Democrats) high population policy.

So once again, Andrew, why, specifically, do you think 30 million will be so good for us?
Posted by last word, Thursday, 16 February 2006 10:32:16 PM
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Please Andrew

This is the crux of the issue – for us to really understand why you support high immigration. Can you please spell it right out.

Thankyou.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 16 February 2006 10:51:34 PM
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ANOTHER BARTLETT TALKS SOME SENSE

If you are still under the illusion that it will be business as usual this century, I have just uncovered another Bartlett whose comments might interested you:

He is US Reublican Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland who gave a speech a couple of weeks ago (26 February to be exact) drawing attention to peak oil, as follows: "The world has never faced a problem like this without massive mitigation, more than a decade before the fact. And remember, Mr. Speaker, very few authorities believe that peak oil is more than a decade from now. So we are pretty much here.

"This really is a worldwide problem. We are all in the same boat on this little planet Earth traveling through space. There is only so much oil. There are about 7 billion people, and clearly we would do better to engage the nations of the world in a competition to achieve sustainability instead of a consumption contest, which is now what we are doing: Who can use the most oil to grow their economy the fastest?"

Then there's George H.W. Bush's speechwriter, conservative Republican Peggy Noonan, writing in the Wall Street Journal, October last year. She wrote that she fears that "the wheels are coming off the trolley and the trolley off the tracks. ... [I]n some deep and fundamental way things have broken down and can't be fixed, or won't be fixed anytime soon ... and tough history is coming."

Or Paul Volker, former Federal Reserve Board Chairman, who was quoted in the Economist April 16 last year "Circumstances seem to me as dangerous and intractable as any I can remember. ... What really concerns me is that there seems to be so little willingness or capacity to do anything about it".
Posted by Thermoman, Saturday, 4 March 2006 7:24:05 PM
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