You’ll get no disagreement from me Eric. It is just straightforward commonsense. Well written.

I continue to find it one of the most perplexing things of my life that this sort of stuff even needs to be expressed. I mean, how obvious is it that continuous rapid population growth which creates continuously increasing demand on water, power and every other damn thing, dilutes or cancels out or completely overwhelms most of the technological improvements and various restrictions that are being placed on us in order to reduce the per-capita usage of these resources?

Why aren’t our governments fulfilling their most basic role of protecting society, environment and quality of life, instead of continuing to stress it right to the limit of some of the support mechanisms? Why isn’t sustainability automatic in our political arena? Why doesn’t Labor jump at the opportunity to be really different to the Libs, and support sustainability, including net zero immigration, instead of its current totally unjustifiable promotion of the continuous growth paradigm?

Why is the government so rampantly pro-immigrationist when the Australian populace is predominantly not? Why are they so out of touch? What is wrong with our whole system of government? What is wrong with it to the extent that it works diametrically against the protection of our future?

And so on for another million or so questions.

Reducing immigration is an excellent idea. Unfortunately, both major parties are big immigration aficionados whose only interests are votes, votes, votes, and growth, growth, growth.

We have cheap coal, which, we are now told, can be cleaned up. It is downright stupid to be even be thinking of nuclear reactors when we have such a cheap and plentiful resource. Leave nuclear power to others who don’t have our advantages of cheap coal. We are allowed to have advantages, you know.

After all, we do have disadvantages, and the most critical of these are water and limited space for habitation (one third of the continent). Another problem is the fact that governments do not improve infrastructure commensurate with the influx of migrants.

A good start would to remove the million or so people who are adding to our environmental problems but who arrogantly fail to take out citizenship; those with dual citizenship, those who identify with an ethnic background and not Australia, and all supporters of foreign soccer teams.

Then we could have a sensible immigration program on a needs only basis while we repaired the damage done by idiot politicians increasing our population far above the optimal 13 million

Very sensible comments Eric. Australians use much more energy than many of the source countries of our migrants, so our large immigration program is certainly leading to a greater volume of greenhouse gas emissions.

And it is going to be very difficult to reduce greenhouse gas emisions in the future at the same time as our population is increasing.

Efforts by the federal government to increase Australia's birthrate are also going to lead to more environmental problems.

Dear Eric,

Australia is a nation whose prosperity has been built on the backs of its immigrants. Unless you are an indigenous person, your forbears were almost certainly migrants. In March of this year the Productivity Commission released a report that is germane to your argument.

http://www.pc.gov.au/study/migrationandpopulation/finalreport/index.html

The Productivity Commission report on The Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth demonstrate that the overall effect of migration and population growth in Australia is positive.

At any rate, the central thrust of your argument - that population growth has a necessarily deleterious effect on the environment - is not correct in every circumstance. Life expectancies are rising and rising in Australia (now 78 for men and 83 for women) and this is hapening at the same time that we are becoming an increasingly urbanised society. Why? Because improvements in science, tehcnology and environmental awareness have propelled changes to policies that have improved our environments. I used to live in a house with chimneys and a hearth suitable for coal burning. No wonder so many of our forebears died from respiratory illnesses. And I certainly never used the hearth for burning wood, even though I love to watch a fire. We change our habits and practices and adapt to our new environments.

The answer is conservation, not a halt to immigration. We desperately need skilled labour in Australia to sustain our economic growth into the future.

Perhaps the Federal Government could give us back some of that budget surplus and provide cash grants to all people who instal effective rainwater tanks in the cities? After all, we do live on the driest continent on the planet.

Then after that we might consider whether cotton farming on the Darling River is a viable industry in the long term...

Looking forward to your comments on that Productivity Commission Report...

The Skeptic.

I do not agree with comments by The Skeptic.

Eric Claus actually made a very good submission to the Productivity Commission Inquiry into The Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth.

The Productivity Commission's report did not actually demonstrate that the overall effect of migration and population growth in Australia is "positive". It found that it would lead to an increase in GDP, however it also found that Australians would worker longer hours and less pay as a result of increased migration and population growth

The Productivity Commission inquiry expressly did not take into account the environment consequenses of population growth and migration, which makes the PC's conslusions fairly irrelevant in relation to Eric Claus's article.

The Skeptic also states, "Australia is a nation whose prosperity has been built on the backs of its immigrants. Unless you are an indigenous person, your forbears were almost certainly migrants."

I am rather tired of this line. Actually, Australia's indigenous suffered terribly as a result of European immigration to Australia, so why would we voluntarily submit ourselves to the same fate? Furthermore, the forbears of indigenous Australians were also immigrants, just many thousands of years ago.

Regardless of whether nuclear power is good or bad for Australia, I do not believe that Eric's true intention is to help saving the world from pollution and global warming, but it is rather an excuse to further his personal cause of reducing immigration.

Much more energy could be saved by improving the building methods and materials: at least half our electrical energy goes into heating and cooling, which is quickly dissipated into the atmosphere due to poor building standards.

As the global situation worthens and Australia still has large stocks of coal and gas, even more so if Australia prevents immigration, it would be naive to assume that other energy-starving nations will not come and snatch our resources - by force if necessary. In that regard, nuclear plants are much harder to snatch away.

Isn't it Ironic,

Everytime this forum gets close to the truth of the failure of immigratation to deliver fair and equal progress to all Australians, the Italian State Government comes out with its Jack boots and tramples public opinion: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/new-land-releases-less-costly-for-buyers/2006/06/29/1151174333896.html

To be that cocky they must have done more polls to check all their seats are still stacked with pseudo-Australian immigrants and corporate stooges. If Australians with a preeminent obligation to this country were in those seats, Frank Sartor would not have dared to release this kind of muck. We don't need more people in Sydney, we need services. Oh what's that, the ageing population needs immigrant labour you say? The ageing population doesn't need more immigration. It just places stress on older folk and cheap uncaring private nursing contracts with poisoned carpet over underfloor heaters to create a swift turnover.

Ooops did I say Italian state government? I meant NWS State Labor Government of course.

No immigration or refugees at all, until we've solved all the problems the future presents us with, the political system has to be completely changed. Until then we'll go faster down this path to total destruction, promoted by the ruling elite.

Surely you must've noticed the similarities between the proponents of this direction with its completely illusionary outcomes and religion, they are one and the same. They rant about hope and a grand future, but deliver nothing but misery and a growing gap between the haves and have nots.

Economic rationalism and grow is a religion with illusionary powers of its own thats unstoppable until it destroys itself and all around. We're witnessing a repeat of history, all previous societies and cultures, come to an end, we're witnessing its destructive violent collapse. We either go down with the ship as the enslaved clones do, or we abandon it and prepare to pick up the pieces.

I'd like someone to tell me how you change our direction using the current political system. Thats like using a flat tyre to replace a punctured one. We have to rid the country of the current way of selecting politicians, by demanding they put forward their agenda, outcomes and methodology in statuary declarations for the electorate. With criminal charges if they fail to carry out their promises for the betterment of the electorate, this should be the case for portfolio's as well. This would give people the opportunity to determine by fact, who would best represent their best interests. It would quickly make political parties redundant, giving people back power to construct and control a sustainable future.

The Skeptic, anyone who believes any inquiry conducted by vested interests, (bureaucracy, big business) is factual and continues to believe economic growths the way to go, is a part of the problem and enslaved fool.

Skeptic - There are many who feel the same way as you, but I am not sure everyone has read the Productivity Commission report carefully.

The Last section in the Overview section is called Summing up. It says: "Consistent with previous Australian Studies and research in other countries, the effect of increased skilled migration on average living standards is projected to be positive, but small. It is also likely that most of the benefits accrue to the immigrants themselves."

Going deeper (I can understand that people are busy and it is a big complicated report, so many people may have missed this) to page 151:

The effect of a 50 per cent increase in the level of skilled migration on productivity and living standards has been simulated. Compared with the base case:
• Income per capita is higher by about 0.71% or $383 per capita by 2024-2025
• Average hours worked per capita are higher by 1.18% by 2024-2025

That means that you will be working 1.18% more hours to earn 0.71% more money. Your hourly wage will decrease. Does that sound like a tremendous benefit that we should all strive for by increasing immigration?

Please also note that this is an economic report. They are not assessing the impacts of degradation of the environment. As they say on page xxxv of the Overview:
“Similarly, environmental externalities, such as congestion and pollution might also contribute to lower productivity and living standards.” My opinion is that there is little doubt that congestion and pollution contribute to lower living standards.

I’d like to say more about the PC report and I will endeavour to write another article for Online opinion with more detail.

With respect to your other comments I think technology can certainly go forward without increases in immigration. The most prosperous and innovative countries are the smartest countries, not the most populated. I also think we need to have conservation measures as well as reduced immigration. We are a long way from living sustainably. We will need to reduce immigration and work hard on conservation to get there.

Yuyutsu,

In order to defend Australia from a threat from principally Indonesia, by your ethos, we would need a population of 250 million at least. However it doesn't work that way.

Modern military matters are about expensive military technologies that can only be afforded if we sensibly exploit our mineral wealth including Uranium. We do not need to share our booming mineral wealth with corrupt individuals from foreign countries who have been schooled in the belief that Australia is a sartorially easy target for takeover through weaknesses within its own political processes.

Further, even if the immigrational immorality of NSW Labor and Howard's stupidity are upheld we could not sustain more than about 25 million population before Sydney and the Gold coast became world slums and foreign investments dried up. The reason? This is a desert Island and once Sydney and the Gold coast are done there is no where else immigrants will want to live. Just ask them!

I feel Australia is responsible for perhaps half a billion tonnes of GHGs from coal exports in the sense that we didn't have to sell them, though Downer claims this is offset by uranium sales. The world's coal reserves would last a long time with a much smaller population and the environment could absorb the emissions without help. We could even make petrol from coal. I recall James Lovelock on Lateline saying if global population was just one billion we could all drive gas guzzlers with impunity. I'm not sure what the answer is to low wage work in a smaller population; if Maccas employees had to be paid $100 an hour the process would have to be automated somehow. Importing population seems to stave off some labour shortages but will make it worse when finite resources run out.

Well argued case, Eric.

I too am critical of Australia bringing in large numbers of skilled migrants, especially when there are so many unemployed and underemployed Australians who would willingly do this work if given the chance. Both business and government have been shirking their responsibilities to skill the nation for over a decade, and now that the chickens are coming home to roost their only solution is to buy in on the global labour market.

I have two problems with your position though, Eric. One unfortunately is evident in Leigh's response. Any substantial reduction in immigration levels would be difficult to achieve without resurrecting shades of White Australia and the inevitable divisiveness and ugliness that that would lead to.

Secondly, your argument ignores our global human rights responsibilities. With over twenty million refugees world wide, and that figure only set to grow as the effects of global warming and political instability worsen, Australia should be able to give a home and new life to at least 15-20 thousand needy refugees each year. These people could be encouraged to settle in regional areas and to fill skill shortages.

The development of safe and renewable energy sources and a reduction in energy consumption should be the prime goals of both government and the Australian population. Reducing immigration is important but should not be the main line of attack and should never be viewed as an end in itself.

What comes first, economic growth or increased immigration? It is like a dog chasing it's own tail.
Under increased immigration we have increased crime, drugs,ethnic refusal to accept Australian laws and traditions.
Is increased growth an asset or a liability? I have a feeling that it is the latter.
We are not concentrating on industrial growth, we only export minerals and dirt and if that fails tomorrow what is left?
We are importing tradespeople while young Australians, black and white, are being dumbed down with a low schooling culture, drugs and alcohol.
Not the lucky country now.

A couple of points:

Immigration does not change global population growth, it just redistributes it. Reducing immigration may lead to a reduction in Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, but will have no effect at all on global emissions unless migrants are responsible for more emissions here than they would be in their source countries. So the net effect of Australia reducing migration on global emissions may be positive or negative, but will certainly be far less than the national emissions data the article discusses. And of course it’s global emissions, not where those emissions come from, that matter for global warming.

Further, there is no linear relationship between emissions and population, as the author assumes. In particular, our export industries are concentrated in emissions-intensive activities like minerals and agriculture. Our minerals and energy exports will barely be affected by changes in population growth, and agriculture might change its output mix with lower population growth, but the effect on emissions could be positive, negative or negligible

I have always been cynical about high immigration. What type of people are its biggest advocates? Soloman Lew, Richard Pratt and Lindsay Fox, all of whom are super rich and I am doubtful they have the best interests of Australians in mind.

High immigration creates extra demand on infrastructure which creates skills shortages. Immigrants are used to plug the shortages, which in turn exerts more pressure on infrastructure.

The social and environmental concerns of high immigration is not on the agenda for our 'leaders'. It the economy stupid!

Finally, Bronwyn suggests more refugees. Will you accept that many of these will be unskilled, working class types? Unskilled working class refugees are crime prone just like unskilled working class whites. Basic sociology.

Reduce immigration! Eric, I expect to see your limp body hanging from a tree very soon.

In 1991, SJ Rimmer put the cost of our immigration at AUD$7.2 billion each year. Up to and including 2006 that's AUD$108 billion. If we spent $7.2 billion each year on research into renewable fuels I feel sure that we would have had a solution to our problems by now. Instead we've been entertained by people dressed in costumes poncing about celebrating their national day. Who cares. I want to see people dancing in the streets after hearing the news that research by us has led to a cheap renewable and clean energy source.

Dream on Sage.

That's an excellent article, Eric. It told some hard facts that the politicians and mainstream media would rather we didn't know. There is a good case to be made that the Australian and US governments were unwilling to sign up to Kyoto because they knew that population growth would make it impossible to meet the targets. From ABS figures Australia's total household energy consumption increased by 50% between 1975 and 1995. 76% of the increase was due to population growth and 24% to increased consumption. US per capita consumption of energy and most other resources has been flat or declining for more than the past 30 years. The big increases in total consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are entirely due to population growth. [President’s Council on Sustainable Development, Task Force Report, Sustainable America, March 1996].

Zero net immigration would involve an intake several times as great as Bronwyn's 15,000 to 20,000 refugees, so that many shouldn't be a problem. I also agree with Tom N that we need to look at the pronatalist policies of the government as well as the high immigration policy. The environment cares about the per person impact, not about whether the source of that impact came from here or somewhere else.

The Skeptic needs to look up the DNA evidence recently reported in the Sydney Morning Herald showing that there were up to 5 waves of Aboriginal migration into Australia. Whether the group identified as the oldest really was the first is anyone's guess. He can also google Kennewick Man and the links leading to the new discoveries in Mexico and Brazil showing that the earliest settlers of the Americas were racially different from modern American Indians. Unless he believes there is a use by date on ancestral guilt we are all descended from migrants.

It might be better for Australia's environment if we reduce the number of immigrants to Australia and phase our population down to 12 million people.

The thing is, we need to look at this planet as a whole, not just as a bunch of fragmented countries. If we don't accept the immigrants, they won't cease to exist. They'll just cause more polution, etc. in other countries.

So we need to look at environmental sustainability from the point of view of our whole planet, not just one country.

This is sensational – a creative suggestion to solve our environmental problems. I particularly like the ingenuity in getting people who haven’t arrived here yet to fix the problem for us.

Still, I think this approach misses an opportunity. According to the Australia Institute, http://www.tai.org.au/WhatsNew_Files/WhatsNew/Percapita.htm the industrialised world’s thriftiest people with greenhouse gases are the Latvians.

What we need to do is import a few dozen shiploads of Latvians, because they will really lower our average greenhouse gas production. No doubt they’ll be good cheap labour as well, and even better, they’re educated, so we can go on running our air conditioners full blast, while the Balts staff our nursing homes and security firms.

Hey, it’s a no-brainer. Everybody wins (except the environment of course, but at least the numbers will look good).

Davo - Regarding refugees.

"Will you accept that many of these will be unskilled, working class types? Unskilled working class refugees are crime prone just like unskilled working class whites. Basic sociology."

No, I won't accept either of these assumptions.

Some refugees are unskilled but the majority are not. Many have professional qualifications and many are qualified in the areas in which we're facing skills shortages. Besides, refugees who are given a chance at building a new life are grateful and most are prepared to work in rural areas and in the fields a lot of Australians don't want to.

It is also incorrect to assume that "unskilled working class refugees" are likely to commit crime. This group you've referred to would include farmers, women, young adults and others who for one reason or another may not have readily marketable skills but who are highly principled nonetheless and most unlikely to ever become criminals.

Bronwyn, our responsibilities are to the planetary ship called earth, which has a finite capacity to support human life to the detrimental of all other life forms. What you term as “our global human rights responsibilities” is a recipe for environmental collapse of the planet.

Reducing immigration to zero can't be seen as a white Australia policy, but as a sensible approach to overpopulation and environmental degradation. Bronwyn its easy to see you haven't been in the jails of the country, nor looked at the figures relating to immigrant/refugee and their dependents on welfare. The growing ghetto's of immigrants and their constant demands for acceptance and superiority of their religious cultures. You may also note the growing complaints against immigrant medical workers because they lack understanding of our culture and medical standards.

Add the take over of our political system by ethnic immigrants and those with allegiances to other countries and cultures. The only outcome from bringing these people here, who always bring their despotic approaches to life with them and impose them on us, is to stop them coming and concentrate on sustaining our country.

Our country owes no one anything, we've sacrificed ourselves for other countries since our inception. We had a culture that grew from hardship and helping each other, now its being taken over by whining wimps who don't have the capacity to see beyond the mirror in their heads, let alone look after themselves.

For some strange reason, the vast majority of people are slaves to stupidity and even though their current material standing gives them a sense of intellect, safety and superiority. The reality is they live in a fools world and grovel in their fools gold.

Unless we embrace alternative approaches to every aspect of our society, particularly energy and consumption now, its over for the cities and unprepared of the world. When the electrical switch is turned of for whatever reason, cities cease to exist except for the violence of its decay.

Forget the causes for climate and enviromental change, its here, get used to it or become its victim.

What a bunch of dreamers. The pace of technological change means that the threshold population needed to justify a local auto manufacturing plant, for example, grows by 1-2% each year. It is the same for a host of other manufacturing industries. So an end to immigration will produce a stagnating economy as entire core industries shift off shore.

And it is no good tossing in the chestnut about moving to a knowledge based economy because the critical portion of a knowledge based economy is the part dealing with knowledge of manufacturing processes. And if the decision makers of manufacturing entities are no longer located here then the so-called knowledge providers are at a very significant competitive and cost disadvantage.

The problem with our immigration program is that we have had a strong bias towards attracting people from other cities and they, surprise, surprise, have opted to live in SydMelBane. And gee wiz, this concentration is now causing congestion based diseconomies of scale.

We have had an enduring undersupply of farm workers and rural trades and service providers for decades now and a corresponding under-utilisation of regional infrastructure. But our metrocentric decisionmakers have continued supplying us with metroclones that need a whole new set of ever more expensive infrastructure.

Reducing immigration to net zero or absolute zero or somewhere in between has got nothing to do with white Australia policy, nor anything to do with our responsibilities to refugees and humanitarian issues on the world stage.

I have often advocated that our refugee intake should be increased within a vastly reduced immigration intake. I have called for net zero immigration, which is about 30 000 per annum, and for the refugee component to be increased from the current approximate 12 000 to about 25 000, within that 30 000.

However, I am inclined to agree the Alchemist that the position is now so serious that we should be declaring a moratorium on immigration until we get our sustainability strategy worked out and have made sure that it is working.

As far as humanitarian assistance goes, Australia needs to have a healthy society and economy to be able to keep contributing to international aid. Our international aid, which has declined badly under Howard, is far more important than the handful of refugees that we bring here through our offshore refugee programs, or even a doubling or quadrupling of that number.

Anyway, no matter which way you look at it, the overriding concern is very clearly sustainability.

P-e-r-c-y, oh P-e-e-e-r-r-r-c-c-y

With all due respect, Perseus, we will pick up today on just one of your unfounded assertions and try to correct it. So, you reckon Australia with its 21 million people will lose its capacity for auto manufacturing unless it continues to stuff people inside its borders at the rate of another million every 7-8 years, on top of the million every 8 years through natural increase?

How about little Sweden which manages to produce Volvos, Saabs, Scania trucks and Saab aircraft with only 9 million people? I refer you to the website http://www.sweden.se/templates/cs/BasicFactsheet____3701.aspx, which begins as follows:

The motor vehicle industry plays a central role in the Swedish economy. Swedish automotive manufacturers, including suppliers to the industry, employ about 140,000 people. The automobile industry accounted for one-fifth of the total machine and inventory investments by Swedish industry in 2003. In 2003, exports of motor vehicles and automotive parts amounted to about SEK 125 billion (bn) or 15% of total Swedish exports, which makes the automotive industry the most important single exporting sector. Nine out of every ten vehicles are sold in the export market. In an international perspective, Swedish automotive manufacturers produce relatively few passenger cars, accounting for only 1% of world production. In terms of heavy vehicles over 16 metric tons, however, Swedish manufacturers are among the largest in the world. One fifth of the heavy trucks produced in the world during 2003 were manufactured by either Volvo or Scania.

The facts, Percy, are staring you in the face. Australia could (if it wasn’t a branch office of the US) run a very successful auto industry with its present population and with very low continued population growth. Please admit you were wrong on this one

“The pace of technological change means that the threshold population needed to justify a local auto manufacturing plant, for example, grows by 1-2% each year. It is the same for a host of other manufacturing industries. So an end to immigration will produce a stagnating economy as entire core industries shift off shore.”

This is not entirely untrue, although the development of manufacturing industries and value-adding industry in general has got an awful lot more to do with our inability to compete with extremely cheap labour in many countries overseas and a lack of willingness from successive governments to protect Australian industry and to uphold the furphy of a level playing field in international trade.

We have been told for decades that high immigration is the answer to our problems, in terms of industrial diversification and large improvements in quality of life for everyone. Well, this has totally been shown to be false.

Rapid growth had its place up to perhaps the 70s. But it is well and truly past the time where the Australian people should have risen up and denounced this continued continuous growth philosophy as complete BS, and admitted that they have basically been had by unscrupulous vested-interest politicians and their big-industry buddies.

The economy will NOT stagnate if it stops growing. This is another major furphy that has been pushed long and hard. A steady-state economy doesn’t have to lose any of its dynamism, as we can immediately see in Switzerland, Sweden and other countries with essentially stable and healthy populations and economies.

But all of this sort of stuff is at a level well below the main level of concern here, which is the very survival of a coherent society in Australia. This comes first, and adaptation of industry comes a distant second, if not third or fourth. Population stabilisation will no doubt lead to some readjustments in economy and industry, in which some people will lose out, but continued large-scale population increase will definitely lead to much worse readjustments.

Following WW2, more developed Western countries (England Australia, Canada, France, and later, Germany) all embarked on massive labour recruitment programs to re-build their economies after Depression and War. Sometimes called guest workers, other times immigrants, they contributed mightily to the economic and cultural welfare of those countries. You cannot doubt the fantastic contribution migrants have made to Australia. But now suddenly the Voice says they are the cause of an environmental problem that will go away if we put a hold on more migrants. You can't be really serious about that, but if you are, you have to consider the effect upon our population by stopping immigration.
It's helpful to understand that we are not reproducing at a sufficient rate to maintain our population. At present we have a total fertility rate (TFR) hovering around 1.75: replacement level (no growth) is around 2.1/2.2. That means without new arrivals, our population is in steep decline. This has dramatic effects upon the ageing of our population. See The Weekend Australian article (Planners Brood on Greying Japanese) on Japan's great concern about it's population profile. It has just usurped Italy as the worlds greyest country. Who cares? Well we should because we, and other developed countries, are all running with low TFR's which assures us of a rising average age. One of the problems being encountered is the lack of workforce as populations retire. Look ahead a little, and you might see that there might be too few workers to look after the older folks and so on. The solution most available to us is to permit immigration. It may sound callous, but you can target an immigrant intake that posses skills and other attributes so needed in our country. Sure, we can do more to raise our natural birthrate, but that is hard in the short term.
So while the environmental remarks offer much, the answer does not lie in reducing immigration. It really lies with ourselves. Consume less, get efficient cars, above all, change our attitudes, teach our kids about environment like their lives depend upon it. Because it does.

Let's paly 'Spot-The-Labor-Party-Media-Advisor'

The CCT funnel Tunnel boss says Labor negotiators told him if he crossed the Government on publishing their intent to reintroduce road closures after the March 2007 elections that (sic) the Government has 16 Media advisors and the tunnel company only has one.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/tunnel-boss-tells-of-threats-and-promises-in-talks/2006/07/01/1151174401673.html

Pretty powerful these Media advisors! I think we just saw one on this forum!

Only I don't understand how their spin just makes Morris Iemma look like a grubby kid dividing NSW wealth unevenly between Future citizens and We the electors, then chewing off the difference to keep for post ministerial retirement and his private sector bosses, saying OK that's fair NSW you have to tighten your belts and get used to living the low life while we get rich.

If I can see through this charade everyone in NSW can. Particularly Rural NSW which is being sucked dry of funding and services to payfor the unsustainable Sydney development nightmare.

So what's the use of these 16 Media advisors? Incidentally we state taxpayers are paying their salaries, bonuses and commissions so they can spin and LIE to us? These Media advosors should be named and publicly disgraced.

And it begs the question: Is this the kind of Government we voted for?

Immigration: Sydney is full up. Future immigrants must be allocated cities to dwell in all across Australia and to stop them costing us billions in unfair infrastructure burden all large scal land releases in Sydney and the Gold Coast too must CEASE forthwith and return citizens the standard of living with the freedom from gridlock and the rights of quiet enjoyment that ALL other Australians take for granted.

Oh and all that spin that Sydney has one of the lowest costs of living and one of the the highest standards of living in the world is garbage. we know we bloody live here. The media advisors probably take the polls among Labor politicians and affiliated developers and CEOs. Now excluding Mr Mulligan I guess.

Who would employ these media idiots? Oh ... we do ... duh!

Perhaps we can adopt the same attitude to populating Australia as we do with manufacturing. Move production to China! We can set up human breeding farms in rural China, purpose bred for the Australian economy.What do you think of that idea Hendo? China does'nt use immigration to build its economy, which is growing at a massive rate.

Seriously though, the idea that we need immigration because of our below replacement fertility is ridiculous. Firstly, immigration is no substitute for a birth rate. The below replacement birthrate is used by some to justify high immigration, not to encourage higher birthrates. Immigrants go grey too! Secondly, the cost of an immigration programm is massive, offsetting the supposed economic benefits associated with high immigration.

To some it up, the entire worlds popualtion cannot live like Australians. Higher immigration to Australia means that people live in big houses, buy cars...consume...consume...consume. But in somewhere like India, people are more resourceful and don't live a lifestyle of endless consumption like we do.

Hendo – I believe that our environmental and resources problems are a far greater concern than an ageing population, but that is the fourth most important reason against increasing immigration to combat an ageing population.

3rd) If net immigration went to zero tomorrow, Australia’s population would continue to grow for 20 to 30 years. In 2004 there were 254,200 births and 132,500 deaths registered in Australia. (www.abs.gov.au). That is a net increase of 121,700 without immigration.

2nd) Immigration has very little impact on whether a population ages or not. Immigrants have about the same fertility rates as native Aussies. (See Productivity Commission report 2004, Economic Implications of an Ageing Australia, section 2.5)

1st) Population can’t increase forever, so some generation must start to implement the structural changes needed to manage an ageing population. Why push the changes to the next generation? The next generation will have to figure out how to have a productive economy without fossil fuels. That is a big enough challenge.

Let me reiterate: Our environmental problems will not go away if we reduce immigration. We need to reduce immigration and make efforts to live more sustainably. Neither by itself will be enough.

Perseus – What is the basis for your conclusion that an end to immigration will produce a stagnating economy? The Productivity Commission reports I have seen, disagree. “Factors other than migration and population growth are more important to growth in productivity and living standards.” (Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth, page 151)

Rhian – a) Greenhouse gas figures for Australia don’t include the coal and natural gas that are exported. Otherwise we would subtract all the petrol we get from the Middle East and Saudi Arabia would be the worlds largest greenhouse producer. The greenhouse we produce is directly linked to population. b) I disagree that immigration policy has no impact on world population. If the Chinese could continue to emigrate they would not have adopted the one child policy. Mexico is now taking measures to reduce population because the US is limiting immigration. The goal is to send a message.

OK. This time I’ll be serious.

I reckon Hendo is the only one here who has grasped the problem with Claus’ article. Reducing immigration in order to allow Australians to continue our profligate ways is simply wrong-headed, on several counts.

First, our per capita carbon output is four times the world average. We have no right to expect developing countries to rein in their carbon outputs when we are looking around for quick-fix solutions that will enable us to continue without change.

Second, just as we can’t isolate ourselves from other countries’ environmental problems, we can’t set ourselves up as a no-growth enclave when the world population is rising rapidly. Commercial, diplomatic and (dare I say it) moral considerations require that we shoulder our share of the world’s burdens, and that includes continuing to participate in the largest transnational movement of human beings ever seen.

Similarly, we can’t expect to go on cherry-picking the developing world’s health and IT professionals, without taking some of their less educated and more needy citizens too.

Third, limiting Australia’s population growth by the nominal 1.2 million stated here assumes that the carbon emissions attributable to those people are not our problem – see 1 and 2 above for why this is not the case.

Fourth, the argument also implies that we are otherwise incapable of limiting our output of greenhouse gases. Our children are already more clued up about the environment than we are, and educating them to behave as good citizens of both the world environment and the human community will achieve infinitely more over the next twelve years than putting up a FULL sign.

Ludwig, I entirely agree with you and reinforce one of your points.

Polititians are not the slightest bit interested in "whats best for Australia". Gaining power is their game and big business helps to achieve this by contributing greatly to the two major parties.

'He who pays the Piper calls the tune' is a trueism and big business wants high immigration because it garrantees increased sales of consumer goods. BB could not care less about our standard of living or how long it takes us to get to and from work or how long ques are or the costs of education, etc. Their goal is to sell more consumer goods and bringing more people into Aus is easier and cheaper for them than competing against each other for a bigger market share.

High immigration is negative on enviromental grounds and negative on social grounds and borderline economicly. But it puts big bucks in the pockets of big business.

While I have the floor. I say we should be training our own skilled workers and not poaching them from other countries that need them far more than we do. I recall the NSW Government boasting about the number of apprentices the put on each year. Not now.

Hendo (Saturday, 1 July 2006 10:46:06 AM) mentioned France's huge worker immigration program, but he neglected to add that that program was stopped after the first oil shock in 1973, as were all those worker immigration programs of western continental Europe. Thenceforth the policy in the EU (with the exception of Britain) has been zero net immigration. Family reunion is harder to stop because of European conventions, but a policy of not building much new housing gets round this one to a large degree, since the European conventions require adequate housing and income for family reunion.

What really contributed mightily to 'rebuilding economies' was oil.

We have no need to grow or even to maintain our populations which are the largest the earth has ever seen and which are themselves a reflection of available cheap energy - oil and coal.

Those days of cheap energy and big populations are over - thank heavens. Perhaps the environment will be able to recover if human populations shrink from attrition in time.

By the way Australia's population is currently growing at the world population growth rate 1.2% per annum, so we are in no danger soon of population decline. You must have been listening to the Treasurer, who gets it wrong all the time. Try reading the ABS population Statistics.

Japan is set, as is Western Europe, for a relatively gentle decline in energy and materials demand. It has also preserved its forests. This is the way to go. The English speaking economies have set their high consuming, low democracy populations up for some really bad times in the near future. They seem to be the worst in the world.

Suggesting that we can all beat Maddison avenue by consuming less is to pretend we don't live in an economy that convinces most people by every method that they must produce more and therefore consume more.

I cannot understand why your 'logic' doesn't produce cognitive dissonance in your own head. It certainly does in mine.

To KAEP:

Military force can only be one part of a more comprehensive strategy: if some big country was eager to conquer Australia at any cost, yes, they could have done so and Australia could never obtain the military means to stop them, but war has a cost and that cost increases with higher population and a lower standard of living. It is cheaper and more realistic for an enemy to first coerce Australia to give them our coal and gas willingly before actually invading, so if we have nuclear electricity we can at least survive once mankind exhausts the planet's fossil-fuels and most of the world is starving and desperate.

In other words, the whole world is connected and it will not pay to bury our head in the sand as if the storm is not passing also over us.

As for your specific concern about SydMelBane, a simple solution could be to tax migration to those areas, for example no welfare and 10% income-tax surcharge on those living there (migrants or otherwise) who have not been already living there before a given date.

A desert island? people have conquered deserts before (in Israel for example) and Australia has overall plenty of water to do so if it uses it intelligently and innovatively - but that of course will not happen when the standard of living is so high that people are not willing to go out to the bush and work hard.

To W:

Well written.
Just one comment: Hendo is not "the only one here who has grasped the problem with Claus’ article" - I did so 22 hours earlier.

w – In response to the 4 items you raise:

1) For the 3rd time; reducing immigration by itself won’t be enough. We must also learn to live sustainably. Reducing immigration is just the easiest step.

2) Are you saying that because other countries have not controlled their populations and Australia has, we have a moral obligation to take migrants even if it will mean a lower standard of living and harm to our environment? I disagree. I believe we can send a message to other countries about responsible care for the environment in our country and hopefully they will follow suit and manage their environments more sustainably.

3) Are you saying that carbon emissions now being generated by a Vietnamese, Latvian, New Zealander, American or Sudanese person are the responsibility of Australians, if those people are thinking of migrating to Australia? I can't understand this. Perhaps you could explain in more detail.

4) see 1) and please lay out your proposals for limiting our output of greenhouse gases. I agree we need to make other efforts besides reducing immigration to limit greenhouse emissions, but I have not seen any proposals that are less painful than reducing immigration.

Yuyutsu

So you understand the problem with Claus' article? From your post though, you comment that the world is headed for a bleak future with a large population and the exhaustion of fossil fuels. You also seem to imply that a country in need of resources is more likely to engage in acts of coercion or aggression against weaker countries. (This was the case for Germany and Japan last century, but I have not seen this argument used to explain the conflict in the Middle East.) Surely though, these two claims are strong arguments for reducing population and consumption?

Controlling population growth in Australia might not fix the world's problems, but it could set an example.

Australia cannot solve the world's population problems by allowing in more immigration. Even if Australia doubled its immigration intake, it would barely make a dent in the world's annual population growth (about 75 million annually!).

Therefore the real answer is to encourage birth control. Allowing high immigration only encourages more population growth.

Eric

Thanks for participating in this discussion. In my experience this is rare among Online Opinion writers, and I admire the willingness to test the rigour in your arguments by debating them here.

1. Your article is about reducing immigration. It doesn’t state that we must learn to live sustainably. You’ve made some comments in this forum about working hard on conservation, but I was commenting on your article.

2. We have a moral obligation to take refugees (often fleeing from problems caused directly or indirectly by overpopulation). Commercial demands for skilled and semi-skilled labour, and our international agreements will probably dictate that we need to continue accepting migrants.

To re-phrase your question: “Why should their mistakes be our problem?” A valid question, but the simple answer is because we all share this space, it’s impossible to put up a wall and refuse to get involved. This goes for people as well as pollution.

It’s all very fine to “set an example” on population growth, though not if it’s at the expense of becoming exemplary isolationists. In any event, with our very low birthrate, I would argue that the example is already being set.

3. Your “modelling” posits 1.2 million fewer people in Australia, because of reduced immigration. According to your proposal, these people will be somewhere in twelve years' time, just not here. There will still be carbon emissions attributable to them, and we will continue to be affected by those emissions.

I’m not proposing that Australians shoulder the responsibility for those carbon emissions, any more than I am arguing that we are responsible for other countries’ overpopulation. However we are affected by both, and keeping them at arm’s length doesn’t relieve us of any obligations to act.

4. You’re the expert on environmental issues Eric. When I don’t like what my doctor is suggesting, she doesn’t expect me to come up with an alternative treatment plan. Rejecting your advice places me under no obligation to come up with better advice. What’s required is a second opinion.

Nice article, thank you.
I am not a physicist nor involved in alternative energy but I have read sites like www.rmi.org the rocky mountain institute and some of the British and European material.
Arguments remain as to whether alternative energy can provide. Many are optimistic particularly when new technology and efficient energy use is combined with some population reduction, equating with the ecological carrying capacity of the world than reduction of energy.
The positive people list so many possibilities. See housing standards www.basix.nsw.gov.au and each state has similar. Although these do not rech those of the Rocky Mountain house in Colorado, nor the German no energy houses, it is a start.
For the 65% GHG due to transport etc there are hybrid and soon hydrogen cars. Hydrogen from electrolysis using the sun, 35 % efficient solar cells, the new ways of using semiconductors with lower energy needs etc etc and of course sequester of coal gas.
Many of the alternate energy gimmicks are in prototype but then I suppose with some oil fields already pumping gas down the bore holes and a small coal plant in the US producing clean electricity one might think the future even is with us. After all in the 1970’s oil shock GDP growth and energy use in the US, Lovins, was decoupled.
I have not even mentioned wind.
Do we need growth because it is the current paradigm, entertains and controls the youths, no purpose left if we can’t buy and show our latest gadgetry, being one up is necessary to unchangeable human nature, (it is unchangeable is not it?) An economic paradigm in which education enables competition of the minds and those common enjoyments not needing high tech production or would we all die of boredom?
I am confused is the debate all about selling a commodity balancing the current account or as suggested a Christian feel good exercise like Iraq? Devising a means of continued affluent style measured by possessions (and one upping) or leading armies (even when surrogate minor party), or ?

As is usual in my disorganised way I forgot one thread, proof that paranoid outlook is absent?
I just wonder if as with the war with Iraq the media and of course the poli’s are conning us.
Such conning can be exemplified by the tomes written on the subject, in America! See The Record of a Paper Howard Friel and Richard Falk.
Now so far as I know there is no leak similar to the Downing Street Memo showing at least the intelligence, and was not the war based on this, to be skewed to suit the purpose of war, concerning misinformation by the media. Maybe someone knows better?

Anyway the debate is headed only nuclear, excluding alternative?
Lots of sums at least in the net and of course Julie Bishop showing the wonders of nuclear and its safety, but nothing on alternatives. Except of course those wretched parrots who not being imbued with the Spirit of Australia can’t, it is said, avoid the turbine blades.
Oh well it was just a thought

The thrust of the article doesn't really discuss a manner of reducing greenhouse emissions per person. These numbers stay static, and we shall not have progressed on that front at all. The article simply discusses the *local* non-creation of additional greenhouse emissions. The problem is, reducing immigration doesn't help, and the downsides are significant.

In a global context, the idea of a reduction of immigration to reduce greenhouse gases doesn't actually work. Immigrants don't appear from thin air, immigrants are people and whether they immigrate to Australia, another country or stay where ever they are they will generate pollution. The problem with the idea of reducing immigration as a greenhouse gas reducer is it doesn't really *reduce* emissions in an absolute terms. It simply makes it another country's pollution problem.

The value of immigration, and the contributions of immigrants to the nature is simply beyond reproach. To suddenly reverse immigration would have a negative effect on our ability to innovate in business, sport, science and whatever other arenas one could name. It would be extremely short-sighted, not to mention small-minded to implement such a policy. The fact that it doesn't actually work is quite transparent as well. From a world perspective, we shall simply be seen as a mean-spirited, racist nation unwilling to be open to the world.

Do we want to become a world pariah as the years go by? Other countries will be intelligent and aim at reducing the emissions output per person or household. By taking on a simple policy of low immigration, we do nothing to reduce emissions on an absolute level and Australia, as a power consumer, remains, and increasingly so, backward & inefficient in its power generation.

We cannot be a leader by example by going backwards. The only way we can lead by example is to innovate & become more efficient in producing our energy, and more efficient in our consumption of energy.

There is a good reason the idea isn't being raise in public forum about sustainability & reductions of emissions: Its a total non sequitur that doesn't work.

Whilst I do not disagree with the options put formward centered around a reduction in immigration as a solution to the environmental issues and the general energy debate, one must also consider the effect of zero immigration combined with near zero population growth in a country as large as Australia.

The decision to increase the number of 'productive' immigrants, that being skilled and semi skilled adult migrants is an attempt at a short cut solution to a very long term problem.

Since the iron curtain fell and the Chinese became voracious capatilists and consumers along with India we became a powerhouse of production but at a very basic and a primary level at that. We could not afford nor could we deliver a more sophisticated input into the world's new economies of value adding to our resources base without the manpower to do it.

The result is the accelerated immigration programme of willing and able workers with different objectives producing an effective and desirable outcome for industry. Motivated workers from third world countries prepared to work longer hours for less than what we call the average wage meets and usurps the unionised workers challenge as a monopolist in labour domestically.

The problems though with achieving such economic targets and outcomes is that we have infrastructure in cities and towns for services unable to cope with such a rush in demand . Thats the social cost to a quick economic victory.

What needs to be done is to relocate or to locate those who come from abroad for these jobs particularly at the mines to move out there and to compel the mines to make a larger contribution towards affrodable housing, education and other amenities in these areas complete with suitable infrastructure. A bit of the Railroad barron mentality of the USA in the 1800's.

Stopping imigration totally is disasterous. It will mean that we will continue to have to wait before the current generation with kids are able to bring thm up to the level of being competitive workers in the future. Thats unrealistic.

I've heard of many reasons to prevent foreigners coming to our country but this one is as shallow as they come. Every problem has a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong.

"Let's blame the immigrants" I thought was a cry that died out yonks ago but there are many such as the author who feel this way and yearn for approval; all the usual suspects above have queued up to oblige.

I don't buy into the argument we need immigration to support our expanding economy, since eventually we'll simply outstrip our resources. Developing a revolutionary energy source or managing what we have are pretty much our only options.

"The lesson [of Australia looking into nuclear options] would be that Australia is starting to get serious about tackling climate change and living sustainably." Ya reckon? The government's looking into nuclear energy because with India going nuclear and the US urging us to get involved THERE'S MONEY IN IT. Investigating nuclear options makes sense since there's no way we could sell uranium yet ban the technology onshore, without facing up to the obvious hypocrisy of that position.

It's also a debate we need to have anyway. We know peak oil production can't be too far away, whatever OPEC representatives say. In all of this though what the f*ck has immigration got to do with it?

Let's blame foreigners. It's heaps simpler than a little introspection.

Excellent Banjo. At least some of us can see just how corrupted our so-called democratic system has become, or perhaps always has been, when governments are so hung up on continuous rapid human expansion when they know full well that it is time to stop increasing pressure on our life-support systems.

Hendo, I agree that immigrants contributed greatly to the building of our nation, but there is nothing sudden about the “voice” that links high immigration with environmental problems and calls for it to be drastically cut. This issue has been voiced at least since the ZPG movement of the 70s and solidly all the way up to the present. But it was strongly suppressed by media and government until fairly recently.

Your conclusions about the fertility rate are completely wrong. Despite the personal fertility rate of 1.75, our national reproduction rate is well ahead of replacement level. There is no chance of Australia’s population going into decline, not that there would be anything wrong per se if it did start slowly decreasing. There are many more people in their reproductive years than there would be if the age distribution was typical of a stable population. So even with net zero immigration, our population would continue to grow for another 20 to 30 years, as Ericc points out.

And as Daggett points out, our illustrious treasurer keeps on spouting gross misinformation on this critical point.

w:

First: yes we certainly do have to address both our per-capita and total carbon emissions. High immigration greatly dilutes or overwhelms efforts to reduce total emissions. And it makes a mockery of reducing average per-person emissions if there are forever going to be more and more ‘per-persons’. Addressing one without the other is nonsensical.

Second: we certainly can set ourselves up as an essentially no-growth “enclave”, and demonstrate to the world that we can practice a sustainable lifestyle, and contribute very significantly to world refugee and poverty issues at the same time, by way of limited acceptance of refugees and much more importantly; a very large international aid effort.

Third: I think you mean 12 million, not 1.2 million. Anyway, if we can just convince our pollies to plan for stabilisation at about 23 million, it would a massive step in the right direction.

Fourth: how does the argument for population stabilisation imply that we cannot limit greenhouse gases? This seems completely contradictory. We can’t do it if we continue to have rapid population growth. You seem to be highly offended by the notion of “putting up a FULL sign”. Well, I think you need to visualise the alternative – continuous growth with no end n sight. Even you must admit that sooner or later the continent will be ‘full’. So do you want it to be declared full well after we have witnessed massive decline in quality of life and massive increase in resource consumption and waste production, or do you want to plan for limits while we can still have some hope of redeeming some of our gross mistakes of the last 218 years?

Post WW2 migrants had to agree to work for two years where ever they were sent. There were standards they had to reach .
Now we are taking migrants from countries who would never fit the standards of the post war intake.
We are getting migrants from countries who are totally opposed to our way of life, isn't that setting the stage for absolute strife?
Some of today's migrants come from nations that are naturally aggressive ,with unrestrained birth numbers , lacking in work ethic, education and no respect for women. They crowd into the cities and regard the countryside with distaste.
Some posters here shudder at the thought of the White Australia Policy, until the last thirty years it kept this country peaceful and progressive.
Until now.

Ludwig –

I think some of the comments that have been written here, give a clue to your original questions. Many of the people who agree that increased immigration does not raise living standards and damages the environment, still want high immigration. We got a sense of that in the forum with Andrew Bartlett earlier in the year. Australia is a country that likes immigrants.

Many people just won’t accept criticism of immigration. The politicians understand that. It is too emotional an issue. We all know immigrants who we love and wouldn’t want to live without. The thought of limiting immigration makes people feel that you will never see those people again, and that is a very strong negative feeling.

I’m sure there are many people on this forum who would rather have a $20/tonne carbon dioxide tax rather than slow down immigration. It would only add 4 cents a litre (about 3%) to the price of petrol and less than 2 cents per kW-hour (about 20%) to the cost of coal fired electricity. I would prefer both reduced immigration and a carbon tax, but I'm not holding my breath.

The $20/tonne carbon dioxide tax would cost the average Aussie about $400/year. It would do nothing for water conservation, land degradation, traffic congestion, urban air pollution and several other issues. It would also slow the economy, but even so, it is likely to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas generation. The government would also get about $8 billion dollars/year that could be used to build wind farms, encourage biodiesel and photovoltaic energy, buy parkland, rehabilitate eroded and salt impacted land and provide other environmental protection measures. All these things would only happen if we could ensure that it would not just be another tax, that would go into general revenue.

The encouraging thing about this forum is that nobody has said “lets do nothing.” I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who feel that way, including our current political leaders of all persuasions, but this forum has been positive from that viewpoint. Thanks to everybody.

Hi Ericc

Thank you for a very well argued paper. I found it and related postings most interesting reading.

Cheers
Kay

BENNIE YOUR BLIND SPOT ON POPULATION IS SHARED BY MANY OTHERS

Bennie, you write “I don't buy into the argument we need immigration to support our expanding economy, since eventually we'll simply outstrip our resources.”

It is amazing to me that you clearly understand that if our population keeps growing we will eventually run out of resources, but then you say “What the **ck has immigration got to do with it?”

I have come across this kind of thinking before and it’s very interesting – people will say in one breath that world population growth is a really serious problem, but then in the next breath they’ll say anybody opposing population growth in Australia is somehow “blaming foreigners” and is avoiding doing some “introspection”.

As if there’s a problem in the world, but it’s got nothing to do with us in this country.

Why, Bennie, do you think so many people want to come here? It’s because their own countries are so badly overcrowded and so badly run down that they need to come to some place that’s not so crowded – at least not yet.

We have had only 218 years to pack the world’s population onto this continent, and if we keep going the way we are, we will wreck it just the way places like Iraq have been wrecked – once an agricultural paradise, now a ruined desert.

It is very interesting that people will say things like “eventually we’ll simply outstrip our resources” but then immediately run away from what they have just said, as if the truth is just too awful to cope with. Eric’s article is fantastic because he focuses on the very simple facts – but it seems that simple facts are not what people want to hear.

I have a question for all who want to see populations keep growing: do you think there is ANY limit to the numbers of people this planet can support?

I bet that most people on this forum live in a major capital city. Ask yourself why people don't spread out more into central Australia. Hmmm...desert, drought (not much water), rising salt on what was once good agricultural land and not much infrastructure.

Where do the vast majority of immigrants settle? To places where the infrastructure is well established - our major capital cities! Australia is the driest continent in the world, and a fragile country at that. There is no way Australia can hold 3oo million people like the U.S.

But for some reason, Australia likes to act like some kind of mega metropolis. It is a bit hard for corporates to treat everyone as nobodies under the spectre of a skills shortage and low fertility. Immigration shortcuts this problem.

Um, did anybody else notice Eric's comments in his article that he wanted to look at some numbers "just for fun" and "it's good to dream"?

Sorry, but I took those to be clues that the article was intended to be humourous.

As a caricature of a foaming-mouthed fortress-Australia moat-builder, this was an hilariously funny and insightful piece of satire. Well done Eric.

But the real punchline? The number of comments here that took Eric's comments seriously.

But then, fair enough. Australians have always taken the view that it's the bloody foreigners causing all the problems, so I guess this sort of comment is business as usual.

As long as we're OK, the rest of the world can go to hell in a handbasket, right?

Having said that, I do look forward to hearing more of Eric on the stand-up circuit. He's much funnier than Sam Kekovich.

I can only presume all the anti-immigration folk want to keep out the 5 million tourists who bring billions with them to spend each year too? Really, you don't? Why the hell not.

They drink our precious nectarous water, trample out gold plated soils, pollute our beautiful blue seas and create employment for tens of thousands of Australians.

Compare that to the immigration intake of 150,000 and refugees of 13,000 and see how utterly ridiculous you sound.

Rhian, thank goodness for some common sense. 1.2 million less Australian's causing pollution just means 1.2 million people somewhere else causing the same pollution.

Absurd a mondo is this argument. Here is the thing though - the aborigines were here first, they were treated appalling by the invaders and nothing has changed in over 220 years has it except the invaders are from 200 different countries now.

Mickijo, really? No problems in Australia before now? I remember being 7 years old and sent to the proverbial coventry because I wouldn't go and bash the catholics in the convent school.

What about the Greeks and Italians who hate each other and so on? You are just using this as another overt attack on muslims - people you don't know and don't want to.

Eric, you need to reconsider the population distribution thing because it simply doesn't make sense when the population of the world keeps growing just to keep a few people off this island for a year or two. Eventually the world will need more space but it's OK. We are told that the Japanese are getting so old they will have a 25 million reduction in their population but then I guess another 25 million Africans will be born.

Stupid.

Fifty years ago, population, 10-11 million, at least 4 car manufacturers, thousands of small manufacturing industries. We were told, populate or perish. Now more than 23 million, dying car industry, non existent manufacturing, growing monopolisation, more than 3 million unemployed, collapsing infrastructure.

Supposed intellectuals living in match boxes piled on top of each other, only see buildings and smog around them, wanting more of the same. I'd like them to describe how the country can support constant growth with dwindling resources.

A bus fills up to its safe carrying capacity, those on the bus have a right to say not more or else the bus will tip over. There will be those just like on this forum who will say, we've a moral obligation to take more people on the bus irrelevant to the consequences. We see this all the time overseas, overcrowded buses crashing because all the drivers want is more paying passengers, not a safer bus.

Considering the lies flowing incessantly from our politicians, believing them's like believing in the tooth fairy, nonsensical stupidity. Now we discover they sent out troops to Iraq purely to make sure we could sell our wheat and they stuffed that.

I look forward to two years time, petrol will be over $3 litre, cities under fire from radical weather, dying infrastructure, unsafe streets and imported foods. Still fools will say, more people to fill the boat, our moral obligation is to fill up until we sink.

Put forward all the economic illusions you want, without alternatives, there's no future. We don't have to cut back on consumption of oil or stop population growth, our future self-centred economic greed will do that.

Moral obligations are a religious attempt at making us feel bad. All those advocating continuing immigration should provide and example and move to the country, taking the immigrants with them to provide an example of how it should be done.

Marilyn Shepherd wrote:

"I can only presume all the anti-immigration folk want to keep out the 5 million tourists who bring billions with them to spend each year too? ..." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4603#46302)

I think tourism has its place, but it is unhealthy that any economy is as dependent upon tourism as Australia's now is. The other most significant economic activities, upon which Australia now depends, are the pyramid selling scheme, known as the real estate market, and the extraction and export of non-renewable mineral resources. Even our rural sector is largely dependant upon fertilisers which are manufactured from the planet's finite and dwindling stock of non-renewable fossil fuels. This cannot be sustainable.

Tourism on the current scale comes at a cost to the rest of us. Many of our own holiday destinations are now overcrowded and beyond our means due to both our increased population and to the far greater numbers of overseas tourists.

Also, for me there is something undignified about turning half of the country into a theme park and ourselves into quaint objects of curiosity for wealthy foreign visitors to marvel at.

Any government with vision, and with our best interests at heart, would set a goal of winding back our dependence upon tourism before inevitable steep rises in oil prices make it unviable.

Don't worry, immigration will self limit.
A CSIRO study of some years back held that the population will not exceed 25 Million because there will not be enough water for more people than that.

Nuclear powered desalination could change that but it will be further away than the need for water.

BTW, the nuclear waste is nowhere near the problem as has been suggested. Neither in volume or time.
I am told that there is a technique that reduces the long half life products significantly and the volume is also very small.
This from a real expert in nuclear technology.

Merco,

Eric's article was groundbreaking and if you know how to read you will have noticed a slew of articles in Australian newspapers that have arisen directly from discussions here.
Unless you and other private enterprise units want to go belly up, I suggest you pay more attention.

As for: "As a caricature of a foaming-mouthed fortress-Australia moat-builder"? Congrats Merc, you just pissed-off Half of Australia
THAT's the REAL punchline!

Bloody foreigners ARE causing all the problems. Look at the branch stacking, immigrational gerrymandering NSW Itlalian state Government. It a 'mene mene tekel'. The writing's on the wall and Australians do know how to read.

The rest of the world will do what it wants without any assistance from you Merco and the Australian public will rightfully choose a life of quiet enjoyment free from unsustainable population farming and shoehorn Westfield immigration strategies. Its your laying of cheap-shot guilt trips on a very savvy Australian public that will go to hell in a handbasket. We aren't cattle and you make a pathetic cattle dog. You sir Should have been drowned at birth!

We can even have a comedy routine doing the RSL clubs - "The cattle dog that couldn't get it up" or maybe the "The Crossed up Sydney funnel tunnel that couldn't get it on".

KAEP, I think you might have inadvertently posted your application to join the Liberal Party to the wrong address.

I'm sure the Libs will be delighted to learn that the NSW government consists of foreigners, since that would automatically disqualify them from serving in government. In fact, while we're at it, let's de-register the ALP just to ensure that this country finally gets the government it deserves.

Could you kindly re-send your correspondence to: foreignersout@liberal.org.au

Please also CC:Alexander Downer and he will be only too happy to assist you with what will undoubtedly become the fifth failed preselection bid against Petro in Kooyong.

PS - My parents tried to drown me at birth, but since I can talk under wet cement, it was sadly to no avail.

Alright Mercurius, you have put up two mercurial posts that have attempted to knock the stuffing out of poor old Eric and KAEP everyone who agrees with them on this thread, which is the vast majority of respondents. But there is not an iota of substance, just empty sarcasm.

Can you address the issues that you apparently so vehemently disagree with (or appear to disagree with for the sake of a stir) with some logical argument?

Come-on, let’s see the depth of your understanding of this huge issue.

When rail bureaucrats in Sydney declare “if we had fewer customers, there’d be fewer problems with the rail system”, everybody rightly recognises it for a cop-out. But when Eric C gets up and says, in effect, “if we have fewer people who used less stuff, the environment would be better off,” his cheer squad hail it as an insight of staggering genius, instead of the trivial truism that it is. Here’s another idea with the same inherent logic: if we removed children from their parents at birth, we’d prevent parents abusing their children. Now, where’s my round of applause?

A trained monkey could improve the environment by capping the population and forcing people to use less. But a humane solution is one that aims to do less environmental harm, even with more people.

At least Eric has the intellectual honesty to admit that his piece was “just for fun” and a “dream”, but his supporters seem to mistake it for a serious policy option. Which is why their “dream” remains condemned to irrelevance amongst public policy in Australia.

A government and a society worthy of the name will find policies and solutions that lead to better environmental outcomes even with lots more people living even more prosperous lives. If everybody today heated their homes with wood or coal fires like we did a century ago, Sydney would be uninhabitable even with one-quarter of the population. Guess what? We found a better way. And we’ll do it again, if we first stop blaming Australia’s entrenched problems on people who got off the boat five minutes ago.

Eric, and (most of) his supporters are smart people, they certainly know more about the science of these matters than I do, and I’ve no doubt they could come up with some workable solutions if they really wanted to. But since what they actually want is simply get rid of the bloody foreigners, this is merely the most convenient platform to call for it.

I’d have more respect for their views if they were honest about their xenophobia and stopped dressing up in green camouflage.

Mercurious, your analogy is misleading since immigration is a highly debatable issue, with strong opposition that is swept under the carpet by our leaders. For a business, having customers is not debatable. For a mother, being pregnant is not debatable. The fact that Australia is the driest continent in the world is not debatable.

Are you Mercurious Goldstein? I suspect I know why you are pro immigration. Revenge for the holocaust? This is not Germany mate.

I might add, how come any discussion of immigration ends up a sledging match of xenophobia and racism, white Australia blah blah blah. This alone suggests we are a very fragile multicultural society, if it can't be debated openly.

As mentioned before the holocaust is always used as a benchmark for the evils of racism by people like Mercie. Fortress Israel mate.Racism is bad, mass immigration counters racism so the logic goes. Perhaps this debate is about what kind of society we want, not the environment. But with obvious water shortages, droughts here there and everywhere, rising salinity combined with our country having the highest per capita greenhouse gas emissions in the developed world we should live more sustainably rather talk about it. Your right Eric, as if.

Can you see the glaring contradiction in Mercurius’ murky post?

He writes; “A trained monkey could improve the environment by capping the population and forcing people to use less”.

Or put in neutral terms; it is blatantly obvious that environmental health, which includes the natural and humanised environment and our resultant quality of life, can be improved by both limiting population size and reducing per-capita consumption.

Yahoo! At least he can see that limiting population growth is a pretty fundamental tenet for our future and he can appreciate the basic level of Eric’s and most respondents’ argument (as if anyone couldn’t see it).

But then he rabbits on about those who call for population stabilisation really wanting to get “rid of the bloody foreigners” and practicing xenophobia dressed up in green camouflage.

Sounds to me like he is one mixed up soul who is trying very hard to pervert the issue with baseless accusations of xenophobia when he knows full well that Eric’s arguments have eminent merit and have nothing to do with the x word.

“A government and a society worthy of the name will find policies and solutions that lead to better environmental outcomes even with lots more people living even more prosperous lives.”

Oh what a lovely notion. I used to believe that too about 25 years ago. But it so blatantly is not the case. Alchemist summarises this pretty well in his last post.

For goodness sake, Mercurius doesn’t have faith in Howard or Beazley or our political system to do the right thing by us in the longer term. Does he??

Why are so many people deeply concerned about high immigration and ever-increasing population? Because our political system and leaders have shown us over at least the last couple of decades that they are completely not up to the task of finding policies and solutions to our ever-increasing problems, but rather, continue with the same old practices that caused the problems

Marilyn Shepherd -

Thanks for raising the issue of tourists. Although I agree with Daggett that increased petroleum prices may harm our overseas tourism industry in the future, I don’t think the government should step in. I like the idea of as many people as are able to, visiting Australia. I think the people in the tourism industry understand the risks with rising oil prices and other factors.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS, http://www.abs.gov.au) records that Tourism provides about 4% of our Gross Domestic Product and that “Domestic visitors generated 76% of tourism industry GDP in 2004-05 while international visitors generated 24%.” That means overseas tourism provides 1% of our GDP. I doubt if that means 1% of our energy usage, because manufacturing takes a significant piece, but even if it did take 1% of our energy it would not be the major factor that you implied with your comment about 5 million overseas tourists.

The ABS writes that there were 5.4 million short term overseas arrivals and 4.6 million residents leaving for short term holidays every year. That is a net difference of 800,000 travellers in Australia using Aussie energy. The median length of trip was 10 days, so we can estimate an average of 15 days. 800,000 people staying an average of 15 days is like 33,000 people staying a full year. 33,000 is probably closer to the impact with respect to energy and other resources, than 5 million. The 33,000 people leave as well, while net immigration means the numbers build up every year.

Mercurius –

I know you know its not a joke, but just for the record I will state that the reason that I said “It’s good to dream” is because the current political preference is to do nothing about immigration or sustainability. My dream is that the government will do something. When ideas are put forward the government says “Oh no we can’t do that,” and we end up with business as usual.

My view is that the government wants high immigration because a drop in immigration would slow the economy temporarily (hurting the governments chances of getting re-elected) and the benefits of low immigration are long term (meaning nothing to the governments chances of re-election). The government doesn’t see any benefits in reducing immigration and business likes immigration because it helps keep wages down and increases the size of their markets. Business therefore supports the governments high immigration program.

As I’ve said in previous posts I am happy to hear any ideas to reduce environmental impacts, but the easiest and least painful one is to reduce immigration. I understand that this is impossible to accept for many people. Many people would rather have pollution, congestion and a reduced standard of living than reduce immigration. If the government was raising the minimum renewable energy target to 3% and then 4% and then 5%, initiating a carbon tax, recycling wastewater, preserving park land, rehabilitating eroded and salt affected land and making it clear that the reasons that all these things had to be done was because we needed to have high immigration, then I could accept high immigration as vital to the Australian people. But none of this is happening and I don’t think that high immigration is absolutely vital for the Australian people.

From your post I assume that you understand that high immigration makes it harder to solve environmental problems. Why do you think high immigration is so important for Australia?

LIES-AND-BETRAYAL

The argument for stopping-unfair-immigration-practises has nothing-to-do-with Racism-or-Politics. NSW citizens are-impeccable-when-it-comes-to-tolerance-and-equality. The insinuation that we are racist in the Fair-Placement-immigration debate is-without-basis-and-quite-offensive. It is unfortunate that big-business-and-Media profitabilities are compromised by any hint of this fairness and they subsequently dredge up lies in prime time media to confuse-the-issue.

Should we believe-their-propaganda-just-because-its-on-Tele?

What the debate IS about is BETRAYAL. There is-no-longer-Public-trust-in-either-Federal-and-State-Governments who have chosen to conspire with certain MACWESTBRIDGE enterprises to-Betray-NSW-citizens-into-lower-standards-of-living in order to create milk-cow-SYDSEQ-investments in public-demographic-industries for their own benefit. The subsequent use of immigrational-gerrymandering-and-branch-stacking means that Sydney is becoming slum-ridden-and-gridlocked while high profile NSW Labor immigrants swan around, speeding in the RIGHT lane and aspiring to become-aristocrats-at-OUR-expense. The Animal-Farm-penny has well-and-truly-dropped. This is the worst act of bastardry performed on this state since Federation. No government has an election mandate to BETRAY its citizens through an unfair placement of immigrants and a corruption of the democratic process. The penalty is election loss and the successor Government had better understand-the-new rules if they want-more-than-one-term.

NSW citizens do NOT want a lower-standard-of-living and will-not have-the-bogey-man-ageing-population-problem. We have a sizeable proportion of the world's-mineral-wealth and we want to use it to OUR advantage within a population of around 23million Australians where future-slower-immigrant-intakes do not go into stressing SEQ-SYD to-profit-a-handful-of-grubs. The SYDSEQ-FULL-UP-signs are definitely posted. Governments-and-their-Private-backers had better-damn-well-get-used-to--it or find-other-employment. We are also-grown-up-enough-to-KNOW that there is nothing-we-can-tell-overseas-countries. We don't owe them anything and have no responsibility to them. The assumption that a pip-squeak like Australia might have this attitude would cause the greatest offence to other countries like China and be extremely undiplomatic. The responsibility we do have is to SURVIVE double digit interest rates (fix-term-rates-are-already-double-digit). We can best survive with technology and a population firmly entrenched in a culture of quiet enjoyment of life and environment, fully-paid-for-by-mineral-wealth and backed-up-by-hi-tech-research-and-military-assets.

Don't let big busness interests tell us that mineral prices will decline. Despite their BS Schrappnel, The fact is that New market opportunities in 3rd world countries mean that in as little as 10 years those countries will be first world and needing our minerals.

Thermy, I take a 3 day break and look what sort of dribble runs amok.
The difference between the Swedish example and your speculative Australian example of a small country with viable auto industry is that the Swedish outo industry is locally owned. Our's is not.

Our's is all owned by major transnational corporations who can, and certainly do, exercise their option of closing down plants in less profitable nations and replacing them with imports. And this does, indeed, reduce employment and adversely impact the balance of payments.

To suggest that a viable, locally owned auto industry will replace these closed auto plants, from scratch, in a declining or stagnating economy is pure fantasy.

Anti-migration people should also note that none of the research into the economic contribution of migrants has ever bothered to determine the amount of money that is brought into the country by migrants long after they have settled here. The data on how much is brought in on arrival is easy to collect but there is no way of determining how much comes in, by inheritance for example, many years later. But it is substantial.

Most non-refugee migrants actually come from countries with percapita net worth that is equal if not greater than Australia's. And it is a fact of life that sooner or later they will inherit a share of their parent's net worth. And in most cases it is sold and the funds are brought here. And it works both ways.

Most non-refugee migrants are not complete family movements but are more likely to be an Australian who has done nothing more sinister than finding a soulmate from another country. And if Australia is so stupid as to withdraw the welcome mat for such couples then they will make their life elsewhere. And then it will be the Australian expat whose inheritance will be providing jobs in another country.

And if you think this is only a minor economic feature then take a look at the data on net worth according to age-class before you shoot our economy in the groin.

Persius,

You want more migrants? Put them in your street and tell them to STAY. Sydney and SEQ are FULL-UP and FED UP.

You cannot externalise the costs of keeping the economy temporarily afloat ( it can't grow at 3% levels into a looming PEAK oil) by abusing majority voters in SYDSEQ with lower living standards and loss of quiet enjoynment of their cities and environment. We the people will awaken and vote you, Iemma and Costello into the well paid and highly unmeaningful private enterprise jobs that you have sold us out for.

There IS a role for some immigration if it involves 'fair-Australia-wide-placement' and governments make it clear that that fair placement is PERMANENT by shutting down further development in SYDSEQ. Send them to Melbourne and Canberra and let THEM cop the external costs of Australian businesse's economic growth.

If you continue to ignore the main focus of this debate you will not be taken seriously.

You wouldn't share your inherited wealth with strangers and migrants won't be sharing it with YOU or Australians. They will be doing what you would do, abusing and enslaving their new neighbours with that wealth to create a life of elitism and comfort. AWAs make it so easy and attractive and I can tell you its causing suffering. THAT is a crime and will not remain unnoticed by voters and the judiciary.
Australia is not Animal Farm and PIGS don't rule here.

Further I have heard of Italian bricklayers who export CASH in suitcases. You can't expect us to believe economic statistics based on legal transactions between migrants and their home countries. Everyone KNOWS and I bet you do too.

Your ingenuousness and weasel words are have been duely noted

Further, in an SMH article today, Costello boasts of current economic strength and a need to take development powers from the states so he can ensure a continued program of unfair immigrational placements without the risks of cooperative state governments being voted down. How Costello ever expects to be PM is the JOKE of the 21st century.

Eric Claus’s claimed saving of greenhouse gases from reduced immigration is flawed. I agree that greenhouse emissions will not rise here, but globally, those would be migrants will still contribute greenhouse gases elsewhere in the world. The extent to which greenhouse gases will be reduced depends on whether migrants produce more emissions in Australia than they would if they remained in their own countries. Only by restricting migrants from poor countries, which tend to have lower per capita emissions, and increasing migration from the USA, which has very high per capita emissions, can a net saving be achieved. Globally, cutting migrant numbers will not yield much benefit in reduced emissions, though I strongly agree that it has merit on other grounds.

We need to look at other means, such as encouraging households to reduce energy consumption, increase the use of renewables like bio-fuels (for example Sweden’s public buses use bio-gas generated from cow manure), until we find or develop a safe, non-polluting, cheap and reliable energy alternative to nuclear and coal (the sun is probably the best, but right now it’s not cheap to convert it into electricity. Also the manufacture of solar cells is polluting and energy intensive). Perhaps a carbon tax on fuel and coal derived electricity could be used to fund R & D. I think Australia’s refusal to sign Kyoto is justifiable as long as China and India are not obliged to cut their emissions

If reducing national immigration results in better environmental outcomes, then would it follow that reducing interstate immigration would achieve the same result?

Queensland's interstate inflow is 0.97% of its population (Australian international inflow is just 0.59%*). Should the Queensland government take action to stem the flow of migrants from other states?

If we passed a law preventing people from moving house at all, that would stop migration flows altogether. Using Eric's analysis how many tonnes of CO2 would be saved?

In the spirit of this continued silliness, may I present the solution of everyone in Australia migrating overseas. Then Australia's greenhouse emissions would be zero and we'd save 550 megatonnes of C02 every year.

Sources:
[1] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/4285EECCFE8D1B47CA2570DE00063FCA?opendocument
[2] http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Latestproducts/66588A4421E24BD9CA2570DE001AA461?opendocument

Let's take a look at what opening our borders and sharing with the residents of overpopulated countries, as Marilyn Shepherd would have us do, means in numerical terms. According to a New Scientist article last month the world average per capita footprint (a measure of consumption) is now 1.8 hectares. This is marginally above the average for rural China (1.6 hectares) but much less than the average in places like Shanghai. Australia's is about 7 hectares (from Redefining Progress), and the European average is around 5, the point where human welfare benefits from increasing consumption level off. The world average will, of course, get smaller as population grows and the environment is degraded. How many of you would want a standard of living like that of rural China for your family and friends? Leaving aside the religious zealots, I suspect that a good many of you think that you and yours will be part of the elite, while it is those nasty working class people who get to live in poverty and be grateful to work for you as nannies or gardeners in exchange for room and board.

If immigration is so wonderful for ordinary people, why do the countries with a lot of it tend to have high social inequality? Why is the US median wage worth less in real terms than in 1973 (www.epinet.org)? Why is the US minimum wage worth less in real terms than in 1960? How have Nordic countries with very little immigration or population growth of any kind managed to produce rising living standards for their people and make the top ten on the UN Human Development Index and the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index?

What about the bad effects in the long run if the ordinary people and governments in poor countries believe that they can solve problems of overpopulation and mismanagement by dumping their dissidents and surplus population over someone else's border? Wouldn't it be better if they started addressing these problems now and we started helping them in a constructive way?

Robg says Eric's analysis is flawed, however when people do not live in Australia, they cannot be seen and they do not exist. If they do not exist how can they produce greenhouse gasses? Everyone knows this, so it's understandable that Eric did not mention it.

The exception is of course America, which makes people exist through the intake of a large number of television programs. So it's not just tourism, but TV which adds to total CO2 emissions. Hence migration from America has no affect on greenhouse emissions.

Eric notes that "overseas tourism provides 1% of our GDP. I doubt if that means 1% of our energy usage, because manufacturing takes a significant piece." So by this logic, we should increase tourism and reduce manufacturing. Indeed, one of the great problems with migrants is that many of them work in manufacturing.

Enough of this "Sydney", "Sydney", "Sydney" - the point was made clear enough that those from Sydney/NSW want to block immigration. They think they are in the center of the world and don't care the least about the rest of Australia - and the truth is that the rest of us do not care about Sydney/NSW either and do not understand what people there were looking for in the first place and then why they stay and live so crowdedly.

So let us turn Australia into a confederation, allowing the independent country of NSW to legislate the toughest immigration laws in the world and let the rest of us live peacefully.

Next time when a Sydney person wants to bring their family from overseas - too bad, they will need to move interstate.

Yuy

Your post cracked me up!

Cheers
Kay

Yuyutsu, a confederation is a great idea, 9 independent states with a (Canberra) confederation headquarters. Everything except national security state controlled, with no immigration between states unless authorised.

Confederation representatives elected by the people of each state. Wouldn't take long for the country to run competitively and securely.

Immigration would then be a state problem, the federal government should be the confederate government, that way we get more say.

BTW, we can produce most of our oil requirements from algae, add solar, biofuels, wind, tide and hydro, problems solved.

David latimer, give us a break, a logical approach to energy needs instead of a monopolised approach, is what will give this society a chance of survival. People will die to reduce the planets problems, history shows us thats the case. This country has the best chance of surviving any chaotic population invasion, we should embrace that and let the rest of the world take care of itself.

Other than that, we have nothing but disastrous chaos to look forward to.

Davo, I didn't mention the holocaust. You did. I didn't mention Israel. You did. I didn't mention Germany. You did. You did all that because you thought my surname somehow made them relevant to this discussion. But your assumptions are both prejudiced and mistaken. Know that traditional Jewish customs are matrilineal. Whereas Anglo names are patrilineal. You get your name from your father and your Jewishness from your mother. My mother's Roman Catholic. I'm Atheist. Even if I were Jewish, I fail to see the relevance of any of this to immigration policy in Australia, although you seem to think it highly pertinent because my name is Goldstein. So for the sake of keeping this discussion going, I'm going to assume your comments were made in jest, instead of being the ignorant, prejudiced, offensive statements they appear to be. The one thing you got right is that this isn't Germany. The Germans apologised to the victims of the holocaust ;-)

What's fragile about multicultural society in Australia? In what way is the debate hidden? It has been openly disputed for at least 2 generations. And it's only got stronger in that time. I would think that continuing to grow through 30 years of public disputation says everything you need to know about the "fragility" of Australian multiculturalism.

Our children's generation aren't agonising over multiculturalism – they're living it. And time is on their side.

Among the many other things that are "not debatable" is that there's enough rainfall in the NT every year to irrigate the whole of SE Australia. Since that's "not debatable" I take you have no objections to turning the rivers inland - then we won't have to worry about how many people are coming here? (Alan Jones would be so proud of me right now :-D )

BTW, has anyone else noticed that in the last 30 years, Sydney's sky has changed from a lead-choked mustard-yellow haze to, on most days, a pristine blue? Perhaps I'm the only one who sees it because being an intellectual in a choked, congested city affects my vision so badly.

Eric, I'll flesh out my high-immigration stance with you on another occasion where I have more than 350 words.

Your analysis of the immigration situation in Australia seems both astute and correct. Immigrants boost the economy, many people won't accept lower immigration, and politics is the art of the possible. That is why the government isn't listening to you. Ergo, you are wasting your time pushing a barrow that the Australian public won't accept. Your position reminds me of the radical Marxists who are still trying to bring about the revolution despite the fact that Australia emphatically chose a different road 2 generations ago. Your talents and enthusiasm for protecting the environment would be better spent devoting your time to what Australians will accept, not what you want them to accept.

However, if you and your supporters just want to dream on about your immigrant-free nirvana like the Marxists want to dream on about their workers' paradise, you’re quite entitled to do so. It just seems a waste of good ideas and energy, that's all.

And why do both you and Ludwig claim some sort of rhetorical victory because I understand the trivial and obvious point that having more people makes environmental management more difficult? It does not oblige me to accept that low immigration is the answer, any more than it obliges me to accept forced sterilisation is the answer. The most remarkable thing about your article is that you managed to spin such a non-sequitur out to 1000 words.

I say that smarter technology, not lower immigration, is a more humane answer, and I look forward to continuing that debate with you another time.

And aren't you a little embarrassed by the extreme sentiments some of your fellow travellers expressed? Some of them, by their remarks, do indeed fit the profile of a head-for-the-hills, shotgun-and-can-of-beans, tub-thumping soapbox loony, complete with a side-helping of anti-Semitism. Probably another reason that anti-immigration parties have trouble getting votes, just as the dishevelled Marxist set are routinely ignored.

PS – Alchemist, you forgot to add: “we’ll all be rooned!”

Eric,

excellent article - thanks.

As someone else mentioned, I hope that Andrew Bartlett and his fellow Democrats are advised to read the article and comments very carefully. (In case contributors are not aware, in another OLO AB stated that he and the democrats are pro increased immigration and propose a population of 30 to 35 million in oz)

One question, you indicated that "Australians produce about 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person every year." An article in the Australian last Saturday, confirmed this but also indicated that electicity generation accounts for 19.1kg CO2 per head. Can you explain the 27,980 kg difference between the two numbers? Do you have a link to the source info. If the numbers are correct then there would seem to be huge scope for savings through conservation.

I just cannot understand why anyone should think an Australia with 35 plus million is going to be a better place than it would be with a population of say 10 to 20 millions.

What is so good about more people? Whats the attraction? If on adds PO consequences and desertifcation into the mix then I can only say of our legacy inheritors "poor bastards"

Mercurius

You might achieve more by arguing the per capita economic benefits from high immigration with more than "Immigrants boost the economy". The Productivity Commission's recent report on immigration suggested a trivial benefit, and it made no consideration of the costs required to support such growth, which could put any benefit from such growth far into the red. The report was not commissioned by neo-nazis in greenie camouflage, but by a government which extols the benefits of high immigration as an article of faith: This makes the findings of the report all the more surprising, as a break even proposition implies that any profit derived by one from high immigration can only come at the expense of another. Surely the purpose of government is not to pursue such policy? Nor does this sound to me like something that people would want. “What’s in it for me?” is a question more often asked.

Then there is your claim that supporting high immigration is the humane choice. Linking moral virtue with a political stance has never been an accurate measure. W.C. Wentworth provides a good historical case in point. His public stance on the importation of cheap labour from southern Asia changed from total opposition, on the grounds of maintaining the racial purity of the colony, to one of total support. This change in opinion coincided with his loss of convict labour, which had given him some commercial advantage over his competitors. Some might see this change as an intellectual enlightenment, but I tend to think that his character stayed the same.

Mercurius complains that he cannot put his case in a mere 350 words, yet he has only put four meaningful words toward it.

Mercurius, as a former long term resident of Surry Hills and now 'born again hillbilly', I find your allusion to head for the hills etc a touch offensive. Both Sydney and SEQ can solve the problem of excessive migrant numbers any time they want.

All they need to do is to stop building new infrastructure. Tell them that Sydney has already had more than it's fair share of the capital works budget and there is no room for their kids at school. But be sure to tell them that there are plenty of spare places in Moree, Mudgee and Wagga Wagga schools and spare beds in their hospitals. In fact, there are hundreds of towns where a few extra families would be all it would need to justify an extra GP to enable the existing one to take a holiday before his marriage breaks up from overwork.

But back in the real world, Sydney can never have too much of anything and admitting that it it might actually be the cause of it's own problems would be a big ask indeed. But severing it from the rest of NSW, and SEQ from the real Queensland, sounds pretty good to me. They could form their own federation and call it "Gluttony".

Mercurius –

Please have a look at my post of 30 June 12:25 pm regarding the long term economic impacts of increased immigration. The Productivity Commission found no real living standard advantages to increased immigration.

I disagree that the Australian people will never support reductions in immigration. I believe that most Australians think that immigration is needed to benefit the economy in the long term and that is not true. I also think that most Australians think that we need high immigration to prevent the impacts of an ageing population and high immigration does not help an ageing population.

If Australians knew that there were few advantages and many disadvantages to their standard of living by having high immigration, most Australians would support low immigration.

I see everybody who has written into this forum as my “fellow traveller.” I even think of you as a fellow traveller because you agree that we should do more to live sustainably and you agree that reducing immigration would make it easier to solve our environmental problems. Your belief that high immigration is still preferable for whatever reason doesn’t worry me at all. Please help me understand when you get a chance.

Last word –

My guess regarding the CO2 per head is that the 19.1 kg is kg/per day so 7000 kg CO2/ year. Electricity is only part of the full greenhouse load per person. The Australian Greenhouse Office website has lots of numbers.

This is from an article by Robert Rowthorn, Professor of Economics at Cambridge University in the UK in the (British) Sunday Telegraph (5/6/06):

"If you repeat something often enough, you can perhaps make people believe it. What you cannot do is turn it from being false into being true. And the Government's claim about the economic benefits of immigration is false. As an academic economist, I have examined many serious studies that have analysed the economic effects of immigration. There is no evidence from any of them that large-scale immigration generates large-scale economic benefits for the existing population as a whole. On the contrary, all the research suggests that the benefits are either close to zero, or negative.

Immigration can't solve the pensions crisis, nor solve the problem of an ageing population, as its advocates so often claim. It can, at most, delay the day of reckoning, because, of course, immigrants themselves grow old, and they need pensions.

The injection of large numbers of unskilled workers into the economy does not benefit the bulk of the population to any great extent. It benefits the nanny-and housecleaner-using classes; it benefits employers who want to pay low wages; but it does not benefit indigenous, unskilled Britons, who have to compete with immigrants willing to work hard for very low wages in unpleasant working conditions."

Eric wrote:

"If Australians knew that there were few advantages and many disadvantages to their standard of living by having high immigration, most Australians would support low immigration."

This is exactly the problem with economists as well as with the government - reducing all incentives to economic gain or loss. So let me tell you just this: with economics you never win, because no matter how rich you get, you cannot take your wealth with you when you die.

Allowing others to immigrate is the only thing that give us, non-indigenous Australians, the moral right to be here. The same way the door was open for us to arrive (or our parents/grandparents), so it should be open for all good people.

Immigration also brings in new ideas and prevents cultural decay.

But for those who prefer to think in terms of loss/gain, here is a point to consider: as the differential between the standard of living in Australia and most of the rest of the world increases while people from poorer countries are not allowed to come here as individuals, wouldn't that increase and bring to the point of explosion the collective motivation of other nations to take our continent by force? what standard-of-living are you expecting to experience if that happens?

Yuyutsu

The argument is not for zero immigration, it is for net zero immigration, which would still mean a considerable immigration intake, of 30 000 or maybe as high as 40 000 per annum.

So to you and Mercurius and others who espouse the virtues of immigration, I say that you in part right. Immigration is not entirely without an up-side. But it is essential that we weigh this up against the blatantly obvious down-sides of ever-more people, while being aware of the disgraceful gross misinformation peddled by Costello in particular, governments at all levels in Australia in general, and the all-powerful vested-interest business sector.

Your fear re threat of invasion, either by force or by mass refugee exodus, is definitely worth considering. But how would opening Australia’s borders prevent it? Lets face it, even if our population increased five-fold, we would still look pretty empty to the Javanese, if not all Indonesians, Chinese and others….. and we will have blown our quality of life and our resource demand vs supply capability to smithereens.

Increasing our population is not answer to that threat, or perceived threat. On the contrary, it is necessary to maintain a decent level of wealth whereby we can afford a strong defence capability, and that requires a healthy well-functioning society that is not fractured by all the things that mounting population pressure can cause.

Allowing high immigration to continue will run us down and serve to make this sort of threat more real.

OK, so now you are going to accuse me of alluding to a ‘fortress Australia’ mentality. Well, before you do, just think carefully about my response might be.

Yuyutso says immigration brings new ideas. This argument is redundant since communications technology means that we can get new ideas from afar. Did you watch four corners(?) the other day about hospital safety systems in Canada? The Australian medical profession can learn from the Candian experience just by attending conferences and studying events in that country.

China has academics who study the success of the west to gather ideas to improve their own countries (admittedly, this info is from memory and may be incorrect). I was watching how providing toilets in India improves the health and well being to the people of india the other night. Sewerage is also used to create methane gas for cooking! People in developing countries helping themselves constructively, THAT is what I like to see.

The only cultural decay we have is from our elite selling their own people out through ridiculous levels of immigration from anywhere. Immigrants from the developing world tend to undersell themselves, which has the corporate sector licking their lips. An example I can think of is trolley pushers around Melbourne are now blacks from Sudan. Formerly, my mate had those contracts, but was undercut by these imports who work for $7 per hour as opposed to $14 per hour! Coles Myer no doubt are telling us not to be racist. How patronising.

Yuyutsu maintains that Australia should have high immigration because it is a moral obligation to lower your living standards if other countries are overpopulated. Presumably Yuyutsu is arguing for a more even distribution of wealth in society, but this leads to a contradiction: As overpopulated countries tend to have very uneven wealth distributions, pursuing high population growth an Australia may lead to more inequality.

Further, Yuyutsu believes that by improving our standard of living with a stable population, we will only make ourselves a target for an invasion. This would suggest that Yuyutsu believes that overpopulated countries are less peaceful.

I can only conclude from this that Yuyutsu thinks it a moral obligation to make Australia more inequable and hostile. Unsurprisingly, the politicians are sticking with the “high immigration brings wealth” dogma.

People are still continuing to take this article seriously, when it is obviously flawed. Why so?

According to Eric, over 10 years we'll have 1,200,000 new immigrants. Australians produce 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person every year. So multiplying these numbers he claims that we would save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted.

This calculation assumes that there is a glass lid over Australia, or perhaps all these migrants have previously lived in a bubble or lived in stone age societies which did not use fossil fuels at all.

Of course, the calculation is utter nonsense. There would be no such saving of 34,000,000 tonnes. Failed migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries and the gasses would be distributed across the atmosphere.

This flaw has been pointed out the following posts:
- Robg, Tuesday, 4 July 2006 2:53:07 PM
- Rhian, Friday, 30 June 2006 2:38:19 PM
- w, Saturday, 1 July 2006 6:00:12 PM

I found the flaw to be so obvious, I thought I'd make a joke about it and 'w' thought the same, but the obvious is not getting through. Let me be clear: The formula of 1 less migrant = savings of 28 tonnes of Greenhouse Gasses/yr is wrong. The formula is wrong, so the resulting value of 34,000,000 tonnes/yr saved is wrong. This resulting value is wrong, so the other claims and general argument falls down.

Eric's previous article on the subject ("Reduce poverty and sustainability will follow" http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=3771) made lots of sense, but only got two comments. Hmmm...

DLatimer,

The Genie-is-out-of-the-bottle. Thanks to this-and-other-discussion threads a Majority-of-Australians now know that immigration-is-weakening-our-economy and our very survival-as-individuals. There are negative consequences for an ageing population and no matter what calculations you do, there is an added burden to an already stressed, fragile environment. There is resentment, social and class division and accentuated levels of corruption as government and big business use immigration as a tool to subjugate the Australian populace, a majority of which resides in Sydney and SEQ. This tort is based on the phoney excuse that it is locking in future prosperity for Australia. The Coming mineral boom in which Australia will play a major part has inexorably locked in our future and a PM that says otherwise is nothing more than a mean and deceitful old man stealing lollies from his children whilst making them work harder for sugar grains. We cannot be fooled into AWAs and overcrowded, unhealthy cities when it clearly is not only a crime but is also unnecessary.

The proof is plain to see:

* A NSW-Italian-state- Labor-Government. The probability-of-this-occuring in a fair-dinkum-electoral-system-is-zero. And then car loads of Leb hoons try to shock and awe Cronulla into Desalination submission at-a-critical-time-in-negotiations. Guess where they come from? The Desal-Premier's-electorate. What's-the-probability?

* Immigrational gerrymanders and branch stacking already pointed out and verified by Cleo7 on this Forum.

* Failure to allow education opportunities for Australians and immigrating people who may only have a several week education advantage over the Australians they are replacing. Australia needs education and leadership to free us from ignorance of a rapidly progressing world. We do not need a PM who has developed such a hatred for his fellow countrymen that he would replace us all with marginally better educated foreigners who destabilise-our-politics-and-make-it-easier-for-him-to-rule.

* A demonstrably-senile-Prime-Minister wanting-to-LOCK-in-Prosperity. Yes, by bludgeoning-people-in-Sydney-and-SEQ with 90% of a 140,000 a year immigrant intake. Immigrants who for-some-unknown-reason-treat-us-like-jackals given fresh meat. Howard seems AFRAID of the Australian people. He feels he can only lead us if he subjugates us with impositions and by-drowning-us-out. We don't have a prime minister, we have-a-bloody-jailer.

Continued ..

The game is up. Australians are going to play hell in future elections with Labor in Canberra and Libs in the states. We will do this till big business understands it has to sign PPP contracts acceptable to the people. That Media interest and pollsters have to be accountable for their ANZ-style BS, good-news housing and interest lies. That Governments realise that they cannot sign SECRET deals with Big Business. That governments learn they NEVER have a mandate to BETRAY their own voters to big businuss by diluting our rights and privileges. That big business understands we will not elect governments that hand THEM profits-to-order via Westfield-Maul-Overcrowding and UNFAIR IMMIGRATIONAL PLACEMENTS. And that Melbourne and Canberra are not national sacred cows and must especially shoulder future immigratiion burdens on behalf of united and single minded Australia.

DLatimer and other lowy-ife business interests are in the minority. Their chicanery and lies have become rather transparent and drole. No one is listening, least of all governments who are now feeling the heat.

With Australian businesses and their AWB-style morals, who knows, maybe they could get managerial positions in drug sales to schoolkids. Or maybe they could become PERMANENT forum stooges. But one thing is sure they better find another way to make money!

PS Interest rates WILL be double digit in two years. Current fixed 5 and 10 year term interest rate offers are already near double digit so experts have already factored it. That means the housing market can't pick up despite continued corrupt immigration stack-em-in strategies and BS ANZ media releases. ANZ are just trying to rope in more suckers. But when they try to foreclose after interest rates double, it could be argued at court that ANZ OUGHT to HAVE KNOWN they were deceiving clients with their current Media realse and should thus shoulder most of the burden of loss on the foreclosure.

Fester,

please do not turn my words around: I never claimed that it is our moral duty to lower our living standards, but to open our door to immigrants. If one of the side-effects of our moral choice is that our standard of living is lowered - so be it.

Now whether we are "inequable and hostile" depends on our own nature and our own free choice. If you claim that we must be inequable and hostile towards foreigners in order to be peaceful and equal towards one-another, it points at deep personality traits that will not change by mere change of circumstances.

Angelo,

By "new ideas" I did not mean just theories, but also the will to implement them and unwillingness to accept prevailing standards that are corrupt and/or inefficient.

Now if some people are willing to work for $7/hour instead of $14/hour, what difference does their colour of skin make? surely employers will let you do the same job for the same pay even if you are white-skinned Australian-born. Yes, one must deal with the problem of underselling, and in fact I did previously suggest some solutions in these forums, but recognize that immigration is not at the core of this problem.

Ludwig,

it may be nice to have net zero immigration, I just don't believe in selling our souls to the devil to achieve it.

Most participants in this forum take pride in their ability to raise points, discuss and debate without making personal attacks against others.

In KAEP's post of Thursday, 6 July 2006 2:16:03 AM, it is said "DLatimer and other lowy-ife business interests are in the minority. Their chicanery and lies have become rather transparent and drole."

Saying that I am a liar, is a unwarrented personal remark and completely unacceptable. It shows no respect for the rules of this forum, which prohibit defamatory postings.

Quite clearly KAEP is upset with my pointing out an obvious flaw in the article. Even though he/she has no answer to it (as the flaw is real) this is no excuse to behave badly or with offensive accusations.

-oo0oo-

The flaw is where Eric multiplies the following numbers:
- 1,200,000 new immigrants after 10 years
- 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per Australian per year
and claims that we would save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted. The calculation is nonsense as rejected migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries and the gasses would be distributed across the atmosphere. This has been pointed out in several other posts.

The formula of 1 less migrant = savings of 28 tonnes of Greenhouse Gasses/yr is wrong. The formula is wrong, so the resulting value of 34,000,000 tonnes/yr saved is wrong. This resulting value is wrong, so the other claims and general argument fails.

It is not possible to rescue Eric's calculation. Sorry.

Perhaps David Latimer should read the article again. I didn’t think that Eric Claus was suggesting that reducing greenhouse emissions in Australia alone would make a difference on a world scale. Instead, I thought the article suggested that a stable population would find reducing greenhouse gas emissions a simpler task than a rapidly growing one. It is a trite statement, but true.

The real comedy of this discussion so far is the joke that enlightened participants are having at the expense of fools like myself. I would think that with high immigration a policy of all major political parties, it would have a strongly reasoned basis. This great truth must be so obvious as to need no pointing out, yet I see nothing.

I think it time for the enlightened participants to stop their torment and point out the great truth to the fools.

Yuyutsu

I assure Yuyutsu that I have no intention of misrepresentation. I only wish to understand, and welcome clarification. I now understand that Yuyutsu think highs immigration a moral obligation, regardless of its consequences.

Yuyutsu also claims that Australia would be inequable and hostile toward foreigners by not having high immigration. But wouldn’t this infer that an individual with more wealth is inequable and hostile toward those with less?

I also wonder what moral obligations Yuyutsu would place on other countries. Surely Yuyutsu does not believe that it is morally justifiable to invade a country because it does not allow high immigration?

Yuyutsu says that immigration is all that gives us non-indigenous Australians the right to be here. Unfortunately, people have been fighting and displacing each other since before there were modern humans. No one's hands are clean. The Aboriginals and American Indians were fighting each other at first contact and there is DNA evidence for waves of migration and displacements in the pasts of both of them. (See e.g. A.J. Redd and M. Stoneking, Am. J. Hum. Gen. 65 (1999) 808-828 or just google "DNA" and "peopling of Australia" or "peopling of the New World".) Therefore, in Yuyutsu's view no one has the right to keep out immigrants and there is no point in protecting the environment and building up any kind of collective property, such as decent public health or education systems or decent labour standards, because people will flood in to share them until the country is turned into one more Third World hellhole. Thanks, Yuyutsu! Why not throw personal property into the pot as well? You can see the endgame in California where 84 hospitals have closed because they were obliged to (but could not afford) to provide free care to illegal immigrants. The Salinas library has closed. The public education system has gone from the best in the US to the second worst.

David Latimer would be correct about greenhouse gases (but not most other environmental pressures) if all immigrants came from Canada, NZ, the US, or Scandinavia. However, a Bangladeshi moving to Mexico and adopting the standard of living there would increase his greenhouse gas emissions by 5 times, and by 20 times if he moves to the US (see the Redefining Progress website environmental footprints). For a full calculation you would need the proportions of migrants from the individual countries.

Diversion, you have gone too far...

Our only moral obligation with regard to immigrants is to keep the doors open (except for criminals and contagious disease carriers, which is a case of self-defence). Sharing our collective (and private) property, such as schools and hospitals, is not included - it may perhaps be a practical option but not a moral matter. Another such practical option could be to tell immigrants: "if you want schools and hospitals, etc. - go to Wagga Wagga". Admitting people into the continent does not automatically imply admitting them as full members of our society.

Fester,

your analogy is inappropriate: a wealthy individual may or may be not be hostile to others, but that's regarding their own property, while the land of Australia does not belong to anyone (alternately, it would belong to its indigenous people): we are its guardians but not its owners. We do have the duty to protect its environment - but on behalf of the whole world, not just ourselves.

Yes, other countries also have moral obligations and many do not keep them - but why should it make any difference to us?

Yuyutsu

Thank you for taking the time to clarify things for me. I understand from your comments that you think it morally wrong for a country to protect the wealth of its citizens by not having a high immigration policy, especially from countries with a lower standard of living. On an individual basis however, you think it morally acceptable for a wealthy individual to keep their wealth rather than share it with the less fortunate in the world. Thus an inequable distribution of wealth is morally acceptable on an individual basis within a country, but morally unacceptable between countries. This seems clear, but I am still uncertain about why you think that Australia would be more at risk of invasion from other countries by not having a policy of high immigration? Why would we be making ourselves more vulnerable by making ourselves wealthier?

On the topic regarding the flaw is where Eric multiplies the following numbers: 1,200,000 new immigrants after 10 years AND 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per Australian per year. On this result he claims that we would save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted. The calculation is nonsense as rejected migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries and the gasses would be distributed across the atmosphere.

Fester says "David Latimer should read the article again". Having now read it again, I'm still sure the calculation is flawed. The article itself says it is about "reducing immigration to reduce greenhouse emissions." It concludes that "The current government seems willing to embrace high technology ... options for reducing greenhouse, but the low technology or no technology solution of reducing immigration does not even get a look in." and that if Australia reduced immigration it would show "Australia is starting to get serious about tackling climate change."

The article gives an estimate as to the amount of gasses saved, and the calculation for that estimate is flawed.

Response to Divergence:
The methodology you propose makes far more sense. Certainly a large number of Australian migrants are from developed nations, especially NZ and UK. I would add that migrants are not randomly taken from their populations. They may have a different environmental footprint to the average resident in both origin and destination countries.

Fester and Divergence are correct.

Assuming that our immigration over the next 12 years will be similar in character to the previous 12 years, the world’s total greenhouse gases will be significantly reduced if the 1.2 million stayed in their home countries. Assuming that the 1.2 million immigrants are:
25% from UK (11 tonnes GHG per person /yr),
10% New Zealand (14.4 tpy),
22% EU and South Africa (11 tpy),
18% Poor Asian countries (India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, etc.) (3.5 tpy),
2% Rich Asian countries (Hong Kong, South Korea, etc) (10 tpy),
11% Poor Europe-Middle east (4 tpy),
6% Africa (1 tpy),
2% USA and Canada (26 tpy) and
4% Latin America (8 tpy)
then the overall average of all the immigrants would be about 9 tonnes of GHG per person per year.

Therefore, the 1.2 million immigrants would produce about 11 million tonnes in their home countries and 34 million in Australia or a savings of 23 million tonnes for the whole world. That is 9 million more tonnes than would be saved by the Nuclear Power plants, so in fact the world would be better off if Australia reduced its immigration rather than having high immigration and nuclear power plants.

The reason I use 34 million tonnes is that Australians can only directly fix our own greenhouse and other environmental problems. If we limit our greenhouse gas generation, including limiting immigration, we deserve all the credit. We don’t have to take responsibility for the whole world’s greenhouse gas generation.

That, though, (as Fester and Divergence also noted) was not my primary point. My point was that if Australia wants to send a meaningful message to the rest of the world, that it is limiting it’s greenhouse and trying to be sustainable, then reducing immigration is the easiest way. Plus there are other environmental advantages to reducing immigration. Water, wastewater, land degradation, etc. impact only Australia. They don't flow overseas like greenhouse gases.

Response to Eric:

You have adopted the methodology proposed by Divergence, and although not perfect, at least Australia is now sharing its atmosphere with the rest of the planet.

I guess you've took your data from this report:
http://www.tai.org.au/MediaReleases_Files/MediaReleases/MRpercapita031199.pdf

You say that "Australians can only directly fix our own greenhouse and other environmental problems." For land/river issues yes, but for atmospheric problems: no. Let's be clear that global warming is either solved across the planet, or not solved. Raised sea-levels will affect every coastline ect...

You also say: "If we limit our greenhouse gas generation, including limiting immigration, we deserve all the credit." Sorry, but we would only deserve credit for contribution to the objective, which is not the value 34,000,000 tonnes per annum.

To your credit you have provided a summary of migrant patterns to Australia and greenhouse gas tonnes per capita per annum, abbreviated as "tpy". What do we notice about the tpy values for developed countries?

UK, EU and SA (25% + 22%) 11 tpy
New Zealand (10%) 14.4 tpy
US and Canada (25%) 26 tpy
Compare these to Australia: 28 tpy! Almost double New Zealand!

What's going on? Somehow you conclude that if "Australia wants to send a meaningful message to the rest of the world ... reducing immigration is the easiest way."

The only "meaningful message" from these statistics is that Australia is the most polluting nation (per capita) on Earth, as it's the per capita statistics that will be unaltered under your low-immigration proposal. I point out that you chose not to mention this in the article. The report you read and others like it, would show Australia's utter failure to make a contribution.

The good news is that, in reality, Australia IS making a genuine contribution to solving climate change, and doing it properly by identifying wasteful practises, investing in efficient systems and through the initiatives of ordinary Australians and businesses.

Fester, you still got me slightly wrong:

Both individuals and their countries may protect their wealth if they wish - but for that it needs to be theirs. There is no moral issue if we are unwilling to share our infrastructure, such as schools and hospitals that we worked hard for, with others who did not work for it. But the planet and its continents is not ours - it was here before us, so we have no moral right to deny others the right to walk this earth.

Why would we be making ourselves more vulnerable by making ourselves wealthier? isn't that obvious? By driving an old car (model 1979) I suffer no anxiety: I am confident that I'll always find it where I parked it!

Perhaps David Latimer did not read the quote in the opening paragraph, “‘presumably as a lesson to the rest of the world, not in fact, to save the world’”. The inference was that an action taken on a world scale was perhaps world changing. But when done on small scale, like Australia, such an action could only serve as an example.

David Latimer could at least address the argument in its entirety rather than in part. Does he, for example, agree that a stable world population would have more success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than a rapidly growing one, all else being equal? If so, then what heed would other nations take from a country telling them to reduce their populations in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions whilst it actively encouraged the growth of its own population? Now that is nonsensical if you are looking to set an example.

Yuyutsu

Thanks again for the clarification. As I now understand things, you believe that people should be free to come here in any number but the existing population would have no moral obligation to give them the same rights and access to infrastructure. So it would be morally acceptable for part of the population to have greater rights and access to infrastructure than another part. But wouldn't this be like Apartheid? Now I know you cannot think this because the existence of such a system would bring far more anger from other countries than would arise from envy. I am also still a bit uncertain about what you mean by nobody owning the land. Do you mean by this that you should be able to live wherever you please, provided that it isn't covered by some sort of infrastructure or someone else's property?

Nice cars can inspire all sorts of thoughts, from a desire to steal or damage, to indifference or as a responsibility easier avoided, to perhaps even a motivation to improve your circumstances.

Response to Fester:

In your post of 6 July you said "David Latimer should read the article again". I obliged by reading it again. In your post of 7 July, you repeat, "Perhaps David Latimer did not read the quote in the opening paragraph". If I read it two, ten or ten thousand times, the evidence for the argument remains flawed.

Eric’s article is not about a "stable world population" (your post). Low immigration to Australia does not produce this. Do not expect me to respond to what YOU imagine the article is about. I am not going to comment your internal thoughts. I am not as psychiatrist.

You use the words "all else being equal" (your post) without justification. Are you saying this article presents a theoretical proposal?

Your quote about "lesson to the rest of the world" is originally from Tony Jones, on ABC Lateline. It’s critical to point that out, because those words were used in reference to the government nuclear inquiry, just commencing. The terms of that inquiry are not comparative and that is made clear by Ziggy Switkowski, its chair.

You can read a transcript of that interview here:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1657941.htm

The full quote of Dr Switkowski in response was "I think that's a fair conclusion, yes. Although -- ". The dashes indicate he was cut-off. In my view, Eric had a responsibility to tell readers of his article that there is an unknown qualification missing from this quote.

Personally, I have no problem with trying to make a connection between population and environmental issues. The problem is that central to Eric’s article is a flawed calculation which says 1 less migrant = savings of 28 tonnes of Greenhouse Gasses/yr is wrong. As that is wrong, so the resulting value of 34,000,000 tonnes/yr saved is wrong. The article is written as though there was a giant glass dome over Australian airspace.

David L

I interpreted the article the same way as you - written as if Australia was another planet.

I believe we need to live sustainably; in terms of population, nonrenewable resources, energy production, land management, water catchments and so on.

I am always amazed that so many people think that there is a single answer for every question. In this case "just stop immigration"; so simplistic and naive. We will need every possible resource, technology and combined effort if this planet of ours is to support human beings into the future.

It is not about immigration it IS about population density and sustainable resources.

David Latimer,

“Should the Queensland government take action to stem the flow of migrants from other states?” (4 July)

Most definitely. Transmigration is a huge part of the issue when it comes to environmental pressure in different regions of the country. But it does not mean passing “a law preventing people from moving house at all”, nor anything like it.

You insisted that immigration doesn’t affect greenhouse gas emissions because “Failed migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries and the gasses would be distributed across the atmosphere.” (5 July)

No matter what how correct or woolly the figures quoted by Eric might be, the concept is clear – most immigrants would produce much more greenhouse gas in Australia than they would in their own countries.

Then your message gets very confusing. I interpret it as an attempt to divert the argument off-track in order to not concede that Eric is indeed right. You write; “The only ‘meaningful message’ from these statistics is that Australia is the most polluting nation (per capita) on Earth, as it's the per capita statistics that will be unaltered under your low-immigration proposal.” (7 July)

This is quite bizarre. Obviously, if we continue to allow population growth while we have such a high per-person emission rate, we will be highly irresponsible, and if we progressively reduce our per-capita emission rate while maintaining high growth, we will just as irresponsible, for as long as our total emissions keep increasing and the average per-person emissions are higher than the average from the countries from where we draw our immigrants.

“Australia IS making a genuine contribution to solving climate change, and doing it properly by identifying wasteful practises, investing in efficient systems and through the initiatives of ordinary Australians and businesses.”

What? Efforts towards improved efficiency are nothing compared to our ongoing rapid expansion of consumption….including booming coal exports.

Let’s not kid ourselves. One of the vital ingredients is for Australia to stop expanding fossil fuel usage. And that means population stabilisation, or at least lowering the overall growth rate to a minimum.

“The article is written as though there was a giant glass dome over Australian airspace.”

With these words I think that David Latimer is coming closer to understanding the article. In science, an experiment is usually conducted under controlled conditions and on a small scale. The results of an experiment can often be extrapolated to make predictions for a larger system. And so far as I am aware, observations made outside the system under study are irrelevant. So to quote Eric Claus:

“And if Australia can do it, and we are the world’s best country to live in, then maybe the rest of the world would take a lesson from us and start to try to live more sustainably too.”

Now, the only change that Eric Claus has emphasised in his article is a reduction in Australia's population. So what other lesson might David Latimer suggest the article is referring to? If he can offer no other lesson then my question is quite valid:

“Does he, for example, agree that a stable world population would have more success in reducing greenhouse gas emissions than a rapidly growing one, all else being equal? If so, then what heed would other nations take from a country telling them to reduce their populations in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions whilst it actively encouraged the growth of its own population?”

And to clarify, by “all else being equal” I mean that all other efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would be the same.

The posts are getting easier to refute.

I'll remind Fester that the article is about "reducing immigration to reduce greenhouse emissions. Reducing immigration would be a far more effective way to provide 'a lesson to the rest of the world,' ". The article is NOT about reducing population. Population is not once mentioned in the article. Furthermore reducing immigration does not reduce world population.

As I am able to restate, the article is based on the flawed assumption that one less migrant = 28 tonnes saved of greenhouse gases (GHG). As this is wrong, the rest of the article, its arguments and claims are equally flawed.

This erroneous proposal is no better than rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic.

-- o000o --

Ludwig says Eric's concept is "most immigrants would produce much more greenhouse gas in Australia than they would in their own countries." Firstly, this is not stated in the article. Secondly, there’s no evidence that migrants produce more greenhouse gases just by arriving in Australia. Thirdly, if such evidence existed it would simply show Australia to be an irresponsible polluter.

Ludwig likes to play with the numbers, but not very good at it.

If Australia (28 tpy) adopted better practices and produced GHG's on a per-capita annual basis like the United Kingdom (14 tpy) or New Zealand (14.4 tpy) then GHG would be reduced by 280 megatonnes per year. To achieve the same result via depopulation so we maintain our excessive usage of 28 tpy as Ludwig imagines, Australia would need to somehow loose TEN MILLION people! And we'd still be considered irresponsible by world standards.

(typ = tonnes per year per person. Statistics provided by Eric.)

So adopt practices in other developed countries: 280 Mt/y saved
Compare to Eric's low-immigration claims: 34Mt/y (article) 23 Mt/y (revised*)

*Revised claim assumes Australia continues to be the world's highest per capita GHG producer. BTW this is no honour.

Finally, coal exports are not affected by Australia's population levels -- which allows me to repeat and remind that global warming is a global problem. It requires a global solution.

David

Firstly, what does it matter whether Eric mentioned the issue that disagree on in his article or one of his posts? Why did you mention this?

Secondly, where are you if you cannot see the evidence, which Eric went to pains to demonstrate with a breakdown of immigration and GHG production in immigration source countries?

Thirdly, this evidence clearly shows more than just Australia being an irresponsible polluter.

Fourthly, you say that I like to play with numbers. Fascinating, given that I didn’t mention a single number (apart from the dates of your comments) but did allude to possible ‘woolliness’ of the figures that Eric researched.

Then you quote a few figures in order to compare “better practices” with population effects on GHG reduction. But it is not one or the other, it has to be both! Besides, Australia would be doing extraordinarily well to lower its per-capita GHG production to anywhere near that of NZ or UK, countries with which we share a very similar lifestyle, for one major reason – vastly bigger distances over which the vast majority of our goods need to be transported.

Coal exports are very much a part of the story of Australia’s GHG production, and I would have been remiss not to have mentioned them in my last post. The fact that that part of our greenhouse story is only very poorly correlated to population size or growth rate is inconsequential.

It defies understanding as to how you cannot see the role of immigration here. David, what do you want? Do you desire Australia’s immigration to remain as high as it is, or higher? Do you think it is fair and reasonable to have an ever-increasing number of overconsumers and waste-producers in this country? Do you really believe that stabilising or reducing the number of consumers is not an important part of the greenhouse issue?

One point that hasn't been considered yet is the effect of liberal immigration policies on population growth and therefore, indirectly, greenhouse gas emissions. People who expect some of their children to emigrate tend to have more of them. This has been shown in a number of studies of Welsh villages or Caribbean islands that did or didn't have high immigration (see Chapter 3 of Virginia Abernethy's 'Population Politics' for references). Similarly, Third World migrants in a developed country may now believe that they can afford the very large family size idealised by their culture. Mexican migrants in the US have a total fertility rate of around 3.5 children per woman compared to around 2.5 for Mexicans in Mexico.

Eric Claus:

All the kafuffle over Nuclear Power as an alternative to fossil fuel as an alternative to immigration as an alternative to your schandanfreude secret agenda ?

If only, you would take off your blinkers.

This topic has been raised countless times on Forum. Predictably, the gist of your text can be condensed to two words.

Gratuitous baloney !

Reminds me of the proposed Traveston Dam brouhaha presently raging over the Mary River. No one wants a Dam in their backyard. No one wants a NP Plant in their front yard. Everybody wants to use a hose on their gardens, 4WD and Tinny ? Without Dams we may die of thirst ? It seems we are people who want it all our way. Opinionated, selfish, red-necked, rah-rah ockers who perceive ourselve's as Numero UNO. What has become of ' mateship ', as if there ever was such a myth ?

It is common knowledge the vast cattle and sheep herds Aust and NZ nurture, and ten's of thousand's owe their living to, produce more greenhouse gas, then the entire Human race, given we ban the car, ship, aeroplane, and other consumers of fossilised fuels.

Your presumptuous claim " aussie's produce about 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person per year " defies research by the CSIRO. Our two-pot screamer Andrew Bolt emphatically writes there is NO scientific basis for such mindless hysterics - that Global warming is a figment of disgrunted Enviornmentalist. The Kyoto Protocol an urban myth propogated by Bin Laden.

More freckle-furphy's, if we cull our birth rate, we wouldn't have to worry about Level 3 water shortages, desalination, geosequestration, all Society's visceral ills..in short, if we reduce the numbers of elderly. The sick, mentally retarded, and non-productive, there will be less emissions for Herr Klaus and his xenophobic jack-booted coterie to enjoy. The Fatherland to themselves - the rest of you bugger off.

Analyst from the ONA have wax lyrical on publications regarding our INABILITY to defend ourselves mainly, because of our lack of numbers in the ADF. Millions have been spent on advertisements on

continued..

recruitment. Resignations, dismissals, War psychosis/neurosis, post-traumatic-stress-disorder's, and a rejection rate of 85 %, firmly establishes we don't have the manpower to scratch ourselves, much less repel errant Indonesian fisherman and a new batch of Papuan refugees. With 5 theatre's of conflict to attend to, Howard's Deputy Sheriff-ship is looking decidedly wonky - largely unsustainable. Some Regular's have been on rotation in Iraq, three times. Their wives and children bearing the burden no less.Divorce, suicides and wife-bashing is par-for-the-course.Brenden Nelson and Coy admit the Army is deficient by at least 15000 personnel.

Limiting migration, would exacerbate Aust's reprehensible Labour predicament. Dire skill shortages are highlighted each day when Tradesmen from Ireland, Spain, Germany, Fiji, Philippine's etc take up vacancies in possibly every occupation imaginable. As the Resource's Boom kicks into high-gear, tradesman are like hen's teeth. The Mining sector ( where Our Economy thrives )is one area where demand out-strips supply.

Kids are leaving school in droves without Education, work experience or Apprenticeship's to fall back on. We have a generation of School-leaver's who are illiterate, lack work ethnic, prefer to surf, spine-bash, smoke pot, commit petty larceny, or beat up defenceless geriatric old women in shopping Malls.

This permanent underclass of dysfunctional dropout's couldn't work in the proverbial ' iron-lung '. It's unlikely, the Army would accept this flotsam, cleaning dunnies, let alone subject them to discipline / basic training they couln't comprehend ?

It's a vanilla theory whether Aust embraces Nuclear Power on the strength of Howard's/Blair's reappraisal of Energy sources.The Guardian reports there are fatal problems in 20 ageing NP Reactors in the UK. Hickey Point. Somerset, where cracks in graphite bricks enclosing the core was recently discovered. Structurally defective, these plants are scheduled for decommissioning in 2020. In Scotland, AEC Review recommended more alternatives - wind, wave and power projects. Energy efficient measures to curb wasted Resources and save 4 times the power generated by going Nuclear !!

The Institute Public Policy Research - Think tank rejected NP as a tried, tested and failed technology with higher costs involved then in renewable alternatives. Need convincing ?

Ciao,

David Latimer's ease of refutation relies less upon strong arguments than it does on corrupt ones. He states “The article is NOT about reducing population.”, yet EC considers a scenario where Australia would have 1.2 million fewer people.

In commenting “The article is written as though there was a giant glass dome over Australian airspace.”, DL acknowledges that EC's analysis is reasonable for Australia. He argues that reducing immigration would make no difference to GHG emissions worldwide, and is correct if you assume that the immigrants would be responsible for similar GHG emissions elsewhere. But in concluding “As this is wrong(EC's calculation of GHG reduction), the rest of the article, its arguments and claims are equally flawed.”, DL contradicts himself, as his argument is based on assuming the truth of EC's claim that Australia with 1.2 million fewer people would emit less GHGs.

Perhaps the lesson from Ec's article is that by pursuing high immigration, Australia is simply importing a problem from the rest of the world. DL's choice of the Titanic for an analogy is most appropriate, as your best chance of survival was in a lifeboat. The Titanic sank as I recall.

Noticed how all our industry groups are lining up to claim skills shortages? There is no such thing as a skills shortage, but it is used to bolster high immigration policies. There is such a thing as low pay and poor work conditions.

Someone mentioned before Australians don't oppose high immigration. If that is so, how come Pauline Hanson was jailed?

Hmmm, sweet smelling democracy and a immigration lobby that acts like the Ku Klux Klan!

Dalma says “Your presumptuous claim " aussie's produce about 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person per year " defies research by the CSIRO.”
Yet the AGO website says “Australia's net emissions across all sectors totalled 564.7 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent (Mt CO2-e) in 2004.”, or about 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per person per year.
[http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/index.html]

Dalma also claims that Australia needs to import skilled workers to satisfy a huge demand, and uncharitably says this of Australian youth:

“Kids are leaving school in droves without Education, work experience or Apprenticeship's to fall back on. We have a generation of School-leaver's[sic] who are illiterate, lack work ethnic, prefer to surf, spine-bash, smoke pot, commit petty larceny, or beat up defenceless[sic] geriatric old women in shopping Malls.

This permanent underclass of dysfunctional dropout's couldn't work in the proverbial ' iron-lung '. It's unlikely, the Army would accept this flotsam, cleaning dunnies, let alone subject them to discipline / basic training they couln't[sic] comprehend ?”

Substitute Jews for Kids and School leavers and you would have comment worthy of the most fervent of jackbooted nazis. Again, I would point out the Productivity Commission's report, which suggests a very marginal benefit from immigration:

[http://www.pc.gov.au/study/migrationandpopulation/finalreport/index.html]

Dalma might also consider that without high immigration a considerable skilled workforce currently engaged in the construction of buildings and infrastructure necessary to cope with an increasing population would potentially be available for the mining industry.

Response to Ludwig:

"Australia would be doing extraordinarily well to lower its per-capita GHG production to anywhere near that of NZ or UK, countries." Yes, it would be great!

Let me again summarise my points, as it will answer your questions (q1 to q7 of your post 9 July 2006), although not exactly sure what q1 and q2 refer to.

If Australia is the worlds worst per captia polluter (q3) then the only "lesson" we can give the rest of the world, is how we worked hard to alter this characteristic of our economy (q1 and q2.) Changes to immigration do not affect this (q4 and q6) however adopting sustainable practises will (q5.) This article is not about changing the number of consumers but about immigration (q6.) 20 million people can produce CO2 the same as 200 million (q3 again), so the Greenhouse Gas issue is ultimately a question of technology and economics (q7).

We are told Australia is an island. When it comes to the atmosphere, Australia is NOT an island.

I'd like to add another string to my refutation. If migration to Australia is bad, then migration from Australia is good.

Response to Fester:

So you think my arguments are corrupt?

I am very proud of all my above posts, my rigorous analysis and critique of this article. It has been honest, sensible and positive, backed up with good research and a rigourous commitment to staying with the real issues, rather than making insinuating remarks.

Your second paragraph does not represent my argument and again confuses population with immigration.

Unlike the Titanic, there are no "lifeboats" for planet Earth. Are you expecting to be rescued by aliens? Australia cannot isolate itself from global warming! No surprise you cannot accept the flaw in this article.

David Latimer might note that I have pointed out a flaw in his reasoning. The flaw is quite real and not an insinuation. I don't doubt that DL could prove himself, judging by his self-assessment, but I would guess that his commitments would not permit such an indulgence, as has been the case for many of my questions.

To restate, DL claims that “The flaw is where Eric multiplies the following numbers:
- 1,200,000 new immigrants after 10 years
- 28 tonnes of greenhouse gas per Australian per year
and claims that we would save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted. The calculation is nonsense as rejected migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries and the gasses[sic] would be distributed across the atmosphere. This has been pointed out in several other posts.

The formula of 1 less migrant = savings of 28 tonnes of Greenhouse Gasses[sic]/yr is wrong. The formula is wrong, so the resulting value of 34,000,000 tonnes/yr saved is wrong.” But by concluding “This resulting value is wrong, so the other claims and general argument fails.”, and more expansively in a later post “As I am able to restate, the article is based on the flawed assumption that one less migrant = 28 tonnes saved of greenhouse gases (GHG). As this is wrong, the rest of the article, its arguments and claims are equally flawed.” , DL contradicts himself, as his first statement is based on the truth of EC's claim that with 1.2 million fewer Australians, Australia would have lower GHG emissions than it would do with 1.2 million more immigrants. To give a specific example, is EC's claim that Australia with 1.2 million fewer immigrants would have a lower demand for electricity false because the would be immigrants would be responsible for GHG emissions in other countries?

David

Thanks for addressing my questions.

“so the Greenhouse Gas issue is ultimately a question of technology and economics (q7).”

You clearly don’t think immigration is a factor. Well, all I can say is; you can’t be serious.

You haven’t questioned the veracity of the figures quoted by Eric, which show that per-capita GHG emissions in immigration source countries are indeed quite a lot lower than in Australia overall. And you haven’t questioned the fact that evermore consumers can only lead to GHG emissions, or at least to a dilution or cancelling out of efforts to reduce emissions. But you continue to say that immigration to Australia doesn’t affect GHG emissions. Obviously it does, very much so on the national scale and also to a small extent on the global scale.

We need to think about GHG emissions on two scales here – national and global. You seem to be only thinking on the global scale. It is very important that Australia sets an example for the world, which will at the same time ‘train’ our citizens and leaders to live comfortably with much-improved efficiencies of fossil fuel usage and waste production. It is in fact less important on the global scale that we actually reduce our level of emissions. Crikey, with China booming we are insignificant. If the US improved efficiency by even a few percent, it could make more difference than Australia’s entire emissions.

So the important thing really is for Australia to set an example and follow the various examples being shown by Sweden, Brazil, etc.

So, from our perspective here in Oz, it is more a national issue than a global issue, yes?

And immigration is most definitely a major part of it.

Response to Fester:

Thanks for repeating my main arguments. There is no contradiction. The latter posts are summaries of the first. Also you are confusing electricity with greenhouse gases (GHG). Electrical demand affects the local grid, while GHG's are distributed across the atmosphere.

Response to Ludwig:

I am not always serious. My first two posts to this thread where a bit of a parody, eg "may I present the solution of everyone in Australia migrating overseas."

I do not question and am alarmed by Eric's post where he presented the comparative figures. My response was in the post 7 July 2006 10:00:57 AM. I believe you when you say "GHG emissions in immigration source countries are indeed quite a lot lower than in Australia overall." That's a consequence of being the worst. Migrants come from other countries and every other country is doing better than Australia by this pro capita measure.

You say, that I "seem to be only thinking on the global scale". That's true and the only reasonable position. The atmosphere is global. Sea-levels are affected globally.

If Australia is the worst per capita producer of GHG's, and not joining the Koyoto protocol, then we set a poor example. Fortunately there are some good things we are doing, such as the Asia Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. There are many smaller initiatives, to numerous to mention. I would love to see the Solar Tower project begin construction.

But this is not a national issue. It can only be resolved at a international level, specifically with resolute American support.

Still have faith that immigration would set an example to the world? Let's imagine that it was the United States giving this "lesson" to the world and they stopped immigration to supposedly solve climate change. What signal would that send to Australia?

I'd guess it'd be like telling us to build a very, very, very long dyke.

Well David, we will have to agree to disagree on whether it is a national issue or not.

We agree that Australia should be setting a good example. This means that Australia should be striving to reduce its GHG emissions with a vengeance. Every additional consumer erodes our ability to maximise reductions. High immigration very significantly erodes it. High immigration flies totally in the face of setting a good example. You want us to set a good example, but you don’t think immigration is an issue. Sorry, but these two points are at complete loggerheads.

Yes, wouldn’t it be great if the US was to set the example, including large-scale immigration (and illegal alien) reduction. It might just have happened if Gore had won the presidency

Fester: yes, you got me right this time.

Indeed, a situation where immigrants do not have the same access to infrastructure may seem to be like Apartheid, but then where do you draw the line? perhaps at pure communism with no private property, where even the kids are shared? I don't recommend this approach (perhaps a dose of Ayn Rand could help), so if the dogs bark after us, "Apartheid, Apartheid", it is their own problem: those who wish to migrate to this continent need not expect to automatically have the privilege to equally share our infrastructure - except on our terms. If they do not like it - nobody is asking them to come.

Yes, I mean exactly that: the planet does not and cannot belong to any one - it was there long before us, so indeed "you (and any other creature) should be able to live wherever you please, provided that it isn't covered by some sort of infrastructure or someone else's property."

Just to conclude on what the current policy is, according to the AGO in its document http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/stateinv/pubs/states2004.pdf, on the final page it says:

"Australia is committed to meeting its internationally agreed target of constraining emissions in 2008-12 to 108% of their 1990 level. The Australian Government’s release of the Tracking to the Kyoto Target 2005 document in November 2005 confirms that national emissions are on track to meet this target. The Australian Government along with State, Territory and Local governments have implemented a range of policies and programmes. Actions have also been taken by business and the community. The combined effect of these efforts is expected to cut annual emissions by 85 Mt CO2-e by 2010. ‘Business as usual’ emissions growth would have reached 123% of the 1990 level by 2010, in the absence of these greenhouse measures."

Thanks for the response, Yuyutsu. I still wonder what part of Australia the immigrants would be free to live on? As far as I am aware, none would satisfy your condition. I ascribe to the hypothesis that property ownership came about as a means of abating conflict when populations reached critical levels. For stable societies with low population densities, like Australian Aboriginal tribes, the concept of land ownership was deservedly incomprehensible.

David Latimer

From your reasoning, EC's argument that Australia with 1.2 million immigrants would produce less GHG emissions is both true and false. How can this be?

But I suspect that the immigration issue will become irrelevant soon anyway, as many other countries will soon avidly compete for skilled migrants, and opposition surfaces to the many blatant examples of immigration being used to undermine wages and conditions in Australia today.

David

Thanks for the reference -

an intersting statistic from the green house accounts (page 21),
is that we cause almost as much GHG by deforestation as we cause by electricity generation. (128 vs 129 Million tonnes)

I recall that it was and is only by reducing land clearing (as an offset) that we reach our greenhouse targets.

So meeting our target is not really something as a nation to be proud of, as redusing land clearing is something we should be doing anyway.

Fester,

you wrote: 'I still wonder what part of Australia the immigrants would be free to live on? As far as I am aware, none would satisfy your condition":

In the least, they could live on the properties of Australian friends, relatives and supporters who invite them. They should also be able to buy or rent property.

@Yuyutsu,

What do you know about anything like Apartheid or even segregation?These kinds of events weren't apart of Australia's history like they were for African Americans or black South Africans. I don't know why these words keep coming up.

I could understand an African-American using it,because theres something in common like Nelson Mandela and the Great Dr.Martin Luther King jr.True black African Heros nobody like them,truly before their time.Assasinated and jailed for the cause of our race.

The word Apartheid like many other words for African blacks is not a 'light term', it should not be thrown around or played with.

Response to Fester:

Let me quote from your last post: "Australia with 1.2 million immigrants would produce less GHG emissions".

Eric never said this. I never said this. Sofar it has taken you six posts to become totally confused about both Eric's argument and my critique of his argument.

If it makes you happy, have another go. Seventh time lucky perhaps.

Try to defend Eric's idea that one less migrant would save 28 tonnes of GHG's each year, OR try to defend the idea that Australia, with the world's worst per capita GHG emissions, is in a place to give the world a "lesson" by rejecting migrants because they don't pollute the atmosphere as profusely as us.

And be mindful that the sky over Australia is not seperate from the sky elsewhere AND the melted icecaps will flood Australian coasts in the same way as they'll flood the other continents.

David Latimer

To quote you again, “....and claims that we [and EC was very clearly referring to Australians here] would save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted. The calculation is nonsense as rejected migrants would use fossil fuels in their own countries.......”. This clearly shows that you understood EC's article to infer that with fewer immigrants, Australia's GHG emissions would be lower. Yet now you say “Eric never said this. I never said this.”. You might have fairly criticised EC for not considering the world picture, but to conclude “As this is wrong, the rest of the article, its arguments and claims are equally flawed.”, is illogical. For example, if I accepted the truth of your conclusion, I would logically conclude “we would (not) save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted.” Is this what you are claiming?

I think my repeated replies have more to do with your failure to understand logical arguments at an elementary level.

Amel,

Yes, I have lived for a couple of years in South Africa when it was still under Apartheid, but this is completely besides the point:

I did not introduce this word - it was in reply to Fester, and all I wrote was that a certain situation "may seem to be like Apartheid", not that it actually is.

To put it all in context, I stated that:

A. every creature has the right to live where they want on this planet.
B. it is not a moral obligation to share the results of our efforts with all others.

and the conclusion was:

C. if, for whatever reason, we do not wish to share our resources with all others, we must make a separation between the right to live in the continent of Australia and the right to become equal citizens of the country of Australia and enjoy its infrastuture.

If this implies that some people (eg. uninvited immigrants) will not have the same rights as others - so be it and we have no reason to be ashamed about it.

Response to Fester:

Seventh time unlucky.

What you wrote in your 6th post on the same topic: "Australia with 1.2 million immigrants would produce less GHG emissions".

Have a careful read of your post:
- Australia
- With 1.2 million immigrants
- Less GHG emissions

Now regarding your 7th post: "we would (not) save 34,000,000 tonnes per annum if those immigrants were not accepted".

That is true, without the brackets, at several levels.

Firstly do not assume a migrant arriving in Australia will produce the average Australian quantity of GHG's. Secondly, to restrict immigration would continue the emission of GHG's in other countries, and about half of our migrants are from developed countries.

In Eric's article he says "reducing immigration to reduce greenhouse emissions" and "[r]educing immigration by 1.2 million people would save the full 34 million tonnes of greenhouse gases every year..." It uses the words "reduce" and "save" while you are altering it to say "emit". These are unqualified statements. The only way Australia can unqualifyingly save GHG's is when its actions (or inaction) does not cause GHG's.

Finally and most importantly, you assume "we" to mean "we Australians". When it comes to solving global warming, the "we" means "we humans."

Fester, I do pick up on how assumptions, pronouns and minor word changes are used to prop up silly arguments or trick genuine views. But the reality is that immigration is not relevant to climate change. That's the reason your posts can be so easily refuted.

David Latimer

Okay then, you would agree that Australia with 1.2 million fewer immigrants would be responsible for less GHG emissions, but the rest of the world, as a consequence of those would be immigrants still existing, would be responsible for more GHG emissions. Your difference then seems to be with the accuracy of EC's calculations, and his use of the terms “save” and “reduce”, instead of “emit”. So if EC had been less specific about the actual amounts and referred to “less” or “more” GHG “emissions”, you might still have criticised him for not considering the rest of the world, but you would have agreed with EC's claim. To be honest, I took less interest in the specific calculations, but was more concerned with the local environmental damage that could result from 1.2 million extra people living in Australia. To suggest that reducing immigration wont stop global warming might be true, but an overpopulated and environmentally damaged Australia may find adjusting to the change far more difficult.

A further reading of the "Australian National Greenhouse Accounts" confirms that reductions in land clearing and thus reduction in CO2, over the period 1990 to 2004, have offset almost all the Co2 emissions growth from the energy generation.

Thus an increase of about 100MT (+43%)of Co2 from electricity generation over the period 1990 to 2004, was offset by 93MT (-72.5%)savings from reduced land clearing.

So to meet the Kyoto target of 108% of 1990 levels by 2010, all the Government has to do is phase out all land clearing by 2010, which would be the situation anyway, as all land that can be cleared will have been cleared.

Thus Australias committment to meet" its internationally agreed target of constraining emissions in 2008-12 to 108% of their
1990 level." is really a pea and thimble trick.

The governments greenhouse measures are a sham.

So the question arises, what will be the effect on emmission targets after 2010, when there is no land clearing offset? ie no camoflaging our true emissions.

It will then be obvious just how out of control our energy use really is; this can only be excacerbated by a rapidly increasing population.

Response to Fester:

No, I do not agree that Australia with 1.2 million fewer immigrants would be "responsible" for less greenhouse emissions. No evidence of this has been provided and the attribution of responsibility is unexamined. The notion of Australia vs The Rest of the World is silly. This is a world problem, not a local one.

No, my problem is ALSO with the methodology, the claims and especially the conclusion. The whole article amounts to nothing and there is no relevant relationship between immigration and GHG.

Response to Last Word:

There is nothing wrong with measuring the impact of land clearing. I am sure this was worked out as per international agreement. It's quite OK that the easy to implement solutions are enacted first. That provides a breathing space to design and implement the more challenging solutions. If we were signed up to Kyoto, we could be making money from planting trees (carbon sinks).

Very glad you are looking at the AGO report (http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/inventory/stateinv/pubs/states2004.pdf)

What an excellent debate ! I could only skim through so many posts but it seems that by far the majority are, like me, in favour of limiting immigration. I personally would prefer only to invite refugees, for humanitarian reasons.

I have had an outback childhood and now live on a bush block on the rural fringe and I find that first or second generation migrant friends, urban dwellers, are entirely uncaring about the environment outside the cities,never noticing the effects of droughts and global warming, and when I suggest to them that we must limit immigration I am accused of being racist. (I once joined a group called Australians Against Further Immigration but left it quick smart because I thought it was in fact racist).My migrant friends (highly intelligent people from Iraq, England and Greece) are keen on expanding immigration hugely,partly I think because they have no affinity with the country.

I say the one thing we have going for us in Australia is space, and I think we should be selfish and protect this advantage. After all, in the days of my convict ancestors no-one much wanted to migrate here - Australia was regarded as low and uncultured and we were despised. Now we've built a bit of wealth thanks to minerals etc. everyone wants to come and to hell with the effects of a rapidly growing population on the environment. Every time I drive back home from the city I see another grassy hill taken over by another mushrooming housing development.

If so many of us are against the overpopulation disease, why don't the pollies take heed ? More important perhaps, why isn't there a non-racist anti-immigration movement that we could join ? Oh yes, I'm all for living more sustainably too, as a matter of urgency.

With several adjustments to his argument, David Latimer has finally arrived at a consistent position. Well done.

If immigration does make no difference to GHG emissions then only question worth considering is “What is the environmental impact of immigration in Australia?”. Controlling GHG emissions is an important part of dealing with climate change, but so is coping with the environmental impact. Now if immigration has no environmental impact then it is immaterial. If not, then immigration will make it harder for Australia to cope with climate change. So the question of interest is then, “Will immigration bring sufficient economic benefits to cope with the extra environmental damage?”. The Productivity Commission Report on immigration suggests not. And the ballooning current account deficit, brought about in large measure by high immigration, hardly gives more comfort either.

I understand what David Lattimer's saying, but it doesn't make sense. Immigrants coming to this country mostly come from what we call deprived lifestyles, having to fend mostly for themselves with little infrastructure or energy supplies. When they come here, every thing's given to them, power, food, money. They use much more energy than in their homeland, which means we produce more GHG's, their old country continues to use the same amount. Its just simple logic and observation.

Add the amount of resources needed to establish these people and bring them here, the ongoing energy support far above what they are used to and its seems ridiculous to say immigration doesn't increase GHG's. As most immigrants are English illiterate and used to handouts, they naturally go to cities and contribute nothing but waste. In Tas, virtually all refugees and migrants that come here, leave within the year and move to Melb or Sydney where their ghetto's are growing. More than 80% are unemployable.

David, “The notion of Australia vs The Rest of the World is silly”.

Not so silly if you can realise providing an example to the world is a positive approach. If you don't get your house in order, how can you expect anyone else to.

Big cities and large populations lead to degradation of life and the environment. I know most don't really know what clear deep blue skies full of native birds and the bush full of animals is like, so its understandable you think the dirty grey blue sky is normal. As a country that has such a high personal GHG output, any improvement will relieve the planets stress a bit, leading to less damaging effects.

David Latimer please help me better understand your views on immigration, population, greenhouse gas production and sustainability.

Is the Australian Government wrong to fund the Australian Greenhouse Office since they only concentrate on reducing greenhouse emissions in Australia? Are international agreements like the Kyoto Protocol a waste of time and energy, because they put limits on individual countries greenhouse emissions, rather than considering all nations together?

Does the 100 million tonne increase in greenhouse gases from electricity generation from 1990 to 2004 have anything to do with the net 1.3 million immigrants that arrived during that time? Does it have anything to do with the net 2.7 million immigrants who arrived between 1960 and 1989? Does it have anything to do with any immigrants who have come to Australia? Does it have anything to do with any of the children of those immigrants?

What recommendations do you have for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Australia and all around the world?

If Australia reduced its per capita greenhouse emissions by 5% but raised its population by 5% wouldn’t that negate the improvements made in per capita emissions, in terms of the greenhouse impact to the world?

Is it easier to become sustainable in resource use and environmental protection with a larger population or a smaller population? How can Australia send a message to the rest of the world that we are trying to live sustainably and we believe that the rest of the world should try to live sustainably as well? Is this a message that we should try to send to the rest of the world?

Is the example regarding the desalination plant in Sydney pertinent to immigration?

Thanks for your help David and thanks to all the other contributors for helping shed light on this subject.

The alchemist provides a stereotype of immigrants which is laughable. They are deprived, are illiterate in English, and when they come to Australia "everything is given to them". According to alchemist "they are used to handouts" and apparently the trip and the paperwork is significant contributor to GHG's, unlike tourism.

I don't call this logic, its something else. This is the real tenor of the argument connecting immigration with greenhouse gases.

The alchemist also says "If you don't get your house in order, how can you expect anyone else to." What! Excuse me? You're not aware Australia is the world's greatest per capita producer of GHG's? Twice the amount of NZ, UK and Europe!

Response to FESTER: In our online sparing it's 9 to zero. You've tried bravado and insults, but you've not been able to dent my argument that the calculation in the article is flawed and the highest per capital producer of GHG is not in a position to give a lesson to the world. With your question about general "environmental impact", I am not changing the goalposts at this late stage. The topic is GHG and climate change.

Response to ERIC:
In the 2nd paragraph, the answers are yes. Australia's contribution to ameliorating climate change is in the context of international agreements.

In the 3rd paragraph, the answers are no. At the very least, you must analyse all drivers of population growth. You’ve singled out immigrants without sufficient reason, when you should be talking about population. Then you’ve assumed a direct link between population and GHG’s, when this is inconsistent, even in the developed world. The economy (growth and structure) matches GHG emissions far more closely. I would not support rolling back the economy either.

Why? As you have argued in another article, it’s the developed world, which has the need for, most of the responsibility for and has the capacity to resolve climate change. That insightful viewpoint, sadly got less attention as this immigration article.

I’ve more to say on the rest of Eric’s post later.

Wonderful post Kang. I passionately share just the same sorts of concerns.

Now, the organisation you are looking for that deals with population matters, purely in terms of sustainability, and strictly without any racial aspect, is ‘Sustainable Population Australia Inc. http://www.population.org.au/

You are right – so many of us are against the “overpopulation disease”, and yet our pollies don’t acknowledge that. This is a major perversion of democracy – the pandering by governments to the business community, and the consequent upholding of the continuous growth paradigm. It’s a classic case of ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.

However I think the groundswell is reaching critical mass, whereby a political force will be able to harness that concern and direct Australian politics away from the mindless absurdity of continued rapid expansion and towards genuine sustainability. I reckon Labor could do this now if they put their minds to it. http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4681#47790

Further response to Eric's post (continued from my last post):

Per capita metrics are comparitive in nature. We don't reduce GHG on a per capita basis, but on a project/program basis. As LastWord pointed out, Australia has improved most in land clearing. Per capita may help answer what it is about Australia that we emit at twice that of Europe. Is it mechanised agriculture? abundant coal reserves? transport and distance? Tackle the sources of the problem.

Developing countries have higher population growth rates than Australia. Perhaps world population would be exacerbated by halting immigration to developed countries?

Desalination? Europe recycles its water and we can learn to do the same.

Is it easier with a small or large population? Australia has a small population with a large geographic area. So we drive and fly, and our excellent primary industry products are sold cheaply. So in many ways, it's a curse.

I note, Fester has tried to box me in, by treating my critique not as such. My most important criticisms are the methodology and the "lesson" to the world. You ask govt to change policy, but it only has superfical appeal to anti-imigrationists. I believe Australia should and will adopt Kyoto and it will meet the targets with direct action.

What recommendations do I have for reducing GHGs in Australia/the world?

Kyoto is essential and a first step. It is IMPERITIVE to get America on this bus, otherwise we should start building a seven meter dyke along the coastline.

Governments need to support innovation, so the Asia Pacific Partnership and other programs help on that. Most innovation can be exported. Innovation is a force multiplier.

Under market economics, polluting the atmosphere should carry a price (rather than a penalty). Let's replace some silly taxes, like payroll taxes, with a carbon tax. Every economics student is taught about externalities. Any economy which does this will adopt efficient practices (good for business) and become more sustainable (good for the environment) and make renewable energy viable (good for both).

With international agreement on this, how could we fail to save ourselves?

David Latimer

My criticism was of the logical construction of your argument, which you have corrected. Note that your initial outline of the argument only suggested EC's calculation to be wrong because it did not consider the would be migrants' GHG emissions elsewhere. By the way, I only questioned the reasoning of your argument in four posts, and it was only after the fourth post that you corrected the logical error in your presented argument, specifically by claiming EC's calculation to be inaccurate for Australia. You may think your arguments to be very good, and they may well be, but a logical error is a logical error, and can only devalue them. You need to be able to distinguish between insults, bravado and valid criticism.

As to claiming that discussing the environmental impact of immigration amounts to “changing the goalposts”, I can only wonder why you think people are concerned about climate change? If there was no environmental impact from climate change then why would anyone be worried? Now, would a smaller or larger population have a greater environmental impact for a given level of consumption? And what impact does immigration have on a population? Environmental impact is a reasonable progression of the discussion, not “changing the goalposts”. My previous comment is pertinent: “ “Will immigration bring sufficient economic benefits to cope with the extra environmental damage?”. The Productivity Commission Report on immigration suggests not. And the ballooning current account deficit, brought about in large measure by high immigration, hardly gives more comfort either.”

“Is it easier with a small or large population? Australia has a small population with a large geographic area. So we drive and fly, and our excellent primary industry products are sold cheaply. So in many ways, it's a curse.”

David, you didn’t answer the question. And the answer you did give doesn’t make sense. You said: “So in many ways it’s a curse”. But what about an overall assessment?

Australia’s large geographic area has got a lot to do with our high per-capita GHG emissions, mostly because of very much longer supply lines for just about all goods compared to NZ and UK. So how is having a larger population going to reduce this? It might reduce economies of scale slightly, ie: average per-capita emissions, but it would obviously increase the total emissions.

How does the population size relate to the price of our exported primary produce? How is having a ‘small’ population in any way a curse?

I agree with you that we cannot look at immigration in isolation – we have to look at the total population size and growth rate. So our fertility rate has got a lot to do with this business as well. But that doesn’t mean that immigration isn’t a very significant factor. It does afterall make up about half of our current population growth.

It is patently obvious that it is progressively harder to reduce overall GHG emissions in this country with a progressively larger population.

Response to Fester:

I have successfully made my points and feel confident I have shown why linking immigration and GHG is invalid.

Response to Ludwig:
"Primary industry products are sold cheaply": trying to say that we have such ample natural reserves that it may encourage a wasteful unconserving attitude.

If you feel I am not providing an overall assesment, that because you do not accept how the links between population and greenhouse gases are so tenuous. France, Italy, Poland, Spain and the Ukraine are examples of developed nations with far greater, less urbanised populations (than Australia) but less total GHG emissions.

Keep in mind that the word "population" is not included in the article. If this was an article about depopulation, I guess it would be far less popular and any critique would have been more complex.

My points have centred on whether it is appropriate to link immigration and GHGs. Immigration does help determine national population and that does effect the national economy. The economy (with technology) is where you can make GHGs savings. However GHG objectives must be global and whether people immigrate won't have any qualifiable effect on that objective.

David, we seem to be hung up on some irreconcilable differences here.

Apparently we will have to agree to strongly disagree on the connection between immigration in Australia and GHG emissions, or the links between population and greenhouse gases being tenuous, or that GHG objectives must be purely global.

Given these enormous differences, I don’t know what else to say, except that I completely fail to understand how you can insist that population matters are of such little consequence.

No offence, but unfortunately I can see no point in continuing this debate with you.

No problem. Thanks for the discussion.

Did any one else notice that in the Breaking News this morning there was an article by Bob Kinnaird from Monash University. The report said that 5000+ IT professionals migrated as graduate skilled migration in 2004-2005. The graduates were paid considerably less than local hires. This high level of GSM migration resulted in fewer australian graduates being hired. In fact only 30% of IT graduates secured IT jobs. No one cares how the 70% pay off their HECS debt or where they find work.

As an emminent sociologist once said "if only 10% of a population experience the problem, the fault probably lies with the individual but when 50% of the population face the same problem then its probably a systemic fault."

So if we can't find jobs for our graduates from university and technical college why do we need to import more of the same?

Billie,

Those 5000+ IT professionals, do you suggest it was their fault?

- Would those professionals refuse to receive a better pay?

- Is it their fault that they happened to be lucky enough to have a profession that the Australian government wants while their friends were left behind? if required, would they not agree to work, for example, in cleaning or aged-care, just so they can escape the troubled countries where they come from and/or be allowed to live with their relatives in Australia?

Does anything prevent Australian graduates from asking to be paid less? or take up another job that does not pay as well? obviously you know that nobody is asked to pay their HECS debt until they have a decent gainful job.

I have no interest to encourage economic migration, but do you really believe that people in other countries think only about economics, just because in Australia we are so spoiled that we have no bigger concerns?

I do not mind that immigrants are given conditions, such as "you may not work in these professions" or "you may not live in crowded areas, such as Sydney", etc. There is nothing wrong with denying immigrants economic privileges in order to test them, so they prove that their motives for arriving are genuine and not economic - so long as every good person is allowed to come and live in this continent.

Thanks billie (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4603#48914) for raising a subject so close to my own heart.

The treatment of Australia's IT graduates epitomises that absolute contempt that this Government and our elites hold for many of the citizens of this country. Whilst Australian IT graduates languish on unemployed queues or in dead end unskilled occupations with their skills being atrophied, the country continues to be overwhelmed with overseas IT professionals.

On this issue the 'hard left' has shown itself to be little better than the Howard Government. Throughout these years they have acted to stifle any rational debate on this question by hysterically accusing anyone, who questions high immigration levels and population growth, of racism.

No Yuyutsu I do not think its the 5000 migrants fault for taking australian jobs. I think its the responsibility of the government to look after australian citizens who have got off their backsides and got a degree. In much the same way as I expect to look after myself first then look out for other people

Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer was recorded in the Herald Sun in December 2000 as promoting "lets send all the IT jobs to India". This is at a time when there were record numbers of students enrolled in IT courses at university and only 20% of the students from the best universities were being hired. From one typical second tier university only 5 graduates were hired.

So what do we expect our young educated graduates to do, work as waiters?

Then we get Mr Howard saying this government is family friendly offering a $4000 baby bonus and Peter Costello exhorting every one to have 3 children. Why would some one who expected to work as a professional and finds themself doing unskilled work want to have 3 children? Most people want to give their children better opportunities than they had.

Back to IT migration there are systemic problems with IT recruiters who misrepresent jobs to candiadtes and candidates to prospective employers. IT recruiters gain more money from placing GSM workers on visas than from placing local hires. Also the Australian Graduate School of Management gaining $12 million per annum to studying the IT skills shortage. If AGSM find no shortage they lose $12 million.

But when I see migrant workers sneering at the "lazy" australians on public transport I'm afraid my eyes fill with hate, and I concur with Eric Claus that the australian standard of living would be improved without graduate skilled migration.

Ludwig,

I take it back about Costello for PM.

From http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/costello-hatches-censustime-challenge-procreate-and-cherish/2006/07/24/1153593272565.html

""AUSTRALIA faces a future of social upheaval unless couples start having more children, warns the Treasurer, Peter Costello.
Launching the 2006 Census yesterday, Mr Costello said that without an increased fertility rate, Australia would be forced to buttress its population decline with increased immigration.
This, he said, would change the nation's social composition and lead to problems similar to those being experienced in western European nations such as France, the Netherlands and Denmark.""

This Melbocentric nut is prepared to bugger SydSEQ with immigrants and social upheaval in order to lock in future prosperity for the rest of Australia. This while the possibility of sustaining current growth in this level of prosperity becomes more impossible with every 10 cents rise in gas prices.

I wouldn't let him test drive my son's dinky. We need to get George Gregan to kick the bastard into touch!

We want a leader that will put immigration and fake economic growth based on monopolies and lies about small business on hold. We want a leader who will immigrate the best TEACHERS to train Australians to do the jobs they are being duped out of and to prepare for a tougher future where bottom lines will not count as much as smarts and innovative ideas.

KAEP for PM

Thank goodness for that KAEP.

Costello has got to be the * * of the century, with his policies that are diametrically opposed to what we desperately need.

So where’s Beazley on this? What a brilliant opportunity for him to denounce pro-natalist policies and celebrate our low fertility rate.

Oh oh oh yes… of course…it was that other * * Keating who introduced the baby bonus.

Yes, Labor is fully in support of it, aren’t they

Peter Costello’s threat reminded me of comments related by a meatworker from his employer that went something like “If you don’t do it, we will get someone from os to do it, and you can lump the consequences.”. Unlike the “Background Briefing” interviewee though, Peter Costello’s threat is pretty hollow. He would well know that changing demographics in the world is going to make Australia’s parasitic reliance on skilled migrants far more difficult to realise in coming years. It is quite a contrast to think that someone who would demand exhaustive scientific examination before acting on the global warming threat accepts the benefit of population growth as an article of faith. Perhaps it is because all the research he keeps commissioning keeps finding the “wrong” answers.