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.