I note that the immigration ideologue, Foundation Garment, stuck for a decent argument, is once again resorting to ad hominem with low and unfounded accusations that Daggett is "anti-immigrant".

Whilst waiting (doubtless interminably) for an apology from Foundation, I advise forum readers to go to the submission to the Housing Affordabilty Inquiry of R. Keane, without further ado, at

http://www.pc.gov.au/inquiry/housing/subs/subdr232.rtf

if they want to see the case for using figures other than annual population growth to establish that the turnover generated by immigration has been increasingly important over the past decade. Keane corrects the Productivity Commission on the sources it had used on immigration numbers for the Housing Affordability Inquiry, and the Commission acknowledges their fault, but make the excuse that they cannot get the figures. How pathetic! How incompetent!

Kanga salutes you, Dashing Daggett, knight of astute argument.

"Kanga solutes you etc, etc..."

Of course you do. You're both on not simply the same side, but the same team. Kanga, how about admitting that this submission (the SPA one) that you've been gloating over and holding high as definitive proof that immigration is the primary cause of housing innaffordability….

… WAS IN FACT WRITTEN BY YOU!

If these type of underhand, manipulations are representative (as they appear to be) of the standard of intellectual debate available on "Australia's e-journal of social and political debate", I may have to move permanently to Club Troppo.

Foundation,

If what you allege about Kanga is untrue, then you have paid him/her a complement. I wish, for may part, I could claim credit for having written the submission to the housing affordability Inquiry and the Masters Thesis, both downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila.

Regardless, non-one is obliged to forgo anonymity in order to participate in these forums. Whether Kanga chooses to confirm or deny your allegation has no bearing on the discussion the substance of most of which you have either avoided or have attempted to obfuscate.

Whilst it's possible with selective data to 'prove' that the supply of shelter in some locations has matched the increase in population over some limited periods of our recent history, you have steadfastly refused to dispute the evidence that population increases have driven up the value of land, most particularly land in all the desirable locations that were affordable to nearly everyone little more than a generation ago.

Where some in our community have more housing space than before, it is most likely located a very long way from work, public transport and other amenities. Most of us who live anywhere near where we would choose to are often unable to afford any better than a single room in a share house. A single unit would be beyond my own means. Too bad if any of the other co-tenants is incompatible.

You have not responded to the evidence I have presented :

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53620
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#54932
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55167
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55560
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55948
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#56337

... that the increase in population has degraded our quality of life and will continue to do so, and that provision of housing for the greatly accelerated numbers of new arrivals adds to the destruction of our environment and draws unacceptably on the natural resources of this country, in particular water, for the provision of which rural communities in Queensland are to be destroyed (see http://www.savethemaryriver.com and http://www.stopthewyaralongdam.org).

If the provision of 'affordable' concrete shoeboxes, bereft of outside gardens(http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53620), is ever again achieved, it will be at an unacceptable price to our environment and to future generations if population growth is not curbed.

Daggett, of course you would commend Kanga/Sheila. I'd be very surprised if the two of you candobetter/SPA goons did not know eachother's nicknames, especially as you so often coincidentally post immediately after eachother, always supportively.

Kanga already chose to forego anonymity here:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4452#41358

when she used this signiture at the bottom of her post:

Sheila Newman
smnaesp@alphalink.com.au

- - - - -

As regards your bevy of "evidence" that "that the increase in population has degraded our quality of life and will continue to do so," etcetera etcetera, blather blather... This has NOTHING to do with the subject! Therefore I will continue to ignore it... almost.

Are you saying that you (and perhaps SPA) are AGAINST cheaper housing, just on the off chance that some of the priced-out generation might take the chance to add to urban sprawl?

- - - - -

The truth is, if the Reserve Bank of Australia had shut off the money-supply spigot 6 years ago, rather than letting it flow at up to 5* the rate of GDP growth (guaranteed to create inflation / destroy the value of money), then we wouldn't be arguing. There wouldn't have been debt available to fruitlessly bid up the price of houses. There wouldn't have been the debt available to allow the recent rampant urban sprawl. We'd both be happy, no? I suspect not. I suspect you would still oppose the current level of immigration.

In this one paragraph, I have shown that population growth is insignificant. If my spoken suspicion is correct, it also shows that certain people are simply abusing other issues to wedge support for their unrelated cause.

Foundation,

You are ignoring why the prices of houses are being bid up. A lot of the people buying them are investors, not people who want to live in them themselves. Obviously if demand weren't increasing, as in say a German city where the population is stable or declining, then building additional rental properties would just lead to vacancies and reduced returns.

It is true that building costs have not increased in real terms over the past 30 years and that Australia has a lot of land. Land is no use to people for housing, though, if it doesn't have a reliable water supply, and for most people it is of no use if it isn't near jobs. The politicians have seen to it that the jobs are concentrated in a few big cities. This is underscored by the fact that unemployed people have been having their benefits cut off if they left those cities. There is only so much land within reasonable commuting distance of a city, so supply is restricted. Anything that drives up demand will then increase prices. This can be a trend to smaller households, people moving from the country to the city in search of jobs, or (surprise!) population growth, half of which is now due to immigration.

Why are you surprised that most people don't like being jammed together, owing their souls to keep a roof over their heads, seeing resources needed to meet the needs of existing populations channeled into growth infrastructure, or endless petty restrictions on what they can say or do? Perhaps others would like that idyllic small town lifestyle you describe for yourself on another thread.

Foundation,

Your resort to personal abuse by referring to myself and to Kanga as "SPA/candobetter goons" betrays a desperation on your part to avoid discussion of the substance of the issues at hand.

I am not surprised that you have been able to follow links I have made available to yourself and to others on this forum and to scan through the listed contributions of other contributors in order to discover seeming evidence of links between Kanga and myself and Kanga and Sheila Newman. However, they are irrelevant to the issue at hand.

Your argument that the cost to the environment of should not be considered when discussing housing affordability stems from schools of economics on both the left and right that see economics as separate from our life support system, rather than as subordinate to it.

I will leave it to others to see for themselves the stupity of such world views.

BTW, the web site http://www.candobetter.org was originally set up by myself as a personal initiative to do something about the terrible looming global environmental threats, the parlous state of democracy and generaly abysmal level of political discourse in this country. It is not officially linked with Sustainable Population Australia.