Mr. Right wrote: "As for adding to the population by introducing ‘diversity’ and turning Australia into a zoo with a representation of every race there is, the left should be made to explain just why we should be doing this."

Indeed. It has never been explained why Australia has an obligation to transform itself into a colony of every nation on earth. Nor has it ever been explained why such a transformation is meant to be seen as a desirable thing given the division and strife that has historically afflicted multicultural, polyethnic societies.

I came across this quote from Mark O'Connor:

"Some immigrationists claim that Australia is obliged to maintain high immigration until we have a roughly representative mix of the peoples of the world (or alternatively, of 'Asia' or of 'the Pacific region') right here in our own country. Needless to say, no such moral obligation exists. The people of Thailand, China, Finland, etc. are not ashamed of having a predominance of people of a particular ethnicity or culture in their country.

Indeed, national boundaries since the age of nationalism began, have been increasingly drawn along ethnic lines. It is a little hard to see why Australia alone or almost alone has an obligation to radically change its ethnic mix, and to become a sort of microcosm of the world - unless they mean to argue that Australia is not a real nation but a sort of international treaty area, like Antarctica."

http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman2/publish/tsc0402/article_318.shtml

Efranke

Mark O'Connor's article (published in 1993) is so obsolete. But worse, it is based on unsourced and unattributed claims that have no credibility. I'm amazed that you are still relying on this third-rate garbage.

Quote: "Some immigrationists claim that Australia is obliged to maintain high immigration until we have a roughly representative mix of the peoples of the world (or alternatively, of 'Asia' or of 'the Pacific region') right here in our own country. Needless to say, no such moral obligation exists."

'Some immigrationists' - who?

'Australia is obliged' - by whom?

'a roughly representative mix of the peoples of the world' - whatever for?

'or alternatively, of 'Asia' or of 'the Pacific region' - both quite different from the first zany proposition, so which one is the right one?

'Needless to say, no such moral obligation exists.' Well, then, why say it?

Nice circular argument.
(a) Set up a nonsense as if some anonymous person agrees with it.
(b) Show it's a nonsense and that you disagree with it.
(c) Conclude it's a nonsense.

Ever get the sense that Mr O'Connor is disappearing up his own orifice

Olly is wrong about Australia having a declining population. Australia's population is actually growing by 1.6%, which would imply a population doubling time of a little over 43 years (and 800 years to standing room only) if it continued. This is due to both natural increase (momentum from past high fertility rates) and net migration. See

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/3101.0

Olly's ideas on making the desert bloom would be workable if we had a perfectly clean, unlimited source of free energy. We could use this energy for all sorts of other purposes to support a really big population, terraforming Mars for example. Unfortunately, such an energy source only exists in science fiction.

Perth's new desalination plant will use 24 MW of power to produce 45 GL of water per year. The water will cost about $1.50 per kL, although according to Jennifer Marohasy, the Israelis have claimed to get this down to $.70 at their 80 MW Ashkelon plant. Pumping desalinated water inland to use it for agriculture would add substantially to this cost, depending on the distance and elevation. Then there would be the losses to evaporation once the water was applied to the desert. The going price for temporary transfers of irrigation water is $100 per ML or $0.10 per kL. This paper by economist John Quiggin at the University of Queensland suggests that it would be more economical for the cities to buy irrigation water than to desalinate. In other words, more people would mean less agricultural production, not more. See

http://www.jcipp.curtin.edu.au/local/docs/JohnQuiggin.pdf

Spikey,

Why not defend your growthist ideas instead of just sniping at others?

Efranke

Thank you for the link to Mark O'Connor's perspective on immigration. His new book, co-authored by William Lines, "Overloading Australia" is to be released this year.

This recent publication is a good indication that his views are hardly "obsolete" and he's certainly not "disappearing up his own orifice."

So Spikey - what are your views on Australia's expanding population and the eventual collapse of the resource boom? For instance, the forecasted closure of the Kalgoorlie Super Pit, with a workforce of 1000 plus all the service industries is 2017.

I'm having trouble reading you? Why do you feel "seasick?"

Cheers

http://www.australianpoet.com/environment.html

(This is a response to a post by Spikey at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7894&page=0#123916 in the related forum "Australia exports its draconian immigration system".)

Spikey wrote:

"Do your own sums. There's nothing 'elaborate' in the statistics. But if you find it all a bit much I'll lend you my calculator."

But I have shown that your statistics are not giving us the full picture and seem to be inconsistent with other sources. You have cited a newspaper article. I have at least attempted to go to the source and have found (yes, I am not perfect and not a genius) that, as far as I can see, they don't add up.

I think, at least, I have demonstrated that I can use a spreadsheet, as well as a calculator, when I revealed my efforts to make sense of the ABS spreadsheet.

Since it is you that is trying to convince the rest of us that we have nothing to fear from record high immigration (except traffic congestion, water scarcity, soaring housing prices, growing hospital waiting lists, declining wages, unemployment, destruction of farmland and natural habitat, etc.) you could perhaps show us how your figures are consistent with the ABS data and show us, while you are at it, that you can also use a calculater and a spreadsheet.

Spikey wrote: "And (b) the article also fails to mention the permanent departures from Australia - around 70,000 each year. So stop the panic."

I have already demonstrated that I understood the concempt of emigration. Given that the ABS spreadheet shows that the overall population increase in the 12 months to December 2007, TAKING EMIGRATION INTO ACCOUNT, was 331,900 according to that unexplained figure in the ABS spreadsheet, then, given our declining quality of live and precarious environment and that the apparent fools in control of this country want to increase that figure, I would have thought that we would have had a good deal to 'panic' about.

Spikey wrote (at )http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=7894&page=0#123916 : "What plan?"

What does the term "multiculturalism" mean to you, Spikey?

To say that its goal is to transform Australia into "a representative sample of the cultures of the earth" (as opposed to most other countries' policies of assimilating immigrants into the their predominant national culture) is only a slight exaggeration of the reality, I would have thought.