I have been meaning to spell out more clearly that the article is based upon the Masters Thesis of population sociologist Sheila Newman "The Growth Lobby and its Absence : The Relationship between the Property Development and Housing Industries and Immigration Policy in Australia and France" downloadable as 2.5MB pdf file from http://candobetter.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/GrowthLobbyAndAbsence-Newman-2002.pdf

The 248 pages at the core of the document give a very interesting historical perspective to the situation we now face.

The gold rushes of the mid 19th century spurred a real estate speculative bubble similar to what we see today. Just as they do now, speculators subdivided the Australian colonies and hoped for population growth to deliver them unearned fortunes at the expense of existing residents, new arrivals and the natural environment.

That ended with the crash of the 1890's.

After the crash, people refused to have large families and the numbers of immigrants dwindled.

During the early 20th century the growth lobby influenced legislators to introduce all sorts of measures to control women's fertility, such as requiring births to be registered at hospitals and taking control of childbirth (and abortions) largely out of the hands of midwives and giving it to male obstetricians.

Of course they worked their hardest to encourage immigration to Australia, but failed until after WW2.

(Interestingly, with a population of 7 million in the 1940's Australia was one of the most technologically advanced nations in the world. It established self-reliance and was able to deter the Japanese from invading even before their setback at the "Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942. This is the thesis of Andrew Ross's monumental but neglected "Armed and Ready" of 1995 as discussed in my article "The myth of the Howard Government's defence competence" of 21 November 2007 at http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6665&page=0 so there was no actual imperative to dramatically increase our population after the war, contrary to the popularly accepted myth.)

Sheila Newman is also editor of "The Final Energy Crisis" (2nd edition) which I cannot recommend too highly. It shows how we cannot hope to sustain a perpetual growth economy ... (tobecontinued)

Being and Nothingness

(continuedfromabove) ... given the constraints of our limited endowment of fossil fuels. At some point we will exhaust our supply of solar energy conveniently packaged for us over many tens of millions of years and will have to return to living off what solar energy falls on the earth's surface using solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, etc.

It is obvious that we won't be able to sustain the same population with the same material consumption that we are used to.

For more about "The Final Energy Crisis" visit http://candobetter.org/TFEC http://candobetter.org/FinalEnergyCrisis

My review is at http://candobetter.org/node/938

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rpg wrote, "I have no issue with bringing more people to Australia, we can convert the deserts in time, ..."

If you had been following the discussion in the wake of the bush fires, you must surely have noticed hysterical anti-environmental voices effectively calling for the removal of trees around houses as a 'solution' to the bushfire threat.

So, rather than converting deserts into forests, it would seem that we will be converting forests into deserts to accommodate population growth.

When and how do you imagine that we will commence converting desert back into forest or arable land?

Don't you think we should first wait until we have established that we can convert deserts back into forests before we further increase our population?

Ironically, it is those now pushing for out of control population growth, who are destroying whatever capacity this country now has to support any population remotely comparable to its current population.

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Mark O'Connor will be launching his book "Overcrowding Australia" in Brisbane this week, starting at:

The Redland Performing Arts Centre Auditorium on

On Friday 20 February at 4.30pm (refreshments served from 4pm).

For other appearences, see http://candobetter.org/node/1030#OverloadingAustralia-QldLaunch http://candobetter.org/node/1067

(BTW, contrary to the mistaken impression that erricc may have, I am not a member of Sustainable Population Australia (SPA) even though I fully support its goals and will do what I can to support it when it advances those goals, such as by promoting the above meeting.

I was a committed member for three years until May 2008.)

Sancho wrote, "Oh, and in case you haven't been keeping up, the former, Liberal, government increased immigration to the highest level ever. ..."

Sancho, do you happen to approve of the current situation in which majority of Australians who oppose high immigration are not represented in Parliament by either of the major parties?

Bob Hawke once boasted that he had enforced 'elite as opposed to popular views on immigration.' (O'Connor and Lines pp104-105). From what you have written I imagine that you would also heartily approve.

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Efranke, I am also concerned that Australia could end up becoming a Chinese colony in more ways than one. I will definitely try to obtain a copy of "The Howard Legacy". Thank you for telling me about it.

In my adolescence I once overheard two elderly women talk about how it would not be them the younger generation (presumably referring to me) who would have to face up to the threat of China. Of course the alleged threat of China had been used in the 1960's to justify our unjust war against Vietnam.

However in the decades since then, the threat has changed from one conjured up by Cold War propagandists to one that seems very real.

I just heard on the news just now that the Chinese are snapping up mining companies at 20%-30% of their market value only a year ago.

According to the Courier Mail's story "Chinese bid $2.6bn for OZ" of 17 Feb 09 at http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25065827-3122,00.html about Beijing-base Minmetals bid to take over Queensland mining company OZ (which was formed out of a marriage of two companies Oxiana and Zinifex):

"... it promises to be a major policy headache for the Federal Government, as the Foreign Investment Review Board struggles to balance Australia's national interest with the need to maintain good diplomatic relations with China."

(tobecontinued)

(continuedfromabove)

So in other words, we appear to have lost much of our national sovereignty as the Australian Government hesitates to prevent a buyout of our mineral wealth for fear of offending our powerful neighbour to the north.

I think Malcolm Fraser and all his successors should be put on trial for having allowed this to happen.

I wonder how John Curtin, Ben Chiefly or those who fought to defend this country during the Second World War would regard this generation of political 'leaders' who appear bent on giving away our sovereignty as fast as they can manage?

I will be standing as a candidate in the Queensland state elections, largely against population growth.

For more information see "Why I am contesting the Queensland state elections as an independent" at http://candobetter.org/node/1121
Contents:
End privatisation - stop the liquidation of Queensland,
End Queensland Government encouragement of population growth,
Demand action against homelessness and housing unaffordability, Labor's coal exports - a crime against this and future generations of humanity,
Why a vote for me is not be a wasted vote,
To intending Labor voters:,
To intending Green voters:,
To intending Liberal National Party voters:,
What you can do.

See also http://candobetter.org/QldElections http://candobetter.org/QldElections/MountCoot-tha

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James Sinnamon
author