Sibba "partTimeParent - Do you know why my migrant parents were "dumb"? Because they had to leave school at age 10 to work. "

Sorry Sibba, I don't assume YOUR parents were dumb. individually.

The problem with PUBLIC POLICY is that you MUST generalise. There are always going to be exceptional CIRCUMSTANCES and exceptional INDIVIDUALS that are THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE.

But POLICY and LAW must be based on what is generally the best for the voting public.

To let in 1000 people who are destined to be dole bludgers (and their children and grandchildren and future decendants) just in order to allow one really clever person to come in is a bad POLICY GENERALISATION. To let in 100 bludgers for 800 contributers is a good compromise. To quote Howard we want to choose who and by what means people come into this country.

Curiously, it is the THIRD generation that really shows the nature of a cohort of immigrants. The first generation have valuse from their childhood countries, the second generation are born in the shadow of their parents and often also wirk exceptionally hard due to parental pressure... but it is the third generation that really shows results... rates of welfare dependance, of marriage outside their own migrant/religious group, their integration, their education and incomes... the best generalisation (generalisation!) for how these third generation migrants will adapt is IQ.

sorry for what you call bigotry, and I call rationality.

Are all the people who wish to have a continued migration to this extent willing to go out to the middle, northern and western parts of Australia and make it fertile so the population numbers postulated can live? OR DO YOU WANT TO LIVE IN ANOTHER THIRD WORLD and don't give a rats?

This country is not a green, fertile continent. It is not the fertile Americas.

While you are all arguing about how many and how easy, do you intend to work hard in the future to enable that number of people to live here decently and make this country a place that is able to cope. Are you? Or are you all just city dwellers, buying food from supermarkets without the slightest idea of how or where this comes from? Get real.

Are you willing to work and see that your children are willing to work for this country in the future, to keep it as great as it is now? We did in the past.

You are gonna have to work hard. Have you thought about living in over loaded rentals with more and more grid lock on the roads. Is this what you want? Don't wish too hard you might just get it.

Of course Australia can house 35 million people if the appropriate infrastructure and 'green' technology keep pace. It's a big if, but it can be done.

However, very few politicians and commentators have the guts to ask the Australian people two fundamental questions;

1. Does culture matter to you?
2. How do feel about being a cultural or ethnic minority in your homeland?

I grew up in Hurstville on the south side of Sydney. In the 1990's it stopped being a European suburb, let alone an Aussie suburb. Because I don't speak Chinese or Cantonese I felt culturally isolated and thereofore emotionally compelled to move to another part of Sydney where the language and cultural symbols are familiar to me. I am sure that there are many 100's of 1000's of Anglo/European Australians who feel the same way.

And so, the important point is this. Having ones 'home' suburb, and accompanying life-memories repeatedly obliterated by non-Western immigration is a sure way to destroy the morale of an individual. On a national scale it destroys the morale of the nation and creates a whole host of sociological problems.

Ironically, we need look no further than our own Aboriginal population as an example of this. Overseas we can see the plight of the Palestinians, Tamils, Tibetans, and Uighurs. Speak to Saudis living Jeddah, or Arabs living in Dubai, and they will relate stories of dislocation.(I lived in Middle East for 3.5 years).

Do Australians want a population of 35 million, but (relatively) few or no Australians living in its two oldest cities, Sydney and Melbourne? What a horrific thought. Just ask an Aborigine or a Palestinian.

Culture matters.

Immigration celebrationists tend to be some of the most dogmatic people on the face of the planet. No matter how many times you demolish their specious arguments, you can be sure that the same immigration celebrationists will be back to repeat the same old cliches, half-truths and fallacies at the very next opportunity.

Jacob Varghese's inane article is a case in point. In a few paragraphs, he trots out all the old, discredited arguments in favour of high immigration, repeating the same old line that mass immigration is wonderful and anybody who disagrees is either a far-right Hansonite or a far-left green zealot.

For example, he tells us that "only the most reactionary would argue that the Australia of 1969, population 12.5 million, was a better place to live than the Australia of 2009." Yet, by nearly all objective measures, Australians had it better in 1969. Housing was more affordable, working hours were less, our cities were less congested and polluted, crime rates were lower, communities were stronger, social capital higher, national cohesion greater etc. No wonder why so many older Australians pine for the good old days.

Perhaps Varghese's most asinine argument comes in the form of the claim that "no matter how much we like to whinge about our “over-crowded” cities the rest of the world seems to love them." As another poster pointed out, the (third) world likes our cities preciously because they are not (yet) as over-crowded as the places where most of today's immigrants come from - the mega-slums of Asia. Yet if immigration-driven population growth continues at its current frenetic rate, Australia's cities will eventually come to resemble such over-crowded Third World dumps. Obviously there are limits to how many people how cities can accommodate before quality of life is irreparably degraded.

Rick S and rstuart i commend both of you who are able to share the opinions of many regarding immigration. And challenging those who attempt to put words in your mouth aka

Cheryl

"like your anti-populationist, anti-black, anti-Muslim, anti-Vietnamese, Catholic, Irish, anti-humanist and anti-capitalist supporters, hate people who don't look like you, eat like you or AGREE with you"

Without boffering on about the political side, i also cannot deny my eyes when i see

- homeless people
- the unemployed
- the social isolation
- Culture onclaves (which are far from pretty, maybe they should make one in Brighton)

Idealists are dangerous with this setting.

(Continued from above...)

Varghese asserts that "immigration brings very real and tangible benefits to very real and tangible people." But does it bring real and tangible net benefits to the existing Australian population? Varghese doesn't bother to ask this question.

Yes, immigrants themselves benefit enormously from immigration, especially if they are coming from the Third World. Big business also benefits from immigration, as it means more customers, cheaper labour, and minimal training costs. Ethnocentric minorities benefit from the importation of more of their own kind, and the ruling ALP benefits from the rapidly growing 'ethnic' vote. But the existing Australian population does not benefit from immigration. Rather, they are forced to bear a number of unpleasant economic and social costs.

Whether or not current immigration policy is in the national interest or the interests of the majority of Australians evidently doesn't matter to Varghese. According to him, we are obliged to accept continued mass immigration on the grounds that we are all descended from people who came from somewhere else and thus have no right to close the doors on others.

However, since every nation could be called a nation of immigrants (or a nation of invaders) if you go back far enough, consistent application of the principle that a nation of immigrants must be open to all future immigrants would require every country on earth to open its borders to whoever wanted to come. But, strangely, only Australia is said to have this obligation.

It is also blatantly unfair to make the factoid that "we are all descended from immigrants" our sole guide to national immigration policy, when there are so many other important and true facts about Australia that could also serve as guides. For example, since its inception, Australia has been a member of Western civilisation, with its people and culture being derived predominantly from the British Isles. Why shouldn't that little historical facs be at least as important in determining our immigration policy as the pseudo-fact that we're all "descended from immigrants?"