“Must disagree with you. While I commend your outlook, I think you are making the most of a bad situation. 2 hours commuting! You probably justify that by saying other people travel further, take longer or cost more. I feel sorry for all those in that situation and the underlying problem is PEOPLE, too many.”

If there were more people where we are two hours north of Sydney maybe hubby and son could find jobs in the IT industry here Banjo.

It’s not the immigrants it was the house prices in Sydney three years ago.

“Every plane load of immigrants erodes our way of life a little more and the politicians do not care.”

I didn’t swim here dude.

You don’t want more immigrants cause then you have to turn right? Do you live in the middle of a city Banjo? Cause your descriptions seem to be all about lack of land and stuff… Aussie might be bigger than you think.

“We have been blessed with abundance and we are currently splurgeing that by bringing in more and more people.”

Abundance, you seem to think there is no abundance and one more plane load will take Aussies last blade of grass out from under you.

“We are the most generous and stupid people on earth in giving away our heritage.”

Hmmm… You’re not sounding too generous right now and you don’t have to give away your heritage, just bloody share it. This isn’t the Rift Valley, you are all immigrants.

You beauty, Maximilion. I raised this with a Chairman of a major mining company in Sydney this morning. He was also incredulous that if what I am saying is right, and it is, that we could have been conned so thoroughly for 23 years. I am absolutely certain that if this was tested in a fair just and impartial tribunal of fact, they would find as fact that we have a Bill of Rights.

I am currently arguing with one of the Chief Justices about the “Kable Principle” established in 1996, ten years later. Four High Court Justices agreed, that we had to keep the courts, in the good working order they were in, in 1900.

This decision could easily have been decided by reference to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and S 109. Kable was discriminated against by State legislation enacted by the Parliament of New South Wales. They passed legislation to gaol him indefinitely without jury trial. Two law professors, both of which I was lectured by, Professor Paul Fairall, and Professor Neil Rees, wrote an article in the Bond Law Review criticizing the legislation. The High Court was moved to consider it, and on the 7th and 8th December 1995, in one of the first High Court transcripts published on the internet, the arguments advanced there were made available to everyone. The decision itself is on the net too.

My argument nowadays is that a court, without a capital letter, as used in the Constitution, is a universal catholic church, in which we should all be entitled to worship, and a Court is an exclusive club, run for lawyers, by lawyers, and has been illegal ever since the first one was created by bad Statute law. A Court is a type of Sharia Law, institution whereas a court with a Justice and a jury, is Christian, as a manifestation of the Holy Trinity. The words in S 79 Constitution do not allow any other court. I may be a Christian, but that has not blocked out my logic chip or closed my mind.

Peter the Believer,

Way too esoterically legal deep for me to argue either way emphatically but I wonder if some of what you say isn't a bit like 'thunk tank'logic i.e. starting from a conclusion (your views of the courts and the initial constitutional statutes) and working backwards.

Either way I wonder how this is going solve the real problem here.

Max,
One could debate your inn being full analogy. It could be be construed in terms those in a 6 star Hotel refusing to house some poorer people because it may mean the exclusivity is lost.

The whole immigration argument seems to be predicated on Horus' two seemingly juxtaposed camps of perceived self interest. The one flaw in his argument is that all nations change as does their cultures. Perhaps ironically speaking that is the only constant with 'nations'
It seems to me therefore Waring to maintain some contemporary view of a culture is as pointless as King Kanute's command to the sea.(a la Banjo et al).

Change will happen regardless if we want it or not.

Therefore the matter at hand can be seen in terms of being faced with an catastrophe like an impending meteor collision only the meteor is our manner of existence. We all change or we all will go extinct it's all a mater of time. In that context what does it really matter where we live when the crash comes.

Agreed, that is a might melodramatic but in essence IMO what we as a species is facing is that stark by comparison.

Then again I could simply ignore it because no doubt I'll have been converted to my basic elements by the time it does anyway.
Notwithstanding I do have hope for future generations. After all they would have to work hard to exceed the disasters of my 'we're gonna change the world for the better' generation.

Max,
One could debate your inn being full analogy. It could be be construed in terms those in a 6 star Hotel refusing to house some poorer people because it may mean the exclusivity is lost.

Yes, one could, as long as one didn't remove one's rose-coloured glasses.
While you argue cogently, you start from a premise that all change is inevitable, apparently. I say, yes, change is certain, but we can choose, to a degree, and we don't need to surrender everything to the winds of time.
Our reality is that of a nation on the brink of exceeding it's capacity, whichever way you look at it. Must we leap from the cliff-edge just because there will be change anyway, or can we stop, pause, and decide which way to climb, up or down?
Our forebears didn't sweat and bleed that we might give this great island away on a whim, or consign their children to history's dusty halls. We are here because of what they endured and achieved, we owe it to they and our descendants to honour their efforts, and make our own in our turn, however unpleasant that might be. No-one here wanted to fight the Second World War, but they did, and bled and died, and sent their sons to cast their lives away on foreign soils, that we might sit and debate these things in peace. Would you spit on their sacrifice, for the sake of an ideal that ignores the basic facts of real life?
They were immigrants, and the sons and grandsons of immigrants, but they believed in their cause, and in Australia, and gave of their blood that we might be a proud strong nation, and I for one will not see that go quietly into the dark!
That is NOT the Aussie way!

Jewely,
Has it occured to you that if there were even more people you may have had to buy your home further away from hubby's work or that hubby may have had to take a lower paid position closer to where you could afford.

You say it is not immigration but Sydney house prices that forced you into being 2 hours away work. Immigration has an effect on house prices. Lets say we have immigration of 200,000, with 4 persons per house there is a demmand for 50,000 homes just to acomodate those immigrants each and every year. With most wanting to be in our major cities and along with the demand by our young for homes, it is this demmand that escalates prices of homes.

Yes we have an abundance of many things, like beaches, moderate climate, minerals, fish and open space. But these are not infinate and we also are short on some things. Good productive fertile land and water are 2 things we are short of.

Talk to your kids about our geography and ask why our population is on the coast, and the East coast mainly. West of the dividing range the rainfall drops off and thus limits production. Watch the daily TV weather reports, especially ABC, and see where the rainfall mainly is.

All the examples I gave are indicators of the impact of more and more people and were chosen because most can relate to them. There are other more complex indicators like soil salinity, etc.

I am very generous and in my community we all help each other. But one cannot help another if you are not on firm footing yourself. I want all our kids to be able to walk or ride bikes to school. It indicates something is very wrong if you have had to escort your kids to school, carrying a bat. Too many people again.

If you like Aus to a lifeboat and you keep pulling survivors into the boat. If you don't stop when the boat is full then the boat can sink and there is another catasrophy.

Doesn't necessarily follow, Banjo.

>>Jewely, Has it occured to you that if there were even more people you may have had to buy your home further away from hubby's work or that hubby may have had to take a lower paid position closer to where you could afford.<<

Those are only two of many possibilities, Banjo.

Another would be that the cost of accommodation in cities will encourage the establishment of more businesses in outlying centres. With the massive improvements in communications capability over the past few years, it is much easier than ever before to move a business out of the city.

This will, over time, create the same problem again in the regional centre, but - hey, that's just progress.

>>With most wanting to be in our major cities and along with the demand by our young for homes, it is this demmand that escalates prices of homes.<<

This is a circular, and illogical argument.

People "want to be in our major cities" because that's where the jobs are.

It would be simplicity itself for a city to say "that's enough, no more businesses here", if their existence was in fact the root of the housing problem.

But it isn't.

And it doesn't have to be left to legislation either, since supply and demand go hand-in-hand. If I were to set up a business in an area which my staff found too expensive to reach, I simply wouldn't have a business.

>>I want all our kids to be able to walk or ride bikes to school.<<

Of course you do. It's what I did when I was a kid.

But that was in London, so clearly it has nothing to do with population size, or density.

(n.b. London is a large city in the northern hemisphere)

>>It indicates something is very wrong if you have had to escort your kids to school, carrying a bat. Too many people again.<<

No. Non sequitur again.

Your need to "carry a bat" is independent of the number of people.

Admit it, Banjo. You just don't like dem furriners, do you?