Australia has a housing crisis caused by a failure of the housing stock to keep up with population growth and the dramatic increase in the price of housing over the last 4 or so years. This is a problem for young and economically disadvantaged Australians. Not only is it difficult for them to buy a house, but the failure of the market to supply demand means that rents are also rising as well.

My rent in Coorparoo in inner city Brisbane has increased 10% this year, but it is not an inner city effect. When I comparison shop on realestate.com.au it is hard to rent a decent two-bedroom unit for less anywhere in the state.

Worse, at the same time, the Reserve Bank is increasing interest rates to deal with inflation, part of which is created by rising rents and mortgages. The effect of these rate increases is to make investment in housing less attractive adding to the problems of supply.

However, part of the problem is the 140,000 migrants who came into Australia last year. Even assuming a ratio of 4 per dwelling, this creased demand for 35,000 extra houses and units making it even more difficult for the housing industry to keep pace.

So, one solution to the crisis would be to decrease the immigration rate for a couple of years. Studies show that immigration has very little positive or negative effect on the economy, so it wouldn't affect GDP, but it would improve the standard of living of the rest of us by taking the pressure caused by increasing rents and mortgages off.

The more people who are affected by stupid, unnecessary immigration, the sooner pressure will be brought on politicians to start thinking about a population policy for Australia. They don’t listen to reason or common sense; they have to learn the hard way, usually when it’s too late.

Sadly, I think that the political agenda is being set by those interests benefiting from immigration. What disturbs me is that if immigration provides no net per capita benefit, then any profit for one can only come at the expense of others. This would make politicians in favour of immigration default supporters of economic parasitism.

It's not a zero sum game Fester. The reason that migrants make little difference to per capita income, but are welcomed, is because they increase the overall size of the economy. So some industries do well servicing their capital needs, because they need to re-establish themselves here, while others diminish because of the redirection of capital, but overall there's not much difference. One study said there was a small net benefit, and another a small cost.

And migration brings people at a particular stage in their lives who have skills that we lack, so they facilitate some industry that otherwise would experience capacity constraints.

Thanks for opening up this discussion, Graham.

The Courier Mail is full of stories of housing shortages and yet it continues to promote interstate immigration into Queensland and migration into Australia.

I have been unsettled by the question of immigration for decades, but have felt very constrained, unitl very recently, to raise my voice against it because it has been considered a taboo topic.

As I have already mentioned in another thread (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#55050), can I recommend an excellent Masters Thesis: "The Growth Lobby and it's Absence" by Sheila Newman? It shows how a growth lobby representing property developers and land speculators has successfully lobbied for population growth in Australia since the 1970's, whilst France has achieved population stability and maintained housing affordability for its own residents over the same period.

It is available from the Swinburne University of Technology at http://adt.lib.swin.edu.au/public/adt-VSWT20060710.144805/index.html or here: http://www.candobetter.org/sheila

GrahamY

On a per capita basis it is a zero sum game or close to it, so I believe my concern well founded. You might also note whether the immigration studies considered the infrastructure costs that would be born by the comunity to support an increasing population; the PC Report on the economic impact of immigration did not. This would make it a negative sum game on a per capita basis, and would well and truly make any profit parasitic in nature.

Yes...good to see this topic opened up !

Some key words in Grahams posts are 'INFRASTRUCTURE' needs. Look at us in Melbourne... stage 4 water restrictions.. water related debates in every state.. and dare I say it.... the FIRST point on the ONE-NATION immigration policy was.."population based"...... so apart from any other whacky economic policies they might have or have had..THAT one was a beaudy.

I suggest, as an alternative to immigration, a long term approach.

1/ Increasingly facilitate the growth of FAMILIES... more children born here. (go forth and multiply, be fruitfull..fill the earth and subdue it. Genesis.)
2/ Scale back immigration as the newly fertile generation has more children and they grow to work age.
3/ Expand infrastructre in line with point 1 and re-shape it also to be more 'renewable' based.

My daughter and her partner are finding Rent opportunities are very limited with landlords very picky.

Graham,

There are benefits to the people at the top from a larger economy but not to the rest of us. (Would you rather be an average person in Denmark or China?) Finland only has 5 million people, who don't even speak English as a first language, low population density, and very little immigration or population growth of any kind. It is near the top of the pops on the UN Human Development Index and the World Economic Forum Competitiveness Index. The ratio of the income of the top 10% to the bottom 10% is 5, as opposed to 13 in Australia and 17 in the US. A similar point can be made from comparisons with other countries. We are getting the mass migration (and pro-natalist measures like the baby bonus) because the elite want bigger markets, more effortless profits from property development, and an oversupply of labour to keep the work force cheap and compliant. A more diverse population also helps to undermine support for the welfare state.

According to a recent study by Ingrid Linsley, 'Causes of Overeducation in the Australian Labour Market', nearly 30% of Australians are overqualified for their jobs. 16% of the working age population is on welfare as opposed to 3% in the 1960s when we really did have full employment. Where there are shortages of skilled labour it is entirely due to failure to train by government and the private sector.

The Productivity Commission report did not consider damage to the environment or quality of life. Over the past 10 years State of the Environment reports have shown every environmental indicator apart from urban air quality getting worse. More crowding and congestion, losing one's garden, seeing the real cost of houses (in terms of the median wage) triple, and putting up with permanent water restrictions don't make people happy.

DB,

Like many people, you are assuming that Australia needs more people, perhaps because it looks big on the map. However, only 4-6% of it is arable (depending on whether you include cultivated grassland, see CIA World Factbook). If you don't include the grassland, the amount of arable land is about the same as for France. Most of that land is quite marginal by French standards. Our environment is deteriorating, and our coastal waters are getting fished out. According to ABS figures approximately 2 babies are born and one net migrant arrives for every death. The fertility rate we have plus a modest amount of immigration is more than enough to maintain the population at any desired level. Australia isn't going to run out of people any time soon. Why not leave a bit of habitat for the other animals and plants that share the environment with us?

BOAZ_DAVID, you should read SMH journalist Paul Sheehan's article "We Fiddle as the Continent Turns to Dust" posted at http://www.smh.com.au/news/scorchedearth/we-fiddle-as-the-continent-turns-to-dust/2006/10/22/1161455605817.html if you believe that this continent is short of people. It is overpopulated already and will be even more so, if we don't act very soon to stop the desertification of our agricultural land. Paul Sheehan writes :

"We are creating deserts out of farmland. And when the rains do come, heavy rain will bring problems, not just relief. An enormous amount of topsoil is sitting dry and exposed, vulnerable to run-off. ...

"The 'great water crisis' was four years - and 17 columns on the subject - ago. Tim Flannery's seminal warning 'The Future Eaters' was published 12 years ago. The crisis has since quickened and broadened. It is affecting food prices. It should soon bite as deeply on the psyche as oil prices. And it is being compounded by global warming.

"Yet most people still talk about the "drought." It is not a drought. It is climate change. We changed the landscape. We cut, stripped, gouged, channelled and laid it bare. And thus changed the climate. How can we solve a problem when we can't even name it, and thus still can't even face it?"

Graham, I believe you forgot to net off the exports, those who seek a better life overseas because poor ol' Oz is getting so crowded. Most of them probably went to the wide brown land of YouKay with its vast open spaces, to take their place alongside the massed ranks of Polish plumbers.

I think you will find that the net increase (balance of immigration/emigration) in the last year was close to 109,000.

But you get the expected knee-jerk reaction. The usual suspects are back.

I see daggett is once again promoting Shiela Newman's questionable piece of hackwork, stretching our credulity yet again. I expect we will see Kanga any moment now, promoting (in a purely disinterested capacity, of course) the same tired thesis.

What we are witnessing in terms of net intake is well within the capacity of the country to absorb. As Graham points out, the impact on GDP per capita is negligible, which indicates the process of absorption is at no cost in the broadest sense to us as individuals.

>>to decrease the immigration rate for a couple of years... would improve the standard of living of the rest of us by taking the pressure caused by increasing rents and mortgages off.<<

That would be true only if it were immigration that is the primary cause of the rise in prices, which I don't believe has been proven.

A major cause of the increase in price is in fact our greater ability, and willingness, to pay. Until interest rates move higher, there is a considerable incentive to continue to invest in property - while the debt on it is "cheap" to service. We are simply prepared to allocate a higher proportion of our income to the question of where we live, because we still have the readies left over to spend on plasma screens and a new car every couple of years.

Fear of immigration is simply another weapon brought into play by the "we were here first" brigade, without a single thought to its long term implications for our country and its social and economic future.

Why should mass immigration be the status quo? The benefits are far from proven, yet many of the population growth proponents are quick to dismiss climate change on the basis of a lack of evidence: Why the inconsistency? Surely the consequences of overpopulation are far worse than a population within Australia's means? What would Pericles be proposing to fix an overpopulated Australia? Shooting people perhaps? (Some people might even see such an action as a chance to improve the breeding stock.)

I for one am sick of seeing Australia degraded via high immigration for the sake of profiting a few at the expense of all Australians. And as for being racist, the logical direction to point the finger is at the mainly white Anglo-Saxon old males who control the policy.

Pericles wrote: "What we are witnessing in terms of net intake is well within the capacity of the country to absorb."

What is your basis for saying this?

All major cities are running out of water. We are expecting power blackouts in Queensland this summer unless people can be persuaded to not set the settings of their air conditioners too high. Moreton Bay is filling with silt, as I have already pointed out on a previous thread (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53620). Brisbane's roads are congested. Brisbanes's public transport is overloaded. More and more Australian wildlife species are threatened as their habitats are destroyed.

And, of course, there is the acute shortage of rental accommodation, which is the topic of this discussion.

How do you define what is "well within the capacity of the country to absorb", what is just "within the capacity of the country to absorb" and what is not?

High immigration (and high population growth in general) is certainly a causal factor of ridiculously high property values, that mean 40-year mortgages for the average person purchasing the average house, ridiculously high rents and ridiculously high rates for those who do own their own homes.

These things strike right at the core of concerns for the average person…. and yet the number of people concerned about population growth / immigration seems to be so small.

There are many other negative aspects to our relatively high rate of pop growth that vastly outweigh any positives. Some of these are bleedingly obvious to all of us, such as continued rapid growth in SEQ, Sydney, Perth, etc while water resources are critically stressed and a continued rapid increase in greenhouse gas producers while the push is on to reduce our GHG emissions.

The various concerns are well-expressed repeatedly on this forum.

So, why hasn’t mainstream Australia rallied against high pop growth and in favour of a policy of stabilizing our population??

This is the great mystery.

Ludwig

I would suggest that the democratic process is being subverted. Politicians have publically acknowledged pursuing high immigration against public opinion on the basis that they are acting for the public good. The false assertion that all opponents of high immigration are motivated by ignorance and racism is also heavily pushed to shut people up. But people do have their say sometimes. Look at the French and Dutch referendums held earlier this year: Despite heavy "Yes" campaigning by the major political parties and the media, the "No" vote prevailed. And the ultimate insult was a lamentation by politicians and in editorials about the prevalent racism and ignorance in the community, and the need for education on these issues.

After The French and Dutch examples, it is very unlikely that democracy will get a look in on a population policy in Australia.

Graham Young wrote: "Studies show that immigration has very little positive or negative effect on the economy, so it wouldn't affect GDP, ..."

The GDP is not an accurate measure of prosperity. Simon Kuznets, who devised the GDP measure in the 1930's for President Roosevelt's administration, never intended for it to be used in the way that it has and spent his latter years trying very hard to stop GDP figures being misused in the way that they are by some on this forum. I think that The media release of Sustainable Population Australia of 19 January 2006, in relation to the Productivity Report, that you are referring to is relevant. I have put a copy here: http://www.candobetter.org/population/spa-mediaRelease-19jan06.html

Below are some excerpts:

(The then SPA National Vice President and former Democrats Senator) Dr Coulter claims that beyond that the Productivity Commission Report is flawed.

"Both GNP and GDP count many costs as benefits adding them to the index rather than subtracting them. The report draws attention to the increased population adding to congestion and pollution but fails to recognise that the costs of ameliorating these adverse effects will appear in the national accounts as additions to, rather than subtractions from, GNP and GDP."

Dr Coulter says that as these costs loom larger as a component of GDP the contrast between this index purporting to show an improvement in 'standard of living' and the recognition that quality of life is actually deteriorating will become more stark.

"There are already many studies showing that since the mid 70s there has been a growing divide between an increasing GDP and a falling quality of life but the Commission seems ignorant of this work. It is very likely that had the environmental penalties of increased population been properly costed by the Commission and subtracted from the predicted GNP, it would have discovered that this corrected GNP would fall and the economic effect would not be 'benign'", he says.

Daggett, the Coulter piece is very confusing. I'm not sure that he really disagrees with me - all I am saying is that increased immigration does not alter per capita GDP much, and in which direction is highly contestable. I'm not going to get side-tracked into an argument about whether GDP is a good measure or not.

The facts that matter here, and which presumably support what you are saying anyway, is that immigration is forcing the price of housing up contrary to government policy in other areas, which leads to a perverse situation where government policies to push demand for housing down and therefore prices can't have that effect because government policy in other areas is acting to push prices higher.

Graham, you wrote: "I'm not going to get side-tracked into an argument about whether GDP is a good measure or not."

But, clearly Pericles, echoing arguments put by Australia's growth lobby, does maintain that the GDP figures indicate "the process of absorption is at no cost in the broadest sense to us as individuals." (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5400) This is illustrative of how the GDP figure, as well as our flawed measurement inflation which has not even included housing costs since 1999, is used as a trump card with which to dismiss any objection to immigration policies and to any other harmful government polices.

It is precisely because John Coulter anticipated such a misuse of these findings by the Productivity Commission that he made those statements (see, again, http://www.candobetter.org/population/spa-mediaRelease-19jan06.html).

Simon Kuznets, who originated the GDP measure, warned in 1934: "the welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred by a measure of national income as defined above" (cited in "Economia" by Geoff Davies, p23). If we look at the evidence contained in the other posts of how immigration has harmed our standards of living, as well as our prospects for long term sustainability, it seems fairly clear why Kuznets made that warning.

I therefore doubt very much if Kuznets, if he were with us today, would accept Pericles' argument.

If we are to accurately assess the impact of immigration on our standard of living, including our access to decent affordable housing, we must come up with a better measure of prosperity than the GDP.

Until we do, we should stick with the facts, and with measures which do have some bearing on the questions at hand, such as that provided by divergence above (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5395), that is, in terms of median wages, the cost of housing has risen by thre times in recent years.

daggett, once again you are very selective in your choice of supporting statistic.

>>Until we do, we should stick with the facts, and with measures which do have some bearing on the questions at hand, such as that provided by divergence [Productivity Commission State of the Environment Report] that is, in terms of median wages, the cost of housing has risen by thre times in recent years.<<

The same report states the following:

"Over the decade since 1993/94 the floor area of new houses in the capital cities has continued to increase. In 1993-94, the average floor area of new houses built in Australian capital cities was 196 square metres. In 2002-03, the average size was 235 square metres. Data for the first three quarters of 2003-04 indicates the average size of new houses is still increasing (239 square metres).

While the floor area of new dwellings has continued to increase the average household size has continued to fall over the last three decades. The average household size which was 3.3 in 1971, fell to 2.8 in 1991 and decreased to 2.59 in 2001...

The living area available per person per household has increased by nearly a third over the decade since 1993/94."

If housing is an affordability issue, why is the living area available not decreasing over time, instead of increasing, as it consistently has been? Surely, we would be building smaller, more "affordable" living spaces, instead of spreading ourselves out?

Does this not indicate a conscious choice by consumers, rather than a conspiracy by jackbooted capitalists?

Pericles,

Floor area has increased, but those small, basic 1950s and 1960s houses are still selling for several hundred thousand dollars within commuting distance of the major cities. In the 1970s, approximately 30% of the cost of a modest house represented the value of the land, and now it is 80%. It is true that construction costs have not increased in real terms over this period, but this is a relatively minor part of the cost. Ask the homeless (practically nonexistent 30 years ago) and mothers who are forced to leave babies to go back to work if this is a change for the better. According to Lester Thurow 1% population growth means that 12% of GNP has to be diverted into public and private infrastructure to accommodate it. This obviously has a cost in terms of services to existing residents.

It is true that the real cost of electronic goods (and cars) has come down. This is used to make the CPI look better, as the falling cost of these goods can be used to offset and conceal the rising cost of such things as dental care or fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, so far as housing is concerned, the CPI only considers construction costs, not the cost of the land the house is built on or the cost of buying an established house.

You are ignoring environmental and quality of life costs in your assessment that everything is rosy. Here is just one example. If you are old enough to remember the situation 30 years ago, go into a fish market. You will see that species that were cheap and abundant have disappeared or become expensive luxuries for the rich.

VIETNAM, IRAQ, IMMIGRATION/ASSYLUM SEEKERS.

We know from experience that when we involve ourselves in half baked wars of loyalty to the USA, which are rarely 'finished' that there follows a FLOOD of assylum seekers who are those who (to us) cooperated or "collaborated" (to the Insurgents)with our efforts.

This is a situation where the concept of 'human rights and moral responsiblity' as understood by many on the Left of politics which could ruin our country forever. If we, by virtue of our creation of such collaboraters then denied them entry to Australia as the insurgents seek their blood, we look bad. But then, as we see our political,cultural and social situation destroyed, we look (and are) stupid.

NO SPECIAL TREATMENT for those Iraqis who ally themselves with us, (and who conveniently forget that alignment when they are asked to do the hard yards and take out some insurgents of their own tribe).

They KNOW who are the insurgents, and could take them out NOW if they had the will, so its not 'our fault' that they might be left holding the baby when we leave. They have the weapons, and the training and the tribal and kinship connections.

POPULATION
The reference to our population and sustainability is certainly a big factor with which I agree actually.

I've just returned from a family get2gether and my civil engineer cousin living/working in the Woodonga area reports they are pretty much 'out' of water. The idea of draining Lake Mokoan is beyond rediculous because it is supposedly to replace the water taken to refill the Snowy River. How many times can you drain a lake ?

It takes a LOT to get my larrikin cousin thinking and ACTING politically, but this has.

Ludwig asked: "So, why hasn't mainstream Australia rallied against high pop growth and in favour of a policy of stabilizing our population?"

This is one of the core questions addressed by Sheila Newman's Master's thesis, I referred to earlier (downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila). I

It boils down to the fact that, whilst the benefits of immigration are shared by very few in our community, the costs are borne by the rest of us. Those who stand to benefit, that is property developers, land speculators, bankers, suppliers of building materials, immigration agents and lawyers, etc, have organised themselves into very effective and vocal lobby groups to promote their interests and to thwart the wishes of the broader community. This stands in contrast to France, where, because of the different land use planning system, that is one coordinated centrally by the government instead of the chaotic mess we have in this country, no sufficiently powerful group stands to derive any substantial benefit from high immigration.

It is a most readable document in my opinion and well worth the trouble and expense of having all 380 pages (190 if double-sided) of it printed out. The core of it is 248 pages long.

This document will answer your question and will go a long way towards explaining a lot else of what has been going in in this country for at least the last three decades.

If you read Pericles' post (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5400) in this thread or in numerous posts he has made in the earlier thread (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#54879) in response to Andrew Bartlett's article "A crisis in housing affordability" of August 2006, you will learn that he doesn't share my view of Sheila Newman's work. However, you will have to look harder than I was able to if you wish to find any substance to Pericles' objections.

Daggett, you're all over the place. No-one's devised a more rigorous or better measure of national wealth than GDP, so when talking about national wealth, it's reasonable to use it. My argument is that if that is neutral, which it is on the account both of expert reports in favour of high immigration and those opposed, then there is no compelling reason not to look at other factors. Your argument about GDP doesn't take us anywhere.

(Thurow's argument appears to neglect the fact that money circulates, that countries can borrow, and that immigrants increase resources, including assets - because they bring some with them - and income - because when they get here they work. All of these factors contribute to immigration having a negligible effect one-way or the other. If immigration really were a wealth hazard, then the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would be amongst the poorest countries in the world. That they aren't, empirically destroys the argument that you are trying to put.)

Your contention that there is a conspiracy here to promote immigration which doesn't exist in other countries is wrong. There are vested interests in all countries, including France, who stand to benefit from immigration. The biggest group is those immigrants already here who want friends and relatives to be able to come out as well.

Certainly real estate developers and financiers benefit, but they'd benefit anywhere.

Another reason that the migration rate is so high is that we have a shortage of skilled labour which is being filled from overseas.

Graham, it seem as if you have not understood my previous posts. Many, including Pericles here do use the GDP measure to wrongly depict circumstances to be more favourable than they actually are. Pericles is trying to argue that, on balance, that per capita GDP figures prove that we are, overall, no worse off, than if we did not have high immigration. This implies that if we have lost because of higher housing costs, we have gained in other ways that negate that loss.

So, is he right or not?

The GDP is not a "rigorous ... measure of national wealth". It has not taken into account the "other factors" that have adversely affected our standards of living as a consequence of high immigration and natural disasters and road accidents are counted by the GDP as adding to national prosperity.

Why do you believe that Simon Kuznets, himself, the person who devised the GDP measure, warned against it being used a s a measure of national prosperity?

Graham wrote: "There are vested interests in all countries, including France, who stand to benefit from immigration."

So why do you think that these countries ended their programs of high immigration in 1974, whilst Australia persisted with its program?

Whether or not we call it a consipiracy, the evidence of the undue influence that the growth lobby uses in order to maintain high immigration levels is to be found in Sheila Newman's thesis.

Daggett, if you want to argue you have to be able to put the arguments yourself - not suggest I go and read someone's thesis. GDP is rigorous because it counts things that can be counted and measured. Some of the things that you appear to want to put into the measure are impossible to quantify. What is the "bad" that accrues from a car accident? How do you measure it?

I wouldn't agree with Pericles that we are better off than we were just because GDP has gone up, but I subjectively agree with him. We're certainly a richer society, and you can measure that on the basis of GDP, and it's really immaterial what you say Kuznets might or might not have thought. Just because he invented a measure, it doesn't mean he's the only person entitled to a view of what it means.

I've got no idea why the French ended their policy of high immigration in 1974, if in fact they did. There seemed to be a lot of immigrants burning parts of Paris earlier this year.

Graham,

Of course the fraction of GNP that goes to accommodate population growth is worth it if the population is below the optimum. If this were the case, then GNP per capita would be increasing significantly with population. It isn't. If you think mass migration and high population growth is a net benefit then you need to explain why the Nordic countries are doing so well without it. Our thesis is that certain groups derive handsome economic benefits from population growth and can buy their way out of much of the downside, others don't lose in economic terms, but do suffer from reduced quality of life, and still others suffer both economically and otherwise.

In the US, GNP per capita has gone up since the country was opened up to mass migration in 1965. However, the median wage has been stagnant in real terms since 1973. *All* of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the folk at the top, although many families have maintained or increased their income by working longer hours. The minimum wage is worth less in real terms than in 1960 when Eisenhower introduced it. It is worse to be in the bottom 10% in America than in any other OECD country, and worse in absolute, not just relative terms. (See the graphs at the Economic Policy Institute site, www.epinet.org). According to George Borjas, Professor of Economics at Harvard, unskilled workers took an 8% cut in real wages between 1980 and 2000 due to immigration alone (and more due to other factors). See www.borjas.com.

Our viewpoint is hardly fringe. The Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org) reports a 2006 poll. People were informed about expected population growth and asked what a one third increase in the population of their community would do to their quality of life. Answer: 34% much worse, 31% somehat worse, 21% no difference, 6% better, and 1% much better. 68% wanted immigration cut and only 2% increased. 70% thought that there would be plenty of Americans to do unskilled work if pay and conditions were improved.

Graham,

No, I wasn't expecting that you go off to read all of Sheila Newman's thesis yourself. I was pointing out that there was hard evidence for my assertion that Australia's growth lobby exerted undue influence.

I am perfectly happy to put the arguments up myself, although it needs to be said that the limits imposed by Online Opinion have often made it hard to do this. I trust that if ever do try to get around this again in order to make a lengthy and involved argument, I won't find my posts arbitrally removed, without warning, as has once occurred.

You stated : "I've got no idea why the French ended their policy of high immigration in 1974, ..."

It is explained on pages 100-101 of the thesis (downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila):

"In Australia, where immigration remains high, despite quite substantial public disapproval about this, the costs seem too diffuse to mobilise and focus any wide-based and influential section of society, whereas the benefits have given rise to an active, well financed, highly organised lobbying business sector - notably the private land development and housing industries - seeking a bigger local market. During the era of massive industrialisation in France, employers in manufacturing eagerly courted mass immigration, but changes to industry requirements, plus free movement within the EEC, were to eliminate the benefits focused in this area. With the Oil Shock of 1973, after which 'worker immigration' was stopped throughout the EEC no such organised group rose to defend high immigration, with the short-lived exception of the ... National Federation of French Employers (CNPF). Patrick Weil attributes France keeping her borders open for one year longer than Germany to CNPF lobbying. But as the recession bit, the CNPF also became silent. In fact there is evidence that advice from the then head of the CNPF influenced the man who initiated the immigration policy changes in France. This failure to protest at the closing of the borders to immigration is almost certainly because no organised group in receipt of narrowly focused benefits from high immigration existed any more in France."

Graham wrote: "What is the 'bad' that accrues from a car accident? How do you measure it?"

The economic activity resulting from a car accident is considered by the GDP measure to be just as much a benefit to the national economy as if an equivalent amount were spent, for example, building a bus shelter.

Whilst, in general, there is a very rough correlation between a country's prosperity and its GDP, there is enormous scope for harm to our wellbeing to be concealed behind GDP figures.

On at least two levels, immigration causes harm to the interests of those who already live here, without it being accurately reflected in the GDP measure. The obvious way that it harms us is that there is now less natural resources for each person in the country. Another way is the dis-economies of scale caused by crowding ever more people into the same land area. Have a look at the terrible traffic congestion in Brisbane and the enormous expense that Brisbane residents will now have to go to in order to 'solve' this with the North South Bypass Tunnel (http://www.notunnels.org), the Hale Street Bridge (http://www.stopthehalestreetbridge.org) and other projects. The cost of the NSBT has blown out from the original estimate $900 million at most to $3billion. Also, the estimated cost of the planned Ipswich bypass has doubled. How is it that when Brisbane was less crowded we could build the necessary transport structure easily and without forcing motorists to pay tolls to travel across Brisbane?

In a few years time, Pericles, will, no doubt, be able to cite GDP figures as further evidence of the 'neutral' or 'positive' economic impact of immigration and population growth as its park benches overflow with the homeless and as a gridlocked Brisbane chokes to death on car exhaust.

I have heard a Swinburne population expert say that when you look at the migration of the 1950s the major beneficiaries were the factories like Ford, General Motors etc that employed the migrants on their production line. The ministry of housing provided housing for the workers and the state built schools to educate their children.

There may be a shortage of rental property in some parts of Australia but other parts of Australia have a glut of housing stock. While we live in a free market its up to the individual investor to make decisions about whether its better to buy investment property in Brisbane, Perth or Melbourne or Sydney or stuff his money under his mattress.

Daggett, you've never had a post arbitrarily removed, although it might have been without "warning" if it breached the rules, if you don't think that posting clear rules on the site doesn't constitute a warning.

If the rest of Sheila Newman's thesis is as illogical as the excerpt, just as well I haven't downloaded it. The reason that there is no lobby appears to be because there isn't a need, not because there aren't groups who could lobby. The oil shock depressed the economy, made unemployment high and therefore made immigrants unnecessary for immigration, and immigration unattractive to those looking for work.

But that doesn't mean that France doesn't have an immigration policy, or receive immigrants. It does - and the scheme looks remarkably similar to Australia's. They had around 100,000 new entries in 2001, and they actively look for highly skilled professionals, just like we do. Our intake is higher per capita, but then, we have a shortage of employees. If we didn't I don't think that land-developers and real estate agents would be nearly as convincing.

With respect to the car accident example, most of the GDP benefit from the accident is from remediation. All objects wear out, and someone has to fix them. Accidents are part of the process of wearing out in some cases, and I can't see why you should take objection to the income that is earned fixing or replacing them being included in the GDP.

And all of this is a side-track from my original contention that you should wind immigration back, at least until the housing stock catches up, which I suspect we mostly agree about.

I was digging trenches for the building trade when the news broke that Hong Kong was going to change hands to China. I met a builder who was spending 1mill $$Aus per year for an HongKongese Rice im/exporter.You read it right 1million aussie dollars per year!!
What happened to those dollars you may well ask? Well that builder was at a lot of auctions with a fat purse outbidding most young starters/first home buyers,with the result of buying and providing a house for a lot of hongkongese who could stay in the house whilst the builder would build a house in the back. (dual occupancy as we know it)
When the new house was built the people from the front went to the back to live and the old house was sold or rented out to the next hongkongese family.So it went on and on,understand what a million can do per year to the firsthome buyer market? If you bid on a house which at that time would have been worth (the land) 150.000 and you bid 210.000 it would increase the overall price wouldn't it? To the hardworking ozzies it must look like this country is being raped and bled dry and yes ..I am also suffering from the same fate. It almost pays to be racist.

Graham,

You keep saying that there is a shortage of workers, but where is the evidence for it? We all know that the unemployment figures are fudged, just like the CPI. People who work one hour a week count as employed. There was a report in the Sydney Morning Herald earlier this year claiming that real unemployment is close to 17%, including the underemployed, involuntary early retirees, etc., and welfare dependency figures are well up from times of genuine full employment. If an employer refuses to train he cannot then howl that there are no skilled workers available.

Pericles also cites fudged immigration figures. When the figures are calculated refugees don't count, even those we invite. New Zealanders don't count, nor do people from third countries who use New Zealand as a stepping stone to get to Australia. Foreign students who study approved courses in Australia can get their student visas changed to permanent resident at completion, without ever entering any migrant quota. There are people on so-called 4 year temporary visas that are routinely renewed. I think he will find that the real numbers are closer to 200,000 than 100,000. We have a 1.3% population growth rate, giving us a population doubling time of 53 years.

I think you both need to consider whether the corporate glove-puppets we laughingly call our politicians are boosting population, not because of some nebulous benefits to the country, but because it benefits the rich people who "donate" to their re-election campaigns.

Graham, you wrote:

"With respect to the car accident example, most of the GDP benefit from the accident is from remediation. All objects wear out, and someone has to fix them. Accidents are part of the process of wearing out in some cases, and I can't see why you should take objection to the income that is earned fixing or replacing them being included in the GDP."

That is precisely the point!

If cars were to be built that could last twice as long before requiring repairs, then logically we would be better off, but the GDP measure would show us as being worse off. (Of course should find other ways to gainfully employ the mechanics that would then be surplus to our needs, but that is another matter.)

It was not myself who first raised the GDP measure in this discussion. As I wrote earlier:

"Until we (come up with a better measure of prosperity than the GDP), we should stick with the facts, and with measures which do have some bearing on the questions at hand, ..."

Graham, you wrote:

"Daggett, you've never had a post arbitrarily removed, although it might have been without 'warning' if it breached the rules, if you don't think that posting clear rules on the site doesn't constitute a warning."

Here is the e-mail you posted me on 7 February 2006:

"We have deleted two of your posts. They were deleted because they appeared to be an attempt to circumvent the rule which allows for only two posts on any one thread in a day and 5 across the entire site. ...

"By posting your first part on one thread and then posting another two in the series on another thread not only did you try to circumvent the rule, but you also put material on another thread that wasn't on topic.

"Could you please refrain from doing this in future? I'm not going to apply a penalty this time."

Note I had not breached any actual rule, other than having allegedly made an off-topic post onto one thread. On that thread I was directly responding to a point made by another contributor. My post had links to a continuation onto another thread where my post was directly relevant, where I had hoped further discussion would continue.

What is wrong that?

In any case, why wasn't it possible for you to have simply first raised your concerns with me and made any warnings you felt necessary, instead of making assumptions abaout what my intentions were and then, with no warning, deleted the posts I had taken a lot of care to write? Do you really think that if you had insisted that what I had done was counter to OLO policy, I would have done so again?

We are still left with the problem of how those of us who would like to put argmuments which are lengthy and involved can do so, where the implied or actual OLO rules don't allow this.

How do you suggest this be done?

(http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5493): "But that doesn't mean that France doesn't have an immigration policy, or receive immigrants. It does - and the scheme looks remarkably similar to Australia's. They had around 100,000 new entries in 2001, and they actively look for highly skilled professionals, just like we do."

You are comparing peaches with pineapples. The 100,000 figure you would have referred to would be mostly temporary visa holders. They also would have to obtain a separate work visa.

A friend of mine, who is a fluent French speaker and who has lived in France, tells me it would be practically impossible for him to stay there permanently, unless he married a French national. Not nice from his point of view, but quite understandable from the perspective of most French citizens who don't want the many good characteristics of France, including still affordable housing, being ruined by a huge influx of foreigners as is now happening in Australia.

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billie (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5491), where would these gluts of housing stock be right now? I know that for while, back in 2004 people who had invested in high rise apartments in Melbourne lost value in their investments for a while, but I also recall on "Australia Talks Back" in May 2004 an economist from the Real Estate Industry talking of how a further increase in immigration would fix the problems that their 'industry' was having at the time (as I have mentioned already at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#53462).

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eftfnc(http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5501), thanks for this information. The scams entailed in property speculation and 'skills migration' these days are breathtaking and completely belie the 'warm inner glow' hogwash behind which population growth advocates hide.

As I said Daggett, you weren't removed arbitrarily or without warning. In fact, you got several well-reasoned paragraphs explaining why you had breached the rules.

But reason doesn't really seem to be something you're too concerned about. Your argument on GDP proceeds on the basis of anecdotal evidence, authority from someone's honours thesis and non-sequitur.

The 100,000 figure was gathered from here http://www.brookings.edu/fp/cuse/analysis/immigration.htm and looks to me like it is referring to genuine immigrants, despite your anecdotal friend who "proves" it can't be.

The reason for the OLO limits is to ensure that as much as possible as many people can participate and that they think hard before making their comments so as to meet the word limit. I think it generally works well. Certainly better than the original free-for-all where the site was quickly being swamped by those who had time on their hands.

Governments win power or lose it based on the state of the economy(the hip pocket nerve). Governments have also stated that the sale of houses drives the economy. People who buy houses need to also purchase all the white goods, furniture, carpets and hundreds of other fittings that go with a house without this the economy stagnates. No government is going to allow this to happen and be voted out. So politicians favour immigration.

The lack of skilled tradesmen in this country is a massive lack of foresight by government who should have been trading tradesmen and making it compulsory for businesses to do so. But they thought they could save money by importing people who had their training already paid for overseas.

The white shiny shoes seem to think they run the country but it is actually the tradesmen who keep everything running. I remember a doctor being interviewed who had spent 6months in the antartica who said that the most important one in the group wasnt herself it was actually the man who kept the generator running because if it failed they would have had no warmth and no food and would have died.

The same is true of our society. It is the tradesmen who literally keep the lights on and the airconditioning and the toilets functioning in our hospitals and so allow the staff to function and save lives.

The public service and white collar sections of our society need to keep this in mind that the tradesmen in an emergency could keep everything running, trains, buses etc. whereas when things started to break down the white collar workers wouldnt have a clue.
The tradesmen in this country have been grossly desrespected and underpayed by white collar pen pushers who overestimate their importance over the tradesmen.

correction to the above post.
I meant training tradesmen not trading them. A typing error. sorry.

Graham,

Regarding the 100,000 figure, I think you need to have a closer look at the post your referred to (http://www.brookings.edu/fp/cuse/analysis/immigration.htm). Further down, it states:

"Yet it should be emphasized that one quarter of the foreigners who have entered France since 1990 have since left the country (220,000 out of 850,000 entries since 1990)."

... and above it states :

"Since 1973, immigration policy in France has focused primarily on stemming and deterring migration. This contrasts with the United States, which welcomes large numbers of labor and family migrants. And unlike the United States, where organized business and ethnic interests have lobbied for expansive immigration legislation, France has no organized interest groups advocating greater immigration. Moreover, socioeconomic restructuring and economic downturns since the 1970s have meant that French employers have not needed (legal) foreign labor, ..."

Hardly "remarkably similar to Australia's" I would have thought.

If we were to substitute "Australia" for "the United States" in the above paragraph, I would suggest to you that this exactly confirms Sheila Newman's thesis. Your high-handed dismissal of her work that you appear not to have understood does you little credit.

You wrote: "In fact, you got several well-reasoned paragraphs explaining why you had breached the rules."

They were not well-reasoned as I have shown and you have not responded to the substance of my complaint.

You wrote: "But reason doesn't really seem to be something you're too concerned about. ..."

How about leaving your own value judgements of the quality of my contributions out of this and leave it for others to decide?

You wrote: " ...Your argument on GDP proceeds on the basis of anecdotal evidence, authority from someone's honours thesis and non-sequitur."

It appears that points about the GDP measure have gone right over your head. If you want to seriously maintain that we can say that we are becoming wealthier and more prosperous through immigration because the GDP 'proves' it, then I think it will reflect more poorly on your own credibility, rather than mine.

Sharkfin,

I haven't checked it myself but believe that I have read somewhere that if population had grown at 1% for the past 10,000 years (less than both the global growth rate and that of Australia) that humanity would now consist of a solid ball of flesh extending past the orbit of Saturn. Growth has to stop sometime, and it is better that we stop it while there is still something left to save. Some European economies manage very successfully with a stable population.

As one example, there is a unique species of lungfish in the Mary River in Queensland, a living fossil related to the first creatures to come out on land. The Australian reported yesterday that it is set to be wiped out when the Queensland government builds a new dam to accommodate the growing population of SE Queensland. Nearly 7,000 scientists have signed a petition asking for it to be spared, but that counts as nothing next to profits for the white shoe brigade.

We will either get control of the growthist population boosters or they will not only wreck our quality of life, but trash our environment, security, personal freedom, and social cohesion as well. Depriving ordinary folk of gardens, imposing permanent water restrictions, and introducing truth-is-no-defence religious vilification laws is only the start.