As the Howard Government's record high immigration intake levels are essentially being dictated by big business, the nation's property developers, real estate agents, investment bankers, and construction companies must be licking their parasitic lips with glee. But what about the rest of us?

Thanks to these high immigration levels, the average Australian is already facing the prospect of water shortages and record low levels of housing affordability. Many argue that in terms of ecological sustainability, Australia has reached its human carrying capacity, and socially, if immigration continues as is, Australia will end up a broken nation, divided along ethnic and cultural lines. How does this benefit the majority of the population?

Aside from the obvious economic benefits for the above-mentioned vested interest groups, there is no economic rationale to justify this huge increase in the size of the foreign-born population. Last year's Productivity Commission report showed Australians’ per capita income would be only 0.06 per cent higher if we had 50 per cent higher skilled immigration over the next 20 years. This does not include the economic costs incurred by the environmental degradation associated with a larger population. In reality, merely growing bigger will not make us smarter. Innovation and productivity are the keys to global competitiveness, not supercharging the domestic property market by importing people en masse. Unsurprisingly, the World Economic Forum consistently rates nations with smaller populations than Australia, such as Finland, Switzerland, Sweden and Denmark, amongst the most competitive in the world.

As for Peter Costello's aging population scare campaign, a 1999 parliamentary research paper entitled "Population Futures for Australia" tersely states: "It is demographic nonsense to believe that immigration can help to keep our population young."

Nevertheless, the Coalition seems intent on growing Australia's population at all cost through excessive immigration and tax churning "baby bonuses". Labor leader Kevin Rudd is yet to declare his stance on immigration and population. Can Labor wrong-step Howard's two-step on immigration? Or will Howard be able to once again convince the public he is tough on immigration while surreptitiously opening up the floodgates even more?

Australia's doing fine, compared to some of the countries people immigrate from. Isn't poverty, disease and famine across the globe a bigger concern than the economics of this one country? I'd like to think Australia can help out, even if its to our minor detriment - there's more important global considerations. To think any other way is...well, kinda selfish I reckon.

MELBOURNE's water is at 32% and each day it gets worse..and each day I go for a walk over Dandenong Creek which is NOT flowing..at all.

We need more people ?

yep..we do...like another unintended hole in the HEAD.

Water... will be the key to our sustainable population future.

Jesus said "Without me, you can do nothing" and we can apply this to Water.. without it.. we are nackered.

One sad aspect of Democracy, is how such crucial issues as water are politicized for points sake, rather than solved for OUR sakes.

I honestly wonder if the political number crunchers are weighing up how many votes they might lose by diverting some promised funding for a barrel of pork somewhere and into better water management.

There is a solution..and its a Christian one.. "REPENT" .. Its the only one I can offer, because the alternative is all based on greed,... filling the pocket or vote with some service or project and that is sure not going to have the result we need, though it might keep certain people in power for a bit longer.

grrrrr

Spendocrat, your concerns are not at odds with the stabilization of population and the achievement of sustainability in Australia.

In fact just the opposite is true. We won’t be able to contribute anything meaningful towards world poverty if our society becomes significantly more stressed or implodes, which is exactly where it is heading with high immigration.

A few things to consider:

For the migration issues, there may well be benefits to be had from reducing our migrant intake, I suppose that to me, Ludwig's sustainability arguments are much more compelling than the cultural ones so many posters are concerned with.

The problem I have with the initial post is thus:

Oligarch refers to 'big business' being one of the groups that need migrants - I'd say the needs of big business and small business largely fall into the same boat. They both need skilled employees.

Now while I suppose you can refer to business in Australia as a special interest group, I think that designation divorces it somewhat from the crucial reality, which is that pretty much everybody is reliant on business for their very livelihoods. If business fails, we're all screwed. And skill shortages are a very real threat to our economy.

So, in my view, cutting immigration simply because we think it's bad is a stupid idea - looking at ways to make the proportion of migrants be skilled workers however... well, that's a damn good idea.

And we can't necessarily discount the unskilled migrants, as many of them are from backgrounds with very strong work ethics - they'll take up the challenge of being trained and becoming productive members of society.

While there may be merit in revising migration amounts, to suggest that all will be fine and well if we cut it altogether... that's being disingenuous.

We have this skills shortage despite the high immigration amounts the author lays at the feet of the Howard government.
I can only imagine how acute it would be if we weren't taking migrants.

Australia's unemployment and underemployment rate is much higher than the published 5%. Australia doesn't have a shortage of workers, it has some very picky employers who want to employ people with exactly the mix of skills they are looking for, not the potential to learn new skills.

Australia's population should be limited to a level that the continent can feed and water.

At the moment the large supermarkets ship food all over Australia, so when you buy a mango in Cairns, it may have grown just up the road, but its been shipped to Melbourne through the Costas warehouse then taken the road trip back to Brisbane, cooled in the Queensland distribution warehouse before being sent up to Cairns.

That's madness! we don't have unlimited fuel and we are importing migrant truckies to drive at super cheap rates.

If we don't manage the water supply of the Murray Darling Basin the residents of Melbourne and Sydney will lose their meat, fruit vegtables and dairy product.

Meanwhile we force the rural poor to move to population centres to keep receiving their dole and farmers struggle to get pickers when the fruit and vegetables need harvesting. I am not sure how punishing it is now to move on and off the dole while you pick up seasonal work but I bet its really punitive.

There seems to be an assumption by the "stabilize our population" brigade that there is just a single pie available, and if we all keep quite still and don't grow any more, we can keep taking the same sized slice of pie and all be happy ever after.

But it isn't quite like that. We all get older, for one thing, so there will never be a "stable state".

But let's give a moment's consideration to the proposition that population stability is a desirable goal.

How would this be achieved?

Assuming that one ingredient would be "stop immigration", what would be the remaining requirements?

Limit the number of offspring, perhaps.

Who would be "allowed" to procreate, and who forbidden? Would we be issued at birth with a voucher for 2.18 children (or whatever the sustainability factor is), and be imprisoned for overachievement?

Would we perhaps be allowed to trade our unwanted "offspring tickets" on the open market?

Who would police this, and what penalties would apply?

I, for one, would be out of here like a shot, even though I am unlikely to further trouble the scorer, progeny-wise. Can you imagine the kind of police state that would be needed to support such a policy?

So even if we were to say "no more immigration", the proposition is against every kind of civil freedom that have been fought for over millennia.

It has to be said also that a total closing of the doors will attract all sorts of unwanted attention. Let me predict just a couple of outcomes of such an inward-looking and selfish policy.

The level of illegal immigration will rise dramatically, creating an exploited underclass, as the USA has been experiencing for many years.

The likelihood of economic sanctions, even open aggression against us, will increase, as we advertise to the world our adherence to the ancient British slogan "I'm all right, Jack".

I'd prefer to live in an open, generous and innovative country, for whom a problem such as this is seen as a challenge to be met and overcome, rather than one to flee from.

I am suprised

check my immigration policy

www.tapp.org.au

Pericles, do you accept that immigration should be for the benefit of the people already here? To censure those opposing the ridiculously high current levels of immigration is like arguing that a passenger already on board a lifeboat should refrain from pointing out that taking on more will cause it to capsize. 140,000+ people per year (the population of Townsville every year) is excessive by international standards, even with the self-inflicted skills shortage.

"So even if we were to say "no more immigration", the proposition is against every kind of civil freedom that have been fought for over millennia."

Absolute piffle. In fact, I would argue that to ignore the dangers of high immigration violates every notion of government accountability and responsibility to the people of Australia. By your definition, every nation in the world other than Australia, Canada and the United States must be "inward-looking" and "selfish" based upon their immigration intake levels.

Oligarch makes an excellent point in calling for real examples to support claims. Zimbabwe would meet many of Pericles' criteria for a jackbooted police state, though the regime has had support from it's near neighbours. But I would really like to see a description of how Japan is hated internationally, is an economic basket basket case, and a social and cultural Hicksville as a result of its citizen's opposition to high immigration.

I never see high immigration being advocated for the purpose of undercutting wages, maintaing inflated housing costs, and allowing huge profits to be derived from the sale of shoddy constructions, yet I suspect this to be the main reason. If the costs to the population are greater than the profits derived from high immigration, then those profits are essentially parasitic. The evidence so far supports this view.

>>Pericles, do you accept that immigration should be for the benefit of the people already here?<<

Good question.

I accept that immigration *policy* should be determined by the people who live here. And I believe that that policy should reflect our willingness to belong to a wider community of countries, rather than sit here on our own contemplating our overfed navels.

I would point out that of the folk who have immigrated into Australia over the past two hundred years, not one of them came in order to make their lives worse. Improving their lot in life was their overriding priority, and one that was respected and accepted by those already here.

Except for the very first Europeans, of course. They just said to hell with it, this is where we want to live. Right?

At what point did we all suddenly become parochial and inward looking? We are all either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. It is not as if you can suddenly decide that ok, this lot have been here long enough to stay, and that's it. The world simply doesn't work that way.

We are whether we like it or not a part of the world around us, and we cannot simply shut your eyes to this reality and hope it will go away.

“…there will never be a stable state".

It depends how you define it Pericles. My vision of a stable state is one with a dynamic balance between resource demand and provision where the overall extent of demand is well within the ability of the environment to support it. A stable state certainly doesn’t imply stagnation.

How would we achieve population stability?

Very easily in Australia, by reducing immigration to net zero or less. With our current fertility rate, the population will stabilize of its own accord in about 40 years. Of course, we should also demand the abolition of the awful baby bonus and perhaps the implementation of financial incentives designed to have the opposite effect.

It is very easy in Australia. But of course vastly more difficult in many other countries and the world overall.

Your fears of a loss of civil freedom due to population control in our country are unfounded. The opposite is true; rapid population growth will lead directly to the implementation of ever-more restrictions and the reduction of freedom.

The immigration doors wouldn’t be closed entirely. In fact with net zero immigration, we could still accommodate 30 000 or more per annum.

What would you like to see us do with respect to immigration Pericles? Would you like us to just continue to have an intake of the order we have now? Would you like our borders to be entirely open? Do you think it is ok to allow huge numbers of people into southeast Queensland, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, etc when there are clear and ominous problems with water supply?

TLTR asks:
"We have this skills shortage despite the high immigration amounts ...I can only imagine how acute it would be if we weren't taking migrants"

I question whether the skill shortage is a deep as it is made out :
1) We’ve recently seem examples where guest workers are preferred because they are cheaper & don’t ask too many questions about conditions & safety.
2) We’ve seen examples where totally superfluous/ unnecessary skills are sought for positions ( the classic example being advertisements seeking a HSC for sandwich hands) -but it’s much more pervasive than that, &
3) We’ve probably all had experiences of working with 'skilled' migrants who turn out to be duds & merely add to the low skilled pool or in a short time the social welfare queue.
.
When you consider the total picture -it may be more economical ( for the nation) to upgrade our own pool of unskilled than import. Importing a worker is not just +1 or a Pandora’s box of flow-on benefits as the pro-immigration advocates would have us believe. If you import a worker , you also import their partner & children, their mother & father ( who in most cases will never work here but will in short order collect social welfare) , ultimately their brothers & sisters & their partners ( & more if they divorce & remarry) & all of them will be entitled to everything you’re entitled to, plus more being more “needy“ or “disadvantaged” [ & then there are the social costs -which may last for generations]…

Be honest, Ludwig, that's all a bit vague and woolly, isn't it?

>>My vision of a stable state is one with a dynamic balance between resource demand and provision where the overall extent of demand is well within the ability of the environment to support it<<

It's a theory, I suppose. But how does it translate into real life?

More specifically, how will we know that we have reached this stable state?

The problem with your theory is that you are - quite naturally - unwilling to contemplate the full spectrum of consequences of the actions you need to take in order to bring about your "stable state".

>>...reducing immigration to net zero or less<<

Less than zero, Ludwig? You are prepared to export some citizens in order to achieve your goal?

Interesting. How would you do this? I'll let you into a secret, we don't have a convenient railway line that will take them into Poland.

>>What would you like to see us do with respect to immigration Pericles?<<

I think we have the balance about right at the moment. It certainly doesn't appear to have done any harm to our economy, which seems to be bounding along even with the intake of new blood that you seem to think is excessive.

Do you not accept that this economic growth might be "because of" this intake, rather than in spite of it? They seem to have accepted this in the US, where moves are afoot to make 800,000 Mexicans, presently deemed illegal, US citizens.

People come here to improve their lives. They tend to be honest and hard-working, as immigrants over the centuries have tended to be. They pay taxes, contribute to the economy and the vitality of this country.

It is fair to say that the numbers should not get out of hand, but a sensible number that enhances our economic performance and thus provides a more secure future for all, is not unreasonable.

>>I question whether the skill shortage is a deep as it is made out <<

Horus, I can only speak for the IT industry, where there is an acute and growing shortage of talented software developers.

The dilemma that this presents us with is actually quite interesting. Do we say, the heck with it, and outsource software development to India, the Philippines or China?

Or do we encourage those talented folk to emigrate from their native land, and make their homes here? Instead of us paying their employer in Bangalore or Shanghai, they will live here and contribute to the local economy with their taxes and their general economic activity. Buying stuff.

We gain the benefit not only of better-controlled software projects, but an increase in the depth of local know-how which puts us on a more competitive footing with the rest of the world.

It's only one small corner, but I'd prefer to see a net inflow of IT skills, than watch our home-grown talent disappear to lucrative opportunities in Europe and the US, forcing us to import "finished goods"

Before any immigration programme is started we need a population goal and our major political parties have neglected this. They have played politics, by promising family reunion and so on, to gain the ethnic vote and at the same time allowing high immigration to satisfy the big business demand for increased sales of consumer goods. Business gets a growth in sales without having to compete with each other and cares little about a drop in our living standards because of over crowded cities.

We, the electors, should demand that the political parties put forward a population policy which we can asses. Consideration of our living standards, resourses and infastructure have to be made. It is plain crazey to keep bringing lots of people in without a goal in mind.
What should our population be? Tim Flannery says 10 million and Malcolm Fraser says 50 million. All aspects have to be assesed.

The place to start is with a population goal. Then tailor our immigration to suit.

One thing for sure. We will not solve the worlds population problem if we over populate here. Our economy will fail as in other countries. We cannot help other countries if we are not viable.

In relation to importing skilled workers. What right do we have to go poaching other countries skilled workers. Most countries that we get them from need them far more than we do. We should have an obligation to train our own. I see this as a failure of our Governments and business. Great, but unfair, if businesses can get others to train workers and then snavelle them.

It is well beyond time that the whole matter was looked at closely

Pericles wrote:
"Horus, I can only speak for the IT industry, where there is an acute and growing shortage of talented software developers."

Perhaps Pericles might cast his mind back a year or two when the immigration of Information Technology workers was undermining IT wages and destroying the incentive for Australians to pursue a degree. This also had a flow on effect in damaging undergraduate training in Australia.

http://www.brainbox.com.au/brainbox/home.nsf/$all/3925E0D68069441CCA257138004586F5?opendocument

I have a problem with free trade advocates as they generally desire to profit from the contango of living standards between nations. The Australian IT industry provides a good example of how the system works.

Pericles I don't know why you think there is a shortage of talented IT specialists, in my experience there is an oversupply of IT professionals.

In 1999 Alexander Downer was happy to be quoted recommending IT jobs be offshored to India.

In 2000 only 20% of IT graduates were able to get employed in IT. The Sydney Morning Herald will not permit this information to be published in their pages or on their blogs.

In 2005 Evan Thorley the joint founder of Looksmart who is now a Labor senator in Victoria said that IT professionals should get over it, all IT jobs were going to be offshored.

There are enough studies that show most Australians have to work longer, spend more time commuting for the same pay as they would without immigration.

Pericles, polls have consistently shown that Australians want a reduction in immigration intake levels, not an increase. Furthermore, I'd like to know how our navals are overfed in terms of water resources or even arable land. The grass is hardly greener down under.

Importing the globe's poor en masse is not going to solve the world's problems. It will only make life worse for the people already here in Australia in the form of water shortages, environmental degradation, housing shortages, social tension, ethno-cultural division, increased consumption of finite natural resources, further pressure on infrastructure and public services, increased carbon emissions, more urban sprawl and a range of other economic, environmental and social ills.

If we really want to assist the world's poor, we should be aiming to mitigate the "push factor" from Third World countries through higher levels of foreign investment and economic development.

"At what point did we all suddenly become parochial and inward looking?"

Again, by your definition, nations like Finland and Sweden must be "parochial" and "inward looking" due to their low immigration levels. Do you honestly believe that? Frankly, Australia should be aiming to bring itself to the world, rather than importing people in some insular attempt to bring the world to it.

"We are all either immigrants or the descendants of immigrants. It is not as if you can suddenly decide that ok, this lot have been here long enough to stay, and that's it. The world simply doesn't work that way."

The truth is that all nations are comprised of immigrants if you go back far enough. Your assertion that a nation's resident population is not permitted to oppose further immigration is an absolute nonsense.

Last time I checked, Australia was a nation-state — a sovereign structure that is the political expression of a specific cultural group. To disparage old-stock Australians as essentially transplanted Brits or Irishmen completely ignores the dominant role they played in forging Australian nationhood. Those who built this nation surely have the right to decide who comes here.

Compared to most other developed nations, Australia has been very welcoming in terms of immigration. Yet, at some point we must be allowed to point out that "lifeboat Australia" is nearing carrying capacity. Otherwise, we all drown.

Woolly?

Not at all Pericles. A steady state system is one that still has plenty of dynamism and room to move, to just about the same extent as we now have in Australia. The only essential difference is that the population and pressure on the resource base and environment are not constantly increasing and threatening to tear apart our social fabric. So let’s replace your word “woolly” with ‘dynamic’.

Crikey Pericles, what is the alternative to a dynamic steady state? Even if you think we can grow a whole lot bigger, you must surely see that sooner or later it all must reach a limit.

“…how will we know that we have reached this stable state?”

It will be very difficult to know when we have reached the true point of balance, especially within a dynamic and very complex system. But we will be able to tell when we are no longer depleting any potentially renewable resources, are weaning ourselves off of the non renewable resources and onto renewable alternatives and are well on the way to mending our environmental problems. There are thousands of indicators that will tell us when we are on the right track, which are now telling us that we are wildly off-track.

“The problem with your theory is that you are … unwilling to contemplate the full spectrum of consequences”

Perhaps you could devote a whole post to what you think the consequences of population stabilization and of continued high immigration are. Clearly we who advocate much-reduced immigration do so out of great fear of the consequences of high immigration.

“Less than zero, Ludwig?”

Less than net zero, which simply means that more people would emigrate than immigrate each year. You seem to think that there is something highly draconian and sinister about this. Not in the slightest. But you can bet your bottom dollar that the more we stress our whole society by way of blowing out the resource demand and supply ratio, especially where basic resources are already severely stressed, the more restrictive and draconian it will become for all of us.

continued

“I think we have the balance about right at the moment.”

What balance? The one with critical water shortages in all our major population centres, where there is still unfettered population growth! Oh right, that balance!

Besides, “at the moment” is not the way to think about this issue. It needs to be seen in the long-term perspective.

Incidentally, you didn’t directly address the questions that I put to you last time;

“What would you like to see us do with respect to immigration Pericles? Would you like us to just continue to have an intake of the order we have now? Would you like our borders to be entirely open? Do you think it is ok to allow huge numbers of people into southeast Queensland, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, etc when there are clear and ominous problems with water supply?”

“Do you not accept that this economic growth might be ‘because of’ this intake, rather than in spite of it?”

Yes our economic growth is due partly to this intake. But we shouldn’t be looking at gross economic growth as our main indicator. We should be considering per-capita economic growth or rather; per-capita quality of life factors, as well as equity of distribution.

“It is fair to say that the numbers should not get out of hand, but a sensible number that enhances our economic performance and thus provides a more secure future for all, is not unreasonable.”

Indeed! But let’s be very careful about basing everything on economic growth and think about just what economic “performance” really means. An ever-larger economy, where the per-capita slices are on average no larger, and the distribution less and less equitable, is not going to secure our future.

Horus:

Again, by your definition, nations like Finland and Sweden must be "parochial" and "inward looking" due to their low immigration levels. Do you honestly believe that? Frankly, Australia should be aiming to bring itself to the world, rather than importing people in some insular attempt to bring the world to it.

---

Funny... I heard the argument that Sweden was suffering from a massive influx of Iraqi refugees putting a strain on their system. This was an argument tendered from an anti-immigration viewpoint.

I now hear an anti-immigration viewpoint citing sweden for the opposite reasons.

If you're suggesting we should be more Swedish in our migration policies, are you advocating we bump up our refugee intake?

Billie observes:

>>Pericles I don't know why you think there is a shortage of talented IT specialists, in my experience there is an oversupply of IT professionals<<

Billie, I specifically said "talented developers", and - in Sydney at least - they are in extremely short supply.

>>In 2000 only 20% of IT graduates were able to get employed in IT<<

I have absolutely no idea where you got this number, but I can only say that this was not evident at the time, to any employer that I had contact with.

But the point about offshoring is valid. It has to be one of the most shortsighted and wilfully perverse strategies ever to pollute the IT industry. It doesn't benefit anyone locally at all, not even the companies that adopt it.

But the demand does not go away, and I would far prefer to see the talent coming here to live and work, than the work itself exported.

Fester, I'm not sure I agree with you.

>>I have a problem with free trade advocates as they generally desire to profit from the contango of living standards between nations.<<

This has been going on for many centuries, ever since man took to the sea and explored other countries. People skills are as legitimate a trading commodity as spices or tea, and always have been. While taking advantage of differences in living standards actually benefits both ends of the trade.

Nonetheless, I still hold that it is better in this case to bring the people closer to the work, than export the work itself to be fulfilled in those countries to take advantage of their lower cost structure.

>>Your assertion that a nation's resident population is not permitted to oppose further immigration is an absolute nonsense.<<

Oligarch, of course we are "allowed" to oppose immigration. But who decides when it becomes necessary?

In my view, we have a long way to go before immigration at current levels becomes a problem. In your view, we have passed that point. So where exactly did it occur, and who made the decision?

Pericles

For goods and services free trade can work well. Australia would benefit greatly from it. But the reality is that Australian produce does not have free access to many markets. I dont believe that the movement of people across borders should be free though. There are many examples in Australian history where free market advocates were simply after cheap labour. The practice began in earnest when the supply of convict labour ceased. In fact, there were examples of prominent New South Welshmen undergoing remarkable transformations from outspoken racists to avid multiculturalists desirous of their very own community of cheap multicultural labour.

TLTR
Did I say what?

Sorry, that should have cited Oligarch.

Migration to Australia must be stopped.
Finland,Norway or Sweden have developed their ecomonies on skills not immigration.
I have travelled to Lapland and have witnessed the number of armed troops guarding the Russian border to stop any would be immigrant.
We have a small population and great resourses.We can become the world showpiece for innovative technology.
Our government leaders labour and liberal have for the last thirty years been listening to the drug lords,as is witnessed by the closeness of drug barons to our West Australian and Victorian /Federal government leaderds.
Bob Hawke will be long remembered as the first leader to introduce the Work Choses.His deal to sack the Ansett pilots, so as to employ cheaper overseas pilots was the beginning of the end for intelligent young Australians.
Today young people have to compete on a level playing field with overseas students who get qualifications by sometimes paying their way.
Instances include Doctor death in Bunderberg and the many Institutes that attract overseas students who pay extra so they do not have to attend classes.The qualification is dubious and are taken by the many large companies who exploit these indiviuals,only to tell young Australian graduates that a lower rate of pay is offered as a pool of overseas born graduates justify the low pay rates.
No wonder so many Australian born graduates are earning real money overseas.
Nokia was developed by the Finns for the bernefit of the Finns.
Why Norwegian ships moving goods around the worlsd and not Australian.
If we think of Asia,Singapore has no immigration policy yet develops local people to head and run it's businesses.Cheap labor from Indonesia and Malaysia are only allowed to work in the factories not to hold managerial positions.
Wake up Australia.
We will soon be treated the same way poor whites are treated in South Africa.

My overall concern is that by accepting more people into this dry, low phosphorus, saline fighting dusty tired brown land, we are not only throwing our own potential sustainability out the door, we are encouraging population growth globally.

6.5 billion people and rising — and not all of them full blooded western "consumers" yet. When did we move from being "citizens" to mainly being referred to as "consumers"? When did life become more about the 4WD we own than the kids needing some form of transport? When did education shift from a walk down the road to the local community public school, to a showmanship drive in the immaculately painted 4WD to the "right sort of school?" If we get peak oil wrong, some of those poorer countries people are fleeing from today may look attractive in years to come.

Stop the present system of immigration. If people in the Pacific islands need help, we can give it without bringing them here. Far better to help people stay in their home countries than overcrowd this dry nation.
We have a large untrained,uneducated number of youth. Why import people when our own are jobless and unschooled?
The Aboriginal and white Australian young who have no prospect of employment is disgraceful. Concentrate on them for their benefit and Australia's.

My Dear old Dad tells me that at one time it was compulsory for any company or business to have to employ one trainee if they had over five workers. Why did governments abandon this policy it really shows dreadful shortsightedness. Of course businesses would much prefer to employ someone thats been trained by someone else (overseas workers) and pocket extra profits. This is human nature to try and make as much money for yourself as possible.

Its also shortsightedness on the part of the Australian public at large who look down at tradesmen not understanding that it is they who really keep the wheels of industry running. Its the tradesmen that maintain the trains and planes and trams and buses and airconditioners etc and keep all the machines of industry and the electricity running. Otherwise there would just be RUSTING HULKS of trains and cars and buses everywhere that just stopped one day and wouldnt go again.

The Public Servants and Politicians and white collar pen pushers have perferred to ignore this in the past and grant themselves more status, pay and conditions believing they are more important to society then the tradesmen but in fact it is the other way around.

Sadly, it appears the only man capable of ending this high immigration madness has effectively acquiesced to the Howard Government's population growth doctrine.

According to Kevin Rudd: "On population, Labor recognises the importance of migration and fertility rates to sustain long-term economic growth given the acute nature of demographic change that will occur in the decades ahead."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21507065-7583,00.html

By parroting the Howard Government's fallacious arguments for population growth, Rudd's purported long-term vision for Australia is looking increasingly shallow. And this is coming from a Rudd supporter.

That is bad news indeed Oligarch, not that I expected anything different.

So there you go. Any hope of a Rudd government changing our national direction towards sustainability instead of rampantly away from it has evaporated.