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?