Crikey, how much mining do we want?

Some people here seem to think that for this project to not proceed immediately would be disastrous. Well, haven’t we got enough mining happening? Shouldn’t we actually try and slow down the boom a bit, rather than facilitate a continuous increase in the scale of mining?

We are not upholding a constant rate of mining here, with Roy Hill and various other projects we are talking about a massive escalation.

Not only should we absolutely not be considering Enterprise Migration Agreements, we should be considerably lowering the immigration rate, and then adjusting the nature of our immigration intake to cater for the needs of some new projects, if it doesn’t already.

Currently, it is all about maximising our export income from mining, to provide a decent and improving quality of life for Australian citizens. Well, I hope that’s what it’s about!

But it would make more sense to uphold a high level of mining activity, no bigger than it now is and probably a bit smaller, while at the same time, reducing immigration right down to near net zero.

Demand and supply, that’s the bottom line. An ever-bigger supply of export income is not going to get us ahead if we have an ever-bigger and rapidly expanding demand for a high and improving quality of life at the same time.

If we stabilise the demand, then we just might have some chance of both getting some real benefits out of the mining boom and drawing it out for a decade or two longer, thus really putting this country on the right track towards a high …. and sustainable … quality of life.

I share all of Divergence’s concerns.

each of us has every right to the opinions they hold, even my combative Friend SM and Paul 1405.
I still think Divergence is far from todays reality's, and that I saw fear of foreigners in his/her post.
Ludwig, this much is certain.
If we try to limit the mining,artificially control out puts, we declare economic war on our customers free trade is to be disregarded.
Our shared concerns population are clearly of little interest to ANY POLITICAL party right now.
I think in a country no longer banking on its farming income, in fact in big trouble with out mining, we should never consider murdering it.
I want a fairer distribution of this country's mining assets, but not by feeding a lie that Gina has received other than the only possible out come, the ability to go a head with this project.
Divergence, are you a green supporter?

<< If we try to limit the mining,artificially control out puts, we declare economic war on our customers free trade is to be disregarded. >>

Belly, how do we not ‘artificially’ control outputs?

The only way that we could possibly not do this is to allow completely open slather on the expansion of mining.... which is actually not far from the current situation!

The level of mining activity needs to be tightly controlled. This is a fundamental role of government, isn’t it?

How would limiting the level of mining, to about the level we are now at, declare economic war on our customers?

Surely free trade doesn’t compel us to flog off our resources as rapidly as the demand alone would dictate? Doesn’t sound very free if this is the case!

how hard could it be to force
each foreigner..imported worker..to have an apprentice[native]

with a govt on the job training subsidy
it must be seen to be fair..anywhere there is big unemployment
locals getting jobs must be recognised as fair practice

having thieves fly in
fly out[taking your riches..[poluting your waters
destroying your roads and communities..thats gotta be priced in

guile lards comments re it belonging to all
means we all own it..[regardless of who mined it]
so a tax on the product..to retore to the first people the pristeen they lost..is only fair

its these un austrailians
abusing a system..available to the common man
but now so complicated..as to be subverting a common privledge into a elite right..[for peppercorn rent]its insane..some privlegde rich twerp

taking the common wealth
destroying the common weal
killing of native culture/practice

to make fly-in crones drones and known unknowns
its our WEALTH*..our health..taken by stealth..for tokenism by elitist tribalism[divide and con queer]

its like all them exploiter's..
getting both THEIR SHARE
and ours as well

insider knowledge or acces for lobby
thats treason...

Belly,

My opinion is essentially that of the 1994 Australian Academy of Sciences Report, which recommended stabilisation at a population of 23 million as a safe upper linit before the growth starts to cause serious problems for the environment and people's quality of life.

\\http://www.science.org.au/events/sats/sats1994/Population2040-section8.pdf

Many of the same concerns are raised in more detail in the 2010 Immigration Department report on the Long Term Physical Implications of Net Overseas Migration. The executive summary has the main points.

http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-summary.pdf

Am I out of touch with reality or are you?

I don't support the Greens. They pussyfoot on population and appear more interested in fashionable leftist causes than in the environment. I do support the Stable Population Party of Australia, which is trying to give us a voice on this issue, despite the bipartisan collusion of the major parties.

Ludwig, your problem is one of the law of unintended consequences.

The reality is that Australia is part of the global economy and that
we still have our collective arse full of debt. Our current account
is still running at a deficit of around 3%, despite record minerals
prices.

Like your credit card, the country has to pay its bills or we'll land
up like Greece. The first thing with your idea, is that foreign
lenders would take a look at your limits and realise that they might
have trouble getting their money out. Our banks still rely on overseas markets for half their funding. Given the higher risk,
lenders would charge more. 10 year Govt bonds in Greece are currently
at just over 29%, as nobody trusts them. So what would happen to
Australians with a mortgage, if our interest rates shot up to 20%?

Next our banks would fold, due to customers unable to pay. etc.

So your idea might sound noble, but the consequences would be a disaster.So it's as if you have a botanist's view of economics :)
The devil is always in the details, as you would know from botany.