"Dick Smith throws $1m behind call for reduced immigration”

“Endless growth will destroy Australia as we know it today,” Mr Smith said of his motive for the campaign..

“It is simply endless growth and endless greed – meaning the finite wealth has to be divided between more people, and that means less for most,” Mr Smith said..

“Eight out of ten Australians I talk to want a proper population plan, but no major political party reflects this. They are so obsessed with pleasing the 1% who have all the money that the greed overruns all,” Mr Smith said.

Mr Smith will also hand out toy pitchforks to warn of the violent “revolution” if no action is taken."

http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/dick-smith-throws-dollar1m-behind-call-for-reduced-immigration/ar-AAq1ZwF?li=AAgfYrC&ocid=HPCDHP

personally I am in favour of being more selective in immigration. The country has lots of room to share for those who want to build and contribute. Weed out those who are coming here for welfare.

Big business and politicians have lied for so long about the illusory benefits of mass immigration that many people actually believe the nonsense. It is costing each one of us big time. Immigration is just a lazy way of boosting the GDP. A quick look at the GPD per capita shows what a con it is. There is ample proof of the immigration lie to be seen in smaller, richer countries than Australia. Scandinavia comes easily to mind. And, let's wake up to this "ageing population" crap; it's a pathetic excuse involving non-stop tail chasing as immigrants themselves age. Japan with it's virtually nil immigration and ageing population is still doing very well - and without the multicultural turmoil we have here. We have the highest per capita immigration rate in the world.

As well as tighten incoming immigration there should be a concerted focus on getting rid of the low lifers who have come as refugees but have resorted to criminal activities.

I must say the present Government is doing this but is hampered by tribunals.

99% of of Adelaide respondents to a Channel 7 poll supported Dick Smith's proposals on immigration.

Dick Smith, "Every Aussie family has a population plan....[but] the politicians refuse to have a population plan"

http://www.todaytonightadelaide.com.au/stories/dick-smith-population

leoj That is because the politicians really represent big business we the public only matter every 4 years at election time.

PhilipS

Three years actually. We need to resist the horrible Shorten call for four years.

As expected, efforts are being made to ignore or ridicule what Dick Smith is proposing and is supported by the public.

Oaf and amateur funnyman Karl Stefanovic, who gets to stay on 'BFF James Packer's super yacht parked just off Bora Bora in the South Pacific' was doing his best (worst) to scoff at Dick Smith in an interview. The usual 'interview' where celebrity hosts like Karl strut their stuff while patronising their audiences as 'punters'. The bigger and more nasty nags will be out shortly.

Personally I'm all for Immigration. Those Immigrants who can immediately support themselves and their families. And provided we (the Australian Government) have sufficient infrastructure in place to settle these new arrivals. Immediate preference should be given to those of whom are willing to settle in country areas more so than in our major cities on the eastern seaboard.

However, due to verifiable evidence that many of those from Middle Eastern countries only practice a brand of Islam, that clearly has violent tendencies, regrettably there should be no further Immigration offered to those individuals who are Muslims. Until the authorities can clearly delineate, between the potentially violent, and radicalised Muslim; then none should be permitted to immigrate to our country.

Apropos my last paragraph, surely the decent Muslim community could create their own intelligence and action units, in order to rid their own societies of these violent, radicalised individuals who do nothing but denigrate their religion. After all, back in the darker ages, Christianity was a violent religion, until it grew, and matured, and no longer practices violence among their brethren. Could not Islam do the same?

o sung wu - Quote " decent Muslim community could create their own intelligence and action units, in order to rid their own societies of these violent, radicalised individuals who do nothing but denigrate their religion"

I don't think that will happen based on - In Victoria I would guarantee the parents and other community members know exactly who these Sudanese thugs are causing the trouble but they are doing nothing.

Who tried to prevent Ayaan Hirsu Ali, campaigner for the emancipation of women in the Muslim world, form visiting Australia and NZ? Why?

After the visit was cancelled a columnist observed,

"In Australia it would be preferable if those who planned to mount protests against Ayaan Hirsi Ali instead spent their time campaigning against Wahhabist intolerance and the other fundamentalist preachers."

Maybe there might have been more pointing that out in the first place too. Why weren't there?

However the big issues are how many immigrants, what is the sustainable population and how soon? Why the break-neck rush?

Dick Smith has strong support. Why?

Hi there PHILIP S...

Sadly I think you're right. Personally I've not had much to do with these Sudanese criminals, I was limited only to the Lebanese in Sydney before I took my retirement. From what I've heard, the Sudanese are a real pain in the arse, particularly for a police force run on Labour lines as they are in VICPOL? I'm not saying individually they're not good coppers, I worked with 'em at CHOGAM in 1983, when Mick MILLER was boss. It's their top Executive who're the problem, with Graham ASHTON in their lead, as Chief Commissioner.

There's only one way to defeat these people, Lebanese or Sudanese! To control them and their activities; get right in their faces, and lean all over them. The only way too beat them - Get rid of both the LNP in Canberra, and your State Labour Govt. in Victoria, and then deport the lot of them. Knowing that'll never happen, and realising things can only change from the top...you'll just have to learn to live with them. Welcome to the new Nation of Lebanon & Somalia. Sorry PHILIP S, it's just a sad fact of life. We only get the government we deserve?

I support the concept of lowering immigration rates.

I like the One Nation concept of aiming for the zero net result. That is if x persons leave Australia in one year that is the figure for intake next year.

I also think that we should reduce the rate by preventing immigration of those that cause us problems or are not prepared to integrate into our society. For example, I would stop entry of muslims and those groups currently causing problems in Melbourne and also those groups that practice FGM and underage marriage. Not all cultures are equal in theory or practice.

It is big business and developers that influence government to adopt high immigration as it sells more consumer goods and there is no consideration of the adverse effects.

All would-be immigrants, not just Muslims, should be stopped until useless politicians and bureaucrats work out how many people WE need, if any. The intake should never be more than the 70,000 that it was before John Howard bumped it up to 200,000 to control the work force and keep wages down (he overlooked the bludgers who are still not working for lower wages because they are better off on the dole than they were where they came from).

ttbn: "Big business and politicians have lied for so long about the illusory benefits of mass immigration that many people actually believe the nonsense"

Yes, mass immigration is a giant con and only seems to be making life worse for existing Australians. Other countries are able to prosper without mass immigration, so why does Australia need to be importing so many extra people year after year?

As economist Leith van Onselen has argued:

"Living standards of the incumbent Australian population is the threshold issue in the immigration debate. Living standards in the major cities are unambiguously being eroded by mass immigration via negative externalities that are not captured in the national economic accounts, such as increasing congestion, falling housing affordability, environmental degradation, etc.

Moreover, pursuing mass immigration is a growth fig leaf for governments and associated rent-seekers to pretend they’re doing the job rather than pursuing the more difficult but ultimately much wider benefits of productivity-directed reform."

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/07/terry-mccrann-mass-immigration-not-working-australia/

Well done to Dick Smith for raising this important issue!

We don't need any immigration. Ever.

If we really, really need more people (which we don't), we can always make our own.

They're called *babies*!

I wonder how many of the 200,000 plus coming here every year become citizens, and how many retain dual citizenship because they are not fully committed to Australia.

To say; "We don't need any immigration. Ever." is a simplistic belief that Australia can operate in isolation from the rest of the world, without any economic or humanitarian considerations when it comes to immigration. While I agree with Dick that migration has to be carefully monitored, and adjusted to suit the sustainability of the nation, we should be careful not to allow oversimplified concerns to cloud the issue. Hard right politicians like Hanson and Bernardi try to blame population, and by default immigration, exclusively for economic and social ills. The problems of housing affordability, employment, social welfare, terrorism etc, although impacted by immigration to some degree, it is not the exclusive cause of those problems. Poor government decisions weigh heavily on social and economic issues. While we must control immigration for our mutual benefit, we should not lose sight that there are other factors that also need addressing if Australia is to remain the preeminent society it is.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/money/finance-news/2017/08/16/dick-smith-population-populism/

Paul,

"Poor government" is the only problem with Australia, now. And it includes the government's uneccessary and and costly immigration
policy, adhered to also by the opposition and, most strangely, that champion of the environment and sustainability, your very own Greens.

Do the Greens even have an immigration policy these days?

ttbn, as a legitimate political party The Australian Greens have a comprehensive 29 point Immigration Policy. A policy formulated through grass roots consultation and decision making, a democratic process. A simple 'Google' will reveal that policy to you.

Unlike the Greens policy which has it basis in humanity and strives for inclusion, I found on reading the policy of the Australian Conservatives that it contained a high degree of malice and bitterness towards immigrants.
As a member, can you enlighten us as to how this policy was derived? Is it simply the machinations of one Cory Bernardi, did you or other members have input, and if so how?

Greens lost any pretension of being able to claim an interest in the environment and sustainability when they chose to adopt Sarah 'Patrol Boat' HY's 'Open Door' immigration policy. That was to claim headlines for virtue signalling, competing with Labor for the lunar far left vote.

It was virtue signalling headlines or Australia's environment and sustainability and the protest party Greens chose virtue signalling as the better prospect to stir and get headlines. Hypocrisy.

While on the subject, SHY, Sarah Hanson-Young, is an example of the sort of life inexperienced but opinionated, bossy-boots 'career' politician, criticised by ex-PMs Hawke and Howard.

Paul1405, we ARE isolated from the rest of the world.
Look at Australia on Google Earth.

There are no countries nearby that have "refugee" crises that I'm aware of.
Refugees are passing several other countries to get to Australia, thereby invalidating their claim to "refugee" status under international law.

Economically, "free" trade disadvantages us, due to our isolation.
That adds freight costs that aren't a problem for most other advanced development countries (e.g trade with the EU).

What "free" trade does is flood our country with cheap imports, annihilating any possibility of local production.
"Globalism" isn't even truly global. Who benefits? China.
Look in Kmart. EVERYTHING is made in China. They should call it Cmart.

When was the last time you saw anything made in Bulgaria, made in Madagascar, made in Peru?
No, just made in China, made in China, made in China.

"Poor government decisions weigh heavily on social and economic issues."

One of those poor decisions being excessive immigration.

Another being not training people with the oh-so-urgently-necessary "skills" people claim we need immigrants for.
If third world countries can train those skills, why can't we?
I thought we had one of the best education systems in the world? What happened to it?

We would never be completely "isolated" from the world, not matter what restrictions on trade or immigration there are.
This is the information age, the internet age.
The "world" (or rather "worlds", there are many, not one) is right at your fingertips.

Shockadelic, refugees are not arriving through other countries, they are located in camps in countries far removed from Australia. I believe we have a humanitarian duty to resettle some of those people. just as we have a duty to re-unite families when the opportunity is presented. You may not agree with me on that score, that is your prerogative.
As a trading nation, we cannot expect our largest trading partner China, and others, to tolerate us putting up barriers to imports, whilst expecting them to take out exports. Trade is a two way street.
"I thought we had one of the best education systems in the world?" We do and we are producing top class people. I recall John Key the New Zealand PM complaining bitterly about the brain drain from NZ, and it was going to Australia, giving us ready made skilled people at no cost to us, but a a big cost to them.

Excerpts from, An Australian Population Policy Research Paper 17 1996-97
Gavin W. Jones
Consultant
Social Policy Group

"Australia's population policy is implicit in its immigration program, but it is a policy by stealth, a policy without consensus, and a highly erratic policy, as exemplified by the wild swings in immigration targets over time. This is not a satisfactory situation. More transparency over long-term aims is needed, and if it turns out that the fluctuations in annual settler arrival targets under different Ministers for Immigration have been based more on gut feelings than on fine tuning in relation to economic and social conditions, then that needs to be more apparent to the general public, too. Population policy has to be seen as much more than immigration policy."

"In neighbouring countries, the fact that Australia's population is tiny in relation to our land area leads to widespread perceptions that it could be much larger. These perceptions will colour attitudes to Australia's capacity to accept refugees and regular international migrants. The extreme dryness of the Australian continent needs to be emphasised in our attempts to promote a more realistic perception among opinion leaders in these countries."

"What Would a National Population Policy Actually Entail?
Implicit in what has already been said in this paper is the need for Australia to adopt a population policy. Reports and commissions over the years have advised government that Australia should have an explicit population policy. There has been a notable absence of outside advice to the contrary. But governments have steadfastly ignored the weight of advice.

As the country with the largest planned immigration program per head in the world, with the exception of Israel, it seems obvious that at the very least, we need to sort out our longer-term goals for population size and growth. Decisions are also needed about whether we want to modify some of the distributional trends - particularly the ever-increasing tendency for the population to perch around the coastline, as if some centrifugal force were operating to empty out inland areas of Australia."

Paul1405, China has tariffs on Australian imports.
Yes, there is a free trade agreement in the works, without the consent of the Australian people.
The arrangement will mostly benefit China.

A small Australian economy, protected by tariffs, will make little difference to the rest of the world.
They will carry on as usual.

"ready made skilled people at no cost to us, but a a big cost to them."

And what is true of NZ is true of India, Japan and many other countries. We are taking their skilled people and offering nothing in return? (Not that they would accept Australian migrants anyway).

Humanitarian gestures can only help a tiny fraction of the total.
Better to help the original problems, than stick a band aid on the symptoms.
If that's even possible.

Family reunion? Get on a plane.

Germany took in 1 million migrants in one year and look at the
troubles they have let themselves take on.
It will be interesting to watch their GDP. It should rise significantly
because of the government spending on immigrants.
However the average German will not be better off.
The criminal situation in Germany is far worse.

Australia is taking in a similar rate of immigrants, adjusted for
population, and we can expect similar results.
In Germany they are spread over a number of cities and towns.
In Australia they are concentrated in two cities and in small areas
of those cities.
Except they have been "selected" there is not much difference.

We should halt the immigration until we do a review and in the longer
term aim for a population that matches the water availability.
We are making an energy crisis and unless we stop export of coal it
is coal for electricity that will put a cap on our population.
That problem could be avoided if we adopt nuclear power.
To sum up, energy and water limit our population.
It is not an OR decision but an AND decision.

From now we do not have enough electricity for our present numbers.
Are we stupid enough to bring in 200,000 more this year ?
Then next year and the year after that ?
Stand by for electricity rationing.

Dick Smith is right about the coming "pitchforks".

No people in history have ever passively accepted their own destruction.
They have always fought back (sometimes unsuccessfully).

When enough Australians realise they are not being "augmented" by a little "spice", but are being extinguished by it (the "spice" is now over 80% of the influx), they will retaliate.

Choose now.
Australian future or no future.
Time's up.

Come on SHOCKADELIC, all of Europe is being over-run by Muslims, in fact the days of the West, or even western civilisation per se, are all but numbered. Why, because of the stupid, utterly morally corrupt politicians, who keep breaking their promises, to do and say things they've no intention of doing or saying! And it is us, the electorate who allow them to get away with it. Whether it's a European country or us in the Asia Pacific region, we only get the politicians we deserve.

It's clearly our fault (the electorate), for not demanding they do precisely what it is we want, in terms of calling a halt, to all immigration. And when a decision is taken to permit entry to a small selection of Refugees - Screen them first for their religious proclivities, in order to determine whether they'll assimilate adequately within our Australian society. And when necessary, interdict those refugees who're suspected of being a criminal, terrorist or potential terrorist. If they're genuine, you'll know, believe me, as a retired copper most experienced coppers will know very quickly if an individual's attempting to obfuscate their background and deep background, data and antecedents.

Shock & O sung Wu, there is not much that we can do to influence the
major parties. They are simply not listening.
The Liberals want more migrants to elevate the GDP and Labour wants
the same as it suits the lefty Greens and supplies more voters for Labour.
The only solution is to give your preferential vote 1, 2, 3 for
The Conservatives, Australian Liberty Alliance & One Nation.
They may end up with enough to force whichever party wins government
to cut back immigration.
However we will get another 600,000 by the time parliament restarts.

o sung wu, the tide is turning.
Europeans are still the majority in all their homelands.
The more discordance, the more disillusionment.
Ripples of resistance emerge with every unfortunate "incident".

We can only hope so SHOCKADELIC, we can only hope, that's about all we have left!