I agree completely. Every single new immigrant makes each & every existing citizen just a little less wealthy. I hate it.

In particular housing & infrastructure costs generated by immigrants fall on all of us, it has cost us a fortune over recent years.

The problem is employment. We only have mining, agriculture, building & government left.

The big 2 grocery chains are doing their best to eliminate small crop farming, & large scale becomes continually more mechanised, requiring little labour today.

Mining is great, good money, but employs not all that many, in mostly undesirable places to live.

Government is a dead loss. Unproductive & each new bureaucrat costs us even more than an immigrant. This leaves us only building, & some building product manufacture left to keep up direct employment, & the other service industries that absorb the rest of the work force.

To reduce immigration threatens the whole stack of cards. Pull the building card from the stack, & governments are terrified the whole stack will collapse. They might even be right in this, although other economies seem to survive with steady populations, & no continual building boom.

Is there another answer? Tell us if you have one.

it has cost us a fortune over recent years.
Hasbeen,
The money wasn't spent on migrants, it was thrown at those who by-passed the Immigration system. And, don't forget, the bureaucrats who don't actually do anything would have taken out a fair slice of the cake as well.
I found a lot of migrants are actually way more protective & patriotic about this country than those who take it all for granted as a birth right !

Hasbeen: "In particular housing & infrastructure costs generated by immigrants fall on all of us, it has cost us a fortune over recent years."

A 2013 report by the Productivity Commission warned that total private and public investment requirements needed to keep up with projected population growth over the next half century were estimated to be more than 5-times the cumulative investment made over the last half century.

The PC has also found that the costs of this additional infrastructure will inevitably be borne by the existing Australian community either through user-pays fees or general taxation.

All the economic evidence indicates that the economic gains of immigration accrue to the owners of capital (big biz) and the migrants themselves. The average Aussie doesn't benefit.

Sustainable Australia demolishes some of the pro-high immigration myths here: https://www.sustainableaustralia.org.au/sustainable_population_immigration_australia

MYTH: Australia can stave off ageing by importing younger immigrants

FACT: Any attempt to stave off ageing via immigration is an unsustainable pyramid scheme. The Productivity Commission stated clearly that immigration cannot make any significant or lasting impact on population ageing: “Substantial increases in the level of migration would have only modest effects on population ageing and the impacts would be temporary, since immigrants themselves age”.

MYTH: Immigration resolves skills shortages.

FACT: Immigration creates three skills shortages for every one that it resolves, fuelling a vicious circle of skills shortages. Note, according to Roy Morgan Research, there are over 2 million Australians either unemployed or underemployed (over 1 million, or 10%, in each category). They deserve better education and skills training.

MYTH: Australia needs to grow its population in order to grow prosperity.

FACT: Productivity and workforce participation are the important factors. Smaller stable populations generally have far higher per capita wealth than larger, growing populations. According to the IMF, 7 of the top 10 per capita wealth nations have populations under 10 million.

MYTH: Population growth can be solved simply by planning more infrastructure.

FACT: Australia’s major cities have already been planned and built on certain densities. Population growth now leads to increasingly complex and unaffordable infrastructure 'retro-fitting' requirements such as desalination plants and road and rail tunnels, and land buy backs to build schools, hospitals, etc, which have far greater per capita costs than traditional infrastructure like dams and normal roads. We have reached diseconomies of scale, meaning new complex infrastructure is increasingly unaffordable for state governments.

MYTH: We can simply move people to the regions.

FACT: 'Decentralisation' schemes have cost governments billions over the years, for slim returns. Why? There are more than enough people in our over-crowded major cities to re-populate the regions, if only there were the jobs, water and infrastructure. No credible policy will stop 90 per cent of immigrants initially or eventually settling in the capital cities, for these reasons and family reunion preferences.

ttbn: "There are no conservative options."

What about Cory Bernardi and the Australian Conservatives?

"Do not cast a formal vote for anyone: it only encourages more of the same."

I disagree. Casting an informal vote only helps the major parties carry on with the status quo and means less chance of dissenting voices in parliament

All the arguments against high immigration and increasing population have been discussed time and time again. The politicians have taken no notice in the past; they are taking no notice now; they will take notice in the future. If they ignore people like Dick Smith, they are certainly not going to bother with keyboard warriors.

Only a huge number of informal votes at the coming election will make them think. We are really stupid if we keep voting for the same people who have proved that they a mutts and will continue to be mutts. No voting intil we get decent people worth voting for.