Rupert Murdoch never misses an opportunity to preach to his captive Australian audience that this country must continue rapid immigration-driven population growth.
He usually does so through his media outlets controlled by editors who apparently know instinctively what their master wants the Australian public to think. On other occasions he will do so in person, as he recently did on the occasion of a dinner in honor of immigrant Frank Lowy:
"'In my recent Boyer Lectures I spoke of the importance to Australia's future of a liberal immigration system,' Mr Murdoch said.
"'Few other Australians embody the breadth of achievement or the contribution to Australia's prosperity made by immigrants in this country than Frank Lowy.'"
One of Frank Lowy's more visible contributions to Australia has been the erection, by his Westfield Corporation, of massive sprawling shopping mall complexes in almost every substantial urban agglomeration in this country. Rupert Murdoch evidently fears that, if Australia's current record immigrant influx is not maintained, future generations of Australians will not be able to enjoy equivalent contributions from the potential Frank Lowy's that would be prevented from coming here.
In one of his Boyer Lectures referred to in his speech, Rupert Murdoch stated:
"In my view, Australians should not worry because other people want to come to our country. The day to worry is when immigrants are no longer attracted to our shores."
A possibility not acknowledged by Rupert Murdoch is that overcrowding this country may be precisely what will eventually make this country unattractive to immigrants, or, indeed, to people already living here. This was implicitly acknowledged in an editorial of 18 March 2008 "Queensland faces a tougher job on regional development", which stated#main-fn1">1:
"... much of (Queensland's) growth comprises city refugees making a sea change ..."
If high immigration is as beneficial as Rupert Murdoch insists, why is it that so many of Australians need to flee from the cities into which most immigrants have settled?
The story "English expats make Moreton the only Bay in the village" in Rupert Murdoch's Courier Mail newspaper of 10 January 2009 states:
ESCAPING the overpopulated boroughs of the UK, British immigrants are moving to Brisbane's bayside suburbs, creating their own Little Britain by the Bay."
In the story one women stated, "I would never raise my kids back in England." Another stated " Back in the UK, five-year-olds ... don't know how to play any more."
The overcrowding of both England and the larger southern cities of Australia are precisely the consequence of governments having accepted similar such gratuitous advice in the past from the likes of Rupert Murdoch.
As a consequence, not only have living conditions become intolerable for many, but our very capacity to sustain any sizable population in the longer term, is under threat by runaway population growth brought about to satisfy the insatiable short-term greed of the property speculators and related concerns, whose interests Rupert Murdoch's media promotes.
This article originated from a post to an Online Opinion discussion in response to the article "What's wrong with 'Islamophobia'" of 23 Dec 08.
See also: "English expats make Moreton the only Bay in the village" in the Courier Mail of 10 Jan 09, "Rupert Murdoch urges Aust to open door to migrants" in the Courier Mail of 5 Feb 09, "Honour for Frank Lowy, king of the malls" in the Australian of 6 Feb 09, "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" of 24 Jan 09 (also published on Online Opinion with forum discussion).#CopyrightProblems" id="CopyrightProblems">Note: None of the Murdoch newspaper articles, linked to in this paragraph, were available online when I checked just now on 25 Mar 11. However, when I used the title "Rupert Murdoch urges Aust to open door to migrants" (omitting quotes) in a Google search, I found an article with the same title on a site which is openly touting immigration to Australia, www.liveinaustralia.com. Whether it was a straight copy or based on the original, now removed, article in the Courier-Mail it did not say. It seems that important historical documents that could well embarrass some powerful vested interests can no longer be directly cited on the Internet. Many, who would like to retain such records for future reference may not be able to legally do so legally, because of copyright laws. Perhaps it should be made a condition of granting copyright that the owners of the copyrighted work undertake to preserve the work and on-line access to it at least until such time as anyone, who had expressed to the copyright owner interest in having a copy of the work, had been given an opportunity to obtain his/her own copy. If the person seeking copyright is not prepared to give such an undertaking then copyright should be refused. The disappearance from the Internet of articles, cited by me in this article, has driven me to write another article, How copyright laws obstruct the preservation of historically important documents on 26 Mar 11.
Footnotes
#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ See "The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections" of 30 Mar 08. URL of original editorial unknown.
Comments
James Sinnamon
Fri, 2009-02-20 13:36
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Online poll: Cut immigration to protect local jobs?
Murdoch's Herald-Sun has run the story "Sponsorship system open to exploitation, say academics" which begins:
An associated poll which asks "Should immigration be cut to protect local jobs?" has, so far, attracted 1271 (84%) 'yes' votes and 240 (15%) 'no' votes.
Virtually all polls taken in the last three decades have affirmed the unpopularity of high immigration, yet bi-partisan support for high immigration remains. In recent years opposition has waned, evidently due to the effect of relentless pro-immigration propaganda, both from the business establishment and the the politically correct New Class referred to in Lines' and O'Connor's "Overloading Australia" (2009). However, a firm majority has always remained opposed. Recently, as noted above, due to the current economic crisis, opposition has climbed again.
Immigration proponents perversely have displayed pride in having succeeded in frustrating the popular will on this issue. As cited on pages 104-105 in "Overloading Australia" (2009):
On an online Opinion discussion in response to my article "How the growth lobby threatens Australia's future" (also published here), one immigration proponent gleefully reminded others of how the Liberal Party, as well as the Labor Party, refused to abide by the will of the Australian public in regard to immigration:
Like Rupert Murdoch, Bob Hawke, and the New Class, this contributor, doesn't believe that the principles of democracy should apply to the question of population and immigration, where a small enlightened minority know better what is good for the majority of this country than do the majority themselves.
Anonymous (not verified)
Fri, 2009-02-20 16:09
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Bob Hawke and population crisis
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-02-21 15:11
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Bob Hawke: Immigration Enthusiast
Anonymous (not verified)
Sat, 2009-02-21 04:44
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When is enough immigration?
A question we should be asking more in Australia:
When is enough immigration?
Article by Frosty Wooldridge
January 19, 2004
Published in the Albany Herald.
Have you ever gone to a New Year's eve bash that was so big and so crowded that everyone at the party stood in each other's faces?
Did you try to dance but it felt like dancing in thick pancake batter with too many people bumping into you?
Did you enjoy yourself? Did you leave early? Did you vow to never do that again?
Get ready for that party coming into your country at full force. The only difference is — you can't go home.
You're already home. You can't leave your country because it is your country.
Last week, the Federation for American Immigration Reform, in Washington, D.C. stated, "Another 1.1 million legal immigrants will enter the U.S this year. The immigrant population doubled from 19.8 million in 1990 to 31.1 million a decade later."
Another 800,000 illegal aliens will also cross into the U.S, which will total two million, give or take a few.
The latest figures showing six large U.S. cities now consist of a majority of foreign-born inhabitants. "America's immigration policies have launched us into a risky experiment never tried by modern day countries," said Dan Stein, director of FAIR. Hialeah and Miami, Fla., along with Glendale, Santa Ana, Daly City and El Monte, Calif., have been 'swamped' with immigration.
Mexico is moving its excess population, wholesale, into America with 9.2 million so far and millions more crossing at 2,000 per day. The Philippines at 1.5 million and China at 1.4 million follow them.
These numbers grow with immigrants from India, Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Canada, El Salvador and other Latin American countries. At current rates of immigration, both legal and illegal, will add 45 million foreign born into the USA.
"What remains to be seen is if this country has the capacity to accommodate and assimilate an unending wave of mass immigration. The failure to do so will result in a balkanized, fragmented, strife-torn and dysfunctional America," Stein said.
It's already happening. Last year, with over 10 million legal and illegal immigrants causing a crisis in every sector of the Golden Bear State, 800,000 Californians left the party. It's now $38 billion in debt, can't hire enough teachers in a broken educational system and struggles with 18-hour gridlock.
More people from California now reside in Idaho than natives of that state. Over a million people fled the West and East coasts to take up residence in Colorado in the past decade.
California will gain a whopping 20 million people in 30 years. Colorado will add four million.
Tom Ridge said, "The bottom line is, as a country we have to come to grips with the presence of 12 million illegals, afford them some kind of legal status, but also as a country decide what our immigration policy is and then enforce it."
One has to wonder how ridiculous that statement sounds. If he refuses to uphold and defend our borders now, what will he do later, serve milk and cookies as they make their way through the desert?
That begs the question of how many more people we can invite to the party before our party (country) is bumper to bumper and running out of resources. Do we have unlimited water? Unlimited clean air? Do we like being stuck in bumper to bumper traffic? Do we have enough food?
What about standard of living? Do we want to live like they do in China or India?
Every American citizen and even the immigrants who are here need to ask the most basic questions: "When is enough immigration enough?"
When are too many people too many? When will our society turn against itself with conflicting languages? How will it incorporate conflicting religions?
What will it do with conflicting cultures? How will it clean the air over the cities? Where will it grow food as sprawl eats up farmland?
The sobering reality of immigration is — the line never ends. The world grows by 10,000 per hour, 240,000 per day and 80 million annually.
As a nation, we stand at a critical juncture. Too many people at any party make for a bad time.
Too many people with dissimilar interests, languages and conflicting cultures will make the party untenable. But once they are here, you can't leave.
Whether it's an overloaded carrying capacity or loss of quality of life, the United States is in trouble.
We need a 10-year moratorium on all immigration. We can and must enforce it for the very existence of our nation.
If we fail, we are in so much trouble environmentally, carrying capacity-wise, lack of water, lack of clean air, species extinction, schools, hospitals and infrastructure.
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