Comments
Peak oil and the transport/food crisis.
credibility of data
Cause for alarm - Australia's population growth
I sent the following letters to The Age and to the Herald Sun on 6 Jun 08 in response to the 2 articles on this bad news re population growth in Australia and particularly Victoria (since they are Victorian rags.) I don't think either was published but I'm not completely sure.
Tim Colebatch's article "Population grows at record rate" The Age 6.6.08 is a smorgasbord of depressing numbers - no less for Victoria than other states. Whereas we used add one million to our national population about every 4 years - now we do it in 3. Victoria's population used to grow by some 60+ thousand per year and now it's over 80,000 in the last year recorded.
Population growth, especially at this rapid rate is self evidently and logically unsustainable. Even at this stage much of the country is water-stressed. Our current Federal Government appears as unlikely as its predecessor to curb this trajectory and alleviating population pressure on largely arid Australia will be left for governments of the future to deal with as crisis management - if they can.
This one went the The Herald Sun on the same day
The Victorian Treasurer's self congratulation in claiming credit to his government for Victoria's attributes as a great place to live and raise a family (H.S. 6.6.08 "Victoria's population booming") seems ingenuous given the well known existing and anticipated problems that population growth is causing in Victoria and the proposed controversial, environment threatening infrastructure projects resulting from this. e.g. desalination plant in Wonthaggi, road tunnels in inner Melbourne suburbs, and dredging in Port Phillip Bay to accommodate larger ships for increased cargo.
Mr Lenders, it is not much fun for families now spending so much time trying to protect their local environment when once they could just enjoy it.
Whalers fear Sea Shepherd but not Greenpeace
Thanks so much for posting Captain Watson’s plea to Greenpeace (GP) to help save the Whales from being slaughtered by the Japanese Whalers. It would be a History-making event if the two organizations would finally work together for the same cause at last. As you can see, Captain Watson has repeatedly in the past asked for GP to help and has been refused any cooperation from them. Thus, causing the death of more Whales while GP holds up Banners or rides on the backs of dead harpooned whales for photo-opportunities, until Sea Shepherd’s ship arrives to chase the Whalers away.
This past season 2007-2008, the Japanese Whalers even resorted to having military onboard hurling exploding flash grenades at our SSCS Crewmembers in retaliation to our harmless stink-bombs thrown onto the empty Flencing Deck where they cut up Whales on the Factory Ship, Nisshin Maru. One of the Japanese SWAT team (no doubt it had to be a crack marksman) shot Captain Watson in the left side of his chest exactly in the heart area. Fortunately, he was wearing a Kevlar Bullet-proof vest or he would have surely died. See www.seashepherd.org for the pictures of ships’s Doctor
digging out bullet from the Vest.
And our own Australian Government finally got around to sending a ship to ‘Document’ the Whale killing. Why would they need more pictures when there are decades of Documentation already? Surely more pictures still have not stopped Japan’s plans to continue Whale killing in the Antarctic, where again they will be adding Endangered Fin Whales to their list of nearly 1,000 Minke (Piked) Whales to be slaughtered. But will they leave our Humpbacks alone this year?
Barrier reef shark fishing could cause their extinction
Just because an activity has been going on for a long time, does not mean that it is presently sustainable or correct especially with the World's Shark population at a 90% decline.
The Shark along the area of the Great Barrier Reef do not “wander” or migrate, only living in that area. To continually remove shark for any reason now that there are only 10% of the number of Sharks on the Planet is foolhardy. So to state that there are millions of Shark, and if you take one another appears, is not correct and a false assumption. Because these creatures live in this area and take many years to mature, having only have one pup at a time, replenishing a supply of Sharks takes many decades. If shark fishing of any kind continues on the Great Barrier Reef and is expanded, these creatures will be wiped off the Planet. Sharks are vitally needed for the health of the Reefs.
Your statement that the Shark Fishery is well managed, is a point of view of the Fisheries Dept, and with the loss of 90% of the World's Sharks gone and many Species on the brink of extinction within the next few years due to Shark Fishing/Finning and Poaching, we cannot continue to allow any Sharks to be taken. The Fishery must be abolished to save the Sharks. We do not want to see any Sharks killed in Australia for any reason. There is an abundance of other foods to eat, and with Shark poaching rife, all Shark killing must be stopped.
The Coral Sea Marine Park must be established to save all marine life.
Barrier Reef a well managed (shark) fishery
Loveless couples too broke to split
The Sunday Mail, in a story “Loveless couples too broke to split” with the by-line Sharing bills but trapped in ‘non-divorce’ by Hannah Davies reports:
A growing number of couples are choosing to stay in loveless relationships because they can’t afford to go it alone in the worsening economic climate.
The trend, dubbed the “non-divorce”, has resulted in married and de facto couples living together like passionless room-mates rather than spouses, ….
As mortgage and loan interest rates continue to rise, purse strings are tightening across the state. The average mortgage is now $300,000, carrying monthly repayments of $2168, and average rent is $260 a week for a modest unit on the Gold Coast, or $350-$400 for a house in Brisbane or on the Sunshine Coast. Add to this petrol surging past $1.50 a litre, and the weekly grocery bill going through the roof.
…
Relationships Australia counsellor Fiona Hawkins said … “I know a woman in her 50s who has a low-paying job, who feels she is going through the motions of a relationship, but will stay with her husband because the alternative is renting on her own.
“She feels sharing the house makes good financial sense because then the overheads burden is shared. Repairs, rates, and rents are usually the same no matter how many people live there.
… Dr Brian Sullivan, from the University of Queensland, said financial concerns could cause a couple to stay together even when the relationship was hostile.
“If a woman has children and she leaves her husband, she suddenly becomes the breadwinner,” he said. “When faced with this, a woman will often decide to stay in the relationship because if she was to leave she would be on the streets, with no viable means of support.”
Relationships Australia offers counselling to couples (in marriages of financial convenience). Phone 1300 364 277 for an appointment.
Speculation not major cause of oil price hikes
Should the NZ Greens not have been disqualified?
So it appears as if the #NZGreens">New Zealand Green Party should not have been disqualified from Tim Murray's “most idiotic Green Party in the world” competition, after all. I was unable to locate any meaningful information about population and immigration on the NZ Greens web site www.greens.org.nz, so I would be interested in looking at the document referred to by Tim Murray.
Giving credit where credit is due and why the lesser evil should sometimes be chosen
I would take one issue with Kevin's informative contribution. I think in politics one should give credit where credit is due. One should also choose the lesser evil over the greater evil when there is no other choice. So, if I was in NZ, I think it is possible that I would still vote for the Greens before Labour and Labour before the Nationals (that is, assuming NZ's electoral system allows for preferential voting). One of a number of reasons I would choose to vote Labour is because the NZ Labour Government has recently renationalised NZ's rail and Ferry services (whilst their 'Labor' counterparts across the Tasman are moving in the opposite direction). That doesn't mean one should for a minute try to either conceal or excuse corruption and other flaws of 'lesser evil' political forces (although possibly, in the heat of an election campaign such as the 2007 Australian Federal elections, where we were trying to rid this country of the truly loathsome and incompetent Government of John Howard, we would not seek to dwell on the shortcomings of the opposition Labor Party.)
The NZ Greed Party
- the leadership is more interested in political gainsmanship and jockeying for position than in tackling issues;
- Greed MPs are notorious for taking junket trips here, there and everywhere;
- they pretend they can bring about revolution in thinking by making minimal tweeks to the present system — in other words they are quite prepared to sacrifice the future of young New Zealanders in order that they can continue to live the high life;
- the leadership is totally unprincipled and will bend policy in any direction if they think it politically expedient. We call it sleeping with the enemy; in the early years of this century the Greeds formed a loose coalition with Labour — a party that promotes global corporate agendas, globalisation, Genetically Engineered food etc. After having been stabbed in the back by Labour, the Greeds hang around looking for someone new to sleep with, like prostitutes hanging around street corners outside bars and pubs.
Oz oil - beware of suspect information sources
As long as we press our noses up against intensely selective and highly suspect sources of information, we will continue to fail to engage with the wider picture.
I have read fairly widely about peak oil and associated issues and my conclusion is that you guys are over-focused and, therefore, easily manipulated. You are in good company; about 6 billion people are doing likewise; that is, when three of those billions can take their minds off hunger long enough to think at all.
A word of warning, which I am sure you all know, but never apply… never believe anything said to you by the mass media, corporations, banking interests, the UN, academia or scientific institutions. In case you haven't noticed, all of these are now controlled by the same banker conglomerates who fund and administer the WTO, the WB, the IMF and the BIS. They are not your friend; and in fact that sector of the population that I would describe as wide awake, would identify this group as humanity's number one enemy. I refer, of course, to the Hills Samuel/Rothschild/Rockefeller led groups.
#PeakOilAlarmism" id="PeakOilAlarmism">Peak Oil Alarmism?
Back to oil:
Sources I am more inclined to take seriously are individuals who are non-aligned, and who slip their esoteric knowledge out to those prepared to search for it. However, these people have widely divergent views. At one end of this spectrum we have peak oil alarmists (who may or may not be right). At the other we have the 'she'll be right' brigade. The reality is, there is not enough empirical data available to draw a firm conclusion. The whole issue is just not as simple as most would portray. For example, four of Russia's top geo-scientists joined others around the world to argue that oil is not fossil-based, but magma-based; and therefore, renewable. I must admit this leaves me incredulous, but I have learned to keep an open mind; especially as I am not aware of a single credible report on oil that correlates with others.
Meanwhile, there are more urgent matters at stake. If I recall the figures correctly, 70% of the current oil price is set by the NY futures market. This is insane, and has nothing to do with supply or other quantitative issues. Secondly, I am aware of literally hundreds of wells sunk in and around Australia that were qualified by geophysicists prior to shafting, and simply capped without testing. I got this from several individual drillers. I believe them; I do not believe the corporations or government. Moreover, 70% of the world's current oil is not pumped by the great oil companies, but by national interests; often government-owned. Their prices are low. In other words, the oil prices we hear quoted are first world globalised nations only.
Thirdly, our bass Strait diesel requires only filtering. It is high quality and cheap. Why is it higher priced than petrol?
Official figures show only one third of our oil is imported. My challenge to you guys is to identify the tankers that bring this here; and their manifests. The word I got from inside is that most imports are on paper only.
#TariffRestoration" id="TariffRestoration">The necessisity for the resoration of tariffs
Finally, and most significantly, why did we ever sign the Oil Price Parity Agreement; wherein we have paid foreign prices for Australian oil. And of course, why do we not revoke this criminal piece of nonsense now?
By calculating our actual production costs, relative to Venezuelan, I estimate that our bowser price (sans tax) should be 12 cents per litre (Venezuela is equivalent to 6 cents). The savings generated by such a rationalisation would quickly pay for a pan-Australian standard rail system and saturation public transport. Our oil requirements would then fall dramatically. A second tier of savings could then finance alternative energy and technology research and development.
This, I believe is the direction we should be headed. In terms of current knowledge, it is feasible, economically viable and self-regulating, and addresses economic realities.
However, there is one exception. This will not be implementable, not will it be realistically utilisable, if we do not first restore tariffs. This is because the prime regenerative beneficiaries will be the manufacturing and family farming sectors. Tariff removal destroyed two thirds of our family farms and almost half of our manufacturing over a period of two and a half decades. This also cost three million full time jobs. Simply put, tariff restoration would regenerate all of these, and it would also cause a massive decline in imports, which would make UN/US-generated trade reprisals ineffective.
A bonus would be the creation of a firewall against imported recession. Incidentally, we need to do this anyway because Australia's imports are around 30% higher in value than our exports; which means we are already bankrupt and almost in the clutches of a foreclosing World Bank.
A final thought, to inspire urgency; the US has been reducing imports from China now for a year. This means our exports to China have been falling in tandem (as they must). Our politicians have been lying to us. We are now looking down the barrel of depression; especially if you consider government still has liabilities of 500 billion in unsecured/uncovered public service superannuation liabilities. Only the proposals I outlined can save us from that. So it is really just Hobson's choice.
I know nix about oil, so if any of you can proved evidence-based reasons why I should alter the above, I will be eternally grateful.
Green party
Choice has been removed
Population growth drives development too fast to control
people chose to live in cities
Brisbane, Livable?
supply and demand reality
Petrol: It's the law of supply and demand, stupid!
This was posted by Judy Bamberger (bamberg[AT]eaglet.rain.com 02 62476220) to her local newspaper.
While our politicians contest who can spit the dummy further over petrol-related taxes, they drive and fly, fly and drive, burning oil at unsustainable rates. Australians consume nearly 50% more oil than the average, nearly 10-times than our nearest neighbour, Indonesians, 50% more than Brits.
While we whinge about the price of petrol, we consume oil excessively. Price-per/L is a miniscule percent of per-capita income, far less than about 80% of other nations, six times less than Indonesia, about 50% less than the UK.
Our politicians waste energy, media, time, and oil arguing and blaming each other, concocting tax-saving stunts. And the price of oil (and petrol) rises. The GST on the excise tax (3.8-cents/L), the excise tax (38-cents/L), GST entirely (16-cents/L) - even if we cut all these, barely 50-cents, economists predict the price of petrol will exceed AU$2.00/L by year-end.
Since 2001, oil increased five-fold (US$25/bbl to US$130/bbl); at the bowser, prices have barely doubled.
Wake up, Australia: The price of petrol is high, and it will go only higher. As much as it pains our pocket books, we pay the average world-wide price; half what many Europeans pay.
"It's the law of supply and demand, stupid," as the saying goes. You want to spend less on petrol? STOP DRIVING.
If kangaroos are pests, why are they on our coat of arms?
Kangaroos should be taken off our Coat of Arms and their symbolic use as emblems of Australia for sporting clubs and businesses should be banned. They are considered by our government and land-owners as a pest to be wiped out. Canberra's mascots were systematically executed by bureaucratic "experts" as a form of population control. They are constantly blamed for the damage actually done by livestock industries and feral animals. They are being vilified and hated by so many otherwise patriotic and kind-hearted Australians. They have been hounded and relentlessly hunted for their meagre amount of flesh, and for their skins, for over 170 years.
Over 3.5 million are ambushed and shot each year across Australia in a so-called humane and sustainable industry, and overall their numbers are crashing. The killed ones are getting younger as prime males are being eradicated and now are more likely to be females. These gentle, proud and fascinating animals are being treated as a plague, and disease, to be hunted out of existence due to the pure hatred aimed at them! Joeys are just bashed until dead, or left to die slowly.
Kangaroos are ancient animals that actually help soils and grasses, and they have learned to live in perfect harmony on frugal and seasonal food and water supplies. If they are dying of starvation in their own habitat then it speaks volumes of the damage we humans have inflicted on our country since Colonial times!
Instead of believing this industry's claims and at the same time condemning Japan for atrocities against whales, we should stop our hypocrisy and fix up the mess in our own back-yards! Our ancient and iconic animals are unwelcome and unwanted in their own land! We have betrayed them and so morally we should not use their profile to represent Australia.
The Reproduction of Daily Life
Hi Sheila,
Great Post.
May I respectfully suggest for those readers interested, the following link in relation:
The Reproduction of Daily Life by Fredy Perlman.
Contents include: Daily Life in Capitalist Society, Alienation of Living Activity, The Fetishism of Commodities, Transformation of Living Activity into Capital, Storage and Accumulation of Human Activity.
Kindest Regards
Andrew
SMH picks up Bob Birrell's comments
Third world economy for a third world country going down
California not far behind Australia
Australia may lead the world in extermination native animals, but California is not far behind. Read this article: California's status as 'wildlife state' threatened by growing population of 30 March 08.
California is the "wildlife state." It boasts more species than any other, as well as the greatest number of endemics, those species found nowhere else. This extraordinary biodiversity is already stressed by the state's enormous human population and further threatened by continuing rapid population growth and development.
…
Unfortunately, California also claims the dubious distinction as the state with the most imperiled wildlife. When overpopulation and biodiversity collide, biodiversity invariably suffers. More than 800 species in the state are now at risk - including half of all mammals and …
save the kangaroo
Eco-friendly goats vote to phase out humans
Watch Victor on t.v.
Domestic Animals - Part of the Family!
I agree that goats and other animals which have been introduced to Australia can cause an environmental problem, but as a pet owner, I also admit to a long addiction to having pets. I have welcomed pet mice, horses, rabbits, a ferret, a lizard, goats, dogs, cats, birds, roughly 100 introduced tropical fish and one rather goofy pig into my life over my lifetime. And it's true. I got attached to each and every one of them.
I also understood the responsibility that went with having a pet in my life. You don't let cats run around killing birds. You don't let tropical fish out in the bay. And you don't let dogs roam the streets. You abide by the laws and seek to ensure that they don't play loud music or throw wild parties (or is that children?). You take care of your pets and they take care of you, and you respect your own environment as well as theirs. Provided this is the case, and there is no cruelty or neglect, there is really no comprehensible reason why someone should be forced to give up a pet.
For those of us who understand that animals are more than just livestock running around, waiting to be eaten, it’s bewildering how anyone could support the removal of a clearly beloved domestic pet from the back yard of a private citizen.
Increasingly pet owners are being forced to discount the importance of having pets as part of their family by laws similar to this and other market restrictions which are put on rental market places which more and more often say “No Pets”.
We are becoming a society which discounts the importance of having the experience of a loyal and adoring pet, and who almost sees a pet as a disposable “optional extra” regardless of the relationship it has with its family.
What possible reason could there be to class this animal as “livestock” a term which inherently suggests it has no personality, no rights and no value beyond it’s consumer worth.
I am lucky to have grown up in country and rural areas where there were no such restrictions on our animals. But even if we are to introduce new laws relating to the custody of pets, shouldn't there be an amnesty for those who were obtained legally prior to the changes?
(excerpts from this are at freevictor.com)
Limiting demand?
Time to squat?
Housing less affordable in Australia than in US
Getting on council's goat
The goodness of goats
CBC will often tell what's happening
Peter Salonius posted this to the Sinking Lifeboat mailing list in reponse to Tim's article.
The CBC will often tell what is happening ―however you must use your own judgement about why it is happening, as opposed to paying much attention to the CBC's explanations.
Scrap the CBC and you are left with local growthist boosterism, police action and ambulance chasing that is the fodder that more local media outlets feed on.
"Re-runs of the Howdy Doody Show" will not give you a 'ringside seat' to observe the approaching apocalypse
.
Peter Salonius
Poker Machines - a Carr legacy
Pauline Hanson enigmatic
The issue of Pauline Hanson is problematic for me in a number of ways. For years she was considered by many to be the embodiment of evil in this country. Being a leftist myself, I felt obligated to accept the view that the One Nation Party was the genesis of a fascist movement like the German Nazi Party, the Italian Fascists (or in this country, the New Guard or Old Guard of the 1930's). On one or two occasions, I could almost have attended the rowdy demonstrations against the One Nation Party, but, thankfully, did not.
I can now see the issue as more complex. Moreover, despite its flaws and the socially conservative views of many of its members, I see the One Nation Party as largely a necessary and positive response to the neo-liberal counter-revolution of the time. It was the only large organisation that was prepared to confront the paramount political issue of our time, that is, immigration.
I was a member of the organisation that now sells Green Left in the late 1970's and 1980's. It was then called the Socialist Workers' Party (SWP) and it is now called the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). I have recently learned that the people who controlled it back then have become a minority and have been expelled (see Australian DSP divides, Disrepute and democratic centralism according to the DSP and The politics of the DSP purge all to be found on the web site ozleft.wordpress.com.) I very much doubt if I would have much sympathy for either of the two warring parties in this dispute, although I still believe that socialist thought, if strongly tempered with the Malthusian understanding of the world that Marx and most of his successors stupidly tried to deny, still has a lot to offer. A good article to read is socialist environmentalist Sandy Irvine's Trotsky's Biggest Blindspot
Dave #comment-896">wrote: “It will be interesting to see how the left websites and papers deal with Cameron, …“"
In fact, Green Left, whilst the core of the Socialist Alliance, members of which have actively #harrassment">harassed immigration reduction activists for years, has been curiously silent on this issue lately. It does promote refugee rights, which, as we have all seen, have been used as an effective smokescreen behind which immigration numbers have been ramped up in recent years, but it is extremely difficult to find any article specifically about immigration lately. The following are the first twelve links I obtained when I used the term 'migration' on Green Left's web site:
- CUBA: US employs weapons of mass migration, 14 May 03
- Editorial: Migration bill splits the Coalition, 17 Nov 93
- Migration, racism and environment,16 Mar 94
- Washington announces arrangements on migration of Cubans of 26 Oct 94
- Ruddock's refugee tribunal biased of 28 Aug 02
- Marx vs Keynes on immigration of 13 Aug 97
- Issues: Migrant women: tired of being invisible of 26 Feb 92
- Howard ducks for cover on 457 visa rorts of 14 Jul 07
- West Papuan asylum seekers need our support of 17 Nov 93
- TPVs finally shelved, deportations continuing of 17 May 08
- Environment: Why cutting immigration won't help of 27 Nov 96
- Labor changes its refugee policy, slightly of 4 May 07
- …
The above results are similar to those I have obtained on a number of previous occasions. The only article above which actually addresses immigration in any sensible way is Howard ducks for cover on 457 visa rorts, but it doesn't actually take a stance on immigration itself and avoids reflecting upon the DSP's past more strident promotion of high immigration.
A problem with Green Left's search facility is that it does not seem to give any weight to chronology in its ordering of its search results, so it is difficult to know for sure how much or how little current coverage is being given to this critical issue. Still, on the basis of the above, it would appear very little. So, it seems to me that the DSP is being dishonest and evasive. Whether they currently support or oppose high immigration, they should have the courage of their convictions to say so openly and explain why.
Dave, if you have Doug Cameron's email address, please let me know.
Copyright notice: Reproduction of this material is encouraged as long as the source is acknowledged.
Iceland's immigration policy
The following was posted to the mailing list Optimum Population (optimumpopulation AT yahoogroups.com). The web-site of the UK group Optimum Population Trust is www.optimumpopulation.org.
Re Tim Murray's outline of Icelandic culture it seems that they don't wish to have their culture diluted but don't mind the dilution of their recently very pure blood and genectic line by the immigration of, as I have heard, a large contingent of Pakistani men in the past so many years as long as they change their name, speak Norse, presumably not open kebab/tandoori food establishments etc. and everything stays the same except the look of the immigrants and their offspring.
This is a very enlightened, accepting attitude the Icelanders are taking which shows immigrants are welcome as long as they are really integrated. It would be interesting to know how the Muslim immigrants have handled the strong women, promiscuous sex and the high consumption of alcohol all around them.
The Icelanders must be hard working as, at least until recently (their currency was devalued) they had a higher per capita income than those in the UK with a population of 1/25th of the population of London with no exportable natural resources except fish, which they sensibly had a war with us to protect. They must be living from the rest of the world's population by clever investments and expertise. An interesting place.
The new pariah
What evidence does the Australian have against Cameron?
What evidence did the Australian give for this statement which seems horribly defamatory against Doug Cameron? Are they trying to incite hatred against him?
" … the immigration debate has already pricked the raw nerves of xenophobia and self interest that lie just below the surface of many within the labour movement. …
"It is a rerun of the views that underpinned the ALP's support for the discredited White Australia policy, which grew out of a deal between labour and capital to protect Australian jobs from Chinese immigration."
Personally I would ten times rather be associated with Cameron than with the people who actually benefit from high immigration - the bankers, the property developers, the big mining companies and those who destroy forests everywhere. It certainly seems like the moral universe of the Murdoch Press is very murky and strange.
It is terrible to see Cameron treated this way. I would say that the worse he is treated by the Australian, the better a man he must be.
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
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Aggressive war the obverse side of the coin to high immigration
This was also posted to abandonskip.blogspot.com
Hi Skip,
Good that someone else is raising his voice against high immigration.
In regards to Tim's article, "Iceland, the most peaceful country on earth", please feel encouraged to reproduce it as long as you acknowledge the original source, preferably with a link back to the article.
For the record, I take issue with some of the content of the sites linked to from there, for example fortressaustralia.blogspot.com which, in turn, links to sites which apparently support aggressive US wars against other countries, for example MilBlogs.
I support the defence of the Australian continent against overt military attacks and terrorist attacks and I oppose high immigration into this continent as trampling on the rights of the current residents of this continent.
However, this should not imply support for this country or its allies violating the rights of other countries such as Iraq. I strongly recommend that you read Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine". I have quoted from in on Online Opinion Discussion.
I think you should ponder why US citizen Rupert Murdoch through mouthpieces such as The Australian both supports the invasion of Iraq and, as you have noted, high immigration into Australia. I think they are two sides of the same coin.
I also recommend you read Tim Murray's Article "Closing our borders can't mean turning our backs". Whilst Tim resolutely opposes high immigration into the US and Canada, he points out that it would not be nearly as much a problem if neo-liberal globalism had not previously destroyed the self-sufficient agricultural economies that had previously existed in the countries from which prospective immigrants want to come.
We aren't going to solve our problems by perpetually waging war on everyone else on earth as the bloggers at MilBlogs seem to think. By all means we must act prudently against military threats, but we are only going to fix the mess for good if we deal with the cause instead of just the symptom of immigration.
Can I quote this article?
Mainstream media propaganda machine in Oz
Corporate spin and the media
Shared room accomodation becoming widespread in Sydney
I meant to write about this in the article. I read, possibly within the last four months, that in Sydney #SharedRoomAccommodation" id="SharedRoomAccommodation">shared room accommodation is becoming more commonplace, so high have rental costs become. If anyone can provide more information on this it would be greatly appreciated.
Send messages automatically to parliamentarians on issues
If you go to the Amalgamated Manufacturing Workers' Union's (AMWU) site (see also #WhatYouCanDo">above) and click on campaigns, you can send messages to parliamentarians on a number of issues, notably (as well as 457 visas) to Iemma on the privatisation of electricity.
It's a good site.
Thanks Dave,
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
home page
Copyright to the author. Please contact sheila [AT] candobetter org or the editor if you wish to make substantial reproduction or republish.
Rough EROEI of Nuclear on Candobetter leads to chapter in book
Hats off to the Bolivians!
Will low-paid engineers make QANTAS unsafe?
More on Qantas..
Qantas to use strike breakers recruited from Asia Pacific
REI prepared to sacrifice the truth
How big should Canberra be?
Further to my earlier post, I've tracked down the survey mentioned in Evan Jones' blog, about residents attitudes to Canberra's growth. It's in "How Big Should Canberra Be?" an Australia Institute Webpaper by Clive Hamilton and Claire Barbato published in May 2005 downloadable as a 61K pdf file.
It makes interesting reading, as all the issues are the same today. This notwithstanding, we still have the local Real Estate Institute coming out with press releases saying that Canberra has 'stalled' because of 'sluggish population growth'.
Mind you, according to the ABC news report "Canberra's population reaches 340,000" of 19 Mar 08, Canberra's population growth over the year to March '08 was right on the national average.
Obviously still too slow for the REI.
Top author, Sharon Beder, writes on Privatisation
Reasons against Power Privatisation
'Pro-democracy' a better label than 'left wing' for Morales
The Deification of the Market
Privatisation ideology is a con-man's patter
How to confront the decline in material wealth?
Thanks for this! And to
Carr and Keating have direct financial stakes in privatisation
In fact, Keating has a direct financial stake in the privatisation of NSW's electicity assets proceeding. As reported on the ABC news of 6 May:
Mr Keating has also declared he is a consultant to a private financial company advising the NSW Government on its privatisation proposals.
Curiously, this information was not revealed when the Sydney Morning Herald published Keating's opinion piece Iemma deserved better than naked obstructionism on 6 May
And after Carr resigned as NSW premier he infamously began working as a consultant for Macquarie Bank,one of those companies aiming to buy NSW's electricity assets, for AU$500,000 per year.
Copyright notice: Reproduction of this material is encouraged as long as the source is acknowledged.
Response to support question
Ex-pollies (& Current ones) support question
Australia does have a population policy
privatisation ideology does not fit the 21st century
Hi Mike, I totally agree
Powering down
Population and our bush capital
Powering down
Accreditation requirements a barrier to employment
As it happens, a lot of discussion Online Opinion concerns the so-called skill shortage and migration. I will include a few posts from a discussion forum in response to Labor Senator Kim Carr's article Securing the future of Australian manufacturing of 10 April 2008
#CertificationBarriers1" id="CertificationRequirements1">Is skills shortage largely the result of needless certification barriers?
I question whether we really do have a skilled labour shortage or an excess of hyperbole.
We are so demanding of certificates for hands on work we are struggle to find skilled tradesmen. for example.
Commonwealth Games Melbourne. lack of security personnel. In Victoria a security person must study at TAFE for 6 months and sit through classes given by serving policemen. The appropriately accredited bouncers were not going to drop their permanent night club job to do security for the Commonwealth Games for 4 to 6 weeks max. Consequently Indian students were hired. Now skippys had to be qualified by the Indians didn't know how to search bags, persons, were easily bribed with food and quite frankly some Indian security guards were too small to be any deterent to a 50 year old aussie.
Railway linesmen and bush fire brigade members now have to attend TAFE to learn how to use a chainsaw. Can't see how practical experience isn't more beneficial.
Why do registered teachers have to pay an additional $2000 to get a Certificate IV of workplace training?
I am sure there are further examples of demands for certification that are used to create unnecessary barriers to entry.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 9:36:47 PM
#CertificationBarriers2" id="CertificationBarriers2">Attainment of unnecessary accreditation costly for jobseekers
Billie has drawn attention to a serious obstacle to employment and promotion; the obsession with academic control over non-apprenticed manual skill employment.
Courses are expensive and out of reach for those unemployed, and at the rate in which TAFEs are being closed down, many students are forced to travel up to two hours each way to their nearest facility (ie as in the closure of Seaforth).
Even such simple jobs as building wooden fences, require a labourer to have several thousand dollars on hand; and (in Qld) be certified by a Building Services Authority that clearly exists to favour the big end of town. It is an indication of how extraneous this qualification demand is, that I learned this skill in a few hours at the age of sixteen.
Politicians insist these requirements were introduced to protect consumers yet, continuing with the example of fencing, construction standards have plummeted quite dramatically.
Of course, government then claims positions cannot be filled and these figures are deducted from unemployed statistics. Thus real unemployment is actually enforced, while simultaneously hiding the numbers.
I look forward to the day when the politicians and bureaucrats responsible stand trial for these crimes against the Australian people.
Wednesday, 30 April 2008 11:07:02 PM
#CertificationBarriers3" id="CertificationBarriers3">Requirement for Four Wheel Drive Certification
Billie, I think you will find that a lot of that accreditation stuff is tied up with Worksafe, a so called duty of care and some litigation that has gone on. One property owner in NSW I was told, was fined something like $200,000, after a couple of his staff rolled the 4WD whilst checking cattle. It seems he did not fulfil his duty of care, by sending them to an accredited 4WD course.
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1 May 2008 10:02:20 AMWednesday, 30 April 2008 11:07:02 PM
#SkilledMigrantProgramAFailure" id="SkilledMigrantProgramAFailure">Two thirds of 'skilled' migrants not working in vocation
I refer to posts by Billie and Tony Ryan about Australia's skills 'crisis'.
Regardless of the causes of this phenomenon, the prefered solution to date - increasing skilled immigration - seems to have failed.
See Sydney Morning Herald story Migrants add to skills crisis: study of 29 April 2008.
#GovernmentByMinorityLobby" id="GovernmentByMinorityLobby">Government by Minority Lobby, not democracy
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Personally, I would like to see an end to all immigration and refugee programmes; and I suspect the majority of Aussies think similarly. I would go further; those who plainly do not respect Australian culture should be returned. But that's our problem. Decisions are made on the basis of what 15% of the population want. This is Government by Minority Lobby, not democracy.
According to my surveys, and depending upon specific issue, between 65% and 94% of Australians do not agree with government policy. I think that that just about sums up all of Australia's problems.
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Powering down
Re: Powering down
Pourquoi les Australiens tolerent-ils Iemma?
What is Mr Lenders trying to say here?
Much better ways to make friends
A great day for Oz when Property Council goes out of business
ACF slow to help, quick to take credit
Why can't our governments decide how big our cities will be?
Thanks for drawing this story to our attention, Ilan. In a way, it's good that John Lenders has raised this issue in this way instead of just relentlessly shouting that massive population growth is inherently a good thing as the rest of the members of the Victorian Government seem to. Nevertheless, his comments still appear to accept some premises which are in conflict with democratic principles as Ilan has noted. For example, why shouldn't a democratically elected Government which is supposedly acting in the best interest of the public it is purportedly serving determine how big it can grow?
Every day of the week we find stories in the media where what should be regarded as a choice to be decided one way or the other through democratic processes is, instead, presented to us as a foregone conclusion over which none of us, from the highest levels of government and business decision makers right down to the communities and individuals within them can have any control. In fact, as I have noted in my article The Australian laments outcome of Queensland local government elections of 29 March:
... the choice is being made, but instead of it being made by the affected communities, it is being made by politicians, like Queensland Premier Anna Bligh, who serve the same vested interests as does the Murdoch media. They include principally the aforementioned Property Council of Australia, whose members gain from population growth, through land speculation and property development, at the expense of the rest of the community, the environment and future generations.
Is the Victorian Treasurer a man, a mouse, or something else?
How did free-trade globalisers get away with it?
- The strident absolutely self-assured way in which their propaganda was relentlessly pushed by the newsmedia;
- Opponents views were dismissed as quaint and old fashioned and they were given little voice;
- As may workers lost their livelihoods, others, not so exposed to competition from slave wages, gained from cheaper imports;
- That much of the left opposed, rather than supported, tariffs. Part of their rationale was that tariffs were somehow reactionary and served to divide, rather than unite workers across national boundaries and accordingly would lead to trade wars and ultimately more inter-imperialist wars such as the First and Second World Wars
A better form of protection?
Age article by Kenneth Davidson
Economic scenarios might involve revisiting the protection debate. There are meagre returns from further reductions in protection for manufacturing industry but the finance industry gets fabulous assistance. When push comes to shove, the central banks exist to prop up the financial system when the banks lend to the point of self-destruction in a deregulated financial market. It is happening now. Should the banks be re-regulated? What quid pro quo should the community demand for its largesse? Are financial markets sacred?
Protectionism & tariffs
Restoration of tariffs an excellent idea
A few good... economists
Demography and growth economics in a dry desert-land
Hi Dave,
Please write us an article if you feel up to it.
See end this response for an event where Assoc Prof Katharine Betts will be speaking.
Really appreciated your comment. The truth is that I nearly added that not all demographers and economists are useless -gosh, Malthus was the first economist - (not that he got everything right) but I kind of hoped to inflame some information rich response - and did. Of course they are not ALL useless - just the ones that bad business uses to ram home its destructive agenda. I didn't know about Ted Wheelright and will look up some of his work. With regards to demographers, Cristabel Young, Graham Hugo, Terrance Hull (who is also an anthropologist I think) spring to mind as good guys. Please do write a paene to any others and post it here.
The big problem (as you probably realise) is that having a maths degree, without broader scientific method and sociological or biological background, doesn't equip you to draw any political conclusions based on a series of numbers of people. What it does permit is crafting a recipe for cashing in on trends, and it leads to people trying to organise those trends to keep on happening when they would probably ordinarily come to an end or evolve into something different. The broader public need to be educated to distrust academics who spruik for business.
It is really poor that entire state planning departments abuse past demographic trends by presenting them to the public time and again as if they were cast-iron predictions. The politicians jump on these trend-vehicles like trained dogs and tell us all to get on board and the media market them to death. I have complained in the past to the ABC that they have reported APop pronouncements as if they were equivalent to ABS pronouncements. Once upon a time - I think - the ABC didn't make those kinds of mistakes.
Mind you, quite a few sociologists have been funded by business lobbies to write ideological population-boosting books which are no better. And few sociologists have a clue about ecology or fuels, which makes them incapable of assessing the impact people and society have.
It does help to have a conscience as well and maybe some control over status hunger. Perhaps I should be more understanding; so many people are trying just to make a living, but personally I draw the line at selling my country down the [dry] river.
Katharine Betts is not a demographer She is a sociologist, as is Bob Birrell (albeit Bob has an economics degree as well, I think). Betts and Birrell draw their sociological conclusions carefully, based on research and theory.
What I object to is economists and demographers who feel okay about cobbling together a coincidence and peddling it for hire, when the consequences are so serious, such as spooking the public with mad ideologies like demographic implosion (in a world of 6.5 billion!), or implying that Australia's population is falling when it isn't etc. in the service of economic growthist ideology. And the coarse and fascist remedies they propose for their imaginary problems. The horrible thing is that business has used these people plus money like weapons against democracy, and the politicians have been sucked in or induced to foist this kind of really muddy thinking on the public. So now we are in danger of having some official policy of growing our population to two or three times its size, against a background of oil depletion and atmospheric pollution, soil impoverishment and water overshoot, intensification of intensive feedlot farming, and gross fracturing of the population structures and social organisation of much of our wildlife. We are becoming such a depraved society.
By the way, Katharine Betts will be giving a lecture and discussion session at the North Melbourne Town Hall Library on 10 May at 3-4pm.
Are we going too big?
How fast is Australia’s population really growing?
How much of this growth is due to immigration?
Have trends really changed dramatically?
Did we need a baby bonus?
Do government and the media give the true picture in a state where the impacts of growth are becoming overwhelming— traffic-choked roads, water restrictions, anxiety about future water supply, pressure on land for housing, unaffordability, constant massive infrastructure projects and increasing need to protect wildlife from rapid growth and development....... ?
SPEAKER: 3PM – 4PM, SAT 10 MAY, MELBOURNE:
DR KATHARINE BETTS, Australian Population Sociologist, Associate Professor in Sociology at Swinburne University, Editor of Monash University demographic quarterly, People and Place, and Author of Immigration Ideology and The Great Divide.
This session will look at Statistics and Politics:
Statistics: Changes in collection and definition of Australian immigration statistics over the past 10 years.
Reliable estimates of the numbers from 1998-2008 (Migration and total population change)
Politics: Interpreting recent trends in Australian Political population policy and how policy intersects with real immigration numbers.
Dr Katharine Betts is Australia’s leading expert in different ways of measuring and presenting immigration statistics. An experienced teacher, she will explain Australian population statistics and show trends over the long and short term.
DISCUSSION: 4PM – 5PM
VENUE AND DATE:
(After the SPA VIC AGM at 2PM)
Saturday 10TH May
North Melbourne Library (upstairs)
66 Errol St. North Melbourne (Melway ref.2A J 10)
Sheila Newman, population sociologist
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Verdant vegetation and the beauty of the desert
I also heard the same b.s.
Captain Rudd and Titanic Australis, management of collision
The "moonscaped" block is an all-too-common sight
Please keep those comments on Victoria's developer putsch coming
I made a submission through the online form
I made a submission through the online form, though I could not answer most of the questions (see my #comment-834">previous comment)! I ended with a rather lame comment:
"The new zones give too much power to developers to do whatever they like; even the current zones are preferable to these proposed ones. The residents who are affected by a development should have the right to object to it. Melbourne's liveability - its open spaces and low residential density - is being eroded by overdevelopment. The Government should try to restrict population growth rather than try to cram more and more people into the same area."
Iceland Immigration