immigration

The &;politically incorrect&; issue of whether or not a society such as a Australia has the right to control its population levels through immigration controls

Stop the Queensland growth treadmill!

Sun, 2007-06-24 19:22 by admin

The Queensland Government does not pursue its environmently reckless course of encouraging endless population growth with the support of Queensland's existing population, who are overwhelmingly opposed. Rather it is being done to suit the interests of property developers and land speculators and dependent industries who are able to paradoxically exploit circumstances, in which all members of society must necessarily, on average, become poorer, in order to enrich themselves.

It accedes to the wishes of this parasitic growth lobby, because it is financially dependant upon stamp duties generated from real estate transactions and because developers, rather than trade unions, have become the principle source of contributions to Labor Party coffers.

On 22 April, the Age newspaper that the Queensland Government had rejected a call by the group to cap the south-east corner's mushrooming population to help save its dwindling water supplies. Deputy Premier Anna Bligh stated:

"The only way we could really do that is to put a fence up at the (Queensland) border, or to cancel or freeze all new home building approvals," she said.

"That would have a very serious impact on the construction industry that a lot people rely on for jobs.

In other words, Bligh was stating unapologetically that the Queensland economy was not being run to meet the needs of Queensland's existing population, rather that it was necessary to keep importing more and more people in order to keep existing Queenslanders employed. Evidently, she had never paused to reflect on how those new Queenslanders would, in turn, gain employment. One could only conclude than even more people would have to be imported in order to provide further employment opportunities for the new arrivals. In turn, those newer arrivals would would require yet more even newer arrivals.

In the meantime Queensland's existing population would be made to pay ever more for its basic sevices such as water water as Goverenments would find it necessary to depend upon energy-intensive technologically complex alternatives such as desalination and sewage recycling to provide the necessary water. Communities such as that in the and at are to be face destruction as more dams were built in order to store the necessary water.

Clearly this stituation is unsustainable in the long term. The longer it is allowed to persist, the more difficult it will be for Queenslanders to cope in future with environmental crises, both global and localised, and looming shortages of natural resources. The sooner this cycle is broken the better.

Response to Roger Bezdek Peak Oil interview on "The National Interest"

Sun, 2007-06-24 15:47 by James Sinnamon
This was posted to ABC Radio National's "National Interest" on 24 June 2007. It concerned an , who is warning us that we need to prepare now for the inevitable inability of the oil industry to maintain supplies of oil sufficien to meet demand after the production of oil 'peaks' in the near future. His prediction that oil production will peak in 2020, whilst at variance with that of most in the oil industry, seem s remarkably optimistic to myslef who is expecting teh total global production to peak any day now. I can only hope that he is right. Nevertheless, even if he is right, his message did not seem to convey what I consider to be the necessary degree of urgency. Message insufficiently urgent I think, whilst Roger Bezdek's message, that we need to prepare well in advance for Peak Oil is a good one, I think we need to do so with a much greater sense of urgency. I am surprised that he dismissed the suggestion you put to him that we should cease forthwith the expansion of our road, bridge and airport infrastructure. Over-consumption and planned obsolescence wastes scarce petroleum We also have to grasp the fact now that the present high levels of consumption of petroleum-based consumer items, most of which end up in landfill after a matter of months (usually needlessly due to planned obsolescence), will be paid for in only a few more years time when we will not have enough petroleum and other non-renewable natural resources left to allow us to meet far more basic needs. When that happens we will then understand the stupidity of today's accepted practice of buying a new mobile phone, computer, or iPod every one or two years, or of building supposedly 'energy-efficent' refrigerators which turn into rusted pieces of junk after a mere five years. Raising oil prices alone not the answer Raising petrol prices alone, then leaving the rest to market forces cannot solve the problem. We have to be allowed through democratic processes to intervene to stop the 'free market's' needless waste of natural resources. Furthermore, it is important that the cost of preparing for Peak Oil be fairly shared amongst all sectors of society. It shouldn't be just the poor and disadvantaged who should be made to pay the price. How can we meet Peak Oil threat if population numbers go on increasing? The other obvious point is that the more consumers of petroleum products there are, the harder it will be to meet the challenge. The Australian Government's encouragement of record immigration (which according to Ross Gittins ( SMH, 13 June 07) is not the official 150,000, but in fact 300,000 ) is insane in these circumstances.

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