immigrationism

Innes Willox, the Chief Executive of the Australian Industry Group or AIGroup, aims to bolster the economy by resurrecting the discredited mass-immigration agenda. His group has been described as: A leading organisation representing business in a broad range of sectors including manufacturing, defence, ICT and labour hire, by the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council (accessed 1 September 2020), which lists him, among other positions, as “Board Member of Migration Council of Australia,” and notes that he “was Chief of Staff to the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer, from 2004 to 2006.”

To appreciate the agenda, in the article, Migration, tax reform a key to revival, (Geoff Chambers, The Australian, 24 August 2020). Chambers wrote that the Australian Industry Group was calling for “a long-term, systematic shake-up of the tax system focused upon the removal of the worst taxes.”

But the overriding aspect of AIGroup’s push requires the Federal government to achieve,“An increase of the migration cap.”

Innes Willox, repeats his decades-long mantra:

“Restore the migration cap to 190,000 places a year and [furthermore] move to [implement] a growth rate target for annual permanent migration [levels, because] migration was critical to Australian prosperity.”

Willox and, indeed, that coterie of like-minded Big Australia cohorts, construe that merely importing copious numbers of immigrants will bolster ‘demand’. Therefore, the sacrosanct supply and demand factors which economic-rationalists embrace, will summarily kick-in - and boost economic growth. It all seems so straightforward and logical.
There’s nothing there about what might happen when these immigrant groups become so large that they could use their numbers to establish political entities to organise for their own benefit and possibly against Australia’s!

Of course, this disaster already seems obvious to many. Rancour inside the major parties shows it. In Victoria an Indian woman in the Liberal Party has established a ‘religious Right’ faction based on certain migrant groups. In South Australia a Chinese woman and upper-house MP is openly advocating for China and Chinese migrants. Are we surprised?

Without doubt, Innes Willox and Co would gloat about this scenario, as being culturally diverse and enriching. When, in fact, what it really is cultural separatism; if not downright divisive. And this is evident in that, outside workplace requirements, many in the array of ethnocultural groups in Australia, rarely interact with those outside of their cultural-bubbles. Except, perhaps, as Clive Hamilton, in Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia, argues, they seek to flatter and influence people holding political and business positions.

At any rate, Australia’s Prime Minister has reacted, introducing legislation requiring Federal oversight of any agreements with foreign powers/investments: “The government will introduce legislation next week empowering the foreign affairs minister to review and cancel agreements – such as Victoria’s decision to sign up to China’s belt and road initiative – if the commonwealth judges the arrangement adversely affects Australia’s foreign relations.” See, Victorian premier defends China deal as PM pushes to override state pacts with foreign nations. On the other side of the coin, many Australians continue to worry about Australia’s role as an international deputy to the United States war machine. (See, for instance, The Independent and Peaceful Australian Network, “Don’t buy into war.”). Most of us can probably agree that we would rather be independent and sovereign.

In past times, advocates of open-door immigration programs claimed this would enrich Australia. Alas, what has transpired is that immigrants had arrived in such droves, over the past decade, that they have rapidly displaced established Anglo-Celtic-European ethnicities from scores of suburbs in Sydney and Melbourne. The end result more closely resembles a collection of peoples, with diverse national or ethnic allegiances, rather than those of what once-was, termed ‘mainstream Australia’.

Further, over the past few months, we’ve seen the Big Australia advocates, like Willox and the AiGroup, calling for the government to fast-track international students in Australia from temporary migrants to permanent residents, as the stepping stone to fill job requirements. The effect of this would be to counter the drop in immigrant numbers which has followed from COVID-19 closing the borders to foreigners. What manner of gross-insanity exists here, with them demanding international students fill the void, when unemployment presently stands at 14% and underemployment is at a comparable percentage?

Willox reportedly purports that

”Immigration was critical to Australian prosperity and the pandemic has necessarily constrained inward immigration, but Australia would need to think long and hard before any decision [was made] to sustain lower levels over a longer term and the reduction in permanent migration visas had contributed to a reliance on temporary migration flows, dominated by students and backpackers. (”Coronavirus: migration, tax reform ‘key to recovery’”.)

Clearly, what Willox and AiGroup’s long-term migration strategy entails is summed up in the following two statements:

“[Australia’s future prosperity] would be enhanced by moving to an annual growth rate target for annual permanent migration that is linked to [the] national labour market growth, instead of a fixed quota number.”

“The changed outlook for immigration has huge implications for many industries, especially of immigration in housing and construction, which have been fueled by high levels both permanent and temporary levels.”[Emphasis added]

Well, taking into account that immigration intakes into Australia between January 2014 until June 2019 were, comparatively, 2.25 times higher than that of the US, prompts these queries:

If, as Willox and his cohorts claim mass-immigration makes Australia richer, then how come we are the most indebted society in the world? Surely, if the theory espoused by Willox and all of the Big Australia Brigadistâs is correct then prices/costs should, at the very least, be stagnant? Unlike as over these past 75 months during an era of huge immigration levels - since the LNP won office in September 2013 - house prices have increased by 60%, but wages only rose 15%?

Clearly, in spite of the relentless-claims made by the Big Australia Brigade, open-door immigration into Australia, hasn’t made us wealthier at all. These policies have actually encumbered the country with the exact opposite scenario. Alas, in spite of this situation being indisputable, we yet again find lobbyists like Willox calling for the government to resurrect those failed schemes.

But Willox is so concerned about the decline in building, if immigration is not increased, talking of:

“[…]The huge implications for many industries, particularly housing and construction.”

And it is the housing/construction sector interests that expose precisely what the whole Big Australia agenda is built upon. Excessive numbers of highly compliant immigrants will fall for the con-trick of borrowing big sums of money to buy a property. This will sustain the huge Ponzi-scheme.

Australia is now wallowing in crisis but those with the money are pushing for a new round of lunacy in furthering the disaster dumped upon Australians.

Labor MP, Anne Aly, has been widely publicised objecting to immigration and population being mentioned together by Kristina Keneally, Shadow minister for immigration and citizenship, and NSW Premier from 2009 to 2011. Aly's tired cliches have predictably summoned up a dog-pack of growthists claiming to hear dog-whistles and to see Pauline Hanson look-a-likes. The growth lobby and its spokespeople are panicking, because the chickens of their land-speculation are coming home to roost, as COVID-19 dries up immigration. The more Anne Aly supports them, the more publicity she will get - always useful for an aspiring politician - and damn the consequences for Australians.

Kenneally's 'offending words':

"As a result of COVID-19, Australia will soon have an opportunity to do something we have never done before: restart a migration program. When we do, we must understand that migration is a key economic policy lever that can help or harm Australian workers during the economic recovery and beyond.

We must make sure that Australians get a fair go and a first go at jobs. Our post-COVID-19 economic recovery must ensure that Australia shifts away from its increasing reliance on a cheap supply of overseas, temporary labour that undercuts wages for Australian workers and takes jobs Australians could do." (Kristina Keneally, "Advancing Australia," Sunday Age, 3 May 2020.)

Anne Aly's 'indignant' response:

Showing woeful or feigned ignorance of the components of population growth in Australia, to the acclaim of the big end of town, Labor MP Anne Aly has objected to immigration and population being mentioned together by Kristina Keneally.[1]

In fact immigration has, until a recent pause due to COVID-19, composed more than 60 per cent of Australia's shockingly rapid population growth for nigh on a decade. So, what's Anne Aly's problem with the truth, that she thinks gives her licence to attack Kristina Keneally (or by implication anyone else) for voicing it? Worse, Aly, who is supposed to be representing Australians, has criticised Keneally for wanting to put Australians first. If not Australians first, then who, Ms Aly?

Aly is not the only one doing service for the growth lobby in the ALP, which is known for its massive investments in property finance and development. (See, for instance, /node/1781.)

The Drum

The ABC's The Drum ran an item on this on Monday 4 May 2020. The clip starts around the 30 min mark on the ABC podcast. Geoff Gallop and the rest of the panel, including Abdul Rizvi (ex immigration public servant from 1990s to 2007), uncritically recited the usual propaganda about how immigration creates jobs, Australians don't want to do some jobs, Australia needs it to cope with ageing (they must be pleased with COVID-19's lethal effect on the elderly), falling natural increase, etc. A union representative did mention the problem of exploitation through the short-term work visa system. Rizvi acknowledged this is a problem. As an incorrigible immigration advocate, however, he claimed it is solvable. Whilst it might theoretically be solvable, like world hunger, it has actually been getting much worse, due to legal and constitutional changes. As we have come to expect from the ABC, unfortunately, there was no sign of an articulate representative of an opposing view.

Fran Kelly

Kristina Keneally was interviewed by Fran Kelly on Tuesday morning (5 May 2020) on ABC RN. Kelly basically accused Keneally of dog whistling and undertones of racism in her weekend article. (This was also articulated by Australian Director at Human Rights Watch, Elaine Pearson, in a punishing tone last night on Q and A, egged on by the presenter of course.) I thought Keneally held her position very well in the face of Fran Kelly's interrogation, and came across as coherent and reasonable. She also put her position in a human context, with her call for temporary migrants who are stuck here due to Covid 19, being given government assistance, as are Australian workers. The part of what Keneally wrote, that Kelly latched onto, was that Keneally advocated Australians being catered for first in the post COVID-19 job market before importing workers from overseas.

This was supposedly sounding like Pauline Hanson and that is bad because Pauline Hanson said it (!). Furthermore Pauline Hanson has thrown the spotlight on it as something she's been saying for years.

Seems we are still stuck in a closed circuit where anyone who raises the issue of immigration in any form will be hammered back in the media with accusations of racism. It has worked so well that those who benefit from it will never tire of it.

Jobs and growth

The Financial Review editorial for 4 May 2020 would have the reader think that Australia and Australians have been prospering over the last three decades. Ordinary Australians have lost heavily and continue to.

"Hansonite populism on migration won't restore jobs and growth," Financial Review Editorial for 4 May 2020.

Jobs and growth have not brought prosperity. In fact "jobs" has meant overwork for some and underemployment stress for others. "Growth" has meant overcrowding, housing stress and reduced quality of life, including destruction of the environment. What's growing is just the number of people partaking in this!

The Financial Review editorial criticises the need to even talk about immigration numbers policy in Australia, since the numbers have dropped with the closing of our borders due to COVID-19. But this is precisely when we should talk about it, because, to a certain extent, the pressure from the growth lobby has to relent during this pause. Or you would think so, however, they are coming out in force, as we can see from the above.

Sometimes you hear the other side, as in this SBS article:

'Industry professor Warren Hogan, an economist from the University of Technology, Sydney,has said now was a good time to have the debate about migration levels. “There is no doubt that Australia is probably the highest immigration nation in the world. This is a chance to think about if that’s the right strategy going forward,” he said.' (Source: Jarni Blakkarly, "Reimagining a new Australia': Experts back calls for a debate about Australia's migrant numbers post-coronavirus," SBS News, updated on 4 May 2020.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/reimagining-a-new-australia-experts-back-calls-for-a-debate-about-australia-s-migrant-numbers-post-coronavirus)

But if you read the whole article, Professor Hogan is outnumbered, two to one, by pro-immigration 'experts', with their mass-produced cliches.

"University of Sydney Associate Professor Anna Boucher agreed it was an opportunity to examine Australia's migration program, she said it was important to acknowledge migrants have an important role to play in the recovery."

(Source: Jarni Blakkarly, "Reimagining a new Australia': Experts back calls for a debate about Australia's migrant numbers post-coronavirus," SBS News, updated on 4 May 2020.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/reimagining-a-new-australia-experts-back-calls-for-a-debate-about-australia-s-migrant-numbers-post-coronavirus.)

"Associate professor of human geography Alan Gamlen from Monash University said migration levels would need to stabilise at around the same rate as pre-coronavirus in order for Australia to return to the same level of economic growth." (Source: Jarni Blakkarly, "Reimagining a new Australia': Experts back calls for a debate about Australia's migrant numbers post-coronavirus," SBS News, updated on 4 May 2020.https://www.sbs.com.au/news/reimagining-a-new-australia-experts-back-calls-for-a-debate-about-australia-s-migrant-numbers-post-coronavirus.)

The real problem is that greedy land-speculators who have been running the country for years and who have borrowed to build apartments to sell to new migrants, are now looking at financial collapse, while the rest of us are looking at a lower cost of living as population-pressure on housing-prices finally falls.

But the growth lobby knows how to put the wind up the powerful, and the Australian Prime Minister knows which side his bread is buttered on:

"Cutting immigration would hurt the economy and communities: Morrison." Sydney Morning Herald, 5 May 2020.)

Hallelujah! It didn't take him long. But what about COVID-19? It hasn't gone away. The Prime Minister also said he was going to a football match despite the pandemic, then backed down, shortly before we all went into lock-down.

Panic among the growthists

The growth lobby and its spokespeople are panicking. Maybe because they don't want Australians or those living here to realise they enjoy aspects of their lives now, not tearing around, having some time for themselves off the work-commute treadmill. They (the growth lobby) are saying, "Don't get used to it. You must take The Economy's medicine, even though you don't like it. You all understand why chickens are raised in crowded conditions. It's good for the bottom line. Likewise, when you are more crowded in, it is better for the bottom line - not yours exactly, but that of your owners - just like the chickens. You just have to believe that what is good for someone else's bottom line is good for yours. It takes a certain way of thinking. You have to believe.

NOTES

[1] "Coronavirus: Aussies-first rhetoric must stop in immigration debate, says Anne Aly," The Australian, 4 May 2020.

A recent interview of the Prime Minister by Leigh Sales in the 7.30 Report on Tuesday 29 January 2019 provided a good illustration of the lack of understanding of economics by ABC journos or their deliberate and calculated rejection of some simple truths. John Coulter has written to Leigh Sales as follows.

Dear Leigh,

Last evening in your interview with the Prime Minister you raised the issue of government debt. You suggested to Morrison that he was not really such a good economic manager because government 'debt' had increased on his watch and you allowed the PM to go on and claim that he had to pay back the debt that Labor had created. This part of the interview was initiated by you and predicated on the undesirability of government debt.

What you should have asked Morrison, 'to whom is government debt owed' for it is actually owed to itself and is not a matter of concern as long as certain conditions are met. You may then have gone on and asked whether 'if the government does achieve a surplus is this not likely to lead to an economic downturn?' A government surplus means that the government is taking more from the economy and there is less for private investment.

Nearly all the ABC interviewers are firmly embedded in the existing economic paradigm which regards endless growth of GDP as both desirable and necessary whereas it is one of the fundamental drivers of our environmental degradation and not actually leading to improvements in human welfare.

With best wishes,
John Coulter, former leader, Australian Democrats

Transcript of the actual interview

Economic experts have warned the Government faces a challenge in meeting its new jobs target if it restricts migration, and even if it does deliver on its pledge, Australians may not be the ones to benefit.

It follows a similar pledge by Tony Abbott prior to the 2013 election to create 1 million jobs by 2018.

Peter McDonald, Emeritus Professor of Demography at ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy, said it was an “achievable” target and that a recent projection of labour market demand by Victoria University had already earmarked a similar level of demand.

But he also noted migration was the largest contributor to the growth in employment numbers in Australia since 2013, ahead of the growing trend for older Australians to stay in work.

The permanent migration program was reduced from around 190,000 to just above 160,000 in the past two years.

Mr Morrison revealed last year it’s likely the intake would remain at this new, lower level.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said his firm forecasted that, at this stage, jobs growth would fall short of the Government’s 2023 target.

“You get, basically, growth in jobs pretty much anyway — over time, there are more Australians, that typically means more jobs, but it does get more complicated than that,” Mr Richardson said.

“An ageing population means more people are retiring, that makes it harder.

“The migration debate — if it means winding back the number of migrants — that also makes it harder.”

The Department of Jobs’ Employment Outlook, released last year, projects employment to increase by 886,100 over the five years to May 2023.

Mr Richardson said the ratio of new skilled adult migrants to jobs growth was “pretty much one to one”, despite community concerns over migration fuelled by “barbecue logic”.

“People think, ‘well if migrants arrive, surely they’re taking jobs and if other things are equal, that means less jobs for everyone else’,” he said.

“If somebody puts up a hand to take a job — a migrant, a married woman, a Martian — they get the job, they earn the income, spend the income, then create the next job.”

Professor McDonald said if the Government restricted permanent migration, the employees needed by Australian businesses would not come from the ranks of the local unemployed.

“If labour demand is strong, and permanent migration is not filling the demand, then it will come from temporary migration or New Zealanders,” he said.

A reduction in immigration, he argues, would not necessarily lead to more jobs for Australians.

"What this debate is really about is not who gets what jobs but which elements of capital win along the way. McDonald and Richardson are obsessed with supporting the immigration-led urbanisation sectors to the detriment of tradables and wider community living standards as infrastructure fails to keep up, wages are crushed by the rush of cheap foreign labour and house prices shoot to stupid levels. McDonald is a demographer not economist so has no idea. Richardson has simply lost the macro plot. Before these dills came along with their immigration voodoo Australia and its labour market fared just fine and it will afterwards as well. In fact it will be better in time as the permanent supply shock of cheap foreigners killing wages and productivity ends, boosting income."

(Article by Houses and Holes, first published at https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2019/01/migration-shills-tie-job-knots/ on January 30, 2019.)

Via the ABC:

Economic experts have warned the Government faces a challenge in meeting its new jobs target if it restricts migration, and even if it does deliver on its pledge, Australians may not be the ones to benefit.

It follows a similar pledge by Tony Abbott prior to the 2013 election to create 1 million jobs by 2018.

Peter McDonald, Emeritus Professor of Demography at ANU’s Crawford School of Public Policy, said it was an “achievable” target and that a recent projection of labour market demand by Victoria University had already earmarked a similar level of demand.

But he also noted migration was the largest contributor to the growth in employment numbers in Australia since 2013, ahead of the growing trend for older Australians to stay in work.

The permanent migration program was reduced from around 190,000 to just above 160,000 in the past two years.

Mr Morrison revealed last year it’s likely the intake would remain at this new, lower level.

Deloitte Access Economics partner Chris Richardson said his firm forecasted that, at this stage, jobs growth would fall short of the Government’s 2023 target.

“You get, basically, growth in jobs pretty much anyway — over time, there are more Australians, that typically means more jobs, but it does get more complicated than that,” Mr Richardson said.

“An ageing population means more people are retiring, that makes it harder.

“The migration debate — if it means winding back the number of migrants — that also makes it harder.”

The Department of Jobs’ Employment Outlook, released last year, projects employment to increase by 886,100 over the five years to May 2023.

Mr Richardson said the ratio of new skilled adult migrants to jobs growth was “pretty much one to one”, despite community concerns over migration fuelled by “barbecue logic”.

“People think, ‘well if migrants arrive, surely they’re taking jobs and if other things are equal, that means less jobs for everyone else’,” he said.

“If somebody puts up a hand to take a job — a migrant, a married woman, a Martian — they get the job, they earn the income, spend the income, then create the next job.”

Professor McDonald said if the Government restricted permanent migration, the employees needed by Australian businesses would not come from the ranks of the local unemployed.

“If labour demand is strong, and permanent migration is not filling the demand, then it will come from temporary migration or New Zealanders,” he said.

A reduction in immigration, he argues, would not necessarily lead to more jobs for Australians.

What total drivel. Australia has a large surplus of labour which is why wages are stuck in the gutter:

If migration is cut then we’ll see a shift in the patterns of demand in the economy not the end of the world. There will be less urbanisation and therefore less jobs in that area. That will result in lower interest rates and a much lower currency triggering greater offshore demand and boosting the 40% of the economy that is tradable. Ironically this will prevent any serious shakeout from hitting urbanisation sectors while rising prospects for exporters and import competers will create more jobs in those areas of the economy and they will all go to locals. When the labour market tightens enough and shortages appear then wages will rise. Fancy that!

If these wage rises get excessive then interest rates will rise and job creation slow or firms invest more heavily in automation for greater productivity and the gains be shared with fewer needed workers. these are also the dynamics that will easily resolve any aging population issues.

This is simply called an “adjustment”. The economy is not set in concrete (unless you’re paid by property developers to say so), it is a living system designed to compensate for such shifts.

What this debate is really about is not who gets what jobs but which elements of capital win along the way. McDonald and Richardson are obsessed with supporting the immigration-led urbanisation sectors to the detriment of tradables and wider community living standards as infrastructure fails to keep up, wages are crushed by the rush of cheap foreign labour and house prices shoot to stupid levels. McDonald is a demographer not economist so has no idea. Richardson has simply lost the macro plot.

Before these dills came along with their immigration voodoo Australia and its labour market fared just fine and it will afterwards as well. In fact it will be better in time as the permanent supply shock of cheap foreigners killing wages and productivity ends, boosting income.

"We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility. [...] We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. " (Speech of Viktor Orbán at the EPP Congress in Madrid, on the 22nd of October in 2015 - more than ever, relevant today.)

You can find more recent speeches and transcripts here:

Video Transcript below:

Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen, President, dear Delegates,

I would like to congratulate to Partido Popular and to the Spanish Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy for the outstanding performance of their government. Today I would like to speak about the migration crisis. This issue will determine the future of our political family. We are in a deep trouble. The migration crisis is able to destabilize governments, countries and the whole European continent. We need a strong and clear-cut answer, timetable and action plan of EPP. The Hungarian delegates welcome the resolution of the congress, declaring that the Spanish approach is the right one.

Dear Friends,

The danger we have been facing demands open and honest speech. First of all, dear Friends, what we have been facing is not a refugee crisis. This is a migratory movement composed of economic migrants, refugees and also foreign fighters. This is an uncontrolled and unregulated process. I would like to remind you that free choice of a host country is not included in the international law. I also want to underline that there is an unlimited source of supply of people, after Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Africa is now also on the move. The dimension and the volume of the danger is well above our expectations.

Dear Colleagues,

This is the right time to make clear the nature and the dimension of our moral responsibility. We are Christian democrats so the issue of moral responsibility must also be put high into consideration. We have a heartfelt compassion for the people who left their homes. They are victims of the bad governance of their own countries. They are victims of bad international political decisions. And they are victims of our bad European policy as well which raises expectations that are impossible to be fulfilled. They are obviously victims of the human traffickers. But considering them victims must not turn ourselves into being victims. Just because we do not consider them enemies we must not act against ourselves. Our moral responsibility is to give back these people their homes and their countries. It can’t be our objective to provide them with a new European life. Right to human dignity and security are basic rights. But neither the German, Austrian nor the Hungarian way of life is a basic right of all people on the Earth. It is only a right of those ones who have contributed to it. Europe is not able to accept everyone who wants a better life. We have to help them to get back their own lives with dignity and we have to send them back to their own countries.

Dear Colleagues,

Let me draw your kind attention to the fact that European Christian democratic approach doesn’t tolerate any anti-Muslim policy. Muslim faith which we honor and respect is not responsible for the root causes of this mass migratory movement.

Dear Delegates,

We cannot avoid speaking about the quality of our democracies. Does it comply with the freedom of information and speech that medias usually show women and children while seventy percent of the migrants are young men and they look like an army? How could it happen that our people’s feel that their opinion is not being put into consideration? And we have to address the question whether our people want what has been happening. Did we get authorization from them to allow millions of migrants to enter our continent? Did we get authorization not to comply with the Schengen regulations for months? No, distinguished Delegates, we did not. And it is not a convincing argument any more that what we have been doing is because of emergency. I believe we have to gather all our courage, we have to throw away PC-ness and we should launch a big debate. We have to discuss our own intentions regarding our own continent without hypocrisy and pharisaism. What do we think about our civilization heritage? Can the change of cultural pattern forced externally? Do we accept parallel societies? Or we defend our tolerant and rule of law based way of life we have lived so far?

Dear Delegates,

Europe is currently rich and weak. This is the most possibly dangerous mixture. We seem not to be able to overcome our challenges on our own. Turkey is an important strategic partner. But if based on the lack of our own power we expect the solution from them that will make us exposed. This is the current situation of Europe. If we do not want that we have to protect our borders. If we are unable to do so at Greece which is the Eastern gate of the Balkans and the first line of defence than we have to do it at the Western gate of the Balkans at Hungary and Slovenia.

Dear Friends,

We cannot hide the fact that the European left has a clear agenda. They are supportive to migration. They actually import future leftist voters to Europe hiding behind humanism. It is an old trick but I do not understand why we have to accept it. They consider registration and protection of borders bureaucratic, nationalist and against human rights. They have a dream about the politically constructed world society without religious traditions, without borders, without nations. They attack core values of our European identity: family, nation, subsidiarity and responsibility.

Dear Friends,

We are EPP. Our behavior should not be determined by the opinion of our rivals. We are a strong and great party. The stronger the attack, the stronger we need to fight back. We need to be ready to fight for our principles. We have to be innovative as well. In the rise of the new crises, the old ways do not work anymore. We need courage and new experiments, even if not every idea we try succeeds, but it should not stop us from trying. And we should not attack those who are trying. I thank for our President and for sister parties who defended us, Hungarians in the difficult times when we offered new solutions.

Dear Friends,

We are the European People’s Party – Partie Populaire, Volkspartei, Partido Popular, Party of the People – our responsibility is towards the people. Listen to the people. Let’s be determined, let’s defend Europe. Do not let the leftist mess up and reconstruct Europe! And do not let them oust the soul of Europe! Do not let liberals and socialists take away Europe from the people!

Thank you very much for your attention.

Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban has apparently called on Hungarians to beware of the power of the Sith in his latest speech on migration crisis in Europe. He also declared Eastern and Central Europe the last ‘migrant-free zone.’ "We should never underestimate the power of the dark side," the prime minister said, referencing Star Wars as he referred to the plots of those behind the “migrant invasion,” adding that they “have no solid structure but extensive networks.” Article first published 23 October on RT with the title, ‘Never underestimate the power of the dark side’: Orban goes Star Wars on EU ‘migrant invasion.’

The EU and some of its key member states have been “taken hostage” by a “speculative financial Empire” through an orchestrated “invasion of new immigrants,” Orban said in Budapest on Monday, adding that this mysterious “financial power” was behind the “latest great migration of peoples” that flooded Europe with “millions of migrants.”

“This plan was developed to make Europe a mixed [multicultural] continent,” the prime minister said at an event commemorating the anniversary of the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising in Hungary, adding that “only we managed to stand up against it,” apparently referring to the governments of Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which have taken a staunch anti-migrant stance and refused to accept refugee quotas imposed by Brussels.

Orban then declared Central and Eastern Europe the continent’s last "migrant-free zone." The Hungarian leader expressed the hope that, by acting together, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia could potentially stop mass immigration.

He went on to say that the ultimate goal of the massive inflow of migrants into Europe consisted of depriving it of its Christian and national identity. The prime minister then stressed that Europe should remain "safe, fair, civic, Christian and free" and should regain the splendor he said it had before embracing multiculturalism.

Orban’s remarks concerning the “financial power” behind the mass immigration apparently referred to the Hungarian-born US billionaire George Soros. The Hungarian prime minister has already accused Soros of seeking to create a "new, mixed, Muslimized Europe” in July. He also repeatedly blamed the tycoon of fueling the refugee crisis in Europe, adding that “Brussels has come under George Soros’s influence.”

Orban’s words were echoed by Hungarian MP Andras Aradszki, who claimed that “Soros and his comrades want to destroy the independence and values of nation states” by bringing migrants into Europe. He slammed the billionaire by calling him “Satan” earlier this month.

Orban’s latest remarks also come as Central and Eastern European countries witness a shift to the right. In Austria, two anti-migrant parties took the first two places in the parliamentary election, and are now expected to form the ruling coalition.

Soros and EU striving for ‘mixed, Muslimized Europe’, says Hungarian PM Orban

Just a week later, parliamentary elections in the Czech Republic ended up in a victory of an anti-establishment movement headed by a local billionaire dubbed “the Czech Donald Trump,” who is particularly known for his severe criticism of the EU’s immigration policies.

Hungary itself is engaged in a bitter row with the EU over the refugee relocation quotas, together with Poland and Slovakia. The issue dates back to the EU decision made in 2015 to rehouse some 160,000 refugees from Greece and Italy over a period of two years, only around 27,700 of whom have been settled so far.

Budapest also faces pressure over the fence that covers one-quarter of the length of its borders and was designed to stop the inflow of migrants and asylum seekers at the peak of the refugee crisis. Despite repeated criticism from many European countries, Hungary refuses to remove it and claims that it has helped to cut the inflow of migrants by 99.7 percent since 2015.

Growthist corporations, their peak bodies and other similar organisations have long pushed for a big and continuously growing population in Australia. They have been crowned with success in the past ten years, but will always want more. Towards this, they are in the business of breaking down national borders and national resistance to being overcrowded. Crowding creates demand for land and products and profits for those who control resources and the means of production, whilst the rest of us pay for it. "The cows in the field will always prefer to be fewer than the farmer would want them."[1] We are all just cash cows for the growth lobby, which can buy publicity and speakers, anointing the latter as 'experts' and cementing their grip on academic institutions and the mass media, which have become as one in their investment in property speculation and population growth.

Prominent in the growth lobby, the Committee for Economic Development in Australia, CEDA, is advertising yet another population growth-pushing event: "Migration - the economic debate." This will examine "How the migration program could be reshaped to allow a larger migrant intake to build a greater Australia, How temporary migration has grown to dominate immigration to Australia; and What changes are required to the migration program to maintain broad community support."

The Australian Productivity Commission recently failed to find any evidence of migration increasing wealth or productivity, [2] so it will be interesting to see what economic excuses CEDA manages to concoct as reasons to push for even more people. It is also more and more obvious that Australians are waking up to the costs of mass immigration.

Although Australia has the highest immigration rates ever for permanent invited economic immigrants and various other 'temporary' immigrants, (see ABS-sourced graph below) the industries and individuals that benefit from rapid population growth want even more. One gets the impression that they really have no more interest in democratic or ecological limits than a machine that has no off-switch.

Since I identified the growth lobby in my research thesis of 2002, I have been aware that this lobby is organising at a global level, gaining more and more power. The CEDA conference is funded by "Fragomen Worldwide": "We build bridges that transcend borders. Learn why and how we do it." "Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy, LLP provides immigration services globally in coordination with its affiliates around the world."

Fragoman is part of the massive globalising disenfranchising anti-sovereignty jugganaut

In 2008 Americans were trying to stop this jugganaut. The fact that they did not may be why today so many Americans want to elect Mr Trump, who promises to put some brakes on the import of cheap labour.

Lou Dobbs: 6/24/2008 The federal government is doing an investigation of the biggest immigration law firm -- Fragomen, Del Rey, Bernsen & Loewy. Apparently the lawyers have been giving too much coaching to employers on how not to hire qualified Americans. David Huber shows how a job resume he sent to Cisco was reviewed by Fragomen, who coached Cisco on how ignore resumes of Americans in favor of foreign workers on H-1B and green card (PERM) visas.

How did Australians lose so much control over their immigration program?

Wages and Conditions undermined:The right-wing revolution in Victorian industrial law under Kennett in 1993 set the scene for Workchoices under the John Howard government, (11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007). The Howard Government, entering this weakened industrial law and industrial relations situation, went on to widen the use of the corporations clause in the Australian constitution, which exempted corporations from many employer obligations. Up until now Australian employers had not had much to gain by importing immigrant workers because they had been required to employ them under the same industrial awards as native born workers. That meant that there was not the same opportunity to import cheap labour as there was, notoriously, in the United States. Today we are in a situation where the Australian labour market has been greatly deregulated and it is now possible to employ overseas immigrants according to individually tailored employment contracts where they have little or no bargaining power or recourse for legal protection. Coupled with the deregulation of immigration, this has created local pull factors which the Australian growth lobby has been keen both to lobby for and to exploit. (Read more on this here: Sheila Newman: Kennett population policy, numbers and flow-ons: Regional migration and industrial law under Kennett)

Land and housing: After the fall of the Whitlam Government, Australia's foreign ownership laws, including those relating to purchase of land for housing and built housing, were watered down a little bit with each new government, along with our labor laws. There was a push for higher and higher immigration, ballooning with the Howard Government. With the internet, push and pull factors were accelerated and magnified by an order of magnitude. Today we have a legion of small and big operators touting immigration for various enterprises and for Australian property development investment from all over the world. One of the major pull factors is our rapid population growth rates, fueled by mass immigration, for which no government ever sought permission from Australians. Foreign students may purchase established houses if they sell them within a year - creating even more acceleration of turnover. Frequently new suburban developments are presold to people overseas before they are even built. [For more on how this developed, see , The Growth Lobby in Australia and its absence in France, Chapter 8, Globalising the Property Market, Foreign Finance and Immigration from the 1980s. (The full thesis with appendices is available here).]

Open-borders propaganda: In Australia ordinary environmentalists have seen a rising resistance to the protection of our natural environment from the very people they thought we could rely on – The Australian Greens and various big environmental NGOs. Among spokespeople for the Greens, this resistance has manifested as a militant effort to support Lib/Lab policy of massive population growth through planned and commercial immigration by confusing refugees with ordinary immigrants, and calling any attempt to reign in immigration racist. As for the big environmental NGOs, they have become afraid to talk about population growth for fear of being politically stigmatised. Environmental debate on diverse issues has largely been taken over with top-down climate focus. In national policy, a focus on minority groups dominates what we all have in common. Behind this creeping confusion the hacking of multi-billionaire George Soros’s files has recently shown him to be behind the new-age ideology of open borders. Through Open Societies Foundations and a legion of other NGOs, he funds minority causes and flagging political parties as flag-bearers for his ideology. In Australia he has funded various pseudo-socialist groups, and members of the Greens and GetUp, which have cross-pollinated each other and also have links in the ALP, via Bill Shorten. See "Australian democracy swiss-cheesed by George Soros Open Societies Foundations". And that is only the first layer of his influence here. What motivates George Soros, the multibillionaire, to prosecute open borders? See "Population stampedes: Why does Soros push open borders?".

NOTES

[1] A remark attributed to French economist and demographer, Alfred Sauvy, who did indeed write about lean cows and fat cows, although this exact remark remains a rumour.

[2] The material below cites the Productivity Commission, Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth, Position Paper, January, Melbourne, 2006, and on Productivity Commission, Population and migration: understanding the numbers, Melbourne, 2010 (December). Direct quotes are in quote marks.

****
From the 2006 report
The following compares a "base case" with a simulated increase in skilled migration of 50% over the "base case", which would have been about 39 000 persons" per year, see pp. xxviii

“By 2024-25, annual income per capita is about $383 (or about 0.71 per cent) higher than it would otherwise have been. Modelling by Econtech for DIMA arrived at somewhat higher figures, using different methodologies”. p. XXXII

[The period of concern is 2003-4 to 2024-25. Details for the base case and the simulated one are in appendix F. Base case assumes migration fixed at 2003-4 level (but they don't specify what number they are using). The simulated case assumes a 50% increase in skilled migration. cf p. 274. The base case leads to a migration induced population increase of 2.89 million, simulated case one of 3.72million. Both assume natural increase of 1.98 million. p. 275]

All the following is from p. 154
“Most of the economic benefits associated with an increase in skilled migration accrues to the immigrants themselves. For existing residents, capital owners receive additional income, with owners of capital in those sectors experiencing the largest output gains enjoying the largest gains in capital income. On the other hand, the real average annual incomes of existing resident workers grows more slowly than in the base-case, as additional immigrants place downward pressure on real wages.

“Other factors more important to productivity and living standards
"The economic impact of skilled migration is small when compared with other drivers of productivity and income per capita. For example, over the same period, growth in income per capita from technological progress and other sources of productivity growth, and long-term demographic changes, could be expected to be about 1.5 per cent per year, or $14 434, by 2024-25 (Commission estimates).

“The relative significance of an increase in skilled migration to overall per capita income growth is illustrated in figure 8.2. This compares projected per capita income over the next 21 years in the base case with that arising from the increased-migration simulation. It can be seen that the impact of migration is very small compared with other drivers of per capita income growth”. p. 154 (figure 8.2 is on p. 155.)

There was also a media release at Economic Impacts of Migration and Population Growth: Media release

*******
From the 2010 report

"Realistic changes in migration levels also make little difference to the age structure of the population in the future, with any effect being temporary." p. 63

"Some have argued that for Australia to reduce the problems associated with an ageing population, it needs to increase its level of immigration or to take measures
to increase the fertility rate. In practice, neither of these can be a panacea." p. 71

“Key points
o While population growth is likely to increase aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) and gross national income (GNI), more relevant measures are per capita income and, ultimately, community wellbeing.
o The impacts of immigration growth on GDP and GNI per head of the existing resident population are ambiguous and depend on the source, composition and context in which the growth occurred.
o Population growth and immigration (its main source) can magnify existing policy problems and amplify pressures on 'unpriced' entities, such as the environment, and urban and social amenity.
o The impacts of population growth and immigration are unlikely to be evenly distributed across Australia's population - there are likely to be both winners and losers.” p. 75

"The impacts of population growth on productivity are also complex and, in many instances, depend on the sources of that growth and the context in which it occurs.
There could be some negative impacts on labour productivity, for example, due to the dilution of available capital across a greater number of workers.
On the other [p. 78] hand, population growth could enable economies of scale (a reduction in the average cost of production) for goods and services produced and consumed
domestically. (Conversely, there could also be diseconomies of scale in some cases.) " p. 79

You are deep in an enjoyable conversation when suddenly a loud blustering person arrives, diverting all the attention of your group to her. She shows no curiosity as to what you were discussing before she arrived, relating a story about herself as though assuming everyone had been waiting for her arrival to come alive ..

Has this ever happened to you? It’s a summer Saturday afternoon and you are sitting restfully in the backyard with friends, enjoying a conversation roaming from cinema, music, the local park, and local to international politics. One of your friends is in the midst of relating something exciting, when in bursts another person to the group. He is already talking loudly as he approaches. He turns everyone’s attention to himself, drowning out the previous conversation and taking over with a description of his perilous trip across town which hindered his progress,making him late. He offers a bottle of wine, apologizing fulsomely and flamboyantly for not bringing what he intended because he was held up with work prior to his traffic woes. He then notes aloud that things look as though they need some livening up and requests some loud music. The mood is broken.

Alternatively, it is a winter evening and everyone is seated around a table deep in conversation about the pressures of work and house payments and explorations as to why we never got our universal 3 day week. Suddenly a woman blusters in the front door, her penetrating voice, complaining of the cold echoes up the hallway to the dining area. The conversation at the table has reached a certain level of interest and consensus but with a jolt it is brought back to the mundane as this woman inserts herself, with the aid of the weather and her inability to predict it in order to dress adequately for the temperature. Suddenly all the attention is on this latecomer. She takes over. The conversation now revolves around the way this woman looks, her clothes , her hair, her life. It turns out that she is a last minute invitee and an extra chair and setting is brought in to accommodate her. Everybody moves up closer to their neighbour and the main course is served. The conversation never returns to where it was.

It occurred to me today that this is how I feel on a national scale about the way migration is treated by the media and by migrant advocacy groups in Australia . The reason I feel like this is that I cannot listen to any media without hearing about migrants to Australia. There seems to be nothing else to talk about except perhaps gay marriage. The airwaves are stuffed full of the migrant experience of Australia, be it a refugee experience a skilled migrant experience, be it a recent experience or one dating back to the 1950s. Nothing else seems to matter now in this country apart from migration. There is no other ongoing conversation .

I really don’t mind if people want to come and live here, but I am irritated with hearing about what they think of me and my compatriots day in and day out and how their expectations, somehow have not been met. Every interview with visiting luminaries on the ABC seems to light on the well -worn subject of immigration. It’s as though we had nothing to talk about before they started coming. Anyone who has just tuned to local media would think that this IS the only topic- that this is IT!

I’m also tired of hearing that we were not “vibrant” before the tide of migrants (I actually can’t remember a time when there were not migrants but their numbers have grown enormously in the last 10 years). The imposition of "vibrancy" is like the man who asks for loud music when people are enjoying a quiet conversation.

Come in if you wish but please just take a vacant seat and listen for a while to the conversation you have just joined.

George Soros funded and orchestrated the refugee crisis in Europe, opening the gates to allow refugees and terrorists into the continent. Soros’s agenda has always been about destroying national sovereignty and national borders. See also, "Australian democracy swiss-cheesed by George Soros Open Societies Foundations."

David Galland and Stephen McBride at http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/how-george-soros-singlehandedly-created-european-refugee-crisis-and-why report:

The refugee crisis is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It coincided with OSF donating money to the US-based Migration Policy Institute and the Platform for International Cooperation on Undocumented Migrants, both Soros-sponsored organizations. Both groups advocate the resettlement of third-world Muslims into Europe.

In 2015, a Sky News reporter found “Migrant Handbooks” on the Greek island of Lesbos. It was later revealed that the handbooks, which are written in Arabic, had been given to refugees before crossing the Mediterranean by a group called “Welcome to the EU.”

Welcome to the EU is funded by—you guessed it—the Open Society Foundations.

Soros has not only backed groups that advocate the resettlement of third-world migrants into Europe, he in fact is the architect of the “Merkel Plan.”

The Merkel Plan was created by the European Stability Initiative whose chairman Gerald Knaus is a senior fellow at none other than the Open Society Foundations.

The plan proposes that Germany should grant asylum to 500,000 Syrian refugees. It also states that Germany, along with other European nations, should agree to help Turkey, a country that’s 98% Muslim, gain visa-free travel within the EU starting in 2016.

Political Discourse

The refugee crisis has raised huge concern in European countries like Hungary.

In response to 7,000 migrants entering Hungarian territory per day in 2015, the Hungarian government reestablished border control in order to keep the hordes of refugees from entering the country.

Of course this did not go down well with Soros and his close allies, the Clintons.

Bill Clinton has since come out and accused both Poland and Hungary of thinking “democracy is too much trouble” and wanting to have a “Putin-like authoritarian dictatorship.”

Seeing through Clinton’s comments, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán responded by saying, “The remarks made about Hungary and Poland … have a political dimension. These are not accidental slips of the tongue. And these slips or remarks have been multiplying since we are living in the era of the migrant crisis. And we all know that behind the leaders of the Democratic Party, we have to see George Soros.”

He went on to say that “although the mouth belongs to Clinton, the voice belongs to Soros.”

Soros has since said of Orbán’s policy toward the migrants: “His plan treats the protection of national borders as the objective and the refugees as an obstacle. Our plan treats the protection of refugees as the objective and national borders as the obstacle.”

It’s hard to imagine that he could be any clearer in his globalist intentions.

The Profit Motive

So why is Soros going to such lengths to flood Europe with hordes of third-world Muslims?

We can’t be sure, but it has recently come to light that Soros has taken a large series of “bearish derivative positions” against US stocks. Apparently, he thinks that causing chaos in Europe will spread the contagion to the United States, thus sending US markets spiraling downward.

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Sean Adl-Tabatabai in News, World Read more at YourNewsWire.com but originally published at zerohedge.com

Migration is hardly a solution to world poverty and conflict, but the mainstream media predictably push this line. Even the Guardian, for all its purported democratic values, continuously pushes for open borders without disclosing that these also facilitate a right-wing agenda for cheap imported labour sources and the crushing of local industry and employment. Its recently issued 'special report' entitled, "Hardline Australia, confused Scandinavia and tense Russia: the global immigration picture" http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/30/hardline-australia-confused-scandinavia-and-tense-russia-the-global-immigration-picture has been described as 'an appalling, if predictable, piece of propaganda."

An appalling, if predictable, piece of propaganda from the Guardian.

Dr Jane Sullivan, of Sustainable Population Australia, writes

"The idea that immigrants actually might have a negative impact on native people is completely rejected, so that any ill-feeling is attributed to racism and far-right neo-nazi manipulation of the great unwashed (who are too lazy to do the work that the immigrants are doing).

No mention of population pressure at all - not in what is causing them to move, nor in the concerns of receiving countries. All immigrants are saints, all native people who don't welcome them with open arms are facists.

When the Guardian does actually refer to the size of the immigration flows, it is full of inconsistencies - China's welcoming attitude to immigrants is contrasted with the UK's meanness, having just said that China has only given 5,000 permanent residency visas since 1980!

Spain is claimed to have had a net exodus since 2010, but they give the figure of (positive) 600,000 as its net immigration for 2010-2014. The massive inflow to Spain, adding 10% to its population between 1999 and 2009, is not connected by the Guardian in any way with the massive unemployment now driving them away.

The Guardian makes a big thing of how silly it is for the Spanish to resist immigration when they have more people leaving than coming (if in fact they do), but completely rejects any idea that the Scandinavians or Australians might have justification given their high net inflow."

As for the piece on Australia, apart from greatly understating the size of our net immigration (it's been well over a million in the past 5 years, but they say 750,000), the author chides that the conversation is all about refugees and ignores the bulk of immigration, then proceeds to talk only about refugees and ignore the rest of our immigration.

Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything - good work but confusion persists

The same Guardian incoherence is to be found in the otherwise superb works of another Guardian writer and author, Naomi Klein. She writes in This Changes everything, Penguin, 2014, how international trade laws have effectively destroyed local employment and manufacturing initiatives, yet campaigns for open borders.

"One of the key provisions in almost all free trade agreements involves something called 'national treatment', which requires governments to make no distinction between goods produced by local companies and goods produced by foreign firms outside their borders. Indeed, favoring local industry constitutes illegal 'discrimination.' This was a flashpoint in the free trade wars back in the 1990s, precisely because these restrictions effectively prevent governments from doing what Ontario was trying to do: create jobs by requiring the sourcing of local goods as a condition of government support. This was just one of the many fateful battles that progressives lost in those years."

Naomi writes specifically about the contradictory impact of globalism on efforts to combat climate change, which she recognises as needing to be locally based. She is however unable or finds it unwise to criticise the same contradictions when it comes to citizens' rights to self-determination. It seems that where she comes from you can only tell so much of the truth - or perhaps this is mainly due to ignorance. After all, she has only just begun to realise how important our biophysical environment is. She can see how economic ideology conflicts with environmental health but she hasn't worked out how the politics of open borders conflict with democracy and citizens' rights.

On the issue of immigration, whilst she is vocal on Australia's treatment of asylum seekers, she apparently knows nothing of Australia's intake of vast numbers of planned invited economic immigrants in the context of changes to Australian industrial law, which now make immigrant workers a threat to local workers. Nor of how the issue of asylum seekers has been used as a wedge to prevent sensible discussion of population numbers.

"We drive down wages, ship jobs overseas, destroy worker protections, hollow out local economies, then wonder why people can't afford to shop as much as they used to. We offer those failed shoppers subprime mortgages instead of steady jobs and then wonder why no one foresaw that a system built on bad debts would collapse."

Whilst she talks about indigenous groups using their land-rights to fight against fracking and other carbon emitting processes, she also barracks for more open borders, which is antithetical to the survival of indigenous peoples and land, which is defined endogamously and territorially. She also uncritically endorses internationalist corporate 'environmental organisations' because they are 'large'. The ones she cites are known for their business models and to prioritise open borders over democracy, the conservation of natural ecologies and local self-determination - just like the capitalist globalist deregulators. It seems that, in this case, the author of No Logo, Picador, 1999, cannot tell the difference between brand names and actual products.

"As we will see, communities trying to stop dangerous oil pipelines or natural gas fracking are building powerful new alliances with Indigenous peoples whose territories are also at risk from these activities. And several large environmental organizations in the U.S. - including Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, the BlueGreen Alliance, and 350.org took stands in support of demands for comprehensive reform of the U.S. immigration system, in part because migration is increasingly linked to climate and also because members of immigrant communities are often prevented from defending thesmelves against heightened environmental risk since doing so could lead to incarceration or deportation."

Klein's work in This Changes Everything should not, of course, be dismissed for these failings. It is another great contribution to critical political literature.

This article may be seen as a follow-on from "A history of politics and population in Australia: Thomas Malthus in Australian thought". The Australian business community easily convinced itself that rapid population increase would provide a solution to all its problems, especially after the 1890s, when the property market lost momentum. By this time building societies had mushroomed and banks had begun to invest heavily in property. [1]

In 1893 the New South Wales bankers' Journal published an article by WH Eldred wherein one of the causes of the financial crisis was identified as "the cessation of immigration caused by the withdrawal of government aid, whereas the true policy of the country lies in encouraging population." [2] Neville Hicks [2] says that Eldred was a former bank director acting in 1893 as Consul-General for Chile in Sydney.

Other writers to the same journal made similar points: In 1898 an unidentified correspondent linked the approximately 40% population increase in the 1880s with six-fold increases in public and private borrowing. He said how much might have been reaped from this if the borrowed money had been put into 'productive works'. He felt that the consequent demand for labour would have attracted emigrants from as far away as Europe.[3] The same year the editor bemoaned the departure from Victoria of 50,000 adults in three years, which he believed, had badly affected the State's population numbers. He expressed the hope that a liberal government, a good season or two and some opening up of the backcountry would make people stay. [4]

After 1900 the business community became quite desperate about increasing population. In 1903 the President of the Sydney Chamber of Commerce announced that it is necessary to have a population "which steadily increases as commerce itself does." In 1905 the New South Wales Chamber of Manufactures supported Prime Minister Deakin's immigration proposals because

"Desirable immigration means more people, and more people means more capital, and the utilization of millions of acres of unused territory, and thus increasing our national wealth".

Founder of the Federated Chambers of Manufactures, President of the New South Wales Chamber of Manufactures from 1902-1904 and President of the Chamber of Commerce, Octavius Beale, was an "old ally" of Deakin's. "As State President of the National Protection League, he kept Deakin, an old ally, informed on political matters in Sydney."[5] He was also to become one of the Commissioners on the Royal Commission on the Decline in the Birthrate 1904.

In 1906 the acting President of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce enjoined, "an increase in population means an increase of wealth not only of the few but of the many." In 1908 the President of the Melbourne Chamber of Commerce pushed for immigration on the grounds that suitable immigrants would be consumers as well as producers and should therefore be welcomed by all classes". In 1907 the General Council of Chambers of Commerce asked the government for a steady stream of immigration to provide for the "growth in industrial manufactures which will shortly exceed the volume of consumption of the present population". In 1908 the President of the New South Wales Chamber of Manufactures stated that:

"…to get any benefits from increased protection they must get increased payment and that could not come from their own limited populations. A wisely managed scheme of immigration would be as much the saviour of the manufacturers as anything could be." [6]

(Note that the above represents an early reference to enlarging the local market of consumers.) There was much more of the same. Related demographic concerns were about population distribution, especially as regards opening up further territory for farming. There was still a perceived colonial duty to open up the land.

"Politicians, both in England and Australia, avoided discussion of this development, for, inevitable or not, an industrial dominion economy was outside the scope of the imperial purpose. The role of Australia was seen in the traditional light and the economy was to remain colonial. The growth of rural industries which would supplement the industrial might of the United Kingdom was the real task - all that was needed was men to populate Australia, money to develop it and markets in which to sell the resultant increase of primary products." [7]

We can see here that a rise in Australian anti-Malthusian thinking coincides with a rise in the financial and manufacturing side of its economic community that occurred between 1850 and 1890. In Malthus's time this was foreshadowed by the ideological and political divisions over the economic implications of the British Corn Laws between (agricultural) Landlords and Manufacturers in Britain, who tended respectively to be Malthusians and Ricardiens regarding the importation of corn. [8]

NOTES

If you want to read more about this history, going up to near the present day, read Chapter 6 of Sheila Newman, The Growth Lobby and its Absence, RMIT Thesis, 2000. What you have read comes from Appendix 5, endnote 26, of that thesis.
[1] Source: Leon L'Huillier, "Depression and a National Economy," Essays in Economic History of Australia, Ed. James Griffin, Jacaranda Press, 1973, p 190.
[2] Source: WH Eldred, "The Financial Crisis" in Journal of the Bankers' Institute of N.S.W., II:7 (July 1893), p.227, cited by Neville Hicks, This Sin and Scandal, Australia's Population Debate 1891-1911, Australian National University Press, Canberra, ACT, 1978, p.86.

[3] Source: Journal of the Bankers' Institute of N.S.W., VIII:8 (August, 1898), p.292, cited by Neville Hicks, op cit, p87.

[4] Source: Editor's note: 'Victoria's Loss' in Journal of the Bankers' Institute of N.S.W, XI:8 (March 1898), p 24f, cited by Neville Hicks, op cit, p87.

[5] Source: Australian Dictionary of Biography, "Beale, Octavius Charles," 1850-1930, p225.

[6] Source: Neville Hicks, op cit, pp 88-89, note 30, citing the following: J.G. Farleigh, 'President's Address' in NSW Chamber of Manufactures' Annual Report (1908), p 17 and J Barre Johnston, 'President's Address' in Sydney Chamber of Commerce: Annual Report, (1903), p 39; Report of the Council in NSW Chamber of Manufactures Annual Report, (1905), p 9; George Merrivale, 'Acting-President's Address' in Sydney Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, (1906), p 31f; RJ Larking, 'President's Address' in Melbourne Chamber of Commerce, Annual Report, (1908), p 59; General council of Chambers of Commerce of the Commonwealth of Australia, Report (1907), p 47.

[7] Source: Richard Cotter, "War, Boom and Depression", Essays in Economic History of Australia, Ed. James Griffin, Jacaranda Press, 1973 p251.

[8] Source: Robert Heilbroner, The Worldly Philosopers, Penguin Books, 6th Ed., pp 78-82.

Amazingly or perhaps, true to type, Australia is experiencing extreme shortages of domestic natural gas supplies. World-wide there is a gas-rush. It also looks like oil is already not keeping up with demand as countries scramble for new more energy costly, polluting and environmentally destructive forms of energy, like tarsands, fracked gas, and sugarcane ethanol. The media is failing to paper over the cracks: Australia looks like a cartoon demonstration of entropy with energy dispersing, the environment overheating, overpopulation and political disorder. And there is nowhere for Australians to escape.

Oil and gas consumption rising of course

According to the BP Statistical Review of World energy, the world's natural gas reserves would last for 59 years if production continued at the 2010 rate (which it didn't of course - it increased by 0.7% in 2011, and Australia's consumption increased by 5.7%, China's by 5.5% and Belarus by 22.8%. You can download historical time lines here.) The BP prognosis for oil is comparatively optimistic. That is probably because BP has over the years added to its definition of crude oil, shale oil, oil sands and NGLs (the liquid content of natural gas where this is recovered separately). That’s a lot of new sources, all of them requiring more energy to extract or transport than that required to harness and package the traditional ‘gusher’ close to the surface, now a rare phenomenon.

Supplies of oil that comes out of the ground from vast reservoirs are actually being drawn down faster and faster, so gas is being called upon to substitute for more and more other forms of energy. While Australia looks to reintroducing coal to substitute for petroleum and exports more and more natural gas, China is substituting gas for coal on a massive scale.

If it quacks like a duck ...

In fact, watching countries scramble for new more energy costly, polluting and environmentally destructive forms of energy, like tarsands, fracked gas and sugarcane ethanol, you sure could be forgiven for thinking that this is a sign that oil is already not keeping up with demand.

And all these new fuels involve trampling democracy on a larger and larger scale. The biofuels cause hideous suffering to animals and are driving extinction through the destruction of habitat. In the mean time various high-tech wars in the Middle East are burning up traditional oil supplies day and night as China, Russia, the US, and Europe, attempt to get power in the biggest oil-reserve regions.

Send in the clowns

You hear governments talking about letting the market have its way and you fear that they say that because they have absolutely no control over what is happening. Because of the tyranny of profit we have more and more desperate attempts to promote business as usual. Policy follows the dollar ... anywhere. Into enslavement, overpopulation and death.

What can one say about the future when leaders all over the world seem to be escalating all our energy and pollution problems or allowing them to escalate because they simply don't know how to stop them?

Martin Ferguson, Federal Resources Minister's energy white paper argues that 'market intervention' should only be considered 'where there is clear evidence of market failure'.

King Kong had nothing on the corporate ape

Free market policy does not make sense in any social welfare or governance way. It only makes sense if you consider that the concentration of power and wealth at global levels has promoted a range of super dominant male apes absolutely ruled by their need to sit on the heads of other apes in human pyramids beyond a level where they can actually comprehend their impact and take responsibility. In the jungle other male apes would simply have beaten these big fat bullies up and removed them. In the global governance and concrete and banking jungle, where money can substitute for muscles, size, brains and agility, nothing can stop them. They can temporarily be brought to their knees financially, but they will just sacrifice lesser apes in order to get back onto the global baccarat table. Even when they die, more take their place, blindly pursuing the same senseless objectives of expansion and dominion. Following the money down a terminal plughole.

Australia already running out of natural gas

As many candobetter.net readers are aware, Australia has for decades now been in the death grip of a voracious housing industry that has major responsibility for pushing up population growth here.

You can tell when the housing industry is going bad when you see the building materials industry is in trouble. Then they start talking down resource prices so that the developers they supply can keep cranking out those houses (incidentally boosting the demand for gas even more - but what does the building materials industry care about the final result? Not a fig.)

Apparently local and international demand has forced the price of gas right up, to triple its 2008 price in West Australia and Queensland. The gas extracting industry is chasing the international dollar, leaving local manufacturing industry without supply.

Brickworks, Australia's largest brick manufacturer (responsible for those houses that cover once loved forests and fields) claims that it has been reduced to using sawdust (in Tasmania) and methane from infills. That is probably a sign of the times. If they would just adjust and downsize, then maybe we could all go home and relax, as the population growth they demand constantly to satisfy their bloated purses would die down in the absence of that demand.

But corporations have to grow, don't you know. So they are in there dividing and conquering, accusing the 'Greens' and environmentalism of causing gas shortages. How do they figure that? Well, Lindsay Partridge of Brickworks says that the shortages that are caused by exporting all our gas are only shortages because Green concerns cause obstacles to total open slather mining everywhere. So, the answer, according to Partridge, is for the government to simply remove all laws preventing mining everywhere, bringing on coal seam gas as well as natural gas.

For reasons not elaborated Mr Partridge also thinks that the supply of natural gas will become abundant towards the end of this decade. For a man who complains that he cannot guarantee supply for the next two years to plan, he is very optimistic about supply at the end of this decade.

Gas is fugitive

Other people worry that the way gas comes out of the ground - very quickly - means that the more you are getting the less time before it is all exhausted. The gases just zoom out into the atmosphere when you take the lids off the earthern reservoirs they accumulated in. There is nothing to stop their natural reservoir from emptying almost immediately unless you can plug and control their escape. It is like undoing a balloon. Natural gas even escapes between the denser particles of pipes as you transport it. These elusive qualities of gas should concern those in power but somehow they seem to remain oblivious.

Martin Ferguson, Federal Resources Minister's energy white paper argues that 'market intervention' should only be considered 'where there is clear evidence of market failure'.

Because Martin Ferguson (the Federal Resources Minister) does not consider that Australia's remaining businesses going out of business is evidence of market failure, he won't regulate gas distribution. Nor will he regulate business and housing rents driven up by population growth (the other reason that business goes out of business in Australia.)

"The role for government is not to step in and intervene but to let those better placed to negotiate a commercial outcome," he is quoted as saying.

We now seem to be witnessing “market failure" to avert environmental damage and in the scramble for ever diminishing energy sources. We may also be witnessing market failure to select technically and humanistically competent politicians.

West Australia reserves the princely portion of 16% of its natural gas production for the Australian market, but NSW and Queensland have no policies to retain any gas for domestic use, according to the Financial Review (See sources below).

It is not surprising if all this makes you feel extremely insecure with respect to future gas availability in Australia - or anywhere.
The media is failing to paper over the cracks: Australia looks like a cartoon demonstration of entropy with energy dispersing, the environment overheating, overpopulation and political disorder. And there is nowhere for Australians to escape.

Click here to Buy PRINT VERSION of S.M. Newman, Demography Territory Law: The Rules of Animal and Human Populations (2013)

When you think that the Australian Aborigines probably inhabited this continent for 40,000 to 60,000 years in a mostly stable population and economy you cannot help but envy them their incredibly long run of luck. They obviously knew what they were doing!

NOTES

Source: Peter Roberts, "Gas crisis looms for industry," Australian Financial Review, Monday 21 January 2013, pages 1 and 4.

Source: Rebecca Hyam,Coal seam protests forcing gas prices up: industry
Jan 21, 2013.

A corporate profiteering campaign has spread misinformation about a spurious need for increased skilled migration. Almost daily one hears big business representatives demand that Julia Gillard abandon her promise to dump Kevin Rudd’s “big Australia”. Instead they claim she must remove “red tape” and “increase the skilled migrant intake” to help clean up the disaster.

Community spirit undermined by corporate profit-seeking

Australia's community spirit has been on show during the floods crisis, yet some have used the floods to advance their own interests. And it's not just the odd looter.

A corporate profiteering campaign has spread misinformation about a spurious need for increased skilled migration. Almost daily one hears big business representatives demand that Julia Gillard abandon her promise to dump Kevin Rudd’s “big Australia”. Instead they claim she must remove “red tape” and “increase the skilled migrant intake” to help clean up the disaster.

Well-funded corporate campaign for more immigrants

Big bank 'chief economists' and business 'economic consultancies' form part of this well-funded campaign. The Australia Institute notes that bank profits are now running at $1,000 for every man, woman and child in Australia. The lazy way for big business to make more profit is therefore to increase its customer base, and to drive down wages by importing more pre-trained workers. It helps alleviate training and apprenticeship costs. But would a further rush of skilled migrants help us to clean up and re-house people after the floods – or just add to the problem?

Corporate campaign perpetuates problems it pretends to solve

“Australia’s migration program actually exacerbates skills shortages. A dog can never catch its tail,” says Stable Population Party convenor William Bourke. “The real objective is to feed big businesses’ insatiable desire for more consumers and cheaper labour, not to help flood victims. Of course if an immigration category is created for flood recovery skills, the next thing is that some employers will be demanding migrant doctors and hairdressers to service them. It’s a vicious circle. If genuinely required, the cost to our society of training an extra Australian is far less than that of accommodating a skilled migrant with dependents.”

He adds “Our already record high immigration has been a major cause not just of infrastructure shortages but also skills shortages and government budget deficits, and hence has eroded liveability in our major cities.[1]

Demographia’s latest report already classifies Brisbane’s housing (pre-floods) as “severely unaffordable”.[2]

The Department of Immigration's own research finds that if continued it will impose even greater adverse impacts on the quality of our natural and built environments.”[3]

NOTES

[1] http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=10137&page=0; http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/39930.html

[2] http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-second-last-straw-in-affordable-housing-market-rankings-worldwide-20110123-1a18f.html

[3] Jonathan Sobels et al., “Research into the Long-Term Physical Implications of Net Overseas Migration” National Institute of Labour Studies, Flinders University report for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship, January 2011 http://www.immi.gov.au/media/publications/research/_pdf/physical-implications-migration-fullreport.pdf

John Roles, an experienced manager in Queensland’s energy construction industry said that importing skilled migrants to help the flood crisis “is simply wrong headed. It takes more than 20 years for the average new migrant to register a surplus in the construction of both public and private infrastructure. Increases in immigration therefore exacerbate the shortage of construction skills in the short and mid term. Yet reducing the immigration level by 50,000 people for a single year would immediately free up funds and workforce for rebuilding.”

Dr Jane O’Sullivan of University of Queensland agrees and notes “A typical dwelling takes 2-4 person-years of labour to build (including off-site manufacturing and materials supply).

Additional infrastructure per person is at least as great. Since in fact only a small fraction of the skilled migration intake are construction workers (60% of this intake are not even workers, but family members of skilled migrants), the labour and housing deficit created by their immigration would last many years.”

She adds that “In flood affected areas, rents are already climbing cruelly, due to demand from displaced families and from tradespeople who have moved in from other regions for the recovery period. The knock-on effect will see rents pushed up throughout Brisbane, putting disadvantaged families under even greater strain. The last thing wanted is an influx of more families into this region.”

As well, says Bourke, “With our $770b infrastructure deficit (according to Infrastructure Partnerships Australia), it is highly inappropriate to burden our already overloaded infrastructure with more people. At a time of inflationary pressures through increased food prices, we should try to minimise further upward pressure on land, rent, water and energy prices that population growth inevitably creates. Recent experience should teach us the folly of letting population pressures lead us to build on flood-prone areas; and also that more people means a far higher cost per natural disaster,” he concluded.

Contact: William Bourke Email: [email protected] Web: www.populationparty.com, ref: Media release: 12pm Tuesday, 1 February 2011

Cornucopians can select from an ideological buffet of arguments to deny that our growing human population is a serious problem. I have identified seven of them, but they are not exclusive---some overlap and could be treated as corollaries of others. Those in population-denial typically employ a coalition of them to make their case.

The Capitalist Lie:

We can grow the pie so that even the poorest among us can have a satisfactory slice. "A rising tide floats all boats". The larger the population base, the larger the market, and the longer the production runs, making per unit costs lower for everyone. Resource shortages are signalled by rising prices, which only encourage entrepreneurs to increase supply by the promise of higher profits, and tap into limitless human ingenuity by funding research to find alternatives to those resources which are exhausted or affordably accessible. In other words, we can "grow" the limits. The differences between Keynesians and free marketeers of the Austrian School are superficial---a petty dispute between those who believe that governments can create wealth by 'prime-pumping' fictional wealth into an unsustainable economy and those who believe that an unsustainable economy can best grow with less government intervention. Both schools of fiscal management assume that the human economy is not subject to bio-physical limits.

The Socialist Lie:

There is enough to go around, if only the pie was divided up "fairly and equitably". The problem is not with growth, but how the benefits of growth are shared. People are our greatest resource, the more the merrier. (Ask the Sandinistas). We need only ensure that they are properly fed and educated to exploit their potential. The root of our predicament is not over-population, but poverty, that is, capitalism. Furthermore, there is no "humane" way to control population growth, so it must be ignored. Growth can be 'sustainable'. The concept that there are limits, and that violating them might involve our extinction, and that nothing is more 'inhumane' than extinction, is beyond the pale of socialist consideration. The appalling environmental track record of command economies like those of the former Soviet bloc is ignored or forgotten, or if need be, disowned for not being examples of ‘true’ socialism, but rather, of “state capitalism”. Capitalists, however, are not to be granted similar dispensation to disown corporate debt capitalism. The “eco-socialism” that the green-left talks about is still on the drawing board. History is skeptical.

The Green Lie:

We can arrest economic growth---as we must---without reversing population growth. By reducing our personal footprint, by re-using, recycling and conserving, by making responsible consumer choices, by adopting 'green living' habits, by aspiring 'to live like Ghandi and not like Gates', by living simply, we can allow all of humanity to simply live. And by proper land use management, burgeoning human populations can be steered out of harm’s way from greenfield acreage, farmland, and sensitive wildlife habitat and concentrated in densely packed cities to minimize their energy footprint. You can't nationalize the environment. Environmental issues like climate change---which is the only important metric of environmental degradation----are global problems that demand global solutions and global cooperation. We must be 'inclusive'. We therefore cannot alienate other nations by strengthening our borders, rather, we must work to lower them and be welcoming to all who aspire to live here. We must remake our nation into a microcosm of the human family. Our mandate is not to constrain our population growth---which can be decoupled from GHG emissions, habitat and farmland loss----but to increase our 'diversity'. There is no national culture worthy of preservation, unless it is found in the developing countries. If migrants greatly increase their footprint upon settlement here, then our obligation is not to deter them, but to reduce our own footprint to responsible, third world levels. In short, let's move over, squeeze tighter, and consume and waste less to accommodate more and more newcomers. It was our profligate lifestyle that drove them from their homes, so it is our moral and legal obligation to assist them by opening our doors to them, even if it rescues only a fraction of their numbers. The Green slogan is that of Socrates. “I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world.” And the Canadian version is "Canada---home to the world."

The Feminist Lie:

Population control is intrusive, it is another male attempt to control women's bodies. Population growth is not a problem but a symptom of gender inequality. If women are "empowered" by education and career opportunities, they will of their volition choose to have a number of children that is sustainable for the society at large. Procreative rights are incontestable. Sustainability is a by-product of human, women’s, workers and farmers rights, which therefore must be our primary focus.

The Technology Lie:

We can maintain or increase our extraction of renewable and non-renewable resources by developing more efficient technologies. Thus there is a confluence of socialist, green and feminist agendas into what may be termed the "environmental justice movement". The Jevons Paradox, that is, the fact that in the context of an economy premised on growth, more efficiencies, by making things cheaper, only provokes more total consumption, is not confronted.

The Religious Lie:

God or Allah will provide. Procreation is more than a right, it is a duty. And who better to enforce that duty than priests, mullahs and husbands? We are the creator's anointed species, with a mandate to grow and exercise dominion over other species. We can have our cake and eat it. We can expand without limit and push rival and subordinate species off the plate and be "good stewards" at the same time.

The Simonian Lie:

Julian Simon's assertion. The more people there are, the greater the chances that geniuses like Einstein will be born to generate the ideas that will save us. 15 billion brains are better than 10 or 7 or 2 billion brains. This belief, even if not overtly stated, runs like an undercurrent through all cornucopian lies. The notion that human brains, to function optimally, need proper nutrition, education and healthy bodies to carry them is a minor detail, as is the fact that the planet cannot indefinitely deliver those pre-requisites to the number of people who live now, never mind those billions that Simonians of all stripes want to add.

While the eco-Malthusian position offers an alternative perspective, it is often alloyed with some of the preceding impurities which confuse and compromise its central thrust: Without population stabilization and reduction, per capita reductions in consumption occasioned by frugal behaviour or efficiencies in technology or land use are ultimately futile, and that without cultural change and the force of law, unsustainable behaviours will persist even if the common people of both genders are "empowered" to make fertility choices. From speed limits to no-smoking bylaws to fish catch quotas, all laws are inherently "coercive", and all individual rights are ultimately conditional on the probability that their free exercise does not substantially restrict or infringe upon the rights of other people and other species to survive and flourish. Population reduction is not a gender issue, for over-population itself is more coercive in its influence upon women than anything the Chinese government has instituted. While the prospect of applying one-child per family laws universally is slim, the fantasy that voluntary measures alone will achieve the global population decline we need is even more remote. This is the "Malthusian Lie" that must be exposed when the cornucopian lies are finally laid to rest. The question that ‘voluntary’ family planning advocates must ask is, “Why, in the pursuit of population stabilization, with even the levers of total media control and a one-party dictatorship at its disposal, did the Chinese government find it necessary to complement moral suasion with legal sanctions?”

Tim Murray
January 20/2010