Australia

India: Oil prices to increase by 11%
Diezel goes up by 9%
Cooking gas goes up by 17%

The Indian Government is reported to fear that the price of oil may cost it the next election_#main-fn1">1.

Such are the politics of petroleum. There is nothing it does not touch.

The 'rich countries' appear to have much more of a buffer than most of India, but their road transport and agriculture industries are already in trouble. It is well-known that starvation is never far away for many people in the tropical Asian countries, but less well-known is the large class of people living in precarity elsewhere, especially in the Anglophone countries.

In London around 10,000 finance workers have lost their jobs this year and it is anticipated that perhaps up to 40,000 will lose their jobs in the current months. (France2 8pm News, 21 May).

In "Job loss a sure road to skid row"_#main-fn2">2 in the Herald Sun of Tuesday May 27, 2008, it was reported that a Citibank survey showed that, in Australia, "one in two workers would face financial ruin within four weeks of losing their jobs;… almost 20 per cent of workers would not last a week. Only one in four workers would be able to survive more than three months."

Some 'rich countries' don't know when to stop and part of their population is sliding ever so quickly into third world status. For instance, the Australian government has become a 'banana republic' massively endebted and engaged in energy-intensive infrastructure expansion programs everywhere. Under the behest of the Australian academy of Technology and Engineering Sciences, the Property Council of Australia, The Australian Population Institute, and its own state governments, all heavily peopled by big development lobbyists, Australia is trying to double its population as soon as possible, planning new megacities. For these 'programs' of infrastructure building and population increase, worker, business and family reunion immigration have been stepped up, and families receive baby bonuses for having children, just as though the days of cheap oil were just beginning, instead of in their twilight. Yet, as in the USA, evictions and personal debt are sky rocketing.

And really, what is three months security in a century of oil depletion? Who is safe? We all need more solidarity. France, so far, shows the best example.

Sheila Newman

Footnotes

#main-fn1" id="main-fn1">1. #main-fn1-txt">↑ Rhys Blakely, "India concedes in battle to keep oil price down", The Times, 6 Jun 08

#main-fn2" id="main-fn2">2. #main-fn2-txt">↑ Craig Binnie, "Job loss a sure road to skid row" in the Victorian Herald Sun(Australia) of 27 May 08

Article below is based on a report by Australia’s Olympic Poet, Mark O'Connor :

Demographer, Peter McDonald, is famous for presenting extreme projections of population implosion. His contributions to a debate at ANU on April 1 were predictable and are now on line. (The PPT versions are the easier ones to read). Peter's ideas suit big business and corporatised government and have thus become very influential. The criticisms and analysis below are therefore very important, since the Murdoch and Fairfax media, and sadly, even the ABC, market these attitudes uncritically and approvingly. Sheila Newman

Peter McDonald's piece, "Australia’s future population: planning for reality," is unlikely to impress environmentalists, according to Mark O'Connor.

In case you haven't time to scan it on line, here are some exerpts, organised and analysed by Mark O'Connor around 5 keywords that McDonald uses:

McDonald's Five Keywords:

Environment
Growth
Labour
Fatalism
"Realism"
"Social cohesion"

Those last two concepts probably really do need to be in inverted commas. The first 3 concepts are mixed together as follows:

The first sheet of his presentation summarises his line on environment:

"Environment and economy

• Australia will achieve a better result in relation to its own
environment and its contribution to the reduction of global
greenhouse gas emissions if it has a strong economy.
• A strong economy will provide the capital that is necessary
to invest in improvement of environmental infrastructure,
repair of degraded environments, and a shift to alternative
sources of energy that are not fossil-fuel based."

The next sheet proclaims:

"Capacity constraints are Australia’s biggest economic problem

• Much of the infrastructure required to support a strong and
productive economy is in short supply in Australia at
present.
• This includes water, transport for people, transport for
goods, ports, energy supply, housing and office space, and
state-of-the-art communications.
• These shortages may be artificially reduced in the short
term by increasing interest rates to slow demand.
• However, we do not want to live in a continued forced
recession. So, higher interest rates are not a long-term
solution. In the long term, the capacity constraints must be."

Notice that this, like most of PMD's talk, is not demography, but growth economics.

Next sheet:

"The requirements for new infrastructure

• New infrastructure involves technology, capital, good
planning and commitment, and labour.
• The technology is available now in most instances and
more will come on line.
• Capital also is in relatively good supply.
• Planning is improving, commitment is stronger.
• Shortage of labour is the problem."

"Why we need labour

• Conservation is highly desirable as far as it goes, but we
shall only solve our water, energy and environmental
problems in the long run through construction of new
infrastructure.
• If we want solar or wind energy, then the solar panels and
windmills have to be made and constructed.
• If we want secure urban water supplies then whatever
policy mix we use to do this involves construction.
• If we want to ease the housing crisis, we need more
houses.
• If we want the economy to run productively and
competitively, we need better transportation of goods and
people, better ports, and better communications
infrastructure."

Which leads, as you've guessed to:

"Why we need labour (continued)

• Conservation is highly desirable as far as it goes, but we
shall only solve our water, energy and environmental
problems in the long run through construction of new
infrastructure.
• If we want solar or wind energy, then the solar panels and
windmills have to be made and constructed.
• If we want secure urban water supplies then whatever
policy mix we use to do this involves construction."

In short, according to Peter McDonald, we need vast population growth in order to provide more labor, so we can have more energy efficiency. Oh, and more mining (presumably solar powered mining).

Well it was April Fool's Day, but Peter didn't seem to be joking:

"Labour demand

• Almost right across the Australian economy, workers are
short supply.
• This is especially the case in the construction industries
(15,000 builders from the USA?).
• The mining industry is desperately seeking workers to
commence new projects (Chinese work gangs?). Note,
revenue from mining is the source of much of our public
capital for environmental and social development."

Next we get a dubious graph showing labor falling:

"NOM = Net Overseas Migration
Note: Assumes fertility constant at 1.8 births per woman and labour force"

participation constant at July 2007 levels

Except that labor, in McDonald's own projection, is actually rising. It is only the rate of increase of labor ("Labour force annual growth rate") that is falling. (If you can't say a figure is falling, you can always go to its first or even its second differential to find a function that is falling.)

What about automation, computerisation, machines? Why do we need so very much labor?

Well, you see, there is a multiplier effect:

• If we had all of these [mining and construction] workers, they will demand more
services and hence more workers in retail, hospitality and
personal services. There is a multiplier effect (foreign
students and working holiday makers?).

The nations of the world will soon be competing fiercely for labor, and hence for immigrants.

Hence we must be fatalistic:

"Inevitable population growth for Australia

• We can improve our productivity and we can raise labour
force participation rates somewhat, but it is inevitable that
overseas migration to Australia will remain high and the
population will grow by 2050 to something in excess of 30
million people.
• In comparative terms, this will be much lower than the
population of California and the population of the USA will
be around 440 million. Canada’s population will be over 50
million."

Apart from economic growthism and a strong streak of fatalism, Peter McDonald now shows a new emphasis on "realism", cf. his paper's subtitle:

"Australia’s future population: planning for reality"

The subtitle seems borrowed from business lobbies like APOP, The Australian Property Council, and the Scanlon Foundation (the latter which funded his recent paper with Glenn Withers). Such groups emphasise "realistic" (= fatalistic) planning on population. i.e. accept that huge growth is coming, and plan for it. (In debate Mark O'Connor called this a bully's argument: "Since we're going to put you in the stocks anyway, why don't you co-operate and then we'll do it more nicely.")

Hence Peter's line: what we have to fear is not population growth but our failure to plan for it.

Hence Peter McDonald's concluding "overhead" runs:

"Conclusion

• Australia will be a better country in its economic,
environmental and social dimensions if we accept the
inevitable and plan for it.

• Not planning properly for future population growth is part
the Australian way of mucking things up."

• The present Australian Government seems to have accepted this message. It has set up an infrastructure council and my educated bet is that it will increase the official migrant intake in the May budget."

cf. APOP's "opinions" page: http://www.apop.com.au/opinions.html

• A recent expert study concluded that there are no insurmountable engineering, scientific or environmental barriers to reaching an Australian population of 30 million in 2050, assuming that thorough analysis and planning occur and that leadership is exercised, especially by governments.
• Long-term planning is imperative to ensure timely and orderly provision of needed infrastructure, and leadership from governments is essential in setting clear policy directions.

--

One other element in Peter McDonald's thinking is worth noting.

Both APOP and Scanlon may be worried that lack of social cohesion might force a halt to such rapid immigration, because they are promoting the need for certain kinds of social cohesion. (Hence the conference that Scanlon Foundation funded recently, with Jupp, Nieuwenhysen, and frequent flyers at such immigration-growth-promoting events.)

As APOP puts it:

"The future prosperity of Australia, underpinned by population growth, will depend on our ability to maintain Social Cohesion in a society with even more cultural diversity than we have successfully accommodated historically."

"Since overpopulation tends to destroy social cohesion (e.g. food riots, water riots, road rage) this line is probably what is known in marketing circles as "advertising against the perceived weakness of the product" --i.e. trying to present your weakness as your strength."

Mark O'Connor

Peter McDonald now styles himself:
"Peter McDonald, Director, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute, ANU"

and remarked at one point "Mark presents me as an economist, but I think of myself more as a sociologist." Wishful thinking, perhaps. Peter seems like someone who would offer little resistance to the APOP line on social "reality".

Poet and author Mark O’Connor has written another important analysis of Australia’s ecological eclipse at the hands of the growth cult. While the continent is obviously unique in its botanical character with problems that don’t challenge Canadians, the similarities with Canada that O’Connor reveals in his description of the evolution of the growth ethic are simply astounding.

Like Canada, “Australia was, and still is, even though much trashed and abused, a treasure house of biodiversity,” toward which the people have a somewhat schizophrenic attitude. On the one hand, “Australians are genuinely proud of their wildlife…many people assign a very high, almost religious value to conserving nature”, as evidenced by their tolerance of crocodiles which make it impossible to swim in their waters. 10.7% of Australia is incorporated in a strategic network of parks.

Yet, O’Connor writes, “Attitudes to Australia’s biodiversity remain mixed.” It may be inspirational to watch them in flight but “people don’t appreciate kangaroos eating their crops.” Sadly Australian experience shows that democracy is not good at preserving other species---they don’t vote.  "(There is) a theme that runs through Australia’s ecological history: the clash between the desire to protect biodiversity versus the need of an ever-growing human population to make a quid from it.”

O’Connor reminds readers that Australia’s ecology was dynamic. While “we might prefer to praise the Aborigines’ achievement in living sustainably with the land for millennia, and contrast this with the damage eight generations of  European lifestyle have wrought,” Aboriginal hunters had already modified ecology by the fire regime they imposed before Europeans arrived. Paul Watson, it should be pointed out here, asserts that Aborigines killed off 85% of the continent’s megafauna before the British hit Botany Bay, an assertion that has been contested. Nevertherless, Watson is one of the very few Canadians not given to romantic illusions about indigenous stewardship of precious resources.

The foundation of Australia’s current ecological crisis, and that of Canada, is their false self-perception as vast empty lands desperately in need of more people: two bloated bulimics who look in the mirror and see themselves as Twiggy with lots of room to grow. The myth is best captured by Australia’s national anthem “Advance Australia Fair” when it says “For those who’ve come across the seas. We’ve boundless plains to share.”

But as O’Connor notes, Australia has only 6% of its land mass proven
as arable. For Canada it is 7% with soils marginal by European standards. As for wheat, because Australia provides 20% of the world’s wheat imports, feeding 40 million people, “boomers” argue that Australia could feed a far higher resident population than its current 21 million. But they forget that much of that foreign exchange is needed to pay for the fuel and nitrate fertilizer used for production, and soil loss, acidification and climate change will diminish yields. “Every tonne of wheat still costs some tones of eroded soil”, O’Connor observes.

Even so, with the drought tolerant wheat grown in fertile soils in a good year Australia produces less wheat than France, and in a bad year sometimes less than Britain. And all at the cost of ‘fascinating’ bio-regions cleared and species eliminated.

So if the big empty land in fact suffers from a limited carrying capacity, if food self-sufficiency is a myth, if biodiversity is taking a beating, why then does Australia seem in a frenzy to add to its numbers? (Canada could be asked the same question). Who drives growth? Qui Bono? Who Benefits?

The answer might be found in research done by the Australian Green Party that revealed that the governing Labor Party of New South Wales received $8.78 million in 1998-99 from property developers, while the opposition Coalition Parties received $6.35 million. Not surprisingly then, Sydney’s councils have been instructed to accommodate an extra 1.1 million people (24%) in 25 years so that Australia offers the paradox of a huge country with urban housing prices comparable to New York or London, where land prices double in a decade and its 1.5% population growth is higher than Indonesia’s and indeed many Third World countries.

“Local and even national newspapers run a depressing spiral of puff pieces about how we are desperately short of skilled and willing workers---alternately with pieces about how we are desperately short of projects to provide employment. The intended solution is of course an endless cycle (or spiral) of increasing population and increasing construction. If only politicians could give Australia the construction industry its population needs, rather than the population its construction industry would like.”

O’Connor cites Australia’s Anglo-Celtic property system for fuelling the drive to “fill the country with people” by rewarding private speculation in land. “By contrast, the nation’s capital, Canberra, was built on a French-style system, with the government resuming land from farmers at fair but moderate prices, auctioning it as cheaply as possible, and using the profit it couldn’t help making to provide roads, schools, services and an elegantly planned layout. Canberra remains one of the world’s most livable cities, and (for the developers who control much of Australia’s politics) an embarrassing proof that there is a better way.”

To footnote this observation, it should be noted that Australian population sociologist Sheila Newman has ably documented the relationship between the British property system and the population growth lobby on the one hand, and the French property system and the absence of anymeaningful lobby for growth in France on the other hand. Students of Canadian civic politics know that developers virtually own city councils. What sinister role do they play behind the scenes in framing federal immigration policy or influencing it? The Urban Futures Institute, a high profile Vancouver-based think tank, is a consistent cheerleader for massive immigration. Its former mouthpiece was “demographer” David Baxter who couched his arguments in demographic statistics to prove that he was in possession of a crystal ball. In fact, he had no credentials as a demographer. He was merely a front man for the real estate industry which fully funds the institute. He was guaranteed an interview by every media outlet when occasion demanded it.

Has any voice of caution or restraint been raised against this mad rush to ecological oblivion? Well there was the Whitlam Labor government of 1972-75 which reacted to the first Global Oil shock by limiting immigration and population growth. Then the Australian Academy of Science made a major public statement in 1994 that advised that Australia’s population not exceed 23 million and that immigration be half of what it was during the Hawke-Keating era. The Science Council of Canada issued a similar report in 1975 when it warned that Canada’s population should not go beyond 30 million. The government responded by abolishing the Science Council and then proceeding along a path that saw the land of frozen tundra, lakes and mountains fill up one-fifth of its Class 1 farmland with subdivisions and become a nation of 33 million with the fastest growth rate in the G8 group.

The Australian Democrats came out in favour of zero-net-migration, but the political culture was poisoned. Under the Hawke-Keating Labor governments of 1983-1996, Australia was essentially a “plutocratic democracy” where voters were presented with a Hobson’s choice between parties who were “servants of business-growth lobbies”. While cognizant of conservationist sensibilities, “Hawke dared not offend the growth lobby.” But even the large immigrant communities were among the 73% of voters who in 1991 said immigration levels were too high, or the 71% in 1996 who held to this opinion. Again, Canadians have affected consistent opposition to immigration in the same proportions, but like Australians, have been presented with a solid parliamentary front in favour of a policy they detest.

But nevertheless, given the scale and persistence of this discontent, Labor’s spin-doctors needed to give the old myth of Australia, as an empty land, a make-over. There was no farmland available and urban land prices were beyond reach, so alright then, it would no longer be Australia’s manifest destiny to build a “great” nation but rather a “diverse” one. It would become a United Nations of ethnicities and races, sustained by permanent immigration, long after the pioneering period had passed. But the obsession with cultural diversity would trump concern for preserving biological diversity.

“Thus instead of being ashamed that we have lost so many of our marsupial species, many Australians on the left seem more ashamed that we do not have a flourishing Inuit or Bantu community in their particular city. Quite why it should be Australia’s duty to turn itself into a representative sample of the cultures of the earth is never explained. Instead, there are constant shouts that any reduction of immigration will lead us tumbling back into an abyss of ‘racism’ and ‘boring monoculturalsim’.”

“Hawke’s and Keating’s spin doctors even took advantage of the Anglo-Celtic guilt over having immigrated upon the Aboriginal tribes without their permission and violently displaced them. Somehow this became a further reason why high immigration, so long as it was no longer Anglo-Celtic, was essential­--as if inviting in the rest of the world would legitimize it.”

O’Connor forecasts that the incoming Labor government of Kevin Rudd will continue the traditional quest for economic growth, only addressing GHG issues if they do not compromise this goal. He compares Australia to “a cruise liner whose captain is required to sail in the direction chosen by a deck-steward whose priority is to keep the sun shining on the deckchairs in the saloon section, so that their occupants will order more drinks.”

The metaphor is an interesting one, for Canada too could be compared to a cruise liner: The HMS Ecological Titanic still robotically stopping to pick up more passengers as it ploughs forward toward the iceberg of over-population.

We may, albeit in diminished numbers, adapt to climate change, but we will not adapt to biodiversity collapse. O’Connor spoke of Australia’s botanical and ecological fragility, but this is what environmentalist Brishen Hoff said of Canada: “Our boreal forest continues to experience wholesale clearcutting and relentless road expansion. More water is being diverted from the Great Lakes watershed than what is being replenished, causing the highest lakes (Nipigon, Superior, etc.) to dramatically drop their water levels. I could go on with thousands of examples of species extinctions and worsening environmental quality right here in Ontario and Algoma-Manitoulin all because of human population growth.”

In fact most of the more than 500 threatened species dwell within the range of Canada’s major urban centres where they are imperiled by sprawling subdivisions, roughly 70% of which are occupied by immigrants. But remember, mass immigration is to be celebrated in Canada as, in the words of Green Party leader Elizabeth May, “our great multicultural project.” Like Sydney, Vancouverites are told that they must move over and accommodate another 800,000 migrants in the coming 23 years (24% growth) and appreciate the newcomers for the “diversity” they bring. But at what cost this “cultural diversity”? An infinitely richer, more vital heritage. The biological diversity of the species that this growth will extinguish.

What’s the answer? O’Connor quotes Gordon Hocking of NSW: “As long as we stick with an economic system that needs to perpetually grow we will remain trapped on the road to ecological and climate disaster.” Brishen Hoff would add “None of these symptoms can be reversed without shrinking the size of our economy and then moving to a steady state economy.”

Bulimics gorge, then purge. Let’s hope our national binging ends soon and our demographic weight loss is progressive and incremental rather than dramatic and deadly.

Watch for Mark O’Connor’s upcoming book, “Overloading Australia”.

Tim Murray
Director of Immigration Watch Canada
8 January 2008