Not coming to Australia now :(

I have mixed feelings about this. I have read that Australia is a uniquely fragile ecosystem that has faced external threats, and that Australia is swelling with immigrants and that there is going to be natural desire to preserve the status quo.

Reality check on growth
BOB BIRRELL
January 14, 2010/SMH

Illustration: Spooner

Projections of 35 million people by 2050 deflate under closer analysis.

Most people will have a view about whether a major increase in Australia's population by 2050 will undermine their quality of life and harm the natural environment. My opinion is that it will be damaging on both fronts. A more interesting question is: where does the 35 million projection come from and why is there such widespread acceptance within government and business circles that it is inevitable?

The 35-million projection was prepared by the Commonwealth Treasury. It parallels recent Australian Bureau of Statistics and state government population projections. All assume that the current record high net migration levels and high fertility (relative to a few years ago) will continue.

If Australia reaches 35 million by 2050, choices about desired family size will play a minor role. The projections all assume that fertility will remain below the long-term replacement level. As a result, some 85 per cent of the projected growth from 22 million today to 35 million will derive from net overseas migration (including children born to migrants once in Australia).

In other words, the projected growth will largely be a consequence of deliberate government migration policy.

It is most unlikely that projections which assume that record high migration will continue unabated will come to pass. Our history is littered with such failures. For example, in the late 1960s, when migration and fertility were both high, the Melbourne Metropolitan Board of Works projected that Melbourne would reach 5 million by 2000. It reached 3.4 million. Pursuit of the migration-driven 35 million target will generate increasing vexations as governments struggle to accommodate the extra numbers. Opposition will increase, as will critical attention to migration policies.

Yet the 35-million projection has been seized on, indeed embraced, as a welcome challenge by the Rudd Government. Wayne Swan and his Treasury love rapid population growth. The economic activity deriving from the recent population surge prevented Australia from experiencing a recession. As a consequence, real aggregate gross domestic product increased by 1 per cent between 2007-08 and 2008-09. But during the same period, real GDP per capita, which is a better measure of economic welfare, fell by 0.9 per cent.

Those involved in the building needed for the housing, services and employment required by new residents have a direct interest in high population growth. They include Victoria's state government leaders, who are aware that the state's main growth industry is city building.

The Rudd Labor Government's stated justification for its high migration policy is linked to the impending retirement of the baby boomers (those born in the 1950s and early 1960s). The Government asserts that this will lead to a decline in the rate of labour-force growth in Australia and a decrease in the ratio of workers to people in the post 65-year age group.

The Government is correct that some policy response is required, although the issues will only seriously emerge in a decade or so and thus do not justify high migration now.

In any case, it is questionable whether high migration is the answer. ...<cont>

it is not the immegrants themselves that are a problem its the population as a total.

India's teeming millions have out grown their countries capacity to provide. In days of old the solution would be a war with a neighbouring country these days it seems to be migration.

Population pressure is in itself catylyst for change. a need for change is seen and solutions are sought and provided. i'm not sure our environment and current lifestyle can stand the changes that will be necessary to accomadate projected poulation growth.

I think people (especially foreigners) who think Australia can just keep growing and absorbing immigration just have no idea how much of the place is desert....and how that desert is growing.

This, while we have arable land covered more and more by housing.

Title: Vindaloo Against Violence WEDNESDAY 24 FEBRUARY 2010

Body: Protest racially motivated violence in Melbourne.

Dine at your local Indian restaurant on Wednesday 24 February 2010.
Let’s find a way to show support for the Indian community and signal that we will not turn a blind eye to violence in our city.
This violence threatens all Melburnians’ sense of safety and pride in their home. I want the Melbourne Indian community -and all immigrant communities " to know that they are welcome and entitled to feel safe here.
How cool would it be if Melbourne displayed a show of force by all going out and eating Indian food on a certain night, to embrace and show solidarity with our local Indian community?
Let’s do it!

I could go on & on about the impact on cities like Melbourne (which are the places where the new migrants wish to settle, because of work opportunities, understandably). You could argue that the problem is poor planning & I'd agree with you.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I have a major gripe with (federal & also state) governments regarding the attitude to "paying" immigrants as opposed to refugees. One one hand, we have full fee paying international students involved in what is widely understood to be the first "stepping stone" to citizenship. On the other, we have refugees (many of them later to be declared "legitimate" on humanitarian grounds) arriving (or trying to arrive, often) to our shores via boats. Some have died as a result of that perilous journey, many more are locked up in detention centres (yes, they certainly still exist) till their cases are eventually heard, with god knows what further damage being done to them as a result.

So, on one hand, we are effectively selling citizenship to international students (which I find a completely abhorrent concept, on many levels & which accounts for the huge numbers choosing to study here) while making it as cruel & as difficult as possible for people who are actually seeking asylum in this country. Asylum seekers, in contrast with overseas students seeking citizenship, are a very small proportion of out immigration intake.