I think this would be a better reflection of the facts if it reflected voluntary resettlement per-capita in which Australia has been No.1 for decades (despite the rhetoric) and we also have the highest-per-capita net immigration program in the OECD (currently running at 240,000+ per year which exceeds our own population growth by about 90,000 per year.) Failing to understand the impacts of a) high net immigration on the labour market and equality and b) the Howard Government and Fairfax medias deception where the muscling up to the boats was a charade to give the illusion that our borders were secure while Howard pumped up net immigration to staggering levels. Are the primary reasons why an increasingly disenfranchised, frightened, insecure and angry but growing group of less-informed Australians voted in the Abbott government. We need a more progressive strategy than holding up scorecards - especially when these scorecards are arguably as deceitful as the charade embarked on under the Howard government. This petition directed towards Tony Abbott and Chris Bowen, I believe provides a good summary. Many people believe that inequality is the most important and urgent thing to be addressed by societal reform. A peaceful and sustainable world must be one with less inequality. They usually focus on regulating excessive and unearned income, including economic rents. I am suggesting that corporate driven growth through endless population growth forces wages down and the returns to capital up, and that stabilising population automatically reduces inequality, at the same time as easing pressure on the environment. The evidence for this is a very strong correlation between population growth rate and the extent of inequality among developed nations, and for developing nations, the only ones which have lifted conditions for the poor (in terms of nutrition, housing, health care and education) have been those which first reduced family size and slowed population growth. All but one have done this through voluntary programs focusing on reproductive rights and child welfare. Currently, the environmental call to stabilise population is being opposed by the wealthiest both in and outside Australia (who seek to maximise returns to capital, even when this is not wealth creation but transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich) and from the extreme Left (who see population growth as strengthening the power of the proletariat, and who believe that all deprivation is due to inequality and not to real shortages of resources). It is time for this Left component to see that their goals are most powerfully achieved by ending population growth, and that they are playing into the Rights hand by pulling the racist card against people who want to end population growth. A sustainable society requires a stable population. Its achievement doesn’t impede any actions to reduce environmental impact per person – quite the opposite. How this should translate into policies relating to family support and immigration is open for discussion but generally, the following would be a good start: a) Provide government incentives for births (baby bonuses) for only the first two children or remove these bonuses altogether and redirect the funds into helping our young avoid the pitfalls of the mistakes of youth including unwanted pregnancy. b) Balance immigration with emigration - the global average. (Note, immigration is not about boats which make up less than 10% of our migrant intake.) This would lower our currently unsustainable levels of immigration from over 300,000 a year to 70,000. Weve welcomed over 6 million people who were born overseas whove wished to join with us in sharing our values and lifestyle, we must start to appreciate the rapidly worsening conditions and extreme inequality that are occurring. We lead the world in mammal extinction, we have an estimated 2 million+ un/underemployed, we have 1 in 8 living in poverty, a quarter of a million homeless on any given night and 2 million having to frequent food bank. c) Work in partnership with overpopulated nations to ease population pressures, resource scarcity, 3rd world conditions, improve womens rights and access to family planning, education and health services. For what we spend on resettling a single person here, we can be helping orders of magnitude more in situ. To get a more comprehensive picture on these issues, please feel free to view Dick Smiths speech for which he was rewarded with a standing ovation (see youtube) or look at the more progressive parties such as the Sustainable Population Party who are demonstrating that this is the debate we most urgently need to have. change.org/en-AU/petitions/tony-abbott-tackle-out-of-control-inequality-for-current-and-future-generations-and-wildlife?utm_medium=email&utm_source=notification&utm_campaign=new_petition_recruit#share
Posted on: Wed, 09 Jul 2014 05:39:04 +0000
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