Kelvin Thomson MP, the Federal Member of the Australian House of Representatives for Wills commented on the Migration Council report, calling the report “predictable self-interested rubbish from the big end of town.”
Migration Council Wants Growth
The Migration Council sees only growth, apparently ignoring the capacity of Australia to support more people. Besides more growth, the Council sees accelerated growth as the solution to a future flatlining of the Australian economy.
The USA has been on a similar acceleration. They accelerated to the tune of 200,000 legal immigrants per month. When their immigration was officially set at 100,000 per year, growth was manageable, and they projected that their population would stabilise around 265 million by now. There are also between 12 to 20 million illegal immigrants in the US, and counting.
Unfortunately, the US Congress was convinced that accelerated growth was good, and their population is well over 265 million now, at slightly more than 320 million, and they are on track to hit 417 million by 2060. Already they are suffering from more droughts, decimation of the environment and shortages of food. That figure of 417 million does not take into account the additional immigration the previous Congress wanted to add. If those numbers were implemented, it would mean 138 million more people – 100 million of those would be immigrants.
By 2055, the Migration Council sees the Australian population at 40 million. Even at 22 million today, we are already killing koalas at an unprecedented rate because we are squeezing them out of their shrinking habitat.
Migration Council projection
Population Debate
Mark O’Connor, the Canberra-based co-author of the population debate book: Overloading Australia: How governments and media dither and deny on population, says that even though people are worried about their personal ageing, the concept of an ageing decrepit society and a grave negative effect on our economy is false.
Politicians and vested interests are trying to exploit a personal fear of ageing, to link it with economic armageddon if Australia does not grow rapidly.
O’Connor says .” .. there’s no connection. Having a lot of people survive well into their sixties and beyond is the sign of a successful, healthy, advanced society. There are countries where life is short, birth control seems unknown, and half the population is under twenty. But you might not want to live there. It’s not even true that we’re headed for a bizarrely aged society. Australian couples – or more exactly, Australian women – are averaging almost exactly two children each. Within 20 years we will move towards a stable population, with roughly equal numbers of people in each generation.”
To see more information about what has happened in the USA, NewsBlaze writer, Frosty Wooldridge writes extensively on U.S. immigration.
Watch this video about increasing population indefinitely:
In a new media release, Kelvin Thomson MP said:
The Migration Council report, like the Intergenerational Report, represents a demand by the people who have been digging a hole for Australia to be given a bigger shovel. The call by the Migration Council to increase the migration intake to 250,000 every year is predictable self-interested rubbish from the big end of town.
It is a recipe for higher unemployment, falling living standards and a declining environment. Countries with a faster rate of population growth than Australia invariably have poorer living standards and political instability. Countries with a larger population invariably have poorer environments and quality of living for their residents.
Back in 2004 our net migration was 100,000. In the years following that it doubled to 200,000 and has stayed above 200,000 ever since. Is Australia better off as a consequence? No it is not. Unemployment is higher, and long-term unemployment and underemployment are much more serious than they were then.
Young people are suffering from job insecurity, housing unaffordability, and student debt. This week a Gallup Poll found that many school students lack hope for the future and are not confident of getting a good job – only one in three believed they would get a good job. The quality of life in cities such as Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane has declined, and voters have reacted to this decline by changing their State and Federal Governments in quick succession.
Rather than increasing migration still higher to 250,000, Australia would be far better off returning our migration rate to the 2004 figure of 100,000. This is the only way we can do something about the 800,000 people who are out of work, and the only way we can provide more opportunities for young Australians, indigenous Australians and long-term unemployed Australians.
The Intergenerational Report is an alibi for attacks on the public sector and the support given by government to its less fortunate citizens. The attempt to use population ageing as a battering ram against the welfare state, with scare campaigns about the cost of pensions and healthcare, has no validity. While workforce participation is set to fall by 2055, according to Associate Professor Dr Katharine Betts labour force participation for the total population will still be higher in 2061 than it was in 1966. It is worth remembering that back in 1966 unemployment was less than 2 per cent, 92 per cent of jobs were full time, housing was much more affordable and only 7.7 per cent of Australians lived in poverty.
In 1945 Australia’s population was 7 million. Today it is over 23 million. There is nothing inevitable about rapid population growth. Back in 1945, Sweden’s population was also seven million; today their population is nine million. Are we outperforming Sweden as a result? No. Do we have a better relationship with our environment and landscape? No. Does the evidence suggest we are better off as a society for this rapid population growth? No.
Increasing Australia’s population to 40 million by 2055, as projected by the Intergenerational Report, is the opposite of Intergenerational fairness. It is an utter betrayal of our responsibility to pass on to our children and grandchildren a country in as good a condition as the one our forebears left to us.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_XilXIMzUo
