Dissatisfaction with immigration grows in Vic.

Swinburne University
People and Place Journal
Volume 16, Issue 3 (2008)
Katharine Betts

Immigration has increased considerably since the late 1990s and between 2004 and 2007 the proportion of voters who want the intake to be reduced rose from 34 per cent to 46 per cent. While support for a reduction was highest in New South Wales, this support was already high in 2004. In relative terms support for a reduction rose most strongly in Victoria. This may be because, over the four-year period, Melbourne absorbed a greater proportion of Australia’s population growth than any other region. Despite growing electoral disquiet, the new Labor Government is increasing the immigration program to record levels. (Abstract)

Swinburne Uni Research News

From a conventional economic perspective these years were rosy, so it is unusual to see support for immigration decline so steeply in such circumstances. According to Betts’ “one possibility is that the immediate negative consequences of rapid population growth became evident to more people: rising house prices and rents, pressure to increase residential densities in previously low-density suburbs, increased congestion on the roads, pressure on hospitals and health services and overcrowding on public transport.”

These changes were felt most in Victoria: “This may be because, over the four-year period, Melbourne absorbed a greater proportion of Australia’s population growth than any other region,” said Betts.

Despite this growing electoral disquiet, the new Labor Government is increasing the immigration program to record levels. The total planned permanent intake for 2008-2009 stands at 203,800.

According to Betts’ report, the demographic trajectory that the new Government has committed itself to has minimal electoral support. “Urban congestion and declining housing affordability suggest that the disjunction between this policy and popular feeling may not be easy to ignore over the long term."

Apart from congestion, other explanations probably don't pass the PC filter to get a mention by Betts. Like, as the amount and degree of diversity increases, so does the backlash. Isn't that what Professor Putnam found? It could just be Melbourne catching up to Sydney.

Melbourne's African intake has increased in recent years. Would that rate a mention by Betts? 40 percent of Australians believe that certain ethnic groups do not belong here (Middle Easterners and Africans rating high). Wouldn't it make sense that if you have more African immigrants then you might also have more of a backlash? You'd have to pay $16 to find out if Betts mentions this, but I'd say it's unlikely.

Nope, humans, according to much of academia, only concern themselves with economics and infrastructure. Racial solidarity, linguistic cohesion, crime, culture, and religion are all capable of "disjunction between this policy and popular feeling" but they don't pass the PC filter to rate a mention. Such is the socially vacuous state of our PC filtered universities.

H/T: Eye on Immigration

Rudd's immigration policy doesn't add up

12 Aug 2008
Ben Power

Given the economic benefits are surprisingly and disappointingly small, the fact the economy is slowing and inflationary pressures easing, the Rudd government needs to explain its justification for an acceleration in the immigration program. We hear little discussion about these issues in Australia. I haven't even touched on the impact of higher population on carbon emissions and water supplies.

The UK and US are having debates on the economic impact of immigration, and hopefully ours is starting. In recent times Australians have accepted higher immigration numbers. But in a gloomy economic climate that could change quickly if the government doesn't start convincing them why it is a good thing.

Growing pains a price of affluence?

August 12, 2008
Bernard Salt

I have a question to ask Melburnians.

How is it that previous generations managed to (eventually) deliver urban infrastructure to support population growth at 2.5 per cent a year, but we struggle with 1.6 per cent? ...

Modest rates of population growth may well be a good for the present generation of Melburnians but I question whether this isn't going to have longer term repercussions.

Global migrants will ultimately add their critical mass, their energy and their tax-paying capacity to another world city.

This would leave Melbourne in the future a very well managed and pleasant city that is pre-eminently "liveable" but perhaps not the sort of place capable of generating new business opportunities created by the unique combination of critical mass and the energetic contribution of migrants.

Typical globalist: he poses the token question to the public, and then answers it himself. There's no water, people don't want perpetual development, and there is no social cohesion anymore. They don't want to live in a "world city". The are no benefits of immigration to per capita income. Bernard Salt has growth on the brain.

Population growth exacerbates housing crisis

August 07, 2008
Bernard Salt

There are several factors that have affected the supply of residential dwellings, including heightened demand. The number of people added to Australia during calendar 2007 was 332,000 or 1.6 per cent. This is the greatest number added to the national population in any year in our nation's history. And it's evident in our city's growth rates...

But what is driving this extreme growth?

The most obvious cause is a record level of net overseas migration. Last year we added a net 185,000 migrants, up from a long-term average of 110,000...

But the forces behind the population boom don't end there. The birth rate has been trending up for six years...

Long and short of a trading scheme

July 28, 2008, Kenneth Davidson

A carbon tax at this level would require a change in lifestyles. Birrell and Healy say these changes would not be acceptable to the community and they argue that cutting immigration and stabilising the population would be the most politically acceptable option to achieve the 60/2050 target.

They point out that as the Productivity Commission has shown, there is only a tiny projected gain per capita income from immigration. Just because some business interests profit from population growth, for ordinary Australians it is per capita growth that matters.

Birrell and Healy say the business interests that have the most to lose from the emissions trading scheme will have an interest in stabilising population growth to minimise the tax on carbon.

Agent obtains warrant to evict Sudanese refugee family

July 01, 2008

A SUDANESE couple and their five children have been ordered out of their Brisbane home otherwise the police will come and throw them out ...

The Presbyterian minister mainly blamed the family's grim situation on the critical shortage of affordable housing.

However he fears discrimination is also at work.

Sick of the congestion? Time to talk about immigration

Michael Duffy, June 28, 2008

... Sydney is in a state of denial about population increase. We don't prepare for it adequately and seem constantly surprised that public services and infrastructure fail. When they do, we blame politicians, or climate change, or the greed of people (other people) for cars and houses and air conditioning. Anything but what is often the main cause, population growth.

This comes from births, migration from other parts of Australia, and immigration, but it's only the last category we have much control over...

Another reason immigration has been ignored is because to question it is to be seen as politically incorrect, even racist. This could why the environmental movement has largely ignored it, despite its central role in the problems the movement talks about all the time.

Rental crisis leaves family out in cold

June 14, 2008

A FAMILY of 13 were bunking down on the floor of an acquaintance's house last night as Victoria's rental crisis hit a critical new low.

The two adults and 11 children, refugees from Afghanistan, had feared ending up on Melbourne's cold streets after a desperate search for emergency housing failed to turn up suitable accommodation.

Father Hussein Zaghar declined the only emergency accommodation offered late in the day -- a one-room cabin at a caravan park 80km from Melbourne.

Letter to the editor: immigration and emissions

July 24, 2008

MONASH University social scientist Bob Birrell's observations (The Age, 23/7) are undeniable. Australia's immigration adds to both Australia's and global greenhouse gas emissions because people generally move from low per capita emitting countries to high per capita emitting countries — in this case Australia.

The Government is wasting its energy working in two opposing directions. It strenuously promotes economic and population growth while working on an economic strategy to mitigate the increased emissions of a growing volume of inherently carbon-emitting business activities.

A good federal government would try to direct this country towards sustainability by moderating migrant numbers (other than humanitarian and refugee intakes) and by concentrating on the long-term security of basic requirements for its citizens — food, water and shelter.

Jill Quirk, East Malvern

Immigration must be cut to tackle climate change

July 23, 2008

IMMIGRATION must be slashed if Australia has any chance of seriously tackling climate change, says a Monash University study.

The report said Australia's high population growth would be a major driver of greenhouse emissions, and would counter tough government measures to reduce carbon output.

But the Rudd Government and its climate adviser Ross Garnaut were ignoring the population issue at their peril, said the study, entitled Labor's Greenhouse Aspirations, by Monash's Centre for Population and Urban Research.