Groupthink

Posts Tagged population

Asking the questions that matter #1

Jul 19

Posted by David in Federal election 2010, Media, Politics | 7 Comments

On the first full day of the 2010 election campaign, Julia Gillard went to Brisbane where she made a speech about population and sustainablity in which she expressed her desire to put the brakes on the fast track to a big Australia.

“I do not believe in the idea of a big Australia, an Australia where we push all the policy levers into top gear to drive population growth as high as it can be,’’ said the Prime Minister.

“The nation’s goal should not be a big Australia but a ‘‘sustainable’’ Australia that ‘‘preserves our quality of life and respects our environment’’.

‘‘One of the things Australians often say when we’ve spent a few days in a crowded, congested city in Europe or the United States: it’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.

‘‘Friends, I will not allow Australia to ever become a country of which it is said: it’s a nice place to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there,” she said.’

So, we have some policy which, while being a little boring, is important especially to regional towns. So, which of the following questions did the assembled media pack ask when they got some q-and-a time with the Prime Minister?

A.“Ms Gillard, let me get this straight. Are you against population growth or do you just want to slow it down to better control it?”

B. “How will we combat the ageing population if we slow migration down?”

C. “Prime Minister, the reason why Australia’s cities are choking is because successive state and federal governments have been slow to keep up with infrastructure. You mentioned the Snowy Mountain Hydro Scheme, have you considered a similar grand project where we can build the much needed infrastructure to allow for more people? 

D. “Will you be campaigning with Kevin Rudd in his electorate?

 

If you answered D, you’re correct!

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Stop making the link

Jul 19

Posted by Spock... in Federal election 2010 | 5 Comments

I am really quite sick of this.

Why must we link population growth to immigration? What does immigration have to do with population growth in Australia? Scott already discussed this in April. Why do these two discussions need to be linked when they so clearly aren’t? Australian politicians should stop using population as a smokescreen for discussing asylum seekers, and the Australian media needs to stop letting them.

But they are still at it. Stories like this one over at The Australian, that link the two discussions are part of the problem.

In an address to Brisbane think tank The Eidos Institute to launch the Building Better Regional Cities program, after a visit to a Welcoming the Babies function with Wayne Swan, Ms Gillard said that while urban dwellers faced traffic congestion and had trouble accessing doctors or finding seats on public transport, many regional areas were desperate to attract more workers. Her government would back them, she said, and in doing so relieve pressure on cities.

Let us ignore, for one moment, the fact that these problems in cities aren’t caused by population growth but by years of under investment in infrastructure from our governments. There is nothing wrong with discussing the population limits of our cities and there is nothing wrong with discussing population distribution. But in the very next paragraph is if it is somehow related:

The comments came as Tony Abbott – after a visit to western Sydney, an area under pressure from population growth – said the asylum-seeker issue was making Australians feel they were losing control of their own destiny. He promised annual reviews of immigration intakes and guaranteeing a Coalition government would ensure infrastructure development kept up with population growth.

They have nothing to do with each other! Abbott should stop insisting they do and The Australian shouldn’t re-enforce the connection by putting it in the same story.

Also, having Tony Abbott promise that a Liberal government would invest in infrastructure development is like hearing Joe Hockey promise he won’t eat all the Cheezles. He might mean it, but I wouldn’t want to leave him alone with them.

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More CEC lulz

Jun 29

Posted by Scott Bridges in Politics | 6 Comments

I post this excerpt from the latest Citizens Electoral Council press release without comment:

PM Gillard, take notice: “Sustainable Population” actually means genocide

… LaRouche has also been the world’s leading economic forecaster since his first forecast in 1956, and the question becomes, PM Gillard: Will you listen to LaRouche on fundamental matters of economy, or to the lunatics from the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) who are leading the charge for “sustainable population”? The same ACF in March made the formal claim to the Ministry of the Environment that “human population growth” is a “key threatening process” to the environment which must therefore be curbed, and the same ACF demanded that Kevin Rudd establish a “Ministry of Population” in the first place.

The founder and longtime president (1971-76) of the ACF, Prince Philip, openly advocates reducing the global population down from its present 6.8 billion to less than 2 billion. In 1961, Prince Philip, British Eugenics Society head Sir Julian Huxley, and former Nazi SS member Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands co-founded the WWF to make “presently unthinkable ideas thinkable”, in Huxley’s words, given that the Nazis’ death camps had at least temporarily discredited the idea of eugenics. That founding of the WWF is the actual modern origin of the anti-scientific, genocidal doctrine of “sustainable population”, of “population control”, and of similar euphemisms.

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Population smokescreen

Apr 6

Posted by Scott Bridges in Politics | 13 Comments

It was lucky that I was in Queensland a couple of weekends ago when The Sunday Mail revealed to Australia shocking scenes of asylum seekers in our shopping centres buying our pizza and our Coke. Lucky because I got a snap of the front page to use as wallpaper on my iPhone.

A handy reminder to be on my guard at all times

A handy reminder to be on my guard at all times

Any idiot can tell that boat arrivals and asylum seekers are going to be a hot topic at this year’s election, and Kevin Rudd has pre-empted this and attempted to mitigate electoral damage by launching a national conversation about Australia’s size, announcing a new portfolio for population. The Liberals know what’s going on and have immediately started linking boat arrivals to population growth:

Kevin Rudd’s failure on border protection, as yet another boat arrives, means he can’t be trusted on population growth, according to Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Scott Morrison and Shadow Minister for Justice, Customs and Border Protection, Michael Keenan.

Of course, allowing the Liberals to talk about asylum seekers in terms of population growth lets them avoid talking about asylum seekers in terms of the kinds of people they are, which can come across as a bit mean and xenophobic. In a way, it’s sort of playing into the Liberals’ hands a bit. Why can’t Rudd and Labor just come straight out and argue much what Peter van Onselen did last week in The Australian?

BOTH of the main political parties are keen to display their toughness on border protection, so much so that they seem to have lost sight of the plight of the people who are trying to make their way here in rickety boats.

[...]

Why are we so concerned about the 4500 or so boatpeople who have attempted to seek asylum in Australia since the ALP was elected about 2 1/2 years ago?

Yes, the numbers are higher than they were during the Howard years, as the Coalition nauseatingly continues to point out. And the upsurge may well be a consequence of a softening of the assessment processes since the Pacific solution was removed from the political lexicon.

But these numbers hardly suggest we are being inundated. We should remember the much larger number of refugees flowing into parts of Europe and Asia because of their proximity to conflict zones. Australia’s refugee numbers will always be low because of something called the ocean.

The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who try to enter Australia illegally by boat are ultimately assessed to be legitimate refugees and are therefore included in Australia’s annual refugee quota of 13,750.

Everyone wants to talk about boat arrivals but without talking about boat arrivals; it’s all meaningless stats comparisons and smokescreens about population growth. Why can’t we just talk about the people on the boats and what we as a nation can and can’t, will and won’t do for them?

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