Dick Smith's Population Puzzle.

topcropper

topcropper

This show was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was well done and well researched.

Dick is very passionate about this subject, and he mentioned how stupid it is that as soon as someone mentions the issue, racism comes into play and people don't want to discuss the subject. He even paid 10% for the production of the show.



The QandA session after was also good. And something really strange happened. I found myself agreeing with the greenies like Bob Brown and Tim Flannery, and laughing at the ridiculous comments of the right wing blokes, especially John Elliot and that CEO bloke of some company. I wouldn't be surprised if John Elliot was drunk. What the hell was John Elliot even doing there? It was a real bipartisan program, with lefties and righties, greens and business people, on any and either side of the argument.


See ya's.
 
Hi TC,

I was thinking about starting a thread on it, you beat me to it. I pretty much felt exactly the same as you did except this bit...

I wouldn't be surprised if John Elliot was drunk.
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I would have been surprised if he was sober.:p

What was he doing there?? comic relief, yet he does say some good things, in between the twaddle.

Burke and Morrison almost seemed to be on the same wavelength, very surprising with only a few days to go before an election.

I had a long chat with Dick Smith 8 or 9 years ago at a conference. He was the guest speaker and stayed for lunch. Everyone seemed to be intimidated by his presence so I just moseyed on up and started a conversation. He is a very likable bloke, has strong opinions yet is prepared to listen and research.

I like the part of the doco that had Cosgrove explaining the defense angle. Just more people wont help with defense. To me that wasimportant in helping me change my mind about a larger population.

bye
 
Come on, it is the ABC.......They deliberately targeted having John Elliot on QnA as a regular representative of the right years ago. THey know he comes across as the loud obnoxious ignorant capitalist pig lefties love to hate. It is all so staged.

Just as we don't need constant popn growth, we don't need constant economic growth.

I thought Smith's documentary could have been a hell of a lot more objective. throw a lot more facts and better quality logic into the mix. Instead his arguments were poorly developed and offered lots of fodder for the migrant guilt industry reps.

The CEO on QnA held to the most most extreme and dumb position. No doubt another hand selected rightie by ABC.

The questions that should have been teased out by idiot TOny Jones were:

1. why is there a shortage of skilled labor, and over 11% unemployment in under 24yo?
some reasons:
-the private sector cannot afford to train them when we have to compete with cheap imports.
- much skilled labor was developed in large manufacturing companies and public sector organizations like Telstra. they've either gone offshore or had to cut costs.
-as soon as the government got involved in tafes, a whole sector has to stop taking on apprentices to remain competitive.
- 1/3 of kids have inadequate math and reading skills. how much of this is poor parenting?
- volatility in the mining industry adversely effects skills programs and apprenticeships.
- the government taxes the private sector to run tafes.

2. why should Australia accept migrants from overcrowded third world countries, out of guilt? Why is there a guilt industry in Australia?
- it is patronizing and racist to believe a third world nation does not have equal intelligence or will to lift itself out of its problems by reducing its population and choosing to create a more productive economy.

3. As Dick Smith said, we should not be poaching the brains of third world countries because we can't train enough of our own. it is immoral.

4. Defending Australia in the future will require superior technology and weaponry, not large numbers of personnel. The personnel we do have would have to be physically and emotionally healthy, and mentally disciplined. We don't have the capital for the former, nor do we have the latter. If China decides to invade us, we are indefensible and should accept a similar fate to Tibet's. The USA would stay out of it because a war with China would bankrupt it.

5. Why can't Australia afford to replace ageing infrastructure or build enough new? and why are we selling public assets/infrastructure to foreign interests?

6. How can China build whole new cities and world best trains, and the latest green energy tech?
 
Pig's Ar$e! :p

Mr Elliot was worth it just for the laughs!

It was only the academic who made this point on the panel but it's very convincing for me:

Over this century, if Australia doesn't play it's part in accommodating an expanding global population then someone else is going to come in and do it for us. Its not merely a moral or ethical question but is just pure logic. And I agree WW taking just the cream from other countries is indefensible and unsustainable.

By the end of this century the ANZUS alliance may not be worth more than an Arts degree and Peter Cosgrove's ADF will be no match for China regardless. Maintaining any sort of technological edge over China is a fool's errand and the rest is just numbers.

Over population is a global problem and we have to be part of the solution. We live in the world... and that means unfortunately our privileged and wasteful lifestyles will have to change. We can either change ourselves or have that change forced upon us - I know which I prefer. The quarter acre block will just have to go the way of the Kingswood! Dick Smith's nostalgic look at Australia was a nice trip down memory lane but is not a view of the inevitable future.

Worse things have happened... lets just get on with it!
 
I'm not in Australia now, so didn't get to see the programme, unfortunately. Sounds like it could have been of interest.

The BBC ran an article on their website about migration to Australia. They seemed to put more stress on the skills shortage than the political angle.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-10939374

My guess is that numbers are going to fall because it's politically unpopular.

The viewpoint amongst would be migrants, or those dealing with them, is that any talk of reducing numbers is political rhetoric. This comes from the Poms in Oz forum:

I might be cynical, but.....

The pollies know perfectly well that continuation of the skilled immiigration orogram is important to Australia's future prosperity.

The pollies have broken the promises they made to the people seeking to migrate to Australia. Once the Election is safely out of the way, I reckon that the pollies will proceed to break the promises that they are making to the Australian voters at the moment.
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Bangladesh

Hi

I watched the program - well presented with a good variety of opinions - but I wasn't sure of the relevance of the Bangladesh segment.

Was he try to imply that if the popoulation growth in Australia continues then we shall end up being the new Bangladesh: - dense population = slum housing + congested streets + inadequate health services + beggars on streets.

If so, instead why not look to other countries with dense population - Singapore/ Taiwan/ Hong Kong/ even Holland, but then the images are not as scary.

Alternatively was he implying that we are taking highly trained professionals from poorly developed countries - if so, I can't see the relevance of that to the debate on Australia's population growth and a sustainable population.

A good program but let down by the inference of racism as a means of appealing to rednecks.

Tony
 
HiEquity said:
Over this century, if Australia doesn't play it's part in accommodating an expanding global population then someone else is going to come in and do it for us. Its not merely a moral or ethical question but is just pure logic. And I agree WW taking just the cream from other countries is indefensible and unsustainable.

!
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The world's population is growing at 80 million a year. :eek: Mostly in the third world where food is already short. What is the point of trying to accomodate 80 million? It's pointless.

An expanding 3rd world population is a pretty darn good reason why we should have minimal population growth in Australia. This world is walking like a zombi towards a food shortage . We grow enough food in Australia for 60 million westerners, or 120 million Asians, or 200 million Africans. Once we hit 60 million, there is no more food to export. We can help the world far better by leaving the people where they are and exporting our wealth to them.


See ya's.
 
The skills shortage is just a crock.
Why can't we train our own people , because education was abused by Howard for 11 yrs,made unfordable , unreachable and impractical so the next minute the whole country is somehow brain washed into thinking the lucky country can't even train it's own people, it's a bloody joke . Why not ?
Most of what Dick was on about I brought up here a few mths ago and got called a racist and bored out of course , surprise surprise .
There's so many angles but another big issue to me is why develop good farming land, ridiculous, with land mass the size of Oz.
Put the people on the crap and preserve the good stuff. It makes no difference to them on their 1/4 ac anyway they only landscape it up and exist on it. You can do that on any ground.
The river and orchard business, what a joke . The Murry's flow's cut back to something like 21% at it's start, the darling systems just as bad. So everything they try to use the river for has to come out of that 21% . And then it's also walled off and barricaded every 30k or so all the way down to the mouth . Reopen the flood gates for a few yrs or even back to 50 or 60% and we'll have our river back and plenty of water. Set it at 60 or 70% and they'll never have to worry about it ever again. It'll recover and heal itself, that's what nature does if it's given a chance.
It's like everything else in the way we do things , thousands of little people running round with clip boards and studies wondering why why why but there's usually only one real problem , us and the way we do things and we've usually abused and killed off whatever it is in a nutshell.
Growth, another joke , the whole planets treated like a bloody stock market share.Totally unsustainable, what a stupid way of running the world. You can't just grow grow grow or you get the pyramid , just like our share market was and our housing market is now .
Growth will find it's own natural balance if we just stop trying to create it and impress each other .
The aging populations also ridiculous - with 500k houses and our cost of living , both parents now needing to work forever of course we can't breed.
Bringing in a new 300k a year right now for Oz is also ridiculous. Oz needs to stop and take stock for a few years while it catches up , if you don't keep yourself strong your not in a position to help anyone else .

It goes right though the spectrum on and on , I don't think there's enough pages in Somersoft to even scratch the surface

Cheers
 
I also reckon creative incentives encouraging people back out into the the regional areas is a great idea . Some of our regional areas are great lifestyles and smaller cities. Most have an abundance of space and many have great infrastructure and new stuff happening by the truck load lately with this last decade of boom .
If people are encouraged to atleast just get out to them in the first place, give them a go , most of them never look back and word will spread from there. Works for the US , hardly rocket science . We could comfortably spread inward atleast 3 or 400k all over in most parts which is a space 10x bigger that a lot of countries.

It's already happening now because so many people are being forced to branch out and look for the more affordable , then the sea and tree change stuff. It's all a start .
The basics to build on our regional cities have all made leaps and bounds lately and growing like buggery . With that naturally flows the new work and opportunities , hospitals , schools , shops . Being an ex Melbourner now myself I have a pretty good idea these days as to what we want if we're going to take off and stay there . We've rarely met anyone that goes back .

Governments could really be tapping into this last decade .

Cheers
 
1) the doco is targeted at people who haven't thought about the issue before, therefore it's gong to be shy on detail and a little sensationalist. it's designed that way to get people thinking about it - which was all he wanted. sorry guys, i doubt anytime soon we'll have a doco with the level of detail you want, because if we did, no-one would watch it.

2) the population debate is a great one. "f_k off we're full" stickers aside, there is certainly logic to the argument that we need to restrict our population intake. we don't HAVE to take everyone in the world just "because", as one of the youngest nations on earth we can learn from the mistakes of France, UK, Japan, Sweden etc by studying what effects their policies have had 10-20-30 years out.

3) i also agree about the skilled immigration. i no longer agree with it, especially if 7mil aussies are mildly to extremely illeterate. i couldn't believe that, one out of every three people you see at the shops are illiterate and we're importing migrants.

4) call me nuts, but i think i'm understanding the socialist argument.
 
Ultimately I think the most moral and compassionate thing to do is preserve the worlds' resources for as many future generations as possible, not use up ever more of them on those too silly to stop breeding or driving V8s.
 
not driving V8s isn't going to be the solution, or anything else to do with cars.

we could stop using cars tomorrow if the public transport system was good, but then public transport would require the resources. it just a shift from one to the other, so unless the population numbers being moved about decreases, then it's just taken from the right hand to give to the left.
 
topcropper said:
The world's population is growing at 80 million a year. :eek: Mostly in the third world where food is already short. What is the point of trying to accomodate 80 million? It's pointless.
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Hi TC

We don't have to accomodate all of them - just a reasonable share. We are already doing this by proxy through overseas entry to our universities. A program where we assist developing countries through the provision of training services (eg Bangalore / California style) is an example of how this can be done to mutual benefit. It's not merely about how many permanent people to take.

The world has a problem and we should be coming up with solutions as to how we can play our part in fixing it. Bangladesh for example is relevant because they are caught in the poverty trap. Assisting them in whatever way we can to improve their education and economic outcomes will reduce their population growth and is therefore in our own best interest. We can be part of the solution if we choose to be...

topcropper said:
An expanding 3rd world population is a pretty darn good reason why we should have minimal population growth in Australia. This world is walking like a zombi towards a food shortage . We grow enough food in Australia for 60 million westerners, or 120 million Asians, or 200 million Africans. Once we hit 60 million, there is no more food to export. We can help the world far better by leaving the people where they are and exporting our wealth to them.
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I think you make a very good argument here that we have to accept our own lifestyle is just as much a problem here as anything else. As well as our pretence that it matters not what problems there are in the rest of the world. In future we have to consume less per capita, significantly reduce the 40% of food we currently waste and compromise on our "lifestyle". We can consume far fewer resources and increase our population at the same time - if we wish to choose that path.

Recognising our environmental limitations doesn't mean we have to stop population growth - we can show others how it should be done instead of being the most wasteful country on the planet as we currently are - in nearly any measure - energy, food, land use, transport. But we can't do it if we keep hankering for the quarter acre block and other nostalgic hangovers of the "old Australia", as Mr Smith seems to advocate. That's our most pernicious cultural expectation (just like hobby farms) and it has to change.

Convincing ourselves that changing this lifestyle is in our own best interest is the most difficult challenge but it must be done if there is to be any hope...
 
HiEquity said:
Recognising our environmental limitations doesn't mean we have to stop population growth - we can show others how it should be done instead of being the most wasteful country on the planet as we currently are - in nearly any measure - energy, food, land use, transport. But we can't do it if we keep hankering for the quarter acre block and other nostalgic hangovers of the "old Australia", as Mr Smith seems to advocate. That's our most pernicious cultural expectation (just like hobby farms) and it has to change.

Convincing ourselves that changing this lifestyle is in our own best interest is the most difficult challenge but it must be done if there is to be any hope...
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I don't agree with that notion HiEquity. We happily live on a quarter acre block with the same lifestyle / surroundings as I and my parents were brought up in. It's a good one....and yes, it's all opinion based.


I'd never be in a position to criticize the lifestyle naturally, because we are doing it. There's oodles of people knocking on the door wishing to replicate the lifestyle as well.


I note that you have also taken that choice to live in the same manner, so I can only assume you have the same ideals / hopeful outcomes for your children as we have for ours...but haven't quite reconciled it in your mind yet.


Shifting to some small dank hovel in a crowded dense urban skytower may be good for land use and the environment - dunno - but it serves very poorly as a place to bring the family.


I don't agree that it "must be done".
 
HiEquity said:
The world has a problem and we should be coming up with solutions as to how we can play our part in fixing it.
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THe third world has a problem restraining from breeding.
The first world has a problem eating fatty food and driving V8s.

OK HE, on your carbon bike :) and over to Africa and India with you.....where you can gently persuade them to adopt some good old Christian beliefs like no sex before marriage, monogamous relationships, don't have kids til you have a stable income. How dare they think they can exercise free will and have as many kids as they like.

Then when you get back you can gently persuade Aussies to stop using their free will to overeat and drive V8s.

Problem solved. No need for anyone to leave their beloved homeland.
 
Dazz said:
I don't agree that it "must be done".
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Hi Dazz

When discussing the situation in the western suburbs of Perth, an old colleague of mine used to say "but if you increased the zoning there as well, where would the rich people live?" :p

I shall always aspire to the big block and lifestyle we are discussing, for myself and my kids, but the reality is that for the vast majority of people living in Australia today, it is just a dream and shall remain that way. We both know it is already a luxury only available to those few who can afford it.

To give everyone a quarter acre block within a half hour of our capital cities would require a significant decrease in population from where we are currently and that ain't going to happen.

If we continue to ignore the population pressures plaguing the rest of the world, my belief is by the end of the century our neighbours will look at us as a few spoilt rich brats sipping chardonnay in the sun with little to no capability to defend ourselves sitting on abundant resources which they desperately need. A certain amount of inequality can be tolerated but once it gets too much something has to give. Just my belief, FWIW!

For my kids, I would prefer them to have a peaceful future. And yes, in the meantime I will continue to work towards the kind of financial future that allows my family to enjoy as many of the benefits of this lifestyle as possible...
 
this post moved from other thread:

The bleeding hearts keep saying oh, it's only 2000 asylum seekers, as if it's a small and static number. Why don't these troubled Souls consider the growth rate of boat people arrivals in the last 3 years? Hmmmm....looks exponential to me.

Boat%20people%20arrivals%20to%202010.gif


And the sheeple bleating overstayers have always represented a bigger problem should get back to their x boxes.


immi%20detention.gif



There's 40 million asylum seekers in the world today.
80% of them are Muslim, but Muslims make up 25% of the world's population.

I agree with Islamic academic and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali's criticism of Islam.
Until Islamic fundamentalists change their beliefs, and volitionally choose an ordered society and economy that rewards them in this life rather than the next, conflict between themselves and everyone else will escalate, and the world will never be short of asylum seekers.


For those who think we are not doing our fair share for asylum seekers:

Country/Region : Population : Asylum Claims : Claims per capita
Europe 731,000,000 286,700 2,550
USA/Canada 341,058,550 82,300 4,144
Australia/New Zealand 26,652,171 6,500 4,100
Japan/rep of Korea 175,886,369 1,700 103,463


Data sources
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/b...atArrivals.htm
http://www.abcdiamond.com/australia/...and-australia/
http://www.unhcr.org/4ba7341a9.html
 
WinstonWolfe said:
Problem solved. No need for anyone to leave their beloved homeland.
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Except me! :)

You raise an interesting point though WW. There is the Chinese option to mandate a single child policy and there is the general experience that country birth rates reduce with increasing wealth.

I prefer the latter option but that requires an all-encompassing discussion as to how to drag the third world out of poverty. Free trade would be a good starting point for that, for example...
 
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